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0 Father of 3 killed outside bar on Edgewood Avenue
ATLANTA - Police are looking at new clues in a double shooting in northeast Atlanta.
They say someone shot and killed a father of three and injured a woman early Saturday morning outside a bar on Edgewood Avenue.
Channel 2’s Steve Gehlbach learned the popular area has a lot of surveillance cameras and police already have two people of interest they're working to identify.
TRENDING STORIES:
The shooting left a Mitchell Mormon Jr. dead and his family is hoping the people responsible will come forward.
Mormon was celebrating a new job when police say someone shot and killed him.
“I can’t believe my baby's gone,” said Mitchell’s mother, Gloria Mormon. “My son did not deserve to die, he was a loving person, full of life.”
His grieving parents said the 32-year-old was excited for his new government job so he could provide for his three young children.
“He was looking for avenues to support his children and that’s because he’s a loving father,” said Mitchell’s father, Mitchell Mormon Sr.
Police say the gunman also shot a woman who was with Mormon but she is expected to recover.
Atlanta police said the men, one wearing a white jacket and the other wearing a hooded sweatshirt carrying a backpack, were caught on surveillance video. Surveillance photo shows two men Atlanta police said they want to talk to about a deadly shooting on Edgewood Avenue on Nov. 13, 2016. © 2019 Cox Media Group.
His family hopes that the footage will lead to arrests.
“A person that would shoot somebody down like that in the street don’t need to be out,” Gloria Mormon said.
Mormon's family says an arrest would bring closure as they prepare to eventually bring themselves to forgive their son's killer.
“God had just opened up doors for him to start a new job and he was celebrating that and for him to be killed was senseless,” Gloria Mormon said.
Atlanta police are also looking for anyone who may have recorded cell phone video at the time of the shooting.
Mormon's youngest child is just 3-months-old.
If you have any information, you're asked to call the Atlanta Police Department.
© 2019 Cox Media Group. |
By Jan Rocha / Climate News Network
CIFOR via Flickr
SÃO PAULO — In 2015 Brazil told the world it would make significant reductions in its emissions of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas driving global warming. Its emissions are, however, heading in the opposite direction.
The country pledged, as a signatory to the Paris Agreement, to cut emissions by 37% by 2025, and by 43% up to 2030. Yet today they are 3.5% higher than they were a year ago.
Newly released data reveals the cause: an unexpected rise in the rate of deforestation, which accounts for more than two-thirds (69%) of Brazil´s greenhouse gas emissions.
Recession effect
Brazil’s GDP shrank by 3.8% in the last year, and carbon emissions from all other sectors of the economy fell. Transport, which accounts for 11% of emissions, industry (9%) and energy (7%) were all affected by the lower demand caused by the economic slowdown and the growing share of renewables in the energy mix. But the rise in land use change caused by the agriculture and farming sector, through deforestation, drove the total upwards.
The data comes from SEEG (System for Estimating Greenhouse Gas Emissions), which is run by the Climate Observatory, a coalition of Brazil’s principal environment NGOs set up in 2001.
The figures reveal a reversal in the trend of the previous decade, when deforestation rates fell steadily. Instead, in the year from August 2014 to July 2015, Amazon deforestation increased by 24% over the previous year. A total of 6,207 sq km was cleared according to INPE, the National Institute for Space Research, which monitors the Amazon region by satellite. With the government’s ability to carry out inspections weakened by budget cuts, once again large areas of forest were being cleared for cattle.
Between 2011 and 2014, austerity measures introduced to reduce Brazil’s budget deficit led to a cut of 72% in the money destined for forest protection and the control of deforestation.
Recent police operations have revealed the existence of sophisticated logging operations set up by organised crime networks, who are using technology to escape satellite detection.
Embarrassed by this reversal in the deforestation rate, the government has now found a solution to the funding shortfall. It will draw on the Amazonia Fund, set up in 2008 by the governments of Norway and Germany to combat deforestation and finance sustainable NGO projects. Now it will be used to fund Brazil’s cash-strapped environment agencies, enabling proper monitoring and inspection to be carried out.
“These resources will be fundamental for our effectiveness in the next few months,” says Suely Araújo, president of Ibama, the government’s environmental agency. “Helicopters and vehicles are the most important elements in the logistical support of inspection.”
New emissions warning
But the good news on funding is tempered with a word of warning from the Climate Observatory’s executive secretary, Carlos Rittl, who said: “The Paris treaty is about to take effect. In order to make it happen not just on paper we must drastically change our development path, but this is not what we are seeing.”
He says there is an enormous risk of emissions rising once Brazil emerges from recession because it is still “betting on fossil fuels — Congress approving a bill for coal — as though we were returning to the 19th century”.
In October, the Brazilian Congress approved a bill authorising government incentives to modernise thermal coal-fuelled plants. The bill still has to be sanctioned by President Michel Temer before it can take effect, and 21 NGOs have appealed to him to veto it, pointing out the contradiction with Brazil’s ratification of the Paris Agreement.
In 2014, coal made up only 2% of the energy mix, but it accounted for 30-35% of greenhouse gas emissions in the electricity sector.
Jan Rocha is a freelance journalist living in Brazil and is a former correspondent there for the BBC World Service and The Guardian. |
CARSON, Calif. (Monday, Feb. 1, 2016) – The LA Galaxy will celebrate the launch of the club’s new 2016 primary kit and 2016 marketing campaign this week with a series of events at the This is LA Pop-Up Shop at BLENDS (725 S. Los Angeles St.) in Downtown Los Angeles. The Galaxy will host a Supporters’ Happy Hour on Friday, Feb. 5, from 4-7 p.m. PT that will feature new 2016 Galaxy gear, including the new primary jersey, available for purchase. On Saturday, fans can meet Robbie Keane, Giovani dos Santos and Steven Gerrard for autograph and photo opportunities from 2-5 p.m. PT.
Set to attend the happy hour and Pop-Up Shop on Friday are LA Galaxy players Dan Gargan, Alan Gordon, Jeff Larentowicz, Mike Magee, and Dan Kennedy. The This is LA Pop-Up Shop will feature beer, wine, and various soft drinks available for those in attendance.
The This is LA Pop-Up Shop will be open from Thursday, Feb. 4 to Sunday, Feb. 7 from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. PT every day. The Galaxy’s new primary kit will be available for purchase and supporters will be able to check out the club’s 2016 This Is LA campaign which features lifestyle imagery of the team’s players and supporters in their home neighborhoods in Los Angeles.
On Saturday, Feb. 6, LA Galaxy players Robbie Keane, Giovani dos Santos and Steven Gerrard will be in attendance at BLENDS for picture and autograph opportunities. Fans will also have the opportunity to purchase the new 2016 LA Galaxy primary kit.
The events on Friday and Saturday are free and open to the public.
The Galaxy will officially launch the jersey celebration during an exclusive event at BLENDS on Thursday, Feb. 4, from 7-10 p.m. PT where the 2016 new kit will be unveiled for the first time.
WHO LA Galaxy supporters LA Galaxy Players Thursday, Feb. 4 First look at 2016 LA Galaxy jerseys
Friday, Feb. 5 Dan Gargan, Jeff Larentowicz – 4-5:30 p.m. PT Mike Magee, Dan Kennedy – 5:30-7 p.m. PT
Saturday, Feb. 6 Robbie Keane – 2-3 p.m. PT Giovani dos Santos – 3-4 p.m. PT Steven Gerrard – 4-5 p.m. PT
WHAT Exclusive jersey launch The Galaxy will unveil the jersey for the first time during an exclusive event at BLENDS This is LA Pop-Up Shop and Supporters’ Happy Hour LA Galaxy will host a happy hour and Pop-Up Shop to celebrate the launch of the team’s 2016 new primary kit and start of the 2016 season. Pictures and autographs with Robbie Keane, Giovani dos Santos, and Steven Gerrard Fans will have the opportunity to purchase 2016 LA Galaxy jerseys and meet Galaxy players WHEN Thursday, Feb. 4 7-10 p.m. PT Exclusive jersey launch Friday, Feb. 5 4-7 p.m. PT This is LA Pop-Up Shop and Supporters’ Happy Hour Saturday, Feb. 6 2-5 p.m. PT Pictures and autographs with Robbie Keane, Giovani dos Santos, and Steven Gerrard WHERE BLENDS 725 S. Los Angeles St. Los Angeles, CA 90014
The Galaxy will kick off the 2016 MLS Regular Season at StubHub Center on Sunday, March 6, against D.C. United (7 p.m. PT, UniMás). LA Galaxy Season Ticket Memberships for the 2016 MLS season are also available for purchase now. Season Ticket Members and Galaxy fans can go to www.lagalaxy.com/tickets/seasontickets or call 877-3GALAXY (342-5299) to secure their 2016 LA Galaxy Season Ticket package.
Becoming a 2016 LA Galaxy Season Ticket Member gives fans the opportunity to receive a number of benefits, including discounted pricing, LA Galaxy Team Store discounts, access to the 2016 Season Ticket Member Event, season tickets to LA Galaxy II, early game day stadium access and access to LA Galaxy Champions League matches, among other exclusive benefits. For more information, visit www.lagalaxy.com/seasontickets or call an LA Galaxy representative at 877-3GALAXY (342-5299). |
Niall Scott, University of St Andrews
1 Attachment image002.jpg
Dear Steve
Thank you for your FoI Request re “Masturbation Notice”.
The notice to which you refer is not an official university notice. It was
a student prank, and regrettably not even an original prank. The notice
appears to be a copycat issue of a similar text which appeared recently at
Durham and Lancaster universities and a number of universities in the
States. A quick check on Google should give you more information about
these incidents should you require it.
A strong clue that the notice is fake is the line “Please go home and
masturbate if you are bored.” As a matter of policy, the University would
never encourage students to go home during term time.
I understand that two copies of the notice were attached, with chewing
gum, to doors of the male toilets in the University of St Andrews Main
Library on or about the afternoon of Sunday November 13^th 2011. The
notices were removed by Library staff shortly afterwards.
Far from having a policy on masturbation or outlawing the practice, as the
bogus notice alleged, the University encourages the study of it,
academically at least. Among the titles in the University Library is
“Solitary Sex : A Cultural History of Masturbation” by Thomas Walter
Laqueur, pub Zone Books, New York, 2003.
[1]http://resourcelists.st-andrews.ac.uk/it...
Available from the short loan section, and as of 3 p.m. this afternoon,
one copy still available to borrow.
I trust this answers your request, but if you require any further
information, please don’t hesitate to contact me.
Kind regards
Niall
[2]Description: cid:[email protected]
Niall Scott
Director of Corporate Communications
University of St Andrews
St Katharine's West
The Scores
St Andrews
Fife KY169AL
Scotland
Follow St Andrews news on Twitter [3]http://twitter.com/univofstandrews/
Tel: +44 1334 462244
[mobile number]
E-mail: [4][email address]
Department Web: [5]http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/pressoffice
600th Anniversary Web: [6]http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/600th/
University Web: [7]http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/
The University of St Andrews is a charity registered in Scotland : No
SC013532
show quoted sections |
Tanya Tagaq admits that she’s feeling “soft” today. The light from the window illuminates her slightly bashful smile when she says that, lying on a couch in Montreal and holding a screen to her face as we Skype. In 2014, the Inuk musician and throat singer won Canada’s esteemed Polaris Music Prize for her fourth album, Animism. When we speak, she’s just a few weeks away from releasing its visceral follow-up, Retribution**, her most political and devastating record yet. This is an album about rape—rape of women and children, and rape of the land and the environment.
“I wanted to draw a line with non-consensual land grabs and non-consensual, non-renewable resource development and the day-to-day horrors we inflict on each other and in particular, women,” Tagaq says. “That kind of violent, unscrupulous, and unethical way of dealing with what you want and what you can have.”
Though she’s just 41, Tagaq went through the residential school system, which from the late 19th-century until just before the new millennium, was the Canadian government’s process of taking Indigenous children from their homes and communities and placing them in “boarding” schools in order to assimilate them to the dominant (re: colonizer) Canadian culture. There was rampant sexual and physical abuse. Reports say that more than 6,000 Indigenous children died while in the residential school system.
Tagaq survived and learned the traditional practice of throat singing, amplifying it well beyond the Indigenous communities from where it originated. Learning this traditional practice has its roots in something spiritual and ancestral—an act of love—but it’s also an act of resistance by reclaiming culture that the government sought to eradicate.
Through a mix of improvisation and composing, Tagaq crafts complex pieces of music alongside longtime collaborators like violinist/composer/producer Jesse Zubot. The sounds she cultivates from her disciplined practice are often described as wild and primal, sometimes frightening or ugly. These sometimes seem like euphemisms for something more overtly sexist or racist, like what critics really want to say is that Tagaq sounds “savage” or “unladylike” because she subverts expectations of how the female voice or just music in general should sound.
But Tagaq isn’t interested in pretty or polite, and Retribution continues her disruption of norms. The record shifts from boisterous flashes of punk, metal, and industrial—like a heart pumping after the hunt—to places that are much more ominous. There are great stretches that are chilling and stark, like footsteps hastening behind you on a night that’s too dark, too still. Just as suddenly, Tagaq evokes something profoundly heartbreaking. All of these moments underline the album’s wrenching dedication “to those we’ve lost to suicide.”
Tagaq is soft today, but it’s a hard-fought choice to remain vulnerable. In an intimate conversation, she talked about what retribution looks like in the face of rape, missing and murdered Indigenous women, environmental destruction, and decolonization. From that conversation came what you read below, in Tagaq’s own words.
If the treaties had been respected, Indigenous people would have vast amounts of money. Like, people would be going to the res to get the better doctor. There wouldn’t be this impoverished state. The government cornered us, and a lot of people don’t get that. They go, ‘Oh, you’re living off taxes,’ but no, no, no. That’s not how the whole thing works, and that’s a stereotype that’s spread in order to make sure the oppression stays in place. People never seem to ask why. They would prefer to see Indigenous people as drunks and lazy and incapable. If they see a drunk, homeless, Indigenous man, they blame that man. Addiction comes from trauma, and the trauma has been intergenerational for a couple hundred years now.
There’s such a revolution brewing everywhere. More and more people are beginning to understand the atrocities inflicted on Indigenous people. It’s just amazing that we’re still around, and it’s a blessing. There’s a positive light to retribution, too. Decolonization isn’t about going back to the way things were—it’s about stitching together the knowledge that we still have from the past and applying it to today.
What do you do with all those years of residential schools? Well, the equal and opposite reaction is building schools where people learn the languages. Rehabilitation facilities and proper mental health services are desperately needed in all the Indigenous communities. And, yeah, how ‘bout paying all that you owe to the Indigenous populations? It’s our constitutional right, and people don’t understand why we’re upset. Of course the system wants to keep the wool over everyone’s eyes—to keep the country running in the way that it’s been running, which is to eat, eat, eat, eat the resources.
I grew up in a small town in the middle of nowhere, I know the land. I know what we were supposed to be before. And sometimes that gets woken up. I hadn’t been hunting in a long time, and I went with some elders who were hunting seal. I hadn’t had raw seal meat for a long time and they were eating the liver and this elder offered me some. In my mind, I’m like, ‘Oh, I have to do this because I’m Inuk and it’ll be weird if I don’t.’ I put it in my mouth and my whole spine, one by one, got taller. A gushing warmth came into my whole body. Something woke up in me that remembered hundreds of years ago—that [reminded me] we are animals, and that hundreds of years ago, that’s what we did. Technology isn’t who we are. It just made me taste what’s missing out of this life experience.
There’s an alarming similarity in homelessness, addiction, and suicide between the military and the Indigenous population with regards to PTSD. People just don’t seem to understand the magnitude of the Canadian residential school system. I went to residential school for high school, it’s not that long ago. It’s so presumptuous to think that proper parents could have come out of the residential school system. All that trauma is given forth to the next generation, but the next generation doesn’t understand why that happened. It just keeps trickling down and in certain cases, exacerbating itself. At home, we’ve all lost family and friends to suicide. I myself tend to have thoughts like that. People look at mental health issues like, ‘That’s for crazy people!’ But it’s not. It’s such a day-to-day thing in certain circles, like in military or certain racial demographics. So many people I talk to on a day-to-day basis, I know they want to commit suicide.
I’d just like to see people on an equal playing field. I know when I went down to university in Halifax, I couldn’t understand why everyone was OK. White people seemed OK. How come so many people aren’t hurting? At first I thought it was isolation, because we were so far up in the Arctic, but then I realized no, this is being applied to reserves. Here we are, a culture that has been so quickly assimilated. Like, my mother was born and raised in an igloo before the government relocated us to Resolute Bay, and now she has a degree from McGill University. It’s just one generation. Look how quickly all of this happened to us! We were forced into communities and the economic system, our own judicial systems are taken away and replaced by an oppressor’s judicial system.
There we are, cornered, not in control of our non-renewable resource development, so we go, ‘Hey, OK, here’s our renewable resources!’ Seals that we’ve been eating for thousands of years and, ok, let’s sell these pelts so we can get more boats and rifles and housing and food to feed our children, and maybe build a bowling alley or a rehab facility or maybe have healthy foods. Then you have some PETA group or fucking McCartney or whoever the fuck thinks they know what they’re talking about, protesting against it and making us all look like villains. That’s one of our last resources! The suicide rate exploded in the ’70s after the EU seal ban because we weren’t able to provide for ourselves and our families. People need to understand that seals are not endangered at all. If you’re against the seal hunt, you are taking food out of human children’s mouths.
I also want to talk about the ‘Rape Me’ cover at the end of the record. I was seeing Brock Turner in the news, Kesha, Jian Ghomeshi. My daughter is about to turn 13, and she’s about to be thrust into that world of being an object. Kurt Cobain was a feminist and he wrote that song as an anti-rape song. I always wanted to cover it, but I loved it so much that I couldn’t—like, you don’t touch perfection. I started looking more and more at the cases of murdered and missing Indigenous women, realizing the ripple effects of residential school system where there’s a lot of rampant sexual abuse. Only by standing up to it and talking about it is it going to be dissolved. Children need to be free from sexual abuse, and women need to be free from being raped just walking down the street.
When I did that ‘Rape Me’ cover, I thought I was going to go in and freak out on it, but the feeling that came to me was one of profound sadness and vulnerability. I took it out of third person and put it into first person so maybe people can understand what it feels like: it’s devastating and it’s a lifelong thing that you live with. I really wanted to make it soft because when you go through sexual assault or rape, you spend a lot of time feeling like it’s your fault. No one ever asks for it, that’s not something people want. And we’re supposed to just live like that and not say anything? Fuck that. I want to say everything.
I spent most of my life harming myself somehow. When trauma is in your cells, you perpetuate it. As a society as a whole, we’re allowing the earth to be raped. We’re falling down this pit of technology and becoming so imbalanced that everybody’s sick in the head—anxious and uncomfortable and scared to be themselves. It’s time to wake the fuck up and stop allowing this to happen, to stand up and do it together. I really believe in the goodness of human beings—that we can collectively change the world. It’s by shining light on all the corners of everything that’s fucking terrifying to me that I find peace. |
ABC News' Mitchell Goulding reports:
Officials at a Texas high school plan to ask their board tonight to change a policy requiring that spanking punishments be administered only by employees of the same gender as the student to receive the punishment.
That proposed request comes on the heels of outcry after a male vice principal in the district administered legal spanking punishments to female students.
Taylor Santos, a well-regarded student and athlete at Springtown High School, near Fort Worth, Texas, chose to be paddled as punishment for allowing another student to copy her homework. She opted for the paddling over a second day of suspension after having already served one day of a two-day suspension.
Her mother, Anna Jorgensen, agreed to the punishment as long as her daughter was OK with it, but was surprised the spanking was administered by a man, she told local ABC affiliate WFAA.
As far as Jorgensen knew, she said, school policy mandated that males spank males and females spank females.
She said her daughter's buttocks were red and appeared blistered due to the force of the spanking.
The district's superintendent told ABC News that administrators followed Texas law.
"The Texas Education Code and our local policies state that if a parent or guardian does not want corporal punishment administered to his/her child, for each school year the parent or guardian must provide the district a separate written and signed statement to that effect. Otherwise, the use of corporal punishment is permissible," Mike Kelley, superintendent for the Springtown Independent School District said in a statement.
"In practice, our district goes one step further. It does not administer corporal punishment unless the parent or guardian requests that it be administered," the statement read. "There has been no deviation from that practice. Any deviation from the district's policy by district staff will be corrected. "
While paddling in public schools has been outlawed by 31 states, as well as by Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico, the Supreme Court ruled in 1977 that it was legal unless it has abolished by local authorities, according to the web site Corpun.com.
It is legal in 19 states. Efforts to ban it in Wyoming, North Carolina, Louisiana and Texas failed. However, in 2011 laws were introduced in both Texas and North Carolina giving parents the right to exempt their students from paddling.
The day after her daughter's paddling, Jorgensen called the vice principal to complain, but was told it was "normal for her bottom to look like this after receiving swats." The vice principal added that he had no idea about the same gender swatting, Jorgensen said.
But according to the school's own policy, spanking of a student can only be done by an employee of the same gender.
Another student, Jada Watt, said she mouthed off to the same male vice principal, and received the same punishment, which was observed by a male police officer.
Her mother, Cathi, said she "wasn't expecting a bruise."
"A swat is a swat, yes it is and they do sting. But to bruise a child? If I had done that, they would have called CPS on me," Cathi Watt told WFAA, referring to Child Protection Services.
"Two men giving her a swat behind closed doors, that is creepy," she added.
Springtown ISD Superintendent Mike Kelley told WFAA that he will ask the board to eliminate the requirement of same gender spanking.
He said the same-sex spanking policy can be difficult to observe in smaller schools where aren't enough female administrators around to mete out punishment to female students.
Watt and Jorgensen object to any policy change. They don't believe men should hit women under any circumstances. |
Meet your new late-night CNN host George Stroumboulopoulos, who feels the Toronto Mayor's alleged use of a gay slur was worse than if he had a crack addiction, and thinks New York City Mayor Bloomberg is a "right-winger" whose soda ban revealed that his "heart's in the right place" and whose support for "marriage equality" was "fantastic."
Stroumboulopoulos, currently a nightly CBC television host, will host a weekly talk show debuting on Sunday night June 9 and airing on Friday nights at 11 p.m. ET. CNN announced his show would focus on a variety of issues from sports to pop culture to politics. In an interview with HuffPost Live published on June 3rd, he revealed his beliefs on multiple issues including legalization of pot, guns, gay marriage, and current politicians.
Regarding Toronto Mayor Rob Ford's alleged use of crack cocaine, Stromboulopoulos thinks that's not the worst part of the evidence on tape. A mayor can still serve while overcoming an addiction, but he can't if he drops a homophobic slur:
"What was more concerning to me in the tape – it's hard to say more concerning than the allegations of crack – but in the same allegations were that he hurled a homophobic slur at a leader of a federal party. You shouldn't do that to anybody, right? So can somebody who's an addict be fit to serve? Of course. Of course, because with proper help and growth, of course somebody who has an addiction can be fit to serve office. Can somebody who hurls homophobic slurs, are they fit to serve? No. That's the more concerning part of it."
Piers Morgan may not be the only international CNN host anymore who thinks America has a gun problem:
"But it's a country built on liberty. And guns is part of the Constitution, and no one is willing to have that tough conversation with Congress and Senate and the President to say maybe that's got to change. Maybe people talk about it, but I mean actual change."
The CBC host is "uncomfortable" with America's easy access to guns:
"Look at how many guns are around. Look how easy it is to get a gun. You can go to a department store and get a gun in this country. That makes me uncomfortable, because I grew up in a city where if you have a gun, you're going to jail. We don't have the same culture of guns. We don't have John Waynes, dude. Hollywood has perpetuated this thing, and a lot of people in Hollywood go on and on about how they hate guns, but they're the ones that make these movies that have sensationalized violence for so long. What did they think was going to happen?"
Meanwhile, back to mayors, apparently New York City's Michael Bloomberg is a "right-winger":
"He's a bit nanny-statey. Which I think is really an interesting choice for a U.S. politician, especially for a right-winger. But all his nanny-state stuff is actually in a weird way to benefit the people."
However, Bloomberg's heart is in the right place:
"His heart's in the right place. Because he's actually really smart enough to understand that ultimately, you guys, the people, have to foot the bill in some way for health care, insurance costs, all that stuff. So he's at least trying to address the root of the problem. I'm fascinated how people are like 'Give me liberty or death!' Well actually sometimes liberty gives you death. So I'm fascinated by the reaction that he gets."
And Bloomberg's support for same-sex marriage was "fantastic":
"[H]e took the amazing position on same-sex marriage, on marriage equality – which was, I believe, the right position – and I loved his impassioned plea saying Republicans should be, and conservatives should be in favor of marriage equality. I thought that was fantastic."
And regarding drugs, Stroumboulopoulos thinks pot should at least be decriminalized and everyone jailed on a weed charge let free:
"If you're going to legalize it, that's fine, but then you've got to go into jail and got to get everyone who's in there on a weed charge and you've got to get them out....You need to let people out on the weed charge. I think – yeah. Yeah, I think it's a mistake to throw people in jail for rolling a joint. You've got to tackle traffickers. That's the biggest issue, right?"
Below is a transcript of the segment, which aired on HuffPost Live:
JACOB SOBOROFF, HuffPost Live: You had – I was watching – you had my boss – you had Arianna on.
GEORGE STROUMBOULOPOULOS: She's been on a couple of times, yeah.
SOBOROFF: I enjoyed those interviews. One of them you were talking about whether or not she thinks there'll be an atheist president of the United States ever, or if the U.S. is ready for an atheist president of the United States. You think the U.S. is ready?
STROUMBOULOPOULOS: I think they've had 'em already. I think they've had 'em already. It's a question of whether or not they've had an open one, right? Yeah of course, I think so. I think that we live in an era, Canada and America, maybe the UK to a degree as well, where it's the partisan era, and that's kind of the least interesting era. What we hope for is some version of enlightenment where people will try to get along. I think – absolutely. I'm sure there's lots. I think this guy here – your current President – I don't hear him be overt about it. You know, so it's not like he's campaigning on the religious ticket.
SOBOROFF: But he sure pulls it out, though, when he needs to on the campaign.
STROUMBOULOPOULOS: Which says a lot about where any country is. Right? Americans can ask for a religious president, if that's who they feel represents them. It is what you want, but I do think that they've had – I'm sure we have atheist leaders in Canada all the time. They just don't talk about it that much.
(...)
SOBOROFF: What is going on up in Canada? I wanted to ask you about this. Rob Ford, your mayor up there. Did he smoke crack? Did he not smoke crack? What is happening up in Toronto?
STROUMBOULOPOULOS: Listen, homs, I wasn't in the room. I haven't seen the tape, so I can't comment. But what I'll say this, is that the newspaper and the journalists in question – pretty reputable. Like, solid journalists.
SOBOROFF: At this Toronto Star. And then Gawker as well.
STROUMBOULOPOULOS: I think the Gawker – I think that whole Gawker story was a bit weird but the – if he did – if he did, like I thought, if he did, if he has a problem, it's not funny. If he has a problem, he should get help. That is the truth. What was more concerning to me in the tape – it's hard to say more concerning than the allegations of crack – but in the same allegations were that he hurled a homophobic slur at a leader of a federal party. You shouldn't do that to anybody, right? So can somebody who's an addict be fit to serve? Of course. Of course, because with proper help and growth, of course somebody who has an addiction can be fit to serve office. Can somebody who hurls homophobic slurs, are they fit to serve? No. That's the more concerning part of it.
In other words, that he may or may not have used in that tape. So both people who live in Toronto, we're not embarrassed by the mayor because we don't hold politicians as somebody that we aspire to be any more, but it is kind of – it's shameful that this is the fourth largest city on the continent, that's a really good city, with so much wonderful stuff going on it, and the thing that dominates the news is a guy who has done himself no favors by not being the most empathetic and passionate human being on the planet.
SOBOROFF: So what do you think of a guy who said if you throw homophobic slurs, you've got to be out. What do you think about Roy Hibbert and the Pacers, what he said over the weekend?
STROUMBOULOPOULOS: Yeah, that's a thing, right?
SOBOROFF: Should he be suspended?
STROUMBOULOPOULOS: Yes! I'm astonished the NBA didn't suspend him. Listen, I can't stand the Miami Heat. I don't want the Heat to win, so that would break my heart. I think you need to send a message that you are a league that represents equality for everybody on every turn, and you don't have – okay, here's the thing, dude. It is the equivalent of a racial slur if – can you imagine if the equivalent of a racial slur thrown in a press conference?
SOBOROFF: Of course not.
STROUMBOULOPOULOS: Dude is out.
(...)
SOBOROFF: What about the guns? So Michael Moore famously goes to Canada in "Bowling for Columbine." He's knocking on people's doors, people are leaving their doors open. Here's a stat from Huff Post, Joe van Bruss pointed out here on Huff Post. Adjusting for population, U.S. death rate by firearms, 10.2 per 100,000, in the U.S. 2.5 per 100,000 in Canada. What are we doing wrong here in the states?
STROUMBOULOPOULOS: Look, as an outsider, I won't sit here and tell you you're doing anything wrong. You do whatever you guys want.
SOBOROFF: But clearly – but clearly, per capita, we have way more gun deaths than you guys do up there.
STROUMBOULOPOULOS: It's the gun lobby. It's – this is a county built on liberty, right? And everything is about selling liberty, whether or not it's actually there. Whether or not the corporations are in charge, all that other stuff, that's a different conversation. But it's a country built on liberty. And guns is part of the Constitution, and no one is willing to have that tough conversation with Congress and Senate and the President to say maybe that's got to change. Maybe people talk about it, but I mean actual change. This is not a country built on that. The Constitution is the Constitution.
Does it have an impact on the people? Look. Look at how many guns are around. Look how easy it is to get a gun. You can go to a department store and get a gun in this country. That makes me uncomfortable, because I grew up in a city where if you have a gun, you're going to jail. We don't have the same culture of guns. We don't have John Wayne's, dude. Hollywood has perpetuated this thing, and a lot of people in Hollywood go on and on about how they hate guns, but they're the ones that make these movies that have sensationalized violence for so long. What did they think was going to happen?
SOBOROFF: What do people up there, who you talk to, your friends, people who come on your show. They look at the United States and they see a level of gun violence down here. What's people's perception looking south?
STROUMBOULOPOULOS: I think there's a lot of fear. I think there's a lot of – there's a lot of reflection now. People who used to be – I talk to Steve Earle, one of the great – the hardcore troubadour, right? One of the great songwriters this country's ever produced. And he was a gun guy. He's not a gun guy anymore. He looked around and said maybe we need to make tough choices – you can see a change. There's definitely a shift, and – but the thing about guns is gun aren't – it's not just guns, right? As you know, guns connected to mental illness, connected to education, connected to law enforcement, connected to socioeconomic equality. It's not just guns. There's so much that contributes to violence, all this other stuff, that people need to address.
(...)
STROUMBOULOPOULOS: I think that the President is an intellectual, and the President is possibly the smartest guy in the room when he is in the room. That's a good thing. You actually want your leader of your country to be the smartest person in the room. And that's helpful.
(...)
SOBOROFF: What about the next president of the United States of America. You've interviewed Hillary Clinton amongst many, many other people. You think she'll be the next president?
STROUMBOULOPOULOS: Oh dude, I don't know how you guys go. I think Hillary Clinton would be the smartest person in the room, she would be the most experienced person in the room, she would be somebody that nobody could push around, she would be somebody that could set the tone for compromise, not have it set for her. So I do think that Hillary Clinton, the Senator has all kinds of things in her favor. I don't know who they're going to run against, I don't know what backbiting internal politics, what hate campaigns will be set on –
SOBOROFF: I think it's hers to lose. If she's going to go and do it, chooses to do it, I certainly think it's hers to lose.
(...)
STROUMBOULOPOULOS: He's a bit nanny-statey. Which I think is really an interesting choice for a U.S. politician, especially for a right-winger. But all his nanny-state stuff is actually in a weird way to benefit the people.
SOBOROFF: Even the soda ban? I mean you think –
STROUMBOULOPOULOS: His heart's in the right place. Because he's actually really smart enough to understand that ultimately, you guys, the people, have to foot the bill in some way for health care, insurance costs, all that stuff. So he's at least trying to address the root of the problem. I'm fascinated how people are like "Give me liberty or death!" Well actually sometimes liberty gives you death. So I'm fascinated by the reaction that he gets. So at least he's like – things like the Patriot Act, those are nanny state things.
SOBOROFF: What about all the CC TV? All the closed-circuit TV and stuff like that in New York?
STROUMBOULOPOULOS: Dude, I'm wildly uncomfortable with that stuff, man. So that's nanny state stuff that's bad for the people. And it's under the auspices of homeland security, which is true sometimes and not true other times. That's why they would go after animal rights organizations, claiming it was the Patriot Act when they sold America that it was on terrorism, right? So that kind of stuff is more shadowy. The soda ban isn't really shadowy. At least Bloomberg –
SOBOROFF: It's pretty out in the open. What he wants to do.
STROUMBOULOPOULOS: Yeah. Plus he took the amazing position on same-sex marriage, on marriage equality – which was, I believe, the right position – and I loved his impassioned plea saying Republicans should be, and conservatives should be in favor of marriage equality. I thought that was fantastic. |
MobX has slowly built itself up as Redux’s main competition for state management real-estate. Which is definitely not a coincidence. Because, not only is MobX incredibly easy to use; it’s also very powerful. And, believe me when I say this: I’ve never seen React perform any better than when I mix the two of them. But, instead of me telling you, why don’t I show you instead?
A little bit of History: I’ve been working with Redux since version 1.0.0 came out. I was one of the early adopters at my previous company, gave courses on it, and tried to evangelize everyone to my cause. Pretty standard stuff.
Which means that, by the time I found out about MobX, I was already pretty familiar with the competition. Making me change sides was going to be no easy task.
And that’s when I ran into this video by Matt Ruby:
But, since it’s 42 minutes long, I’ll summarize it for you: Mixing MobX and React is like giving your car a consistent Nitro Boost while also reducing its fuel consumption by 90%.
What do I mean by this? The combination literally reduces the number of updates and (by extension) rendering to the bare minimum. Which brings your application to the peak of its performance.
If that doesn’t convince you to give this combo meal a try, nothing will. But, if being super fast is something that interests you, then boy do I have a treat for you next.
Author’s Note: I don’t mean to say that MobX is the superior option. Redux has most of the market share because of how easy it is to structure a project around it. Which is no small feat: Redux WILL bring order to any project you implement it in. And choosing the better one of the two is beyond the scope of this post. Instead, I recommend this article for an in-depth discussion about the differences between MobX and Redux.
Let’s talk about MobX.
MobX is a state management solution. Which basically means that it’s used to keep track of all the moving parts of your application.
Now, considering state management is a pretty popular sub-genre of framework these days, what did MobX do to get ahead of the curve?
And the answer to that is, well, a lot of things:
MobX appeals to a larger subset of programmers by being based in OOP.
It is very lightweight, allowing for easy integration.
Because it is very lightweight, it is easy to justify “Building just this one section” using MobX.
And thus adopting it causes very little friction.
You also only need to grasp four core concepts to understand MobX: observable state, computations, actions and reactions.
Observable State: Pieces of application state. Their changes trigger reactions and computations.
Pieces of application state. Their changes trigger reactions and computations. Computations: Values derived from observable state. They update only when necessary.
Values derived from observable state. They update only when necessary. Actions: Any external modification to the observable state, including user intervention.
Any external modification to the observable state, including user intervention. Reactions: Side effects triggered by a change in observable state.
Which, of course, feed into the main idea behind the framework:
Anything that can be derived from the application state, should be derived. Automatically.
Of course there’s more to learn, we’re only scratching the surface here. But you really don’t need to know all that much more to start using MobX. And that’s definitely part of the beauty.
The simplicity of these concepts, alongside the OOP base, make MobX incredibly straight forward to learn. And such a small learning curve really helps when jumping on board with a new project.
Why use MobX with React?
ReactJS is a front end component library for rendering user interfaces. Which has quickly taken over the entire internet. It’s so popular, in fact, that they already teach it at my college in Mexico.
The beauty of the framework comes in the way that it reacts (haha) to changes in state. As explained in one of my previous posts: React’s reconciliation algorithm will trigger updates based on state changes. And it will do so in very smart, and minimal, ways for increased performance.
This quality means React is the perfect choice for handling side effects in our MobX applications.
I already mentioned during the introduction how MobX won me over with its efficiency. Reducing the number of updates to a bare minimum is simply pretty tough to beat.
Such power is achieved by combining skills from each framework:
React updates the bare minimum UI based on state changes.
MobX only changes the observable state when absolutely necessary.
Which naturally results in very fast and efficient User Interfaces.
And, of course, this is not the only reason for which to use them together. We could always talk about the advantages of using MobX over Component state. But that’s a topic for another blogger.
What do you need to work with MobX and React?
I really want to leave this post as an introduction to the topic, allowing me to focus fully on a proper tutorial next week. However, that does not mean I am about to leave without imparting some knowledge.
Now you know a little bit about MobX, and some of the advantages of using it with a framework such as React. Which means that the next logical step is to give you a set of tools to start practicing right away.
We really only need one file to work with MobX:
< script src = " https://unpkg.com/[email protected]/lib/mobx.umd.min.js " defer ></ script >
And to this we can add the files necessary to run React:
<script src="https://unpkg.com/react@latest/dist/react.js" defer ></script> <script src="https://unpkg.com/react-dom@latest/dist/react-dom.js" defer ></script>
Plus our ES6+ compiler:
<script src="https://unpkg.com/[email protected]/babel.min.js" defer ></script>
Which leaves us with just one last file to bring everything together, a way to mix MobX and React:
<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/mobx-react/3.4.0/index.js" defer ></script>
You should be able to add all of these tags to an html file and begin coding.
However, I find that such a thing is easier said than done. And, me trying to explain how to set everything up may not lead to the best results. Even more so, steps that I consider too obvious to include, may very well not be so at all. It would be much better if we had a common ground to start at.
So, considering all of those reasons I prepared a couple more presents to get you started on your new MobX with React journey:
Ready To Go MobX + React Template on Codepen. Everything you need to get started is inside it.
Mobx-react-starter on GitHub. It has a more recent version of all libraries. It also contains testing, lint and support for your favorite ES6+ features (decorators anyone?)
So feel free to get your copy of either and start doing some good old coding.
Moving forward.
For a quick recount on this article:
We went over MobX’s main concepts.
Discussed a few advantages of coupling it with react.
Listed the requirements to work with both frameworks.
And prepared a couple starter packs to get us going.
So the question would be, where do we go from here? Well, obviously the next step forward is to actually build something with our new tools. And I just so happen to be working on a little tutorial to achieve that.
So tune in next week (or here if it’s been long enough) and let’s go over your first MobX + React Application. |
Can faithful Christians affirm the distinctive biblical view of humanity in Genesis 1:26-28 as created in God’s image (imago Dei) and yet hold to an evolutionary account of human origins? On the face of it this seems like a difficult, if not impossible, task.
Our oldest possible hominin ancestor (Sahelanthropus tchadensis) lived about six or seven million years ago.1 The Australopithecines (including the famous fossil named Lucy) appear in the fossil record between three and four million years ago, while Homo habilis, the earliest well-known example of the genus Homo, is thought to have lived between 1.5 and two million years ago.2 Current estimates for anatomically modern Homo sapiens put their origin at just under 200,000 years ago, with a minimum population of somewhere between 2,000 and 10,000 mating individuals needed to explain present genetic diversity.3
Yet Genesis 2 recounts God’s creation of an initial human pair, not a large population group, with no reference to earlier human ancestors. And the claim of evolutionary descent may seem to contradict the biblical idea of human uniqueness, which is usually associated with the creation of humans as imago Dei.
Here I’ll draw on my expertise as an Old Testament scholar who has been teaching and writing about biblical creation texts for many years, though without any reference to evolution. I have now come to discern a variety of ways in which these texts, which are certainly not meant to teach science, can prime us theologically—in terms of our worldview—to be open to what evolutionary science tells us about ourselves.
Adam and Eve as the Original Human Couple?
Let’s start with what is often taken to be a major contradiction between the Bible and evolution, namely, God’s creation of an initial human pair (Adam and Eve) in Genesis 2. There are two problems with the common view that this contradicts an evolutionary account of human origins.
The first is that while we often think of the first human pair in Genesis 2 as “Adam and Eve,” the text originally designates them as “the human” (ha’adam) and “the woman” (ha’iššâ). “Adam” becomes a proper name only in Genesis 5:1 and “Eve” is the name given to the woman in 3:20. What are we to make of the fact that the name of the first man is “Human” (’adam) and the name of the first woman is “Life” (havvâ)? And who would name their son Abel (hebel = vapor/futility, the same word that recurs as a theme in Ecclesiastes)? These names are clearly a function of the story (Abel’s life is soon snuffed out). Given the symbolic meaning of the names “Adam” and “Eve,” we may understand the first couple in Genesis 2 as archetypal or representative of all humanity.4
The second problem with thinking that the picture of the first couple in Genesis 2 contradicts human evolution is that this is not the only account of human origins in Genesis. We need to balance the picture in Genesis 2 with that of Genesis 1, where God creates not individuals, but population groups to fill various niches—including flying creatures in the sky, swimming things in the water, and then animals and humans (designated by the collective noun ’adam) on the land. Christians only read this account of human creation as an original couple because we retroject the account from Genesis 2 back into chapter 1. But we need to respect the different portrayals of creation in each account.5 In neither case is the text teaching science; for then we would need to ask which account is scientifically true? Rather, both accounts teach a harmonious theological vision of being human.
The Imago Dei as Vocation or Calling
That theological vision is centered on our creation as God’s image and likeness (imago Dei). Whereas many Christians have taken the imago Dei to mean that humans are unique among creatures, especially that we are radically distinct from animals, this is not the primary point of the image. Most contemporary Old Testament scholars understand the imago Dei not as certain capacities or features that distinguish humans from other animals, but as a calling or vocation, which involves representing and manifesting God’s presence and rule on earth by the way we live. This calling involves the task of agriculture (described as tending the garden in Gen. 2:15 or subduing the earth in Gen. 1:28) and animal domestication (Gen. 1:26, 28; Ps. 8:6-8), but it comes to include city building, music, and metallurgy (Gen. 4:17, 20-22), to name just a few examples of human cultural development. Ultimately, this biblical trajectory suggests that humans image God when they live in conformity to God’s will in all their earthly life, as stewards of this world that God has entrusted to us. Jesus is thus the image of God par excellence (Col. 1:15; Heb. 1:3; 2 Cor. 4:4–6) since he perfectly manifested God’s presence and will in his life, death, and resurrection. And the church, renewed in the image of God, is the new humanity (Eph. 4:24; Col. 3:9–10), meant to continue Christ’s mission in the world.6
Of course, humans would need to have certain capacities or faculties (including rationality, language, etc.) in order to be able to fulfill the calling to image God. And the Bible does, in fact, distinguish humans from other animals in a fairly commonsense way. Not only are humans granted dominion over animal life and not vice versa, but animals simply cannot meet the deepest human needs for interpersonal fellowship (Gen. 2:20).
Human Commonality with Other Animals in the Bible
Nevertheless, the Bible presents a picture of significant continuity between humans and other animals. Thus humans and land animals are created on the same day in Genesis 1 (day 6). And in Genesis 2 humans and animals are not only created from the ground but they are both described by the phrase nepesh hayyah (Gen. 2:7, 19), which means something like a living organism.7 Likewise, both humans (Gen. 2:7) and animals (Gen. 7:15-15, 22-22; also Ps. 104:29-30) are enlivened by God’s breath or spirit (this is not something distinctive to humanity).
Beyond Genesis, the vision of creation in Psalm 104 never mentions humans without pairing them with some form of animal life—whether cattle, Leviathan (the sea serpent), or lions (104:14-15, 21-23, 26). Further, God is said to have “formed” (yasar) Leviathan (Ps. 104:26), the very same verb used for God’s creation of the first human in Genesis 2:7. And God tells Job about his similarity with a creature named Behemoth, which is a plural of majesty of the usual collective noun for animals or beasts (behemâ): “Look at Behemoth [= the mega-beast], which I made with you” (Job 40:15).
Biblical texts like these, which portray the commonality of humans with a variety of other animals, should predispose Christians who take Scripture seriously to at least be open to considering the idea of common evolutionary descent.
Human Uniqueness and Species Fixity
But even if we accept that there is great commonality between humans and other animals, doesn’t the biblical account of God creating animals (and plants) “after their kind” (almost a refrain in Genesis 1) indicate a clear distinction between species? Here we need to remember that what we mean today by “species” developed well after biblical times, so “kinds” in Genesis 1 cannot be identified with our contemporary biological categories.
Certainly, both the Bible and contemporary science recognize genuine diversity and complexity among plants and animals—some of which we understand as species differentiation. Yet the very idea that the boundaries of species are fixed and impermeable is influenced more by a Platonic idea of eternal forms or essences than by anything in the Bible or contemporary science. Given that Plato is a pagan philosopher, we should not accept this sort of essentialism uncritically. According to contemporary biology, the notion of species is less a fixed essence than a relatively stable configuration that creatures attain after a period (usually lengthy) of transformation and adaptation.
Indeed, the idea of species in contemporary science turns out to be somewhat blurry and even permeable, and breaks down at a number of points, so that there are contested definitions of species in biology today. Even the most common definition (associated with Ernst Mayr) of a species as a population able to breed with each other (but not with other species) is not absolute, since some animals from what we consider to be different species have in fact interbred to produce hybrids (lions with tigers, horses with donkeys, etc.). Even Neanderthals seem to have interbred with Homo sapiens at some time in the past (the result is that people of European and Asian descent have a small percentage of Neanderthal DNA in their makeup).
The Calling of Homo Sapiens to Image God
Granted that the imago Dei is not equivalent to a discrete set of human faculties, but is better understood as the vocation of representing God on earth and manifesting his presence in all of earthly life, how might this be compatible with what we currently understand about the evolution of Homo sapiens? Since anatomically modern humans have been around for nearly 200,000 years, but archeology suggests that there was an explosion of human cultural development much later, could that be the origin of the imago Dei? This is, of course, only speculation. But it makes sense to think of God superintending the evolutionary process (on a classical concurrentist model of divine action) until hominins recognizable as Homo sapiens emerged and stabilized. Then, at some point in their development, God entered into relationship with a representative population of these hominins, calling them to the vocation of imago Dei.
And the rest, as they say, is history. |
Trump: If elected, I'd "instruct my attorney general to get a special prosecutor" to investigate Clinton emails https://t.co/6yZPKjd2Py — NBC News (@NBCNews) October 10, 2016
This is pretty interesting.
According to pollster Frank Luntz, Donald Trump’s best moment at the debate according to his panel was when he said he’d order his attorney general to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Hillary Clinton over her private email server:
Donald Trump's highest moment when he held Hillary liable for her emails and called for a special prosecutor. #debate pic.twitter.com/V4eEIjnMlG — Frank Luntz (@FrankLuntz) October 10, 2016
The pundits are saying Trump's "special prosecutor" line was the worst part of the #debate. But the people are saying it was the best. ? — Frank Luntz (@FrankLuntz) October 10, 2016
Why did Trump's "prosecutor" line do so well? Because most Americans (56%) think Hillary should've been indicted.https://t.co/3bwcmxR7VA — Frank Luntz (@FrankLuntz) October 10, 2016
The pundits vs. the people, in action!
Here’s some of the pundit reaction:
most terrifying thing said in this whole debate is Trump saying he'd appoint a special prosecutor to indict Clinton. Like a banana republic. — Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) October 10, 2016
I actually think "I'd appoint a special prosecutor" is worse than "she should be in jail" — former reflects a lack of respect for process. — Josh Barro (@jbarro) October 10, 2016
Yes, sometimes ex-presidents should prosecuted – eg torture. But it should be done by AG/Special Prosecutor, not on order of the President. https://t.co/D04OIX8Yms — Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) October 10, 2016
Threatening to jail a political opponent is anti-democratic and anti-American. — Nicholas Burns (@RNicholasBurns) October 10, 2016
They’ve lost it.
And here’s former U.S. Attorney Andrew McCarthy will a bit of sanity over what Trump really said:
That's ridiculous. He's threatening to prosecute her for felonies committed in office & obstruction, not for being a political opponent. https://t.co/FYfOR2lhO9 — Andrew C. McCarthy (@AndrewCMcCarthy) October 10, 2016
*** |
By Gilad Atzmon
An email leaked recently by Wikileaks reveals that in 2011, Jewish oligarch George Schwartz Soros gave step by step instructions to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on how to handle unrest in Albania.
Soros even nominated three candidates whom he believed to “have strong connections to the Balkans.”
Not surprisingly, several days after the email was sent to Clinton, the EU sent one of Soros’ nominees to meet Albanian leaders in Tirana to try to mediate an end to the unrest.
Soros’ email sheds light on who really sets the tone for the West. Clearly it isn’t our so-called ‘democratically elected’ politicians. Instead, it is a small cadre ofoligarchs, people like Soros, Goldman and Sachs. People who are driven by mammonism - Capitalism that is based on trade as opposed to production. The mammonites are interested in the pursuit of mammon (wealth) purely for the sake of mammon.
Soros is, without doubt, the most illustrious mammonite of our time. The Jewish billionaire is the “man who broke the Bank of England,” an adventure that made him more than $1 billion in one day in September of 1992. In 2002, a Paris court found Soros guilty of using inside information to profit from a 1988 takeover deal of Bank Societe Generale. In the days leading to the Brexit vote the speculative capitalist used The Guardian’s pages in an attempt to manipulate the Brits into following his advice on Brexit. Apparently the Brits didn’t heed Soros’ wisdom. And, so far, it seems that Soros’ predictions of doom were far fetched, verging on phantasmic. Still open is the question of why the Guardian provided a platform for the speculative capitalist oligarch. Is it a news outlet or an extension ofMammonism's long arm?
The Jewish oligarch has developed a huge infrastructure that assists him in pursuing his speculative capitalist agenda. Soros realised many decades ago that it is very easy to buy leftist institutions and activists. Since the 1980s, Soros has used his Open Society Institute to invest a fraction of his shekels in some ‘left leaning’ political groups and NGOs worldwide. Soros funds NGOs, activists and Left institutions that are willing to subscribe to his agenda. They support a cosmopolitan philosophy and are dedicated to Soros’ anti nationalist mantra. The outcome has been devastating. Instead of uniting working people, Soros funded ‘left’ organisations divide workers into sectarian groups defined by gender, sex orientation and skin colour.
Many of those who support Palestinian causes were shocked to discover that Soros funded the BDS movement although he was simultaneously invested in Israeli industry and Israeli factories operating in the West Bank such as Soda Stream.
Soros also bankrolls J Street, the American Jewish lobby group that controls the opposition to the ultra Zionist AIPAC. Looking at the huge list of Soros’ supported organisations reveals that the light Zionist oligarch supports some good causes that are particularly good for the Jews and Soros himself.
Soros seems to believe in the synagogueisation ofsociety. He supports the breaking of society into biologically oriented tribes: e.g., Blacks, Women, LGBT, Lesbians. He has invested millions in dividing the working class. Divide and rule is what it is.
Traces of his destructive Open society Institute can be identified in Iran’s failed Velvet Revolution, anti Assad NGO activity in Syria , behind anti Putin intense activism and of course the Gazi Park events in Turkey. These so called ‘civilian' and 'popular' uprises have at least one common denominator. They attempt to destabilise regimes that oppose Zio-cons as well as the mammonite world order. |
Who among us is brave enough to speak out against Alice Munro? by Dustin Kurtz
It’s a travesty. It offends. It may not be a crime but only because no magistrate could have been depraved enough to think it necessary to guard against the possibility.
In a blow against literacy everywhere, in a move that calls into question the very purpose of the written word, the Nobel Prize for literature was given to Alice Munro last Thursday.
Munro, in case you have not read her, is a monster in author’s skin, a travesty in type, a living sin against intelligence and any language into which her foul works have been translated.
And while many of us may be too cowed to speak out against this monstrous injustice, there is one who is not so afraid.
God bless you, Bret Easton Ellis. Only you can save us from pensive, fraught stories written by a gentle, hard-working eighty-two year old Canadian with a nice smile.
While some among us might be content to say, our voices muffled beneath the bootheel of Swedish tyranny, “She’s not my favorite author, but I can understand that she is indeed very good, and she really has built up an impressive body of work” a hero of Ellis’s certitude will not stand for it. No sunny day defender of literature is he, no. He’ll not stand by while this author of miraculously tense and emotionally subtle stories who also happens to look like your Nana gets to go to a fancy party. Nor will he let the corrupt, worm-eaten organization behind such monstrous injustice stand unaccused.
Such breathtaking truth. It almost hurts to look at it. His is the voice of Literature, sent to call us out from our burrows, a torch to light our way. Here we have the truth and the truth shall set us free from kind of liking Munro, from thinking maybe she’s pretty good sometimes, certainly not the worst choice, hey remember that story with the son in willful poverty, I think it ran in the New Yorker a few years back, that one was pretty great.
I say again, we should all be grateful for Bret Easton Ellis: author, savior, dickish dismisser of nice Canadians. |
0 Woman stabbed in robbery chases down attacker
ATLANTA - Atlanta police say a woman cut during a robbery was able to run down her attacker with her car.
Surveillance footage shows a woman arriving at her loft on Mangum Street in Castleberry Hill around 6:15 p.m. Monday, when a man runs across the parking lot. The man forces his way in the front door behind the woman, and when she doesn’t immediately hand over her purse, police said he cut her with a knife.
“He did have a knife. He did cut her hands because she did struggle. She did not give up her purse right away,” Atlanta Police Department Lt. Jeff Cantin said.
Cantin said after cutting the woman, the man got her purse and ran off toward Centennial Olympic Park Drive. The woman got in her car and drove after him.
“She tried to jump on the curb to stop him. She ended up bumping him with the car,” Cantin said.
“The lady got out of the car and she was bleeding and she starts yelling that she’s been robbed,” a neighbor said.
The neighbor saw the accident and called 911. He said the man got up after the car ran into him and kept going. The neighbor then followed him on foot and stayed on the line with police, helping them track him to a lot on Markham Street and arrest him.
The woman told Channel 2’s Amy Napier Viteri someone put a gun in her face last month and robbed her at the same Mangum Street building.
Police are talking to her and victims from other robberies in the southwest Atlanta neighborhood to see if they’re connected to Monday’s arrest.
“The most difficult part is coming home in the evening and just getting the nerve up to get out of the car and go to my door again,” the woman said. |
VA Inspector General: Benefits execs misused positions
The director of the Philadelphia VA Regional Office, Diana Rubens, "personally and substantially" participated in creating that job opening before volunteering to take the job, the VA Inspector General said Monday.
Another senior Veterans Benefits Administration official now based in Minnesota, Kimberly Graves, did likewise at the St. Paul VA Regional Office, the IG said in announcing the results of a six-month investigation that began with an inquiry into Rubens' relocation expenses that was prompted by an anonymous complaint. The investigation was launched at the request of the request of the top two leaders of the congressional veterans affairs committee.
The two women "inappropriately used" their positions of authority "for personal and financial benefit," the IG said.
Buy Photo Philadelphia and Wilmington Veterans Benefits Office Director Diana Rubens speaks to The News Journal at the Wilmington VA Medical Center following an Aug. 3, 2015, open house event. (Photo: KYLE GRANTHAM/THE NEWS JOURNAL)
Both moves involved substantial amounts of relocation expenses. VA paid $274,019 for Rubens' June 1, 2014, move from Washington, D.C., where she served as deputy under secretary for field operations, to become the Philadelphia director. Some of the expenses were also excessive or prohibited, the IG said.
The Philadelphia office governs and has processed veterans' disability and pension claims for the Wilmington benefits office.
The IG has made criminal referrals on both workers, both members of the Senior Executive Service or SES, to the U.S. Attorney's Office of the District of Columbia. "Formal decisions regarding prosecutorial merit are pending," the IG said. One recommendation is whether Rubens should be forced to pay back the $274,019, and Graves to pay back the $129,468 paid for her expenses to relocate from the Eastern Area Office in Philadelphia to St. Paul in October 2014.
Most of those expenses were approved by Allison Hickey, VA's under secretary for benefits, the IG said.
Members of the Senior Executive Service, or SES, serve in positions just below those served by presidential appointees.
Rubens and Graves weren't the only workers targeted in the IG's investigation. The IG reviewed records of 23 other VBA employees who were either promoted to or moved to different SES positions in fiscal years 2013 through 2015. Twenty-one of the 23 reassignments included salary increases.
Yet, from fiscal year 2010 through fiscal year 2013, U.S. Office of Personnel Management guidelines "precluded all SES employees from receiving annual pay increases." And in fiscal year 2012, the VA secretary ruled that no VBA executives would receive performance awards "based on concerns over the backlog of veterans’ disability claims."
Said the IG, "We determined that VBA management used moves of senior executives as a method to justify annual salary increases and used VA’s [Permanent Change of Station] Relocation program to pay moving expenses for these employees."
In addition, the IG identified salary increases "that did not consistently reflect changes in the positions’ scope of responsibility." When VBA filled vacant SES positions, the IG said, "the selectees often received significant annual salary increases over what their predecessors were paid." One regional office director received a salary increase of $30,417, or 22 percent more than his predecessor.
The Philadelphia VA Regional Office and Insurance Center. (Photo: Courtesy of the Veterans Benefits Administration)
For Rubens, the Philadelphia job also came with a "significant decrease in job responsibilities" from her previous position as deputy under secretary for field operations. Yet she retained her previous salary of $181,497, the IG said. As VA had claimed when that story broke in late winter, her salary could not be reduced, based on federal regulations that govern the pay of federal employees in the Senior Executive Service.
In response, the VA chief of staff, Robert Nabors, said that he had read the report and agreed with its recommendations, listed at the link above.
VA's harshest critic in Congress said the investigation's findings weren't unexpected.
“I am not surprised that the IG has confirmed our biggest fears about VBA's relocation expenses program," said Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Florida, in a statement. "The IG’s report proves that VA’s corrosive culture extends to the highest levels of VBA leadership and must be immediately rooted out once and for all. This report is simply the latest in a long line of investigations showing VA officials helping themselves instead of helping America’s veterans.
“Ms. Rubens and Ms. Graves were placed in positions of authority and given the trust of the American people to properly serve the men and women who have served our Nation," Miller said. "They have violated that trust and must be held accountable for their actions. I expect the U.S. Attorney’s Office will consider the criminal referral and if warranted, I would expect all parties to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Additionally, I am examining whether VA officials misled the Committee at the hearing on April 22, 2015, regarding Ms. Rubens’ relocation."
The promotions, moves and payments weren't simply a matter of policy misinterpretation, Miller said.
“It is clear from this report that Under Secretary Hickey and others in VA leadership knew they could use fear, intimidation, and timely relocation incentives to coerce subordinates to relocate to jobs they didn’t apply for at the taxpayers’ expense," Miller said. "These VA managers knew what they were doing and it is clear that from day one that VA officials were using the relocation expenses program to enrich themselves. The actions of the individuals uncovered by this report are a discredit to VA employees and veterans."
Miller was harshly critical of Hickey, as well, saying he is "especially disappointed" in Hickey and other senior VA managers "for approving these moves. ... I encourage Secretary [Robert] McDonald to utilize every tool available to him to ensure that these VA managers and leaders are immediately held accountable for their actions."
The IG's investigation took it to Philadelphia; St. Paul; Baltimore; New York; Houston; Seattle; Salt Lake City; St. Louis; Chicago; St. Petersburg, Florida; Montgomery, Alabama; San Diego; Cleveland; Milwaukee; Jackson, Mississippi; Hartford, Connecticut; and Columbia, South Carolina.
Contact William H. McMichael at (302) 324-2812 or [email protected]. On Twitter: @billmcmichael
Read or Share this story: http://delonline.us/1KFPQeV |
Hezbollah’s rockets can hit anywhere in Israel and the Lebanese terror group is not afraid to fight Israel in another war, head Hassan Nasrallah told supporters in a fiery speech Tuesday.
Hezbollah “is fully ready in southern Lebanon,” Nasrallah said, addressing via video thousands of Lebanese Shiites commemorating the Ashura holiday in southern Beirut, Naharnet reported.
He said the group’s activities fighting in support of the Syrian regime had not affected its battle readiness.
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Hezbollah’s campaigns in Syria has cost the group over 1,000 fighters, according to some reports.
“Israel’s threats of another war on Lebanon do not stem from its power because it has lost hope and is concerned…the resistance is a real threat to Israel,” said Nasrallah.
Hezbollah’s secretary-general also pledged that the Shiite organization’s rockets would force Israel to close its sea ports and main airport in the next conflict.
“Israelis are saying in the media that they would have to close down the Ben Gurion Airport and the Haifa port and yes, that’s true,” said Nasrallah, the Daily Star reported.
“You should close all of your airports and your ports because there is no place extending on the land of occupied Palestine that the resistance’s rockets cannot reach.”
Israel knows that fighting Hezbollah “will be very costly because we are more determined, stronger, more experienced … and we are capable of achieving such accomplishments,” he continued.
Nasrallah also addressed Israeli plans to build new housing units in East Jerusalem, saying that the “the Zionists are taking advantage of the Islamic world’s turmoil to reach their objectives.” He called on the Arab League to take a firm stance against the planned construction.
He justified Hezbollah’s military support of Syrian President Bashar Assad against Syrian and jihadi rebels: “We are part of the confrontation against the biggest danger facing the region. We have the honor to be part of the victory that will be achieved.”
Nasrallah’s televised address comes a day after he made a rare public appearance in the Lebanese capital’s southern suburbs, addressing thousands of his supporters ahead of the Shiite Ashura commemorations.
As he appeared on stage Monday wearing a black robe and turban, the crowd seen in a live broadcast on Hezbollah’s al-Manar television began cheering wildly, as they apparently had not expected to see him.
The head of the Shiite group had not appeared in public since July when he attended a rally to show support for the Gaza Strip.
Monday’s appearance marks his sixth since his group fought Israel in a devastating war in 2006.
In his speech, the Hezbollah chief spoke about the civil war raging in neighboring Syria, internal Lebanese politics, and Iranian support for the Lebanese Army. Hezbollah’s fighters also clashed with the jihadists in eastern Lebanon in October, and its strongholds have come under repeated bomb attacks over its involvement in the Syrian conflict.
Nasrallah’s address Monday came ahead of the peak of Ashura, a festival that marks the killing of Imam Hussein, one of the most revered figures of Shiite Islam and grandson of the Prophet Mohammed.
Hussein was killed at the hands of soldiers of the caliph Yazid in the year 680, an event that lies at the heart of Islam’s sectarian divide into Shiite and Sunni sects.
AFP contributed to this report. |
For almost five decades, Hot Wheels has been becoming the favorite toy products for both children and adults. There are plenty of vehicles being distributed all over the world. Even now, the demand on the toy is still high. What makes it so popular, even the collectors willingly hunt for the Hot Wheels full set series to complete their collections?
Hot Wheels Full Set Series Why Is It so Popular?
Since 1968, Hot Wheels has been well known as a label that can keep its local fans due to its attention to detail, and its cars’ speed that can reach up to 300 mph. How can it happen? The answer is because all of the cars were designed by an engineer who was also capable in designing missiles. Therefore, it is not surprising if there are many collectors, from children to adults, who want to collect all of the Hot Wheels full set series.
Types of Hot Wheels Cars
There is no a certain guide of what you can collect from Hot Wheels products. However, there are some Hot Wheels toy categories that can be collected based on its series or types. Some of them can be found in the following list:
1. Treasure Hunts (T-Hunt)
Treasure hunt was firstly introduced by Mattel in 1995. There are twelve types of cars produced each year, which are released every month. Initially, there were only ten thousand pieces of cars being produced each year, and now, the quantity is significant increases due to the customers’ high demand. Until 2007, there were more than 150 series being released to public.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyEl-WPzZKo&list=PLu96U5HW-QRySsvW2ACDW5KFBKSr4_6jl Video can’t be loaded: Hot Wheels Hunting Haul, BIG CATCH (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyEl-WPzZKo&list=PLu96U5HW-QRySsvW2ACDW5KFBKSr4_6jl)
2. Hot Wheels Classics and Hot Wheels Cool Classics
The Hot Wheels Classics are the Hot Wheels series, which focuses more on the classic-categorized vehicles being modified on the colors and models. It was firstly released in 2013, and was intentionally produced for the adult collectors. Each vehicle has Logan as its base, spectra frost color and exclusive Retro-Slot wheels.
3. Sizzlers
Sizzlers are the series which was released in 1970, coming with a built-in motor and a small re-charged battery. The cars can be only used to race on a certain track. Therefore, in order to facilitate the customers with a proper track of their vehicles, Mattel specially produced U-turn, multi-level spiral race tracks and loop which can be used to accommodate the race using this series of cars.
4. Hot Wheels Boulevard.
It is the series that focuses on highlighting the legendary cars which have special meaning in the world of automotive. It was officially introduced in 2012 in three different categories: Show Rods, Legend, and Concept Car.
5. Hot Wheels Hollywood & Hot Wheels Toon
Hot Wheels Hollywood is the series of Hot Wheels which includes all of the famous cars that ever appeared in some popular movies, television series, or pop culture. The examples are the cars ridden by James Bond, or those which appeared in Ghostbuster, Fast and Furious, Need for Speed, etc. Similar to the Hot Wheels Hollywood, the hottest Wheel Toon Series has some cars appearing in the famous cartoon movies or series (e.g.: K.I.T.T. Knight Rider, The Flinstone, Popeye, Scooby Doo, etc.) included. |
Jo Cox: British Labour MP dies after being shot in street; Brexit campaigning on hold
Updated
British MP Jo Cox has died after being shot in her constituency in northern England, in an attack which has left the UK in shock and caused campaigning for next week's European Union referendum to be suspended.
Key points: Police arrest 52-year-old man
British leaders pay tribute to 41-year-old Jo Cox
Witnesses say the attacker had a gun and knife
Mrs Cox, a vocal supporter of immigration and Britain remaining in the European Union, was shot in the street outside a library where she was meeting with constituents in Birstall, near Leeds.
The attacker was named by British media as local man Tommy Mair, with neighbours quoted as saying he was a "loner" with a history of mental health problems.
Media reported his home was a short walk from Mrs Cox's office, and that forensic officers were searching the house and a row of garages behind it.
Police said a 52-year-old man was in custody and said they were not looking for anyone else.
West Yorkshire chief constable Dee Collins said police were investigating a motive for the attack.
"This is a very significant investigation with large numbers of witnesses who have been spoken to by police at this time," she said.
"We are not in a position to discuss any motive at this time."
Mrs Cox, 41, the mother of two daughters, died in hospital after the attack. Shortly before her death was announced her husband, Brendan, tweeted a simple tribute — a photo of her standing by the River Thames in London.
"Jo believed in a better world and she fought for it every day of her life with an energy, and a zest for life that would exhaust most people," he said in a statement.
"She would have wanted two things above all else to happen now: one, that our precious children are bathed in love; and two, that we all unite to fight against the hatred that killed her.
"Hate doesn't have a creed, race or religion, it is poisonous."
Issues around immigration have played a major role in the debate over whether the UK should stay in the EU, but it is not known if the attack had anything to do with Mrs Cox's political positions.
The BBC reported that a witness said the assailant screamed out "Put Britain first" before shooting the MP.
Cameron, Corbyn pay tribute to 'great star' with 'big heart'
British Prime Minister David Cameron said the death was a tragedy, and that Mrs Cox was a committed and caring member of Parliament.
"We have lost a great star," the Conservative Prime Minister said in a statement.
"She was a great campaigning MP with huge compassion, with a big heart. It is dreadful, dreadful news."
British Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn took to Twitter to pay tribute to the "universally liked" Mrs Cox, who was elected as Batley and Spen MP in 2015.
"Jo died doing her public duty at the heart of our democracy, listening to and representing the people she was elected to serve," he said.
"It is a profoundly important cause for us all."
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull tweeted: "Deeply shocked by the murder of UK MP Jo Cox. Our condolences, prayers and solidarity are with her family & the people of the UK".
Dozens of Mrs Cox's friends and colleagues gathered for a church vigil in Birstall, as flowers and tributes were left in the small village and at a makeshift memorial in Parliament Square, central London.
Mrs Cox was a Cambridge University graduate and aid worker before becoming the Labour MP for the constituency of Batley and Spen in 2015.
She worked with several charities throughout her career and developed a reputation for her work on immigration women's issues.
Attacker wielded gun and knife
Cafe owner Clarke Rothwell witnessed the incident and said the suspect had both a gun and a large hunting knife.
"An old-fashioned looking gun in his hands," he said.
"And he shot this lady once and then he shot her again and she fell to the floor.
"Somebody tried wrestling with him and then he wielded a knife."
Sorry, this video has expired Video: Yorkshire police confirm Jo Cox died after attack (ABC News)
Another witness told Sky News that Mrs Cox had intervened in a scuffle between two men, one of whom had pulled a gun from a bag which had then been fired twice.
"I saw people rushing down the road towards the library. I came out with a couple of people from the restaurant ... we saw a man wearing a dirty white baseball cap with grey jacket start jostling with somebody," Hichem Ben-Abdallah said.
"All of a sudden this guy pulls a gun ... it looked like a First World War gun or makeshift gun, not the sort of gun you see normally.
"He fired the first shot then I ran away and then we heard the second shot."
Police said a 77-year-old man was also assaulted in the incident and suffered injuries that were not life-threatening.
British politicians are not in Parliament at the moment ahead of next week's referendum on whether Britain should remain in the EU.
Both referendum campaigns have suspended all campaigning for the day in the wake of the attack that has left the small village in shock.
Mr Cameron cancelled a planned rally during a historic but controversial visit to Gibraltar — a rocky outcrop also claimed by Spain — as part of his campaign for Britain to remain in the EU.
The looming prospect of a Brexit has sparked volatility in the financial markets and sent the pound plunging, and prompted interventions from a number of EU leaders.
ABC/wires
Topics: crime, law-crime-and-justice, government-and-politics, united-kingdom
First posted |
It’s been a busy week at SpaceX, with the company passing milestones for its manned space program, completing a test flight of its precision landing system and welcoming its latest Dragon back home from orbit.
The California company is finished with the first three performance milestones set out by NASA for the agency’s Commercial Crew Integrated Capability program. The CCiCap initiative is similar to the commercial cargo development program SpaceX finished earlier this year, but instead the program is designed for carrying crew to low Earth orbit.
Right now the only way for NASA to send astronauts to the ISS is via the Russian Soyuz. From the beginning, SpaceX has designed both the Falcon 9 booster rocket and the Dragon spacecraft to be capable of manned space flight. And last week the company presented NASA with its plans for an integrated systems requirements review, the third milestone for the CCiCap program.
“These initial milestones are just the beginning of a very exciting endeavor with SpaceX,” said Ed Mango, NASA’s Commercial Crew Program manager. “We expect to see significant progress from our three CCiCap partners in a fairly short amount of time.”
The two other companies working with NASA on the CCiCap are Boeing and Sierra Nevada Corporation.
Eventually SpaceX wants to employ a fully reusable space launch system. Currently, the Falcon 9 booster rocket isn’t put back into service after splashing down in the Atlantic at the end of the first stage. The company has pointed out in the past that airlines don’t throw away the airplane after every flight, and it believes one of most important achievements to greatly reducing the cost of orbital flight is to be able to reuse as much of the vehicle as possible after a launch.
In the future SpaceX plans to use rocket engines to allow the Falcon 9 to return to Earth in a controlled flight, with a precision landing at a specified landing site. On Saturday SpaceX founder Elon Musk sent out a video showing the latest (short) flight testing the company’s precision landing rocket.
“First flight of 10 story tall Grasshopper rocket using closed loop thrust vector & throttle control,” Musk tweeted.
Similar to the previous Grasshopper flight, the rocket lifts off the pad for a short flight and returns safely to the ground. While the flight might not look like much, a controlled landing from even a low height as seen in the video is no easy task. The closed loop thrust vector and throttle are part of the automated controls for the Grasshopper. The Falcon 9 and Dragon both use automated controls for all phases of flight (with manual override capabilities) including the final docking with the ISS.
The Grasshopper is a suborbital test vehicle with a wider, landing gear structure at its base to allow for vertical take off and landing capability. Eventually the landing gear is expected to fold up flush with the first stage during flight and be extended again for landing.
Future tests of the Grasshopper will include supersonic flights to altitudes over 10,000 feet before returning to the launch pad.
After its longest orbital flight to date, the Dragon spacecraft will soon be processed at SpaceX’s facility in McGregor, Texas. The capsule was first delivered to ship to a dock in Los Angeles where the time-sensitive cargo was unpacked. The rest of the cargo as well as a complete post-flight inspection will take place inside the Dragon building in Texas where the first ISS-bound Dragon was processed earlier this year. |
An exhausted-looking Hillary Clinton says she wanted to “curl up” and “never leave the house again” after losing to President-elect Donald Trump last week.
“I will admit, coming here tonight wasn’t the easiest thing for me. There have been a few times this past week when all I wanted to do was just to curl up with a good book, or our dogs, and never leave the house again,” she said at a gala Wednesday.
Clinton repeated a quote that “service is the rent we pay for living,” then again brought up her electoral loss.
“Well, you don’t get to stop paying rent just because things don’t go your way,” she said.
I know many of you are deeply disappointed about the results of the election. I am too, more than I can ever express, but as I said last week, our campaign was never about one person or even one election. It was about the country we love, and about building an America that is hopeful, inclusive, and big-hearted.
“I didn’t get into public service to hold high office,” she said as the audience applauded.
“This is still the greatest country in the world. This is still the place where anyone can beat the odds,” she said at the end of her speech.
Clinton lost some blue states that had voted for Democratic presidential candidates for decades, including Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan. Ohio and Florida also went for Trump. |
Baltimore Ravens star linebacker Terrell Suggs suffered a torn biceps in Sunday's loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers, a league source told ESPN.
The Ravens have not officially commented on the status of the five-time Pro Bowler, but Suggs tweeted Monday that he will receive a second medical opinion to confirm the severity of the injury.
Suggs left in the fourth quarter of Sunday's 23-20 loss to Pittsburgh and was clearly favoring his right arm while walking to the sideline.
Ravens coach John Harbaugh said Monday that he doesn't believe Suggs has a long-term injury.
"I think we are encouraged that it may not be," Harbaugh said. "We'll just have to see."
Harbaugh also stated he was uncertain whether Suggs, last year's NFL Defensive Player of the Year, would be available for next Sunday's game against the Washington Redskins.
After sitting out the first six weeks of the season recovering from a torn Achilles tendon, Suggs has 19 tackles and two sacks in six games.
ESPN NFL Insider Adam Schefter and The Associated Press contributed to this report. |
Hillary Clinton campaigned in Memphis, Tennessee yesterday and Huma Abedin didn’t forget to pack the candidate’s fake southern accent.
It took Clinton only about 50 seconds to unpack it before a crowd at LeMoyne-Owen College.
“I gotta tell you,” Hillary said with a distinct drawl, “I loved coming to Memphis in the past.
“You know, I didn’t live too far away for a long time, just across the river. Do we have anybody from Arkansas here toniiiiight?” she asked.
“Now, after the 2008 election, then president-elect Obama called me and asked me to come see him in Chicagooooo,” Clinton said.
“I didn’t know what he wanted. Turned out he wanted me to be secretary of staaaate.
“But before we talked about that, he said to me, ‘It’s so much worse than they told us.’ I said, ‘Mr. President-Elect, that’s exactly what my husband said to me after that election in 1992,” she said, with the southern drawl seemingly coming and going during her remarks.
It’s of course not the first time Clinton adopted a southern accent for a southern audience.
About a month ago, Clinton was campaigning in Hoover, Alabama in — miraculously — the accent made an appearance.
“You know, when my husband became president thanks to a lot of you in this room, I remember after that election in ’92, him sayin’ to me, ‘It’s so much worse than they told us,’” she said at the Alabama Democratic Conference.
“The debt in our country has been quadrupled in the prior 12 years, the deficits had exploded. And so he had to roll up his sleeves and work hard.”
She added during Bill’s time in office, incomes were rising for “workin’ people.” |
Glutamate receptors are the most prevalent excitatory neurotransmitter receptors in the vertebrate central nervous system and are important potential drug targets for cognitive enhancement and the treatment of schizophrenia. Allosteric modulators of AMPA receptors promote dimerization by binding to a dimer interface and reducing desensitization and deactivation. The pyrrolidine allosteric modulators, piracetam and aniracetam, were among the first of this class of drugs to be discovered. We have determined the structure of the ligand binding domain of the AMPA receptor subtypes GluA2 and GluA3 with piracetam and a corresponding structure of GluA3 with aniracetam. Both drugs bind to both GluA2 and GluA3 in a very similar manner, suggesting little subunit specificity. However, the binding sites for piracetam and aniracetam differ considerably. Aniracetam binds to a symmetrical site at the center of the dimer interface. Piracetam binds to multiple sites along the dimer interface with low occupation, one of which is a unique binding site for potential allosteric modulators. This new site may be of importance in the design of new allosteric regulators.
INTRODUCTION
Ionotropic glutamate receptors (iGluRs) are found on most vertebrate central nervous system neurons and are responsible for the majority of excitatory synaptic transmission.1 In addition to important roles in processes such as learning and memory,2–4 these receptors have been associated with disorders such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases, Huntington’s chorea, and neurological disorders including epilepsy and ischemic brain damage.4–6
iGluRs are composed of four subunits arranged around a central ion channel. Three major subtypes have been identified that are characterized by pharmacological properties, sequence, functionality, and biological role into those that are sensitive to: (1) the synthetic agonist N-methyl-D-aspartic acid (NMDA; GluN1, GluN2A-D, GluN3A-B); (2) the synthetic agonist α-amino-3-hydroxy-5-methyl-4-isoxazole-propionic acid (AMPA; GluA1-4); and (3) the naturally occurring neurotoxin kainate (GluK1-3). The ligand binding domains of AMPA receptors can exist in two alternatively spliced forms (flip and flop) that differ in the rate of desensitization,7 channel closing rate,8 and sensitivity to allosteric modulators.9
The extracellular agonist-binding domain (S1S2 domain) of ionotropic glutamate receptors consists of two lobes with the agonist-binding pocket located between the two lobes.10 The structures of the S1S2 domain from GluR0,11 GluA2,12–16 GluA3,17 GluA4,18 GluK1,19–21 GluK2,19, 22 GluN1,23 and GluN224 subtypes have been determined in the presence of a variety of agonists, partial agonists, and antagonists. This has provided structural insights into the processes of channel activation and desensitization as well as the structural basis of the differences in the agonist and antagonist selectivity. Recently, the full tetrameric structure of the GluA2 receptor has been determined bound to an antagonist.25 Although the structure was determined in the closed channel form, the availability of this structure provides new insights into the quaternary structure of all iGluRs and will provide a very useful framework for understanding channel activation.
Piracetam was the first nootropic agent discovered26 and was found originally to be effective as a protective agent in hypoxia-induced amnesia.27 Although it affects a number of neuronal proteins, some evidence suggests that it can act at AMPA receptors.28, 29 Aniracetam, another member of the racetam family of drugs, is considerably more potent and acts directly on AMPA receptors.9, 30 Aniracetam and other allosteric modulators of AMPA receptors can block or slow desensitization, slow deactivation, and enhance synaptic plasticity.31, 32 These characteristics have led to clinical trials of several drugs for Alzheimer’s disease and attention deficit disorder,33, 34 but only aniracetam is available for mild dementia in Europe.35 The structure of aniracetam bound to a dimer of the agonist-binding domain of GluA2 o has been reported.30 It binds in a symmetrical site at the dimer interface. This is consistent with other allosteric activators, which bind to the dimer interface and slow or prevent the dissociation of the dimer. The dimer forms upon activation of the receptor by agonist36 and is thought to represent the active form of the protein. Preventing dimer dissociation can block or slow desensitization36 as well as having effects on deactivation.30 The binding sites for allosteric activators at the dimer interface is actually a large surface with several subsites, including a central subsite (A) and two pairs of lateral subsites (B/B′ and C/C′; ).37 A binding site for allosteric activators can consist of one or more of the five subsites. Typically, activators whose binding site includes the A subsite, bind in one copy per dimer. Because of the symmetry of the dimer interface, density corresponding to two overlapping molecules is observed. This is true of aniracetam, CX614, CX546, and PEPA. On the other hand, the benzothiadiazide activators (cyclothiazide, IDRA-21, etc.) bind in two copies per dimer interface at binding sites including the two lateral subsites (B/B′ and C/C′) that are differentially occupied depending upon the structure of the benzothiadiazide.37 This rather large surface with nonoverlapping subsites suggests a means by which activator affinity can be increased, that is, by generating multivalent compounds that can interact with different subsites. The proof of this principle was demonstrated by the dimeric biarylpropylsulfonamide compound synthesized by Kaae and collaborators.38 |
Photo by Sean Evans
Thom Yorke is behind the original music for a new Broadway play presented by the Roundabout Theatre Company. Harold Pinter's Old Times, directed by Douglas Hodge, will star Clive Owen, Eve Best, and Kelly Reilly. Previews begin on September 17, and the show's official run happens from October 6 through November 29 at American Airlines Theatre in New York City.
"It’s been a pleasure working with Doug on my first stage production," Yorke said in a statement. "I’ve enjoyed exploring through music the script’s themes of love and memory as well as Pinter’s rhythms, twists and turns."
Hodge said of working with Yorke:
The music Thom has written for Old Times gives an immediacy and a ‘now‐ness’ to the show. The play itself is about memory and love—Thom’s music works backwards and forwards and plays with time and repetition in the same way Pinter does. In true Thom Yorke‐style, the music is epic, heartbreaking, irresistible and complex. I’m hopeful this collaboration will result in a new kind of theatergoer coming to our show.
The play is described as an "unsettling drama of desire and blurred realities". |
frankly
Helm in a shape of a kraken, big sharp axe, full plate at open sea…it must be only Victarion Greyjoy.Fearless warrior, Lord Captain of The Iron Fleet, he is one of the biggest badass character of ASOIAF. Can’t wait to see what will be happen with this ironborn hero in future books.Until then - "We Do Not Sow!" of course.Just a quick note: I saw today this illo after five years ago, and I've noticed some things that needs to be modified.I just had to change a helmet design, because,, old version was ridiculous by all means. I admit.Also, added a few details here & there, but nothing too much.Dejan Delic©2012, All Rights Reserved.All the materials contained in my deviantART gallery may not be reproduced, copied, edited, published, transmitted or uploaded in any way without my written and expressed permission. All rights reserved. |
Star Citizen Reveals New Anvil Hawk Ship; Video Talks Bounty Hunting and More as 3.0 Draws Nearer
Giuseppe Nelva November 24, 2017 4:56:19 PM EST
Star Citizen is expanding further, with another ship from Anvil, while the release to all backers of 3.0 is now one step closer.
Today Star Citizen developer Cloud Imperium Games released a new extensive video dedicated to a brand new ship, the Anvil Aerospace Hawk.
The Hawk is the perfect ship for bounty hunters, so the video also gives some attention to that activity that will be implemented among players in game, with mechanics like taking criminals alive and bringing them in to be imprisoned, alongside the ability for the criminals themselves to serve their time in some way, or to attempt a jailbreak.
On top of the hawk, we get updates on more Anvil ships, including the Terrapin, the Carrack, and the Hurricane.
As usual for new ships, the Anvil Hawk is currently on sale, starting at $80. As usual, you should keep in mind that ship purchases are simply for the purpose of supporting development, and are completely optional. All ships will be available for in-game credits once the game launches.
On top of this, the release to all backers of alpha 3.0 is now one step closer, with multiple waves of users having been invited to test it on the public testing universe.
You can check out the video below, alongside artwork and the Hawk’s brochure. If you want to see more, you can enjoy an interesting video of the procedural cities tech, a few more videos highlighting the game’s visuals, and another recent one focusing on the changes made to quantum travel for the upcoming alpha 3.0.
Star Citizen‘s crowdfunding has now reached $164,925,558, with 1,917,945 registered users.
Before you watch the video and images, you should keep in mind for the sake of full disclosure that the author of this article is also one of the backers of the game. |
They really are evil, our friends over there running the Catholic church. Then again, we are talking about people who coddled pedophiles and actually enabled the serial rape of young children, and who are still lying about the facts and claiming they did nothing wrong (the former NY cardinal actually just retracted his apology for the scandal from ten years ago). So the notion of being surprised by how nasty the Catholic leadership can be is somewhat naive, I suppose.
In USA Today, the Catholic bishops admit that it never was about whether Catholic hospitals would have to cover contraceptives in their health insurance plans. They don’t want any Americans, anywhere, to have contraceptives covered in their health care plans.
It still boggles my mind that anyone even talks to these men. These are our moral arbiters in the Catholic church, the same people who are leaving poor parentless children with nowhere to turn because they’d rather hurt children than deal with a gay person. You have to wonder how the Obama administration can even stomach sitting in the same room with these people. The Catholic church lost its moral authority when it chose to look the other way while men under its employ were having intercourse with children under the age of 10. Nearly a quarter of the alleged victims were under 10 years of age. And these Catholic “leaders” have the nerve to lecture President Obama about morality? He shouldn’t let them step foot in his house. It still boggles my mind that Catholics refuse to rise up against their own church. It’s not enough to say you don’t agree with these men. If you give them your money, you share the responsibility for their crimes.
From USA Today:
The rule goes into effect Aug. 1, but if objections are raised, another year’s extension is possible. That was no consolation to Catholic leaders. The White House is “all talk, no action” on moving toward compromise, said Anthony Picarello, general counsel for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. “There has been a lot of talk in the last couple days about compromise, but it sounds to us like a way to turn down the heat, to placate people without doing anything in particular,” Picarello said. “We’re not going to do anything until this is fixed.” That means removing the provision from the health care law altogether, he said, not simply changing it for Catholic employers and their insurers. He cited the problem that would create for “good Catholic business people who can’t in good conscience cooperate with this.”
“If I quit this job and opened a Taco Bell, I’d be covered by the mandate,” Picarello said.
And the cat is out of the bag. So it never was about “Catholic hospitals.” It’s about the Catholic church’s desire to control the sex lives of everyone on planet, from ten year old boys – who are urged to have sex – to grown women, who can’t. |
Story highlights Alpine Ascents International abandons this year's expedition
The Seattle-based company lost five sherpas in the avalanche
Organizers decide not to put "pressure" on expeditions
There are now 13 people confirmed dead and three missing
Just days away from the beginning of the busiest climbing season of the year at Mount Everest, expeditions are unsure whether climbs on the world's highest peak will go ahead.
On Friday, 13 people were killed in an avalanche. Three days later, three people are still missing and feared dead after the single deadliest accident on Mount Everest.
Alpine Ascents International has decided to abandon its expedition on that peak in the wake of the accident. The Seattle-based company lost five sherpas in the avalanche.
"Making the decision was hard. We felt this was right for us. Not everyone is going to be happy with our decision," said Gordon Janow, a founding member of Alpine Ascents. "I'm not looking to profit from this season."
Ang Tshering Sherpa of Asian Trekking, which has about two dozen foreign climbers at Everest Base Camp, said his company is still weighing what to do.
"There is a lot of sadness at the moment, and it could be up to a week before a decision is made," he said.
A meeting of Nepali expedition organizers Sunday decided to leave it to the discretion of the individual expeditions whether to abandon the climbs or to go ahead. The meeting also decided not to put any "pressure" on expeditions to make a decision.
"We cannot force the expeditions to make any decision," said Madhu Sudan Burlakoti, chief of the Tourism Industry Division of the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Civil Aviation.
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Photos: Exploring Mount Everest Photos: Exploring Mount Everest The journey to the summit of Mount Everest is a challenge an increasing number have taken on since the summit was first reached in 1953 by Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay. Until the late 1970s, only a handful of climbers per year reached the summit. By 2012 that number rose to more than 500. Hide Caption 1 of 23 Photos: Exploring Mount Everest Explorers are seen in 1922 at Camp II on the East Rongbuk Glacier. That same year, seven Sherpas were killed when they were caught in an avalanche during an expedition led by George Mallory. Hide Caption 2 of 23 Photos: Exploring Mount Everest George Mallory and Edward Felix Norton reach 27,000 feet on the northeast ridge of Everest in 1922. They failed to reach the summit. Hide Caption 3 of 23 Photos: Exploring Mount Everest Mallory returns to Everest In June 1924. He's seen here with his climbing partner Andrew Irvine at base camp. This is the last photo of the the two before they disappeared on the mountain. Mallory's body was found 75 years later, showing signs of a fatal fall. Hide Caption 4 of 23 Photos: Exploring Mount Everest Mountaineers are seen preparing to leave their camp during one of Eric Shipton's early expeditions on Everest in the 1930s. While Shipton never made it to the summit, his exploration of the mountain paved the way for others. Hide Caption 5 of 23 Photos: Exploring Mount Everest Shipton leads an expedition exploring the Khumbu Glacier icefall in November 1951. Hide Caption 6 of 23 Photos: Exploring Mount Everest Shipton is also known for discovering and photographing footprints of an unknown animal or person, like this one taken in 1951. Many attributed these to the Yeti, or Abominable Snowman. Hide Caption 7 of 23 Photos: Exploring Mount Everest Edmund Hillary sits at base camp in May 1953 before heading out on what would become the first successful ascent to the top of the world. Hide Caption 8 of 23 Photos: Exploring Mount Everest Hillary and Nepalese-Indian mountaineer Tenzing Norgay climb beyond a crevasse on Mount Everest in 1953. Upon meeting George Lowe, who had climbed up to meet the descending duo, Hillary reportedly exclaimed, "Well George, we knocked the bastard off!" Hide Caption 9 of 23 Photos: Exploring Mount Everest Members of a U.S. expedition team and Sherpas are shown with their climbing gear on Everest. The team, led by Jim Whittaker, reached the top on May 1, 1963, becoming the first Americans to do so. Hide Caption 10 of 23 Photos: Exploring Mount Everest Whittaker's team members climb Everest's West Ridge in 1963. Hide Caption 11 of 23 Photos: Exploring Mount Everest On April 5, 1970, six Sherpas died in an avalanche at the Khumbu Icefall. The icefall, at the head of the Khumbu Glacier, seen here in 2003, is one of the more treacherous areas of the ascent. Hide Caption 12 of 23 Photos: Exploring Mount Everest British Army soldiers and mountaineers John "Brummie" Stokes and Michael "Bronco" Lane above the icefall at the entrance to the West Col (or western pass) of Mount Everest during their successful ascent of the mountain. The joint British-Nepalese army expedition reached the summit on May 16, 1976. Hide Caption 13 of 23 Photos: Exploring Mount Everest In 1978, Reinhold Messner makes the first ascent without supplemental oxygen. Messner is seen here at Munich Airport showing reporters his frozen thumb after climbing to the top of Nanga Parbat in Pakistan, alone and without an oxygen mask. Hide Caption 14 of 23 Photos: Exploring Mount Everest French climber Jean-Marc Boivin becomes the first person to paraglide from Everest's summit in September 1998. Hide Caption 15 of 23 Photos: Exploring Mount Everest The 1996 climbing season was one of the deadliest, when 15 people died on Everest, eight in a single storm in May of that year. Hide Caption 16 of 23 Photos: Exploring Mount Everest Francys Distefano-Arsentiev became the first American woman to reach Everest's summit without bottled oxygen on May 23, 1998. However, she and her husband, Sergei Arsentiev, never made it off the mountain. They died after becoming separated while attempting to descend in the dark. At least one climbing party found Francys barely conscious, but there was nothing they could do to save her. Her husband's body was found years later. It is believed he fell while trying to save his wife. Hide Caption 17 of 23 Photos: Exploring Mount Everest Pemba Dorje Sherpa and Moni Mulepati became the first people to get married on Everest's summit, on March 30, 2005. The couple are seen here waving from base camp on June 2, 2005. Hide Caption 18 of 23 Photos: Exploring Mount Everest Sherpa climbers pose at Everest Base Camp after collecting garbage during the Everest cleanup expedition on May 28, 2010. A group of 20 Nepalese climbers collected nearly two tons of garbage in a high-risk expedition to clean up the world's highest peak. Hide Caption 19 of 23 Photos: Exploring Mount Everest Mountaineer Ralf Dujmovits took this image of a long line of climbers heading up Everest in May 2012. Hide Caption 20 of 23 Photos: Exploring Mount Everest Jordan Romero became the youngest person to reach the summit, at age 13, on May 22, 2013. Jordan, right, is seen here on the summit with one of the Sherpas who helped him make the ascent. Hide Caption 21 of 23 Photos: Exploring Mount Everest Yuichiro Miura, became the oldest person to summit Everest, on May 23, 2013, at the age of 80. Hide Caption 22 of 23 Photos: Exploring Mount Everest Malavath Poorna, left, holds up her national flag on May 24, when the 13-year-old daughter of poor Indian farmers became the youngest girl to climb Everest. Hide Caption 23 of 23
The avalanche took place just above base camp in the Khumbu Ice Fall.
Climbers and guides had been setting the ropes for the route, acclimating and preparing the camps along the route when the avalanche hit.
The path on the glacier has been destroyed by the avalanche and a new path will have to be made, Sherpa said.
The operators have decided to let the "icefall doctors" decide whether to carve another path on Khumbu Ice Fall -- and have promised to not penalize them if they refuse.
A question of finance
Ultimately, the guides may decide to forge ahead.
For many, the guides are the only breadwinners of the family.
Ngima Sherpa, 26, for example, supported his three younger siblings and mother from the money he made taking foreign nationals around the mountain.
He was among the 13 dead whose bodies were taken around Kathmandu in a funeral procession Monday.
Sherpas make up to US$6,000 per season. They also usually get a summit bonus if their clients reach the top of the 8,848-meter (29,000-feet) mountain.
Paid in full
About 334 foreign climbers have been given permission to climb Everest over the next couple of months, with an estimated 400 guides helping them.
On Sunday, the sherpas decided they want to be paid in full even if the climbs are abandoned. Foreign climbers spend between $40,000 and $90,000 each in their attempt to scale the mountain.
It will be up to the climbers whether they want to pay the sherpas for abandoned climbs, said Dambar Parajuli, president of the Expedition Organizers Association.
"We cannot compel the foreigners, but they also have their own humanity," he said.
So far, the government has paid Rs. 40,000 ($662) to the families of each of the 13 dead for funeral expenses. The expedition operators want Rs. 1 million each from the government.
The government makes about $3 million from royalties on Everest each spring season. |
Back in January we posted some intriguing images showing concepts of what a terraformed “living Mars” might look like from orbit. With a bit of creative license, software engineer Kevin Gill turned the Red Planet into its own version of the Blue Marble. He’s now created an animation showing a rotating Mars and compressed 24 hours to one minute.
Kevin explains how he did the animation:
The base two dimensional elevation model was generated using data from the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter aboard the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft and satellite imagery from the Blue Marble Next Generation project. Sea level was set non-scientifically, but such that it would flood much of Valles Marineris as well as provide shoreline near the cliffs on the outer edges of Olympus Mons. The clouds are straight from NASA’s Blue Marble NG project and height mapped (rather arbitrarily, but looks good) by relative opacity (The more opaque a point, the higher up in the atmosphere I put it). This was rendered using a digital elevation modeling program I am writing, jDem846, with some extras baked in through its scripting interface, and encoded to video with ffmpeg. Because I defaulted to Earth-based time, each frame is about one minute in time over twenty-four hours.
Kevin told us that this project was “something that I did both out of curiosity of what it would look like and to improve the software I was rendering this in,” he said via email. “I am a software engineer by trade and certainly no planetary scientist, so with the exception of any parts derived from actual data, most of it is assumptions I made based on simply comparing the Mars terrain to similar features here on Earth (e.g. elevation, proximity to bodies of water, physical features, geographical position, etc) and then using the corresponding textures from the Blue Marble images to paint the flat image layer in a graphics program.”
This is a fun and thought-provoking look at what Mars may have looked in the past … or if things had worked out just a little differently in our Solar System! |
A webpage today is often the sum of many different components. A user’s home page on a social-networking site, for instance, might display the latest posts from the users’ friends; the associated images, links, and comments; notifications of pending messages and comments on the user’s own posts; a list of events; a list of topics currently driving online discussions; a list of games, some of which are flagged to indicate that it’s the user’s turn; and of course the all-important ads, which the site depends on for revenues.
With increasing frequency, each of those components is handled by a different program running on a different server in the website’s data center. That reduces processing time, but it exacerbates another problem: the equitable allocation of network bandwidth among programs.
Many websites aggregate all of a page’s components before shipping them to the user. So if just one program has been allocated too little bandwidth on the data center network, the rest of the page — and the user — could be stuck waiting for its component.
At the Usenix Symposium on Networked Systems Design and Implementation this week, researchers from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) are presenting a new system for allocating bandwidth in data center networks. In tests, the system maintained the same overall data transmission rate — or network “throughput” — as those currently in use, but it allocated bandwidth much more fairly, completing the download of all of a page’s components up to four times as quickly.
“There are easy ways to maximize throughput in a way that divides up the resource very unevenly,” says Hari Balakrishnan, the Fujitsu Professor in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and one of two senior authors on the paper describing the new system. “What we have shown is a way to very quickly converge to a good allocation.”
Joining Balakrishnan on the paper are first author Jonathan Perry, a graduate student in electrical engineering and computer science, and Devavrat Shah, a professor of electrical engineering and computer science.
Central authority
Most networks regulate data traffic using some version of the transmission control protocol, or TCP. When traffic gets too heavy, some packets of data don’t make it to their destinations. With TCP, when a sender realizes its packets aren’t getting through, it halves its transmission rate, then slowly ratchets it back up. Given enough time, this procedure will reach an equilibrium point at which network bandwidth is optimally allocated among senders.
But in a big website’s data center, there’s often not enough time. “Things change in the network so quickly that this is inadequate,” Perry says. “Frequently it takes so long that [the transmission rates] never converge, and it’s a lost cause.”
TCP gives all responsibility for traffic regulation to the end users because it was designed for the public internet, which links together thousands of smaller, independently owned and operated networks. Centralizing the control of such a sprawling network seemed infeasible, both politically and technically.
But in a data center, which is controlled by a single operator, and with the increases in the speed of both data connections and computer processors in the last decade, centralized regulation has become practical. The CSAIL researchers’ system is a centralized system.
The system, dubbed Flowtune, essentially adopts a market-based solution to bandwidth allocation. Operators assign different values to increases in the transmission rates of data sent by different programs. For instance, doubling the transmission rate of the image at the center of a webpage might be worth 50 points, while doubling the transmission rate of analytics data that’s reviewed only once or twice a day might be worth only 5 points.
Supply and demand
As in any good market, every link in the network sets a “price” according to “demand” — that is, according to the amount of data that senders collectively want to send over it. For every pair of sending and receiving computers, Flowtune then calculates the transmission rate that maximizes total “profit,” or the difference between the value of increased transmission rates — the 50 points for the picture versus the 5 for the analytics data — and the price of the requisite bandwidth across all the intervening links.
The maximization of profit, however, changes demand across the links, so Flowtune continually recalculates prices and on that basis recalculates maximum profits, assigning the resulting transmission rates to the servers sending data across the network.
The paper also describes a new procedure that the researchers developed for allocating Flowtune’s computations across cores in a multicore computer, to boost efficiency. In experiments, the researchers compared Flowtune to a widely used variation on TCP, using data from real data centers. Depending on the data set, Flowtune completed the slowest 1 percent of data requests nine to 11 times as rapidly as the existing system.
“Scheduling — and, ultimately, providing guarantees of network performance — in modern data centers is still an open question,” says Rodrigo Fonseca, an assistant professor of computer science at Brown University. “For example, while cloud providers offer guarantees of CPU, memory, and disk, you usually cannot get any guarantees of network performance.”
“Flowtune advances the state of the art in this area by using a central allocator with global knowledge,” Fonseca says. “Centralized solutions are potentially better because of the global view of the network, but it is very challenging to use them at scale, because of the sheer volume of traffic. [There is] too much information to aggregate, process, and distribute for each decision. This work pushes the boundary of what was thought possible with centralized solutions. There are still questions of how much further this can be scaled, but this solution is already usable by many data center operators.” |
‘I’m worried Brexit has made me ageist,” a friend said, following the shock of the referendum result on Friday morning. “I saw this older couple in the street and just felt this sudden, enormous wave of fury towards them and their generation. It was almost physical.”
In the immediate aftermath of Britain’s vote to leave the European Union, emotions have been running high. Since YouGov reported that 75% of 18- to 24-year-olds and 56% of 25- to 49-year-olds voted in favour of remain, versus 44% of 50- to 64-year-olds and 39% of those over 65, the extent of the generational gulf between Generation Y and the so-called baby boomers and their parents has been palpable. As has the anger many younger people including my friend, are feeling.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Generation gap: what happens if the people voting against your interests were members of your own family; your parents, grandparents, uncles and aunts? Photograph: Neil Hall/Reuters
Over the past few days, thousands have vented on social media. “I’m never giving up my seat on the train for an old person again,” read one tweet. The overwhelming consensus on the part of “millennials” (defined as those aged 18-34), has been that, by opting for Brexit, the older generation has selfishly voted against the interests of subsequent ones. What happens if the people voting against your interests were members of your own family: your parents, grandparents, uncles and aunts?
Stephanie is 21, from Merseyside, and was visiting her parents for the week of the referendum. “Right from the moment I got back I was bombarded with questions about which side I was on and why,” she said. “I’m not one to shy away from healthy debate, but my parents completely refused to see things from any point of view but their own, and would deliberately misunderstand my view or rubbish it completely.
“After the leave result, my parents continued to insult and degrade the 48% of us [who voted remain], with my dad at one point getting into an argument with a family friend who is an EU citizen and telling her she ‘should leave if she loves the EU so much’. Even when stories of legitimised racism and xenophobia were highlighted, my parents refused to accept this may have been partly because of the leave vote,” she adds.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Young anti-Brexit protesters demonstrate at the gates of Downing Street. Photograph: Isabel Infantes/PA
The referendum may have ruined Stephanie’s trip home, but it has shifted her perspective. “What was supposed to be a nice week turned into a week of being belittled and endless arguments, and I have never felt so insulted by members of my own family before. As much as I love my parents, this referendum has made me see them in a different light – people who are unwilling to listen to the opinions of others and disrespectful of those with legitimate concerns about what their opinion could lead to.”
Stephanie is far from being the only young person now seeing her family differently. “I’ve been having the most terrible rows with my mum about it, as I’m so heartbroken by the result,” says Alex. “Both my parents voted to leave despite me begging them not to. I tried to explain the effects it would have on my future, and my children’s future – but each time it would just end in the most awful arguments. Now, with the way things are, I feel like I can barely look at them. It sounds melodramatic, but I feel so betrayed by it all.”
Some will think Alex is going over the top, but the realisation that your parents may not just have voted against your interests but embody wildly different politics and values from yours can be a bitter pill to swallow. Jamie, 28, grew up in a council flat with a single mother who worked hard to make their difficult life better for her children. “I’ve always been so proud of her for all the things she sacrificed for us. She’s warm, kind, generous and funny. She has such acute sympathy that she’s been known to cry hearing about the illness of other people’s relatives. Oh, and she also hates immigrants.”
I’ve been having the most terrible rows with my mum about it, as I’m so heartbroken by the result
It is not a prejudice that Jamie shares. “My mum voted to leave the EU because she doesn’t want non-British citizens here. Despite the fact that my brother and I have been extremely vocal about our reasons for staying in, she’s chosen to vote out because she doesn’t like the local Asian population. It makes no sense to me.
“When she tells me wildly embellished stories about how disgusting the local peaceful, quiet, mostly elderly immigrant community are, I laugh at her and calmly tell her she’s wrong. Most of the time, I can see past her views. But right now, I’m angry and ashamed.”
Sarah is also struggling with anti-immigrant sentiments among those close to her. She is the only known remain voter in her family. “I grew up in the Midlands on a council estate where many of my relatives still live, so I do wonder if that has something to do with their choice,” she says. “It came to a head post-result, when a relative asked: ‘How can Remain voters call leave voters ‘racist?’”
I've never felt so insulted by family members before
“I had pointed out that sharing EDL, Britain First and BNP posts online [means] people will assume you share those views and are likely to call you a racist, homophobe and a sexist.”
After that, things took a nasty turn. “I’m no longer engaging with it. My family isn’t impressed I ‘called my family racist’, and the whole referendum has certainly created a them versus us divide that I don’t think will heal any time soon. I haven’t spoken to any of them since Friday. It’s a bit sore.”
Naturally, not all tales of post-referendum familial disharmony will be so extreme. Where some parents are defiant in their voting choice, for others, a certain amount of guilt is setting in. “My whole family voted leave,” says Emma. “My brother, who is 31, now feels awful about it and wishes he hadn’t even voted at all. My parents have been staunch Eurosceptics their whole lives, and are pleased with the result. But my mum now feels bad about how upset I am; and all of her friends’ children have been upset, too. We are having very tense conversations.
I’m ashamed of my own mother. I’m incredibly angry that she didn’t consider the future of her children
“I don’t begrudge her the life that she has had – my parents are homeowners who retired early with nice pensions – because she has worked damn hard for it. I’m not even angry with her for voting the way she has, because she has a right to her views. I just feel sad about my own future and I can’t pretend that I’m not. And so she feels bad for making me feel sad, which just keeps going in a never-ending cycle. I feel like we are both hurting and we can’t help each other.”
Jo, too, is cut up about her parents’ decision. “My parents voted out. I was very shocked when I found out how they were voting,” she says. “My parents were anti-Thatcherites, originally from the north-east, and they partially blamed Europe for the loss of industry and jobs in the north. They are not racists and they are degree-educated people who had decided years ago that if the vote ever came up they would vote out.
“They felt lied to in the original vote as to what Europe would become. It seemed to be a vote for nostalgia. I had a hard time picking up the phone on Friday, and I think mum was upset as to how distraught I was about the result. She said she never thought it would actually be out and was surprised. I feel like something has died that we can’t get back as a nation.”
Due to petty quibbles with EU practice, my parents have voted away my right to live and work in nearly 30 countries
One woman I speak to is so furious with her uncle for voting leave that she is considering not inviting him to her wedding. “I just don’t want anything to do with him at the moment,” she says. “Maybe after a few days I will calm down. Then again, maybe not.”
From speaking to young people up and down the country, many of whom are now embroiled in rifts with the closest members of their families, it becomes clear that their reactions to the result are not just matters of political principle, but come from a place of profound grief and betrayal. It sounds dramatic but, for many, the heartbreak is total, because of the futures so many feel they have lost. One person I speak to, from west Wales, has spent their entire adult life studying or working on an EU-funded programme across several European countries, and is furious that despite this their mother didn’t even bother to vote. Another, who speaks two EU languages, is working on a third, and dreams of living abroad, is furious. “Now, because of petty quibbles with EU practice, my parents have voted away my right to live and work in nearly 30 countries,” she says. “Everything I’ve studied for, for as long as I can remember, has been thrown away over false constructs of sovereignty and lies about immigration.
“I am presumably one of the citizens who leave voters thought they were winning the country back for. I don’t want their toxic, pathetic little country, it is not mine. If I had anywhere else to go I would burn my passport.”
You can imagine how it must feel, to invest so much of your young adult life into the European project, only to have your parents undermine it. “How could they do this?” is the phrase that comes up again and again. Some tell me they are leaving the Labour party, dismayed at what they perceive as Jeremy Corbyn’s failure to passionately fight for the EU they so love, or are moving to Scotland and plan to vote SNP, and several mention the Lib Dems’ promise to campaign to reverse the decision if there is a snap general election. Whatever happens, there is a huge swell of political support among young people for remaining in the EU that clever politicians could potentially galvanise.
I don’t want anything to do with my uncle at the moment
In the meantime, young people are reflecting on the fact that you only get one adult life, and it’s one that politicians and parents alike have gambled with. “I’m ashamed of my own mother,” says Jamie. “It’s a horrible feeling. I’m incredibly angry that she didn’t consider the future of her young children who are just starting out in the world.
“We’re graduates, starting our careers and beginning postgraduate studies. We’re newlyweds and nearlyweds, looking for our first homes and who will be starting families in the next 10 years. But when our mum voted, she chose to ignore that, driven by her hate for foreigners, rather than love for her own children. She’s sacrificed a lot in life to give us the best chances but now, with one little cross in a box, she’s undone all the good she did for us. I just don’t understand why she didn’t listen to her children before she voted.”
Mum says we all make bad choices, she voted for Thatcher in ’79, and she forgives me
Not all young people voted to remain, of course. Emily , 26, voted leave, while her mum, dad and grandad all voted remain. “My mum hung up the phone on me when she found out my younger sister and I had voted leave. Dad said he was devastated at the result, and my granddad, a second world war veteran, initially told me he was worried for a future he wouldn’t see.” Her younger sister, who is a student, also voted leave.
“Being young, both my sister and I felt we were at the sharp end of the economic crash. She’s saddled with £9,000-a-year tuition fees she didn’t have any say about, and set to work under the dreaded junior doctor contact in a decimated NHS. I’m still paying nearly half my income in rent. We wanted something to give. Mum and Dad are second-home owners. Grandad has been retired longer than he has worked. The system worked for them. Now the economic reality is beginning to set in, I’m not sure if I made the right decision. Mum says we all make bad choices, she voted for Thatcher in 79, and she forgives me. Grandad says not to worry, nothing will be as bad as the Great Depression he grew up in. When he was a child, he was so hungry he ate acorns for dinner and had no shoes. People nowadays need to toughen up, he says. It’ll be OK in the end.” |
Don't forget, the
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WASHINGTON — The Trump administration tried to mount a case on Thursday that Iran violated an international agreement to limit its arms dealing, but American officials failed to show how an array of weaponry presented as evidence proved the charges.
Nikki R. Haley, the American ambassador to the United Nations, accused Iran of providing weapons to Houthi rebels in Yemen who toppled the government in Sana, throwing the country into chaos and setting off a proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia.
At a military base in Washington, Ms. Haley stood in front of pieces of what defense officials said were Iranian-made Qiam missiles, including one that was fired by Houthi militants at an airport in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Saudi officials have called that attack an “act of war” by Iran.
“When you look at this missile, this is terrifying, this is absolutely terrifying. Just imagine if this missile had been launched at Dulles Airport or JFK,” Ms. Haley said, naming Washington-area and New York airports, “or the airports in Paris, London or Berlin.” |
What do you think are the reasons why high school students make it — but stop there? College is a whole four years, but not everyone goes through with it. What holds them back?
We looked at several sources on the Internet and found that these are the main contributing factors:
Homesickness and feeling that you don’t fit in. It’s a whole new world out there, and you may not be ready to embrace it. Educational burnout. While college gives you control and flexibility over your schedule, the hard demanding schedule, challenging courses, and boatload of homework certainly has turned a lot of students away from the desire to continue. Academic unpreparedness. Sometimes, high school didn’t really prepare students for college. Other times, students slacked off in high school and paid the price during their post-secondary years. The high school goal was to pass (so that students could get into college); in college, it is to succeed. Personal or family issues. You may have had an unfortunate illness in the family or you yourself just got totally get stressed out from the workload. Financial constraints. Tuition costs continue to soar, and scholarships or grants are not always available. Additionally, financial situations can change from year to year. Too much fun — but not enough education. Some students take advantage of their friendships, which could put them on academic probation due to suffering grades or absence in classes. The school isn’t a good academic fit for the student. You’ve selected a great school that is very arts-centric. However, you realize that you like the sciences better. Similarly, you may hate the average class size of 100 and prefer much smaller classes for more individualized attention. Setting sights on the wrong major. You may have wanted to be a doctor but after taking several science classes, you decided that you’re rather go into marketing. Does your school have a marketing major? If not, you’re likely to go elsewhere. No guidance or mentors. In high school, teachers and counselors were there to guide you, as high school classes are typically smaller than the entering freshman class. It’s a lot harder to get the personalized attention that you’ve been used to and that could turn people off quickly. External demands, particularly within part time or full time employment. Can we say Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook? When the job puts too many demands on you, you may have to choose, and money usually wins out. Time to move out. If the cold winter just doesn’t suit you, you may decide to go elsewhere. You may want to go closer to home or to be closer to a significant other.
Why have your peers dropped out of college? |
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(CNN) With cries of "Putin out" and "Russia without thieves," mass protests took place in cities across Russia on Monday -- a day that was supposed to celebrate the nation.
The national day was picked by opposition leader Alexey Navalny for the latest round of rallies designed to muster support for his bid to unseat President Vladimir Putin at next year's election.
Why now?
The 41-year-old activist has been an outspoken critic of what he says is a corrupt regime led by Putin and his allies -- in particular Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev -- and is using allegations of government impropriety to muster support.
Navalny is hoping the scale of the protests will match the turnout of demonstrations in March, when thousands took to the streets across Russia.
He was arrested and jailed for disobeying a police officer during the March protests, which appeared to be a response to a long-form "investigation" that Navalny and his Anti-Corruption Foundation posted on YouTube
The 50-minute report claimed Medvedev has assembled "a corruption empire" of luxury properties, yachts and vineyards. It has amassed almost 23 million views since it was posted on March 2.
Medvedev denies the allegations.
Isn't it hard to protest in Russia?
Police detain a protester in Moscow on Monday.
The Russian authorities demand that applications be filed and approved for any rallies, protests or public events. The place and the timing must be approved by the city authorities.
However -- as was the case earlier this year -- Navalny insisted they would go ahead whether they were authorized or not.
As a result, once again, numerous arrests were made Monday. Navalny himself was detained as he left his home to head to the Moscow event.
State news service Tass reported on Navalny's arrest, but ignored the protests.
Instead, it described the large numbers of people on the streets Moscow -- which it estimated at 270,000 -- as participating "in festive events" to mark Russia Day.
What's with the ducks?
A common theme in March and at the latest round of rallies is the presence of rubber ducks, waved in the air by protesters.
This is a nod to an allegation that Medvedev has a custom-made duck house at one of his lavish properties.
According to a Twitter post by OVD -- an independent group monitoring arrests -- one huge duck was "detained" by police in St. Petersburg after officers took exception to it being tossed in the air.
Could Navalny be a contender in next year's election?
JUST WATCHED Russian opposition leader jailed Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Russian opposition leader jailed 02:19
It will be an uphill struggle thanks to his brushes with the law. Navalny has convictions for disobeying a police officer, for which he was jailed, and of embezzlement, for which he was given a 5-year suspended sentence.
Russian laws prohibit convicted people from running for office. Navalny says the charges against him are politically motivated.
What will the protests mean for Putin?
And ahead of the latest outpouring of dissatisfaction, the Prosecutor General tried to quell the Moscow protest by declaring it illegal and warning: "Law enforcement agencies will be forced to take all necessary measures to stop provocations, mass unrest or any actions leading to a violation of public security, creating conditions for threatening the life and health of citizens."
Opinion polls have suggested persistent anger with corruption. In a survey carried out in March by the Levada Center, 65% described corruption as absolutely unacceptable.
However, few Russians blame Putin: only 17% think corruption has worsened since he became President. But many say it's endemic: 45% believe Putin wouldn't succeed in fighting corruption, the highest percentage recorded in five years. |
One of the foremost panda authorities in the world has argued that a scheme to encourage breeding should be scrapped because scientists are failing to introduce the animals back into the wild.
In a devastating admission, Dr Sarah Bexell, director of conservation education at the Chengdu Research Base, China, concedes that an international programme to save giant pandas has been a failure.
Since the research base was founded in 1987, rescuing six giant pandas from the wild, around 400 pandas have been bred in captivity. But only five have been released into the wild, of which just three survive.
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One of the foremost panda authorities in the world has argued that a scheme to encourage breeding should be scrapped because scientists are failing to introduce the animals back into the wild
Dr Sarah Bexell, director of conservation education at the Chengdu Research Base, China, concedes that an international programme to save giant pandas has been a failure
In a move that will be seen to undermine the work of zoos, Dr Bexell, interviewed on tonight’s BBC2 Horizon documentary Should We Close Our Zoos? at 9pm, says: ‘We’ve learned a lot, filled volumes of journals and text books but we have not made significant headway in terms of conservation.
‘So I guess right now we would almost have to say it has been quite a failure and even though many of these projects even were considered successful for short periods of time, they’ve lost ground.
‘Should we continue them? Right now I’m feeling no because I’m really worried that it’s sending the wrong message to humanity. It’s giving humanity false hope.’
Since the research base was founded in 1987, rescuing six giant pandas from the wild, around 400 pandas have been bred in captivity but only five have been released into the wild
Dr Bexell, who has also reintroduced the black-footed ferret into the American West and the golden lion tamarind into Brazil, believes that zoos are misleading the public about the benefits of captive breeding programmes.
She blames the world’s growing population and consumerism for driving pandas out of their natural habitat.
‘I think we need to be brutally honest with the world that science is not just going to clean up the mess for you all,’ adds Dr Bexell, who is co-author of the book Giant Pandas: Born Survivors. ‘We all have to get behind this. We all have to be a part of the solution.’
Dr Bexell said: ‘We’ve learned a lot, filled volumes of journals and text books but we have not made significant headway in terms of conservation' |
There’s a new team in the league, and they have an eye for player talent. One very similar to the Leafs’ scouting finds.
The Vegas Golden Knights announced their development camp roster today, and included in the list were two players familiar to Marlies fans.
RW Tyler Wong, who’d been with the Marlies on an ATO last year and had come to the development camp for the Leafs, was previously signed to an AHL deal by the Vegas affiliate, the Chicago Wolves. He’s an expected addition to their camp.
But Nikolas Brouillard, who split his time between the Marlies and the Orlando Solar Bears last year before injury shortened his season, is a bit of a surprise.
Brouillard was a high-scoring junior defenceman who the Marlies had last season on an AHL deal. He was very, very effective in the ECHL, and seemed destined to move up to the AHL. If the Golden Knights have poached him, that’s good for them.
The Leafs, of course, signed two young Swedish defenders this summer, and have more defence depth than they did a year ago. Perhaps there was just no room on the roster for Brouillard. |
The Original
Add another talent to Michael Chandler's impressive repertoire—the NCAA wrestling All-American and perennial MMA contender has dipped his toes in the acting waters.As part of a promotion for his upcoming Bellator fight, Chandler recreated an iconic scene from "Vision Quest," the most well-known film about wrestling.Watch him reprise Louden Swain's training sequence before his big match with Brian Shute below—it's spot on. And dare I say better?Chandler was a four-time NCAA qualifier for the Missouri Tigers, and he earned All-American honors as a senior in 2009 when he placed fifth at the national championships. He beat Kurt Kinser (IU), Chase Pami (Cal Poly), Jon Bonilla-Bowman (Hofstra), Tyler Safratowich (MINN), and Matt Moley (Bloom) with losses to Jordan Leen (Cornell) and Gregor Gillespie (EDIN).Chandler's next fight is for Bellator's lightweight championship as the Co-Main Event at Bellator 157 in his hometown of St. Louis. The championship was vacated when former titleholder Will Brooks was released by the promotion. |
A winter sports enthusiast proved he had absolute nerves of steel when he skied from the very top of a mountain in the Alps.
The unidentified daredevil captured body-cam footage of him negotiating the incredibly steep slope while skiing down the Matterhorn.
Standing at a staggering 14,692 foot, the mountain, which is based in Aosta Valley in Italy and Valais in Switzerland, has one of the highest summits in Europe.
Nail-biting: The man proved he had nerves of steel when he skied down from the very top of the mountain
Terrifying: The Matterhorn stands at a staggering 14,692 foot and has one of the highest summits in Europe
But undeterred, the skier made his way down the near-parallel drop as if he was descending a regular slope in an average resort.
The video shows the daredevil setting off at speed before throwing in some turns in order to control his descent and keep him on the narrow part of mountain.
Humorously his footprints can be seen in the snow, showing where he walked up carrying his skis only moments earlier.
After making his way down the first bit relatively tentatively - the terrain sounds particularly icy as the skis make a scraping noise - the slope gets even narrower.
But the man continues to ski downwards despite the fact one mistake at this point could result in him losing his life.
Narrow: The man throws in some turns in order to control his descent and stay on the steep mountain
Fearless: The daredevil skied the near-parallel drop as if he was descending a regular slope in a resort
Eventually the mountain begins to get wider and the man makes the most of skiing across it to ensure he does not pick up too much speed.
At one point he is forced to however when he struggles to turn between two large pieces of rock.
He travels quickly for a spell before regaining control, heading towards more rock and eventually slowing to a stop.
With the first section successfully negotiated the man prepares himself for the rest of his descent.
Steep: Eventually the mountain begins to get wider and the man makes the most of skiing across it
Speed: The man travels quickly before regaining control and using the width of the mountain to slow down
The video was posted to the I Love Switzerland! Facebook page where it picked up more than two million views.
Commenting on the clip, one viewer wrote: 'This guy is crazy! I get mad just with watching this video, amazing and very dangerous!'
While another said: 'There isn't a horror movie that can scare me more than I felt just watching this!'
A third, perhaps less impressed, said: 'I love Switzerland too but I know a lot of nicer slopes to ski. What do you prove with something like this?'
Success: With the first section successfully negotiated the man prepares himself for the rest of his descent |
Art Deco Computer Keyboard Mod
It is always nice to see new computer keyboard mods being made, which provide a different perspective of the boring and regular keyboards we see daily. This particular one was made in an Art Deco style as a commission for an Artistic themed theater/rental shop.
Besides simply looking classy and different, these are the modification done by Datamancer to the keyboard:
The keyboard features a black reflective acrylic faceplate, brilliant white LEDs, and a frame made of wood and chrome.
If you are a computer keyboard enthusiast, then make sure to check out the collection of cool computer keyboards we featured previously, the Steampunk ergonomic keyboard which provides a completely different style or the entire Steampunk desktop mod.
Thanks Doc for the info. Check the gallery for more images. |
One of my earliest obstacles was my belief that I didn’t have anything to offer the world.
I wanted to express myself.
To share my truth.
To follow my heart.
But I thought I wasn’t good enough, and that held me back for years.
I’ve also received emails from readers on how they feel like they have nothing to offer.
Perhaps you’ve felt that way, too?
You feel like you have something to share, but you stop yourself.
You wonder: Isn’t this obvious? Doesn’t everyone already know this? Why would someone pay me for what I know?
You look at the millions of sites out there, and you wonder how you could ever compete.
But What If You Could?
What makes you believe that the stories your mind spins are real?
Looking back, I can see how I held myself back. When I took action anyway, I didn’t magically eliminate my fears.
I simply started.
At first, my mental dialogue intensified. I thought: “I can’t do this. I’m not good enough. I won’t succeed.”
Gradually it changed to: “Maybe I’ll fail. Maybe I’m not good enough. I don’t know. I’m going to try and see what happens.”
You See, I’m Not Fearless
I just fear less.
Meaning, I don’t take my thoughts as seriously.
Fears pop up every day. I’m afraid to do this and that. But I know they are thoughts that will pass if I don’t try to fix them.
I bring my attention back to the present moment. I do what I can with what I have.
And that’s enough.
Here’s a video where I talk more about this:
The Three Obstacles
At the core, all our fears are the same thing. They are thoughts that we believe in.
A thought holds no inherent power. It plugs into us, just like the machines plugged into the humans in The Matrix.
Just realizing this doesn’t inoculate me from my thoughts. But it gives me added perspective. It gives me space to breathe.
Now let’s have a look at the three obstacles:
1. “I can’t compete with the millions of experts out there.”
When I started Wake Up Cloud, I was 23, and I wrote about personal development.
If anyone was a non-expert, it was me. What could a 23-year-old have to offer?
That thought held me back for years until I finally decided to start anyway.
Wake Up Cloud didn’t start as a way to make money, but a way to share what I was going through, so I decided to start and see what would happen.
The result?
You’re experiencing them right now. Wake Up Cloud has 10,000+ subscribers as I write this.
In the first 3-4 months, I went from 0 to 1,000 subscribers. Why? Because I was willing to share my truth, and my view of the world.
And I was willing to work hard.
I realized that this wasn’t about competing, but about honestly sharing what I knew.
2. “Doesn’t everyone already know this?”
Here’s the thing: When you know something, it’s familiar to you, and when something is familiar, it can feel mundane.
One of the definitions of mundane is: lacking interest or excitement; dull.
Even to this day, I have moments where what I write feels dull and unexciting. And I wonder why anyone would care.
But gradually I’ve let go of that thought, because I’ve seen the impact of my writing. I’ve received emails from people who’ve changed their lives because of what I’ve created.
It goes to show that I’m not in charge of deciding what’s mundane or not. I don’t know how my story will affect you.
My job is to do the best I can to help, and to share my story.
The same is true for you. You have to put your story out there, and see the effect it has.
3. “Why would anyone pay me for what I know?”
I don’t know.
But what makes you think you have to know the answer right this very minute?
Why can’t you experiment with what you have?
The reason you can’t see why anyone would pay you for what you know is because you don’t have enough data to go on.
That means you have to start, experiment, and see what happens.
I had no plans to turn Wake Up Cloud into a business, but that’s what happened.
As Charles F. Kettering, businessman and inventor, once said:
Keep on going and the chances are you will stumble on something, perhaps when you are least expecting it. I have never heard of anyone stumbling on something sitting down.
I don’t know where this is going.
I don’t have to know.
You don’t have to know.
All we have to do is be willing to trust that silent whisper within us.
Let it be enough to follow your bliss. Let it be enough to enjoy this moment.
So Do You Have Something Special to Offer?
The problem isn’t that you don’t have anything special to offer.
The problem is that you think you need something, other than what you have, in order to start.
But all you ever need is what you have. Start with what you have, where you are. That’s all you can do.
Stop waiting. Start starting.
As you keep putting in the work, you will improve, gain clarity, and uncover what works for you.
Takeaway
When I started, I didn’t think I had anything to offer, but I started anyway.
I was willing to challenge my assumptions, and that made all the difference.
So often we believe our fears hold all the power, but they don’t. I took action despite not feeling good enough, and I discovered that my fears were nothing but puffs of smoke.
I wasn’t the expert on personal development. I simply shared my story. I kept listening to my audience. As I did that, I improved.
My business grew.
And new doors opened.
Looking back, all I ever had to do was take life one step at a time, one moment at a time.
All the coolest,
Henri
P.S. If you still feel like you’re held back from doing what you love, I invite you to check out my book: Do What You Love. |
Floods unearth 20km stretch of locust eggs
Updated
The Australian Plague Locust Commission says egg beds up to nearly 20 kilometres long have been exposed in north-western Victoria after the recent flooding.
Commission director Chris Adriaansen says heavy rain has washed away top soil and revealed the extent of egg-laying in those regions.
He says it is unlikely the water will destroy many of the eggs.
"The majority of those eggs, even those that are just below the surface are still likely to survive and hatch, but progressively we will see some of those eggs hatching a little earlier than would normally be expected because of that exposure to the accumulation of heat," he said.
Yesterday a three-kilometre long bed of locust eggs was discovered west of Nyngan in central New South Wales.
New South Wales Ranger Lisa Thomas said the eggs were expected to start hatching quickly as the weather warmed up.
The locusts are expected to devastate crops in Victoria, New South Wales and South Australia when they hatch.
Topics: pests, environment, agricultural-crops, rural, crop-harvesting, pest-management, vic, australia, nsw, sa, horsham-3400, mildura-3500
First posted |
We didn't skimp on the art. Not only are the face cards illustrated but ALL 54 CARDS are fully illustrated, each of an individual public figure. You'll be saying "LOOK AT THAT FACE!" for every card.
Playing Cards For Tiny Hands did not begin as a planned venture to commercialize political caricatures onto playing cards. It actually began as just a casual sketching session while watching Sean Spicer give a daily press briefing. After work, I posted the sketch of Sean Spicer to Facebook and was surprised by the large response. Having friends and family members on both sides of the political spectrum, the replies were unanimously favorable of the sketch, and the comments were nearly void of negative political banter (easily the biggest surprise). In lieu of how well received the drawing was I decided to continue trending the political drawing sessions on a somewhat regular basis.
After my 9th sketch, Michael Flynn, it was asked if these sketches would be available for sale as prints. This was the first time the proposition of a product emerged. So as interest grew over the sequential months, I eventually created enough to fill up a deck of cards--54 unique sketches. The large interest on Facebook alone was enough to drive me through the following stages of production, which in and of itself, was a great challenge.
The last month has been spent working with several manufacturing companies to negotiate the best quality of cards for reasonable retail value. Playing Cards For Tiny Hands is in the final stages of production and a planned bulk printing run is set for late July!
Sharing this project on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram to your friends and family would be an enormous help to bring Playing Cards For Tiny Hands to life! Let's make card night with friends and family great again!
LARGE SCALE CARD ART http://tinyhandscards.blogspot.com/
Video recording of process and final card design, Robert Mueller
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Playing Cards For Tiny Hands Tuck Box
Tuck Box dimensions - 2.25 x 3.25 x 1.62 in.
Material - 300gsm card stock, Matte + Spot UV Finish
Deck Sizes
Tiny Deck Dimensions - 2.25 x 3.25 in.
Bigly Deck Dimensions - 3.5 x 5 in.
Playing Cards For Tiny Hands Prototype
Playing Cards For Tiny Hands Poster
Poster dimensions - 24 x 36 in.
Unedited original artwork
120 lb Gloss Book with Aqueous Coating
FUNDING
The funds we intend to raise will go toward several things:
The production of the cards: custom printing and proofing
Legal research and trademark patenting
Website creation/monitoring and ECommerce assistance
Labor, art creation, and supplies
Online Advertisements and promotions!
3 months of Card prototypes
Funding so far has included font licensing, LLC issuing (this is our first product), art supply costs, test printing, and legal fees to ensure a fun, legally sound product.
As stated, this is our first product so gauging bulk orders will be entirely dependent on the number of total pledges we receive by the end of the campaign. The minimum order amount will be 1,500 decks of standard size poker cards to be printed in late July/early August.
For any wholesale orders during the project campaign send a Kickstarter message before pledging or email at [email protected].
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TinyHandsCards/
Twitter: @tinyhandscards
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tinyhandscards
Temporary Website: tinyhandscards.blogspot.com
Website currently under construction and will be finished by the end of the Kickstarter campaign! --> TinyHandsCards.com
Q. Are Playing Cards For Tiny Hands smaller than standard sized poker cards?
A. Yes! Playing Cards For Tiny Hands are SLIGHTLY smaller than standard size poker cards. We really wanted the Tiny deck to be small, but also functional! Unless you truly have "BIGLY" hands you should be able to shuffle the Tiny Deck as well as a standard size poker deck.
Q. Are Playing Cards For Bigly Hands larger than standard sized poker cards?
A. Yes! Playing Cards For Bigly Hands are larger than standard sized poker cards. The Bigly Deck is 3.5" x 5" inches and these cards showcase the card art in "Big League" fashion! You can look at all these faces in high detail!! Outstanding!
Q. What is being planned for after the Kickstarter campaign?
A. We are looking to get the website up and running by late August where we intend to sell the cards on post Kickstarter! Things are lined up nicely with the manufacturer and we're just waiting to see how the KS does before placing final bulk orders. We're also gearing up to do another run of caricatures for the 2018 Mid Term Election! So if you want to own the original art for one of the cards, check out our Presidential Donor Rewards above! You'll have the art for the card that will be in that deck! |
Learning to love with a light touch.
Linda: The word jealous comes from the Greek “jeal” a valued possession that is in danger. This idea suggests that the possession requires action to be taken to protect it. It is the wise and mature person who understands when jealousy is present. Such turbulent feelings are our cue to look inside to find the places we feel weak and inadequate in order to strengthen them. The option presents itself for us to take on the challenge of facing ourselves. If we only know about holding on, then we are challenged to learn about letting go. In the process, we become stronger through self-awareness and earn our self-respect. Consider this story that was told to us from Paul about learning about taking responsibility for his part in the breakdown in trust with his partner Susan. He had to learn an extremely hard lesson.
Paul: Susan and I got married in our twenties. I was completely smitten with her. She was beautiful, sexy, smart, and fun to be with. Our falling in love was pure bliss. Our intense mutual attraction was highly sexual; we made love every day. We spent hours sharing every detail of our histories before we had found each other. We had so much to say to each other, sharing form our hearts, visioning a grand life together. I could hardly believe my good fortune in landing such a terrific woman. Our conversion from “meish” to “weish” was fabulous for me. I loved the merger.
Susan is such an outgoing friendly person, hyper social, and even a bit flirtatious, so my jealousy would be triggered big time. When Susan wanted some space and freedom for herself, I panicked. It didn’t take long, for our relationship to deteriorate. It was only a matter of months. I saw her connections to her friends and family as a threat to our newly created sweet life.
My pain was especially acute when we were attending parties where there was dancing. Susan loves to dance, and would dance all evening with many different men. I felt helpless and alone. I was so bitter and was convinced that she was to blame. My fear led to fantasies about her being sexually involved with other men. These fearful thoughts consumed me, and my pain came spilling out of my mouth in the form of angry accusations. “You have betrayed me. You have ruined our beautiful world.“
Susan tried to reason with me. She swore that she was faithful to me, but my jealousy possessed me to the point where her words fell on deaf ears. I continue to rage believing that it was because I loved her so deeply and that I was fighting for our marriage, while pointing the bony finger of blame at her. Susan is a self-respecting woman; she always has been. She wouldn’t stand for my rants, and she left me. I was devastated.
After the divorce, I was so heartbroken that it drove me into therapy. In the months of counseling, I discovered that my screams and accusations were manifestations of my own insecurity. I grew to understand that Susan was not responsible for the painful feelings I had, she was only flushing up to the surface what was already there that was my challenge to deal with. It wasn’t the feelings of inadequacy themselves that were destructive; it was acting out those feelings by blaming, threatening, and attempts to control her that destroyed our marriage.
Over the years since our divorce, Susan and I have been able to maintain a friendship. She is an exceptionally honest person, and I now know that she was never unfaithful to me during our marriage. It was my fabricated, fearful ideas that possessed me, that crowded out reason, and overwhelmed me with a desire to control her. I understand now that it was fear not love that was driving me, but I couldn’t see that at the time.
Now years later, looking back from a more responsible vantage point, Paul can see so clearly that what he believed was his great love for his wife, and the intensity of my desire to protect their love, was a big cover up of his feelings of insecurity. Paul came to see that his belief that his jealousy as an indication of his love for Susan was a myth, and that he was attached to that explanation because he was afraid of being found out by her to be inadequate.
For the first time, he examined why his self-esteem was so low. Paul developed the habit of looking at himself when things weren’t going well, rather than relating to himself as a helpless victim of others. The deep, inner looking that he did following their divorce, as painful as it was, was good for him. He became a mature adult, and a person capable of loving fully, without being possessive and controlling.
Paul told me that losing Susan was the most painful period of his life, but he learned so much from that terrible loss. He learned that it is impossible to posses another human being, nor can we force them to love us, make us feel secure, meet our needs, be what we want them to be, or do what we want them to do. To even desire a permanent merger and complete oneness is immature thinking. With anyone who becomes our partner, no matter how close we become, we find that we are still two separate individuals. And the closeness we enjoy is a direct manifestation of feeling free to choose to show our love when we want to and how we want to.
No one can demand loyalty and fidelity; it can only grow out of trust and respect. The depth of trust, security, and intimacy can only manifest when we are both committed to ourselves and our partner, and give our love freely, never on demand. Learning from Paul’s sad story of loss, and the tremendous growth that resulted from that pain, can hopefully save us from the same heartache and we can handle our jealousy before it creates big trouble.
-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=
Linda and Charlie Bloom are excited to announce the release of their third book, Happily Ever After . . . and 39 Other Myths about Love: Breaking Through to the Relationship of Your Dreams.
If you like what you read, click here to visit our website bloomwork.com and subscribe to receive our free inspirational newsletters. Follow us on Facebook ! |
Remember the time Bryce Harper admitted to being a Cowboys fan?
Well, Ryan Zimmerman made an appearance Thursday afternoon on 106.7 the Fan with Holden Grant & Danny (listen to the full audio here), and in addition to passing along sage advice to Robert Griffen III about staying the heck off Facebook/Twitter, Zimmerman revealed to the hosts that he has a huge man-crush on Tom Brady:
"Alright, you guys are gonna hate me, and like we talked about before I have a beautiful wife and a kid. So feel I need to say this before I tell you that I have a huge man crush on Tom Brady. Just because...It’s not that I don’t like Peyton Manning, and it’s not that I love the Patriots, or even Boston sports, because I don't, I really don’t enjoy them that much. I just enjoy Brady. ...Brady and Belichick step on people's necks. I love it. ...I just feel like Tom and the Patriots finish games...I think I'm gonna go with New England."
Sounds like Zim would never leave Brady hanging for a high-five.
There's something about Brady (drafted by the Expos) and the Nats. Interestingly, it was just last week Brady received at least one vote as MLB Network's Face of the Nationals:
(Brady screencap via here. MLB Network screen via @stephaniekays) |
A Ryanair pilot who refused to carry bags of company cash on a flight from Manchester to Dublin has told the Employment Appeals Tribunal no documentation or security clearance had been provided when the money was brought aboard by ground crew in September 2014.
Mark Christensen who is seeking compensation for constructive dismissal told the tribunal it would have been against aviation regulations to carry bags without documentation, even when the bags had been brought aboard by Ryanair ground crew.
Mr Christensen told the tribunal he had been running through pre-flight checks in the cockpit at Manchester when a woman ground crew member placed a large bag on the cockpit floor behind him.
He said he asked if there was any documentation with the bag and the crew member had opened it revealing a number of smaller, sealed bags, before remarking, “no there is no paperwork”.
He said she said to him, “these are the bags to go to Dublin”; to which he replied, “if there is no paperwork can I see inside the smaller sealed bags”? But the ground crew member said this was not possible.
Mr Christensen said he overruled a suggestion from the first officer that the bags be taken in the hold of the plane. He said if a Civil Aviation Authority inspection had taken place his pilot’s licence would have been “on the line”.
Mr Christensen said he was subsequently faced with a disciplinary inquiry by Ryanair and was demoted to the position of first officer. The tribunal was told the demotion was initially to be for one year, but was later reduced to a period of six months.
He resigned on October 30th and subsequently took a case for unfair dismissal against the company. He is now employed with an airline in China in an advantageous position, the tribunal was told.
However counsel for Ryanair Ross Aylward told the tribunal the bags represented a routine delivery of cash from Ryanair bases across its network.
The money was from Ryanair cabin and ground sales and would be collected at airports from any one of its 69 bases across the network, and delivered to either of two counting houses, one in Dublin and one in Stansted.
Mr Aylward said carrying the money to Dublin or Stansted was standard company practice, the bags did carry documentation he said, and he told the tribunal Mr Christensen had carried such bags in the past and knew what was in them.
Company practice
Mr Aylward said what had happened in the transfer of the cash was something which “happened 69 times a day” every day. And in refusing to carry the bags Mr Christensen was breaching established company practice with which he was familiar. He said Ryanair did not accept there was no documentation accompanying the cash on the occasion. “There were documents in the bag,” he said.
In addition Mr Aylward said Mr Christensen had “ failed as a captain to come up with a solution in 20 minutes” that the plane was waiting to leave. He said the company’s internal disciplinary process had been activated, there had been two hearings and Mr Christensen had also been given the opportunity of withdrawing his resignation.
The company also disputed Mr Christensen’s salary level at the time of departure. Mr Aylward said Mr Christensen had filed a claim based on a captain’s salary of about €11,500 per month but the monthly gross for a captain was €10, 147.
Mr Aylward said it “may” also be the company’s position that as Mr Christensen subsequently moved to a more advantageous position, there was no consequent loss to the man in terms of income. |
Kansas and Missouri are getting close to an agreement to end the "border war" of economic incentives, but still are working out how to do so without surrendering other economic development tools.
Kansas Secretary of Commerce Pat George said local and state officials from both sides of the border have been meeting to determine which incentive programs produce "net" growth and which result in companies moving across the border without much new investment or hiring. Three legislators, the mayors of Overland Park and Kansas City, Kansas, and economic development professionals from Lenexa and Olathe all have participated in the talks, he said.
"We’ve proceeded cautiously because we didn’t want to fix a problem and create a new problem," he said. "We’re publicly funded entities and we want to spend the taxpayers’ money wisely. There certainly could be some that are not being spent as wisely as they could be."
The difficulty is how to get rid of incentives that don’t produce economic growth without cutting into the states’ ability to woo companies that will make substantial investments, or to offer a reason to stay for companies considering relocating to Texas or Florida, for example, George said.
"The main thrust is how do we incent new jobs and not the border-hoppers," he said, referring to companies that relocate across the state line but don’t make a substantial investment or hire additional people. "That’s the $64 question, of how do we not shoot ourselves in the foot, but not incent companies to move a couple miles."
The Promoting Employment Across Kansas, or PEAK, program raised eyebrows in recent years after a state audit found most of the incentives went to counties surrounding Kansas City, and that the majority of those jobs came from Missouri. The program allows a company creating jobs to keep 95 percent of those employees’ state income taxes for up to seven years. In the case of border counties, however, it can be difficult to determine if the company actually created new jobs for Kansans, or if its workers who live in Missouri are just commuting across the border.
George said the talks are making progress, but he isn’t sure if they will announce an agreement before he resigns in July to take a job as head of Valley Hope Association, a nonprofit dealing with substance abuse treatment. In Kansas, the incentives are structured so they can be changed by the Department of Commerce, meaning the Legislature won’t have to take up a potential agreement, he said.
Missouri requires legislative approval, but it already passed a bill agreeing to end some incentives if Kansas did the same, George said. Both sides believe that legislation will be enough that Gov. Sam Brownback and Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon can sign an agreement and bring the changes into reality, he said.
Missouri has a similar program to PEAK, but not all incentives offered on one side have a clear equivalent on the other, George said, meaning the parties have to determine what is a fair exchange. For example, Missouri cities and counties offer more local incentives, while incentives tend to come at the state level in Kansas, he said.
George said he believes both sides have made a "good-faith" effort, though the complexity of the issues has made the going slow.
"You really want to look at apples to apples," he said. "You could never come up with an exactly equal — disarmament, you would say — but we’re trying." |
It would appear that on planet crypto, ICOs are currently the flavor of the month, perhaps also of the season. With each passing day, a new ICO is announced and they have now become ubiquitous across all forms of media. Coinidol writers, for example, receive information on at least one new ICO every day.
With so much variety to choose from, any investor would be right to ask how to go about picking a viable ICO, and avoid falling into the hands of the scammers who litter the crypto landscape. So how does one know which ICO to invest in? Before we can answer that question, we would benefit by understanding what ICOs are.
ICOs Defined
ICO stands for Initial Coin Offering. If you understand the concept of an IPO or Initial Public Offering, then it would not be too hard to understand what an ICO is. In an IPO, an investor purchases shares or stock that represent fractional ownership in a corporation. Investors in an IPO do so hoping that the value of their shares would eventually appreciate. The same applies to investors in a cryptocurrency unit, or coin.
The point of departure is in the fact that ICOs are coupons based on the blockchain. They are also, at present, unregulated in many jurisdictions. Some ICOs are based on the public blockchain while others issue from a private, and in many cases, permissioned blockchain. An issuer of an ICO will often publish a white paper, which serves as a prospectus on why investors should participate in his token sale. To date, ICOs have been able to soak up $1 billion in investment. Half of that money has been shelled out in 2017 alone.
At the present time, no regulator in the West has announced any plans to regulate ICOs as a separate category. At best, many regulators have been issuing warnings and applying current laws to the new fintech paradigm. China however has already moved aggressively to shut down ICOs from operating in its territory.
Expert Views on China’s Exchange Shutdown
Journalists at Coinidol sought expert views on ICOs and their implications from Professor Irwin Stein. He is the Founder and Legal Advisor at Syndicate Path with more than 40 years experience in securities and real estate. We also interviewed Mr William Michael Cunningham, Founder at Creative Investment Research Inc, a firm based in the Washington DC Metro Area, who also has more than 26 years experience in investment research.
In Professor Stein’s view, China is
“correct to clamp down and expect that other jurisdictions will clamp down on ICOs and token exchanges as well.”
He further added that the “overriding” consideration for regulators was the “huge amount of illicit money being laundered and moved across borders via tokens.”
Mr Cunningham saw it as China running scared from ICOs and Bitcoin. He considers China as an economy that is “poised to take over the financial system” and hence had the most to lose from the rise of ICOs and cryptocurrency in general.
How to Regulate ICOs
On regulation, both agreed that they would like to see some type of oversight. Professor Stein holds the view that the anonymity of inherent in the crypto space is what encourages money laundering and the theft that is common in the cryptocurrency space.
Mr Cunningham views the current approach being taken by the SEC on ICO regulation as the wrong one. On July 25th, 2017 the SEC issued a report which among other things “reiterates these fundamental principles of the U.S. federal securities laws and describes their applicability to a new paradigm.” What this means is that ICO tokens would be treated as securities and those who issue them would be required to register as securities exchanges.
In a post he argues that this approach is wrong since it fails to take into account the “nature of the technology” which would win out in the end. He prefers that the SEC establishes a global database of ICOs. According to him, there is a precedent. In 1984, the SEC began collecting data on hedge funds via a system known as EDGAR . This platform is freely accessible online.
He explains,
“At this point in the development of this marketplace, having a comprehensive database of all ICOs is more valuable and appropriate than subjecting these new firms to full and complete SEC registration. The agency can revisit this in, say, a year or two to determine if more comprehensive regulation is required, but for the next six to twelve months, this should be the regulatory position of the SEC with respect to the new ICO marketplace.”
Mr Cunningham believes that the current approach the SEC is adopting is more geared to protecting “entrenched social and financial interests.” He also believes that there are certain niches that would benefit by raising capital via ICOs. Small and minority owned businesses that may sometimes not be adequately funded, could benefit from the ICO option. Professor Stein disagrees. He would prefer to look at the underlying business rather than just invest in ICOs which he believes to be a gimmick. He insists that he would “not invest $1” in an ICO. He has his reasons which are,
“Very few people with backgrounds in finance doing ICOs to help to structure them correctly, protect investors and maximize investor returns.”
It appears then that we have some way to go before we can have a regulatory environment that protects investors from scams but that still promotes growth in blockchain and cryptocurrency. As regulators move away from adapting antiquated paradigms to emerging technology it can only be hoped that actions will be taken to fully harness the potential of the blockchain. |
As he promised earlier this week, Sen. Bernie Sanders put some teeth into the "shared sacrifice" argument Thursday by introducing the Emergency Deficit Reduction Act. It would impose a 5.4 percent surcharge on Americans whose annual incomes exceed a million dollars. That, he says, would raise in the neighborhood of $50 billion. The bill would also get rid of tax breaks for oil and gas companies to the tune of $3.5 billion. This comes close to the $61 billion that House Republicans (and some Democrats) have decided to chop from programs in education, environmental regulation, heating subsidies for the poor, Planned Parenthood, nutrition, the Peace Corps and others. Says Sanders:
The American people get it. They understand you can't move toward deficit reduction just by cutting programs that working families, the middle class, low-income people desperately need in order to survive in the midst of this terrible recession. They understand that serious, responsible deficit reduction requires shared sacrifice.
Let me repeat what he said again. Insane. That's what it is to cut programs for poor and middle-class Americans while extending tax cuts to the wealthiest citizens. Austerity is not on the table for those who were hurt least by the Great Recession and have been doing phenomenally well in an economic recovery that has yet to touch millions of unemployed people, some of whom have lost their homes and their savings as well as their jobs. Many of them long ago exhausted any unemployment compensation they were eligible to receive. What an insane joke is "shared sacrifice" to them while the top 1 percent of Americans continue to widen the income and wealth gap between themselves and everybody else, helped along by out-of-whack tax policies.
But if you're typical of those on top of the heap, this approach doesn't seem at all insane. Rather it is the natural order. The way things ought to be. And the role of the politicians whose campaigns you lubricate with cash from your tax cuts is to keep things the way they ought to be.
As a consequence, Sanders's deficit reduction act has about zero chance of getting even a dozen Senate sponsors to back it. He caucuses with the Democrats, backs them even when he has to grit his teeth to do so, but getting reciprocation for more than a handful of proposals each year takes more smiles than the amiable socialist from Vermont can muster. And when it's a proposal that would nick the richest, even for a pittance after decades of upward transfer of all that wealth, the Senator's corner can be expected to be rather bare.
What a drag when mere nibbling at the margins of our entitled plutocracy won't raise a huzzah from Senate Dems who are supposed to be on the side of working people. Like the Democratic legislators in Wisconsin have proved to be.
Worse yet, wise as Sanders's proposal is, it only addresses a symptom. What really needs attention is profoundly structural in nature. Antidotes for what plagues us, what put us into the economic mess we're in, can only be created by transforming corporate "personhood" and remaking predatory "globalization" into something beneficial to the commons. They require returning to a truly progressive tax system and reversing the economic inequality that has worsened during the past three decades.
But even milder medicine such as that contained in Sanders's bill is not going to be prescribed as long as those with antipathy toward the common good hold the reins of power. Right now, they've got a tight grip. And they are determined to feed us placebos. |
Frank Lampard has admitted that Chelsea would find it "very difficult" to replace Diego Costa should the confrontational forward leave Stamford Bridge this summer.
Costa has revealed that he intends to return to former club Atletico Madrid having been informed by Blues coach Antonio Conte that he is not in his plans for next season.
The Spanish international scored 20 Premier League goals last season as Chelsea secured the title, and Lampard has warned that finding a worthy successor could prove challenging.
"He's a fantastic striker and we all saw that last season and since he's been at Chelsea," Lampard told Sky Sports. "He would be very difficult to replace, there's no doubt about it.
"I don't know where Diego Costa's mind is, whether he wants to leave or not, that's all speculation. One thing that is for sure, is that you've got a great striker in him.
"So, if he stays, brilliant, if he doesn't, then you'll have to go to the top end of the world's strikers to replace him. He's an all-round physical presence that also has the quality to get goals, that's not easy to find in the modern day."
Chelsea have been strongly linked with a move for prolific former striker Romelu Lukaku, who has excelled at Everton. And Lampard has backed the powerful Belgian as a possible alternative to Costa.
"I know Romelu from playing alongside him, it was early on in his career and he probably didn't get the chances in his first spell at the club," he said.
"He's certainly developed to a huge degree since he left the club, Romelu would certainly be a good option. The only thing Chelsea have to look at is the inflated market that is around now, it makes it very tough.
"In terms of an all-round striker, he's proven to have scored goals at Everton, but there are others. I'm sure they'll try and get a player in the same mode as Diego Costa that can give them a physical presence and 20 goals a season." |
When Yahoo Screen picked up Community for an exclusive sixth season, the show’s fans rejoiced. At the same time, however, many of them were confused. What is Yahoo Screen, they asked, and how can I watch Community on it?
In order to build awareness for its online video platform and the upcoming sixth season, Yahoo has engaged with the Community fans who have descended on San Diego for Comic-Con. It has set up a promotion through which attendees can pick up free subs from the Subway restaurant around the corner from the San Diego Convention Center.
Community fans will recognize Subway as a fixture in the Community world. The sandwich chain has regular appeared as a symbol of corporate influence, and the show’s fifth season (its last on NBC) ended with Subway launching an attempt to take over Greendale Community College. The Comic-Con promotion seems like a good indicator that Subway will continue its relationship with Community as the show moves to its new home.
The Subway giveaway may seem like a small gesture, but as one Twitter user points out, it is nice to see Yahoo Screen so actively involved in the marketing of its new show, especially after NBC did it so few favors in that department. Yahoo Screen knows that Community has the potential to be a huge hit, and Community needs a strong sixth season to have any chance of getting that movie its fans want so badly, so promotions like this one are mutually beneficial.
If you’re at Comic-Con, you can grab your sandwich until 8 PM local time. |
In this blog post I want to summarize what we have accomplished with DifferentialEquations' 2.0 release and detail where we are going next. I want to put the design changes and development work into a larger context so that way everyone can better understand what has been achieved, and better understand how we are planning to tackle our next challenges.
If you find this project interesting and would like to support our work, please star our Github repository. Thanks!
Now let's get started.
DifferentialEquations.jl 1.0: The Core
Before we start talking about 2.0, let's understand first what 1.0 was all about. DifferentialEquations.jl 1.0 was about answering a single question: how can we put the wide array of differential equations into one simple and efficient interface. The result of this was the common interface explained in the first blog post. Essentially, we created one interface that could:
Specify a differential equation problem Solve a differential equation problem Analyze a differential equation problem
The problem types, solve command, and solution interface were all introduced here as part of the unification of differential equations. Here, most of the work was on developing the core. DifferentialEquations.jl 1.0 was about having the core methods for solving ordinary differential equations, stochastic differential equations, and differential algebraic equations. There were some nice benchmarks to show that our core native solvers were on the right track, even besting well-known Fortran methods in terms of efficiency, but the key of 1.0 was the establishment of this high level unified interface and the core libraries for solving the problems.
DifferentialEquations.jl 2.0: Extended Capabilities
DifferentialEquations.jl 2.0 asked a unique question for differential equations libraries. Namely, "how flexible can a differential equations solver be?" This was motivated by an off-putting remark where someone noted that standard differential equations solvers were limited in their usefulness because many of the higher level analyses that people need to do cannot be done with a standard differential equations solver.
So okay, then we won't be a standard differential equations solver. But what do we need to do to make all of this possible? I gathered a list of things which were considered impossible to do with "blackbox" differential equations solvers. People want to model continuous equations for protein concentrations inside of each cell, but allow the number of cells (and thus the number of differential equations) to change stochastically over time. People want to model multiscale phenomena, and have discontinuities. Some "differential equations" may only be discontinuous changes of discrete values (like in Gillespie models). People want to solve equations with colored noise, and re-use the same noise process in other calculations. People want to solve the same ODE efficiently hundreds of times, and estimate parameters. People want to quantify the uncertainty and the sensitivity of their model. People want their solutions conserve properties like energy.
People want to make simulations of reality moreso than solve equations.
And this became the goal for DifferentialEquations.jl 2.0. But the sights were actually set a little higher. The underlying question was:
How do you design a differential equations suite such that it can have this "simulation engine" functionality, but also such that adding new methods automatically makes the method compatible with all of these features?
That is DifferentialEquations.jl 2.0. the previous DifferentialEquations.jl ecosystem blog post details the strategies we were going to employ to achieve this goal, but let me take a little bit of time to explain the solution that eventually resulted.
The Integrator Interface
The core of the solution is the integrator interface. Instead of just having an interface on the high-level solve command, the integrator interface is the interface on the core type. Everything inside of the OrdinaryDiffEq.jl, StochasticDiffEq.jl, DelayDiffEq.jl packages (will be referred to as the *DiffEq solvers) is actually just a function on the integrator type. This means that anything that the solver can do, you can do by simply having access to the integrator type. Then, everything can be unified by documenting this interface.
This is a powerful idea. It makes development easy, since the devdocs just explain what is done internally to the integrator. Adding new differential equations algorithms is now simply adding a new perform_step dispatch. But this isn't just useful for development, this is useful for users too. Using the integrator, you can step one at a time if you wanted, and do anything you want between steps. Resizing the differential equation is now just a function on the integrator type since this type holds all of the cache variables. Adding discontinuities is just changing integrator.u.
But the key that makes this all work is Julia. In my dark past, I wrote some algorithms which used R's S3 objects, and I used objects in numerical Python codes. Needless to say, these got in the way of performance. However, the process of implementing the integrator type was a full refactor from straight loops to the type format. The result was no performance loss (actually, there was a very slight performance gain!). The abstraction that I wanted to use did not have a performance tradeoff because Julia's type system optimized its usage. I find that fact incredible.
But back to the main story, the event handling framework was re-built in order to take full advantage of the integrator interface, allowing the user to directly affect the integrator. This means that doubling the size of your differential equation the moment some value hits 1 is now a possibility. It also means you can cause your integration to terminate when "all of the bunnies" die. But this became useful enough that you might not want to just use it for traditional event handling (aka cause some effect when some function hits zero, which we call the ContinuousCallback), but you may just want to apply some affect after steps. The DiscreteCallback allows one to check a boolean function for true/false, and if true apply some function to the integrator. For example, we can use this to always apply a projection to a manifold at the end of each step, effectively preserving the order of the integration while also conserving model properties like energy or angular momentum.
The integrator interface and thus its usage in callbacks then became a way that users could add arbitrary functionality. It's useful enough that a DiscreteProblem (an ODE problem with no ODE!) is now a thing. All that is done is the discrete problem walks through the ODE solver without solving a differential equation, just hitting callbacks.
But entirely new sets of equations could be added through callbacks. For example, discrete stochastic equations (or Gillespie simulations) are models where rate equations determine the time to the next discontinuity or "jump". The JumpProblem types simply add callbacks to a differential (or discrete) equation that perform these jumps at specific rates. This effectively turns the "blank ODE solver" into an equation which can solve these models of discrete proteins stochastically changing their levels over time. In addition, since it's built directly onto the differential equations solvers, mixing these types of models is an instant side effect. These models which mix jumps and differential equations, such as jump diffusions, were an immediate consequence of this design.
The design of the integrator interface meant that dynamicness of the differential equation (changing the size, the solver options, or any other property in the middle of solving) was successfully implemented, and handling of equations with discontinuities directly followed. This turned a lot of "not differential equations" into "models and simulations which can be handled by the same DifferentialEquations.jl interface".
Generic algorithms over abstract types
However, the next big problem was being able to represent a wider array of models. "Models and simulations which do weird non-differential equation things over time" are handled by the integrator interface, but "weird things which aren't just a system of equations which do weird non-differential equation things over time" were still out of reach.
The solution here is abstract typing. The *DiffEq solvers accept two basic formats. Let's stick to ODEs for the explanation. For ODEs, there is the out-of-place format
du = f(u,p,t)
where the derivative/change is returned by the function, and there is the in-place format
f(du,u,p,t)
where the function modifies the object du which stores the derivative/change. Both of these formats were generalized to the extreme. In the end, the requirements for a type to work in the out-of-place format can be described as the ability to do basic arithmetic (+,-,/,*), and you add the requirement of having a linear index (or simply having a broadcast! function defined) in order to satisfy the in-place format. If the method is using adaptivity, the user can pass an appropriate norm function to be used for calculating the norm of the error estimate.
This means that wild things work in the ODE solvers. I have already demonstrated arbitrary precision numbers, and unit-checked arithmetic.
But now there's even crazier. Now different parts of your equation can have different units using the ArrayPartition. You can store and update discrete values along with your differential equation using the DEDataArray type. Just the other day I showed this can be used to solve problems where the variable is actually a symbolic mathematical expression. We are in the late stages of getting a type which represents a spectral discretization of a function compatible with the *DiffEq solvers.
But what about those "purely scientific non-differential equations" applications? A multiscale model of an embryo which has tissues, each with different populations of cells, and modeling the proteins in each cell? That's just a standard application of the AbstractMultiScaleArray.
Thus using the abstract typing, even simulations which don't look like systems of equations can now be directly handled by DifferentialEquations.jl. But not only that, since this is done simply via Julia's generic programming, this compatibility is true for any of the new methods which are added (one caveat: if they use an external library like ForwardDiff.jl, their compatibility is limited by the compatibility of that external library).
Refinement of the problem types
The last two big ideas made it possible for a very large set of problems to be written down as a "differential equation on an array" in a much expanded sense of the term. However, there was another design problem to solve: not every algorithm could be implemented with "the information" we had! What I mean by "information", I mean the information we could get from the user. The ODEProblem type specified an ODE as
but some algorithms do special things. For example, for the ODE
the Lawson-Euler algorithm for solving the differential equation is
This method exploits the fact that it knows that the first part of the equation is for some matrix, and uses it directly to improve the stability of the algorithm. However, if all we know is , we could never implement this algorithm. This would violate our goal of "full flexibility at full performance" if this algorithm was the most efficient for the problem!
The solution is to have a more refined set of problem types. I discussed this a bit at the end of the previous blog post that we could define things like splitting problems. The solution is quite general, where
can be defined using the SplitODEProblem (M being a mass matrix). Then specific methods can request specific forms, like here the linear-nonlinear ODE. Together, the ODE solver can implement this algorithm for the ODE, and that implementation, being part of a *DiffEq solver, will have interpolations, the integrator interface, event handling, abstract type compatibility, etc. all for free. Check out the other "refined problem types": these are capable of covering wild things like staggered grid PDE methods and symplectic integrators.
In addition to specifying the same equations in new ways, we created avenues for common analyses of differential equations which are not related to simulating them over time. For example, one common problem is to try to find steady states, or points where the differential equation satisfies . This can now easily be done by defining a SteadyStateProblem from an ODE, and then using the steady state solver. This new library will also lead to the implementation of accelerated methods for finding steady states, and the development of new accelerated methods. The steady state behavior can now also be analyzed using the bifurcation analysis tools provided by the wrapper to PyDSTool.
Lastly, the problem types themselves have become much more expressive. In addition to solving the standard ODE, one can specify mass matrices in any appropriate DE type, to instead solve the equation
where is some linear operator (similarly in DDEs and SDEs). While the vast majority of solvers are not able to use right now, this infrastructure is there for algorithms to support it. In addition, one can now specify the noise process used in random and stochastic equations, allowing the user to solve problems with colored noise. Using the optional fields, a user can define non-diagonal noise problems, and specify sparse noise problems using sparse matrices.
As of now, only some very basic methods using all of this infrastructure have been made for the most extreme examples for testing purposes, but these show that the infrastructure works and this is ready for implementing new methods.
Common solve extensions
Okay, so once we can specify efficient methods for weird models which evolve over time in weird ways, we can simulate and get what solutions look like. Great! We have a tool that can be used to get solutions! But... that's only the beginning of most analyses!
Most of the time, we are simulating solutions to learn more about the model. If we are modeling chemical reactions, what is the reaction rate that makes the model match the data? How sensitive is our climate model to our choice of the albedo coefficient?
To back out information about the model, we rely on analysis algorithms like parameter estimation and sensitivity analysis. However, the common solve interface acts as the perfect level for implementing these algorithms because they can be done problem and algorithm agnostic. I discuss this in more detail in a previous blog post, but the general idea is that most of these algorithms can be written with a term which is the solution of a differential equation. Thus we can write the analysis algorithms at a very high level and allow the user to pass in the arguments for a solve command use that to generate the . The result is an implementation of the analysis algorithm which works with any of the problems and methods which use the common interface. Again, chaining all of the work together to get one more complete product. You can see this in full force by looking at the parameter estimation docs.
Modeling Tools
In many cases one is solving differential equations not for their own sake, but to solve scientific questions. To this end, we created a framework for modeling packages which make this easier. The financial models make it easy to specify common financial equations, and the biological models make it easy to specify chemical reaction networks. This functionality all works on the common solver / integrator interface, meaning that models specified in these forms can be used with the full stack and analysis tools. Also, I would like to highlight BioEnergeticFoodWebs.jl as a great modeling package for bio-energetic food web models.
Over time, we hope to continue to grow these modeling tools. The financial tools I hope to link with Julia Computing's JuliaFin tools (Miletus.jl) in order to make it easy to efficiently solve the SDE and PDE models which result from their financial DSL. In addition, DiffEqPhysics.jl is planned to make it easy to specify the equations of motion just by giving a Hamiltonian or Lagrangian, or by giving the the particles + masses and automatically developing a differential equation. I hope that we can also tackle domains like mechanical systems and pharmacokinetics/pharmacodynamics to continually expand what is easily able to be solved using this infrastructure.
DifferentialEquations 2.0 Conclusion
In the end, DifferentialEquations 2.0 was about finding the right infrastructure such that pretty much anything CAN be specified and solved efficiently. While there were some bumps along the road (that caused breaking API changes), I believe we came up with a very good solution. The result is a foundation which feeds back onto itself, allowing projects like parameter estimation of multiscale models which change size due to events to be standard uses of the ODE solver.
And one of the key things to note is that this follows by design. None of the algorithms were specifically written to make this work. The design of the *DiffEq packages gives interpolation, event handling, compatibility with analysis tools, etc. for free for any algorithm that is implemented in it. One contributor, @ranocha, came to chat in the chatroom and on a few hours later had implemented 3 strong stability preserving Runge-Kutta methods (methods which are efficient for hyperbolic PDEs) in the *DiffEq solvers. All of this extra compatibility followed for free, making it a simple exercise. And that leads me to DifferentialEquations 3.0.
DifferentialEquations 3.0: Stiff solvers, parallel solvers, PDEs, and improved analysis tools
1.0 was about building the core. 2.0 was about making sure that the core packages were built in a way that could be compatible with a wide array of problems, algorithms, and analysis tools. However, in many cases, only the simplest of each type of algorithm was implemented since this was more about building out the capabilities than it was to have completeness in each aspect. But now that we have expanded our capabilities, we need to fill in the details. These details are efficient algorithms in the common problem domains.
Stiff solvers
Let's start by talking about stiff solvers. As of right now, we have the all of the standard solvers (CVODE, LSODA, radau) wrapped in the packages Sundials.jl, LSODA.jl, and ODEInterface.jl respectively. These can all be used in the DifferentialEquations.jl common interface, meaning that it's mostly abstracted away from the user that these aren't actually Julia codes. However, these lower level implementations will never be able to reach the full flexibility of the native Julia solvers simply because they are restricted in the types they use and don't fully expose their internals. This is fine, since our benchmarks against the standard Runge-Kutta implementations (dopri5, dop853) showed that the native Julia solvers, being more modern implementations, can actually have performance gains over these older methods. But, we need to get our own implementations of these high order stiff solvers.
Currently there exists the Rosenbrock23 method. This method is similar to the MATLAB ode23s method (it is the Order 2/3 Shampine-Rosenbrock method). This method is A and L stable, meaning it's great for stiff equations. This was thus used for testing event handling, parameter estimation, etc.'s capabilities and restrictions with the coming set of stiff solvers. However, where it lacks is order. As an order 2 method, this method is only efficient at higher error tolerances, and thus for "standard tolerances" it tends not to be competitive with the other methods mentioned before. That is why one of our main goals in DiffEq 3.0 will be the creation of higher order methods for stiff equations.
The main obstacle here will be the creation of a library for making the differentiation easier. There are lots of details involved here. Since a function defined using the macros of ParameterizedFunctions can symbolically differentiate the users function, in some cases a pre-computed function for the inverted or factorized Jacobian can be used to make a stiff method explicit. In other cases, we need autodifferentiation, and in some we need to use numerical differentiation. This is all governed by a system of traits setup behind the scenes, and thus proper logic for determining and using Jacobians can immensely speed up our calculations.
The Rosenbrock23 method did some of this ad-hocly within its own method, but it was determined that the method would be greatly simplified if there was some library that could handle this. In fact, if there was a library to handle this, then the Rosenbrock23 code for defining steps would be as simple as defining steps for explicit RK methods. The same would be true for implicit RK methods like radau. Thus we will be doing that: building a library which handles all of the differentiation logic. The development of this library, DiffEqDiffTools.jl, is @miguelraz 's Google Summer of Code project. Thus with the completion of this project (hopefully summer?), efficient and fully compatible high order Rosenbrock methods and implicit RK methods will easily follow. Also included will be additive Runge-Kutta methods (IMEX RK methods) for SplitODEProblems. Since these methods double as native Julia DAE solvers and this code will make the development of stiff solvers for SDEs, this will be a major win to the ecosystem on many fronts.
Stiffness Detection and Switching
In many cases, the user may not know if a problem is stiff. In many cases, especially in stochastic equations, the problem may be switching between being stiff and non-stiff. In these cases, we want to change the method of integration as we go along. The general setup for implementing switching methods has already been implemented by the CompositeAlgorithm. However, current usage of the CompositeAlgorithm requires that the user define the switching behavior. This makes it quite difficult to use.
Instead, we will be building methods which make use of this infrastructure. Stiffness detection estimates can be added to the existing methods (in a very efficient manner), and could be toggled on/off. Then standard switching strategies can be introduced such that the user can just give two algorithms, a stiff and a non-stiff solvers, and basic switching can then occur. What is deemed as the most optimal strategies can then be implemented as standard algorithm choices. Then at the very top, these methods can be added as defaults for solve(prob), making the fully automated solver efficiently handle difficult problems. This will be quite a unique feature and is borderline a new research project. I hope to see some really cool results.
Parallel-in-time ODE/BVP solvers
While traditional methods (Runge-Kutta, multistep) all step one time point at a time, in many cases we want to use parallelism to speed up our problem. It's not hard to buy an expensive GPU, and a lot of us already have one for optimization, so why not use it?
Well, parallelism for solving differential equations is very difficult. Let's take a look at some quick examples. In the Euler method, the discretization calculates the next time step from the previous time step using the equation
In code, this is the update step
u .= uprev .+ dt.*f(uprev,t)
I threw in the .'s to show this is broadcasted over some arrays, i.e. for systems of equations is a vector. And that's it, that's what the inner loop is. The most you can parallelize are the loops internal to the broadcasts. This means that for very large problems, you can parallelize this method efficiently (this form is called parallelism within the method). Also, if your input vector was a GPUArray, this will broadcast using CUDA or OpenCL. However, if your problem is not a sufficiently large vector, this parallelism will not be very efficient.
Similarly for implicit equations, we need to repeatedly solve where is the Jacobian matrix. This linear solve will only parallelize well if the Jacobian matrix is sufficiently large. But many small differential equations problems can still be very difficult. For example, this about solving a very stiff ODE with a few hundred variables. Instead, the issue is that we are stepping serially over time, and we need to use completely different algorithms which parallelize over time.
One of these approaches is a collocation method. Collocation methods build a very large nonlinear equation which describes a numerical method over all time points at once, and simultaneously solves for all of the time points using a nonlinear solver. Internally, a nonlinear solver is just a linear solver, , with a very large . Thus, if the user passes in a custom linear solver method, say one using PETSc.jl or CUSOLVER, this is parallelized efficiently over many nodes of an HPC or over a GPU. In fact, these methods are the standard methods for Boundary Value Problems (BVPs). The development of these methods is the topic of @YingboMa's Google Summer of Code project. While written for BVPs, these same methods can then solve IVPs with a small modification (including stochastic differential equations).
By specifying an appropriate preconditioner with the linear solver, these can be some of the most efficient parallel methods. When no good preconditioner is found, these methods can be less efficient. One may wonder then if there's exists a different approach, one which may sacrifice some "theoretical top performance" in order to be better in the "low user input" case (purely automatic). There is! Another approach to solving the parallelism over time issue is to use a neural network. This is the topic of @akaysh's Google Summer of Code project. Essentially, you can define a cost function which is the difference between the numerical derivative and at each time point. This then gives an optimization problem: find the at each time point such that the difference between the numerical and the desired derivatives is minimized. Then you solve that cost function minimization using a neural network. The neat thing here is that neural nets are very efficient to parallelize over GPUs, meaning that even for somewhat small problems we can get out very good parallelism. These neural nets can use very advanced methods from packages like Knet.jl to optimize efficiently and parallel with very little required user input (no preconditioner to set). There really isn't another standard differential equations solver package which has a method like this, so it's hard to guess how efficient it will be in advance. But given the properties of this setup, I suspect this should be a very good "automatic" method for medium-sized (100's of variables) differential equations.
The really great thing about these parallel-in-time methods is that they are inherently implicit, meaning that they can be used even on extremely stiff equations. There are also simple extensions to make these solver SDEs and DDEs. So add this to the bank of efficient methods for stiff diffeqs!
Improved methods for stochastic differential equations
As part of 3.0, the hope is to release brand new methods for stochastic differential equations. These methods will be high order and highly stable, some explicit and some implicit, and will have adaptive timestepping. This is all of the details that I am giving until these methods are published, but I do want to tease that many types of SDEs will become much more efficient to solve.
Improved methods for jump equations
For jump equations, in order to show that everything is complete and can work, we have only implemented the Gillespie method. However, we hope to add many different forms of tau-leaping and Poisson(/Binomial) Runge-Kutta methods for these discrete stochastic equations. Our roadmap is here and it seems there may be a great deal of participation to complete this task. Additionally, we plan on having a specialized DSL for defining chemical reaction networks and automatically turn them into jump problems or ODE/SDE systems.
Geometric and symplectic integrators
In DifferentialEquations.jl 2.0, the ability to partition ODEs for dynamical problems (or directly specify a second order ODE problem) was added. However, only a symplectic Euler method has been added to solve this equations so far. This was used to make sure the *DiffEq solvers were compatible with this infrastructure, and showed that event handling, resizing, parameter estimation, etc. all works together on these new problem types. But, obviously we need more algorithms. Velocity varlet and higher order Nystrom methods are asking to be implemented. This isn't difficult for the reasons described above, and will be a very nice boost to DifferentialEquations.jl 3.0.
(Stochastic/Delay) Partial differential equations
Oh boy, here's a big one. Everyone since the dawn of time has wanted me to focus on building a method that makes solving the PDE that they're interested in dead simple to do. We have a plan for how to get there. The design is key: instead of one-by-one implementing numerical methods for each PDE, we needed a way to pool the efforts together and make implementations on one PDE matter for other PDEs.
Let's take a look at how we can do this for efficient methods for reaction-diffusion equations. In this case, we want to solve the equation
The first step is always to discretize this over space. Each of the different spatial discretization methods (finite difference, finite volume, finite element, spectral), end up with some equation
where now is a vector of points in space (or discretization of some basis). At this point, a specialized numerical method for stepping this equation efficiently in the time can be written. For example, if diffusion is fast and is stiff, one really efficient method is the implicit integrating factor method. This would solve the equation by updating time points like:
where we have to solve this implicit equation each time step. The nice thing is that the implicit equation decouples in space, and so we actually only need to solve a bunch of very small implicit equations.
How can we do this in a way that is not "specific to the heat equation"? There were two steps here, the first is discretizing in space, the second is writing an efficient method specific to the PDE. The second part we already have an answer for: this numerical method can be written as one of the methods for linear/nonlinear SplitODEProblems that we defined before. Thus if we just write a SplitODEProblem algorithm that does this form of updating, it can be applied to any ODE (and any PDE discretization) which splits out a linear part. Again, because it's now using the ODE solver, all of the extra capabilities (event handling, integrator interface, parameter estimation tools, interpolations, etc.) all come for free as well. The development of ODE/SDE/DDE solvers for handling this split, like implicit integrating factor methods and exponential Runge-Kutta methods, is part of DifferentialEquations.jl 3.0's push for efficient (S/D)PDE solvers.
So with that together, we just need to solve the discretization problem. First let's talk about finite difference. For the Heat Equation with a fixed grid-size , many people know what the second-order discretization matrix is in advance. However, what if you have variable grid sizes, and want different order discretizations of different derivatives (say a third derivative)? In this case the Fornberg algorithm can be used to construct this . And instead of making this an actual matrix, because this is sparse we can make this very efficient by creating a "matrix-free type" where acts like the appropriate matrix multiplication, but in reality no matrix is ever created. This can save a lot of memory and make the multiplication a lot more efficient by ignoring the zeros. In addition, because of the reduced memory requirement, we easily distribute this operator to the GPU or across the cluster, and make the function utilize this parallelism.
The development of these efficient linear operators is the goal of @shivin9's Google Summer of Code project. The goal is to get a function where the user can simply specify the order of the derivative and the order of the discretization, and it will spit out this highly efficient to be used in the discretization, turning any PDE into a system of ODEs. In addition, other operators which show up in finite difference discretizations, such as the upwind scheme, can be encapsulated in such an . Thus this project would make turning these types of PDEs into efficient ODE discretizations much easier!
The other very popular form of spatial discretization is the finite element method. For this form, you chose some basis function over space and discretize the basis function. The definition of this basis function's discretization then derives what the discretization of the derivative operators should be. However, there is a vast array of different choices for basis and the discretization. If we wanted to create a toolbox which would implement all of what's possible, we wouldn't get anything else done. Thus we will instead, at least for now, piggyback off of the efforts of FEniCS. FEniCS is a toolbox for the finite element element method. Using PyCall, we can build an interface to FEniCS that makes it easy to receive the appropriate linear operator (usually sparse matrix) that arises from the desired discretization. This, the development of a FEniCS.jl, is the topic of @ysimillides's Google Summer of Code. The goal is to make this integration seamless, so that way getting ODEs out for finite element discretizations is a painless process, once again reducing the problem to solving ODEs.
The last form of spatial discretization is spectral discretizations. These can be handled very well using the Julia library ApproxFun.jl. All that is required is to make it possible to step in time the equations which can be defined using the ApproxFun types. This is the goal of DiffEqApproxFun.jl. We already have large portions of this working, and for fixed basis lengths the ApproxFunProblems can actually be solved using any ODE solver (not just native Julia solvers, but also methods from Sundials and ODEInterface work!). This will get touched up soon and will be another type of PDE discretization which will be efficient and readily available.
Improved Analysis Tools
What was described above is how we are planning to solve very common difficult problems with high efficiency and simplify the problems for the user, all without losing functionality. However, the tools at the very top of the stack, the analysis tools, can also become much more efficient as well. This is the other focus of DifferentialEquations.jl 3.0.
Local sensitivity analysis is nice because it not only tells you how sensitive your model is to the choice of parameters, but it gives this information at every time point. However, in many cases this is overkill. Also, this makes the problem much more computationally difficult. If we wanted to classify parameter space, like to answer the question "where is the model least sensitive to parameters?", we would have to solve this equation many times. When this is the question we wish to answer, global sensitivity analysis methods are much more efficient. We plan on adding methods like the Morris method in order for sensitives to be globally classified.
In addition, we really need better parameter estimation functionality. What we have is very good: you can build an objective function for your parameter estimation problem to then use Optim.jl, BlackBoxOptim.jl or any MathProgBase/JuMP solver (example: NLopt.jl) to optimize the parameters. This is great, but it's very basic. In many cases, more advanced methods are necessary in order to get convergence. Using likelihood functions instead of directly solving the nonlinear regression can often times be more efficient. Also, in many cases statistical methods (the two-stage method) can be used to approximately optimize parameters without solving the differential equations repeatedly, a huge win for performance. Additionally, Bayesian methods will not only give optimal parameters, but distributions for the parameters which the user can use to quantify how certain they are about estimation results. The development of these methods is the focus of @Ayush-iitkgp's Google Summer of Code project.
DifferentialEquations.jl 3.0 Conclusion
2.0 was about building infrastructure. 3.0 is about filling out that infrastructure and giving you the most efficient methods in each of the common problem domains.
DifferentialEquations.jl 4.0 and beyond
I think 2.0 puts us in a really great position. We have a lot, and the infrastructure allows us to be able to keep expanding and adding more and more algorithms to handle different problem types more efficiently. But there are some things which are not slated in the 3.0 docket. One thing that keeps getting pushed back is the automatic promotion of problem types. For example, if you specified a SplitODEProblem and you want to use an algorithm which wants an ODEProblem (say, a standard Runge-Kutta algorithm like Tsit5), it's conceivable that this conversion can be handled automatically. Also, it's conceivable that since you can directly convert an ODEProblem into a SteadyStateProblem, that the steady state solvers should work directly on an ODEProblem as well. However, with development time always being a constraint, I am planning on spending more time developing new efficient methods for these new domain rather than the automatic conversions. However, if someone else is interested in tackling this problem, this could probably be addressed much sooner!
Additionally, there is one large set of algorithms which have not been addressed in the 3.0 plan: multistep methods. I have been holding off on these for a few reasons. For one, we have wrappers to Sundials, DASKR, and LSODA which supply well-known and highly efficient multistep methods. However, these wrappers, having the internals not implemented in Julia, are limited in their functionality. They will never be able to support arbitrary Julia types and will be constrained to equations on contiguous arrays of Float64s. Additionally, the interaction with Julia's GC makes it extremely difficult to implement the integrator interface and thus event handling (custom allocators would be needed). Also, given what we have seen with other wrappers, we know we can actually improve the efficiency of these methods.
But lastly, and something I think is important, these methods are actually only efficient in a small but important problem domain. When the ODE is not "expensive enough", implicit Runge-Kutta and Rosenbrock methods are more efficient. When it's a discretization of a PDE and there exists a linear operator, exponential Runge-Kutta and implicit integrating factor methods are more efficient. Also, if there are lots of events or other dynamic behavior, multistep methods have to "restart". This is an expensive process, and so in most cases using a one-step method (any of the previously mentioned methods) is more efficient. This means that multistep methods like Adams and BDF (/NDF) methods are really only the most efficient when you're talking about a large spatial discretization of a PDE which doesn't have a linear operator that you can take advantage of and events are non-existent/rare. Don't get me wrong, this is still a very important case! But, given the large amount of wrappers which handle this quite well already, I am not planning on tackling these until the other parts are completed. Expect the *DiffEq infrastructure to support multistep methods in the future (actually, there's already quite a bit of support in there, just the adaptive order and adaptive time step needs to be made possible), but don't count on it in DifferentialEquations 3.0.
Also not part of 3.0 but still of importance is stochastic delay differential equations. The development of a library for handling these equations can follow in the same manner as DelayDiffEq.jl, but likely won't make it into 3.0 as there are more pressing (more commonly used) topics to address first. In addition, methods for delay equations with non-constant lags (and neutral delay equations) also will likely have to wait for 4.0.
In the planning stages right now is a new domain-specific language for the specification of differential equations. The current DSL, the @ode_def macro in ParameterizedFunctions.jl does great for the problem that it can handle (ODEs and diagonal SDEs). However, there are many good reasons to want to expand the capabilities here. For example, equations defined by this DSL can be symbolically differentiated, leading to extremely efficient code even for stiff problems. In addition, one could theoretically "split the ODE function" to automatically turn the problem in a SplitODEProblem with a stiff and nonstiff part suitable for IMEX solvers. If PDEs also can be written in the same syntax, then the PDEs can be automatically discretized and solved using the tools from 2.0. Additionally, one can think about automatically reducing the index of DAEs, and specifying DDEs.
This all sounds amazing, but it will need a new DSL infrastructure. After a discussion to find out what kind of syntax would be necessary, it seems that a major overhaul of the @ode_def macro would be needed in order to support all of this. The next step will be to provide a new library, DiffEqDSL.jl, for providing this enhanced DSL. As described in the previously linked roadmap discussion, this DSL will likely take a form closer in style to JuMP, and the specs seem to be compatible at reaching the above mentioned goals. Importantly, this will be developed as a new DSL and thus the current @ode_def macro will be unchanged. This is a large development which will most likely not be in 3.0, but please feel free to contribute to the roadmap discussion which is now being continued at the new repository.
Conclusion
DifferentialEquations.jl 1.0 was about establishing a core that could unify differential equations. 2.0 was about developing the infrastructure to tackle a very vast domain of scientific simulations which are not easily or efficiently written as differential equations. 3.0 will be be about producing efficient methods for the most common sets of problems which haven't adequately addressed yet. This will put the ecosystem in a very good state and hopefully make it a valuable tool for many people. After this, 4.0+ will keep adding algorithms, expand the problem domain some more, and provide a new DSL.
Edits
The syntax in this post has been edited to match the changes of DifferentialEquations.jl v4.0.0. |
It’s Time to Play Cubs Cliché Bingo
Brace yourself, sports fans. National publications will this week surely be trotting out previews of the Cubs long-awaited playoff run, and I can’t help but expect these write-ups to seem a little, well, familiar.
Haven’t won a World Series since 1908 … check. The Curse of the Billy Goat … check. Steve Bartman … check.
We’ve heard it all before. So for those of you scoring at home, here’s a bingo card of Cubs clichés and well-trod milestones to keep handy as you take in this month’s media barrage. (Yes, I realize that the bingo card is itself a cliché.) See below for how some recent stories have scored, and feel free to rate the various Fox Sports broadcasters whose inanities we’ll be enduring over the next few weeks. |
Everyone claims to have the perfect answer.
“Zero RB.”
“Robust RB.”
“Late Round QB.”
“Just Get Gronk.”
The ideal blueprint to a Fantasy Football Championship has been analyzed and debated for years. For the longest time, fantasy football analysts championed always drafting a running back in the early rounds, since they accumulate fantasy points by running and catching.
As the true bell cow running backs started to disappear, Shawn Siegele’s Zero RB draft strategy became the en vogue fantasy football draft concept. After a 2015 season which saw only two running backs (Devonta Freeman, Adrian Peterson) tally over 200 standard fantasy points, the support for Zero RB was never stronger. “Wait on running backs,” said the loyalists, “take satellite backs later in the draft.” After all, the bust rate of the top wide receivers was much less than that of their running back counterparts.
Then came the 2016 fantasy football season. A true Running Back Renaissance occurred, with eight different players achieving that 200 point standard scoring league barometer and one (David Johnson) breaking the 300 point plateau. Which now leads to the question, which year was the outlier?
The answer? Neither.
Deciphering whether Zero or Robust RB is the optimal draft strategy is as pointless as buying a goldfish walker. Both are viable fantasy draft strategies as long as you pick the right players. But with the development of NFL offenses to a more pass heavy emphasis, the time has come for a completely new fantasy football draft strategy. When it comes to the running back position, don’t draft individual players.
Draft entire team backfields.
Pure Handcuff Fallacy
The idea of drafting a running back and his respective handcuff is far from a new concept. But viewing the fantasy running back as a player agnostic position is a brand new way of fantasy thinking. I promoted this strategy last season as a viable draft option, but it is even more applicable in 2017.
According to Josh Hermsmeyer of RotoViz, fantasy relevant running backs (top 70 positional ADP) are anywhere from 24-31 percent more likely to incur serious injury than fantasy relevant wide receivers (top-80 positional ADP). While predicting injuries is impossible to do, it needs to be a factor in planning the optimal draft strategy.
The absolute hardest thing to overcome is a first round fantasy football bust. Each year the most fantasy points on average come from the first round. Looking at ADP from last season, here are the average standard fantasy points per player in each of the first four rounds.
It is extremely difficult to recover from a bust in the early rounds, but buying insurance is not always optimal. This season the running back triumvirate of David Johnson, Le’Veon Bell, and Ezekiel Elliott are all getting drafted in the top-5 picks. If you are fortunate to have any of these three players, and they get injured, your season is in severe jeopardy. Given this, is drafting Ezekiel Elliott’s back-up a no-brainer? Not necessarily. Here are the ADPs for the consensus top-3 backs and their respective “handcuffs” as per the PlayerProfiler Depth Chart:
One of the common justifications for burning a fantasy football roster spot on a pure back-up is that he would receive the majority of touches the starter gets injured. This is a fallacy, because most back-up caliber running backs are incapable of absorbing workhorse touches at the NFL level. Even one-time fantasy football hope child Darren McFadden, who is positioned as Ezekiel Elliott‘s direct back-up, is not worth drafting, even in the last round. For example, McFadden could lose significant touches, including goal line carries, to Alfred Morris. McFadden’s upside is overstated and his fantasy football utility in 2017 is negligible.
Drafting a pure handcuff player with no role in week 1 represents a wasted roster spot on a player who will likely be dropped after week 1 vs. stashing a potential breakout player capable of achieving fantasy relevance in the first week of the NFL season. Furthermore, team backfield drafting is not a handcuffing tactic, because drafting pure handcuffs are is a negative value proposition based on opportunity cost.
Symbiotic Relationships
Running back production is dependent on several other factors besides the talent of the player, and team backfield drafting only makes sense when both running backs project to have significant offensive roles. The offensive line, quarterback, and play calling tendencies all contribute to the value of a particular fantasy running back. Regardless of which player is running the ball, those three reasons all remain consistent. Because of that symbiotic relationship, it is easier to handicap one team’s tendencies than multiple teams.
How often can you see a between the tackles grinder have limited production because of game script? Drafting a team’s backfield will allow you to adjust to the opponent and potential game script. In many cases, playing both running backs can be productive.
Atlanta is the quintessential team back. Let’s examine last year’s Atlanta Falcons backfield: Devonta Freeman and Tevin Coleman. Here are their weekly game logs:
There were four times that both Devonta Freeman and Tevin Coleman produced top 16 running back fantasy weeks, and twice they both were in the top 10. When Coleman was hurt midyear, Freeman was a start with confidence in all formats. Having both running backs on the explosive Atlanta offense streamlines your decision. Should I play the grinder, the satellite back, or both? Regardless, your fantasy team is prepared.
Best Team Backfields
1. Tennessee Titans
Players: DeMarco Murray (1,267 yds, 13 touchdowns, 293.8 fpts); Derrick Henry (490 yds, 5 touchdowns, 105.7 fpts)
2017 ADP: DeMarco Murray 17.8; Derrick Henry 69.7
Benefit: Guaranteed RB1 Production, great offensive line
Drawback: Expensive ADPs
Summary: This one checks all the boxes as a premier team backfield target. The Titans offensive line was eighth in run blocking efficiency last season, and will be even better this year. Quarterback Marcus Mariota prefers short to mid range passes, which supports the Titans ball control offense. As a mobile quarterback, Mariota creates running lanes for the running backs. Most importantly, Derrick Henry is the one to one replacement for DeMarco Murray in the event of an injury while also holding standalone value.
With the third most carries and rushing yards last season, DeMarco Murray was as close to a bell cow as exists in the NFL. His 73.9 percent Opportunity Share (percentage of team running back carries and targets) was sixth most among all running backs. Murray was just as strong near the goal line as his 44 red zone carries also ranked sixth at the position. He is a true three-down running back as shown by his 53 receptions (sixth among RBs) and 377 receiving yards (11th among RBs) proves. Murray is still only 29 years old.
The opportunities were limited last season, but Derrick Henry made the most of them. He managed to produce four top 20 running back weeks, led by a 97 total yard and one touchdown performance Week Eight against Jacksonville. His 3.1 yards per carry (16th among all RBs) against stacked defensive front proves his toughness, and explains his Best Comparable player of “Zangief” from Street Fighter. At 6’3″ 247 lbs with a 116.3 (97th percentile ) Speed Score and a 127.9 (88th percentile) Burst Score, Henry would become an automatics RB1 if DeMarco Murray were to be injured for any extended period of time.
DeMarco Murray is on average a second round draft pick in all MFL10 Public League Drafts, and Derrick Henry is going in round six. the best plan is to simply acquire both players and play the Tennessee starter for that week. Once you select Murray, drafting Henry in round five becomes easy execution. That still leaves your first, third, and fourth round picks to select any combination of wide receiver, running back, or tight end.
2. Atlanta Falcons
Players: Devonta Freeman (1,541 yds, 13 touchdowns, 284.1 fpts); Tevin Coleman (941 yds, 11 touchdowns, 191.1 fpts)
2017 ADP: Devonta Freeman 12.1; Tevin Coleman 54.6
Benefit: Both players are three down running backs, explosive offense
Drawback: Expensive ADP, new offensive coordinator?
Summary: The Atlanta backfield was the quintessential team backfield to draft in 2016. Their offense was so explosive that both players were worthy of starting during multiple weeks.
Devonta Freeman is getting drafted on average in round one of MFL10’s, but he’s worth the investment. He ranked ninth with 1,079 rushing yards while also finishing fifth with 462 receiving yards. Freeman had 55 receptions, 13 total touchdowns, while averaging 17.8 fantasy points per game in PPR formats. Freeman’s best statistic? Despite his diminutive 5-8 206-pound frame, he ranked third among all running backs with 53 red zone carries. Freeman does everything for Atlanta, while still below the age apex at 25 years old.
The reason Atlanta’s backfield is the perfect fit for team backfield drafting is the presence of Tevin Coleman. In 2016, Coleman ranked first among all running backs with a +50.9 (No. 1) Production Premium, meaning his efficiency versus the average full-time player was the absolute best. He has proven the ability to ascend to an fantasy RB1 role should an injury occur to Devonta Freeman, verified by his 1.21 Fantasy Points Per Touch (seventh among all RBs).
A 43.2 percent (91st percentile) College Dominator rating at Indiana, shows his versatility and his 4.44 (90th percentile) 40 Yard Dash time ranks with any competing RB1. Even with just a 44.7 percent Snap Share (48th among all RBs), Coleman still finished eighth with 421 receiving yards in just 13 games. He is a running back in a high powered offense that has a proven track record of efficiency with limited touches. The Atlanta Falcons have the perfect pair of running backs to target in a team backfield draft strategy.
Drafting Devonta Freeman and Tevin Coleman is like Fantasy Football Cold Fusion: league winning RB upside with anti-fragility baked into the proposition. It also allows the fantasy drafter to focus their attention solely on wide receivers for the next several rounds.
3. Indianapolis Colts
Players: Frank Gore (1,302 yds, 8 touchdowns, 214.3 fpts); Marlon Mack (Rookie)
2017 ADP: Frank Gore 91.9; Marlin Mack 147.5
Benefit: Incredibly cheap value on explosive offense
Drawback: Crowded backfield with Christine Michael and Robert Turbin
One of the best 2017 team backfields to target in both redraft or dynasty leagues is located in Indianapolis. At 34 years old, Frank Gore continues to surprise fantasy owners with his consistent top 15 running back production. Gore finished 12th in total points in both PPR and standard scoring leagues. He is one of the most durable running backs in the NFL, finishing seventh with 263 carries and ninth with a 70.0 percent (ninth among all running backs) Opportunity Share. Frank Gore is still an integral part of the Indianapolis Colts offense.
The versatile Marlon Mack of South Florida is the perfect running back to pair with Frank Gore. While others may shy away from Mack because of veterans Robert Turbin and Christine Michael (RIP), the explosive 21-year old fourth round draft pick is fits the profile of a secondary backfield mate to target in fantasy football drafts. Mack’s 10.9-percent (76th-percentile) college target share demonstrated satellite back skills, the perfect fit for one of the NFL’s preeminent pass-first offenses.
Marlon Mack also possesses the size-adjusted athleticism to become the primary back if Frank Gore is injured or marginalized due to ineffective play. With an above 70th percentile 40-yard dash, Speed Score, and Burst Score, Mack packs exceptional athleticism into his 5-11, 213-pound frame. He’s a future three-down running back, but in the meantime, Mack projects to operate as Andrew Luck‘s go-to option out of the backfield in two-minute drill and other passing situations. Beyond the hurry-up offense, Mack often ran routes out of the slot at South Florida, and the Colts do not have a slot receiver of consequence on the roster. Mack will have stand-alone fantasy value and is the perfect lottery ticket in case Gore gets injured.
The beauty of this running back tandem is that both can be acquired in the late stages of any draft format. Frank Gore can be drafted in round seven and Marlon Mack in round 13. Acquiring the entire backfield in the Indianapolis Colts offense at that late round value is pure fantasy football larceny.
Check out Marlon Mack on the Updated PlayerProfiler Seasonal & Dynasty Rankings:
4. Washington Redskins
Players: Rob Kelley (786 yards, 7 touchdowns, 132.6 fpts); Samaje Perine (Rookie)
2017 ADP: Rob Kelley 130.2; Samaje Perine 85.3
Benefit: Explosive offense, great ADP value, one to one replacement
Drawback: RBBC?, Chris Thompson presence
Despite possessing one of the best offenses in the NFL, the Washington Redskins backfield does not receive the same attention as the other backfields on this list. The reason is the lack of a consistent lead running back during the Matt Jones years, and the respective ADPs reflects that reputation. In the Team Backfield world however, this is one of the most coveted fantasy assets.
The first running back off the board in MFL10 drafts is Oklahoma rookie Samaje Perine. At 5-11 233-pounds, Perine is a bowling ball running back with 98th Percentile Bench Press production. His 85.3 ADP is influenced by his limited 27.8-percent College Dominator Rating, but that is a direct result of sharing a backfield with fellow Oklahoma running back Joe Mixon. The Washington offensive line was fourth best last season with a 132.4 run blocking efficiency ranking, which means all Perine needs is touches to become fantasy viable.
Rob Kelley started getting at least a 65 percent Opportunity Share in Week Eight, and his fantasy value skyrocketed. Kelley produced five top 20 fantasy running back weeks, highlighted by 31.7 PPR points in Week 11 against Green Bay. He has an underwhelming athletic profile, with a 105.2 (Third Percentile) Burst Score and a 11.82 (Seventh Percentile) Agility Score, but still may be the goal line running back for most of the season.
Locking up any ambiguous primary back roles for high octane offense is particularly effective in current June/July drafts. The primary back role uncertainty in Washington has depressed the ADP of both Rob Kelley and Samaje Perine. Whoever starts for Washington in that early down role will be a starter for fantasy teams despite the late round cost of each player. The Redskins have been one of the league leaders in Red Zone possessions over the past two seasons, so locking up the Perine-Kelley tandem virtually guarantees a “running back” with double-digit touchdowns at seasons end. In addition, if either Kelley or Perine pulls away in training camp due to performance or injury, the primary back’s value will spike. The perfect all upside, zero downside proposition.
5. New England Patriots
Players: Mike Gillislee (627 yds, 9 touchdowns, 125.6 fpts); Rex Burkhead (489 yds, 2 touchdowns, 75.9 fpts), Dion Lewis (112 yds, 2 touchdowns, 54.7 fpts);
2017 ADP: Mike Gillislee 77.2; Rex Burkhead 184.5; Dion Lewis 185.4
Benefit: Great team with heavy predicted game scripts
Drawback: Bill Belichick always unpredictable with RB usage
There is tremendous fantasy value in the New England Patriots backfield, even though most fantasy owners are unclear of who will be the lead running back. It is pure fantasy ignorance to ignore a team that produced the running back (LeGarrette Blount) who led the league with 18 rushing touchdowns. With Tom Brady as quarterback, the Patriots will be score a ton of points and win a ton of games. Blount led the NFL in red zone carries with 71 last season, 13 more than the next running back (David Johnson). That sort of production cannot and should not be ignored.
The best bet to inherit the majority of the carries is Mike Gillislee. He is only 26 years old and ranked first among all running backs with a 9.9 percent Breakaway Run Rate. He is an explosive runner that did not receive a high number of carries behind LeSean McCoy in Buffalo. But when he did, Gillislee certainly was efficient as shown by a +29.2 ninth best Production Premium. Gillislee has been waiting for the opportunity to be a lead NFL running back, and is already taking advantage of the opportunity.
The other two viable backfield options are Rex Burkhead and Dion Lewis. Burkhead has an incredibly inexpensive redraft ADP (184.5) but will only have a fantasy impact if either Mike Gillislee or Lewis get injured. However, if that happens, Burkhead will have a similar opportunity to Blount, except with more potential in the passing game. His 8.9-percent (62nd percentile) college target share at Nebraska provides proof that he can be a fantasy relevant pass catcher.
In addition, Rex Burkhead‘s workout metrics are much better than LeGarrette Blount. His 128.8 (90th percentile) Burst Score and 10.94 (93rd percentile) Agility Score are significantly better than both Mike Gillislee or Dion Lewis. Burkhead needs some assistance to have fantasy relevance, but his price is incredibly cheap.
The best value however goes to Dion Lewis. The short term memory suffering fantasy owner conveniently forgets that Lewis ranked second among all running back in Yards Per Touch (7.3) while tallying the second best (+48.8) Production Premium in 2015. Even in his abbreviated 2016 season, Lewis still ranked eighth at the position with a 32.1-percent Juke Rate (following his number one ranking in 2015). At a 185.4 ADP, Lewis is a clear lottery ticket that could have RB1 production in Week One.
6. Oakland Raiders
Players: Marshawn Lynch (DNP); DeAndre Washington (582 yards, 2 touchdowns, 85.2 fpts);
2017 ADP: Marshawn Lynch 41.2; DeAndre Washington 210.8
Benefit: Clearly delineated usage, handcuff/lottery ticket
Drawback: Jalen Richard presense, Lynch washed?
This backfield would be ranked higher if not for Marshawn Lynch‘s expensive ADP. With Latavius Murray in Minnesota, “Beast Mode” is the most likely candidate to inherit the goal line work. With Oakland’s explosive offense, that position is very desirable for fantasy football.
He may be 31 years old, but Marshawn Lynch is still athletic and can still run through a wall if need be. Given the lean towards pass catching backs, if Lynch stays healthy he will get more than enough opportunities to produce a high end RB2 season. Especially with a 30.6 percent Juke Rate from just two seasons ago, which supported his 103 Evaded Tackles (third best) from 2014.
Second year running back DeAndre Washington is the clear handcuff to draft in Oakland. Marshawn Lynch will not able to carry a full running back load at age 31. Washington will serve as change of pace back and satellite back for the Raiders. Washington produced an 8.1 percent Breakaway Run Rate, which means on almost 10 percent of his carries went for 15 yards or more. His 29.4 percent Snap Share ranked only 84th among all running backs, which makes his 17 receptions even that much more impressive.
My favorite stat about DeAndre Washington is his 6.3 Yards Per Carry against stacked defensive fronts, which ranked second among all fantasy running backs. He doesn’t need room to gain yards, but if he gets room it turns into a breakaway run. While Marshawn Lynch is getting drafted in round three of MFL10s, DeAndre Washington’s current 210.8 ADP makes him the best lottery ticket on this list.
7. New Orleans Saints
Players: Adrian Peterson (80 yds, 0 touchdowns, 9.0 fpts); Alvin Kamara (Rookie)
2017 ADP: Adrian Peterson 91.4; Alvin Kamara 122.5
Benefit: High powered offense, cheap ADPs
Drawback: Mark Ingram presence
The New Orleans Saints backfield would be at the top of this list if it wasn’t for the presence of Mark Ingram. However, the two most desirable running backs in New Orleans are also the cheapest.
When one of the greatest running backs in NFL history has a 91.4 ADP as the goal line running back in New Orleans, he becomes an automatic draft target. His 115.8 (96th percentile) Speed Score and 129.0 (90th percentile) Burst Score supersede his 32-year old frame. If Peterson is healthy and New Orleans is playing, you will start him every single week because of the red zone touches. Don’t overthink it.
By drafting Tennessee rookie Alvin Kamara, the Saints sent the message they do not trust Mark Ingram. At 5’10” 214 lbs, Kamara has the perfect size to supplement his 132.7 (93rd percentile) Burst Score. He is the perfect fit for the Darren Sproles role, and will be incredibly dangerous on indoor surfaces. Kamara was a great pass catcher in college, as illustrated by his 14.0 percent (90th percentile) College Target Share. Kamara’s 122.5 ADP is incredible value for a running back who has stand alone fantasy value regardless of an injury to Peterson.
By drafting Peterson and Kamara, you will have guaranteed production at the running back position in either standard or PPR formats.
Summary
The NFL leaned more on the pass than ever before in 2016. The percentage of team rushing plays across the league has dropped in each of the last three seasons: 43.4 percent (2014), 42.4 percent (2015), 42.1 percent (2016). There are teams where both running backs provide fantasy value, and certain occasions where starting both running backs from a team is actually a productive fantasy strategy. These are the teams you should target in both redraft and dynasty leagues.
Almost all fantasy owners want one of those top-3 running backs this season. But if your draft position makes those options impossible, the best way to get David Johnson/Le’Veon Bell/Ezekiel Elliott like production is via a team backfield draft strategy. For example, in the Atlanta Falcons backfield, if either Devonta Freeman or Tevin Coleman goes down, whoever is left standing will be a top-3 RB in fantasy football (Freeman was the No. 1 RB in fantasy in 2015 and the offensive line and quarterback Matt Ryan have improved since). The beauty is when they are both healthy, Freeman is a solid fantasy RB1 and Coleman is a volatile fantasy RB2 with week-winning explosiveness.
Target teams backfields, and corner the market on the explosive offenses. This will simplify your draft process, and allow you to focus your energy on acquiring the best wide receivers. Zero RB and Robust RB are strategies of the past, team backfield drafting is the future of fantasy football.
Follow @FtsyWarriorMike |
Recent research has analysed the link between the harmful effects of drugs relative to their current classification by law with some startling conclusions. Perhaps most startling of all is that alcohol, solvents and tobacco (all unclassified drugs) are rated more dangerous than ecstasy, 4-MTA and LSD (all class A drugs). If the current ABC system is retained, alcohol would be rated a class A drug and tobacco class B.The scientists involved, including members of the government's top advisory committee on drug classification, have produced a rigorous assessment of the social and individual harm caused by 20 of the UK's most dangerous drugs and believe this should form the basis of future ranking. They think the current ABC system is arbitrary and not based on any scientific evidence.The drug policies have remained unchanged over the last 40 years so should they be reformed in the light of new research? |
In a ruling that could carry implications for comedy clubs across Canada, the Supreme Court of British Columbia has upheld the right of a bar patron to receive five-figures in damages from a comedian whose performance she alleges gave her post-traumatic stress disorder.
In 2011, Toronto comedian Guy Earle was ordered by the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal to pay $15,000 to Lorna Pardy, a homosexual woman who said she suffered “lasting physical and psychological effect” after Mr. Earle directed a string of lesbian slurs at her during a 2007 Vancouver open mic night.
On Wednesday, the B.C. court ruled against Mr. Earle’s assertion that comedy clubs should remain special places devoted to the “fearless pursuit of free speech” and that the Tribunal’s decision would have a “chilling effect on performances and artists in British Columbia.”
Offensive, irreverent and inappropriate
Rather, ruled Justice Jon Sigurdson, while comedy clubs may swirl with “offensive, irreverent and inappropriate” language they are not operating in “zones of absolute immunity from human rights legislation.”
In May of 2007, Lorna Pardy and a girlfriend were at Zesty’s, a Vancouver restaurant with largely gay clientele, when an open mic night hosted by Mr. Earle kicked off. The two women decided to stay and watch the show.
According to the later findings of the Human Rights Tribunal, during the show Ms. Pardy’s girlfriend had merely pecked her on the cheek when Mr. Earle told the crowd “Don’t mind that inconsiderate dyke table over there. You know lesbians are always ruining it for everybody.”
The line prompted boos from Ms. Pardy’s table and kicked off an escalating string of slurs and lesbian-themed quips, climaxing with a pair of off-stage confrontations in which Ms. Pardy threw two glasses of water at the comedian and he, in turn, broke her sunglasses.
As Mr. Earle told it, however, the couple was passionately kissing in the front row and repeatedly interrupting the set with obscenities when Mr. Earle tried to “shut up” the table with the quip “you’re not even lesbians; no guy will f*** you, that’s why you’re with each other” — thus kicking off the ugly escalation.
After a pair of agitated conversations with the bar owner the next day, the last of which resulted in Ms. Pardy screaming to restaurant patrons that the owner condoned violence against women, Ms. Pardy took her case to the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal.
In April, 2011, tribunal member Murray Geiger-Adams issued a detailed 102-page tribunal report that pored over diagrams of the restaurant, probed the origins of the weekly open mic night and even examined the Iraqi background of the bar’s owner (“[H]e was a member of both ethnic and Christian religious minority groups, and experienced discrimination himself,” it notes).
Further complicating matters was the fact that virtually all of the testimony came from people who had been drinking, requiring Mr. Geiger-Adams to sift through multiple competing storylines.
In the end, the tribunal ruled that Mr. Earle’s attack had aggravated Ms. Pardy’s “pre-existing condition of generalized anxiety disorder with panic attacks, and caused her PTSD.” Long after the episode, for instance, Ms. Pardy said that simply hearing Mr. Earle recount the evening in a radio interview caused her to miss work.
When asked why she did not simply leave the establishment, instead of staying until the very end of the performance, “she said she didn’t leave because she was too shocked, and that she literally could not get up from the booth,” according to decision documents. As for the water-throwing, “Mr. Earle’s conduct had put Ms. Pardy in a condition where she was unable to immediately formulate a measured, or even rational, response.”
She was unable to immediately formulate a measured, or even rational, response
In addition to Mr. Earle’s $15,000 penalty, the restaurant was also ordered to pay $7,000 to Ms. Pardy on the grounds that since the owner had given Mr. Earle a small bar tab to host the event, the comedian was legally an employee. Restaurant owner Salam Ismail had already spent at least $13,000 in legal fees defending himself before the tribunal.
Mr. Earle’s lawyer, meanwhile, walked out on the tribunal proceedings early, alleging it was an “illegal process.”
In a Supreme Court challenge, Mr. Earle attempted to argue that Ms. Pardy “played a vital and highly dramatic role in utterly disrupting a performance by unpaid volunteers.”
“[C]omedy clubs are like no other places, the quintessential element that distinguishes them from vapid mainstream media is the fearless pursuit of free speech.”
Nevertheless, in the judge’s words, “Mr. Earle was not giving a comedy performance when he launched into his tirade of ugly words directed at Ms. Pardy.”
“In the end, this is not a case about the scope of expression in a comedy performance or an artistic performance,” he wrote. “It is about verbal and physical abuse that amounts to adverse treatment based on sex and sexual orientation.”
National Post
• Email: [email protected] | Twitter: TristinHopper |
Why is the plural of ‘moose’ not ‘meese’?
As fitting as it might sound, the plural of moose is not and has never been meese. And while it is tempting to switch out -oo- for -ee-, the plural of moose is simply moose (though you may occasionally see or hear the word mooses). This confusion is understandable if you consider the word goose, with its plural geese. Given that both are animals and that the two words (in their singular forms) rhyme with one another, it’s a bit confusing why they don’t share a plural change as well.
So why don’t we say meese?
The simple reason is that it’s a loanword. All nouns that are borrowed into English either form their plural with the standard plural ending –s (the vast majority), retain the plural ending of the donor language (e.g. phenomena, algae), or remain unchanged in the plural. It is also quite possible for the same noun to employ more than one of the above types of plural formation. The word moose has its origin in the Native American Algonquian language. Adopted into English by British settlers of North America in the early 17th century, it comes from the Eastern Abenaki word mos, which also appears in southern New England Algonquian languages, such as the Narragansett word moòs.
But why, then, do we say geese instead of goose, or gooses in the first place? After all, geese is an obvious exception to the standard plural in English. The reason goes back a millennium and a half to the beginnings of Old English and to a sound change known as mutation (or umlaut), defined as ‘a change in the sound of a vowel produced by partial assimilation to an adjacent sound (usually that of a vowel or semivowel in the following syllable)’.
All that linguistics background might sound pretty complicated, but what it boils down to is that goose was one of a relatively small closed set of nouns in Old English which formed their plural in this way (by change of stem vowel). The number of such nouns was never large, and it has grown smaller over the centuries, because the tendency has been for these nouns to take on more common plural endings (especially the now standard plural –s). However, beside goose, there are still a few of these nouns left in English today which retain the mutation plurals, including tooth (plural teeth) and foot (plural feet).
The curiosity of moose and meese is just one of several strange plurals dating from Old English. Other words with similarly confusing plurals include child, which transforms into the plural children, and man and woman, which swap out -a- for -e- in their plural form.
Back to the question that we started off with, why didn’t this mutation happen to moose? As mentioned above, moose entered English via the Algonquian language in the early 17th century, long after the Old English vowel changes had happened. Though vowel mutation in English had hardly faded into the background, the specific process that gave us feet and geese had already occurred hundreds of years beforehand.
For more difficult plurals, check out this post covering everything from bacteria to criteria. |
Updated – 20th July 2017
Nongriat, a small Khasi village in the beautiful state of Meghalaya, is nestled in the heart of north-east India. With close proximity to Cherrapunji, the wettest place on earth, Nongriat village is easily missed by tourists. Which means, for people like me, who love to stay away from the maddening crowds and overly touristy spots, it was a breath of fresh air. Not just that, this place is so pristine it is actually as close as you can ever get to – Paradise!
The reason Nongriat is still untapped is because its not easy to reach. From Cherrapunji, you can take a taxi upto the the closest village – Tyrna and then, lo behold – the road ends! So, you need to walk up around 1.5-2 hours through thousands of steep steps to reach Nongriat. It is definitely not for the unfit or lazy travelers so be prepared to walk for 5+ hours and climb 6000+ steps (back and forth). You can actually run up and down the Nongriat steps and do this faster but we were slow and also took plenty of pictures & breaks en-route.
If that sounds too stressful, you can even stay in Nogriat for few days to explore more and take a break. It is surely not easy to walk back same day but do-able, if you lack time. The village has many basic budget Nongriat homestay options (as low as $3 per bed, per night) to choose from for the discerning traveler.
More than 3000 steps to Nongriat Going Uphill is trickier
Sadly, we didn’t have enough time to see everything so we stayed in a village 30 mins away – Sohra. This village was close to Cherrapunji as well so we spent a day exploring Cherrapunji and the next in Nongriat, which worked perfectly for us – though, I would’ve given anything to have at least 2 extra days to explore this hidden gem.
Our Trek to The Double Decker Living Root Bridge, Nongriat Village
We arrived at Tyrna around 0830 hrs as we were to head back to Guwahati, Assam same day. The idea was to wrap up Nongriat first as this was high on our list and going back without paying it a visit would’ve been such a shame. It is easy to just rent a cab from Cherrapunji to Nongriat and we booked the guy for dropping us back as well.
Up and down the stairs leading to double-decker bridge Hubby breathing a sigh of relief as we enter Nongriat.
The double decker living root bridge is one of its kind and the major attraction in Nongriat trek. These bridges are formed over a course of 15 years using tree roots built over time atop stones, sticks and few other objects kept there by local Khasi villagers to help the tree shape up. As long as the tree is healthy, the bridge can survive for hundreds of years. The Nongriat Double Decker bridge is one of the most renowned one. From what we heard it will be a triple decker bridge in next 10-20 years.
Initial walk is all downhill and easy so you don’t really have to make a lot of “maggie stops” enroute. You will have to cross 4 amazing suspension bridges which were a lot of fun and the last one was especially scenic with the amazing waterfall and lagoon below.
We literally made just one stop to the single-decker living root bridge Nongriat – which is a 10 mins detour, one way, from the path towards the double decker bridge. This meant we spent an extra 30 mins in walking back/forth and clicking pictures at this bridge.
The entire way towards Nongriat Meghalaya is beautiful however, as soon as you enter the village (after you see the signboard, yes! there is one somehow in this remote place!), it is simply stunning beyond words. I saw the prettiest, velvety butterflies fluttering around in a blast of colors everywhere. It felt like I was in the “center of the earth”. Anyone watched Journey to the center of the earth? That’s exactly how this place looks!!! I can honestly say this is the best place I have seen in India so far – that’s how much I loved it.
After entering the village, it was another 30 mins hike to the double-decker bridge and when we finally made it, there was absolutely no one in sight. That’s my kind of place. Soon, 4 other tourists trickled in but that’s nothing compared to the massive crowd we witnessed (over 300-500 people) at the living root bridge in Mawlynnong – it was so crowded that it totally lost its charm, for me!
If we had more time, we would’ve loved to explore the numerous side paths which lead to more root bridges and several other Nongriat falls. The rainbow falls Nongriat are the most popular ones which are further ahead on the trek route, plus there is plenty of other ultra cool stuff to see when you wander off aimlessly. Lovely place for explorers who like to walk in paradise to discover places which others might not venture to.
Have you been to any such place which you felt was still off beat and untapped in our modern commercialized world? If not, a visit to the Nongriat village Meghalaya would be a great addition to your Indian itinerary. I would love to know about other hidden paradises – tell me in comments below. |
Gentlemen: I see that you have chosen to use the horrific crime of the murder of Kasandra Perkins to express your belief that guns are the problem, not the men who wield them. I am utterly certain that you believe that you have the moral high ground on this matter. I am equally certain that such a belief is appallingly wrong, not to mention terribly misogynistic. Why do I say this? Because had your desires on gun control been in place, I would not be alive to be writing this now.
I have an Ex. I have an Ex who, in the process of becoming my Ex, made credible threats to kill me. Why did I believe these threats were credible? Because among the primary reasons why I left him were that he had anger control issues, that he was a problem drinker well on his way to full blown alcoholism and that the things he was throwing at me were getting ever closer to my head. I decided to leave before finally snapped and actually hit me. He was displeased by this and made such displeasure known.
Do you know what kept me safe? Not some piece of paper. Not a judge tut tutting at him and shaking his/her finger and telling him to leave me alone. Not the police, who, after all, would only be able to respond once he had caused me harm. No, what kept me safe was my Glock. What kept me safe was my Glock and the fact that he knew I had both the ability and the will to empty a clip into his chest if he made good on his statements that if I did not come back, I would not see the next week. He never tried to do any of the things he screamed he would because he knew that not only would I defend myself but that I could. My Ex was nearly a foot taller than me and, at the time, had about 150 pounds on me. If he had been able to get close enough to me to harm me, there were very few options I had to protect myself. But with my Glock, well, I would be able to stop him before he got that close. I am alive today because he knew that if he tried to make that otherwise, there was a better than even chance he would be the one lying there in a pool of blood instead of me.
You want to take that from me. You want me to be unable to defend myself. You want to leave me vulnerable to those out there who look at a five foot tall fat girl and think “victim”. You want me to be unable to protect myself when there is no one else around to do so. You want to make me dependent on others to provide for my basic safety and security.
Let us not beat around the bush, you want to sacrifice my life on the altar of your political beliefs. How dare you? Honestly, who do the two of you think you are to demand that my blood be shed so that you may preen about what wonderful people you are? Why, precisely, are you removing the responsibility for Kasandra Perkins’ murder from Jovan Belcher and placing it on an inanimate object? That is what you are doing, after all. Your position is that absent the gun, Jovan Belcher would not have murdered Kasandra Perkins. What utter rot. It’s not as if, to pick something at random, he could have picked up a knife and slit her throat so violently that she was nearly decapitated. Oh no, that would never ever happen. By focusing on the gun, you are choosing to make Jovan Belcher a mere bystander to his own actions. That is horrific. Jovan Belcher murdered Kasandra Perkins. He chose to pull that trigger. He chose to take her life. How dare you attempt to absolve him in even the slightest manner for that crime. He killed her. Not a gun. He did it. No one else.
I will not let you two demand that my blood be shed so that you can sit there and declaim your supposed superior morality to the world. No. You would rather I be dead. That is the logical conclusion of your positions. I will not die for you. No other woman should either.
Alive despite you,
Alexandria
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Ruthy is the first guitar that was made under the Dagmar moniker. Swanson pulled the name from the hot rod subculture dictionary. Dagmars are what hot rodders call the bullet shaped adornments found on car bumpers from the 50s. Further research on the origins of this word reveal that General Motors nicknamed their 1953 Caddy bumperettes Dagmars after a voluptuous blond bombshell comedian named Jennie Ruthy Lewis. Mrs. Lewis was a regular on the Milton Berle show and used Dagmar as her stage name. It was her ample figure and trend-setting torpedo shaped bra that inspired GM to name their adornments after her.
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The guitar's checkered rim is made using keystone shaped segments made up of Honduras Mahogany and blond Flame Maple. The concave interior is laminated with two layers of Carbon Fiber and the Spruce neck and tail blocks are hidden within the rim's curve, which greatly reduces the glue surface of the plates. On a traditional guitar the top and back are glued to the neck and tail blocks, impeding the plate's ability to vibrate freely in these areas. The compound curved rim also takes the brunt of the lateral string tension, which reduces the stress on the sound plate, allowing it to vibrate more freely.
The top sound plate is parallel braced and is finely carved from German Spruce that has some beautiful Bear Claw figure. The back is deeply furled blond Big Leaf Flame Maple.
The fingerboard, Deco Bolt bindings, peg head veneer and bridge are all made from Rosewood.
The neck is a nine-lamination design; a center of blond Flame Maple, 4 pieces of Honduras Mahogany and in between each piece of wood is Carbon Fiber. The carbon fiber adds strength and stability to the neck especially in the transition area where the fingerboard bends 15 degrees to the peg head. This area is where the wood grain is at it's shortest and weakest. A two way adjustable truss rod is also used in the neck to dial in the preferred relief. The neck is a bolt on unit that cantilevers above the top plate, again to promote unimpeded vibrations. This neck design is the Dagmar standard.
Other features include Schaller tuners, a natural bone nut and an Ebony tailpiece with a numeric “I” inlayed in Rosewood. |
Valencia F1 circuit crumbles
VALENCIA, Spain - Valencia's Formula 1 foray is apparently over with reports that the street circuit is now falling into disrepair.
The chances the former European Grand Prix venue will return to the calendar therefore seem dim, as Marca newspaper publishes images that suggest the facility is no longer being even minimally maintained.
Thieves have stripped the circuit infrastructure of any valuable items like electronic control boxes, while an access tunnel is completely flooded by standing water.
RANSACKED
The report said: "A bridge that cost two million euros is now used only by vagrants."
The pit boxes have been "ransacked", manholes stripped of their covers, and wires pulled out of light posts.
The last Grand Prix at the Valencia street circuit was held in July 2012, and won by Spain's Fernando Alonso.
Marca: "Now, far from the glamour, the neighbours complain that there is no supervision and that thieves have taken everything of any value," said Marca. |
While we were out group-blogging for National Poetry Month, poetry news kept a'churning. One item we read in April that we bookmarked for re-blogging come May was the announcement of the Poetry Data Project at Queen Mob's Tea House. The project is the brainchild of poet Donald Dunbar and statistician Rachel Springer, and it attempts to build a map of the always already too much poetry that grows bigger by the day. As Dunbar writers:
Even the most devoted readers with access to the most expansive collections can’t claim to be up on what’s been published in the US in the last year alone, much less the last decade, much less the last century, much less in the various traditions, cliques, movements, and cultures around the world. Even if someone had the perspective to really get what all the thousands of truly interesting poets are doing, and had time enough to read them, how would they possibly cohere that knowledge into something that would point relatively new readers towards the poets or traditions they really want to get into right now?
Dunbar goes on to describe the project:
About a year ago, I was sitting around with Rachel Springer, who’s both poet and statistician, wondering at different spectra of poetry. Not good/bad, but things like wordy/sparse, and extroverted/introverted. I’m not allowed to say what categories we settled on, but Rachel broke out her stats software and created a cubic 3D graph to chart our friends’ poetry on. As we added more poets, famous and not, little clusters began forming, and as we rotated this cube, so many similarities between so many poets became easily apparent. Then we thought, what if we could make it only show, say, books published in the 1980’s? Or show poets by gender, or race, or geography, or sexual orientation? What if we could select which presses’ books to display, or show poets associated with certain schools or movements? One of the outcomes of this project will be a web-app that will allow anyone to do just that. Using the data you give us about your favorite books, we’ll create an interactive map of poetry that can be used for thought experiments, scholarship, as a guide through the bookstore, and as a teaching aid. Beyond that, Rachel wants to mine the data for secret trends. How does poetry respond to changes in the world? What trends in one tradition of poetry are mirrored in another? When has poetry been transformed, and how is it transforming now? We can’t say what we’ll find, but the more data we get, the more we’ll see.
And now you can help map poetry! Let the PDP know what you're reading. Go now to read more, and more importantly, to take the survey! |
Share. Quote from a Warner Bros investor call confirms it. Quote from a Warner Bros investor call confirms it.
In an investor call, a member of Time Warner management has confirmed that a new game in the Batman: Arkham series will be released this year.
John K Martin is the company's CFO, and you can read the transcript of his comments on Yahoo! Finance. "And we also have a strong games release this year, which will include the next release in the Batman Arkham franchise," he says. "So all in all, we expect Warners to post another very strong year in 2013. And with a little luck, the year should be as good or maybe even a little bit better than 2012."
Exit Theatre Mode
A third entry in the Arkham series has seemed inevitable for a while, but we've had no firm details on what it is or even who is developing it. Rocksteady had hinted that its next game will not be Batman-based, and Variety claimed that Warner's next Batman game will be a Silver Age prequel featuring members of the Justice League of America - but it also claimed that the game would not be out before 2014.
We'll have more news as we get it.
Exit Theatre Mode
Keza MacDonald is in charge of IGN's games team in the UK. You can follow her onIGN and Twitter. |
In a joint blog post published by FSFE legal team member Matija � uklje and attorney Carlo Piana, both lawyers argue that rooting mobile devices does not void statutory warranty under EU law. They also point out that there are very few hardware defects caused by software and that the seller of the device would have to prove such an occurrence in order to declare the warranty void. The research was carried out as part of � uklje's work for the FSFE Freedom Task Force.
According to Piana and � uklje, confusion arises from the fact that many manufacturers and sellers offer voluntary warranties that often state that flashing another operating system will void them. While this is completely reasonable and means rooting will nullify that particular warranty, it does not mean that this stipulation extends to the statutory warranty offered by EU law. Since European Union Directive 1999/44/CE does not include such a stipulation, the manufacturer and seller cannot deny statutory warranty claims if the purchase was undertaken by a consumer inside the European Union.
Under the statutory warranty, defects in the device that appear within the first six months after purchase are automatically assumed to have been present when the device was sold. In this case, the seller has fulfil the warranty without recourse. If the defect surfaces after six months but within a total of two years after the purchase date, the seller can refuse to fulfil the warranty but has to prove that the fault was caused by the consumer. According to both lawyers, "it is generally recognised by courts that unless there is a sign of abuse of the device, the defect is there because the device was faulty from the beginning."
Should the seller refuse a warranty claim because a device was rooted, the consumer can sue them in a civil lawsuit and report the incident to relevant national authorities. Many European countries have consumer associations that will ensure such a suit on behalf of the consumer and legal action of this type often does not require the litigant to hire a lawyer.
Piana and � uklje recommend users to flash the original firmware back onto the device to make sure that the defect was not caused by rooting. Then, if the fault still persists, it is quite clear that the underlying hardware is the culprit, they say.
(fab) |
Anthony Casalena, founder Squarespace Squarespace Massive flooding from Hurricane Sandy has taken out a bunch of important data centers in New York and New Jersey.
But its also lead to some incredible stories of brotherly love, including this one from New York startup Squarespace.
As Sandy swept into town, data centers Internap and Peer 1, both located at 75 Broad Street in lower Manhattan, were flooded.
Some customers, like Fog Creek Software, had parts of their websites go down.
Peer 1 customer Anthony Casalena, founder and CEO of Squarespace, was determined not to let that happen. Squarespace has tens of thousands of users who have created 1.4 million websites—so that's a big chunk of the Web Casalena has on his hands.
When he heard about the flooding, he headed over to the building, ready to carry replacement fuel up the stairs took the roof in plastic water bottles if that's what it took. A crew of people have been acting as a manual fuel pipe ever since but working that way "is not sustainable" he says. So far, his websites are safe: As of an hour ago, Squarespace was still online.
UPDATE: Casalena contacted Business Insider to say that credit for keeping the data center up should go to the Peer1 folks, particularly the main engineer onsite, Mike Mazzei. There will be a shutdown at some point but he's hoping it will be for a minimal amount of time.
Here's his story, as posted to the Squarespace status blog:
Anthony here. Just wanted to share a personal update now that I have a moment.
At around 9:00 this morning upon hearing about the fuel situation at Peer 1, I decided to head out and see if I could lend a hand. The streets of Manhattan near where I live (Soho—not in the evacuation zones) are in not-so-bad shape right now, but the damage left from the flooding in the evacuation zones is significant and real.
I'm sitting in our datacenter NOC [network operations center] at 75 Broad St. Not that it's been pointed out to me, but there are beds set up on the tiled floor here from the great team at Peer 1 who stayed to monitor the situation overnight. These guys have incredible commitment to keeping everything running, and it's great to see.
Normally, power loss would not be a major problem for our datacenter—Peer1 stayed online during the major Manhattan power outage in 2003 that lasted for days, and we preemptively shifted to backup power around 4:00 pm yesterday predicting that Con Edison would be shutting off power in evacuation zones. Given the nature of the flooding, this situation escalated greatly, submerging our reserve fuel in the basement, shutting off the elevators, and damaging the pumps required to get this fuel to the generator on the 17th floor.
My reasons for coming to the datacenter were twofold: one was simply to help and do whatever I could to help us (and the whole building) stay online. The other was to send our systems team the absolute final signal to perform a clean shutdown of our infrastructure should we be moments away from total power loss. Generally, clean shutdowns are preferable to abrupt halts, since code halting in a known state is better than code halting in an unknown state.
We had an initial warning that 10:45 am was going to be the clean shutdown time. To determine how much time we have remaining, engineers are taking readings at particular time intervals to attempt to determine how quickly we are depleting. The tank readings are behaving somewhat erratically, as there is another mechanism replenishing it from a separate fuel header. Some of our recent readings seem more optimistic, but it is impossible to predict how much fuel remains in this header at this time. As of this writing, we have at least 45 minutes left.
Bridges to the island are open right now, and we currently have a fuel truck en route. We have approval from the building to manually carry fuel up in plastic water bottles, and we have a number of our team on-site to carry fuel up the stairs as needed. I do not know if the manual plan will be successful, but we will certainly try.
Unfortunately, I do not have more information on a final resolution to this issue. You should still expect Squarespace to go offline at some point because of the hurricane's aftermath, but we will do our best to keep that downtime to a minimum. Once we have a reliable stream of fuel to the building, it will go online independently of any other grid issues related to ConEdison and lower Manhattan in general.
We'll continue to keep you posted. Thank you for your patience.
A
Don't miss: Inside Squarespace's SoHo Offices > |
The liberal mayor of “sanctuary city” Toronto now expects federal assistance in dealing with the influx of illegals streaming into his city.
Mayor John Tory fully supports his city’s “sanctuary city” status — one of four Canadian cities now so designated by their respective city councils — but doesn’t think Toronto can accommodate the increasing number of illegal refugees showing up at the city’s homeless shelters looking for aid and assistance.
Tory has written a letter to Liberal Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen seeking extra funding to deal with a refugee crisis that Toronto’s “sanctuary city” status has contributed to.
Estimates for January indicate that 810 “refugees” showed up at Toronto emergency shelters in that month — an 80 percent increase from the year before.
“Opening the doors is not enough,” Tory’s letter states.
“We must make sure our cities have the resources they need to support new arrivals and set them up for success over the long-term.”
The mayor’s letter demands immediate and ongoing funding from the federal government to assist with the city’s shelter system and its “newcomer” office, which will allow illegals coming into the city to apply for public assistance. Tory writes that the extra money is required from the federal government “to ensure that existing services are not further strained.”
Government-sponsored refugees receive programming and support for 12 months but that may not apply to asylum seekers.
Tory’s letter lavishes praise on the federal government’s “hands-off” policy toward asylum seekers who are crossing into Canada from the United States at official and unofficial border crossings and calling themselves refugees and claiming — incorrectly — that President Donald Trump is going to deport them. As a former leader of the of the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party, Tory seems aptly named, but he is known as a Red Tory in conservative political circles for his liberal social policies.
“We cannot accept people here in their time of need only to see them fall through the cracks or lack the resources to reach their true potential,” maintains Tory in his letter.
Tory is on the record as describing Toronto as “magnet” for asylum seekers because, as Canada’s largest city, illegals can blend into the sprawling and ethnically-mixed urban population. Toronto city council first declared the city a sanctuary city in 2013 but reaffirmed that designation earlier this year — the status enables illegals access to city services because they are not required to reveal their immigration status.
Dr. Meb Rashid, an employee of the Christie Refugee Welcome Centre and the Crossroads Clinic at Women’s College Hospital, expressed enthusiasm for the mayor’s pleas for federal money to alleviate the city’s problems.
“Certainly having more resources to support our colleagues in the shelter system is incredibly important,” he told CBC Toronto.
Tory’s office would not say exactly how much money it wants from the Trudeau government, which is expected to announce its annual federal budget in Parliament very soon.
Tory wants to meet with Immigration Minister Hussen to discuss his options.
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For the album by Boris and Michio Kurihara, see Cloud Chamber (album)
A cloud chamber, also known as a Wilson cloud chamber, is a particle detector used for visualizing the passage of ionizing radiation.
Fig. 1: Cloud chamber photograph of the first positron ever observed by C. Anderson.
A cloud chamber consists of a sealed environment containing a supersaturated vapor of water or alcohol. An energetic charged particle (for example, an alpha or beta particle) interacts with the gaseous mixture by knocking electrons off gas molecules via electrostatic forces during collisions, resulting in a trail of ionized gas particles. The resulting ions act as condensation centers around which a mist-like trail of small droplets form if the gas mixture is at the point of condensation. These droplets are visible as a "cloud" track that persist for several seconds while the droplets fall through the vapor. These tracks have characteristic shapes. For example, an alpha particle track is thick and straight, while an electron track is wispy and shows more evidence of deflections by collisions.
Cloud chambers played a prominent role in the experimental particle physics from the 1920s to the 1950s, until the advent of the bubble chamber. In particular, the discoveries of the positron in 1932 (see Fig. 1) and the muon in 1936, both by Carl Anderson (awarded a Nobel Prize in Physics in 1936), used cloud chambers. Discovery of the kaon by George Rochester and Clifford Charles Butler in 1947, also was made using a cloud chamber as the detector.[1]. In each case, cosmic rays were the source of ionizing radiation.
Invention [ edit ]
Charles Thomson Rees Wilson (1869–1959), a Scottish physicist, is credited with inventing the cloud chamber. Inspired by sightings of the Brocken spectre while working on the summit of Ben Nevis in 1894, he began to develop expansion chambers for studying cloud formation and optical phenomena in moist air. Very rapidly he discovered that ions could act as centers for water droplet formation in such chambers. He pursued the application of this discovery and perfected the first cloud chamber in 1911. In Wilson's original chamber the air inside the sealed device was saturated with water vapor, then a diaphragm was used to expand the air inside the chamber (adiabatic expansion), cooling the air and starting to condense water vapor. Hence the name expansion cloud chamber is used. When an ionizing particle passes through the chamber, water vapor condenses on the resulting ions and the trail of the particle is visible in the vapor cloud. Wilson, along with Arthur Compton, received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1927 for his work on the cloud chamber.[2] This kind of chamber is also called a pulsed chamber because the conditions for operation are not continuously maintained. Further developments were made by Patrick Blackett who utilised a stiff spring to expand and compress the chamber very rapidly, making the chamber sensitive to particles several times a second. A cine film was used to record the images.
The diffusion cloud chamber was developed in 1936 by Alexander Langsdorf.[3] This chamber differs from the expansion cloud chamber in that it is continuously sensitized to radiation, and in that the bottom must be cooled to a rather low temperature, generally colder than −26 °C (−15 °F). Instead of water vapor, alcohol is used because of its lower freezing point. Cloud chambers cooled by dry ice or Peltier effect thermoelectric cooling are common demonstration and hobbyist devices; the alcohol used in them is commonly isopropyl alcohol or methylated spirit.
Structure and operation [ edit ]
Fig. 2: A diffusion-type cloud chamber. Alcohol (typically isopropanol) is evaporated by a heater in a duct in the upper part of the chamber. Cooling vapor descends to the black refrigerated plate, where it condenses. Due to the temperature gradient a layer of supersaturated vapor is formed above the bottom plate. In this region, radiation particles induce condensation and create cloud tracks.
Fig. 3: In a diffusion cloud chamber, a 5.3 MeV alpha-particle track from a Pb-210 pin source near Point (1) undergoes Rutherford scattering near Point (2), deflecting by angle theta of about 30 degrees. It scatters once again near Point (3), and finally comes to rest in the gas. The target nucleus in the chamber gas could have been a nitrogen, oxygen, carbon, or hydrogen nucleus. It received enough kinetic energy in the elastic collision to cause a short visible recoiling track near Point (2). (The scale is in centimeters.)
Diffusion-type cloud chambers will be discussed here. A simple cloud chamber consists of the sealed environment, a warm top plate and a cold bottom plate (See Fig. 2). It requires a source of liquid alcohol at the warm side of the chamber where the liquid evaporates, forming a vapor that cools as it falls through the gas and condenses on the cold bottom plate. Some sort of ionizing radiation is needed.
Methanol, isopropanol, or other alcohol vapor saturates the chamber. The alcohol falls as it cools down and the cold condenser provides a steep temperature gradient. The result is a supersaturated environment. As energetic charged particles pass through the gas they leave ionization trails. The alcohol vapor condenses around gaseous ion trails left behind by the ionizing particles. This occurs because alcohol and water molecules are polar, resulting in a net attractive force toward a nearby free charge. The result is a misty cloud-like formation, seen by the presence of droplets falling down to the condenser. When the tracks are emitted radially outward from a source, their point of origin can easily be determined.[4] (See Fig. 3, for example.)
Just above the cold condenser plate there is a volume of the chamber which is sensitive to ionization tracks. The ion trail left by the radioactive particles provides an optimal trigger for condensation and cloud formation. This sensitive volume is increased in height by employing a steep temperature gradient, and stable conditions.[4] A strong electric field is often used to draw cloud tracks down to the sensitive region of the chamber and increase the sensitivity of the chamber. The electric field can also serve to prevent large amounts of background "rain" from obscuring the sensitive region of the chamber, caused by condensation forming above the sensitive volume of the chamber, thereby obscuring tracks by constant precipitation. A black background makes it easier to observe cloud tracks.[4] Typically, a tangential light source is needed. This illuminates the white droplets against the black background. Often the tracks are not apparent until a shallow pool of alcohol is formed at the condenser plate.
If a magnetic field is applied across the cloud chamber, positively and negatively charged particles will curve in opposite directions, according to the Lorentz force law; strong-enough fields are difficult to achieve, however, with small hobbyist setups.
Other particle detectors [ edit ]
The bubble chamber was invented by Donald A. Glaser of the United States in 1952, and for this, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1960. The bubble chamber similarly reveals the tracks of subatomic particles, but as trails of bubbles in a superheated liquid, usually liquid hydrogen. Bubble chambers can be made physically larger than cloud chambers, and since they are filled with much-denser liquid material, they reveal the tracks of much more energetic particles. These factors rapidly made the bubble chamber the predominant particle detector for a number of decades, so that cloud chambers were effectively superseded in fundamental research by the start of the 1960s.[5]
A spark chamber is an electrical device that uses a grid of uninsulated electric wires in a chamber, with high voltages applied between the wires. Energetic charged particles cause ionization of the gas along the path of the particle in the same way as in the Wilson cloud chamber, but in this case the ambient electric fields are high enough to precipitate full-scale gas breakdown in the form of sparks at the position of the initial ionization. The presence and location of these sparks is then registered electrically, and the information is stored for later analysis, such as by a digital computer.
Similar condensation effects can be observed as Wilson clouds, also called condensation clouds, at large explosions in humid air and other Prandtl–Glauert singularity effects.
See also [ edit ]
Notes [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
Das Gupta, N. N.; Ghosh S. K. (1946). "A Report on the Wilson Cloud Chamber and its Applications in Physics". Reviews of Modern Physics. 18 (2): 225–365. Bibcode:1946RvMP...18..225G. doi:10.1103/RevModPhys.18.225. |
Dublin city councillors have passed a motion to ban circuses that have wild animals from the council's land.
The motion covers a site on Alfie Byrne Road, which is controlled by Dublin City Council.
The move has been welcomed by the Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals whose CEO Dr Andrew Kelly said it is now time for a national ban.
Animal rights group ARAN said Ireland is a step nearer to a national ban on the use of animals in Irish circuses.
But it added there was still much work to be done to bring "our outdated and old-fashioned views of using animals for entertainment into modern century thinking".
The motion proposing the ban was put forward by Sinn Féin Councillor Noeleen Reilly.
She called for the council to support asking "the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development to introduce and ensure appropriate enforcement of a strict ban on the use of wild non-domesticated animals in circuses," and that the council "bans the use of Dublin City Council land for wild animal circuses until a time that legislation is brought in to enact a ban". |
"The problem is that white people see racism as conscious hate, when racism is bigger than that. Racism is a complex system of social and political levers and pulleys set up generations ago to continue working on the behalf of whites at other people’s expense, whether whites know/like it or not. Racism is an insidious cultural disease. It is so insidious that it doesn’t care if you are a white person who likes black people; it’s still going to find a way to infect how you deal with people who don’t look like you. Yes, racism looks like hate, but hate is just one manifestation. Privilege is another. Access is another. Ignorance is another. Apathy is another. And so on. So while I agree with people who say no one is born racist, it remains a powerful system that we’re immediately born into. It’s like being born into air: you take it in as soon as you breathe. It’s not a cold that you can get over. There is no anti-racist certification class. It’s a set of socioeconomic traps and cultural values that are fired up every time we interact with the world. It is a thing you have to keep scooping out of the boat of your life to keep from drowning in it. I know it’s hard work, but it’s the price you pay for owning everything."
—
Scott Woods (X)
he motherfucking dropped the truth.
(via mesmerisme)
THAT’S THE PRICE YOU PAY FOR OWNING EVERYTHING
(via queerfabulousmermaid)
this is a super important explanation to think about whenever you feel like telling someone that something isn’t racist because you don’t hate x person.
(via robotsandfrippary)
I probably reblogged in the past, but here it is again in that case.
(via feministdisney)
(via erikkillmongerdontpullout) |
Is Tom Brady starting to decline?
It's a topic we wrote about early last Monday, a post that just preceded a national conversation about whether Brady was still a top-five quarterback.
Watch "The Top 100 Players of 2014" every week at 9 p.m. ET on NFL Network as we count down to the top player in the NFL. "The Top 100 Players of 2014 Reactions" airs Wednesdays at 10 p.m. ET.
Cleveland Browns coach Mike Pettine said that it's "utterly ridiculous" to say Brady is outside of the top five, while Brady says that we're focused on the wrong measures for success. ProFootballFocus' compelling article on Brady focused mostly on stats. Brady said that's beside the point, when asked what statistic is most important when evaluating a quarterback.
"Other than wins and losses?" Brady answered to a question asked by Tom Curran of CSN New England.
Brady wouldn't talk stats directly, but he then got his message across.
"I think that people pay to watch the games on TV because there's a scoreboard," Brady said Monday. "I mean, I think that's what it's all about. If there were no scoreboard, then people wouldn't tune in and watch. There's only one stat that matters. The competition in the NFL is very high, extremely high on a daily basis."
"The guys that I've been around that find ways to motivate themselves, those are the best players. They don't have to wait for some Sunday in September to find out if they're competitive. You find that out in March. You figure that out in February, at the end of February when no one else really is working. The competition of what's inside of you and how that's gonna really help your team and build your team to be more competitive. That's all infectious."
These are the comments we'd expect to hear out of Brady. A cynic could call it self-serving and believe you can separate out a quarterback's performance from wins and losses. But it's worth noting that Brady gets at the inherent difficulties in evaluating all football players, especially at the game's most important position.
"You can't sit here and compare one year to another year or compare this player to that player," Brady said. "Winning games is the most important thing certainly for this organization and when you come here you learn that pretty quickly. Whatever matters to you as an individual it's far distant from what the team goals are. And the team goal is one thing. To score more points than the other team."
The latest "Around The League Podcast" picks the best receiver group in the NFL, and goes deep previewing the season with Bucky Brooks. |
President Barack Obama and Republican candidate Mitt Romney discuss foreign policy in the third and final presidential debate.
UPDATED 11:30 p.m. ET -- President Barack Obama repeatedly ridiculed GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney’s foreign policy views as dated and haphazard in his third and final debate with his Republican challenger, who in turn accused the president of diminishing American leadership during his first term.
Vote in our poll: Did the last debate influence your 2012 decision?
Obama took advantage of incumbency to remind voters throughout the 90-minute debate of his experience as commander-in-chief, and Romney’s lack thereof. The former Massachusetts governor, meanwhile, sought to project a deep familiarity with vexing global issues.
Slideshow: On the campaign trail Reuters, Getty Images In the final push in the 2012 presidential election, candidates Mitt Romney and Barack Obama make their last appeals to voters. Launch slideshow
The debate, held just 15 days before the election in the battleground state of Florida, veered at times from its stated emphasis on foreign policy and into issues of the economy and the budget – topics on which Romney holds an advantage over the president in most polls.
Rick Wilking / Reuters President Barack Obama (R) listens as Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney (L) speaks during the final U.S. presidential debate in Boca Raton, Florida October 22, 2012.
But Obama sought to do to Romney with foreign policy – disqualify him in the eyes of voters – what his re-election campaign had tried to do on Romney’s economic proposals. The president openly mocked Romney’s suggestion, for instance, that Russia is the top geopolitical foe of the United States.
"You seem to want to import the foreign policy of the 1980s, just like the social policies of the 1950s and the economic policies of the 1920s," he said.
Andrea Mitchell and NBC's Truth Squad examine claims made by each candidate at the third and final debate of the 2012 presidential election in Boca, Raton, Fla.
Obama also derided Romney’s vow to grow the size of the Navy as indicative of the GOP nominee’s dated views toward national security.
"Governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets, because the nature of our military's changed," Obama said. "We have these things called aircraft carriers, where planes land on them. We have these ships that go underwater, nuclear submarines. And so the question is not a game of Battleship."
The president says credibility is what’s important in dealing with world affairs.
Romney used his time at the debate to more broadly accuse Obama of presiding over a period of diminishing American leadership abroad.
“In nowhere in the world is America's influence greater than it was four years ago,” he said.
The former Massachusetts governor also voiced directly to the president an accusation – that Obama had apologized for American values – he has made throughout the campaign.
The president says a strong economy at home will strengthen the U.S. overseas during the third and final presidential debate of 2012.
“You said that on occasion America had dictated to other nations,” Romney said. “Mr. President, America has not dictated to other nations. We have freed other nations from dictators.”
That attack prompted Obama to respond with a blistering characterization of Romney’s own trip to the United Kingdom, Israel and Poland this past summer.
“When I was a candidate for office, the first trip I took was to visit our troops. And when I went to Israel as a candidate, I didn't take donors. I didn't attend fundraisers,” Obama said in reference to a fundraiser Romney held while in Jerusalem this summer. “I went to Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum there, to remind myself the nature of evil and why our bond with Israel will be unbreakable.”
Obama’s tough rhetoric, though, betrayed his campaign’s outward confidence amid a series of national and battleground state polls suggesting the election had tightened to a dead heat over the past month, since Romney’s strong performance in their first debate on Oct. 3. Republicans argued that the president’s posture was that of a candidate who has fallen behind Romney over the past few weeks.
Romney used a number of opportunities to steer the debate back toward domestic issues, on which the former Massachusetts governor has mostly staked his campaign. Romney got an opportunity to recount his five-point economic plan, and his direct-to-camera closing statement emphasized the economy as much as foreign policy.
The Republican nominee also largely declined to make as sharp of a case about Obama’s handling of the Sept. 11, 2012 attack on a U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, which resulted in the deaths of four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens. Romney has used the administration’s response to that incident to make up ground versus Obama, but scarcely dwelled on Libya – the opening topic of Monday evening’s debate.
The Republican presidential nominee says America must take a leading role in promoting U.S. values during the third presidential debate of 2012.
Romney also tried to dissociate himself with Republican hawkishness, refusing to engage a hypothetical question about Iran’s nuclear program, ruling out a military strike against Libya and stating the U.S. “can't kill our way out of this mess” as it relates to al Qaeda.
The debate’s tangents offered Obama other opportunities to go after Romney. The upcoming “sequester” – the automatic spending cuts, particularly to the defense budget, set to take effect at the beginning next year – prompted the two candidates to renew their squabbling over Romney’s tax plan.
And Obama – whose decision to extend federal aid to Detroit’s troubled automakers in 2009 has become a pillar of his pitch to voters in Midwestern battleground states – eagerly pounced on a tangent involving the auto industry to criticize Romney.
The Republican nominee also largely shrugged off Obama’s attacks as obfuscatory.
"Attacking me is not an agenda," Romney said early at the debate, at Lynn University in Boca Raton, Fla.
Whether Monday’s debate would provoke a thinning sliver of undecided voters to make a decision was another question, to which the answer wasn’t immediately clear following the debate.
Both Obama and Romney had arranged major rallies with their running mates on Tuesday so as to project momentum in the closing two weeks of the campaign. Both campaigns left Boca Raton with a self-professed sense of confidence, validation or dismissal of which will come on Nov. 6. |
(ICE)
In an unusual move, federal authorities are asking for the public's help in identifying a young person they believe may be in a "dangerous environment." Officials said they believe finding the boy could also help them to remove several other young people from the situation.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigations released still images of the boy from a video that appeared online. In the pictures, the boy appears to be in a basement, wearing a faded Minnesota Twins baseball T-shirt. Investigators believe the video was made within the past 18 to 24 months.
According to the ICE press release, the boy is believed to be between the ages of 13 and 19, and possibly in Minnesota or western Wisconsin. He is thought to be with other children and at least one adult, but officials aren't giving any other details about the video or the circumstances the boy is in.
"We can't directly address the nature of the video or the situation," ICE spokesman Shawn Meudauer told ABC News. "We do not have intelligence that he's in any immediate, life-threatening danger, but that could obviously change."
ICE officials say the public plea for help is "an extraordinary step…warranted by our belief that there may be young people at risk, without the ability to ask for law enforcement's help."
"This is a very rare step," Meudauer said. "I don't know when the last time this happened was. It's one of the few times, if not the only time we've done something like this."
Authorities aren't sharing details about what occurs in the video, but note that part of HSI's job is investigating crimes or potential crimes that occur over the internet. The online video was discovered by ICE cyber crime investigators during the course of another investigation.
Officials believe the boy is in Minnesota or Wisconsin, or recently left one of those states, or he might have a friend or relative in the area. The boy's Minnesota Twins shirt features a logo that only became available in July 2010.
Anybody with information that might help identify the boy is asked to call the 24-hour ICE Tip Line at 866-347-2423, or email tips to [email protected] or complete the online HSI TIP form at www.ice.gov/tips/. |
"The data show an impressive decline due to several factors but mainly mediated by human activities," Susana Gonzalez, chair of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature's (IUCN) deer specialist group, told VICE News.
The study, led by Renmin University of China professor Xiuxiang Meng, looked at a small population of reindeer in Inner Mongolia that is herded by local Ewenki people in the village of Aoluguya. The villagers have relied on the animals for their meat, milk, and hides for more than 300 years. Reindeer populations in the area peaked at more than 1,080 individuals in 1982, the study found, then plummeted to 463 in the late 1990s. They're now hovering at around 770 spread across eight herds.
According to a new study in the Journal for Nature Conservation , one population in China has declined nearly 30 percent in the last four decades as poachers, predators, and tourists exacerbate threats from climate change and habitat loss.
As images of reindeer prance across our television screens and adorn our greeting cards this holiday season, real-life reindeer populations are on the decline around the world, largely due to human activity.
Read more
As images of reindeer prance across our television screens and adorn our greeting cards this holiday season, real-life reindeer populations are on the decline around the world, largely due to human activity.
According to a new study in the Journal for Nature Conservation, one population in China has declined nearly 30 percent in the last four decades as poachers, predators, and tourists exacerbate threats from climate change and habitat loss.
Think about that this holiday season.
The study, led by Renmin University of China professor Xiuxiang Meng, looked at a small population of reindeer in Inner Mongolia that is herded by local Ewenki people in the village of Aoluguya. The villagers have relied on the animals for their meat, milk, and hides for more than 300 years. Reindeer populations in the area peaked at more than 1,080 individuals in 1982, the study found, then plummeted to 463 in the late 1990s. They're now hovering at around 770 spread across eight herds.
"The data show an impressive decline due to several factors but mainly mediated by human activities," Susana Gonzalez, chair of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature's (IUCN) deer specialist group, told VICE News.
UN climate change talks reach agreement to curb greenhouse gas emissions. Read more here.
Poachers looking for antlers are responsible for more than half of abnormal deaths, the study found. And herders often move their reindeer away from prime feeding grounds to be closer to active tourist areas, where reindeer are frequently hit by cars or choke on plastic bags. They may even be sold to tourists looking for an exotic pet.
Though these semi-domesticated reindeer face unique threats, they're not alone in their dwindling numbers. The first-ever comprehensive census of reindeer, published in 2009, found that at least 34 of the world's 43 major monitored herds had declining numbers, with an average population drop of 57 percent from their historic highs, largely due to climate change.
Earlier spring thaws mean plants sprout before the migrating herds arrive to eat them and warmer summers mean more insects, which harass the reindeer and prevent them from feeding. Freezing rain, instead of snow, can kill off lichens, which the reindeer feed on during colder parts of the year.
The decline of reindeer was forecast as early as the mid-1990s. In December 1996, the World Wide Fund reported that herds in Alaska were fragmenting as they were forced from their feeding grounds due to warmer temperatures. In Russia that year, 4,500 reindeer died from starvation linked to unusual weather events.
In 2012, unseasonally warm January temperatures in Norway increased reindeer deaths on the island of Svalbard to among the highest ever recorded — though warm summer temperatures may have created better foraging conditions and helped to offset the number of deaths.
The West Antarctic ice sheet is retreating at a much higher rate than previously thought. Read more here.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's 2013 Arctic Report Card found that declines since 1970 had varied among herds from 31 percent to 97 percent. The wide range in numbers may in part be due to natural 40- to 60-year population cycles.
"The semi-domesticated (reindeer) population in China, Mongolia, and Russia—and especially China—should be given enough concern by the IUCN Red List," Xiuxiang Meng of Renmin University told Discovery News. "Our survey showed that the reindeer in China comprise the southernmost reindeer population in the world, which is so important to the distribution and conservation of reindeer worldwide."
Gonzalez said it's important for conservation work to happen at the regional and national levels.
"The authors clearly highlight the importance of protecting the habitat by establishing natural reserves and national parks within the reindeer's range in China to conserve this fragile population," Gonzalez told VICE News. "This last recommendation is the real solution to conserve the biodiversity and to protect and respect the habitat of the species range."
Follow Laura Dattaro on Twitter: @ldattaro
Image via Flickr |
Unemployment benefits and falling tax incomes have widened the deficit The US budget deficit has moved above $1 trillion (£616bn) for the first time - with three months of the financial year remaining, official data show. The government stepped up spending to counter the recession, and the bailout of financial institutions has taken a huge chunk out of government finances. Falling tax revenues and unemployment benefit spending have also contributed. The figure compares with $455bn for the whole 2007/8 financial year, but the 2008/9 deficit was expected to soar. A budget deficit can impede spending on programmes such as health and education. Increased anxiety Congress has already approved a $700bn financial bailout and a $787bn economic stimulus package to try and jump-start a recovery. WHY DEFICITS MATTER Increased debt costs for government Increased risk of inflation Long-term pressure on dollar Could lead to higher taxes and spending cuts later And last week a senior US Democrat said legislators must be willing to consider the possibility of a second economic stimulus package. But even before the global economic slowdown, the US had moved into deficit - driven largely by tax cuts and the cost of the Iraq war. The Treasury figures showed that the budget deficit so far in the financial year, which runs to 30 September, was $1.086 trillion - a widening of $94.316bn from the month before. And the situation has led to increasing anxiety among the foreign buyers of US debt, including China. It may force the Treasury to pay higher interest rates to those who buy its debt, to make it a more attractive long-term prospect, observers say. "These are mind boggling numbers," said Sung Won Sohn, an economist at the Smith School of Business at California State University. "Our foreign investors from China and elsewhere are starting to have concerns about not only the value of the dollar but how safe their investments will be in the long run."
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Bakersfield fire dispatcher Tracey Halvorson pleaded with the woman on the other end of the line, begging her to start CPR on an elderly woman who was barely breathing.
“It’s a human being,” Halvorson said, speaking quickly. “Is there anybody that’s willing to help this lady and not let her die?”
The woman paused.
“Um, not at this time.”
On a 911 tape released by the Bakersfield Fire Department, the woman on the other end of the line told Halvorson that she was a nurse at Glenwood Gardens, a senior living facility in Bakersfield. But on Tuesday, the nurse refused to give the woman CPR, saying it was against the facility’s policy for staff to do so, according to the tape.
The elderly woman was identified by KGET-TV (Channel 17) as 87-year-old Lorraine Bayless. She died Tuesday at Mercy Hospital Southwest, KGET reported.
In the tape, a different Glenwood Gardens employee said that an elderly woman had passed out in the facility’s dining room while eating. She was barely breathing.
For several minutes, Halvorson begged the nurse to begin CPR, saying something had to be done before an ambulance arrived.
After the nurse repeatedly refused, Halvorson asked her to find a passerby or anyone who would be willing to help. Halvorson said she would talk someone through performing CPR.
“I understand if your facility is not willing to do that,” Halvorson told the nurse. “Give the phone to that passerby, that stranger…this woman’s not breathing enough.
“She’s going to die if we don’t get this started.… I don’t understand why you’re not willing to help this patient.”
The nurse could be heard talking to someone else at the facility.
“She’s yelling at me,” she said of Halvorson, “and saying we have to have one of our residents perform CPR. I’m feeling stressed, and I’m not going to do that, make that call.”
When Halvorson asked the nurse if she was going to let the woman die, the nurse said, “That’s why we called 911.”
After a few minutes, the nurse said the ambulance had arrived. The tape ended with Halvorson sighing.
The facility’s executive director, Jeffrey Toomer, sent a statement on behalf of Glenwood Gardens to KGET, the station reported.
“In the event of a health emergency at this independent living community our practice is to immediately call emergency medical personnel for assistance and to wait with the individual needing attention until such personnel arrives,” the statement said, according to KGET.
Bakersfield Fire Battalion Chief Anthony Galagaza said Halvorson followed protocol and that dispatchers give CPR instructions over the phone numerous times each year.
Bayless' daughter told KGET that she was a nurse and was satisfied with her mother's care at Glenwood Gardens, the station reported.
[Updated, 4:30 p.m.: KGET-TV said the patient did not have a do-not-resucitate order.]
ALSO:
Pedestrian struck and killed on 5 Freeway
Westside traffic jammed amid 405 Freeway construction
Californians weigh in on White House urging justices to reject Prop. 8
-- Hailey Branson-Potts
twitter.com/haileybranson |
My first experience with Notaker‘s music was like love at first sight. His Monstercat debut “Infinite” was – simply said – one of the most beautiful and astounding pieces of synthwave I had ever heard.
When I had the opportunity to listen to “Shimmer” a couple months ago, I was absolutely stoked for the song to be unveiled to the rest of the world. The song almost feels like a more melody-centric rework of “Infinite,” pulling the track’s best elements and layering over its minimal feel with indie dance flavor and bigger synths.
Along with being able to cover this masterpiece of a track, I had the honor and privilege of conducting Notaker’s first-ever interview, which you can read below:
What makes “Shimmer” really stand out from other Notaker releases?
I think it’s the vibe or mood that really sets this one apart from the rest. Most of my productions go for the “epic” sound but for “Shimmer” I really felt like this had a warm “feel good” sound to it, very happy.
What kind of struggles did you need to overcome while producing this track?
There actually weren’t many struggles with this one. I wrote it over 4th of July weekend in about two days. It came together really smoothly and there weren’t too many setbacks. The only issue I had with it was getting the key of the ‘shout’ sample that’s prevalent at every snare hit to match the key of the rest of the track. The problem I had was when I pitched the sample up to the right key the sample quality diminished horribly. So to solve this I pitched everything in the track down to match the sample. A long tedious solution to what seemed to be a simple problem, but it worked, so yay!
What has been your favorite thing about working with Monstercat so far?
My favorite thing is working with their team. Everyone at the label is so passionate about music and are such die hard Monstercat fans. They’re also just really cool people. Love those guys.
How does it feel to be releasing on a label beside names like Gareth Emery, Marshmello and Seven Lions?
It’s kind of surreal. I feel very privileged and humbled that those artists and I share a similar platform that we release music on.
Do you have any exciting collaborations or big projects you’re working on?
I do! I have a few collaborations that are in progress and a few collaborations that are finished, hoping I get to share them soon.
Who are some of your biggest influences when it comes to music?
Some of my biggest influences are Hans Zimmer, deadmau5, Eric Prydz and M83. The way those artists capture emotions and moods in their songs is what I long for as an artist.
Your music seems to be very influenced by the retro. What tops your list for classic video games?
My top classic video games would have to be Earthbound, Zelda (any of them) and Super Metroid. I just recently fired up the SNES to beat some of my old favorites again.
Last one. What’s your favorite pizza topping?
Going basic, I’d have to say pepperoni. It’s just got that classic pizza flavor that I crave.
Notaker’s “Shimmer” is out now. Grab it here: Monstercat.lnk.to/Shimmer |
Kwangmyŏngsŏng-3 Unit 2 or Gwangmyeongseong-3 ho 2-hogi (Chosŏn'gŭl: 《광명성―3》호 2호기[3]; Hancha: 光明星3號2號機; RR: Gwangmyeongseong-3 ho 2-hogi; MR: Kwangmyŏngsŏng-3 ho 2-hogi; English: Bright Star-3 Unit 2 or Lodestar-3 Unit 2) is the first satellite successfully launched from North Korea, an Earth observation spacecraft that was launched on 12 December 2012, 00:49 UTC, in order to replace the original Kwangmyŏngsŏng-3, which failed to reach orbit on 13 April 2012.[4] The United Nations Security Council condemned the satellite launch, regarding it as a violation of the ban on North Korean ballistic missile tests, as the rocket technology is the same.[5]
The launch came during the period when the DPRK was commemorating the first anniversary of the death of former leader Kim Jong-il and just before the first South Korean domestic launch of a satellite and the South Korean presidential election on 19 December 2012. The successful launch makes the DPRK the tenth space power capable of putting satellites in orbit using its own launch vehicles.
North Korea declared the launch successful, and the South Korean military and North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) reported that initial indications suggested that an object had achieved orbit.[6][7] North Korea had previously claimed the Kwangmyŏngsŏng-1 and Kwangmyŏngsŏng-2 launches as successful,[8][9] despite American military sources claiming that they failed to achieve orbit.[10][11]
Several days after the launch, Western sources stated that, while the satellite had indeed initially achieved orbit, it now seemed to be tumbling, and was probably out of control.[12]
Etymology [ edit ]
The name "Kwangmyŏngsŏng" is richly symbolic for North Korean nationalism and the Kim family cult. While Soviet records recount that the late North Korean leader Kim Jong-il was born in the village of Vyatskoye near Khabarovsk in the Russian Far East,[13] DPRK internal sources claim that Kim was born on Mount Baekdu and that on that day a bright lodestar ("kwangmyŏngsŏng") appeared in the sky.[14]
Background [ edit ]
The launch of Kwangmyŏngsŏng-3 Unit 2 was the fourth North Korean attempt to orbit a satellite, and North Korea claimed that two of the previous launches had placed their payloads into orbit despite several other countries confirming that the launches had failed, and no independent confirmation that the satellite was in orbit.[15] The first attempt occurred in August 1998, with a Baekdusan carrier rocket attempting to launch Kwangmyŏngsŏng-1; the second occurred in April 2009 with Kwangmyŏngsŏng-2, and the third in April 2012 with the original Kwangmyŏngsŏng-3. The April 2012 launch was the only one which North Korea acknowledged to have failed. However, the launch of Kwangmyongsong 3 Unit 2 made North Korea the tenth country to place a satellite into orbit using an indigenously developed carrier rocket.[16] The rocket was largely made using domestically produced parts and technology; this ability is seen as cause for greater concern over North Korea's ability to develop ballistic missile technology despite sanctions.[17]
Pre-launch announcement [ edit ]
The launch was announced on 1 December 2012, when the Korean Central News Agency reported that the Korean Committee of Space Technology informed them that they "[plan] to launch another working satellite, second version of Kwangmyŏngsŏng-3, manufactured by its own efforts and with its own technology, true to the behests of leader Kim Jong-il," with a prospective launch window of 10–22 December 2012 given. The launcher splashdown zones were reported to the International Maritime Organization, indicating a polar orbit was intended.[18]
On 8 December 2012, KCNA reported that the KCST answered the "question raised by KCNA, as regards the launch of the second version of Kwangmyŏngsŏng-3 satellite" and also reported that the launch period was extended to 29 December 2012.
Satellite [ edit ]
North Korea claims the satellite would estimate crop yields and collect weather data as well as assess the country's forest coverage and natural resources. The country also claims that the satellite weighed about 100 kg (220 lbs) and that its planned lifetime was about two years.[19]
Launch [ edit ]
On 12 December 2012, Kwangmyŏngsŏng-3 was launched from the Sohae Satellite Launching Ground at 00:49:46 UTC (09:49 KST).[20] The North American Aerospace Defense Command was able to track the rocket at this time. The first stage impacted the ocean 200 kilometres (120 mi) off the west coast of South Korea at 00:58, with the fairing coming down one minute later 100 kilometres (62 mi) downrange. At 01:01, the rocket flew over Okinawa, with the second stage impacting 300 kilometres (190 mi) east of the Philippines four minutes later.[20][21] During the ascent the rocket performed a dog-leg manoeuvre to increase its inclination sufficiently to attain sun-synchronous orbit.
The satellite was deployed into a sun-synchronous polar orbit with an apogee of 584 kilometres (363 mi), a perigee of 499 kilometres (310 mi), 97.4 degrees of orbital inclination, and an orbital period of 95 minutes and 29 seconds.[22] The spacecraft separated from the rocket's third stage at 00:59:13; nine minutes and 27 seconds after liftoff.
The U.S. Space Command began to track three objects from the launch, giving Kwangmyŏngsŏng-3 the Satellite Catalog Number 39026 and the international designator 2012-072A.[23] They later began tracking a fourth object that was related to the launch.
The following day, U.S. officials tracking the satellite reported that it appeared to be "tumbling out of control" in its orbit.[24] However North Korean sources said that the satellite was orbiting normally.[25] Data collected by Spain, Italy and Britain suggest the brightness of the satellite has been fluctuating, which indicates it is tumbling as it orbits.[26]
Examination [ edit ]
South Korean missile experts examined components of the missile from the two stages of the rocket that fell back to Earth. Initially they reported the components were of poor quality and some foreign made. Further examination revealed that most of the components were produced domestically in North Korea. They were effective for the launch, but found mostly to be crude, unreliable, and inefficient. The rocket design was based on older technologies of the 1960s and 70s. The design of the rocket engine was almost identical to one built in Iran.[27]
Reaction [ edit ]
At noon local time, the Korean Central News Agency released a news report on the launch:
Pyongyang, December 12 (KCNA) -- The second version of satellite Kwangmyŏngsŏng-3 successfully lifted off from the Sohae Space Center in Cholsan County, North Phyongan Province by carrier rocket Unha-3 on Wednesday. The satellite entered its preset orbit. — KCNA
The report was followed by a more detailed report later in the afternoon stating:
Scientists and technicians of the DPRK successfully launched the second version of satellite Kwangmyŏngsŏng-3 into its orbit by carrier rocket Unha-3, true to the last instructions of leader Kim Jong Il. Carrier rocket Unha-3 with the second version of satellite Kwangmyŏngsŏng-3 atop blasted off from the Sohae Space Center in Cholsan County, North Phyongan Province at 09:49:46 on December 12, Juche 101(2012). The satellite entered its preset orbit at 09:59:13, 9 minutes and 27 seconds after the lift-off. The satellite is going round the polar orbit at 499.7 km perigee altitude and 584.18 km apogee altitude at the angle of inclination of 97.4 degrees. Its cycle is 95 minutes and 29 seconds. The scientific and technological satellite is fitted with survey and communications devices essential for the observation of the earth. The successful launch of the satellite is a proud fruition of the Workers' Party of Korea's policy of attaching importance to the science and technology. It is also an event of great turn in developing the country's science, technology and economy by fully exercising the independent right to use space for peaceful purposes. At a time when great yearnings and reverence for Kim Jong Il pervade the whole country, its scientists and technicians brilliantly carried out his behests to launch a scientific and technological satellite in 2012, the year marking the 100th birth anniversary of President Kim Il Sung. — KCNA
On 20 December, the Korean Central Television aired a 27-minute documentary titled "Successful Launch of Kwangmyongsong 3-2 under the Leadership of Dear Respected Marshal Kim Jong-Un". The documentary showed footage of the preparations for the rocket launch and how Kim Jong-Un was involved in the preparations.[28]
Internal celebrations [ edit ]
Government vans with loudspeakers brought the news of the launch of Kwangmyŏngsŏng-3 to Pyongyang soon after the launch.[29][30] On 14 December state television in North Korea broadcast images of hundreds of thousands of people celebrating the successful launch in Pyongyang's central square, while military and scientific personnel gave speeches. According to the news report, Kim Jong-Un had ordered more satellite launches after achieving orbit with Kwangmyŏngsŏng-3.[31]
According to a report from Radio Free Asia, following the launch, the KCNA alerted people to watch a "Special News" announcement. Afterward people throughout the country were pulled from work and school to participate in mass celebrations. Those in Sinuiju, Pyongan were forced to dance in freezing weather to celebrate North Korea's success.[32]
International response [ edit ]
Countries [ edit ]
Organizations [ edit ]
Registration [ edit ]
On 22 February 2013, the Permanent Mission of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea to the United Nations registered the satellite in conformity with the Convention on Registration of Objects Launched into Outer Space.[54] In the registration, North Korea states that the function is to survey crops, forest resources and natural disasters.[54] |
NeuroVoider* is a twin-stick shooter RPG set in a cyber futuristic world about brains shooting around evil robots with nuclear rocket launchers. Battle through the horde of vigilant robots, boost your character with the smoking remains of your victims, and defeat the master NeuroVoider to end this eternal war. Play it coop with up to 4 friends, or go alone in an adventure of hack'n'slash rampage, with a pinch of rogue-lite, and some permadeath.
Dedicated website: http://neurovoider.com/
* may contain explosions.
Features
Action packed top-down shooting. May include explosions.
Local multiplayer up to 4 players. Total coop rampage.
Procedurally generated content and hazards. Hope you don't mind a few game overs.
8736 unique enemies to blow up. Yes, we counted.
Tons of loot to customize your character with. Explode your foes with that "double twin-plasma shotgun of father doom" you've just dropped.
Gigantic bosses to challenge your bullet dodging skills. Chances are that they don't fit on your 4K monitor.
Powerful dark synth music by Dan Terminus. May your ears survive the beat.
All purchases include a Steam key.
Requires an OpenGL 3.0 (DirectX 10 equivalent) compliant graphics card and driver.
Soundtrack
Soundtrack by Dan Terminus
From the album "The Wrath of Code"
Courtesy of Blood Music
—
Get it on Bandcamp |
Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee says the United States should have the most "formidable, fierce, military in the history of mankind" with the ability to defeat ISIS, Boko Haram, Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran within 10 days.
"Well the easiest thing in the world is to go back to what we should have or could have done, but presidents don't get to back in time like Marty McFly and live back to the future," the former governor of Arkansas said in an interview with American Heartland with Dr. Grace while discussing if he thought invading Iraq was a mistake.
"We have to work with the facts we have. So there is no point in speculating, should we have done it? I think the question is, 'what do we do in light of the situation we are in?'"
Huckabee said the ultimate solution is for America's military to be the strongest "in the history of mankind" with the ability to defeat threats like "ISIS, Boko Haram, Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Iranians, whatever it is" in "a 10-day exercise."
"And here is what we have to do: America has to have the most formidable, fierce, military in the history of mankind," stated Huckabee.
"So when we have a threat, whether it is ISIS, Boko Haram, Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Iranians, whatever it is, we make it very clear that we plan to push back and destroy that threat to us. And we won't take 10 years doing it, we hopefully won't even take 10 months, it will be like a 10 day exercise, because the fierceness of our forces would mean that we can absolutely guarantee the outcome of this film. That's how America needs to operate in the world of foreign affairs, and foreign policy."
Huckabee added he would not take grounds troops off the table to fight ISIS.
"We have to leave that as an option," he said. "We can't leave anything off the table." |
NEW YORK -- One can only imagine the thoughts running through Alex Rodriguez's head as he looked over into the Yankees dugout just a few steps into his home run trot:
Had the ball been caught? Did it hook foul at the last moment? Were all the scurrilous rumors true? Did his teammates really all hate him?
After all, he had just hit a walk-off home run -- or so he thought -- and nobody was vaulting over the dugout rail to mob him or reaching for a pie to smash into his face.
"I thought I hit a much bigger home run than I actually hit,'' Rodriguez said. "I looked over at A.J. [Burnett] and [Andy] Pettitte in the dugout and they weren't moving. That's when I kinda started to figure we had one more half-inning to play. It was pretty embarrassing.''
Nothing of the sort, of course. A game-winning home run in the bottom of the eighth inning is every bit as big, if not quite as exciting, as one hit in the bottom of the ninth, and the effect is exactly the same.
For A-Rod and the Yankees on Thursday, a two-run homer in the eighth proves just as good as a walk-off in the ninth. Zach Ornitz/THE STAR-LEDGER/US Presswire
Rodriguez's two-run homer off David Aardsma provided the final margin in Thursday's 4-2 Yankees victory over the Seattle Mariners, a win that saved them from being swept at home by a team that is 11 games under .500 and 14 games behind its division leader.
Now that would have been embarrassing.
What happened with A-Rod was merely amusing, and so what if he didn't know what inning it was? He didn't know what day it was, either.
"We ran into some really great pitching Friday and Saturday,'' he said. "I mean, first Cliff Lee and then Felix Hernandez. Friday and Saturday, right?''
Uh, wrong. Lee beat the Yankees on Tuesday and Hernandez shut them out Wednesday, which meant A-Rod bailed his team out on Thursday.
"All I know is, I honestly thought it was the ninth inning and we walked off,'' he said. "I was gonna go to the spread and get some food. But when I saw nobody coming out of the dugout, I thought, 'Oh, crap, I better run.'"
Of course, you have to run out a ninth-inning home run, too, before you can hit the clubhouse buffet, but no matter. As manager Joe Girardi said, A-Rod's blast into the right-field seats was "a huge hit for us,'' and not just because it salvaged a game for his team.
It was also big because it indicated to him, and to A-Rod and to hitting coach Kevin Long, that the leader among active major leaguers in career home runs -- that was No. 595 for Rodriguez -- might finally be on the road to becoming a home run hitter again. And that, in turn, might help the erratic Yankees offense return to the level it was expected to play at when this $200-million-plus roster was assembled.
"We've had stretches, but I don't think we've clicked on all cylinders, I will say that,'' Long said. "I wouldn't say we've under-underachieved, but there's more in there, for sure.''
Even with Thursday's dramatic victory -- the drama made necessary when CC Sabathia, having thrown seven scoreless innings, allowed Seattle to tie the game with the help of a passed ball by Jorge Posada that set up Russell Branyan's two-run, game-tying single -- the Yankees offense has been anemic since returning home from the West Coast, scoring all of eight runs in 27 innings and managing just 17 hits over three games.
All right, so Lee and Hernandez are two of the league's best starters, but Thursday, the Mariners threw Ryan Rowland-Smith, who came in with a 6.18 ERA. And aside from a Mark Teixeira RBI groundout in the first and Robby Cano's solo homer in the fourth, the Yankees couldn't do anything against him.
It took Rodriguez batting against Aardsma, a righty with a 95 mph fastball, to avoid the inconvenience of extra innings and the possible indignity of a sweep.
"We haven't been swinging the bats the way we would like to,'' said Rodriguez, echoing a theme we have heard far too often this season, which is now 78 games old. "I think we've been definitely carried by our starting pitching. Our offense, we just been kinda here and there. We haven't been consistent all year. I feel there's a lot of room for improvement.''
Indeed. Aside from Cano, who continues to lead the league in hitting at .353 and the team in home runs with 16, none of the Yankees' regulars have been able to sustain any kind of a hot streak.
Derek Jeter has been up and down all year, hasn't had an RBI in 14 games -- the longest stretch of his career -- and, more disturbingly, is 0-for-his last 13 with runners in scoring position, according to the Elias Sports Bureau, a most un-Captain Clutch-like clip.
Teixeira had two hits Thursday to extend his hitting streak to 12 games and appears to be showing signs of coming out of his season-long funk, but he has displayed these signs before only to slip back. His average remains mired at .234.
Curtis Granderson is only hitting one point higher than Teixeira, and with 22 RBIs, has fewer RBIs than Brett Gardner. Nick Swisher has been steady, and Posada, when healthy, has been very good.
But rarely have more than two or three of them been good at the same time. Although the Yankees are second only to the Red Sox in the league in runs scored, they have scored four runs or fewer in 16 of the past 23 games, and they have been shut out twice in the past 12 days. |
Who can resist the 241st season of “America”? The dialogue crackles, with new, if outlandish, characters popping in to keep things fizzing. The latest is the president’s communications director Anthony “the Mooch” Scaramucci, who called a reporter on Wednesday to tell him that one senior White House colleague, the chief of staff, was a “fucking paranoid schizophrenic”, while contrasting himself with another by declaring: “I’m not Steve Bannon, I’m not trying to suck my own cock.”
Scaramucci in furious, foul-mouthed attack on White House rivals Read more
As a show, it has everything. There’s intrigue, as the men of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue prowl around a small, confined space, waiting to claw one another’s eyes out: call it Hate Island. But there’s also low comedy. Scaramucci’s words became public because this communications professional was apparently unfamiliar with the concept known as “off the record”. Steep learning curve, and all that.
Six months into his presidency, and the Donald Trump show remains compelling viewing. Each day brings a new twist or sees an old taboo broken. It could be Trump publicly undermining and humiliating his own attorney general, or summarily firing his chief of staff, as he did on Friday.
The reaction of much of the watching audience, especially around the world, shifts between amusement, eye-rolling disdain and bitter condemnation. On social media, Trump’s latest words or deeds are regularly juxtaposed with his past record, exposing him as a hypocrite or liar. Some days, Twitter sounds like one loud, global facepalm.
But is there any point in this constant tutting and harrumphing at Trump and his daily misdeeds? The president’s allies denounce it as elitism, a Davos-set snobbery towards the vulgarian from Queens and his uncouth, deplorable supporters. Besides, mockery by educated liberals seems only to reinforce Trump’s claim to be the champion of the left-behind, taking on a rotten establishment. The unpalatable truth is that, among at least part of his base, the worse Trump behaves, the more it helps him.
Now even a few unbending anti-Trumpists are wondering if they can face three and a half more years – at least – of daily head-shaking. This week the veteran US journalist Michael Goldfarb sighed via Twitter his frustration: “OK hashtag resisters, enough with arms akimbo huffy markings of all the hypocrisies of Trump regime. It does no good.”
He has a point. Rather than just sharing in the collective finger-wagging of the filter bubble, opponents of Trump, inside the US especially, need to act and organise. The fruit of that approach is visible today, after the seven-year Republican campaign to destroy Obamacare crumbled on the floor of the Senate.
There’s been much talk of John McCain’s early-hours no vote, but things only reached that point because Republicans had grown increasingly anxious about their own electorates. They saw hometown voters packing town hall meetings, fighting to keep the healthcare Obama gave, and they felt fear. Activism worked.
And yet it is not the only response. There has to be room too for a simple rejection of Trump’s behaviour, for a basic politics of disgust.
I felt it three times this week. The first came contemplating Trump’s address to a vast crowd of Boy Scouts in West Virginia on Monday. Like others, I assumed he would read a presidential boilerplate text – extolling duty, citizenship and the great American future that these young people would shape. But this is Trump. So he talked about himself, and the “fake news” media, and the failings of Hillary Clinton; and a property magnate friend who owned a yacht and sold his company but who got bored and Trump spotted him once at a cocktail party in Manhattan attended by the “hottest people in New York”, and on and on.
Trump has given much viler speeches. But something about the youth of this audience, their need to hear a message of promise or higher purpose, and Trump’s decision instead to speak about his own wealth and status and ego, to pollute the next generation with his petty greeds and hatreds, made it sickening.
The next day I felt it again. Trump was reading out a tribute to a 97-year-old second world war veteran. The old soldier was from Ohio, and as soon as Trump saw that word, he forgot about the war hero. He went off script and started praising himself for his performance last November. “Boy, did we win Ohio. Right? Remember? And it wasn’t like it was close.” Even that, a small moment to an old man, he couldn’t give.
The civic realm is being degraded by Trump’s lies, vanities and insults.
And in this same week, from nowhere, he tweeted a ban on transgender people serving in the armed forces, thereby shunning thousands of soldiers who do what he never did: risk their lives for their country. Of course, he had consulted with nobody, and the military have announced they will all but ignore their supposed commander- in-chief. But the casual cruelty and bigotry of it was disgusting.
Nor is it useless to keep saying so. One seasoned Democrat told me that among the reasons Trump won in 2016 was that a long year of Crooked Hillary talk, about emails and Goldman Sachs and the like, had steadily demoralised and demobilised the liberal base. If sustaining fury at Trump helps keep those same voters energised, so they eventually turn out to defeat him, it’ll be worth it, he says.
But it can’t just be in the form of world-weary, if witty, tweets. What’s needed is a coherent argument, one that explains why Trump’s repulsive behaviour matters. For Americans, that will surely centre on the state of their society. The civic realm is being degraded by Trump’s lies, vanities and insults. The national conversation is being coarsened. The basic democratic assumption, that disagreements can be resolved through discussion rather than coercion and violence, is being eroded from the very top. Note the language of Scaramucci’s outburst: “I want to fucking kill all the leakers.”
Anthony Scaramucci is vindictive, petty and unprincipled – perfect for Trump | Richard Wolffe Read more
There is a global dimension too. The wisest Americans have long understood that their greatest strength lies not in military hardware but in their status as the world’s most watched and, sometimes, admired society. As Bill Clinton once put it, “People the world over have always been more impressed by the power of our example than by the example of our power.”
Every day Trump remains in the White House, that power wanes. The US remains an object of global fascination – but also, since November, of global derision. It cannot set a lead on human rights or a free press or an independent judiciary while Trump tramples on every one of those norms. The moral distance between the US and the world’s authoritarian, non-democratic regimes – the Erdoğans and Putins, to whom Trump offers only praise – shrinks daily.
So we should hold on to our disgust. We need to voice it, not in the white noise of low-level grumbling, but as a loud and urgent argument. The Trump show is compelling – but it is also deadly serious. |
Very interesting development. I had been hearing Grease rumors for long time, and I would think an all-out live TV production would be more feasible and memorable than a motion picture reboot.
The only word about casting is that there will be a “young ensemble cast”…..that seems to imply the cast will be up and comers, rather than names.
If they just use Glee people, then such a show will only be popular with the Glee demographic. The goal of a big budget production like this is to have crossover appeal and buzz to create value for advertisers.
I think Fox might decide it needs big names because that will get more attention and make more people tune in. Will it be Taylor? I don’t know….that’s a pretty tall order.
TV viewing is declining overall in an age of games and social media, but much of the highest-rated programming on tv has a live, unpredictable element to it.
NBC used Carrie Underwood in The Sound of Music Live probably because she was the only person they could get with crossover star power (especially to middle-America) and enough talent to get it done, even if they knew traditional theater types probably wouldn’t approve of her.
Already, someone has sent me a nice E! article about a dream Grease live cast…..http://www.eonline.com/news/536454/grease-dream-cast-taylor-swift-zac-efron-drake-and-more-of-our-picks-for-fox-s-live-special
It’s possible that Fox could get huge names and not have to overpay them for their time, because some big names are obsessive about performing or proving they can do things we wouldn’t think they could do (like Tom Cruise in Rock of Ages). So I could imagine Taylor doing it and it not being concerned about not being paid the kind of money she makes recording and touring.
As for her vocal power, Taylor does 2 hour live productions….all. the. time. and I would bet her rehearsals regularly go over three hours.
If high school kids can handle doing a three hour live production, I would think Taylor can. Also, high school stages aren’t mic’d for TV. Also, high school performers don’t have commercial breaks.
But could Taylor ever fit this in in her crazy schedule?
If Taylor puts out a new album this Fall, then tours in the Spring and Summer of 2015…..even only keeping it to North American stadium shows (fewer shows overall) - that would leave next Fall as the time to rehearse and perform Grease….which would seem to be perfect timing.
But if you hear Taylor announce tour dates that go through the Fall of 2015, you’d know it is an impossibility.
Carrie Underwood was announced as the lead role for the Sound of Music Live over a year in advance.
….And that doesn’t even consider the very real chance that Taylor could play the Super Bowl in Feb. 2015…..or a year after that.
Regardless, it is not like Taylor hasn’t been here before….. |
• Two players on international duty with Brazil in São Paulo • Players should arrive back on Thursday to prepare for Everton
Liverpool are taking no risks in their preparations for Saturday’s Merseyside derby by hiring a private jet to return Philippe Coutinho and Roberto Firmino from international duty in Brazil.
The influential attacking duo are preparing to play in Brazil’s World Cup qualifier against Paraguay in São Paulo on Tuesday. The game is scheduled to start at 9.45pm local time – 1.45am on Wednesday BST – leaving them only two full days to prepare for Everton’s visit in the 12.30pm kick-off.
Liverpool’s owner, Fenway Sports Group, has sanctioned the rental of a jet to enable Coutinho and Firmino to return to training with Jürgen Klopp’s squad on Thursday.
The Anfield club has co-operated in the past with teams such as Paris Saint-Germain and Manchester City to share travel costs for their Brazilian contingent, and hired a private jet to return Sadio Mané from the Africa Cup of Nations in January. They will consider it money well spent if Klopp’s side maintain their pursuit of Champions League qualification with victory in the derby.
Brazil boast a comfortable seven-point lead over second-placed Uruguay in qualification for the 2018 World Cup with five matches to play.
Crystal Palace’s chances of signing Mamadou Sakho permanently this summer, meanwhile, will be complicated by competition from Southampton and Napoli. The France defender has impressed during his loan spell at Selhurst Park having been frozen out of the first-team frame at Anfield by Klopp, but the terms of his January move did not include an option for Palace to buy.
Southampton, who may sell Virgil van Dijk at the end of the season, and Napoli are among the clubs interested in Sakho. Klopp has been circumspect about the 27-year-old’s long-term prospects at the club and it is unlikely he will play for the Liverpool manager again.
Liverpool paid £18m to sign Sakho from his boyhood club, PSG, in 2013 and would welcome an auction for his services this summer as they seek around £20m-plus. |
Advertisement Rare federal permit allows eagle aviary on Zuni Pueblo 'We accept them as family,' official says Share Shares Copy Link Copy
An aviary that is home to 21 eagles, about 150 miles west of the Albuquerque metropolitan area, plays an important role in keeping New Mexico tradition alive."We accept them as family members," said Nelson Luna, director of Zuni Pueblo Fish and Wildlife.The pueblo, south of Gallup, has an aviary with almost two dozen of the majestic birds, male and female, bald and golden, ranging from 2 to 20 years old.Luna said he can mostly tell them apart.The pueblo has a rare federal permit which allows it to keep the birds for religious reasons. They became the first to do so in 1999."These are our relatives, so we provide them with the same care we would ourselves," Luna said.Handlers collect fallen eagle feathers, which are given to spiritual leaders."We try to salvage them while they are still pristine," Luna said. "Depending on your position in the religious hierarchy, you could use feathers for prayer offerings or costumes."Luna said the Zuni people believe that the eagles are their ancestors."We are very honored, and the reason I say that is because of the significance of the eagle with our customs and traditions," said Zuni Pueblo Gov. Val Panteah Sr.The birds have been hit by cars, electrocuted on power lines and even shot. Their injuries make it impossible for them to go back into the wild.Luna said that if the birds didn't go to the aviary to live, they would probably be euthanized.Each eagle has a unique personality. A bird named Liberty, who is practically blind, is a greeter of sorts, Luna said."When she hears something, even though she can't see them, she'll start the choir," he said.Luna said he speaks Zuni to the birds, and he believes that they understand what he is saying.The birds, who otherwise couldn't survive on their own, are helping tradition live on by giving parts of themselves they no longer need, Luna said. Zuni leaders can't go into specifics about the ceremonies because they're private and sacred to pueblo members. |
Barriers to the spread of prosperity
Enrico Spolaore, Romain Wacziarg
Since the Industrial Revolution, modern prosperity has spread from its European birthplace to many corners of the world. Yet the diffusion of technologies, institutions and behaviours associated with this process of economic modernisation has been unequal both over space and time. This column, taken from a recent Vox eBook, argues that the divergent historical paths followed by distinct populations led to barriers between them. Although these barriers are deeply rooted, their effect is not permanent and immutable.
Editor's note: This column first appeared as a chapter in the Vox eBook, The Long Economic and Political Shadow of History, Volume 1, available to download here.
The diffusion of wealth is arguably the most consequential development for human welfare in recent history. Since the Industrial Revolution, modern prosperity has spread from its European birthplace to many corners of the world.1 Yet the technologies, institutions and behaviours associated with this process of economic modernisation have diffused unequally over space and time. Why?
A recent literature has documented the important role played by deeply-rooted factors as predictors of the current world distribution of income and other economic outcomes. These factors include geographic conditions and historical events that sent different societies on different economic trajectories — the effects of bio-geographic endowments (Olsson and Hibbs 2005, Ashraf and Galor 2011), the legacy of colonialism (Acemoglu et al. 2001), the persistent effect of pre-colonial traits and institutions (Michalopoulos and Papaioannou 2013), the durable cultural impact of traditional agricultural practices (Alesina et al. 2013), and the effects of long-term history and movements of populations across the globe (Spolaore and Wacziarg 2009, Putterman and Weil 2010, Ashraf and Galor 2013), to name but a few. Many of these historical determinants are summarised in the new VoxEU eBook in which this column features (Michalopoulos and Papaioannou 2017). However, the mechanisms by which deeply-rooted factors influence current prosperity remain elusive. Moreover, studies that emphasise the persistence of historical legacies and long-term determinants raise questions about the scope for change. As pointed out, for instance, in an excellent discussion by Banerjee and Duflo (2014), there is an inherent tension between historical determinism and the ability of policy to affect outcomes. If the past casts such a long shadow, can contemporary societies escape from factors and constraints that may have historically limited their economic development?
In this column, we argue that the divergent historical paths followed by distinct populations led to barriers between them. The more divergent the historical paths of different populations, the greater the barriers. And the greater the barriers, the more difficult it was for innovations, institutions and behaviours to spread from society to society. Hence, on average, countries that are richer today are those more closely related to the frontier society where modern technologies, institutions and behaviours first arose. In order to prosper, more distantly related societies need to overcome the barriers that separate them from societies that are closer to the frontier. However, while such barriers are deeply-rooted, their effect is not permanent and immutable. Historical factors do not constitute permanent limits to the growth potential of those with disadvantageous historical legacies. Instead, barriers resulting from distinct historical trajectories can be gradually overcome, suggesting a substantial role for action and positive change.
Measuring human barriers
In principle, barriers to the transmission of prosperity can arise from numerous sources. Geographic barriers are likely to be important for several outcomes, and they are perhaps easiest to measure and control for in empirical work on the diffusion of development. Measuring human barriers – those that prevent, at a given geographic distance, the spread of innovations, institutions and behaviours – is much more challenging. In our past work, beginning with Spolaore and Wacziarg (2009), we employed a variety of measures of historical separation among populations to capture human barriers. Chief among them was FST genetic distance, a measure that captures separation times between populations: when humans migrated out of Africa, groups splintered as they moved across continents, and the groups that separated earlier had more time to drift apart genetically than groups that separated more recently. Hence, genetic distance is correlated with how long populations have had a common history. Pairs of societies with smaller genetic distance are expected to have lower human barriers to the spread of development.2
The idea behind the use of genetic distance as a general proxy for human barriers is that human traits – not only biological but also cultural – are mostly transmitted, with variation, from generation to generation (i.e. vertically). Thus, the longer two societies have drifted apart, the greater the differences in traits between them, and the greater the barriers that separate them. Of course, genetic distance is by no means the only measure of intergenerational separation times. Linguistic distance is a closely related class of measures, again based on a trait that is mostly transmitted vertically (language). Another possibility is to look directly at differences in culture, as revealed by surveys: values, norms, and attitudes (including but not limited to religion). Cultural values can be transmitted in a number of ways – vertically, from generation to generation; obliquely, across biologically unrelated members of the same society; or horizontally, i.e. across societies (Richerson and Boyd 2005). The vertical dimension of transmission is a common feature of genetic traits and language, as well as of norms and values. Thus, metrics of distance between societies that are based on these three classes of measures, while distinct from each other, should be positively correlated. This is indeed what we find in Spolaore and Wacziarg (2016a), where we further discuss and document empirically the complex links between various measures of human relatedness. In a nutshell, the vertical transmission of genes, language and culture accounts for the positive correlations between human distance metrics based on each of these traits. Yet these measures are not perfectly correlated because: i) there are differential rates of drift in genes, language and values, ii) some of these traits are transmitted horizontally, and iii) different methodologies are used to compute distances across the three classes. In our ongoing research on the diffusion of development, we use all three classes of measures.
Three examples
What is the evidence that these measures of human relatedness matter when predicting differences in prosperity? In recent work we have found such evidence in a variety of contexts. Here we will discuss three: technology, institutional quality, and fertility behaviour.
The diffusion of development
In Spolaore and Wacziarg (2009, 2014a), we documented a strong correlation between genetic distance between countries relative to the technological frontier and their differences in levels of development: two societies are predicted to have similar levels of development if they happen to be at relatively similar distances from the global technological frontier (in our applications, either the US or northwestern Europe). We interpreted this correlation as indicative of barriers to the spread of the Industrial Revolution. We showed in particular that the effect of barriers was largest just after the Industrial Revolution, when some but not all countries had transitioned to economic modernity. The effect declined as more and more societies, at successively greater genetic distances from the innovation frontier, became rich. In the age of globalisation, when barriers became easier to overcome, the effect fell further (Figure 1).
Further, in Spolaore and Wacziarg (2012, 2014a) we found that this pattern held true not just for the overall level of prosperity, measured by per capita income, but also for specific technologies (mobile phones, computers, etc.). In sum, societies that are historically distant from the technological frontier have a harder time adopting better technologies, and consequently take longer to become prosperous.
Figure 1 Standardised effect of genetic distance relative to the UK on bilateral differences in per capita income over time, 1820–2005
Source: Spolaore and Wacziarg (2014a)
The diffusion of institutions
In Spolaore and Wacziarg (2016b), we conducted a similar exercise to understand the worldwide diffusion of democracy during the Third Wave of Democratisation that took off in the 1970s. The manner of this diffusion process was similar to the spread of the Industrial Revolution: genetic distance relative to the institutional frontier (the US) matters increasingly after the onset of the third wave, and declines gradually as more countries, at greater distances from the institutional frontier, become democratic (Figure 2). What deserves further research is the precise mechanism whereby institutional change spreads from one country to the next.
Figure 2 Standardised effect of genetic distance relative to the US on bilateral differences in Polity 2 Democracy scores, 1960–2005
Source: Spolaore and Wacziarg (2016b)
The diffusion of the fertility transition in Europe
In the two examples above, the effect of distance from the frontier fades away after some time, but does not disappear entirely. Yet a prediction of our diffusion model is that the effect of ancestral distance should disappear after the most distant societies have finally overcome the barriers and adopted modern technologies, institutions and behaviours. The case of the European fertility transition, starting in the early 19th century in France, affords an example where the entire diffusion process can be observed within our sample. In Spolaore and Wacziarg (2014b), we analysed this process in a panel of European regions from 1831 to 1970. We measured ancestral distance using linguistic distance, since this was more readily available for the regions of Europe than genetic distance. Initially, only regions that spoke a language close to French adopted the fertility behaviour first observed in France in the late 18th to early 19th centuries. Later, regions at successively greater distances from France adopted the new behaviour. By the end of our sample period, virtually every region in Europe had adopted modern behaviours regarding fertility (i.e. 2-3 children per household). The interpretation of this particular diffusion process is different than for our other examples for two reasons. First, the frontier society in this case was not England, but France. This fact highlights how different innovations may start at different frontiers – implying different barriers to their diffusion. Second, fertility behaviours likely diffused as the result of a process of social influence regarding appropriate norms of fertility, rather than the diffusion of specific technologies (although the diffusion of birth control methods – broadly defined – may have played a complementary role). Whatever the precise mechanism, the lesson is clear: ancestral barriers, measured by relative linguistic distance from French, predicted the diffusion of modern fertility behaviours across Europe.
Figure 3 Standardised effect of linguistic distance to French on marital fertility through time
Note: Overlapping samples of 30 years centred on the date displayed in the x-axis.The sample is a balanced sample of 519 European regions
Source: Spolaore and Wacziarg (2014b)
Conclusion: Barriers and the scope for policy
As we have argued in this column, populations that are historically and culturally more distant face higher barriers to adopting each other’s technologies, institutions, and behavioural innovations. Such barriers – measured by genetic, linguistic and cultural distance – stem from long-term historical divergence, and thus capture the effect of deeply-rooted historical factors that sent different populations on different historical trajectories. However, we have also seen that the effect of barriers is not permanent and immutable, but changes over time, as societies that are farther from the frontier also learn and adopt novel technologies and innovations.
Moreover, the frontier itself is not immutable, but changes over time, and may differ depending on the specific innovation – for example, the frontier was originally England for the Industrial Revolution, but France for the societal changes in norms and behaviour associated with Europe’s demographic transition.
If such historical barriers can be overcome – and they have indeed been overcome by many societies over time – there is room for optimism regarding the scope for change and progress, even when dealing with persistent historical factors.3 While distances themselves may be deeply-rooted in history, their impact on contemporary outcomes can, in principle, be affected by current actions and policies. For instance, policy can reduce obstacles to interactions and communication between people from different cultural and linguistic backgrounds. Our research suggests that the effect of barriers to the spread of prosperity has diminished in the age of globalisation. The ease with which ideas, people, goods and capital can flow across societal borders helps to reduce the ancestral barriers that kept populations from learning from each other. Facilitating these flows, therefore, offers the promise of lower barriers to the spread of prosperity.
References
Acemoglu, D, S Johnson and J Robinson (2001), “The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development”, American Economic Review 91(5): 1369-1401.
Alesina, A, P Giuliano and N Nunn (2013), “On the Origins of Gender Roles: Women and the Plough”, Quarterly Journal of Economics 128(2): 469-530.
Ashraf, Q and O Galor (2011), “Dynamics and Stagnation in the Malthusian Epoch”, American Economic Review 101(5): 2003–41.
Ashraf, Q and O Galor (2013), “The ‘Out of Africa’ Hypothesis, Human Genetic Diversity, and Comparative Economic Development”, American Economic Review 103(1): 1-46,
Banerjee, A and E Duflo (2014), “Under the Thumb of History? Political Institutions and the Scope for Action”, Annual Review of Economics 6: 951-971.
Galor, O (2011), Unified Growth Theory, Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Michalopoulos, S and E Papaioannou (2013), “Pre-colonial Ethnic Institutions and Contemporary African Development”, Econometrica 81(1): 113-152,
Michalopoulos, S and E Papaioannou (2017), The Long Economic and Political Shadow of History, Volume 1, CEPR Press.
Mokyr, J. (2005), “Long-Term Economic Growth and the History of Technology”, in P Aghion and S N Durlauf (eds), Handbook of Economic Growth, Volume 1B, Amsterdam: Elsevier, North-Holland.
Olsson, O and D A Hibbs, Jr. (2005), “Biogeography and Long-Run Economic Development”, European Economic Review 49(4): 909–38.
Putterman, L and D N Weil (2010), “Post-1500 Population Flows and the Long-Run Determinants of Economic Growth and Inequality”, Quarterly Journal of Economics 125(4): 1627–82.
Richerson, P. J. and R. Boyd (2005), Not By Genes Alone: How Culture Transformed Human Evolution, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Spolaore, E and R Wacziarg (2009), “The Diffusion of Development”, Quarterly Journal of Economics 124(2): 469-529.
Endnotes
1 For example, see Mokyr (2005) for an insightful historical discussion and Galor (2011) for a unified account of the growth take-off.
2 Of course, since geographic and genetic distances are correlated - because groups splintered gradually as they moved farther and farther away from East Africa, while conquering other territories - it is imperative to control for geographic distance in any work that uses genetic distance as a measure of human barriers.
3 That said, we should add that inter-population barriers do not always play a negative role in human history. They may also prevent the spread of deleterious innovations, such as hateful ideologies or disruptive behaviors, and may reduce international conflict over territories and resources (see Spolaore and Wacziarg 2016c). |
NASA is now working with private companies to take the first steps in exploring the moon for valuable resources like helium 3 and rare earth metals.
Initial proposals are due tomorrow for the Lunar Cargo Transportation and Landing by Soft Touchdown program (CATALYST). One or more private companies will win a contract to build prospecting robots, the first step toward mining the moon.
The contract will be a "no funds exchanged" Space Agreement Act, which means the government will not be directly funding the effort, but will receive NASA support. Final proposals are due on March 17th, 2014. NASA has not said when it will announce the winner.
NASA works with private companies that service the International Space Station, and those partnerships have gone well. Faced with a skeleton budget, the agency is looking for innovative ways to cooperate with the private sector in order to continue research and exploration, as it did recently with a crowdsourcing campaign to improve its asteroid-finding algorithms. That campaign was launched with another private company, Planetary Resources, the billionaire-backed asteroid mining company.
Faced with a skeleton budget, the agency is looking for innovative ways to cooperate with the private sector
According to the 1967 Outer Space Treaty of the United Nations, countries are prohibited from laying claim to the moon. The possibility of lunar mining and the emergence of private space companies has triggered a debate over lunar property rights, however.
"There’s a strong case for developing international law in this area because in 1967 it was not envisaged that anyone other than nation states would be able to explore the moon," Ian Crawford, a planetary science professor, told The Telegraph. "Clearly that is changing now and there is a case for developing the outer space treaty to include private organizations that may wish to explore the moon." |
A tax on soda and other sugary drinks in Baltimore could help reduce diabetes and obesity in the city, while generating $25.6 million for health programs, researchers at Harvard's school of public health reported Wednesday.
The researchers, who looked at the impact of an excise tax on sugary beverages on 15 major cities, said all would see significant health and economic benefits.
The study was commissioned by Healthy Food America, an advocacy group that promotes such taxes.
"We are hoping that by showing the potential significance of this, more people will consider a tax in their communities," said Jim Krieger, executive director of Healthy Food America.
The study drew criticism from the beverage and retail industries, which have lobbied against such taxes.
Taxes on sugary drinks in Arkansas, West Virginia and elsewhere have had little impact on health, said Ellen Valentino, executive vice president of the Maryland-Delaware-D.C. Beverage Association.
Arkansas and West Virginia have long-standing soda taxes, Valentino said, yet consistently rank among the states with the highest rates of obesity.
The beverage industry says it's trying to help reduce the negative health consequences of sugary beverages through a program called the Balance Calories Initiative, which aims to reduce beverage calories consumed per person nationally by 20 percent by 2025.
The country's leading beverage companies are posting the caloric content of sugary drinks where they are sold, and encouraging families to become more active, among other measures.
"While we may disagree with some in the public health community on taxes, we all share the same goal of improved public health," Valentino said.
Scientists at Harvard's T.H. Chan School of Public Health created a computer micro-simulation model for each city using data from the U.S. Census, the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey and the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, which are Centers for Disease Control programs that assess the health of Americans.
They projected the results of a 1-cent-per-ounce excise tax in each state.
In Baltimore, the researchers concluded, such a tax would cause a 6 percent decline in diabetes, 4,950 fewer cases of obesity, and $31.6 million in savings in health care costs over a decade.
The idea of taxing sugary drinks is slowly gaining support in public opinion and among policymakers.
At least five U.S. cities — Philadelphia; Boulder, Colo.; San Francisco; Oakland, Calif.; and Albany, Calif. — and Cook County, Ill., adopted such taxes this year. Berkeley, Calif., became the first in 2014.
The researchers project that the tax would raise prices on sugary drinks by 16.3 percent and cause soda consumption to drop by 20 percent.
"Once people start realizing they are spending so much on something that is not really good for them, people are shifting to other beverages," said lead researcher Steve Gortmaker.
The 15 cities the report analyzed were Baltimore; Charlotte, N.C.; Columbus, Ohio; Denver; Detroit; Indianapolis; Jacksonville, Fla.; Las Vegas; Los Angeles; Louisville, Ky.; Oklahoma City; Phoenix, Ariz.; San Diego; San Jose, Calif.; and Seattle.
Retailers say soda taxes could hurt business without improving health.
"The fact of the matter is that taxes on common grocery items don't make people healthier — just poorer," said Cailey Locklair Tolle, president of the Maryland Retailers Association. "Baltimore City needs to focus on attracting and retaining the current grocery stores, not on a policy that will chase retailer sales and jobs to surrounding jurisdictions."
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twitter.com/ankwalker |
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All 31 crew members were evacuated and there were no reported casualties, according to the company
Fire breaks out on Mexican state oil tanker in Gulf of Mexico
A fire broke out on an oil tanker of Mexican state oil company Pemex in the Gulf of Mexico on Saturday, forcing all the crew to be evacuated in the latest accident to plague the struggling firm.
Leak blamed as Mexico explosion death toll rises Read more
The blaze on the tanker Burgos occurred off the coast of Boca del Rio in Veracruz state and all the crew were safe, Pemex said in a tweet. Mexico’s Navy said there were 31 crew members and that all had returned to port.
Images tweeted by Pemex showed the vessel giving off plumes of smoke as another boat hosed the tanker.
Early on Saturday evening, Pemex said firefighting teams were still working to put out the blaze.
The tanker was carrying 80,000 barrels of diesel and 70,000 barrels of gasoline, Mexico’s communications and transport ministry said.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Fire on Pemex oil tanker in the Gulf of Mexico. Photograph: Eduardo Murillo/AFP/Getty Images
The fire follows a series of other mishaps at Pemex, which is coping with major losses, increased competition at home, sharp budget cuts and lower revenue due to the oil price rout.
Four workers killed in Gulf of Mexico oil rig explosion Read more
In April, more than 30 people died and dozens were injured in an explosion at a petrochemical plant in southeast Veracruz state, a joint venture between Pemex and another firm.
In 2013, at least 37 people were killed by a blast at Pemex’s Mexico City headquarters, and 26 people died in a fire at a Pemex natural gas facility in northern Mexico in 2012.
A 2015 fire at a Pemex platform in the Bay of Campeche affected oil output and cost the company up to $780 million.
Marine Traffic, a website that tracks vessel movements, showed the 11-year-old tanker en route to the port of Veracruz from Coatzacoalcos in the southern part of the state. |
Charlie has been thirsty for sumac tea ever since we discovered the possibility of a Minnesota grown lemonade. Great sweet and sour summer drink!
Here is how to identify:
Sumac is a beautiful plant. But one must be aware of that poisonous sumac does exist, once you learn how to easily differentiate between the edible and poisonous sumac you’re in for a summer-time treat!
Edible:
Staghorn Sumac, which is not toxic to humans and is the best species for sumac lemonade, grows as a bush/tree like structure. The leafy stems are furry. Unlike poison sumac, the leaves have ridged edges. But, the easiest way to identify is to look for the staghorn’s unique flower/fruiting structure:
This structure is what you’ll use to make your tea! And handy for you, it isn’t found on any sumac except for the Staghorn, making identification a breeze
The fruits themselves, known as drupes, grow in clusters and are red, brown or magenta in color. Fruit is ready for picking mid-late summer. I have learned that the best way to know if the fruit is ready is by doing a quick taste with your tongue. Ripeness can vary between plants in the same area, or even between flowers of the same plant, so taste test each flower you pick! The fruit should taste a little sour and sweet comparable to pomegranate—not dull and chalky.
Toxic:
Poison Sumac can be identified by the smooth edges of the leaves. These leaves a generally shiny and stems are hairless. The fruit structure are very distinct, instead of staghorn structures the fruits grow in a grape-like structure.
Sumac Tea Kombucha
Items you’ll need
-Sumac Drupes (8 to 10 drupes)
-2 gallons of water Water
-Sugar (to taste)
-1 gallon of Kombucha tea*
-Funnel
-Strainer
-Cheesecloth
-Bottles with sealed caps
Take the sumac drupes and soak in water. Let soak until the water turns a deep red color. Strain out the big drupes. Filter out the liquid with cheesecloth to gather all the extra drupes . Once strained, sweeten to your taste with sugar. Now you have Staghorn lemonade which could be enjoyed as is!
To ferment combine with kombucha tea after the tea has completed its first fermentation (see link below). Bottle the mixture and allow for a second fermentation process–this takes about 2 days. After the two days, move the unopened bottles to the frig. This slows fermentation to prevent the intensity of gas pressure from further building inside the bottles. Your sumac tea is now ready to enjoy!
*To make your own basic kombucha tea, please review here
** WARNING: Always consult an expert or identification book written by an expert when eating wild plants.
Do not eat any wild edible plant
unless you are
100% certain of its identification |
NASA's Kepler mission has discovered a world where two suns set over the horizon instead of just one. The planet, called Kepler-16b, is not thought to be habitable. It is a cold world, with a gaseous surface, and it circles two stars, just like "Star Wars" Tatooine.
Less than 20 years after discovering the first world beyond our solar system, astronomers have bagged alien planet number 700.
As of today (Nov. 18), the tally stands at 702 exoplanets, according to the Extrasolar Planets Encyclopedia, a database compiled by astrobiologist Jean Schneider of the Paris-Meudon Observatory.
Schneider's list is one of two main alien-world trackers out there. The other is called "PlanetQuest: New Worlds Atlas," run by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. PlanetQuest's current count stands at 687; the difference between the two databases highlights the uncertainties involved in exoplanet detection and confirmation.
Regardless, both tallies have been growing quickly lately. And both will add hundreds, or perhaps thousands, of new alien planets in the near future.
Hunting down alien planets
Astronomers first discovered an alien world in 1992, when researchers detected two planets orbiting a rotating neutron star, or pulsar, about 1,000 light-years from Earth. Confirmation of a planet circling a "normal" main-sequence star other than our sun did not come until 1995. [Gallery: The Strangest Alien Planets]
But the finds have been piling up recently. The count topped 500 in November 2010, and it passed 600 just two months ago when scientists with the European Southern Observatory announced 50 newfound planets, including one "super-Earth" that might be a good candidate for hosting life.
And the pace of discovery is only going to keep accelerating, as scientists continue to hone their planet-hunting techniques and the data continue to pour in.
The finds of one instrument in particular could more than double the number of known exoplanets. Since its launch in 2009, NASA's Kepler space telescope has identified 1,235 planet candidates. To date, just 25 of them have been confirmed, but Kepler scientists have estimated that around 80 percent will end up being the real deal.
This illustration shows all 1,235 of the potential alien planet candidates NASA's Kepler mission has found to date. The planets are pictured crossing front of their host stars, which are all represented to scale. (Image: © Jason Rowe and Kepler team)
A diverse array of alien worlds
The numbers by themselves are exciting, but the search for alien planets isn't just about increasing the tally. Rather, it's a quest to better understand the nature and diversity of alien worlds in our galaxy and beyond, researchers say.
And that diversity appears to be huge. Astronomers have found one planet as light and airy as styrofoam, for example, and another as dense as iron. They've discovered an alien world that orbits two suns, like Luke Skywalker's home planet of Tatooine in the "Star Wars" films.
And, perhaps most intriguingly, they've confirmed a number of planets that appear to orbit in their stars' habitable zone, that just-right range of distances where liquid water — and maybe life as we know it — could exist.
"There's zero indication that the surprises are petering out," astronomer Greg Laughlin, of the University of California, Santa Cruz, told SPACE.com recently. "Just looking at all the new discoveries on the preprint server [where many studies are posted before being published] is close to a full-time job."
You can follow SPACE.com senior writer Mike Wall on Twitter: @michaeldwall. Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook. |
One of the reasons for brewing my own Kombucha was to save money. Store bought Kombucha has a hefty price tag and I knew I could make it for pennies. My favorite and widely available variety of Kombucha has chia seeds added. There is just something about the texture and taste that makes it “fun” to drink. It comes in a few different flavors, however, I am partial (as is my son) to the grape and black currant variety. So, with my most recent Kombucha brew, I set out to make a batch Chia Fresca style.
I searched the internet high and low for tips on how to add chia to Kombucha to no avail. I was unable to find any solid information. In the end I decided to look at the nutrition information on the store bought brand to figure out approximately how much chia seed was added to the Kombucha. As I was unable to find any tips on when to actually add the chia seeds, I just “assumed” one did so when bottling (insert foreshadowing here).
How NOT to make Kombucha: Chia Fresca Style
Days 1-7: Sweet tea is happily fermenting; SCOBY is thriving, eating up all the sugar in the tea. (If you are interested in home brewing, I recommend this resource for the supplies you need to get started.)
Day 8: Taste on day 8 is perfect, not too “vinegary” and just a hint of sweetness. Remove tea from fermenting vessel and fill 8 bottles with fermented tea, added fruit juice for flavor and chia seeds for fun.
Day 9-10: Bottled Kombucha is happily fermenting at room temperature in dark cupboard.
Day 10: Remove Kombucha from cupboard, put 7 bottles in the refrigerator to chill (also stops the fermentation process) and because I can't stand to wait any longer, decide to give the grape chia Kombucha a try. BIG MISTAKE! Here's the tip I wish I would have found, “do not add chia during the fermentation cycle as when opening the bottles they explode”. We're not talking glass shattering explosion, but a huge mess of chia seeds will foam out the top and splatter all over yourself and the kitchen.
Unless you want to be picking them out of your eyelashes, DO NOT add chia seeds to Kombucha during the fermentation period.” Healthy Living How To
How TO make Kombucha: Chia Fresca Style
DO NOT add the chia seeds during the bottling (2nd fermentation) stage. Instead add the chia seeds to your finished flavored Kombucha. Give them a good stir, for a few minutes, as well as time to plump up. Your patience will pay off.
More Posts About My Kombucha Adventures |
Andrew Todhunter is going to have to wait to make his UFC debut.
The former U.S. Army sniper had to pull out of his fight against Albert Tumenov at UFC 188 on Saturday in Mexico City on Thursday night when doctors deemed him unfit to compete, the UFC announced. The fight will be canceled altogether since it's too late to find Tumenov another foe.
Ed Kapp, a rep from Todhunter's Team Guardian management firm, told MMAFighting.com that Todhunter passed out trying to make weight. UFC officials noticed the issue and alerted doctors, who administered IV fluid, Kapp said.
Todhunter, 27, took the bout on less than two weeks notice when Tumenov's original opponent, Hector Urbina, withdrew due to injury.
Todhunter (7-0), an undefeated prospect with every win coming by finish, competed in a boxing match at 200 pounds less than a month ago May 15. He told MMAFighting.com in an interview last Friday that he was still pretty far off the 171-pound welterweight maximum, but was very confident he would hit the mark. Todhunter said he lost 38 pounds in four days once before a fight and finished his opponent in the first round.
In the interview, Todhunter said he was disappointed his first UFC bout wasn't on better terms.
"That's the only part that sucks about this fight," Todhunter said. "I really wanted to come to the UFC in tip-top shape and really make a statement. But you don't always get it the way you want it. But I'm still gonna make weight and I'm still gonna fight. It's gonna be a good experience."
Tumenov (15-2), a Russian prospect, has won three straight UFC fights and was coming off a unanimous decision victory over Nico Musoke at UFC on FOX 14 in January.
"This is a really unfortunate situation, but health is the No. 1 priority," Todhunter's manager Charles McCarthy said in a statement. "Andrew was excited as anyone I've ever seen to make his UFC debut. But I know he'll be back soon and he'll make a major impact when he is." |
(Image source: NASA/Lance-Modis)
An ocean heat dome that formed over a broad area of the Pacific Ocean, the South and East China seas, and a large stretch of coastal China during late July continues to create a dangerous combination of record hot temperatures and high humidity.
According to reports from AccuWeather, the sweltering coastal China town of Shanghai hit a new all-time record high temperature of 105.8 degrees Fahrenheit (41 degrees C) on Tuesday. But this marker may just be a milepost to what is predicted to be a 107-108 degree scorcher on Wednesday and Friday. With humidity predicted to be around 50% and barometric pressure readings expected to hit 1005 millibars, these represent extraordinarily dangerous conditions.
The human wet bulb limit: 35 C
Recent climate papers by former NASA scientist James Hansen have issued warnings of the potential for wet bulb temperatures on the surface of the Earth to start to exceed levels that are lethal for humans at 35 degrees C for longer and longer periods as humans continue to warm the atmosphere. Hansen notes:
One implication is that if we should “succeed” in digging up and burning all fossil fuels, some parts of the planet would become literally uninhabitable, with some time in the year having wet bulb temperature exceeding 35°C. At such temperatures, for reasons of physiology and physics, humans cannot survive, because even under ideal conditions of rest and ventilation, it is physically impossible for the environment to carry away the 100 W of metabolic heat that a human body gene rates when it is at rest.
Different from direct air temperature, wet bulb readings measure what air feels like on the surface of the skin. The measure simulates the cooling effect caused by human sweat evaporating from the skin surface. In very dry, hot conditions, human skin temperature can remain below this lethal level as the rate of evaporation increases due to dryness. Since most of the world’s hottest regions are very dry, humans can withstand air temperatures of 120 degrees (Fahrenheit) and above. Thankfully, it is very rare that extraordinarily hot and humid conditions occur in the same locations. This is generally due to a cooling affect provided by an adjacent ocean mass — as most damp regions are also near or surrounded by cooler ocean air.
The Ocean Heat Dome
Enter the weather conditions forecast for Shanghai tomorrow and Friday…
A massive heat dome high pressure system has settled, not just over land areas of China, but directly over a large region of the Pacific Ocean and adjacent China seas. The result is that sea surface temperatures are now ranging 1-4 degrees Celsius above the already warm 1971-2000 average with a large area showing temperatures above 30 degrees Celsius (86 Fahrenheit). This large region of hot water and corresponding hot ocean air is pumping both heat and humidity into the Shanghai region. Hot ocean air is being pumped over Southeast Asia where it mixes with the already baking land mass air to form a brutal brew of very high heat and high humidity. The clockwise flow of the heat dome then pulls this mixture of record hot and humid air over the highly populated regions of Shanghai.
These ocean-based heat dome conditions are not normal, with typical heat dome conditions usually forming over land. The danger in this particular set of conditions is that very high heat combines with higher than usual humidity to result in much greater heat injury risks for humans.
(Image source: Weather Online)
Forecasts for tomorrow and Friday are showing Shanghai temperatures will probably reach at least 107-108 degrees Fahrenheit (42 C) in an area where relative humidity is forecast to be 50% and where barometric pressures are forecast to remain around 1005 millibars of mercury. This brings us to the extraordinarily dangerous high wet bulb temperature of 33 degrees Celsius.
Please do your best to stay safe
In such instances, the best defense is to find a cool, shaded location and limit exposure to heat during the hottest times of the day. Drinking cold fluids can also aid in reducing core body temperatures. A common heat mitigation aid is freezing a bottle of water and carrying it in a pocket next to your thigh. The cold bottle will contact the skin near the femoral artery, cooling blood there and transporting this cooler blood throughout the body. If extreme heat is still too much, placing the bottle in direct contact with the large veins in the neck will provide even more efficient cooling. This simple cooling pack also doubles as a means to replenish vital fluids.
Under such conditions, it is also important to be alert for signs of heat exhaustion and heat stroke to include:
Confusion
Dark-colored urine (a sign of dehydration)
Dizziness
Profuse sweating
Weakness
Muscle cramps
A lack of sweating
China has also activated emergency operations facilities and is providing information and aid in the hardest hit regions.
Unfortunately, record heat is expected to continue over Shanghai through at least next Wednesday with only one day expected to see below 100 degree (F) readings. With so many already dealing with heat stress, our best hopes are that all there will have the means to remain safe.
Hat Tips and People I Just Feel Like Promoting:
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Israeli army sources say that Hamas has aggressively increased its rocket and mortar firing tests out to sea in recent days, readying for more fighting with Israel, Israel’s 0404 News reported Thursday.
“We follow every movement of Hamas. The organization is trying to rebuild its status and condition after getting hit hard during Protective Edge,” a military source said.
Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon has said that the army and air force destroyed some 80 percent of Hamas’ arsenal of long-range M-75, mid-range Grad, and short-range Kassam rockets and mortars in the 51-day conflict during the summer.
The IDF, from land, sea, and air, contends that it can keep close electronic and visual tabs on the new tests and immediately detect any shooting carried out by the terror organization.
“We’re aware of Hamas’ training, and the tests they perform with various rockets,” according to the official.
In a propaganda video posted to YouTube in August, after the end of Protective Edge, Hamas showed the process behind the construction of long-range M-75 rockets.
Footage aired on the Hamas-affiliated al-Aqsa TV channel showed what was said to be scenes of rocket manufacturing shops in Gaza.
“The continuation of the production of rockets during the fighting is a message we give to our allies and enemies,” Hamas Spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri boasted in response to the broadcast.
“Your futile leadership claimed they destroyed our missile potency, but our manufacturers continue to produce missiles and send them to the field,” one manufacturing crew member says in the clip.
In recent weeks, Hamas has fired dozens of rockets both out to sea and at open areas in the Gaza Strip. Hundreds of mortar shells have been fired within Gaza and Hamas continues to train terrorists in sniper fire and light arms use, among other roles.
The army, as well, is readying to deploy the mid and long-range David’s Sling interceptor, to bolster the second tier of its theater missile defense system, Maariv News reported Thursday.
Known as “Magic Wand” in Hebrew, the two-stage radar and electro-optic guided system has a 70-300 kilometer range, three times that of Iron Dome, which reaches 75 kilometers, and is meant to respond to threats such as aircraft and missiles, and, at a later stage will be converted to intercept cruise missiles.
One of the first tasks ahead of the IDF is syncing the system to the existing Home Front Command tracking apparatus, to provide a complete picture of the threats to Israel’s home front.
“The system has already held several trials,” a senior security official told Maariv.
“In November 2012, the missile successfully intercepted a target. A year later there was a successful test of all the system components, in which the missile performed successfully in all phases of flight and intercepted the target as planned.”
Another source added that there will be two major tests held soon: the first to examine the system’s ability to intercept missiles fired operationally within its warning zone, and the second to prepare for the delivery of the system to the Air Force.
In November, Iran’s missile chief said in an official statement that the Islamic Republic is behind the missile buildup among the Palestinians, Syrians, and Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
“The Lebanese Hezbollah and the Palestinian resistance have grown highly powerful in this field (missile production) now,” commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Aerospace Force, Brig.-Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh boasted in an unusual admission of responsibility for the proliferation of missiles among Hamas in Gaza and other Palestinian factions.
In March, Israeli Naval commandos intercepted an Iranian ship in the Red Sea weighed down with missiles that was en route to the Gaza Strip.
The KLOS-C was stopped by Shayetet 13 troops as it was heading to Sudan, 1,500 miles from Israel.
Watch a video clip of David’s sling in a test firing: |
The Fibonacci sequence can be found in various artworks throughout history, perhaps the most well known is in Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. Others might not be so well known or that obvious. For instance, “Lateralus“, a song by American progressive rock band Tool, the Fibonacci sequence in infused in the music and the lyrics. The song is the third single and title track of their third studio album Lateralus. A lot of interpretations for Tool’s Lateralus can be found on the internet, and for some this song carries a larger than life meaning.
Maynard James Keenan, often referred to by his initials MJK, is best known as Tool’s vocalist. Maynard James Keenan’s vocals during the first few minutes of Lateralus form a Fibonacci sequence. The number of syllables progress to the sixth step, then back down to the first step; up to the seventh step, and then back to the fourth step:
Lyrics Tool’s Lateralus
[1] black[1] then
[2] white are
[3] all I see
[5] in my infancy
[8] red and yellow then came to be
[5] reaching out to me
[3] lets me see
[2] there is
[1] so
[1] much
[2] more and
[3] beckons me
[5] to look through to these
[8] infinite possibilities
[13] as below so above and beyond I imagine
[8] drawn outside the lines of reason
[5] push the envelope
[3] watch it bend
Explanation Fibonacci in music
The Fibonacci sequence shares a relationship with Phi, the golden ratio. The golden ratio is used to describe spirals, which are mentioned several times in the lyrics:
“Swing on the spiral of our divinity and still be human”, “Spiral out, keep going” twice, and “Spiral out, keep going.” five times. Also, Keenan first begins singing 1 minute and 37 seconds into the song, which equates to 1.617 minutes (the golden ratio = approximately 1.618).
The time signatures of the chorus change from 9/8 to 8/8 to 7/8, symbolizing a spiral. In addition, the number 987 is part of the Fibonacci sequence.
Popular interpretations:
“Black then white are all I see in my infancy” “Red and yellow then came to be, reaching out to me – lets me see”
The lyrics probably refer to the alchemical stages lead must go through to become gold, the philosopher’s stone (nigredo, albedo, citrinitas, rubedo) — this was viewed by Carl Jung as the individuation process, spiralling toward the higher self. Lateralus and Ænima both feature many Jungian concepts in their lyrics, and Lateralus mentions spirals quite often.
Despite this, some speculate that the lyrics refer to what an infant may see after opening its eyes for the first time: black, white and the rest of the visible color spectrum.
These words have also been interpreted to signify a psychedelic experience induced by high doses of Marijuana, LSD or DMT.The next lyrics “As below, so above and beyond, I imagine – drawn beyond the lines of reason.
“Push the envelope. Watch it bend.”
Push the envelope. Watch it bend have been thought to describe the infinite choices and possibilities presented by a presumably infinite universe, a concept which is expanded upon as the song progresses.”Over thinking, over analyzing separates the body from the mind.
“Withering my intuition, missing opportunities and I must feed my will to feel my moment drawing way outside the lines.”
Withering my intuition, missing opportunities and I must feed my will to feel my moment drawing way outside the lines.” brings to mind a passage from Frank Herbert’s Dune:”Do you wrestle with dreams?
Do you contend with shadows? Do you move in a kind of sleep? Time has slipped away. Your life is stolen. You tarried with trifles. Victim of your folly. -Dirge for Jamis on the Funeral Plain, from “Songs of Muad’Dib” by Princess Irulan”. It also echoes themes from other Tool songs, including The Grudge and Ænema. It deals with the human tendency to become too immersed in trifles which, in the end, matter very little on a cosmic scale.
” “I embrace my desire to feel the rhythm, to feel connected enough to step aside and weep like a widow, to feel inspired, to fathom the power, to witness the beauty, to bathe in the fountain…””
Next, “I embrace my desire to feel the rhythm, to feel connected enough to step aside and weep like a widow, to feel inspired, to fathom the power, to witness the beauty, to bathe in the fountain…” again may refer to the human “experience”, and the possibilities it presents.
The following lyrics:
“To swing on the spiral of our divinity and still be a human.”
“To swing on the spiral of our divinity and still be a human.” point toward the belief of human ascension towards divinity expressed in alchemy, or possibly describe pushing the limits of ingenuity and imagination, while retaining humanity.
The final, climactic verse:
“With my feet upon the ground, I lose myself between the sounds and open wide to suck it in. I feel it move across my skin. I’m reaching up and reaching out. I’m reaching for the random or whatever will bewilder me, whatever will bewilder me.
And following our will and wind, we may just go where no one’s been. We’ll ride the spiral to the end and may just go where no one’s been. Spiral out. Keep going, going…”
These lyrics may be interpreted as reaching a higher state of consciousness, or otherwise bettering oneself in a profound way.
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In the last four years, the National Rifle Association has accused President Barack Obama of plotting to ban handguns, quintuple the price of ammunition, eliminate the entire legal construct of “self defense,” and working with the United Nations to do everything short of taking Charlton Heston’s Glock from his cold dead hands—although surely that will come in due time. Few organizations have done as much of the nation’s leading gun lobby to gin up right-wing fears about the President’s secret motives—a sinister agenda that could end, NRA president Wayne LaPierre warned in February, with the end of freedom and the collapse of America as we know it.
Their reward: A meeting on Friday with the man who just might be the next President. For the NRA, Mitt Romney’s speech at their annual convention in St. Louis (alongside luminaries like Ted “suck on my machine gun” Nugent) was continued validation of their privileged status in national politics; for Romney, it was a reminder of just how far he’s willing to go prove to conservatives he’s one of them. Even if it means speaking to a group whose recent rhetoric would make the Birchers blush.
It is an awkward marriage. The NRA convention is not an especially friendly venue for a man who famously admitted to hunting “small varmints.” Although he recently confessed to owning two shotguns, Romney has done little to suggest he really knows what to do with them. When asked, at a debate in January, to identify the last time he’d gone hunting, he cracked, “I’m not going to describe all of my great exploits,” before briefly confusing elk with moose. He addressed the group by video in 2011, and only became an NRA member in 2006, when it became clear that he was going to run for president.
But Romney’s appearance on Friday was about much more than hunting. In making his pitch in St. Louis, he cozied up to a group that has capitalized on fears of a dictatorial power grab to push through legislation like Florida’s “Stand Your Ground Law,” the statute made famous by George Zimmerman which gives gun-owners the right to shoot someone in self-defense outside their home without making any effort to otherwise removes themselves from the situation.
In 2008, the NRA sent out a mailing outlining what it called “Obama’s Ten Point Plan to ‘Change’ the Second Amendment.” Although “Change” was in quotes, Obama had never actually suggested changing the Second Amendment. But that was the least of the mailing’s errors. Among the 10 steps: “close down 90 percent of the gun shops in America”; “increase federal taxes on guns and ammunition by 500 percent”; “ban use of firearms for home defense”; “ban the manufacture, sale and possession of handguns”; “Restore voting rights for five million criminals.”
None of these were part of the Obama platform. None of them have since been acted on. But none of that really matters to the NRA, which uses out-there arguments to make money and shift the conversation.
Last summer, even after the Gabrielle Giffords shooting in Tuscon had come and gone without any movement on the gun control front—and despite a number of small measures to actually loosen federal restrictions on gun ownership—LaPierre resurrected another classic right-wing conspiracy. LaPierre, author of The Global War on Your Guns: Inside the UN Plan to Destroy the Bill of Rights, began fundraising off of fears of something called the “United Nations Small Arms Treaty“—an almost-finished compact that would allow the international body to confiscate handguns from law-abiding Americans, and force gun owners to sign up for an international gun registry. One problem: There’s no such thing as the UN Small Arms Treaty. There is a proposed weapons treaty, designed to cut down on illicit arms dealing, which has yet to be drafted and which the US had taken steps to ensure won’t interfere with Second Amendment rights (even if it did, the Senate would simply block it).
Now that his 2008 fears of imminent gun confiscations haven’t been realized, LaPierre has a new line: It’s a trap! Obama’s support for pro-gun legislation is actually a trick to lure gun owners into a false sense of security, and then, Pow! “It’s all part of a massive Obama conspiracy to deceive voters and destroy the Second Amendment in our country,” LaPierre told the Conservative Political Action Conference in 2011. “Obama himself is no fool. So when he got elected, they concocted a scheme to stay away from the gun issue, lull gun owners to sleep and play us for fools in 2012. Well, gun owners are not fools and we are not fooled.” He added, “President Obama and his cohorts, yeah, they’re going to deny their conspiracy to fool gun owners. Some in the liberal media, they are already probably blogging about it.* But we don’t care because the lying, conniving Obama crowd can kiss our Constitution!”
And that seems to be the line of attack going forward. In February, he told CPAC that an Obama second term would mean “the end of our freedom forever.” He added, “If you don’t remember anything else I say today, write this down: This is the most dangerous election in our lifetime. If Obama wins, we’ll go to our grave mourning the freedom we’ve lost.”
Does Romney really believe any of this? It’s doubtful. He supported gun control laws as Governor of Massachusetts and practically never talks about the Second Amendment unless he really has to. But he’s willing to pander to those who do. Taking the stage just after LaPierre finished up a speech warning once more that “America as we know it will be lost forever” and imploring his media critics to jump off the Old North Bridge in Concord, Romney wasted no time in buttering up to his host:
“What a job Wayne LaPierre just did!”
*Guilty. |
New French president has been confident and sure-footed in first weeks, say analysts
Swift, smart and typically self-assured, Emmanuel Macron’s response to Donald Trump’s decision to pull the US out of the Paris climate accords confirmed a near-faultless debut on the international stage for France’s new president, analysts said.
“Make our planet great again,” Macron, a diplomatic novice not yet 40, exhorted the world, recycling Trump’s own slogan in an unprecedented address partly in English from the Elysée Palace soon after the US president had informed the world he was withdrawing from the global agreement on Thursday.
The phrase, tweeted minutes later as a graphic that rapidly went viral, was accompanied by a renewed invitation to US scientists, researchers and entrepreneurs disappointed by their administration’s move to “come to France and work with us together” on climate solutions.
“It was adroitly done,” said Thomas Gomart, the director of the French Institute for International Relations. “It showed a self-confidence, even a form of insolence … In terms of foreign relations, the early stages of Macron’s presidency have undeniably been a success.”
Macron’s brisk three-minute intervention on Thursday night won him praise on social media both abroad – where he was compared favourably to Trump – and at home, where it was widely and only half-jokingly suggested he should change his title to “leader of the free world”.
From his muscular handshake with Trump before last week’s Nato meeting in Brussels to his “extremely frank and direct” exchange with Russia’s Vladmir Putin in Versailles, the French president, less than a month into his mandate, has shown “boldness … agility and timing”, said the daily Libération.
Strategically, in a world of Trump and Putin, with ongoing conflicts in the Middle East and the EU weakened by Brexit, Macron aims to restore and amplify France’s global voice at the heart of a stronger Europe based on a revival of the critical postwar relationship between Paris and Berlin.
Alive to the importance of symbols and images, his style is at times purposely theatrical. Macron is determined to “rehabilitate the role of the president”, Gomart said, after what many saw as the vulgarity of Nicolas Sarkozy and the exaggerated normality of François Hollande.
“So what we see is a convergence between this young president who is the incarnation of a form of modernity, and these symbols that resonate with the French, these references to France’s history,” Gomart said. “Don’t forget parliamentary elections are not far away.”
French and international media had a field day with the Trump-Macron handshake, in which the 39-year-old French leader squeezed his much older US counterpart’s hand so hard that Trump’s knuckles whitened and he was eventually forced to relinquish his grip.
Macron later admitted the move had “not been innocent” and was “a moment of truth”, describing Trump, Putin and the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, as men who see relationships “in terms of a balance of power” and to whom it was vital “not to grant even small concessions”.
Much was also made of his public admonishment of Putin on Monday. With the Russian president at his side in the gilded splendour of the Palace of Versailles, Macron warned France would show “no weakness” if chemical weapons were used in Syria, would be “constantly vigilant” on gay rights in Chechnya, and expected the Minsk agreements on Ukraine to be implemented.
He also said firmly that Russia Today and Sputnik, two Kremlin-funded news outlets, had behaved “like agents of influence and propaganda” that had repeatedly “spread serious untruths” about him during his election campaign.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Putin and Macron at the Palace of Versailles. Photograph: Philippe Wojazer/Reuters
Polls suggest the approach is proving effective with French voters. Macron’s new political movement, La République En Marche, is on target for a 30% share of the national vote in next month’s elections – a 10-point advance since his arrival in the Elysée last month.
An Ipsos poll this week suggested the cross-party movement could win between 395 and 425 seats in the lower house of parliament, comfortably above the 289 it would need to secure an absolute majority in 577-seat national assembly.
But there were suggestions on Friday that Macron’s style may have backfired in one respect: the Washington Post reported that alongside intense EU pressure on Trump over the climate accord, agreed in the French capital in 2015, the younger leader’s tough stance could just have confirmed Trump in his intentions.
Macron’s words “irritated and bewildered” the US president, the paper quoted unnamed White House aides as saying, and may have helped inspire his comment on Thursday that he “was elected to serve the citizens of Pittsburgh – not Paris”. |
Below are the voting results for the NBA’s annual awards that are voted on by the media. For the fourth year in a row, complete media voting results for each NBA annual award are being posted at NBA.com/official. The balloting was tabulated by the independent accounting firm of Ernst & Young LLP.
Kia NBA Most Valuable Player Award
VOTING TOTALS | MEDIA BALLOTS
Winner: Russell Westbrook, Oklahoma City Thunder
Second: James Harden, Houston Rockets
Third: Kawhi Leonard, San Antonio Spurs
Fourth: LeBron James, Cleveland Cavaliers
Fifth: Isaiah Thomas, Boston Celtics
Kia NBA Rookie of the Year Award
VOTING TOTALS | MEDIA BALLOTS
Winner: Malcolm Brogdon, Milwaukee Bucks
Second: Dario Saric, Philadelphia 76ers
Third: Joel Embiid, Philadelphia 76ers
Kia NBA Most Improved Player Award
VOTING TOTALS | MEDIA BALLOTS
Winner: Giannis Antetokounmpo, Milwaukee Bucks
Second: Nikola Jokic, Denver Nuggets
Third: Rudy Gobert, Utah Jazz
Kia NBA Sixth Man Award
VOTING TOTALS | MEDIA BALLOTS
Winner: Eric Gordon, Houston Rockets
Second: Andre Iguodala, Golden State Warriors
Third: Lou Williams, Houston Rockets
Kia NBA Defensive Player of the Year
VOTING TOTALS | MEDIA BALLOTS
Winner: Draymond Green, Golden State Warriors
Second: Rudy Gobert, Utah Jazz
Third: Kawhi Leonard, San Antonio Spurs
NBA Coach of the Year
VOTING TOTALS | MEDIA BALLOTS
Winner: Mike D’Antoni, Houston Rockets
Second: Erik Spoelstra, Miami Heat
Third: Gregg Popovich, San Antonio Spurs
All-NBA Team
VOTING TOTALS | MEDIA BALLOTS
NBA All-Defensive Team
VOTING TOTALS | MEDIA BALLOTS
NBA All-Rookie Team
VOTING TOTALS | MEDIA BALLOTS |
The problem of evil is a classic dilemma in the philosophy of religion. The relative ease with which the problem can be stated belies the depth of the challenge that it presents to traditional monotheism. Roughly, it can be summarised as follows:
If God is omnipotent, then He has the power to create a world without evil. If God is omniscient, then no moment of evil goes divinely unnoticed. If God is omnibenevolent, then He has the desire to rid the world of evil.
Therefore, the world should be perfect, or at least free of undeserved suffering. Yet, a cursory glance reveals a world that clearly is not inherently just or free from undeserved suffering.
Hence, the problem of evil: how can a perfect deity allow such injustice and rampant evil in the world that He created?
Many solutions to the problem of evil – called ‘theodicies’ – have been proposed. There is the argument of free will, attributing evil not to God but to humanity’s misuse of its own freedom. Others have argued that certain kinds of moral goodness – compassion, for instance – are not possible in a world without evil, and the value of these types of goodness outweighs the evils on which their existence depends. There is also what I call ‘the big-picture defence’, claiming that evil only appears as such from our limited perspectives. Were we able to see things from the perspective of God, we would see that, in the grand scheme of things, every apparent evil plays a necessary role in making the world more perfect.
The philosopher Gottfried Leibniz’s simple solution was to argue in 1710 that this world is necessarily the best of all possible worlds. Leibniz depicts God assessing in His infinite mind all the various possible worlds that He could create. Because He is a loving God, the one He chooses to create is surely the ‘best of all possible worlds’. Leibniz’s argument suggests that it is ultimately meaningless to complain about this evil or that injustice; because this is the best of all possible worlds. We should take comfort in the fact that everything is, in the final analysis, as good as it can possibly be.
Voltaire derided Leibniz’s solution, writing a book to satirise it. In Candide (1759), the eponymous hero and his companions stumble through the world, constantly beset by bad luck and predations. They witness even greater tragedies in the world around them. Their troubles arise from the uncaring forces of the natural world, but also from the naiveté of Candide, who is constantly assured by his mentor, Professor Pangloss, that this is indeed the best of all possible worlds. In juxtaposing vivid depictions of myriad cruelties and Professor Pangloss’s blind insistence on the ultimate goodness of the universe, Voltaire demonstrates that there is a poignant reality to the experience of suffering that cannot be rationalised away. The claim that justice naturally inheres in the order of things does not bear scrutiny.
There is also a profound moral danger to certain types of theodicy.
The essential difficulty of the problem of evil is how to reconcile its apparent existence with a loving, all-powerful deity. One popular method has been to reassert the inherent justice of the world, implying, if not explicitly claiming, the righteousness of the suffering that we witness throughout it. The result is, essentially, a theological form of victim-blaming.
For example, the American evangelical preacher Pat Robertson explained the 2010 earthquake in Haiti – which killed between 220,000-316,000 people, and injured another 300,000 – as the fault of the Haitian people. The people of Haiti had apparently sworn a pact with Satan in exchange for delivering them from French rule, and the earthquake was divine retribution for that bargain (delivered approximately two centuries later). Robertson similarly suggested that both Hurricane Katrina and terrorism were divine punishment for the fact that abortion is still legal in the United States. Robertson, of course, is not alone. An Iranian mullah has blamed earthquakes on women dressing immodestly; a New York rabbi blamed the advancement of gay rights in the US for another earthquake in 2011; many Burmese Buddhists blamed a 2008 cyclone that killed approximately 130,000 people on bad karma.
The desire that motivates these interpretations is understandable. Natural disasters and terrorist attacks are either random events in a chaotic world, or they are explicable events within a discernible pattern. In the former case, we inhabit an essentially amoral universe: bad things happen to good people, children die premature deaths, and tragedy strikes without remorse, all without rhyme or reason. In the latter case, we inhabit a much more hospitable universe where there is some sort of inherent order: a place where morality is inscribed into the very fabric of things, assuring us that, if only we play by the rules, evil will be punished, goodness will be rewarded, and justice will reign supreme.
It is easy to understand the attraction of that vision. But it has a substantial dark side. Like any theodicy, it cannot simply unmake suffering, and so it instead tries to justify it. The claim that the universe is inherently just then implies that those who suffer deserve it. The existence of a just God and a moral universe is gained at the cost of condemning victims of misfortune as blameworthy. And so, hundreds of thousands of Haitians died because their ancestors made a pact with the devil. Women and homosexuals agitating for equal rights are blamed for deadly natural disasters.
Such a worldview conveniently scapegoats someone, usually whatever population someone wishes to demonise: women, homosexuals, the poor, etc. It also normalises social ills that could otherwise be addressed and meliorated. In a dark irony, holding that the universe is ultimately a just place ends up condoning the suffering and injustice that happens within it, often on the backs of those most in need.
Visions of a just universe need not function this way. Theodicy authorises only the suffering of the less fortunate when it indulges in willful blindness and insists on justice as a foregone conclusion, denying reality in favour of comforting ignorance. Alternatively, when justice is construed as hope – as a vision of what the world could possibly be – it functions as a lodestar. This acknowledges the disturbing realities with which we are surrounded, and refuses to be disillusioned by them. By regarding justice as an ideal rather than a present reality, one’s vision of the inequalities and brutalities of the present moment remains unobstructed, allowing them to be faced. The just universe in which we should believe is the one that can be created only through dedicated effort and real action on our part. But that can happen only if we refuse to take shelter in soothing fantasies. |
Fox News anchor Gregg Jarrett called for Alabama voters to reject GOP candidate Roy Moore in the upcoming Senate special election.
In an op-ed published Tuesday on Fox’s website, Jarrett calls Moore “political poison” and urges Moore to drop out of the race.
“If Moore has a conscience, he will do what is right — quit the race to be the next U.S. senator from Alabama,” Jarrett writes. “But he won’t do it, of course. His record shows that he rarely does the right thing. He is consistently self-absorbed and self-righteous — a man full of guile, but not an ounce of shame.”
Jarrett writes that the mounting allegations against Moore are “compelling” and “have the ring of truth,” while “Moore’s denials do not.”
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Jarrett specifically points to a recent NBC interview with Leigh Corfman, who, he writes, "makes a powerful and compelling case that Moore sexually assaulted her when she was a 14-year-old child."
Nine women have come forward with accusations of sexual misconduct by Moore, including assault. Many of the women said the incidents occurred when they were teenagers and he was in his 30s.
Moore has denied the allegations, but Jarrett writes that Moore’s conflicting explanations and defenses are evidence that he is lying.
Between the numerous allegations and Moore’s record as an Alabama judge, Jarrett writes that Moore, a former state Supreme Court chief justice twice removed for refusing to follow federal court orders, would be “destructive, not constructive” as a senator. Jarrett was critical of Moore as a candidate prior to the allegations.
He adds that Moore “should be repudiated by voters” on Dec. 12, when he faces off against Democrat Doug Jones for the seat vacated by Attorney General Jeff Sessions Jefferson (Jeff) Beauregard SessionsTrump says he hasn't spoken to Barr about Mueller report Ex-Trump aide: Can’t imagine Mueller not giving House a ‘roadmap’ to impeachment Rosenstein: My time at DOJ is 'coming to an end' MORE.
“[Moore] pretends to embrace the law,” Jarrett writes. “But in truth, he has shown nothing but contempt for the rule of law whenever it fails to conform to his own religiously driven interpretation. On this basis alone, Roy Moore is not fit to serve in the United States Senate. The appalling accusations of sexual assault and harassment only reinforce that conclusion.” |
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