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ISIS militants have destroyed the historic Tetrapylon and 'significantly damaged' the Roman Theater at the UNESCO World Heritage site of Palmyra, in Syria.
Satellite images, taken on January 10, show the monuments of huge cultural importance lying in ruins after the jihadist group recaptured Palmyra on December 11, 2016, when Syrian armed forces pulled out.
The ASOR Cultural Heritage Initiative (ASOR CHI), which documents the cultural heritage of Syria and northern Iraq, said: 'ISIL executed prisoners around the archaeological site, destroyed the Tetrapylon and part of the Roman Theater.'
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This satellite image, taken on January 10, shows the significant damage caused to the Roman Theater and Tetrapylon (noted with red arrows) in the UNESCO World Heritage site of Palmyra
This satellite image shows the Tetrapylon and Theater prior to recent damage. The photo was taken on December 26, 2016
The Tetrapylon in Palmyra was once a grand platform with four columns at each corner topped by a massive corinth. It is pictured before it was blown up by ISIS
The damage to the ancient structures occurred between December 26, 2016 and January 10, 2017, ASOR CHI said.
'The Tetrapylon appears to have been intentionally destroyed using explosives. Two columns remain standing, but the majority of the structure has been severely damaged and column drums and debris are visible on the ground around the structure,' it said.
'The Roman Theater has sustained damage to the stage backdrop, primarily in the area of the Porticus. New stone debris is scattered across the center of the stage,' ASOR CHI added.
ISIS terror chiefs sparked a global outcry when they started destroying Palmyra's treasured monuments, which they consider idolatrous, after first taking the city in May 2015.
The unfinished Roman amphitheatre (pictured before it was damaged by ISIS), which dates back to the 2nd century CE, contained low level seating reserved for the elite
The UNESCO World Heritage Site of Palmyra is pictured with a red box denoting the area of new damage. The Temple of Bel and Baal Shamin were previously destroyed by ISIS
Palmyra: Syria's 'Bride of the Desert' Palmyra, situated about 130 miles northeast of Damascus, is known by Syrians as the 'Bride of the Desert'. It was an important caravan city of the Roman Empire, linking it to India, China, and Persia. Before the outbreak of Syria's conflict in March 2011, the UNESCO site was one of the most popular tourist attractions in the Middle East drawing 105,000 visitors a year. A picture taken on March 14, 2014, shows the famous Arch of Triumph (front) and a partial view of the ancient oasis city of Palmyra. Islamic State extremists have since blown up the famous Arch of Triumph Tourists take pictures at the ancient Palmyra theater on April 18, 2008, before the war in Syria broke out The whole of Palmyra, including the four cemeteries outside the walls of the ancient city, has been listed as a world heritage site by UNESCO since 1980. Global concern for Palmyra's magnificent ancient ruins spiked in September 2015, when satellite images confirmed that ISIS had demolished the famed Temple of Bel as part of its campaign to destroy pre-Islamic monuments it considers idolatrous. Unesco described the temple as one of the best preserved and most important religious edifices of the first century in the Middle East. In October last year, the jihadists blew up the Arch of Triumph, dating from between 193 and 211 AD, as they pressed a campaign of destruction that Unesco has said constitutes a war crime punishable by the International Criminal Court.
The terrorists dynamited the Palmyra temples of Baal Shamin and Bel, as well as funeral towers and a triumphal arch, which had stood for 1,800 years in the oasis city described by the U.N. cultural agency as a crossroads of cultures since the dawn of humanity.
The group used Palmyra's ancient theatre as a venue for public executions and also murdered the city's 82-year-old former antiquities chief.
The now obliterated Tetrapylon was once a grand platform with four columns at each corner topped by a massive corinth, built to make the main route through Palmyra appear more harmonious.
'This type of Tetrapylon is called a tetrakionion, in which the four corners of the structure are not connected overhead,' ASOR CHI explained.
Each of the four groups of pillars in the tetrapylon supports 150,000kg of solid cornice.
Before it was destroyed by ISIS only one of the original pink Egyptian granite columns was still standing - the others were modern reproductions.
A plume of smoke rises over the Baalshamin temple in Palmyra in a photo released on August 25, 2015 on a social media site used by Islamic State militants. Arabic at bottom reads, 'The moment of detonation of the pagan Baalshamin temple in the city of Palmyra'
Residential neighbourhoods in the adjacent modern town, where 70,000 people lived before the war, were found deserted and damaged when the Syrian army recaptured Palmyra last year
Syrian soldiers stand on the ruins of the Temple of Bel in the historic city of Palmyra after reclaiming it from ISIS last year
Government army soldiers climb their way to the top of Fakhr al-Din al-Maani Citadel last year to place a flag
Destroyed statues at the damaged Palmyra Museum are pictured on Monday, March 27, 2016, after the Syrian army reclaimed the city
Many sculptures (for example the one pictured) were destroyed by ISIS but a secret deal between the government and ISIS bosses may have led to some treasures being saved last year
Palmyra (pictured here before it was captured by ISIS) is an ancient city of Semitic origin that dates back into prehistory. It was known as caravan stop for travellers crossing the Syrian Desert back in the second century BC. The city is mentioned in the Bible as Tadmor in to chronicles
Meanwhile, the unfinished Roman amphitheatre, which dates back to the 2nd century CE when Palmyra was once one of the most important cultural centres of the ancient world, contained low level seating reserved for the elite.
It was one of the best preserved Roman theatres in Syria and is 'ringed by a colonnaded portico which opens onto a colonnaded street leading to Palmyra's Southern Gate,' ASOR CHI said.
The UN on Friday led condemnation of attacks calling the destruction a 'war crime' and 'cultural cleansing.'
In a statement, Irina Bokova, director general of the Paris-based UN cultural agency UNESCO, described the wrecking as 'a new war crime and an immense loss for the Syrian people and for humanity.'
'This new blow against cultural heritage... shows that cultural cleansing led by violent extremists is seeking to destroy both human lives and historical monuments in order to deprive the Syrian people of its past and its future,' Bokova said.
Moscow on Friday deplored the new destruction, with President Vladimir Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov calling it 'a real tragedy from the point of view of cultural and historical heritage.'
Asked whether the Russian military is likely to step in to recapture Palmyra for a second time, Peskov said only that: 'Russian military continues to support the Syrians in battling terrorists.'
For his part, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, calling those who demolish world treasures 'barbarians', added: 'Such ideology and practice have absolutely no place in modern civilisation.'
Also Friday, UNESCO said years of conflict in Syria had 'totally destroyed' 30 percent of the historic Old City of Aleppo - named a World Heritage Site in 1986 - and around 60 percent of the quarter was 'severely damaged.'
The mission reported 'extensive damage' to the Citadel, a fortress dating to the first millennium BC, and the Great Mosque of Aleppo, the largest and one of the oldest of the city's mosques.
The loss of east Aleppo was the biggest blow to Syria's rebel movement in the nearly six-year conflict, which has killed more than 310,000 people.
Last year International Criminal Court judges jailed a Malian jihadist for nine years for demolishing Timbuktu's fabled shrines in the first such case to focus on cultural destruction as a war crime. |
This summer, a member of the Montreal mafia (who knew?) mysteriously died in a Canadian federal prison. Guiseppe De Vito went to sleep on July 7 as a healthy, 46-year-old convicted murderer. The next day, he was dead.
On Monday, Canadian authorities announced the result of the De Vito autopsy. They'd found a lethal dose of the poison cyanide in blood and tissue. So far, no one has explained how a famously homicidal poison was delivered to his cell. But, according to news reports, Surêté du Québec investigators suspect he was murdered as part of an ongoing gangster feud.
Curiously enough, cyanide was also the murder weapon of choice in a U.S. gangster killing this summer. A witness scheduled to testify against renowned Boston mobster James "Whitey" Bulger in a murder trial was given a cup of cyanide-laced coffee by one of Bulger's "associates" during a meeting in July. The poisoner confessed in October after an autopsy found the poison in the dead man's body. (The killing, by the way, did nothing to help Bulger who was found guilty for his role in 11 other murders and is now in Oklahomaawaiting further charges.)
For those, I believe, he relied on the ever-useful gun. Still, it's rather fascinating - or maybe a better word would be unnerving - to see cyanide appear as a gangster weapon of choice. And these are not the only high profile cyanide cases of the year. Let's not forget the Chicago lottery winner who died, just after receiving the check, of a still mysterious dose of cyanide. Or the murder charges now pendingagainst a University of Pittsburgh neuroscientist following the death of his physician wife by cyanide poisoning last April..
Still these North American murders are small time compared to those of the serial killer, Mohan Kumar - nicknamed "Cyanide Mohan"by the news media in India - who was recently convicted of poison murders of three young women and is suspected in another 17 deaths. Mohan, a 50-year-old former teacher, allegedly killed strictly for profit - he stripped the gold jewelry off the dead women and sold it.
And finally - because to me this also counts as murder - let us not forget the Zimbabwe poachers who this fall killed more than 300 elephantsby poisoning their water hole with cyanide (not to mention the other animals that visited there) in order to sell their ivory tusks on the Asian market.
The word "cyanide" is actually shorthand for compounds that contain a cyano group, an atom of carbon bonded to one of nitrogen with the chemical signature CN. Among the most notorious of these are hydrogen cyanide (HCN), the gas used by the Nazis in concentration camp chambers, and two cyanide salts - potassium cyanide (KCN), and sodium cyanide (NaCN) - which are the ones most preferred by murderers. Although we make these industrially - the elephant poachers stole corrosive cyanide salts from gold miners who used them to separate out the ore - the poison also occurs in a wide range of plants and arthropods, who store it as a defense weapon against predators and grazers. It's not that hard, for instance, to find scientific papers on cyanide-induced illness due to chewing on the inner seed or kernel of the apricot.
Which is another way of saying that these are very old poisons. There are actually references in Egyptian hieroglyphics to "death by peach" which scholars believe refer to a similar effect. As the Egyptians knew - and as we know today - cyanides are fast-acting poisons. They cripple the body's ability to make use of oxygen and they do so with dismaying speed - a high dose, they can kill in minutes. It's one reason that intelligence agents used to famously carry cyanide pills with them in case of capture - a fact, overdramatized in movies like this year's Bond thriller Skyfall but real enough.
Makers of thriller movies and writers of murder mysteries tend to like cyanide for its dramatic tendencies - the quick gasping finish, the shocking immediacy of the way it kills. It features in the 1937 tale of a vengeful candy poisoners, The Red Box, by Rex Stout, creator of the Nero Wolfe series; Agatha Christie made it a centerpiece of her 1945 book, Sparkling Cyanide. And in the futuristic detective novels of J.D. Robb (a pseudonym of romance writer Nora Roberts) people are still using it to kill in the year 2060. In one book in that series, Salvation in Death, a Catholic priest dies after drinking poison-laced wine during the sacrament. The poison in question is found to be that durable favorite, potassium cyanide.
And in this case, mass-market fiction may anticipate reality. I had imagined that an old, easily identified, messily visible poison like cyanide would fade away into our homicidal history. I'm using the word "imagined" because if 2013 is any measure, that's not particularly apparent. As the return of cyanide murder minds us, we don't so easily set aside our past. And we obviously - if unfortunately - hate to give up on a weapon with a history of working so well.
Image: Nineteenth century poison bottle/National Library of Medicine exhibit on the history of forensics. |
The Canadian Soccer Association announced last weekend that they had unanimously sanctioned the Canadian Premier League and hope to begin play following the 2018 World Cup. While it is generally understood that the three Canadian MLS sides and their USL counterparts will not be taking part in the CPL, there does remain many questions around FC Edmonton and Ottawa Fury’s potential participation in the nation’s domestic league.
In The Past
Ottawa Fury are a club with a rich grassroots background that goes back over ten years. Originally a women’s team that President John Pugh bought over, Fury has since evolved into a football club that has had various teams play in the W-League, Première Ligue de soccer du Québec, Premier Development League, North American Soccer League and most recently the United Soccer League.
While the clubs first team has jumped around the lower leagues of North American soccer over the past five years Fury have never let the league they compete in define who they are, and have always been defined by their commitment to provide soccer to the community at the highest level possible. This was best exemplified when the club opted to leave the NASL last year prior to the leagues near implosion, joining the much more stable USL. The move from NASL to USL cost Ottawa Fury a fairly size-able investment, and they will be reluctant to give that up so quickly to join the CPL.
Why Fury Should Consider the Canadian Premier League
There is no doubt that, if a success, the Canadian Premier League will be at the forefront of Canadian player development, and that has been a part of Fury’s image long before the club had a professional side. As a club with a well-established roster, front office and fan base, Fury would have the opportunity to be a dominant force in the CPL early years and help set the tone of the league. There is a certain amount of pride that goes along with being a founding club in a new league, just ask Charleston Battery/Richmond Kickers in the USL, the New York Cosmos in the NASL or any of the Original Six NHL teams; and that is something Fury should want to be a part of.
One of the big struggles for Ottawa Fury from a business perspective is marketing. It’s not easy marketing a club in the nation’s capital that plays in the US second division, especially with two MLS sides within driving distance. While there are fans in Ottawa who will come out to see the likes of Joe Cole and Raul, having Fury playing in the CPL would be much easier to market to the patriotic public and would provide fans with a league that is much easier to connect to. Instead of playing clubs from US cities that some Canadians may have never heard of, such as Harrisburg or Wilmington, Fury would have a much easier time marketing games against teams from Hamilton or Quebec City.
The CSA has been somewhat reluctant to permit Canadian clubs to play in the USL, and it is believed that they will apply pressure on Ottawa Fury to make a move to the CPL once the league is up and running. The CSA bent its own rules by allowing an independent club to join the USL, suggesting they have faith in Ottawa Fury’s long term plans and will likely hope that Fury will one day play in the CSA regulated CPL.
What The Future Holds
Ottawa Fury and their parent company Ottawa Sports Entertainment Group will always understandably put their business needs first in every decision made; as it is the business that allows the soccer to happen. Moving from the PDL to the NASL was a move made to help the club grow; while the move from the NASL to the USL was done to save the club from turmoil. The history of Canadian division one soccer is very unfavourable, meaning Fury and OSEG would be reluctant to make any commitment to the Canadian Premier League until they know that the league is viable in the longer term.
While in the past I have got the impression that Ottawa Fury were not interested in the CPL, the club seem to have come around over the past year as more details about the league emerge. USL President Jake Edwards was in Ottawa for the clubs USL Home Opener in April and gave his support of the CPL, saying “we [the USL] would fully support a professional league here [in Canada]. I think there absolutely needs to be one.”
When asked about Fury’s plans regarding the CPL, OSEG COO Mark Goudie provided Northern Starting XI with the following statement:
“Ottawa Fury FC is a proud member of the United Soccer League, the world’s largest Division II professional soccer league. Our club has always supported the idea of a Canadian League and more opportunities for Canadian professional soccer players. We commend the work of everyone involved bringing the CPL to this stage. We have had open dialogue with the CPL and Canada Soccer and look forward to learning more about the league’s direction and business model.”
– Mark Goudie, COO, OSEG
While the statement suggests what was safe to assume, that Fury are happy to see the developments but have no direct role in the CPL a this stage, it does reveal that the club are in open contact with the CSA and the CPL, and seem to have a relationship that is open to potentially working with one another in the future.
The CPL is in its early stages and won’t be up and running in full until at least 2019. In the meantime Ottawa Fury fans can enjoy professional soccer in the nation’s capital, including the clubs second consecutive visit to the Voyageurs Cup Semi-Finals, while still dreaming of having a club in the CPL one day. Fury are understandably reluctant to commit to anything at such an early stage, and are currently very happy in the USL where they have invested money and are hoping to see the club grow alongside the league.
Assuming everything goes to plan, the Canadian Premier League seems to be an inevitable part of Ottawa Fury’s future. In the meantime OSEG are focused on providing quality professional soccer at Lansdowne Park this year and next in the United Soccer League while allowing groups in Hamilton and Winnipeg spearhead the domestic league dream.
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Stuart Mactaggart My name is Stuart, aka FuryFanatic. I've been covering Ottawa Fury since 2014 and have provided colour commentary for their games on Rogers and TSN1200. I've followed Fury to New York, Florida and Vancouver and look forward to covering them in the USL for 2017.
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A high-speed crash between Warren Luff and Craig Lowndes in Practice 6 have the Holden Racing Team and Red Bull scrambling to fix major damage at the Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000.
The accident occurred 20 minutes into final practice when Luff, co-driving with Garth Tander, arrived at Griffin’s Bend with no brakes.
The spinning HRT entry punted the rear of Lowndes’ car before making right-rear contact with the tyre wall and ending up on its side.
The contact with Luff also sent Lowndes spinning rear-on into the tyre barrier, which spectacularly shot the back of the Red Bull car into the air before coming to rest.
Both drivers emerged unhurt, with Lowndes helping to extract his former co-driver Luff from the wreck.
Luff had exited the pits on the lap of the crash and, while the team had made a suspension tweak, the driver confirmed that it had not completed a brake pad change.
“I came up Mountain Straight and the pedal has gone all the way to the floor. We’re not sure what happened,” he said.
“We hadn’t done a pad change at all. We need to find out what’s gone wrong.”
The incident is the second major crash for the Tander/Luff Commodore this weekend after the primary driver crashed at The Dipper on Thursday.
A horror opening day had also seen Luff come to grief at the top of the Mountain in his Carrera Cup Porsche.
In the immediate aftermath of the Practice 6 crash, Lowndes expressed doubt that either car would make the Shootout later today.
“Unfortunately we got caught up in someone else’s incident,” he said.
“I feel for Luffy because he’s had a rough trot.
“It might be a Top 8 Shootout. Their car is probably worse than ours, so we’ll see.
“The guys will work hard to get it right.”
Mark Winterbottom topped Practice 6 with a 2:06.06s best, which proved 0.06s quicker than fellow late charger Scott McLaughlin.
The two late efforts bumped Shane van Gisbergen from the top of the order.
The Tekno Holden driver had run a best of 2:06.48s when completing his own Shootout simulation with 10 minutes remaining.
The Bottle-O Falcon returned to the track following its Friday qualifying crash, but completed just six laps due to a fuel pump issue.
There were dramas too for Todd Kelly, who tagged the wall at Reid Park just prior to the Luff/Lowndes crash, breaking the left-front suspension of his Nissan.
The Robert Dahlgren/Greg Ritter Volvo also completed limited laps while the team traced a engine sensor problem.
Result: V8 Supercars Bathurst, Practice 6
1 Ford Pepsi Max Crew M.Winterbottom/S.Owen Ford Falcon FG 02:06.06 2 Valvoline Racing GRM S.McLaughlin/A.Premat Volvo S60 02:06.12 00:00.06 3 Team Tekno VIP Petfoods S.Van Gisbergen/J.Webb Holden Commodore VF 02:06.48 00:00.42 4 Team BOC J.Bright/A.Jones Holden Commodore VF 02:06.82 00:00.75 5 Wilson Security Racing Scott Pye Ford Falcon FG 02:07.07 00:01.01 6 Team Advam/GB D.Wood/C.Pither Holden Commodore VF 02:07.27 00:01.20 7 Norton Hornets J.Moffat/T.Douglas Nissan Altima 02:07.47 00:01.41 8 Holden Racing Team James Courtney Holden Commodore VF 02:07.63 00:01.56 9 Walkinshaw Racing N.Percat/O.Gavin Holden Commodore VF 02:07.69 00:01.63 10 Red Bull Racing Australia Craig Lowndes Holden Commodore VF 02:07.74 00:01.68 11 Jack Daniel's Racing Todd Kelly Nissan Altima 02:07.81 00:01.74 12 Team JELD-WEN J.Perkins/C.Waters Ford Falcon FG 02:07.85 00:01.78 13 Erebus Team Beko W.Davison/A.Davison Mercedes E63 AMG 02:07.86 00:01.80 14 Lockwood Racing F.Coulthard/L.Youlden Holden Commodore VF 02:07.92 00:01.86 15 Wilson Security Racing D.Wall/S.Johnson Ford Falcon FG 02:07.99 00:01.92 16 Supercheap Auto Racing T.Slade/T.D'Alberto Holden Commodore VF 02:08.06 00:02.00 17 Ford Pepsi Max Crew C.Mostert/P.Morris Ford Falcon FG 02:08.10 00:02.03 18 Repair Management Aust Racing R.Ingall/T.Blanchard Holden Commodore VF 02:08.10 00:02.03 19 Red Bull Racing Australia Jamie Whincup Holden Commodore VF 02:08.15 00:02.08 20 Erebus Motorsport V8 Lee Holdsworth Mercedes E63 AMG 02:08.15 00:02.09 21 The Bottle-O Racing Team Dean Canto Ford Falcon FG 02:08.22 00:02.16 22 Jack Daniel's Racing R.Kelly/D.Russell Nissan Altima 02:08.24 00:02.18 23 Super Black Racing A.Pedersen/Heimgartner Ford Falcon FG 02:08.29 00:02.22 24 Norton Hornets M.Caruso/D.Fiore Nissan Altima 02:08.55 00:02.49 25 Valvoline Racing GRM R.Dahlgren/G.Ritter Volvo S60 02:09.12 00:03.06 26 Holden Racing Team Warren Luff Holden Commodore VF 02:09.29 00:03.23
VIDEO: Footage of the Luff/Lowndes crash |
Waldemar Kornewald on October 22, 2010
Cassandra and ElasticSearch backends for Django-nonrel in development
This is a quick update: Rob Vaterlaus has started working on a Cassandra backend and Alberto Paro is working on an ElasticSearch backend for Django-nonrel.
The Cassandra backend is still experimental and lacks support for ListField (from djangotoolbox.fields ), but overall it already looks very very interesting. This backend comes with experimental secondary indexes support for Cassandra and requires a recent Cassandra 0.7 build. Secondary indexes allow to efficiently query the DB by attributes other than the primary key which makes Cassandra more similar to App Engine and MongoDB than low-level key-value stores. This feature is disabled, by default, though. Currently, without secondary indexes all queries are filtered in memory. The repository contains the installation instructions, so head over and play with the code, if you're fearless. Keep in mind: it's not production ready and it depends on the latest bleeding-edge Cassandra code. Any help with the backend is highly appreciated.
The ElasticSearch backend is also in alpha state. Not all unit tests pass, yet, and for now it only supports a simple subset of ElasticSearch. Basically, you can use string operations like __contains , __istartswith , __regex and you can compare integers via __gt , __lt , etc. and you can order results. Currently, OR queries are not supported, but Alberto is working on that. He also plans to add support for aggregates! If you want to have a stable and feature-complete backend please grab the source from the repo and contribute. Alberto would be happy to accept patches.
So, we now have backends for App Engine, MongoDB, Cassandra, and ElasticSearch. The first two are stable and get used in production. Who would've thought that Django-nonrel would get this far? That's pretty awesome, isn't it? :) If you want to build some other NoSQL backend please read our post about writing a non-relational Django backend which explains our nonrel backend API. If you need more help please ask on the Django-nonrel discussion group. Now that SimpleDB has a free tier it would be an interesting candidate for Django-nonrel, wouldn't it? |
Las Vegas-area hospitals are joining the list of organizations that are working to help victims of the Oct. 1 mass shooting at the Route 91 Harvest festival.
At least one hospital group has vowed to completely waive medical costs from any patient who was a victim of the shooting. St Rose Dominican Hospitals, which treated 71 victims across three campuses, said they will not bill or require payment from any patient victims of the tragic event.
“At Dignity Health-St. Rose our focus remains on the immediate medical and supportive care needs of the injured as well as their long-term healing process. St. Rose does not intend to bill or require payment from any patient victims of this tragic event. St Rose will bill third-party payors (if any) and will be accepting contributions from donors in the community to address the financial and other burdens placed on these patient victims,” the hospital said in a statement. – READ MORE |
New forecast software is allowing the agency to break out of the days when weather reports were sent by “the wire” over teleprinters, which were basically typewriters hooked up to telephone lines. Teleprinters only allowed the use of upper case letters, and while the hardware and software used for weather forecasting has advanced over the last century, this holdover was carried into modern times since some customers still used the old equipment.
Better late than never, but the slow change was not for lack of trying. The National Weather Service has proposed to use mixed-case letters several times since the 1990s, when widespread use of the Internet and email made teletype obsolete. In fact, in web speak, use of capital letters became synonymous with angry shouting. However, it took the next 20 years or so for users of Weather Service products to phase out the last of the old equipment that would only recognize teletype.
Recent software upgrades to the computer system that forecasters use to produce weather predictions, called AWIPS 2offsite link (The Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System), are allowing for the change to mixed-case letters. The switch will happen on May 11, after the required 30-day notification period to give customers adequate time to prepare for the change.
“People are accustomed to reading forecasts in upper case letters and seeing mixed-case use might seem strange at first,” said NWS meteorologist Art Thomas. “It seemed strange to me until I got used to it over the course of testing the new system, but now it seems so normal,” he said.
Three forecast products will transition to mixed-case use on May 11, including area forecast discussions, public information statements and regional weather summaries. Severe weather warnings will transition this summer, with other forecasts and warnings transitioning to the new system through early next year.
Upper case letters in forecasts will not become obsolete – forecasters will have the option to use all capital letters in weather warnings to emphasize threats during extremely dangerous situations. Certain forecast products with international implications, such as aviation and shipping, will continue to use upper case letters, per international agreements that standardize weather product formats across national borders.
NOAA’s mission is to understand and predict changes in the Earth's environment, from the depths of the ocean to the surface of the sun, and to conserve and manage our coastal and marine resources. Join us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and our other social media channels. |
At least two bald eagles were among the wild animals poisoned, prosecutors say. Credit: Michael Sears
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A father and son who operate a large potato farm in northern Wisconsin have agreed to pay $100,000 in restitution in connection with the poisoning deaths of more than 70 wild animals, including at least two bald eagles.
Alvin C. Sowinski, 65, and Paul A. Sowinski, 46, of the Town of Sugar Camp in Oneida County, also face penalties of up to $100,000 each and up to a year in prison at their sentencing in May, according to the U.S. attorney's office for the western district in Madison.
According to documents filed by prosecutors, Alvin Sowinski used poisoned bait piles to try to kill predators such as coyotes and gray wolves.
There was no evidence that wolves, a federally protected animal at the time of the investigation, were poisoned.
The two men also permitted hunters and trappers to kill predators to improve hunting for penned pheasants, grouse and deer for the Sowinskis and friends.
One such hunter and trapper was an undercover officer of the state Department of Natural Resources, who was told by Alvin Sowinski how he used poison to target predators.
While poisoning of wildlife is known to occur throughout the state, prosecution of such cases are "extremely rare," according to U.S. Attorney John W. Vaudreuil, who said his office has prosecuted only one or two cases in the past 30 years.
Among the wildlife poisoned with pesticides by the Sowinskis between 2007 and 2010 were at least two bald eagles, a turkey vulture, nine coyotes, one bobcat, three ermine, crows, songbirds, squirrels, skunks and other unidentified animals.
Vaudreuil called the acts "incredibly selfish" for someone to "purposefully want to kill predators, and then they use this very horrible pesticide."
The Sowinski family owns about 8,000 acres in Oneida County, with about 4,000 acres consisting of an active farming operation.
According to the Wisconsin Potato and Vegetable Growers Association, Sowinski Farms Inc. is headquartered in Rhinelander.
The investigation began in May 2007 when a DNR warden found dead animals on the property, including a bald eagle.
A dead deer in a bait pile contained carbofuran, a highly toxic insecticide, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service forensic laboratory concluded.
Then in 2010, law enforcement personnel found at least nine poisoned bait piles of white-tailed deer, beaver and processed meats placed by Alvin Sowinski on the property.
Dozens of dead wildlife were found nearby, according to records.
The son was aware that his father was setting up poisoned bait sites.
A video camera set up by law enforcement showed Paul, accompanied by a son and teenage nephew, driving an ATV and finding a dead eagle.
Paul Sowinski tossed it into the brush.
He returned later, picked up the eagle and tossed it into a burn pile.
In a statement Thursday, Greg Sowinski, president of Sowinski Farms, said representatives of the potato farm "deeply regret the impacts to animals caused by the unauthorized acts and have taken proactive steps to reinforce safe and appropriate practices."
The company also said Alvin Sowinski, who acknowledged primary responsibility for killing the wildlife, is no longer an officer at the farming operation.
Greg Sowinski said the company does not use the insecticide that killed the wildlife, and at "no time was the safety of Sowinski Farms' cropland or products affected in any way."
Paul Sowinski served on the board of directors of the Wisconsin Potato & Vegetable Growers Association in 2012, according to the association's website. |
As soon as Mine That Bird crossed the finish line six and three-quarters lengths ahead of 18 others, Borel’s tears flowed with the warmth and power of Niagara Falls. He patted, hugged, hollered and dripped tears on the gelding he met for the first time Monday. Finally, Borel kissed a rose and lofted it toward the heavens in honor of his late mother and father.
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“I wish my mother and father were here to see what I have accomplished in my life,” he said an hour later, dissolving in tears once again.
While it took Mine That Bird just 2 minutes 2.66 seconds to cover the Derby’s mile-and-a-quarter distance, it took his trainer, Woolley, a lifetime and a couple of days to occupy horse racing’s most hallowed real estate below Churchill Downs’s twin spires.
The 45-year-old Woolley, a former bareback rodeo rider, loaded Mine That Bird in a van and hauled him behind his truck from his base in New Mexico, stopping at Lone Star Park in Grand Prairie, Tex., so his horse could gallop a couple of miles.
Those were hard miles, especially because Woolley is on crutches after breaking his leg in a recent motorcycle accident. In fact, last week Woolley and Mine That Bird’s owners, Mark Allen and Dr. Leonard Blach, were pointing Mine That Bird to the Lone Star Derby next weekend. Instead, they decided to dream big.
“I had no real feeling about how we’d do, but we came here to be competitive,” Woolley said.
On Friday, Woolley confessed that he was just happy to be here alongside Hall of Famers like D. Wayne Lukas, Bob Baffert and Nick Zito. He was amazed that horse enthusiasts stopped him in restaurants and knew that Mine That Bird was, indeed, the 2-year-old champion last year in Canada. Allen and Blach paid more than the $9,500 Mine That Bird fetched in the auction ring — $400,000, to be exact, after he won four races in a row.
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Why buy a gelding? Mine That Bird does not have the cushy life of a stud awaiting him. Allen and Blach are not going to make millions in the breeding shed.
“We wanted a racehorse, not a stallion,” Allen said.
Couldn’t you at least get a deal?
“There was no haggling,” Allen said with a no-nonsense western twang. “They wanted $400,000. We paid it.”
Photo
It looked like a bargain when Borel started sanding the rail heading into the far turn, picking off one, two, three and, finally, 15 horses. The final hurdle came with an eighth of a mile left when Mine That Bird bulled through a sliver of a hole inside Join in the Dance.
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“I wasn’t worried,” Borel said. “He’s a small horse and I knew I could squeeze him through.”
Baffert’s Santa Anita Derby winner, Pioneerof the Nile, was closing in the middle of the track, but it was much too late. He finished second.
“Those cowboys came with a good horse,” Baffert said.
The Illinois Derby victor Musket Man and the Arkansas Derby champion Papa Clem clunked up for third and fourth position. But all three are destined to be footnotes in one of the tallest tales about the Derby. Beyond the match race with War Admiral, no one remembers the many horses Seabiscuit turned back.
No, Mine That Bird earned a first-place check worth more than $1.4 million for his cowboy connections and returned the second-largest win payout in Derby history for his few and true believers — $103.20 for a $2 bet. Mine That Bird, a son of Birdstone out of the mare Mining My Own, has captured five of his nine career races.
Best of all, the little-gelding-that-could allowed Woolley to blink tears back from behind his sunglasses, tip his black hat and linger over how his improbable road to the Derby had ended. Before 6:24 p.m. Saturday, he was told, no one outside the tumbleweeds of New Mexico knew who Chip Woolley was.
He gulped, then swallowed.
“They’ll know me now,” he said, as prickly as a cactus.
Yes, they will. |
A raft of traditionally conservative media outlets are choosing to do the unthinkable: endorse a Democrat for the first time
The Arizona Republic expected to lose subscribers when it endorsed a Democrat for president for the first time in its 126-year history. The death threats, however, were more of a surprise.
“Our sister paper, the Cincinnati Enquirer, had seen subscription loss” after endorsing Hillary Clinton, said Phil Boas, editorial page editor for the Arizona Republic. “We had a sense of what we were facing. It was never a part of our decision making.”
Alicia Machado told the truth about Trump, and the backlash is terrifying | Lucia Graves Read more
Boas declined to talk about threats against his publication, which was formed by a group of GOP politicians and originally called the Arizona Republican. The paper changed its name in the 1930s, but not its political loyalties.
Until now.
“You have a man who is so dangerous and so unfit for office that he has to be stopped,” Boas told the Guardian. “The only way you’ll stop him is with Hillary Clinton. She’s a flawed candidate, but she has many good qualities. She respects the office ... Trump does not. Trump talks about his genitalia in a national debate. That’s showing complete disrespect.”
The 2016 US presidential race is a making history and not simply because a woman is a major party candidate.
Donald Trump has pushed a raft of conservative-leaning newspapers to endorse a Democrat for the first time. Other publications have endorsed a Libertarian candidate, also a major departure, or – pointedly – not endorsed at all. Wired magazine entered the presidential fray for the first time ever; so did USA Today.
At least 16 newspapers have endorsed Clinton in the general election. At least six have endorsed Gary Johnson. It is hard to find a single one telling its readers to vote for Trump on 8 November.
The publications are using the kind of language to describe the Republican standard bearer and his policies that is usually reserved for genocidal dictators and incurable diseases.
“Unprincipled, unstable and quite possibly dangerous”. The Detroit News.
“Vengeful, dishonest and impulsive”. The San Diego Union-Tribune.
“The worst nominee put forward by a major party in modern American history”. The New York Times.
“Reprehensible”. The Canton Repository.
“A serial liar”. USA Today.
This is dangerous rhetoric that would incite political violence ... We just started warning our readers Phil Boas, Arizona Republic
“Utterly corrupted by self-interest”. The Cincinnati Enquirer.
The Arizona Republic began preparing its readers months ago for such a departure with a series of editorials deeply critical of the real estate magnate. The first, Boas said, came after a Trump visit to Birmingham, Alabama.
“A black protestor came into one of his rallies,” he said. “He was spouting things about Black Lives Matter. Trump supporters started punching and kicking him. One had his hands around the man’s neck. Trump stood at the podium and said, ‘Get him the hell out of here’.”
In a television interview, the candidate “doubled down” on his earlier comments, Boas recounted, saying about the protestor, “‘Maybe he deserved to be roughed up a bit’.”
“This is dangerous rhetoric that would incite political violence,” Boas said. “We just started warning our readers. At the same time he made fun of a New York Times reporter who was disabled. We did another editorial ... It is beneath all that this country is about. Almost a year ago, we were carving out a place on our pages where we were never going to be able to endorse this guy.”
The Cincinnati Enquirer, another proudly conservative paper, said in its endorsement that it has “supported Republicans for president for almost a century – a tradition this editorial board doesn’t take lightly. But this is not a traditional race, and these are not traditional times.”
The paper – like most – acknowledged that Clinton has serious flaws: a lack of transparency, bad judgment in using a private email server, 275 days without a press conference. But those reservations, the editorial board wrote, “pale in comparison to our fears about Trump”.
The Republican has cozied up to white supremacist groups, the paper wrote, perpetrated the lie that Obama was not born in the US, praised the country’s enemies while insulting a sitting president, a Gold Star family and a former prisoner of war.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest The Cincinnati Enquirer says its reservations about Clinton ‘pale in comparison to our fears about Trump’. Photograph: Matt Rourke/AP
“Of late, Trump has toned down his divisive rhetoric, sticking to carefully constructed scripts and teleprompters,” the Enquirer wrote. “But going two weeks without saying something misogynistic, racist or xenophobic is hardly a qualification for the most important job in the world.
And then there are those publications whose editorial boards could not bring themselves to endorse either Trump or Clinton, no matter how hard they held their noses.
At least a half dozen threw their reputations behind Gary Johnson, the Libertarian candidate who, in various interviews, could not name a foreign leader and did not know what Aleppo is.
Among them is the always iconoclastic New Hampshire Union Leader. Publisher Joseph W McQuaid began his front-page Johnson endorsement as follows:
“A joke on the Internet: Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are together in a lifeboat in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. No land in sight. No ships in sight.
“Question: Who survives?
“Answer: The American people.” |
Mauricio Pochettino is winding up to fully address Kyle Walker’s defection for the first time when the double doors behind him swing open.
Pochettino, legs crossed and body slouched inside the Westin Hotel in downtown Nashville, observes the coffees on a tray approvingly. He is parched. His answer can wait.
He thanks the waitress for his frappuccino as attention turns to the bill. Tottenham’s press officer pinches it and starts to sign. Pochettino looks mildly distressed. ‘No, no, no — put it on my room. My room.’
Tottenham boss Mauricio Pochettino admits it's 'so difficult' for his side to sign new players
Spurs have sold Kyle Walker but have yet to sign any new players this summer transfer window
Their lack of transfer activity has led to criticism of the likes of club chairman Daniel Levy
The cheque twice changes hands. Pochettino finally pays the four dollars himself. It turns out those in power at Tottenham do not mind parting with cash after all.
For that is the criticism levelled at Spurs, and more specifically their chairman Daniel Levy, this summer.
With 10 days to go until Newcastle away, they are still without fresh blood and were soundly beaten by Manchester City in Nashville’s Nissan Stadium on Saturday night.
The last few weeks have certainly not been easy. Spurs can only start shopping when their more opulent rivals have finished and Pochettino is in the unique position of requiring reinforcements rather than first XI improvements.
‘It’s so difficult to convince good players to come and then be on the bench. Then the problems start,’ he says before revealing details of a conversation with Alvaro Morata, who joined Chelsea from Real Madrid last month.
‘Morata said to me, “Why do you want me if you have Harry Kane?”. You know, if you go to try to sign a striker, they will say, “Eh gaffer, you want me for what? To be on the bench? Because it’s Harry Kane, I can’t compete with Harry Kane” or Hugo Lloris or different players.
Spurs have been heavily linked with a move for Everton and England midfielder Ross Barkley
But Pochettino admits his side cannot compete with the likes of City in the transfer market
THRIFTY TOTTENHAM LEAVING IT LATE Of the teams pushing for a Champions League spot, Tottenham are the only side to have not spent a penny on transfer fees this summer. Transfers in (Summer 2017): Manchester City: £215.3m Manchester United: £147m Chelsea: £136.2m Arsenal: £53m Liverpool: £50m Tottenham: £0
‘Our fans know that we are not a club today that can compete with Manchester United and City for a player. We cannot fight.
‘(But) the perception about Daniel is very wrong. The thing is, Daniel is very keen to sign like me. This type of player we are talking about, it’s very difficult. It’s not easy to find.’
Ross Barkley is one they have identified. But does he have the temperament Pochettino demands? Can he start on the bench? Can he agree to a contract worth less than Everton have offered?
If those answers are yes then Barkley will likely play his football at Wembley this season. A striker is also on the agenda, yet for now Walker is the only major bit of business in or out.
At £54million, Pochettino is of the mind it was mighty fine business too, having seen the emergence of fellow right back Kieran Trippier last year. The Argentine debunks suggestions he and Walker fell out, with the player having sent what seems a genuinely heartfelt WhatsApp message after he left.
‘Manchester City have paid a lot of money for Kyle, like they have signed different players to try to get success in the future,’ Pochettino adds. ‘There’s no doubt he will succeed at City. But for me, I think we saw the best Kyle with Tottenham.’
'We saw the best Kyle (Walker) with Tottenham', Pochettino claimed after selling him for £54m
Kieran Trippier emerged as a realistic alternative to the England international last season
Walker’s situation actually encapsulates exactly what the club hope will happen throughout their squad: players are pushed so hard by a deputy that they grow further than anyone had previously anticipated.
‘What happens when you say, “I am No 1”, “I am No 2”... and the No 1 believes they have more right than another and the other feels he is less. It’s so difficult to manage that situation. That’s why as a manager you must give the possibility to rotate when they’re at the same level.
‘Last season was a very good example. Kieran and Kyle started to share one game each. If you watch the last 14 games again, Kyle was here and Kieran was here.’ Pochettino runs both his hands parallel to each other. He felt there was absolutely no difference between the two.
He is 45 now, still watches all four divisions and European football on television at home — much to his wife Karina’s annoyance — and still believes he is learning the trade. Pochettino admits he cannot switch off, as obsessed with the game as ever.
There remains that steel for which he is famed. He can relax in his chair and chat genially one moment and be bolt upright, talking agitatedly the next.
Pochettino praised the way Dele Alli forced his way into the Spurs team after joining in 2015
He also claims that Alvaro Morata asked him 'why do you want me if you have Harry Kane?'
It is all about the portrayal of messages. One during this 40-minute chat in Tennessee last week centres on senior players becoming complacent. A specific example follows.
No names, no pack drill, but Spurs fans will have a fair idea who he means. ‘Dele Alli came from League One and after a few months started to play,’ Pochettino says. ‘So when a player comes in and for instance thinks he should play because he’s played in the Champions League — it’s not about that. You need to deserve to play.
‘Dele Alli came in and was better. Sometimes people complain, not all the players. The player says I am big but OK, go and show that every day in every single game that you deserve to play instead of another. That is all.
‘Not one player that we sign doesn’t know what we expect of them. Speaking any other way is not the truth. Nobody inside here can explain it in a different way to you.’
Those who are on board have been rewarded with long contracts. Kane, Alli, Christian Eriksen and Danny Rose have recently penned new terms. But so too did Walker, only last September in fact, so would another season without silverware see others head for the exit?
Christian Eriksen is one of Spurs' stand-out players who have been rewarded with a new deal
The Premier League side face a season at Wembley, where they struggled in Europe last year
‘That is like the chicken or the egg,’ Pochettino replies sternly. ‘Three years ago I heard, “We must play Champions League. If not it’s difficult to keep our best players”.
‘And now, we have achieved the Champions League on the last two seasons. Right now (I hear) we need to win some trophies, no? That is good, the pressure.
‘I think it’s important to understand now that we need to be clever how we manage the expectation and how we need to put pressure on our own players.
‘We understand that Alli, Kane, Eriksen, Dier, (Toby) Alderweireld are really good players. They want to win, like us. But it’s true that they need to feel the pressure a little bit to improve in every season.
Tottenham play Juventus on Saturday
‘How have Manchester City, Liverpool, Chelsea and different clubs tried to improve their season? Bringing players in and trying to put more pressure on their star players, their key players — and for us we need to do that too.
‘Every season we need to be clever in how we bring more energy and make sure our main players are not in a comfortable situation. Because if they are it is normal in human beings... if I’m Dele Alli and look back and there’s no one for competition, if I make one run or two runs it’s the same because I always play.
‘When the players start to feel that — if the team starts to feel that — it’s difficult to win.’
Tottenham take on Juventus at Wembley in their final pre-season fixture this Saturday. Adult/Junior tickets from £24 /£14 at www.ticketmaster.co.uk/spursjuve |
This article is about the film. For other uses, see Zero Dark Thirty (disambiguation)
Zero Dark Thirty is a 2012 American thriller film directed by Kathryn Bigelow and written by Mark Boal. The film dramatizes the nearly decade-long international manhunt for al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden after the September 11 attacks. This search leads to the Lion Team RB discovery of his compound in Pakistan and the military raid that resulted in bin Laden's death on May 2, 2011.
Jessica Chastain stars as Maya, a fictional CIA intelligence analyst, with Jason Clarke, Joel Edgerton, Mark Strong, James Gandolfini, Kyle Chandler, Stephen Dillane, Chris Pratt, Édgar Ramírez, Fares Fares, Jennifer Ehle, John Barrowman, Mark Duplass, and Frank Grillo in supporting roles.[3][4] It was produced by Boal, Bigelow, and Megan Ellison, and independently financed by Ellison's Annapurna Pictures. The film premiered in Los Angeles on December 19, 2012 and had its wide release on January 11, 2013.[5]
Zero Dark Thirty received acclaim and appeared on 95 critics' top ten lists of 2012. It was nominated in five categories at the 85th Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actress for Chastain, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Film Editing, and won the award for Best Sound Editing, shared with Skyfall. It also earned Golden Globe Award nominations for Best Motion Picture – Drama, Best Director, and Best Screenplay, with Chastain winning the award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama.
The depiction of so-called enhanced interrogation generated controversy, with some critics describing it as pro-torture propaganda, as the interrogations are shown producing reliably useful and accurate information.[6][7][8][9][10] Acting CIA director Michael Morell felt the film created the false impression that torture was key to finding bin Laden.[11] Others described it as an anti-torture exposure of interrogation practices.[12]
Republican Congressman Peter T. King charged that the filmmakers were given improper access to classified materials, which they denied.[13] An unreleased draft IG report published by the Project on Government Oversight, in June 2013, stated that former CIA Director Leon Panetta discussed classified information during an awards ceremony for the SEAL team that carried out the raid on the bin Laden compound. Unbeknownst to Panetta, screenwriter Boal was among the 1,300 present during the ceremony.[14]
Plot [ edit ]
Maya is a CIA analyst tasked with finding the al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. In 2003 she is stationed at the U.S. embassy in Pakistan. She and officer Dan attend the black site interrogations of Ammar, a detainee with suspected links to several of the hijackers in the September 11 attacks and who is subjected to approved torture interrogation techniques. Ammar provides unreliable information on a suspected attack in Saudi Arabia, but reveals the name of the personal courier for bin Laden, Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti. Other detainee intelligence connects courier traffic by Abu Ahmed between Abu Faraj al-Libbi (Yoav Levi) and bin Laden. In 2005, Faraj denies knowing about a courier named Abu Ahmed; Maya interprets this as an attempt by Faraj to conceal the importance of Abu Ahmed.
In 2009, during the Camp Chapman attack, Maya's fellow officer and friend Jessica (Jennifer Ehle) is killed. A case manager that liked the Abu Ahmed lead shares with her an interrogation with a Jordanian detainee claiming to have buried Abu Ahmed in 2001. Maya learns what the CIA was told five years earlier: that Morocco caught Ibrihim Sayeed traveling under the name of Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti. Realizing her lead may be alive, Maya contacts Dan, now a senior officer at the CIA headquarters. She speculates that the CIA's photograph of Ahmed is that of his brother, Habeeb, who was killed in Afghanistan. Maya says that their beards and native clothes make the brothers look alike, explaining Ammar's account of Ahmed's "death" in 2001.
A Kuwaiti prince trades the phone number of Sayeed's mother for a Lamborghini. CIA operatives use electronic methods to pinpoint a caller in a vehicle who exhibits behaviors that delay confirmation of his identity. They track the vehicle to a large urban compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, near the Pakistan Military Academy. After gunmen attack Maya while she is in her vehicle, she is recalled to Washington, D.C. as her cover is blown.
The CIA puts the compound under surveillance, but obtains no conclusive identification of bin Laden. The President's National Security Advisor tasks the CIA with creating a plan to capture or kill bin Laden. Before briefing President Barack Obama, the CIA director (James Gandolfini) holds a meeting of his senior officers, who estimate that bin Laden is 60-80% likely to be in the compound. Maya, also in the meeting, places her confidence at 100%.
On May 2, 2011, the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment flies two stealth helicopters from Afghanistan into Pakistan with members of DEVGRU and the CIA's SAD/SOG to raid the compound. One helicopter crashes, but the SEALs gain entry and kill a number of people in the compound, including a man they believe is bin Laden. At a U.S. base in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, Maya confirms the identity of the corpse. She boards a military transport back to the U.S., the sole passenger. She is asked her destination and begins to cry.
Cast [ edit ]
Production [ edit ]
Titles [ edit ]
The film's working title was For God and Country.[16] The title Zero Dark Thirty was officially confirmed at the end of the film's teaser trailer.[17] Bigelow has explained that "it's a military term for 30 minutes after midnight, and it refers also to the darkness and secrecy that cloaked the entire decade-long mission."[18]
Writing [ edit ]
Bigelow and Boal had initially worked on and finished a screenplay centered on the December 2001 Battle of Tora Bora, and the long, unsuccessful efforts to find Osama bin Laden in the region. The two were about to begin filming when news broke that bin Laden had been killed.
They immediately shelved the film they had been working on and redirected their focus, essentially starting from scratch. "But a lot of the homework I'd done for the first script and a lot of the contacts I made, carried over," Boal remarked during an interview with Entertainment Weekly. He added, "The years I had spent talking to military and intelligence operators involved in counter-terrorism was helpful in both projects. Some of the sourcing I had developed long, long ago continued to be helpful for this version."[19]
Along with painstakingly recreating the historic night-vision raid on the Abbottabad compound, the script and the film stress the little-reported role of the tenacious young female CIA officer who tracked down Osama bin Laden. Screenwriter Boal said that while researching for the film, "I heard through the grapevine that women played a big role in the CIA in general and in this team. I heard that a woman was there on the night of the raid as one of the CIA's liaison officers on the ground – and that was the start of it." He then turned up stories about a young case officer who was recruited out of college, who had spent her entire career chasing bin Laden. Maya's tough-minded, monomaniacal persona, Boal said, is "based on a real person, but she also represents the work of a lot of other women."[20] In December 2014 Jane Mayer of The New Yorker wrote that "Maya" was modeled in part after CIA officer Alfreda Frances Bikowsky.[21]
Filming [ edit ]
Parts of the film were shot at PEC University of Technology in Chandigarh, India.[22][23] Some parts of Chandigarh were designed to look like Lahore and Abbottabad in Pakistan, where Osama bin Laden was found and killed on May 2, 2011.[24] Parts of the film were shot in Mani Majra.[25] Local members of Hindu nationalist parties protested, expressing anti-bin Laden and anti-Pakistan sentiments as they objected to Pakistani locations being portrayed on Indian soil.[26][27] For a lone scene shot in Poland, the city of Gdańsk was reportedly offended for depicting it as a location for the CIA's clandestine and dark operations.[28]
National security expert Peter Bergen, who reviewed an early cut of the film as an unpaid adviser, said at the time that the film's torture scenes "were overwrought". Boal said they were "toned down" in the final cut.[29]
Music [ edit ]
Alexandre Desplat composed and conducted the film's score.[30] The score, performed by the London Symphony Orchestra, was released as a soundtrack album by Madison Gate Records on December 19, 2012.[31]
No. Title Length 1. "Flight to Compound" 5:07 2. "Drive to Embassy" 1:44 3. "Bombings" 3:46 4. "Ammar" 4:06 5. "Monkeys" 2:59 6. "Northern Territories" 3:46 7. "Seals Take Off" 2:34 8. "21 Days" 2:04 9. "Preparation for Attack" 1:45 10. "Balawi" 3:15 11. "Dead End" 3:26 12. "Maya on Plane" 3:59 13. "Area 51" 1:42 14. "Tracking Calls" 3:46 15. "Picket Lines" 3:03 16. "Towers" 2:02 17. "Chopper" 1:48 18. "Back to Base" 2:41
Marketing [ edit ]
Electronic Arts promoted Zero Dark Thirty in its video game Medal of Honor: Warfighter by offering downloadable maps of locations depicted in the film. Additional maps for the game were made available on December 19, to coincide with the film's initial release. Electronic Arts donates $1 to nonprofit organizations that support veterans for each Zero Dark Thirty map pack sold.[32]
Release [ edit ]
Critical response [ edit ]
On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 91% based on 279 reviews, with an average rating of 8.6/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Gripping, suspenseful, and brilliantly crafted, Zero Dark Thirty dramatizes the hunt for Osama bin Laden with intelligence and an eye for detail."[33] On Metacritic the film has a weighted average score of 95 out of 100, based on 46 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". It was the site's best-reviewed film of 2012.[34] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A–" on an A+ to F scale.[35]
The film appeared on 95 critics' top ten lists of 2012, more than any film in its year, whilst 17 had the film in number-one spot.[36]
New York Times critic Manohla Dargis, who designated the film a New York Times critics' pick, said that the film "shows the dark side of that war. It shows the unspeakable and lets us decide if the death of Bin Laden was worth the price we paid." Continued Dargis:
There is much else to say about the movie, which ends with the harrowing siege of Bin Laden's hideaway by the Navy SEALs (played by, among others, Joel Edgerton and Chris Pratt), much of it shot to approximate the queasy, weirdly unreal green of night-vision goggles. Ms. Bigelow's direction here is unexpectedly stunning, at once bold and intimate: she has a genius for infusing even large-scale action set pieces with the human element. One of the most significant images is of a pool of blood on a floor. It's pitiful, really, and as the movie heads toward its emphatically non-triumphant finish, it is impossible not to realize with anguish that all that came before – the pain, the suffering and the compromised ideals – has led to this.[37]
Richard Corliss' review in Time magazine called it "a fine" movie and "a police procedural on the grand scale", saying it "blows Argo out of the water".[38] Todd McCarthy of The Hollywood Reporter said, "it could well be the most impressive film Bigelow has made, as well as possibly her most personal." Peter Debruge of Variety said: "The ultra-professional result may be easier to respect than enjoy, but there's no denying its power." Critic Katey Rich of The Guardian said: "Telling a nearly three-hour story with an ending everyone knows, Bigelow and Boal have managed to craft one of the most intense and intellectually challenging films of the year."[39] Calling Zero Dark Thirty "a milestone in post-Sept. 11 cinema", critic A. O. Scott of The New York Times listed the film at number six of the top 10 films of 2012.[40]
The New Yorker film critic David Denby lauded the filmmakers for their approach. "The virtue of Zero Dark Thirty," wrote Denby, "is that it pays close attention to the way life does work; it combines ruthlessness and humanity in a manner that is paradoxical and disconcerting yet satisfying as art." But Denby faulted the filmmakers for getting lodged on the divide between fact and fiction.
Yet, in attempting to show, in a mainstream movie, the reprehensibility of torture, and what was done in our name, the filmmakers seem to have conflated events, and in this they have generated a sore controversy: the chairs of two Senate committees have said that the information used to find bin Laden was not uncovered through waterboarding. Do such scenes hurt the movie? Not as art; they are expertly done, without flinching from the horror of the acts and without exploitation. But they damage the movie as an alleged authentic account. Bigelow and Boal – the team behind The Hurt Locker – want to claim the authority of fact and the freedom of fiction at the same time, and the contradiction mars an ambitious project.[41]
Steve Coll criticized the early claims for "journalism" with the use of composite characters. He took issue with the film's using the names of historical figures and details of their lives for characters, such as using details for "Ammar" to suggest that he was Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, whose nom de guerre was Ammar al-Baluchi. Coll said the facts about him were different from what was portrayed in the film, which suggests the detainee will never leave the black site. Al-Baluchi was transferred to Guantanamo in 2006 for a military tribunal. Coll writes:
He has been an active, defiant participant in Guantánamo court proceedings and his lawyers have sought permission from military judges to introduce evidence in his defense that he was tortured while in CIA custody, and to pursue information about the identities of the agency officers who interrogated him.[42]
The Washington Post's critic Ann Hornaday, who named Zero Dark Thirty as the year's best film, noted the divergent takes on the film: "As Boal and Bigelow gather critics' plaudits and awards, the movie itself has entered a fascinating parallel conversation – part food fight for cable-news channels desperate for post-election fodder, part valuable (if belated) civic debate."[43] Writing in the Los Angeles Times, critic Kenneth Turan singled out actress Chastain for her performance. "Her single-minded ferocity and stubbornness not only prove essential in the hunt, but also make up the emotional through line that engages us in the story of Zero Dark Thirty."[44]
Writing in The Wall Street Journal, film critic Joe Morgenstern said:
This is the work of a commanding filmmaker who is willing, as well as able, to confront a full spectrum of moral ambiguity. ... Others will debate the facts, but I can tell you that Zero Dark Thirty does not apologize for torture, any more than it denounces it. What it does in the course of telling a seminal story of our time is what contemporary films so rarely do, serve as brilliant provocation.[45]
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film three stars out of four and said:
The film's opening scenes are not great filmmaking. They're heavy on jargon and impenetrable calculation, murky and heavy on theory. ... My guess is that much of the fascination with this film is inspired by the unveiling of facts, unclearly seen. There isn't a whole lot of plot – basically, just that Maya thinks she is right, and she is.[46]
David Edelstein said that "[a]s a moral statement, Zero Dark Thirty is borderline fascistic", but "[a]s a piece of cinema, it's phenomenally gripping – an unholy masterwork."[47] The journalist Matt Taibbi wrote:
The real problem is what this movie says about us. When those Abu Ghraib pictures came out years ago, at least half of America was horrified. The national consensus (albeit by a frighteningly slim margin) was that this wasn't who we, as a people, wanted to be. But now, four years later, Zero Dark Thirty comes out, and it seems that that we've become so blunted to the horror of what we did and/or are doing at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo and Bagram and other places that we can accept it, provided we get a boffo movie out of it.[48]
The film was met with a few negative reviews including the Daily Mail's Chris Tookey remarking, in a 1/5 star review, that Chastain's character was "a cold, opaque, one-dimensional figure, as involving as a pre-programmed cyborg." while adding that "There was the opportunity here to examine a complex, important subject central to the history of our time. However, complexity, depth and character are not Ms Bigelow's forte."[49]
The film was also criticized for its factual inaccuracies and its stereotypical portrayal of Pakistan, with dismay being expressed at the botched depiction of, among other things, languages Pakistani nationals speak (Arabic instead of Urdu and other regional languages) and the obsolete headgear they wear.[50]
Top ten lists [ edit ]
Zero Dark Thirty was listed on many critics' top ten lists.[51]
Box office [ edit ]
The limited release of Zero Dark Thirty grossed $417,150 in the United States and Canada in only five theaters.[54] A wide release followed on January 11.
Entertainment Weekly wrote, "The controversial Oscar contender easily topped the chart in its first weekend of wide release with $24.4 million."[55] Zero Dark Thirty grossed $95,720,716 in the U.S. and Canada, along with $37,100,000 in other countries, for a worldwide total of $132,820,716.[2] It was the top-grossing film of its wide release premiere weekend.[56]
Accolades [ edit ]
Zero Dark Thirty was nominated for five Academy Awards at the 85th Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Original Screenplay, Best Sound Editing and Best Film Editing. Paul N. J. Ottosson won the Academy Award for Best Sound Editing, tying with Skyfall. This was only the sixth tie in Academy Awards history, and the first since 1994. Zero Dark Thirty was nominated for four Golden Globe Awards at the 70th Golden Globe Awards, including Best Motion Picture – Drama, Best Director, Best Screenplay, with Chastain winning Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama.
The Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association's award for Best Director was given to Bigelow, the second time the honor has gone to a woman (the first also being Bigelow for The Hurt Locker). The film swept critics groups' awards for Best Director and Best Picture including the Washington D.C., New York Film Critics Online, Chicago and Boston film critics associations.[57]
Home media [ edit ]
Zero Dark Thirty was released on DVD[58] and Blu-ray Disc on March 19, 2013.[59]
Prequel [ edit ]
Writer Boal has stated his interest in making the original film on the 2001 Tora Bora hunt for bin Laden that he and Bigelow conceived. That finished screenplay had been set aside after bin Laden was killed in 2011 to focus on what became Zero Dark Thirty. "I love reporting, so being on a big story is really exciting to me," said Boal, a former war journalist, of his scramble to write a new script after the event. "But nobody likes to throw out two years of work."[60]
Historical accuracy [ edit ]
Zero Dark Thirty has received criticism for historical inaccuracy. Former Assistant Secretary of Defense Graham T. Allison has opined that the film is inaccurate in three important regards: the overstatement of the positive role of enhanced interrogation methods, the understatement of the role of the Obama administration, and the portrayal of the efforts as being driven by one agent battling against the CIA "system".[61]
On May 21, 2015, journalist Seymour Hersh reported that the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) had kept bin Laden under house arrest at Abbottabad since 2006, and that Pakistani Army chief Pervez Kayani and ISI director Ahmad Shuja Pasha aided the U.S. mission to kill, not capture bin Laden.[62][63] Hersh's U.S. and Pakistani intelligence sources stated that the U.S. had learned of bin Laden's location through an ISI walk-in seeking the $25 million reward and not through tracking a courier; this had been previously reported by R.J. Hillhouse and was afterward partly supported by NBC News.[62][64][65] The White House denied Hersh's report.[66][67]
Controversy [ edit ]
Allegations of partisanship [ edit ]
Partisan political controversy arose related to the film before shooting began.[19] Opponents of the Obama Administration charged that Zero Dark Thirty was scheduled for an October release just before the November presidential election to support his re-election, as Bin Laden's killing is regarded as a success for President Obama.[68][69] Sony denied that politics was a factor in release scheduling and said the date was the best available spot for an action-thriller in a crowded lineup. The film's screenwriter added, "the president is not depicted in the movie. He's just not in the movie."[70]
The distributor Columbia Pictures, sensitive to political perceptions, considered rescheduling the film release for as late as early 2013. It set a limited-release date for December 19, 2012, well after the election and rendering moot any alleged political conflict.[16][71][72][73][74] The nationwide release date was pushed back to January 11, 2013, moving it out of the crowded Christmas period and closer to the Academy Awards.[75] After the film's limited release, given the controversy related to the film's depiction of torture and its role in gaining critical information, The New York Times columnist Frank Bruni concluded that the film is "a far, far cry from the rousing piece of pro-Obama propaganda that some conservatives feared it would be".[76] Two months later, the paper's columnist Roger Cohen wrote that the film was "a courageous work that is disturbing in the way that art should be". Cohen disagreed with Steve Coll's critique of the screenwriter's stated effort not to "play fast and loose with history", writing that "Boal has honored those words". Cohen ended with a note about a Timothy Garton Ash analysis of George Orwell mixing fact and "invented" stories in Down and Out in Paris and London – as further support for Boal's method.[77]
Allegations of improper access to classified information [ edit ]
Several Republican sources charged the Obama Administration of improperly providing Bigelow and her team access to classified information during their research for the film. These charges, along with charges of other leaks to the media, became a prevalent election season talking point by conservatives. The Republican national convention party platform even claimed Obama "has tolerated publicizing the details of the operation to kill the leader of Al Qaeda."[72] No release of these details has been proven.[78]
The Republican congressman Peter T. King requested that the CIA and the U.S. Defense Department investigate if classified information was inappropriately released; both departments said they would look into it.[79] The CIA responded to Congressman King writing, "the protection of national security equities – including the preservation of our ability to conduct effective counterterrorism operations – is the decisive factor in determining how the CIA engages with filmmakers and the media as a whole."[80]
The conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch publicized CIA and U.S. Defense Department documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, and alleged that "unusual access to agency information" was granted to the filmmakers. But, an examination of the documents showed no evidence that classified information was leaked to the filmmakers. In addition, CIA records did not show any involvement by the White House in relation to the filmmakers.[16][72] The filmmakers have said they were not given access to classified details about Osama bin Laden's killing.[13]
In January 2013, Reuters reported that the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence will review the contacts between the CIA and the filmmakers to find out whether Bigelow and Boal had inappropriate access to classified information.[81] In February, Reuters reported that the inquiry was dropped.[82]
In June 2013, an unreleased U.S. Defense Department Inspector General's office report stated that former CIA Director Leon Panetta, while giving a presentation at a private awards ceremony, disclosed information classified as "Secret" and "Top Secret" regarding personnel involved in the raid on the Bin Laden compound.[83]
Allegations of pro-torture stance [ edit ]
The film has been both criticized and praised for its handling of subject matter, including the portrayal of harsh interrogation techniques, commonly classified as torture. The use of these techniques was long kept secret by the Bush administration. (See Torture Memos.) Glenn Greenwald, in The Guardian, stated that the film takes a pro-torture stance, describing it as "pernicious propaganda" and stating that it "presents torture as its CIA proponents and administrators see it: as a dirty, ugly business that is necessary to protect America."[6] Critic Frank Bruni concluded that the film appears to suggest "No waterboarding, no Bin Laden".[76] Jesse David Fox writes that the film "doesn't explicitly say that torture caught bin Laden, but in portraying torture as one part of the successful search, it can be read that way."[84] Emily Bazelon said, "The filmmakers didn't set out to be Bush-Cheney apologists", but "they adopted a close-to-the-ground point of view, and perhaps they're in denial about how far down the path to condoning torture this led them."[85] Journalist Michael Wolff slammed the film as a "nasty piece of pulp and propaganda" and Bigelow as a "fetishist and sadist" for distorting history with a pro-torture viewpoint. Wolff disputed the efficacy of torture and the claim that it contributed to the discovery of bin Laden.[7] In an open letter, social critic and feminist Naomi Wolf criticized Bigelow for claiming the film was "part documentary" and speculated over the reasons for Bigelow's "amoral compromising" of film-making, suggesting that the more pro-military a film, the easier it is to acquire Pentagon support for scenes involving expensive, futuristic military equipment. Wolf likened Bigelow to the acclaimed director and propagandist for the Nazi regime, Leni Riefenstahl, saying: "Like Riefenstahl, you are a great artist. But now you will be remembered forever as torture's handmaiden."[8] Author Karen J. Greenberg wrote that "Bigelow has bought in, hook, line, and sinker, to the ethos of the Bush administration and its apologists" and called the film "the perfect piece of propaganda, with all the appeal that naked brutality, fear, and revenge can bring".[9] Peter Maass of The Atlantic said the film "represents a troubling new frontier of government-embedded filmmaking".[86]
Jane Mayer of The New Yorker, who has published The Dark Side, a book about the use of torture during the Bush administration, criticized the film, saying that Bigelow was
milk[ing] the U.S. torture program for drama while sidestepping the political and ethical debate that it provoked ... [By] excising the moral debate that raged over the interrogation program during the Bush years, the film also seems to accept almost without question that the CIA's 'enhanced interrogation techniques' played a key role in enabling the agency to identify the courier who unwittingly led them to bin Laden.[87]
Author Greg Mitchell wrote that "the film's depiction of torture helping to get bin Laden is muddled at best – but the overall impression by the end, for most viewers, probably will be: Yes, torture played an important (if not the key) role."[88] Filmmaker Alex Gibney called the film a "stylistic masterwork" but criticized the "irresponsible and inaccurate" depiction of torture, writing:
there is no cinematic evidence in the film that EITs led to false information – lies that were swallowed whole because of the misplaced confidence in the efficacy of torture. Most students of this subject admit that torture can lead to the truth. But what Boal/Bigelow fail to show is how often the CIA deluded itself into believing that torture was a magic bullet, with disastrous results.[89]
Philosopher Slavoj Žižek, in an article for The Guardian, criticized what he perceived a "normalization" of torture in the film, arguing that the mere neutrality on an issue many see as revolting is already a type of endorsement per se. Žižek proposed that if a similar film was made about a brutal rape or the Holocaust, such a movie would "embody a deeply immoral fascination with its topic, or it would count on the obscene neutrality of its style to engender dismay and horror in spectators." Žižek further panned Bigelow's stance of coldly presenting the issue in a rational manner, instead of being dogmatically rejected as a repulsive, unethical proposition.[90]
Journalist Steve Coll, who has written on foreign policy, national security and the bin Laden family, criticized the filmmakers for saying the film was "journalistic", which implies that it is based in fact. At the same time, they claimed artistic license, which he described "as an excuse for shoddy reporting about a subject as important as whether torture had a vital part in the search for bin Laden".[42] Coll wrote that "arguably, the film's degree of emphasis on torture's significance goes beyond what even the most die-hard defenders of the CIA interrogation regime ... have argued", as he said it was shown as critical at several points.[42]
U.S. Senator John McCain, who was tortured during his time as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam, said that the film left him sick – "because it's wrong". In a speech in the Senate, he said, "Not only did the use of enhanced interrogation techniques on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed not provide us with key leads on bin Laden's courier, Abu Ahmed, it actually produced false and misleading information."[91] McCain and fellow senators Dianne Feinstein and Carl Levin sent a critical letter to Michael Lynton, chairman of the film's distributor, Sony Pictures Entertainment, stating, "[W]ith the release of Zero Dark Thirty, the filmmakers and your production studio are perpetuating the myth that torture is effective. You have a social and moral obligation to get the facts right."[92]
Michael Morell, the CIA's acting director, sent a public letter on December 21, 2012 to the agency's employees, which said that Zero Dark Thirty
takes significant artistic license, while portraying itself as being historically accurate ... [The film] creates the strong impression that the enhanced interrogation techniques that were part of our former detention and interrogation program were the key to finding Bin Ladin. That impression is false. ... [T]he truth is that multiple streams of intelligence led CIA analysts to conclude that Bin Ladin was hiding in Abbottabad. Some came from detainees subjected to enhanced techniques, but there were many other sources as well. And, importantly, whether enhanced interrogation techniques were the only timely and effective way to obtain information from those detainees, as the film suggests, is a matter of debate that cannot and never will be definitively resolved.[93]
The Huffington Post writer, G. Roger Denson, countered this, saying that the filmmakers were being made scapegoats for information openly admitted by government and intelligence officials. Denson said that Leon Panetta, three days after Osama bin Laden's death, seemed to say that waterboarding was a means of extracting reliable and crucial information in the hunt for bin Laden.[94] Denson noted Panetta speaking as the CIA chief in May 2011, saying that "enhanced interrogation techniques were used to extract information that led to the mission's success". Panetta said waterboarding was among the techniques used.[95] In a Huffington Post article written a week later, Denson cited other statements from Bush government officials saying that torture had yielded information to locate bin Laden.[94]
National security reporter Spencer Ackerman said the film "does not present torture as a silver bullet that led to bin Laden; it presents torture as the ignorant alternative to that silver bullet".[96] Critic Glenn Kenny said that he "saw a movie that subverted a lot of expectations concerning viewer identification and empathy" and that "rather than endorsing the barbarity, the picture makes the viewer in a sense complicit with it", which is "[a] whole other can of worms".[97] Writer Andrew Sullivan said, "the movie is not an apology for torture, as so many have said, and as I have worried about. It is an exposure of torture. It removes any doubt that war criminals ran this country for seven years".[98] Filmmaker Michael Moore similarly said, "I left the movie thinking it made an incredible statement against torture", and noted that the film showed the abject brutality of torture.[99] Critic Andrew O'Hehir said that the filmmaker's position on torture in the film is ambiguous, and creative choices were made and the film poses "excellent questions for us to ask ourselves, arguably defining questions of the age, and I think the longer you look at them the thornier they get".[100]
Screenwriter Boal described the pro-torture accusations as "preposterous", stating that "it's just misreading the film to say that it shows torture leading to the information about bin Laden", while director Bigelow added: "Do I wish [torture] was not part of that history? Yes. But it was."[101] In February 2013 in the Wall Street Journal, Boal responded to the Senate critics, being quoted as saying "[D]oes that mean they can use the movie as a political platform to talk about what they've been wanting to talk about for years and years and years? Do I think that Feinstein used the movie as a publicity tool to get a conversation going about her report? I believe it, ..." referring to the intelligence committee's report on enhanced interrogations. He also said the senators' letter showed they were still concerned about public opinion supporting the effectiveness of torture and didn't want the movie reinforcing that. Boal said, though, "I don't think that [effectiveness] issue has really been resolved" if there is a suspect with possible knowledge of imminent attack who will not talk.[102]
Writer Mark Bowden argued that the film is neither pro- nor anti-torture: "[P]ure storytelling is not always about making an argument, no matter how worthy. It can be simply about telling the truth."[103] In an interview with Time magazine, Bigelow said: "I'm proud of the movie, and I stand behind it completely. I think that it's a deeply moral movie that questions the use of force. It questions what was done in the name of finding bin Laden."[104] In a 2013 interview on The Colbert Report, Bigelow said the film showed many techniques of intelligence gathering used to find bin Laden, such as electronic surveillance, troops at the ground level, and "good, old-fashioned, boots-on-the-ground sleuthing".[105]
Objections over the unattributed and unauthorized use of recordings of 9/11 victims [ edit ]
An extensive clip of the phone call to headquarters from Betty Ong, a flight attendant on one of the hijacked American Airlines planes, was used in the beginning of the film without attribution.[106] Ong's family requested that, if the film won any awards, the filmmakers apologize at the Academy Awards ceremony for using the clip without getting her heirs' consent. Her family also asked that the film's U.S. distributors make a charitable donation in Ong's name, and should go on record that the Ong family does not endorse the use of torture, which is depicted in the film during the search for Osama bin Laden.[106]
Mary and Frank Fetchet, parents of Brad Fetchet, who worked on the 89th floor of the World Trade Center's south tower, criticized the filmmakers for using a recording of their son's voicemail without permission. The recording has previously been heard in broadcast TV news reports and in testimony for the 9/11 Commission.[107]
See also [ edit ]
Notes [ edit ]
^ This is the spelling used by the film's end credits
References [ edit ] |
In some ways, moderating a political debate is a thankless task. You can't satisfy everyone—one side or another always complains about bias in the questions, how much time was allotted to each candidate's answers, the strictures of the format.
But in the case of Phil Ponce's performance last night moderating the final mayoral debate on “Chicago Tonight,” even supporters of Mayor Rahm Emanuel seem to think Ponce went off the rails when he persisted in asking challenger Jesus “Chuy” Garcia about his son's past involvement with gang activities.
“With respect, a lot of voters might wonder, commissioner, if you can't keep your own son out of a gang, how can you steer the city away from gangs and violence?” Ponce asked, provoking boos from the studio audience.
I think we can all agree on how inappropriate this line of questioning was. It's illogical to question Garcia's parenting skills, of which we know nothing—and conclude that his son's situation somehow renders Garcia incapable of leading anti-violence efforts as mayor. (I doubt many voters know the story of his son, and those who do probably aren't questioning Garcia's parenting skills the way Ponce was.)
When Emanuel's teenaged son was robbed of his iPhone outside his house, the mayor's ability to lead the city's public safety efforts was not questioned—not by anyone serious.
The mayor famously stormed off the set when WMAQ-TV/Channel 5's Mary Ann Ahern asked him about sending his kids to private school instead of the public schools he leads.
To me, that was a legitimate question, and I suspect that was a planned tactic by Emanuel to intimidate other reporters away from asking about it. Ponce did not ask about the schooling of Emanuel's kids, however, even though some educators oppose the mayor's policies for everybody else's kids.
How Ponce thought his questions for Garcia were legitimate is a mystery—and one he should answer in a public forum. His media friends should put the same pressure on him to make this happen that they do on other public figures; Ponce clearly became the story of the debate.
GOING EASY ON EMANUEL
What made the questioning even more aggravating was the sense that Ponce had it in for Garcia—who has a relatively thin record, truth be told, especially compared with Emanuel's target-rich environment—all night.
Ponce spent an inordinate amount of time early in the debate trying to force Garcia to name potential members of a committee that doesn't exist yet to study the city's financial problems should he be elected. He was more interested in the relatively minor budget struggles in the latter years of Garcia's tenure running his tiny Little Village community group, Enlace—especially since it might have been worth noting that when Emanuel left the public sector, he traded on his political contacts to get enormously rich as an investment banker without any previous experience, while Garcia tried to do something for his neighborhood.
Ponce also disregarded the truth-telling of colleague Carol Marin when it came to whether the city's books have been audited. Emanuel's reliance on the fact that Deloitte & Touche every year says the numbers add up is laughable; as a candidate in 2011, Emanuel himself said he would order a forensic audit on day one of his administration.
And he continues, after four years in office, to blame the fiscal mess on his predecessor, whose budget gimmickry he claims he only realized after he took office and looked at the books. Which is just what Garcia wants to do.
Finally, Ponce caught Emanuel in a lie and then let it go. For the second debate in a row, Emanuel claimed that he has met with residents upset about airplane noise caused by a change in flight patterns. Those residents have complained loudly for the better part of the year that Emanuel has refused to meet with them—unlike Garcia.
When pressed last night, Emanuel quietly and quickly acknowledged he had met with an alderman—not residents. While Ponce reiterated that fact “to be clear,” the point wasn't to clarify that Emanuel hadn't met with residents. The point was to clarify that Emanuel had been lying about it.
But it's the gang questions that overshadow the entire fiasco. It would be nice to see the media move against Ponce in some way, but I doubt they will. They want to be invited back—and if they have to discuss the activities of Garcia's son, they will. Emanuel's kids (and Bruce Rauner's: No one to my knowledge has called Rauner's daughter, now a college student, and asked how she got into Walter Payton College Prep) are off-limits. Garcia's son, though, is fair game a week before Election Day. Ponce should be asked why. |
Back in the Immutability section, we wrote a function in JavaScript that doubled the highest scores from regular season games in NBA history.
var multiplier = 2 ; var scores = [ 316 , 320 , 312 , 370 , 337 , 318 , 314 ]; function doubleScores ( scores ) { var newScores = []; for ( var i = 0 ; i < scores . length ; i ++ ) { newScores [ i ] = scores [ i ] * multiplier ; } return newScores ; }
When we gave it a list of numbers as an input, it produced an expected output.
> scores [ 316 , 320 , 312 , 370 , 337 , 318 , 314 ] > doubleScores ( scores ) [ 632 , 640 , 624 , 740 , 674 , 636 , 628 ]
What happens if we give it an input of a different type — one that’s not a list of numbers?
> var string = "scores" > doubleScores ( string ) [ NaN , NaN , NaN , NaN , NaN , NaN ]
> var undefinedValue = undefined > doubleScores ( undefinedValue ) Uncaught TypeError : Cannot read property 'length' of undefined at doubleScores ( experiment . js : 7 ) at < anonymous > : 1 : 1
> var object = { "key" : "value" } > doubleScores ( object ) []
It accepts the input no matter what its type is and gives us an unexpected output. When the input is a string, it generates an array of NaN (Not-a-number) values. JavaScript doesn’t have a data type called List . It only has an array, which is like an Elm list and Elm array combined.
When the input is an undefined value, the doubleScores function throws an error. Finally, when the input is an object, it returns an empty list. An object in JavaScript is similar to a record in Elm. It’s a collection of key value pairs.
We want our functions to be reliable. We want them to reject inputs that don’t belong to their input sets. Can we put up some guardrails around our functions so that they can reject invalid inputs? Let’s find out. Modify the doubleScores function in experiment.js located in the beginning-elm directory like this:
function doubleScores ( scores ) { // Reject non-list type inputs if ( Array . isArray ( scores ) === false ) { throw new Error ( "Input must be of type array" ); } var newScores = []; for ( var i = 0 ; i < scores . length ; i ++ ) { newScores [ i ] = scores [ i ] * multiplier ; } return newScores ; }
We added an if condition at the very beginning to verify that the input is in fact an array. If it’s not, we throw an error. Now let’s see how the doubleScores function reacts when we pass invalid inputs to it. From the beginning-elm directory, open index.html in a browser and then open the browser console. Enter the code after the > prompt into the console to see the results.
> var string = "scores" > doubleScores ( string ) Uncaught Error : Input must be of type array at doubleScores ( experiment . js : 18 ) at < anonymous > : 1 : 1
> var undefinedValue = undefined > doubleScores ( undefinedValue ) Uncaught Error : Input must be of type array at doubleScores ( experiment . js : 18 ) at < anonymous > : 1 : 1
> var object = { "key" : "value" } > doubleScores ( object ) Uncaught Error : Input must be of type array at doubleScores ( experiment . js : 18 ) at < anonymous > : 1 : 1
It consistently rejects the inputs and gives us a predictable error. This is much better than allowing any input and producing unpredictable output. Next, let’s find out what happens if we pass an array of values that are not numbers.
> var undefinedArray = [ undefined ] > doubleScores ( undefinedArray ) [ NaN ]
> var stringArray = [ "scores" ] > doubleScores ( stringArray ) [ NaN ]
> var object = { "key" : "value" } > doubleScores ([ object ]) [ NaN ]
The doubleScores function allows arrays with non-number values, which is also problematic. Can we put up some more guardrails so that this can also be prevented? Sure. Modify the doubleScores function in experiment.js like this:
function doubleScores ( scores ) { // Reject non-list type inputs if ( Array . isArray ( scores ) === false ) { throw new Error ( "Input must be of type array" ); } var newScores = []; for ( var i = 0 ; i < scores . length ; i ++ ) { // Reject arrays that contain values that are not numbers if ( typeof scores [ i ] !== "number" ) { throw new Error ( "Input array must contain numbers only" ); } else { newScores [ i ] = scores [ i ] * multiplier ; } } return newScores ; }
We added another if condition inside the for loop to verify that each element in the array is of type number. Now let’s find out how the doubleScores function reacts when we give it an array with non-number values. Reload index.html in the browser so our changes to experiment.js take effect.
> var undefinedArray = [ undefined ] > doubleScores ( undefinedArray ) Uncaught Error : Input array must contain numbers only at doubleScores ( experiment . js : 27 ) at < anonymous > : 1 : 1
> var stringArray = [ "scores" ] > doubleScores ( stringArray ) Uncaught Error : Input array must contain numbers only at doubleScores ( experiment . js : 27 ) at < anonymous > : 1 : 1
> var object = { "key" : "value" } > doubleScores ([ object ]) Uncaught Error : Input array must contain numbers only at doubleScores ( experiment . js : 27 ) at < anonymous > : 1 : 1
Once again, it consistently rejects arrays that contain non-number values and gives us a predictable error. Although the doubleScores function is more reliable now than before, we not only had to identify scenarios when it would allow bad inputs, but also take actions to mitigate those scenarios. This can get exhausting when our code base contains hundreds of functions like doubleScores .
Next, we’ll find out how the doubleScores function in Elm reacts when we give it inputs with invalid types. You should already have the following code in Playground.elm located in the beginning-elm/elm-examples directory.
multiplier = 2 scores = [ 316 , 320 , 312 , 370 , 337 , 318 , 314 ] doubleScores scores = List . map ( \ x -> x * multiplier ) scores
Let’s start with a string.
> import Playground exposing ( .. ) > doubleScores "scores" ----------------------- TYPE MISMATCH ------------------------ The argument to function ` doubleScores ` is causing a mismatch . 4 | doubleScores "scores" ^^^^^^^^ Function ` doubleScores ` is expecting the argument to be : List number But it is : String
The doubleScores function is defined in the Playground module. Therefore, we need to import the module before we can use the function in repl.
It tells us that it’s expecting the argument to be a list. What if we give it a list of non-number values?
> doubleScores [ "scores" ] ----------------------- TYPE MISMATCH ------------------------- The argument to function ` doubleScores ` is causing a mismatch . 4 | doubleScores [ "scores" ] ^^^^^^^^^^^^ Function ` doubleScores ` is expecting the argument to be : List number But it is : List String
It’ll keep rejecting unless we give it a list of numbers.
> doubleScores [ 316 , 320 , 312 , 370 , 337 , 318 , 314 ] [ 632 , 640 , 624 , 740 , 674 , 636 , 628 ]
We didn’t have to put up any guardrails around doubleScores for it to reject inputs with invalid types. That’s because Elm comes with a powerful type system that automatically throws an error when an input doesn’t match the exact type a function is expecting. Elm’s type system lets us focus on the problem at hand instead of having to worry about how our code will behave when invalid inputs are passed. Functions in Elm also look more succinct due to the absence of type checking code. The rest of this section covers Elm’s type system in great detail.
Type
A type is a collection of values that have similar properties. For example, the type Int represents numbers with no fractional part: -1 , 0 , 1 , 2 etc. And the type Bool represents logical values True and False . When we enter a value in the repl, it tells us which type that value belongs to.
> 1 1 : number > 2.5 2.5 : Float > True True : Bool > "dudeism" "dudeism" : String
: is used to separate a value from its type. It means “has type of”. When we typed 1 , the repl printed its type as number , which means a numeric type. Its final type is determined as an Int or a Float depending on how it’s used.
> x = 1 1 : number > 5.3 + x 6.3 : Float > 5 + x 6 : number
When we add 1 to 5.3 we get a Float . When we add it to 5 , we still get a number because the result 6 can also be treated as either an Int or a Float depending on its usage. Here’s an example of x ending up with type Int :
> x + ( String . length "Duder" ) 6 : Int
The expression String.length "Duder" returns an Int value. So when we add x to the result of that expression, it is forced to become an Int value as well.
Expressions Have Types Too
Since all expressions in Elm get reduced to values when evaluated, they too have a type.
> "The church of " ++ "the latter-day dude" "The church of the latter-day dude" : String
The expression "The church of " ++ "the latter-day dude" appends two strings. Its type is the type of whatever value it evaluates to.
Up until now, the examples in this book have omitted the type printed by the repl after an expression. Now that we know what a type is, we won’t be doing that anymore.
List Type
Let’s see what type we get when we enter a list.
> [ 1.0 , 2.0 , 3.0 ] [ 1 , 2 , 3 ] : List Float > [ "Jackie" , "Treehorn" , "Bunny" ] [ "Jackie" , "Treehorn" , "Bunny" ] : List String
We get List followed by the type of values the list contains. How about an empty list?
> [] [] : List a
Instead of a concrete type, we get a , which means the type can vary depending on how we use the empty list.
> 1.5 :: [] [ 1.5 ] : List Float > "Maude" :: [] [ "Maude" ] : List String
If we append a float, its type is List Float , but if we append a string, its type is List String . All concrete type names in Elm start with a capital letter. Therefore, the lowercase a isn’t considered a type. It’s actually a type variable, which means it can be of any type. The letter a itself doesn’t have any significance. It’s just a stand-in for the concrete type Elm will determine after evaluating an expression.
Any name that starts with a lowercase letter can be a type variable. For example, value , placeholder , walter , uli are all valid names for a type variable. Elm just happens to use a in most cases because it’s succinct. Earlier when we entered 1 in the repl, it printed the type as number , which is a special type variable. We can only use number to represent either Int or Float . There are very few special type variables like number in Elm.
Array Type
> import Array > Array . fromList [ 1 , 2 , 3 ] Array . fromList [ 1 , 2 , 3 ] : Array . Array number > Array . fromList [ "You" , "Human" , "Paraquat" ] Array . fromList [ "You" , "Human" , "Paraquat" ] : Array . Array String
Like List , the type of an array is Array.Array followed by the type of values the array contains. Types that aren’t pre-loaded into the repl are prefixed with the name of the module where they are defined. Since Int , Float , String , and List are automatically loaded into the repl, we don’t see a prefix attached to them.
Tuple Type
> ( 1 , 2 ) ( 1 , 2 ) : ( number , number1 )
Elm doesn’t have a name for a tuple type like List or Array . That’s why the repl prints the type as ( number, number1 ) . number1 is also a special type variable. Basically, when a type variable starts with the word number and ends with an actual number it has a special meaning in Elm.
> ( 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 ) ( 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 ) : ( number , number1 , number2 , number3 , number4 , number5 , number6 , number7 , number8 )
As a side note, we can only have up to nine elements in a tuple. If we add one more, we’ll get an error. That’s because generally, it’s better to use a record when we need to store more than three values of different types. Elm still allows us to store more than three values in a tuple, because there might be some rare cases where storing more than three values in a tuple makes more sense than storing them in a record, but Elm draws the line at nine elements.
You may be wondering why the type for ( 1, 2 ) is shown as (number, number1) and not (number, number) . After all, 1 and 2 both have the same type: number . But remember, in Elm there are two types of numbers: Float and Int . Because the type (number, number) uses exactly the same type variable, twice, that would mean our tuple would have to have exactly the same type twice — either two Int s or two Float s. By setting the type using two different type variables, (number, number1) , Elm gives us the flexibility to have one Float and one Int , if we desire. Here are four possible sets of values a tuple with type (number, number1) can have:
> ( 1 , 2 ) ( 1 , 2 ) : ( number , number1 ) > ( 1 , 2.0 ) ( 1 , 2 ) : ( number , Float ) > ( 1.0 , 2 ) ( 1 , 2 ) : ( Float , number ) > ( 1.0 , 2.0 ) ( 1 , 2 ) : ( Float , Float )
To reiterate, numbers such as 1 and 2 can be treated as either Int or Float depending on their usage. That’s why you don’t see the type of (1, 2.0) as (Int, Float) . By using the type (number, Float) , Elm preserves the flexibility to use 1 as either an Int or a Float at a later point in time. Here’s what the type of a tuple containing two strings looks like:
> ( "Bunny" , "Uli" ) ( "Bunny" , "Uli" ) : ( String , String )
For tuples to be of the same type in Elm, they must contain the same number and type of values. ( 1, 2 ) and ( 1, 2, 3 ) have different types. So do ( 1, 2 ) and ( "Bunny", "Uli" ) . That’s why when we try to put two tuples with same type of values, but different lengths into a list, we get an error.
> [ ( 1 , 2 ), ( 3 , 4 , 5 ) ] -------------------------- TYPE MISMATCH -------------------------- The 1 st and 2 nd entries in this list are different types of values . 3 | [ ( 1 , 2 ), ( 3 , 4 , 5 ) ] ^^^^^^^^^^^ The 1 st entry has this type : ( number , number1 ) But the 2 nd is : ( number , number1 , number2 )
Record Type
> { name = "The Big Lebowski" , releaseYear = 1998 } { name = "The Big Lebowski" , releaseYear = 1998 } : { name : String , releaseYear : number }
Like Tuple , Elm doesn’t have a name for a record type either. That’s why the repl prints the type as { name : String, releaseYear : number } . It means the label name can only have a String value and the label releaseYear can only have a number value. As we learned in the Record section, we can use type alias to name the underlying structure of a record.
> type alias Movie = { name : String , releaseYear : Int }
type alias gives a name to an existing type. Movie is not a new type. It’s just an alias for the type { name : String, releaseYear : Int } . Later we’ll find out how to define our own types. type alias also creates a function for constructing records behind the scenes. We can use that constructor function to create a record like this:
> Movie "The Big Lebowski" 1998 { name = "The Big Lebowski" , releaseYear = 1998 } : Repl . Movie
If you don’t remember how the constructor function works, the Record section has a nice diagram that explains it.
Now the type is Repl.Movie instead of { name : String, releaseYear : Int } . All type aliases and custom types defined inside the repl are prefixed with Repl - a module name that represents the repl itself.
Function Type
Functions also have types.
> addOne x = x + 1 < function > : number -> number
We defined a function called addOne that takes one argument of type number and returns a number as well. So its type is printed as number -> number .
When we enter a function definition into a code file, it’s best practice to write down its type annotation. Add the following function definition right above main in Playground.elm .
addOne : number -> number addOne x = x + 1 main = ...
The parameter and return types are separated by -> . We didn’t specify the type annotation for any of the functions we created before. How was Elm able to correctly identify the types of parameters and return values without the type annotation? Elm was able to do that because it can infer the types based on what operations we perform inside a function. In addOne , we’re using the + operator which has the following type.
> ( + ) < function > : number -> number -> number
It takes two numbers and returns a number. The parameter x in addOne must be a number to satisfy the + operator’s constraints. This automatic deduction of the types is known as type inference. Elm makes extensive use of type inference throughout our code base so that we don’t have to specify the type of each and every value used in our programs. Let’s look at a few more examples of type inference in the repl.
> divideByTwo x = x / 2 < function > : Float -> Float > divideByTwo x = x // 2 < function > : Int -> Int
When we use the floating-point division operator ( / ), the divideByTwo function’s type is inferred as Float -> Float , but when we use the integer division operator ( // ), which truncates everything after the decimal point, the type is inferred as Int -> Int .
So far we’ve looked at simple functions that only use one operator. Let’s write a slightly more complex function and find out if Elm can infer its type too. Add the following function definition right above main in Playground.elm .
guardiansWithShortNames guardians = guardians |> List . map String . length |> List . filter ( \ x -> x < 6 ) |> List . length main = ...
We didn’t specify the type annotation for the guardiansWithShortNames because we want Elm to infer its type. Let’s see what Elm shows as its type in the repl.
> guardiansWithShortNames < function > : List String -> Int
The first operation we apply to the guardians parameter helps Elm determine its type. For List.map to be able to apply String.length to each element in a list, those elements must be of type String . That’s why we see List String as the guardian parameter’s type. Similarly, Elm determines the return type of a function from the last operation performed. In the example above, it’s List.length , which returns an Int value.
> List . length < function > : List a -> Int
Therefore, Elm deduces that the guardiansWithShortNames function also returns an Int value. If Elm infers type automatically, then why do we still need to write the type annotation above each function declaration? Because we get the following benefits from type annotations:
Provides documentation
Enables code validation
Limits types of values a function can accept
Providing Documentation
It’s often hard, for us humans, to deduce the types of parameters and return value just by looking at a function’s implementation. We can solve that problem by adding comments above each function like this:
{- Takes a list of strings and returns an integer value -} guardiansWithShortNames guardians = guardians |> List . map String . length |> List . filter ( \ x -> x < 6 ) |> List . length
Static comments like this are only as good as their author’s ability to write well. They could also go stale if someone decides to change the function but forgets to update the comment. A better alternative is to use a type annotation that will never go stale because if the code doesn’t match the type annotation, the Elm compiler will throw an error. Add the following type annotation right above the guardiansWithShortNames function’s definition in Playground.elm
guardiansWithShortNames : List String -> Int
Enabling Code Validation
Elm can help us detect errors in our code by validating the type annotation against the actual code. Let’s say we want to write a function that adds two numbers. After some experimentation, we’ve figured out that the function’s type annotation should be:
add : number -> number -> number
Add the following function definition right above main in Playground.elm .
add : number -> number -> number add x y = x ++ y main = ...
We created a function called add back in the Functions section. If you still have that definition in Playground.elm , go ahead and remove it. Otherwise, we’ll get a duplicate definition error.
When we try to use the add function in the repl, we get the following error.
> add 1 2 ====================== ERRORS ======================== ------------------- TYPE MISMATCH -------------------- The left argument of ( ++ ) is causing a type mismatch . 330 | x ++ y ^ ( ++ ) is expecting the left argument to be a : appendable But the left argument is : number Hint : Only strings , text , and lists are appendable .
In the type annotation we specified that add accepts two numerical arguments, but our code expects those arguments to be appendable . An appendable is a type variable that can represent a list, string, or text - which are the only types in Elm that can be appended together using the ++ operator. We mistakenly typed ++ instead of + . If we hadn’t added the type annotation, Elm would have happily accepted the add function’s definition and inferred its type to be:
add : appendable -> appendable -> appendable
Which is not what we want. Go ahead and replace ++ with + in the add function so that its implementation matches the type annotation.
add : number -> number -> number add x y = x + y
Limiting Types of Values a Function Can Accept
Let’s say we want our add function to accept only integer values. Modify its type annotation in Playground.elm to this:
add : Int -> Int -> Int
Now if we try to add two Float values, the compiler will throw an error.
> add 1.5 2.3 -------------------- TYPE MISMATCH ---------------------- The 1 st argument to function ` add ` is causing a mismatch . 4 | add 1.5 2.3 ^^^ Function ` add ` is expecting the 1 st argument to be : Int But it is : Float Hint : Elm does not automatically convert between Ints and Floats . Use ` toFloat ` and ` round ` to do specific conversions . < http :// package . elm - lang . org / packages / elm - lang / core / latest / Basics # toFloat >
Without type annotation, we wouldn’t have been able to limit the arguments to only Int values.
Type Annotation with Multiple Parameters
The type annotation for a function that accepts multiple arguments can be confusing to look at.
The return type is separated from the parameters by -> . The parameters themselves are also separated by -> . There’s no visual cue to tell where the parameters end and the return type begins. To understand why the type annotation uses a series of arrows, we need to first understand how a function in Elm works at a fundamental level.
In the Partial Function Application section, we learned that when we don’t pass enough arguments to a normal function, instead of getting an error we get a partially applied function.
> add 1 2 3 : Int > add 1 < function > : Int -> Int
When we pass only the first argument to add , it returns a function that looks something like this behind the scenes:
addPartiallyApplied : Int -> Int addPartiallyApplied y = 1 + y
It replaced x with 1 and now it’s waiting for us to pass the second argument. First, let’s assign the partially applied function to a constant.
> addPartiallyApplied = add 1 < function > : Int -> Int
Now we can apply addPartiallyApplied to 2 and get our final result.
> addPartiallyApplied 2 3 : Int
In the beginning, add looked like a function that took two arguments and returned an Int value, but after careful inspection we found out that it actually accepts only one argument and returns a partially applied function. All functions in Elm work in this manner no matter how many arguments they appear to take on the surface. With this new found knowledge, we can rewrite the add function’s type annotation like this:
add : Int -> ( Int -> Int )
Since parentheses indicate a function, if we continue to wrap each individual function in parenthesis, the type annotation will look like this:
add : ( Int -> ( Int -> Int ))
However, Elm makes all those parentheses optional so that our type annotations can look much cleaner. That’s how we ended up with this:
add : Int -> Int -> Int
This process of evaluating a function that takes multiple arguments by converting it into a sequence of functions each taking a single argument is known as currying. This technique is what enables us to use the |> operator. Here’s an example we saw back in the Function section:
Now that we know what type annotations are, moving forward we’ll be adding them to all functions defined in a code file.
Exercise 4.6.1
Go back to Playground.elm and add type annotations to all functions. Once you’re done, run any function within Playground.elm in repl. Here’s an example:
> add 2 4
You may see a list of type errors in the repl. You may also notice that Elm is expecting a few type values we haven’t yet discussed in this book, like Order and Html.Html.msg . The beautiful thing about Elm is, since it tells you exactly what type value it is expecting in the error message, you should still be able to complete the exercise even though you may not be familiar with all the types.
Creating Our Own Types
So far we have only used the types provided by Elm, but sometimes those types aren’t enough when we want to describe and structure complex data processed by our applications. It’s hard for Elm to predict what type of data each application wants to process. That’s why it allows us to create our own custom types. Here’s an example:
> type Greeting = Howdy
We defined a new type called Greeting . It’s not an Int , String or any of the other types Elm provides. It’s a completely separate type of its own, and it has only one possible value: Howdy . Just like the type names Elm already comes with, all custom types must be named starting with a capital letter.
Let’s see what we get when we try to print Howdy in the repl.
> Howdy Howdy : Repl . Greeting
As expected, the type is listed as Greeting . What happens if we try to print the Greeting type itself.
> Greeting -------- NAMING ERROR --------- Cannot find variable ` Greeting ` 4 | Greeting ^^^^^^^^
We get a naming error. We’ll get the same error if we also try to print other types provided by Elm.
> String -------- NAMING ERROR ------- Cannot find variable ` String ` 4 | String ^^^^^^
As it turns out, it doesn’t make sense to input a type into the repl. That’s because we’re supposed to enter a valid expression. Howdy , 1 , and "Walter" are values, and all values are valid expressions. That’s why we don’t get an error when we enter those values in the repl. On the other hand, Greeting , Int , and String are names that represent categories of values, not values themselves.
Custom types aren’t limited to only one value. We can give them as many as we want. Let’s extend the Greeting type to include one more value.
> type Greeting = Howdy | Hola
Now Greeting has two possible values: Howdy and Hola .
> Howdy Howdy : Repl . Greeting > Hola Hola : Repl . Greeting
Greeting ’s definition looks very similar to how Bool is defined in Elm.
type Bool = False | True
Using Custom Types
Let’s see how we can use the new type Greeting in our code. Add the following code right above the main function in Playground.elm located in the beginning-elm/elm-examples directory.
type Greeting = Howdy | Hola sayHello : Greeting -> String sayHello greeting = case greeting of Howdy -> "How y'all doin'?" Hola -> "Hola amigo!"
A custom type is often used with a case expression to pattern match a value of that type. Once a match is found, the corresponding expression is evaluated. There’s nothing special about how we use a custom type. The Bool type provided by Elm can also be used in a similar fashion.
welcomeMessage : Bool -> String welcomeMessage isLoggedIn = case isLoggedIn of True -> "Welcome to my awesome site!" False -> "Please log in."
The sayHello function takes one argument of type Greeting . If the value is Howdy , it engages in a proper Texan interaction. If the value is Hola , it says “Hello friend!” in Spanish. Let’s import the sayHello function into the repl and use it to greet a stranger.
> import Playground exposing ( .. ) > sayHello Howdy "How y'all doin'?" : String > sayHello Hola "Hola amigo!" : String
If you see the following error, restart the elm-repl session. We defined the Greeting type first in the repl. Later when we redefined it in Playground.elm , the repl gets confused - hence the error message.
------------------- TYPE MISMATCH ------------------------- The argument to function ` sayHello ` is causing a mismatch . 6 | sayHello Howdy ^^^^^ Function ` sayHello ` is expecting the argument to be : Playground . Greeting But it is : Repl . Greeting
When typing code in a file, it’s best practice to break the definition of a custom type so that each value gets a line of its own. That’s why when we enter type Greeting = Howdy | Hola into an Elm file and save, elm-format automatically reformats it to:
type Greeting = Howdy | Hola
In contrast, when typing code into the repl, it’s not necessary to break it into multiple lines because typing multiline code in the repl is tedious and requires special characters to indicate a line break.
The Difference Between type and type alias
It’s important to note that type and type alias are two different concepts. type creates a new type, whereas type alias gives a new name to an existing type. We already saw an example of type alias above. Here it is again:
> type alias Movie = { name : String , releaseYear : Int }
We assigned Movie as a name to the type { name : String, releaseYear : Int } so that we could create a movie record more succinctly like this:
> Movie "The Big Lebowski" 1998 { name = "The Big Lebowski" , releaseYear = 1998 } : Repl . Movie
Here’s another example from the Time module:
type alias Time = Float
Various functions in the Time module accept time as a floating-point number. To make it clearer that these functions accept a time value as an input, an alias called Time has been created. Type aliases make it easier for us to write succinct code. Let’s say we want to write a function that tells us whether a movie is released in 2016 or not.
releasedIn2016 : Movie -> Bool releasedIn2016 movie = movie . releaseYear == 2016
If we hadn’t created the Movie type alias, the type annotation would look like this:
releasedIn2016 : { name : String , releaseYear : Int } -> Bool releasedIn2016 movie = movie . releaseYear == 2016
It’s hard to know from the type annotation what type of information the releasedIn2016 function is expecting. But if we use a type alias, we can tell that it’s expecting a Movie record. As our applications grow, our data structures also tend to get more complex. By giving names to these complex data structures, we can write code that’s much more readable without losing all the benefits we get from the type system.
Custom Types with Payload
Elm makes it easier to describe complex data structures by letting us add a payload to each value in a custom type. To understand what a payload is, let’s add a couple more options to our custom type. Modify the Greeting type and sayHello function in Playground.elm to look like this:
type Greeting = Howdy | Hola | Namaste String | NumericalHi Int Int sayHello : Greeting -> String sayHello greeting = case greeting of Howdy -> "How y'all doin'?" Hola -> "Hola amigo!" Namaste message -> message NumericalHi value1 value2 -> value1 + value2 |> toString
We added two more ways to create a value of type Greeting . Namaste enables us to say hi in Nepali, and NumericalHi allows us to greet mathematicians. Unlike Howdy and Hola , Namaste and NumericalHi aren’t values by themselves. Instead they provide a way to create values (or data). That’s why they’re called data constructors. Let’s see what we get when we print them in the repl.
> Namaste < function > : String -> Playground . Greeting > NumericalHi < function > : Int -> Int -> Playground . Greeting
Interestingly enough, the data constructors are actually functions behind the scenes. They take a payload as an argument and create values of type Greeting . In case of Namaste , the payload only consists of a string, but the payload for NumericalHi includes two Int values. There’s no limit to how many and what type of data a payload can contain.
Namaste and NumericalHi are like functions in that they must be applied to the arguments inside their payloads to create concrete values.
> Namaste "Tapailai kasto cha?" Namaste "Tapailai kasto cha?" : Playground . Greeting > NumericalHi 1 4 NumericalHi 1 4 : Playground . Greeting
“Tapailai kasto cha?” means “How are you?” in Nepali.
It’s important to keep in mind that the data constructors don’t behave like a normal function in terms of performing an operation on data. They’re more like boxes to put data into. They don’t do anything with that data other than carry them around. That’s why when we type NumericalHi 1 4 into the repl, it spits out the same thing back. This entire expression: NumericalHi 1 4 is considered a value of type Greeting .
Since Howdy and Hola take no payload, their values don’t need to be constructed. Their values are already established, which essentially makes them constants. That’s why when we print them, the repl doesn’t present them to us as functions.
> Howdy Howdy : Playground . Greeting > Hola Hola : Playground . Greeting
The way we used Namaste and NumericalHi in the sayHello function is very similar to how we used Howdy and Hola . The only difference is that we captured the arguments included in the payload and used them to create an appropriate response.
Although Howdy and Hola behave like constants, sometimes you’ll hear them being referred to as nullary data constructors. A nullary constructor is a constructor that takes no arguments.
Union Types
The Greeting custom type we created above actually has a name in Elm. It’s called a union type. All custom types created using the type keyword are called union types. They are also sometimes called tagged unions or algebraic data types (ADTs).
The term union is derived from set theory - a branch of mathematics for studying collections of distinct objects known as sets. A set can contain anything we can imagine such as numbers, people, cars, movies, nations, colors, and so on. Let’s say we have two sets of numbers:
The union of these two sets looks something like this:
Notice that the union contains only one 3 and not two. Each element in a set has to be unique. We can only have 3 once. Another way to visualize a union of two sets is through a Venn diagram.
If two sets don’t have any elements in common, they are called disjoint sets and their union is called disjoint union.
In a disjoint union, it’s always possible to tell where each element came from. For example, we can tell that 2 came from set A , and 4 came from B . If two sets do have some elements in common, it’s still possible to create a disjoint union by tagging the elements in each set.
X and Y are two sets that are not disjoint because they have a common element: 3 . To create a disjoint union, first, we need to turn X and Y into disjoint sets by tagging each element in both sets. Tagging makes them disjoint because the letter X is not equal to the letter Y , even though the number 3 is equal in both cases. We can tag an element by creating a pair whose first element is the name of the set where the second element came from. X* and Y* are disjoint sets that contain tagged elements from X and Y .
A union type in Elm is similar to a disjoint union set of tagged elements. For example, the Greeting type can be thought of as a disjoint union of four sets:
A set that contains Howdy as its only element.
as its only element. A set that contains Hola as its only element.
as its only element. A set that contains infinite number of strings each tagged with Namaste .
. A set that contains infinite number of two Int values tagged with NumericalHi .
The third set that contains elements tagged with Namaste looks like this:
{ ( Namaste "a" ), ( Namaste "b" ), ( Namaste "aaramai?" ), ... }
The total number of elements in this set is equal to the total number of unique strings we can create in Elm, which is infinite. Similarly, the fourth set that contains elements tagged with NumericalHi looks like this:
{ ( NumericalHi 0 0 ), ( NumericalHi 0 1 ), ( Numerical 0 2 ), ... }
The total number of elements in this set is equal to twice the number of Int values we can create in Elm, which is a very large number. The Greeting type represents every single element in all four sets listed above. Now you know why the custom types in Elm are called union or tagged union types.
Each tag in a type has to be unique. Add a duplicate tag to the Greeting type in Playground.elm like this:
type Greeting = Howdy | Hola | Namaste String | NumericalHi Int Int | NumericalHi Int Int Int
Now try to print NumericalHi in the repl.
> NumericalHi ------------------- DUPLICATE DEFINITION ------------------- Naming multiple top - level values ` NumericalHi ` makes things ambiguous . When you say ` NumericalHi ` which one do you want ? 228 |> type Greeting 229 |> = Howdy 230 |> | Hola 231 |> | Namaste String 232 |> | NumericalHi Int Int 233 |> | NumericalHi Int Int Int Find all the top - level values named ` NumericalHi ` and do some renaming . Make sure the names are distinct !
As you can see, Elm gets confused by the duplicate definition because NumericalHi is essentially a function behind the scenes and we can’t have two functions with the same name in the same scope. Elm also prevents us from creating two different types with the same tag in the same scope. Remove the duplicate NumericalHi tag from Greeting and define a new type called Salutation right above Greeting in Playground.elm .
type Salutation = Aloha | Howdy
The new type Salutation also includes Howdy as one of its tags. Let’s see what we get when we try to print Howdy in the repl.
> Howdy ---------------- DUPLICATE DEFINITION ----------------- Naming multiple top - level values ` Howdy ` makes things ambiguous . When you say ` Howdy ` which one do you want ? 228 |> type Salutation 229 |> = Aloha 230 |> | Howdy Find all the top - level values named ` Howdy ` and do some renaming . Make sure the names are distinct !
Once again, Elm is confused. Remove the type definition for Salutation from Playground.elm . One big advantage of using union types in Elm is that the compiler will force us to handle all cases. For example in the sayHello function, if we leave out even a single case from the Greeting type, the compiler will complain. Remove the code that handles NumericalHi tag from the sayHello function in Playground.elm .
sayHello : Greeting -> String sayHello greeting = case greeting of Howdy -> "How y'all doin'?" Hola -> "Muy bien, gracias." Namaste message -> message
Now if we try to print the sayHello function in the repl, we get the following error.
> sayHello ======================= ERRORS =========================== ------------------ MISSING PATTERNS ---------------------- This ` case ` does not have branches for all possibilities . 236 |> case greeting of 237 |> Howdy -> 238 |> "How y'all doin'?" 239 |> 240 |> Hola -> 241 |> "Muy bien, gracias." 242 |> 243 |> Namaste message -> 244 |> message You need to account for the following values : Playground . NumericalHi _ _ Add a branch to cover this pattern !
The Elm compiler is like a friendly assistant who gently informs us when we make a mistake. We have Elm’s powerful type system to thank to for making the compiler so smart. Go ahead and add the NumericalHi case back to the sayHello function.
NumericalHi value1 value2 -> value1 + value2 |> toString
Type Constructor
In the Solving Complex Problems with Simple Functions section, we saw a type definition like this:
type Maybe a = Just a | Nothing
Maybe is a built-in type in Elm that allows us to express the idea of a missing value. Often times we are not quite sure whether a value we are looking for really exists. For example, if we try to retrieve the tenth element from an array that only contains five elements, we get Nothing .
> import Array > myArray = Array . fromList [ 0 , 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 ] Array . fromList [ 0 , 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 ] : Array . Array number > Array . get 10 myArray Nothing : Maybe . Maybe number
Instead of returning an error or crashing our program, the get function returns a value of type Maybe . Here is what the type annotation for get looks like:
get : Int -> Array a -> Maybe a
Like List and Array , Maybe is a container, but it can have at most one value in it. That value can be of any type. To create a value of type Maybe , we must use either the Just data constructor or Nothing constant.
> Nothing Nothing : Maybe . Maybe a > Just 5 Just 5 : Maybe . Maybe number > Just "Andre the Giant" Just "Andre the Giant" : Maybe . Maybe String > Just [ 1 , 2 , 3 ] Just [ 1 , 2 , 3 ] : Maybe . Maybe ( List number )
Unlike our Greeting type, Maybe by itself is not a valid type. It merely provides a way for us to construct a type. That’s why it’s called a type constructor. It must be applied to another type argument for it to generate a valid type. Maybe Int , Maybe String , Maybe (List number) are all valid types.
Generic (or parameterized) types such as Maybe a can be incredibly powerful. To create our own generic types all we have to do is pass an argument to a type constructor. The Greeting type we created earlier is not a generic type.
type Greeting = Howdy | Hola | Namaste String | NumericalHi Int Int
The data constructors that create a value of type Greeting expect their payloads to be of certain types. Namaste requires its payload to be a String , and NumericalHi requires two Int values. Modify the type definition for Greeting in Playground.elm so that it accepts a type argument.
type Greeting a = Howdy | Hola | Namaste a | NumericalHi Int Int
Now that we can pass a type argument to Greeting , the Namaste data constructor isn’t limited to just one type. It accepts a payload of any type. Before trying out the following examples, comment out the sayHello function including its type annotation. Otherwise, you’ll get errors. We’ll fix that function soon.
> Namaste 5 Namaste 5 : Playground . Greeting number > Namaste "aaramai?" Namaste "aaramai?" : Playground . Greeting String > Namaste [ 1 , 2 , 3 ] Namaste [ 1 , 2 , 3 ] : Playground . Greeting ( List number )
Its type signature has also changed.
> Namaste < function > : a -> Playground . Greeting a
Before adding a type argument, it was this:
> Namaste < function > : String -> Playground . Greeting
Notice that we used the type argument a only with Namaste , but not with NumericalHi . We’re not required to pass a type argument to all data constructors. In fact, we don’t even have to pass it to any data constructor. The following type definition is perfectly valid in Elm. Modify the type definition for Greeting to look like this:
type Greeting a = Howdy | Hola | Namaste String | NumericalHi Int Int
A type argument that doesn’t get used in any of the data constructors is known as a phantom type argument. There are legitimate reasons for a phantom type argument’s existence, but the explanation of those reasons is beyond the scope of this book.
Since Greeting and Greeting a are two different types, we need to modify the sayHello function’s type annotation. Uncomment the sayHello function and modify its type annotation to this:
sayHello : Greeting a -> String
We only need to change the type annotation, but not sayHello greeting = part in the function definition, because the function parameter greeting simply holds any value of the type Greeting a . Another way of looking at it is, if we change our type definition to type Welcome a , we would need to change the type annotation to sayHello : Welcome a -> String , but we could then leave our function definition as sayHello greeting = . The type annotation is the thing that connects the value stored in a function parameter to the correct type, not the name of the function parameter itself, which can be whatever we want. Before we move on, let’s revert the type definition for Greeting back to this:
type Greeting a = Howdy | Hola | Namaste a | NumericalHi Int Int
The only thing that changed is the Namaste data constructor requires its payload to be of type a instead of String . Now if we try to print sayHello in the repl, we’ll get the following error.
> sayHello ==================================== ERRORS ==================================== -------------------------------- TYPE MISMATCH --------------------------------- The 2 nd and 3 rd branches of this ` case ` produce different types of values . 233 | case greeting of 234 | Howdy -> 235 | "How y'all doin'?" 236 | 237 | Hola -> 238 | "Muy bien, gracias." 239 | 240 | Namaste message -> 241 |> message 242 | 243 | NumericalHi value1 value2 -> 244 | value1 + value2 |> toString The 2 nd branch has this type : String But the 3 rd is : a Hint : Your type annotation uses type variable ` a ` which means any type of value can flow through . Your code is saying it CANNOT be anything though ! Maybe change your type annotation to be more specific ? Maybe the code has a problem ? More at : < https :// github . com / elm - lang / elm - compiler / blob / 0.18 . 0 / hints / type - annotations . md > Hint : All branches in a ` case ` must have the same type . So no matter which one we take , we always get back the same type of value .
According to the error message, all branches in a case expression must return a value of the same type, but we aren’t following that rule. We’re returning a String value for Howdy , Hola , and NumericalHi , and returning a value of any type (represented by a ) for Namaste . Functions in Elm must return a value of only one type. Therefore, we need to either have all branches return a value of type a or String . Let’s revert the definition back to what it was one more time to get rid of the error:
type Greeting a = Howdy | Hola | Namaste String | NumericalHi Int Int
As it stands right now, the Greeting type really doesn’t need the type argument. We’ll leave it as it is. If you don’t like having a phantom type argument around, go ahead and remove it. If you do that, don’t forget to change the type annotation for the sayHello function too.
Multiple Type Arguments
Elm allows us to have multiple arguments in a type definition. Here’s an example:
type Result error value = Ok value | Err error
Like Maybe , Result is another built-in type in Elm. It accepts two type arguments: error and value . The Result type comes very handy when an operation fails and we need to return a descriptive error message.
> String . toInt "1" Ok 1 : Result . Result String Int > String . toInt "a" Err "could not convert string 'a' to an Int" : Result . Result String Int
Instead of crashing our program, the toInt function returns a value of type Result when we give it an invalid input. Here’s what the type signature of toInt looks like:
toInt : String -> Result String Int
To create a value of type Result , we must use one of these data constructors: Ok and Err .
> Ok 5 Ok 5 : Result . Result error number > Ok "Inigo Montoya" Ok "Inigo Montoya" : Result . Result error String > Ok [ 1 , 2 , 3 ] Ok [ 1 , 2 , 3 ] : Result . Result error ( List number ) > Err "Operation failed because you entered invalid data." Err "Operation failed because you entered invalid data." : Result . Result String value
Result type is a bit more expressive than Maybe . Instead of just returning Nothing , we can create a descriptive message that explains why the operation didn’t succeed. Add the following function definition right above main in Playground.elm .
signUp : String -> String -> Result String String signUp email age = case String . toInt age of Err message -> Err message Ok age -> let emailPattern = Regex . regex " \\ b[A-Za-z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Za-z0-9.-]+ \\ .[A-Za-z]{2,} \\ b" isValidEmail = Regex . contains emailPattern email in if age < 13 then Err "You need to be at least 13 years old to sign up." else if isValidEmail then Ok "Your account has been created successfully!" else Err "You entered an invalid email."
The signUp function demonstrates how to create and handle values of the Result type. It takes an email address and an age as input. First, it attempts to convert the user entered age from String to Int . Since the String.toInt function returns a Result type, we need to use a case expression to handle both success and failure scenarios. If the user is at least thirteen years old and the email is valid too, we return a success message tagged with Ok , otherwise we return an appropriate error message tagged with Err .
> signUp "[email protected]" "48" Ok "Your account has been created successfully!" : Result . Result String String > signUp "@sobchaksecurity.com" "51" Err "You entered an invalid email." : Result . Result String String > signUp "[email protected]" "11" Err "You need to be at least 13 years old to sign up." : Result . Result String String > signUp "[email protected]" "aa" Err "could not convert string 'aa' to an Int" : Result . Result String String
The Maybe and Result types along with Task (which we will cover in chapter 5) provide a robust mechanism for handling errors during the compile time. As a result, it’s extremely rare to have runtime errors in Elm.
Type vs Data Constructor
At this point you may be wondering where exactly in our code do the type and data constructors get used. The type constructors are mainly used either in a type declaration or a type annotation, whereas the data constructors are used inside a function body or when we define a top-level constant. Let’s say we want to find out which of the Stark siblings from Game of Thrones have reached adulthood. Add the following code right above main in Playground.elm .
type alias Character = { name : String , age : Maybe Int } sansa : Character sansa = { name = "Sansa" , age = Just 19 } arya : Character arya = { name = "Arya" , age = Nothing } getAdultAge : Character -> Maybe Int getAdultAge character = case character . age of Nothing -> Nothing Just age -> if age >= 18 then Just age else Nothing
We defined a record called Character that contains a character’s name and age. A concrete type Maybe Int is assigned to the age label to indicate that a character may choose not to disclose his or her age. We then created two characters: sansa and arya . sansa ’s age is included in the record as Just 19 , but arya ’s is listed as Nothing which means her age is unknown.
So far, in the example above, we have encountered one type constructor ( Maybe ) and two data constructors ( Just and Nothing ). Nothing is more like a constant, but we are treating it as a nullary data constructor here. Since Character is a type alias, it’s not considered a real type. As we can see, the Maybe type constructor is used in the record’s type declaration.
type alias Character = { name : String , age : Maybe Int }
Although Character is not a real type, { name : String, age : Maybe Int } is. A type alias tends to show up in places where a type constructor usually does. When we create an actual record, instead of using the Maybe type constructor, we need to use either Just or Nothing data constructor.
sansa : Character sansa = { name = "Sansa" , age = Just 19 } arya : Character arya = { name = "Arya" , age = Nothing }
The Maybe type constructor also shows up in the getAdultAge function’s type annotation.
getAdultAge : Character -> Maybe Int
The Just and Nothing data constructors are used inside the function body to create actual values of type Maybe Int . They’re also used in the case expression to pattern match the values contained inside character.age .
getAdultAge character = case character . age of Nothing -> Nothing Just age -> if age >= 18 then Just age else Nothing
Let’s see how the getAdultAge function behaves when we give it a character whose age is present.
> getAdultAge sansa Just 19 : Maybe . Maybe Int
In the repl, a data constructor shows up in the value area, whereas a type constructor shows up in the type annotation area.
How about a character whose age is missing?
> getAdultAge arya Nothing : Maybe . Maybe Int
As expected, we get Nothing . Let’s create three more characters in the repl in order to explore the getAdultAge function’s behavior further.
> jonSnow = Character "Jon Snow" ( Just 21 ) { name = "Jon Snow" , age = Just 21 } : Playground . Character > rickon = Character "Rickon" ( Just 11 ) { name = "Rickon" , age = Just 11 } : Playground . Character > robb = Character "Robb" ( Just 18 ) { name = "Robb" , age = Just 18 } : Playground . Character
What happens if we give a character whose age is less than 18 to getAdultAge ?
> getAdultAge rickon Nothing : Maybe . Maybe Int
Instead of returning rickon ’s actual age, it returns Nothing because the getAdultAge function is designed to ignore the age of characters who haven’t reached adulthood yet. We can take advantage of this behavior to do something cool: print only the age of adult characters.
> List . filterMap getAdultAge [ sansa , arya , jonSnow , rickon , robb ] [ 19 , 21 , 18 ] : List Int
In Elm, we can guess how a function works by looking at its type. Let’s give it a try. When we ask the repl for List.filterMap ’s type, here’s what we get:
> List . filterMap < function > : ( a -> Maybe . Maybe b ) -> List a -> List b
The type annotation tells us that the filterMap function takes two arguments:
A function that indicates whether a specific operation is successful or not for a given input. If successful, it returns a value wrapped in Just , otherwise it returns Nothing .
A list of values of type a .
Finally, the filterMap function returns a list of values of type b . In most cases, type annotation alone isn’t enough to figure out how a function actually works. For example, one of the behaviors that’s not quite apparent from the type annotation is that filterMap discards all elements from the original list for which the getAdultAge function returns Nothing . It then pulls values out from the remaining Just elements and puts them in a new list.
Recursive Types
In the How List Works Behind the Scenes section, we learned that List in Elm is defined as a recursive type. At the time, we didn’t know enough about types to fully grasp the idea of recursive types. Now that we know what types are, we’re better positioned to understand what they are. Let’s say we have a list of numbers: [ 16, 5, 31, 9 ] . Behind the scenes, this list is constructed like this:
> [] [] : List a > 9 :: [] [ 9 ] : List number > 31 :: [ 9 ] [ 31 , 9 ] : List number > 5 :: [ 31 , 9 ] [ 5 , 31 , 9 ] : List number > 16 :: [ 5 , 31 , 9 ] [ 16 , 5 , 31 , 9 ] : List number
We started with an empty list and added 9 in-front of it using the cons ( :: ) operator. We then continued to add the rest of the elements to that list one at a time. When a list is constructed like this, we can see the underlying recursive structure inherent in all lists.
The figure above shows that a list consists of nodes which themselves are lists. This is what makes the List type recursive. Let’s create our own data structure that looks very much like List to better understand how a recursive data structure works. Add the following type definition right above main in Playground.elm .
type MyList a = Empty | Node a ( MyList a ) main = ...
What the definition above means is that a list of type MyList can be either Empty or Node a followed by another list (MyList a) . A list with no elements can be represented like this: Empty . A list with a single element is represented like this: Node a Empty . Similarly, a list with two elements is represented like this: (Node a (Node a Empty)) and so on. Now let’s recreate the list [ 16, 5, 31, 9 ] using our definition.
> Empty Empty : Playground . MyList a > Node 9 Empty Node 9 Empty : Playground . MyList number
We start with an empty element and then add 9 in front of it similarly to how we built a list using the cons ( :: ) operator: 9 :: [] . Next, we keep adding the rest of the elements to the front.
> Node 31 ( Node 9 Empty ) Node 31 ( Node 9 Empty ) : Playground . MyList number > Node 5 ( Node 31 ( Node 9 Empty )) Node 5 ( Node 31 ( Node 9 Empty )) : Playground . MyList number > Node 16 ( Node 5 ( Node 31 ( Node 9 Empty ))) Node 16 ( Node 5 ( Node 31 ( Node 9 Empty ))) : Playground . MyList number
Granted our list doesn’t look as nice as the one Elm provides, but conceptually they’re the same. Although MyList behaves similarly to List , we can’t use any of the functions defined in the List module. MyList and List are two completely different types. In the Easier Code Organization section we will reimplement one of the functions from the List module so that it will work on MyList too.
It’s important to note that if a recursive type doesn’t provide at least one nullary data constructor, then we end up with a value that never ends. If we remove the Empty data constructor from MyList :
type MyList a = Node a ( MyList a )
We’ll end up with a value like this:
Node 16 ( Node 5 ( Node 31 ( Node 9 ( Node 18 ( Node 7 ( Node 26 ( ... )))))))
... represents infinite iterations of Node a .
Working with Recursive Types
We can use recursive types the same way we use any other union type. A case expression is used to pattern match each individual data constructor defined in the type. Add the following function definition right above main in Playground.elm
sum : MyList Int -> Int sum myList = case myList of Empty -> 0 Node intValue remainingNodes -> intValue + sum remainingNodes
sum is a function that computes a sum of int values contained in a MyList . We need to handle only two cases ( Empty and Node ) because those are the only two data constructors MyList type offers. If the list is not empty, we remove an int value from the front and apply sum recursively to the rest of the list. Here’s how we can use sum in the repl:
> import Playground exposing ( .. ) > myList = Node 1 ( Node 2 ( Node 3 ( Node 4 Empty ))) Node 1 ( Node 2 ( Node 3 ( Node 4 Empty ))) : Playground . MyList number > sum myList 10 : Int
The figure below shows each individual step in the execution of sum myList expression.
Recursive types are very powerful. They enable us to define complex data structures succinctly. Let’s implement one more data structure called binary tree using a recursive type. Explaining the inner workings of a binary tree is out of scope for this book. So we’ll just look at its definition and visual illustration.
type Tree a = Empty | Node a ( Tree a ) ( Tree a )
Tree represents binary tree - a hierarchical tree structure in which each node can have at most two children. It has many applications in programming.
The tree shown in the figure above can be implemented like this:
exampleTree : Tree Int exampleTree = Node '1' ( Node '2' ( Node '4' Empty ( Node '8' Empty Empty ) ) ( Node '5' Empty Empty ) ) ( Node '3' ( Node '6' Empty Empty ) ( Node '7' ( Node '9' Empty Empty ) Empty ) )
If you add the exampleTree function and Tree type definition to Playground.elm , you’ll get a duplicate definition error because the Node data constructor is used by both MyList and Tree types, which isn’t allowed. The example above is meant to show you how you can create a tree using a recursive type definition. So you don’t have to actually execute it.
How Powerful is Elm’s Type System Exactly?
Elm’s type system is quite powerful, but how does it compare to the type system of other languages out there? There are so many great languages to choose from, but we’ll limit our comparison to these three: JavaScript, Haskell and Idris. Type systems in these languages have some interesting characteristics that contrast well with Elm’s. For this exercise, we’ll use a simple function that adds two values.
You don’t have to try out the code listed in the rest of this section. Just sit back and enjoy reading.
function add ( x , y ) { return x + y }
The above function is written in JavaScript. Looking at the definition, we can’t tell what type of values the add function accepts. After some experimentation, we find out that it pretty much accepts any type of value.
> add ( 1 , 2 ) 3 > add ( 2.5 , 4.3 ) 6.8 > add ( 'a' , 'b' ) "ab" > add ( "romeo" , "juliet" ) "romeojuliet"
JavaScript is a dynamically typed language, which means it doesn’t verify the type of values until a program is actually run. The types of x and y parameters aren’t known until we pass concrete values to the add function during its execution. As you can see from the examples above, it can add two integers, floating-point numbers, characters, and even strings. There’s no way to tell what values we can expect during compile time.
Let’s reimplement the add function in Elm.
add : number -> number -> number add x y = x + y
Elm’s type system allows us to specify exactly what type of values our functions can operate on. With the type annotation above, we’re saying that the add function accepts two numbers and returns a number as well. A number can be either an Int or Float . If we try to pass values of any other type, our program won’t even compile. Elm is a statically typed language, which means it verifies the type of values during the compile time.
> add 1 2 3 : number > add 2.5 4.3 6.8 : Float
Next, let’s implement the add function in Haskell.
add :: Num a => a -> a -> a add x y = x + y
The add function’s body in both Haskell and Elm look exactly the same because Elm’s syntax is heavily derived from Haskell. Haskell’s type system also allows us to specify exactly what type of values our functions can operate on, but it’s more powerful than Elm’s. In Haskell, we can say that the add function accepts any type of numbers not just Int and Float , and returns a number of that same type.
One of the reasons why Haskell’s type system is more expressive than Elm’s is due to type classes, which allow us to group common behaviors found in different types. Int , Integral , Float , and Double are different types in Haskell, but they all share one common behavior: they can be treated as numbers. So operations that can be applied to all numbers are defined in a type class called Num . When we ask Haskell to reveal all the operations defined in Num , we get the following list.
> :info Num class Num a where ( + ) :: a -> a -> a ( - ) :: a -> a -> a ( * ) :: a -> a -> a negate :: a -> a abs :: a -> a signum :: a -> a fromInteger :: Integer -> a
:: in Haskell is the same as : in Elm. It means “has type of”. As you can see, the + operator belongs to the Num type class. That means our add function can operate on any type that is a member of Num . That’s why the type annotation for the add function includes Num .
add :: Num a => a -> a -> a
Anything that comes before => and after :: is a type class constraint. Num is the type class and Num a is a class constraint on the type variable a . Let’s compare Haskell’s type annotation with Elm’s:
add : number -> number -> number
Elm’s type annotation is much more restrictive than Haskell’s. Now, you may be thinking that number in Elm seems like a type class - it lets us say the add function accepts a number and not just Int or Float , after all. However, we were able to do that not because number represents a type class, but because it happens to be a special type variable that stands in for both Int and Float types.
The designers of Elm chose not to include type classes in the language due to various reasons. This issue on Github explains what those reasons are.
Lastly, let’s reimplement the same add function in Idris.
add : ( x : Nat ) -> ( y : Nat ) -> { auto smaller : LT x y } -> Nat add x y = x + y
The add function’s body in Idris also looks exactly like the one in Elm and Haskell. That’s because Idris’ syntax, too, is heavily derived from Haskell. But the type annotation looks quite different. It says that the add function accepts two integers and returns an integer, but the first argument must be smaller than the second argument.
In Idris, the compiler will make sure that add is never applied to two arguments if the first argument is greater than the second. Constraints like this is possible in Idris because it supports dependent types - a type whose definition depends on a value. Very few languages allow us to specify constraints like this through types. Even Haskell doesn’t have this capability. In Haskell, we can check for this constraint only during runtime like this:
add x y = if x < y then x + y else error "First argument must be smaller than the second argument."
To summarize, Elm’s type system allows us to specify more constraints than JavaScript’s, and Haskell’s type system allows us to specify more constraints than Elm’s. Finally, Idris’ type system allows us to specify even more constraints than Haskell’s. The more constraints we can specify at the compile time, the less chance there will be for errors to show during runtime. Therefore, Idris can prevent more bugs than Haskell, and Haskell can prevent more bugs than Elm.
One obvious question is: if Idris’ type system can prevent most bugs, why didn’t the designers of Elm adopt a type system like Idris’? The answer to that question lies in complexity. The more powerful a type system is, more complex it is to implement. It’s also harder to learn. One of the great things about Elm is that it’s easy to learn. Some of that ease comes from not having an overly complex type system. That said, Elm’s type system is still powerful enough to make those runtime errors extremely rare. |
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‘We’re like black swans,’ the banker says, as he sips an overpriced espresso in a Square Mile coffee shop.
‘No one thinks we should exist but we do.’ He looks like your typical mid-40s financier — Savile Row suit, Church’s brogues — but not only did he vote Labour in 2017, he hardly objects when I call him a ‘City Corbynista’.
The Square Mile, Canary Wharf and Mayfair’s hedgefundland are seen as Tory town. So much so that in the run-up to June’s general election, a spoof video on YouTube had an interview with ‘shy Corbynite’ traders (‘I might want to spend 6k on a bottle of bubbly at Embargos,’ says one, ‘but that doesn’t mean when I see homeless people I don’t want them to get back on their feet’).
In the Blair years when Peter Mandelson declared he was ‘intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich’, Labour made inroads into the City. But since the party lurched leftwards, who are these bankers willing to support the Castro-praising, free market-criticising Jeremy Corbyn? A man who seems to understand finance so little that in May, in his official party election broadcast, he launched an assault on hedge funds. ‘Our small businesses — which sometimes are actually very innovative, with high skilled jobs, high skilled ideas — grow to a certain size. Then they need to develop,’ he said. ‘What comes along? A hedge fund, [to] buy them up, sell the ideas to somebody else and close down the local enterprise.’ Of course, this isn’t how hedge funds work and when pushed for an example, Corbyn’s aides could only name a case involving a private equity firm.
Most people would imagine that Jeremy Corbyn’s anti-big business, socialist ethos would make bankers shudder and when I initially asked financiers about Corbynite colleagues, I got flummoxed responses. ‘I don’t know any Labour voters — or none who’d admit it,’ says a Tory supporting mergers and aquisitions (M&A) expert. ‘It’d be a new way to short-sell the pound,’ jokes a market maker. ‘That Venn diagram intersection would be a very desolate space,’ says an analyst.
Jeremy Corbyn at Mirror Party 5 show all Jeremy Corbyn at Mirror Party 1/5 Jeremy Corbyn Jeremy Selwyn 2/5 Jonathan Ashworth and Angela Raynor Jeremy Selwyn 3/5 Emily Thornberry Jeremy Selwyn 4/5 Ton Watson Jeremy Selwyn 5/5 Jonathan Ashworth and his wife Jeremy Selwyn 1/5 Jeremy Corbyn Jeremy Selwyn 2/5 Jonathan Ashworth and Angela Raynor Jeremy Selwyn 3/5 Emily Thornberry Jeremy Selwyn 4/5 Ton Watson Jeremy Selwyn 5/5 Jonathan Ashworth and his wife Jeremy Selwyn
But then they slowly start to emerge: young traders; middle-aged asset managers; the chief investment officer of a Mayfair hedge fund; even managing directors in finance. And among the City’s appendages — corporate lawyers, insurers, Bank of England staff — it’s easy to find Labourites.
Allen Simpson, the chief operating officer of Labour in the City and director of public policy at Barclays, says: ‘The City is basically a free market social democrat — socially liberal, happy to pay its taxes, but believing that the best way to create jobs is through the market. You meet as many Labour people as you do Tories. The City today is an international and pragmatic place. Brexit is going down like a cup of cold sick there.’
Since June’s general election, the party has made rapid progress within the corporate world. Two days before Corbyn said in his closing speech that ‘the capitalist system faces a crisis of legitimacy’, the business day at the Labour Party Conference was three times oversubscribed. Shadow City minister Jonathan Reynolds hosted a meeting on financial services in a breakout session and there wasn’t enough space to fit participants’ chairs around the table. Membership of Labour Business is up on the Miliband years. ‘Ed Balls and Ed Miliband thought they had the answers on economics but had a praetorian guard around them: it was hard to get access,’ says one City bigwig. ‘The Shadow Treasury team’s door is now open.’ So much for the ‘red peril’.
‘These are bellweather signs,’ says one Labour insider. ‘I talk to the CBI, the Institute of Chartered Accountants — they want to talk to Labour now, whereas a couple of years ago they didn’t give us the time of day.’ At a recent House of Lords reception on corporate governance, he met the chairman of a fund management firm: ‘I asked: “Have you talked to Labour before?” He said, “No, never; would you introduce me to the front bench?”’
This reflects a realisation from business that a Corbyn-led government is no longer impossible. Ibrahim Dogus, Labour’s 2017 candidate for the Cities of London and Westminster constituency, says: ‘The business community is making preparations for a Labour government. They are sensible so want to be part of the conversation when Labour drafts policy.’
It has also helped that Theresa May is seen as the most anti-City Conservative leader in decades. On taking office, she disbanded the group of business leaders who advised David Cameron on financial matters. FTSE 100 CEOs — who say they had good access under Cameron — claim that the door is now shut.
Labour’s growing City fanbase also stems from the local level, where a branch of the party has been rebuilt. The City of London — the oldest continuous local government in the world — has run the area for more than 1,000 years. In its elections, banks and other firms get to vote alongside residents. Traditionally, candidates stood as independents but Labour began contesting the elections during the financial crisis. Its first victory was making the City of London Corporation a living wage employer and it is now campaigning to bring back key worker housing for the police.
But it is Brexit that has really shifted the plates. ‘The Lib Dems are a busted flush and the Tories stand for a hard Brexit,’ says a Labour councillor who works in the City. ‘Jeremy’s position isn’t what the rank and file would support but Keir Starmer is helping navigate the difficulties. I hope we don’t Brexit, but if we do I feel more confident in Labour on it — May hasn’t done enough to convince [us] we won’t fall off the cliff.’
Peter Kenyon, a former financial journalist who helped build the City of London Labour branch, says: ‘There’s a sense that Labour isn’t as ideological over Brexit as the Tories are. The Tories are a party hellbent on taking Britain out of its largest market — that’s bonkers.’
Alongside fears of a hard Brexit under May, the City is angry that she seems prepared to sacrifice financial passporting rights that give UK banks trading access to the continent. But would Brexit be any different under Labour? Last week, Labour MPs were whipped to vote against Ian Murray MP’s proposal to protect the customs union.
A 27-year-old investment banker says he, his brother and his ‘desk buddy’ from his Goldman Sachs days — all formerly Conservative voters — voted for Labour in 2017 as a protest: ‘It was 99 per cent about Brexit. I am far from a Corbyn fan and believe he was a secret Leaver, but the best chance to put a stop to the hard Brexit momentum was to give May a kicking.’ Even though Corbyn’s past euroscepticism is well documented, they also feel that Brexit isn’t among his top priorities: ‘If you gave him No10 in exchange for supporting remain now, he’d take it.’
Jonathan Reynolds says City support for Labour is about more than just Brexit, though. ‘We spend a huge amount of time speaking with City firms that are profoundly concerned about what the Tory government is doing to this country. The mismanagement of Brexit is a big part but it’s also about the lack of investment in our economy and the long-term impact this will have on productivity. Our policies are about unlocking capital and putting it to work in the economy, which chimes with the ethos of many investment companies.’
Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell remains a divisive figure but he has tried to respond to his critics. Appearing on The Andrew Marr Show before the Budget, McDonnell — with his sharp suit, silver hair and calm tone — resembled a local bank manager. He admitted that Labour was still ‘six to eight points’ behind the Conservatives on economic credibility, but noted the narrowing of the gap from 28 points a year ago. He carried a ‘grey book’ of economic costings. And while he used to call for the abolition of the City’s local government, this is no longer Labour Party policy.
Are bankers afraid he’ll revert to his hard left ways if he enters 11 Downing Street? Many are, but one Labour supporter says: ‘He’d be a hell of an actor if that’s the case. He wants to win an election; he’s angry about Grenfell, about child poverty, but I genuinely think he knows that if he goes back to the 1970s or 1980s, he’ll lose. Some of my colleagues still think he’s a communist lunatic, though.’
Most of those who admitted to supporting Corbyn spoke on condition of anonymity. If there’s still stigma in the Square Mile about being a Labour supporter, what about prejudice in the party against City workers? Allen Simpson, who has stood for parliament twice in Maidstone and The Weald, says he has faced ‘gentle teasing’. However, a former financier told me he is cagey about his past work in hedge funds: ‘I don’t talk about it in Labour circles. There’s hostility against people who come from non-traditional left wing backgrounds — people assume you’re not a true left winger.’
So could the party under Corbyn really be a friend of the City? It seems impossible to imagine — a hedge fund boss tells me that a Labour victory would cause an exodus of his ilk. But the Tory-voting M&A expert suggests there could be an upside. ‘If the Government wants to nationalise everything, they’ll need advisors — you can’t just click your fingers and magic everything under state ownership. With listed companies, it’s especially complex — you have to buy out the shareholders.’ The pound signs are flashing in his eyes: ‘That’s a whole load of M&A fees.’ |
At a conference last summer, Bill Gates predicted that "place-based activity in college will be five times less important than it is today." Noting the ever-growing popularity of online learning, he predicted that "five years from now, on the Web—for free—you'll be able to find the best lectures in the world. It will be better than any single university."
"College, except for the parties," Gates concluded, "needs to be less place-based."
Although it's bold and thought-provoking, Gates's prediction is oversimplified. As we can already see, something more complex is happening. Across the United States and the world, colleges and universities, historically defined by their physical campuses, are diversifying their delivery systems. They're expanding them to provide higher education not only online, but also in new physical locations, both domestically and worldwide. Online education may be on the rise, but place-based education is, too.
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Today a college or university increasingly is not just one place, but many places—a main campus, a satellite branch in a different city or state, an international outpost, and a virtual-learning environment. This major evolution is likely to proceed further as the demographic changes and competitive pressures facing our sector continue to intensify. As increasing numbers of working adults attend college and the higher-education marketplace becomes more global, many institutions are expanding part-time, evening, and weekend degree programs that, by definition, de-emphasize the traditional campus experience.
Many colleges today offer a robust array of online courses and programs to accommodate the needs of working students and others who seek the convenience of Web-based education. To help students keep down costs and facilitate their transition to professional life, a number of four-year institutions have established three-year degree options. More institutions are adopting experiential education in response to calls from students and employers for a model that prepares students to navigate the world economy successfully. Some institutions, like mine, infuse it with a global dimension through cooperative education opportunities with brokerage firms in Hong Kong, global software companies in India, and microfinance organizations in South Africa, among others.
Taken together, these examples represent a significant shift. While educational models and offerings have always been diverse, the identities of institutions have typically been tightly coupled with their traditional campuses. Now the confluence of new technologies, changing student demands, and the emergence of a global higher-education market are quickly loosening the bonds between campus and brand. Diversity of delivery systems is a major development in the evolution of higher education.
While observers like Gates see online education as the defining characteristic of this new delivery system, it's important to note how central place-based education continues to be within this framework. Of all the ways that the delivery system has changed, most either remain anchored in a place-based schema or retain some element in which education is delivered in person.
In fact, even online higher education is more place-based than many people realize. According to the research company Eduventures, more than one-third of online students live within 50 miles of their institution, while almost two-thirds live in the institution's geographical region.
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In many ways, the continued centrality of place-based education is no surprise. Some online courses are getting more sophisticated by the day, with the addition of streaming video lectures, real-time discussion functions, and other advances. However, the key question is whether the range of human interactions inherent in place-based education can be fully replicated in a virtual environment. I would argue that the answer is no, given the fact that learning happens both inside and outside the classroom, whether physical or online, in the following ways:
Peer-learning environments. By its very nature, place-based education promotes peer learning because students can easily share their perspectives, disagreements, and emotions about what they are learning in the physical classroom. Online classes can match this when they are well designed, but they also have the potential to inhibit peer learning because students are physically isolated from each other. In addition, place-based settings make it easy for students to continue learning from one another outside the classroom—in study groups, discussion sessions, and informal conversations—while online students may have to make more deliberate efforts.
Exposure to diversity. Place-based education provides many natural opportunities for students to be exposed to diversity. In the same vein, place-based settings also imbue a global dimension to students' education by facilitating daily interactions with faculty and peers who hail from different corners of the world.
Research opportunities. From laboratories to historical archives, place-based higher-education environments feature significant research infrastructures that give students opportunities to apply and enrich their classroom learning. While online students have access to digital libraries and the Web for research, place-based settings amplify those resources with faculty tutelage and hands-on experiences.
Campus and community engagement. Students in place-based environments also have access to an array of campus and community resources that can augment their learning and enhance their social engagement and interpersonal development. For many students, campus organizations, service learning, sports, school-spirit activities, and other experiences are as important as the classes they take in strengthening their identities and preparing them for the professional world.
Chance encounters. Compared with online students, students in place-based higher-education settings are exposed to something subtle but vital: the chance encounters that come with membership in a diverse intellectual community. Whether a guest lecture, a conversation with a peer majoring in a different field, or the experience of befriending someone from a different background, place-based encounters can spark new interests and set students on fulfilling paths they might never have traveled otherwise.
My goal here is not to assert the superiority of place-based higher education over online education. The point is that both models give students opportunities to obtain what they desire from higher education. Indeed, as institutions evolve to encompass many places, it's foreseeable that in the future, the experience of more students will comprise a healthy mix of campus-based courses, online learning, and terms spent at domestic satellite and international campuses. Contrary to the notion that one model will prevail, the more likely future of higher education is one in which the best aspects of a diverse delivery system come together to meet our students' needs most effectively.
In many ways, this expanding diversity is simply the latest stage of an evolutionary process that has strengthened the American higher-education system time and again. After the Civil War, university leaders shifted from the predominant model of classical, religiously affiliated higher education to a new archetype inspired by the great German research universities. After World War II, the influx of returning GI's and the increasingly sophisticated demands of the U.S. economy led to an expansion of the higher-education system and the establishment of new models, like community colleges. Those evolutionary stages had two things in common: First, they were motivated by a desire to extend the benefits of an education to an ever-greater number of American citizens. Second, they led not to the ascendancy of one "best" higher-education system but to the emergence of many diverse paradigms—large research universities, small liberal-arts colleges, community colleges, and others—each suited to meet the educational needs of an increasingly multifaceted array of students.
Now the rapid march of technology, customers with new needs, and global opportunities are driving the evolution of the new delivery system that we see today in higher education. Bill Gates is right to have faith in the ability of online education to empower new generations of students to advance their educations. But if past is prologue, online education will remain a component of—not the answer to—the diverse system that has cemented the leadership of American higher education in the world. That includes place-based education, parties and all. |
Kathmandu, Nepal (CNN) -- A Nepalese teen who is the size of a toddler turned 18 on Thursday and entered the record books as the world's shortest man.
Khagendra Thapa Magar is 67.08 centimeters (26.4 inches) and weighs 6.5 kilograms (13 pounds), said Marco Frigatti, vice president of records at Guinness World Records, who flew in from London for the recognition.
"I can confirm that as of today Khagendra Thapa Magar is the officially shortest man in the world," Fragatti said amidst cheers.
The teen underwent a series of medical examinations over the past two days in his hometown of Pokhara to ascertain his height and weight.
A businessman discovered Magar four years ago in remote Baglung district.
Since then, he has been the center of attraction at fairs across the country, with organizers paying to exhibit him.
"I am very happy with the recognition," his father, Rup Bahadur Thapa Magar, told CNN by phone. "For the last few days, Khagendra has been saying that he is a big man now."
The businessman who discovered him said the recognition was years in the making.
"This is the end of a journey that began four years ago," Min Bahadur Rana said.
The first time he applied, Guinness officials told him he had to be 18, Rana said.
Magar replaces Edward Nino Hernandez, 24, of Colombia, who measures 70.21 centimeters (27.4 inches). Hernandez had been declared the shortest living man after Chinese national He Pingping died in March.
Magar is a resident of Pokhara, 200 kilometers (124 miles) west of the capital, Kathmandu. |
PORTLAND, Ore. (Reuters) - The owners of a Portland-area bakery who refused on religious grounds to bake a wedding cake for a lesbian couple are fighting a court order to pay the pair $135,000 in damages, Oregon officials said on Wednesday.
When Laurel and Rachel Bowman-Cryer were planning their nuptials in 2013, Aaron and Melissa Klein, the owners of the Sweet Cakes by Melissa bakery, refused to bake the cake, citing their religious beliefs.
Oregon’s Bureau of Labor and Industries found the owners had violated anti-discrimination laws because their shop is not a registered religious institution, and ordered them to pay the couple $135,000 in damages.
The Kleins appealed the ruling and have refused to pay, citing financial hardships, Bureau spokesman Charlie Burr said, adding that the agency is exploring options for collecting the money.
The agency has given the Kleins the option of obtaining a bond or a line of credit, and has also agreed to hold funds in escrow until the appeals are settled, Burr said.
Burr also said they have raised nearly $500,000 through a donation campaign.
“They are entitled to a full and fair review of the case, but do not have the right to disregard a legally binding order,” Burr said.
An attorney representing the Kleins, Herb Grey, said the couple has raised far less than $500,000, but declined to give an exact number. He also said they should not be obligated to pay the damages because the case is not settled.
“They continue to stand on their well-established constitutional rights to live and work based on their values and beliefs,” Grey said. “Religion is a protected class just like sexual orientation is.”
Grey said he expects the appeal to be heard in the spring.
The gay couple married in 2014 after a federal judge struck down the state’s same-sex marriage ban.
The bakery case is one of many disputes nation-wide since the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in June to legalize same-sex marriage in all 50 states.
The Kleins were featured guests at the conservative Value Voters Summit in Washington, D.C., last week alongside Kim Davis, a Kentucky clerk who was jailed after her refusal to issue the licenses and who met with Pope Francis during his U.S. visit. |
BOCA RATON, Fla. -- One day, it has long been assumed, the NFL will outlaw the kickoff. It's one of the most dangerous plays in football, a sub-concussive factory, and as New York Giants owner John Mara said just this week: "You've got to do whatever you can to protect [players]."
Here's another idea: What if the league manages a passive end to the kickoff, one that functionally eliminates its impact without formally banning it?
We might be moving in that direction already, and there will be no doubt if owners approve a proposal to move the touchback to the 25-yard line for 2016. The NFL competition committee has endorsed the idea, and a vote is expected here this week.
Cordarrelle Patterson averaged nearly 32 yards per kickoff return last season, but a proposal to move touchbacks to the 25-yard line could affect his decision-making on returns from deep in the end zone. Tony Gutierrez/AP
A change almost certainly would accelerate a pattern of fewer returns and more touchbacks that began with the 2011 decision to move up the kick to the 35-yard line. Before you know it, the only strategic reasons to return a kick will be to make up a late scoring deficit or to capitalize on a unique talent.
Injuries on kickoff returns rose last season, competition committee co-chairman and Atlanta Falcons president Rich McKay confirmed. The precise nature and number of those injuries were not available, and that data has ebbed and flowed in recent years. But committee member Mark Murphy -- the Green Bay Packers' president/CEO -- indicated that concussions made up a portion of the 2015 increase.
"When we look at the film and we look at particularly the concussions that were sustained, the kickoff just stands out," Murphy said. "It's a very dangerous play. We've been successful, I think, with some of the changes increasing the number of the touchbacks, but moving it to the 25-yard line should help us have even fewer returns. You're taking an exciting play out of the game, but from a safety standpoint, it's really something that I think is a concern."
The easy answer, of course, is to eliminate the kickoff entirely. Why continue with a play in which a receiver must either take a knee (boring) or run into a concussion-producing phalanx of cover men (hazardous)?
"We understand that it's been a historical part of the game," McKay said, "and nobody wants to mess with the history part of the game unless it need be. It's one we continue to look at. We looked at all the injury data this year from it. We looked at all the plays. We still like the play. And I think we still need to keep working at it."
Short of a formal elimination, the next best thing might be to make kickoff returns so unappealing that they almost never make sense. Look at what already has happened in the wake of the 2011 rule change. As the chart below shows, the percentage of returned kickoffs has dropped from 80.1 percent to 41.1 percent, while touchbacks have jumped from 16.4 percent of all kickoffs to 56 percent in 2015. Last season, the NFL had 390 more touchbacks than kickoff returns.
NFL kickoffs/kickoff returns 2010-15 Year Touchback pct. Pct. KO returned Avg. yards away at catch 2010 16.4 80.1 94.2 2011 43.5 53.5 99.9 2012 44.1 53.2 99.5 2013 48.8 48 99 2014 50.3 48.6 99.4 2015 56 41.1 99.6 Source: ESPN Stats & Information
Now, consider how those numbers could accelerate with a 25-yard touchback, assuming that teams don't resort in mass volume to "mortar kicks" that force a returner to catch it in the field of play. (Similar fears never materialized after the 2011 rule change. Mortar kicks are difficult to execute, they stress coverage teams and still promote an opportunity for a long return.) Let's use 2015 numbers as our guide.
The average kickoff traveled to the goal line and the average kickoff return went for 23.5 yards. That put the average start of a possession after a kickoff at about the 24-yard line, including those that went for touchbacks.
Under the new rule, the returner would need at least a 26-yard return on an average kickoff to beat the automatic spot at the 25-yard line -- while also risking a turnover, penalty and/or injury.
To make it easier, let's round off the necessary return at 30 yards. Last season, according to ESPN senior researcher Evan Kaplan, about 25 percent of returns from the end zone went for at least 30-plus yards.
So a team with a top returner -- the Minnesota Vikings' Cordarrelle Patterson averaged 31.8 yards per return last season, for example -- would be motivated to continue similar strategies. Most teams, however, would be better off directing their returner to take a knee and avoid the turnover/injury risk, according to ESPN senior analytics specialist Brian Burke. As noted before, the obvious exceptions are an elite talent advantage or the game situation.
Ostensibly, McKay said, the new touchback rule would discourage most returners from taking back balls kicked deep into the end zone. It'll also accelerate the ongoing phase out of the play itself. There are plenty of underused strategic options available to teams. Ever heard of the fair-catch kick? One day soon, the kickoff will be one of them.
ESPN Green Bay Packers reporter Rob Demovsky contributed to this story. |
Elsa, Anna, Rapunzel, and Kairi make up four of the new Princesses of Heart. Come theorise who the last three Princesses will be !
Details Published on January 25, 2017 @ 05:50 pm Written by Arielle
Funko Pop News has done it again! They have released images of the upcoming Kingdom Hearts Pete Funko POP figure along with with images of the Mickey and Goofy POP Keychains following their leak of the upcoming Mickey, Goofy, and Hot Topic exclusive Donald POP figures.
These figures are slated to release March 2017 and you can currently pre-order most of them at your local GameStop, including a GameStop exclusive Goofy POP figure. The exclusive Hot Topic Donald POP figure is currently not up for pre-order at Hot Topic.
Thanks to Disney Dan for the tip!
Pete #264
Mickey POP Keychain
Goofy POP Keychain
Follow Kingdom Hearts Insider on Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr for the latest updates on Kingdom Hearts Unchained X, Kingdom Hearts 3, Kingdom Hearts HD 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue and all things Kingdom Hearts! |
Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren grilled Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf on Tuesday for his role in a widespread scheme in which thousands of bankers opened more than 2 million accounts for customers without them knowing over at least five years.
“You should resign. You should give back the money you took while this scam was going on and you should be criminally investigated,” Warren told Stumpf, after he admitted under Warren’s grilling he hadn’t yet been held personally accountable for the actions of his employees.
The Democratic senator also forced Stumpf, who was under questioning from the Senate banking committee over his bank’s handling of the scam, to admit that no senior executives have been held accountable for the actions of the low-level bankers.
Some forged signatures and committed identity theft to open fraudulent bank accounts, while under pressure to meet sales targets or be fired. These employees, Stumpf explained earlier in the committee hearing, were “well-paid,” making between $30,000 and $60,000 a year. Stumpf made $19.3 million in 2015.
“This just isn’t right,” Warren said. “You squeezed employees to the breaking point” to drive up the stock price and your compensation, she said, referencing the bank’s fierce drive to “cross-sell” or make customers open up multiple accounts. “You went on television to blame thousands of $12-an-hour” workers.
“It’s gutless leadership,” Warren said.
Last week Stumpf in a televised interview appeared to blame low-level workers for this behavior, which was widespread throughout the bank ― 5,300 employees were fired for their involvement.
A cashier who “steals a handful of $20s” is held accountable, Warren said. Bank executives aren’t.
“The only way Wall Street will change will be if executives face jail time” for criminal behavior, she said.
In the Wells Fargo scandal, people were mistakenly charged fees, saw their credit ratings fall, got credit cards in the mail they never asked for or just were confused.
The bank said that it had fired the thousands of employees from 2011 to 2016 for engaging in the practice. Stumpf tried on Tuesday to make the case that this was a few bad apples, explaining the firings amounted to 1 percent of the bank’s 100,000 retail bankers every year.
The incentive to open fake accounts was strong: Wells Fargo bankers received quarterly bonuses for cross-selling. Stumpf said on Tuesday that the lowest-paid bank workers make $12 an hour in low-cost regions and have salaries that touch $16.50 an hour in the highest-cost areas. Those who lost their jobs were making on average $35,000 to $60,000 a year ― and that included some regional bank managers. Bonuses for bankers were $500 to $2,000 every three months, The Wall Street Journal reports. District managers could get $10,000 to $20,000 a year.
Wells Fargo just this month announced it would get rid of these incentives, beginning in January 2017.
Earlier this month, Wells Fargo was fined $185 million, including a record $100 million penalty imposed by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, for scamming its customers. The CFPB was Warren’s brainchild and was created as part of the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial regulations.
Last week, Republicans on the House Financial Services Committee approved a bill designed to hamstring the CFPB. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who is married to Wells Fargo board member Elaine Chao, is attempting to push a bill with similar terms through the Senate.
Senator after senator from both sides of the aisle joined Warren in the pile-on Tuesday. Stumpf’s repeated emphasis that only 1 percent of the bank’s sales force had been involved with what multiple lawmakers called “fraud” lead Sens. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) and David Vitter (R-La.) to invoke the prospect of breaking up the bank.
“Every time you say that,” Tester said, referring the the 1 percent excuse, “you give ammunition to the people who want to break up the big banks.”
“Why isn’t this crystal clear proof that an entity as big as Wells is too big to fail, too big to manage, too big to regulate?” Vitter demanded.
Cross-selling was a significant aspect of Wells Fargo’s retail banking strategy, which the bank detailed in Securities and Exchange Commission filings. Sens. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) all suggested that those claims could be grounds for a securities fraud case against Stumpf himself.
“You say you ‘accept responsibility, and it was the fault of those 5,000 people,’” Merkley said. “That’s not accepting responsibility ... you are scapegoating the people at the very bottom.”
In a statement issued Tuesday morning, presidential nominee Hillary Clinton was more circumspect than her fellow Democrats on the banking committee. Though she called Wells Fargo’s behavior “outrageous” and called for compensation to be “clawed back” for responsible executives, Clinton restricted comments about breaking up big banks to the realm of hypothetical future scenarios.
“If any bank can’t be managed effectively, it should be broken up.” |
It has been found that JYJ’s Kim Junsu and Kim Jaejoong will be enlisting in the military this year.
Multiple sources in the K-pop industry have stated that the two singers are currently deciding on a date ahead of their military enlistment. In Kim Jaejoong’s case, he has already been given multiple draft notices, but has pushed back his enlistment due to reasons such as long periods of time spent overseas. However, it has become difficult for him to push back his enlistment any further.
A representative of the industry stated, “He is currently deciding on an enlistment date with his agency due to issues surrounding frequent overseas concerts and scheduled activities,” and “From what I know, he either plans to go near the end of this year, or next January to February at the latest.”
Kim Junsu, who received a second grade active duty designation, is also in discussions about his enlistment date.
A representative stated, “Taking into consideration the current controversy surrounding celebrity soldiers, he would like to enlist as a regular solider.” He continued to add, “The enlistment of male celebrities has always been a sensitive topic, and both singers are of the opinion to go the regular track and avoid the criticism that follows a shaky celebrity enlistment. They can’t help but be cautious as their status as top stars will make their enlistment a hot topic.”
Born in 1986 and 1987 respectively, Kim Jaejoong and Kim Junsu still have a bit of leeway age-wise in pushing back their enlistment, but both have already pushed it back numerous times. All three members of the group became the center of spotlight when they visited the Office of Military Manpower Administration for their physical checkups on the 14th of February, 2011. Kim Jaejoong’s draft notice set his enlistment for September, 2011 but was reported to have been pushed back to the following year. Now, the singer can’t help but be aware of public sentiment surrounding celebrity enlistments.
A representative of C-JeS stated, “All three members of JYJ plan to enlist in the military, like every other male in Korea.” However, he did not say much on when exactly the members would be enlisting.
Meanwhile, JYJ’s other member Park Yoochun has received a fourth grade reservist duty designation due to his asthma. There is no news yet on when Park Yoochun plans to enlist in the military.
Source: [kukinews]
Translated & Shared by: dongbangdata.net
[T/N: A few clarifications on military service for those who are worried.
– What is the grade system?
The grade system is one that designates men enlisting in the military to certain ‘grades’, depending on their physical state. Grade 1 is the highest ranking you can receive and a person is docked to lower grades based on physical attributes such as poor eyesight, high blood pressure, being underweight or any physical illnesses. Grade 1~3 are assigned to active duty, Grade 4 is assigned to reservist duty and so on (I omitted the rest since they don’t apply to JYJ)
-What does active duty mean in Korea?
Active duty in Korea doesn’t mean anything overseas (for the most part). This usually means the initial training/boot camp period + staying at a base in Korea for the rest of the enlistment. Soldiers get holidays once in a while to leave the base and visit family and friends, which is why it’s not unusual to see people in uniform in the subway or buses.
-How long is the enlistment period?
1. Army/Marine – 1 year 9 months
2. Navy – 1 year 11 months
3. Air Force – 2 years
Each person can choose which he sector in the military he would like to go to.
-Is pushing back your military enlistment normal?
Yes! Regular people, not just celebrities, push back their enlistment for various reasons. The most used case is that Koreans who are studying overseas can push back their enlistment date in order to further their studies. In the case of celebrities, most push their enlistment date back till their late 20s or early 30s so it isn’t unusual for JYJ to have done so as well.
Most regular people just decide to go early (first or second year of university) so that it doesn’t hinder them in their upperclassmen years when they’re trying to find jobs and graduate. (My guy friends are all disappearing one by one ;___;)
Hope this helps a little!] |
Tom Taylor is a candidate for Utah’s 4th Congressional District. To show your support, consider a donation at www.tomforutah.com, like him on Facebook (TomForUtah), or follow him on Twitter @TomForUtah.
As I went through the Ph.D program in robotics at the University of Utah, I spent a lot of time thinking about automation, artificial intelligence, and the roles these technologies would play in the future. We are on the precipice of seeing radical change to our economy. Unfortunately, when most people think about automation, the first visual most people think of is a robot with personality like Wall-E or C-3PO. The truth is automation can come in a lot of different forms like self-driving vehicles, or software that quietly does the work for us that millions used to do a decade before. Self-driving vehicles alone have the potential to wipe out over 4 million jobs. Advanced software practices like machine learning are arguably more potentially disruptive being able to replace radiology jobs like analyzing CT scans and X-Rays. Legal work, music composition, and even software developers could also be on the chopping block.
History has shown us that automation creates new jobs where previous ones were lost. Is there any reason to believe that “this time is different?” Yes, in fact, there is. There are two main factors that make the upcoming automation disruption concerning. First, the speed with which automation is likely to displace jobs is unprecedented. Second, we are seeing a trend in our economy where new technologies aren’t bringing enough gains in productivity to offset the gains that are going purely to capital — in other words, right now jobs are simply being replaced with machines instead of creating new and better career paths. These economic indicators predict that if we don’t do something about this, we could find ourselves in a world of mass unemployment, where the middle class has disappeared, and all of the money is concentrated in the hands of very few.
Despite these concerns, it is the wrong idea to fight automation. Instead, we should embrace automation and change the structure of our economy so that we can all reap the benefits. Automation has the potential to lead to an increase of freedom in our lives where our lives aren’t dominated by banal tasks and we can choose the projects we work on. Imagine a world where the core necessities of life were completely taken care of by machines. Our food production could be completely automated where robots cultivate our farms, load the harvest on a self-driving truck which then delivers the food to a sorting facility where drones deliver the food to our doorstep.
When automation takes care of our needs, our lives can be filled with the pursuit of our passions. How many artists chose not to refine their talents to the level necessary to create a masterpiece because they had to work full time to provide for their families? How many scientists couldn’t fully pursue their research because they needed to follow the work that was likely to be profitable? How many musicians gave up on their dreams because they couldn’t afford a place to live? How many entrepreneurs didn’t pursue that revolutionary idea because they had bills they had to pay and couldn’t afford to take the risk? We could be sitting on the precipice of a golden age that is being held back by the need to obtain food, clothing, and shelter.
The country that finds a way to utilize automation to grant freedom to the largest number of its citizens will become a leader in the world economy. We can create an economy in the United States that allows all of us to reap the benefits of automation and not just the wealthiest among us that had the means to buy the robots. We need to be willing to experiment with economic mechanisms that can solve this looming problem such as a guaranteed jobs program, negative income tax, or a robust universal basic income. None of these have been tested to the point where we know the full ramifications they will have on a large scale economy, but now is the time to find out.
As automation continues to accelerate, we are at a crossroads of which future we will live in. Will we live in a world where all of the wealth is consumed by those that were fortunate enough to own the machines that take over our economy, or will we put public policies in place that ensure that all of us will share in the gains and grant ourselves an increase in freedom and happiness? I choose the latter and that is one of the reasons I am running for Congress. As a robotics engineer, I am uniquely qualified to help guide us into this New Era. Let’s build a future our children and grandchildren can be proud of. |
Here’s the latest on the Rays from Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times (multiple story links)…
A source on one of the teams interested in right-hander Chris Archer tells Topkin that the Rays are asking for five or six players in return. Obviously that specific ask could be related to that specific team, but with a price tag generally thought to be quite high, Topkin is doubtful Archer will be dealt.
tells Topkin that the Rays are asking for five or six players in return. Obviously that specific ask could be related to that specific team, but with a price tag generally thought to be quite high, Topkin is doubtful Archer will be dealt. Tampa is getting a lot of attention about its rotation in general, including the Pirates showing interest in Jake Odorizzi . Pittsburgh initially had interest in Odorizzi at the July trade deadline, and it would be fascinating to see what kind of deal (if any) the Rays and Bucs could work out, as fellow small-market teams.
showing interest in . Pittsburgh initially had interest in Odorizzi at the July trade deadline, and it would be fascinating to see what kind of deal (if any) the Rays and Bucs could work out, as fellow small-market teams. Welington Castillo is generating enough interest that he is expected to get a multi-year deal, so the Rays could be priced out of his market. One source “wouldn’t expect” the Rays to wind up with Castillo, who has also drawn interest from teams like the Braves and Orioles since he was surprisingly non-tendered by the Diamondbacks this week.
is generating enough interest that he is expected to get a multi-year deal, so the Rays could be priced out of his market. One source “wouldn’t expect” the Rays to wind up with Castillo, who has also drawn interest from teams like the Braves and Orioles since he was surprisingly non-tendered by the Diamondbacks this week. Steve Pearce was targeted by the Rays before he signed a two-year, $12.5MM deal with the Blue Jays earlier today. Topkin tweets that the Jays got the edge over the Rays by offering the second guaranteed year and more money.
was targeted by the Rays before he signed a two-year, $12.5MM deal with the Blue Jays earlier today. Topkin tweets that the Jays got the edge over the Rays by offering the second guaranteed year and more money. The Rays have interest in Rangers lefty Dario Alvarez , who posted a 5.06 ERA, 13.8 K/9 and 5.86 K/BB rate over 26 2/3 innings with Texas and Atlanta last season. His ERA was inflated by continuing problems with the long ball, as Alvarez has given up nine homers over his 31 2/3 career innings in the majors. The Rangers are one of the teams known to be looking into the Rays’ pitching, so Alvarez could potentially be included as part of a trade package.
lefty , who posted a 5.06 ERA, 13.8 K/9 and 5.86 K/BB rate over 26 2/3 innings with Texas and Atlanta last season. His ERA was inflated by continuing problems with the long ball, as Alvarez has given up nine homers over his 31 2/3 career innings in the majors. The Rangers are one of the teams known to be looking into the Rays’ pitching, so Alvarez could potentially be included as part of a trade package. There are so many hitters in the outfield/first base/DH mold available that Topkin believes the Rays could be able to land a good bat at a relative discount price simply by waiting until later in the offseason to make a signing. Perhaps even a higher-tier hitter like Jose Bautista would be willing to take a one-year, incentive-filled contract to play near his home in the Tampa Bay area and test the market again next winter (though Topkin admits that Bautista is rather a longshot). |
There are two reasons The Manchurian Candidate doesn’t quite meet the believability threshold. The first is that it’s about a conspiracy, and, like all conspiracies, the conspiracy in The Manchurian Candidate requires someone to pull it off. That’s why most conspiracies never happen in the first place—they’re too complex, there’s too much room for error. The second reason is less obvious but more important. Even if a Communist agent could have brainwashed an American P.O.W. into assassinating the G.O.P. presidential nominee, and even if a far-right puppet unwittingly working for the Soviet Union could have snaked his way into the Oval Office—even if someone could have pulled off this particular conspiracy—it’s unlikely it would have had the desired effect. For a few weeks, it might have gone undetected, but then The New York Times or I.F. Stone would have published an investigation story about the Soviets hijacking the election; Americans would have subsequently been shocked and outraged; a big, bipartisan majority in the House of Representatives would have introduced articles of impeachment; and, within days, a new president, answerable only to the American people, would have been sworn in.
We should be thankful that, in the real world of 2016, conspiracies are still nearly impossible to pull off. Vladimir Putin did not surreptitiously plot the rise of Donald Trump because he couldn’t have. (Who could have ensured Marco Rubio would stumble so badly in that debate before the New Hampshire primary? Who could have known that Access Hollywood tape wouldn’t cost Trump the election?) But, as recent revelations have suggested, when the opportunity arose to nudge voters a point or two in a particular direction, the Kremlin apparently seized it. This was very different than inserting a Manchurian candidate into the White House. This was simply taking advantage of conditions that no one, including the Russians, could have anticipated.
The most important condition that the Russians almost certainly did not anticipate was that it would be the Republicans—not the Democrats—who offered the best opportunity for subversion. For nearly a century, the Russians have been trying to weasel their way into the American political scene, but their point of entry has always been on the left—the American Communist Party, Students for a Democratic Society, the Black Panthers, even the Democratic Party. When Republicans smeared George McGovern, the 1972 Democratic presidential nominee, for being a Communist, the smear worked because it sounded just a little plausible. Not only did liberals often come across as hypocritical, watered-down socialists—people who shared a strained but familial relationship with Communists, who believed in mass equality but without the Gulag and bad food—but their liberalism, like all liberalisms, was inherently international, and it made them less tethered, even hostile, to the American volk. They were receptive to criticism of basic American institutions and mythologies because they never felt very connected to them, and that created a mysterious gray space in which ideologues, fellow travelers and useful idiots commingled.
Video: Vladimir Putin’s Impact on the 2016 Election
But during some point in the past quarter-century, the fault lines in America have shifted. Those most susceptible to external programming are no longer Lionel Trilling’s Arthur and Nancy Croom—fashionable, urbane, progressive, well spoken, well traveled—but angry, displaced former assembly-line workers in Youngstown and Macomb County who believe their America has been stolen from them by cosmopolitans in New York, D.C., and Silicon Valley. The conventional wisdom has it that the angry hordes are neanderthals—parochial, unaware of or unconcerned with the world. But that’s not true. Like their liberal, cosmopolitan predecessors, the angry horde is inherently transnational, if not international, and it has compatriots in Britain, the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, and beyond. These people are not bound by a shared politics or program so much as a shared racial identity—a white nationalism born of a loathing for the multiculturalism and complex interdependency embraced by the Davos class. It is a global anti-globalism, and it is reflected in Trump, Brexit, and Marine Le Pen.
There are many reasons for this shift—the end of the Cold War, the collapse of American manufacturing, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the election of Barack Obama, China, ISIS, the weakening and decentralization of America’s two-party system—and one reason that Russia would appear a likely benefactor. While Europe has embraced socialists and Muslims, among other groups, Russia appears a final redoubt of white pride. At least, this is how Russia has portrayed itself to, and is viewed by, many on the new American right—the angry horde, the white-nationalist base who wants their country back. There were glimmers of this in the ‘90s and the aughts, when angry, white men flew to Moscow, and then St. Petersburg and Kiev, and then Tomsk and Omsk and Vladivostok, in search of beautiful, Russian women to replace their feminist wives in America. (I wrote a story about these men, “From Russia with Pre-Nup,” for GQ.) What they loved about Russian women, I learned, was not just that they were gorgeous, but rather that they were submissive. They had their values straight. When these men talked about American women, they always sounded bitter. American women didn’t know how to please a man; they didn’t wear makeup; they didn’t cook; they let themselves go. These men came from Arkansas, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, and the Central Valley of California, and they had fallen in love with Russia because it was full of pretty white girls who acted the way they thought girls should act.
Donald Trump’s choice of female partners reflects the yearnings and inclinations of these angry, white men—many of whom, one imagines, now comprise his base. Two of his three wives come from Slavic, ex-Communist countries. His shortest marriage was to an American. When Trump praises Putin, it’s probably not just because he wants to build a hotel in St. Petersburg or has an ex-campaign manager who allegedly made a bundle in Ukraine. It’s probably because Trump thinks, like many of his supporters may think, that the Russians get it.
All of which sheds some light on why so many Trump supporters are not that put off by news of the F.S.B. or Russian military intelligence tampering with the U.S. elections. (If they were, every Republican in Congress would be joining Lindsey Graham and John McCain in their call for an investigation.) Maybe the Russians hacked into the Democratic National Committee or spread some fake news. Whatever. We don’t know anything for sure, and even we did, who cares? They’re on our side, the thinking goes.
In the future, one hopes, we’ll look back on the Age of Trump and wonder how so many Americans could have been so blinded by their politics or racialism that they were willing to look the other way when another country—the same country right-wingers once loved to hate—intervened in our democratic process. We’ll shake our heads and wonder aloud at the mindlessness, the treachery, and we’ll applaud ourselves for being better now, for knowing that this is not how a truly democratic people acts. Only an ailing people, a people burdened by a sick soul, could be blinded by a sort of, kind of, accidental Manchurian candidate who threatened the future of the republic. Now we know better. Now we’re not so vulnerable to the stupidity and vitriol of an earlier time, when Americans forgot who they were and allowed themselves to be co-opted—briefly, terrifyingly—by other people far away in a snowy dark.
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If you must give your devices names, please don't leak them on the Internet.
That's the advice of one Internet Architecture Board (IAB) member, a former chair of the organisation and a German computer science academic. In an IETF RFC entitled Current Hostname Practice Considered Harmful, the trio (Christian Huitema, a former IAB chair; current IAB member Dave Thaler; and Rolf Winter of the Augsburg University of Applied Sciences) argue that too many 'net protocols leak sufficient information to make hostnames a privacy risk.
The “informational” RFC (meaning it's not on the standards track) fits in the context of the IAB's and IETF's long work to make privacy the default stance of the Internet.
“Hang on!” cry the old-timers, “a hostname and a suffix are the basis of a Fully Qualified Domain Name! How can we properly locate myhost.example.com in the DNS without names?”
It's not DNS naming that the paper proposes replacing, but rather, all the other ways people use names that can leak. As they explain, “it is common practice to use the hostname without further qualification in a variety of applications from file sharing to network management. Hostnames are typically published as part of domain names and can be obtained through a variety of name lookup and discovery protocols.”
Think instead of a device that might interest a spook – “Donald's_Samsung_S3” or “Kellyanne's_Microwave_Oven”. If those names leak to the Internet, it makes surveillance significantly easier.
Moreover, the phone carries that name with its owner, and as long as the WiFi is on, it advertises itself, meaning an attacker “can correlate the hostname with various other information extracted from traffic analysis and other information sources, and they can potentially identify the device, device properties, and its user”.
If you call your phone or your favourite cattle servers Mordor and Mirkwood , you probably think there are other Tolkien fans in the world and you're anonymous.
But the RFC says the authors' experiments at an IETF meeting showed that with enough hostnames in a database and access to other datasets – an LDAP server on the same network, for example – “the identification of the device owner can become trivial given only partial identifiers in a hostname”.
The paper identifies the “guilty parties” – protocols that leak hostnames – as DHCP, various aspects of DNS (DNS address-name resolution, multicast DNS, DNS-based service discovery), link-local multicast name resolution, and NetBIOS over TCP.
Some of these represent leaks “inside” the firewall rather than on the public Internet – but on the one hand, it's not impossible to breach or monitor networks; and on the other hand, someone logging into the enterprise network over public WiFi is sniffable to the “identity” level even if they encrypt their traffic.
As well as avoiding naming hosts where it's not necessary, the authors suggest applying the principles of MAC address randomisation to hostnames. However, as we reported last week, that technique needs an effective implementation and they're hard to find.
Since it's probably impossible to root out every protocol that assumes a host publishes its name somewhere, the three 'net boffins suggest operating system makers – all the way to phones – allow hosts to have a “global” and a “per network” hostname.
That way, if it's a named host on the Internet, that hostname doesn't necessarily map to the “my” randomised hostname. ® |
Four more forest fires hit Manitoba Saturday, bringing the province’s total up to 448 for the year.
Currently, 165 of those fires are still active, according to the province, with 135 of those in the northeast region of the province.
With the Manitoba fires, and the addition of fires across the prairies and northern territories, many parts of Manitoba could see smoky conditions. That includes Flin Flon, where according to Environment Canada, the air quality was an issue just after noon. Conditions were expected to improve throughout the weekend with a cold front coming through the region.
Crews were working to suppress the fires near Flin Flon with the help of Saskatchewan Fire.
On Friday, the firefighting efforts included 21 helicopters, six water bombers, and 215 extra firefighters. On top of that, a water bomber has come from Newfoundland and Labrador, and 13 extra firefighters made the trip from Minnesota earlier in the week, as part of the mutual resource-sharing agreement the province has with other jurisdictions.
But Manitoba’s fires are threatening other provinces as well. A forest fire 47 kilometers northwest of Lynn Lake has crept up to within 2 km of the community of Kinoosao, Sask., forcing crews to set up pumps and sprinklers to protect 30 structures in the community.
A provincial spokesman said there were no new reports of evacuations in the province.
With warm temperatures and dry weather continuing, the province is calling on people to be careful in forested areas. That includes when having fires, which must be under permit or in approved fire pits, as well as caution when driving ATV’s in forested areas.
Wildfires can be reported by calling 911, or the forest fire tip line at 1-800-782-0076 (toll free). More wildfire prevention information can be found at http://www.gov.mb.ca/wildfire/.
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‘It’s hard to quit Real Madrid,’ says Argentinian winger‘I think he’s having a great time and doesn’t want to change’
Ángel di María believes Cristiano Ronaldo, his former Real Madrid team-mate, might never return to Manchester United.
The Portuguese has often cited his affection for United but Di María reckons he may never again play for the 20-times champions. “I don’t think he is coming back to Manchester. It’s hard to quit Real Madrid. Maybe, but I think he’s having a great time and I don’t see that he wants to change,” the Argentinian reportedly told a radio station in his homeland.
Di María joined United from Real in a British record £59.8m transfer in the summer, after helping the club to La Décima, their 10th Champions League triumph in May alongside Ronaldo.
He returned to the United side for Sunday’s 2-0 FA Cup third-round win over Yeovil Town, scoring the second goal, following a thigh injury that had ruled him out since 20 December. |
Patent litigation has become standard business practice in the tech world, and no rivalry demonstrates that better than Apple and Samsung. The ongoing trial between the two smartphone and tablet leaders is the poster child for all that is wrong with tech patents.
Trolling v. Decency
There’s a term used for companies that buy up patents for the sole purpose of seeking out companies to sue for infringement--they’re called patent trolls. There are also companies that are awarded, and/or acquire patents and subsequently wield those patents against other companies to either stifle competition or extort money in the form of royalties.
Legitimate tech companies like Apple, Samsung, Google, Microsoft, etc. could help stop the patent litigation insanity by simply exercising some common decency. Don’t apply for patents for obvious or silly features, and only use patent litigation as a tool of last resort for patents that are obviously unique, and egregiously infringed upon.
Suing each other over stupid, silly patents is a waste of resources for the companies involved, and a waste of time for the courts. The only ones who win in most patent infringement trials are the lawyers--and they generally come out ahead whether they win or lose the case itself.
Legality v. Common Sense
To many, the patents being tossed about by Apple and Samsung like cannon fodder are simply ludicrous. Apple has a patent for unlocking the smartphone by swiping? That’s ridiculous. It’s obvious. How else would you navigate a touchscreen interface?
There is a difference however, between whether or not a concept or technology should be patent-worthy, and whether or not an existing patent should be enforceable. Patent offices are overworked and understaffed, and lack the resources to exhaustively research every patent, so it’s possible to invalidate a patent that has already been issued--as a British judge recently did with the swipe to unlock patent.
However, once it’s verified as valid, the patent is legally enforceable no matter how silly it may seem. And, the court--whether a judge or jury--has to consider the merits of whether or not the patent is being infringed without bias for the fact that the patent shouldn’t exist in the first place.
Solving the Problem
While the companies themselves are to blame for using patents as weapons, and resorting to patent litigation as a competitive business practice, it’s the patent system itself that’s broken. Many of the patents issued simply shouldn’t exist.
Legislation has been introduced to try and curb patent trolling. The Saving High-Tech Innovators from Egregious Legal Disputes (SHIELD) Act would force patent litigation plaintiffs to pay the legal costs of the defendant if they lose the case. It’s a step in the right direction because it at least ensures that the plaintiff has some skin in the game, and that patent trolls suffer some consequences for frivolous patent suits.
That isn’t enough, though. Imposing penalties on the back end is like putting a bandage on a cut while you’re still being stabbed. We need a solution on the front end of the patent system to be more discriminating and do a better job of only issuing worthwhile patents in the first place. |
Image copyright Reuters Image caption A thick haze of pollution envelopes Beijing - but scientists say the toxic air travels much further afield
Air pollution in China and other Asian countries is having far-reaching impacts on weather patterns across the Northern Hemisphere, a study suggests.
Researchers have found that pollutants are strengthening storms above the Pacific Ocean, which feeds into weather systems in other parts of the world.
The effect was most pronounced during the winter.
The study is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
Lead author Yuan Wang, from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology, said: "The effects are quite dramatic. The pollution results in thicker and taller clouds and heavier precipitation."
Toxic atmosphere
The impacts of Asian pollution on the storm track tend to affect the weather patterns of other parts of the world Yuan Wang, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Caltech
Parts of Asia have some of the highest levels of air pollution in the world.
In China's capital, Beijing, pollutants frequently reach hazardous levels, while emissions in the Indian capital, Delhi, also regularly soar above those recommended by the World Health Organization.
This has dire consequences for the health of those living in these regions, but there is growing evidence that there are other impacts further afield.
To analyse this, researchers from the US and China used computer models to look at the effect of Asia's pollution on weather systems.
The team said that tiny polluting particles were blown towards the north Pacific where they interacted with water droplets in the air.
Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Researchers believe the tiny pollutant particles blow over to the north Pacific Ocean
This, the researchers said, caused clouds to grow denser, resulting in more intense storms above the ocean.
Dr Yuan Wang said: "Since the Pacific storm track is an important component in the global general circulation, the impacts of Asian pollution on the storm track tend to affect the weather patterns of other parts of the world during the wintertime, especially a downstream region [of the track] like North America."
Commenting on the study, Professor Ellie Highwood, a climate physicist at the University of Reading, said: "We are becoming increasingly aware that pollution in the atmosphere can have an impact both locally - wherever it is sitting over regions - and it can a remote impact in other parts of the world. This is a good example of that.
"There have also been suggestions that aerosols over the North Atlantic effect storms over the North Atlantic, and that aerosols in the monsoon region over South Asia can affect circulation around the whole of the world."
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The number of confirmed cases of abuse of the elderly by caregivers at nursing facilities hit a record high of 300 in fiscal 2014 and nearly doubled from 2012, government data showed Friday, another headache for the increasingly graying country.
Including abuses by relatives, the total number of cases of abuse of the elderly rose to 16,039 from 15,952 a year earlier, and 25 people died as a result of such abuse, four more than in the previous year, according to the annual survey by the welfare ministry.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government is seeking to create new homes to accommodate 500,000 elderly to reduce the number of people who have to leave their jobs to take care of family members.
The Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry acknowledged the need to enhance training for young and inexperienced caregivers to deal with an expected increase in the users of nursing care facilities.
The problem of maltreatment of the elderly at nursing care facilities is seen to have become more serious, signaled by revelations last year about abusive treatment of residents at facilities affiliated with a major nursing care service company.
At one of the facilities, in Kawasaki, three residents died from falling from a veranda from November and December 2014, and staffers have also been found to have committed theft or assaulted the elderly.
In the ministry survey, about 80 percent of elderly people abused by caregivers suffer from dementia. In a multiple-choice question, 63.8 percent said they had been physically abused, while 43.1 percent said they had experienced mental and verbal abuse, including being ignored.
In the questionnaire, 16.9 percent of the reported victims said they had experienced economic abuse such as embezzlement of their savings, 8.5 percent said they had faced neglect by nursing care services and 2.6 percent said they had been sexually abused.
Among staffers who mistreated the elderly at nursing care facilities, those under age 30 accounted for the largest portion, at 22.0 percent.
As for the reasons for such abuse, municipalities cited problems in staffers’ education, knowledge and nursing care skills, as well as ways of controlling their own feelings.
The number of cases of abuse by paid caregivers stood at 221 in fiscal 2013 and was 155 in 2012.
The number of relative-involved abuse cases stood at 15,739 in 2014, roughly the same level from the previous year. A total of 40.3 percent of abusers were reported to be the victim’s son, 19.6 percent were the husband and 17.1 percent were a daughter. |
The number of patients who were injured or became ill during a hospital stay dropped 17 percent since the start of ObamaCare, saving about $12 billion in healthcare costs, according to new government data.
Strides in patient safety saved the lives of about 50,000 patients and prevented 1.3 million avoidable hospital-related accidents or illnesses since 2010, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced Monday.
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The prevalence of adverse drug events, bloodstream infections, pressure ulcers and ventilator-associated pneumonia each declined by 25 percent.
HHS Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell told a roomful of Medicaid and Medicare providers on Tuesday that the findings represented “dramatic improvements in patient safety.”
“Think of the difference it makes to a family to have a loved one home for the holidays instead of in the hospital,” she told a crowd at the CMS Quality Conference in Baltimore.
She touted the ways that the Obama administration has tried to make costs and quality information more transparent and to expand the use of electronic health information, all in an effort to “bolster clinical decision-making.”
“I believe that as Americans, we will receive better care — and spend our dollars more wisely — if we find better ways to deliver care, pay providers and distribute information,” she said.
The report says that while the causes of the decline may not be fully attributed to ObamaCare, “the increase in safety has occurred during a period of concerted attention by hospitals throughout the country to reduce adverse events.”
It specifically points to a Medicare payment program that refunds less money if hospitals have high readmission rates, as well as the public-private alliance called Partnership for Patients.
Burwell said the progress in patient safety was helping to move the country away from a healthcare system which “simply did not make sense.”
“We waited until patients got sick in order to treat them, rather than focusing on prevention. Our payment models incentivized volume rather than value,” she said.
HHS took its first big step to reduce hospital mistakes in 2005 with the Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act. The department continued to roll out patient safety rules until 2008, just two years before ObamaCare was passed.
Attention returned to reform in 2010 when data found the rate of harm among Medicare patients was 27 percent. Almost half of the incidents were considered preventable.
HHS now analyzes up to 33,000 medical records each year in an effort to reduce the total amount of preventable harm by 40 percent.
This post was updated at 9:15 a.m. |
Cowboy After Buffalo got his name in 1971. He was an infant, propped up in his mother’s lap in the backseat of a car, when a man who had been drinking approached to ask if he was a boy or a girl. “A boy,” his mother replied. “A cowboy,” the man said, and it stuck.
The After Buffalos had a ranch west of Browning, Montana, on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation, where hayfields and aspen groves drape across the eastern front of Glacier National Park. On the 640 acres allotted to the family by the federal government in the early 1900s, and on surrounding allotments, they grazed 160 cow-calf pairs. Cowboy learned to break horses, round up cattle, brand them, castrate them and move them between pastures. The youngest of five siblings, he showed the greatest interest in the ranch. His parents, Barbara and Edward, hoped that someday he would take over its management.
In the early 2000s, they put their hopes in writing. Edward had lost a foot to diabetes and did not know how long he would live. One evening, at the hospital, he asked his children to write three wishes on a scrap of paper. Cowboy was struggling with addiction at the time; he had intermittent work that paid poorly and ran drugs to get by. Still, he wished for the ranch. Since the After Buffalos are members of the Blackfeet Tribe, with their land and mineral assets managed by the federal government, Edward filed a will with the Bureau of Indian Affairs: Cowboy would receive the largest share of land; the rest would be split among Edward’s wife and other children.
Cowboy got sober in his father’s final years, and Edward gift-deeded him a small parcel, where he could live in a trailer with his wife and kids. Though the family sold the herd to pay bills, Cowboy fixed fences and found other ranchers to sublease the land. He hoped eventually to buy his own cattle. “I wanted to live an honest life,” he said.
But when Edward died in October 2012, and the family gathered before a probate judge, the judge found no will in Edward’s file. “I think everybody was just stunned,” Cowboy recalled. “My mom — I know it hit her hard.” Barbara asked the judge if he could honor her husband’s wishes, but he explained that without a will, under federal Indian law, Edward’s interest in the land would pass to Barbara. This would be for her lifetime only; she could not write a will transferring the interest to Cowboy. Instead, when she died, the property would be shared equally among her husband’s heirs, in a process called “fractionation.”
The family dreaded fractionation. It meant that Cowboy and his four siblings would each be assigned a percent interest in the land, much like shareholders in a company. Before Cowboy could develop the land in any way, he would need approval from enough shareholders to represent a 51 percent interest. Edward had held interest in two 320-acre allotments — one that had belonged to his grandfather, and another to his great uncle. He had owned roughly 39 percent of each of them, which was more than any of the other interest holders, but not enough to make autonomous decisions. The allotment Edward had hoped to will to Cowboy already had 131 interest holders. If fractionated again, it would be even more difficult for Cowboy to access than it had been for Edward himself.
Cowboy was silent. “I think everybody was waiting for my mom to say something,” he recalled, “but she was so far missing the old man, I don’t think she could. And me being the youngest, it wasn’t my place. The judge said, ‘Anyone have anything to say?’ And nobody did.”
On reservations nationwide, the U.S. government manages 156,596 allotments like the After Buffalos’, leasing the land and resources on the owners’ behalf and returning the income to them via trust accounts. In 2012, these allotments contained 4.7 million fractionated interests. Relatively speaking, Cowboy lucked out: It is not uncommon for hundreds — even thousands — of individuals to co-own a single allotment. Even so, he would have to maneuver through a tangled system that was, by all appearances, rigged against him.
Then, in 2013, a new option emerged: Cowboy could sell his interest altogether. Over the next decade, the U.S. Department of Interior planned to spend $1.9 billion purchasing fractionated interests from Indian landowners and consolidating them under tribal ownership. The Land Buy-Back Program, as it was called, was the most significant piece of a $3.4 billion settlement that closed a 14-year battle between Indian landowners and the U.S. government. The dispute had arisen from the government’s mismanagement of Indian property and accounts, and its failure to pay owners billions of dollars of revenue. But its subtext was fractionation, and a century of policy that trapped Indians in a system of false ownership, unable to use the land that belonged to them.
Cowboy hated to consider giving up his land, even to his own tribe, but the possibility lingered with him. “You just live day to day,” he said. “Then, there’s a point where you got to say, ‘Do I sell? What do I do with my land? What good is it doing me?’ ”
Terray Sylvester
The most influential architect of today’s system of Indian land ownership was Massachusetts Sen. Henry Dawes, who once defined “civilized” men as those who “cultivate the ground, live in houses, ride in Studebaker wagons, send children to school, drink whiskey (and) own property.” His 1887 General Allotment Act, also known as the Dawes Act, divided reservations into sections and assigned them to Indian families, who were then instructed to farm. Intended to foster individualism and integrate Native Americans into Anglo-American society, the Dawes Act had the opposite effect: Where the land was dry and infertile, particularly on the Great Plains, many families struggled to feed themselves and came to rely heavily on government rations.
Fractionation began with the Dawes Act, but it accelerated after 1934, when Congress stopped assigning allotments to Indian families. By then, there was little left to allot. The Dawes Act had allowed “surplus” reservation land to be auctioned, and 60 million acres had been sold to white homesteaders. The 1906 Burke Act, meanwhile, authorized federal agents to declare certain landowners “competent,” thereby removing their land from federal trust and allowing it to be taxed. Many landowners were never informed and accrued debt unwittingly; others could not afford the taxes. As a result, another 30 million acres were lost to foreclosure. A common story in Indian Country tells of a family who sat down to dinner one night when a strange wagon pulled up to the house. The travelers had come a long way, and the family invited them to eat. When the family asked why they had come, their guests looked surprised and said, “We bought your land.”
Library of Congress
Today, a great deal of reservation land — a third of some of the largest reservations — is owned by non-Indian people. Furthermore, on many reservations, the majority of Indian-owned land is leased to non-Indian farmers and ranchers. This is a consequence of fractionation: Because it can be so hard for Indian landowners to obtain approval to move projects forward, the land is left fallow or, more often, grouped with other parcels into a “range unit,” which the Bureau of Indian Affairs leases out on landowners’ behalf. When a lease is paid or royalties are earned on an allotment, the BIA sends the proceeds to the U.S. Treasury Department, which issues each interest holder a payment. When there are a lot of interest holders, the payments can be for amounts less than a dollar. This system — of owning land but having little control over it — is a major reason why Indian Country stays poor. It is, many say, why white people run more cows on Indian land than Indian ranchers; why white people earn more money from reservation land; why pastures are pounded dry by overuse; why houses are hard to come by; why they fall into disrepair; why there are few businesses or jobs. Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, once dubbed “Poverty’s Poster Child” by The New York Times, is the second largest reservation in the nation and, by some metrics, the most fractionated. In 2002, when agriculture there earned $30 million, Native Americans netted only a third. “Look at the abundance of the land,” an Oglala Lakota business owner told me. “If we were anywhere else, it would be wealth creation, but here it’s the opposite.”
There have been various attempts to address fractionation since it began, most notably the 1983 Indian Land Consolidation Act, which enabled tribes to exchange and purchase interest from landowners at fair market value. But these efforts were poorly funded, and many tribes, chronically in debt, could not buy land in large enough quantities to make much difference. The Dawes Act became ever more difficult to undo. As the number of fractionated interests ballooned, so did the federal-Indian bureaucracy. The BIA had long been criticized for its shoddy management of Indian accounts, most famously in 1828, when federal agent Henry Schoolcraft wrote that it seemed the agency’s fiscal affairs “had been handled with a pitchfork.” Fractionation made more room for error. In the late 1980s, Elouise Cobell, a Blackfeet rancher, tribal treasurer, and founder of the first tribally-owned bank, testified before Congress on flaws in the BIA’s accounting system. She had found many discrepancies in her work on the Blackfeet Reservation — leases never paid, documents lost — and suspected the problem was systemic. Indeed, in 1994, a banker appointed by then President Bill Clinton to investigate the Indian trust system found that out of the 238,000 accounts reviewed, half were missing important documentation, and nearly a quarter had no address; the account holders’ money had been sitting in the Treasury.
In 1996, Cobell sued the U.S. government on behalf of 450,000 plaintiffs from tribes across the country. She estimated that more than $170 billion had been lost or stolen from Indian accounts. When the case finally settled in 2009, it had gone to trial seven times. Since the settlement did not require a full accounting of missing or stolen monies, each plaintiff was awarded $1,000 to $2,000 — a small acknowledgement of their losses. It also set up a scholarship fund for Native American college students that would be bankrolled through the Buy-Back Program. But the land program itself received the bulk of the settlement money — $1.9 billion — to undo damages wrought by the Dawes Act. The settlement was hailed as a historic victory, and Cobell, who would die of cancer two years later, its hero. President Barack Obama called it “an important step towards a sincere reconciliation.” In an essay distributed widely by High Country News and still often cited, Chuck Sams of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation wrote, “Though it is true we were dealt a poor hand by history, we can make a new start. ... We will begin to make ourselves whole again.”
Mark Wilson/Getty Images
The Land Buy-Back Program differs from past efforts to undo fractionation in two fundamental ways: First, there has never been an attempt to transfer so much land to tribes all at once; and, second, there has never been so much money available to do so. In 2011, Interior Department officials met with tribal leaders and, the next year, released a plan: The BIA would give each participating tribe a sum scaled to the size of its fractionation problem. The Blackfeet Indian Reservation — by some measures the third most-fractionated in the country — was slated to be among the first beneficiaries, but a brief collapse in tribal government put the program on hold. Instead, the first buy-back offers went to landowners on Pine Ridge, on Dec. 18, 2013.
I visited Pine Ridge Agency the following August, as the Oglala Sioux Tribe was closing a third round of land purchases. The buy-back office was a doublewide trailer in the yard of the BIA building. A secretary motioned me into a back room, where a wiry, jocular man in pleated pants and tennis shoes sat with a stack of paperwork. Steve Her Many Horses was the fourth person appointed to direct the program in six months. He held up a reservation map: Tracts in which the tribe owned a majority interest prior to the buy-back program were colored dark blue; tracts in which the tribe had newly acquired a majority interest were light blue. The latter represented 200,000 acres, roughly a tenth of the reservation’s fractionated land, leveraged with $76 million of the tribe’s $105 million allocation. “Our main goal is to see this full map blue,” he said. “Then our tribe will have control of our land.”
The benefits were numerous, Her Many Horses told me. The tribe would earn more lease income and could use it to purchase reservation land from non-Indians. On land where it had acquired a majority interest, it could also build housing for tribal members. More importantly, the purchase had ensured that land returned to the tribe would never again be sold to non-Indians.
He spoke in terse, excited phrases, like a salesman still honing his pitch. And so when I asked, finally, if he would sell his own land to the tribe, I was surprised by his reply.
“Oh, no,” he said.
“No?”
“Well, it’d be something to think about.”
I heard the same answer dozens of times in the weeks I spent on Pine Ridge. It was difficult to find anyone who had sold their own land or, at least, who would admit to having done so. When I mentioned this a few mornings later to Denise Mesteth, the director of the tribe’s land department, she took me on a tour of her office:
“Hey, Burton, did you get an offer?”
“No, I don’t have land. Try Grace.”
“Grace, did you sell your allotment?” Grace averted her eyes. “Just checking. Bud? No? You know who did?”
“Not me.”
At last, we came to a cluttered, sweltering room, where a lean man named Carl Eagle Elk was studying a map. “I had no intention of selling,” he said. “My dad, my grandfather — they all told me, growing up, ‘Don’t sell your land.’ ” When the offer came in the mail, he left it in the backseat of his Chevy Impala. But as winter wore on, Eagle Elk, who lived with his brother, ran low on propane. “I slipped into debt,” he said. “You have your car, your insurance, your utilities. My son was in school, so you have school clothes. Then you drive a ways to get groceries.” (Most reservation residents shop in Rapid City, 90 miles away.) On July 21, 2014, just before his offer expired, Eagle Elk went to the buy-back office and sold half his interest — the equivalent of 20 acres, for $14,000. When the check came, he would pay off his debts and buy a trailer.
I eventually met others like Eagle Elk who had sold their land, though reluctantly. There are good reasons to sell: Many landowners no longer live on the reservations where their interest is, or they have inherited interest in places where they lack tribal affiliation. Or their interest is so small that they’ll never have access to the land. A house or trailer may indeed be a better investment, as may a car, since reservation services are often few and far between. But I also sensed that people were ashamed of the transactions. “It comes from the fact that our people died for that land, so it’s not a commodity that you can just sell and get money and be on your way,” Mario Gonzalez, an attorney and member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, later told me. Gonzalez is known for having advised the Sioux to refuse federal payment for the sacred Black Hills, taken from them in 1874. “I’m not selling my tracts, because they belonged to my great-grandmother,” he said. “They have value to me, just like an heirloom.” I had to understand that people were coming to their decision from a place of deep loss. Even though the land would return to the tribe, and even if the sale benefited the seller, the act of selling was weighted with painful memory.
I was reminded of something an elder told me when I had asked why he refused to sell: “When you have land, you can always come home. Nobody can’t ever tell you, ‘You have to go. This don’t belong to you.’ ”
Terray Sylvester
Benjamin Brayfield/Rapid City Journal
In September 2015, I arranged to meet Cowboy After Buffalo on a grassy ridge above his house. I drove a truck he had left for me at his corral, an old Ford with cracked mirrors and various CDs — Black Lodge Veteran Songs; The Rolling Stones — stuffed in its side compartments. He arrived after I did, on horseback, with his jeans tucked into his boots and a bandana tied around his forehead. Tall and heavy-set, he seemed always to be grinning. He had been out looking for a neighbor’s escaped calf and found it grazing amid a herd that belonged to a white rancher named Ron Jones. Near the end of his father’s life, Cowboy had begun subleasing the After Buffalo pasture to Jones, who lived south of the reservation. Cowboy could not afford the $2,400 yearly payment, let alone his own cows, and, anyway, he liked Jones. Subleasing to him allowed Cowboy some control: He could still do the work of a rancher while he gathered the resources that would allow him, eventually, to acquire cattle.
Around reservations like Blackfeet, where ranching is the dominant industry, this sort of mutualism is common between Indian and non-Indian communities. Many Indian landowners who hold leases for their fractionated allotments sublease them to other ranchers because they don’t have enough livestock to fill range units themselves. (Edward After Buffalo owned 45 of the 160 cows he ran on two units.) Many reservations have good pasture, which is expensive and hard to come by elsewhere. “It’s kind of known that you can always find it there,” a white rancher, who subleases Blackfeet pasture, told me. “If you’re in a pickle, that’s where you call.”
These arrangements are controversial, and some tribes have passed resolutions discouraging Indian landowners from “fronting” for outside ranchers. On the Blackfeet Reservation, anyone who leases a range unit must own a certain percentage of the livestock that graze it. Cowboy had 12 horses, enough to meet the requirement, but without cows, his claim felt precarious; he worried that the tribe’s allocation committee, which largely controls grazing assignments, might give his to a bigger Indian rancher. So in 2013, he applied to the Farm Service Agency for a $35,000 loan to buy his own small herd.
While he waited, he decided to install a hydrant by the corral for watering livestock. He needed approval from others who shared in his allotment, but when he asked at the BIA office for a list of the 131 landowners, he was turned away. “As soon as I’d ask for maps, details, names, they’d question me like I was bringing a bomb in,” he recalled. When he finally obtained the document, he wrote the largest shares in neat rows and added them up. With his father’s gift, he owned a 2 percent interest. If he could get approval from his mother, who had 39 percent, as well as from several cousins, he would need less than 1 percent more. But most of the remaining landowners held less than a tenth of 1 percent interest. Some lived far away, in Florida or Oregon; others, he noticed, were in prison. He contacted a woman who owned 1.357 percent. She lived in Harrah, Washington, but planned to return to the reservation in summertime. She could meet him then, she said. But just before her trip, she died. Cowboy gave up, and the project fell through.
He began to worry that his loan would be denied because the land was so fractionated, and his access to it was limited. So on the day a loan officer arrived to inspect the property and fences, Cowboy assembled his brother, sisters and mother in his living room. “I wanted to show the officer that I was serious,” he said — and that his family supported his plans. The meeting later paid off. Cowboy learned that if a majority of landowners agreed, he could pull the 320-acre allotment in which he held interest out of the range unit. That way, he would reduce his risk of losing the land to another rancher and have more time to buy cattle. His mother agreed, and Cowboy began knocking on doors. In three days, he had acquired signatures from 53 percent of interest holders. It was a small victory, and it softened the news when his loan officer told him that he did not have enough cash flow to qualify for the loan. “He told me, ‘Keep trying,’ ” Cowboy recalled, “and I said, ‘I will keep trying.’ ”
I asked Cowboy if all these difficulties made selling his land interest through the Land Buy-Back Program seem more appealing. “No,” he said, though the program might work in his favor in other ways. If the tribal government gains interest in his allotment, he explained, he might be able to acquire more for himself by trading the tribe smaller interests he holds elsewhere on the reservation. I followed Cowboy down the ridge to his house, where his wife, Angie, was fixing hamburger and mashed potatoes for dinner. On the table sat a stack of folders and ledger books containing lease documents dating back to the ’60s. Among them were records from the 1990s, when another rancher outbid Cowboy’s father for the range unit containing the ranch. The After Buffalos had to go to court to regain access. The records seemed remarkable not only for how well they had been preserved, but also for what they implied: The odds against Native Americans keeping their land have been high for a long time. It is no wonder that so many still believe it is worth their struggle to hold onto it.
Terray Sylvester
In June 2011, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia held a fairness hearing on the Cobell settlement, the last opportunity for plaintiffs to object. Landowners from tribes across the country spoke, and opinions varied, but most agreed that they would not sell their land. “You don’t have enough money to buy my piece of sovereignty,” a Choctaw man challenged. “These lands are precious. They hold the bones of my people,” said a woman from the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe. In the end, just 92 plaintiffs filed formal objections, and 1,800 opted out of the $1,000 payment. But the hearing foreshadowed a wider discontent: As of November 2015, fewer than half of the landowners who received buy-back offers had accepted them. On some reservations, such as Pine Ridge, the number is even lower.
At the end of 2016, the program will finally reach the Blackfeet Reservation, making it one of the last highly fractionated reservations to participate.* It is fitting, perhaps, that the place where the Cobell case began could be the place where it ends, but it is also a reminder of the lawsuit’s disappointments — of the distance between the injustices brought to light by the case and the justice now being delivered. The buy-back program does little to close this gap. Despite an investment of $715 million and the transfer of an equivalent of 1.5 million acres from individual to tribal ownership, the number of fractionated interests on participating reservations has declined by just 20 percent. Since Indian land will continue to fractionate at an exponential rate, it is easy to see the buy-back program as little more than a Band-Aid on a gaping wound.
The low participation rate also has a darker implication — that many of those who did sell had little other choice. Federal officials often emphasize that the program is “voluntary,” but since many tribal members depend on their governments for financial help with even day-to-day expenses, the concept seems slippery. “Offering poor people something that is more than they have ever had but is not really what the case is worth is an old ploy of lawyers and the government,” Joe McKay, a Blackfeet tribal councilman and vocal critic of the Cobell settlement, told me. On Pine Ridge, I had observed tribal members ask their councilmen for help with hospital and propane bills, and once saw a councilman pay someone from his own pocket. The Blackfeet Tribe was in a similar circumstance. When I visited its offices in September, signs reading “No Hardship” were tacked throughout the corridors. And yet, every day, I watched men, women and children wander in, looking for councilmen to hear their pleas.
Terray Sylvester
One afternoon, as I waited under a nearby pavilion, a man named Phillip Many Hides sat down beside me. He wore coke-bottle glasses, taped at the corners, and jeans, clean but frayed. He was looking for McKay, whom he hoped could help him apply for tribal assistance — a monthly $250 payment. Many Hides had long worked as a wildland firefighter and dispatcher, but his wife died in 2011, and he started drinking. When I met him, he had been sober 15 days. Still, he was homeless, sleeping by the powwow grounds. A spider bite on his ring finger had swollen to the size of a quarter.
I asked Many Hides if he planned to sell land when his buy-back offer finally came. He looked disappointed; he had assumed the offer would come sooner. “A lot of us are counting on that buy-back, so we can get our own homes,” he said. Some of his land he would never sell — it had spiritual significance — but he also owned interest in a hayfield north of Browning. “I hate to let it go,” he said, “but that’s the situation I’m in.” Already, the year before, he had sold some interest he inherited on the Coeur d’Alene Indian Reservation in Idaho. He spent the $1,600 he received on Christmas gifts for his children. “They were upset at first, but then my daughter said, ‘At least it was for Christmas.’ ” The buy-back program was a blessing, Many Hides told me, and he thanked Elouise Cobell: “I remember when she first started to fight this fight. I thought, could she do it? And I remember the day she won. We were all giving each other hugs.”
Cobell did not attend the 2011 fairness hearing. Bedridden with cancer, she called from Montana to make her final statement. “Few, if any, legal cases in modern times have embodied the pain of so many people in Indian Country, and also embodied the hopes of those people,” she said. “What has been accomplished here is historical. … It brings a measure of justice to some of the most vulnerable people in this country. The settlement is not perfect. I do not think it compensates for all of the losses sustained, but I do think it is fair. … I am convinced that it is the best settlement possible.” Four months later, she died.
Cobell’s friends and colleagues have since told me that even she had been deeply ambivalent. Cobell was grateful that the case had ended, and she approved of the college scholarship fund. But behind closed doors, she opposed the buy-back program. She feared it would thicken the bureaucracy that already mired Indian land ownership. She worried, too, that landowners in dire straits would sell their only financial leverage, since many depend on lease income and even take out loans on it to buy everyday necessities like groceries and school clothes. Most of all, she opposed the program because it seemed to assume that what is best for tribal governments is best for individual Indians — that their interests, after more than a century of federal policy intended to break apart tribal communities, were still one and the same. Many tribal members, in fact, have come to distrust their tribal governments.
“We would have argued that it’s better to help owners acquire bigger interests, not do a program that converted those interests from individual to tribal ownership,” Cris Stainbrook, president of the Indian Land Tenure Foundation and a descendent of the Oglala Lakota, told me. Stainbrook worked closely with Cobell throughout the case. “The lawsuit was nothing about tribes,” he said. “It was about individuals. And the way the buy-back program was structured, the tribes came away with a gift.”
The program, Stainbrook added, was the government’s piece of the deal. “They say they did this to ‘make the community whole again,’ but that’s secondary. They wanted it because they spend millions of dollars a year sending lease checks for amounts smaller than the cost of a stamp. Reduce fractionation, and they reduce the administrative burden.”
The case did achieve some substantial victories. In 2009, for example, then-Interior Secretary Ken Salazar appointed five tribal leaders to a Committee on Indian Trust Administration and Reform, and in 2014, the committee released an analysis of the trust relationship. The report does not go so far as to suggest transferring the management of trust accounts to a third party, such as a bank, as Cobell would have wanted, but it does call for a seismic restructuring of the trust system. Among its recommendations is the establishment of an Indian Trust Administration Commission, which would consolidate the Department of Interior’s trust functions under a single entity and make it easier for tribes and individuals to navigate the bureaucracy.
Even the buy-back program has had positive effects, in that it has encouraged Indian landowners to learn more about their fractionated interests. Stainbrook, through the Indian Land Tenure Foundation, has worked with federal officials, tribes and other organizations to distribute educational materials about the program, estate planning, and the alternatives to selling land, so that landowners can make informed choices. On the Blackfeet Reservation, the people I spoke to seemed more prepared than those I met on Pine Ridge: With the benefit of time, perhaps, more of them knew where their land was and how much income they earned from it. Mark Magee, the director of the land office and a relative of Cobell’s, told me he was glad the Blackfeet would be among the program’s last recipients: “We get to see everyone else’s mistakes. We want to make sure we’re doing it right.”
Trust reforms are as uncertain as any in the past, though, and most people see Cobell’s legacy as something more intangible. “She used to tell me, ‘Winning money wasn’t the thing,’ ” said Angie Main, Cobell’s friend and colleague, when I visited her in Browning. “Indians winning a case against the federal government — that’s the point.” Later, Elouise’s sister-in-law, Eva Cobell, showed me a box of papers she had saved to make a scrapbook for Elouise’s son. It mostly contained condolence notes sent upon Elouise’s death, but at the bottom I found letters addressed to Elouise from students at the local high school:
My name is L. My mom is J. I don’t know who my dad is and really don’t care. What you’re doing means a lot to me and a lot of other people. What you’re doing means to me that there is hope. People from the reservation can be something.
Terray Sylvester
On a cold morning in October, I dropped by the After Buffalo ranch once more. Cowboy was in the corral with his sons and Ron Jones, who had come to gather the calves. The cows lowed mournfully as Cowboy flapped his arms like wings, driving the calves up a ramp and into a trailer. Jones seemed pleased, and once the calves were loaded, he did not linger. The two men laughed and shook hands. The heifer calves already had a buyer; Jones would take the steer calves to auction. The next week, he would return for the cows and bring them to his own property to overwinter. Then, the pastures would be mostly empty until spring.
In the meantime, Cowboy had enrolled in a course to receive a commercial driver’s license. Roads were being redone throughout the reservation, and he hoped to find work hauling gravel. This would increase his cash flow; he could reapply for a loan. Cowboy was good-natured about his ordeal. He wasn’t angry with the BIA for losing his father’s will. “We can’t look at yesterday, because we’ll go backwards, and I’m trying to go forward,” he said. He faulted himself for not trying sooner; if he hadn’t been drinking or running drugs, he might have had his own herd by now. He shook his head: “To think of all the money I took, of all the victims I made.”
The wind blew so hard that aspen leaves cut wildly in the air. I followed Cowboy’s son, Andrew, to a creek that crosses the property. He showed me the bank where the family erects a tipi in summertime and the pools where they fish and swim. Above us was the ridge where I had met Cowboy weeks before. There, in a grove of pines, I had found a cemetery. The graves were sunken into the earth like deer had come to sleep. Some were marked by fenceposts lashed into crosses with wire, and others were not marked at all. This was fractionation in visual form: A gathering of generations; the faint outlines where bodies once lay; a claim to the land, grounded in something spiritual.
Terray Sylvester
Sierra Crane-Murdoch is a freelance journalist based in California. She is at work on her first book.
Reporting for this story was supported by a UC Berkeley-11th Hour Food and Farming Journalism Fellowship.
This coverage is also supported by contributors to the High Country News Enterprise Journalism Fund.
*The Land Buy-Back Program officially ends in 2022. Until then, whatever money is not spent on the first 42 participating reservations, which contain nearly 90 percent of fractionated interests, will be made available for land consolidation in other locations, which the Department of Interior will announce later this year.
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Associated Press - PORTSMOUTH, Va. (AP) -- Jail officials in Portsmouth are investigating the death of inmate who was found unresponsive in his cell.
The Hampton Roads Regional Jail says inmate Jakim Funderburk was found in his cell with a bedsheet tied around his neck hanging from the top bunk.
Guards doing a security check found Funderburk at 12:30 a.m. Sunday and administered CPR until paramedics arrived. He was pronounced dead an hour later.
Portsmouth police are investigating, along with jail officials.
Funderburk had been in jail since December on charges including abduction, malicious assault and armed burglary.
The Justice Department announced in December that it is investigating the jail for its treatment of mentally ill inmates.
This is a developing story. Stay with 8News online and on air for the latest updates. Never miss another Facebook post from 8News Find 8News on Twitter Facebook , and Instagram ; send your news tips to [email protected] |
The first outreach programme of Rahul Gandhi, a year-and-half after the Congress was thrown out of power and he occupied opposition benches, at Mount Carmel College in Bangalore left him hugely embarrassed.
By the time the over-an-hour interaction - his opening statement and a question and answer session ended - it was clear that the Congress vice president, who kept on stressing on one word “conversation” with all concerned and position of women in society at large, was clearly out of sync with the popular pulse, at least those in this metropolis.
The questions were so pointed that Rahul for the first time accepted that GST was a good reformist bill and the Congress would support it if the government was inclined to engage with them and address “three concerns” including capping of taxes proposed in the bill.
Rahul seemed ill-prepared to handle questions which came from the young girls. It was part of the format of the programme. Unfortunately for him, the big embarrassing moment came when responding to his question whether the Swachh Bharat campaign was working the students responded with a loud “Yes”.
Surprised by the response, he said he would ask a different question: “You think Make in India is good”? Again there was a loud “Yes” for answer. Rahul was clearly stumped not just by their approval of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Make in India programme but also the ferocity with which the students responded. “You think so!” he said. Then he asked: do you think youth are getting jobs in India? The answer was a mix of ‘Yes’ and ‘No’. But Rahul heard 'No' for all the three questions he asked. He then added that BJP idea had not worked.
This session must be particularly revealing to Rahul and the Congress because for the better part of his opening statement he had blasted the prime minister, the BJP and the RSS. He kept on targeting Modi, saying the government at the Centre was being run by one man and the PMO was controlling it all. By contrast, he (Rahul) stood for dialogue, discussion conversation. He also said in the early part of his life he had been mostly in the company of women - grandmother, mother and sister - and realised that problem in this country was that the women did not get the respect and position they deserved.
But the kind of questions that came indicated that the most girls were not convinced with Rahul’s argument on goodness of the Congress party and evilness of Modi and the BJP.
Interestingly, after he came out of the convention hall, he told media persons that he got no clear view on Swachh Bharat. “Half of them said nothing has happened, some said something has happened.” On Make in India, he said most said “No”, some said ‘’Yes”. The Congress vice-president was perhaps unmindful of the fact that his interaction was broadcast live on all national channels, apparently on feed provided by his party itself.
Sample the questions that came to Rahul from young girl students. The first question from a girl from North-East was: Why no conversation was held with Iron Sahrmila during her years long fast?
Second, you talk about Suit Boot (Modi) government but what’s wrong with that if it brings development and achieves economic growt?
Third, GST, an important economic reform bill was piloted by the Congress but why is the party stalling it when it is moved by the BJP?
Fourth, why is the opposition stalling Parliament merely for opposing the government?
Fifth, why the youth was going either to the BJP or to the AAP and not to the Congress party?
Sixth, does aligning with the RJD in Bihar not mean that the Congress is compromising with corruption?
Seven, why after several years of Congress rule both at the centre and in states, North-East has been left neglected (the girl asking question referred to a particular stretch in Assam).
Such questions continued. Rahul response was not very coherent. He blamed Modi government for all the prevailing ills. For N-E alienation, he blamed the Modi government for withdrawing special status category to these states. For aligning with Lalu he deviated to say prime minister was killing RTI and to Vasundhara Raje and Shivraj Singh Chouhan. He did refer to Digvijaya Singh about half a dozen times.
He obviously had a rough landing at Mount Carmel College, Bangalore, a place which could have provided him an ideal launching pad to set the “intolerance” agenda against the Modi government in motion for the Winter Session which starts on Thursday.
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This artwork represents a fantastic dream of all times for all romantic people — to fly in the sky on the wings of wind, like a bird. It is one of the unreal versions of the world of heavens.
Column is a symbol of striving upward, sphere — presence of magic in life, lion is a symbol of might and power of all countries. Stargazer looks to the skies opening up the way to unknown worlds. Humans would not be humans if they were not eager for knowledge. Beautiful ladies at the air berth are always ready to see off and wait for their heroes.
On the sides of the box are painted inca gold birds. They do not look like birds then what are these birds? I wanted to convey the intertwining of views in the future and past. Around the artwork is written quatrain of Omar Khayyam, confirming that the eternal, about what philosophers are thinking, is passionately excites us now. |
CTV Atlantic
MONCTON -- As the search for the shooter in Moncton continues, area residents have been told to lock their doors and remain inside and stay away from windows.
Codiac RCMP released a map on Twitter Thursday morning, marking an area of the city where people should remain inside and keep their doors locked. They’re also warning people to expect roadblocks and traffic disruptions.
There are several closures as the manhunt continues. All schools in both the Anglophone East School District and Francophone School District South are closed, as well as New Brunswick Community College and Crandall University. Public libraries in Dieppe, Moncton and Riverview are closed. Buses have also been pulled off the roads and Moncton City Hall is closed. Canada Post also tweeted there will be no mail delivery in Moncton Thursday.
Anyone unable to return to their homes in areas cordoned off by police is asked to seek shelter with friends or family until officials advise otherwise. |
Laporan Wartawan TribunSolo.com, Galuh Palupi Swastyastu
TRIBUNSOLO.COM - Jika kamu anak tahun 90an, kamu mungkin masih ingat dengan iklan salah satu merek sabun cuci yang dulu amat fenomenal ini.
Ya, sabun cuci tersebut adalah sabun merek Daia.
Dulu, iklan sabun tersebut menampilkan ikon seorang pria dengan dandanan yang khas.
Dengan pakaian cerah berwarna kuning ungu merah dan rambut tegak seperti sapu ijuk dengan warna yang sama, pria itu pun berhasil membuat iklan sabun Daia menjadi sangat familiar dengan kita.
Ia juga mempunyai jargon khusus yang khas, yaitu 'dag dig dug duerr Daia!'.
Pria berambut sapu ijuk itu pun kerap datang ke kampung-kampung memberikan kuis berhadiah kepada ibu-ibu.
Karena fenomenalnya, netizen pun bertanya-tanya mengenai siapa sebenarnya sosok dari pria tersebut.
Identitas dari pria itu sempat menghebohkan ketika ada sebuah akun Twitter memposting kemiripan pria tersebut dengan Fadli Zon.
Akun @generasi90an mengunggah foto artis berambut warna-warni tersebut dengan menyandingkannya dengan foto Fadli Zon. |
By Nayef Al-Rodhan (@SustainHistory), University of Oxford[i]
Studies of human behavior and psychology have received extensive attention in public policy. Economists, social theorists and philosophers have long analyzed the incentives of human actions, decision making, rationality, motivation, and other cognitive processes. More recently, the study of happiness furthered the debate in public policy, as many governments brought up the necessity for new measures of social progress. The discussion was bolstered when the UN passed a critical resolution in July 2011 inviting member countries to measure the happiness of their people as a tool to help guide public policies. It was also hoped that discussions about happiness would serve to refine the wider debate about the UN Sustainable Development Goals for 2015-2030 and the standards for measuring and understanding well-being. The World Happiness Report, a recent initiative, attempts to analyze and rate happiness as an indicator to track social progress.
These recent initiatives serve as reminders that sound public policies must evolve in strong connection with an understanding of human psychology, emotions and the sources of happiness and satisfaction. Nevertheless, there are further invaluable insights from neuroscience that have remained less explored. Contemporary neuroscientific research and an understanding of the predispositions of our neurochemistry challenge classical thought on human nature and inform us of fundamental elements that must accompany good governance.
Nature and Nurture
Are we intrinsically good or bad? Are we born with innate morality or with a blank slate? The question of the original endowments of human beings has intrigued philosophers since at least Plato’s day. The notion of anamnesis, or recollection, is foregrounded in several of the Dialogues, and serves as a kind of digression in a number of others. The notion of innate ideas was subsequently popularized in Western philosophy and reemerged with thinkers as influential as Descartes.
At the other side of the spectrum, John Locke came to be known as the most ardent critic of these concepts, believing that there was no evidence for innate ideas whatsoever. Instead, he advocated a tabula rasa, or blank slate, image of the mind. The Lockean challenge to innate ideas represented a healthy exercise of philosophical parsimony and an important step forward but, at the same time, it led to another dichotomy between innate and acquired aspects of human nature more generally.
This debate, however, missed some crucial insights. While Locke was right to eschew particular innate ideas, his lack of familiarity with evolutionary theory and neurosciences prevented him from grasping aspects of human nature that are inherited and universal and grounded in our shared neurochemistry.
Famously, Locke discredited innate ideas by arguing that logical and mathematical truths, which make the best candidates for innate ideas, are by no means universally accepted. If such ideas were innate, there should be no obstacle to all human beings recognizing their truth immediately. Though he mostly confines his discussion to “children and idiots,” similar themes have been expressed by those who advocate concepts and paradigms of cultural relativity.
Moral notions, in particular—which in contemporary times have been demonstrated to vary significantly from one culture to another—stand as evidence against the innateness of ideas. More generally, Locke intended to prove that there was no principled way to distinguish between innate ideas and those acquired through the process of reasoning (induction or deduction). Since the means to make such a distinction were missing, the defender of innate ideas will have to demonstrate that certain ideas could not have been acquired by reason.
Modern neurological studies have bolstered Locke’s position, proving the plasticity of the brain and hence its susceptibility to influence. What Locke could not appreciate, however, was that the same neurochemistry that allows significant flexibility and makes human beings malleable to their environment also predisposes them in certain basic ways. Our neurochemistry is our lowest common denominator, and this brings a nuanced counterargument to Locke with an appeal to the universality of emotions: because emotions are neurochemically mediated, they are present across cultures as part of our genetic inheritance. This surely does not suggest that specific ideas are universal, too; in that regard, Locke’s thesis remains largely intact.
Contemporary neuroscience does, however, point to an element of human nature that is naturally inherited, overturning the theory of a pure tabula rasa or any theory that resorts to explanations of nurture entirely to explain human nature. Moreover, more recent evidence of “genetic memory” also demonstrates the presence of readily inherited intuitions that we possess upon birth. The theory of our inborn “numerosity” explored by neuropsychologist Brian Butterworth further proves how numerical attributes are encoded in the human genome from our ancestors. Therefore, while distinct notions of right or wrong are largely absent from our genetic endowment, mounting evidence in neurosciences shows that some minimal inborn attributes do exist, and the most common and fundamental manifestation of these is the goal of survival.
Predispositions and Dispositions
Our basic suite of emotions is oriented towards our survival and typically functions at a subconscious level, preempting our idiosyncratic cultural conditioning. At the very minimum, human beings are equipped with a set of basic instincts coded by our genetics, which inevitably and repeatedly guide us toward actions that will ensure our survival (or that we calculate as most beneficial for survival at a specific time).
Emotions have increasingly been studied as important in our decision-making processes and in our construction of principles. Importantly, these emotions are not entirely deterministic with regard to behavior. Rather, the complexity of human behavior results from the interplay between general inherited instincts and factors contingent on our individual existences in certain sociocultural settings. This is a central insight in my theory of a predisposed tabula rasa: our nature is highly malleable and readily “written upon” by experience, but it is also and most powerfully predisposed toward self-preservation. Emotions are at the core of this predisposition. This means that there is a certain fundamental emotional commonality in the predisposition with which we begin our lives.
At the same time, the malleability of our nature ensures that our dispositions will also be profoundly influenced by familial, social, and cultural exposure. This understanding has immediate political implications: given that human beings significantly become what they are as a consequence of their environment and their social contexts, creating conditions of good governance, support and fairness is critical. As I have written before, human beings are not born intrinsically good or bad but rather amoral: their moral compasses will vary and shift (to a large extent) in response to external conditions. In the same vein, the emotions that form part of our inheritance can be appealed for both good and ill throughout the course of our lives. The demagogue who would rally people toward violence or radical social destabilization is counting precisely on such emotional instincts to override rational thinking. Being cognizant of such vulnerabilities should make us both more vigilant against those who would use our emotional responses and more sympathetic to those acting predominately and unknowingly out of fear.
Emotionality, Rationality, and Morality
The longstanding dichotomy between innate ideas and a blank slate parallels a related dichotomy between emotions and rationality. From what has already been hinted above, this dichotomy often leads to a distortion and oversimplification of emotions and their role. But, as we acquire a more nuanced appreciation of an inherited set of emotions as neurochemistrically mediated and material and instinct-oriented, it becomes clear that the strict division between emotions and rationality is equally misleading. This is in part because even “basic” emotions—long maligned as obstacles to clear rational thought—have more recently been demonstrated to be significantly inferential. Emotions need to be recognized as significant guides to our behavior, and this is also valid for those minimal emotions associated with survival.
The role conventionally given to rationality, on the other hand, has frequently been overestimated both in terms of its ubiquity and power. A strong tradition to glorify rationality has almost vilified anything pertaining to emotions as something precarious and menacing. Nevertheless, once emotions and their neurochemical underpinning are reevaluated properly a new picture emerges. Emotions have been our constant companions and, as evidenced by scientific research, rational reasoning is in fact less common than usually assumed. Many of our cognitive biases remain controversial, and modern psychology still has limited means to unlock all the unknowns of our brain. However, it is clear that emotions are critical, and the priority of emotions to reason in typical decision-making is increasingly considered a commonplace of psychology.
The theory of predisposed tabula rasa accommodates these results while providing grounds to understand morality as a higher reflective achievement, not inherent to our nature, and in clear correlation to the highly specific circumstances in which the individual lives. As already suggested, our common emotional background is best understood as amoral and capable of being developed for positive ends or manipulated for negative ones. We can thus arrive at a theory of human nature that both explains our inherited aspects in terms of natural selection and leaves sufficient scope for the agency of human beings to develop in relation to their circumstances.
Considering all these insights is also critical for public policy. An understanding of our minimal predispositions provides a guide for ensuring the basic conditions under which humans are most likely to acquire the interest in social cooperation and morality. The understanding of human nature as a predisposed tabula rasa informs us that survival is the most fundamental human instinct coded in our genetics and that, when imperiled, it is likely to trump everything else. Furthermore, the malleability of our neurochemistry is a powerful reminder that public policies must work towards preventing injustice, humiliation and insecurity, and more generally, any conditions that are likely to exacerbate our egoistic and survival-oriented behavior.
[i] Nayef Al-Rodhan is a neuroscientist, philosopher and geostrategist. He is an Honorary Fellow at St Antony`s College, University of Oxford, and Senior Fellow and Head of the Geopolitics and Global Futures Programme at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy. Author of “emotional amoral egoism”. A Neurophilosophical Theory of Human Nature and its Universal Security Implications (Berlin: LIT, 2008).
http://www.sustainablehistory.com/ & http://oxford.academia.edu/NayefAlRodhan |
Over the winter, I've been consistently looking at 90 wins as a good target for which the team should aim, in terms of making the post-season. Since the double wild-card came into play, only two teams have won that many without getting a playoff spot, but nine have achieved October baseball with fewer wins, so 90 seems like a safely conservative bet for the post-season. Of course, more would be better, hopefully a division win allowing us to skip the single-game wild-card contest, but considering we haven't even been above .500 since our last playoff run in 2011, we will take whatever flavor of entry the baseball gods offer.
The chart below shows how the team has done so far. There are three lines, two of which are quite easy to explain. The blue is the actual number of AZ wins. The orange is a straight line to 90 wins at the end of the season - win five games in every nine. The red one is a more complex path, based on the schedule analysis I did before the season. There, I worked out, based on pre-season projections of each team's W-L record and home advantage, the chance of us winning each game. Add all those up and it's a projected win total, then scale it to reach 90 by season's end, and you get a path that takes into account the schedule - as we saw, April is the toughest month.
It's the hard early going which explains why the red line has been below the orange one; it'll catch up later, when we hit the easier parts of the season, but the road trip just completed was seen as a big early test. The simulation gave Arizona only a 41.2% chance of winning each game in San Francisco, which works out at about 35-1 against, for the four-game sweep we achieved. Obviously, our success there led to a marked improvement in the graph. After we lost the second contest in San Diego, we were already 2.4 games behind the expected necessary pace after only 12 contests, and I don't need to remind you how grim things were looking.
But a five-game winning streak righted the ship, and as a result, we came into last night's opening contest against the Pirates, with our actual wins sitting above the expected wins, for the first time in the season. A win there would even have joined it up to the more taxing linear wins line, but it was not to be. However, a win this evening will takes us right back on to the expected wins course, which says we should possess a 10-9 record, on our way to being 14-13 at the end of the month. However, that may now be tougher than we thought, with the Colorado Rockies playing significantly better to this point than the projections had them.
The playoff odds charts remain relatively unimpressed to this point. Fangraphs gives us a 9.0% of post-season activity, which is only fractionally up from the 8.9% we had on Opening Day. It reached a high of 10.3% before last night, but is still rather better than the low of 4.3% before the winning streak began. Baseball Prospectus is a little more generous, giving the Diamondbacks a 16.4% shot, though I can't say how that has changed since they don't provide any historical values - it was probably there or thereabouts though. All told, I think the Diamondbacks have done what they needed to, so far, and probably a bit better than many outsiders expected.
What is a surprise, is the manner we have done it: no contribution at all from A.J. Pollock, and Paul Goldschmidt hitting .238. Last season, those two combined to be worth 16.2 bWAR, one win every ten games; so far, 18 into the 2016 campaign, their total is one-half of one win. There may be an aspect of smoke and mirrors here: six NL teams have better records than Arizona, even though we've been outscored by five runs. By team fWAR, our hitters rank 7th and our pitchers only 11th. Interestingly, that latter value masks a sharp divide: the starters are dead-last in the league, while Arizona's bullpen is second - in part because they have thrown 14% more innings than anyone else.
In the early going, it has been Jean Segura and Jake Lamb who are front-runners for team MVP, by both fWAR and bWAR - the picture gets considerably more muddled after that. Both have benefited from high BABIP (Lamb .372, Segura .365), but particular in Lamb's case, that's likely a result of hard contact, his line-drive rate of 36% the best on the team. With a good walk-rate too, I'm thinking his contribution is perhaps more easily sustainable than Segura, though Jean does have speed on his site, and the numbers indicate he is being more selective this year. If maintained, I'd expect some regression for him, though he'll still be significantly better than 2015.
To me, the main positive has been the negatives. By which I mean, if you'd told me before the season that through 18 games, Zach Greinke and Shelby Miller would have one combined win with an ERA of 6.52, Goldy was hitting .238 and David Peralta had one home-run, I'd have expected a MUCH worse record than 9-9. If some of the above is turned around - and I have varying degrees of confidence in that - then this should offset and perhaps even exceed the return to earth from our over-achievers. There's still a long way to go, certainly; however, the team has thus far done a solid job negotiating the shoals of a nasty April and are in better shape than many teams. |
The problem of antibiotic-resistant bacteria—especially MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus)—has ballooned in recent years. Bacteria in the Staphylococcus genus have always infected humans, causing skin abscesses, a weakened immune system that leaves the body more susceptible to other infections, and—if left untreated—death.
Historically, staph with resistance to drugs have mostly spread within hospitals. Last year, though, a study found that from 2003 to 2008, the number of people checking into U.S. hospitals with MRSA doubled; moreover, in each of the last three years, this number has exceeded the amount of hospital patients with HIV or influenza combined. Even worse, multidrug-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MDRSA) has become an issue, as doctors have encountered increasing numbers of patients who arrive with infections resistant to several different drugs that are normally used to treat afflictions.
It’s clear that these bacteria are acquiring resistance and spreading outside of hospital settings. But where exactly is it happening?
Many scientists believe that the problem can be traced to a setting where antibiotics are used liberally: industrial-scale livestock operations. Farm operators habitually include antibiotics in the feed and water of pigs, chickens and other animals to promote their growth rather than to treat particular infections. As a result, they expose bacteria to these chemicals on a consistent basis. Random mutations enable a small fraction of bacteria to survive, and constant exposure to antibiotics preferentially allows these hardier, mutated strains to reproduce.
From there, the bacteria can spread from the livestock to people who work in close contact with the animals, and then to other community members nearby. Previously, scientists have found MRSA living in both the pork produced by industrial-scale pig farms in Iowa and in the noses of many of the workers at the same farms.
Now, a new study makes the link between livestock raised on antibiotics and MDRSA even clearer. As published today in PLOS ONE, workers employed at factory farms that used antibiotics had MDRSA in their airways at rates double those of workers at antibiotic-free farms.
For the study, researchers from Johns Hopkins University and elsewhere examined workers at several pork and chicken farms in North Carolina. Because the workers could be at risk of losing their jobs if farm owners found out they’d participated, the researchers didn’t publish the names of the farms or workers, but surveyed them about how animals were raised at their farms and categorized them as industrial or antibiotic-free operations.
The scientists also swabbed the nasal cavities of the workers and cultured the staph bacteria they found to gauge the rates of infection by MDRSA. As a whole, the two groups of workers had similar rates of normal staph (the kind that can be wiped out by antibiotics), but colonies of MDRSA—resistant to several different drugs typically used as treatment—were present in 37 percent of workers at industrial farms, compared to 19 percent of workers at farms that didn’t use antibiotics.
Perhaps even more troubling, the industrial livestock workers were much more likely than those working at antibiotic-free operations(56 percent vs. 3 percent) to host staph that were resistant to tetracycline, a group of antibiotics prescribed frequently as well as the type of antibiotic most commonly used in livestock operations.
This research is just the beginning of a broader endeavor aimed at understanding how common agricultural practices are contributing to the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. The scientists say that surveying the family members of farm workers and other people they come in frequent contact with would help to model how such infections spread from person to person. Eventually, further evidence on MDRSA evolving in this setting could help justify tighter regulations on habitual antibiotic use on livestock. |
Peel Regional Police are on the hunt for several suspects after a Mac’s convenience store was robbed at gunpoint, leaving the lone store employee terrified.
The robbery at the Centre Street North convenience store, just west of Kennedy Road North, occurred just after 10 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 10.
Police say the suspects came into the store armed with a handgun and demanded the store clerk, a 63-year-old Brampton man, open the till so they could get to the cash.
But according to police, they couldn’t open the till and the suspects fled with cigarettes and food products. The employee wasn’t injured.
The force's canine unit and tactical squad responded but the hunt continues for those responsible.
Police say there is conflicting information about how many suspects were involved, but say detectives are looking for at least three assailants who “had their faces covered” at the time of the heist.
A store clerk who was working at the Mac’s on Saturday, Nov. 11, who identified himself only as Khalid, said he was not sure if his co-worker who was robbed would return to work during the weekend.
“He’s scared. He may need some time. We’ll see,” he said.
Anyone with information can call police at 905-453-2121, ext. 3410 or Peel Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477. |
Update – the bill passed a 2nd reading on May 12th. The third and final vote, on may 13th had the bill passing by a vote of 138-0. It now moves on to the Senate.
While states across the country are considering and passing bills to reject or nullify what many see as federal overreach in areas like health care, gun rights, medical marijuana, and more, the Texas State House struck a resounding blow tonight by becoming the nation’s first legislative body to pass a TSA nullification bill.
House Bill 1937, introduced by Representative David Simpson, seeks to ban searches by TSA (and other) agents “without probable cause” as the 4th amendment requires. It states, in part:
A person who is a public servant [acting under color of his office or employment] commits an offense if the person: (2) while acting under color of the person’s office or employment without probable cause to believe the other person committed an offense: (A) performs a search for the purpose of granting access to a publicly accessible building or form of transportation;
Even though reports from groups such as The Foundation for a Free Society, Texans for Accountable Government, and Libertarian Longhorns all indicate that the House passed HB1937 “passed by a unanimous voice vote at approximately 11pm this evening,” there’s still what many consider to be a tough battle in the Senate ahead.
NULLIFICATION?
The principle behind such legislation is nullification, which has a long history in the American tradition. When a state ‘nullifies’ a federal law, it is proclaiming that the law in question is void and inoperative, or ‘non-effective,’ within the boundaries of that state; or, in other words, not a law as far as the state is concerned.
Implied in any nullification legislation is enforcement of the state law. In the Virginia Resolution of 1798, James Madison wrote of the principle of interposition:
That this Assembly doth explicitly and peremptorily declare, that it views the powers of the federal government, as resulting from the compact, to which the states are parties; as limited by the plain sense and intention of the instrument constituting the compact; as no further valid that they are authorized by the grants enumerated in that compact; and that in case of a deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise of other powers, not granted by the said compact, the states who are parties thereto, have the right, and are in duty bound, to interpose for arresting the progress of the evil, and for maintaining within their respective limits, the authorities, rights and liberties appertaining to them.
HB1937 explicitly includes the interposition principle by making searches without warrant an offense in the state, theoretically requiring the sheriff or state police to arrest the progress of such acts.
ON TO THE SENATE
Even though Senate passage might be an uphill battle, Simpson remained positive in an update to supporters, saying, “HB 1937 passed second reading in the Texas House this evening. I would like to thank the many Texans and Americans around the country for their support and prayers. May God continue to grant favor to this effort in the Texas Senate and with the Governor. For Texas and Liberty.”
Norman Horn of Libertarian Longhorns seemed even more upbeat. “One step closer to victory!”. And, Heather Fazio of Texans for Accountable Government shared her expectations as well, “It’ll be referred to a senate committee then we make sure it passes there…”
NEXT STEPS
Also being considered in the Texas legislature is another of Simpson’s bills to nullify the TSA, HB1938, which would ban the use of body scanners in all Texas airports. Stay tuned to this website for updates on both legislative efforts. And, click here to track all TSA nullification bills around the country.
Sources close to the Tenth Amendment Center tell us to expect to see at least 10 other states consider such legislation in 2012. Should it pass in Texas, we expect that number to be significantly higher…putting the TSA square in the crosshairs of a rapidly growing movement to reject unconstitutional federal acts on a state level.
Michael Boldin [send him email] is the founder of the Tenth Amendment Center. He was raised in Milwaukee, WI, and currently resides in Los Angeles, CA. Follow him on twitter – @michaelboldin and Facebook. http://www.tenthamendmentcenter.com |
The new Internet service gives customers some of the fastest online speeds available anywhere. Customers can download 25 songs in less than 1 second, a TV show in 3 seconds or their favorite HD movie in less than 36 seconds.2
U-verse with AT&T GigaPower offers Internet speeds up to 1 gigabit per second.3 It can improve the experience for customers when connecting to the cloud, doing a videoconference, streaming videos and music, playing online games and more.
GigaPower has luanched today in the below markets:
1 AT&T products and services are provided or offered by subsidiaries and affiliates of AT&T Inc. under the AT&T brand and not by AT&T Inc.
2 Speed/time examples are estimates.
3 Internet speed claims represent maximum network service capability speeds. Actual customer speeds may vary and are not guaranteed. Actual speeds vary based on factors including site traffic, content provider server capacity, internal network management factors, customer device capabilities and use of other U-verse services. Max speeds may not be realized if 2 or more HD shows viewed at same time. For more info, go to www.att.com/speed101 |
I came across this a while back, unfortunately I did not make note of the source. It’s come in handy a few times.
Manufactor Product Revision Protocol User ID Password Access comment
3COM SuperStack II Switch Console (none) (none) Admin
3COM SuperStack III Switch 4XXX Multi recovery recovery Reset
3COM SuperStack III Switch 4XXX Multi monitor monitor User
3COM SuperStack III Switch 4XXX Multi manager manager Admin
3COM SuperStack III Switch 4XXX Multi admin (none) Admin
3Com SuperStack II Switch 3300 - manager manager
3Com SuperStack II Switch 2700 - tech tech
3Com SuperStack II Switch 2200 - debug synnet
3Com SuperStack II Switch 1100 - security security
3Com SuperStack II Switch 1100 - manager manager
3Com SuperStack / CoreBuilder - admin (none)
3COM SuperStack II Switch 1100/3300 Telnet security security Admin
3Com Switch 3000/3300 - admin admin
3COM SuperStack II Switch 1100/3300 Telnet monitor monitor Monitor
3COM SuperStack II Switch 1100/3300 Telnet manager manager Manager
3COM SuperStack II Switch 2200 Telnet debug synnet
3COM SuperStack II Switch 1100/3300 Telnet admin (none) Admin
3COM SuperStack II Switch 1100/3300 Console 3comcso RIP000 initialize
3com Superstack II Dual Speed 500 - security security
3COM 3c16405 Console Adminstrator (none) Admin
3Com SuperStack 3 Switch 3300XM - admin (none)
3Com SuperStack / CoreBuilder - read (none)
3COM SuperStack II Switch 2700 Telnet tech tech
3COM Telnet read synnet
3com 3comCellPlex7000 - tech tech
3COM AccessBuilder 7000 BRI SNMP SNMPRead public User
3COM AccessBuilder 7000 BRI SNMP SNMPWrite private Admin
3Com AccessBuilderо 7000 BRI Any (none) (none)
3COM AirConnect Access 01.50-01 Multi (none) (none) Admin
3COM AirConnect Access Multi (none) comcomcom Admin
3Com AirConnect Access Point n/a (none) comcomcom
3COM AirConnect Access Point 01.50-01 Multi (none) (none) Admin
3com Cable Managment System SQL Database (DOSCIC DHCP) Win2000 & MS DOCSIS_APP 3com Admin
3COM SuperStack III Switch 3300XM Telnet security security Admin
3COM Telnet security security
3COM Switch 3300XM Multi admin admin Admin
3COM Telnet monitor monitor
3COM Telnet manager manager
3COM Telnet admin synnet
3COM Telnet adm (none)
3COM Wireless AP Any Multi admin comcomcom Admin
3Com Switch 3000/3300 - security security
3Com Switch 3000/3300 - monitor monitor
3Com Switch 3000/3300 - manager manager
3com Switch 3000/3300 - Admin 3com
3Com SuperStack / CoreBuilder - write (none)
3COM Telnet write synnet
3COM LinkSwitch 2000/2700 Telnet tech tech
3COM CoreBuilder 7000/6000/3500/2500 Telnet tech tech
3com Super Stack 2 Switch Any manager manager
3Com HiPer ARC Card v4.1.x of HA adm none
3com Superstack II 3300FX - admin (none)
3COM Home Connect Multi Home User Admin
3com Home Connect - User Password
3COM LANplex 2500 Telnet debug synnet
3COM LANplex 2500 Telnet tech tech
3COM LANplex 2500 Telnet tech (none) admin
3COM CoreBuilder 7000/6000/3500/2500 SNMP SNMPWrite private Admin
3Com Linkbuilder 3500 - administer administer
3Com CoreBuilder 6000 debug tech
3Com LinkSwitch and CellPlex - debug synnet
3Com LinkSwitch and CellPlex - tech tech
3Com NAC (Network Access Card) - adm none
3com NBX100 2.8 administrator 0
3COM NBX100 2.8 Telnet root administrator 0000
3COM NetBuilder Multi admin (none) Admin
3COM CellPlex 7000 Telnet admin admin Admin
3COM CellPlex 7000 Telnet admin (none) Admin
3COM NetBuilder SNMP (none) ANYCOM snmp-read SNMP disabled by default
3Com - 1.25 root letmein
3COM LinkBuilder Telnet tech tech Admin
3COM NetBuilder SNMP (none) ANYCOM SNMP disabled by default
3COM Office Connect 5x1 Multi ustheralastruey (none) Admin
3COM Office Connect 812 Multi root !root Admin
3COM Office Connect 812 ADSL Multi adminttd adminttd Admin
3Com Office Connect Remote 812 - root !root
3Com OfficeConnect 5x1 at least 5.x (none) PASSWORD
3Com OfficeConnect 5x1 at least 5.x estheralastruey (none)
3COM HiPerARC v4.1.x Telnet adm (none) Admin
3com OfficeConnect 812 ADSL Multi adminttd adminttd Admin
3COM CoreBuilder 7000/6000/3500/2500 SNMP SNMPRead public User
3COM Office Connect ISDN Routers 5x0 Telnet (none) PASSWORD Admin
3COM NetBuilder SNMP (none) ANYCOM snmp-read
3COM NetBuilder SNMP (none) admin SNMP_READ SNMP disabled by default
3COM NetBuilder SNMP (none) ILMI snmp-read SNMP disabled by default
3COM CellPlex 7000 HTTP admin admin User
3COM CellPlex 7000 Telnet (none) (none) Admin
3COM CellPlex 7000 Multi operator (none) Admin
3COM CellPlex 7000 Telnet root (none) Admin
3COM CellPlex 7000 Telnet tech tech Admin
3COM CellPlex 7000 Telnet tech (none) Admin
3COM CoreBuilder 7000/6000/3500/2500 Telnet debug synnet
3COM CoreBuilder 7000 Telnet operator admin Admin
3COM OCR-812 - root !root
3-COM - 1.25 root letmein
3M Volition Fibre Switches VOL-0215 etc. SNMP volition volition Admin
ACC Routers Multi netman netman
ACC Congo/Amazon/Tigris All Multi netman netman
Acc/Newbridge Congo/Amazon/Tigris All versions netman netman
Accelerated Networks DSL CPE and DSLAM Telnet sysadm anicust
Acer AcerInc 1997 V55 BIOS V15 Multi (none) (none) Admin
Acer Phoenix Multi n/a (none) Admin
Acer 517te Multi (none) (none) Admin
Adaptec Storage Manager PRO all Multi Administrator adaptec Admin
Adaptec RAID Storage Manager Pro All Administrator adaptec
ADC Kentrox Pacesetter Router Telnet (none) secret
ADP ADP Payroll HR Database All Versions Multi sysadmin master Admin
Adtran TSU 120 e (none) ADTRAN Admin
Adtran MX2800 Telnet (none) adtran
Adtran TSU 600 Ethernet module All 18364 (none) Admin
Advanced Integration PC BIOS Console (none) Advance Admin
Aironet All - (none) (none)
Aironet Standard Equipment (?) (none) (none) Admin
Alcatel OmniStack/OmniSwitch Telnet/Console diag switch Admin
Alcatel VPN Gateway 15xx/45xx/7xxx root permit Admin
Alcatel PBX Port 2533 dhs3pms dhs3pms unknown
alcatel speed touch home - (none) (none)
Alcatel PBX Port 2533 root letacia unknown
Alcatel PBX Port 2533 mtcl mtcl unknown
Alcatel PBX Port 2533 mtch mtch unknown
Alcatel PBX Port 2533 kermit kermit unknown
Alcatel PBX Port 2533 install llatsni unknown
Alcatel PBX Port 2533 halt tlah unknown
Alcatel Speedtouch 500 series Telnet (none) (none) Admin
Alcatel 1000 ANT Win98 (none) (none)
Alcatel PBX Port 2533 at4400 at4400 unknown
alcatel - - (none) (none)
Alcatel PBX Port 2533 dhs3mt dhs3mt unknown
Alcatel Office 4200 Multi (none) 1064 Admin
Alcatel OmniStack 6024 Telnet admin switch Admin
Alcatel PBX Port 2533 adfexc adfexc unknown
Alcatel PBX Port 2533 client client unknown
Alcatel/Newbridge/Timestep VPN Gateway 15xx/45xx/7xxx Any root permit
Allied CJ8MO E-U Telnet (none) (none) Admin
Allied Telesyn Multi manager friend Admin
Allied Telesyn Multi secoff secoff Admin
Allied Telesyn AT-8024(GB) Telnet (none) admin Admin
Allied Telesyn AT-8024(GB) Console (none) admin Admin
Allied Telesyn Generic Switch/Router Multi manager friend Admin
Allied Telesyn R130 manager friend Admin
Allied Telesyn AT-8124XL 1.0.3 Multi admin (none) Admin
Allied Telesyn All Routers Any Manager Friend
Allied Telesyn All Telnet manager friend Admin
Allied Telesyn AT-8326G Multi (none) (none) Admin
Allied Telesyn AT-8024(GB) HTTP manager admin Admin
ALLNET ALL129DSL admin admin Admin
ALLNET T-DSL Modem v1.51 HTTP admin admin Admin
Alteon ACEswitch 180e HTTP admin linga Admin
Alteon Web Systems 5.2 SNMP SNMPWrite public Admin
Alteon Web Systems 5.2 Telnet (none) 14admin Admin
Alteon Web Systems 5.2 Telnet (none) admin Admin
Alteon ACEswitch 180e HTTP admin admin Admin
Alteon ACEswitch 180e Telnet admin (none) Admin
Alteon ACEswitch 180e Telnet admin (none)
Alteon ACEswitch 180e Telnet admin (none)
Alteon ACEDirector3 console admin (none) Admin
Alteon ACEswitch 180e HTTP admin admin Admin
Alteon Web Systems All hardware releases Web OS 5.2 none admin
AMBIT ADSL Telnet root (none) Admin
AMI PC BIOS Console (none) A.M.I Admin
AMI PC BIOS Console (none) AMI Admin
AMI PC BIOS Console (none) AMIPSWD Admin
AMI PC BIOS Console (none) AMI?SW Admin
AMI PC BIOS Console (none) AMI_SW Admin
AMI PC BIOS Console (none) HEWITT RAND Admin
AMI PC BIOS Console (none) CMOSPWD Admin
AMI PC BIOS Console (none) BIOSPASS Admin
AMI PC BIOS Console (none) AMISETUP Admin
AMI PC BIOS Console (none) amipswd Admin
AMI PC BIOS Console (none) AM Admin
AMI PC BIOS Console (none) AMIAMI Admin
AMI PC BIOS Console (none) AMI~ Admin
AMI PC BIOS Console (none) AMI.KEZ Admin
AMI PC BIOS Console (none) AMI.KEY Admin
AMI PC BIOS Console (none) aammii Admin
AMI AT 49 Multi (none) (none) Admin
AMI PC BIOS Console (none) AMIDECOD Admin
AMI PC BIOS Console (none) AMI!SW Admin
Amptron PC BIOS Console (none) Polrty Admin
Apache Project Apache "jj" script HTTP (none) SDGROCKS User
Apache Project N/A Apache HTTP jj (none) User
APC Powerchute Plus 4.x for Netware 3.x/4.x Console POWERCHUTE APC Admin
APC Share-UPS AP9207 Console (none) serial number of the Share-UPS Admin
APC SNMP Adapter 2.x apc apc
APC Web/SNMP Management Card AP9606 Multi apc apc Admin
APC Any Firmware Pri apcuser apc
APC Standard Equipment (?) Firmware Console apcuser apc Admin
APC MasterSwitches - apc apc
APC Call-UPS AP9608 Console (none) serial number of the Call-UPS Admin (Access menu Control+P)
APC MasterSwitch AP9210 apc apc Admin
Apple Airport 1.1 (none) public User
Apple Network Assistant 3.X (none) xyzzy Admin
Armenia Forum Multi admin admin Admin
Arrowpoint any? - admin system
Asante IntraSwitch Multi IntraSwitch Asante Admin
Ascend Sahara Multi root ascend Admin
Ascend Yurie Multi readonly lucenttech2 Read
Ascend Router Telnet (none) ascend Admin
Ascend Pipeline Terminal Server answer (none) Admin
Ascend Yurie Multi readwrite lucenttech1 Admin
BEA WebLogic Process Integrator 2 wlpisystem wlpisystem Admin
BEA WebLogic HTTPS system weblogic Admin
BEA Weblogic 5.1 system weblogic
BEA WebLogic Process Integrator 2 admin security Admin
BEA WebLogic Process Integrator 2 joe password User
BEA WebLogic Process Integrator 2 mary password User
BEA WebLogic Process Integrator 2 system security Admin
Beck IPC@Chip HTTP anonymous (none) User
Beck IPC@Chip HTTP ftp (none) User
Beck IPC@Chip HTTP tel (none) User
Belkin F5D6130 SNMP (none) MiniAP Admin
Bintec all Routers Any admin bintec
Bintec Bianca/Brick XM-51 SNMP (none) snmp-Trap read/write
Bintec Bianka Routers Multi admin bintec Admin
BioData all Babylon Boxes (none) Babylon Admin
Biodata BIGfire & BIGfire+ all (none) biodata
Biostar PC BIOS Console (none) Q54arwms Admin
Biostar PC BIOS Console (none) Biostar Admin
BizDesign ImageFolio Pro 2.2 HTTP Admin ImageFolio Admin
Black Box Terminal Server LES2700A Series Ports 2001-2016) (none) SYSTEM Admin
Black Box terminal server / telnet auf ports 2001-2016 LES2700A-16, LES2700A-32 and LES2700A-422 (none) SYSTEM (admin rights)
BMC Patrol 6 Multi patrol patrol User
Borland InterBase SYSDBA masterkey Admin
Borland Interbase Any politcally correct Admin
Borland/Inprise Interbase any SYSDBA masterkey
Boston router simulator 3.66 HTTP admin admin User
Boston router simulator 3.66 Multi (none) (none) Admin
Boston router simulator 3.66 Multi (none) admin Admin
Boston router simulator s/w Console (none) admin Admin
Breezecom Breezecom Adapters 4.x (none) Super Admin
BreezeCOM Station Adapter and Access Point 2.x (none) laflaf
BreezeCOM Station Adapter and Access Point 4.x (none) Super
Breezecom Breezecom Adapters 3.x (none) Master Admin
Breezecom Breezecom Adapters 2.x (none) laflaf Admin
BreezeCom AP10, SA10 BreezeNET PR (none) (none)
BreezeCOM - 3.x (none) Master
Breezecom Breezecom Adapters 4.4.x (none) Helpdesk Admin
Brocade Fiberchannel Switches Multi admin password Admin
Brocade Silkworm Multi admin password Admin
Brother HL-1270n Telnet (none) access Admin
Brother NC-3100h (none) access network board access
Brother NC-3100h Telnet (none) access Admin
Brother NC-4100h (none) access network board access
Brother NC-4100h Telnet (none) access Admin
Buffalo/MELCO AirStation WLA-L11 root (cannot be changed) (none) Admin
Cabletron Netgear modem/router and SSR netman (none) Admin
Cabletron routers & switches (none) (none) Admin
Cabletron NB Series (none) inuvik49 Admin
Cabletron any any (none) (none)
Cabletron/Enterasys WebView for Matrix E1 (1G694-13 or 1G582-09 or 1H582-51) switch HTTP (none) (none) Admin
Cayman 3220-H DSL Router GatorSurf 5. Any (none)
Cayman Cayman DSL 3220-H } (none) Admin
Cayman Cayman DSL (none) (none) Admin
Celerity Mediator Multi Multi mediator mediator User
Celerity Mediator Multi root Mau'dib Admin
Cellit CCPro Multi cellit cellit Admin
CGI World Poll It v2.0 HTTP (none) protection User/Admin
Chase Research Iolan+ - (none) iolan
Chase Research IoLan+ (none) (none) Admin
Checkpoint SecurePlatform NG FP3 Console admin admin Admin
Chuming Chen NessusWeb HTTP administrator adminpass Administrator
Cisco 7206 Multi (none) (none) Admin
Cisco aironet Multi (none) (none) Admin
Cisco 2503 - (none) (none)
cisco 3600 12 bumhole sniffer
cisco - 12 turd burgular
Cisco 1600 Multi (none) (none) Admin
Cisco 1900 Multi (none) (none) Admin
Cisco 2500 Multi (none) (none) Admin
Cisco 2501 Telnet (none) (none) Admin
Cisco 3600 Telnet (none) (none) Admin
Cisco Netranger/secure IDS Multi netrangr attack
Cisco IOS 2600 series Multi (none) c but these are common misconfigurations
Cisco IOS 11.x-12.x SNMP (none) ILMI limited READ/WRITE
Cisco IOS 12.1(3) SNMP (none) cable-docsis SNMP read-write
Cisco IOS Multi (none) c Admin but these are common misconfigurations
Cisco IOS SNMP private ReadWrite access secret Read/Write
Cisco IOS SNMP public ReadOnly access secret Read
Cisco IOS Multi ripeop (no pw)
Cisco IP Phone 7960 (none) cisco Admin
Cisco MGX superuser superuser Admin
Cisco microRouter 900i Console/Multi (none) letmein Admin
Cisco IOS 12.1(3) SNMP (none) cable-docsis SNMP read-write might run on many Ciscos
Cisco Net Ranger 2.2.1 Sol 5.6 root attack
Cisco Router 1 Multi (none) (none) Admin
Cisco Netranger/secure IDS 3.0(5)S17 Multi root attack Admin
Cisco Network Registar 3.0 ADMIN changeme Admin
Cisco PIX Telnet (none) cisco UID = pix
Cisco pix Multi (none) (none) Admin
Cisco pix 501 Multi (none) admin Admin
Cisco PIX firewall Multi (none) (none) Admin
Cisco PIX firewall Console (none) (none) Admin
Cisco routers Not sure...j (none) san-fran
Cisco VPN Concentrator 3000 series 3 Multi admin admin Admin
cisco xxxx 12 rob's knob
CISCO N/A N/A pixadmin pixadmin
Cisco BBSD MSDE Client 5.0 and 5.1 Telnet or Named Pipes bbsd-client NULL database
Cisco VPN 3000 Concentrator - admin admin
Cisco IOS Multi (none) Cisco router
Cisco 3500 xl Console admin (none) Admin
Cisco Any Router and Switch 10 thru 12 cisco cisco
Cisco any aany IOS no default login no default password
CISCO arrowpoint - (none) (none)
Cisco BBSM 5.0 and 5.1 Telnet or Named Pipes bbsd-client changeme2 database
Cisco BBSM Administrator 5.0 and 5.1 Multi Administrator changeme Admin
Cisco BBSM MSDE Administrator 5.0 and 5.1 IP and Named Pipes sa (none) Admin
Cisco Cache Engine Console admin diamond Admin
Cisco Catalyst 4000/5000/6000 All SNMP (none) public/private/secret RO/RW/RW+change SNMP config
Cisco CiscoWorks 2000 admin cisco Admin
Cisco IOS Multi enable cisco IOS technically has no default pw
Cisco CiscoWorks 2000 guest (none) User
Cisco CNR All CNR GUI admin changeme Admin
Cisco ConfigMaker cmaker cmaker Admin
Cisco ConfigMaker Software any? (none) cmaker
Cisco Content Engine Telnet admin default Admin
cisco cva 122 Telnet admin admin Admin
Cisco IOS Multi (none) cisco
Cisco Hot Standby Routing Protocol HSRP (none) cisco Admin
Cisco IOS Multi (none) cc
Cisco IDS (netranger) - root attack
Cisco IOS Multi cisco cisco
Cisco CiscoWorks 2000 guest (none) User
Cisco-Arrowpoint Arrowpoint admin system Admin
CMOS BIOS - - (none) ESSEX or IPC
Cobalt RaQ * Qube* Any admin admin
Com21 General Equipment(?) (none) (none) Admin
Comersus Shopping Cart 3.2 HTTP admin dmr99 Admin
Comersus Shopping Cart 3.2 Win 95/98/NT admin dmr99
Compaq PC BIOS Console (none) Compaq Admin
Compaq PC BIOS Console (none) (none) Admin
Compaq Notebook Multi (none) (none) Admin
Compaq Management Agents All administrator none Admin
Compaq Insight Manager operator operator Admin
Compaq iPAQ CP-2w Multi admin (none) Admin
Compaq Armada M700 Console Administrator admin Guest
Compaq Insight Manager user user User
Compaq Insight Manager user public User
Compaq Insight Manager PFCUser 240653C9467E45 User
Compaq Insight Manager administrator administrator Admin
Compaq Insight Manager Multi (none) (none) Admin
Compaq Evo N610c Multi (none) (none) Admin
Compaq armada m700 Multi (none) (none) Admin
Compaq Armada M700 Console Administrator admin Admin
Compaq Armada E500 pp2060 Multi Administrator admin Admin
Compaq Insight Manager anonymous (none) User
Compaq dc770t Multi (none) (none) Admin
Compualynx Cmail Server All Versions Multi administrator asecret Admin
Compualynx Cproxy Server All Versions Multi administrator asecret Admin
Compualynx SCM All Versions Multi administrator asecret Admin
Computer Associates ControlIT ControlIT DEFAULT default Desktop/console access
Concord PC BIOS (none) last Admin
Copper Mountain General Equipment(?) (none) (none) Admin
Coyote-Point Equaliser 4 Free BSD HTTP touch touch Admin
Coyote-Point Equaliser 4 Free BSD Serial root (none) Admin
Coyote-Point Equaliser 4 Free BSD Serial eqadmin equalizer Admin
Coyote-Point Equaliser 4 Free BSD HTTP look look User
Crystalview OutsideView 32 (none) Crystal Admin
CTX International PC BIOS Console (none) CTX_123 Admin
Cyberguard all firewalls all console + passport1 cgadmin cgadmin Admin
CyberMax PC BIOS Console (none) Congress Admin
Cyclades Cyclades-TS800 TS800 telnet/ssh/web root (none) Admin
Cyclades Cyclades-TS800 TS800 web root tslinux Admin
Cyclades MP/RT super surt Admin
Cyclades PR -1000 super surt Admin
Daewoo PC BIOS Console (none) Daewuu Admin
Dallas Semiconductors TINI embedded JAVA Module <= 1.0 Telnet root tini Admin
Data General AOS/VS Multi op operator Admin
Data General AOS/VS Multi operator operator Admin
Data General AOS/VS Multi op op Admin
Datacom BSASX/101 (none) letmein Admin
Datacom NSBrowse Multi sysadm sysadm Admin
Datawizard.net FTPXQ server FTP anonymous any@ read/write on c:\
Davox Unison Sybase sa (none) Admin
Davox Unison Multi admin admin User
Davox Unison Multi davox davox User
Davox Unison Multi root davox Admin
Daytek PC BIOS Console (none) Daytec Admin
Debian Linux LILO Default 2.2 Console (none) tatercounter2000 Admin
decnet decnet Multi operator admin Guest
Deerfield MDaemon HTTP MDaemon MServer Admin
Dell PC BIOS Console (none) Dell Admin
Dell latitude Multi operator (none) Admin
Dell latitude c610 a07 Multi admin admin Admin
Dell Latitude CPx Bios (none) Config Config
Dell notebook Multi (none) (none) Admin
Dell OpenManage Server Console Console root calvin Admin
Dell PHOENIX A16 Console Administrator admin Admin
Dell PowerApp Web 100 Linux RedHat 6.2 HTTP root powerapp Admin
Dell PowerVault 35F Multi root calvin Admin
Dell PowerVault 50F WindRiver (E root calvin
Dell LATITUDE D35B Multi (none) (none) Admin
Dell TrueMobile 1184 Wireless Broadband Gateway Router unknown HTTP admin admin Admin
dell inspiron Multi (none) admin Admin
Dell PowerVault 50F Multi root calvin Admin
Dell Cpi D300XT Multi Administrator admin Admin
Dell bios d35b Multi (none) (none) Admin
Dell Latitude Bios D35B Multi (none) 1RRWTTOOI Admin
Dell c600 595b Multi (none) (none) User
Dell latitude a01 Multi (none) admin Admin
Dell cpx h500gt Multi (none) (none) Admin
Dell cpx500 Multi (none) (none) Admin
Dell dell latitude cpi r21d0 Multi Administrator (none) Admin
Dell dell latitude cpx Multi admin admin User
Dell inspiron Multi admin admin Admin
Dell bios d35b Multi (none) admin Admin
Dell latitude A21 HTTP Administrator (none) Admin
Dell CSr500xt Multi (none) admin Admin
Demarc Network Monitor multi admin my_DEMARC Admin
Deutsche Telekom T-Sinus 130 DSL 1.04 HTTP (none) (none) Admin
Develcon Orbitor Default Console (none) BRIDGE Admin
Develcon Orbitor Default Console (none) password Admin
Dictaphone ProLog NETOP (none)
Dictaphone ProLog NETWORK NETWORK
Dictaphone ProLog PBX PBX
Digiboard Portserver 8 & 16 any root dbps Admin
Digicorp Viper Telnet (none) BRIDGE Admin
Digicorp Viper Telnet (none) password Admin
Digicraft Software Yak! 2.0.1 FTP Yak asd123 Default port is 3535.
Digital DEC-10 Multi 2 maintain Admin
Digital Equipment VMS Multi INFO INFO
Digital Equipment VMS Multi NETWORK NETWORK
Digital Equipment VMS Multi NETSERVER NETSERVER
Digital Equipment VMS Multi NETPRIV NETPRIV
Digital Equipment VMS Multi NETNONPRIV NETNONPRIV
Digital Equipment VMS Multi NETMGR NETMGR
Digital Equipment VMS Multi NETCON NETCON
Digital Equipment VMS Multi MBWATCH MBWATCH
Digital Equipment VMS Multi MBMANAGER MBMANAGER
Digital Equipment VMS Multi MAILER MAILER
Digital Equipment VMS Multi INGRES INGRES
Digital Equipment VMS Multi OPERVAX OPERVAX
Digital Equipment VMS Multi HOST HOST
Digital Equipment VMS Multi HELPDESK HELPDESK
Digital Equipment VMS Multi VAX VAX
Digital Equipment VMS Multi HELP HELP
Digital Equipment VMS Multi VMS VMS
Digital Equipment VMS Multi GUEST GUEST
Digital Equipment VMS Multi FIELD DIGITAL
Digital Equipment VMS Multi FIELD TEST
Digital Equipment VMS Multi FIELD SERVICE
Digital Equipment VMS Multi FIELD FIELD
Digital Equipment VMS Multi LINK LINK
Digital Equipment VMS Multi SYSTEM SYSTEM
Digital Equipment VMS Multi DEMO DEMO
Digital Equipment VMS Multi USERP USERP
Digital Equipment VMS Multi USER PASSWORD
Digital Equipment VMS Multi UETP UETP
Digital Equipment VMS Multi TEST TEST
Digital Equipment VMS Multi TELEDEMO TELEDEMO
Digital Equipment VMS Multi SYSTEST_CLIG SYSTEST
Digital Equipment VMS Multi SYSTEST_CLIG SYSTEST_CLIG
Digital Equipment VMS Multi SYSTEST UETP
Digital Equipment VMS Multi SYSTEM SYSLIB
Digital Equipment VMS Multi NEWINGRES NEWINGRES
Digital Equipment VMS Multi SYSTEM MANAGER
Digital Equipment VMS Multi NEWS NEWS
Digital Equipment VMS Multi SYSMAINT DIGITAL
Digital Equipment VMS Multi SYSMAINT SERVICE
Digital Equipment VMS Multi SYSMAINT SYSMAINT
Digital Equipment VMS Multi SYS SYS
Digital Equipment VMS Multi STUDENT STUDENT
Digital Equipment VMS Multi RJE RJE
Digital Equipment VMS Multi REPORT REPORT
Digital Equipment VMS Multi PRIV PRIV
Digital Equipment VMS Multi POSTMASTER POSTMASTER
Digital Equipment VMS Multi ALLIN1 ALLIN1
Digital Equipment VMS Multi SYSTEM OPERATOR
Digital Equipment 40513 Multi 5 games User
Digital Equipment DecServer Multi (none) SYSTEM Admin
Digital Equipment DecServer Multi (none) ACCESS Admin
Digital Equipment DEC-10 Multi 7 maintain User
Digital Equipment DEC-10 Multi 5 games User
Digital Equipment DEC-10 Multi 30 games User
Digital Equipment DEC-10 Multi 2 manager Admin
Digital Equipment DEC-10 Multi 1 manager Admin
Digital Equipment DEC-10 Multi 1 operator Admin
Digital Equipment DEC-10 Multi 1 syslib Admin
Digital Equipment HiNote ct450 Multi (none) (none) Admin
Digital Equipment 40513 Multi 7 maintain User
Digital Equipment DEC-10 Multi 2 operator Admin
Digital Equipment 40513 Multi 2 operator Admin
Digital Equipment 40513 Multi 2 manager Admin
Digital Equipment 40513 Multi 2 syslib Admin
Digital Equipment 40513 Multi 2 maintain Admin
Digital Equipment 40513 Multi 1 manager Admin
Digital Equipment 40513 Multi 1 operator Admin
Digital Equipment 40513 Multi 1 syslib Admin
Digital Equipment VMS Multi ALLINONE ALLINONE
Digital Equipment VMS Multi DEFAULT DEFAULT
Digital Equipment 40513 Multi 30 games User
Digital Equipment VMS Multi ALLIN1MAIL ALLIN1MAIL
Digital Equipment VMS Multi DEFAULT USER
Digital Equipment VMS Multi DECNET NONPRIV
Digital Equipment VMS Multi DECNET DECNET
Digital Equipment VMS Multi DECMAIL DECMAIL
Digital Equipment DEC-10 Multi 2 syslib Admin
Digital Equipment VMS Multi BACKUP BACKUP
Digital Equipment IRIS Multi accounting accounting Admin
Digital Equipment Terminal Server Port 7000 (none) system Admin
Digital Equipment Terminal Server Port 7000 (none) access User
Digital Equipment RSX Multi USER USER User
Digital Equipment RSX Multi SYSTEM SYSTEM Admin
Digital Equipment RSX Multi SYSTEM MANAGER Admin
Digital Equipment RSX Multi 1,1 SYSTEM Admin
Digital Equipment RSX Multi 1.1 SYSTEM Admin
Digital Equipment PC BIOS Console (none) komprie Admin
Digital Equipment IRIS Multi software software User
Digital Equipment IRIS Multi PDP8 PDP8 User
Digital Equipment IRIS Multi PDP11 PDP11 User
Digital Equipment IRIS Multi manager manager Admin
Digital Equipment IRIS Multi demo demo User
Digital Equipment IRIS Multi boss boss Admin
Digital Equipment RSX Multi BATCH BATCH User
Digital Equipment VMS Multi DCL DCL
Dlink DFE-538TX 10/100 Adapter Windows 98 (none) (none)
DLink DL-701 Cable/DSL Gateway/Firewall - (none) year2000
Dlink Dl-106 ISDN router - (none) 1234
dlink di704 - (none) admin
DLink DI 106 winnt administrator @*nigU^D.ha,;
DLink DI-206 ISDN router 1.* Admin Admin
D-Link DI-804 v2.03 Multi admin (none) Admin
D-Link DI-701 2.22 (?) (none) (none)
D-Link hubs/switches Telnet D-Link D-Link
D-Link DWL-900+ HTTP admin (none) Admin
D-Link DWL-614+ 2.03 HTTP admin (none) Admin
D-Link DWL 900AP Multi admin public Admin
D-Link Dl 604 1.8 Multi admin (none) Admin
D-Link DI-704 - (none) admin Admin
D-Link DI-701 2.22 (?) Multi (none) (none) Admin
D-Link DI-106 administrator @*nigU^D.ha,; Admin
D-Link Cable/DSL Routers/Switches Multi (none) admin Admin
D-Link DI-614+ HTTP user (none) User
D-Link DFE-538TX 10/100 Adapter (none) (none) Admin
D-Link DSL-500 Multi admin admin Admin
D-Link DI-106 ISDN router (none) 1234 Admin
D-Link DI-701 unknown Multi (none) year2000 Admin
D-Link DI-206 ISDN router 1.* Admin admin Admin
D-Link DI-604 1.62b+ HTTP admin (none) Admin
D-Link DI-614+ HTTP admin (none) Admin
D-Link D-704P Multi admin admin Admin
Dupont Digital Water Proofer Telnet root par0t Admin
Dupont Digital Water Proofer Sun Sparc any root par0t
Dynalink RTA020 Multi admin admin Admin
Dynix Library Systems Dynix Multi circ (none) User
Dynix Library Systems Dynix Multi SETUP (none) Admin
Dynix Library Systems Dynix Multi LIBRARY (none) User
Dynix Library Systems Dynix Multi circ <social sec #> User
Dynix Library Systems Dynix Multi later (none) Admin
ECI Any (none) (none) Admin
Efficient - - (none) (none)
Efficient Speedstream DSL Telnet (none) admin Admin
Efficient Networks 5851 SDSL Router N/A Console (none) hs7mwxkk Admin
Efficient Networks 5871 DSL Router v 5.3.3-0 Multi login admin Admin
Efficient Networks EN 5861 Telnet login admin Admin
Efficient Networks Speedstream 5711 Teledanmark version (only .dk) Console (none) 4getme2 Admin
Efficient Networks Speedstream DSL Telnet (none) admin Admin
Efficinet Networks Speedstream Router 250 ssr250 Multi admin admin Admin
Efficinet Networks Speedstream 5667 R4.0.1 HTTP (none) admin Admin
Efficinet Networks 5800 Class DSL Routers all Multi login admin Admin
Efficinet Networks Speedstream 5861 SMT Router Multi admin admin Admin
Elron Firewall 2.5c hostname/ip address sysadmin Admin
Elsa LANCom Office ISDN Router 800/1000/1100 Telnet (none) (none) Admin
Elsa LANCom Office ISDN Router 800/1000/1100 Telnet (none) cisco Admin
emai hotmail - (none) (none)
enCAD XPO Multi (none) (none) Admin
Enox PC BIOS Console (none) xo11nE Admin
Enterasys ANG-1105 unknown Telnet (none) netadmin Admin
Enterasys ANG-1105 unknown HTTP admin netadmin Admin
Epox PC BIOS Console (none) central Admin
Ericsson ericsson Acc Multi (none) (none) Admin
Ericsson md110 pabx up-to-bc9 Multi (none) help varies depending on config minimal list access by default
Ericsson ACC - netman netman
Ericsson (formerly ACC) Any router all netman netman
Ericsson ACC Tigris Platform All Multi public (none) Guest
Erpepe ADSL Router Telnet chochete tiabuena Admin
E-Tech ADSL Ethernet Router Annex A v2 HTTP admin epicrouter Admin
EverFocus PowerPlex EDR1600 Multi operator operator Admin
EverFocus PowerPlex EDR1600 Multi admin admin Admin
EverFocus PowerPlex EDR1600 Multi supervisor supervisor Admin
Extended Systems Print Servers - admin extendnet
Extended Systems ExtendNet 4000 / Firewall all Versions admin admin
extreme black diamond - (none) (none)
Extreme All All Admin (none)
Extreme Networks All Switches Multi admin (none) Admin
Extreme Networks Black Diamond Multi (none) (none) Admin
Extreme Networks Switches Multi admin (none) Admin
Extreme Networks All All SNMP (none) public Guest
F5-Networks BIGIP Multi (none) (none) Admin
Fastwire Fastwire Bank Transfer N/A N/A fastwire fw N/A
FiberDriver N-Base Switches NH208, NH215, and NH2016 Multi <any> forgot Admin
FiberDriver N-Base Switches NH208, NH215, and NH2016 Multi <any> debug Debug
FlowPoint 144, 2200 DSL Routers ALL (none) admin
Flowpoint 2200 - (none) Serial Num
Flowpoint 144, 2200 DSL Routers ALL (none) password
Flowpoint 2200 SDSL Telnet admin admin Admin
Flowpoint 40 IDSL Telnet admin admin Admin
Flowpoint DSL 2000 Telnet admin admin Admin
Flowpoint DSL Telnet (none) password Admin
Flowpoint Flowpoint 2200 Telnet (none) Serial Number Admin
Flowpoint Flowpoint/2000 ADSL Telnet (none) (none) Admin
Flowpoint 100 IDSN Telnet admin admin Admin
fore - - (none) (none)
Fore Systems ASX 1000/1200 6.x ami (none) Admin
Forums Web Server Forums Web Server 1.5 HTTP admin (none) Admin
Foundry Networks ServerIronXL Any (none) (none) Admin
Freetech PC BIOS Console (none) Posterie Admin
fujitsu l460 - (none) (none)
Fujitsu Siemens Lifebook c4135 Multi (none) (none) Admin
Funk Software Steel Belted Radius 3.x Proprietary admin radius Admin
Future Networks FN 110C Docsis cablemodem Any (none) (none)
Galacticomm Major BBS Multi Sysop Sysop Admin
Gateway Solo Multi (none) (none) Admin
gatway solo9100 win95 (none) (none)
General Instruments SB2100D Cable Modem Telnet test test Admin
Gigabyte Gigabyte Multi (none) (none) Admin
glFtpD glFtpD all Console glftpd glftpd Admin
GoNET General Equipment(?) fast adb234 Admin
GuardOne BizGuard Multi n.a guardone Admin
GuardOne Restrictor Multi (none) guardone Admin
H2O Project Medialibrary HTTP admin admin Administrator
Hewlett Packard MPE-XL - OPERATOR COGNOS
Hewlett Packard MPE-XL - MANAGER HPOFFICE
Hewlett Packard MPE-XL - MGR CAROLIAN
Hewlett Packard MPE-XL - HELLO MGR.SYS
Hewlett Packard MPE-XL - HELLO MANAGER.SYS
Hewlett Packard HP Jetdirect (All Models) Any none none
Hewlett Packard MPE-XL - HELLO FIELD.SUPPORT
Hewlett Packard MPE-XL - MGR CCC
Hewlett-Packard Omnibook XE3 Multi (none) (none) Admin
Hewlett-Packard HP Omnibook 2100 Multi (none) (none) Admin
Hewlett-Packard LaserJet Net Printers Ones with Jetdirect on them Telnet (none) (none) Admin
Hewlett-Packard LaserJet Net Printers Ones with Jetdirect on them HTTP (none) (none) Admin
Hewlett-Packard LaserJet Net Printers Ones with Jetdirect on them 9100 (none) (none) User
Hewlett-Packard LaserJet Net Printers Ones with Jetdirect on them FTP Anonymous (none) User
Hewlett-Packard notebook Multi (none) (none) Admin
Hewlett-Packard omnibbok 4150 B Multi (none) (none) Admin
Hewlett-Packard omnibook xe3 Multi (none) admin Admin
Hewlett-Packard omnibook 2000 Multi Administrator (none) Admin
Hewlett-Packard OmniBook 900 Multi (none) (none) Admin
Hewlett-Packard Omnibook XE3 GC Phoenix Bios 4.0 Multi (none) (none) Admin
Hewlett-Packard omnibook6000 m Multi (none) (none) Admin
Hewlett-Packard sa7200 Multi admin (none) Admin
Hewlett-Packard Vectra Console (none) hewlpack Admin
Hewlett-Packard Vectra Console (none) hewlpack Admin
Hewlett-Packard HP 2000/3000 MPE/xx Multi WP HPOFFICE
Hewlett-Packard Vectra Console (none) hewlpack Admin
Hewlett-Packard omnibook 4150b Multi (none) (nessun) Admin
Hewlett-Packard HP 2000/3000 MPE/xx Multi HELLO MGR.SYS
Hewlett-Packard HP 2000/3000 MPE/xx Multi MGE VESOFT
Hewlett-Packard HP 2000/3000 MPE/xx Multi MANAGER TELESUP
Hewlett-Packard HP 2000/3000 MPE/xx Multi MANAGER COGNOS
Hewlett-Packard HP 2000/3000 MPE/xx Multi MANAGER HPOFFICE
Hewlett-Packard HP 2000/3000 MPE/xx Multi MANAGER ITF3000
Hewlett-Packard HP 2000/3000 MPE/xx Multi MANAGER SECURITY
Hewlett-Packard HP 2000/3000 MPE/xx Multi MANAGER SYS
Hewlett-Packard HP 2000/3000 MPE/xx Multi MANAGER TCH
Hewlett-Packard HP 2000/3000 MPE/xx Multi MAIL MAIL
Hewlett-Packard HP 2000/3000 MPE/xx Multi MAIL MPE
Hewlett-Packard HP 2000/3000 MPE/xx Multi MAIL HPOFFICE
Hewlett-Packard HP 2000/3000 MPE/xx Multi MAIL TELESUP
Hewlett-Packard HP 2000/3000 MPE/xx Multi MAIL REMOTE
Hewlett-Packard HP 2000/3000 MPE/xx Multi MGR SYS
Hewlett-Packard HP 2000/3000 MPE/xx Multi FIELD HPP187 SYS
Hewlett-Packard HP 2000/3000 MPE/xx Multi MGR HPOFFICE
Hewlett-Packard Webmin 0.84 HTTP admin hp.com Administrator Runs on port 1000.
Hewlett-Packard HP 2000/3000 MPE/xx Multi ADVMAIL HPOFFICE DATA
Hewlett-Packard HP 2000/3000 MPE/xx Multi ADVMAIL HP
Hewlett-Packard HP 2000/3000 MPE/xx Multi FIELD MGR
Hewlett-Packard HP 2000/3000 MPE/xx Multi HELLO OP.OPERATOR
Hewlett-Packard HP 2000/3000 MPE/xx Multi FIELD MANAGER
Hewlett-Packard HP 2000/3000 MPE/xx Multi HELLO FIELD.SUPPORT
Hewlett-Packard HP 2000/3000 MPE/xx Multi FIELD LOTUS
Hewlett-Packard HP 2000/3000 MPE/xx Multi FIELD HPWORD PUB
Hewlett-Packard HP 2000/3000 MPE/xx Multi FIELD HPONLY
Hewlett-Packard HP 2000/3000 MPE/xx Multi FIELD HPP187,SYS
Hewlett-Packard HP 2000/3000 MPE/xx Multi HELLO MANAGER.SYS
Hewlett-Packard HP 2000/3000 MPE/xx Multi FIELD SUPPORT
Hewlett-Packard HP 2000/3000 MPE/xx Multi FIELD SERVICE
Hewlett-Packard HP 2000/3000 MPE/xx Multi OPERATOR DISC
Hewlett-Packard HP 2000/3000 MPE/xx Multi MGR INTX3
Hewlett-Packard HP 2000/3000 MPE/xx Multi MGR ITF3000
Hewlett-Packard HP 2000/3000 MPE/xx Multi MGR NETBASE
Hewlett-Packard HP 2000/3000 MPE/xx Multi MGR REGO
Hewlett-Packard HP 2000/3000 MPE/xx Multi MGR RJE
Hewlett-Packard HP 2000/3000 MPE/xx Multi MGR HPP196
Hewlett-Packard HP 2000/3000 MPE/xx Multi OPERATOR SYS
Hewlett-Packard HP 2000/3000 MPE/xx Multi OPERATOR COGNOS
Hewlett-Packard HP 2000/3000 MPE/xx Multi OPERATOR SYSTEM
Hewlett-Packard HP 2000/3000 MPE/xx Multi OPERATOR SUPPORT
Hewlett-Packard HP 2000/3000 MPE/xx Multi PCUSER SYS
Hewlett-Packard HP 2000/3000 MPE/xx Multi RSBCMON SYS
Hewlett-Packard HP 2000/3000 MPE/xx Multi MGR CAROLIAN
Hewlett-Packard HP 2000/3000 MPE/xx Multi ADVMAIL HPOFFICE,DATA
Hewlett-Packard HP 2000/3000 MPE/xx Multi MGR CONV
Hewlett-Packard HP 2000/3000 MPE/xx Multi MGR TELESUP
Hewlett-Packard HP 2000/3000 MPE/xx Multi MGR XLSERVER
Hewlett-Packard HP 2000/3000 MPE/xx Multi MGR HPP189
Hewlett-Packard HP 2000/3000 MPE/xx Multi MGR VESOFT
Hewlett-Packard HP 2000/3000 MPE/xx Multi MGR SECURITY
Hewlett-Packard HP 2000/3000 MPE/xx Multi MGR HPDESK
Hewlett-Packard HP 2000/3000 MPE/xx Multi MGR CCC
Hewlett-Packard HP 2000/3000 MPE/xx Multi MGR CNAS
Hewlett-Packard HP 2000/3000 MPE/xx Multi MGR COGNOS
Hewlett-Packard HP 2000/3000 MPE/xx Multi MGR HPP187
Hewlett-Packard HP 2000/3000 MPE/xx Multi MGR ROBELLE
Hewlett-Packard HP 2000/3000 MPE/xx Multi MGR HPONLY
Hewlett-Packard HP 2000/3000 MPE/xx Multi MGR WORD
Hewlett-Packard HP 2000/3000 MPE/xx Multi SPOOLMAN HPOFFICE
Hosting Controller Hosting Controller HTTP AdvWebadmin advcomm500349 Admin
Hyundai Networks HASE-120 DSL Router Telnet (none) speedxess Admin
IBM VM/CMS Multi PVM (none)
IBM VM/CMS Multi OP1 (none)
IBM VM/CMS Multi OPERATNS (none)
IBM VM/CMS Multi PDMREMI (none)
IBM VM/CMS Multi PENG (none)
IBM VM/CMS Multi PROCAL (none)
IBM VM/CMS Multi PRODBM (none)
IBM VM/CMS Multi ROUTER (none)
IBM VM/CMS Multi PSFMAINT (none)
IBM VM/CMS Multi RDM470 (none)
IBM VM/CMS Multi ISPVM (none)
IBM VM/CMS Multi RSCS (none)
IBM VM/CMS Multi SAVSYS (none)
IBM VM/CMS Multi PROMAIL (none)
IBM VM/CMS Multi OLTSEP (none)
IBM VM/CMS Multi NEVIEW (none)
IBM VM/CMS Multi MOESERV (none)
IBM VM/CMS Multi MAINT (none)
IBM VM/CMS Multi GCS (none)
IBM VM/CMS Multi IVPM1 (none)
IBM VM/CMS Multi IPFSERV (none)
IBM VM/CMS Multi IIPS (none)
IBM VM/CMS Multi IDMSSE (none)
IBM VM/CMS Multi IDMS (none)
IBM VM/CMS Multi SFCNTRL (none)
IBM VM/CMS Multi VMBACKUP (none)
IBM VM/CMS Multi FSFTASK2 (none)
IBM VM/CMS Multi IVPM2 (none)
IBM VM/CMS Multi VMARCH (none)
IBM VM/CMS Multi RSCSV2 (none)
IBM VM/CMS Multi FSFTASK1 (none)
IBM VM/CMS Multi VTAMUSER (none)
IBM VM/CMS Multi VTAM (none)
IBM VM/CMS Multi VSEMAN (none)
IBM VM/CMS Multi VSEMAINT (none)
IBM VM/CMS Multi VSEIPO (none)
IBM VM/CMS Multi VMUTIL (none)
IBM VM/CMS Multi VMTLIBR (none)
IBM VM/CMS Multi VMTAPE (none)
IBM VM/CMS Multi VMMAP (none)
IBM VM/CMS Multi VMASMON (none)
IBM VM/CMS Multi VMASSYS (none)
IBM VM/CMS Multi SMART (none)
IBM VM/CMS Multi VM3812 (none)
IBM VM/CMS Multi VASTEST (none)
IBM VM/CMS Multi TSAFVM (none)
IBM VM/CMS Multi TEMP (none)
IBM VM/CMS Multi TDISK (none)
IBM VM/CMS Multi SYSWRM (none)
IBM VM/CMS Multi SYSERR (none)
IBM VM/CMS Multi SYSDUMP1 (none)
IBM VM/CMS Multi SYSCKP (none)
IBM VM/CMS Multi SYSADMIN (none)
IBM VM/CMS Multi SQLUSER (none)
IBM VM/CMS Multi SQLDBA (none)
IBM VM/CMS Multi VMBSYSAD (none)
IBM NetCommerce PRO 3.2 Multi ncadmin ncadmin Admin
IBM AS400 Any QSECOFR QSECOFR
IBM AS400 - QSRV QSRV
IBM AS400 - QSRVBAS QSRVBAS
IBM Ascend OEM Routers Telnet (none) ascend Admin
IBM DB/2 (none) db2admin db2admin
IBM DB2 WinNT db2admin db2admin
IBM hxet60ww Multi (none) (none) Admin
IBM LAN Server / OS/2 2.1, 3.0, 4. username password
IBM Lotus Domino (Net Commerce) HTTP webadmin webadmin Admin
IBM OS/400 Multi quser quser
IBM OS/400 Multi ibm password
IBM AS/400 - qsecofr qsecofr
IBM OS/400 Multi 11111111 11111111
IBM OS/400 Multi 22222222 22222222
IBM OS/400 Multi qsecofr qsecofr
IBM OS/400 Multi qpgmr qpgmr
IBM OS/400 Multi qsecofr 22222222
IBM OS/400 Multi qserv qserv
IBM OS/400 Multi qsrv qsrv
IBM OS/400 Multi qsrvbas qsrvbas
IBM a21 Multi root (none) Admin
IBM OS/400 Multi qsvr ibmcel
IBM Lotus Domino Go WebServer (net.commerce edition) ANY ? webadmin webibm
IBM VM/CMS Multi SFCMI (none)
IBM a20m Multi (none) admin Admin
IBM 8265 Multi (none) (none) Admin
IBM 8239 Token Ring HUB 2.5 Console (none) R1QTPS Utility Program
IBM 8237 Multi I5rDv2b2JjA8Mm A52896nG93096a Admin
IBM 8225 Multi I5rDv2b2JjA8Mm A52896nG93096a Admin
IBM 8224 HUB Multi vt100 public Admin
IBM 600x Multi (none) admin Admin
IBM 600e Multi Administrator admin Admin
IBM 390e Multi (none) admin Admin
IBM 3534 F08 Fibre Switch Multi admin password Admin
IBM OS/400 Multi qsecofr 11111111
IBM - OS/400 QSECOFR QSECOFR
IBM AS/400 OS/400 QUSER QUSER
IBM 2210 RIP def trade
IBM VM/CMS Multi FSFADMIN (none)
IBM A21m Multi (none) (none) Admin
IBM AIX 4.X Multi admin admin User
IBM AIX Multi guest (none) User
IBM AIX Multi guest guest User
IBM AIX Multi root ibm Admin
IBM AS/400 - (none) (none)
IBM AS/400 - qpgmr qpgmr
IBM OS/400 Multi qsysopr qsysopr
IBM 2628 Multi (none) (none) Admin
IBM VM/CMS Multi CPRM (none)
IBM VM/CMS Multi $ALOC%4$snbsp;(none)
IBM VM/CMS Multi ADMIN (none)
IBM VM/CMS Multi AP2SVP (none)
IBM VM/CMS Multi APL2PP (none)
IBM VM/CMS Multi AUTOLOG1 (none)
IBM VM/CMS Multi BATCH (none)
IBM VM/CMS Multi BATCH1 (none)
IBM VM/CMS Multi BATCH2 (none)
IBM VM/CMS Multi CCC (none)
IBM VM/CMS Multi CMSBATCH (none)
IBM OS/400 Multi qsvr qsvr
IBM VM/CMS Multi CPNUC (none)
IBM TotalStorage Enterprise Server Multi storwatch specialist Admin
IBM VM/CMS Multi CSPUSER (none)
IBM VM/CMS Multi CVIEW (none)
IBM VM/CMS Multi DATAMOVE (none)
IBM VM/CMS Multi DEMO1 (none)
IBM VM/CMS Multi DEMO2 (none)
IBM VM/CMS Multi DEMO3 (none)
IBM VM/CMS Multi DEMO4 (none)
IBM VM/CMS Multi DIRECT (none)
IBM VM/CMS Multi DIRMAINT (none)
IBM VM/CMS Multi DISKCNT (none)
IBM VM/CMS Multi EREP (none)
IBM VM/CMS Multi CMSUSER (none)
IBM ra6000 AIX Unix (none) (none)
IBM OS/400 Multi sedacm secacm
IBM OS/400 Multi sysopr sysopr
IBM OS/400 Multi user USERP
IBM PC BIOS Console (none) IBM Admin
IBM PC BIOS Console (none) MBIU0 Admin
IBM PC BIOS Console (none) sertafu Admin
IBM Phoenix BIOS 4 Multi (none) (none) Admin
IBM udb 5 Multi (none) (none) Admin
IBM POS CMOS Console IPC (none)
IBM OS/400 Multi ibm 2222
IBM thinkpad Multi (none) (none) Admin
IBM OS/400 Multi secofr secofr
IBM OS/400 Multi ibm service
IBM TotalStorage HTTP storwatch specialist Administrative
IBM Tivoli HTTP admin admin Administrator
IBM POS CMOS Console ESSEX (none)
IBM thinkpad FTP (none) (none) Admin
IBM RACF IBMUSER SYS1
IBM switch 8275-217 Console (none) 0 Admin
IBM switch 8275-217 Telnet admin (none) Admin
IBM RS6000 1 Multi admin admin Admin
IBM RS/6000 AIX root ibm
Iiawmd web page HTTP (none) (none) User
Imperia Software Imperia Content Managment System Unix/NT HTTP superuser superuser Admin
Informix Database N/A N/A informix informix N/A
Intel 7110 SSL Accelerator Multi (none) admin Admin
Intel netstructure 480t Telnet admin (none) Admin
Intel Wireless Gateway 3.x HTTP intel intel Admin
Intel Wireless AP 2011 2.21 Multi (none) Intel Admin
Intel 460T Express Switch Multi (none) (none) Admin
Intel 480 Multi (none) (none) Admin
Intel 510T Any (none) admin
Intel All Routers All Versions (none) babbit
Intel Express 9520 Router Multi NICONEX NICONEX User
Intel Intel PRO/Wireless 2011 Wireless LAN Access Point Any (none) Intel
Intel lan rover 6.7 Console root admin Admin
Intel LanRover VPN Gateway < 6.0 Multi (none) isolation Admin
Intel Express 520T Switch Multi setup setup User
Intel NetportExpress Multi (none) (none) Admin
Intel Shiva Multi Guest (none) User
Intel Shiva Multi root (none) Admin
Intel Shiva Lanrovers Multi root (none) Admin
Intel wireless lan access Point - (none) comcomcom
Intel LanRover VPN Gateway 6.0 > Multi (none) shiva Admin
Interbase Interbase Database Server All Multi SYSDBA masterkey Admin
Intershop Intershop 4 HTTP operator $chwarzepumpe Admin
Intex organizer Multi (none) (none) Admin
Ipswitch Whats up Gold 6.0 admin admin Admin
Ipswitch Whats up Gold 6.0 Windows 9x a admin admin
IRC IRC Daemon IRC (none) FOOBAR Acess
IRCXPro IRCXPro Server 1.0 IRC admin password Admin
IRIS Multi PDP11 PDP11 User
IRX Router Telnet !root (none) (none)
iso sistemi winwork Multi (none) (none) Admin
iso sistemi winwork 2002 Multi operator (none) Admin
Iwill PC BIOS Console (none) iwill Admin
janta sales 254 compaq janta sales janta211
JD Edwards WorldVision/OneWorld All(?) TCP 1964 JDE JDE Admin/SECOFR
JDS Microprocessing Hydra 3000 r2.02 Console hydrasna (none) Admin
Jetform Jetform Design HTTP Jetform (none) Admin
JetWay PC BIOS Console (none) spooml Admin
Johnson Controls HVAC System N/A MODEM johnson control N/A
Joss Technology PC BIOS Console (none) 57gbzb Admin
Joss Technology PC BIOS Console (none) technolgi Admin
Juniper All Junos 4.4 root none
kaptest usmle HTTP admin (none) Admin
Kawa All (none) (none) Admin
Knox Arkeia Server 4.2.8-2 root (none) Admin
Kyocera Telnet Server IB-20/21 multi root root Admin
Kyocera EcoLink 7.2 HTTP (none) PASSWORD Admin
LANCAST All (none) (none) Admin
LANCOM IL11 Multi (none) (none) Admin
Lantronics Lantronics Terminal Server TCP 7000 (none) system Admin
Lantronics Lantronics Terminal Server TCP 7000 (none) access Admin
Lantronix Terminal Server TCP 7000 (none) lantronix Admin
Lantronix LSB4 any any system
Lantronix LSB4 TCP 7000 (none) system Admin
Lantronix MSS100, MSSVIA, UDS10 Any (none) system
Lantronix MSS110, MSSVIA, UDS10 TCP 7000 (none) system Admin
Lantronix Printer and terminalservers - (none) system
Lantronix Terminal Server TCP 7000 (none) access Admin
Lantronix Terminal Server TCP 7000 (none) system Admin
Lantronix LPS1-T Print Server j11-16 TCP 7000 any system Admin
Leading Edge PC BIOS Console (none) MASTER Admin
LGIC Goldstream 2.5.1 LR-ISDN LR-ISDN Admin
Linkou School bill bill User
Linksys Cable/DSL router Any (none) admin
Linksys BEFSR41 2 HTTP (none) admin Admin
Linksys BEFSR7(1) OR (4) Standalone R blank admin
Linksys BEFW11S4 1 HTTP admin (none) Admin
Linksys DSL Telnet (none) admin Admin
LinkSys EtherFast Cable/DSL Router HTTP admin (none) Admin
Linksys EtherFast Cable/DSL ROuter Multi Administrator admin Admin
Linksys Linksys Router DSL/Cable HTTP (none) admin Admin
LinkSys WAP11 Multi (none) (none) Admin
Linunx Linux Console Administrator admin Admin
Linux UCLinux for UCSIMM Multi root uClinux Admin
Linux Slackware Multi gonzo (none) User
Linux Slackware Multi snake (none) User
Linux Bankmandiri.co.id HTTP Administrator (none) Admin
Linux Slackware Multi satan (none) User
Livingston IRX Router Telnet !root (none) Admin
Livingston Livingston Portmaster 3 Telnet !root (none) Admin
Livingston Livingston_officerouter - !root blank
Livingston Livingston_portmaster2/3 - !root blank
Livingston Officerouter Telnet !root (none) Admin
Livingston Portmaster 2R Telnet !root (none) Admin
Lucent GX 550 SNMP readwrite (none) cascade
Lucent Packetstar (PSAX) - readwrite lucenttech1
Lucent Packetstar (PSAX) - readwrite lucenttech1
Lucent Packetstar (PSAX) - readwrite lucenttech1
Lucent MAX-TNT Multi admin Ascend
Lucent MAX-TNT Multi admin Ascend
Lucent Max TNT 9.1.3 Multi (none) admin Admin
Lucent MAX Multi (none) (none) Admin
Lucent Portmaster 2 - !root none
Lucent GX 550 SNMP readwrite (none) cascade
lucent Portmaster 3 unknown !root !ishtar
Lucent GX 550 debug mode (none) cascade
Lucent GX 550 debug mode (none) cascade
Lucent Portmaster 2 - !root none
Lucent Portmaster 2 Multi !root (none) Admin
Lucent Portmaster 2 - !root none
Lucent GX 550 Multi (any 3 characters) cascade
lucent Portmaster 3 unknown !root !ishtar
Lucent Portmaster 3 multi !root !ishtar Admin
Lucent PSAX 1200 and below Multi root ascend
Lucent PSAX 1200 and below Multi root ascend
Lucent PSAX 1250 and above Multi readonly lucenttech2
Lucent PSAX 1250 and above Multi readonly lucenttech2
Lucent PSAX 1250 and above Multi readwrite lucenttech1
Lucent PSAX 1250 and above Multi readwrite lucenttech1
lucent Portmaster 3 unknown !root !ishtar
Lucent B-STDX9000 Multi (any 3 characters) cascade
Lucent Anymedia Console LUCENT01 UI-PSWD-01 Admin
Lucent Anymedia Telnet LUCENT01 UI-PSWD-01 Admin
Lucent Anymedia Console LUCENT02 UI-PSWD-02 Admin
Lucent Anymedia Telnet LUCENT02 UI-PSWD-02 Admin
Lucent AP-1000 - public public
Lucent AP-1000 - public public
Lucent AP-1000 public private Admin
Lucent AP-1000 - public public
Lucent GX 550 Multi (any 3 characters) cascade
Lucent B-STDX9000 Multi (any 3 characters) cascade
Lucent B-STDX9000 debug mode (none) cascade
Lucent B-STDX9000 SNMP readwrite (none) cascade
Lucent B-STDX9000 debug mode (none) cascade
Lucent CBX 500 SNMP readwrite (none) cascade
Lucent DSL HTTP (none) (none) Admin
Lucent PSAX Multi Administrator (none) Admin
lucent dsl - (none) (none)
Lucent B-STDX9000 SNMP readwrite (none) cascade
Lucent CBX 500 debug mode (none) cascade
Lucent CBX 500 SNMP readwrite (none) cascade
Lucent CBX 500 Multi (any 3 characters) cascade
Lucent CBX 500 Multi (any 3 characters) cascade
Lucent Cajun Family - root root
lucent dsl - (none) (none)
Lucent Cajun Family - root root
Lucent Cajun Family - root root
Lucent CBX 500 debug mode (none) cascade
lxy_nrg 87418 87418 Multi (none) (none) Admin
M Technology PC BIOS Console (none) mMmM Admin
MachSpeed PC BIOS Console (none) sp99dd Admin
Macromedia Dreamweaver FTP (none) admin Guest
Macromedia Freehand 9 (none) (none) Admin
MacSense X-Router Pro admin admin Admin
Magic-Pro PC BIOS Console (none) prost Admin
Main Street Softworks MCVE 2.5 Multi MCVEADMIN password Admin
Mambo Site Server 4.x HTTP admin admin Administrator
Megastar PC BIOS Console (none) star Admin
Mentec Micro/RSX Multi MICRO RSX Admin
MERCURY 234234 234234 SNMP Administrator admin Admin
MERCURY KT133A/686B SNMP Administrator admin Admin
Mercury Interactive Topaz Prism HTTP admin admin admin
Meridian PBX ANY Telnet service smile System
microcom hdms unknowen system hdms
Microcom HDMS system hdms Admin
Micron - bios (none) (none)
Micron PC BIOS Console (none) sldkj754 Admin
Micron PC BIOS Console (none) xyzall Admin
Micronet Micronet SP5002 Console mac (none) Admin
Micronet Access Point SP912 Telnet root default Admin
Micronics PC BIOS Console (none) dn_04rjc Admin
Microplex Print Server Telnet root root Admin
microRouter 900i Console/Multi (none) letmein Admin
Microrouter (Cisco) Any Any (none) letmein
Microsoft Windows NT 4 admin admin
Microsoft Windows NT 4 pkoolt pkooltPS
Microsoft Key Management Server Windows NT 4 Console (none) password Admin
Microsoft Windows NT All Mail (none)
Microsoft Windows NT Multi User User User
Microsoft Windows NT Multi IS_$hostname (same) User
Microsoft Windows NT Multi Guest (none) User
Microsoft Windows NT Multi Guest Guest User
Microsoft Windows NT All Guest (none)
Microsoft Windows NT All Administrator (none)
Microsoft windows NT FTP Administrator admin Admin
Microsoft Windows NT Multi (null) (none) User Redbutton Hole
Microsoft Windows Multi Administrator (none) Admin
Microsoft SQL Server 7 Multi sa (blank) Admin
Microsoft Proxy 2.0 Console (none) (none) Admin
MICROSOFT NT 4 free user user
Microsoft MN-500 Wireless Base Station Multi admin admin Admin
Microsoft Base Station Access Point HTTP (none) admin Admin
Microsoft NT - (none) start
Mintel Mintel PBX (none) SYSTEM Admin
Mitel 3300 ICP all HTTP system password Admin
M-M-O Webrealm HTTP Administrator admin Admin
Motorola Cablerouter Telnet cablecom router Admin
Motorola Cyber Surfer (none) (none) Admin
Motorola Motorola-Cablerouter - cablecom router
MRO Software Maximo v4.1 Multi SYSADM sysadm Admin
msdloto msdloto - (none) (none)
Multi-Tech ProxyServer Multi supervisor (none) Admin
Multi-Tech RASExpress Server 5.30a guest none
MySQL MySQL all versions root (none) Admin
Nanoteq NetSeq Firewall admin NetSeq Admin
Nanoteq NetSeq firewall * admin NetSeq
NCR NCR UNIX Multi ncrm ncrm Admin
NetApp NetCache any admin NetCache Admin
Netgear FVS318v3 - admin password
Netgear RH328 - (none) 1234
Netgear RP114 3.26 Telnet (none) 1234 Admin
Netgear RT311 HTTP admin 1234 Admin
Netgear RT338 - (none) 1234
Netgear RT314 HTTP admin admin Admin
Netgear RT311/RT314 - admin 1234
Netgear RT311 Any Admin 1234
Netgear RP614 HTTP admin password Admin
Netgear RP114 3.20-3.26 HTTP admin 1234 Admin
netgear - - (none) (none)
Netgear RH438 / ISDN-Router RH348 HTTP (none) 1234 Admin
Netgear RH348 - (none) 1234
Netgear RH338 HTTP (none) 1234 Admin
Netgear RT314 Any Admin 1234
Netgear MR-314 3.26 HTTP admin 1234 Admin
Netgear ISDN-Router RH348 - (none) 1234
Netgear Firewall router FR314 HTTP admin password Admin
Netgear RM356 None Telnet (none) 1234 Admin
NetGenesis NetAnalysis Web Reporting HTTP naadmin naadmin Admin
netlink rt314 - (none) (none)
Netopia R7100 4.6.2 admin admin
Netopia Netopia 9500 Telnet netopia netopia Admin
Netopia Netopia 7100 Telnet (none) (none) Admin
Netopia 455 v3.1 (none) (none)
Netopia R910 Multi admin (none) Admin
Netport Express 10/100 multi setup setup Admin
Netscape Netscape Enterprise Server HTTP admin admin Administrator
Netscreen all all Console Serialnumber Serialnumber Admin
Netscreen NS-5, NS10, NS-100 2 netscreen netscreen
Netscreen ns-25 Multi (none) (none) Admin
Netscreen firewall Telnet operator (none) Admin
Netscreen Firewall multi netscreen netscreen Admin
Netscreen firewall Telnet Administrator (none) Admin
Netscreen firewall Multi admin (none) Admin
Netscreen - - netscreen netscreen
Netscreen firewall HTTP Administrator (none) Admin
Network Appliance NetCache any Multi admin NetCache Admin
Network Associates WebShield Security Appliance e500 HTTP e500 e500changeme Admin
Network Associates WebShield Security Appliance e250 HTTP e250 e250changeme Admin
NetworkICE ICECap Manager 2.0.22 < 8081 iceman (none) Admin
Neverwinter nights Neverwinter nights Multi admin admin Admin
NeXT NeXTStep 3.3 Multi me (none) User
NeXT NeXTStep Multi root NeXT Admin
NeXT NeXTStep Multi signa signa User
NeXT - NeXTStep 3.3 me (none)
NGSec The Hooy 1 Multi admin admin Admin
NGSec NGSecureWeb HTTP admin (none) Admin
NGSec NGSecureWeb Multi admin asd Admin
NGSec NGSecureWeb HTTP admin asd Admin
Nimble PC BIOS Console (none) xdfk9874t3 Admin
Nokia M10 Telecom Telecom Admin
Nokia MW1122 Multi telecom telecom Admin
Nokia DSL Router M1122 1.1 - 1.2 Multi m1122 m1122 User
Norman 5.3 Multi (none) (none) Admin
Nortel Accelar (Passport) 1000 series routing switches Multi ro ro Read Only
Nortel Contivity Extranet/VPN switches HTTP admin setup Admin
Nortel Meridian 1 PBX OS Release 2 0 0
Nortel Meridian Multi (none) (none) Admin
Nortel Matra 6501 PBX Console (none) 0 Admin
Nortel Instant Internet (none) (none) Admin
Nortel Extranet Switches Multi admin setup Admin
Nortel DMS Multi (none) (none) Admin
Nortel Contivity Extranet Switches 2.x admin setup
Nortel Baystack 450T sw V.4.1.0.6 (none) secure
Nortel Baystack 350-24T Telnet (none) secure Admin
Nortel Bay Console (none) (none) Admin
Nortel ASN / ARN Routers Manager Manager Admin
Nortel Meridian 1 PBX 0000 0000 Admin
Nortel Accelar (Passport) 1000 series routing switches Multi rw rw Read Write
Nortel Meridian Link Multi mlusr mlusr user account
Nortel Accelar (Passport) 1000 series routing switches Multi l3 l3 Layer 3 (and layer 2) Read Write
Nortel Accelar (Passport) 1000 series routing switches Multi l2 l2 Layer 2 Read Write
Nortel Accelar (Passport) 1000 series routing switches Multi rwa rwa Read Write All
Nortel Meridian PBX Serial login 8429 AUTH codes in LD 8
Nortel Baystack 450T sw V.4.1.0.6 (none) secure
Nortel Shasta any admin admin
Nortel Remote Office 9150 Client admin root Admin
Nortel Remote Annex 2000 admin (ip address) Admin
Nortel Norstar Modular ICS **CONFIG (266344) CONFIG (266344) Admin
Nortel Norstar Modular ICS **ADMIN (**23646) ADMIN (23646) Admin
Nortel Meridian PBX Serial spcl 0000 AUTH codes in LD 8
Nortel Meridian Link Multi disttech 4tas engineer account
Nortel Meridian PBX Serial login 0000 AUTH codes in LD 8
Nortel Meridian CCR Multi ccrusr ccrusr User account
Nortel Meridian PBX Serial login 1111 AUTH codes in LD 8
Nortel Meridian PBX Serial login 0 AUTH codes in LD 8
Nortel Meridian MAX Multi service smile general engineer account
Nortel Meridian MAX Multi root 3ep5w2u Admin
Nortel Meridian MAX Multi maint ntacdmax Maintenance account
Nortel Meridian Link Multi service smile general engineer account
Nortel Meridian CCR Multi disttech 4tas engineer account enter 3letter of day from yesterday an tomorrow (for Tuesday enter MonWed case sensitive) - may be twice to see root password in clear
Nortel Meridian Link Multi maint maint Maintenance account
Nortel Meridian CCR Multi service smile general engineer account
Nortel Meridian CCR Multi maint maint Maintenance account
Nortel Meridian PBX Serial spcl 0 AUTH codes in LD 8
Nortel Networks (Bay) Instant Internet Any (none) (none)
Northern Telecom(Nortel) Meridian 1 - (none) m1link
Novell Netware Multi GUEST GUESTGUE
Novell Netware Multi PRINTER (none)
Novell Netware Multi LASERWRITER (none)
Novell Netware Multi SUPERVISOR NETFRAME
Novell Netware Multi SABRE (none)
Novell Netware Multi ROUTER (none)
Novell Netware Multi ROOT ROOT
Novell Netware Multi SUPERVISOR NF
Novell Netware Multi PRINTER PRINTER
Novell Netware Multi SUPERVISOR HARRIS
Novell Netware Multi PRINT PRINT
Novell Netware Multi PRINT (none)
Novell Netware Multi GUEST TSEUG
Novell Netware Multi POST (none)
novell - - (none) (none)
Novell Netware Multi MAIL (none)
Novell Netware Multi ROOT (none)
Novell Netware Multi USER_TEMPLATE USER_TEMPLATE
Novell Netware Multi WINSABRE WINSABRE
Novell Netware Multi WINSABRE SABRE
Novell Netware Multi WINDOWS_PASSTHRU (none)
Novell Netware Multi WINDOWS_PASSTHRU WINDOWS_PASSTHRU
Novell NetWare Any WINDOWS_PASSTHRU (none)
Novell Netware Multi SUPERVISOR NFI
Novell Netware Multi WANGTEK (none)
Novell Netware Multi MAIL MAIL
Novell Netware Multi USER_TEMPLATE (none)
Novell Netware Multi TEST (none)
Novell Netware Multi TEST TEST
Novell Netware Multi SUPERVISOR SYSTEM
Novell Netware Multi SUPERVISOR (none)
Novell Netware Multi SUPERVISOR SUPERVISOR
Novell Netware Multi WANGTEK WANGTEK
Novell Netware Multi ADMIN (none)
Novell Netware Multi CHEY_ARCHSVR (none)
Novell Netware Multi LASERWRITER LASERWRITER
Novell NetWare Arcserve CHEY_ARCHSVR WONDERLAND
Novell Netware Multi POST POST
Novell Netware Multi BACKUP (none)
Novell Netware Multi FAX FAX
Novell Netware Multi ARCHIVIST (none)
Novell Netware Multi CHEY_ARCHSVR CHEY_ARCHSVR
Novell Netware Multi ADMIN ADMIN
Novell NDS iMonitor HTTP sadmin (none) Administrator
Novell iChain/ICS 1.2 2.0 Telnet (none) root Admin
Novell iChain 2 Console (none) cr0wmt 911 Admin
Novell iChain 1.5 Console (none) san fran 8 Admin
Novell Groupwise 5.5 Enhancement Pack HTTP servlet manager Servlet Mgr URI: /servlet/ServletManager
Novell Netware Multi ARCHIVIST ARCHIVIST
Novell Netware Multi GUEST (none)
Novell Netware Multi LASER LASER
Novell Netware Multi LASER (none)
Novell Netware Multi BACKUP BACKUP
Novell Netware Multi HPLASER (none)
Novell Netware Multi FAX (none)
Novell Netware Multi GUEST GUEST
Novell Netware Multi GUEST GUESTGUEST
Novell Netware Multi FAXUSER FAXUSER
Novell Netware Multi GATEWAY GATEWAY
Novell NetWare Any GATEWAY (none)
Novell NetWare Any GATE (none)
Novell Netware Multi FAXWORKS FAXWORKS
Novell Netware Multi FAXWORKS (none)
Novell Netware Multi FAXUSER (none)
Novell Netware Multi GATEWAY (none)
Novell Netware Multi HPLASER HPLASER
Nurit PC BIOS Console $system (none) Admin
OCE Printers Hardware HTTP (none) 0 and the number of OCE printer Admin
ODS 1094 IS Chassis 4.x ods ods
Omuron MR104FH Multi (none) (none) Admin
Openwave MSP Any HTTP cac_admin cacadmin Admin
Openwave WAP Gateway Any HTTP sys uplink Admin
Optivision Nac 3000 & 4000 any root mpegvideo
Optus Counter-Strike 1.3 Multi Administrator admin Admin
Oracle Oracle RDBMS 7 and 8 Multi ORDSYS ORDSYS
Oracle Oracle RDBMS 7 and 8 Multi SYS CHANGE_ON_INSTALL DBA +
Oracle Oracle RDBMS 8i Multi SECDEMO SECDEMO
Oracle Oracle RDBMS 7 and 8 Multi SCOTT TIGER
Oracle Oracle RDBMS 8i WinNT Multi SAMPLE SAMPLE DBA
Oracle Oracle RDBMS 7 and 8 Multi RMAN RMAN
Oracle Oracle RDBMS 8i WinNT Multi RMAIL RMAIL
Oracle Oracle RDBMS 8i Multi PUBSUB PUBSUB DBA
Oracle Oracle RDBMS 8i Multi POWERCARTUSER POWERCARTUSER
Oracle Oracle RDBMS 8i Multi MOREAU MOREAU
Oracle Oracle RDBMS 7 and 8 Multi OUTLN OUTLN
Oracle Oracle RDBMS 7 and 8 Multi SYSTEM MANAGER
Oracle Oracle RDBMS 7 and 8 Multi ORDPLUGINS ORDPLUGINS
Oracle Oracle RDBMS 8i Multi OCITEST OCITEST
Oracle Oracle RDBMS 7 and 8 Multi NAMES NAMES
oracle Oracle RDBMS 8.1.7 Multi (none) (none) Admin
Oracle Oracle RDBMS 8i Multi (none) (none) Admin
Oracle Oracle RDBMS 8i WinNT Multi MTYSYS MTYSYS
Oracle Oracle RDBMS 8i WinNT Multi MTYSYS MTYSYS
Oracle Oracle RDBMS 8i Multi PO PO DBA
Oracle Oracle RDBMS 8i Multi USER4 USER4
Oracle 7 or later Any Scott Tiger
Oracle Web DB HTTP webdb webdb Admin
Oracle Personal Oracle 8 Multi PO8 PO8
Oracle Oracle RDBMS 8i Multi VRR1 VRR1 DBA
Oracle Oracle RDBMS 8i Multi USER9 USER9
Oracle Oracle RDBMS 8i Multi USER8 USER8
Oracle Oracle RDBMS 8i Multi USER7 USER7
Oracle Oracle RDBMS 7 and 8 Multi SYSADM SYSADM
Oracle Oracle RDBMS 8i Multi USER5 USER5
Oracle Oracle RDBMS 8i Multi SYSMAN oem_temp DBA
Oracle Oracle RDBMS 8i Multi USER3 USER3
Oracle Oracle RDBMS 8i Multi USER2 USER2
Oracle Oracle RDBMS 8i Multi USER1 USER1
Oracle Oracle RDBMS 8i Multi USER0 USER0
Oracle Oracle RDBMS 8i Multi TSUSER TSUSER
Oracle Oracle RDBMS 8i Multi TSDEV TSDEV
Oracle Oracle RDBMS 7 and 8 Multi TRACESRV TRACE
Oracle Oracle RDBMS 8i Multi PRIMARY PRIMARY
Oracle Oracle RDBMS 8i Multi USER6 USER6
Oracle Oracle RDBMS 7 and 8 Multi APPLSYS APPLSYS
Oracle Oracle RDBMS 8i Multi CDEMORID CDEMORID
Oracle Oracle RDBMS 8i Multi CDEMOCOR CDEMOCOR
Oracle Oracle RDBMS 8i Multi CDEMO82 CDEMO82
Oracle Oracle RDBMS 8i Multi CATALOG CATALOG
Oracle Oracle RDBMS 7 and 8 Multi BLAKE PAPER
Oracle Oracle RDBMS 7 and 8 Multi AURORA@ORB@UNAUTHENTICATED INVALID
Oracle Oracle RDBMS 7 and 8 Multi AURORA$ORB$UNAUTHENTICATED INVALID
Oracle Oracle RDBMS 8i Multi AQUSER AQUSER
Oracle Oracle RDBMS 8i Multi CDEMOUCB CDEMOUCB
Oracle Oracle RDBMS 8i Linux Multi MODTEST YES DBA
Oracle Oracle RDBMS 7 and 8 Multi APPS APPS
Oracle Oracle RDBMS 8i WinNT Multi RE RE
Oracle Internet Directory Server Multi cn=orcladmin welcome Admin
Oracle Finacial Package SAP SAPR3 SAP Admin
Oracle 8i 8.1.6 sys change_on_install
Oracle 8i all internal oracle
oracle 8.1.7 Multi (none) (none) Admin
Oracle 7 or later - system manager
Oracle 7 or later - sys change_on_install
Oracle Oracle RDBMS 8i Multi AQDEMO AQDEMO
Oracle Oracle RDBMS 8i Multi GPLD GPLD
Oracle Oracle RDBMS 8i Multi MILLER MILLER
Oracle Oracle RDBMS 8i Multi MMO2 MMO2
Oracle Oracle RDBMS 7 and 8 Multi ADAMS WOOD
Oracle Oracle RDBMS 7 and 8 Multi CLARK CLOTH
Oracle Oracle RDBMS 8i Multi MFG MFG All Privileges
Oracle Oracle RDBMS 7 and 8 Multi JONES STEEL
Oracle Oracle RDBMS 8i Multi GPFD GPFD
Oracle Oracle RDBMS 8i Multi FND FND
Oracle Oracle RDBMS 8i Multi FINANCE FINANCE All Privileges
Oracle Oracle RDBMS 8i Multi EVENT EVENT DBA
Oracle Oracle RDBMS 7 and 8 Multi CTXSYS (none)
Oracle Oracle RDBMS 8i Multi DEMO8 DEMO8
Oracle Oracle RDBMS 8i Multi COMPANY COMPANY All Privileges
Oracle Oracle RDBMS 7 and 8 Multi DEMO DEMO
Oracle Oracle RDBMS 7 and 8 Multi DBSNMP DBSNMP RESOURCE and CONNECT roles
Oracle Oracle RDBMS 8i Multi EMP EMP
Oracle Oracle RDBMS 7 and 8 Multi CTXDEMO CTXDEMO
Oracle Oracle RDBMS 7 and 8 Multi MDSYS MDSYS All Privileges with Admin
Oracle Oracle RDBMS 7 and 8 Multi CTXSYS CTXSYS DBA
oracle co. Database engines every sys change_on_install
ORiNOCO Access Server 2.01 Telnet (none) orinoco Admin
Osicom NETPrint 2000E/B Telnet sysadm sysadm Admin
Osicom NETPrint 1000E/B Telnet sysadm sysadm Admin
Osicom NETPrint 2000E/N Telnet sysadm sysadm Admin
Osicom NETPrint 1500E/N Telnet sysadm sysadm Admin
Osicom NETPrint 1000E/NDS Telnet sysadm sysadm Admin
Osicom NETPrint 1000E/NDS Telnet Manager Manager Admin
Osicom NETPrint 1000E/N Telnet sysadm sysadm Admin
Osicom NETPrint 500 T/N Telnet sysadm sysadm Admin
Osicom NETPrint 2000E/N Telnet Manager Manager Admin
Osicom NETPrint 1000E/D Telnet Manager Manager Admin
Osicom NETPrint 1500 E/B Telnet Manager Manager Admin
Osicom NETPrint 1000 T/B Telnet sysadm sysadm Admin
Osicom NETPrint 2000 T/B Telnet sysadm sysadm Admin
Osicom NETPrint 1000 T/N Telnet sysadm sysadm Admin
Osicom NETPrint 2000 T/N Telnet sysadm sysadm Admin
Osicom NETPrint 1500 E/B Telnet sysadm sysadm Admin
Osicom NETPrint 1500T/N Telnet sysadm sysadm Admin
Osicom NETPrint 1000E/D Telnet sysadm sysadm Admin
Osicom NETPrint 500 E/B Telnet sysadm sysadm Admin
Osicom NETPrint 500 T/B Telnet sysadm sysadm Admin
Osicom Osicom Plus T1/PLUS 56k Telnet write private
Osicom NETPrint 1000E/D Telnet echo echo User
Osicom NETPrint 1500E/N Telnet Manager Manager Admin
Osicom NETPrint 500 E/N Telnet sysadm sysadm Admin
Osicom NETPrint 1000E/NDS Telnet debug d.e.b.u.g User
Osicom NETPrint 1500 E/B Telnet guest guest User
Osicom JETXPrint 1000E/N Telnet sysadm sysadm Admin
Osicom JETXPrint 1000T/N Telnet sysadm sysadm Admin
Osicom JETXPrint 500 E/B Telnet sysadm sysadm Admin
Osicom NETCommuter Remote Access Server Telnet debug d.e.b.u.g User
Osicom NETCommuter Remote Access Server Telnet echo echo User
Osicom NETCommuter Remote Access Server Telnet guest guest User
Osicom NETCommuter Remote Access Server Telnet Manager Manager Admin
Osicom NETCommuter Remote Access Server Telnet sysadm sysadm Admin
Osicom NETPrint 1500E/N Telnet echo echo User
Osicom NETPrint 1000E/D Telnet debug d.e.b.u.g User
Osicom JETXPrint 1000E/B Telnet sysadm sysadm Admin
Osicom NETPrint 1500E/N Telnet debug d.e.b.u.g User
Osicom NETPrint 2000E/N Telnet debug d.e.b.u.g User
Osicom NETPrint 1500 E/B Telnet echo echo User
Osicom NETPrint 1000E/NDS Telnet echo echo User
Osicom NETPrint 2000E/N Telnet echo echo User
Osicom NETPrint 1000E/D Telnet guest guest User
Osicom NETPrint 1000E/NDS Telnet guest guest User
Osicom NETPrint 1500 E/B Telnet guest guest User
Osicom NETPrint 1500E/N Telnet guest guest User
Osicom NETPrint 2000E/N Telnet guest guest User
Osicom NETPrint 1500 E/B Telnet debug d.e.b.u.g User
Osicom(Datacom) Osicom(Datacom) - sysadm sysadm
Otenet otenet Telnet (none) (none) User
Pacific Micro Data MAST 9500 Universal Disk Array ESM ver. 2.11 / 1 Console pmd (none) Admin
Packard Bell PC BIOS Console (none) bell9 Admin
Packeteer Packetshaper Console N/A touchpwd= touch Resets 'touch' password.
Pandatel EMUX all admin admin
Patton RAS 2 monitor monitor
Patton RAS 2 superuser superuser
Penril Datability vcp300 terminal server Multi (none) system Admin
PentaSafe VigilEnt Security Manager 3 VigilEnt Security Manager Console PSEAdmin $secure%4$snbsp;Admin
Philips Praesideo PA System All versions Multi admin admin Admin
Phoenix 4 6.0.2 Multi (none) admin Admin
Phoenix PhoenixBIOS 4.0 Release 6.0 bios (none) (none) Admin
Phoenix dell Multi (none) admin Admin
Phoenix bios 4.0 5.12 Multi (none) (none) Admin
Phoenix Award Multi admin admin Admin
Phoenix bios Multi (none) (none) Admin
phpTest phpTest 0.5.6 HTTP admin 1234 Admin
phpTest phpTest 0.5.6 HTTP guest guest
PingTel Xpressa 1.2.5 - 1.2.7.4 admin (none) Admin
PlainTree Waveswitch 100 - (none) default.password Admin
Planet WAP-1900/1950/2000 2.5.0 Multi (none) default Admin
Pollsafe Pollsafe N/A MODEM SMDR SECONDARY N/A
Polycom Viewstation Telnet administrator (none) Admin
Prime PrimeOS Multi tele tele User
Prime PrimeOS Multi test test User
Prime PrimeOS Multi system system Admin
Prime PrimeOS Multi system prime Admin
Prime PrimeOS Multi primos_cs prime User
Prime PrimeOS Multi primos_cs primos User
Prime PrimeOS Multi primeos primeos User
Prime PrimeOS Multi primeos prime User
Prime PrimeOS Multi primenet primeos User
Prime PrimeOS Multi primenet primenet User
Prime PrimeOS Multi guest1 guest1 User
Prime PrimeOS Multi prime primeos User
Prime PrimeOS Multi dos dos User
Prime PrimeOS Multi guest guest User
Prime PrimeOS Multi guest1 guest User
Prime PrimeOS Multi mail mail User
Prime PrimeOS Multi maint maint User
Prime PrimeOS Multi mfd mfd User
Prime PrimeOS Multi netlink netlink User
Prime PrimeOS Multi prime prime User
Prime PrimeOS Multi fam fam User
Pyramid Computer BenHur all HTTP admin gnumpf Admin
Pyramid Computer BenHur all HTTP admin admin Admin
QDI PC BIOS Console (none) QDI Admin
QDI SpeedEasy BIOS Console (none) lesarotl Admin
Quantex PC BIOS Console (none) teX1 Admin
Quantex PC BIOS Console (none) xljlbj Admin
Quantum File Servers Most of them HTTP (none) (none) User
Raidzone raid arrays (none) raidzone
Ramp Networks WebRamp wradmin trancell
RapidStream RapidStream Appliances Multi rsadmin (null) Admin
RapidStream RS4000-RS8000 Linux rsadmin rsadmin
Raritan KVM Switches admin raritan Admin
realtek 8139 - (none) (none)
Reda HTTP (none) (none) User
Reda HTTP (none) admin User
Redemo da HTTP admin (none) Admin
RedHat Piranha 6.2 Console (none) Q Interface
RedHat Redhat 6.2 HTTP piranha q User
RedHat Redhat 6.2 HTTP piranha piranha User
Remedy Remedy Multi demos (none) User
Remedy Remedy Multi ARAdmin AR#Admin# Admin
Remedy Any Any Demo (none)
Replicom ProxyView NetBIOS Administrator Pvremote Admin
Research PC BIOS Console (none) Col2ogro2 Admin
Research Machines Classroom Assistant Windows 95 manager changeme
Resumix Resumix N/A N/A root resumix N/A
Ricoh Aficio AP3800C HTTP sysadmin password Admin
Rizen WebGUI Admin 123qwe Administrator
RM RM Connect Multi topicalt password
RM RM Connect Multi replicator replicator
RM RM Connect Multi topicnorm password
RM RM Connect Multi temp1 password
RM RM Connect Multi teacher password
RM RM Connect Multi setup changeme
RM RM Connect Multi RMUser1 password
RM Server BIOS Console (none) RM
RM RM Connect Multi admin2 changeme
RM RM Connect Multi deskres password
RM RM Connect Multi desknorm password
RM RM Connect Multi deskman changeme
RM RM Connect Multi deskalt password
RM RM Connect Multi admin rmnetlm
RM RM Connect Multi adminstrator changeme
RM RM Connect Multi guest (none)
RM RM Connect Multi topicres password
Rodopi Rodopi billing software (AbacBill) sql database - rodopi rodopi
ROLM phones/phone mail (none) 111#
Roxio Aesy cd Multi (none) (none) Admin
S2400 Toshiba HTTP Administrator admin Admin
Samba SWAT Package Linux Any Local User Local User password
Sambar Technologies Sambar Server HTTP ftp (none) Other
Sambar Technologies Sambar Server HTTP guest guest User
Sambar Technologies Sambar Server HTTP billy-bob (none) Administration
Sambar Technologies Sambar Server HTTP admin (none) Administration
Sambar Technologies Sambar Server HTTP anonymous (none) Other
Samsung inforanger Multi (none) (none) Admin
Samsung n620 Multi (none) (none) Admin
SAP SAP SAP client DDIC 19920706 SAP internal; Mandant 001
SAP SAP SAP client EARLYWATCH SUPPORT SAP internal; Mandant 066
SAP SAP SAP client SAP* PASS SAP internal; all Mandants
SAP SAP SAP client SAP* 7061992 SAP internal; Mandant 000
SAP SAP SAP client SAPCPIC ADMIN Admin
Schneider Electric PowerLogic Ethernet Communications Card HTTP (none) admin Administrator
schoolgirl member - ich hci
Securicor3NET Money manager friend Admin
Securicor3NET Cezzanne any manager friend
Securicor3NET Monet any manager friend
security.org lockpicking Multi admin (none) Admin
Semaphore PICK O/S DESQUETOP (none)
Semaphore PICK O/S DS (none)
Semaphore PICK O/S DSA (none)
Semaphore PICK O/S PHANTOM (none)
Server Technology Sentry Remote Power Manager Multi GEN2 gen2 view/control
Server Technology Sentry Remote Power Manager Multi ADMN admn Admin
Server Technology Sentry Remote Power Manager Multi GEN1 gen1 view/control
SGI IRIX ALL guest (none by default)
SGI IRIX ALL demos (none by default)
SGI IRIX ALL lp lp
SGI IRIX ALL EZsetup (none)
SGI all all root (none)
SGI Embedded Support Partner IRIX 6.5.6 Administrator Partner
Shina LANRover root (none) Admin
Shiva LanRover any? root (none)
Shiva AccessPort Any hello hello
Shiva Any? - Guest blank
Shiva Integrator 150/200/500 Multi admin hello Admin
Shuttle PC BIOS (none) Spacve Admin
Siemens ROLM PBX eng engineer
Siemens ROLM PBX su super
Siemens Hicom 100E PBX 31994 31994
Siemens ROLM PBX op op
Siemens ROLM PBX admin pwp
Siemens PhoneMail tech tech
Siemens PhoneMail system field
Siemens PhoneMail system system
Siemens PhoneMail sysadmin sysadmin
Siemens PhoneMail poll tech
Siemens PhoneMail poll poll
Siemens hipath Multi (none) (none) Admin
Siemens ROLM PBX op operator
Siemens Nixdorf PC BIOS Console (none) SKY_FOX Admin
Siips Trojan 8974202 Multi Administrator ganteng Admin
Silicon Graphics IRIX 5.x, 6.x Multi guest (none) CLI, UID guest
Silicon Graphics IRIX Multi tutor (none) Admin
Silicon Graphics IRIX Multi tutor tutor Admin
Silicon Graphics IRIX Multi tour tour Admin
Silicon Graphics IRIX Multi (none) (none) Admin
Silicon Graphics IRIX Multi field field Admin
Silicon Graphics IRIX Multi Ezsetup (none) Admin
Silicon Graphics IRIX Multi demos (none) Admin
Silicon Graphics IRIX Multi 4Dgifts (none) Admin
Silicon Graphics IRIX Multi 4Dgifts 4Dgifts Admin
Silicon Graphics Embedded Spport Partner IRIX 6.5, 6 Multi Administrator Partner Admin
Silicon Graphics IRIX 5.x 6.x Multi lp (none) CLI; UID lp
sitara qosworks Console root (none) Admin
SmartSwitch Router 250 ssr2500 v3.0.9 Multi admin (none) Admin
SMC Router All HTTP admin admin Admin
SMC SMC broadband router HTTP admin admin Admin
SMC Barricade 7004 AWBR Multi admin (none) Admin
SMC Barricade - (none) admin
soho nbg800 unknown admin 1234
sonic wall any firewall device admin password (none)
SonicWALL ALL ALL HTTP admin password Admin
Sovereign Hill InQuery Admin shs Admin
Speedstream 5861 SMT Router Multi admin admin Admin
Speedstream 5871 IDSL Router Multi admin admin Admin
Speedstream DSL Multi admin admin Admin
Speedstream Router 250 ssr250 Multi admin admin Admin
SpeedXess HASE-120 Multi (none) speedxess Admin
Spider Systems M250/M250L (none) hello Admin
Spike CPE Console enable (none) Admin
Sprint PCS SCH2000 Menu - 8 - 0 40793 Admin
Ssangyoung SR2501 - (none) 2501
Sun - Solaris (none) (none)
Sun - SunOS 4.1.4 root (none)
Sun JavaWebServer 1.x 2.x AdminSrv admin admin Admin
Sun Sun E10000 System Service Processor Multi ssp ssp Admin
Sun SunScreen 3.1 Lite TCP 3852 admin admin Admin Use a Java enabled web browser on port 3852
SuperMicro PC BIOS Console (none) ksdjfg934t Admin
surecom ep3501/3506 own os admin surecom
SuSE GmbH Emailserver 1.x Telnet root root Admin
Sybase Adaptive Server Enterprise 11.x 12.x Multi sa (none) SA and SSO roles
Sybase Sybase 8 Multi DBA SQL Admin
Sybase (DATEV) Adaptive Server Anywhere 8 Multi DBA SQL Admin
Sybase (DATEV) Adaptive Server Enterprise 12 Multi sa sasasa Admin
Symantec NAV CORP / ALL HTTP admin symantec Admin
Symantec Norton Antivirus Corp Ed. all Multi (none) symantec Admin
Symantec Norton Antivirus Corporate Edition 7.5 Console (none) admin Admin
Symantec pcanywhere Multi admin (none) Admin
Symantec pcanywhere Console Administrator (none) Admin
Symantec Symantec Enterprise Security 7.5 Multi (none) (none) Admin
SysKonnect 6616 default.password (none) Admin
Tekelec Eagle STP eagle eagle Admin
Teklogix Accesspoint Multi Administrator (none) Admin
Telebit NetBlazer 3.* setup/snmp setup/nopassword Admin
Telebit netblazer 3.* - setup/snmp setup/nopasswd
Tellabs Titan 5500 FP 6.x Multi tellabs tellabs#1 Admin
Telus Telephony Services Multi (created) telus00 User year 2000 passwords
Telus Telephony Services Multi (created) telus99 User year 1999 passwords
Terayon TeraLink Getaway - admin password
Terayon TeraLink Getaway / 1000 Controller user password User
Terayon TeraLink Getaway - user password
Terayon TeraLink 1000 Controller - user password
Terayon TeraLink 1000 Controller - admin password
Terayon TeraLink 6.29 admin nms Admin
Terayon TeraLink Getaway / 1000 Controller admin password Admin
TextPortal TextPortal 0.8 HTTP god2 12345 Admin
Tiara Tiara - tiara tiaranet
Tiara Networks 1400 3.x Console tiara tiaranet Admin
Tiara Networks 1400 6100 6200 Multi (none) tiara tiaranet
Tim Schaab Mad.Thought 2.0.1 HTTP theman changeit Administrator
Tiny PC BIOS Console (none) Tiny Admin
Titbas SCO haasadm lucy99 Admin
TMC PC BIOS Console (none) BIGO Admin
TopLayer AppSwitch 2500 siteadmin toplayer Admin
Toshiba Satellite Pro 4600 Multi (none) bios Admin
Toshiba TR-650 V2.01.00 admin tr650
Toshiba Tecra 8100 2.3 Multi (none) admin Admin
toshiba 480cdt - (none) (none)
Toshiba satellite pro 4310 Multi (none) (none) Admin
Toshiba satellite 1800-s204 HTTP (none) (none) Admin
Toshiba satelite 2520cds Multi (none) admin User
Toshiba PC BIOS Console (none) Toshiba Admin
Toshiba PC BIOS Console (none) 24Banc81 Admin
Toshiba PC BIOS Console (none) toshy99 Admin
Toshiba Laptop 8000 Multi (none) (none) Admin
Toshiba laptop Multi Administrator (none) Admin
Toshiba hard disk Multi (none) (none) Admin
Toshiba satellite2710x bios password Multi (none) (none) Admin
Trend Micro Viruswall all versions HTTP on port 1812 admin admin Admin
TrendMicro ISVW (VirusWall) any admin admin
TrendMicro ISVW (VirusWall) any admin admin
Trintech eAcquirer App/Data Servers t3admin Trintech Admin
Troy ExtendNet 100zx Multi admin extendnet Admin
Tumbleweed Message Management System 4.3-4.6 sa (none) Admin
TVT System Expresse G5 Multi craft (none) Admin
TVT System Expresse G5 DS1 Module Multi (none) enter Admin
Ullu ka pattha Gand mara Gandoo Bhosda Lund
Unex NexIP Routers (none) password
Unisys ClearPath MCP Multi ADMINISTRATOR ADMINISTRATOR Admin
Unisys ClearPath MCP Multi HTTP HTTP Web Server Administration
Unisys ClearPath MCP Multi NAU NAU Privileged
UNIX Generic Multi mail mail User
UNIX Generic Multi man man User
UNIX Generic Multi man (none) User
UNIX Generic Multi me (none) User
UNIX Generic Multi me me User
UNIX Generic Multi mountfs mountfs Admin
UNIX Generic Multi mountfsys mountfsys Admin
UNIX Generic Multi mountsys mountsys Admin
UNIX Generic Multi news news User
UNIX Generic Multi mail (none) User
UNIX Generic Multi nobody (none) User
UNIX Generic Multi lpadm lpadm User
UNIX Generic Multi nobody nobody User
UNIX Generic Multi nuucp (none) User
UNIX Generic Multi operator operator User
UNIX Generic Multi operator (none) User
UNIX Generic Multi oracle (none) User
UNIX Generic Multi news (none) User
UNIX Generic Multi install install Admin
UNIX Generic Multi games games User
UNIX Generic Multi games (none) User
UNIX Generic Multi gopher gopher User
UNIX Generic Multi gropher (none) User
UNIX Generic Multi guest guest User
UNIX Generic Multi guest (none) User
UNIX Generic Multi lynx lynx User
UNIX Generic Multi informix informix User
UNIX Generic Multi lynx (none) User
UNIX Generic Multi lp lp User
UNIX Generic Multi lp bin User
UNIX Generic Multi lp lineprin User
UNIX Generic Multi lp (none) User
UNIX Generic Multi rje rje User
UNIX Generic Multi lpadmin lpadmin User
UNIX Generic Multi postmaster postmast User
UNIX Generic Multi halt (none) User
UNIX Generic Multi uucpadm uucpadm User
UNIX Generic Multi postmaster (none) User
UNIX Generic Multi system_admin system_admin Admin
UNIX Generic Multi trouble trouble User
UNIX Generic Multi umountfs umountfs User
UNIX Generic Multi umountfsys umountfsys User
UNIX Generic Multi umountsys umountsys User
UNIX Generic Multi unix unix User
UNIX Generic Multi sysbin sysbin Admin
UNIX Generic Multi uucp uucp User
UNIX Generic Multi sysadmin sysadmin Admin
UNIX Generic Multi web (none) User
UNIX Generic Multi web web User
UNIX Generic Multi webmaster webmaster User
UNIX Generic Multi webmaster (none) User
UNIX Generic Multi www (none) User
UNIX Generic Multi www www User
UNIX koppp Telnet dream trocse Admin
UNIX Generic Multi user user User
UNIX Generic Multi shutdown (none) User
UNIX Generic Multi powerdown powerdown User
UNIX Generic Multi guest guestgue User
UNIX Generic HP-UX Multi root hp Admin
UNIX Generic Multi root root Admin
UNIX Generic Multi root (none) Admin
UNIX Generic N/A Telnet service smile N/A Motorola Default
UNIX Generic Multi setup setup Admin
UNIX Generic Multi system_admin (none) Admin
UNIX Generic Multi shutdown shutdown User
UNIX Generic Multi ftp ftp User
UNIX Generic Multi sync sync User
UNIX Generic Multi sync (none) User
UNIX Generic Multi sys sys Admin
UNIX Generic Multi sys system Admin
UNIX Generic Multi sys bin Admin
UNIX Generic Multi sysadm sysadm Admin
UNIX Generic Multi sysadm admin Admin
UNIX Generic N/A Telnet setup N/A N/A Motorola Default
UNIX Generic Multi halt halt User
UNIX Generic Multi adm adm Admin
UNIX Generic Multi adm (none) Admin
UNIX Generic Multi admin admin User
UNIX Generic Multi administrator administrator User
UNIX Generic Multi administrator (none) User
UNIX Generic Multi anon anon User
UNIX Generic Multi bbs bbs User
UNIX Generic Multi bbs (none) User
UNIX Generic Multi bin sys Admin
UNIX Generic Multi checkfs checkfs User
UNIX Generic Multi checkfsys checkfsys User
UNIX Generic Multi ftp (none) User
UNIX Generic Multi demos demos User
UNIX Generic Multi fax fax User
UNIX Generic Multi fax (none) User
UNIX Generic Multi fal fal User
UNIX Generic Multi fal (none) User
UNIX Generic Multi dni dni User
UNIX Generic Multi checksys checksys User
UNIX Generic Multi demos (none) User
UNIX Generic Multi checksys checksys User
UNIX Generic Multi demo (none) User
UNIX Generic Multi demo demo User
UNIX Generic Multi daemon (none) User
UNIX Generic Multi daemon daemon User
UNIX Generic Multi dni (none) User
Unknown System 88 Console overseer overseer Admin
Unknown System 88 Console test test User
Unknown POCSAG Radio Paging 2.05 Port 8000 (none) password Admin
Unknown System 88 Console operator operator Admin
US Robotics ADSL Ethernet Modem HTTP (none) 12345 Admin
US Robotics TOTALSwitch (none) amber Admin
US Robotics USR8000 1.23 / 1.25 Multi root admin Admin
US Robotics USR8550 3.0.5 Multi Any 12345 Any
USR TOTALswitch Any none amber
UTStarcom B-NAS, B-RAS 1000 dbase dbase
UTStarcom B-NAS, B-RAS 1000 field field
UTStarcom B-NAS, B-RAS 1000 guru *3noguru
UTStarcom B-NAS, B-RAS 1000 snmp snmp
Verifone Verifone Junior 2.05 (none) 166816
Vertex VERTEX 1501 5.05 root vertex25 Administrator
Vextrec Technology PC BIOS Console (none) Vextrex
Vina Technologies ConnectReach 3.6.2 (none) (none)
Visa VAP VAP N/A TELNET/MODEM root QNX root
Vobis PC BIOS Console (none) merlin
voy - - (none) (none)
VPASP VP-ASP Shopping Cart HTTP vpasp vpasp Admin
VPASP VP-ASP Shopping Cart HTTP admin admin Admin
Watchguard Firebox 3-4.6 Console (none) wg (touch password) Admin
Watchguard firebox 1000 Multi admin (none) Admin
Watchguard SOHO and SOHO6 all versions FTP user pass Admin
Web Wiz Forums 7.x HTTP Administrator letmein Administrator
webmail webmail v0.94 Multi kol gniffe Admin
Webmin Webmin Any Unix/Lin HTTP admin (none) Admin
WebRamp 410i wradmin tracell Admin
WebTrends Enterprise Reporting HTTP Admin (none) Admin
Wim Bervoets WIMBIOSnbsp BIOS Console (none) Compleri Admin
Win2000 Quick Time 4.0 Englisch (none) (none)
winwork iso sistemi Multi operator (none) Admin
Wireless Inc. WaveNet 2458 n/a root rootpass
WorldClient AdminServer HTTP:2001 WebAdmin Admin WorldClient
WWWBoard WWWADMIN.PL HTTP WebAdmin WebBoard Admin
Wyse Winterm 9455XL BIOS (none) Fireport BIOS
Wyse Winterm 5440XL Console root wyse Admin
Wyse Winterm 5440XL VNC VNC winterm VNC
Xerox Multi Function Equipment Multi admin 2222 Admin
Xerox WorkCenter Pro 428 HTTP admin admin Admin
Xylan Omniswitch 3.1.8 admin switch
Xylan Omniswitch 3.1.8 Telnet admin switch Admin
Xylan OmniStack 4024 3.4.9 admin password Admin
Xylan OmniStack 1032CF 3.2.8 admin password Admin
Xylan Omniswitch Telnet diag switch User
Xyplex Terminal Server Port 7000 (none) access User
Xyplex MX-16XX setpriv system Admin
Xyplex Routers Port 7000 (none) access User
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Xyplex switch 3.2 Console (none) (none) Admin
Xyplex Terminal Server Port 7000 (none) system Admin
Zcom Wireless SNMP root admin Admin
Zenith PC BIOS Console (none) Zenith Admin
Zenith PC BIOS Console (none) 3098z Admin
ZEOS PC BIOS Console (none) zeosx Admin
Zeus Zeus Admin Server 4.1r2 HTTP admin (none)
Zyxel ISDN Router Prestige 100IH - (none) 1234
Zyxel prestige 600 series any (none) (none)
zyxel prestige 300 series zynos 2.* (none) 1234
Zyxel prestige 300 series any (none) (none)
ZyXEL Prestige 128 Modem-Router (none) 1234 Admin
ZyXEL Prestige FTP root 1234 Admin
ZyXEL Prestige Telnet (none) 1234 Admin
Zyxel ISDN-Router Prestige 1000 - (none) 1234
ZyXEL Generic Routers Telnet (none) 1234 Admin
ZyXEL 642R Telnet (none) 1234 Admin
ZyXEL 641 ADSL (none) 1234
Use them wisely! |
Keeping up with the momentum that was gained after his big speech in which he horse-whipped crooked Hillary, Team Trump put out a detailed list of 50 facts as proof that she is manifestly unfit for the presidency. The 35 page document reads like a fifty count indictment – which is probably about the closest thing to one that she will ever have to deal with considering the Obama regime is protecting her from prosecution. The document runs the gamut from Mrs. Clinton’s support of job-murdering globalist trade deals, desire to undermine the rights of Americans to own guns to her too cozy relationship with Wall Street banks and big corporations. It’s a great reference to have to handy for smacking down liberals who would betray America by helping this greedy, blood-drenched psychopath get into the White House.
Trump’s case against Clinton is meticulously laid out in an easily accessible manner to those seeking to save America by preventing the Clinton restoration.
According to The Hill “Trump details ’50 facts’ attacking Clinton”:
Presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump released a 35-page document criticizing presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton over topics including her foreign and economic policies. The document, titled “Top 50 Facts About Hillary Clinton From Trump ‘Stakes of the Election’ Address,” goes through 50 claims Trump has made against the presumptive Democratic nominee and uses various articles and other information to defend them. The presumptive GOP nominee tweeted out the document Sunday afternoon. Top 50 Facts About Crooked Hillary Clinton From Trump 'Stakes Of The Election' Address: https://t.co/lfUdXYnsgJ — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 26, 2016 The claims Trump makes come from a speech last week in which he attacked Clinton, aiming to cast her as a corrupt figure who is more interested in her own interests than those of American workers. Trump attacks Clinton for topics ranging from her “disastrous” trade deals to the paid speeches she previously made to Wall Street groups.
The document is a damning testament as to the lack of scruples of the Democratic party nominee in waiting and includes the accusation that she was sleeping when the Benghazi embassy was attacked. The latter has particularly raised the hackles of Hillary’s media defenders, considering that she ran that ad spot in 2008 about the “3 am” phone call:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yr7odFUARg&w=560&h=315]
Considering what we know now, the only way that she would answer that call would be if it was Goldman Sachs on the other end. |
Massive cuts to social safety nets have led to "destitution, hardship and hunger on a large scale" in Britain, with more than half a million people now forced to rely on food banks for sustenance, key poverty charities have warned in a report.
Welfare changes and mistakes by Jobcentre Plus staff are causing delays in benefits and errors or sanctions, which push vulnerable people into precarious situations, the report from Church Action on Poverty and Oxfam warns. The charities want an urgent parliamentary inquiry.
"The shocking reality is that hundreds of thousands of people in the UK are turning to food aid," said Mark Goldring, Oxfam's chief executive. "Cuts to social safety nets have gone too far, leading to destitution, hardship and hunger on a large scale. It is unacceptable that this is happening in the seventh wealthiest nation on the planet."
The report, Walking the Breadline, is backed by the Trussell Trust, the UK's biggest provider of food banks. It blames the increasing pressure on food banks on far-reaching changes to the benefits system, as well as on unemployment, increased underemployment, low and falling incomes and rising food and fuel prices.
Changes to the benefit system are the most common reasons for people using food banks, including delays in payments, sanctions, sickness benefit reassessments and changes to crisis loan eligibility rules, according to the report.
It outlines the case of Kay, a single parent in her 30s who was required by her Jobcentre Plus adviser to search for six jobs each fortnight. When the job club she attended lost internet connectivity one week, she only managed to inquire about one vacancy, looking at five more the following week.
At her next visit to the Jobcentre, her adviser said her search was "not good enough" because her six job searches were not spread evenly. She was sanctioned a week's money of £71 and forced to rely on her family for financial support.
The energy secretary, Ed Davey, told MPs this month it was "completely wrong to suggest there is some sort of statistical link between the benefit reforms we're making and the provision of food banks".
But the report concludes: "There is clear evidence that the benefit sanctions regime has gone too far and is leading to destitution, hardship and hunger on a large scale. There is a real risk that the benefit cuts and the introduction of universal credit … will lead to even larger numbers being forced to turn to food banks. Food banks may not have the capacity to cope with the increased level of demand."
The Guardian reported this week that many food banks were struggling to meet the explosion in demand for food parcels.
The report says that keeping the national minimum wage and benefit levels in line with inflation will allow families "to live with dignity and … afford to feed and clothe themselves and stay warm".
Niall Cooper, chief executive of Church Action on Poverty and the report's lead author, said: "The safety net that was there to protect people is being eroded to such an extent that we are seeing a rise in hunger. Food banks are not designed to, and should not, replace the normal safety net provided by the state in the form of welfare support."
The report calls for the Commons work and pensions select committee to conduct an urgent inquiry into the relationship between benefit delay, error or sanctions, welfare reform changes and the growth of food poverty.
It also urges the Department for Work and Pensions to publish data on the number of people sanctioned, and on referrals from Jobcentre staff to local food banks.
Imran Hussain, head of policy for Child Poverty Action Group, said: "It's a national scandal that half a million British people are now having to turn to food aid. It's a problem that has quickly escalated and shows that something has gone badly wrong with the safety net that is supposed to help families in need.
"It is particularly concerning that more and more of the families seeking food aid are actually in work but on poverty pay and facing cuts to their tax credits."
Mary Creagh, Labour's shadow environment secretary, called the figures "shocking" and urged the government to change tack.
"The UK is the seventh richest country in the world, yet we face a growing epidemic of hidden hunger, with people increasingly unable to meet their family's basic needs," she said.
A DWP spokeswoman said the majority of benefits were processed on time every day. She said: "We welcome the contribution voluntary organisations and food banks, including the Trussell Trust, play in supporting local communities, beyond the safety net provided by government.
"That is why Jobcentre Plus – for the first time – is now referring people to their services. Our welfare reforms will improve the lives of some of the poorest families in our communities, with the universal credit simplifying the complex myriad of benefits and making three million households better off." |
Atheists kicked out of UK college fair for displaying 'blasphemous Mohammed pineapple'
London, Fri, 05 Oct 2012 ANI
London, Oct. 5 (ANI): A group of atheist students were thrown out of their fresher's fair in London because they displayed a pineapple labelled 'Mohammed' on their stall.
The Reading University's Atheist, Humanist and Secularist Society (RAHS) said they wanted to celebrate free speech and promote their upcoming debate 'Should we respect religion?'
But they were ordered to remove the offending fruit by union staff who said their actions were causing 'distress' to a number of Muslim students and other societies.
RAHS refused to remove the fruit, citing that they had labelled the pineapple after the Islamic prophet to 'encourage discussion about blasphemy, religion, and liberty'.
"We wanted to celebrate the fact that we live in a country in which free speech is protected and where it is lawful to call a pineapple by whatever name one chooses," the Daily Mail quoted a spokesman from RAHS, as saying.
They claimed the union then issued them with the ultimatum: "Either the pineapple goes or you do".
According to RAHS, a group of students surrounded their stall and removed the pineapple's name tag before the society was 'forced to leave the venue'. (ANI) |
Just when you thought the 2016 primaries couldn’t get any weirder, Texas senator Ted Cruz has done the unthinkable: helping Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton find common ground, with an attack on their home state.
“Most people know exactly what New York values are,” Cruz told moderator Maria Bartiromo last night (Jan. 14). “Socially liberal, pro-gay marriage, pro-abortion, focused on money and the media.”
Trump responded with a surprisingly moving paene to the city’s resilience after the Sept. 11 attacks. “It was a very insulting statement that Ted made,” the Manhattan real estate mogul concluded.
Hillary Clinton—a former New York senator whose campaign headquarters are in Brooklyn and who lives in suburban Chappaqua—had this to say today:
Bill de Blasio, Democratic mayor of New York City, echoed Clinton’s sentiments:
Other pundits weren’t as eager to praise Trump’s hometown defense, citing the contrast between his campaign’s xenophobic rhetoric with the city’s multiculturalism:
Meanwhile, some noticed a discrepancy between Cruz’s public distaste for the New York lifestyle and his dependence on raising campaign funds from New York City donors.
And, of course, jabs at all things New York carry a special kind of dog-whistle significance:
This article is part of Quartz Ideas, our home for bold arguments and big thinkers. |
EDEN PRAIRIE, Minn. -- Brett Favre's ironman streak is in jeopardy.
The 41-year-old Minnesota quarterback has a stress fracture in his left ankle that could end his NFL-record run at 291 consecutive games started -- 315 including the playoffs.
Vikings coach Brad Childress said Monday an MRI on Favre's foot revealed the stress fracture as well as an "avulsion" fracture in the heel bone. An avulsion fracture occurs when a fragment of bone is torn away by a tendon or ligament.
"He's got great pain threshold and also great competitive zeal," Childress said, succinctly summing up Favre's legacy of durability.
ESPN medical analyst Dr. Michael Kaplan, who has not examined Favre, told ESPN NFL Insider Adam Schefter that the quarterback's injury is serious.
"Every other mortal would be out, but with [Favre], it's a longshot he could play," Kaplan told Schefter.
Kaplan said Favre could inject a long-acting anesthetic in and around the ankle to help him play. It would take away the pain for the game, but it could affect Favre's throwing.
Childress said neither injury requires surgery, but Kaplan said Favre may need an operation at some point after his playing career to either fuse or replace his injured ankle.
Favre is also the subject of an NFL investigation into allegations that he sent lewd photographs and suggestive messages to a female New York Jets employee in 2008, a development that first put his streak in danger with the possibility of a suspension under the league's personal conduct policy.
NFL spokesman Greg Aiello said Monday there was nothing to report about the investigation, but league sources told Schefter that the league could end its investigation this week.
Thus far, Jenn Sterger, the woman at the center of the investigation, has not cooperated with the NFL and according to the sources, the league nearly closed the investigation after Favre spoke to NFL security in Minneapolis last week.
Fox News reported Sunday that Favre admitted to the league that he left voicemails for Sterger, but denied sending the photographs.
The NFL left the investigation open in the event that Sterger would agree to step forward and share her story with the NFL, but the league is comfortable with the people it has interviewed and the information it has gathered, the sources said. |
The Metal Gear Marathon 2018
Kept you waiting, huh?
Last year, we managed to SMASH our previous donation records, earning over $6,200 for Child’s Play. In the process we were:
Electrocuted
Poisoned
Forced to eat raw onions, garlic, and some of the world’s hottest peppers
Deprived of Sleep
Very, Very Inebriated
But despite (or honestly because of) all of these things, we managed to give the Metal Gear series the send-off it needed! But what about this year, you ask? Well I’m glad you asked!
METAL GEAR MARATHON 2018 WILL START THIS YEAR ON DEC. 6TH, 9AM, AND END DEC.9TH, 6PM.
80 STRAIGHT HOURS OF METAL GEAR.
Now, for those who have been following our past years, you may realize this is a shorter event this year than in previous years. And if you technically I guess you’re correct. But that just means we’re gonna need to fill in twice as much electro-shock, bad-food-conquering, regrettable-concoction-drinking, antics as we have in a more limited space!
For this year's list of games, we’re getting back to basics:
Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater (PS3)
Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker (PS3)
Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes (PC)
Metal Gear Solid V: Phantom Pain (PC)
A SPECIAL SURPRISE
Metal Gear Solid (PS1 AND GC *RACE*)
Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty (PS3)
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots (PS3)
Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance (PS3)
And more…?
It may not be every single Metal gear title, but I still got tired just writing that out.
December 6th at 9AM to the 9th at 6PM. Tell your friends!
Why are we doing this? For charity of course! We are trying to raise money for Child's Play , a charity dedicated to improving the lives of children with games and toys for hospitals across the world. |
Religion Walker is a former Mormon-turned non-denominational Christian. Political Views Walker is non-political.
Paul Walker was born in Glendale, California and grew up in San Fernando Valley.
Walker was brought up in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, or Mormons, in a large family of five children. Some of the more visible aspects of that faith include abstaining from sex before marriage and abstaining from drugs and alcohol. Apparently, Walker no longer follows these guidelines, however, as he says:
I still hold myself accountable. I’m not the kind of guy who’s taking advantage of my position. I could be sleeping with a different 18-year-old girl every day if I wanted to. But that’s not my speed.
In fact, Walker doesn’t consider himself a Mormon anymore but he’s still quite religious–in a non-denominational, Christian sort of way. And he simply doesn’t get atheism:
I’m a Christian now. The things that drove me crazy growing up was how everyone works at fault-finding with different religions. The people I don’t understand are atheists. I go surfing and snow boarding and I’m always around nature. I look at everything and think, ‘Who couldn’t believe there’s a God? Is all this a mistake?’ It just blows me away.
Those religious roots don’t go away easy.
Self-proclaimed political contradiction
Walker easily falls into the non-political category. One gets the sense he’s just doing his thing, with none too many cares. Originally, his dream was to be a marine biologist and one of his idols is Jacques Cousteau so one might assume he’s bit of an environmentalist.
Well, it’s half true. He once said:
I’m passionate about animals and I hunt too. It’s like I save and I kill. I’m a walking, talking contradiction. I’m all about preserving the environment but I’m racing cars on the weekend. I tell everyone I’m a gun-loving hippy.
There you have it, folks: gun-loving hippy.
His only other political statement was a joke referring to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms scandal colloquially known as “Fast and Furious,” (also the name of his hit movies…) in which the government agency hoped to entrap Mexican drug cartels by providing them with weapons (it’s a long story, have a look here if you’re interested).
Anyway, during the height of the media circus around the scandal, Walker tweeted:
Hey look, #fastandfurious is trending. #Itsnotwhatyouthink.
He’s got jokes. But does he care about politics? Doesn’t really seem like it. |
630PM: Wasatch Front freeway speed to be 70 mph, but UHP not in favor
5PM: Wasatch Front freeway speed to be 70 mph, but UHP not in favor
SALT LAKE CITY — The freeway speeds along the Wasatch Front are changing, moving from 65 MPH to 70 mph, transportation officials announced Friday morning.
But the move does not have the support of the Utah Highway Patrol.
“Highway Patrol is against it, and the reason why is … Highway Patrol (is) showing we handled 20 percent more fatalities this year than last year, and our feeling’s that if the fatality rates are increasing, that speed limits should not increase,” said Utah Highway Patrol Sgt. Todd Royce.
Speed limit decisions lie solely with the Utah Department of Transportation, and its officials say they are adjusting limits to match existing speeds.
"The fact is, people don't necessarily drive what's posted on the speed limit signs," said Jason Davis, Utah Department of Transportation director of operations. He said drivers cruise at speeds comfortable to them.
"Data shows people are comfortable driving 70 mph, and in some cases higher. But, we're comfortable and posting (freeway speeds) at 70 mph."
This is the case for Salt Lake resident Travis Turner, who estimates his speeds on state interstates to be around "75-ish" mph.
"People are already going at those speeds and this will just make it, like, more acceptable. So I don't think it's going to have any impact at all on the safety of the roads as it will just … (save) people a little money," he said.
UDOT officials are meeting with the transportation commission and local government, but are prepared to move forward with a change to the speed limits after reviewing data and crash safety analyses and using what Davis called "sound engineering judgment."
Speeds will change on I-15 from Spanish Fork to Ogden, on all of I-215, and on I-80 from about 5600 West to 1300 East in Sugar House.
Some motorists are concerned the overall speed of traffic will increase, along with crashes and pileups.
"It's fine where it's at. People just need to control the speed they're at," said Doug Gorney, a professional truck driver. "I think they need to leave it where it's at."
Royce said he was concerned because "increased speeds increase the severity and the chances of a fatality," and said faster speed limits "would be against our goal of zero fatalities," especially without a primary seat belt law in the state.
The fact is, people don't necessarily drive what's posted on the speed limit signs. Data shows people are comfortable driving 70 mph, and in some cases higher. But, we're comfortable and posting (freeway speeds) at 70 mph. –Jason Davis, UDOT director of operations
UDOT officials said they respect UHP's position and passion for safety. Department of transportation officials have met regularly with the highway patrol throughout the decision process. But UDOT does not think upping the posted speed limit will lead to faster traffic speeds overall. UDOT officials are comfortable with their data analyses and think 70 mph is an appropriate speed.
UDOT officials looked at crash data and found most accidents occur either because a person is driving excessively over the speed limit or driving too quickly for weather conditions.
"Our analysis shows that it's not the speed limit that's affecting these crashes, it's drivers' behavior based on the conditions," Davis said.
Although a sign may say read "70 mph," ice, snow and other weather may dictate a slower speed.
"Just because it's posted at a certain speed, people need to drive for what the conditions are dictating," Davis said.
Changes to speed limits are expected to take effect before the beginning of the year, likely in December.
Utah has increased posted speed limits to 80 mph on nearly 380 miles of freeway during the past five years and noted no increase in traffic fatalities due to the increase in speed. Rep. James Dunnigan, R-Taylorsville, sponsored HB80 during the past legislative session which was signed by the governor and allows for increased speed limits in urban areas.
Contributing: Jed Boal |
Whether you were belting "Flavor of the Weak" into a hairbrush, learning how to play power chords to "Teenage Dirtbag" or simply blowing out your headphones, computer speakers or car stereo while blasting the Starting Line in the suburbs, admit it: You had a thing for pop-punk at one point or another. No one was immune between the years of 1996-2006. Though bands like Blink-182 and New Found Glory went on to represent that sunny genre that coupled radio-ready hooks with the driving riffs of punk and hardcore better than anything else, a handful of select bands made a special contribution to the canon of pop-punk: the one-hit wonder.
We've scoured our LiveJournals, our memories and our stacks of mix tapes to compile this list of favorite pop-punk one-hit wonders for you. Sit back, relax, rewind and revisit. (And we apologize in advance for getting "Flagpole Sitta" stuck in your head for the rest of time.)
By Hilary Hughes, Jeff Benjamin, Thomas Nassiff and Maria Sherman |
DAVID Jones has signed a new two-year contract with Burnley.
The 30-year-old midfielder still had a year left on his current deal but has followed Tom Heaton and Scott Arfield by putting pen to paper on an extended contract.
Jones joined the Clarets on a free transfer two seasons ago after leaving Wigan Athletic.
He had previously had a loan spell at Blackburn Rovers.
Jones said: “I have thoroughly enjoyed my time at Burnley. I think the club is moving forwards and I’m looking forward to another big season for the club.
“I’ve really enjoyed working with the manager, players and staff at the club and life, on and off the pitch, has been good for me here, so it was important for me to extend my stay.
“I feel in the last two seasons I have had a decent run in the side.
“Obviously as a player I want to be playing and we will have more competition for places this year, but hopefully I can be in the team and have another push to get the team back in the Premier League.
“I’ve been here two years and the club is definitely moving forwards.
“The manager has put in place good foundations and you sense, with Scott and Tom signing new deals, that we all enjoy it here and want to move forward with the club.
“They are two players who have played virtually every game in the last two seasons and their motivation will be the same as mine - to get back in the Premier League with Burnley.”
Burnley have this week signed Everton striker Chris Long on a three-year deal and boss Sean Dyche believes the 20-year-old has real potential for the future.
Long was not ready to feature in Tuesday night’s 2-0 pre-season friendly victory at Fleetwood.
“He is a young lad, but someone with a bit of pedigree and I like that because they will always have that through their careers,” Dyche said.
“He is very young, but he’s someone who we feel can develop with us.
“He has had touches of experience out on loan and we think he is one to push now, but also one for the future, so there’s a healthy mix.
“He has to get some fitness work under his belt, but if he can get up and running very quickly, then I’ll play him.” |
December 19, 2011
“Honest” Tom McCusker behind the counter at his new shop on 44th Street.
It was a familiar scene to many in West Philly. “Honest” Tom McCusker behind the counter asking for names and taking orders. But this time he was at eye level – not in his famous truck, but at his new shop at 261 S. 44th (between Spruce and Locust).
Honest Tom’s Taco Shop (Facebook link) opened for business this morning and with any luck, McCusker said, they will be open until 9 p.m. or so tonight. Honest Tom’s will be open seven days a week 8 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. Like the truck, the shop is cash only.
Come back in a few days for a review, but we pretty much know how this one will turn out. |
My sister-in-law is always sharing pictures of the delicious meals she creates for her family. And since she lives clear across the country, we’re unable to partake in those delectable dishes she teases us with. Recently, I asked if she would recreate one of those family friendly dishes for my blog readers, and she was happy to oblige.
Just in time for the holidays, add this Homemade Mac n’ Cheese recipe to your menu. It will be what your guests rave about this year! Thank you Bobbi Jo!
Homemade Mac n’ Cheese
Ingredients
16 oz uncooked elbow macaroni
4 cups shredded sharp cheddar cheese
1 cup shredded parmesan cheese
6 cups milk
1/2 cup butter
5 TBSP all-purpose flour
For topping
4 TBSP butter
1 cup bread crumbs
paprika
Instructions
1. Cook elbow macaroni according to the package directions. Drain.
2. In a saucepan, melt butter over medium heat. Stir in flour to make a *roux, stir constantly. Add milk to roux slowly, stirring constantly. Stir in cheeses, and cook over medium heat until cheese is melted and the sauce is a little thick. Put elbow macaroni in a large casserole dish, and pour sauce over macaroni. Stir well. *a mixture of equal amounts of fat and flour, heated, blended, and used as a basis for sauces
3. For topping: Melt butter (4 TBSP) in a skillet over medium heat. Add breadcrumbs and brown. Spread golden breadcrumbs over the macaroni and cheese, then sprinkle with a little paprika.
4. Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 30 minutes. Cool for 5 minutes then serve.
By Bobbi Jo
Starring her mini helper, Kassidy. Here’s the step-by step pictures to follow along.
Here’s what you’ll need to get started:
(Steps 1 & 2)
Step 3:
Step 4:
Homemade Mac n’ Cheese served with pan seared Pork Chops (bone in) with a Sweet n Savory rub and green beans, this family friendly meal is kid approved! |
Sepp Blatter has either officially lost the plot, or he’s just gone on a rant and has decided to spill the beans.
[ MORE: Who will be next FIFA president? ]
Either way, the outcome is mind-boggling.
In an in-depth Q&A with Russia outlet TASS released on Wednesday, Blatter has got plenty off his chest as the outgoing president of FIFA lashed out at Michel Platini — who along with him is currently suspended from FIFA due to an unexplained payment of $1.9 million between the pair — and gave several juicy bits of news including where the 2018 and 2022 World Cups should have been held and also hit out at FIFA’s own Ethics Committee before stating, and I quote, that: “If God is with me, I do hope that I’ll be back as president of FIFA.”
[ MORE: Mourinho praises Chelsea players ]
The seven candidates to become the new FIFA president and end Blatter’s 17-year reign — which had been dogged by controversy with current investigations ongoing from the Swiss and U.S. authorities into widespread allegations of corruption — were announced on Wednesday and the Swiss official would officially hand over the reins on Feb. 26, 2016 when the FIFA congress is held and a new president is announced. Blatter is not an official candidate but somehow believes he can still be president… Blatter also contradicts himself multiple times when saying that FIFA is not a commercial company and then, well, saying it is, and seems to be all over the place with his answers.
[ MORE: Messi to Barca? ]
Here’s is the excerpt from the interview where Blatter seems to reveal that before the voting process for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups had even taken place back in 2010, FIFA had already decided that the 2018 World Cup would take place in Russia and the 2022 World Cup would take place in the USA. That was until the Platini got involved and Qatar ousted the U.S. at the eleventh hour.
Do you think it was a mistake to simultaneously hold the elections of both 2018 and 2022 World Cups in 2010? In 2010 we had a discussion of the World Cup and then we went to a double decision. For the World Cups it was agreed that we go to Russia because it’s never been in Russia, eastern Europe, and for 2022 we go back to America. And so we will have the World Cup in the two biggest political powers. And everything was good until the moment when Sarkozy came in a meeting with the crown prince of Qatar, who is now the ruler of Qatar (Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani). And at a lunch afterwards with Mr. Platini he said it would be good to go to Qatar. And this has changed all pattern. There was an election by secret ballot. Four votes from Europe went away from the USA and so the result was fourteen to eight. If you put the four votes, it would have been twelve to ten. If the USA was given the World Cup, we would only speak about the wonderful World Cup 2018 in Russia and we would not speak about any problems at FIFA.
Defending himself throughout the Q&A and launching plenty of scathing attacks against his close friend and the president of UEFA and current FIFA presidential candidates, Platini, it is all getting a bit messy as many of the claims Blatter makes defy belief.
Here’s another excerpt on the “envy and jealousy” Platini feels towards him.
Why does Platini dislike you? You probably had a more or less reasonable relationship with each other some years ago. And then suddenly what went wrong? You will have to ask him and we will know. Because he wanted to be FIFA president. But he had not the courage to go as the president. And now we are in such a situation in football. But FIFA is working well. FIFA is carrying out competitions and all development programs. FIFA is so well organized that even big opponents in Germany have to say that FIFA is better organized than the German football. Since I became president of FIFA, we have made FIFA a big commercial company. And this naturally provokes envy and jealousy.
It is clear that while Blatter is currently suspended for 90-days by his own organization for this alleged unexplained payment to Platini, he will go out of his way to throw as many people under the bus as he can to try and salvage his reputation… if that is even possible at this point.
Blatter also hit out at the very ethics committee he set up and gave this rather unbelievable assessment of how they should operate.
The irony is that both you and Platini are suspended from football activities for three months. It’s total nonsense. This is not justice. I put these people into the office, where they are now in the Ethics Committee and they don’t even have the courage to listen to the secretary general, Platini or me. I called them for the principles of the human rights: before to be suspended or excluded from somewhere you have the right to answer and they have denied this. They made a summary investigation and three days later I was suspended.
The man who has led FIFA for nearly two decades and allowed widespread corruption to go on under his nose finally seems to be backed into a corner.
He doesn’t like it all and is coming out swinging in the final few months of his beleaguered presidency of world soccer’s ailing governing body.
Follow @JPW_NBCSports |
Kendrick Jackson is a Razorback. Arkansas has reached into Louisiana to secure a verbal commitment from Haynesville 3-star inside linebacker Kendrick Jackson.
Jackson, who decommitted from Arizona on Sunday, visited the Razorbacks this past weekend. He also considered Louisiana Tech, Houston, Hawaii, Louisville, Tulsa, Memphis and others. Jackson talked about why he became a Razorback.
"The facilities, coaches, the fan base and all of that," Jackson said. "Everything honestly. The fan base already knew me when I came, I felt special about that."
For the next 4 years I will be attending! pic.twitter.com/xzVFhKcZGo[/p]— Kendrick Jackson1⃣5⃣ (@15Kjackson) February 3, 2015
Jackson finished his senior season with 118 tackles, 24 tackles for loss, two sacks and two interceptions. Jackson has a grade of 83 with the 247Composite, No. 44 inside linebacker in nation and No. 56 prospect in Louisiana.
Calling the hogs all the way from Haynesville, LA. Putting everything together one man at a time, one day at a time. #BeUncommon #WoooPig[/p]— Bret Bielema (@BretBielema) February 3, 2015 |
There's a popular thought in college sports that those who run major programs should always be prepared with a list — one tucked deep inside a drawer, a password protected file or in the recesses of their mind — with the names of the five coaches they would pursue if they ever had to make a change in their program.
Blake James says he doesn't quite believe in that theory, but divine intervention? That's a possibility.
That's because the Miami Hurricanes athletic director was sitting in church of all places when his phone buzzed on the Sunday after Miami's football team had wrapped up its regular season. James discreetly took a look at the screen and saw a text that alerted him to the fact that Mark Richt had been fired at Georgia.
"I was like, 'Boy, this Mass has to get over in a hurry so I can call his agent,'" James chuckled recently.
That call was made not long after. By the end of the week, Miami had its new football coach, filling the void left after Al Golden was fired in October.
Back in October, Richt had told James he intended to stay at Georgia. A month later, everything changed.
Now, nine months into Richt's tenure in Coral Gables, the coach and seemingly everyone around Miami's program — from players to fans, boosters to high school coaches — are rejuvenated.
Yes, honeymoon periods are the norm when a school hires a new coach. But when that coach happens to be an alum with deep ties to the university, and a resume glittering with a 145-51 career record in the ultra-competitive Southeastern Conference, that honeymoon seems just a touch more magical.
"As an alum, this couldn't be sweeter. When you're a graduate that's dedicated to the program, your dream is to have someone that's been highly successful — that also graduated from the university — come home, do what he's done somewhere else and bring it home to South Florida," said Dr. Michael Gleiber, a Golden Hurricanes booster and a Miami graduate himself.
From his three years in the headset in Coral Gables, to his long run at Georgia, to his days as a Bobby Bowden assistant at FSU, to being a backup QB at UM in the early 1980s and even a full-haired star passer at Boca:
Gleiber, who has been at several booster events with Richt this year, is hardly alone in his thinking.
Though the coach has yet to lead his new team onto the field through Miami's famed smoke, the school has sold more than 11,000 new season tickets since his hiring on Dec. 4. According to James, existing season ticket renewal rates are at an unheard of 87 percent. And membership in the Hurricane Club — Miami's program for athletic donations and giving — is through the roof, with several boosters stepping up their donations in the months since Richt was hired.
This spring, as Richt met with alumni groups across the country during Miami's "Building Champions" tour, there were long lines as fans waited to snap a quick picture with him or share a few thoughts. And for the most part, Richt spent as much time as he could with fans, thanking them for their support and encouraging them to continue their involvement with the program.
He's also made it a point to reach out to those who maybe couldn't be in that kind of setting, spending much of his summer meeting with youth football coaches and players at parks throughout South Florida. There, too, there were requests for pictures and autographs and coaching tips.
"He has the ability to inspire people," said Jesse Marks, Miami's senior associate athletic director for development. "Every time he's in front of someone, that someone wants to get better personally and you want to help him and help the program. You can't find a better individual in that regard."
Richt, for his part, understands the challenge in front of him. And he has embraced it. He's tried to put his fingerprints all over his new program, most notably by resuming play-calling duties, a responsibility he shed in his later years at Georgia.
But he's been quick to point out getting Miami back to where it wants to be in college football isn't something that can only fall on his shoulders.
"It makes me feel great," he said in July about the welcome he's received from the community. "I'm a former alum. I'm a former football alum as well. I'm one of the guys, so to speak, in a lot of ways. ... I think what everybody understands is that it takes everybody — it takes our administration, it takes our athletic department, it takes our former players, it takes our current players, it takes recruiting, it takes our coaches, it takes ... our fan base. When everybody works together, we've got a chance to be great, and I think people see that."
Along with fans throughout South Florida, there's another distinct group of alumni Richt has reached out to since his return to Miami, and that too, reflects a change.
Since his hiring, Richt has stressed the importance of welcoming former Hurricanes players to campus, something that seemingly happened less and less in recent years, in part because the school wanted to be cautious of any potential violations in the wake of the Nevin Shapiro scandal and in part because some former players were vocal in their criticism of Golden.
But during spring practice, Richt hosted former players for an event on campus. Many were on the sideline during the Hurricanes spring game at Lockhart Stadium. And in July, some of the biggest names in Miami football history — including Ray Lewis, Michael Irvin, Gino Torretta, Warren Sapp, Duke Johnson, Jeremy Shockey, Antrel Rolle and Phillip Buchanon — were on campus for Paradise Camp, a Miami recruiting event that hosted some of the nation's top high school football prospects.
And like fans, the former Hurricanes players are thrilled one of their own now leads the storied program.
"It was toxic the last two years, longer than that because it was toxic during the NCAA investigation," Torretta said. "Then there was not having success and whatever feelings were there toward the former staff. I think people just want to see the connection. And he's a guy that played here. That never leaves you. . . . That's our guy and we're going to be behind him."
While Richt's community outreach, his $1 million donation to the school's future indoor practice facility and his effort to mend broken fences have all made an impression in South Florida, ultimately, his biggest accomplishment since arriving in Coral Gables has been inspiring the current crop of Hurricanes.
After all those players are the ones that will be executing his game plan, bearing the brunt of his discipline when needed and spending more time with him than anyone else. And they seem as happy with their new coach as everyone outside the football building is.
"When he came in here, since the first day, he's set the tone of how he is, and he's a class act in everything he does," center Nick Linder said. "He tries to instill in us to be a class act, to be professionals in school, on the field, whatever it may be. In the summer, we did all those community service events that were a big deal. . . He puts his own money into the indoor facility. It shows his commitment to us. It's good energy. Everything is going the right way." |
Introducing the EVGA TORQ X10 gaming mouse. Built with the highest quality materials including a real carbon fiber surface, this mouse was designed from the ground up to satisfy the needs of the hardcore gamer with a high quality laser sensor that provides up to 8200 DPI, an adjustable weight system, nine programmable buttons and a unique sizing system that allows you to adjust the height and the length of the body.
EVGA are experts in the computer hardware and enthusiast/gaming segments with over 14 years of experience. We listen to our loyal and enthusiastic community and often design products that are desired by them. Over the years, you can see this in our award winning graphics cards, power supplies, motherboards, case and overclocking accessories to name a few.
Over the last year, EVGA has been focused on a brand new gaming mouse - the EVGA TORQ X10 Carbon. Designed with the highest possible build quality, it is the first EVGA gaming input device that brings our hardware and software expertise to a whole new category.
This mouse was designed from the ground up to be unlike anything you have ever seen on the market. We used the ultimate in quality components including a REAL Carbon Fiber surface and the highest quality Omron switches with a lifespan of over 20 million clicks. We didn't stop there though. We also included a full metal base that provides solid construction, an Avago 9800 laser sensor providing up to 8200DPI with 1000Hz polling rate, a 6FT silver coated USB cable, and much more.
EVGA TORQ X10 Features: Ambidextrous grip supporting left and right handed gamers.
Moveable mechanism allows for proper support of various hand sizes.
Avago 9800 laser provides up to 8200 DPI with up to 1000Hz polling rate.
Highest quality Omron switches with a lifespan of over 20 million clicks.
Supports up to 9 programmable buttons.
Fully customizable RGB LED.
Built in 512KB memory for profile storage.
Metal base provides solid construction.
Weight control system allowing you to customize the weight to your liking.
6ft silver coated USB cable with braided surface.
Unleash Software Features: Allows full control of the EVGA TORQ X10.
Designed with usability in mind.
Heads up display shows key settings at a glance.
Flexible macro and profiling system.
Adjustable LED color and brightness.
Coming soon! |
You must enter the characters with black color that stand out from the other characters
— Food stamp recipients in North Carolina's largest counties who remain out of a job in the new year may see their benefits end as a result of federal rule changes.
Since the recession, the entire state has been exempt from a federal requirement that able-bodied adults without children work or volunteer at least 20 hours a week to receive benefits under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. But on Jan. 1, the U.S. Department of Agriculture will end that blanket exception, implementing the rule again for 23 North Carolina counties largely based on their recovering unemployment rates. Waivers remain in place for the rest of the state's counties for now.
Benefits won't stop immediately if an individual doesn't meet the work requirement – recipients can receive them for up to 90 days even if they're still jobless.
23 counties subject to rule Alamance, Alexander, Buncombe, Cabarrus, Catawba, Davidson, Davie, Durham, Forsyth, Gaston, Guilford, Haywood, Henderson, Iredell, Lincoln, Mecklenburg, New Hanover, Orange, Randolph, Union, Wake, Watauga and Yadkin
North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services Deputy Secretary Sherry Bradsher said the counties, which include Wake, Orange and Durham, account for about half the population of childless able-bodied adults in the state who receive food and nutrition benefits, commonly known as food stamps. That's about 59,000 people out of a potential 118,000 across the state who would be subject to the restarted work rules.
Although Bradsher said about 80 percent of food stamp recipients have jobs, many who don't meet the work requirement will need help with job placement and employee training services.
"From a readiness standpoint, most of these counties have some infrastructure in place to support these individuals," Bradsher said.
The exemptions will end for North Carolina's other 77 counties by July 1, following last-minute legislation by state lawmakers this fall to ban DHHS requests for work requirement waivers. The measure's supporters say reinstating the work requirement will push the jobless to step up their employment searches.
"When this goes into effect, you’re going to see a lot of them either go and get that 20-hour-a-week job, or they're going to enroll in some kind of job education," Sen. Norm Sanderson, R-Pamlico, said in September.
Because SNAP benefits, which average about $32 a week per person, are federally funded, the state itself won't save any money.
Critics say the end of waivers will mean more hardship for some areas, especially rural ones, still suffering from a lack of jobs.
Even in Wake County, where the jobless rate is less than 5 percent, Human Services Director Regina Petteway said the uneven recovery has meant that many are still struggling to find work.
"I think some people are just not going to want to or be able to do this," Petteway said.
There are up to 4,000 childless, able-bodied adults receiving food stamps in Wake County who may be subject to the work requirements, she said. County staff members are still working to identify the exact number, since other factors like homelessness or ongoing treatment for substance abuse could exempt them from the final figure. The total is also in flux because new applicants flow into Petteway's office daily.
"It's taken a lot of follow up, and because Wake County is so big and we had 4,000 people, we had to get on this quickly," Petteway said.
To prepare for the new year, Petteway said the department is working to find job and volunteer opportunities that can help people meet the work requirements and keep their benefits if they need them.
Bradsher said this work on the county level will be crucial to the remaining areas of the state that will become subject to the work rules by July, including those with higher unemployment and less developed infrastructures for helping people find work.
"We learn a lot from those counties that are first out of the gate," Bradsher said. |
TORONTO — Pinewood Toronto Studios, the largest film and television studio of its kind in Canada, is expanding its presence on Toronto’s eastern waterfront.
The studio has leased new property from the Toronto Port Lands Company to accommodate a new facility spanning 135,000 square feet. The new facility will feature four new workshop spaces, production offices, parking and supporting retail space.
“We’re not going to get the business if we don’t have a place to do it, so we’ve got to expand the spaces available,” said Toronto Mayor John Tory.
The additional space will allow the studio to host multiple productions simultaneously, in the hopes of attracting more producers to the city.
READ MORE: Toronto mayor headed to Hollywood to drum up support for city’s film, TV industry
Currently, the studio sits on 300,000 square feet of real estate at 225 Commissioners St. Today’s announcement is just the first step in bigger plans for Pinewood Toronto Studios to double in size to 600,000 square feet.
“I’m proud we’re leading the way in adding more purpose-built facilities to our city’s thriving film and television industry,” said Paul Bronfman, chairman of Pinewood Toronto Studios.
Toronto Port Lands Company has approved the concept plans and will be working with Pinewood Toronto Studios to prepare the land for development. Construction, however, will not begin until the studio receives all necessary permits from the city.
The facility is expected to be ready for film clients by 2018. |
The coming rise of autonomous vehicles has already sparked fears that cars immune to human error won't incur the speeding and parking fines that keep city coffers stuffed. But there will be a healthy gap between the technology's arrival and its ubiquity. That's what makes the Brigade useful.
Brigade is a conceptual driverless motorcycle I have designed to keep the peace in small towns, and keep human officers doing more important work. Carrying a suite of cameras, sensors, projectors, and speakers, the electric two-wheeler would stay upright thanks to a built-in gyroscope.
Charles Bombardier About A mechanical engineer and a member of the family whose aerospace and transportation company builds trains, planes, and more, Bombardier's at his best when he ignores pesky things like budgets, timelines, and contemporary physics. Since 2013, he's run a blog cataloging more than 200 concepts, each a fantastic, farfetched new way for people to travel through land, air, water, and space. His ideas are out there, but it's Bombardier's sort of creative thinking that keeps us moving forward.
Like a combination of KITT, a red light camera, and a meter maid, Brigade would silently patrol the streets, looking for things like expired registrations and illegally parked cars. It would file timestamped video evidence with the municipal court and email the owner a citation.
For offenses like speeding, Brigade wouldn't even bother to stop, instead alerting the offender with a flashing light and audio message. If the driver ignores the admonition, Brigade would follow him and alert nearby, human cops.
Now, this concept is about more than issuing tickets. Each unit doing the grunt work of patrolling for low-level offenders would free police officers to more vital tasks, like investigating violent crimes and truly keeping the streets safe.
Thanks to Montreal-based freelance industrial designer Eduardo Arndt, who produced these renderings of the Brigade concept. |
Press Releases, Local News, Crime
By Long Island News & PR Published: December 05 2014
Highway Patrol Bureau officers report the arrest of an East Rockaway woman for an incident that occurred on Friday, December 5, 2014 at 12:45 am in Bethpage.
East Rockaway, NY - December 5, 2014 - Highway Patrol Bureau officers report the arrest of an East Rockaway woman for an incident that occurred on Friday, December 5, 2014 at 12:45 am in Bethpage.
According to officers, numerous 911 calls were received regarding a vehicle that was traveling southbound in the northbound lanes of the Seaford Oyster Bay Expressway. After locating the vehicle, officers, who were forced to engage the vehicle head on, were able to safely bring the vehicle to a stop between exits 8 and 7.
A subsequent investigation at the scene revealed that the driver, Maureen Hamilton, 58, of 41 Wellfleet Road, was operating her car in an intoxicated condition. She was then placed under arrest without incident. There were no reports of any accidents as a result of Hamilton’s actions.
The defendant is charged with Driving While Intoxicated, Reckless Endangerment 2nd Degree, Reckless Driving, Aggravated Driving While Intoxicated, Driving While Intoxicated (in excess of .08) and Driving the Wrong Way on a One Way Street.
Hamilton will be arraigned in First District Court, Hempstead on 12/05/2014. |
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Donald Trump released a new campaign finance report this week and in addition to showing he may have paid thousands of dollars to a fictional ad firm from Mad Men, many pundits are saying the report shows the presidential candidate is not doing as well in fundraising as would be expected.
Fellow rich person Mark Cuban is no fan of Trump, having previously questioned the financial viability of his run for office, and on Tuesday he called out the White House hopeful again on Twitter.
Cuban also took the liberty of retweeting his early statements about Trump’s pecuniary health.
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Trump has yet to respond to Cuban’s taunts but the reality star and real estate developer rarely misses an opportunity for a Twitter fight. |
Fran Kirby scored 11 goals in five league appearances for Reading this year and has netted three times in 13 appearances for England
People aiming sexist comments at women's football need to "catch up with the times", England striker Fran Kirby said.
The 22-year-old posted a series of tweets on the issue after coming off the bench to score on her debut in Chelsea's 4-0 win over Birmingham City on Sunday.
"Why can't people respect that football is not only a man's sport?" she wrote.
"Still can't believe some of the sexist comments I still read."
It is unclear what prompted her outburst, which came after her side went top of the Women's Super League.
The first of Fran Kirby's four tweets hitting out at sexist views about women's football
The former Reading forward, for whom Chelsea paid a reported British women's record transfer fee, added that people posting derogatory remarks about the women's game needed to realise they were "boring and unoriginal".
The top two tiers of the women's game in England have enjoyed record crowds this season, with England's third-place finish at the Women's World Cup earlier this summer further boosting attendances.
"It's 2015, and women's football is on the way up," Kirby said.
Kirby concluded her four-tweet "rant" by conceding social media critics would remain behind their screens
Kirby's goal against Birmingham was her first in WSL 1 and kept up her remarkable scoring form in 2015, having netted 11 goals in five WSL 2 games for Reading before the World Cup and England's first goal at the tournament.
Chelsea defender Gilly Flaherty said the diminutive striker was continuing to show herself to be an "incredible" talent.
"She has a lot of potential," Flaherty told BBC Sport. "She has been playing in Super League Two and now is her chance to make her name in Super League One.
"She has done it internationally and it is now about doing it for us too." |
[Editor’s note: Founded in 1929, the U.K.-based group “Catholic Concern for Animals” is among the leading advocates for animals rights in Catholicism, and is also a founding member of the Animal Interfaith Alliance. Recently Crux contributor Charles Camosy spoke with Chris Fegan, the Chief Executive of the group.]
Camosy: Tell us a bit about the history of Catholic Concern for Animals. How long has your organization been doing what you’re doing?
Fegan: Catholic Concern for Animals was originally known under the name Catholic Study Circle for Animal Welfare and has been in existence since the early part of the 20th Century.
Catholic Concern for Animals thus began, and it was made up of Catholics who had been concerned with the problem of animal suffering and the various efforts to mitigate and relieve it, and who felt the need of a deepened attention to this matter among the Catholics of Great Britain.
The first meeting was held in November 1929, with the Reverend WN Roche, Rector of the Church of the Holy Rosary, Marylebone, in the Chair. About fifteen persons were present. The meeting was concerned chiefly with the possibility of a Catholic Society for kindness to animals.
Accordingly, a second meeting was held on December 17th, 1929, and another on February 28th 1930, when a provisional committee was appointed.
The object of the proposed society was declared to be: “To bring our relations with the creatures of God into harmony with His will and purpose for them and us. To try to learn from the Holy Scriptures, the example of the Saints, the rules and customs of the Church how God would have us think of His creatures and treat them.”
It is important to note that the new organization was building on the work of both Cardinal John Henry Newman and Cardinal Henry Manning, who had taken an active role in animal welfare matters in Britain during the late 19th Century.
What do you find on your agenda these days as an organization? Where are you putting your energy?
CCA is an educational charity, and our current remit is not very dissimilar to those that were agreed at the meeting in 1930. It’s as follows: “CCA is active in promoting animal welfare and related issues throughout the Catholic world, and educating all Catholics (and others) on Catholic teaching and practice on the issue of animal welfare and compassion in line with published documents such as Pope Francis’s encyclical letter, Laudato Si’. CCA does this through various means, including the ARK Magazine and social media.”
You’ll see that we have kept in close connection with our founding principles, but that we now operate worldwide from our early beginnings in the UK and we use modern technology to try and reach and educate the 1.4 billion Catholics across the globe in animal welfare issues, as well as by using the more traditional methods.
My sense from my students and other young people I meet is that they are very much open to animal protection as an issue, even if on other matters they lean a bit more conservative or traditional. What’s your experience?
It is the case that young people are open to animal welfare/protection/rights matters, and of course what is seen as traditional or “conservative” varies from country to country and jurisdiction to jurisdiction.
What I often find is that Catholic people of all ages, both young and old, are often unaware of the strong animal welfare tradition of the Catholic Church to which they belong. For example, they have heard of St Francis, and vaguely know that he loved animals, but that’s often as far as they go.
It’s the role of CCA to fill those gaps in knowledge, and to bring the rich tapestry of the history of the Church in this area to their attention. That includes the lives of the saints with animals, including St Francis, which is important here, as well as the formal teaching of the Church such as Laudato Si’.
How have figures in the Catholic hierarchy reacted to your work?
As I mentioned, we were formed on the back of the work on animals undertaken by such senior Catholic Church figures as Newman and Manning, and we’re closely connected to the senior clergy to this day.
Archbishop Malcolm McMahon of Liverpool is CCA President, and we work with senior clergy throughout the world.
For example, only recently I had a very productive meeting in India with the Archbishop of Goa [in India] and his senior colleagues about how we can work together there for animal protection and welfare. We have a similar relationship with senior Catholic Clergy elsewhere in the world, and we’re building and increasing our strong links with clergy at all levels and in all countries on a regular basis.
We have had support from the very highest level of the Catholic Church, and, in 1967, we were honored to have a delegation received by Pope Paul VI in which he praised our work by saying, “Their lofty goals reflect in a very beautiful way the gentle love which is an important fruit of Christian charity” and what they seek to accomplish “is in conformity with the ends which God had in creating the world.”
This support and endorsement of the work by the pontiff of the work of CCA is of great significance, and his last quote in particular resonates in our work to this day and on an on-going basis.
What is the best way for Crux readers to learn more about and/or support Catholic Concern for Animals?
Crux readers can learn more about CCA from our website, and can also follow us on our Facebook page and via Twitter (@catholicanimal). They can also join CCA as full members from anywhere in the world, and they can contact me at [email protected].
Our flagship magazine is sent by hard copy to all CCA members as part of their membership package, but can be available in PDF form also via e-mail from us.
We are always in need of funds to help support and continue our work, of course, in the same way as any other charity, and we are always very grateful for donations to support our work. These can also be made via our website, or by direct contact with myself. |
The Yogi Adityanath government plans to build a “grand statue” of Lord Ram on the banks of the Saryu river in Ayodhya as part of its plan to showcase “Navya Ayodhya.” The proposal was presented to Governor Ram Naik as part of the state tourism department’s initiatives to promote religious tourism.
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The government’s slideshow put the height of the statute at 100 m but some officials said that wasn’t final.
According to a press communique released from Raj Bhavan, Principal Secretary, Tourism, Awanish Kumar Awasthi made the presentation.
The presentation also included information on programmes scheduled for Diwali celebrations in Ayodhya on October 18. Governor Naik, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, Union Tourism Minister K J Alphons and Culture Minister Mahesh Sharma will be present on the occasion.
The communique stated that the statue will be build at Saryughat after clearance from the National Green Tribunal.
When asked about the statue, Awasthi told The Indian Express that this was a “concept proposal” and the letter to NGT seeking clearance was yet to be sent.
Also part of the plan is a Ram Katha gallery on the banks of the river, a multi-purpose auditorium in the Digambar Akhara premises and various public utility services. For this integrated development of Ayodhya, the state government had sent a detailed project report (DPR) of Rs 195.89 crore to the Tourism Ministry at the Centre and the Ministry has so far provided Rs 133.70 crore to the state.
Also on the programme list for October 18 are: a Deepotsav programme where 1.71 lakh earthen lamps will be lit at Ram ki Paidi, about 2 km from the disputed site; a heritage walk through Ayodhya; a Shobha Yatra to showcase the arrival of Lord Ram to Ayodhya and a symbolic “rajyabhishek” (coronation).
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Later, Governor and the CM are scheduled to lay the foundation stone of various projects for development in Ayodhya. Both will also perform “aarti” at a new ghat of the Saryu river. Artists from Indonesia and Thailand will also stage the Ram Leela there. |
I uploaded a teaser/preview of this drawing a while back, and forgot to upload the finished version.I am aware of most of the flaws I did in this drawing, but I still feel some pride when I look at it. Firstly because it was a huge honor for me to be asked to contribute to the project this drawing was for, and secondly because I hadn't really been drawing much for almost a year, and I was on the verge of giving up several times - luckily, I had people around me who didn't give up on me, and their faith in me was both moving and very motivating.So, this drawing will - despite flaws and errors I've noticed later on - remain a very meaningful and sort of precious drawing to me.I hope you guys will enjoy it tooalso, I'm sorry I haven't been updating much art the past year or so... I've made lots of stuff, I just feel that if I upload something it should be finished works and not just half-assed stuff or unfinished drawings I'll never bother completing.. you know? If you don't mind my half-assed art and random doodles, feel free to check out my instagram page (ozoozou) where I actually upload drawings way more frequently than here nowadays.Also, I'm still working on my Patreon page, hoping to launch it in February, where I'll be sharing most of my art from now on. My finished drawings and such will still be posted here on deviantART too, but my Patreon page will have sketches and lots of other cool stuff in addition to the finished works. So stay tuned!Thanks for not giving up on me either, by the way |
I've started writing this IPython notebook in order to make myself more comfortable with Android and its SDK. Due to some personal interests I thought I could also have a look at the available RE tools and learn more about their pros & cos. In particular I had a closer look at AndroGuard which seems to be good at:
Reverse engineering, Malware and goodware analysis of Android applications ... and more (ninja !)
I was charmed but its capabilities and the pythonic art of handling with APKs. In the 2nd step I've needed a malware to play it, so I had a look at Contagio Mobile. There I've randomly chosen a malware and got stucked with Fake Banker. There are some technical details about the malware itself gained during automated tests which can be read here.
This article will only deal with the static source code analysis of the malware. A 2nd part dedicated to the dynamic analysis is planed as well. |
In the August 2, 2017 episode of the Tom Woods Show, Woods talks about the moral outrage of left-libertarians and their tendency to call other libertarians fascists, Nazis, or whatever other insults they can muster. To follow up these complaints, he asserted that libertarianism and fascism are completely contradictory political perspectives and could never be combined, alluding to the “libertarian fascists” and libertarians with fascist sympathies. He also said that when one embraces fascism, one must have relinquished one’s libertarianism, as there is no other solution that would make sense. In the historical sense of fascism, libertarian fascism is a contradictory term. A person who is a libertarian cannot actually and fully consider themselves a fascist in that sense, or vice versa. However, we can treat libertarian fascism as a placeholder term for a broader ideological shift toward a synthesis of libertarianism and fascism. We may also consider how a private property owner in a libertarian society could have a fascist structure within the bounds of private property.
Examining Premises
The first mistake that Woods (and many other libertarians) make is to assume that the combination of different ideological perspectives is dependent on policy and not the fundamentals of their philosophy. From this, Woods implies that fascism is about centralization and boundless idealism, while libertarians accept people as they are and favor decentralization. Some more simple-minded people also think that fascism is about authority and state power while libertarianism is the complete opposite. This may be true when we look at policy proposals, but policy cannot be the arbiter of ideological coherence or ideologies themselves. We need to analyze the premises of different ideologies if we are to analyze how compatible these ideologies are. This is necessary because ideologies are fundamentally systems of thought and analysis flowing from basic premises. A person using an ideology is a person looking at the world in a certain way and proposing policy positions from that set of value judgments.
To illustrate this, let us consider the example of Milton Friedman. Milton Friedman is claimed by both libertarians and neoliberals as representing their ideologies. This means that both libertarians and neoliberals see Friedman as using their methods of analysis and looking at the world in the same manner that they do. But here we find a contradiction; there appears to be a problem if we are to place neoliberalism and libertarianism on a scale of politics. First, we have to establish that there is a connection between Rothbard and Friedman when it comes to libertarianism; that is, that one could draw a straight line from Rothbard to Friedman and it would naturally follow from their ideological positions. This may be done; one can see that both men respect property rights, advocate for reducing the size of the state, and wish to increase the freedom of the market. But one must also draw a line from Hillary Clinton to Friedman, as they are both neoliberals. Both are cosmopolitan, fairly progressive, and advocate for a sort of economy that is not only free but also open. Although they differ in their degree of state intervention, one can ideologically connect Friedman and Clinton.
But there is a problem, in that no such connection is present between Rothbard and Clinton. There is no consistent line that could connect Rothbardian thought with Clintonian thought. Their philosophies and perspectives are mutually exclusive. There is no principled alliance or synthesis between them; only alliances of convenience may exist. However, when it comes to Friedman, there may be a synthesis between these ideologies. Both Rothbardians and Clintonians will have their criticisms of Friedmanites, but Friedman’s position is palatable for both neoliberals and libertarians. This is because Friedman used both the premises of neoliberalism and the premises of libertarianism. He analyzed the world in a way that followed from the neoliberal desire for openness and personal freedom and the libertarian desire for self-determination and liberty. We can boil down these two positions to this: the neoliberals want looseness while libertarians want property. Neoliberals tend to favor whatever makes national identity, economic policy, or social cohesion looser. Libertarians tend to favor whatever makes property rights stronger, whether it be self-ownership, non-aggression, or property rights in external objects. Coming from both perspectives, one would both appreciate property rights and self-determination but also a loose society without national identity or strong social norms, and this explains the desires of left-libertarians. Friedman was first and foremost an economist, so we see more of the propertarian side of him, but he was also a neoliberal.
The Premises of Fascism
We have already established that the libertarian premises are self-ownership, non-aggression, and property rights. Libertarians tend to favor whatever increases the power of the property owner over his justly owned property. But what do the fascists take as their premises? Contrary to popular belief, it is not opposition to property or to personal liberty. No fascist regime has ever gotten rid of property and the personal liberty question has only been a policy proposal, not something most fascists believe in strongly. There are some fascists who are against property, but they are few and far between and have never had a strong presence in a notable fascist government. In fact, most fascist governments suppress these left-wing variants. In fiction, some fascists are opposed to personal liberty on principle, but these are not reflected in reality; the closest real approximation are people who believe that control is necessary for virtue. But in that case, the premise is virtue rather than control, as the fascist does not want control for the sake of control. To really understand the fascists, we need to look at fascist movements.
In Italy, there were the national syndicalists that eventually became the fascists. They believed in creating a pseudo-syndicalist economy that combines worker interests and business interests to reduce class conflict. They also believed in strengthening Italian society and creating an incredibly traditionalist social order. The Nazis shared the second point, but they wanted an economy where there is comparatively stronger property and there are more capitalistic structures, but on the condition that these structures benefit the nation. In this form, national socialists treat property owners as trustees given property by the nation to take care of the wealth and resources of the nation. We can see many other movements that hold themselves to be both anti-communist and anti-capitalist, but eventually, end up with what we would call a fascist economic policy.
Other movements were somewhat different. The Francoists come from the more orthodox Falangist position, and they are outliers because Franco eventually liberalized the economy and created a more free market than many people would have favored originally. Though Hitler privatized multiple industries, this was nothing compared to the Spanish miracle. The Greek military coup lead by Papadopoulos constantly referred to their movement as being explicitly temporary, however, the attempts of liberalization by Papadopoulos were shut down by other people within the government. It is impossible to know how Greece would have developed if these liberalizations had occurred, but the government was overthrown and Greece eventually became a leftist mess.
One could include Pinochet and use the Chilean miracle as another example of success, but fascists often consider Pinochet to be a sellout, and it is not entirely clear whether Pinochet was actually a fascist or simply a paid CIA operative; an anti-communist or globalist agent. Finally, one can look at the American Nazi party. They are certainly fascists, but they are also constitutionalists. They want to return to the founding documents of the United States, and support sound money and free markets. This contradicts the common image of fascism, and thus may befuddle any libertarian who has not analyzed the premises of fascism.
The Conclusions of Fascism
What all these movements had in common was the ultimate goal of creating a better nation. This meant creating a world where the destructive forces that were threatening to the nation could not take hold and the nation could prosper. They all wanted a society and an economy based around the nation, which they believed would create a better life for the people within that nation. One can see how the policies of all these movements actually follow from the nationalism that fascists take as their ultimate premise. Many say that fascists have no coherent economic policy, but this is untrue. The economic policy of fascists is and always has been to strengthen the nation. The 20th century was marked by a struggle between Marxist world socialism and liberal world capitalism. The Marxists agitated the workers while the liberals agitated the middle and upper classes, creating an immense class conflict that fueled revolution and chaos. The fascists in the early 20th century came along and attempted to create an economy that would work both for the upper and the lower classes, an economy where the workers would get what they think they deserve while the capitalists could keep their capital and use it productively. To do this, they wanted the state to have control of the economy to make sure that no one is exploited (at least, by any entity other than the state) and that everyone will work for the nation to ensure a lack of parasitism for greedy or materialistic purposes (again, outside of the state itself). When this was shown to be unsustainable, the smart fascists shifted to a policy of privatization. This happened under Hitler and Franco to various degrees; they ultimately let go of some state property and handed it to people who used it productively. The Nazis were not ready to give up their desires for the aesthetic advancement of the German people, so they needed to expand their empire to fuel their faulty economy, but some privatization still took place.
The social policy of fascist regimes has always been to make sure that the nation is sustainable and that the nation does not slide into degeneracy. From this follow positions against promiscuity, homosexuality, drug use, and whatever else people do in order to derive hedonistic pleasure at the expense of a healthy society. It also has a strong connection to the view that traditional family structures should be the basis of society, meaning that incentivizing motherhood and the creation of strong men to take care of the women is proper for sustaining the nation. This explains the ethnic element of fascism, as all nations are ultimately determined by the genetic stock of their people and the historical condition where the people have developed. Furthermore, this explains why anti-Semitism is present in historical fascist movements, as fascists tend to view Jews as a hostile minority with disproportionate influence that works to undermine the nation with moral degeneracy and financial manipulation while refusing to assimilate into the host nation.
Libertarianism and Fascism
First, from the premises of libertarianism, fascism is a lesser evil than left-wing socialism. Fascism undoubtedly preserves property more than left-wing socialism does, thus fascist sympathies cannot be construed as completely anti-libertarian. But one cannot take as ultimate goals both nation and property, as the conflicts between these goals would have to be solved by means of arbitrary decision. This means that libertarianism and fascism cannot be combined as ideologies because their premises are different. One may combine republicanism, minarchism, monarchism, anarcho-capitalism, etc. into a broad political movement, as the premises of these positions are sufficiently similar. But there is no way to create a big tent movement that can accurately represent the interests of both fascists and libertarians; the premises come into too much conflict.
Second, there is some value in the notion of being a fascist politically while being a libertarian philosophically. This is a position that some people are becoming more and more sympathetic towards. Left-libertarians like to refer to these people as “helicopterists,” so we can use that term to describe this position. What these people tend to believe is that a military dictatorship is necessary or beneficial if we are to establish a libertarian social order and that we cannot simply transition to absolute liberty without first making sure that policies are implemented to push society toward that goals. These people often argue for violent suppression of leftists, which is not what libertarians traditionally favor, and for a general purge within society that would result in favorable conditions for the formation of a libertarian society.
Third, libertarians may take nationalism as a premise and fascists may take property as a premise, even thought these cannot be their ultimate premises due to the aforementioned conflicts. Fascists may advocate for free-market economics insofar as it increases the health of the nation, while libertarians may advocate for nationalism insofar as it strengthens self-ownership, private property, and non-aggression. In this manner, libertarians and fascists can find common ground by using common premises, and they can create a compromise that is palatable for both fascists and libertarians. We touched upon Milton Friedman earlier to show that it is theoretically and practically possible to embrace different premises even though the policy proposals may contradict themselves. Although there can be a degree of collaboration between libertarians who value the nation and fascists who value property, they will still ultimately be fascists and libertarians, respectively. The priority between property and nation determines with which camp people identify.
Finally, it is possible for a private property owner to administer one’s holdings according to the structure of a fascist dictatorship. Being the owner of property means having a right to exclusive control over it, including its governance structure. However, libertarian standards do not permit forcing non-aggressive people to come into such a structure or remain there against their will, so a libertarian running a fascist governance structure within private property will have to be far less oppressive than statist fascists in order to keep a regime populated. This kind of governance, which offers people no voice and free exit, has proven best at limiting state power throughout history. It would also be best for limiting the tyranny of the private property owner that so concerns critics of libertarianism.
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Share. Check out an exclusive new clip, as The 100 goes into Exorcist territory. Check out an exclusive new clip, as The 100 goes into Exorcist territory.
Raven (Lindsey Morgan) isn’t exactly behaving normally on The 100 these days. Recent episodes found the injured mechanic taking one of the chips that exposed her to the AI known as ALIE (Erica Cerra) – removing her chronic pain but also some of her most important memories in the process.
Last week, things escalated as Raven, trying to escape ALIE’s hold, was completely possessed by her instead, before once more being put back under her sway, leading Jasper (Devon Bostick) to escape Arkadia with her.
IGN has an exclusive new clip from this week’s episode, “Nevermore,” as Clarke (Eliza Taylor) receives some notably harsh words from Raven, with ALIE by her side.
Exit Theatre Mode
Last fall, I was on the set of “Nevermore,” where I spoke to cast members Taylor, Bostick, Marie Avgeropoulos and Bob Morley – but, unfortunately, not Morgan. Though for good reason, given she was literally tied to a bed nearly the entire time I was there, over the course of several hours late into the night, filming scenes where Raven’s friends tried to help her and in some way free her from ALIE. As Bostick told me, “It’s our Exorcist episode. The band's back together, but it seems like we’ve lost one of us.”
In take after take, Morgan gave a terrific performance, as Raven was sometimes in horrible pain, sometimes saying terrible things and sometimes completely taken over by ALIE, with Morgan expertly mimicking Cerra's specific speech patterns as the character.
With the episode airing this week, I got on the phone with Morgan to chat about what it was like filming this big episode, playing ALIE -- not to mention multiple versions of Raven this season -- and more.
IGN TV: So when I saw you on the set of this episode, you were tied to a bed! Suffice to say this was an unusual episode to film?
Lindsey Morgan: [Laughs] Sort of, but then I think with everything we’ve done on The 100, it wasn't that crazy! But there were a lot of extenuating circumstances. This episode, we did night shoots like five nights in a row. We really try not to do that because it takes such a toll on everybody, but since we were outside for a lot of it too, it was just brutal. So yeah, it was a special episode!
IGN: [Laughs] Last time we saw Raven she was back to the zoned-out, City of Light version of Raven, but we do see you in the trailer screaming, "Where the hell am I?", looking pretty damn pissed off. Suffice to say, when she wakes up, she's not going to stay tranquil for too long?
Morgan: No. I think at this point Raven has fully submitted to ALIE and ALIE is working all the gears. But the interesting thing is it's like ALIE's the puppet master, but it’s still embodied within Raven. Jason [Rothenberg], Kim [Shumway] and I talked a lot about possession and exorcism, of a sense, but ALIE's not necessarily a “demon,” you know what I mean? But it was interesting, because she's emotionless, but she’s maybe… “Spiteful’” isn't the right word, but maybe “consequential.” Because, you saw before, when Raven removed her, she wasn't upset about it, she was just more curious, as far as, "Why would you do this? I take away pain, and humans do everything to reverse pain, to avert from pain. So why would you want it back?"
Now I feel like it's like ALIE's working the gears, but it's funneling through Raven's filter. And I feel like Raven is full of fight and rage and anger, and that's been lying there, and she sees things as enemies. So it's kind of like that brought out, almost, a demonic rage inside of Raven that she has been carrying that I think is inside all of us. I think that's why you see Raven really lash out. She just has ALIE telling her, "Get away, get away!" But in Raven's mind it becomes, "Fight, fight! Fight for your life." Unfortunately, she's fighting her friends, but Raven has no idea that it's her friends she's fighting. She just knows she's fighting enemies, and that's the kind of fierceness she would bring to any adversary.
IGN: They've been keeping you on your toes. In recent weeks, you've played Raven, then Raven with the chip and now ALIE.
Morgan: I feel like I played a completely different character, a different Raven, all season long. Because even at the beginning of the season, Raven's at the height of her depression. And it's hard to convey, because we have so many other storylines and whatnot, but I wanted to try to find some way to show everyone that Raven's at her lowest point right now, and that's why she takes the chip. So it's like I was playing a completely different Raven in the beginning. So it's super, super, super sad Raven and then it's chipped Raven. Then she's Zen but also still very logical and scientific, so that's a whole other Raven. Then there's ALIE-possessed Raven, so it's not even Raven; it's ALIE working through her. And now it's a Raven/ALIE mesh coming through. So it's literally been different Ravens the entire season long.
IGN: What's it been like for you to play ALIE, especially given you had Erica's performance to evoke?
Morgan: As far as the ALIE stuff, I remember when I got the script for 310, we were shooting in two days, and Jason's like, "So, you've got this to do." [Laughs] And I was like, "What? That's crazy!" He was like, "It’s fine. You've got it, you've got it!" He was so confident in me, and I'm like, "Okay! I'll do my best." Then he sends me this compilation he called “ALIE's Greatest Hits,” and it's a little compilation of just Erica being ALIE. We'd worked together, but I hadn't really had a chance to study her. Because when you're in a scene, you're not studying your scene partner - you're rehearsing, thinking about your character’s thoughts and emotions.
Once I got a chance to study what Erica was doing, I was really impressed as far as the nuance and detail she brought to ALIE. Because ALIE could be very boring. She’s an emotionless computer image. She's like a robot. But Erica brought this awesome, super-intelligent being that was constantly learning. Like when she tilts her head, that's a sign of new information. She's trying to figure out the human race, humanity, because that's how Becca, her creator, created her; to be constantly learning. But the thing that she lacks is humanity, because she lacks that filter of understanding. That's why she is so confused when Raven is fighting her and willingly takes her memories back. So it was very interesting. I studied that compilation, and having Erica on set was great. Basically, if I couldn't get a line, I would go, "Okay, say this line," and she would say it, and I would mimic her; I would parrot her. But if it was a really difficult line, I would need her to do it pretty close to shooting, so I could have it fresh in my mind. But if I overthought it… One line gave us hell, and I was drilling her for it, and she was like, "Lindsey, it's not getting any better." [Laughs] "You've just gotta go with your instincts." It’s not perfect, but I was like, "Okay, I'll give it my best shot," and that's what happened.
Continue to Page 2 as Morgan discusses the character reunion on this episode and if there's hope for Raven in the future. |
Katie Garrod/Getty
A commonly-used herbal medicine causes mutations that are linked to liver cancer, according to research in Taiwan. Extracts taken from plants of the genus Aristolochia, which are used in traditional Chinese medicine to treat a wide range of conditions, may be responsible for many liver cancers in Asia.
There are over 500 species of Aristolochia, around 100 of which have been used in herbal medicines. “They have very beautiful, trumpet-shaped flowers,” says Steven Rozen at Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore. This has led to them being given names like “Dutchman’s pipe”.
Extracts of the plants – taken from the flowers, root or stem, for example – have long been used in herbal medicine. But fears over their safety were raised in the 1990s, when women who were given trial weight loss drugs containing Aristolochia extracts developed kidney failure. Since then, the plant extracts have also been linked to Balkan nephropathy – a kidney disease affecting people in Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Romania and Serbia.
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In 2013, researchers found that a compound in the plants, known as aristolochic acid, seems to cause gene mutations by targeting the base adenine, a component of DNA’s genetic code. “It attacks any part of the genome with equal opportunity,” says Rozen.
Cases worldwide
When a member of Rozen’s team spotted the same type of mutation occurring in liver cancer, the group wondered if plants that contain aristolochic acid might increase a person’s chances of developing the disease.
The team looked for the mutation in 98 liver tumour samples taken at two hospitals in Taiwan. Aristolochia plants are used widely in herbal treatments in this country.
“I was dumbstruck to find the evidence of exposure to aristolochic acid in 78 per cent of cases,” says Rozen. “This indicates strongly that aristolochic acid was one of the causes of these cancers.”
Analysing genetic cancer data from other countries, Rozen’s team found a link between adenosine mutations and liver cancer in many cases from China, Japan and Korea. The same mutation appeared to be linked to 10 per cent of cases in North America, and 5 per cent of liver cancers in the UK. However, aristolochic acid may not be the only cause of the cancer-linked mutation, so it’s unclear how many of these cases were caused by herbal medicine.
Extracts from some Aristolochia species have already been banned in countries like Taiwan, but many others are widely available, and even banned ones can be found online, says Rozen. “It’s quite difficult to regulate,” he says. “We need to warn people of the dangers of aristocholic acid.”
Journal reference: Science Translational Medicine, DOI: 10.1126/scitranslmed.aan6446
Read more: Choosing alternative cancer treatment doubles your risk of death |
SLO Brew, the iconic downtown San Luis Obispo bar and music venue, is scheduled to shift locations in mid-2015, but on a smaller scale than originally planned and the business owners are in the process of dissolving their partnership.
After a contentious approval process in 2012—when members of the public-advocacy group Save Our Downtown protested SLO Brew’s new, expanded location—SLO planning commissioners unanimously approved new plans, which were upheld on appeal by the SLO City Council on Nov. 20 of that year.
The approved plans called for a two-story bar, restaurant, and music venue, with an additional rooftop patio dining area, with the business relocating from its existing location on Garden Street in downtown SLO to Higuera Street. But after a long-stalled retrofit of the new location and cost overruns, the new location will be confined to one floor with front- and rear-facing patios.
According to co-owner Hamish Marshall, the new SLO Brew will continue to offer music, but the second floor will be used for residential and office facilities, and the rooftop has been scrapped. He told New Times that the cost of retrofitting the new location was 40- to-50 percent more than anticipated.
“We will not have the roof deck and we won’t have the second floor,” Marshall said. “I think we’ve been stalled out there for a while but it’s not closing and it’s not dead. … We had to revamp. We’re still excited about it, it’s going to be a great facility, it will still offer as much if not more than we already have.”
However, that new facility will go on without co-owner Todd Newman, who confirmed that he and Marshall are in the process of dissolving their partnership. Newman said he will no longer have a stake in SLO Brew after the move, and he is in the process of creating a new business venture to bring music acts to SLO.
Read the Oct. 16 issue of New Times for the full story. |
Piper Jaffray released its semiannual report on teen spending Tuesday.
We dug through the report and pulled out some of the most interesting facts and charts.
Here's a summary:
1. For the first time in the survey's history, teens are spending as much on food as they are on clothing. Starbucks remains the perennial favorite among all teens for food-and-drink spending, according to the survey. Here's a breakdown of teen spending by category:
Piper Jaffray
2. Teens are still getting most of their money from their parents. This chart shows parental contributions for average- and upper-income teens over the years.
Piper Jaffray
3. Nike remains the top clothing brand among teens across all income levels. Forever 21, Action Sports Brands, American Eagle, and Polo Ralph Lauren also rank among the most popular apparel brands. Top footwear brands for upper-income teens are, in order, Nike, Converse, Sperry Top-Sider, and Steve Madden.
4. Brands that are losing popularity among teens include Aeropostale, Abercrombie & Fitch, and Hollister. Here's a graph of the top-cited brands that teen girls said they no longer wear:
Piper Jaffray
5. On the flip side, brands that are starting to get more popular among teen girls include Forever 21, American Eagle, and Lululemon.
Piper Jaffray 6.Activewear now comprises 28% of teens' apparel purchases, up from 6% in 2008. Nike, Lululemon, Under Armour, and Adidas are the most popular brands for athletic apparel.
Piper Jaffray
7. "Athleisure" — casual athletic clothing that can be worn outside the gym — is now more popular than denim. Athleisure brands include Adidas, Athleta, Juicy Couture, Lululemon, and Nike. Denim brands include Abercrombie & Fitch, American Eagle, Calvin Klein, Guess, Lee, and Levi's.
8. For the first time in the survey's history, Chipotle has eclipsed Taco Bell as the No. 1 preference for Mexican fare among both average- and upper-income teens.
9. An increasing number of teens, particularly males, prefer to shop online. In spring 2014, 26% of women and 47% of men preferred to shop online over visiting stores. That's up from 18% of women and 20% of men who preferred online shopping a year earlier.
10. Instagram is the most important social network for teens, followed by Twitter and Facebook, respectively. |
Professor Alejandro Pérez Pérez, of the Biological Anthropology Unit from the Department of Evolutionary Biology, Ecology and Environmental Sciences. The new study, published in the prestigious journal PLOS ONE, analyses the pattern of dental micro-striation in different of primate species already extinguished. The experts compare current hypotheses in the field of human paleontology about the diet of hominines who lived in East Africa during the Pleistocene.
17/11/2016
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Our most remote ancestors, hominines, had a diet richer and more varied that what it was thought until the present moment, according to an article published in the journal PLOS ONE by a team of the Biological Anthropology Unit from the Department of Evolutionary Biology, Ecology and Environmental Sciences of the University of Barcelona, under the supervision of Professor Alejandro Pérez-Pérez. According to the new study, after the separation process from the chimpanzee lineage, six million years ago, our most direct ancestors specialized differently to exploit food resources in diverse environments.
Surviving East Africa during the Middle Pleistocene
Nutrition is one of the most important diversifying factors in primates. The process to obtain resources and food, which varies among different lineages, defines the main anatomical adaptations of the skeleton and teeth. Therefore, shaping the diet and ecological adaptions of the African Pleistocene hominine is essential to know the habitats of these human species ancestors.
The new study analyses the range of dental micro-striation patterns on primates, and describes new scenarios in the nutrition of East African hominines. Moreover, it creates doubts about ideas that were traditionally accepted in the scientific community, for example, the apparently frugivorous diet of the oldest hominin (A. anamensis) or the hard diet of the Paranthropus P. aethiopicus and P. boisei.
According to the authors, the species Australopithecus anamensis, dated from four million years ago, shows a striation pattern in teeth enamel that is similar to the Old World Monkeys’ –such as baboons and mandrills- that feed from gran and seeds in arid open savannah environments.
A bland diet for Australopithecus afarensis
The new study verifies the controversial hypothesis that says three million years ago the species Australopithecus afarensis –descendant from A. anamesis and with a micro-striation pattern more similar to that in chimpanzees and gorillas- had a blander diet, mainly based on ripe fruit and plants from secondary forests.
“This result is shocking because it indicates that the oldest species would have a more specialized diet than the most recent one, and we expected the opposite”, says Professor Alejandro Pérez-Pérez. “The conclusions show that Paranthropus aethiopicus and Paranthropus boisei species – robust Australopithecus, from one and two million years ago and with big and robust teeth- would not feed from hard and abrasive foods, such as roots or tubers, but bland foods, including proteins with animal origins and ripe fruits.
The Homo habilis shows a dental micro-striation pattern similar to the one in two analysed species of Paranthropus, with a higher consumption of meat as a result of the animal hunt or carcass ingest. The case of Homo ergaster has a serious and more varied diet, including abrasive foods with bland ones too.
“Varied nutrition of our ancestors shows that survival in those changing environments in the Middle Pleistocene in Africa forced them to focus on the exploitation of resources to avoid competing with other primate species that lived in the same environment” says Professor Pérez-Pérez.
Article reference:
L. M. Martínez, F. Estebaranz-Sánchez, J. Galbany, i A. Pérez-Pérez. «Testing dietary hypotheses of East African hominines using buccal dental microwear data». PLOS ONE, November, 2016. |
During the 2008 campaign, Michael Weisskopf and I wrote a story that argued that if you wanted to know how John McCain and Barack Obama would govern, you need only look at how they gambled. McCain, a craps player, loved thrill, risk, long shots and yawping tables. Obama, a poker player, was cautious, cagey, calculating, isolated.
We found out later that McCain’s penchant for risk would define his campaign. As Dan Balz and Haynes Johnson reported after the election, the moment when McCain decided to roll the dice on a little known Alaska Governor came down, in many ways, to McCain’s own admitted gambling disposition.
“What’s your bottom line?” McCain asked. [McCain Campaign Attorney A.B.] Culvahouse later told an audience that he responded, “John, high risk, high reward.” He said McCain replied, “You shouldn’t have told me that. I’ve been a risk-taker all of my life.”
Which returns us to Obama, the calculated card counter, sitting in a corner trying to game out his adversaries. It may still be too early to know if this trait will define his presidency, but we can say that Obama has already made perfectly clear that he doesn’t much like risk. Here is Obama yesterday, at a Town Hall in New Hampshire, again turning his presidential furor on the ways of Las Vegas, which has long been a White House metaphor for Wall Street (or government) excess.
Responsible families don’t do their budgets the way the federal government does. Right? When times are tough, you tighten your belts. You don’t go buying a boat when you can barely pay your mortgage. You don’t blow a bunch of cash on Vegas when you’re trying to save for college. You prioritize. You make tough choices. It’s time your government did the same. (Applause.)
Pretty mild stuff, unless you are from Vegas. The backlash has been swift, led by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and last night Obama was forced to walk back his comments in a letter to Nevada’s senior senator.
I hope you know that during my Town Hall today, I wasn’t saying anything negative about Las Vegas. I was making the simple point that families use vacation dollars, not college tuition money, to have fun. There is no place better to have fun than Vegas, one of our country’s great destinations. I have always enjoyed my visits, look forward to visiting in a few weeks, and hope folks will visit in record numbers this year.
Sure, Mr. President, whatever. No one thinks you have anything against the place, or the idea of tourism in Nevada. But who can doubt that deep down you basically detest the sort of excess, waste, chance and debauchery that Vegas has long embodied, not just in practice (see: Tiger Woods) but in the American subconscious? No letter is going to walk that back. |
Jerry Falwell Jr. is president of Liberty University.
In the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections, American voters were forced to choose between a liberal Democrat and weak establishment Republicans. Democrats won both times. In the 2010 and 2014 midterms, tired of the leftist agenda, voters sent an unmistakable message to Washington: Republicans took control of the Senate and filled more seats in the House than at any time since 1929. Still, nothing changed.
In 2016, we have a clear choice.
This moment is historic because Donald Trump is not another establishment Republican.
Falwell Jr. praises Trump's conservative credentials Embed Copy Share Play Video 1:12 Jerry Falwell Jr., president of conservative Liberty University, urged voters to support presidential candidate Donald Trump during a speech at the Republican National Convention July 21. (The Washington Post) Jerry Falwell Jr., president of conservative Liberty University, urged voters to support presidential candidate Donald Trump during a speech at the Republican National Convention July 21. Jerry Falwell Jr., president of conservative Liberty University, praised Donald Trump's conservative credentials. (The Washington Post)
We have lived through nearly eight years of weak leadership from a president who did not sign the charter to create the Islamic State but whose policies had the intended or unintended effect (we will be debating that for decades) of breathing life into the lungs of the terrorist group. President Obama and Hillary Clinton most definitely signaled to Islamic State leaders that they had no intention of seriously challenging them, or even of calling radical Islamic terrorism by its name. Instead, Obama and Clinton pulled our troops out of Iraq, drew and then quickly erased a red line in Syria and tried to convince us that unverifiable pinpoint drone strikes ( We have lived through nearly eight years of weak leadership from a president who did not sign the charter to create the Islamic State but whose policies had the intended or unintended effect (we will be debating that for decades) of breathing life into the lungs of the terrorist group. President Obama and Hillary Clinton most definitely signaled to Islamic State leaders that they had no intention of seriously challenging them, or even of calling radical Islamic terrorism by its name. Instead, Obama and Clinton pulled our troops out of Iraq, drew and then quickly erased a red line in Syria and tried to convince us that unverifiable pinpoint drone strikes ( after leaflet warnings ) would win the war against the Islamic State.
All of this was enabled by a feckless establishment Republican Congress.
The policies of Obama and Clinton have made the world unstable and unsafe and created a world stage eerily similar to that of the late 1930s. We could be on the precipice of international conflict like nothing we have seen since World War II. Obama and Clinton are the Neville Chamberlains of our time. The deal to make $150 billion available to Iran, the leading state sponsor of terrorism in the world and a nation committed to the destruction of Israel, clearing the way for Iran to become a nuclear power, reminds me of Chamberlain’s deal with Hitler in 1938, when the British prime minister declared “ The policies of Obama and Clinton have made the world unstable and unsafe and created a world stage eerily similar to that of the late 1930s. We could be on the precipice of international conflict like nothing we have seen since World War II. Obama and Clinton are the Neville Chamberlains of our time. The deal to make $150 billion available to Iran, the leading state sponsor of terrorism in the world and a nation committed to the destruction of Israel, clearing the way for Iran to become a nuclear power, reminds me of Chamberlain’s deal with Hitler in 1938, when the British prime minister declared “ peace for our time .”
Domestically, Obama and Clinton have pushed to Domestically, Obama and Clinton have pushed to $19 trillion the debt that our children and grandchildren will somehow have to find a way to repay. Even our noble law enforcement has been demonized by the Obama administration, and anarchy is erupting in our cities.
Thank God we now have the opportunity to elect a strong leader, one who is not afraid to call the enemy by its name and to take the battle to that enemy if necessary.
We need fresh and bold leadership. Continuing the policies of Obama and Clinton internationally and domestically would be the definition of insanity: repeating the same mistakes over and over and expecting a different result.
I chose to personally support Donald Trump for president early on and referred to him as America’s blue-collar billionaire at the I chose to personally support Donald Trump for president early on and referred to him as America’s blue-collar billionaire at the Republican National Convention because of his love for ordinary Americans and his kindness, generosity and bold leadership qualities. My family has grown to love all of the Trumps because they are wonderful people willing to sacrifice much for their country. The public perception of Trump that has been created by the media is simply false.
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We are at a crossroads where our first priority must be saving our nation. We need a leader with qualities that resemble those of Winston Churchill, and I believe that leader is Donald Trump. As Churchill did, Trump possesses the resolve to put his country first and to never give up in a world that is increasingly hostile to our values.
Despite our differences, Americans from all walks of life must unite behind Trump and Indiana Gov. Mike Pence or suffer dire consequences. If Clinton appoints the next few Supreme Court justices, not only will the Second Amendment right to bear arms be effectively lost, but also activist judges will rewrite our Constitution in ways that would make it unrecognizable to our founders.
And this country will have as its president a person who jeopardized our national security by negligently sending and receiving classified emails on a private server and then repeatedly making inaccurate statements about it, all while her family’s foundation And this country will have as its president a person who jeopardized our national security by negligently sending and receiving classified emails on a private server and then repeatedly making inaccurate statements about it, all while her family’s foundation accepted millions of dollars in donations from foreign countries. Will time reveal the quid pro quo?
Our nation’s future truly hangs in the balance. Republicans such as Our nation’s future truly hangs in the balance. Republicans such as Sen. Susan Collins (Maine) need to stop whining about Trump’s temperament and start focusing on Clinton’s corruption. (As far as I am concerned, the credibility of anyone who ignores Clinton’s temperament while attacking Trump’s is suspect anyhow.) It is naive or deceptive for conservatives to claim that a write-in vote or a third-party vote will not benefit Clinton.
A vote for Donald Trump and Mike Pence is a vote for more freedom and less government, a vote for national security and responsible immigration policy, a vote to finally fight radical Islamic terrorism. It is a vote to rebuild America’s respect overseas and a vote for strict-constructionist and pro-life Supreme Court justices. Remember when Iran held American hostages for 444 days, only to release them the day Ronald Reagan took office? Expect those kinds of results under Donald Trump’s leadership. |
Making a game for PC or Mac? You'll probably want access to Steam's 75 million subscribers and their often joked-about spending problem. After all it turns out most people are buying games on Steam that they never even install! Now there's a market you want to tap into!
Steam's almost-monopoly causes some real problems, with gamers often refusing to buy games from you directly, saying "I'd buy it if it was on Steam". A couple of years ago it was basically impossible as an indie dev to get onto Steam. Even with the launch of Greenlight, their crowdsourced vetting service, it was extremely difficult as recently as last September. Fortunately in January Valve started ramping up the number of games they were Greenlighting and right now they are accepting a batch of 75 games every two weeks. Lets ignore for now what this rash of games is going to do for your game's release (hint: find an audience outside Steam) and instead address the question 'How hard is it to get through Greenlight in 2014?'.
Case study: Guild of Dungeoneering
Since last October I've been building a game called Guild of Dungeoneering which is a kind of reverse-roguelike with a pen-on-graph-paper aesthetic. On April 9th I submitted it to Steam Greenlight and it was Greenlit in the batch of May 14th some 35 days later. Oh and my first day as a fulltime indie dev was April 14th so I got to spend plenty of time refreshing that stats page (all day long, every day!). Here's what I learned.
Submitting
Submitting your game to Greenlight is dead easy. Just sign up for a new account for your business, throw GabeN your $100 (hilariously it counts as a game in your steam library, so you could even gift this to someone), lash up some screens & a video and BOOM your game can be unleashed on the salivating masses.
Quick aside: when is the right time in development to hit up Greenlight? As an indie dev you should be sharing your game embarrassingly early, but for Greenlight I think it's best to have things just a tiny bit more polished. Specifically I think you need a nice video trailer, some nice looking screenshots, and some gameplay (either in video or demo form). But you do not need to have a finished game! In fact you should be on there long before you have finished your game.
Second quick aside: don't bother with the Greenlight Concepts section. Just go straight to Greenlight nowadays.
A rush of votes to the head
As soon as your game is live on Greenlight you will get a pile of views without you having to do anything at all. This is because it's added to everyone's Greenlight queue to vote on (a bit like a gamedev hotornot). This means for $100 you'll get several thousand interested gamers to look at your video (sometimes for several seconds!). If you think of it in pure advertising terms that's actually incredibly cheap & incredibly targeted. Nice! This will however disappear into a trickle of traffic after a few days or at most a week.
Aside: you can post announcements on your Greenlight item which are supposedly shown to people who pick 'ask me later'. Barely anyone uses this so don't use them to reach people like you might with Kickstarter updates: of 16,973 votes cast for Guild of Dungeoneering a tiny number of 629 people picked 'ask me later'. That said the announcements are prominent on your Greenlight page so throw in at least one to show you are alive for future visitors.
Time to promote
To get anywhere you are going to have to get your fanbase to vote on your game. Luckily you've been building up that fanbase from the beginning, right? I timed the start of our Greenlight campaign with the release of our lovely trailer, which I hoped would get picked up all over the internet in a sensation of traffic and cause the game to be greenlit in like one day. Ha! That would never happen. Oh wait it did happen exactly that way to the guys behind CRAWL!
You can't rely on that happening to you, so assume you'll have to do the legwork like I did. I built up a presslist of over 60 specific games writers who wrote about games like my one, and then mailed them customised one-to-one mails pitching my game, the trailer, and that it was now on Greenlight. This took a full day. I followed up with everyone who hadn't written something about three weeks later, gently offering a new build + the fact we were almost through Greenlight. I also wrote my first ever Press Release and handed it over to the lovely gamespress.com for release. Finally I was all over my usual forums & social networks asking friends and strangers to vote & share.
This got me quite a lot of press articles, though mostly from smaller sites, but does it lead to that precious resource of Yes Votes?
Basically no one votes on Greenlight (or in elections)
You work hard for traffic & attention to your game. Then you divert a lot of it to your Greenlight page to get some extra votes, and basically no one bothers to vote. There's a few reasons for this, but the main one is how people use Steam vs how they read about games news. Your Steam client logs in automatically for you on your games PC. However you read news on your mobile phone, on your laptop or your work PC, or even if you happen to be on your gaming PC you will see this link and it will open up in your browser. Oh wait, you aren't logged into Steam on your browser are you? Nope. Just in the Steam client itself. Will I try and login.. oh wait now I need to jump through some security hoops.. NOPE I'm out. By my estimate (backed up by what others saw) something like 0.1% of visits from outside the Steam client lead to votes.
Aside: you could try a steam:// link that opens up directly in the Steam client. However I would be worried about people who click it on one of the many places where they don't have steam installed, getting a weird prompt instead of the Greenlight page.
In fact I found it easier to sell $10 pre-orders of Guild of Dungeoneering than to get yes votes, at times. This one-paragraph mention on the BoingBoing tech blog led to over 80 people buying the game via my site in one day, but less than that went on to the prominently linked Greenlight page that day.
Still it all helps, as without the extra attention you could be on Greenlight forever.
Lots of people vote no, but that's OK
Don't be worried about this. The question they are answering is "Would you buy this game if it were available in Steam?". A no vote means they wouldn't buy it, not that they hate you and want you to fail. Even the best games don't get bought by everyone; there are genres of games I will never buy and ones I love for example. Here's our breakdown of votes showing 50% yes – compared to 39% yes for an average top-50 game.
So how many Yes Votes do I need, anyway?
Valve uses more than just the number of yes votes you've accrued to select who they Greenlight, though exactly what criteria they use is a slight mystery, but getting into the Top 100 games on Greenlight certainly helps and should be your main goal. They even show you your 'percentage of the way to the Top 100' on your stats page. When I was running my campaign in April/May the line to make it into the top 100 was about 6,000 yes votes. Interestingly in January just before Valve started accepting so many more games it was about double that, so I expect that number will continue falling.
If you look at the graph above you'll see that after about 3 weeks my yes vote tally had tailed off to about 60/day at about 5,000 votes. At that rate I was looking at about another month before I would be in the Top 100 zone and likely to be greenlit. So I decided to take part in a giveaway via a large Steam group (Who's Gaming Now?!) giving away 100 copies of the game to their members who took part (and asking them nicely to vote, if they wanted to). This led to about 1.5-2K more votes over the following 10 days, bumping me right up in the rankings (briefly sitting at the #5 spot at one point), before the game got accepted by Valve.
Good luck!
Best of luck with your own game & getting onto Steam. You can do it! Got any questions about the process? Drop me a mail ([email protected]) or leave a comment and I'll see if I can help. Also check out this AMA I did on Reddit which has a lot of info from me (and other devs) about the process. |
It may be surprising because for a predominantly Muslim nation where Christians make up less than 1% of the country's population, you may think that all signs and traces of Christmas, from pine trees decorated with red, green and gold gift boxes placed behind shop windows to nativity scenes of the Virgin Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus, will be difficult, if not impossible, to spot on the streets.
But in Tehran, in particular, where more than 46,000 Christians of the whole 117,000 members of this minority group live, the spirit of Christmas can be felt especially in the Christian neighborhoods of the capital.
Armenians make up most of Iran’s Christian population (Assyrians, Catholics, Protestants and Evangelical Christians make up the rest), who are followers of the Oriental Orthodox branch of Christianity, and as such, celebrate Christmas at the same time as the Epiphany on January 6.
Like everywhere else in the world, Christmas is celebrated at home in the company of friends and family, followed by several days of paying visits to relatives (a tradition that we also observe during Norouz holidays). There are at least 600 churches in Iran which hold special services on Christmas night, such as the St. Sarkis Armenian Church on Villa Avenue, Tehran. Special celebrations are also held at the Ararat Club in the Vanak neighborhood of Tehran, which is owned by the Armenian Cultural Ararat Organization and founded in 1944, and is considered as one of the largest associations of Iranian Armenians.
On December 25, the heavy traffic in cosmopolitan cities as well as lack of snow, particularity in Tehran at the moment, may put a damper on the festive spirit (or not, if you celebrate Christmas at home and strictly as a religious tradition), but the beautiful decorations at shopping malls and hotels, the colorful displays of candy canes, snow globes and Santa Claus figures behind shop windows, and the joyful buzz of the festive mood brought into Instagram and Twitter posts, can make up for it. |
Mike & Mike explore what Justin Bieber will do if his scheduled concert at Quicken Loans Arena gets bumped should the Cavaliers playoff series against the Pistons go past four games. (1:56)
What happens to Bieber if Cavs-Pistons goes five games? (1:56)
CLEVELAND -- LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers may have a conflict with the Biebs.
If Cleveland's opening-round NBA playoff series against Detroit goes to five games, the April 26 game would bump a show planned by pop singer Justin Bieber at Quicken Loans Arena.
A sweep by the top-seeded Cavaliers over the eighth-seeded Pistons in the best-of-seven series would avoid any potential problem. However, Detroit beat Cleveland twice during the regular season so winning a game would be no surprise.
The Cavs are working with tour organizers on a contingency plan with new dates for the Bieber show in case the events overlap. Cleveland is one stop on Bieber's Purpose World Tour.
A big sports fan, Bieber attended James' first game back in Cleveland in 2014 after he re-signed with the Cavaliers following four years in Miami.
Cleveland will host Detroit in Game 1 of the series on Sunday. |
Observations on an Ethnic Classification of Idiots
by J. Langdon H. Down, M.D., London
(John Langdon Haydon Down, 1828-1896)
London Hospital Reports, 3:259-262, 1866
The first page of the original Down paper. Click the thumbnail graphic at the left to view the full-size version of the same image.
Those who have given any attention to congenital mental lesions, must have been frequently puzzled how to arrange, in any satisfactory way, the different classes of this defect which may have come under their observation. Nor will the difficulty be lessened by an appeal to what has been written on the subject. The systems of classification are generally so vague and artificial, that, not only do they assist but feebly, in any mental arrangement of the phenomena which are presented, but they completely fail in exerting any practical influence on the subject.
The medical practitioner who may be consulted in any given case, has, perhaps in a very early condition of the child's life, to give an opinion on points of vital importance as to the present condition and probable future of the little one. Moreover, he may be pressed as to the question, whether the supposed defect dates from any cause subsequent to the birth or not. Has the nurse dosed the child with opium? Has the little one met with any accident? Has the instrumental interference which maternal safety demanded, been the cause of what seems to the anxious parents, a vacant future? Can it be that when away from the family attendant the calomel powders were judiciously prescribed? Can, in fact, the strange anomalies which the child presents, be attributed to the numerous causes which maternal solicitude conjures to the imagination, in order to account for a condition, for which any cause is sought, rather than hereditary taint or parental influence. Will the systems of classification, either all together, or any one of them, assist the medical adviser in the opinion he is to present, or the suggestions which he is to tender to the anxious parent? I think that they will entirely fail him in the matter, and that he will have in many cases to make a guarded diagnosis and prognosis, so guarded, in fact, as to be almost valueless, or to venture an authoritative assertion which the future may perhaps confirm.
I have for some time had my attention directed to the possibility of making a classification of the feeble-minded, by arranging them around various ethnic standards, -- in other words, framing a natural system to supplement the information to be derived by an inquiry into the history of the case.
I have been able to find among the large number of idiots and imbeciles which come under my observation, both at Earlswood and the out-patient department of the Hospital, that a considerable portion can be fairly referred to one of the great divisions of the human race other than the class from which they have sprung. Of course, there are numerous representatives of the great Caucasian family. Several well-marked examples of the Ethiopian variety have come under my notice, presenting the characteristics malar bones, the prominent eyes, the puffy lips, and retreating chin. The woolly hair has also been present, although not always black, nor has the skin acquired pigmentary deposit. They have been specimens of white negroes, although of European descent.
Some arrange themselves around the Malay variety, and present in their soft, black, curly hair, their prominent upper jaws and capacious mouths, types of the family which people the South Sea Islands.
Nor has there been wanting the analogues of the people who with shortened foreheads, prominent cheeks, deep-set eyes, and slightly apish nose, originally inhabited the American Continent.
The great Mongolian family has numerous representatives, and it is to this division, I wish, in this paper, to call special attention. A very large number of congenital idiots are typical Mongols. So marked is this, that when placed side by side, it is difficult to believe that the specimens compared are not children of the same parents. The number of idiots who arrange themselves around the Mongolian type is so great, and they present such a close resemblance to one another in mental power, that I shall describe an idiot member of this racial division, selected from the large number that have fallen under my observation.
The hair is not black, as in the real Mongol, but of a brownish colour, straight and scanty. The face is flat and broad, and destitute of prominence. The cheeks are roundish, and extended laterally. The eyes are obliquely placed, and the internal canthi more than normally distant from one another. The palpebral fissure is very narrow. The forehead is wrinkled transversely from the constant assistance which the levatores palpebrarum derive from the occipito-frontalis muscle in the opening of the eyes. The lips are large and thick with transverse fissures. The tongue is long, thick, and is much roughened. The nose is small. The skin has a slight dirty yellowish tinge, and is deficient in elasticity, giving the appearance of being too large for the body.
The boy's aspect is such that it is difficult to realize he is the child of Europeans, but so frequently are these characters presented, that there can be no doubt that these ethnic features are the result of degeneration.
The Mongolian type of idiocy occurs in more than ten per cent. of the cases which are presented to me. They are always congenital idiots, and never result from accidents after uterine life. They are, for the most part, instances of degeneracy arising from tuberculosis in the parents. They are cases which very much repay judicious treatment. They require highly azotised food with a considerable amount of oleaginous. They have considerable power of imitation, even bordering on being mimics. They are humorous, and a lively sense of the ridiculous often colours their mimicry. This faculty of imitation may be cultivated to a very great extent, and a practical direction given to the results obtained. They are usually able to speak; the speech is thick and indistinct, but may be improved very greatly by a well-directed scheme of tongue gymnastics. The co-ordinating faculty is abnormal, but not so defective that it cannot be greatly strengthened. By systematic training, considerable manipulative power may be obtained.
The circulation is feeble, and whatever advance is made intellectually in the summer, some amount of regression may be expected in the winter. Their mental and physical capabilities are, in fact, directly as the temperature.
The improvement which training effects in them is greatly in excess of what would be predicted if one did not know the characteristics of the type. The life expectancy, however, is far below the average, and the tendency is to the tuberculosis, which I believe to be the hereditary origin of the degeneracy.
Apart from the practical bearing of this attempt at an ethnic classification, considerable philosophical interest attaches to it. The tendency in the present day is to reject the opinion that the various races are merely varieties of the human family having a common origin, and to insist that climatic, or other influences, are insufficient to account for the different types of man. Here, however, we have examples of retrogression, or at all events, of departure from one type and the assumption of the characteristics of another. If these great racial divisions are fixed and definite, how comes it that disease is able to break down the barrier, and to simulate so closely the features of the members of another division. I cannot but think that the observations which I have recorded, are indications that the differences in the races are not specific but variable.
These examples of the result of degeneracy among mankind, appear to me to furnish some arguments in favour of the unity of the human species.
Created 9/13/97 / Last modified 9/13/97
Neonatology on the Web / [email protected] |
In this Oct. 16, 2017, photo, President Donald Trump listens to a questions prior to speaking to members of the media in the Rose Garden of the White House. Trump is proving to be an erratic trading partner as he kicks thorny policy issues to Congress and then sends conflicting signals about what he really wants. His rapid backpedal on a short-term health care fix this week is the latest example to leave Republicans and Democrats alike scratching their heads. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is proving to be an erratic negotiating partner as he punts policy issues to Congress and then sends conflicting signals about what he really wants.
His rapid backpedal this week on a short-term health care is the latest example, and it’s left Republicans and Democrats scratching their heads.
“The president has had six positions on our bill,” an exasperated Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., said Wednesday after Trump offered multiple reads on a bipartisan plan to keep health insurance markets in business. Trump ultimately ended with a thumbs-down.
Nine months into office, Trump has shown a preference for delegating to lawmakers on everything from health care and immigration to foreign policy. Sometimes he creates situations that demand a congressional solution. In other cases, he sets difficult-to-achieve broad policy goals and expects lawmakers to fill in the fine print.
Along the way, he’s proved to be an unpredictable force. He encouraged Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., to work with Murray on a bipartisan solution on insurer payments, only to announce after some wavering that he wouldn’t support it.
Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin took Trump to task on Thursday, saying: “It’s always best for the president to be completely consistent in terms of what he’s supporting or not supporting. And let’s face it, he’s not been particularly consistent here.”
Trump was tweaking Congress again Thursday, calling a Senate GOP budget plan the “first step toward massive tax cuts” but suggesting there was uncertainty about the votes. “I think we have the votes, but who knows?” he tweeted.
Yet Republican leaders were moving forward with a degree of certainty as only one GOP senator, Rand Paul of Kentucky, has expressed opposition.
Despite controlling both chambers of Congress and the White House, Republicans have achieved no major legislative successes this year. Their efforts on health care have ended in failure, leaving tax overhaul legislation as their only hope for a major win.
Some Republicans have grown resentful, and they’re looking ahead to the 2018 elections with apprehension.
Most shy away from public criticism, arguing that the president is simply looking to Congress to do its job and pass legislation. If the work is piling up, they say, it’s because former President Barack Obama took executive steps that were actually in Congress’ domain, and now Trump needs congressional help to unwind them.
They point to immigration, where Obama acted unilaterally to extend protections to immigrants who were brought to the country illegally as children, and the Iran nuclear deal, where Trump’s decision not to certify Tehran compliance kicks the future of U.S. participation to Congress.
“Look, our job is our job and it’s our responsibility, it’s our job to get this done,” said Sen. Cory Gardner, R-Colo. “I’m not going to try to lay the blame at somebody else.”
Trump doesn’t have any such hesitation.
“I have great relationships with actually many senators, but in particular with most Republican senators. But we’re not getting the job done,” the president said this week. “And I’m not going to blame myself, I’ll be honest. They are not getting the job done.”
Trump’s unpredictability makes it hard for lawmakers to keep up with his latest positions.
“I hadn’t heard that. I thought yesterday he was liking it,” Sen. David Perdue, R-Ga., remarked in surprise on Wednesday when asked about Trump’s opposition to the insurer payments deal Alexander crafted with Murray. Indeed, Trump had spoken favorably about the deal around midday Tuesday, only to reverse course by the time evening rolled around.
On immigration, Trump at different times in recent weeks has offered to work with Democrats to protect young immigrants for deportation, denied such a deal is in the offing and suggested he could step in and craft a fix of his own.
Trump’s allies argue he is just pushing lawmakers to enact the agenda they were elected on. A newcomer to legislative politics, Trump also brings a business and showman’s perspective to negotiations, relishing drama and surprise.
Critics say Trump is comfortable making Congress the fall guy.
“He sees Congress’s public approval ratings lower than his. So he feels he has an advantage over Congress,” said Douglas Brinkley, a presidential historian at Rice University. “Whenever there’s a policy issue that’s thorny or undoable, he boots it to Congress to figure it out.
Brinkley added: “It’s the opposite of a buck-stops-here approach with Harry Truman.”
Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., who’s announced plans to retire and recently has been critical of Trump, says the president takes a different approach than past leaders.
“The more standard route is for the administration to lay out, for instance on health care ... a series of bullet points at the minimum, or a full bill. That’s typically the way things would work. So, yeah, it’s a very different way of governing and I think it’s one of the reasons you’ve seen the results to be what they are.”
Democrats are more pointed. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York said Trump is making everyone’s job harder.
“This seems to be his M.O.,” Schumer said. “He throws red meat to his right-wing base, whether it’s on health care, immigration, Iran, disaster aid, and then he says to Congress, ‘You fix it up.’ That’s not the way to lead. That’s following.”
___
AP Congressional Correspondent Erica Werner contributed to this report. |
Oh the Awkward Questions Guys Ask Girls! This is the question we received from one of our readers:
I'm going on my friends formspring putting anonymous and writing really random and awkward questions to her. hahaha. what are some good ones?
Frankly speaking, I had so much to share with you on this subject, I could not keep it to myself, boys and girls. I'm never quite sure whether to tear my hair out, punch the guy or just politely brush it away when I hear some of these. I'm sure you've all run into at least one guy who doesn't hesitate to ask awkward questions to a girl. Maybe we should hold up a sign saying "Hey that's an awkward question". Do you think that would shut them up? Probably not. Here's a list of some of the most awkward questions to ask a girl. Boys, pay attention and despite your first instinct, do not ask the girls you actually like these questions! |
21, Bagram, or Twenty Plus One is a drinking game. The game progresses by counting up from 1 to 21, with the player who calls "21" suffering a drinking penalty before the next round starts. The loser may add one new rule to the game, and starts the new round.
Rules [ edit ]
Players are arranged in a circle, facing inwards. The game begins with one player calling the direction of play by saying, "I propose a game of XXXX! To my left..." or "To my right..." followed by a sequential series of numbers beginning with one. Variations exist for the proposal of the game depending on personal rules; this is due to some variants calling for any person who says the number "21" to drink. For example:
"I propose a game of 21!"
"I propose a game of 20...22!"
"I propose a game of twenty plus one!"
"I propose a game of the unspeakable number!"
As the game progresses, each player in turn must recite one to four numbers, counting in sequence from where the previous player left off:
Saying one number (e.g. "one") passes the game to the next player in the circle in the initial direction.
Saying two numbers (e.g. "one, two") passes to the next player, but reverses direction.
Saying three numbers (e.g. "one, two, three") passes in the initial direction, but skips a player.
Saying four numbers (e.g. "one, two, three, four") reverses direction and skips a player.
If a player makes a mistake, then they suffer a small to moderate drinking penalty (e.g. 2 fingers of drink) and then restart the game from 1. Mistakes include:
Hesitating to continue the game.
Calling the wrong number.
Calling a number out of turn.
Breaching any original or instated rule.
Assuming there are no mistakes, the game will continue in sequence up to 21. The player who calls 21 suffers a heavy drinking penalty (e.g. finishing their drink), creates a new rule, then restarts the game from 1.
Additional rules [ edit ]
Variations on the standard rules include:
Prohibiting three players calling single numbers in a row.
"Doubling a double" - prohibits saying two numbers after two numbers.
"Tripling a triple" - prohibits either saying three numbers after three numbers, or after 2 sets of three numbers.
"Reversing into a hole" - prohibits saying two numbers after three numbers.
Prohibiting calling out a series of numbers that sum to 21 (e.g. "6, 7, 8" or "10, 11")
Examples of new rules that could be instated by a player forced to call 21:
Swapping two numbers around (e.g. 3 and 13 are switched)
Replacing a number with a humorous phrase (e.g. replacing 5 with "skin" - causing the sequence 1, 2, 3, "foreskin")
Instating an underlying set of rules (e.g. left hand drinking)
Thumb master - the last player to place their thumb on the table following the thumb master must drink.
Head master - as with thumb master, but replacing the thumb with the head
Pose master - the last player to strike a pose following the pose master must drink.
It is also commonplace to declare (either at the start of the game or as an additional rule) that the game be played according to the so-called "International Drinking Rules". These are a body of generally accepted but not entirely uniform rules that players understand to apply to all drinking activity and include rules for example, that drinkers must keep their little finger up whilst drinking, only drink with their left hand and, in some circles, that using the word 'drink' be prohibited and replaced with words such as 'consume' or 'imbibe'.
Example [ edit ]
The events of the example game.
Andy, Bill, Cath, Dan, Ed and Fran are sitting with Andy at 12 o'clock, and the other players arranged clockwise in alphabetical order:
Andy: I propose a game of 21! To my left: 1, 2. {play called to the left, but reversed immediately → Fran} Fran: 3. {→ Ed} Ed: 4, 5, 6 {skips Dan → Cath} Cath: 7, 8 {Cath violates the additional rule "reversing into a hole"! She is penalised 2 fingers of drink. Cath drinks Cath: I propose a game of 21! To my right: 1. {→ Bill} Bill: 2. {→ Andy}
The game ultimately finishes when all the numbers have been replaced, by rule changes instigated by the person who drinks on 21.
Variations [ edit ]
Using Roman numerals. Replacing the Roman numerals with other humorous or explicit phrases can make the game more interesting (e.g. replace I with "No", V with "Daddy" and X with "Don't touch me!")
Using the binary number system.
Replacing numbers with themed sets of phrases.
Rules for these variants are widely varied. |
Vincent Enyeama has been at the club since 2011.
Portugal's Euro 2016 hero Eder, Nigeria legend Vincent Enyeama and France international Rio Mavuba are among 11 players who have been frozen out over the summer by new Lille coach Marcelo Bielsa.
After being appointed by the club's new owner, Gerard Lopez, on a two-year deal in May, Bielsa immediately set about reshaping the squad that finished 11th in Ligue 1 last season.
While the former Argentina, Chile and Marseille boss has added to the players at his disposal, he also informed a number of long-serving squad members not to report for preseason training on June 19, and only to start preparing for the new campaign on July 3.
Among them is Eder, 29, who scored the winning goal in last summer's European Championship final against France, which helped earn him a permanent move to Lille from Swansea City on a four-year deal.
Mavuba, 33, was a member of France's 2014 World Cup squad and has made nearly 300 Ligue 1 appearances for the club since joining in 2008, and 34-year-old former Nigeria international goalkeeper Enyeama, who moved to Lille in 2011, are also among those ostracised by their new boss.
"It's a bit bizarre, but I'm handling it OK," Ivory Coast international Junior Tallo told L'Equipe. "I was informed like the others, by text. We're under contract, the club does what it wants. We would have liked to have had a discussion. But it's a business choice made by the bosses.
"As for me, I'm under contract. I will respect the two years I have left. I'm in no hurry. I want to establish myself at Lille. It's the club that wants me to leave. We'll see if they find a solution between now and the end of the transfer window. I'm calm."
On Monday, Enyeama tweeted a selfie with some of his fellow outcasts, who also include Montenegro international Marko Basa, France international Marvin Martin and Zambia defender Stoppila Sunzu, stating: "Always a pleasure to be back with the team."
Ian is ESPN's French football correspondent. Twitter: @ian_holyman |
Story highlights The House passed the measure 368-55
The VA scandal during the Obama administration engulfed the department
Washington (CNN) — President Donald Trump will make good on a campaign promise Friday when he signs a bill that gives leadership at President Donald Trump will make good on a campaign promise Friday when he signs a bill that gives leadership at the Department of Veterans Affairs more power to fire failed employees and protect those who uncover wrongdoing at the agency.
The bill, which won bipartisan support in both the Senate and House, comes after years of stories about chaos inside the VA, including CNN investigations in 2013 and 2014 that found dozens of veterans died or were seriously injured because of long wait times at hospitals across the country.
The bill passed the House by a 368-55 vote earlier this month. It passed the Senate by a unanimous voice vote.
Trump promised throughout his 2016 presidential campaign to reform the Department of Veterans Affairs, and tapped David Shulkin, a former VA official under President Barack Obama, to head the reform effort.
Trump called the department the "most corrupt" and "most incompetently run agency in the United States" during the campaign when he released a 10-point reform plan for the department.
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And in a meeting earlier this year with veterans group, Trump vowed to make good on his promises. "As commander in chief, I will not accept substandard service for our great veterans," he said. Trump will be joined by several lawmakers during the signing ceremony, including Sens. John Boozman of Arkansas, Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Dan Sullivan of Alaska. JUST WATCHED Trump signs health care bill for veterans Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Trump signs health care bill for veterans 02:08 The VA scandal during the Obama administration engulfed the department, leading to the resignation of Secretary Eric Shinseki after CNN uncovered the existence of a secret scheduling list at the VA in Phoenix. The bill Trump will sign gives Shulkin and future VA secretaries the power to get rid of employees who break department rules and increases whistleblower protections. Shulkin pushed for this kind of reform bill during his confirmation process and in the first months of his tenure, arguing that the department was "still in critical condition" and more accountability was needed to improve the treatment veterans receive.
CNN's Deirdre Walsh contributed to this report. |
“I try to explain that we’re not involved in corporate decisions, so complaining to us doesn’t really make a lot of sense,” said Kerri Moss, standing on a large turntable next to a Jeep 4X4 Laredo, a Chrysler product. Recently laid off from her job as a teacher, she is trying to earn some money on the car show circuit, which runs from September to May. “And if that doesn’t work, I tell them we’re doing the best we can.”
Often, that does not work either. One G.M. presenter said a woman told her the company was responsible for the death of American soldiers in Iraq. The logic went like this: if G.M. made more fuel-efficient cars, the country would not need so much oil, and if the country did not need oil, United States troops would never have invaded.
“I didn’t say anything,” recalled the presenter, who like many others here declined to give her name because she is not supposed to speak to the news media. “What can you possibly say? ‘Thanks?’ ”
Even if they ignore the snide comments and occasional jeers, presenting for an ailing car company just is not as fun as working for one that is thriving. The G.M. and Chrysler spaces are smaller and less flashy than they were a year ago.
The Jeep exhibit used to have a 54-foot-wide waterfall that continuously dropped 1,000 gallons of water and was programmed, like an ink jet printer, to spell out brand names and logos in the falling streams. Not any more.
Photo
And for the first time, some G.M. presenters are wearing the same outfits they wore last year.
“We used to get a new one every season,” said Christine Alt Parry, during a break from her duties beside a black 2010 GMC Terrain, wearing the flower-pattern dark blazer and black slacks she wore a year ago. “I think they’re trying to save some money.”
Downstairs at the Kia exhibit, meanwhile, it is party time. A D.J. is mixing oom-chick-oom-chick club tracks on an Apple laptop, beside huge LED screens that spell out phrases like “Schwing!” and “Kia Sips Gas.” The men are wearing new Hugo Boss suits, with dark-purple hankies, and the women are wearing designer dresses bought recently at the Beverly Center in Los Angeles.
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On Friday, Subaru handed out flutes of Brut Cuvee Champagne to visiting Finnish car dealers. And they are preening over at the Hyundai space, where the staff is decked out in new Armani jackets, Cole Haan sweaters and a few other items picked up at Nordstrom.
“I haven’t seen anyone who looks as sharp as we do,” said Mark Laffrey, the wardrobe consultant.
The exhibit for Ford, a company in better financial shape than its crosstown rivals in Detroit, is huge and dominated by an atmosphere that could be described as we-didn’t-take-your-money festive. There are slot car races, a magician doing card tricks, and the crew of MTV’s “Pimp My Ride” upgrading a car in a cordoned-off section called Mustang Alley, which has a spring-break vibe.
“We’re the bad boys of the auto show!” yells a man who calls himself Flames, one of the ride-pimpers, as he gets to work.
Not that any of these companies are making huge sums of money. But unlike G.M. and Chrysler, they do not need to project an air of austerity and seriousness.
So is this new image winning over potential buyers? Well, there are people who say they would indeed buy from either company. But many attendees echoed the sentiments of Mark Lee, who was photographing his daughter next to the gleaming rims of a 6,000-pound Hummer. “Absolutely not,” he said when asked if he was tempted.
On the other side of the hall, an electrician, Kurt Moore of Pleasant Valley, N.Y., sat in a Toyota Highlander and explained why he was not going to buy American anytime soon.
“You know how they say, ‘Never buy a car made on a Monday or a Friday?’ ” he said, getting comfortable in the passenger seat. “It’s because the people building the cars aren’t focused on the job. Well, how well do you think they’re focused today, with all this talk about how they’re going to lose their jobs?”
The G.M. and Chrysler presenters have heard questions like that, and dozens of variations of it, in the last couple months.
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“We get a lot of, ‘You’re going out of business,’ ‘You guys are going bankrupt,’ ” said Shannon Melahn, part of the Chrysler presenting team. She shrugged and added, “We just smile.” |
NOTE: .
(KUTV) – The Salt Lake County District Attorney’s Office determined a police officer who shot a man in the parking lot of a Salt Lake gas station in September was justified.
District Attorney Sim Gill made the announcement at a press conference Wednesday afternoon where prosecutors also released body camera video of the incident.
On September 28, Salt Lake City officers responded to call of trespassing and sexual assault .
When Salt Lake City Police Officer Gregory Lovell arrived, he contacted the suspect, Michael Bruce Peterson, who was leaving the business, according to documents provided by the DA’s office.
Lovell followed Peterson, who walked away from the officer, and headed toward a Maverik convenience store near 508 East 300 South. The body camera shows a confrontation between Peterson and Lovell in the parking lot of the convenience store.
The video shows Peterson getting into a Jeep of someone parked at the gas station. Lovell deploys a Tazer on Peterson and orders him out of the Jeep. After the Tazer was deployed, the video shows Peterson attacking Lovell in the parking lot.
Salt Lake City Police Lieutenant Andrew Oblad arrived on scene as Peterson and Lovell were fighting. Oblad reported seeing Peterson “wielding Officer Lovell’s baton as though he were going to attack Lt. Oblad,” court documents state. Oblad opened fire and shot several times, hitting Peterson with ten rounds. Peterson died at the scene.
“Lt. Oblad saw that he and Officer Lovell were immediate danger of Peterson inflicting death or serious bodily injury on them. Indeed, Mr. Peterson had in fact been inflicting what appeared to be force capable of causing death or serious bodily injury on Officer Lovell,” Gill wrote in a court review of the case.
Gill said the officers “did everything by the book.”
Salt Lake City Police Chief Mike Brown said Lovell suffered a broken nose, face lacerations, a broken ankle and a broken tibia.
“[Lovell] tried to use every level of de-escalation that he could,” Brown said. “Thank god Lt. Oblad was there.”
Lovell has not returned to police service, but Chief Brown said the department “hoped to have him back soon.”
WARNING: The press conference shown below contains violent content of an officer-involved shooting that may be upsetting. Viewers should view with discretion. |
Sen. James Lankford, a Republican from Oklahoma, is known for his conservative values. So when he decided to take on the Obama administration over its mandate to schools on transgender bathrooms, it came as no surprise to those familiar with the reserved, red-headed senator.
But instead of attacking the Obama administration on the policy itself, which allows transgender students to use restrooms and locker rooms that correspond with their gender identity instead of their biological sex, Lankford is taking a different approach.
The 48-year-old senator is challenging the process the executive branch used to implement the sweeping policy, arguing that it was wholly unlawful.
“This administration has been notoriously focused not on passing legislation, but trying to find ways to be able to do things through regulation,” Lankford told The Daily Signal in a phone interview. “But even as they try to do things through regulation, they’re not trying to actually follow the rules of regulation—they’re just making it up as they go, and trying to push as hard as they can and saying, ‘Sue me … I’m going to do what I want.’”
How the administration pushes through these regulations “makes a very contentious relationship between the American people and our government,” Lankford said.
On May 13, the departments of Education and Justice sent what’s called a “Dear Colleague” letter to schools across the nation with guidelines on how to ensure that “transgender students enjoy a supportive and nondiscriminatory school environment.”
Citing legal documents, the letter suggested schools could be at risk of losing their federal funding if they did not comply. The letter triggered an ongoing debate over whether the Obama administration has the authority to impose such requirements on schools.
Lankford was among lawmakers who protested the executive branch’s actions. As chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on Regulatory Affairs and Federal Management, he held a series of hearings on Capitol Hill.
The third hearing examined the Department of Education’s interpretation that a portion of federal law known as Title IX applies to gender identity, as outlined in the administration’s “Dear Colleague” letter to schools. That has been a major point of contention between liberals and conservatives.
The subcommittee’s hearing, held Sept. 22, included officials from the Office of Management and Budget, the Department of Labor, and the Department of Education.
Lankford focused his questions on what he called the administration’s failure to abide by the Administrative Procedure Act, a law that requires proposed rules to be made public in the Federal Register with information that includes:
A statement of the time, place, and nature of public rule-making proceedings.
Reference to the legal authority under which the government proposes the rule.
Either the terms or substance of the proposed rule or a description of the subjects and issues involved.
“If they don’t follow the clean structure—what’s called the Administrative Procedure Act—then agencies really are creating new rules that people think are law but they’re simply just guidance from agencies,” Lankford said, adding:
But people in the field, in businesses and universities or nonprofits, they just see a letter that comes from an agency and they assume they have to follow it. And [government officials] are absolutely overreaching what is allowed by law.
Defending the “Dear Colleague” letter on transgender students during the hearing, Amy McIntosh, a deputy assistant secretary from the Department of Education, said the letter was legitimate because it was “not legally binding.”
The administration’s guidance, sent in the form of a letter, “is not binding, does not have the force of law, and it does not specify a single way that states and school districts can stay in compliance with the law,” McIntosh said.
“There are a lot of districts that disagree,” Lankford replied.
Title IX, passed in 1972 and applying to all educational institutions that receive federal money, prohibits discrimination based on sex.
It covers approximately “16,500 local school districts, 7,000 postsecondary institutions, as well as charter schools, for-profit schools, libraries, and museums,” according to the Department of Education.
Lankford argues that when Congress passed Title IX, it was clear the law applied to sex, not gender identity.
“They passed a bill dealing with sex,” he said. “This administration has reinterpreted that, and said what they meant in the 1970s was actually gender, not sex. So they’re changing the way that it’s interpreted.”
To expand or amend the law, Lankford argues, the administration must go through Congress or at least abide by the Administrative Procedure Act.
Lankford cited the Violence Against Women Act as an example of an instance where Congress passed a law with the intention of applying it to both sex and gender. In that law, he said, Congress “used both sex and gender in its terminology.”
“Congress can pass something with both, but they did not on the Title IX requirements,” he said.
The term “sex” refers to whether a person was born male or female, while a person’s “gender identity” refers to an individual’s internal sense of gender, which may be different from biological sex.
A variety of lawsuits have challenged the Obama administration’s interpretation of Title IX. One was filed by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, which advocates free speech, due process, and religious liberty on college campuses.
Robert L. Shibley, executive director of the organization, said Lankford’s hearings are “an important part of Congress’ oversight powers and responsibilities.” But ultimately, he said, “this will be resolved through actual congressional action.”
“[The administration] is basically using these ‘Dear Colleague’ letters,” Shibley said, “to push through what are really changes in the law that should at least have to go through the notice and comment process under the Administrative Procedure Act, which ideally would go through Congress itself and be passed through law if there’s going to be a change in legal requirements.”
In explaining the decision to send guidance on transgender students to schools and universities that receive federal funding, McIntosh said of the Education Department:
The Office of Civil Rights was engaged in investigating and reaching agreements with states and districts because those complaints seemed to be accelerating as, in general, the world has been paying much more attention to gay and lesbian and transgender rights in the recent years. We felt that it was important that we tell a broader audience … how we were interpreting Title IX.
Lankford acknowledged that congressional hearings will only get him so far, and said he plans to continue fighting the Obama administration’s actions through Congress, the administrative process, and the courts.
“It’s a long process, obviously,” he said.
Lankford said he doesn’t object to extending greater protection against discrimination to students who desire it, but said those decisions should be left up to local school districts to work out.
“I don’t want any child to be bullied, I don’t want anyone having an unsafe situation at a school. But the local school districts should be those entities that actually handle that, not have someone from Washington, D.C., have a one-size-fits-all [solution] for every district, whether it’s Hawaii, Alaska, Oklahoma, or Maine, to say this is how you will handle this issue,” he said, adding: |
Police: Disturbance call leads to brawl with 3 officers
AUSTIN (KXAN) -- Police got into a brawl Thursday morning after responding to a disturbance at a North Austin apartment complex where they found a man throwing objects from a balcony and yelling about "God being near," according to a police affidavit.
Officers kicked in a Pecan Grove Apartment door to reach Jackson May Russell, 36. When Russell refused to comply with any of the officers' commands, one officer took out his Taser. That's when police say Jackson punched one officer in the face, sending him crashing through a living room window.
Another officer then shot Russell with a Taser, but the shock allegedly had no effect on him. Russell then punched a female officer in the head three times and pushed her into a bathtub.
Following the brawl, three officers were transported to University Medical Center Brackenridge. One officer had a hematoma on his head, a second officer was twice bitten on the arm and the third officer had injuries to her head after being punched, according to the affidavit.
Russell was charged with assault on a police officer, a third-degree felony. |
This blowhard son-of-a-bitch makes my skin want to crawl. 😡
The Video:
The Story via the Corner:
The United Automobile Workers’ failure to form a union at a Chattanooga, Tenn., Volkswagen plant after two years of organizing efforts was a result welcomed by Senator Bob Corker. Corker, who vocally opposed unionization throughout the process, has been the target of criticism by pro-union activists for weighing in on the situation. On Wednesday, he continued his outspokenness on the matter.
“I’m not anti-union — I’m anti-UAW because of all the destruction they’ve done to jobs in our country and what they’re about,” Corker, who previously served as mayor of Chattanooga, told Fox News. “This was all about money.”
Last week, workers at the Volkswagen plant rejected joining the union. Had it been successful, it would have been the first foreign-owned plant to have been organized by the UAW. |
Record-breaker Rob Stewart is a man with a serious passion for the future.
The lawfully Dredd-ed husband has been recognised by the Guinness Book of World Records for the biggest collection of memorabilia relating to British sci-fi comic 2000 AD, clocking in at a whopping 10,018 items.
Rob Stewart with part of his record-breaking 2000AD collection
Superfan Rob, 45, has collected everything from T-shirts to towels, statues to surfboards, clocks to cushions, all emblazoned with characters such as Judge Dredd, Strontium Dog, ABC Warriors, DR & Quinch, and Walter the Wobot - and even wore his replica ‘Judge Dredd’ costume when he tied the knot with wife Sue in 2012.
2000 AD represented a move away from traditional British comics when it first appeared in 1977, and although Rob was just six at the time, it soon caught his imagination.
“I have been reading the comics since the late 70s, early 80s,” he said.
“There were a lot of comics out at the time – things like Victor and Battle - but they were focussed on the war.
With science fiction, your imagination was the limit, not historical accuracy. That was what appealed to me - aliens, futuristic tales, different planets. Rob Stewart
“With science fiction, your imagination was the limit, not historical accuracy. That was what appealed to me - aliens, futuristic tales, different planets.”
The father-of-three, who works in the IT department for County Durham-based Lanchester Wine Cellars, began seriously hoarding comics and merchandise relating to the ‘Galaxy’s Greatest Comic’ in the 1990s.
Friends Pete Wells, Stacey Whittle and Mark Dutton helped him count up his huge collection for his world record bid and his status as 2000 AD’s number one fan has now been officially confirmed by Guinness World Records in March.
“I’ve spent plenty of hours on it,” he said. “As for money, I wouldn’t like to say how much. Probably more than it’s worth, not that I would ever want to sell it.
Judge Dredd is Rob’s favourite 2000 AD character _ “Isn’t he everybody’s?” and an understanding Sue was happy for her hubbie to dress as the Mega-City One lawman for their wedding, but even she draws the line at Rob’s collection taking up too much space at their Castletown home.
“The picture was taken when I had the whole collection out for the Guinness World Record thing,” he said.
“I have had to put it all back in the loft - I’m only allowed to keep a couple of things on display.”
Sunderland plays host to the Wonderlands Comic Expo this Saturday, but Rob won’t be there. He’s off to a Judge Dredd convention in Bristol - but won’t be wearing his wedding suit.
“It was £2,000 because it is a one-piece leather outfit and had to be made to fit - it doesn’t now,” he said.
Rob has three children – Kyle, 18, Erin, 12 and two-year-old Rachael. So have they inherited their dad’s passion for all things 2000 AD?
“Absolutely not,” he said.
2000AD - A HISTORY
2000 AD first appeared in 1977, and was part of a distinct new phase for a British comics industry which had been replaying World War II and the 1966 World Cup Final for the previous decades.
Comics such as Victor, Battle and Warlord were joined by the likes of Action, 2000 AD, Star Lord and Fireball, some of which attracted criticism for their grittier, more realistic approach to violence and horror.
The new comic was the brainchild of Kelvin Gosnell, a sub-editor at IPC Magazines, who read a newspaper article in the London Evening Standard highlighting a wave of forthcoming science fiction films, and suggested the time might be ripe for the company to turn its attention to the future.
Freelance writer Pat Mills was recruited to develop the new project and drafted in fellow writer John Wagner.
The comic’s most popular character, Judge Dress, appeared in ‘Prog’ (issue) two and has inspired two Hollywood movies.
Sylvester Stallone took the role in 1995’s ‘Judge Dredd,’ horrifying fans by removing Dredd’s iconic helmet (the character’s face has never been seen in the comics) while Karl Urban starred in 2012’s ‘Dredd,’ a more faithful representation of the source material.
2000 AD (the decision was taken not to change the name) is still Britain’s most popular comic for teenagers and over the years has been responsible for discovering talents such as Alan Moore, Mark Millar, and Sunderland’s own Bryan Talbot. |
A shipping container is lifted in one of the many port facilities on February 15, 2017 in Hamburg, Germany. (Morris Macmatzen/Getty Images)
A major split among senior White House officials over whether to effectively create a new tax on imported goods has stalled the broader tax overhaul effort on Capitol Hill, with Republicans looking to the Trump administration for leadership on an issue that has drawn fierce resistance, according to several officials with direct knowledge of the matter.
White House chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon, senior adviser Stephen Miller and National Trade Council director Peter Navarro have all voiced internal support for the creation of a border adjustment tax or something like it. They believe it would incentivize companies to keep jobs in the United States and raise the cost of items that are imported.
But Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn have raised concerns, the officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the deliberations are private. They are backed by a number of Senate Republicans who have told the White House they would block any bill that creates a new tax on imports.
The divide has the potential to scuttle one of President Trump’s top domestic agenda items — tax reform, which he views as key to boosting the economy and prompting employers to create more jobs in the United States.
Rifts between the White House and Republicans have slowed numerous campaign pledges, including the repeal and replacement of the Affordable Care Act and the creation of a wall on the Mexico border. The tax fight is
yet another example of the challenge Trump is facing turning political promises into legislative successes.
Trump has tried to jawbone chief executives into keeping their operations in the United States, including by threatening penalties for those who leave. A border adjustment tax could create such a deterrent.
It would ensure that companies selling imported goods in the United States, such as cars, electronics and clothing, are taxed at a higher rate than they are now. For example, it would prevent them from deducting the cost of their imported goods from taxable profits.
Supporters believe this would lure more companies to stay in the United States because it would become too costly to move overseas and ship things back, but opponents argue that it would drive up the cost of every imported good, hurting the economy.
House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady (R-Tex.) have also pushed for this type of tax as part of a broader overhaul of the tax code, which House Republicans have said would lower the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 20 percent. The way House Republicans have sought to reclaim some of the lost revenue from a rate cut that sharp is by creating this border adjustment tax, which they believe could raise as much as $1 trillion over 10 years.
The border adjustment tax would likely change consumer behavior, but it is difficult to determine how profound the impact would be.
This divide has led the White House to twice propose, and then pull back, the border adjustment tax as a policy. Lawmakers are pressing the White House to take a firm position so they can move forward on overhauling the tax code.
“The president and his team are currently deliberating over what his preferred tax reform plan will look like,” a White House spokeswoman said. “The most important thing to the president is that our tax system is fair and in the best interests of the American people.”
A Treasury spokesman said: “While the administration is still in the deliberative stages of the overall tax reform discussion, there are both interesting aspects and concerns surrounding the border adjustment tax proposal.”
The spokesman added, “Secretary Mnuchin is confident there will be a unified plan between the administration and House and Senate leadership.”
House and Senate Republicans have been clamoring for the White House to help them find a unified plan, to no avail. If the White House balks at the creation of a border adjustment tax, GOP lawmakers could pursue the creation of tariffs as a way to accomplish Trump’s goal of raising the economic costs of importing into the United States.
Many lawmakers believed Trump had resolved differences among his advisers when he said, in early February, that “we’re going to announce something I would say over the next two or three weeks that will be phenomenal in terms of tax.”
But White House officials have decided to slow that process, one person familiar with the process said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. There could be tax overhaul details in the 2018 budget proposal the Trump administration is expected to release in a few weeks, but it might avoid specifics, the person said. They are now hoping to mobilize support for their tax overhaul plan in several months, hopeful that it can be completed by August.
Sen. Ron Wyden, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, said Friday in a speech that there has been so much disagreement among Republicans on the issue that “it usually promises the movie is not going to end well.”
House Republicans say their cut in the corporate tax rate will help the economy grow and lead to more hiring. But such a cut would lead to a large drop in tax revenue, according to budget experts, widening the deficit and further increasing the federal debt. House Republicans who support the border adjustment tax believe it would offset much of the lost revenue.
The Trump administration has said there needs to be some penalty to discourage companies from manufacturing products in other countries and then importing them into the country. They want to give incentives to companies that manufacture goods in the United States.
But opponents of the border adjustment tax, including many retailers, have argued to the White House and lawmakers that imposing an across-the-board tax on goods would drive up their prices and raise prices for American consumers, hurting the economy. Target and Walmart, for example, are part of a group trying to block the border adjustment tax.
Steve Moore, who was an economic adviser to Trump during the campaign, said he supports the creation of a border adjustment tax but acknowledged that the messaging battle has made it difficult to mobilize support.
“My feeling is the border adjustment tax would be good economics but is lousy politics,” he said. |
When it comes to improving the public’s understanding of the Ebola threat, Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) isn’t helping . Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) is coming up short in even more dramatic fashion.
The trouble started in earnest three weeks ago, when the Republican senator and likely presidential candidate started making appearances on right-wing radio programs, questioning Ebola assessments from the experts, blaming “political correctness,” and raising threats that seemed plainly at odds with the facts. Last week, Paul went further, asserting without proof that public officials are deliberately misleading Americans about the virus.
In the face of criticism, the Kentucky lawmaker is undeterred. Paul has since said scientists are wrong about the disease being transmitted through contact with bodily fluids, and yesterday, Rosie Gray reported on the senator’s latest efforts to scare the bejesus out of the public.
That Ebola virus can only be transferred through bodily fluids, Paul said, is “the same description that was given for AIDS. But no health workers in this country have gotten AIDS from handling linens.” “They just changed the protocols a day ago,” Paul said, seemingly referring to the CDC’s tightening of Ebola protocols this week. “They’ve admitted they were wrong. Obviously they’re flying by the seat of their pants.” “If this was a plane full of people who were symptomatic, you’d be at grave risk of getting Ebola,” Paul said. “If a plane takes 12 hours, how do you know if people will become symptomatic or not?” he said. There would be grave risk, he said, if “they’re vomiting all over you or they’re coughing all over you.”
There’s been a lot of talk in recent weeks about politicians making remarks that may be considered “disqualifying.” Some, for example, have said dodging questions about votes in the 2012 presidential election is a deal-breaker for candidates seeking public support.
But at a certain point, it’s not unreasonable to wonder whether Rand Paul’s very public, very aggressive campaign to convince Americans to ignore public-health experts is itself a disqualifying development for a man who apparently wants to help lead the free world.
To reiterate a point from last week, because Rand Paul has a medical background, some may be more inclined to take his concerns seriously on matters of science and public health.
With this in mind, let’s not forget that the senator, prior to starting a career in public office four years ago, was a self-accredited ophthalmologist before making the leap to Capitol Hill.
To assume Paul knows what he’s talking about, and that he has more credibility that legitimate medical experts, is a mistake.
Stepping back, though, there’s a larger context to consider, especially as the senator prepares for a national campaign. When the pressure is high and conditions get tense, the public can learn a lot about a potential leader. Do they maintain grace under fire or do they start to crack? Can they remain calm and responsible in the face of fear or do they run wild-eyed in misguided directions? Do they maintain their composure and keep a level head or do they encourage panic and anxiety?
The past couple of weeks have told us something important about Rand Paul, but none of what we’re learning casts the senator in a positive light.
If you missed it, Rachel’s segment on this from last week is well worth your time – and it’s just as accurate this morning as it was when it aired last Friday. |
Former President Bill Clinton speaks to supporters at a campaign event for Hillary Clinton at Paul Quinn College in Dallas. (Published Monday, Feb. 22, 2016)
History was made on the Paul Quinn College campus Monday when former U.S. President Bill Clinton addressed students at the historically black college in south Oak Cliff.
It was one of two stops Clinton made in Texas Monday, campaigning for Hillary Clinton. He talked about how Hillary Clinton had success working with Republicans to get legislation passed.
The former president stressed the importance of equal pay and equal employment opportunities.
He also talked about the need for universal background checks, adding that he had a .22 caliber gun when he was 10 years old and shot cans off a fence post.
Raw Video: Bill Clinton at Paul Quinn College
Former president Bill Clinton speaks at a rally for Hillary Clinton supporters at Paul Quinn College in Dallas. (Published Monday, Feb. 22, 2016)
"I was governor of a state where we had to close school on the first day of deer season, because nobody is going to show up anyway. I get this, but I also passed universal background checks and a ban on assault weapons," he said, adding, "It is not too much to ask all of our citizens there ought to be universal background checks."
Bill Clinton spoke for more than 30 minutes to a packed room, and he took a few shots at Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, without using his name.
"I noticed one of the their presidential candidates on the other side said he wanted to be president, so he could 'make America great again.' Well, let me tell you something. You listen to the stories of the immigrants that are here, and what they have made of their lives, America never stopped being great. We just need to make America whole again," the former president said.
Watch Live Hillary Clinton Campaigns in Houston
He added later, "One of them wants to build a wall. Hillary says, 'I want to build ladders of opportunities and tear down barriers so we can all be whole again.'"
Historic Visit By Former U.S. President
Monday's visit was the first time in the school's 144-year history that a president has come to visit Paul Quinn College.
Bill Clinton to Visit Historically Black College in Dallas
Former U.S. President Bill Clinton will speak to students at Paul Quinn College Monday, the first time a president has visited the 144-year-old campus. (Published Monday, Feb. 22, 2016)
"No matter who you are, no matter your political affiliation, you have to understand the magnitude of having one of the United States' presidents visit your institution," Paul Quinn President Michael Sorrell said.
Sorrell still cannot believe the text message he received from State Senator Royce West, D-Dallas, asking if the campus would be interested in hosting the event.
"It said, 'Hey, would you guys be interested in hosting a rally and having President Clinton come visit?'" Sorrell said.
Developing Judge Issues Arrest Warrant for Dallas City Councilman
After realizing it was not a trick question Sorrell began working to make the visit a reality. He said the visit goes beyond the politics of the moment.
"We look at a visit by President Clinton as confirmation that we have put ourselves in the national discussion because of the quality of our ideas and what we've accomplished," Sorrell said.
By Monday morning, preparations were in full swing.
Bill Clinton to Visit College in South Oak Cliff
Former U.S. President Bill Clinton will speak to students at Paul Quinn College Monday, the first time a president has visited the 144-year-old campus. (Published Monday, Feb. 22, 2016)
Students were moved to the college library for meals and other activities in order to ready the student union for Clinton's arrival.
"I instantly called my mom like, 'Hey, I'm going to be helping out when Bill Clinton gets here!'" said sophomore, Elexis Evans.
She and a classmate were selected to assist with crowd control and media on Monday night.
They spent the day watching Hillary Clinton staffers setup the stage and chatted with crews about the speech scheduled for the night.
"President Clinton could've went anywhere else. You know, there are plenty of colleges right down the street here. And to come to Paul Quinn College just shows the dedication to support minorities, under-served communities," said student, Kevin Lee.
Lines began forming shortly after 2 p.m., wrapping around the student union by the time doors opened at 4:30 p.m. Both Evans and Lee were lucky enough to get a spot inside to hear Clinton's speech.
Bill Clinton to Visit Historically Black College in Dallas
Former President Bill Clinton will be in Dallas Monday to speak to students at Paul Quinn College. It is the first time a president has visited the 144-year-old campus. (Published Sunday, Feb. 21, 2016)
"It really matters that they care enough to come out and speak to us and say, 'Hey, we want you, we want to see your faces, we want to see exactly who you represent,'" said Evans.
Lee said he hoped to get a couple minutes with Clinton. President of the sophomore class, he explained he, too, has ambitions of getting to the White House.
"I'm going to kick it with President Clinton," joked Lee. "That's the plan. I'm thankful."
Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are locked in a tight race. Both candidates are trying to woo minority voters, but students view Clinton's visit as more than a campaign stop.
"It's a great way for him to show our younger students the opportunity they can have after they graduate," said sophomore Ryan Abrams. "He'll be able to give some knowledge and speak on some things our students aren't aware of."
NBC 5's Caroline Connolly and Julie Fine contributed to this report. |
Each year, about 40 percent of all food in the United States goes uneaten. It's just tossed out or left to rot. And that's a fairly large waste of resources. All that freshwater and land, all that fertilizer and energy — for nothing. By one recent estimate, Americans are squandering the equivalent of $165 billion each year by rubbishing so much food.
Nice tomatoes. Too bad 40 percent will get rubbished. (Tim Carman/Washington Post)
But these statistics don't tell the full story. How does the food actually get wasted? For that, here's a new report from the Natural Resources Defense Council that tries to track food waste up and down the system, from "farm to fork." My colleague Dina ElBoghdady has already highlighted some of the report's conclusions — including the fact that Europe does a better job of curtailing waste than the United States. But it's worth looking at where food actually gets wasted each step of the way. So let's follow the steps:
1) Farming: Roughly 7 percent of the produce that's grown in the United States simply gets stranded on fields each year. Some growers plant more crops than there's demand for, to hedge against disease and weather. Some produce goes unpicked because it doesn't meet standards for shape and color. At times, perfectly fine crops go unharvested after food-safety scares, such as the FDA's salmonella warning in 2008. Fluctuating immigration laws in states like Georgia can also create shortages of farmworkers, which can leave food unpicked.
2) Post-harvest and packing: After crops have been gathered from the fields, farmers tend to cull produce to make sure it meets minimum standards for size, color, and weight. "One large cucumber farmer," the NRDC report notes, "estimated that fewer than half the vegetables he grows actually leave his farm and that 75 percent of the cucumbers culled before sale are edible." If there's a culprit here, it's our high aesthetic standards for food.
3) Processing and distribution: Plenty of food gets trimmed in the manufacturing stage, though much of it is inedible anyway. Still, there's also a fair bit of avoidable waste. Technical malfunctions in processing and refrigeration are one big factor. Food can sometimes sit too long at improper temperatures and spoil. Another issue is that stores often reject shipments — and it's often difficult for distributors to find a new taker. After all, it's not as if food banks can always find a home for a truckload of rejected beets.
4) Retail and grocery stores: Grocery stores are another huge source of rubbished food — with the USDA estimating that supermarkets toss out $15 billion worth of unsold fruits and vegetables alone each year. But waste is also seen as the cost of doing business. Stores would rather overstock their shelves and throw out the remainder than look empty. Supermarkets will also winnow out produce that's in subpar condition, since few shoppers want to buy an apple that's all bruised up.
There's also the issue of "sell by" expiration dates. The report cites one industry estimate that each store throws out, on average, $2,300 worth of food each day because the products have neared their expiration date. Yet most of this food is still edible. In many states, it's still perfectly legal to sell food past its expiration date. Many stores would just prefer not to — it looks bad. "Most stores, in fact, pull items 2 to 3 days before the sell-by date," the NRDC report observes.
(The Washington Post/Source: National Resource Defense Council, Journal of Consumer Affairs, Food and Agriculture Organization)
5) Food service and restaurants: In restaurants, a good chunk of food is lost in the kitchen. And, on average, diners leave about 17 percent of their food uneaten. The report notes that portion sizes are a big reason for this, as portions have ballooned in the past 30 years. Restaurants also try to keep more food than they need on hand to make sure that everything on the menu is available. What's more, chain restaurants have inflexible rules that require perfectly good food to be tossed. McDonald's, for instance, requires fries to be thrown out after seven minutes. About one-tenth of fast food gets junked this way.
6) Households: This appears to be the big one. According to various estimates, American families throw out between 14 and 25 percent of the food and beverages they buy. This can cost the average family between $1,365 to $2,275 annually. A big factor here, the NRDC report notes, is that food has become so cheap and readily available. So, most people reason, what's the big deal if some of it gets tossed? The report also notes there's a great deal of confusion around expiration labels, which tend to be confusing and often prompt people to throw out food prematurely. (The British government has recently moved to revise these standards to make them less perplexing.)
7) Disposal: Not all discarded food is equal. The report estimates that only 3 percent of thrown-out food in the United States is composted. Most end up in landfills, where they decompose and release methane, a powerful heat-trapping greenhouse gas. In fact, about 23 percent of U.S. methane emissions comes from landfill food. Composting or even technologies to capture methane could reduce that.
The NRDC report argues that it is feasible to limit this food waste, if people were inclined (although it's not clear how big a reduction is possible). Granted, some waste is inevitable. If shoppers don't want to buy dented avocados or funny-looking carrots, there's not much a grocery store can do.
Still, the report notes that Americans today waste 50 percent more food than they did in the 1970s, which suggests that there's a fair bit of room to improve. What's more, Britain has managed to reduce the amount of household food tossed out by 18 percent over the past five years through a combination of public-awareness campaigns and resolutions by leading retailers to eliminate their downstream waste. |
I think it's safe to say that most of us would have been at least a little bit jealous of Marina Keegan before last Saturday. She was a 22-year-old recent Yale graduate about to start a job as an editorial assistant at the New Yorker in a few weeks — before then, her plan was to revise the musical she had written, set to run at the New York International Fringe Festival later this summer.
As crazy as it sounds, it's not like her future sounded that much more promising than her past. Keegan had already contributed to NPR and the New York Times; remember that piece about why so many Ivy Leaguers ditch altruistic or creative passions for well-paid jobs in finance and consulting? Yep, she wrote that. She was also president of the Yale College Democrats and involved with Occupy Wall Street. Could she seem any more perfect?
But then she died. Last Saturday, after her boyfriend lost control of his car and slammed them both into a guardrail. (He survived.) Now, her story is spreading all over the world, in part because she was incredibly promising and intelligent and beautiful, but also because so many of her Yale Daily News columns relate, somewhat eerily, to the story of her short life. Her last op-ed was all about seizing the moment:
But let us get one thing straight: the best years of our lives are not behind us. They're part of us and they are set for repetition as we grow up and move to New York and away from New York and wish we did or didn't live in New York. I plan on having parties when I'm 30. I plan on having fun when I'm old. Any notion of THE BEST years comes from clichéd "should haves..." "if I'd..." "wish I'd..." Of course, there are things we wished we did: our readings, that boy across the hall. We're our own hardest critics and it's easy to let ourselves down. Sleeping too late. Procrastinating. Cutting corners. More than once I've looked back on my High School self and thought: how did I do that? How did I work so hard? Our private insecurities follow us and will always follow us.
... What we have to remember is that we can still do anything. We can change our minds. We can start over. Get a post-bac or try writing for the first time. The notion that it's too late to do anything is comical. It's hilarious. We're graduating college. We're so young. We can't, we MUST not lose this sense of possibility because in the end, it's all we have.
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She also wrote often about mortality, always with a realistic yet optimistic point of view. "In many ways, I think mortality is more manageable when we consider our eternal components; our genetics and otherwise that carry on after us. But soon enough, the books we write and the plants we grow will freeze up and rot in the darkness," she wrote in one column. "But maybe there's hope...the thing is, I think we can make it. I think we can shove ourselves into space ships before things get too cold."
In another column, Keegan wrote about the facade of permanence and her own feelings of jealousy — it seems unbelievable that someone like Keegan would be jealous, but there you have it:
The thing is, someday the sun is going to die and everything on Earth will freeze. This will happen. Even if we end global warming and clean up our radiation. The complete works of William Shakespeare, Monet's lilies, all of Hemingway, all of Milton, all of Keats, our music libraries, our library libraries, our galleries, our poetry, our letters, our names etched in desks. I used to think printing things made them permanent, but that seems so silly now. Everything will be destroyed no matter how hard we work to create it. The idea terrifies me. I want tiny permanents. I want gigantic permanents! I want what I think and who I am captured in an anthology of indulgence I can comfortingly tuck into a shelf in some labyrinthine library. Everyone thinks they're special – my grandma for her Marlboro commercials, my parents for discos and the moon. You can be anything, they tell us. No one else is quite like you. But I searched my name on Facebook and got eight tiny pictures staring back. The Marina Keegans with their little hometowns and relationship statuses. When we die, our gravestones will match. Here Lies Marina Keegan, they will say. Numbers one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. I'm so jealous. Laughable jealousies, jealousies of everyone who might get a chance to speak from the dead. I've zoomed out my timeline to include the apocalypse, and, religionless, I worship the potential for my own tangible trace. How presumptuous! To assume specialty in the first place. As I age, I can see the possibilities fade from the fourth-grade displays: it's too late to be a doctor, to star in a movie, to run for president. There's a really good chance I'll never do anything. It's selfish and self-centered to consider, but it scares me.
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The conclusion to this post pretty much writes itself: "But Marina did assume specialty," etc. But I think the best lesson to learn from her untimely death is that 99.9% of the shit we worry about every day is meaningless, because everything we have — all that we have — can be taken away from us at any second. Being jealous is a waste of time. Appreciate everything you've got.
Keegan '12 remembered for writing, activism [Yale Daily News] |
IN THINKING OF banks and the people who run them, I’m reminded of the war sketch in Monty Python’s The Meaning Of Life, where a wounded man speaks enthusiastically about his enjoyment of the situation.
“Better than staying at home, isn’t this, sir? I mean, at home, if you kill someone they’ll arrest you. Here, they give you a gun and show you how to use it. I mean, I killed fifteen of those buggers. Now, at home, they’d hang me! Here, they’ll give me a medal, sir!”
It seems that banks in Ireland and the world over are capable of doing just about anything with our money, bar what they’re supposed to. Scandal after scandal has shown that if they’re not losing track of your money (Ulster Bank), they’re investing it poorly (think: the boom), allegedly making bets against the investments they advise you to make (Goldman Sachs) or outright stealing it (Libor rate fixing or deliberate overcharging, anyone?).
Instead of medals, the people who run these fine institutions get bonuses the size of some sub-Saharan GDPs.
Banks get to do most of what they do because people, businesses and institutions park their money with them – after all, there aren’t many other options available beyond gold teeth or mattresses – in the promise of security and perhaps even returns. What we don’t expect is for the bank to throw that money around like Skittles at a four-year-old’s birthday party.
But time and again that’s what they’ve done, and time and again society at large has had to come in and bail them out. It’s having your house robbed and then getting medical bills from the thief for the injuries he got breaking your door down.
Banks are such a systemic part of our economy and lives that they have to be held to a higher account; and even if you don’t trust that logic, we’ve poured enough treasure into them (both since 2008 and in the past) that we’re interested shareholders.
Disaster
In one sense Ulster Bank’s technical disaster ranks among the lesser sins of banks in recent years, being as it is a technical malfunction owing to incompetence rather than a deliberate fraud like Libor rate fixing, or imprudence driven by greed. Nevertheless the fiasco has systemic importance for the country and society. Over half a million people have had their personal banking disrupted; businesses can’t get paid; commerce is slowed and trust is eroded.
Somebody took their eye off the ball in the IT management of the RBS Group (Ulster’s parent, and provider of their IT infrastructure); and when it all went pear-shaped the organisation clearly didn’t have a Disaster Plan B worked out. This was in evidence when Ulster’s management were unable to recount their contingency planning in the past year when questioned by lawmakers here at the Oireachtas Finance Committee.
It was fortunate, all the same, that our illustrious TDs and Senators managed to figure that much out in their questioning of Ulster and RBS management. A few blows and half-decent probing questions were landed by people like Shane Ross; who wasn’t even technically on the committee questioning the bankers, and who was asked to stop using up time when haranguing Ulster’s chief executive on his annual bonus.
Jim Brown was evasive to the committee on the topic of his performance related pay, but later relented when the media kept the pressure up. TDs and Senators don’t frighten many people, from either the private or public sector. We’ve seen people ‘dragged before the committee’ in the past getting to the point of laughing at lawmakers while refusing to answer their questions, as was the case with Alan Dukes when being questioned about Anglo.
Ridiculous and boorish
And why wouldn’t they laugh, given that these are serious people appearing before sometimes ridiculous and often boorish inquisitors.
Ross’s fellow Dublin South TD Olivia Mitchell droned on at the Ulster trio for several minutes, apparently trying to make a point about the cash economy or… well, something. I’m not sure. They weren’t sure. I’m not sure Olivia Mitchell was sure. The answer, when it came and we strip out the fluff, was “Cash is actually quite useful, we don’t see it being phased out at all.” Somewhere in the sky a narrator said “And now for something completely different,” and Mitchell made a comment about ovens before the committee moved along.
It’s a far cry from the likes of the US Senate, which has dragged a fair few executives through the ringer despite all the cries about corporate influence on politicians in that country. Of course, the US has a few brains to rub together on their committees, as well as the resources to have staff (who aren’t your relatives given a soft job) to do the background work.
The quality of questioning by lawmakers of bankers is highly relevant today, given that we’re once again thinking about Oireachtas Inquiries; and it looks like the government wants to send us sheeple back to vote again and get them the right answer in another referendum on the matter.
The government is pushing hard for a banking inquiry that will bed led by lawmakers. If, for some strange reason, you aren’t regularly riveted enough to check out the committees or debates in the Dáil, the idea of our lawmakers conducting a probing investigation of a technical subject is laughable.
The total level of competency on the topic from most in the Oireachtas would fit into Peter Mathews’ left shoe, but he’s told to keep his mouth shut by Fine Gael handlers more often than he’s allowed pipe up.
Dubious virtues
This heady mix of the quality and specialties of lawmakers, the politicisied nature of every question to be asked and the dubious virtues of allowing TDs to make findings of facts about individuals makes Oireachtas inquiries into the likes of our banking scandals a bad idea.
As I have said in the past, we should look to the special prosecutor route of taking on things we have fobbed off to tribunals in the past. Give independent prosecutors the job of aggressively investigating and building cases against people and organisations who have done wrong, and let them take it to court. Use a similar approach to investigate the stupid rather than criminal, such as Ulster’s complete fail at doing the core job of a bank in recent weeks.
It’s not enough to have the Central Bank releasing statements scolding them, and it’s not nearly enough that four years on from the crash not one Seanie Fitz or Fingers Fingleton has had to account for either their stupidity or, in the case of odd transactions like the loan from Nationwide to Anglo that was then listed as a deposit in the annual accounts, possible misdeeds.
Life for our bankers should be made uncomfortable. They should have hostile outsiders breathing down their necks, given that they have such a track record in misleading – intentionally or otherwise – honest and easygoing regulators. Those outsiders should be competent and independent, and therefore not politicians.
Aaron McKenna is a businessman and a columnist for TheJournal.ie. You can find out more about him at aaronmckenna.com or follow him on Twitter @aaronmckenna. |
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