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LeBron James was ejected for the first time in his illustrious career on Tuesday night, tossed in the third quarter of Cleveland’s 108-97 win over the Miami Heat after becoming incensed at not getting a foul called on a drive to the basket.
Kevin Love scored 32 of his 38 points in the first half and James added 21 as the Cavaliers extended their winning streak to nine.
With the Cavs leading by 23, James, who had attempted just one free throw at that point, drove the length of the floor and drew contact from Miami’s James Johnson and Dion Waiters. When he didn’t hear a whistle, James screamed and gestured toward referee Kane Fitzgerald, who quickly called a technical and pointed for the three-time champion to leave the floor.
How LaVar Ball usurped Donald Trump as the world's undisputed troll-in-chief Read more
It was the first time James had been thrown out in 1,082 career NBA games, and he said it was a first since he started playing basketball as a boy in Akron.
Cavs Sports Talk 🏀 (@CavsSportsTalk) 1st ejection of LeBron James' Career #Cavs
pic.twitter.com/wBQvKAj2z0
“On that particular play I got fouled all the way up the court, from the time that I stripped him [Johnson] all the way until I got to the rim, and so that’s what it’s about,” James said. “I said what I had to say and I moved on, but he [Fitzgerald] thought that I should get two of them, so it is ... we got the win and that’s most important.”
James has long complained about not getting calls near the basket, and hinted that his eruption may have been caused by pent-up frustration. “I’m one of the league leaders in points in the paint,” he said. “I drive just as much as anybody. At this point, it’s almost like they’re trying to turn me into a jump shooter. I can’t be a jump shooter. I’m not a jump shooter. I watch games every single night and I see jump shooters going to the line multiple, double-digit times every night.
“I’m not a jump shooter and I get fouled just as much as everybody else, so it’s going to the line one time, three times or four times, that’s not what it’s about.”
Fitzgerald said he couldn’t let James’ actions go unpunished. “It was a culmination of a couple different acts,” he told a pool reporter. “Immediately after the no-call, he turned and threw an air punch directly at me and then he aggressively charged at me and then he used vulgarity in my ear a few times.”
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Kevin Love scored 38 points in the Cavaliers’ win. Photograph: Tony Dejak/AP
Love had his way with every defender Miami put on him, finishing 10 of 16 from the field and 14 of 17 on free throws. He scored 22 in the first quarter and the Cavs opened a 27-point lead before halftime. Dwyane Wade added 17 points for Cleveland, who have shaken off a slow start and are again playing like the team to beat in the Eastern Conference.
Wade said he has seen James angry before. “I just ain’t never seen him get ejected,” Wade said. “But I’ve definitely seen him that mad before. He only got one ejection 15 years, that’s pretty good.”
Waiters scored 21 and Bam Adebayo had 19 for the Heat, who had won three in a row. Goran Dragic finished with just seven points 12 below his team-leading scoring average.
The Heat closed to 93-76 early in the fourth, but Wade scored six straight points and fed Kyle Korver for a three-pointer to give Cleveland a 102-79 lead.
“Felt that I needed to do something to help this team keep our lead,” Wade said. “Just got in an aggressive mindset, got a couple shots to fall and had a nice assist to Kyle for a long three-ball.” |
Just a few moments ago (September 19, 2016), Canonical published several security advisories to inform the Ubuntu Linux community about the availability of new Linux kernel updates for all supported Ubuntu releases.
According to Ubuntu Security Notice USN-3084-1, three security flaws are affecting the Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus) operating system and later versions, as well as any derivative. The first one is a race condition in Linux kernel's audit subsystems, which could allow a local attacker to interrupt system-call auditing or damage the audit logs.
The second security issue is related to Linux kernel's KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine) hypervisor implementation, which didn't work correctly on PPC64 (PowerPC 64-bit) and PowerPC (PPC) platforms, thus allowing an unprivileged attacker to cause a CPU lockup in the host operating system.
Lastly, Ubuntu 16.04 LTS was affected by a race condition in Linux kernel's Chrome OS embedded controller device driver, which would have allowed a local attacker to crash the system by causing a denial of service (DoS). This issue was discovered by Pengfei Wang.
Security issues affecting Ubuntu 14.04 LTS and Ubuntu 12.04 LTS
If you're using the Ubuntu 14.04 LTS (Trusty Tahr) operating system or later versions, as well as any of its derivatives, you should know that the new kernel update patches a security flaw discovered by Dmitry Vyukov in the IPv6 implementation, which could allow a local attacker to crash the system or execute malicious code.
The second security flaw affecting Ubuntu 14.04 LTS users is a race condition in Linux kernel's SCTP implementation, which didn't properly handle heartbeat-timeout events, thus allowing a remote attacker to cause a denial of service. Finally, only a single security issue affects Ubuntu 12.04 LTS (Precise Pangolin) users.
If you're using any of the Ubuntu operating systems mentioned above, you need to update to the new kernel versions, which are linux-image-4.4.0-38 (4.4.0-38.57) for Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, linux-image-3.13.0-96 (3.13.0-96.143) for Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, and linux-image-3.2.0-110 (3.2.0-110.151) for Ubuntu 12.04 LTS.
Of course, the Trusty HWE kernel has been updated to linux-image-3.13.0-96-generic 3.13.0-96.143~precise1 for Ubuntu 12.04.5 LTS users, and the Xenial HWE kernel to linux-image-4.4.0-38-generic 4.4.0-38.57~14.04.1 for Ubuntu 14.04.5 LTS users. Ubuntu 16.04 LTS for Raspberry Pi 2 was updated to linux-image-4.4.0-1023-raspi2 (4.4.0-1023.29).
To update, simply open the Ubuntu Software or Synaptic Package Manager apps, check for available updates and install them. Be aware that you'll have to reboot your computer for the new kernel version to be correctly installed, and you must rebuild any third-party kernel module you might have installed. More details at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Security/Upgrades. |
Robots, too, can be bad drivers. As the world prepares for the coming future of driverless cars, there are bound to be a few accidents. Launched this summer, a trial of PostBus driverless shuttles in Sion, Switzerland was expected to continue through October 2017. Instead, one of the two shuttles hit a parked van earlier this week, sending the whole trial into a screeching halt.
Test operation momentarily stopped in Sion. Because an autonomous shuttle touched the open tailgate of a parked van in Sion on 21 September 2016, PostBus has decided to interrupt the test operation with the Smart Shuttle for the time being. Nobody got hurt. There was a minor property damage. PostBus and the vehicle manufacturers are continuing to analyse the causes of the incident and take the necessary measures.
The problem echoes that of previous driverless car accidents, where sensors were blind to an unusual circumstance. In February, a Google driverless car was ruled at fault in a crash, as it changed into a lane prematurely and collided with a bus that did not see it signaling. When a Tesla car on autopilot crashed and killed its owner in the United States, it sparked a Federal investigation. The Tesla crash, where the car collided with a trailer crossing the road, was likely because the car’s sensors couldn’t tell the white side of a trailer apart from the blank space of the sky, and failed to stop in time.
So it is with the Swiss shuttle. The slow-moving vehicles (traveling no faster than 12 mph) can carry up to 11 passengers and are monitored remotely. The crash, as it was, appears to be minor, the kind of error that would be wholly unsurprising with a student driver, yet stands out thanks to the technology involved. |
Washington lawmakers latest to join chorus of opposition to bill allowing for indefinite detention of U.S. citizens
Steve Watson
Infowars.com
February 2, 2012
Five Washington state representatives have introduced legislation in an attempt to override provisions the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) of 2012 that would allow for the indefinite detention of American citizens without trial.
Reps. Jason Overstreet, Matt Shea, Vincent Buys, Cary Condotta, and David Taylor introduced HB 2759, the Washington State Preservation of Liberty Act this week.
The legislation slams a provision in the NDAA that allows the U.S. government and the military to “indefinitely detain United States citizens and lawful resident aliens captured within the United States of America without charge until the end of hostilities.”
The controversial legislation, signed into law by Obama on New Years Eve, allows American citizens to be abducted and held in a detention camp anywhere in the world without trial under section 1031.
As reported by the Tenth Amendment Center, the Washington State Preservation of Liberty Act forbids “any state employee, member of the Washington National Guard or any agent of a corporation doing business with the state” to cooperate in the federal detainment or investigation of a U.S. citizen or resident alien.
It also prohibits any state involvement “with an investigation or detainment of a United States citizen or lawful resident alien located within the United States of America by the armed forces of the United States of America.”
The bill puts forth the case that the NDAA is blatantly unconstitutional and legislates for the indefinite detention of U.S. citizens without due process.
The Bill states:
It is indisputable that the threat of terrorism is real, and that the full force of appropriate, and constitutional, law must be used to defeat this threat. However, winning the war against terror cannot come at the great expense of eviscerating the unalienable rights recognized by and protected in the United States Constitution and the Constitution of the state of Washington. Indeed, undermining those constitutional rights serves only to concede to the terrorists’ demands of changing the fabric of what has made the United States of America a republic granting the greatest number of people the greatest amount of liberty, justice, security, opportunity, prosperity, happiness, peace, and good ever known or experienced by humankind throughout the history of the world.
“By taking a stand, Washington can join those heroic state officials who stood up against federal power to protect black citizens in the waning years of slavery.” Michael Maharrey, Communications Director for the Tenth Amendment Center said.
Several other states, including Virginia and Tennessee are also considering legislation to nullify the NDAA provision.
As we have previously noted, although President Obama indicated in a signing statement attached to the bill that he would not use it to indefinitely detain American citizens without trial, it was the Obama administration itself which requested that the provision be worded so it would apply to US citizens.
As the bill’s co-sponsor Senator Carl Levin said during a speech on the floor in December, it was the Obama administration that demanded the removal of language that would have precluded Americans from being subject to indefinite detention.
“The language which precluded the application of Section 1031 to American citizens was in the bill that we originally approved…and the administration asked us to remove the language which says that U.S. citizens and lawful residents would not be subject to this section,” said Levin, Chairman of the Armed Services Committee.
The Tenth Amendment Center has Model Legislation to nullify NDAA available here – we urge readers to contact their state legislators to ask that they introduce this legislation today.
——————————————————————
Steve Watson is the London based writer and editor for Alex Jones’ Infowars.net, and Prisonplanet.com. He has a Masters Degree in International Relations from the School of Politics at The University of Nottingham in England. |
OAKLAND (CBS SF) — It appears there are Warriors fans among the hackers who’ve been messing with electronic roadway signs.
Someone altered the sign at the Fruitvale Ave. and East 9th St. in Oakland.
It read “Go Dubs” and “MVP #30 lives here.” It’s supposed to say “Expect delays…road work ahead.”
Earlier, David DeBolt tweeted a picture of the same soon displaying a message that read “F*** LEBRON.”
“Anyone else see this on Fruitvale at E. 9th St? ‘f—- Lebron.’ Friend of friend posted it. Fixed when I drove by,” DeBolt wrote.
It’s unconfirmed if the sign was actually hacked, or if a photoshopped image was shared on Twitter .
MORE: Warriors NBA Finals Full Coverage
Game 4 of the NBA finals in Cleveland is Thursday night with the Cavaliers leading the Warriors two games to one. Tip off is at 6 p.m. PDT. |
For restaurant and bar workers in downtown St. John's, summer brings a steady stream of customers as people are eager to make the most of the warm, sunny weather. But some women in the service industry say they're also seeing a surge in catcalling and street harassment.
Summer brings life to the businesses in downtown St. John's, but some bartenders say it also brings unwanted behaviour in the form of street harassment. (Regan Burden/CBC) Stacey Seward works as a bartender at Erin's Pub on Water Street and regularly walks home. At least once a week, she said, someone — either walking by or in a passing car — yells or honks at her.
Sometimes, she said, "cars will slow down and circle around you, and come back and be really creepy. And it [has] a very malicious feeling to it."
You don't know what their intentions are — it's instinct to be afraid. - Stacey Seward, bartender
Seward considers herself to be a strong person and said it's important not to live in fear. But, she said, it's hard not to feel vulnerable.
"When you're walking and it's just you, and there's someone in a vehicle and you can't see them — and you don't know what their intentions are — it's instinct to be afraid."
'Sometimes I'll carry rocks in my hand'
Seward said these experiences catch her by surprise — they make her feel powerless and often angry.
"Over the years, sometimes I'll carry rocks in my hand to throw at cars that go by," she said.
Stacey Seward says she sometimes carries rocks while walking home from work at Erin's Pub on Water Street. (CBC)
Seward said she's rarely actually hits a vehicle. The rocks are more her way of lashing out against the street harassment.
"As a woman who's walking home, there are things that you do instinctively without even realizing it," she said.
For instance, Seward doesn't wear headphones at night, and sticks to well-lit areas. She said each summer, the harassment seems to get worse and worse.
Not alone
Bartender Julia Parsons can relate. She told CBC via email that management at Martini Bar on George Street encourages its bouncers to walk female employees to their vehicles after work.
If there are no men working, Parsons said her female coworkers stick together at the end of their shifts, and take turns walking women to their vehicles.
Julia Parsons, a bartender at Martini Bar on George Street, says an older man once followed her to her car. (Julia Parsons/Facebook) One night, Parsons said, a man even followed her to her car, and repeatedly asked if he could go home with her.
"He kept asking if he could come to my house and I said, 'No, my boyfriend is there and I live with my parents.' And he still wouldn't leave me alone," she said.
Parsons was 19 years old at the time and estimates the man was in his late thirties.
She said harassment like this is much worse during the summer months.
Call police
Const. Geoff Higdon of the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary urges anyone feeling harassed to call police "and an investigation will be carried out."
Higdon said that if a passing car makes you feel uncomfortable, it's important to call police and provide them with as much information about the driver and vehicle as possible.
Similarly, anyone who witnesses an incident of street harassment should also contact police. |
The SMM continued to monitor the situation in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions, focusing on the implementation of the Minsk Protocol and Memorandum.
In Kharkiv the SMM was told by representatives of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) that two suspects, both Kharkiv residents, had been arrested as they were allegedly preparing an attack against a district police office in the city. The interlocutors also informed the SMM of a bomb threat, in the early morning of 26 November, in a supermarket located close to the southern railway station. No explosive device was found after the premises were searched by the police.
On 24 November in Luhansk the SMM met the “deputy prime minister” and “minister of healthcare” of the so-called “Lugansk People’s Republic” (“LPR”) with regards to the regional psycho-neurological hospital in Slovyanoserbsk, which the SMM had visited on 23 November (see Daily Report of 24 November). The “deputy prime minister” informed the SMM that he was considering evacuating the hospital to another facility within “LPR”-controlled territory, and asked the SMM for support in facilitating a local ceasefire.
On 26 November the acting director of the Luhansk branch of Oshadbank told the SMM that, as of 24 November, all the Oshadbank operations within “LPR”-controlled territory have ceased. Oshadbank accounts are still available and valid but can only be accessed on government-controlled territory (see also Note to Editors below for background information on Oshadbank)..
On 25 November the SMM visited Perevalsk (44 km west of Luhansk), under “LPR” control. The SMM met two members of a humanitarian organisation who informed the SMM of the worsening situation in the neighbouring town of Alchevsk (44 km west of Luhansk), due to a shortage of food and medicines. The interlocutors said that they believe the situation is caused by an irregular armed group who has control over that area, and is confiscating humanitarian aid directed to Alchevsk. The SMM also met with a representative from “LPR” in Perevalsk, who stated that the entire situation in Alchevsk was out of control and that the “LPR” is reluctant to visit the village.
In the area of Maiorsk (45 km north of Donetsk), whilst stationary at a checkpoint manned by Ukrainian forces near Shumy (50 km north-east of Donetsk) the SMM came under fire from a rocket-propelled grenade and multiple anti-aircraft rounds. There were no injuries or damage sustained in the attack (see Spot Report of 26 November).
In Krasnyi Lyman (110 km north of Donetsk), a government-controlled area, the SMM visited the Centre for Social Services for Family, Children and Youth, which provides assistance to internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the municipality. According to the centre’s records, as of 24 November, there are 7,482 IDPs in the municipality of Krasnyi Lyman including 3,731 pensioners, 301 people with disabilities and 791 children. The interlocutor told the SMM that the numbers of registered IDPs had increased sharply recently culminating in a record 700 registered, pursuant to Cabinet of Ministers’ Resolution No. 509 (“On the registration of internally displaced persons from the temporarily occupied territory of Ukraine and the anti-terrorist operation area”), on 24 November alone.
On the way back to Donetsk city the SMM was stopped at around 15:30 hrs at the “DPR” checkpoint located at H15 Cargill (2 km south-west of Donetsk). The “DPR” commander of the checlpoint asked an SMM monitor to show his passport and asked to inspect more carefully the language assistant traveling with the SMM. The conversation lasted for about 10 minutes, after which the SMM was allowed to proceed.
At the office of the Joint Centre for Control and Co-operation (JCCC) in Krasnohorivka (17 km west of Donetsk city) the SMM met officers of the Ukrainian and Russian General Staffs, who said that workflow, needs and staff have remained the same. The officers also stated that on 25 November they heard shelling several times, which they had reported through their chains of command to their colleagues at the JCCC HQ in Debaltseve.
The SMM then attended a meeting with the deputy mayor of Krasnohorivka, members of the village council and local inhabitants, who discussed with the Ukrainian and Russian JCCC officers the current situation in the town. In order to fix a damaged gas pipeline from Mariinka a ceasefire was needed, the deputy mayor said. Repair of the pipeline was urgently needed to ensure heating, the absence of which had caused schools to close. The Ukrainian and Russian officers said they had raised the issue, through their chains of command, with the JCCC HQ in Debaltseve but so far without result.
On its way to the JCCC office in Shkatarsk (56 km east of Donetsk city) the SMM observed a convoy of 10 unmarked, camouflaged trucks, a mixture of URAL and KAMAZ makes, in the vicinity of Khartzysk, on H21 (28 km west of Donetsk city), moving westwards in the direction of Donetsk city.
In Zaporizhzhia (67 km south of Dnipropetrovsk) the SMM met the head and deputy head of the movement - the “Freedom Movement of the Strength of the Nation” (Vyzvolnyi Rukh Sila Natsiy) - which was created to replace the local branch of the “Right Sector”, after the latter was disbanded by the national “Right Sector” leadership on 9 November. The interlocutors said that the new organization, which maintains the same ideology as the “Right Sector”, would continue the “pro-environmental” actions against the Zaporozhstal industrial plant and other “polluting plants” in Zaporizhzhia.
On 26 November the SMM visited the administrative boundary line (ABL) at Stavki/Kalanchak (85 km south of Kherson) where the Ukrainian crossing point customs inspection and border control facilities had been recently moved one kilometre south-east of its previous location (see Daily Report of 16 November). According to customs representatives, the new location and improved infrastructure allows the Ukrainian customs to process up to 200 trucks per day. The SMM was informed that improvements at the new Ukrainian facilities included two inbound and two outbound lanes and passport and customs control points on both sides of the road.
In Lviv, Chernivtsi, Ivano-Frankivsk and Odessa the situation remained calm.
On 26 November in Kyiv, in front of the building of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the SMM observed a peaceful rally organized by 30 young male and female activists. The demonstrators were commemorating the 25th birthday of an activist arrested by the de facto Crimean authorities in May 2014 along with other pro-Unity and Maidan activists, including Ukrainian director Oleg Sentsov.
Note to Editors
Oshadbank, or State Savings Bank of Ukraine, is a Public Joint-Stock Company that was established by Decree of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine Nr. 866 of 21 May 1999. It has a large number of offices in all regions, and it is the bank used by the State for the payment of pensions and social aid benefits. |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States said on Friday it would not grant a visa to Iran’s proposed U.N. ambassador, citing the envoy’s links to the 1979-1981 hostage crisis, in a rare step that raises questions about how much influence the White House can wield over the world body.
The White House is pictured at sunset in Washington, November 19, 2013. REUTERS/Jason Reed
President Barack Obama had come under strong pressure not to allow Hamid Abutalebi into the country to take up his position in New York, raising concerns that the dispute would disrupt delicate negotiation between Tehran, Washington and other world powers over Iran’s nuclear program.
White House spokesman Jay Carney said the United Nations and Iran had been told “that we will not issue a visa to Mr. Abutalebi.” Neither the White House nor the State Department provided further explanation.
U.S. law allows the government to bar U.N. diplomats who are considered national security threats, but Obama’s potentially precedent-setting step could open the United States to criticism that it is using its position as host nation to improperly exert political influence.
The U.S. government objects to Abutalebi because of his suspected participation in a Muslim student group that seized the embassy in November 1979 and held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days.
The veteran diplomat has acknowledged that he acted as an interpreter for the militants who held the hostages.
Obama’s decision came days after negotiators from Iran, the United States and five other world powers met in Vienna for another round of nuclear talks.
A spokesman for Iran’s mission to the United Nations said the White House decision was unfortunate and may violate international law.
“It is a regrettable decision by the U.S. Administration which is in contravention of international law, the obligation of the host country and the inherent right of sovereign member states to designate their representatives to the United Nations,” spokesman Hamid Babaei said in a statement.
But an Iranian official said he did not expect the dispute to affect the nuclear negotiations.
Any official response would be up to the Iranian Foreign Ministry, but the U.S. decision “will have no impact on our talks with the P5+1,” the official told Reuters.
U.S. officials also said they did not expect any impact.
The United Nations said it had no comment at this time on the U.S. decision.
DANGEROUS PRECEDENTS?
Obama’s decision raised concerns about possible precedents, such as calls from U.S. interest groups for future visas to be denied for political reasons, or retaliation abroad.
“If the U.S. starts to pick and choose who can represent other countries at the UN, other countries are likely to react angrily. How would Washington feel if Switzerland vetoed its choice for American ambassador to the Human Rights Council in Geneva?” said Richard Gowan, an international relations expert at New York University.
After former hostages objected to Abutalebi, members of Congress jumped to pass legislation banning him, seeing the issue as a chance to look tough on Iran after a new sanctions bill stalled in the Senate early this year.
Unusually, the legislation passed unanimously in both chambers of the normally divided Congress this week.
Many members of Congress, even Obama’s fellow Democrats, are deeply skeptical about Iran, despite the administration’s efforts to ease tensions with the long-time U.S. adversary. They had made clear they considered Iran’s selection of Abutalebi as a rebuke of the United States.
“I am grateful that President Obama made the right decision and will deny the visa for this Iranian terrorist,” U.S. Representative Doug Lamborn, a Colorado Republican who sponsored the bill in the House of Representatives, said in a statement.
The White House is still reviewing the legislation, which would bar any U.N. representative deemed to be behind acts of terrorism or espionage against the United States. It would need Obama’s signature to become law. |
Getty Images
Ronde Barber is coming back.
Barber, the Buccaneers cornerback who had been mulling retirement, has decided that he will return for his 16th season in Tampa Bay, Jay Glazer of FOX Sports reports.
Although Barber will turn 37 in a couple weeks and isn’t the same player he once was, the Bucs’ coaching staff and front office made clear that they wanted his veteran presence back as part of a young secondary that may get younger if the Bucs — as many expect them to — use the fifth overall pick in the NFL draft on LSU cornerback Morris Claiborne.
Barber started all 16 games last season, the 12th consecutive season he’s done so, and he has the longest active streak of consecutive starts in the NFL, starting 199 games in a row. |
The Dodgers have acquired outfielder Justin Ruggiano from the Mariners, Ryan Divish of the Seattle Times reports on Twitter. A player to be named later or cash considerations will head back to Seattle in the deal.
Ruggiano, 33, has spent much of the season at Triple-A after a slow start to the year. He agreed to an arbitration salary of just over $2.5MM over the winter (with about $465K left to go on that salary), and will be eligible for another arb year if his new club tenders him a contract.
While Ruggiano failed to match his productive 2014 in the earlygoing, he wasn’t actually that bad, putting up a .214/.321/.357 batting line over 81 plate appearances. And he’s slashed .296/.385/.514 with ten home runs in 205 plate appearances at Triple-A since being outrighted.
Most importantly, even during his MLB time this year, Ruggiano continued to hit lefties hard, as he has throughout his career. He’ll presumably be looked upon as an option against southpaws in Los Angeles. The Dodgers were in need of another right-handed-hitting outfield bat down the stretch after seeing both Yasiel Puig and Kike Hernandez go down to injuries in recent days. |
A Wisconsin judge has rejected the Stein campaign’s reasons for why there should be a hand recount, adding that the request, backed by the Clinton campaign, failed to show a valid reason for doing so. Green Party candidate Jill Stein is hoping to create more drama during this 2016 election cycle by trying to recount the votes in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan. Wisconsin has said they’re moving forward with a recount, but said they would not conduct a hand recount, which prompted Stein to file a lawsuit. Pennsylvania is even worse for Stein’s pie-in-the-sky efforts, as their voter-initiated deadline has passed. Stein will have to challenge the results in court, where she will be forced to present evidence of hacking or voter fraud, the former of which is the catalyst for this recount effort. And herein lies the problem; there is no evidence of hacking. The Obama administration even said there was no suspicious increase in cyber activity that would suggest hacking was being conducted on election night. There is no evidence. Hence, why the judge refused to honor the Stein/Clinton request for a hand recount (via Milwaukee Journal Sentinel):
Dane County Circuit Judge Valerie Bailey-Rihn said the effort to force the hand recount — which was backed by Democrat Hillary Clinton’s campaign — did not meet the state’s legal standard for prohibiting the use of machines in the recount, saying that the two campaigns did not show a hand recount, though more thorough, was necessary or show there was a clear and convincing evidence of fraud or other problems. Bailey-Rihn said there were good reasons to do a hand recount but no legal basis for her to mandate it. "I follow the law. That's who I am despite my personal opinions," said Bailey-Rihn, who was elected to the bench last spring. "It's (the counties’) decision. It's their discretion. I may disagree with it … but I must follow the law." Debbie Greenberger, an attorney for the Stein campaign, said she was uncertain whether their side would appeal but said she hoped county clerks would heed the judge’s praise for a hand recount even though Bailey-Rihn did not mandate it. "We hope the county boards will take the judge's strong statement to heart," Greenberger said.
Stein went on to say that Wisconsin’s voting machines are illegal. Even left leaning Politifact rated that as a “pants on fire” lie. The results are not going to change all that much, perhaps a couple hundred votes lost or gained, but Trump will be the winner of Wisconsin’s recount vote. He won the election. Period. Is this a Clinton campaign-funded operation? No direct evidence to suggest as such, but it’s odd that a) the Clinton campaign hopped on this effort even after they found no evidence of voter fraud, hacking, or any other outside force that would prompt them to file a recount petition on their own; and b) Stein had to know that any votes Trump could lose will benefit Clinton, not her. Stein has raised a lot of cash since this recount effort began. Almost $7 million has been raised, which amounted to more than what she fundraised for her entire presidential campaign. It’s all a little too convenient, which is why the Republican Party of Wisconsin filed an FEC complaint yesterday (via LawNewz):
The Republican Party of Wisconsin filed a complaint with the Federal Elections Commission on Wednesday that alleges Jill Stein is allowing her campaign to be used as a front for Hillary Clinton’s campaign in the recount effort. Stein has denied those allegations. […] “It is concerning that the Stein campaign would position itself to front and fund a recount attempt that only serves the interest of a desperate and defeated Clinton campaign,” the complaint states. “Further, it is incredibly disturbing that given these asymmetrical interests, the Clinton campaign would readily begin organizing around the effort in order to capitalize on the chaos created by this attempt to undermine the integrity of Wisconsin’s elections process.” […] The GOP argues Stein’s actions are essentially a coordinated $3.5 million expenditure on behalf of the Clinton campaign, in excess of the $2,000 amount allowed by federal campaign donations laws.
The Stein campaign has of course denied these allegations. |
Martin Thompson announced the second version of the Reactive Manifesto at Goto Aarhus 2014. This new edition offers subtle differences in both the naming and approaches prescribed by the original document. InfoQ was able to interview Martin shortly after the announcement and discussed the implications of those changes and the future of the reactive community. The React 2014 conference in San Francisco will delve further into the Reactive Manifesto and its implications as well as showcase the experiences of developers who are currently practice its tenets.
InfoQ: The Reactive Manifesto was well received and has gained acceptance in the development community. Why did you see the need for a rewrite?
Martin:After the original manifesto was released we received lots of feedback. Generally it has been really positive as many have begun to appreciate the changing environment of applications development. However some feedback rightly pointed out that the previous versions had been too verbose, and in places focused disproportionally on specifics. We were encouraged to make it more concise and focus on the properties reactive systems should exhibit. "If I had more time I would have written a shorter letter..." definitely applies in this case. Plus wider feedback really helps refine a focus.
InfoQ: Why now?
Martin: People like Kresten Krab Thorup made a strong case for "why now" in the manifesto. He pulled together what others are seeing with his own experience and highlighted that we are in a world where the Internet is the primary, or only, channel to market for many organisations, and he combined this with the confluence of the changes in platform in our multi-core and cloud world.
InfoQ: Did the structure of the manifesto shift? Is it written in a prescriptive instead of descriptive manner?
Martin: We wanted the manifesto to focus purely on why we now need a new mainstream approach to systems architecture, and the key properties these systems are required to offer. As part of the rewrite we wanted to be descriptive about the properties and qualities of a reactive system. The key properties being that a system should be responsive, resilient, and elastic which is fundamentally enabled by being message driven. We do not want to be prescriptive in the manifesto as to how this is achieved. The prescriptive ways in which this can be achieved can be illustrated in an appendix and via wider discussion.
InfoQ: Message Driven vs. Event Driven has subtle implications and expands the definition of what can be considered a reactive system. What drove this change in the name of this concept? Martin: Yes it has subtle but also very important implications. The importance is in how components communicate. Events are an important domain concept. They can be passed directly by function call, or they can encoded and passed in a message. Events are only one of many concepts we might wish to communicate via messages. To achieve the other three properties we wanted to highlight that it is important to have an asynchronous binary boundary. A boundary that can provide decoupling of language, location, concurrency model, and temporal entanglement. This is also the fundamental level of isolation. Given this boundary as a means of isolation it is possible contain a failure. Exceptions should not cross an asynchronous binary boundary. Errors should be passed as messages between components and handled as first class concepts. If we do not get a response from a component then we must suspect it has failed. Memory should not be shared in a mutable fashion between components. Shared mutable state is a major source of contention which prevents scaling in the multi-core world. We need to move to design approaches where we communicate to share memory, rather than share memory to communicate - the old CSP mantra. By isolating components we can avoid contention, amortise expensive costs via batching, and take a shared nothing approach that scales in the multi-core and cloud world. In striving to achieve 100% uptime it is necessary to support hot upgrade. An essential ingredient of hot upgrade is to communicate with version encoded messages between redundant components.
InfoQ: Similarly, Elastic and Scalable are not precise synonyms of each other and their difference can offer many interpretations of how to implement this concept. How does a service exhibit Elasticity in a way that Scalable could not describe? |
Do Schools in Other Countries Recite a Pledge of Allegiance?
It’s been unconstitutional since 1943 to require kids in public schools to recite the pledge of allegiance. At least in the United States. But this hasn’t stopped controversy from erupting just about every year when a teacher or school authority figure gets in trouble for forcing a kid to stand for and/or recite the pledge of allegiance.
Interestingly, the text of the pledge was written by a socialist minister (an oxymoron today, but in the 1800s not so much). Actually, it wasn’t until after the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1943 decision that stated it was unconstitutional to force kids to recite the pledge, that the words “under God” were inserted into the language, apparently as a tool to fight the perceived Communist threat at the time.
A 2004 Supreme Court decision allowed for the god language to remain in the pledge. The American Humanist Association has been suing states to get rid of the god language, but to date has been unsuccessful.
While U.S. court decisions have made it clear that kids are not required to recite the pledge, many schools do it anyway.
But what about other countries? Do schools there also recite some sort of pledge?
It turns out that very few, if any, industrialized countries have such a thing in their schools. A discussion on StraightDope.com show a lot of confusion of what countries do, but one thing seems clear – the U.S. stands alone with this activity.
Or does it?
Kids in North Korea are required pledge their allegiance to their ruler, Kim Jong Un, started at 7 years old. Here’s how the Guardian describes the scene:
Standing in arrow-straight rows, their faces are hardly the picture of happiness as they are forced to pledge their allegiance to North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un and call him ‘father’. Troubling images of them being inducted into an organisation likened to the Hitler Youth emerged as their despot leader pressed ahead with plans to launch a ballistic missile, potentially with nuclear capabilities.
American kids used to salute the sky while saying the pledge, but this stopped when Hitler and Mussolini’s followers did the same thing.
I’m not saying that schools here are the same as in North Korea. Far from it. I’m merely saying that this particular connection is interesting and worth a discussion among school leaders who are tasked with deciding the degree of importance that patriotism warrants in a classroom – and what type of patriotism they are trying to instill.
These questions are increasingly important as the world continues to globalize, and borders continue to disappear or blur. School should be a place to learn, and the line between learning and indoctrination is not clearly defined.
All that said, there is a certain awkward beauty to the American system – we’re free to shout the pledge with all our might, or opt out from reciting the pledge at all. In North Korea, that freedom to choose is non-existent.
(Creative Commons image via Wikimedia.com) |
I hate them doctors. They always talking a bunch of shit like they know so much, always trying to act all big and important, like they a movie star or something. That bitch Dr. Ennis be telling me I got to give Rywanda some stupid medicine when she ain't even sick. Fuck that shit. My baby don't want no medicine.
That pink shit nasty. I tried pouring it over Rywanda's lunch, but it just made the Fruit Loops all soggy, and she wouldn't eat it. Me and my baby got a trustful relationship, so when she tell me she don't want no medicine, I trust her that she got her reason.
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I told Dr. Ennis that Rywanda don't wanna take that medicine, but she don't listen to me. She say I supposed to give it to her anyway. Dr. Ennis say Rywanda supposed to swallow a spoonful of that stank-ass shit every six hours. That means I'm supposed to wake her up at night after she already sleeping. Hell, no.
Dr. Ennis don't know my baby. My baby smart, and when she don't wanna eat something, she tell you. And once she make up her mind that she don't wanna eat something, ain't no making her eat it. If you try, she just scream and cry and go all buckwild on your ass. She ain't gonna take no shit from nobody. I know she got that from me, 'cause I the same way.
That's why I hate it when them fuckin' punk-ass doctors try to tell me how to raise my baby. I don't go to they house and tell them how to raise they baby, do I? No, I don't.
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I think I'm gonna call up and get a different doctor, one at the east-side clinic. At least that way, if I gotta take the bus over there, I'll be near the mall. But whichever clinic I go to, I gotta get rid of Dr. Ennis. I think she might be some kinda pervert, after some of the shit she wanna know about Rywanda. Like how many times Rywanda took a shit last week. Why she gotta know that? That's just nasty.
The only reason I went to see a doctor in the first place is because Debra, that fat old social-worker bitch, got all up in my grill about getting Rywanda some shots. Then, when I go in, they say Rywanda got something in her intestines and that's why her stomach so big. I'm like, her stomach so big 'cause she always eat like a pig! She always crawling up to the refrigerator and sitting there, waiting for me to open it up. Or when I'm drinking a can of Coke, she always grabbing at it until I put some in her bottle for her.
Now, don't you start gettin' all on me like everybody else do. I know babies ain't supposed to drink Coke 'cause it's bad for them. They got to have Kool-Aid or Hi-C or something that ain't got bubbles in it. Anyway, I only give my baby Coke when I run out of the cans of shit I get from Debra. I finally got Debra to stop ridin' my ass about not breast-feeding Rywanda. That's just fucked-up, and I ain't even gonna talk about it.
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I don't even know where Dr. Ennis get off saying Rywanda sick. She sleeping real good lately. Instead of being all, "Mama, mama," she actually sleep when she supposed to. And Rywanda used to just crawl around in front of the TV and not even look at it. But now that she getting older, she smart enough to sit down and watch talk shows with me. Rywanda's over a year old now. Her birthday was in September. I think the 14th.
A couple days ago, I ask my friend Erin if Rywanda look sick to her. Erin's baby was in the hospital last month, so she would know. Erin said, 'Fuck, no. Rywanda fine.' She said doctors just wanna take your money. She say it's even worse when you got a Medicare card, 'cause then they treat you like shit and think they can tell you what to do even more. You know what I say? Fuck that. |
2sTroNk join LG with plans to move to NA
Luminosity Gaming have immediately found themselves a new team, upcoming European side 2sTroNk. The organisation was prepared for the loss of their star North American side mixup, preparing the contracts with 2sTroNk to announce the team on the very same day. The organisation has proven it has no plans to leave the Overwatch space as they make a savvy acquisition of the strongest free team on the market, and the team will join them in North America in a gaming house.
At the same time as mixup announced they were not renewing their contracts, Luminosity announced their new side. 2sTroNk are a fairly new team, who formed in the middle of June and instantly began to have promising results. They are currently ranked fifth in Europe by the GosuGamers rankings, and recently qualified for the ESL Atlantic Showdown European Final Qualifier.
2sTroNk have yet to beat a top four team in Europe, with their tournaments often ending in losses to the elite teams, but the team have begun to take maps from them in fixtures; they should be watched along with WEUNITED and ANOX as teams to begin challenging the best in Europe for tournament titles. Their most recent tournament placing was a Semi-Final 2-1 loss to REUNITED in the second Overwatch Open EU Qualifier, beating WEUNITED on the way.
The official statement reads:
Today we officially announce the newest acquistion by Luminosity Gaming, with the signing of European Overwatch roster '2sTroNk'. Led by shotcaller, Vytis 'Mineral' Lasaitis with Arthur 'EISSFELDT' Marx, Jani 'Tseini' Kahkonen, Tim 'Manneten' Bylund, Dominik 'Ruster' Waffler, and Kalle 'Zave' Nilsson rounding out the lineup. Currently ranked around the top 10 in the World (GosuGamers), the team consists of three Swedish players, 2 German players, and one player each respectfully from Norway and Finland. Luminosity will be relocating the team in the near future to North America where they will have a gaming house, state of the art equipment and all the tools needed to focus on climbing the ranks!
m1neral stated:
We formed 2sTroNk with the ambition to become one of the best teams in the world, and our rapid improvement provided us with a lot of choices as offers poured in. We ultimately felt that Luminosity Gaming matched our aspirations better than any other organization and would provide us with the best possible opportunity to reach the top. Going abroad for extensive bootcamps is something we believe will help us solidify ourselves as one of the best Overwatch teams in the world, and we can't wait to get the process started. We are absolutely ecstatic to join LG, collectively venture into the world of professional e-sports and pull toward the common goal of excellence.
The roster for the new Luminosity Gaming is: |
FN America announced the company is now selling commercial AR-15 barrels. These hammer-forged barrels are made in the company’s Columbia, SC plant.
Barrel lengths range from 14.5″ to 20″ long and range in suggested retail pricing from $349 to $379.
From FN America:
FN America Launches New AR-15 Commercial Barrel Line
FN Cold Hammer-Forged, Chrome-Lined Barrels Now Available at Dealers Nationwide
(McLean, VA – November 3, 2014) FN America, LLC is pleased to announce the launch of its new AR-15 commercial barrel line, produced at the company’s manufacturing facility in Columbia, SC. Product specifications for each are listed below in Table 1.
Table 1: Product Specifications for FN AR-15 Commercial Barrel Line Product No. Description MSRP 36420 AR-15 Hammer-Forged Barrel 14.5”, OAL, Carbine Length Gas System, 5.56×45 mm $349 36421 AR-15 Hammer-Forged Barrel 16” OAL, Carbine Length Gas System, 5.56×45 mm $349 36422 AR-15 Hammer-Forged Barrel 16” OAL, Mid Length Gas System, 5.56×45 mm $349 36423 AR-15 Hammer-Forged Barrel 18” OAL, Rifle Length Gas System, 5.56×45 mm $379 36424 AR-15 Hammer-Forged Barrel 20” OAL, Rifle Length Gas System, 5.56×45 mm $379
“FN barrels are among the best in the world,” said Mark Cherpes, FN America President and CEO. “Our parent company, FN Herstal, has spent decades perfecting the art of making cold hammer-forged, chrome-lined barrels. This knowledge has transitioned and is the same process we use today in South Carolina. Top-quality materials, state-of-the-art equipment and rigorous quality testing produce the most precise, long-lasting barrels money can buy.”
“With the addition of this new AR-15 commercial barrel line, FN customers now have the option of upgrading their standard AR-15 barrel to an FN,” said Ken Pfau, Senior Vice President of Commercial and Law Enforcement Sales. “This will allow shooters to customize their AR-15 platforms with top-notch components that give them a great return on investment both on and off the range.”
FN America produces more than 20,000 barrels each month for a variety of military and commercial products sold in the U.S., including the FN 15™, M4/M4A1 carbines, M16 rifles, M249 SAWs, MK 48, MK 46, M240, M240C, M240E1, M240B and M240L machine guns, and the FNX™ and FNS™ pistol lines. Each is made from the highest quality steel available and is processed by more than $10 million in state-of-the-art equipment. All barrels undergo rigorous automated and manual quality testing to ensure they are free of micro-stresses and cracks that could affect performance. Any product that scores less than 100 percent is rejected.
For more information about the FN AR-15 commercial barrel line or other FN products, visit www.fnhusa.com. |
Ferry victims' last, horrifying moments: Corpses pulled from Korea wreck reveal children broke their fingers trying to escape sinking ship
South Korean divers have spoken of how they have had to feel for children's bodies with their hands in dark waters
It is believed many of the pupils - told not to evacuate for their own safety - were climbing the walls or floors
Grim work of recovering bodies from submerged vessel continued today as official death toll reached 150
Temporary memorial has been set up at Ansan Olympic Memorial Museum, close to Danwon High School
Funeral halls in Ansan are already full, but there are about 150 people still missing, emergency taskforce has said
Cargo on board was three times recommended maximum load, prosecutors have claimed
In rare move the usually hostile neighbour North Korea sent a message of sympathy to families of the dead
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Many of the children who died as a ferry sank in South Korea broke their fingers because they were trying so desperately to escape.
Local media reported the tragic youngsters may have been trying frantically to climb the walls or floors of the doomed vessel Sewol in their last moments.
Divers swam through cold, murky waters into the sunken ferry today, feeling for children's bodies with their hands in a maze of cabins, corridors and upturned decks.
With oxygen and communication lines trailing, they could see only a few inches in front of them. Most of the victims were high school children who were told not to evacuate for their own safety.
'We are trained for hostile environments, but it's hard to be brave when we meet bodies in dark water,' said diver Hwang Dae-sik, as the funerals of 25 students were held near the capital Seoul.
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Heartbreaking: Citizens of Ansan, South Korea, were still praying for the return of passengers aboard the Sewol ferry tonight as grim news emerged from the wreckage Praying: Reports from divers in the wreckage said most of the bodies found in the last few days had broken fingers, possibly because they tried so hard to escape
The grim news comes as thousands of mourners visited a temporary memorial to pay their respects to the hundreds of victims from a single high school in the South Korea ferry disaster.
The Sewol sank last Wednesday on a routine trip from the port of Incheon, near Seoul, to the southern island of Jeju. Of the 476 passengers and crew on board, 339 were children and teachers on a high school outing. Only 174 people have been rescued and the remainder are presumed drowned.
In a rare move, the disaster has prompted reclusive North Korea - which routinely threatens the South with destruction and is still technically at war with it - to send a message of sympathy.
'We express condolences for the missing and dead, including young students, from the sinking of the Sewol,' a South Korean Unification Ministry spokeswoman quoted the message as saying.
In other developments, prosecutors also claimed the ship was carrying 3,600 tons of cargo when it left port, three times its recommended limit.
The altar of the memorial pictured below is a wall of white and yellow flowers and greens, surrounding photos of 47 students and teachers whose bodies have been identified after being recovered from the ferry Sewol.
The victims of the disaster are overwhelmingly students from a high school in Ansan, near Seoul. More than three-quarters of the 323 students are dead or missing, while nearly two-thirds of the other 153 people on board the ferry when it sank a week ago survived.
At the site, in the auditorium of the Olympic Memorial Museum, visitors walked past a line of wreaths sent from across the country and placed white chrysanthemums on the altar.
Tribute: A mourner bows in front of a newly opened group memorial altar for the victims from the sunken South Korean ferry Sewol at the Ansan Olympic Memorial Museum on Wednesday near the Danwon High School where many of the victims attended
Respects: The temporary memorial is made up of a giant altar with banks of flowers and framed pictures and names of students whose funerals have taken place
Memorial: Schoolmates of missing passengers on the ferry Sewol and mourners pay tribute to their fellow students of Danwon High School
Victims: The victims are overwhelmingly students from a high school in Ansan, near Seoul. More than three-quarters of the 323 students are dead or missing
Altar: Danwon High School students bow as they visit a newly opened group memorial altar for the victims from the sunken South Korean ferry Sewol at the Ansan Olympic Memorial Museum on Wednesday
Recovery: The grim work of recovering bodies from the submerged vessel continued today as the official death toll reached 150
A big screen on the left of the altar showed pictures of students, one face after another, all in school uniforms, while another screen on the right showed a stream of text messages from the public expressing condolences.
Danwon High School's junior class was aboard the ferry from Incheon port to the southern tourist island of Jeju. About 250 of the students are dead or missing.
'They are the same age as my grandchildren,' said 73-year-old Bae So-ja as she wiped tears from her eyes with a handkerchief. She was one of the first to pay condolences at the memorial.
Visitors to the memorial received black fabric patches bearing the Chinese character for 'condolence' to pin on the left side of their chests. They bowed in silence and a few people bowed down formally, lowering their heads and bodies to the floor.
A woman wailed as she brought a flower to the altar; though hundreds of other people were at the memorial, the only other sound was solemn piano music.
By noon, the line of mourners stretched to the street, many of them in black suits and black dresses.
'This was the only thing I could do for the students,' said Lee Ae-ri, who lives in another city about a half-hour drive away. 'I can't stay long inside because I feel like tearing up.'
A few blocks from the memorial, the high school was quiet. Classes normally would have begun by now, but only a few students were there on Wednesday. They were invited to visit counselors and psychiatrists there to discuss their grief.
This graphic shows how the rescuers hope to salvage the sunken ferry
Visitors bow their heads as they pay their tributes in front of the group memorial altar for the victims from the sunken South Korean ferry Sewol
Even with about 150 people still missing, the funeral halls in Ansan are already full, Oh Sang-yoon, of the government-wide emergency taskforce centre, said in a statement
Give Hope: Messages wishing for the safe return of missing passengers from capsized passenger ship Sewol are seen at Danwon High School
Notes and messages to missing teachers and students are posted on walls, stairs, doors and windows. Some left cookies, soda cans and bread on window panes. Inside a classroom, a few bouquets of white flowers were placed on empty desks. 'Our Jung-hoon is a nice kid,' read one message, left on a door. 'Please. Save him. If he won't come back, please send him to a good place.' Lee Seung-min, an 18-year-old senior, said students are 'constantly watching the news and crying, and going back and forth from the school, placing chrysanthemums and crying, and unable to do anything.' Seniors' classes will begin Thursday, and younger grades next week, including the 13 juniors who did not go on the ferry. It's not clear when the 75 students who survived will return; most remain hospitalized, many for mental stress. Classes during the first two days will focus on helping students cope with losses and trauma, with assistance from psychiatrists and professional counselors, said An Soon-uk, a supervisor at Gyeonggi Provincial Office of Education. The school has turned some of the classrooms into a medical center so students will be able to seek help during classes. 'Many of them are feeling guilt and resentment. Some students are in a blank state, unable to express any feelings,' said Hong Hyun-ju, a psychiatrist who is one of some 50 medical professionals from outside the high school giving psychological treatment and counseling to students, teachers and parents. The number of bodies recovered has risen sharply since the weekend, when divers battling strong currents and low visibility were finally able to enter the submerged vessel
A woman and child pay tribute at a group memorial altar for victims of the sunken passenger ship at the Olympic Memorial Museum on Wednesday
Students from Danwon High School pay tribute at a group memorial altar for victims of the sunken ferry
Three teachers were rescued from the boat. One, a vice principal, died in an apparent suicide, saying he felt guilty for being alive when hundreds remained missing.
Reminders of the disaster will be hard to avoid for some time. An said funerals are held every morning, and funeral processions continue all the way to the student's classroom, led by a relative holding the student's picture. Sometimes, he said, parents faint when they enter the room.
The grim work of recovering bodies from the submerged vessel continued today as the official death toll reached 150.
Divers are able to work for nearly an hour at a time as long as the oxygen lines do not snag on sharp corners of the ship's internal structure.
When they use cumbersome oxygen tanks on their backs instead, they can work for about 20 minutes before an alarm bell sounds.
Even with about 150 people still missing, the funeral halls in Ansan are already full, Oh Sang-yoon, of the government-wide emergency taskforce centre, said in a statement.
He said the centre 'is taking measures to accommodate additional bodies by placing mortuary refrigerators at the funeral halls in Ansan', and directing mourning families to funeral homes in nearby cities.
Rescue operation: A government official said divers must now rip through cabin walls to retrieve more victims
Recovery: South Korean rescue teams take part in recovery operations at the site of the sunken Sewol ferry, marked with buoys, off the coast of the South Korean island of Jindo on Wednesday
Difficulties: Taskforce spokesman Koh Myung-seok said the work is becoming more difficult, and divers must now break through cabin walls to retrieve more bodies.
A government official said divers must now rip through cabin walls to retrieve more victims.
On Jindo island, where bodies recovered from the ferry are being taken, descriptions of the dead are read over a loudspeaker. Relatives rush over to the main notice board and peer at details added by an official.
Some relatives cry out and run from the tent. Others stand red-eyed and shell-shocked.
The number of bodies recovered has risen sharply since the weekend, when divers battling strong currents and low visibility were finally able to enter the submerged vessel.
But taskforce spokesman Koh Myung-seok said the work is becoming more difficult, and divers must now break through cabin walls to retrieve more bodies.
'The lounge is one big open space, so once in it we got our search done straight away. But in the case of the cabins, we will have to break down the walls in between because they are all compartments,' he said.
Search: Divers at the site where the capsized passenger ship Sewol sank in the sea off Jindo, during the search and rescue operation on Wednesday
Prayers: Relatives of passengers of the capsized South Korean ferry Sewol pray in an area where family members of victims of the disaster are gathered along Jindo harbour Twenty-two of the 29 members of the ferry's crew survived, and 11 have been arrested or detained in connection with the investigation. Two were arrested today, senior prosecutor Ang Sang-don said. The captain, Lee Joon-seok, and two crew members were arrested on Saturday on suspicion of negligence and abandoning people in need. Yesterday, four crew members were arrested and another two were detained without arrest warrants. The four crew members arrested yesterday talked to reporters after a court hearing, their faces hidden with caps, hooded sweatshirts and masks. One said they tried to correct the ferry's listing early on but 'various devices, such as the balance weight, didn't work. So we reported the distress situation, according to the captain's judgement, and tried to launch the lifeboats, but the ferry was too tilted and we couldn't reach.' The captain has said he waited to issue an evacuation order because the current was strong, the water was cold and passengers could have drifted away before help arrived. But maritime experts said he could have ordered passengers to the deck - where they would have had a greater chance of survival - without telling them to abandon ship.
Mr Koh, of the taskforce, said bodies have mostly been found on the third and fourth floors of the ferry, where many passengers seemed to have gathered. Many students were housed in cabins on the fourth floor, near the stern of the ship, he said.
Awaiting news: Family members of a missing passenger wait for the news on the rescue and salvage operation at makeshift accommodation at a gymnasium in the port city of Jindo
The cause of the disaster is not yet known. Senior prosecutor Ahn Sang-don said investigators are considering factors including wind, ocean currents, freight, modifications made to the ship and the fact that it turned just before it began listing. He said authorities will conduct a simulation and get experts' opinions.
The Ministry of Ocean and Fisheries had released incomplete data on the turn last week because a central station did not receive all the signals the Sewol's on-board transponder had sent. It released more complete details yesterday with data received by another station, and those show that the ferry spent about three minutes making a roughly 180-degree turn shortly before it began to list.
It remains unclear why the ship turned around. The third mate, who was arrested on Saturday, was steering at the time of the accident, in a challenging area where she had not steered before, and the captain said he was not on the bridge at the time.
Shareholders of the Sewol's owner, Chonghaejin Marine Co, apologised in a statement which was distributed to reporters outside the office in Incheon, saying they feel 'infinite sadness and responsibility'. |
Polyurea is a surface coating that is sprayed on and dries in seconds. It is rubbery and sticks very well to metal (concrete requires some preparation and I have seen first hand that it tends to peel off of concrete surfaces). It is very very durable and algae/barnacles has a hard time attaching to it.
It was used for the San Mateo Bridge, the Boston Tunnel, US Marines amphibious vehicles and is starting to be used in a lot of backyard ponds, underground bunkers, roofs, ships and more. Most people would be more familiar with the coating in the back of modern pickup trucks which is polyurea.
Coca Cola uses it for their water tanks
It has been shown to protect against explosions
Sprayed onto boat hulls
fully coated boat
Makes objects water tight |
About 4,500 people have indicated they plan to attend a rally Saturday in Washington, D.C., to protest surveillance programs run by the U.S. National Security Agency.
Organizers with StopWatching.us are hoping for a large crowd to protest the NSA’s mass surveillance programs detailed in leaks from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden this year. Organizers are “seeing things pick up speed quite quickly over the last couple of days, so that number should be quite a bit higher by the day of the rally,” digital activist Sina Khanifar said by email earlier this week. “It’s very likely to be the largest privacy rally in American history.”
The rally, which starts at Union Station in Washington, D.C., will feature a number of speakers, including representatives of several digital rights groups. Among them are U.S. Representative Justin Amash, a Michigan Republican; former Representative Dennis Kucinich, an Ohio Democrat; security researcher Bruce Schneier; NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake; and author and social critic Naomi Wolf.
StopWatching.us says interested parties should gather at 11:30 a.m. by the Christopher Columbus Memorial Fountain, directly outside Washington, D.C.’s Union Station. The march will end about noon at the National Mall at 3rd Street and Madison Dr. NW, in front of the Capitol Reflecting Pool, where a stage will be set up for the speakers.
Snowden’s leak suggested the NSA is collecting telephone records in bulk inside the U.S. and is also targeting the Internet communications of many people living overseas. The NSA has, in some cases, circumvented encryption efforts, and has targeted some foreign heads of state for surveillance, according to reports.
The ACLU today released a statement it said was from Snowden. It read:
“In the last four months, we’ve learned a lot about our government. “We’ve learned that the U.S. intelligence community secretly built a system of pervasive surveillance. Today, no telephone in America makes a call without leaving a record with the NSA. Today, no internet transaction enters or leaves America without passing through the NSA’s hands. Our representatives in Congress tell us this is not surveillance. They’re wrong. “Now it’s time for the government to learn from us. On Saturday, the ACLU, EFF, and the rest of the StopWatching.Us coalition are going to D.C. Join us in sending the message: Stop Watching Us.”
The NSA and members of President Barack Obama’s administration have defended the data collection and surveillance programs as necessary to protect the U.S. against terrorism. While the NSA collects phone records in bulk, the agency only obtains content for phone calls when it suspects criminal activity, Obama administration officials have said.
On Friday, before the rally, attendees from more than 100 congressional districts plan to visit their lawmakers’ offices and ask them to stop NSA surveillance programs, organizers said.
Also this week, StopWatching.us coalition launched a new video featuring actors Maggie Gyllenhaal and John Cusack; director Oliver Stone; Representative John Conyers, a Michigan Democrat; and others. Take a look:
Members of the StopWatching.us coalition include the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Free Press, Mozilla, Demand Progress, the Center for Democracy and Technology, and the Council on American-Islamic Relations. |
bah humbug
I’m not really a redditor (I’m not even really a blogger, for that matter) – in that I haven’t created a rage comic, or actually seen a narwhal baconing at midnight. I have, however, gotten a lot of pleasure from the rage and misfortunes of others, read stuff, upvoted mebbe a few times… ok fine, I’ve also perused r/nsfw on occasion (yeah, not linking that one). and I know most of you reading this have been exposed to some form or another of content via reddit. so in a way, we’re all redditors! and, until I’m able to create an appropriate rage comic to tell the story, this blog post will have to do.
[edit: a redditor pointed me to a more commonly used rage comic builder.]
I’d been hearing about the redditgifts secret santa for a couple of years now, and after seeing a few tweets about it this year, I decided to sign up. those of you who know me, know I’m all bah humbug about this holiday season nonsense, so you might wonder why…
because I like making people happy, that’s why.
and it turns out that other people do it for exactly that reason.
signing up required me to give them my postal address. I’ll be honest: I felt insecure giving my address to a stranger, and I almost quit the endeavor… but what is community without trust? I’ve heard the reddit community being described as a really great, caring, and involved community; people who look out for each other, nevermind what the rage comics and the snark that sometimes pervades their comments indicate. *
I signed up. and waited. and got a notification email for the person I was assigned to. a woman in NJ. ok. I wasn’t sure what to do, so I stalked her a little, found out she was into “dorky tattoos, candy, and dancing” (her words, not mine). she sounded like fun, but I wasn’t sure what to do with that information. and then I got busy, so didn’t think about it much, till later. **
a few days later, I was orangered. this was the exchange:
and a few more days later:
and:
yet another few days later, my secret santa present!!
his note said:
Hey Sava, I did some stalking and found your Amazon wish list, while I wouldn’t be as presumptuous as to guess what books out of the list you want most I hope this gift while small will help you obtain some of those books. Here’s hoping this small gesture from an anonymous Redditor will bring you some joy when you get your mail in a few days. I’m also including the sticker so you will hopefully use it and a Socially Awkward Penguin can scream something about bacon and narwhals to you and give you something to submit either as a story or rage comic. Wishing you the best Your Secret Santa
this made me unbelievably happy. like stupidly so. the fact that someone thought of me, drew for me, researched and sent me – a total stranger and not much of a redditor – something… just melted me.
so… I sent my secret santa a message – I still had no idea who he was.
he didn’t reply to my message, but he commented on my pic of the gift, and then… I had his username: ZetaAlorix. he was a real person! I could do some stalking for myself! I didn’t do much, to be honest. but the things I did find, made me want to track him down and give him the biggest, longest hug EVAR. ***
so, here’s what I found about him on reddit…
1. he posted a question because I didn’t really have much of a presence as a redditor.
2. a comment on a post about opening presents before christmas.
3. and finally this… the thing that makes me want to do something special for him, his is the first comment, and a few responses further down as well.
if you look through some of the gifts in the redditgifts gallery, and some of the gifts that have won awards, you might think my gift is not much. but to me, it is worth more than the ipads, and mugs, and handmade whatevers that other people got. the thoughtfulness and sacrifice that ZetaAlorix made to bring happiness in my life – a time I needed some happiness – made my day, week, month, year, many years… I will not forget this.
dear dear ZetaAlorix, you have forever earned my affection and appreciation. love and fabulously good things will come to you, I promise.
one day, I hope I can give you this hug in person.
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<hug>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
———————————-
* I had been aware of reddit from before, but my interest in them was further piqued during my @communitp class with @kthread at NYU’s ITP. we had @hueypriest as a guest who talked about the reddit community.
** I sent my secret santee a really nice diary/journal thing from India. I hope she likes it!
*** I obtained permission to use our personal correspondence and his username for this post.
———————————-
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Calls for the Indian government to intervene and protect local companies are part of a narrative in the making for more than a year. Notably, at a conference last December, Sachin Bansal, co-founder and executive chairman of Flipkart, suggested that the Indian government should do "what China did 15 years ago and tell the world we need your capital, but we don't need your companies."
Also in attendance at that conference, Bhavish Aggarwal, the CEO and founder of Ola, echoed Bansal's suggestion: "There is a narrative of innovation that non-Indian companies espouse, but the real fight is on capital, not innovation. The markets are being distorted by capital," he said at the time.
Their views were met with a mixed response from industry leaders, some of whom pointed out the irony that both Flipkart and Ola have raised much of their capital from foreign firms. Regardless, some say the stakes are too high for government inaction.
"If the government doesn't wake up, it will see Silicon Valley kill off a large segment of its entrepreneurship ecosystem and challenge its leading retail and technology companies," Vivek Wadhwa, tech entrepreneur and distinguished fellow at Carnegie Mellon University's College of Engineering, told CNBC.
"Foreign companies will gather massive amounts of private data about every Indian citizen — even more than the Indian government has. Facebook and Google will have the tools to sway Indian public opinion and affect elections. This is dangerous for any democracy," he added, saying he believed the government should learn from China, which he says realized very early on that if it allowed Silicon Valley giants to dominate its internet, they would hurt local companies.
Chinese companies are now rivals to Silicon Valley, and firms like Tencent and Alibaba lead the nation's internet market. Last month, China's Tencent hit a market capitalization of $500 billion.
Along those lines, Vijay Shekhar Sharma, founder of e-commerce and electronic payment company Paytm, recently said in a Twitter post that "India is effectively letting modern world East India Companies own its Internet."
Alibaba-backed Paytm is facing heat from services by global companies. Its wallet application, used by over 200 million users in the country, has seen strong growth of late, but other companies are interested in moving in on the market. Google introduced Tez payments app for India in September, and it has already amassed 12 million customers, the company said. On top of that, Facebook's WhatsApp, used by more than 200 million users in India, is said to be considering plans to integrate a payment option in its app. Paytm declined to comment for this story.
Some warn, however, that replicating an approach similar to that of China could go terribly wrong.
"It is counterproductive to look at China selectively and cherry-pick parts of protectionism we like," said Prasanto Roy, vice president and head of the Internet, Mobile and E-commerce Council at the National Association of Software and Services Companies — an industry group set up in 1988 for India's then-nascent software and IT industry.
"Protectionism is a double-edged sword and any attempt at raising trade barriers could hurt more than help India if there is reciprocal action. Keep in mind that the $150 billion IT industry (two-third of it software and services exports) is premised on an open, non-protectionist global marketplace," he added.
Eyes are on the government now, but not everyone believes New Delhi would pass new laws to help local tech firms.
"The government wants investors and foreign companies to come to India and create more jobs and opportunities in the country. I don't think the government would take any action to hurt foreign companies in any way," said Satish Meena, an analyst at Forrester Research.
Officials at the Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion weren't available to comment. |
The Canadian economy grew by 0.3 per cent in August, according to Statistics Canada, a larger jump than expected.
The federal agency says the growth was led by oil and gas extraction, which rose 2.8 per cent to a record $97.6 billion.
The growth in overall GDP follows a 0.6 per cent expansion in July and a 0.5 per cent decline in June.
The economy has grown in seven of the last eight months.
"A large component of the weakness in June reflected the temporary impact of the Alberta floods and a construction strike in Quebec," according to RBC assistant chief economist Paul Ferley.
"The rise in July and August reflected a more than full reversal of these negative factors."
Canada's manufacturing sector was weaker, with output declining by 0.3 per cent in August following a 0.9 per cent jump in July.
Economists were expecting economic growth of 0.1 per cent in August, according to a survey by Bloomberg.
The better-than-expected growth means the third quarter was likely a strong one for the Canadian economy, with annualized growth of 2.8 per cent expected by RBC Economics. The Bank of Canada has forecast annualized growth of 1.8 per cent between July and September.
In its monetary policy report released earlier this month, the Bank of Canada said it expects the Canadian economy to expand by just 1.6 per cent this year, a drop from an earlier forecast of 1.8 per cent. |
**| BUY NOW |** The GP3 and GP3-X2 Motorcycle Communications Throat Mics are the latest versions of the popular GP series of motorcycle-specific headsets by IASUS. Both of these speedway-ready systems feature the IASUS Gen 3.0 Transponder and adjustable throat strap with breakaway magnetic clasp and high-strength braided cables. Also included are the high fidelity, ultra-slim IASUS XSound J (GP3) or XSound 2 Helmet Speakers (GP3-X2), which are optimized for use with full-face and some half-face helmets. To top it all off, we also include the IASUS Finger PTT, a ultra-small switch that fits inside your glove to allow you to operate your radio or mobile phone without having to remove your hands from the throttle. The GP3 and Gp3-X2 Throat Mics are compatible with a variety of two-way radios and, new for 2011, mobile phones, including iPhone™, Nokia®, and BlackBerry®. For users who prefer an in-ear alternative to the XSound helmet speakers, a one-ear earpiece option is also available.
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( Adaptor PTT, Finger PTT, and Model cable ) |
In this case study, we interview Kristopher Ray Bolleter, web designer and front-end developer from Austin, Texas. Web development has been his full-time job since 2011, working in different agencies, touching multiple tasks such as design, development and brand identity.
He's also been working as a freelancer and has put up some impressive projects on his own, as you can see on his website.
As if it wasn't enough, Kristopher also mixes his skills with his hobbies to build passion projects such as Pretty Fly FPV. It gave him the opportunity to work with the tools of his choice for his online store. In this case, Hugo as the site generator, and Snipcart as the e-commerce solution.
The site
This new online store offers the opportunity to camera drone pilots to customize their FPV (First-Person View) equipment. With colorful goggle straps and lanyards for all tastes, it is an original idea for an up-and-coming industry. Quality is at the front-and-center of Pretty Fly FPV's products, so it is a must for any camera drone enthusiast out there!
We were pretty pumped to hear from Kristopher that he loved to work with Snipcart for his e-commerce needs on the website.
"This is my hobby project, so the reasoning was second to none for choosing Snipcart."
Primarily, because the site is amazing and it's a great example of the customizability and creativity power that our product offers to developers.
Also because it was built using static site generator Hugo. Knowing our love for the JAMstack and the fact that we covered a Hugo integration, with a tutorial on our blog, not so long ago, it all sounded pretty interesting.
Add to it that Kristopher was in fact inspired by our blog in his decision to use Snipcart, and we had to know more about his experience!
Snipcart Integration: Technical interview with Kristopher
Do you have experience with e-commerce in general? If so, which tools have you been using the most in your workflows? Why?
As a professional front-end designer and developer by day, I have extensive experience with a plethora of e-commerce solutions. From full systems like Opencart and Magento to Wordpress WooCommerce solutions, and even working with large teams to develop custom solutions. Each tool is really utilized in scenarios that cater to the specific client's needs and budget.
From my personal experience, many of these full content management systems were bloated and often went unused (outside of the contracted developer/team) after the site was pushed live due to the learning curve for each.
How would you qualify the e-commerce needs for this project?
Pretty Fly FPV really started as a passion project of mine, being a big fan of the industry. With my particular skill set available, the needs for this particular project really boiled down to simplicity on all fronts. From integration to management, and overall ease-of-use. In my mind (as a developer) I simply wanted a system without the bloated server requirements, say a VPS for even the simplest solution.
I knew I would need some mild dynamic elements and that the site could expand rapidly, so a standard static solution wouldn't suffice. That led me to choose Hugo for the static site generator.
How did the site building go with Hugo?
Extremely straightforward. I've used it before for other projects, and it's always been my go-to static site generator choice. The documentation is exceptional, and it gives me just dynamic flexibility for a simple e-commerce solution.
Do you often work with static site generators? If so, why choose them over dynamic CMS?
I generally recommend static site generators to my clients if it meets their requirements; performance-minded with little need to manage the site themselves (outside of a developers influence).
The amount of work needed to make a content-management system even remotely as optimized as a static generated site puts a lot of emphasis on the server and backend, areas, I think, are frankly overkill for 90% of the small businesses out there.
There's a plethora of solutions and tools to handle e-commerce projects. Why use Snipcart?
Snipcart fits into the Hugo workflow for my needs perfectly. Allowing me to basically build the entire site as I saw fit, layer in the e-commerce aspect, and tweak it, after the fact.
How long did it take to get Snipcart up and running?
I think I designed and developed the site over a 4 day weekend for the first launch, then I layered in some additional pages later. So, you can assume that Snipcart's integration part went pretty fast.
Did you rely on our API or webhooks for this integration? If so, how did it go?
None, I just used what was available, I didn't need to go any further. Although at some point I'm sure I'll have to utilize it to integrate ShipStation.
Were our documentation & our support helpful?
Yes, the documentation and support team was very helpful when I had a few points of clarification - don't actually recall what they were anymore. One was for analytics affiliate link tracking, which I ended up just writing another script to detect it in the URL and add it to the product as an option when present.
Did you get the chance to use some of Snipcart's features on this project (inventory management, abandoned carts, email templates customization, etc.)? If so, how did it go?
Yes! Particularly the email templates customization, I've done all mine to match the brand accordingly as well, and our packaging is pretty specific, so our shipped email is pretty cool too. I also used the abandoned carts to send off a few emails and closed those sales as well, so I'd say it worked great. I haven't had the current need for inventory management, but I will very soon.
What could we improve to make Snipcart an even better e-commerce solution for developers & merchants?
Honestly, I think you guys have a great system, my only small complaint was that the "test" site status information that was stored and setup (including the shipping configurations* and payment gateway) were stripped when I flipped the site live, and I had to go back and redo them. Otherwise, I think you guys have a great product and I think it really just deserves some more exposure, it fits the needs of an ongoing developer perfectly.
*We listened to Kristopher and immediately fixed this problem with the shipping configurations. For the payment gateway, you still have to do it in live mode.
We'd like to thank Kristopher for taking some precious time to answer our questions! You can follow him on Twitter, or, as I remind you, on his website. It's always such a pleasure for our team to see developers using our product with the most awesome results! They inspire us to continue the work we do and to improve Snipcart every day.
If you'd like to learn more about how Snipcart works, head over to our documentation. We also have other interviews with developers & agencies who adopted our product into their e-commerce workflow. Many of them are now on our partnership program. Curious about static site generators? Here's a variety of tutorials to learn about them.
Liked this post? Take a second to share it on Twitter. All of us (Kristopher & Snipcart) would really appreciate it. We'd also love to hear your thoughts and questions on the integration itself below! |
You may have noticed that Microsoft's E3 press event was heavy on the Xbox and rather light on Windows—which is to say, it didn't come up at all. According to Phil Spencer, the head of Microsoft's Xbox division and Microsoft Game Studios, there's a good reason for that: E3 is a "console show," and Microsoft didn't want to bring a gun to a knife fight.
Speaking to Polygon , Spencer said it's arguable that Windows gaming is in better shape than ever thanks to big franchises like League of Legends and World of tanks, which "dwarf a lot of what we're doing in this console space in terms of users and monetization." But bigger isn't always necessary better, and because E3 is so heavily retail-focused, "it didn't really like the right place for us to talk about Windows."
"For us, E3 is a console show and an Xbox show, and for us as Microsoft, Xbox is our gaming brand, and it's the thing we can fill an arena like this, we get millions of people to watch us on TV and we show our games and it's a brand that people care about," he said.
I'd just assumed that Microsoft was continuing its usual enthusiastic support of the PC gaming space (and for the record, Spencer described Windows gaming as "critical to Microsoft's success") by ignoring it completely, but I guess this makes sense too. And it's not as though Microsoft doesn't have a PC plan: Spencer noted that "they do these huge world championship events and they fill up arenas," and that it could probably do something with that.
For a look at some of the cool things that did happen on the PC at E3, check out our Best of E3 wrap-up right here . |
Tampa Bay Buccaneers receiver Mike Evans apologized for hitting Marshon Lattimore after the whistle Sunday and called it "unprofessional," according to Greg Auman of the Tampa Bay Times.
The New Orleans Saints cornerback was exchanging words with Jameis Winston near the sideline when Evans drilled him from behind. Evans wasn't ejected on the play and said afterwards he is hoping to avoid a suspension, according to Tom Pelissero of NFL Network.
Saints head coach Sean Payton wasn't too pleased that Evans stayed in the contest.
Sean Payton on Evans hit: “If that’s not an ejection, I️ don’t know what would be an ejection” — Joel A. Erickson (@JoelAErickson) November 5, 2017
Evans couldn't help his team get back in the game, though, as the Bucs fell to the Saints 30-10. |
I fear the day when no one will offer me a film: Abhishek Bachchan
Mumbai: Actor-producer Abhishek Bachchan, whose career graph witnessed several ups and downs in the last 13 years and who plays a supercop now in "Dhoom 3", says he fears the day when he would wake up in the morning but his phone won't ring and he wouldn't have a job.
Looking forward to the release of "Dhoom 3", for which Aamir Khan has been hogging the limelight, he said: "The only fear I have is that I will wake up one day and nobody will allow me to do films."
"This is a fear every actor has. This is a fear we have every Friday. God forbid, tomorrow if 'Dhoom 3' doesn't work, people will stop asking me to do films. The phone calls that keep coming will reduce.
"You need to prove your work every Friday and every actor's bigger fear is that you wake up in the morning, the phone doesn't ring and you don't have a job," he added.
For now, he is just hoping that "Dhoom 3" strikes gold when it releases Friday. Having been a part of both the previous instalments of the hit action-adventure franchise, the 37-year-old actor says he has an emotional connect with the film.
" 'Dhoom' was my first successful film, my first hit. It's a special for me. I hope it remains that way," said Abhishek, whose last outing was multi-starrer "Bol Bachchan", which did well at the box office.
Abhishek made his Bollywood debut with "Refugee" in 2000. He tried to cement his standing in the industry with movies like "Dhoom", "Yuva", "Bluffmaster", "Dhoom 2", "Bunty Aur Babli", "Sarkar", "Guru" and "Dostana". He acted in and produced "Paa".
"An actor is as good as his last film, you are as good as your last Friday. There are no two ways about that," he said.
He however finds himself lucky in the sense that he has his most honest critics sitting at home - father Amitabh Bachchan, mother Jaya and wife Aishwarya Rai.
"I have three great actors at home, and they are very forthcoming with their opinions and that's the way it should be. You have some great actors from the nation in your house, who are willing to give their advice, so why not take it," asked Abhishek, who likes to deal with criticism "positively".
"I have taken all negative criticism in a positive way and tried to improve myself," he added.
Abhishek's bonding with his 71-year-old father is especially unique.
"He is my friend. My father once told me that the day I was born, he had decided that 'I am not going to treat him as my son, I will treat him like my friend'. Till date, he treats me like a friend."
Talking about the many 'firsts' he has shared with the nation's Big B, Abhishek said: "He is my buddy. The first time I went for clubbing was with my father, the first time I drove a car, he took me out and told me how to drive.
"I have the liberty to go out and talk to him about everything, discuss anything with him. He has always been available to me. That's the kind of bonding we have always had. He has never shouted at me or raised his hand at me."
Abhishek's camaraderie with his mother is different.
"Mom is a discipliner, my mother was the one who was there to discipline us, but dad never (did so)," said the actor, whose daughter Aaradhya is now over two years old.
IANS
Updated Date: Dec 19, 2013 13:07:11 IST |
The Boxer
Bronze.
Found in Rome, on the Quirinal Hill in 1885. Now in the Palazzo Massimo alle Terme museum.
The bronze Boxer was discovered in the late 19th century, on the slopes of the Quirinal Hill in Rome, apparently after having been carefully and purposefully buried there in antiquity.
The ancient bronze depicts a pugilist, seated and resting. His broken nose, cauliflower ears, and numerous cuts attest to time spent in the fighting ring. A few still-bleeding cuts, once picked out with inlaid copper, suggest he has just finished a fight. The rock on which he rests is not ancient.
The sculpture was created using the lost-wax casting process, and consists of eight separate peices joined together by solder.
nb: switch the texture to HD using the gear icon in the viewer to see greater detail.
This model is a more detailed and better-textured version of the original Boxer, and uses Sketchfab’s PBR materials and rendering. |
Alabama voters will go to the polls Tuesday to select their next U.S. Senator.
Republican Roy Moore faces Democrat Doug Jones in the Dec. 12 special election to replace longtime Senator Jeff Sessions, who was named U.S. Attorney General. Polls open at 7 a.m. and close at 7 p.m.
Not sure where to vote? You can check your polling place information here.
Secretary of State John Merrill said he expects about 25 percent of the state's registered voters to turn out, up from 18 percent turnout in the primary.
Valid photo ID is needed. Acceptable forms of ID include:
Valid Driver's License
Valid Nondriver ID
Valid Alabama Photo Voter ID card
Valid State Issued ID (Alabama or any other state)
Valid Federal Issued ID
Valid US Passport
Valid Employee ID from Federal Government, State of Alabama, County, Municipality, Board, or other entity of this state
Valid student or employee ID from a public or private college or university in the State of Alabama (including postgraduate technical or professional schools)
Valid Military ID
Valid Tribal ID
Cross-over rules doesn't apply
Alabama's new crossover voting ban - which prevents a person from casting a ballot in one party's primary and then participating in the other party's runoff - went into effect earlier this year. The limitation does not apply to the general election, however, and voters can cast a ballot for whichever candidate they choose, regardless of party or who they voted for in the primary or runoff. |
TORONTO — There may be a déjà vu of the 103rd Grey Cup to cap off this season – well, sort of.
According to CFL Simulation, the most probable final showdown is featuring the REDBLACKS – who made a Grey Cup appearance last year – taking on the Calgary Stampeders at 42.01%. The Ottawa REDBLACKS are the second most likely team to make it to the 104th Grey Cup (47.19%), and the most likely team from the East Division.
Last week, the most likely matchup was the Tiger-Cats meeting with the Stamps at 38.32%. But after Hamilton has lost three of their last five contests, the chances of seeing a 102nd Grey Cup rematch dropped to 22.26%.
After their dominating win over Ottawa in Week 15, the simulator has improved the Lions’ chances of finishing first in the West from 0.01% to 0.08%, meaning there is still a chance for them to take over the top spot from Calgary.
The Eskimos are now the second most likely team to win the Grey Cup. Even though Edmonton sits on the outside looking in in the playoff picture in the West, they have the chance to still make it to the playoffs with the crossover threat. The reigning Grey Cup Champions’ chances of winning the final trophy improved from 2.05% to 5.89% this week.
A Battle of Alberta is still very much a possibility come November. Last week, the simulator said that a Calgary and Edmonton matchup was 8.78% possible. This week the chances of a provincial rival final showdown improved to 18.53%.
Remember, this is only a simulation. There’s a reason they play – games aren’t won on paper.
Here is a look at how the teams stack up:
East Division Team Projection Ottawa REDBLACKS 72.49% Hamilton Tiger-Cats 27.26% Montreal Alouettes 0.24% Toronto Argonauts 0.01%
West Division Team Projection Calgary Stampeders 99.99% BC Lions 0.01% Winnipeg Blue Bombers 0.00% (Eliminated from first place consideration) Edmonton Eskimos 0.00% (Eliminated from first place consideration) Saskatchewan Roughriders 0.00% (Eliminated from first place consideration)
Probabilities of Appearing in the 104th Grey Cup Team Projection Calgary Stampeders 89.49% Ottawa REDBLACKS 47.19% Hamilton Tiger-Cats 24.81% Edmonton Eskimos 22.13% Winnipeg Blue Bombers 6.93% BC Lions 6.84% Montreal Alouettes 2.53% Toronto Argonauts 0.08% Saskatchewan Roughriders Less than 1 in 10,000
Probabilities of Winning the 104th Grey Cup Team Projection Calgary Stampeders 79.46% Edmonton Eskimos 5.89% Ottawa REDBLACKS 5.11% BC Lions 4.31% Winnipeg Blue Bombers 2.53% Hamilton Tiger-Cats 2.38% Montreal Alouettes 0.32% Toronto Argonauts Less than 1 in 10,000 Saskatchewan Roughriders Less than 1 in 10,000
Most Likely 104th Grey Cup Matchups Team Projection Ottawa-Calgary 42.01% Hamilton-Calgary 22.26% Edmonton-Calgary 18.53% Winnipeg-Calgary 3.81% Ottawa-BC 2.85%
The model considers the following:
• Each team’s current win-loss record.
• Opponents already played (including whether it was a home or away game).
• Margin of victory (or loss) in games previously played in the season.
• Remaining opponents to be played (including whether those games are home or away).
• Most recent results (a recent win is weighted more heavily than a win back in Week 1, for example)
The model calculates each team’s probability of victory in each remaining game. It then simulates 10,000 replications of the remaining regular season schedule. The first place team in each division is the one with the most regular season wins. For each replication, the model keeps track of which team finished first.
For instance, if Winnipeg finished first in the Western Division in 1,990 of the 10,000 replications, then its first place probability is 1,990 / 10,000 = 19.90%.
The model is updated weekly based on the results of games played that week. |
Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers has staunchly confirmed that Divock Origi will not be sent out on loan this season as he wants the Belgian to adapt to Anfield life, reported the Star.
Origi was initially signed by Liverpool in 2014, but spent last season out on loan in France's Ligue 1 with Lille after impressing in spells for Belgium at the 2014 World Cup. Since joining the Reds' first team squad this summer though he has found first team chances hard to come by, with the latest return of Daniel Sturridge pushing him down the pecking order.
The likes of Danny Ings and Christian Benteke are also competing for starting berths in the team, and while Bordeaux, Stuttgart and Norwich are said to be interested in loaning Origi in the new year to give him first team football, that is not something Rodgers wants for the player.
He said: "He (Origi) had his loan period last year. This year is about him coming in and adapting. We'll review where he's at at the end of the season.
"The focus on Divock is goals and games. It takes time to adapt. For us it's about nurturing talent along. He's a humble guy, he knows he's here to develop. It's a big step."
Rodgers on talk of Origi going out on loan: "No, not at this stage. He had that loan spell last season." — James Pearce (@JamesPearceEcho) September 30, 2015
Origi though could come into contention for the club's Europa League clash with FC Sion on Thursday, as Rodgers has confirmed that Sturridge will not play a part in proceedings as he continues to recover from injury. Benteke is out too, so it could leave an opening for the 20-year-old.
Rodgers said on Sturridge, according to Reuters: "He won't be involved in the game. We'll keep him fresh for the weekend. He's still building his way towards fitness."
The Reds' manager was very happy with the way he combined with Ings in the weekend win over Aston Villa though, meaning Origi could play a bit part role as other forwards are given the opportunities in the team.
On Sturridge, he added: " If we can keep him fit, there's a real good combination there. It was a real threat.
"Our approach to this game will be how it's been in the competition so far. It's an opportunity for players on the fringes. It's a game where we're going to need to be patient. Sion sit deep and then play a counter-attacking game." |
The rumor mill is in full swing as Major League Soccer nearsthe start of its summer transfer window and, on Wednesday, one of soccer’sbiggest names got caught square in the middle of it. According to a report in the New York Post, Braziliansuperstar Kaka could soon be MLS-bound as his agent, Diogo Kotscho, told thepaper that “in the future probably [Kaka] will join MLS”.
If anyone might shed some light on Kaka’s transferspeculation, D.C. United midfielder Marcelo Saragosa would be the man. The pair grew close while playing inSao Paolo FC’s youth system during the 1990’s and served as each other’s bestman in their respective weddings.
But despite the fact that Saragosa keeps in close touch withhis childhood friend, he was as surprised as everyone else when Kaka’s name was linkedto MLS.
“I don’t know anything yet,” Saragosa said in a Spanishlanguage interview following Thursday’s practice. “We’ve talked but I don’t think there is anything concrete.I think it is just rumors.”
On this week’s Capital Soccer Show , Kyle Martino noted thatD.C.’s biggest rival is working on a major move. Though he didn’t name Kaka specifically, the NBC SportsNetwork analyst’s description of New York’s needs seemed to match a player ofthe Brazilian’s ilk.
“Hans Backe actually told us in our conference before thegame that they have a huge DP signing they are getting ready to make,” Martinosaid Tuesday evening. “And youshould have seen the grin on his face when he said it. I don’t know if it’s the likes of[Andriy] Shevchenko or one of those big name guys that keeps getting thrownaround like [Alessandro] Del Piero. But there is a big player and I think it’s an offensive player either aforward or central midfielder that is getting ready to come to the Red Bulls."
Saragosa doesn’t think that player will be the man he calls his best friend. At least not for now.
“I always ask him when he is coming to MLS and he says notright now,” Saragosa added. “Alittle further down the road he has some desire to be here but not for anothertwo or three years.” |
After getting stunned by Bowling Green in the 2013 MAC Championship game, Northern Illinois would get its revenge in the 2014 rematch. After a close game for a couple of quarters, NIU went on to dominate the Falcons, 51-17, to win its third MAC title in four years and extend its recent dynasty of the MACtion era.
The Huskies don't have the firepower that they had in previous years, but Rod Carey's offense showed up Friday night. Running back Cameron Stingily had an efficient game, and the defense was dominant in a win that could propel the Huskies into the top 25 and possibly earn them a spot in a New Year's Six bowl.
NIU set another MAC Championship Record with their 51 points. — Hustle Belt (@HustleBelt) December 6, 2014
Three things we learned
1. Northern Illinois could sneak into a New Year's Six bowl with a Boise State loss
A lot has to happen for this to become a reality, but there's a chance that Northern Illinois could be headed back to a top bowl game for the second time in three years, despite not having as good of a team as either of the past two years. With "Group of Five" teams dropping like flies — including both Marshall and Colorado State — Boise State is the only team from a non-power conference in the current College Football Playoff rankings. By rule, the highest ranked Group of Five champion will make a New Year's Six bowl.
NIU could potentially sneak into the rankings after the impressive win over Bowling Green, though the Huskies would still be ranked behind Boise State. So if the Broncos lose to Fresno State in the Mountain West Championship Game — unlikely, given how those two teams are playing — and NIU cracks the rankings, then maybe the Huskies could sneak into a top bowl game.
2. NIU's dynasty continues
Even with the loss in last year's championship game, it was tough to say that the Huskies' dynasty was over. NIU has now gone to five straight MAC Championship Games, winning three of them, and they're firmly set up for the future with quarterback Drew Hare just a sophomore.
After some rough spots early in the season, the Huskies showed great improvement and were indisputably the MAC's best team late in the season. Regardless of whether it goes to a major bowl game, NIU is clearly the class of the conference and will be the team to beat for the foreseeable future.
3. What can NIU do out of conference? What didn't we learn?
This is clearly not NIU's best team in recent years, and while Hare has shown improvement, he's not Jordan Lynch or Chandler Harnish. Due in part to the early season struggles, NIU is ranked 76th in the F/+ ratings, including 62nd on offense and 96th on defense. There has been clear improvement, but the overall numbers are still bogged down.
On one hand, we didn't really learn all that much from this game because we knew NIU was better than Bowling Green. But what we do know is that the Huskies are better than the rest of their conference, and in bowl season, we should get to see where they stack up — with this version of the team — against someone else.
For more analysis, head over to SB Nation's MAC site, Hustle Belt. |
U.S. 1st Lt. Nath Perry of Combained Joint Task Force 101 fills out an absentee ballot at a U.S. military base in Bagram, north of Kabul, Afghanistan, Wednesday October 15, 2008. Dems get new crop of military voters
An interesting subtext to John McCain’s defeat last week is what it means for the future of the Republican Party with respect to veterans and military voters. With McCain facing a diminished role in the GOP, and Chuck Hagel retiring from the Senate, there are few prominent Republican leaders left with military bona fides. This is in stark contrast to the Democratic Party, which has seen the emergence of a new generation of veteran leaders.
In the past two election cycles, Democrats have added ten new Democratic veterans to Congress. Last week, President-elect Barack Obama helped close the gap among military voters, winning 44 percent of veterans as opposed to John F. Kerry’s 41 percent in 2004.
Story Continued Below
To anyone who survived the bruising campaigns of the 1990’s, the thought that the Republican Party would surrender its stranglehold on military voters seems unbelievable. But the reality is that this image was never more than surface deep. All those political operatives who seemed to care so deeply about the heroic service of Republican nominees in 1992 and 1996 thought nothing of denigrating and attacking the service of Al Gore and John Kerry when it was the Republican candidate who had avoided serving in Vietnam.
Republicans did not always have a lock on military voters. Prior to Vietnam, military service was seen as an obligation of all Americans – regardless of political affiliation or wealth. George H.W. Bush and John F. Kennedy were both sons of privileged, politically-connected families who served heroically in the military during World War II. Back then, this was seen as your duty as an American – and no political party could lay an exclusive claim to the flag.
The GOP’s ability to market itself as the “Party of the Military” grew in large part from schisms in the electorate arising during the Vietnam era. For a generation, Republicans exploited George McGovern’s 1972 campaign as a means to brand Democrats as unpatriotic and weak on national security – never mind the fact that McGovern flew 35 bombing missions over Europe during WWII and earned the Distinguished Flying Cross.
It was during these formative years as a budding Republican operative that Karl Rove learned the tools of the trade. Ironically, Rove avoided serving in Vietnam so he could sharpen the political skills he would later use to brand Al Gore a fraud, Max Cleland a coward, and John Kerry a traitor. Never mind that Al Gore enlisted in the Army; Max Cleland left three limbs on the battlefield; and John Kerry fought his way to three Purple Hearts and a Silver Star. |
As the 2016 NHL entry draft approaches, many questions surround the Toronto Maple Leafs and what they plan to do in this, one of the most important off seasons in recent memory. Not all summers are created equal for NHL teams and this one will affect the Leafs foundation for years to come. While winning the lottery made at least one of the many decisions facing the club easier, there are still numerous others that will dictate how Shanahan and company go about turning a team that finished 30th in a 30 team league into a franchise that can compete year in and year out for a Stanley Cup.
Which brings me to what I feel is one of the most urgent questions the Leafs front office has to be asking themselves.
What do we do with James van Riemsdyk?
The 27 year old left winger who was taken 2nd overall in the 2007 NHL entry draft by the Philadelphia Flyers, was acquired by the blue and white on June 23rd, 2012 for one of the fan bases favourite punching bags, Luke Schenn. His tenure in Toronto has been productive, scoring 89 goals and adding 89 assists for 178 points in 250 games and is a real scoring threat when he gets in around the net. His size (6’3, 217 lbs) and long reach makes him dangerous down low and can be a nightmare for opposing players when pucks get put on net. He’s a legitimate top 6 forward and exactly what teams look for when they want to add size and scoring prowess to their lineup.
And that’s exactly why we should trade him. Now.
Before being traded to Toronto, van Riemsdyk signed a very team friendly 6 year, 25.5 mil contract with an annual cap hit of 4.25 mil per season, of which there are now 2 years left. Most teams can fit this contract into their payroll very easily and with 2 more full seasons left with the player under control, he could be a very valuable and enticing asset that Lou Lamoriello can use to solidify the future of this organization. JVR’s value will only decline from here on out due to the fact that with each passing game in the coming season, the amount of time a club would have control of him before he hits the open market in the summer of 2018 decreases. Clubs put a premium on how long they have control of a player and in this particular situation, van Riemsdyk’s value is at its peak.
Further adding to the urgency of this decision is the fact his contract contains a modified no trade clause that commences July 1st which could complicate attempts to trade him in the future. He is a top six forward that can bolster any teams scoring punch and there is definitely a market for him. Rumours were circling JVR for part of last year and were growing louder and louder until his season was ended prematurely when he suffered a left ankle fracture in a 7-0 loss to the San Jose Sharks. If it weren’t for that injury, he may have been dealt prior to the trade deadline in March.
Couple all of this with the fact expansion is coming. The league will be expanding by a minimum of one team and most likely two with Las Vegas being almost a lock and the real possibility of the Nordiques returning to Quebec in the very near future. This will require an expansion draft and teams will be able to protect only so many players. It is very probable that teams will be able to protect 7 forwards, 3 defensemen along with 1 goaltender and will have an NHL games played exemption for young players. If the Leafs do decide to keep van Riemsdyk in the fold, they would need to use one of those protected slots to keep him which could expose the team to losing a player they would much rather keep.
Now you can make a very solid argument for not trading him. The Leafs will have a lot of young players breaking into the league over the next couple of seasons and JVR’s size and experience would be valuable in insulating them from playing the type of minutes more suited to a veteran. You don’t want to rush young prospects and put them in a position where they are forced to take on too much too soon, doing so could endanger their development and hurt the team for years to come. Like I said earlier, he’s on a fantastic, team friendly contract and there’s a lot to like about the player…especially if the team decides to pursue a certain Toronto native who will remain nameless and is set to become an unrestricted free agent this summer.
But after signing long term on a contract that he took a haircut on, van Riemsdyk will be looking to cash in on his next one. There will be no hometown discount when his current deal runs out and he will be a 29 year old with solid production looking for a long term deal worth big money. There is absolutely no reason to doubt that he will be looking for a contract that will be in the 7 year, 50 mil range and if he reaches free agency, he will most certainly get it. If you were the Leafs front office, would you commit to a big money, long term contract with a player that would be 36 years old by the time it concludes? I wouldn’t and I don’t believe Brendan Shanahan and Lou Lamoriello would be inclined to do so either, especially with the fact that numerous young players in the organization will be due contract extensions during that time span. Signing van Riemsdyk to a deal like that is a recipe for disaster and would in all likelihood put the team in cap hell in the not so distant future, similar to the situation the Tampa Bay Lightning are in currently. That is certainly a headache the organization does not want to be faced with going forward.
You can be sure that all of these points have been discussed at length by the Leafs brass and that a decision has most likely already been made regarding James van Riemsdyk’s future with the club. There is a very strong likelihood that Lou Lamoriello has already begun working the phones, exploring options on a trade that would garner the Leafs a second top ten pick in this year’s draft in exchange for JVR’s services and in my opinion, that is absolutely the right move for this organization.
What the deal would look like and with whom is up for debate but if I were to put money on whether JVR stays or goes, I would put all of it on James van Riemsdyk being dealt before the conclusion of this year’s entry draft.
With prior management teams this scenario would have made me nervous. But with the current group in place?
Not in the slightest. |
Two facts stand out about the constituency that has rallied to Donald Trump. His supporters are angry, and they come overwhelmingly from the less affluent reaches of the Republican Party. Ohio Gov. John Kasich is betting on the aspirations of these voters over their anger, and it’s just possible he’s onto something his opponents are missing.
For the angry vote, there is a lot of competition. The main dynamic of last Thursday’s Republican debate was the clawing and jabbing between Sen. Ted Cruz and Trump. Cruz channels exasperation as well as Trump does and is the more consistent conservative.
Sen. Marco Rubio has benched his trademark optimism for now to compete directly with Cruz and Trump for the ballots of the enraged. The upside: Rubio is currently positioned as the only Republican other than Trump and Cruz who could come in at least third in Iowa on Feb. 1 and then finish at least second in New Hampshire on Feb. 9. There are a lot of furious GOP voters to go around.
But there is also a downside: Rubio’s turn to a darker message risks blurring his image and may push away the more moderate sorts of New Hampshire conservatives who are not happy with their party’s acrid tone.
This is where Kasich’s opportunity lies. He is insisting on a sunnier approach and is appealing directly to Republican working-class voters who are economically pressed and looking for a champion. If Trump feeds off their resentments, Kasich is trying to identify with them personally and give them reason for hope.
He explained this when I interviewed him recently on his campaign bus en route to Derry, N.H. Kasich said that he often asks those at his town hall meetings — he plans to have had 100 of them by primary day — “ ‘How many of you know somebody who has a mental illness? How many of you know somebody who has a problem with addiction? How many of you know someone who is 51 years old and has just lost their job?’ You get most of the room.
“What people are angry about today,” he went on, blending a dash of Sen. Bernie Sanders with a touch of Trump, “is they think the system is rigged more than I can remember. The rich control everything, the lobbyists control everything, you know, you’re a normal Joe and you got no say. And what I tell them is all of my lifetime, I’ve been fighting for the Joe Camel.”
The 63-year-old Kasich stops himself, realizing that a reference to a figure associated with cigarette smoking is out of place in 2016. “I mean that’s the wrong guy,” he says with a smile, “but I’ve always been fighting for the people who don’t have a voice.”
And his connection with the working class is rather more direct than Trump’s. “You know my dad was the mailman, and his father was a coal miner, and my mother’s mother was dirt poor,” Kasich says. “I think I’ve always been for the underdog.”
In 2013, Ohio governor and now presidential candidate John Kasich decided to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. He faced immediate backlash from other Republicans, who wanted Kasich to reject the expansion. In a one-on-one with the Washington Post, Kasich explains why he stuck with the ‘unpopular’ decision. (Alice Li/The Washington Post)
To have any chance at the nomination, Kasich needs to run at least second in New Hampshire. To do that (assuming, for the moment, a Trump victory), he has to get by not only Rubio and Cruz, but also former Florida governor Jeb Bush and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.
Kasich has been hovering around the No. 2 spot in the New Hampshire polls. John Weaver, who helped John McCain win his 2000 landslide there over George W. Bush, is Kasich’s chief strategist. He thinks his current candidate, like his earlier one, can combine enough Republicans with a big draw from independents who can pick up a GOP ballot on primary day. Weaver dismissed the media’s dismissal of his candidate’s solid debate performance last Thursday. “We have a conflict society,” Weaver said, “so if you’re not playing in those conflicts, you’re penalized by the pundits — but not the voters.”
If the odds against Kasich’s Compassionate Conservatism 2.0 are long, he’s a hopeful sort of guy. Kasich had a religious conversion after his parents were killed by a drunk driver in 1987, and while he doesn’t talk much about religion when campaigning — “I’d rather have an eternal destiny than try to cheapen the brand of God” — it does come up, particularly when he speaks with those once addicted to drugs.
What Kasich likes to say to them may apply to his current quest. “God’s not running out of miracles,” he said. “There’s always one left.”
Read more from E.J. Dionne’s archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook. |
Fulfilling yet another campaign promise, the Trump administration has eliminated “climate change” from its list of national security threats, preferring instead to “embrace energy dominance.”
The national security strategy (NSS) released on Monday stressed the importance of balancing energy security with economic development and environmental protection while rejoicing in America’s energy independence as an achievement to be proud of.
“Climate policies will continue to shape the global energy system,” the national security strategy states. “U.S. leadership is indispensable to countering an anti-growth, energy agenda that is detrimental to U.S. economic and energy security interests. Given future global energy demand, much of the developing world will require fossil fuels, as well as other forms of energy, to power their economies and lift their people out of poverty.”
During his presidential campaign, President Donald Trump mocked President Obama’s consideration of climate change as a threat to national security. In his campaign speech in Hilton Head, South Carolina, for example, Trump sought to contextualize “climate change” among the many real threats faced by the American people.
“So Obama’s always talking about the global warming, that global warming is our biggest and most dangerous problem,” Trump said. “I mean, even if you’re a believer in global warming, ISIS is a big problem, Russia’s a problem, China’s a problem. We’ve got a lot of problems. By the way, the maniac in North Korea is a problem. He actually has nuclear weapons, right? That’s a problem.”
The new NSS incarnates this approach, emphasizing national security and economic growth over the supposed threat of global warming.
“For the first time in generations, the United States will be an energy-dominant nation,” the communique states. “Energy dominance—America’s central position in the global energy system as a leading producer, consumer, and innovator—ensures that markets are free and U.S. infrastructure is resilient and secure,” it adds.
In his Rose Garden speech in which he announced the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris climate accord, President Trump made clear that he believed that the agreement disadvantaged the United States to the exclusive benefit of other countries, leaving American workers and taxpayers to “absorb the cost in terms of lost jobs, lower wages, shuttered factories, and vastly diminished economic production.”
This agreement, Trump said, “is less about the climate and more about other countries gaining a financial advantage over the United States.”
In that speech, the president observed that the United States has “among the most abundant energy reserves on the planet, sufficient to lift millions of America’s poorest workers out of poverty,” while the accord would effectively put these reserves “under lock and key, taking away the great wealth of our nation.”
Staying in the agreement would have posed serious obstacles for the United States as “we begin the process of unlocking the restrictions on America’s abundant energy reserves,” the president added.
According to the new NSS, access to “domestic sources of clean, affordable, and reliable energy underpins a prosperous, secure, and powerful America for decades to come.”
“Unleashing these abundant energy resources—coal, natural gas, petroleum, renewables, and nuclear—stimulates the economy and builds a foundation for future growth,” the strategy continues. “Our Nation must take advantage of our wealth in domestic resources and energy efficiency to promote competitiveness across our industries.”
The new strategy does not diminish the American commitment to environmental responsibility but integrates ecological awareness with economic realism.
“We are committed to supporting energy initiatives that will attract investments, safeguard the environment, strengthen our energy security, and unlock the enormous potential of our shared region,” the text states.
Follow Thomas D. Williams on Twitter. |
Israel Operates Inside Sudan, Israeli Official Says
Enlarge this image toggle caption AFP/Getty Images AFP/Getty Images
An Israeli intelligence official for the first time confirmed that the Israeli military operates in Sudan, just days after the government in Khartoum accused Israel of bombing an arms factory outside the capital.
Officially, Israel has refused to comment on the accusations leveled by the Sudanese government. Sudanese Information Minister Ahmed Belal Osman, showcasing video and eyewitness reports, said Israel sent four warplanes to strike an arms factory on the outskirts of Khartoum before dawn Wednesday, killing two people and wounding several others.
Osman said it wasn't the first Israeli attack on Sudanese territory: In 2009, an arms convoy traveling through eastern Sudan was hit in an airstrike; in 2011, a missile struck a car near the city of Port Sudan, killing two men. One of those men was a senior official and chief arms procurer for Hamas, the militant Palestinian group that controls the Gaza Strip.
Israel officials never publicly confirm nor deny their country's involvement in overseas operations. But speaking anonymously to NPR, an Israeli intelligence officer says that Israel does -– most definitely –- operate in Sudan.
He said Sudan has long been a playground for militants, adding it would be important for Israel to send the message that militants can't use Sudan as a way station for their arms and training camps.
The intelligence officer wouldn't allow NPR to quote him by name, as he was breaking military protocol by speaking about the attacks.
Efraim Inbar, director of the Begin-Sadat Center, an Israeli think tank, says the reported Israeli actions seem plausible.
"It is very possible that Israel has taken defensive measures against sending weapons to terrorists," he said.
Hamas, Inbar says, has long had a base of operations in Sudan.
"Hamas is not new to Sudan," he said. "The Sudan regime has close links to radical Islamist groups."
To explain how weapons make their way from Africa to the Middle East, the intelligence officer took out a map of the region and drew a route for NPR with his finger.
The route starts on Sudan's east coast, traveling north by boat on the Red Sea to the Sinai peninsula, a notoriously lawless region where weapons smugglers operate freely outside the control of the Egyptian government. The northwesternmost tip of Sinai is where the peninsula meets the Gaza Strip. Officially, Egypt controls the border crossing with Gaza, but underneath the border, hundreds of of tunnels are used to smuggle goods -– and occasionally weapons -– to Gaza.
Like many Israeli officials, the intelligence officer refused to answer questions about international law and whether Israel routinely violates the sovereignty of a foreign state to carry out its military operations.
But he said whatever the Israeli military may or may not do is shared with Israel's friends in the West. |
The amount of daily destruction and disruption in our region caused by peoples’ inability to control their cars and trucks is staggering.
Between 2:00 am and 6:00 am this morning there were two incidents that illustrate what has become an all too common occurrence on our roads.
Around 2:00 am on Hall Boulevard in Tigard (adjacent to the skatepark and Burnham Street) a man who had been drinking while driving failed to maintain control of his van and he struck a large power pole. According to the Tigard Police Department, the power pole fell over and a woman riding a bicycle became entangled in the wires. She sustained life-threatening injuries and burns and was taken via ambulance to the hospital.
The man who crashed his van into the pole was not injured and is under suspicion of DUII (Update: Mark Hunter has been charged with Assault IV, Criminal Mischief, Reckless Driving and DUII). The man’s actions caused not only life-threatening injuries to another person and endangered his own safety, they led to the power being knocked out for several hours. School buses were trapped inside a nearby parking lot and the entire Tigard-Tualatin school district is on a two-hour delay. The Tigard City Hall campus is also without power. It’s also important to note that this happened in a section of the road that has tricky chicane and a 40 mph speed limit despite being near a public park, city hall, library and residential areas. Just a few hundred feet south is a signalized crossing of the paved Fanno Creek Trail, a popular cycling and walking path.
All of this happened because one man made a series of dangerous, selfish, and irresponsible decisions while behind the wheel of a large vehicle. Do I know exactly what happened without a full investigation? No. I don’t know precisely what led to this crash, but I’m confident in saying it wouldn’t have happened if this man was driving at a safe speed without any distractions or impairments.
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Appears as if this car was SB SE 60th and missed the intersection at SE Stark, hitting the YMCA daycare which was unoccupied. #pdxtraffic pic.twitter.com/5Ec5KQZsec — East Precinct (@ppbeast) November 23, 2016
A few hours later on the other side of the region, another person failed to maintain control of their car and it careened through an intersection. According to the Portland Police Bureau the person allowed their car to leave the road, jump up a curb and slam into the side of a daycare at SE Stark and 60th. Thankfully no one was inside. The police say the person behind the wheel fled before they arrived.
The amount of illegal, drunk, distracted and careless vehicle operation on our roads is at an all-time high while our efforts to mitigate those threats aren’t coming close to keeping up.
All this destruction and disruption comes just one day after we drew attention to the fact that 21 people died in Oregon roads in the past 12 days, notching our yearly toll up to 431 people — 75 more than the total in 2014 (latest year complete data is available from).
These crashes (and the many others like the one on November 8th where someone backed into a building and killed a pregnant woman in Beaverton) are very unsettling on many levels. The amount of illegal, drunk, distracted and careless vehicle operation on our roads is at an all-time high while our efforts to mitigate those threats aren’t coming close to keeping up. The incremental steps we are taking to improve safety through traditional advocacy (government and nonprofit), infrastructure design, transportation policy, and enforcement are no longer working. We must be more fearless and bold.
Another problem here is how the media and the police frame these incidents. There is rarely if ever any mention in their coverage or statements (which are often one in the same because media usually just publishes police statements verbatim) about the human and cultural factors at play. “The car missed the intersection” on Stark and a “van crashed into a power pole” on Hall. It’s as if the cars were driving themselves!
These crashes are not aberrations. They are expected outcomes of a broken system and a cultural epidemic of disrespect for the privilege of driving. If we want to see fewer of them, we must change driving culture as well as driving infrastructure. Honest and direct language about the role vehicle operators play in these crashes would be a good start toward creating more awareness of the immense consequences and responsiblity that come with driving.
— Jonathan Maus, (503) 706-8804 – [email protected]
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crashes, language matters |
I recently posted about the need to focus on rainmaking. From this I received a number of inquiries from new lawyers that question how anyone can do this when they are not really sure how yet to practice law. "Don't you need to know what you are doing first"?
The question is rather counter intuitive to me. It represents kind of the chicken or the egg argument, if you would think about it. Sure, you need to know about your practice area or niche, but how in the world are you going to get that experience if you do not focus on obtaining paying clients?
We all have our own strengths and weaknesses. We all have the ability to exploit our strengths and improve on our weaknesses. The problem with law school is that it does not deal with two of the three aspects of actually practicing law. Given the law school selection process (the personality types they typically accept), and the concentration on a limited set of tasks, most of us are greatly deficient on the skills not taught.
What you will hear about the practice of law is that the lawyers that make up the field are finders, minders and grinders. The finders bring in well paying clients. The minder keeps the well paying client happy. The grinder reads, briefs, writes, appears in court, argues with other grinders, and rarely sees the well paying client. The grinder certainly is not the chief contact.
Law schools concentrate on developing grinders. The Big Law system concerns itself first on developing grinders. Grinders are needed in order to create the large sum of money that flows up to the finders and minders. According to DealB%k, the average Big Law Partner in the United States makes $640,000.00. They are often paid many more times this amount. But, according to PayScale.Com, the average national salary, with bonuses, profit sharing and commissions for most attorneys is between $45,623 to $172,816 per year.
The irony of the situation is that many lawyers go solo directly out of law school, or leave Big Law, because they do not wish to be, or they are sick of just bing, grinders. They would rather, at least in their inner most thoughts, be finders and minders. And why not? I can assure you that when the legal market collapsed along with the economy a few years ago, it was the grinders that found themselves out of work. Minders would have done okay. And, every firm had room for the finders.
I say it is ironic, because most attorneys that go out on their own for this reason just seem to have so much trouble in going out and building a book of business (reliable referral sources). I am not exactly sure why, but most of it is emotional I am sure. They fear putting themselves out there only to get rejected or slapped down. It is hard work. It means making yourself known and always available to the right people, groups, organizations and associations that need and want you and your firm's services. It means focusing on the task of on follow up like a laser.
And ... what confuses most new lawyers is this thought that you already have to be the expert in your field, or a legal celebrity, in order to be a finder. This is just wrong.
Many lawyers that I consider good finders graduated at or below the fifty percentile of their graduating class. They went to 2nd, 3rd and 4th tier law schools, most held only odd jobs before and during law school. Many went to law school at nights and on the weekends. Let us just say that most finders were (and often are) unremarkable people.
Their biggest quality is that most have a friendly warmth about them -- kind of the opposite of the jackass quality that law schools tend to breed into people. Not an expertise necessarily, but a natural curiosity and a willingness to be available to help when needed. They are people that can listen to what people do not say. They have an ability or self-training to perceive emotion, integrate it, understand it, and regulate it to promote growth. They are great at self-awareness and gut feelings.
Finders are also good at relationship management as an adjunct to, or replacement for, the law school taught skills.
Understand, however, that what I did not mention to be a great finder was experience of the lack thereof. As pointed out by Jacob Stein recently, the experience that is needed is that as described by Aldous Huxley:
"Experience is not a matter of having actually swum the Hellespont, or danced with the dervishes, or slept in a doss-house. It is a matter of sensibility and intuition, of seeing and hearing the significant things, of paying attention at the right moments, of understanding and coordinating. Experience is not what happens to a man; it is what a man does with what happens to him."
And,if you are self-conscious, diffident, or reticent, I would tell you not to worry. Those are probably the best qualities to being a great finder. We all suffer from leaner's reticence, but the only way to get over it is to get out there and make yourself available.
In fact, I will tell you that being a little hesitant, demurred, modest, or sedate is a bit of an advantage. Nobody likes an in-your-face lawyer or an unrestrained cheerleader. These lawyers come across as hucksters and people actually try to avoid them.
All that is required is to always be there, and to at least try to be helpful, and to gently follow up.
Maybe that is the problem to some extent. It is hard to convince yourself that you can be reserved and talkative, or unassertive and confident. I tend to think of it as just being yourself as among friends at the kitchen table.
The trait I have found in finders is not that they are not shy or restrained, nervous, humble or retiring, it is that they are there. If you wish to represent builders, for example, you will find that there are a lot of attorneys that are members of the local association of builders. But, what you will not find many that are always there, at the meetings, at the luncheons, and the continuing education, passively making contacts, building friendships, remembering information, but otherwise just being modest. Most attorneys just pay dues.
Sure these people, groups, organizations and associations already have established relationships. But these are always in a state of flux. You have to be there when these people and groups want a change.
The point is when people talk about an over supply of lawyers they are talking about grinders. They are sometimes talking about minders. But, there are very very few attorneys who have a "book of business" and who are -- or aspire to be -- finders. If you are primarily in this latter category, you will never have too much competition.
So, what do you want to be? Finder? Minder? Or, a grinder? |
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Part of the attraction: scenery like that of the Cliffs of Moher in County Clare.
ROLLINGNEWS.IE
By Ray O’Hanlon
[email protected]
Many Americans are in Ireland this month enjoying often long-planned vacations in their ancestral homeland.
Some of them are hankering to stay.
And those Americans wanting to retire to Ireland are urging changes in current financial requirements that make it impossible for many of them to meet the Irish government’s annual income rules.
Two petitions are now seeking signatures in support of the effort to lower the financial bar for residency. In response to the calls from this side of the Atlantic, and questions being asked in the Dail, mainly by Fine Gael TD Fergus O’Dowd, the Irish government has undertaken a review of the requirements starting with a “consultation phase.”
Details of the review are being made available on the website of the Irish Naturalization and Immigration Service (INIS) and “interested parties” are being asked to submit views to a dedicated email address.
The two U.S. based petitions are urging the Irish government’s Department of Justice and Equality to change the current financial stipulations for Americans wishing to retire to Ireland.
The petitions are primarily on behalf of people who have ancestral ties to Ireland, but links that are not recent enough to qualify for Irish citizenship. Non-Irish Americans are also able to sign on.
Under current regulations, retirees from non-European Economic Area nations who want to retire in Ireland need an annual income of $55,138, or €50,000. A couple would need $110,276, or €100,000.
Both well exceed the average annual income in the Republic which is just over €40,000.
One of the petitions, the existence of which was frist reported on IrishCentral.Com, was drawn by Elthea Stiegman, the other by Kevin Callaghan, initially under the nomme de plume of “Annie Moore.”
“We are just ordinary people just looking to be happy in our golden years. Why should anyone anywhere not have a dream of that?” Stiegman told IrishCentral.
“To me I am going home to take the place of my great-grandparents who had to leave Ireland during the Famine in order to survive. I guess in a way it is my way to pay back my heritage and go to a place that I truly feel is home for me.”
Stiegman’s petition is entitled “Let Americans Retire in Ireland,” while Callaghan’s is “Help the Global Irish Retire to Ireland.”
Callaghan, who wants to retire to County Cork, and whose campaign has previously been reported by the Echo, takes the view that American retirees can move into parts of Ireland that are losing people to emigration.
The current Irish government position is based on concern that retirees with insufficient funds could end up as burdens on the State.
Retirees also need an additional capital lump sum to cover possible emergencies such as a health crisis, or nursing home care.
“All States, including Ireland, operate immigration controls for well-established reasons of public policy, including consideration of the economic impacts for the State,” Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald told Deputy O’Dowd in reply to a question.
“I requested officials in the Irish Naturalization and Immigration Service (INIS) of my Department to review the current policy position regarding the migration of non-EEA retirees to Ireland. That review is underway. As part of the review process there will be a public consultation which will seek the views of stakeholders in relation to the review’s recommendations,” Fitzgerald said.
In addition to the petitions, light has been cast on the efforts of Americans to retire in Ireland by Jane Fadely from California who wrote a book about living in Ireland and then had to quit the country because it was deemed that she did not have enough money to stay.
Under an agreement drawn up a number of years ago between Ireland and the U.S., Americans can draw their Social Security entitlements while living in Ireland. |
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Mystery surrounds the purchase of a number of Arsenal shares yesterday after Alisher Usmanov denied he had moved to take his shareholding in the club to more than 30 per cent.
Only 21 shares had been traded in Arsenal Holdings PLC this year but 20 — totalling £299,600 — were sold between 2.42pm and 4.25pm.
Usmanov requires just one share to increase his stake from 29.9 per cent to 30 — although this would largely be a symbolic figure after a change to the Premier League’s rules last year. Prior to that, a 30 per cent holding would give a shareholder access to all “material transactions” including transfer fees, wages and agents payments.
Yet yesterday’s purchases were not made by the majority shareholder, Stan Kroenke, Red and White Holdings Ltd (Usmanov’s investment vehicle) or Fanshare, a scheme which allows fans to buy shares.
Red and White are thought to be unlikely to spend more than £14,000 on a single share and yesterday’s purchases were all at between £14,950 and £15,000.
Yet Red and White are still thought to be keen to move over the 30 per cent threshold if the opportunity arises. |
This is a response to an article by Kirk Hamilton of Kotaku. Today he wrote a brief PSA sort of piece that broadcasts that women play video games. No shit, Sherlock. You can find the reasons for this article sandwiched within his verbose foreplay he carries on for a few paragraphs. A female game journo had some dev ask them if they play video games. Kirk backs that up by linking a piece from 2013 that apparently explored the “creepy side” of E3.
I could spend this piece arguing about that. But that’s already been done to death. Instead I’m just going to take a step back and focus on the big picture.
Howdy. I’m here to state the obvious because some people still haven’t gotten the memo: Everyone plays video games.
I know it’s easy to wrap your mind around (that you don’t need to consider your genitals as a factor of entry). Yet here in the year 2017, we still have people hyperfocused on reproductive organs that assume despite the fact that A) video games are amazing and B) video games have been a staple of popular culture since the 1980s, everyone can’t play video games. But they can. And do.
I’m aware many of you are able to think things like this through without difficulty. Good. Stay the course. But you may be surprised at how many people still think COCKS / BALLS and TITTIES / VAGINAS matter when playing video games. Ask any person you know who has played video games in their life if their sexual organs have ever gotten in the way of enjoying a video game. No? That’s what I thought.
People I know with both TESTICLES and BOOBS who work in games or play them on a regular basis have absolutely nothing out of the ordinary happen. A quick survey I just did on my Twitter account confirmed that, yes, playing video games is pretty straightforward. In fact, for people with DICKS and WATERMELONS at game conferences like E3, they often have a pretty kickass day partying it up when it comes to video games. I have to explain this you straight, nevertheless, as it’s the point of this article: Everyone plays video games.
The assumption I’m talking about is only possible if you’ve engineered your way of thinking around human genitals. Unlike most assumptions, this requires some mental gymnastics. So if you’ve ever thought that PENISES or JUGS have an effect on video game enjoyment, take this opportunity to put on a dunce cap and sit your ass in the corner.
If you’re at a party and talking to your mates about video games, and a woman comes up and joins the discussion, do everyone a favor: carry on as normal. The trick is to treat people as people in the first place.
If she says doesn’t play video games, that’s fine. You’re free to keep that conversation as is. They knew what they were walking into in the first place. If she does play video games, chances are it makes fuck all of a difference that they have BREASTS. As long as that chick has hands and eyes, we’re all set. Hell even if they don’t there is still a way for them to have fun with video games.
It’s because video games are for everybody.
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Julius Menswear Fall Winter 2012 Paris
It’s great to see Julius develop his collection from year to year. He’s really refining himself and that's evident in this collection. It’s a much cleaner Julius style, a lot less distressed and damaged. We're glad he was able to retain the aggressive feeling in many of his garments, but what really comes through is a dark sentiment in menswear.
For next season Tatsuro Horikawa introduces a man from the darkness, expelled from a strong wave of potential energy, the same energy that has evolved in recent collections.
With this collection he has worked subtly, with long and flowing, but asymmetrical, oversized details. The use of zippers in almost all of the pieces, which is used in fabrics like matte jersey and wool, hides the manipulation of the materials and provides a worn effect on canvas and cotton. The color palette used for this collection begins with black and dark grays used in blocks, off-white and a print representing resounding images.
- Mario Casarella |
Google, it seems, is still capable of surprising. A few weeks after launching a pair of handsets, a smart home hub and a virtual reality headset, the company is back with one of its most left-field hardware launches in recent memory. After all a big push into consumer mobile, the software giant is pursuing, of all things, the whiteboard.
The Jamboard is an unlikely launch for the company, the product of a few years’ worth of development attempting to take the next step with its workplace tools. According to G Suite’s Director of Product, Jonathan Rochelle, the project was born out of a desire to build a new collaborative tablet interface for G Suite, the collection of business apps formerly known as Google Apps for Work.
“Jamboard,” Rochelle explained, ahead of the unveil, “is the whiteboard now in Google Cloud.” It’s a 55-inch 4K touchscreen hub for workplace collaborations designed from the ground up. A director competitor to Microsoft’s Surface Hub built around Google apps. It’s a familiar sort of interface whose output lives in Google Drive, connecting to users in person or via smartphone or tablet using the company’s companion apps for iOS and Android (nope, no Windows yet).
Google’s been testing the hardware with a number of high profile partners, including Netflix and Spotify, who have been trying it out in their own corporate boardrooms. The result is pretty impressive. Built from scratch (though the company has yet to name any hardware partners), it’s a fairly intuitive and extremely responsive interface. Users can draw with the include passive stylus and erase with their fingers (or an included eraser/microfiber).
Tools like handwriting and shape help streamline the process and worked quite well in my own hands-on time with the product. The board also has 16 levels of pressure sensitive touch and nice little animations that bring small things like erasing to life, as you watch the text flake and fall off the display. The system runs on a highly specialized version of Android that features a built in browser and Google Maps among other features, along with opening it up to potential third-party apps.
It also has Google Cast built in, so you can also use it as a big video display, complete with speakers that face down into the magnetic tray that holds the styli and eraser. The speakers, from what I heard aren’t great, but they’re plenty loud and will do the trick with teleconferencing audio. You can also just use the built-in Bluetooth to run it all through a speaker.
As for why Google went with 4K here, beyond the occasional video watching, it says that the high res is necessary so as to avoid pixelation when you’re up close to the board. There’s also a built-in 2K camera capable of capturing telepresence at 60 frames per second.
All of the collaboration occurs in real-time, making it possible to monitor the board on a mobile device with minimal latency. And once a project is finished, it can be shared with the team as a PNG or PDF.
It’s also a surprisingly nice looking thing. The back of the board is lovingly sculpted, making it, quite probably, the nicest looking whiteboard I’ve ever seen. There are a couple of standard full USB ports back there, along with a USB C, HDMI and Ethernet. The board can be mounted to a wall or users can choose to buy the optional stand. All said, it should run less than $6,000 when it launches next year. |
Quebec occultist Yacouba Fofana (a.k.a. Professor Alfoseny) did a pretty nifty magic trick for some clients: he made their money disappear. Any services he managed to conjure up in exchange were apparently invisible.
Before he himself could perform a vanishing act, though, he was charged under Canada’s Criminal Code, with both fraud and — wait for it — witchcraft.
People are shocked. In modern-day Canada, in the year 2014, you can actually be charged under an obscure provision of the Criminal Code with “pretending to practice witchcraft.” The law specifically targets
Every one who fraudulently (a) pretends to exercise or to use any kind of witchcraft, sorcery, enchantment or conjuration, (b) undertakes, for a consideration, to tell fortunes, or (c) pretends from his skill in or knowledge of an occult or crafty science to discover where or in what manner anything that is supposed to have been stolen or lost may be found
The charge is the equivalent of a misdemeanor with a maximum fine of $500 or a six-month jail term.
That the law appears as part of a larger section on “Fraudulent Practices” has not been evident in headlines about the case, which trumpet “Fake medium faces sorcery charge… in Canada” and mislead readers to think that Canada actually has a provision to prosecute witches… just like in the Salem Witch Trials or Monty Python.
I play it off like a joke, but in some parts of the world (such as Papua New Guinea, India, and parts of Africa) prosecution of witches is not a far-off piece of history, and it’s not something that targets fraudsters scamming the emotionally vulnerable. Rather, it’s based on genuine beliefs that witchcraft exists and is an offense that society’s deity expects to see punished.
Headlines like the ones being posted about Fofana’s case take advantage of such injustices, which typically target vulnerable minority populations in the places where they occur, to muddy the waters in the name of clickbait.
Let’s be clear: Canadian law enforcement is not exploiting a ridiculous and outdated law to charge Fofana. Nor are they expressing a sincerely-held belief that sorcery is real and worthy of punishment. Rather, they are charging Fofana with fraud using a section of the Criminal Code that specifically addresses charlatans who knowingly and intentionally defraud people through their supernatural claims.
ReligiousTolerance.org notes that
The law seems to be unevenly applied. Most newspapers contain advertisements by psychics; 900 lines are promoted on television; psychic fairs are periodically held in most large cities. One source estimates that there are in excess of 10,000 practicing psychics in Canada. Prosecutions are rare.
And that’s why this story is really interesting. Have all these psychics demonstrated sufficient belief in their own abilities to avoid prosecution? What does “sufficient belief” look like, anyway? What about money-making schemes wrapped up in socially-sanctioned supernatural beliefs?
After all, one reader’s fraudulent practice is another’s sacred cow. Exactly who gets to decide what gets prosecuted and what gets ignored?
(via Doubtful News. Image via Shutterstock) |
It's like stepping back into the Middle Ages.
Knights joust, minstrels serenade the crowd with lutes, and jugglers entertain the children. But this isn't ancient times. It's a festival held every July at Kaltenberg Castle in southern Germany.
Prince Luitpold of Bavaria, the owner of Kaltenberg Castle, has been opening up the door to his castle grounds for the summer event for more than 35 years.
One of the highlights of the event is the jousting tournament. Equestrian acrobats and stuntmen stage a two-hour jousting show for more than 10,000 spectators.
"The swords are real swords," Luitpold says. They're quite heavy. [Stuntmen] train for months to make sure that every fight is extremely well-rehearsed and that nothing happens. On the lances, you have solid wood, but they are constructed like in the movies. If you hit [them], they explode [into splinters]."
But there are other highlights to the event as well. The prince's 13th century castle is also home to the royal family's brewery.
"Obviously it fits quite well to have beer at a medieval festival, as well," Luitpold says.
But Prince Luitpold insists that there is no drinking while jousting.
"If you make a mistake with a lance, you make a mistake with a sword, you could chop someone's head off very easily, so we have to have extremely well-trained and extremely organized people," he adds.
Prince Luitpold is a member of the Bavarian Royal House of Wittelsbach, the only surviving child of Prince Ludwig of Bavaria.
He is also the great-grandnephew of King Ludwig II, the man who commissioned Neuschwanstein Castle. The grand 19th century structure was the inspiration for Disneyland's Sleeping Beauty Castle.
But Prince Luitpold says that Kaltenberg Castle isn't nearly as large or as fancy as Neuschwanstein — but it is just as chilly.
"It's certainly cold in winter. If you're used to having more room and more space, it's something that is quite nice and convenient. But it also has its slight difficulties, because you have a lot of wind going through. It's less easy to heat. But living in it is quite good fun. And you always find the odd ghost [in the castle]."
And he says that it's convenient to have an in-house brewery, if you are living in a drafty castle. Prince Luitpold says he can just pour himself a beer in the morning to warm up.
"In Bavaria, this is not totally uncommon. White sausage and a beer for breakfast; this is something that is still practiced in this country quite a lot," he explains. |
Episode 7 of Unorthodoxy with Witch Zaftig asks: Is Atheism a Religion?
First, we discuss how atheism is defined, then examine how various groups and individuals with competing interests have amplified that definition.
One example provided is by Sam Harris, of the so-called “new atheist” movement, who advocates for a particular kind of atheistic “spirituality” in his book Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality without Religion.
To refute this obfuscation of the words “atheism” and “spirituality” is scholar of religion David Webster in his book, Dispirited: How Contemporary Spirituality Makes Us Stupid, Selfish, and Unhappy. Webster argues that “spirituality” is a superficial and meaningless concept that modern society has adapted as a response to institutionalised religion, reflective of our current anti-religious sentiment in the western world. Webster claims that this all-too-broad and new-age concept is actually toxic, and no better or worse than fundamentalist religion.
Finally, we bring up the growing atheist churches that promote values and ethics, examples of which are here and here. These movements are responding to the common accusation that atheistic persons live without ecstasy or ethics by religious groups. One side denounces religious people as stupid and having imaginary friends; the other claims atheists are blind automatons without wonder or morals.
Listen to the stand-alone segment here, or the entire show with me as co-host.
Original air-date February 15, 2015.
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We have made a great further progress with John J. Barton on a new extension for Firebug called Eventbug. Big thanks to Olli Pettay (smaug) for fixing #448602 + #506961 and providing new Firefox APIs that allow enumerating event listeners on a web page!
Notice that these APIs are available in Firefox 3.7a1pre (I hope they'll make it into 3.6) and you also need Firebug 1.5 to test it.
Update: all necessary APIs for Eventbug have been backported to Firefox 3.6b3pre.
This extension brings a new Events panel that lists all of the event handlers on the page grouped by event type. The panel also nicely integrates with other Firebug panels and allows to quickly find out, which HTML element is associated with specific event listener or see the Javascript source code.
So, see it in action!
Event Panel
The screenshot below shows content of the Events panel and three side panels (click the image to see the original size).
Side panels are synchronized according to the selected listener in the main content area.
Targets Shows list of event targets that would be used as DOMEvent.currentTarget when event bubbles. All targets are clickable and navigate the user to the HTML panel.
Shows list of event targets that would be used as DOMEvent.currentTarget when event bubbles. All targets are clickable and navigate the user to the HTML panel. Script Shows source code of the selected listener.
Shows source code of the selected listener. HTML Shows HTML code of the element that is associated with the selected listener.
HTML Panel
The extension also registers a new Events side-panel within the HTML panel.
In this case the Events side panel shows all registered event listeners for the selected HTML element.
Recommended Configuration
Firefox 3.7a1pre
Firebug 1.5b1
Eventbug 0.1a2
Known Issues
Eventbug is still in alpha phase and there are some known issues.
The panel is not updated if listeners are dynamically appended or removed upon user actions. You have to manually click the Refresh button (in the toolbar). This will be fixed as soon as #524674 is fixed (thanks Smaug! 🙂 )
If a listener is defined using a HTML attribute (e.g. click="alert('hello world!')" ) the source code is not compiled till the listener is actually executed (Firefox optimization). Eventbug UI doesn't reflect this and it can happen that link to a listener's source code doesn't work. The link should be disabled if the script object is not available.
) the source code is not compiled till the listener is actually executed (Firefox optimization). Eventbug UI doesn't reflect this and it can happen that link to a listener's source code doesn't work. The link should be disabled if the script object is not available. The Script side panel doesn't yet allow to create breakpoint's.
And of course, as usual, if you have any ideas how to improve this feature let us know. If you found a bug, please report it.
Thanks! |
Having released an EP every March since 2015, Ontario post-hardcore bruisers Lungless have returned to continue the trend. This time round, the four-piece are releasing The Love That Remains, with the intention to focus solely on writing the strongest and most up-front songs they could.Utilizing long-time Lungless producer Todd Barriage at his new Wooler, ON studio, the EP is the first to break away from the dual concept of their first releases, 2015's Inhale and 2016's Exhale. It is also the first to feature new drummer Ryan Claxton, who joined the band in Summer 2016.Lungless guitarist Nick Perovic comments: "The Love That Remains isn't necessarily the album I envisioned us making, but it's the album we needed to make to keep this band alive. I can't wait for everyone to hear it, also I want to thank PureGrainAudio for helping us premiere it!"
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The Warriors were 55-5. The Lakers were 12-51. But anything can happen in this league, and it did on Sunday. The Lakers had to come through on at least one of those national TV games, didn't they?
We can make assumptions about how the standings will look after April 13, based on how teams have played thus far, who actually has something to play for, and strength of schedule. But there are going to be a few results every week that challenge our assumptions and throw the playoff picture into chaos.
It looks like we have 10 teams in the East and nine in the West that are still alive. But there are 294 more games to be played and there are surely a few more surprises to shake things up.
* * *
• Last week: History happening in two places
• This time last year: Still a clear top two after Hawks thwart Cavs -- The Nuggets fired Brian Shaw and Wesley Matthews tore his Achilles. Joel Embiid threw down an East Bay Funk Dunk in warmups, Russell Westbrook took off against the Sixers, Marc Gasol beat the Rockets with a fadeaway runner, and Stephen Curry hit a ridiculous shot after dancing through the Clippers' defense.
• Plus-minus stud: Goran Dragic (MIA) was a plus-58 in four games last week.
• Plus-minus dud: Robert Covington (PHI) was a minus-63 in four games last week.
• Hero team of the week: Cleveland (3-0) -- LeBron James went to Miami and tweeted out some goofy stuff, but the Cavs took care of business at home, beating two East playoff teams (Indiana and Boston) and another playoff hopeful (Washington).
• Zero team of the week: New Orleans (0-3) -- The Pelicans booked Dell Demps' trip to the Lottery with losses to the eighth-place Rockets and ninth-place Jazz.
• Team to watch this week: Oklahoma City -- The Thunder are struggling, especially defensively. But they face two more tests with top-six offenses -- the Clippers and Spurs -- this week.
• East vs. West: The West is 190-172 (.525) against the East in interconference games, though the East was 14-10 (3-1 vs. Portland) last week.
• Toughest schedules so far: 1. L.A. Lakers, 2. Sacramento, 3. Philadelphia
• Easiest schedules so far: 1. San Antonio, 2. Memphis, 3. Oklahoma City
Schedule strength is based on cumulative opponent record, and adjusted for home vs. away and days of rest before a game.
• High jumps of the week: Charlotte (+3), Milwaukee (+3), Cleveland (+2), L.A. Clippers (+2)
• Free falls of the week: New Orleans (-3), Oklahoma City (-3), Brooklyn (-2), Portland (-2)
* * *
Pace: Possessions per 48 minutes (League Rank)
OffRtg: Points scored per 100 possessions (League Rank)
DefRtg: Points allowed per 100 possessions (League Rank)
NetRtg: Point differential per 100 possessions (League Rank)
The league has averaged 98.1 possessions (per team) per 48 minutes and 103.5 points scored per 100 possessions this season.
* * *
NBA.com's Power Rankings, released every Monday during the season, are just one man's opinion. If you have an issue with the rankings, or have a question or comment for John Schuhmann, send him an e-mail or contact him via Twitter. |
If you watched Saints games last season or read any articles breaking down their fantasy production you may have reached the same conclusion that many in the fantasy community have: Sean Payton hates Mark Ingram. My personal theory is that Ingram wore muddy shoes into Payton’s house, kicked the dog, and then went to the fridge and drank milk straight out of the carton. All jokes aside, it really seems like there was something behind the scenes holding Ingram back. He was clearly the most talented running back on the roster by a wide margin and yet other RBs continued to siphon of opportunities. In this article, we are going to dig a little deeper into the conundrum that is Mark Ingram and why I think it is still safe to draft him in 2017.
Ball Security
The perception from 2016 is that Mark Ingram has ball security issues and that’s what drew disdain from head coach, Sean Payton. While Ingram did lead the team in fumbles at the RB position, he only had 2 which is a far cry from being a “fumbling problem”. So, the fears going into 2017 that he may lose his job or opportunities because of ball security issues are overblown. Especially when you consider his competition for carries primarily comes from Adrian Peterson who has 39 career fumbles and has basically invented new and exciting ways to drop the football.
Efficiency
In 2016, Ingram was wildly efficient by just about every metric. His yards per carry was 5.1 and his fantasy points per touch was 0.965. In a vacuum, that number seems a bit abstract. To put it in perspective Ingram’s mark of 0.965 was higher than Le’Veon Bell (0.944), Ezekiel Elliott (0.919), DeMarco Murray (0.849), and even Jay Ajayi (0.750) who was basically known for explosive plays. In fact, Ingram was the 4th most efficient RB in the league with at least 250 touches. This efficiency allowed Ingram to be the only RB to finish in the top 12 with fewer than 280 touches (he had 251). He’s shown that he can excel in the passing game as well as goal line situations, both of which make him an extremely valuable asset in what is perennially one of the most high-powered offenses in the league.
Scheme
The 2016 Saints were once again at the top of the league in pass attempts but were surprisingly still a middle of the road team in rush attempts. Their 25.2 carries per game ranked them 18th in the league. I expect this number to increase in 2017 for a couple reasons. First, Drew Brees will be 38 years old this season and will be playing without his blindside defender, Terron Armstead, who will miss the season with a shoulder injury. The best way to preserve an aging QB when dealing with possibly suspect pass blocking up front is to run the football. The Saints also traded the talented Brandin Cooks to New England for a 1st round pick that they used on OT Ryan Ramczyk. That to me indicates a shift in focus this season. The Saints want to be a more physical team that can take some pressure off of the aforementioned Brees, as well as their defense. The Saints aren’t going to become a run first team overnight, nor should they, but I expect more opportunities to come.
Workload
The additions of Adrian Peterson and rookie Alvin Kamara have many fading Mark Ingram’s value in 2017. However, it is worth noting that Tim Hightower has left the team via free agency and Travaris Cadet looks like he will be casualty come time for roster cuts, so there are 199 touches available without having to reduce Ingram’s workload. The additions of Peterson and Kamara are actually perfect replacements for the types of carries that walked out the door. Set aside any concerns that Peterson will recapture his glory days, or that Kamara is the second coming of Reggie Bush. Peterson is an aging veteran, not unlike Hightower who can probably be effective in light duty, as he has shown signs of his advanced age when given a full workload, and Kamara projects best as a change of pace/third down back similar to Cadet.
Remember that Mark Ingram has finished as an RB1 in each of the last two seasons despite seeing only 47.8% of the teams rushing attempts over that span. Ingram is not an RB that needs 300+ carries, or even 250 to be successful.
Final Plea
For all the talk about Ingram being in the doghouse, he still finished as an RB1. Imagine what he can do if he gets back in Payton’s good graces. Mark Ingram is in a prime position to repeat his success from 2015 and 2016 when he finished as the 12th and 8th best running back in fantasy, only now you can get him at as a steal according to his ADP on Fantasy Football Calculator. Ingram is the 31st RB off the board and is being drafted an entire round and a half after his backup, Adrian Peterson. A starting RB with a track record of finishing as an RB1 is a no brainer at the back of the 6th round. Do yourself a favor and don’t sleep on Mark Ingram in 2017. |
The repercussions of the credit crunch have continued to occupy headline news in recent weeks. We witnessed the demise of Lehman Brothers and Washington Mutual, the rescue of AIG, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the sale of Merrill Lynch, the proposed merger of Lloyds TSB and HBOS (which would never have been permitted under normal circumstances), and the list goes on.
Yet, even in such volatile markets there remained significant profit opportunities for the day trader. For example, £103bn was added to the UK blue chip companies (representing a record 8.84% jump) in a single day. Banks that have seen their share prices tumble over the past year may may bounce back and prove again to be fantastic long-term investments. Even 10 years on from the financial meltdown, the effects are still being felt.
This article selects quality software that help individuals keep track of stock market movements, analyse the markets, and identify stock worth buying.
In this article, we also feature the best personal finance software available for Linux, as well as covering the corporate end of the market with accounting software and business solutions.
Two financial applications which did not make it into the list but are worth mentioning are NolaPro and Quasar Accounting. Both of these accounting applications are high quality and available to download without charge. However, the term ‘free’ in this article relates to software released under an open-source license. NolaPro and Quasar Accounting are, unfortunately, released under proprietary licenses.
To provide an insight into the quality of software that is available, we have compiled a list of 21 high quality Linux financial software. Hopefully, there will be something of interest for anyone who wishes to organise their finance affairs.
Now, let’s explore the 21 financial applications at hand. For each title we have compiled its own portal page, providing a screenshot of the software in action, a full description with an in-depth analysis of its features, together with links to relevant resources and reviews.
Return to our complete collection of Group Tests, identifying the finest free and open source Linux software.
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Image copyright AFP Image caption Iran has capped salaries of public officials, but many Iranians believe it came too late
"Payslip-gate", as it has come to be known, has been dominating the news headlines in Iran for months.
The scandal began in May when the payslips of top managers at the state insurance company were leaked to the media, showing they were receiving very generous salaries.
In the weeks that followed more payslips mysteriously found their way into the public domain, revealing the earnings of a range of officials from top civil servants to bank bosses.
Some were apparently getting around 50 times the minimum public sector wage.
Many were also being paid big bonuses and extras, taking their overall salaries to upwards of a hundred times the average household income.
In a country where public sector jobs are normally considered as low paid, and where civil servants often take second jobs to make ends meet, the revelations came as a shock.
Spin-off media reports about bank executives staying in $5,000 (£3,800)-a-night hotel rooms on business trips only added to public anger.
Ammunition for hardliners
The saga has been a major blow to the reputation of the government of President Hassan Rouhani.
The millions of Iranians who voted for him in the 2013 were hoping for change and in particular an improvement to their country's dire economic situation.
Image copyright Reuters Image caption President Rouhani (c) is expected to run for office again next year
Although the president has delivered on his election promises of resolving the stand-off over Iran's nuclear programme, and opening the way for sanctions to be lifted, there has been little concrete improvement in ordinary people's lives so far.
Hardliners have seized the opportunity to attack Mr Rouhani and his team as Iranian politics moves into a higher gear ahead of presidential elections due to take place next May.
There has been a drumbeat of negative coverage in the conservative media.
Things have also got personal with critics targeting Mr Rouhani's brother, Hossein Ferydoun, who has been accused of having close links to some of the officials at the centre of the scandal.
Groundswell of anger
Many Iranians have been taking to social media to vent their fury.
"Why such high payments to officials whose inefficiency is evident all over the country?" asked one Twitter user called Sharzad. "Is this the new way of tackling corruption?"
Image copyright AFP Image caption The cost of living for ordinary Iranians remains high
"Now I've seen their payslips, I understand why officials used to say 'the sanctions have no effects whatsoever'," said another Twitter user, Ilkar.
"Iran needs a few Robin Hoods!" quipped another, Mohammad.
Even the country's supreme leader was moved to intervene, branding the salaries, unacceptable and "astronomical".
Mr Rouhani and other officials have repeatedly said that the problem is not widespread and that only a handful of managers earn what they call "irregular salaries".
A number of officials named in the payslip revelations have now been sacked, and one senior banking official - Ali Rastagar Sorkhei, from Mellat Bank - has been arrested.
'Too late'
This week the government announced that it was introducing a new cap on state officials' salaries.
But many Iranians say all this has come too late to stop the tide of resentment.
Reports of businesses failing to pay their employees on time or at all, and disputes over low wages, are becoming regular occurrences in Iran.
In May, 17 gold miners in West Azerbaijan province in north-west Iran were lashed on the orders of the judiciary after their employers sued them for protesting over the sacking of hundreds of their colleagues.
Against this background it is not difficult to understand why the payslip row has made many people so angry and many officials so nervous.
Whether or not the scandal is limited to a very few senior executives, as the government claims, it underlines the widening divide in Iran between the rich and the poor.
For ordinary voters, the fact that the economy still is not delivering is now a major cause of concern.
Anyone who wants their vote in next year's election will need to have a clear plan for how to resolve the problem. |
It was the kiss seen round the world.
When The Pianist’s Adrien Brody won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 2003, the audience at the Kodak Theatre erupted in applause. His four venerable opponents—Jack Nicholson, Daniel Day-Lewis, Michael Caine, and Nicolas Cage, all past Oscar recipients—rose to their feet in amazement. As the wiry actor stumbled up to the stage, he extended his arms toward the crowd and then, in a fit of giddy jubilation, made a beeline for presenter Halle Berry and gave her a deep, passionate, nonconsensual kiss. At 29, Brody became the youngest ever to win the Best Actor Oscar—a distinction he still holds.
However, with the exception of a dazzling cameo as Salvador Dalí in Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris, the past few years have been a disaster for Brody. He sued the producers of Giallo, a 2009 thriller directed by Dario Argento, claiming he wasn’t paid his full salary (Brody later settled, and the film received a DVD release). The Experiment, a 2010 remake of the acclaimed German film Das Experiment starring Brody and fellow Oscar winner Forest Whitaker, went straight to video, and last year’s Wrecked, which Brody produced and starred in, made just $8,020 at the box office. The coup de grâce: he can currently be seen sporting a plethora of fake mustaches in commercials for Gillette.
“After I won the Oscar, people were telling me, ‘Yo, don’t change’—especially coming from Queens,” said Brody over coffee with The Daily Beast. “I really made a very serious effort to not make certain choices and not do too many commercial nonsense movies for the wrong reasons. But I watched how so many people viewed me so differently.” He adds, “It’s a blessing and a curse.”
Brody’s latest effort is Detachment—a controversial drama by filmmaker Tony Kaye about a substitute teacher (Brody) with a dark past struggling to connect with his recalcitrant inner-city students. Along the way, he forms an unlikely bond with a teenage prostitute. Joined by a stellar supporting cast, including Christina Hendricks, Bryan Cranston, Marcia Gay Harden, and James Caan, the riveting film boasts Brody’s best performance since The Pianist. The movie also returns him to the mean streets of Queens, where he grew up.
Born in Woodhaven, Queens, to photojournalist Sylvia Plachy and history professor Elliott Brody, he performed magic shows at children’s birthday parties as a child under the name “the Amazing Adrien.” His favorite trick: breaking a pencil in two with a dollar bill.
“That’s the first bit of acting I did,” said Brody, with a chuckle. “You get a magic trick, and then you have to get your whole little hustle on, tell a story, and pull the wool over people’s eyes. Acting is about illusion—the illusion of becoming somebody.”
Brody attended New York City's Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts (best known as the high school from the TV series Fame). Despite having to take four subways each way to get there from Queens, he says it was worth it, because his local school was pretty poor. The school also offered Brody free acting classes, which kept him from causing mischief with his troublemaking friends.
“It was definitely a good activity for me to not ‘lurk’ as much,” he says. “You know, I’m a normal kid that grew up in the city … I got a little street in me!”
After a series of roles in low-budget films, Brody landed what he thought was his big break: the lead in Terrence Malick’s 1998 World War II drama The Thin Red Line. He was even slated to appear on the cover of Vanity Fair for its “Hot, Young, and Full of Fun” story focused on rising stars. But it wasn’t to be. When Brody attended an advanced screening of the film in December 1998, he learned that his character had been cut to just two lines of dialogue and under five minutes of screen time.
“It sucked,” says Brody. “I was 23 when I made that movie, and it was public, which was also very challenging. I worked so hard on it for six months, and I also believed the hype. I did boot camp, slept with poisonous spiders in the fuckin’ jungle, learned military tactics, and ate MREs. It was crazy and a big, spiritual loss.”
Despite the setback, Brody soldiered on, turning in impressive performances as a punk-rock gigolo in Spike Lee’s 1999 drama Summer of Sam and as a lowly Los Angeles janitor in Ken Loach’s Bread and Roses, which was nominated for the Palme d’Or.
After filmmaker Roman Polanski’s first choice, Joseph Fiennes, was reportedly unavailable due to theater commitments, more than 1,400 actors auditioned for the role of Wladyslaw Szpilman, a Polish, Jewish pianist forced to go into hiding during World War II, in The Pianist. Brody was eventually cast and, as is his wont, fiercely dedicated himself to preparing for the role—losing 29 pounds, learning to play Chopin on the piano, and completely cutting himself off from the world (his girlfriend dumped him because of it). But all his hard work paid off, and Brody won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his mesmerizing turn.
His next big leading role came in the 2005 blockbuster King Kong, helmed by The Lord of the Rings’ Peter Jackson. While the film was a critical and commercial success, earning more than $550 million worldwide, Brody hasn’t appeared in a Hollywood blockbuster since. But he claims it doesn’t have to do with his experience making Kong.
“It didn’t put me off [Hollywood], necessarily,” he says. “There are just too few great roles in those kinds of movies. Look, I’m comfortable. I don’t need to do bigger movies just to get nicer things. I would love to do commercial films that spoke to me on a deeper level, films that have a $20 million P&A budget, and people would go see it. Clooney gets those roles, and he’s managed to find those, but they’re few and far between, and they go to actors who’ve pursued more commercial roles.”
Studios’ apparent reluctance to cast Brody in Hollywood films may also have to do with his “unconventional” looks, leading them to cast more “conventional looking” stars like the Sam Worthingtons and Chris Hemsworths of the world. He does acknowledge that his unique looks may have played a part in the lack of juicy blockbuster roles.
“Maybe they have, yeah,” he says. “There’s definitely a formula. That’s why getting Predators was such a coup for me. I had to campaign for that, and it was purely to do something against type and how people perceive me.” He adds, “There was a lot of prejudgment before I did it—nasty, snarky shit—and then people saw that we pulled it off.”
With the exception of Predators, the past few years have been rough for Brody, but that will hopefully change with Detachment. After all, Kaye’s 1998 film American History X, which was also partially set in a school, earned Edward Norton an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. And Kaye—similar to Brody—is also on the comeback trail, having largely been shunned by Hollywood over the past decade due to his outré personality.
“That was part of the reason I wanted to do the movie, because I don’t like that shit—people always talking about people’s reputations,” Brody says. “He’s an amazing director and a fucking great collaborative, creative genius. The guy is so spontaneous. He’s eccentric, and I think sometimes people don’t respect the eccentricity. It’s the world we live in.”
Eventually, our conversation veers into hip-hop music, which Brody is a huge fan of. While making the 1996 film Bullet, he even befriended rapper Tupac Shakur.
“We hung out, and it was exciting,” says Brody. “He was a dope artist, talented as an actor, and he was fun. I was younger than he was, but he was so cool.” He laughs. “I went ‘bombing’ with Pac.” (Brody wouldn’t elaborate further.)
He continues, “I’ve been making hip-hop beats for many years. I think people just can’t comprehend that the guy who does The Pianist also makes dope hip-hop, and the guy who does The Pianist does Predators.” Brody pauses. “It’s sleight of hand … but that’s what it should be.” |
NEW DELHI -- Indians woke up to a huge surprise Wednesday when the nation’s television news channels began splashing the news about the hanging execution of the lone surviving terrorist from the 2008 Mumbai attacks, Ajmal Kasab, in a secret operation code-named “X’.
Ajmal Kasab walks through the Chatrapathi Sivaji Terminal railway station in Mumbai, India, on Nov. 26, 2008. He admitted his role in the Mumbai shooting in a dramatic confession in an Indian court in 2009, reversing months of denials. (AP Photo/Mumbai Mirror, Sebastian D'souza)
In a country where few things remain secret, where everything is argued in public, and where courts take decades to complete trials, Kasab’s swift hanging was a welcome surprise for many.
“This is a big achievement for us – completing the whole legal process in just four years, and keeping this important decision a secret till the end,” said Sanjay Nirupam, a lawmaker from Mumbai.
The Hindi television channel, ABP News, reported that the cell phones of 16 of the 17 officials who knew about the operation had been switched off since Tuesday evening.
“We did not want to make this into a whole hoopla with the whole media,” R. P. N. Singh, deputy home minister, told NDTV 24X7 news channel.
The predominant emotion among Indians seemed to be one of relief as they learned that one of the most high-profile cases had come to a conclusion.
The 2008 Mumbai attacks shocked Indians like no other terror attack before. Dramatic pictures of the city’s iconic Taj Hotel in flames, explosions, fire-fights, a prolonged hostage crisis and the rescue were telecast live and non-stop for three days. Many called it “India’s 9/11.”
In fact, many questioned why Kasab was kept alive in jail for so long with taxpayers’ money. Every year on the anniversary of the attacks, survivors and members of victims’ families would ask when justice would be delivered.
Kasab’s hanging was the second since 1995; the last was in 2004 of a man who was convicted of raping and murdering a 14-year old girl.
Surveillance cameras caught Kasab prowling with a gun in the train station that night, where 55 people were killed.
“I saw him with my own eyes, I did not need any more proof,” said Mukesh Agarawal, a 52-year-old man who ran a food court at the station and was shot at by Kasab at the train station. “It was record time by Indian standards. But for me, it took too long. Every year felt heavy. Now, I feel like a child who gave an school exam four years ago, and test results are out today.”
At a tea stall in New Delhi, Sunil Tiwari, 24, said: “The Pakistani planners should know that India can act tough against terrorists.”
Television news channels ran non-stop coverage of the news and invited viewers to call in with their comments.
On Twitter, #Kasab began trending almost immediately.
FYI, 12 hours ago, India voted against a UN General Assembly resolution banning the death penalty. Now we know why. #Kasab — Oculus Dada (@daddy_san) November 21, 2012
A popular Bollywood actor tweeted:
Justice may not replace the feeling ofloss but it gives strength & hope to continue life with renewed belief in system we live in. #Kasab — Anupam Kher (@AnupamPkher) November 21, 2012
Another tweeted a picture of the memorial built for the policeman who died catching Kasab that November night in 2008.
Bust of Tukaram Omble at Girgaum Chowpatty, where he grappled with Ajmal #Kasab on 26/11. twitter.com/SandeepUnnitha… — Sandeep (@SandeepUnnithan) November 21, 2012
One of India's prominent film directors wrote:
If I were to be the hang man I would have shown the pictures of all his victims to Kasab before hanging him — Ram Gopal Varma (@RGVzoomin) November 21, 2012
See more Twitter reactions on #Kasab and his execution. |
Magnus Walker On All Cars (Not Just Porsche), Life, The Universe & Everything
Many people find that Magnus Walker does not need an introduction—so let me be clear: haters and fanboys alike believe that they already know everything there is to know about the enigmatic man behind the wheel of some of the most sinister Porsche 911 builds on the road today. To some purists, he’s a menace. To some menaces, he’s a purist.
Until the last few years, Porsche AG preferred not to be associated with what they perceived to be his “outlaw” attitude, and now he proudly sports a framed holiday card from division heads on his desk, each one brandishing a distinctive “rock on” gesture over the words, “Merry Christmas From The Stuttgart Outlaws”.
Needless to say, sitting down together with Magnus Walker himself was an exercise in perception-meets-reality, and I’m extremely glad that we did.
Ted Gushue: Magnus, what was the first car that you ever drove?
Magnus Walker: Well, when I lived in England I actually never had a driver’s license. I left England at 19, came to America in 1986. That story is pretty well-documented, but moving from Sheffield, England to L.A. are two completely different environments. Sheffield, you can get around on the bus for back then 5, 10 pence. L.A. you can’t get anywhere without a car, L.A. is the car capital, and if you don’t have a car you’re really lost without it because everything is so spread out.
For me, acquiring my first car represented freedom. There’s nothing better than freedom in a city like L.A., because you can come and go wherever you want at whatever speed you want to go.
To me, that first car was a real memorable moment because it ticked a lot of boxes. I bought it in 1988. It was a 1977 Toyota Corolla 2TC, I paid 200 bucks for it. I believe I must have been 21. I took my driver’s test in that Corolla at the Santa Monica DMV. That to me was really a memorable moment, to be able to legally drive in California. I’d been driving around illegally but to have a card that says you can go anywhere in America was really special. It was freedom.
TG: Had you been interested in cars before the Corolla?
MW: To me, the automobile has never been purely transportation, it’s more than a means of going from A to B. I fell in love with Porsche when I was a 10 year old. I grew up in England, born in ’67, so the mid-’70s was a glory period to be an auto enthusiast. In 1976 and 1977 England ruled the world in motor sports on both two and four wheels. Two wheels, we had Barry Sheene, World Superbike Champion. Four wheels, we had James Hunt obviously in the epic duel with Niki Lauda for the ’76 Formula 1 World Championship. As a kid I was 9, 10—I always say the dream starts at an early age. I was no different to any other kid anywhere else in the world.
I think you had a choice of three posters on the wall at the time. A Porsche Turbo, a Lamborghini Countach, or a Ferrari 512 Berlinetta Boxer. I picked the Porsche because I went to the London Earls Court Motor Show with my dad in 1977 and saw a white Martini liveried 930 Turbo on the stand. That was it. I’d been familiar with motorsport even though we started real poor in working class Sheffield. My dad never had any cool cars, but my uncle had a cool car. My uncle actually at one time had a 246 Dino, which he then traded for 308 GTB. Back then that was a step up from a Dino into a 308, today it’s a slightly different story—it was one of the first 308 GTB 5 Vascos, which was a pretty rare car at the time.
I had another uncle who had an E-Type Jaguar. Occasionally we’d go to club races, there were track days at Donnington, Mallory Park, Cardwell Park. From that age of I guess 7, 8, 9 I’ve been around motorsports or watching it on TV. But the real turning point, the real memorable point was that London Earls Court Motor Show. I have the cutaway poster of the Martini 935 actually on the wall now. I wrote to Porsche in 1977, I said I wanted to design cars for them. Back then Porsche was a small company, so they wrote me back essentially saying to call us when you’re older.
They sent me a little brochure, I still have it to this day. To me, I always had that dream, but Porsches were not a common sight in Sheffield so it was a dream that didn’t come to fruition until I moved to America. That dream came true I guess 15 years later. I bought my first Porsche, which was actually my third car, in 1992.
I think in 1990 once I’d started actually making a little bit of money in the clothing business I bought my second car, which was also a real memorable car for me: it was a 1988 Saab 900 Turbo with the SPG package. I must have bought that in, I guess, ’91 when it was probably three years old. That car, I paid 7,500 bucks for it. I drove that car quite a long time and I really liked that car. It’s funny, those first two cars—the ’77 Corolla and the ’88 SPG 900 Saab Turbo—are two cars that I’m now looking for.
No one has really fucked too much with a ’77 Corolla, a lot of people mess with Datsun 510s and stuff like that. I’m obviously known for modifying Porsches, but I really want to build a ’77 Corolla in the spirit of like a 510 Datsun S.
TG: Do you feel that because of your notoriety in the Porsche community it would be difficult to move into other marques?
MW: It’s easy because I’ve never cared really what people think, I’ve always done my own thing. I think that’s why I stand out a little bit in the sea of fellow Porsche enthusiasts building a similar style of car. Because my thing has never been to follow the trend. I think ultimately I’m able to transfer in and out. I’m not so Porsche centric that I couldn’t rip around in a Saab.
Since the minute the Outlaw film came out on October 15th 2012, my life has changed drastically both personally and professionally, but I’ve stayed largely the same. Even though I’m a Porsche guy I think the message transcends the Porsche marque, which is just to get out and drive.
That being said, I’ve always maintained that Porsche is my drug, it’s my religion, it’s my language, I say it all the time. It doesn’t matter whether you speak English, German, or Japanese, you’ll speak Porsche because it transcends the language barrier. It transcends the class barrier, but ultimately all true car guys share that same passion. I can have fun driving other people’s cars that are non-Porsche cars and I think that it doesn’t matter what you drive, just so long as you’re driving.
Everyone has their dream car, whether it’s a Corvette or Ford Mustang. I find I’m actually always talking about the similarities between the Mustang and the 911, even though the two couldn’t be more different. They came out the same year, both have been in production since 1964, both have a fanatical fan base.
And both have factory ranges within the model range which are vast. Like Porsche has probably 30 different varieties of 911. Mustang’s got just as many I’d reckon.
TG: Would you ever consider a Mustang?
MW: One time I owned one, I had a ’65 GT350 Shelby replica fastback with a 351 Cleveland, Detroit Locker, and a Richmond 5-speed. Back in the ’90s I wasn’t purely, purely Porsche. I’ve owned and loved many other cars besides Porsche. I had a ’67 E-Type Jag. I had two ’69 Super Bees, still have the tattoo [shows me tattoo of his Super Bees]. I had a ’73 Lotus Europa, I had a ’79 308 GTB Ferrari, and I had a handful of Porsches during that process.
TG: What was your experience like with the Europa?
MW: Super nimble, cat like, but nobody ever saw you on the road. My Europa story is great, I love telling this story. Back in the ’90s, we were acquiring a lot of cars, my wife and I. We’d literally go to the Pamona Swap Meet. I remember once buying her a Type 3 Notchback for like three grand. We weren’t looking for it but it was just there. I used to love getting The Sports Car Trader. On a Wednesday night, I’d get it late before it came out on Thursday. Back then it was pre-internet so things didn’t move quite as quickly. I had always liked Lotus Europas, it must be an English thing. This car was in Walnut Creek, Northern California. It had been for sale for a couple of weeks at 7,800 bucks. I called the guy probably two weeks later and he said, “You know what? Next weekend I’m driving down Orange County to visit my cousin. I’ll bring the car.”
I said to him, “If it makes it all the way to L.A., I’ll buy it on the spot.” That was how I ended up with a Lotus Europa. It made it from Walnut Creek California to Downtown L.A., I paid the guy 7,500 bucks for it. That was a super nimble car, an outboard car, I’ve still got photos of it. Mine was sort of burnt sand, beige copper metallic color. It’s just a great nimble driving car, it was like a 914 in a sense. But just nobody ever saw you on the road, it was so low you would be under everyone’s mirrors. Just wasn’t quite as exciting as a 911 and that summed up the beginning of the end of all non-Porsche cars for me.
For that period from I guess ’94 to 2000 I had acquired all those cars I described. In 2001, 2002 I joined the Porsche Owners Club, learned to hone my driving skills, became a better driver, and realized that as great as all those cars were—and each one of them was great in their own sense. But compared to the 911, the 911 did everything great. The Mustang was great but didn’t really stop. It went around corners a little bit but just didn’t tick all the boxes. It wasn’t that easy to heel and toe it, didn’t shape that well.
E-Type Jag was a great cruiser but couldn’t match the 911’s performance. The ’69 Super Bees were just really good in a straight line and they were fun because you could drag race anything up to like 60 mph, it didn’t matter: Corvette, Viper. The ’73 Europa I described was a little bit slower down the path.
The ’79 308 GTB, we paid 20 grand for that car and kept it for about eight years. It was pretty reliable, actually, we only ever replaced the water pump but it just wasn’t 911 nimble. It got better the faster you went. The coolest thing about the 308 really was that naughty gear shift, I loved that. Still, the 911 just did everything really well, so over a five year period we pretty much got rid of everything. The last non-Porsche car we had was the E-Type Jag, I think we bought that in 96 and we kept it all the way to 2011. That was a 15 year run, in 2011 as you know was the 50th anniversary of the E-Type legendary car that came out in 1961.
TG: So you basically sold at close to peak market?
MW: Yeah, we did. It was a coupe though, so coupes were still undervalued. We had the series 1, 1967 which was to some the best of the breed because of its covered headlights, full synchro box, and 4.2-liter motor. As I described earlier on, that car just was not really that great at anything close to a hundred miles an hour. The great thing about the E-Type was it was a great equalizer, always got two thumbs up from anyone passing by. All the other cars you’d always get a look, or the finger or something. Nobody ever had a bad word to say about the E-Type Jag.
TG: Have there been any cars that have ever scared you?
MW: No, not really, and I’ve driven a lot. In the Porsche world I’ve driven everything up to the 918. I’ve driven all the supercars, the 959, the Carrera GT. The 959, fuck, under 3,500 RPM it’s like being in the 3.2 Carrera. Because once you’re inside everything is so familiar, which is what’s great about Porsche. That car is now 30 years old but it’s still really current. The Carrera GT, that’s a different story, it’s such an intoxicating car.
Funnily, I described that experience as like being like a boxer on steroids. I read so much about the Carrera GT and all you would ever read was about a journalist that stalled the car. Let me tell you my long answer to your, “Did any car ever scare me” question” I became good friends with the Ingram Collection—Road Scholars—I don’t know if you are familiar with these guys.
I think ultimately they’re the coolest people with the best collection of cars, everything from a Gmund Coupe up to a current 918. I was at the Pinehurst Concours and Cam said, “Hey you want to go drive the Carrera GT?” Of course I couldn’t say no. So I get in the car and 10 seconds later, because it’s such a striking car, there’s 50 people standing around essentially waiting for me to stall it in front of them.
All I could think was, “Don’t stall it, don’t stall it, for the love of god don’t stall it!” And they’re notorious for that light switch on again off again clutch. Luckily, I’d read quite a few articles. I guess the key is you just don’t touch the gas, just let your foot out of the clutch and it rolls on. After I’d not stalled the car, I pulled it out of this crowd of 50 people and the rest of it was literally like a boxer on steroids. Just the most intoxicating drive. The 918 I’ve driven, but that’s a whole different story right there.
TG: Does the 918 feel disconnected compared to the CGT?
MW: Well, you’re less involved. The Carrera GT is a humbling and intimidating and rewarding and challenging drive every time you come to a stop light, especially one on a hill—you’re super involved. With the 918, it’s just a strange experience because you can pussyfoot around in whatever mode it’s in for traffic, not worrying about it. You don’t even hear it, then you flip the switch to sport mode and everything just gets really loud and scary straight away.
To me, driving needs to be involved, one of my favorite things I like to say is some people go to gym to work out, I like to get in the car and drive. It becomes this challenge. It becomes a meditation. It becomes everything you’ve ever heard about all the senses being ticked. It’s one thing new cars don’t do. I’ve driven literally everything that Porsche has to offer.
In new stuff, you’re so insulated. Everyone says it, but the best way to experience real connection is to take a 2.0-liter car and just flat out flog it. Every time I do I find myself saying, “Fuck that’s the great thing about an early car”. You’re just so fully connected to the road.
TG: Do you have anyone in the Porsche world that you really look up to?
MW: You know I’m a big Brumos fan.
TG: Sure, go on.
MW: [Whips out cell phone to show me driving video] This is me driving the Brumos Helmut Bott prototype 959. This is Don Leatherwood filming me driving. This is the Helmuth Bott prototype Type-959. These are the people and the cars I look up to. [Flips to another video] Now here, I’m driving Hurley Haywood’s 911S that he won the ’72 IMSA championships in, listen to this [puts phone up to my ear]. That’s the car Hurley Haywood won the ’72 championship in, and I was lucky enough to drive it in Jacksonville Florida out of the Brumos collection.
TG: What’s the collection like in person?
MW: It’s killer, I’m a huge Hurley fan. Huge. Have you ever met him or Don Leatherwood?
TG: I haven’t, only Hurley on the phone.
MW: Such a character, him and I click pretty well. I’m driving that car and I literally cannot get out of it. It’s one of those cars you just don’t want to get out of. And I’m ripping up and down the road in front of the dealership.
It’s quite a little country road, and here’s the real funny part of the story. I parked the car, Don’s showing me around the collection, and Hurley shows up and he’s got this pissed off look on his face, like, “What the fuck guys?” It turns out some neighbor was sick of me driving up and down the road, so they called the Brumos Dealership and asked to talk to Hurley—and basically said [to him]: “Who the hell is ripping up and down the road in this car?” So I got chewed out by Hurley. Once in a lifetime moment for me.
That’s what’s great about Porsche. That I’m somehow allowed to be in a scenario where Hurley Haywood is telling me to slow down around the Brumos Dealership.
TG: Right.
MW: I don’t think any other marque is like Porsche that brings people together and breaks down class divides. It doesn’t matter in my experience, and you see how I look, and where I’m from, and my background story. I left school at 15, and not that many years later I’m getting yelled at by Hurley Haywood. Porsche is a great equalizer. It doesn’t matter where you come from, what you look like, what you sound like, how much money is in your bank account, there’s a space for everybody.
TG: Do you find that new Porsche owners don’t necessarily subscribe to that same sense of community?
MW: Ah, you’re talking about the Porsche wave.
TG: Yes, exactly. Do you find that some new owners don’t get it?
MW: Speaking generically, a lot of new Porsche consumers aren’t enthusiasts. Now this definitely doesn’t cover all bases, but as a Porsche enthusiast—and I sense you’re one of those guys—we have what I call “the Porsche passion”.
Today, many people buy Porsches as a status symbol, which is fine perhaps. They’re wonderful cars that can signify a sense of achievement, fine. For them, they’re a fancy means to go from A to B, with no connection to the enthusiasm and the adventure.
TG: I think it’s actually something that they’re very aware of as a brand, which is why I think they are trying to breed a sense of history into the Boxster by bringing back the 718 name, trying to educate the consumer that actually they’re not just buying a Boxster to go tool around town in. They’re buying something that comes from a history of one of the winningest race cars ever made.
MW: Yeah, Porsche has got so much rich history going back not 50 years, going back 60 years or more. I mean, that’s a currency they can trade on. I think they’ve realized what passion their enthusiasts have and are now trying to educate their middle market consumer. That’s why my era of real joy when it comes to Porsche is ’60s and ’70s. To me, that was the glory years of Porsche at its purest.
TG: But also when you get into a new 911 you still feel the connection. The connective tissue is still there to the original.
MW: Yes, it’s true. The DNA is there. It’s like even with the 928. My 928 I just got is almost 40 years old. Porsche is now celebrating this year the 40th anniversary of the front engine transaxle cars. The 924 came out in 1976, so no other car could be more different to the 911s I’m used to, motor is in the front, it’s water cooled. In true Porsche fashion, you get in that car, the sitting position is more laid back but steering wheel is in the perfect position, you can heel and toe. The pedals are perfectly laid out. The shifter is right where you want it to be.
Having owned and driven other makes of cars, The Ferrari I talked about, I’ve driven the Lamborghini Countach of that era, everything is wrong with them…even the Lotus. The steering wheel is off the center, it’s a mess. In the Porsche it doesn’t matter whether it’s a 911, a 928, a 924, that DNA runs all the way through. Just the other day, I tested out a $3,500 944. Loved the thing. I’m going to own one of every model eventually.
TG: You realize that by saying this on the record you’re going to be driving the prices up.
MW: People say that all the time. One time I had five ’67 911S models when they were affordable, but today they’re just so astronomically out of price. I had six ’65 911’s, I’m now down to one, but one time I had five of the first thousand. These cars were affordable ten years ago. Then they doubled, tripled, and doubled again. I mean what you could buy for ten grand then is a hundred grand today. Look at all the Turbos, nobody wanted 3.0-liter Turbos three to five years ago, they weren’t cool.
Porsches were built to be driven, and they were driven by enthusiasts as opposed to becoming museum pieces. That’s now changing and I think it all started with ’73 Carrera RS. Fifteen years ago, that was 40 grand car. Today it’s a million dollar car, so that elevated everything.
TG: And you can say the same for Lamborghini Countach, 15 years ago that was a $50,000 car to own?
MW: Yeah, yeah, and look where they are today. I also love the Pantera, I love the Magusta. I’ve never spent crazy money on any of those cars, except that 924 Turbo as you see it was 4,500 bucks. To me, I’d always seem to be lucky that I never followed the trend and I said earlier on the things that connect my 30 years in L.A.: clothing, the building we’re in, and the Porches that I’ve built
Each one of them had its own unique style, which was essentially a reflection of my personality. When it came to Porches, my background was 12, 14 years ago doing a lot of track days, I was okay at that. Then I started writing my interpretation of my dream race car from the ’60s and ’70s into my build. That got to the point where there’s a visual reference. The pinnacle was right here.
TG: Who else do you see out there and perhaps like Singer that are also doing really great 911 builds?
MW: Oh, Rob from Singer I’ve known for 15 years, and they set the bar. He set the bar extremely high in the bespoke Porsche 911 world. Singers are the Saville Row tailors of the Porsche world. Rod Emory, he did the punch louvers on my ’67S and the current 964 build. Rod Emory is just an unbelievably talented guy, but the Emory story is even more interesting. Third generation, Porsche is in Rod Emory’s blood, in his soul. What he builds is just exceptional. Each one couldn’t be more unique while still having the same stamp on it. There’s a 356 Outlaw, “Oh, that’s a Rod Emory car,” so he’s got his DNA on that car.
Singer they’ve got their DNA on the 964, I think to a certain degree I’ve got my own DNA on the cars that I’ve built. What separates me from those guys is I don’t build customer cars. Those guys run a business of building, or re-interpreting other people’s dreams. It’s like you asked me, why do I turn customer car builds down all the time?
If you come to me and ask for a build, it’s this moment where you’re trying to build what you perceive my car to be like, and it gets messy. Each of my cars are built exactly the way I want them to be built, if I was to build you a Porsche it would be a nightmare, because you’ve got a preconceived notion of what you think it’d be like to own one of my cars. Not to mention would keeping track of the timeline, budgets, etc—all things I’m terrible at [laughs].
That’s why I don’t build customer cars. I just like to build them my own way, my own speed, my own time.
TG: Makes sense to me.
MW: Everything I build, make, whatever, I have to feel like it’s me. The way I dress, the way I look, the car I drive, I’ve never changed that for anyone. You don’t have to be a dick about it, but you have to know where you’ve come from and know what you want to be, and then never apologize for it. Once you’ve done that, it’s time to give back to the community that made you what you are.
I’ve got my tattoo that says “Made In Sheffield England”. When I’m posting on Instagram I describe myself as a one man army. You see there’s no one here. I don’t have a PR team bossing what I do. I put up a photo and speak from my heart.
TG: Is there anyone who gave you a break along the way?
MW: Truth be told for me no, mine was the opposite. It was literally struggle, struggle, work work work, and then finally started to break through. You build your own luck. You take advantage of that opportunity when it finally opens. Mine just boiled down to doing my own thing and hard work. It happened with the clothing that became successful to enable us to buy this building. When we bought this building 16 years ago people thought that we were crazy, because the neighborhood it wasn’t by then what it is today.
In essence people have always tried to talk me out of doing this stuff. To me, I never cared what other people thought, it was more gut feeling, I’d go on gut feeling all the time.
Right now, I’m at the point where a big chapter of my life has just ended with the passing of my wife. She and I had been together 21 years. We said we were laying the foundation for what’s coming next, so what’s coming next is now everything that I spoke about in that film four years ago. It’s happening in the neighborhood. It’s happening in the Porsche community.
All these opportunities that just happened are by always following your vision and never giving up. I think if you really want something bad enough you find a way to go get it. “Stay motivated” is my advice.
Join the Conversation |
Not only did Stephen Paddock capture the chaos inside his Mandalay Bay hotel suite on video, but now FBI officials are looking to see where he streamed the live footage.
FBI sources said the Mandalay Bay shooter may have used the hotel’s WiFi or hard-wired internet backbone to stream the footage offshore.
FBI sources would not divulge what international locations they are targeting.
Paddock has been linked to wiring hefty amounts of US funds to the Philippines, Australia and possibly the Middle East, federal law enforcement sources said.
Paddock used excessive Mandalay-Bay internet bandwidth during his multiple-day stay in the resort’s suite, FBI sources confirmed.
FBI sources said they also confiscated Paddock’s captured video feeds as part of evidence after the shooter apparently committed suicide.
This story is developing. |
2016 presidential contenders are increasingly criticizing the outsized influence of money in politics—in some cases taking aim at the very donors that candidates may need to win the White House.
Sen. Ted Cruz became the latest hopeful to attack that flood of money—in words, if not in action—when he said in a speech on the Senate floor Monday that elite Republican donors were out of step with the conservative base.
“A very large percentage of the Republican donors actively despise our base, actively despise the men and women who showed up and voted you and me into office,” Cruz said, adding, “I can tell you when you sit down and talk with a New York billionaire Republican donor—and I have talked with quite a few New York billionaire Republican donors, California Republican donors—their questions start as follows: First of all, you’ve got to come out for gay marriage, you need to be pro-choice, and you need to support amnesty.
“You wonder why Republicans won’t fight on any of these issues? Because the people writing the checks agree with the Democrats,” Cruz added.
Cruz speaks from experience. One of Cruz’s biggest backers is a New York Republican billionaire: Wall Street hedge-fund magnate Robert Mercer, who has already given $11 million to a super PAC supporting the senator. Cruz also found himself in a dustup in April after The New York Times reported that he attended a fundraiser at the New York home of two gay businessmen where he apparently showed a softer tone on same-sex marriage. One of the hosts eventually called the decision to welcome Cruz “a terrible mistake.”
Cruz’s comments Monday stand out at a time when presidential campaigns are rushing to amass as much money as possible as the primary season drags on. They also arrive as the latest in a wave of anti-big-money sentiment on the campaign trail, a rallying cry taken up by both Democrats and Republicans.
Donald Trump has also leaned on first-person experience to attack the corrupting influence of money in politics, a refrain that has won him fans on both sides of the aisle and helped bolster his reputation as a candidate unafraid to attack the status quo in Washington. “I will tell you that our system is broken,” Trump said defiantly during the first Republican presidential debate. “I gave to everybody. When they call, I give. And do you know what? When I need something from them two years later, three years later, I call them, they are there for me.”
That message appears to be drawing imitators, like Cruz, among the Republican 2016 contenders who want to emphasize outsider status. But most candidates lack Trump’s financial heft. As a result, attacks such as Cruz’s recent comments highlight an awkward tension inherent in simultaneously benefiting from big money and attacking its influence, a delicate balancing act that much of the field now faces.
That balancing act exists in the Democratic primary race as well. Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have made limiting the influence of big money in politics a key part of their campaigns for the Democratic nomination, while outsider candidate Lawrence Lessig has made it the defining issue of his campaign.
In an attempt to inoculate themselves against any criticism that they too are part of a corrupt system, Sanders and Lessig have both leaned on small-dollar donations to buoy their White House bids.
Taking a page out of that playbook—and working to capitalize off the candidate’s anti-mega-donor rhetoric ahead of a looming Federal Election Commission filing deadline—the Cruz campaign launched what Team Cruz is calling “the world’s first presidential crowdfunding platform” on Tuesday.
“Who says political campaigns are only funded by individuals with deep pockets?” the website www.cruzcrowd.com asks before proclaiming: “CruzCrowd is a threat to the Washington cartel and that is why WE are urging you to join our cause.”
Cruz and Trump are far from the only 2016 Republicans to push back against the influence of money in politics. Chris Christie has called for transparency around political contributions. And Lindsey Graham has expressed support for a constitutional amendment to overturn the 2010 Citizens United Supreme Court verdict, which paved the way for corporations and labor unions to spend unlimited amounts of money in an attempt to influence election outcomes.
But most of the 2016 candidates are raking in major-dollar donations even as they speak out against them. Cruz’s presidential bid has benefited from an array of elite mega-donors, beyond just Mercer. Five of the top 10 million-dollar donors in the 2016 presidential race have doled out dollars in support of Cruz’s White House run, including private-equity investor Toby Neugebauer, as well as fracking billionaire Farris Wilks and his wife, Jo Ann.
Clinton has also faced intense scrutiny as she courts mega-money and calls for an end to its outsized influence, a tactic that her aides defend as a recognition that in order to rewrite the rules, you have to first play the game.
Many Americans support the idea of limiting the power of political donations, though the issue rarely ranks near the top of the agenda. According to a January survey from the Pew Research Center, 42 percent of the American public rated “dealing with the role of money in politics” as an important issue for the president and Congress.
For candidates like Cruz and Clinton, railing against mega-donors and the outsized influence of money in politics may win admiration from some voters. But it inevitably draws attention to the fact that they are also inextricably linked to the political establishment with which they find fault. |
CATCH OF THE DAY:
Written by: Milena
Follow Milena on Twitter: Milena is one half of the awesome team that created Red Herry. When not deciding which fictional vampire is her favorite, she enjoys cats, corn on the cob, and forcing the Harry Potter books onto unsuspecting children.Follow Milena on Twitter: @RazberryBattle
In many ways, ABC Family's hit television seriesis largely inspired by the critically acclaimed 1990's TV seriesThough the most glaring similarity between the shows is that each centers around the mysterious disappearance and subsequent murder of a popular, young, blonde teenager,is not shy when drawing uponfor further, more subtle inspiration. In recent episodes of, the character of Dr. Louis Palmer was introduced. Though a seemingly fleeting character, he is crucial to finding out what really happened to Toby Cavanaugh's mother in Radley sanitarium, and is aptly named after one ofmost pivotal characters: Leland Palmer.Who killed Laura Palmer? The mystery surrounding the murder of this popular, teenage character has gone on to inspire a culture of prolonged murder mystery throughout film and television.has often been referred to as the "modern day," and show runner Marlene King even stated in an interview with Vulture : "When I first pitched to ABC Family what direction I would go,was definitely part of our vocabulary." It's no surprise then, that four seasons in,is still using the show as inspiration.Leland Palmer of, for whom Dr. Palmer ofwas clearly named, was revealed to have murdered his daughter Laura while he was possessed by a mysterious demonic entity called Bob. Leland only becomes aware that Bob possessed him after Laura's death, when he slowly begins to lose his mind. Throughout, Leland struggles with his lucidity as Bob repeatedly tries to take him over completely.In, Dr. Louis Palmer experiences struggle with his memories not unlike Leland. Though this Dr. Palmer isn't possessed by a murderous demonic entity (that we know of), his inability to differentiate his past from the present does stir up the mystery surrounding Alison DiLaurentis.Though Dr. Palmer most likely didn't kill Alison like Leland Palmer killed Laura (though with this show, anything can happen), it does reinforce the connection betweenandto note that these two characters, who are both plagued with unstable minds and an inability to remain lucid, share a name. |
Ubisoft has announced it's expanding its operations in Quebec and plans to create 1,000 new jobs in the Canadian province by 2027. The company made the announcement earlier today, revealing its plans to open a brand-new studio in Saguenay, east of Montreal. The studio, which plans to hire around 125 people, will focus on online services and technologies.
"We are entrusting Ubisoft Saguenay with a mandate that is resolutely focused on the future," said Yannis Mallat, CEO of the Ubisoft Montreal, Quebec, and Toronto studios. "The development of connected experiences that allow millions of players to meet and interact on online game platforms is a leading growth and innovation driver not only for Ubisoft, but for the entire video game industry as a whole."
Creation of 1000 news jobs in Quebec, 675 of which are in Montreal and in another studio in Quebec. #UbisoftMTL #UbisoftSaguenay pic.twitter.com/1cBDa5iKrp — Ubisoft Montréal (@UbisoftMTL) September 5, 2017
Ubisoft's Montreal and Quebec City studios are responsible for the Assassin's Creed series and games like Far Cry Primal, Far Cry 4, and Watch Dogs 2. In today's announcement, both of those studios announced they'd be expanding with the addition of 675 and 200 jobs, respectively. Ubisoft also said it will be opening yet another studio, somewhere in Quebec, in the future.
Ubisoft Montreal's most anticipated upcoming game is Assassin's Creed Origins for PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. It's due out at the end of next month and before you play, check out our full recap of the Assassin's Creed story up to this point. For anyone interested in working at Ubisoft's new Saguenay studio, the company has already started posting jobs on its website. |
Don Wildmon, the president of the American Family Association and the official host of Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s The Response prayer rally, said onTruth that Transforms radio program that liberals “hate Christians.” He told Jerry Newcomb of Truth in Action ministries (formerly Coral Ridge Ministries) that the Religious Right needs to use the Internet to disseminate their message or else they will “hand it over” to the left and the “homosexual agenda.” Wildmon’s views are right in line with those of AFA’s spokesman, Bryan Fischer, who has declared that “liberals hate God, liberals hate religion, liberals hate faith, liberals hate Christianity.”
Wildmon was speaking to Newcomb to promote his book Speechless: Silencing Christians, about how “homosecularists” are using the “(made up) bullying problem” to impose the “homosexual indoctrination of children” and hate crime laws to outlaw Christian preaching. |
A/N: This is a Mass Effect 2 fic, a direct sequel to Tomorrow's Dawn. If you haven't read that one, this story might not make much sense. This also follows fics Just Like Old Times, Friends like These, Second, and The Lioness and the Bull in that order. They are not required reading, but do establish the characters in this particular timeline.
For those of you who are coming from Tomorrow's Dawn, the "alternate" ending where Legion survives is canon since our favorite geth is along for the ride.
While I've tried with my previous stories to stay within the framework of ME canon (if there can be such a thing) this plot line diverges right at the end of ME2 and prevents the events in Mass Effect 3 from happening. Sorry, James, Samantha and Steven... you won't be coming along this time around.
As usual, thanks for reading. I hope you enjoy!
"Well viewers, it's been quite a day for all of us on the Big Blue Marble, hasn't it? Our 'friends' at the Citadel have never been happy with us, have they? Forget that the only reason they're still there is that our entire 5th fleet was almost wiped out saving them from the geth. It was the least we could do, right? I mean when blood spilled on Eden Prime at the start of the geth invasion, they rushed to defend us. Oh, that's right, they didn't. It was a 'human problem.' And tens of thousands of human lives were lost.
"So when the geth went knocking on the Council's door, what do you think happened? They piled into the Destiny Ascension, the biggest, baddest freakin' dreadnought in known space- and tucked tail and ran. They abandoned the Citadel and tried to escape. They fled, while ships like the Jakarta, the Warsaw and the Cape Town threw themselves into the fire, saving them and their precious seat of government. Not to mention millions, millions of people of all species. Not just humans, mind you... But asari, turian, salarian, elcor, hanar, drell, volus and I bet you even some batarians in the lower wards. We didn't ask whose lives we were saving. We didn't check to see who was friend or who was foe, or just decide to save our own. Because that's not the humane thing to do. Humane. Our humanity. That's just not something these aliens seem to understand. But we didn't let that stop us from saving them.
"And ever since, every move we've made in the Attican Traverse and even the Terminus to protect our interests and defend ourselves against alien aggression has been criticized at every turn. We hear cries of 'human impulsiveness,' 'human racism...' and 'human aggression.' Aggression? Or is it just initiative through the eyes of those who don't try as hard? Maybe it was equal amounts of both that kept us all from being overrun by the mechanical hordes unleashed by the quarians centuries before humanity ever turned its eyes to the stars. And what thanks did we get? Other species blocking us at every turn, fighting against any initiative they perceive as giving humanity the slightest edge. And you know why? Because in less than a hundred years, we've accomplished what's taken them millennia to do. And it scares them, plain and simple.
"But we do have one thing in common... Yesterday's news... I- I'm not gonna lie. That even took me by surprise. Not just that the geth were going to sit down and talk with their previous masters... That had to happen sooner or later. Let's face it, the way things are going, the quarians are just going to die out and turn into an artificial asteroid belt in whatever system they're currently scavenging. What its name? Laye? Leyya? Somebody needs to look into who owns that piece of real estate, because there might be something worth salvaging if the quarians don't get their act together and render themselves extinct.
"Anyway, after yesterday's revelations there was another bombshell that you're not hearing about. Future Content isn't reporting on it. Westerlund News has been quiet on the subject. But the Council certainly hasn't been. They got a big ol' bug up their collective asses and boy have they been letting the Alliance hear about it. What is it, you ask? Why are they complaining to us about what the quarian and geth are doing on the other side of the galaxy? You won't believe it when I tell you.
"You see, Alliance Command took it upon itself to start these talks between the Migrant Fleet and the geth. You heard correctly. We brought them together. Sources have confirmed that peace initiative came from the diplomatic corps on Arcturus Station where the newly commissioned SSV Shenyang, ironically named after one of the eight ships destroyed by the geth at the battle of the Citadel, was dispatched to the Leyya system one week ago. They have since been on station at the quarian flotilla, awaiting the arrival of geth diplomats, if there is such a thing. Not that I can think of anything better for one of our newest, most modern warships to be doing at this particular time... I mean, we've only had, what, five or six colonies, hundreds of thousands of our people go missing? Certainly we can spare one ship, what with all the reinforcements the Council has sent in to prevent these new Eden Primes from continuing amongst our most exposed colonies. Oh, right. They haven't! Again, it's a human problem. I keep forgetting.
"So with our colonies under attack, our own people vanishing into thin air, once again we're the ones stepping outside our boundaries trying to make peace for others. And once again, what do we get for our troubles? That's right. Hindrance. Obstruction. Calls to have our seat on the Citadel revoked, and not just by representatives of the Council species. And you know what? This is going to shock you. I never thought I'd hear myself say this... but I agree with them one hundred percent. Maybe it's time we pull out.
"I mean, is this really any of our business? I feel bad for the quarians. I really do. It's a tragedy having to lie in the bed they made and all, but do we really have a stake in seeing a bunch of former slave masters try to reconcile with a race of homicidal robots? Don't we have more pressing issues, like finding where our colonists have disappeared to? Do you think maybe, just maybe, the geth might be behind this latest rash of attacks to begin with? Even if they're not, maybe we should be discussing a little unfinished business we have. Compensation for Eden Prime perhaps? Apologizing to the families of the thousands of servicemen and women who died defending the Citadel against their invasion?
"And let's not forget about our new friends we're so eager to help. The quarians. There's a reason they've have been stuck in space since before humans had powered flight. They've had countless opportunities to atone for unleashing the geth into civilized space. Have they done it? No. Have they even tried? No. Are they going to? No! According to them, they're the victims. It's the geth's fault the quarians gave them sentience, just like it's the geth's fault they decided to use it. Had the geth been just a little more successful in their rebellion and killed all their creators, who knows what problems that would have avoided down the line? I certainly don't support genocide, but in the grand scheme of things, you gotta wonder if the geth would have attacked us at all if they had better examples of organics to learn from.
"The 'Migrant' Fleet. Ha. Let's take a close look at what that means. Migration, by definition, means moving from one destination to another. Look it up in the dictionary. 'To move from one country or region and settle in another.' The quarians don't migrate. They're not settling anywhere. They've never even tried adapting or integrating with any other culture. It's an infinite universe, filled with an infinite number of worlds they could discover and colonize, and they've got a fleet larger than any other species in the galaxy combined. So why haven't they done it? In the past century, we've colonized dozens of systems, hundreds of worlds. It takes hard work. Perseverance. But at a more basic, simple level, we decided to do it so our species wouldn't be confined to one world. So that humanity, regardless of what happens to Earth, will persevere. You don't keep all your eggs in one basket.
"The quarians just don't seem to have that drive. Is it any wonder they lost their homeworld? Is it any wonder they don't have a single colony to call home? Who's to blame for that? I got two guesses for you. It ain't the geth, and it certainly ain't us! No, they'd rather wander space for the rest of eternity and blame everyone else. You know, it's probably bred into them by this point. Space is their home.
"The 'Migrant' Fleet... Maybe it's time we start calling the flotilla what it really is. The Vagrant Fleet. They don't contribute. They don't build. They take. They consume. They descend on a system like locusts and strip bare any planet they can reach. They steal, and pilfer from those who are truly struggling out on the rim of civilized space, robbing what other honest, decent folk worked hard to earn, and when everything of value is gone they move on. It's a vagrant fleet. An invasion fleet.
"Even their mere passing will tie up a mass relay for days. Imagine having to wait a week before traversing the Charon relay just to get to Arcturus. Imagine for a moment, what would happen if the Vagrant Fleet were to come to Sol. I hate to say it, but if the quarians and geth can't make peace, can that be far behind? Are we going to offer up our home to the poor, helpless quarians? Is our solar system next to host the great galactic tent city, until what little resources we have left are sucked dry?
"It makes you think, doesn't it? Now you know I don't support extremist groups like Earth First, Terra Firma or Cerberus. But I understand them. I understand the need for them. In a galaxy where every other species looks out for itself, where they predate our ascension by centuries, and in some cases millennia, sometimes it takes a few radical voices to make us pay attention to what is going on right under our noses. We have it pretty good here, and it makes us complacent. And even though Chicken Little runs around with his tiny wings in the air screaming 'the sky is falling,' sometimes it's not just an acorn falling from a tree. This time, the sky may truly be falling.
"Of course, the Council has a lot to say on this subject. They're furious that we 'upstart' humans are trying to negotiate galactic issues without consulting them first. But do you really think it's just because we didn't ask permission or circumvented some back-channel protocol? No. They're angry that we might be able to solve a problem they created when our ancestors were just mastering the art of sailing on the open seas. It makes them look bad, more ineffectual than they already do. They don't want us solving any more problems because the more problems we solve, the more responsible we become, and the more the galaxy looks to us to solve its problems. And all we'll get for it is more problems, both home, and out there. And that, my friends, is the problem!
"So I'm going to say something you'd never expect to hear me say. I assure you that right now I am at my most lucid and am under absolutely no duress. But maybe, just maybe the Council is right on this one. Maybe we just need to sit back and let the rest of the galaxy solve their own issues. Maybe it's our turn to throw up our hands and say, 'this isn't a human problem.' Because, when it comes to both of the parties at the negotiating table here, we may be courting disaster regardless of which side comes out on top.
"Now before I say goodnight, I leave you with one parting thought. There have always been rumors, dear friends, that the former hero of the Citadel, the first human Spectre himself, Commander Shepard... I- If there's a finer representative of what humanity is capable of, I- I just can't imagine. And when he was lost with over twenty of his crew... It was a loss for all mankind. But the rumors have always persisted... That not even the geth could kill Shepard.
"These are rumors no more. It's been confirmed now, as we all know. Commander Shepard is alive. He went into hiding two years ago, after the Council that he and his crew fought so hard to defend sent him on the suicide mission which destroyed the SSV Normandy - another embarrassing reminder of the human victory at the Citadel, I might add. And can you blame him? After the loss of their ship, their friends, who wouldn't step back and say, 'This is what I'm fighting for?'
"But who is he working for now that he's back? Not the Citadel Council, as if you had to ask. Not the Alliance, either. No, Commander Shepard has apparently renounced his allegiance to both. After all, if one is declared dead, then who really has authority over you? But why go dark for so long? Why the secrecy? Why would the greatest hero in the history of the galaxy go underground? I have an idea. Maybe he got tired of putting his life on the line, day after day, only to be hung out to dry by the very organizations he was defending. Maybe he was tired of fighting with his hands tied behind his back and decided the best way to defend his people was to cut those ties that bound him. Far fetched, you say? Outside the realm of possibility? The crazy musings of just another talking head? Well, before you discount me, wait until I tell you just who Shepard is taking orders from these these days. The Citadel knows it. The Alliance does, too. And the answer may, or may not surprise you.
"Commander Shepard now works for Cerberus... Cerberus. Makes you wonder, doesn't it? Makes you wonder if maybe, just maybe, he knows something we don't. We have to take a break. We'll be right back..."
Throughout the known galaxy, accretion disks formed with many compositions. Some gas, some ice, others mineral. One particular disk was unique, a black hole surrounded by the shattered hulls of ships of every size and design. Countless numbers of metallic carcasses drifted lazily in orbit, marking eons of destruction, a final graveyard for all civilizations that had come before only to be scoured clean from the galaxy. Indeed, most were silent memorials to cultures long dead and undiscovered, never known and thus never forgotten.
Far at its edge, in the shadow of a gutted hulk almost a kilometer in length, the Normandy SR-2 lurked in darkness as her crew worked feverishly to keep her from becoming the latest monument. |
(Keynote to the National Party Building Conference, November 11 – 12, 2017)
Welcome to our national party building conference! We are coming to you live today from LA to New Haven and from Tampa to Minneapolis. We’re streaming from Oakland, Houston, here in Chicago, from the campus of Ohio University, and from St. Louis. Welcome one and all to this national conference to build our revolutionary working-class party.
Our conference occurs just after the historic celebrations of the October Revolution. Over 100 years ago, Russian workers, in ten days, shook the world, and in shaking it, changed it forever.
The October Revolution gave birth to the modern communist movement and aided national liberation and socialism. It gave humanity its first taste of what socialist efforts could accomplish. Despite all the challenges and setbacks – and we do not underestimate them – one truth stands out: workers possess the power to rule and change their lives. We learn from our mistakes, pick up the class struggle and democratic banner, and fight on.
It would be difficult to overstate the importance of holding this conference. It was clear even a year ago that if we hadn’t already decided to have a national conference, given the danger posed by Trump, we’d need one anyway.
What we didn’t appreciate then was just how much we’d need it. We knew Trump would be a danger – perhaps the greatest danger our country has ever faced. But we didn’t anticipate how quickly the challenge to democracy would develop. We didn’t anticipate the crisis-a-day style of governing, the degree of raw racism and sexism, the ferocity of the attacks on immigrants and the press, the depth of the threat to the environment, or the pace at which the danger of nuclear war would grow. We did not anticipate that in just nine months of the Trump administration, a national right to work law would be an actual threat to the very existence of the trade union movement as we’ve known it.
We also didn’t anticipate the scale and scope of the fightback that would explode on the national scene in the immediate aftermath of Trump’s election in the “Not my President” protests, the women’s marches around hisi nauguration, the airport protests after the travel ban, and the fight against the attempt to repeal Obamacare.
Yes, the resistance was born! And with it, an understanding of the degree of the danger faced and the scope and scale of the fightback. Among large sections of the American people, there was no ducking and dodging about what Trump represented. People understood that there could be no normalizing of the racist, anti-Semitic, sexist, and homophobic bigotry he brought to the surface. The American working class and people realized that these were the seeds of fascism.
They have also come to see the importance of next year’s midterm elections. All across the country in towns large and small, those within resistance ranks and beyond are planning to challenge the Republicans’ grip on the U.S. House and Senate. Already, hundreds of candidates, some of whom are brand new to elections, have declared their candidacy, are raising money, and beginning to organize campaigns.
Let us be clear: we can do no less. Everything depends on defeating the GOP next year. Our approach to building the party in the next several months must be in the context of working in the broad democratic campaigns to register and engage voters, raise money, and bring out the vote. Where appropriate, this must include fielding our own candidates. Left candidacies that are part of the broad coalition against the right can play a positive role. Resistance means defeating the GOP and the neo-fascists grouped in and around the Trump administration.
Luckily, the resistance has also given rise to not only a rekindling of democratic and progressive activism but also a demonstrable shift to the left. Indeed, even before the Sanders candidacy, polls demonstrated a significant growth in support for socialist ideas, particularly among millennials. And of course, Bernie’s campaign put the socialist idea on breakfast, dinner, and barroom tables all across the country.
The party is growing
Needless to say, this has created a new situation for the building of our party. And we’re happy to report that we’re beginning to do just that, with over 1,000 new members joining since the election. This recruitment started almost by accident. We posted an image of the party’s membership card on Facebook, and almost immediately a few hundred joined.
We’re also happy to report that people are joining face-to-face, sometimes in groups. Last spring at a lecture featuring Ohio party leader Rick Nagin at Ohio University, 12 people joined the party after his presentation. In Chicago, at national chair John Bachtell’s initiative,16 activists signed up at the CPUSA table during last June’s Peoples Summit. A few weeks later, during the Juneteenth Celebration, 30 more were recruited. In Houston, the party club has developed a practice of regularly asking people to join at demonstrations, picket lines, and events. They first ask them to sign a petition, then walk them over to the table, where they’re told, “You should be a member of the Communist Party,” and asked to join. This year, 63 have joined using this method – and counting. In St. Louis, New Haven, and Los Angeles, clubs have developed ties with potential members through their involvement in labor, community, and elections campaigns. They’ve employed discussion groups, cultural activities, and PeoplesWorld.org to invite and convince people to join.
In keeping with our concept of building the party around peoplesworld.org, cpusa.org, and mass communications, we’ve also stepped up our efforts in this area. The new People’s World and CPUSA websites have increased our traffic considerably. We’ve begun the “We Are the Communist Party” publicity campaign on Facebook and for the first time developed a conscious approach to shaping our image and winning new members – and it’s starting to work.
The party is growing. That by itself is a very important development and not something that should be taken for granted. It wasn’t that long ago that this very idea – the ability of the party to grow – was challenged. But the answer to that pessimism is in the new clubs popping up in Austin, TX; Athens, OH; Sacramento, CA; Nebraska; Oklahoma; and Kentucky. The answer lies in the new districts being organized, in the several hundred new members who in the last year have participated in our bi-monthly new member orientations and our monthly webinars. This growth is just beginning. It is not even and in many cases is difficult to organize, but it is occurring and at a rate not seen in many decades.
While celebrating this development, we should not overstate it. This is important because the party is challenged: In many districts we have an aging membership and leadership; some clubs don’t meet; others are not connected to the main struggles of the day; still others have very little if any connection to our websites.
Speaking of our websites, as suggested above, at our last convention and in the meetings of the National Committee since, we put forward the concept of centering our work around peoplesworld.org and mass communications. Doing so was a restatement of an important proposition affirming the Leninist character of our party adapted to today’s circumstances. Today, we once again reaffirm that Leninist character, but the question has to be asked: how have we done in implementing this policy?
Well, the editors of People’s World have done their part. At the recently concluded labor communications convention, they brought home 21 awards, including the top one.
Some districts and clubs are also contributing to making the policy real with articles on the people’s fightback against Trump. Others have email lists and regularly send out PW articles. A few have Facebook pages and Twitter accounts where activities are organized and articles sent out.
But on the whole, we also have to say that we in the leadership have not provided our clubs and districts the tools necessary to develop a specific social media strategy. The article sharing campaign, which had almost a thousand PW readers pledging to share one labor story a week over the last year, has subsided and efforts to build up our email lists have not kept pace.
That changes this weekend. After our workshop on the PW and social media, each club and district will have in hand a social media strategy for your area that we’ll work with you to help implement. Let us also re-pledge this weekend to regularly share important PW articles with our friends, family, and coworkers.
Engaging members new and old
Notwithstanding these problems, it’s also the case that the majority of new members are coming to the Communist Party by means of our websites – several thousand over the last number of years. Over the last year, we’ve prioritized connecting with our membership both new and old. To this end, we’ve created the position of Membership Coordinator and asked Rossana Cambron to carry out this work. A new collective, the Membership and Organizing Collective, has been assigned the task of assisting Rossana’s efforts to work with our membership and build new clubs.
Prioritizing outreach to new members, the Membership and Organizing Collective has held three phonathons in the fall, winter, and spring and attempted to call the over 5,000 new members on our lists. We’ve talked to about 400 new members on these calls, many of whom were hearing from us for the first time, even though some joined several years ago. Our next phonathon will take place on December 2, and we invite all of you to help out. All you need is your laptop or smartphone, a comfortable chair, and an internet connection.
Online education has also been an important way of reaching out to our membership and beyond. Comrade Dee and the Education Department have regularly organized webinars each month which average over 150 registrants and around 70 participants. The last one over-fulfilled our goal of over 200 registrants. These webinars, along with new member orientations, have become a basic means of introducing Marxist science and engaging with those who are coming around us.
And our new members want to engage. Over 400 responded to a membership survey we sent out in preparation for this conference, and more than 120 of them volunteered to become organizers of new party clubs. That figure itself it hugely important: Can you imagine what it would mean if we were able to set up 120 new clubs?
Even if we were able to help set up 50 clubs, it would put us on new footing and change fundamentally what we do.
We have tremendous organizational tasks before us. Consider that 80 percent of the 400 members who responded to the survey are not in clubs. What are we going to do about that? Think about the fact that 79 percent of the respondents have been in the party for five years or less or that 35 percent have been in under a year? Already the ideological and political ramifications of having a brand spanking new party are apparent. Education is vital; club building how-to’s essential; fundraising tips indispensable.
And in fact, that’s why we need this conference: because with regard to party building, we need to change fundamentally what we do. We need to lay the basis here for a national recruiting plan. This plan must include goals and timetables; the assignment of cadre and resources; fundraising to support it, and collectives assigned to follow up on the work.
The recruitment plan has to include use of the PW, a fresh approach to cpusa.org and its use as an organizing tool, and wide publicity – recruitment must be a public event. Our efforts have to include Facebook, Twitter, and other social media. And once again, party building has to be deeply connected to work around the elections. In so doing, we will lay the basis for rebuilding our party – a goal that is clearly within our grasp.
This party we’re building,in many ways, is fundamentally new. it is not something that can be taken for granted. We’d do well to take a moment and reflect on what we have.
If you think about it, it’s really something special, something precious. A collective of ordinary working people tasked with an extraordinary goal: helping change the world.
An organization led by and for workers that seeks to mobilize our class as the leading force in the creation of a new society.
The CP is a political party that works to achieve the political independence of the working class so that it can carry out its historic mission.
And we’re not just any old organization, interest group, or association. We are a political party that works to achieve the political independence of the working class so that it can carry out its historic mission.
And that’s a helluva thing. Think about it. Ordinary working men and women who, having grasped the imperatives of the day – no, more, grasped the imperatives of history – set themselves the task of saving humanity and the planet.
And we’ve done so because the working-class party is self-conscious; it has created its own ideas, its own science, and in doing so, is able to chart our own path and make our own way in world. We create our own thinkers. That is what the party of Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin, does. That’s what Marxism made possible. That’s what Leninism is: workers – self-confident, conscious, and theoretical – making our own way.
That’s what leading means. And we understand leading not in a narrow way, not as a proclamation, but as something done by example. lead by doing. Lead by winning the trust and confidence of the workers and people. If you can’t, you step aside.
A mass party
We have set out to build a mass party, not a narrow organization of professional organizers and revolutionaries – though we need both.Ours must be a mass organization of individuals, clubs, and collectives organized wherever possible: in neighborhoods and on campuses, online and offline, involved in the day-to-day struggles of our people for a better life.
This is a party that offers no barriers to joining. You give the nod, and you’re in. There are no tests, no preconditions. That is what we’ve constitutionally agreed to and reaffirmed in convention after convention.
But we do not leave people there. We want members to pay dues; to participate in a club; to study, learn, and grow.
Today, this means welcoming members into our ranks who sign up at street tables, on picket lines, at demonstrations, and online. It means giving all of them the ability to participate and treating all of them equally.
There are no “real” members on the one side and “online” members on the other. Such a category does not exist constitutionally, but it sometimes still seems to exist in our minds. Why? Because we’re still influenced by the concept of a cadre party.
A cadre party is an organization of professional revolutionaries with a high level of discipline designed to wage a frontal assault on the capitalist state. It has high standards of membership requiring endorsement by two or three others and votes of admission. It meets in secret and carries out legal and illegal work. It is a concept of the party that emerged in Russia in the early part of the last century, where there was no democratic tradition or civil society.. There were the people on the one side and the state on the other.
After the revolution of 1917, Lenin advanced a different concept of the party, realizing that the model that fit Russia did not fit countries in Europe and the U.S. which had more developed bourgeois democratic traditions. Instead of a cadre party, a mass party was proposed – meaning that conditions for joining were more flexible, as were rules for participating. Winning over by means of elections and mass struggle of a majority of the working class was seen as a necessary condition for moving toward socialism. The united front policy was proposed as the main way of carrying on this out. Electoral struggle and working in mass organizations, be they trade unions, churches, citizens associations or swim clubs – in other words everywhere and anywhere workers gathered – was viewed as essential to communist mass work.
Our party, in the 1970s and 80s, made decisive efforts to apply the mass party concept to our work. We got rid of the two-person endorsement policy and the need for a club to vote in a member as conditions for joining. Since then, we’ve made adjustments as conditions have changed. One big change of course is the growth of the internet and with it the ability of people to fill out a join form and receive an immediate response. And that has created new challenges.
It’s true that some members who join online present unique problems with respect to involvement. Some don’t communicate by telephone, others don’t use email, still others may not be ready to attend meetings but all have indicated an interest in belonging to our party.
So let’s engage them as they’re willing: by texting, on Facebook, or whatever it may be. Let’s allow them to participate as they’re able: by signing a petition; making a donation; writing a letter to the editor or an article for the PW. In this way, we’ll draw some gradually into deeper activity and fuller participation in the communist movement.
The party we want to build
The party we want to build is ours for the making. It is composed of and led by workers of all stripes and varieties. It participates in mass struggles around the basic issues of the day. It both initiates activity and works in coalition with others. It is militant. It fights for unity and sees electoral work as essential to our very existence.
It is public, open, and transparent. It exists offline and online. It works online to organize offline and offline to organize online. It raises money. It engages in ideological struggle. It sees the united front strategy as a way of political life.
It’s role is to organize the working class and people to defeat the extreme right; to fight against racism, sexism, and homophobia and for unity. It seeks to build class and socialist consciousness and advance the cause of a Bill of Rights, socialist USA.
The Communist Party is going to be built largely among millennials. Let’s face it: that’s where the greatest opportunity lies.
And it is a party that is going to be built largely among millennials. Let’s face it: that’s where the greatest opportunity lies. We have to step up our work with the young generation. This is a special question that requires special measures. At our last convention, we made some decisions in an attempt to reorganize our work with a focus on students. This policy has not been implemented well and some big mistakes were made in carrying it out.
Going forward, we need to reassess these decisions and refocus our work. In doing so, we must begin with engaging the comrades responsible for the work. That includes the young communists of the party and also the YCL collectives where they exist. Let’s find forms for doing so and bring the discussion into the National Board and the National Committee so that we can arrive at our convention with a viable policy. Doing so will be indispensable to the party’s growth.
As we get ready to go into our workshops, we should all take a moment and place ourselves in the here and now.
Let’s strive to look at these workshops anew and take into account what is new in the thinking and in the opportunities before us.
If we believe as dialecticians that everything is always in motion, we must conclude that there are new forms of struggle, new tools for that struggle, and different and possibly unfamiliar steps that need to be taken.
Darwin once said, “It is not the fittest that survives; it is the most adaptable.” We are approaching our 100th anniversary,. Over the decades, it has been our party’s ability to adapt to the new that has made our survival possible – that and a clear focus on the working class.
So let us not hesitate to adapt and try new things. Some forms that we use continue to be viable, but other forms do not and only represent a comfort zone. We need to recognize that comfort zones do not move us forward. They may in fact stagnate us.
Today, let’s examine in our workshops what is new that requires us to adapt. Do we need to change our methods of outreach? Redraft the messaging on our websites? Change our concentration areas?
We can do this with confidence. Because of our nearly a century of struggle ,we can contribute the necessary ideological, political, and organizational, ingredients to the mass movements and meet the new situation before us.
As one comrade who wrote in responding to the call to conference said, “Who better to show the way forward? Who better to demand good working conditions, good pay, and pay equality for women and men? The solidarity among workers remains the greatest of strengths.”
Armed with the tools that come out of this conference, we want to envision a brigade like those sent out to remote areas in Cuba and Venezuela to teach people to read. Our brigades will be sent out to build our party and enhance the issues and movements that develop consciousness. We want to raise the call for the transformation of our current system to a socialist one and position our party to lead us to a socialist society.
In closing, let’s not forget our unique role and what we bring to the struggle. First: an insistence on working-class leadership in both the fight for and the creation of a new society. Second: the absolute requirement of unity in the fight: racism, sexism, homophobia, and systemic discrimination of all kinds must be combatted in the the here and now – otherwise we will never get to the future. Third: we point out the systemic roots of the crisis – it’s not individual weaknesses but capitalism that is wreaking havoc on our lives.
Finally, what makes us unique is the unity between theory and practice; we test our ideas against the real world, and when they don’t work we change them. We fight against dogma and for a scientific approach to the struggle. And let’s keep in mind regarding our past practice that, as we’re celebrating the 100th anniversary,we do so with modesty and pride – great accomplishments were made. We also recognize and do not shy away from the weaknesses and even the crimes. Let’s remember that workers did it: workers built a new society – and next time – workers are going to do it even better.
So, let’s go out and defeat Trump and build this party. We’re going to do it and ain’t nobody going to stop us. In the words of the old spiritual, “Ain’t’ nobody gonna turn us around!” |
When we look at the world of exchange between people, we see two main categories of things that we share and trade — Information and Value. While information (content such as texts, images, video, etc.) is replicable by its nature (when you share it, you and someone else both have it), value is not (when you give it to someone, you no longer have it.)
Before the age of the Internet, there were many private information networks, which some of us are even old enough to remember, like BBSs, Prodigy, Compuserve, AoL, to name a few. The rise of the public Internet changed everything and those which survived adopted the new open, global standard for information exchange, which relies on a collection of TCP/IP networks, interlinked through peering agreements.
Until blockchain, all currencies, which represent value, lived in closed silos. Blockchain, the technology pioneered by Bitcoin, is the decentralized value exchange network, the Internet of money. It will eventually replace a large part of today’s private banking networks and allow new players (and the old which adapt) to create new types of value and transact in an open, global system not owned by anyone.
The Bancor team has been building products on the Internet since the late nineties. Some of our companies were Contact Networks, MetaCafe, Mytopia, Particle Code and AppCoin. We bumped into Bitcoin in 2011 and began exploring possibilities in user-generated currencies. Following the release of Ethereum in 2015, we understood that smart-contracts were a game changer and would allow for currency creation and customization at scale. Programmable modules that manage and hold value (represented as tokens) can perform value-related processes for a negligible cost — processes currently handled by various organizations (e.g. escrow services, exchanges, law firms, to name a few). However, the implications of autonomous decentralized code which can manage digital money on an open standard for value exchange are far more profound.
In the Summer of 2016, we started working on Bancor with the goal of creating a hierarchical monetary system (where one digital token holds other tokens in its reserve) to build a new type of standard for cryptocurrencies that would lay the foundation for a decentralized global exchange. One that is autonomous, has no spread, no counterparty risk and provides continuous liquidity for any asset. One that enables the long-tail of currencies as the Internet did for content.
We would like to share with you, the Internet, our draft whitepaper for your review and comments. All feedback is welcome, and much appreciated.
The Bancor Team
http://bancor.network |
Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders is one of a kind. He is the only self-proclaimed socialist in Congress, and he is also the only Democratic candidate in the presidential race to oppose crony programs such as the Export-Import Bank of the United States. Hillary Clinton, a big supporter of the bank, and Sanders clashed quite vigorously on the issue during the recent presidential debate in Flint, Michigan.
The Export-Import Bank is an outfit that mostly extends loans to powerful foreign companies in exchange for buying products from large and well-connected U.S. companies. As Sanders asked Clinton, "Do you know what the other name of the Export-Import Bank is, what it's called in Washington? It's called the Bank of Boeing because Boeing itself gets 40 percent of the money discharged by the Export-Import Bank." Sanders is right.
Moreover, close to 70 percent of the bank's loan guarantees benefit Boeing alone. In spite of what most Democrats in Congress try to argue, the Ex-Im Bank is indeed in the "big business" business, with about 65 percent of its activities benefiting 10 domestic firms. The same is true for the bank's beneficiaries abroad. The Ex-Im Bank's own data show that such wealthy companies as Mexican state-owned oil giant Pemex and the airline Emirates are the top beneficiaries of the U.S. taxpayers' largesse.
You would think that this is exactly the kind of program that Democrats would oppose because it's a shameful giveaway to large corporations that don't need it—though you would be wrong to think that. This wasn't always the case, but today only two Democrats in Congress oppose this corporate boondoggle: Sanders and Rep. Alan Grayson, D-Fla. The remaining Democrats hide behind the fact that 20 percent of the bank's financing benefits "small" businesses (defined as a company with up to 1,500 employees and $21.5 million in revenue) to justify their support for the bank. In other words, they're perfectly happy to carry water for big corporations as long as they can claim that a few smallish companies benefit, too.
Clinton's support for the Ex-Im Bank may be more straightforward—and a beautiful example of what cronyism is about. In April 2014, The Washington Post reported that while serving as secretary of state, "Clinton functioned as a powerful ally for Boeing's business interests at home and abroad, while Boeing has invested resources in causes beneficial to Clinton's public and political image."
How much are we talking about? Clinton negotiated a $2 million deal with the aerospace giant to host a pavilion at a world's fair and then delivered a $3.7 billion aircraft purchase deal between Boeing and the Russian government in 2010. Shortly thereafter, Boeing announced it would contribute $900,000 to the Clinton Foundation.
Then there's the fact that Boeing's senior vice president for government operations, Tim Keating, worked for the Ready for Hillary super PAC along with, in the words of Time's Mark Halperin, "an array of well-connected Democratic lobbyists and politicos." But make no mistake; she is well-connected at the Ex-Im Bank, too. In fact, the head of the bank, Fred Hochberg, whose connection to the Clintons is well-documented, has been campaigning on behalf of Hillary Clinton.
This "scratch my back and I will scratch yours" mentality is way too common in Washington between large companies and politicians. Unfortunately, while the exchange is mutually beneficial for Clinton and Boeing, the Ex-Im Bank is of no benefit to the thousands of unsubsidized companies and millions of workers who are left to face this unfair competition.
COPYRIGHT 2016 CREATORS.COM |
ALASTAIR Clarkson has been cleared to return to his position as Hawthorn's senior coach, and he will take back the reins from stand-in coach Brendan Bolton on Monday afternoon.
Clarkson was diagnosed with Guillain-Barré syndrome at the end of May and temporarily stepped down from his position.
He had returned to work in a reduced capacity in recent weeks, and he travelled to Brisbane over the weekend to watch the Hawks' next opponent, North Melbourne.
The two-time premiership coach saw a specialist on Monday morning and was given the OK to resume his role as senior coach.
"In line with medical advice, Alastair has been involved around the club over the past couple of weeks in a minor capacity while undertaking an active recovery," Hawthorn chief executive Stuart Fox said.
"With endorsement from his doctors, Alastair will return to regular full-time coaching duties from today.
"We're really pleased Alastair is healthy and ready to return to work as the team embarks on the second half of the 2014 season.
"We have been overwhelmed with the messages we've received from our members and fans wishing Alastair well and we thank everyone for their support."
In Clarkson's absence, Bolton led the club to five wins from five games.
"The way our coaching team, playing group and football department staff have pulled together under Brendon Bolton's leadership during Alastair's absence has been outstanding," Fox said.
"It is a credit to our people that this period has been managed so professionally and seamlessly, which has been a team effort from all involved."
Bolton and the other assistant coaches will now return to their regular duties.
Meanwhile, the Hawks have confirmed speedster Cyril Rioli will miss the next 8-10 weeks with a left hamstring tendon injury.
The club is baffled by the exact cause of the 24-year-old's recurrent hamstring injuries of which he has suffered three in the past 12 months.
Football manager Chris Fagan said Rioli would be given every chance to play again this season and confirmed the club had no qualms about recalling the star Hawk in a final.
"It'd be fair to say there's no cut off point for Cyril," he said.
"Particularly if he plays as a deep forward which he can easily do. The way they rehab the guys these days, they're very, very fit when they come back to play, so there won't be any issue there.
"The 8-10 week call is probably a conservative call, but at the same time we'll give Cyril as much time as he needs to get his hamstring right so he can return to play at a really high level."
While the Hawks have lost a soldier, they will likely regain former skipper Sam Mitchell for Friday night's game against the Roos.
The midfielder will have a surveillance scan this week on the hamstring tendon he injured in round seven against St Kilda before being given the all-clear to play.
"If you go on his training form, you'd say he's a fair chance to play this week," Fagan said.
Key defender Josh Gibson is also close to a return from a torn pectoral tendon after resuming ball work last week.
The premiership Hawk is set to return for the all-important game against the Swans at the MCG after the bye. |
Citizens have 911. Employees have the EEOC. Distressed sailors have the Coast Guard.
But what do America’s college students have? Where can they turn when they find themselves outside campus “safe spaces” and suffering a “microaggression”?
Fortunately, the University of Arizona has an answer. It recently distributed a 20-page booklet suggesting to faculty that when a student is victimized by a microaggression the appropriate response should be saying “ouch.” And the correct response for the offender should be saying “oops,” according to the guide.
THE WEEK IN PICTURES
“If a student feels hurt or offended by another student’s comment, the hurt student can say ‘ouch.’ In acknowledgement, the student who made the hurtful comment says “oops.” If necessary, there can be further dialogue about this exchange.”
The guide was authored by Jesus Treviño, vice provost of the big taxpayer-funded university, whose salary reportedly is $214,000 per year.
For those unfamiliar with the apparently epidemic scale of microaggression and thus not able to spot such offenses, the booklet offers a definition: Microaggressions are “the everyday verbal, nonverbal, and environmental slights, snubs or insults, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative messages to target persons based solely upon their marginalized group membership.”
The University of Arizona isn’t the first to suggest the “ouch”/”oops” protocol. Iowa State University, among others, has also urged a similar approach. |
10. Metropolis
"Superman is the King Daddy of all superheroes; everybody knows that", is how director Zack Snyder put it to a Hall H crowd at this year's San Diego Comic-Con. The reaction in the room was one of muted disbelief. To a world that had experienced The Dark Knight, and was just weeks away from the premiere of the The Dark Knight Rises, it seemed like a preposterous thing to say. Made all the more preposterous for knowing that the only full length, live action Superman feature of the last 25 years was 2006's underwhelming and criminally boring Superman Returns. With a production budget somewhere north of $200 million, Bryan Singer had delivered a superhero movie that felt as long as Gone with the Wind, with about the same amount of action, but none of the critical and popular acclaim. When Snyder gets to back up his bold statement in June of 2013 with the release of his Man of Steel, he would have done well to not repeat the mistakes of Singer's very sincere, but very flawed attempt at resurrecting the Superman movie franchise. Here are the top 10 mistakes from Superman Returns that Man of Steel must avoid.Superman Returns tried very hard - mostly successfully - to establish Metropolis as a city that is in every way a match for a real-life metropolis like New York City. (Something that Tim Burton famously ignored by creating a shockingly empty Gotham City for his 1989 Batman). What the movie forgets to do, is to populate this Metropolis with real people. People who react to the events around them in a believable way. That doesn't just mean running away from a gas line exploding underneath your feet, screaming in terror, and managing to only come across as either victims or apathetic. Other than for a few newspaper articles and a nice standing ovation at a ballgame, Metropolis hardly seems to acknowledge or care that the hero of their city has returned. We have to know what it is that Superman spends his life protecting, if we're going to be asked to care about the outcome. A hero is nothing if he has nothing worthwhile to save. Man of Steel owes us a Metropolis with some character. |
Two Alachua County men operating a multimillion-dollar internet pharmacy have pleaded guilty to selling drugs without requiring customers to provide a prescription, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Edward Leonforte, 55, of Gainesville, and Larry Burstein, 69, of Alachua, face a maximum of 20 years in prison when they are sentenced in early 2017, a press release said.
Burstein pleaded guilty to conspiracy Thursday. Leonforte in September pleaded guilty to conspiracy, distribution of the controlled substance codeine and money laundering.
The men operated multiple internet pharmacy websites from rental space in Progress Park in Alachua, federal authorities reported and sold what federal authorities described as "substantial quantities" of prescription drugs.
Between 2013 and 2015, operating as freeworldpharmacy.com, Leonforte’s business sold more than $7.5 million in pharmaceuticals, including more than $385,000 in generic codeine in 2015.
An undercover Drug Enforcement Administration officer was able to order and receive hundreds of codeine pills without a prescription from freeworldpharmacy.com and medsindia.net, the release said.
Codeine is a narcotic used to treat pain. It is also used in small amounts in some cough and cold syrups.
Leonforte is set to be sentenced in federal court in Gainesville on Jan. 4. Burstein is set to be sentenced on Feb. 3.
A joint investigation by the DEA and Internal Revenue Service with assistance from several other local, state and federal agencies led to the arrests. |
Edmonton Transit System users will see an increase starting in February, as some fares will go up an average of about 3 percent.
As of February 1, the cost of the following passes and ticket packages will change:
2016 2017 Adult Ticket (10) $24.75 $25.50 Youth/Senior Ticket (10) $21.50 $22.25 Adult Monthly Pass $91.50 $94.25 Youth Monthly Pass (effective Sept. 1) $71.00 $73.00 Senior Monthly Pass $14.50 $15.00 Day Pass $9.25 $9.50 Post-Secondary Pass $83.50 $86.00 ETS @ Work Monthly Pass $80.50 $82.90 Senior Annual Pass (effective April 1) $128.75 $132.50 Senior Annual Pass (low income) (effective April 1) $55.75 $57.50 DATS-Monthly Pass $91.50 $94.25
ETS said although the cost of some passes were going up, the price of a number of other products would not change: Assured Income for Severely Handicapped (AISH) monthly transit pass, 747 fares to the Edmonton International Airport, and the Universal Transit Pass (U-Pass) for post-secondary students, and cash fares, which will stay at $3.25.
Plus, tickets purchased before February 1 which have not expired are still valid.
Officials said with the increase, ETS fares are still competitive when compared to other cities of similar size to Edmonton: on January 1, 2017, Calgary increased prices for some products, including cash fares (to $3.25) and monthly fares (to $101). Officials in Ottawa increased rates on January 1, including increasing the adult monthly pass from $105.75 to $113.75. |
Half of the public would blame GOP lawmakers for a government shutdown while only a third would blame President Obama, according to a CNN survey released Monday.
Thirteen percent, meanwhile, said Republicans and the president would both be responsible while 2 percent said neither should be blamed or said they had no opinion.
A plurality of people polled said a government shutdown that would last a few days would be a major problem. Just under a quarter said it would be a minor problem and 20 percent said it would be a crisis.
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The government shutdown in October 2013 lasted 16 days.
Among the political parties, 82 percent of Democrats would blame Republicans in Congress for a shutdown while 10 percent of Democrats would blame Obama.
Just over 60 percent of Republican voters would blame Obama and just under a quarter would blame members of their own party.
More independents would blame Republicans for a shutdown than they would the president.
Congress has 10 days to pass a new spending bill or the government could shut down again. Conservatives have been pushing GOP leaders to defund Obama’s immigration order through appropriations bills and the House GOP Conference is expected to debate its next steps in a closed-door meeting Tuesday morning.
The poll surveyed 1,045 adults between Nov. 21-23 with a 3 percentage point margin of error. |
As I noted last week, 2012 has been a big year for Toronto's beer scene. And, owing to the increased availability of local beer and our increasingly sophisticated beer tastes, this year's new beer offerings were even more diverse and interesting than last year's. Narrowing the field to just five of the best new beers brewed by the city's brewers this year was no easy endeavour, but let's be honest--there are no losers when there are so many new breweries opening up in and around Toronto. Some new beers, however, stood out among the others this year.
Here are my picks for the best five.
Great Lakes Brewery's 25th Anniversary Robust Porter
In honour of their 25th anniversary this year, Toronto's oldest craft brewer has been rolling out a series of beers made in a traditional style. Realistically, any one of brewer Mike Lackey's anniversary series beers could have made this list. His 25th Anniversary Saison and his 25th Anniversary Imperial Black IPA were also ridiculously good, but my personal favourite is the Robust Porter. The aroma is all roasted malts with hints of chocolate and the taste is mildly bitter black chocolate, with semi-sweet coffee.
It's got a virtually undetectable alcohol flavour but still weighs in at a substantial 7.2%. In short, it's a perfectly creamy, smoky, and rich sipper and, while it was brewed to be a one-off, if Great Lakes doesn't find a way to continue brewing this all year, I will personally lead the angry mob out to Etobicoke to change their minds.
Bellwoods Brewery's Witchshark Imperial IPA
It's hard to find a beer on Bellwoods' ever-changing lineup that is anything less than stellar, but one of the beers that Mike Clark and Luke Pestl have been brewing ever since they opened hits all the right marks. The Witchshark Imperial IPA is something like the perfect hop bomb, managing great bitterness and a remarkable balance. The aromas are citrus, grapefruit, and a bit of pine, and it's got awesome head retention and lacing that ensure the aromas stick around until the last sip.
The flavour is a cascade hops smack in the mouth, but it stops short of being offensive with a sweet, caramel malt backbone. Essentially, this double-IPA is the perfect bitter, hoppy pint that other Ontario brewers wish they made--on steroids. It weighs in at a dangerously imperceptible 9% ABV and has been known to send more than a few of my Saturday afternoons off on an unexpected wobbly tangent.
Cameron's Brewing Company's Rye Pale Ale
Technically this beer was first brewed in 2011 as an entry in the Cask IPA Challenge at bar Volo, but it got its first commercial run in April of 2012, making it eligible for this list, well, because it's my list and I can do whatever I want. If you've never had an RPA, you need to get your hands on this beer: not only is it possible that RPAs could become the next big thing in Ontario brewing, but this beer is largely the reason that might happen. It's that good. It's a sort of amber orange with a thin foamy head and the pale ale part of this beer delivers all the citrus aromas you would expect of a beer that combines British and American hops.
It's also got some bitterness on the finish, but the generous portion of rye gives this 6.6% ABV beer some unique spiciness balanced with a little sweet caramel malts. Unfortunately, Cameron's RPA is currently only available in select bars and in the bottle at Cameron's on-site retail store. Hopefully it will show up on enough "best of" lists that Cameron's will get their asses in gear and get this in LCBOs so we city dwellers can drink it all year round without having to trek out to Oakville.
Indie Alehouse's Red Tape Stout
Most of the beers Jason Fisher and Co. are brewing out in the Junction are something of a revelation, but for me, the best of the bunch has been the cheekily-named Red Tape Stout, so dubbed to commemorate the arduous process of getting his brewpub up and running. This stout is just a great beer. It pours as dark as motor oil with a thick taupe head and the aroma is rich like strong coffee. It's got a fantastic creamy mouthfeel, just the right touch of smokiness, and just a hint of sweetness.
Red Tape actually joins an oft-overlooked class of fantastic Ontario stouts (e.g. Wellington Imperial Stout, Amsterdam's Tempest Imperial, even the newly-brewed Get Well/Duggan's collaboration) and like some of its peers, Red Tape manages a great creamy smoothness while still packing a wallop (a potent 10.5% ABV, in fact). As evidenced by the pinot-barrel aged version that was debuted at Indie's recent stout night, Red Tape seems destined for experimental iterations, but here's hoping it finds a regular place in the Indie lineup because it does just fine on its own.
Amsterdam Brewery's Calm Before the Storm
Possibly the most underrated in brewer Iain McOustra's lineup of "Adventure Brews," Calm Before the Storm uses the same malt bill as their Tempest Imperial Stout, but instead of the nap-inducing heft of that beer's heavy 10% profile, Calm Before the Storm weighs in at a ridiculously drinkable 3.2%, making it one of a very small collection of locally brewed English milds.
This beer has all the richness and interesting espresso and dark chocolate flavours you'd expect from a great dark beer, but with its low alcohol profile, amped up carbonation, and frothy rather than creamy head, Calm Before the Storm is more akin to refreshing than complex. It's basically a great dark beer you could drink a dozen of.
2012 honourable mentions:
Kensington Brewing Company's Baldwin FisheyePA
Spearhead Brewing Company's Moroccan Brown Ale
2012 out-of-town favourites:
Muskoka Brewery's Twice as Mad Tom Double IPA
Silversmith Brewing Company's Black Lager
Photo by Traven Benner |
Maria. Irma. Harvey. Sandy. Katrina. Andrew.
For coastal communities, the social, economic, and physical scars left behind by major hurricanes are devastating.
While hurricanes are a natural part of our climate system, recent research suggests that there has been an increase in intense hurricane activity in the North Atlantic since the 1970s. In the future, there may not necessarily be more hurricanes, but there will likely be more intense hurricanes that carry higher wind speeds and more precipitation as a result of global warming. The impacts of this trend are likely to be exacerbated by sea level rise and a growing population along coastlines.
Scientists are continuing to refine our understanding of how global warming affects hurricane activity. Cutting edge research is beginning to be able to attribute individual hurricanes to global warming. For example, new research estimates that as the Earth has warmed, the probability of a storm with precipitation levels like Hurricane Harvey was higher in Texas in 2017 than it was at the end of the twentieth century. Because of climate change, such a storm evolved from a once in every 100 years event to a once in every 16 years event over this time period.
Flood waters remain high in Carolina, Puerto Rico, Sept. 22, 2017, after Hurricane Maria slammed the island
Photo: Sgt. Jose Ahiram Diaz-Ramos, Puerto Rico National Guard.
Observed trends in hurricanes
A hurricane is a rotating, organized system of thunderstorms and clouds originating in tropical or subtropical waters. Hurricanes are classified according to wind speed.
The number and strength of storms is highly variable from year to year, which makes it challenging to detect trends in the frequency or intensity of hurricanes over time.
The advent of satellite technology in the 1970s made it possible to more consistently track hurricanes. Storm counts and strength measurements from before to the 1970s are less consistent, further complicating the study of long-term trends.
To help address these challenges, scientists run hurricane models calibrated with observations over the historical period to project future trends and understand the major factors driving these trends.
Recent research in this area suggests that there has been an increase in intense hurricane activity over the past 40 years.
The National Weather Service added new colors to its rainfall maps to effectively map Hurricane Harvey, which dropped unprecedented amounts of rainfall over Texas
The category system classifies the strength of Hurricanes on a scale from 1 to 5 according to wind speed. Since the mid-1970s, the number of hurricanes that reach Categories 4 and 5 in strength has roughly doubled. Indices for hurricane activity based on storm surge data from tide gauges further indicate an increase in intensity.
In 2017, Hurricane Harvey produced unprecedented levels of precipitation. The National Weather Service added two more shades of purple to its rainfall maps to effectively map Hurricane Harvey's rainfall amounts.
There is some evidence that in the western North Pacific Ocean, hurricanes—known as typhoons in this region—are also intensifying. Whether hurricanes are intensifying in other regions is less clear, though other recent evidence suggests that the trend toward more intense hurricanes may extend globally.
There has been little change, however, in the frequency of hurricanes globally. Roughly 90 hurricanes occur each year around the world, with by far the greatest number occurring in the largest ocean basin on Earth–the Pacific.
Factors that increase the destructive potential of hurricanes
The oceans have taken in nearly all of the excess energy created by global warming, absorbing 93 percent of the increase in the planet’s energy inventory from 1971-2010.
Human-made global warming creates conditions that increase the chances of extreme weather. In some ocean basins, the intensification of hurricanes over time has been linked to rising ocean temperatures. Since 1970, sea surface temperatures worldwide have warmed by about an average of 0.1°C per decade. This warming is especially pronounced in the North Atlantic basin.
Sea levels are also rising as the oceans warm and seawater expands. This expansion, combined with the melting of land-based ice, has caused global average sea level to rise by roughly 7-8 inches since 1900—a trend that is expected to accelerate over coming decades.
Higher sea levels give coastal storm surges a higher starting point when major storms approach and pile water up along the shore. The resulting storm surge reaches higher and penetrates further inland in low-lying areas. The risk is even greater if storms make landfall during high tides.
Roads and other crucial infrastructure face growing risks from storm surges.
Photo: USFWS/CC BY (Flickr)
Growing population density on coastlines also increases the destructive potential of hurricanes. Roughly 40 percent of the US population—about 123 million people—lives in coastal counties. US coastal county populations are growing much denser than non-coastal counties. Between 1970 and 2010 coastal counties increased population density by 39 percent (excluding Alaska). In non-coastal counties, population density hardly changed over the same period.
By concentrating ourselves along the coasts, we have increasingly exposed our communities and homes to powerful storms. As a result of coastal development, storms are exacting rising financial tolls.
Rising ocean temperatures fuel stronger North Atlantic hurricanes
Warm ocean temperatures are one of the key factors that strengthen hurricane development when overall conditions are conducive for their formation and growth.
Hurricanes require high humidity, relatively constant winds at different altitudes, and can occur when surface ocean temperatures exceed about 79°F (26°C). The rising of warm, moist air from the ocean helps to power the storm.
In order to build up and intensify, hurricanes require warm ocean temperatures, moist air, and low vertical wind shear (i.e. no strong change in wind speed or direction between two different altitudes).
Graphic: physicalgeography.net
Two other factors may also be contributing to the rising intensities of hurricanes. First, warm air holds more water vapor than cold air—and the rising air temperatures since the 1970s have caused the atmospheric water vapor content to rise as well. This increased moisture provides additional fuel for hurricanes. Climate models project an increase in the average precipitation rate of hurricanes as a result of global warming.
Second, as ocean temperatures rise, there is also less cold, subsurface ocean water to serve as a braking mechanism for hurricanes. When strong storm winds churn up cold subsurface water, the cooler waters can serve to weaken the storm. But if deeper waters become too warm, this natural braking mechanism weakens. For example, Hurricane Katrina intensified significantly when it hit deep pools of warm water in the Gulf of Mexico.
Not all changes in climate will fuel hurricanes. For example, when there are large changes in wind speed at different altitudes (also known as "vertical wind shear") above an area of the ocean, those conditions can interfere with hurricane formation. There is evidence that climate change may increase vertical wind shear over some regions in the western tropical Atlantic Ocean.
However, when scientists put the pieces together, they project that in general, hurricanes will become more intense in a warming world, with higher wind speeds and greater levels of precipitation.
The largest Atlantic hurricane on record, Hurricane Sandy reached over 1000 miles in diameter and made landfall in the U.S. on October 29, 2012.
Photo: NASA
The role of natural cycles in hurricanes
The oceans experience a variety of natural circulation patterns, or oscillations, that influence the distribution of warm and cold water in the upper ocean. These naturally occurring oscillations affect ocean conditions on timescales ranging from just a few years to several decades and are known to affect the intensity of hurricanes.
During the warm, or El Niño, phase of the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO), for example, hurricanes are less likely to make landfall in eastern Australia and Atlantic hurricanes tend to be suppressed. However, El Niño conditions can boost typhoon risks in parts of Asia.
The presence of these natural oscillations can mask or enhance the potential influence of human-caused warming on hurricane activity. Recent scientific studies increasingly question whether human activities have contributed to observed shifts in natural circulation patterns.
The aftermath of Hurricane Sandy in Mantaloking, New Jersey.
Photo: Master Sgt. Mark C. Olsen/US Air Force CC BY (Wikimedia)
What the future holds
As the climate continues to warm, the average intensity of tropical cyclones (including hurricanes in the North Atlantic) is projected to rise while the overall number of hurricanes globally is expected to either decrease or remain unchanged. Scientists project that, on average, tropical cyclones and hurricanes will have higher wind speeds and higher precipitation rates. There is some evidence that there will be an increase in the frequency of the most intense storms, though there is more evidence of this finding for the eastern North Pacific than there is for the western North Pacific and Atlantic.
The projected increase in intense hurricanes is substantial—a doubling or more in the frequency of category 4 and 5 storms by the end of the century—with the western North Atlantic experiencing the largest increase. With continued warming, sea level is likely to rise by one to four feet globally by the end of the century, enabling the powerful surge associated with hurricanes to penetrate further inland than today.
Given the loss of life and the huge costs of rebuilding after hurricanes, it is essential to do whatever we can to avoid dangerous warming and protect coastal communities for ourselves and our children.
Recent experiences with super storms like Sandy in 2012, Harvey, Irma and Maria, all in 2017, have left some valuable lessons: We can’t afford to ignore global warming. Investing for the present and future of a changing climate is pressing.
How are we preparing our communities, and making sure that we don’t leave people behind? What actions are we taking to mitigate climate change and avoid its worse projections? |
It seems like every day we hear another announcement about some more of our favorite books being made into TV shows. While we love seeing our most beloved books brought to the big screen, seeing them from the comfort of our living rooms is even more exciting — especially because TV shows get the chance to delve more closely than films into the stories that we know and love so well. (Still holding out for a Harry Potter TV show, you guys. One day...)
In a TV series, we get to spend some good quality time with our favorite characters, and see a lot more character development than a two-hour movie can really fit in. Die-hard fans of the novel don't have to worry about their favorite scenes being skipped, because there's plenty of time for everything. Even better, in a TV show we often get to see brand new plot-lines that expand the original novel into something excitingly new. Just think how much extra backstory we got in The Handmaid's Tale!
So if you're still having Big Little Lies withdrawals (aren't we all?), clear some space on your TiVo (and some binge-watching time in your schedule) for these nine upcoming book-to-TV adaptations.
1 'The Underground Railroad' by Colson Whitehead Barry Jenkins is the director and screenwriter of the Oscar-winning Moonlight, and now he's taking on The Underground Railroad TV show as his next big project. This story, which reimagines the underground railroad as a literal railroad, was named by Barack Obama as his top book of last summer. Click here to buy.
2 The Divergent series by Veronica Roth The Divergent movie franchise never did quite as well at the box office as its producers hoped, but instead of fading quietly, it is now being relaunched as a TV series. As Shailene Woodley will not be returning as the star, it is not currently clear where exactly the new TV show will pick up — but the new format will certainly give this popular story a whole new lease of life. Click here to buy.
3 'Sweetbitter' by Stephanie Danler With Brad Pitt at the helm in the role of producer, the Sweetbitter TV show has been getting a ton of buzz. And fans of Stephanie Danler's novel will be pleased to hear that Danler is adapting the screenplay herself, so we know it will have her signature style. Click here to buy.
4 'Dietland' by Sarai Walker Sarai Walker's Dietland will be adapted by Marti Noxon, whose previous successes include UnREAL and Girlfriend's Guide to Divorce. Noxon's last project was the movie To the Bone which, like Dietland, is about body image, beauty standards and the pressures placed on women. Click here to buy.
5 'Who Fears Death' by Nnedi Okorafor The Who Fears Death TV show has got some seriously big names in sci-fi/fantasy involved; the original novel was written by Nnedi Okorafor, and the TV show will have George R.R. Martin as the executive producer. Click here to buy.
6 'My Brilliant Friend' by Elena Ferrante Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan novels have taken the world by storm, and her many fans were so psyched to hear the news that a My Brilliant Friend TV show is on the way. It will be filmed in Naples and in Italian, so you might want to brush up on your Italian skills before 2018... or, y'know, just turn on the subtitles. Click here to buy.
7 'The Age of Miracles' by Karen Thompson Walker Dystopias are all the rage right now, so the announcement of a The Age of Miracles TV adaptation has come at the perfect moment. The Age of Miracles redefines the genre, with the dystopian aspect creeping in slowly and taking a back seat to the family drama in this unique coming-of-age novel. Click here to buy.
8 'Sharp Objects' by Gillian Flynn The Sharp Objects TV show has been in the making for a long time now, but filming finally started this year with Amy Adams in the lead role. The Sharp Objects novel is even creepier than its more famous successor Gone Girl, so you might need to watch this show from behind a pillow. Click here to buy. |
VERO BEACH – A 48-year-old woman was arrested in Vero Beach on charges of battery after she twisted her friend’s fingers.
The Indian River County Sheriff’s Office was called five times at a residence on 7th Avenue in Vero Beach for multiple disturbances.
At 2:37 a.m., deputies responded to another disturbance call at the same location where a male and two women were heavily intoxicated.
The victim told deputies that one of the women, identified as Patricia Diane Powell, “grabbed her fingers and twisted them, causing pain to her fingers,” according to the report.
The victim said she was outside listening to music with her boyfriend when “Patricia came outside from the house and grabbed [her] fingers and twisted them,” the report said.
The boyfriend advised he witnessed Patricia grab his girlfriend’s fingers and “bend them back.”
Patricia Powell was arrested and transported to the Indian River County Jail where she was charged with battery.
DISCLAIMER: Arrests and mugshots were made public by complaint affidavits, arrest affidavits, and police reports. All persons arrested are innocent until proven guilty.
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From the beginning, NextVR has been positioning its VR video technology toward live broadcasting, especially for sports. We’ve already seen NextVR demo their technology with the NBA, NHL, and more, while their latest test has taken them to Auto Club Speedway to capture and livestream a NASCAR race.
NextVR says that they used two cameras to capture 180-degree and 360-degree video of the NASCAR XFINITY Series and NASCAR Sprint Cup Series races this past weekend. The cameras sat along the pit and between the track and pit, much closer to the action than where fans are typically permitted.
NextVR uses a custom VR video rig consisting of several RED EPIC DRAGON cameras, capable of shooting video at up to 6K resolution. The company has a proprietary method for streaming “broadcast-quality” live video that can be viewed on a VR headset.
See Also: NextVR’s Stereoscopic 360-degree VR Cam Uses $180,000 Worth of RED 6K Cameras
For the NASCAR test, NextVR streamed the footage to FOX Sports Executives and Producers using Samsung’s Gear VR in the FOX Sports at-track television compound, according to the company.
NextVR has been showing off its tech to major sports organizations. Previously the company has filmed both NHL and NBA events and even a concert with Coldplay. |
The search is on for the man police said was driven to an apartment by his mother and fired multiple shots at another man and into two apartments in Volusia County.
The incident happened around 1:10 a.m. Tuesday, at the Holly Point Apartments, located at 1000 15th St., in Holly Hill.
Lewis Hawkins, 32, pulled a handgun from the vehicle he rode in and shot at Dion Skeeter multiple times, police said.
Four bullet casings were recovered at the scene, police said.
According to a police report, Hawkins and Skeeter had a "heated" argument about two weeks ago.
Skeeter was standing outside the apartment when Lewis fired the shots, but he wasn't injured. Several bullets struck the apartment's windows, going through one apartment and into another unit, police said. Both apartments were occupied during the shooting. Two children were sleeping inside one of the apartments, police said.
Hawkins was driven to the apartment complex by his mother, 54-year-old Sondra Conegia.
Conegia has been charged with principle to attempted first-degree murder with a firearm. She is being held on no bond, police said.
An arrest warrant has been obtained for Hawkins on various charges, including attempted first-degree murder with a firearm, police said. Investigators are working leads to locate Hawkins.
Police said Hawkins may be gang affiliated with the Latin Kings. He is considered armed and dangerous. |
Uploaded by jonbone17 on Feb 18, 2007
An inside look at Hoa Lo Prison, which American POWs nicknamed “Hanoi Hilton” in the 1960s
He spat at Ms. Fonda, was clubbed, and was dragged away. During the subsequent beating, he fell forward on to the camp Commandant ‘s feet, which sent that officer berserk.
In 1978, the Air Force Colonel still suffered from double vision (which permanently ended his flying career) from the Commandant’s frenzied application of a wooden baton.
From 1963-65, Col. Larry Carrigan was in the 47FW/DO (F-4E’s). He spent 6 years in the ‘ Hanoi Hilton’…the first three of which his family only knew he was ‘missing in action’. His wife lived on faith that he was still alive. His group, too, got the cleaned-up, fed and clothed routine in preparation for a ‘peace delegation’ visit.
They, however, had time and devised a plan to get word to the world that they were alive and still survived. Each man secreted a tiny piece of paper, with his Social Security Number on it, in the palm of his hand. When paraded before Ms. Fonda and a cameraman, she walked the line, shaking each man’s hand and asking little encouraging snippets like: ‘Aren’t you sorry you bombed babies?’ and ‘Are you grateful for the humane treatment from your benevolent captors?’ Believing this HAD to be an act, they each palmed her their sliver of paper.
She took them all without missing a beat.. At the end of the line and once the camera stopped rolling, to the shocked disbelief of the POWs, she turned to the officer in charge and handed him all the little pieces of paper…
Three men died from the subsequent beatings. Colonel Carrigan was almost number four but he survived, which is the only reason we know of her actions that day.
I was a civilian economic development advisor in Vietnam , and was captured by the North Vietnamese communists in South Vietnam in 1968, and held prisoner for over 5 years.
I spent 27 months in solitary confinement; one year in a cage in Cambodia ; and one year in a ‘black box’ in Hanoi . My North Vietnamese captors deliberately poisoned and murdered a female missionary, a nurse in a leprosarium in Banme Thuot , South Vietnam , whom I buried in the jungle near the Cambodian border. At one time, I weighed only about 90 lbs. (My normal weight is 170 lbs)
We were Jane Fonda’s ‘war criminals….’
When Jane Fonda was in Hanoi , I was asked by the camp communist political officer if I would be willing to meet with her. I said yes, for I wanted to tell her about the real treatment we POWs received… and how different it was from the treatment purported by the North Vietnamese, and parroted by her as ‘humane and lenient.’
Because of this, I spent three days on a rocky floor on my knees, with my arms outstretched with a large steel weight placed on my hands, and beaten with a bamboo cane.
I had the opportunity to meet with Jane Fonda soon after I was released. I asked her if she would be willing to debate me on TV. She never did answer me.
These first-hand experiences do not exemplify someone who should be honored as part of ‘100 Years of Great Women.’ Lest we forget….’ 100 Years of Great Women’ should never include a traitor whose hands are covered with the blood of so many patriots.
There are few things I have strong visceral reactions to, but Hanoi Jane’s participation in blatant treason, is one of them. Please take the time to forward to as many people as you possibly can.. It will eventually end up on her computer and she needs to know that we will never forget.
RONALD D. SAMPSON, CMSgt,
USAF 716 Maintenance Squadron, |
Check out Noah, our ultimate super-user and how he uses his StormFly (Beta version!)
What is StormFly?
In a nutshell: it’s like having a PC on your wrist.
In less than a nutshell: StormFly is a super-fast storage device with an Open Source Operating System (bootable in most modern PC's and Macs and powered by our smart-boot technology) embedded in a cool wristband. Inserted into any computer and rebooted, the computer runs directly from the Operating System that is on StormFly, allowing you to take your Operating System and critical data with you wherever you go and use it in whatever PC or Mac is available.
StormFly lets you take application programs and files anywhere you go without the need of carrying a bulky and heavy laptop....and it is encrypted to protect all the critical data you put on it.
StormFly also comes with an automatic Backup Service so that if you lose it or it gets stolen, we can send you a new one with all the files and applications that were saved on the home folder within 24 hours.
Do you want to read this information in Spanish?
Please click here:
We are super excited about the coverage that we've been receiving from the media, if you want to read the articles, please scroll down!
REWARDS UPDATE: If a reward does not specifically state that StormFly is 32GB then it is the 16GB version (unfortunately after a reward is 'live' we cannot update the text on Kickstarter!)
StormFly: Like a PC on your wrist.
Who are we and what are we about?
Now Computing started as an alternative to cloud computing. Despite all the hype on cloud, there are over 300 million PC’s shipping every year, which means there is still a heck of a lot of local computing happening in the world. Cloud can be cumbersome, slow, sometimes ugly, and not always available. We started out designing business devices for companies to move Operating Systems from PC to PC locally and securely.
When our kids saw those business devices, they wanted to use them. Even kids don’t see cloud as the answer to everything; and the idea of having their own OS (programs, games, information, etc.) on a device, for use on whatever computer they can find (and nowadays they have access to a lot of computers) was something they found cool; so we changed our entire company focus to developing StormFly.
We are looking for Kickstarter to help get us off the ground. We need to raise $100,000 to fund our first manufacturing run. This money will help us get to market, improve our product, tell people our story and get us ready to expand our business.
How does StormFly work?
Pretty simple: plug it into your PC or Mac, reboot the computer (directing it to StormFly with some simple commands) and then the OS on StormFly runs the computer you are using. The OS of the computer itself (whether Mac or PC) does not even turn on (and hence it's pretty hard to mess things up!).
We make this happen with a bunch of code, scripts and drivers that enable StormFly to work on many different hardware platforms. Although some DIY technology experts might be able to create a linux bootable USB device themselves, StormFly offers a lot more due to its speed, boot options, updatability and ability to store user data and applications as if it were a PC, making it a solution for any consumer, regardless of their technical capability. You'll find a lot more techie stuff on StormFly on the FAQ section below.
StormFly works on most modern, 64bit, computers. Whether they are PC or Mac is not really important, given whatever Operating System is on the PC or Mac you are using will not engage when you are running from StormFly.
Live demo of StormFly in action
Who can use StormFly?
• Younger users and parents: Unfortunately, kids have a tendency to download some dodgy things; despite the best efforts of security & firewall software, this can slow or even damage computers. StormFly takes this risk away because it works independently to the operating system of whatever computer it is plugged into. StormFly is also an affordable way for everyone in a household to effectively have their own personal computer environment.
• Schools: We’ve heard for years about ‘one laptop per child’ but in reality the affordability of that for every child remains elusive. One StormFly per child however, makes things affordable (and even more manageable in a school environment). Imagine a school with 50 computers, and 500 kids. The amount of messed up settings, bad downloads, and generally ill-maintained systems that get generated is huge. If every child has a StormFly then suddenly all 500 have their own computing environment. Whenever they plug in, reboot and launch their OS from one of the schools 50 PC’s, they cannot mess anything up. Also it operates independent of wifi or internet, so for schools with low coverage StormFly is ideal. Children can also take StormFly home and use it on their parents’ computer.
• Students: At school or college, most subjects at some point require the students to do some written work on a computer. Students without a laptop generally work on school computers and home computers, using standard USB drives to shift data and files between the two, unfortunately normal USB drives are not backed up and are easily lost. With StormFly you are getting the same experience at home and at school, with all of your personal information such as wallpaper, programs, files always at hand; and it is all backed up securely.
• Business folks: If you travel you can leave your laptop at home, bring your tablet for books and emergencies, but additionally have the comfort of knowing that by having StormFly with you, you´ll have all your critical data and can plug into full strength PC’s and work effectively if you need to.
• Security conscious folks: StormFly lets you access your private data or online banking anywhere without fear of viruses or traps that might be lurking in foreign computers. You can also work securely on the web without leaving any forensic trace of your activity on the computer you are using StormFly on. Once you unplug it and walk away, everything you did is on your wrist alone.
The list keeps growing… for teachers, for marketers, for people that repair computers.... We believe that many people can benefit from the format, security and cost that StormFly offers to take care of their computing needs in a unique and simple way.
Other StormFly technical features:
USB 3.0
StormFly is really fast. Using the best USB 3.0 chipset not only allows us to run an Operating System from it flawlessly (including 3D gaming, music, movies and everything else you might want to do with a normal PC); it also means that even as a straightforward USB drive StormFly is a killer device. We are working with leading chipset and USB manufacturers in Asia to deliver a device that can withstand the endless read/write actions required to run an operating system, and to ensure we have one of the fastest USB’s on the planet.
Shared folder
StormFly can also be used as a ‘normal’ (but yeah, real fast) USB device. Inserted into a PC or Mac that is already running a native Operating System, StormFly appears as a ‘shared’ folder. When running from the Operating System on StormFly the same folder can be seen. This allows for data to be easily transferred from StormFly to other machines, as well as simply offering a great storage device.
Security
StormFly has 128bit encryption, an industry standard that is very hard to crack. We have made it a requirement that all users need to use a password during the booting up process, because it is vital to the interests of their security.
Backup and Replacement Service
StormFly comes with its own backup service, so in case you lose it or it gets stolen, all your information is safely backed up on an encrypted server (everything but the information on the shared folder) which allows us to ship you an exact copy of your StormFly within 24 hours.
We intend to charge $19.99 for one year of backup service. If your StormFly is lost or stolen a replacement StormFly will be made from your last backup (password etc will remain the same) and we will charge $49 for that StormFly.
You do not NEED to have the backup service to use your StormFly, it is totally optional.
We want to bring the cost of StormFly down over time, so if the base price goes down, the replacement StormFly price will go down as well.
Open Source
We love open source. All of our products have been developed on Linux and we have contributed as much as we can to the community. We believe software should be free. We also believe that devices, hardware, and the services that hang everything together, if provided professionally and with great customer focus, should be commercially viable.
While we might only start with a limited few Operating Systems in the beginning, in the end we would love to see our devices used to run every Linux Operating System distribution on the planet, and we would like to be one of the biggest providers of software drivers and compatibility solutions for Linux so that everyone can use what we build.
Something about our CEO
My name is Feargal Mac Conuladh, I'm Irish and have worked in technology companies for about 20 years. I've worked in a few big well known companies - Lenovo, Epson and Apple. I had some great jobs all over the world, but I always longed to be involved in start-ups. Now Computing has been my startup 'baby' where I get to use the network and experience I got in big companies, but apply it to something new that we are creating from scratch. Growing Now Computing is a lot of fun, we have a great team, and are lucky to be surrounded by some really good industry experts on our board.
Next to that I have four kids: and their constant questions and excitement inspired us to come up with StormFly and change the entire direction of the company!
"Aside from storing your entire computer, StormFly can be used as a regular USB and ensures your files' security. Users need to enter a password while booting up to access any stored information."
“Now Computing out of Barcelona, Spain, has taken the next logical step by throwing a full operating system on a wrist-worn flash drive. StormFly bypasses the resident PC or Mac operating system completely, so it doesn't leave a trace of user activity, and includes enough space for personal files and user settings.”
"After a little bit of setup, those little ones whip the USB bracelet off their wrists, plug it into a PC or a Mac, and do whatever it is that kids do on computers these days without having to worry. Thankfully, since the StormFly’s user never has access to the OS that’s actually installed on the host computer, there’s no way for them to royally screw things up by mucking with other people’s settings or downloading things they really shouldn’t be."
"In the future, StormFly could potentially be used by younger children or parents who share the whole family’s computer, schools that can’t afford to provide one computer per student, broke college students, and everyone else concerned about security – including those who want to be able to safely access sensitive data, like bank accounts, anywhere they want."
Check out StormFly's new design ;) |
1) 400ml of Nail Varnish Remover - I bought 2 bottles of Boots own brand at 99p each. I could probably have got by with one.
2) An oyster card - I bought a prepay one for £3, though I got a funny look when I didn't want to top it up there and then.
3) A jar big enough to contain the oyster card - I bought a jar of beetroot (urgh) for 72p.
Total Cost: £5.70
It's best to keep checking the card, first it will get soft, then after about 90 mins it folded over and I was able to peel off the first layer of the card, exposing one side of the chip. Then I cut the centre of the card out with scissors (so there was less plastic for the acetone to work on). I put these pieces next to the jar, and I was quite suprisied when the time-lapse showed them wobbling about.
Then after another half hour or so, the other side of the plastic loosened enough to peel that away exposing the intact chip and antenna
Open Sesame
I'm sure a number of you read Boing Boing (I don't but often get sent interesting stories from it - eg the spoof terrorist posters ), its editor has a particular bugbear about the "Big Brotherness" of Oyster cards and how they can track your every move. Regular readers know I don't share this view.As he hates Oyster cards so much, he showed a couple of attempts of how an Oyster card can be destroyed using some kind of industrial strength acetate and how the chip inside it will still work. Problem was that none of the attempts did actually work. At least not until now. Heads up to Gia who originally found this attempt.SkeptoBot mananged to dissolve an Oyster card using very simple methods & ingredients:Once the Oyster card goes into the nail varnish it melts enough so that you can tear away the layers of plastic and you are left with the chip. He said:."You can see a time lapse video of the whole process below:But would it actually work? After all the meltdown, would he then be able to get the chip topped up and would it let him through the gates on the Tube? He took the chip, put it into an Oyster card wallet, so as not to look suspicious, and then topped it up with some cash, then videoed the experience (see below):It worked. So one now has potentially endless opportunities of not being restricted to your blue card if you want to get about. SkeptoBot quite fancies sticking his chip onto a wand and waving it in front of the reader, saying something like "" and the gates would open - as if by magic.Watch his blog for further developments to see if he can turn it into a wand. |
The executive order Trump signed late Friday puts a temporary moratorium on travel from seven countries while encouraging an effort to tighten the country’s screening of potential terrorists.
An MIT mechanical engineering student from Iran was among those barred from the United States on Saturday by President Trump’s travel ban, prompting an outcry from the MIT community and thrusting the woman into a fiery national debate.
Niki Mossafer Rahmati, a junior who has a multiple entry student visa, had been trying to return to MIT after winter break but was blocked from boarding her connecting flight from Qatar, along with about 30 other Iranians, she wrote on Facebook.
“This will not secure the borders from terrorism and illegal immigrants. It will only increase racism in the American society,” she wrote. “The president is trying to make Islamophobia a norm and policy by which he wants to lead the country. There has not been a single terrorist activity from those 7 countries listed above, in the US.”
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A member of Sigma Kappa sorority, Rahmati is executive vice president of the MIT Panhellenic Association and volunteers with Camp Kesem, an organization for children whose parents have cancer, according to a Facebook page launched by her supporters, called “Bring Niki Back.”
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Her friends and sorority sisters held her up as an active member of the community and launched a phone bank to Congress and an online petition demanding that she be allowed to return.
They also reached out to Democratic US Senator Elizabeth Warren, who cited Rahmati’s story, among others, on the floor of the Senate Monday night as she challenged the notion that the travel ban would make America safer.
“None of these people are criminals. None of these people are threats. They’re students at some of the world’s top universities,” Warren said. “Most of them have already been vetted and granted the right to come to America.”
Trump’s executive order, signed late Friday, puts a temporary moratorium on travel from seven countries while encouraging an effort to tighten the country’s screening of potential terrorists. But confusion has reigned since the weekend, with contradictory messages from the administration about how people with valid green cards would be handled. And even after the travel ban was halted by a one-week stay in the courts on Saturday, some people were still being blocked from returning to the United States, news organizations have reported.
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In speaking of Rahmati in the Senate, Warren said that she was denied travel to the United states a second time on Sunday — even after a stay had been imposed by the court.
An MIT spokesman confirmed that Rahmati is a student affected by the travel ban. The university’s president had not previously mentioned her name but had told alumni and members of the school community in a Monday message that he was working to help two undergraduates who were barred from the United States.
MIT’s president, L. Rafael Reif, noted that the university is broadly international, with more than 40 percent of the faculty, 40 percent of graduate students, and 10 percent of undergraduates coming from outside the United States.
“The Executive Order on Friday appeared to me a stunning violation of our deepest American values, the values of a nation of immigrants: fairness, equality, openness, generosity, courage,” Reif wrote. “The Statue of Liberty is the “Mother of Exiles”; how can we slam the door on desperate refugees? Religious liberty is a founding American value; how can our government discriminate against people of any religion?”
He also encouraged people to work “constructively” to remedy the situation and to acknowledge that “there are people of goodwill who see the measures in the Executive Order as a reasonable path to make the country safer,” though he added, “I am convinced that the Executive Order will make us less safe.”
Stephanie Ebbert can be reached at [email protected] . Follow her on Twitter @StephanieEbbert |
TOKYO -- The operator of Japan's destroyed Fukushima nuclear plant switched on a giant refrigeration system on Thursday to create an unprecedented underground ice wall around its damaged reactors. Radioactive water has been flowing from the reactors, and other methods have failed to fully control it. The decontamination and decommissioning of the plant, damaged by a massive earthquake and tsunami in 2011, hinge of the success of the wall.
What is an ice wall?
Japan building massive ice wall to seal in Fukushima reactor
Engineers installed 1,550 underground refrigeration pipes designed to create a 0.9-mile barrier of frozen soil around four damaged reactor buildings and their turbines to control groundwater flowing into the area and prevent radioactive water from seeping out. The pipes are 100 feet deep, the equivalent of a 10-story building. Engineers say coolant in the pipes will freeze the surrounding soil to minus 22 Fahrenheit, creating the wall over several months.
Why is an ice wall needed?
The cores of three of the damaged reactors melted during the accident and must be cooled constantly with water to keep them from overheating again. The cooling water becomes radioactive and leaks out through damaged areas into the building basements, where it mixes with groundwater, increasing the volume of contaminated water. Nearly 800,000 tons of radioactive water have been pumped out, treated and stored in 1,000 tanks that now occupy virtually every corner of the Fukushima plant, interfering with its decontamination and decommissioning and adding to the risk of further leaks of water into the nearby ocean.
Fukushima: A rare look inside the nuclear plant three years after quake
Are there risks?
Construction officials say the coolant is environmentally safe. There were doubts that the huge refrigeration system could effectively freeze the soil while groundwater continues to flow in the area. The operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., says results from a test of part of the wall last summer were mixed but suggest the system has sufficient capability. Experts are also concerned that an ice wall cannot be adjusted quickly in an emergency situation, such as a sudden increase in the flow of contaminated water, because it takes several weeks to freeze or melt. Electrical costs for running the refrigeration system could be steep. TEPCO says the wall, once formed, can remain frozen for up to two months in the event of a power failure.
Who made the ice wall?
The 35 billion yen ($312 million) project was funded by the government and built by Kajima Corp., which has used similar technology in smaller projects such as subway construction. The wall was delayed by technical uncertainties and was finished last month, a year behind schedule. |
Roller derby, a sport driven mostly by women, is a growing and gaining momentum with each season. The sport is guided by the WFTDA.com, draws interest via its own conversational terminology and rough-house tactics, and engages the masses from an incredibly wide swath of demographics. One might think the sport would be covered more by mainstream media, especially by ESPN, but there is relatively little in the way of mainstream coverage.
Sure, ESPN did cover both Suzy Hotrod in ESPN’s Body Issue and Julie Glass (AtoMatrix) recently, but where’s the coverage of the big, national bouts? There isn’t even a blip for the final scores, MVPs, or any other type of coverage. The only mainstream roller derby coverage is done by Andy Frye, a writer from Chicago and a derby player, who has covered a variety of topics involving derby and has several articles on ESPN.com. ESPN hasn’t completely ignored the sport, but there are roughly twice as many search results for ‘hot dog eating’ as there are for ‘roller derby’ on ESPN’s website. Currently, the majority of coverage is done by private bloggers that are usually referees or players. Unfortunately, one of the most reliable sources of information on derby scores and players, The Derby News Network (DNN), has recently stopped reporting and via their website "Seven years is enough. As of today, Derby News Network is retired".
One example of roller derby being snubbed by ESPN The Magazine was reported on by RollinNews.com and outlines a vote done via social media where readers were given a list of under-represented sports (lacrosse, wrestling, rugby, motocross, and softball) and were encouraged to vote via Facebook, Twitter, and the Magazine’s website. The sport that got the most votes was then going to be featured in the Fansource issue of ESPN The Magazine. We did our best to get people involved in the vote via our own FaceBook page and twitter account. Since there was no option to vote for Roller Derby, derby fans were forced to “write-in” their votes and that’s exactly what they did.
Although the website poll’s data remains closed, the fan votes on Facebook and Twitter are easy enough to track. By the time the deadline rolled around for the poll, there were roughly 15,000 comments on the Facebook post and 1,400 votes on Twitter. Out of those, an astounding 7,000 called for Roller Derby, with rugby coming in second through the voting at about 4,000.
In one tweet, Roller Derby suddenly went from winning the vote to being ignored: “PS we see you, too, roller derby and water polo fans!! Keep in coming and maaaybe we’ll have to another vote for yall for a later issue . . . “
Instead of giving the win to Roller Derby, somehow Rugby came out on top with 40% of the votes. If you look closely at the infographic above it's comical that they spelled Rugby as "Rubgy". What happened to the votes for roller derby? It’s a question that needs to be answered.
It is also important to note that roller derby is a female dominated sport. In a sports world where male leagues of sports tend to gain far greater traction and media attention than female (just look at basketball, soccer, or any other major sport), one can't help but wonder if the lack of a strong male league counterpart to derby contributes to the lack of reporting. Or, to put it more bluntly, is there an aversion by sports media to covering females sports that is further skewing the selection of coverage against derby? An important question to consider.
Other Derby Related Articles:
Best Roller Derby Players of All Time
Stay Safe with Roller Derby
The Wheels you Need for Derby
References:
RollinNews Covers ESPN Ignoring Roller Derby |
Image copyright JEFF OVERS Image caption Mr Clegg told the BBC his party would not enter coalition with a party that would not back public sector pay rises
Nick Clegg has said his priorities - including raising public sector pay - would come ahead of the question of an EU referendum in any coalition talks.
The Lib Dem leader was pressed on whether he would refuse to deal with the Tories if they stuck to their pledge to hold an in/out referendum.
Mr Clegg told the BBC: "Before I address anybody else's red lines, I would address mine."
The parties are trying to rally support on the final weekend of campaigning.
David Cameron is urging voters to "stop and think" about the "historic choice" facing them on Thursday, while Labour are attempting to put pressure on the other parties over tuition fees.
In other election news on Sunday:
The two largest parties appear to be neck and neck according to most of the opinion polls carried out for the Sunday newspapers.
Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper claimed, on The Andrew Marr Show the party was within "touching distance of a Labour government".
Asked if she could look the presenter in the eye and say she believed Labour would gain the 100 seats it needs, Ms Cooper said they were seeking every vote they could, adding: "The public will decide on Thursday."
Analysis by David Cowling, Editor, BBC Political Research Unit
We would not be in our present confusion about the outcome of the general election if the three main Westminster parties were popular. All our problems in trying to predict the outcome of 7 May stem from the fact that they are manifestly unpopular. This general election is the mother of all ugly baby contests between the Conservatives, Labour and the Lib Dems.
Read more from David
The polls suggest a hung Parliament is likely, and the Lib Dems have been setting out their "red lines" - with public sector pay joining education spending, a £12,500 personal allowance, £8bn for the NHS and an emergency "stability budget".
But there has been speculation about whether Mr Clegg - who leads the most pro-European of the largest Westminster parties - would veto the Conservatives' plan for an in/out referendum on the UK's EU membership in any post-election coalition negotiations.
Mr Clegg has already said his opposition to an EU referendum - as proposed by the Conservatives and UKIP - would not be a red line.
He has also said he would talk to the largest party first if there was a hung Parliament, and that he would not join a government that relied on support from the SNP or UKIP.
His final policy demand involves public sector pay rising with inflation for two years from 2016, and then by more than inflation once the deficit has been dealt with.
He told BBC One's Andrew Marr Show the Conservatives "constantly flip and flop" on the question of an EU referendum and may yet "buckle again".
"I'm happy to insist on my red lines," he said - how compatible they were with other parties depended in part, on the mandate given to each party. He repeated his pledge that there was "no way the Liberal Democrats are going to enter into any deal, arrangement or pact with the SNP or UKIP".
Policy guide: Key priorities What are the top issues for each political party at the 2015 general election?
Public sector pay was frozen for the first two years of the coalition government, followed by 1% rises. Schools have been given the power to award top-performing teachers a rise of up to 2%.
The Conservatives plan to continue "restraining" public sector pay, which was increased by up to 1% in March.
Labour's manifesto says any decisions on public sector pay in the next Parliament must "prioritise those on lower incomes", be evidence-based and respect pay review body recommendations.
'Fair share'
Mr Clegg told the BBC "we've asked a lot" of millions of public sector workers who had seen their take-home pay fall: "I think it's now time to say, we are tantalising close to finishing the job of balancing the budget. We will not ask workers in the public sector to shoulder any more cuts to their take-home pay.
"That's the fair way to balance the books and I think we should now give them reassurance that there is a light at the end of the tunnel and that their pay will not be cut any further."
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption David Cameron: 'I will not be PM of a government that doesn't deliver referendum'
Mr Cameron, meanwhile, is urging people not to vote tactically for the Lib Dems or back UKIP if they want him to remain in Downing Street.
He told BBC Political Editor Nick Robinson that he would not compromise on his commitment to holding an EU referendum.
Asked if he would rather Labour was in government than be prime minister without an EU referendum, he said: "I will not lead a government that doesn't have that referendum in law and carried out."
In a campaigning speech, he said a vote for UKIP would let in Labour, which would herald a "sharp turn to the left" and that the Lib Dems would also be willing to side with Ed Miliband's party.
"As you spend time with your family and friends, I'd urge all voters to take a moment and stop and think about the decision they have to make in just four days' time," he said.
"It's no exaggeration to say Britain will be making an historic choice."
Labour says Conservative plans for spending cuts suggest a rise in tuition fees up to £11,500 a year. The party said this was based on a £1.5bn cut to the higher education budget by 2018-19. Shadow business secretary Chuka Umunna told BBC Radio 5 Live's Pienaar's Politics: "We have already seen tuition fees trebled in this Parliament and of course a big betrayal of the British public by Nick Clegg.
He added: "People are going to be faced with a very clear choice on Thursday. Do you vote to cut tuition fees, saving a young person in your family going to university £9,000 over the course of a three year degree, or do you vote for a continuation of young people being given a lorry load of debt if they want to go to university under the Conservatives."
Mr Clegg dismissed claims by former No 10 adviser James O'Shaughnessy that he had actually been keen for an increase in tuition fees, telling the BBC: "I don't even know who this chap is and he certainly wasn't in the room, I tell you." |
All medications have side-effects. It is a sad and sorry thing that a prescribed drug cannot always descend straight onto its targeted ailment and quickly destroy it. But medicine is imperfect, less like a helicopter and more like a wide-belly cargo plane landing at night. It might wiggle and veer. A wise patient might want to read reliable government reports on an airline’s safety record before booking the flight, if they’re available, or even exist.
A medication — like the MMR vaccine — cannot always descend straight onto its targeted ailment and quickly destroy it. But a wise patient, Heather Mallick suggests, might want to read reliable scientific reports on its efficacy rather than rely on the looniness of social media. ( Damian Dovarganes / The Associated Press )
The Gardasil vaccine story reported Thursday by David Bruser and Jesse McLean of the Toronto Star was about information, and access to it. It was not about the drug itself — it is safe and effective — but about parents and girls not always being told what they need to know in order to make informed decisions, and being dismissed by doctors when they became terribly ill. Many hundreds of thousands of teenage girls in Canada have been safely given the three-dose vaccine but since 2008 at least 60 have suffered convulsions or disabling pain afterwards. It’s not clear why but it is worth noting and investigating, as the story said repeatedly. Their suffering matters. These girls are worth listening to. But some people are saying the Star shouldn’t have run the story because it might help the anti-vaxxer cause. This overreaction is a sign of our agitated times, proof that people will react to a phrase or a sentence rather than reading an extended list of facts. On Twitter, I and others warn people not to retweet something without reading it first in its entirety. Do they do this? No, they do not. I have to leave Twitter. I will.
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Tweeters complained about things the Star story did not say. They said it was overblown — what’s the pain of a few teenage girls? — and ill-timed in the midst of news about a measles epidemic caused by panicky anti-vaxxers, mostly in the U.S., who say the MMR vaccine causes autism, which it doesn’t. It’s like saying we shouldn’t report close calls in the air because most planes land safely. The Star can’t censor itself to suit an alarmist news agenda. To do so would be to assume its readers are stupid, and that is how journalism self-harms. We live in a country of silence and official secrecy, where institutions from governments to medical colleges are obliged to reveal almost nothing about spending, competence and safety. Information, invariably extracted slowly with tongs, is always good. On Thursday, Public Health Ontario revealed that the fifth person in Toronto to come down with measles was fully vaccinated. Vaccines don’t always work. I am on my third whooping cough vaccine and know to my cost that whooping cough is a terrible illness in adults. It can kill infants. The flu vaccine this year didn’t work according to plan as viruses mutated, and there is the puzzling fact that the vaccines seem to have made some people more vulnerable in subsequent years. The human papilloma virus, against which Gardasil protects, also mutates. Vaccines are not perfect. They wane. Their effects may vary.
But it is troubling that stories about the anti-vaxxer panic also have a social element, meaning that there is rage about some wealthy clueless Californian parents obsessed with hygiene. It’s appropriate to be angry about parents who refuse to have their children vaccinated but as the anger spreads online, the anger itself mutates. For instance, a Queen’s University instructor (with an MA in “Social Factors Which Influence Canadian Women’s Participation in the Shot Put” of all things) is spreading anti-vaxxer opinions in a first-year bird course. Does this matter? It has enraged people and rightly angered students, but it’s part of another story, the one about academic decline.
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But it’s part of the news stream now, which is always binary. You’re either for vaccinations or against them, never mind the grey areas. This is Tea Party thinking, to react with alarm rather than reason. It has brought us mandatory sentencing, anti-choice clinics that lure young pregnant women, climate-change deniers and men’s rights. It is a fact-free zone, and when it intersects with Canadian life, it makes it much more difficult to make rational decisions. And the vaccine debate is one we shouldn’t even be having. The loony American right’s obsession with non-science, in the face of all the facts, should not spill over into Canada. I cannot take Twitter to the Supreme Court of Canada for a humane ruling, more’s the pity. Twitter and aggregator sites are how libel and damaging rumour spread. Here’s a tip: don’t read a website run by a rural doctor whose slogan is “wielding the lasso of truth.” Don’t read media rivals sniping at each other, it’s bald men fighting over a comb. The news that Twitter has signed a deal so that tweets will now show up in Google search results means that Twitter’s short info and opinion skims will now make good information even less reachable on Google. Twitter, where every minute is a new adventure in truthiness, is water that boils the smart and the lunatic in the same pot. I’m reading doctor and science writer Ben Goldacre’s new book, I Think You’ll Find It’s a Bit More Complicated Than That, about the widespread misunderstanding of research and results. For a year now, I’ve been trying to teach myself about statistics and science so as to find a way through the fog. It’s quite dull to explain so I’ll turn to the latest thrill. This North Carolina senator says restaurant workers shouldn’t have to wash their hands after going to the bathroom, it’s infringing. Cue a new anti-washer movement. Let loose the hounds of E. coli. [email protected]
Read more about: |
Fraulion sent in this screenshot from the Amazon.com homepage. In case you needed help buying gifts, dads like history and politics, moms like to smell nice and look shiny, girlfriends and wives like chick flicks and cute stuff, boyfriends and husbands like classic rock and knowing what time it is, grandpas like to watch documentaries (probably about “the war”), and grandmas just want to look at pictures of their grandchildren.
Last but not least, Rob W. sent in another Amazon.com gift guide that suggests that women want a masculine-looking watch and men want a wine aerator (I don’t know what that is, but wine is woman-y right?). So… counter-stereotypical push back against the gender machine? Or a typo? I’m going with typo. Funny typo.
More after the jump:
Alex T. sent in pages from a toy catalog put out by the Australian superstore, Myer. Judging by its pages, boys enjoy pretending to be scientists, engineers, and soldiers (or generally shooting things), whereas girls like to cook, cook, take care of babies, clean, and look pretty:
A reader-who-prefers-to-remain anonymous sent in a link to the Pottery Barn Kids holiday catalog. Sandwiched between two more gender neutral sets of pages are the obviously boy and girl sections. These two pictures pretty much sum it up:
Interestingly, the reader said that the print version of the magazine was very slightly less gender-stereotypical and more race-mixed.
For a gift guide that’s not-so-gendered, visit Think Geek. Fitz sent in links to the “For Him” and “For Her” pages on the site. The gift guide is gendered, then, as opposed to being organized in some other way, but the suggested presents aren’t as strongly gendered as we see elsewhere. Not only is there some overlap, but things like bacon-flavored chapstick and a pizza cutter in the shape of the Star Trek enterprise are suggested for women and things like cupcake-flavored mints and mini stuffed microbes are suggested for men. So, it’s no gender-free panacea, but it’s less binary than we’re used to.
For gendered Christmas gift guides from previous years, see Gift Giving with Gender Stereotypes, More Gender Gift Giving and Advertising, Another Gendered Gift Guide, and more Gendered Gift Guides. Sorry about the repetitive, boring post titles… but gender stereotypes are, in fact, repetitive and boring!!! |
Petitioners seeking a vote on a commercial marijuana ban in the Kenai Peninsula Borough fell short of the number of signatures required for the October ballot but still have time to get the question before voters at a later date, the borough clerk said Friday.
"I sent them an email today," said Clerk Johni Blankenship. The signatures were "insufficient. They did not have enough," she said.
Supporters needed 62 more signatures to make the Oct. 4 ballot, Blankenship said. They still have 10 days to gather the remaining signatures, which would place the petition on the October 2017 ballot or would put it in a special election on a date chosen by the Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly, she said.
Robert Thraves, one of the co-sponsors of the petition, said Friday that he wasn't sure whether the group would continue collecting signatures.
"We're still considering those options but I'm leaning to not pursue it any further," Thraves said.
Thraves said the group had collected 100 more signatures than the necessary 898 but many were disqualified because they were voters registered in the cities, not the borough.
"It was pretty sad," Thraves said.
Thraves said petitioners would likely wait to see what action the Legislature takes, if any, on the commercial cannabis industry during the next session. Alaska's initiative legalizing marijuana can be repealed by the Legislature starting Feb. 24, 2017. Thirty petition booklet holders gathered signatures for the effort, including Peter Mlynarik, chair of the state marijuana board tasked with regulating the fledgling cannabis industry. The Department of Law said Mlynarik's efforts were not a conflict of interest, although potential marijuana businesses cried foul.
The petition would ask voters whether to ban commercial cannabis in the borough. All four license types — cultivation, manufacturing, retail and testing facilities — would be prohibited if a ban were approved by voters.
The cities of Kenai, Seward and Homer wouldn't be affected. Soldotna has already placed a two-year moratorium on the industry. |
This story is part of NPR's podcast Embedded, which digs deep into the stories behind the news.
Sitting on a dresser in the back bedroom of a house in Austin, Ind., is the bottom of a soda can. A woman places a sliver of a pill, a powerful prescription opioid called Opana, on the jagged half-can. She begins to heat the pill with a cigarette lighter, melting its hard white coating and turning it the color of whiskey.
Her name is Joy.
Using a syringe, the former nurse squirts water into the can and the substance turns to gel. Quiet falls over the bedroom of the rural house as Joy and two other people fill their syringes and inject their hits. (We are using only her first name because she uses drugs illegally.)
Afterward, Joy fishes around in her purse for an appointment book, where she points to the 13th of the following month. She has an appointment with a doctor who can prescribe outpatient treatment, she says. She's ready to get help for her addiction.
Joy does not keep that appointment.
The road to here
Like so many people addicted to opioids in this country, Joy doesn't fit the picture most people have in their heads when they hear the words "drug addict." Joy was a nurse working in a hospital. She had three kids, a good job — she was even a Girl Scout leader.
Her addiction to prescription painkillers began after a back injury on the job. She says she never thought she would use a needle to inject drugs.
"This time last year, I had a home," she says. "I had a car, a house full of furniture, a lot of nice stuff."
Joy describes her big sectional sofa, cherry dinette set, appliances and gadgets like flat-screen TVs, game consoles and other electronics — most of which she sold to feed her addiction to Opana. She lost the house.
Now she's living in her mom and dad's living room. Her parents' house outside of Austin is a little one-story house with a screened-in porch, a barn out back and stacked firewood.
For a while, though, Joy says, she had nowhere to stay. She slept in a slide at a park at a local elementary school. Once she broke into an empty, boarded-up house just to get out of the rain.
"Anything could have happened to me there. I didn't care — I was just so high," Joy says.
Every day was about figuring out how to get money, how to buy a pill and get high. Joy says it was all about the feeling of first shooting up.
The grip of addiction
Joy ended up in jail, charged with visiting a place were people used illegal drugs. She says it's the first time she's been arrested.
"Never been in any kind of trouble in my life," Joy says. "You would think that would have been enough for me. No."
Joy got out of jail after a few days. One condition of her release: She had to wear a GPS monitor on her ankle. She also had a 9 p.m. curfew.
But she was withdrawing from Opana, and all she could think about was getting back to Austin and getting a pill.
"I was supposed to be home at 9 o'clock — and at 10 till 11, I still wasn't home, and they issued an escape warrant on me," she says. "I got home about 11:30 p.m. and my dad's like, 'You got a warrant on you!' "
She went back to Austin, cut off the GPS monitor and hid it in a bush. Police found and arrested Joy the next morning, slapping her with more serious charges since she'd violated the conditions of her release.
Joy spent more than 40 days in jail. She spent six of them in a padded cell on suicide watch after she used the underwire in her bra to cut herself. Slowly, she started to feel better. She started thinking she wanted to stay off drugs for good.
"I started going to church in jail and reading the Bible, and I thought, you know, this is not who I am," she says. "The more my head got clear, the more I just decided that I'm not going back to this when I get out of jail."
But that wasn't the end of it.
"The day I came home, I went and got a pill. After all that," Joy says. "I went and got a pill."
This happens to people who are addicted to opioids like Opana. Health workers and researchers say it's hard to stay off the drugs without some kind of treatment — ideally, medication and counseling.
Getting treatment
Finally, Joy says, something in her mind told her to stop. She decided to go to the clinic.
But the methadone clinic where she receives treatment is half an hour away from her parents' house, in a different county.
Austin is a town of about 4,300 people with what public health officials say are at least 500 known intravenous drug users. But it has no full-time drug treatment facility. The nearest inpatient treatment is 30 miles away, with at least a monthlong waiting list.
Like a lot of people in the area, Joy doesn't have a car — but she got lucky when she ran into a neighbor and he offered to take her to the methadone clinic. Every day, he came to pick her up and drive her there. Sometimes a friend loaned her the $15 she needed to pay for the methadone.
After a few days, she started to feel a lot different.
"I didn't think constantly about when I woke up, 'OK, what am I going to do today to get that quarter of a pill?' " she says. "I got up and like, 'I'm all right today. I don't feel too bad. I'll go to the clinic, get my medicine, come back home and help Mom around the house.' Gradually, my way of thinking started to change."
But she still faces cravings. She says even hearing the word "Austin" makes her crave Opana. Sometimes those cravings are too strong.
Two months into her methadone treatment, Joy picked up the phone and called a pill dealer.
"I had a bad day — a really bad day," she says. "And I called somebody up wanting a pill, and I knew I wouldn't feel the pill because the methadone blocks it. The guy [I called] was like, 'What are you talking about? You've been in treatment for two months. You're not going to feel this pill. You're going to get drug tested down there. You're going to fail it — for what? You're not going to buzz.' "
Joy got lucky again. Her dealer talked her down, and she did not go get a pill.
Starting over
Joy is still on methadone. She's going to counseling three times a week, and she sees her son every day after school. Sometimes he stays with her on weekends. She's talking to her daughters again, too.
Her nursing license lapsed while she was on the street. She had to take 24 hours of classes and pay a fee to get it reinstated, but now she's applying for jobs.
Joy says she's worried about being around pain medication back at work. She says at first she might try to do office work such as billing or case management in order to stay away from temptation.
She's also saving money to get a car — and maybe even her own place.
"I have a bank account now," she says. "I have over $400 I've managed to scrimp and scrape since December, when I started taking methadone."
Joy says she wants to have a home again, where her son can live with her.
"That's all I can focus on right now," she says. "I never thought my kids would forgive me, my parents would forgive me. I thought my only way was to just commit suicide and let my kids be raised by their dad or my parents or whatever. And then I seen it — they do need me. They do still love me, and I'm still their mommy. It's time I did right by them again. I thank God that I have the chance to do that."
To hear more of this story, listen to Embedded. Keep up with podcast host Kelly McEvers on Twitter at @kellymcevers, and join the conversation using the hashtag#NPREmbedded.
Copyright 2018 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Now back to Austin, Ind., to find a woman named Joy. Joy was abusing the painkiller Opana when our co-host Kelly McEvers met her last year. For her podcast "Embedded," Kelly followed up with Joy, and she found that if you want to stop using opioids, you often need medication and sometimes a little luck. We're using only Joy's first name in this story because of her drug use.
KELLY MCEVERS, BYLINE: Joy used to work as a nurse. She had a good job, a car, a house.
JOY: House full of furniture, a lot of nice stuff, you know, a big sectional sofa, and glass coffee table, and a real heavy cherry dinette set, flatscreen TVs - had three flatscreen TVs, had it all.
MCEVERS: Then she hurt her back at work. She got addicted to pain pills. When the prescription ran out, she bought pills on the street and eventually cooked them and injected them. She lost the house. Her 14-year-old son went back to live with his dad, her ex. Her two grown daughters wouldn't answer her text messages. Joy stayed with friends for a while then had to leave that house.
JOY: I had nowhere to stay, and there was a few times that I slept in the slide at the park at the elementary school - you know, the big jungle gym, plastic slides and stuff - slept in the slide at the school.
MCEVERS: Or slept in abandoned houses. This went on for months. Then Joy got arrested. She withdrew from Opana in jail. And that's where she says she got her first lucky break. She talked to a nurse who told her she needed to own her mistakes.
JOY: Because life is going on outside of this jail around you. Your kids are getting up every day and going to school. Your parents are going to work. And if you don't own what you've done up to this point and forgive yourself for that, you're never going to make it through recovery.
MCEVERS: So Joy decided she wanted to quit using Opana. But as soon as she got out of jail, like, the day she got out, she went and bought a pill. She started using every day for a couple of weeks but then decided she really wanted to quit. She'd heard about a methadone clinic 30 miles away. She didn't have a car. And that's when she got her second lucky break. A friend of the family offered to drive her there.
JOY: He said, I heard you weren't doing too well. How you been? And I got to talking to him about it, and that's that.
MCEVERS: He offered...
JOY: He said, I'll be more than glad to take you down to the clinic, and we'll get you off those pills.
MCEVERS: So she started taking methadone every day. Methadone is an opiate, too, but you don't the same rush as you do from Opana or heroin. The idea is to take it for a while - federal guidelines recommend at least a year - and eventually, with the help of counseling and medical supervision, wean off. Joy says methadone changed her.
JOY: I thought, hey. I started functioning like a normal person again, you know? I didn't think constantly about when I woke up, OK, what am I going to do today to get that quarter of a pill, or, you know, what can I go steal at the store to trade for a quarter of a pill, you know? I didn't think that way anymore.
I got up and I'm like, I'm all right today; I don't feel too bad. I'll go to the clinic, get my medicine, come back home and help mom around the house. You know, gradually my way of thinking started to change.
MCEVERS: But cravings still happened.
JOY: Had a bad day, a really bad day. I don't remember what it was. I think I got in a fight with my boyfriend, and I was just having a bad day.
MCEVERS: She called up a pill dealer.
JOY: And you know, the guy I called was like, what are you talking about? You've been in treatment for two months. You're not going to feel this pill. You're going to get drug tested down there. You're going to fail it. For what? You're not going to get a buzz. You're going to blow your probation when they drug test you and you fail it. They're going to put you right back in jail.
MCEVERS: Her dealer talked her down. She did not go get a pill. And two days later, she was drug tested. Had she done that pill, she'd be back in jail. It was her third lucky break. Now Joy is still on methadone. Methadone treatment has been well researched over the years, and the consensus is its effective at keeping people in treatment and from using other drugs.
Joy got her nursing license reinstated. She's living with her parents, saving money. Her son comes over every day after school. Sometimes he spends the whole weekend. She's talking to her two daughters again.
JOY: I never thought that my kids would forgive me. I felt that they didn't need me. And all my baggage and [expletive] anymore. I had done enough. And now I see that they do need me, and they do still love me, and I'm still their mommy. And it's time that I did right by them again. And I thank God that I have the chance to do that.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
SIEGEL: That was joy, one of the people Kelly McEvers met in Austin, Ind., while reporting for the podcast "Eembedded." Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. |
Beno Udrih. Ray McCallum. Darren Collison. Ty Lawson.
For the Sacramento Kings, the point guard position has been a black hole for the better part of the last decade. Ever since they traded Mike Bibby back in 2008, the Kings have lacked a lead guard to build the franchise around. Tyreke Evans turned out to be a shooting guard and Isaiah Thomas couldn't coexist with DeMarcus Cousins, so the result has been a revolving door of floor generals with no end in sight.
So you can imagine how delighted Vlade Divac and the Sacramento front office were to see Kentucky point guard De'Aaron Fox's name still on the board as they were put on the clock with the No. 5 pick in the 2017 NBA Draft. A 6-foot-3 (6-foot-5 if you count the hair), lightning fast point guard with a winning pedigree -- he famously scored 39 points in a Sweet 16 victory over Lonzo Ball's UCLA Bruins in the NCAA tournament -- was like an early Christmas present to Sacramento gift-wrapped by the basketball gods themselves.
"If we had the No. 1 pick, he would've been our guy," Divac said after the draft. "De'Aaron is our future."
Little did the Kings know that 21 games into the season, Fox wouldn't even be the best rookie point guard on their roster. That's because in the last seven games since becoming a permanent fixture in the rotation, second-round pick Frank Mason III has emerged as the Kings' most reliable young point guard.
Let's get one thing straight -- this is no knock on Fox. He's a 170-pound, 19-year-old trying to figure out how all the tools he's been blessed with apply to the NBA game. Meanwhile, Mason, a 5-foot-11, 23-year-old man who spent four years in an elite Kansas program and was named the consensus NCAA Player of the Year as a senior, is much closer to a finished product.
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But there's no disputing that Mason has been better, and has earned the trust of coach Dave Joerger.
"He's a stud muffin, man," Joerger said before the Kings' 110-106 upset win over the Warriors on Monday. "He's tough and he picks guys up. He gets in the lane and he makes plays. He can shoot it a little bit. ... I'm a big fan of his, and I look forward to coaching him for a long time, hopefully."
Mason has averaged 9.4 points, 4.3 assists and 2.9 rebounds in his last seven games, while Fox has averaged 8.4 points, 3.3 assists and 2.9 rebounds over the same stretch. Though the averages are in the same ballpark, the advanced statistics support what the eye test shows you -- the Kings have been much better with Mason on the court than Fox.
Kings net rating (last six games) On Court Off Court Difference Frank Mason +6.4 -17.2 +23.6 De'Aaron Fox -18.5 +7.1 -25.6
This is an incredibly small sample size, but it highlights the fact that Mason has been much more effective as a floor general for the Kings. It was never more evident than when he played the entire fourth quarter in the team's win over the Warriors. Watch as Mason uses his strength and savvy to keep Shaun Livingston behind him, giving him space to make the floater:
Later in the quarter, Mason once again gets past his defender and uses a similar hesitation move to create space. This time Draymond Green steps up to stop him, leaving Willie Cauley-Stein wide open for the alley-oop that tied the game:
"I love playing with Willie," Mason said after the game. "He's super athletic, and I feel like I can put the ball anywhere near the rim and he'll go up and get it. On that play I did a good job of baiting Draymond a little, and gave Willie a little space and just kind of threw it up, and he finished it."
Mason's awareness and poise in the halfcourt is something that only comes with experience, and something that Fox has yet to master. Take for instance this play, where Fox loses his defender with a nice, quick crossover. Instead of taking the pull-up or step-back, however, Fox takes an extra dribble to the free-throw line, which actually closes the gap between him and his defender, making the shot easier to contest:
There's little doubt that Fox will one day become a better player than Mason, but until he learns to harness all that athleticism and skill into more effective movements, Mason will have the edge.
It would be easy for a 19-year-old who's being told that he's the face of the franchise to become frustrated by losing playing time to a second-rounder. But Fox and Mason have a healthy competition -- one that goes way back to when Fox was in high school.
"When I went on my visit at Kansas, [Mason] was actually my host, so we've known each other for a while," Fox told CBS Sports. "At practice we go at each other, we're making each other better. And then in games we just support each other."
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It will be interesting to see how Joerger delegates the minutes for the rest of the season. But for now, the Kings' front office -- and the entire city of Sacramento -- can rest easy knowing that they've finally resolved their point guard dilemma with not one, but two talented young players. |
A British student demanded this week that confectioner Nestle give her a lifetime supply of Kit Kat bars after she bought eight packages, none of which contained the candy's wafer portion, the Daily Mail reported.
Saima Ahmad, 20, a student at Kings College in London wrote the manufacturer demanding the sweet restitution after purchasing an £2 multi-pack (about $3) in December which contained pure chocolate.
"They go about the advertising the unique concept of Kit Kat, but I'm so disappointed by what I have purchased," Ahmad told the paper.
"No one else in the industry has that unique concept of mixing the wafer with the chocolate," she said.
Ahmad asked that Nestle's CEO, Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, personally respond to her request.
She said that having a lifetime supply of the chocolate creation will allow her to execute quality control for the company.
"Clearly, if I wanted to purchase a confectionery item that is purely chocolate, I would have purchased a bar of Galaxy," she wrote in the letter.
KitKat is manufactured in the United States by the Hershey Chocolate Company, but is produced worldwide by Nestle.
Click for more from The Daily Mail. |
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An astonishing underwater picture has captured the moment a sealion takes a massive chunk out of an ocean sunfish.
It attacked the fish, which is also known as a 'mola mola' around 12 miles off the coast of San Diego, California.
Wildlife photographer Richard Herrmann pictured the seal ripping the flesh from the fish, which measures around 10ft-long and can weight up to a staggering 2,000kg.
Sealions in the waters around Californian are predators that feed on over 50 species of fish, according to the Seal Sitters website.
They can grow to nearly 400kg and mostly eat squids, octopuses, hake and herring - but are also hunt down salmon and other bottom-dwelling fishes.
Chomp: A wildlife photographer has captured the incredible - and nauseating - moment a sealion took a massive chunk out of a sunfish
Attack: The sunfish, which is also known as a 'mola mola', was pictured writhing around as it desperately tried to break free from the seal's bite
Bite: The epic attack took place around 12 miles off the coast of San Diego, California, where sealions are known to hunt up to 50 species of fish |
Winnipeg's Ikea store started serving liquor this week, although they've been licensed since October, according to the Liquor and Gaming Authority of Manitoba.
Liz Stevenson of Liquor and Gaming said Ikea's licence was approved on Oct. 15, and inspectors have visited the store twice.
Ikea confirmed Friday that they have the licence and began to serve a small selection of beer and wine this week.
"[The purpose of the licence] is to offer a more complete selection of beverage choices to our customers," said Ikea spokesperson Daevid Ramey.
The Winnipeg store applied for the licence through the Liquor and Gaming Authority in March 2015.
At that time, Ikea Canada spokesperson Madelaine Löwenborg-Frick said it is common across Canada for Ikea restaurants to serve beer and wine.
"We know that, like at any other full-service restaurant in Winnipeg, some of our customers wish to have an alcoholic beverage with their meals," Löwenborg-Frick said.
Ikea joins McNally Robinson as retailers in Winnipeg serving beer and wine in their dining rooms. |
Millet belongs to the same grass family as barley, maize, and sorghum. It’s said to be a versatile crop because of its ability to thrive in harsh conditions. One source mentioned that millet is one of the oldest crops known to humans, possibly dating back to 2800 B.C! There are numerous varieties of millet, with proso millet (Panicum miliaceum L.) “common millet” is likely what you will find at a place like Whole Foods or a local organic market in bulk (this is what I was able to find). There doesn’t appear to be a vast amount of research done on brewing with millet, but from what I could locate, it does appear to produce acceptable beers. Across the literature, millet was often compared very closely to sorghum, which has been used in many parts of the world mainly in European-type lagers.
One reason some might want to experiment brewing beers with millet is because it’s gluten-free. Other carb-rich grains that could be used in brewing that don’t contain gluten are buckwheat, amaranth, and quinoa (I’ve experimented with quinoa with good results, although as a part of a barley grist). Oats can be tolerated by most, but not all people intolerant to gluten. The gluten content of beers is fairly low considering the high amounts present early in the brewing process (6,864 ppm present in wort going all the way down to around 200ppm in finished beer or around 1.9%).
High Gelantinzation Temperature
Although the gelatinization temperature will likely slightly change with different varieties, overall, millet has a very high gelatinization temperature compared to most grains. In a study of over 20 varieties, the range was from 168ºF-173ºF. Because this range is warmer than typical mashing temperatures, a cereal mash would have to be performed. In my case, I simply boiled the millet for 10 minutes, drained, and added directly to the mash. Make sure to properly adjust the mash-in temperature to account for the recently boiled warm grains.
Color & Head Retention
A study looking at lager beers brewed with millet (pennisetum maiwa), sorghum and barley malts found that the millet beers were darker in color than barley and sorghum beers (5.3 SRM to 3.5 SRM for the barley beer). Maybe most important, the millet beers were scored lower than both the sorghum and barley beers with tasters. I too saw a darker than usual color in the experimental beer I brewed with millet outlined below. The authors weren’t quite sure why they saw a higher color with millet but mentioned it’s possible the reason was a higher tannin in millet. The millet beer had better head retention than sorghum, but not the barley beer. This could be because millet varieties tend to have decent protein counts, which are around 11.3%-12.7% compared to 9.5%-11.5% for most pale barley malts. This Agu study also found 66.8% attenuation limit with millet compared to 88% from the barley.
Extract Potential & Soluble Nitrogen
Zarnkow found the average extract content from millet to be lower of barley (76-85% for barley to 43%-63% for millet). This could be because millet has a much higher husk content than barley. So if you are going to make up a large percentage of your grist with millet, you should probably take into consideration a loss in your typical expected mashing efficiency. Poor filtration rates were also reported with millet beer, due to the low beta glucanase developed when malted.
Zarnkow also reported the soluble nitrogen was lower in millet than in barley. Barley malts are typically measured around 600-900 mg/100 g, millet was found to have 368-561 mg/100 g (averaged 457 mg/100 g across all the varieties tested). Soluble nitrogen is important for head retention and for increased mouthfeel. As I mention in my tasting notes for my experimental beer with millet, I noticed a thinner mouthfeel than I typically get with similar style beers, although the head retention was similar.
Mash Run-Off
In my experimental beer brewed with 25% unmalted millet, I had a hell of a time with stuck sparge. This, of course, isn’t a big deal if you mash with a fine mesh bag or utilize rice hulls. For comparison purposes, when I brewed a beer with 40% unmalted oats, I had a much smoother runoff. Although detailed for sorghum in a study, which millet closely resembles, this was likely due to varying percentage of branching in starch amylopectin and to varying bonding forces in the granules. Interestingly, tested viscosity values for millet were actually lower than of barley.
Fermentation
Wort made from lots of millet will be high in glucose, which could lead to fast fermentations because of yeast ability to ferment this quickly. One study fermented a beer with 100% malted proso millet and found fermentation was effectively over after just two days. This particular study found that millet beers fermented basically as expected with a champagne, altbier, kölsch, and Brettanomyces bruxellensis strains.
Malted millet (Sossat) was found to produce an appropriate amount of amino acids required for fermentation as well as the optimal development of diastatic power and soluble nitrogen.
Home Malting Millet
Because malted millet is likely hard to come by, you could try malting it yourself at home (or just use it raw like I did!). You can order malted millet online (even crystal millet!), Gluten Free Homebrewing has a great selection. If you do try home malting it, a good germination temperature would be around 71°F and hold for a few days. You might see higher diastatic power if you increase the germination time (from 2-6 days). A good kilning temperature and duration appear to be around 122°F for 18 hours. Muoria also noted that malted millet had a saccharification time of 20 minutes, which is slower than typical well-modified barley malts (10-15 minutes), but not a dealbreaker. |
The former paiN members have decided to go their separate ways, team manager Rui "GMS" Gomes has confirmed to HLTV.org.
The future of the Brazilian team had been up in the air since losing the support of paiN Gaming, who made headlines earlier this month with the signing of Cyclone's roster.
Even without the support of an organisation, the team remained in the United States for a while and brought Thiago "tifa" França in as a replacement for Guilherme "dukeN" Góes in the hopes of eventually finding a new home.
zqkS, who played for Selfless this week, is a free agent
But last week the players returned home, and, after weighing up their options, it was decided that pulling the plug on the team was the best course of action.
"It was a mutual decision because we were very tired, and without an organisation it is best if we go our separate ways," Gomes told HLTV.org. "There were no issues between the players or anything like that. duken's departure and paiN dropping their support really affected the whole project and we were left without motivation as we would have to start from scratch."
Former Keyd Stars member Caio "zqkS" Fonseca, the only player on the team with Major experience, was seen standing in for Selfless Gaming in the ESL Pro League against Renegades earlier this week, but it is unclear at this point if he will return to North America to pursue his career there.
The following players are now free agents: |
The following is our long-awaited written introduction to online security. It follows on from the workshop we did on the subject in April, as part of our Capitalism: A Survival Guide series. We hope to produce more of these guides, and show how meeting our basic needs feeds in to the revolutionary struggle to kill capitalism before it kills us.
Sometimes it can feel like Ron Swanson has the only sensible reaction to the online world, but we do have some other suggestions that allow you to keep your internet connection going. We’ve included links to short videos, visual guides, and software downloads – all you need to secure yourself online, with no prior knowledge required.
Introduction
What the guide is, and why we wrote it.
Foundation
The basics of how the internet functions and where it is vulnerable. Will help explain why we suggest some of the steps we do and will get you up to speed with the terminology we’ll be using.
Countering Threats pt1: ‘Illegitimate’ Organisations
Practical how-to steps to protect yourself from identity theft, password thieves, and malicious software.
Countering Threats pt2: Corporations
Steps to protect yourself from being tracked by the advertising companies, having your personal information stored and sold, or having Facebook know more about you than everyone you add to your friend list combined!
Countering Threats pt3: State Surveillance and Corporate Espionage
Steps to throw a spanner in the works of mass surveillance programs, make it harder for government departments to leaf through your online life, and even cause some trouble for any spies targeting you specifically.
Countering Threats pt4: Linking up for the Big Fights
Dodging mass state surveillance programs and looking for corners of the internet still free of totalitarian corporate control is an essential first step in securing ourselves online. However, just as essential is fighting to keep the internet free, and to stop the invasions of our privacy at the source. Find out how here.
Introduction
The rapid expansion of the internet has created opportunities for us to learn, talk, create, and organise in ways that would have never been possible without it. This hasn’t been without its cost though. Much of what we now take for granted would have seemed like dystopian science fiction even just a couple of decades ago. Advertising companies keep a file of information on every one of us, corporations know who all our friends are, our likes and dislikes, and our movements can be tracked remotely in real-time, and the government can access thousands of pages of our conversations from the mundane to the sensitive.
It’s all so overwhelming that most of us ignore it, often to our cost. This guide aims to change that. There are many relatively easy things we can all do to protect ourselves. If you can use the internet, you can manage most or all of what we suggest without any assistance. With a few relatively small changes to behaviour and a handful of free pieces of software, you can arm yourself against malicious hackers, corporate snoops, and state surveillance. Not only will this keep you safer, but normalising these protections will help keep others safer. Especially those organising in places or in ways that put them in more danger from the government. More than that, you can help join in the fight to keep the internet a free and open space, rather than the corporate controlled dystopia that many of our ‘leaders’ would like it to be.
Note for the tech savvy: This is very much a work in progress, so if you have suggestions for links to put in or things that should be changed or added, drop a comment or email us. Bare in mind we have designed it to be as simple as possible. We’re also looking at compiling phone security into a separate section, and listing apps specifically designed to be of use to activists.
Foundation
If you’re new to all this it can be hard to wrap your head around without some kind of visual aid. Luckily, someone has created this excellent five-minute video on how the internet works. So, as in our workshop, let’s start with this:
IPs and ISPs
Your Internet Service Provider (ISP), such as Virgin Media or BT, is likely to be able to identify you personally – or at least have your street address. They can access this via the Internet Protocol (IP) address, which, as we learned from the video, every device that connects to the internet has.
Your ISP is also able to work out which websites you visit. Every time you visit a webpage, not only does the host of that page get your IP address, your ISP is able to match your IP address to that of the server hosting the webpage. Other data will also be viewable by your ISP and others (especially if the connection is insecure), but we’ll get to that later!
Encryption
This is a word we’ll be using a LOT. By default, computers store information ‘unencrypted’ or in ‘plain text’, which means in a way that can be read by anyone. Information is sent between them in much the same way. This means that anyone who gets access to your computer or ‘listens in’ on your connection can see everything you’ve written or sent. In addition, if someone is powerful enough to demand information from your email provider or mobile network, it’s likely they’ll get a nice list of everything you’ve sent in quite a long while. Even texts you and the person you sent them to have deleted!
On the other hand, encrypted information is stored in such a way that it is unintelligible gibberish to anyone who lacks the key to read it. It’s like having all your emails and documents written in a secret code. Only once you put in the right key, for instance a password, is it translated into readable information. Depending on what you’re encrypting and how you’re using it, maybe only you will have this key, or just you and the website you are looking at, or just the person you’ve sent an email to. Often the process of encrypting information (and decrypting it back into plain information again) is handled automatically by your computer, so you can just sit back and enjoy the security without any inconvenience.
Insecure/Secure Connections and Website Leaks
Most connections to websites are ‘insecure’, which you can tell by looking at the URL (address of a website in the address bar). If the URL starts with ‘http://’, it means that everything sent back and forth between you and the website is in its ‘plain text’ form, and anyone in the middle can view it. This person in the middle could be your ISP or someone ‘packet sniffing’ – that is, attempting to look at your packets, the ones we learned about in the video.
However, other connections are ‘secure’, indicated by the URL starting with ‘https://’ – the ‘S’ stands for secure (yes, really!). In this case, the packets sent between you and the website are encrypted’ using a type of security called ‘Secure Socket Lock’ (SSL). This means most of the information you send to and from the website is hidden from your ISP and any potential packet sniffers. They’ll still know which website you are communicating with, but not what is being said.
It is especially important to establish you have a secure connection – a URL that starts with ‘https://’ – when you are sending sensitive information, such as your passwords or bank details. It can also be important when sending communication because you don’t want just anyone being able to read every message you type!
Alas, https is not perfect. While it does protect you from the people ‘in the middle’, the owner of the site may still have access to anything you send. It is good practice for these sites to store sensitive data (like passwords) in such a way that even the owners of the site can’t access it. However, even major companies, who should know better, are often found to be using outdated protection (or none at all) for their users’ passwords, leading to the kind of major leaks that often grab the headlines.
You can even search via your email address or username on Have I Been Pwned, and find out all the times your details were potentially compromised. Don’t panic, but do ensure you change passwords, and don’t use the same passwords on multiple sites (more on that later). Consider signing up for automatic alerts from Have I Been Pwned.
Cookies
Cookies are small pieces of data stored on your computer by a website you have visited. They can contain any information: the language you have selected to read the website in, which links you have clicked while on the website (like a breadcrumb trail), or the pieces of info you have typed into a form field (like your name, address, credit card number…).
This doesn’t mean that cookies are inherently bad though! In fact, some are essential and tell the web servers whether or not you are logged in and which account you are logged in on. This is so that it doesn’t show potentially sensitive information to the wrong person. And if a website has stored a cookie on your computer, other websites can’t just access the data in that cookie.
Cookies are limited in size so can’t hold a lot of information. So some websites save cookies on your computer that have a unique identifier in them, like a bar code for your computer. This code matches with one for data saved on their own systems, meaning they can store unlimited data about you and your browsing.
Some parts of a webpage you visit are actually part of another website entirely, such as those annoying (often repetitive) adverts you see everywhere. These websites within websites are still able to access and store cookies – they are able to identify you and save information about you, and even display adverts specifically targeted at you, based on your browsing history. Ever been on Facebook and there has been that rather creepy ad for that clothing website you were browsing earlier? This is all down to cookies, specifically “Third Party Cookies”, which we’ll explain how to deal with a bit later on.
Countering Threats pt1: ‘Illegitimate’ Organisations (and malicious individuals)
Malicious software
The most common threats we face online include viruses, adware, trojans, and ‘ransomware’ like that which recently crippled parts of the NHS. There are a few things you can do that will massively decrease your chances of being affected by them.
Ensure every piece of software you use is up-to-date. This includes your browser and browser plug-ins, email client, and operating system (Windows, Linux, Mac).
Use anti-virus software, keep it up to date, and let it run recommended scans. There are a number of free options, with Avast, Avira, AVG Free, and Bit Defender all having built up good reputations. Although, be wary of ‘bundled’ programs
Do not download or install programs from the Internet when you are not 100% of the source. If in doubt, ask around amongst your friends or search for reviews online.
People attempting to gain access to your online accounts
A malicious individual doesn’t necessarily need to get a bit of software onto your computer to cause you problems. It’s common for people to break into your accounts directly, by guessing your password, or intercepting your computer as it sends it.
Never input any of your personal details when not on a secure connection (https), as insecure connections are vulnerable to people ‘sniffing’ data that is passing along them. To ensure that every website capable of using https defaults to doing so when you connect, you can use Https Everywhere ( https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere ), which is available on Firefox, Firefox for Android, Chrome, and Opera. Https Everywhere can only ensure that all possible security features on a website are activated – if they don’t exist, they can’t be activated, and the add-on can’t help.
Protect your primary email account like it’s the goddamn Holy Grail! Almost everything you have ever signed up for has an option to reset log-in details via your primary email address, and it’s possible that other security details could be found by going through your old emails. For that, follow these rules (and apply them to other particularly sensitive accounts, like online banking):
Don’t use its password anywhere else! Every website can have a leak, and that leak could have your email address next to a password – make sure it isn’t the one you use to log into your primary email account. And make sure it isn’t even very very close to being the same password either. Change the password you use for it regularly. The longer you use a password the higher the chance of someone getting access to it. Don’t use easy-to-guess security questions. In the age of Google and Facebook, facts like ‘first school’ and ‘mother’s maiden name’ are much easier to find out than they used to be. It’s a much better idea to make up fake security questions and answer combos, but of course, then you have to remember them – writing a clue to these questions on a bit of paper you hide in your sock drawer is infinitely more secure than ‘favourite colour’.
Be careful with mobile devices! They are much easier to lose or have stolen than a desktop or laptop, and often contain just as much (or more) sensitive data.
If you leave your phone or tablet logged in to various websites or apps, or save passwords on it, make sure it’s encrypted and locked. Encryption prevents anyone who steals (or ‘finds’) your phone going through your passwords, phone numbers, and drunken selfies. You can encrypt Android iPhone , even your Windows phone , by following the linked-to guides. In the event of your phone getting lost or stolen, you should change all of the passwords, just in case.
Just because they’re harder to steal, doesn’t mean your desktop or laptop computer won’t get stolen. You can encrypt Windows and macOS as well, although depending on your setup (and budget) it can be a little more time-consuming than for a mobile.
When creating passwords, make sure it is something that is difficult to guess for a human, and difficult to crack for an automated program. Humans might know your favourite movie or lucky number. Automated programs will have lists of common passwords (like qwerty678), or entire dictionaries of words – including all the common ‘misspellings’ (like swapping the letter ‘o’ for the number ‘0’)! A good option is to use a long password with unconnected words, maybe even in more than one language, or including proper nouns.
Better yet, use long strings of seemingly random characters, like K8ds731Jjfnt%4ly9TQ8!02. How would you remember such an awkward password? Good question! The answer is… You don’t, you use a password manager!
use a password manager. You don’t have to just take our word for it though, ! Recommended password managers include LastPass ( SeriouslyYou don’t have to just take our word for it though, this short animation explains how and why ! Recommended password managers include LastPass ( https://www.lastpass.com/ ), LogMeOnce ( https://www.logmeonce.com/ ), DashLane ( https://www.dashlane.com ), but you can always ask around or do your own research to find out which one would be best for you.
‘Phishing’ Attacks and Scams
Some people don’t rely on computer skills at all. Instead, they simply ask you to hand over your details. While most scammers (often deliberately) use laughably obvious attempts to get your details, some can be exceptionally clever and hard to spot. Here are a few tips to avoid many of the traps they use:
As a rule, never hand out your password to anything to anyone ever. Not via email, not via instant messaging services, and not on the phone (unless, of course, it’s a password just for phone use).
Be incredibly wary about giving out your personal details when someone emails or calls you , rather than the other way around. It might even be worth calling the caller back on a number you know is legitimate. Be careful here though, if you’re calling back on the same land line it may not be secure. Try from your mobile or a different landline. Legitimate companies who call you and ask for details will often give you half of something first, which is a little better, but still could be someone trying to get additional details from you when they have incomplete information.
If you get an email that suggests you log into, for example, your banking website, do not click the link in the email ! Instead, go to your address bar and access the website as normal. It’s entirely possible that the link in the email actually goes to a fake version of the banking website, one the scammer wants you to try and log into so that they can get your login details
If someone calls you up and tells you your computer is broken, they are almost certainly a scammer. The same goes for those pop-up warnings on some websites telling you that ‘Your PC is unsecure – Click here to install some random software to secure it!’. In fact, ‘anti-scam scams’ are one of the more common varieties!
Countering Threats pt2: Corporations
Just because an organisation is a registered company, doesn’t mean they aren’t still a threat to our online security. They are often a more insidious problem, as the services we want to use them for (eg: online shopping) are often mixed in with ones we want to avoid (eg: our personal details being sold to advertising companies).
The main issues you are likely to face are:
Social media organisations attempting to create predictive profiles on us
Tracking cookies and ‘Third-party’ cookies, like the ones we told you about earlier, eg: via advertising companies
Advertising companies (often the same as above) looking to create profiles to target adverts at us, building their databases every time we give out any sort of information
Bundling unwanted software
Anti-piracy
Luckily, there is a lot you can do to fight against this.
Breaking away from the corporate machine
The best way to protect yourself from corporations is to avoid using their products and services wherever possible. This is a lot easier than you might think. Since the dawn of computers, there has been a thriving community of ‘open source’ software producers. Not only do they offer the software they create for free, but they openly show everyone how it is made. This allows loads of people to work on improving one piece of software, to check it for any potential risks or problems, and it helps creators of other software who can share the code used to make it.
So, not only are you more secure online, you’re also helping create the online version of the world we want to see… People collaborating and producing things, to meet their own needs and desires and that of others, without any motivation based on profit! Here are some notable examples of open source software and non-corporate web services:
Firefox A free open-source browser you can use as an alternative to the ones created by Microsoft, Apple, and Google. Works on PC, Mac, and Android Phones.
Thunderbird An email client from the makers of Firefox.
Libre Office An entire alternative suite of office applications. Designed to be easy-to-use by anyone who has used Microsoft Office in the past. With its own versions of Word, Powerpoint, Excel, and more. Not only is it completely free, it’s arguably a better piece of software!
Linux This is the big one! Allows you to do away with Microsoft or Apple, and run a computer entirely from open-source software. It’s quicker, safer, and more efficient. It does take some getting used to though, and there are a huge number of versions. Best with a friend or educational course to ease you into it.
Open Street Map An alternative to Google Maps or Bing Maps (which I assume someone, somewhere must use). A project to create an open-source map of the world, with numerous pieces of software (including many that allow you to get directions on your phone) supporting it.
Riseup.net Who do you want to trust with looking after your emails and online chats? A corporate giant like Yahoo or Google, or a bunch of anarchists on a shoe-string budget? Ok, actually, that may not be as obvious a choice as we imagined. However, we strongly suggest the latter. Riseup offers a wide range of services to activists for free (they run on donations), and are committed to helping keep your data private, and to bringing down capitalism. You’ll need an invite code from someone who knows you to start using their email services, but if you are active in a few groups you probably know someone already!
Aktivix Like Riseup this is another excellent alternative source of email accounts and mailing lists. Like riseup you’ll also need an existing user to vouch for you – so the choice between them may just depend on who you know.
Install software to block tracking and adverts
We highly recommend uBlock Origin for content-filtering and ad-blocking. It’s a free extension on almost all of the main browsers, and is less memory-intrusive than other ad-blockers, with additional features. Not only will this help protect your personal information, it means fewer annoying adverts, more secure browsing, and it can help sites load quicker! Go get 11111it (free) on Firefox, Firefox for Android, Chrome, Safari, or Microsoft Edge.
We also recommend Privacy Badger, which runs fine alongside uBlock Origin. Privacy Badger focuses on blocking images and scripts that advertisers and others may be using to track you, which often disables their adverts as a nice side-effect. It can occasionally interfere with the functionality of some sites, but is easy to turn off or adjust on a site-by-site basis.
Search anonymously
If you are logged into Google, it will keep a record of everything you search for. You probably guessed that. Even without logging in, search engines will attempt to keep track of what you’re up to. Luckily, there are plenty of ways to get around this!
The simplest is to use a search engine that allows you to search anonymously, such as https://www.startpage.com/ or https://www.duckduckgo.com/. You can add Duck Duck Go to Firefox as well, so that even when you search from your address bar or search bar, you do so privately.
However, if you prefer a good ol’ Google search but don’t want to be giving out your data, you can do this via Searchonymous, a free Chrome extension, and Firefox add-on.
Block third-party cookies
We talked about what these are, and why they are best avoided, in the intro. Here is a relatively simple way to avoid them for common web browsers:
Firefox: Click Options > Privacy > History > Use custom settings for history > Accept third party cookies: Never
Chrome: Click Settings > Privacy > History > Content settings > Cookies: Check ‘Block third party cookies and site data’ > Done
Microsoft Edge: Toolbar > Click ‘…’ > Settings > Advanced Settings > Privacy and Services > Cookies > Click text box > Click ‘Block only third party cookies’
Watch Out For Bundled Software
Sometimes when you install one program, you can end up with a second one you didn’t bargain for. Often something annoying like a tool bar for your web browser. This is often when you have downloaded or updated a piece of free software from a company still looking to make a profit. The best way to avoid this is to look carefully at the options when you are installing or updating software. In almost every case there will be either a tick box to install this unwanted program, such as shown below, or an option given like ‘press yes to install this tool bar, click no to just install the software you want’. They rely on people not paying attention before clicking yes/next/agree. It can be a pain, but you should at least briefly look over your options, rather than just clicking quickly through them.
Avoid Facebook and Google Mobile apps
That is, wherever possible! They will often access and store much more data about what you do than the websites do alone. Many of their functions can be replicated by open-source apps that won’t sell out your privacy. Often, you can simply access what you want via your phone’s browser instead, although, in the case of Facebook Messenger, it is blocked unless you tell your browser to ‘request desktop version of the website’. If, for whatever reason, it’s unavoidable to use the apps, try the following:
When installing the Facebook app, don’t allow it to read your contact list, access your photos, or become your default browser (meaning it would know all of the sites you visit, how long you spent on them, etc). All of this amounts to more data the app can record and store, and potentially share with third-parties.
Ensure Google Maps is set to not record or store your location data or to share it with third-parties. You can do this by going into the app menu, selecting ‘Settings’ and ‘Google location settings’.
Using Facebook? Make sure you check your privacy settings
Ok, so you’re handing data over to Facebook when you post it to Facebook (that’s a given). It’s still preferable to make sure you’re not accidentally sharing it with dozens of other companies, or anyone who happens to Google your name, though! If you post something and it’s set to public (do it once, and it may become your default) it means just that, so be very wary of ever doing so. There are also a couple of other things you might not have thought of, but we’ll go through them now…
First off, you can get to your privacy settings on Facebook (you have to be logged in) via Settings > Privacy, and then you’ll have a variety of options you can go through:
‘Who can see my stuff?’ | As we mentioned before, this is automatically set to ‘Public’. You can change this to ‘Friends’ (all friends), ‘Friends except’ (all friends, except for those you add to the exception list), ‘Specific friends’ (only those friends you add to this list), or ‘Only me’ (only you are able to see what you post)
‘Who can contact me?’ and ‘Who can send me friend requests?’ | Both of these are auto-set to ‘Everyone’, but you can choose to change this so that only ‘Friends of friends’ can contact you or send you a friend request
‘Who can look you up using the email address/phone number you provided?’ | Again, these are auto-set to ‘Everyone’, but you can opt for only ‘Friends of friends’ or even just ‘Friends’
‘Do you want search engines outside of Facebook to link to your profile?’ | This box is checked by default, and means that if someone searched your name in a search engine, a link to your profile will be listed as one of the search results. By unchecking the box, you are preventing this from happening!
Prevent third-party access to your social media profile
By logging into other apps and surveys using your Facebook or other social media account, you are exposing yourself to lots of potential risk. Apps all have access to different amounts of data, and as they add users, their databases grow and become targets for hackers. Basically, the more applications you use, the bigger your security risk. Those quiz and polling sites you have logged in via Facebook? Companies can gain access to the personal information you gave to these apps.
You may already have given these permissions away, but you can revoke them by following these steps: Log into Facebook > ‘Settings’ > ‘Apps’ > Scroll down to ‘Apps others use’ > ‘Edit’ > Uncheck all boxes > ‘Save’.
Use a fake name wherever possible
If you don’t use your real name, it will obviously be harder to find, record, and store personal information about you! For this reason, many companies will pester you a lot for your real name, but luckily most won’t go as far as getting you to prove it.
Don’t tag yourself in pictures where anonymity is key
If there is a picture of a protest and you spot yourself there in black bloc, don’t tag yourself. Definitely don’t tag your mate next to you. Even if you were just dressed for a march in the sun, it’s best not to make the job of state surveillance of protesters easier! This might sound a little silly, but this has actually happened, and people have been caught up in legal action as a result.
Avoid logging into other websites via Facebook, Google, and other social media accounts
Logging into other websites using your an existing account (‘Log in via Facebook’, etc) could allow the parent company details of what you’re up to when you’re not even using their website.
The software can even track you via cookies when you don’t use it to log in. To avoid this, you could log into social media via a different browser, or via your browser’s ‘private’, ‘hidden’, or ‘incognito’ windows or tabs (which will keep your social media cookie separate).
Putting ‘all your eggs in one basket’ can be risky, and a failure in just one company’s security could expose all your other accounts. A separate account and password is your safest bet (especially for a site with sensitive personal information). With a password manager, you’ll even get most of the convenience without the risk.
Countering Threats pt3: State Surveillance and Corporate Espionage
This is perhaps the scariest one. Edward Snowdon’s revelations confirmed what many had long suspected. Our governments (in the US, UK, and more) collect massive amounts of information on all of us with little or no oversight. You don’t need to have broken any laws, be suspected of it, or even just belong to a political organisation – everyone is caught in their spy net. Not only this, but they are often aided by having ‘back door’ access to numerous pieces of software, with or without the companies that run them knowing.
When caught carrying out this, often illegal, surveillance, most states simply changed the law so it wasn’t illegal any more. In the years since they have expanded their capacity to track everything we do. However, there is a lot we can do to help slip through their net. If enough of us do it, the whole thing may stop working.
Disclaimer: The following should help you dodge a lot of the automated mass surveillance that takes place, and will even hinder agencies who are targeting you specifically. However, these are only basic steps. With enough resources, time, and knowledge nearly anything you do can be gotten through. If you are planning something especially sensitive, you shouldn’t be involving a computer or phone in it at all, before, after, or during – especially if you’re reading an intro guide!
Stop the government knowing every single website you have ever visited
ISPs are now required to log all the websites you visit, which means this information is now available to numerous government departments, from the police and intelligence services, right down to the NHS and DWP! Your ISP may also respond to requests to trace your IP address, for example, from copyright holders looking to send ‘cease and desist’ letters to those they suspect of illegal downloading.
On top of this, when you connect to someone else’s WiFi, you could potentially be monitored by them, or have your history unwittingly stored by their network!
This is where TOR (‘The Onion Router’) and VPNs (Virtual Private Networks) come in. Using either of these will mask what you are sending and receiving and where it’s going or coming from. It will also conceal your identity from the websites you visit (unless you log into them!). Your ISP will often be able to see that you are using TOR or a VPN but not what you are using it to do. You can even use both, or even both twice – but that’s a bit more complex that what we are looking at in this guide, and comes with its own potential risks. Using these tools also lets you access websites that are being blocked by a specific connection, maybe your work WiFi blocks access to anarchist propaganda for example!
So, which should you use? Check out this handy pros-and-cons list to see which option is best for you.
TOR
What it is: TOR directs your internet traffic through a volunteer run international network of computers acting as relays called ‘nodes’. Your information is encrypted and bounced between these nodes, before reaching an ‘exit node’ which communicates between the Tor network and the rest of the internet. It helps to conceal your identity from websites and your browsing history from ISPs
Route: Your PC TOR node some other TOR nodes TOR exit node rest of the internet
Pros:
Free!
Doesn’t require you to trust anyone (not even the people who run TOR, or it’s nodes should have any way of finding out what you are up to!)
Your ISP doesn’t know any information other than the time you are looking at ‘something’
Easy to use via ‘TOR browser’
Cons:
Slows down your connection
Can be vulnerable if configured incorrectly, or used to access certain types of online content
Some vulnerabilities, but these will only mostly affect those doing things that would get a lot of attention from the authorities!
Some websites block access from TOR
Where to get it: You can download TOR Browser here
Paid VPN
What it is: A VPN creates an encrypted ‘tunnel’ between your PC and the VPN provider’s own network of computers. It’s as if you had a private cable running straight into their network. Their network then communicates with the outside world for you, masking your identity and what you are up to.
Route: Your PC Encrypted tunnel The VPN host rest of the internet
Pros:
Doesn’t effect your connection speed as much
Easy to set up (and the provider will give you help, if you need it)
Few vulnerabilities
Your ISP doesn’t know any information other than the time you are looking at ‘something’
Cons:
Requires you to trust your VPN host
Costs money!
Where to get it: We recommend signing up for ‘Private Internet Access’ via getavpn.org. It doesn’t keep logs, is run by folks trusted by activists, based in Iceland (which has some of the strongest privacy laws), allows torrent use, is cheapish at $40/year (about £30), has committed to shutting down before caving to a request to breach privacy of its users, and (via that link) 30-40% of what you pay is donated to Fight for the Future . You can use it on up to five computers/tablets/etc at once
Free VPN
What it is: As above, only free!
Route: As above
Pros:
Free
Few vulnerabilities
Your ISP doesn’t know any information other than the time you are looking at webpages
Cons:
Often either unreliable or slow
Some free VPN providers bombard you with ads or unwanted software
Often restricts what you can do, for example streaming video or downloading large files
Where to get it: Riseup offers a free VPN, which is trusted, safe, and free of adverts, but it can be unreliable (https://riseup.net/en/vpn)
State Surveillance of Messages
As we said before – and we’re sure you agree – no one wants a random person trawling through their personal messages, whether it be on social media, on your mobile phone, or in your email. It’s not a simple matter of being ok if you’ve ‘done nothing wrong’. There are plenty of things we all do that we wouldn’t want everyone to know about, even if they aren’t immoral or illegal. Then, of course, there is the problem of what will become illegal in the future. Today’s free expression of democracy can easily be tomorrow’s dangerous domestic extremism.
Here are some ways to keep your private conversations just that:
Don’t say it online
We’re being serious here. If what you are saying relates to secret plans for an upcoming demonstration or direct action, or relates to something that may have happened and is of, uh, questionable legality, it may be best not to mention it online at all. Of course, this isn’t always practical if you need to coordinate things or check up on someone, but you should always be very careful about what you say, especially with specifics. That said, there are a lot of ways to mitigate the risk of talking online, and we’ll go into two of the best now. We recommend them not only for your super-secret-revolutionary-plans but also for your day-to-day conversations with friends.
You can’t stop the Signal
Signal is an extremely easy-to-use messaging service for mobiles. If you’ve ever installed an app and sent a text, you should have no problem with it! Not only does it encrypt texts you send to other signal users, it allows you to create encrypted group conversations, send encrypted files and photos, make encrypted phone calls, and even have encrypted video chats. It can be used as your default texting (SMS) application, so you don’t even have to remember to switch to it to send messages to other Signal users.
It is free, open source, and recommended by nearly every expert on internet security and knowledgeable activists the world over. It will prevent even your mobile network operator from knowing what you are saying. If you have an Android or iOS phone there is no reason not to get it!
A couple of important notes:
Signal sends messages over mobile internet. For voice or video conversations, you’ll need decent reception, as well as the data allowance to spare (or a WiFi connection).
It’s all well and good encrypting messages as they are sent between phones, but it’s also important to encrypt them on the phone itself. As we mentioned before it is relatively easy to encrypt an Android phone or iPhone.
Emails and Pretty Good Privacy
When it comes to whether the government can read them, emails are usually about as secure as a pile of open letters you’ve left outside your front door. They can call up your email provider and ask for them to be handed over, or simply turn up and seize the computers they are stored on. They can listen in on your connection and copy them as you send and receive them, or maybe even get your password and log in to read them just like you do.
Clearly, this is not a great way for things to be! You could devise a secret code you send your emails in, but you’d need to explain it to everyone you talk to, and it’s unlikely it’d take long for the government to break it. You could save your messages in a password-protected encrypted form and then send them to your friends… but then you’d need to give them the password to open them at the other end, right? If you just emailed them the password, the whole thing would be pointless!
Luckily, there is a solution to all of these problems. It’s called Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) and dates back to 1991. It’s a way of encrypting and decrypting things that works especially well for email. It’s very hard to crack, in fact, it’s the hardest thing to crack that isn’t hidden away in a military bunker somewhere. It allows anyone to send you a secret encrypted message without having to meet with you to discuss codes or passwords first! It’s slightly more complicated to set up than most of the things in this guide, but it is definitely worth the effort.
“How does it work?” you are probably wondering. Well, very simply, it involves a way of encrypting that uses two keys. One is known as a public key, which you can hand out to people. Anyone can use the public key to encrypt a message, turning it from something anyone could read, into something that even they can’t read anymore. See, that’s the really clever bit: the public key only works one way. It ‘locks’ the messages into an encrypted form, but it can’t ‘unlock’ them again. For that, you need the second key, the private key. This is the one that you keep hidden and to yourself. It allows you to unlock and view any message that has been encrypted using the public key.
There is also something else this pair of keys allows you to do, which is use them the other way round! This way anyone with your public key can ‘unlock’ and read something that has been written, but only you (with your private key) could have been the person to ‘lock’ it in the first place. Whilst this doesn’t sound as useful straight away, it comes in very handy. It is a way of people confirming that you were the one who wrote something. This is referred to as ‘digital signing’, as it’s like having a (very difficult to forge) signature on all the messages you send out. Combined with the previous way of using the keys, it’s extremely powerful. It means you and your friend can send messages that only each other can read, and that you know must have come from the right person!
That’s the theory bit (very briefly, if you’re into mathematics, it can be fascinating to look into in more detail). On to the practice!
The way we’d recommend to use PGP is via an email client. If you’re unaware, an email client is a program that handles the sending, receiving, and storing of emails on or from your computer. If you use email at work, it’s probably through a mail client. Common ones include Apple Mail, Microsoft Outlook, and, our favourite one, Thunderbird. The alternative is accessing your email via a browser on a website like hotmail.com. Mail clients allow you much more functionality and customisation.
Specifically, we’d suggest you use Mozilla Thunderbird (as it is free and open-source) along with the PGP applications Mozilla recommends, namely GnuPG and Enigmail. The Thunderbird website has a pretty good guide to setting it all up, so we’ll just run through a summary.
First off, you set up Thunderbird (if you weren’t using it already). This will mean inputting your email address and password, and possibly additional information. Then you install the other two pieces of software. Once it’s all set up, you can generate your pair of keys! You’ll get told this a lot, but never ever give anyone your private key. Not only could they then read all your emails, they could forge your digital signature as well! Thunderbird can store your private key (password protected and encrypted of course), and it can send your public key directly to your friends. It can also handle the receiving and storing of public keys from other people. It can also upload your public key to a database so other people can find it automatically without you having to give them it each time. Likewise, it can download public keys from these databases for people you want to email.
Another potential problem with sending secret messages that only the recipient can read… what if the recipient isn’t who they say they are? It’s easily overcome if it’s someone you’ll see in person, of course. They just have to say, “Hi, I’m Sam, and this is definitely my public key”, but in other circumstances (like where you are using a public database of keys, as we just mentioned) you may have to rely on the ‘web of trust’. Simply put, this is a list of people who vouch for each other using their digital signatures. So if you know Sam is really Sam, and Joe is really Joe, you can look at the web of trust and see they both vouch for the fact that Sally is really Sally, and thus be pretty sure of it yourself. Whilst you’re at it, you can vouch for Sam and Joe!
If your private key does get stolen somehow (or you suspect it might have been), you need to revoke it ASAP. This lets everyone know not to use it or trust it any more. Then you can generate a brand new set of keys to use instead. It can be good to periodically do this anyway, for the same kind of reasons as it’s a good idea to regularly change passwords.
Countering Threats pt4: Linking up for the big fights
Just by following any (or all) of the suggestions so far in this guide, you’re already contributing to making the internet (and the world) a safer and freer place. It’s relatively easy to increase the impact you’re already having. Here is how to do that, and why what you’re doing already matters.
You’re normalising encryption
If encryption was only ever used to send messages that are essential to keep from the prying eyes of the government, it’d be easy for them to spot those messages! It only really works if it becomes common for people to use encryption when they’re planning to go to the pub, talking about football, or sending cat pictures. With enough time, any single message can be broken into, but if the person doing the breaking has to go through 3000 dog memes to find one piece of intel, it’s going to make their job near impossible.
You can help spread it!
Mention to people you use encryption. Talk about why. Ask if they know how easy signal is. Maybe link them to this guide. Not only does this help normalise encryption further, you might end up equipping someone with a tool that is essential for what they are doing. Maybe you’ve saved them from finding themselves harassed by a fracking company two years from now, because the spy the company hired couldn’t decrypt the email with their real name and address in it. Good on ya!
You’re breaking the hold the data-collectors have over all of us
Data on one person is dangerous in the wrong hands, and it’s the wrong hands who put the most effort into collecting it. Even more dangerous is data on lots of people in the wrong hands. It allows corporations and states to predict and influence our behaviour (I really wish that were just paranoia). Each person that removes themselves from this pool of data helps! Especially if you’re the type of person who wants to change the world, after all, we need to be unpredictable to win!
You’re ensuring you’re a strong link
Information doesn’t usually get shared just from person A to person B (or person A to corporation B), it gets spread around. If you’re making sure you handle it well, you are keeping everyone you are connected with a little bit safer.
You could start some important discussions
Sometimes it feels like we’re all just sleepwalking our way into a totalitarian dystopia. As anarchists, we encourage people to question all-of-the-things. It’s important to keep this up, and make sure it forms part of our normal interactions with others, and not just some specially allotted ‘activist’ time.
You’re supporting open-source projects
We’ve mentioned this already, but, in many ways, open-source communities are an example of how we’d like to see the whole world work. When you use the software they make (especially if you can afford to donate to the projects as well), you’re helping sustain and grow them. At the same time, you’re one less customer for the giant corporations that control so much of our electronic world.
Want to be more proactive?
All of this is great, but if it’s really got you riled up, or you just think these campaigns may fit in well with your life or skills, you may want to do more. Luckily, there are a number of groups that dedicate their time and energy towards exposing state surveillance, fighting dangerous new laws, and keeping the internet as free from corporate control as possible.
Here are a few we’ve had direct experience with. You’ll likely recognise some of them from earlier in the guide. It would have been so much harder to come by this information and the resources we link to without groups like these!
Electronic Frontier Foundation (https://www.eff.org/)
Probably the most famous of the lot, and certainly the largest. It’s an international group, based in the US, that aims to protect privacy, innovation and civil liberties, and expose potentially dangerous government and corporate actions. Its tactics range from legal funding and advice, supporting the development of software that helps its aims, educational projects, lobbying of states, exposing the impacts of new laws in the media, and even publishing an anthology of speculative fiction. It’s a ‘broad church’ but has done some undeniably excellent work since it’s founding 26 years ago.
Fight for the Future (https://www.fightforthefuture.org/)
This group is US-focused, but has information that is useful the world over. As well as providing radical education tools, in its own words it ‘is dedicated to protecting and expanding the Internet’s transformative power in our lives’. It uses demonstrations and mass campaigning, both online and in person, to influence policy and protect online freedoms, and to protect dissent and protest in general.
Open Rights Group (https://www.openrightsgroup.org/)
The best source of UK-specific news on government and corporate surveillance, data protection, and laws that threaten our online freedoms. As well as providing this info, they ‘talk to the media, campaign, lobby, go to court, and work with other activists and campaign groups’.
BarnCamp (https://barncamp.org.uk/)
BarnCamp is a low-cost, rural DIY skill-sharing event started by UK tech collective Hacktionlab. It is open to everyone: activists, campaigners, people involved in social and community groups, and anybody else with an interest in technology and how to subvert it and put it to good use. All skill levels are invited and should get something out of it.
Anarchist Federation (https://www.afed.org.uk)
As the existence of this guide shows, we are committed to fighting for freedom online, as well as in our communities, workplaces, and out on the streets. Previous campaigns have included DefyID (back in the early 2000s), which was part of the successful fight against mandatory biometric ID cards! If you want a free and equal society, then see if we sound like the organisation for you.
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Bob Chapman | October 29, 2008
Down go consumer confidence and real estate values to all-time lows, but, nevertheless, up goes the Dow undaunted, claiming its second largest point gain ever as the counterintuitive insider trading beat goes on and on and on, ad nausea. Insiders get wealthy, and the non-insiders chasing them get annihilated. This has been the story on Wall Street for over a century. Do you think it was merely some sort of serendipitous coincidence that the dark pool of liquidity, known as Project Turquoise, was set to be activated near the end of August, just in time for all the Illuminist insiders to enjoy the profitable fireworks as volatility reached all-time highs, so that all of their nefarious trading could be done in unregulated secrecy? We can assure you that there are no coincidences on Wall Street. There is only rampant, rampaging insider trading and fiendish manipulation.
Any time they think they are in need of a good fleecing, all the poor sheople have to do is get back into the general stock markets where their Illuminist shearers will be more than happy to oblige them. We absolutely guarantee that the pink of your sheople skin will be showing as all your wool is shaved off right down to the hair follicles. You've probably heard about "pink flamingos." Well, now we are going to see a lot of pink sheople wandering around aimlessly, wondering where all their vaporized money went, as they are prepared for the big slaughter while the Big Sting Two goes into its next phase. You need to protect yourself with gold, silver and their now bargain-basement related shares, unless of course the color pink flatters you.
The Dow, powered by its PPT anti-gravity machine, and in the face of some of the worst economic news of all time, still somehow managed to tack on an unbelievable, mind-blowing and stupefying 889.35 points as the Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index dropped off a cliff from September's 61.4 to October's 38, an all-time low (the "experts" expected 52), as the Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller 20-city housing index dropped 16.6 percent in August from a year ago, the largest decline on record going back to 2000, and as the smaller, 10-city index, fell 17.7 percent, the biggest decline in its 21-year history. The last of the wild, PPT-manufactured 700 Dow rally points came in the last two hours of trading as the insiders took advantage of low volume, short-covering and a much weaker yen to give the Dow a blastoff to 9,065.12. Just what you would expect as consumer confidence and real estate prices drop into the toilet for a thorough "swirley."
Wow, look at them fire up that Goldilocks Matrix as reality is scoffed at, and illusion becomes king, just as Dr. Stan Monteith likes to say as he starts each broadcast for Radio Liberty. We can't help but envision Jim Nabor's character, private Gomer Pyle, USMC, exclaiming "surprise, surprise, surprise!" as sergeant Carter's eye twitches because he has shorted the stock market indexes, while they both watch the Dow soar to over 9,000 points, in total contradiction of all logic and market fundamentals. All we can say is: "Shazam!!!" and "Gaaw-aawl-ly!!!"
Of course, we are told by the fane-stream media that this was "bargain-hunting." And for the first time ever, they are correct. The Illuminist insiders just got the bargains of a lifetime. The non-insiders also got exactly what they bargained for by staying in the general stock markets, by trying to follow market fundamentals and by trying to chase after the insiders, meaning that they got the fleecing of a lifetime which they should have known was coming just as sure as God made little green apples.
In any case, based on the foregoing, we can now tweak the Wall Street formula for profitability as follows: Profitability = Low Volume + High Volatility + Dark Pools of Liquidity + Plunge Protection Team. The mass exit from the stock markets has reduced trading volume. This makes manipulation much easier and much less expensive as the Illuminati line their pockets with more salary and bonus money, which they will no doubt continue to extract, rape and steal from the insider trading profits of their financial institutions which they have burned to the ground, as Paulson and Bernanke work their monetary voodoo to reanimate these walking dead fraudster banks.
In looking over the financial landscape that has emerged since the private Fed was foisted upon the hapless sheople in 1913, we can see the culling process that has emerged. Remember, Rockefeller and Morgan, the heads of the American branch of the Illuminati, hated one thing more than any other, and that thing was competition. During the Panic of 1907, which was orchestrated by Rockefeller and Morgan so they could force the Federal Reserve System and Income Tax down the throats of the sucker-dupe sheople, many smaller banks were sent down the tubes.
Then came the 1929 Stock Market Crash, orchestrated by the newly formed, and very private, partly foreign-owned and totally non-governmental Fed, and that started a second culling process, mostly of small to mid-size banks, which took out about one third of the banks that were then blossoming in the US based on the wealth accumulations of the Roaring Twenties. This culling occurred throughout the period during the 1930s, which we now refer to as the Great Depression. The big Illuminist concerns of course survived, based on their inside information, as did many of the leading Illuminists of the time.
Banks were then left alone for several decades to help finance World War II and the post-War boom, which was used to consolidate Illuminist wealth and power through their military-industrial complex. Then it was time for a third culling, as deregulation and the sanity of past banking standards were discarded to create the S&L Crisis. Many more small to mid-size banks were vaporized by the excesses created through this deregulation and by the inflation which the Fed malevolently caused to hurt banks by reducing the value of their mortgages and forcing them to compete for higher rates by making crazy loans to third world countries and to other unworthy borrowers, particularly those taking out mortgages. These banks borrowed short and lent long, a sure formula for disaster, and the end result was that some 2,400 small to mid-size banks failed.
Note how all these past orchestrated banking disasters affected mostly the bottom rungs of the banking industry, a flagrant and direct elimination of competition to line the pockets of big banking by taking down the smaller fry. But now, in the current crises, which is, more than anything, a credit/capital-crunch powered by an asset crisis engendered by derivative fraud that was made possible by a real estate bubble and a totally opaque, unregulated OTC market, with the subprime problem being little more than a fuse leading to the main charge in the credit default swap and interest rate swap powder kegs, we see a process of culling and consolidation at the upper echelons of the banking industry. This is by design, although the Illuminati have bungled this one and caused far greater damage than they intended, relying on rocket scientists who do not understand how markets work to design their Ponzi-scheme. The idea here is to first create a handful of mega-banks that are too big to fail so they can milk the banking system a little longer and to make sure that the bailout money keeps coming from the sucker-dupe sheople taxpayers to keep saving and bailing the latest incarnations of the too-big-to-fail fraudster banks.
In the end, all these large banks will come crashing down like a ton of bricks because they are irretrievably insolvent, and then they, along with the privately owned Fed, will be nationalized and merged into one super-entity, which will be given all regulatory power over the financial industry. They will no longer have to kill off the small fry by creating catastrophes. They will simply regulate them out of existence until their banking and financial interests have achieved god-like, dictatorial power. They will allow those who want to play the game by their rules to eke out an existence, while all others get vaporized. Once they control all financial matters with an iron fist, the Constitution will become irrelevant because the people will no longer have any power to exercise except by revolution, and we can assure you that a revolution is going to come, and soon. The arrogant Illuminists are in for a big surprise as they continue with their evil plans to enslave and dominate the sheople in an Orwellian police state of feudality.
The current dichotomy between paper and physical precious metals markets is being caused by an intentional bottleneck at the wholesale level. Wholesale gold and silver is being hoarded to fund precious metal suppression schemes, such as sales and leasing, and to maintain dominance of the commercials in the paper markets by preventing a failure to deliver. In essence, this bottleneck between the wholesale and retail levels of the market in precious metals amounts to a de facto confiscation of gold and silver from the masses.
Remember, back during the Great Depression, most people owned gold and silver which was then the main medium of exchange. So FDR had to take it from them, which he did in 1933, to make sure they had no store of value against the upcoming inflationary spiral of money creation and increased national debt that would result from make-work projects, from social entitlements and from World War II, all of which were already in the planning during the Great Depression, and most likely before the Great Depression even got started. This was done so that they could continue their fleecing of the middle class, who they would eventually allow to have some crumbs of prosperity in order to provide US taxpayers with the incentive to create the new industrial powerhouse that America was becoming, a powerhouse that would fuel and finance their future ambition to make the US into a corporatist, fascist police state. Of course, needless to say, all that new prosperity would get taxed, thus increasing their power through the federal government, which they would totally control. As an aside, FDR then increased the value of gold from $20 an ounce to $35 an ounce, giving Illuminists insiders, who had hidden their gold in Europe after being tipped off about the coming US confiscations, a whopping profit.
In any case, most people in the US no longer own gold and silver. They are slaves to the orgy of money and credit that the Fed has provided, and they now worship paper over metal. This means that no confiscation is necessary to prevent the American sheople from having a place to store the value of their savings. All you have to do today is to keep US citizens from acquiring precious metals, first, by making it look too volatile to be a good investment, and second, by making it hard to acquire, especially in larger amounts. That way, you can enslave and impoverish them by diluting the value of the dollar by doling out trillions in bailout money that will be used solely to enrich the elitists and the financial institutions which they have intentionally and malevolently trashed. Without gold and silver, the poor, ignorant sheople are totally defenseless and utterly helpless against the hyperinflationary juggernaut that will be created in the aftermath of these bailouts.
We are now hearing rumors about a potential failure to deliver on the COMEX due to what may be a large demand for physical delivery of gold and silver on the December contract. Where were all you dopey specs sleeping when we cried out for this to be done over a year ago. As usual, no one listened, and now all the hedgies who are not part of the Illuminist cadre who are cleaning up on insider trading transactions are now bankrupt or are being redeemed into oblivion. Such a tragedy, which is made all the worse by the fact that it was totally unnecessary and completely avoidable. Look at the silver market. Ten billion dollars can now buy the entire above-ground world supply of silver. That is just a 10% diversification for some of the larger hedge funds. What the freak were you people thinking?!
As long as the stock markets rally, the dollar will suffer, and the upcoming cut by the Fed will do the dollar no favors. Once money leaves treasuries, and is used to buy other currencies for foreign investments in stocks, bonds and derivatives, the dollar strength will be reversed. We also wonder how long it will be before the big oil producers, who are also big precious metals buyers, will punish the cartel for trashing oil by driving the price of precious metals up in mega-thrusts, as was done not too long ago over the past couple of years.
Note how trashing oil and threatening to drive the dollar back down is keeping the Saudis and other OPEC nations in line. They can break Iran and Venezuela with military intervention quite easily by trashing the price of oil as they scare away any wildcatters who were getting delusions of grandeur in the interim when oil prices were high. This also discourages the innovation of greener energy alternatives, and supports the dollar with the euro effect. Never underestimate how clever these reprobates and sociopaths can be. It is an intelligence and ingenuity born out of the lust for greed and power, which are the real mothers of invention.
After this period of hoarding and sterilization is completed, the floodgates will eventually be opened at the time of their choosing to complete the final orgy of credit and speculation that will be used to complete the Big Sting Two. After that occurs, 6 to 12 months later, we will all be Weimarized, and gold and silver will go inter-dimensional because the elitist will have then become the world's biggest gold bugs as the final rush to pile Big Sting Two dollar proceeds into real, tangible assets commences and as the dollar and euro are given their final send-offs to fiat money hell in favor of some regional baskets of currency. Meanwhile, the market gyrations that are fueling insider trading profits will continue unabated. This plan fails if everyone bolts for the exits before the final stages of the plan can be implemented, something which is highly likely to occur, especially if we get another untoward event like the Meredith Whitney revelation about Citigroup assets. |
What is the origin of the quote?
The basic concept was first presented in a rare book of natural philosophy called "The Foundations of an Applied Ontological Metaphysics". Fortunately, it was later reprinted in a work called "The Immanent Metaphysics" and then again in a shorter work called "The Effective Choice", all by the same author (Forrest Landry). Although there are many interesting and unusal concepts in these books, the aphorism on the back of The Launch Box is believed to be that 'one simple idea' whose time has come to create the next 'right step' in the evolution of human relationships.
Here at Magic-Flight, we have found this aphorism to be true, and as such, we have woven it into the fabric and foundation of our company. It is the one vibrant base from which all aspects of our operations grow. That quote -- the aphorism -- is our 'magic sauce' and our 'secret ingredient'. We measure our effectiveness by the degree to which others breathe easier in their lives because of the way in which we live in ours. We credit our success to a continuing and consistent effort at deepening our understanding and practicing the ideals expressed in that quote (and within those books). We believe that it is worth teaching. Over time, it is our hope that everyone will come to realize the amazing, life changing aspects of this approach, and in so becoming and practicing, so shall all of the life of this world thrive!
These and deeper understandings have given us the keys to effectively listen to the needs of our customers and to provide mutually beneficial goods and services in ever more socially and ecologically sustainable ways. Even the value of sustainability itself is a choice -- the choice to continue to create choice. As an expression of a deeper knowledge of what is important, all is embraced in the full implications of that aphorism. To truly understand the practice of loving well, and to live by that path, is perhaps the most ultimately meaningful thing that we as beings can do.
We view our vaporizer as a manifestation and symbol of our love, enabling so many people to literally breathe easier every day. As such, The Launch Box is more a "publishing media" for the quote rather than the quote being something "added" to the Box. Which is greater: the idea OF the box, or the idea ON the Box? Either way, it works rather well! |
TechCrunch is going to the World Economic Forum in Switzerland to unpack how technology is affecting the world’s economies. We’ll be speaking to heads of states and captains of industry about what many refer to as the next industrial revolution. Indeed, WEF has themed this year’s event : “The 4th Industrial revolution”.
You can register here to keep up to date with what TechCrunch will be doing there. We will have an incredible venue, the English Church of St. Luke (Freie Evangelische Gemeinde Davos, right here) located right by the conference centre, enabling us to grab interviews with a passing politicians or tech moguls. We’ll have a ‘TechCrunch Cafe’ inside (partnered with a startup out of Europe/SF, Tradeshift) and we’ll also be holding a reception for the tech community featuring ‘fireside’ interviews and discussions. That, and a daily programme of video interviews during the time we’re there. Got questions about TechCrunch at Davos? You can also use me as an initial point of contact on [email protected].
Andrej Kiska, President of Slovakia
In the lead-up to WEF at Davos, we decided to pay a call on a couple of heads of government to find out what they make of the ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’ of technology.
The first is Andrej Kiska, President of Slovakia, who discusses, on camera, the impact of the technology revolution on his country. He’s also Slovakia’s first president since 1993 to have no links to its communist past, sending a message internationally that the country is going through a clear transition towards the global economy.
Kiska is no stranger to technology. As a former electrical engineer and entrepreneur himself, he admits he never thought he’d see Slovakia produce the world’s first genuine flying car, the AeroMobil.
But despite being a small country in Europe (population 5 million), increasingly entrepreneurs there are thinking globally, and Kiska has been advocating an innovative agenda since he came to power in 2014.
Slovakia currently has a large part of its economy wrapped up in automate production, but the The knock-on effect of that could be positive in the technology startup world — certainly this week at CES has seen an enormous boom in the combination of cars and technology.
While Kiska admits some of the country’s educational institutions still require work in how they produce technology entrepreneurs, he is optimistic that this can be addressed.
Kiska is highly unusual in politics, having been a successful entrepreneur who gave the profits of his business away to charity and then running — successfully – for President. And he’s a President who happily turns up to the launch of startup co-working spaces in Bratislava, the capital.
Slovakia faces the same security threats as any European nation at the moment, but Kiska believes there needs to be a compromise between the needs for state security and safety on the one hand, and the rights of citizens to privacy on the other.
Bratislava’s Startup Scene Is Heating Up
Bratislava, the Slovakian capital, has a young active startup scene amongst its mix of old and new architecture which line the Danube river. It also benefits from being an hour’s drive away from Vienna, which is a major European airport hub.
It is also just an hour’s drive from three major European cities: Vienna (Austria), Budapest (Hungary), and Brno (Czech Republic). As a result the ‘ecosystem’ Bratislavia operates in is much larger than the city itself, or even the country. Thus the region boats both a cluster in security (3 out of top 5 global antivirus players) and cartech (Czech, Slovakia and Hungary are among the top producers of cars per capita globally).
Global startups from the country include ESET (among the top 5 antivirus softwares globally with over $1bn valuation), Sygic (a major offline navigation player) and Pixel Federation (among the Top 20 Facebook games globally).
Coworking spaces and incubators include RubixLab, The Spot, Impact Hub, HUB Bratislava, Clusterhaus and Connect Coworking, all of whom run regular events. The Spot is located in the city center while Connect Coworking is in the old textile factory, that is also the home of the creative industry. The biggest events include Startup Camp, Pioneers Bratislava and the annual StartUp Awards which is even broadcast on national TV (and which last year featured your’s truly).
Local investors include CEED Tech, a consortium of five startup accelerators, operating in Central and Eastern Europe; and LAUNCHER, a startup studio focused on seed and early stage investments and startups in Central Europe.
Angel Investors include 42angels, a platform, which gathers experienced Czech and Slovak entrepreneurs; Neulogy Ventures, the first Slovakia-based management company to run fully regulated seed and venture capital funds; Speed Invest; and Credo Ventures among others.
Public-private initiatives include SAPIE (the Slovak Alliance for Internet Economy) which has over 20 members ranging from multinational players like Google and Facebook to Eset, Neulogy, Websupport and Martinus.
Recent deals in the country include the 2013 GoDaddy acquisition of Czech-Slovak startup m.dot, a mobile website-builder app, for over $15 million, plus the 2014 acquisition by Zomato of local restaurant-aggregators Obedovat.sk and LunchTime.cz.
Admittedly it’s still early say for Slovakia’s startup scene but with a President like Kiska, the future looks bright. |
It is no surprise that a child prefers its mother’s voice to those of strangers. Beginning in the womb, a foetus’s developing auditory pathways sense the sounds and vibrations of its mother. Soon after birth, a child can identify its mother’s voice and will work to hear her voice better over unfamiliar female voices. A 2014 study of preterm infants showed that playing a recording of the mother’s voice when babies sucked on a pacifier was enough to improve development of oral feeding skills and shorten their hospital stay. A mother’s voice can soothe a child in stressful situations, reducing levels of cortisol, the stress hormone, and increasing levels of oxytocin, the social bonding hormone. Scientists have even traced the power of a mother’s voice to infants’ brains: a mother’s voice activates the anterior prefrontal cortex and the left posterior temporal region more strongly than an unfamiliar voice, priming the infant for the specialised task of speech processing.
While it makes intuitive sense that a mother’s voice has special power over infants and toddlers, what happens as children grow up? Daniel Abrams, a neurobiologist at Stanford University School of Medicine, and his team of researchers set out to answer this question using functional MRI (fMRI), a neuroimaging technique that measures brain activity by detecting metabolic changes in blood flow. The researchers examined 24 children between the ages of seven and 12, who had normal IQs, had no development disorders, and were raised by their biological mothers. While in the MRI machine, these children listened to recordings of nonsense words spoken by their mothers or by other women. The researchers specifically chose nonsense words so as not to trigger brain circuits related to semantics. Regardless, the children were able to accurately identify their mother’s voice more than 97 per cent of the time in less than one second.
But what actually happened when these older children heard their mother’s voice? The team hypothesised that listening to her voice would produce more activity in the so-called ‘voice-selective’ brain regions, involved in recognising voice and processing speech, compared with when they heard unfamiliar female voices. But what the scientists found was even more remarkable. A mother’s voice activated a wide range of brain structures including the amygdala, which regulates emotion, the nucleus accumbens and medial prefrontal cortex, which are part of a major reward circuit, and the fusiform face area, which processes visual face information. This pattern of brain activity can be likened to a neural fingerprint, where a mother’s voice triggers specific activity in her child’s brain.
The investigation didn’t stop there. The team found that the more neural connection between these ‘voice-selective’ brain regions and those related to mood, reward and face processing, the more social communication abilities a child had. In other words, the neural fingerprint of a mother’s voice within a child’s brain can predict that child’s ability to communicate in the social realm.
If that neural fingerprint is thought of as a biomarker in a child’s brain, then how different does it look in children with disorders in social function, such as autism? And how does the neural fingerprint change in adolescence and into adulthood?
The answers to these questions remain unknown, but it is now scientifically proven that most of us carry a mother’s voice in the neural patterns of our brain: bedtime stories, dinnertime conversation and the chatter we heard before birth identify us, uniquely, as surely as the fingerprint, enabling emotional development and social communication in childhood and, probably, through life.
By Kate Fehlhaber
This article was originally published at Aeon and has been republished under Creative Commons. |
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