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VSRT and MOSAIC
The Very Small Radio Telescope (VSRT) interferometer is an educational system developed with the support of the National Science Foundation. The VSRT uses 0.45 m diamter dishes with 12 GHz satellite TV electronics and other inexpensive consumer parts that can be purchased from retail outlets or over the web. The system can be used in the classroom to demonstrate the basics of interferometry and physical principles related to the propagation and polarization of the electromagnetic radiation. The VSRT can also be used for radio observations of the Sun.
The Mesospheric Ozone System for Atmospheric Investigations in the Classroom (MOSAIC) is an array of single-telescope systems based on VSRT hardware observing the 11 GHz line of ozone in the mesosphere. Several MOSAIC systems will be deployed to conduct original research measuring the diurnal, seasonal, and latitudinal variations in mesospheric ozone concentration. The educational goal of the MOSAIC project is to provide students with an opportunity to analyze and interpret data in a networked collaborative environment.
VSRT and MOSAIC Memos
VSRT and MOSAIC Publications
VSRT Introduction
VSRT Assembly Manual
VSRT Software
Basic VSRT Operation (doc)
Versatile System for Learning about Radio Telescopes (Teaching Unit)
Meet Me in the Mesosphere (Teaching Unit)
MOSAIC User's Guide
MOSAIC program downloads Ozone software installation (pdf) Ozone spectrometer code ver 1 (gzip'd tar file)
Online access to the MOSAIC data |
One of the priorities for the next US president has to be a “real reset” with Russia, former Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has said, adding that anti-Russian sentiment in America has reached boiling point and is at its worst level since the Cold War.
The former Republican senator from Nebraska, who served as defense secretary under Barack Obama, said one of the first things the next US leader should do is reach out to Russian President Vladimir Putin to reset relations. Conflicts in the Middle East and across the globe depend on it, he added.
“I think one of the priorities of the next president is going to have to be a real reset with Russia. Not a button, but a real reset,” he said in an exclusive interview with German daily Handelsblatt Global, given before the US election result was announced.
Read more
Hagel was referring to the previous attempt at a ‘reset’ in relations when then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton famously presented Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov with a ‘reset button’ at a meeting in Geneva in 2009, pledging to improve relations between the two nations – something which never materialized.
“It [the reset] must incorporate and encompass all of the issues, and it’s going to have to be president to president,” Hagel said, adding that anti-Russian sentiment in the United States is at its worst level in recent memory.
Hagel said it would take some “imagination” from the next US president, since announced as Republican candidate Donald Trump, to narrow the gap with Russia and move forward on a whole host of intractable global conflicts, most notably Syria.
When asked about the US presidential election, Hagel slammed the campaign, saying both Hillary Clinton and Trump have undermined the American system.
“I think they’ve both debased our system. I think we have become mocked around the world,” he said.
“When we’re not being mocked, the rest of the world is looking at us with fright. When you’ve got an unstable America – an unsure, an unsteady America – it doesn’t make the world safer,” Hagel added. |
Kaesong Joint Industrial Complex Kaesong Joint Industrial Complex
-Started producing goods in 2004 -Employs about 53,000 North Koreans -120 South Korean businesses operate there -Hailed as rare example of North/South cooperation -Generates $2 billion in trade annually for North -Located 10 kilometers north of border
South Korea is proposing a date and venue for talks with North Korea. The proposal comes just hours after Pyongyang made a surprise offer for talks on a wide range of issues and said it would leave it up to Seoul to choose the timing and location. This marks a significant reversal of tensions on the peninsula, which had been at their highest state in decades.South Korea accepted Pyongyang's proposal for working-level talks. And a few hours after that statement, Ryoo Kihl-Jae, the cabinet minister in charge of relations with the North, stepped in front of cameras and reporters in Seoul to suggest a specific place and time for what would be the first official direct dialogue in years between the two Koreas.Unification Minister Ryoo said the discussions would cover the abandoned joint venture projects at the Kaesong industrial zone and the Kumgang mountain resort. He said Seoul wants the talks to be held in the South Korean capital on June 12.The minister urged Pyongyang on Friday to pick up the inter-Korean hotline at the truce village of Panmunjom to discuss the details.Earlier this year, North Korea stopped using those communications links amid rising tension on the peninsula.North Korea's surprise offer of talks earlier Thursday was issued in the name of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland. It came in a special announcement aired shortly after noon on North Korean radio and television.The North Korean announcer says the North proposes holding talks about normalizing the operation in the Kaesong Industrial Zone and resuming tours to Mt. Kumgang. Humanitarian issues, such as the reunion of separated families and their relatives, can also be discussed during the talks, if necessary.The Kaesong industrial complex, just north of the border, ceased operations in April, when North Korea pulled its 43,000 factory workers from the complex.Seoul already has offered working-level talks, but only to discuss allowing the managers of the more than 100 South Korean factories in the zone to be able to retrieve raw materials and finished goods left behind after they pulled out.The Kumgang mountain tourism resort, another rare inter-Korean cooperative venture, also generated millions of dollars worth of revenue for the communist government.Three years ago, the North seized the assets of the South Korean government and private entities at the resort. It expelled the South Korean workers who had remained behind to maintain hotels and restaurants following a 2008 incident in which a South Korean was shot dead by a North Korean soldier near the resort.The North's relatively flexible offer of talks about the halted projects is seen as a significant reversal after recent months of bellicose rhetoric.Pyongyang had threatened to launch a nuclear war - a threat not taken very seriously by Seoul or Washington. It also declared the 1953 Korean War armistice to be void and vowed to continue pursuing its development of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles in defiance of international sanctions.The offer of talks from Pyongyang was made just after South Korean President Park Geun-hye gave a Memorial Day speech that contained remarks directed at the North."North Korea must give up its policies that are fueling its isolation and backwardness and bravely accept the hand of reconciliation being offered by South Korea and the global community and strive for mutual prosperity," said Park.The two Koreas have never established diplomatic relations nor signed a peace treaty. |
- The next time you’re deciding between getting a cup of coffee, a latte or a Frappuccino at Starbucks, you will also have another option to choose from at five D.C. locations – alcohol.
Starting Tuesday afternoon, the following Starbucks stores in the District will be serving wine, craft beer and small plates items such as truffle mac and cheese to bacon-wrapped dates as part of their new “Starbucks Evenings” menu:
- 237 Pennsylvania Ave. SE
- Wisconsin and Idaho avenues NW
- Grand Hyatt, 11th and H streets NW
- 1801 Columbia Rd. NW
- 815 O St. NW
The evening menu will be available for customers starting at 2 p.m. on weekdays and at noon on weekends. Alcohol would be served until 11 p.m. every day. |
The one and only time floated down Colorado Boulevard was six years ago, atop a Dodgers-themed work of art that marked the 50th anniversary of the team arriving in Southern California. All the rich blue colors came from ribbon irises and scissored statice, accented with white mums, red carnations and 1,500 bird of paradise stems to boot.
"Really, it felt as if I was a little kid back in New York, and my father had the 20 cents on a Sunday to take the Fifth Avenue ride on the bus -- the one that had no top," said Scully, who was joined on the float by players, former manager Tommy Lasorda, and even Dodger Stadium organist Nancy Bee Hefley.
"We made that turn onto Colorado, and to me it was like going down the middle of the Grand Canyon with all the people in the bleachers on either side. The impact was overwhelming. It took my breath away."
When the Dodgers' Baseball Hall of Fame broadcaster is escorted back down the main route of the 125th Rose Parade on Jan. 1, it'll be of much grander proportions. Scully, the 2014 parade's grand marshal, will also be celebrating his 65th season as the voice of the Dodgers, who made it to the National League Championship Series last October.
Scully, who turned 86 on Nov. 29, discussed this latest honor, as well as all that goes into it:
Question: Is it true that part of the requirements for this honor is having to grow all new rose bushes in your garden?
Answer: (Laughing) Absolutely. And my wife Sandi will take care of all that. She's the chancellor of agriculture. We do have a lot of roses and she loves taking care of them. It's a very happy scene.
Q: So what are the official duties, other than to be in Pasadena in the middle of the night, find the right car and make sure you have a cup of warm chocolate?
A: Really, the only job qualifications are that you have to be alive and be able to wave. So far, so good.
Oh, it's not just showing up for the parade, as you may well imagine. There are a lot of appearances, lunches, media groupings. At first, I may have been reluctant to accept all that. I'm not much for being in a parade, and maybe instinctively I shied away from it. But the more I thought about it, it is a rather prestigious moment and, gee, if I turned it down, it would probably hurt a lot of people's feelings. I didn't want to do that.
It goes back to the old line about squeezing the juice out of life before life squeezes the juice out of you. This is the perfect moment to meet a lot of nice people, to see what's going on, see the inner workings. I'm now excited and thrilled to be part of it.
I know one thing that's important are the numbers attached to this one -- 125th parade, the 100th Rose Bowl. That gets you pumped up. The numbers here are just as important as if you're in baseball and you're hitting .299 and trying to get to .300.
Q: When you think of the Rose Parade theme -- Dreams Come True -- what comes to mind from your experiences?
A: My life has been the fulfillment of a dream. I wrote for the nuns an essay when I was 8 years old on what I wanted to be when I grew up. The boys were all about being policemen and firemen and doctors and lawyers, while the girls were about nursing or ballet dancers or becoming mothers. There was no TV and just a few things on the radio, maybe a Saturday afternoon football game between Ohio State and Notre Dame. So when I said I wanted to be a sports announcer, that was way out in left field. So when I eventually got that job with the Dodgers, in December of 1950, when I was 23, it really was the fulfillment of a dream just 15 years later. That's rather remarkable in itself. I have a great deal to be thankful for.
Q: In 1966, you broadcast the Rose Parade for ABC with Elizabeth Montgomery. You had been doing game shows and other sports for the networks at the time, but that must have felt like a whole new experience for you.
A: What I carry around in my mental book from that is, first, Elizabeth was the queen of television at that time on "Bewitched," and she was the sweetest person, both feet on the ground, so wonderful.
I remember that morning we had all this ice water on the ground, and I'm sure her feet were freezing, but she never complained. We got to the platform to do the broadcast, and maybe it was eight steps to get up there, and all of the sudden she stopped and froze. I said, "What's wrong?" She said, "I have a terrible fear of heights." And this wasn't very high. I'd done golf tournaments where we'd climb a tower maybe 20 feet high. This might have only been eight feet off the ground.
So I said, "OK, walk behind me, put your face into the small of my back and put your arms around me." Which wasn't a bad assignment for me (laughing). She hugged me for dear life as she negotiated the steps with her eyes closed, we got to the table, sat down, turned toward the open space, and we were all OK. That's the last thing any of us thought would happen just moments before going on the air. But for some reason, she was bewitched by heights.
As for the parade, the fun part was doing the research. They gave us this large binder that had all the floats described in them. But I enjoyed doing more research. There was one float from China with all these dragons on it, and that piqued my curiosity. "Why is it that we always talk about dragons and China?" There was one person at the network so impressed with all that extra research that she asked if she could have my notebook for a future broadcast. I probably should have kept it as a memento, but I just gave it away.
Q: Can you believe how detailed and mechanically advanced these floats have become over the years?
A: Some of the floats that have won all kinds of awards in the past, I'm kind of flabbergasted at what they're able to do with them.
Q: Part of the job is to also flip the coin before kickoff at the Rose Bowl. Did you ever want to broadcast a Rose Bowl Game?
A: No, not really. I think I've only been to one game -- when UCLA played Minnesota (in 1962). I was asked to be the toastmaster for the Rose Bowl lunch, and Bruins coach Bill Barnes was there and all his players. I think I went to the game for a little while, but didn't stay the whole time.
Q: How do you envision the experience of being the grand marshal?
A: I don't expect to be on camera much, just give one big wave and that'll do it, right? It's not as if I'll be jumping from one float to another like Groucho Marx (laughing).
Q: Just as long as you take the time to stop and smell the roses, right?
A: Every day of my life I do that, for sure. ___ |
Apple will start accepting virtual currency in App Store
Home prices continue to rise, with April recording a 10.5 percent gain over the same month a year ago. Home prices continue to rise, with April recording a 10.5 percent gain over the same month a year ago. Photo: Lynne Sladky, Associated Press Photo: Lynne Sladky, Associated Press Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Apple will start accepting virtual currency in App Store 1 / 1 Back to Gallery
CURRENCY
New money for App Store
Apple has changed its policy to let software developers include virtual-currency transactions in their applications, paving the way for new forms of money like bitcoin to appear on iPhones and iPads.
While Apple didn't mention bitcoin specifically, its developer terms now allow for certain "approved virtual currencies." Apps that use the digital money must comply with state and federal laws where they're designed to work, the terms say.
The change signals that Apple is warming up to virtual currencies after previously blocking programs like Blockchain.info from its App Store. Bitcoin is the most popular of the digital currencies, which governments are struggling to determine how to regulate because they exist only as software.
"Get ready for a plethora of bitcoin iOS apps!" venture capitalist Adam Draper said in an e-mail. "Very exciting news!"
Bitcoin operator settles with SEC
The co-owner of two bitcoin-related websites is paying $50,843 to settle federal civil charges that he sold shares in the businesses without registering them as securities offerings.
The Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday announced the settlement with Erik Voorhees in connection with soliciting investors to buy shares in the two sites, SatoshiDice and FeedZeBirds. The SEC says investors paid for the shares they bought with bitcoin.
Voorhees, who co-founded a separate bitcoin company, made nearly $16,000 in profit from the unregistered offerings, according to the SEC.
He neither admitted nor denied wrongdoing.
REAL ESTATE
Home prices see small gain
U.S. home prices rose in April compared with a year earlier, but the increase was the smallest annual gain in 14 months. Price gains have slowed this year as sales have faltered.
Data provider CoreLogic said Tuesday that prices rose 10.5 percent in April from 12 months earlier. But that is down from March's 11.1 percent increase and February's 12.2 percent rise.
On a month-to-month basis, April prices rose 2.1 percent. But CoreLogic's monthly figures aren't adjusted for seasonal patterns, such as warmer weather.
Higher mortgage rates, tight credit and a limited supply of homes have slowed the housing recovery. Sales of existing homes rose in April after falling to a 20-month low in March, but were 6.8 percent lower than a year ago.
Prices rose in the 12 months ending in April in every state, CoreLogic said. California led the states with a 15.6 percent gain, followed by Nevada, 14.8; Hawaii, 14.1; Oregon, 11.8; and Michigan, 11.3.
Ninety-five of the 100 largest metro areas reported higher prices in April compared with a year earlier.
VENTURE CAPITAL
Zenefits lands $66.5 million
Less than six months after a sizable fundraising round, cloud-based human resources software company Zenefits has received $66.5 million in additional financing.
Andreessen Horowitz led both rounds of funding in rare back-to-back deals. Zenefits has raised a total of $84 million since the San Francisco company was started a year ago.
Its platform helps businesses manage and automate tasks associated with hiring employees, such as benefits and payroll. The software is free, but the company makes money by acting as an insurance broker.
Zenefits says it is growing by 30 percent each month. It presently works with more than 2,000 companies.
The sector has seen remarkable growth, particularly among companies that provide human resources software, with Pleasanton's Workday leading the pack.
Institutional Venture Partners, SV Angel, Hydrazine Capital, former Twitter executive Elad Gil and actor Jared Leto also participated in the most recent Zenefits funding round.
AUTOMAKERS
Injuries tied to GM recalls
General Motors Co. filed 2,004 reports on injuries and deaths stemming from accidents in cars that have been recalled for ignition-related defects, the Center for Auto Safety said.
The advocacy group, citing its research of the carmaker's reports to regulators, urged an adviser of GM to investigate each incident to determine whether the ignition-switch defect played a role in it.
The center referred to the 2.59 million cars called in for switch repairs.
Musk to remain CEO 4-5 years
Elon Musk reiterated Tuesday that he won't consider stepping down as Tesla's chief executive officer until after volume sales of its third-generation car begin. That wouldn't occur for at least four or five years, he said.
Musk also told shareholders at the company's annual meeting that Tesla won't decide until year end where to build a battery "gigafactory," even as it readies multiple plant sites.
The battery plant will supply low-cost lithium-ion cells for its cars and packs for home-power storage devices. Tesla will soon start preparation for those plants in as many as three states. |
Prospects have been fading for an El Niño event in 2014, but now there's a glimmer of hope for a very modest comeback. Scientists warn that unless these developing weak-to-modest El Niño conditions strengthen, the drought-stricken American West shouldn't expect any relief.
The latest sea-level-height data from the NASA/European Ocean Surface Topography Mission (OSTM)/Jason-2 satellite mission show a pair of eastward-moving waves of higher sea level, known as Kelvin waves, in the Pacific Ocean -- the third such pair of waves this year. Now crossing the central and eastern equatorial Pacific, these warm waves appear as the large area of higher-than-normal sea surface heights (warmer-than-normal ocean temperatures) hugging the equator between 120 degrees west and the International Dateline. The Kelvin waves are traveling eastward and should arrive off Ecuador in late September and early October.
A series of larger atmospheric "west wind bursts" from February through May 2014 triggered an earlier series of Kelvin waves that raised hopes of a significant El Niño event. Just as the warming of the eastern equatorial Pacific by these waves dissipated, damping expectations for an El Niño this year, these latest Kelvin waves have appeared, resuscitating hopes for a late arrival of the event.
The new image is online at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/earth/elnino/earth20140922-full.jpg
For an overview of 2014's El Niño prospects and Kelvin waves, please see:
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2014/19may_elnino/
Climatologist Bill Patzert of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, says it's too early to know for sure, but he would not be surprised if the latest Kelvin waves are the "last hurrah" for this much-hoped-for El Niño. "Since February 2014, the prospect of an El Niño has waxed and waned. This late in the season, the best we can expect is a weak to moderate event. What comes next is not yet clear. But for the drought-plagued American West, the possibility of a badly needed drenching is fading," said Patzert.
NASA scientists will continue to monitor the Pacific to see what is in store next for the world's climate.
This image was created with data collected by the U.S./European OSTM/Jason-2 satellite during a 10-day period centered on Sept. 18, 2014. It shows a red and yellow area in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific, indicating that the ocean surface is about 4 to 6 inches (10 to 12 centimeters) above normal. Green indicates near-normal conditions. These regions contrast with the western equatorial Pacific, where sea levels (blue and purple areas) are 3 to 6 inches (8 to 15 centimeters) lower than normal.
The height of the ocean water relates, in part, to its temperature, and thus is an indicator of the amount of heat stored in the ocean below. As the ocean warms, the water expands and the sea level rises; as it cools, its level falls. Above-normal height variations along the equatorial Pacific indicate El Niño conditions, while below-normal height variations indicate La Niña conditions. The temperature of the upper ocean can have a significant influence on weather patterns and climate.
This latest image highlights the processes that occur on time scales of more than a year but usually less than 10 years, such as El Niño and La Niña. The image also highlights faster ocean processes such as Kelvin waves. As Patzert says, "Jason-2 is a fantastic Kelvin wave counter." These processes are known as the interannual ocean signal. To show that signal, scientists refined data for this image by removing trends over the past 21 years, seasonal variations and time-averaged signals of large-scale ocean circulation. For a more detailed explanation of what this type of image means, visit:
http://sealevel.jpl.nasa.gov/science/elninopdo/latestdata/
The comings and goings of El Niño and La Niña are part of the long-term, evolving state of global climate, for which measurements of sea surface height are a key indicator. Jason-2 is a joint effort between NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the French Space Agency Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES) and the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT). JPL manages the U.S. portion of Jason-2 for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. In early 2015, NASA and its international partners CNES, NOAA and EUMETSAT will launch Jason-3, which will extend the timeline of ocean surface topography measurements begun by the Topex/Poseidon and Jason 1 and 2 satellites. Jason-3 will make highly detailed measurements of sea level on Earth to gain insight into ocean circulation and climate change. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology.
For a time sequence of the evolution of the 2014 El Nino, visit:
http://sealevel.jpl.nasa.gov/science/elninopdo/latestdata/archive/
To learn more on NASA's satellite altimetry programs, visit:
http://sealevel.jpl.nasa.gov
News Media Contact
Alan Buis 818-354-0474Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, [email protected] |
Tucked in the FBI’s 2011 gang-intelligence report, between ominous write-ups on cross-border human trafficking and organized crime in the Caribbean, was a short section warning about the growing menace of the Juggalos.
The facepaint-wearing, Faygo-drinking followers of the rap duo Insane Clown Posse were a “loosely-organized hybrid gang,” the FBI said. Though their crimes were “sporadic” and “individualistic,” the report claimed, their “gang-like criminal activity” seemed to be on the rise. Law enforcement should be wary, the FBI said.
On Monday, Insane Clown Posse, better known as ICP, and a group of self-proclaimed Juggalos, who derive their name from an ICP song called “the Juggla,” experienced what could be a fatal setback in a years-long legal battle to shake the FBI’s designation.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled that the FBI’s decision to call the Juggalos a gang wasn’t a “final agency action” — government jargon for an official, legally binding rule — and therefore couldn’t be challenged in court.
The ruling threw out a lawsuit brought by ICP frontmen Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope in 2014 alleging that the FBI’s findings trampled their constitutional rights and caused a venue to cancel one of their concerts at the request of law enforcement.
They were joined in the case by two Juggalos who claimed that the gang designation had gotten them in trouble with police and two others who said it jeopardized their military careers. All the plaintiffs said they had never knowingly been involved in a criminal gang.
The appeals court found that the Juggalos failed to show that the FBI’s label had resulted in legal consequences. The FBI report was just an annual gang-activity report presented to Congress, the three-judge panel wrote, and did not contain any marching orders for other law enforcement agencies.
“The various reputational and personal harms suffered by Appellants in the present case may be the practical consequences of the Juggalo gang designation,” the court wrote, “but they are not a direct or appreciable legal consequence of the Juggalo gang designation.” |
Japan scored twice in the final six minutes to beat China 2-1 on Tuesday and make it two wins out of two at the E-1 Football Championship.
Japan beat North Korea 1-0 in its opening game of the four-team tournament last weekend thanks to a 95th-minute goal, and the home side again delivered late when Yu Kobayashi and Gen Shoji broke China’s resistance before Yu Dabao scored an injury-time penalty at Ajinomoto Stadium.
Japan leads South Korea — which beat North Korea 1-0 earlier in the day after a 64th-minute own goal from Ri Yong Chol — by two points heading into Saturday’s head-to-head encounter between the two teams, with only a draw necessary for the Samurai Blue to lift the trophy for a second time.
“It was a beautiful win for us,” said Japan manager Vahid Halilhodzic, who is without his European-based players for the tournament. “We played very well. We had a period of about two or three minutes where we didn’t do so well, but overall we created a lot of chances. We could have scored more goals, but we had a lot of players who did well tonight.”
The game looked headed for a scoreless draw until J. League player of the year Kobayashi combined with substitute Kengo Kawamata to break the deadlock in the 84th minute, before captain Shoji doubled the lead with a spectacular long-range shot three minutes later.
“We were confident that as long as we could keep a clean sheet, our forwards would come through for us in the end,” said Shoji. “I think Kobayashi scored at a good time.
“We conceded from the penalty spot right at the end, so against South Korea we want to make sure that we play better than we did against North Korea and China.”
Halilhodzic retained only four players from the lineup that started against North Korea, with defenders Genta Miura, Shuto Yamamoto and Naomichi Ueda and midfielder Shoma Doi coming in to win their first caps.
The manager had criticized his team for playing too many sideways passes against the North Koreans, and the message appeared to have hit home as Japan looked to get in behind the Chinese defense with long balls to Kobayashi.
That route almost paid off when Ueda picked out Kobayashi with a deep cross that the striker could not quite stretch enough to head on target in the 22nd minute, shortly before midfielder Ryota Oshima had to be replaced by Yosuke Ideguchi after injuring himself while shooting on goal.
Kobayashi headed a Shoma Doi cross over the bar as a sedate first half came to a close, and China almost opened the scoring completely against the run of play 12 minutes after the restart when Japan goalkeeper Masaaki Higashiguchi denied Yu from close range.
But Kobayashi finally broke the deadlock in the 84th minute when Kawamata’s shot deflected into his path and the 30-year-old evaded goalkeeper Wang Dalei before finishing from an acute angle.
“We had a lot of chances and I was determined to score at least one goal, so I’m happy to get it in the end,” said Kobayashi, who finished as the J. League’s top scorer with Kawasaki Frontale this season with 23 goals.
“Kengo played in the middle and held the ball up so that I could feed off him. I tried to play a one-two with him for the goal and he did well to get the ball through to me.”
Shoji then made the game safe with a huge shot from distance that dipped past Wang and into the net, before Yu scored from the penalty spot after Yamamoto had bundled substitute Zhang Wenzhao over in the box.
“I think we controlled the first 15 minutes, and it was a very even match,” said China manager Marcello Lippi, a World Cup winner with Italy in 2006. “In football you need to have the mentality to keep the ball. I understand that Japan do this better than China, and that was the difference in the result.
“But I don’t think China deserved to lose, especially if you look at the first 15 minutes of each half. We played really well.”
Japan finished last at the last edition of the tournament — previously known as the East Asian Cup — but a draw or a win against South Korea on Saturday will give Halilhodzic’s side the trophy for the first time since 2013.
“We have some players who are tired and now we have to rest,” said the manager. “We also had Oshima injured tonight. I think South Korea are the strongest team at this tournament so now we have to get ready to face them.” |
Here’s the Electoral College map we’re going to end up with, assuming that every uncalled state goes to the candidate leading in the vote count there as of 4 p.m. Eastern time on Wednesday. There’s a sea of red for President-elect Donald Trump. He earned 306 electoral votes and became the first Republican since 1988 to win Michigan, Wisconsin or Pennsylvania.
Just think about all the implications of this:
The Democrats’ supposed “blue wall” — always a dubious proposition — has crumbled. Indeed, with Hillary Clinton’s defeat, Democrats may have to rebuild their party from the ground up.
But the Republican Party is also forever changed. The GOP has learned that there’s a bigger market for populism, and a far smaller one for movement conservatism, than many of us imagined. The Party of Reagan has been supplanted by the Party of Trump.
The divide between cultural “elites” in urban coastal cities and the rest of the country is greater than ever. Clinton improved on President Obama’s performance in portions of the country, such as California, Atlanta and the island of Manhattan. But whereas Obama won Iowa by 10 percentage points in 2008, Clinton lost it by 10 points.
America hasn’t put its demons — including racism, anti-Semitism and misogyny — behind it. White people still make up the vast majority of the electorate, particularly when considering their share of the Electoral College, and their votes usually determine the winner.
One fact that doesn’t fit very well into this narrative is that Clinton leads in the popular vote count. She should eventually win the popular vote by 1 to 2 percentage points, and perhaps somewhere on the order of 1.5 million to 2 million votes, once remaining mail-in ballots from California and Washington are counted, along with provisional ballots in other states.
But ignore that for now — elections, after all, are contested in the Electoral College. (Hence the name of this website.) So here’s another question. What would have happened if just 1 out of every 100 voters shifted from Trump to Clinton? That would have produced a net shift of 2 percentage points in Clinton’s direction. And instead of the map you see above, we’d have wound up with this result in the Electoral College instead:
Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Florida flip back to Clinton, giving her a total of 307 electoral votes. And she’d have won the popular vote by 3 to 4 percentage points, right where the final national polls had the race and in line with Obama’s margin of victory in 2012. If this had happened, the interpretation of the outcome would have been very different — something like this, I’d imagine:
Republicans simply can’t appeal to enough voters to have a credible chance at the Electoral College. While states like Ohio and Iowa might be slipping away from Democrats, they’ll be more than made up for by the shift of Arizona, North Carolina and Florida into the blue column as demographic changes take hold. Democrats are the coalition of the ascendant.
The United States was more than ready for the first woman president. And they elected her immediately after the first African-American president. With further victories for liberals over the past several years on issues ranging from gay rights to the minimum wage, the arc of progress is unmistakable.
American political institutions are fairly robust. When a candidate like Trump undermines political norms and violates standards of decency, he’s punished by the voters.
In light of Trump’s narrow victory, these arguments sound extremely unconvincing. But they’re exactly what we would have been hearing if just 1 out of 100 voters had switched from Trump to Clinton. So consider that there might be at least partial truth in some of these points.
Likewise, if Clinton had just that small, additional fraction of the vote, people would be smugly dismissing the arguments in the first set of bullet points — even though they, too, would have been just 2 percentage points away from seeming incredibly prescient.
Interpretation of the polling would also have been very different. If Clinton had done just 2 points better, pollsters would have called the popular-vote margin almost on the nose and correctly identified the winner in all states but North Carolina.
We’ll have more to say about the polling in the coming days. But to a first approximation, people are probably giving the polls a little bit too much blame. National polls will eventually miss the popular vote by about 2 percentage points, which is right in line with the historical average (and, actually, a bit better than national polls did in 2012). State polls had considerably more problems, underestimating Clinton’s complete collapse of support among white voters without college degrees but also underestimating her support in states that have large Hispanic populations, such as New Mexico.
Given how challenging it is to conduct polls nowadays, however, people shouldn’t have been expecting pinpoint accuracy. The question is how robust Clinton’s lead was to even a small polling error. Our finding, consistently, was that it was not very robust because of the challenges Clinton faced in the Electoral College, especially in the Midwest, and therefore our model gave a much better chance to Trump than other forecasts did.
But that’s not very important. What’s important is that Trump was elected president. Just remember that the same country that elected Donald J. Trump is the one that elected Barack Hussein Obama four years ago. In a winner-take-all system, 2 percentage points can make all the difference in the world. |
Monday, 28 Jul, 2008 Current Events
According to state media, Olympic specialists at Beijing set up a sex identification laboratory in order to check female Olympic athletes who are suspected to be males.
Xinhua news agency stated that professionals, working at the lab, which is located at the Peking Union Medical College Hospital, will analyze doubtful cases based on their external features and observe sex hormones, genes and chromosomes from blood samples.
It is worth mentioning that sex testing has been practiced at the Olympic Games for many years. The reason to launch the procedure was the fears that male athletes might cheat pretending to be females.
In 2006 Asian Games officials retracted silver medal from an Indian athlete, Santhi Soundarajan, who failed a sex verification test.
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Well-known forecaster Gerald Fleming is set to retire from Met Éireann after 37 years.
Well-known forecaster Gerald Fleming is set to retire from Met Éireann after 37 years.
The current Head of Forecasting at Met Éireann said he is looking forward to retiring, but will continue his meteorological work internationally.
The well-liked forecaster is turning 60 at the end of the month, and said he will retire by the end of the year.
Speaking on RTE Radio One's Today with Sean O'Rourke, Mr Fleming said he is looking forward to the future.
Warning: Gerald Fleming. Photo: Collins
"I'm retiring from Met Éireann, but not meteorology hopefully. I still have an interest in it and I'm doing a lot of activity internationally.
"The Monday-Friday 9-5 commitment is one that I'm going to step away from.
"Because I've reached this stage happily, I am in good health and I've plenty of energy and plenty of interest.
"Indeed, there are parts of my professional life and other parts of life I'd like to enjoy.
"Our three children are grown up and earning their own corn at this stage so it's time to enjoy the other things in life," he added.
Mr Fleming joked that he thinks he could be busier this time next year, and said he does not see himself taking part in any reality TV shows.
"I have lots of other things I'd like to do, I could be busier this time next year," he said.
"Like every job there are bits you like, and bits you have to do."
The former Met Éireann broadcaster said he is enjoying his current work with the World Meterological Organisation and will continue a three-year-long project he has undertaken with the group.
"I'll keep that commitment," he continued.
"At the moment I have to fit that work in around my everyday job, now it'll be more of my focus.
"I've picked up some value in my 37 years and I hope I can pass it on to other countries where meteorology isn't as well developed."
Online Editors |
He's fresh to game development, but David O'Reilly has already created a game you likely know very well: the game in Spike Jonze's excellent film, "Her." While that "game" was, ya know, in a film and not a real game, he's just about to release his first actual game in Mountain. O'Reilly describes it as a "mountain simulator" -- he explained to a crowd at Los Angeles' Museum of Contemporary Art this morning that it enables you to "live out all your dark twisted fantasies" of, uh, being a mountain. Okay, so what in the world is happening here? In actuality, it's a game about interacting with a relatively static mountain. Weather changes, music changes, and you can input melodies (via touch on iOS, keyboard on PC/OS X) which alter the state of the world.
Sometimes you push forward time, sometimes you change the weather, sometimes you zoom out into outerspace -- where your mountain lives, apparently! O'Reilly says it'll be out in the next few weeks, and it'll cost "about a dollar." |
Years of "chemtrailing" has devastated California's ecological integrity
Problem, reaction, solution: The way governments advance tyranny without resistance
(NaturalNews) A group of concerned California citizens is calling on Governor Jerry Brown to be immediately recalled from office and replaced with someone who's willing to put the interests of Californians, rather than corporations and shadow government figures, as a top priority. Gov. Brown, they maintain, continues to ignore the obvious geoengineering and "chemtrail" schemes that are keeping the Golden State in a perpetual state of drought, while simultaneously pushing tyrannous legislation that ultimately punishes the people for using water that they collectively own.Gov. Brown has repeatedly been presented with scientific data showing that weather manipulation, particularly over the last five years, is largely responsible for keeping rain away from California's many millions of acres of agricultural land. Much of this evidence has been presented by's Dane Wigington, who's been attending city council meetings and presenting at various other forums meteorological data proving that the California drought is a manufactured event that the state government is now using as an excuse to push more tyranny.But such evidence continues to be ignored, and California appears to be moving ever-closer to total collapse as the political heads in Sacramento offer reactionary "solutions" to the problem that utterly fail to address its cause. The widespread phenomenon of "chemtrails," for instance, which Wigington and others have pointed out is blocking precipitation from reaching California, hasn't caught the attention of a single influential figure in the state's capital, even though evidence clearly shows that chemtrails are directly impacting California's weather for the worse."Governor Brown has repeatedly received scientific evidence indicating that the drought was purposefully and meticulously geoengineered," explains a report published by. "And yet in spite of this indisputable evidence, he has never responded to those parties who have provided the volumes of scientific research showing how it was geoengineered.""The soil samples alone have revealed shocking levels of aluminum, barium and strontium. Each of these chemical elements just happens to be the major components of the standard chemtrail mix which is sprayed daily across the skies of America."Among Wigington's many highly-researched reports is avideo he posted to YouTube back in April that points out five anomalous inconsistencies in California weather patterns that suggest deliberate climate engineering and weather manipulation. We reported on this previously, but to recap: Pressure systems are no longer moving and functioning as normal, and the evidence shows that storms are basically being broken up or redirected by some unseen force.More details on this are available in our earlier report:To be clear, Wigington and other truth advocates have been presenting this type of evidence to California lawmakers for, but to no avail. They simply won't listen, all the while advancing the tenets of Agenda 21 to shift the blame on overconsumption by consumers rather than deliberate environmental abuse by climate engineers."Governor Brown is fully aware of this devolving situation and has done nothing to address it," adds. "The chemtrailing continues as before despite so many bringing it to his attention. In many locations the chemtrailing operations appear to have been considerably ramped up to an alarming level of intensity. And still the governor's office has no response to those who have alerted him to the regularly chemtrailed skies and worsening emergencies across the state."It's important to remember, here, that Sacramento has done absolutelyto stop the industries that are truly wasting water or abusing their access to what little of it remains. Bottling companies like Nestle, which sell water from California's aquifers under brand names like "Arrowhead," continue to draw scarce water supplies for pennies on the dollar in order to resell it to Californians and non-Californians alike!Nestle's permit to draw water from California aquifers expired nearly 30 years ago, it turns out. But the government of California hasn't stopped this multinational corporation, which believes access to watera human right, from profiting on a natural resource that, by law, belongs to the people, not a fictitious corporate entity.Then there's the natural gas "fracking" industry, which continues to siphon massive amounts of water from California's dwindling supplies as California residents are being forced to pay 25 percent or more for tap water, in some areas, while also facing fines for "overuse." So private corporations are essentially getting a free pass to use as much water as they want, while average folks and farmers who grow much of our food are suffering.This incendiary behavior by Gov. Brown and his ilk is an outrage, but it's not surprising. After all, it's just the Hegelian Dialectic in action - the "problem, reaction, solution" tactic that so many tyrannical governments throughout history have employed in order to shift public opinion and implement the "solutions" they've preconceived for expanded government control."There are a variety of state-desired outcomes in the case of this catastrophic California drought ," maintains. "Each 'Reaction' by the populace to the 'Problem' of the drought is first manufactured with the daily involvement of the mainstream media (MSM). Then, the state government kicks in with their predetermined 'Reaction.' Ultimately, the perfect 'Solution' will be presented when the requisite majority of citizens is sufficiently softened up to accept it without protest."It's time for Gov. Brown to go. He's proven that his allegiance lies with the globalist agenda and not the people of California who he's been entrusted with representing and protecting. You can help get Gov. Brown recalled from office by signing the following petition and printing and mailing it to Californians for Better Government:You can also learn more about geoengineering and how it's being used by governments around the world to advance tyranny by visiting: |
Dear Tom,
Are we close to a record for the greatest number of days without at least 1 inch of snow during the winter season?
— Dave Anderson
Dear Dave,
Chicago’s official snowfall records began with the winter of 1884-85. Weather historian Frank Wachowski dug through the city’s snowfall data for the 134-year period from then until now and determined that we are approaching a record for the number of days without a snow of at least 1 inch, but we have a while to go. Chicago recorded 1.7 inches of snow Dec. 17, the city’s most recent snowfall of at least 1 inch. As of Feb. 5, that was 50 days ago. Chicago’s longest spell without snow of at least 1 inch occurred twice: 64 days from Dec. 3-Feb. 4, 1905-06, and Dec. 23-Feb. 24, 1953-54. Our streak must persist for at least two more weeks to set the record. |
A 36-year-old man is accused of going on a killing spree in Texas on Monday night, CBSDFW reported.
Police in Terrell, a town 30 miles east of Dallas, said a shooting rampage over several hours left at least five people dead.
"We're all in a state of shock," said Terrell Police Chief Jody Lay. "This is going to have a big impact on us."
The shootings began around 5 p.m. Monday when police started finding bodies. The first victim was discovered in a home with a bullet wound to the head. Officers were investigating that death when they received word of an arson and a second body nearby.
A friend of the suspect was shot at in a third location, but was not injured.
Around 10:30 p.m., police found two more victims shot to death inside a home. Authorities also discovered a 3-year-old child at the location, uninjured in bed.
According to WFAA, a convenience store clerk is said to be among the victims as well.
Three of the victims were women and two were men. None of their identities have been released.
Early Tuesday morning, police arrested Charles Everett Brownlow Jr., after an hours-long manhunt and a high-speed chase, The Dallas Morning News reported. Brownlow was spotted by a helicopter, then crashed his car and fled into a wooded area where he was later apprehended.
At this time, a motive for the slayings is unknown. |
Federal health officials on Monday called for voluntary home quarantine for people at the highest risk for Ebola infection but said most medical workers returning from West Africa would require daily monitoring without isolation.
The announcement by Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), ran counter to the mandatory quarantines being imposed on returning doctors and nurses by a handful of states including New York and New Jersey.
In addition, the U.S. military said it was isolating troops returning from their mission to help West African countries curb Ebola even though they showed no sign of infection, while a nurse who treated patients in Sierra Leone was released to go to her home state after New Jersey had forced her into quarantine.
Frieden said high-risk people include healthcare workers who suffer a needle stick while caring for an Ebola patient or who tend to a patient without protective gear.
Under new CDC guidelines that spell out four risk categories, most healthcare workers returning from West Africa’s Ebola hot zone would be considered to be at “some risk” for infection, while healthcare workers tending to Ebola patients at U.S. facilities would be seen as “low but non-zero” risk.
Medical professionals say Ebola is difficult to catch and is spread through direct contact with bodily fluids from an infected person and not transmitted by asymptomatic people. Ebola is not airborne.
The Pentagon move went well beyond previously established military protocols and came just as the White House pushed to roll back steps by U.S. states to quarantine healthcare workers returning from the three countries at the center of the Ebola epidemic even if they were asymptomatic.
The U.S. Army has already isolated about a dozen soldiers at part of a U.S. base in Vicenza, Italy, including Major General Darryl Williams, who oversaw the initial response to the Ebola outbreak, the worst on record with nearly 5,000 dead.
Dozens more will be isolated in the coming days as they rotate out of West Africa, where the military has been building infrastructure to help health authorities treat Ebola victims, the Pentagon said.
“We are billeted in a separate area (on the base). There’s no contact with the general population or with family. No one will be walking around Vicenza,” Williams told Reuters in a telephone interview.
“Nobody is symptomatic. No Army soldier came in contact with Ebola-stricken patients,” Williams said, calling the move precautionary. “There’s anxiety out there and we want to take care of our soldiers and their families.”
With thousands already dead from Ebola in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, concerns are high in the United States about stopping its spread. Some state officials, grappling with an unfamiliar public health threat, have called federal restrictions placed on people traveling from Ebola-affected countries insufficient to protect Americans and have imposed tougher measures like automatic quarantines on returning medical workers.
The case of nurse Kaci Hickox, put into quarantine on Friday under a New Jersey policy that exceeded precautions adopted by the U.S. government, underscored the dilemma that federal and state officials are facing.
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who has defended his state’s policy of automatic quarantine for medical workers returning from treating patients in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, told reporters he did not reverse the policy in allowing her to be discharged from the hospital and to return to Maine.
“We’re very happy that she has been released from the hospital,” said Christie, who Hickox had criticized for making comments about her health that she said were untrue while calling her quarantine unjust.
“She hadn’t had any symptoms for 24 hours and she tested negative for Ebola so there’s no reason to keep her,” said Christie, a potential Republican Party 2016 U.S. presidential candidate known for his combative style.
‘PROTECT THE PUBLIC HEALTH’
Christie said he sees no reason to talk to her and expressed “goodwill” toward Hickox, who had worked with the medical charity Doctors Without Borders in Sierra Leone. “But she needs to understand that the obligation of elected officials is to protect the public health of all the people,” Christie said.
Christie said his state was providing transportation for her to Maine, whose health officials “will take over her care and monitoring from there” as she completes a 21-day quarantine at home. The quarantine matches the incubation period of the virus.
Separately, a 5-year-old boy who arrived in the United States from Guinea has recorded a low-grade fever and will be tested for the virus in New York, city officials said. They said the results will be available later on Monday.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Monday became the latest to criticize quarantines, saying through his spokesman these create difficulties for medical workers risking their lives in the battle against the deadly disease.
“Returning health workers are exceptional people who are giving of themselves for humanity,” said Ban’s spokesman, Stephane Dujarric. “They should not be subjected to restrictions that are not based on science. Those who develop infections should be supported, not stigmatized.”
President Barack Obama’s spokesman, Josh Earnest, made clear Monday that the White House was not thrilled that individual states had implemented quarantines viewed as unfair to returning healthcare workers, though he acknowledged the states’ rights to set them.
“We want to make sure that whatever policies are put in place in this country to protect the American public do not serve as a disincentive to doctors and nurses from this country volunteering to travel to West Africa to treat Ebola patients,” Earnest said.
Doctors Without Borders said its staffers take on high-risk four-to-six week assignments in Ebola-affected countries. The risk of being quarantined for 21 days upon return has prompted some staffers to reduce their length of time in the field, while others will be less inclined to volunteer at all, it said.
Four people have been diagnosed with Ebola in the United States. The only patient now being treated for Ebola in the country is a New York doctor, Craig Spencer, who was diagnosed last Thursday. He had worked with Doctors Without Borders treating Ebola patients in Guinea.
The governors of New York and New Jersey implemented the mandatory quarantine a day after Spencer tested positive.
Source: Reuters |
Mazzarri: 'My Napoli era is over'
By Football Italia staff
“I want to thank the fans, but I have ended my era here at Napoli,” announced Walter Mazzarri, but he has no future plans as yet.
The decision had been in the air for some time, but the Coach only confirmed it after tonight’s 2-1 defeat to Roma.
“I had already made the decision some time ago. I thank the President and director Riccardo Bigon for trying to change my mind to the last minute.
“I had considered this last summer, which is why I turned down a contract extension, and that was a risk considering I didn’t know how this season was going to go.
“At this point I think it is only right to either change scenery or have some time off. If offers come in, then I will evaluate them. If I have the right adrenaline and motivation, then I’ll do it, otherwise I’ll stay at home.
“The lads have known me a long time and as Fabio Capello said in Italy it’s tough to last longer than four or five years at a single club. I am convinced that if I had stayed longer, certain members of the team would not have felt the same fire.
“I am truly happy with what I have achieved with the resources given to me. Naples is a wonderful place and the fans are the true soul of this club, but I wanted a new challenge.”
Mazzarri has been linked with Inter, Roma and Russian club Anzhi, among others.
“Out of respect for my club, I have not wanted to speak to any other side. Obviously my agent has been keeping an ear out, as I told him a year ago that I might consider a move.
“My only objective was to take Napoli as high as possible. From tomorrow I will evaluate my future and consider – if there are any – the offers that come in.”
Napoli President Aurelio De Laurentiis also saluted Mazzarri and revealed “the new Coach will be named via Twitter.”
Among the candidates are Roberto Di Matteo, Rafa Benitez, Marcelo Bielsa and Giuseppe Sannino. |
CLOSE Small fire starts after hawk hits powerline while grasping snake. Wochit
This hawk, with a snake still in its talons, was found under a power pole at a fire in Black Eagle, Mont., on Wednesday, Aug. 23, 2017. Firefighters believe the hawk made contact with a power pole which caused sparks and the fire. (Photo11: Provided by Kyra Vanisko, Black Eagle (Mont.) Fire Department via Great Falls (Mont.) Tribune)
GREAT FALLS, Mont. — The acting assistant chief of a Montana fire department has a pretty good idea what caused a fire that burned 40 acres Wednesday.
It wasn't lightning.
It wasn't farm equipment.
It wasn't arson.
It was a hungry hawk with dinner in its claws.
Oregon: How wildfire sent Oregon’s eclipse plans up in flames
"A dead hawk was found burned and it had contacted the power lines," said Dave Lee of the Black Eagle (Mont.) Fire Department. "The amazing thing is it still had a small snake gripped in its talons."
It isn't unusual for birds and squirrels to cause fires, Lee said.
A bird catching a snake before meeting its fiery end is.
"It was just awesome," said firefighter Kyra Vanisko, who snapped a photo of the charred bird underneath a power pole. "I wasn't expecting to find a hawk with a snake in its claws still."
The bird was toast, but its talons survived, and they remained gripped around a foot-long bull snake even in death.
Because of its condition, Vanisko couldn't make out the species of hawk, which was about the size of small cat.
California: Intense Northern California wildfire creates a 'firenado'
“He’s a crispy critter,” she said.
Power outages caused by animals and birds in Montana are not unusual, said Butch Larcombe, a spokesman for NorthWestern Energy.
“I wasn't expecting to find a hawk with a snake in its claws still.” Kyra Vanisko, firefighter with Black Eagle Fire Department
"I have dealt with outages caused by squirrels, beavers, geese, raptors and even snakes," said Larcombe. "But this is my first experience with a hawk-snake combination."
During an outage in the Helena, Mont., area about six years ago, a deer fawn was found in a power line after an outage, Larcombe said.
NorthWestern suspects that an eagle may have snatched the fawn from the ground and dropped it on the power line while in flight.
The collision between bird and power line in Black Eagle didn't cause a power outage, but it did cause a fire, Lee said.
The hawk’s wing span may have contacted the power line, generating sparks that started the fire, he said.
Arizona: Hotshots rescue deer fawns from Arizona wildfire
The fire burned in grassland that was once a landfill.
“It was running pretty good. It was spreading,” Lee said. “We got it stopped before it crossed the coulee and got into stubble,” which is stalks of plants left sticking out of the ground.
Five or six power poles were damaged. The dry conditions helped spread the fire quickly.
If it hadn't been contained, the fire would have reached a power company switch yard, Lee said.
Follow Karl Puckett on Twitter: @GFTrib_KPuckett
Read or Share this story: https://usat.ly/2wBFRsH |
In the United States, in 1920, the manufacture, sale, and importation of alcoholic beverages was prohibited by a constitutional amendment. That amendment was repealed thirteen years later. During that period of prohibition, the beer industry died.
In 1933, when prohibition was lifted, a few giant grain companies started brewing beer. They completely cornered the market. And for nearly 50 years, we in the United State drank this fizzy bodily effluent and called it “beer”. The only way to tolerate the flavor was to drink it very cold.
As a teenager in the ‘60s, I never understood the attraction. Why beer? It was a pale, yellow, distasteful fluid derived from the urine of sick boars, and had no redeeming qualities that I could see.
In 1984, I went to England; and the scales dropped from my eyes. At last I understood. I had tasted beer for the first time; and I found it to be good.
Since those days the beer situation in the United States has improved dramatically. New beer companies are springing up all over the country; and in many cases the beer they make is actually quite good. We don’t have anything quite so nice as a good english bitter; but we’re getting close.
In the ‘80s a few giant database companies cornered the market. They did this by promulgating fear, uncertainty, and doubt amongst managers and marketing people. The word “relational” became synonymous with “good”; and any other kind of data storage mechanism was prohibited.
I was the lead developer in a startup in those days. Our product measured the quality of T1 communications lines. Our data model was relatively simple, and we kept the data in flat files. It worked fine.
But our marketing guy kept on telling us that we had to have a relational database. He said that customers would demand it. I found that to be a strange claim since we hadn’t sold even one system at that time, and no customer had ever mentioned our data storage technology. But the marketing guy was adamant. We just had to have a relational database. Flat files were prohibited.
As the lead developer, responsible for the quality of the software, my view of a relational database was that it would be a big, stogy, slow, expensive pain in the rear. We didn’t have complex queries. We didn’t need massive reporting capabilities. We certainly didn’t need a process with a multi-megabyte footprint sitting in memory and burning cycles. (Remember, this was the ‘80s). So I fought against this idea with everything I had; because it was the wrong technical solution.
This was not a politically astute move for me. Over a period of several months, a hardware engineer who managed to write a few lines of code, was moved into the software group. He was gradually given more and more responsibility, and was eventually named my co-manager. He and I would “share” the responsibility for leading the software team.
Uh huh. Sure. Right. A hardware guy with no real software experience was going to “help” me lead the team. And what do you think his first issue was? Why it was to get a relational database into our system!
I left a month later and started my consulting career. It was best career move I have ever made. The company I left no longer exists. I don’t think they ever made a dime.
I watched the relational database market grow during the ‘90s. I watched as all other data storage technologies, like the object databases, and the B-tree databases dwindled and died; like the beer companies in the 20s. By the end of the ‘90s, only the giants were left.
Those giants were marketing up a storm. They were gods. They were rulers. During the dot com bubble, one of them actually had the audacity to buy television ads that claimed that their product was “the power that drove the internet”. That reminded me of a beer slogan from the ‘70s “Ya gotta grab for all the gusto in life ya can.” Oh brother.
During this time I watched in horror as team after team put the database at the center of their system. They had been convinced by the endless marketing hype that the data model was the most important aspect of the architecture, and that the database was the heart and soul of the design.
I witnessed the rise of a new job function. The DBA! Mere programmers could not be entrusted with the data – so the marketing hype told us. The data is too precious, too fragile, too easily corrupted by those undisciplined louts. We need special people to manage the data. People trained by the database companies. People who would safeguard and promulgate the giant database companies’ marketing message: that the database belongs in the center. The center of the system, the enterprise, the world, the very universe. MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
I watched as SQL slipped through every crack and crevice in the system. I ran screaming from systems in which SQL had leaked into the UI. I railed endlessly against the practice of moving all business rules into stored procedures. I quailed and quaked and ranted and raved as I read through entire mail-merge programs written in SQL.
I hammered and hammered as I saw tables and rows permeating the source code of system after system. I hammered out danger. I hammered out a warning. I hammered out that the schema had become “The Blob”, consuming everything in sight. But I knew all my hammering was just slinging pebbles at a behemoth.
And then, in the first decade of the 21st century, the prohibition was lifted, and the NOSQL movement was born. I considered it a kind of miracle, a light shining forth in the wilderness. Finally, someone realized that there might just be some systems in the world that did not require a big, fat, horky, slow, expensive, bodily effluent, memory hog of a relational database!
I watched in glee as I saw BigTable, Mongo, CouchDB, and all the other cute little data storage systems begin to spring up; like little micro-breweries in the ‘80s. The beer was back! And it was starting to taste good.
But then I noticed something. Some of the systems using these nice, simple, tasty, non-relational databases were being designed around those databases. The database, wrapped in shiny new frameworks, was still sitting at the center of the design! That poisonous old relational marketing hype was still echoing through the minds of the designers. They were still making the fatal mistake.
“Stop You don’t understand. You don’t understand.” But the momentum was too great. An enormous wave of frameworks rose up and smashed down on our industry, washing over the land. Those frameworks wrapped up the databases and fought to grab and hold the center of our applications. They claimed to master and tame the databases. They even claimed to be able to turn a relational database into a NoSQL database. And the frameworks cried out with a great voice heard all over the land: “Depend on me, and I’ll set you free!”
The name of this article is “No DB”. Perhaps after that rant you are getting an inkling of why I named it that.
The center of your application is not the database. Nor is it one or more of the frameworks you may be using. The center of your application are the use cases of your application.
It makes me crazy when I hear a software developer describe his system as a “Tomcat system using Spring and Hibernate using Oracle”. The very wording puts the frameworks and the database at the center.
What do you think the architecture of that system would look like? Do you think you’d find the use cases at the center of the design? Or would you find the source code arranged to fit nicely into the pattern of the frameworks? Would you find business objects that looked suspiciously like database rows? Would the schema and the frameworks pollute everything?
Here’s what an application should look like. The use cases should be the highest level and most visible architectural entities. The use cases are at the center. Always! Databases and frameworks are details! You don’t have to decide upon them up front. You can push them off until later, once you’ve got all the use cases and business rules figured out, written, and tested.
What is the best time to determine your data model? When you know what the data entities are, how they are related, and how they are used. When do you know that? When you’ve gotten all the use cases and business rules written and tested. By that time you will have identified all the queries, all the relationships, all the data elements, and you’ll be able to construct a data model that fits nicely into a database.
Does this change if you are using a NoSql database? Of course not! You still focus on getting the use cases working and tested before you even think about the database; no matter what kind of database it ends up being.
If you get the database involved early, then it will warp your design. It’ll fight to gain control of the center, and once there it will hold onto the center like a scruffy terrier. You have to work hard to keep the database out of the center of your systems. You have to continuously say “No” to the temptation to get the database working early.
We are heading into an interesting time. A time when the prohibition against different data storage mechanisms has been lifted, and we are free to experiment with many novel new approaches. But as we play with our CouchDBs and our Mongos and BigTables, remember this: The database is just a detail that you don’t need to figure out right away. |
A 62-year-old white man in Raleigh, N.C. was safely apprehended Tuesday after firing a gun in a skirmish with local authorities.
According to WNCN, William Bruce Ray was observed by motorists standing near a road and pointing a shotgun at drivers.
When authorities approached Ray and successfully wrestled the shotgun away from him, he pulled out a handgun and fired a single shot, which did not strike anyone.
A local deputy was then able to apprehend Ray and take him into custody.
“As a deputy, you don’t ever know what to expect when you’re approaching something like that, so your training kicks in,” Wake County Sheriff Donnie Harrison said. “And of course when the gun came up, it was automatic to him to get that gun away from him, and he did exactly what he was supposed to.”
The incident might have gone unnoticed beyond local reports were it not for the obvious contrasts with the subsequent news of two black men killed in separate police shootings within 24 hours of each other — one of whom was reportedly carrying a concealed weapon legally and made the officer aware of that before being shot dead.
[h/t and video WNCN]
This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author. |
ZURICH (Reuters) - A diamond-studded Rolex at 40 percent off the $34,000 retail price or an Omega Speedmaster Moonphase for less than $10,000? While still out of reach for most people, the increasing prevalence of such deals highlights the perplexing predicament in which luxury watchmakers now find themselves.
Rolex Datejust watches are displayed at the Baselworld Watch and Jewellery Show in Basel, Switzerland March 22, 2017. Picture taken March 22, 2017. REUTERS/Arnd Wiegmann
With sales falling, more unsold timepieces are finding their way from the Swiss-dominated industry’s carefully controlled official retail networks to online platforms where they are often offered at steep discounts.
Swiss watchmakers say they loathe this “gray market” because high discounts damage the meticulously crafted aura of prestige and make it harder to sell their goods at the full price.
“In luxury goods, when you break the illusion of prestige, the dream, the prices, it takes away the confidence. It means slow death for luxury goods,” Jean-Claude Biver, head of LVMH’s (LVMH.PA) watch division, told Reuters at last month’s Baselworld watch fair, describing the gray market as the “industry’s cancer”.
However, a sudden end to a boom in Chinese demand is forcing the brands to begin working quietly with dealers in the gray market, occasionally to help with sales but mostly to secure some influence over the unofficial resellers, according to dealers and industry executives interviewed by Reuters.
“There are many sources for gray market watches: authorized retailers who want to get rid of slow-selling models, country distributors or even the brands themselves,” said one watch industry executive who asked not to be named.
He said that in some cases operators in the gray market are cooperating with the brands, removing new models from sale when asked or reducing discounts manufacturers consider excessive.
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Though representatives of the biggest luxury watchmakers, including Swatch Group (UHR.S) and Richemont (CFR.S), refused to discuss their strategy with regard to the gray market, some manufacturers may find that it offers benefits.
“For every timepiece we sell, the manufacturer is getting the lion’s share of the profit, and then all the search engine queries, image searches, social media brand posts, tweets and pins are terrific and free (advertising),” said Darryl Randall, founder and owner of United States-based online platform SwissLuxury.com, which he said generates sales of about $10 million in good years.
Another gray market dealer said he will sometimes withdraw watches if asked by manufacturers and that brands regularly offer U.S. dealers packages of 15 or 20 pieces at a discount.
“As much as the brands dislike us, we have more or less the same goals they have — we also want to sell the goods and be able to make a profit,” he said.
Chinese demand for luxury timepieces boomed after the 2008/09 financial crisis, leading to a surge in production and retail prices. But demand has dropped sharply in the past two years as extremist attacks have deterred tourists from visiting Europe, where many of the watches are sold, and China has cracked down on luxury gift-giving by civil servants.
It was difficult to rein in production when demand fell, partly because the watches are put together slowly in stages, meaning production plans are often made two years in advance.
Nobody needs a luxury product, but the brands find that when customers see and touch an intricately crafted watch in an opulent boutique and are drawn into its “story”, they will want it so much that the price becomes secondary.
MIXED AVAILABILITY
In the good times, the industry can take home 20 percent of sales as profit and retailers are still left with an attractive margin of up to 45 percent.
But when business tails off, the manufacturers do not allow official retailers to cut sticker prices too far, fearing that big discounts will damage their brands — a policy that may push cash-strapped retailers to sell to the gray market.
Swiss watch exports fell 8 percent in the first two months of this year, on top of a 10 percent drop last year.
In the gray market sales are often clinched in small, shabby stores or via online platforms that do not have most of the watches in stock and source them only when orders are placed.
Randall said that brands vary in their efforts to keep products out of the gray market. Some of the hardest to source are Patek Philippe and Richard Mille, which both keep a tight rein on production. Audemars Piguet, another independent brand, only distributes certain models through its own boutiques.
“Brands like (Swatch’s) Omega and (LVMH’s) Tag Heuer are easily available at all times,” Randall said.
The unnamed U.S. gray market dealer agreed and said that Richemont’s Jaeger-LeCoultre and Vacheron Constantin and Swatch’s Breguet are also easy to source.
The United States is the second-biggest market for Swiss watches and is a hub for gray market watches, with online platforms such as Jomashop.com, AuthenticWatches.com and PrestigeTime.com.
“There’s a lot of gray market watches coming in from outside the country. The excess of the world’s products used to flow to Hong Kong, now it flows to the States,” said Danny Govberg, an official U.S. retail partner for Switzerland’s biggest brands but who also sells pre-owned watches online.
He confirmed that brands sometimes offer him new pieces to sell as pre-owned but would not name them and said it was only a small share of his flourishing business.
FROM ZURICH WITH A DISCOUNT
The gray market is by no means restricted to the United States. Germany’s Chrono24.com has sales offices in both Hong Kong and New York, while a lot of gray market watches are also sold on Amazon (AMZN.O) and eBay (EBAY.O), the unnamed watch industry executive said.
As its name suggests, there are no statistics on the gray market and few dealers are willing to explain how the system works.
Unlike fakes, gray market watches are legal, authentic goods sold by their rightful owners, though they generally come without factory warranties because brands refuse to service watches that are not sold via their official networks.
While that might deter some buyers, other more price-conscious shoppers may actually prefer the convenience of the online platforms that are tempting potential customers with trade-in schemes for old watches, financing solutions, price-match guarantees and their own warranty and service centers.
Randall said he has been sourcing most of his watches in the United States to get them to customers quickly but can also find good deals in Europe thanks in part to the strong dollar.
Slideshow (6 Images)
“We just sold a beautiful Jaquet Droz Eclipse to a Chicago businessman and were able to get a great deal and quick shipment out of Zurich. The price was so good we gave him an additional $2,000 discount,” Randall said, adding he sold the watch at 22 percent below the list price of $29,300.
Saifullah Kazmi, from Karachi, said he bought a TAG Heuer Carrera at almost half price on Jomashop.com and had a relative bring it to Pakistan, where a local retailer confirmed that it was genuine.
Kazmi was concerned at first about the legitimacy of Jomashop and the absence of a factory warranty, but the big discount tipped the scales, he said. |
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Norman Rockwell doesn’t have paintings at the Met or the MoMA. Many in the art community refer to him, not as a painter or artist, but dysphemistically as an illustrator. Yet whilst the likes of Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko hang on the walls of major galleries, Rockwell’s paintings are the ones that America knows best. Though many art elitists might consider Rockwell’s work kitschy or commercial, it remains the work that is most accessible and relatable and, as time passes, Rockwell will likely be the American artist who is studied most of the American painters from his era. Rockwell’s creations may appear base or common to some, but they are carefully crafted narratives that lampoon, satirize and catalog American life. Had Rockwell lived in the 18th century, he would have been seen as a talent that rivaled William Hogarth, but having painted in the 20th century, he has been dismissed as an illustrator. Though his work may not have seemed to outwardly challenge conventions with obtuse multiforms, as Rothko’s did, or with eccentric painting styles such as the ‘drip’ technique, like Pollock did, his work did provide relatable and accessible social commentary whilst simultaneously challenging many conventions.
Rockwell did play up clichéd American ideals which bordered on propaganda in paintings like Freedom From Want, which feature a picturesque family setting where everybody is all smiles and an ample turkey is being set upon the table. There is no evidence of abuse. No drunken uncle. There is no hint of unemployment or addiction. This, though, was not Rockwell’s only presentation of the American holiday experience, and it is not a painting of what is, but rather, what should be. Adversely, Trimming the Tree is very much a descriptive approach that challenges notions of the idealized Christmas setting and contrasts them with a more sincere imagining. The scene is hardly picturesque. The image depicts a couple placing a star atop their Christmas tree. The needles of the tree are a few as the hairs upon the husband’s head, which isn’t nearly as plentiful as the stomach the man is sporting. A well-built husband with thick dark hair would have been idyllic, and ideally he would have been tall enough to put a star atop a tree without needing a ladder to do it. Instead, this stout man is leaned over the ladder, his wife pulling him back by the belt to prevent him from toppling over and the tree looks more like a skeleton than the lush Douglas firs that populate so many Christmas films. Rockwell did have an idea of what freedom from want should look like, but even at the time of year when America was celebrating consumerism, he was careful to note, even if it be lightheartedly, that not everybody lived the idyllic American life. Realty and romance do not always go hand in hand.
Tired Sales Girl, X-Mas Eve likewise critiques American culture. Though the holidays, as depicted in Freedom From Want are meant to be a time to be with family, we see in Tired Sales Girl a young woman who must work on Christmas Eve. There is no sense, here, of religious duty, and there is an absence of family. During a time when most are resting, she is worked to the point of exhaustion. That which is absent in the painting is the most important part of the commentary. The title is Tired Sale Girl, X-Mas Eve, not Christmas Eve. Though a religious holiday, it has been transformed into a commercial holiday. There is nothing in the image to suggest that it is Christmas. There are toys littered in the background, but no Christmas tree or nativity scene. The holiday, as depicted here, is not a religious holiday, but a commercial one. Working-class people do not get to celebrate it, and the absence of family and religion seem to demonstrate that the purpose of the holiday is utterly lost in American culture. Though perhaps comical at first glance, the image is utterly depressing when considered carefully.
The Four Freedoms was a series of paintings which were meant to gather support for the war, but Rockwell was careful to illustrate that our romantic notions of war did not always come to life in reality. Rockwell’s The Tattooist is outwardly comical upon first glance, but the implications go a little deeper than a wholesome chuckle. The painting features a tattoo artist who is working on the arm of a naval officer. The arm is loaded with seven names, six of whom are crossed out with the seventh being added. Notions abound about sailors having mistresses at every port, but this painting turns that cliché upside down. The sailor is not interested in having one woman at every port. He wants one woman. However, it seems that he is unable to maintain a relationship and though he is eagerly optimistic and quick to trust, the women do not last long. The reasons for this are unclear, but one might assume that being a naval officer, his duties impede the development of his romantic relationships. This not only speaks to the loneliness of the men and the lack of support from civilians at home, but it also forces the viewer to consider the ramifications of that. A person needs affections, and so the other, darker, conceptions of sailors comes to mind. The frequenting of the gals on 7th avenue? He might declare that there were times when he was so lonesome he took some comfort there, which would in turn facilitate the exploitation of working-class women. This lack of sincere human connection may seem farcical at first, but the implications are dark.
Homecoming G.I. does little to suggest that Rockwell sought to glorify war, even when he was trying to gather support for the troops. The painting feature a soldier with his back to the viewer, his family crawling out the back door of a tenement slum, overjoyed with excitement to see him. What we’d more typically see is a beautiful woman running down the platform of a train station, arms spread wide in anticipation of a hug that will lift her off her feet. This is not what Rockwell paints. There is no white picket fence, or even a house. It is a tenement slum. An armada of children are running out the door to greet him, whilst neighbourhood children are climbing up the telephone trees and sewage pipes that run along the side of the buildings. The scene suggests that there are no parks for them to play with. There is a beautiful young girl in the image, but it is more likely his sister than a lover as she shares the same hair colour as the children running to meet him, who we are to assume are his younger siblings. The rickety roof about the back porch is in disarray and under repair, the stone walls seem to be on the verge of crumbling, and there is dirt littered about the ground. This is the antithesis of the romantic pastoral. Rockwell depicts the working class or destitute as the ones who are impacted by the war, not the folks in the white picket fences. Whilst some might suggest that Rockwell painted kitsch, such a dark presentation of American life hardly seems comparable with the likes of Anne Geddes to me.
In 1964, a year after Rockwell ended his very profitable relationship with The Saturday Evening Post due to restraints the put on his artistic expression (you see, Rockwell wasn’t entirely in it for the money), Rockwell released a centerfold in Look magazine. The painting was title The Problem We All Live With. The narrative is clear. Ruby Bridges, a six-year-old girl with African heritage, is walking to school during the desegregation period. She is being escorted by four white men, deputy marshals, and there is a pejorative word scrawled across the wall she is walking past. A tomato is smashed against the wall, and the letter ‘KKK’ are visible. Some might suggest that the painting is obvious. Too overt. That Rockwell was painting what is already evident. These things may be true, but it was an image that America needed to see. They needed to have their idyllic illustrator to shatter their comfort zones. Rockwell have become synonymous with a romanticized American image. To have a Norman Rockwell painting that looked like this was the kind of jolt the nation needed. The title of the work is especially powerful because in calls upon everybody to adopt the issue of segregation and recognize it as a problem. The fact that Rockwell was willing to part ways with The Saturday Evening Post so that he could paint this work just made it that much more important.
Negro in the Suburbs is another painting touching on desegregation, though it is a little more Rockwellian than The Problem We All Live With. It features two children of colour standing across from three white children. We see that the children are eager to explore and do not exude the prejudices of their parents, demonstrating that such division are not innate or natural, but learned. The children of colour as well dressed, presenting them as affluent and equal in every respect. There is a focus on what is common, not on what is different. Both children have pets with them: the new neighbours a white cat, and neighbourhood children have a black dog. This shows that each of the children have a fondness for something associate with the colour of the ‘other’ children, bridging a gap. Two of the boys standing across from each other also have baseball gloves behind their backs, demonstrating that they both share a love of baseball. This not only links them together through common interests, but links them with all Americans as baseball was considered America’s pastime. The painting, though perhaps a little kitschy, is tentatively optimistic about the future and suggests the need for people with different skin tones to look past the colour of their skin.
Southern Justice is perhaps the starkest departure from the Rockwellian tradition. The painting is a night time scene. A young man of colour is hanging off the arms of a white man, blood stains on his shirt, whilst another white man lies beaten on the ground. He is presumably dead. Shadows approach. The image is ominous and utterly lacks the optimism of Negro in the Suburbs. The painting was based on the killing of three civil rights workers who were down south ensuring that voters of colour were able to vote. The painting highlights the tragedy and forces it into the American psyche and thhe work is as impressive a social commentary as Hogarth’s Gin Lane. Again, it may seem obvious and evident, but adopting such a portentous image and transposing it into a Norman Rockwell painting, challenges Rockwell’s audience, which was accustomed to romanticizing the American dream, and forces them to examine the culture and society that they were a part of. Many Modernist, Post-Modernist and Pre-Post-Post-Post-Modernists might scoff at Rockwell’s work as too overt and not obtuse enough. Though it may be base or common, the forward thinking ideas that Rockwell hoped to promote needed to be communicated to the masses. Paintings by Pollack were not going to shatter the romantic notions held by factory workers in the suburbs and force them to confront with the oppression of segregation and Jim Crow Laws. A Rothko was not going to instil a farmer in the Midwest with empathy for people who skin tone happened to be darker than their own. Rockwell’s paintings were important because it could do these things.
For those Modern and Post-Modern artists who failed to see the value in Rockwell’s work, Rockwell had his own way of addressing them, perhaps most famously in Triple Self-Portrait. In the piece Rockwell create a masterpiece of Post-Modern work. He invited the viewer into the process, allowing them to become part of the painting. Rockwell himself, is looking at a painting within the painting, as well as his reflection in the mirror. This trick, in and of itself, is perhaps unoriginal. It is not unlike writing a poem about writing a poem (a tactic employed many Modernist and Post-Modern poets). The images which Rockwell has clipped to the side of his canvas are perhaps the most important part of the painting. Self-portraits by Rembrandt, van Gogh and Picasso are all present, demonstrating that Rockwell draws influences from the classics, Modernists and Post-Modernists respectively. Each of the images are reproduced in a fashion that accurately imitates the styles employed by each of the painters, illustrating that Rockwell could, if he so desired, re-create Modernist and Post-Modernist approaches in his, and that he could easily navigate the themes present in Modernist and Post-Modernist works. The title, Triple Self-Portrait, is misleading. There are actually eight images meant to depict Rockwell on the canvas: his mirror image, his painted image, his actual person, and five small drawings tacked to the top left corner of the canvas. Beside those eight self-portraits, there are four others by other artists.
Art Connoisseur is another of Rockwell’s paintings that manages to combine the Rockwellian illustrative approach with his Post-Modern sensibilities. The painting depicts a man standing before a painting that is not dissimilar to a Pollack. Rockwell actually employed Pollack’s ‘drip’ technique when composing the painting, and the framed it within an illustrative work, demonstrating Post-Modern methods such as appropriation and pastiche. The juxtaposition suggests that Rockwell’s work is on a par with the likes of Pollack, and that the works of Pollack are a worthy subject, diplomatically praising the works of Modernist and Post-Modernists whilst defending his own work against them. This was not the only ‘gallery painting Rockwell did, as Picture Hanger and Art Critic also feature paintings within paintings inside of a gallery. One, the working-class maintenance man is moving a frame, his face standing in place of the painting and projecting the working class as the subject of fine art. This was reflective of Rockwell’s own approach, and likely was meant to criticize the lack of representation the working class had in galleries, noting, ironically, that without the working class, the building likely wouldn’t function. Art Critic is more farcical, depicting a man with brush in hand, touching up a masterpiece on the wall. Perhaps this was Rockwell’s way of diluting the power of his critics, noting that even those who have found homes in prestigious galleries are still the subject of criticism. These Modern and Post-Modern approaches that Rockwell employs all demonstrate that Rockwell’s work was more than illustration, they were on a par, intellectually and conceptually, with anything going on in the Modern and Post-Modern worlds of painting.
When examining Rockwell’s oeuvre, it is clear that even though his methods were not as innovative as some of the Modernist and Post-Modernist artists of the 20th century, his concepts and ideas were as inventive as the methods and content of painters like Pollack and Rothko. His social commentary, though often puerile on the surface, was as sharp a piece of satire as anything printed by Hogarth or any word written by Jonathan Swift. He embraced American romanticism optimistically, but was sure to dilute it with a dose of criticism. Perhaps most importantly, he created work that promoted forward thinking social ideas and framed them in a manner that made them accessible to the American public. His work is clearly as deserving of praise as any piece in the Met or the MoMA and deserves to hang alongside the works of his more esoteric contemporaries. Who knows, attendance might even go up at the galleries once they let Rockwell in.
If you enjoyed this post and would like updates on my latest ramblings, be sure to follow me on Twitter @LiteraryRambler, on Facebook, and add me to your RSS feed. |
Water from Lake Okeechobee is released Thursday into the C-44 Canal, which leads to the St. Lucie River, at the St. Lucie Lock and Dam near Stuart. As of June 16, the amount of Lake Okeechobee water passing through the locks surpassed 136.1 billion gallons, the total amount for 2013, or what was called the "Lost Summer." (LEAH VOSS/TREASURE COAST NEWSPAPERS)
By Editorial Board
Has anything really changed?
This is the question Treasure Coast residents are asking as they brace for a potential repeat of the Lost Summer of 2013.
It's increasingly clear that this summer could be as bad — or worse — than the environmental crisis we endured three years ago.
On Thursday, the cumulative volume of water discharged in 2016 from Lake Okeechobee into the St. Lucie River surpassed the total volume discharged in 2013.
MORE | Follow our Lake Okeechobee discharge meter for daily updates.
What's most alarming is this milestone was reached in mid-June — before the official start of summer. In 2013, it didn't happen until October.
And the water is still gushing.
Let's recall 2013, when 136 billion gallons of Lake Okeechobee water, laden with phosphorus and nitrogen, poured into the St. Lucie River and Indian River Lagoon. The deluge wiped out oyster beds and sea grass, triggering toxic algae blooms that necessitated health department warnings to avoid the water.
The massive discharges had devastating effects on marine, fishing and recreational businesses in our communities.
Three years later, our lagoon is ripe for a repeat. All the key factors — i.e., volume of the discharges, presence of blue-green algae, depth of Lake Okeechobee — portend another environmental disaster.
Lovers of the lagoon are trapped in a time warp.
To be fair, some things have changed since the Lost Summer of 2013. For starters, politicians talked about the plight of the lagoon with renewed vigor.
"I will work diligently to protect and preserve the lagoon ... blah, blah, blah," said EVERY candidate running for political office in the intervening years.
Elected officials made trips to the scene of the crime, peering into the tainted water and promising to do something about it.
We wonder: Would the likes of Gov. Rick Scott or U.S. Sens. Marco Rubio and Bill Nelson ever visit our region if we didn't have a river that provided such a compelling photo-op?
Since 2013, the plight of our waterways has garnered greater attention in Florida legislative meetings and the halls of Congress. The national media have reported on the issue.
Yes, some things have changed since 2013.
However, for the dad who wants to take his kid fishing in the lagoon, it's as if the calendar hasn't moved. For the family that wants to go tubing in the lagoon or anchor at the sand bar and lounge in the water, time is at a standstill. For the bait shop owner who has seen his sales plummet or the boat dealer who might have to lay off employees, nothing has changed.
This is the perspective that is lost on the talking heads in Tallahassee and Washington D.C.
For us, the lagoon is personal. It is so much more than an election issue. The lagoon — one of the most diverse estuaries in North America — is a priceless treasure that defines who we are.
It is the economic and recreational lifeblood for many people in our communities.
We're told to be patient. We're reminded by officials that there are no quick fixes to the problem.
No quick fixes? How much time do you require?
Discharges from Lake O have been fouling our waterways for 85 years. Herbert Hoover was president when the Army Corps of Engineers first began releasing water from the lake in 1931.
The tragic history of our lagoon is poised to repeat itself.
When will there be an end to this environmental catastrophe? |
The new UFC 167 commercial spot proved to be dangerous endeavor for one of its subjects.
While filming the commercial last month in Los Angeles, Johny Hendricks suffered a second-degree burn on his back because the lights used to film the spot were placed too close to him, his manager Ted Ehrhardt confirmed with MMAFighting.com
Ehrhardt said Hendricks tried to resume his training two days later, however, the burn was bothering him too much so he went to a doctor who prescribed an ointment to help heal it. Ehrhardt said Hendricks, who wasn't available to speak about the incident, missed one-to-two days of training, and the injury healed in a week.
"Johny never gets pissed off about anything," Ehrhardt said. "He was just mad that it was messing up his training, that's all."
A photo of the injury, courtesy of Ehrhardt, can be seen below.
The UFC apologized to Hendricks for the accident. Ehrhadt said they were "kind of in disbelief" that this happened during the shoot, as was Hendricks who told Ehrhardt he never suffers sunburn in the summertime. Hendricks did not ask the UFC to pay for any medical costs.
Hendricks will meet Georges St-Pierre for the welterweight title at UFC 167 on Nov. 16 in Las Vegas. Watch the commercial in question below. |
Every one of those turning points it felt as if Windows Phone would finally catch on and go mainstream, but alas it never happened. Granted, with the Windows Phone 8/Lumia 920 combo, Microsoft and company had their best opportunity. But even then, things have been slower than expected despite the award winning OS and hardware.
App counts don’t matter but so-called “flagship apps” do. Ever since Windows Phone 7.x came out nearly three years ago, the “break moment” has been anxiously anticipated. That’s the instant where things click with consumers and the phones become an accepted, viable option for people to consider when shopping—the third way, if you will.
And don’t get me started on Instagram.
Not only are these new experiences, they’re solid, quality apps that set the bar in design. There’s little disagreement that the Pandora app for Windows Phone is one of the nicest experiences on any platform.
More and more we’re seeing high profile games based on the Unity engine arriving in a timely manner and developers committing to the platform (just yesterday Digitally Imported jumped on board). It’s an exciting time both for developers and longtime users of Windows Phone who finally feel like they’re getting the respect they deserve.
Getting the message out
Combined with all of the new app momentum, we’re also seeing an even more aggressive advertising push from Microsoft, culminating in the cheeky “Wedding” commercial directed by Roman Coppola. That ad, which has garnered a massive 4.5 million views in just over a week on YouTube alone, nearly doubling the Grant Hill ad. And that ad is now in regular rotation on TV, playing on TBS and other channels on a fairly regular basis.
For all intents and purposes, it has gone viral. Why? Because it’s hilarious and is something to talk about, despite all the naysayers who suggested that Microsoft missed the point with the ad.
In addition, we’re seeing Windows Phone Challenge commercials playing before packed theaters for Iron Man 3 and other blockbuster films, raising even more awareness.
And this is just the warm up.
The Next Stage |
The estranged wife of John Cleese once threatened to "take him for all she can", according to the actor's close friend, Michael Winner.
The film director and food critic said Cleese, 69, and his third wife faced a long and costly divorce, which could see him lose his apartment in New York and home in London.
"Until the divorce is settled, she's on £900,000-a-year maintenance, plus use of a beach house in Santa Barbara and other properties," he said. "Not bad for a 15-year marriage that did not produce any children."
In January, Cleese and Alyce Faye Eichelberger, an American-born psychotherapist, announced that they were separating. The couple, who both have children from previous marriages, split after the actor was understood to have become "melancholy" following the funerals of several close friends.
Cleese was said to be taken aback by the scale of the divorce claim. It has been reported that his wife's demands include half of his income going back to 1992, the year of their marriage, and annual maintenance.
In May, he was ordered by a US judge to pay her £77,500 a month after she pleaded poverty.
Mr Winner said: "I remembered his wife saying to me during a previous marriage wobble, 'I'm going to take John for all I can. He won't know what's hit him'.
"Well, he does now." |
Your Rugby World Cup Aussie weekend survival guide & Where to watch
Where to Watch the Rugby World Cup:
We are collating a list of venues where you enjoy watching the game – they are at the end of this post. If you have a suggestion add it to the comments.
If you are like me you’re pumped about this Saturday night/Sunday Morning. Not because it is Halloween, but because of the Rugby World Cup Final. If you are just tuning in there is still plenty of room on the band-wagon.
Lets have a look at this weekend could look like. It doesn’t matter if you are male or female, young or old, this should just about cover your activities from Friday through Sunday morning.
Step 1. Midday Friday:
Make a booking at the local for tomorrow night’s game – it will be busy and you’ll need a table to sit at.
Let’s not kid ourselves as Wallabies fans this is the biggest weekend in years. Bigger than the final Lions test in Sydney last year. Bigger than the World cup final in Sydney in 2003. Bigger than the opening of the Sydney Olympics (too far???).
Get pumped it POETS day – Bundy off work early and go to the Pub or the local Serviceman’s club with your non-rugby following mates. Play some Keno, have a schooner (not a pot) of your favourite locally owned craft beer.
Step 2. Friday Avro:
Foxsports are showing a replay of the Australia v Scotland game at 3pm at 204 – get in front of a screen and try and explain the Newcastle match and that final penalty to the Wallabies newest fans. Tell the Scottish co-worker that they can stop whinging and climb aboard the Wallabies train.
Step 3. Friday Night:
After several schooners and and a Close-talking ear blasting or two from the Scottish co-worker – Go Home. Go Straight home. moving to spirits now is going to ruin tomorrow. Just go – Have a shower – clean your teeth – sleep. Tomorrow is going to be big.
{Optional} Step 4: Friday Night – Late:
OK so Tequila shots it is.
You can share an UBER home later with the Scottish Co-worker as you explain how the Australian government is offering asylum to Joubert.
Fox Sports are showing a replay of the Semifinal Win against Argentina at 11:30. The UBER drops you at the Casino and it’s pretty quiet. Everyone must have gone home to get some sleep in preparation.
Step 5. 8am – Saturday Morning:
Berocca (for Step 4 attendees)- Kids Cricket/Nippers/Little Athletics – Bacon and Egg roll – Coffee…..Repeat till all kids have finished Sport.
Step 6. Midday – Saturday:
Power Nap. Wake up to the sound of the neighbour’s kids in your pool or the lawn mower. Make sure your Wallabies jersey/scarf/shorts/Football are ready.
Step 7. Saturday Early Arvo:
Find a bunch of kids in the street – play some touch footy with them. You feel like Larkham in the 1999 Semi Final. Go and ice your hamstrings, they are going to be supporting a lot of body weight tonight.
Head to [insert potential sporting goods retail sponsor of Green and Gold Rugby here] and purchase 4 Wallabies World Cup jerseys – they are probably on sale by now. Buy 3 scarfs 2 beanies even though its 26 degrees and a pair of Wallaby Budgie Smugglers that you or your better half probably don’t have the rig for.
Step 8. Saturday late Arvo:
Grab a cold one, Beer, wine, soft-drink. Anything as long as it isn’t from New Zealand. Power nap on the back deck while still icing the remains of your hamstrings.
NRC Final is on tune in – if you are in Brisbane get to Ballymore and take your new friends – try explaining the additional law variations – good luck.
Got and watch the VRC Derby at 3.50pm – its Flemington Race week and the start of a great few days of Horse racing. I’m looking at you Kia Ora Koutou. A horse with Maori namie in Green and Gold with 4 from 4 this preparation @ $8.
Shower (Non-negotiable). #GETYOURGOLDON
Step 10. Saturday early evening:
Family/Friends time. You haven’t really been paying them much attention for the past month or so – This is an opportunity to recruit a few more stragglers to the Wallabies cause. Hand out the the Merchandise from [insert potential sporting goods retail sponsor of Green and Gold Rugby here] and make sure you mention that you purchased it at [insert potential sporting goods retail sponsor of Green and Gold Rugby here] because they support your favourite Rugby community.
Send the kids out trick or treating in their Wallabies kit – to put the Australia into that seppo tradition.
If the neighbours kids come to your door without Wallabies kit on – NO LOLLIES FOR THEM!!!!. if some kids come in All Blacks kit – shut the doors and pretend the house is empty. We don’t like to encourage that behaviour.
Step 11. Saturday Night:
Head to the local. Thank Gibbo for reminding you to make a booking and that Derby tip – it will pay for dinner and a few rounds – the place is pumping!!! Head to your table and order the Steak Dianne and settle in forr the ride!
Step 12. Sunday Morning:
Enjoy the game – be safe – look after your mates – don’t do anything stupid – drink and gamble responsibly.
It’s going to be a big weekend – The Rugby community holds itself to high standards make sure all those new Wallabies fans keep to our standards.
WHERE TO WATCH
Pubs Showing the Rugby World Cup live at 3am Sunday Morning
If you know anymore put it in the Comments and I’ll update over the coming days.
NSW Sydney
North -
The Greengate – Confirmed – Ring to make a Booking
The Buena Vista in Mosman
The Mosman RSL – The Gold brigade will be here
CBD -
The Keg and Brew – Confirmed – 26 Foveaux St, Surry Hills NSW 2010
The Harold Park Hotel – Glebe – Confirmed
The Star Casino Sports bar – Confirmed
Marly in Newtown – Confirmed
IMAX Darling harbour $10
East -
Coogee Bay – Confirmed
The Eastern – Bondi Junction – Confirmed 1.30am lockout so get in early
The Oak at Double Bay – Confirmed
West -
The Bayview Gladesville – Confirmed – Ring to make a booking
Tweed Coast – Kingscliff Beach Hotel
QLD/Brisbane
The Casino
The Regatta
Pig and Whistle
Brekky Creek
Storey Bridge
Gold Coast – Pacific Pines Tavern
Toowoomba -The Spotted Cow
ACT
Mooseheads – Confirmed
The Dock. Kingston – Confirmed
Melbourne
The Bells Hotel in South Melbourne – Thanks Shannon M from Facebook!
The College lawn
Limerick Hotel – Sth Melbourne
Perth
The Game Sports Bar
South Australia
Coopers Ale house – Adelaide
Northern Territory
Darwin Casino
INTERNATIONAL
Hong Kong – The Globe,Forbes 36,Dickens Bar,Delaney’s
USA – New York City – The Australian
USA – Seattle – The Kangaroo & Kiwi
USA – Houston Texas, Springbok Bar
Canada – Saskatoon SK – Fionn Maccools pub,
Canada Toronto – Scallywags
Egypt – Cairo – BCA Club, Maadi; ACE Club, Maadi;
Shanghai China – The Camel
Cayman Islands – Whiskey Mist, Fidel Murphy’s & Karoo
Bolonga Italy – The Cluricane Irish Pub,The Celtic Druid
Brazil, Belo Horizonte, Bar do John
Hungary, Budapest, John Doyles
China, Zhujiang, Guangzhou, McCawleys
Indonesia – Bali – The Orchard English pub
Singapore – Singapore Cricket Club 7s |
We talk Pizza, language and something people call soccer, football and whatever else is it called. Sean Spenceof Hot Time In Old Town takes the time to talk Chicago Fire soccer as Frank's team plays against Frank's team.
And Yes, ..the Roof Is On Fire!!
MRS: Frank Yallop has replaced Frank Klopas at the helm of the club. With quite a few off-season roster changes, is Yallop correcting Klopas' mistakes or is he just implementing his vision? Is he preparing a big splash for a big DP-type player later this summer?
Hot Time: In answer to the first question, a bit of both. The salary cap situation left by the Klopas/Leon front office was apparently a disaster. Yallop and Technical Director Brian Bliss have spent a majority of their effort seemingly taking a broom to the oddities within the roster - for example, the long list of loanees has been pared down considerably. The most significant moves have been concentrated on clearing cap space, but Magee's new extension will certainly take most of that. At the same time, he's trying to move toward a team that keeps the ball on the ground, and that new emphasis has refigured some of the depth chart. We could see more movement out before we see much movement in, and those players on starter-level deals not currently solid locks for the gameday XI might want to see about going month-to-month on the lease. Life is always full of surprises, and it's possible that the Fire have identified a very affordable DP - possibly someone out of contract in the summer - but I doubt it. Absent another big trade, our exciting midseason addition will likely be 19-year-old flank player Grant Ward, on loan from Tottenham.
MRS: The Chicago Fire is also winless in 2014. What is the biggest problem right now between scoring more goals or conceding less?
Hot Time: Absolutely, 100% the problem is with conceding goals. As you'll see on Saturday, the Fire can be a handful to defend - the team thinks well, uses space well, and creates more chances than an average MLS team. And they're hard to play against, generally, clogging passing lanes, pressing out hard when they can. The team's Achilles heel has been set piece defending, full stop. In five games, the Fire have given up nine goals; seven - SEVEN - from set piece situations. So, yeah, that's a problem - spotting the other team a goal-and-a-half PER GAME and hoping to rescue it is no way to go through life. Yet here we are. I wouldn't be shocked to see changes at the back this week. During last week's broadcast of the game, the Fire surrendered a goal off a set piece during the execrable 'talk to the gaffer during the game' segment. The discerning listener could pick out a truly epic, profanity-laced frothing-mouth rant from a Fire assistant coach (who shall remain nameless) in the background of that interview, the gist of which was "Every! F--king! Time! He watches it every time!" We leave it for a puzzle for the readership who the 'he' was in the rant.
MRS: We all know that Deep Dish Pizza has nothing on Italian Pizza Montreal-Style. Now that I have opened everyone's appetite and misdirected everyone, Is Frank Klopas remotely missed at Chicago?
Hot Time: Of course we miss Frank Klopas! He is a Fire legend, a Ring of Fire member, scorer of one of the biggest goals in Fire history, and is a great guy. We miss the hell out of Frank Klopas. Do we miss him as a head coach, or Director of Soccer, or whatever? Nah. But that's in the past. The Fire family still loves Frank. I'm reminded of Liverpool supporters' relationship with Kenny Dalglish - love the guy, love his effort, think he's not quite manager material, but wish him all the best. When Montreal plays in Chicago, Klopas will get love, despite everything. Now, I found your pizza claim interesting - I'd never heard of Montreal-style pizza before. Some research on the internet led me to the conclusion that you need to get to Lou Malnati's or Gino's East - or some other location our readers will suggest - IMMEDIATELY. You are speaking a blasphemy, of which you should feel shame.
Predicted Fire starting XI (4-4-2): Sean Johnson; Greg Cochrane, Patrick Ianni, Jhon Kennedy Hurtado, Lovel Palmer; Dilly Duka, Alex, Jeff Larentowicz (c), Patrick Nyarko; Mike Magee, Quincy Amarikwa.
Game prediction: I see the Fire winning 2-1, with goals for Magee and a midfielder, and Di Viao poaching one for l'Impact.
Read my answers to his hard hard questions right here. |
[Physics FAQ] - [Copyright]
Updated PEG January 1997.
Original by Philip Gibbs October 1996,
with thanks to many who contributed their knowledge and references.
Is glass liquid or solid?
It is sometimes said that glass in very old churches is thicker at the bottom than at the top because glass is a liquid, and so over several centuries it has flowed towards the bottom. This is not true. In Mediaeval times panes of glass were often made by the Crown glass process. A lump of molten glass was rolled, blown, expanded, flattened and finally spun into a disc before being cut into panes. The sheets were thicker towards the edge of the disc and were usually installed with the heavier side at the bottom. Other techniques of forming glass panes have been used but it is only the relatively recent float glass processes which have produced good quality flat sheets of glass.
To answer the question "Is glass liquid or solid?" we have to understand its thermodynamic and material properties.
Thermodynamics of glass
There is still much about the molecular physics and thermodynamics of glass that is not well understood, but we can give a general account of what is thought to be the case.
Many solids have a crystalline structure on microscopic scales. The molecules are arranged in a regular lattice. As the solid is heated the molecules vibrate about their position in the lattice until, at the melting point, the crystal breaks down and the molecules start to flow. There is a sharp distinction between the solid and the liquid state, that is separated by a first order phase transition, i.e. a discontinuous change in the properties of the material such as density. Freezing is marked by a release of heat known as the heat of fusion.
molecular arrangement in a crystal
A liquid has viscosity, a measure of its resistance to flow. The viscosity of water at room temperature is about 0.01 poises. A thick oil might have a viscosity of about 1.0 poise. As a liquid is cooled its viscosity normally increases, but viscosity also has a tendency to prevent crystallisation. Usually when a liquid is cooled to below its melting point, crystals form and it solidifies; but sometimes it can become supercooled and remain liquid below its melting point because there are no nucleation sites to initiate the crystallisation. If the viscosity rises enough as it is cooled further, it may never crystallise. The viscosity rises rapidly and continuously, forming a thick syrup and eventually an amorphous solid. The molecules then have a disordered arrangement, but sufficient cohesion to maintain some rigidity. In this state it is often called an amorphous solid or glass.
molecular arrangement in a glass
Some people claim that glass is actually a supercooled liquid because there is no first order phase transition as it cools. In fact, there is a second order transition between the supercooled liquid state and the glass state, so a distinction can still be drawn. The transition is not as dramatic as the phase change that takes you from liquid to crystalline solids. There is no discontinuous change of density and no latent heat of fusion. The transition can be detected as a marked change in the thermal expansivity and heat capacity of the material.
The temperature at which the glass transition takes place can vary according to how slowly the material cools. If it cools slowly it has longer to relax, the transition occurs at a lower temperature and the glass formed is more dense. If it cools very slowly it will crystallise, so there is a minimum limit to the glass transition temperature.
Density as a function of temperature
in the phases of glassy materials
A liquid to crystal transition is a thermodynamic one; i.e. the crystal is energetically more favourable than the liquid when below the melting point. The glass transition is purely kinetic: i.e. the disordered glassy state does not have enough kinetic energy to overcome the potential energy barriers required for movement of the molecules past one another. The molecules of the glass take on a fixed but disordered arrangement. Glasses and supercooled liquids are both metastable phases rather than true thermodynamic phases like crystalline solids. In principle, a glass could undergo a spontaneous transition to a crystalline solid at any time. Sometimes old glass devitrifies in this way if it has impurities.
The situation at the level of molecular physics can be summarised by saying that there are three main types of molecular arrangement:
crystalline solids: molecules are ordered in a regular lattice fluids: molecules are disordered and are not rigidly bound. glasses: molecules are disordered but are rigidly bound.
[Just to illustrate that no such classification could ever be complete, recently scientists have succeeded in making quasi-crystals that are quasi-periodic. They do not fit into the above scheme and are sometimes described as being halfway between crystals and glass.]
It would be convenient if we could conclude that glassy materials changed from being a supercooled liquid to an amorphous solid at the glass transition, but this is very difficult to justify. Polymerised materials such as rubber show a clear glass transition at low temperatures but are normally considered to be solid in both the glass and rubber conditions.
It is sometimes said that glass is therefore neither a liquid nor a solid. It has a distinctly different structure with properties of both liquids and solids. Not everyone agrees with this terminology.
Material properties of glasses
Usually when people talk about solids and liquids, they are referring to macroscopic material properties rather than the arrangement of molecules. After all, glass as a material was known about long before its molecular physics was understood. Macroscopically, materials exhibit a very wide range of behaviours. Solids, liquids and gases are ideal behaviours characterised by properties such as compressibility, viscosity, elasticity, strength and hardness. But materials don't always behave according to such ideals. For example, it's possible to take water from being a liquid to a gas at high pressure without its passing through a phase transition; so at some stage it must be between an ideal liquid and an ideal gas.
For crystalline substances the distinction between the solid and liquid states is very clear, but what about glasses? Indeed, where do polymers, gels, foams, liquid crystals, powders and colloids fit into this picture? Some people say that there is no clear distinction between a solid and a liquid in general. A solid, they claim, should just be defined as a liquid with a very high viscosity. They set an arbitrary limit of 1013 poises above which they say it's a solid and below which it's a liquid.
According to another point of view, this ignores a distinction between viscosity of liquids and plasticity of solids. An ideal newtonian liquid deforms at a rate which is proportional to stresses applied and its viscosity. For arbitrarily small stresses a viscous liquid will flow. Molasses, pine pitch and Silly Putty are examples of liquids with very high viscosity that flow very slowly under only the force of their own weight. On the other hand, plastics can be very soft but are still considered solid because they have rigidity and do not flow.
Solids are elastic when small stresses are applied. They deform but return to their original shape when the stress is removed. When higher stresses are applied some solids break while others exhibit plasticity. Plasticity means that they deform and don't return to their original shape when the stress is removed. Many substances including metals such as copper have plasticity. The resistance to flow under plastic deformation is called its viscoplasticity. This is like viscosity, except that there's a minimum stress known as the elastic limit below which there is no plasticity. Materials with plasticity do not flow, but they may creep, meaning they deform slowly but only when held under constant stress.
So an arbitrary measure of viscosity or viscoplasticity is not a good way to distinguish solids from liquids. Another way to define the distinction between solid and liquid is to say that, if there is a minimum shear stress required to produce a permanent deformation then it is a solid. This is just a precise way of saying it has some rigidity. A liquid can then be defined as a material that will flow. If it is placed in a container it will eventually flow to fill the lower reaches until its own surface is flat. The difficulty is that these two definitions do not cover all cases. There are materials that have some limited flow known as viscoelasticity. The material will deform elastically under stress. If the stress is held for a long time, the deformation becomes permanent even if the stress was small. Materials with viscoelasticity may seem to flow slowly for a while but then stop. It is futile to try to make a clear cut distinction between liquids and solids in cases of such behaviour.
Types of Glass
To be sure that glass in old windows has not flowed, we need to recognise the different properties of different glasses. Glass can be made from pure silica, but fused silica has a high glass transition point at around 1200° C which makes it difficult to mould into panes or bottles. At least 2000 years ago it was learned how to lower the softening temperature by adding lime and soda before heating, which resulted in a glass containing sodium and calcium oxides. Soda-lime glass used for windows and bottles today contains other oxides as well. Measuring the glass transition temperature for different glasses is not easy because it changes according to how slowly the glass is cooled. In the case of modern soda-lime glass, a quick cooling will produce a glass transition at about 550° C. There is thought to be a minimum glass transition temperature at about 270° C, and if it is cooled very slowly it can still be a supercooled liquid down to just above that temperature. Glass such as Pyrex (used for test-tubes and ovenware) is usually based on boro-silicates or alumino-silicates, which withstand heating better and typically have a higher glass transition temperature. Some glasses, such as the leaded variety, have lower transition temperatures.
Sometimes people say that good evidence that glass does not flow is provided by telescope lenses which after 150 years still maintain excellent optical qualities. They would be spoiled by the slightest deformation. In fact, optical glass is usually not the same as the glass used in windows and bottles. It may be based on boro-silicate or soda-lime glass with other metallic oxides added to improve its thermal and optical properties. So old telescope lenses and mirrors provide good evidence that some glasses do not flow, but little evidence to support the claim that glass in old windows has not flowed. Another example is stone age arrow heads made of obsidian, a natural glass. These are found to be still razor sharp after tens of thousands of years, but again, this glass is mainly silica and alumino-silicates and is much tougher than window glass.
For definitive evidence that glass has not flowed in old windows we must examine the oldest examples. Early glass used to make bottles and windows was usually formed by adding soda and lime to silicates. Sometimes potash was added instead. Usually there were other impurities that made it softer than modern soda-lime glass. Other compounds were often added to give colour or to improve its properties. The Romans were making glass objects of this sort in the 1st century AD, and despite being very delicate, some examples remain—such as the elaborately decorated Portland Vase kept at the British Museum. Roman glassware provides some of the best available evidence that types of soda-lime glass are not fluid, even after nearly 2000 years. The oldest remaining examples of stained glass windows that remain in place have lasted since the 12th century. The oldest of all are the five figures in the clerestory of Augsburg Cathedral in Germany, which are dated to between 1050 to 1150. Many other early examples are found in France and England including the magnificent North Rose window of Notre Dame, Paris dating from 1250.
There have been many claims (especially by tour guides) that such glass is deformed because the glass has flowed slowly over the centuries. This has become a persistent myth, but close inspection shows that characteristic signs of flow, such as flowing around, and out of the frame, are not present. The deformations are more consistent with imperfections of the methods used to make panes of glass at the time. In some cases gaps appear between glass panes and their frames, but this is due to deformations in the lead framework rather than the glass. Other examples of rippling in windows of old homes can be accounted for because the glass was imperfectly flattened by rolling before the float glass process came into use.
It is difficult to verify with absolute certainty that no examples of glass flow exist, because there are almost always no records of the original state. In rare cases stained glass windows are found to contain lead, which would lower the viscosity and make them heavier. Could these examples deform under their own weight? Only careful study and analysis can answer this question. Robert Brill of the Corning glass museum has been studying antique glass for over 30 years. He has examined many examples of glass from old buildings, measuring their material properties and chemical composition. He has taken a special interest in the glass flow myth and has always looked for evidence for and against. In his opinion, the notion that glass in Mediaeval stained glass windows has flowed over the centuries is untrue and, he says, examples of sagging and ripples in old windows are also most likely physical characteristics resulting from the manufacturing process. Other experts who have made similar studies agree. Theoretical analysis based on measured glass viscosities shows that glass should not deform significantly even over many centuries, and a clear link is found between types of deformation in the glass and the way it was produced.
Conclusion
There is no clear answer to the question "Is glass solid or liquid?". In terms of molecular dynamics and thermodynamics it is possible to justify various different views that it is a highly viscous liquid, an amorphous solid, or simply that glass is another state of matter that is neither liquid nor solid. The difference is semantic. In terms of its material properties we can do little better. There is no clear definition of the distinction between solids and highly viscous liquids. All such phases or states of matter are idealisations of real material properties. Nevertheless, from a more common sense point of view, glass should be considered a solid since it is rigid according to everyday experience. The use of the term "supercooled liquid" to describe glass still persists, but is considered by many to be an unfortunate misnomer that should be avoided. In any case, claims that glass panes in old windows have deformed due to glass flow have never been substantiated. Examples of Roman glassware and calculations based on measurements of glass visco-properties indicate that these claims cannot be true. The observed features are more easily explained as a result of the imperfect methods used to make glass window panes before the float glass process was invented.
References
"Antique windowpanes and the flow of supercooled liquids", by Robert C. Plumb, (Worcester Polytech. Inst., Worcester, MA, 01609, USA), J. Chem. Educ. (1989), 66 (12), 994–6
Ernsberger, F. M. "In Glass: Science and Technology"; D.R. Uhlmann, N.J. Kreidle, Eds; Acad. New York, 1980; Vol. V, Chapter 1.
"Physics of Amorphous Materials" by S.R. Elliott (London: Longman Group Ltd, 1983)
C. Austin Angell, Science, March 1995
Robert H. Brill, "A Note on the Scientist's definition of glass", Journal of Glass Studies, vol. 4, 127–138, 1962
Florin Neumann, "Glass: Liquid or Solid — Science vs an Urban Legend"
"Do Cathedral Glasses Flow?", Am. J. Phys. v66, pp 392–396, May 1998
Edgar Zanotto, American Journal of Physics 66 p392, May 1998
Paul Steinhardt, "Crazy Crystals", New Scientist, 25 January 1997 |
Sick building syndrome (SBS) is a medical condition where people in a building suffer from symptoms of illness or feel unwell for no apparent reason.[1] The symptoms tend to increase in severity with the time people spend in the building, and improve over time or even disappear when people are away from the building. The main identifying observation is an increased incidence of complaints of symptoms such as headache, eye, nose, and throat irritation, fatigue, and dizziness and nausea.[2] These symptoms appear to be linked to time spent in a building, though no specific illness or cause can be identified. SBS is also used interchangeably with "building-related symptoms", which orients the name of the condition around patients rather than a "sick" building. A 1984 World Health Organization (WHO) report suggested up to 30% of new and remodeled buildings worldwide may be subject of complaints related to poor indoor air quality.[3]
Sick building causes are frequently pinned down to flaws in the heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems. However, there have been inconsistent findings on whether air conditioning systems result in SBS or not.[4] Other causes have been attributed to contaminants produced by outgassing of some types of building materials, volatile organic compounds (VOC), molds (see mold health issues), improper exhaust ventilation of ozone (byproduct of some office machinery), light industrial chemicals used within, or lack of adequate fresh-air intake/air filtration (see Minimum efficiency reporting value).
Signs and symptoms [ edit ]
Human exposure to bioaerosols has been documented to give rise to a variety of adverse health effects.[5] Building occupants complain of symptoms such as sensory irritation of the eyes, nose, or throat; neurotoxic or general health problems; skin irritation; nonspecific hypersensitivity reactions; infectious diseases;[6] and odor and taste sensations.[7] Exposure to poor lighting conditions has led to general malaise.[8]
Extrinsic allergic alveolitis has been associated with the presence of fungi and bacteria in the moist air of residential houses and commercial offices.[9] A very large 2017 Swedish study [10] correlated several inflammatory diseases of the respiration tract with objective evidence of damp-caused damage in homes.
The WHO has classified the reported symptoms into broad categories, including: mucous membrane irritation (eye, nose, and throat irritation), neurotoxic effects (headaches, fatigue, and irritability), asthma and asthma-like symptoms (chest tightness and wheezing), skin dryness and irritation, gastrointestinal complaints and more.[11]
Several sick occupants may report individual symptoms which do not appear to be connected. The key to discovery is the increased incidence of illnesses in general with onset or exacerbation within a fairly close time frame—usually within a period of weeks. In most cases, SBS symptoms will be relieved soon after the occupants leave the particular room or zone.[12] However, there can be lingering effects of various neurotoxins, which may not clear up when the occupant leaves the building. In some cases—particularly in sensitive individuals—there can be long-term health effects.
Cause [ edit ]
It has been suggested[by whom?] that sick building syndrome could be caused by inadequate ventilation, deteriorating fiberglass duct liners, chemical contaminants from indoor or outdoor sources, and biological contaminants, air recycled using fan coils, traffic noise, poor lighting, and buildings located in a polluted urban area.[8] Many volatile organic compounds, which are considered chemical contaminants, can cause acute effects on the occupants of a building. "Bacteria, molds, pollen, and viruses are types of biological contaminants" and can all cause SBS. In addition, pollution from outdoors, such as motor vehicle exhaust, can contribute to SBS.[3] Adult SBS symptoms were associated with a history of allergic rhinitis, eczema and asthma.[13]
A 2015 study concerning the association of SBS and indoor air pollutants in office buildings in Iran found as carbon dioxide levels increase in a building, symptoms like nausea, headaches, nasal irritation, dyspnea, and throat dryness have also been shown to increase.[8] Certain work conditions have been found to be correlated with specific symptoms. For example, higher light intensity was significantly related to skin dryness, eye pain, and malaise.[8] Higher temperature has also been found to correlate with symptoms such as sneezing, skin redness, itchy eyes and headache, while higher relative humidity has been associated with sneezing, skin redness, and pain of the eyes.[8]
ASHRAE has recognized that polluted urban air, designated within the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)'s air quality ratings as unacceptable requires the installation of treatment such as filtration for which the HVAC practitioners generally apply carbon-impregnated filters and their like.
In 1973, in response to the 1973 oil crisis and conservation concerns, ASHRAE Standards 62-73 and 62-81 reduced required ventilation from 10 cubic feet per minute (4.7 L/s) per person to 5 cubic feet per minute (2.4 L/s) per person, but this was found to be a contributing factor to sick building syndrome.[14] As of the 2016 revision, ASHRAE ventilation standards call for 5 to 10 cubic feet per minute of ventilation per occupant (depending on the occupancy type) in addition to ventilation based on the zone floor area delivered to the breathing zone.[15]
Psychological factors [ edit ]
One study looked at commercial buildings and their employees, comparing some environmental factors suspected of inducing SBS to a self-reported survey of the occupants,[16] finding that the measured psycho-social circumstances appeared more influential than the tested environmental factors.[17] The list of environmental factors in the study can be found here.[18] Limitations of the study include that it only measured the indoor environment of commercial buildings, which have different building codes than residential buildings, and that the assessment of building environment was based on layman observation of a limited number of factors.
Research has shown that SBS shares several symptoms common in other conditions thought to be at least partially caused by psychosomatic tendencies. The umbrella term "autoimmune/inflammatory syndrome induced by adjuvants" has been suggested. Other members of the suggested group include Silicosis, Macrophagic myofascitis,Gulf War syndrome, Post-vaccination phenomena.[19]
Workplace [ edit ]
Greater effects were found with features of the psychosocial work environment including high job demands and low support. The report concluded that the physical environment of office buildings appears to be less important than features of the psychosocial work environment in explaining differences in the prevalence of symptoms. However, there is still a relationship between sick building syndrome and symptoms of workers regardless of workplace stress.[20]
Excessive work stress or dissatisfaction, poor interpersonal relationships and poor communication are often seen to be associated with SBS, recent studies show that a combination of environmental sensitivity and stress can greatly contribute to sick building syndrome.
Specific work-related stressors are related with specific SBS symptoms. Workload and work conflict are significantly associated with general symptoms (headache, abnormal tiredness, sensation of cold or nausea). While crowded workspaces and low work satisfaction are associated with upper respiratory symptoms.[21]
Specific careers are also associated with specific SBS symptoms. Transport, communication, healthcare, and social workers have highest prevalence of general symptoms. Skin symptoms such as eczema, itching, and rashes on hands and face are associated with technical work. Forestry, agriculture, and sales workers have the lowest rates of sick building syndrome symptoms.[22]
Milton et al. determined the cost of sick leave specific for one business was an estimated $480 per employee, and about five days of sick leave per year could be attributed to low ventilation rates. When comparing low ventilation rate areas of the building to higher ventilation rate areas, the relative risk of short-term sick leave was 1.53 times greater in the low ventilation areas.[23]
Work productivity has been associated with ventilation rates, a contributing factor to SBS, and there's a significant increase in production as ventilation rates increase, by 1.7% for every two-fold increase of ventilation rate.[24]
Home [ edit ]
Sick building syndrome can also occur due to factors of the home. Laminated flooring can cause more exposure to chemicals and more resulting SBS symptoms compared to stone, tile, and cement flooring.[13] Recent redecorating and new furnishings within the last year were also found to be associated with increased symptoms, along with dampness and related factors, having pets, and the presence of cockroaches.[13] The presence of mosquitoes was also a factor related to more symptoms, though it is unclear whether it was due to the presence of mosquitoes or the use of repellents.[13]
Diagnosis [ edit ]
While sick building syndrome (SBS) encompasses a multitude of non-specific symptoms, building-related illness (BRI) comprises specific, diagnosable symptoms caused by certain agents (chemicals, bacteria, fungi, etc.). These can typically be identified, measured, and quantified.[25] There are usually 4 causal agents in BRI; 1.) Immunologic, 2.) Infectious, 3.) toxic, and 4.) irritant.[25] For instance, Legionnaire's disease, usually caused by Legionella pneumophila, involves a specific organism which could be ascertained through clinical findings as the source of contamination within a building. SBS does not have any known cure; alleviation consists of removing the affected person from the building associated with non-specific symptoms. BRI, on the other hand, utilizes treatment appropriate for the contaminant identified within the building (e.g., antibiotics for Legionnaire's disease). In most cases, simply improving the indoor air quality (IAQ) of a particular building will attenuate, or even eliminate, the acute symptoms of SBS, while removal of the source contaminant would prove more effective for a specific illness, as in the case of BRI.[26] Building-Related Illness is vital to the overall understanding of Sick Building Syndrome because BRI illustrates a causal path to infection, theoretically. Office BRI may more likely than not be explained by three events: “Wide range in the threshold of response in any population (susceptibility), a spectrum of response to any given agent, or variability in exposure within large office buildings."[27] Isolating any one of the three aspects of office BRI can be a great challenge, which is why those who find themselves with BRI should take three steps, history, examinations, and interventions. History describes the action of continually monitoring and recording the health of workers experiencing BRI, as well as obtaining records of previous building alterations or related activity. Examinations go hand in hand with monitoring employee health. This step is done by physically examining the entire workspace and evaluating possible threats to health status among employees. Interventions follow accordingly based off the results of the Examination and History report.[27]
Prevention [ edit ]
Toxin-absorbing plants, such as sansevieria. [28] [29] [30] [31] [32] [33] [34]
Roof shingle non-pressure cleaning for removal of algae, mold, and Gloeocapsa magma .
. Using ozone to eliminate the many sources, such as VOC, molds, mildews, bacteria, viruses, and even odors. However, numerous studies identify High-ozone shock treatment as ineffective despite commercial popularity and popular belief.
Replacement of water-stained ceiling tiles and carpeting.
Only using paints, adhesives, solvents, and pesticides in well-ventilated areas or only using these pollutant sources during periods of non-occupancy.
Increasing the number of air exchanges; the American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air-Conditioning Engineers recommend a minimum of 8.4 air exchanges per 24-hour period.
Proper and frequent maintenance of HVAC systems.
UV-C light in the HVAC plenum.
Installation of HVAC Air Cleaning systems or devices to remove VOC's, bioeffluents (people odors) from HVAC systems conditioned air.
Regular vacuuming with a HEPA filter vacuum cleaner to collect and retain 99.97% of particles down to and including 0.3 micrometers.
Place bedding in sunshine, which is related to a study done in a high-humidity area where damp bedding was common and associated with SBS. [13]
Increased ventilation rates that are above the minimum guidelines. [24]
Lighting in the workplace should be designed to give individuals control, and be natural when possible.[35]
Epidemiology [ edit ]
Some studies have shown a small difference between genders, with women having slightly higher reports of SBS symptoms compared to men.[13] However, many other studies have shown an even higher difference in the report of sick building syndrome symptoms in women compared to men.[8] It is not entirely clear, however, if this is due to biological, social, or occupational factors.
A 2001 study published in the Journal Indoor Air 2001 gathered 1464 office-working participants to increase the scientific understanding of gender differences under the Sick Building Syndrome phenomenon.[36] Using questionnaires, ergonomic investigations, building evaluations, as well as physical, biological, and chemical variables, the investigators obtained results that compare with past studies of SBS and gender. The study team found that across most test variables, prevalence rates were different in most areas, but there was also a deep stratification of working conditions between genders as well. For example, men’s workplace tend to be significantly larger and have all around better job characteristics. Secondly, there was a noticeable difference in reporting rates, finding that women have higher rates of reporting roughly 20% higher than men. This information was similar to that found in previous studies, indicating a potential difference in willingness to report.[36]
There might be a gender difference in reporting rates of sick building syndrome because women tend to report more symptoms than men do. Along with this, some studies have found that women have a more responsive immune system and are more prone to mucosal dryness and facial erythema. Also, women are alleged by some to be more exposed to indoor environmental factors because they have a greater tendency to have clerical jobs, wherein they are exposed to unique office equipment and materials (example: blueprint machines), whereas men often have jobs based outside of offices.[37]
History [ edit ]
In the late 1970s, it was noted that nonspecific symptoms were reported by tenants in newly constructed homes, offices, and nurseries. In media it was called "office illness". The term "Sick Building Syndrome" was coined by the WHO in 1986, when they also estimated that 10-30% of newly built office buildings in the West had indoor air problems. Early Danish and British studies reported symptoms.
Poor indoor environments attracted attention. The Swedish allergy study (SOU 1989:76) designated "sick building" as a cause of the allergy epidemic as was feared. In the 1990s, therefore, extensive research into "sick building" was carried out. Various physical and chemical factors in the buildings were examined on a broad front.
The problem was highlighted increasingly in media and was described as a "ticking time bomb". Many studies were performed in individual buildings.
In the 1990s "sick buildings" were contrasted against "healthy buildings". The chemical contents of building materials were highlighted. Many building material manufacturers were actively working to gain control of the chemical content and to replace criticized additives. The ventilation industry advocated above all more well-functioning ventilation. Others perceived ecological construction, natural materials, and simple techniques as a solution.
At the end of the 1990s came an increased distrust of the concept of "sick building". A dissertation at the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm 1999 questioned the methodology of previous research, and a Danish study from 2005 showed these flaws experimentally. It was suggested that sick building syndrome was not really a coherent syndrome and was not a disease to be individually diagnosed. In 2006 the Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare recommended in the medical journal Läkartidningen that "sick building syndrome" should not be used as a clinical diagnosis. Thereafter, it has become increasingly less common to use terms such as "sick buildings" and "sick building syndrome" in research. However, the concept remains alive in popular culture and is used to designate the set of symptoms related to poor home or work environment engineering. "Sick building" is therefore an expression used especially in the context of workplace health.
Sick building syndrome made a rapid journey from media to courtroom where professional engineers and architects became named defendants and were represented by their respective professional practice insurers. Proceedings invariably relied on expert witnesses, medical and technical experts along with building managers, contractors and manufacturers of finishes and furnishings, testifying as to cause and effect. Most of these actions resulted in sealed settlement agreements, none of these being dramatic. The insurers needed a defense based upon Standards of Professional Practice to meet a court decision that declared—that in a modern, essentially sealed building, the HVAC systems must produce breathing air for suitable human consumption. ASHRAE (American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Engineers, currently with over 50,000 international members) undertook the task of codifying its IAQ (Indoor Air Quality) standard.
ASHRAE empirical research determined that "acceptability" was a function of outdoor (fresh air) ventilation rate and used carbon dioxide as an accurate measurement of occupant presence and activity. Building odors and contaminants would be suitably controlled by this dilution methodology. ASHRAE codified a level of 1,000 ppm of carbon dioxide and specified the use of widely available sense-and-control equipment to assure compliance. The 1989 issue of ASHRAE 62.1-1989 published the whys and wherefores and overrode the 1981 requirements that were aimed at a ventilation level of 5,000 ppm of carbon dioxide, (the OAHA workplace limit), federally set to minimize HVAC system energy consumption. This apparently ended the SBS epidemic.
Over time, building materials changed with respect to emissions potential. Smoking vanished and dramatic improvements in ambient air quality, coupled with code compliant ventilation and maintenance, per ASHRAE standards have all contributed to the acceptability of the indoor air environment. Only time and the courts will tell how right, or wrong ASHRAE is.[38][39]
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
Further reading [ edit ] |
MARTIN BASHIR: Last Friday, on this broadcast, I made some comments which were deeply offensive and directed at Governor Sarah Palin. I wanted to take this opportunity to say sorry to Mrs. Palin and to also offer an unreserved apology to her friends and family, her supporters, our viewers, and anyone who may have heard what I said.
My words were wholly unacceptable. They were neither accurate, nor fair. They were unworthy of anyone who would claim to have an interest in politics, and they have brought shame upon my friends and colleagues at this network, none of whom were responsible for the things that I said. And at a place where we try every day to elevate political discourse and to focus on issues that matter to all of us.
In the battle of ideas, America leads the world in whole-hearted discussions and disagreements and these arguments can be heard on a daily basis. But what I did on Friday had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with that great tradition and I am deeply sorry.
Upon reflection, I so wish that I had been more thoughtful, more considerate, more compassionate, but I was not and what I said is now a matter of public record. But if I could add something to the public record, it would be this: that I deeply regret what I said, and that I have learned a sober lesson in these last few days. That the politics of vitriol and destruction is a miserable place to be, and a miserable person to become. And I promise that I will take the opportunity to learn from this experience.
My hope is that it will renew in me a spirit of humility and humanity, that looks for the good and that builds upon the great things that this country has to offer to all of us, regardless of our political persuasion. This will be my guiding light and compass in the days ahead. But once again, I am truly sorry for what I said on Friday. |
Tafsir Butt, the 52-year-old cyclist killed in a collision at Vauxhall Gyratory earlier this month was “always a safe cyclist” who had only used London’s “nastiest” junction once before and had come off his bike and been injured then, according to his brother.
Tauqir Butt, 55, told the Evening Standard’s David Churchill that his brother had crashed six months ago when he first used the junction, described by the London mayor’s cycling commissioner Andrew Gilligan as “genuinely dangerous”.
When he was killed, Tafsir Butt was cycling home to Battersea from an overnight shift at his job as a security guard in a building near Cannon Street.
His brother said: “He came off there about six months ago when he first used it as a short cut.
“He went to hospital and luckily he escaped with just bruising, but we pleaded with him ‘please don’t use that junction again’ because it is so dangerous.
“But that morning he did for some reason and it’s cost him his life. It was only the second time he’d used it that we know of.”
Tauqir Butt described Tafsir as a “generous, friendly man and a loving brother” who “ was loved and respected by his work colleagues.” He was due to get married in two months.
He added: “It just doesn’t seem right that cyclists are allowed to cycle there but that there isn't better conditions for them because it’s so busy. The tunnel needs to be lit up more so drivers can see better and there’s not enough room for cyclists. It needs to be sorted out. He was always such a safe cyclist who always stuck to the left-hand side of the road.”
Tafsir Butt died after a collision with a tipper truck on Parry Street, Vauxhall Gyratory at about 7am on June 2. He was on a section where four lanes of traffic meet when he was hit.
Paramedics attempted to save him but he died at the scene, the sixth cyclist to lose his life on London’s streets so far this year. The driver of the tipper truck stopped at the scene and no arrests have been made.
After Tafsir Butt’s death, Andrew Gilligan, the London mayor's cycling commissioner, told the BBC that the junction at Vauxhall "is genuinely dangerous, and is unavoidable for thousands and thousands of cyclists".
He added it was "the one I hate the most".
The junction is due to be converted to two-way traffic and include a 0.9-mile (1.4km) two-way segregated cycle track running from the Oval through Vauxhall and over Vauxhall Bridge to Pimlico.
Work is scheduled to start in Autumn following a public consultation.
But following the death of Tafsir Butt, the London Cycling Campaign (LCC) called on London mayor Boris Johnson and Transport for London to fast-track the rebuilding of the junction.
Ashok Sinha, chief executive of LCC, said: "Until Vauxhall junction is redesigned, then cyclists will continue to risk death and serious injury when cycling through this location, where they're forced to jockey for position with fast cars and heavy goods vehicles weaving across several lanes of traffic." |
As we've noted before , sometimes the media concocts a story out of pixie dust and hobbit tears seemingly just for laughs. But how frequently does a serious news organization get a story wrong? Surprisingly often, it turns out. Here are some recent news items you might have seen that were actually pulled from someone's ass.
When a site with "WordPress" in its address tells you that the Catholic church just announced that following the pope on Twitter will keep you out of hell, you laugh, dub it bullshit, and close your browser. But when a major news site with millions of readers does it -- and it happened this past July -- you begin wondering if the Vatican is going to start issuing papal bulls consisting solely of photos of Grumpy Cat.
4 Sorry, Bryan Cranston Is Probably Not Going to Be Lex Luthor Sorry, Bryan Cranston Is Probably Not Going to Be Lex Luthor
Last week, every single goddamn major entertainment news site reported that Bryan Cranston had been cast as Lex Luthor for the next Superman movie -- how awesome is that? Someone made a fan trailer to demonstrate exactly how awesome, and it currently has 2 million views.
Kevin Winter/Getty Images Entertainment/Getty Images
We'd urge you to watch it, but Bryan Cranston hates witnesses.
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And while we'd be very happy for Cranston if this happened (what's the poor guy been up to since Seinfeld, anyway?), sadly it looks like this is complete bullshit. The report actually came from a single story by the site Cosmic Book News, which incidentally also said Matt Damon would be Aquaman. Conveniently, Rolling Stone and those other sites left out that last part, since it would have set off your bullshit meter.
Something similar happened recently when everyone reported that Christian Bale had been offered $50 million to come back as Batman ... a claim that literally comes from an eBook, which said Bale "could probably make $50 million" for donning the cowl again. Hey, how did that work out? Let's ask this guy: |
A memorial produced by College Republicans at Occidental College — Barack Obama’s alma mater — to pay tribute to the lives lost in the 9/11 terrorist attacks was vandalised on Saturday night, with the vandals also putting up posters attempting to shame the victims of the tragedy.
The memorial was at Occidental College, a Liberal Arts school in Los Angeles, and was an arrangement of 2,997 American flags, one for each of the lives lost in the attack.
However, the group revealed on Saturday that the memorial had been destroyed, as they discovered “vandals crushed, snapped, and threw in the garbage every single flag.”
“Today is meant to be a day of respect and remembrance for all the victims and heroes of 9/11. Last night, our club sponsored a memorial for the 2,997 who died exactly 15 years ago,” they said. “Students of all backgrounds came out and planted 2,997 American flags in our quad here at Occidental.”
By the time the vandals were finished, “not one flag was left in the ground,” the group said.
The protestors also “put up posters and flyers up that shamed the victims of 9/11,” and came back for a second round of vandalism after the group rebuilt the memorial.
Members of the Republican group had stood by the flags until the early hours of the morning, but woke up the next day to find that the vandals had returned to remove a further 50 flags.
“When we confronted them, those cowards got away as fast as they possibly could,” the group added.
You can follow Ben Kew on Facebook, on Twitter at @ben_kew, or email him at [email protected] |
Image copyright PA Image caption Eric Joyce denied two counts of common assault
Former Falkirk MP Eric Joyce has been found guilty of assaulting two teenage boys in an "unjustified and unprovoked" attack in a shop.
The 54-year-old was convicted of two counts of common assault against the boys, aged 14 and 15, in a food store in north London, in October 2014.
One boy had been trying to pass Joyce in a narrow aisle and after an exchange of words was knocked to the floor.
Joyce will be sentenced at Westminster Magistrates' Court on 27 May.
The former Labour MP had claimed he was performing a "citizen's arrest" at News & Food Express in Chalk Farm and asked the shopkeeper to call police.
Elbowed and winded
The attack happened close to the drinks fridge at about 21:40 BST on 17 October and was filmed on the store's CCTV.
Joyce "flung" the 14-year-old boy to the floor and held him down by the throat, the court heard.
"He started shouting in my face. I remember begging him to leave me alone," the boy said.
His 15-year-old friend was elbowed and winded while trying to help and both boys then fled the shop, the court was told.
Image copyright Google Image caption Joyce, a former army major, said he felt threatened by the teenagers
Shopkeeper Ali Fahan said: "I told the man to let him go because he was crying."
Giving evidence, Joyce insisted he had overcome his battle with alcohol after a string of previous convictions.
The court heard that he assaulted politicians in the House of Commons bar in 2012, which led to his resignation from the Labour Party.
He said: "I have a background as a judo player. I was conscious I didn't want to over-act."
The former army major told the court he felt threatened when the boys walked by because one was shouting and swearing and had taken an "aggressive" stance.
Joyce said he put his hand out to stop the teenager knocking over a supermarket shelf but it fell anyway.
Delivering his verdict, District Judge John Zani said: "In my view, you underplayed the violence you meted out to these young men and wanted the police called so as to justify your actions.
"You readily told police, incorrectly, that [one boy] head-butted you for no reason."
He said all sentencing options including imprisonment would be considered.
Joyce is not standing in the general election and has been released on conditional bail until sentencing. |
A little less than a month after air testing at Burncoat High School revealed levels of polychlorinated biphenyls well below EPA levels of concerns for children adults, results for the same test at Doherty High School have revealed the same.
According to a press release from Worcester Public Schools Thursday, May 11, most of the 10 samples collected in an April 24 test by environmental consultant O'Reilly, Talbot and Okun were less than the detection limit of 10 nanograms per cubic meter. The highest reading, 156 nanograms, was still well under the EPA's target PCB goal of less than 500 nanograms.
�In our opinion these results are consistent with PCB air concentrations that are well below EPA�s recommended levels for PCBs in schools and thus they would not be expected to pose a health risk to students or staff,� James Okun wrote.
The PCB reading of 156 nanograms came from the Doherty auditorium. The next highest, 102, was in the main office.
At Burncoat, which was tested April 3, the highest PCB reading was 78.1 nanograms per cubic meter.
The testing was done amid concerns about the level of PCBs, labeled by the EPA as a probable carcinogen, in Burncoat and Doherty. The teachers union fought for, and ultimately won, the right to conduct independent testing (a judge rejected a School Committee appeal), but has not yet done so.
The school department and Mayor Joe Petty have touted a comprehensive plan to clean the schools, including adopting the EPA's best management practices in 2012, when caulking was encapsulated and other steps were taking to remove PCBs. Since December last year, the district has implemented accelerated cleaning and ventilation maintenance at both Burncoat and Doherty. The two schools are ultimately targeted for replacement.
�We're pleased with what the results are,� Brian Allen, chief financial officer for Worcester Public Schools, said of the Doherty testing. �Whether it was the result of best management practice, we're certainly pleased the results were well below the EPA level of concern.�
Allen noted the School Committee adopted Petty's management plan at its last meeting, and said annual air sampling would be done at Burncoat and Doherty.
The results, Allen said, have been shared with the EPA and with the Education Association of Worcester.
Walter Bird Jr. is editor of Worcester Magazine. He may be reached for comments and story tips at 508-749-3166, ext. 322, or by email at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @walterbirdjr and find him on Facebook under walterbirdjr. You can also watch Walter as a panelist on �Rosen's Roundtable� every week on Charter TV 194. |
RESEARCHERS IN DUBLIN have achieved a breakthrough in the production of ‘wonder material’ graphene.
Scientists at the AMBER, a materials science centre at Trinity College Dublin and funded by Science Foundation Ireland, have discovered a way to produce the material in industrial quantities.
The substance is one the strongest known with a section 1mm thick being 200 times stronger than steel and a superconductor of electricity more than 1000 times more effective than copper.
It’s also 97.3 per cent transparent and extremely bendable.
However, it is extremely difficult to produce.
These single-atom thick sheets of carbon made from graphite could potentially revolutionise many parts of our lives, from providing the next step in battery technology, biomedical sensors, water filtration, to even photovoltaic cells used in solar panels
Their findings are to be published in the Nature Materials publication, heralded as a ‘global breakthrough’.
“This shows how industry and academic collaboration can lead to research of the highest calibre, with real commercial applications,” Prof Jonathan Coleman from AMBER said.
Graphene has been identified as a life changing material and to be involved at this stage of development is a wonderful achievement
Minister for Research and Innovation Sean Sherlock praised the team’s work, saying producing graphene in mass quantities is “something that USA, China, Australia, UK, Germany and other leading nations have all been striving for and have not yet achieved”.
Thomas Swan Ltd have now signed a contract with AMBER to scale-up production.
The project was part of the Graphene Flagship, spanning 17 countries with 126 academics as well as industry partners working on a common goal, and was part of the €1 billion research project announced by the EU, of which Ireland received 1 per cent.
Additional reporting by Press Association. |
A Call for Consensus
Bitcoin Roundtable Blocked Unblock Follow Following Feb 10, 2016
Over the past few months there has been significant attention within the bitcoin ecosystem and beyond on what is commonly referred to as the “block size issue” — the size and scale of bitcoin blocks. There is a pressing need for an inclusive roadmap that takes into account the needs of businesses and all stakeholders.
As a community of bitcoin businesses, exchanges, wallets, miners, and mining pools, we have come together to chart an effective path to resolve this challenge and agreed on five positions we hope will guide the larger community as we move forward together.
The following are five key points that we have all agreed on.
We see the need for a modest block size increase in order to move the Bitcoin project forward, but we would like to do it with minimal risk, taking the safest and most balanced route possible. SegWit is almost ready and we support its deployment as a step in scaling. We think any contentious hard-fork contains additional risks and potentially may result in two incompatible blockchain versions, if improperly implemented. To avoid potential losses for all bitcoin users, we need to minimize the risks. It is our firm belief that a contentious hard-fork right now would be extremely detrimental to the bitcoin ecosystem. In the next 3 weeks, we need the Bitcoin Core developers to work with us and clarify the roadmap with respect to a future hard-fork which includes an increase of the block size. Currently we are in discussions to determine the next best steps. We are as a matter of principle against unduly rushed or controversial hard-forks irrespective of the team proposing and we will not run such code on production systems nor mine any block from that hard-fork. We urge everyone to act rationally and hold off on making any decision to run a contentious hard-fork (Classic/XT or any other). We must ensure that future changes to code relating to consensus rules are done in a safe and balanced way. We also believe that hard-forks should only be activated if they have widespread consensus and long enough deployment timelines. The deployment of hard-forks without widespread consensus is dangerous and has the potential to cause trust and monetary losses. We strongly encourage all bitcoin contributors to come together and resolve their differences to collaborate on the scaling roadmap. Divisions in the bitcoin community can only be mended if the developers and contributors can take the first step and cooperate with each other.
Our shared goal is the success of bitcoin. Bitcoin is strong and transformational. By working together, we will ensure that its future is bright.
Together, we are:
Phil Potter
Chief Strategy Officer
Bitfinex
Valery Vavilov
CEO
BitFury
Alex Petrov
CIO
BitFury
James Hilliard
Pool/Farm Admin
BitmainWarranty
Yoshi Goto
CEO
BitmainWarranty
Alex Shultz
CEO
BIT-X Exchange
Bobby Lee
CEO
BTCC
Samson Mow
COO
BTCC
Robin Yao
CTO
BTCT & BW
Ronny Boesing
CEO
CCEDK ApS
Obi Nwosu
Managing Director
Coinfloor
Mark Lamb
Founder
Coinfloor
Wang Chun
Admin
F2Pool
Marco Streng
CEO
Genesis Mining
Marco Krohn
CFO
Genesis Mining
Oleksandr Lutskevych
CEO
GHash.IO & CEX.IO
Lawrence Nahum
CEO
GreenAddress
Eric Larchevêque
CEO
Ledger
Jack Liao
CEO
LIGHTNINGASIC & BitExchange
Charlie Lee
Creator
Litecoin
Guy Corem
CEO
Spondoolies-Tech
Davide Barbieri
CTO
TheRockTrading
Michael Cao
CEO
Zoomhash
如果你想要读中文版，请点击这里。 |
A woman who, along with three friends, was sprayed at with acid while on holiday in Marseille, has posted a message of forgiveness on Facebook for her attacker.
Courtney Siverling was targeted by “psychologically disturbed” attacker in Marseille’s main railway station yesterday in an attack which left two of her friends with facial burns.
Although she was uninjured, she was treated for shock.
The young woman wrote on Facebook: "Thank you so much to everyone who has reached out to see if I'm ok and/or has been praying for us. I did not receive any injuries from the attack in Marseille this morning and we are all safe. The French police and the U.S. Consulate have been wonderful and we are so thankful for that.
"I pray that the attacker would be healed from her mental illness in the name of Jesus and receive the forgiveness and salvation that can only come from Him.
"'This I declare about the Lord: He alone is my refuge, my place of safety; he is my God, and I trust him.' Psalm 91:2".
Michelle Krug, who was also targeted in the attack, asked for her Facebook friends to pray for the attacker. |
Asajj Ventress and Quinlan Vos strike back!
StarWars.com is thrilled to reveal the cover art for the upcoming novel Star Wars: Dark Disciple by Christie Golden! Based on a series of scripts originally written for the unaired seventh season of Star Wars: The Clone Wars and starring ex-Sith bounty hunter, Asajj Ventress, and the unorthodox Jedi Quinlan Vos, this new Star Wars tale of love and loss, betrayal and redemption is being produced in creative collaboration with the Lucasfilm Story Group and Dave Filoni, supervising director of The Clone Wars and executive producer of Star Wars Rebels. Star Wars: Dark Disciple hits the shelves on July 7, 2015.
Originally announced at San Diego Comic-Con 2014 to much excitement, the book is canonical within the Star Wars universe, and continues the story of two fan-favorite characters. Check out the full cover, a striking work by artist Matt Taylor, below!
StarWars.com. All Star Wars, all the time. |
Traveling is a lot of fun but can be expensive as well. To find out exactly how much we spent during our round the world trip we painstakingly keep track of all of our travel expenses and analyse them for you. In this post: our travel expenses in Thailand.
In September 2015 we spent 25 days in Thailand, arriving in Bangkok and traveling south through Hua Hin to Koh Tao and Koh Phangan. In total we spent $3,065.99 (€2,681.77), which corresponds with $61.32 (€53.64) per person per day. This includes every expense while in the country: accommodation, food, activities, transportation, … but doesn’t include the flights to and from Thailand.
As backpackers mainly staying in hostels and guest houses this might seem a bit expensive, so let’s take a look at the breakdown in those different categories:
Average Spending Per Person Per Day
Activities was our main expense in Thailand at a whopping $27.13 per person per day and can almost entirely be ascribed to our stay on Koh Tao where we learned how to dive. Together we spent nearly $1,150 on diving courses and diving gear. If we had opted for relaxing on the beach instead our daily spending would have been considerably lower at $38.44 (€33.63). Not that we regret anything, diving is awesome!
Accommodation came in at an average of $9.55 per day which can probably be brought down even more if you’re staying in dorm rooms. We slept in private rooms for all of our nights and had a private bathroom as well in most of them. Do note that we spent 19 of our 25 nights in fan rooms, so if you need airconditioning you’ll have to increase your budget.
The second largest piece of our pie was Food & Drinks at an average of $16.51 per day, so let’s take a look at a breakdown of that one as well:
Average Spending PPPD for Food & Drinks
Drinks are separated into two categories, depending on wether or not it contained alcohol, and food is grouped by type and place. If we ate somewhere were we could sit down and order different things we grouped it under Restaurant. Food from street vendors can be found in the Food Stand category and Snacks are mostly chips, cookies and candy we bought in a store.
We tried a few street vendors during our stay in Thailand, but most of the time we choose for the comfort of a restaurant, so there’s probably some money to save there. Alcohol also takes up a large part of our daily spending even though we didn’t really drink that much. Beer, cocktails and (especially) wine are relatively expensive in Thailand and in some places you’re basically paying the entrance fee through your drinks, like at the Sky Bar in Bangkok and Queen’s Cabaret Show in Koh Tao.
One final chart to look at is the average spending by location:
Average Spending PPPD by Location
You’d expect Bangkok to be the most expensive and you would be right if it weren’t for our diving on Koh Tao. Hua Hin would have been less expensive if we didn’t visit the Vana Nava Water Park and Koh Phangan might have been the cheapest if we skipped the Full Moon Party.
All in all, visiting Thailand is quite cheap and it’s very possible to do it for less than $40 a day while enjoying the beaches, eating out every single day and visiting all the main attractions.
One final note: you need cash in Thailand, your Credit Card won’t get you very far. That means withdrawing money from ATMs (that luckily are quite widespread). All the ATMs we tried incurred a fixed ฿180 fee ($5.21) so it makes sense to withdraw as much as you feel comfortable with or even better: find a bank that refunds you those fees.
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Originally Posted by EShadowbringer Originally Posted by
If you are talking about the player posted poll... that is hardly qualified to encompass ddo in a way to be considered "most" of anything. I, for one, am 100% against them being combined! I think SSG is doing an outstanding job so far and the last thing they need to do is give away an easy button to double dip heroic reincarnations. and I am confident they won't!
I am more excited about u35 than i ever remember being about an update. I get to RR my characters into my favorite classes for months and months to come. I cannot express how much of a good idea this is and hope that whoever pushed this forward reads this so i can say...
Thank you SSG team /thumbs up |
With logging activity set to resume in the Castle Wilderness Area in southwest Alberta for the first time in several years, the province's NDP government acted on one of its campaign promises and announced a complete stop to all commercial forestry activity.
Feels good to change the government, doesn't it. - Environment Minister Shannon Phillips
The provincial government is also putting a stop to all new oil, gas and mining activity in the area.
"It was a platform commitment," said Environment Minister Shannon Phillips at the announcement in Blairmore.
"We take that as our guide. We take those commitments that we made to Albertans very seriously."
Phillips says the NDP has wanted to protect the area for many years while it was an opposition party.
"Feels good to change the government doesn't it," she said to a loud cheer from those attending the announcement.
The governing NDP says it's made good on an election promise to protect the Castle Wilderness area in southwest Alberta. 1:01
Spray Lakes Sawmills exploring options
Logging company Spray Lakes Sawmills is disappointed by the decision.
In the coming months, Spray Lakes was set to cut down about 99,000 cubic metres of logs in Castle, which the government said is the equivalent of the wood used to construct 1,900 single family detached homes with roughly 1,700 square foot of space.
"We believe that what we're doing in terms of our operations.... We can do those and still protect the environment at the same time, and yet provide jobs and opportunities," said Ed Kulcsar, woodlands manager for Spray Lake Sawmills.
He says the company is looking over its options during the 30-day consultation.
Entrance to a logging site in the Castle Wilderness Area (Kyle Bakx/CBC)
"Our hope is that we'll be working with the government," said Kulcsar.
Phillips described Spray Lakes as a responsible company that will continue to be a good partner for the government. As for whether the province will compensate the mill for ending the contract, Phillips says that at this time that's not necessary.
"I've been around this issue for a long time," said Phillips. "I took this issue to heart with respect to standing up for economic development in southwest Alberta, making sure we get it right with sustainability and also with respect to our water supply."
But the opposition Wildrose Party says today's decision chips away the rights of property and business owners.
The province says there will be "a prohibition on surface rights access for any new petroleum and natural gas leases." In addition there will be "no new tenure will be sold for extracting metallic, mineral, coal or surface resources."
Existing leases and tenures will be respected, as well as existing grazing permits.
"With the NDP ending new natural resources industries in the Castle [area, the] Wildrose can only hope the development of the tourism industry can offset the economic impact of these decisions," said Livingstone-Macleod MLA Pat Stier, who has the Castle area within his riding, in a release.
Conservationists rejoice
The area, near Pincher Creek, will be protected with two designations — an expanded "wildland provincial park" and a new provincial park.
The Castle Wilderness Area is an important habitat for grizzly bears. (Alberta Environment and Parks)
The new protections come after a dispute lasting years over whether the area should be logged or not.
"It's something so many of us have worked so hard on for so long," said Gordon Peterson, an area resident and member of with the Castle Crown Wilderness Association.
A wildland park offers additional protections when compared to a provincial park, and are "specifically established to preserve and protect natural heritage and provide opportunities for backcountry recreation," according to Alberta Parks.
The area covers nearly 104,000 environmentally diverse hectares and is a major wildlife corridor for many animals, include grizzlies.
"It's good news for all of Alberta. It's good news for the wildlife that live in that area," said Sean Nichols with the Alberta Wilderness Association. "It's good news for biodiversity across the province. It's good news for everyone who uses the Old Man and South Saskatchewan River."
It is also culturally significant to First Nations, and is part of what is known as the Crown of the Continent where Alberta, B.C. and Montana meet. |
Friends of a Washington state man accused of threatening a shooting rampage at his former high school have been arrested on charges of intimidating witnesses who brought the alleged plot to the attention of police, officials said on Wednesday.
Matthew Smiley, 18, was charged on Monday with felony harassment and ordered held on $2 million bail for making multiple threats to “shoot up” his former high school in Kingston, on the Kitsap Peninsula, west of Seattle, court officials said.
“Witnesses also reported the young man had access to firearms and had displayed these weapons as a point of emphasis,” the Kitsap County Sheriff’s Office said.
Firearms were discovered in Smiley’s car, officials said.
On Tuesday, authorities arrested four of Smiley’s friends -three juveniles and a 19-year-old transient – on charges of making violent threats over social media to student witnesses who had reported Smiley to the police.
All four were awaiting arraignment on a single count of witness intimidation, a court official said on Wednesday.
The student witnesses said Smiley was angry about his expulsion last year and had said he was going to stage a shooting rampage at the building on Sept. 11.
Smiley was charged with felony harassment and unlawful possession of a firearm. His attorney could not immediately be contacted.
(Reporting by Victoria Cavaliere; Editing by Eric Beech)
[‘Gun in school’ on Shutterstock] |
Thirty years ago, few people could have imagined that downtown San Jose would be taking off like it is today. In the last year, 659 new units of housing came on the market and more than 1,900 are under construction. Over 5,000 more are approved or proposed. With almost two million square feet of commercial office space in the pipeline, even downtown’s commercial market is waking up. The two maps below show the dramatic uptick in development activity in just the last two years.
Downtown Development Activities as of February 2014
Generally, San Jose’s housing market has been much stronger than the commercial market. However, today developers are proposing almost two million square feet of new office space in downtown. It’s the first time in many years that downtown has attracted substantial commercial investment.
Downtown Development Activities as of February 2016
What’s more, new buildings are coming in at high densities. Two-thirds of proposed developments are over 100 dwelling units per acre, and a large number of those are over 300 dwelling units per acre. New buildings are also connecting more effectively with streets, public spaces and each other than they have in the past. It takes considerable effort to create urban buildings with ground floors that are generous, active and welcoming — and newly completed buildings have done a good job of it. For example, One South Market puts the pedestrian entrance on a main street and provides a clearly defined and transparent streetwall, wide sidewalks and tall ground floor heights. Building better places at the human scale leads to more interesting and active sidewalks for people, which brings more restaurants and businesses — it’s a virtuous cycle.
Is this a turning point?
While it has long had the South Bay’s largest concentration of social, cultural and entertainment activities, downtown San Jose finally seems to be benefitting from the growing trend toward working and living in urban centers. This is what a generation of city leaders has been working toward, and the excitement is both palpable and well deserved. But it’s also fragile.
The nature of booms is cyclical. There’s a chance that some of the proposed projects will not get built. The city’s successful high-rise incentive program, which cuts construction taxes in half, expires at the end of this summer. This could increase development costs. Meanwhile, the price of land is rising: This year, the sale of the development site across from City Hall broke records at $207 per square foot. If costs climb too high, development may become too risky. In addition, there are some signs that the Bay Area’s red-hot economy is starting to cool off, which could slow downtown’s transformation.
Downtown’s zoning permits both commercial and residential development. This makes downtown one of the few places in the city where residential development can occur at any time. The Downtown Core zoning is permissive not only as to use but also regarding the intensity of development. There are no minimum density requirements and it has a maximum floor-area-ratio of 30. On one hand, this brings lots of new housing, people and energy to downtown. But the city has recently increased the number of jobs it’s planning for in downtown from 48,500 to 58,500, and it plans to increase the number of housing units from 10,360 to 14,360. Will there be enough room for all of them?
Assuming that every employee needs about 200 square feet of space, we calculate that downtown will need 11.7 million square feet of new commercial development to accommodate 58,500 jobs. In our maps above, and in our report The Future of Downtown San Jose, we speculated that there would not be enough room — even for 48,500 jobs. However, we are only counting vacant lots and surface parking lots. While new research shows that downtown has only 5 acres of vacant commercial land left, there are also dozens of underutilized sites that could be redeveloped for jobs — if the market is willing to do so.
How can San Jose get the downtown it hopes for?
So far San Jose’s strategy has focused on creating attractive conditions for investors — and it’s worked. But while the market is still hot, now is a good time to consider some changes that will make it possible for the city to achieve its goals for downtown in the long run.
It’s great that developers have proposed 2 million square feet of new commercial space, but the city still wants to accommodate 9.7 million more. To get both lots of jobs and lots of housing into downtown’s small footprint, it will be essential to maximize every site that gets built.
To maximize each site, the city could eliminate minimum requirements for parking spaces and let the market drive the parking supply. However, the median parking ratio per unit is 1.26 for developments that are currently under construction — actually higher than the 1 per unit that the city requires for multifamily housing in downtown. It might be a good time to start exploring how to manage parking on a district scale, or even think about setting parking maximums. Otherwise, developers may continue to build to today’s market expectations and lock in today’s development patterns and travel behaviors — something that could undercut the major transit investments coming to downtown, such as BART and high-speed rail. Successful adoption of the county transportation sales tax in November could provide a level of certainty to developers and employers that downtown will have excellent transit, allowing them to confidently lower parking supply.
At the same time, it is important to make sure that each development adds up to a great urban place. Codified urban design rules give the market confidence that such a place will emerge. While recent buildings have demonstrated better urban design, there is no certainty that every building will support the active, walkable downtown that San Jose hopes to achieve. Where design policies exist, they are guidelines, not codes, which means they are aspirational and largely unenforceable. Clear, binding codes can produce a level of certainty about the length of the entitlement process and help build investor confidence that others will follow suit to create great places.
Downtown San Jose is changing rapidly, and its success will lay the foundation for the rest of the city to become more urban and more connected to the rest of the Bay Area. Achieving this vision is far from assured and will require putting policies in place that support its transformation. |
Former RHONJ Star Danielle Staub’s Daughter Is All Grown Up! She Has Model Looks Just Like Her Big Sis!
Aw, it’s so nice to the Real Housewives offspring grow up!
Earlier this month, Danielle Staub shared a photo of her gorgeous 17-year-old daughter, Jillian Staub, ALL GROWN UP.
When Danielle first starred on RHONJ, Jill was just 11-years-old!!
[ Related: Danielle Weighs In On Teresa Giudice’s Heavy Legal Woes! ]
According to JS’ Twitter, she’s a happy high schooler with a boyfriend and a passion for cheerleading. Similarly to her older sister, Christine Staub, girl has some killer cheekbones!
Check out Jill celebrating her friend’s graduation (below)!
Some of my few seniors leaving me 😭❤️congrats and I love you all🎓🎉 pic.twitter.com/nAvHIQPWBA
— Jillian Staub (@_JillianStaub) June 9, 2015
Aww, she’s so cute!! It’s nice to see Danielle’s daughter doing well after all the drama their family went through while filming!
P.S. We feel so old now!!
[Image via Instagram.] |
“It is perfectly true, as the philosophers say, that life must be understood backwards. But they forget the other proposition: that it must be lived forwards.” This observation was made in 1843 by the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard in a journal entry, but it might have been written about the contemporary Middle East. We have been living the Islamic State forwards, surprised at every turn, but we can perhaps begin to understand it backwards. Although ISIS took most of the world by surprise when it swept into the Iraqi city of Mosul in June 2014, the group and its forebears had been proclaiming their goals for a decade. Like many consequential events, this one didn’t sneak up on policymakers; they simply didn’t see what was taking shape in front of them. ISIS told us exactly what it was going to do, and then did it. This was a secret conspiracy hiding in plain sight. Exploring the hard choices facing the United States and the world
Read More ISIS is mysterious in part because it is so many things at once. It combines Islamic piety and reverence for the prophet and his companions with the most modern social-media platforms and encryption schemes; its videos blend the raw pornographic violence of a snuff film with the pious chanting of religious warriors; the group has the discipline of a prison gang (many of its recruits were indeed drawn from U.S.-organized prisons in Iraq), but also the tactical subtlety and capacity for deception of the most skilled members of Saddam Hussein’s intelligence services, who were also pulled into the ISIS net. It appears less brittle than al-Qaeda because its members care less about religious doctrine and organizational hierarchy. As has been said of the Episcopal Church (forgive the comparison), ISIS is solid at the core but loose at the edges. What is ravaging the Middle East right now is obviously deeper than ISIS. It has become commonplace over the last year to observe that we are witnessing the collapse of the post-Ottoman order—that the “lines in the sand” conjured in 1916 by the British and French diplomats Mark Sykes and François Georges-Picot are being blown to dust. But we haven’t reckoned with how the insurgents perceive that process. ISIS has religious, psychological, and technological faces. But in some fundamental respects it is an anti-colonial movement that takes as its reference point Islam’s pre-colonial conception of power—an Islamic state, a Sunni caliphate. Even if ISIS is crushed, this idea of “our caliphate” is likely to persist, and return. Related Story The Syrian Civil War: What? The story of ISIS teaches the same basic lesson that emerged from America’s other failures in the Middle East over the last decade: Attempts by the United States or Islamist rebels to topple authoritarian regimes—in Iraq, Libya, and now Syria—create power vacuums. This empty political space will be filled by extremists unless the United States and its allies build strong local forces that can suppress terrorist groups and warlords both. When the U.S. creates such local forces, it must be persistent. If it withdraws from these efforts, as America did in Iraq in 2011, it invites mayhem. Halfway American intervention has produced nothing but trouble. Rebels have gotten enough support to continue fighting, but not enough to win. History teaches that such wars end through a combination of the exhaustion of local combatants and an agreement among major regional and international powers on a formula to curtail the fighting and rebuild some governance. Usually the settlement ratifies the informal cantonal boundaries that have emerged during the fighting, so that each sect has what amounts to a “safe zone” in a decentralized state that functions under the umbrella of the old nation. That’s what happened in Lebanon with the Taif Agreement in 1989, and it’s probably the best that can be hoped for in Iraq and Syria. To reduce human suffering on the way to such a new equilibrium, it’s important, where possible, to back moderate forces as they create the safe zones that will eventually form the pieces of the new federal state—and that provide platforms for attacking extremist groups. Middle Eastern wars rarely end with outright victory and permanent stability, so the word “settlement” may promise too much. At best, for many years, it may simply mean stable ceasefire lines, reduced bloodshed, fewer refugees, and less terrorism.
Ultimately, the errors of judgment that led to ISIS’s rise have been too consequential for any easy prescriptive advice. Instead, I share a comment made to me in June 2003, as this terrible story was beginning, by a Syrian businessman named Raja Sidawi. Here’s a passage from the Washington Post column that quoted my friend’s warning: “I am sorry for America,” Sidawi said. “You are stuck. You have become a country of the Middle East. America will never change Iraq, but Iraq will change America.” … This tragic sensibility—the sense that in most instances, things do not work out as you might have hoped—is generally lacking in the American character. Americans are an optimistic people: They have difficulty imagining the worst. That was why 9/11 was so shocking. Most Americans never considered that such devastation could be visited on them. Arabs grow up in a culture where it is always best to assume the worst. Sidawi rattled off the list of wars and disasters that have afflicted the Middle East almost continuously since he was born in 1939. That is the bloody history in which America has now enmeshed itself. “You will learn the culture of death,” warned Sidawi. And so we have. The Iraqi Roots of ISIS The Koranic message of submission and jihad is perhaps as powerful now for believers as it was in 622 A.D., when the Prophet Muhammad gathered his followers in Medina and began raiding neighboring areas. The historian Robert G. Hoyland described this ideological spark in his book In God’s Path: The Arab Conquests and the Creation of an Islamic Empire. It’s the same idea that is evoked in the nasheeds, or Islamic chants, that provide the soundtrack for many ISIS videos today: “What is most striking is the very simple but powerful program of action outlined by Muhammad: form a righteous community (umma), go to a safe place (hijra), and from there embark on jihad against the unrighteous,” noted Hoyland.
But religion alone cannot explain the growth of the first caliphate in the seventh century, any more than it can the rapid expansion of the current, self-proclaimed successor caliphate. The spark of jihad ignited and spread so quickly after Muhammad’s death in 632 in part because it fell on the dry tinder of a region enfeebled by imperial wars that had exhausted the Byzantine and Persian Empires. “You are stuck. You have become a country of the Middle East. America will never change Iraq, but Iraq will change America.” “The change was so sudden and unexpected that it needs explanation,” wrote Albert Hourani in his landmark study, A History of the Arab Peoples. He noted archeological evidence indicating that the prosperity of the eastern Mediterranean had been undermined by invasions and the loss of agricultural techniques such as terraced farming. It was a region ripe for plunder. “The Arabs who invaded the two empires were not a tribal horde but an organized force, some of whose members had acquired military skill and experience in the service of the empires or in the fighting after the death of the Prophet,” he wrote. (Reading Hourani’s words, I couldn’t help but think of the unlikely contemporary alliance between ISIS religious zealots and ex-Baathists who served in Saddam Hussein’s most secret and brutal units.) The story of how the forebears of ISIS got started in Iraq is largely the story of a rough-hewn, charismatic al-Qaeda recruit named Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Back in 2003, observed an anonymous former Western official recently in The New York Review of Books, who “could have imagined that a movement founded by a man [who once worked in] a video store in provincial Jordan would tear off a third of the territory of Syria and Iraq, shatter all these historical institutions and—defeating the combined armies of a dozen of the wealthiest countries on earth—create a mini-empire?”
Zarqawi made his name challenging the grandees of al-Qaeda: the wealthy Saudi businessman Osama bin Laden and the Egyptian doctor Ayman al-Zawahiri. Whereas al-Qaeda’s core leadership planned meticulous, top-down operations, Zarqawi strove instead to emulate the romantic, Crusader-conquering Nur al-Din Zengi, who drove Westerners from Syria. Convinced the Americans would invade Iraq, Zarqawi began building a base there in 2002; when they did so a year later, he proved willing to ally with remnants of Saddam’s intelligence network. The story is well told by William McCants in his excellent new book, The ISIS Apocalypse. Four months after the U.S. invasion, Zarqawi’s organization attacked three well-chosen targets—UN headquarters in Baghdad, the Jordanian embassy in Baghdad, and the Imam Ali Mosque, a Shiite shrine, in Najaf—that signaled the dirty war ahead. These bombs shattered the ground for reconciliation: Iraq would be a no-go zone for the international organizations that might have lightened the burden of U.S. occupation; Iraq’s links would be severed with its mainstream Sunni patron, Jordan; and Iraq would be cleaved apart by a vicious sectarian war between Sunni and Shiite Muslims, whose coexistence had been a feature of modern Iraqi life. Zarqawi’s game plan was set by late August 2003; at the time, the United States was still denying there was an insurgency in the country. My recollection of Iraq in late 2003 was of growing violence from Zarqawi’s Sunni insurgency, yes. But even more, I was struck by the desperation of Iraq’s Sunni sheikhs, who feared and in many cases despised the brutal Zarqawi, but couldn’t get tone-deaf U.S. officials in the international Green Zone to take their problems seriously.
Take Fallujah, a sprawling city just west of Baghdad and one of Zarqawi’s early recruiting grounds. Fallujah’s Sunni male residents all seemed to have served in the army or worked as smugglers (or both), and the tribal elders there wanted the United States to provide protection from Zarqawi and a deal that would give the Sunnis a share of the post-invasion spoils. But their pleas were largely ignored. When I visited Sheikh Khamis al-Hassnawi at his villa near the Euphrates River in September 2003, he spoke not only of procuring an American wife (he seemed to have formed his impressions of the U.S. from Baywatch), but also of the dire need for American aid and an ongoing American military presence in the country. “If coalition forces withdraw now, the strong will eat the weak, and people will start killing each other in the street,” he said. That proved an accurate forecast of what occurred from 2004 on, before U.S. forces embraced a “clear and hold” counterinsurgency policy for Iraq. For the social engineers in the Green Zone, the downtrodden Kurds and Shiites were the instruments for change in the New Iraq. If the Sunnis wouldn’t go along, too bad for them. In this period of growing insurgency and civil war, I remember one prominent U.S. National Security Council official telling me more than once that the answer for Iraq was the “80-percent solution”—in other words, Kurds and Shiites would build the new state regardless of opposition from the 20 percent of the population that was Sunni. This view was recklessness dressed up as realpolitik.
As Zarqawi’s toxic violence escalated, especially toward Shiites, bin Laden and his top deputies became concerned. Zawahiri warned Zarqawi to stop showing beheadings in the videos he posted online. McCants quotes Zawahiri’s admonition that these ultra-violent images might excite “zealous young men” but would appall ordinary Muslims. “We are in a media battle in a race for the hearts and minds of our community,” Zawahiri warned. The message was, in effect: Don’t burn too hot; you’ll burn yourself out. By 2009, the movement Zarqawi created was all but dead. But not quite. Embers of his Islamic state remained, kept alive by Sunni rage. The hotheads in Iraq didn’t listen, especially when it came to their pet project of declaring an Islamic state in Iraq. Zarqawi’s first discussions of creating a caliphate date back to 2004, according to McCants. Al-Qaeda’s supreme command disagreed; bin Laden felt that moving too soon for power in Iraq and Yemen, the movement’s two strongholds, would lead to premature defeat and tarnish the brand. U.S. airstrikes killed Zarqawi in June 2006, but his renegade followers nevertheless went on to declare their state, the Islamic State of Iraq, in October 2006, without consulting al-Qaeda leaders. Simultaneously, the sectarian war Zarqawi had launched against the Shiites was proving all too successful. Fifty or more bodies were found every morning in Baghdad; it was said that the Sunnis usually beheaded their victims, while the Shiites drilled holes in their heads. The U.S. government was still in denial; a Washington Post reporter who scouted the morgues to count dead bodies was accused by officials of inflating the numbers.
Over the next two years, however, the prudence of al-Qaeda’s core leaders began to seem warranted. U.S. President George W. Bush embraced General David Petraeus’s “troop surge” and the counterinsurgency philosophy that drove it. A counter-rebellion of Sunni tribal leaders already underway was christened the “Awakening” and received new American money and attention. Tribal fighters and U.S. special-operations forces took the fight ruthlessly to al-Qaeda in Iraq, ignoring its rhetoric about an Islamic state. By 2009, the end of the surge years, the movement Zarqawi had created was all but dead. But not quite. A few embers of Zarqawi’s Islamic state remained, kept alive by flickering Sunni rage. The flame was nurtured at U.S.-organized Iraqi prisons such as Camp Bucca, where religious Sunni detainees mingled with former members of Saddam’s Baath Party, and the nucleus of a reborn movement took shape. “Everyone tells me they’ve never seen what’s happening on the ground now. Hell has come to these villages and towns. It’s far worse than before.” Did U.S. officials know or care about the fire building beneath the Iraqi state, led at the time by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki? Apparently not. Maliki, a Shiite, was proving corrupt and sectarian in his rule, displacing Sunnis from their few handholds of power in the new state. The Iraqi people sensed that Maliki was wrecking their country, and in March 2010 elections voted out his coalition in favor of a more inclusive group headed by the pro-American former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi.
In what can only be described as an act of folly, the United States (with Iran as a silent partner) contrived a horse-trading process that kept Maliki in power. Vice President Joe Biden, who was in charge of the dickering, was fond of proclaiming that “politics has broken out in Iraq.” Iraqi politicians concluded (probably correctly) that the Obama administration had decided to leave the country to its own machinations. Nobody imagined in Washington (and few seemed to understand in Baghdad) that this future would empower as never before the Islamic State. In the years after Maliki’s 2010 “reelection,” the Islamic State engaged in a ruthless campaign of assassination against Sunni tribal leaders and the remnants of the Awakening movement in Iraq’s Anbar province. Between 2009 and 2013, the Islamic State killed 1,345 Awakening members, according to doctoral research by the former U.S. Army officer Craig Whiteside. In Jurf al-Sakhar, a town south of Baghdad, 46 Awakening members were killed in 27 incidents over this four-year period. The slaughter was hardly a secret: ISIS documented the drive-by shootings and point-blank assassinations in a video called “The Clanging of the Swords.” Was anyone watching in Washington? Evidently not. Officials in Baghdad, meanwhile, didn’t seem to care; Maliki’s government was probably as happy to see the killing of potentially powerful Sunnis as was ISIS.
The assassination campaign weakened Sunni resistance, helping ISIS seize Mosul in 2014. It helped too that ISIS had used Iraqi prisons as its training camps, building trust, operations security, and a passionate hatred for the Shiite-led government in Baghdad. This was a guerrilla army in waiting, and ISIS staged a campaign called “Breaking the Walls” to free these captives and bring them into the fight. Whiteside estimates that between July 2012 and July 2013, ISIS orchestrated seven major prisons raids, culminating in a spectacular, well-organized breakout at Abu Ghraib. (One of the first things ISIS did after sweeping through Mosul was to liberate the prison there, adding several thousand fighters to its burgeoning ranks.) One graduate of these prisons turned schools for jihad, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, is the current leader of ISIS.
Prior to the storming of Mosul, did anyone at senior levels of the Obama administration notice that, as the poet W.H. Auden wrote of the carnage of the Spanish Civil War, “our fever’s menacing shapes are precise and alive”? Apparently not. As U.S. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper admitted in an interview with me in September 2014: “We underestimated ISIL [the Islamic State] and overestimated the fighting capability of the Iraqi Army. … I didn’t see the collapse of the Iraqi security force in the north coming. … It boils down to predicting the will to fight, which is an imponderable.”
But ISIS’s potency was certainly clear to Sunni tribal leaders. In April 2014, two months before the capture of Mosul, I interviewed Iraqi sheikhs from Anbar. One of them, Jalal al-Gaood, told me by phone that in his hometown of Albu Ali Jassim, west of Ramadi, violent extremists had attacked a police building, prompting the Iraqi military to bomb and shell the village, and his entire tribe to move out of the area. Gaood offered a grim prediction: “Everyone tells me they’ve never seen what’s happening on the ground now. Hell has come to these villages and towns. It’s far worse than before.” Sheikh Zaydan al-Jabari, a tribal leader from Ramadi, told me that day: “Iraq is not now a state. It is led by gangs.” Related Story What ISIS Really Wants Barack Obama couldn’t ignore the capture of Mosul. But even after the U.S. president successfully pushed to replace Maliki with a less sectarian prime minister, America struggled to gain the trust of Sunni leaders and recruit the kind of force that could roll back ISIS’s gains. In October 2014, on the morning after ISIS had gutted the pro-American fighters of his Albu Nimr tribe, Gaood told me that his pleas that night for help from U.S. Central Command had gone unanswered: “Every time the Iraqis meet with Americans, [the Americans] just take notes,” he complained. That same month, Jabari said that the Sunni tribes again wanted U.S. help and “a strategic relationship with the Americans.” Yet he scoffed at U.S. plans to create a national guard for the Sunnis, saying it was “wishful thinking” because Iraq’s Shiites and Kurds would never agree to the proposal. Until Sunni rights are respected, he said bitterly, “we will not allow the world to sleep.” His warnings have so far proven correct: The U.S.-backed legislation that would authorize a Sunni national guard remains stalled in the Shiite-dominated Iraqi parliament. I saw Jabari again in June 2015, a few weeks after ISIS had overrun the city of Ramadi (after bland reassurances from U.S. CENTCOM officials that the city would hold). Jabari was seeking support for his tribal fighters. (Like several Anbar sheikhs, he had by now hired his own D.C. lobbying firm.)
“Iraqis don’t want to live under the Islamic State, but where are they supposed to go?” he asked me. Shiite militias had blocked the way to Baghdad for Sunnis fleeing Ramadi; ISIS, meanwhile, was offering amnesty to families who came back to the city and turned over their sons to the Islamic State to fight. These tribal leaders simply do not believe U.S. assurances that America is in this fight for real. The sheikhs are selfish and self-interested, but can you blame them? They’ve been burned too often. The problem with the U.S. anti-ISIS strategy in Iraq is that it depends on a Sunni tribal movement that no longer exists. * * * What lessons can be drawn from the rise of ISIS in Iraq and the campaign so far against it? First, anti-ISIS ground and air operations have been successful when they have been launched from areas with strong operational and planning resources and well-trained and motivated fighters. Iraq’s Kurdistan region is the obvious example, as I saw on a recent visit: Kurdistan Democratic Party peshmerga fighters under the Barzani clan have pushed ISIS west and south, and squeezed ISIS-held Mosul. A visitor can drive unmolested today into the northern province of Nineveh and over the Mosul Dam, which in the fall of 2014 was in ISIS hands. Patriotic Union of Kurdistan militias have held their own in the northern Kirkuk area, though there’s growing concern among the Kurds and Americans that they are taking orders from Iran and its Quds Force. Similarly, Shiite militias, under Iranian supervision, have fought well in defending Baghdad. “If you add everything up … [ISIS] could win. Evil isn’t always defeated.” The problem remains creating a Sunni force that can help the Iraqi military push ISIS from Mosul, Fallujah, and Ramadi, and then hold the retaken ground. Such a force would have to operate from a secure base—not just a logistical base, but a base of trust, in which the Sunnis feel they are fighting for a part of Iraq that will truly be theirs post-ISIS. Iraq’s ambassador to Washington, Lukman Faily, has told me he favors constitutional changes that would create the kind of Iraqi federalism that would truly give Sunnis some “skin in the game” and make a decentralized Iraq work.
Absent this essential political component, it’s hard to imagine how the current U.S. strategy against ISIS can work. U.S. military power could drive the heirs of Zarqawi underground, but without Sunni empowerment, the insurgents will be back as ISIS 2.0 or 3.0. It’s now clear that the “80-percent solution” is shorthand for the violent dismemberment of Iraq. If some new political balance that allows Sunnis to govern their land can’t be created in the country, we must reckon with the stark warning of the CIA’s former deputy director, John McLaughlin, to The New York Times: “If you add everything up … [ISIS] could win. Evil isn’t always defeated.” The Syrian Roots of ISIS Disentangling the story of ISIS’s expansion in Iraq at least produces a coherent narrative. That’s less true in Syria. The spread of the Islamic State there seems, in the famous French dictum, “worse than a crime, a blunder.” We’ll never know whether a more aggressive U.S. policy—arming the moderate Syrian opposition sooner or bombing the Syrian government’s command-and-control infrastructure after President Bashar al-Assad used chemical weapons against his people—could have produced a better outcome. But it’s hard to imagine a policy that would have done worse. Where ISIS experienced organic growth in Iraq (in the sense that a metastasizing cancer can be called organic), in Syria it seems more a case of implantation. For all the mistakes in U.S. policy, the regional powers—Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Qatar—have taken truly reckless actions, making Syria a cockpit for their proxy wars. It was Turkey that allowed a southern border with Syria so porous that it offered ISIS and the al-Qaeda-affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra what amounted to a logistical safe zone. It was Iran that marched Hezbollah, a Lebanese militia whose mission was fighting Israel, into Syria to save Assad. It was Saudi Arabia and Qatar, jockeying for regional influence, that funded a scattershot array of Sunni militias that proved easy recruiting grounds for the extremists (and in this sense supported the extremists). And it was Russia that stood by while its client, Assad, bombed civilians and ravaged his nation, and then began doing the bombing itself.
Russia’s recent military intervention in Syria—nominally to fight the extremists, but more to prop up a government that protects Russian interests—is power politics in its rawest form. Vladimir Putin understood this summer (as the CIA did) that Assad’s regime was losing ground to Islamic rebel groups. Russian military operations (coordinated with Iran) were focused not on ISIS strongholds in the northeast, but on U.S.- and Saudi-backed forces in the northwest, close to Assad’s Alawite homeland in Latakia. Putin may be angling to strengthen Assad’s hand in anticipation of the political negotiation that both Moscow and Washington say is needed. But so far, the Russian-Iranian partnership with Assad has only deepened the sectarian nature of the war.
Meanwhile, U.S. strategy in Syria has been so feeble (and its implementation so inept, as in the worst days of the Green Zone) that the United States at this writing seems like a junior partner, with Russia taking the decisive role in shaping the battle against ISIS. Syria seems increasingly like one of those Agatha Christie books where every character has had a hand in the crime. I first visited Syria in the early 1980s, witnessing the systematic destruction that Assad’s father, Hafez, had visited upon Muslim Brotherhood strongholds in Hama. Later, I was one of many Westerners who had regular conversations with Assad and his advisors between 2000 and 2010 about what the Syrian president claimed was his recognition of the need for political reform in Syria. As a result, I traveled to Damascus from Cairo in February 2011 with great curiosity. In Egypt, Hosni Mubarak’s government had just fallen in the Tahrir Square revolution that marked the apex of the Arab Spring. What would Damascus, scene of so many coups and counter-coups during its modern history, bring to this revolutionary moment? Syria seems like one of those Agatha Christie books where every character has had a hand in the crime. Assad’s advisors were buzzing about the president’s plans for reform. He knew his Baath Party was corrupt, one insisted. He knew the power of his relatives, the Makhlouf family, had to be curbed, said another. Reformers confided how on February 19, police had assaulted a driver in downtown Damascus. It was a normal day in authoritarian Damascus—but not in the age of the cell phone and the hashtag. Hundreds quickly gathered in the capital’s streets and began chanting: “We are the people. The people won’t be humiliated.” Video footage of the drama was posted to the Internet, and made its way into Syrian homes. Syrian officials initially responded wisely. The minister of the interior arrived about 30 minutes after the protest started, apologized to the man who had been beaten, and escorted him away in his car. The police officers were disciplined. The crowd gradually ebbed, and some (doubtless with official encouragement) began chanting Assad’s name.
The regime wasn’t so lucky a few weeks later when protests spread to Daraa, the provincial capital south of Damascus. The Houranis (as the people of this region are known) are famously feisty, and they pushed the local police and military hard. The authorities, led by a bullheaded provincial governor, started firing back. Civilians were slaughtered. And the Syrian revolution had begun. Several factors made this revolution especially disorganized (and prey to manipulation by extremists). First, it was a genuinely bottom-up movement, with each mosque gathering its own young men into brigades to defend the local area and then (in theory) fight a larger war to overthrow the regime. The Muslim Brotherhood, devastated by Hafez al-Assad in 1982, lacked the discipline and organization that could have helped weld a strong opposition. The moderates were hapless. Second, as in Iraq, the revolution arrived in a country that had suppressed deep sectarian divisions. Sunnis appreciated the stability and “Arabism” that the Assad regimes had brought, but they felt humiliated by their subservience to leaders who many derided as Alawite bumpkins from the mountains. In light of these tensions, Syrian minorities banded together behind the regime.
Because of the disorganization of the opposition, and the sectarian character of Syrian society, the civil war got nastier after 2011. Inevitably, the opposition became more Sunni and proto-jihadist. In October 2012, I traveled inside the country for two days with the help of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), and came to three basic judgments: First, there aren’t enough weapons for the rebels to defeat Assad’s forces, and almost every Syrian I talked to thinks this is America’s fault; second, the commanders of the Free Syrian Army are trying to exercise better command and control over what has been a disorganized, ragtag operation; and third, in this chaotic and under-resourced fight, the power of the Salafist jihadists—who ask only to be martyrs—appears to be growing. It seemed clear that absent U.S. training and assistance of the moderate opposition, these problems would only get worse. A CIA covert training program began, sort of, in 2013. Working with the Jordanian General Intelligence Directorate (GID), the CIA had some success in building a “southern front,” but U.S. and Jordanian policy restrained the opposition from any move that might topple Assad prematurely, before his successor was clear. The CIA’s program had even less success in the north. I’ve interviewed most of the pro-American moderate commanders who operated from Turkey: a former military-science professor named Selim Idriss; a loud former Syrian Army colonel named Abdul-Jabar Akaidi; a roustabout guerrilla leader in Idlib named Jamaal Maarouf; and Hamza al-Shamali, the leader of what was the largest CIA-trained force in the north, known as Harakat al-Hazm.
None of these Syrian commanders had the military leadership skills or command presence to create an effective opposition. Shamali’s group got chased from its bases in Idlib by the jihadists from Nusra. “At some point, the Syrian street lost trust in the Free Syrian Army,” Shamali explained to me in a 2014 interview at a safe house along the Turkish border. He bluntly admitted that many FSA commanders weren’t disciplined, FSA fighters were poorly trained, and the loose FSA structure hadn’t provided adequate command-and-control capability. Sadly, he said, “the question every Syrian has for the opposition is: ‘Are you going to bring chaos or order?’”
The United States tried to bolster these nominally covert Syrian missions with an overt “train and equip” program backed by $500 million in congressional support. The program proved a dismal failure, and was terminated by Obama in October. A first “class” of 54 trainees was inserted into northern Syria in July 2015 and promptly attacked by Nusra fighters. The debacle resulted from poor intelligence about Nusra’s intentions, poor planning about how the U.S.-backed force would operate on the ground, and an unworkable system for vetting recruits that disallowed those who wanted to fight Assad rather than ISIS. The U.S.-backed rebels, in effect, walked into a trap—in a mission that recalled, to some Pentagon officials, the failed Bay of Pigs landing in Cuba in 1961. To me, the botched effort encapsulated all the contradictions and uncertainties of U.S. policy.
Some in the White House seemed almost to gloat over the collapse of the train-and-equip program, as if this showed that their reluctance to back Syrian rebels had been right all along. How nice it would be if American inaction—and America’s waffling, wobbling approach to Syria—could be described as success. Alas, not so. The extremists of ISIS and al-Qaeda filled the vacuum left by the moderate opposition. Early in the war, the momentum seemed to be with Jabhat al-Nusra, the al-Qaeda affiliate. When I asked an FSA commander in Aleppo in 2012 whether his men fought with Nusra, he answered: “Of course, they’re the best fighters.” If the FSA needed hardened men for an assault, they would turn to the suicide bombers of Nusra, who were often foreign fighters looking for a ticket to paradise. I asked a Syrian doctor what he had learned from treating rebel casualties at the front. A large majority of those with serious wounds were from Nusra, he said. Inevitably, people, arms, and money began flowing to the fighters who were the toughest and best. Assad needed to demonstrate that there was a worse Syrian face than his own—that of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, ISIS’s leader. ISIS played a spoiler’s game in Syria. It moved to Raqqa, an area adjacent to its supply lines into Iraq, and used the city as a kind of logistics base camp for its bigger Iraq operations. Raqqa soon became the “capital” of the “state,” and the destination for thousands of foreign fighters. It prospered in part because it wasn’t bombed by Assad’s air force, which was leveling every other civilian area under rebel control.
You don’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to understand why Assad allowed ISIS to put down roots: He needed a threat to show the West why his regime’s survival mattered; he needed to demonstrate that there was a worse Syrian face than his own—that of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, ISIS’s leader. (If you are a conspiracy theorist, you would also note the strong intelligence connections that developed between the Syrian Mukhabarat and al-Qaeda in Iraq during the Zarqawi days.) * * * Since visiting Syria in 2012, I have believed that the shattered nation can gradually be stabilized if the United States and its allies seriously commit to building a new Syrian force that can help fill the vacuum, post-Assad. But the halfway measures taken by the U.S. thus far have only helped the jihadists. Friction between ISIS and Nusra is nearly as strong as the old infighting between Zarqawi and bin Laden. The United States and its allies are doubtless working to exacerbate these cleavages, which suggest that the jihadists’ power can be degraded over time in Syria. Raqqa is now flanked to the north by Syrian Kurdish forces who are receiving ammunition and air support from the United States; as the squeeze intensifies on ISIS forces there, Nusra will have to decide whether it wants to come to the apostates’ aid or let them be pounded. Either way, Nusra will suffer in the eyes of its followers. The U.S. has created enemies that did not exist before 2003; it has fostered a degree of mistrust so acute that many in the Middle East welcome Putin as a deliverer. Should the United States and its allies target Nusra and ISIS equally? Prudence argues for a strategy that treats ISIS as the first priority. The toppling of ISIS would curb the momentum of extremist forces more generally. Some Qatari officials have told me they think Nusra can be split into several factions, and that many of its fighters can be co-opted by Qatar, Saudi Arabia, or Turkey into less menacing groups that reject foreign terror operations. This may be wishful thinking, but it’s worth exploring. The message to Nusra should be that attempts to spread terror outside Syria will provoke devastating U.S. and allied attacks.
What’s the pathway out of the Syrian disaster? Based on my reporting, I’d offer several conclusions, which haven’t changed much in the last three years: The best hope for Syria’s survival is a political solution—jointly brokered by the U.S., Russia, Iran, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia—that begins the transition to a new, post-Assad government. But such a political solution will be impossible without a strong, U.S.-backed opposition that can merge with “acceptable” elements of the Syrian army to manage a transition from Assad. This transition process will be fostered by safe zones in the north and south, where humanitarian assistance can be directed, Syrian refugees can return, and political compromise can be rediscovered. If these steps cannot be taken, the result will be the continuing growth of ISIS and other extremist groups, and the full collapse of a fractured Syria into a failed state and terrorist haven. Russian-Iranian military intervention can widen the boundaries of Assad’s rump state, but it cannot rebuild a united Syria. ISIS’s power will only be enhanced in Syria by Assad’s continued hold on power. That’s why a campaign against ISIS that doesn’t include the goal of bringing new leadership to Syria is short-sighted. And yet fears that a freewheeling regime collapse would give way to warlordism and terror across Syria are justified. For now, Syria offers a grim lesson: Muddled U.S. policies can produce as disastrous an outcome as military intervention. |
Mayor Eric Garcetti recently envisioned a scenario where Immigrant and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents are aggressively confronted by “swarming” teenagers while making an arrest on a Los Angeles sidewalk. The faceoff would be captured on video - sparking a “tinderbox” that results in days of looting, arson, and several lives lost.
“We just commemorated 25 years since the urban unrest, and we know how quickly things can explode,” Garcetti told host Maria Hinojosa during a recent episode of NPR’s “Latino USA.”
“If something goes wrong I fear a tinderbox out there, where people will suddenly say ‘no,’ and try to defend, keep that person from being taken,” Garcetti said. “That’s a very dangerous situation.”
Great to speak with mi amiga, Maria Hinojosa, for the latest episode of the @LatinoUSA podcast ️. Escucha ahora ️ https://t.co/kaRyYZVOmz pic.twitter.com/Mw4R39kLRF — Mayor of Los Angeles (@MayorOfLA) May 26, 2017
The “urban unrest” to which Garcetti refers were the 1992 riots, suggesting the chain of events he foreshadowed could escalate beyond his control – just like in ‘92 - when Mayor Tom Bradley was forced to rely on assistance from the California National Guard and President George H. W. Bush. More than 1,100 Marines and 600 Army soldiers were deployed to the streets of Los Angeles.
Partial transcript as follows:
HINOJOSA: “As the Mayor of L.A., it has crossed your mind, like, ‘Oh my God. The next tinderbox might not be black-white relations, but might end up being immigrant-police-ICE confrontations?’ And then that could lead to an ugly, ugly chapter in L.A.’s life?”
GARCETTI: “Imagine a parent who’s dropping off their child. As we’ve seen, ICE officers, ICE agents take that parent away, and it’s videotaped. Imagine if that’s on the sidewalk and students start swarming, and they’re teenagers. It’s dangerous for those agents. It’s dangerous for our city.
The hot button in 1992 was not immigration enforcement. It was police brutality.
Four white officers from the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) had been acquitted of beating Rodney King, a black motorist who tried to evade law enforcement during a high-speed pursuit. As the Los Angeles Times reported, amateur video “showed officers delivering repeated baton blows and kicks as King rolled on the ground. Its images have been seared into the minds of viewers the world over who have watched the tape broadcast repeatedly.”
Garcetti’s criticism of ICE comes after the agency recently announced more than 41,000 arrests during President Donald Trump’s first 100 days in office – a 37.6% increase from that same period last year. According to ICE, nearly 75 percent of those detained “are convicted criminals, with offenses ranging from homicide and assault to sexual abuse and drug-related charges.” ICE agents were also part of a recent operation in Los Angeles targeting MS-13 gang members – some of whom have links to the Mexican Mafia. 50 predawn raids on May 17 resulted in 44 arrests. More than half of those detained were in the country illegally.
In February, Garcetti wrote a letter to a District Director at ICE urging that “agents operating in Los Angeles immediately stop representing they are ‘police’ officers.” The request cited a two-day-old article published by the Los Angeles Times claiming that ICE agents “pretend to be police officers” to trick people. The story went on to mention documentation collected by a George Soros-funded advocacy group which alleges to show ICE agents using “deceit while targeting people for deportation.”
Five days after Garcetti’s letter, ICE agents with the word “POLICE” prominently displayed across their backs detained an unlawfully present immigrant with multiple criminal convictions as he as he dropped off his daughters at school in Los Angeles. Video of the incident went viral, prompting LAPD Commissioner Steve Soboroff – a Garcetti appointee – to react by tweeting, “SHAME ON YOU POTUS.” Nearly two weeks earlier, Soboroff had asked whoever mans the official ICE Twitter account to define “criminal.”
However, the Garcetti administration’s defiance of ICE did not begin with the inauguration of Donald J. Trump.
In the summer of 2014, Garcetti announced that LAPD would no longer comply with ICE requests to detain unlawfully present immigrants for possible deportation without judicial review.
A month later, LAPD Chief Charlie Beck attended the “ICE Out of L.A. Workers’ Rights Town Hall,” sponsored by the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON) – a group considered to be part of the ‘open-borders lobby’ that has received funding from Soros’ Open Society Foundations. Beck promoted several LAPD policy changes implemented to accommodate the region’s unlawfully present population.
“When we stopped honoring ICE detention requests in every instance, it was not about doing what was popular or easy,” LAPD Chief Charlie Beck a told a church sanctuary filled with mostly organizers and day laborers. “It was about doing what was right.”
The ICE Out of L.A. Coalition is an alliance of 23 social justice groups, including NDLON, which “aim to create an open source campaign where people push for ICE out of L.A. and full civil and human rights through diverse and innovative tactics.”
Staff attorneys from the NDLON – which sued ICE last year – make themselves readily available for media interviews to shape ICE detainment narratives for various outlets from New York to L.A. Meanwhile, activists affiliated with NDLON pressure California politicians to advocate on its behalf. One such NDLON-led drive references Garcetti, stating “the L.A. Mayor” supports the cause.
As Garcetti’s 15-minute segment with Hinojosa came to an end, he addressed whether Los Angeles should be categorized as a “sanctuary city.” The mayor deemed the phrase to be a broad term that evokes an inaccurate caricature from “fifty percent of the country” as “places that invite dangerous criminals” who are “given bonus points if they’re undocumented.”
“If a ‘sanctuary city’ means that your police force will not be deputized or take it upon themselves to enforce immigration law, then absolutely we are and proudly so,” Garcetti prevaricated.
“We’re not doing these things because we’re a bunch of lefties,” the mayor continued. “We’re proud of our politics being progressive out here. We’re doing it because it’s the right thing to do.”
NPR’s Latino USA is a weekly show created by the Futuro Media Group, a nonprofit founded by Hinojosa “committed to producing ethical journalism from a POC (people of color) perspective and representing the new American mainstream.”
Coincidentally, the company is financed by part of the same global conglomerate of foundations that have bankrolled the NDLON, including Unbound Philanthropy and the Ford Foundation. From 2010-2015, Hinojosa’s Futuro Media Group received $9,764,142 in grants and contributions to produce programming like last week’s interview with Mayor Garcetti.
You can listen to Garcetti's interview with NPR here. |
If Steve Jobs were alive today, should he be in jail?
That’s the provocative question being debated in antitrust circles in the wake of revelations that Mr. Jobs, the co-founder of Apple, who is deeply revered in Silicon Valley, was the driving force in a conspiracy to prevent competitors from poaching employees. Mr. Jobs seems never to have read, or may have chosen to ignore, the first paragraph of the Sherman Antitrust Act:
Every “conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce” is illegal, the act says. “Every person who shall make any contract or engage in any combination or conspiracy hereby declared to be illegal shall be deemed guilty of a felony, and, on conviction thereof, shall be punished by fine” or “by imprisonment not exceeding three years, or by both said punishments.”
Mr. Jobs “was a walking antitrust violation,” said Herbert Hovenkamp, a professor at the University of Iowa College of Law and an expert in antitrust law. “I’m simply astounded by the risks he seemed willing to take.”
The anti-poaching pact was hardly Mr. Jobs’s only post-mortem brush with the law. His behavior was at the center of an e-book price-fixing conspiracy with major publishers. After a lengthy trial, a federal judge ruled last summer that “Apple played a central role in facilitating and executing that conspiracy.” (Apple has appealed the decision. The publishers all settled the case.)
Mr. Jobs also figured prominently in the options backdating scandal that rocked Silicon Valley eight years ago. Thousands of options were backdated at both Apple and the computer animation studio Pixar, where Mr. Jobs was also chief executive, to increase the value of option grants to senior employees. An investigation by Apple’s lawyers cleared Mr. Jobs of wrongdoing, saying he didn’t understand the accounting implications. But it concluded that he “was aware or recommended the selection of some favorable grant dates.” Mr. Jobs himself received options on 7.5 million shares, which were backdated to immediately bolster their value by over $20 million. Apple admitted that the minutes of the October board meeting where the grant was supposedly approved were fabricated, that no such meeting had occurred and that the options were actually granted in December. |
From an impending apocalypse to the promise of a new Van Halen album with David Lee Roth, the bar was set high for 2012.
Everyone from the Mayans to Nostradamus allegedly prophesied the end of the world in 2012, but who could have predicted Green Day's epic trilogy of new albums, or Joe Walsh's first solo effort in two decades, or Rush churning out their heaviest record this side of 2112?
For a year that was supposed to mark the end of an era, it's quite fitting that 2012 ended up being very much a nexus of past and future.
Aerosmith and Kiss kept the classic rock flame alive, releasing their 15th and 20th studio albums respectively, and ZZ Top issued their finest showing of fuzzed-out Texas blues in years. Meanwhile, excellent debuts from Gary Clark Jr. and Alabama Shakes — not to mention Jack White's debut solo record hitting No. 1 — proved the blues is still a vital force in the hands of true believers.
On the heavier end of the spectrum, Periphery once again upped the ante as the leaders of the new prog-metal movement, and Meshuggah reminded everyone that the groove can still be mightier than the metronome. Lamb of God and Municipal Waste forged ahead as the heads of thrash metal's new class, while legends like Overkill and Testament continued uncanny, late-career resurgences with solid efforts.
But if there's one thing to take away from the 50 albums below, it's this: The guitar is very much alive and well in 2012. It survived the rise of the keyboard in the '80s and the overwhelming bass-barrage of electronic dance music of the early 21st century and shows no signs of waning in relevancy. Whether you're still plugging into a vintage Vox AC30 with your trusty Strat or just got your hands on an Axe FX and a new Ibanez eight-string, the guitar isn't going away any time soon.
And with that in mind, the Quote of the Year award goes to one Eddie Van Halen, who summed all that up so succinctly when he said, "I'm just a guitarist in a kick-ass rock and roll band. What more could I ask for?" Amen, and see you in 2013.
NOTE: This list pertains to studio albums only. |
Guest Essay by Kip Hansen
The Claim:
Bramble Cay melomys (mosaic-tailed rat) is the first mammal to go extinct due to human-induced climate change.
Rating:
Examples:
“A small rodent that lived only on a single island off Australia is likely the world’s first mammal to be a casualty of climate change…” National Geographic
“Bramble Cay melomys, a rodent round in body, long in whisker and lumpy in tail. The creatures are probably the first mammal casualty of man-made, or anthropogenic, climate change,… “ The Washington Post
“University of Queensland and Queensland Government researchers have confirmed that the Bramble Cay melomys – the only mammal species endemic to the Great Barrier Reef – is the first mammal to go extinct due to human-induced climate change.” The University of Queensland News
….and over 80,000 more.
“The key factor responsible for the extirpation of this population was almost certainly ocean inundation of the low-lying cay, very likely on multiple occasions, during the last decade, causing dramatic habitat loss and perhaps also direct mortality of individuals. Available information about sea-level rise and the increased frequency and intensity of weather events producing extreme high water levels and damaging storm surges in the Torres Strait region over this period point to human-induced climate change being the root cause of the loss of the Bramble Cay melomys.” Confirmation of the extinction…
The Bottom Line:
There are no longer any Bramble Cay melomys living on Bramble Cay. Their extirpation was almost certainly caused by environmental degradation resulting from the very nature of Bramble Cay as a “geologically temporary..[island]..of considerable instability, which may respond dramatically to fluctuations in [its] environment”, with a maximum elevation of 3 meters (~ 10 feet), made of constantly shifting sand that collects around a small rocky outcrop surrounded by a shallow reef. The area of the cay that supports vegetation, the main source of shelter and food for the melomys, has been shrinking since 1998, down to less than 10% of the 1998 area in 2014.
The main contributing factor to this degradation is the success of other species, primarily the Green Turtle and various sea birds, both of which use the island for nesting (and roosting) which resulted in increasing disturbance and destruction of the vegetation required by the melomys for survival.
Bramble Cay suffered at least one (Spring 2014) or more (or a series of) weather events that inundated the island (maybe repeatedly), that possibly would have reduced the melomys population below a sustainable level, both directly and through destruction of vegetation, their primary food source, however, it is doubtful that there were in fact any remaining melomys at that late date. No melomys had been official recorded on Bramble since 2004.
The official cause — climate change – is speculative and partially based on predictions of future sea level rise and future increased storminess and intensity of storms.
It is this author’s opinion that the human contribution to their extinction is limited to the utter inadequacy of the Recovery Plan for the Bramble Cay Melomys, Melomys rubicola prepared by Peter Latch in 2008.
Many readers will be satisfied with this summary, having already seen other posts on this topic. Those who have a deeper interest – in the facts and processes that produce a misleading government report – are encouraged to read the full essay which contains extensive data and photos, but ONLY if you are extremely interested – if not, you will be bored silly. The Long Version of this essay in available here in pdf format.
# # # # #
Author’s Comment Policy:
As always, I will be happy to answer your questions about the demise of the mosaic-tailed rat from Bramble Cay.
As regular readers will realize, I have tried something new — I have made the main essay rather short, and included the long form essay as a pdf in the WUWT server. Please let me know if you prefer this format — I generally don’t write short pieces.
Let’s try not to fight the Climate Wars here in the comments.
# # # # #
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Younis Khan: nowhere close to being the oldest double-centurion in Tests © Getty Images
Was Misbah-ul-Haq the oldest person to score twin centuries in a Test? asked Qaiser Ahmed from Pakistan
Misbah-ul-Haq has knocked off one of the records held by cricket's most famous batsman with his astonishing double against Australia in Abu Dhabi at the weekend. Misbah was 40 years 158 days old when he hurtled to his second century, and broke the record set by Don Bradman for Australia against India in Melbourne in 1947-48 - the Don was 39 years 129 days old when he scored twin centuries in the match for what, slightly surprisingly perhaps, was the only time in Tests. Bruce Mitchell (38 in 1947), Eddie Paynter (37 in 1938-39), Alan Melville (37 in 1947) and Graham Gooch (37 in 1990) come next on this list.
Misbah and Azhar Ali both scored two centuries in the match at Abu Dhabi. Has this ever happened before? asked Anshuman Bharati from India
The double feat of Misbah-ul-Haq and Azhar Ali in Abu Dhabi was only the fourth occasion that two batsmen have scored twin centuries in the same match. The first instance was in the Ashes Test in Adelaide in 1946-47, when Denis Compton scored 147 and 103 not out for England, and Arthur Morris replied with 122 and 124 not out for Australia. In Wellington in 1973-74, Ian Chappell scored 145 and 121 for Australia against New Zealand, while his brother Greg hit 247 not out and 133; this was the only previous time two batsmen on the same side had achieved the feat in the same Test. Finally, in Hamilton in 1990-91, Andrew Jones made 122 and 100 not out for New Zealand, and Asanka Gurusinha 119 and 102 for Sri Lanka.
Is Younis Khan the oldest Pakistani to score a double-century in a Test? asked Douglas Berkheiser from the UK
At 36 years 336 days old, Younis Khan became Test cricket's 22nd-oldest double-centurion against Australia in Abu Dhabi. Top of the list is South Africa's Eric Rowan, who was a week past his 42nd birthday when he scored 236 against England at Headingley in 1951. Younis Khan was actually already the oldest to score a double-century for Pakistan - he was 35 when he made 200 not out against Zimbabwe in Harare last year. Zaheer Abbas was also over 35 when he scored 215 against India in Lahore in 1982-83.
Was Australia's defeat in Abu Dhabi the heaviest in their history? asked Chris Lawrence from Australia
Australia's 356-run reverse in Abu Dhabi was their third-heaviest defeat by a runs margin, following England's win by 675 in Brisbane in 1928-29, and a West Indian victory by 408 in Adelaide in 1979-80. Australia also lost to England by an innings and 579 runs at The Oval in 1938, an innings and 230 at Adelaide> in 1891-92, and an innings and 225 in Melbourne in 1911-12. India won by an innings and 219 runs in Kolkata in 1997-98, and England by an innings and 217 at The Oval in 1886.
Who has played the most Test matches without ever playing against England? And who without playing Australia? asked Richard Jackson from England
I wasn't sure about this one, and was quite surprised at the name on the top of the list: it's the West Indian fast bowler Merv Dillon, who between 1997 and 2004 took 131 wickets in 38 Tests - none of them against England. Next come a pair of Zimbabweans: Hamilton Masakadza, with 28 caps (the most recent last week against Bangladesh) and Craig Wishart with 27 (1995-2005). John Reid played 58 Tests without ever playing against Australia, but that was because New Zealand didn't play against them during his long career (1949-65) - after the Aussies dominated a one-off match in 1945-46, they didn't meet in official Tests again until 1973-74. That also accounts for second-placed Bert Sutcliffe, Reid's great Kiwi contemporary - but he's just been joined on a total of 42 Tests by Bangladesh's captain Mushfiqur Rahim, who also hasn't played against Australia yet.
What is the highest individual score which was the lowest score in a completed Test innings? asked Zaheer Ahmed from the United Arab Emirates
There have been 12 occasions now when all 11 batsmen in a Test innings reached double figures (for the list, click here). Most of them feature a lowest score of 10 and 11, but when India made 359 against New Zealand in Dunedin in 1967-68, Bapu Nadkarni's 12 was the lowest score of the innings (Ajit Wadekar top-scored with 80).
Steven Lynch is the editor of the Wisden Guide to International Cricket 2014. Ask Steven is now on Facebook
© ESPN Sports Media Ltd. |
A medical school professor wants to provide better care for transgender patients.
Michael Irwig, an associate professor of medicine and the director of the Center for Andrology, published a paper last week outlining the desired and undesired effects of testosterone therapy for transgender men. Transgender medicine researchers said doctors need more research to better understand how to treat transgender patients.
Irwig examined articles published in English and Spanish from January 2000 to May 2015 about testosterone therapy in transgender men. He found that transgender people do not receive better medical care because of the lack of high quality data.
“The research is important because clinicians need to know how to provide culturally competent care to transgender people,” Irwig said through a University spokesperson.
He wrote in the paper that few doctors have conducted medical trials with transgender patients. Irwig found in his study of transgender men that testosterone therapy is safe in the short term but doctors still do not know the long-term effects.
Testosterone therapy is the medical treatment for transgender men to increase their facial and body hair, lean mass and strength, deepened voice and reduced gender dysphoria. Irwig wrote that the potential undesired effects include acne and a possible increase in blood pressure.
He said that his end goals for his research are to find the specific effects of testosterone on the transgender voice.
“More high-quality research is needed in the field of transgender medicine,” he said. “I hope the research will inspire other researchers to further explore the field.”
Irwig said he has completed several research projects about transgender medical care, including a survey of transgender patient care and other research about the effects of testosterone therapy on the transgender voice – specifically in female to male transitions.
Irwig published a first-of-its-kind survey in February assessing endocrinologists’ practice patterns for transgender patients in hormone therapy.
Corina Lelutiu-Weinberger, a research scientist at City University of New York who is evaluating hospital staff trainings on handling transgender patients, said more health professionals understand the transgender community, but it is not yet enough.
“I started to learn about transgender health and the horrible discrimination and mistreatment that they get,” she said.
Lelutiu-Weinberger said she plans to create trainings that are more comprehensive for hospital staff on how to treat transgender people. She said more exposure is the key to progress in the field.
“The more we talk to young people about this, the less of a problem it will be in the future,” she said. “Starting education early is key to not just tolerance but acceptance.”
This article appeared in the April 25, 2016 issue of the Hatchet. |
When Solheim started the tradition, the "vault" was housed in a converted closet in his office. However, the gold-plated putter tradition became so popular over the years that Solheim eventually had to transfer the collection and build a larger vault. That vault has since been retired with the collection moving to another location at PING headquarters.
Of course, the size of the vault isn't the only thing that's changed over the last 40-plus years. John Solheim, Karsten’s son, modified the program when he became president in 1995, giving every major winner a solid gold replica for their achievement. Only one solid gold version is made for the winner; a gold-plated version is then placed in the vault in honor of their win.
Bubba Watson received a solid gold PING Anser 1 Milled for winning the 2014 Masters. The putter had a head weight of 24.7 ounces and was valued at roughly $30,000 based on the current price of gold.
"As a young kid, I heard about the gold putter vault and the gold putters," Watson said. "I knew it was something cool that you wanted to see. The history of Karsten (Solheim) and him making the putter, you think about all that and the wins — it's something you want to see and be a part of. You want to have at least one putter or a wedge in here, so it's pretty neat to be associated with it now."
The leader in the clubhouse with the most gold putters is Lee Westwood, who boasts an impressive 57 from wins, career milestones and Ryder Cup appearances. The late Seve Ballesteros, a five-time major winner, is second on the list with 46 gold-plated Anser models.
As you'd expect with nearly 50 years' worth of gold putters — the oldest belongs to John Barnum, who won the 1962 Cajun Classic with a model 69 — golf royalty is well represented inside the vault.
In fact, over the years, PING has awarded 58 gold putters -- 28 of which are solid gold -- and two gold-plated wedges to winners of various major championships.
Nick Faldo, Seve Ballesteros, Greg Norman, Tom Watson, Payne Stewart and Lee Trevino are just a few of the high-profile names that used a PING putter to win at least one major championship. Tiger Woods also has two PING Anser2 putters celebrating his 1994 and 1995 U.S. Amateur victories.
Although the vault is comprised mostly of putters, there are a handful of gold-plated clubs in the collection. The 52-degree PING Tour-W wedge Bubba Watson used on the second hole of a playoff to pull off a gargantuan, 40-yard hook from the pine straw to win the 2012 Masters is one of the big draws.
So, too, is the PING Eye2 sand wedge Bob Tway relied on to win the 1986 PGA Championship with an improbable hole-out from the greenside bunker on the 18th hole.
Louis Oosthuizen's PING S56 4-iron also sticks out in a sea full of gold putters. While the South African finished second to Bubba Watson at the 2012 Masters, he received a gold-plated 4-iron for recording one of the most memorable hole-outs in Masters history, when his ball found the bottom of the cup from 253 yards for the first albatross on No. 2 at Augusta National. |
In search of their first road win of the season, D.C. United’s remarkable five-match, 17-day onslaught of action comes to an end Sunday against Colorado.
A lineup that’s been injury-riddled all season will be without two key attackers once again as captain Dwayne De Rosario and winger Nick DeLeon were ruled out for Sunday evening’s match (9:30 pm ET, MLS LIVE) at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park.
“Injuries have definitely hurt us this year, but it’s not an excuse,” said United midfielder Perry Kitchen. “We have the players to step in and fill the roles.”
Colorado Rapids vs. DC United | MLS Match Preview
United’s mix of poor play, mental mistakes and injuries have planted the club firmly in last place in MLS with a record of 2-13-3. After being shut out in Seattle on Wednesday, D.C. have still only scored on road goal this year and have slid back into an uncomfortable form.
For a while, it appeared as though things were turning around as D.C. ended a club-record 13-match losing streak last month and won three Open Cup matches. But losses to Vancouver and Seattle have appeared to lower spirits a bit at the end of a grueling stretch of matches.
“It is frustrating, but we are not playing ourselves out of the game,” center back Ethan White said following the Seattle match. “We are losing 1-0, so if we can get one goal or not give up a goal then we are still in it, but we are missing a little something. I feel like we are getting better, but there is still something we have to get.”
Olsen on another loss: "I still feel solid about this team; I'm not blowing smoke"
What that “something” is has fluctuated throughout the year, but a constant has been the team’s inability to generate consistent offense. While coach Ben Olsen has been pleased recently with the creativity and buildup, the finishing ability and final balls have been woeful and D.C. have just eight goals in 18 matches.
One of the bright spots for United over the past few weeks has been the play of Alain Rochat. Acquired from Vancouver in a trade, Rochat has filled the outside back and defensive midfielder role with a steadiness that’s been lacking for United.
“He’s a great guy off the field and I think he’s been getting along with everyone,” said goalkeeper Joe Willis. “On the field, he’s unbelievable. Watching him with the ball, he’s so calm, whether he’s playing left back, center back or center mid, he’s definitely an asset to our team.” |
This is our opportunity to truly empower parents so we don’t criminalize them for something that anyone in their right mind would do, which is fight for their children’s life.
SALT LAKE CITY — Utahns with epilepsy are on the home stretch for being allowed to use non-intoxicating hemp oil extract from marijuana plants to treat seizures.
After a unanimous vote Tuesday in the Senate, HB105 now goes back to the House for consideration. The bill has been revised since passing the House by a 62-11 vote last week. If the House concurs with the changes, the bill will be sent to the governor for his signature.
Six-year-old Charlee Nelson, who has Batten disease, lay in a stroller on the Senate floor with her parents, Catrina and Jeff Nelson, of West Jordan, as the senators cast their votes.
While it's probably too late to help Charlee, HB105 would allow the 33,000 individuals in Utah with intractable epilepsy — meaning seizure treatment is unsuccessful — to bring the hemp oil across the state border.
"The concept of having cannabis oil as a medication to help with the treatment of seizures and other health issues is one that I support," Gov. Gary Herbert told reporters Tuesday, noting he has not read the bill.
Herbert said the state should be responsible for "necessary oversight" and that he has no opposition to the bill if that's in place.
Using cannabis oil, he said, has to be "in the context of a controlled substance."
"There ought to be some kind of prescription," the governor said. "We ought to make sure the quality of what is being distributed (has) a positive benefit."
The bill requires the oil to be high in cannabidiol, or CBD, and very low in tetrahydrocannabinol, or TCH, the psychoactive component in marijuana.
Sen. Stephen Urquhart, R-St. George, the bill's Senate sponsor, said Utah already has products with THC higher than 0.3 percent on store shelves. He said if the product were available in other countries, it could be imported to Utah. However, it's illegal to take the hemp oil across state lines.
The product is currently available in Colorado. Of the 180 children from 42 states now living in Colorado and using the hemp extract, 80 percent have seen at least a 50 percent reduction in their seizures, Urquhart said.
Children with epilepsy or their parents would apply for an annual registration card to have hemp extract in the state.
"This is our opportunity to truly empower parents so we don’t criminalize them for something that anyone in their right mind would do, which is fight for their children’s life," said Sen. Luz Robles, D-Salt Lake City.
HB105 would allow those with waivers to bring the extract to Utah, provided it goes through quality control in a laboratory separate from the hemp oil producer.
The bill provides for a transfer of information between physicians and the health department for study to determine efficacy during the two-year period the legislation would be in effect.
"The process works," Urquhart said of the multiple revisions the bill has undergone to gain support in the House and Senate. "The parents have been extremely engaged. They've never gotten discouraged. I think, at all stages, the bill kept improving to where it's going to be a great law."
Contributing: Lisa Riley Roche
Twitter: Madeleine6 |
“I really thought it could be the end,” Karen Reynolds said.
Dorner bound the couple's arms and legs tightly with plastic zip locks, stuffed small towels in their mouths so they couldn't scream and covered their heads with pillowcases, they said. He tied an extension cord around each of pillowcases to keep the gags in place.
The couple provided new details on some of Dorner's movements in the apparent final hours of his life before he is believed to have died in a fire following a mountainside gun battle with officers. Law enforcement authorities previously said the fugitive had held two cleaning women hostage. The Reynolds, married for 36 years, spoke to reporters to end the confusion.
"He told us 'I know you know who I am, I know you've been seeing the news,' " Karen Reynolds, 56, said.
"He tried to calm us down, saying very frequently, he would not kill us,” said Jim Reynolds, 66, who has owned the condo with his wife for 12 years. "He huddled down beside me and said 'you're going to be quiet, right? Not make a fuss and let me get away?' "
The hostage quoted him as saying: “I don’t have a problem with you. I just want to clear my name."
Christopher Jordan Dorner, accused in the killings of four people, told two hostages he wanted to clear his name shortly before his presumed death
The Reynolds said Dorner had been at the condo since as early as Friday when they arrived to do maintenance in the yard. He told them he was watching them while they worked during the day before leaving to sleep at another property nearby. The couple own the condo, near ski resorts in the snow-capped San Bernardino Mountains, and lease it out to people on vacation.
Dorner said he had seen Jim Reynolds shoveling snow and told the couple they were "hard-working, good people."
When they entered the condo about noon Tuesday to clean the unit, they said, they were surprised to find the fugitive former Los Angeles police officer inside, upstairs. They said they were held captive for about 15 minutes.
INTERACTIVE MAP: Searching for suspected shooter
Once they saw Dorner, they said, he brandished a “big gun” and yelled, “Stay calm!”
Karen Reynolds said she tried to run down the stairs, but Dorner chased after her and caught her. He then took the couple to a bedroom, where he tied them up, forcing them to lie on the bed, and then on the floor.
Dorner was a menacing presence but at other times tried to reassure the couple that he did not want to harm them, they said.
WHO THEY WERE: Dorner's alleged victims
Karen Reynolds said Dorner left the condo and stole their purple Nissan.
At that point, Karen Reynolds was able to roll on her knees and get onto her feet. She was able to make her way to the cellphone on the coffee table. With her hands still bound behind her back, she was able to call 911, and put the phone on speaker about two minutes after they heard the car leave.
“Dorner tied us up, and he’s in Big Bear,” Karen Reynolds recalled telling the operator.
FULL COVERAGE: Sweeping manhunt for ex-cop
That call at 12:20 p.m. alerted authorities that Dorner was in the area and set in motion the chain of events that led to a shootout between Dorner and a state Fish and Wildlife warden and the standoff at the cabin where he is believed to have died as flames consumed the wood-paneled structure.
The blaze was sparked after authorities fired incendiary tear gas into the cabin, San Bernardino County Sheriff John McMahon told reporters Wednesday afternoon.
McMahon denied speculation that officers intentionally set the fire, saying officers first used traditional tear gas to flush the man out. When that didn't work, they decided to use CS gas canisters, which are known in law enforcement parlance as incendiary tear gas. These canisters, filled with more potent gas, have a significantly greater chance of starting a fire.
"We did not intentionally burn down that cabin," the sheriff said.
As the Reynolds recounted the harrowing ordeal, they said they were "happy to be alive." They said they have mixed feelings about Dorner, whom they described as calm, alert and methodical. They found evidence that someone had been staying in the cabin, such as a gallon of milk in the fridge, but don't know if a previous tenant had left it behind. The last renter was there on Jan. 29, the couple said.
The unit was equipped with cable television and Internet and is a short walk from a command post where authorities briefed reporters on the manhunt. There were no signs of a forced entry.
Asked if they expected a share of the more than $1-million reward offered in the case, the couple said they didn't expect to receive anything.
"We heard nobody was getting that because he needed to be captured and convicted," Karen Reynolds said.
ALSO:
Dorner manhunt: A sigh of relief and anguish in Big Bear
Owner of stolen truck says Dorner didn't want to hurt him
Dorner case: Slain deputy's wife speaks of losing 'perfect' mate
-- Adolfo Flores in Big Bear and Rong-Gong Lin II, Andrew Blankstein and Robert J. Lopez in Los Angeles
Photo: Jim Reynolds, 66, right, and wife Karen Reynolds, 56, left, recount their harrowing experience of being held captive by Christopher Dorner inside a condo they own at Mountain Vista Resort. Credit: Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times |
Astrsk PR is in the business of making startups succeed. By working to craft the right image through media relations, partnership development and more, this boutique agency helps fledgling companies flourish into not-so-fledgling industry disruptors.
The man behind the curtain is 29-year-old founder and CEO of Astrsk, Elliot Tomaeno. An entrepreneur himself, Tomaeno has a solid grasp on what fellow founders need to succeed: Since its 2012 inception, Astrsk, with Tomaeno at the helm, has helped launch over 230 companies. Now-big-name clients like Squarespace, ClassPass and Trello can attribute their success in part to Astrsk’s guidance.
Astrsk is experiencing some serious growth in tandem with the success of its clientele. The now-17-person team has nearly doubled in size over the past year and has been branching out to work with brands beyond the startup realm; feature film Ex Machina and Steve Jobs documentary The Man in the Machine are some of Astrsk’s newer clients. Oh, and did we mention Astrsk donates 10% of its time to pro-bono work? Tomaeno and crew clearly have a lot of good things happening, and the industry has caught on. This year, Tomaeno landed a spot on Adweek's '30 Under 30' list.
We spent a day with Tomaeno, delving into why establishing a cohesive image from the get-go is vital for entrepreneurs ... and why weird is good.
At home
Image: PHOTO BY NATHAN PERKEL/ STYLED BY MERCEDES PSL BASS/ POLO ($39.50), JOGGER ($59.50) VIA MACY’S INC MENS
Tomaeno begins the day at his Tribeca abode. As he prepares to head to the office, we talk image and perception. "It's really about the intersection of personal branding and style, and how you tell your own story, right? So many people forget that they have control over their own narrative. And so many people forget that their actions determine their perception," says Tomaeno.
"It's very important to be cognizant of every first impression, every interaction that you have with someone — someone who can do a lot for you, but also the people who can do nothing for you."
Image: PHOTO BY NATHAN PERKEL/ STYLED BY MERCEDES PSL BASS/ CREW-NECK SWEATER ($55.00), JOGGER ($59.50) VIA MACY’S INC MENS
He continues: "I don't do traditional PR; I'm not a traditional businessman. So, I couldn't look like a traditional PR guy or a traditional businessman, nor did I want to. But strategically, I think it was important to walk the walk, talk the talk — and be weird. I'm not talking about, like, the corporate business suit. I'm talking about a tailored suit and having a little bit of fun with your outfits. That's always just been me. And I've managed to be able to build a job for myself where I can wear whatever I want."
On the go
Image: PHOTO BY NATHAN PERKEL/ STYLED BY MERCEDES PSL BASS/ QUILTED JACKET ($69.50), SLIM FIT PANTS ($39.98) VIA MACY’S INC MENS
Tomaeno lives within walking distance of Astrsk HQ. As we hit the streets of downtown Manhattan, he recounts how it all came to be. On founding a company with primarily startup clientele, he says, "I’m constantly inspired by entrepreneurs — that's why I got into this business. Seeing them pushing their industry forward really inspires me to push my industry forward. I really wanted to build something for these types of companies, a new type of PR agency."
"When I first started in 2012, the word 'disrupted' was not so cliché yet,” he laughs. "And so at the beginning, I wanted to be as disruptive as the companies that we represented."
"One of our first articles said, 'We're a no-BS agency,'" says Tomaeno. "And I think that authenticity comes not only from what we say about ourselves externally — what we look like — but also what the people who work here say about us. It's really important for you to have some kind of weird to fit into the Astrsk crew."
At work
Image: PHOTO BY NATHAN PERKEL/ STYLED BY MERCEDES PSL BASS/ BLAZER ($79.98), LONG-SLEEVE CREW-NECK SWEATSHIRT ($55.00), SLIM FIT PANTS ($39.98) VIA MACY’S INC MENS
Astrsk's third-floor offices are tucked away in a small building on a boutique-lined street in SoHo. The interior is lively and sunny; staffers chat with each other freely in the open-concept space.
"We've done probably the bulk of our growth in the last year," says Tomaeno as he gestures around the office. "We're always trying to work in the intersection of tech and fashion, tech and art and tech and music. So, as we've grown as a company, some of the companies that we're dealing with are larger as well. But I definitely want to always be a place for launching companies."
"I think my favorite companies to work on are still the companies that are just launching," he continues. "We get to be such a big part of their ethos from the beginning and help them define their messaging and make the best first impression they possibly can."
Image: PHOTO BY NATHAN PERKEL/ STYLED BY MERCEDES PSL BASS/ SLIM-FIT BLAZER ($79.98), LONG-SLEEVE SHIRT ($79.50), KNIT DRESS PANTS ($59.50) VIA MACY’S INC MENS
And how to make that first impression and craft that killer image?
"For every different company, for every startup, there needs to be a different approach," Tomaeno advises. "You know, every client wants something different, and we're really focused on the bottom-line business goals of a company. It's really important to understand first what those bottom-line business goals are. Is it about getting a new type of customer? Is it attracting more customers? Is it about changing your relationship with VCs or financial press? Are you trying to raise another round? Are you trying to position yourself as one of the most forward with labor policies?"
The trick to crafting the right image and narrative for a company, Tomaeno says, comes down to spot-on intuition, dedication to understanding each client and building rapport. "I think it's key to understand the client, and not just understand what the company does and why they do it. Those are the really important first two steps. But I think the third is to know who is behind [a company] and what led them to do this personally — really understanding the human element," he says. |
What Voters Know about Campaign 2012
Pew Research News IQ Quiz
Overview
Before you read the report, test your own News IQ by taking the interactive knowledge quiz. The short quiz includes many of the questions that were included in a national poll. Participants will instantly learn how they did on the quiz in comparison with the voting public as well as with people like them. Take the Quiz
As the presidential campaign enters its final three months, most voters say they already know what they need to know to form a clear impression of the candidates. But fewer say this about Mitt Romney than about Barack Obama. Indeed, the latest Pew Research Center knowledge survey finds that while voters know many key things about the candidates and their issue positions, voters are less familiar with Romney than with Obama.
Three-quarters of voters (75%) can correctly identify Illinois as the state Obama represented in the U.S. Senate, while 60% identify Massachusetts as the state in which Romney served as governor. Roughly six-in-ten (61%) know that Bain Capital is the company Romney once headed.
About two-thirds correctly identify Obama as the candidate who supports tax increases on income above $250,000 (68%), as well as a policy to allow young undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children to remain here and apply for work permits (66%). Somewhat fewer identify Romney as the candidate who opposes same-sex marriage (60%) and who supports restricting access to abortion in most cases (54%).
The latest News IQ survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, conducted July 26-29 among 1,010 adults (including 771 registered voters), finds voters to be somewhat less knowledgeable about political facts not related to the candidates. Just under half of voters (47%) can correctly identify a “Super PAC” as a group able to accept unlimited political donations. And only 40% can correctly state that the Republican Party currently has a majority of the seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. However, including those who believe that the GOP has a majority in the Senate or in both houses, 63% are aware that the party has at least a share of the power in Congress.
Awareness that Joe Biden is the vice president of the U.S. is nearly universal among voters (85%). But just 39% can correctly identify John Roberts as the current Chief Justice of the U.S.
Overall, 66% of voters know which candidate in the 2008 election – Obama or McCain – received the most votes in their current home state. Knowledge of the 2008 outcome in respondents’ home state is higher among those who live in a state Obama won (70%) than it is among those who live in a state McCain won (58%).
Knowledge Differences between Voters and Non-Voters
Non-voters struggle with many of the campaign and other political knowledge questions. On average, people who are not registered to vote answer 4.9 out of 12 questions correctly compared with 7.2 among voters. Just 22% of non-voters know that Republicans control the House of Representatives and only 23% know that John Roberts is the Chief Justice of the U.S. On all twelve questions asked, voters are significantly more likely than non-voters to answer correctly.
Partisan Differences in Knowledge
On average, Republican voters fare somewhat better than Democratic voters (7.8 vs. 6.9 questions correct) on the twelve question knowledge quiz. Democratic voters struggle to identify the Republican Party as the majority in the House of Representatives (29% correct) and John Roberts as the U.S. Chief Justice (31%).
On most other questions, however, there are relatively modest differences between Republican and Democratic voters. Majorities of Republicans, Democrats and independents know campaign facts such as that Romney was the CEO at Bain Capital and Obama supports taxing income over $250,000. Wide majorities of partisan groups also know that Obama favors allowing many illegal immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children to stay in the country, and that Romney opposes allowing gays and lesbians to marry legally.
Demographic Divides in Campaign Knowledge
As in past knowledge surveys, there are substantial divides between the well-educated and those with less education. College graduates are more likely than those with no college experience to correctly answer eleven of the twelve questions asked. On average, college graduates answer 8.8 questions correctly, compared with 5.5 for those with no college experience.
Fewer than half of voters with only a high school education can answer key facts about Mitt Romney’s background, including the company where he was CEO, the state he governed, and his position on abortion. Voters with no college experience generally do somewhat better on questions about Obama’s positions and background. For example, 62% know he supports allowing many illegal immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children to stay in the country. And 58% know that he represented Illinois in the U.S. Senate.
In general, older voters are better informed about the election than are voters under the age of 35. This is consistent with the findings of previous knowledge surveys, but the gap between young and old voters is much more modest than the one seen across educational levels. Young voters are about as likely as older voters to know that Mitt Romney is pro-life and that he opposes gay marriage; 80% can correctly identify Joe Biden as the current vice president. Young voters trail older voters when it comes to questions such as the state Obama represented in the Senate and which candidate supports taxing income over $250,000. Nonetheless, half or more of voters under age 35 are able to answer eight of the 12 questions correctly. |
The Atacama is one of several gorgeous, seemingly lifeless deserts that make Chile look like another world. And that's why it's been popular with artists since before the days of the Inca. There's nothing like a blank landscape if you want to create a massive, haunting sculpture. And that's just what Chilean sculptor Mario Irarrázabal has done here.
According to Atlas Obscura:
About 75km south of the town of Antofagasta [is] an 11-meter-tall hand protruding out of the sand. Mano de Desierto . . . was built in the early 1980s. It was financed by a local booster organization called Corporación Pro Antofagasta.
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It really does look like something out of science fiction — or maybe out of the deep history of humanity, when we were first experimenting with the idea of art.
via Atlas Obscura
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Top image by John T.; others via Wikimedia Commons |
Android's L release is going to bring about a ton of new changes and improvements, and they took time to talk about a few of the most important today. That includes a new default runtime, improved graphics, and improved battery life.
ART is now the default runtime
We actually saw this coming, but it's now confirmed. ART brings twice the performance over the current runtime, Dalvik. It has been available as a preview for KitKat, but is becoming the default (and from what I can tell, only) runtime in the L release. It's more memory efficient, more flexible, and faster. Even older devices will benefit from this.
Better Graphics
They didn't actually talk about this a lot, but it was pointed out that NVIDIA, Qualcomm, ARM, and a few other partners have teamed up with Google to improve everything graphics related.
Improved Battery Life
This one is huge. The L release is bringing major changes to how Android manages battery life called Project Volta. There aren't a whole lot of user-facing details at this time, as most of these changes seem to be very developer-centric. What we do know, however, is that Android will now have a native battery saver, though it appears to be pretty basic. There are a lot more under-the-hood changes also going on here, which we'll take a look at more in-depth as more information becomes available. |
For other people named Edward Robinson, see Edward Robinson (disambiguation)
Edward G. Robinson (born Emanuel Goldenberg; Yiddish: ײמאַנועל גאָלדענבערג; December 12, 1893 – January 26, 1973) was an American actor of stage and screen during Hollywood's Golden Age. He appeared in 40 Broadway plays and more than 100 films during a 50-year career[1] and is best remembered for his tough-guy roles as gangsters in such films as Little Caesar and Key Largo.
During the 1930s and 1940s, he was an outspoken public critic of fascism and Nazism, which were growing in strength in Europe leading up to World War II. His activism included contributing over $250,000 to more than 850 organizations involved in war relief, along with cultural, educational and religious groups. During the 1950s, he was called to testify at the House Un-American Activities Committee during the Red Scare, but was cleared of any Communist involvement.
Robinson's roles included an insurance investigator in the film noir Double Indemnity, Dathan (adversary of Moses) in The Ten Commandments, and his final performance in the science-fiction story Soylent Green.[2] Robinson received an Honorary Academy Award for his work in the film industry, which was awarded two months after he died in 1973. He is ranked number 24 in the American Film Institute's list of the 25 greatest male stars of Classic American cinema.
Early years and education [ edit ]
Robinson was born as Emanuel Goldenberg to a Yiddish-speaking Romanian Jewish family in Bucharest, the son of Sarah (née Guttman) and Morris Goldenberg, a builder.[3]
After one of his brothers was attacked by an anti-semitic mob, the family decided to immigrate to the United States.[1] Robinson arrived in New York City on February 21, 1904.[4] "At Ellis Island I was born again", he wrote. "Life for me began when I was 10 years old."[1] He grew up on the Lower East Side,[5]:91 had his Bar Mitzvah at First Roumanian-American Congregation,[6] and attended Townsend Harris High School and then the City College of New York, planning to become a criminal attorney.[7] An interest in acting and performing in front of people led to him winning an American Academy of Dramatic Arts scholarship,[7] after which he changed his name to Edward G. Robinson (the G. standing for his original surname).[7]
He served in the United States Navy during World War I, but was never sent overseas.[8]
Career [ edit ]
Theatre [ edit ]
He began his acting career in the Yiddish Theater District[9][10][11] in 1913 and made his Broadway debut in 1915.[1] He made his film debut in Arms and the Man (1916).
In 1923 made his named debut as E. G. Robinson in the silent film, The Bright Shawl.[1]
The Racket [ edit ]
He played a snarling gangster in the 1927 Broadway police/crime drama The Racket, which led to his being cast in similar film roles, beginning with The Hole in the Wall (1929) with Claudette Colbert for Paramount. Paramount then cast him in a comedy, The Kibitzer (1930).
One of many actors who saw his career flourish in the new sound film era rather than falter, he made only three films prior to 1930, but left his stage career that year and made 14 films between 1930 and 1932.
Robinson went to Universal for Night Ride (1930) and MGM for A Lady to Love (1930) directed by Victor Sjöström. At Universal he was in Outside the Law and East Is West (both 1930), then he did The Widow from Chicago (1931) at First National.
Little Caesar [ edit ]
Robinson was established as a film actor. What made him a star was an acclaimed performance as the gangster Caesar Enrico "Rico" Bandello in Little Caesar (1931) at Warner Bros.
Robinson signed a long term contract with Warners. They put him in another gangster film, Smart Money (1931), his only movie with James Cagney. He was reunited with Mervyn LeRoy, director of Little Caesar, in Five Star Final (1931), playing a journalist, and played a Tong gangster in The Hatchet Man (1932).
Robinson made a third film with LeRoy, Two Seconds (1932) then did a melodrama directed by Howard Hawks, Tiger Shark (1932).
Warners tried him in a biopic, Silver Dollar (1932), where Robinson played Horace Tabor, a comedy, The Little Giant (1933) and a romance, I Loved a Woman (1933).
Robinson was then in Dark Hazard (1934), and The Man with Two Faces (1934).
He went to Columbia for The Whole Town's Talking (1935), a comedy directed by John Ford. Sam Goldwyn borrowed him for Barbary Coast (1935), again directed by Hawks.
Back at Warners he did Bullets or Ballots (1936) then he went to Britain for Thunder in the City (1937). He made Kid Galahad (1937) with Bette Davis and Humphrey Bogart. MGM borrowed him for The Last Gangster (1937) then he did a comedy A Slight Case of Murder (1938). Again with Bogart in a supporting role, he was in The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse (1938) then he was borrowed by Columbia for I Am the Law (1938).
World War Two [ edit ]
At the time World War II broke out in Europe, he played an FBI agent in Confessions of a Nazi Spy (1939), the first American film which showed Nazism as a threat to the United States.
He volunteered for military service in June 1942 but was disqualified due to his age at 48,[12] although he became an active and vocal critic of fascism and Nazism during that period.[13]
MGM borrowed him for Blackmail (1939) then he played Paul Ehrlich in Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet (1940) and Paul Julius Reuter in A Dispatch from Reuter's (1940), both biographies of prominent Jewish public figures. In between, he and Bogart were in Brother Orchid (1940).
Robinson was teamed with John Garfield in The Sea Wolf (1941) and George Raft in Manpower (1941). He went to MGM for Unholy Partners (1942) and made a comedy Larceny, Inc. (1942).
Post Warners [ edit ]
Robinson was one of several stars in Tales of Manhattan (1942) and Flesh and Fantasy (1943).
He did war films: Destroyer (1943) at Columbia, and Tampico (1944) at Fox. At Paramount he was in Billy Wilder's Double Indemnity (1944) with Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck and at Columbia he was in Mr. Winkle Goes to War (1944). He then performed with Joan Bennett and Dan Duryea in Fritz Lang's The Woman in the Window (1944) and Scarlet Street (1945).
At MGM he was in Our Vines Have Tender Grapes (1945) then did Orson Welles' The Stranger (1946) with Welles and Loretta Young. Robinson followed it with a thriller The Red House (1947) and starred in an adaptation of All My Sons (1948).
Robinson appeared for director John Huston as gangster Johnny Rocco in Key Largo (1948), the last of five films he made with Humphrey Bogart and the only one in which Bogart did not play a supporting role.
He went on to be in Night Has a Thousand Eyes (1948), and House of Strangers (1949).
Greylisting [ edit ]
Robinson found it hard to get work after his blacklisting. He was in low budgeted films: Actors and Sin (1952), Vice Squad (1953), Big Leaguer (1953), The Glass Web (1953), Black Tuesday (1954), The Violent Men (1955), Tight Spot (1955), A Bullet for Joey (1955), Illegal (1955), and Hell on Frisco Bay (1955).
His career rehabilitation received a boost in 1954, when noted anti-communist director Cecil B. DeMille cast him as the traitorous Dathan in The Ten Commandments. The film was released in 1956, as was his psychological thriller Nightmare.
After a subsequent short absence from the screen, Robinson's film career—augmented by an increasing number of television roles—restarted for good in 1958/59, when he was second-billed after Frank Sinatra in the 1959 release A Hole in the Head.
Supporting Actor [ edit ]
Robinson went to Europe for Seven Thieves (1960). He had support roles in My Geisha (1962), Two Weeks in Another Town (1962), Sammy Going South (1963), The Prize (1963), Robin and the 7 Hoods (1964), Good Neighbor Sam (1964), Cheyenne Autumn (1964), and The Outrage (1964).
He had a key part in The Cincinnati Kid (1965) and was top billed in The Blonde from Peking and Grand Slam (1967).
Robinson was originally cast in the role of Dr. Zaius in Planet Of The Apes (1968) and even went as far to filming a screen test with Charlton Heston. However, Robinson dropped out from the project before production began citing heart problems and concerns over the long hours under the heavy ape make up. He was replaced by Maurice Evans.
Later appearances included The Biggest Bundle of Them All (1968), Never a Dull Moment (1968), It's Your Move (1968), Mackenna's Gold (1969), and the Night Gallery episode “The Messiah on Mott Street" (1971).
The last scene Robinson filmed was a euthanasia sequence, with friend and co-star Charlton Heston, in the science fiction cult film Soylent Green (1973); he died only twelve days later.
Heston, as president of the Screen Actors Guild, presented Robinson with its annual award in 1969, "in recognition of his pioneering work in organizing the union, his service during World War II, and his 'outstanding achievement in fostering the finest ideals of the acting profession.'"[5]:124
Robinson was never nominated for an Academy Award, but in 1973 he was awarded an honorary Oscar in recognition that he had "achieved greatness as a player, a patron of the arts and a dedicated citizen ... in sum, a Renaissance man".[1] He had been notified of the honor, but died two months before the award ceremony, so the award was accepted by his widow, Jane Robinson.[1]
Radio [ edit ]
From 1937 to 1942, Robinson starred as Steve Wilson, editor of the Illustrated Press, in the newspaper drama Big Town.[14] He also portrayed hardboiled detective Sam Spade for a Lux Radio Theatre adaptation of The Maltese Falcon.
Personal life [ edit ]
Robinson married his first wife, stage actress Gladys Lloyd, born Gladys Lloyd Cassell, in 1927; she was the former wife of Ralph L. Vestervelt and the daughter of Clement C. Cassell, an architect, sculptor and artist. The couple had one son, Edward G. Robinson, Jr. (a.k.a. Manny Robinson, 1933–1974), as well as a daughter from Gladys Robinson's first marriage.[15] In 1956 the couple divorced. In 1958 he married Jane Bodenheimer, a dress designer professionally known as Jane Arden. Thereafter he also maintained a home in Palm Springs, California.[16]
In noticeable contrast to many of his onscreen characters, Robinson was a sensitive, softly-spoken and cultured man who spoke seven languages.[1] Remaining a liberal Democrat, he attended the 1960 Democratic Convention in Los Angeles, California.[17] He was a passionate art collector, eventually building up a significant private collection. In 1956, however, he was forced to sell his collection to pay for his divorce settlement with Gladys Robinson; his finances had also suffered due to underemployment in the early 1950s.[5]:120
Robinson died at Mount Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles of bladder cancer[18] on January 26, 1973. Services were held at Temple Israel in Los Angeles where Charlton Heston delivered the eulogy.[19]:131 Over 1,500 friends of Robinson attended with another 500 crowded outside.[5]:125 His body was then flown to New York where it was entombed in a crypt in the family mausoleum at Beth-El Cemetery in Brooklyn.[19]:131 Among his pallbearers were Jack L. Warner, Hal B. Wallis, Mervyn LeRoy, George Burns, Sam Jaffe, and Frank Sinatra.[1]
In October 2000, Robinson's image was imprinted on a U.S. postage stamp, its sixth in its Legends of Hollywood series.[5]:125[20]
Political activism [ edit ]
During the 1930s, Robinson was an outspoken public critic of fascism and Nazism, and donated more than $250,000 to 850 political and charitable groups between 1939 and 1949. He was host to the Committee of 56 who gathered at his home on December 9, 1938, signing a "Declaration of Democratic Independence" which called for a boycott of all German-made products.[13]
Although he tried to do so, he was unable to enlist in the military at the outbreak of World War II because of his age;[12] instead, the Office of War Information appointed him as a Special Representative based in London.[5]:106 From there, taking advantage of his multilingual skills, he delivered radio addresses in over six languages to countries in Europe which had fallen under Nazi domination.[5]:106 His talent as a radio speaker in the U.S. had previously been recognized by the American Legion, which had given him an award for his "outstanding contribution to Americanism through his stirring patriotic appeals."[5]:106 Robinson was also active with the Hollywood Democratic Committee, serving on its executive board in 1944, during which time he became an "enthusiastic" campaigner for Roosevelt's reelection that year.[5]:107
In early July 1944, less than a month after the Invasion of Normandy by Allied forces, Robinson traveled to Normandy to entertain the troops, becoming the first movie star to go there for the USO.[5]:106 He personally donated $100,000 ($1,500,000 in 2015 dollars) to the USO.[5]:107 After returning to the U.S. he continued his active involvement with the war effort by going to shipyards and defense plants to inspire workers, in addition to appearing at rallies to help sell war bonds.[5]:107 After the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, while not a supporter of Communism, he appeared at Soviet war relief rallies to give moral aid to America's new ally, which he said could join "together in their hatred of Hitlerism."[5]:107
After the war ended, Robinson spoke publicly in support of democratic rights for all Americans, especially in demanding equality for Blacks in the workplace. He endorsed the Fair Employment Practices Commission's call to end workplace discrimination.[5]:109 Black leaders praised him as "one of the great friends of the Negro and a great advocator of Democracy."[5]:109 Robinson also campaigned for the civil rights of African-Americans, helping out many people to overcome segregation and discrimination.[21]
During the years Robinson spoke against fascism and Nazism – although not a supporter of Communism - he failed to criticize the Soviet Union which he saw as an ally against Hitler. However, notes film historian Steven J. Ross, "activists who attacked Hitler without simultaneously attacking Stalin were vilified by conservative critics as either Communists, Communist dupes, or, at best, naive liberal dupes."[5]:128 In addition, Robinson learned that 11 of the more than the 850 charities and groups he had helped over the previous decade were listed by the FBI as Communist front organizations.[22] As a result, he was called to testify in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) in 1950 and 1952 and was threatened with blacklisting.[23]
As appears in the full House of Un-American activities Committee transcript for April 30, 1952, Robinson "named names" of Communist sympathizers (Albert Maltz, Dalton Trumbo, John Howard Lawson, Frank Tuttle, and Sidney Buchman) and repudiated some of the organizations he had belonged to in the 1930s and 1940s.[23][24] He came to realize, "I was duped and used."[5]:121 His own name was cleared, but in the aftermath his career noticeably suffered, as he was offered smaller roles and those less frequently. In October 1952 he wrote an article titled "How the Reds made a Sucker Out of Me", that was published in the American Legion Magazine.[25] The chair of the Committee, Francis E. Walter, told Robinson at the end of his testimonies, that the Committee "never had any evidence presented to indicate that you were anything more than a very choice sucker."[5]:122
In popular culture [ edit ]
Robinson has been the inspiration for a number of animated television characters, usually caricatures of his most distinctive 'snarling gangster' guise. An early version of the gangster character Rocky, featured in the Bugs Bunny cartoon Racketeer Rabbit, shared his likeness. This version of the character also appears briefly in Justice League, in the episode "Comfort and Joy", as an alien with Robinson's face and non-human body, who hovers past the screen as a background character.
Similar caricatures also appeared in The Coo-Coo Nut Grove, Thugs with Dirty Mugs and Hush My Mouse. Another character based on Robinson's tough-guy image was The Frog (Chauncey "Flat Face" Frog) from the cartoon series Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse. The voice of B.B. Eyes in The Dick Tracy Show was based on Robinson, with Mel Blanc and Jerry Hausner sharing voicing duties. The animated series Wacky Races' character 'Clyde' from the Ant Hill Mob was based on Robinson's Little Caesar persona.
In the 1989 animated series C.O.P.S. the mastermind villain Brandon "Big Boss" Babel's voice sounded just like Edward G. Robinson when he would talk to his gangsters. Then years later voice actor Hank Azaria has noted that the voice of Simpsons character police chief Clancy Wiggum is an impression of Robinson.[26] This has been explicitly joked about in episodes of the show. In "The Day the Violence Died" (1996), a character states that Chief Wiggum is clearly based on Robinson. In 2008's "Treehouse of Horror XIX", Wiggum and Robinson's ghost each accuse the other of being rip-offs.[citation needed] Another caricature of Robinson appears in two episodes of Star Wars: The Clone Wars season two, in the person of Lt. Tan Divo[citation needed].
Robinson was played by Michael Stuhlbarg in the 2015 film Trumbo.
Filmography [ edit ]
Excluding appearances as himself.
Radio appearances [ edit ]
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0660863/mediaviewer/rm2112237824
Further reading [ edit ] |
The hydrothermal vents and methane seeps on the ocean floor that were once thought to be geologic and biological oddities are now emerging as a major force in ocean ecosystems, marine life and global climate.
However, even as researchers learn more about their role in sustaining a healthy Earth, these habitats are being threatened by a wide range of human activities, including deep-sea mining, bottom trawling and energy harvesting, scientists say in a report published in Frontiers in Marine Science.
Researchers from Oregon State University first discovered these strange, isolated worlds on the ocean bottom 40 years ago. These habitats surprised the scientific world with reports of hot oozing gases, sulfide chimneys, bizarre tube worms and giant crabs and mussels -- life forms that were later found to eat methane and toxic sulfide.
"It was immediately apparent that these hydrothermal vents were incredibly cool," said Andrew Thurber, an assistant professor in the OSU College of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences, and co-author on the new report.
"Since then we've learned that these vents and seeps are much more than just some weird fauna, unique biology and strange little ecosystems. Rather than being an anomaly, they are prevalent around the world, both in the deep ocean and shallower areas. They provide an estimated 13 percent of the energy entering the deep sea, make a wide range of marine life possible, and are major players in global climate."
As fountains of marine life, the vents pour out gases and minerals, including sulfide, methane, hydrogen and iron -- one of the limiting nutrients in the growth of plankton in large areas of the ocean. In an even more important role, the life forms in these vents and seeps consume 90 percent of the released methane and keep it from entering the atmosphere, where as a greenhouse gas it's 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide.
"We had no idea at first how important this ecological process was to global climate," Thurber said. "Through methane consumption, these life forms are literally saving the planet. There is more methane on the ocean floor than there are other forms of fossil fuels left in the oceans, and if it were all released it would be a doomsday climatic event."
In reviewing the status of these marine geological structures and the life that lives around them, a group of researchers from 14 international universities and organizations have outlined what's been learned in the past four decades and what forces threaten these ecosystems today. The synthesis was supported by the J.M. Kaplan fund.
These vents and seeps, and the marine life that lives there, create rocks and habitat, which in some settings can last tens of thousands of years. They release heat and energy, and form biological hot spots of diversity. They host extensive mussel and clam beds, mounds of shrimp and crab, create some prime fishing habitat and literally fertilize the ocean as zooplankton biomass and abundance increases. While the fluid flows from only a small section of the seafloor, the impact on the ocean is global.
Some of the microorganisms found at these sites are being explored for their potential to help degrade oil spills, or act as a biocatalytic agent for industrial scrubbing of carbon dioxide.
These systems, however, have already been damaged by human exploitation, and others are being targeted, the scientists said. Efforts are beginning to mine them for copper, zinc, lead, gold and silver. Bottom trawling is a special concern, causing physical disturbance that could interfere with seeps, affect habitat and damage other biologic linkages.
Oil, gas or hydrate exploitation may damage seeps. Whaling and logging may interfere with organic matter falling to the ocean floor, which serves as habitat or stepping stones for species reliant on chemosynthetic energy sources. Waste disposal of munitions, sewage and debris may affect seeps.
The range of ecosystem services these vents and seeps provide is just barely beginning to be understood, researchers said in their report. As many of these habitats fall outside of territorial waters, vent and seep conservation will require international collaboration and cooperation if they are going to continue to provide ecosystem benefits. |
Buzz Aldrin discusses his Mars mission architecture at the Humans to Mars Summit in Washington. (credit: D. Day) A year on Mars
How many humans on Mars conferences do we need in a year? That thought came to mind during the recent Humans to Mars (H2M) Summit in Washington, DC. There are a lot of them, especially in Washington. There were at least six humans-to-Mars related public events in Washington in 2015, not counting the NASA-sponsored human Mars landing site selection workshop in Houston. Now 2016 is shaping up the same way. Last Tuesday following the H2M conference, the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning DC-based think-tank, held a talk “Beyond the Moon: What will it take to get astronauts on Mars?” The Mars Society was in Washington last August and will be back in September, and there will probably be at least one or two other Mars-related meetings or lectures that will happen later this year. And not everything is happening in Washington: the same week as the H2M conference there were a series of talks on Mars at the International Space Development Conference in Puerto Rico. Some, but not all, of this attention to the humans to Mars subject is due to the success of the movie The Martian and the book that inspired it. But the subject is also culturally bigger than that: witness the attention that Mars One got last year, both positive and negative, and NASA pushing the theme hard as well (every time somebody uses the hashtag #JourneyToMars an angel gets its wings.) Human missions to Mars, or at least talking about humans on Mars, is all the rage these days, and H2M has made a pretty impressive effort at taking the lead. Human missions to Mars, or at least talking about humans on Mars, is all the rage these days, and H2M has made a pretty impressive effort at taking the lead. H2M seems to have upped its game recently. Their website is slick, featuring computer animations and links to video recordings of most of the presentations at their conference, much of which was live-streamed. H2M has a lot of corporate sponsorship, including industry bigwigs Lockheed Martin and Boeing. Both companies had numerous placards around the conference lobby demonstrating their ties to Mars and human spaceflight programs. Boeing was showcasing the SLS, although surprisingly did not feature its previous Mars mission design study. Lockheed Martin, in particular, wanted people to realize how many American spacecraft they built that successfully reached Mars. The Good, the bad, and the smelly There were a lot of events and a few debuts at H2M. Lockheed Martin unveiled their Mars Base Camp concept, which they claim could be implemented by 2028 (if sufficient funding is available, of course.) You can add this Mars mission design to the Planetary Society’s JPL/Aerospace Corporation-developed mission concept for a Mars orbiting mission unveiled in 2015. And that is in addition to Boeing’s 2014 mission proposal. Of course, many hyperventilating space enthusiasts are waiting for Moses (aka Elon Musk) to descend from Mount Sinai later this year with his ideas on Mars colonization, what one writer described as the “agonizing months until we find out what Musk's plan is.” Those are only the corporate proposals, because just about anybody who messes around with Kerbal Space Program probably has their own plans for getting to Mars—or will fill the bottom half of the Internet with endlessly repetitive comments about why their plan is superior to NASA’s. The H2M conference was for the most part well-organized and efficiently-run. Compared to a few past conferences, the number of non-serious talks was relatively low. Robert Zubrin again used illustrations of his late 1980s Mars Direct proposal that have the look and feel of cave drawings compared to Lockheed Martin and Boeing with their slick computer graphics. Zubrin’s message, and his method of presentation, have changed little in a quarter century, and what was once fresh and exciting now doesn’t seem to do much to excite the base. Perhaps this is why H2M appeared to have twice as many people in attendance as I counted at last August’s Mars Society Conference. (See “Red planet rumble,” The Space Review, August 17, 2015.) Of course Buzz Aldrin was also there, pushing a complex and head-scratching Mars exploration and settlement plan that nobody seems enthused about except Buzz. Instead of an iconic single photo like Buzz Aldrin standing on the Moon, we may have an entire 3D Mars landscape, complete with touch and smell. Some of the talks and panel discussions were quite substantive and illuminating. A panel on virtual reality showcased a number of new technologies and applications of existing ones that were eye opening. For instance, a JPL group has developed a virtual reality planning tool for robotic Mars exploration that allows mission operators in different locations to essentially step onto the Mars landscape around a rover and identify features, such as rocks and terrain, for the rover to sample. Their actions, like pointing at specific locations, can then be directly translated into commands for the rover. Another group has created a virtual reality model of one of the Apollo landing sites along with an interactive lunar rover which will enable a user to actually drive around the surface just like the Apollo astronauts did. Back around 2007 or so, I remember seeing an interview with a NASA engineer who was working on developing the communications system for the Altair lunar lander for the now-canceled Constellation program. What was fascinating to me was hearing him describe the challenges of incorporating high-definition video into a communications system that was going to be bandwidth-limited. But looking at the virtual reality demonstrations at H2M I was struck by how obsolete even very high definition video will be if humans ever walk on Mars. Bandwidth at Mars will be better than today, although still limited, but it seems highly likely that astronauts and their vehicles will be equipped with an array of video and other sensors (LIDAR? FLIR?) that will gather tremendous amounts of three-dimensional information about their local environment to be stored onboard the spacecraft and eventually returned to Earth, where scientists and engineers will incorporate it into highly detailed virtual reality simulations of the exploration site. Instead of an iconic single photo like Buzz Aldrin standing on the Moon, we may have an entire 3D Mars landscape, complete with touch and smell. (According to scientists, Mars stinks.) A panel discusses the connection between Hollywood and Mars. From left: Keri Kukral, moderator; author Andy Weir; Ann Merchant, Science and Entertainment Exchange of the National Academies; Robert Palumbo of the National Geographic Channel; and Scott Hubbard, Stanford University. (credit: D. Day) Planet Hollywood Several entertainment organizations used the H2M conference to discuss their upcoming projects. One is a movie, The Space Between Us, scheduled to debut in August. It tells the story of the first child born on Mars, in secret, at a private six-person base. Gary Oldman is not playing a villain for once, but a kind and caring billionaire (there are a lot of them around) who decides to bring the boy, now a teenager, back to Earth. The teen does what teens do and sneaks out of the facility to meet a girl who he has been communicating with for years—who was never aware that he was living on Mars the entire time and has recently returned to Earth. Giving part of the story away, he meets up with her and she doesn’t believe his crazy story until confronted with the truth. Although the movie is clearly intended as a young adult romance along the lines of the tearjerker The Fault in Our Stars and not aimed at middle-aged males (with a hidden romantic streak) like myself, the trailer and a couple of scenes were much better than I would have expected. The film looks like it actually has a deeper message, with the boy discovering just how beautiful and wonderful Earth is, even as it is crushing his heart. There was no Mars One, the oft-maligned plan for a one-way trip to the red planet. There was also no SpaceX. Robert Palumbo of the National Geographic Channel discussed the upcoming six-part docudrama Mars that will debut on his channel in November. Palumbo co-produced the show with Ron Howard, who knows a thing or two about fact-based entertainment set in space. Although he did not show any clips, Palumbo did explain the premise. Set later in the 21st Century, the series focuses on the first Mars colonization mission, which goes badly awry when the six-person crew lands far off course and nowhere near their prepositioned supplies. Palumbo said that one of the issues the writing team faced was finding ways to put the crew in constant peril that were believable and science-based—no more meteor showers puncturing spacecraft at critical moments (see “Planet Hollywood, part 1: Mission to Mars”, The Space Review, September 21, 2009). The drama is intercut with interviews with current-day Mars experts. Mars journalist extraordinaire Leonard David has authored the accompanying book, which will be gorgeously illustrated. Author Andy Weir is interviewed on stage by Washington Post reporter Joel Achenbach. (credit: D. Day) The Earthling Andy Weir was in many ways the star of the conference, doing a one-on-one interview with my compadre Washington Post reporter Joel Achenbach as well as participating in a panel discussion. Weir is an amusing interviewee with an occasionally macabre sense of humor, at one point making a serial killer joke. Weir explained aspects of the book that he would write differently if he was doing it today. For instance, when someone asked why the Mars mission in his book was all-government, he said that he was trying to base it on what his audience would recognize, noting that when he was writing it, SpaceX was still a relatively-unknown company and the concept of public-private partnerships in space was less developed. He also said that now that water has been found on Mars, he would not have had his hero Mark Watney go through all the trouble of manufacturing it and nearly killing himself several times: “I would have simply had them land where the water was,” he said. Of course, this would have forced Weir to find other ways of nearly killing Watney, again and again. Weir said that his next book concerns a lunar colony and that he thought about including Watney, but decided against it because he did not want him to be the protagonist. If Watney was in the book, the readers would expect him to be the hero. The audience at the Humans to Mars Summit. (credit: D. Day) Why Mars? There were several things missing from the conference. There was no Mars One, the oft-maligned plan for a one-way trip to the red planet. There was also no SpaceX. The company’s sponsorship consisted of supplying lanyards with their logo for participant badges, but nobody was there to discuss Elon Musk’s Mars plans or the robotic mission that might (bets, anyone?) take place in 2018. These days SpaceX has become synonymous with Mars, even though the company so far has only tweeted about it, which is still enough to induce a nerdgasm around the world. Mention SpaceX and Mars plans and some fanboys faint, hallucinate, or start speaking in tongues, convinced that Mars Nirvana is upon us. As a not-so-subtle counterpoint, Lockheed Martin distributed t-shirts with a rock concert world tour list of the company’s Mars missions on the back, making the point that most of the spacecraft that have already reached Mars or landed on it possessed the company’s DNA. A quick list: Viking 1
Viking 2
Pathfinder/Sojourner
Mars Global Surveyor
2001 Mars Odyssey
Spirit
Opportunity
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter
Phoenix
Curiosity
Maven
Insight And so the faithful preach to each other and don’t find many converts to their religion, only increased devotion to their faith. But what was really missing at the H2M Summit was what was missing from all discussions of sending humans to Mars: a compelling explanation of why anybody should spend all that money to send people there. For decades we have had many justifications for human space missions to Mars—science, destiny, settlement, a “second home for humanity”—none of them so far sufficiently overarching or convincing to many people, certainly not enough to get humans out of low Earth orbit. The only consensus is that we need a consensus, not what it should be. And so the faithful preach to each other and don’t find many converts to their religion, only increased devotion to their faith. Elon Musk wants to build a colony on Mars to serve as an insurance policy in case Earth is destroyed, and perhaps attract people who want to retire there, although most retirees that I know want to move someplace warm with a golf course and a pool so the grandkids will visit, not live in a cave on a cold, lifeless world that smells bad. Perhaps one of the reasons that Musk has generated such a cult following is not simply his can-do attitude after decades of fanboy frustration with NASA, but because if a miracle occurs and he could do it with his own money, then nobody really needs find a compelling rationale anymore. It simply bypasses the whole thorny logic problem by pretending that it doesn’t exist. As the old saying goes, when all is said and done, a lot more is said than done. A year on Mars is two Earth years. We still have six months to go in this one. Six more months of talking about Mars. And when that is done, we’ll start talking about Mars some more. Home |
Your poor pets. Your poor dog. Not so much the cats because they are legendary in their ability to preen and clean themselves. They should be held up as a fine example to all creatures, including you. But it happens to these poor creatures too. The cats also get infected with ticks. It's not their fault, and it's certainly not the poor dog's fault the next time he comes whining into the kitchen, trying to scratch himself free of flees.
So, don't go yelling you dirty dog. That is grossly unfair and unkind. Instead, you should be scolding yourself, because at the heart of the matter of the poor animal's flea or tick invasion is your environment. It could be pretty dirty and grotty for all we know. And that's the root cause of the tick, flea and roach infestation. These beasts, they may be tiny, but they're still beasts, prey on dirt, loads of it, if it can be helped.
It can be helped, so do something about it. Okay, you can't do this on your own. You tried before and it was useless. You called in the local exterminator and he said he wiped them out clean. But before you knew it, they were all back again. No, that didn't work. But this does. Give all these bugs and varmints a sweet surprise and treat them to their own special one. You'll be giving your ticks your new organic tick control treatment, and you'll be giving your roaches an organic wipeout as well.
The organic treatment works best because you're not using any chemicals whatsoever. The pests are used to chemicals by now, and by the time you go organic, they won't know what hit them. |
I just got off the phone with Jin Wong and he was kind enough to answer a few questions on the extension of Salvador Perez.
First, I asked him about which side approach who for the deal. He did not exactly know for sure since the team, the player and the player's agent are constantly in contact. He knows that Dayton Moore had a desire to lock him up for a while. Wong said that the Royals and Perez began the discussions on the contract before February 19th when the head office moved operations to Arizona.
Then I asked him if there was any deals like this one in the future. He said the Royals would love to as many of these deals in place if it makes sense for the team and the player. The key is for both sides to want to have a new long term deal. In Perez's instance, both sides could find a middle ground.
Finally, I asked him how the Royals were able give a player with little MLB experience a long guaranteed deal. Much of the team's decision was based on input from scouts. He said it is tough to statistically analyze all the aspects of a catcher. The team mainly used player comparisons to look for similar catchers and how they ended up performing. The team believes Perez is good defensive catcher and good in the clubhouse. They expect his defense and offense to improve in the future. |
by Paul and Phillip Collins ©, Nov. 7th, 2005
Strange Confluences: The Tanton Network
On February 13, 2002, U.S. Representative Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) and former San Diego congressman Brian Bilbray addressed a sizable audience concerned with illegal immigration issues (“The Puppeteer,” no pagination). Hosted at the Cannon House Office Building in Washington, D.C., the event was the prelude to a two-day lobbying campaign (no pagination). The discerning researcher who investigates this event will automatically identify intimations of a racist Fifth Column, which threatens to subsume the Minutemen Project and subvert efforts to restore America’s border integrity. A white supremacist newsletter entitled the Citizens Informer was made available at the meeting (no pagination). This newsletter is published by the Council of Conservative Citizens, a racist organization financed by the Shea Foundation (no pagination).
More importantly, this assembly was “masterminded by NumbersUSA,” which is but one appendage of a larger organizational octopus (no pagination). When NumbersUSA executive director Roy Beck addressed the audience, he admonished activists to underplay the organization’s involvement in the lobbying effort on Capitol Hill (no pagination). Beck candidly stated that the campaign “needs to look like a grassroots effort” (no pagination). However, NumbersUSA is anything but a grassroots organization. The Southern Poverty Law Center Intelligence Report elaborates:
Despite attempts to appear otherwise, it [NumbersUSA] is a wholly owned subsidiary of U.S. Inc., a sprawling, nonprofit funding conduit that has spawned three anti-immigration groups and underwrites several others, many of which were represented at the NumbersUSA conclave. (No pagination)
NumbersUSA is part of a “loose-knit” network of groups connected to a man named John Tanton (“John Tanton’s Network,” no pagination). Tanton has founded, co-founded, and financed numerous organizations that are gradually redirecting the movement for immigration policy reform towards an agenda of anti-immigration bigotry. The following is a list of those groups:
American Immigration Control Foundation AICF, 1983, funded American Patrol/Voice of Citizens Together 1992, funded California Coalition for Immigration Reform CCIR, 1994, funded Californians for Population Stabilization 1996, funded (founded separately in 1986) Center for Immigration Studies CIS, 1985, founded and funded Federation for American Immigration Reform FAIR, 1979, founded and funded NumbersUSA 1996, founded and funded Population-Environment Balance 1973, joined board in 1980 Pro English 1994, founded and funded ProjectUSA 1999, funded The Social Contract Press 1990, founded and funded U.S. English 1983, founded and funded U.S. Inc. 1982, founded and funded (no pagination)
Following the February 13 meeting in Washington D.C., other racist elements began to rear their ugly heads. The SPLC Intelligence Report reveals these dubious individuals and groups:
Two weeks after the NumbersUSA lobbying trip to the offices of Tom Tancredo and a series of other congressmen, Glenn Spencer, head of the Tanton-funded anti-immigrant American Patrol, was one of the main speakers at a conference hosted by Jared Taylor of American Renaissance magazine. Joining Spencer, who warned his audience that a second Mexican-American war would erupt in 2003, was an array of key extremists: Mark Weber, a principal of the Holocaust-denying Institute for Historical Review;
White power web maven, former Klansman and ex-con Don Black;
Gordon Lee Baum, “chief executive officer” of the CCC; and
several members of the neo-Nazi National Alliance. (No pagination)
Upon closer examination of this assembly, strange confluences become apparent. For instance, the Institute for Historical Review is actually connected with left-wing icon Noam Chomsky. Werner Cohn expands on this relationship:
The IHR’s publishing and bookselling arm is called Noontide Press. Holocaust-denying is only one part of the anti-Semitic menu of this supermarket of Nazism. The latest NP catalog is dated 1995. Among its offerings we find Nazi-made movies that are banned in Germany because of their brazen propaganda (pp. 29, ff), as well as the notorious Protocols of the Elders of Zion (p. 10), books by Adolf Hitler and Joseph Goebbels (pp. 10 and 12), a book by the later Father Coughlin (p. 7). Chomsky is represented by five separate items: The Fateful Triangle (p. 16); Necessary Illusions (p. 11); and Pirates and Emperors (p. 12). Chomsky, according to the IHR, “enlightens as no other writer on Israel, Zionism, and American complicity” (p. 4). (No pagination)
What makes this association even stranger is the fact that Chomsky is Jewish. However, researchers like Cohn have found substantial evidence suggesting that Chomsky is a hofjuden
(self-loathing Jew). Many icons of the left have belonged to this odd racialist tradition. Karl Marx is one case in point, as is evidenced by his book A World Without Jews . It is possible that Chomsky is yet another example.
Even more significant is Glenn Spencer, founder of the American Patrol Report and a supporter of the Minutemen Project. As was previously mentioned, Spencer forecasted a second Mexican-American war in 2003. While Spencer’s prophecy was never fulfilled, his open advocacy of a race war certainly raises suspicions about his true agenda. These suspicions only intensify when one considers the fact that Spencer’s operation is financed by Tanton.
We contend that there is a conspiracy to radicalize the Minutemen project, subvert efforts to restore America’s border integrity, and manufacture a politically expedient race war. This conspiracy is being financed and coordinated by factions of the power elite, which have a vested interest in the destruction of America’s national sovereignty and the establishment of a one-world government. The immigration issue is of particular interest to these supranational oligarchs because it directly affects America’s border integrity, which is integral to a country’s national sovereignty. John Tanton is no small player in this conspiracy and it is with him that we shall begin this investigation.
The Neo-Malthusian Connection
In 1990, John Tanton founded the Social Contract Press. Those who visit the organization’s website will find links to Population and Sustainability, Carrying Capacity Network, and Negative Population Growth. Obviously, these organizations are guided by a common theme: population control. Social Contract Press shares this agenda, as is evidenced by the group’s mission statement:
The Social Contract Press is an educational and publishing organization advocating open discussion of such related issues as population size and rate of growth, protection of the environment and precious resources, limits on immigration, as well as preservation and promotion of a shared American language and culture. (No pagination; emphasis added)
In fact, population control is one of the primary motives underpinning the Social Contract Press’s immigration reduction agenda. According to the official website, the Press members “favor immigration,” but desire “fewer admissions in order to reduce the rate of America’s population growth, protect jobs, preserve the environment, and foster assimilation” (No pagination; emphasis added).
Evidently, population control is one of Tanton’s preoccupations. A preliminary perusal of Tanton’s resume further expands on his preoccupation. Social Contract Press’s website states:
His [Tanton’s] conviction that continued human population growth was a large part of the conservation problem led him to chair the National Sierra Club Population Committee (1971-74), and to the national board of Zero Population Growth (1973-78, including a term as president, 1975-77). In 1979, as immigration grew to be the significant part of the U.S. population problem, he organized the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) based in Washington, D.C. (No pagination)
This preoccupation represented a natural progression from Tanton’s radical environmentalist passions. A Southern Poverty Law Center Intelligence Report elaborates:
Raising a family and practicing medicine in Petoskey, Mich., Tanton started out as a passionate environmentalist. In the 1960s and early 1970s, he was a leader in the National Audubon Society, the Sierra Club and other mainstream environmental groups. But Tanton soon became fixated on population control, seeing environmental degradation as the inevitable result of overpopulation. When the indigenous birth rate fell below replacement level in the United States, his preoccupation turned to immigration. And this soon led him to race. (No pagination)
A novel entitled The Camp of Saints reinforced Tanton’s racialist contentions (no pagination). Authored by Jean Raspail, the book’s narrative involved “an invasion of the white, Western world by a fleet of starving, dark-skinned refugees” (no pagination). Tanton was so enamored of the novel that he supported its publication in English (no pagination). The “prophetic argument” of The Camp of Saints succinctly encapsulates Tanton’s messages (no pagination).
The cause of population control has been historically connected with the eugenics movement. Researchers Webster Tarpley and Anton Chaitkin synopsize the intimate relationship between the two:
The population control or zero population growth movement, which grew rapidly in the late 1960s thanks to free media exposure and foundation grants for a stream of pseudoscientific propaganda about the alleged “population bomb” and the limits to growth,” was a continuation of the old prewar, protofascist eugenics movement, which had been forced to go into temporary eclipse when the world recoiled in horror at the atrocities committed by the Nazis in the name of eugenics. By mid-1960s, the same old crackpot eugenicists had resurrected themselves as the population-control and environmentalist movement. Planned Parenthood was a perfect example of the transmogrification. Now, instead of demanding the sterilization of the inferior races, the newly packaged eugenicists talked about the population bomb, giving the poor “equal access” to birth control, and “freedom of choice.” (203)
With this synopsis, the thematic continuity running throughout Tanton’s work becomes clearer. It represents a continuation of the eugenics agenda. In fact, portions of Tanton’s organizational network have been intimately involved in eugenics projects. FAIR, which Tanton co-founded, received $1.2 million from the Pioneer Fund between 1985 and 1994 (“The Puppeteer,” no pagination). According to eugenics expert Barry Mehler, the Pioneer Fund qualified as a “neo-Nazi organization, tied to the Nazi eugenics program in the 1930s, that has never wavered in its commitment to eugenics and ideas of human and racial inferiority and superiority” (no pagination). Evidently, Tanton is keeping the eugenics tradition alive.
It comes as little surprise that Tanton also concerns himself with environmental issues. Radical environmentalism is yet one more vehicle for the population control agenda and, by extension, a eugenical agenda. It is even less surprising that Tanton was the former president of the northern Michigan branch of Planned Parenthood. This organization, which was founded by the racist Margaret Sanger, has had a long history of involvement in the eugenics movement. In her book, The Pivot of Civilization , Sanger revealed the eugenical motives underpinning the cause of birth control. She unabashedly declares:
Birth Control, which has been criticized as negative and destructive, is really the greatest and most truly eugenic method, and its adoption as part of the program of Eugenics would immediately give a concrete and realistic power to that science… as the most constructive and necessary of the means to racial health. (Sanger, The Pivot of Civilization , 189)
Sanger’s talk of “racial health” in conjunction with birth control sounds awfully similar to the racialist rhetoric of Adolf Hitler. Of course, Sanger had always maintained a close association with the racial ideologues of the Third Reich. Planned Parenthood’s board of directors included Nazi supporters such as Dr. Lothrop Stoddard, author of a racist tract entitled The Rising Tide of Color Against White Supremacy . In fact, Birth Control Review acted as a conduit for the dissemination of Nazi propaganda in America. In April of 1933, Dr. Ernst Rudin, Hitler’s director of genetic sterilization and a founder of the Nazi Society for Racial Hygiene, published an article in Birth Control Review. Entitled “Eugenic Sterilization: An Urgent Need,” the article presented the following appeal:
The danger to the community of the unsegregated feeble-minded woman is more evident. Most dangerous are the middle and high grades living at large who, despite the fact that their defect is not easily recognizable, should nevertheless be prevented from procreation…. In my view we should act without delay. (102-4)
There are numerous parallels between Sanger’s ideas and the racialist policies of the Nazis. For instance, Sanger proposed the establishment of a network of concentration camps for the unfit. In an issue of Birth Control Review, she recommends that America:
…apply a stern and rigid policy of sterilization and segregation to that grade of population whose progeny is already tainted… to apportion farm lands and homesteads for these segregated persons where they would be taught to work under competent instructors for the period of their entire lives… (“Plan of Peace,” 107-8)
Just how many people would have qualified for internment in Sanger’s gulag system? Basing her conclusions on army statistics, Sanger presents the following figures:
…nearly half–47.3 percent–of the population had the mentality of twelve-year-old children or less–in other words that they are morons. (The Pivot of Civilization, 263)
Ultimately, Sanger concluded that: “only 13,500,000 will ever show superior intelligence” ( The Pivot of Civilization , 264). Thus, only 13.5% of the population would be allowed to reproduce. Meanwhile, the rest would be incarcerated for orderly disposal. Thankfully, such a program was never implemented in America. Germany, however, witnessed its tangible enactment with frightening results. Today, it is known as the Holocaust.
Discoveries of Nazi atrocities shortly after World War II constituted a public relations disaster for Planned Parenthood. Yet, the organization survived and acted as a conduit for the entry of the eugenics movement into the post-war world. Tarpley and Chaitkin elaborate:
Although Planned Parenthood was forced, during the fascist era and immediately thereafter, to tone down Sanger’s racist rhetoric from “race betterment” to “family planning” for the benefit of the poor and racial minorities, the organization’s basic goal of curbing the population growth rate among “undesirables” never really changed. (195)
In fact, Planned Parenthood even won the approval of George Bush Sr., who would later win the presidency running as a conservative, pro-life candidate. Tarpley and Chaitkin reveal that: “Bush publicly asserted that he agreed ‘1,000 percent’ with Planned Parenthood” (195). Sanger’s eugenical tradition remained intact and continued into the late twentieth century.
Tanton belongs to this eugenical tradition. Recall his membership in Zero Population Growth. This organization’s founder, Paul Ehrlich, wrote The Population Bomb. Published in 1968, Ehrlich’s book presented the following prediction:
The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s the world will undergo famines–hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. At this late date nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate… (xi)
To counter this plague of global starvation, Ehrlich prescribes overtly authoritarian measures: “We must have population control at home, hopefully through a system of incentives and penalties, but by compulsion if voluntary methods fail” (xi). Of course, the arrival of the 1970s thoroughly refuted all of Ehrlich’s prognostications. However, his fraudulent eschatological claims acted as a pretext for the proposal of totalitarian policies. Of course, such policies, if implemented, would have proven politically and socially expedient for the power elite. This is the true agenda underpinning the carrying capacity myth. Whether or not Ehrlich actually believed the overpopulation fables that he peddled, they still provided the ruling class with a readily exploitable threat.
Ehrlich’s wife is a member of the Club of Rome, an organizational machination of the power elite. The Club specializes in manufacturing hypothetical scenarios concerning overpopulation and environmental degradation. The organization typically compiles these apocalyptic forecasts and publishes them for public consumption. It should be fairly obvious why. The following excerpt from the Club’s 1991 report, The First Global Revolution , reveals the motive:
In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill…. But in designating them as the enemy, we fall into the trap of mistaking symptoms for causes. All these dangers are caused by human intervention and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy, then, is humanity itself. (King and Schneider 115)
In making humanity the ultimate enemy, the oligarchs have the perfect pretext for world government. After all, only a massive supranational entity with unlimited powers could compel the nemesis of humanity to retard its “environmentally unsound” industrial and technological development. Thus, a global socialist totalitarian government could be erected in the name of “ecological preservation.” This is the cause that men like Tanton and Ehrlich are perpetuating.
Although Ehrlich’s false predictions should have qualified the man as a certifiable phony, his claims were still given credence by certain factions of the elite and government think tanks. During his Congressional career, George Bush Sr. founded and chaired the Republican Task Force on Earth Resources and Population (Tarpley and Chaitkin 199). Bush’s task force subscribed to the same old eschatological claims of environmentalists. It members contended that “the world was already seriously overpopulated; that there was a fixed limit to natural resources and that this limit was rapidly being reached; and that the environment and natural species were being sacrificed to human progress. (199) The task force was thoroughly neo-Malthusian in character and provided Ehrlich with an audience. Tarpley and Chaitkin explain:
Comprised of over 20 Republican Congressman, Bush’s task force was a kind of Malthusian vanguard organization, which heard testimony from assorted “race scientists,” sponsored legislation, and otherwise propagandized the zero-growth outlook. In its 50-odd hearings during these years, the task force provided a public forum to nearly every well-known zero-growth fanatic, from Paul Ehrlich, founder of Zero Population Growth (ZPG), to race scientist William Shockley, to the key zero-growth advocates infesting the federal bureaucracy. (199-200)
Ehrlich suggested “a ‘tough foreign policy’ including termination of food aid to starving nations” (200). Naturally, people of a darker skin hue populated most of these nations. The scientific racism of such a “tough foreign policy” should be fairly axiomatic. Ehrlich’s mandates for domestic population control included “the addition of… mass sterilization agents” to America’s water and food supplies (200). Such ideas were given serious credence, as is evidenced by the pedigree of those comprising the task force.
Ehrlich’s fellow traveler, William Shockley, was even less circumspect about his scientific racism. During the 60s, this race scientist had generated a substantial amount of controversy by promoting his already refuted thesis that black people were mentally and cognitively inferior to white people (200). In the same year that the GOP task force supplied him with a congressional platform, Shockley wrote:
“Our nobly intended welfare programs may be encouraging dysgenics – retrogressive evolution through disproportionate reproduction of the genetically disadvantaged… We fear that ‘fatuous beliefs’ in the power of welfare money, unaided by eugenic foresight, may contribute to a decline of human quality for all segments of society.” (200)
This is the sort of thinking that motivates Tanton. As a former member of ZPG and Planned Parenthood, he lays claim to a neo-Malthusian heritage. Neo-Malthusianism originated with the ideas of Thomas Malthus, an Anglican clergyman who had received the blessings of French deist Jean-Jacques Rousseau and radical empiricist David Hume (Keynes 99). Malthus authored Essay on the Principle of Population, a treatise premised upon the thesis: “Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio. Subsistence increases only in an arithmetic ratio” (qutd. in Taylor 61). Although Malthus articulated his observations in succinct mathematical equations, the labyrinthine and complex machinations comprising the natural order typically defy such overly simplistic reductionism. Nonetheless, Malthus concluded that society should adopt certain social policies to prevent the human population from growing disproportionately larger than the food supply. Of course, these social policies were anything but humane. They stipulated the stultification of industrial and technological development in poor communities. With the inevitable depreciation of vital infrastructure, society’s “dysgenics” would eventually be purged by the elements. According to Malthus, such sacrifice guaranteed a healthy society.
Tanton’s anti-immigration racism synchronizes comfortably with neo-Malthusian thought. Neo-Malthusians harbor no small amount of disdain for pro-fertility belief systems. According Wikipedia online encyclopedia, this disdain is directly related to the population question:
In any group some individuals will be more pro-fertility in their beliefs and practices than others. According to neo-Malthusian theory, these pro-fertility individuals will not only have more children, but also pass their pro-fertility on to their children, meaning a constant selection for pro-fertility similar to the constant evolutionary selection for beneficial genes (except much faster because of greater diversity). According to neo-Malthusians, this increase in fertility will lead to hyperexponential population growth that will eventually outstrip growth in economic production. (No pagination)
Of course, Hispanic immigrants come from predominantly Catholic countries. Catholicism is a pro-fertility belief system. Such a system encourages “careless breeding.” Therefore, Hispanic immigrants represent a threat to neo-Malthusians. Moreover, neo-Malthusians contend that immigrants contribute very little to the nation’s economy. Wikipedia online encyclopedia elaborates:
Neo-Malthusians argue that although adult immigrants (who, at the very least, arrive with human capital) contribute to economic production, there is little or no increase in economic production from increased natural growth and fertility. Neo-Malthusians argue that hyperexponential population growth has begun or will begin soon in developed countries. (No pagination)
Herein is the true motive underpinning Tanton’s promotion of limits to immigration. His ultimate objectives are the culling of surplus population and the eugenical regimentation of society. Tanton’s network is gradually redirecting the Minutemen Project towards these objectives.
Connections to the Power Elite and the Intelligence Community
However, it would be wrong to consider Tanton the center of the onion. Behind him lurk the controlling hands of the Power Elite. While this fact can be seen through Tanton’s connection to the Club of Rome by way of Ehrlich’s ZPG, it can also be seen through the different tax-exempt foundations that supply a steady flow of capital to Tanton’s network. Tax-exempt foundations allow the elite to shield their money from the income tax and conduct social engineering projects.
Two foundations funding the Tanton network are significant because of their connections to the U.S. intelligence community. The first is the Smith Richardson Foundation (“The Puppeteer”, no pagination). The financing for Smith Richardson comes from the Vicks Vaporub fortune (“Smith Richardson Foundation”, no pagination). In 1973, the Smith Richardson Foundation came under the presidency of R. Richardson Randolph (no pagination). With a mind-boggling net worth of 870 million dollars, the Richardsons are one of America’s richest families. We are far off the trajectory of back hill bubbas and rednecks and have entered the realm of the Power Elite.
The origin of the Smith Richardson Foundation’s involves a rogue gallery that includes the Bush family dynasty, the Yale secret society of Skull and Bones, and Nazi sympathizers. Tarpley and Chaitkin explain:
The Bush family knew Richardson and his wife through their mutual friendship with Sears Roebuck’s chairman, Gen. Robert E. Wood. General Wood had been president of the America First organization, which had lobbied against war with Hitler Germany. H. Smith Richardson had contributed the start-up money for America First and had spoken out against the U.S. “joining the Communists” by fighting Hitler. Richardson’s wife was a proud relative of Nancy Langehorne from Virginia, who married Lord Astor and backed the Nazis from their Cliveden Estate. General Wood’s daughter Mary had married the son of Standard Oil president William Stamps Farish. The Bushes had stuck with the Farishes through their disastrous exposure during World War II… Young George Bush and his bride Barbara were especially close to Mary Farish, and to her son W.S. Farish III, who would be the great confidante of George’s presidency. The H. Smith Richardson Foundation was organized by Eugene Stetson, Jr., Richardson’s son-in-law. Stetson (Skull and Bones, 1934) had worked for Prescott Bush as assistant manager of the New York branch of Brown Brothers Harriman. (77)
Tarpley and Chaitkin also point out the Smith Richardson Foundation’s connections to the U.S. intelligence community:
In the late 1950s, the H. Smith Richardson Foundation took part in the “psychological warfare” of the CIA. This was not a foreign, but a domestic, covert operation, carried out mainly against unwitting U.S. citizens. CIA Director Allen Dulles and his British allies organized “MK-Ultra,” the testing of psychotropic drugs including LSD on a very large scale, allegedly to evaluate “chemical warfare” possibilities. In this period, the Richardson Foundation helped finance experiments at Bridgewater Hospital in Massachusetts, the center of some of the most brutal MK-Ultra tortures. These outrages have been graphically portrayed in the movies Titticut Follies. During 1990, an investigator for this book toured H. Smith Richardson’s Center for Creative Leadership just north of Greensboro, North Carolina. The tour guide said that in these rooms, agents of the Central Intelligence Agency and the Secret Service are trained. He demonstrated the two-way mirrors through which the government employees are watched, while they are put through mind-bending psychodramas. The guide explained that “virtually everyone who becomes a general” in the U.S. armed forces also goes through this “training” at the Richardson Center. Another office of the Center for Creative Leadership is in Langley, Virginia, at the Headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency. Here also, Richardson’s Center trains leaders of the CIA. (77-78; emphasis in original)
The second contributor to the Tanton network is Richard Mellon Scaife. The SPLC Intelligence Report documents this relationship:
Tanton’s most important funding source for the last two decades may well have been the Scaife family, heirs to the Mellon Bank fortune. Richard Mellon Scaife, a reclusive figure, has been instrumental in establishing right-wing organizations like the Heritage Foundation and supporting causes like the “Arkansas Project,” an effort to dig up dirt on President Clinton. Scaife family foundations, including those controlled by Scaife’s sister, Cordelia May Scaife, provided some $1.4 million to FAIR from 1986-2000. (No pagination)
Scaife’s attacks on Clinton might lead many to believe he is a genuine crusader against elite criminality. However, Scaife’s skirmishes with the Clintons amounted to little more than factionalism in the ranks of the oligarchs. Richard Mellon Scaife’s elite pedigree is impeccable. Like most bluebloods, Scaife has a fixation with eugenics. Robert G. Kaiser and Ira Chinoy report:
Scaife has long favored abortion rights, to the chagrin of many of those he has supported. In the first years of his philanthropy he stuck to a pattern set by his mother and sister and gave millions to Planned Parenthood and other population control groups, though most such giving stopped in the 1970s. (No pagination)
In addition to supporting eugenics, Scaife also attended the 1964 Bohemian Grove retreat, a major blueblood gathering (Kaiser and Chinoy, no pagination). Scaife is also connected to the U.S. intelligence community. Richard was, at one time, the head of the publishing organ Forum World Feature, which was publicly named as a CIA front organization (“Richard Mellon Scaife,” no pagination). However, Scaife’s intelligence connection is even deeper. Edward Spannaus goes into this connection:
Dickie Scaife is what one might call a second-generation “OSS brat.” During World War II, Dickie’s father, as well as a number of his father’s close business and familial associates, occupied high positions in the Office of Strategic Services (OSS)–America’s wartime intelligence service. Alan Scaife, his father, was a lieutenant colonel in the OSS. A number of cousins of Dickie’s mother, Sarah Mellon Scaife, also had very high positions in the OSS. For example: Paul Mellon (a cousin of Dickie’s mother and a rabid Anglophile) was recruited in London to the OSS by his brother-in-law, David Bruce. Paul trained with British troops, became a major in the OSS, worked under Allen Dulles in Berne, Switzerland, and commanded a unit responsible for conducting propaganda operations behind disintegrating German lines. David Bruce, husband of Paul Mellon’s sister Ailsa Mellon Bruce, was designated by OSS head William Donovan to oversee all OSS operations in Europe from his base in London. (Although some say, with justification, that it was Bruce who was designated by the U.S. banking-establishment families to oversee Donovan.) Another OSS cousin was Larimer Mellon, who likewise worked on Allen Dulles’s staff in Berne. David Bruce (a direct descendant of the Scottish Bruce dynasty) later divorced Ailsa and married his second wife, Evangeline, an OSS secretary whose father had been a special liaison to British intelligence from the U.S. State Department. It is reliably reported that these Anglophilic OSS circles around Scaife’s father were the crucial influence on steering Dickie into intelligence-related “philanthropy”–i.e., the private funding of joint British-U.S. intelligence projects which were commonly mis-identified as “CIA” projects or fronts. (No pagination)
Funding on the part of the Smith Richardson Foundation and Scaife makes it quite possible that the Tanton network is an intelligence project meant to foment race war. Would intelligence groups such as the CIA be interested in manufacturing such chaos? During an interview with William Norman Grigg, former DEA agent Michael Levine recounted a discussion he had with a CIA spook. The discussion, which occurred in Argentina in 1979, suggested that this is the case:
“There was a small group of us gathered for a drinking party at the CIA guy’s apartment. There were several Argentine police officers there as well; at the time, Argentina was a police state in which people could be taken into custody without warning, tortured, and then ‘disappeared.'” “At one point my associate in the CIA said that he preferred Argentina’s approach to social order, and that America should be more like that country,” Levine continues. “Somebody asked, ‘Well, how does a change of that sort happen?’ The spook replied that it was necessary to create a situation of public fear — a sense of impending anarchy and social upheaval…” (No pagination)
Such a “situation of public fear” could be incited by agent provocateurs within the ranks of white supremacists. If the idea of intelligence agents working within white supremacist groups seems foreign, consider the following report by John Hooper:
Germany’s most notorious postwar neo-Nazi party was led by an intelligence agent working for the British, according to both published and unpublished German sources. The alleged agent – the late Adolf von Thadden – came closer than anyone to giving the far-right real influence over postwar German politics. Under his leadership, the National Democratic party (NPD) made a string of impressive showings in regional elections in the late 60s, and there were widespread fears that it would gain representation in the federal parliament. Yet, according to a report earlier this year in the Cologne daily, the Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger, the man dubbed “the New Führer” was working for British intelligence throughout the four years he led the NPD, from 1967 to 1971. However, a former senior officer in German intelligence told the Guardian this week that he had been informed of a much longer-standing link between Von Thadden and British intelligence. His recollection raises the question of whether the German far-right-winger was under the sway of M16 when he and others founded the NPD in 1964. Dr Hans Josef Horchem, who was the head of the Hamburg office of the Verfassungsschutz – the West German security service – from 1969 to 1981, said he received regular visits from British intelligence liaison officers. “We held general discussions on security. At one of these – I think it was towards the end of the 70s- they said, ‘Adolf von Thadden was in contact with us’, and that was in the 1950s”. Mr Horchem did not know whether the links between the German and British intelligence had continued into the 60s and 70s. According to the Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger, whose report passed virtually unnoticed when it was published, the neo-Nazi leader met his British contact at a hotel in Hamburg. (No pagination)
As the above example clearly illustrates, government control of radical groups is really nothing new. The evidence suggests that shadowy factions of the intelligence community are pulling Tanton’s strings. As the Tanton network entangles itself with the Minutemen project, the very same sinister hands may soon hold what started as a legitimate attempt at immigration reform.
Promulgating Racial Dialectics
Among one of the racist ideologies disseminated by the ruling class is the racial myth of Aztlan. According to this myth, the southwestern states—California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas—comprise the original homeland of the Aztec Indians (Grigg, “Revolution in America,”9). Many of the groups that adhere to this myth believe that these lands must be forcefully reclaimed by “la Raza,” the Mexican race (9). Ominously enough, some of the Aztlan cult is “equipped with a paramilitary auxiliary” (9).
Automatically, one will recognize the Marxist concept of a people’s revolution, which is farcical at best. Invariably, such revolutions result in the creation and maintenance of new class distinctions. The ostensible proletarian dictatorship is merely another oligarchy in disguise. Moreover, one might notice parallels between this myth and the Aryan myth of Nazi Germany. In sum total, the doctrine of Aztlan amounts to little more than a racialist variety of socialism. The Aztlan myth culminates with La Raza’s
reclamation of the southwestern states and the establishment of the Chicano Homeland (9). This “worker’s paradise” would become a nation-state unto itself, separate from the United States of America (9). Thus, the Chicano Aryan would have his Lebensborn.
This virulent racism was promoted through tax-exempt foundations, which insulate the wealth of the oligarchs from the income tax. While the common American is subject to the institutionalized theft of the IRS, the power elite receives a tax write-off. However, tax-exempt foundations are more than simple tax shelters. They allow the ruling class a channel for the dissemination of racist ideologies. Henry Santiestevan, who formerly headed the Southwest Council of La Raza, confessed as much when he stated: “It can be said that without the Ford Foundation’s commitment to a strategy of national and local institutions-building, the Chicano movement would have withered away in many areas” (Jasper 35).
Santiestevan had good reason to express such gratitude. New American journalist William F. Jasper reveals that “a tabulation of Ford Foundation grants to the Hispanic radicals during the period of 1968 to 1992 came to over $31 million” (35). To make matters worse, Jasper adds: “Millions have been added since” (35). Jasper proceeds to enumerate various grants listed from the Ford Foundation’s Summer/Fall 1995 report:
National Council of La Raza, $160,000 and $75,000.
Northern New Mexico Legal Services, $20,000.
Mexican Academy of Human Rights, $20,000.
Hispanic Leadership Opportunity Program, $2,325,000 (including $525,000 for MALDEF).
Immigrant Legal Resource Center, $145,000.
National Immigration Law Center, $335,000.
National Immigration Law Forum, $130,000.
Urban Institute Program for Research on Immigration Policy, $900,000.
Hispanics in Philanthropy, $100,000. (35)
Ironically, the Aztlan movement may hold more in common with the white supremacist movement than one might expect. It certainly is no more popular with the Anti-Defamation League than the standard white hate group. In fact, the ADL contends that many of the Aztlan movement’s doctrines are similar to neo-Nazi and white supremacy ideas. According to Wikipedia, these parallels include Holocaust-denial, homophobia, and anti-Israeli sentiments (no pagination). In fact, both the ADL and the Southern Poverty Law Center have accused the movement’s official webzine, La Voz de Aztlán, of promulgating anti-Jewish conspiracy theories (no pagination). One such theory is that Jews plotted the infamous anthrax mailings of 2001 (no pagination). If the allegations leveled at La Voz de Aztlán are true, then the Aztlan cult is a certifiable counterpart of the white supremacy movement.
The founder of La Voz de Aztlán is Hector Carreon, who is a former member of the Brown Berets (no pagination). The Brown Berets were a community youth organization birthed from the tumult of the 60s counterculture (“Brown Berets,” no pagination). The group was heavily influenced by several other radical revolutionary movements, particularly the Black Panthers (no pagination). Like the Aztlan cult of today, the Black Panthers were financed and controlled by the power elite. In fact, some Black Panther members may have been aware of the manipulation. One such Panther was Stokely Carmichael, who was also the leader of SNCC. Former Communist Party member and FBI informant James Kirk made the following observations concerning Carmichael:
Mr. Carmichael was obviously in the middle of something very important which made him more nervous and tense than in the past…He started speaking of things which he said he could not have said before because his research was not finished… He repeated the line from the song he liked so well, “Something is happening here, but you don’t know what it is, do you, Mr. Jones?” He kept hitting on the theme that a very large monopoly capitalist money group, the bankers to be exact, was instrumental in fomenting (the) idea that the Jews are the ones actually behind the oppression of the blacks…In the agencies of this power, he cited banks, the chief among which were Morgan Guaranty Trust and Chase Manhattan. And the foundations connected with these monoliths. (Griffin 108)
Apparently, Carmichael’s revelations presented a distinct threat to the hidden manipulators. According to researcher Des Griffin: “Within weeks Carmichael had been mysteriously removed from SNCC and the Black Panthers. He had learned too much!” (108) Evidently, this tradition of manipulation continues within the ranks of the Aztlan movement today.
Financed and propagandized by the elite, these radical Chicano organizations are helping to create a cultural milieu of neo-tribalism, which further contributes to the ongoing social fragmentation of America. If such militant revolutionaries boast “a paramilitary auxiliary,” then imagine the potential chaos should some branch of the Aztlan movement were to engage in armed conflict with a radicalized sect of Minutemen.
In fact, according to Observer journalist Paul Harris, just such a state of affairs is already developing:
Michael Nicley, head of US Border Patrol in the sector where the Minutemen will operate, has called it a ‘recipe for tragedy’. The Reverend Robin Hoover, of local relief group Humane Borders, said: ‘It looks destined to deteriorate into some form of confrontation.’ The Minutemen have become a great cause among white supremacists, including the notorious Aryan Nation. Though organizers screen all volunteers for links to extremists, there are fears some will descend on the area. The Hispanic criminal gang MS-13 has said it will try to attack the Minutemen. (No pagination)
White supremacist efforts to co-opt the Minutemen could represent a ruling class conspiracy in promulgating racial dialectics. If the ranks of the Minutemen project can be inculcated into some form of militant white supremacy, then they can be subsequently pitted against factions of the radical Marxist Aztlan movement. Such a manufactured race war would be extremely advantageous for the power elite.
The Dialectic of Race: A Hegelian Manipulation
Upon closer examination, the dialectic of race merely camouflages a broader Hegelian manipulation. Marginalized and deprived of any substantial political capital, many ethnic and racial groups are predisposed to exploitation by socialist revolutionary movements. Race war invariably becomes class war and class war invariably results in some form of dictatorship. Whether the resulting dictatorship ostensibly belongs to the proletariat or bourgeoisie, absolute primacy is always held by a hidden oligarchy. An October 15, 2005 riot in Toledo, Ohio offers a prime case study in racial dialectics. The National Socialist Movement, a neo-Nazi organization, was scheduled to conduct a demonstration against so-called “black crime” (“Planned neo-Nazi march sparks violence,” no pagination). The protest received a violent response. A CNN news report explains:
Most of the violence happened when residents, who had pelted the Nazi marchers with bottles and rocks, took out their anger on police, said Brian Jagodzinski, chief news photographer for CNN affiliate WTVG. Video showed crowds at around 2:25 p.m. using bats to bring down a wooden fence as looters broke into a small grocery store. “The crowd was very … extremely agitated at the police … for doing this [making arrests in] the community when they should be doing this to the Nazis,” Jagodzinski said. Around 3 p.m., crowds of young men pelted the outside of a two-story residence with rocks, smashed out the windows with wooden crates, ran inside and threw out the furniture and lamps from the upper-level windows to the sidewalk below. No police were on the scene. About 10 minutes later, the building’s second story was in flames as a crowd of people watched. When police arrived, they used pepper spray on counter-demonstrators and shot tear gas containers into the crowd, Jagodzinski said. He added that his news van and a police car had windows smashed and doors bent back. (No pagination)
This civil unrest created a pretext for the implementation of authoritarian measures and considerable restrictions on personal liberties. The CNN news report elaborates:
Toledo Mayor Jack Ford declared a state of emergency and asked for 50 highway patrol officers to reinforce Toledo police. A curfew came into effect at 8 p.m. for people “roaming around the streets,” he said. (No pagination)
Several oddities surround this event, suggesting that it was orchestrated to create politically and socially expedient chaos. First, there is the question concerning the demonstration’s venue:
It’s not clear why the National Socialist Movement chose north Toledo for its march, said Ford, himself African-American. “It is not a neighborhood where you have a lot of friction in the first place,” he said. (No pagination)
In response to this question, the National Socialist Movement (NSM) issued an interesting allegation:
A spokesman for the [NSM] group, Bill White, blamed the riot on Toledo police, saying the police intentionally changed the group’s march route to make it collide with a counter-demonstration. (No pagination)
Given White’s dubious affiliations with neo-Nazi and white supremacist interests, one could certainly question the voracity of his claim. However, his allegation gains more credence when one examines the “counter-demonstration”:
About 20 members from both the International Socialists Organization and One People’s Project showed up, and some handed eggs to African-American residents to throw at the Nazi marchers, White said. Ford said that scenario was likely. “Based on the intelligence we received, that’s exactly what they do — they come into town and get people riled up,” Ford said. “I think that’s a very common technique.” (No pagination)
Herein is the second oddity suggesting Hegelian manipulation. It should not be lost upon the astute reader that the NSM demonstration and its counter-demonstration rival both represent some variety of socialism. The NSM represents national socialism or, more succinctly, fascism. The International Socialist Organization represents a more traditional variety of Marxism, something more akin to communism. The distinctions, however, are superficial. This becomes clear when one contemplates the etymology of “communism” and “fascism.” The appellation of “communism” comes from the Latin root communis, which means “group” living. Fascism is a derivation of the Italian word fascio, which is translated as “bundle” or “group.” Both fascism and communism are forms of coercive group living, or more succinctly, collectivism. The only substantial difference between the two is fascism’s limited observance of private property rights, which is ostensible at best given its susceptibility to rigid government regulation. In 1933, Hitler candidly admitted to Hermann Rauschning that: “the whole of National Socialism is based on Marx” (Martin 239). Nazism (a variant of fascism) is derivative of Marxism. The historical conflicts between communism and fascism were merely feuds between two socialist totalitarian camps, not two dichotomously related forces.
The dialectic of race merely disguises a larger Hegelian dialectic: communism against fascism. Ayn Rand probably provides the most eloquent summation of this dialectic:
It is obvious what the fraudulent issue of fascism versus communism accomplishes: it sets up, as opposites, two variants of the same political system… it switches the choice of “Freedom or dictatorship?” into “Which kind of dictatorship?”–thus establishing dictatorship as an inevitable fact and offering only a choice of rulers. The choice–according to the proponents of the fraud – is: a dictatorship of the rich (fascism) or a dictatorship of the poor (communism). (180)
The Toledo riot represents a tangible enactment of this traditional Hegelian dialectic. The National Socialist Movement (thesis) superficially conflicts with the International Socialist Movement (antithesis) resulting in Toledo’s transformation into a miniature garrison state (synthesis). Toledo is only a microcosm. On the macrocosmic level, the final Hegelian synthesis is a global socialist state.
If the Minutemen are successfully radicalized by some variety of National Socialism, then it can be set on a collision course with the radical Marxists of the Aztlan movement. Not only would such a dialectic effectively confuse the issues of border integrity and national sovereignty, but it would also facilitate America’s Fabian migration towards the ultimate Hegelian synthesis: state socialism.
The Solution
Racism, quite simply, is evil. However, it would be a gross oversimplification to assume that racism is evil merely because it is premised upon hate. In fact, one must hate the principle of evil itself in order to align himself/herself with the principle of good. Thus, hatred, in and of itself, is not evil. It is the principles toward which one’s hatred is directed that determine whether or not one is evil. For instance, the individual who hates justice is evil because he/she hates the intrinsic goodness of justice. The individual who hates injustice, on the other hand, is good because he/she hates the intrinsic evil of injustice.
Thus, racism is evil because of its misallocation of hatred and the criteria according to which that hatred is applied. What is the ultimate object of racial hate? It is the individual. After all, a racial criterion for determining human value presupposes that one derives value from a group. This criterion precludes all personal merit, thus subordinating the individual to the collective. In short, racism is collectivism, albeit a racially defined form of collectivism. This explains why Marxism, whether disseminated on the popular level as fascism or communism, tends to accompany racialist movements. Remember, the Nazis were National Socialists.
Racism is irreconcilable with Americanism, which observes the rights of the individual within the parameters of natural law. Any movement seeking to restore America must logically reject racism. Otherwise, that movement is merely advocating some form of race-based socialism. Socialism, as history has irrefutably demonstrated, is an equal opportunity oppressor. An organization devoted to race-based socialism invariably promotes an ecumenical socialism. Such was the case with the Nazi Germany, which eventually oppressed its own citizens along with Jews. If racist elements continue to co-opt the Minutemen, then it will become a similar aberration.
There are two necessary courses of action that must be taken to remedy this problem. First, any good grass roots movement requires some periodic house cleaning. The Minutemen Project is no exception. Although Gilchrist and other luminaries within the movement claim that members are screened, the overwhelming evidence suggests that the present screening criteria is not stringent enough. For the issues of border integrity and national sovereignty to be clearly addressed, there must be absolutely no bigots or racists included in the debate. Such people equate national identity with race, confusing the real issues at hand. For all their flaws and ideological biases, the journalists of the Southern Poverty Law Center make a valid point:
The danger is not that immigration levels are debated by Americans, but that the debate is controlled by bigots and extremists whose views are anathema to the ideals on which this country was founded. (No pagination)
This point provides an excellent segue for discussing the second course of action needed. This course of action may not be readily accepted by the purveyors of populist pseudo-intellectualism that currently people the so-called “Patriot movement.” Such individuals seem to be under the spell of the WASP mystique and parrot Patrick Buchanan’s contention that America owes her greatness to Anglo-Saxon culture (a contention reminiscent of John Ruskin’s race patriotism). Nonetheless, the second action is a vital step in winning the war against the power elite and restoring America as a constitutional republic. There must be an enormous cultural paradigm shift. America must finally overcome the neo-tribalism of race distinctions. Otherwise, the vision of Americanism cannot be realized. After all, the axiomatic values of human liberty and dignity are irreconcilable with racial hierarchies and caste systems. Abraham Lincoln correctly observed that the nation would either survive as entirely free or entirely enslaved. No doubt, the oligarchs desire the latter. If humanity does not “grow up,” so-to-speak, then the oligarchs shall have their wish.
Sources Cited
About the Authors
Paul D. Collins has studied suppressed history and the shadowy undercurrents of world political dynamics for roughly eleven years. In 1999, he completed his Associate of Arts and Science degree. He is working to complete his Bachelor’s degree, with a major in Communications and a minor in Political Science. Paul has authored another book entitled The Hidden Face of Terrorism: The Dark Side of Social Engineering, From Antiquity to September 11 . Published in November 2002, the book is available online from www.1stbooks.com, barnesandnoble.com, and also amazon.com. It can be purchased as an e-book (ISBN 1-4033-6798-1) or in paperback format (ISBN 1-4033-6799-X).
Phillip D. Collins acted as the editor for The Hidden Face of Terrorism . He has also written articles for Paranoia Magazine, MKzine, News With Views, B.I.P.E.D.: The Official Website of Darwinian Dissent and Conspiracy Archive. He has an Associate of Arts and Science. Currently, he is studying for a bachelor’s degree in Communications at Wright State University. During the course of his seven-year college career, Phillip has studied philosophy, religion, and classic literature. He also co-authored the book, The Ascendancy of the Scientific Dictatorship: An Examination of Epistemic Autocracy, From the 19th to the 21st Century , which is
available online here. |
A staged photo from the late Edo period of a seppuku ceremony. The kaishakunin is standing at the rear with his sword raised and prepared to partially sever the head, cutting through the spinal column, of the person performing seppuku.
A kaishakunin (Japanese: 介錯人) is an appointed second whose duty is to behead one who has performed seppuku, Japanese ritual suicide, at the moment of agony. The role played by the kaishakunin is called kaishaku ("nin" means person).
Aside from the purpose of being spared prolonged anguish until death, both the condemned and those on hand to observe are spared the spectacle of the writhing death throes that would ensue. The most recent kaishakunin of the 20th century was Hiroyasu Koga, who beheaded the novelist Yukio Mishima and political activist Masakatsu Morita during their seppuku.
Ritual [ edit ]
Still preserved in modern-day movements (kata) of the martial art Iaidō, the ritual of performing kaishaku varies very little between Japanese fencing schools, but all of them are bound to the following steps to be performed by the kaishakunin:
First, the kaishakunin sits down in the upright (seiza) position, or remains standing, at the left side of the person about to commit seppuku, at a prudent distance but close enough to be reached with his sword (katana) at the appropriate time. If seated, the kaishakunin will rise slowly, first on his knees, then stepping with the right foot while drawing the katana very slowly and silently and standing up in the same fashion (keeping in mind that the opponent (teki) is not an enemy, but rather a fellow samurai). If the kaishakunin was in a standing stance, he will draw his sword slowly and silently as well. In both cases, after the sword is out of the scabbard (saya), he will raise it with the right hand and wait for the seppuku to begin. Some classic (ko-ryū) Iaidō styles, like the Musō Jikiden Eishin-ryū school, establish this "waiting stance" as the kaishakunin having taken one step back with the right foot, katana behind his head parallel to the floor held with the right hand, left hand holding the scabbard in the proper (sayabiki) position; other styles, like Musō Shinden-ryū, establish that the katana is to be held vertically, parallel to the body, held in the right hand, the left hand resting at the kaishakunin side, feet together. In any case, the kaishakunin will always keep eye contact with the samurai performing seppuku, and waiting for his cut (kiri) through his abdomen (hara). When the samurai actually performs the seppuku, and after he returns the dagger (tantō) back to its place, the kaishakunin steps forward, letting the katana drop straight through the back of the neck of the dying samurai. Just before making contact, the kaishakunin grips the handle (tsuka) with both hands, giving precision to the katana ' s blade and strength to the downward cut (kiritsuke). The final cut must be controlled in order to reach only half the neck of the samurai; the kaishaku, leaving the required skin to hold the head attached to the samurai's body, was performed by a single slashing/withdrawing motion of the katana. The complete cut-slash-withdraw motion is called daki-kubi.
After the dead samurai falls, the kaishakunin, with the same slow, silent style used when unsheathing the katana, shakes the blood off the blade (a movement called chiburi) and returns the katana to the scabbard (a movement called noto), while kneeling towards the fellow samurai's dead body. When this is completed, the kaishakunin remains kneeling for a while, as a sign of deep respect to the fallen samurai who performed the ritual suicide, always in a state of "total awareness" (zanshin) before standing up and bowing (rei) to his body.
Role as executioner [ edit ]
In some seppuku rituals, no disembowelment occurs. The condemned person merely moves the dagger, or, sometimes, a wooden stick or fan, across his stomach, followed by a beheading by the kaishakunin. In this variation, the kaishakunin becomes in effect the executioner, and seppuku becomes effectively a beheading. |
ISLAMABAD: The Senate was informed on Friday that the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) – which has been involved in the war in Afghanistan for over a decade now – has been using Pakistan’s airspace for free since the commencement of the war on terror in 2001.
The revelation that the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) did not receive even a single penny from the US-led Nato forces took many by surprise, with some senators eager to know who had allowed this waiver.
Know more: Nato helicopters violate Pakistani airspace near Pak-Afghan border
MQM’s Babar Ghauri asked if the amount was waived by the Ministry of Defence and, if so, under whose authority.
Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Sheikh Aftab Ahmad said he did not know and promised to check and appraise the house on whether the decision had been taken by the cabinet.
At the outset, Babar Awan raised the issue of Indian aggression on the Working Boundary, saying that the hostile neighbour, in the last month, had fired 36,000 shells from across the Line of Control claiming the lives of 24 Pakistanis. He regretted that belligerent threats were being hurled by Indian ministers and suggested that the matter be debated after suspending the routine proceedings of the house.
Also read: Militant attack on Nato supply terminal in Jamrud foiled
Leader of the House Raja Muhammad Zafarul Haq said that members of the business advisory committee, during a meeting, had also expressed their concerns over the situation and called for a debate on the issue. He asked the chair to fix the date for such discussion.
The Senate chairman asked Mr Awan to consult the leaders of the house and the opposition and said a motion to suspend the proceedings be moved after consultation with both sides of the aisle.
The house also unanimously adopted a resolution welcoming the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Malala Yousafzai. The resolution, signed by members from all political parties, was moved by ANP’s Haji Adeel. It paid tribute to the daughter of Swat for her sacrifices for the cause of education.
During question hour, the house was informed that two engineers, formerly serving in PIA’s flight operations department, had been working in the sales and marketing department of the national flag-carrier for years.
“How can engineers be marketers,” Babar Ghauri remarked and wondered if marketing staff were repairing aircraft at PIA.
The House was told that Mamnoonur Rashid and Irshad Ghani started their careers in PIA as operations engineers. Mr Rashid was transferred to the sales and marketing department on March 3, 1996, while Irshad Ghani was transferred to the sales and marketing department as deputy general manager on October 10, 2001. Since then, both remained in the marketing department until their retirement on June 1, 2013 and August 9, 2013, respectively.
The house will meet again on Monday at 4pm and is likely to begin discussion on Indian aggression along the LoC and the Working Boundary.
Published in Dawn, October 18th, 2014 |
A woman was killed and 108 others were injured when a crowded commuter train crashed through a barrier at the busy Hoboken, N.J. station and lurched across the waiting area during the height of the Thursday morning rush hour.
The New Jersey State Medical Examiner's office identified the deceased victim as Fabiola Bittar de Kroon, 34, of Hoboken. She worked for software company SAP in its legal department in Brazil but left earlier this year. SAP spokesman Andy Kendzie said the company was "shaken by the news" of de Koon's death and offered condolences to her family, friends and all those affected by the "tragic event."
Earlier, New Jersey Gov. Chris Chrstie told reporters the woman who died had been standing on a nearby platform and was hit by debris from the crash. The New Jersey Transit train ran off the end of its track as it pulled into the station, smashing through a concrete-and-steel bumper. It apparently knocked out pillars as it ground to a halt in the waiting area, collapsing a section of the station roof onto the train.
Scene at Hoboken NJ Transit Terminal right now. Tons of police and first responders. https://t.co/GSpyGFO9rx — Noah Zucker (@noahlz) September 29, 2016
"All of a sudden, there was an abrupt stop and a big jolt that threw people out of their seats. The lights went out, and we heard a loud crashing noise like an explosion" as the roof fell, said Ross Bauer, who was sitting in the third or fourth car when the train entered the historic 109-year-old station, a bustling hub for commuters heading to New York City. "I heard panicked screams, and everyone was stunned."
Commuter Jim Finan, of River Edge, N.J., told Fox News' "America's Newsroom" that the train barreled into the station in "at full tilt" and "never slowed down."
Massive train crash at #Hoboken Path Station. Injuries reported. Train apparently ran full force into station. pic.twitter.com/rgt9pycnL4 — Nicolette (@NewsNicolette) September 29, 2016
William Blaine, an engineer for a company that runs freight trains, was inside the station and ran over to help. He told the Associated Press he saw the train's engineer slumped over the controls.
Finan described the crash as feeling like he was "in an off-road vehicle," adding, "It was bumpy. You were getting bounced around and then slammed forward."
"People were running up the stairs to get out," with "others pushing to get through first," WFAN Radio sportscaster John Minko, who was at the station, told Fox News.
Late Thursday, New Jersey Transit identified the engineer as Thomas Gallagher, a 29-year agency veteran. A union roster shows Gallagher started as an engineer about 18 years ago.
National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Vice Chairman Bella Dinh-Zarr told reporters Thursday afternoon that Gallagher had been released from the hospital and was cooperating with investigators.
"We have no indication that this is anything other than a tragic accident," Christie said.
"The train came in at much too high rate of speed," Christie added, "and the question is: 'Why is that?'"
Some witnesses said they didn't hear or feel the brakes being applied before the crash.
Dinh-Zarr said investigators were being hampered by safety issues, but were expected to retrieve the train's data recorder Thursday evening. She added that water has been leaking in all day and there may also be asbestos contamination because of the age of the station building.
CLICK HERE FOR COVERAGE FROM FOX 5 NEW YORK
People pulled concrete off bleeding victims and passengers kicked out the windows amid crying and screaming. Jersey City Medical Center received 66 patients from the crash, according to officials who said 13 people were in "guarded" condition. Doctors said they expected all the remaining patients to survive.
Hoboken University Medical Center received 23 patients, all but seven of whom had been released Thursday evening. The injuries included broken bones and head wounds. Another patient was recovering at Christ Hospital in Jersey City.
"When you see the damage and destruction, and you know how many people were on the platform, it's amazing there was only one fatality," New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo told Fox News' "Your World with Neil Cavuto." "It could have been much worse."
Speaking to Fox News, Christie praised the "seamless, professional" response from emergency workers in the minutes and hours after the crash.
None of NJ Transit's trains is fully equipped with positive train control, a safety system designed to prevent accidents by overriding the engineer and automatically slowing or stopping trains that are going too fast. Positive train control relies on radio and GPS signals to monitor trains' positions and speed.
The NTSB has been pressing for some version of the technology since at least 1990, and the industry is under government orders to install it, but regulators have repeatedly extended the deadline at railroads' request. The target date is now the end of 2018.
"While we are just beginning to learn the cause of this crash, it appears that once again an accident was not prevented because the trains our commuters were riding lacked positive train control," said Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, D-N.Y. "The longer we fail to prioritize investing in rail safety technology, the more innocent lives we put in jeopardy."
But both Cuomo and Christie said that it is too soon to say whether such technology would have made a difference in the Hoboken crash.
Over the past 20 years, the NTSB has listed the lack of positive train control as a contributing factor in 25 crashes. Those include the Amtrak wreck last year in Philadelphia in which a speeding train ran off the rails along a curve. Eight people were killed.
NJ Transit trains do have an alerter system — a sort of dead man's device — that can sound a loud alarm and then stop a train if the engineer goes approximately 15 to 20 seconds without adjusting the controls. But it is not clear whether that would have made a difference either.
The train was not equipped with an inward-facing camera in the cab that could give a fuller picture of the operator's actions.
The train consisted of four passenger cars and a locomotive at the rear. Passengers said it was crowded, with standing room only in the typically popular first few cars, but authorities had no immediate estimate of how many were aboard.
The Hoboken terminal handles more than 50,000 train and bus riders daily, many of them headed into New York City. After arriving at Hoboken, they take ferries or PATH commuter trains across the river to the city.
More than 100,000 people use NJ Transit trains to commute from New Jersey into New York every day. With the Hoboken station still closed as of Thursday evening, NJ Transit trains out of Penn Station in Manhattan were crowded with commuters forced to find a detour around Hoboken.
"My 30-minute commute is turning into at least an hour and a half," said Steve Malfitano, who had to go into New York just to get from one New Jersey city to another. But he added: "It is what it is. It's better than what those people had to go through."
In 2011, a PATH commuter train crash at the Hoboken station injured more than 30 people. The train slammed into bumpers at the end of the tracks on a Sunday morning.
FoxNews.com's Cristina Corbin, Fox News' Kathleen Foster, Rick Leventhal, Bryan Llenas and The Associated Press contributed to this report. |
Two garment factory workers recount stories about the dark side of the textile industry. "I told the supervisor I couldn't breathe near this machine. It is already 30°C in the factory, and if we work at near the machine it would be much hotter," says worker from a textile factory in Serbia. In response, the supervisor turned the machine's exhaust pipe to direct the fumes in the faces of the seamstress and her co-workers, and said, "That's your problem, and if you can't deal with it, there are enough people waiting to take your place! The door's over there!" Another worker reveals: "Management asked us to raise money to buy a blood pressure monitor because they themselves will 'treat' us and will not call a doctor if we faint.
The two women have asked to remain unnamed - like everyone else who had the courage to describe working conditions in the Serbian textile industry for a study conducted by Clean Clothes Campaign (CCC), an international organization dedicated to improving working conditions in the garment industry. Many Serbian workers are scared of losing their jobs as they are considered to be the lucky ones for getting a job in the private sector in a country where the overall unemployment rate is 16 percent and 30 percent for young people. In Serbia, the well-paid jobs are in state institutions and hiring is based on connections and political affiliation.
Read also:
'Partnership for Sustainable Textiles' unraveling
Fast fashion: What's your waste size?
Pope condemns 'cancer' of exploitative labor
Watch video 02:06 Share The human cost of bargain clothing Send Facebook google+ Whatsapp Tumblr linkedin stumble Digg reddit Newsvine Permalink https://p.dw.com/p/2cAu7 The human cost of bargain clothing
Workers treated as slaves
Textile industry workers in particular are forced to accept inhuman working conditions and the tyranny of arrogant superiors in an industry predominantly owned by foreign stakeholders who manufacture clothing for the Western European market. An atmosphere of fear prevails: There are constant threats of dismissal and workers are denied part of their statutory minimum vacation, if they are even allowed to take it at all.
"Female workers report that they are treated like machines or like slaves, not like human beings. They are yelled at; sexual harassment is part of everyday life," says Bettina Musiolek, the CCC coordinator for Eastern and Southeastern Europe.
This all happens in jobs that pay less than a country's minimum living wage and expect many hours of unpaid overtime. The legal minimum wage in Serbia is 278 euros per month, but a family of four needs at least 652 euros a month to make ends meet.
The women who work in the textile industry earn an average of 202 euros a month and 227 euros a month in the leather and shoe industries. The sector employs around 100,000 people in Serbia, which is the equivalent of about eight percent of the country's workforce.
Slovenian photographer captures the cost of cheap clothes From rags to riches The idea of farming seems today more abstract than ever before. Jost Franko's latest photo essay brings this distant world back to our reality, in which the ridiculous price of garments is paid by workers living in dire conditions. Pictured here is a relative of Issa Gira (67) from Burkina Faso, who's been growing cotton for 30 years, but still earns less than a dollar a day.
Slovenian photographer captures the cost of cheap clothes Weight control After the crop is harvested, farmers just like these two in Burkina Faso have to bring the cotton to the collection centers in nearby villages. Just before the market day, farmers help each other press the cotton into a huge, hard mass so they're able to weigh their loads. "No one really cares about farming, the first part of the supply chain," says Franko.
Slovenian photographer captures the cost of cheap clothes The golden lining Cotton farming gives work to more than four million people in Burkina Faso, and it is its second-most-valuable resource after gold. Sofitex is one of the three companies in the country that buys cotton from farmers and provides loans to cultivators, and it exports around 540,000 tons of cotton annually. Local farmers are seen here loading cotton into one of the many Sofitex containers.
Slovenian photographer captures the cost of cheap clothes Work-life imbalance "Due to western cotton subsidies, which are creating a dumping effect, poor countries are in a huge loss," says Franko. In his opinion, the production of cotton and garments in third-world countries is just another form of colonialism. "Small workshops sometimes take subcontracted work for larger companies. The rent is expensive for most workers, so they sleep in the factories," he adds.
Slovenian photographer captures the cost of cheap clothes A princess' dress or a cushion? In this photo, garment workers cut the textile in a factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh, the heart of the global cheap clothing industry. They earn 2.20 euros ($2.36) a day on average. Companies like H&M, Walt Disney or Lidl have their garments and home textile lines produced in the Dhaka region, which made the headlines in 2013 when the Rana Plaza sweatshop building collapsed, killing 1,129 workers.
Slovenian photographer captures the cost of cheap clothes The other side of the EU "It's hard to talk about fair conditions even when it comes to expensive, high-fashion labels," Franko claims, describing this photo of Romanian garment workers. "The state of the garment factories in Romania is much better compared to most Asian and African countries, but wages are still extremely low, not exceeding 200 euros a month, which is worse than in China. And this is the EU!"
Slovenian photographer captures the cost of cheap clothes Last season's styles Although the fashion industry has been stagnating trend-wise recently, which has made more styles trans-seasonal, more than 80 billion pieces of clothing are purchased every year worldwide. But the low quality and purchase cost make the clothes disposable. In the US alone, more than 15 million tons of used textile waste is generated annually.
Slovenian photographer captures the cost of cheap clothes Get the London look "The history of cotton is indeed a dark one, and in my eyes, the issues surrounding the cotton trade have never ended," states Franko. Although much has been written and spoken about the invisible and destructive line of the clothing industry, customers seem to be immune: "I guess it's easier to turn a blind eye to it. Those issues are structural, and don't have to do only with garments." Author: Jan Tomes
A low-wage paradise in the heart of Europe
Garment industry conditions in the new emerging economy, Serbia, are no different than in other low-cost manufacturing countries. "For global fashion brands, countries in Eastern and Southeastern Europe are low-wage havens," conclude the authors of the study. Well-known retailers, like H&M, Benetton and Esprit, or even luxury brands like Louis Vuitton, Prada and Versace manufacture their expensive products in low-cost factories.
The European sweatshops are known for their cheap but experienced and qualified workers. As a rule, the companies pay the workers – the majority of whom are women – the statutory minimum wage, which ranges from 89 euros a month in Ukraine to 374 euros a month in Slovakia. In order to secure a family's livelihood and enable it to meet its basic needs, wages would have to be four to five times higher.
Even upscale brands like Dolce&Gabbana are interested in building production lines in Eastern Europe
Consumers are being misled
Many brands have "Made in Europe" or "Made in EU" written on their labels, thereby suggesting that the garments have been produced under fair conditions, while "in reality, many of the region's 1.7 million garment workers live in poverty," reveals the CCC study. "Sometimes we just don't have anything to eat," said a woman in a textile factory in Ukraine, while a worker in Hungary said, "Our wages are just enough to pay for heating and utilities."
These conditions are only possible in a pro-employer environment. "It is essentially a union-free zone. No one represents the workers' interests effectively," says Musiolek. Governments also provide foreign companies with direct and indirect subsidies. In Serbia, for example, businesses are given high subsidies, plots of land below market price or even for free, tax breaks and free infrastructure in many cases. In addition, governments "set very low minimum wages," Musiolek points out.
Serbian President Aleksandr Vucic and Yumtobel CEO Ulrich Schumacher break ground on the company's new factory in the southern Serbian town of Nis
Conditions reminiscent of early capitalism
Stefan Aleksic, one of the authors of the study, told DW that an economic race is underway in Southeastern Europe. "Many poor countries surround Serbia and everyone is fighting for the same investments. A climate of competition has emerged: Who will offer foreign investors better conditions for cheap manufacturing?" explains Aleksic. The result is devastating. "The state funds the retention of a backward economy."
Despite everything, the Clean Clothes Campaign does not call for a boycott of the companies involved. "The workers keep telling us, 'We need these jobs.' They have to be paid properly and working conditions must be adjusted to meet EU standards," says Bettina Musiolek. But there is still a long way to go. "First of all, the unions need more support. These conditions, reminiscent of early capitalism, and the weakness of labor market actors are shocking." |
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Sometimes it only takes an accident to reveal the white supremacy and horrible misogyny behind White male / Asian female pairings.
Asian women market themselves as being the most suitable partners for white men; if anything, Asian women have proven themselves to be so vehemently racist, that only a white man is good enough, and anything short of that means relegation into the Gilded Ghetto.
No other interracial pairing is marked by such vitriol; both in its hatred of the Asian male appearance – and the white female appearance.
Since moving to the San Francisco area, I’ve been told by a few men quite bluntly that I’ll never measure up to an East Asian woman. This is what I’ve heard; “You white women age faster. Asian women are so much prettier. Asian women don’t get fat. Asian women are nicer, more demure. They’re smarter.”. The blatant racism and sexism infuriates me, never mind the rudeness of it. It’s like somehow okay because I’m white, in the majority, and they’re talking about a minority race. It’s never right. Racism is racism. Sexism is sexism.
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Understanding Oil and Gas Tax Subsidies is an in-depth look at special provisions written into the tax code over decades that benefit producers of oil and natural gas. As Congress contemplates comprehensive tax reform, special interests of all varieties and their spokespeople have been quick to defend the tax breaks and carve-outs that are boons to their particular industry. To ensure that the tax reform debate is guided by the facts, this report examines and refutes claims made by one of the groups that benefits the most from the status quo and needs federal handouts the least: the oil and gas industry.
Part I of the report investigates the oil and gas industry’s assertion that it pays higher taxes than any other. The report finds that in making that claim, the industry uses misleading wording to leave the impression it pays a high federal tax rate, when the tax rate it advertises really includes local, state, federal, and international taxes, and counts taxes that won’t be paid for years (if ever). After looking through years of corporate tax filings, the report concludes that in between 2008-2012, the three largest U.S. based oil and gas companies only paid, on average, a 20 percent tax to the U.S. Treasury, 15 percent lower than the statutory corporate rate of 35 percent.
To explain the industry’s reduced tax rates, Part II of the report evaluates seven tax treatments and accounting gimmicks oil and gas companies use to their advantage. These range from the nearly century-old intangible drilling cost deduction, which allows companies to write off known equipment expenses as if they are research and development investments; to more recent efforts to evade taxes such as Master Limited Partnerships, which allow entities that are effectively corporations to avoid corporate tax rates by labeling themselves as partnerships. In September 2013, MLPs had a market capitalization of $490 billion, and more than 85 percent of the MLPs were energy and natural resource related.
Other tax and accounting provisions include: special percentage depletion allowance, which can be used in some cases to claim tax deductions in excess of investment; deduction for tertiary injectants, which allows companies to deduct some costs immediately instead of capitalizing them and depreciating the cost over the life of the investment; amortization period of geological and geophysical costs, which for smaller companies is reduced to two years; last-in, first-out accounting, which allows companies to assume that the oldest (and presumably cheaper) barrels of oil remain in inventory reducing tax burdens; domestic production activities deduction (Section 199), which allows an additional deduction from the tax rate for manufacturing in the US – roughly one-third of all US corporate activity qualifies for the deduction, including oil and gas production.
Read the report to discover how oil and gas companies are misinforming the tax reform dialogue and how the industry has been able to cheat the tax man for decades.
Get the Report Here! |
While the new entry-level 13-inch MacBook Pro with function keys has a removable SSD , the same cannot be said for the Touch Bar model.MacRumors reader Jesse D. unscrewed the bottom lid on his new 15-inch MacBook Pro with a Touch Bar and discovered, unlike the 13-inch model sans Touch Bar, there is no cutout in the logic board for removable flash storage . Another reader said the 13-inch model with a Touch Bar also has a non-removable SSD.Given the SSD appears to be permanently soldered to the logic board, users will be unable to upgrade the Touch Bar MacBook Pro's flash storage beyond Apple's 512GB to 2TB built-to-order options on its website at the time of purchase. In other words, the amount of flash storage you choose will be permanent for the life of the notebook.The discovery also increases the importance of backing up data using Time Machine or a similar solution in case of logic board failure.These are the first MacBook Pro models to ship with non-removable SSDs, following in the footsteps of the 12-inch MacBook.The photos also show "pretty large, nearly index finger width gaps" around the battery cells, possibly to keep the MacBook Pro's overall weight lower and to encourage better airflow. The fan placement and internal layout of Touch Bar models is significantly different than the standard function key model.Official teardowns from the likes of iFixit and OWC should confirm and provide a better look at the non-removable SSDs. |
With one of the largest economies in the world and a growing middle class, quality wine consumption in Brazil is booming.
From 2001 to 2011, the value of wine imported to Brazil rose from $65.2 million to $261.6 million USD.
The trend in domestic wine production has been no different. In 2004, Brazil produced 94.8 million liters of quality wine. In 2013, just nine years later, the country produced an astounding 173.5 million liters of quality wine.
With a population of just over 200 million, Brazil consumes an estimated 355 million liters of wine each year. This makes Brazil the second biggest wine market in South America, placing below Argentina and above Chile.
And so it is no surprise that the number of Vivino users in Brazil is also rising, mirroring the growth of the Brazilian wine market.
Through August of 2014, over 711,000 people in Brazil have downloaded the Vivino app. Only the United States has more Vivino users. In the past 20 months, the number of Vivino users in Brazil has increased by 730%.
Vagner Silver, a sommelier and business consultant based out of São Paulo, Brazil, says, "The level of wine education is much higher than 10 years ago. You can see it naturally when talking to friends.
"I have friends who never used to be wine enthusiasts, but they are now talking about their experiences with wine and using great descriptive wine language".
Despite the remarkable growth and popularity of wine in Brazil, there is still a long way to go. Beer and spirits dominate the market, accounting for 80% of all alcoholic beverages consumed in Brazil. Researchers estimate that Brazilian adults consume just 1.9 liters of wine per year. Compare this to their neighbors, Argentinians, who consume 30 liters of wine per year.
Still, analysts around the world are confident Brazilians will continue to consume more wine in the coming years, as the economy and education level continue to rise. Brazilian Wine Institute (IBRAVIN) estimates that by the end of 2016, consumption will increase to 2.6 liters per person, and increase to 9 liters per person in the next 15 years.
"The Brazilian people still think of wine as a drink to be consumed at home, rather than socially", says Silva. "But in some places, like São Paulo, you see wine being consumed socially outside the home more and more".
As for Vivino, the rise in popularity of the app in Brazil doesn't appear to be going away anytime soon. We too project increasing growth of the Vivino app in Brazil, going hand in hand with the boom of the Brazilian wine market. |
The Collider.com movie news website interviewed producer Andrew Lazar ( Jonah Hex , Space Cowboys, Get Smart) on the planned live-action Akira films, and Lazar revealed that his Akira team hired a new writer named Albert Torres to work with director Albert Hughes (Menace II Society, From Hell, The Book of Eli) . Lazar said that Hughes is "off conceptualizing the movie with a bunch of visual artists" in pre-production development. When asked about the challenges of getting the project made as a big-budgeted, high-profile studio release, Lazar responded:
Akira happens to be something that Warner Brothers management loves. They see the value in the title. They see the value in the franchise, and what the underlying property meant. It's a pretty seminal piece. And so they think that, with a guy who is a visionary director like Albert Hughes, it's not pushing a boulder up the hill for Akira because, quite frankly, the studio is really enthusiastic about it.
Lazar also confirmed that the first film will cover Katsuhiro Otomo's first three Akira manga volumes, and the next three volumes will be covered "hopefully, if we're fortunate enough to do a second one."
Screenwriter Gary Whitta was previously attached to the project, which actor Leonardo DiCaprio (Titanic, The Aviator) is producing through his Appian Way production company. According to ComingSoon.net, Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby also worked on the films' scripts before Torres was hired.
Thanks to Codename V for the news tip. |
A little-known Canadian band may soon be paid a fortune by supporters of Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann or Rick Perry. More than a decade after their biggest hit, the Tea Party are considering selling the domain name teaparty.com to supporters of the American political movement, with analysts estimating its value at "well over" $1m (£635,885).
For the last two years, the Tea Party has been the most talked about movement in American conservative politics, and a nearly forgotten band from Windsor, Ontario have been the accidental benefactors. Every time anybody searches for "tea party", one of the top results has nothing to do with pork barrel spending, the federal reserve, or, er, "Obamacare". Instead, teaparty.com is the website for the Tea Party, a Middle Eastern-tinged band whose last charting single was in 2001. In anticipation of traffic from supporters of the political movement, the band's website proclaims: "No Politics … Just Rock and Roll."
"So much damage has been done to our name by the political movement that we're considering selling [the website]," Tea Party bassist Stuart Chatwood recently told BusinessWeek. The band do not support Tea Party politics: "As Canadians, we're sensitive to all the criticism of socialised medicine," he said. Although the Tea Party would rather sell their domain name to a liberal satirist such as Jon Stewart or a Democratic fundraiser such as George Soros, Chatwood said the URL will probably go to the highest bidder. "We've got families," he said.
In this political climate, a website at teaparty.com could be a valuable portal for either fundraising or satire. As BusinessWeek pointed out, it could also be a canny business opportunity for Lipton tea. But high demand for the web address means it won't come cheap – domain names such as vodka.com and sex.com sold for millions.
Meanwhile, the Canadian Tea Party plan tokeep making music. They released seven albums between 1991 and 2004, selling 1.6m copies – mostly in Canada. After breaking up in 2005, they reunited for several dates this year. |
If I ask what she does all day, she swears at me and says I am a typical male abusing her. Meanwhile, I have a six-hour daily commute, and can’t even contribute to a pension because of travel costs
I am in my 60s and, 16 years ago, under pressure, moved 100 miles from my work so my wife could be close to her ageing parents, who have now died. House prices have rocketed in the city where we lived so a return is unlikely. I have a six-hour round-trip commute and can’t contribute to a pension because of travel costs. My wife has not been interested in sex since we had children, who are now grownup. She will not work, but says she needs a cleaner. If I ask what she does all day, it results in swearing and accusations that I am a typical male abusing her. As far as I can see her life revolves around dog walking and her social life. I’m at my wits end because separation and division of our assets would result in us both living in poverty.
• When leaving a message on this page, please be sensitive to the fact that you are responding to a real person in the grip of a real-life dilemma, who wrote to Private Lives asking for help, and may well view your comments here. Please consider especially how your words or the tone of your message could be perceived by someone in this situation, and be aware that comments that appear to be disruptive or disrespectful to the individual concerned will be removed.
• If you would like fellow readers to respond to a dilemma of yours, send us an outline of the situation of about 150 words. For advice from Pamela Stephenson Connolly on sexual matters, send us a brief description of your concerns.
• All correspondence should reach us by Wednesday morning. Email: [email protected] (please don’t send attachments). |
Teresa Ziegler is listening to a pitch from two enthusiastic third-year students who want her to join yet another club. Classes haven’t even started and she’s already committed to the strength and conditioning club, a medical club, a few volunteer groups and the rowing club, whose members are showing off 12-foot oars in neon t-shirts that read “Beat the freshman 15.”
How will she handle it all? “I’m just going to go them all and find out what I’m most passionate about,” says the first-year Kinesiology major.
Ziegler’s got the right approach to McMaster University’s Clubsfest, the annual outdoor fair where representatives from the school’s roughly 325 campus groups spend four hours recruiting members. It’s a frenzied competition for names and e-mail address where a capella ballads from the Gospel Choir compete with pop tunes from a Chinese culture club while representatives from the Disney Dreams Club try to entice women away from the Catholic Students Association’s table.
Clubs days like these, held on campuses across Canada this month, are also a rare opportunity for students to see how much their schools offer outside of classes and bravely sign up for a extracurriculars where they’ll learn about themselves, make friends and pick up skills employers now demand alongside degrees.
Megan Schlorff and Christina New, both in health sciences, are trying to sell Ziegler on McMaster Arts For Children, which places students in after-school programs to teach arts and crafts.
“I thought volunteering for an hour a day would just add to the stress but the kids totally lessen it,” says New. She loves seeing their sense of accomplishment when they complete their artwork.
Schlorff says it helped her get out of “the McMaster bubble” and into the Hamilton community. The placement forced her to learn how to take the bus downtown, a challenge for a small-town girl.
Both women are considering careers working with kids, so Arts for Children is a resume booster.
At the next table over, Bashi Ali, a third-year social psychology major in a dress shirt and necktie, is being grilled about the McMaster Conservatives’ positions on social issues. “We’re not like the Republicans,” he says. “We don’t have views on gay marriage or abortion. It’s more about paying down the deficit and safer streets.” The interrogator takes a pamphlet and leaves.
Chris Coome, president of the club, says it promotes liberty and personal responsibility through pub nights, guest speakers and debates. It’s also leadership training that may prepare him for where he plans to go next: law school. He says he looks forward to building up the club and challenging prevailing notions of what his party stands for. Last year, their table was parked right beside the Campus Communist League which led to interesting discussions, he says.
Arpa Modi, a second-year Psychology, Neuroscience and Behaviour student, is here representing the McMaster School of Bhangra, which offers free lessons in the traditional Punjabi artform. Members then show off their new moves at coffee houses and football half-time shows.
“No experience necessary,” she tells a student, handing her a leaflet. A year ago, Modi had no experience; now she’s on a competitive team. “The people became like my family,” she says.
Modi may have some competition in David Learmonth, an engineer there to promote the McMaster Renaissance Dancers and the Society for Creative Anachronism. Some students think his blue and gold costume (a doublet with paneled breeches, he says) is awesome. Others avert their eyes.
“[The Renaissance Dance Club] tends to draw people who like engineering, math and Dungeons and Dragons,” he says, but it also attracts people interested in theatre, history and music. “It’s kind of dancing for engineers because it’s all just patterns,” he says, offering a demonstration.
The Society for Creative Anachronism is an off-campus club that recreates scenes from the Middle Ages. More people seem to be interested this year than were last year, says Learmonth, attributing the increase to the prominence of archery in recent TV shows and films like The Hunger Games.
After four hours, he’s collected roughly 80 names and e-mail addresses. “This year we did well.” |
Former United Nations Ambassador John Bolton says he will not shave his distinctive white mustache after reports it may have been a reason he wasn't picked for secretary of State.
I appreciate the grooming advice from the totally unbiased mainstream media, but I will not be shaving my #mustache. — John Bolton (@AmbJohnBolton) December 22, 2016
Bolton's tweet comes after a report Wednesday that President-elect Donald Trump Donald John TrumpHouse committee believes it has evidence Trump requested putting ally in charge of Cohen probe: report Vietnamese airline takes steps to open flights to US on sidelines of Trump-Kim summit Manafort's attorneys say he should get less than 10 years in prison MORE is taking appearances into consideration in putting together his administration. Trump reportedly disliked Bolton’s facial hair and it played a part in him not getting a Cabinet nomination.
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Trump’s aides have accepted he may rule out candidates who do not satisfy his image of what a particular nominee for a role should look like, according to The Washington Post.
“That’s the language he speaks,” said a source familiar with the Trump transition team’s internal deliberations. "He’s very aesthetic. You can come with somebody who is very much qualified for the job, but if they don’t look the part, they’re not going anywhere.”
The Post said Trump’s flair for branding and image has partially influenced several of his Cabinet selections.
“Donald was not going to like that mustache,” an anonymous Trump associate told the Post about Bolton's facial hair. "I can’t think of anyone that’s really close to Donald that has a beard that he likes.”
Trump was reportedly drawn to two other options for State due to their commanding physical appearances.
The president-elect settled on Exxon Mobile Corp. CEO Rex Tillerson over 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney despite admiring both men’s “central casting” quality, sources told the Post.
A Trump transition spokesman, meanwhile, confirmed the president-elect does factor how officials will represent his administration in public into his appointments.
“Presentation is very important because you’re representing America not only on the national stage, but also the international stage depending on the position,” Jason Miller said. |
By Mary Kuhlman
Global leaders in Paris are hammering out the details of a pact to reduce emissions spurring climate change, and here at home new research highlights the feasibility of a transition to 100 percent renewable energy in Indiana and other states.
Stanford engineering professor Mark Jacobson explains that it's technically and economically possible for every state and 139 countries to switch to 100 percent wind, water and solar energy by 2050.
"Most people aren't aware that it's possible," he points out. "There's very little downside. It's technically feasible. We can do it at low cost. The main barriers are social and political."
The analysis found the transition would save money and add more than 160,000 jobs in Indiana in construction and operation by mid-century.
Critics of renewable energy argue it would raise the price of electricity.
Jacobson says that's only true if you ignore the negative health impacts of air pollution.
According to the research, savings from reduced pollution could cover the cost of Indiana's transition in just about two years. Jacobson adds that fossil fuel health costs are real, even if they don't show up on power bills.
"We are all paying higher taxes, higher insurance rates, higher workmen's compensation rates, because of coal, oil and gas air-pollution health problems - asthma, cardio-vascular disease, respiratory illness," he points out.
And Jacobson argues there is too much at stake to not make a transition, including threats to national security.
"We'd see international conflicts growing because we still have fights over fuels that are overseas, whereas we could have just transitioned to local fuels," he stresses. "And we'd have a higher terrorism risk because we still have centralized facilities, where we'd have fewer with wind, water, solar." |
Saha Airlines (Persian: هواپیمایی ساها) is an Iranian airline based in Tehran that operates scheduled domestic flights.
History [ edit ]
The company was established in 1990 as Saha Airlines and is wholly owned by the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force. It operates domestic passenger services using Boeing 737-300 aircraft, and cargo charters carried out with Boeing 747 freighters when required. Saha Airlines was the last civil operator of the Boeing 707 in the world.[1]
On 3 May 2013, all flight operations were suspended, Saha Airlines began operating again in 2017.
Destinations [ edit ]
Saha Airlines serves the following destinations (as of March 2017)
Fleet [ edit ]
As of January 2019, the Saha Airlines fleet consisted of the following aircraft:[2]
Saha Airlines Fleet Aircraft In Service Notes Boeing 737-300 2 Total 2
They previously operated the Airbus A300-600 and the Boeing 747, both the -100 and -200 variants. The 747s were used for cargo flights. All have been transferred to the Iranian Air Force. The Airbus's have been transferred to Meraj Airlines.[3]
Accidents and incidents [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
Media related to Saha Airlines at Wikimedia Commons |
A Puerto Rican flag is waved during a protest against government austerity measures as the island faced a looming deadline to restructure its $70 billion debt in San Juan, Puerto Rico on May 1, 2017.
Puerto Rican Governor Ricardo Rosselló announced Wednesday the island would seek to address its $70 billion debt crisis in federal bankruptcy court, marking the largest municipal bankruptcy filing in U.S. history.
“We have sustained our position to negotiate in good faith, but before the current scenario, we choose to protect our people,” Rosselló said Wednesday in a tweet. The announcement came a day after Puerto Rico was hit by several lawsuits from major creditors to recover millions of dollars they invested in bonds issued by the island’s government, which has declared several defaults throughout its decade-long recession.
Since Puerto Rico is a U.S. territory, it’s barred from filing for traditional bankruptcy. Rosselló said the government would seek relief under the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act, or PROMESA, which was passed by Congress last June to address Puerto Rico’s impending financial crisis. As my colleague Gillian B. White reported at the time, it was not without controversy.
The bill has been controversial for plenty of reasons, chief among which is that PROMESA gives sweeping power to a financial-oversight board, which has yet to be appointed. They will be in charge of doing things such as approving budgets and fiscal plans, they can veto debt issuances and determine which projects get funded and which don’t. And they don’t answer to Puerto Rico or its leaders. Instead, board members are appointed by the president for three-year terms and can only be removed by the president. As a result, some feel PROMESA gives the people of Puerto Rico and its elected officials virtually no agency in the island’s future.
In addition to its $70 billion debt, Puerto Rico also faces a nearly 45 percent poverty rate and a 12.4 percent unemployment rate—factors that have resulted in a massive population decline, as many Puerto Ricans have moved to the U.S. mainland to seek employment opportunities. |
Spooky action has invaded the world of Minecraft. Google’s Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab last week released a version of the popular computer game designed to teach players about the weird principles of quantum mechanics.
In regular Minecraft, players explore a 3D world made from blocks of different materials. They can use the pieces to build any structure imaginable, from a small wooden hut to a replica of Star Trek‘s USS Enterprise. Players can also modify the game to bring in new content, such as different types of blocks, or to alter gameplay, like adding in natural disasters. In 2011, a group at MIT created an addition to the game that lets users 3D-print their virtual creations.
Google’s modification, qCraft, adds blocks with a quantum twist. Some can have multiple possible properties and will change their appearance based on when they are observed, linked to the quantum concept of superposition. Pairs of blocks can also be entangled, so that the appearance of one will influence that of another no matter how far apart they are in the virtual world.
The Google team acknowledges that the Minecraft mod is primarily a teaching tool that relies on analogies to highlight quantum effects. “qCraft isn’t a perfect scientific simulation, but it’s a fun way for players to experience a few parts of quantum mechanics outside of thought experiments or dense textbook examples,” ‘the team announced.
In the real world, Google’s lab has reportedly been busy using a quantum computer to refine the controls for its wearable computer, Glass. |
SINGAPORE - Lasalle student Priyageetha Dia has removed the "golden staircase" which sparked a debate about art in public spaces in Singapore.
She said in a Facebook post on Sunday (March 12) morning: "The existence and the end of this work bears my responsibility and no one else's. With a little trace left behind, a memento of the space.
"Till we meet again."
The "little trace" refers to a small square of gold foil that was left on the bottom step of the stairs.
She told The Straits Times in a text message on Sunday afternoon: "It was voluntarily removed by me, no pressure from the town council. To me, my work is already done."
Ms Priyageetha, 25, created the artwork in a Jalan Rajah HDB block for her final-year project.
She covered one flight of steps on the 20th floor of the block with gold foil last Sunday, and photos of the project were shared online since early last week.
Some called the act vandalism, while others have defended it as "guerilla art".
In an interview with The Sunday Times, she said: "As an artist, I wonder why everything needs to be licensed. If I (had sought) permission, there wouldn't be a thrill in doing it; I need that adrenaline rush in my art-making process."
The Jalan Besar Town Council had said earlier that the act was unauthorised under the town council's by-laws, but had made no move to remove the foil.
Jalan Besar GRC MP Lily Neo has said the town council appreciated her work and hoped to work with Ms Dia to exhibit her work elsewhere, such as through wall murals. |
Slate will post running news updates about the situation in France below. For other Slate coverage of the Charlie Hebdo shootings, click here.
Update, 4 p.m.: The Arc du Triomphe, tonight in Paris:
Youssef Boudlal/Reuters
Update, 3 p.m.: France’s interior minister has confirmed that four hostages died at the Hyper Cacher in Paris today.
Update, 2:35 p.m.: A reporter for French TV network BFM-TV claims to have spoken via phone to both Cherif Kouachi and Amedy Coulibaly before they were killed. Coulibaly claimed to be affiliated with ISIS, a link no other news outlet has reported; BuzzFeed has a transcript of the reporter’s purported conversation with Kouachi. Here’s part of it:
Journalist: Wait, wait, Cherif, Cherif, did you kill this morning?
Kouachi: But we are not killers. We are defenders of the prophet. We don’t kill women, we don’t kill anyone. We defend the prophet. If someone offend the prophet then there is no problem, we can kill him. But we don’t kill women. We’re not like you. You’re the ones killing the children of Muslims in Irak, in Syria, in Afghanistan. That’s you. Not us. We have honor codes in Islam.
Journalist: But right now you avenged yourself, no? You killed people?
Kouachi: We avenged ourselves exactly. You said it well. You said it yourself, we avenged ourselves.
Update, 2:20 p.m.: A good angle of the moment French security services broke into the kosher grocery store and hostages began to rush out:
Update, 2:10 p.m.: Video from AFP of rescue forces rushing to the Hyper Cacher:
Update, 2:05 p.m.: French president François Hollande, in a televised address, said four people were killed at Hyper Cacher. It’s still not clear whether this means four hostages died or if “four people” refers to three hostages and Amedy Coulibaly.
Another hostage situation has been reported at a jewerly store in the south of France, but a local source told the BBC that the incident does not appear to be related to the terrorism attacks in and near Paris.
Update, 12:05 p.m.: At least three sources (Reuters, AFP, and France 24) are reporting that at least four hostages at the scene of the Hyper Cacher standoff have died.
Update, 11:45 a.m.: Some of the hostages at the Hyper Cacher grocery store appear to have been freed. This AFP photo captures the scene:
Thomas Samson/AFP/Getty
Update, 11:30 a.m.: Multiple outlets are reporting that the Kouachi brothers and Amedy Coulibaly are dead. The hostage the Kouachis were holding outside of Paris has reportedly been freed; the status of Coulibaly’s hostages is not yet known.
Update, 11:15 a.m.: Explosions and gunshots have been reported at the site of the hostage situation in eastern Paris as well. Law enforcement personnel can be seen running toward the kosher grocery where Amedy Couilbaly was thought to be holding hostages. No information yet on casualties at either assault location.
Update, 11:00 a.m.: Gunshots and explosions have been reported at the printing plant in Dammartin-en-Goële where the Kouachi brothers are believed to be holding at least one hostage. AFP and CNN are reporting that police at the site have launched an assault.
Update, 10:40 a.m.: The Guardian has compiled some information on Amedy Coulibaly, believed to be the man who killed a police officer Thursday and who is holding hostages in eastern Paris. He’s 32, has a long criminal record that includes armed robbery and drug-dealing, and reportedly met Charlie Hebdo suspect Cherif Kouachi in prison. In 2010 Coulibaly was detained, and was then convicted on weapons charges, over a plot to break a convicted terrorist out of prison. (Cherif Kouachi was also detained but not charged in that investigation.) Coulibaly is reportedly the romantic partner of Hayat Boumeddiene, a 26-year-old woman who police are currently seeking.
Coulibaly has reportedly told negotiators he’ll shoot hostages if the Kouachi brothers, who are also holding hostages outside the city, are attacked by police.
Update, 10 a.m.: France 24 and the AP are reporting that police are ordering stores in the traditionally Jewish Paris neighborhood of Le Marais to close. The Marais is not near the Hyper Cacher (Hyper Cacher = Super Kosher, though the word is usually spelled casher) store in eastern Paris where hostages have been taken, but presumably authorities are worried about the possibility of more violence against Jewish businesses.
The Marais, outlined in red:
Google Maps
Update, 9:25 a.m.: France 24 television says officials are denying AFP’s report of deaths at the kosher grocery standoff.
Interior Ministry has denied reports that 2 people died in the attack on a kosher supermarket http://t.co/LdSF5QeCiv pic.twitter.com/bX931xR6Xr — FRANCE 24 (@FRANCE24) January 9, 2015
Update, 9:05 a.m.: Authorities believe that the man holding hostages in eastern Paris—and who may have killed a police officer Thursday—is named Amedy Coulibaly. A police photo of Coulibaly, right, and another suspect named Hayat Boumeddiene wanted in connection with the shootings:
Police
Update, 8:20 a.m.: AFP says at least two people have been killed in the eastern Paris shooting.
Update, 8:15 a.m.: Agence France-Presse reports that the suspect in the eastern Paris kosher grocery shooting may be the same man who killed a police officer Thursday. The agency says “at least five” hostages have been taken at the scene.
Update, 8 a.m.: A new shooting is being reported in eastern Paris, where at least person has been injured and at least one hostage taken in a kosher grocery store. Law enforcement personnel are on the scene. Porte de Vincennes:
Google Maps
Update, 7:10 a.m.: The Kouachi brothers appear to have hijacked a car earlier today after the vehicle they were travelling in (itself stolen) ran out of gas. They fled to Dammartin-en-Goële after a shootout with police at a roadblock on the N2 highway. At some point they were pursued by police in what outlets are describing as a “car chase,” though it’s not clear whether authorities identified their vehicle before the shootout.
French police have also told reporters that the shooting death of a policewoman Thursday near Paris is related to the Charlie Hebdo attack and that they have identified a suspect in the shooting, who is still at large. That suspect is reportedly “a member of the same jihadist group as the Kouachi brothers.”
Charles de Gaulles airport is said to have restricted operations to its southern runways.
Original post, 6:41 a.m.: After a shootout with police manning a roadblock, the suspects in Wednesday’s Charlie Hebdo shooting are believed to have taken at least one hostage inside an industrial building in the French town of Dammartin-en-Goële, which is less than ten miles from Charles de Gaulle airport.*
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Law enforcement personnel have surrounded the Création Tendance Découverte printing plant where the suspects, Cherif and Said Kouachi, appear to be holed up. The Kouachis entered the building at approximately 8:30 a.m. local time after exchanging fire with police on the N2 motorway, reports indicate, and appear to have made at least some contact with hostage negotiators.
Correction, Jan. 9, 7:20 a.m.: This post originally misspelled Dammartin-en-Goële. |
IM_Mvp is in a deep rut headed into Blizzcon, but the legendary champion's career has taught us that he can never be counted out.
Mvp is amused to hear your doubts.
In a game where we glorify players with all sorts of titles, royalty is an all too common theme. MarineKing, GhostKing, Crown Prince, Queen of Blades, King of the North, King of Lings are just a few of the many official and unofficial monikers with regal aspirations. It is quite telling then, thatis simply called "The King." He needs no qualifiers or adornments because he exists on another plane entirely, his record four GSL titles in six finals appearances and numerous international titles far outshining any other player's accomplishments.The King is in a slump. After winning WCS Europe Season 1 and getting to the semi-finals in the Season 1 grand slam , things went drastically south for the greatest SC2 player of all time. In WCS Europe Season 2 he dropped out the Ro16 against Grubby and HasuObs. He didn't even make it past the Ro32 in Season 3, losing to Showtime twice in an early elimination.It's not just the poor results that make Mvp's current slump worrisome. It's all about thehe is losing. He's making uncharacteristically poor decisions, choosing builds that make no sense, and showing increasingly poor micro. To make matters worse, all of this is happening as Mvp faces foreigner peasants, not the elite players of Korea. Taking these factors into consideration, one can say that this isn't any ordinary slump, but that Mvp is experiencing the deepest downswing of his legendary career. One might even dare start wondering if he's finished as a championship caliber player.But of course, we know better. We know better than to say he had an incredible run three-year run, crown him the best of all time, and then respectfully write him off for Blizzcon. We know because we've felt this way about Mvp before, and we've always been incredibly wrong.After ruling StarCraft 2 with an iron fist for most of 2011, Mvp's play started to deteriorate after a finals loss to MMA in October of 2011. The pain in his shoulder that prevented him from practicing properly finally started to show up in his gameplay, even though results-wise he finished the year strong. The severity of Mvp's situation was revealed in 2012 when he took a nosedive to start the year, getting eliminated in the Ro16 of the first Code S and then Ro24 of the first MLG. Combined with the ascent of players like MMA, DongRaeGu, MKP, and PartinG, many had already written off Mvp as a venerable but frail veteran when the second Code S of the year came around.While Mvp managed to surprise by clawing his way past each round, his gameplay was what everyone expected: that of an old fighter getting by using every dirty trick, every bit of veteran savvy, and every last ounce of strength he had left. When Mvp reached the finals, many doubted if he had anything left to show after having thrown in everything and the kitchen sink to get that far. Instead, Mvp shined even brighter in the finals, triumphing 4 - 3 over Squirtle who could not find his footing on such a grand stage. With a daring 2-barracks proxy—a favorite of many great Terrans—Mvp closed out the series to take a hard-earned fourth GSL championship.However, Mvp wouldn't stay "back" for long and he almost immediately started to show poor play again. With another series of early drop-outs at various tournaments, Mvp's previous GSL run looked more and more like a one-off miracle than a sign of anything permanent. Elimination from HSC 5 at the hands of foreigners Ret and Naama suggested that the grand finals win against Squirtle was only a temporary reprieve before an inevitable demise.Once more, Mvp put the doubters in their place. He chose IEM Cologne as his stage, coming in with an innovative TvZ banshee-mech build of his own devising, specifically-tailored to crush the rising "patchzerg" class. This time around, Mvp had no need for painstaking efforts or dramatic games—he simply stomped over some of the best players Europe had to offer en route to the championship.Yet, even Mvp couldn't hold out against the might of brood lord-infestor forever, and he spent the last couple of Code S tournaments of WoL stuck in the Ro32. This poor form alongside a switch to the easier WCS Europe region inevitably led many to question Mvp's abilities yet again, despite all past evidence showing that doubting Mvp is a very foolish thing.The doubts were very briefly justified in the group stages of WCS Europe as Mvp dropped series to DIMAGA and Lucifron, but championship Mvp showed up in time for the quarter-finals. With a 3 - 0 vs. TLO, 3 - 0 vs. DIMAGA, and 4 - 1 vs. Stephano, Mvp made it three consecutive years with a major championship won. And just for good measure, he went on to the WCS Season 1 Finals, reached the semi-finals, and came within a hair of knocking INnoVation out of the tournament (the series included a 9 vs. 30 SCV comeback game ).It's true that the level of playing Mvp is showing now is even lower than any of those those so-called "slumps" of the past. Conventional logic dictates that if Mvp wants to make an impact at Blizzcon, he will have to make the biggest comeback of his career. But honestly, conventional logic couldn't mean less.Many say that Mvp is the most like Flash among all the SC2 players, and that comparison is fair if you are just counting championship. But it doesn't take into account Mvp's greatest quality: overcoming adversity. Mvp is Boxer in 2004, Nada in 2006, and July in 2008. He is the old champion who shows that class—an intangible, poorly defined, quasi-mystical quality—truly is a thing, and that it is truly is permanent.There is no reason to believe in Mvp. His form has fallen, his health has only gotten worse, and his opponents grow more fearsome by the day.There is every reason to believe in Mvp. Victory at all cost. Victory by all means. Victory against all odds. That is what he stands for.Hail to the King. |
More Voyages To Jupiter: As Juno Inches Closer To Gas Giant, JUICE Comes Closer To Reality
While one NASA/JPL spacecraft is less than a year out from its rendezvous with our Solar System’s largest gas giant, another Jupiter-bound spacecraft is making its way from the drawing board to becoming science reality. On Wednesday, Dec. 9, the European Space Agency (ESA) and Airbus Defence & Space announced that they had signed the contract for building the JUpiter ICy moons Explorer (JUICE). While this international mission is slated for a 2022 launch, Juno – a solar-powered spacecraft launched in 2011 – has been described as being in “excellent health,” and continues to stay on track for its July 4, 2016 arrival.
JUICE Contract Signed, Building To Commence
According to ESA, in July it was announced Airbus Defence & Space SAS in France would be JUICE’s prime contractor; a €350 million (approximately $385 million) contract was approved. ESA underscored that this contract covers “design, development, integration, test, launch campaign and in-space commissioning of the spacecraft,” but does not cover the Ariane 5 launch vehicle required to loft it into space (the launcher will be procured from Arianespace at a later time). It was further stated by ESA that JUICE will be assembled at Airbus Defence and Space GmbH in Friedrichshafen, Germany.
Like the Galileo spacecraft and soon, Juno, JUICE will orbit Jupiter at the onset of its mission, observing features such as the planet’s magnetosphere and faint rings. However, the spacecraft will also conduct unprecedented observations of several Jovian moons including Callisto and Europa, and will eventually orbit Ganymede, the planet’s largest moon. It is theorized that these moons may possess large oceans underneath their icy surfaces, and JUICE’s studies may shed some light on whether these moons may be habitable. Earlier this year, images obtained from the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) suggested that Ganymede may contain a large underground ocean.
JUICE is an international mission, a collaboration between 16 European nations, the United States, and Japan. NASA’s contributions were selected in early 2013, with proposals submitted in 2012. According to NASA, nine potential instruments were reviewed, and one was ultimately selected to fly.
NASA’s contribution is the spacecraft’s ultraviolet spectrometer, which will supply images of the Jovian moons in a bid to understand how they interact with the planet’s environment. NASA stated other objectives of this instrument: “The instrument also will determine how Jupiter’s upper atmosphere interacts with its lower atmosphere below, and the ionosphere and magnetosphere above. [It will also] will provide images of the aurora on Jupiter and Ganymede.” The principal investigator for this instrument is Randy Gladstone of Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas.
NASA has also contributed significantly to two other JUICE instruments, the Radar for Icy Moon Exploration and Particle Environment Package, which will respectively use radar to penetrate the crusts of the moons and conduct measurements of Jupiter’s hostile, complex environment. The space agency will contribute $100 million for these instruments through 2033. Overall, 11 experiments will be carried aboard the spacecraft.
If launched in 2022, JUICE is expected to arrive at Jupiter in 2030 following a seven-and-a-half year journey, eventually settling into orbit around Ganymede in 2033.
While JUICE is an international collaboration, NASA has set its sights on its own Jovian icy moon mission, having entered the “formulation” phase in July for a Europa mission slated to take place in the 2020s. JPL will be managing this project. The Galileo spacecraft returned evidence that the enigmatic Europa may also possess water underneath its icy mantle; this belief was further cemented by observations made by HST in 2012. Nine science instruments have been selected for NASA’s Europa mission. It is hoped that this future mission may also provide clues about Europa’s possible habitability.
Juno Update: Spacecraft In “Excellent Health,” Juno Team Solicits Ground Images
The Juno spacecraft has certainly come a long way since its launch on a balmy August day in 2011, powered by a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas 551 launch vehicle from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 41. As of mid-November, the Juno spacecraft has traveled approximately 522 million miles (841 million kilometers) from Earth, with approximately 85 million miles (137 million kilometers) left to go before it enters Jupiter’s orbit in mid-2016. According to Juno’s website, the solar-winged spacecraft remains in excellent health.
The Juno team, led by principal investigator Scott Bolton, is inviting amateur astronomers to submit their own images of Jupiter from telescopes in a bid to help the team identify changes in the planet’s cloud features over time. Juno will possess a highly elliptical orbit and will travel far away from Jupiter for periods, making specific features more difficult to identify.
Juno will also have the capability to get closer to the planet than any other spacecraft in history; at its closest approach, it will pass within 3,100 miles (5,000 kilometers) of the gas giant’s cloud tops. Its “JunoCam” will give researchers and space enthusiasts alike the best high-resolution images of Jupiter since Voyagers 1 and 2 flew by the planet in 1979. “This is really the public’s camera. We are hoping students and whole classrooms will get involved and join our team,” Bolton enthused.
While Juno’s team prepares itself for the spacecraft’s historic arrival at Jupiter in a matter of months, international space agencies and NASA continue to design and investigate other Jupiter-bound missions in a bid to further understand our Solar System’s origins, and perhaps find habitable worlds beyond Earth.
Want to keep up-to-date with all things space? Be sure to “Like” AmericaSpace on Facebook and follow us on Twitter: @AmericaSpace |
“A St. Louis area gun shop refused a sale to an African-American woman because, according to the clerk, St. Louis police informed gun stores that Darren Wilson will not be charged,” addictinginfo.com reports. And told them to remove their firearms from the premises in case “protestors” choose to do a little affirmative shopping. “To be clear, this was not an instance of racism (not in the traditional sense, anyway) — the shop was just in the process of removing all guns and ammunition from the premises, allegedly on the order of police.” You didn’t know that? Apparently the media didn’t get the memo. Literally . . .
Did you notice the tractor trailer back there to our loading dock?” the man asked the woman, who responded with an affirmative. “All the guns are already packed in, and we’re taking all the pawns out of here too, just to protect our customers’ merchandise.” “They’ve been saying that they’re gonna target gun stores and pawn shops,” the clerk told the woman. “This came from law enforcement; it’s what they told us. They sent out memos and everything.”
I don’t think this “proves’ the grand jury will no-true-bill Officer Wilson; taking easily located stockpiles of guns away from the site of possible looting is the dictionary definition of common sense gun control. IMHO.
[h/t Vhyrus] |
Nearly 56% of the U.S. voting-age population cast ballots in the 2016 presidential election, representing a slight uptick compared with 2012 but less than in the record year of 2008. While most Americans – 70% in a recent Pew Research Center survey – say high turnout in presidential elections is very important, what constitutes “high turnout” depends very much on which country you’re looking at and which measuring stick you use.
The Census Bureau estimated that there were 245.5 million Americans ages 18 and older in November 2016, about 157.6 million of whom reported being registered to vote. (While political scientists typically define turnout as votes cast divided by the number of eligible voters, in practice turnout calculations usually are based on the estimated voting-age population, or VAP.) Just over 137.5 million people told the census they voted in 2016, somewhat higher than the actual number of votes tallied – nearly 136.8 million, according to figures compiled by the Office of the Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives, though that figure includes more than 170,000 blank, spoiled or otherwise null ballots. That sort of overstatement has long been noted by researchers; the comparisons and charts in this analysis use the House Clerk’s figure, along with data from the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) and individual nations’ statistical and elections authorities.
The 55.7% VAP turnout in 2016 puts the U.S. behind most of its peers in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), most of whose members are highly developed, democratic states. Looking at the most recent nationwide election in each OECD nation, the U.S. placed 26th out of 32 (current VAP estimates weren’t available for three countries).
(continues below)
By international standards, U.S. voter turnout is low Country % of voting-age population % of registered voters Belgium (2014)* 87.21% 89.37% Sweden (2014) 82.61% 85.81% Denmark (2015) 80.34% 85.89% Australia (2016)* 78.96% 90.98% South Korea (2017) 77.92% 77.23% Netherlands (2017) 77.31% 81.93% Israel (2015) 76.10% 72.34% New Zealand (2017) 75.65% 79.01% Finland (2015) 73.14% 66.85% Hungary (2018) 71.65% 69.68% Norway (2017) 70.59% 78.22% Germany (2017) 69.11% 76.15% Austria (2017) 68.79% 80.00% France (2017) 67.93% 74.56% Mexico (2012)* 65.97% 63.08% Italy (2018) 65.28% 73.05% Czech Republic (2018) 63.44% 66.57% U.K. (2017) 63.25% 69.31% Greece (2015)* 62.14% 56.16% Canada (2015) 62.12% 68.28% Portugal (2015) 61.75% 55.84% Spain (2016) 61.17% 66.48% Slovakia (2016) 59.43% 59.82% Ireland (2016) 58.04% 65.09% Estonia (2015) 56.82% 64.23% United States (2016) 55.70% 86.80% Luxembourg (2013)* 55.12% 91.15% Slovenia (2014) 54.09% 51.73% Poland (2015) 53.83% 55.34% Chile (2017) 52.20% 49.02% Latvia (2014) 51.69% 58.80% Switzerland (2015)* 38.63% 48.40% Iceland (2017) NA 81.20% Japan (2017) NA 53.65% Turkey (2017)* NA 85.43% Pew Research Center
The highest turnout rates among OECD nations were in Belgium (87.2%), Sweden (82.6%) and Denmark (80.3%). Switzerland consistently has the lowest turnout in the OECD: In 2015, less than 39% of the Swiss voting-age population cast ballots for the federal legislature.
One factor behind Belgium’s high turnout rates – between 83% and 95% of VAP in every election for the past four decades – may be that it is one of the 24 nations around the world (and six in the OECD) with some form of compulsory voting, according to IDEA. (One canton in Switzerland, also an OECD member nation, has compulsory voting.)
While compulsory-voting laws aren’t always strictly enforced, their presence or absence can have dramatic impacts on turnout. In Chile, for example, turnout plunged after the country moved from compulsory to voluntary voting in 2012 and began automatically enrolling eligible citizens. Even though essentially all voting-age citizens were registered for Chile’s 2013 elections, turnout in the presidential race plunged to 42%, versus 87% in 2010 when the compulsory-voting law was still in place. (Turnout rebounded slightly in last year’s presidential election, to 49% of registered voters.)
Chile’s situation points to yet another complicating factor when comparing turnout rates across countries: the distinction between who’s eligible to vote and who’s actually registered to do so. In many countries, the government takes the lead in getting people’s names on the rolls – whether by registering them automatically once they become eligible (as in, for example, Sweden or Germany) or by aggressively seeking out and registering eligible voters (as in the UK and Australia). As a result, turnout looks pretty similar regardless of whether you’re looking at voting-age population or registered voters.
In the U.S., by contrast, registration is mainly an individual responsibility. And registered voters represent a much smaller share of potential voters in the U.S. than just about any other OECD country. Only about 64% of the U.S. voting-age population (and 70% of voting-age citizens) was registered in 2016, according to the Census Bureau report, compared with 91% in Canada (2015) and the UK (2017), 96% in Sweden (2014), and 99% in Slovakia (2016).
As a consequence, turnout comparisons based only on registered voters may not be very meaningful. For instance, U.S. turnout in 2016 was 86.8% of registered voters, fourth-highest among OECD countries (and highest among those without compulsory voting). But registered voters in the U.S. are much more of a self-selected group, already more likely to vote because they took the trouble to register themselves.
There are even more ways to calculate turnout. Michael McDonald, a political scientist at the University of Florida who runs the United States Election Project, estimates turnout as a share of the “voting-eligible population” by subtracting noncitizens and ineligible felons from the voting-age population and adding eligible overseas voters. Using those calculations, U.S. turnout improves somewhat, to 59.3% of the 2016 voting-eligible population. However, McDonald doesn’t calculate comparable estimates for other countries.
No matter how they’re measured, U.S. turnout rates have been fairly consistent over the past several decades, despite some election-to-election variation. Since 1976, voting-age turnout has remained within an 8.5-percentage-point range – from just under 50% in 1996, when Bill Clinton was re-elected, to just over 58% in 2008, when Barack Obama won the White House. However, turnout varies considerably among different racial, ethnic and age groups.
In several other OECD countries, turnout has drifted lower in recent decades. Greece, which has a compulsory-voting law on the books (though it’s not enforced), saw turnout in parliamentary elections fall from 89% in 2000 to 62% in September 2015. In Norway’s parliamentary elections last year, 70.6% of the voting-age population cast ballots – the lowest turnout rate in at least four decades. And in Slovenia, after a burst of enthusiasm following the country’s independence from Yugoslavia in 1992 (when 85% of the voting-age population cast ballots), turnout fell rapidly – sinking to 54% in 2014, a drop of 31 percentage points in just over two decades of democracy.
On the other hand, turnout in recent elections has bumped up in several OECD countries. In Hungary’s parliamentary elections this past April, nearly 72% of the voting-age population voted, up from 63.3% in 2014. In the Netherlands, turnout rose from 71% in 2012 to 77.3% in March 2017. And turnout inched above 69% in September 2017’s German parliamentary election – the highest level since 2005.
Note: This is an update of a post originally published May 6, 2015.
Related posts:
Black voter turnout fell in 2016, even as a record number of Americans cast ballots
For many Americans, Election Day is already here
Topics: Voter Participation, Elections and Campaigns, World Elections |
WB/New Line
EXCLUSIVE: Horror fans will be happy. Another Conjuring is on its way, and David Leslie Johnson (Dungeons and Dragons, The Conjuring 2) has been tapped by New Line Cinema to write a third installment of the horror franchise. This comes after the first two grossed $638.3M worldwide collectively.
The Conjuring 3 is expected to bring writer-producer-director James Wan back into the fold but likely not in the same capacity. Wan directed the first Conjuring (which still holds the record as the biggest opening weekend for a non-sequel horror pic at $41.8M). Wan also directed, co-wrote produced the second in what has become a lucrative franchise.
This time around, expect Wan to serve as producer through his Atomic Monster production company with Peter Safran, who is also in the wings to return as producer. Wan, however, is unlikely to direct the third installment.
Screenwriter Johnson is well-known to genre fans, having scripted The Conjuring 2, horror film Orphan and the reboot of A Nightmare on Elm Street.
Johnson also just worked with Wan and Safran on a rewrite of their superhero film Aquaman, which stars Jason Momoa, Nicole Kidman and Amber Heard. The DC property is at Warner Bros, and we hear he is still helping on that when need be.
The logline for the third installment of the popular Conjuring fan-chiseis under wraps but will also be based on another of the real-life case files of paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren.
The Conjuring 3 marks the seventh film in the growing Conjuring universe following its first two incarnations plus Annabelle, Annabelle: Creation, The Nun and The Crooked Man (which is currently in development).
Johnson’s other credits include Denise DiNovi’s directorial debut Unforgettable as well as Wrath of the Titans, Red Riding Hood and also a few episodes of The Walking Dead, for which he is still a consulting producer.
He is repped by Paradigm and attorney Howard Abramson at Behr Abramson Levy. |
Drag Race’s Max Malanaphy Has An Evil Sense Of Humor As Much As The Next Lady
‘Tis the seventh season of RuPaul ‘s Drag Race, and Max Malanaphy — the elegant, eloquent, and slightly emaciated artiste of the cast — sailed through the competition as a front-runner, having worn her trademark grey wigs with enough aplomb to win two challenges. Alas, her time was cut short, perhaps too soon, and she was the seventh contestant told to “sashay away.”
Her luck may have run out, but this certainly isn’t the last we’ve seen of The Grey Lady’s artistic statements (even if she does not return as next week’s surprise revived contestant). .So to get to know her better, Queerty asked Max some questions — a Lucky Seven, to be exact.
Queerty: You are clearly influenced by Old Hollywood. Who are your icons? I imagine you as a little boy dressing up like your favorite movie stars.
Max Malanaphy: Oh, there has always been much dressing up. Lauren Bacall, Judy Garland, Anne Baxter, the clever ones, there is so much to be inspired by in entertainment. It’s always been magic for me.
So you’re laying in bed on a rainy day watching movies. What are you watching, and what are you eating? Sunset Boulevard, and tea with honey and lemon. The other contestants have teased you about being prudish, but your looks in the competition freely show lots of skin. Even your audition video, which is stunning by the way, is rather erotic. Where is the line between sexuality and vulgarity? There’s something to be said for sensuality versus sexuality, and there’s something to be said for mystery. I made my decisions, ethical and artistic influences both heavily present, but I’ve an evil sense of humor as much as the next lady. Speaking of your use of the phrase “I’ve,” where are you from? And where did you get that accent? Because America is under the impression you grew up in Minnesota. New England, Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Then Wisconsin, now Minnesota. Many lives, much elocution. Your philosophy for winning this competition: would you say you were inspired by Machiavelli’s ruthless theory of “the end justifies the means”? Or are you more aligned with the methodical strategies of Sun Tzu?Ruthless. Forever more. Ruthless. Forever more. The two-triangles icon that is a tattoo on your arm, what does it mean? |
Unity’s End
We were shocked. Development of the product we’ve shipped since 2011 would cease. Unity was no more. Ironically, we had a meeting with the Canonical cloud team that day. It was a short meeting. 91% of our business was affected and we had work to do.
There was some relief. Most System76 employees were using different desktop environments at this point. Just keeping my team excited about Ubuntu had been hard for a while. We’re technologists, and we felt Ubuntu drift. I agreed with the Canonical strategy of maintaining Unity 7 while developing Unity 8 separately. But time dragged on and we were stuck between waiting for our new product, which sounded constantly just around the corner, and investing in Unity 7 that was on its way out. There were no good decisions. Just hold the line. That’s not comfortable for an ambitious company. Now, with Unity canceled, the world was wide open again. I spun up distros.
The Business
In hindsight, we should have known. Like everyone, I wanted Ubuntu desktop to stand on its own economically. It’s only a matter of time before a company must align its investments with its paying customers, and that wasn’t the desktop for Canonical. But it is for System76.
The desktop is what we work on every day. We survey and listen to our customers. We know them well. Our engineering, marketing, sales, and support are already aligned to offer a Linux desktop. I started thinking that Canonical can focus on the enterprise—where they excel—and we’ll focus on the desktop where we excel. Our direction was taking shape.
Getting Closer to Pop!
We have a fundamental belief: the computer and operating system are the most powerful and versatile tools ever created. The desktop OS has moved too far toward the casual user. Every deliberation is planted in those guiding ideas.
I distro surfed when Canonical announced the end of Unity. Ubuntu GNOME received the most attention from the team. We figured that it’s essentially the future of Ubuntu and we better get to know our new product. GNOME stood out. There was an abundance of technologies and thoughtful workflow, and with the extensions framework we saw the potential to shape the desktop to our customers’ needs. We liked GNOME.
We adapted existing themes, icons, and fonts to the System76 brand. Then boot branding. Then distro settings and default apps. Then it wasn’t Ubuntu desktop anymore.
Making it Matter
With Linux we don’t need a single operating system that caters to everyone. That’s what macOS and Windows have to be. Not Linux. Diversity is our strength.
Our customers use their computer to build websites and robots; to discover medicines and launch rockets into space. What development decisions would we make if we built a distribution that focused solely on our customers and people like them? How would it differ from existing distros?
The answers started coming pretty easily. Jettison solitaire, photo managers and the like from the default install. Center our approach on user testing and careful analysis to identify pain points and determine features. Focus on productivity and the developer experience. Pop!_OS was born.
Making it Great
We like to communicate our passion for Linux and computers in a positive and inspirational way. We can see the potential that exists and how open source makes it a reality. Pop!_OS extends our ability to help our customers, and people like them, unleash their potential.
If you’re in software engineering, scientific computing, robotics, AI or IOT, we’re building Pop!_OS for you. We’ll build tools to ease managing your dev environment. We’ll make sure CUDA is easily available and working. We’ll conduct studies to understand your workflow and work to make it more efficient. It’s only the beginning.
Today, our first beta arrives. Download and install it. Tell us your thoughts and about any unexpected behavior. We’re here to answer questions, fix bugs, and refine this release so it shines come October 19th. Even with it being only our first swing, we intend to knock your socks off.
https://system76.com/pop |
Surging Republican presidential hopeful Ben Carson has said that he’s opposed to a Muslim in the White House. But on Saturday and Sunday a group called “Global Rally for Humanity” hoped to go further, hounding Islam out of America itself.
“Standing up against Islam does not mean you’re a racist or a bigot, it simply means you’re not an idiot and can see the reality of Islam around the world,” rally organizers wrote on their Facebook page. “The world is saying no to Islam.”
Scheduled to begin on Saturday in at least 20 cities, the weekend protests appeared to get off to a slow start, with no confirmed reports of mosques, community centers or government offices facing anything like a wall of armed protesters. But the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the nation’s leading Muslim civil rights organization, isn’t taking any chances, especially since protesters have been asked to carry weapons where legal.
RELATED: Ben Carson: Founding Fathers wouldn’t have trusted a Muslim president
For the past week, CAIR has urged local authorities and Muslim community leaders to act normally while also watching out for threats. In May, for example, more than 200 protesters denigrated Islam and its Prophet Muhammad outside a mosque in Phoenix, Arizona.
That event was organized by Jon Ritzheimer, an Iraq war veteran who showed up in a black T-shirt emblazoned with the words “F—k Islam.” He said he was inspired to act after another anti-Muslim event in Texas—featuring drawings of the Prophet that Muslims consider blasphemous—came under attack by two gunmen.
Ritzheimer is once again a force behind the weekend’s actions, which did turn out a smattering of flag-waving anti-Islam activists in Phoenix, according to an unverified video posted on Twitter.
“Organizers of the hate rallies have indicated that participants in states with open carry laws may be armed and that provocations such as the use of live pigs and Quran desecrations may occur,” the Council on American-Islamic Relations told Newsweek in statement.
“The anti-Islam rallies come at a time of increased hate-motivated crimes and bias incidents nationwide targeting persons and property associated, or perceived to be associated, with Islam and the American Muslim community,” the group added.
On Saturday Ben Carson offered up a new explanation for why he’s opposed to a Muslim American becoming president, citing fears of “different loyalties” that he believes the Founding Fathers articulated by barring immigrants from becoming chief executive. But he’s far from alone in his belief of Muslim infidelities or the existence those beliefs in others.
In September fellow Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump refused to challenge a person at a New Hampshire campaign event who announced, “We have a problem in this country. It’s called Muslims.” Trump also has a history of questioning President Obama’s faith and commitment to America.
“He doesn’t have a birth certificate. He may have one, but there’s something on that, maybe religion, maybe it says he is a Muslim,” Trump told Fox News in 2011. “I don’t know. Maybe he doesn’t want that.”
Further afield, the Quran-burning Pastor Terry Jones of Florida has held several anti-Islam rallies in the immigrant-rich town of Dearborn, Michigan, where a group of Christian missionaries also brought a pig’s head on a pole to the annual Arab festival.
“This is a Global Rally For Humanity,” the organizers of this weekend’s events proclaimed on Facebook. “Humanity is attacked daily by radical Islam. Protests will be held in every country at every Mosque.”
They have not happened yet. |
China's economy stabilized last quarter as the property sector rebounded, markets steadied, and loose monetary policy helped spur an improvement in factory conditions.
[BEIJING] China's economy stabilised last quarter as the property sector rebounded, markets steadied, and loose monetary policy helped spur an improvement in factory conditions.
Gross domestic product rose 6.7 per cent in the first quarter from a year earlier, the statistics authority announced Friday, meeting the median projection of economists Bloomberg surveyed and in line with the government growth target of 6.5 per cent to 7 per cent for the full year.
Industrial output, fixed-asset investment and retail sales all picked up in March.
Signs of stabilisation in the world's second-biggest economy and bets on a subdued pace of US monetary tightening have helped spur rallies in oil, metals and global equities in recent weeks.
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Whether China continues to recover, or resumes its slide toward slower growth, may depend on how much oomph is left from prior easing and if more is on the way.
"We continue to expect a cyclical improvement as past stimulus measures are still filtering through to the economy," Morgan Stanley economist Sun Junwei wrote in a report ahead of the release.
Industrial output expanded 6.8 per cent in March from a year earlier, compared to the median forecast of 5.9 per cent and 5.4 per cent in the first two months of the year.
Retail sales rose 10.5 per cent from a year earlier in March, compared to an estimate of 10.4 per cent.
Fixed-asset investment jumped 10.7 per cent in the first three months from a year earlier, compared to the forecast of 10.4 per cent and 10.2 per cent in the first two months.
China has been making the transition away from heavy industries to a services-led and consumption-driven economy, creating new winners in startups and media and losers in fading industries like coal and steel.
The government is seeking to reduce overcapacity at heavy industrial plants without derailing the economy or slashing too many jobs.
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The exiled radical preacher Omar Bakri Mohammad has been recruiting British fighters for the Islamic State, the Telegraph can reveal.
The cleric, who was banished from the UK in 2005, was named as a sponsor by British jihadists trying to induct into Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil), according to information released in one the biggest leaks of terrorist data in history.
The documents also name individuals previously not known to be fighting in Syria, including a teenager arrested in the London riots, a teacher and a Christian convert.
The mother of Fasil Towalde, from Camden, north London, who left for Syria without telling her, said on Thursday that he was a "good church boy" who had fallen in with a "bad gang".
Himan Haile confirmed her son's identity in a tearful interview in which she said he had been raised a Christian and grew up in London after the family fled violence in their native Eritrea.
"Fasil was not too much good, not too much bad. In my home he was a nice boy," Mrs Haile said. He was arrested during the London riots and later fell in with a gang and converted to Islam in prison, she added.
Fighters from Cardiff named Bakri as their "referee", including Reyaad Khan, 21, who was killed last September alongside another fighter in Raqqa, in the first targeted UK drone attack on a British citizen.
The Telegraph was sent the registration forms of 16 British fighters by Zaman al-Wasl, an independent Syrian newspaper opposed to the Bashar al-Assad regime and Isil.
Islamic State files leak: Who is banned cleric Omar Bakri who recruited British jihadists?
Fathi Ibrahim al-Tamimi, the paper’s editor, would not say how the documents – containing details of a total of 1,736 fighters from 50 different countries – were obtained but said he was confident they were genuine.
"We rely on sources both inside the regime and inside Isil," he said.
Jihadists were required to fill out a 23-question recruitment form before being accepted into the group. Under the “recommended by” question the recruits wrote “Sheikh Omar Bakri of Lebanon”.
Bakri, 58, who was born in Syria, moved to the UK in 1986 and from there led the UK chapter of Hizb ut-Tahrir, before going on to split from the group and create the al-Qaeda-inspired al-Muhajiroun.
During this time he received notoriety for his outspoken support of various jihadi groups and attacks, and labelling the London 7/7 bombers as the “fantastic four”.
He later fled to Lebanon.
Last year a Lebanese court handed him a 12-year sentence for terror offences.
Over the last two years, the extremist who radicalised Drummer Lee Rigby’s murderers has been preaching the killing of women and children on his Facebook page.
In one post he justifies the killing of all opponents of the jihadists fighting in Syria and Iraq in apparent support for Isil.
He had previously professed his support for al-Qaeda, which split from Isil for ideological reasons shortly after the group took hold in Syria and Iraq in 2014. Ayman al- Zawahiri, the leader of al-Qaeda, disavowed Isil for its use of extreme violence.
Bakri’s involvement in directly recruiting for Isil was not previously known, however his own son Mohammed is said to have died in Aleppo province in the north of Syria last October, with it claimed he was executed by Isil for apostasy.
Islamic State files leak: The 'good British Christian' who turned to jihad
According to the forms, one Briton even volunteered himself for a suicide mission: under "choice of role" 19-year-old Muhammed Jackir Ali, a law student from London, wrote "suicide bomber and fighter".
Most of the 16 entered Syria in mid to late 2013 through the main Bab al-Hawa crossing in Turkey. Ankara has come under criticism for its porous border, through which thousands of foreign fighters crossed until it was closed in January.
Charlie Winter, senior research associate at Georgia State University, told the Telegraph: "These documents may make a lot of people who became disillusioned and were thinking about leaving the Islamic State think twice.
“They might have hoped to return home quietly but now they will be wondering if their security services in their own countries know who they are and what they've done."
Lord Carlile, the former independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, said: "It is astonishing that (Omar) Bakri was allowed to remain in this country for as long as he did. We should have done much more in the early 2000s to crack down on this dangerous man." |
September 29, 2016
Land and Water Conservation Fund enables protection of land in Cherokee National Forest for the creation of a safer, more scenic Trail route
CARTER COUNTY, Tenn.—Today the U.S. Forest Service, The Conservation Fund and the Appalachian Trail Conservancy (ATC) announced the protection of 20 acres near Cherokee National Forest’s Shook Branch Swim Area at Watauga Lake. The acquisition, made possible with funding from the federal Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) will lay the groundwork for a proposed relocation of up to one mile of the Appalachian National Scenic Trail (A.T.) within the National Forest.Located south of U.S. 321, the newly-protected land will allow for a reroute of the A.T. that will provide hikers a safer crossing at the highway and a more scenic path descending from Pond Mountain Wilderness towards Watauga Lake near Hampton, Tennessee. With approximately 150 miles of the A.T. crossing through Cherokee National Forest, this relocation effort will improve one of the few remaining “road walk” Trail sections located on paved roads.“The Appalachian Trail Conservancy and A.T. volunteers have been working with the Cherokee National Forest for decades to plan the final route for the Trail,” said Morgan Sommerville, southern regional director for the ATC. “Developed areas, such as around Watauga Lake, have been the most challenging projects. After selecting an optimal route for the A.T., The Conservation Fund helped us finish this important project by providing interim acquisition funding and final negotiations with the land owners. We are thrilled this acquisition is complete and look forward to opening the new, improved A.T. location in 2019.”The Conservation Fund purchased the 20-acre property in May 2014 and recently conveyed it to the U.S. Forest Service with funding from the LWCF, ATC and private contributions from Fred and Alice Stanback. This conservation effort was selected as part of a national, agency-wide competitive and merit-based process within the U.S. Forest Service, which prioritized the project for Fiscal Year 2016 LWCF funding. Top-ranking projects, like the one near the Shook Branch Swim Area, protect important lands to support healthier forests, safer and improved recreation uses and access, and more vibrant local communities.U.S. Senators Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker and U.S. Representative Phil Roe (TN-1) supported Tennessee’s request for LWCF funding and helped secure the Congressional appropriations for the program. LWCF is a bipartisan, federal program that uses a percentage of proceeds from offshore oil and gas royalties—not taxpayer dollars—to acquire critical lands and protect our country’s best natural resources for more than 50 years."Preservation of Shook Branch will improve hiking opportunities and also help address safety concerns along this section of the Appalachian Trail,” said U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander. “Protecting the wildest, most pristine and beautiful areas in our state will give future generations of Tennesseans the same opportunity. I thank the U.S. Forest Service, The Conservation Fund and the Appalachian Trail Conservancy for their hard work and dedication to conserve and protect our land."“Millions of people visit Tennessee each year to experience our incredible God-given outdoor amenities, and this newly protected land in the Cherokee National Forest will improve safety for visitors and help preserve this historic trail,” said U.S. Senator Bob Corker. “It is important that this land is available for future generations, and I appreciate the hard work of all who are making that a priority.”“I am glad the U.S. Forest Service, The Conservation Fund and the Appalachian Trail Conservancy are partnering to protect this land for future generations, and I am proud to have supported their funding request,” said U.S. Representative Phil Roe. “As an avid outdoorsman, some of the best memories I have with family, especially my granddaughters, are on the Trail. The A.T. is a huge driver of economic development in East Tennessee, so this investment will not only preserve a place where Tennesseans can safely enjoy the outdoors, it will also assist in keeping much-needed tourism dollars in our region.”The ATC will coordinate with the U.S. Forest Service, the Tennessee Department of Transportation and Tennessee Eastman Hiking and Canoeing Club (TEHCC) to plan the type and location of the Trail’s new highway crossing. The U.S. Forest Service will also seek public input on the proposed trail construction, which is scheduled to begin in 2019 and will be undertaken by TEHCC volunteers and ATC’s Konnarock Volunteer Trail Crew.The property is also located within the Laurel Fork Bear Reserve and will be co-managed by the U.S. Forest Service and the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency as part of the Cherokee Wildlife Management Area.“The Shook Branch land purchase is an outstanding example of how we implement our agency’s mission: caring for the land and serving the people,” said Cherokee National Forest Supervisor JaSal Morris. “It highlights the important work we accomplished this year with our key partner organizations.”The land purchase also furthers the purposes of the National Trails System Act of 1968, addressing increased needs for outdoor recreation through a system of recreational, scenic and historic trail networks.“It might surprise people to learn that the Appalachian Trail is not static, but a route that is evolving over the years for the conservation and enjoyment of significant scenic, natural and historic resources to provide the best hiking experience,” said Ralph Knoll, Tennessee representative with The Conservation Fund. “We’re thankful to Senators Alexander and Corker and Representative Roe for their continued support of LWCF, which is so critical to conservation in Tennessee, and to the U.S. Forest Service and ATC for their commitment to stewarding these natural destinations and enhancing our experiences as we enjoy and explore our public lands.”At The Conservation Fund, we make conservation work for America. By creating solutions that make environmental and economic sense, we are redefining conservation to demonstrate its essential role in our future prosperity. Top-ranked for efficiency and effectiveness, we have worked in all 50 states since 1985 to protect more than 7.5 million acres of land. Learn more at www.conservationfund.org.The ATC was founded in 1925 by volunteers and federal officials working to build a continuous footpath along the Appalachian Mountains. A unit of the National Park System, the A.T. ranges from Maine to Georgia and is approximately 2,190 miles in length. It is the longest hiking-only footpath in the world. The mission of the ATC is to preserve and manage the Appalachian Trail – ensuring that its vast natural beauty and priceless cultural heritage can be shared and enjoyed today, tomorrow, and for centuries to come. For more information, please visit www.appalachiantrail.org Terry McDonald | U.S. Forest Service | 423-476-9729 | [email protected] Simonelli | The Conservation Fund | 703-908-5809 | [email protected] Sommerville | Appalachian Trail Conservancy | 828-254-3708 | [email protected] |
A Bunch of Short Guys presents Industry Insights: Brenda Chapman
sponsored by Women in Film Dallas
A Bunch of Short Guys is proud to present the one and only, American Writer, Director and animation Story Artist, Brenda Chapman!
Saturday, August 6th
4:00 PM - 7:00 PM
Angelika Plano 7205 Bishop Rd, Plano, TX 75024
Early Bird Tickets available from June 5th to July 17th for just $25
Ticket prices increase July18th and we expect to sell out, so get your ticket today!
About the Presentation
Just Another Story… is Chapman’s approach to creating a story. She will discuss and show visual examples of the basics of storytelling. There are many formulas of how to tell a great story, but really, you have to find your own comfort zone when you put the bones of your story together. Chapman contends that hers is just one of many ways to create a story - a tool or another point of view to help you in your quest for your own inspired story.
About the Speaker
Brenda Chapman started her career as a story artist at Walt Disney Feature Animation where she worked on films such as The Little Mermaid, The Rescuers Down Under, the Oscar nominated Beauty and the Beast, The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Fantasia 2000. Chapman was the story supervisor on The Lion King, for which she won the Annie Award.
Chapman then helped launch DreamWorks Animation Studios, where she co-directed the 1998 release of the Oscar winning Prince of Egypt. Chapman was the first woman to direct an animated feature for a major Hollywood studio, for which she won the Movieguide Epiphany and Teddy Awards.
She joined Pixar Animation Studios in September 2003 as a senior story artist on Cars. Chapman then created, wrote and directed Brave for which she won an Oscar, BAFTA and Golden Globe for Best Animated Feature Film.
Other awards include the Novus Creative Catalyst Award, the 2013 Burbank International Film Festival’s Feature Animation Honoree Award and the San Francisco International Women’s Film Festival Achievement Award.
Chapman has helped to develop and consult on films for several studios over many years which include not only Disney, DreamWorks and Pixar, but also Universal, Sony and Lucasfilm.
Currently, Chapman is writing, directing and producing several projects in different stages of development. She has been engaged to write and direct a Chinese financed/American made feature-animated film – working title Truth and is attached to direct Come Away, a live action film written by Marissa Goodhill.
Chapman is partnering with her husband, Kevin Lima (A Goofy Movie, Tarzan, Enchanted), in writing an adaptation of the stage show 13: The Musical for CBS Films. She and Lima are also collaborating on an original screenplay – working title Touch – all while starting up a production company to produce animated, live-action, as well as hybrid films - with the aim of producing quality family entertainment.
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The Nation 'Makeover' left her emotionally scarred
A woman says her life was turned upside-down after the reality TV show abruptly scrapped her transformation.
Perhaps no one more so than her sister, Kellie McGee. While trying to help Williams' bid for a makeover, she was goaded by producers into videotaping "hurtful and horrific statements" about her sister's appearance to heighten the drama, the lawsuit alleged.
"Back in Texas, Deleese tried to hide," her attorneys said in a lawsuit. "She and her family were devastated, humiliated, crushed, embarrassed and ashamed."
But at the last minute, her reality TV makeover was scrapped and she was put on a plane home.
After medical and psychological exams, intense personal interviews and the promise of a Cindy Crawford smile, Williams was slated for plastic surgery in Los Angeles.
Deleese Williams, a young Texas woman so ill at ease with her looks that she avoided family photos, saw ABC's "Extreme Makeover" as a chance to have the face she had always wanted.
A successful makeover might have removed the sting from McGee's comments, but after it fell through McGee had become so guilt-ridden that she killed herself four months later, the lawsuit said.
"Sometimes Deleese blames herself for Kellie's death," according to the lawsuit, which was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court and settled last fall for an undisclosed sum.
ABC expressed condolences to Williams' family but defended its actions, saying that producers repeatedly had informed Williams that her makeover could be canceled at any time for any reason. An attorney for the TV network, parent company Walt Disney Co. and the producers declined to comment.
Williams, who had applied for the makeover, was 28 when she learned she was a candidate. She flew to Los Angeles, where doctors recommended a host of surgeries, including an "eye lift, chin implant, ears pulled back and breast implants," court records showed.
The producers later sent a film crew to Williams' hometown of Conroe, Texas, to interview her relatives. First up was McGee, her younger sister.
"As the interview began, Kellie tried to discuss some of Deleese's positive attributes," the complaint stated, but the interviewers "thwarted these attempts by peppering Kellie with questions about her childhood with the 'ugly Deleese.' "
As McGee tearfully owned up to her "sometimes cruel past treatment" of her sister, Williams was listening to the interview in the next room, the lawsuit alleged. She later learned that her husband and mother-in-law also had made hurtful comments.
"Through all this my friends and family, who have never said anything before, have said things that made me realize that, 'Yes, I was right and everyone did think I looked like a freak,' " the lawsuit quoted Williams as saying.
In January 2004, Williams spent two weeks in Los Angeles visiting doctors' offices, a film studio and a gym. But on the eve of her life-changing surgery, which was to include breaking and resetting her jaw, a producer went to her hotel room and told her that the makeover was canceled: Her lengthy recovery wouldn't fit the show's schedule, the producer said.
Williams was devastated and embarrassed to go home "in the same condition in which she left," the lawsuit said. It alleged that her marriage suffered, as did her relationship with McGee, who had bipolar disorder and could not forgive herself for what she had said.
Racked with guilt, McGee committed suicide in May 2004 with an overdose of drugs and alcohol, according to the lawsuit. She is survived by two children, whom Williams is raising.
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