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A local dog was rescued once, only to find herself in need of rescue again.
Tiger Lily was staying with a family after the five- or six-month old pup was rescued by Happy Trails Adoption Centre.
But last week, the foster family came home to find their West End door wide open, and no dog.
"They first thought she just ran away," Jill Hollosi from Dog Rescue Education and Advocacy of Manitoba wrote in an e-mail Sunday. "But the foster received a call (Saturday) from the thief saying to ‘stop looking; the dog has already been sold.’"’
Hollosi says the call came from a non-blocked number, and the foster family forwarded that detail to police
Even though the group was looking for a forever home for Tiger Lily, Hollosi says this isn’t something they can just accept. The dog might be in grave danger, she says.
"There have been quite a few dog thefts over the past year in Manitoba and the outcome is never good. These dogs can go into a dog fighting operations, be used for animal testing, be sold for the thief’s own personal profit or become subject to other types of abuse. It is important to find Tiger Lily, bring her home and let the dog thieves know that as a province, we will not stand for this."
Anyone who sees Tiger Lily is asked to call or text Karina at 204-782-3591.
She’s described as a sweet, friendly dog who is spayed, tattooed and micro-chipped. |
GRAPHIC and bloody footage of violent booze-fuelled brawls have been made public by NSW police, as part of their bid for statewide curbs on the sale of alcohol in pubs and clubs.
The Police Association of NSW claims politicians don't want the public to see the shocking five-minute video, which reveals explicit scenes of mass brawls, horrific injuries and extreme violence on the streets of Wollongong.
One particularly graphic part shows a man being knocked unconscious during a brawl.
He's then kicked extremely hard in the face while lying motionless on the ground, sending his head jerking sharply backwards. A close-up later shows a mass of blood pouring from his face.
The union has released the CCTV footage to try to sting lawmakers - who it accuses of inaction and "foolhardy" policies - to address the issue.
"You can't bury your head in the sand any more, politicians actually have to step up and do their job, that is protecting the community," police association president Scott Weber said in Sydney.
The union is demanding a three-month trial across NSW of 3am closing times, 1am lock-outs and restrictions on the sale of high alcohol content drinks in pubs and clubs.
It would be in line with a three-month trial in Newcastle, largely seen by police and politicians as helping reduce alcohol-related violence in the city, and would affect 320 premises.
Mr Weber also called on both sides of state politics to make the issue of tackling alcohol-fuelled crime a key issue for the March 26 state election.
"I don't think they (politicians) actually have the strategies. I think there's been powerful lobby groups in place ... sitting there telling them not to go down this path," Mr Weber said.
He accused the State Government of sitting on its hands over the issue.
State Labor's Hassle Free Nights policy, which targets some of the state's most violent entertainment districts, was "foolhardy", he added.
"We're seeing Communities NSW, we're seeing the Government not act in regards to this, keeping the community safe," Mr Weber said.
He said an application to restrict sales of alcohol in Wollongong was made 15 months ago but has not been implemented because of "red tape". |
Image caption Daniele Mancini insisted the marines would return to India
Airports across India have been told to stop Italian ambassador Daniele Mancini if he tries to leave the country, a home ministry official told the BBC.
It follows a Supreme Court order to Mr Mancini not to leave India after Rome's refusal to return two marines charged with the murder of two fishermen.
The court had allowed the marines to go home to vote in last month's elections.
Italy said on Friday it was seeking a "friendly agreement" with India to resolve the row.
The office of President Giorgio Napolitano said Italy wanted an agreement based on "international law".
The statement followed talks between Mr Napolitano and the defence, interior and foreign ministers.
Mr Mancini had personally assured the court the marines would return on time.
Home ministry officials said their advisory is just a routine follow-up of Thursday's Supreme Court order.
There has been no comment from the Italian embassy in Delhi or Ambassador Mancini.
The case of the Italian marines - Massimilian Latorre and Salvatore Girone - has led to a diplomatic row between India and Italy.
On Wednesday, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh warned that "there will be consequences" unless Italy returned the marines.
In unusually strong language, the prime minister said Italy's refusal to do so was "unacceptable".
Rome's decision has come as a major embarrassment for the Indian government and opposition parties have been demanding their immediate return.
The marines are accused of shooting the fishermen in Kerala in February 2012. They said they mistook them for pirates.
Italy argues that because the case is now the subject of international maritime law, it had been decided that the pair will not return to India once the Supreme Court deadline has expired.
Rome says it wants its nationals to be tried in Italy. As the incident took place in international waters, Italy believes India has no jurisdiction in the case.
India however maintains that the fishermen were Indian and on board an Indian fishing boat at the time of the incident. |
The only fireworks show anybody should expect in the nation’s capital will be Saturday night on Parliament Hill.
It doesn’t sound as if there will be many at Canadian Tire Centre.
Yes, Ottawa Senators general manager Pierre Dorion will huddle with assistant GM Randy Lee and their pro scouts and start phoning when the shopping for National Hockey League free agents officially begins at noon, but it’s doubtful the Senators will go on any kind of spending spree.
After advancing to the Eastern Conference final, the Senators don’t want to make big changes. If Dorion can find depth at centre to replace veteran Chris Kelly and, perhaps, another player, then that’s likely to happen.
As for defence, much has been made the need to find someone to play with captain Erik Karlsson after Marc Methot was claimed by the Vegas Golden Knights in the expansion draft, but the Senators feel good about what they have in the organization and aren’t expected to make a major move.
The answer to who plays with Karlsson will likely to come from within during training camp, with Dion Phanenuf, Fredrik Claesson and Thomas Chabot getting shots to show what they can do. The most likely scenario would have Phaneuf start the 2017-18 regular season as Karlsson’s partner.
Dorion listened to offers to trade Phaneuf, but the Senators are trying to limit changes and don’t want to do a makeover on their top four on defence. Teams showed interest after Phaneuf refused to waive the “no-move” clause in his contract so he could be exposed in the expansion draft, the Senators have been pleased with the role he has played.
Sure, the Senators looked around during the period for talking to free agents.
They’ve shown interest in Buffalo blueliner Dmitry Kulikov because he played junior hockey for Boucher in Drummondville, and reports Thursday indicated Kulikov had narrowed his list of potential destinations to four: two in the East and two in the West. That deal will likely cost more than the Senators would want to spend.
It’s also believed the Senators kicked tires on Calgary defenceman Michael Stone, the brother of Ottawa winger Mark Stone, but he re-signed with the Flames on Thursday for three years and an average of $3.5 million per season.
Defence is a position where the Senators have depth, as evidenced by the raving about Czech prospect Christian Jaros at development camp during a Thursday night scrimmage at the Bell Sensplex.
Chabot, the club’s top draft pick in 2015, is receiving plenty of attention because many feel he is the heir apparent to Methot. The Senators don’t want to place those lofty expectations on Chabot, though, and the only focus for him should be trying to make the club during training camp.
The Senators also have Ben Harpur, who was solid during the first-round playoff series against the Boston Bruins, and he should push for more playing time next season. Harpur spent most of last season in Binghamton of the American Hockey League, but you get the feeling there may be no denying him an opportunity to play in Ottawa next year.
What does all this mean?
It means the Senators aren’t likely to sign a veteran defenceman as a free agent unless an option presents itself out of nowhere. Any blueliners they do sign will likely be for the AHL club that has relocated to Belleville.
Up front, the Senators have lots of forwards and this free-agent market is thin.
The Senators could look at former Boston Bruins centre Dominic Moore or Nate Thompson of the Anahem Ducks, who has a history with Boucher from the Lightning. He made $1.7 million last season.
There’s no question the Senators will show interest in former Edmonton Oilers winger Benoît Pouliot. Bought out by that club on Thursday, he has been on Ottawa’s radar in the past and the Senators kicked tires on him at the trade deadline last season.
The 30-year-old Pouliot, from nearby Alfred, Ont., had only 14 points in 67 games with Edmonton last season. He crossed paths with Boucher while he was coaching the AHL’s Hamilton Bulldogs in 2009-10.
[email protected]
Twitter.com/sungarrioch |
Police say a woman in San Diego tried to shoot a barber because she was unhappy with her haircut.Barber Manny Montero is lucky to be alive today after one of his customers allegedly confronted him with a gun and pulled the trigger three times.San Diego Police say Adrian Swain's gun was loaded but it malfunctioned.It all began around 9am Wednesday when Swain came into the 619 Barber Shop on 30th Street asking for a haircut and shaved design, which Montero specializes in.Police say after her haircut, she left, then returned just after noon and pulled a gun out on Montero."She messed it up with some stray razors in her hair," Montero says. "She erased everything I did, messed it up with a razor, took it all off and then she came in and said, 'Look what you did to my hair!'"After the gun malfunctioned, Montero and another employee tackled her to the ground waiting for cops to arrive.Montero says he is thankful he is alive."I think I was mad, I think I was mad, that's pretty much it," Montero says. "And I'm glad, I'm glad, thank God nothing happened to me," he says. |
I promise not to let it occupy all of my life… I say as I write this at 4AM in the morning!
Actually, so far the launch has been a gigantic epic failure, not that I am shocked. As for right now the American forums are down completely.
I signed up for a Battle.NET account ( was one of 8 people alive that didn’t play WoW ), purchased my copy from Blizzard.com, went to activate it and:
This Battle.net account does not have a Diablo 3 License attached to it.
Hmmmm… go check my email, no keys sent. What the heck is going on? Battle.Net says my account is active. Turns out this is a pretty easy fix, for some reason Diablo 3 set my region to Europe, and your account appears to be region locked. Simply go to Options->Account and change your region.
For such a massive launch, that’s a pretty stupid error message. Well, once I set the region I at least stopped getting the “This Battle.net account does not have a Diablo 3 License attached to it.” message.
Instead I get:
The servers are busy at this time. Please try again later (Error 37).
Lovely.
Always on DRM for a single player game… what could possibly go wrong?
/Sigh
On the bright side, it looks like Diablo 3 isn’t going to be too distracting for now!
EDIT: A fair number of people seem to be having login problems. Unfortunately beyond the fix mentioned above, there is very little that can be done.
Error 37 and 3005 apparently just mean the servers are overloaded. All you can do in this case is keep trying.
As per the Diablo 3 support blog:
Error 37, 3005 Our servers will send an Error 37 or Error 3005 message when they are under heavy load. If you are not able to log into Diablo III and receive an Error 37 message, try logging in again. It may take several login attempts before you successfully connect.
In addition, Blizzard’s Twitter stream is directing people to this post, but it’s pretty typical connection stuff.
Sadly, most of the problems seem to be the simple fact their servers got crushed and Blizzard dropped the ball. Hopefully they pick it up and fix things quickly.
Totally Off Topic |
I beat the p*ssy up, up, up.
Hold on folks, what the hell? Did rapper LoveRance really say that he’s going to beat a vagina up? Oh yes he did. Folks, this is the state of the so called hip-hop industry today. I sadly announce that as of right now, hip-hop is malnourished and needs the love and attention that it once got.
Hip-hop has a rich history of being the voice of those who are disenfranchised. It was a way for many to express what it means to grow up, for lack of a better word, in the ghettos. Rap music back in the 80s and early 90s had a political stance and it meant something to those who listened to the music.
Rap groups such as A Tribe Called Quest or Public Enemy would challenge the political structure of America, questioning the government and asking for a redress of the grievances put upon communities of color.
Nowadays, the state of hip-hop has become something different. Artists like Lil Wayne, Nicki Minaj and Drake put up music that hits the top 100 Billboards. The music is popular, people enjoy it and they are constantly bumped in the club.
The beef I have with these artists and their music is that their music is not hip-hop, it is commercialized music that sells out an exaggerated black culture. In other words, their music is pop music and does not deserve to be labeled hip-hop at all.
While these artists may have had different music in their early mixtapes, the music produced now is shallow and disgusting. Because their songs are labeled under hip-hop, the true genre of hip-hop is rotting from the inside out.
Let’s take a look at Kanye West, one of the more popular artists out there. I remember on Facebook, everyone was proclaiming that West had dropped his greatest album yet, “Yeezus.”
They were claiming that Yeezus is revolutionary and is changing the face of hip-hop. I listened to his single, “Black Skinhead,” and was thoroughly confused about what West was trying to get across to his audience. It felt empty and seemed like West just used the beats and dark lyrics to catch attention. I admit, “Yeezus” is quite different from other hip-hop albums, but it was glamorized.
In contrast to “Yeezus,” his song “Jesus Walks” is clear in its message. Unlike the extreme beats of “Yeezus” and his confused lyrics, West clearly has a political message embedded in the song.
“They say you can rap about anything except for Jesus
That means guns, sex, lies and videotapes,
But if I talk about God, my record won’t get played huh?”
Mr. West, these verses spoke to me. It showed the sad state of hip-hop today. You said it yourself, that records without guns, drugs, violence and sex won’t get played. West implied that tracks that don’t adhere to the commercialization of black culture won’t get played by the mainstream media. But “Jesus Walks” spoke of different issues that plague the black community and his feelings about it. He spoke of the crimes and drugs that run rampant in his community and offered a message of salvation to his audience.
With West’s explosion into a mainstream hip-hop artist, West had clearly forgotten his roots, and hip-hop’s roots.
Hip-hop records today talk about drugs, guns, violence, alcohol and a glorified view of gang life. Why are these artists promoting and glorifying the various problems of the black community? Because unfortunately, that is what the mainstream media wants. Songs that glorify a life that is basically unachievable sells as the youth listen to their words one day hoping to achieve what is impossible to reach. The formula works, as evidenced by the Billboard charts and top songs of iTunes.
And that is what big companies want from their artists. Empty, commercialized music. This commercialization of hip-hop is killing hip-hop and damaging the image of black communities.
I’m damn sure that not every black person does drugs or is involved with gangs. But that’s the image that mainstream hip-hop portrays of black communities.
If you want good hip-hop music that speaks to the soul, you have to look underground. The underground hip-hop scene is nourishing hip-hop, making sure that a rich culture doesn’t die out to commercialization.
Artists such as Blu & Exile, Bambu and Blue Scholars are still rapping about issues that matter to us. Of course they aren’t well known and their music never hits the top 100 on the Billboard charts. But their music is keeping hip-hop on life support.
These artists follow what hip-hop was: metaphorical verses that make sense and take a political stance with original beats. I’m glad these artists have not sold out to mainstream culture.
Folks, hip-hop is in a critical state, living underground with life support. We need to make a change. Stop buying music that promotes violence and commercialized communities of color. Hip-hop is not about “hoes” and drugs, it is about those who need a voice. Hip-hop is the voice of those disenfranchised. Hip-hop educates those who listen, not blind them with visions of an impossible dream.
This is my plea to save hip-hop. |
[Edit: There is a now-published Bayesian reanalysis of the RPP. See here.]
The Reproducibility Project was finally published this week in Science, and an outpouring of media articles followed. Headlines included “More Than 50% Psychology Studies Are Questionable: Study”, “Scientists Replicated 100 Psychology Studies, and Fewer Than Half Got the Same Results”, and “More than half of psychology papers are not reproducible”.
Are these categorical conclusions warranted? If you look at the paper, it makes very clear that the results do not definitively establish effects as true or false:
After this intensive effort to reproduce a sample of published psychological findings, how many of the effects have we established are true? Zero. And how many of the effects have we established are false? Zero. Is this a limitation of the project design? No. It is the reality of doing science, even if it is not appreciated in daily practice. (p. 7)
Very well said. The point of this project was not to determine what proportion of effects are “true”. The point of this project was to see what results are replicable in an independent sample. The question arises of what exactly this means. Is an original study replicable if the replication simply matches it in statistical significance and direction? The authors entertain this possibility:
A straightforward method for evaluating replication is to test whether the replication shows a statistically significant effect (P < 0.05) with the same direction as the original study. This dichotomous vote-counting method is intuitively appealing and consistent with common heuristics used to decide whether original studies “worked.” (p. 4)
How did the replications fare? Not particularly well.
Ninety-seven of 100 (97%) effects from original studies were positive results … On the basis of only the average replication power of the 97 original, significant effects [M = 0.92, median (Mdn) = 0.95], we would expect approximately 89 positive results in the replications if all original effects were true and accurately estimated; however, there were just 35 [36.1%; 95% CI = (26.6%, 46.2%)], a significant reduction … (p. 4)
So the replications, being judged on this metric, did (frankly) horribly when compared to the original studies. Only 35 of the studies achieved significance, as opposed to the 89 expected and the 97 total. This gives a success rate of either 36% (35/97) out of all studies, or 39% (35/89) relative to the number of studies expected to achieve significance based on power calculations. Either way, pretty low. These were the numbers that most of the media latched on to.
Does this metric make sense? Arguably not, since the “difference between significant and not significant is not necessarily significant” (Gelman & Stern, 2006). Comparing significance levels across experiments is not valid inference. A non-significant replication result can be entirely consistent with the original effect, and yet count as a failure because it did not achieve significance. There must be a better metric.
The authors recognize this, so they also used a metric that utilized confidence intervals over simple significance tests. Namely, does the confidence interval from the replication study include the originally reported effect? They write,
This method addresses the weakness of the first test that a replication in the same direction and a P value of 0.06 may not be significantly different from the original result. However, the method will also indicate that a replication “fails” when the direction of the effect is the same but the replication effect size is significantly smaller than the original effect size … Also, the replication “succeeds” when the result is near zero but not estimated with sufficiently high precision to be distinguished from the original effect size. (p. 4)
So with this metric a replication is considered successful if the replication result’s confidence interval contains the original effect, and fails otherwise. The replication effect can be near zero, but if the CI is wide enough it counts as a non-failure (i.e., a “success”). A replication can also be quite near the original effect but have high precision, thus excluding the original effect and “failing”.
This metric is very indirect, and their use of scare-quotes around “succeeds” is telling. Roughly 47% of confidence intervals in the replications “succeeded” in capturing the original result. The problem with this metric is obvious: Replications with effects near zero but wide CIs get the same credit as replications that were bang on the original effect (or even larger) with narrow CIs. Results that don’t flat out contradict the original effects count as much as strong confirmations? Why should both of these types of results be considered equally successful?
Based on these two metrics, the headlines are accurate: Over half of the replications “failed”. But these two reproducibility metrics are either invalid (comparing significance levels across experiments) or very vague (confidence interval agreement). They also only offer binary answers: A replication either “succeeds” or “fails”, and this binary thinking leads to absurd conclusions in some cases like those mentioned above. Is replicability really so black and white? I will explain below how I think we should measure replicability in a Bayesian way, with a continuous measure that can find reasonable answers with replication effects near zero with wide CIs, effects near the original with tight CIs, effects near zero with tight CIs, replication effects that go in the opposite direction, and anything in between.
A Bayesian metric of reproducibility
I wanted to look at the results of the reproducibility project through a Bayesian lens. This post should really be titled, “A Bayesian …” or “One Possible Bayesian …” since there is no single Bayesian answer to any question (but those titles aren’t as catchy). It depends on how you specify the problem and what question you ask. When I look at the question of replicability, I want to know if is there evidence for replication success or for replication failure, and how strong that evidence is. That is, should I interpret the replication results as more consistent with the original reported result or more consistent with a null result, and by how much?
Verhagen and Wagenmakers (2014), and Wagenmakers, Verhagen, and Ly (2015) recently outlined how this could be done for many types of problems. The approach naturally leads to computing a Bayes factor. With Bayes factors, one must explicitly define the hypotheses (models) being compared. In this case one model corresponds to a probability distribution centered around the original finding (i.e. the posterior), and the second model corresponds to the null model (effect = 0). The Bayes factor tells you which model the replication result is more consistent with, and larger Bayes factors indicate a better relative fit. So it’s less about obtaining evidence for the effect in general and more about gauging the relative predictive success of the original effects. (footnote 1)
If the original results do a good job of predicting replication results, the original effect model will achieve a relatively large Bayes factor. If the replication results are much smaller or in the wrong direction, the null model will achieve a large Bayes factor. If the result is ambiguous, there will be a Bayes factor near 1. Again, the question is which model better predicts the replication result? You don’t want a null model to predict replication results better than your original reported effect.
A key advantage of the Bayes factor approach is that it allows natural grades of evidence for replication success. A replication result can strongly agree with the original effect model, it can strongly agree with a null model, or it can lie somewhere in between. To me, the biggest advantage of the Bayes factor is it disentangles the two types of results that traditional significance tests struggle with: a result that actually favors the null model vs a result that is simply insensitive. Since the Bayes factor is inherently a comparative metric, it is possible to obtain evidence for the null model over the tested alternative. This addresses my problem I had with the above metrics: Replication results bang on the original effects get big boosts in the Bayes factor, replication results strongly inconsistent with the original effects get big penalties in the Bayes factor, and ambiguous replication results end up with a vague Bayes factor.
Bayes factor methods are often criticized for being subjective, sensitive to the prior, and for being somewhat arbitrary. Specifying the models is typically hard, and sometimes more arbitrary models are chosen for convenience for a given study. Models can also be specified by theoretical considerations that often appear subjective (because they are). For a replication study, the models are hardly arbitrary at all. The null model corresponds to that of a skeptic of the original results, and the alternative model corresponds to a strong theoretical proponent. The models are theoretically motivated and answer exactly what I want to know: Does the replication result fit more with the original effect model or a null model? Or as Verhagen and Wagenmakers (2014) put it, “Is the effect similar to what was found before, or is it absent?” (p.1458 here).
Replication Bayes factors
In the following, I take the effects reported in figure 3 of the reproducibility project (the pretty red and green scatterplot) and calculate replication Bayes factors for each one. Since they have been converted to correlation measures, replication Bayes factors can easily be calculated using the code provided by Wagenmakers, Verhagen, and Ly (2015). The authors of the reproducibility project kindly provide the script for making their figure 3, so all I did was take the part of the script that compiled the converted 95 correlation effect sizes for original and replication studies. (footnote 2) The replication Bayes factor script takes the correlation coefficients from the original studies as input, calculates the corresponding original effect’s posterior distribution, and then compares the fit of this distribution and the null model to the result of the replication. Bayes factors larger than 1 indicate the original effect model is a better fit, Bayes factors smaller than 1 indicate the null model is a better fit. Large (or really small) Bayes factors indicate strong evidence, and Bayes factors near 1 indicate a largely insensitive result.
The replication Bayes factors are summarized in the figure below (click to enlarge). The y-axis is the count of Bayes factors per bin, and the different bins correspond to various strengths of replication success or failure. Results that fall in the bins left of center constitute support the null over the original result, and vice versa. The outer-most bins on the left or right contain the strongest replication failures and successes, respectively. The bins labelled “Moderate” contain the more muted replication successes or failures. The two central-most bins labelled “Insensitive” contain results that are essentially uninformative.
So how did we do?
You’ll notice from this crude binning system that there is quite a spread from super strong replication failure to super strong replication success. I’ve committed the sin of binning a continuous outcome, but I think it serves as a nice summary. It’s important to remember that Bayes factors of 2.5 vs 3.5, while in different bins, aren’t categorically different. Bayes factors of 9 vs 11, while in different bins, aren’t categorically different. Bayes factors of 15 and 90, while in the same bin, are quite different. There is no black and white here. These are the categories Bayesians often use to describe grades of Bayes factors, so I use them since they are familiar to many readers. If you have a better idea for displaying this please leave a comment. 🙂 Check out the “Results” section at the end of this post to see a table which shows the study number, the N in original and replications, the r values of each study, the replication Bayes factor and category I gave it, and the replication p-value for comparison with the Bayes factor. This table shows the really wide spread of the results. There is also code in the “Code” section to reproduce the analyses.
Strong replication failures and strong successes
Roughly 20% (17 out of 95) of replications resulted in relatively strong replication failures (2 left-most bins), with resultant Bayes factors at least 10:1 in favor of the null. The highest Bayes factor in this category was over 300,000 (study 110, “Perceptual mechanisms that characterize gender differences in decoding women’s sexual intent”). If you were skeptical of these original effects, you’d feel validated in your skepticism after the replications. If you were a proponent of the original effects’ replicability you’ll perhaps want to think twice before writing that next grant based around these studies.
Roughly 25% (23 out of 95) of replications resulted in relatively strong replication successes (2 right-most bins), with resultant Bayes factors at least 10:1 in favor of the original effect. The highest Bayes factor in this category was 1.3×10^32 (or log(bf)=74; study 113, “Prescribed optimism: Is it right to be wrong about the future?”) If you were a skeptic of the original effects you should update your opinion to reflect the fact that these findings convincingly replicated. If you were a proponent of these effects you feel validation in that they appear to be robust.
These two types of results are the most clear-cut: either the null is strongly favored or the original reported effect is strongly favored. Anyone who was indifferent to these effects has their opinion swayed to one side, and proponents/skeptics are left feeling either validated or starting to re-evaluate their position. There was only 1 very strong (BF>100) failure to replicate but there were quite a few very strong replication successes (16!). There were approximately twice as many strong (10<BF<100) failures to replicate (16) than strong replication successes (7).
Moderate replication failures and moderate successes
The middle-inner bins are labelled “Moderate”, and contain replication results that aren’t entirely convincing but are still relatively informative (3<BF<10). The Bayes factors in the upper end of this range are somewhat more convincing than the Bayes factors in the lower end of this range.
Roughly 20% (19 out of 95) of replications resulted in moderate failures to replicate (third bin from the left), with resultant Bayes factors between 10:1 and 3:1 in favor of the null. If you were a proponent of these effects you’d feel a little more hesitant, but you likely wouldn’t reconsider your research program over these results. If you were a skeptic of the original effects you’d feel justified in continued skepticism.
Roughly 10% (9 out of 95) of replications resulted in moderate replication successes (third bin from the right), with resultant Bayes factors between 10:1 and 3:1 in favor of the original effect. If you were a big skeptic of the original effects, these replication results likely wouldn’t completely change your mind (perhaps you’d be a tad more open minded). If you were a proponent, you’d feel a bit more confident.
Many uninformative “failed” replications
The two central bins contain replication results that are insensitive. In general, Bayes factors smaller than 3:1 should be interpreted only as very weak evidence. That is, these results are so weak that they wouldn’t even be convincing to an ideal impartial observer (neither proponent nor skeptic). These two bins contain 27 replication results. Approximately 30% of the replication results from the reproducibility project aren’t worth much inferentially!
A few examples:
Study 2, “Now you see it, now you don’t: repetition blindness for nonwords” BF = 2:1 in favor of null
Study 12, “When does between-sequence phonological similarity promote irrelevant sound disruption?” BF = 1.1:1 in favor of null
Study 80, “The effects of an implemental mind-set on attitude strength.” BF = 1.2:1 in favor of original effect
Study 143, “Creating social connection through inferential reproduction: Loneliness and perceived agency in gadgets, gods, and greyhounds” BF = 2:1 in favor of null
I just picked these out randomly. The types of replication studies in this inconclusive set range from attentional blink (study 2), to brain mapping studies (study 55), to space perception (study 167), to cross national comparisons of personality (study 154).
Should these replications count as “failures” to the same extent as the ones in the left 2 bins? Should studies with a Bayes factor of 2:1 in favor of the original effect count as “failures” as much as studies with 50:1 against? I would argue they should not, they should be called what they are: entirely inconclusive.
Interestingly, study 143 mentioned above was recently called out in this NYT article as a high-profile study that “didn’t hold up”. Actually, we don’t know if it held up! Identifying replications that were inconclusive using this continuous range helps avoid over-interpreting ambiguous results as “failures”.
Wrap up
To summarize the graphic and the results discussed above, this method identifies roughly as many replications with moderate success or better (BF>3) as the counting significance method (32 vs 35). (footnote 3) These successes can be graded based on their replication Bayes factor as moderate to very strong. The key insight from using this method is that many replications that “fail” based on the significance count are actually just inconclusive. It’s one thing to give equal credit to two replication successes that are quite different in strength, but it’s another to call all replications failures equally bad when they show a highly variable range. Calling a replication a failure when it is actually inconclusive has consequences for the original researcher and the perception of the field.
As opposed to the confidence interval metric, a replication effect centered near zero with a wide CI will not count as a replication success with this method; it would likely be either inconclusive or weak evidence in favor of the null. Some replications are indeed moderate to strong failures to replicate (36 or so), but nearly 30% of all replications in the reproducibility project (27 out of 95) were not very informative in choosing between the original effect model and the null model.
So to answer my question as I first posed it, are the categorical conclusions of wide-scale failures to replicate by the media stories warranted? As always, it depends.
If you count “success” as any Bayes factor that has any evidence in favor of the original effect (BF>1), then there is a 44% success rate (42 out of 95).
If you count “success” as any Bayes factor with at least moderate evidence in favor of the original effect (BF>3), then there is a 34% success rate (32 out of 95).
If you count “failure” as any Bayes factor that has at least moderate evidence in favor of the null (BF<1/3), then there is a 38% failure rate (36 out of 95).
If you only consider the effects sensitive enough to discriminate the null model and the original effect model (BF>3 or BF<1/3) in your total, then there is a roughly 47% success rate (32 out of 68). This number jives (uncannily) well with the prediction
However you judge it, the results aren’t exactly great.
But if we move away from dichotomous judgements of replication success/failure, we see a slightly less grim picture. Many studies strongly replicated, many studies strongly failed, but many studies were in between. There is a wide range! Judgements of replicability needn’t be black and white. And with more data the inconclusive results could have gone either way. I would argue that any study with 1/3<BF<3 shouldn’t count as a failure or a success, since the evidence simply is not convincing; I think we should hold off judging these inconclusive effects until there is stronger evidence. Saying “we didn’t learn much about this or that effect” is a totally reasonable thing to do. Boo dichotomization!
Try out this method!
All in all, I think the Bayesian approach to evaluating replication success is advantageous in 3 big ways: It avoids dichotomizing replication outcomes, it gives an indication of the range of the strength of replication successes or failures, and it identifies which studies we need to give more attention to (insensitive BFs). The Bayes factor approach used here can straighten out when a replication shows strong evidence in favor of the null model, strong evidence in favor of the original effect model, or evidence that isn’t convincingly in favor of either position. Inconclusive replications should be targeted for future replication, and perhaps we should look into why these studies that purport to have high power (>90%) end up with insensitive results (large variance, design flaw, overly optimistic power calcs, etc). It turns out that having high power in planning a study is no guarantee that one actually obtains convincingly sensitive data (Dienes, 2014; Wagenmakers et al., 2014).
I should note, the reproducibility project did try to move away from the dichotomous thinking about replicability by correlating the converted effect sizes (r) between original and replication studies. This was a clever idea, and it led to a very pretty graph (figure 3) and some interesting conclusions. That idea is similar in spirit to what I’ve laid out above, but its conclusions can only be drawn from batches of replication results. Replication Bayes factors allow one to compare the original and replication results on an effect by effect basis. This Bayesian method can grade a replication on its relative success or failure even if your reproducibility project only has 1 effect in it.
I should also note, this analysis is inherently context dependent. A different group of studies could very well show a different distribution of replication Bayes factors, where each individual study has a different prior distribution (based on the original effect). I don’t know how much these results would generalize to other journals or other fields, but I would be interested to see these replication Bayes factors employed if systematic replication efforts ever do catch on in other fields.
Acknowledgements and thanks
The authors of the reproducibility project have done us all a great service and I am grateful that they have shared all of their code, data, and scripts. This re-analysis wouldn’t have been possible without their commitment to open science. I am also grateful to EJ Wagenmakers, Josine Verhagen, and Alexander Ly for sharing the code to calculate the replication Bayes factors on the OSF. Many thanks to Chris Engelhardt and Daniel Lakens for some fruitful discussions when I was planning this post. Of course, the usual disclaimer applies and all errors you find should be attributed only to me.
Notes
footnote 1: Of course, a model that takes publication bias into account could fit better by tempering the original estimate, and thus show relative evidence for the bias-corrected effect vs either of the other models; but that’d be answering a different question than the one I want to ask.
footnote 2: I left out 2 results that I couldn’t get to work with the calculations. Studies 46 and 139, both appear to be fairly strong successes, but I’ve left them out of the reported numbers because I couldn’t calculate a BF.
footnote 3: The cutoff of BF>3 isn’t a hard and fast rule at all. Recall that this is a continuous measure. Bayes factors are typically a little more conservative than significance tests in supporting the alternative hypothesis. If the threshold for success is dropped to BF>2 the number of successes is 35 — an even match with the original estimate.
Results
This table is organized from smallest replication Bayes factor to largest (i.e., strongest evidence in favor of null to strongest evidence in favor of original effect). The Ns were taken from the final columns in the master data sheet,”T_N_O_for_tables” and “T_N_R_for_tables”. Some Ns are not integers because they presumably underwent df correction. There is also the replication p-value for comparison; notice that BFs>3 generally correspond to ps less than .05 — BUT there are some cases where they do not agree. If you’d like to see more about the studies you can check out the master data file in the reproducibility project OSF page (linked below).
R Code
If you want to check/modify/correct my code, here it is. If you find a glaring error please leave a comment below or tweet at me 🙂
References
Link to the reproducibility project OSF
Link to replication Bayes factors OSF
Dienes, Z. (2014). Using Bayes to get the most out of non-significant results. Frontiers in psychology, 5.
Gelman, A., & Stern, H. (2006). The difference between “significant” and “not significant” is not itself statistically significant. The American Statistician, 60(4), 328-331.
Open Science Collaboration (2015). Estimating the reproducibility of psychological science. Science 28 August 2015: 349 (6251), aac4716 [DOI:10.1126/science.aac4716]
Verhagen, J., & Wagenmakers, E. J. (2014). Bayesian tests to quantify the result of a replication attempt. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General,143(4), 1457.
Wagenmakers, E. J., Verhagen, A. J., & Ly, A. (in press). How to quantify the evidence for the absence of a correlation. Behavior Research Methods.
Wagenmakers, E. J., Verhagen, J., Ly, A., Bakker, M., Lee, M. D., Matzke, D., … & Morey, R. D. (2014). A power fallacy. Behavior research methods, 1-5. |
In this article, you will find out about the history of the Java EE ecosystem: Where it came from and how it has changed over the last few decades. You will discover the major milestones in its development from J2EE 1.2 to its current incarnation Java EE 7 and we will peek into the future at what Java EE 8 has in store.
You will discover how to get involved with the development of the platform itself and how to join the JCP.org to make an even greater contribution. Find out about the Java EE Guardians and how you can support the development and growth of the platform.
What Is Java EE?
Java EE consists of a set of over 28 specifications and a runtime environment. It is a superset of the Java SE platform. This means that Java EE components can take full advantages of all Java SE APIs.
This set of APIs build standard component-based multi-tier applications and that deploy in different containers offering a variety of services. Not only is it be used to develop monolithic application structures but also microservices structured applications too. Learn more about Java EE and microservices by checking out Java EE and Microservices in 2016? Are you interested in cutting edge development in the microservices space in relation to Java EE? Then visit the Eclipse Microprofile project website.
The Java EE programming model relies on annotations to specify configurations rather than XML description files and uses convention over configuration to help you get up and running with as little ceremony as possible.
It has its own contextually aware dependency injection framework at the heart of it programming model.
History of Enterprise Java
1998 saw the release of the first incarnation of Enterprise Java, but soon after, important technologies soon joined the mix, such as Servlets, Messaging, and Enterprise Java Beans.
These technologies still exist in the Enterprise platform today but in a much more advanced and comprehensive form.
Over the following years, it developed a programming model that was difficult to use and very cumbersome. This all changed in the fifth edition, which saw a radical shift away from XML configuration towards annotations and convention over configuration.
The new programming model had simplified substantially. Annotations replace XML description files, convention over configuration replaces the tedious manual configuration and dependency injection hides the creation and lookup of resources. Resources are created and injected at injection points marked by annotations such as @Inject. So all you need is a POJO that meets the conditions of the managed beans specification, JSR 299, and depending on the annotation used it will become an EJB, Servlet, Singleton or a RESTful web service.
The platform continued to grow, but at a much slower rate. With each new release, it becomes more programmer friendly and the number of APIs blossomed to reach 28+, up from just a handful of five APIs in 1999.
So what’s planned in Java EE 8?
What’s Coming in Java EE 8?
Oracle is moving Java EE’s focus to microservices and the cloud, and the next version of Java EE is going to include APIs that complement this new direction.
So as well as advancements in some already established technologies such as Bean Validation, Context and Dependency Injection, JavaServer Faces, JAX-RS (RESTful web services), JSON-Processing and Servlets, there will be two new APIs.
JSON-binding, a dedicated security API and Security API for Java EE, designed to standardize security.
Image source: www.slideshare.net/delabassee/java-ee-8-february-2017-update
Java EE 9 will see even more APIs designed for the development of microservices and cloud-based applications.
Java EE Guardians
The Java EE Guardians are an independent group of Java Enterprise Edition developers and evangelists that are collaborating to move Java EE forward.
Their purpose is advocacy, raising awareness, finding solutions, collaboration, and mutual support. Please support their efforts. You can join them by visiting their website javaee-guardians.io and you follow them on the twitter handle @javaee_gaurdian.
Java Community Process (JCP)
The Java EE platform development happens through the Java Community Process (JCP), which is responsible for all Java technologies.
The expert group consists of interested parties that have created Java Specification Requests (JSRs) to define the various Java EE technologies. All done in cooperation with the international Java developer community.
The work of the Java Community under the JCP program helps to ensure Java technology’s standards of stability and cross-platform compatibility.
Anyone can review and comment on draft specifications and JSR proposals, as well as read the JCP blog. Anyone can register as a user of the site and can self-nominate as a Contributor or Expert Group member. You can become a JCP Member yourself and make an even greater contribution. Go to the link to discover more.
Java EE 7
Once a JSR is approved and its development finalized, it forms part for the next release of the platform.
The Java EE 7 release added four new APIs.
They were JSON-Processing, WebSocket API, Batch Processing and Concurrency. All these APIs started life as a JSR on which the community and JCP members commented, deliberated and discussed until a final specification request was devised and the development could begin.
What Next?
Lynda.com offers online video training for a wide range of Java EE technologies. The ideal course for someone just starting out in enterprise Java is the Learning Java Enterprise Edition presented by myself. The course is just over 2hrs and covers all the most important Java EE APIs including JAX-RS for RESTful APIs, JavaServerFaces, Enterprise Java Beans and much more.
Once you have completed this course you can dive deeper into the Java the Java EE APIs and take a course on how to build a RESTful API with JAX-RS, build a chat application with WebSocket API and handle JSON with Java EE's own JSON-Processing API. There are more courses coming so why not take a take a look and get ready to give your Java EE career a boost.
Further Reading
I write about Java EE on my blog readlearncode.com and have recently published a series of articles focusing on JAX-RS and discussing What is javax.ws.rs.core.context?. It is a 5 part series diving deep into the many usages of the @Context annotation.
If you want to learn more about this technology, my articles on how to handle bean validation, MediaTypes and JAX-RS, and Resource Entities, take you deeper into this essential API. |
Meet Smiley, a dog born without eyes who now works as a therapy dog at St. John’s Ambulance in Stouffville, Canada.
Photo via Joanne George
Joanne George rescued Smiley from a puppy mill when he was about 1 or 2 years old, according to ABC. George also owns a deaf Great Dane named Tyler. While Tyler is more energetic, Smiley has great people skills and does well in crowds. He uses his charm to connect with nursing home patients. Smiley works as a service dog and visits nursing homes and schools with his owner.
Photo via Joanne George
Photo via Joanne George
“This man Teddy, [he had] no speech, no communication at all. [The staff] had never seen Teddy smile before,” George told ABC. But “[Teddy] smiled when Smiley got into his vision.”
Photo via Joanne George |
The L2 - Black
Meet the Gustin L2 Leather Jacket - a true icon that perfectly balances edginess, function and style. We’ve respectfully updated this historic jacket and treated it to the finest construction and leathers possible for you. Instantly recognizable, our L2 retains everything that has made this style a fixture for decades, while its fit and details make it even more versatile. The best part, we get to show you the kind of value all-American construction can offer on an intricate style like this.
This L2 is crafted from full grain steer hide from Germany. If you're searching for a thoroughly classic leather that's heavy yet supremely soft on day one, this is the perfect choice. It's hard to think of a more fitting color for a double rider. When you imagine a leather jacket in your mind, this style is exactly what comes to mind from color to feel. It is dyed to a pure jet black shade. It doesn't get more timeless than a black leather jacket. The color is deeply saturated and consistent. The grain on this leather is prominent, giving the surface wonderful texture. The feel is where things really get sweet. This leather is very substantial, but also incredibly supple. It almost feels like a very heavy fabric and drapes incredibly well. The comfort is amazing right out of the box. Color, texture, weight, comfort, this leather sews into an L2 that's easy to love.
A great leather jacket must be nicely tailored and perfectly constructed. Our L2 is designed to hit near the waist, staying true to this style's functional roots as a motorcycle jacket. There is an ample amount of taper from chest to waist, making the overall silhouette clean and fitted. Our fit helps give this jacket the versatility to look just as good worn to the office or out at night (even when you leave your bike at home). To us, staying true to this iconic style meant honoring key details. Foremost is the double collar, perfectly sized with each point secured by an antique brass snap. Defining the front is an off-center body zipper, a functional element to protect against wind, and a wonderful asymmetrical detail. We use our large size 10, antique brass, vintage shaped Talon zipper. From the start, we knew our L2 had to have the D-pocket. This pocket is highly functional and the beautiful curved shape adds true character to the jacket. Opposite the D-pocket is an additional slash pocket, also secured with a Talon zipper. All this beautiful antique brass hardware lends a rustic contrast to the leather. A seamless center back panel is the perfect showcase for the beautiful leathers we use and gives you a huge plane of hide to admire. The bottom back gets a rectangular segment in true moto style. Large gussets on the side-back allow for better movement and are punctuated by zippered vents. Finally, this style wouldn’t be complete without the shoulder epaulettes and zippered cuffs. The body and arms are lined with a jet black herringbone cloth that lends a subtle texture to the interior of the jacket. What we love most about this style is how all this detail comes together into a functional and beautiful whole.
Leather jackets like ours that are made in the USA using our quality of material and construction are typically priced at $1000 or higher. The efficiency of the Gustin model, with your support, lets us do much better. |
InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG), the parent company for more than 5,000 hotels worldwide including Holiday Inn, says it is investigating claims of a possible credit card breach at some U.S. locations.
Last week, KrebsOnSecurity began hearing from sources who work in fraud prevention at different financial institutions. Those sources said they were seeing a pattern of fraud on customer credit and debit cards that suggested a breach at some IHG properties — particularly Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn Express locations.
Asked about the fraud patterns reported by my sources, a spokesperson for IHG said the company had received similar reports, and that it has hired an outside security firm to help investigate. IHG also issued the following statement:
“IHG takes the protection of payment card data very seriously. We were made aware of a report of unauthorized charges occurring on some payment cards that were recently used at a small number of U.S.-based hotel locations. We immediately launched an investigation, which includes retaining a leading computer security firm to provide us with additional support. We continue to work with the payment card networks.” “We are committed to swiftly resolving this matter. In the meantime, and in line with best practice, we recommend that individuals closely monitor their payment card account statements. If there are unauthorized charges, individuals should immediately notify their bank. Payment card network rules generally state that cardholders are not responsible for such charges.”
Headquartered in Denham, U.K., IHG operates more than 5,000 hotels across nearly 100 countries. The company’s dozen brands include Holiday Inn, Holiday Inn Express, InterContinental, Kimpton Hotels, and Crowne Plaza.
Card-stealing cyber thieves have broken into some of the largest hotel chains over the past few years. Hotel brands that have acknowledged card breaches over the last year after prompting by KrebsOnSecurity include Kimpton Hotels, Trump Hotels (twice), Hilton, Mandarin Oriental, and White Lodging (twice). Card breaches also have hit hospitality chains Starwood Hotels and Hyatt.
In many of those incidents, thieves planted malicious software on the point-of-sale devices at restaurants and bars inside of the hotel chains. Point-of-sale based malware has driven most of the credit card breaches over the past two years, including intrusions at Target and Home Depot, as well as breaches at a slew of point-of-sale vendors. The malware usually is installed via hacked remote administration tools. Once the attackers have their malware loaded onto the point-of-sale devices, they can remotely capture data from each card swiped at that cash register.
Thieves can then sell that data to crooks who specialize in encoding the stolen data onto any card with a magnetic stripe, and using the cards to purchase high-priced electronics and gift cards from big-box stores like Target and Best Buy.
Readers should remember that they’re not liable for fraudulent charges on their credit or debit cards, but they still have to report the unauthorized transactions. There is no substitute for keeping a close eye on your card statements. Also, consider using credit cards instead of debit cards; having your checking account emptied of cash while your bank sorts out the situation can be a hassle and lead to secondary problems (bounced checks, for instance).
Tags: Holiday Inn breach, IHG breach, InterContinental Hotels Group |
NDP leader Thomas Mulcair accused the Conservative Natural Resources Minister of travelling to Washington, D.C., just to insult U.S. scientists as MPs debated the the potential impact of the Keystone XL pipeline Thursday.
The Conservatives shot back by accusing the Opposition of relying on false “NDP economics” and fighting “against Canadians interests.”
“Yesterday in Washington the minister of natural resources lashed out at a former NASA climate scientist, calling his work ‘nonsense,’” Mulcair said.
“He accused scientists who speak out about climate change of crying wolf. Is that why the minister of natural resources was sent to Washington — to insult U.S. government scientists?”
Speaking to reporters in Washington on Wednesday, Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver said former NASA scientist James Hansen is exaggerating when he claims Canada’s oil sands development is an environmental scourge.
“It does not advance the debate when people make exaggerated comments that are not rooted in the facts. And [scientist James Hansen] should know that,” Oliver told reporters in Washington, D.C., CBC reported.
Hansen, who left NASA this month, has long warned the world of the dangers of climate change, explaining in a New York Times op-ed why the development of the oil sands means “game over for the climate.”
Oliver called Hansen’s argument “nonsense.”
Responding to Mulcair in the House of Commons on Thursday, Heritage Minister James Moore said Oliver is in the U.S. to “fight for Canadian jobs and protect our environment.”
“And of course, this is in … stark contrast with the reason why New Democrat Members of Parliament have gone to Washington, D.C. — to fight against Canadians’ interests, to fight against the creation of Canadian jobs and of course to come back here to Ottawa and offer no plan with regard to climate change,” Moore said.
When Mulcair accused the Tories of touting the Keystone XL pipeline as a source of jobs in the U.S., Moore lambasted the NDP for not understanding “comparative or competitive economics.”
“The fact is the Keystone XL project will create jobs on both sides of the border. This project is projected to create over 140,000 jobs in Canada,” Moore said in question period.
“Just because it creates jobs in the United States, it doesn’t mean it doesn’t create jobs in Canada. This is a fallacy leftover of NDP economics when they fought against FTA, when they fought against NAFTA, and they continue it again today.”
Oliver is on his fourth Keystone XL pipeline road show through the United States this week, touting the energy benefits and environmental stewardship that Canada would bring to the table if U.S. authorities give the pipeline their blessings.
During his visit south, Oliver said he sees no need to change anything about Canada’s environmental protections in order to persuade the United States to approve the pipeline.
That’s despite a recent letter from the U.S.-based Environmental Protection Agency suggesting Ottawa needs to step up its game, and scrambling within Environment Canada to figure out the best timing for new oil and gas emissions restrictions.
“I don’t see the need for us to do things differently than we’re currently doing,” Oliver said Wednesday during a conference call from Washington.
He pointed to investments in science and technology, existing regulations to reduce emissions in some sectors, and pending regulations to cut emissions in the oil and gas sector.
“We can stand tall on our record.” |
Iran has ordered 50 planes from Brazil's Embraer, the world's third biggest commercial aircraft manufacturer, to modernize its aging aircraft fleet, a government spokesman said on February 23.
Like other orders since the lifting of sanctions on January 16, it will be a lease-purchase deal, spokesman Mohammad Bagher Nobakht said.
"The government is not going to spend its limited resources on things like buying planes," he said.
Iran has already announced orders for 118 Airbus aircraft and up to 40 planes from ATR, a European turboprop aircraft manufacturer.
The Airbus deal is worth $10 to $11 billion, and is also a lease-purchase deal, Nobakht said.
About 80 to 85 percent of the financing will come from Airbus and European banks, Iran Air's chief executive Farhad Parvaresh told reporters.
Iran's aviation industry before sanctions were lifted was under a U.S. embargo that since 1995 had prevented Western manufacturers from selling Tehran equipment or spare parts.
The embargo hindered maintenance operations and grounded part of Iran's aging fleet. Iran needs 400 to 500 aircraft over the next decade to modernize the fleet.
Based on reporting by AFP and Reuters |
It’s an exciting time for React as there are now more commits from open source contributors than from Facebook engineers! Keep up the good work :)
Atom moves to React
Atom, GitHub’s code editor, is now using React to build the editing experience. They made the move in order to improve performance. By default, React helped them eliminate unnecessary reflows, enabling them to focus on architecting the rendering pipeline in order to minimize repaints by using hardware acceleration. This is a testament to the fact that React’s architecture is perfect for high performant applications.
Why Does React Scale?
At the last JSConf.us, Vjeux talked about the design decisions made in the API that allows it to scale to a large number of developers. If you don’t have 20 minutes, take a look at the annotated slides.
Live Editing
One of the best features of React is that it provides the foundations to implement concepts that were otherwise extremely difficult, like server-side rendering, undo-redo, rendering to non-DOM environments like canvas… Dan Abramov got hot code reloading working with webpack in order to live edit a React project!
ReactIntl Mixin by Yahoo
There are a couple of React-related projects that recently appeared on Yahoo’s GitHub, the first one being an internationalization mixin. It’s great to see them getting excited about React and contributing back to the community.
var MyComponent = React . createClass ( { mixins : [ ReactIntlMixin ] , render : function ( ) { return ( < div > < p > { this . intlDate ( 1390518044403 , { hour : 'numeric' , minute : 'numeric' } ) } </ p > < p > { this . intlNumber ( 400 , { style : 'percent' } ) } </ p > </ div > ) ; } } ) ; React . renderComponent ( < MyComponent locales = { [ 'fr-FR' ] } /> , document . getElementById ( 'example' ) ) ;
Thinking and Learning React
Josephine Hall, working at Icelab, used React to write a mobile-focused application. She wrote a blog post “Thinking and Learning React.js” to share her experience with elements they had to use. You’ll learn about routing, event dispatch, touchable components, and basic animations.
London React Meetup
If you missed the last London React Meetup, the video is available, with lots of great content.
What’s new in React 0.11 and how to improve performance by guaranteeing immutability
State handling in React with Morearty.JS
React on Rails - How to use React with Ruby on Rails to build isomorphic apps
Building an isomorphic, real-time to-do list with moped and node.js
In related news, the next React SF Meetup will be from Prezi: “Immediate Mode on the Web: How We Implemented the Prezi Viewer in JavaScript”. While not in React, their tech is really awesome and shares a lot of React’s design principles and perf optimizations.
Using React and KendoUI Together
One of the strengths of React is that it plays nicely with other libraries. Jim Cowart proved it by writing a tutorial that explains how to write React component adapters for KendoUI.
Acorn JSX
Ingvar Stepanyan extended the Acorn JavaScript parser to support JSX. The result is a JSX parser that’s 1.5–2.0x faster than the official JSX implementation. It is an experiment and is not meant to be used for serious things, but it’s always a good thing to get competition on performance!
ReactScriptLoader
Yariv Sadan created ReactScriptLoader to make it easier to write components that require an external script.
var Foo = React . createClass ( { mixins : [ ReactScriptLoaderMixin ] , getScriptURL : function ( ) { return 'http://d3js.org/d3.v3.min.js' ; } , getInitialState : function ( ) { return { scriptLoading : true , scriptLoadError : false } ; } , onScriptLoaded : function ( ) { this . setState ( { scriptLoading : false } ) ; } , onScriptError : function ( ) { this . setState ( { scriptLoading : false , scriptLoadError : true } ) ; } , render : function ( ) { var message = this . state . scriptLoading ? 'Loading script...' : this . state . scriptLoadError ? 'Loading failed' : 'Loading succeeded' ; return < span > { message } </ span > ; } } ) ;
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Semi-gloss British performance.
The Aston Martin DBS is one of those cars that looks good from any angle and in any color. If for some reason you’ve gone mental and think the modern British design of the DBS is unattractive, a press of the throttle is all you need to fall in love as the baritone V-12 roars to life. Besides, who cares what it looks like when you have a V-12 like that?
Lately Anderson Germany has been going through a phase, introducing a number of “Black Edition” cars. But, with the way their cars look, it’s pretty hard to argue against the new editions. The new Aston Martin DBS is the latest to receive the treatment, as Anderson has introduced the Superior Black Edition package. The DBS is painted in a dark black semi-gloss paint, while the grilles, window frames, tailgate bar, logos, and side air intakes are painted in a contrasting glossy black. A touch of carbon fiber was added to the side mirrors, and the windows were, of course, tinted black.
The black color scheme is carried over to the wheels as well. Four 21-inch, five-spoke gloss black wheels were fitted with 255 front and 295 rear tires for added grip. Peeking out from behind the spokes are bright red calipers that stand out from the black paint.
If the black paint scheme wasn’t menacing enough, a sinister V-12 is awaiting you. The 6.0-liter V-12 has that same Aston Martin exhaust note that will make you melt, but this time, the volume has been turned up to 11. A new exhaust system with special manifolds, catalytic converter replacement pipes, and three-stage electronically controlled vent dampers, sheds 46.2 lbs. and unleashed the fury of the V-12. A new software tune sends power output to 565 horses.
Inside there’s a bit more contrast in the black design. The ashtrays, cup holders, vents, door handles, door sills, steering wheel, handbrake lever, and paddle shifters are covered in sport carbon fiber. While the seats wear a combination of black leather and alcantara, they feature distinct red-diamond stitching and piping. Anderson Germany also upgraded the sound system, although most enthusiasts will keep the V-12 soundtrack playing instead.
The Anderson Germany Aston Martin DBS Superior Black Edition is currently available for the British supercar. Pricing has not been released.
Anderson Germany Aston Martin DBS Superior Black Edition Specifications
Engine:
Displacement: 6.0 liters
Number of Cylinders: V-12
Maximum Horsepower: 565
-New exhaust system with special manifolds, catalytic converter replacement, and adjustable vent dampers; 46.2 lbs. lighter.
-Retuned ECU
Transmission:
Type: Six-speed manual or six-speed Touchtronic 2 automatic
Drive: Rear-wheel
Exterior:
-Semi-gloss black paint
-Gloss black grilles, window frames, tailgate bar, logos, and side air intakes
-Window and lighting tint
-Carbon fiber side mirrors
-Gloss black five-spoke 21-inch wheels
-255 front and 295 rear tires
-Red brake calipers
Interior:
-Carbon fiber vents, cup holders, door handles, ashtrays, door sills, steering wheel, handbrake lever, and shifter paddles.
-Black leather and alcantara seats
-Red diamond stitching and piping
-New sound system
Anderson Germany Aston Martin DBS Superior Black Edition Gallery
[Source: Anderson Germany]
Does the Aston Martin DBS look good in semi-gloss black paint? Leave a comment and let us know! |
So you've learned hiragana. Good for you. Ready to do the same thing all over again so you can learn katakana?
This guide assumes you went through our hiragana guide already, so it won't explain how and why this method works. It uses the same style techniques, worksheets, and exercises. It also skips the pronunciation explanations (except when a katakana character is different from hiragana). If you haven't yet, please review the learn hiragana guide before you begin learning the katakana. If you have, then you know the drill. Let's get started with the first ten katakana.
In terms of what you're learning, it will be very simple. Katakana is, for the most part, the same sounds you learned with hiragana. But, the characters representing those sounds are different. It would be like if in English you replaced the letter "A" with the symbol "ア" without changing how it's used and pronounced.
When Do I Use Katakana?
Katakana is used for a variety of things. The most common use is to transcribe foreign words (non-Japanese words). There is some issue with this though. The sounds available in the Japanese languages are not as flexible as other languages. So, words that are transcribed to katakana often don't sound like the original. As you get used to it, though, you'll begin to not only understand non-Japanese words that have been made "Japanese", but also know how to say foreign words using Japanese sounds (and write them in katakana).
Besides foreign words, katakana is also used for:
Scientific words
Animal names
Many foods (especially animal and plant foods) are written in katakana too.
Company names will sometimes write their names in katakana.
When someone wants to emphasize text, much like writing in italics in English.
Often used for onomatopoeia.
"Robot-speech" (as in, when you write out text for robots talking)
For various stylistic purposes
There are other smaller use cases as well, but those will be the main ones (aside from foreign words, which will be 80%+ of the use case)
Katakana Chart
To begin, download this katakana chart.
If you have a printer, print it out. If not, you can follow along digitally too.
Let's Learn Katakana!
As with the hiragana guide, just follow each and every step and you'll come out the other side with the ability to read katakana. Some of you will finish this guide in hours, others days, but overall it should be pretty quick. Learning katakana is a lot easier since you already have that hiragana foundation. At least, I hope you do.
Because of this, I want you to learn ten katakana characters right from the very start. You can handle it, can't you?
ア （ A ） イ （ I ） ウ （ U ） エ （ E ） オ （ O ） ・ カ （ KA ） キ （ KI ） ク （ KU ） ケ （ KE ） コ （ KO ）
As you know from learning hiragana, the first five katakana characters are going to be vowel sounds. After that, it's just that consonant + vowel pattern until we reach katakana's version of "n." For the most part, everything will be pronounced exactly the same. When there is an exception to the rule I'll let you know. Otherwise, this guide does not focus much on pronunciation because it assumes you already know it.
ア is the katakana for "a".
ア has a deformed capital letter " A " in it. You have to turn your head to the side and connect some lines, but it's there.
イ is the katakana for "i".
イ looks like an ea gle, standing on the ground, or on a branch, or wherever. You see its legs and its back, curved down like an eagle's?
ウ is the katakana for "u".
This katakana character looks a lot like its hiragana counterpart: う . It should be similar enough to use as a mnemonic to remember what it is.
エ is the katakana for "e".
Imagine this is the girders an e ngineer would use to build buildings. This character is in the shape of the end of a girder, and its made up of them too.
Or, you can think of it like an e levator, with its doors closed.
オ is the katakana for "o".
This kana looks like a dude flapping open his trench coat to flash you. " Oh my god," you say. " Oh no."
カ is the katakana for "ka".
It looks just like the hiragana for " ka ", though it's missing that little extra line. Close enough to make it easy to remember, though.
キ is the katakana for "ki".
It looks like the hiragana for " き " (the top part at least) and also looks like part of a weird key .
ク is the katakana for "ku".
This looks like a long coo k's hat.
ケ is the katakana for "ke".
It looks like the letter " K "!
コ is the katakana for "ko".
See the two 90 degree co rners? The two corners are what help you to remember that this is "ko."
アイウエオカキクケコ Tasks
Now that you've put these kana into your brain (at least somewhat shakily) it's time to pull them out. Recall is the foundation of memory, and you're going to start doing just that. For each "tasks" section make sure you follow along perfectly. Skipping these steps may cause you to fail later on in the future. Having a strong base to build off of is important with each section.
Head over to the website Drag n' Drop Katakana. All I want you to do is to find the five kana you just learned (a-i-u-e-o-ka-ki-ku-ke-ko) and drag them to their correct spot. That's it! It's an exercise in recognizing the kana you learned as well as matching them to the correct sounds. When you've done it once hit the refresh button and do it again and again until you're able to get it done in 10 seconds. Print out, copy, or download this worksheet. You'll need to go through it, filling in the boxes with the romaji for the kana. Try your best not to cheat – even if you spend a while trying to remember a kana it will be beneficial to your memory (as long as you're able to recall it on your own). Looking up the answer doesn't help your memory at all, but struggle (with accomplishment) tells your brain that this is a thing worth remembering. Try using the mnemonics when you need to recall something you can't figure out right away.
This should be fairly easy with only ten kana (and maybe a little boring too), but when you're done move on to the next ten katakana.
サ （ SA ） シ （ SHI ） ス （ SU ） セ （ SE ） ソ （ SO ） ・ タ （ TA ） チ （ CHI ） ツ （ TSU ） テ （ TE ） ト （ TO ）
Now that you have the "A-column and K-columns" under your belt it's time for the "S & T-columns." You should already know about the "exception pronunciations" from the hiragana guide.
サ is the katakana for "sa".
This kana looks like three sa rdines, stacked on top of each other. The right side one is longer because you use your right hand to pick it up (it's heavier too). This only works if you're right handed.
シ is the katakana for "shi".
This kana looks like a smiley face, but something is wrong with it. Both eyes are sideways and stacked on top of each other like some deep sea fish. She has a very weird face.
ス is the katakana for "su".
This kana looks like a hanger, with which you hang up your fancy su its.
セ is the katakana for "se".
It looks really similar to the hiragana せ , so you should be able to use that to remember this kana.
ソ is the katakana for "so."
It is one needle and a long thread, which you use to sew . Remember, needles are always vertical like this needle, because you need to stab it through something, straight down. This will help you to differentiate this one and the very similar ン.
タ is the katakana for "ta".
This kana looks like a ti dal wave, racing across the sea.
チ is the katakana for "chi".
Doesn't this look like a chee rleader, doing a cheer?
ツ is the katakana for "tsu".
Instead of one needle and thread (ソ), you have two needles and thread. Remember, needles are vertical because you use them to stab into cloth, straight down. This will help you to differentiate this one from シ, which has more horizontal lines. Horizontal lines means it's a face, vertical means it's needles. So this one has two needles.
テ is the katakana for "te".
This kana looks like a te lephone pole.
ト is the katakana for "to".
It looks just like a to tem pole.
サシスセソタチツテト Exercises
Now that you've done another set of ten, it's time for exercises! As usual, these exercises will help you to practice katakana you've previously learned plus the ones you just learned.
Back to our best buds Drag n' Drop Katakana. Identify and place the ア, カ, サ, and タ columns into their spots. Do this several times and see if you can do it all in under 30 seconds (or just complete the task 5 times). Once you're able to do either of those, move on. Using this worksheet, print out, copy, or download it and fill out the boxes with the correct romaji. If you can't remember something try to think back to the mnemonic first before cheating. When you're able to do these two tasks move on to the next five kana.
ナ （ NA ） ニ （ NI ） ヌ （ NU ） ネ （ NE ） ノ （ NO ） ・ ハ （ HA ） ヒ （ HI ） フ （ FU ） ヘ （ HE ） ホ （ HO ）
Great – it's time to learn your next ten katakana! ナ is my favorite. Who doesn't love a narwhal?
ナ is the katakana for "na".
See the majestic na rwhal, swimming up to the surface? What a beautiful creature.
ニ is the katakana for "ni".
This is two nee dles, laying on their side. Now, don't get confused about how I said that needles are always vertical… that's only with the katakana that have the slope in them (ソ and ツ). When they're on their own, resting, and not being used to sew anything (no thread) they're just two needles laying on their side.
ヌ is the katakana for nu.
The chopsticks are grabbing onto some noo dles and pulling them out of a bowl.
ネ is the katakana for ne.
A ne cromancer has summoned this zombie. Only a necromancer could create a three legged undead like this, because they certainly don't occur naturally with three legs. That's how you know that necromancy is involved.
ノ is the katakana for "no".
It looks like a really long no se.
ハ is the katakana for "ha."
This is shaped like one of those rice patty ha ts. You'll have to connect the pieces, but you can see it, right?
ヒ is the katakana for "hi."
He has no head, and he is reaching out for you.
フ is the katakana for "fu."
This looks like a big owl beak. Way too big for any normal owl, but perfect for this fu nny looking owl. Because of the deformation of its beak, it doesn't say "hu hu hu" like you'd expect, it says fu fu fu .
ヘ is the katakana for "he".
This katakana looks just like the hiragana へ . If you know one you know them both!
ホ is the katakana for "ho".
This is a ho ly cross. You can even see the holy light coming off of it. So holy.
ナニヌネノハヒフヘホ Exercises
Time to practice ten at a time! It's a lot, but you're getting better at learning these things, right? Hopefully easier than hiragana was?
Using Drag n' Drop Katakana, find the katakana from the ア, カ, サ, タ, ナ, and ハ columns and place them in their correct spots. Try to complete this task 5 times and get your time in under ~1 minute. Using RealKana, check theア, カ, サ, タ, ナ, and ハ, uncheck any hiragana columns, and check all the different typefaces. Then, drill the above kana for 5-10 minutes until you are consistently getting the answer right and you feel comfortable with the different fonts that they present. Copy, print out, or download this worksheet and fill in all the boxes. As always, use the mnemonics and try not to cheat. If this is starting to feel easy, try to time yourself to see how long it takes to complete each section and try to beat yourself each time.
When you are done with these exercises it's time to move on to the next set of katakana.
マ （ MA ） ミ （ MI ） ム （ MU ） メ （ ME ） モ （ MO ） ・ ヤ （ YA ） ユ （ YU ） ヨ （ YO ）
Not quite ten in this set (before the exercises), but close enough. Let's start with the "M-column."
マ is the katakana for "ma".
Look at all those angles! Those lengths! Those measurements! All that ma th!
ミ is the katakana for "mi."
Three mi ssiles, flying towards you. Be careful!
ム is the katakana for "mu".
It is shaped like a pile of poop. Cow poop. Moo .
メ is the katakana for "me".
This looks like an "X" which is over someone's 目 (め/eye). Meh , I guess they're dead now.
モ is the katakana for "mo".
This looks very similar to the hiragana も , so you should be able to make that connection and remember both of these.
ヤ is the katakana for "ya".
This looks just like the hiragana や , minus a little line.
ユ is the katakana for "yu".
You have a hook for a hand.
ヨ is the katakana for "yo".
This is a yo gurt container. See the sides and imagine the yogurt-container shape.
マミムメモヤユヨ Exercises
Time to practice these eight katakana (and the previous ones as well). Once again, go through the steps to make sure you know everything well!
Using Drag n' Drop Katakana, drag the ア, カ, サ, タ, ナ, ハ, マ, and ヤ columns into their spots. You're dragging more kana than you're leaving now, which is pretty neat! Once you've done this three times, or you're able to get this all done fairly quickly (1:30 or so?) move on to step 2. Using RealKana, choose the ア, カ, サ, タ, ナ, ハ, マ, and ヤ columns, unchecking any hiragana columns, and choosing all the typefaces, drill the kana for 10-15 minutes. Using this worksheet, copy, print out, or download it and write in all the boxes. When you're all done, it's time to tackle the last "main katakana" section. You're almost there! Not so hard, right?
ラ （ RA ） リ （ RI ） ル （ RU ） レ （ RE ） ロ （ RO ） ・ ワ （ WA ） ヲ （ WO ） ン （ N ）
Last set! When you're done with this you can start looking at the weird katakana stuff. Some would say that's the horrible part, but I think it's fun.
ラ is the katakana for "ra".
It is a ra ptor wearing some sweet Ra y-Bans.
リ is the katakana for "ri".
It looks just like the hiragana り , or at least very, very similar.
ル is the katakana for "ru".
There are two rou tes you can take. Rou te one and Rou te two.
レ is the katakana for "re".
Look at that beautiful re d hair that Re i has! It's so flowing!
ロ is the katakana for "ro".
This ro ad goes around in a square, never ending. What a terrible ro ad this is. What are you, a 12 year old playing Sim City?
ワ is the katakana for "wa".
When you ask a question (that's why this is a question mark) you often begin your question with the word wha t. Wha t are you doing? Wha t are you wearing? Wha t are you not wearing?
ヲ is the katakana for "wo".
It's pronounced like を is (which is pronounced like お), but to remember this is "wo" think of a dog wo ofing so hard its tongue is flying out.
ン is the katakana for "n/m".
Do you remember how シ is a lady with a weird face? The two little dashes are more horizontal than vertical, which helps us to know it's a face. Who's face? This is M/n Night Shyamalan, and the twist is that he only has one eye. NNNNNNNNNnnnnnoooooo!
ラリルレロワヲン Exercises
This is the last of the main katakana. The exercises will now cover quite a bit (you know quite a bit!), so make sure you understand and know everything before moving on.
Using RealKana, choose all of the columns up through ン. Drill for 10-15 minutes until you feel like you can recall pretty much everything. Using Drag n' Drop Katakana, drag the all of the kana into their spots. Try to be able to finish it in three minutes. If that's too easy try two minutes. Two minutes should be difficult but more than doable. Using this worksheet, fill in all the blanks. You know the drill!
That's it! From here on out it's just combinations of kana or variations on kana you already know, which makes things both easier and harder. Let's start with katakana's dakuten.
Dakuten
For the most part, if you know hiragana's dakuten, you know katakana's dakuten. Just as a refresher:
カ → ガ (GA)
サ → ザ (ZA)
タ → ダ (DA)
ハ → バ (BA)
ハ → パ (PA)
But, there are some katakana out there that you can dakuten that aren't the standard fare.
ウ → ヴ (VU → "BU")
Actually, the Japanese can't pronounce the "V" sound very well, so it comes out as a "BU" sound. That's as close as they can get. But, when you combine that with some small katakana (next section), we can make a sound that almost, but not quite, sounds like a "V".
Combination Katakana
Just like with hiragana, you can combine small katakana with big katakana to make new sounds. It gets a little trickier with katakana though. Let's start with the part you do know (from the hiragana guide) first.
キャ、キュ、キョ → KYA, KYU, KYO
ギャ、ギュ、ギョ → GYA, GYU, GYO
シャ、シュ、ショ → SHA, SHU, SHO
ジャ、ジュ、ジョ → JYA, JYU, JYO (or JA, JU, JO)
チャ、チュ、チョ → CHA, CHU, CHO
ヂャ、ヂュ、ヂョ → DZYA, DZYU, DZYO (you'll never see these, pretty much ever)
ニャ、ニュ、ニョ → NYA, NYU, NYO
ヒャ、ヒュ、ヒョ → HYA, HYU, HYO
ビャ、ビュ、ビョ → BYA, BYU, BYO
ピャ、ピュ、ピョ → PYA, PYU, PYO
ミャ、ミュ、ミョ → MYA, MYU, MYO
リャ、リュ、リョ → RYA, RYU, RYO
With katakana, combinations don't stop here. It gets… weird.
There are many sounds commonly used in non-Japanese languages that katakana needs to try to account for. The most interesting example of this is the sound "V". The closest thing in Japanese? Bw~ sounds.
ヴァ → BWA (VA)
ヴィ → BWI (VI)
ヴ → BU (VU)
ヴェ → BWE (VE)
ヴォ → BWO (VO)
In addition to this, there are "W" sounds that need to be added in as well. As you know, the kana only cover わ and を, and を isn't really a sound that's used, it's only used as a particle. So, we have to make up for the missing wi and we , and then replace the wo .
ウィ → Wi (UI)
ウェ → We (UE)
ウォ → Wo (UO)
You may recognize the ウィ sound from The ニンテンドーウィ (Nintendo Wii).
The third big set is "F" sounds. All that exists in Japanese for "F" sounds is "fu." So you use "fu" to make all the other "F" sounds you need.
ファ → Fa
フィ → Fi
フェ → Fe
フォ → Fo
Besides these sets, there are also a few more scattered sounds you can make with combination katakana. The rest are:
シェ → she
ジェ → je
チェ → che
トゥ → to (like "two")
ティ → ty (like "par ty ")
ドゥ → du (like "dew")
ディ → dy (like "fred die ")
ツァ → tsa
ツィ → tsi
ツェ → tse
ツォ → tso
The most important thing right now is to be able to read these extra combinations and know they exist. You'll see some of these pretty often, which means that through experience they will get natural. It's just one of those things you have to use and experience to become comfortable with it. I think the main problem is that they're foreign… but not completely foreign. They're based off foreign languages, probably a language that you know, which means that these sounds (and the rest of katakana) are asking you to break your own language and speak it incorrectly so that you can speak it "correctly" in Japanese. It's a weird conundrum.
Long Vowels
Unlike hiragana, which deals with long vowels by adding more vowels to things, katakana has a special vowel extender character. Luckily it's very simple: a dash.
ー
When you see this, you'll just need to extend the vowel that it comes after. For example:
コ → Ko
コ ー → kou
ベコン → becon
ベ ー コン → beecon
This is pretty much the same thing as こ versus こう, though it would be odd to extend the vowel of a foreign word by using another vowel kana (at least most of the time).
You'll see this dash a lot in katakana. Knowing how and when to use it, especially when you try to "spell" out words you don't really know the spelling of, can be challenging. With a lot of experience, mistakes, and even more experience you'll start to understand when and how to use it. For now, just focus on reading it correctly. That part is much easier, and that is the part that will give you the experience you need to reproduce it later on.
Additional Practice
Although you can probably read most katakana words now, there's a little more you should do before going out into the real world. Try to do everything in the "Additional Practice" section. It's for your own good and it will make katakana reading a lot less overwhelming.
First, I'd like you to go back to our dear friend RealKana. This time, check all the boxes. The hiragana, the katakana, and all the typefaces. Studying hiragana together with katakana will help you to be able to use them both together. In Japanese, you'll see katakana, hiragana, and kanji all in one sentence. Might as well get used to that now.
When you feel comfortable with that, it's time to practice with some worksheets. They're a bit different from the other worksheets in that they're "real" sentences and we're not keeping track of the frequency of the kana being used. It's a bit more like real life… with a nice protective bubble. Don't worry a ton about the meaning, but if you can figure it out that's extra points for you! It's all in "English" … though it has been converted into Japanese pronunciation using katakana.
When you finish this, I bet you'll be feeling pretty special, like some kind of katakana master. If you don't (or even if you do), here's some more katakana practice that's worth doing.
Apps & Other Programs
There are plenty of apps and resources out there to help you drill as well. Some of them you've seen already because of this guide, others you have not.
I'm sure there are plenty of other resources out there as well, but this should be good enough to get you to that level where you can start using the katakana with other resources.
What Next After Learning Katakana?
For most people, becoming comfortable with katakana is a slower process than it was with hiragana. This is mostly because katakana shows up less frequently compared to hiragana, so you don't have as much opportunity to practice. Despite not showing up as often, it is still very important. If you can spend an extra 3-4 hours really studying katakana you'll save yourself 20+ hours in the future, just because katakana won't slow you down. It's worth studying now so that you aren't tripping up later on.
After learning katakana, though, what should you do (besides studying katakana more)?
Kanji
If you haven't started kanji, get started right away. If you like the approach we took here (mnemonics, etc) we made WaniKani to show people that kanji isn't as hard as it seems.
Grammar
Along with kanji or after you have a foundation in kanji, it's time to learn some Japanese grammar. There are many resources to help you to do this. We made TextFugu (an online Japanese textbook) for this, but there are other sites like Tae Kim's Guide To Japanese as well as textbooks (we like the Genki series).
I hope this guide helped you to learn katakana effectively and quickly! Keep working hard and you'll continue to get better and better. With katakana you'll be able to read foreign words, read a lot of menus, onomatopoeia, and much more. Keep it up and soon you'll be able to read everything! |
The Mexican National Team’s road to this summer’s CONCACAF Gold Cup will take the defending tournament champions through Houston for a key match against perennial African World Cup participant Ghana.
The Federación Mexicana de Fútbol (FMF), Soccer United Marketing (SUM), Lone Star Sports & Entertainment and the Houston Dynamo today announced that Mexico will play Ghana on Wednesday, June 28 (7:30 p.m. CT), at Houston’s NRG Stadium, presented by AT&T. The game takes place just days prior to Mexico’s participation in the 2017 CONCACAF Gold Cup, the official national team competition in the region.
Tickets to the Houston match will go on sale to the general public on Wednesday, March 29 at 10 a.m. local time via Ticketmaster.com or by calling 800-745-3000.
The game is part of the landmark 15th annual Mexican National Team U.S. Tour, which kicked off on Feb. 8 in Las Vegas in a 1-0 win against Iceland in front of a record-breaking audience for soccer in the city. Mexico will also play in Los Angeles on May 27 versus Croatia, and June 1 in the New York/New Jersey metropolitan area against Ireland.
Mexico has defeated Ghana in two all-time meetings (2006 and 2008). The 2006 game, played at FC Dallas’ Toyota Stadium, saw Guillermo Franco score the game’s only goal with a 75th minute header. Mexican National Team legend Pável Pardo was the hero of the 2008 game, scoring the winning goal - a penalty - in the 85th minute to give Mexico a 2-1 win, in a match played in England.
Mexico has played at NRG Stadium (formerly named Reliant Stadium) 15 times, resulting in seven wins, six draws, and just two losses. The first, in 2003 against archrivals United States, resulted in a scoreless draw in front of almost 70,000 fans. Since then, the National Team has played matches at NRG Stadium nearly every year, including Gold Cup matches, World Cup Qualifying matches, and a match against Venezuela during last year’s historic Copa America Centenario. Some other notable games include the 2007 Gold Cup quarterfinal against Costa Rica, in which Jared Borgetti scored the winning goal in added time on Mexico’s journey to the final, and a 2011 Gold Cup semifinal win against Honduras.
To get ready for Mexico’s U.S. Tour matches, fans can visit the official U.S. Mexican National Team E-Store, http://store.miseleccion.us/, featuring the latest team gear such as jerseys, hats, and more.
The Tour, sponsored by adidas, Advance Auto Parts, Allstate Insurance Company, AT&T, Bud Light, Coca-Cola, el Jimador, Makita, Nissan, POWERADE, The Home Depot, and Wells Fargo, will visit five cities across the United States in 2017, and will be broadcast nationally on the Univision and FOX family of networks as well as on the Fútbol de Primera Radio Network.
2017 Mexican National Team U.S. Tour |
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A Bath businessman is trying to sell his Polish food store in Oldfield Park because he says the Brexit vote has meant many Polish customers have left the city.
Polish Food Delicatessen in Moorland Road has been open for 17 years and current owner Jack Hibner took over the shop nine months ago.
But now Mr Hibner, who sells a range of authentic Eastern European food, has posted an advert on the listings website Gumtree, with the business being advertised for £19,999.
The 62-year-old said he does not want to sell but claims fewer people are shopping at local businesses and many Polish customers have returned home or left Bath since the EU Referendum in 2016.
He said: "It is very hard. After Brexit a lot of Polish people went back home.
"This means most of my customers have left."
(Image: Artur Lesniak/Trinity Mirror)
Mr Hibner is now calling on the local community to shop at local businesses rather than larger supermarkets.
“I’m hardworking and a very passionate person.
"I work very long days every day, but I’m not making enough money.” said Mr Hibner.
“I need to restock shelves because customers can’t see an empty shop, but not enough people are buying."
"If I had just ten per cent more customers, it would be a beautiful shop and I would be a happy shop keeper," he added.
The store, at 10 Moorland Road, sells a range of meats, bread, seasonings and other Eastern European delicacies and is stocked using small producers who deliver fresh goods every day.
Mr Hibner, who is Polish and has Canadian citizenship but has lived in Bath for six years, started selling a wider range of Eastern European delicacies to attract more people.
“I try to sell things that British customers want. I sell good quality food which is a lot cheaper than the supermarkets.
“The shop sells everything you need," he said.
Mr Hibner praised the Moorland Road community for supporting the shop and encouraging more people to visit.
(Image: Artur Lesniak/Trinity Mirror)
“The support from the customers is amazing.
“When everybody comes in they say how delicious the food is and how good it tastes.
"I want to stay here and I'm very passionate about keeping the shop,” said Mr Hibner.
Mr Hibner turned to the Facebook group Moorland Road is Amazing! to encourage more local people to shop at his store.
He started posting authentic recipes, such as the Eastern European dish Pierogy, which uses ingredients that can all be bought at the Polish Shop.
“I love England. When I got Canadian citizenship I told people I pledged my allegiances to the Queen.
“I love Moorland Road. Everybody is so friendly and supportive.
“I want to stay here, but I can’t keep going if I don’t get enough customers," added Mr Hibner.
The Bath Chronicle has launched a WhatsApp group to help you keep up to date with the latest news. If you'd like to receive breaking news alerts, save the number 07939 497390 to your phone - we recommend saving the contact as 'Bath Chronicle News' - then send the word NEWS to us via WhatsApp. We will send you a maximum of four messages a day and your phone number won't be shared with other members of the group or used for any other purpose. |
He will be released in February. Scerba pleaded guilty in the ACT Supreme Court to posting a secret Defence Intelligence Organisation report to image sharing website 4chan in October 2012. Scerba, then a 21-year-old Department of Defence graduate, downloaded the secret 15-page document from Secret Defence Security Network, burnt it to a disc, took it home, and posted the first two pages to the online forum. The first image he posted included the comment "Julian Assange is my hero".The post was discovered and Scerba's home raided by Australian Federal Police. Forensic tests of his computer and a broken disc located in his bin confirmed his involvement. The contents of the leaked report are the subject of strict secrecy provisions, but the court on Thursday heard the posts revealed the identity of intelligence sources, gathering methods, and classified aspects of strategic partnerships between Australia and foreign countries.
The document was meant for the "Five Eyes" intelligence alliance involving Australia and its top allies. Scerba possessed a secret, or negative vetting level one, clearance, and had been with the department for about eight months at the time. The court heard the post disappeared after about one hour and at least 12 people had viewed and commented on it in that time. But it was unknown the total number who had accessed the sensitive information. The court also heard one 4chan user had downloaded and reposted the image. In handing down the sentence, Justice Refshauge accepted that Scerba had not intended to compromise national security, although he knew the disclosure could cause harm. "The level of harm may never be known," the judge said.
The court heard Scerba had no prior convictions and had been assessed as a low risk of reoffending. He had accepted responsibility and acknowledged the breach of trust, but had minimised his actions. Justice Refshauge said he had shown limited remorse and was yet to fully recognise the full consequences of his crime. The judge accepted Scerba's mental health had impaired his judgment, but found he knew what he was doing. He said Scerba had displayed a level of planning and detail, and attempted to avoid detection. Justice Refshauge also accepted there had been no political, ideological, or financial motive for the offending. He found the seriousness of the offence required a sentence of full time imprisonment. Now retired Lieutenant General Peter Leahy, who was chief of army between 2002 and 2008, said he thought the jail sentence was a "good thing".
But he believed the three months Scerba will spend behind bars had been too lenient. "I'm pleased to see the court has imprisoned him, although I think a three month prison term is inadequate, but at least they are reinforcing the laws of the Commonwealth," Professor Leahy, now the director of the University of Canberra's National Security Institute, said. "I think there's an attitude among too many these days that they can, for personal reasons, breach security protocols ... [and it] is reinforced by the leniency of the courts. "[The jail sentence] sends a message to people who think they can breach Commonwealth security, and I think they should listen carefully to the message." CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story said Justice Richard Refshauge had found there had been political, ideological, or financial motive for the offending. Instead, the judge found Scerba had none of those motives. |
Drum Major. Alex Judd, Drum Major, prepares the Longhorn Band for game day, University of Texas Longhorn Band, Austin, Texas. Walker Pickering
Walker Pickering was a self-described band nerd. He played the tuba in the marching band throughout high school, and, convinced that one day he would become a high school band director, entered college as a music major.
“I learned pretty quickly I didn’t want to do this at all,” he said. “I was like, what is all this music theory about?” He quickly shifted majors, began studying graphic design, and eventually graduated with a degree in photography.
But Pickering, who grew up in a musical family where he played multiple instruments, didn’t turn his back on the marching band. In 2009 he began an ongoing series, “Esprit de Corps,” that combines his love of photography, nostalgia, and collective performance with a focus on high school and college marching bands, as well as music related groups not connected to a school.
The project began by chance when Pickering went to visit an old friend who was part of a drum and bugle corps. On a whim, he brought along his camera during one of her practices and started taking pictures. He found the images to be intriguing and started reaching out to his network of friends and colleagues who were still part of the marching band scene to see if he could photograph their rehearsals and performances.
Resting. Longhorn band member resting before the UT–Oklahome State game, University of Texas Longhorn Band, Austin, Texas. Walker Pickering
Underpass Warm-up. The Blue Knights Drum & Bugle Corps rehearse beneath an underpass at the DCI Southwestern Championship, The Alamodome, San Antonio. Walker Pickering
Left: Tan Lines. Extreme tan lines show as corps members get dressed following rehearsal, The Cavaliers Drum & Bugle Corps, Lehman High School, Kyle, Texas. Right: Rifles. The Cavaliers Drum & Bugle Corps Rifle Line rehearse at Lehman High School, Kyle, Texas. Walker Pickering
Pickering quickly realized the in-between details were capturing his attention more than the main events.
“I don’t usually like to shoot performances at football games so much,” he said. “It’s just so boring. It’s what everyone shoots. I’m interested in having a lot of behind the scenes access, that’s what I value and what I’m interested in doing.”
For Pickering, being a part of the marching band as a teenager was a chance to be part of a group of like-minded people. But, in many respects, the idea of the marching band felt outdated to him, something that is really only supported by the friends and family of the students who participate in it.
“When I got into band, I finally felt like I was part of something bigger than me and it was really exciting,” he said. “But if you go to a football game it seems like a weird anachronism, a lot of the crowd doesn’t care. It’s almost for a lot of people, the marching band is tolerated, but I think [the band does] a really good job of trying to make themselves relevant within that culture.”
Tubas. Santa Clara Vanguard Drum & Bugle Corps Tubas at the DCI Southwestern Championship, The Alamodome, San Antonio. Walker Pickering
Left: Bin. Bin Her, Trumpet, University of Texas Longhorn Band, Austin, Texas. Right: Flute Handshake. Flute players perform the “Flute Handshake” before a performance, Barbers Hill High School Marching Band, Mont Belvieu, Texas. Walker Pickering
Color Guard Circle. The color guard circle up before taking the field at the DCI Southwestern Championships, The Cavaliers Drum & Bugle Corps, The Alamodome, San Antonio. Walker Pickering
Shooting the series is also a chance to document details that are unique—and often outdated—to marching bands including the outrageous uniforms.
“Many bands still utilize a very traditional style of uniform,” he said. “The majority of bands and drum corps, however, seem to have opted for a look that updates every few years, changing with the style of the day. There’s a strong chance that these uniforms will look funny and dated in a decade or two, and I hope the work serves as a sort of time capsule in that way.”
There is one thing that probably won’t go away anytime soon: band battle scars, the sign of a dedicated band member. Pickering said carrying around the tuba during his marching band days caused a callous to form on his shoulder.
“In high school and college, a kind of lump developed on our shoulders and that stayed there for the entire season.”
Left: Cloaks. Cloaked brass players encircle the corps director before their performance at the DCI Southwestern Championship, The Alamodome, San Antonio, Texas. Right: Dr. Carnochan. Dr. Robert Carnochan, Director of The University of Texas Longhorn Band, Austin, Texas. Walker Pickering
Blue Stars Uniforms. Uniforms are lined up beneath an overpass during warmups for the DCI Southwestern Championship, Blue Stars Drum & Bugle Corps, The Alamodome, San Antonio. Walker Pickering
Fans. Drum Corps Fans, DCI Dallas, Lake Highlands High School, Dallas. Walker Pickering
Trumpets. Trumpet players warm up, DCI Dallas, Lake Highlands High School, Dallas. Walker Pickering
Scouts Trumpet Line. Trumpet players in rehearsal, Madison Scouts Drum & Bugle Corps, Forney High School, Forney, Texas. Walker Pickering
Update, Oct. 29, 2014: The headline on this post has been updated to clarify that while all the photos were taken in Texas, all the marching bands are not based in the state. |
This article is more about aspirations than answers. I am describing the start of a journey more than documenting how to arrive at a destination. I begin with a confession: I have always been a theoretical continuationist. That is, I have always believed that the gifts of the Spirit continue to this very day.
I have never adopted the cessationist viewpoint that certain spiritual gifts ceased when the apostolic age came to an end. Paul’s argument that tongues and prophecy will end “when the perfect comes” (1 Corinthians 13:8–10) is a reference to the second coming of Christ, not the close of the biblical canon. I tell my cessationist friends that there is a day coming when I too will be a cessationist: the second coming.
Even though I have always been a theoretical continuationist, I am far too often a functional cessationist. In other words, I am a continuationist in theory, but I look a lot like a cessationist in practice. This gap between theory and practice pricks my conscience.
Test Everything — Including Attitudes
Recently, I have been convicted by clear differences between the way the Bible speaks and the way I speak about spiritual gifts. I have said things like “I am open, but cautious” when it comes to sign gifts like prophecy, tongues, and interpretation of tongues. That statement about caution rightly stresses the need to “test everything” (1 Thessalonians 5:21). Every experience must be examined by the searchlight of Scripture.
“Instead of ‘open, but cautious,’ I am more like ‘open, but overly suspicious.’” Twitter Tweet Facebook Share on Facebook
However, in practice, I can take this caution so far that it turns into suspicion and fear. Instead of “open, but cautious,” I am more like “open, but overly suspicious.” I have discovered that Scripture tests our attitudes and not just our experiences. It was a little shocking to see how much my attitude is actually rebuked by Scripture. Paul commands Christians, “Earnestly desire the spiritual gifts” (1 Corinthians 14:1). He characterizes the Corinthians as “eager for manifestations of the Spirit” (1 Corinthians 14:12).
My attitude towards spiritual gifts has fallen far short of earnest and eager. In fact, Scripture goes further and asks me about how much I am committed to corporate edification. Spiritual gifts or manifestations of the Spirit are for “building up the church” (1 Corinthians 14:12). The great Love Chapter (1 Corinthians 13) controls the application of spiritual gifts (1 Corinthians 14). This issue is not just an attitude check, but a love test. Will I love my people enough to move from extreme caution to earnest desire? What motivates me more? Do I fear losing a measure of corporate control, or does love move me to desire greater heights of corporate edification?
Desiring God in His Gifts
One thought has captured me more than any other at the start of this journey. This thought came from a thought-provoking question from Sam Storms in his book The Beginners Guide to Spiritual Gifts. He asks whether we should talk about “God and his gifts” or “God in his gifts.” He does not leave the answer in doubt.
Spiritual gifts are nothing less than God himself in us, energizing our souls, imparting revelation to our minds, infusing power in our wills, and working his sovereign and gracious purposes through us. Spiritual gifts must never be viewed deistically, as if a God “out there” has sent some “thing” to us “down here.” Spiritual gifts are God present in, with, and through human thoughts, human deeds, human words, human love.
This paragraph captured me. These words arrested me because if spiritual gifts are manifestations of God, then, in a sense, desiring the gifts is desiring God. Christian Hedonists are not fully desiring God if we stop short of desiring him in his gifts.
The pastoral implications are weighty as well. The apostle Paul keeps pushing the discussion of spiritual gifts toward corporate edification: “building up the church” (1 Corinthians 14:12). Love looks like a pastor wanting more manifestations of God for the corporate joy and edification of his people.
Christian Hedonism Seeks for More
Therefore, I aspire to pastor a Christian Hedonist, continuationist church. The gifts of the Spirit are present at our church; I don’t want to give the impression that manifestations of the Spirit have been absent. But certain gifts of the Spirit — like prophesy and speaking in tongues — have been more sporadic than consistent.
“Spiritual gifts are nothing less than God himself in us.” Twitter Tweet Facebook Share on Facebook
I don’t have all the answers for what consistency would look like as a Christian Hedonist, continuationist church, but I want to grow into it. We are taking some small steps in this direction. Our leadership has made plans to attend the Convergence Conference this month, and the next Bethlehem Conference for Pastors and Church Leaders will focus on the person and the work of the Holy Spirit.
We don’t expect changes to come overnight. Any changes in practice will require extensive teaching and careful shepherding, but we are eager to learn from others who are leading the way in demonstrating how to desire God in his gifts. |
RAMPAGING vandals kicked in the windscreens of cars parked in a quiet residential street, causing hundreds of pounds’ worth of damage.
Vandals targeted at least five vehicles in North Gyle Loan, East Craigs, during the early hours of Sunday morning.
Police are appealing for witnesses after families woke to find glass smashed and wing mirrors kicked off.
Alon Palmer, a captain in the merchant navy, branded the thugs “mindless” after both his Volvo XC70 and wife’s C70 were attacked.
“There are footprints on the bonnets so it looks like they ran over the cars and stamped on the windscreens,” said Alon, 60.
“I don’t know how much it’ll cost and the insurance company are sending someone out.
“It’s just mindless. We think it was kids from a party a few streets over and my daughter found an empty bottle nearby.”
A neighbour also had the windscreen of her family car smashed.
“I woke up thinking I heard breaking glass but I told myself it wasn’t someone outside,” said the 38-year-old mum-of-two, who declined to be named.
“I just went back to sleep because I thought I was just tired with having to get up and feed the baby.
“I don’t know what they hoped to achieve by it, whether they were trying to take stuff from the cars. I don’t know what was going through their heads.
“We’re having to wait until tomorrow to get our windscreen fixed. I was told some cars further up the road were damaged as well.”
The weekend’s attack is the latest in a spate of vandalism against car owners across the city.
Earlier this month, five cars were trashed with a pole in Gosford Place, Newhaven. Windscreens were also kicked in and wing mirrors pulled off.
And in November, about 30 cars were hit across Granton, Boswall, Trinity and Hawthornvale as yobs marauded through nine streets.
“We lived here for four years and this is the first time we’ve had any problems so it’s not a regular thing,” said Alon.
“A neighbour has been here 40 years and he said he’s never had any problems in that time either.”
“I’m on leave today but will need the car tomorrow as I’m training – it’s a massive inconvenience.
“My wife’s car is a convertible and we don’t know yet whether it’s damaged the mechanism inside when they’ve pushed through the glass.”
Police are appealing for witnesses to the North Gyle Loan attacks.
“A substantial amount of damage has been caused to the vehicles involved,” said Sgt Richard Homewood.
“The actions of those responsible is disgraceful and we’re appealing for witnesses or anyone that can assist police.”
Anyone with information can contact Police Scotland on 101 or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.
[email protected] |
I think I’m like a lot of authors, in that I create soundtracks for my books in my head as I write them. I floated the idea on twitter of compiling own personal soundtrack was for City of Stairs, and the response was extremely positive – so much so that I’m willing to try to ignore how embarrassing it might be to show what sort of music I listen to, or exactly how much of this is cribbed from movie soundtracks.
A lot of this, surprisingly, came from Pandora – back in 2013 or so, I used to put Pandora on a random station as I cleaned my house. When I heard a song I liked, I’d idly try and see if it would fit with a scene from the book I was writing in my head. Most of the time, the song didn’t. But sometimes it did.
I would normally caution you all that I listen to some really weird shit – but having already heard some fan selections for my books, and having heard other authors talk about the music they like, I know I’m not. Even. Fucking. Close to being weird. I’m actually probably incredibly milquetoast. So there you are.
Anyways, on with the soundtrack. Spoilers if you don’t know the plot.
Robert’s personal CoS opening credits song – “Short Careers” by Eric Bachmann
I came across this song while listening to the Nick Cave and Warren Ellis station on Pandora. I was listening to it in the car and would have pulled over to learn more about it, had I not been on I fucking 35 at the time. It’s a song from a movie which I know absolutely nothing about – something about baseball and fight clubs? I can’t remember – but were City of Stairs ever to become its own show, the doleful, threatening, Slavic tones of this would fit right in. Kudos to Mr. Bachmann for doing such a good job.
The Komayd Legacy: Shara, Efrem, and Vinya – The Shostakovich 5th Quartet, 2nd Movement
(Youtube won’t let me link to EXACTLY where the 2nd movement starts – but the piece begins at 10:45)
Lots of Russian and Soviet composers are going to show up here. I’m sure you’re shocked. Shostakovich especially, since he composed in the gray, hellish world of the Soviet Union, where creativity was strictly controlled. The man lived with a packed suitcase under his bed at all times, just in case.
The Shostakovich 5th Quarter has been one of my favorite discoveries since I was a kid. The second movement starts off incredibly strangely – using harmonics, where your finger barely touches the string of the instrument, the players create these incredibly fragile, pure tones that the ear can’t help but find disturbing, like nails on a chalkboard. From there, the piece blossoms out into a beautifully haunting melody, the sound of broken dreams.
Whenever I wrote about Shara’s past – outside of Vohannes – this piece captures the idealism I think she tried to live up to, and failed. When she first stands over Efrem’s body in Bulikov, all of those failures come swimming up for her. There are glimpses of optimism in the piece, right around the 13:20 mark – but you’re never quite convinced it’s going to succeed.
Like I said in the previous piece, Shara starts off broken, and has to figure out how to put herself back together. I think this piece captures that effort.
Sigrud fucks shit up – “The Electrician,” by The Walker Brothers
When I read books or watch movies, there’s times when I think, “Yes. I’m stealing that.”
And I think that’s fine. I can never really rip it whole cloth from the work I’m seeing. Just by having me touch it and put it into my own work, it changes – it’s like light passing through a prism, when it comes out it’s never exactly as it came in.
Anyway, when I was thinking of how I wanted to write Sigrud, I happened to watch the movie Bronson, with Tom Hardy – and, well, anyways. There you go. (Note – this is not the original from the movie – it’s been remixed so the song covers some of preceding scenes – but once Tom Hardy is naked in a cage, covered in human shit and blood and screaming, yeah, that’s the real movie.)
I usually think of this song being played as Shara walks through the carnage leading up to Vohannes’s ballroom, where Sigrud is going to town on a couple of Restorationist goons. It’s fun.
Shara and Vohannes – Prokofiev 5th Symphony, 2nd Movement
Really, this symphony could work as the theme for the whole of City of Stairs. It’s rich and grandly romantic, while alternating between whimsy and melancholy. This particular movement was written in a Soviet haven as WWII raged on in Europe – it feels like there’s a whole story in the movement itself, a World War II epic about families and lovers sundered and searching for one another.
It’s that melancholy and romanticism that works so well to capture the relationship between Shara and Vo – both of them are people with grand ideals and grander ideas, confined within situations that do not allow them to truly be themselves, or do what they wish to do.
I listened to this piece a lot when I was first trying to figure out what character would star opposite Shara (which isn’t Sigrud – he’s more beside her than opposite her) – and I had this idea of a grand, romantic, captain of industry with a tragic past. I always pictured him in a white suit, right from the start – before I knew who we was, that he was gay (or about 80% gay, 20% straight or so), what had made him, and what he wished to do in Bulikov. I vaguely knew I wanted him to be something of a Dr. Zhivago character, though I always knew from the start he would die, a great man torn down by a petty world. I’m planning to revisit Vohannes’s legacy in the third Stairs book.
The Kaj’s invasion of the Continent, and the Blink – Shostakovich 10th Symphony, 2nd Movement
The Shostakovich 10th Symphony might be the greatest symphony ever written, composed just after Stalin died as a testament to human self-expression and endurance. The 2nd Movement, linked above, is a musical interpretation of Stalin himself.
As such, it feels appropriate for a gruesome period of history in City of Stairs, marked by mass graves, holocaust, and utter catastrophe.
The Kaj, in my own personal estimation, is not precisely the liberator Saypur likes to think he is.
Shara’s Vision
I was watching the first season of Hannibal and found myself really struck by the sound of the bullroarer, a primitive instrument composed of a wooden blade on a piece of rope, which is then spun very quickly.
You can see the bullroarer in action here.
Supposedly this music heals you. Seems more likely that it’s something you would listen to while running through the woods, naked, covered in paint and holding a knife. Which leads us to…
Sigrud vs. Urav
This was yet again another Pandora rec, when the Nick Cave and Warren Ellis radio station played a song and I immediately thought of freezing waters, the sound of boots on ice, and memories being relived in the darkness.
Then I looked at the song itself and realized – oh yeah.
So it’s from a movie. So the movie’s about Native Americans. So what. I don’t care. It works for me.
I was listening to this song, actually, when I suddenly decided that Sigrud needed to have the flashbacks to his life before imprisonment right there, while he was fighting Urav, remembering riding in the sleigh with his children, and later digging up their bones. He suddenly came alive to me as a character as I listened to this song and folded laundry.
Efrem’s Diary – Shostakovich 7th Quarter, Movement 2
Another Shostakovich quartet, and, yes indeedy, another creepy, mournful piece. This quarter was written in memory of Shostakovich’s wife, who had just recently died. If I recall, it’s written in a Phrygian mode – an Ancient Greek key used primarily for mourning. This feels appropriate for a story about dead gods, and a history about the dubious circumstances under which they perished.
The White City – First Delphinic Hymn
Because, y’know.
The Battle of Bulikov
I first dreamed up City of Stairs in a period of my life when I was working in the packaging department of a factory. It sucked. One thing they did was play the radio at full blast all day while we worked, listening to local pop stations. I grew used to listening to Lady Gaga and Missy Elliot and “Hey there Delilah” and the like as I worked, taping up boxes and thinking about books.
There was one song I quite liked as I worked, one that got played a lot and stood out from the rest of the “would you like to fuck?” style of music that seemed to be everything else that I listened to. (Which I liked fine, for what it was, but got tired of.) I liked how this one song built to a really big, loud, hopeful crescendo, a giant sonic blast.
I was wondering about how to end City of Stairs at the time, and as I listened to this song for the fifth or sixth time, I thought: “I want it to end like that. A slow build as the cavalry arrives – something crazy, like flying pirate ships with guns – and then an explosion as someone flies the pirate ship right into the holy army.”
I didn’t know at the time that it would go on to be one of the most overplayed songs of the decade, nor did I know that the band would come to be both loved and loathed by tons of music fans.
But whatever. Fuck it.
Shara Sails Home – “Intervention” by Arcade Fire
My friend played this once for me about six or so years ago, when we were driving to breakfast super hungover. I immediately liked it, the sounds of joyful revolution, of resolute progress, of bruised idealism. I used to jog to this song when I was feeling blue, and found myself suddenly feeling a lot more upbeat.
It is a little bit on the nose, however – the bit about working for the church while your family dies could be interpreted in a number of ways in a book about the death of religion. But I think Stairs, and this song, are a lot more about power than any religion in particular.
***
So… what’s next?
Well, City of Blades comes out in January. So what does it sound like? What does it sound like to see Mulaghesh and Sigrud stuck in the former kingdom of war and death, wondering if they can ever really change as people?
Well, at first I thought it would sound like this:
This is a male-gendered song, but the bitterness and regret really speak to Mulaghesh’s character. (The Townes Van Zandt original can be found here. I like it quite a bit too, but the sparse arrangement Earle starts with, mixed with the string quarter in the background, is much more of my bag.)
But then I listened to a song my wife likes a lot, and thought that, well, if someone were to make a trailer for the book, or the show of the book, or the movie of the show of the book, then you couldn’t do worse than this:
I kind of like having female vocals in the lead here, since Mulaghesh’s character is much louder and much more vocal than Shara’s. There’s a frontier aspect to City of Blades, rough people in the wilderness living rough lives, and these bluesy songs work quite with that aspect. Also, a river is prominently featured in City of Blades, and the line “The Good Lord speaks like a rolling thunder” is suddenly much more disturbing when you’re talking about Voortya, the living incarnation of war and death.
Stay tuned for more. |
14 January 2016, 18:58
In the period from October to late December 2015, at least 24 people were kidnapped in Chechnya by law enforcers. This was reported by the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial". According to the human rights defenders, one of the kidnapped persons was found dead, and the fate of six other kidnapped persons remains unknown.
The HRC "Memorial" reports that during the last three months of 2015, "numerous enforced disappearances of people involving law enforcers" occurred in the Chechen Republic.
"Most of the people were released after some time. However, the fate of some of them is still unknown," states the press release.
The human rights defenders have also listed the cases of kidnapping of Chechen residents, which occurred since October 2015. So, according to the human rights defenders, in October, law enforcers detained and took away to some unknown destination eight young men, residents of Grozny.
"Six of them were released a month later, and till present, there is no information about the fate of the other two men," states the press release.
According to the HRC "Memorial", in late December 2015, law enforcers presumably OMON (riot police) fighters detained eight other young men. Two of them have not been released yet.
Khizir Ezhiev, one of the kidnapped men, an economics lecturer from the Grozny Oil University, was killed.
According to the human rights defenders, in recent years, residents of Chechnya usually do not want to make public information about kidnappings of their relatives.
"Transparency could be the way out of this vicious circle. Furthermore, the dissemination of information on specific cases of kidnappings would save disappeared persons," emphasizes the press release.
Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’. |
The modular design of the switch face lets us build you a custom switch panel to control just about anything. Whether you want a single switch to turn on a dome light or a bank of 20 to run everything in the car we can do it.
The switches are all machined from billet aluminum and have a brushed finish. The actual switch can be either momentary-off-momentary or on-off-on. All switches are rated at 5 amps so you may want relays for heavy loads. (see page 39) Want lights? We can add 1 or 2 lights to each switch in your choice of colors. The switch panels are 1 3/4” tall. A single switch is 1 5/8” long. Each additional switch adds 1 1/8”. (for example a 6 switch panel is 7 3/8” long) The toggle is 5/8” tall.
The GT4D series include the dividers to safeguard those important circuits from accidently being switched. The GT3 series are without dividers. We can mix the 2 on a single panel as shown on the right.
ISO Symbols, custom engraving and black anodizing is available upon request.
Don’t know if you have Polarity reversing Motors? See the Product Instructions Tab to determine if your motors are Polarity reversing or Non-Polarity reversing.
GT4D Switches with dividers
Single GT4D switch 10010……$105.00
Double GT4D switch 10021……$205.00
3 switch panel of GT4D 10032…..$299.00
4 switch panel of GT4D 10043…..$390.00
5 switch panel of GT4D 10054…..$489.00
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7 switch panel of GT4D 10075…..$659.00
We have shown pricing here for 1 to 7 switches. We can build longer panels, just call us for a quote.
Want lights? We have them in green, red, amber and blue. Add $7.00 for each light. Be sure to tell us how you want the lights to function. We can wire up exactly what you need. If you want some dividers but not on every switch give us call and we’ll price it for you. Once again, don’t forget your relays. We have polarity reversing, latching, single pole units to help keep your circuits |
License plate recognition technology developed for law enforcement and embraced by the auto repossession industry is being opened to wider use through a Florida company that lets its clients track the travels of millions of private vehicles—adding to privacy advocates' concerns that such data could be used improperly.
TLO, an investigative technology company in Boca Raton, Fla., began offering the search service to its private industry clients in late June, saying it taps into a database of more than 1 billion records collected by automatic license plate readers.
A report earlier this week by the ACLU found that U.S. law enforcement agencies are scooping up droves of data using license plate readers, creating massive databases where more than 99 percent of the entries represent innocent people.
But private industry also has put the technology to work, most prominently in recovering vehicles from deadbeat borrowers. As the new TLO service demonstrates, private use of LPR data for other purposes is expanding rapidly.
It's unclear who runs the database that TLO taps into, but the two leading companies in the field say that each month their databases collect tens of millions of pieces of geo-located information from thousands of license plate readers, mounted on tow trucks, mall security vehicles, police cars, at the entrances to store parking lots, on toll booths or along city streets and highways.
The data can include the location of the vehicle, the date and time it was spotted, and an image. Sometimes, drivers and passengers appear in the images.
"The prospect of a private company making such data public to all comers is scary," said Catherine Crump, an attorney with the ACLU's Speech, Privacy and Technology Project. "This kind of information is particularly what stalkers would love to get their hands on."
Crump, who wrote the ACLU report but said she had not been aware of TLO's service, worried about privacy concerns with other possible uses, such as corporations tracking where their employees go after work, politicians scouting rivals or people keeping tabs on babysitters' travels.
But those involved in amassing license plate databases say such fears are unfounded—and that data obtained via Facebook, Twitter or a person's cellphone are far more intrusive.
"They can figure out who you date," said Scott A. Jackson, founder and CEO of Illinois-based MVTRAC, which controls one of the two big private LPR databases in the U.S. "For us to figure out that information, it would take us billions and billions of license plates to get to that point. We're at least 10 years away from that."
Jackson also said companies that use MVTRAC's camera systems and tap into its database go through rigorous background checks and vetting of computer security and personnel. He said that anyone who used MVTRAC's database improperly could be violating three federal privacy laws.
Still, he said, the impetus is on companies like his to show that they use data properly.
"There's no illegality whatsoever for me giving you data about a license plate. But as big data becomes exponential, society has a reasonable expectation that companies will handle themselves responsibly," Jackson said. "I wouldn't give this data to someone I don't know—they might be a stalker."
Similarly, Chris Metaxas, chief executive officer of Texas-based Digital Recognition Network, or DRN, which holds the other big private LPR database, said strict rules govern how such data is collected and used. He said that the ACLU's concerns about how long LPR data is kept by law enforcement miss the point.
"The issue is really not about retention of data. The real issue is one of access control and effective policies" surrounding privacy and security, Metaxas said.
Metaxas said his company adheres to best practices laid out in federal driver's privacy laws for access control, encryption and security of its data. DRN's data does not contain private information about individuals, he said.
"We do not retain any identifiable information related to owners of those license plates," he said.
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Jackson said that MVTRAC has expanded the use of its data beyond law enforcement and the repossession and insurance industries but that his company did not contract with TLO or have plans for a service like TLO's.
When asked whether TLO used DRN's database, Metaxas said he could not answer questions about possible clients.
A source at TLO with knowledge about how the company markets such information said that not just anyone can get access to the Vehicle Sightings database. Clients must be part of specific industries, follow rules on permissible use of TLO's databases and describe specifically how they wanted to use the data, the source said.
TLO advertises on its website that it serves clients in the legal, financial services, corporate risk and private investigative industries, along with investigative journalists and law enforcement and government agencies.
The source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that the Vehicle Sightings tool is not available to the banking and car repossession industries, but not because of privacy concerns: Those industries are bread and butter for the company that actually owns the database, the source said.
TLO says on its website that the service offers photos of the vehicle and license plate along with time and geographic stamps, and can map where vehicles were seen. |
For those that don’t know, TEC stands for Terrain Effects Chart. Practically every military board game has one of these charts. These TEC charts are used by the players to work out what effects the map board terrain will have on their units.
Last week I discussed in detail what it was I was trying to do with regard to Ancient Armies’ terrain effects. This week, I put my money where my mouth is and actually show you some of the early results of my work in the form of a video demonstration which can be seen at the end of this blog post.
In many respects this is a bit of a milestone as this is the first time that the units in Ancient Armies have become aware of their surroundings. Prior to this they just wondered around the map without fully appreciating what was on it – but not anymore! 🙂
For those that can’t play videos, here are some screenshots to illustrate some of the things that Ancient Armies is now modelling.
First up is impassible terrain:
As can be seen from the above two screenshots, the system deals with impassible terrain by stopping the unit and then cancelling its orders.
It also does one more very subtle thing…
It ‘bounces’ the unit off of the impassible terrain so that it is no longer on it. This bounce off is tiny, but is required to ensure that a unit does not become ‘stuck’ on impassible terrain.
Next up, are stream crossings:
In the above set of images we can see that water obstacles can have varying depths which can affect a unit’s ability to negotiate them. Different unit types will be able to cross different depths of water – for example cavalry units can cross deeper streams than infantry units.
The speed impact of the water on the unit is based on the depth, the unit type, its cohesion and its density. So as one can see even for a simple stream crossing we are modelling a lot of variables.
Now for some hills:
Ancient Armies works out the hill slope at every point. The steeper the slope, the harder the going.
For units proceeding downhill, there is a speed bonus, but this is based on the steepness of the hill and the unit’s cohesion. Low cohesion units such as skirmishers can take full advantage of the run downhill, whereas tightly packed highly cohesive formations like a Greek Phalanx, would only get a modest boost as they will be striving to maintain order in their formations.
Finally I’ll cover a complex woods example:
So as one can see Ancient Armies models many factors with regard to terrain interactions. With one of the biggest contributors being the formation characteristics of the unit itself. This is only made possible because of Ancient Armies highly detailed formation modelling – something that other Ancient Wargames simply lack.
As good as these pictures are, I urge you to watch the You-Tube video below so that you can see things happening for real. Plus as an added bonus, I tend to go into a lot of the mechanics in greater detail.
So what’s left to do?
Well, I still need to model the affects of equipment weight and I need to enable the impact of traversing terrain on a unit’s fatigue and cohesion. In addition, I will also be modelling the effects of a unit’s training too! Highly trained units are more likely to carry out their drills without their formations falling apart 🙂
That’s it for this rather busy week.
Laters
RobP
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CLOSE The Trump administration has issued new guidance outlining which restrooms transgender students can use, effectively lifting previous guidelines put in place by the Obama administration. USA TODAY NETWORK
In this Monday, Aug. 22, 2016 photo, transgender high school student Gavin Grimm poses in Gloucester, Va. Grimm, who was born female but identifies as male, heads back to Gloucester High School for his senior year as the U.S. Supreme Court considers whether to intervene in his case that challenges the county schools policy barring him from using the bathroom of his choice. (AP Photo/Steve Helber) (Photo11: Steve Helber, AP)
The Trump administration issued new guidance outlining which restrooms transgender students can use, potentially sowing confusion in schools, angering LGBTQ rights groups and adding uncertainty to a widely discussed case due to come before the U.S. Supreme Court next month.
A letter jointly issued Wednesday by the Department of Justice and the Department of Education announced that the agencies are "withdrawing the statements of policy and guidance" issued last year by the Obama administration that allowed students to use restrooms of their chosen gender.
The Wednesday letter noted that earlier guidance documents citing TItle IX, which prohibits gender discrimination in educational programs or activities, "do not ... contain extensive legal analysis or explain how the position is consistent with the express language of Title IX, nor did they undergo any formal public process."
The letter is signed by Sandra Battle, acting assistant secretary for civil rights, Department of Education, and T.E. Wheeler, acting assistant attorney general for civil rights, Department of Justice.
Protests continued Wednesday outside of the White House and organizations advocating for transgender youth condemned the administration for its decision.
"We all know that Donald Trump is a bully, but his attack on transgender children today is a new low," Rachel Tiven, CEO of Lambda Legal, said in a statement. "The U.S. Department of Education’s decision to withdraw guidance clarifying the rights of transgender students endangers the well-being and safety of children across the country."
She said Wednesday's move does not change the law, but it does add confusion to the debate. "The law bars discrimination — the new administration invites it," Tiven said.
Said Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, "This is a mean-spirited attack on hundreds of thousands of students who simply want to be their true selves and be treated with dignity while attending school."
"This Administration’s action sends a harmful message to transgender young people — that their government does not support them, and that it is fine to single out those who are different," she added,
We're outside of the White House tonight standing up for transgender students #transisbeautiful#dissentispatrioticpic.twitter.com/hMXYtYLgjS — ACLU National (@ACLU) February 22, 2017
Gavin Grimm, 17, a Gloucester County, Va., high school senior whose case will likely be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court next month, said during a rally in front of the White House on Wednesday that his government has let him down.
"I faced my shares of adversaries in rural Virginia — I never imagined that my government would be one of them," Grimm said. "We will not be beaten down by this administration or any. What could happen today does not mean my case ends, which is why we have gathered here outside of the White House — the people’s house — to let it be heard that we will not be silent and that we will stand with and protect trans youth."
The Family Research Council applauded the move, calling it a victory for parents, children and privacy.
"Today’s announcement fulfills President Trump’s campaign promise to get the federal government out of the business of dictating school shower and bathroom policies," council president Tony Perkins said in a statement. "The federal government has absolutely no right to strip parents and local schools of their rights to provide a safe learning environment for children."
Speaking to reporters earlier Wednesday, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said Trump is "a firm believer in states' rights and that certain issues like this are not best dealt with at the federal level.''
"The conclusions that everyone in the administration has agreed upon,'' Spicer said, "there is no daylight between anybody, between the president and any of the secretaries.''
But one organization, High School Democrats of America, took issue with the states' rights claim, and cited reports that education secretary Betsy DeVos told President Trump she felt uncomfortable about rolling back the directive.
"Civil Rights are not a 'states rights' issue, and Secretary DeVos' actions speak louder than any claims that she is committed to protecting LGBTQ students," the organization said in a statement. "We will continue to stand with our transgender siblings and will fight to ensure that they are safe in our schools and our communities.”
The Obama administration last year issued guidelines requiring that schools allow transgender students to use restrooms matching their chosen gender rather than their birth gender. Thirteen states challenged the move, prompting a federal judge in Texas to issue a nationwide hold on enforcement of the guidance.
Fifteen states have explicit protections for transgender students, and many individual school districts in other states have adopted policies that recognize students on the basis of their gender identity, Sarah Warbelow, legal director of the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) told The Associated Press. Just one state, North Carolina, has enacted a law restricting students' bathroom access to their sex at birth. But so far this year, lawmakers in more than 10 states are considering similar legislation, according to the National Conference of State Legislators.
Ryan Anderson, a senior research fellow with the conservative Heritage Foundation, said the Obama guidelines were unlawful because federal Title IX law protects students based on their sex, not their gender identity. He also said that those directives violated the rights of other students, especially girls who may have suffered from sexual abuse in the past and do not want to be exposed to male anatomy. "It's understandable when a 16-year-old girl might not want an anatomical male in the shower or the locker room," Anderson said.
He said that students, parents and teachers should work out "win-win" solutions at the local level, such as equipping schools with single-occupancy restrooms or locker rooms or allowing students to access the faculty lounge.
About 150,000 youth — 0.7% — between the ages of 13 and 17 in the United States identify as transgender, according to a study by The Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law. In perhaps the most visible case surrounding the controversy, a Virginia high school student last year sought to set a nationwide standard for transgender students. A federal appeals court last April ruled in favor of Grimm.
Grimm identified as a boy several years ago and eventually sought to use the boys' bathroom in school. A federal appeals court last April ruled in favor of him, based on Obama’s guidelines, so the new rules could throw the case into doubt.
Actress and transgender activist Laverne Cox earlier this month made Grimm a cause celebre when she told the crowd at the Grammy Awards, “Everyone please Google ‘Gavin Grimm.’ He’s going to the Supreme Court in March.”
The high court is expected to hear oral arguments in the case on March 28.
Activists say changing the federal guidance would leave students with less protection if they want to challenge state or school district rules.
"It is disheartening that the Trump administration’s first proposed education action would be designed to make students less safe,” said Bob Farrace of the National Association of Secondary School Principals. The group recommended last year that the federal government create explicit guidelines to protect what it called “a severely harassed and marginalized group of students.”
In an interview, HRC's Warbelow noted that even though Title IX gives students rights, new guidance will likely “sow confusion” in schools and allow unwilling administrators to engage in “bad behavior,” such as unlawfully disclosing a student’s transgender status.
“We obviously are frustrated, angry and disappointed, but we are not surprised,” Warbelow said. While Trump has at times said he supports LGBTQ rights, she said, since his inauguration he has “explicitly promised to undermine our rights.”
Contributing: Kevin Johnson in Washington
Follow Greg Toppo on Twitter: @gtoppo; Melanie Eversley, @melanieeversley; Stephanie Solis, @stephmsolis
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/2m9Cbct |
In North America, Atlantic salmon migrate up rivers and streams to reach spawning grounds in New England and Canada. © Design Pics Inc / Alamy Stock Photo
By the fall of 2015, the salmon of the Connecticut River were supposed to be doomed. The silvery fish that once swam the Northeast’s longest river, 407 miles from the mountains of New Hampshire to Long Island Sound, went extinct because of dams and industrial pollution in the 1700s that turned the river deadly. In the late 1800s a nascent salmon stocking program failed. Then in 2012, despite nearly a half-century of work and an investment of $25 million, the federal government and three New England states pulled the plug on another attempt to resurrect the prized fish. But five Atlantic salmon didn’t get the memo. In November, fisheries biologists found something in the waters of the Farmington River — which pours into the Connecticut River — that historians say had not appeared since the Revolutionary War: three salmon nests full of eggs. “It’s a great story,” said John Burrows, of the Atlantic Salmon Federation, a conservation group, “whether it’s the beginning of something great or the beginning of the end.” The quest to resurrect Atlantic salmon in the Connecticut River began anew in the mid-1960s when the federal government and New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts and Connecticut joined forces. They worked to curb pollution in their shared river and also build passageways around some of the 2,500 dams that plugged the river and its feeder streams in the 11,250-square-mile Connecticut River watershed. The streamlined wild Atlantic salmon, genetically different from their fattened domesticated counterparts, which are mass-produced for human consumption, are so rare that anglers spend small fortunes chasing them across Canada, Iceland and Russia. Robert J. Behnke, the preeminent salmon biologist of the 20th century, wrote that Salmo salar (Latin for “leaping salmon”) has inspired in people “an emotional, almost mystical attachment to a species they regard as a magnificent creation of nature.” Through the Connecticut River restoration program, a few thousand 2-year-old Atlantic salmon raised in a fish hatchery were stocked in the river in 1967. But they all soon died or swam out to sea and never returned. Program leaders knew they needed to survive not just for the sake of the species, but also to get the public to support the program. Before European colonization, biologists estimate, the Connecticut River teemed with annual runs of 50,000 Atlantic salmon, the most in North America. But, as the Boston Globe noted, “the fish had been gone so long there weren’t even great-grandparents who remembered them.” Kenneth Sprankle, a coordinator with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, wrote that the salmon lost their “level of relevance.” All the stocked salmon continued to die off through the early 1970s. Gradually, scientists began to learn the importance of different strains of salmon and their close relatives, trout. In 1976 the program was able to acquire Atlantic salmon eggs from the Penobscot River in Maine, the closest surviving population both physically and genetically. This strain was still different from the lost native strain of the Connecticut River, but less so than their Canadian cousins, previously stocked there. In 1978, 90 fish from the Maine strain managed to make the two-year, 6,000-mile migration out to the food-rich Labrador Sea off of Greenland and then return to the Connecticut River.
‘If you want a dog that jumps in the water, keep breeding ones that do and eventually you’ll have a Labrador retriever.’ Steve Gephard fisheries biologist
In 1981, more than 500 salmon returned — the most yet. Biologists hoped they were on the verge of re-creating one of the most fragile, complicated and increasingly rare natural phenomena on earth, a long-distance animal migration. By the mid 1990s, all of the salmon that found their way back to the Connecticut River were caught and bred at the Richard Cronin National Salmon Station, a fish hatchery in Sunderland, Massachusetts. Their eggs were then incubated at the White River National Fish Hatchery in Vermont. The biologists wanted to use a technique known as reproductive isolation, commonly known as inbreeding, to redevelop a strain of salmon that followed genetic commands to migrate out from and back to the Connecticut River, a facsimile of what nature had done a million years earlier. Stephen Gephard, senior fisheries biologist for the state of Connecticut, compared the process to dog breeding. “If you want a dog that jumps in the water, keep breeding ones that do and eventually you’ll have a Labrador retriever,” he said. The other part of salmon migration, biologists learned, is trained behavior. Salmon remember the isotopes and chemical elements of the waters where they live as juveniles so they can return as adults. Biologists then began stocking Connecticut River waters with the youngest salmon they could in order to give them the maximum environmental imprint. “We knew we were never going to do as well as Mother Nature,” Gephard said. “But that’s what we were trying to do.” By combining reproductive isolation with early imprinting, the scientists increased the rate of salmon returns tenfold from the beginning of the program. One U.S. Fish and Wildlife biologist boasted in the early 1990s that they had achieved a “miracle recovery.” But then wild Atlantic salmon around the world began to die off. So did cod, lobster and winter flounder. Scientists found that capelin, a small fish that salmon feed on in the Labrador Sea, had on average become significantly smaller in size in just a few decades, suggesting that salmon were not finding the calories they needed to survive their migrations. By turn of the 21st century, cycles of ocean currents that had historically made fish populations fluctuate grew erratic and unpredictable. More ominously, researchers found that while much of the Atlantic Ocean had gone up in temperature, around Greenland the water had turned both colder and less saline — symptoms consistent with the theory that the ocean was changing because of global warming. “Things are really variable now,” said John Kocik, a fishery biologist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Mickey Novack, hatchery manager at Cronin National Salmon Station, with a female Atlantic salmon that returned to the Connecticut River in the spring, now in a giant hold until the fall. Joanne Rathe / The Boston Globe / Getty Images
In 2001, only 40 Atlantic salmon returned to the Connecticut River. The next year there were 44. The George W. Bush administration cut the budget of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and some Atlantic salmon restoration proponents began to question whether the anemic returns justified the annual cost of around $2 million — tens of thousands per fish. Meanwhile, the general public mostly ignored the program, because the salmon had not yet returned in large enough numbers to be seen or caught. What happened next, Gephard said, was “a perfect storm.” Hurricane Irene, its gale winds pulling extra energy from the warmed waters of the mid-Atlantic, wrecked the White River National Fish Hatchery in Vermont in August 2011. The damage to the facility, where 65 percent of all Connecticut River Atlantic salmon eggs were raised, was estimated at as much as $14 million. As only 54 salmon returned to the Connecticut River in 2012, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service pulled out of the restoration program. New Hampshire, Vermont and Massachusetts followed. Connecticut opted to continue stocking a small number of salmon, but it lacks the resources to continue the breeding program, which had made such progress. While the restoration program failed for salmon, it boosted a suite of other species. American shad, gizzard shad, sea lamprey, striped bass, sea-run brown trout, white perch, alewives, yellow lamp mussels and endangered American eels in the Connecticut River all jumped in population. Then in the fall of 2015, biologists found five adult Atlantic salmon swimming past the Rainbow Dam on the lower Farmington River. On a hunch, they searched likely upstream spawning habitat and there found the three nests full of eggs. In the spring of 2016 they will hatch the first wild salmon into that river in two centuries. (In 1991 a few salmon spawned for the first time in centuries in Connecticut’s nearby Salmon River.) The phenomenon was so extraordinary that the nest’s location was kept a tight secret. Some local fishermen refuse to even speak about them for fear attention might do them harm, and some state officials even opted for plausible deniability. “I don’t know where they are, and I really don’t want to know,” said Neal Hagstrom, inland fisheries biologist for the state of Connecticut. “Sometimes it’s better that way.” |
The Syrian government has sent thousands of reinforcements to mount a counterattack in Aleppo after rebels broke through government lines two days earlier, a monitoring group said.
The Lebanese Shia Hezbollah movement and the government have mobilised more than 3,000 troops and militia fighters for an attempt to recapture the areas where the rebels made their breakthrough, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR).
"Hundreds of opposition fighters have also arrived in Aleppo from the [neighbouring] province of Idlib to help in the expected battles," said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the group.
Hezbollah's battle-hardened fighters have provided crucial support to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's overstretched and exhausted army.
READ MORE: Syria's war - Struggle for survival in embattled Aleppo
Syrian state news agency SANA said government planes carried out "intensive strikes" on what it called "terrorist movements" south of Aleppo.
The government also acted to quell fears that rebel advances would cut supply lines to government-held western Aleppo. SANA quoted provincial governor Mohammed Marwan al-Oulabi as saying that all essential goods and fuel were still available in the area.
"Dozens of fuel tanks entered Aleppo city on Monday," he said.
The influx of pro-government troops comes as the rebel Army of Conquest coalition vowed that a "new stage" in its offensive would aim to " liberate all of Aleppo".
The group, a coalition that includes Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (formerly the al-Nusra Front), first broke a government siege on the rebel-held half of the city on Sunday, and has reportedly doubled its number of fighters in an effort to retake the entire city.
The UN on Tuesday called for an urgent humanitarian pause in fighting in Aleppo to allow access to repair electricity and water networks, and to provide aid. Millions could be affected if the pause were not put in place, it warned.
Children were being put at risk, UNICEF added, as water cuts in the province during a heatwave increase the chances of disease.
'About to escalate'
Once Syria's economic hub, Aleppo has been divided between government forces in the west and rebels in the east since fighting broke out for control of the city in mid-2012.
There are thought to be about 300,000 people living in the rebel-held east, and about 1.2 million in the government-controlled west.
Rebels say they helped to move people to safer areas during the battle. Humanitarian groups have warned, however, that there are no safe routes out of the city.
Al Jazeera's Reza Sayah, reporting from Gazientep on the Turkey-Syria border, said that both sides were ramping up the fight.
"There are increasing signs that the battle for Aleppo is about to escalate," Sayah said.
OPINION: The ramifications of the Nusra's split from al-Qaeda
The SOHR said on Monday that there were "continuous air strikes" on Aleppo and surrounding areas, with missiles "launched by the regime forces" killing at least two women, one of whom was pregnant.
SOHR says at least 290,000 people have been killed in the civil war, while the UN envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, has estimated that some 400,000 people have been killed.
The battle comes as the United States and other world powers intensified a call on Russia to use its influence on Syria's government, urging Moscow at a special session of the United Nations Security Council on Monday to help to stop the bloodshed in Aleppo.
Samantha Power, US ambassador to the UN, asked Russia to "stop facilitating these sieges".
In response, Russia's deputy ambassador to the, UN Vladimir Safronkov, said: "I must say the propaganda and the emotional rhetoric, the unfounded accusations, the information campaign, means that we cannot move toward a political settlement in Syria." |
A pack of about 20 mongoose sprinted across the putting green at a European Tour event in South Africa without displacing the golfer's ball. The pack briefly interrupted play before continuing their sprint out of the area. Screen capture/The European Tour/Twitter
SUN CITY, South Africa, Nov. 10 (UPI) -- A pack of about 20 mongoose scampered across a golf course during a European Tour event in South Africa.
The European Tour's official Twitter account shared video of the horde as they briefly interrupted play.
"About 20 mongoose invade the green...But they know not to interfere with the ball," the European Tour wrote.
The pack quickly left the field of play and did not shift the position of the golfer's ball on the putting green at all, much to the delight of the commentators. |
Online resources about Cuba are sparse and sometimes confusing. I highly recommend the guide book “Rough Guide to Cuba” that you can find on Amazon and that is an invaluable — and up to date — source of information about stuff to check out while you’re on the island. But for the more practical stuff, like whether it’s legal to get there, how to get around, and what to avoid, I figured it’d be helpful to compile a shortlist of the most important tips I have on top of my head.
My girlfriend and I traveled for 10 days to 3 cities in Cuba at the end of the year for Christmas and the New Year. It was an awesome experience.
1 — Is it illegal? Yes. Does anyone care? No.
That’s the first thing I was wondering before I went to Cuba: is it even legal for me to travel there as a tourist? The answer is no, it is not legal. Despite all you’ll hear on TV about Obama going to Havana and loosening up the embargo, you’re still technically unable to visit Cuba by flying directly from the US for tourism. Note that it does not matter whether you have a US passport or if you’re a dual citizen, or non-American — as soon as you’re flying out of a US airport or carrier, you’re under US jurisdiction and it’s illegal to go to Cuba for tourism.
However: no one cares. The US doesn’t care, Cuba even less (the embargo comes from the US, not from Cuba), and all you have to do is to check a box on a paper that your airline will provide you.
This is how it works in practice: First, as soon as you book your flight you’ll want to contact your airline and ask for a Cuban tourist visa and insurance. On Delta it’s about $50 which you can pay with credit card and they’ll send you a receipt via email. After you get to the airport and go through TSA, when you’re at your gate go talk to the airline representative and ask for the visa, or they will start calling your name on the intercom to see them.
They’ll give you a little piece of paper that you’ll fill in manually: this is the tourist visa + insurance that Cuba requires. You’ll get it stamped at your arrival in Havana. The representative will also give you a paper that asks for the reason of your visit to Cuba. You have a dozen options from Business Travel to Support to the Cuban People. What you want to check is People to People Exchange. But honestly, you could check any of the boxes and it wouldn’t matter. The airline will give you a number to put on the form, then they collect that paper and stack it on a bunch of other papers and probably light a fire with it or something. From this point, you’re all set, you have your tourist visa that will be required at the Cuban border, and nobody will care about why you’re here. Very important: do not lose your Cuban visa which is only good for 30 days, you won’t be able to leave the country and you’ll have to go through bureaucratic hell.
Flying back is as easy. First you’ll be asked for your tourist visa by the Cuban authorities, then you’ll go through security, take your flight home, and go through the US border. From my own experience and what I’ve read online, US officers will not give a damn fly about what you were in Cuba for, they’ll just chitty-chat about how your cigars taste like and how expensive your airfare was.
2 — Bring a shit ton of cash
Cuba is a poor country but you’ll be surprised at how expensive things can be, especially during high season and the new flood of American tourists coming in. There was a food shortage during our trip, and many restaurants were out of several items on their menu, and grocery stores were empty.
Cuban purposely price things differently for tourists and for locals, hence why you’ll be mostly using CUC instead of the CUP. Meal prices can be easily compared to San Francisco, about ~$15 a dish, maybe less depending on where you go. It’s really hard to wrap your head around it before your trip, and most tourists will run out of cash quickly.
You can only pay in cash in Cuba. There are a couple ATMs spread out around the country, but they either won’t handle your type of card, not work with your US bank, or not work at all.
What you need to do is get a shit ton of cash from your country of origin and convert it to CUC when you arrive at the airport. I recommend avoiding USD since you’ll have to pay a 10% penalty + a flat fee. Instead, withdraw Canadian dollars or euros. At the very minimum, you’ll need 700 CUC per person per week (food + drinks + accommodations + touristy stuff). A comfortable amount would be 800–900 CUC.
To give you an idea of how much stuff cost:
A meal: 10–20 CUC / person
One night for two at a casa particular: 30 CUC
A cocktail: 3–5 CUC
A small bottle of water: 1–1.5 CUC
A taxi collectivo from Havana to Trinidad: ~35 CUC / person
A day trip to El Nicho (~1 hour from Trinidad): ~50 CUC per taxi (4 ppl)
If you run out of cash, you’re in deep trouble. As I’ve said before, don’t count on ATMs since they don’t work with US banks. The only way you can find cash is by finding other people who brought extra cash and are willing to give you some sweet USD/CAD/EUR with the hope you’ll pay them back in the US. Don’t count on Venmo or Square Cash to instantly reimburse them on the spot, both services don’t work in Cuba since they detect your IP and will block the transfer even before you tap Submit. Oh, and you won’t have internet either, so there’s that.
3 — Boil your water
One thing that is underestimated is the money you’ll spend on water especially when the weather gets too hot. Cuban water — but more especially in Havana — is not drinkable for tourists. From what I understood from a tour guide in Cienfuegos, it’s about bacteria that we’re not used to but that locals are. Even Cuban people hesitate to drink tap water. One easy solution — besides buying those little water bottles for 1 CUC — is to boil the water and put it in the fridge. Most casas particulares will either have a fridge full of those bottles (which you need to pay for at the end of your stay) or something to boil the tap water with.
4 — Know how to get a taxi / taxi colectivo / bus
You’ll probably stay in Havana for your first days in Cuba, and landing in a new country brings a lot of uncertainty about how to get around. We were pretty confused as to why there was no taxi line at the airport, and kind on our defensive side when people would come to us yelling “taxi”. That’s how it works there, nothing’s organized, everything’s about improvising.
In more practical terms: when you arrive at the airport, after getting your baggages and exchanging your money outside of the airport, you’ll want to go to anything that looks like a car — old American car, yellow cab, or a shitty Peugeot — and ask for a ride to Havana. They’ll ask for your exact address (cross street + door number). When they agree to take you, ask how much it’ll cost (“Cuanto?” will suffice), and make sure you agree on the total price to avoid the confusion of a price per person / total. A fair price is $10 / person. If the price doesn’t work for you, just say no and go to another car.
It’s pretty easy to negotiate prices in Cuba. When they say 20, say something lower like 10, they’ll frown a bit and say no, say 15 and they’ll say ok. If you can find other people that are willing to share the ride, you’ll get a better price.
When you’re within the city, you’ll want to aim for old American cars driving around. Hail them, wait for them to stop, and repeat the same process: tell your destination, wait for them to agree, ask for the price, say something significantly lower, wait for them to say no, say something reasonable, wait for them to agree, and boom you’re in.
A taxi ride within the city should never exceed 5 CUC, most of the time you negotiate 4 CUC. The pink convertibles or the yellow round scooters will usually cost more: about 7–10 CUC.
Now when you want to go to another city, you have two options: taxi colectivo or bus. Buses are booked out really quickly, especially in high peak season like during christmas or the summer. You can book them online at Viazul.com ahead of your trip, or go to a Viazul station.
If you can’t book a bus seat, taxis colectivos are an excellent alternative. You’ll basically be sharing a cab from one city to the other, your luggages will probably go on the roof and you’ll have to squeeze your legs a bit, but that’s the true Cuban experience.
In practical terms: go to your city’s Viazul station and you’ll see a bunch of locals hanging out around there. Go to some them and ask “taxi collectivo?” and they’ll either say yes or point you to the right guy. You indicate your destination and day of departure and ask for a price. If it suits you — and again you can always negotiate — you’ll indicate your hour of departure and provide your exact address, they’ll come get you there. Remember to ask for the person’s name + phone number in case you need to cancel or make sure the trip is still happening (which is always good to do). The car will show up at your casa particular and drive you for a couple hours along with other tourists, and drop you off at the destination of your choice.
5 — Avoid Cienfuegos, go straight to Trinidad
We read somewhere that Cienfuegos was cool and that it was worth going to on the way to Trinidad so we booked two nights there. Let me tell you: it sucks. Restaurants are terrible, the beaches are just the ugliest patches of sand we’ve seen, and it’s just plain dead by day and night. It’s like this empty village that your grandma lives in and that you’re always reluctant to go to because you know you’ll get so bored that euthanasia is an option.
The only thing that saved it was our trip to El Nicho — a wonderful park filled with waterfalls and two great natural swimming pools. You’ll pay about $50 for a taxi to bring you there, wait a couple hours, and drive you back. The cool thing is that it’s about the same distance from Trinidad than it is from Cienfuegos, so you can just take off from Trinidad instead.
Trinidad, on the other hand, is just so freaking cool. Imagine a big village with stuff from the 1800s, paved roads, music bands, where everyone knows each other. My recommendation is to rent a scooter there — if they don’t run out — and explore the city that way. There’s also a peninsula about 10km away with a lot of small cute beaches and a bigger one called Ancon that you’ll want to ride to. Remember to reserve a day for a horseback ride within the valley, that’s the cherry on the cake.
6 — Forget about the internet
Here’s the deal: Cuba is 20 years behind in terms of internet. There is no internet at home, they’re barely starting to test it in Havana. The only internet access you could possibly have is by using one of the 50 wifi access points spread around the country. There’s probably 10 of them in Havana, 2–3 of them in Trinidad. But here’s the catch: it’s not free, at all, and it’s so freaking slow that it’ll drive you mad.
First, you need to buy an internet card either in an ETECSA selling point, a nice hotel, or from the street. The card is basically a unique login/password that you’ll need to enter when connecting to the WIFI_ETECSA hotspot. It’ll cost you $2–4 per hour depending who you buy the card from. If buying from a street seller, make sure the password is not scratched already at the back of the card. To “log out”, just disconnect your wifi and it’ll stop the countdown so you can use your card again later.
The internet is painfully slow and should probably only be used for emergencies, as it takes a few times to connect and sometimes just stops working suddenly as you’re using it. You’ll need an offline map app since you can’t count on Google Maps (even in offline mode, you can’t download the Cuba map for some reason). I recommend Maps.me since it has most of the restaurant names + points of interest. It’s buggy as hell and you might have to restart your phone a couple times, but it’s free and it has directions. Remember to download the Cuba map ahead of your trip!
7 — Cuban time is *highly* flexible
Cuban people are really chill, so chill that they forget the concept of time. Never, ever, rely on office opening/closing hours, especially in state-owned offices or shops, such as all rental services. As the popular quote goes there: “They (the government) pretend to pay us, while we pretend to work.”. If they say 9am-5pm, assume 10am-4pm. You should assume that even if the office is open, the one guy that takes care of renting scooters is on a hour long break and that the other guy who takes care of car rentals won’t help you either. When they say “he’ll be back in 5 minutes”, assume “he’ll be back in 30 minutes”. In privately-owned businesses, paladars (restaurants) or hostels though, service is not as much of a problem.
As frustrating as it can be, it can also work to your advantage. For instance, there’s no need to confirm your arrival hours with your hosts, just show up whenever you feel like it and it won’t bother them one bit. Another example would be that if you need to cancel a taxi collectivo and can’t get in touch with your contact, just don’t show up or tell them you’re not going when they come to pick you up. They’ll be fine with it.
I guess the key here is to be very flexible with your own time and take things easy, it’ll go a long way there.
8 — My recommendations for Havana / Trinidad
Havana
Do:
Enjoy a piña colada at the Hotel Nacional
Walk down the Obispo street and stop for a drink and listen to live music at Bosque Bologna
Yvan’s Chef Restaurant — great food in this affordable restaurant that has no sign. Take the slow-roasted pork with crispy skin.
O Reilly’s 304 — awesome tapas and cocktails
Don’t:
Museum of the Revolution: there’s too much random stuff, all the text is in Spanish, and we did not learn anything.
Cienfuegos: don’t. Please don’t.
Trinidad
Do: |
Feb 2, 2014; East Rutherford, NJ, USA; Denver Broncos wide receiver Wes Welker (83) is tackled by Seattle Seahawks cornerback Walter Thurmond (28) during the second quarter in Super Bowl XLVIII at MetLife Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Matthew Emmons-USA TODAY Sports
Wes Welker is back.
His return is effective Tuesday night (Sept. 16) and he will practice for the Denver Broncos on Wednesday morning, according to ESPN’s Ed Werder. The hold up was the final language between the NFL and NFLPA on a new drug policy that should now last several years. Players were informed they’ve satisfied terms of their suspensions on Tuesday night, according to Werder, indicating the agreement on the new policy has been reached. A formal announcement should come by morning.
The Welker fiasco is over. Finally.
What it means for Peyton Manning and the Broncos is the best slot receiver in the NFL is back. It means another weapon that defenses, this week it’s Seattle, have to prepare for.
Yes, the Seahawks had to do that for the Super Bowl but there are two big differences between then and now: Emmanuel Sanders and Ryan Clady.
Sanders is a game-changer. His speed, toughness and ability is such a drastic upgrade over Eric Decker it’s not funny. Sanders will have more than one catch this Sunday, not disappear when he faces physical play or trip on yard lines.
Welker and Sanders is a fun element for Manning and his offense. For defenses it’s a nightmare; especially when you add Demaryius and Julius Thomas to the mix. My hope is rookie Cody Latimer gets a chance Sunday. Against a physical defense like Seattle’s, the Broncos need all the tough guys they can get. In the preseason game against San Francisco, Latimer proved he can play with attitude.
The other change is Clady. He didn’t play in the Super Bowl and it was apparent. Manning didn’t have the time to count to two, let alone complete passes to his receivers.
The return of Welker compliments and plays off both. For the first time this season, Denver’s offense is completely healthy. Gase can now put forth a complete game plan and trust that everyone will do their job. Andre Caldwell got the chance and dropped it – literally. The peace of mind Welker’s return gives Manning and Gase is invaluable.
Since he got his concussion, I’ve stated that the Broncos should sit Welker six to eight games. I compared him to 4-wheel drive in that you don’t need him in September. So what you do is save him for when you need him most: when the terrain becomes rough in January and February.
That won’t happen.
Since Welker has cleared the concussion protocol, he will play Sunday. Despite what some would have you believe, the Denver offense has still been effective and efficient. The lack of consistency in the second half needs to improve, and it will. Even with that, the Broncos still scored on 4-of-7 possessions against the Kansas City Chiefs for a 57.1 percentage. Last season’s record-setting offense scored on 96-of-202 possessions for 47.5 percent. Welker’s return should only improve that … if he stays healthy.
Regardless, Welker’s back and the speculation is over.
Is it possible to wrap his head in bubble wrap just to make sure? |
A view shows the damage in the Old City of Aleppo as seen from the city's ancient citadel, Syria January 31, 2017. REUTERS/Omar Sanadiki
BEIRUT (Reuters) - The Syrian army and its allies took a small district on the outskirts of Aleppo from rebels on Wednesday, a war monitor and a military media unit run by Damascus ally Hezbollah said.
The advance was the army’s first from its lines in Aleppo city since rebels departed their enclave there in December, and came as government and opposition delegations arrived in Geneva for peace talks sponsored by the United Nations.
“The Syrian army and its allies control Souq al-Jibs, west of Assad suburb in southwest Aleppo,” said the Hezbollah military media unit in a message. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also said the army had taken the district.
Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad has relied closely on allies such as Russia, Iran and Shi’ite militias, including Hezbollah, to make steady gains against rebels in western parts of the country and drive them from Aleppo in December.
Rebel forces in the area, which include both jihadist and nationalist groups, have periodically shelled parts of government-held Aleppo from positions in the western countryside nearby since the fighting inside the city stopped.
Clashes on the western side of Aleppo and its surroundings as the army and its allies advanced were accompanied by heavy shelling and aerial bombardment, said the Observatory, a Britain-based war monitor.
After the rebels were driven from their Aleppo enclave in December, Russia and Turkey - important foreign backers for the opposing sides in the war - sponsored a ceasefire aimed at being a prelude to peace talks.
However, although the intensity of fighting has calmed somewhat, violence continues across the country. |
Man, between this and the fact that an anti-Trumper was just put in charge of the Rules Committee, if you thought the relationship between Team Trump and the RNC was strained before, you ain’t seen nothing yet.
There’s no claim here, please note, that Priebus is encouraging the dump-Trumpers. If he thinks a coup against Trump would shatter the party and sink any replacement nominee, he might actually be trying to head off the effort.
Priebus has spoken with GOP party chairmen in multiple states in recent days in part to get a better sense of how large the anti-Trump faction is among their convention delegations, according to two people familiar with the conversations. While Priebus has made clear in these conversations that he is not spearheading the latest push for a coup, his involvement sends a signal that the RNC is taking this effort to dump Trump seriously even as other movements have fizzled. One source said Priebus’ ultimate goal is unclear. But some anti-Trump forces are hoping to garner enough support to press the convention’s rules committee to alter the rules governing the convention and open a path for a different candidate.
The RNC doesn’t deny that the calls are happening but claims CNN is misunderstanding what they’re about. Hmmmm. Another possibility that occurs to me: What if Reince is trying to nudge Trump to quit by giving him a pretext to say “the system is too rigged against me!” and then drop out? Trump quitting would spare him the indignity of being deposed at the convention and might make some Republican voters more amenable to eventually supporting a replacement nominee. If the party dumps Trump then they’re overruling the will of the voters. But if Trump bails on the party, well, the RNC has no choice but to find someone else, right? For what it’s worth, Phil Kerpen notes that Trump’s odds at the nomination are now down below 92 percent in at least one betting market, a lot of uncertainty for a guy who’s been the presumptive nominee since early May.
Meanwhile, Trump tells the NYT regarding his poor polling lately that he hasn’t even gotten started yet. You know the punchline: That’s what Republicans are afraid of.
“I’m four down in one poll, three and a half in another that just came out, and I haven’t started yet,” Mr. Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, said in a phone interview on Thursday night, a thought he volunteered as he dismissed concerns from Senate Republicans that he may be a drag on their candidacies in the fall. “And I have tremendous Republican support,” Mr. Trump said. “Unfortunately they never talk about that, they talk about the few rebels.”… “I think I’m going to help,” Mr. Trump said of the Senate candidates. And he suggested that senators who were lagging in polls themselves had troubles long before he became the nominee.
Senate Republicans are so confident that he’ll “help” down-ballot that some of them have turned to none other than George W. Bush to campaign for them instead. With rare exceptions, like his rally for Jeb in South Carolina earlier this year, Dubya’s been absent from the trail since he left office because, eight years later, he’s still a liability for the GOP. Not as much as he used to be — his favorable ratings have recovered to respectable levels (enough so that he’s more popular than Trump now) — but Democrats can and do still use him to hang Iraq, Katrina, and the financial crisis around the necks of Republicans. Imagine how nervous someone like Kelly Ayotte must be about getting branded with Trump that she’d volunteer to get branded with Dubya’s record instead. (Bush is also a strong contrast with Trump on immigration and whether it’s fair to blame Islam for the actions of jihadis.) It’s like deliberately catching chicken pox in hopes that it’ll inoculate you against smallpox. And Dubya is a sort of inoculation against Trump, I think. Given the animosity between Trump and the Bush family, with Trump having destroyed “low-energy” Jeb and both former Presidents Bush having refused to endorse Trump, inviting Dubya out on the trail is one of the strongest signals you can send that you’re emphatically not a “Trump Republican.” The only potential campaign ally who might send that message more strongly is Romney, but Romney’s less well liked than Bush is. Imagine that. If you’re looking for a popular Republican to campaign with these days, your best play might be … George W. Bush.
As for Trump just getting started, er, why is he just getting started? He wrapped up the nomination on May 4th, notes Chris Cillizza. He’s had six weeks to go bombs away on Clinton while she was preoccupied with fending off Bernie Sanders. What’s he been doing with his time?
The State Department’s inspector general released a report sharply critical of Hillary Clinton’s decision to exclusively rely on a private email server for her electronic communication while serving as secretary of state. That is a terrible story for Clinton — and one that is a gift to Republicans working to portray her as an untrustworthy and unreliable person to lead the country. The IG report came out on May 25. Two days later, Trump went on a 11-minute rant about Curiel to a crowd in San Diego. Suddenly, the IG report was out of the news, replaced by questions about whether or not Trump was a racist. That is, definitionally, campaign malpractice. That’s the most egregious example of Trump’s mistakes over the last six weeks. But, time and again, Trump has stolen the spotlight — and not in a good way — rather than turning it on Clinton. Rather than talk about her email problems, her inability to close out the challenge from Bernie Sanders, the misgiving some within her party have about nominating her or almost any other Clinton-focused headline, Trump has instead talked incessantly about himself.
Yeah, this guy doesn’t seem to realize that it’s not just his poll downturn that has Republicans despairing, it’s why the polls turned downward. Polls will go up and down, but this entire six-week period, from the IG report to the fact that Democrats are momentarily divided to the terror attack in Orlando that might have steered voters towards a strongman like Trump, should have been a goldmine for him. At a minimum, we should have seen further consolidation of Republicans behind Trump and probably some tightening in the national polls, proving that the experts were wrong and that he was going to be competitive with Hillary. Instead, there’s reason to think Trump has lost support in various demographics: Ramesh Ponnuru picked through some recent NYT/CBS polls last night and found that his support has shrunk among Republicans, white women, and white college graduates. How often does a presumptive nominee become less popular with his own party after clinching? This also could have and should have been a period used by Trump to staff up aggressively for the battle with Hillary. Instead, the AP reports today that he has 30 paid staff — three-oh — on the ground nationally, a little more than one for every two states. Hillary has something like 700. Republican leaders can tolerate bad stretches from Trump. What makes them queasy is watching a bad stretch emerge out of what should have been a good one.
For Trump, it’s reached the point where not only did he acknowledge that he’s behind in his interview with the Times above, he’s now trumpeting polls that show him losing by only a little bit:
Here’s the latest indignity, a Rubioesque Super PAC attacking Trump for his — well, you’ll see. In lieu of an exit question, I’ll extend this olive branch to Trumpers: If Trump is willing to confirm that this really is his plan for Chris Christie, I’ll vote for the guy. That sort of inspiration deserves a little support. |
Because of stuff like this, right here:
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel announced plans Wednesday to build more than 1,500 homes in Jewish settlements in east Jerusalem and the West Bank, dealing a setback to newly relaunched peace efforts hours after it had freed a group of long-serving Palestinian prisoners.
The construction plans drew angry condemnations from Palestinian officials, who accused Israel of undermining the U.S.-led talks by expanding settlements on the lands where they hope to establish an independent state. U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon also condemned the Israeli decision, and Washington said it would not create a “positive environment” for the negotiations.
Israel had freed the 26 Palestinian prisoners as part of a U.S.-brokered agreement to restart the talks. The construction was meant to blunt anger over the release of the prisoners, all of whom had been convicted of murder in the deaths of Israelis.
Israel’s Interior Ministry said 1,500 apartments would be built in Ramat Shlomo, a large settlement in east Jerusalem, the section of the holy city claimed by the Palestinians as their capital. It also announced plans for archaeology and tourism projects near the Old City, home to Jerusalem’s most sensitive holy sites.
Israel first announced the Ramat Shlomo plan in 2010 during a visit to Israel by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, sparking a diplomatic rift with Washington that took months to mend. Wednesday’s decision is the final approval needed, and construction can begin immediately, officials said.
Ofir Akunis, a lawmaker from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party, said construction also had been approved for several West Bank settlements.
“The building in Judea and Samaria will continue and be intensified,” said Akunis, using the biblical term for the West Bank.
In addition, he told parliament that Netanyahu had given orders to “advance plans” for more than 2,000 homes in a longer list of settlements across the West Bank.
While these projects still need additional bureaucratic approvals, they are especially provocative because several of the settlements are deep inside the West Bank and almost certainly would have to be dismantled as part of a peace deal.
Israel captured east Jerusalem, along with the West Bank and Gaza Strip, in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians seek all three areas for a future state.
The Palestinians, along with virtually all of the international community, consider the settlements to be illegal or illegitimate.
Nabil Abu Rdeneh, a spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, condemned the settlement plans, saying they were “destructive to the peace efforts and will only lead to more tensions.”
“It’s a message to the international community that Israel is a state that doesn’t abide by international law and continues to put obstacles in the way of peace,” he said.
via Associated Press. |
Food bars for breakfast may help reduce the weight of supplies carried on the Orion capsule for deep-space missions.
Whereas astronauts on the International Space Station get to feast on turkey and candied yams this Thanksgiving, deep-space travelers on NASA's future Orion mission may chow down on retro food bars.
Because there is limited space inside the Orion capsule, NASA food scientists at the Human Research Program (HRP) are working to reduce the amount of food and supplies astronauts need for longer trips, as well as cut down on the waste they create. As a result, the scientists have developed high-calorie food bars that astronauts can substitute for breakfast. The researchers described this work in a new video.
So far, scientists have created a variety of flavors, including banana nut, orange cranberry, ginger vanilla and barbecue nut. Each bar is approximately 700 to 800 calories, thus ensuring the astronauts maintain a healthy weight as they eat the tasty snack. What's more, creating this single-meal replacement could help Orion engineers meet mass reduction requirements for the spacecraft, according to a statement from NASA. [Space Food Photos: What Astronauts Eat in Orbit]
"When you have 700 to 900 calories of something, it's going to have some mass regardless of what shape it's in, so we've taken a look at how to get some mass savings by reducing how we're packaging and stowing what the crew would eat for breakfast for early Orion flights with crew," Jessica Vos, deputy health and medical technical authority for Orion, said in the statement. "When you think about multiweek missions in Orion, having just one package for breakfast items for crew will help us limit the space we need to store them."
Food bars for breakfast may help reduce the weight of supplies carried on the Orion capsule for deep-space missions. (Image: © NASA)
Reducing weight aboard the Orion capsule is important, as "a heavier spacecraft requires more fuel and energy to propel it to its ultimate destination," NASA officials said.
In comparison, astronauts on the space station have about 200 meal options to choose from, and even get a special Thanksgiving dinner, including turkey, candied yams, cherry-blueberry cobbler, mashed potatoes, cornbread dressing and green beans, which Expedition 50 Cmdr. Shane Kimbrough showed off in a new NASA video.Astronauts on the orbiting lab have this array of options because space station meals come from thermostabilized or rehydratable packages sent from Earth. However, there is not enough room on the Orion capsule to store enough of these packages for a crew on a multiweek mission. Stowing food bars will reduce the amount of storage needed for breakfast and allow Orion crews to chow down on lunches and dinners similar to what space station crewmembers eat.
However, NASA food scientists "also have to consider how the bars will affect crew morale, since food choice, variety and taste are important aspects of ensuring they consume enough, especially as mission lengths increase," NASA officials said in the statement.
NASA scientists have tested the food bars for flavor, texture and long-term acceptability so that they can determine the best possible meal-replacement option for the first manned Orion mission, expected to launch as early as 2021.
Follow Samantha Mathewson @Sam_Ashley13. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com. |
For some time now I’ve been advocating the usage of VCSA instead of the traditional Microsoft Windows based vCenter. It has feature parity with the Windows version now, it’s easier to deploy, gets right-sized out of the box and eliminates the need for an external Microsoft SQL server.
One of the questions I often face when talking about the appliance,_ is how do we handle backups?_ Most customers are comfortable with backup up Windows servers and Microsoft SQL, but quite a few have reservations when it comes to the integrated vPostgres database that the VCSA employs. One common misconception is that a VCSA backup is only crash-consistent. Thankfully vPostgres takes care of this on it’s own, by using what it calls Continuous Archiving and Point-in-Time Recovery (PITR).
I essence, vPostgres writes everything to a log file, in case of a system crash. Since this is done continuously, every transaction that should hit the DB is recorded and can be replayed if required. From the Postgres documentation:
«We do not need a perfectly consistent file system backup as the starting point. Any internal inconsistency in the backup will be corrected by log replay (this is not significantly different from what happens during crash recovery). So we do not need a file system snapshot capability, just tar or a similar archiving tool.»
With regards to the VCSA, this means that your image level backups will be consistent, and there isn’t really a need to dump and export the vPostgres DB and then archive that. Yet another reason to switch to the appliance today!
Myth busted! |
Two days ago while I was on a cab ride through Beijing Haidian district, I noticed a glittery gate of a newly constructed compound with geometric decorations on its surface. It is common in Beijing, as in most of Chinese cities, to enclose residential 大院 compounds in walls. Usually the higher is the value of the compound, the stricter is the security at the compound’s gates. This reminds me of how castles in medieval Europe were built. The opposition between the rationality of the human-built environment and the chaos of the outside world, with the uncontrolled mess of a still frightening nature. These are the origins of Giardino all’italiana, or Italian garden, stylistically based on symmetry, geometry and on the principle of imposing order over nature. This is pretty much what leads the projects of residential communities [and sometimes commercial ones too] in China: the city is somehow felt like a dirty receptacle of uncontrolled powers. First and second tier cities have indeed been attracting masses of migrant workers from the countryside and from less developed areas, leading the more affluent communities to feel the need to protect their social status through status symbols and physically through enclosed compounds. The urban fabric of Beijing perfectly expresses the social organization of its 20 million residents. This being the context, I’ve once heard that the golden rule rule in digital marketing says “if content is king, context is god”, or something like this. I think this is also the golden rule every architect should keep in mind from the first concept sketch to the last detail blueprint. And if content in architecture means materials, circulation, programs, etcetera; context is a less tangible mixture of conditions involving the surroundings of the project. First of all, the social context.
All of this sounds very academic and I’m sure it’s something that anyone who went to an architecture or design school have been hearing since the first days. Yet architects seldom apply this rule. Starchitects, in particular, hate it. I do want to mention names: Zaha Hadid, Steven Holl, both behind many projects in China. Zaha Hadid is the architect behind Wangjing SOHO and Galaxy SOHO, two mixed-use complexes in Beijing. The first one is not yet completed, but the second one, which opened in 2012, have already sparkled controversies. In particular the 370,000 square meters complex of shops, offices and restaurants, bestowed with a top award by the Royal Institute of British Architects [RIBA], has incensed Chinese preservation groups that accused the mall of ‘destroying’ Beijing’s heritage. In an open letter to the RIBA from the Beijing Cultural Heritage Protection Centre, published by Building Design, the grass roots NGO states that the project has “caused great damage to the preservation of the old Beijing streetscape, the original urban plan, the traditional hutong and courtyard houses, the landscape formation, and the style and color scheme of Beijing’s unique vernacular architecture”, to which the architects have been quick to distance, alleging that the site had been cleared before they got involved [more here]. Galaxy SOHO has been addressed in an article by Beijing based architect Michał Jurgielewicz on Failed Architecture, which I strongly encourage you to go read. I’m sure is not a matter of personal implication of the architects, and it rather is a problem of having a whole city planned under the mere rule of brutal market forces.
The project by Steven Holl, called Linked Hybrid, is not as blatant. Instead it demonstrate how good intentions are not enough, as even the best thoughts need nevertheless to be immerse in the cultural context where they are going to take action. From many perspectives a good project like Linked Hybrid, has demonstrated a lack of understanding of the social fabric where it was going to be built. The bridges between the eight high rise towers [together with the rooftop gardens] were supposed to consist of public spaces and circulation facilities capable of engaging the community within the compound and from its neighborhood into the new real estate development. The term ‘utopia’ was brought in by the architect himself, when he described the walkways between the towers. This project has much in common other large scale social housing utopian projects like Unite d’Habitation in Marseille — designed by Le Corbusier, and The Robin Hood Gardens in London, by Alison and Peter Smithson. Both projects, similarly, supposed to provide entertainment and quality of life for the inhabitants, allowing people to share life and interact. History, however, proved them to be miserable failures. In Beijing too, as much as in those projects, the utopia of semi-public space, so attractive to acclaimed great architects, felt under the weight of unwritten social rules. Far from the architect’s romanticized idea of Chinese culture and society, modern upper class in China proved unwilling to interact with neighbors, and hostile to the idea of having citizens from the surrounding areas coming into their compounds. And so, the developer decided to build boundary walls around the whole area, and lock all the bridges. In the face of the international architect, the walls surrounding Linked Hybrid [today called 当代 MOMA] were ironically built in an heavy Chinese style: just to make it clear where the problem came from… This blog post, dating back to 2009, already wisely reminded that “the peace is maintained by a constant process of defining the distance between the neighbors. This process takes time and effort. No shortcuts from this fact can be taken through elaborate, ‘utopic’ design.” As the author cleverly points out, Linked Hybrid lacks in community involvement, similarly to the other projects by Le Corbusier and Alison and Peter Smithson. If the people were invited to the take part in the conceptual design phase, they may have had a chance to define the distance to each other before the concrete was being laid. Back in 2007, when I first arrived in Beijing, riding a taxi from the newly inaugurated Terminal 3 of Beijing International Airport through the Second Ring Road, witnessing the construction of the Linked Hybrid bridges from the opaque cab window… it just felt huge. And it was perfectly giving the idea of what kind of process Beijing was king through before the Olympic games in 2008: a process was characterized by autocracy instead of democracy. The Linked Hybrid project has also attracted criticisms from other Western media. The project has been called “green luxury”, for being for selling for 44,000 Yuan, or $6,000, per square meter, further creating social division in what is already a deprived area of the city. Washington-based architect and urbanist, Howard Decker, told CNN buildings like Linked Hybrid form part of the problem and not the solution, egocentrically disconnected with the surrounding urban fabric, with the towers seemingly in a conversation with one another, but not necessarily with the surrounding city.
Perhaps, utopists worldwide may be wise tuning down their desires to produce monuments and dreams of becoming great social reformers. Start to understand the subtle nuances of local cultures and engage in a more humble dialogue with future dwellers. But as China hurtles headlong into rampant modernization and urbanization, producing millions of new homeowners, its social fabric and thousands of years of its history will no doubt become fundamentally, and irrevocably, altered. At the same time, the traditional Chinese landscaping featured a totally different approach to nature. Landscape artists used to artificially recreate the variety of many different natural landscapes into a restricted area, where organic shapes rarely left empty room for geometry and where many spaces laid in gray areas in between indoor and outdoor. In interior and furniture design we are witnessing a will that many urban Chinese share to rediscover the forgotten links with nature. Hopefully in the next few years social disparity in China will reduce, and Chinese will be able to embrace a more relaxed urban planning. Peace. |
Last week’s episode of NBC’s Community (Thursdays at 8/7c) ended with what looked to be the pill-popping Pierce (Chevy Chase) lying lifeless on a park bench.
Well, he’s still alive and kickin’, not nearly as close to death as he’d like his Greendale fam to believe — which brings us to this week’s hospital-centric episode. (Don’t worry, it’s funnier than it sounds.)
The subject matter of Community‘s second “bottle” episode of sorts, “Intermediate Documentary Filmmaking,” sounds much more serious than it really is. Here’s the gist: Pierce thinks he’s not long for this world after landing in the hospital for ingesting too many of those “Andy Dick pills.” With amateur cameraman Abed (Danny Pudi) by his side, the eldest study grouper bequeaths different belongings to his college pals. Cue the laughs.
“This episode has the funniest scene of Community I’ve ever seen,” Donald Glover gushes. “It’s with Pierce and Jeff (Joel McHale), and I was on set when it wasn’t even my scene because I just remember reading it and thinking it would be hilarious.”
Pudi interjects to say, “Then there are two funniest scenes, because I’m thinking of [a separate] one with Troy.”
“Chevy Chase as Pierce as a sick person could never be funnier, which they’ve been doing all season,” Pudi adds. “And in Thursday’s episode, he is sick!”
Now, if you’re anything like me, you savor every precious moment of Community week to week — but sometimes those supersentimental episodes leave you feeling a little too sad for the characters involved, à la party girl Shirley at Troy’s 21st birthday party. But the guys promise that is not the case with “Filmmaking.”
“It has those poignant, sad moments,” Glover allows, “But these episodes are what makes our show really funny.” And, adds Pudi, “It’s a fun episode.”
And in case anyone is still worried about Chase’s fate on the show, I can confirm that by the episode’s end, all will be well with Pierce, his pill-popping days behind him.
Catch Community‘s “Intermediate Documentary Filmmaking” this Thursday at 8/7c on NBC. |
But we're about to talk about the Galaxy S6 now, a device that is just as, if not more, anticipated than the successor to the HTC One (M8) . In particular, it was Sammy's future flagship to show up in a handful of sleek renders next, and boy, aren't these head-turning!
The Galaxy S6 that you are about to see is streamlined, sleek, and styled just like most of Samsung's fans are probably hoping to. It still looks like a Galaxy, mind you, but the maker of the renders has successfully implemented some lines and curves that one can hardly find in any other handset Samsung has launched in the past few years.
We also got hold of a few more renders that also seem to show the sleek polished lines of the Galaxy S6. These are provided by the South Korea unit of case-maker Verus, which claims the flagship will end up looking exactly like the one in the images below.
Just yesterday, we showed you a bunch of Samsung Galaxy S6 renders. Frankly said, they were nice, but couldn't hold a candle to the ones of the One (M9) that popped up and made us drool about HTC's next champion. Here's to hoping that the real One (M9) will look like similar to the one we showed you yesterday! |
A female Syrian politician was killed by the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham (ISIS) in the province of Ar-Raqqa after being kidnapped several months ago by members of the organization. Sa’ada Al-Ahmad was one of the leaders of “Al-Harakat Al-Sha’abiyya Al Qawimiyyeh Al-Massaanda” – a political group dedicated to unifying the Syrian people and ending the violence in the country. She was expelled from the country of Oman in 2012 after her attack on a Jordanian parliament member attempting to tear down the Syrian flag at the Syrian Embassy.
ISIS charged Al-Ahmad with the crime of “espionage” during her trial at the Shariah Courts of Raqqa City. She was found guilty of this alleged crime after the jury concluded that her outspoken support of the Syrian Government was sufficient evidence of her dealings with the latter. For months her whereabouts were unknown, leaving many to presume she was dead; however, it was confirmed when ISIS media outlets publicized her death.
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We were elated when Nasum announced they would be reuniting for a special twentieth anniversary farewell tour. Rotten Sound screamer Keijo Niinimaa will be performing all the vocals on the tour. It's a short run of dates, with only a few cities announced so far. I'm not sure if this is the only round of dates or if more are coming, but there is a New York date, so I'm not complaining:
5/19 Cleveland, OH @ Now That’s Class w/ Brutal Truth, Dropdead
5/21 Montreal, QC @ Sala Rossa w/ Brutal Truth, Dropdead
5/24 New York, NY @ Europa w/ Brutal Truth, Dropdead
5/25 Baltimore, MD @ Maryland Deathfest
5/28 Oakland, CA @ Oakland Metro w/ Exhumed
5/29 Ventura, CA @ Billy O’s w/ Exhumed
5/31 Austin, TX @ Chaos In Tejas
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Sundance Channel has renewed its first wholly owned original scripted series Rectify for a second season. The 10-episode order comes on the heels of Rectify‘s premiere last week. The series will end its freshman season May 20 and return for Season 2 in 2014. Rectify, about a man (Aden Young) released from prison after spending nearly two decades on death row, is created and written by Ray McKinnon and executive produced by Mark Johnson and Melissa Bernstein. “We feel as though this story has tapped into something truly unique, with both critics and audiences using their platforms to share such strong, personal reactions to this very distinctive TV series,” said Sundance’s President and General Manager Sarah Barnett. Sundance and parent AMC Networks put a lot of muscle behind the launch of Rectify, putting the series on Sundance On Demand ahead of the premiere and getting its episodes to encore behind Mad Men on sibling AMC. Because Sundance is not rated by Nielsen, there is no ratings information on the Rectify premiere. |
Wearing the wrong headphones will cost players $10,000. That's clearly not enough to deter them, and it's a goddamned bargain for this sort of advertising.
The NFL's deal with Bose is, like many of its other corporate sponsorships, an exclusive one. That means no competing products anywhere they might end up on TV. This leads to coaches and quarterbacks getting confused by their Microsoft Surface tablets, even as oblivious announcers refer to them as "iPads." It also leads to Colin Kaepernick (and almost certainly Richard Sherman) getting slapped with $10,000 fines for wearing the wrong brand of headphones last week.
Kaepernick was cagey when asked if Beats was covering the cost of his fine. ("We'll let that be unanswered," was his exact reply.) But let's be honest: even if it's coming out of his own pocket, $10,000 is a pittance compared to what Beats is paying Kaepernick to endorse the brand. Same goes for Cam Newton, who was rocking Beats during warm-ups today:
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Update: Richard Sherman too:
And here's Tom Brady, who isn't even a Beats endorser, flouting the ban before his game in Buffalo today.
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Really, what can the NFL do? The schedule of fines doesn't set a maximum on logo violations, but it's probably not in the NFL's best interests—or, more specifically, in Bose's—to escalate this. |
The New Jersey Devils’ already thin blueline will be without Jon Merrill to start the season. Merrill, 24, is coming off of a difficult season in which he managed just one goal and five points in 47 games.
The New Jersey Devils improved their offense in a big way this off-season with the acquisition of Taylor Hall, but shipping out Adam Larsson to land Hall means more minutes — and important ones, at that — have opened up on the backend.
One of the defenders who could have potentially taken up some of those minutes, and in turn taken a step forward, is Jon Merrill. However, unfortunately for both Merrill and the Devils, if the 24-year-old blueliner is going to take a major step in his development this coming season, it’s going to have to wait until after he returns from injury.
The Devils announced Wednesday that Merrill suffered a right index finger injury during a pre-season game against the New York Rangers earlier this month, and the ailment is enough that Merrill will be out of action until at least the beginning of November. The cited timeline from the Devils was four weeks, and if Merrill misses the entirety of the next four weeks, he’ll be sidelined through the first eight games of the new campaign.
While the loss may not seem major given Merrill averaged less than 17 minutes per game in 2015-16, he has proven in the past that he can be used up the lineup and take on bigger minutes than he was afforded during the past season. Drafted 38th overall by the Devils in 2010, Merrill hasn’t yet reached his full potential, but there’s still room for him to grow.
New Jersey is already quite thin on defense even after the signings of Ben Lovejoy and Kyle Quincey this off-season, and losing someone like Merrill, who could have stepped in to fill a bigger role, will hurt if another injury hits the Devils blueline.
During the 2014-15 campaign, Merrill averaged upwards of 20 minutes per game and produced two goals and 14 points in 66 games, and he managed one goal and five points in 47 games this past season.
Merrill isn’t the only injury the Devils have to deal with as the season approaches, though, as Luke Gazdic has also been sidelined for at least four weeks with a broken foot. Unlike Merrill, Gazidc was unlikely to have made the Devils’ roster by the end of training camp, but the fourth-line winger could have been a potential call up or replacement player in the bottom-six down the line.
Want more in-depth features and expert analysis on the game you love? Subscribe to The Hockey News magazine. |
Did Sara Carter Just Uncover The FBI And James Comey’s Next Spy Scandal?
A whistleblower has come forward to reveal the FBI is using NSA surveillance tools to spy on Americans, says rockstar reporter Sara Carter.
“The program can be misused by anyone with access to it,” a former intelligence agent told reporter Carter.
“There needs to be an extensive investigation of all the Americans connected to President Trump and the campaign who were unmasked in connection with the 2016 election,” the intelligence agent added.
Sara Carter reports:
The whistleblowers, who recently disclosed the program’s process to Congressional oversight committees, say concern over the warrantless surveillance mounted when it was disclosed earlier this year that Obama officials had accessed and unmasked communications of members of President Trump’s 2016 campaign, allegedly without clear justification. The process, known as ‘reverse targeting,’ occurs when intelligence and law enforcement officials use a foreign person as a legal pretence for their intended target, an American citizen, the officials stated. […] In Comey’s last testimony as FBI director before he was fired by President Trump, he told lawmakers any warrantless information accessed by the FBI, “lawfully collected, carefully overseen and checked.” But a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court surveillance ruling declassified in April references hundreds of violations of the FBI’s privacy-protecting minimization rules that occurred on Comey’s watch.
“The warrantless surveillance program had the appearance of being shut down following the 2005 New York Times article that exposed it,” the intelligent officer told Carter.
“However, a few weeks later, the FISC (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court) approved what is known as bulk FISA collection. This FISA authority allowed for the targeting of domestic numbers believed to be tainted,” the intelligence officer added.
Comey is under pressure from Congressional investigators to shine light on the FBI’s decision to partially fund the discredited ‘Trump-dossier.’ As The Gateway Pundit‘s Jim Hoft reported, Republican firebrands such as Rep. Jim Jordan believe the dossier was used to obtain the FISA warrant to spy on Trump officials.
Rep. Jim Jordan: There are a couple of fundamental questions here. Did the FBI pay Christopher Steele? I asked that of the Attorney General two weeks ago he wouldn’t answer the question. Did they actually vet this dossier?… Because it’s been disproven, a bunch of lies, a bunch of National Enquirer garbage and fake news in this thing. Did they actually check it out before they brought it to the FISA Court which I’m convinced they did. And all of this can be cleared up if they release the application that they took to the court… I think they won’t give it to us because they did pay Christopher Steele. I think they did use the dossier as the basis for the warrants to spy on Americans associated with President Trump’s campaign… (Strzok) is the guy who took the dossier to the Fisa Court.
Via Lou Dobbs:
Carter’s reporting shows us once again that Comey’s judgement in respect to surveillance should not have ever been trusted. |
As Gilbert delves further into the numbers, he does not necessarily disprove the one-in-four statistic, but he does clarify what it means -- the so-called rape epidemic on campuses is more a way of interpreting, a way of seeing, than a physical phenomenon. It is more about a change in sexual politics than a change in sexual behavior. Whether or not one in four college women has been raped, then, is a matter of opinion, not a matter of mathematical fact.
That rape is a fact in some women's lives is not in question. It's hard to watch the solemn faces of young Bosnian girls, their words haltingly translated, as they tell of brutal rapes; or to read accounts of a suburban teen-ager raped and beaten while walking home from a shopping mall. We all agree that rape is a terrible thing, but we no longer agree on what rape is. Today's definition has stretched beyond bruises and knives, threats of death or violence to include emotional pressure and the influence of alcohol. The lines between rape and sex begin to blur. The one-in-four statistic on those purple posters is measuring something elusive. It is measuring her word against his in a realm where words barely exist. There is a gray area in which one person's rape may be another's bad night. Definitions become entangled in passionate ideological battles. There hasn't been a remarkable change in the number of women being raped; just a change in how receptive the political climate is to those numbers.
The next question, then, is who is identifying this epidemic and why. Somebody is "finding" this rape crisis, and finding it for a reason. Asserting the prevalence of rape lends urgency, authority to a broader critique of culture.
In a dramatic description of the rape crisis, Naomi Wolf writes in "The Beauty Myth" that "Cultural representation of glamorized degradation has created a situation among the young in which boys rape and girls get raped as a normal course of events." The italics are hers. Whether or not Wolf really believes rape is part of the "normal course of events" these days, she is making a larger point. Wolf's rhetorical excess serves her larger polemic about sexual politics. Her dramatic prose is a call to arms. She is trying to rally the feminist troops. Wolf uses rape as a red flag, an undeniable sign that things are falling apart.
From Susan Brownmiller -- who brought the politics of rape into the mainstream with her 1975 best seller, "Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape" -- to Naomi Wolf, feminist prophets of the rape crisis are talking about something more than forced penetration. They are talking about what they define as a "rape culture." Rape is a natural trump card for feminism. Arguments about rape can be used to sequester feminism in the teary province of trauma and crisis. By blocking analysis with its claims to unique pandemic suffering, the rape crisis becomes a powerful source of authority.
Dead serious, eyes wide with concern, a college senior tells me that she believes one in four is too conservative an estimate. This is not the first time I've heard this. She tells me the right statistic is closer to one in two. That means one in two women are raped. It's amazing, she says, amazing that so many of us are sexually assaulted every day.
What is amazing is that this student actually believes that 50 percent of women are raped. This is the true crisis. Some substantial number of young women are walking around with this alarming belief: a hyperbole containing within it a state of perpetual fear.
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ACQUAINTANCE RAPE: IS Dating Dangerous?" is a pamphlet commonly found at counseling centers. The cover title rises from the shards of a shattered photograph of a boy and girl dancing. Inside, the pamphlet offers a sample date-rape scenario. She thinks:
"He was really good looking and he had a great smile. . . . We talked and found we had a lot in common. I really liked him. When he asked me over to his place for a drink I thought it would be O.K. He was such a good listener and I wanted him to ask me out again."
She's just looking for a sensitive boy, a good listener with a nice smile, but unfortunately his intentions are not as pure as hers. Beneath that nice smile, he thinks:
"She looked really hot, wearing a sexy dress that showed off her great body. We started talking right away. I knew that she liked me by the way she kept smiling and touching my arm while she was speaking. She seemed pretty relaxed so I asked her back to my place for a drink. . . . When she said 'Yes' I knew that I was going to be lucky!"
These cardboard stereotypes don't just educate freshmen about rape. They also educate them about "dates" and about sexual desire. With titles like "Friends Raping Friends: Could It Happen to You?" date-rape pamphlets call into question all relationships between men and women. Beyond warning students about rape, the rape-crisis movement produces its own images of sexual behavior, in which men exert pressure and women resist. By defining the dangerous date in these terms -- with this type of male and this type of female, and their different expectations -- these pamphlets promote their own perspective on how men and women feel about sex: men are lascivious, women are innocent.
The sleek images of pressure and resistance projected in rape education movies, videotapes, pamphlets and speeches create a model of acceptable sexual behavior. The don'ts imply their own set of do's. The movement against rape, then, not only dictates the way sex shouldn't be but also the way it should be. Sex should be gentle, it should not be aggressive; it should be absolutely equal, it should not involve domination and submission; it should be tender, not ambivalent; it should communicate respect, it shouldn't communicate consuming desire.
In "Real Rape," Susan Estrich, a professor of law at the University of Southern California Law Center, slips her ideas about the nature of sexual encounters into her legal analysis of the problem of rape. She writes: "Many feminists would argue that so long as women are powerless relative to men, viewing a 'yes' as a sign of true consent is misguided. . . . Many women who say yes to men they know, whether on dates or on the job, would say no if they could. . . . Women's silence sometimes is the product not of passion and desire but of pressure and fear."
Like Estrich, most rape-crisis feminists claim they are not talking about sex; they're talking about violence. But, like Estrich, they are also talking about sex. With their advice, their scenarios, their sample aggressive male, the message projects a clear comment on the nature of sexuality: women are often unwilling participants. They say yes because they feel they have to, because they are intimidated by male power.
The idea of "consent" has been redefined beyond the simple assertion that "no means no." Politically correct sex involves a yes, and a specific yes at that. According to the premise of "active consent," we can no longer afford ambiguity. We can no longer afford the dangers of unspoken consent. A former director of Columbia's date-rape education program told New York magazine, "Stone silence throughout an entire physical encounter with someone is not explicit consent."
This apparently practical, apparently clinical proscription cloaks retrograde assumptions about the way men and women experience sex. The idea that only an explicit yes means yes proposes that, like children, women have trouble communicating what they want. Beyond its dubious premise about the limits of female communication, the idea of active consent bolsters stereotypes of men just out to "get some" and women who don't really want any.
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Rape-crisis feminists express nostalgia for the days of greater social control, when the university acted in loco parentis and women were protected from the insatiable force of male desire. The rhetoric of feminists and conservatives blurs and overlaps in this desire to keep our youth safe and pure.
By viewing rape as encompassing more than the use or threat of physical violence to coerce someone into sex, rape-crisis feminists reinforce traditional views about the fragility of the female body and will. According to common definitions of date rape, even "verbal coercion" or "manipulation" constitute rape. Verbal coercion is defined as "a woman's consenting to unwanted sexual activity because of a man's verbal arguments not including verbal threats of force." The belief that "verbal coercion" is rape pervades workshops, counseling sessions and student opinion pieces. The suggestion lurking beneath this definition of rape is that men are not just physically but also intellectually and emotionally more powerful than women.
Imagine men sitting around in a circle talking about how she called him impotent and how she manipulated him into sex, how violated and dirty he felt afterward, how coercive she was, how she got him drunk first, how he hated his body and he couldn't eat for three weeks afterward. Imagine him calling this rape. Everyone feels the weight of emotional pressure at one time or another. The question is not whether people pressure each other but how our minds and our culture transform that pressure into full-blown assault. There would never be a rule or a law or even a pamphlet or peer counseling group for men who claimed to have been emotionally raped or verbally pressured into sex. And for the same reasons -- assumption of basic competence, free will and strength of character -- there should be no such rules or groups or pamphlets about women.
In discussing rape, campus feminists often slip into an outdated sexist vocabulary. But we have to be careful about using rape as metaphor. The sheer physical fact of rape has always been loaded with cultural meaning. Throughout history, women's bodies have been seen as property, as chaste objects, as virtuous vessels to be "dishonored," "ruined," "defiled." Their purity or lack of purity has been a measure of value for the men to whom they belonged.
"Politically, I call it rape whenever a woman has sex and feels violated," writes Catharine MacKinnon, a law professor and feminist legal scholar best known for her crusade against pornography. The language of virtue and violation reinforces retrograde stereotypes. It backs women into old corners. Younger feminists share MacKinnon's vocabulary and the accompanying assumptions about women's bodies. In one student's account of date rape in the Rag, a feminist magazine at Harvard. she talks about the anguish of being "defiled." Another writes, "I long to be innocent again." With such anachronistic constructions of the female body, with all their assumptions about female purity, these young women frame their experience of rape in archaic, sexist terms. Of course, sophisticated modern-day feminists don't use words like honor or virtue anymore. They know better than to say date-rape victims have been "defiled." Instead, they call it "post-traumatic stress syndrome." They tell the victim she should not feel "shame," she should feel "traumatized." Within their overtly political psychology, forced penetration takes on a level of metaphysical significance: date rape resonates through a woman's entire life.
Combating myths about rape is one of the central missions of the rape-crisis movement. They spend money and energy trying to break down myths like "She asked for it." But with all their noise about rape myths, rape-crisis feminists are generating their own. The plays, the poems, the pamphlets, the Take Back the Night speakouts, are propelled by the myth of innocence lost.
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All the talk about empowering the voiceless dissolves into the image of the naive girl child who trusts the rakish man. This plot reaches back centuries. It propels Samuel Richardson's 18th-century epistolary novel, "Clarissa": after hundreds of pages chronicling the minute details of her plight, her seduction and resistance, her break from her family, Clarissa is raped by the duplicitous Robert Lovelace. Afterward, she refuses to eat and fades toward a very virtuous, very religious death. Over a thousand pages are devoted to the story of her fall from innocence, a weighty event by 18th-century standards. But did these 20th-century girls, raised on Madonna videos and the 6 o'clock news, really trust that people were good until they themselves were raped? Maybe. Were these girls, raised on horror movies and glossy Hollywood sex scenes, really as innocent as all that? Maybe. But maybe the myth of lost innocence is a trope -- convenient, appealing, politically effective.
As long as we're taking back the night, we might as well take back our own purity. Sure, we were all kind of innocent, playing in the sandbox with bright red shovels -- boys, too. We can all look back through the tumultuous tunnel of adolescence on a honey-glazed childhood, with simple rules and early bedtimes. We don't have to look at parents fighting, at sibling struggles, at casting out one best friend for another in the Darwinian playground. This is not the innocence lost; this is the innocence we never had.
The idea of a fall from childhood grace, pinned on one particular moment, a moment over which we had no control, much lamented, gives our lives a compelling narrative structure. It's easy to see why the 17-year old likes it; it's easy to see why the rape-crisis feminist likes it. It's a natural human impulse put to political purpose. But in generating and perpetuating such myths, we should keep in mind that myths about innocence have been used to keep women inside and behind veils. They have been used to keep them out of work and in labor.
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It's not hard to imagine Clarissa, in jeans and a sweatshirt, transported into the 20th century, at a Take Back the Night march. She would speak for a long time about her deception and rape, about verbal coercion and anorexia, about her ensuing post-traumatic stress syndrome. Latter-day Clarissas may worry more about their "self esteem" than their virtue, but they are still attaching the same quasi-religious value to the physical act.
"CALLING IT RAPE," a play by Sonya Rasminsky, a recent Harvard graduate, is based on interviews with date-rape victims. The play, which has been performed at Harvard and may be taken into Boston-area high schools, begins with "To His Coy Mistress," by the 17th-century poet Andrew Marvell. Although generations of high-school and college students have read this as a romantic poem, a poem about desire and the struggle against mortality, Rasminsky has reinterpreted it as a poem about rape. "Had we but world enough, and time, this coyness, lady, were no crime." But what Andrew Marvell didn't know then, and we know now, is that the real crime is not her coyness but his verbal coercion.
Farther along, the actors recount a rape that hinges on misunderstanding. A boy and girl are watching videos and he starts to come on to her. She does not want to have sex. As the situation progresses, she says, in an oblique effort to communicate her lack of enthusiasm, "If you're going to [ expletive ] me, use a condom." He interprets that as a yes, but it's really a no. And, according to this play, what happens next, condom or no condom, is rape.
This is a central idea of the rape-crisis movement: that sex has become our tower of Babel. He doesn't know what she wants (not to have sex) and she doesn't know what he wants (to have sex) -- until it's too late. He speaks boyspeak and she speaks girlspeak and what comes out of all this verbal chaos is a lot of rapes. The theory of mixed signals and crossed stars has to do with more than gender politics. It comes in part, from the much-discussed diversity that has so radically shifted the social composition of the college class since the 50's.
Take my own Harvard dorm: the Adams House dining hall is large, with high ceilings and dark paneling. It hasn't changed much for generations. As soon as the students start milling around gathering salads, ice cream and coffee onto green trays, there are signs of change. There are students in jeans, flannel shirts, short skirts, girls in jackets, boys in bracelets, two pierced noses and lots of secondhand clothes.
Not so many years ago, this room was filled with boys in jackets and ties. Most of them were white, Christian and what we now call privileged. Students came from the same social milieu with the same social rules and it was assumed that everyone knew more or less how they were expected to behave with everyone else. Diversity and multiculturalism were unheard of, and if they had been, they would have been dirty words. With the shift in college environments, with the introduction of black kids, Asian kids, Jewish kids, kids from the wrong side of the tracks of nearly every railroad in the country, there was an accompanying anxiety about how people behave. When ivory tower meets melting pot, it causes tension, some confusion, some need for readjustment. In explaining the need for intensive "orientation" programs, including workshops on date rape, Columbia's assistant dean for freshmen stated in an interview in The New York Times: "You can't bring all these people together and say, 'Now be one big happy community,' without some sort of training. You can't just throw together somebody from a small town in Texas and someone from New York City and someone from a conservative fundamentalist home in the Midwest and say, 'Now without any sort of conversation, be best friends and get along and respect one another.' "
Catharine Stimpson, a University Professor at Rutgers and longtime advocate of women's studies programs, once pointed out that it's sometimes easier for people to talk about gender than to talk about class. "Miscommunication" is in some sense a word for the friction between the way we were and the way we are. Just as the idea that we speak different languages is connected to gender -- the arrival of women in classrooms, in dorms and in offices -- it is also connected to class.
When the Southern heiress goes out with the plumber's son from the Bronx, when the kid from rural Arkansas goes out with a boy from Exeter, the anxiety is that they have different expectations. The dangerous "miscommunication" that recurs through the literature on date rape is a code word for difference in background. The rhetoric surrounding date rape and sexual harassment is in part a response to cultural mixing. The idea that men don't know what women mean when women say no stems from something deeper and more complicated than feminist concerns with rape.
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PEOPLE HAVE ASKED ME if I have ever been date-raped. And thinking back on complicated nights, on too many glasses of wine, on strange and familiar beds, I would have to say yes. With such a sweeping definition of rape, I wonder how many people there are, male or female, who haven't been date-raped at one point or another. People pressure and manipulate and cajole each other into all sorts of things all of the time. As Susan Sontag wrote, "Since Christianity upped the ante and concentrated on sexual behavior as the root of virtue, everything pertaining to sex has been a 'special case' in our culture, evoking peculiarly inconsistent attitudes." No human interactions are free from pressure, and the idea that sex is, or can be, makes it what Sontag calls a "special case," vulnerable to the inconsistent expectations of double standard.
With their expansive version of rape, rape-crisis feminists are inventing a kinder, gentler sexuality. Beneath the broad definition of rape, these feminists are endorsing their own utopian vision of sexual relations: sex without struggle, sex without power, sex without persuasion, sex without pursuit. If verbal coercion constitutes rape, then the word rape itself expands to include any kind of sex a woman experiences as negative.
When Martin Amis spoke at Princeton, he included a controversial joke: "As far as I'm concerned, you can change your mind before, even during, but just not after sex." The reason this joke is funny, and the reason it's also too serious to be funny, is that in the current atmosphere you can change your mind afterward. Regret can signify rape. A night that was a blur, a night you wish hadn't happened, can be rape. Since "verbal coercion" and "manipulation" are ambiguous, it's easy to decide afterwards that he manipulated you. You can realize it weeks or even years later. This is a movement that deals in retrospective trauma.
Rape has become a catchall expression, a word used to define everything that is unpleasant and disturbing about relations between the sexes. Students say things like "I realize that sexual harassment is a kind of rape." If we refer to a whole range of behavior from emotional pressure to sexual harassment as "rape," then the idea itself gets diluted. It ceases to be powerful as either description or accusation.
Some feminists actually collapse the distinction between rape and sex. Catharine MacKinnon writes: "Compare victims' reports of rape with women's reports of sex. They look a lot alike. . . . In this light, the major distinction between intercourse (normal) and rape (abnormal) is that the normal happens so often that one cannot get anyone to see anything wrong with it."
There are a few feminists involved in rape education who object to the current expanding definitions of sexual assault. Gillian Greensite, founder of the rape prevention education program at the University of California at Santa Cruz, writes that the seriousness of the crime "is being undermined by the growing tendency of some feminists to label all heterosexual miscommunication and insensitivity as acquaintance rape." From within the rape-crisis movement, Greensite's dissent makes an important point. If we are going to maintain an idea of rape, then we need to reserve it for instances of physical violence, or the threat of physical violence.
But some people want the melodrama. They want the absolute value placed on experience by absolute words. Words like "rape" and "verbal coercion" channel the confusing flow of experience into something easy to understand. The idea of date rape comes at us fast and coherent. It comes at us when we've just left home and haven't yet figured out where to put our new futons or how to organize our new social lives. The rhetoric about date rape defines the terms, gives names to nameless confusions and sorts through mixed feelings with a sort of insistent consistency. In the first rush of sexual experience, the fear of date rape offers a tangible framework to locate fears that are essentially abstract.
When my 55-year-old mother was young, navigating her way through dates, there was a definite social compass. There were places not to let him put his hands. There were invisible lines. The pill wasn't available. Abortion wasn't legal. And sex was just wrong. Her mother gave her "mad money" to take out on dates in case her date got drunk and she needed to escape. She had to go far enough to hold his interest and not far enough to endanger her reputation.
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Now the rape-crisis feminists are offering new rules. They are giving a new political weight to the same old no. My mother's mother told her to drink sloe gin fizzes so she wouldn't drink too much and get too drunk and go too far. Now the date rape pamphlets tell us: "Avoid excessive use of alcohol and drugs. Alcohol and drugs interfere with clear thinking and effective communication." My mother's mother told her to stay away from empty rooms and dimly lighted streets. In "I Never Called It Rape," Robin Warshaw writes, "Especially with recent acquaintances, women should insist on going only to public places such as restaurants and movie theaters."
There is a danger in these new rules. We shouldn't need to be reminded that the rigidly conformist 50's were not the heyday of women's power. Barbara Ehrenreich writes of "re-making love," but there is a danger in remaking love in its old image. The terms may have changed, but attitudes about sex and women's bodies have not. Rape-crisis feminists threaten the progress that's been made. They are chasing the same stereotypes our mothers spent so much energy escaping..
One day I was looking through my mother's bookshelves and I found her old battered copy of Germaine Greer's feminist classic, "The Female Eunuch." The pages were dogeared and whole passages marked with penciled notes. It was 1971 when Germaine Greer fanned the fires with "The Female Eunuch" and it was 1971 when my mother read it, brand new, explosive, a tough and sexy terrorism for the early stirrings of the feminist movement.
Today's rape-crisis feminists threaten to create their own version of the desexualized woman Greer complained of 20 years ago. Her comments need to be recycled for present-day feminism. "It is often falsely assumed," Greer writes, "even by feminists, that sexuality is the enemy of the female who really wants to develop these aspects of her personality. . . . It was not the insistence upon her sex that weakened the American woman student's desire to make something of her education, but the insistence upon a passive sexual role [ Greer's italics ] . In fact, the chief instrument in the deflection and perversion of female energy is the denial of female sexuality for the substitution of femininity or sexlessness."
It is the passive sexual role that threatens us still, and it is the denial of female sexual agency that threatens to propel us backward. |
Last year, Portishead said they’d be clearing their schedules in order to work on new material. Though fans have received such teases for years — in 2010, and again in 2011 — only to be let down, it looks like the English outfit might finally be making good on their word.
According to a new post on the band’s official website, Portishead have contributed a song to High-Rise, the new drama from Ben Wheatley starring Tom Hiddleston, Sienna Miller, and Elizabeth Moss, which screens today at the London Film Festival. The track is said to be a cover of the 1975 ABBA hit “SOS”.
While it’s technically not a new song, it does mark Portishead’s first new recording since the 2009 one-off charity single “Chase the Tear”. It also means the band has successfully carved out time in their busy schedules recently — which couldn’t have been easy. If you’ll recall, Geoff Barrow has kept himself occupied with this year’s Ex Machina soundtrack and a new Beak> EP; also, not too long ago, Beth Gibbons doled out a badass Black Sabbath cover. Whenever the new album does arrive, it will serve as the follow-up to 2008’s Third.
For a very rough idea of what this newish song might sound like, revisit Portishead’s “Machine Gun” and then ABBA’s “SOS”. |
For parts of wind instruments, see Tone hole
A sound hole is an opening in the body of a stringed musical instrument, usually the upper sound board . Sound holes have different shapes:
Some instruments come in more than one style (mandolins may have F-holes, round or oval holes). A round or oval hole or a rosette is usually a single one, under the strings. C-holes, D-holes and F-holes are usually made in pairs placed symmetrically on both sides of the strings. Most hollowbody and semi-hollow electric guitars also have F-holes.
Though sound holes help acoustic instruments project sound more efficiently, sound does not emanate solely from the sound hole. Sound emanates from the surface area of the sounding boards, with sound holes providing an opening into the resonant chamber formed by the body, letting the sounding boards vibrate more freely, and letting vibrating air inside the instrument travel outside the instrument.
In 2015, researchers at MIT, in collaboration with violin makers at North Bennet Street School, published an analysis that charted the evolution and improvements in effectiveness of violin F-hole design over time.[1][2]
Alternative sound hole designs [ edit ]
Some Ovation stringed instruments feature a particularly unique soundhole architecture with multiple smaller soundholes that, being combined with a composite composite bowl back body are said to produce a clear and bright sound.
Tacoma Guitars has developed a unique "paisley" soundhole placed on the left side of the upper bout of their "Wing Series" guitars. This is a relatively low-stress area that requires less bracing to support the hole.[3]
A few hollowbody or semi-hollow electric guitars, such as the Fender Telecaster Thinline and the Gibson ES-120T, have one f-hole instead of two, usually on the bass side.
B&G Guitars, a private build guitar company from Tel Aviv, Israel, uses their signature "backwards" sound holes on their guitars[4]
Holes not positioned on the top of an acoustic guitar are called soundports.They are usually supplementary to a main soundhole, and located on an instrument's side facing upward in playing position, allowing players to monitor their own sound.[5]
Gallery [ edit ]
References [ edit ] |
DIYARBAKIR, Turkey (Reuters) - Two Turkish soldiers were killed when a roadside bomb hit their vehicle in the province of Tunceli, security sources said on Sunday, bringing the military death toll in two days of violence in the predominantly Kurdish east to six.
The sources said a fourth soldier had died of his wounds following clashes on Saturday with Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants in the province of Hakkari, southeast of Tunceli near the borders with Iran and Iraq.
The PKK, deemed a terrorist organization by the United States and the EU, has been fighting an insurgency since 1984, demanding greater Kurdish autonomy in the southeast of the country. Some 40,000 people have been killed in the fighting.
The conflict has surged again since a two-year ceasefire collapsed in July, leaving peace negotiations in tatters, weeks ahead of a general election on Nov. 1.
The violence persists despite a PKK call a week ago ordering its forces to halt all actions in Turkey unless attacked.
The government has dismissed the move as an election gambit to bolster the pro-Kurdish opposition ahead of the parliamentary election and has said military operations will continue until PKK fighters disarm and leave Turkey. |
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Translator: TranslationChicken
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Editor: TranslationChicken
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ALL RIGHTS BELONG TO TAPPEI NAGATSUKI, THE ORIGINAL AUTHOR OF RE:ZERO, THIS IS A TRANSLATION OF THE FREE JAPANESE WEB NOVEL INTO ENGLISH
JAPANESE WEB NOVEL SOURCE: HTTP://NCODE.SYOSETU.COM/N2267BE/198/
Previous Chapter: https://translationchicken.com/2017/06/17/rezero-arc-4-chapter-31-maid%E3%83%BBmaid%E3%83%BBmaid-part-33/
ARC 4
THE EVERLASTING COVENANT
Chapter 32 [1/4]
Tilting the steaming teacup to his lips and taking a sip, Subaru opened his ears to Frederica’s words.
[Frederica: The Demihuman War―― To begin with, would Subaru-sama know what kind of dispute this was?]
[Subaru: Like I said, I don’t know the details. Just…… I can kinda imagine what might’ve happened just from the name and the historical background]
[Frederica: My, that’s interesting. May I ask what you imagined it to be?]
Hearing this reply from Subaru, Frederica covered the corner of her lips and smiled.
Covering her mouthful of fangs while smiling seemed to be a deeply ingrained habit of her’s, and Subaru often saw her this way.
It would seem that although she loved to smile, she didn’t want others to see it.
Closing his eyes and scratching at his cheeks, with [Right], Subaru began,
[Subaru: I don’t know how long ago that war took place, but I can imagine it couldn’t have had nothing to do with the Witch of Envy. I’ve seen how Emilia was treated like a tumor in the Capital, and I know that Half-Elves are despised by all sorts of people]
Recorded even in picture-books, the Witch of Envy was universally known as the unparalleled symbol of absolute evil. Being a silver-haired Half-Elf, for having only this one point in common with the Witch, Emilia was treated with this unjust prejudice. So, in the wake of the Witch of Envy―― Subaru could imagine the kind of conflict that might have arisen from even the most insignificant details.
[Subaru: A Half-Elf, would be a child between a Human and an Elf, right? Carrying on from their hatred of Half-Elves…… it’s not too far-fetched that some would believe that Half-Bloods born between humans and other races are also heresy deserving of persecution]
[Frederica: ……Please, do go on]
[Subaru: I’m just pulling this from imagination, but since the persecution of Half-Elves led to the persecution of Half-Bloods by association, if we take this to the extreme, the very existence of the Demihumans who begot the Half-Bloods would also be a threat as well…… that’s probably what some of those guys are thinking]
To the extent of Subaru’s knowledge, the humans are by far the most numerous race in this world. He knew of the existence of Elves, and Beastmen like Anastasia’s triplets, but just based on his observations over the days he spent at the Capital, the absolute number of Demihumans were indeed far fewer than the humans.
And so, solely owing to their majority, they came to believe that they had justice on their side.
[Subaru: I doubt absolutely everyone would’ve taken up this way of thinking, but the loud and obnoxious types are probably the same anywhere. So, compared to hatred of Demihumans…… it’s probably closer to fear, isn’t it. And when that frustration eventually boils over…]
[Frederica: The tension between Humans and Demihumans erupted. The smoldering kindling caught fire, and with ever-gathering momentum, its flames engulfed the whole of Lugnica]
Spilling this in a melancholic voice, Frederica continued on from Subaru’s words.
Closing one of his eyes, Subaru gazed at her downcast expression. And Frederica, with a single nod, turned up her face.
[Frederica: There is almost no need to supplement your conjectures, nor are there any grounds for dispute. ……Have you truly never heard any detailed accounts of the war?]
[Subaru: Nah. If that was essentially correct, it’s just thanks to my power of imagination. Or reading experience…… this kind of stuff shows up in light novels a lot, you know, antagonism between races and stuff]
Although, of course, Subaru never actually paid much mind to these problems in reality.
Even in his Original World, so-called racial discrimination existed. But, to Subaru, they might as well have been taking place a world away. Like problems existing in some Parallel World.
He was himself, and the others were others, he had held this coldly apathetic outlook. And while this was true in a way, in reality, he was only averting his eyes.
[Subaru: It’s just, even if I can imagine how things got the way they are, I’d still have no idea how to fix it. But since you’re saying this in the past-tense, at least that means the Demihuman War had already run its course, right?]
[Frederica: In a sense, yes. But the scars of the war run deep, and the sprouts of prejudice against the offsprings between Humans and Demihumans remain deeply rooted even now]
Perhaps because she herself was born as a target of such prejudice, Frederica’s words carried a certain heaviness that could not have been understood by someone merely listening from the outside.
Subaru wanted to ask what happened next, but hesitated before he could throw these words at her. And, sensing this on his mind, Frederica sighed,
[Frederica: My apologies for making you worried. Let us continue the story]
[Subaru: I kinda wanna say “don’t force yourself”, but these things directly tie into what I need to ask so I can’t really say that. So, do force yourself, please]
[Frederica: My my. You certainly are adept at spurring people on, Subaru-sama]
Favorably interpreting Subaru’s rather selfish remark, Frederica lifted her own cup and let a sip roll over her tongue,
[Frederica: The Demihuman War began approximately fifty years ago. From there, it went on for nearly ten years…… and it was recorded to have concluded forty years ago]
[Subaru: Ten years…… that’s a long time. Although, back home, I think we’ve got a Hundred Years’ War and a Thirty Years’ War or something in our history as well]
Subaru wasn’t so well read when it came to historical novels, so his knowledge of these events didn’t go past glancing over their names in textbooks. But, with names like that, he could more or less guess how long those wars lasted at least.
Thirty years, and a hundred years. It’s a frightening thought, how anyone could hate another person enough to carry on a war for so long.
Even Subaru had only spent about two months in the Parallel world.
[Subaru: That’s just way too exhausting, who can keep on playing Bokosuka Wars for more than ten years?]
[Frederica: Regardless, the war first originated from a dispute between the humans and a Demihuman settlement. Originally, it would only have been a local dispute contained within a small area…… but because of the incident that followed, in a single stroke, the heat of war flared up. And the horrific conflict, in which blood upon blood washed over every corner of the land, began]
[Subaru: The incident that followed?]
[Frederica: Not long after conflict first broke out, the King of Lugnica at the time saw the seriousness of the situation and dispatched his close attendant as an envoy for peace. On the Demihuman side, the chiefs of various races gathered to welcome the envoy and to negotiate for a resolution, but……]
Hearing Frederica’s words trail off, Subaru silently tilted his head, prompting her to continue. Seeing his gesture, Frederica closed her eyes,
[Frederica: Those who attended that conference―― the envoys from the Palace and the Demihuman chiefs alike, were all indiscriminately slaughtered on the spot]
[Subaru: Indiscriminately slaughtered……? But by who, and for what?]
[Frederica: The culprit remains unknown even to this day. But, at the time, both the Humans and the Demihumans were convinced that the other was responsible. And consequently, a small ember became a great devouring fire, and would not be put out for all ten years…… as it so happened]
[Subaru: What were they doing? If they just properly talked it through…… but that’s too idealistic, isn’t it]
Given the emotions of the people at the time, this might be too much of a god-like perspective to take.
The envoy dispatched by the Palace was the King’s personal attendant. Considering the prestige of the envoy murdered at the scene of negotiation, to withdraw the matter without bringing the culprit to justice would have been beneath the dignity of a Kingdom. And, from the Demihumans’ perspective, the fact was that their chiefs had been gathered in one place and massacred. Although it’d be demeaning to count lives this way, in purely numerical terms, the Demihuman side lost more.
Adding to that, was the existence of the Witch of Envy that first laid the foundations of the strife between their races.
It would be difficult enough to even begin to mend their relations, and in this standstill, there was no time to deal with the problems that followed―― further and further behind, unable to stem the tide, it wouldn’t be hard to imagine how this invited the tragedy that resulted.
[Frederica: In the end―― the Demihuman War concluded with the surrender of the Demihumans. Even then, the Demihumans refused to take responsibility for the massacre at the conference, and only acknowledged that it would be senseless to continue the war any further]
[Subaru: Personally, stuck in this kind of quagmire, I think the side that stepped back first was actually the smarter one. Also, this was like a civil war, wasn’t it? There’s no benefit to the country at all]
[Frederica: The truth was precisely that. Lugnica’s power greatly declined over the course of the Demihuman War. It was fortunate that at the time, all the neighboring nations were also dealing with turmoil of their own, otherwise, Lugnica may very well have been replaced by some other kingdom]
It must have been fortune in midst of misfortune that the other three nations were also occupied with internal strife, thus narrowly saving Lugnica from a final deathblow.
Yet, a crisis no less perilous than that era was facing this Kingdom even now.
[Subaru: But, well, it’s still pretty amazing that they managed to put an end to a war that lasted so long. It must’ve taken a whole lot of courage, and the resistance from the hardliners couldn’t have been easy to overcome]
[Frederica: ……It was because humanity had one overwhelming presence among them who bent the pro-war faction’s will. For it was to the unrivaled swordsmanship of the then-Current Generation Sword Saint, Thearesia Van Astrea-sama, that all the Demihumans bowed their heads…… is something the matter?]
[Subaru: No, I was just surprised to hear a name that I know… It’s a small world]
Next Part 2/2: https://translationchicken.com/2017/06/21/rezero-arc-4-chapter-32-14-part-22/
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Let me know if you find missing words! ❤
I’ll be back tomorrow to finish the chapter!
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Chapter 32 Live Draft:
https://www.patreon.com/posts/re-zero-arc-4-32-11793147
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Next Part 2/2: https://translationchicken.com/2017/06/21/rezero-arc-4-chapter-32-14-part-22/ |
We got an early glimpse at the final customization options for Windows 8 earlier this week, showing the new patterns available for the Start Screen as thumbnails. A leaked build of Windows 8 emerged yesterday, but customization options are disabled unless the copy is fully activated. Thanks to an anonymous tipster we've managed to get an early look at the new Start Screen patterns in Windows 8, and it's fair to say they're pretty colorful.
There are 20 different patterns to choose from, ranging from floral designs all the way through to some pixel art-inspired examples. Most of the more vibrant designs don't interact with the background of the tiles, something that Microsoft has been keen to avoid — to ensure Windows 8 users can still read tiles without distractions. Other user interface changes in the final build include the removal of the Aero theme functionality in the desktop part of Windows 8, but one of Microsoft's biggest surprises is the level of customization available in its new Start Screen.
The patterns can be applied to the background of the Start Screen, with a color picker available to customize the look even further. Some of the imagery is similar to the backgrounds used in the final copy of Windows 7, which featured styles from artists "with the intention of representing and appealing to people all around the world." |
If you're traveling to Canada, a country whose customs officials are notorious for playing the role of morality police, you'd better leave your Japanese comics at home — whether they're in print or digital.
The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund announced today in a press release that it's forming a coalition to support the defense of an American citizen facing criminal charges for manga discovered on his laptop while crossing from the US into Canada. If convicted, he faces a minimum of one year in prison on charges of child pornography.
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To quote from the CBLDF press release:
The facts of the case involve an American citizen, computer programmer, and comic book enthusiast in his mid-twenties who was flying from his home in the United States to Canada to visit a friend. Upon arrival at Canadian Customs a customs officer conducted a search of the American and his personal belongings, including his laptop, iPad, and iPhone. The customs officer discovered manga on the laptop and considered it to be child pornography. The client's name is being withheld on the request of counsel for reasons relating to legal strategy. The images at issue are all comics in the manga style. No photographic evidence of criminal behavior is at issue. Nevertheless, a warrant was issued and the laptop was turned over to police. Consequently, the American has been charged with both the possession of child pornography as well as its importation into Canada. As a result, if convicted at trial, the American faces a minimum of one year in prison. This case could have far reaching implications for comic books and manga in North America.
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These charges come at a time when sexual material in manga is being challenged both in Japan and abroad. In 2007, Christopher Handley, a manga collector in Iowa, was charged under the PROTECT Act for possession of child pornography when custom officials intercepted and opened a package for Handley from Japan. Police later came to his house with a search warrant and charged him based on several "obscene" manga found in his collection. Despite a vigorous defense by the CBLDF and comic luminaries such as Neil Gaiman and manga expert Matt Thorn, Handley finally pled guilty in 2009 and was sentenced to six months of prison time.
In 2010, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government passed Bill 156,an expansion of a dusty 1964 law titled the Tokyo Metropolitan Ordinance Regarding the Healthy Development of Youths, giving the Tokyo government far-reaching powers over minors' access to the Internet and mobile devices, and criminalizing the sale to minors of
any manga, animation, or pictures (but not including real life pictures or footage) that features either sexual or pseudo sexual acts that would be illegal in real life, or sexual or pseudo sexual acts between close relatives whose marriage would be illegal, where such depictions and / or presentations unjustifiably glorify or exaggerate the activity.
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Promoted by its sponsors with "protect the children" style rhetoric, the bill passed despite a petition against it signed by numerous manga artists and a threat by major manga publishers, including Shonen Jump publisher Shueisha, to boycott the 2011 Tokyo International Anime Fair (the boycott threat never materialized, as the fair was canceled due to the earthquake). The bill goes into full effect on July 1st, but already the Tokyo government has released the names of the first six manga targeted under the bill.
Pointedly, unlike America's PROTECT act, Tokyo's Bill 156 does not prevent the sale of graphic adult manga as long as they're labeled "18 and up"; thus, the bill would actually not criminalize the kind of hardcore manga Handley was convicted of possessing, but instead targets borderline titles such as teenage sex comedies, gritty manga involving taboo subjects such as prostitution and incest, and so on.
Efforts at manga regulation in the Japan and the US aren't unrelated; as Japanese pop culture writers including Frederik Schodt and Roland Kelts have pointed out, censors in Japan are invigorated by the efforts of their counterparts in America and Canada. Many of the sponsors of Bill 156 used arguments like "shame on us for permitting stuff that isn't permitted in the West."
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As Tokyo governor Shintaro Ishihara, a major sponsor of Bill 156 recently elected to a fourth term after the passage of the bill, said in a press conference in December 2010 (from the blog of manga translator and anti-Bill-156 advocate Dan Kanemitsu):
It's clear there are perverts in this world. Sad people with warped DNA…I don't think Western societies would tolerate such things very much. Japan has become too uninhibited.
Asked for information about what manga attracted the ire of Canadian customs in the current case, CBLDF executive director Charles Brownstein said, "My understanding with regard to the material at issue is that it includes fantasy comics drawn in a variety of manga styles. One of the items is believed to be a doujinshi, or fan-made comic, of the mainstream manga series Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha. Another is believed to be a comic in the original Japanese depicting stick-figure like figures in various sexual positions. In all cases, the authorities are targeting expressive art, and not any photographic evidence of a crime."
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Of course, the exact nature of the artwork found on the laptop is irrelevant to the free-speech issues involved. (The art for this article is generic Nanoha artwork.) In Handley's case, some of the public sympathy for Handley evaporated after his conviction when it was found that the titles he was accused of possessing weren't yaoi manga or mildly kinky manga sex comedies, but explicit heterosexual lolicon (Lolita Complex) adult manga.
Other legal travelers who have had comics seized or searched by Canada's infamously zealous customs officials, such as Elizabeth McClung, who was targeted in 2006 for carrying Miki Aihara's YA romance manga Tokyo Boys & Girls (customs officials were suspicious of the word "boys" in the title), have accused Canadian authorities of singling out gay and lesbian materials.
But regardless of the sexual activities depicted, imaginary is imaginary, artwork is artwork, and defending free speech means defending objectionable and offensive speech as well. Handley's guilty plea means that no legal precedent was set in his case, but this chilling new case is another round in the legal battle over protected free speech, and of course a major struggle for the accused, whose life could be ruined if convicted of child pornography.
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The CBLDF, together with the Canadian Comic Legends Legal Defense Fund, is soliciting funds for the defense, which they estimate will cost $150,000 Canadian. For more information see the CBLDF press release here. |
Nokia is looking for a partner to help it enter the smartphone business
Nokia is officially looking for a partner to help it enter the smartphone business. The former industry heavyweight released an official statement that confirms its plans to return to making phones.
The Finnish companys prospective partner will be expected to take on the heavy lifting in the process of bringing a phone to the market. This includes manufacturing, sales, marketing, and customer support for the device. Nokia on the other hand, will chip in with design and technology.
This means that a potential Nokia smartphone have similar development path as the N1 Android tablet. The latter is manufactured by Foxconn under a Nokia license.
The earliest Nokia can deliver a smartphone to the market is Q4, 2016. Nokias agreement with Microsoft from the sale of its Devices & Services business prevents it from getting back in the business earlier.
Nokias latest official statement marks a 180-degree turn for the company - back in April, the company announced that it has no plans to enter the smartphone business. Last month however, the companys CEO hinted at a return to the handset game.
Source | Via |
Total Converts is a new weekly column about mods, maps, models, and anything player-created which you can use to amend or append your games.
Modding used to suck.
Back in 1999, I became hooked on Half-Life. Hooked in the way only 14-year-olds can, with a pure, uncritical love. The problem I had – familiar to many today – was that Half-Life was finite and I had no idea if more would ever be made.
So in between rounds of laggy, 56k deathmatch with a friend, I turned to mods, custom maps, and anything else I could find which would allow me to wring more from my investment in Black Mesa. I hung out in IRC rooms, read map review sites and slowly downloaded files from Fileplanet. It felt like I was crawling through obscure corners of the internet, at a time when the internet seemed to inhabit a strange corner of the real world.
Imagine my surprise when I walked into a gift ship while on holiday in an English seaside town and found the CD pictured above. A collection of Half-Life add-ons for sale in the most ordinary place.
Even then, with my limited understanding of game development and zero understanding of intellectual property, I knew something was off about it. I’d spent enough time buying pirated Amiga 500 games from the Glasgow Barras to recognise a knockoff.
I bought it anyway (and it turns out you can now download the whole collection from ModDB). In retrospect there are some pretty clear signs that it wasn’t an official release. The text on the back of the jewel case begins, “A complete collection of addons for half life including single player levels, Death match levels, Team fortress classic levels, new config files, a superb collection of new skins/models, editors and much, much, more.” After a long list of file names, it ends, “A must for any Half Life fan unleash the Power of Half Life!.”
The contents are similarly muddled. There are the character models bragged about on the back, including Homer Simpson and Alian (from the movie Alian). There’s a selection of maps, both single and multiplayer. There are mods, including beta 1 of Counter-Strike. But there’s also a stranger set of materials, including a WinAmp skin, some screensavers, and editing tools for, er, Unreal games.
The CD still works, though many of its contents wouldn’t be compatible with the Steam version of the game. What does work are the maps, which are mostly mediocre examples of the creativity that made the Half-Life community so vibrant. It’s a little like stumbling upon someone’s fanart Tumblr; that discomforting feeling when someone’s enthusiasm outstrips their talent. There’s nothing so awkward as sincerity.
So why have I kept the CD these past 14 years, while throwing out the majority of my physical game collection?
When we talk about Half-Life and its mods today, we tend to condense the story down to a few better remembered releases like Counter-Strike, Day of Defeat and Natural Selection. But there was a lot more to it, and that vibrant Half-Life community kept me entertained for years.
There were so many mods doing interesting things. Sven Co-Op was a bawdy mess, but its conversion of singleplayer maps to co-op multiplayer felt in some ways miraculous.
Half-Life Rally never felt complete and was following in the tire tracks of what Quake Rally accomplished years earlier, but its eye for detail and the scale of its tracks opened up Goldsource in ways that previously seemed impossible.
Action Half-Life, The Opera and The Specialists all found ways to make multiplayer fights more stylish. There were dozens that made them sillier, sometimes with simple ideas like the Snark Mod’s array of weapons based on the small, carnivorous roaches. Pirates, Vikings & Knights had a launchable parrot attack.
There were even more single player mods that made worthwhile contributions. Neil Manke used mostly existing Half-Life assets to create a believable spaceship in USS Darkstar and a thick, pre-Ravenholm horror atmosphere in They Hunger. Dave Johnston (creator of de_dust) made ETC (and its sequel). Adam Foster, before he made Minerva and got a job at Valve, made the Xen-redeeming Someplace Else. My favourite remains Chris Spain’s Edge of Darkness.
I can keep going, but even while stepping beyond the obvious, I’m still telling the story of the winners. In reality the mod community was full of things you would never want to play, made by teenagers who dabbled, gave up and moved on. Most modders and mappers did not make works which expanded our idea of what was possible with the Half-Life engine, or chart new ground which would later become commercial releases. Most people made novelty maps full of point lighting and terrible r_speeds.
But this is why I love mods. Those people whose enthusiasm outstripped their talent? I’m one of them.
After having played so many, I came to the conclusion that I must be able to make a map of my own. I released just one, a 2-4 player deathmatch map in which I stubbornly refused to accept Half-Life didn’t have Quake 3’s jump pads, and set its floors so far apart you couldn’t get down without breaking your legs. It was awful. I would link it here, but I honestly can’t remember its name.
Mostly I just built and re-built and built again a single corridor. I have screenshots of that.
I learned a lot and accomplished nothing. It was fun. It was a way to bask in my obsession with Half-Life during the six years it took for Half-Life 2 to come out. It was free. It was constructive. It led, via reviewing Half-Life maps and interviewing modders for fan sites, to my entire career. Modding made me. There’s nothing so awkward as sincerity.
I kept the CD because it’s a reminder that modding communities are more than the sum of their famous works. This is a kind of mission statement for this column. Sometimes I’ll do that thing – that Top X Mods For Game Y thing, because there’s nothing wrong with it. Sometimes I will speak to people who quote-unquote made it by turning professional.
But while mods’ function as a source of practice and experience is certainly useful, these communities aren’t just birthing farms for future weapon modellers. They don’t become relevant at the point at which they’re touched by the shrivelled claw of commercial credibility. They are relevant and exciting and fascinating at the moment a person loves something so much they decide to risk embarrassment in order to find out how it works so they can spend more time with it.
Modding used to suck. I hope it still does.
Next week: something you might want to go play. Although really you should be checking checking out ETS2 or Someplace Else or Edge of Darkness for Half-Life 1 right now. |
A final Dodger trivia quiz for 2014
Jon Weisman Blocked Unblock Follow Following Dec 30, 2014
http://m.mlb.com/video/v34217631
By Jon Weisman
Test your knowledge of the 2014 Dodgers and their place in history with these 20 questions. Answers below.
The 2014 Dodgers hit into two triple plays in one season for the first time since 1955. What two Hall of Famers hit into the triple plays in 1955? Yasiel Puig did something on July 26 that hadn’t been done by a Dodger in 109 years. What was it? On May 25, Josh Beckett threw the Dodgers’ first no-hitter since what pitcher did so in 1996? Name the two Dodgers older than Beckett to throw a no-hitter: a future Hall of Famer in 1925, and a past New York Giant in 1956. The day after Beckett’s no-hitter, another pitcher took a perfect game into the eighth inning against Cincinnati. Who was it? Early in 2014, Dee Gordon took the National League lead in stolen bases and triples. The last Dodger to lead the NL in both categories in one season was which 1960s star? Name the three Los Angeles Dodgers to have at least 60 stolen bases in a season before Gordon did in 2014. When was the last year before 2014 that the Dodgers led the big leagues in stolen bases: 1965, 1970, 1975 or 1980?
Juan Ocampo/Los Angeles Dodgers |
A = A. arguta, C = A. chinensis, D = A. deliciosa, E = A. eriantha, I = A. indochinensis, P = A. polygama, S = A. setosa. Kiwifruit by speciesA =, C =, D =, E =, I =, P =, S =
A sliced kiwifruit
Kiwifruit (often abbreviated as kiwi), or Chinese gooseberry, is the edible berry of several species of woody vines in the genus Actinidia.[1][2] The most common cultivar group of kiwifruit (Actinidia deliciosa 'Hayward')[3] is oval, about the size of a large hen's egg (5–8 cm (2.0–3.1 in) in length and 4.5–5.5 cm (1.8–2.2 in) in diameter). It has a fibrous, dull greenish-brown skin and bright green or golden flesh with rows of tiny, black, edible seeds. The fruit has a soft texture with a sweet and unique flavour. China produced 56% of the world total of kiwifruit in 2016.[4]
Etymology [ edit ]
The word kiwifruit and the shortened kiwi have been used since around 1966, when the fruit was first exported from New Zealand to the United States.[5][6] Kiwifruit has since become a common name for all commercially grown green kiwifruit from the genus Actinidia.[1] In New Zealand, the shortened word "kiwi" refers to the kiwi bird or is used as a nickname for New Zealanders.[5][6]
Early varieties were described in a 1904 nurseryman's catalogue as having "...edible fruits the size of walnuts, and the flavour of ripe gooseberries",[7] leading to the name Chinese gooseberry.[1] In 1962, New Zealand growers began calling it "kiwifruit" for export marketing, a name commercially adopted in 1974.[1] A California-based importer, Frieda Caplan, subsequently used the name kiwifruit when introducing it to the American market.[8]
History [ edit ]
Kiwifruit is native to north-central and eastern China.[1] The first recorded description of the kiwifruit dates to 12th century China during the Song dynasty.[8] As it was usually collected from the wild and consumed for medicinal purposes, the plant was rarely cultivated or bred.[9] Cultivation of kiwifruit spread from China in the early 20th century to New Zealand, where the first commercial plantings occurred.[1] The fruit became popular with British and American servicemen stationed in New Zealand during World War II, and was later exported, first to Great Britain and then to California in the 1960s.[1][5]
In New Zealand during the 1940s and 1950s, the fruit became an agricultural commodity through the development of commercially viable cultivars, agricultural practices, shipping, storage, and marketing.[10] Much of the breeding to refine the green kiwifruit and develop the gold Zespri was done by the Plant & Food Research Institute (formerly HortResearch) during the decades of 1970-1999.[10] In 1990, the New Zealand Kiwifruit Marketing Board opened an office for Europe in Antwerp, Belgium, which became the headquarters for European marketing of Zespri gold kiwifruit in 2010.[10] The general name, "Zespri", has been used for marketing of all green and gold cultivars of kiwifruit from New Zealand since 2012.[10][11]
Species and cultivars [ edit ]
The genus Actinidia comprises around 60 species. Their fruits are quite variable, although most are easily recognised as kiwifruit because of their appearance and shape. The skin of the fruit varies in size, hairiness and colour. The flesh varies in colour, juiciness, texture and taste. Some fruits are unpalatable, while others taste considerably better than the majority of commercial cultivars.[1][14]
The most commonly sold kiwifruit is derived from A. deliciosa (fuzzy kiwifruit). Other species that are commonly eaten include A. chinensis (golden kiwifruit), A. coriacea (Chinese egg gooseberry), A. arguta (hardy kiwifruit), A. kolomikta (Arctic kiwifruit), A. melanandra (purple kiwifruit), A. polygama (silver vine) and A. purpurea (hearty red kiwifruit).[14]
Actinidia deliciosa [ edit ]
A. deliciosa (fuzzy kiwifruit) at the rear compared to the smaller kiwi berry The larger(fuzzy kiwifruit) at the rear compared to the smaller kiwi berry
Most kiwifruit sold belongs to a few cultivars of A. deliciosa (fuzzy kiwifruit): 'Hayward', 'Blake' and 'Saanichton 12'.[2] They have a fuzzy, dull brown skin and bright green flesh. The familiar cultivar 'Hayward' was developed by Hayward Wright in Avondale, New Zealand, around 1924.[14] It was initially grown in domestic gardens, but commercial planting began in the 1940s.
'Hayward' is the most commonly available cultivar in stores. It is a large, egg-shaped fruit with a sweet flavour. 'Saanichton 12', from British Columbia, is somewhat more rectangular than 'Hayward' and comparably sweet, but the inner core of the fruit can be tough. 'Blake' can self-pollinate, but it has a smaller, more oval fruit and the flavour is considered inferior.[2][14]
Kiwi berries [ edit ]
Kiwi berries are edible berry- or grape-sized fruits similar to fuzzy kiwifruit in taste and appearance, but with thin, smooth green skin. They are primarily produced by three species: Actinidia arguta (hardy kiwi), A. kolomikta (Arctic kiwifruit) and A. polygama (silver vine). They are fast-growing, climbing vines, durable over their growing season. They are referred to as kiwi berry, baby kiwi, dessert kiwi, grape kiwi, or cocktail kiwi.[15]
The cultivar 'Issai' is a hybrid of hardy kiwi and silver vine which can self-pollinate. Grown commercially because of its relatively large fruit, 'Issai' is less hardy than most hardy kiwi.[16][17]
Actinidia chinensis [ edit ]
A sliced golden kiwifruit
Actinidia chinensis (golden kiwifruit) has a smooth, bronze skin, with a beak shape at the stem attachment. Flesh colour varies from bright green to a clear, intense yellow. This species is sweeter and more aromatic in flavour compared to A. deliciosa, similar to some subtropical fruits.[11] One of the most attractive varieties has a red 'iris' around the centre of the fruit and yellow flesh outside. The yellow fruit obtains a higher market price and, being less hairy than the fuzzy kiwifruit, is more palatable for consumption without peeling.[14]
A commercially viable[18] variety of this red-ringed kiwifruit, patented as EnzaRed, is a cultivar of the Chinese hong yang variety.[12][13]
'Hort16A' is a golden kiwifruit cultivar marketed worldwide as Zespri Gold. This cultivar has suffered significant losses in New Zealand from late 2010 to 2013 due to the PSA bacterium.[19] A new cultivar of golden kiwifruit, 'Gold3', has been found to be more disease-resistant and most growers have now changed to this cultivar.[20] 'Gold3', marketed by Zespri as SunGold, is not quite as sweet as the previous 'Hort16A', with a hint of tanginess,[21] and lacks the usually slightly pointed tip of 'Hort16A'.
Cultivation [ edit ]
Kiwifruit can be grown in most temperate climates with adequate summer heat. Where fuzzy kiwifruit (A. deliciosa) is not hardy, other species can be grown as substitutes.
Breeding [ edit ]
Kiwifruit growing on supported vine
Often in commercial farming, different breeds are used for rootstock, fruit bearing plants and pollinators.[1] Therefore, the seeds produced are crossbreeds of their parents. Even if the same breeds are used for pollinators and fruit bearing plants, there is no guarantee that the fruit will have the same quality as the parent. Additionally, seedlings take seven years before they flower, so determining whether the kiwi is fruit bearing or a pollinator is time consuming.[22] Therefore, most kiwifruits, with the exception of rootstock and new cultivars, are propagated asexually.[22] This is done by grafting the fruit producing plant onto rootstock grown from seedlings or, if the plant is desired to be a true cultivar, rootstock grown from cuttings of a mature plant.[22]
Pollination [ edit ]
Kiwifruit flowering
Kiwifruit plants generally are dioecious, meaning a plant is either male or female. The male plants have flowers that produce pollen, the females receive the pollen to fertilise their ovules and grow fruit; most kiwifruit requires a male plant to pollinate the female plant. For a good yield of fruit, one male vine for every three to eight female vines is considered adequate.[1] Some varieties can self pollinate, but even they produce a greater and more reliable yield when pollinated by male kiwifruit. [1] Cross-species pollination is often (but not always) successful as long as bloom times are synchronised.
In nature, the species are pollinated by birds and native bumblebees, which visit the flowers for pollen, not nectar. The female flowers produce fake anthers with what appears to be pollen on the tips in order to attract the pollinators, although these fake anthers lack the DNA and food value of the male anthers.[23]
Kiwifruit growers rely on honey bees, the principal ‘for-hire’ pollinator. But commercially grown kiwifruit is notoriously difficult to pollinate. The flowers are not very attractive to honey bees, in part because the flowers do not produce nectar and the bees quickly learn to prefer other species of flowers that have nectar over the nectarless kiwifruit.
And for kiwifruit, honey bees are inefficient cross-pollinators because they practice “floral fidelity”. Each honey bee visits only a single type of flower in any foray and maybe only a few branches of a single plant. The pollen needed from a different plant (such as a male for a female kiwifruit) might never reach it were it not for the cross-pollination that principally occurs in the crowded colony. It is in the colonies where bees laden with different pollen literally cross paths. [24]
To deal with these pollination challenges, some producers blow collected pollen over the female flowers.[25] Most common, though, is saturation pollination, where the honey bee populations are made so large (by placing hives in the orchards at a concentration of about 8 hives per hectare) that bees are forced to use this flower because of intense competition for all flowers within flight distance.[1]
Maturation and harvest [ edit ]
Kiwifruit is picked by hand and commercially grown on sturdy support structures, as it can produce several tonnes per hectare, more than the rather weak vines can support. These are generally equipped with a watering system for irrigation and frost protection in the spring.
Kiwifruit vines require vigorous pruning, similar to that of grapevines. Fruit is borne on one-year-old and older canes, but production declines as each cane ages. Canes should be pruned off and replaced after their third year. In the northern hemisphere the fruit ripens in November, while in the southern it ripens in May. Four year-old plants can produce up to 14,000 lbs per acre while eight year-old plants can produce 18,000 lbs per acre. The plants produce their maximum at 8 to 10 years old. The seasonal yields are variable, a heavy crop on a vine one season generally comes with a light crop the following season.[1]
Storage [ edit ]
Fruits harvested when firm will ripen when stored properly for long periods. This allows fruit to be sent to market up to 8 weeks after harvest.[1]
Firm kiwifruit ripen after a few days to a week when stored at room temperature, but should not be kept in direct sunlight. Faster ripening occurs when placed in a paper bag with an apple, pear, or banana.[26] Once a kiwifruit is ripe, however, it is preserved optimally when stored far from other fruits, as it is very sensitive to the ethylene gas they may emit, thereby tending to over-ripen even in the refrigerator.[26] If stored appropriately, ripe kiwifruit normally keep for about one to two weeks.[26]
Pests and diseases [ edit ]
Pseudomonas syringae actinidiae (PSA) was first identified in Japan in the 1980s. This bacterial strain has been controlled and managed successfully in orchards in Asia. In 1992, it was found in northern Italy. In 2007/2008, economic losses were observed, as a more virulent strain became more dominant (PSA V).[27][28][29] In 2010 it was found in New Zealand's Bay of Plenty kiwifruit orchards in the North Island.[30]
Scientists reported they had worked out the strain of PSA affecting kiwifruit from New Zealand, Italy and Chile originated in China.[31]
Production [ edit ]
In 2016, global production of kiwifruit was 4.3 million tonnes, led by China with 56% of the world total (table). Italy and New Zealand were other major producers. In China, kiwifruit is grown mainly in the mountainous area upstream of the Yangtze River, as well as Sichuan.[32]
Production history [ edit ]
Kiwifruit exports rapidly increased from the late 1960s to early 1970s in New Zealand. By 1976, exports exceeded the amount consumed domestically.[33] Outside of Australasia, New Zealand kiwifruit are marketed under the brand-name label, Zespri.[34]
In the 1980s, countries outside New Zealand began to export kiwifruit.[35] In Italy, the infrastructure and techniques required to support grape production were adapted to the kiwifruit. This, coupled with being close to the European kiwifruit market, led to Italians becoming the leading producer of kiwifruit in 1989. The growing season of Italian kiwifruit does not overlap much with the New Zealand or the Chilean growing seasons, therefore direct competition between New Zealand or Chile was not a significant factor.[36]
In 2017, New Zealand growers were acquiring additional land to grow Zespri gold kiwifruit under rising costs for a Zespri license to meet global demand for the gold cultivar.[37]
Human consumption [ edit ]
A pavlova with strawberries, passionfruit, kiwifruit and cream
Kiwifruit may be eaten raw, made into juices, used in baked goods, prepared with meat or used as a garnish.[1] The whole fruit, including the skin, is suitable for human consumption; however, the skin is often discarded due to its texture.[38] Sliced kiwifruit has long been used as a garnish atop whipped cream on pavlova, a meringue-based dessert. Traditionally in China, kiwifruit was not eaten for pleasure, but was given as medicine to children to help them grow and to women who have given birth to help them recover.[1]
Raw kiwifruit contains actinidain (also spelled actinidin) which is commercially useful as a meat tenderizer[39] and possibly as a digestive aid.[40] Actinidain also makes raw kiwifruit unsuitable for use in desserts containing milk or any other dairy products because the enzyme digests milk proteins. This applies to gelatin-based desserts, due to the fact that the actinidain will dissolve the proteins in gelatin, causing the dessert to either liquefy or prevent it from solidifying.
Nutrition [ edit ]
In a 100-gram amount, green kiwifruit provides 61 calories, is 83% water and 15% carbohydrates, with negligible protein and fat (table). It is particularly rich (20% or more of the Daily Value, DV) in vitamin C (112% DV) and vitamin K (38% DV), has a moderate content of vitamin E (10% DV), with no other micronutrients in significant content. Gold kiwifruit has similar nutritional value, although only vitamin C has high content in a 100 gram amount (194% DV, table).
Kiwifruit seed oil contains on average 62% alpha-linolenic acid, an omega-3 fatty acid.[41] Kiwifruit pulp contains carotenoids, such as provitamin A beta-carotene,[42] lutein and zeaxanthin.[43]
Allergies [ edit ]
The actinidain found in kiwifruit can be an allergen for some individuals, including children.[44][45][46] The most common symptoms are unpleasant itching and soreness of the mouth, with wheezing as the most common severe symptom; anaphylaxis may occur.[44][45]
References [ edit ] |
In his latest bid to promote population growth, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan railed against contraception and family planning measures on Monday.
"I will say it clearly... We need to increase the number of our descendants," he said during a nationally televised speech in Istanbul.
The president said that mothers are responsible for ensuring the continued growth of Turkey's population, which has expanded at a rate of around 1.3 percent over the past few years.
"People talk about birth control, about family planning. No Muslim family can understand and accept that," he emphasized.
"As God and as the great prophet said, we will go this way. And in this respect the first duty belongs to mothers."
Birth control is 'treason'
The Turkish leader has drawn sharp criticism from women's groups in the past by stating that women are not equal to men and urging women to have at least three children.
And famously stated: "one (child) means loneliness, two means rivalry, three means balance and four means abundance."
In 2014, he described birth control as a form of "treason" and that its use could cause a whole generation to "dry up".
The 62-year-old Erdogan and his wife Emine have two sons and two daughters. His eldest daughter Esra has three children.
Turkey's population rose to 78.74 million last year. In 2000, the nation's population sat at less than 68 million.
rs/rc (AP, AFP, dpa, Reuters) |
Today is the one year anniversary of the janeaustenr package’s appearance on CRAN, its cranniversary, if you will. I think it’s time for more Jane Austen here on my blog.
via GIPHY
I saw this paper by Matthew Jockers and Gabi Kirilloff a number of months ago and the ideas in it have been knocking around in my head ever since. The authors of that paper used text mining to examine a corpus of 19th century novels and explore how gendered pronouns (he/she/him/her) are associated with different verbs. These authors used the Stanford CoreNLP library to parse dependencies in sentences and find which verbs are connected to which pronouns; I have been thinking about how to apply a different approach to this question using tidy data principles and n-grams. Let’s see what we can do!
Jane Austen and n-grams An n-gram is a contiguous series of \(n\) words from a text; for example, a bigram is a pair of words, with \(n = 2\). If we want to find out which verbs an author is more likely to pair with the pronoun “she” than with “he”, we can analyze bigrams. Let’s use unnest_tokens from the tidytext package to identify all the bigrams in the 6 completed, published novels of Jane Austen and transform this to a tidy dataset. library(tidyverse) library(tidytext) library(janeaustenr) austen_bigrams <- austen_books() %>% unnest_tokens(bigram, text, token = "ngrams", n = 2) austen_bigrams ## # A tibble: 725,048 x 2 ## book bigram ## <fctr> <chr> ## 1 Sense & Sensibility sense and ## 2 Sense & Sensibility and sensibility ## 3 Sense & Sensibility sensibility by ## 4 Sense & Sensibility by jane ## 5 Sense & Sensibility jane austen ## 6 Sense & Sensibility austen 1811 ## 7 Sense & Sensibility 1811 chapter ## 8 Sense & Sensibility chapter 1 ## 9 Sense & Sensibility 1 the ## 10 Sense & Sensibility the family ## # ... with 725,038 more rows That is all the bigrams from Jane Austen’s works, but we only want the ones that start with “he” or “she”. Jane Austen wrote in the third person, so this is a good example set of texts for this question. The original paper used dependency parsing of sentences and included other pronouns like “her” and “him”, but let’s just look for bigrams that start with “she” and “he”. We will get some adverbs and modifiers and such as the second word in the bigram, but mostly verbs, the main thing we are interested in. pronouns <- c("he", "she") bigram_counts <- austen_bigrams %>% count(bigram, sort = TRUE) %>% separate(bigram, c("word1", "word2"), sep = " ") %>% filter(word1 %in% pronouns) %>% count(word1, word2, wt = n, sort = TRUE) %>% rename(total = nn) bigram_counts ## # A tibble: 1,571 x 3 ## word1 word2 total ## <chr> <chr> <int> ## 1 she had 1472 ## 2 she was 1377 ## 3 he had 1023 ## 4 he was 889 ## 5 she could 817 ## 6 he is 399 ## 7 she would 383 ## 8 she is 330 ## 9 he could 307 ## 10 he would 264 ## # ... with 1,561 more rows There we go! These are the most common bigrams that start with “he” and “she” in Jane Austen’s works. Notice that there are more mentions of women than men here; this makes sense as Jane Austen’s novels have protagonists who are women. The most common bigrams look pretty similar between the male and female characters in Austen’s works. Let’s calculate a log odds ratio so we can find the words (hopefully mostly verbs) that exhibit the biggest differences between relative use for “she” and “he”. word_ratios <- bigram_counts %>% group_by(word2) %>% filter(sum(total) > 10) %>% ungroup() %>% spread(word1, total, fill = 0) %>% mutate_if(is.numeric, funs((. + 1) / sum(. + 1))) %>% mutate(logratio = log2(she / he)) %>% arrange(desc(logratio)) Which words have about the same likelihood of following “he” or “she” in Jane Austen’s novels? word_ratios %>% arrange(abs(logratio)) ## # A tibble: 164 x 4 ## word2 he she logratio ## <chr> <dbl> <dbl> <dbl> ## 1 always 0.001846438 0.0018956289 0.03793181 ## 2 loves 0.000923219 0.0008920607 -0.04953103 ## 3 too 0.000923219 0.0008920607 -0.04953103 ## 4 when 0.000923219 0.0008920607 -0.04953103 ## 5 acknowledged 0.001077089 0.0011150758 0.05000464 ## 6 remained 0.001077089 0.0011150758 0.05000464 ## 7 had 0.157562702 0.1642506690 0.05997318 ## 8 paused 0.001384828 0.0014495986 0.06594619 ## 9 would 0.040775504 0.0428189117 0.07054542 ## 10 turned 0.003077397 0.0032337199 0.07148437 ## # ... with 154 more rows These words, like “always” and “loves”, are about as likely to come after the word “she” as the word “he”. Now let’s look at the words that exhibit the largest differences in appearing after “she” compared to “he”. word_ratios %>% mutate(abslogratio = abs(logratio)) %>% group_by(logratio < 0) %>% top_n(15, abslogratio) %>% ungroup() %>% mutate(word = reorder(word2, logratio)) %>% ggplot(aes(word, logratio, color = logratio < 0)) + geom_segment(aes(x = word, xend = word, y = 0, yend = logratio), size = 1.1, alpha = 0.6) + geom_point(size = 3.5) + coord_flip() + labs(x = NULL, y = "Relative appearance after 'she' compared to 'he'", title = "Words paired with 'he' and 'she' in Jane Austen's novels", subtitle = "Women remember, read, and feel while men stop, take, and reply") + scale_color_discrete(name = "", labels = c("More 'she'", "More 'he'")) + scale_y_continuous(breaks = seq(-3, 3), labels = c("0.125x", "0.25x", "0.5x", "Same", "2x", "4x", "8x")) These words are the ones that are the most different in how Jane Austen used them with the pronouns “he” and “she”. Women in Austen’s novels do things like remember, read, feel, resolve, long, hear, dare, and cry. Men, on the other hand, in these novels do things like stop, take, reply, come, marry, and know. Women in Austen’s world can be funny and smart and unconventional, but she plays with these ideas within a cultural context where they act out gendered roles.
George Eliot and n-grams Let’s look at another set of novels to see some similarities and differences. Let’s take some novels of George Eliot, another English writer (a woman) who lived and wrote several decades after Jane Austen. Let’s take Middlemarch (MY FAVE), Silas Marner, and The Mill on the Floss. library(gutenbergr) eliot <- gutenberg_download(c(145, 550, 6688), mirror = "http://mirrors.xmission.com/gutenberg/") We now have the texts downloaded from Project Gutenberg. We can use the same approach as above and calculate the log odds ratios for each word that comes after “he” and “she” in these novels of George Eliot. eliot_ratios <- eliot %>% unnest_tokens(bigram, text, token = "ngrams", n = 2) %>% count(bigram, sort = TRUE) %>% ungroup() %>% separate(bigram, c("word1", "word2"), sep = " ") %>% filter(word1 %in% pronouns) %>% count(word1, word2, wt = n, sort = TRUE) %>% rename(total = nn) %>% group_by(word2) %>% filter(sum(total) > 10) %>% ungroup() %>% spread(word1, total, fill = 0) %>% mutate_if(is.numeric, funs((. + 1) / sum(. + 1))) %>% mutate(logratio = log2(she / he)) %>% arrange(desc(logratio)) What words exhibit the largest differences in their appearance after these pronouns in George Eliot’s works? eliot_ratios %>% mutate(abslogratio = abs(logratio)) %>% group_by(logratio < 0) %>% top_n(15, abslogratio) %>% ungroup() %>% mutate(word = reorder(word2, logratio)) %>% ggplot(aes(word, logratio, color = logratio < 0)) + geom_segment(aes(x = word, xend = word, y = 0, yend = logratio), size = 1.1, alpha = 0.6) + geom_point(size = 3.5) + coord_flip() + labs(x = NULL, y = "Relative appearance after 'she' compared to 'he'", title = "Words paired with 'he' and 'she' in George Eliot's novels", subtitle = "Women read, run, and need while men leave, mean, and tell") + scale_color_discrete(name = "", labels = c("More 'she'", "More 'he'")) + scale_y_continuous(breaks = seq(-5, 5), labels = c("0.03125x", "0.0625x", "0.125x", "0.25x", "0.5x", "Same", "2x", "4x", "8x", "16x", "32x")) We can see some difference in word use and style here, but overall there are quite similar ideas behind the verbs for women and men in Eliot’s works as Austen’s. Women read, run, need, marry, and look while men leave, mean, tell, know, and call. The verbs associated with women are more connected to emotion or feelings while the verbs associated with men are more connected to action or speaking.
Jane Eyre and n-grams Finally, let’s look at one more novel. The original paper found that Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë had its verbs switched, in that there were lots of active, non-feelings verbs associated with feminine pronouns. That Jane Eyre! eyre <- gutenberg_download(1260, mirror = "http://mirrors.xmission.com/gutenberg/") eyre_ratios <- eyre %>% unnest_tokens(bigram, text, token = "ngrams", n = 2) %>% count(bigram, sort = TRUE) %>% ungroup() %>% separate(bigram, c("word1", "word2"), sep = " ") %>% filter(word1 %in% pronouns) %>% count(word1, word2, wt = n, sort = TRUE) %>% rename(total = nn) %>% group_by(word2) %>% filter(sum(total) > 5) %>% ungroup() %>% spread(word1, total, fill = 0) %>% mutate_if(is.numeric, funs((. + 1) / sum(. + 1))) %>% mutate(logratio = log2(she / he)) %>% arrange(desc(logratio)) What words exhibit the largest differences in Jane Eyre? eyre_ratios %>% mutate(abslogratio = abs(logratio)) %>% group_by(logratio < 0) %>% top_n(15, abslogratio) %>% ungroup() %>% mutate(word = reorder(word2, logratio)) %>% ggplot(aes(word, logratio, color = logratio < 0)) + geom_segment(aes(x = word, xend = word, y = 0, yend = logratio), size = 1.1, alpha = 0.6) + geom_point(size = 3.5) + coord_flip() + labs(x = NULL, y = "Relative appearance after 'she' compared to 'he'", title = "Words paired with 'he' and 'she' in Jane Eyre", subtitle = "Women look, tell, and open while men stop, smile, and pause") + scale_color_discrete(name = "", labels = c("More 'she'", "More 'he'")) + scale_y_continuous(breaks = seq(-3, 3), labels = c("0.125x", "0.25x", "0.5x", "Same", "2x", "4x", "8x")) Indeed, the words that are more likely to appear after “she” are not particularly feelings-oriented; women in this novel do things like look, tell, open, and do. Men in Jane Eyre do things like stop, smile, pause, pursue, and stand. |
Hundreds of people have rallied in Salt Lake City in the US state of Utah to protest against a police shooting that critically wounded a 17-year-old Somali refugee.
The Monday night protest in Utah - where speakers urged people to stand up to police and demand accountability - highlighted the latest flashpoint in the national discussion about police use of force, especially with minority victims.
The teenager, Abdi Mohamed, was shot twice in the torso by police on Saturday night. Officers say the incident occurred in downtown Salt Lake City when Mohamed and another person attacked somebody with metal sticks, the AP news agency reported.
Citing his family, local media reported that Mohamed is now out of a coma.
On Monday night, protesters held signs saying "Stop killer cops" as they questioned why the police had to use lethal force to combat the teenager and his offsider.
Despite calls for police to release the video from body cameras worn by the officers involved in the incident, authorities have so far withheld the footage, saying it would be prejudicial to the ongoing investigation.
"While there is body camera footage, there is currently an active and open investigation into this matter, and release of the body camera recordings could reasonably be expected to interfere with that investigation," police said in a statement.
Family, friends of Abdi Mohamed speak at rally. They say the 17-yr-old is now out of coma. #kutv2news pic.twitter.com/fEzBoTGyUk — Daniel Woodruff (@danielmwoodruff) March 1, 2016
Civil rights groups, however, say police must release the tapes for transparency.
"Because of past unfortunate incidents of controversial police shootings nationwide, the release of the body camera video could help allay community concerns about transparency and accountability," said Nihad Awad, the national executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
Aden Batar of Catholic Community Services in Salt Lake City says Mohamed's family fled Somalia and lived for an unknown amount of time in Kenya before coming to the US in 2004. |
Although the COinbase exchange is going through issues, it is for a positive reason. A lot of cryptocurrency trading platforms are seeing unexpected growth lately. Poloniex blamed their string of convenient DDoS attacks on user growth. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong now claims the company had 40,000 new user registrations in one day. An interesting statement, although it is always difficult to verify such claims.
Coinbase User Growth is a Positive Trend
Given the recent Bitcoin price spike, increased interest in cryptocurrency is the logical outcome. A lot of consumers are looking to buy Bitcoin as of right now. Prominent companies in the cryptocurrency world will see large growth as a result. For Coinbase, that growth is slowly materializing. A recent tweet by Brian Armstrong claims how 40,000 users signed up for the service in just one day.
.@coinbase had 40,000 new users sign up in *one day*, or approximately one San Francisco Giant's Stadium. pic.twitter.com/tqvpqVguVQ — Brian Armstrong (@brian_armstrong) May 26, 2017
That is quite a bold claim, albeit one that can be somewhat justified. Coinbase has grown exponentially over the past few years. Now that the company enabled Ethereum as well, more growth will occur over the years. Additionally, the recent Coinbase outage may be a result of this unexpected growth. An influx of new users will stress the existing infrastructure quite a bit.
Even though this positive news is quite good for Bitcoin, people are not too happy with Coinbase on social media. Various replies to Armstrong’s tweet indicate Coinbase has a lot of unhappy customers. The lack of timely support ticket responses is causing a fair bit of friction. Then again, the influx of new users will increase the number of tickets as well. It is evident exchange platforms need to step up their customer support game, though.
If Coinbase aims to sustain this level of growth, some things will need to change. So many people flock to the platform in the hopes of getting a good service. While that will be the case for most, negative reviews and unhappy customers have a much louder voice. Dealing with these issues needs to be the top priority for the company right now. Otherwise, growth will slow down, and customers will look for alternative solutions.
Header image courtesy of Shutterstock |
Russia's new stealth fighter jet made its public debut Tuesday, according to state-run news source RIA Novosti.
The Sukhoi T-50, developed collaboratively by Russia and India, appeared at the MAKS 2011 air show in Zhukovsky, outside Moscow.
Gen. Alexander Zelin, head of the Russian air force, told RIA Novosti he expects the T-50 prototype to be ready in 2013, with "mass-produced aircraft" arriving in 2014 or 2015.
The aircraft is expected to become a staple of airborne defense for both Russia and India, Mikhail Pogosyan, head of Russia's United Aircraft Corp., told RIA Novosti.
"The T-50 will be the newest main plane both for the Russian and the Indian air force," Pogosyan said.
The article from the state-run media source says the Sukhoi T-50 cost the two governments about $6 billion to develop, with India shouldering about 35% of the cost. It is intended to match the U.S. F-22 raptor. |
Food Cart fans will be pleased to know that Food Cart Fest is back. The annual gathering of over 20 of Vancouver’s top Food Carts is complemented by community markets, live music and DJs, craft food vendors, kids activities, and lots more. Food Cart Fest starts on Sunday, June 23 and takes place every Sunday from 12 p.m.-5 p.m. until September 22. Admission is $2. Children 13 and under get in free.
This year they will be operating out of a new location on 215 West 1st Avenue (on the south-east side of the Cambie Street Bridge). The site is next to the Seawall and a short walk from the Canada Line’s Olympic Village Station, the Aquabus’ Spyglass Place Dock, and major bus routes along Broadway, Cambie, Main, West 2nd Avenue. In short, it’s a much more convenient location.
Food Cart Festival Vancouver 2013 Participating Food Carts
Food Cart Fest Vancouver 2013
Date: Every Sunday from June 23rd to September 22nd
Time: Noon to 5pm
Location: 215 West 1st Avenue |
Cereals are taking a hit when it comes to their health claims. First Kashi’s manufacturer Kellogg was forced to remove the words “all natural” and “nothing artificial” from some of its products after a lawsuit in which plaintiffs showed that the company used synthetic, decidedly not-natural ingredients. And comes a report from the Environmental Working Group (EWG), which shows that the cereal aisle in the grocery store might as well become the sugar section.
The researchers analyzed 1556 cereals, and all of the 181 marketed specifically to children contained added sugar. Adult options fare a little better – if you really look, you can find 47 that contain no sugar at all – but most are still sweetened to taste more appealing. And brand names aren’t the worst offenders; some of the sweetest cereals come from store brands.
Here are EWG’s Hall of Shame cereals that contain more than 50% sugar by weight:
National Brands
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Kellogg’s Honey Smacks (56% sugar by weight)
Malt-O-Meal Golden Puffs (56%)
Mom’s Best Cereals Honey-Ful Wheat (56%)
Malt-O-Meal Berry Colossal Crunch with Marshmallows (53%)
Post Golden Crisp (52%)
Grace Instant Green Banana Porridge (51%)
Blanchard & Blanchard Granola (51%)
Store Brands
Lieber’s Cocoa Frosted Flakes (88%)
Lieber’s Honey Ringee Os (67%)
Food Lion Sugar Frosted Wheat Puffs (56%)
Krasdale Fruity Circles (53%)
Safeway Kitchens Silly Circles (53%)
For less sugary options, here are the kids’ cereals with the least amount of sugar per serving:
National Brands
Kellogg’s Rice Krispies, Gluten-Free (1g)
General Mills Cheerios (1g)
Post 123 Sesame Street, C Is For Cereal (1g)
Kellogg’s Corn Flakes (3g)
Kellogg’s Rice Krispies (4g)
Kellogg’s Crispix Cereal (4g)
Store Brands
Springfield Corn Flakes Cereal (2g)
Valu Time Crisp Rice Cereal (3g)
Roundy’s Crispy Rice (4g)
Shop Rite Scrunchy Crispy Rice (4g)
Contact us at [email protected]. |
Writer of 'Hoosiers', 'Rudy' filming new movie at Alamodome
Aaron Eckhart (left) and director Angelo Pizzo, June 26, 2014 on set in the Alamodome during the filming of My All American, a film about former University of Texas (UT) football player Freddie Steinmark. Eckhart plays UT Longhorns head coach Darrell Royal in the film. less Aaron Eckhart (left) and director Angelo Pizzo, June 26, 2014 on set in the Alamodome during the filming of My All American, a film about former University of Texas (UT) football player Freddie Steinmark. ... more Photo: Alma E. Hernandez, Alma E. Hernandez / For The San Photo: Alma E. Hernandez, Alma E. Hernandez / For The San Image 1 of / 87 Caption Close Writer of 'Hoosiers', 'Rudy' filming new movie at Alamodome 1 / 87 Back to Gallery
SAN ANTONIO - My All American has the makings of a classic: an all-star cast, a moving, true story, an authentic feel and a screenplay written by the mind behind Rudy and Hoosiers.
The feature film, which is being shot in the Alamo City during the next week, is based on the true story of Freddie Steinmark, who was diagnosed with cancer six days after winning the 1969 national championship as a defensive back with the University of Texas football team.
"This story is above and beyond football," said Angelo Pizzo, the movie's writer and director. "Football is the framework, the backdrop, of this moving story."
Golden Globe nominated actor Aaron Eckhart plays Darrell K. Royal, the Longhorns' football coach for whom their current stadium is now named, and up-and-comer Finn Wittrock plays Steinmark.
Pizzo said the film's tone and story telling style will be similar to his previous works Rudy and Hoosiers, but that new technology will allow him to include even more "authentic, organic emotion."
"We want the guys who played with Freddie (Steinmark) at UT to come out of the theater saying 'that's the way I remember it'," said Pizzo.
Steinmark, an undersized safety and eventual leader of the team, was diagnosed with bone cancer and had his left leg amputated just six days after winning the national championship. Steinmark, who died at the age of 22, has been enshrined in Longhorn history: Longhorn players tap a bronze depiction of Steinmark's story before each home game.
The movie will be exclusively shot in Texas and crews will visit Dallas/Fort Worth for five days, San Antonio for eight and Austin for 27 days.
The portion of the film being shot at the Alamodome is a recreation of the Southwest Conference championship, played in Fayetteville, Arkansas, between the unbeaten powerhouses: #1 ranked Longhorns and #2 ranked Arkansas Razorbacks. The game was later dubbed the "Game of the Century."
The dome provides guaranteed clear "weather" on set, as well as a shield from the blazing Texas sun, said Pizzo.
More than 500 extras from the region are participating in the production at the Alamodome, including two high school football coaches from San Antonio who are playing Arkansas coaches in the film.
Andy Skelton, an assistant football and baseball coach for East Central High School, was hired as an extra but earned a few lines in the film. Bobby Allen, a football and track coach for Clark High School, also will appear in the film.
Financing for the film was raised independently from many UT alums, spearheaded by Austin energy executive Bud Brigham.
When asked whether he expects this movie, which could be released as early as this December, to be a legacy film similar to Hoosiers and Rudy, Pizzo said: "I can only do the best I can to create a movie to entertain and move people and hope for success... Sometimes magic happens."
[email protected]
Twitter: @KoltenParker |
“If all you do is fight for your own life, then your life is worth nothing.”
–Hera Syndulla
You’ve moved objects with your mind, and leapt several meters in a single bound. You’ve secretly influenced the minds of other sentients and healed their wounds. You can even peer into the future. Maybe you’ve used these powers to make money, pilot a ship, find out secret information, or even just stay alive. Yet there is far more you can do. You can save the lives of others, battle oppression, change a village or planet for the better—even affect the future of the entire galaxy.
Those who take up the Guardian Career in the Star Wars®: Force and Destiny™ roleplaying game use their powers to make positive changes and fight for the lives of others at the risk of their own. The upcoming supplement Keeping the Peace offers these heroic individuals new specializations, talents, gear, and vehicles, so that they can better protect anyone in need. You can learn about the Guardian specializations of Keeping the Peace in the announcement for it.
Yet there’s more to being a Guardian than the Force powers you possess and the lightsaber you wield. Today’s preview takes a look at some of the epic Guardian stories that you might experience and how Keeping the Peace can help players and GMs create those stories together.
Mythological Origins
One influence George Lucas has cited for the development of Luke Skywalker’s journey in Star Wars is Joseph Campbell’s concept of the mythical hero’s journey. That same conceptual framework can be used to shape a Guardian’s path within a campaign. Keeping the Peace explores how Luke’s journey compares to that of Campbell’s mythical hero and suggests ways in which Game Masters and players can incorporate mythic tropes into their roleplaying games.
You might give your Guardian character a problematic relationship with a powerful parental figure—that figure might wield great political power or simply have dominated your character’s life in a way they seek to break free from. A piece of your Guardian’s starting gear might tie them back to that parent or come from a mysterious past that you have yet to fully understand. A group including at least one Guardian can choose a holocron as their group resource: the Game Master can then use that holocron to issue a pressing, irresistible summons that will lead the Guardian character far from home.
A Road of Trials
One key part of the hero’s journey is the road of trials: a series of tests that both challenge the hero and aid his growth. Keeping the Peace suggests four different adventure arcs that might compose your hero’s road of trials. A Guardian could be challenged to slay a terrible, menacing monster such as a rancor, acklay, or giant, carnivorous krayt dragon. You might be resting at a village or colony only to discover that hostile raiders or Imperial troops are on the way, and that you’ll have to engage in a battle against impossible odds in order to ensure that as many innocent people as possible survive.
You may encounter a settlement facing a threat that your group cannot manage alone. They may have spent years oppressed by a tyrannical government or find themselves at the center of an interplanetary conflict that they never sought to be involved in. Your work then is to arm the people and lead them in the defense of their homes, as Anakin, Ahsoka, and Obi-Wan do so often in Star Wars: The Clone Wars. But commanding untrained townsfolk in battle is only part of the challenge. Persuading them to stand up for themselves in the first place may prove as tough as the actual combat.
Fighting for Others’ Lives
Within Keeping the Peace you’ll also find the outlines of two multi-episode campaigns for your group of Force users and suggestions on how to craft campaigns of your own with similar themes. One campaign focuses on the theme of protecting the weak. The PCs arrive on a planet in the corporate sector, only to find that most of the planet’s residents are bound in indentured servitude to the ruling corporation, doing hard labor in terrible conditions. Players’ Morality will likely compel them to find some way of changing these wretched and oppressive circumstances, whether by inciting an anti-corporate rebellion or by trying to influence the minds of the corporate leaders.
Rather than seek to change an unjust situation, Guardians may also strive to maintain order in the face of destructive chaos. That chaos may be caused by war, violent crime, or more natural causes like floods, earthquakes, and plagues. The second campaign outlined in Keeping the Peace pits your group against a lethal airborne infection that ravishes both the respiratory tract and nervous system of its victims. To stop the disease, you’ll have to find its origin and its cure. You’ll also have to heal the side effects of the disease upon society: vacant seats of power, broken supply lines, and ubiquitous paranoia.
A Call to Adventure
In every system of the Star Wars galaxy, from the Core to the Outer Rim, an epic, heroic journey awaits you. All you have to do is remain open to the call to adventure, which may be as subtle as a news briefing from a distant planet or as personal and clear as the discovery of a holocron.
Pre-order Keeping the Peace from your local retailer today! And speaking of holocrons, look for the Chronicles of the Gatekeeper adventure supplement at local retailers soon. |
Ever since my university days I have observed that be it college, open source communities or the workplace, the ratio of men to women is significantly skewed. There are a couple of factors that contribute to this. Apart from lack of awareness about the opportunities available and how to make best use of them, cultural fabrics and mindsets also play an important role. All these and much more were the centre of discussion at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in computing conference held in Phoenix, Arizyyona from 4th to 10 October this year. As a speaker and an attendee, I consider myself fortunate to be able to see perspectives from a much closer level and do my bit to improve the situation.
The Conference started off on the sunny morning of the 8th October 2014. It saw a variety of talks ranging from technical topics like Molecular Biophysics, Data Science, DevOps, Networks to more generic skill-building ones like Parenting in the tech world, Interview Strategies, how to make your resume stand out and many that delved into the everyday lives of a developer , quality analyst, business analyst etc.
As a mentor in the student opportunity lab, I met many enthusiastic young women. Being a follower of the Free Software Movement and the Open Source world, I wanted to share my learning with the larger community out there. The format of my talk was different from the usual style presentation, with an intimate audience of ten people at a time. We did multiple such sessions , each spanning about 20 minutes or so.
Initial butterflies were soon taken over by healthy discussions at my table as i told attendees about the concept of FOSS , its importance, community structure and how it was relevant for them to know about it and contribute as a student. Having so many energetic women around with a zeal to make a change and listening to their stories definitely filled me up with a lot of positive energy!
Among the multiple sessions that happened on that day, I got a plethora of questions .. Ranging from “what exactly is open source ?”, “Oh! I thought its something on github!” to “Do we need to pay for getting an open source licence?”. Answering these and clearing many similar mind blocks regarding the specifics of open source world was a very rewarding experience.
The rest of the conference was mostly spent at the ThoughtWorks booth. We talked to a huge number of people , telling them about ThoughtWorks, what we do and what are our practices. Our “I am the next grace hopper” frame was the centre of attraction, and the polaroid was always busy. We also managed to get in a whopping number of people into our review and interview system. Yippee :)
Will be attaching a few memories of the lovely time spent with my ThoughtWorker buddies soon! :) |
Gear up for back to school...
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Of course, we have it better than women in centuries past, when blatant misogyny shaped much of the mainstream cultural and medical understanding of women's bodies. Early mansplaining about women's bodies were used to validate sexist legal policies, keep women out of school and generally make humankind squeamish about the female form. Here are some of history's craziest myths about vaginas:
1. Watch out, some women's vaginas have teeth!
Image: Wikimedia
The myth of the toothed vagina, called vagina dentata, was a legitimate anxiety expressed in cultural folklore everywhere from Russia to Japan to India. In many of these myths, brave men needed to remove or break these vaginal teeth before safely sexing up their lady friends.
2. Women's vaginas are just penises that got cold.
Galen, a second-century Greek physician, believed that the body was ruled by "humor" fluids. Men typically had “hot and dry" humors while women had inferior "cold and wet" humors. Under his theory, women and men had the same sexual system, but because women were "cold," their sexual organs had simply moved inside their bodies to keep warm. In early medical illustrations, women's sexual organs were labeled in comparison to their male counterparts; ovaries were "female testicles."
3. Educate a woman, and you'll ruin her lady parts.
Image: Kurt Hutton via Getty Images/Shutterstock/Huffington Post
This theory is brought to you by 19th-century Harvard Medical faculty member Henry H. Clark who spent his life fighting the good fight to keep women out of school. He said that women's brains couldn't handle the same strain as men's, and that ladies who pursued a college education risked stressing their brains and destroying their wombs. Other scientists of the time also cautioned that over-developing the feminine brain would make the uterus shrivel up. In this sexist fantasy world, women especially needed to avoid thinking while on their period. Ugh.
4. Women can't get pregnant unless they have consensual sex.
Image: William Andrew via Getty Images
In 2012, former House Representative Todd Akin and his merry band of anatomically-confused Republicans helped revive this terrible myth. Maybe they were inspired by the 13th-century British legal text, Fleta, which said that "without a woman's consent she could not conceive," and thus could be used to invalidate a woman's rape accusation if she had become pregnant. The belief lived on through 19th century medical books, to misguided politicians today.
5. Sideways vaginas = a thing.
Think of this as early "bro-natomy." The rumor that Asian women had sideways vaginas originated as racist humor amongst gentlemen visiting Chinese prostitutes in California brothels in the mid-1800s. The rumor was part of the larger cultural fetishizing of Asian women, and persisted through the Korean War, because some people enjoy their misogyny with a side of racism. |
MANILA, Philippines – Investors continue to bet big on the Philippines despite the negative publicity the country has been getting from the spate of drug-related killings and President Duterte’s controversial pronouncements.
Investment pledges approved by the Board of Investments (BOI) in the nine months ending September 2016 soared 49 percent year-on-year to P286.44 billion, the agency’s managing head Ceferino Rodolfo said yesterday.
BOI-approved investments for the month of September alone tripled to P51 billion this year from P17 billion in the same month in 2015.
“No disruption. What we are seeing in the real sector, which is actually the more important one that relies on the fundamentals of the economy, is that growth is being sustained and even accelerated,” Rodolfo said.
“Even as there had been observations of outflow in terms of portfolio investments – and if I may just qualify these portfolio investments are really erratic in nature – what we have seen in the Philippines is that it’s not a purely national phenomenon and it’s not unique in the Philippines as it has regional dimension. Even as they are saying that, in the real sector, things are different because businessmen are seeing the continued growth of the Philippine economy. People are seeing (the country’s) basic fundamentals are good,” he added.
Seeing the positive influx of investments in the three quarters, BOI chairman and Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez said the agency expects full year approved investments pledges to grow 10 to 15 percent from P366.74 billion in 2015.
“Any investor that will come here they will look at the economic fundamentals. Will we make money here? Are there opportunities? The economy is growing fast and there’s demographic dividend. So there are a lot of positive factors that will make one invest here. For us, now is the time to come in.,” Lopez said.
“The investors look at the social economic agenda and the economic policies. As long as they are not changing, as long as it is safe to invest here, investments are protected, contracts are honored, they see no problem. When I meet with investors, we talked about business and the economic policies. We don’t talk about those things (alleged extrajudicial killings) because they’re here for the long term,” he added.
Last week, Philippine Economic Zone Authority officer-in-charge Justo Porfirio Yusingco reported a three to five percent improvement in the approved investments of the agency in the first nine months of 2016, driven primarily by expansion of existing locators. |
‘Madden NFL 17’ Glitch Leads To This Guy’s Hysterical NSFW Outburst
Crazy things happen during NFL games on a rather frequent basis. Hell, it was just last week that we saw three field goals kicked in the final minute of the Cowboys-Packers game to determine the outcome of that one. Or how about last year when a face mask penalty was called on the final play of the Ravens-Jaguars game that gave the Jaguars one final chance to kick the game-winning field goal?
Or how about this dude getting a beej during a Redskins game?
Like we said, crazy shit goes down during NFL games all the time, but it’s nothing when you compare it to some of the ridiculousness that takes place in NFL video games.
Case in point is this dude who was recording himself for some reason when he took the Miami Dolphins in a recent game of Madden NFL 17 and decided to go toe-to-toe with the Dallas Cowboys. It was quite the emotional roller coaster, as what looked to be another first down run for the Cowboys (bad) suddenly turned into a fumble (good) that somehow wound up in the hands of a Cowboys player (bad), who not only wasn’t called down ( really bad) but also ran the thing all the way to the end zone for a touchdown (super fucking bad).
It was almost too much for this poor guy to handle, and he even threatened to delete the game after having to live through that. So yeah, not a good day for him, but it’s definitely a terrific watch for the rest of us. Enjoy.
A video posted by Video Games (@videogames) on Jan 18, 2017 at 6:25pm PST
h/t BroBible |
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From beat writer Henry Schulman of the San Francisco Chronicle comes word that the Giants outrighted Jose Mijares off their 40-man roster on Tuesday evening and that the veteran left-handed reliever then elected to become a free agent.
Mijares was a non-tender candidate this winter in San Francisco after posting a brutal 4.22 ERA and 1.78 WHIP across 49 innings in 2013 while earning a salary of $1.8 million. He was entering his third year of salary arbitration and would have been given a raise despite his summer of lackluster results.
Mijares owns a 3.23 career ERA (124 career ERA+) and has held left-handed batters to a .225/.288/.335 slash line since breaking into the majors in 2008, so he should attract interest from multiple teams.
Follow @drewsilv |
It’s been a year since Black Eye hit the streets. In that time, we’ve profiled provocative and accomplished people, tackled complex issues including identity crisis in Japan and the brain drain in Jamaica. We’ve put a major Japanese TV network on blast, and even covered the coronation and ramifications of a new “Blasian” beauty queen.
I think it’s safe to say we’ve been getting it in! But to convey what keeps this column aloft, I have to take you back a bit, to 2006.
It was just before my beloved Aiko was taken ill. We were, at the time, in the research phase of preproduction on a documentary. She was going to write it; her brother, a burgeoning director, was going to shoot it; and her friends and I were going to help in any way we could.
She was a psych major at a university in Saitama, holding down two part-time jobs, but it wasn’t her workload that presented the greatest challenge to her psyche. It was Japanese people — specifically, the inability of many of them to recognize the individuality, and thus the full humanity, of non-Japanese (though she never put it that way). It upset her no end.
She was aware that this tendency somewhat harmed non-Japanese as well, but they were not her primary worry. She was more concerned with how dehumanizing people in this way hurt Japanese, diminished their respectability and would eventually spell disaster for what little is left of traditional Japanese culture and values. Blinded by their focus on exotic and ultimately inconsequential qualities (like blue eyes, blond hair, brown skin, dreadlocks and other arbitrary traits), she believed that Japanese tended to miss out on the big picture. And this, she’d tell me often, was a major problem with Japan.
It was her friends’ and classmates’ constant gushing over gaijin (foreigners) that really disgusted her. She referred to Japanese predisposed to behave this way as “gaijin freaks.” Whenever we’d get together she’d have another gaijin-freak story to share with me. And while she maintained that what she found disturbing about this phenomenon was the detrimental impact it was having on her culture, the tenor of her tales told me that what was most infuriating was how easily white guys were able to abuse her friends as a result of it.
“They’re just giving their bodies away,” she’d practically scream at me. “Japanese girls lose all their self-respect for white guys. And these guys are even worse, taking advantage of these poor, stupid girls!”
Little by little she began devising a plan of action. We were both big movie buffs, so she decided we should tackle this problem through the medium of film. She immediately began working to expose, explore and offer possible solutions to this issue cinematically. This was her passion project and she was as driven to bring this race issue to light as an Asian Spike Lee.
Although at the time (only a couple of years in-country) I was still in my honeymoon phase, where virtually everything Japanese still retained a sort of majestic glow and irresistible charm — and moreover, I had fallen madly in love with this dynamo of a woman — I was also keenly aware that she was onto something important.
Tragically, she passed, from complications due to cancer, before she could see her vision through to fruition. But she left an indelible mark on me and I’ve been fueled by her passion, augmenting my own, ever since.
And so, here we are, exactly a year into Black Eye, the latest of my passion projects — a column I started with the goal of bringing to the pages of this widely read periodical something I believe Japan (and, judging from some of the comments I’ve read over the past year, the non-Japanese community as well) sorely needs: a change of the narrative about people of African descent living here — one that respects our humanity and reflects our varying perspectives and activities.
Why is this column still going strong? Because, as evidenced by far too many events in the year since this column launched, here in Japan and in countries all over the globe, there still exists the need to say it loud, often and in as many ways as possible: Black lives matter!
To that end, I’ve endeavored to present images of blackness in Asia that rarely see the light of day, and ask questions that — at least as far as black people are concerned — aren’t being addressed in the media earnestly. Consequently, the answers to these questions are often plagued by prevarications, presumptions and poppycock, supplied by the ill-informed, misinformed and uninformed, and people without a vested interest in our reputation or prosperity.
Though a column that centers on the experiences of black people might appear on the surface to be selfishly concerned solely with black issues — as Aiko’s documentary, I imagine, would have appeared to be focused solely on the needs of Japanese people — I think both of our projects potentially contribute to illuminating the big picture in crucial ways.
For one, both projects refuse to accept the premise that problems will naturally or cosmically resolve themselves. That’s just not how it works in my experience. No kami-sama is going to descend from the heavens to enlighten Japanese people about the negative impact of their fairly innocuous and often overly friendly brand of dehumanization toward non-Japanese living here. Neither will it explain to people on the receiving end how accepting this favorable treatment is tacitly endorsing a detrimental mindset.
No, only people can do that, and the audience would likely respond better if the message came from a thoughtful and persuasive Japanese person who gets it! Aiko knew that and was prepared to carry that weight.
And certainly Louis Armstrong or Stepin Fetchit isn’t going to come back from the grave just to inform Rats & Star and Momoiro Clover Z that their blackface minstrel show is in poor taste, and knowing its wretched history (as Rats & Star definitely do), that the intent epitomized a contemptuous lack of respect (black lives don’t matter), as well as an ignorance/arrogance they should be ashamed of.
No, only people here, on the ground, alive and kicking, can do that. And without Black Eye calling these cats out, and without the support of a massive coalition of conscientious people of all races and persuasions, it’s likely that the show would have indeed gone on unencumbered, embarrassing the hell out of the entire country and further damaging Japan’s image before the entire world.
Even as I write this piece, a white man in South Carolina has just gone on a rampage, savagely gunning down nine black people in a church. And if the reports of remarks he made before starting this killing spree are accurate — that he said to black men before taking their lives, “You rape our women” — then he was driven to extreme violence by the same ignorance and fear that Black Eye has been trying to address since its inception.
So, what’s the big picture? That while we’re all in this together, certain issues require special attention.
I’m not a big believer in the afterlife, but I do believe in spirituality — that there is an energy that unites us all, and that our thoughts and actions have a powerful influence on this energy. Call it luck, call it magic, call it God, call it what you will, but I’d like to think that Aiko’s spirit is the wind beneath this column’s wings — that she approves and supports mine and anyone else’s efforts to tear down the barriers that keep us divided. And that’s what Black Eye is all about.
So, happy birthday, Black Eye!
There might come a day when there’s no cause for a column like this. I pray I live to see it. And when that day arrives, the bubbly’s on me! But until then, while the need remains, you can be sure that Black Eye will continue to keep its focus fixed on the diversity and distinctiveness of black lives here in Japan, and the issues pertinent to our well-being.
Black Eye appears in print on the third Monday Community Page of every month. Baye McNeil is the author of two books and writes the Loco in Yokohama blog. See www.bayemcneil.com. Your comments and ideas: [email protected] |
Following my Pacific Crest Trail thru-hike last year, I decided to survey my fellow hikers in an effort to provide some concrete information to the next year's class (and of course to compare my own stats to everyone else's).
My experiment was successful (meaning nobody died), and so in an effort to maintain my year-long streak of surveying PCT hikers, I decided to conduct a similar survey this year.
Now before you go getting your panties in a bunch regarding any of the information here, I suggest you first, check out the disclaimer; that you second, remember that what I have done here is by no definition scientific, independently corroborable, or possibly even accurate; and that you third – well and that you third just remember that we're all friends here.
I had a total of 106 completed surveys (all by hikers who (supposedly) completed the trail), and all but a few provided me with usable data (you know who you are person with 300+ zero days).
So here you are, the results of Halfway Anywhere's Annual Pacific Crest Trail Thru-hiker Survey:
DEMOGRAPHICS
Going by the numbers, if we were to choose a hiker at random (because we're mathematicians now), then we would find a white, college-educated male in his late twenties (and would be from California). Now who do we know like that?
Sex: 65% Male, 31% Female, 1% Genderqueer
65% Male, 31% Female, 1% Genderqueer Age: 32 Average (0% under 20, 26% 20-24, 37% 25-30, 19% 31-40, 7% 41-50, 6% 51-60, 5% 61+)
32 Average (0% under 20, 26% 20-24, 37% 25-30, 19% 31-40, 7% 41-50, 6% 51-60, 5% 61+) Race: 88% White, 2% Asian, 6% Hispanic, 3% Multi-Racial, 2% Decline to answer
88% White, 2% Asian, 6% Hispanic, 3% Multi-Racial, 2% Decline to answer Education: 67% Bachelor's Degree, 17% Some College, 17% Graduate Degree, 5% Associate Degree, 3% High School Diploma
67% Bachelor's Degree, 17% Some College, 17% Graduate Degree, 5% Associate Degree, 3% High School Diploma Countries Represented: 10 (Australia, Canada, Czech Republic, England, France, Israel, Mexico, New Zealand, Spain, USA)
10 (Australia, Canada, Czech Republic, England, France, Israel, Mexico, New Zealand, Spain, USA) States Represented: 26 (Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington)
TOP THREE COUNTRIES USA – 88 Canada – 7 England – 3
TOP THREE STATES California – 26 Washington – 13 Oregon – 11
STARTING
WHEN SHOULD I START MY HIKE!? Our average hiker was on his first long-distance hike, and began the adventure alone during the last week of April (maybe even on April 24th). He didn't go to the ADZPCTKO, but if he had, then chances are that he would choose to go again.
First Long Hike: 77% Yes, 23% No
77% Yes, 23% No Began Alone: 63% Yes, 37% No
63% Yes, 37% No Kickoff Attendance: 63% Did not attend, 7% Would not attend again, 30% Would attend again
63% Did not attend, 7% Would not attend again, 30% Would attend again Happy With Start Date: 70% Yes, 21% No, would start earlier, 9% No, would start later
70% Yes, 21% No, would start earlier, 9% No, would start later Month Started: 4% March, 78% April, 16% May, 2% June
4% March, 78% April, 16% May, 2% June Most Popular Start Date: April 24
April 24 Start Date: 6% Before April 8, 13% April 8 – April 14, 25% April 15 – April 22, 34% April 23 – April 30, 16% After May 1
HIKING
So how much time did our hiking friend really spend hiking? Well he took nineteen zeroes with fifteen near-os sprinkled in for good measure. To make up for all that shameless resting, his longest day was 37 mi / 59.5 km.
Longest Day: Average 37 mi / 59.5 km (σ = 7.8 mi / 12.5 km)
Average 37 mi / 59.5 km (σ = 7.8 mi / 12.5 km) Zeroes: Average 19 (σ = 8.5)
Average 19 (σ = 8.5) Near-os: Average 15 (σ = 8)
Average 15 (σ = 8) Would Hike PCT Again: 81% Yes, 19% No
RESUPPLY
Surely we need to learn what we can about the all-important resupply strategy. Our average hiker mailed themselves around thirteen resupply boxes and made a total of twenty-four resupply stops over the course of the trail. Twenty-four stops over the course of 2,660 miles? That's an average of 111 mi / 178 km between resupplies.
Resupply Stops Made: 24 average (σ = 6.3)
24 average (σ = 6.3) Resupply Strategy: 73% mailed some boxes, 23% mailed all boxes, 4% mailed no boxes
73% mailed some boxes, 23% mailed all boxes, 4% mailed no boxes Resupply Boxes Sent: 13 Average (σ = 7)
DEFINITELY MAIL A BOX: Kennedy Meadows, CA Stehekin, WA Warner Springs, CA Snoqualmie Pass, WA Skykomish/Stevens Pass, WA White Pass, WA Timberline Lodge, OR VVR, CA
MAIL A BOX INSTEAD OF BUYING: Sierra City, CA Stehekin, CA Castella, CA CHANGES TO RESUPPLY STRATEGY? Send fewer boxes Send more food in boxes Send a larger variety of food
I also asked everyone to list everywhere they resupplied over the course of the trail. In geographical order, starting at Mexico, here are the most popular resupply stops (aka everywhere at least 70% of respondents said they paid a visit to):
Mount Laguna, CA (88%)
Warner Springs, CA (97%)
Paradise Cafe, CA (87%)
Idyllwild, CA (97%)
Wrightwood, CA (82%)
The Saufley's, CA (90%)
The Anderson's (70%)
Hikertown, CA (72%)
Tehachapi, CA (76%)
Kennedy Meadows, CA (100%)
Mammoth Lakes, CA (81%)
Tuolumne Meadows, CA (87%)
South Lake Tahoe, CA (91%)
Sierra City, CA (95%)
Old Station, CA (76%)
Etna, CA (72%)
Seiad Valley, CA (77%)
Ashland, OR (92%)
Mazama Village Store (Crater Lake), OR (93%)
Shelter Cove Resort, OR (85%)
Timberline Lodge, OR (95%)
Cascade Locks, OR (93%)
White Pass, WA (92%)
Snoqualmie Pass, WA (100%)
Skykomish/The Dinsmores (94%)
Stehekin, WA (95%)
NOTE: This does NOT translate (at all) into a viable resupply strategy because there are many resupply stops where hikers are split between multiple locations. This list only reflects those stops used by the overwhelming majority of hikers.
GEAR
Now to the question of gear. What did Average-Hiker-2014 end up with here? Research shows us that he started the trail (April 24) with a base weight of 17.8 lbs / 8.07 kg, but when he finished he was down to a base weight of 14.8 lbs / 6.71 kg (3 lb / 1.36 kg savings).
He spent a grand total of $1,291 on gear before the hike.
Chances are that he did filter his water.
Starting Base Weight: 17.8 lb / 8.1 kg average (σ = 7.8 lb / 3.5 kg)
17.8 lb / 8.1 kg average (σ = 7.8 lb / 3.5 kg) Ending Base Weight: 14.8 lb / 6.7 kg average (σ = 8.6 lb / 3.9 kg)
14.8 lb / 6.7 kg average (σ = 8.6 lb / 3.9 kg) Filter Water: 58% Yes, 42% No (from “Yes”: 12% only sometimes, 6% only in desert)
58% Yes, 42% No (from “Yes”: 12% only sometimes, 6% only in desert) Average Spent On Gear: $1,291 (σ = $901)
What gear took you longest to drop from your pack? Extra Clothing Solar Charger Rain Pants Water Filter
What gear do you wish you had invested more in (or had been able to upgrade)? Backpack Shelter Sleeping Bag Sleeping Pad
What was your favorite piece of gear? Sleeping Bag Sleeping Pad Backpack Down Jacket
Top comments on gear for future hikers: Go lighter. Do your research. Good gear is worth the investment. Don't stress too much about gear.
For more on gear you can check out my Final “Complete PCT Gear List”.
MISCELLANEOUS
What was the FAVORITE section of the trail? Top five responses: The Sierra Washington North Cascades Goat Rocks Glacier Peak
What was the LEAST FAVORITE section of the trail? Top five responses: Northern California The Desert Mojave/Tehachapi Hat Creek Rim Southern Oregon
What resource did you find MOST VALUABLE when planning your hike? Past Thru-Hikers Yogi's Guide Blogs Craig's PCT Planner Forums
What resource did you find LEAST VALUABLE when planning your hike? The PCT Facebook Page Yogi's Guide PCT Data Book Other people's opinions PCT-L
Fin.
THE OTHER PCT SURVEYS
If you have any questions about the data, have suggestions for next year's survey or would like more information then please leave a comment below.
HIKING THE PCT NEXT YEAR? ENTER YOUR EMAIL BELOW TO TAKE NEXT YEAR'S PCT SURVEY! |
One month after he told the United Nations that “our planet cannot be saved, unless we leave fossil fuels in the ground, where they belong,” Leonardo DiCaprio was flying across Europe on gas-guzzling private jets.
Hollywood’s resident global warming doom merchant is also its foremost fossil fuel-burning hypocrite.
DiCaprio attended the Cannes Film Festival Monday and was seen partying with model Georgia Fowler. Two days later, The Revenant star was in New York, where he received the Fishermen’s Ball’s “Big Fish” award for his commitment to clean water. A day later, DiCaprio was back in France giving a speech at amfAR’s Cinema Against AIDS gala.
One week, two continents, and 8,000 carbon emission-powered miles later, Leonardo DiCaprio was already back to his hashtag activism and fighting climate change on social media.
All this from the man who says that “a massive change is required right now, one that leads to a new collective consciousness, a new collective evolution of the human race, inspired and enabled by a sense of urgency.”
An inside source, according to the New York Post, said DiCaprio had “hitched a ride with someone already flying back [and] to Cannes. Hitching a ride was the only way he could make it in time for both events.”
How does a man who called manmade climate change “the most existential human crisis that the world has ever known” rationalize flying 8,000 miles in five days?
By saying, “Hey, it wasn’t my private jet.”
Leonardo DiCaprio “demonstrates exactly why our consumption of fossil fuels continues to grow,” environmental analyst Robert Rapier told the Post. “It’s because everyone loves the combination of cost and convenience they offer. Alternatives usually require sacrifice of one form or another.”
Two months ago, DiCaprio told a room of reporters that “climate change is one of the most concerning issues facing all humanity and the United States needs to do its part.”
How can Leonardo DiCaprio persistently lecture Americans about the perils of being reliant on fossil fuels, when he’s so brazenly hypocritical and obviously guilty of the same sin?
Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter: @jeromeehudson. |
North Korea’s state controlled media, Korean Central News Agency, called Donald Trump’s “America-first” policy “the American version of Nazism far surpassing the fascism in the last century in its ferocious, brutal and chauvinistic nature.”
The editorial ran on Tuesday, according to The Wall Street Journal and several other outlets.
Pyongyang’s state media also described U.S. policy as “Nazism in the 21st century.”
Also Read: Dennis Rodman Defends North Korea, Takes Credit for Otto Warmbier's Release (Video)
“The world has never seen peace since the emergence of the American-first principle,” the op-ed went on to say.
Other recent state media articles have called Trump a “reckless war maniac” and a “lunatic.” These comments come ahead of a planned visit by South Korean President Moon Jae-in to the White House, where the two leaders will discuss North Korea’s missile and nuclear program.
Also Read: Otto Warmbier's Death After Release From North Korea Sparks Outrage: 'Senseless and Barbaric'
The KCNA report described sanctions against North Korea as “an unethical and inhumane act, far exceeding the degree of Hitler’s blockade of Leningrad.” It also said that Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States from the Paris Climate Accord an act worse than the Nazi concentration camps of WWII.
In the early stages of the Trump presidency, the administration approved North Korean diplomat Choe Son Hui to visit New York for talks, but the meeting was cancelled after Kim Jong Nam –Kim Jong Un’s half brother — was killed in Malaysia.
Recently, an American student Otto Warmbier died after being held in North Korea for 17 months. |
On Monday in Houston, Jeremy Lin and his balky left hamstring returned to the court for the first time since Nov. 2.
Considering Lin had five weeks of rust on his game and just a single practice under his belt, the Nets’ point guard was solid.
And that’s because he wasn’t trying to be spectacular.
“After five weeks off, I was really thrilled,’’ said coach Kenny Atkinson, who should see an even better Lin Wednesday against the Lakers. “You expect a guy to be a little rusty, but I didn’t see that at all. He had great energy, played with great poise and I was just happy that he didn’t try to do too much.
“He really got Brook [Lopez] the ball at the right time, running the pick-and-roll at the right time, just that feel. Sometimes when you’re out for a long time and you come back you’re anxious to do too much, especially as ambitious as he is. I was just happy to see he did it within the team concept, and I was really happy with his play.”
Lin’s play was better than even Brooklyn could have expected, partly because it was understated and under control. He had 10 points, seven assists, three rebounds, played solid defense and finished plus-17 in 20:04.
With him off the court, the Nets have been a minus-10.2 (per 100 possessions), but with Lin at the helm they have been a plus-6.1, according to BasketballReference.com.
“Watching the team for five weeks, I’ve narrowed down what I need to do,’’ said Lin, whose minutes will increase gradually. “I just need to get us organized on both ends of the floor, and I need us to be solid defensively and get great shots on the offensive end.
“That sounds so simple, but mixing up play-calls and understanding different lineups, where guys need the ball and making sure that happens at the right time, that’s just part of being a point guard. I’m not trying to be flashy or take over the game. That will come naturally if I’m hot one night, or they’re giving me a certain thing that night. It’ll happen. But I don’t need to go and seek it.”
After seeming a step slow in the first half and unable to beat his man off the dribble, Lin clearly found the game in the second half, when he had eight of his points, five of his assists and got into the lane repeatedly. He was a big reason the Nets shot 65.9 percent and went 23-for-28 in the paint for 46 points.
“I felt fine. In terms of my wind, I felt a lot better than I thought I would. I just struggled with the rhythm, shots, the feel, and making reads, stuff that in a couple games it’ll all come back,’’ Lin said. “First half you practice all these shots, but I got in there and it was like shooting a football. But it’ll come quick.
“I don’t think my speed is all the way there, so that was an adjustment. My burst of speed or getting by guys isn’t completely there yet. So you just adjust and figure it out, like, ‘What do I do next?’ A lot of times that’s getting those passes out quicker, or reading angles. I think that’ll come back soon. I’m not worried.”
Neither are the Nets. They’re encouraged.
“He’s such a great leader and such a great facilitator, and brings great energy to the floor. He has a great motor and that’s contagious, so it definitely [lifts] us up to a new level,’’ said Lopez, who will benefit from Lin, especially in the pick-and-roll.
“That’s just the kind of player he is. He comes with great energy. His aggression makes it a lot harder on opposing defenses. He’s fantastic at getting in the paint and finishing, drawing a foul, attracting defenders and kicking it out. There’s so many different things, so many different weapons he has.” |
The Pope’s harsh words for Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump last February seem not to have hurt the candidate’s popularity among Catholics, which actually increased by more than 20% since the pontiff’s unfortunate remarks.
According to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll, during the 50 days prior to the Pope’s suggestion on Feb. 18 that Trump is “not a Christian,” his popularity among Catholic Republicans averaged just 39.8 percent, whereas in the 50 days since that date his support has shot up to an average of 47.9 percent, an increase of 20.4 percent.
On the plane trip home from Mexico to Rome last February, Reuters journalist Phil Pullella told Francis that Republican candidate Donald Trump had accused the Pope of being a “pawn” and a “politician,” and favored deporting 11 million immigrants, heartlessly splitting up families and building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Pulella then asked the Pope whether American Catholics can vote for “a person like this.”
The Pope responded to the reporter that anyone who thinks only of building walls and never of building bridges is no Christian, since this way of thinking is foreign to the gospel. But he also questioned the accuracy of the reporter’s depiction of Trump.
“I would only say: if he said these things, this man is no Christian,” Francis said. “But we’d have to see whether he said these things. And in this matter, I would give him the benefit of the doubt.”
The very next day, papal spokesman Father Federico Lombardi walked the Pope’s words back, insisting that Francis’ remarks were not meant as a “personal attack” on Trump, but merely reflected the Pope’s conviction that bridges are preferable to walls.
Lombardi said that Pope-watchers know that Francis is always repeating that we should not build walls but bridges. “He repeats this over and over, constantly, and he has also said it many times regarding the issue of migration in Europe,” he said. “So it is not a specific issue, limited to this case” but part of his general attitude, consistent with “following the Gospel directives of welcome and solidarity.”
The spokesman also declared that the Pope was not trying to tell Catholics how to vote at the upcoming election.
“This case drew a lot of attention,” Lombardi said, “but he never intended it to be in any way a personal attack or an instruction on how to vote. The Pope has made it clear that he would not meddle in the voting issues in the election campaign of the United States.”
Obviously, Catholics’ increased support for Trump cannot be considered a direct consequence of the Pope’s criticism of the Republican front-runner. Since January, the number of Republican White House candidates has dropped from 12 in January to three today, which evidently explains some of his greater support among Catholics.
On the other hand, the correlation does suggest that the Pope’s words did no damage to Trump’s popularity among Catholics, and if anything, helped him.
Though Francis enjoys a healthy 90 percent favorability rating among his flock in America, Catholic teaching attributes no special authority to the Pope in political matters.
Last Saturday Pope Francis briefly greeted Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders at the Vatican just before the Pope left for a meeting with migrants and refugees on the Greek island of Lesbos.
Sanders had been invited to address a high-level Vatican meeting by a progressive Argentinian Bishop known for his open support of the Democratic Party.
Bishop Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo, the Chancellor of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, who scandalized many Catholics by accepting public honors from top abortion activists in New York last fall, gave Sanders top billing in a conference convened to discuss “changes in politics, economics and culture.”
Follow Thomas D. Williams on Twitter Follow @tdwilliamsrome |
It’s time for the United States to withdraw its soldiers from Korea. This has nothing to do with “liberating South Korea from U.S. imperialism,” and nothing to do with American retrenchment and isolationism.
On the South Korean left, calls for withdrawal reek of reactionary racism and thinly veiled Korean nationalism. The fascist Korean left and its mendacious apologists still lurk in open sight. Korea experienced actual colonialism under Japanese rule, and whatever the U.S. presence may be, it isn’t that. Even if Korea was once a client state, that changed decades ago.
On the U.S. right, the old Cold War is over and right-wing American politicians have grown tired of propping up wealthy Asian allies. But their nihilistic isolationism is misplaced. Power, respect and allies come with a price, and the U.S. should expect to have to pay it.
The reason that U.S. troops should leave is that the presence of American soldiers encourages South Korean irresponsibility. South Korea has to grow up and take charge of its situation. How it got there doesn’t matter.
ENDLESS CHILDHOOD
South Korea has been allowed to act like an overgrown child for decades. The U.S. exercised exclusive military command because South Korea could not be trusted not to start a world war, and now resists the American push to transfer operational command. It relies on U.S. protection when it flubs its own diplomatic efforts. It carved out a state-sponsored industrial policy that flouted fair trade rules, but was given a generous pass, and now pretends that this was entirely a South Korean achievement. It received aid from the IMF during the Asian Currency crisis, but has made little headway in financial reform.
The United States has been bailing South Korea out militarily, politically and diplomatically since UN troops landed at Incheon.
The “Miracle on the Han” is indeed miraculous, but it came prepackaged with serious design flaws that South Korea is too smug to address. South Korea was allowed access to foreign markets without reciprocating; sheltering industries breeds inefficiency and creates justified resentment overseas. “Get-rich-quick” economic policies artificially concentrate wealth and power into the hands of a tiny class of fratricidal, laughably dysfunctional and incompetent elites. Favoritism and collusion enables society-wide institutional corruption. “Bbali bbali” (“speed first!”) development encourages a culture of shoddy workmanship and corner-cutting, which, when combined with corruption, actively endangers South Korean society. Rigid, military-inspired corporate cultures stymie the development of creative and knowledge industries, while heavy regulation drowns out domestic and foreign competition, allowing gargantuan family combines, the infamous chaebol like Samsung and LG, to treat South Koreans like indentured laborers and captive consumers. Government interference in the economy makes South Korea more like a nation-sized “company town” than a modern state.
South Koreans are both proud of and enraged by their chaebol. This schizophrenia is a direct result of the economic model spearheaded by South Korea’s 1960s and 1970s dictator, Park Chung-hee. While ostensibly successful, this model was also deeply flawed, yet few will openly admit that the rot was built-in and does not come from pernicious outsiders. Political actors blame vague and sinister-sounding foreign forces for manifestly domestic economic and social issues. They can do this because Korea abdicates responsibility for its own mistakes.
JAPAN, THE ETERNAL BOGEYMAN
While almost every word uttered by the North Korean dictatorship is a naked lie, one piece of propaganda hits home. Most of South Korea’s educated class and elites have elders who were energetic participants in the Japanese colonization of the Korean peninsula. Sanctimonious South Koreans angry at Japan should ask their grandparents some hard questions before they join online anti-Japanese riots. Much of this Japanophobia is little more than a species of self-hatred, resentment at what colonization told Koreans about themselves. Few other colonized nations were as tractable and easily controlled as Korea under the Japanese, and few colonial enterprises had so many enthusiastic collaborators. And while both South and North Korea adopted variations of Imperial Japanese social norms, Japan has largely moved on.
South Korea doesn’t have to take responsibility for its poor relations with Japan, its only real regional ally
South Korea was not unique in its acquiescence. After 1944, France overflowed with a comically large number of retroactive resistance fighters. The difference is that France has to handle its current relationship with Germany on its own. South Korea doesn’t have to take responsibility for its poor relations with Japan, its only real regional ally, because it’s free to take cheap potshots from behind America’s broad shoulders, safe in the knowledge that Uncle Sam will smooth it all out.
The Japanese Empire was blasted into oblivion 70 years ago. South Korea should face reality, suck it up and stop playing the victim. Whatever grievances exist, it’s going on four generations and it’s time South Korea joined the adult world. South Korea needs to be honest and it has to forgive itself. In the end, this will enable it to find some sort of psychological peace with its Japanese cousin. But the game of honesty and reconciliation is a game for adults, and America’s indulgence isn’t helping.
REUNIFICATION LIP SERVICE
Foreigners have to be careful, because unification is the “third rail” in South Korean social conversations. Everyone pretends it’s important, but the truth is that South Koreans rarely do more than chant empty mantras. South Korea can’t even bring itself to endorse a basic North Korean human rights bill that the rest of the world passed long ago. Individually, South Koreans pretend that North Korea doesn’t exist, while successive governments absurdly claim to advance the cause of the entire Korean nation.
Like most socialist states, North Korea wastes its energy ruining the lives of its own people in fits of ideological zeal. South Korea heckles from the sidelines, throwing peanuts at anyone who steps up. Big Brother America runs interference, rendering South Korean inaction free of any blame or responsibility.
South Korea is the only country with the moral authority to tear down the North Korean regime. It needs to find the courage to seize this moral authority. Without American oversight, South Korea would finally be forced to negotiate with the sole foreign power that matters: China.
The presence of countless terrified North Korean refugees in China, theoretically entitled to South Korean citizenship, puts South Korean cowardice and greed into sharp relief. The refugees subsist in a grim limbo because South Korea won’t spend any diplomatic capital to help them. Are they, or are they not, Koreans? Is it fear of 150,000 hungry mouths? If solidarity is sold so cheaply, why the unification lip service? If South Korea really wants unification, it should prove it by first taking responsibility for those who escape the Kim-family dictatorship and bringing them to South Korea, the home they so desperately need.
North Korea is this century’s worst crime, masquerading as a state. Its regime needs to be toppled and a divided nation healed. Reunification may mean use of force or it may mean diplomatic acrobatics. It might also mean accommodating tyrants and slitting the throat of Korean democracy, if South Korea doesn’t have the courage of its convictions.
However it’s achieved, unification will certainly mean profound and wrenching social upheaval in the South, and quite likely economic and political chaos. Blindly hoping for a calm, orderly unification is irresponsible. The moment the process starts, the border will evaporate – unless South Korean conscripts are willing to shoot grandmothers and jubilant patriots – and once the border is gone, all bets are off. South Koreans seem to understand, on a gut level, that reunification will be a socio-economic catastrophe for them. Do they have the courage to stare damnation in the face, without flinching, for the sake of their nation? Few seem to consider the full implications of reunification, few willingly discuss it beyond regurgitated assertions, and nobody wants to plan for it.
BECOMING THE FUTURE
South Korea can still participate in military training, deploy forces internationally, and co-ordinate policies with its allies
While refusing to give up second-fiddle status in its partnership with America, South Korea vacillates between obsequious kowtowing and ingratitude. In between fits of petulant whining, it bemoans its perceived weakness but resents being asked to stand up. If South Korea is the future of the Korean people, it’s time for South Korea to stop talking and BE the future of the Korean people.
Withdrawing troops does not mean weakening the U.S.-South Korean alliance. South Korea can still participate in military training, deploy forces internationally, and co-ordinate policies with its allies. American troops can be in South Korea at a moment’s notice if North Korea attacks again. South Korea will still need a strong international consensus to confront North Korea, but this is South Korea’s game to play, and South Korea needs to be at the front of the lineup. It should be a responsible partner, not a dependent.
South Korea is more than ready. It has immeasurably more cultural, political and economic influence abroad than any ethnic Korean state in history. No Korean state has ever been tougher, stronger, richer or smarter. South Korea has all of the moral and political authority it needs to deal with North Korea’s isolated, xenophobic dictatorship.
America is the guest who brought the beer and the music and turned a sketchy party into a social event, but it’s lingering too late into the wee hours. All the good intentions in the world mean nothing if American overprotection prevents South Korea from learning to fend for itself, enables cowardice instead of courage, and allows South Korea to wallow in its own indulgent adolescence for another generation. It’s time for American soldiers to go home. |
Joe Miller is hoping once again to snatch a U.S. Senate seat from incumbent liberal Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski, but this time he’s running as a Libertarian.
Miller announced earlier in September that he will again attempt to unseat Murkowski who lost the Republican nomination to him in the last cycle six years ago, but regrouped with a write-in campaign that led her to victory.
Speaking on the Mark Levin Show Friday, Miller said:
I’m running against the most liberal Republican senator who’s up for re-election – she voted with Obama in the last Congress 72 percent of the time. We have basically three leftists in the race: Murkowski, a Democrat-leaning Independent and a Democrat. So, we have a clear path to victory, and the grassroots are excited as can be that I’m in.
Levin, who said he is a “big fan” of Miller, asked him nevertheless whether his presence in the race will enable a Democrat candidate to get elected more easily.
“Not a chance, and that’s the beauty of this race,” Miller said. “No risk at all. We have a Democrat who will probably get less votes than the Democrat-leaning Independent who has raised over a half a million dollars and has the Democratic Party’s support.”
“This is a beautiful race where a true conservative has the opportunity to win, as long as everybody activates,” he continued. “And what we’re seeing on the ground – like I said before – is extraordinary.”
According to the Associated Press, pollster Marc Hellenthal says Murkowski is a popular moderate in Alaska, and a “shoo-in.”
Political strategist Jim Lottsfeldt added that opponents to Murkowski could split their votes among Miller, Margaret Stock (I), and Ray Metcalfe (D). In that case, Miller would need to merge all those votes for a victory.
“Murkowski really is a leftist,” agreed Levin. “She’s Mitch McConnell’s right-hand person, but she votes left all the time.”
In October of 2015 – following the release of videos exposing Planned Parenthood’s alleged practice of selling the body parts of aborted babies for a profit – Murkowski came out in support of the abortion business and against its defunding of taxpayer dollars, even as she acknowledged it was possible Planned Parenthood had been engaged in illegal activity.
She said:
What I was concerned about and remain concerned about was that Planned Parenthood, through some of its affiliates, may have been engaged in illegal activity when it came to the collection of fetal tissue. We don’t know yet if illegal activity was conducted. The head of Planned Parenthood has come before congressional committees and said there was none. I would like an independent investigation of that. Because if there was illegal activity it not only needs to be stopped, it needs to be punished, because that’s a violation of the law and there needs to be consequences for it.
Nevertheless, Murkowski said about her prior and current votes against defunding the abortion giant, “I did not believe and I do not believe that Planned Parenthood should be defunded.”
Levin observed to Miller that though Alaska is considered to be America’s frontier and the land of individuality, Murkowski “acts like a Republican from New Jersey – that is a Republican politician from New Jersey.”
“And worse,” Miller chuckled. “Since her dad appointed her, I think the debt was about at $6.7 trillion, now it’s almost $20 trillion – I don’t think there was a debt ceiling increase that I’m aware of that she voted against.”
“And what she has done has been worse than most other Republicans that are in office,” he continued. “Susan Collins – she’s the only one that’s more liberal than her – and it’s not at all representative of Alaska values how she votes in D.C.”
“She has an ‘F’ on the Liberty score from Conservative Review,” Levin observed. “Well-deserved on her part.”
A press release announcing Miller’s candidacy states that Murkowski actually referred to herself as “the Conservative Voice for Alaska” during the primary. In addition to a failing score from Conservative Review, Murkowski scores only 36 percent with the Heritage Action Committee ratings.
Levin brought up the fact that when Murkowski ran her write-in campaign six years ago, she did it with help from her establishment friends.
“She gets all her cronies, all the Republican establishment up there and so forth and so on, to try and take it back from you, which she did, correct?” Levin asked.
“She did,” Miller acknowledged. “She had a lot of help from the corporatists, had millions of dollars flow into the race. She made a bunch of promises that she hasn’t been able to keep and, as a consequence, those same folk aren’t behind her this time.”
Miller’s press release also states, “With a near-historic low of 15.4 percent turnout and only 7.7 percent of Alaska’s registered voters casting a vote for our incumbent senator in the primary, it is obvious that Alaskan voters wanted another choice.”
On his website called Restoring Liberty, Miller describes himself as “a limited government constitutionalist who believes government exists to protect our liberties, not to take them away.”
Miller says he “supports free people, free markets, federalism, the right to life, religious liberty, American sovereignty, and a strong national defense.”
He noted as well to Levin that he’s received an endorsement from Gun Owners of America and Alaska Right to Life, and added the co-chair of Donald Trump’s campaign and the former co-chair of Ted Cruz’s campaign are getting behind him as well. |
The state of the art Art of Jiu-Jitsu academy (AOJ) in Costa Mesa California was recently named most beautiful BJJ academy in the world . The main instructors are the Mendes brothers.
AOJ recently fired one of their instructors. Burç SachPrakash Gündogar was teaching Jiu-Jitsu and is also a Yoga instructor.
The reason isn’t clear but Burç SachPrakash Gündogar is implying that it’s due to his facial hair (beard).
In his recent Facebook pictures from January, he doesn’t have any visible excessive facial hair yet but from various accounts, he had a full beard in February.
Satnam Posted on his Facebook, explaining the situation.
Thank you to all my friends and students , and all the great families i have met over the years. Thank you.
Last week I found out that I have been fired from AOJ due to my physical appearance (facial hair). This post is just to bring a clarity for my disappearance.
I know i do, and will keep up the representation of the ART OF JIU JITSU , in it’s purest form as a teacher and a student.
An art that is gentle, healing, loving; a discipline if guided properly, will only bring out promoting habits from practitioners.
Being a role model to the future , i shall stay in tune with what is true, natural, and smooth, just like my beard. Growth is inevitable when you roll with the cosmos!
PEACE & LOVE to all:)
Satnam
AOJ inforces a strict rule that all students and visitors must wear a white uniform (due to not staining the white mats with coloured Gis). They also do not allow other school/ affiliation patches worn for training.
The AOJ code of conduct however doesn’t mention facial hair:
01. Always be respectful.
02. Always address Rafael and Guilherme as Professor and non-black belt instructors as coach.
03. Absolutely NO coaching your children or other students during class.
04. If you are late, wait outside the mat until the professor gives you permission to join.
05. Do not leave the mat area without permission from the Professor or Coach.
06. During class, when the instructor is demonstrating the techniques, every student must sit or stand in good posture.
07. Talking should be kept to a minimum level and should relate to the class subject.
08. No foul language inside the school.
09. Keep feet clean. No dirty feet on the mat.
10. You must wear shoes or flip flops when you are not on the mat.
11. If you are wearing flip flops, you must clean your feet before you step on the mat.
12. You must always wear a shirt or rash guard inside the academy.
13. All training gear and bags should be left in the locker room, not on the benches around the training area.
14. The uniform must be clean at all times. A dirty uniform is a sign of disrespect.
15. Be respectful towards your training partners.
16. All jewelry, piercings, necklaces, and other items should be removed during training.
17. Keep fingernails and toenails neatly trimmed.
18. All students and visitors must wear a white uniform.
19. Absolutely, no other school/ affiliation patches may be worn for training.
20. No electronic devices allowed in the training area.
21. No shoes, food, or drinks on the mat.
22. Be humble.
23. Believe & Achieve.
AOJ hasn’t yet commented on the situation. |
Brimstone Brewing Announces First LCBO Release
RIDGEWAY, ON – Almost two years after launching its first beer, Brimstone Brewing has announced that one of its flagship brands is now available via the LCBO.
Enlightenment Ale is a 5.5% abv and 25 IBU pale ale with the following description:
Enlightenment is a unique American-Style Pale Ale that is lightly filtered and characterized by an active aroma and vivid golden hue. It offers a gentle bitterness from the hops that is complimented by a slight malty sweetness making a compelling and balanced sessionable beer. Lively and refreshing with a clean finish that will satisfy even the most discerning craft beer drinker.
Brimstone Enlightenment is available now at select LCBO locations in Niagara and Toronto. A full list of stores is available on brewery website. |
Getty Poll: Sanders moves ahead of Clinton by 5 in Iowa
Bernie Sanders notched another polling victory against Hillary Clinton on Tuesday, this one in Iowa, where he now leads the former secretary of state, according to the results of the latest Quinnipiac University poll.
The Vermont senator picked up 49 percent support from likely Democratic caucus-goers, while Clinton earned 44 percent. In last month's Quinnipiac survey, Clinton earned 51 percent, while Sanders came in second with 40 percent. In this poll, former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley took 4 percent, with 3 percent remaining undecided.
Story Continued Below
Sanders, who has made the issue of yawning economic inequality a central plank, holds an 11-point advantage among those reporting an income of $50,000 or less. Among those earning $100,000 or more, meanwhile, Clinton leads Sanders by 13 points. (Sanders also holds a 5-point lead among those with an income between $50,000 and $100,000.)
Just one in five of those likely to caucus on Feb. 1 said they might change their mind about whom they will support, while 78 percent said they have decided. Among Clinton supporters, 84 percent indicated firmness, compared to 73 percent of current Sanders backers.
Sanders opened up a 14-point lead over Clinton in New Hampshire in the latest Monmouth University poll released earlier in the morning. In that poll, Sanders' supporters indicated that they were more fiercely committed to their candidate than supporters of Clinton were to theirs.
The gender gap between the top two candidates persists in Iowa, with Sanders earning the support of 61 percent to 30 percent of men and Clinton earning 55 percent to 39 percent from women.
In terms of favorability, Sanders holds a commanding net positive rating of 84 points (87 percent to 3 percent), while Clinton is relatively lower at a net positive 53 points (74 percent to 21 percent).
Sanders also leads Clinton on most character traits, with 96 percent of likely caucus-goers responding that the Vermont senator cares about their needs and problems and just 1 percent who thought he did not. Meanwhile, 76 percent to 21 percent thought the same of Clinton.
At the same time, a larger share of likely caucus participants (85 percent) said Clinton would have a better chance of defeating the Republican nominee in November than Sanders would. A little less than seven in 10 (68 percent) said the same of the senator.
The Quinnipiac poll was conducted via landlines and cellphones from Jan. 5-10, surveying 492 likely Democratic caucus participants with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 percentage points.
Clinton and Sanders are now effectively tied in the RealClearPolitics polling average of Iowa surveys between Jan. 2 and Sunday. Clinton holds an average of 45.5 percent support, while Sanders is at 45.3 percent. |
Pokémon Crystal Access
Introduction
The Pokecrystal access project is a set of scripts which provide access to Pokémon Crystal, the famous GameBoy game, for people using a screen reader. These scripts are designed to work with the VBA-ReRecording GameBoy emulator.
Download
Download Pokémon Crystal Access 1.2
Once extracted, follow the instructions in readme.txt.
Starting the game
Each time you run VBA, you'll need to load the included rom. You can do this from the open dialog, or load a recent rom after you've opened it once.
Once the rom is loaded, load the lua script (tools, lua, New Lua script window). From there, load pokemon.lua, press run. It should say ready, alt tab out and back in again
Keys
Make sure num lock is off while playing the game, or the keys won't work.
j, k and l - previous, current and next item
shift m - read current map name
shift n - rename current map
n - rename current item
t - read text on screen, if any
p - pathfind. This tries to find a path between you and the object selected, or as close as it can get.
c - read coordinates
h - read enemy health if in a battle
If you find a bug, or want to contact me about these scripts, my contact information is below. for bugs, please send a save state with instructions on how to reproduce the issue from it. You can save a named one with control shift s in the game. |
SEOUL (Reuters) - Samsung Electronics Co Ltd (005930.KS) on Tuesday said pre-orders for its Galaxy Note 8 premium smartphone have hit the highest-ever for the Note series, beating its predecessor Note 7 over five days by about 2.5 times.
Samsung is banking on the device to protect its market dominance as it competes with Apple Inc’s (AAPL.O) latest iPhones due to be unveiled later on Tuesday. Note 8 sales begin in the United States, South Korea and elsewhere on Friday.
Pre-orders reached about 650,000 Note 8 handsets over five days from about 40 countries, making the initial response “very encouraging,” DJ Koh, president of Samsung Electronics’ mobile communications business, said at a media event.
The device succeeds the short-lived Note 7, whose battery fires resulted in Samsung pulling the device from the market after just a couple of months at a cost of billions of dollars.
Its reputation tarnished, the world’s biggest smartphone maker by market share nevertheless decided to retain the Note brand after a survey showed 85 percent of 5,000 Galaxy Note users expressed brand loyalty, Koh said.
PREMIUM ERA
The Note 8’s U.S. price of $930 to $960, including dialling and data plans, begins an era of premium-priced handsets which analysts expect to be joined by $1,000-plus iPhones.
Apple is widely expected to unveil a special edition iPhone commemorating 10 years of the handset, equipped with edge-to-edge screen and augmented reality, that will compete with the Note 8 for pre-holiday season sales in Western markets.
In China, the Note 8 is tasked with reviving fortunes in the world’s biggest smartphone market where local handset makers such as Huawei Technologies Co Ltd [HWT.UL], Oppo, Vivo and Xiaomi Inc [XTC.UL] reduced Samsung’s market share to 3 percent in April-June, showed data from Counterpoint Research.
Slideshow (7 Images)
Koh said it will take time to recover in China but expects changes this year such as appointing a new mobile chief, restructuring and focusing on key buyers to be effective.
Koh also said Samsung hopes to showcase a foldable handset next year but that technological hurdles must be overcome before a decision can be made.
“We are digging thoroughly into several issues we must overcome, as we don’t want to just make a few, sell a few and be done. We want to hear that Samsung made a very good product.” |
What do you do when the lights go out, the sirens come on, and the bombs begin to fall?
These were serious fears in the United States in the weeks following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. By January 1942, Americans were adjusting to a nation suddenly thrust into war against not only Japan, but also Nazi Germany and fascist Italy.
Americans had spent years listening to broadcasts from a besieged English capital as German air raids pounded London and watched newsreel footage of cities smashed to bits by bombers. Now, they feared it could happen to their own communities. So they began to “Blitz-proof” their towns and villages.
This public service announcement told Central Pennsylvanians what they needed to do in the event of an air raid on the capital of the Keystone State. It was published in Harrrisburg’s Evening News on January 26, 1942 by the Harrisburg-Dauphin County Council of Defense.
Featured Image: An air raid shelter in Culver City, California in 1942 (Associated Press)
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Researchers are developing a technology that aims to help make solar cells more affordable and efficient by using a new manufacturing method that employs an ultrafast pulsing laser.
The innovation may help to overcome two major obstacles that hinder widespread adoption of solar cells: the need to reduce manufacturing costs and increase the efficiency of converting sunlight into an electric current, said Yung Shin, a professor of mechanical engineering and director of Purdue University\’s Center for Laser-Based Manufacturing.
Critical to both are tiny \”microchannels\” needed to interconnect a series of solar panels into an array capable of generating useable amounts of power, he said. Conventional \”scribing\” methods, which create the channels mechanically with a stylus, are slow and expensive and produce imperfect channels, impeding solar cells\’ performance.
\”Production costs of solar cells have been greatly reduced by making them out of thin films instead of wafers, but it is difficult to create high-quality microchannels in these thin films,\” Shin said. \”The mechanical scribing methods in commercial use do not create high-quality, well-defined channels. Although laser scribing has been studied extensively, until now we haven\’t been able to precisely control lasers to accurately create the microchannels to the exacting specifications required.\”
The researchers hope to increase efficiency while cutting cost significantly using an \”ultrashort pulse laser\” to create the microchannels in thin-film solar cells, he said.
The work, funded with a three-year, $425,000 grant from the National Science Foundation, is led by Shin and Gary Cheng, an associate professor of industrial engineering. A research paper demonstrating the feasibility of the technique was published in Proceedings of the 2011 NSF Engineering Research and Innovation Conference in January. The paper was written by Shin, Cheng, and graduate students Wenqian Hu, Martin Yi Zhang and Seunghyun Lee.
\”The efficiency of solar cells depends largely on how accurate your scribing of microchannels is,\” Shin said. \”If they are made as accurately as possibly, efficiency goes up.\”
Research results have shown that the fast-pulsing laser accurately formed microchannels with precise depths and sharp boundaries. The laser pulses last only a matter of picoseconds, or quadrillionths of a second. Because the pulses are so fleeting the laser does not cause heat damage to the thin film, removing material in precise patterns in a process called \”cold ablation.\”
\”It creates very clean microchannels on the surface of each layer,\” Shin said. \”You can do this at very high speed, meters per second, which is not possible with a mechanical scribe. This is very tricky because the laser must be precisely controlled so that it penetrates only one layer of the thin film at a time, and the layers are extremely thin. You can do that with this kind of laser because you have a very precise control of the depth, to about 10 to 20 nanometers.\”
Traditional solar cells are usually flat and rigid, but emerging thin-film solar cells are flexible, allowing them to be used as rooftop shingles and tiles, building facades, or the glazing for skylights. Thin-film solar cells account for about 20 percent of the photovoltaic market globally in terms of watts generated and are expected to account for 31 percent by 2013.
The researchers plan to establish the scientific basis for the laser-ablation technique by the end of the three-year period. The work is funded through NSF╒s Civil Mechanical and Manufacturing Innovation division.
Information about photovoltaic cells is available from the U.S. Department of Energy\’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory at http://www.nrel.gov/learning/re_photovoltaics.html
Related websites:
Yung Shin:
https://engineering.purdue.edu/ME/People/ptProfile?id=12309
Gary Cheng:
https://engineering.purdue.edu/IE/People/profile?resource_id=34940 |
Late last Friday, January 30th, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints filled a Major Donor Report with the California Secretary of State listing $189,903.58 in non-momentary expenditures on behalf of Protectmarriage.com -- Yes on Prop 8. The Mormon Church finally admitted directly spending a huge sum of money as part of its monumental effort to end same-sex marriage in California.
The Church waited until 5:00 pm on Friday, one business day ahead of the required filing date of February 2nd, to turn in its first report detailing at least some of its involvement in the Prop 8 campaign. This was clearly timed by the Mormon Church and its attorneys to try and stay out of the media's eye. This is an age old political trick, dumping bad news late Friday afternoon, but one that has not gone undetected.
The Mormon Church has repeatedly lied about its involvement in California's Prop 8. Don Eaton, a Mormon Church spokesman, told KGO Television (ABC) in November, "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints put zero money in this [the passage of Prop. 8]."
Up until Election Day, November 4th, the Mormon Church had only filed one non-monetary contribution, and that was reported just 4 days before the election for a mere $2,078.97. As founder of Californians Against Hate , this prompted me to file a sworn complaint with the California Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC). Karger hoped that an investigation by the FPPC would determine exactly how much money was really spent by the Salt Lake City based Church on behalf of the Yes on 8 campaign.
Right after the complaint was filed on November 13, 2008 Church spokesman Scott Trotter said the allegations are "false" and the complaint has "many errors and misstatements."
They said that the Church worked closely with its California political attorneys to comply with the law, and that it did not need to file anything further.
Eight days later when the FPPC announced it was launching an investigation into the Church's expenditures, a Mormon spokesman said that they would send all necessary information to the FPPC for its investigation. Then days later, it switched its position once again, and said that it had complied by all election laws and it did not need to report any money spent, only its members did.
Then on December 1st ProtectMarriage.com -- the official Yes on 8 committee --
filed an amended campaign report showing $19,715.08 in legal expenditures made by the Mormon Church way back on June 23rd -- 5 months late! This was reported 10 days after the FPPC had announced its investigation.
No other expenditures were reported until last Friday when the Mormon Church filed a Major Donor Report with the Secretary of State for an additional $170,072.18. Most of this was spent during October with 3 small expenditures from September. This included lots of travel expenses with 26 tickets purchased on Southwest Airlines alone. They reported $96,849.31 spent on one day (November 4th) in "compensated staff time" that appears was just for Election Day activities.
In its latest campaign report filed over this past weekend for the period October 19th to December 31st, ProtectMarriage.com reported 4 non-monetary contributions from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah. The first was dated October 25th for the formerly reported travel expenses of $2078.97, then two on November 1st -- one for more travel expenses $2864.21, and $19,715.08 for legal expenses and a final entry for November 3rd for staff salaries of $30,354.83. This totals $55,031.11 and it's odd that ProtectMarriage.com coincidentally reported all the Church's contributions after the October 19th cutoff to try and avoid any fines or FPPC penalties for itself. However, the amounts and dates are not the same as those reported by the Mormon Church.
Last June, in his now famous letter read to every Mormon Church, President Monson announced plans for the Church to become extremely active in the Prop 8 campaign. Their fundraising took off soon after that. Mormon families were contributing over $300,000 per day by late July and over $500,000 per day by early August. This money kept pouring in though Election Day bringing the total Mormon money to Prop 8 to nearly $25 million.
Gary Lawrence, the Mormon Church's "Grass Roots Coordinator," started his activities well before he sent out his August 7, 2008 memo posted on his web site. It detailed the grassroots Mormon Campaign Plan.
Show us the money!
Where are the rest of your non-monetary expenditures Mormon Church? What about the phone banks, precinct walks, all the slick videos and commercials, direct mail, buses, legal bills from your California political law firm, etc.? They could not all have occurred until late September and October. It is clear that you began your work in June.
And why didn't ProtectMarriage.com report any earlier non-monetary contributions from the Mormon Church? Their report does not match up with yours.
The California Political Reform Act was passed by the voters 35 years ago and has been very effective in keeping our campaigns honest and fair. It certainly appears to us that the Mormon Church did everything possible to avoid complying with our election law, and only now, after an active investigation is underway by the FPPC (Case # 080735), did it decide to finally report some of its expenditures. |
Riot police detain protestors in front of the government headquarters in Bucharest | Andrei Pungovschi/AFP via Getty Images Clock ticking in Romanian corruption showdown Government, protesters face off over measure to water down punishments for graft.
BUCHAREST — By passing a decree that would let corrupt politicians off the hook, the Romanian government also set the clock ticking on efforts to thwart it.
The measure was passed late Tuesday night, to become effective 10 days later. That deadline has helped galvanize hundreds of thousands of protesters who have flooded the streets to demand the decree be revoked.
With the European Commission and the embassies of Western nations also criticizing the move, the government must decide whether to defy both mainstream European opinion and the biggest demonstrations in Romania since the fall of communism.
Curiously, the fall of the government would not actually aid the protesters’ cause, as a temporary administration would not have the power to cancel the decree, according to political experts.
Events were set in train when Justice Minister Florin Iordache announced that the government would update the penal code by decriminalizing the offense of official misconduct for cases involving damage to the public purse of less than €44,000.
Mobilized by Facebook, thousands of people were in the square soon after midnight — even with the temperature at minus 7 Celsius.
The move was widely interpreted as a way for politicians to avoid jail time if they have been convicted of — or are under investigation for — such offenses. Among those assumed to benefit from the decree is the leader of the ruling Social Democrats, Liviu Dragnea.
The government argues that the measure is a necessary response to a call from the Constitutional Court for a clearer definition of abuse of power. But activists say the decree is really all about politicians’ own interests.
“What they are trying to do is eliminate the corruption charges against their party members and where there are final convictions to eliminate those final convictions,” said Laura Stefan, an anti-corruption specialist at Expert Forum, a think tank focused on public administration.
Within half an hour of the decree being announced, angry protesters swarmed into Piata Victoriei, the square in front of the government’s headquarters.
Andrei Fântână, a 40-year-old musician, was one of those who took to the streets on Tuesday night. He said he had always stayed away from politics — until now.
“My dad was a political prisoner for six years and he couldn’t change anything. So I preferred to do my job, to pay taxes, to tell myself that this is the way to serve my country and, if more people will be like me, it will turn out fine,” he said.
But when the government passed the decree, he said, “the game changed.”
'Like thieves in the night'
Mobilized by Facebook, thousands of people were in the square soon after midnight — even with the temperature at minus 7 Celsius. Some were trying to spot cars carrying members of the government but the ministers had already left the building.
“[You did it] at night, like thieves!” the protesters yelled. Major cities like Cluj, Timisoara and Iasi also erupted in protest.
In the past decade, Romania’s Anti-Corruption Directorate (DNA) has secured the convictions of hundreds of public officials, including former prime minister Adrian Năstase as well as ministers, MPs, mayors, judges and police chiefs.
In 2015 alone, the DNA prosecuted 1,250 defendants, including another former prime minister, Victor Ponta, and five members of the government.
After the new decree was published, the European Commission released a statement, saying it was following developments in Romania “with great concern” and warning that the progress in the fight against crime had to be irreversible.
Meanwhile, the protests escalated. On Wednesday evening, following a peaceful demonstration that attracted more than 120,000 people, violence broke out.
A group of hooligans set off flares and hurled them at the cordon of armed riot police. The troublemakers — men aged between 20 and 40 — then began to pull out metal barriers and throw them around. The police responded with pepper spray and tear gas.
Clashes followed between protestors demanding peaceful demonstrations and those bent on inciting violence.
Police made a few arrests and some protesters suffered minor injuries. An advertising kiosk was also set ablaze.
Romanian President Klaus Iohannis, a former leader of the main opposition National Liberals, who opposes the decree, suggested the Interior Ministry had a hand in triggering the violence.
“The Ministry of the Interior knew exactly when and where groups would prepare to break up the demonstration,” he said, accusing the ministry of putting lives in danger. Interior Minister Carmen Dan denied the allegations.
Social Democrat split
The crisis has now caused cracks to appear among the Social Democrats. Minister of Business Affairs Florin Jianu resigned Thursday morning. “This is what my conscience tells me to do,” said Jianu.
The controversial measure could be stopped in two ways. The Constitutional Court could intervene or the government itself could decide to withdraw it. But the government insisted Thursday it would hold firm despite all the internal and external pressure.
“[Government resignation] would be a sign of political weakness for the PSD-ALDE alliance and it would disappoint their electorate” — Radu Magdin, political analyst
"It all depends on Liviu Dragnea and some of the key stakeholders in the PSD-ALDE (Social Democrat/Liberal) parliamentary majority, and some of the local leaders,” said political analyst Radu Magdin.
“They may be willing to go all the way, despite the protests. If they blink, and give up, they will be both defeated politically and under pressure from political opponents and civil society.”
Experts believe it is unlikely the government itself will resign. The Social Democrats won a landslide election victory as recently as December.
“It would be a sign of political weakness for the PSD-ALDE alliance and it would disappoint their electorate,” said Magdin. “It would also not help the fight against the new law, as an interim government cannot annul a full government's ordinance.”
“Resignation might appease some of the critics,” he added. “But it would not prevent the entry into force of the ordinance.” |
From left, Farah Sabah, 14, and Regina Alsabagh, 14; and in back row, from left, Israa Alfadhli, 13, Maryam Kafra, 13. (Photo: Wilkinson Middle School photo )
The first thing Israa Alfadhli thought about after the explosion of a rocket carrying a science experiment created by her and three of her best friends wasn’t about their work. It was about the people.
“She wanted to know if anybody was hurt or dead. I told her everyone is OK. She said my heart is broken,” recounted Angel Abdulahad, an enrichment teacher at Wilkinson Middle School.
There were a lot of broken hearts in Madison Heights on Tuesday night as the reality hit that months of work and months of anticipation evaporated along with the unmanned rocket that was headed to the International Space Station.
The unmanned commercial supply rocket exploded moments after liftoff Tuesday evening, with debris falling in flames over the launch site in eastern Virginia. No injuries were reported following the first catastrophic launch in NASA’s commercial spaceflight effort.
The Madison Heights experiment was one of 18 science experiments created by groups of students through the Student Spaceflight Experiments Program.
Eighth-graders Regina Alsabagh and Farah Sabah, both 14, and Maryam Kafra and Alfadhli, both 13, designed an experiment on the effect iodine tablets will have on E.coli bacteria in zero gravity. The girls are all refugees from Iraq, having fled the country with their families to escape religious persecution.
Also on board was an astronaut patch designed by Wilkinson eighth-grader Tanner Barndollar. His design was one of 18 selected from across the country. It was to go to space and come back with a certificate stating it had been there.
On Friday, the girls excitedly talked about their experiment and were looking forward to watching the rocket launch. Tonight, they were in tears. And so were some of their parents.
“They had mixed emotions — joy watching your kid’s rocket go up followed by devastation,” said Abdulahad, who himself was struggling to come to terms with what happened.
“Honestly, I’m just dumbfounded and speechless,” Abdulahad said.
The rocket was originally scheduled to take off Monday, but the launch was canceled at the last minute because an errant boat was spotted near the launch site.
Randy Speck, superintendent for Madison District Public Schools, was in his office watching and recording the launch when he saw the explosion: “I was hoping that I was just seeing the second launch of the boosters and that within seconds I would see the rocket come up out of the fire and the smoke. It took another second to realize something had gone wrong with the launch. And then I just sat there looking at it.”
Despite the devastation, Speck and Abdulahad were looking ahead. “Their accomplishments don’t go away,” Speck said. “We still have the experiments.” He said they would be checking to determine whether they can resubmit the experiment.
Read or Share this story: http://on.lsj.com/1u6GTGs |
“It’s been five years since we’ve toppled Mubarak and we’re back to square one,” Nourhan says. At 26, Ahmed was one of Egypt’s most prominent liberal activists, and remains a living symbol of the revolution: once vibrant and triumphant on Cairo’s streets, now languid and silenced behind bars. The young couple used to talk for hours about their plans to open a bookstore, maybe even start a publishing house dedicated to fostering freedom and democracy in a country with a severe deficit of both. Now their conversations are limited to a hurried, supervised 20 minutes every other week.
“It is worse than square one,” corrects Ahmed’s mother Fathia, who often accompanies her daughter-in-law on visits to El Sijn. For her, the journey to the prison evokes a more-distant past, after her father and almost all her male relatives were arrested decades ago for being members of the then-banned Islamist Muslim Brotherhood. The organization, whose political party was briefly in charge of Egypt’s government following Morsi’s ascent to the presidency, has once again been banned. But Fathia never thought her son—a staunch critic of the very group she and her husband have dedicated their lives to—would also end up behind bars.
Amnesty International and other human-rights groups have called Sisi’s crackdown unprecedented. Security forces have targeted Morsi’s supporters and accused the Brotherhood of coordinating with far more radical Islamist groups that have killed hundreds of police and soldiers in the Sinai Peninsula, including one that pledged allegiance to the Islamic State in 2014. The Brotherhood denies any affiliation. Egypt’s Ministry of Interior has reported that 11,877 people were arrested on terrorism charges between January and September 2015, though it has released no updated numbers since.
But the state’s tentacles have spread to strangle any dissent. A protest law passed in November 2013 has become, as Amnesty International describes it, “a fast track” to prison. According to the most recent data available from the Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights, since Morsi’s ouster 41,000 people had been arrested, charged, or indicted with a criminal offence as of May 2014.
“If you’re not with the military regime, you’re a terrorist. But once you lift the terrorist title you see people you know ... your son, your husband, the grocer down the street ... everyone,” Fathia says. “The country is divided. ... No one knows what is next.”
The repression has been intensifying ahead of the fifth anniversary of the revolt’s beginning on January 25; security forces have recently arrested activists and shut down cultural spaces, including a popular art gallery—one of the few bastions of creative community—in downtown Cairo.
“We are now facing the worst, most oppressive time in modern Egyptian history,” says Gamal Eid, a leading Egyptian human-rights lawyer and activist. “[T]he freedom of those behind bars is our own freedom.” |
Three months ago, a list of keywords was released by the Dept. for Homeland Security after the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) sued the government for withholding the document.
The story has stirred up again by a couple of recent media reports have gotten the social networks sharing the media reports like wildfire.
This got me thinking.
The U.S. government may not be monitoring everything you say on social media sites, it monitors hundreds of seemingly obvious keywords every minute of the day --- and some that are just plain bizarre.
The 39-page "2011 Analyst's Desktop Binder", emblazoned with the Homeland Security seal, dedicates four pages to words ranging from weather terms and cyber security to "south-west border" words and health related terms.
As we head into the summer season, you may want to think twice before tweeting about barbeque "pork" or how the "cloud" is ruining the weather --- a thoughtless comment that could end up with your Twitter account being monitored.
SmartPlanet readers: God forbid you should retweet anything written about "grids" as that term included on the list. Going to the "airport"? Or late getting there because of traffic "delays"? Gotten so angry you tweeted you were going to blow it up? (Well, that last one actually happened.) The rest are all on there.
While statistically the chances of those two words are unlikely, the chance of a genuine suspected criminal actively saying on any online forum: "Let's get the cocaine and heroin in El Paso". It's comical to think that in a day and age of increased surveillance, anyone would be stupid enough to tweet or privately share their criminal activity online.
That said, two teenagers who were set to "destroy America" --- a common term to refer to partying hard --- were deported back to the U.K. after their rogue tweet set off alarms at Homeland Security.
Interestingly, some of the words you might expect to find are not on the list. While "China" is mentioned, the term is written in English. However, considering the tensions between Tibet and China, for instance --- ?????? --- "China" in Tibetan --- should be monitored closer than the thousands of people retweeting a post about the country, or mentioning their seemingly unimportant vacation plans.
Twitter has 140 million users and more than 340 million daily tweets. If Twitter is the only social network monitored by Homeland Security --- though it likely isn't --- the unit must use vast amounts of data processing power to monitor millions of tweets that flag up certain keywords.
It likely has more data-sifting capabilities than those Twitter leverages for its own analytics.
What the government then does with the data again is unclear. Though, we can all but bet it doesn't print it out and stick it on the communal refrigerator for everyone else to see the good hard work of the junior staff.
As per an Associated Press report in November, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) now monitors more than five million tweets a day with the capability to monitor both Facebook and Twitter.
Sister site CNET reported last week that the FBI has formed a new unit tasked with developing new electronic surveillance technologies, such as the ability to intercept Web, wireless, and VoIP traffic. It adds yet another U.S. government department --- including the CIA, the NSA, and Homeland Security --- with the ability to monitoring online activity.
From the few media reports that have covered the story, already the retweets and the combination of words have flooded the microblogging site rendering the document vastly useless.
It's unclear how a "flagged" social media update then connects to an action. It's unlikely that a seemingly inane tweet will lead to a teenager's basement front door will get busted in an armed FBI raid. Although, the chances are the flags at Langley are going crazy with today's tweets.
According to a Homeland Security spokesperson, speaking to the Huffington Post: "DHS will review the language contained in all materials to clearly and accurately convey the parameters and intention of the program."
Related: |
The election of Donald Trump has inspired Chelsea Handler to re-think her political affiliation.
The outspoken comedian sat down with Variety hours after leading the Women’s March at the Sundance Film Festival on Saturday in Park City, Utah, for a wide-ranging interview, discussing everything from Trump to women’s rights to two-party politics.
Handler revealed that after the results of the 2016 election, she no longer considers herself a Democrat.
“Divisiveness is not the answer, and I think to get that message, we have to reach across party lines,” Handler said. “Forget your party. I’m registering as an independent. I’m not going to be a Democrat anymore because it’s too divisive. This isn’t working, this two-party system.”
Speaking with Variety's Elizabeth Wagmeister, Handler said that Trump’s victory influenced her immensely, causing her to have an agenda of educating herself and other people about politics, voting and human rights.
Handler’s biggest concern under Trump’s administration is racism, she says. And then reproductive issues.
“No one has any right to tell us what to do with our bodies. That is not okay. You get off of your religious bullsh-t soapbox. I am my own person. No man gets to tell me what I get to do with my body. No one. Not your husband, not your politician. Why would somebody I don’t know tell me what I can do? This is America. So that is a real issue,” she said. “Planned Parenthood helps so many women and men.”
When asked if she would ever interview Trump on her Netflix show, she bluntly said, “No.”
How about Melania Trump?
“No,” Handler said. “Melania? To talk about what? She can barely speak English.”
Though she does not want the president to come onto her show as a guest, Handler was asked what she would say to Trump if he were in her presence.
“F–k off. F–k off,” Handler said. “Gross. He is the grossest. Physically, emotionally, mentally. Those statues they made of him were accurate. I bet you that is what he looks like naked with a little grape in between his legs.”
Elaborating on the Trumps, Handler said, “I don’t respect either one of those people.”
Someone she does respect is Hillary Clinton. “It’s so shameful what’s transpired because because we had the most qualified candidate in history against the least qualified candidate in history, and then we had Russia interfering with our election,” Handler said. “There’s like a war. This is kind of war.” |
Dynamo goalkeeper Joe Willis rehabbing knee injury
There is a chance the Dynamo will play their regular season opener without a player who had a strong likelihood of making the starting XI.
Goalkeeper Joe Willis is recovering from a minor knee injury and has missed training this week in Houston. Willis also was not listed on the roster for the Dynamo's preseason finale in Arizona on Saturday.
"Joe in practice did a movement and his knee is a little bit in pain," coach Wilmer Cabrera said. "A couple of days he is going to try to get back. He is already running and everything."
Willis started 24 games last season in relief of Tyler Deric. Deric, the supposed starter last year, was injured when the 2016 season began and was sent off in two games upon returning before getting injured again.
It is unclear who Cabrera would pick as his starter if Deric and Willis are both healthy, though early preseason lineups suggested that Willis might be at the top of the depth chart.
In other goalkeeper news, the Dynamo have given permission to 2017 SuperDraft pick Jake McGuire to trial with the Philadelphia Union.
Houston Dynamo goalkeeper Joe Willis (31) reacts after the second goal was scored during the second half of action between the Houston Dynamo and the New York City FC during an MLS soccer game at BBVA Compass, Friday, September 30, 2016, in Houston. New York City FC defeated Houston Dynamo 2-0. (Juan DeLeon/Houston Chronicle ) less Houston Dynamo goalkeeper Joe Willis (31) reacts after the second goal was scored during the second half of action between the Houston Dynamo and the New York City FC during an MLS soccer game at BBVA Compass, ... more Photo: Juan DeLeon, For The Chronicle Photo: Juan DeLeon, For The Chronicle Image 1 of / 7 Caption Close Dynamo goalkeeper Joe Willis rehabbing knee injury 1 / 7 Back to Gallery
McGuire expressed interest in trying to earn an MLS contract immediately rather than waiting his turn with the Dynamo organization. Houston has three goalkeepers on MLS contracts.
The likelihood McGuire would make the first team with the Dynamo is slim, meaning he would be offered a USL contract and be one of the top goalkeepers with Rio Grande Valley FC.
The Dynamo still own McGuire's rights, but a team source said if he gets an MLS contract offer from Philadelphia they are likely to release him rather than seeking compensation. |
1 = Lady Gaga & Bradley Cooper - Shallow
2 = Lady Gaga - Always Remember Us This Way
3 = P!nk - Walk Me Home
4 +1 Post Malone & Swae Lee - Sunflower (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse)
5 +1 Ariana Grande - 7 rings
6 -2 Lady Gaga - I'll Never Love Again (Extended Version)
7 +2 Lauren Daigle - You Say
8 -1 Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody
9 +4 Ava Max - Sweet but Psycho
10 -2 Lady Gaga & Bradley Cooper - Shallow
11 -1 John Mayer - I Guess I Just Feel Like
12 = Halsey - Without Me
13 +2 Post Malone - Wow.
14 +3 Cardi B & Bruno Mars - Please Me
15 -4 Lady Gaga & Bradley Cooper - I'll Never Love Again (Film Version)
16 +5 Sam Smith & Normani - Dancing with a Stranger
17 +3 Luke Combs - Beautiful Crazy
18 +1 Panic! At the Disco - High Hopes
19 -3 Queen - We Will Rock You
20 +13 J. Cole - MIDDLE CHILD
21 +1 Marshmello & Bastille - Happier
22 -8 Bradley Cooper - Maybe It's Time
23 +2 Ariana Grande - break up with your girlfriend, i'm bored
24 -6 Queen - Don't Stop Me Now
25 -1 Queen - Radio Ga Ga
26 = Rob Thomas - One Less Day (Dying Young)
27 -4 Queen - We Are the Champions
28 +1 benny blanco, Halsey & Khalid - Eastside
29 +2 Dean Lewis - Be Alright
30 -2 Queen - Somebody to Love
31 -1 Queen - Another One Bites the Dust
32 +2 Khalid - Better
33 +5 Maren Morris - The Bones
34 -7 Pentatonix - The Sound of Silence
35 = Blueface - Thotiana (Remix) [feat. Cardi B & YG]
36 +12 YNW Melly - Murder on My Mind
37 +8 Mark Ronson - Nothing Breaks Like a Heart (feat. Miley Cyrus)
38 +1 Dan + Shay - Speechless
39 -7 Adam Lambert - Feel Something
40 -3 Queen & David Bowie - Under Pressure
41 +3 Dan + Shay - Tequila
42 +10 Lee Brice - Rumor
43 +17 Kacey Musgraves - Rainbow
44 -4 Travis Scott - SICKO MODE
45 -9 Lady Gaga - Is That Alright?
46 +15 Imagine Dragons - Bad Liar
47 +4 Kelsea Ballerini - Miss Me More
48 +1 Cardi B - Money
49 -8 Imagine Dragons - Natural
50 +20 Lady Gaga - Million Reasons
51 -9 Brett Young - Here Tonight
52 +6 Kane Brown - Good As You
53 +3 Morgan Wallen - Whiskey Glasses
54 -11 Billie Eilish - bury a friend
55 -9 Ariana Grande - thank u, next
56 -2 P!nk - A Million Dreams
57 +5 Blueface - Thotiana
58 -1 Florida Georgia Line - Talk You Out of It
59 -9 Jake Owen - Down to the Honkytonk
60 -13 Lukas Graham - Love Someone
61 +5 Meek Mill - Going Bad (feat. Drake)
62 +17 Chase Rice - Eyes On You
63 +2 Maroon 5 - Girls Like You (feat. Cardi B)
64 +12 for KING & COUNTRY - God Only Knows
65 -12 YUNGBLUD & Halsey - 11 Minutes (feat. Travis Barker)
66 -7 Queen - Killer Queen
67 -12 Queen - Fat Bottomed Girls (Single Version)
68 +1 Camila Cabello - Havana (feat. Young Thug)
69 -5 Ed Sheeran - Perfect
70 -7 James Bay - Peer Pressure (feat. Julia Michaels)
71 +1 Chris Stapleton - Millionaire
72 -1 Chris Stapleton - Tennessee Whiskey
73 +48 Jimmie Allen & Abby Anderson - Shallow
74 +10 Ellie Goulding, Diplo & Swae Lee - Close to Me
75 +5 George Ezra - Shotgun
76 +2 21 Savage - a lot
77 +11 Daddy Yankee - Con Calma (feat. Snow)
78 -1 Cardi B, Bad Bunny & J Balvin - I Like It
79 -6 Imagine Dragons - Thunder
80 +16 Gabby Barrett - I Hope
81 +1 Queen - Crazy Little Thing Called Love
82 -8 Queen - Love of My Life
83 +3 Ariana Grande - 7 rings
84 +11 Khalid - Talk
85 -18 Offset - Clout (feat. Cardi B)
86 -3 5 Seconds of Summer - Youngblood
87 NEW I Prevail - Bow Down
88 +20 Bebe Rexha & Florida Georgia Line - Meant to Be
89 -8 Post Malone - Better Now
90 +11 Luke Bryan - What Makes You Country
91 +3 DJ Snake - Taki Taki (feat. Selena Gomez, Ozuna & Cardi B)
92 -24 Bradley Cooper - Black Eyes
93 +4 Martin Garrix - No Sleep (feat. Bonn)
94 -9 Halsey - Without Me
95 -6 Luke Combs - She Got the Best of Me
96 +15 Juice WRLD - Robbery
97 +1 The Chainsmokers - This Feeling (feat. Kelsea Ballerini)
98 +11 Lauren Daigle - Look Up Child
99 +8 Bad Bunny - MIA (feat. Drake)
100 -13 Old Dominion - Make It Sweet
101 -26 Lady Gaga - Always Remember Us This Way
102 -10 Queen - You're My Best Friend
103 -12 Offset - Legacy (feat. Travis Scott & 21 Savage)
104 NEW Gwen Stefani - Cool
105 -12 Imagine Dragons - Believer
106 -7 Scotty McCreery - This Is It
107 +637 Charlie Puth - Attention
108 -5 Cody Johnson - On My Way to You
109 NEW Cash and Maverick - Young & Broken
110 -4 Kehlani - Feels
111 +2 Lil Baby & Gunna - Drip Too Hard
112 -22 Emily Blunt - The Place Where Lost Things Go
113 +5 Queen - I Want to Break Free (Single Remix)
114 +10 Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody
115 -3 Jason Aldean - Girl Like You
116 +197 John Legend - All of Me
117 +49 Lady Gaga & Bradley Cooper - Music to My Eyes
118 -18 H.E.R. - Hard Place
119 -15 Imagine Dragons - Whatever It Takes
120 +12 A Boogie wit da Hoodie - Look Back at It
121 -4 Jon Pardi - Night Shift
122 = Loud Luxury - Body (feat. brando)
123 -7 Pinkfong - Baby Shark
124 -5 Disturbed - The Sound of Silence
125 +10 Keala Settle & The Greatest Showman Ensemble - This Is Me
126 +26 Bebe Rexha - Last Hurrah
127 +13 The Chainsmokers & 5 Seconds of Summer - Who Do You Love
128 +2 Jordan Davis - Take It From Me
129 -15 Tiffany - I Think We're Alone Now
130 -28 Sam Smith - How Will I Know
131 -3 Post Malone - Wow.
132 -12 Marc Anthony - Tu Vida en la Mía
133 -6 Ariana Grande - 7 rings
134 -1 Bethel Music, Jonathan David Helser & Melissa Helser - Raise a Hallelujah (Live)
135 -25 Gillian Welch & David Rawlings - When a Cowboy Trades His Spurs For Wings
136 +24 Backstreet Boys - No Place
137 +37 Lady Gaga - Look What I Found
138 -33 Mötley Crüe - The Dirt (Est. 1981) [feat. Machine Gun Kelly]
139 -13 Sheck Wes - Mo Bamba
140 +13 Lil Peep & iLoveMakonnen - I've Been Waiting (feat. Fall Out Boy)
141 +18 Maren Morris - GIRL
142 -17 Gesaffelstein & The Weeknd - Lost in the Fire
143 -1 Kane Brown - Heaven
144 +14 FLETCHER - Undrunk
145 -30 Jennifer Nettles - I Can Do Hard Things
146 -9 Pedro Capó & Farruko - Calma (Remix)
147 -13 Khalid & Kane Brown - Saturday Nights REMIX
148 -25 Offset - Quarter Milli (feat. Gucci Mane)
149 +5 YK Osiris - Worth It
150 +11 Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody (2011 Remaster)
151 +22 Mustard & Migos - Pure Water
152 -14 Queen - Hammer to Fall (Single Version)
153 +14 Ariana Grande - breathin
154 -11 Billie Eilish & Khalid - lovely
155 +17 Dean Lewis - Be Alright
156 -1 City Girls - Twerk (feat. Cardi B)
157 -1 Gucci Mane, Bruno Mars & Kodak Black - Wake Up in the Sky
158 +11 Alec Benjamin - Let Me Down Slowly
159 -30 Post Malone - rockstar (feat. 21 Savage)
160 +5 Queen - I Want It All (Single Version)
161 -15 John Denver - Take Me Home, Country Roads
162 -31 Marshmello - Alone
163 -15 Kodak Black - ZEZE (feat. Travis Scott & Offset)
164 +21 Queen - We Are the Champions
165 NEW Lady Gaga & Bradley Cooper - I Don't Know What Love Is
166 +27 Bradley Cooper - Out of Time
167 -5 Billie Eilish - when the party's over
168 +45 BTS - Epilogue: Young Forever
169 -5 Queen - We Will Rock You
170 -31 Justin Timberlake - CAN'T STOP THE FEELING!
171 +37 Post Malone, Swae Lee, Nicky Jam & Prince Royce - Sunflower (Remix)
172 -9 Midland - Burn Out
173 -24 Judah & The Lion - pictures (feat. Kacey Musgraves)
174 -23 Thomas Rhett - Sixteen
175 -30 Pardison Fontaine - Backin' It Up (feat. Cardi B)
176 NEW Bradley Cooper - Alibi
177 +1 Riley Green - There Was This Girl
178 +2 Chris Stapleton - Broken Halos
179 -43 Dillon Francis - Catchy Song (feat. T-Pain & That Girl Lay Lay)
180 +22 Avril Lavigne - Head Above Water
181 NEW Dobie Gray - Drift Away
182 +25 Ed Sheeran - Thinking Out Loud
183 -26 Florida Georgia Line - Simple
184 -16 AJR - Burn the House Down
185 -38 Travis Scott - SICKO MODE
186 +18 Lady Gaga - Poker Face
187 -37 Dierks Bentley - Burning Man (feat. Brothers Osborne)
188 +13 Chris Lane - I Don't Know About You
189 +7 Queen - Radio Ga Ga (Live Aid)
190 +15 Queen - Who Wants to Live Forever
191 +1 flora cash - You're Somebody Else
192 -48 Zedd, Maren Morris & Grey - The Middle
193 -6 Bad Wolves - Zombie
194 -5 Young the Giant - Superposition
195 -54 Cornelius Brothers & Sister Rose - Too Late to Turn Back Now
196 -10 twenty one pilots - Chlorine
197 +1 Loren Allred - Never Enough
198 -19 Lil Pump - Be Like Me (feat. Lil Wayne)
199 -4 lovelytheband - Broken |
Yokohama BayStars manager Alex Ramirez is fond of saying that it’s not how you start, but how you finish. It’s one of his most well-worn axioms actually.
The second-year skipper can give his favorite saying a few more spins this season, because his BayStars aren’t finished in 2017 quite yet. After walloping the Hiroshima Carp 9-3 in Game 5 of the Central League Climax Series Final Stage on Tuesday, wrapping up an improbable 4-2 series victory with four straight wins, Ramirez’s BayStars are headed to the Japan Series for a date with the Pacific League’s Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks.
Yokohama is the first third-place team in CL history to win the Climax Series, which the league co-opted from the PL in 2007.
“We never put our heads down,” Ramirez said during the team’s victory news conference after Game 5. “Even though we lost the first game, we were down 2-0, we kept fighting. Our fighting spirit was always there.”
The BayStars haven’t tasted this type of success since manager Hiroshi Gondo’s “Machine Gun Dasen” helped win the Japan Series in 1998. Yokohama being back in the title series is a remarkable feat for a team that went from 2002 until this year without a winning season, and had 10 last-place finishes during that span.
“We’re very happy to be able to win this year,” Ramirez said. “We have a very young team, but they have very good heart for the game. That’s the reason we were able to win. I’d like to say thanks to the organization for believing in us.”
Yokohama’s turnaround was years in the making, the result of playing the long game on two fronts over several seasons. The foundation stretches back to just before the 2012 season, when DeNA Co., Ltd., an IT company, took control of the team from Tokyo Broadcasting System.
Led by former team president Jun Ikeda, the front office immediately put in motion an aggressive, ambitious, and ultimately successful plan to lure fans back to Yokohama Stadium through various forms of fan service. The BayStars had an average attendance of 27,880 this season. The figure was 26,933 last season and just 15,308 in 2011.
Once the fans were back, the club focused on giving them a reason to stay by improving the product on the field. In concert with general manager Shigeru Takada, who was the GM for the 2006 and 2007 Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters teams that won two PL pennants and the 2006 Japan Series, the BayStars put together a team they hoped would one day be successful. After four seasons (2012-2015) of Kiyoshi Nakahata managing the team, the BayStars turned to Ramirez to finish the job.
On Wednesday night, everything came to a head. Ikeda’s work shone in the 23,910 fans (according to Nikkan Sports) who poured into Yokohama Stadium for a public viewing of Game 5, and the team itself gave them plenty to cheer about.
“I think this is what the fans have been waiting on the most,” said slugger Yoshitomo Tsutsugo. “Because of that, I want to try my best to finish on top.”
Past star players such as Seiichi Uchikawa and Shuichi Murata had to leave Yokohama to find success. Uchikawa joined the Hawks in 2011 and has won three Japan Series crowns in Fukuoka, and will return to Yokohama as the SoftBank captain during the Japan Series. Murata bolted in 2012 and won with the Yomiuri Giants that same season.
Yokohama’s current stars don’t have to go anywhere for their shot at glory. Tsutsugo, who hit a pair of home runs in Game 5, Jose Lopez, the final stage MVP, Takayuki Kajitani and the rest can win it for themselves right where they are.
The BayStars still have work to do to become a consistent force in the CL. This trip to the Japan Series is actually probably a little ahead of schedule for the third-place club, evidenced by the 14½-game gap between them and the Carp in the final league standings.
There is still work to do this year, but as the team sprayed beer on each other in Hiroshima late Tuesday night, the finish line looked closer than ever. |
What could be more fun? An articulate and very smart young man our Washington mandarins deride as a "twenty-something high school dropout" has the US national security establishment, the Washington punditocracy, and the President himself in a panicky lather. Government officials are howling with outrage, and calling for Edward Snowden’s head. The pundits are livid: how dare this "narcissist" who didn’t go to an Ivy League college presume to sit in judgment of his betters! Whatever their disagreements, politicians and talking heads of the left and the right agree: Snowden is a "traitor"!
Their big problem, however, is that the American people think he did the right thing: a Time poll says 54 percent approve. Snowden may be the most hated man in Washington, but out here in the cornfields he’s a hero. You can manipulate polls by injecting subtle bias into the way the question is worded – this explains, I think, why other polls say the majority are in favor of his prosecution – but the unmistakable reality is that Americans are not yet so corrupted that they will sit still for wearing shackles. After more than a decade of constant fear-mongering propaganda, their attachment to the Constitution has not been broken – although perhaps it is more accurate to say their basic distrust of anything coming out of Washington, D.C., is unabated. The White House petition to pardon Snowden garnered 80,000 signatures in less than a week: as I write, it is fast approaching 85,000.
But the Washington know-it-alls have a solution to this dilemma –and, for them, it is indeed a dilemma: keep everything secret. So that even the law is itself a secret – or, at least, the government’s interpretation of it is kept under lock and key. Everything else about the mechanics of our emerging police state is also a secret: the internet companies forced to turn over their customers’ private accounts to government snoops are forbidden by law from saying anything about their interactions with Washington. They cannot tell a customer "The government forced us to turn over your records." If they choose to fight in court, they cannot publicize their fight. It is a mugging that happens in the dark – the familiar modus operandi of all criminals.
The very court order giving the government carte blanche to monitor all the communications of Verizon – and, now we learn, of all major internet and phone service providers – was top secret classified information. Indeed, this is among the gravest of Snowden’s alleged "crimes" – leaking this Top Secret document, which is nothing more than a perfunctory court order, of the sort that are routinely public in any free society. This document was deemed so sensitive that only a very few High Muckamucks were given access to it – which has fueled speculation Snowden may have had help from someone higher up on the Soviet totem pole, perhaps some Lieutenant Commissar somewhere in the bowels of the NSA who had a pang of conscience….
We are told that the reason for all this secrecy is that we don’t want to let the "terrorists" in on how we’re tracking and fighting them. But the reality is that Al Qaeda and likeminded groups are already aware we’re tracking them – though, on 9/11, it appeared they were tracking us, as Bill Safire pointed out in one of his last columns for the New York Times:
"A threatening message received by the Secret Service was relayed to the agents with the president that ‘Air Force One is next.’ According to the high official, American code words were used showing a knowledge of procedures that made the threat credible.”
Safire swore this was told to him by Karl Rove, who said the President was going back to Washington until the Secret Service “informed him that the threat contained language that was evidence that the terrorists had knowledge of his procedures and whereabouts." As Safire put it:
“That knowledge of code words and presidential whereabouts and possession of secret procedures indicates that the terrorists may have a mole in the White House – that, or informants in the Secret Service, FBI, FAA, or CIA.”
Safire later disavowed this story, but I believed him the first time, and still do. Yet this knowledge went down the Memory Hole, along with Safire himself, and no one talks about it anymore – and the NSA sure isn’t talking. We still don’t know all the important facts about the catalyst for the all-pervasive surveillance our "war on terror" has conjured into being, let alone the invasions we’ve launched in its name. The Panopticon uncovered by Snowden is not some recent invention: it was born before the Bush administration – remember "Echelon"? – and has metastasized ever since.
It started under Bill Clinton, but in the post-9/11 atmosphere the tentacles of the Surveillance State grew like kudzu. For twelve years, the US government has been fighting a nameless enemy – it’s gone far beyond just Al Qaeda – using methods it refuses to reveal, but the events of the past few weeks have thrown back the curtain on the true nature of that struggle. Washington is waging war on those they consider the real enemy – the American people.
Why else would they vacuum up all the phone calls made in this country, and store them away for future reference? Why would they create a huge surveillance apparatus that employs tens of thousands of people and deploys sophisticated technologies on solving the "problem" of how to keep track of the movements, thoughts, and opinions of millions of Americans? And why would they keep the law itself – or, at least, their twisted "interpretation" of it – a state secret? This is the ultimate in authoritarianism – a secret law that you don’t even know you’re breaking (how can you know when it’s a secret?).
The Soviet empire is dead: only the ruins persist. Yet the system Lenin and his successors created lives on right here in America. "If you see something," says Big Sis, "say something." The KGB would’ve agreed wholeheartedly. So, you object to the government scooping up your phone calls and emails – what do you have to hide, comrade? Left-wing commentators, from Mother Jones to Talking Points Memo, are sliming Snowden like Pravda once slimed dissidents. Pro-government media are playing down the Snowden revelations – poor Rachel Maddow has to get really really creative in order to think up other stuff to cover – and Washington is just as united against Snowden as Moscow, circa 1930, was against "Trotskyite wreckers." And then there’s this – the nagging suspicion that the former "community organizer" who sounds so reasonable, so intelligent, so positively Stevie Wonder-ish, is really an aspiring tyrant in the guise of an American President.
Such suspicions have previously been confined to the outer reaches of the political spectrum, where the Obama-is-a-secret-Muslim crowd hangs out. And, yes, we’ve already heard all about the Bill Ayers-wrote-his-books theory, and the other crap the neocons have been handing out to their easily indoctrinated followers in the official "conservative" movement. With the Snowden revelations, however, which show how the President – who campaigned in 2008 as a civil libertarian crusader – ratcheted up the Surveillance State into a smoothly humming Panopticon, the real face of Barack Hussein (yes, Hussein) Obama is revealed to the world.
And it isn’t pretty.
President Obama nationalized the auto and healthcare industries in his first term, to the applause of our pro-government "progressives": now we learn he secretly nationalized the nation’s biggest internet service providers right under our noses, forcing them into the role of snoops – and the cheers from his progressive amen corner are deafening. Like Winston Smith at the end of George Orwell’s classic novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, they have suddenly discovered that they love Big Brother.
There are notable exceptions, which only prove the rule: Glenn Greenwald, the reporter and columnist who broke this story, and who exemplifies the old-fashioned liberal in the tradition of Randolph Bourne and Oswald Garrison Villard, has come under relentless attack from the all-too-familiar left-wing defenders of the Regime. And speaking of regime defenders: Chris Hayes has expressed some reservations, but lately taken to simply avoiding the topic of Snowden. Maddow has dropped all mention of it from her show (and these people wonder why their ratings are tanking). Good old Nat Hentoff is horrified, but since he came out, so to speak, as pro-life, liberals have given themselves a good reason not to listen to him anymore. Over at Fox, there is outright editorial dissonance, with commentators visibly torn between their kneejerk inclination to bash the President and their reflexively authoritarian-neoconservative instincts whenever "national security" is supposedly involved.
Is it, though? Some high mucka-muck recently testified before Congress that no less than fifty terrorist attacks worldwide were prevented due to the all-seeing Eye of Sauron the NSA, and yet every time they get specific it turns out the case they point to could have been broken without this supposedly invaluable aid.
Think of it this way: our government has set up a system whereby an "analyst" can key in the right code and call up all your emails, all your phone calls, all the locations you’ve visited – and with whom – as far back as you care you imagine. Are we really supposed to believe they have done this in order to fight scattered bands of "terrorists" hiding out in caves somewhere in the mountains of Shitholistan?
If you believe that, you deserve to live in a Soviet America, comrade. Because that’s just where you’re headed.
NOTES IN THE MARGIN
So Andrew Sullivan has disappeared behind a pay wall, never to be seen or heard from again. There’s a lesson or two in there somewhere.
That was a tweet, actually, which I thought good enough to include as an addendum to this column. I’ll often tweet column ideas before they’re written – or, in this case, as I write – and you can check out my Twitter feed by going here. But please note that my tweets are sometimes deliberately provocative, often made in jest, and largely consist of me thinking out loud.
I’ve written a couple of books, which you might want to peruse. Here is the link for buying the second edition of my 1993 book, Reclaiming the American Right: The Lost Legacy of the Conservative Movement, with an Introduction by Prof. George W. Carey, a Foreword by Patrick J. Buchanan, and critical essays by Scott Richert and David Gordon (ISI Books, 2008).
You can buy An Enemy of the State: The Life of Murray N. Rothbard (Prometheus Books, 2000), my biography of the great libertarian thinker, here.
Read more by Justin Raimondo |
CLOSE Aaron Nagler speaks with Michael Cohen of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel about the decision by the Green Bay Packers to place quarterback Aaron Rodgers back on injured reserve. USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin
Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers (12) on the sidelines against the Baltimore Ravens Sunday, November 19, 2017 at Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wis. (Photo: Jim Matthews/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wi)
GREEN BAY - A day after learning they would miss the postseason for the first time since 2008, the Green Bay Packers were shut out of the Pro Bowl on Tuesday for the first time since 2013.
Defensive tackle Mike Daniels and fullback Aaron Ripkowski were selected as first alternates. Additional alternates were receiver Davante Adams, left tackle David Bakhtiari, outside linebacker Clay Matthews and rookie punter Justin Vogel.
A year ago, the Packers had four Pro Bowl selections: Bakhtiari, quarterback Aaron Rodgers, since-departed guard T.J. Lang and safety Ha Ha Clinton-Dix.
Rodgers' chances of being chosen for a fourth straight season were torpedoed when he suffering a broken right collarbone Oct. 15 at Minnesota. He missed seven games and was put back on injured reserve Tuesday after playing in Sunday's 31-24 loss at Carolina
The Packers are 7-7. The only other NFC team to have no players selected was the Chicago Bears (4-10). Three teams were shut out in the AFC (Jets, Colts, Browns). |
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