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One criticism of the Nobel prize committee's decision to award the prize to the EU I have heard is that is a little bit like a lifetime achievement Oscar: at least 20 years too late, and only really brought about by the imminent death of the recipient. Other than the British centre-right press, which thinks the committee's decision is "beyond parody" and a "late April fools joke", that is the line in most of the European mainstream media.
That critique sounds sensible, but personally I think it's nonsense. The consensus now may be to see the Nobel as an award for the achievements of the past, but there are much stronger reasons to the see it – as with Obama in 2009 – as an award for the potential of the future. If I had one word to explain why, it'd be this: Erasmus.
Erasmus is a European Union exchange programme established in 1987, which is widely popular on the continent but barely mentioned in the business sections that lead the way on European coverage in the UK. More than 2.5 million students from across Europe have taken part in it since its inception. The UK is one of the most popular destinations, but one of the less active participants, considering its size: in the 2009/10 academic year, the UK received 22,650 foreign students under the Erasmus exchange scheme, while sending abroad only 11,723.
There are spades of people who have gone on these schemes and never come back. Germans who fell in love with Spaniards, Greek women who ended up marrying Frenchmen, Poles who have kids with Portuguese mothers. The Italian novelist Umberto Eco last year said that "Erasmus has created the first generation of young Europeans." He describes it as "a sexual revolution: a young Catalan man meets a Flemish girl – they fall in love, they get married and they become European, as do their children."
Personally, I can't imagine that these parents and their children would be able to listen to a nationalist rabblerouser calling for war and just listen in silence. They would speak up. What's more important: some of them are likely to become leading figures in the media, in business and in politics over the next 20 years, and they will increasingly think outside national boundaries. If the eurozone crisis can be overcome – and that's a serious if – then there are good chances that it will be followed by a period of peace so prolonged that the last 67 years will look short by comparison.
British EU-sceptics will say that all that cross-country lovemaking was brought about not by stuffy EU bureaucrats, but free trade between nation states. But who has ever fallen in love in a business meeting? The beauty of a scheme like Erasmus is that it has enabled meetings between young people before they start to think about such encounters purely as the means to an exchange of capital, before they slip on the cold mask of commerce. And at any rate, who's to say that a prize shouldn't be romantic? If you really believe that nothing guarantees intercultural harmony as effectively as free trade, then you might as well hand the Nobel peace prize to Ronald McDonald. That would really inspire the continent.
Manuel Barroso, the European commission president, has so far declined to confirm how the prize money will be spent. As Spain is slashing its contribution to the Erasmus scheme for lack of funds, using the €923,680 to extend the scheme – not just to students, but also to "taxi drivers, plumbers and other workers", as Eco has suggested – would at last send out the right signal from Brussels.
A Nobel peace prize for Europe's sexual union – now that's something we could all get genuinely excited about. |
Benjamin Franklin. Thomas Edison. George Washington Carver. Samuel Morse. America is a nation of inventors, and invention has spurred American growth since its inception, to the benefit of all Americans.
That same spirit of invention continues today, and this Administration has worked tirelessly over the past seven years to promote pro-innovation policies to help the U.S. prosper and grow. One area the President has focused on has been spectrum —the airwaves over which our wireless communications travel. By focusing both on making more spectrum available for mobile broadband and supporting research and innovation into better spectrum usage, the President has helped satisfy ever-increasing demand for fast, high-capacity telecommunications that are critical to our economic future.
Today, the Administration continues to build on this history of innovation by announcing new wireless research efforts that will improve testing and research of advanced wireless technologies. This effort will help spur innovation in many ways, from pushing the frontiers of tele-medicine through robot-assisted remote surgeries, to testing of autonomous vehicles that talk to each other to keep us safe, to the roll-out of smart manufacturing equipment in factories, to providing more connectivity for more people. Each one of these innovations has the potential to support increased productivity growth that can put more money in the pocket of American families.
And it comes on the heels of seven remarkable years on broadband growth in the United States, where the average American has seen the speed of wireless broadband multiply up to tenfold, and the tripling of even higher-bandwidth home broadband. This effort began in the first days of this Administration when the President signed the Recovery Act, which funded almost $7 billion in broadband investments, resulting in the deployment of more than 115,000 miles of new or improved broadband infrastructure.
The President also launched initiatives like ConnectED which is on track to connect 99% of students to fast broadband and wireless in their classrooms and libraries by 2018, and ConnectALL, his initiative to get 20 million more Americans to adopt broadband by 2020.
The President’s efforts on wireless kicked into high gear in 2010, when he issued a Presidential Memorandum directing the Department of Commerce through the National Telecommunication and Information Administration (NTIA) to collaborate with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to make available 500 MHz of spectrum for commercial broadband use by 2020. We are halfway to this goal, thanks to hard work from nearly two dozen Federal agencies to free up spectrum for auction and innovative new plans to share the airwaves.
The FCC’s 2015 spectrum auction was its most successful ever, raising more than $40 billion in revenue for the Federal government while spurring the deployment of faster wireless broadband. And this year, the FCC launched an innovative “incentive” auction that will make available substantial additional spectrum in a win-win-win fashion: broadcast stations can voluntarily sell their spectrum if that makes them better off, wireless providers can voluntarily purchase the spectrum if that will support their consumers, all while raising revenue for the Treasury.
Thanks in large part to these forward-thinking spectrum policy initiatives, the United States has become a world leader in wireless, achieving the goal the President set in the 2011 State of the Union that more than 98 percent of Americans should have access to fast 4G/LTE mobile broadband, which operates at speeds up to ten times faster than eight years ago. These policies also help to ensure that the United States is ahead of the curve in working to avoid a spectrum crunch, where the fixed amount of spectrum available would limit new development.
Why has this Administration worked so hard to free up spectrum, to get people connected, and to create wireless laboratories for businesses, entrepreneurs and local governments to experiment with new wireless applications?
The answer is simple: to grow the economy. Innovation is a key driver of productivity growth, and productivity growth will help to raise living standards and wages. These policies are designed to enable Americans of all backgrounds to participate—and innovate—in our increasingly digital economy, both driving productivity growth and sharing in its benefits. A recent CEA report describes the many benefits to connectivity.
But we have more work ahead of us to ensure that the benefits of these innovations—higher standards of living, real wages, etc.—are accessible to all Americans. That is why, in addition to traditional pro-growth policies, this Administration has also pursued initiatives that help everyone get connected, and maximize the impacts when people do get online, so that all Americans can take part in the new economic opportunities that come as a result of new innovations.
Today, for example, marks the one-year anniversary of ConnectHome, an initiative led by HUD to extend affordable broadband access to families living in HUD-assisted housing in 28 pilot communities, increase digital literacy, and provide access to low-cost devices. With new commitment from internet service provider partners like Comcast and Cox, both of whom are extending their low-cost offers to HUD-assisted households within their footprint, ConnectHome will now reach over 2 million Americans. That can be a game-changer for Americans like Stacie B., a single mother in Little Rock, Arkansas, who through this program received digital literacy training, a tablet, and low-cost Internet—all of which helped her gain new job skills, and her daughter apply for college and financial aid.
That sort of change at the community level will go even further when the Federal Reserve Bank releases new guidance next week on Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) funding. “Closing the Digital Divide: A Framework for Meeting CRA Obligations,” will outline how banks can apply more of the $100 billion in CRA funding nationwide to support broadband in underserved communities.
Whether they’re helping Americans get online at home or on the go, where they learn or where they work, these efforts are making a difference for our economy—allowing American families, businesses, and entrepreneurs to innovate and benefit from innovations, and helping continue to drive America’s productivity growth in the same way that our great inventors have done for years. |
The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has cited an Ohio poultry processing facility operated by Case Farms Processing Inc. for two willful, 20 repeat, 30 serious, and three other-than-serious safety and health violations. The country’s 13th-largest supplier of chicken, whose customers include national fast-food and supermarket brands, faces $861,500 in fines and was added to the agency’s Severe Violator Enforcement Program. OSHA’s February 2015 inspection found amputation hazards, a lack of personal protective equipment, numerous violations of electrical safety standards, improperly stored oxygen cylinders, a lack of emergency eye-wash stations, and fall hazards due to non-functioning fall-arrest systems, unprotected platforms and wet work surfaces. “Case Farms is an outrageously dangerous place to work,” said Dr. David Michaels, assistant secretary of labor for occupational safety and Health. “In the past 25 years, Case Farms has been cited for more than 350 safety and health violations. Despite committing to OSHA that it would eliminate serious hazards, Case Farms continues to endanger the safety and health of its workers. This simply must stop.” Case Farms responded that it would not be appropriate “to comment on ongoing administrative matters,” but company officials made it clear that it does not agree with OSHA “on the negative characterizations that have been made about our companies and our employees.” According to OSHA, Case Farms has an extensive history of health and safety violations. Since 1988, OSHA and the Occupational Safety and Health Division of North Carolina’s Department of Labor have inspected the company 66 times at its facilities in North Carolina and Ohio, with citations issued in 42 of those inspections. A majority of the inspections were initiated after worker injuries, complaints or referrals. In 2013, the company agreed to address safety violations in a settlement agreement with OSHA after being cited for exposing workers to dangerous machinery and other hazards at its Winesburg facility. However, follow-up inspections led to the issuance of citations on May 28, 2015, addressing failure to make sure that machines had safety guards to protect workers and allowing electrical hazards. Case Farms has contested those citations. In addition, OSHA is currently investigating Case Farms facilities in Canton, OH, after receiving reports of employee injuries there. The company has 15 business days from receipt of its citations and penalties to comply, request an informal conference with OSHA’s area director, or contest the findings before the independent Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission. Founded in 1986, Case Farms processes 2.8 million chickens a week. It employs 3,200 people in North Carolina and Ohio, producing more than 900 million pounds of fresh, partially cooked and frozen-for-export poultry each year. (To sign up for a free subscription to Food Safety News, click here.) |
Kevin Milligan is professor of economics at the UBC Vancouver School of Economics.
The design of income supports in our social safety net always involves tough choices. For those who are struggling, we want to provide enough income to enjoy a decent standard of living. But we also need to make sure employment is financially rewarding for those who are able to work.
Now, a potential solution is gathering attention around the world. Some call it a "guaranteed annual income"; others call it a "basic income" or a "negative income tax." By whatever name, the idea is the same: Replace existing income supports with a scheme that pays everyone a set amount from the public purse. In some versions, the transfer would be universal – everyone gets the same. In others, it would be phased out as income grows so that high earners would receive less. The premise is that these schemes would unlock the work potential of lower earners once they're freed from our existing income support system.
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Finland recently announced plans to study a basic income scheme. Canadians ranging from Alberta's NDP Finance Minister Joe Ceci to former Conservative senator Hugh Segal have spoken favourably of such schemes in the past. Proposals are also under discussion in the Netherlands and Switzerland. The common thread running through these stories is that everyone is talking about it, but no one is actually doing much. Why not? The reason is that these universal schemes would be unimaginably expensive.
The Finnish example is typical of the fiscal folly. The Finns propose a monthly transfer of €800 ($1,200) a person, which sounds nice until you do the math and figure out this would require a doubling of existing taxes to fund the program. This transfer would barely replace what low-income Finns already get under their existing social support system, so the bloated scheme would simply pay out big cheques to those who don't need them, doing little to help those who are struggling. Not only would this plan be unimaginably expensive, but it's hard to see why there would be any social gain that would begin to offset the costs.
In Canadian terms, an equivalent transfer of $1,200 a month would cost the treasury more than $500-billion a year. Of course, you might then be able to cancel existing social assistance, child benefits, employment insurance and Old Age Security – but that would only add up to about $100-billion in savings, leaving you $400-billion short. As a reference point, current Canadian federal revenues are about $300-billion a year, so we'd need to more than double our current taxes to pay for it. In the Canadian political world, new programs costing $1-billion or $2-billion generate intense political heat, so a Finnish-style basic income proposal costing in the hundreds of billions is simply a non-starter for Canada.
But we can still learn something from the basic income debate while taking a more incremental and realistic approach. Rather than a universal basic income to replace all existing programs, we could provide a modest, targeted transfer that is means-tested through a gradual phase-out as income rises. This way, those who find work don't immediately lose all their benefits, and so we can balance the desire to help with efficient work incentives. We also can target the benefits where they will do the most good, instead of including high earners in the plan.
In fact, the federal Liberal government's proposed new child benefit does just that. It will pay about $500 a month for each child and be phased out as income rises. Moreover, economists Wayne Simpson and Harvey Stevens have a similar proposal for the personal exemption and other non-refundable tax credits in our income tax system. They would transform the existing credits into a basic income for everyone, phased out for higher earners. The cost would be an extra $6-billion to $7-billion over the existing system, but we're not talking Finnish-sized payments here. The transfer would be at most $1,300 a year – a 10th the size of the Finnish proposal.
Both the Liberal child benefit plan and the Simpson and Stevens tax credit plan cut back the costs of a Finnish-style scheme by paying a much more modest benefit and phasing it out for higher-income Canadians. Rather than discussing utopian schemes costing hundreds of billions, it makes a lot more sense for us to take the broad principles of the basic income and apply them incrementally to improve the system we have. |
Advertisement Lab technician braves blizzard for results that save newborn's life Eight-week-old baby had rare genetic disorder Share Shares Copy Link Copy
A baby just a few days old had a condition that could have killed her and her parents had no idea how bad it was, but an act of heroism in the middle of a blizzard saved her life.Watch the reportEight-week-old Juliana Salvi is the picture of health today, but she was born with a rare genetic disorder that almost killed her: Galactosemia -- a severe allergy to milk.“Unknowingly we were feeding her milk. Because she's a baby,” Charlene Salvi said. “Basically it was poisoning her.”Just hours after mom and dad brought her home, Juliana became very sick, and her parents would have never known what was wrong, if it hadn’t been for Juliana's newborn screening and a small group of lab workers who realized how critical that screening can be.Juliana was born during the January blizzard, and when UPS postponed deliveries for safety reasons, lab workers, like Melody Rush, made the drive themselves to 25 local hospitals to pick up and analyze those newborn blood tests.“We all worked together to pick up these specimens,” Rush said. “It was a nice feeling knowing it made a difference in that case.”“We were only home for a couple of hours before we got the call from the lab telling us that we need to get to Children's right now,” Mike Salvi said.It saved Juliana Salvi’s life. Just like the program is meant to.“The goal of newborn screening is to identify babies who would otherwise go undetected and with treatable disorders and pick them up before there's irreversible damage,” Dr. Neela Sahai, of the UMass Medical School Newborn Screening Program, said.“We're just so grateful to, one, newborn screening and, two, that staff that took it upon themselves because they know the urgency of getting back those labs,” Charlene Salvi said.Click here for more information about the UMass Medical School's Newborn Screening Probram. |
President Obama urged his successor on Friday to learn more about foreign affairs before he starts meeting with world leaders.
In his year end press conference, Obama said that he had told President-elect Trump that he should make sure he conducts foreign policy in a "systematic, deliberate, intentional way."
"My advice to him has been that before he starts having a lot of interactions with foreign governments other than the usual courtesy calls, that he should want to have his full team in place, that he should want his team to be fully briefed on what's gone on in the past and where the potential pitfalls may be, where the opportunities are, what we've learned from eight years of experience so that as he's then maybe taking foreign policy in a new direction, he's got all the information to make good decisions," Obama said.
Trump recently came under fire for taking a call from the president of Taiwan, appearing to buck America's "One China" policy. Some experts speculated that an incident this week where China stole a U.S. Navy drone operating in the South China Sea was spurred by the incident.
Still, Obama said it's Trump's "obligation" to take a fresh look at the U.S. policy toward China since "there is probably no bilateral relationship that carries more significance."
"I think all of our foreign policy should be subject to fresh eyes," he said. "If you're here for eight years in the bubble, you start seeing things a certain way and you benefit, the democracy benefits, American benefits from some new perspectives." |
Once again we return to our So You Want My Job series, in which we interview men who are employed in desirable jobs and ask them about the reality of their work and for advice on how men can live their dream.
It seems like every little boy, at some point, has dreams of being a pro athlete. While the chances are slim he’ll hold onto that dream, let alone make it a reality, our interviewee today did just that. We had the chance to talk with NFL player Duane Brown about how he made his childhood dream a reality, and about a few of the ins and outs of daily life in the NFL. As an offensive lineman, he doesn’t get as much glory or TV time as the QB, (and as a humble man he won’t tell you this himself) but he was named an All-Pro last year, and is often called the best tackle in all of football.
1. Tell us a little about yourself (Where are you from? How old are you? Describe just a little bit how you got to the NFL, etc.).
I am from Richmond, Virginia and had the pleasure of going to college in my home state at Virginia Tech (Go Hokies!). I’m 28 years old and I have two incredible children and the most amazing woman in the world as my wife. I’ve been playing football since I was six and was drafted in the first round in 2008 by the Houston Texans. I’ve been with Houston ever since and I love living in the city of Houston.
2. Why did you want to become a professional football player? When did you know it was what you wanted to do?
I knew since an early age that I wanted to be a pro. My dad had this videotape called “NFL Crunch Course” that I used to watch all the time and I would always imagine myself in one of those positions. When I got to Virginia Tech, I progressed rapidly and knew that I would have a great opportunity to live my dream soon after.
3. It’s extremely difficult to make it into the NFL. Only .2% of high school football players will ever play for a NFL team. What do you think are the most important factors in beating those crazy odds? Work? Talent? Luck? What advice would you give to a young man who dreams of making it to the NFL, or becoming any kind of professional athlete?
It’s a perfect combination of work, talent, and luck. Some people have a God-given talent and for them I’d recommend working tirelessly to be great, because talent alone won’t always get you here or keep you here. My favorite quote is “hard work beats talent if talent doesn’t work hard.”
4. Tell us a little bit about your high school career and your college recruitment. In today’s world, teenagers are being recruited younger and younger by the major college programs. Was that your experience? Were you tabbed from a young age to be a potential star?
I got recruited heavily in my junior and senior year of high school. When I got injured with a broken leg my senior year and sat out for two months of the season, recruitment dropped significantly. In high school I played tight end and defensive end, and a lot of colleges didn’t know which side of the ball I’d be in their program. Even with my injury, Virginia Tech stuck by my side and a representative even came to visit me after my surgery. That stayed with me and created a special relationship with the staff that led me to choose VT as my future home. I played tight end and right tackle up until my senior year, when coaches moved me to the left tackle position.
5. What was your college experience like as a Division I football player?
I had a great experience at Virginia Tech. They have a great program and challenging coursework. The city of Blacksburg really embraces the football program and I created some great friendships and memories while I was there. The VT spirit and Hokie nation on game day is an indescribable atmosphere.
6. You switched positions in college – from tight end to offensive line. No matter the job, switching to a new position (or department) can be challenging. Were you excited? Was it difficult?
It was a mixture of emotions. I had the luxury of catching a touchdown pass my freshman year as a tight end, so I got used to that feeling. I was a second string tight end, though, so having the ability to start as a tackle was intriguing. I was also nervous, however, because I didn’t have a gauge on how I would perform. When the decision was made to put me at left tackle permanently, I was extremely excited because I was told how good I could be and the type of opportunity it could create for me in the pros. I was confident I could be successful.
7. What is an average day like for you? And also, what does a typical game day look like? Do you have any pre-game rituals?
An average day consists of waking up at 6am, heading to practice and heading home around 5pm. While at practice we meet for about 4 hours, practice for 2 hours, and I work out for 1.5 hours and spend the rest of the day studying film and doing maintenance on my body. On game day I like to get to the stadium early. Usually I listen to music or watch a few scenes from the movie 300 while I’m preparing for battle.
8. What is the work/life balance like?
During the season it’s kind of tough. The majority of my time and energy is fully focused on football, whether it’s practice, personal workouts, or Texan related events. My wife and I go to the movies a lot or serial watch shows for fun. I enjoy face-timing with and talking to my kids every chance I get.
9. What’s the best part of your job?
Game day. There is nothing like running out of the tunnel and feeling that adrenalin rush — getting to do something you love with a group of friends who share a common goal.
10. What’s the worst part of your job?
The wear and tear on your body. Waking up with aches and pains.
11. What’s the biggest misconception people have about what it’s like to be a NFL player?
People don’t realize how much work we put in outside of game day. They think we have it easy or are not deserving of the contracts we get, as if we won the lottery. There is so much work that goes into doing what we do that no one sees.
12. Any other advice, tips, commentary, or anecdotes you’d like to add?
Don’t take anything for granted — what you have, people you love, or what you do. Nothing is guaranteed. Having an attitude of gratitude is the way I approach my life. |
Madison McVeigh/CityLab
When landscape architects attract flocks to urban centers, city dwellers are keen to look up.
“We need to have a common language in place,” Elbin says of the project. “We need to come up with working definitions and descriptions of green roofs. We need to be speaking with people who are creating the roofs and maintaining them.” View from the top Meanwhile, as the built environment becomes friendlier to avian neighbors, it’s changing bird-watching, too. To bird-watch in cities, one need only look up—or, increasingly, climb to the roof. In 2009, inspired by the view from the ground, the ornithologist David Lindo—nicknamed the Urban Birder—decided to attempt a closer view of the flocks of wood pigeons in the West London skies. “They were so beautiful to watch from down below,” Lindo recalls. “In 90 minutes, I had seen roughly 16,000 or 17,000 of them fly over. I wanted to get elevated to try and see this from a higher perspective.” Lindo started contacting high-rises around the city about roof access. His lucky break came when the property managers of Tower 42 agreed to let him up. Stoic and sterile in typical postwar fashion, the 47-story structure is neither a standout in height nor in eco-friendliness, but for bird-watching, its flat, fenced roof is ideal. Lindo’s chance rooftop visit turned into the Tower 42 Bird Study Group, whose weekly sessions feature not only wood pigeons but also peregrines, kestrels, and anything that flies over London skies. The group began partnering with the London Wildlife Trust last month as part of the City of London’s wider efforts to survey bird populations in the region.
Over the past decade, Lindo has visited about 270 cities, wildlife-spotting from landmarks like Taipei 101 and a former League of Communists of Yugoslavia headquarters in Belgrade, Serbia. “One of the things that I teach and preach is for people to get on roofs all over the world,” Lindo says. “It's my life's mission to engage with people who may not have thought of birds and wildlife before.”
Lindo is committed to bridging the rural-urban divide that runs throughout modern bird-watching history. Colonialism in the 19th century brought European scientists to diverse climes and geographic regions, spurring ornithology’s maturation as a specialized science. As the body of bird literature grew, field guides continued to center avian life in nature, away from industrialization, away from cities. Even now, there’s a rift in nomenclature. Many prefer to describe the hobby as “birding” rather than “bird-watching.” The former implies active intent—driving to far-flung locales, listening for bird calls, alternating between long waits and long walks—while the more passive “bird-watching” requires less time and certainly less wilderness. But this rural-urban divide is less stark from the air than it is on land. Migratory patterns predate towering church spires and International Style office buildings, and when cities fall on migration routes, birds cut through. Cities are changing fast. Keep up with the CityLab Daily newsletter. The best way to follow issues you care about. Subscribe Loading... “When I was growing up, I was told that there's no wildlife in cities,” Lindo says. “And that probably fired me on to discover this wildlife.” And in sharing his discoveries with others, Lindo is bringing birding out of the rural wilderness and into urban life—but you don’t have to live in specific cities in order to participate. Last July, the Javits Center green roof rolled out a live video feed. The camera broadcasts an around-the-clock, east-facing view of sedum and skyscrapers to anyone with a YouTube connection. It’s more accessible than New York, perhaps even more so than any roof (though free tours of the sprawling space are available by request). But the feeling of glimpsing gulls fly across the screen is no less satisfying. |
Once Houston started to flood, I saw post after post on my Facebook and Twitter feeds, all saying, in so many words, "If only Houston was more regulated,Houston would stop flooding!" (Here's one of the more persuasive examples).* Are all these posts right? Yes…and no.
To understand why, imagine two possible zoning codes: one for the pro-environment city of Ecoland, and the other for the typical American city of Usualville.
In Ecoland, preventing and mitigating flooding is the first priority. This means that the city and its neighbors would prevent flooding by prohibiting development of wetlands and by minimizing the number of impervious surfaces—that is, roads and parking lots that do not soak up rain. If there are lots of impervious surfaces, rain runs off from the impervious surfaces into bayous and rivers and dams, making those bodies of water overcrowded and more likely to flood.
But minimizing impervious surfaces requires policies that are a bit unusual. First, government would, like cities in Oregon, use zoning to create a greenbelt (or, in plannerese, "urban growth boundaries") around the city—that is, to prevent the outer edges of the region from being paved over to build more impervious surfaces. This might raise housing prices. If more people moved into the city, they would be accommodated by making the already-built-up part of the city more compact—which the city's existing residents might not like.
Second, the city would not build new roads to suburbia, because those roads encourage suburban development, which in turn means that those suburbs get paved over with parking lots and secondary roads, thus reducing the amount of grass and wetlands available to soak up rain. In addition, existing roads would be as narrow as possible, because each new lane of road is another lane of impervious surface. Of course, drivers might not like that.
Third, the city would use zoning to minimize surface parking (another impervious surface). The most coercive possible zoning code would simply outlaw surface parking lots. A more moderate code would at least abolish minimum parking requirements, leaving parking up to the market. Why? Because when government mandates parking for stores and apartments (as is the case in Houston, as well as in most of the United States) many landowners will build surface parking lots because such lots are cheaper than aboveground or underground structures. Obviously, fewer parking lots might inconvenience drivers, so this policy also might be controversial.
Fourth, Ecoland would take an ax to height and density regulations. Most zoning codes strictly limit tall buildings, and limit density by requiring houses to take up some minimum amount of land. (Houston too has density regulations, though they are a bit more lenient than those of some Sunbelt cities.) But if a city's close-in neighborhoods are dominated by big houses and short apartment buildings, the close-in areas might not have enough housing to go around—so development has to shift to places further away from downtown, which means more paving of previously rural and suburban places, which of course means more impervious surfaces. So density-phobia would have to be washed out of the zoning code.
In addition, the city’s regulations would focus on adaptation—that is, making sure that when a flood comes, people don’t drown. Normal, anti-density zoning tends to regulate height strictly, which means that most people live in single-story houses and garden apartment complexes. But single-story buildings are death traps in a flood-happy city like Houston, because people cannot flee to higher floors when a flood comes.
So under Ecoland’s zoning code, any new residential single-story buildings would have to be somehow elevated to make them taller than a typical one-story building. In the absence of such elevation, houses and apartment buildings would have to be two stories or more (at least). In addition, the code would make multistory residential buildings the norm, by eliminating regulations limiting height. Where most cities have maximum height requirements, Ecoland would have minimum height requirements.
Some urbanists believe that walk-up bulidings promote street life, and thus would oppose any building over five or six stories. But in an aging society, more and more people will be unable to use stairs. (In fact, I have friends in their mid-50s who have “stair issues” due to weak knees and other problems.) So if Ecoland residents are forced into walk-ups, many seniors would be forced to live on the death-trap first floor. To avoid this outcome, any height limit would be generous enough to accommodate mid-rise elevator buildings—say, at least 10-20 stories.
Another concern about taller buildings is that after a storm, electricity outages might eliminate elevator service, thus trapping people who cannot climb stairs in their apartments. Although this is a serious problem, it is a much less serious problem than people drowning in single-story houses or garden apartments.
So if you compare Houston to Ecoland, you might say to yourself: "Houston doesn’t have any of these rules; thus, Houston needs zoning and lots of it!"
But this view is simplistic, because no zoning code resembles that of Ecoland (though some cities in the Pacific Northwest adopt a few Ecoland-like policies). To imagine what Houston would be like with zoning, it probably makes more sense to compare Houston to other automobile-oriented cities with zoning, such as Dallas or Atlanta.
So what does the zoning code of a typical city (my hypothetical Usualville) look like?
*Government mandates that most landowners build lots of parking for their tenants and customers. This parking often comes in the form of surface parking- that is, new impervious surface. So Usualville’s zoning actually encourages flooding by encouraging the creation of new impervious surfaces.
*Density and height regulations limit close-in development, which means development is forced into new suburbs. New suburbs mean new roads and parking lots- that is, new impervious surface that means more flooding. And to the extent than Usualville’s height regulations encourage or require one- and two-story buildings, they create more buildings that are unsafe when it floods.
Usualville’s transportation policies are also pro-flooding. Usualville, like Houston, builds lots of new roads to facilitate suburban development. These new roads are of course impervious themselves. And as the road-created suburbs develop, new roads and parking lots are built for the suburbs’ new residents. And even in existing neighborhoods, road design standards may favor wide roads with wide lanes—that is, even more impervious surface.
So if Houston's hypothetical zoning was like that of a typical American city, it might not be significantly less likely to flood. But if Houston's zoning was focused on Houston's unusual weather conditions, it might do some good—although at the sacrifice of other valid public goals.
*I note that even if the right policies would prevent some floods, they might not prevent floods as large as this week's flood (see here for an argument on that side of the issue). Between 1992 and 2010, development wiped out enough wetlands to handle 4 billion gallons of water—but this week's storm is likely to drop 9 trillion gallons on Houston. |
This morning on a certain social media site, I wrote, “Hey Robert Doyle. You’re a fucking cunt. That is all.” I did this because I think Robert Doyle is a fucking cunt. I also did it because the idea of addressing this information to him directly was pleasing, even in the form of a mock address. Various people immediately unsubscribed from receiving my updates (‘unfollowed’, if you’re in the know). The interesting question is how such people came to be following me in the first place. If someone is a) a Robert Doyle fan, or b) offended by phrases like ‘fucking cunt’, they probably shouldn’t be around my conversation at any time.
If you by chance are a Robert Doyle fan or offended by phrases like ‘fucking cunt’, then you’re a bit late, because I’ve already said ‘fucking cunt’ six times including that last one. And have linked the phrase directly to Robert Doyle. But you should probably still bail out now, because although I haven’t written it yet, I have a feeling this article will contain further instances of both these things.
If you’re not a) a Doyle fan or b) offended (i.e., if you are a reasonable person) then on we go. Of course, you may still want to sidetrack this into a debate about whether using ‘cunt’ as an insult is terribly sexist and cetera. Eric Dando’s wonderful short story ‘Beautiful Useful Things’ contends that since cunts are the beautiful useful things of the title, the word should be high praise. (Some parts of the story are online here.) I tend to agree, and try using it in affectionate contexts as often as possible. Still. As TISM told us, there’s a big difference between a cunt and a fucking cunt, and this morning, I couldn’t think of any pithier way to describe what Robert Doyle is.
Here’s why. Robert Doyle is the mayor of Melbourne, and a failed human being of the highest order. His mediocrity in all pursuits is so impressive as to almost elevate him beyond the bounds of mediocrity. But not. His inherent ability to suck draws him back down. So Robert Doyle is not a fucking cunt in the way that someone like Phillip Ruddock was a fucking cunt. Phillip Ruddock was awful, relatively powerful, and dangerous. Robert Doyle is a useless fucking cunt.
I would say that “Robert Doyle first came to our attention in…”, but… he didn’t. He didn’t come to anyone’s attention. That’s something he’s never been able to do. Robert Doyle fell arse-backwards into the role of Victorian Opposition Leader for the Liberal Party back in 2002. Jeff Kennett had lost the previous election, spat the dummy like the petulant spotlight-hogger that he was, and quit. Lots of senior Liberals went with him, recognising that their days were done for quite some time. Only the dregs remained. Dennis Napthine then put in his bid to be the creepiest Liberal leader ever. He looked like a shifty cayman that had just discovered pomade, and no-one could listen to him speak for more than fifteen seconds without breaking out in hives. The fact that Napthine was even a contender showed what an awful state the party was in. Really he was the sacrifice, the Brendan Nelson, the guy to cop the damage of the previous loss, then be replaced. When he inevitably got the arse before the next election, there were still no other decent contenders. Enter the dullest man in politics, Robert Doyle.
Doyle was so dull he could have been captain of the Dullard Dulcimers Dullball team from Dulwich Village, Dullshire. Except captain would have been too interesting. He would have been the substitute who never got a game. At the time, my friend Rabbi and I were toying with the idea of starting a satirical newspaper. This never got off the ground, due to our alcohol intake and The Chaser emerging as a far better version of the same idea, but we did come up with some good content. Impressed by Doyle’s anonymity, one was the Liberal overthrow article titled “Napthine replaced by some guy.”
“Even deposed Liberal leader Dennis Napthine didn’t know who his replacement was. ‘I’ve never heard of him’, said Napthine. ‘Apparently he was some guy. That was enough to sound better than me. I voted for him.’” “After speculation today that the new leader may have been Robert Doyle, even Robert Doyle denied knowing who Robert Doyle is.”
(This was probably my second-favourite piece we came up with. My favourite was when we reported, post-Tampa, that the Sri Lankan cricket team had been detained on arrival for a Test tour. “Australian vice-captain and wicketkeeper Adam Gilchrist questioned the move, saying that detention seemed a harsh reaction to Muttiah Muralitharan’s suspect bowling action. Mr Ruddock later responded, saying ‘I don’t care if he’s got a correct action or not. He’s bloody well black, and he’s staying behind bars until he learns better.’”)
It was in office that Doyle’s predisposition to fucking cuntery began to make itself known. The guy was the definition of a windbag: huffing, hissing, complaining, a sheen of sweat constantly precipitating on that giant round head, like a big meat-balloon straining at its seams, sprayed down half-hourly with a solution of glycerine. Look at a bratwurst in a pan, greased and spitting and straining to split its skin – that’s Robert Doyle’s speaking face. He was haughty and irritating. He thought he knew better than everyone. It came as no surprise to learn he’d been a teacher and administrator at Scotch College: he looked and sounded exactly the kind of dull disciplinarian who harked back to Tom Brown’s Schooldays for a simpler age when a bit of forcible buggery was what showed you the difference between boys and men.
He ran the Liberal Party into the ground, in a way that makes the Gillard government look sturdy and on course for victory. In the one election Doyle contested, the Libs won 17 of 88 seats. His approval rate as leader was polled at 15 percent. He was replaced, and quit after the next election loss in 2006.
Just the kind of stand-up guy that you wouldn’t want to lose to politics, right? So in 2008 he decided to contest for Lord Mayor of Melbourne. It was a hilarious portrait of an abject failure determined to try to claw out some kind of restitution, to find some balm for his abraded ego. He didn’t understand that Lord Mayor was a pointless ceremonial position that had been filled for years by a comedian using the alter ego of ‘John So’. Doyle took it seriously. It had ‘Lord’ in the title. It had robes and chains and shit. Finally he could be king of a crappy little castle.
And somehow – presumably because no-one thought to pay it the slightest attention – he won.
Since then, Doyle’s predilection for experimenting with various modes of fucking cuntaciousness has been expressed to its fullest extent. He’s like a washed up sprinter who, having failed at Olympic selection, and AIS selection, and state selection, and the university aths club, then gets in a drunken 100 metres challenge in the car park at the Mackay races and wins against two wasted cane-farmers and a blind kid, then runs around town for the next seven years yelling “Champion of north-eastern Australia!” He likes to think that he’s now important. He likes to think that we’ve all forgotten his burst colostomy bag of a career. Actually we mostly have, because nothing about him is memorable. But Doyle has not forgotten. His past burns at him like a superheated grass-burr lodged in his haemorrhoids. With every act and every word, Doyle is trying to compensate for the vividly-coloured tapestry of failure that is the conversation piece in the lobby of his life. He is shaking in a corner, rocking back and forth, masturbating furiously and whispering, “I’m important. I’m important. I’m important.”
So he struts about Melbourne like it’s a personal fiefdom. He comes up with stupid plans to get attention, grand visions for the city that apparently didn’t occur to him when he was… you know… in Parliament. He proclaims what kind of people should and shouldn’t be allowed on his streets. He spends stupid amounts of money on marketing and new logos, while cranking up parking fines and enforcement to try to keep more cash coming in. And he talks. By god, that motherfucker just talks.
But this last week, we really got to see him being… well, a massive fucking cunt. As the Occupy Melbourne movement set up their protest in the city, he took it as a personal affront. Melbourne, you see, is his now. I’m the Mayor! I’m the LORD fucking Mayor, bitches! Look at my faux-fur! Look at my leopard spots! Look at my pendants! Yes, I look like a pimp out of a mid-90s ghetto movie send-up. Lick my stockings! Tell me I’m your Papa!
So how dare people who live in Melbourne and such, use the streets of their city as though they had a right to?
Now, I haven’t been in Australia the last couple of weeks. I’m following this from overseas. I don’t really get what Occupy is all about, and I’m not advocating for it. Personally it seems like yet another annoyingly amorphous protest movement, the same sort of thing that so royally gave me the shits at university. You’d walk past a rally against WorkChoices, and it would be full of people saving the whales and Jabiluka and abortions and the spotted quoll. Activists are very good at presumption, assuming that if you agree with one part of their agenda, you agree with all of it. Your support gets co-opted.
It sounds like there’s plenty of that going on with Occupy Melbourne – people treating it as the noticeboard to tack their particular grievance to. It sounds like the nutbars are amongst it, as they generally are. But it also sounds like there are plenty of sensible, reasonable people there, taking advantage of this opportunity to say that yes, business is too dominant a priority in government decision-making. Yes, companies are allowed to get away with things that would be criminal for individuals. Yes, industry has too much influence in Parliament. Just look at the mining giants felling a Prime Minister, or the political campaigns funded by industries against any reform they don’t like. No, our situation is not as bad as it is in the States. But our situation could turn sour very quickly.
Anyway. Regardless of the right or wrong of the argument being made, people in Australia have the right to protest. They have the right to assembly. At least, they theoretically have this right, but find that right ignored constantly by police whenever it suits police to do so.
And Robert Doyle, with that twitch in his pants that any school disciplinarian can’t resist, had another opportunity to have power over people. You’ve got detention. Your shirt isn’t tucked in. You’re going to get bashed on a public street by officers of the law.
So Doyle called in the cops, and told them to clear the protest out. One, he had no right to do it in the first place. Two, he didn’t bother trying to negotiate a compromise. Three, he knew it would get violent. Indeed, the whole purpose of it was to get violent. He wanted a show of force. He was spoiling for a fight. Four, we ended up with about 400 police, including riot squads and horses, to disperse less than 100 protesters.
And like a disingenuous tricky little cunt, he used the Queen’s visit as an excuse for his actions. Well, get fucked. This is our country, and this is what is happening in it. Why should the Queen be shielded from the reality of life in Australia? She is our head of state, after all. She really should be the first to know what’s actually going on.
The protesters, from the vision I’ve seen, behaved admirably. The police response was execrable. If you don’t believe me, try this clip from the bastion of socialist activism, The Herald Sun.
In it, protestors passively sit or stand, arms linked, and refuse to move. Police hunt in packs, three or four of them charging someone, then dragging them out of the group by their head, neck, and arms. They drag them across the ground, injuring and frightening the hell out of them. They do it to women as happily as to men. Tell me, if someone did that to your mate’s girlfriend on a night out, what would happen? Outrage? Yep. Punch-on? Probably. Press charges? No doubt. But because the assailants are acting under orders, it’s suddenly ok? The media reports include factoids like “two police were injured”, without mentioning that they were injured by their own pepper spray, being used on people who had not committed a crime, could not legally be arrested, and were not resisting.
This is police-state bullshit that has no place here. And yet it will be tolerated, and there will be an investigation, and some moustache will say “the officers were found to have behaved appropriately”, even though there are dozens of videos right there on the internet that show this is not true. The police will be allowed to get away with it because the police always are, and until that changes, all this talk of our freedoms is police-horse-shit.
“The time has come for us to return City Square to the people of Melbourne”, said Doyle. Hey Cuntcillor. Those are the people of Melbourne. That’s their city square. The city square being the place that for thousands of years has been a meeting place and a rally point, an exchange of information and ideas. Using that space is one of their basic rights. Your approval of the way they use it means three-fifths of jack-shit. Then there’s the other Doyle line: “there comes a time when you say okay you’ve made your point, time’s up.” Again: bullshit. There is no time limit on civil rights. How do you know what point they’re making? You haven’t even been willing to speak to them, to engage in the democratic process of which you are supposedly a part.
It’s the lack of outrage that’s the outrageous bit. The general reaction seems to be, hey, everyone has the right to free assembly and to protest. Oh, except that it’s a bit inconvenient when you do that, because it kind of gets in the way. So you have that right as long as you’re not in the way, and you have less of that right if we think you’re just a bunch of lefty ferals, and if you insist on that right then we have the right to get you roughed up and intimidated and hauled off by cops, even though we won’t charge you, because you haven’t broken any laws.
The real clincher, the sheep’s eyeball on the sewage sundae, was the vision of Doyle peering down from his office window at the chaos in the street below. The chaos he had decided to inflict. He looked for all the world like some wannabe French nobleman, watching his soldiers quell a peasant uprising. Not prepared to engage with the reality, but happy to watch from afar. Knowing he was safe and warm in his office as people were injured in the arena. What a cunt. He would do well to remember what happened to a lot of those French noblemen when the crowds in the street could no longer be quelled.
That image tells us everything we need to know. The violent response to Occupy is all about a man with delusions of grandeur. It’s a way for one crap official to get territorial about something he thinks is his. It’s a chance for Doyle, the most pathetic failure in Australian politics, to suddenly swing a fat salami around and imagine it’s his cock. Briefly, ever so briefly, he can pretend. Of course, we all know it’ll fade. We all know that he’ll come to his senses, in that post-climax pit of self-loathing, and see himself as he really is: a grotesque caricature of a man, corpulent and swollen, petty and pointless, standing naked in front of the mirror with some choice Don smallgoods hanging greasy from his mitt, no longer shielding him from the grim fact of his own inconsequence. He knows it too. That’s why he’s so bitter. That’s why he’s so desperate. That’s why for as long as his lungs hate him enough to let him keep on breathing, he’ll keep taking it out on the world by being the biggest utter fucking cunt he possibly can. And that’s why I wanted to tell him. |
The search for alternative energy sources in the age of climate change has overlooked tidal energy: a vast and unexploited worldwide resource.
For three decades now, tidal lagoon schemes have been recommended as an economically and environmentally attractive alternative to tidal barrages. More recently, two proposals for tidal lagoons in Swansea Bay, Wales have emerged and there have been several reports documenting how such a project there could have the potential to harness significant energy resources.
Tidal energy involves constructing a barrage, a dam or some other sort of barrier to harvest power from the height difference between high and low tides.
The power is generated by running the water through turbines, found within the barrier. The technology used is very similar to that found in hydropower schemes, however unlike rivers tidal currents run in two directions.
Where a tidal barrage blocks off an entire estuary, a tidal lagoon instead impounds an artificially created area of the sea or estuary. A lagoon doesn’t necessarily have to be connected to the shore – it could even sit out in the ocean.
As the tide goes out the lagoon remains closed, and full. It then opens the flood gates to let the water out until water levels on each side of the lagoon wall are even. When the tide comes in the process is reversed.
George Aggidis , Author provided
It’s tough to estimate exactly how much tidal power can be exploited, but the UK may have close to half of Europe’s total. And few potential sites worldwide are as close to electricity users and the transmission grid as those in the UK.
Why Swansea?
Swansea Bay is located in the Bristol Channel on the South Wales coastline. As part of the Severn Estuary it experiences one of the world’s largest tidal ranges, often reaching 10m.
A tidal lagoon has been mooted in the bay before, back in 2004, but the latest proposals are on a grander scale. The structure shown below would cover 11.5 km2, cost £913m to construct, and would be capable of generating 495 GWh per year – enough energy to power 155,000 homes.
Case
Rising tides
The Swansea Bay scheme demonstrates a renewed interest in tidal power, which has many advantages compared to other renewable sources. It is well documented that increasing integration of volatile, unpredictable sources of renewable energy such as wind and solar power jeopardises the stability of the power grid.
In order for the grid to remain stable the power generated at any instance has to match demand, therefore it is important that the transmission network contains power sources that are immediately available. While the sun may stop shining, and the wind can drop, the tides remain predictable – an obvious advantage for tidal power and a great help for National Grid forecasters.
NASA
Overcoming barriers
Yet improvements are still needed. The upfront costs remain high, and there are some ecological implications. Experiences with artificially closed compounds have demonstrated that the costs of managing an artificial tidal basin (for example in the case of La Rance, Brittany, and Cardiff Bay), Wales are high and need careful monitoring and planning.
Turbines can become more efficient, perhaps learning from the wind industry about aspects such as varying the speed of turbines. We need to develop better 3D modelling to get a better sense of how the tides ebb and flow, and how turbines perform under turbulence.
But there are important positives that should lead to more tidal power. The re-opening of dams and barriers, often built between the 1950s and 1970s can have great ecological benefits for the water bodies behind them due to a creation of a gradient that is beneficial to aquatic ecology (brackish water) and an increased oxygen content; in such instances, tidal technology can also be used as a tool for water quantity management, while generating power.
They can actually improve some ecosystems and have additional societal benefits besides renewable energy such as flood defence, environmental and ecological water quality improvement, fisheries and even tourism functions.
New technologies are being developed that would allow energy to be harvested from new areas, where the difference between high and low tides are measured in centimetres rather than metres. All this make an investment in a tidal lagoon for Swansea Bay seem like a strong investment in the future. |
Image caption The children said they were looking forward to performing at Trent Bridge, whatever the song was
Schoolchildren who won a competition to sing a song at the first Ashes Test match of the summer have been told to change the "cheeky" lyrics.
Nettleham Junior School, near Lincoln, won a contest to perform in front of a 20,000-strong crowd at Trent Bridge.
But organisers have now asked for a "more welcoming" tune to be sung.
The original included the line: "We would even suggest that Shane Warne is recalled, but he is too worried about going bald."
Pro-England
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption The children will perform a reworked version in front of a 20,000-strong crowd at Trent Bridge
The chorus has the line: "You can keep your koalas and your kangaroos / you can keep your coral reefs and even the sunshine too / but you'll never get the Ashes back."
Head teacher David Gibbons said: "The children had written their original version, which was a little bit cheeky.
"We looked at it again and in discussion with Trent Bridge we decided we didn't want there to be any misinterpretation of what the song was."
Mr Gibbons said it was too pro-England and the song has now been rewritten to celebrate the achievements of both teams.
The new song has the line: "No matter how far it seems - you shouldn't worry, just follow your dreams."
The competition, Song for the Ashes, was organised by Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club. No-one from club has been available for comment.
The opening Ashes Test match begins at Trent Bridge in Nottingham on 10 July. |
FOOD The taste of dog food? It's harder than you think to identify
Researchers gave 18 volunteers five food samples to try in a blind taste test -- and only three were able to identify the canine fodder, according to a paper by the American Assn. of Wine Economists.
Pate or dog food? Either could be yummy. That's because you probably wouldn't be able to differentiate which is which in a blind tasting, according to a study scheduled to be released today by the American Assn. of Wine Economists. Researchers provided 18 volunteers five food samples to try in a blind taste test. Only three were able to identify the canine fodder. "We have this idea in our head that dog food won't taste good and that we would be able to identify it, but it turns out that is not the case," said Robin Goldstein, a co-author of the study that is expected to be published online today.
Goldstein said the tasting demonstrated that "context plays a huge role in taste and value judgment," even though researchers warned the participants that one of the five foods they were going to taste was dog food. The five samples came from a wide price range and were processed to have a similar consistency. The foods were duck liver mousse, pork liver pate, two imitation pates -- pureed liverwurst and Spam -- and Newman's Own dog food. Eight participants believed the liverwurst was the dog food, and four thought the Spam was the culprit. Two people identified the high-end pate as dog food, and one identified the duck liver mousse as dog food. Hildegarde Heymann, a sensory scientist at UC Davis who was not involved with the study, said she was surprised that so few people were able to identify the dog food. "It is specially formulated for dogs and would likely stand out," Heymann said. And it did stand out: 72% rated the dog food as the worst-tasting pate. -- [email protected]
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Mohammed Harouf, a Palestinian resident of Nablus was arrested Wednesday in connection with the murder of his 29-year-old Israeli girlfriend, Michal Halimi, who has eight months pregnant at the time of her death.
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Details of the arrest and the victim were only cleared for publication by police Wednesday morning after the suspect was brought to the Jerusalem Magistrate Court for a hearing on the extension of his remand.
At his entrance to the court for his hearing, Harouf was asked by reporters why he did it, to which he responded, "I wanted to release prisoners." He later denied that the murder was related to a romantic relationship between the two, and then proceeded to kick guards before being physically removed from the court room shouting, "I'll kill all the Jews!"
Harouf at his remand hearing (צילום: עפר מאיר)
X
Mohammed Harouf
Halimi's body was discovered and identified last week in sand dunes near the city of Holon.
Police reported that Harouf was questioned several times in connection with the murder before confessing and even reconstructing the crime.
According to Harouf, he met Halimi in Holon before strangling her, striking her in the head with a rock and covering her body in the sand before leaving the site in the victim's vehicle.
On May 23rd, Michal Halimi was reported missing. In a statement related to the disappearance, she was last reported to be in a blue Suzuki.
Michal Halimi
Halimi and Harouf
Following an investigation by police, Halimi was discovered to have left her home of her own volition and was apparently staying at the house of a young Palestinian man from Nablus, with who she was in a relationship.
The two had posted pictures on Facebook indicating their intention to become engaged.
As the investigation progressed however, Harouf was questioned several times and became a suspect when inconsistencies in his statements regarding the whereabouts of Halimi began to arise.
At that point, police in the central district began to employ increasingly sophisticated technological means of investigating Harouf and detained several more suspects from the Tayibe area that were found to be involved.
Police discover Halimi's body (Photo: Israel Police)
Photo: Israel Police
During questioning, the additional suspects confirmed to police that the two were involved in a romantic relationship and on the day of her disappearance, the two met in the Holon area where she was probably murdered.
On July 24th, Halimi's body was discovered in sand dunes near Holon following an extensive search and later positively identified at the Abu Kabir Forensic Institute.
Michal's husband disputes police version
Aharon Halimi, Michal's husband, disputed the version of events as told by police, which indicated that his wife Michal was having an affair with Harouf.
"The police presented a version and we reject it. We still haven't buried by wife, but after we do and after we sit Shiva, we will respond and sue to the police. The truth will come to light. It is important that justice comes to light," said Halimi.
Halimi added, "She was five months pregnant when she disappeared. Our relationship was very good and we were waiting for the child. This is entirely a nationalistic issue and not a romance."
According to relatives, Michal was in contact with Harouf after leaving her home. According to them, she indicated to Harouf that she wanted to leave him and return to her husband, which prompted the murder.
Ravid Boyar, the ex-wife of Aharon, explained the connection between Michal and Harouf and explained how he was caught. “They got to know each other at the age of 17 through social networks and over time their connection dwindled out. Half a year ago they reestablished their connection and the moment Michal disappeared we suspected that if something had happened to her, only ‘Hamudi’ could have harmed her and we went straight to the police," she said. |
With a new movie coming out about how the world will end with the (supposed) end of the Mayan calender in 2012, I figured it would be nice to get a list of software related "end of calender" issues:
Dec. 31st 1999, 23:59:59 GMT
The famous Y2k issue. We made it... (so far ? )
Jan. 10th, 2010, 10:10:00 GMT
"Binary Armageddon Day". The binary representation, 1010011010 translates to '666'. Also, the date only includes 1s and 0s (other then the '2' in the year). (thx Gadi. Also see Gadi's facebook group about this issue ). If you are on facebook, you can find the group here: Gadi's Binary Armageddon Day Facebook Group.
Dec. 21, 2012
end of Mayan calendar. Just listed here because everybody is talking about it. Should not affect software (other then the fact that the world will end that day).
Feb. 7th 2036, 6:28:16 GMT
The last date that can be expressed using "ntp". ntp is a protocol used to synchronize clocks on the internet. The ntp date starts on Jan 1st 1900 and is expressed in 64 bits. The first 32 bits are used to indicate the number of seconds since Jan 1st 1900, the remaining bits are used as fractional seconds.
Jan. 19th 2038, 03:14:07 GMT
The end of the Unix epoch. Unix uses a 32 it signed number to express time. '0' is January 1st 1970. The last date that can be expressed using unix time is Jan 19th 2038. After that... who knows? This can already be a problem. Imagine you are a bank and handing out 30 year mortgages?
Dec. 31st 9999, 23:59:59 GMT
The end of 4 digit years. Well, we got a while until that will happen.
Got any other dates of note? Let us know! |
"You EEEDIOT!"
"Happy, happy, joy, joy." "Hwarf." "No sir, I don’t like it." If this all seems like a random assemblage of words, then you’re not a child of Nicktoons (and I greatly pity you). The aforementioned are but a few of the indelible memories “The Ren & Stimpy Show” left singed in the brains of kids who grew up in the '90s, like a red-hot poker of cartoon lunacy sent plunging into our gray matter.
Back in August, the animated show about a neurotic chihuahua and his daft feline sidekick turned 20, sending shockwaves of nostalgia and terror through 20- and 30-somethings. And thanks to Nickelodeon’s recent surge of recycled nostalgia programming, you can relive the classic series on Nicktoons (yep, we’re so old, the animation block has been given its own network).
Though “Ren & Stimpy” featured the familiar anthropomorphism, showtune-y music and absurd violence of Looney Tunes, it broke new ground for kids programming.
Sure, at first glance the five seasons we spent with Ren Hoek and Stimpson J. Cat were nothing but a vile collection of burps, boogers and other grotesqueries. And yes, the series was undeniably heavy on the scatological humor (“Son of Stimpy” consisted of the title character searching for his flatulence-cloud son…like Casper, but greenish). But it was so much more.
John Kricfalusi’s vision was incredibly creative and distinct, an apparently limitless palette of vibrant weirdness. He littered the show with a demented cast of creeps that seemed impossible to conjure with the human mind (like Powdered Toast Man, Muddy Mudskipper and the Tooth Beaver, among others).
Then there was the eye-catching animation. The characters’ faces were endlessly expressive, and those trademark close-ups showcased every glistening boil, throbbing blister, wriggling nerve ending…you get the idea. The images could actually make you SMELL the stink of the characters or FEEL their frantic rage.
Throw together all those elements, and you got a storm of crazed silliness that was irresistible to kids. But my parents (and countless others) loved the series just as much as their offspring. Adults could catch the sly commentary on corporate hucksterism (see: “Log”) and the portrayals of isolation and paranoia. The duo always seemed to be stranded - in the desert, in outer space, in the pound – and thus teetering on the edge of sanity. Such visions can only be fully appreciated by adults who’ve slogged through life’s minutiae.
What kids saw as silly and wild, adults saw as subversive and twisted. Children watched the protagonists jauntily sing themselves happy, while adults saw a message about the imperative to be optimistic, which maybe hit a little too close to home.
The seminal episode “Stimpy’s Fan Club” most perfectly illustrated the show’s duality. To kids, it was hilarious seeing Ren snap after Stimpy got all the adulation from fans: Ren began sweating profusely, speaking in weird tones, and generally behaving in a manner children would describe as “kooky” or “zany.”
Re-watching it now, I was enthralled by the darkness, the commitment to Ren’s descent into madness. I mean, I’m watching a character on a kids’ show contemplate murdering his sidekick (!) in a way that entertained oblivious children while hitting adult themes like power and envy. The likes of “Shrek” and Pee-Wee could reach that level of layered humor occasionally, but “Ren & Stimpy” managed to do it several times per episode.
I’ll always be thankful my parents let me watch “Ren & Stimpy” as a belch-addicted tyke. I remember sitting with the family on Saturday mornings, bowl of Lucky Charms in hand, gleefully singing along to the anthem of the Royal Canadian Kilted Yaksmen. And I remember enjoying the show even more because I could tell my parents were digging it, too. A cartoon like that doesn’t come around very often.
So what memories of “The Ren & Stimpy Show” make you cry out “happy, happy, joy, joy” as the series turns 20? |
When There's More To Winning Than Winning
Enlarge this image toggle caption Tommy Riggs/Gettysburg College Tommy Riggs/Gettysburg College
When last we left the NCAA, it was February madness, colleges were jumping conferences, suing each other, coaches were claiming rivals had cheated in recruiting — the usual nobility of college sports.
And then, in the midst of all this, the men's basketball team at Washington College of Chestertown, Md., journeyed to Pennsylvania to play Gettysburg College in a Division III Centennial Conference game.
It was senior night, and the loudest cheers went to Cory Weissman, No. 3, 5 feet 11 inches, a team captain — especially when he walked out onto the court as one of Gettysburg's starting five.
Yes, he was a captain, but it was, you see, the first start of his college career. Cory had played a few minutes on the varsity as a freshman, never even scoring. But then, after that season, although he was only 18 years old, he suffered a major stroke. He was unable to walk for two weeks. His whole left side was paralyzed. He lost his memory, had seizures.
But by strenuously devoting himself to his rehabilitation, Cory slowly began to improve. He was able to return to college, and by this year, he could walk without a limp and even participated in the pregame layup drills.
So for senior night, against Washington, his coach, George Petrie, made the decision to start Cory. Yes, he would play only a token few seconds, but it meant a great deal to Cory and to Gettysburg. All the more touching, the Washington players stood and cheered him.
That was supposed to be the end of it, but with Gettysburg ahead by a large margin and less than a minute left in the game, Coach Petrie sent Cory back in.
Nobody could understand, though, what happened next, why the Washington coach, Rob Nugent, bothered to call time out. The fans didn't know what he told his players there in the huddle: that as quickly as they could, foul No. 3. And one of them did. And with 17 seconds left, Cory Weissman strode to the free-throw line. He had two shots.
Suddenly, the crowd understood what Coach Nugent had sought to do. There was not a sound in the gym. Cory took the ball and shot. It drifted to the left, missing disastrously. The crowd stirred. The referee gave Cory the ball back. He eyed the rim. He dipped and shot. The ball left his hand and flew true. Swish. All net.
The crowd cried as much as it cheered.
The assistant vice president for athletics at Gettysburg, David Wright, wrote to Washington College: "Your coach, Rob Nugent, along with his ... staff and student-athletes, displayed a measure of compassion that I have never witnessed in over 30 years of involvement in intercollegiate athletics."
Cory Weissman had made a point.
Washington College had made an even larger one. |
Standards in the mobile industry have been few and far between in the past. However, cellphone manufactures have recently done away with their different chargers and have adopted the microUSB. While the addition of the microUSB has been much appreciated, there have been other adopted standards that are just unbelievable.
Somewhere, someone thought of the magical price tag of $199.99 as the fair price for a top of the line smartphone, that is with a two-year agreement of course. If you were to buy one of these incredible mobile devices off contract it would run you an upwards of $500 – which is just ridiculous. A majority of these smartphones cost anywhere from $150-$200 to produce, yet these corporations feel inclined to market them with a 100% price increase. You then receive the two-year contract discount, which in the end has you paying much much more. Think about it, every 14-18 months you are spending $199 on a new phone and continue to lock yourself into your (most likely) expensive contract.
Now with the introduction of 4G, service providers are again increasing the price of their plans and smartphones. I plan on pre-ordering the Galaxy Nexus the moment it is available – even with that $299 price tag. However, this mobile phone will cost me more than an Xbox 360, PS3, or even a new HD television – if I was to buy it off contract it would cost me more than some computers.
Just think about it, how much will a 5G phone cost, or better yet a new quad-core one? These prices are absurd, why do we continue to buy into them? |
Jim Acosta Attacks POTUS Trump’s Uplifting Speech to Texans – Trump Supporters Respond
Very fake news CNN’s Jim Acosta just can’t help himself. President Trump has shown true leadership with his swift action in helping Texans deal with the fallout from Hurricane Harvey so Jim Acosta just had to find something to complain about. Classy.
Texans are dying and suffering because of Hurricane Harvey and Jim Acosta, showing he has absolutely zero class whatsoever, attacked Trump’s uplifting speech in Corpus Christi.
President Trump thanked the Texas Governor and Senator Cruz and everyone else who is assisting the people who are affected by Hurricane Harvey.
“This is historic, this is epic, but you know what? It happened in Texas and Texas can handle anything!”
President Trump then held up the Texas flag and the crowd went wild!
Jim Acosta grumbled that President Trump ‘cared about the size of the crowd’ as he addressed Texans. All Trump said was ‘what a turn out’ as he encouraged Texans to be strong and work together to rebuild.
Perhaps Jim Acosta prefers Obama’s approach to helping flood victims. Obama golfed while people in Louisiana died from floods in August of 2016. Who was in Louisiana helping? That’s right–then-candidate Donald Trump.
Here is President Trump’s uplifting speech. Only a hate-filled liberal would knock it.
Serious question: Does POTUS always have to care about his crowd size? https://t.co/smJBRVFzgN — Jim Acosta (@Acosta) August 29, 2017
Trump supporters pummeled Acosta:
People are dead. Cities under water and this is your focus? Dude…get a big mirror and analyze! — Gary Kaltbaum (@GaryKaltbaum) August 29, 2017
CNN? Conscience? No! Never! (Are they still on tv? People watch that junk? How sad). #LiberalismIsAMentalDisorder — John Savin (@THEJohnSavin) August 29, 2017
People are suffering and dying in Texas. Trump visits and gives inspiring speech to uplift people and CNN hack Acosta says this…despicable https://t.co/gAEh3von69 — Cristina Laila (@cristinalaila1) August 29, 2017
Serious question: Were you taught “Play Misty For Me” journalism in school? Or are you simply obsessed with Trump? @TheLastRefuge2 — India Maria (@IndiaMaria2020) August 29, 2017
Do you always have to be so #PettyAF ? — Chris Herriford (@herf42) August 29, 2017
Jealous because he’s SO popular! Go back to reporting your fake news, we’re over your hatred for our wonderful President Trump. — Bob Jaeger (@ChitownBobJ) August 29, 2017
Just stop…. millions are suffering and have lost everything they own! Think about it, can you muster some sort of unity?!?! — Dusten Braaksma (@Braaksma_D14) August 29, 2017 |
This afternoon, from the White House Briefing Room, President Obama delivered a statement on the passing of former South African President and anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela, calling him "a man who took history in his hands, and bent the arc of the moral universe toward justice."
President Barack Obama delivers remarks on the passing of former South African President Nelson Mandela, in the James S. Brady Briefing Room of the White House, Dec. 5, 2013. (Official White House Photo by Lawrence Jackson)
"We will not likely see the likes of Nelson Mandela again," the President said. "So it falls to us as best we can to forward the example that he set: to make decisions guided not by hate, but by love; to never discount the difference that one person can make; to strive for a future that is worthy of his sacrifice."
Read the President's full remarks here. |
Every day brings fresh revelations about the possible links between President Donald J. Trump’s campaign and Russia. Consider four recent examples.
Last week, FBI Director James Comey confirmed that his agency is looking into the oft-whispered question of whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russian groups trying to influence the US election.
CNN suggests the FBI may have already uncovered evidence of inappropriate coordination, citing unnamed officials as sources.
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The Associated Press revealed that Trump’s former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, was paid millions by a Russian oligarch between 2005 and 2009 as part of a plan to improve Russia’s political and economic interests in the US and around the world.
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On Monday morning, the New York Times reported that Trump’s son-in-law and close adviser Jared Kushner would be interviewed by Senate investigators as part of their inquiry into Trump-Russia contacts.
Like a Jackson Pollack canvas brought to life by dripping paint, these dribs and dabs are starting to add up to something potentially transformative. For now, the full picture isn’t entirely clear, but the threat to Trump seems to be growing more ominous. Here’s a rundown of what we know, what is still uncertain, and how it all fits together.
What we know
Before his election, candidate Trump initially took a surprisingly soft stance toward the one-time Cold War adversary. At various times, Trump referred to Putin as a “strong leader,” waved away concerns about Putin’s use of violence, and hired a number of staffers with well-known pro-Russia views.
Trump also embraced a set of policies that seemed to align with Russian interests: questioning the value of NATO, suggesting that Russia might be allowed to keep its hold on Crimea, even altering the Republican platform to soften support for Ukrainian efforts to resist Russian incursions.
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Possibly Trump was hoping for a grand bargain, a detente with Russia that would reshape global politics, improve coordination in the fight against terror, maybe even rein in nuclear weapons. But an exact strategy was never clearly articulated.
Even when US intelligence agencies concluded that Russia was conspiring to swing the 2016 election, Trump stuck with his Russophilic stance, sowing doubts about the intelligence findings.
All this happened before he was elected president. But the issue didn’t disappear when he took office. Trump’s first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, was forced to resign for being less than forthright about his contacts with the Russian ambassador.
It turned out he wasn’t alone. Attorney General Jeff Sessions also neglected to reveal his meetings with the ambassador — which forced him to recuse himself from any investigation into connections between Trump and Russia.
Finally, news agencies have plumbed their intelligence contacts to help track Trump’s ties to Russia. Ever since a February New York Times report revealed the existence of previously unknown communications between Trump campaign staff and Russian intelligence, the big questions have been: Was the communication innocent? Or was it part of a coordinated strategy?
What we don’t know
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Beyond this, there are also a number of suggestive, but still unsubstantiated, bits of information.
Most explosive is CNN’s recent reporting that the FBI does indeed have evidence that the Trump campaign worked with Russia to undermine opponent Hillary Clinton’s candidacy.
While CNN’s sourcing is thin and anonymous, there is already a partial corroboration. The ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee said last week that there is “more than circumstantial evidence” of coordination.
Working against leaks like this are growing concerns about bias within the intelligence agencies. The profusion of leaks suggests a lack of adequate controls — and raises the possibility of partisan insiders hoping to manipulate the media and shape public opinion.
There are two figures whose potential role in the Trump-Russia scandal is shadowy, but hard to dismiss. One of them is political strategist and Trump ally Roger Stone, who seemed to know about coming WikiLeaks releases that would be damaging to Clinton. The other is Carter Page, an internationally-experienced business consultant whose loose ties to the Trump campaign may have allowed him to serve as an intermediary with Russia.
For now, it’s not clear what role these two might have played — if any — but it’s also possible their names will feature prominently in the FBI’s final report. Both have agreed to join Manafort in testifying before the House intelligence committee.
How does it all fit together?
For a while, it was possible to dismiss all this as overblown — conspiratorial even — little more than a liberal fantasy held together by circumstantial evidence and a good deal of wish-fulfillment.
But the trickle of corroborative details have made this dismissive note harder to sound. And one thing we learned for certain last week is that the FBI thinks the evidence is serious enough to justify a full investigation.
Already, the main question has turned from “Did the Trump campaign have contacts with Russian intelligence?” to “Did they coordinate on a strategy to influence the US election?” And if the evidence continues to mount, we may soon be forced to ask an even more disruptive: “What did Trump know, and when?”
In that scenario, there really doesn’t seem to be a good answer for Trump. Either he knew about the alleged coordination, which would make him complicit in the intelligence operation of a foreign government. Or he didn’t, which would suggest that he is profoundly manipulable, unaware of the hidden motives of even his closest advisers and liable to accept advice that is actually propaganda.
Of course, it’s also possible the FBI will find nothing — no nefarious collusion, just innocent contacts between Trump staffers and Russian counterparts. Not all political scandals end like Watergate. Sometimes it’s just Whitewater.
But if Comey’s testimony and the most recent leaks are any guide, the political season ahead may come to seem like a long, Russian winter for Trump and his nearest allies.
Evan Horowitz digs through data to find information that illuminates the policy issues facing Massachusetts and the U.S. He can be reached at [email protected] . Follow him on Twitter @GlobeHorowitz |
This is 100ft Robot Golf, which is coming out for PlayStation 4 and PlayStation VR later this year.
Developed by Seattle-based team No Goblin, its name pretty much explains the whole game. Players control giant robots as they seek to make par, while destroying anything that gets in the way. No Goblin's previous game was Roundabout, a Crazy Taxi-style driving game featuring a constantly rotating limousine.
Based on a playthrough at the Polygon offices earlier this week, 100ft Robot Golf looks strongest in competitive mode, with up to four players split-screening their way through the links. Strategies include attacking rival robots, throwing stuff down in their way and jumping in front of balls in flight.
There are a variety of worlds including a city, seen in this video, as well as an underwater world and the moon. According to No Goblin, the game could come out on other platforms at a later date.
Disclosure: Subsequent to the making of the above video, it was announced that the commentary track in 100ft Robot Golf is being provided by My Brother, My Brother and Me, a popular comedy podcast featuring three McElroy brothers, two of whom also work for Polygon. More here. |
The “most radical” changes to transport in the centre of Dublin, including restrictions on private cars and taxis, while adding wider footpaths and more pedestrianised streets, have been proposed by Dublin City Council.
The Dublin City Centre Transport Study proposes a €150 million investment on greater facilities for walking, cycling and public transport.
The study also envisages “improvements in the public realm” such as traffic restricted civic spaces at College Green and between the top of Grafton Street and the top of Dawson Street where illustrations indicate people dining on what is now road space.
The core study is aimed at radically altering two major transport corridors through the city, east-west along the quays, and from College Green to Parnell Square.
Traffic planners say these route are in parts like “six lane highways” severing access within the city. The study proposes “through traffic” would be diverted to more orbital routes.
The proposals, which were drawn up with the aid of the National Transport Authority will from Thursday be available for consultation by members of the public and interested parties in the city’s libraries and on the city council website. Some of the measures are already included within the City Development Plan but others will require approval or the city councillors while a further cohort may require planning permission.
But according to transport planner Brendan O’Brien of Dublin City Council some of the traffic restrictions, particularly those which will result from the installation of the cross city Luas line, will begin to be seen over the next two years.
In advance of the new Luas line opening traffic travelling from St Stephen’s Green down Dawson Street will only be allowed as far as the Molesworth Street. The study also proposes extending the Grafton Street pedestrianised area to include Suffolk Street, eliminating current access for buses, taxis and cyclists.
The study proposes extending the current “bus gate” at College Green to exclude cars, vans and taxis on a 24-hour basis, restricting the street permanently to Luas, buses, cyclists and pedestrians and developing a much-enhanced civic space in front of Trinity College.
Moving northwards, the right turn from Westmoreland Street to D’Olier Street will be closed with the arrival of Luas. The footpath from the Bank of Ireland to the quays on Westmoreland would be doubled in width, and the Luas will also run along this street. Although not required for Luas, it is also an ambition of the study to close the left turn from Westmoreland Street to the quays. Westmoreland Street would then cease to be a through route for car traffic, and instead would become a “high-quality pedestrian environment”.
Across O’Connell Bridge the current two lanes of traffic turning right to Eden Quay will be reduced to one lane for public transport and bicycles only, on the opening of Luas. The right turn from O’Connell Street to Cathal Brugha Street will also be closed.
D’ Olier street is to be designated a transport interchange for movement between city buses, buses on rapid transit corridors, walking and cycling and Luas. A new central median to accommodate additional bus stops would be introduced as well as segregated cycle lanes and ready access to the Dart station at Tara Street.
On the east west corridor along the quays Bachelors’ Walk would be reconfigured as a corridor for public transport, cycling and walking only, between its junctions with Jervis Street and O’Connell Street. Across the river, on the South side this arrangement would be mirrored, either on Aston Quay, Burgh Quay or George’s Quay.
Mr O’Brien said the intention was to allow access to city centre car parks and to businesses for deliveries but to remove the through traffic to outer orbital routes.
Other public transport aspects of the plan envisage the introduction of the high-capacity Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system; increasing frequency and capacity of the Dart; new rail passenger services between Kildare and the Grand Canal Dock area through the Phoenix Park Tunnel and developing the high cycle network in the city centre;
CEO of the National Transport Authority Anne Graham, said the NTA will be investing €150 million in the planned projects between now and 2023. “Facing up to what’s needed, and taking some hard decisions now, will pay dividends for the city, and for the country as a whole, in the future”, she said.
Public consultation on the plan runs until July 16th.
For the full report, a summary report and details on how to take part in the consultation see: www.dublincity.ie/TransportStudy |
An illustration of NASA’s proposed Deep Space Gateway, a human-tended outpost in cislunar space that could support human missions to the Moon as well as preparations for later missions to Mars. (credit: NASA) Back to back to the Moon
It’s time, it seems, to dust off those plans for lunar exploration developed a decade or more ago. And then revise them. “I believe that we’re on the verge of a new era in lunar science and exploration,” said Neal. On October 5, Vice President Mike Pence formally confirmed what most in the space community had long expected: US space policy was being changed to redirect humans back to the Moon. “We will return American astronauts to the Moon, not only to leave behind footprints and flags, but to build the foundation we need to send Americans to Mars and beyond,” he said, leaving the details of how to do so up to NASA. While hardly unexpected—the administration had been telegraphing such a shift for months—the announcement gave a green light for lunar exploration advocates, in industry, academia, and government, to make a new push for robotic and human missions to the Moon, for science and commerce. In a fortuitous coincidence, less than a week after that meeting of the National Space Council was the annual meeting of the Lunar Exploration Analysis Group (LEAG) in Columbia, Maryland. The resurgence in interest in the Moon attracted what organizers said was the largest turnout for a LEAG meeting since 2005, when the Vision for Space Exploration—and its call for a human return to the Moon by 2020—was still in its early phases. “I believe that we’re on the verge of a new era in lunar science and exploration,” said Clive Neal, the outgoing chairman of LEAG, in comments at the beginning of the two-and-a-half-day meeting. There was enthusiasm about that redirection back to the Moon and the LEAG meeting and a separate “Back to the Moon” workshop that immediately followed. That doesn’t mean, though, that attendees were expecting, or desiring, a return to the days of the Constellation program of a decade ago. “If a national commitment has been made to return to the Moon, how do we get NASA behind it?” asked Paul Spudis of the Lunar and Planetary Institute during a panel discussion that started the Back to the Moon workshop. He looked back to both the Vision for Space Exploration and the earlier Space Exploration Initiative. “You’d think with a Moon commitment that NASA will be all enthusiastic. But the previous two times that’s happened, NASA was among the least enthusiastic people in the room when it came to returning to the Moon.” “The main thing that NASA is going to need is sustained funding,” said Apollo 17 astronaut and former senator Harrison Schmitt. “The Constellation program, from my point of view, did not have enough momentum to survive a change in administrations primarily because the projected needs of the Constellation program were not met in terms of financing.” Tied to that, argued Spudis, was a lack of singular rationale for the program. “We need to develop what I call a mission statement,” he said, “a single, declarative sentence that summarizes why we’re going to the Moon.” He said he wanted something similar during the development of the Vision for Space Exploration, but was unsuccessful. “NASA didn’t want to hear it. They came up with 186 objectives and six themes. They didn’t want to summarize it in one statement. My argument is, if you can’t state your mission in a single statement, there’s a good chance you don’t know what it is.” NASA right now doesn’t have that mission statement, or a plan for a human return to the Moon, only the comments by Pence at the council meeting and his call to NASA to submit a plan within 45 days, including identifying the resources needed. “You need a continuing human presence in space,” Crusan said. “If you just have a sortie-based program, at any point anyone can end those flights.” That plan will leverage work already underway at NASA. “We were already in work doing an exploration report that was actually required by Congress,” said Jason Crusan, director of the agency’s advanced exploration systems division, at the LEAG meeting. That’s a reference to an exploration roadmap, outlining the steps needed to get humans to Mars, perhaps by way of the Moon, required by the NASA authorization act signed into law in March. That roadmap report is due to Congress in December, shortly after the 45-day report is due to the White House. “We’re using a lot of that work being done for the exploration report to answer this 45-day response time that we have,” Crusan said. “How would we enable human return [to the Moon] given the constraints that we all have?” Crusan suggested that the Deep Space Gateway, the outpost in cislunar space first publicly proposed by NASA earlier this year, would play a role in that plan. “Can you enable human return through a gateway-type infrastructure? Can you enable robotic missions that way initially, and fold in human return that way?” The alternative, he said, would be a direct human return to the Moon, but Crusan cautioned that approach, in his opinion, may not be sustainable. “You need a continuing human presence in space,” he said. “If you just have a sortie-based program, at any point anyone can end those flights.” He added that NASA’s budget is constrained for the next several years because of the combined development costs of the Space Launch System, Orion, commercial crew vehicles, and flagship NASA science missions. That leaves limited funding for major new development programs needed for a human return to the Moon, including landers and surface systems. The Deep Space Gateway, though, could fit into those budgets and provide the presence to enable later landing missions. “I’m not a big fan of just going to direct return,” he said. “Because with direct return, we have many, many steps to go before we have permanent presence.” Moon Express suggested its first mission might not be a lander (above) but instead a lunar orbiter. (credit: Moon Express) International and commercial roles NASA has had talks with other space agencies about the gateway. Robert Lightfoot, the acting administrator of NASA, said at the International Astronautical Congress in Australia last month that there had been discussions dating back to April about the Deep Space Gateway but—contrary to some media reports that NASA and Roscosmos had agreed to cooperate on its development—no deals regarding its construction. “What we really said in our discussion is, as we move out from ISS, we want to take advantage of that with all our partners, and whatever we do, we do it in a global way,” Lightfoot said at the conference. “There’s no commitment of resources or commitment to a program. It’s all conceptual at this point.” The proposed Deep Space Gateway “also, very importantly, provides an onramp for international and commercial partners,” Carpenter added. The idea of a gateway as a staging point for both human and robotic lunar missions has support in the international community. “This has become a fundamental part of our architectures,” said James Carpenter of ESA at the Back to the Moon workshop. The gateway, he said, allows for “affordable infrastructure buildup” in cislunar space while the International Space Station remains in operation. “We can start doing something now.” The gateway, he said, offered other benefits as well. It could be a “safe haven” for crews needing to leave the lunar surface. It could serve as a communications relay, particularly for missions on the lunar farside out of view from the Earth, and support teleoperations of robotic vehicles on the lunar surface. “It also, very importantly, provides an onramp for international and commercial partners,” he added. Among those potential international partners is Canada. “We’re in a process right now of defining a new vision for Canadian exploration activities,” said Victoria Hipkin of the Canadian Space Agency at the LEAG meeting. “The Canadian government has asked us to define options for future contributions to deep space exploration.” One option, she said, is to provide “lunar surface mobility” for future missions, with concept studies of a pressurized rover. “What we understand is that for any contribution that Canada is going to make, the government would be very keen that it will maintain, into the future, a Canadian astronaut program.” Those increased opportunities for international partners is one difference from NASA’s previous lunar plans. Another, and perhaps bigger, difference is the growth of commercial capabilities to support lunar exploration. At the LEAG and Back to the Moon meetings, four companies—Astrobotic, Blue Origin, Masten Space Systems, and Moon Express—all discussed their plans for commercially-developed lunar landers, all in varying stages of development. Moon Express, the only company currently competing for the Google Lunar X PRIZE, emphasized its plans announced earlier this year to develop the MX series of landers, starting with the MX-1E that could attempt to win the prize early next year (see “The Moon is a harsh milestone”, The Space Review, July 24, 2017). However, Spudis, who is also an adviser to Moon Express, hinted at a change of plans. “We’re actually thinking about flying an orbiter first,” he said at the LEAG meeting. “An orbiter will test out all the different spacecraft systems. It’s a fairly low-risk mission. We have a variety of things that we can still do from orbit around the Moon.” The orbiter would launch next year, followed by a lander “soon after that,” which he acknowledged could slip to 2019. That would put the company out of the running for the prize under the current rules, which require teams to complete their missions by the end of March 2018. Astrobotic, which dropped out of the competition last year, is focused on developing its first Peregrine lander for launch in 2019. The initial mission will carry 35 kilograms of payload for an eight-day mission after landing, said Astrobotic’s Dan Hendrickson at the LEAG meeting, but could be expanded to up to 265 kilograms on future missions using the same platform. “If there’s anything that I know about this new administration, is that they want something that’s bold,” said Pittman. Masten Space Systems is working on its XL-1 lander, based on technologies it has been developing and testing on its series of technology demonstration vehicles. “The idea for this lander is to get it there efficiently and as cheaply as possible,” said Masten CEO Sean Mahoney at the Back to the Moon workshop. The design for XL-1, he said, recently completed its critical design review, with a terrestrial demonstrator under construction. That lander will be relatively limited in performance, with a payload capacity of 100 kilograms, he said, and won’t have the ability to go to the lunar poles. But XL-1, he said, isn’t the only lunar lander on its drawing board. “XL-2 can do it,” he said of missions to the poles. Blue Origin made another pitch for its Blue Moon cargo lander concept at the meeting, a design that would be able to carry up to 4.5 tons of cargo to the lunar surface and be compatible with a variety of launch vehicles, including the company’s own New Glenn. Blue Origin’s A.C. Charania emphasized, as other company officials have in the past, that it would seek to develop Blue Moon as part of a public-private partnership with NASA. “We’ve been very explicit publicly over the last few months that we want to go together to the Moon with NASA,” he said. “We don’t view Blue Moon in isolation.” How those partnerships will develop is another issue facing NASA and the White House as they turn Vice President Pence’s call for a human return to the Moon into an affordable plan. There was consensus, though, that those growing commercial capabilities, plus the ability to, at least in the long term, leverage lunar resources like water ice to sustain activities there more affordability, will have to play a key role in any exploration architecture that comes out of the ongoing studies. “We need to think bigger and we need to think bolder,” said Bruce Pittman of the Space Portal office at NASA’s Ames Research Center at the LEAG meeting. “If there’s anything that I know about this new administration, is that they want something that’s bold.” Home |
The old relationship between class and birth rates has been inverted:
Increased prosperity used to lead to a decline in the fertility rate as parents did not need children as an insurance policy for their old age; and indeed, the modern child is very expensive to bring up. But now better-off people seem to be having more children; in the U.S., the fertility rate of wives whose husbands are in the top decile of income is back where it was a century ago. Having a lot of children may be a sign of status – [BCA Research] dubs this the “Brangelina effect” – or it may be that better-off women can afford the childcare help (and increased housing space) that children necessitate.
Interestingly, the proportion of childless highly-educated American women (those with Ph.Ds) aged 40-44 was just 23 percent in 2006-08, down from 34 percent in 1992-94. There was a similar (if less marked) fall in childlessness among those with a master’s degree. … [But] while better-off women may be having more children, that’s not true of the poor; 15 percent of those failed to graduate high school are childless in their 40s, compared with 9 percent 20 years ago and even high school graduates have seen a rise in childlessness from 13 percent to 17 percent. There are a lot more women in those categories than there are Ph.Ds. |
Hundreds of people in Mumbai, India have been detained in relation to a massive telephone scam where fake callers "from the IRS" targeted Americans. In said calls, scammers tried to convince recipients that they were from the IRS in order to con victims into forking over thousands of dollars payable via prepaid credit cards.
According to The Guardian, 200 Indian police officers raided nine locations across one of India’s largest cities.
"Seventy workers have been formally arrested and around 630 others are being investigated," Paramvir Singh, the police commissioner of Thane, told the British newspaper. "We expect that many more people will be arrested."
Typically, the phone representatives would call Americans and claim to be calling from the IRS, saying that the recipient owed "back taxes," and police are "on their way right now." The callers then would give precise instructions as to how to avoid this situation, which would inevitably involve withdrawing large amounts of cash and going to a store like Target or Walmart to buy a prepaid cash card or using a service like MoneyGram to transfer the money to a particular account.
In May 2016, NPR’s Planet Money spoke with a representative from MoneyGram, who said that he gets "20 calls like this a day"—people calling MoneyGram to check to see if they received a fake call.
"We had a mole go in to the call centres to verify. The best part is that they were actually recording all their calls. We have recovered 851 hard disks on which the calls were recorded, so we’re going through those now," Singh told The Guardian.
Reuters cited local police and reported that "callers were paid between 10,000 rupees ($150) and 70,000 rupees ($1,050) every month." |
Most U.S. police officers see significant challenges on the job in the wake of high-profile incidents involving law enforcement and black citizens. Among those challenges is a widespread feeling among officers that police are mistreated by the media, according to a recent Pew Research Center survey conducted by the National Police Research Platform.
About eight-in-ten officers (81%) who work in departments of 100 or more sworn officers say the media generally treat the police unfairly, according to the survey. Just 18% of officers disagree. About four-in-ten officers (42%) strongly agree that the media are unfair to police.
While the general sentiment among police that the media treat them unfairly is shared across gender, racial and ethnic lines, some officers feel more strongly about it than others. White officers (43%), for example, are more likely than their black colleagues (34%) to strongly agree that the media treat police unfairly. Among Hispanic officers, 40% strongly agree. Age is also correlated with views about the media. While 46% of officers ages 18 to 44 strongly agree that the media treat the police unfairly, fewer of those ages 45 and older (36%) express the same view.
Police department administrators have a different view on the media than rank-and-file officers and sergeants. Only 29% of administrators strongly agree that the media treat police unfairly, compared with roughly four-in-ten rank-and-file officers and sergeants.
Department size is also linked to views about the media. Officers from the largest departments are significantly more likely than those in small departments to see unfair treatment from the media: 51% of those in departments with 2,600 officers feel strongly about this, compared with only 35% among those in agencies with fewer than 300 officers.
For police, attitudes about media bias are linked to other feelings about their jobs. Officers who feel strongly that the media treat police unfairly, for example, are more likely than their colleagues to say their work as a law enforcement officer nearly always or often makes them feel frustrated and even angry. Roughly two-thirds of officers (65%) who strongly agree that the media treat police unfairly say their work always or often makes them feel frustrated, and about one-in-three (31%) say it makes them feel angry. Feelings of frustration or anger are significantly less common among officers who don’t feel as strongly about media coverage of police. Further analysis would be needed to determine what comes first for police – cynicism about media coverage or feelings of frustration and anger – but these attitudes are clearly related.
Officers who have a strongly negative view about the way they are treated by the media also are more likely than their colleagues to see a disconnect between themselves and the public. When asked how well the public understands the risks and challenges police face on the job, 56% of officers who strongly agree that the media treat police unfairly say “not well at all.” By comparison, 30% of officers who agree (though not strongly) that the media treat police unfairly say that the public doesn’t understand police work well at all, as do 25% of those who do not feel the media treat police unfairly.
Topics: Criminal Justice, News Media Trends, News Media Ethics and Practices, Social Values, Violence and Society, Work and Employment, Race and Ethnicity |
In 2010, there were an estimated 5,000 Muslims in Slovakia representing fewer than 0.1% of the country's population.[2] In the 17th century parts of central and southern Slovakia was occupied by Ottoman Turks and was bonded to the Uyvar Eyalet (along with Eğri Eyalet) for some decades after Turkish settlements were established for example in Novohrad region[citation needed]. Turks also had a suzerainty over the Principality of Upper Hungary, which controlled eastern Slovakia.
History [ edit ]
Decades after the Hungarian defeat of Mohacs (1526) Turkish troops occupied Štúrovo (Párkány) and other parts of today's southern central Slovakia and encouraged the Protestant Christian groups while Habsburg Austrian troops occupied and recatholized the northern and western parts. Later on the Turks seized some further territories in southern central Slovakia and pillaged in territories up to Nitra. Finally, however, when the Turks lost the Battle of Vienna and the Ottoman vassal Imre Thököly was defeated in Slovakia, between 1687 and 1699 Turkish Ottoman rule in Hungary was finally broken.
Muslim demographics [ edit ]
Most of the Muslims in Slovakia are refugees from former Yugoslavia (Bosnians and Albanians)[citation needed] or workers from modern Turkey (Turks)[citation needed], beside them a few Arab students and migrant workers from South and Southeast Asia. Most of the Muslims live in the capital Bratislava, smaller communities also exist in Košice and Martin[citation needed].
Slovakia is the last member state of the European Union without a mosque.[3] In 2000, a dispute erupted about the building of an Islamic centre in Bratislava: the capital's mayor refused such attempts of the Slovak Islamic Waqfs Foundation.
In 2015, amidst the European migrant crisis, Slovakia agreed to admit 200 Christian asylum seekers, but refused to accept Muslims under an EU scheme to share migrants between member states. Slovak Ministry of Interior Affairs explained this decision by the absence of Muslim places of worship in Slovakia which will allegedly complicate the refugees' integration in Slovak society. The decision was criticised by the EU which doubted its legality and expressed concern for its discriminatory nature.[4]
On 30 November 2016, Slovakia passed legislation to effectively block Islam from gaining official status as a religion in the country.[5] Slovakia is the only country within the European Union without any mosque.[6]
Islamic Center of Cordoba, Bratislava (Kultúrne centrum Córdoba) [ edit ]
Islamic Center of Cordoba (Kultúrne Centrum Córdoba), is located down the Obchodná street, Bratislava. It is the only place of Muslim worship in the country under Islamic foundation in Slovakia. Even though it’s an unofficial Mosque,it is open every day of the year for all daily prayers except the Fajr prayer.Friday sermon is held in Arabic, English and Slovak language and starts Friday on 13:00 am. The mosque is not very big, but it is enough to hold congregation prayers of about 80 to 100 people. There is a wooden podium that is used for Friday sermons, but there is no decoration with elaborated patterns as found in common mosques. The Kultúrne Centrum Córdoba has tried to attain an official mosque permit from the government, but had its proposal rejected.[7]
Gallery [ edit ]
"An Essay on Statements in Logic" by Safvet beg Bašagić (Collection of Islamic Manuscripts in the University Library of Bratislava).
Treatise on astronomy, surveying, and mathematics by Badruddin al-Maridini (died 1506); (Collection of Islamic Manuscripts in the University Library of Bratislava).
Ibrahim al-Halabi (died 1776) is about the sine, quadrant and parallel circles; (Collection of Islamic Manuscripts in the University Library of Bratislava).
A copy of Saadi Shirazi's works (Collection of Islamic Manuscripts in the University Library of Bratislava). |
We caught up with 343i's Dan Ayoub and Creative Assembly's David Nicholson to discuss all things Halo Wars 2, including its place in the universe, the balance between hardcore RTS and accessibility, and to what extend previous Halo knowledge will be required to play Halo Wars 2.
It was a fitting setting for a discussion about Halo. We were sat in 343i's Halo museum, crammed with cabinets stuffed with memorabilia, books, CDs, and all manner of Halo merchandise spanning the entire franchise. You could practically hear Halo's iconic monastic choir emanating from the walls. Creative Assembly enjoys a 20-year history creating strategy games, most famous for titles like Total War, but also cinematic experiences like Alien Isolation. 343i and Creative Assembly have pooled their expertise into Halo Wars 2, which will not only attempt to reinvigorate the classic RTS genre but also stand out as one of the Halo franchise's greatest entries.
I asked Dan Ayoub exactly why the studio decided to revisit Halo Wars, which was a bold attempt to make RTS intuitive on a controller back in the Xbox 360 era. Ayoub said that it was ultimately the fans which led to the decision.
"We spend a lot of time polling our audience, polling our community, and frankly Halo Wars 2 has been at the top of the most-asked list for a considerable amount of time. There's a lot of love for that game. It did arguably the best job of taking RTS and making it work on console." "From a control standpoint, it was just fantastic, so marvelous, but it also told a great story. We like to say a lot that the Halo universe is large enough to tell multiple stories. It doesn't all have to be about Master Chief and Cortana and things like that, and I think Halo Wars really proved that."
Halo Wars 2 takes place 28 years after the events of the previous game, with the remaining crew of the UNSC Spirit of Fire adrift in deep space. The UNSC wrote off the ship as KIA, and there is nobody around to debrief Captain Cutter and his dedicated army.
Halo Wars 2 is a self-contained story, unlike some of the previous Halo games, which often require deep knowledge of external content such as literature and the live action shows produced by 343i. Dan Ayoub noted that such in-depth knowledge won't be required for Halo Wars 2, as the game's protagonists will need to recap on current Halo events just as much as the player.
"Based on some learnings, we're making Halo Wars 2 a self-contained story. It assumes no knowledge of extended fiction or Halo games whatsoever. We assume you haven't played Halo Wars 1, or even a Halo game before. You can kind of see that we've set the game up around that. The crew of the Spirit of Fire has been asleep for 28 years, so they have missed pretty much everything, and you're seeing the game unfold through their eyes." "So if you've always been curious about Halo but scared to jump in because you've missed so much story — this is the story to jump in on. It's entirely self-contained, and we've created some really fantastic new characters as well, and some nice nods to people who are familiar with Halo."
Some of the returning characters include Captain Cutter, who leads the crew of the Spirit of Fire, but also Isabel, who is an all-new A.I. with Cortana-level intelligence. Isabel introduces the player to the game's villain, Atriox, who 343i say isn't just a one-off for Halo Wars 2, but is intended to be a deadly foe on the same level as any of Halo's most notorious evils. |
Overview
Geralt of Rivia
The Witcher 2 is a story-focused role-playing game by CD Projekt RED that follows the adventures of Geralt of Rivia, one of the few remaining Witchers: a select group of mutants, professional monster hunters. The game is set in the same world as Andrzej Sapkowski's short stories. The sequel picks up a couple of months after The Witcher's ending and contains many returning characters. There is a strong emphasis on dialogue choices, with no outright good or evil moral choice; player's decisions lead the non-linear storyline to any of its 16 possible endings.
The Witcher 2 uses a new internally developed RPG engine featuring many graphical, gameplay and narrative improvements over the original. The game went "gold" on April 27 and was released on May 17, 2011 for PC. It was also released on the same day through CD Projekt's own digital distribution service, GOG.com, without any DRM.
CD Project later confirmed there would be an Xbox 360 release, along with an Enhanced Edition (a free patch updating the original release with fixes made for the console port) for the PC, on April 17, 2012.
CD Projekt RED announced during their 2012 Spring Conference that The Witcher 2 sold 1.7 million copies (all versions combined) since it launched.
Technology
Large environments with no loading screens.
Citing the limitations of the Aurora Engine (used in the first game), CD Projekt decided to develop a new engine (named Red Engine) to implement their vision for The Witcher 2.
The new engine was built from the ground up to accommodate the branching narrative structure of the game and uses graphical features such as specular lighting and dynamic shadow effects. The Witcher 2 features the same delayed consequences seen in the first game, where player decisions often have far reaching ramifications several hours down the line. The player actions are said to affect every single person within the game world.
The new engine renders large, detailed environments with no need for load times, as players can travel from one zone to another seamlessly. The environments often contain clues and trails that players have to follow to solve mysteries and quests. The game world is also more explorable than its predecessor and allows players to scale walls, hop over fences and ascend rock formations. It also features a full day/night cycle. The art design was inspired by the Slavic culture, with minor influences from Celtic, Germanic and Scandinavian mythos.
Setting
Geralt with returning character, Triss Merigold.
The Witcher 2 starts at an unknown time, with Geralt being accused of assassinating the king and being interrogated. Through various dialogue choices, he recounts the events that led to his capture; events that players will play through themselves and serve as the game's primary tutorial. Geralt's recollection picks up a few months after the first game's ending, with him in bed with Triss Merigold.
Since Geralt is still suffering from long term amnesia, the story explores more of his violent past through various quests and flashbacks. The story features many returning characters from the first game and the book, many of whom often have their own motivations & emotions and take diverging paths to Geralt. Players can also import a save game and see how their previous decisions affected these characters and the world. As players make these decisions, Geralt's journal is updated with poetic text as if it was being written by a bard singing his praises.
The first game's controversial card collection mini-game centered around romance has been dropped in favor of a more realistic depiction, instead showing fully animated cutscenes with any partner. The dialogue tree has also been changed to illustrate a more dynamic camera, such as the type that Bioware has begun to use in games like Mass Effect and Dragon Age: Origins. The dialogue choices are also more integrated in the world (simply floating rather than being on a menu background) to help give a better sense of immersion. Certain dialogue options will only give players a limited time to make a decision.
Plot
Roche interrogating Geralt
As the game begins, Geralt finds himself imprisoned for the assassination of King Foltest of Temeria and suffering from a severe case of amnesia. He is being interrogated by Vernon Roche, the commander of the Blue Stripes (Temeria's Special Forces). Geralt insists he did not kill the king and recounts the events that lead to his death.
Geralt's begins his story with Foltest's assault against the La Valettes, a conflict which arose from Foltest's denial of bastard children he fathered with Lady La Valette and the desire of Temeria's noblemen to use his children as a 'banner' to usurp his kingdom. Up to the day of the assault, Geralt had followed Foltest in the campaign for he served as the King's supposed lucky charm, having saved him from a previous attempt on his life. Also accompanying them was the Witcher's lover, Triss Merigold, who served as Foltest's personal advisor and court sorceress.
During the attack, the Witcher faces Aryan La Valette, the lady's eldest son, whilst a dragon flys across the keep, decimating both armies. The Witcher eventually delivers King Foltest to where his children are being held, guarded by a blind monk. Given the Witcher's appearance, Foltest asks him to stand aside, lest he frighten his already frazzled children. With Geralt distracted, the monk drops his hood and blindfold (revealing himself to be a heavily muscled Witcher), and cuts the king's throat from ear to ear. The Witcher pursues but the killer escapes out a nearby window and onto a Scoia'tael (Elven guerilla fighters) ship waiting below.
Siege of La Valettes
When Geralt finishes his tale, Roche is intrigued, but skeptical. However, the two deduce that the Scoia'tael's involvement bears investigation. Ultimately, Roche decides to help with Geralt escape the prison. The Witcher escapes that very night, and together with his Triss, Roche and the rest of the Blue Stripes, sets sail for Flotsam, where an infamous elf named Iorveth and his Scoia'tael were known to operate.
Upon arriving in the city's outskirts, they immediately encounter Iorveth who attacks and is later seen conversing with the assassin. Geralt, Triss and Roche flee to Flotsam, where Geralt discovers his friends Dandelion the bard and Zoltan Chivay the dwarf, who are about to be hanged. Roche and the Witcher saves them from their fate, thus making his presence known to Flotsam, and particularly its ruler, the so called Commandant Loredo.
The Commandant informs the Witcher of the difficulties facing Flotsan, including attacks from the Scoia'tael and the Kayran, a beast that has halted traffic along the river. He tells Geralt that if he deals with the latter, he will have his full support in finding Iorveth. Geralt agrees, then kills the monster with the help of a sorceress named Silla, who came to the outpost to claim the contract for the creature.
After defeating the beast, Geralt meets a Scoia'tael lieutenant on a prison barge docked outside town who claims the kingslayer, known as Letho, intends to betray Iorveth. As it turns out, Zoltan was to be hanged for conspiring with the Scoia'tael, because Commandant Loredo was notoriously discriminatory toward non-humans. Thus the dwarf arranges a meeting between Geralt and Iorveth, where the Witcher informs the elf of the kingslayer's intentions. The pair decide to confront Letho, who in turn reveals that he was planning to betray Iorveth. Before the two can capture Letho however, Roche arrives with an armed force. Geralt duels the Kingslayer and is subsequently defeated. However, Letho spares his life, revealing that Geralt once saved the lives of Letho and his own band of witchers. He then kidnaps Triss, forcing her to teleport them to Aedirn.
At this point in the story, Geralt can either continue on with Roche or Iorveth.
Act 2 - Iorveth's Path
Geralt and Iorveth steal the prison barge docked in Flotsam and set sail for Aedirn. Upon their arrival they stumble upon a meeting between King Henselt of Kaedwen and the rebel army of Prince Stennis (the son of the slain King Demavend), and his commander Saskia the Dragonslayer. A battle breaks out only to be interrupted by an ancient curse, activated when blood spatters on an ancient sculpture. Spectral soldiers, the souls of Henselt's soldiers who died in a horrid battle 3 years earlier, attack the group. Iorveth and Geralt, along with the sorceress Philippa Eilhart (now serving as advisor to Saskia), escort Saskia and Prince Stennis across the ghost field battlefield, returning them safely to Vergen. The rebels hold a meeting where Saskia announces her intentions to lead a rebel army against King Henselt. An army comrpised of Vergen's dwarven forces, Iorveth's Scoia'tel, and Stennis' soldiers. The group rallies behind Saskia, declaring her Queen, but as the meeting concludes she falls ill to a powerful and mysterious poison.
Geralt decides to not only track down the ingredients for an antidote, but to gather a series of magical artifacts to lift the curse from the former battlefield.
Act 2 - Roche's Path
Roche discovers Commandant Loredo is spying for the Kaeweni and asks Geralt to kill him. Geralt and the Blue Stripes then set sail for Aedirn. Upon their arrival they stumble upon a meeting between King Henselt of Kaedwen and the rebel army of Prince Stennis (the son of the slain King Demavend), and his commander Saskia the Dragonslayer. A battle breaks out only to be interrupted by an ancient curse, activated when blood spatters on an ancient sculpture. Spectral soldiers, the souls of Henselt's soldiers who died in a horrid battle 3 years earlier, attack the group. Geralt and Roche help the group fight off the spectres and with the aide of his two mage advisors, Dethmold and Sile de Tansarville, escort King Henselt across the battlefield. Once the group arrives safely in the Kaeweni camp, Henselt tasks Geralt with not only removing the curse from the battlefield, but one from the king himself. A curse placed on him by another sorceress by the name of Sabrina Glevissig, whom Henselt had burned to death following the battle 3 years earlier.
In the meantime, while Geralt continues his search for Triss and the Kingslayer, he uncovers a plot accusing Henselt of conspiring with the Nilfgaardians. He soon discovers that Triss has been taken by Nilfgaardian spies, who have taken her to the ancient elven city of Loc Muine. After the curse is lifted, two witchers by the name of Auckes and Serrit, in league with Letho, attempt to kill King Henselt. Geralt defends the king, killing Auckes in the battle. Dethmold casts a spell allowing Geralt to look into the now deceased Aucke's memories, revealing that the Kingslayers are in league with Sile de Tansarville. Shortly thereafter, Geralt lifts the curse from the battlefield and Henselt marches on Vergen. It is revealed that Roche has been leading the insurgency and Henselt has all his men hung. Roche and Geralt make way for Vergen, hoping to track down Sile and Phillipa Eilhart, who they now know are behind Demevend's death. They miss the pair, who left for Loc Muine, with Saskia as their prisoner. They then confront Henselt, where Geralt kills the king's bodyguard. Geralt then chooses to either let Roche get his revenge by killing Henselt, sparking a civil war, or convince him to spare the king's life.
Act 3
Depending on who Geralt assisted in Act 2, he arrives in Loc Muine with either Iorveth or Roche. Mages from the various kingdoms have convened in the city to discuss the formation of a new magical organization called "The Conclave." As a result, many of the realms royal leaders are also in the city and Phillipa Eilhart and Sile de Tansarville plan to use the still spellbound Saskia as leverage. At the same time, Geralt tracks down the Nilfgaardian spies who are holding Triss hostage. If he arrived with Roche, he finds that Dethmold has kidnapped Princess Anais, Foltest's daughter. He then must decide to rescue Triss or Anais. If Geralt sided with Iorveth, he finds that Phillipa has been captured by King Radovid of Redania, who carves her eyes out. Geralt must then choose to rescue Triss or Philippa, who is the only person who can free Saskia from her trance.
If Geralt chooses to save Anais, Roche murders Dethmold out of revenge, and the two can choose to send her to either King Radovid or John Natalis of Temeria. If he rescues Philippa, the Nilfgaardians begin a witch hunt, implicating all the mages, but Saskia establishes a free kingdom in the Pontar Valley. If the player saves Triss, the Nilfgaardian plot is destroyed with the death of Renauld. The mages re-establish themselves, and Temeria is dissolved. Dethmold manages to escape and Roche takes Anais into exile. During the meeting, Letho arrives with the Nilfgaardian forces in tow and reveals the sorceress' plot.
Síle escapes and activates her teleportation device. However, Letho sabotaged the device and it kills her. Geralt can choose to let her die or save her life and allow her to escape. Geralt then battles Saskia in dragon form and ultimately defeats her. If he assisted Saskia and Iorveth and chose to rescue Philippa, he is able to break the spell over Saskia's mind, otherwise he must choose to kill her or let her live on in dragon form.
Epilogue
Geralt then finally confronts Letho, the kingslayer, who frees Triss if Geralt did not save her. Geralt can choose to talk to Letho or kill him outright. If he chooses the former, Letho reveals that he is in fact a witcher from the school of the viper in the south, along with Serrit and Auckes. Geralt once saved them and turned over Yennefer of Vengerberg to their care. They eventually made their way into Nilfgaard, where the Emperor, Emhyr var Emreis, asked them to destabilize the Northern Kingdoms by assassinating kings. In exchange, the Emperor promised to build a new witcher school for them. After the confrontation, Geralt reunites with Triss and either Iorveth or Roche, and sets off to Nilfgaard to find Yennefer.
Gameplay
The four skill trees.
The combat from the first game has been overhauled and relies on four major skill trees. Each node on the skill tree has two levels, and some can be further upgraded with mutagens found in the game.
Training - Increases Geralt's general combat and physical capabilities like his stamina and ability to parry or block in combat. Players must invest a minimum of 6 points in this talent tree to unlock the remaining three.
Increases Geralt's general combat and physical capabilities like his stamina and ability to parry or block in combat. Players must invest a minimum of 6 points in this talent tree to unlock the remaining three. Swordmanship - Improves Geralt's sword fighting skills and gives him new moves and abilities. Affects both the normal and silver swords the witcher carries.
Improves Geralt's sword fighting skills and gives him new moves and abilities. Affects both the normal and silver swords the witcher carries. Magic - Improves Geralt's knowledge of "Signs" (which are essentially magic spells he can cast in combat). There are multiple branches which improve the effectiveness of an existing sign by adding extra damage or special effects like a stun.
- Improves Geralt's knowledge of "Signs" (which are essentially magic spells he can cast in combat). There are multiple branches which improve the effectiveness of an existing sign by adding extra damage or special effects like a stun. Alchemy - Improves effectiveness of potions, oils and bombs made using alchemy. Some talents allow for use of multiple potions or reduce their side-effects.
The multiple stance and rhythmic timing-based system has been dropped in favor of a more fluid, action-oriented approach, inspired by games like Batman: Arkham Asylum and powered by the Havok physics engine. Geralt now has two basic attacks: Quick (Left Mouse) and Strong (Right Mouse), that can be strung together to perform various combos. Players can block incoming attacks and with the right timing, execute a parry and riposte or perform dodge rolls. With good placement, players can trick enemies into causing friendly fire damage on each other. The engine features more gory & brutal kill animations. A series of finishing move or execution style animations can be triggered when attacking a stunned opponent, these instantly kill the target.
Duels aren't always solved at swordpoint and sometimes involve Quick Time Events (QTES) if turned on in the options menu.
Spells, traps and potions can still be used during combat and remain a major component. Geralt can use barrier spells to ward off tougher enemies, telekineses to crowd control and cast offensive spells like fireballs to deal damage. Trap placement has been expanded up to three levels, with increasing benefits based on how many traps Geralt lays down. Players can also slow down time by bringing up a radial menu (by holding down the CTRL key) and change weapons, items and spells on the fly. The game has an optional combat log window that details all the stat calculations going on behind the scenes. One thing players cannot do is drink health giving potions or otherwise heal mid-combat, meaning preparation for big encounters is vital to survival.
With the addition of detailed environment, players can use lighting and shadows to stealth around enemies. The cat potion from the first game has been changed to give Geralt a pseudo-X-ray vision, very much like Batman's detective vision in Arkham Asylum. Players can also engage in hand-to-hand duels that use quick-time events.
There are multiple mini-games involving fist-fighting, arm-wrestling, dueling, poetry, gambling etc. The number of delivery quests has been cut down in favor of more exploration and combat focused quests. There are also detective side-quests where players have to use environmental hints to track down monsters and solve mysteries. Character customization has been expanded to a great degree and players can change almost every aspect of Geralt's weaponry and clothing. In addition, players can also craft their own weapons or upgrade existing ones, further building upon the importance of collecting ingredients and crafting materials from slain enemies, various containers, and vegetation.
Alchemy
Slaying monsters gives a chance at rarer ingredients.
Alchemy no longer requires stringent environmental conditions like fire and can be used to create potions anywhere. In order to create potions the player must meditate, but unlike the previous game brewing no longer takes up game time. Alchemy can be used to create three main items:
Potions - Liquid compounds that grant temporary powers. They are created by adding herbs and monster body parts to a chemical base, like alcohol. They are also the only alchemy product to have side effects associated with their use. This poisonous side effect is measured in terms of "Toxicity".
- Liquid compounds that grant temporary powers. They are created by adding herbs and monster body parts to a chemical base, like alcohol. They are also the only alchemy product to have side effects associated with their use. This poisonous side effect is measured in terms of "Toxicity". Oils - Oils are special chemicals applied to swords and other weapons to increase their damage or effectiveness against certain types of enemies.
Oils are special chemicals applied to swords and other weapons to increase their damage or effectiveness against certain types of enemies. Bombs - Powerful explosives that can be used to stun or outright kill an enemy from a distance. Depending on their type and quality, they can cover considerably large areas.
Geralt starts with the knowledge of some basic alchemy recipes but the rest are learned by shopping in towns, looting corpses or collected as quest rewards. There are 9 natural compounds used in alchemy: Aether, Caelum, Fulgur, Hydragenum, Quebrith, Rebis, Sol, Vermillion and Vitriol. These can be extracted from various sources, like herbs or animal parts.
Mutagens
Being a Witcher, Geralt is a mutant warrior who can use mutagens to enhance his innate abilities even further. When used, these chemical reagents permanently increase the stats for one of his abilities. These can be looted from dead bodies or created as a by-product from alchemy. They are found in three varieties: Lesser, Basic and Greater; each increasing stats by an ascending amount.
Mutagens can be used to gain one of the following effects:
Critical Effect : Increase Geralt's critical chance in melee combat.
: Increase Geralt's critical chance in melee combat. Range : Increase the range of Signs.
: Increase the range of Signs. Power: Increase sword or melee damage
Increase sword or melee damage Strength : Increase damage reduction
: Increase damage reduction Concentration: Increase damage dealt by Signs.
Enhanced Edition
Released on April 17th 2012 as a free digital update for the PC, as well as a retail release - and included with the Xbox 360 version right from the start - the Enhanced Edition introduced over one hundred enhancements, tweaks, bug fixes and changes to the core game of The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings, plus hours of new content such as new quests, new locations and new cutscenes.
A pre-loader for the PC version was released several days before the initial release of the Enhanced Edition to try to eliminate traffic on day-one since the update has over ten Gigabytes of new files. It was made clear that the directory should not be moved before the game was successfully updated on April 17th.
Version 2.0
Released the 29th of September 2011, this free patch, brings two new game modes to the Witcher 2: Dark Mode, and an Arena mode; along with various tweaks and enhancements, and a tutorial. All of these will be shipped on-disc for the Xbox 360 release.
Dark Mode
Dark mode is a new difficulty level designed for people wanting new challenge for their subsequent play-throughs, and it adds an assortment of powerful, new, dark themed items to the game.
Arena Mode
An arena mode that allows the player to fight waves upon waves of enemies -- of which get progressively stronger and more difficult to defeat -- to achieve the highest score the player can. Leaderboards have been set up so players can strive to have the highest score of any Witcher 2 player. This mode also introduces a new enemy.
Announcement
Promotional Video Leak
On Sept 16, 2009, a video was leaked from CD Projekt's offices that was intended as promotion to obtain a publisher. In the video, it is described that the team has worked hard on improving graphics from the original game, and completely revamping the way the world works.
Announcement Trailer
In March 2010 an official trailer for the game was released showing that Atari would once again be publishing for the developer. The trailer depicted story elements of a large man who specifically targets Kings to assassinate, a man with black hair and an eye patch, and Geralt with a pony tail instead of the hairstyle used in the first game. It can be inferred that Geralt must fight the other two aforementioned men as major antagonists of the game.
Thorough fans were able to find a single frame hidden in the trailer with a secret message to dedicated fans about the game from the developer. They promise that the fans will enjoy the sequel as they made it to be very similar to the original, but to creatively enhance and extend the properties of it. They also mention that they feel that claims of PC gaming and PC RPGs being dead are "unagreeable" due to the fact that the first Witcher sold 1.5 million copies on PC alone.
The text of the hidden message (original smilies included) reads:
This message is for our biggest fans. Analyzing our stuff pixel by pixel. It's good to see you again! :-) BTW: Simple minded people think that nobody is reading these days, dear reader of this, we think that we can agree that is bullshit, huh? Same as the fact that single player RPGs are dead, or PCs? We sold 1.5 million units of the game from a dying genre on a dying platform - so we somehow cannot agree ;-) Before we start talking about TW2 please let us thank you for your great support and appreciation. It always motivates us and make us happy. We started working on TW2 right after release of TW. Our goal was to create all the things which made TW so great even better in TW2. We are very proud of TW but lets be honest, it was our debut. We never made any game before, and we practically learned as we worked. So there were many things which could be done better, you know it as good as us :-) But the vision, the main concept, remains the same: a game with a mature, captivating and non linear story, and full of spectacular combat. A game created by a team of independant thinkers immune to corporate priorities, who don't care what's trendy at the given moment. The core vision of the game hasn't changed. What has changed is the quality and the maturity we can deliver. That's largely because we're more experienced and also due to the fact that we've created our own technology. Do you remember how we made significant improvements with the Aurora Engine in the original game, but it still had its limitations? Now we've created technology designed specifically to create non-linear games with extensive plotlines and a living word... Well, there's no point in expanding on that too much - you have to check out our tech yourselves! Nevertheless, we have many reasons to believe that you will like The Witcher 2! See you soon and stay tuned! :)
Xbox360
On 06.02.2011 during a pre E3 conference in Venice Beach CD Projekt team announced the release of an Xbox 360 version by the end of the year. The Gram.pl - site and shop affiliated with CD Projekt suggested a release date of 11.15.2011. During the presentation a new teaser created by Tomasz Bagiński was shown.
Assassins of Kings will hit the Xbox 360 on April 17, 2012.
Availability
In November 2010 it was announced that The Witcher 2 would be available on May 17, 2011. It was available on Good Old Games & Steam with exclusive content. Until that date several editions were available for pre-order:
Digital Premium Edition
GOG Edition
The full in-game soundtrack
Papercraft figures
Guide
Maps
Letters
Trailers
Developer diaries
Gameplay footage
Interviews and "making of" exclusive video.
GOG Exclusives: One Free CRPG & a 200 page digital artbook.
Premium Edition
Premium Edition Impression
Game DVD (except when ordering the digital edition)
Making of movie
Soundtrack of the game
Map of the gaming world
Game guide
Manual
Pamphlet and coin
Papercraft
Collectors' Edition
Collectors' Edition impression
Game DVD (except when ordering the digital edition)
Making of movie
Etui; box for the game and movie dvd
Soundtrack of the game
Map of the gaming world
Game guide
Manual
Pamphlet and coin
Papercraft
DLC; varies by vendor
Artbook; extensive book with 200 pages of artwork
Gerald head sculpture
Dice set
Card deck
Cards guide
Stickers; set of three Witcher stickers
Temerian coin; one temerian oren
Box; to contain all these goodies
Soundtrack
The Witcher 2's Cover Art
The original score for The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings was composed by Adam Skorupa, with the collaboration of Krzysztof Wierzynkiewicz.
Track # Song Title Running Time 01 Assassins of Kings 02.08 02 A Nearly Peaceful Place 04.08 03 The Path of a Kingslayer 01.28 04 Dwarven Stone Upon Dwarven Stone 07.35 05 Through the Underworld 03.49 06 The Lone Survivor 01.18 07 Into the Fields 05.49 08 An Army Lying In Wait 03.55 09 Easier Said than Killed 01.11 10 A Watering Hole In the Harbor 02.38 11 Within the Mist 03.04 12 Regicide 01.19 13 The Wild Hunt 01.20 14 Vergen by Night 07.31 15 For a Higher Cause 01.15 16 Souls In Ruin 04.47 17 A Quiet Corner 03.16 18 The Assassin Looms 01.07 19 The Camp of Night 03.19 20 Dreary Stronghold 04.13 21 Howl of the White Wolf 01.57 22 Sorceresses 02.02 23 The End Is Never the Same 03.16
PC System Requirements
Minimum
OS : Windows XP SP2 / Windows Vista SP2 / Windows 7 (32/64-bit)
: Windows XP SP2 / Windows Vista SP2 / Windows 7 (32/64-bit) Processor : Intel Core 2 Duo 2.2 Ghz or AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+
: Intel Core 2 Duo 2.2 Ghz or AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ Memory : 1 GB Windows XP / 2 GB Windows Vista and Windows 7
: 1 GB Windows XP / 2 GB Windows Vista and Windows 7 Video Card: 512 MB RAM, supporting Pixel Shader 3.0 (Nvidia GeForce 8800 or ATI Radeon HD3850)
Recommended
OS : Windows XP SP2 / Windows Vista SP2 / Windows 7 (32/64-bit)
: Windows XP SP2 / Windows Vista SP2 / Windows 7 (32/64-bit) Processor : Intel Core 2 Quad or AMD Phenom X4
: Intel Core 2 Quad or AMD Phenom X4 Memory : 3 GB Windows XP / 4 GB Windows Vista and Windows 7
: 3 GB Windows XP / 4 GB Windows Vista and Windows 7 Video Card: 1 GB RAM, supporting Pixel Shader 3.0 (Nvidia GeForce GTX260 or ATI Radeon HD4850)
Additionally |
Hey there, Toons!
The Toontown's Funny Farm website is currently down for maintenance. In addition, the game is currently down due to issues with the launcher and due to the lack of the content available in version 1.3.7. We're sorry for the inconvenience!
Don't be discouraged, however. The Toontown's Funny Farm team is hard at work on version 1.4.0 of the game, which will contain a good majority of the ToonTasks for the first playground, Funny Farm. 1.4.0 will also contain various improvements and tweaks to the game as thanks for your patience. We know that 1.4.0 has been in development for a rather lengthy period of time, but most of our developers have had to deal with either other projects, school, or both. We thank you for your patience and understanding, and stay Tooned for more about Toontown's Funny Farm version 1.4.0!
To stay up to date on the latest Toontown's Funny Farm news or to get in touch with the developers, join our official Discord server. |
Moose fall to IceHogs 4-3
As Laine and Matthews faced off at the ACC in Toronto, the Manitoba Moose took on Chicago’s AHL affiliate, the Rockford Ice Hogs. After getting down 2-0 in the first, the Moose roared back in the second, scoring two goals in 1:35 to start the period. The Ice Hogs took back their two-goal lead in the third, going up 4-2, but the Moose made it interesting, scoring a short-handed goal with just over 5 minutes left in the third. They weren’t able to get any closer, as they looked disorganized in the final minutes of play.
After the game, Moose Head Coach Pascal Vincent didn’t sugar things, saying that he didn’t like the team’s first period at all, and suggested the team was tired following a 6-game road trip. Asked about goaltender Eric Comrie’s play, he called it “ok – like the rest of the team”.
Scoring Summary:
Ice Hog Goal (1): On the PP, Brandon Mashinter found a rebound in the slot and beat Comrie.
Ice Hog Goal (2): Off the rush, the Moose chased the Ice Hogs into the corner, and Mashinter had oodles of time in front to collect yet another rebound in the slot and beat Comrie over the right pad.
Moose Goal (1): J.C Lipon entered the Rockford zone and found a pinching Nolan Zajac to his left, who beat goaltender Jeff Glass for his first career AHL goal.
Moose Goal (2): Quinton Howden found Scott Glennie in the slot, and he one-timed it just just over the pad to tie the game at 2.
Ice Hog Goal (3): Kyle Baun circled the zone and came into the slot and took a weak wrister which found its way through Comrie.
Ice Hog Goal (4): After Brenden Kichton fell, Martin Lundberg cut into the slot and sniped top shelf glove hand on Comrie.
Moose Goal (3): While shorthanded, Brian Strait made a nice move to enter the offensive zone, came up to the faceoff dot and half-fanned on a shot which beat Jeff Glass five-hole.
Player Highlights and Reviews:
Winnipegger Nolan Zajac scored with his first career AHL goal when he jumped into the rush and escaped the backcheck. The undersized d-man (5’9) brings good skill and offensive instincts, and has some similarities to Moose centre Dan DeSalvo – both are undersized 24-year old’s who turned heads in the ECHL before joining the Moose lineup.
J.C Lipon was the most noticeable Moose forward tonight, skating and carrying the puck well, making plays, and battling hard as always. Offensively, he’s had a tough year, with just 5 goals and 16 points in 51 games coming into tonight.
Eric Comrie had a forgettable night – although he was excellent in the second period, he gave up some big rebounds in the early going which put the team down 2-0, and sapped the team’s momentum when he gave up a very weak third goal to put the team down 3-2. He was starting his 7th straight game, so perhaps fatigue is playing a role.
Kyle Connor and Jack Roslovic had similar games – each of them carried the puck a lot, but ineffectively; they didn’t create many, or capitalize on any scoring chances, and appeared to be doing too much on their own with the Moose down in the third.
Brendan Lemieux was also silent tonight – just one shot on goalie (not a quality chance), and a minor penalty which led to Rockford’s opening goal.
Audio:
Nolan Zajac
Coach Vincent |
I wrote a limerick. Feel free to use it:
I once dined with Omar Sharif.
Whose wife made a banquet of beef.
Instead of her mouth,
She shoved it down south,
And gave me mad cow with a queef.
Here’s today’s review. Find me on Facebook and Twitter. I promise to not dig up your relatives.
Appearance: A beautiful rich, dark honey brown color tempts my eyes in an almost unfair way. An off-white to almost yellow head laces majestically in the inside of my glass that only serves to swell my temptation. It’s remarkably clear with a moderate amount of carbonation; all of these qualities combining to make this reviewer drool.
Smell: There’s a subtle citrus note with grass and sweetness; I’d liken it to walking outside to your garden after the rain on a hot day.
Taste: A stark contrast to the smell, a great hoppy bitterness envelopes the mouth, every bit of surface area blissfully screaming because of the skillful balance offered by the sweetness. The aftertaste is just a slow burn of more of the hops that holds and holds, not leaving the mouth even minutes after a proper, deep sip.
Overall: The way that the taste of this beer never leaves your mouth is a godsend because I don’t want to lose it. 87/100. I could only dock points because the taste could be very overpowering at times. I loved it, but I could see this being a turnoff for some. |
Getty Matthew Perry once beat up Justin Trudeau. Now, Trudeau wants to defend himself.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau playfully challenged actor Matthew Perry to a fight over Twitter on Saturday, just weeks after Perry let the world know that he once beat Trudeau up at their elementary school in Canada.
During an appearance on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” last month, Perry told the story, as extremely unlikely as it might seem.
“My friend Chris Murray, who was also in the fifth grade in Canada, reminded me that we actually beat up Justin Trudeau,” he said. “We both beat him up. I think he was excelling in a sport that we weren’t so it was pure jealousy.”
“I think he was the only kid in school that we could beat up,” he added. “You know, I’m not bragging about this, this is terrible. I was a stupid kid, I didn’t want to beat him up. In fact, I think at one point I tried to turn it into love play.”
Even though Perry expressed remorse, that wasn’t good enough for Trudeau, who in his challenge on Saturday ― which was April Fools’ Day ― correctly noted that Chandler, Perry’s character on “Friends,” has a very punchable face.
I've been giving it some thought, and you know what, who hasn't wanted to punch Chandler? How about a rematch @MatthewPerry? — Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) April 1, 2017
Guys, just one request: If this goes down, just make sure it’s streamable ― not some of that pay-per-view bull crap. |
When Dave Snell was awarded a $100,000 grant seven years ago to study the bogan lifestyle, there was outrage. "What possible value could that have?" raged the critics.
Well, for Snell, it was the beginning of a journey that has so far produced a PhD for his thesis on "boganology", a book, a YouTube channel – and now Bogans, a TV reality series following a small group of Hamiltonians who proudly lay claim to the title of "bogan".
Let's face it, bogans are everywhere (although mostly in Hamilton and West Auckland).
CRAIG WRIGHT New series looks at the bogan culture in New Zealand.
If you are not a bogan, you may know one, or at least have met one. They are quite easy to spot – often in black heavy metal concert T-shirt, mullet, black pants and driving a car that has probably seen better days and will certainly see worse. And they are probably fixing your car or your plumbing.
For Snell and his comrades, being a bogan is just a way of life – and that is what he wants this series to show. "It's showing everyday people really," he told TV Guide. "What I've tried to get across in a lot of the things I do is that (bogans) are everyday people who just happen to like certain things. They're not anyone to be feared or looked down at. They're just like everyone else. It just happens that they spend their weekends a little differently."
Snell quickly rejects the notion that the series is going to be the bogan equivalent of The GC. But TV – being the brutally exposing medium that it often is – may well put this particular social sub-culture under intense scrutiny. So is the series a plea for acceptance for the bogan community? "I wouldn't say it's a plea," says Snell. "We don't really care. But it definitely aims to give an insight into the culture I guess. People can take it or leave it."
In many ways, Snell says he was a bogan before he even realised it, essentially through his choice of music and dress style. But he had to move to another part of the country before it sank in. "It was probably when I moved to Hamilton, I think," he says. "I was just into the things I was into and dressed the way I dressed. And back then, when I was from the far north, I used to have a bit of a mullet when I was 17 or 18. And when I moved to Hamilton I heard of this term and liked that there was a collective name for the identity I had shared with other people, and I was quite proud of it. So I took it as a good thing."
Perhaps the man who did the most to inject boganism into mainstream culture was the late Ewen Gilmour, who took his Westie (Auckland bogan) persona on stage for his comedy career, and then into local politics. Gilmour's gift was to make boganism simultaneously a source of both humour and pride.
So would Snell Snell describe it as a self-effacing sub-culture? "You mean taking the ****?" he says. "Yes, definitely. It's quite a common thing. I think as a collective group we're quite willing to make jokes at our own expense. There's no fear of making a joke about ourselves and making ourselves look foolish. That's definitely a bogan attitude."
But if Ewen Gilmour was boganism's figurehead, then Snell Snell is its diarist if not its social analyst. Boganism, he says, exists in a kind of working-class border land between the rural and the urban lifestyles – hence its predominance in Hamilton and West Auckland. But does he think that even trying to define boganism might begin to change it? "No," he says. "A lot of our symbolism and music is based in the 80s, and it has been quite resistant to change, so I don't think this particular project will make any difference really. There are certain things within the series that we do that definitely fit the stereotype, and there are others that potentially don't. People are going to view it and it's either going to confirm what they thought or they'll ignore it."
Of course, such is the power of the medium that pointing the camera at the sub-culture might actually help to swell the ranks. "Well, if that's the case, we'd welcome them," says Snell. "Again, I don't think it's going to change much. I would hope that a greater level of acceptance for the group comes about. It would be nice."
Bogans, TV2, Thursday.
For more like this, subscribe to the TV Guide at www.mags4gifts.co.nz |
Meet google_translate_diff, a Ruby gem for everyone who uses Google Translation API to treat long texts on multi-lingual websites. See how it helps us spend three times less on machine translations at eBay For Business.
Spoiler: it has to do with NLP and caching.
No humans involved
Thanks to breakthroughs in AI, automated translation services keep improving at a steady pace. In some cases, Google Cloud Translation produces texts that are indistinguishable from human work. Product descriptions are a perfect example: their translations do not have to be creative, they just have to be exact.
Same product on global and French versions of eBay. Descriptions translated automatically by Google.
At eBay For Business, vendors can place their products on multiple international versions of eBay with a click of a button. Every product description is translated into five languages on the fly. There is a downside to this magic though:
Every small change in a single product description (fixing a typo or changing attributes) calls a retranslation of the whole text into all supported languages.
Google charges us per character. That means we have to pay for several pages of text every time a user changes a single character. There must be a way to handle this more efficiently. Let’s find it!
Doing some math
A typical product description looks like this:
"There are 6 pcs <b> Neumann Gefell </b> tube mics MV 101 with MK 102 capsule. It is working with much difference capsules from neumann / gefell.
Additionally…”
On a given day we have:
Total characters: 41,458,854 (525,682,297 including raw HTML);
Duplicates: 25,084,381 characters;
Average description: 1,774 characters;
Median length: 1,140 characters.
Every minor change makes us pay for 1,140 * 5 = 5,700 characters.
We have also noticed that around 3% of descriptions change daily. So, we are supposed to pay for 5 to 6 million characters every day, or for 180 million characters every month. Google translates it into a $3,600 bill.
Saving some money
Another observation we have made:
Descriptions from a single seller often share the same boilerplate: shipping policies, terms of service, etc. Descriptions from different sellers may also share fragments if they are copied from the same external source.
It looks like we need a way to extract identical fragments from descriptions and cache their translations. A basic structural element of a text is a sentence. After crunching more data, we found out that we have:
964,455 sentences;
Only 180,791 of them are unique;
That makes for 9,807,456 characters of unique content.
41.5 million vs. 9.8 million characters. Looks promising!
Also, most of our descriptions contain poorly generated HTML that looks like this:
.png\");
}
#navbar {
position: absolute;
top: 86px;
}
#efooter {
background: none repeat scroll 0 0 #EAEAEA;
margin: auto;
text-align: center;
}
#footwrap {
color: #666666;
font-family: 'Roboto';
font-size: 12px;
font-weight: bold;
margin: 14px auto auto;
padding: 20px;
text-align: center;
width: 980px;
}
#toplinks a {
text-decoration: none;
margin: 0px 5px;
}
.yuinav {
border-left: 1px solid #CCCCCC;
float: left;
margin: 10px 0 0;
padding: 0;
}
.yuinav li {
cursor: pointer;
}
.yuinav li {
Is there anything we can do about it? For our initial analysis, we stripped all markup with ActionView’s #strip_tags . In the real application, though, we need to keep the tags. Although you can translate HTML with Google, splitting the resulting character soup into sentences will be next to impossible. Also, changes in markup should not lead to retranslation.
Only text changes matter, so we need to consider markup separately from the content.
What if we could have something like the following?
[[ "There are 6 pcs " , :text ], [ "<b>" , :markup ], [ "Neumann Gefell" , :text ], [ "</b>" , :markup ], [ " tube mics MV 101 with MK 102 capsule. " , :text ], [ "It is working with much difference capsules from neumann / gefell.
" , :text ], [ "Additionally…" , :text ]]
That way, every text chunk can be handled separately: markup will be cached right away, text sentences—translated and then cached.
ox gem is an excellent, fast SAX parser. punkt-segmenter gem is perfect for sentence splitting.
To achieve this, we ended up writing a special tokenizer. Now we can:
Immediately tell text from markup;
Translate only sentences we have never seen before. Prior translations will be loaded from cache;
Join markup and text back together after we are done.
From an idea to a gem
We have decided to share our tool with the world: google_translate_diff is now open source, and you can use it too. Here’s how:
s = "There are 6 pcs <b>Neumann Gefell</b> tube mics MV 101 with MK 102 capsule. It is working with much difference capsules from neumann / gefell.
Additionally…" GoogleTranslateDiff . translate ( s , from: :en , to: :es ) # => Tokenize [ [ "There are 6 pcs " , :text ], [ "<b>" , :markup ], [ "Neumann Gefell" , :text ], [ "</b>" , :markup ], [ " tube mics MV 101 with MK 102 capsule." , :text ], [ "It is working ... / gefell.
" , :text ], # NOTE: Separate sentence [ "Additionally…" , :text ] # NOTE: Also, separate sentence ] # => Load from cache and translate missing pieces [ [ "Ci sono 6 pezzi " , :text ], # <== cache [ "<b>" , :markup ], [ "Neumann Gefell" , :text ], # <== Google ==> cache [ "</b>" , :markup ], [ " Tubi MV 101 con ... " , :text ], # <== Google ==> cache [ "Sta lavorando cn ... / gefell.
" , :text ], # <== cache [ "Inoltre…" , :text ] # <== cache ] # => Join back "Ci sono 6 pezzi <b>Neumann Gefell</b> Tubi MV 101 con capsula MK 102. Sta lavorando con molte capsule di differenza da neumann / gefell.
Inoltre"
Trade-offs
As always, there is no silver bullet, so here are few things to take into consideration:
Casing : If you try to translate something like ["Sequence", "of words"] into German via Google API, you will get ["Sequenz", "Der Worte"] . Because Google treats every single element of an array as the separate sentence, definite article “der” is capitalized, which is wrong.
Context loss : Context is important to Google. When the text is split into small parts, context is lost, and translation quality drops in some cases.
Losing punkt-segmenter trained data between requests: Library’s README recommends training a splitting algorithm separately for every language and marshal trained data to a file. Currently, this is not happening, but it can be easily implemented. PR’s are welcome!
Our average bill dropped from 180-200 million to 58 million characters per month without any significant decrease in translation quality. We ended up spending three times less: $1,200 instead of $3,600.
Keep in mind that the same approach will work for any translation service that bills you per character. Feel free to fork google_translate_diff repository and adapt it to your use case! |
Some on the left argue that the recent college squabble was caused, not by crazy demands for ever newer forms of “political correctness,” but by a conservative -- reactionary -- crackdown on the rights and livelihood of young people. As a millennial myself, I find it ironic that it is not conservative policies holding young people back from the middle class, but the liberalism these student promote.
From raising the minimum wage, to Obamacare, to the negative emotional and intellectual effects of “political correctness” on college campuses, liberalism is harming the young and decreasing their chances of rising in the world.
The College Freakout
According to Salon’s Amanda Marcotte, “Young people are under assault from reactionary forces and most of their grievances are not about imagined slights, but about very serious problems they are facing, on and off campus.” Ironically, Marcotte is right -- but the “reactionary forces” truly at fault are those of the left, not of the right.
Marcotte turns to recent events at the University of Missouri, recounting the school’s brief attempt to take away health insurance subsidies for graduate students, and short scuffles with Planned Parenthood following the Center for Medical Progress videos. In these events, the Salon author sees a looming threat by right-wing nut-jobs. “The school was listening to and willing to interfere with the health care and educational access the students had, to pander to the whims of a bunch of delusional culture warriors,” Marcotte declares.
Marcotte connects this “attack on the young” to the culture war -- with a clear message as to which side is in the wrong. But could she not have missed something fundamental in all of this? Young people are under attack from the left -- arguably more than any phantom attack from conservatives.
Obamacare
“Even the war over Obamacare has a generational aspect to it,” Marcotte writes. She argues that, since Americans between 18 and 34 are the most likely to be uninsured, they “therefore have the most to gain under the Medicaid expansion and federal subsidies available through Obamacare.”
On the contrary, young people are caught in a trap -- pay more for expensive coverage they are less likely to need, or pay a penalty for avoiding the “individual mandate.”
Before the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) was enacted, the typical cost of insuring an 18 year old was one-fifth the cost of insuring a 64 year old. As Diana Furchtgott-Roth points out in National Review, this price difference made sense because “older people are at much greater risk of serious health problems than people just out of high school.” Nevertheless, since income generally rises with age, 64 year olds are likely better able to afford the higher premiums.
Obamacare mandates “essential health benefits,” such as maternity and newborn care and pediatric services, in every plan, even for a young, unmarried male. This drives up the cost of insurance -- encouraging young people to accept the penalty rather than buy coverage they do not need.
The Minimum Wage
Like Obamacare, a higher minimum wage would disproportionately hurt young people. While it seems like a government mandate for higher wages would “give workers a raise,” it would really force companies to make a terrible choice -- raise prices or drop employees who have become more expensive than the value they create.
Across the country, McDonald’s has already started replacing people with robots. Facing steep competition from “fast casual” restaurants like Chipotle, McDonald’s has to keep its edge, and that means lower prices. If government requires fast food restaurants to pay workers more, the restaurants will do so -- but they can only make ends meet by hiring fewer employees.
While a higher minimum wage may sound like a raise, in the competition of the free market, it looks more like a pink slip -- for both employees and businesses.
Kevin McNamee, owner of a small business in Los Angeles, CA -- a city which recently voted to increase the minimum wage to $15 in 2020 -- worries, “I can’t raise my product prices because of pricing pressure. I can’t reduce my expenses; in fact, salaries are my greatest expense, and $15 per hour increases my expenses and reduces my profit.”
McNamee claims “last year, my employees made more than I, the owner, did.” Small businesses like his will likely fail under a higher minimum wage.
Big businesses will more likely be able to stomach higher wages, but they will have to hire fewer workers to meet their bottom lines. Since young people have the least experience, they are most likely to fill entry-level positions -- jobs that may become even harder to find if companies have to pay even the least experienced workers a high wage.
The Coddling of the American Mind
In the September issue of The Atlantic, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff, president and CEO for the Foundation for Individual Rights In Education, wrote about how the anti-speech movement on college campuses actually encourages psychological maladies and cognitive distortions.
Haidt and Lukianoff describe the rising culture of what they call “vindictive protectiveness.” They mention the case of Jeannie Suk, a Harvard Law professor, who wrote in The New Yorker about law students asking her fellow professors at Harvard not even to teach rape law -- and in one weird case even to avoid using the world “violate” (as in “that violates the law) -- because it may cause students distress. They also cite a professor whose fear of student reprisal led him to write anonymously for Vox, saying “I’m a Liberal Professor, and My Liberal Students Terrify Me.”
This culture of overreaction to words is slowly being institutionalized, Haidt and Lukianoff note. The recent resignation of University of Missouri President Tim Wolfe and the calls for the resignation of Yale’s Silliman College masters Erika and Nicholas Christakis confirm that the vindictive protectiveness movement is gaining strength.
Haidt and Lukianoff argue that “a campus culture devoted to policing speech and punishing speakers is likely to engender patterns of thought that are surprisingly similar to those long identified by cognitive behavioral therapists as causes of depression and anxiety.” In other words, “the new protectiveness may be teaching students to think pathologically.” Indeed, as they note, rates of mental illness among young adults have been rising, both on and off campus.
College campuses have embraced emotional reasoning, which Haidt and Lukianoff define as assuming “that your negative emotions necessarily reflect the way things really are,” and letting “your feelings guide your interpretation of reality.” Subjective feelings can be very unreliable guides, however.
“A claim that someone’s words are ‘offensive’ is not just an expression of one’s own subjective feeling of offendedness,” for example. “It is, rather, a public charge that the speaker has done something objectively wrong.”
The idea of “microaggressions” -- small actions or word choices that seem to have no malicious intent but are thought of as a kind of violence nonetheless -- twists the objective idea of being “offensive” into a subjective charge on behalf of someone claiming to be offended. According to some campus guidelines, it is a microaggression to ask an Asian American or Latino American “Where were you born?” because this implies that she or she is not a real American.
Haidt and Lukianoff cite many other instances where college campuses are moving away from free speech and toward an overly cautious worry about hurting students’ feelings. This trend, rather than helping those students who suffer from psychological disorders, actually worsens their plight -- teaching them to think in ways that cause further depression and anxiety.
If a student has to watch her every word for fear of offending someone else, and in turn she can read offense into any statement by someone else -- whether it was intended or not -- her emotions will be on high alert. Vindictive protectiveness teaches students to think in ways that are not good for them, ill-preparing the young for a world that is not as attuned to their feelings.
As Haidt and Lukianoff explain, this teaching prepares students poorly for professional life, “which often demands intellectual engagement with people and ideas one might find uncongenial or wrong.” It can also hamper their intellectual development -- as the free exchange of ideas is limited by a culture of overreaction.
There it is -- the true threat to the youth. Liberalism in government makes health care mandatory and more expensive for young people and makes it harder for them to find a job, while in the university it prevents millennials from getting the training in thought and action they need to engage an ever-changing world. There is no bigger threat to young people than liberalism. |
The body of a transgender woman was found in Pakistan over the weekend, marking the latest in a string of attacks against trans people in the Muslim-majority country.
Authorities have been unable to identify the corpse, which was three days old and showed signs of having been tortured, despite the collection of fingerprints and DNA samples.
There are more than 10,400 transgender people living in Pakistan, according to census data from August, and the marginalized group has both made progress and been under attack in the conservative country in recent years.
A.MAJEED/AFP/Getty Images
Pakistan began allowing trans people to get I.D. cards and vote when it became one of the first countries in the world to recognize a third gender in 2009. A Pakistani religious decree from 2016 then made transgender marriage legal in the country.
The progress has been overshadowed by an influx in reported anti-trans violence, however. Last year, a Pakistani trans activist who was shot eight times was reportedly met with insults and discrimination inside the hospital that was supposed to be treating her.
In August, Pakistani police said that a number of armed men threw eggs at a group of trans people before opening fire on them and ultimately killing one. And just last month, two transgender women were sexually assaulted by a group of men who broke into a home they shared with other trans women. |
This post is the second in the series ECC: a gentle introduction.
In the previous post, we have seen how elliptic curves over the real numbers can be used to define a group. Specifically, we have defined a rule for point addition: given three aligned points, their sum is zero ($P + Q + R = 0$). We have derived a geometric method and an algebraic method for computing point additions.
We then introduced scalar multiplication ($nP = P + P + \cdots + P$) and we found out an "easy" algorithm for computing scalar multiplication: double and add.
Now we will restrict our elliptic curves to finite fields, rather than the set of real numbers, and see how things change.
The field of integers modulo p
A finite field is, first of all, a set with a finite number of elements. An example of finite field is the set of integers modulo $p$, where $p$ is a prime number. It is generally denoted as $\mathbb{Z}/p$, $GF(p)$ or $\mathbb{F}_p$. We will use the latter notation.
In fields we have two binary operations: addition (+) and multiplication (·). Both are closed, associative and commutative. For both operations, there exist a unique identity element, and for every element there's a unique inverse element. Finally, multiplication is distributive over the addition: $x \cdot (y + z) = x \cdot y + x \cdot z$.
The set of integers modulo $p$ consists of all the integers from 0 to $p - 1$. Addition and multiplication work as in modular arithmetic (also known as "clock arithmetic"). Here are a few examples of operations in $\mathbb{F}_{23}$:
Addition: $(18 + 9) \bmod{23} = 4$
Subtraction: $(7 - 14) \bmod{23} = 16$
Multiplication: $4 \cdot 7 \bmod{23} = 5$
Additive inverse: $-5 \bmod{23} = 18$ Indeed: $(5 + (-5)) \bmod{23} = (5 + 18) \bmod{23} = 0$
Multiplicative inverse: $9^{-1} \bmod{23} = 18$ Indeed: $9 \cdot 9^{-1} \bmod{23} = 9 \cdot 18 \bmod{23} = 1$
If these equations don't look familiar to you and you need a primer on modular arithmetic, check out Khan Academy.
As we already said, the integers modulo $p$ are a field, and therefore all the properties listed above hold. Note that the requirement for $p$ to be prime is important! The set of integers modulo 4 is not a field: 2 has no multiplicative inverse (i.e. the equation $2 \cdot x \bmod{4} = 1$ has no solutions).
Division modulo p
We will soon define elliptic curves over $\mathbb{F}_p$, but before doing so we need a clear idea of what $x / y$ means in $\mathbb{F}_p$. Simply put: $x / y = x \cdot y^{-1}$, or, in plain words, $x$ over $y$ is equal to $x$ times the multiplicative inverse of $y$. This fact is not surprising, but gives us a basic method to perform division: find the multiplicative inverse of a number and then perform a single multiplication.
Computing the multiplicative inverse can be "easily" done with the extended Euclidean algorithm, which is $O(\log p)$ (or $O(k)$ if we consider the bit length) in the worst case.
We won't enter the details of the extended Euclidean algorithm, as it is off-topic, however here's a working Python implementation:
def extended_euclidean_algorithm ( a , b ): """ Returns a three-tuple (gcd, x, y) such that a * x + b * y == gcd, where gcd is the greatest common divisor of a and b. This function implements the extended Euclidean algorithm and runs in O(log b) in the worst case. """ s , old_s = 0 , 1 t , old_t = 1 , 0 r , old_r = b , a while r != 0 : quotient = old_r // r old_r , r = r , old_r - quotient * r old_s , s = s , old_s - quotient * s old_t , t = t , old_t - quotient * t return old_r , old_s , old_t def inverse_of ( n , p ): """ Returns the multiplicative inverse of n modulo p. This function returns an integer m such that (n * m) % p == 1. """ gcd , x , y = extended_euclidean_algorithm ( n , p ) assert ( n * x + p * y ) % p == gcd if gcd != 1 : # Either n is 0, or p is not a prime number. raise ValueError ( '{} has no multiplicative inverse ' 'modulo {}' . format ( n , p )) else : return x % p
Elliptic curves in $\mathbb{F}_p$
Now we have all the necessary elements to restrict elliptic curves over $\mathbb{F}_p$. The set of points, that in the previous post was: $$\begin{array}{rcl} \left\{(x, y) \in \mathbb{R}^2 \right. & \left. | \right. & \left. y^2 = x^3 + ax + b, \right. \\ & & \left. 4a^3 + 27b^2
e 0\right\}\ \cup\ \left\{0\right\} \end{array}$$ now becomes: $$\begin{array}{rcl} \left\{(x, y) \in (\mathbb{F}_p)^2 \right. & \left. | \right. & \left. y^2 \equiv x^3 + ax + b \pmod{p}, \right. \\ & & \left. 4a^3 + 27b^2
ot\equiv 0 \pmod{p}\right\}\ \cup\ \left\{0\right\} \end{array}$$
where 0 is still the point at infinity, and $a$ and $b$ are two integers in $\mathbb{F}_p$.
The curve $y^2 \equiv x^3 - 7x + 10 \pmod{p}$ with $p = 19, 97, 127, 487$. Note that, for every $x$, there are at most two points. Also note the symmetry about $y = p / 2$.
The curve $y^2 \equiv x^3 \pmod{29}$ is singular and has a triple point in $(0, 0)$. It is not a valid elliptic curve.
What previously was a continuous curve is now a set of disjoint points in the $xy$-plane. But we can prove that, even if we have restricted our domain, elliptic curves in $\mathbb{F}_p$ still form an abelian group.
Point addition
Clearly, we need to change a bit our definition of addition in order to make it work in $\mathbb{F}_p$. With reals, we said that the sum of three aligned points was zero ($P + Q + R = 0$). We can keep this definition, but what does it mean for three points to be aligned in $\mathbb{F}_p$?
We can say that three points are aligned if there's a line that connects all of them. Now, of course, lines in $\mathbb{F}_p$ are not the same as lines in $\mathbb{R}$. We can say, informally, that a line in $\mathbb{F}_p$ is the set of points $(x, y)$ that satisfy the equation $ax + by + c \equiv 0 \pmod{p}$ (this is the standard line equation, with the addition of "$(\text{mod}\ p)$").
Point addition over the curve $y^2 \equiv x^3 - x + 3 \pmod{127}$, with $P = (16, 20)$ and $Q = (41, 120)$. Note how the line $y \equiv 4x + 83 \pmod{127}$ that connects the points "repeats" itself in the plane.
Given that we are in a group, point addition retains the properties we already know:
$Q + 0 = 0 + Q = Q$ (from the definition of identity element).
Given a non-zero point $Q$, the inverse $-Q$ is the point having the same abscissa but opposite ordinate. Or, if you prefer, $-Q = (x_Q, -y_Q \bmod{p})$. For example, if a curve in $\mathbb{F}_{29}$ has a point $Q = (2, 5)$, the inverse is $-Q = (2, -5 \bmod{29}) = (2, 24)$.
Also, $P + (-P) = 0$ (from the definition of inverse element).
Algebraic sum
The equations for calculating point additions are exactly the same as in the previous post, except for the fact that we need to add "$\text{mod}\ p$" at the end of every expression. Therefore, given $P = (x_P, y_P)$, $Q = (x_Q, y_Q)$ and $R = (x_R, y_R)$, we can calculate $P + Q = -R$ as follows: $$\begin{array}{rcl} x_R & = & (m^2 - x_P - x_Q) \bmod{p} \\ y_R & = & [y_P + m(x_R - x_P)] \bmod{p} \\ & = & [y_Q + m(x_R - x_Q)] \bmod{p} \end{array}$$
If $P
e Q$, the the slope $m$ assumes the form: $$m = (y_P - y_Q)(x_P - x_Q)^{-1} \bmod{p}$$
Else, if $P = Q$, we have: $$m = (3 x_P^2 + a)(2 y_P)^{-1} \bmod{p}$$
It's not a coincidence that the equations have not changed: in fact, these equations work in every field, finite or infinite (with the exception of $\mathbb{F}_2$ and $\mathbb{F}_3$, which are special cased). Now I feel I have to provide a justification for this fact. The problem is: proofs for the group law generally involve complex mathematical concepts. However, I found out a proof from Stefan Friedl that uses only elementary concepts. Read it if you are interested in why these equations work in (almost) every field.
Back to us — we won't define a geometric method: in fact, there are a few problems with that. For example, in the previous post, we said that to compute $P + P$ we needed to take the tangent to the curve in $P$. But without continuity, the word "tangent" does not make any sense. We can workaround this and other problems, however a pure geometric method would just be too complicated and not practical at all.
Instead, you can play with the interactive tool I've written for computing point additions.
The order of an elliptic curve group
We said that an elliptic curve defined over a finite field has a finite number of points. An important question that we need to answer is: how many points are there exactly?
Firstly, let's say that the number of points in a group is called the order of the group.
Trying all the possible values for $x$ from 0 to $p - 1$ is not a feasible way to count the points, as it would require $O(p)$ steps, and this is "hard" if $p$ is a large prime.
Luckily, there's a faster algorithm for computing the order: Schoof's algorithm. I won't enter the details of the algorithm — what matters is that it runs in polynomial time, and this is what we need.
Scalar multiplication and cyclic subgroups
As with reals, multiplication can be defined as: $$n P = \underbrace{P + P + \cdots + P}_{n\ \text{times}}$$
And, again, we can use the double and add algorithm to perform multiplication in $O(\log n)$ steps (or $O(k)$, where $k$ is the number of bits of $n$). I've written an interactive tool for scalar multiplication too.
Multiplication over points for elliptic curves in $\mathbb{F}_p$ has an interesting property. Take the curve $y^2 \equiv x^3 + 2x + 3 \pmod{97}$ and the point $P = (3, 6)$. Now calculate all the multiples of $P$:
The multiples of $P = (3, 6)$ are just five distinct points ($0$, $P$, $2P$, $3P$, $4P$) and they are repeating cyclically. It's easy to spot the similarity between scalar multiplication on elliptic curves and addition in modular arithmetic.
$0P = 0$
$1P = (3, 6)$
$2P = (80, 10)$
$3P = (80, 87)$
$4P = (3, 91)$
$5P = 0$
$6P = (3, 6)$
$7P = (80, 10)$
$8P = (80, 87)$
$9P = (3, 91)$
...
Here we can immediately spot two things: firstly, the multiples of $P$ are just five: the other points of the elliptic curve never appear. Secondly, they are repeating cyclically. We can write:
$5kP = 0$
$(5k + 1)P = P$
$(5k + 2)P = 2P$
$(5k + 3)P = 3P$
$(5k + 4)P = 4P$
for every integer $k$. Note that these five equations can be "compressed" into a single one, thanks to the modulo operator: $kP = (k \bmod{5})P$.
Not only that, but we can immediately verify that these five points are closed under addition. Which means: however I add $0$, $P$, $2P$, $3P$ or $4P$, the result is always one of these five points. Again, the other points of the elliptic curve never appear in the results.
The same holds for every point, not just for $P = (3, 6)$. In fact, if we take a generic $P$: $$nP + mP = \underbrace{P + \cdots + P}_{n\ \text{times}} + \underbrace{P + \cdots + P}_{m\ \text{times}} = (n + m)P$$
Which means: if we add two multiples of $P$, we obtain a multiple of $P$ (i.e. multiples of $P$ are closed under addition). This is enough to prove that the set of the multiples of $P$ is a cyclic subgroup of the group formed by the elliptic curve.
A "subgroup" is a group which is a subset of another group. A "cyclic subgroup" is a subgroup which elements are repeating cyclically, like we have shown in the previous example. The point $P$ is called generator or base point of the cyclic subgroup.
Cyclic subgroups are the foundations of ECC and other cryptosystems. We will see why in the next post.
Subgroup order
We can ask ourselves what the order of a subgroup generated by a point $P$ is (or, equivalently, what the order of $P$ is). To answer this question we can't use Schoof's algorithm, because that algorithm only works on whole elliptic curves, not on subgroups. Before approaching the problem, we need a few more bits:
So far, we have the defined the order as the number of points of a group. This definition is still valid, but within a cyclic subgroup we can give a new, equivalent definition: the order of $P$ is the smallest positive integer $n$ such that $nP = 0$ . In fact, if you look at the previous example, our subgroup contained five points, and we had $5P = 0$.
. In fact, if you look at the previous example, our subgroup contained five points, and we had $5P = 0$. The order of $P$ is linked to the order of the elliptic curve by Lagrange's theorem, which states that the order of a subgroup is a divisor of the order of the parent group. In other words, if an elliptic curve contains $N$ points and one of its subgroups contains $n$ points, then $n$ is a divisor of $N$.
These two information together give us a way to find out the order of a subgroup with base point $P$:
Calculate the elliptic curve's order $N$ using Schoof's algorithm. Find out all the divisors of $N$. For every divisor $n$ of $N$, compute $nP$. The smallest $n$ such that $nP = 0$ is the order of the subgroup.
For example, the curve $y^2 = x^3 - x + 3$ over the field $\mathbb{F}_{37}$ has order $N = 42$. Its subgroups may have order $n = 1$, $2$, $3$, $6$, $7$, $14$, $21$ or $42$. If we try $P = (2, 3)$ we can see that $P
e 0$, $2P
e 0$, ..., $7P = 0$, hence the order of $P$ is $n = 7$.
Note that it's important to take the smallest divisor, not a random one. If we proceeded randomly, we could have taken $n = 14$, which is not the order of the subgroup, but one of its multiples.
Another example: the elliptic curve defined by the equation $y^2 = x^3 - x + 1$ over the field $\mathbb{F}_{29}$ has order $N = 37$, which is a prime. Its subgroups may only have order $n = 1$ or $37$. As you can easily guess, when $n = 1$, the subgroup contains only the point at infinity; when $n = N$, the subgroup contains all the points of the elliptic curve.
Finding a base point
For our ECC algorithms, we want subgroups with a high order. So in general we will choose an elliptic curve, calculate its order ($N$), choose a high divisor as the subgroup order ($n$) and eventually find a suitable base point. That is: we won't choose a base point and then calculate its order, but we'll do the opposite: we will first choose an order that looks good enough and then we will hunt for a suitable base point. How do we do that?
Firstly, we need to introduce one more term. Lagrange's theorem implies that the number $h = N / n$ is always an integer (because $n$ is a divisor of $N$). The number $h$ has a name: it's the cofactor of the subgroup.
Now consider that for every point of an elliptic curve we have $NP = 0$. This happens because $N$ is a multiple of any candidate $n$. Using the definition of cofator, we can write: $$n(hP) = 0$$
Now suppose that $n$ is a prime number (for reason that will be explained in the next post, we prefer prime orders). This equation, written in this form, is telling us that the point $G = hP$ generates a subgroup of order $n$ (except when $G = hP = 0$, in which case the subgroup has order 1).
In the light of this, we can outline the following algorithm:
Calculate the order $N$ of the elliptic curve. Choose the order $n$ of the subgroup. For the algorithm to work, this number must be prime and must be a divisor of $N$. Compute the cofactor $h = N / n$. Choose a random point $P$ on the curve. Compute $G = hP$. If $G$ is 0, then go back to step 4. Otherwise we have found a generator of a subgroup with order $n$ and cofactor $h$.
Note that this algorithm only works if $n$ is a prime. If $n$ wasn't a prime, then the order of $G$ could be one of the divisors of $n$.
Discrete logarithm
As we did when working with continuous elliptic curves, we are now going to discuss the question: if we know $P$ and $Q$, what is $k$ such that $Q = kP$?
This problem, which is known as the discrete logarithm problem for elliptic curves, is believed to be a "hard" problem, in that there is no known polynomial time algorithm that can run on a classical computer. There are, however, no mathematical proofs for this belief.
This problem is also analogous to the discrete logarithm problem used with other cryptosystems such as the Digital Signature Algorithm (DSA), the Diffie-Hellman key exchange (D-H) and the ElGamal algorithm — it's not a coincidence that they have the same name. The difference is that, with those algorithms, we use modulo exponentiation instead of scalar multiplication. Their discrete logarithm problem can be stated as follows: if we know $a$ and $b$, what's $k$ such that $b = a^k \bmod{p}$?
Both these problems are "discrete" because they involve finite sets (more precisely, cyclic subgroups). And they are "logarithms" because they are analogous to ordinary logarithms.
What makes ECC interesting is that, as of today, the discrete logarithm problem for elliptic curves seems to be "harder" if compared to other similar problems used in cryptography. This implies that we need fewer bits for the integer $k$ in order to achieve the same level of security as with other cryptosystems, as we will see in details in the fourth and last post of this series.
More next week!
Enough for today! I really hope you enjoyed this post. Leave a comment if you didn't.
Next week's post will be the third in this series and will be about ECC algorithms: key pair generation, ECDH and ECDSA. That will be one of the most interesting parts of this series. Don't miss it!
Read the next post of the series » |
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Barfi is fresh for Bollywood. It is a great celebration of Life and at no point does it linger on the disabilities of the key characters. There is lightness about the movie, and the slapstick comedy enhances the experience, all credit to Ranbir’s charm. The premise of the movie is a bit forced, but Anurag Basu somehow infuses credibility into the most unlikeliest of Love triangles, and makes it work. The slightly poor script is held together by wonderful acting by Ranbir Kapoor. He clearly is one of the very few authentic acting talents in Bollywood, and anything this guy touches turns to gold. Anurag Basu’s mastercraft is visible throughout the movie with many moving touches. The whole backdrop of Darjeeling gives it a fresh feel and has been used really well. And the music is nice, and helps build the mood of the movie.
But will it get the Oscars (It is India’s official entry to Oscars)? I dont think so. It misses on a number of accounts, but the fatal flaw is that it is too long. Anurag Basu just did not have the heart to cut up this labour of love, and has left too much into the movie that distracts from building the story. The movie goes round in circles, the motives of characters are all suspect (and not in a good way). There are some nice moments, but the story starts lingering around too many of them, without adding anything new to the story. Props get overused – too many train scene, too many shots of howrah bridge, too many paper birds, too many kidnappings of the same person. And the use of that band in the background – fresh for Bollywood, but this is a trick lifted from somewhere. Flashback is poorly used and does nothing to enhance the impact of the story. At some point you know how the movie will end, and the film does not disappoint.
Other than Ranbir, all others actors are fairly clueless about what is going on – except for maybe the Saurabh Shula (The inspector). Priyanka Chopra (Jhilmil Chatterjee) has over interpreted an autistic person (and what is with that false fake looking gums?) and is uncomfortable in the role. Ileana D’Cruz (Shruti Sengupta) brings no special touch to the movie. The makeup is amateurish… and I think does serious damage to the credibility of the entire movie.
With a 30 min cut, most flaws would have disappeared. Flashback should not have been used atall. That marriage song right at the end could have been used in the main story itself somewhere and replaced some of the other weaker segments, it is powerfully done but comes too late in the movie and is a wasted opportunity to build a stronger connect with the audience.
Overall, I would rate it at 7/10 and would recommend you do watch it, but I am not betting on it winning the Oscars… |
Canadian MSO Rogers Communications has launched an ambitious 4K initiative that includes a new set-top box, OTT streaming from Netflix and Shomi, live 4K broadcast TV coverage of select sporting events, and a gigabit broadband service to help tie it all together.
Next year, Rogers said customers will gain access to more than 500 hours of 4K fare, including all 81 home games of the Blue Jays in HDR format on Sportsnet; more than 20 NHL in 4K on Sportsnet starting with the January 23 matchup of the Montreal Canadiens and Toronto Maple Leafs (also on Sportsnet); and more than 100 hours of 4K movies and TV shows from Shomi, the SVOD multiscreen service co-owned by Rogers and Shaw Communications that’s now available across Canada.
Rogers also announced a partnership with Netflix that will support the OTT provider’s 4K lineup that includes originals such as Narcos, Marvel’s Daredevil, Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp, Sense8, Grace and Frankie, Chef's Table, Bloodline, and House of Cards. In an apparent nod to Netflix’s Open Connect private CDN program, Rogers said it will link its network to Netflix servers.
Tied in, Rogers also said it will offer gigabit speeds to its entire footprint by the end of 2016, starting in downtown Toronto and the Greater Toronto Area. That service, called Rogers Ignite Gigabit, will be available to over four million homes when the deployment is complete.
Rogers has set up a web site for subs to get in line for the new 4K TV offering and the Ignite Gigabit Internet service (which will be uncapped), for $149.99. Rogers.com/4K to reserve.
"4K TV sets have been in the market for some time and 40 per cent of all TV sales are likely to be 4K this holiday season. However, until now live TV broadcasts in 4K have been few and far between and customers have not been able to get 4K set top boxes," Guy Laurence, president and CEO of Rogers, said in a statement.
Fellow Canadian operator Videotron introduced a 4K/Ultra HD set-top in August, and has begun to pilot a gigabit residential service in Montreal that uses DOCSIS 3.0.
In the U.S., DirecTV haslaunched a limited 4K-VOD service for its Genie platform and Samsung UHD TVs, and Comcast has launched a 4K streaming app for Samsung TVs. Comcast is also developing 4K-capable boxes for its X1 platform. Dish Network is nearing the debut of a 4K service that will run ona new UHD-capable Joey box. |
Welcome to the 188th LITFL Review! Your regular and reliable source for the highest highlights, sneakiest sneak peeks and loudest shout-outs from the webbed world of emergency medicine and critical care. Each week the LITFL team casts the spotlight on the blogosphere’s best and brightest, and deliver a bite-sized chunk of Global FOAM.
The Most Fair Dinkum Ripper Beauts of the Week
Unbelievable talk from John Hinds at SMACC US – Crack the Chest. Get Crucified. If you’re unclear why it is that the FOAM world was so saddened at John’s loss, this will quickly jog your memory. [AS]
The Best of #FOAMed Emergency Medicine
The SGEM HOP (Hot Off the Press) features Jeff Kline and Chris Carpenter discussing outpatient management of pulmonary embolism with rivaroxaban. [AS]
How do we manage grief in the ED? Liz Crowe and Iain Beardsell discuss how grief affects us as providers and people. [AS]
Should we pursue medical management of acute appendicitis and have the studies been framing the question and the data correctly? Rory Spiegel discusses on EM Nerd this week. [AS]
What’s the best evidence for administering oxygen to COPD patients? Emergency medicine blog outlines the goldilocks principle. [MG]
The Best of #FOAMcc Critical Care
Double Punch Defibrillation for refractory VF? A thought provoking discussion on ScanCrit. [CC]
EMCrit does a deep dive on the use of High-Flow Nasal Cannula (HFNC) in hypoxic respiratory failure. [AS]
The Best of #FOAMtox Toxicology
The Poison Review discusses updated recommendations for hemodialysis in salicylate overdose. [AS]
The Best of #FOAMped Pediatrics
Tessa Davis reviews an article on the consequences of missed diagnosis of meningitis in the ‘hot tot’ group, and discusses the effect of those misses on mortality [CC]
EM Cases welcomes Samina Ali and Anthony Crocco on to discuss pediatric pain management. [AS]
The Best of #MedEd FOAM and #FOAMsim
If you haven’t checked it out already, make sure to go over to Critical Care Horizons and review the first four articles published in this completely Free Open Access journal. [AS]
LITFL Weekly Review Team
Reference Sources and Reading List |
A new study has found that frontloading teacher salaries —that is, awarding larger raises early in a teacher’s career and smaller raises later — are associated with better student performance in multiple grades.
To test their hypothesis that districts are likely to benefit from a front-loaded salary schedule, the study’s authors — Jason A. Grissom and Katharine O. Strunk — matched compensation data to school-level student performance data on math and reading achievement tests in 4,500 districts across 28 states during the 1999-2000 school year. They examined the relationship between salary schedule frontloading and student performance across grades and at multiple points in the achievement distribution, i.e. basic competence, proficient and advanced proficiency.
The authors controlled for differences in cost of living in various districts when looking at teacher compensation, and also controlled for the difficulty of tests and demographic characteristics on the student side.
Overall, they found that in both elementary and middle schools, districts that front-loaded teacher salaries saw higher rates of student achievement. That said, the authors go on to clarify that the nature of their data set prevents them from determining whether these higher achievement levels are actually an effect of frontloading.
According to the report, recent debate on teacher compensation has centered primarily on the use of merit pay to reward teachers for their students’ test score gains. Most salary schedules are currently structured in a way that awards teachers pay increases as they gain years of experience and pursue further education, such as a master’s degree or some other accumulation of credits. However, the size of the raises tends to vary considerably from district to district.
In providing a rationale for front-loaded salary schedules, the authors cite research that indicates teachers are the most important school factor in predicting student performance, and that school district success thus depends on a district’s ability to maintain a high-quality teacher workforce. The authors write that providing teachers with higher pay is one means of achieving this goal. |
OTTAWA—Justin Trudeau quietly turned up on the streets of Trinity-Spadina on Thursday, less than 24 hours after angry Liberals in the riding formally demanded some answers on why the leader blocked a candidate from running in the coming byelection. Trudeau’s visit to Trinity-Spadina wasn’t well publicized, but the Liberal riding association is getting more vocal about Trudeau’s ouster of former candidate Christine Innes from the nomination race.
Christine Innes speaks during a media scrum at Harbord Colligiate Institute in this Jan. 17, 2011 photo. Innes was blocked from becoming Liberal candidate in the Trinity-Spadina riding by Justin Trudeau for the byelection that will be held after the resignation of Olivia Chow. ( DAVID COOPER / TORONTO STAR ) Federal Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau applauds candidate Chrystia Freeland at a Toronto Centre campaign office in this Oct. 2, 2013 photo. Trudeau is under fire from the Trinity-Spadina riding executives after blocking the candidacy of Christine Innes, a two-time failed candidate in the riding and wife of former MP Tony Ianno. ( Chris Young / THE CANADIAN PRESS )
In a statement, local riding president Julia Metus protested: “There was absolutely no due or fair process. . . . No one picked up the phone to contact me, there was no opportunity to discuss their concerns, and there was zero local involvement. This is contrary to everything the Liberal Party — new or otherwise — is supposed to stand for.” The association is wondering whether Trudeau is committed to open nomination races. Earlier this week, he restated that commitment and promised to provide more “clarity” about how other would-be candidates can avoid the same problems that led to the Innes decision. He didn’t let Metus know he was dropping in on the riding on Thursday, either.
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In an interview, Metus said anger has been building among Liberals in Trinity-Spadina since late last week, when Innes was notified she would not be allowed to run because of bad behaviour by her campaign team, which includes her husband, former MP Tony Ianno. Innes had run for the party in 2008 and 2011, and insists her real offence was refusing to sign a deal with Trudeau on where she would run in 2015, when the riding of Trinity-Spadina disappears in a big boundary shuffle. Trudeau’s star recruit, Chrystia Freeland, intends to run in the new downtown Toronto riding of University-Rosedale. Last Saturday morning, Metus said, about 50 Liberals showed up for coffee in a Queen St. W. restaurant to vent their frustration at Innes’s fate. “They were upset,” Metus said. “The night the message went out, I had people calling me, crying. I had so many messages: ‘What are we going to do?’ ” But David MacNaughton, the Ontario campaign co-chair who wrote the letter to Innes, said there will be no review of the decision.
“I was given the responsibility for making these judgments and the advice on it. I’ve reviewed it, and that’s the judgment I came to. So that’s that — and it was supported by the national campaign co-chairs. So there we are,” MacNaughton said Thursday. He admits that Liberals in the riding may have been in the dark about the problems with Innes’s campaign, but this was largely because the people who were complaining about her team’s behaviour wanted confidentiality and protection from further intimidation.
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The complaints had been going on for weeks, MacNaughton said, and he asked some of the complainants to submit their evidence in writing. Once the Liberal campaign chiefs had all the evidence in front of them, the decision was made, he said. MacNaughton said he spoke to Metus last Friday night and she wasn’t upset at all — she was focused on finding new candidates to run in the byelection. Metus, for her part, agrees that was true. Her immediate worries are about finding a Liberal to run in the byelection that hasn’t been called yet, but could be looming soon. Trinity-Spadina became vacant when Olivia Chow, NDP MP for the past eight years, stepped down to run for mayor of Toronto. All this Liberal drama is clearly giving the NDP more confidence that it can retain the seat in what is going to be yet another hard fought Toronto byelection between the red and the orange teams. In a statement Thursday, would-be NDP candidate Joe Cressy pointed to the Liberals’ battles as proof they were out of touch with the voters in the riding. “Residents of Trinity-Spadina deserve an MP who will stand up and fight for them, not a political party that is more interested in fighting among themselves,” Cressy said.
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PROVIDENCE — In a 46-page report, City Council member Sam Zurier says the proposed expansion of the Achievement First charter school would have a crippling impact on the city's 20,000 public school students.
Citing the report of the city's Internal Auditor Matthew Clarkin, Zurier said the charter school's expansion to more than 3,000 students would produce a net loss to the district of between $173 million and $179 million, depending on how many teaching positions are eliminated.
"While everyone has the best of intentions," Zurier wrote, "the sad truth is that if someone wanted to break the Providence public schools, it would be hard to devise a more effective plan than the application now before the council .... In the short run, these losses will drastically reduce the quality of education in the Providence public schools."
Elliot Krieger, a spokesman for the R.I. Department of Education, said, "We are following the process and sequence that state law establishes for the review of proposals for new charters. [Education] Commissioner [Ken] Wagner has also said that he is reviewing public comment as we receive it at RIDE, but he will not complete his recommendations to the Council until the period for public comment closes."
Under state law, the per-pupil spending follows the student. This spring, however, legislation was passed that allows districts to withhold a portion of the tuition dollars that, in the past, have gone to charters.
The report cites Moody's Investors Service, which reviewed the recently rejected charter school expansion referendum in Massachusetts. Moody's wrote that charter schools tend to proliferate in urban districts that are already financially stressed.
"This growing competition can sometimes create a 'downward spiral,'" Moody's wrote. "A city that begins to lose students to a charter school can be forced to weaken educational programs because funding is tighter, which then begins to encourage more students to leave, which results in additional losses ...."
Achievement First, a mayoral academy that operates two elementary schools in Providence, wants to expand from 720 students to 3,000 over the next 10 years. Its application is before the R.I. Council of Elementary and Secondary Education, which will hear Education Commissioner Wagner's recommendations on the charter expansion on Dec. 6.
Achievement First said the internal auditor’s analysis doesn't take into account a number of critical factors, including the educational benefits of its proposed expansion on the entire community.
RIDE's analysis "includes weighing all of the many financial factors, including the long-term cost of failing to provide thousands of students with the high-quality education they need to succeed,” the charter school wrote in a statement.
Dacia Toll, the charter network's co-CEO, said Achievement First wants a "win-win solution" where Providence's students have access to more high-quality options and the district's schools continue their positive momentum.
"We would like to work with the mayor and the state to try to bring additional, much-needed resources to all of the schools in the city,” she said.
The report, Zurier said, pointed to at least two factors that could compound the loss of tuition dollars to Achievement First: a further reduction in Title 1 spending under the Trump administration (Providence lost $2.6 million in federal money from that source this year), and the continued level-funding of education by the city. Providence has not increased its local contribution to the public schools in five years, Zurier said.
Zurier concluded by asking that the council postpone any decisions regarding Achievement First's expansion until Providence officials review and comment on RIDE's fiscal analysis.
[email protected]
(401) 277-7823 |
Earthquakes and droughts are bad enough. Now add radiation to the list of West Coast troubles. Radiation is heading for the West Coast of the United States as a result of the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011. The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster occurred as a result of an earthquake, which triggered devastating tsunamis off the coast of Japan.
Scientists claim the radiation will be in low levels and is expected to reach West Coast waters as soon as April. Experts also say, however, that these low levels would not be unsafe for humans or the environment. Scientists also caution, however, that more monitoring is necessary to ensure there is no threat to public safety.
Images of March 11, 2011 are still burned into the people of Japan and the world. That is when a magnitude 9 earthquake occurred off the coast of Japan. The resulting tsunami had waves nearly 140 feet high. About 15,000 people were killed in the event and another 6,000 were hurt.
The event caused power to be lost to the cooling pumps at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant complex. There were meltdowns affecting three reactors.
Tokyo Eclectic Power Co., the firm which operates the power plant, confessed for the first time last July that a reactor was dripping tainted underground water into the ocean. The facility is on the east coast of Japan north of Tokyo. Scientists fear that the plant is covering up more potential bad news about radiation leakage.
A scientific report saying that there was a degree of Cesium 134 in the waters of Alaska, which ties the source to Fukushima. Scientists expect the radiation to reach north of Seattle first and then slowly creep down the west coast of the United States. The radiation is expected to decay over time. The levels are considered very low.
Experts are already testing water samples off the coast of Oregon.
Radiation is not the only ill stemming from the earthquake and tsunami to reach the United States. Debris from the catastrophe began arriving in the U.S. after a slow crawl along the Pacific Ocean. Washington and Oregon were affected the most.
Japan is still recovering from the 2011 earthquake, which its prime minister said was the most severe crisis to take place in that country since World War II, some 64 years ago.
Entire towns were wiped out. More than 275,000 people were evacuated to emergency shelters. Some 2.5 million households lost electricity and some 1.4 million households lost water for a time. Search teams scoured hundreds of miles of Japanese coastline looking for survivors.
Scientists say that the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster was the biggest nuclear event since Chernobyl in 1986 releasing nearly 30% of Chernobyl’s radiation. The cleanup process is expected to take many years, if not decades. No deaths were ever reported as a result of radiation at Fukushima but 300,000 people were evacuated from the area.
The World Health Organization says that evacuees were exposed to very low levels or radiation and that no health related illnesses were anticipated. Persons living closest to the plant were the most exposed and WHO does add that there is a small possibility that in later years some persons might develop cancers.
Some experts have also questioned why Japan would have a nuclear facility in the spot where it is located since it lies in an active seismic zone. Scientists worry that the facility does not have the capability of resisting major earthquakes.
In the meantime, West Coast residents can expect some radiation to be headed to the U.S.
By Jim McCullaugh
Sources:
USA Today
Time
Bloomberg |
Sometimes big distances, long time periods, and large numbers can be difficult to grasp. So it helps to contextualize them with comparisons. When you do so, you realize that a billion is much much more than a million:
But when he linked these numbers to time, it brought things in perspective: 1 million seconds is nearly 12 days, whereas 1 billion seconds is almost 32 years. “Everybody gets it when you say it like that,” he wrote in an email. “If you just said 1 billion is three orders of magnitude greater than 1 million, I don’t think it would make the same impression.”
Tim Urban’s Life Calendar emphasizes the relative shortness of human life and the importance of using your time well by reorganizing a human lifespan into weeks.
Each row of weeks makes up one year. That’s how many weeks it takes to turn a newborn into a 90-year-old. It kind of feels like our lives are made up of a countless number of weeks. But there they are — fully countable — staring you in the face.
High school chemistry teacher Keith Karraker recently imagined the Earth having the lifespan of a typical human, which is a useful way of thinking about young humanity is in comparison.
Earth’s about half-way through its life. If it were a middle-aged adult of 40, its last mass extinction happened about 7 months ago. To 40-yr-old Earth, humans have been using tools for a week and a half, and just left Africa 8 hours ago to settle around the globe. All of human history is the last half hour. It’s been an exhilarating and disastrous half hour. But we figured out some really cool shit. We figured out quantum, relativity, and DNA. A randomly mutating and replicating molecule built a machine to figure itself out. Even much older evolutionary changes are surprisingly recent on this scale. Spines debuted just over 4 yrs ago. About when iPhone 5 did.
For more on the visualization of large scales, see also Powers of Ten, the leisurely pace of light speed, the size of supermassive black holes, and this comparison of the sizes of things from the Moon to galactic superclusters and beyond:
You want to talk about human insignificance? If Betelgeuse, one of the largest stars shown in the video, were in the Sun’s place, it would nearly reach the orbit of Jupiter, from which light takes 43 minutes (on average) to reach the Earth. (via @stevesilberman) |
Google’s Calico Start-up to Sequence Whole Human Genomes of Healthy 100-Year-Olds in Project to Solve Puzzle of Human Aging
If successful, the knowledge gained from this research may provide new tools and medical laboratory tests that pathologists can use in the management of geriatric patients
Google’s founders believe that analysis of the genomes of people who live to be 100 years old and are relatively healthy will allow them to solve the puzzle of human aging. They have funded a new company specifically to pursue this goal.
In the near future, it is unlikely that any of the science developed by this venture will lead to a diagnostic profile or clinical laboratory tests that pathologists can use to help clinicians who deal with the diseases associated with aging. But should the research team at Calico develop a better understanding of the dynamics of human aging, it would certainly be expected that this knowledge would be used to develop appropriate medical laboratory tests.
Multi-Million-Dollar Gamble for the New Company
Their latest gamble is a new company called Calico—short for California Life Company. This is an independent start-up shooting for the age-old dream of a fountain of youth. The project, which is being lead by biotech pioneer Arthur Levinson, aims to extend human life by about 100 years using health, wellness and age-related disease research to combat the disease called aging.
Calico is backed by Google Ventures. The idea was developed by its Managing Partner, Bill Maris. Of course, Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin are also involved. They are throwing hundreds of millions of dollars into launching another world-changing “moonshot.”
Calico to Marry High-Tech’s Big Data Techniques with Medical Research
Maris’ idea was rooted in his understanding of how Big Data analysis could be used to study the genomes of healthy older people who make it to 90 or 100 years old without encountering any significant health issues. The goal is to discover how, in aggregate, they differ from other people, noted an article published on slashgear.com.
Harvard Business School Professor Regina Herzlinger, Ph.D., noted in a story published by the Los Angeles Times that no past effort to mine vast amounts of data “has [not] yet yielded huge payoffs in healthcare.” But, she suggested that Google may have enough clout to speed medical breakthroughs, as well as push change in a healthcare system that is often resistant to change.
Big Data Techniques Will Come into Play
Interplay between high-tech and medical research communities is becoming more common. In fact, a number of companies are using big data to analyze health issues in large population studies. For example, researchers involved in the Cohorts for Heart and Aging Research in Genomic Epidemiology, or CHARGE are using big data techniques in a large-scale genetic sequencing project aimed at linking particular diseases and specific genetic variants. (See Dark Daily, “New Industry Emerging to Provide Cloud-based Computing Firepower Needed for Big Data Genomic Analyses of Healthcare and Medical Laboratory Information,”March 21, 2014.)
Calico’s Goal is Personal for Google Founders
“Illness and aging affect all our families,” declared Page in an announcement of Calico’s launch on Google’s blog. “With some longer-term, moonshot thinking around healthcare and biotehnology, I believe we can improve millions of lives.” Both Page and Brin have been touched by major illness.
Brin, whose mother had Parkinson’s disease, is also at high risk for this disease. Page suffers from a rare nerve disease that affects his voice by restricting movement of his vocal chords, noted the LA Times story.
While analysts caution investors to view Calico with skepticism, according to the LA Times article, the start-up’s heavy-weight, high-tech backers and scientific team are invested—both financially and emotionally—in their goal of overcoming human mortality. This is an idea that has long been a Silicon Valley obsession.
The Genius Driving Calico’s Anti-aging Goal
Page told Time Magazine in a story about Calico that, like Google, Calico’s approach will be unconventional. He is relying on Levinson’s genius to carry this off. Levinson, also a founding investor in Calico, is the former CEO of Genetech, Inc.. He is currently Chairman of the Board at both Apple, Inc., and Genetech, as well as a member of Google’s board of directors.
Even David Brailer, M.D., weighed in on the goal of defeating aging. He is CEO of Health Evolution Partners, a private equity firm that invests in the healthcare industry. Brailer told the LA Times, “Extending life is about as high as it gets on the human scale. It’s obviously a profoundly an important goal. It’s one of those things that is close to impossible, but you have got have got the right guy to tackle it,” he observed. “This is about Art [Levinson], about his ability to convene the right people to focus on an agenda that is realistic and bring a very pragmatic approach… I am intrigued by it and can’t wait to hear more.”
Assembling Accomplished Scientists
Levinson’s scientific team, noted an article published by nextbigfuture.com, includes a number of the most accomplished scientists in the fields of medicine, drug development, molecular biology and genetics.
Hal V. Barron, M.D., former Executive Vice President of Global Product Development and Chief Medical Officer at Hoffman-LaRoche, will serve as Calico’s President of Research and Development.
Cynthia Kenyon, Ph.D., one of the world’s foremost authorities on molecular biology and the genetics of aging and life extension, will serve as Calico’s as Senior Scientific Advisor. A UCSF American Cancer Society Professor and former President of the Genetics Society of America, her pioneering discovery of a single-gene mutation that could double the lifespan of healthy, C. Elegans roundworms sparked an intensive study of the molecular biology of aging, noted a report published by nextbigfuture.com.
Creating All-Star Scientific Research Teams
At a minimum, Calico represents a developing trend in healthcare research because it is engaging a variety of world-class scientists to participate at the board and executive levels. In that respect, it can be compared to the all-star teams assembled in professional sports. Furthermore, pathologists and clinical laboratory managers can expect competition in this space. In recent weeks, J. Craig Venter, Ph.D., has disclosed his plans to study human aging and has organized a new company, Human Longevity, Inc., to pursue this goal.
—By Patricia Kirk
Related Information:
As Google’s Calico targets aging, Ellison foundation opts out, leaving researchers in the lurch
Google Calico details emerge: Immortality, Obamacare, and millions of dollars
Google and Apple race to healthcare
Google announces Calico, a new company to tackle age-related health problems, led by Apple chairman Art Levinson
Google Anti-aging Company Calico
Calico: Google’s New Project to Solve Death
New Industry Emerging to Provide Cloud-based Computing Firepower Needed for Big Data Genomic Analyses of Healthcare and Medical Laboratory Information |
All problems in computer science can be solved by another level of indirection. (David John Wheeler)But that usually will create another problem.
これは、デビッド・ホイーラーさん*1（wikipedia:デビッド・ホイーラー）による格言ですが、遅延データ構造はインダイレクション（定訳は無い気もしますが「間接化」でしょうか）による御利益が最もよくわかるものの一つではないでしょうか。
Gauche の util.stream（ http://practical-scheme.net/gauche/man/?l=jp&p=util.stream ）では stream-delay というマクロが提供されています。このライブラリは SRFI-40（ http://srfi.schemers.org/srfi-40/srfi-40.html ）準拠ですから詳細はそちらを読めば全て書いてありますが、なぜ用意されていて、どういう場合にどう使うものか、ざっとまとめておく意味はあるように思いますので、以下にそれを書きます。
リファレンスマニュアルの記述 Gauche のリファレンスマニュアルには次のようにあります。 Macro: stream-delay expr ［SRFI-40］ exprの遅延形式であるストリームを返します。 原則として、ストリームを生成する関数はすべからく結果を stream-delayでラップすべきです。 「結果を」とありますが、関数の返す値が常に delay されたリスト、すなわちストリームであるべき、ということであれば、ストリームの構成子である stream-cons（と、stream-null ）の返す値がそうなっていれば良いはずで、実装が表に出てしまっているように見える stream-delay がなぜ存在するのか、いまいちわかりにくく感じられるかもしれません。 実際にはこれは「ストリームを生成する関数」の「結果だけ」ではなく、それ自体の振舞いに関係していて、SRFI-40 を実装したライブラリには必須のマクロです。
遅延プリミティブ まず、ここでの議論のための実装のために、以下のような遅延プリミティブを使うこととします。 (define-syntax delay (syntax-rules () ((_ val) (lambda () val)))) (define (force thunk) (thunk)) 全くナイーブに実装した delay と force です。本格的にはメモ化とかを実装すべきでしょうが、ここでの議論にはこれで十分です。
oddストリーム SRFI-40 中では、ストリームを実装する戦略について、oddとevenの2通りの戦略がある、と分類しています。oddとevenという名前の理由については後で説明します。SICP の本文中で示されている（日本語版では p. 189 にある）実装はoddで、SRFI-40 のストリームはevenです。oddストリームの実装は次のようになります（ここで、単に cons car cdr とあるのは、実装基盤のScheme処理系のそれを使うという意味になります）。SRFI-40 中の解説では cons1 などのように "1" というサフィックスが付いています。 (define-syntax odd-cons (syntax-rules () ((_ elem strm) (cons elem (delay strm))))) (define (odd-car strm) (car strm)) (define (odd-cdr strm) (force (cdr strm))) 見てわかるように、cdr-partだけを遅延させています。force / delay はそれぞれ1箇所に入り、実装の詳細は綺麗に掩蔽されていて、一見エレガントなように見えます。 しかし実際には問題があります。odd-cons はマクロですので、それ自体ではcar-partにあたる引数 elem を評価しませんが、展開結果に cons が直接あり、その引数として直接 elem を渡してしまっていますから、結果として odd-cons があると、そこで car-part の実引数は評価されてしまいます。これは「cons should not evaluate its arguments」という、遅延ストリームの基本に反しています。 わざとらしいですが、簡単な例で示します。 (define (my-take n strm) (if (= n 0) '() (cons (odd-car strm) (my-take (- n 1) (odd-cdr strm))))) (define (stream-from-n n) (print n) (odd-cons n (stream-from-n (+ n 1)))) (print (my-take 4 (stream-from-n 0))) 実行すると次のように出力されます。 $ gosh sample-odd.scm 0 1 2 3 4 (0 1 2 3) ここで my-take が odd-cons でストリームを作っていれば問題は無いわけですが、このように普通の cons でリストを作ろうとすると「その中身にアクセスされることはないが、odd-cdr によってforceされてしまうconsセル」は作ってしまうため、そのconsセルのcar-partに相当する評価は起きてしまいます。SRFI中では、ある種の off-by-one error（ http://catb.org/jargon/html/O/off-by-one-error.html ）だ、と言っています。 ストリームがこのような「oddストリーム」であるため、SICPの本文中のコードには、陽に delay を使っているものがあり、なぜそうしなければならないかという練習問題になっています。
evenストリーム SRFI-40 では、以上のようなoddストリームの問題が解決された手法として、evenストリームというものが示されています（他にもう一つの考え方としては、cdr-part だけでなく car-part も遅延させる、という方法もあると考えられます。Haskellなどの、任意の値が遅延されるスタイルに近いのはそちらとも言えます）。 evenストリームの実装を示します。SRFI-40 中の解説では cons2 などのように "2" というサフィックスが付いています。 (define-syntax even-cons (syntax-rules () ((_ elem strm) (delay (cons elem strm))))) (define (even-car strm) (car (force strm))) (define (even-cdr strm) (cdr (force strm))) こちらでは、even-cons の展開結果の最上位に delay がありますから、consセルに含まれる要素（consセルが要素として指すもの）ではなく、consセル自身が遅延されたものになっています。その代わり、carを取るにもcdrを取るにも、まず force する必要があるように、force / delay があらゆる場所に必要になっています。言い換えると、このモデルは、oddストリームからバグを除いたという良い特性の代わりに、掩蔽が綺麗にできないものになっている、ということになります（ここでは議論しませんが、実用的な実装では force / delay のメモ化も重要になるでしょう）。 ここで、mapについて考えてみます。evenストリームによるmapの実装は次のようになります。 (define (even-map f strm) (delay (force (if (even-null? strm) even-null (even-cons (f (even-car strm)) (even-map f (even-cdr strm))))))) 「 (delay (force 」とあるのは一見無意味なように見えます、が、無意味ではなく、「evenストリームとして正しい」mapは、このようになっている必要があります。以下でそれを説明します。 evenストリームにおける even-cons の定義から、その cdr-part である strm は、even-cons の時点では評価されず、後でforceされた時点で初めて評価される、ということがわかります。evenストリームにおいては、他の「ストリームを受け取り、そのストリームに何かをして返す」というような関数では全て原則として同様に、引数として渡されたリストの評価は、その関数が返した値がforceされるまで遅延されなければならない、ということになります。 even-map のコードを見ればあきらかと思いますが、もし「 (delay (force 」が無ければ、渡されたストリームは even-null? によってforceされ評価されてしまいますから、このように全体が遅延されるように囲ってやる必要があるわけです。 Gauche の util.stream など、SRFI-40 の実装では明示的なforceが要らないようになっているので、このコードにおける delay の側だけが stream-delay として残るということになるわけですが、それがなぜ要るかという理由は以上のようになります。
名前について oddとevenという名前は、oddストリームの挙動は少し変だ（oddだ）ということにも掛けられていますが、SRFI-41（ http://srfi.schemers.org/srfi-41/srfi-41.html ）にわかりやすい表現があります。 すなわち、oddストリームのその実際の構造は次のようになってます。 (cons 1 (delay (cons 2 (delay (cons 3 (delay '())))))) ここで、終端されているリストであれば、構成子 {delay, cons, '()} の数が、常に奇数（odd number）個になるはずです。 一方、evenストリームは、その前にもう1個 delay が付いて、 (delay (cons 1 (delay (cons 2 (delay (cons 3 (delay '()))))))) のようになり、常に偶数（even number）個になるはずだ、ということから、それぞれの名前となっています。
SRFI-41 との関係 （SRFI-41 をそんなに読み込めてないのですが）SRFI-40 では、以上のように「実装が掩蔽し切れないdelay」について、ユーザにはプリミティブである stream-delay のみを提供するというスタイルとしていますが、ユーザの負担が大きいという判断か、SRFI-41 は、より多い機能を提供するものになっているようです。 |
Originally published September 16, 2014 at 7:07 PM | Page modified September 17, 2014 at 6:20 PM
Microsoft’s board is losing two members and gaining two in the latest round of changes for a board that has seen some major shifts this year. The company is also reportedly announcing its second round of job cuts Thursday.
Microsoft’s board is losing two members and gaining two in the latest round of changes for a board that has seen some major shifts this year.
Longtime board members Dave Marquardt and Dina Dublon are stepping down, deciding not to seek re-election. They will retire at the end of their current term following the annual shareholders meeting in December, Microsoft announced Tuesday.
Meanwhile, Teri List-Stoll, executive vice president and chief financial officer of Kraft Foods Group, and Charles Scharf, CEO of Visa, will join the board Oct. 1.
The board also declared a quarterly dividend of 31 cents per share, up from 28 cents last quarter. The dividend is payable Dec. 11 to shareholders of record on Nov. 20. The ex-dividend date will be Nov. 18.
List-Stoll, 51, joined Kraft in September 2013 as senior vice president leading the business-unit finance teams, and was appointed CFO in December, according to Kraft. Before that, she spent nearly 20 years at Procter & Gamble, serving most recently as senior vice president and treasurer. She also serves on the board of Danaher Corp. and as a trustee of the Financial Accounting Foundation, according to Microsoft.
Scharf, 49, CEO of Visa since November 2012, spent nine years before that at JPMorgan Chase as CEO of its retail-financial services and managing director of One Equity Partners, the firm’s private-investment arm. He has also served as CEO and CFO of BankOne Corp, and CFO of Salomon Smith Barney and the global corporate and investment-bank division of Citigroup, according to Microsoft. He serves on the board of trustees of Johns Hopkins University and the board of directors of the Financial Services Roundtable.
“I’m excited to have both Teri and Charlie joining our board,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said in a news release. “Teri brings exceptional financial and operational expertise, as well as great insights from her two decades of experience in consumer and retail industries. Charlie, as a sitting CEO of a large global business, brings additional strategic and operational depth to the Microsoft board, as well as a deep understanding of how commerce is changing globally.”
Marquardt, 65, a founding general partner of private venture-capital firm August Capital, is one of Microsoft’s earliest investors. He is departing the board after serving 33 years.
Dublon, 61, former CFO of JPMorgan Chase, has been on the Microsoft board since 2005.
“As one of our earliest board members, Dave has played an indispensable role in Microsoft’s growth and development, providing sage counsel and invaluable industry insights,” Bill Gates, Microsoft co-founder and technology adviser, said in the news release. “Dina has also been a great board member for almost a decade, and we all appreciate her guidance and support.”
Microsoft’s board has seen some big shifts this year.
In February, Gates stepped down as chairman, saying it would give him more time to serve as a technology adviser to Satya Nadella, who was appointed that month to succeed Steve Ballmer as the company’s CEO. Gates remains on the board.
John Thompson, CEO of Virtual Instruments, was named board chairman.
In March, Stephen Luczo, Seagate Technology Chairman and CEO, stepped down from the board, while G. Mason Morfit, president of ValueAct Capital, joined it. Morfit’s seat came as the result of an agreement in which Microsoft’s board averted a proxy battle. ValueAct had been pressuring Microsoft to take steps to increase shareholder value.
In July, John Stanton, a wireless-industry pioneer, was named to the board. Stanton, who founded the company that eventually led to T-Mobile US, is currently chairman of Trilogy Equity Partners and Trilogy International Partners.
In August, Ballmer stepped down from the board, saying his new role as owner of the Los Angeles Clippers basketball team, as well as a teaching gig, would keep him busy. While still Microsoft’s largest individual shareholder, Ballmer severed management ties to the company in making that move.
In addition to Gates, Dublon, Marquardt, Nadella, Thompson, Stanton and Morfit, Microsoft’s current board includes Maria Klawe, president of Harvey Mudd College; Charles Noski, former vice chairman of Bank of America; and Dr. Helmut Panke, former chairman of the board of management at BMW.
In addition to the board shifts, many other changes have occurred at the company this year, including Nadella’s efforts to transform Microsoft into a “productivity and platform company for the mobile-first and cloud-first world.”
Part of those changes have involved layoffs. Microsoft announced in July that it would be cutting 18,000 jobs. Microsoft said back then that it was starting to eliminate 13,000 of those jobs, with the majority of the remaining 5,000 to be notified over the next six months.
The time has apparently come for that next round of notifications. According to reports in ZDNet and Bloomberg quoting unidentified sources, Microsoft is set to notify the next group of employees Thursday that their jobs are being cut. The reduction will come from divisions all across the company, according to the reports.
Microsoft said it does not comment on rumors or speculation.
Janet I. Tu: 206-464-2272 or [email protected]. On Twitter @janettu.
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A camouflaged BMW M4 GT4 racing car made an unexpected appearance at BMW Motorsport's end of year Season Review event in Munich.
This is the first time the car has been seen in complete form - it's not expected to be revealed properly until development finishes in 2017. Previous GT4 sightings were of a road-going test mule (shown below).
The M4 GTS has new, more aggressive aerodynamic features, such as a larger fixed rear wing, a more prominent front spoiler and lower side skirts.
The car also gets a more complicated rear diffuser, a modification made to generate racing levels of downforce that conform to GT4 regulations.
The M4 GT4 will retain the road car’s twin-turbocharged straight-six engine, but power might be down on that of the 493bhp M4 GTS once regulation restrictors are added. |
The hops shortage of 2007 is over, buried in a glut of unsold hops. Don't expect craft beer prices to follow -- the $5 pint and $9 six-pack are likely facts of life -- but hops prices are now so low that some Oregon and Washington growers left hops unharvested this fall.
"The only time I've heard of hops left hanging was back when powdery mildew hit so hard that some yards weren't worth picking," says John Annen of Annen Brothers Farms and chairman of the
. "But never industrywide -- these are perfectly good hops unpicked because there's no warehouse space and no spot market for uncontracted hops."
Two years ago, failed European crops, declining acreage worldwide, a Yakima warehouse fire and other factors conspired to send spot prices for beer's most distinctive ingredient soaring from $2 and $3 a pound to more than $30 in some cases.
Washington, Oregon and Idaho growers reacted by putting nearly 10,000 new acres into production since then, and the 2008 crop was the biggest in years. This fall's harvest looks to be even better, though figures and spot prices are not available.
Gayle Goschie of Goschie Farms near Silverton sells much of the crop from her 370 acres through contracts to brewers large and small and added 80 acres this year to fill contracts with craft brewers. But like many other growers and brokers, she has some unsold, uncontracted hops this year and says the market is in such turmoil that she hasn't even been offered a price for them.
"It's a complete reversal from a couple of years ago," says Ralph Olson of
in Yakima, a major hop broker and supplier. "There were always hops available, even at the worst of the crisis, and not just at $30 a pound, either. But everybody panicked and bought all they could."
He still gets questions from growers about more hop vines. "I tell them they were too late two years ago. ... Now, some of that land is going to have to be pulled out of production."
Call it another lesson in the volatility of agricultural crops -- except that hops are more than just another crop hereabouts. To hear an Oregon brewer talk about hops is to understand that.
"We love hops especially, because they're our spice," says
brewmaster John Harris. "Malt is the base, our stock, but hops are what makes a beer come alive."
Humulus lupulus
is a fast-growing, cone-bearing vine that grows best near the 45th parallel -- north of the equator -- that runs through Oregon.
The Northwest grows about a quarter of the world's hops, which is a cousin of cannabis and is useful for almost nothing except to flavor and preserve beer, for which it is perfectly suited. Without the bitterness and aroma of hops, beer would be a sweet barley gruel where microbes thrived, and you wouldn't want that -- especially here in Oregon, a world leader in craft brewing
Before craft brewing, hops were a brokered commodity grown for their alpha acid content -- their ability to add bitterness. Thanks to craft brewers, they're almost a boutique crop these days; growers plant aroma varieties as well as high-alpha hops, and brewers prize different varieties for their unique aroma and flavor profiles. And craft brewers have forged close relationships with Oregon's two dozen or so growers, ties that will grow stronger as mega-brewers buy fewer Oregon hops in favor of derivatives made from super-high alpha varieties grown in Yakima.
Besides, craft brewers use hops lavishly -- bitterness is measured in bittering units, and a craft beer such as BridgePort IPA is about 50 bittering units; a mass-market lager such as Budweiser measures 10 bittering units or less.
Hops by the numbers
Value of Oregon's 2008 crop:
$38 million, or about the same as the state's 85,000 tons of apples. Oregon's No.1 single crop in 2008 was alfalfa hay, with 1,680,000 tons worth $357.8 million. Oregon's several varieties of grass seed had a total value of $444.24 million.
Source: Oregon Department of Agriculture
Finding a fresh-hop beer:
Fresh-hop beers are the most fleeting of styles, and the season is almost over, but ask at your favorite pubs in case they're still pouring. Also, you can likely still find bottles of Deschutes Hop Trip or BridgePort Hop Harvest in better beer sections.
-- John Foyston
Oregonians celebrate great hops in any number of ways, from a weekend campout/brewdown of homebrewers in September called
to community hop-picking sessions at brewpubs such as the
and Astoria's
in which people bring in their backyard hops to be made into fresh-hop beers. People float fresh-hop cones in their pints and have been known to dive into hillocks of hops, nevermind that they'll itch for the rest of the day.
More than two dozen Oregon brewers celebrate with once-a-year fresh-hop beers. And most made annual pilgrimages to local growers to pick up the hops and take advantage of the Northwest's unique situation, where dozens of breweries are mere hours from some of the best hops in the world.
and a dozen employees spent a September day at Goschie Farms picking hops for their fresh-hop beer;
and
sent expeditions to mid-valley hop growers to bring back just-picked hops for their Hop Trip and Hop Harvest beers; and Full Sail's Harris gathered a busload of brewery customers, beer writers and industry types to gather hops for his annual batch of Lupulin Ale.
Lupulin is a fresh-hop ale, as are Hop Trip, Hop Harvest, Vernon the Rabbit Slayer, Killer Green and all the rest, meaning the hops are all or mostly "wet" hops fresh from hopyards. Beers brewed the rest of the year -- or by brewers in the rest of the world -- use processed hops dried from 80 percent moisture to less than 10 percent and then baled, frozen, pelletized or distilled into oil.
Even if we didn't invent the style, more fresh-hop beers are brewed in the Northwest than anywhere else, and those beers starred at fresh-hop beer festivals, including three around the state earlier this month, sponsored by the
and
.
But let's get to the important part: Won't cheaper hops equal cheaper beer? Don't bet on it. Pubs and breweries face all sorts of increased costs, from stainless steel brewing vessels to employee health care, freight and fuel costs, and hops are perhaps the smallest part. Plus, most brewers contracted for their hops for years ahead during the shortage, and those contract prices will be higher than 2009 spot-market prices.
But growers and brewers are generally upbeat about living through this. Christian Ettinger, whose
on Southeast Powell Boulevard opened in the middle of four crises -- fuel, hops, stainless steel and the economy -- said his business is stronger and smarter. "It's forcing us to be much better at inventory control, forecasting and developing strong relationships with growers. We're better brewers and businessmen because of it."
-- |
A game of “trust” took a deadly turn for an Australian diplomat, who plunged to his death from his Manhattan balcony early Wednesday during a night of boozing with friends and his wife, police sources said.
Julian Simpson, 30, fell from the seventh floor to a second-floor landing at the Clinton Street building where he lived on the Lower East Side around 1:35 a.m., the sources said.
Simpson was playing a “trust game” with a male pal when he accidentally took the fatal fall, a source said.
“I will prove it that you can trust me. Let’s play the trust game,” Simpson said to the 24-year-old man just moments before he slipped and fell, sources said.
Simpson and his wife were out with friends for dinner and drinks before the group returned back to the Clinton Street residence and went up to the building’s wraparound roof deck to the enjoy the views of the Empire State Building, witnesses said.
The iconic landmark tower was lit up in rainbow colors in celebration of Australia’s same-sex marriage vote.
While on the roof, the diplomat, who serves as the second secretary to the UN for Australia, then climbed to a higher roof landing where he began swinging a female friend around, sources said.
Once he put her down, everyone decided to go back inside.
While inside, the 24-year-old man, who is the husband of the woman Simpson had been swinging, confronted Simpson over the gesture, sources said.
The two men then stepped out onto Simpson’s balcony, where Simpson told the husband that he meant no harm, according to sources.
To prove to the husband that he could trust him, Simpson suggested playing the “trust game” — in which Simpson would lean back on the ledge and trust the man to catch him before he would fall.
Simpson jumped up onto the balcony railing and sat on it facing the apartment before he fell backward, sources said.
The man told investigators that he put his arm out to catch him, but Simpson slipped and fell to his death, according to sources.
Simpson was rushed to Mount Sinai Beth Israel hospital where he was pronounced dead.
Investigators say foul play is not suspected, sources said.
All those who police interviewed admitted to drinking alcohol that night and cops reported a strong odor of booze on those involved, sources said.
A rep for the Permanent Mission of Australia to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
An official at the Australian Consulate-General New York said when reached by phone, “We have no comment at the moment.”
Additional reporting by Natalie Musumeci |
As a part of its cost-cutting efforts, Seagate has decided to shut down its HDD manufacturing plant in Suzhou, China. The factory is one of the company’s largest production assets and its closure will significantly reduce the company’s HDD output. Seagate intends to lay off ~2200 employees, but it is unclear what it intends to do with the facility, which it owns.
The factory in Suzhou, China, assemblies hard drives and performs their final testing before shipping. The plant does not produce HDD subassemblies and thus is not vertically integrated, but at 1.1 million square feet (102 thousand square meters), this is one of Seagate’s largest manufacturing assets and the largest drive assembly facility. The company got the factory from Maxtor, when it acquired it in 2006. According to a media report, the plant no longer makes products and the last employees will be laid off on January 18, 2017.
“As part of our continual optimization of operational efficiencies, Seagate has made the difficult decision to shut down its factory in Suzhou, China,” an alleged statement by Seagate reads. “We regret that our Suzhou employees will be affected by this action, which reflects our ongoing commitment to reduce Seagate’s global manufacturing footprint and better align the business with current and expected demand trends.”
Last year Seagate announced intentions to optimize its manufacturing capacities from around 55-60 million drives per quarter to approximately 35-40 million drives per quarter. In 2016, the company already fired about 8,000 employees from different locations, but that was only a part of the strategy. With the plan to shut down the plant in Suzhou, the company actually reduces its ability to produce the drives.
After Seagate shuts down its plant in Suzhou, China, it will have two vertically integrated HDD production facilities in Wuxi, China, and Korat, Thailand. Both factories product drive subassemblies and actual HDDs, hence, by using only these two plants the company optimizes logistics (as it no longer has to transport drive subassemblies to Suzhou) and cuts its per drive manufacturing costs. Meanwhile, it remains to be seen what happens to Seagate’s factories that only produce drive subassemblies (sliders and HGAs).
Seagate's Manufacturing, Development, Marketing and Administrative Facilities Location Primary Use Approximate Area Ownership USA California Product Development
Marketing
Administrative 842,000 ft² Owned/Leased Colorado Product Development 664,000 ft² Minnesota Product Development
Production of Recording Heads 1,144,000 ft² Northern Ireland Springtown Production of Recording Heads 479,000 ft² Owned China Suzhou Production of Drives 1,103,000 ft² Wuxi Production of Drives and Drive Subassemblies (Head Stack Assembly) 704,000 ft² Leased Malaysia Johor Production of Substrates 631,000 ft² Owned Penang Production of Drive Subassemblies
(Sliders) 402,000 ft² Seremban Production of Test Equipment and Systems 299,000 ft² Owned/Leased Singapore Woodlands Production of Media 1,504,000 ft² Science Park Product Development 410,000 ft² Ang Mo Kio Marketing
Administrative 225,000 ft² Leased Thailand Korat Production of Drives and Drive Subassemblies
(Sliders, Heads Gimbal Assembly, Head Stack Assembly) 1,767,000 ft² Owned/Leased Teparuk Production of Drive Subassemblies
(Heads Gimbal Assembly) 362,000 ft² Korea Suwon Product Development 220,000 ft² Owned
It is important to note that while Seagate cuts down HDD assembly capacities, it does nothing to plants that produce heads, media and substrates. Over the past few years, unit shipments of HDDs have declined, but their average capacities increased (especially capacities of HDDs for datacenters) due to strong demand for high-capacity SKUs. Therefore Seagate may not need to produce a lot of drives, but it needs to pack about the same amount of heads and platters into fewer HDDs. Moreover, in the coming years, the company will need more heads because of new manufacturing technologies (TDMR, HAMR, etc.) and more media because it can now pack more platters into high-end helium-filled drives.
What remains to be seen is what Seagate plans to do with its manufacturing assets from the Suzhou facility. The fab is so large that it does not seem that all of its equipment could be relocated to other facilities. Moreover, the building itself is huge and it is unclear what will happen to it.
Related Reading:
Sources: Seagate, BestChinaNews, Reuters, The Register. |
Google is planning to open retail stores in Los Angeles and San Francisco, according to a source familiar with the plans. The company has already begun hiring staff, who are being trained in how to explain and market Google products — including Glass — in stores. It's likely that the company will open stores in more locations, but SF and LA will be among the first.
Rumors that Google was opening its own retail spaces by the end of the year began circulating in February, and were spelled out more clearly today at 9to5mac. The reports indicated the shops would be selling Android and Chromebook-related products, as well as Glass.
Google has been expanding its retail plans in other ways, too. Google already has kiosks at Best Buy locations where Google-trained employees demonstrate Chromebooks. It's also been testing a same-day shipping program for online purchases in San Francisco, which could position it to compete more directly with Amazon.
The plans may shed light on another storyline at Google: Earlier this year, Google's Andy Rubin, the co-creator of Android, flatly denied the rumors altogether. "Google has no plans, and we have nothing to announce," Rubin told the audience at an international mobile industry conference in Barcelona. He downplayed the value of brick-and-mortar retail, too, saying consumers "don't have to go in the store and feel [products] anymore." A month later he left his post as head of Google's Android division.
As for what the stores will look like, we can expect plenty more leaks; for now, however, Google is remaining silent. A Google spokesperson has not returned a request for comment. |
Some say it failed, but Rick Santorum’s attempts to woo Democrats, coupled with Democratic attempts to “game” the system as part of an “operation chaos” scenario, made the race much closer than it would have otherwise been.
According to exit polls, Democrats represented 9 percent of the overall vote — and Santorum won the Democratic vote 53 to 17 percent — that works out to be abound a 32,000 vote margin (or 3.2 percent of the total 998,842 turnout).
Meanwhile, Mitt Romney won easily among Republicans by a wide 48-37 margin, and even narrowly edged Santorum among Independents.
But perhaps the most telling statistics, however, was that people who strongly support the tea party — and people who strongly oppose the tea party — both favored Rick Santorum.
It didn’t put Santorum over the top, but it sure made the race a lot closer. |
There might be some confusion among Samsung’s user base. Samsung has officially called back all Galaxy Note 7 devices, but the issues that plagued the Galaxy Note 7 don’t affect other smartphones. Samsung is letting customers know that.
One of our staff members recently received the image above, a push message from Samsung alerting him that the Galaxy S7 is not a dangerous smartphone. “Your Galaxy S7 is not an affected device,” the message reads. “The Galaxy S7 is not subject to recall. You can continue to use your device normally.”
It’s unclear if the Galaxy S7 Edge is also getting this alert, but we presume it is.
Why this matters:
I imagine plenty of consumers around the world who might be using a Galaxy S7 and who aren’t necessarily gadget-heads. They might not know the difference between that phone and the Galaxy Note 7, only thinking they own some kind of Samsung smartphone “with a 7 in it.”
This is smart of Samsung, and will keep more of its phones out in the public. If you own a Note 7, your message will ask you to return the device. You should follow that command. |
With the release of Apple Watch, Apple Inc. made its mark in the wearable electronics segment. Packed with a lot of beautiful features, the watch was one of the trendiest things to have come forward in a long time and revolutionized the use of smartphones. The watch was followed by many such devices by Android manufacturers, who built similar smart watches for their brands.
But, the finesse and the elegance of the Apple Watch made it one of the best wearable electronic devices in the segment. Moreover, Apple branded their watch as a fashion accessory and the device sold more than 4 million units since the start of its shipping in April 2015. The Apple Watch has become one of the fastest-selling wearable electronic devices in the market and has strong potential for changing the entire landscape of the app market of the world.
Impact of Apple Watch:
As per the reports of an iPhone App Development Company the launch of the Apple Watch brought about a change in the app market too. There are many specialized apps that are developed for the small watch screen of the Apple device and the developers are also exploring the possibilities of adding more personalized health, weather, news, time and financial apps for the device, which will ultimately make your life easy.
The different variants of the watch show a difference in materials used. However, the OS inside and the hardware is much the same in all Apple Watch variants launched in the market right now. The device requires iPhone 5 and above for connection and can be controlled by using Bluetooth or Wi-Fi.
Using the WatchKit, developers from all over the globe can create apps for the Apple Watch. The screen of the watch boasts of an LCD and has circular icons and crisp viewing angles to make the device look sophisticated and elegant.
The launch of the Apple Watch created a stir in the market and allowed Apple to gain on the quarterly profits as well as helping them accelerate the sales of their iPhones into the market, especially in the US and Europe.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPL1-8ypnEs]
Features of Apple Watch:
The Apple Watch allows users to interact with their iPhone in a whole new way and also enables them to stay in touch with their near and dear ones in a more intimate fashion. Some of the major features that make Apple Watch a revolutionary product in the electronics market, as per the reports of an iPhone App Development Company are:
Timekeeping: Yes, that is the most essential feature of a watch. But have you imagined a watch that keeps time as accurate as 50 ms of the global standard. The Apple Watch has the best timekeeping capability in addition to all the other features offered by the company. Moreover, the time can be presented to you in many different customizable forms.
Alerts: The device gives you small physical taps to tell you about new messages and calls. Moreover, there are fun ways to interact with your friends using the watch as you send sketches, taps and even your heartbeat to your near and dear ones and strengthen your bonds over the device.
Fitness: Another major feature is the built-in fitness app that allows you to track your daily activities. As the watch is quite sensitive, the daily workout regime and the pulse rates, along with your walking and running period and distance are carefully calculated and the app keeps you posted on how your regime will help you out in attaining your fitness goals.
Fashionable Designs: The Apple Watch is elegant, sporty and whatever you want it to be. With so many strap choices available in the market, the watch can be turned into an elegant piece of art and also into a sporty beast as per your needs and the occasion. The design is one of the major reasons for the sale of this product in the US market.
Specialized Apps: Using the Watchkit, apps can be developed for the Watch, and there are companies providing affordable app designing, which are helping in developing an entirely new App Store for the Watch.
Contributed by http://www.arkasoftwares.com/ |
'I believe they will, hopefully quickly,' Feinstein said of declassification Feinstein set to move on CIA report
Sen. Dianne Feinstein is racing toward declassification of a long-awaited report which sharply criticizes the CIA’s Bush-era interrogation policies and disputes the agency’s claims that the tough tactics helped foil terrorist plots.
The Senate Intelligence Committee chairwoman said Monday that she plans to hold a committee vote Thursday to make public the key findings and summary of the full 6,300-page report, which the panel has been working on for five years.
Story Continued Below
The Senate investigation has raised tensions between the Central Intelligence Agency and Feinstein (D-Calif.), who has accused the CIA of interfering in her committee’s probe into Bush-era detention and interrogation policies.
The report paints a picture of the CIA interrogation program as poorly managed, with senior officials inside and outside the agency often unaware of precisely what tactics were being used in interrogations and what intelligence was or wasn’t being produced, current and former officials said.
That confusion led to inaccurate public claims about the success of the program, according to Senate intelligence committee member Mark Udall (D-Colo.).
“I strongly believe that the only way to correct the inaccurate information in the public record on this program is through the sunlight of declassification,” he said at a public panel hearing in December.
( Also on POLITICO: Senate Democrats support White House NSA proposal)
Feinstein appears intent on moving to release the thrust of the report — with or without Republican support — during a closed-door meeting of the intelligence panel set for Thursday afternoon in the committee’s secure Capitol Hill workspace. Ultimately, declassification of the report is up to the executive branch.
However, the White House has said President Barack Obama wants the findings released, though officials there have been careful not to endorse the Senate report and to insist that any dissenting Congressional views and the CIA’s response should also be made public.
“I believe they will, hopefully quickly,” Feinstein said of declassification in a brief interview.
This is all news to the committee’s seven Republican members, who Feinstein does not need to vote for declassifying the report as long as the panel’s eight Democratic Caucus members support her, as is expected.
“I don’t know for sure what she’s going to do. She hasn’t told me yet,” said Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), the committee’s top Republican, who said he was unaware of the Thursday vote. “It’s no surprise it’s coming. I fully expected her to do so at some point.”
The committee voted to approve the massive final report in 2012, mostly along party lines. Since, Feinstein and her staff have been going back and forth with the CIA about details in the report that she says will reveal the “brutal” nature of the controversial intelligence programs.
A CIA spokesman said in December that the Senate report contained “significant errors.” That remark angered several senators, who said the errors were minor and did not undermine the report’s findings.
“I am outraged that the CIA continues to make misleading public statements about the committee’s study of the CIA’s interrogation program. There is only one instance in which the CIA pointed out a factual error in the study, a minor error that has been corrected,” Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) said at the December hearing.
“Where the committee and the CIA differ, we differ on interpretation and on conclusions from an agreed-upon factual record. You can’t publicly call our differences of opinion significant errors in press releases. It is misleading,” he added.
E-mails published by POLITICO earlier this year suggest that the CIA had not conducted a comprehensive review of the interrogation program before the Senate ramped up its investigation soon after Obama took office.
“No one had reviewed systematically, the Interrogation Program prior to [the Senior Review Team’s] founding,” one agency official wrote in a March 2010 e-mail describing an internal CIA review which paralleled the Senate probe after it began in 2009.
Former officials and the e-mails obtained under the Freedom of Information Act indicate that the CIA’s internal review was cut off in early 2010 after the Justice Department reopened a criminal inquiry into deaths and injuries of detainees in CIA custody.
The internal review has triggered complaints and counter-complaints between the CIA and the Senate after Senate intelligence committee staffers obtained access to some review records as they examined CIA documents at a special facility set up for the Senate investigation and moved copies of those records to the committee’s offices on the Hill.
Earlier this year, the CIA’s inspector general referred to the Justice Department as a potential crime the CIA’s own search of the Senate-used computers at the facility following what officials there viewed as a possible security breach. The CIA’s acting general counsel also reported the Senate staffers removal of the documents as a potential crime.
It’s unclear when the CIA resumed its analysis of the interrogation program, but in May 2013, a White House photographer snapped a photo of CIA Director John Brennan chatting with Obama in a White House hallway. Brennan is carrying a binder labeled as the CIA’s response to the Senate study.
The CIA’s official response was sent to the Senate the following month, Feinstein said recently. However, she and other senators said the agency was slow to provide other information needed to complete the report, resulting in the report first approved in December 2012 being stuck in limbo until this month.
Follow @politico |
CLOSE Democratic Presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders says his campaign wants to take a look at some of the Iowa Caucus results. Sanders said he's disturbed that some delegates were reportedly determined with a coin flip. (Feb. 3) AP
Bernie Sanders acknowledges supporters during his Iowa Caucus watch party in Des Moines on Feb. 1, 2016. (Photo: Larry W. Smith, European Pressphoto Agency)
DES MOINES — It's Iowa's nightmare scenario revisited: An extraordinarily close count in the Iowa caucuses — and reports of chaos in precincts and computer glitches — are raising questions about accuracy of the count and winner.
This time it's the Democrats, not the Republicans.
Even as Hillary Clinton trumpeted her Iowa win in New Hampshire on Tuesday, aides for Bernie Sanders said the eyelash-thin margin raised questions and called for a review. The chairwoman of the Iowa Democratic Party rejected that notion, saying the results are final.
The situation echoes the events on the Republican side in the 2012 caucuses, when one winner (Mitt Romney, by eight votes) was named on caucus night, but a closer examination of the paperwork that reflected the head counts showed someone else pulled in more votes (Rick Santorum, by 34 votes). But some precincts were still missing entirely.
Like Republican party officials in 2012, Democratic party officials worked into the early morning on caucus night trying to account for results from a handful of tardy precincts.
But at 2:30 a.m. Tuesday, Iowa Democratic Party Chairwoman Andy McGuire announced that Clinton had eked out a slim victory, based on results from 1,682 of 1,683 precincts.
After voters from the final missing Democratic precinct tracked down party officials Tuesday morning to report their results, Sanders won by two delegate equivalents over Clinton in the final missing precinct, Des Moines precinct No. 42.
The Iowa Democratic Party said the updated final tally of delegate equivalents for all the precincts statewide was:
Clinton: 700.59
Sanders: 696.82.
That's a 3.77-count margin between Clinton, the powerful establishment favorite who early on in the Democratic race was expected to win in a virtual coronation, and Sanders, a democratic socialist who few in Iowa knew much about a year ago.
Sanders campaign aides told the Register they've found some discrepancies between tallies at the precinct level and numbers that were reported to the state party. The Iowa Democratic Party determines its winner not based on a head count like in the Republicans' straw poll, but based on delegate equivalents tied to a math formula. And there was enough confusion, and untrained volunteers on Monday night, that errors may have been made.
"We feel like that there’s a very, very good chance that there is," said Rania Batrice, a Sanders spokeswoman. "It's not that we think anybody did anything intentionally, but human error happens."
Team Sanders had its own app that allowed supporters and volunteers to send precinct-level results directly to the campaign. At the same time, caucus chairs sent their official results to the state party, either over a specially built Microsoft app or via phone. Sanders aides hope to sit down with the state parties and review the paperwork from the precinct chairs, Batrice said.
"We just want to work with the party and get the questions that are unanswered answered," she said.
McGuire, in an interview with the Register, said no.
"The answer is that we had all three camps in the tabulation room last night to address any grievances brought forward and we went over any discrepancies. These are the final results," she said.
McGuire in her 2:30 a.m. statement said: "Hillary Clinton has been awarded 699.57 state delegate equivalents, Bernie Sanders has been awarded 695.49 state delegate equivalents, Martin O’Malley has been awarded 7.68 state delegate equivalents and uncommitted has been awarded .46 state delegate equivalents. We still have outstanding results in one precinct — Des Moines 42 — which is worth 2.28 state delegate equivalents. We will report that final precinct when we have confirmed those results with the chair."
Team Clinton quickly embraced that news, and flatly stated that nothing could change it.
Hillary Clinton greets supporters during her caucus night event in the Olmsted Center at Drake University on Feb. 1, 2016, in Des Moines. (Photo: Justin Sullivan, Getty Images)
Clinton's Iowa campaign director, Matt Paul, said in a statement at 2:35 a.m.: "Hillary Clinton has won the Iowa caucus. After thorough reporting — and analysis — of results, there is no uncertainty and Secretary Clinton has clearly won the most national and state delegates. Statistically, there is no outstanding information that could change the results and no way that Senator Sanders can overcome Secretary Clinton's advantage."
McGuire repeated that Tuesday afternoon, saying the reporting app had a built-in failsafe to prevent volunteers from reporting more delegates than were assigned to each precinct.
Clinton, who saw her expected Iowa win slip away in 2008, grasped the prize Tuesday.
"I can tell you, I've won and I've lost there, and it's a lot better to win," she said at a rally in New Hampshire, the state that votes next on the presidential nominating calendar.
But that didn't quell doubts back in Iowa.
“Politics is a contact sport with few referees, so torturing your opponents with questions about the transparency of an election can be very harmful and damaging,” said Steffen Schmidt, a longtime political observer and professor at Iowa State University in Ames.
Discrepancies can occur in official elections, and caucuses are not even official election events run by the secretary of state's office, noted Dennis Goldford, a Drake University professor who closely studies the Iowa caucuses.
"The caucus system isn't built to bear the weight placed on it," he said. "There aren't even paper ballots (in the Democratic caucuses) to use for a recount in case something doesn't add up."
Democrats have never released actual head counts, and McGuire said they would not be released this time, either. Determining a winner based on state delegate equivalents rather than head count is a key distinction between how the Democrats conduct their caucuses versus conducting a primary, she said. New Hampshire and Iowa are generally careful to maintain such distinctions as part of their effort to preserve their status as the first caucus state and first primary state.
There were reports of disorganization and lack of volunteers Monday evening. Party officials reported a turnout of 171,109, far less than the record of 240,000 seen in 2008. Democratic voters reported long lines, too few volunteers, a lack of leadership and confusing signage. In some cases, people waited for an hour in one line, only to learn their precinct was in a different area of the same building. The proceedings were to begin at 7 p.m. but started late in many cases.
The scene at precinct No. 42 — the one with the final missing votes — was "chaos" Monday night, said Jill Joseph, a rank-and-file Democratic voter who backed Sanders in the caucuses.
None of the 400-plus Democrats wanted to be in charge of the caucus, so a man who had shown up just to vote reluctantly stepped forward. As Joseph was leaving with the untrained caucus chairman, who is one of her neighbors, "I looked at him and said, 'Who called in the results of our caucus?' And we didn't know."
The impromptu chairman hand-delivered the results to Polk County Democratic Party Chairman Tom Henderson Tuesday. Sanders won seven state delegates, Clinton won five.
Ames precinct 1-3 started caucusing two hours late, at 9 p.m., because the crowd was so big and the check-in line so slow, said Peter D. Myers, a finance major and member of the student government at Iowa State University, who caucused for the first time.
“There wasn't a clear person in charge,” Myers said.
Capacity at the caucus site, Heartland Senior Center, was 115, but 300 people turned out, Myers said. At one point, they considered moving to the parking lot of the Hy-Vee grocery store.
“It was so chaotic that we ended up making the building work even though capacity was doubled,” he said.
Myers said he registered to vote in August but “was alarmed to find out I wasn't on the list, so I had to go to the back of the line. The gentleman in front of me has caucuses the past three cycles and he wasn't on the list, either.”
No one was there to lead the caucus, so “a pregnant lady took charge and counted the Bernie supporters, and a Hillary captain took the small group to a corner and counted the supporters,” he said.
Sanders ended up with four delegates and Clinton one, he said.
An Indianola precinct that gathered in Hubbell Hall at Simpson College had a discrepancy between the number who checked in, and people counted in the first vote.
“The chair and secretary knew the count was off but proceeded anyway,” said Paige Godden, a reporter for The Record Herald and Indianola Tribune. “We did the final count at least three times. People were very frustrated by the end.”
New voters made up nearly 40% of the caucusgoers — 207 of 521 — at Democratic precinct No. 59 on at Des Moines Central Campus, organizers said. The precinct ran out of voter registration forms and had to print more.
When the caucus began, the one-by-one head count discovered 58 more people voting than had checked in. Organizers asked anyone who had not signed in to do so, and then recounted. Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller, a Clinton supporter who lives in the precinct, stepped in to help with the recount.
The precinct’s caucus chair, Mark Challis, wasn’t sure if the counts were accurate, but changes wouldn’t have affected the final vote tally, which had Sanders substantially ahead.
Democrat Mary Ann Dorsett of Des Moines told the Register that 492 voters turned out in her precinct, but there were only a handful of people assigned to check people in.
“It was a very large room, so clearly they expected a large turnout,” Dorsett said. “The lines snaked through the corridor and out the door. It took over an hour to check in. Republicans in the same precinct were seated long before this, and already listening to speeches.”
Dorsett thinks the one-by-one head-counting system is “a real head-scratcher in terms of the possibility of inaccuracy as well as time wasted.”
“If all the smartphones were eliminated, it could have been 1820, and we were re-enacting the roles of a bunch of farmers sitting in a church hall, counting heads. Is this the 21st century?” she said. “This may well be my last caucus unless the Democratic Party cleans up its act.”
Meanwhile, Republican Party of Iowa officials are doing a review — they’re comparing the app results for each candidate with what the precinct chairs jotted down on their “e-forms” on caucus night.
“When you’re counting thousands of votes you’ve always got to be careful,” Iowa GOP spokesman Charlie Szold said.
Microsoft, one of the premier tech companies in the world, had developed websites to deliver results in real time. But both the Democratic website, idpcaucuses.com, and GOP website, iagopcaucuses.com, struggled intermittently throughout the night, crashing for periods of time and locking out the public from access to the results.
McGuire said the app system the volunteers in the precincts used to file their numbers was never down. "They (Microsoft) had plenty of capacity for our results," she said.
Microsoft spokeswoman Angela Swanson-Henry said: "National interest in the Iowa Caucuses was high, and some who attempted to access websites may have experienced delays which were quickly addressed."
Contributing: Tony Leys and Kevin Hardy, The Des Moines Register. Follow Jennifer Jacobs on Twitter: @JenniferJJacobs
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1SVWC6a |
A Guild committee raised questions Thursday about the announced shutdown of the East Bay copy desk by Digital First Media, owner of the Bay Area News Group, and demanded negotiations before the company consolidates editorial production in Southern California.
The consolidation as outlined by DFM management would cause 20 more layoffs from a shrunken roster of about 90 Guild-represented employees in the East Bay.
The layoff announcement came only a week after the East Bay news staff was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for “relentless” breaking news coverage of the deadly Ghost Ship warehouse fire in Oakland.
During a conference call with company officials Thursday afternoon, Guild representatives noted that the current East Bay labor agreement has specific terms on consolidation — but doesn’t allow work to be consolidated outside BANG. Management expressed a different view, although further discussions are expected.
Copy editors at the Mercury News already have been forced to quit or relocate to the East Bay, where editorial production was moved as part of an earlier reorganization.
During a conference call with staff Tuesday, Neil Chase, executive editor of the Bay Area News Group, offered a congratulatory reference to the Pulitzer before shifting to less welcome news.
He said declining revenue forced the company to cut costs. He also noted that workers are paid less in Southern California than at BANG, responding to an employee who questioned why the work couldn’t be consolidated in the Bay Area. Production capacity was another factor behind the move south, he said.
Guild representatives are demanding negotiations over the decision to consolidate the jobs outside the East Bay bargaining unit, as well as over the impacts of any such decision on the Guild-covered workforce.
DFM’s Monrovia editorial production center, part of the company’s Los Angeles News Group, is located at the edge of the San Gabriel Mountains in suburban Los Angeles County. There is no union contract. Workers put out 11 newspapers, including work recently moved from The Orange County Register, one of DFM’s latest acquisitions.
The new consolidation will leave about 14 copy desk jobs in the East Bay. Some workers may be offered other positions to avert layoff, and some may apply for open positions in Monrovia, company officials said.
The company said it expects to complete the transfer and related job cuts by the end of June.
In a Q&A issued Tuesday, DFM told its workers they must continue to “satisfactorily perform” their jobs and “demonstrate cooperation with the team during the transition period” in order to qualify for severance when they get laid off.
“Satisfactorily performing your job includes making no disparaging remarks about the Company, keeping confidential the terms of your severance agreement, and not releasing any unauthorized materials to the public regarding the above,” the management told BANG workers. The company also said it will require employees to sign a release of claims.
(Editor’s Note: On Thursday, DFM management issued a revised Q&A deleting the language about “disparaging remarks” and removing the extra requirements for receiving severance. Management representatives said that language was included by mistake in the initial document issued two days before.)
Severance terms are covered in the East Bay Guild contract, which provides for a minimum of one week’s pay for each year of service, capped at 12 weeks, plus subsidized health coverage for three months. Laid off workers have rehire rights for six months.
Many jobs already have been cut in previous rounds of consolidation and cost cutting by DFM, a national chain owned by the secretive hedge fund Alden Global Capital. Last year, the company cut 30 percent of its Bay Area workforce.
Outside the BANG workforce, journalists said they were hardly shocked by the news of another layoff or copy desk shutdown, but some were taken aback by the timing so soon after the East Bay staff won journalism’s top honor.
Derek Moore, a reporter at The Press Democrat in Santa Rosa who serves as president of the San Francisco-based Pacific Media Workers Guild, said Alden Global Capital’s actions are “beyond outrageous, coming as they are a little more than a week after the East Bay Times earned a Pulitzer Prize for its fearless coverage of the devastating Ghost Ship fire.”
“We’ve known for a long time that this hedge fund values little beyond its bottom line. Laying off people in this fashion serves only to underscore that truth,” Moore said. |
My Goodness, What Went Wrong with These David Ortiz Bobbleheads?
The Sox cancelled tonight's Big Papi bobblehead giveaway after finding them 'unacceptable.'
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If you wanted to snag a David Ortiz bobblehead at Fenway Park before tonight’s matchup with the New York Yankees, you may want to shell out a few bucks for one from the souvenir stand, or at least one that doesn’t look plucked from a minstrel show.
The Sox had planned to give away bobbleheads depicting Big Papi, fist aloft, delivering his “This is our f— city” speech to the first 15,000 fans in attendance for Tuesday night’s game. They were supposed to look like this:
They, upon thorough analysis, do not.
By Tuesday afternoon, the Red Sox issued a statement calling off the bobblehead giveaway, as they were “unacceptable.”
“The Boston Red Sox have cancelled tonight’s David Ortiz bobblehead giveaway,” the team said. “The bobbleheads were unacceptable to the club and not appropriate for distribution. We will be issuing new David Ortiz bobbleheads to all ticketed fans at a later date.”
More information on how fans can get their hands on an appropriately lipped bobblehead will be posted on redsox.com shortly after tonight’s game, the team said. |
Identity Politics explains Horseshoe Theory
Software Mercenary Blocked Unblock Follow Following May 3, 2017
Horseshoe theory asserts that the far left and the far right, rather than being at opposite and opposing ends of a linear political continuum, in fact closely resemble one another, much like the ends of a horseshoe. — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseshoe_theory
IMO, the most significant belief system shared by the Alt-Left (Antifa / SJWs) and the Alt-Right (ethno-nationalists / the KKK) is identity politics. The only distinction one can seemingly make is that the left engages in identity politics as a means to fight ‘group oppression’ whereas the right does so as a means to protect ‘national purity’. Frighteningly, you’ll notice that these two ideological configurations are not necessarily mutually exclusive. For example, the Nazis combined both to form an inclusive political platform. This suggests to me that the reason the Alt-Left and Alt-Right hate each other is not ideological incompatibility, but because they are competing for the same political space.
Whether the hood is white or black, the result is the same.
From this analysis, it looks like the real trouble may happen if the Alt-Left and the Alt-Right were ever to converge. As long as they are fighting one another, I assume that will keep both ‘sides’ grid-locked and, hopefully, politically marginalized. |
Kára McCullough, a young, African-American nuclear scientist, was crowned Miss USA Sunday. But the 25-year-old radiochemist from Washington DC met a social media scolding after uttering incorrect thoughts during the interview portion of the competition.
McCullough was asked about health care and feminism. She gave coherent, thoughtful answers—as much as the very short format allows—but she deviated from liberal talking points, and the Internet is upset about it.
Huge fan of #MissUSA being a black woman and a scientist and advocate for science education, but dang she could use a class on social issues — Keely Cunningham (@KEE_LYme_pie) May 15, 2017
On the subject of health care, judges asked, “Do you think affordable health care for all U.S. citizens is a right or a privilege and why?” McCullough answered that health care is a privilege, one she is granted through government employment with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. She seemed to advocate for more jobs as a path to plentiful health care.
I’m definitely going to say it’s a privilege. As a government employee, I am granted healthcare and I see first-hand that for one to have health care, you need to have jobs. So, therefore, we need to continue to cultivate this environment that we’re given the opportunity to have health care as well as jobs to all the American citizens worldwide.
There ensued much shaking of heads (#smdh, even) and #byefelicias because the Left contends health care is a right, and to do otherwise is of course to wish death upon multitudes.
On the question of feminism, McCullough made the mistake of many before her—Katy Perry, Taylor Swift, Zooey Deschanel, and even Beyoncé. She doesn’t much like the term and the attributes associated with it, so she prefers to advocate for equality of women under a different term.
“What do you consider feminism to be, and do you consider yourself a feminist,” a judge asked.
So, as a woman scientist in the government, I’ve liked to lately transpose the word ‘feminism’ to ‘equalism.’ I don’t really want to consider myself… I try not to consider myself like this like die-hard, you know, like, ‘Oh I don’t really care about men…’ But one thing I’m going to say is, though, women we are just as equal to men when it comes opportunity in the workplace. And I say first-hand, I have witnessed the impact that women have in leadership in the medical sciences as well as just in the office environment. So, as Miss USA I would hope to promote that type of leadership responsibility globally to so many women worldwide.
This is a minority woman in STEM, part of whose platform as Miss USA will literally be advocating for women in science. She is a woman who is fighting the fight social justice warriors claim to want to fight—and she does it with her natural hair!— but because she isn’t using the word “feminism” with the full-throated verve online feminists require, break out the shade pieces.
McCullough later fleshed out her views on women in STEM in an interview published on the Miss USA site:
‘I want to see more women possessing leadership positions in private and government energy and health sciences agencies; not just conducting laboratory research,’ she said. ‘As a women scientist in the government, I have witnessed and been in many meetings where the ratio of men to women is 10:2. I believe more women should be given the opportunity to be representatives in the energy and medical fields.’
This reads like someone interested in, well, advancing women in scientific fields and leadership positions.
McCullough’s feelings about the term “feminism” are fairly common. A 2016 YouGov poll found only about a third of women identify as “feminists,” with 45 percent rejecting the term, and 47 percent saying it’s because they “believe feminists are too extreme.” A Gallup poll on the term over the years has had similarly dismal findings for the word, though a 2016 Washington Post poll shows much better results for the term, with 43 percent identifying as “feminist” and 17 percent as “strong feminist.” It’s unclear whether that finding constitutes a comeback or an outlier.
To those going after McCullough, I suggest patience. Perhaps her tenure will be more powerful than mere fealty to buzzwords. |
http://www.rockislandauction.com/viewitem/aid/1027/lid/680
This Dutch police revolver is an interesting example of technology being used as an element of police policy and procedure. The Dutch police administration in the late 1800s/early 1900s decided that officers should carry a blank round in the first chamber of their revolvers, a tear gas round in the second chamber, and actual live bullets only in the 3rd-5th chambers. This led to a problem of ensuring that officers were able to easily confidently know which type of ammunition they were firing at any given time - what if a cylinder happened to rotate while being drawn, holstered, or otherwise handled without the officer noticing? He might fire a live round when intended to use a blank, or vice versa.
The solution was to add a large manual safety that would lock the cylinder in position, and add large marking to the outside of the first two chambers indicating which was which. Setting aside the wisdom of this sort of progressive cartridge selection, the mechanical adaptation of the police revolvers is an interesting thing to see, and one of a relatively small number of revolvers to have manual safeties. |
This Nov. 6, 2011 photo shows a bee colony run by Adam Finkelstein and Kelly Rausch who are are raising queen bees in Frederick, Md., in attempts to reverse colony collapse disorder. Linda Davidson/AP
Saturday marks the 40th anniversary of the Endangered Species Act being signed into law; the occasion, however, is being eclipsed by criticisms about whether government agencies are doing enough to protect some species – bees, especially.
A lawsuit, the first to invoke the Endangered Species Act (ESA) in defense of bees, was filed in March by major U.S. beekeeping associations against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) over its decision to register a new pesticide called sulfoxaflor.
Sulfoxaflor is a new chemical in the same category as controversial pesticides known as neonicotinoids – which scientific studies have shown contribute to mass bee deaths. Several neonicotinoids have been banned in the European Union.
The Pollinator Stewardship Council, American Honey Producers Association, National Honey Bee Advisory Board and the American Beekeeping Federation are among the groups that aim to challenge the EPA's decision in federal court.
On Dec. 13, the Center for Food Safety (CFS), a national nonprofit public interest and environmental advocacy organization, filed a legal brief in support of the lawsuit.
The disturbing trend of bee deaths, known as Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), has led to mass die-offs of pollinators in recent years and could cause an agricultural disaster.
Without pollinators, many fruits and vegetables, such as apples, cucumbers, broccoli, onions and almonds, will also disappear.
"Our country is facing widespread bee colony collapse, and scientists are pointing to pesticides like sulfoxaflor as the cause," Attorney Janette Brimmer of Earthjustice, the public interest law organization representing the groups, said in a press release. "The effects will be devastating to our nation's food supply and also to the beekeeping industry, which is struggling because of toxic pesticides."
Congress passed the Endangered Species Act (ESA) in 1973, recognizing that America's natural heritage is of "esthetic, ecological, educational, recreational, and scientific value to our Nation and its people." It added that many native plants and animals were in danger of becoming extinct.
As CFS explained in its legal brief, scientists have linked the drastic declines in honey bees and other pollinators to neonicotinoids, like sulfoxaflor, which the EPA has determined to be "very highly toxic" to bees. |
.- The last living person whom the Bishop of Assisi saved from being killed during the Holocaust met with Pope Francis yesterday, thanking him for the Church's role in protecting her people.
“Thank you for what the Church did for us,” Graziella Viterbi, 88, told Pope Francis Oct. 4 at the archbishop's residence in Assisi, where her family fled as refugees in 1943.
“I thank you,” Pope Francis replied. “Pray for me.”
Before this exchange, the two had greeted each other, both saying “shalom.”
The two met in the “hall of divestment,” the room in the bishop's residence where St. Francis stripped off his clothes and embraced a life of poverty dedicated to Christ.
Pope Francis is the first Pope in 800 years to have visited the room, where many Jews stayed during World War II.
Archbishop Domenico Sorrentino, of the Diocese of Assisi-Nocera Umbra-Gualdo Tadino, said in his address at the meeting that in that very hall, his predecessor, Bishop Giuseppe Nicolini, had welcomed many Jews during the time of Nazi occupation.
Around 200 Jewish refugees moved to Assisi during World War II, where there had never before been a Jewish community. Viterbi's father, Emilio, moved his family there in 1943.
Emilio Viterbi had been a highly esteemed professor at the University of Padua, but lost his position there in 1938 when Italy's fascist government issued racial laws which excluded Jews from higher education and public office.
In 1943, the Viterbis moved to Assisi after Italy's armistice with the Allies. Assisi attracted many refugees as its location in central Italy was closer to the front lines. The north of Italy, including Padua, was at the time under Nazi control.
Bishop Nicolini, who was a Benedictine and had been Bishop of Assisi since 1928, built a clandestine network to help Jews, saving them from Nazi persecution. Very few Assisi residents were even aware of the some 200 Jews among the refugees in their city.
According to Graziella Viterbi, Bishop Nicolini “kept the authentic identity cards of all the Jews hidden in Assisi in a niche right behind his working desk.”
Bishop Nicolini managed the secret network together with his secretary, Fr. Aldo Brunacci; Fr. Rufino Nicacci, Franciscan guardian of the Church of San Damiano; and with Michele Todde, of a convent in the city.
More than 300 Jews were saved by the network, which disguised them in convents and monasteries, especially among cloistered women.
The network was spread across a wide area, including even Florence and Genoa, some 250 miles away. The late cyclist Gino Bartali, who was recognized this year as “Righteous Among the Nations” by Israel, reportedly served as messenger for Bishop Nicolini's network.
The network was completed by two typographers, Luigi and Trento Brizi, who printed false documents for the Jewish refugees. Viterbi recounted that the city's mayor, Arnaldo Fontini, cared for all her family's religious objects, “hiding everything in his garden.” |
The details confirm what a source close to the matter told Reuters earlier.
Bernstein Research analysts said on Tuesday they saw only a 50 percent chance of the deal winning regulatory clearance, although they cited a survey among investors that put the likelihood at 70 percent on average
"We believe political pushback to this deal, ranging from farmer dissatisfaction with all their suppliers consolidating in the face of low farm net incomes to dissatisfaction with Monsanto leaving the United States, could provide significant delays and complications," they wrote in a research note.
Bayer said it was offering a 44 percent premium to Monsanto's share price on May 9, the day before it made its first written proposal.
It plans to raise $19 billion to help fund the deal by issuing convertible bonds and new shares to its existing shareholders, and said banks had also committed to providing $57 billion of bridge financing.
Bayer shares were up 2.2 percent at 95.32 euros. Monsanto's were up 0.2 percent at $106.3 in premarket trade.
One-stop shop
Bayer's move to combine its crop chemicals business, the world's second largest after Syngenta, with Monsanto's industry leading seeds business, is the latest in a series of major tie-ups in the agrochemicals sector.
The German company is aiming to create a one-stop shop for seeds, crop chemicals and computer-aided services to farmers.
That was also the idea behind Monsanto's swoop on Syngenta last year, which the Swiss company fended off, only to agree later to a takeover by China's state-owned ChemChina.
Elsewhere in the industry, U.S. chemicals giants Dow Chemical and DuPont plan to merge and later spin off their respective seeds and crop chemicals operations into a major agribusiness.
The Bayer-Monsanto deal will be the largest ever involving a German buyer, beating Daimler's tie-up with Chrysler in 1998, which valued the U.S. carmaker at more than $40 billion. It will also be the largest all-cash transaction on record, ahead of brewer InBev's $60.4 billion offer for Anheuser-Busch in 2008.
Bayer said it expected the deal to boost its core earnings per share in the first full year following completion, and by a double-digit percentage in the third year.
Bayer and Monsanto were in talks to sound out ways to combine their businesses as early as March, which culminated in Bayer coming out with an initial $122 per-share takeover proposal in May.
Antitrust experts have said regulators will likely demand the sale of some soybeans, cotton and canola seed assets as a condition for approving the deal.
Bayer said Bank of America/Merrill Lynch, Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, HSBC and JP Morgan had committed to providing the bridge financing. Bank of America/Merrill Lynch and Credit Suisse are acting as lead financial advisers to Bayer, with Rothschild as an additional adviser. Bayer's legal advisers are Sullivan & Cromwell and Allen & Overy.
Morgan Stanley and Ducera Partners are acting as financial advisers to Monsanto, with Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz its legal adviser. |
It sounds crazy, but a new report about French President Nicolas Sarkozy's "helpfulness" in getting Roman Polanski released to house arrest seems to suggest the possibility of a daring action-movie escape for the 72-year-old fugitive filmmaker.
The article, in today's Times of London, is ostensibly about the mysterious role Nicolas Sarkozy played in securing Roman Polanski's release into house arrest at Polanski's Swiss chalet in exchange for $4.5 million in bail kind of buries the lead a bit. Is the real story here the idea that Polanski might become a fugitive again, this time almost certainly for the rest of his life? They certainly do hint at that!:
"The Swiss authorities said that Mr Polanski would be allowed out once the agreed bail of 4.5 million Swiss Francs had been received. They have ordered that he should not leave his chalet - for fear that the first-rate skier might slip over the nearby border via a mountain pass into his adopted French homeland and escape US justice a second time."
Whoa! That's imaginative. But at least Polanski's electronic bracelet will keep him where he's supposed to be, right?:
"He will be under house arrest and has also committed to wearing an electronic monitoring bracelet," it added. While the bracelet will help police to monitor if Mr Polanski is staying put at his chalet during his house arrest, experts said that if he fled, the set-up was not equipped with global positioning system and would therefore not help to track him down. "The canton of Bern uses the first generation system ," said Jonas Peter Weber, a professor at the University of Bern. "We can only check if the person is at home. If the alarm goes off and no police is in the vicinity , the person will be able to flee," he said."
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So, like, this guy whose been a fugitive from justice for thirty years for child rape will be monitored by less technology than that found in the average iPhone. I'm just saying that all of this doesn't not sound like the beginning of an International Heist Movie.
Sarkozy "Very Effective" in Securing Polanski's Release [TimesOnline] |
WeTip program offers cash rewards for anonymous tips about guns, child abuse and suspicious behavior
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Thursday, August 6, 2009
A privately-run informant program operating nationwide encourages Americans to anonymously turn each other in to the authorities for cash rewards in a chilling echo of the Nazi “denunciations” of 1930’s Germany, where neighbors would grass their neighbors up to the local Gestapo officer over petty issues.
The WeTip organization takes anonymous tips online or via toll free phone lines and carries the creepy slogan “For A Safer America!” on its website beneath an image of a U.S. flag.
The group forwards tips given by the public to law enforcement authorities across the country, with no jurisdictional borders.
An Orwellian poster being plastered up across American towns and cities as part of a campaign run by the organization reads, “ILLEGAL ACTIVITY IS NOT TOLERATED” and advises citizens to “turn them in” and receive a reward of up to $1000. Things to “turn them in” for include drug dealing and theft, but more vague examples such as “threats and intimidation” as well as “weapons” and “gang activity” are listed, as is “child abuse”.
Is the presence of a “weapon” in and of itself evidence of a crime in a country where citizens have the legal right to own firearms? Will your neighbor be turning you in if he sees you loading your car with a rifle on your way to the shooting range? What about “child abuse”? Will your friendly local spy be informing the authorities when he sees you disciplining your child?
A d v e r t i s e m e n t
What else constitutes suspicious activity? According to law enforcement and Homeland Security guidelines, suspicious behavior includes owning guns, being politically active, and having bumper stickers on your car.
The WeTip organization also offers a training institute for schools, businesses and government employees, presumably providing skills courses on how to become an expert domestic spy, just like in Communist East Germany.
WeTip also claims in its promotional material that it has been endorsed by both Bush presidents, as well as Bill Clinton and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Deliciously ironic therefore it is that Arnie starred in the 1987 movie The Running Man, a futuristic portrayal of a wacky dictatorship where citizens are reminded by huge TV screens placed on street corners that they can “earn a double bonus for reporting on a family member!”
As America sinks into a military police state, it begins to parallel more and more aspects of Nazi Germany, especially in the context of citizens being turned against each other, which in turn creates a climate of fear and the constraining sense that one is always being watched.
One common misconception about Nazi Germany was that the police state was solely a creation of the authorities and that the citizens were merely victims. On the contrary, Gestapo files show that 80% of all Gestapo investigations were started in response to information provided by denunciations by “ordinary” Germans.
“There were relatively few secret police, and most were just processing the information coming in. I had found a shocking fact. It wasn’t the secret police who were doing this wide-scale surveillance and hiding on every street corner. It was the ordinary German people who were informing on their neighbors,” wrote Robert Gellately of Florida State University.
Gellately discovered that the people who informed on their neighbors were motivated primarily by banal factors – “greed, jealousy, and petty differences,” and not by a genuine concern about crime or insecurity.
Gellately “found cases of partners in business turning in associates to gain full ownership; jealous boyfriends informing on rival suitors; neighbors betraying entire families who chronically left shared bathrooms unclean or who occupied desirable apartments.”
“And then there were those who informed because for the first time in their lives someone in authority would listen to them and value what they said.”
Gellately emphasizes the fact that the Germans who sicked the authorities on their neighbors knew very well what the consequences for the victims would be – families torn apart, torture and internment in concentration camps, and ultimately in many cases death – but they still did it with few qualms because the rewards of financial bounties and mere convenience were deemed more important to them.
(ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW)
As we have covered before, the WeTip program is by no means the only initiative that is training Americans to become amateur domestic spies.
One of the largest cable TV companies in the United States, Bright House, is training its employees to look for suspicious behavior and report it to police under the guise of a neighborhood watch initiative called Operation Bright Eyes.
The legacy of training Americans to spy on each other in the name of “safety” has its origins in Operation TIPS, which was supposedly nixed by Congress, a DOJ, FBI, DHS and FEMA coordinated program that would have recruited one in twenty-four Americans as domestic informants, a higher percentage than was used by the Stasi in Communist East Germany.
Government funding was cut after an outcry but private funding continues and the same program was introduced under a number of sub-divisions including AmeriCorps, SecureCorps and the Highway Watch program.
In July last year we reported on how hundreds of police, firefighters, paramedics and utility workers have been trained and recently dispatched as “Terrorism Liaison Officers” in Colorado, Arizona and California to watch for “suspicious activity” which is later fed into a secret government database.
Also last year, a New York Times feature article heartily celebrated the fact that an increasing number of Americans are becoming informants and turning in their neighbors and family members to the authorities in return for cash rewards. In a piece about a new program run by Southwest Florida Crime Stoppers, citing gas prices, foreclosure rates and runaway food price inflation, The Times lauds the fact that citizens are reporting on each other, ensuring “a substantial increase in Crime Stopper-related arrests and recovered property, as callers turn in neighbors, grandchildren or former boyfriends in exchange for a little cash.”
As the Recession Ready America blog points out in relation to the WeTip program and its offer of $1,000 for turning people in, in an environment of recession and unemployment, the temptation to inform on people for minor indiscretions would be too tempting for many to resist, creating a gargantuan backlog of petty offences reported by people with no criminal detective skills whatsoever, leading to harassment of innocent people and ensuring that more real crimes go unsolved.
We invite our readers to use the WeTip “Submit a Tip” form to remind the crypto-Nazis behind this program that this is America, not Germany in the 1930’s. Building strong communities is all about establishing strong bonds and friendships with your neighbors, not grassing them up to the authorities for a quick buck.
This article was posted: Thursday, August 6, 2009 at 9:17 am
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As a guy who spends about an hour or more every day at the gym, I find it important to make my personal fitness rituals as enjoyable as possible. Let’s face it – dedicating that much time out of your day to put your body through grueling physical tests of strength must indicate that you either enjoy physical pain, or your personal fitness is as ingrained into your being as your daily coffee. In my case I’ll admit it’s a bit of both. However, like most fitness lovers, the healthy habits that I try to follow reach beyond just my time at the gym, but are deeply rooted in what I eat, how I dress, what I wear on my feet, and so on. Why not take pride in habits that make you healthier? If you’ve worked hard for your body, why not show it off?
Chances are that if you’re reading this, you either know a fitness freak who fits the above description, or YOU are that guy who gets up every day at 5am to split his cardio from his afternoon lifting session, followed by an abdominal routine before bed. Excessive? I think not. Perhaps you are in a relationship with another fitness lover who motivates you to reach your fitness goals. Lucky you! Whether you’re shopping for yourself, your fitness fanatic gym partner, or your significant other, I’ve found that buying gifts for fitness lovers to be more than easy. Who wouldn’t appreciate a gift that further helps them to achieve their fitness goals? Even when shopping for yourself, making fitness gift purchases is easy to validate because they are contributing to your health, either directly or indirectly. Right?
Although having the latest gear or flashiest workout clothing shouldn’t be primary motivating factors to get your ass in the gym, sometimes they provide that extra push you need to finish that late night workout or early morning spin class. For me, investing in my personal fitness is totally worth it, granted what I’m buying or receiving as a gift doesn’t fall apart after only two gym sessions. Anything that makes my workouts more effective, enjoyable, or fun falls into this category. If you’re the one giving a workout gift, go ahead and think outside the box! Fitness gifts can include more than just the newest kicks or breathable hoodies, but also involve quality headphones, nutrition products, and more. Here are 26 creative workout gifts for fitness lovers to inspire this season of healthy gift-giving!
If there was ever a shoe I could sincerely call “handsome,” this would be it. The Adidas tubular line are some of the sharpest, highest quality, and best value shoes I have ever owned. Although they probably aren’t ideal if you’re looking for a shoe to do hours on the treadmill or long-distance running, these are a personal favorite to wear both in and out of the gym. They provide extreme comfort, arch support, last a long time, and can also be worn out of the gym with a nice pair of jeans, making these an ideal gift for gym lovers and beyond.
Buy it now: Adidas Tubular Instinct
These are so comfy I feel like I’ve adopted them into my everyday attire. Perfect for throwing on after a hard workout as you’re leaving the gym to prevent chill from the sweat you’ve worked up. They are rather form-fitting, which is great both for comfort and showing off definition (just being honest).
Buy it now: Men’s Workout Compression Hoodie
The first time I saw someone wearing one of these I’ll admit that I was quite startled. Not only do they make you look menacing when worn, but the sound it makes as it restricts your breathing is akin to Darth Vader. That being said, they actually serve a serious fitness-related purpose – they are designed to simulate what it’s like breathing in a place of high elevation, controlling the amount of oxygen your lungs are able to take in. When you wear them while doing cardio or other high-intensity training, they help teach your body to take deeper breaths and absorb oxygen more efficiently.
Buy it now: Elevation Training Mask
These are totally fun – a great small stocking gift for any fitness lover.
Buy it now: Dumbbell Cufflinks
It’s not only annoying, but potentially dangerous when loose clothing gets in the way of my lifting or squatting sets, which is why I always opt for form-fitting workout shorts. However, I usually don’t buy compression shorts because I still prefer pocked for my phone and keys. These ones not only look great, but are super functional and have pockets.
Buy it now: Fitted Bodybuilding Shorts
So, I also have a pair of the new cordless Apple headphones, but the reason I am listing this one here instead is for two reasons. First, the Apple headphones don’t always stay in when I am running, doing push-up sets or abs, or any other activity which requires my body to be either parallel to the floor or upside down. These ones, on the other hand, do a much better job of staying in place. The second reason is that I care less if these get damaged, lost, or stolen, which is more likely to happen in a gym environment than using your wireless headphones for work or at home. Since I tend to leave my workout headphones in my bag at all times and use my wireless Apple ones for all other purposes, I also make it impossible to forget my headphones at home when I’m headed to the gym. Oh, and they sound great too. An essential gift for music-savvy fitness lovers.
Buy it now: Bluetooth Earphones
Ah, the classic fitness tracker. Although there are plenty of brands out there that offer similar products designed to track your physical activity, Fitbit has probably been in the business the longest and has one of the most reliable solutions out there. Not only do these track your heart rate, use GPS to tell you how far you’ve walked each day, and are completely waterproof, they also keep a detailed account of your sleeping cycles in stages. Totally cool, and a must-have gift for gym lovers.
Buy it now: Fitbit Fitness Tracker
These were all the rage when they first emerged on the scene, designed specifically to keep beverages cold for a full 24 hours and hot for 12. Instead of using BPA-free plastic, they are made out of stainless steel, and look pretty awesome. Chances are that your gym-loving gift receiver carries around a water bottle with them at work, on the go, and at the gym to stay hydrated. These provide a chic and functional alternative to the age-old Nalgene bottle.
Buy it now: Swell Water Bottle
This is pretty awesome because it attached to a blender that blends your protein, ice, fruit, and whatever else for you, but detaches and can be used as a standalone bottle as well. Super useful and intuitive for any gym lover who consumed protein or shakes after working out.
Buy it now: Take-Along Personal Blender
If the fitness lover you’re buying a gift for isn’t into meditating, maybe this one isn’t for you. But really – who can’t benefit from a little inner peace? Meditation is actually used by many bodybuilders and athletes as a way to visualize and focus on goals. If you haven’t already tried it, I highly recommend.
Buy it now: Zafu Meditation Cushion
This might seem like a random choice for a gift, but it will prove to be one of the most functional and enjoyed, by far. Not only do I use it to carry around my gym stuff like my shaker bottle, lifting gloves, and whatever else, but I take it on hikes, on walks with the dogs, to the beach, and more.
Buy it now: Gonex Lightweight Backpack
I only suggest getting this as a gift for someone who doesn’t have a belly like this. I think these are hilarious gifts for fitness lovers, especially for super fit people who are likely to wear it around as a prank. The funniest part is that they come in different “styles” – some are hairy and flaccid, while others are fake abs. Totally a win.
Buy it now: Dad Fake Belly Waist Pack
I run out of workout tanks so quickly that I feel like I’m constantly doing laundry to avoid wearing ugly tanks to the gym. I don’t know any gym lover who wouldn’t enjoy receiving more cool workout clothing as a gift.
Buy it now: Y-Fit 3-Pack Dry Fit Tanks
Chances are either you or the one you’re buying a fitness gift for is already dedicated to a preferred pre-workout. These, however, serve a different function. They are designed to be consumed DURING your workout, and contains delicious flavoring, potassium to help replenish the muscles, and caffeine to keep the body going through the second half of the workout.
Buy it now: Clif Energy Gel
This literally works wonders and feels fantastic to apply to the muscle groups you’re targeting during your workouts. A great “unexpected” gift as it is somewhat out of the ordinary, but perfect for builders and regular gym-goers who need something to soothe their muscles post-workout.
Buy it now: Hemp Oil
Again, I’m not going to recommend a protein powder or pre-workout as a gift because I’m going to assume that the recipient is probably already informed and savvy on that end. However, I feel like amino acid supplements are probably among the most under-utilized products on the market that yield serious results. Definitely a thoughtful workout gift, and it’s more than likely that he isn’t already using one.
Buy it now: BSN Amino Acid Powder
If you don’t know what these are or haven’t heard of how effective they are at sucking up moisture, look it up. They are commonly used by divers to quickly and efficiently “sham” off excess water, while also finding use detailing cars. I prefer to use these as my preferred sweat towels when I’m at the gym. Seriously absorbent, very effective, and inexpensive.
Buy it now: Chamois Towel
Definitely a cheeky gift for anyone who wears hats to the gym, or just in general.
Buy it now: Gym Hat
Although having no sleeves kind of defeats the purpose of wearing a hoodie, these are super comfortable and look pretty cool too. A “classic” addition to any gym lover’s wardrobe.
Buy it now: H2H Fitted Sleeveless Hoodie
It can also be used as a slow cooker, rice cooker, and so much more. Chances are that if your fitness fanatic meal-preps, they spend hours each week cooking and making enough food to last a full week. This saves those hours of work and makes some of the tastiest (and healthiest) stew I’ve ever had, all in under an hour.
Buy it now: Instant Pot Pressure Cooker
I use this every single day to mix my pre-workout and post-workout protein. I also lose these all the time, so having more than one is never a bad idea. Why not give it as a fun gift? Here are Justice League blender bottles as inspiration.
Buy it now: Justice League Blender Bottle
This is one of my favorite ways to heal tired muscles quickly and effectively. Cupping came into the limelight more recently during the last Olympic season, with major athletes like Michael Phelps displaying residual cupping marks all over his body. The idea is that by bringing localized blood to the surface of the skin in specific areas of the body, it forces blood through capillaries in sore muscles to help them heal faster. This is definitely a more “unexpected” workout gift. It feels pretty great too.
Buy it now: Cupping Therapy Kit
Who doesn’t love pancakes? The best part about these is that they pack a good 14 grams of protein into every serving!
Buy it now: Protein Pancake Mix
These really are the best – they are designed to be worn both in and out of the gym, and can fit comfortably underneath dress pants to work. They allow you the flexibility of continuing your training even when you’re out of the gym.
Buy it now: Ankle and Wrist Weights
Maybe you’re already familiar with the work of Timothy Ferriss and have read his Four Hour Work Week book on location independence, becoming your own boss, and increasing efficiency. He repurposes this approach to fitness in this non-traditional, innovative work on weight loss and health. A must-read if you haven’t already.
Buy it now: The 4 Hour Body
You will never think the same way about cookbooks again after reading this one. It is by far the funniest, most ridiculous cooking manual out there. As the subtitle says – eat like you give a f*ck!
Buy it now: Thug Kitchen |
Stephen King has written over 50 novels, of which maybe I’ve read half, he is a consummate storyteller. This story builds slowly, starting as a contemporary drama type book that creates complex characters, looks at themes of religion and family, and builds up an interesting three-dimensional portrait of a small community. But as the novel moves along, it becomes darker and creepier, you know you can trust King to ratchet up the tension.
The story is set over a long time period stretching from the sixties to the 2010s. Our protagonist, Jamie begins the tale as a young boy meeting a new young pastor in his district the Reverend Charles Jacobs. Jacobs is obsessed with electrical experimentation and shows Jamie a model of Jesus seemingly magically walking on the water.
“Kids … Electricity is one of God’s doorways to the infinite.”
After a horrifying motor accident, Jacobs delivers a particularly terrible sermon and leaves town. Many years later Jamie is a rhythm guitarist in his mid thirties addicted to heroin, he runs into Jacobs at a county fair with a sideshow making “Portraits in Lightning”. Jacobs cures Jamie of his addiction using what he terms his “secret electricity”. But Jamie senses that “something happened“. Jamie is cynical and researches into what happened to those Pastor Jacobs cured of various conditions using his “secret electricity”. He finds some unsettling after effects and worries about what might be Pastor Jacobs ultimate goal.
King is also looking at the fear of aging, he himself is long past the double nickel of dread.
“The three great ages of the Great American Male -youth, middle age and you look fuckin’ terrific.” “I think for most people, life’s deceptive deliriums begin to fall away after fifty. The days speed up, the aches multiply and your gait slows down…”
The book’s electrical undercurrent reminds me of Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” and Stephen King’s earlier novel “The Tommyknockers”. Strangely, I picture in my mind the character of Rev Jacobs as the Doctor Who persona played by Matt Smith.
My rating 4 out of 5
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LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman would like to see Donald Trump's tax returns, and he's willing to pay up to $5 million for the opportunity.
On Monday, Hoffman pledged his support for a Crowdpac.com crowdfunding campaign aimed at pressuring Trump into releasing his tax returns. The campaign was started by a US military veteran named Pete Kiernan, who says he’ll donate the cash — almost $5,000 so far — to 10 veterans affairs groups if Trump releases his tax returns.
“Trump claims to love veterans,” reads Kiernan’s Crowdpac.com page, “and so we’re asking him to put his money where his mouth is.”
If Kiernan succeeds and Trump releases his tax returns, Hoffman — whose net worth increased by $800 million in a single day this year when Microsoft acquired LinkedIn — says he will quintuple the sum raised. So, if the Crowdpac campaign meets its goal of $25,000, and if Trump makes public documents that he’s so far vehemently insisted on keeping private, Hoffman would donate $125,000; the more money the campaign raises, the more Hoffman will donate, with a cap at $5 million.
In a post on Medium published Monday, Hoffman noted that $5 million is the same amount that Trump himself pledged to donate to charity during the 2012 election if President Obama agreed to his request to release college records and passport documents.
“Given Trump's vocal support of veterans, I imagine he will recognize the great good that can come from Kiernan's proposal,” Hoffman writes. “But taking Trump's own 2012 offer to President Obama into account, I'd like to assist Kiernan in his campaign.”
It’s worth noting that Hoffman was an early investor in Crowdpac, which bills itself as a crowdfunding platform designed for political campaigns. Hoffman is a partner at Greylock Partners, but participated in Crowdpac’s $6 million Series A in early 2016 as an independent investor.
It’s also worth noting that this is not the first Crowdpac campaign Hoffman has publicly involved himself in — or even the first this month. Last week, Hoffman announced that he would donate $25,000 to a campaign to recall Judge Aaron Persky, who presided over the Stanford sexual assault case. As of this writing, that campaign has amassed $40,000 toward its $250,000 goal.
Though Hoffman, as an investor, stands to profit from Crowdpac’s success, some Silicon Valley luminaries see his investment in progressive political causes as a worthy use of his wealth: |
The actual size of most mammals – including humans – is mostly set from birth. Our growth rate is influenced by the environment, but our skeleton stops growing once we reach adulthood. But it’s true about kangaroos — they indeed never stop growing. The skeletons of kangaroos and the larger wallabies continue to grow – slowly – throughout their lives.
There are many other kinds of animals with the capacity for unlimited growth. For example, invertebrates, such as corals, never stop growing. This pattern is called “indeterminate” growth – adult size depends largely on environmental conditions.
Most fish, amphibians, lizards, and snakes are indeterminate growers. In theory, they can get as big as their environment and diet allow. So why don’t we see huge creatures in nature? It’s mainly because the longer an animal lives, the more likely it is to come in contact with predators, diseases, and natural disasters that end its life before it gets very big. And, for many species, there may be structural constraints – where a single set of organs can only support a body of finite size. |
“If your State of anchorage becomes intolerable, don’t waste energy in extended public criticism or conflict; apply your free market principles by setting sail for sunnier waters.” -Rayo
In this miniseries, the majority of the focus has been on strategically relocating to places on land, whether within the tax farm of the United States or outside. But, in this episode, Shane and Kyle examine a unique strategy in pursuance of an invulnerability to coercion–that is, minimalist sailboating.
Herein, they discuss what Rayo had to say, the legal interstices involved, the potential money-making ventures living aboard a boat, the current laws applicable on the open ocean, the advantages/disadvantages, and the ease of import-export, among other things.
Please enjoy, share, and consider becoming a patron on Patreon for exclusive content by clicking the image below. You can also click here to donate via PayPal, Bitcoin, and altcoins.
Show Notes:
Teresa Carey’s Life on a Boat (Video)
Hitchsailing Group
Liveaboard Sailboat Group |
[VDARE.com Note: George Will left the Republican Party after Donald Trump referred to a Mexican-American Judge as a "Mexican Judge." Even though Judge Herranz, below, is presumably an American judge, and may not even be considered a Mexican by Mexican law, we're hoping that more useless pseudoconservatives will be inspired to quit the GOP.]
This event is of no surprise to me. The press is full of stories of local judicial officers angry that Federal agents are arresting illegal aliens in courthouses. Barack Obama was working on orders to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) to stop arresting illegal aliens at courthouses. In fact, the orders went out, but were for the most part ignored by ICE ERO in an act of patriotism, and self-interest as arresting illegal aliens in courthouses is much safer for the arresting Deportation Officers than doing so on the streets.
Mexican Judge Monica Herranz, Lawless Aider Of Illegal Aliens
A judge has been accused of helping an illegal Mexican immigrant escape a courtroom where immigration officials were waiting to arrest and possibly deport him.
Diddier Pacheco Salazar, 22, appeared before Judge Monica Herranz to plead guilty in a DUI case on January 27 in Multnomah County, Oregon.
Salazar entered the courtroom with his lawyer but never came back out again. Every courtroom in the Multnomah County Circuit Court has three doors - one for the public, a private judge entrance and one for inmates to be brought in from jail. [Oregon Judge Is Accused Of Helping Illegal Immigrant Drunk Driver ESCAPE From Her Courtroom While ICE Agents Waited Outside To Deport Him To Mexico, by Emily Crane, Daily Mail, March 2, 2017]
Williams told KOIN the only explanation was that Herranz - who is on the board of the Oregon Hispanic Bar Association - or a member of her staff helped Salazar to leave through another door. ICE agents brought the matter to Williams after the incident allowed Salazar to evade the immigration officials.
ICE agents decided not to pursue a criminal investigation against Judge Herranz, but she is being investigated internally by Chief Judge Nan Waller.
Herranz is now under internal investigation after U.S. Attorney Billy Williams accused the judge of letting Salazar leave through her private entrance after staff realized immigration and customs enforcement agents were waiting for him.
And this courthouse issue seems to be a specialty of Mexican judges and administrators. First Oregon:Herranz is a member of a racist Hispanic legal organization dedicated to infiltrating the legal system and discriminating against White Americans.Not surprisingly, the illegal alien friendly DHS Secretary, John Kelly, did not instruct ICE ERO to file a criminal complaint with the U.S. Attorney's Office.Nor has Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions ordered the U.S. Attorney for District of Oregon, Billy Williams , an Obama appointee and holdover who has not been dismissed by President Trump, to charge Herranz for violating Title 8 United States Code Section 1324, Harboring Illegal Aliens Billy Williams says it is only unprofessional for Herranz to aid illegal aliens. It is clear that he does not care about Federal crimes, which is unusual for a United States Attorney.
Billy Williams, Obama Appointed U.S. Attorney Who Refuses To Prosecute Fellow Lawyer
A woman [sic] arrested by immigration officials at a Texas courthouse where she sought protection from domestic violence is set to find out whether she will be indicted by a grand jury for illegal re-entry to the US.
Irvin Gonzalez has been held in the El Paso County jail since being held on 9 February by federal agents moments after being granted a protective order by a judge. The case prompted a national outcry, with women’s rights advocates arguing that the arrest risks discouraging undocumented people in violent situations from contacting law enforcement for help.
[Undocumented Woman [Sic] Arrested After Seeking Protection Prepares For Possible Indictment, by Tom Dart, The Guardian, March 2, 2017]
Gonzalez and county officials believe that the agents acted after a tip-off from her alleged abuser.
In a similar case, local Democrat court officials are up in arms that ICE ERO arrested a mentally ill man claiming to be a woman, who was also a convicted felon and illegal alien, and later indicted for a massive mail fraud scheme.Instead of being happy to be rid of a mentally ill professional criminal and illegal alien, El Paso County officials are more concerned about helping him.
Why would these Mexican county officials care and have meetings about an arrest of a criminal?
Mexican El Paso County Officials Meeting About Arrest Of Illegal Alien
One of the reasons that Gonzalez was arrested in the building was that agents feared that court officials would help her escape, so sources tell me.
Unfortunately, we have this problem because President Trump, Attorney General Sessions, and Secretary Kelly are not taking action to put down these local officials who are interfering with Federal immigration enforcement.
Readers can contact U.S. Attorney Billy Williams here at1000 SW Third Ave, Suite 600, Portland, Oregon 97204, (503)727-1000, and demand criminal prosecution of judges who interfere with Federal law enforcement. |
The court fight between Apple and the FBI prompted a slew of letters and legal briefs last week from outside parties, including many tech companies and privacy groups. But a particularly powerful letter came from a collection of racial justice activists, including Black Lives Matter.
The letter focused on potential civil rights abuses, should the FBI gain the power to conscript a technology company into undermining its own users’ security.
“One need only look to the days of J. Edgar Hoover and wiretapping of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. to recognize the FBI has not always respected the right to privacy for groups it did not agree with,” wrote the signatories, including arts and music nonprofit Beats, Rhymes & Relief, the Center for Media Justice, the Gathering for Justice, Justice League NYC, activist and writer Shaun King, and Black Lives Matter co-founder and Black Alliance for Just Immigration executive director Opal Tometi.
Those tactics haven’t ended, they argue. “Many of us, as civil rights advocates, have become targets of government surveillance for no reason beyond our advocacy or provision of social services for the underrepresented.”
In Washington and Silicon Valley, the debate over unbreakable encryption has an aura of elite, educated, mostly male whiteness — from the government representatives who condemn it to the experts who explain why it’s necessary.
But the main targets of law enforcement surveillance have historically been African-American and Muslim communities.
Malkia Cyril, co-founder of the Center for Media Justice, one of the letter’s signatories, gave a speech at one of several nationwide protests outside Apple stores two weeks ago, supporting the tech giant and pointing out the FBI’s history of surveilling black activists. “In the context of white supremacy and police violence, Black people need encryption,” she wrote in a tweet.
Others representing Black Lives Matter attended protests across the country, including in front of the FBI headquarters itself — the J. Edgar Hoover building — in downtown Washington, D.C.
“I’ve been reviewing the Apple vs. FBI lawsuit and now realize how important it is that that Apple wins the lawsuit. #DontHackApple,” DeRay Mckesson, Baltimore mayoral candidate and prominent Black Lives Matter organizer, tweeted on February 22. “When I was arrested in protest, my iPhones were in police custody. They were secure. The police couldn’t access my info,” he added. “If Apple has to create an insecure iPhone iOS app, all of the private data that we store on our phones is at risk.”
The letter to California federal Magistrate Judge Sheri Pym, who will hear arguments March 22 on the case, is the start of more to come.
“I think racial justice organizations have a clear stake in the fight for encryption,” the Center for Media Justice’s Cyril said. “It was really important to me that our voices were raised here … because they wouldn’t be [represented] by others.”
Cyril, a poet and grassroots organizer born to an editor of the Black Panther newspaper, wants the average person to understand how surveillance impacts low-income communities of color — where she argues that government spying was born.
“The mundane surveillance of people of color is what gives rise to bulk surveillance at a federal level … not the other way around,” she said. “Whatever has been considered normal at a local level” — including systems of suspicious activity reports, predictive policing, and other tactics — “has now been considered normal at the federal level.”
Tometi, another signatory, wrote in an email to The Intercept that “one of the most alarming parts of that history has been the ways that surveillance has been misused against Black people who have been advocating for their justice. It’s been used to discredit, abuse, and incarcerate them. It’s important we speak out now before it’s too late.”
King said the Apple fight, and the phone security at risk if Apple loses, is “out of sight, out of mind for a lot of people.” But it ties into a greater problem, he said: the continuous monitoring that racial justice activists experience.
He said he is “concerned about how the government may abuse its opportunity to call us threats when we’re not,” and then use that assumption as justification for hacking into their cellphones or using other invasive spying techniques.
Over the summer, a cybersecurity firm, described Black Lives Matter organizers Mckesson and Johnetta Elzie as “threat actors” who needed “continuous monitoring” to maintain public safety. The company, ZeroFox, briefed members of an FBI intelligence partnership program in Maryland on its analysis of the Freddie Gray protests — which it later delivered to Baltimore City officials.
“It’s only a matter of time until someone says, ‘We really need to access Shaun’s King’s cell phone,’” King said. “We’re not that many steps away from that.”
“I have deep concerns about how various methods of surveillance are already being used against social justice and human rights defenders in the Black Lives Matter movement,” Tometi wrote.
“Basically, what people need to understand is that to protect your First and Fourth Amendment rights in the digital age, we need to update the law to the digital age,” Cyril said. “Everything we do is online … encryption is necessary for a democracy.”
Cyril calls for a public debate, so that people can understand the real stakes. “Let’s be clear. Everybody has everything to hide. I want to hide my banking info from thieves — everything that is mine. I think the public needs to understand that.” |
What is this man hiding?
Apparently Bernanke, that wonderful bipartisan soul who is so competent and wonderful that everyone in the village thinks Obama should leave him in charge is refusing to identify who got almost 2 trillion dollars of Fed cash. Bloomberg News is suing to find out. Personally I really, really, really want to know. What exactly is Bernanke hiding? Who got the money he doesn’t want us to know got the money?
This is money that was loaned in exchange for "collateral", by which we mean "trash no one else but the Fed would buy for anything but cents on the dollar". Barney Frank, embarrassing himself yet again, claims the Fed should keep its clap shut because if people know how bad it is, well, there might be a run. I think Barney’s missing the point, as long as people don’t know how bad it is, they won’t trust anyone who might be borrowing large amounts of money from the Fed with crap collateral, because they don’t know how bad it is and they suspect it’s really really really bad. As in 10 cents on the dollar bad.
More to the point, that 2 trillion is taxpayer money, and taxpayers have a right to know what sweetheart deals Bernanke’s been giving out, and who’s been getting what. This whole "this information is too scary for citizens to know" schtick is so Bush regime. I thought we were moving into a new era of openness? Perhaps Barney should get with the program?
As for Bernanke, this is yet another reason why Bernanke, a central banker so incompetent he lost complete control of LIBOR, his most basic job, should lose his position. Sure, his mandate runs for another year, but if Obama asks him to step down, I can’t imagine he wouldn’t. The idea that a central bank that has screwed up as badly as the Fed has under both Greenspan and Bernanke is so much better off independent than with the public having some control is ridiculous and fundamentally anti-democratic. Central bank independence has just led to a huge financial bubble and economic collapse, while Bernanke and Greenspan both acted as if they were virtual dictators.
Bernanke needs to go, and either before or after he goes, the Fed needs to come clean about who it has given 2 trillion in loans to, and what the collateral is. |
Five non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have submitted a complaint to the EU Ombudsman Emily O’Reilly, who oversees complaints about European institutions, claiming that the European Commission failed to grant access to several documents related to the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) talks.
The Ombudsman has opened a case regarding the allegations but has not yet officially opened an investigation.
“The negotiations have attracted unprecedented public interest, given the potential economic, social and political impact TTIP may have,” she said in a statement.
The NGOs – ClientEarth, the European Environmental Bureau, Friends of the Earth Europe, the Corporate Europe Observatory and the European Federation of Journalists – said the decision to refuse access contravened requirements of the Aarhus Convention, which has specific allowances for documents that relate to the environment or emissions.
The complaint said the Commission also ignored a July court ruling, in which judges ruled that refusal to allow access to documents should be an exception.
The TTIP talks have been plagued by allegations of secrecy and over-involvement of big business, and O’Reilly recently completed an own-initiative inquiry with recommendations for the Commission to make the talks more transparent. The inquiry builds on her earlier recommendations to improve transparency, released in July last year.
In particular, the latest inquiry said the EU should “inform the US of the importance of making, in particular, common negotiating texts available to the EU public before the TTIP agreement is finalised. The Commission should also inform the US of the need to justify any request by them not to disclose a given document. The Commission needs to be convinced by this reasoning”.
A Commission spokesperson told FoodNavigator via email: “If the Ombudsman opens an inquiry in this case, it goes without saying that the Commission will cooperate and reply within the set deadline.
“Some of the documents mentioned by the complainants were already made public by the Commission (like the negotiating mandate) and others will be made public very soon. This is an ongoing effort of transparency.”
The EU declassified its negotiating document in October, but the US is not obligated to share documents.
The spokesperson added: “TTIP negotiations are already the most transparent trade negotiations that the EU has ever conducted.”
The Commission has until March 6 to respond to the Ombudsman’s own-initiative report.
The eighth round of TTIP talks is taking place in Brussels this week. |
In the‘ lead news analysis after Donald Trump’s inauguration ( 1/20/17 ), White House correspondent Mark Landler wrote of Trump, “It remains an open question whether he will continue to be the relentless populist who was on display on Friday.”
Really? Looking at Trump’s nominations and appointments—the clearest indication during the transition period of how a president-elect actually intends to govern—it’s hard to discern any signs of populism whatsoever:
Trump’s Treasury nominee, Steve Mnuchin, worked for Goldman Sachs and George Soros before launching his own investment firm, where he earned the title of “Foreclosure King,” with critics accusing him of “using potentially illegal tactics to foreclose on as many as 80,000 California homes.”
Trump named the president of Goldman Sachs, Gary Cohn, to be his chief economic advisor. Cohn has argued that the way to keep business in the US is to create a “really competitive environment.”
Labor nominee Andrew Puzder, a fast-food CEO, has fought against raising the minimum wage, expanding overtime pay and sick-leave policies. He has said he prefers robots to human workers because “they never take a vacation, they never show up late, there’s never a slip-and-fall, or an age, sex or race discrimination case.”
Wilbur Ross, Trump’s choice for Commerce, is a billionaire investor who has declared that “the 1 Percent is being picked on for political reasons” and endorsed Mitt Romney’s claim that 47 percent of the public are “dependent upon government.”
Landler also wrote that “Mr. Trump is as close to an independent as has ever served in modern times,” as “he ran against the Republican establishment as much as he ran against Hillary Clinton.” One suspects that the most independent president of modern times wouldn’t pick the head of one of the two major parties to be his White House chief of staff, as Trump did with Reince Priebus. Probably their vice president wouldn’t have previously held their party’s third-highest leadership position in the House, either.
Landler is not alone at the New York Times in his approach of paying attention to what Trump says, not to what he does. In the next day’s paper (1/21/17), national political correspondent Jonathan Martin began an article by asking of Trump, “Will he actually pursue his campaign agenda of big-government nationalism, all but obliterating the liberal-conservative distinctions that have defined America’s political parties for a century?” To Martin, Trump’s speech at his swearing-in ceremony seemed to answer that question: “An inaugural speech delivered with the same blunt force that propelled Mr. Trump’s insurgent campaign has dashed Republican hopes for a more traditional agenda.”
LA Times political reporter Doyle McManus (12/8/16) took on this kind of analysis in a column last month:
If you watch what Trump does, not what he says—which at this point, mostly means the choices he makes for Cabinet positions—he doesn’t look unusual at all. In Trump’s picks for economic and domestic policymaking jobs, there’s a consistent underlying thread…Republican orthodoxy. Trump’s choices have all been thoroughgoing conservatives who believe in the free market, deregulation and, wherever possible, privatization of government functions. Most of them could have been nominated by any GOP nominee, including Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio. There’s nary a populist among them—not even the conservative kind.
The New York Times (1/21/17), to its credit, was willing to refer in a headline to Trump’s “false claims,” noting his assertion that 1.5 million people attended his inauguration was “a claim that photographs disproved” and that White House spokesperson Sean Spicer tried to back up this contention with “a series of false statements.” The paper needs to entertain the possibility that Trump may be lying about his political ideology as well as the size of his audience.
Jim Naureckas is the editor of FAIR.org. You can find him on Twitter at @JNaureckas.
You can send a message to the New York Times at [email protected], or write to public editor Liz Spayd at [email protected] (Twitter:@NYTimes or @SpaydL). Please remember that respectful communication is the most effective. |
Pranksters throw live chicken into KFC drive-through window
The RSPCA was today searching for two young thugs who filmed themselves throwing a live chicken through a KFC drive-through window - and then put the video online.
The film, entitled 'Chicken Shuts Down KFC' shows the window of a restaurant in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, where the two men are seen apparently waiting for a car to pull up.
One youth is shown displaying the live hen to the camera before walking over to the window and hiding until a blue car stops.
Cruel: One of the men shows the live hen to the camera and waits for a car to approach the drive-through restaurant
Horrendous: As the car pulls up for an order the man thrusts the live chicken in through the window of the KFC in Nuneaton, Warwickshire
As the car approaches, the window opens and the man is seen hurriedly shoving the chicken through it before darting off towards the road, screaming: 'Chicken!'
They both run off laughing hysterically.
The video was posted on the website shortly after the incident on Tuesday night.
RSPCA investigator Helen Smith said: 'Two young men arrived at the fast food outlet on a moped. One threw the hen into the premises while the other filmed the prank.
'When they fled the scene they were heard laughing and making clucking noises.
'It is shocking what some people find funny as it is never acceptable under any circumstances to use an animal as part of a practical joke or prank.
'These two young men were having a great laugh but it would have been a frightening experience for the hen.
'It was totally pointless and there is simply no excuse for it. I want to hear from anyone who recognises the youth from the footage.'
One of the men is described as in his early 20s, about 5ft 10in tall, with brown hair and wearing a black motorcycle jacket.
The hen was said to be unharmed after her ordeal, and the RSPCA has a new home lined up for it.
Anyone with information can contact the RSPCA national cruelty and advice line on 0300 1234 999. |
The landscape for the delivery of health care in the United States is changing, but the traditional care-delivery players are not the change agents. Optum a division of UnitedHealth Group, the largest health insurer in America, has quietly amassed a group of medical providers over 20,000 strong. And the recent announcement of CVS’s $69 billion deal to acquire Aetna brings another insurer together with a large network of primary care providers: CVS has built more than 1,000 Minute Clinic locations inside its pharmacy stores in 33 states and the District of Columbia. The ramifications for traditional care providers typically dominated by hospitals is going to be big and may happen fast. We know traditional care in the United States is too expensive. The cost structures of hospitals are a big part of the problem. Therefore, we are seeing disruption in the hospital industry.
Carol Yepes/Getty Images
The landscape for the delivery of health care in the United States is changing, but the traditional care-delivery players are not the change agents. The recent announcement of CVS’s $69 billion deal to acquire Aetna brings an insurer together with a large network of primary care providers: CVS has built more than 1,100 Minute Clinic locations inside its pharmacy stores in 33 states and the District of Columbia. Also, Optum a division of UnitedHealth Group, the largest health insurer in America, has quietly amassed a group of medical providers over 20,000 strong, and on December 6, UnitedHealth announced plans to acquire DaVita Medical Group for the $4.9 billion. DaVita operates nearly 300 medical clinics, 35 urgent-care centers, and six outpatient surgery centers in California, Colorado, Florida, Nevada, New Mexico, and Washington.
The ramifications of such deals for traditional care providers typically dominated by hospitals is going to be big and may happen fast. In fact, this environment is the most disruptive I’ve witnessed in my 35 years in the health care industry.
We know traditional care in the United States is too expensive. The cost structures of hospitals are a big part of the problem. Therefore, we are seeing disruption in the hospital industry. Several trends should be disturbing to hospital administrators, including the development of free standing, low-cost “neighborhood” hospitals. These facilities are strategically placed in fast-growing population centers, have just a few inpatient beds and emergency room bays, and no long-term care or reproductive services that bog down profits. What health care leaders should find even more concerning is the emergence of services designed to completely obsolete inpatient stays. Developed by the Johns Hopkins schools of medicine and public health, Hospital at Home has been tested in multiple markets throughout the United States and is working. Think about it: If our military can create a highly complex surgical theater anywhere in the world within hours, it’s not a stretch to think the knowledge and technology exists to take care of elderly, sick people in their own homes. In fact, when asked, most say that’s exactly what they want.
But back to the insurers. Why are they merging with doctor clinics? They have figured out the hospital business is beginning to be commoditized. Many functions of hospitals may become totally obsolete. New, nontraditional entrants are bringing fresh alternatives to the bureaucratic and autocratic management systems of traditional hospitals. Taking the care process to the patient — including all lab, x-ray, and diagnostic services — beats struggling to find a parking spot in a hospital lot or waiting on the phone for 20 minutes to schedule a visit. In other words, redesigned processes focused around the customer and supported by advancing technology result in much less need for many services traditionally delivered at the high-cost, low-service hospital.
To lower the cost of premiums, Aetna and CVS, UnitedHealth and Optum, and undoubtedly others are creating a marriage of the financing and delivery of care. Their intent appears to be to create the financial incentive to get upstream of the major cost driver in health care: hospitalization. By focusing physician and ancillary resources on preventing unnecessary hospital care, which drives 70% or more of medical cost, the total cost of care and therefore premium cost can be lowered. This cost and service improvement then differentiates the insurers, pharmacies, and other disruptive newcomers in the market.
In fact, this model has been around for 70 years in the likes of Kaiser Permanente. The KP model originated as a physician group practice and insurance company (now also includes hospitals) and has been traditionally one of the lowest-cost, highest-quality health care-insurance options in California. So, the market is heading back to the future.
Hospitals are in a challenging position. These aggressive new provider organizations are looking to improve value by delivering lower-cost, higher-quality service to large populations of patients. Large employers and the government are looking for the same thing. When reducing cost and improving service is the goal, reducing hospital services or moving those services to much lower cost settings becomes the target.
Traditional care providers can and must fight back. But it will require major change.
First, their leaders must understand where the world of incentives is going and jump to an incentive system that rewards value, not volume. This means moving aggressively away from fee-for service payment to global-risk-adjusted payments. (Salt Lake City-based Intermountain Healthcare is one system that understands this.) This will incent delivery systems to redirect resources from hospitals to outpatient and home settings. If the health system is responsible for the entire cost of managing the care of people over time, it will have a financial incentive to keep patients out of hospitals.
Next, delivery systems need to create a management system that allows for innovation and rapid experimentation. Multiple layers of bureaucracy will need to be dismantled and frontline workers empowered to identify and solve problems immediately instead of waiting for autocratic managers to make all decisions. Most care-delivery systems today don’t have processes for innovation and problem solving. Workers are not trained to identify and solve problems. So, they create workarounds, which result in defects and, in some cases, deaths.
These necessary changes won’t happen unless the leaders of care-delivery systems change themselves. Moving from command-and-control leadership behaviors to improvement leadership behaviors will be required. I’ve met many health care leaders who believe change is great as long as “I don’t have to.” They may be frogs in a boiling pot.
The CVS-Aetna marriage is only the tip of the iceberg. The number of startups in the health care delivery arena is staggering. This is evidenced by the number of venture funding deals, which grew some 200% between 2010 and 2014. It doesn’t take much imagination to realize many traditional care-delivery functions are going away, replaced by disruptors who have one focus: to obsolete traditional care delivery. As the buggy whip industry found out when the automobile came along, survival is not mandatory.
Editor’s note: This article has been updated to include UnitedHealth’s deal to acquire the DaVita Medical Group. |
Image caption The rapid rise in cargo shipping has helped the spread of invasive species around the world
Scientists have developed the first global model that analyses the routes taken by marine invasive species.
The researchers examined the movements of cargo ships around the world to identify the hot spots where these aquatic aliens might thrive.
Marine species are taken in with ballast water on freighters and wreak havoc in new locations, driving natives to extinction.
The research is published in the Journal Ecology Letters.
There has been a well-documented boom in global shipping over the past 20 years and this has led to growing numbers of species moving via ballast tanks, or by clinging to hulls.
Some ports such as San Francisco and Chesapeake Bay have reported several exotic new species arriving every year. Economic estimates indicate that marine invaders can have huge impacts that last for decades.
Now, scientists from the UK and Germany have developed a model that might help curb these unwanted visitors. They obtained detailed logs from nearly three million voyages that took place in 2007 and 2008.
Image caption Scientists mapped the global routes taken by cargo ships over a two-year period
"Our model combines information such as shipping routes, ship sizes, temperatures and biogeography to come up with local forecasts of invasion probabilities," said Prof Bernd Blasius from the University of Oldenburg.
While this is a mathematical model, the researchers were able to adjust it by carrying out field observations. They were able to estimate the probability that a species can survive a journey and establish a population in a subsequent port of call.
"It is called ecological roulette," said Dr Michael Gastner from the University of Bristol.
The tale of the Zebra mussel Image caption Zebra mussels can clog rapidly clog water pipes One of the most celebrated examples of invasives is the Zebra mussel. They travelled by cargo ship from the Black Sea to the Great Lakes in North America in 1988. The invaders have caused severe economic problems as they have multiplied rapidly, clogging water pipes. At one point, they cut off a town's water supply
"The probability of winning from the perspective of the invader is really tiny - but because the number of attempts are now growing with more and bigger ships, you play this roulette so often that you become a likely winner sooner or later," he added.
The team says that the key hotspots for invasion are Singapore, Hong Kong, and the Panama and Suez canals. Cooler climates like the North Sea are less likely to be troubled, unless ships come from similar waters such as the east coast of the US. They conclude that very long trips are less likely to be a cause for concern.
"If you are travelling 20,000 km, it is rather unlikely that an organism will survive this, as ballast water is not the most cosy environment to live in," said Dr Gastner.
"There is a certain intermediate range of distances that you can survive as a potential invader. You are the new kid on the block and can increase your population in a very short time," he added.
While the growth in cargo carried across the oceans means that the risk of future invasions is severe, the researchers say that tackling the ballast water issue can be a powerful means of mitigation.
But Dr Gastner is worried that economic pressure might prevent ship owners from taking the necessary steps.
"There is no single solution that seems to be working on a global scale; different ship sizes have different engineering constraints - and it takes too much time to have the water filtered."
"For the shipping industry, even an extra half an hour in port means additional costs and they are trying to reduce this as much as they can," he said.
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The iPhone (colloquially known as the iPhone 2G after 2008) is the first smartphone designed and marketed by Apple Inc. After years of rumors and speculation, it was officially announced on January 9, 2007,[9] and was later released in the United States on June 29, 2007. It featured quad-band GSM cellular connectivity with GPRS and EDGE support for data transfer.
Development of the iPhone dated back to 2005, when former Apple CEO Steve Jobs conceived the idea of a device that users could directly interact with the display interface. The design was expanded upon over the next 2 years in complete secrecy, before being announced in Q1 2007.
Although several aspects of the iPhone are considered obsolete by current standards, the device is seen as an archetype of current cell phones, ditching physical hardware buttons and stylus in favor of a touch-based user interface. Its successor, the iPhone 3G, was announced in June of 2008.
History [ edit ]
In 2005, Apple CEO Steve Jobs conceived an idea of using a multi-touch touchscreen to interact with a computer in a way in which he could directly type onto the display. He decided that it needed to have a triple layered touch screen, a very new and advanced technology at the time. This helped out with removing the physical keyboard and mouse, the same as a tablet computer. Jobs recruited a group of Apple engineers to investigate the idea as a side project.[10] When Jobs reviewed the prototype and its user interface, he conceived a second idea of implementing the technology onto a mobile phone.[11] The whole effort was called Project Purple 2 and began in 2005.[12]
Apple created the device during a secretive and unprecedented collaboration with AT&T, formerly Cingular Wireless. The development cost of the collaboration was estimated to have been $150 million[13] over a thirty-month period. Apple rejected the "design by committee" approach that had yielded the Motorola ROKR E1, a largely unsuccessful collaboration with Motorola. Instead, Cingular Wireless gave Apple the liberty to develop the iPhone's hardware and software in-house.[14][15]
The original iPhone was introduced by Steve Jobs on January 9, 2007 in a keynote address at the Macworld Conference & Expo held in Moscone West in San Francisco, California.[16] In his address, Jobs said, "This is a day, that I have been looking forward to for two and a half years", and that "today, Apple is going to reinvent the phone."[17] Jobs introduced the iPhone as a combination of three devices: a "widescreen iPod with touch controls"; a "revolutionary mobile phone"; and a "breakthrough Internet communicator".[18]
Six weeks before the iPhone was to be released, the plastic screen was replaced with a glass one, after Jobs was upset that the screen of the prototype he was carrying in his pocket had been scratched by his keys. The quick switch led to a bidding process for a manufacturing contractor that was won by Foxconn, which had just opened up a new wing of its Shenzhen factory complex specifically for this bid.[19]
In February 2007, LG Electronics accused Apple of "copying" their LG Prada phone, which was introduced around the same time as iPhone.[20]
Release [ edit ]
The iPhone was released in the United States on June 29, 2007 at the price of $499 for the 4 GB model and $599 for the 8 GB model, both requiring a 2-year contract.[21] Thousands of people were reported to have waited outside Apple and AT&T retail stores days before the device's launch;[22] many stores reported stock shortages within an hour of availability. To avoid repeating the problems of the PlayStation 3 launch, which caused burglaries and even a shooting, off-duty police officers were hired to guard stores overnight.[23][24]
It was later made available in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Portugal, the Republic of Ireland, and Austria in November 2007.[21][not in citation given]
Six out of ten Americans surveyed said they knew the iPhone was coming before its release.[24]
The iPhone's main competitors in both consumer and business markets were considered to be the LG Prada, LG Viewty, Samsung Ultra Smart F700, Nokia N95, Nokia E61i, Palm Treo 750, Palm Centro, HTC Touch, Sony Ericsson W960 and BlackBerry.[25][26][27][28]
The iPod Touch, a touchscreen device with the media and internet abilities and interface of the iPhone but without the ability to connect to a cellular network for phone functions or internet access, was released on September 5, 2007. At the same time, Apple significantly dropped the price of the 8 GB model (from $599 to $399, still requiring a 2-year contract with AT&T) while discontinuing the 4 GB model.[29] Apple sold the one millionth iPhone five days later, or 74 days after the release.[30] After receiving "hundreds of emails...upset" about the price drop, Apple gave store credit to early adopters.[31]
A 16 GB model was released on February 5, 2008 for $499, the original launch price of the 4 GB model.[32] Apple released an SDK on March 6, 2008, allowing developers to create the apps that would be available starting in iPhone OS version 2.0, a free upgrade for iPhone users. On June 9, Apple announced the iPhone 3G, which began shipping July 11.[33] The original iPhone was discontinued 4 days later; total sales volume came to 6,124,000 units.
Software [ edit ]
During release, the iPhone was marketed as running "OS X". The name of the operating system was revealed as iPhone OS with the release of the iPhone SDK. The original iPhone supported three major versions of the operating system before it was discontinued: iPhone OS 1, 2, and 3. However, the full iPhone OS 3 feature set was not supported, and the last update the original iPhone received was iPhone OS 3.1.3
Software history [ edit ]
The original operating system for the original iPhone was iPhone OS 1, marketed as OS X, and included Visual Voicemail, multi-touch gestures, HTML email, Safari web browser, threaded text messaging, and YouTube. However, many features like MMS, apps, and copy and paste were not supported at release, leading hackers jailbreaking their phones to add these features. Official software updates slowly added these features.
iPhone OS 2 was released on July 11, 2008, at the same time as the release of the iPhone 3G, and introduced third-party applications, Microsoft Exchange support, push e-mail,[34] and other enhancements.
iPhone OS 3 was released on June 17, 2009, and introduced copy and paste functionality, Spotlight search for the home screen, and new features for the YouTube app. iPhone OS 3 was available for the original iPhone as well as the iPhone 3G. However, not all features of iPhone OS 3 were supported on the original iPhone.
iPhone OS 3.1.3 was the last version of iPhone OS (now iOS) to be released for the original iPhone.
Reception [ edit ]
Only four writers were given review models of the original iPhone:[35][36] David Pogue of The New York Times,[37] Walt Mossberg of The Wall Street Journal,[38] Steven Levy of Newsweek,[39] and Ed Baig of USA Today.[40] The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal published positive, but cautious, reviews of the iPhone, their primary criticisms being the relatively slow speed of the AT&T's 2.5G EDGE network and the phone's inability to connect using 3G services. The Wall Street Journal's technology columnist, Walt Mossberg, concluded that "despite some flaws and feature omissions, the iPhone is, on balance, a beautiful and breakthrough handheld computer."[41] Time magazine named it the Invention of the Year in 2007.[42]
Mobile Gazette reported that whilst the iPhone has many impressive points, it equally has many bad ones too, noting the lack of 3G, MMS, third-party applications, and its weak camera without autofocus and flash.[43]
Timeline of models [ edit ]
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ] |
Opponents of universal background checks for gun sales sometimes make it sound as if Question 3 on the state ballot exists just to create a pointless inconvenience for law-abiding gun owners or to prevent a friend from loaning out a deer rifle.
But a new study published by the referendum’s supporters shows the question aims at a much bigger target.
The buyer of a gun sold by a licensed dealer has to first clear an instant background check – but someone who failed the test could go buy the same weapon through a private sale. Whitney Hayward/Staff Photographer
Looking at ads in only two publications – Uncle Henry’s classified magazine and Armslist.com, a national gun sales website that bills itself as “Craigslist for guns” – researchers found there were an estimated 3,000 guns a year in Maine available for private sale, none requiring the buyer to pass a background check.
That means someone with a violent criminal record or a history of severe mental illness who would have been stopped before buying a gun at a gun shop or a big-box retailer would have a chance to buy a firearm from a stranger – no background check required. And that risk is repeated all over the state thousands of times a year.
That is the issue that Question 3 opponents will have to address if they are going to be successful at the polls this year. Vague hypothetical examples of individual nuisances don’t stand up against well-established evidence of a very large hole in the public safety system. This study puts the emphasis where it belongs, and it should be the grounds on which this battle is fought.
The vast majority of Americans, including Mainers of all political affiliations, agree that certain categories of people should not be allowed to possess guns. Federal law prohibits gun ownership to people convicted of felonies and domestic violence assault and people who have been involuntarily committed to a mental health facility. Those restrictions have long histories and have been deemed constitutional after judicial scrutiny.
Since 1998, gun buyers have been required to pass an instant background check when purchasing from a licensed gun dealership. This requirement has blocked nearly 3 million sales to prohibited purchasers, including more than 5,500 transactions in Maine. The catch is that many people who sell guns are not required to be licensed, and private sales at gun shows or through classified ads are carried out with no background checks.
How often does a criminal use this loophole to buy a gun? It’s very hard to measure. Portland police know of at least one weapon that was involved in two murders shortly after being sold in a private sale. Because no background check was conducted, it’s impossible to know whether that sale involved a prohibited buyer.
But we do know that if the buyer had been turned down at a gun shop, he could have gone to a gun show the same day to purchase the very same thing that the law says he is prohibited from owning. That’s like a bar that checks IDs at the front door but lets people of all ages in through the back.
The current law provides thousands of opportunities for a felon, a domestic abuser, a fugitive or someone who has been adjudicated as mentally ill to acquire a gun. Some private dealers say they wouldn’t sell to strangers, but of the thousands of guns advertised for private sales, there is ample opportunity to avoid the law. Opponents of the referendum should be able to explain why it’s OK to enforce a law that most people support only some of the time.
This is not a question regarding the constitutional right to own guns, local hunting traditions or convenience. It’s a question of whether it serves public safety to maintain such a gaping hole in the law that keeps guns out of the wrong hands.
Arguments against Question 3 should attempt to answer that.
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When I first saw governor Sarah Palin I could not believe what I was seeing. For most of my life I have seen republicans as standing for everything that I would spend my life fighting against. The idea that these people think they should decide if I have a baby sends blood rushing to my fists. The fact that there are women in this party astounds me constantly since the republicans, so far, have shown no inkling of care or respect for children, health, the poor, the suffering, or keeping families together. This disgusts me to no end. The fact that their version of Christianity is the only correct faith and we in the US should all be forced to follow its teachings seems to be the most un-American scenario that I can imagine. The fact that the whole reason Europeans came here was to practice how they pleased or be financially secure are the tenants that this country were founded on. Freedom for different races and women came later and the fact that these Republicans are still fighting against that makes me want to run around screaming. Their goal is to keep minorities down through poverty and keep women down by keeping them pregnant. I have seen girls in the eighth grade boast about how they are having a baby and this is what the republican party seems to want the most.
As time goes on I have begun to realize that the whole Palin pick could subvert that whole notion. Here is a woman who was a beauty queen. Who became mayor of her town because she was cute, had a lot friends, and called herself a Christian. The other guy claimed to be a Christian too but you see he wasn’t the right kind. He kept his practice out of his mayoral duties. Palin claimed that this meant that he was pro-choice (which, by the way, is the law still in Alaska) and somehow she won the title. When the big boys at the top of state’s leadership got into trouble Palin saw her opportunity and she took it. Even though she had left her town having a financial deficit for the first time in its history she ran as a fiscal conservative. Even though her town is now known as the meth capital of Alaska she ran on a record of “family values”. Even though she spent millions on a hockey complex in her town and had the same contractors build her house she claimed to be the ethical choice. She got elected, fired most of the people who worked for the state and hired a bunch of her friends even if they had no qualifications whatsoever. She soon came under an ethics investigation. She gave Alaskans a tax rebate that was sometimes a thousand dollars and those same Alaskans just loved her.
Meanwhile, the Republicans trying to put their old white man into office were wondering what to do about the presidential election. Suddenly, the democrats had a candidate that appeared to be everything the Republicans were not and the people were loving it. Here was a smart guy, a professor of constitutional law, a community organizer, a man claiming both black and white heritage, and a senator. Instead of attacking the social issues that divide us he talked about bringing people together. He talked about a new direction for the country in a way that people actually believed. The cynical American culture suddenly was filled with something many young people had never experienced – Hope. It sounds silly and the republicans try to make fun of this fact all the time but the truth is, for the first time, many people suddenly felt like they had a political figure to believe in. For those in my generation where the only presidents we have known are Reagan, the Bushes, and Clinton this was something entirely new. Though many us didn’t agree with different policy positions of Barrack Obama we finally felt like this was a man who could bring us together and lead the country as opposed to selling out the common American and the constitution. The Republicans didn’t know what to do, they spent the last two elections attacking the people in the democrat party and their beliefs but Obama was unwilling to go that route. They cynically thought that the reason people were behind Obama was because he was young and black and it was becoming a “historical” election. They wanted to be part of history too so they, apparently, did a Wikipedia search on female republican governors. They stumbled across Sarah Palin, pretty, well-liked, Christian Fundamentalist, antiabortion – perfect they thought!
Unfortunately for them they didn’t look into the fact that Palin had only been governor of one of the smallest states for 20 months. She was well liked (who doesn’t like a fat check from the governor) but completely untested. Additionally, she just wasn’t very knowledgeable about national politics (besides divisive social issues) or world affairs and therefore just wasn’t prepared to be on the national stage. Sure, she listened to am radio and knew the distorted neocon view of the world but the problem is that all that stuff is completely made up by the real elites with the soul purpose of keeping the people divided and ignorant of the world’s actual problems. She then went on the national stage and was completely unable to defend, or even intelligently talk about, her republican beliefs. The reason isn’t that she is inherently stupid, it is because those beliefs don’t follow any logic, you can’t be pro-life and pro-death penalty and pro-war. You cannot be a Christian and hate people on welfare. You cannot be pro-jobs when you are against unions. You can’t be for minorities and want to put up all wall and shoot poor people trying to cross our southern border. You can’t be a humanitarian but for torture. You can’t claim to be a patriot and try to take the country apart. You can’t be pro-democracy but then try to stop minorities, city dwellers, and poor people from voting. It just doesn’t add up to any scrutiny whatsoever. Now Sarah Palin might be a major factor in the Republicans losing the election (unless they steal it). She could even tear the party apart. Maybe then the democrats could fall apart too and we could finally have a true democracy where their all multiple parties and people must form coalitions to pass laws rather than just pitting US against THEM.
But that isn’t the reason I think that Sarah Palin will save democracy in the United States. I think there are many little girls out there, Lisa Simpson types, who are watching this campaign and thinking to themselves, wow she isn’t from the political establishment, didn’t go to a top school, didn’t even know elementary facts about the government, isn’t from a rich family, and can’t even speak intelligently. If she can almost become vice president than I definitely have a shot because I am smarter than her. I think many little girls will realize this and see that democracy doesn’t have to be only for rich white men. Anyone can do it. |
Ostara (pronounced O-STAR-ah), Easter, Alban Eiler, Lady Day is named for the Goddess Eostre or Eastre, the Goddess of Spring or Dawn's Light. She is Aurora to the Romans, Eos to the Greeks.*
Ostara is celebrated on the Spring Equinox (March 20 or 21st). It is the time of renewal and rebirth.
The Goddess Eostre is said to have found a wounded bird. To save its life she changed it into a rabbit. But the transformation was not complete so the rabbit retained the ability to lay eggs. how they got colored I do not know.
This is why we have Easter Bunnies and colored eggs.
Bunnies, of course, are a symbol of fertility. The term March Madness comes from the fact that in spring female rabbits are extremely fecund, often able to be impregnated again while still carrying their first litter. The madness part comes from the male rabbits who go crazy when they cannot mate with a desired female (typical : )
The egg is a symbol of rebirth.
In ancient Nineveh the Goddess Astarte (other names: Semiramis or Ishtar pronounced "easter") is said to have descended to earth near the Euphrates river in a giant moon egg.
As the story goes, Astarte's lover Nimrod was murdered, his body cut into pieces, and scattered to the four corners of the world. Unfortunately, she failed to resurrect him because she could not find his penis. Finally, she is said to have given birth to him.
And the Egyptian God Osiris too was resurrected by his Goddess, Isis, who like Astarte, had trouble locating Osiris' penis. Fortunately, she was able to solve the problem by creating a phallus of gold.
Another example of the Goddesses power over rebirth and death is Attis the consort of the Roman Goddess Cybele, who is resurrected on the Spring Equinox.
Also, the Roman God Mithras, born on the Winter Solstice (Yule) died and was resurrected on the Spring Equinox
Finally, Jesus the Christ continues the tradition by being reborn on Easter in the Christian faith.
We celebrate Ostara simply by gathering outdoors or simply by attending to the new season by gardening, planting herbs, or just spending time in nature. And, of course, Ostara Eggs
A simple Ostara spell can be performed with an Ostara Egg. At the exact time of the Equinox balance the egg on it's end. Do this simply by willing it to happen and focusing on the egg as you delicately find its balance. If it doesn't work try another egg. Some eggs are just off balance and will never stand up straight. The same is sometimes true of people, as well.
This picture is an actual egg I balanced easily. Make sure the surface is still and flat. The egg shouldn't roll when on its side.
*Other Goddesses of Spring and the dawn light are Ashanti, Flora, Freya, Persephone |
Buy Photo Senator Roy Blunt, center, shakes hands with local law enforcement officers including Greene County Sheriff Jim Arnott, left. (Photo: Dean Curtis/News-Leader)Buy Photo
U.S. Sen. Roy Blunt met with area law enforcement authorities Wednesday in a closed-door meeting and afterward spoke in support of a federal program that provides surplus military equipment to police.
That program, known as the 1033 program, has been widely criticized in the wake of police response to protesters in Ferguson.
Today's Poll: Do you pay more attention to our senators when they come to Springfield?
Blunt, R-Missouri, who is co-chair of the Senate Law Enforcement Caucus, said the federal government shouldn't be in a position where it dictates when police can wear helmets and what type of uniforms they wear.
"You don't want to have to call Washington, D.C., and say, 'Should I put my helmet on? I'm about to walk into a building where I think there's a shooter," Blunt said.
He met with about a dozen law enforcement officials, including Police Chief Paul Williams and Webster County Sheriff Roye Cole, at the Greene County Public Safety Center in Springfield. The meeting was one of several that Blunt has held with state and local law enforcement officials in Missouri.
Blunt said the equipment police used in Ferguson was defensive, not offensive. He also said that Ferguson got its equipment from Homeland Security, not the military surplus program.
"I've seen the bullet marks in bulletproof equipment and know that that equipment saved the lives of police and others," Blunt said.
Blunt's fellow senator, Claire McCaskill, D-Missouri, recently held a hearing in Washington on the surplus military equipment program and has questioned whether the program has enough oversight. Blunt said the hearing raised a legitimate question about 39 percent of the equipment in the program that has never been used.
But Blunt questioned what would happen to the surplus equipment if if isn't offered to law governments first.
"Are you going to sell them to a warlord somewhere in South America?" he asked.
Cole, the Webster County sheriff, said Webster County has two Humvees and a trailer that deputies use at the police range to haul equipment.
"It comes in handy for law enforcement," Cole said.
Williams, the Springfield police chief, said Springfield hasn't participated much in the surplus military program. He said the only equipment he can think of the agency has from the program is a small armored vehicle that is about 20 years old. Springfield does have a Bearcat, an armored vehicle, but the agency got that through a different federal program.
Williams said the federal military surplus program is a good program for smaller law enforcement agencies without a lot of money.
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The major movie studios never get Wall Street right. They just stick to the fantasy world of crude amorality and the lust for money as a road to a prison term. In Paramount's bewilderingly long "The Wolf of Wall Street," we are supposed to believe that a boiler room stock brokerage run by a handful of blue collar clowns can easily exploit the gullibility and greed of ordinary Americans and get on the path to instant riches, parades of beautiful and naked prostitutes, oodles of cocaine followed by Quaalude binges that fire up Keynes' "animal spirits" in a primitive view of Sodom and Gomorrah. "The Wolf of Wall Street" is more an orgy fantasy than a true look at the real Wall Street. As such it is a kind of primitive pornography.
It's a fantasy life that has little or nothing to do with Wall Street as we know it today, where the gulling of the public is far more sophisticated and overseen by MBAs from Harvard, Penn and Stanford business schools, who know how to exploit the complicated transactions that 300 million illiterate investors have no ability to master. As far as we know, the sordid tale of Paramount's "The Wolf of Wall Street" is in Hades and not in any way comparable to the shenanigans of 2007-08 that caused the demise of Lehman Brothers and the shotgun marriages of Merrill Lynch and Bear Stearns or the need to bail out the insolvent Citigroup , Bank of America and others of long lineage but reckless management.
There's no development of character in "The Wolf of Wall Street," which is just a one dimensional take on get rich quick and live fast until the FBI comes for you. At least the movies "Wall Street" and more thoughtfully "Margin Call," with its conflicted hero, don't exaggerate the drugs and sex as motivations for the lust of money. Still, Gordon Gekko's cliche line of " greed is good" and Margin Call's climax where the firm dumps its shares in order to save its life also underscore the rawness of Wall Street. It's a most anti-civilization image. I don't believe the 25,000 college students that applied for summer internships from Goldman Sachs think their dream requires being money grubbers in a jungle where only the pathological liars and the con-men survive and succeed.
Just as Hollywood sees Wall Street as a cartoon world without any moral value to civilization, novelists have had the same difficulty in being realistic and true to the culture of money. Yes, Tom Wolfe's "Bonfire of the Vanities"" was a more realistic satire of the mores of a large bond trading house whose inhabitants have little real understanding of the larger community in which they live and work. Using wicked irony, Wolfe has his bond trader brought down not by an inside information scandal or a manipulation of the market, but by the carelessness of injuring a young African-American male while driving through Harlem. Still and all, buffoons about whom we can feel morally superior.
No, for my money, the way to get inside Wall Street is not fiction; it's non-fiction. It's a documentary film like "Inside Job," which won the Documentary Feature Oscar three years ago. Here you see the real actors being shown up as privileged, smug characters who believe they are entitled to run roughshod over the system and evade justice for huge money rewards. In my opinion, "Inside Job" was more devastating than all the Hollywood fabrications about finance. It's a true piece of history, not a fabrication. It's a morality tale, not a depressing portrait of sleaze. |
In New York, Representative Michael Arcuri introduces his Republican challenger, Richard Hanna, as a millionaire who “got rich while his construction company overcharged taxpayers thousands, was sued three times for injuries caused by faulty construction and was cited 12 times for health and safety violations.”
Negative ads can be successful, whether or not they are fair and fully accurate, particularly if they lure an opponent into responding or if they define a political newcomer before he can define himself. But they also carry risks, especially in a year when voters are frustrated about the economy and impatient with politics as usual.
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“Our strongest piece of opposition research on Democrats is their voting records,” said Representative Pete Sessions of Texas , chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee. “While character assassination seems to be the strategy for Democrats this year, the American people are supporting Republican candidates because they are providing an alternative.”
A debate has broken out among some Democratic officials about the effectiveness — or wisdom — of running such pointedly negative advertisements with five weeks remaining in the campaign. But party strategists said candidates did not have the luxury of waiting until the final stretch to go negative, particularly if the goal is to localize the races.
“When you’re talking about whether an individual really belongs in Congress, you’re not talking about the national issues,” said Steve McMahon, a Democratic consultant who creates television advertising for several candidates in the party.
He added: “Anytime you get personal in campaign advertising, there’s always a risk that it goes too far to be credible or it backfires altogether. That risk is typically mitigated by research that’s done in advance to determine the correct tone and what will make the ad credible.”
So far, many Republican candidates are forcefully defending themselves but not taking the bait by starting their own personal offensives. A review of television advertisements presented since Labor Day showed that the Republicans were basing theirs almost entirely on the records of Democrats on health care, the economic stimulus package and the first vote the Democrats cast when Congress convened in 2009: for making Nancy Pelosi speaker of the House.
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Even many of the critical Republican advertisements produced by the candidates or the party are done with a softer touch. (Outside groups, which are investing record amounts of money for a midterm election, do not always follow suit.)
In Texas, Republicans are trying to defeat Representative Chet Edwards, a moderate Democrat who remains likable to many residents in his district, which includes the Crawford ranch of former President George W. Bush . An advertisement suggests that Mr. Edwards has changed in Washington, with a narrator calmly saying, “After 20 years, he’s not independent.”
In North Dakota, Rick Berg, a Republican trying to unseat Representative Earl Pomeroy, a Democrat, decided to make his latest ad about negative ads. “Isn’t it time North Dakota has a congressman who will change Washington and not change the subject with a negative ad?” Mr. Berg asked.
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The Democratic ads are like a prosecutor’s case, carrying no rebuttals or countervailing facts. Yet for all of the protestations that arise every election year about negative advertising, there is plenty of evidence that the attacks are effective, particularly against candidates without a deep connection to voters. This year, as Republicans work to gain at least the 39 seats they need to take control of the House, many of their nominees have never run for office and come from business backgrounds, which often include a trail of documents.
For more than a year, a large team of researchers at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has been digging into the backgrounds of potential Republican candidates. It is political detective work, with every piece of a candidate’s past fair game, so long as it is a part of the public record. In some cases, aides have been sent to districts for a closer look as they compile thorough dossiers, which are ultimately approved by a team of lawyers before the information is turned into television commercials.
Some of the material is rooted in policy, including the “Fair Tax,” a national sales tax pledge signed by many Republicans, which Democrats say would raise sales taxes by 23 percent. Many of the findings, however, are not rooted in legislation or policy.
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In Tennessee, a Republican candidate accused his Democratic challenger of unearthing a divorce proceeding containing an accusation about intimidating his wife with a gun. In South Dakota , a poor driving record became a part of the dialogue after it was revealed that the Republican nominee for Congress had received 20 speeding tickets and numerous citations for failing to appear in court, running stop signs and not making payments, which twice resulted in arrest warrants.
Representative Kevin McCarthy of California , who leads the Republican recruitment effort in the House, said he warned candidates to conduct their own research before deciding to run so they were not surprised by anything dug up by Democrats.
“It’s called winning ugly,” Mr. McCarthy said. “But a lot of time it backfires, because people in their communities know them.”
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Jim Renacci, the Republican nominee in Ohio’s 16th Congressional District, has owned a car dealership, nursing homes , an arena football team and other businesses. Four years ago, he was assessed nearly $1.4 million in unpaid state taxes, interest and fees, which he ultimately paid. The issue has been replayed again and again in television advertisements from his opponent, Representative John Boccieri, and Democratic groups.
“There are lemons, and then there’s used-car millionaire Jim Renacci,” an announcer said in an advertisement last week, as images of an old rickety station wagon appeared on the screen before segueing to an unflattering photograph of Mr. Renacci.
In an interview, Mr. Renacci dismissed criticism about his business background, saying: “He’s going to go over my 30-year experience and try and find this little thing or that little thing. As far as I’m concerned, you always know you’re doing well when your opponent is attacking.” |
In 2011, a seven-acre swath of land was set aside in Seattle, Washington's Beacon Hill neighborhood with a singular purpose -- to grow food. What started as a final design project for a permaculture course in 2009 has now, five years later, become the Beacon Food Forest (BFF), though still under development.
A permaculture-based food forest mimics a natural ecosystem with fruit and nut trees as the canopy and berry bushes and other low-lying perennials underneath. Plants are chosen according to site specifics and how they benefit other plants. Nearly all the plants produce food. The basic idea is to grow a lot of food with as little work as possible leveraging the power of nature.
A food forest can also be quite beautiful, and an important community catalyst. The Beacon Food Forest plans include an Edible Arboretum, a Berry Patch, a Community Garden, a Gathering Plaza, a Kid's Area, and a Living Gateway. And all of the garden's free offerings will be produced by the people for the people within spitting distance from downtown Seattle.
Like many urban agriculture teams, the BFF community aims to address land use, public health, environmental awareness, social justice, and food security; but they are going to do it while maintaining the largest public food forest in the U.S. Work parties are happening throughout the summer with a Phase One completion party slated for September 20, 2014. Live in the area? Get involved here. |
What's new in this version
Adjusted sensitivity on wingsuit button when using touch. Fixed an issue that meant some users would always play their first run as alto when a different character should be selected. Fixed an issue that would cause some users to get stuck when signing in to xbox live. Previous: Fixed issue that caused some users to lose progress. Fixed a crash on the main menu. Some stats weren't being reported - now they are. Fixed an issue that could stop game progress being reported correctly on Xbox Live. Fixed goal progress for the 3 sub goals not persisting between sessions Fixed ability to click through video ads to will address situations where the player has not appeared to be revived. Fixed audio playing behind Videoads Icon change for the wingsuit so it shows right click and enter keys Wingsuit icon now appears in game when the wingsuit is charged. Code changes to reflect the 5 year gametime achievement. 2 potential fixes for the save issue where players are losing progress. Fixed an issue that prevented the llama and distance achievements being awarded. If you have already collected the necessary number of llamas or travelled the required distance for either of these achievements just play the game and they will be awarded at the end of your next run. |
Society & Culture
23 Heritage Sites Ruined in Saudi Airstrikes on Yemen
TEHRAN (FNA)- The Saudi-led aggression has destroyed nearly two dozens archeological landmarks in Yemen since the beginning of Riyadh government's airstrikes on the Arab country, the General Organization of Antiquities and Museums announced on Saturday.
The demolished archeological sites are stretched from capital Sana'a to Ma'rib, Aden, Dhale, Sa'ada, Ta'iz, Hodayda, Shabwa and Hajjah, the organization said.
A sum of six ancient cities, six castles, three museums, two mosques, four palaces and several other archeological sites have been destroyed in Yemen.
Less reported in the Saudi-led bombardments is the damage inflicted on cultural heritage sites in Yemen that have made extraordinary contributions to world civilization.
Director of Yemen's General Organization of Antiquities and Museums Mohannad al-Sayani said that 23 sites and monuments have been severely damaged or destroyed since the beginning of the conflict.
Sixty thousand years ago, early man walked through Yemen along the Bab al-Mandab, one of the major out-of-Africa routes that Homo sapiens took to colonize Eurasia. Archaeologists have found the remnants of prehistoric cultures that navigated the Red and Arabian Seas 8,000 years ago; these early travelers and traders left behind impressive megaliths.
Then there are the prehistoric walled hilltop towns and massive cities that were ruled by the South Arabia's kingdoms of the first millennium B.C. Yemen also boasts a rich Islamic heritage that includes some of the oldest, most elaborately decorated mosques in the world.
On June 12, the historic city of Sana'a, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, was bombarded by the Saudis. This city, continuously inhabited for over 2,500 years, contains some of the most beautiful traditional architecture in the world. The deliberate targeting of a civilian district of the old city was inexcusable and raises serious questions about Saudi Arabia’s intentions in this conflict.
Ten other sites in Yemen are on the tentative UNESCO World Heritage List. One of these, the old city of Sa'ada, has also suffered extensive damage from air attack. |
After years of war, Mr. Samad, a poor farmer, had been reluctant to return to his home in Panjwai, which was known in good times for its grapes and mulberries.
But unlike other displaced villagers who stayed in the city of Kandahar, about 15 miles away, and other places around the troubled province, Mr. Samad listened to the urgings of the provincial governor and the Afghan Army. They had encouraged residents to return and reassured them that American forces would protect them.
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Back in his village, a collection of a few houses known as Najibian, Mr. Samad and his family moved into a neighbor’s house because his own had been destroyed by NATO bombardments in the years of fierce battles.
His home in Panjwai and the other districts around Kandahar city — long the Taliban’s heartland — had been a main hub of mujahedeen during the Soviet occupation. The districts became ground zero for the surge of force ordered at the end of 2009 by the Obama administration.
There had been little to no coalition presence in the area in the decade since the war began, and American soldiers fought hard over the past two years to clear Taliban fighters from the mud villages like Mr. Samad’s that dot the area.
At the same time, they struggled to win the trust of the Afghans who live in the district, many of whom have proved wary of foreigners and fearful that the Taliban — who were pushed to the margins in many areas but still remained a forceful presence — would eventually return and extract a heavy toll from those who cooperated with the Americans. Some American actions in the area also alienated villagers, like the wholesale destruction of villages that commanders decided were too riddled with booby traps to safely control.
While the Taliban were pushed back for a while, villagers like Mr. Samad say they are still active and describe what an intolerable life caught between the coalition forces and the Taliban while their meager vineyards and wheat fields are consumed.
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“Taliban are attacking the bases, planting mines, and the bases are firing mortars and shooting indiscriminately toward the villages when they come under attack,” said Malak Muhammad Mama, 50, a villager who now lives in Kandahar. He said that a month ago, a mortar fired from the base killed a woman, and that last week a roadside bomb hit an American armored vehicle.
It was against this background that, United States officials said, the soldier left the American base and walked south about a mile to Mr. Samad’s village. Mr. Samad and his teenage son survived because they had been visiting the nearby town of Spinbaldak. When he reached his home, neighbors were putting out the fire set on his family. One of his neighbors, an elderly woman named Anar Gula, who had been cowering in her home, said she had heard an explosion, screaming and shooting as the soldier broke down the door of Mr. Samad’s house and chased his wife and two other female family members from room to room before he shot them.
Two of the women and some of the children had been stabbed, she and other villagers said, and blankets had been laid over them and set alight — to hide the stab wounds, she said.
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Afterward, the soldier circled back north around the base to another village, where he attacked the home of Hajji-Sayed Jan, 45, a poor laborer who had fled to Kandahar city three times during the years of fighting but who had brought his family back because he could not afford to live in the city, villagers said.
He was in Kandahar for the evening and so survived, but his wife, nephew, grandson and brother were killed. Further on in the same village, the soldier entered a home and fatally shot Muhammad Dawoud, 55, a farmer, when he emerged from a room; his wife and children escaped to a neighbor’s house.
Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta said Monday that the staff sergeant returned to the base after the killings “and basically turned himself in, told individuals what had happened.” Asked if the soldier had confessed, Mr. Panetta replied, “I suspect that was the case.”
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Mr. Panetta, who spoke to reporters on his plane en route to Kyrgyzstan , said that it was an Afghan soldier at the base who first noticed that the sergeant was missing. “He reported it, they did a bed check, they had prepared a search team to go out and try to find out where he was when they got news of what had happened, and this individual then turned himself in,” he said.
The military would bring “appropriate charges” against the soldier, Mr. Panetta said, and the death penalty “could be a consideration.”
He said the military was still struggling to understand a motive. “We’re not sure why, what the reasons were,” he said. But he called the killings “a criminal act” and said that he had assured President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan that the soldier “will be brought to justice and be held accountable.”
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The soldier, who started his first tour in Afghanistan in December after three tours in Iraq , had been trained as a sniper and suffered a head injury in a noncombat-related vehicle accident during a recent tour of duty in Iraq, according to The Associated Press, which cited United States officials who spoke only on the condition of anonymity. One official said there was no information on whether the head injury could be linked to any later abnormal behavior, The A.P. reported.
A Congressional source told The A.P. that the soldier was attached to a village stability program in Belambi, a half-mile from where one attack took place.
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Local elders and members of the provincial council gathered in Kandahar on Monday to condemn the attacks, denounce their poor living conditions and question the value of the American troop presence.
But while the mood in the south and in the capital, Kabul , was tense, there was less of the outright fury that brought thousands onto the streets after Koran burnings last month.
The Taliban posted some gory photographs from the attack on their Web site, and photographs of the charred children circulated on many Afghan blogs and social networks, along with enraged anti-American comments. In Kabul, Parliament issued a statement saying its patience with the coalition forces was wearing thin. About 10 deputies from Kandahar walked out in protest of the killings.
“We urge the United States government to punish the culprits and put them on trial in an open court so that the rest of those who want to shed our innocent people’s blood take a lesson from it,” the statement said.
Many Afghans, including Mr. Samad, continued to doubt that the attack was the work of a single gunman, as the military said. Several of the villagers in Panjwai said they had seen more than one soldier, as well as helicopters, suggesting that it was an intentional coordinated attack.
However, in Kabul, senior American diplomats said in private meetings with other allied officials what they have been insisting in public: that the shootings were carried out by a single assailant who was now in the custody of United States forces, according to American officials privy to the conversations. They said helicopters were sent out after the attack to ferry at least five wounded people from the villages to a NATO military hospital.
As for Mr. Samad, he said he was in too much despair to even think about how he would carry on with his life. But he said the lesson of the deadly shootings was clear: the Americans should leave. Mr. Karzai called Mr. Samad on Sunday after the killings, and Mr. Samad, barefoot as he spoke plaintively into a satellite phone with district officials gathered around, told the president: “Either finish us or get rid of the Americans.”
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“We made you president, and what happens to our family?” he told Mr. Karzai. “The Americans kill us and then burn the dead bodies.” |
Political satirist Bill Maher has been criticized for an incest joke about Ivanka Trump
Political satirist Bill Maher has been criticized for making an incest joke about Ivanka Trump and her father on his show.
While on his HBO program Real Time with New York magazine reporter Gabriel Sherman on Friday night, the 61-year-old made the incest joke about first daughter Ivanka Trump's relationship with her father President Donald Trump.
He said: 'What do you make of Ivanka and her efforts to sort of humanize her father?
'We see all this misogyny at Fox News, we see it in Donald Trump himself. A lot of us thought, Ivanka is gonna be our saving grace.'
The political commentator then took it a step further and mimicked Ivanka performing a sex act on her father.
'When he's about to nuke Finland or something, she's gonna walk into the bedroom and—"Daddy, Daddy…'Don't do it, Daddy,"' said Maher.
'Is that how you see Ivanka?' Maher asked Sherman who, red faced, replied: 'No.'
He said: 'A lot of us thought, Ivanka is gonna be our saving grace. When he's about to nuke Finland or something, she's gonna walk into the bedroom and—"Daddy, Daddy…'Don't do it, Daddy."' President Donald Trump and First Daughter Ivanka are pictured at a NASA video conference in April
'Is that how you see Ivanka?' Maher - seen with Donald Trump at the 56th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards in 2004 - asked Sherman who, red faced, replied 'No.'
Sherman - one of the leading media voices to have contributed to the outing of Roger Ailes at Fox News - added: 'I think, again, she's on the margins trying to save us—to the degree that she can—but Donald Trump doesn't listen to anybody, including his own family'
Sherman, one of the leading media voices to have contributed to the outing of Roger Ailes at Fox News, added: 'I think, again, she's on the margins trying to save us—to the degree that she can—but Donald Trump doesn't listen to anybody, including his own family.'
Some social media users were quick to respond to the crude joke, with one writing: 'I can't believe @billmaher just did that... Ivanka Trump... @RealTimers.'
This isn't the first time Maher has told an incest joke about Ivanka and Donald.
On November 2, the comedian performed a stand-up set at the Los Angeles Largo comedy club on Facebook Live where he cracked a joke many found as inappropriate.
Some social media users responded to the joke with disgust. Pat wrote: 'I can't believe @billmaher just did that... Ivanka Trump... @RealTimers'
On November 2nd, the comedian performed a stand-up set at the Los Angeles Largo comedy club on Facebook Live where he cracked a joke many found as inappropriate
He said, again mimicking a sex act: 'Be nice to Ivanka, she's our only hope—because she seems like she actually knows rationality, but she's [Trump's] kid, and she's the only one who can get to him, and you know he loves her'
He said, again mimicking a hand job: 'Be nice to Ivanka, she's our only hope—because she seems like she actually knows rationality, but she's [Trump's] kid, and she's the only one who can get to him, and you know he loves her.
'If he's going to do something nutty, we're going to depend on Ivanka going into that bedroom. "Daddy, Daddy! You have to apologize for that tweet where you called Angela Merkela a 'c***.' You have to apologize, Daddy!"'
POTUS has reportedly said of his daughter that he might 'be dating her' if they weren't related. |
Cole Klotz, UW-Whitewater linebacker, had an impressive workout. And he has the size.
Photo by Larry Radloff, d3photography.com
Six Division III football players have been drafted by NFL teams in the past eight seasons, including Mount Union wide receiver Pierre Garcon, who starred first for the Colts and now for the Redskins.
No Division III players were drafted in this season's draft, making it the second year in a row without a D-III draftee. We'll track players as they sign free agent contracts or get minicamp tryouts.
But it isn't necessary to get drafted in order to be an impact player in the NFL. Just ask Coe's Fred Jackson or Mary Hardin-Baylor's Jerrell Freeman, now starting in the NFL, or Middlebury's Steven Hauschka, who was drafted out of grad school at N.C. State and kicked the Seahawks to a Super Bowl ring this past season.
The poster man for undrafted D-III players was London Fletcher, whose amazing career in the NFL ended this offseason, when he announced his retirement. Will Freeman inherit the mantle or will someone step up out of the 2014 draft class and have a long NFL career?
Here are some of the prospects who could get picked up by NFL teams.
Invited: Mitch Hallstrom,
WR, Bethel Invited to rookie camp by the Minnesota Vikings. Hallstrom, a D3football.com All-American, is 6-2, 211, but has a huge wingspan. He started his career as a safety for the Royals but moved to the offensive side of the ball and had 171 receptions for 2,226 yards and 12 touchdowns over the past two seasons. Invited: Seth Mathis, LB, Bethel Invited to rookie camp by the Minnesota Vikings. Mathis, a two-time D3football.com All-American, stands 6-2, 240 and ended his career with the Royals as the program's leading tackler after 361 career tackles. He also intercepted 11 passes, forced six fumbles, and had 3.5 sacks. His 40 time is 4.87. Invited: Rob Ruggiero, DL, Bridgewater State Invited to rookie camp by the Indianapolis Colts. At 6-1, 237, Ruggiero looks more like an inside linebacker in the NFL. He started his career with three seasons at Springfield before transferring and sitting out 2012. Ruggiero's 40 time is 4.66 and he had 25 bench reps at 225. Bruce Doyle, OL, Brockport State Doyle missed time at the end of the season because of injury, hurting his draft preparedness. At 6-4, 308, Doyle has the size for someone to still take a flyer on him in a rookie camp or in training camp in the summer. Signed: Jamaine Sherman, WR, East Texas Baptist Picked up by the St. Louis Rams. Sherman, who played at two separate junior colleges in Arizona, then Abilene Christian and played club football at Alderson-Broaddus, used his final year of eligibility at East Texas Baptist. He caught 62 passes for 1082 yards and seven touchdowns for the Tigers last fall. Invited: Adham Talaat, DE, Gallaudet Invited to rookie camp by the Seattle Seahawks. Talaat, who dominated the Eastern Collegiate Football Conference and was seen by more than 20 scouts this season, has been training at the TEST Parisi Football Academy. Talaat had 46 tackles, 9.5 tackles for loss for the 9-2 Bison. He's 6-6, 271 pounds, and has speed comparable to top prospects at the position. Around the Region feature
Washington Post magazine Signed: Ryan Montague, RB, Louisiana College Signed by the Seattle Seahawks. A D3football.com All-Region selection, Montague ran for 1,080 yards for the Wildcats last season. At 5-8, 221, looks like a third-down back in the NFL. Invited: Mason Espinosa, QB, Ohio Wesleyan Invited to rookie camp by the Pittsburgh Steelers. Espinosa, a four-year starter for Ohio Wesleyan, was fifth in Division III in passing yards per game last season and 17th in total offense. Espinosa stands 6 feet, 2-1/2 inches, and weighed in at 199 pounds with an official 40 time of 5.14. Sometimes Division III quarterbacks are brought into minicamp just to serve as a "camp arm" to throw to prospect wide receivers but any exposure is good. Invited: Garrett Maloney, P, St. Thomas Invited to rookie camp by the Minnesota Vikings. Maloney averaged a hair under 40 yards per punt for the Tommies last season, with 10 punts landing inside the 20 compared to just two touchbacks. St. Thomas opponents managed just seven returns on his 24 punts. Invited: Willie Schneider, FB, St. Thomas Invited to rookie camp by the Indianapolis Colts. Exclusively a fullback for the Tommies last year, Schneider got no carries in 2013 and only a handful of them in 2012. Schneider measures at 5-11, 230. Invited: Randall Carroll, CB,
Sul Ross State Invited to rookie camp by the Minnesota Vikings. You wouldn't expect a defensive player from the offense-happy American Southwest Conference to be on a list of pro prospects, other than someone from Mary Hardin-Baylor. But Carroll has a Division I pedigree, which gives him a little extra credibility with scouts. He played three years at UCLA, catching a total of 21 passes at wide receiver. Carroll recorded one interception and broke up three passes for the 1-9 Lobos this past season. Invited: Cole Klotz, LB, UW-Whitewater Invited to rookie camp by the Green Bay Packers. Klotz was the D3football.com Defensive Player of the Year, and the track record on those players getting a shot in the league is pretty decent. Measuring up at 6-3, 240, Klotz has the size to play linebacker in the league, rather than try to make the transition to safety. He and fellow Warhawk Kyle Wismer have a chance to get called for free agent contracts. Octavias McKoy, RB, Western Connecticut McKoy made headlines when he set the NCAA all-divisions rushing record last season vs. Worcester State. Even though Heidelberg's Cartel Brooks surpassed that record a few weeks later, McKoy's performance got him on the radar. His 40 time from his pro day at Yale puts him in the 4.8 range and at 24 years of age he is a stretch as a draftee but he studies the game relentlessly and could play his way in through a tryout. Signed: Dave Wright, TE, Westminster (Pa.) Picked up by the Tennessee Titans. Wright got an extra year of eligibility after an injury cut short his senior year. He caught 20 passes for 289 yards and two touchdowns for the Titans. Wright is 6-5, 252 pounds. Watch documentary
Pittsburgh Tribune feature Diante Jackson, WR, Whittier Jackson had 58 catches for 1,114 yards and 10 scores for the Poets. At 6-1 with a 40 in the high 4.5 range, Jackson has the measurables, and a heck of a lot more stats than former Whittier wideout Giovanni Stanley, who got a free-agent call from the NFL in 2011. Invited: Dashawn Johnson, OL, William Paterson Invited to rookie camp by the Green Bay Packers. Johnson started 33 of 37 games at William Paterson. At Wagner's pro day, he measured in a 6 feet, 2-1/2 inches, and 313 pounds. His 40 time was 4.97 and he had 24 reps at 225.
If you've seen media coverage on other players, add links in the comments below. |
Cats dominate the web, and as one of the largest online social media platforms, we identified a need to connect our members to the feline community, and vice versa, to fulfill a gap in our current product. LinkedIn’s revolutionary new Cats You May Know recommends new potential cat contacts — and allows you to connect with the cats you already know.
Cats You May Know was designed to give pawed professionals an opportunity to brand themselves, share their unique skills, and network with both humans and other relevant cats in their breed.
The purrfectly sleek design features large photos so you can clearly see which cool cat you’re connecting to. You can also easily access every feline’s expertise (from chasing bits of lint on the floor to watching birds), as well as their locations and interests — all with a single click.
Top tips when using Cats You May Know:
Focus on quality: When it comes to your pawfessional network, quality matters. Make sure you’re inviting the top dogs, or in this case, top cats.
When it comes to your pawfessional network, quality matters. Make sure you’re inviting the top dogs, or in this case, top cats. Personalize your invites: Your feline friend will appreciate a personal note. Remind them of your last chance meeting with a hairball it coughed up.
Your feline friend will appreciate a personal note. Remind them of your last chance meeting with a hairball it coughed up. Pay it forward: Endorse cats with exceptional skills such as random feet attacks, kitty somersaults, and napping in the sun.
Check out LinkedIn’s new Cats You May Know, now available on desktop and mobile. |
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Tyler Smith/Getty Images
Games are won on the field, but part of that equation is the impact of defensive coordinators. They're calling the shots, picking the right coverages and blitzes to stall an opponent's drive.
Hanging on to these coaches is not easy. Many eventually move to leading roles. Others, however, seem content to remain coordinators for most of, if not all of, their careers.
Factors used to determine the 10 best in college football include a coach's overall success, aided by total and scoring defense, Football Outsiders' S&P+ defensive ratings and red-zone numbers. Recent and projected performance in 2016 were given extra weight.
Only current coordinators were eligible for a spot, so Kirby Smart, D.J. Durkin and Will Muschamp simply receive a mention here. |
Startup FreedomPop is releasing a new LTE hotspot device while also moving to Sprint's LTE network in the U.S.
The new mobile hotspot device, FreedomSpot 5580 LTE, has the same terms as FreedomPop's existing devices: 500 megabytes of free access per month. The device will also have 3G access when LTE isn't available.
The device has an introductory price of $149 but will have a $199 regular price. The 3.5 ounce device can connect with up to 10 wireless devices and includes a 1.54 inch OLED display, 10 hours of battery life per charge and GPS over Wi-Fi. As with other FreedomPop devices, users can share and receive additional bandwidth each month from friends. They can also earn it by participating in marketing offers from third-party partners.
The Los Angeles start-up, as I wrote recently, is planning to soon release a free (or freemium) mobile phone that runs voice and data over Sprint's data network. With this rollout that release can move ahead on LTE, as can other devices such as its planned iPad/Android LTE tablet clip. FreedomPop can also now use higher-end phones that run on LTE networks.
FreedomPop has been waiting for the rollout of Sprint's LTE network to have sufficient coverage. That has now happened. The recent Softbank acquisition of Sprint also removes questions about Sprint's future.
For FreedomPop users who already have purchased a FreedomPop WiMax hotspot, the company is offering a program for users to swap those old units for the new faster LTE hotspot. Users would have to pay the difference between the costs of the two devices. So those who bought an $89 device would pay $60 to buy the new $149 device.
Sprint's LTE network has average speeds of 6 to 8 mbps down and peak speeds of up to 25 mbps, the company says. |
Richard Durrett, a veteran reporter who covered the Texas Rangers and other sports for ESPN, has died at the age of 38.
ESPNDallas.com confirmed his death late Tuesday night, but provided no further details.
Durrett covered the Rangers and other teams for ESPN Dallas since September 2009. He worked at the Dallas Morning News for nine years before joining ESPN.
“Richard, 38, was a dedicated colleague and friend who was extremely respected and well-liked,” said Patrick Stiegman, ESPN vice president and editorial director, digital and print. “He was known for creativity and an exceptional work ethic throughout his ESPN tenure, and nearly a decade at The Dallas Morning News before that.”
The Texas Rangers also offered their condolences in a statement.
Mr. Durrett was a versatile journalist in every sense of the word with both his written and electronic coverage. He was always willing to contribute to Rangers publications and even did occasional radio play-by-play on Rangers broadcasts in spring training and the regular season. The thoughts and prayers of our entire organization go out to Mr. Durrett’s family.
Durrett is survived by his wife, Kelly, and two children.
Durrett’s colleagues at ESPN Dallas wrote a series of pieces remembering their colleague.
Former coworker and friend Newy Scruggs joined Shan & RJ on 105.3 The Fan on Wednesday morning to remember Durrett. |
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