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Over half of the stock market is frozen after more than a thousand companies suspended their shares. Credit:Reuters "There is panic in the stock market; irrational sell-offs have increased greatly and that has led to liquidity tension," a spokesman for the China Securities Regulatory Commission said. The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index was down as much as 8 per cent in early trade, eventually closing 5.9 per cent lower at 3507.19 points – more than 32 per cent down from its June 12 peak of 5166.35. A further 660 companies asked for their shares to be suspended on Wednesday, taking the total number of companies suspended to 1429 out of the 2776 stocks listed on the main Shanghai and Shenzhen exchanges. A quirk of the Chinese sharemarket is its enforcement of the so-called "limit-down" rule, which limits the amount a share price can rise or fall per day to within 10 per cent.
In recent weeks, many stocks have hit the 10 per cent "limit-down" immediately after the open for consecutive days, effectively preventing investors from being able to cut their losses and sell their shares. Out of the 1467 shares that did trade on the two main Chinese exchanges on Wednesday, some 1300 hit "limit-down" shortly after the open. The inability for many to close their positions also means it remains to be seen just how orderly leveraged investors can be unwound from their margin loans. The Commonwealth Bank said there was no imminent threat to China's financial stability or banking industry, pointing out that most loans in China were well-collateralised. "Chinese banks have always been very conservative when lending," the bank's China economist Wei Li said.
Latest official figures have total margin financing for share purchases down from its June 18 peak of 2.27 trillion yuan to 1.77 trillion yuan on Monday, but analysts say loosely-regulated informal lending through umbrella trusts and shadow banks is at least double official figures. The CSFC said Wednesday it had extended a further 260 billion yuan line of credit to China's 21 major brokerages. The funds will help support the purchase of small-cap stocks, following an earlier move to buy up blue-chip shares to bolster the market in a move to inject liquidity into the market. The commission also urged major shareholders, including company directors, to buy up more of their own company shares to stabilise prices. It mirrored a similar call from the supervisory body which oversees China's state-owned enterprises which called on its members to "bravely take on social responsibility" by not reducing their holdings during this period of "abnormal fluctuations in the stock market". The rapid-fire series of coordinated announcements only served to underline the continued inability of Beijing to arrest the market slide, despite the unprecedented stimulus measures which have also included interest rate cuts. "Investor confidence is likely to take some time to recover," Mr Li said. "Judging by Beijing's aggressive responses to support the stock market, there is clearly heightened urgency among policymakers to stabilise economic and social conditions." |
The Day We Declared Independence unanimous Declaration of Independence by the Congress of the thirteen united States of America was an act of consummate intellectual courage that delivered free States from the tyrannical shackles of an illegitimate and oppressive Government. The signers of the Declaration staked their entire fortunes and their lives on a single principled message. Much more than simply declaring independence from Great Britain, these men declared independence from the tribal philosophy of the Old World and gave birth to a new nation founded on the principle of individual human rights – the inalienable rights of Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
The history of mankind has endured thousands of years of oppression, exploitation, and stagnation. People existed as subjects to slavery and serfdom. The sacrifice of the individual to the King, Church, or State was morally praised as dutiful, noble, and virtuous. Intellectual and economic progress was slow to nonexistent. Mankind shuffled along in the darkness of irrational default – an automatic, animal-like consciousness – moored by primitive philosophy.
To date, the American Founding Fathers have come the closest to freeing the world from this ancient, barbaric philosophy by declaring that all people live by right - certain inalienable rights that no man or Government can deny. In less than one hundred years after declaring our independence from the crude philosophy of dutiful sacrifice, we witnessed non-violent transfers of power, eliminated slavery, and enjoyed the greatest proportional increase in standard of living of any society in the history of the world.
To paraphrase one of the great philosophers of the 20th century - the principle of individual human rights is still so new to the history of mankind that few people have yet to fully grasp it. 234 years ago we declared our independence, but the primitive philosophy of collectivism and sacrifice is still rooted deep in our culture. If, and only if, we understand individual human rights, can we truly declare independence!
“ I can say — not as a patriotic bromide, but with full knowledge of the necessary metaphysical, epistemological, ethical, political, and aesthetic roots — that the United States of America is the greatest, the noblest and, in its original founding principles, the only moral country in the history of the world.” - Ayn Rand
I wish all of you a safe and happy Independence Day! I also hope that we all remember to take time in between the cookout and fireworks to remember the great men and women who have made the things we enjoy (and all too often take for granted) even possible. Share the message of liberty with your friends and loved ones. It serves us well to take some time to remember exactly what we are celebrating each summer.
***
Here are a few key lessons we can learn from the Declaration of Independence:
1) All People Live by Right
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
Whether or not you believe in God, the nature of the human being and the human condition identifies the unalienable right to life for all people (nobody else can live for you). All people have the right to liberty (nobody else can form your thoughts or control your actions but you). All people have the right to use their life and liberty to pursue their own goals of happiness (nobody else can pursue your goals for you).
A right is freedom to act, freedom from coercion. Notice that the rights listed by the Declaration's author, Thomas Jefferson, do not require action by anyone else. Rights are not a positive obligation or an infringement on the rights of another.
The opposite of living by right is living by permission. Is the purpose of your life to live by the permission of a society or Government?
Anyone who believes it is acceptable to use force to make one person provide any good or service (be it luxury entitlements or minimum life necessities) to another person is operating by the same philosophical principle that condones slavery. The initiation of force and the principle of liberty are incompatible. Period.
2) Governments Don't Make the Rules, People Do:
The only power to which Government is permitted comes from the consent of the governed . Government has no right to take any action unless explicitly granted to it by the people who employ its services. Government can only function and operate to the extent that people allow.
The only function of Government is to secure the rights of its individual citizens. If Government fails in its only legitimate function, it is not only the right, but the duty of the people to “ ...dissolve the political bands which have connected them”:
“That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it....it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”
The idea that individuals live by right and that Government operates by permission was so important to the Founding Fathers that it was later included in the Bill of Rights amendments to the United States Constitution:
9 th Amendment: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
10 th Amendment: The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
The Declaration of Independence :
The following is an excerpt from the introduction of The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, JULY 4, 1776 :
“When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny...”
Click here for the entire Declaration of Independence
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Each year on July 4th, we commemorate one of mankind's greatest achievements – The Declaration of Independence . Thewas an act of consummate intellectual courage that delivered free States from the tyrannical shackles of an illegitimate and oppressive Government. The signers of the Declaration staked their entire fortunes and their lives on a single principled message. Much more than simply declaring independence from Great Britain, these men declared independence from the tribal philosophy of the Old World and gave birth to a new nation founded on the principle of individual human rights – the inalienable rights of Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.The history of mankind has endured thousands of years of oppression, exploitation, and stagnation. People existed as subjects to slavery and serfdom. The sacrifice of the individual to the King, Church, or State was morally praised as dutiful, noble, and virtuous. Intellectual and economic progress was slow to nonexistent. Mankind shuffled along in the darkness of irrational default – an automatic, animal-like consciousness – moored by primitive philosophy.To date, the American Founding Fathers have come the closest to freeing the world from this ancient, barbaric philosophy by declaring that all people live by right - certain inalienable rights that no man or Government can deny. In less than one hundred years after declaring our independence from the crude philosophy of dutiful sacrifice, we witnessed non-violent transfers of power, eliminated slavery, and enjoyed the greatest proportional increase in standard of living of any society in the history of the world.To paraphrase one of the great philosophers of the 20th century - the principle of individual human rights is still so new to the history of mankind that few people have yet to fully grasp it. 234 years ago we declared our independence, but the primitive philosophy of collectivism and sacrifice is still rooted deep in our culture. If, and only if, we understand individual human rights, can we truly declare independence!I wish all of you a safe and happy Independence Day! I also hope that we all remember to take time in between the cookout and fireworks to remember the great men and women who have made the things we enjoy (and all too often take for granted) even possible. Share the message of liberty with your friends and loved ones. It serves us well to take some time to remember exactly what we are celebrating each summer.***“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”Whether or not you believe in God, the nature of the human being and the human condition identifies the unalienable right to life for all people (nobody else can live for you). All people have the right to liberty (nobody else can form your thoughts or control your actions but you). All people have the right to use their life and liberty to pursue their own goals of happiness (nobody else can pursue your goals for you).A right is freedom to act, freedom from coercion. Notice that the rights listed by the Declaration's author, Thomas Jefferson, do not require action by anyone else. Rights are not a positive obligation or an infringement on the rights of another.The opposite of living by right is living by permission. Is the purpose of your life to live by the permission of a society or Government?Anyone who believes it is acceptable to useto make one person provide any good or service (be it luxury entitlements or minimum life necessities) to another person is operating by the same philosophical principle that condones slavery. The initiation of force and the principle of liberty are incompatible. Period.The following is an excerpt from the introduction of“When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny...” ShareDubbs Galt
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NABLUS (Ma'an) -- Settlers cut down over 50 olive trees in the Nablus village of Aqraba on Friday, Palestinian official Ghassan Daghlas said.
Settlers from Elon Moreh, located east of Nablus, attacked Aqraba and cut down 50 olive trees from the Juhr al-Dik area of the village.
The trees belonged to Said Bani Jame.
Several other trees were damaged during the attack, Daghlas added.
The villagers have filed an official complaint to Israeli authorities through the Palestinian liaison office.
Over 7,500 olive trees were damaged or destroyed by settlers between January and mid-October in 2012, according to OCHA.
Settler violence against Palestinians and their property in the occupied West Bank is systematic and ignored by Israeli authorities, who rarely intervene in the violent attacks or prosecute the perpetrators. |
SCOTTSDALE, Arizona -- In a move that surprised almost everyone in the world, and that's because of a very very very very very very good reason which you will learn very very very very very very soon, the Cubs early Friday reacquired outfielder Sam Fuld from the Oakland Athletics in exchange for a player to be named later.
With a current open spot on the 40-man roster, Fuld can take that spot. Since he's been out with a strained shoulder, he will likely start the season on the disabled list, but they hope he'll be ready to play very very very very very very soon, and the Cubs were willing to take Fuld on even though he's been hurt. In the meantime, he can rehab at the Cubs complex in Mesa.
Fuld will be very very very very very very thrilled to pick up the 1,867 frequent-flyer miles he'll get for flying to Phoenix from Southwest Florida International Airport, the closest one to the Rays' spring base in Port Charlotte, Florida.
Fuld, as you know, was drafted by the Cubs in the 10th round in 2004 and made his debut with the team in 2007. He had a pretty good year for the team in 2009, not so great in 2010, and was traded to the Rays in early 2011 in a swap that we probably shouldn't rehash too much here. Fuld also became a fan favorite, and was a particular favorite here at BCB. I met him at the Cubs Convention in 2010 and let's just say the 5-9 he's listed at on his baseball-reference page is generous. I'm 5-10 and I'm definitely more than an inch taller than he is.
His height, or lack thereof, has not prevented him from making fantastic plays on the field. While playing for the Rays and Joe Maddon, Fuld made this amazing catch in an early 2011 game at the Cell against the White Sox:
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We should not only congratulate Sam on his return to the Cubs, but on the addition to his family last week:
Sam and Sarah Fuld welcomed their fourth child, John Spencer, yesterday. — Jane Lee (@JaneMLB) March 26, 2016
It's somewhat surprising that the Cubs would pick up Fuld, a lefthanded hitter, when the team's bench needs are primarily righthanded. But Maddon, who's known for getting his players to be versatile, said of this key acquisition, "I know Sam well, he played for me for three years in Tampa. If I ask him to hit righthanded, he'll do it."
And if you think it's surprising that Maddon would say something like that, I ask you to check a calendar and remember what today is. |
Ald. Rey Colon (35th) was charged with driving under the influence after being pulled over by police on the Eisenhower Expy. early Friday morning. View Full Caption DNAinfo/Alisa Hauser
LOGAN SQUARE — Ald. Rey Colon (35th) canceled plans to be a "celebrity bartender" at an Avondale fundraiser Wednesday after he was charged with a DUI last week.
Colon was charged with driving under the influence Friday after he was stopped by police on the Eisenhower Expy. near Homan Avenue around 1 a.m., State Police said.
"I have every confidence in the legal system and that justice will be served," Colon said via a statement after the arrest. "I am not at liberty to discuss specifics on the matter, as the case is still pending. In the meantime, I remain focused on serving my constituents, representing the neighborhoods that make up the 35th Ward.
The fundraiser for Avondale’s neighborhood festival will still kick off Wednesday night featuring raffle prizes and local politicians booked as “celebrity bartenders.”
Colon has canceled, but Will Guzzardi, who is running unopposed for state representative in the 39th District, will serve residents drinks from the bar at Moe’s Tavern, 2937 N. Milwaukee Ave., Wednesday from 6 to 8 p.m. to raise money for the "A Day in Avondale" neighborhood arts festival set for Sept. 27.
A Day in Avondale festival organizer Lynn Basa thought Colon was still on board Wednesday morning, but Colon's office confirmed that he would not be attending.
According to Basa, this year's special cocktail created by the tavern owner will be called “The AA” — named for Alcoholics Anonymous.
All proceeds from Wednesday's event will go toward supporting local artists and community-building, according to festival organizers.
On Wednesday morning, Basa maintained her support for Colon, calling him a responsive leader of the ward.
“We're going to be there to support him,” she said. “I think a lot of people feel that way. I just feel really bad that he’s gotten himself into this.”
For more neighborhood news, listen to DNAinfo Radio here: |
I played a bit more with my C++ Suffix Tree experiment, gradually exploring how Suffix Trees are equivalent to a Suffix Array and its associated LCP Array, allowing us to do anything with Suffix Arrays (and LCP arrays – Longest Common Prefix) that we can do with Suffix Trees, but with less memory (but only by a constant factor) and, I think, more cache-friendly use of memory. This code is still far from suitable for any real use.
Converting between Suffix Trees and Suffix Arrays
I first moved my previous code for Ukkonen’s algorithm from a branch into master, so we can now construct a SuffixTree from a string, in O(n) linear time. Subsequent insert()s still use the naive O(n^2) code. Traditionally, you’d concatenate all your strings with unique separator characters, but I’m trying to avoid that. And, really, I’m just trying to explore the use of the relevant algorithms – it’s a bonus if I can wrap it up into something useful.
I then added a get_suffix_array_and_lcp_array() method to get the Suffix Array and associated LCP Array, in O(n) linear time. This works by doing a lexicographically-ordered depth first search.
Finally, I added a SuffixTree constructor that takes such a Suffix Array and LCP Array to build the suffix tree, again in O(n) linear time. This iterates over the suffixes in the Suffix Array adding a node for each, walking back up the tree to split at the point specified by the LCP array. I kept the path in a stack for that walk up. This constructor let me test that I could use a Suffix Array (and LCP Array) obtained from the SuffixTree to recreate the SuffixTree correctly.
This was based on the ideas I learned from Dan Gusfield’s Fundamentals of Stringology lectures, specifically part 3. Incidentally, his later discussion of the Burrows Wheeler Transform led me to Colt McAnlis’ wonderful Compressor Head series, which far more people should watch.
Towards a usable SuffixArray API.
I’ve already created a SuffixArray class to do much of what the SuffixTree class can do, such as finding matches for a substring. It currently does an O(log(n)) binary search over the suffix array. But this should be possible in O(m) time, where m is the length of the substring, hopefully with far less string comparisons, just as it is possible with a Suffix Array. This can apparently be done with the help of the LCP Array. Hopefully I’ll get to that.
I also want to implement Kärkkäinen & Sanders DC3 algorithm to construct the Suffix Array directly from the string in O(n) linear time. And, if I understand Dan Gusfield’s lecture properly, we can use the Burrows-Wheeler transform to construct the associated LCP Array also in linear time. Hopefully I’ll get to that too. |
Supporting Hospital Broadcasting in the UK.
The Hospital Broadcasting Association is the national charity that supports and promotes Hospital Broadcasting in the UK.
We currently have over 200 individual broadcasting stations, representing 1000s of volunteers. Patients in many UK hospitals benefit from programmes designed to make life better for people in hospital and aid their recovery. The Hospital Broadcasting Association provides support, training and guidance to empower volunteers to provide the best service they can.
Support and Training
We support member stations and their volunteers through both representation and action.
The HBA liaises with charity regulators, broadcast and licencing bodies, and commercial organisations supporting hospital radio and highlighting the benefits of music and light entertainment in the hyper-local environment of individual hospitals or NHS Trusts.
The HBA also offers guidance and training to our member stations whether it is training presenters in interview techniques or guiding a management committee in the development of their station. We hold regular training events across the UK as well as an annual National Conference.
The Best of Hospital Radio
Each March the HBA hosts The National Hospital Radio Awards. This event showcases the stations and presenters who spend their free time perfecting their art of broadcasting as well as celebrating the shining beacons of a niche charitable industry.
Our Patron and Ambassadors
The HBA is proud of the support from Alan Dedicoat, the voice of the balls and Strictly Come Dancing, as the Patron of the Hospital Broadcasting Association. |
Story highlights The student is identified as John Sanderson
The victim was shot more than once, an official says
Police are looking for three men who fled the area
The shooting death of a 21-year-old Mississippi State University student in a campus dorm room is thought to be an "isolated incident," and there is no indication others are endangered, the school's president said Sunday.
Campus police were notified about 10 p.m. Saturday of an incident in Evans Hall, a dorm for male students on the northwest side of the campus, Mark Keenum said Sunday.
John Sanderson, of Madison, Mississippi, was found with "what appeared to be serious injuries" in the dorm. He was transported to a nearby hospital, but "unfortunately could not be saved," Keenum said.
Bill Kibler, vice president for student affairs at the Starkville, Mississippi, school, said Saturday the victim was shot more than once. Three men who did not appear to be university students were seen fleeing in a blue sedan, he said.
The shooting prompted the school to send out a campus-wide alert through a series of text messages.
The school's emergency response procedures "were executed quickly and effectively last night," Keenum said Sunday.
Early Sunday morning, police were talking to witnesses and reviewing surveillance tapes.
Campus police stepped up patrols, Keenum said, assisted by officers from Starkville and the Oktibbeha County Sheriff's Office.
"Throughout the night and into this morning, we have kept the campus informed of developments through our Maroon Alert emergency notification system," the president said. "But we have had no indication that there is a danger to others and we believe this was an isolated incident."
Keenum said he could not release many details because of the ongoing investigation, led by university police and assisted by authorities from the city, county and the Mississippi Highway Patrol.
"Our Bulldog Family is saddened by this event and the loss of one of our students," he said. "Our hearts go out to John Sanderson's family and friends. They continue to be in our prayers."
Campus safety, he said, is a top priority.
"This is the first time in our school's history that such a tragic incident has occurred, involving a student being shot on campus," he said. "Our campus is known as a safe place, and I want to assure students, parents, faculty and staff that it continues to be safe."
"Mississippi State University's main campus is located in a rural, low crime area," the university website said. "Serious emergencies happen rarely and are usually weather related -- ice storms and wind events."
The school, located on 4,200 acres about 125 northeast of Jackson, had a 2011 fall enrollment of 20,424. |
MOSCOW/LONDON/AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - An international arbitration court ruled on Monday that Russia must pay $50 billion for expropriating the assets of Yukos, the former oil giant whose ex-owner Mikhail Khodorkovsky fell foul of the Kremlin.
Finding that Russian authorities had subjected Yukos to politically-motivated attacks, the panel made an award to a group of former Yukos shareholders that equates to more than half the entire fund Moscow has set aside to cover budget holes.
Russia, whose economy is on the brink of recession, said it would appeal the ruling by the Dutch-based panel, which judges private business disputes. It also said the “politically biased decision” was based on “current events” - an apparent reference to Moscow’s dispute with the West over Ukraine.
Independent lawyers said it would be difficult to enforce the award to shareholders in the GML group, who had claimed $114 billion to recover money they lost when the Kremlin seized Yukos a decade ago.
Tim Osborne, director of GML, hailed the ruling. “The award is a slam dunk. It is for $50 billion, and that cannot be disputed,” he said. “It’s now a question of enforcing it.”
The ruling hit back at decisions made under President Vladimir Putin’s rule during his first term as president to nationalize Yukos and jail Khodorkovsky, who had criticized him. The hardline approach was seen by Kremlin critics at the time as a stark message to oligarchs to stay out of politics.
Khodorkovsky, who used to be Russia’s richest man, was arrested at gunpoint in 2003 and convicted of theft and tax evasion in 2005. Yukos, once worth $40 billion, was broken up and nationalized, with most assets handed to Rosneft (ROSN.MM), an energy giant run by an ally of Putin.
After 10 years in jail, Putin pardoned Khodorkovsky in December and he now lives in Switzerland.
Announcing it would appeal, the Russian Finance Ministry denounced the award. “Instead of an objective, impartial consideration of the case, the arbitration court ruled based on current developments and as a result adopted a politically biased decision,” it said in a statement on its website.
Moscow’s relations with the West are at their worst since the Cold War due to its annexation of Crimea and over a rebellion by separatists in Ukraine after a pro-Russian president was forced out of office.
Russia argued that the court in the Hague had ignored tax violations by Yukos and said it was senseless and speculative to value the company so long after the events. Lawyers, however, said there were only limited grounds on which to appeal.
The panel of judges, which has been reviewing the case since 2005, concluded that officials under Putin had manipulated the legal system to bankrupt Yukos.
“Yukos was the object of a series of politically motivated attacks by the Russian authorities that eventually led to its destruction,” the court said. “The primary objective of the Russian Federation was not to collect taxes but rather to bankrupt Yukos and appropriate its valuable assets.”
ECONOMIC IMPACT
Khodorkovsky was not a party to the GML action but welcomed its success. “It is fantastic that the company shareholders are being given a chance to recover their damages,” he said in a statement, adding that he would not seek to benefit financially from the outcome.
Russia faces a tightening of international sanctions originally imposed after it annexed Crimea in March. The United States has said it has evidence of Russian complicity in the downing of a Malaysian airliner over eastern Ukraine earlier this month, which it blames on the pro-Moscow rebels.
Russia denies the charges and has blamed the Ukrainian military for the tragedy in which 298 people died.
Credit Suisse economist Aleksei Pogorelov said the ruling could have significant economic effects. “This decision affects the assessment of the long-term financial stability of Russia and could become the basis for arguments for revising Russia’s ratings by international rating agencies,” he said Credit.
$50 billion represents about 2.5 percent of Russia’s total annual economic output or 57 percent of its Reserve Fund, which is earmarked to cover shortfalls in the state budget.
The ruling hit Russian stocks. The RTS index .IRTS of Russian shares closed down 3 percent.
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg is expected to announce a separate decision on Thursday on Yukos’s multi-billion-dollar claim against Russia, ruling on “just satisfaction” or compensation, a Yukos spokeswoman said.
The application in the Strasbourg court, which is on behalf of all Yukos shareholders, argued the company was unlawfully deprived of its possessions by the imposition of bogus taxes and a sham auction of its main asset.
Bruce Misamore, former chief financial officer for Yukos, said he hoped the ECHR would take “strong note” of the size of the award by the Dutch court in assessing the just satisfaction claim and described Monday’s ruling as a “landmark”.
One lawyer, who declined to be named, said the timing of both rulings coming together was probably a coincidence.
RECLAIMING ASSETS
GML may now face a battle to claim the money from Russia.
“The question is whether Russia will pay that award, which I very much doubt,” said Jan Kleinheisterkamp, an Associate Professor of Law at the London School of Economics. “This means that ultimately the shareholders will start to chase Russian assets abroad, which is a very tedious and usually not very fruitful business.”
Antonios Tzanakopoulos, a law professor at Britain’s Oxford University, said if assets were to be seized, they would have to be commercial, meaning it would not be possible to get a court order on an embassy building or a docked Russian warship.
Russia must pay the compensation to subsidiaries of Gibraltar-based Group Menatep, a company through which Khodorkovsky controlled Yukos. Group Menatep now exists as the holding company GML, and Khodorkovsky is no longer a shareholder in GML or Yukos.
“We didn’t go into this for a pyrrhic victory to make a point ... We still believe that we will ultimately collect on this award,” said Osborne.
Former Russian presidential adviser Andrei Illarionov said if Russia avoided payment it could face asset arrests around the world.
Chris Weafer, senior partner at Macro-Advisory consultancy in Moscow, said GML may try to target revenues from Russia’s energy exports.
The ruling leaves Russia with few options to fight back, experts said. The arbitration court’s rules call decisions on awards “final and binding”. “The Kremlin’s lawyers will be looking at any way to appeal this,” said Weafer.
Tzanakopoulos said any appeal would effectively amount to a new arbitration procedure, which both parties would have to agree to. Russia would be likely to challenge enforcement claims in the many national courts around the world where such proceedings would be launched, he said.
A LONG SHOT
Experts said fighting the decision could be a lengthy and uphill process. “Appeals are difficult - it is a private arbitration,” said a Moscow-based lawyer who declined to be named, adding that any counter-action would be a “long shot”.
Any funds claimed will be shared among the shareholders. The biggest ultimate beneficial owner is Russian-born Leonid Nevzlin, a business partner who fled to Israel to avoid prosecution. He has a stake of around 70 percent.
Khodorkovsky ceded his controlling interest in Menatep, which owned 60 to 70 percent of Yukos, to Nevzlin, after he was jailed. “I am very pleased the international tribunal in the Hague decided that Russia violated international laws and illegally nationalized Yukos,” said Nevzlin.
Derricks at Yuganskneftegaz oil processing facility at Mamontovskoye oilfield outside the Siberian town of Nefteyugansk. REUTERS/Sergei Karpukhin
The other four ultimate beneficial owners, each of whom owns an equal stake, are Platon Lebedev, Mikhail Brudno, Vladimir Dubov and Vasilly Shaknovski.
Rosneft, which is not a defendant in the case, said it expected no claims to be made against the company and that the ruling would not have a negative impact on its “commercial activity and assets”.
Rosneft bought the bulk of Yukos assets through auctions after the company was declared bankrupt. Its shares were down 2.6 percent. |
My name is Brandon Evans. In 2013, I embarked on a journey to study web development in-depth, and learn all I can about creating and hosting virtual content for the internet.
My focus has always been on virtual media; majoring in digital animation my first year of college, and switching to audio production my second year. I'm now learning to make interactive websites with responsive design. In my free time, I make virtual content of all sorts, from websites to music and art, all using specialized computer software programs. My main hobbies involve programming and music production. I also enjoy writing and doing research.
Producing and Hosting Virtual Content like this takes many years to learn, or can cost a lot of money. I offer competetive rates as my technical experience is limited, and can promise the full dedication of a young passionate designer eager to learn. |
Image copyright AFP Image caption Pro-Russian activists have been asking Moscow to help defend them from "fascists"
In fleeing revolutionary Kiev on Friday, Ukraine's now ex-President Viktor Yanukovych chose to fly to his stronghold in the south-east of the country before heading to Crimea in the deep south.
Media reports suggest he may have been preparing a yacht to flee by sea to Russia - perhaps with the help of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, which has a naval base on the strategically placed peninsula.
This fuelled fears that the majority ethnic Russian Crimea, which enjoys autonomy in Ukraine, could become the next flashpoint in the ongoing political crisis.
Crimea's post of president has been abolished, and instead it has a presidential representative from Kiev. The local government is led by a prime minister appointed by Ukraine's parliament.
Tensions have been rising on the peninsula in recent days, with pro-Moscow politicians and activists organising rallies and urging Russia to help defend the territory from advancing "fascists" from the rest of Ukraine.
'Perfect chance'
Image copyright AP Image caption Many Crimean Tatars stood alongside Ukrainian protesters in Kiev's Independence Square
Over the weekend, a crowd tore down a Ukrainian national flag in the eastern Crimean town of Kerch, replacing it with the Russian tricolor.
And only last week, the speaker of the Crimean parliament, Volodymyr Konstantynov, warned he did not rule out separating from Kiev if the situation in the country deteriorated further.
There are concerns that the current turmoil could offer the Kremlin a perfect chance to assert its claim on Crimea, a territory which many Russians believe is theirs anyway and has only come under Kiev by a bizarre twist of fate.
Crimea was transferred from Russia to Ukraine in 1954 by the then Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, himself an ethnic Ukrainian.
Before the Soviet times, it was known as "the playground of Russian tsars" because of its warm climate and the sea.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has himself in recent months raised eyebrows in Ukraine and the West, when he seemed to question the territorial integrity of Ukraine.
True, the Kremlin can count on a pro-Russian sentiment in Crimea. And Russia's own Black Sea Fleet has its base in Sevastopol - the "city of Russian glory" as it has been referred to by many Russians since the Crimean War in the 19th Century.
Unlikely alliance
But the territory is not as staunchly pro-Russian as it may seem at first glance, and several key factors may come into play.
Although ethnic Russians are still a majority (58.5%), there are also a significant Ukrainian (24.4%) and Crimean Tatar populations (12.1%).
And it is the latter two which have formed an unlikely alliance, resisting any secessionist attempts.
Crimea Autonomous republic within Ukraine
Transferred from Russia in 1954
Ethnic Russians - 58.5%*
Ethnic Ukrainians - 24.4%*
Crimean Tatars - 12.1%*
Source: Ukraine census 2001
They have their separate reasons to distrust Moscow.
Many ethnic Ukrainians have natural loyalties towards Kiev and are happy with the territory's status quo.
Meanwhile, the Muslim Tatars still remember the horrors of the mass deportation under Stalin in 1944 on the pretext of mass collaboration with the Nazis during World War II.
Tatar national leaders have warned they will resist any attempts to transfer Crimea to Moscow.
And then there is mass corruption.
In 2011, the last time I visited Crimea, I was shocked by how many people there had a feeling of outrage towards what they described as corrupt authorities on every level.
Cab drivers, fruit sellers, hotel managers - ethnic Russian, Ukrainian or Crimean Tatar - everyone was disgusted.
The hope is that this could gradually start to change with "people power" and the pledge of war on corruption spreading from Kiev's Maidan.
Many also believe that a promised association with the EU will help root out corruption.
Finally, Ukraine is not Georgia, where the Russians fought a war in 2008, in support of the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Despite the present revolutionary chaos, Ukraine - Europe's second biggest country (by area) - still has capable armed forces, particularly its anti-aircraft defences.
One may also count on many thousands of battle-hardened Maidan activists joining in to defend the country.
And facing growing Western warnings, President Putin may think twice about whether Crimea - as well as Ukraine's south-eastern regions - is worth a fight. |
For the past week, we’ve been running a series of articles that came from a lengthy, exclusive interview we did with McFarlane Toys founder and Spawn creator Todd McFarlane. In earlier articles, we’ve covered what McFarlane had to say about the Spawn movie, sports action figures, Spawn action figures, The Walking Dead, and more.
With all that McFarlane has going on, one might wonder if he still has time for comic books. While it’s hard to judge tone in black-and-white text, we can tell you that when it came time to talk about comic books, McFarlane lit up and gave some of his most passionate feedback of the entire interview. It’s obvious that comic books are still very much a part of McFarlane’s world, and he had some very strong views on the recent flood of relaunches by Marvel and DC.
Comicbook.com: It’s pretty impressive that Spawn has gotten up to around 239 issues now. Would you ever consider relaunching or are you going straight to try to reach a thousand issues before anyone else with Marvel and DC constantly relaunching? Todd McFarlane: Yeah, I keep saying, if they keep relaunching pretty soon Spawn is going to be the highest numbered book in the country, that’s cool. It’s interesting. I’m a bit of old school guy, and it was weird, because when I was young, and I don’t know what historically has changed, maybe some of just the different marketing. But I actually would buy my comic books when I was younger based on how high the number was.
I took that a high number meant that the book must be pretty decent or must be a popular character because it had been around so long. And it’s weird that there’s now a little bit of a buzz that people go, “It’s a detriment. People don’t want to come in and jump in because they think that the numbering is scaring them.” It’s sort of a silly argument I’ve got to say, because it’s sort of saying, “While I haven’t seen all the New York Yankees games, and I never got to see Babe Ruth play and Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle, so why would I start becoming a Yankees fan.” It’s sort of silly to me. People will jump in on movie franchises or TV shows during the middle of them. They’ll jump into sports hundreds of years past the launch of that franchise. So it seems weird to me because it’s ink on paper that somehow there’s a different mentality. Maybe, there is, but my first goal right now is to just get to issue #301, because the longest running independent comic book ever was a book called Cerebus that Dave Sim did, a fellow Canadian. And he got up to issue #300. He always said he was going to do 300 and quit, which he did. He ran it to 300 issues and quit. And so I go cool, once I get to 301 I can stick out my chest and go, “Hey, I’ve got the longest running independent comic book.”
And the other thing was, and I’ve done these goofy things before in the past, and this is sort of one of those ones, I go, “If it has a 1 on it, and that’s going to make you buy more, then I’ll put two numbers on the book. I’ll put one at the top that says Spawn Relaunch #1, and at the bottom for those of us that want to keep going, it will be issue #251.” It’s bizarre to me that a number in the corner of a book is going to determine whether you have any interest in the book. And maybe the argument is that they can say they got there at the beginning. But even if I did launch a Spawn #1 that doesn’t preclude that there is 250 issues prior to that. That doesn’t go away. So even if you are a new reader, and you buy an issue number 1, you go, “Ha, I got number 1.” It’s still a fact that story is driven by everything that went on in the past 250, so if you have any interest in checking out any of the mythology of back issues, you have to get older stuff anyway. So like I said, it’s always been an odd conversation. Then, if we shift it from what for me is an odd conversation, and you just shift it to the quote unquote business side of it. Dude, I’ve been around in business for a long time now, and you point to me one book… one book that relaunched its numbering and sold more books in the long run. And the answer is that book doesn’t exist. So I don’t even know why they keep asking for something that monetarily and business-wise has been a failure. It’s Bizarro conversation to me. So I just do what I do and just let the chips lie where they are at. Comicbook.com: I think they are probably just looking at the short-term press side of it. They get the press coverage with a relaunch, but then they wind up having to do it again in another year.
Todd McFarlane: I’m not taking any of that away. I’m not denying that. All that happens. What doesn’t happen is that it sticks and there’s any longevity to it. You can have Amazing Spider-Man be up to issue #375 or some weird number, and it will sell in the 300K [range]. And now you’ve relaunched it four times, and it’s selling 100K. In your relaunching, you’ve lost two-thirds of your consumers. Now, again, is it because of the relaunch? No. Is it because of the way we’re doing business in the comic book industry? Everybody is losing sales. So I’m just saying, having that number 1 on there is not a magical thing. It’s not a magical thing. It doesn’t mean that Marvel or anybody is going to sell more issues of the book. Maybe, I think DC is having a pretty good run on Batman, but I’m biased, I think that has more to do with what Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo are doing, than anything else. But historically, it just doesn’t matter. Could I do it and get a bump up in sales? Yeah. Do I think that a year and a half later my sales will be right where they were if not below? Yep. So why do it? My old school just wants to be able to go to the price guide book, and I want to be able to look up Spawn, right before Spider-Man, Spawn, and go, “All that I need to know about that Spawn book for all intents and purposes, other than a couple mini-series, is like in one listing.” I don’t want to have to chase it down. |
I feel like my arm is all warmed up and I don’t have a game to pitch. I was primed to review "Atlas Shrugged." I figured it might provide a parable of Ayn Rand’s philosophy that I could discuss. For me, that philosophy reduces itself to: "I’m on board; pull up the lifeline." There are however people who take Ayn Rand even more seriously than comic-book fans take "Watchmen." I expect to receive learned and sarcastic lectures on the pathetic failings of my review.
And now I am faced with this movie, the most anticlimactic non-event since Geraldo Rivera broke into Al Capone’s vault. I suspect only someone very familiar with Rand’s 1957 novel could understand the film at all, and I doubt they will be happy with it. For the rest of us, it involves a series of business meetings in luxurious retro leather-and-brass board rooms and offices, and restaurants and bedrooms that look borrowed from a hotel no doubt known as the Robber Baron Arms.
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During these meetings, everybody drinks. More wine is poured and sipped in this film than at a convention of oenophiliacs. There are conversations in English after which I sometimes found myself asking, "What did they just say?" The dialogue seems to have been ripped throbbing with passion from the pages of Investors’ Business Daily. Much of the excitement centers on the tensile strength of steel.
The story involves Dagny Taggart (Taylor Schilling), a young woman who controls a railroad company named Taggart Transcontinental (its motto: "Ocean to Ocean"). She is a fearless and visionary entrepreneur, who is determined to use a revolutionary new steel to repair her train tracks. Vast forces seem to conspire against her.
It’s a few years in the future. America has become a state in which mediocrity is the goal, and high-achieving individuals the enemy. Laws have been passed prohibiting companies from owning other companies. Dagny’s new steel, which is produced by her sometime lover, Hank Rearden (Grant Bowler), has been legislated against because it’s better than other steels. The Union of Railroad Engineers has decided it will not operate Dagny’s trains. Just to show you how bad things have become, a government minister announces "a tax will be applied to the state of Colorado, in order to equalize our national economy." So you see how governments and unions are the enemy of visionary entrepreneurs.
But you’re thinking, railroads? Yes, although airplanes exist in this future, trains are where it’s at. When I was 6, my Aunt Martha brought me to Chicago to attend the great Railroad Fair of 1948, at which the nation’s rail companies celebrated the wonders that were on the way. They didn’t quite foresee mass air transportation. "Atlas Shrugged" seems to buy into the fair’s glowing vision of the future of trains. Rarely, perhaps never, has television news covered the laying of new railroad track with the breathless urgency of the news channels shown in this movie.
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So OK. Let’s say you know the novel, you agree with Ayn Rand, you’re an objectivist or a libertarian, and you’ve been waiting eagerly for this movie. Man, are you going to get a letdown. It’s not enough that a movie agree with you, in however an incoherent and murky fashion. It would help if it were like, you know, entertaining?
The movie is constructed of a few kinds of scenes: (1) People sipping their drinks in clubby surroundings and exchanging dialogue that sounds like corporate lingo; (2) railroads, and lots of ’em; (3) limousines driving through cities in ruin and arriving at ornate buildings; (4) city skylines; (5) the beauties of Colorado. There is also a love scene, which is shown not merely from the waist up but from the ears up. The man keeps his shirt on. This may be disappointing for libertarians, who I believe enjoy rumpy-pumpy as much as anyone.
Oh, and there is Wisconsin. Dagny and Hank ride blissfully in Taggart’s new high-speed train, and then Hank suggests they take a trip to Wisconsin, where the state’s policies caused the suppression of an engine that runs on the ozone in the air, or something (the film’s detailed explanation won’t clear this up). They decide to drive there. That’s when you’ll enjoy the beautiful landscape photography of the deserts of Wisconsin. My advice to the filmmakers: If you want to use a desert, why not just refer to Wisconsin as "New Mexico"?
"Atlas Shrugged" closes with a title card saying, "End of Part 1." Frequently throughout the film, characters repeat the phrase, "Who is John Galt?" Well they might ask. A man in black, always shot in shadow, is apparently John Galt. If you want to get a good look at him and find out why everybody is asking, I hope you can find out in Part 2. I don’t think you can hold out for Part 3. |
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. But a closer comparison can be made to
conducted by Dubya's father, President George Herbert Walker Bush, in conjunction with the National Space Science Symposium. The idea was to get kids excited about education in general and careers in math and science in particular through grandfatherly advice, with occasional attempts at corny humor tossed in. For example, he said at one point, "All of you can turn learning into an adventure. And to do this you have to prepare not just by studying, but by studying hard, especially math and science. And that means doing what I too often fail to do, that means homework."
This joke's probably funnier now than it was at the time. But it's not as hilarious as the following exchange, which came during a question-and-answer session with kids:
The President. I'll tell you, I've got some good news. We're making dramatic progress in the fight against narcotics. It's just beginning to happen, but we're making great progress. And the best progress is amongst kids your age and a little bit older who are turning away from drugs because they know how bad it is. But no, there would be no room for drug use in space. The life that Charlie's described for you and you've heard about from La Porte, Texas, today, is too complex: One person's life depends on another. And you can't have any kind of thing like drug use in space.
Q. My question is, do you think current problems like drugs and crime will follow us to space?
With those words, President Bush probably convinced an entire generation of kids to drop out of school and follow the Grateful Dead. Read the entire text of the Bush teleconference below.
Remarks in a Teleconference With Schoolchildren During the Annual National Space Science Symposium
1991-09-17
The President. Well, Dick, Admiral Truly, thank you very, very much; and to Charlie here and Tammy down there someplace, Lisa.
I was watching part of the program before we came in. I saw some of you all there. And let me say how exciting I think the efforts of the spacemobilers and the astronauts are to teach students about space and space exploration. When I was a kid, we had some idols we thought were out of this world. With people like Charlie and Tammy Jernigan, they really are out of this world. And you know what I mean.
It's also a privilege to be with so many fine students interested in learning about the future of space. And I especially want to salute the national winners of the Space Science Student Involvement Program who are in the studio with us here today. Their academic achievement, you guys can learn from them, their academic achievement deserves real special recognition.
So looking forward to today, for a few minutes I was a hero with one of my young grandkids, younger guy than you. When I told her I was going to be on television, she thought I'd finally made it on to ``Sesame Street.'' [Laughter]
And as you begin the school year, just think of what you can make of the future. Many of you are the class of the year 2000. In NASA lingo, that means ``T'' minus 8 years, 3 months, and 13 days. And you, the students of today, will help keep America the world's leader. And all of you, if you work hard, but all of you can turn learning into an adventure.
And to do this you have to prepare not just by studying, but by studying hard, especially math and science. And that means doing what I too often fail to do, that means homework. And it means setting goals both for you and for America.
This is why our administration and the Nation's Governors created six national educational goals, one of which is to be the first in the world in math and science. And together you can help say of American education, ``All systems are go.''
And since this telecast began, the astronauts orbiting in the space shuttle Discovery have traveled halfway around the planet Earth. Just think about that: Just since the program began, about 12,000 miles. Even if you don't end up working in space, what you learn about math and science and all the rest of the subjects you study will help you for the rest of your life. So, do your best. Make America proud. Help achieve a lift-off to learning.
And now, Charlie, having heard some questions I understand they've got a few more questions, and maybe you and I can answer them. I hope they give the tough ones to this guy, and I'll take the easy ones. [Laughter]
Mr. Bolden. Well, Mr. President, I think they're ready, and we're going to give you two questions from here before we switch down to Texas for some. So, who has a question for the President?
The President. There she goes. What is it?
Q. I go to Stevens Elementary School. My teacher is Miss Hamilton.
The President. Is she a hard teacher?
Q. No.
The President. No? Okay.
Q. Do you want your grandchildren to live and work in space?
The President. Oh, I'd love it if one of them would do that. We've got 12, so we've got a lot to choose from, girls and boys. But I think it would be wonderful. I don't know whether they'll make it, but if they're going to, they've got to start in, as I'm sure some of you are: recognize the importance of school first and then as they get a little older concentrate on that math and science and all the things that Charlie can tell you about that are important to it. But I think it would be wonderful because I think the challenge for our country, a lot of it, lies out there in space.
Mr. Bolden. Next question. Let me see your hands, and, Admiral Truly, I think there's one right by you.
Q. I would like to ask you how is space technology helping you as the President?
The President. Well, there are many ways it helps. I'm not sure exactly in terms of my day-to-day responsibilities as President, but space technology helps in so many practical ways. One I think of is, and I guess it affects whether you're President or whether you're just a plain citizen, is in medicine. Some of the research that they have done has a direct application to medicine. Other parts of research that interest me, I guess, again, not just because I'm President, but citizen, is what they learn about weather, what they learn about crops internationally in terms of feeding the world.
One of the worries I have is there are a lot of hungry people in the world. And how do we, as the United States, use our advanced science that NASA taught us so much about to help other people? And we've got to help people at home, but we also have an obligation. Somebody is hungry halfway around the world, we need to help them. And the science that comes out of the space program in terms of agriculture is very, very important.
So, that is just a couple of ways, but I'm sure there are many, many more.
Mr. Bolden. Mr. President, we're going to switch now down to Tammy Jernigan and the crew in La Porte and give them an opportunity to ask us about four questions. So, Tammy, if you would go around the room and give us your question.
Ms. Jernigan. Thank you, Charlie. Mr. President, I've been so really excited here at College Park Elementary to ask you some questions.
Q. Mr. President, how will you know that we're first in science and math?
The President. Well, I don't know. There are all kinds of objective ways of measuring. But one of the goals that we have is to have voluntary testing at various levels: 4th, 8th, and 12th grade. They have measures now to determine what countries are ahead, and, regrettably, we're about 12th in that special field. So, in addition to just getting a feeling of it by the results, by how well people do in life, there will be, under our national education goals, there will be national testing. And I think this will help. I think the schools are interested. The Governors are interested, and I think it will help us answer your question better, once that starts.
Q. Mr. President, how did you come up with your goals?
The President. I didn't hear you. Tell me one more time. I was listening, but I just didn't get it. What was it?
Q. Mr. President, how did you come up with your goals?
The President. The education goals, a very good question. I'll tell you what we did. We met with all the Governors. And I went down to Charlottesville, Virginia, and met with the Governors. And then they went back to the States and working with the White House staff and the Governors' staffs we came up with these national goals. They made suggestions. We'd offer our suggestions. And 50 Governors came together with the White House to set, for the first time in our history, national goals. And they are: to be first in math and science. We talk about ``ready to learn,'' and that means Head Start program. We talk about ``nobody is too old to learn.'' That includes me. I'm trying to learn a computer. Everybody in this room probably knows how to do it better than I do. But I'm not too old to learn even though I'm getting up there, 67 years old. I remember when I was your age I thought if I got 67, wow, over the hill, gone, history. [Laughter]
But we've got these good sensible goals now. And now the thing we're going to try to do is get each State to work with their communities to solve these, to come up with solutions so that we meet these education goals.
Who else has got it? Nice to see you again, incidentally.
Q. Mr. President, why do we want to put a person on Mars?
The President. Well, I think it's going to just go to the cutting edge of the science. And everything that's happened in space, from the very first vehicle into space to the very last, has taught us a lot about the real world and all outside our own world.
And so, I think it would just be a quantum leap forward in terms of our knowledge as to what the universe is about. And I hope that in addition it would have very practical answers to some of the problems we face on Earth. So, it's going to what they call a cutting edge. It's going out front. It's exploring. It's like the guys in the wagon trains that used to go across this country. They were the pioneers. Now, the pioneers are Charlie and Lisa and Tammy and others. And it's a wonderfully exciting thing. So, it's expensive. It's going to take a while to do it, but we've always got to be in the forefront. At the United States, more and more countries are looking to us for everything in the world, including being the leader in science and technology.
Q. Mr. President, what if you are talented in art and you drop out of school because you can make a bunch of money?
The President. Talented in art and you drop out of school to make a bunch of dough? Well, first place, I hope -- maybe if you're asking about yourself or someone in your family, I hope they are talented in art. But I don't think you ought to drop out of school. You can have one discipline. You can have one area of expertise. But to be a full human being you need a wide array of knowledge.
And so my advice to somebody that fit that description -- really good in art, maybe good enough to start selling paintings or doing sculpture, or whatever it is, is a grade school or a high school student -- finish your education. That's only a part of your life, a vital part of your life. But you need to be a whole person, a whole man, a whole woman. And you can't do it if you are less than fully educated.
So, if you know somebody, if you asked me the question because you know somebody that fits that description and they were looking for a little advice: Keep up with the art. Do what you do best, but don't neglect being a whole person. And you only get that from a full education.
Good question though.
Ms. Jernigan. Mr. President, we understand we're out of time. We really appreciate the time that you've spent with us here today.
Bye.
The President. All right. Thanks. You guys had good questions.
Mr. Bolden. Tammy, thanks very much to you and the kids down there in La Porte. And we're going to swing back up here and give our kids an opportunity to ask just a few more questions before the President has to leave. So, how about more questions?
Q. My question is, do you think current problems like drugs and crime will follow us to space?
The President. I'll tell you, I've got some good news. We're making dramatic progress in the fight against narcotics. It's just beginning to happen, but we're making great progress. And the best progress is amongst kids your age and a little bit older who are turning away from drugs because they know how bad it is. But no, there would be no room for drug use in space. The life that Charlie's described for you and you've heard about from La Porte, Texas, today, is too complex: One person's life depends on another. And you can't have any kind of thing like drug use in space.
What grade are you in?
Q. Fourth.
The President. Fourth grade. Can't have it in the fourth grade. You ruin your lives. And the good news is, as I say, is people are beginning to understand this more. The bad news is, we're not there yet. I just met with the President of Peru before I came over here. And they grow something like 40, 60 percent of the coca leaf, and we're working with them to try to eliminate this. And they say to us, ``Hey, you help us eliminate this coca leaf.'' That's where the cocaine comes from. ``But you use 80 percent of the narcotics in the world. The demand in your country, Mr. Bush, is 80 percent.''
So, what we've got to do is continue with the education programs and the neighborhood programs and the State programs and the community programs and, yes, the White House programs. So we teach people you simply can't use drugs whether it's space -- it's not going to go out into outer space -- nor cities, nor homes, nor families, wherever. We just can't do it.
Q. Would you like to go on a trip to space to help build a space station?
The President. Yes, I'd like to. I don't think I'll make it though. [Laughter] I don't think they'd let me in. I don't think Admiral Truly, who's the boss of this program, would have a guy my age. I think healthwise I might be able to make it. And I'm not sure Charlie would want an old guy up there with him on his next space mission which he's going to undertake what, next spring?
Mr. Bolden. Next spring sometime.
The President. Your question wasn't am I going to do it, but would I like to. I'd love to do it. I really would love to see the world as these people have seen it. And I think I'd be a better President if I had.
Q. I want to ask you, how difficult is it to be our President?
The President. It depends on what's happening out there, I'll tell you. And some days it's very difficult, and some days it's not so bad. But I think the answer is: In the first place, it's exciting; it's fun; I like it. There are so many things to be done both here and abroad. And the thing about that one is to get good people with you.
One of the reasons our space program has been successful, the leader in the whole world, is because we've attracted really good people. And the same thing is true for the White House. So, you know, at times like during the war and stuff, it gets a little complicated and difficult. And then at times, you just feel, look we can do anything we set our sights on. But I think the advice is: Get good people around you.
Q. I want to know what kind of work -- is the work hard that you do?
The President. You mean President? Well, it's pretty long hours. I get up every morning at 5 a.m. This might be of real interest to you. Our dogs are like alarm clocks. We have two dogs, you know, Millie and Ranger. They're like alarm clocks. They wake at 5 a.m. every morning. And so I have a long day. So, I go home and go to the Oval Office. Then in the evening I work. I have an office in the White House, the big White House part, the residence. And sometimes it's very difficult and complicated, and you worry about people and how they're doing: drugs or the cities or whatever else it is. But I don't know that it's harder than your teacher's job or the astronaut's job. I don't think it's a question of difficulty. Again, it's a question of, ``Are you up for it? Do you think you can do it? Do you want to make a contribution?'' Something like that.
Q. And I want to know, how do you feel about sending people into space?
The President. Sending people in there? Well, in the first place, clearly people don't go into space unless they want to, unless they've got a drive, unless they've got a mission. And then, you worry about it, as President. But I think their neighbors worry about it, his friends. It's something when you see something dramatic like a lift-off. But I view it as a challenge. I think Charlie's lucky. He's a good man. I think he's lucky to be in space.
Mr. Bolden. We have time for one more question, and you've been having your hand up, so go ahead.
Q. Mr. Bush, would you consider letting Millie be the first American dog in space? [Laughter]
The President. First dog in space?
Q. American.
The President. I don't think I'd let Millie do it because I don't think she could pass the physical. She has lupus, and that's a disease. And I don't think any of the doctors at NASA would let her go. Other than that, if they were going to take a dog out there, I'd let Ranger. I've got a dog named Ranger, Millie's son. He could go maybe. But I don't think people would like the President's dog getting to be the first dog in space. They'd all say, ``Hey, how come my dog didn't get to go.'' You know what I mean? So, I don't think Millie's going to go either. But anyway, that's an interesting question because they do take different kinds of animals. I guess you do, or don't you?
Mr. Bolden. Different kinds of animals. Yes, sir, Mr. President.
The President. No dogs yet?
Mr. Bolden. No dogs yet that I know of, like you said, on an American space flight.
Mr. President, we want to thank you very much. I know you've been very, very busy. And you've taken a lot of your personal time out to be with us today. And I know the kids are excited. So, I thank you for them.
Admiral Truly, we thank you very much. I want to thank Lisa McLeod. Tammy, I'd like to really thank you and the kids down there in La Porte. I want to thank our television audience because you've been superb. We've had lots of fun here together. We want to thank the public television stations who've chosen to carry us today. And we want to encourage all of you to take heed at the words that you heard today: study, study, study; read, read, read. We really appreciate your being with us. So, so long.
Note: The President spoke at 2:38 p.m. from the auditorium of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration on NASA Select TV via a two-way video and audio satellite hookup. In his remarks, the President referred to: NASA Administrator Richard H. Truly; Lisa McLeod, NASA Aerospace Education Specialist; Elizabeth Hamilton, a teacher at Stevens Elementary School; and President Alberto Fujimori of Peru. Astronauts Charlie Bolden in Washington, and Tammy Jernigan in La Porte, Texas, led the teleconference. Students participated in the teleconference from: Stevens Elementary School, Washington, DC; Bucknell Elementary School, Alexandria, VA; Ashburton Elementary School and Harlem Park Elementary School in Baltimore, MD; and College Park Elementary School, La Porte, TX. A tape was not available for verification of the content of these remarks. |
In political news yesterday, a former First Lady of the United States, Secretary of State, United States Senator, and 2008 presidential candidate won her home state by roughly the margin previously predicted by more than twenty national polls.
The win gave the candidate approximately 139 of the 2,383 delegates needed to secure her party's nomination for President, with her opponent getting exponentially less -- 106. CNN's Wolf Blitzer noted that the candidate's margin of victory, 15 points, was "almost as much" as the 35-point victory won by Donald Trump over John Kasich in the GOP nominating contest being held simultaneously in the same state.
Her opponent, who'd previously won his own home state by just 72.5 points, had in that contest netted only 16 pledged delegates -- a mere fraction of the 29 netted by Tuesday's winner in a state with 16 times the population of his own.
Experts also noted the impressive performance by Tuesday's winner on the county level, where she carried 12 of her home state's 62 counties, with her opponent carrying only 50. Having secured approximately 57.5 percent of the vote in her home state, she was also, experts agreed, highly likely to get the 66 percent of remaining delegates that she'll need to reach 2,383 "pledged" delegates and avoid an open party convention. Experts further agreed that an open convention in Philadelphia this summer would only emphasize perceived "flaws" in the party's nominating process and regulations, and would therefore be avoided.
Speaking to her supporters after the 15-point victory, the candidate, who has the support of 92.4 percent of the elected officials in her party, pointed out that a final and complete victory in her ten-year effort to secure her party's presidential nomination was nearly at hand.
The candidate's victory in this year's nominating process was first projected by nearly all national media outlets in late 2014.
After spending $4 million in advertising to win the state she represented in the United States Senate for eight years, the 2008 and now 2016 presidential candidate, riding the wave of an impressive 1.2-point edge in national polling over her opponent, spoke in eloquent terms of using cautious incrementalism to fix a bevy of intractable systemic abscesses in her nation's political, cultural, and economic life.
Her opponent, a 74-old Independent socialist without a super-PAC or five-day wardrobe, was only able to muster about 42.5 percent of the vote in the state his opponent lives and works in full-time.
Experts estimate that even if 126,000 younger, infrequent, and first-time voters had not been accidentally purged from the state's voter rolls, and even if independent voters -- approximately 30 percent of the state's voting population -- had been allowed to vote, the unruly-haired Jewish candidate from a state with a few hundred thousand residents would only have secured 47 or 48 percent of the vote in the state of 8.5 million residents he lost on Tuesday.
Exit polls suggesting a 52 percent to 48 percent race in the "closed" primary -- a primary restricted to members of the political party the winning candidate began raising millions of dollars for well prior to starting her run for President a decade ago -- were dismissed as only a reflection of how voters who headed to the polls on Tuesday intended to vote.
Addressing concerns about exit-poll disparities and voter-roll purges from a smattering of malcontents, experts agreed on Tuesday that voting is rightly adjudged an "aspirational" act; because mass voter-roll purgings and regulations disallowing citizens from registering with a party within six months of an election are commonplace, what matters is not what voters aspire to but what political parties decide is appropriate for them, experts said.
As Tuesday's winner reached the latter stages of her victory speech, she briefly discussed her recent accusation that her opponent doesn't care about the mass murder of children, which, experts largely agreed, was not a personal attack on her opponent but an exercise in observational dialectics. As she discussed her earlier comments, a single, poll-tested tear came close to appearing in the corner of her left eye.
In all, the candidate's victory speech lasted some fifteen minutes and, experts agree, effectively ended her party's presidential nomination process.
Earlier in the evening, CNN had played a sixty-second clip from her opponent's Tuesday-night speech, with panel moderator and political analyst Erin Burnett commenting on it thereafter, "Oh, are we back? David Axelrod, can Trump get enough delegates tonight to revive his hopes of reaching 1,237 prior to Cleveland?"
Several minutes later, Jake Tapper of CNN, who had previously referred to Tuesday's winner as her party's "presumptive nominee" in June of 2015, repeated the observation. |
In both Italy and Spain—two of the hardest-hit economies in Europe—I found a tendency to turn inward and focus on events at home rather than developments abroad. My visit to Spain, for example, coincided with an incident in the Catalan Parliament in which a lawmaker took off his sandal and threatened Rodrigo Rato, the former head of the International Monetary Fund, who was testifying at a hearing about the large, bailed-out Spanish bank he had led, Bankia.
Naturally, the incident attracted a lot of media attention; almost everyone with whom I spoke in Spain mentioned it. What received significantly less press was the news that on that same day, in Beijing, Chinese officials had unveiled major economic reforms at the Communist Party’s Third Plenum. I noticed the same inward-looking attitude in Italy. For the past two decades, any visit to the country has been bound to coincide with some attention-grabbing news about Silvio Berlusconi and his relationship with power and, inevitably, women. This time was no different, with the buzz centering on the lead-up to the Italian Senate’s expulsion of the former Italian prime minister. And yet, if the decisions made at the Third Plenum help China avoid an abrupt economic slowdown that would harm the global economy—and prolong Italy and Spain's economic troubles—then what happened in Beijing will have a far greater impact on the lives of Italians and Spaniards than the theatrics of Catalonia’s sandal-toting legislator or the travails of Italy’s former prime minister. Despite these realities, I found that even well-informed elites in these countries are paying little attention to what is going on in China—or in the rest of the world, for that matter.
In fact, the “the rest of the world” increasingly seems to be a mere blip on the radar of many Spaniards and Italians. And, sadly, “the rest” now even includes Europe. Growing indifference to a European project that promised much and has fallen short of high initial expectations has been noticeable for some time now. And the region’s economic crisis, with its uncertain future and legacy of massive unemployment, has deepened disappointment and disinterest in the European Union. Granted, there is support for some of the more tangible features of the EU, like free trade and more open borders that facilitate the movement of people. But there is little backing for a more united Europe, and I could not find anyone during my trip who felt that deeper integration could spur the economic growth that crisis-stricken countries desperately need. On this subject, the opinions of Italians and Spaniards are consistent with those of their fellow Europeans. According to the Eurobarometer, a survey of 27 EU member countries, half of all citizens are pessimistic about the future of the European Union as an institution, and 69 percent express no confidence in it at all. Two-thirds feel as if their voice is meaningless in the decisions taken by the EU. |
TACOMA — A federal court jury in Tacoma has awarded $9 million to a former Vancouver police officer who was wrongfully convicted of sexually abusing his children in the 1980s and spent nearly 20 years in prison.
Clyde Ray Spencer had alleged false imprisonment and malicious prosecution in the lawsuit he filed against Clark County. The Columbian reports that jurors returned their verdict Monday.
Spencer's conviction was vacated by the Washington state Court of Appeals in 2009 and charges were officially dismissed in September 2010.
Spencer's lead lawyer, Kathleen Zellner, told the jury that awarding money was the only way to recognize what she called "the incredible travesty of justice" that led to his prison time.
A county spokesman was not immediately available for comment.
The appeals court allowed Spencer to withdraw the plea he entered in 1985, in which he acknowledged that a jury would likely find him guilty. He always maintained his innocence.
-- The Associated Press |
A bug was filed against coverage.py this morning, and digging into it revealed a number of details about Python’s inner workings. The bug boiled down to this code:
import copy
class Tricky ( object ):
def __init__ ( self ):
self . special = [ "foo" ]
def __getattr__ ( self , name ):
if name in self . special :
return "yes"
raise AttributeError ()
t1 = Tricky ()
assert t1 . foo == "yes"
t2 = copy . copy ( t1 )
assert t2 . foo == "yes"
print "This runs, but isn't covered."
The code runs just fine, but coverage.py claims that the last two lines aren’t executed. They clearly are, because the print statement produces output during the run.
It turns out that coverage fails because there’s an infinite recursion here, and when the Python interpreter unwinds the recursion, it doesn’t report it to the trace function, so its bookkeeping gets out of whack.
But where’s the recursion? It’s well-known that you have to be careful in __getattr__ not to use an attribute that might be missing. That would cause an infinite recursion. But here, the only attribute used in __getattr__ is self.special, and that’s created in __init__, so it should always be present, right?
The answer lies in how copy.copy works. When it copies an object, it doesn’t invoke its __init__ method. It makes a new empty object, then copies attributes from the old to the new. In order to implement custom copying, the object can provide functions to do the copying, so the copy module looks for those attributes on the object. This naturally invokes __getattr__.
If we add a bit of logging to __getattr__ like this:
def __getattr__ ( self , name ):
print name
if name in self . special :
return "yes"
raise AttributeError ()
then we see the recursion:
foo
__getnewargs__
__getstate__
__setstate__
special
special
special
special
.. 989 more ..
special
special
special
special
foo
What’s happening here is this: the copy module looks for a __setstate__ attribute, which doesn’t exist, so __getattr__ is invoked. It tries to access self.special, but that doesn’t exist either, because this is a newly created object which hasn’t had __init__ invoked to create self.special. Because the attribute doesn’t exist, __getattr__ is invoked, and the infinite recursion begins.
The Python interpreter limits the recursion to 1000 (or so) levels, but why don’t we see the exception? Because the attribute access is inside the copy module’s hasattr(o, “__setstate__”), and hasattr takes any exception to mean, “No, this attribute doesn’t exist,” returning False. So hasattr swallows the exception, and we never hear about it.
To fix the problem, we have to prevent the recursion due to looking up self.special:
def __getattr__ ( self , name ):
if name == "special" :
raise AttributeError ()
if name in self . special :
return "yes"
raise AttributeError ()
Now there’s no error due to reaching the recursion limit, and everything works the way it should. The moral of the story is that if you access an attribute in __getattr__, you have to defend against recursion, even if there’s “no way” it could be missing from the object. |
Lifestyle New Laws for California Drivers
2016 is just around the corner and just like every new year the State of California has a slew of new regulations and laws for motor vehicles.
SB61
This law extends an existing Ignition Interlock Device pilot program until July 2017. Effective in Alameda, Los Angeles, Sacramento, and Tulare counties. The law requires a person convicted of a DUI to install a interlock device for five months, for the first offense, 12 months for the second, 24 months for the third, and 36 months for a forth.
SB 405
Traffic Citation Amnesty program lets people with tickets up to $300 to not pay under specific conditions.
SB 491
Headphones that cover both ears are now illegal while operating a motor vehicle or a bicycle state wide. There are a few exceptions of course for safety headsets or earplugs.
AB 1461
Automatically registers you to vote when you apply for a drivers license. Get ready for political telemarketer calls and jury duty notices in the mail.
For more you can check out the California Legislative Counsel website athttp://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov.
AB 265Car dealerships that install starter interrupt and tracking devices must disclose that such devices are installed on the car. The law also requires that advanced warning should be given to purchasers before their car is shut down for lack of payment. This law applies to "buy here pay here" dealers.AB 604Electrically Motorized Skateboards are restricted at public facilities and all kinds of safety requirements kick in as well. Including limiting riders to streets with a speed limit of 35 miles per hour or less, requiring riders to wear a bicycle helmet, and night time visibility gear at night. A violation can get you a ticket of up to $250. |
You all know MINIX – a microkernel operating system project led by Andrew Tanenbaum. The French Linux magazine LinuxFr.org has an interview with Andrew Tanenbaum about MINIX’ current state and future. There’s some interesting stuff in there.
A little history lesson might be prudent here, since I’m not sure how many of you understand the significance of MINIX. In and of itself, MINIX is not something you’ll encounter in production environments – let alone on popular electronics where you’ll mostly find Linux. Traditionally, MINIX has been an education tool, in combination with the book ‘Operating Systems: Design and Implementation’.
On top of that, Linus Torvalds used Minix as an inspiration for his own Linux kernel – although he took a completely different approach to kernel design than Tanenbaum had done with MINIX. MINIX is a microkernel-based project, whereas Linux is monolithic (although Linux has adopted some microkernel-like functionality over the years). This difference in approach to kernel design led to one of the most famous internet discussions, back in 1992 – the Tanenbaum-Torvalds Debate.
MINIX stalled for a while, but in 2005, the project, which is hosted at the university I recently got my Master’s Degree from, was fired up again with the release of MINIX 3, a new operating system with its roots in the two versions that came before. Since then, Tanenbaum has had three people working on the project at the VU University, ensuring steady progress.
The team is currently focussing on three things, according to Tanenbaum: NetBSD compatibility, embedded systems, and reliability. NetBSD compatibility means MINIX 3.2.0 will have a lot of headers, libraries, and userland programs from NetBSD. “We think NetBSD is a mature stable system. Linux is not nearly as well written and is changing all the time. NetBSD has something like 8000 packages. That is enough for us,” Tanenbaum explains.
The reliability aspect is one where MINIX really shines and hikes up its skirt to demonstrate the microkernel running inside – MINIX can recover from many problems that would cause other operating systems to crash and burn. A very welcome side effect of all this is that all parts of the system, except the tiny microkernel itself, can be updated without rebooting the system or affecting running processes.
“We also are working on live update. We can now replace – on-the-fly – all of the operating system except the tiny microkernel while the system is running and without a reboot and without affecting running processes. This is not in the release yet, but we have it working,” Tanenbaum states, “There are a lot of applications in the world that would love to run 24/7/365 and never go down, not even to upgrade to a new version of the operating system. Certainly Windows and Linux can’t do this.”
Another area the team is working on is multicore support, and here, too, they are taking a different approach than conventional operating systems. “Multicore is hard. We are doing essentially the same thing as Barrelfish: we regard our 48-core Intel SCC chip as 48 separate computers that happen to be physically chose to one another, but they don’t share memory,” Tanenbaum explains, “We are splitting up the file system, the network stack and maybe other pieces to run on separate cores. The focus is really more on reliability but we are starting to work seriously to look at how multicore can improve reliability (e.g., but having other cores check on what the primary cores are doing, splitting work into smaller pieces to be divided over cores, etc.).”
The interview also focusses on Linux, which I guess is inevitable considering the relationship between Tanenbaum and Torvalds. However, I personally don’t think there is any real animosity between the two – we’re just looking at two scholars with different approaches to the same problems. Adding to that is that both Tanenbaum and Torvalds appear to be very direct, outspoken, and to the point – there’s no diplomatic sugar-coating going on with these two.
For instance, Torvalds was interviewed recently by LinuxFr.org as well, and in that interview, Torvalds gave his opinion on microkernels – an opinion anyone with an interest in this topic is probably aware of. “I’m still convinced that it’s one of those ideas that sounds nice on paper, but ends up being a failure in practice, because in real life the real complexity is in the interactions, not in the individual modules,” torvalds told LinuxFR.org, “And microkernels strive to make the modules more independent, making the interactions more indirect and complicated. The separation essentially ends up also cutting a lot of obvious and direct communication channels.”
Tanenbaum was asked to reply to this statement. “I don’t buy it. He is speculating about something he knows nothing about,” he replied, “Our modules are extremely well defined because they run in separate address spaces. If you want to change the memory manager, only one module is affected. Changing it in Linux is far more complicated because it is all spaghetti down there.”
There’s a lot more interesting stuff in there, so be sure to give it a read. In any case, especially those of you who have been hanging around OSNews for a long time will know that my personal preference definitely lies with clean microkernels. I honestly believe that the microkernel is, in almost every way, better than the monolithic kernel. The single biggest issue with microkernels – slight performance hits – has pretty much been negated with today’s hardware, but you get so much more in return: clean design, rock-solid stability, and incredible recovery.
But as we sadly know, the best doesn’t always win. Ah, it rarely does. |
Bot Battles and Bones – Friday, July 28, 2017
Folks,
We’ve had a good week here at CSE. Our push for client stability has paid off greatly, culminating in the successful testing of over 1500 Bots using abilities, which stressed both our item and particle systems, all with great performance! It’s a big win for us and our Backers as this is one of our big requirements to for Beta 1. Next week we’ll continue tracking down the currently remaining asserts and continue on the road to Beta 1.
Top Tenish:
1. WIP – Tech – Client Stability and Bots: After finishing the “scene lock” changes last week, we’ve been able to find other asserts (a warning that something is wrong) and bugs that were previously hiding behind the scene lock asserts. This week, we’ve fixed a few issues with the world state on different proxies not lining up, Andrew has dug into the impostor code, fixed asserts, or the potential for asserts, and the entire engineering team has supported the push for improved client stability. To help us do this, we’ve had an army of over 1500 Bots assisting us! Which leads us into our second item.
2. Tech – Bots: We’ve had over 1500 Bots running around, using abilities, and firing effects-laden projectiles at one another! This is more impressive than the last time we had 1500 Bots in a small area, as now Bots are now all individual player clients, use both melee and ranged abilities, use items such as arrows, and are stress testing our recent VFX improvements! And we’re still at a great framerate that we will continue to improve. Overall, the past three weeks have had a solid team effort to improve our code, and hence overall client stability and performance! Last night, we hit 2.1K Bots, comprised of 360 archers, about 1800 fighters, and at peak over 200K particle effects a second. Until we hit about 1800 Bots (in a small area, as usual), the game was quite playable on Mark’s rig.
3. WIP – Tech – Zone Portals: Currently in code review, Colin has been working on a couple of important features for zone portals. First, he created the tech needed to enable portals only when their destination islands are online. Second, the tech needed to represent this with their VFX state. This tech will be particularly important during Beta 1, when we need players on specific islands/zones for different types of testing.
4. WIP – Tech – Placing Items on Buildings: In order to get the epic siege warfare we want, we need to be able to place siege engines in all areas of a building, including the upper levels. Items like siege engines and Voxen currently snap to terrain when placed. Matt’s work will allow us to line siege engines along the walls of buildings so you can rain pointy death upon your foes!
5. WIP – Tech – Random Crafting Events: Christina has built in support for random crafting events when using the Vox. We now have a table we can reference during the crafting process to create a chance of boosting a particular stat of the resulting item based on variables we set. For example: Say we’re making a weapon. Designers can set different weights to produce different results. A weight of 10 on the piercing damage stat (along with tweaking some other values) would mean that 10% of the time, the job grants a certain percentage bonus to piercing damage. We could also do things like lower stamina cost by a few values 40% of the time. The system is extremely flexible and allows for even more variety in the items players craft.
6. WIP – Tech – Inventory UI: AJ dropped the new UI in-game and is now tackling improvements on the performance, particularly with loading the paper doll and the search responsiveness. It’s important that our UIs, even early in development, are snappy and responsive.
7. WIP – Audio/Tech – Inventory Item Material Tags: Completed this week from Christina: We now have the ability to use tags on equipment, so that sounds, such as footsteps, can change based on the materials of the gear you are wearing. The next step is more work around alloys and materials, which will allow dB to begin using this tech.
8. WIP – Art – Mine Environment: We’ve gone a little mine crazy. Knowing we wanted to have lots of pieces to work with, and something interesting for Backers to try out, we’ve added more segments into the first-pass mine for testing. This means we’ll probably be wrapping up next week for initial testing. This will also include a new creature fossil model from Jon, as well as the previously mentioned Depths-inspired shrine. Jon is finishing both of those up today.
9. WIP – Art – Scorpion Animations: With Ben’s assistance, Jon updated the existing Scorpion model to better support more realistic loading and firing mechanisms. Scott then rigged and completed a rough pass of a short firing animation for Beta 1 testing. Additionally, Scott also roughed out a longer, full loop animation with all the different steps required to load and fire the engine. These rough assets are then handed off to Matt, so he can work on syncing player animations to the Scorpion.
10. WIP – Art – One-handed Sword: Sandra has moved on to two different death animations to support various one-handed weapon combinations. The first one will be polished for the dual wield of a mace/club and sword, the latter for a future combo such as shield and spear. Scott has completed the dual wield jumps and locomotion assets for the sword and mace. All of these should make it into the game next week, followed by mace and sword in the opposite hands, then shields, daggers, and spears.
11. WIP – Art – More Environment Assets: This will be a WIP all the way up to Beta 1 as Tyler finds time to add in new assets. He’s currently focused on re-organizing the assets we have, so it’s easier to build out the world. This includes finding the gaps in our assets to support visual changes in the world based on Realm control, as well as producing a visual library for Michelle to art direct. This large photoshop file will allow Michelle to visually compare the assets and suggest different combinations of existing assets.
12. WIP – Art – VFX and SFX: After finishing the healer archetypes last week, Ben has started work on the melee archetype ability component breakdown. This will then be used by Mike and dB to add VFX and sounds, respectively. This will be done in phases, starting with generic assets and moving up to specific assets per component. dB is currently re-adding generic sounds to the bow components, which will be followed by more specific component versions next week. Mike continues to work through the long list of particle needs, focusing this week on several new prototypes. Additionally, he’s been tuning our firework particles for continued performance testing.
13. Art – Concept: Michelle finished concept art for the Tuatha and Arthurian Realm portals when influenced by terrain ownership. Jon will then begin work on the TDD model, followed by material passes on both models.
14. Art – Icons: James finished several more player inventory icons this week for various weapons or armor that we passed over during the first pass. These will be added to AJ’s new character inventory UI.
So yeah, a lot of progress this week despite a great deal of focus on client stability, which took time from many engineers on the team. However, that time is certainly not wasted, as we’ve shored up not only a number of smaller asserts, but the potential for future issues, by cleaning up the scene lock code. At the end of last week, we were still in the midst of that cleanup–much more heavily than this week. Our testing at that time supported 400 Bots, which by today’s standards is definitely a big number. But this week, we’ve returned to successfully testing over 1500 Bots! Sorry, can’t help but reiterate how the rewards of these efforts are blossoming. The performance is great, and we look forward, just as you do, to those big battles we’re focusing on.
Alright, let’s move onto the art highlights for the week. As mentioned above, Sandra and Scott have both been working on one-handed weapon animations. Click the image below to see some of last week’s work from Sandra!
Next up, we have a good view of the mine work Dionne has been doing, this time an overhead shot in Maya of what will soon be updated in-game.
As mentioned in the Top Tenish, Jon has been working on a fossil piece for one of the rooms.
And here’s the placement of these old bones in one of the mine’s rooms.
Next up, we have the concept art from Michelle of the Arthurian (first), then the TDD (second) portal markers with their Realm control variations.
For a bit of a tease, we have some designs for one of our Viking races, the Úlfhéðnar.
To close things out for the week, check out these glorious shots of the Bots in action! Remember, these are headless clients running on AWS instances. They stress our network and client tech more than the average player does. OTOH, they are don’t stress our non-existent Community Manager nearly as much! Some other things to keep in mind:
1) These screenshots are coming courtesy of my machine (GTX 970, non-special Intel CPU). Vsync was turned off for these shots (truth in advertising as always from us!)
2) These screenshots were taken on Hatchery. That machine and build is not as optimized as a Fledgling build. That will come next week. That’s one of the reasons tonight’s Alpha test didn’t start until nearly 11PM Eastern Time. We were in the office trying to get the Bots working on Fledgling too. That should happen next week.
3) At peak, our engine was handling about 200K particles per second quite well. We expect to do even better than that over the next couple of months.
4) The first shot is at night because it looks so much cooler. The last two shots are of me moving through the Bots.
Enjoy!
BTW, can you think of another game where you can run through a crowd of 1409 players at 44 FPS?
In terms of Alpha Testing, Fledgling is now open for all of our Alpha and IT testers this weekend so they should expect a separate email from us shortly!
All said, another solid week of work in the can from the team at CSE. We hope you’ve enjoyed the journey so far, and are excited to see the weekly rewards of our collective efforts. We’re happy to show them to you! This week will feature a Big Bot Battle test and hopefully, a Beta test over next weekend!
As I said in our livestream, because we were able to support 1K players with VFX, we can now officially say that we have met one of the Kickstarter milestones as well as one of the major milestones for Beta 1. Up next, we expect will be me telling you folks that our VFX system is also Beta 1 ready. Stay tuned!
-Mark |
There are countless studies that tout the heart-healthy benefits of olive oil. With high levels of monounsaturated fats, the premium stuff—extra-virgin olive oil—can help lower levels of bad cholesterol in your blood (the kind that causes heart attacks and strokes), is reported to have skin beautifying abilities, and might even help you keep off the pounds.
…That is, if what you are using is actually what you think it is. Turns out, most EVOO sold in the United States doesn’t pass international standards—and might just be a mixture of other low-quality oils disguised as the real stuff.
According to a 2011 study out of University of California, Davis, close to 70 percent oils sold in the United States as “extra-virgin” failed the International Olive Council (IOC) qualifying standards for the label. Working with the Australian Oils Research Laboratory, researchers tested 186 samples, finding that the majority had either spoiled after being exposed to high temperatures, had been combined with cheap refined oil, or had been made from damaged olives.
In 2015 the National Consumers League followed up on the study, testing 11 products taken from supermarket shelves. More than half were found lacking, prompting NCL to file a complaint with the US Food and Drug Administration. Still, little has been done to regulate the mislabeled oil. Even though the USDA set standards for the industry in 2010, they are rarely enforced.
This week, 60 Minutes’ producer Guy Campanile did an exposé on the corrupt, Mafia-run, $16-billion Italian olive oil industry that mislabels products sold on supermarket shelves:
The most common type of fraud, Campanile explains, is mixing Italian extra-virgin with lower quality olive oils from North Africa and around the Mediterranean. In other cases, a bottle labeled “extra-virgin olive oil” may not be olive oil at all, just a seed oil like sunflower made to look and smell like olive oil with a few drops of chlorophyll and beta-carotene. “Olive oil fraud has gone on for the better part of four millennia,” Campanile says. “The difference now is that the food supply chain is so vast, so global, and so lucrative that it’s easy for the bad guys to either introduce adulterated olive oils or mix in lower quality olive oils with extra-virgin olive oil.”
The problem has been ongoing for years. In 2007, investigative journalist Tom Mueller broke the story in The New Yorker, exposing the nefarious practices used by olive oil producers and has since written a book, Extra Virginity: The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil.
On his blog this week, Mueller reports that Italian authorities have begun to crack down. In November, they launched an investigation into seven of the biggest brands—Antica Badia, Bertolli, Carapelli, Coricelli, Primadonna, Santa Sabina, and Sasso—believed to fraudulently labeling their products, and just last month raided production facilities:
A hundred military police officers in Puglia, acting on orders from anti-mafia investigators, executed search and seizure warrants at olive oil companies that revealed the existence of 7,000 tons of dubious oil. Though marked as “100% Italian,” prosecutors allege that much of the oil was imported from Syria, Turkey, Tunisia and Morocco…Investigators are still scrutinizing these 7,000 tons of oil, much of which appears to have been sold already in Italy, the USA and Japan; insiders say that the oil’s allegedly false provenance may not the only thing wrong with it.
With so much bad oil still being sold in supermarkets, Mueller and Consumer Reports have created lists of olive oils you can trust. Food Renegade recommends that it’s best to buy local.
Still, the issue is long from being solved—and points to the much bigger problems that come when food regulation is lacking.
“The battle now being fought in Italy over olive oil is part of a larger world war over food authenticity,” Mueller writes. “At stake is every consumer’s right to know the basics of what they eat: where your food comes from, who made it, what’s in it.” |
Researchers at Carnegie Institution say corals are being overwhelmed by rising carbon dioxide in the atmosphere
The world's coral reefs will begin to disintegrate before the end of the century as rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere make the oceans more acidic, scientists warn.
The research points to a looming transition in the health of coral ecosystems during which the ability of reefs to grow is overwhelmed by the rate at which they are dissolving.
More than 9,000 coral reefs around the world are predicted to disintegrate when atmospheric carbon dioxide levels reach 560 parts per million.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere today stands at around 388ppm, but is expected to reach 560ppm by the end of this century.
Coral reefs are at the heart of some of the most biodiverse marine ecosystems in the world. They are home to more than 4,000 species of fish and provide spawning, refuge and feeding areas for marine life such as crabs, starfish and sea turtles.
"These ecosystems which harbour the highest diversity of marine life in the oceans may be severely reduced within less than 100 years," said Dr Jacob Silverman of the Carnegie Institution in Stanford University, California.
Coral reefs grow their structural skeletons by depositing aragonite, a form of calcium carbonate, from calcium ions in sea water. As oceans absorb atmospheric carbon dioxide, they become so acidic the calcium carbonate dissolves.
Silverman's team studied a coral reef in the northern Red Sea and calculated its response to increasingly acidic waters. The research showed that the ability of the coral to build new structures depended strongly on water acidity and to a lesser extent temperature.
From these data the researchers created a global map of more than 9,000 coral reefs, which showed that all are threatened with disintegration when carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere reach 560ppm. Silverman was speaking at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in San Diego.
In a separate study, Simon Donner, an environmental scientist at the University of British Columbia in Canada, warned that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is already at a high enough level to cause devastating coral bleaching.
Corals have a symbiotic relationship with microscopic algae that live on them. The algae give coral reefs their vibrant colours, but are also an important food source for the habitat's marine life. When sea temperatures rise, the corals expel the algae and turn white. Once this happens the coral is deprived of energy and dies.
"Even if we froze emissions today, the planet still has some warming left in it. That's enough to make bleaching dangerously frequent in reefs worldwide," said Donner.
Bleaching had become increasingly widespread in recent years, Donner said. In 2006, severe bleaching struck the southern part of Australia's Great Barrier Reef, the largest coral reef system in the world. Last year scientists reported that a "lucky combination" of circumstances had allowed the coral to recover from the disaster. |
Welcome Stranger to OCC! Login | Register World's Thinnest OLED Screen Category:
Posted: May 26, 2010 07:58PM
Author: More
Category: Science & Technology Posted:07:58PMAuthor: bp9801 Sony, leading manufacturer of all things electronic, has unveiled the world's thinnest OLED screen today. How thin is it? Well, it is so thin that it can be wrapped around a pencil. That's right, this OLED screen is flexible enough to be wrapped around a pencil all while displaying a video. The OLED screen is 80μm-thick which puts it just a little bit thinner than a human hair. The whole screen measures in at 4.1 inches while having a resolution of 432 x 240. The contrast ratio is just a bit under 1000:1 for the screen. The main thing today is exactly how thin this screen is and also that it can display a video while being rolled up. Seems to me like Sony has something on its hands with this flexible OLED screen. I can only imagine some of the products that could use this in the future.
World's Thinnest OLED Screen |
Charles Darwin's studies of heredity, adaptation and evolution included many experiments into the effects of crossbreeding and inbreeding in both plants and animals. Such consanguineous pairing often resulted in weaker, more sickly descendants.
Ironically, his own lineage and marriage could have been experiments as well. At the age of 29, he proposed to his first cousin, Emma Wedgwood, the daughter of his mother's brother. Darwin realized the dangers of inbreeding and wondered if his close genetic relation to his wife had had an ill impact on his children's health, three (of 10) of whom died before the age of 11. In a letter to friend, Darwin noted his concern for his children, writing that "they are not very robust."
Darwin's marriage to his cousin was not the only mixing of blood in the two lines. The Darwin-Wedgwood family in fact had several instances of close family matches, and a new analysis, published online May 3 in the journal BioScience, shows that some of Darwin's concerns about his offspring's health might have been valid.
The analysis, led by Tim Berra, professor emeritus in the Department of Evolution, Ecology and Organismal Biology at the Ohio State University in Mansfield, found that Darwin's kids did have "a moderate level of inbreeding" and in the family's children, there was "a significant positive association between child mortality and inbreeding."
When two individuals mate, genetic material from both parents is passed on to the progeny. So even if one parent carries a harmful recessive trait, the other parent is likely to have a healthier version, which will manifest itself in the offspring. If both parents, however, carry a recessive allele—which is more likely to happen if they share much of their genetic material, as close relatives do—then they raise the chances that their child will have only the bad genes.
Berra and his colleagues' assessment of 25 nuclear families across four generations of Darwins and Wedgwoods found a slightly lower-than-average child mortality rate compared with the general population of the time. But in those nuclear families with higher levels of inbreeding, offspring had an estimated 5.4 percent reduction in fitness. And the autosomal genomes of Charles Darwin's children were likely more than 6 percent identical (that is, homozygous). That number represents about four times the amount of overlap than children of second cousins would be expected to have.
Although none of Darwin's children had obvious documented physical or mental deformities, the three who died appear to have suffered from infectious disease, which is more likely to be contracted in those with higher levels of inbreeding, Berra and his colleagues noted. One died at 23 days old, and another, who was not developing normally, died at 18 months. The third likely died of tuberculosis, for which inbreeding increases the contraction risk.
Many famous and powerful families have been renowned for their pairing of close relatives, including the Hapsburgs and some ancient Egyptian pharaohs, and marrying relatives—both close and distant—was in general more common historically when groups were smaller and more isolated. But by Darwin's time it was already assumed that "consanguineous marriages lead to deafness & dumbness, blindness [etc.]," Darwin wrote in a letter to parliamentarian John Lubbock in 1870. Darwin had been hoping the government could accumulate broad population-based data about the frequency of cousins marrying and the health of their offspring, and he requested questions to this effect be included in England's census.
Darwin's request was denied, but his concern lives on today. More than half of the states in the U.S. have explicit limits on first-cousin marriages.
Image of Charles Darwin and his son William Darwin taken in 1842, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons |
Turkish PM and Egyptian president called upon to 'encourage a process of de-escalation' as Israel strikes Hamas PM's office
President Barack Obama has personally urged leaders in Turkey and Egypt to engage with Hamas over a "de-escalation" of hostilities in Gaza, while continuing to support Israeli strikes despite mounting Palestinian civilian casualties.
Speaking on board Air Force One en route to Asia, White House national security adviser Ben Rhodes blamed Hamas for the current round of violence, stating that the "precipitating factor" for Israeli air strikes were rockets fired into civilian territories from Gaza.
It comes as the Palestinian death toll continues to rise. Up to 41 Gazans, including 13 civilians, and three Israelis have been killed since the Israeli operation began. Palestinian authorities have said their dead included at least eight children and a pregnant woman.
Asked about the bombing of government buildings – including prime minister Ismail Haniyeh's offices – the US official said he wouldn't comment on "specific targeting choices" other than to say that the administration would "always underscore the importance of avoiding civilian casualties".
But Rhodes reiterated the White House view that Hamas was responsible for the latest outburst of violence.
"Just to be clear on the precipitating factor: these rockets had been fired into Israeli civilian areas and territory for some time now. So Israelis have endured far too much of a threat from these rocket for far too long, and that is what led the Israelis to take the action that they did in Gaza," he said.
He added that the US wanted the same thing as Israelis: "an end to the rocket fire coming out of Gaza".
The comments come as the White House increased its diplomatic efforts to end the violence in Gaza.
Obama has spoken to Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, it emerged on Saturday, along with Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi.
Both men have the "ability to play a constructive role in engaging Hamas and encouraging a process of de-escalation", Rhodes said.
However, on Saturday, Erdogan appeared to take a different side in the conflict, despite the call from Obama. The Turkish leader on Saturday vowed support for Gaza's Palestinians in a speech at Cairo University in Egypt. He also met Morsi for the first time since the Eggyptian Islamist leader was elected in late June, with Erdogan saying that that win at the polls offered hope to Palestinians.
The US has been reaching out to leaders across the Middle East as Israel and Hamas trade volleys of fire.
Secretary of state Hillary Clinton has spoken to the foreign ministers if Israel, Turkey and Egypt in the past few days, as well as Jordan's King Abdullah.
But the US has been clear in pledging its support for Israel, its staunch ally.
Obama, who was on Saturday making his way to south-east Asia for a three day trip, has spoken to prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu every day since the current round of Israeli air strikes in Gaza commenced.
At a briefing on Friday, a State Department spokeswoman summed up the US position: "We are urging a de-escalation of this conflict. We are urging those countries with influence on Hamas and other groups in Gaza to use that influence to get a de-escalation," the spokeswoman said.
"We support … Israel's right to self-defence, and we obviously express our regret and sadness for the loss of life on all sides."
Israel has seen the US stance as a clear signal that it has a virtually free hand.
On Friday, the Israeli ambassador to Washington, Michael Oren, said during a visit to Capitol Hill: "The United States has given us the full backing to take whatever measures are necessary to defend our citizens from Hamas terror." Meanwhile, the Palestinian delegation to Washington has condemned the US response to the crisis as "biased and weak".
Despite diplomatic efforts, the violence continued on Saturday.
Israeli air strikes hit the office building of the Hamas prime minister in Gaza, amid warnings of a dangerous escalation in the conflict with up to 75,000 Israeli reservists mobilised for a possible ground invasion.
An explosion and air raid sirens were also heard over the Israeli port city of Tel Aviv as Palestinian militants in Gaza continued to fire rocket salvoes across the border four days after Israel launched an air offensive. So far Israel has struck more than 800 targets in Gaza while Gaza officials there said about 500 rockets had been launched so far at Israel. |
Display that has been three years in the making ‘will not break no matter how many times the phone is dropped’, and is covered by four-year guarantee
Motorola has made a very bold claim. It says its latest top-end Android smartphone has a screen that’s not just shatter-resistant but shatterproof, no matter how many times you drop the phone.
If the screen does break in normal use, which includes drops, impacts and falls, but excludes deliberate abuse, Motorola will replace it under a four-year guarantee. .
The screen has been under development for three years, which means it spans both Google’s and Lenovo’s ownership of Motorola. Marcus Frost, senior marketing director for the company in Emea, insists that it is a wholly Motorola endeavour.
“In the past we’ve innovated just because we can. Now we’re attempting to make meaningful innovation, addressing consumer pain points of which battery life and smashed screens are key,” Frost said.
The five-layer screen has a user-replaceable, scratch-resistant top layer, otherwise known as a screen protector, two touchscreen layers – just in case one breaks – and two rigid layers to hold it together. The rest of the phone is not covered by the same four-year guarantee.
A 5.4in quad HD AMOLED display is sandwiched into the five-layer screen, giving it one of the highest pixel densities of any smartphone currently available at 540 pixels per inch. The higher the pixel density the sharper the screen.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Buyers can customise the phone using Motorola’s Maker service, with a variety of backs and colours available. Photograph: Motorola
The rest of the smartphone’s specifications are similar to other versions of the company’s Moto X line, including the phone’s splash resistance. It contains a Qualcomm’s top processor, the Snapdragon 810, and, like the Moto X Style, has 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage. It also has a two-day battery, like the Moto X Play.
The Moto X Force has a microSD card slot for adding extra storage and wireless charging, but no removable battery. The camera on the back is the same 21-megapixel sensor as used on the Moto X Style, but has optical image stabilisation for removing hand shake. The five-megapixel selfie camera on the front of the phone has its own LED flash.
The Moto X Force reads like a smartphone geek’s wishlist, with only one big exception: it doesn’t have a fingerprint scanner, which is quickly becoming the mark of a high-end smartphone.
It also ships running last year’s Android 5.1 Lollipop, not the latest Android 6.0 Marshmallow, but Motorola promises an update will be available.
The Moto X Force will be available in the middle of November in the UK costing £499 with 32GB of storage and £534 with 64GB, with various customisation options through Motorola’s Moto Maker site. |
Australia's first electric highway links Perth to South-West
Updated
A network of electrical charging stations dotted throughout Western Australia's South-West now forms the country's first extended road route for electric vehicles (EVs).
Most EV owners plug their cars into a socket at home and they can take anywhere from three to eight hours to fully charge.
Once charged, the car will only go as far as the size of the battery allows, which is about 150 kilometres for most common models.
This has made electric vehicles ideal for zipping around the CBD but difficult to take on longer trips.
But that is now a thing of the past for those who have their sights set on cruising through the South-West.
Anywhere where you've got power lines running past, you can put a charging station. Dr Chris Jones
From Perth to the beachside tourist town of Augusta, 310 kilometres from the capital, 12 publicly accessible charging stations will take just 30 minutes to fully charge a vehicle.
There are fewer than 150 EV owners in Western Australia but it was hoped access to the chargers would encourage more people to buy the cars, which start at $39,000.
The RAC funded the Electric Highway and president Esme Bowen said she hoped the bright yellow charging stations would get people talking.
"I think it's just about getting people exposed to them and I think this highway will give people the opportunity to think, 'What's that car doing? What does it do? What does it mean?'," Ms Bowen said.
Charging stations expected to be built across the country
Dr Chris Jones from the Australian Electric Vehicle Association said there was a reason there were so few EV owners in Australia.
"We do have longer distances than most to travel and so the limited range of the current fleet of EVs plays a part in that," he said.
"We also don't have any government incentives whatsoever whereas most other nations have got something."
The start-up costs are on the more expensive side, but the cost of running an EV is just a fraction of fuel-powered cars.
Owners can use the new charging stations for free until the end of the year when it will start costing between $3 and $5 for a full charge.
Dr Jones said while electricity was not a completely green option, it was preferable to using petrol or diesel.
"EVs aren't saints, the batteries need to come from resources that are dug out of the ground, but they will run on virtually zero carbon emissions if you charge it from solar or wind for the rest of its life, as the majority of EV owners do," he said.
Dr Jones said it was just a matter of time before similar charging stations were built across the country.
"All it took was a bit of motivation; it's an elegantly simple system. All of the infrastructure to deliver the energy is already there, it's just a case of putting the right charger there," he said.
"Anywhere where you've got power lines running past you can put a charging station."
Topics: environment, environmental-impact, human-interest, climate-change, wa, bunbury-6230, augusta-6290
First posted |
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I have never understood why hospital managers don't crawl, on bended knee, from one end of their trust to the other, begging staff to tell them what's going on, what's wrong and what needs fixing. Why do senior managers insulate themselves from the frontline?
Instead they have policies, procedures, guidance and toolkits. The bureaucracy that stifles speaking up is fruitlessly employed in the task of encouraging speaking out.
To understand the plight of the whistleblower working with 7,000 or more colleagues, is to understand the loneliness, the dilemma, and the fear and the courage it takes for a junior doctor to denounce a careless, crass and cack-handed consultant; the guts needed for a young nurse to take on the might of management and say, "the nurse-patient ratios where I work are dangerous"; the bottle required for a line manager to denounce the budget pairing that endangers life and limb.
To blow the whistle inevitably means suspension, which means isolation and the forensic scrutiny of personal practice and motives. It means seclusion, suspicion and colleagues put under huge pressure to take sides. The evidence shows that most whistleblowers lose their jobs.
The management bugle is louder than the whistle. Trust management must decide if this is a complainant or a campaign, an axe grinder or someone with a real point, a grudge bearer or standard bearer for issues that must not be ignored. But when an investigation is carried out, it is by trusts themselves – judge and jury in their own court.
Ministers make fruitless laws about candour and honesty. They misunderstand the corrosive climate of fear surrounding NHS staff who have seen how other whistleblowers have been pilloried and denounced.
Internal complaints procedures first go through the line manager, someone likely to be part of the problem. Escalating concerns, to a director, is daunting. An executive open-door policy does not make it easy for staff to walk off the frontline and through the door on the fifth floor.
Serious allegations need forensic evidence that whistleblowers may not have. Trade unions struggle to have their voices heard and MPs are off the horizon. The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman, the Mental Health Act commissioner and Public Concern at Work add to the complexity and even the best employers are mired in Nursing and Midwifery Council, General Medical Council procedures, guidance, and employment law.
Staff acting in good faith, with reasonable evidence that a concern is true, and who have no personal gain to make from complaining should be encouraged to speak out. Why aren't they?
I'll tell you. The success of the NHS is linked to the political fortunes of whoever is in power. It's called "managing up". Passing good news up the line; better no news than bad news, which is never passed up the line. To manage up, you also have to manage down and choke off failure, bad practice and complaints. Hence a corrosive culture of bullying and fear becomes part of an organisation.
There are four things we could do:
1 No trust should investigate its own whistleblowing complaints. Neutral, outside trusts should do it.
2 Safe havens for whistleblowers; hosted in neutral trusts, so that they may carry on working while investigations are undertaken.
3 Recognition that a mention of whistleblowing policies, during the induction process, is not enough.
4 Senior managers should be a permanent fixture on the shop floor, asking staff "how are we doing?" and "what do I need to know today?".
And a national Whistleblowing Day might create a climate of collective courage and action.
The chief executive at Watford NHS trust, Sam Jones, hosts a daily staff walk-in open forum she calls Onion to "peel back the layers", early morning sessions where scores of staff turn up and talk about problems and successes.
Managers, like Jones, understand laws, guidance and policies will not change the perils of whistleblowing. It takes organisations with courage to hold up a mirror, look at themselves and reflect on what they are missing if they don't ask.
Roy Lilley will be talking at the Speaking Out Summit on the subject of speaking up and whistleblowing on Thursday 8 May.
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James McAvoy has revealed that he has still not watched Trance, his new film made with Oscar-winning director Danny Boyle, since it wrapped.
[James McAvoy in Welcome to the Punch]
The Scottish star, who is currently treading the boards in an 80-performance run of Macbeth at London’s Trafalgar Studios, said he is prepared for a few surprises when he does finally see the finished work:
“I have not seen it since it was finished. And knowing Danny, he radically changes things on a whim – well, not on a whim… I’m actually quite intrigued to see it.”
Trance is Boyle’s first film since 127 Hours, and was completed just before his preparations began as creative director of the London 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremony.
In the thriller McAvoy plays an auction house employee who visits a hypnotherapist (Rosario Dawson) after losing his memory during the theft of a painting.
McAvoy, who won widespread acclaim for his role as a young Scottish doctor who becomes personal physician to Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in The Last King of Scotland, said it was fun to play a character with several layers again:
“It’s the best thing you get to do, isn’t it? You get the audience onside and you go, ‘You’ve got to trust me, feel sorry for me…’ Then you do something to the audience. That’s what I love. “I’ve done it a couple of times. I did it in Last King of Scotland – ‘Hey, I’m just an normal boy, a backpacker…’ But by the end of it, people are going, ‘You’re a f***ing c***!’” he laughs. “You’ve made them feel for you, up until the start point where you start really f***ing up. “And I like that – it’s good fun to do. And in Trance the challenge was playing such a sap, playing such a pitiful character.”
After a self-imposed career break to help actress wife Anne-Marie Duff raise their young son, McAvoy will be an almost constant presence at cinemas for the rest of 2013.
Before Trance hits screens, there is the British thriller Welcome to the Punch, in which McAvoy plays a detective with one last chance to catch a former criminal played by Mark Strong.
McAvoy believes Welcome to the Punch is not your typical British flick:
“There are guns in it, and cops and robbers. But it’s a sophisticated cops and robbers movie. It’s very un…” he begins. “It’s not what Britain does a lot. It looks like a Michael Mann movie,” he says of the director of Heat, “melded with a Hong Kong actioner. It feels to me like British movies quite often feel too modest to go for it.” “I’ve got slick suits at the beginning, then I’m T-shirt and jeans. And the slickness is left to Mark Strong. My guy’s a little more unravelled than slick suits. And by the end we’re just bulletproof-vested and bloodied up.”
You can also see McAvoy later this year in the Irvine Welsh adaptation Filth, and American film The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby, in which he stars alongside Jessica Chastain (Zero Dark Thirty).
Read the full interview in Scotland on Sunday.
Welcome to the Punch is released this Friday (March 15) and Trance is out on March 27.
Are you looking forward to Trance or Welcome to the Punch? Tell us in the comments below, on Twitter with #wow247 or on our Facebook page. |
Senate Democrats, led by Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa, say they will fight any cuts in the federal Pell Grant program, for which spending has ballooned to the point that the Obama administration admits it can’t be maintained.
In its 2012 budget proposal for the Department of Education, the administration called the program’s growth “rapid and unsustainable,” but despite the grim numbers and Republican proposals for big cuts, Mr. Harkin on Monday said Pell Grants must be protected against any reductions.
“Any reduction to the Pell program would come at a much higher cost for our country down the road,” Mr. Harkin, chairman of the Health, Education Labor and Pensions Committee, told The Washington Times, adding that while “tough budget decisions” are needed, Congress must raise taxes and cut spending elsewhere while “continuing to make investments in education.”
Education Secretary Arne Duncan last month projected the program, designed to help low-income students afford college, could face a $20 billion shortfall in 2012, another in a recent run of annual deficits that has been been masked in past years.
President Obama’s 2009 stimulus plan, for example, funneled $15.6 million into Pell Grants. A bill last year to rework the administration’s health-care plan dumped in $13.5 billion, but the program still had a $8.6 billion shortfall, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
The administration wants $41.2 billion in the fiscal 2012 budget to keep Pell Grants at a $5,550 maximum per student. House Republicans voted to slash that to $4,015 per student as part of House Resolution 1, a 2011 spending plan voted down in the Senate last month.
But Republicans seem ready for a fight. Sen. Michael B. Enzi, Wyoming Republican and HELP Committee member, called for “systemic changes” to the program Monday.
House Republicans also are pushing reform.
“I supported the Pell spending reductions in H.R. 1 … Doing nothing while spending spirals out of control is not a responsible option,” said Rep. Virginia Foxx, North Carolina Republican and chairman of the education subcommittee on higher education and workforce training.
The administration has proposed several changes it hopes can save the program.
First, Mr. Obama and Mr. Duncan want to eliminate interest subsidies for graduate and professional students, saving an estimated $2.2 billion in 2012 and $32.9 billion over the next decade. Second, the administration hopes to axe the “two Pells” provision, under which students who attend college year-round could get two grants during the same calendar year.
But outside scholars believe the proposed remedies, particularly the elimination of “two Pells,” is window dressing.
“It isn’t going to save any money. It’s just going to push back graduations,” said David M. Canaski, president of Financial Aid Training and Consulting and former director of financial advisement at the State University of New York-Cortland.
Mr. Canaski said the administration’s plan, while saving money year to year, could discourage the best students from completing college in fewer than four years since they would have to pay for a third semester with no government help.
The program’s price tag continues to increase largely because the cost of college keeps skyrocketing. Since 1980, Pell Grant funding has gone up 480 percent, but tuition has followed suit, rising 439 percent, according to Lindsey Burke, an education policy analyst with the Heritage Foundation.
“[The Pell program] has done nothing to mitigate the college cost problem,” she said.
Copyright © 2019 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission. |
1. Horses do not seem to colic because the weather changes. It’s hot one day – it’s cool the next. Or the rain moves in. Your horse colics. What could be a more reasonable association? But the weather changes all of the time, and horses colic all of the time (colic is, after all, the most common medical condition of the horse). One seems not to have anything to do with the other – at least, not consistently, according to the studies – but since they both occur often, it’s easy to make an association. Most studies have even shown that weather changes don’t cause colic. If you’d like to see a few of the studies, including one that does show an association, Study 1, Study 2, Study 3 and Study 4.
On the other hand, I’m not sure what you would do with information that weather changes cause colic if it were true. It kind of reminds me of the old joke about the silly person who, upon finding out that most automobile accidents occur within 25 miles of your home, moved. The association between weather and colic isn’t confirmed, but it’s not something that you could do anything about, even if it were true. I don’t really worry much about things like that.
2. Horses don’t twist their intestines when they roll. Have you ever seen a horse lie down and roll, happily scratching his back and rubbing his sides in the dirt? Have you ever seen a horse develop a twisted intestine afterwards? Didn’t think so.
Horses that are uncomfortable from the pain of colic will often lie down and roll. They are trying to find a way to get comfortable, just like when you lie down on the couch after, say, a bad meal. Horses with colic pain will often change positions and roll around. They’re just trying to get comfortable: trying to get away from the pain.
So here’s another curious observational fallacy. The pain that occurs from a twisted intestine is extreme. One of the ways that horses with intestinal twists (volvulus, strangulation, entrapment, and such) show that extreme pain is by rolling around. But it’s the twist that comes first, not the other way around. In human medicine, it’s thought that intestines twist around scar tissue, or maybe from the weight of feed – to my knowledge, no one knows if there’s anything like that in horses. If you’re really interested in this problem in humans, CLICK HERE to read a great article from MEDSCAPE.
If a horse is beating himself up from rolling around frantically in pain, there’s certainly ample reason to keep him from doing so. However, if your horse rolls, the gut isn’t in danger of twisting. In the worst cases, it has probably already done so.
3. Walk your horse, no matter what. I think that the idea that horses need to be walked when they have a colic probably comes from the concern over twisting a gut. “If they can’t lie down, they can’t twist their gut,” is how the thinking must go, I guess.
Walking is not directly therapeutic for a colic. If a horse is relatively comfortable lying down, there’s no real reason to get him up just so that he can walk. Imagine you, on the couch, feeling bad after that spicy food your ordered against your better judgment; how would you feel if someone came up to you and said, “OK, let’s go, we’re going for a walk.” Justifiable homicide, in my book.
That said, there may be some slight benefit to walking a horse with colic. It may help distract the horse with a mild case colic, and help him forget about his pain. It also gives the owner something to do until the veterinarian arrives!
4. Banamine® (flunixin meglumine) is a potent pain reliever for your horse with colic. When it was first released, a few decades ago, flunixin was heavily advertised as the”drug to treat colic (with some beautiful illustrations). Based on those advertisements, it seems that horse owners have learned that the drug is a “must” for treating horses with colic. In fact, some people even say that it is so potent that it works within minutes of its administration, (which, given what we know about how the drug works, isn’t possible).
The scientific evidence doesn’t back up the idea that flunixin is a very potent drug, and it certainly doesn’t seem to be a “must” for treating a horse with colic. In fact, experimental studies on the drug have shown that it’s not very effective at all at treating the pain of colic (CLICK HERE). Flunixin is a useful drug in certain circumstances, but it’s not a miracle drug for anything.
NOTE: There’s no reason at all to give any drug for any condition, without a proper diagnosis. If you have flunixin in a medicine chest or tack box, I personally don’t think you should give it to your horse with colic without consulting with your veterinarian first.
5. Add “alternative” treatments to help your horse with colic. Some people may add things such as acupuncture or massage to their efforts to help a horse with colic. Others may add any number of supplements that are said to help prevent colic, or do such things as “aiding” in digestion. Keeping horses is expensive enough – save your money.
In general, there’s no evidence at all to indicate that any “alternative” things are helpful, either in the prevention or treatment of colic.* In the case of acupuncture, there’s good evidence that it doesn’t help at all (CLICK HERE). If your horse has a colic, focus on getting quick and proper diagnosis and treatment. Don’t look for any “alternatives” to that!**
When it comes to colic, the two most important things to keep in mind that 1) It’s the most common medical condition of the horse, and 2) most cases of colic will resolve on their own, or with medical treatments (of course, there are many individual exceptions). Adding treatments that lack evidence of effectiveness only adds to your costs, not to mention anxiety. Of course, if you’re worried – and in some cases, you certainly should be – you should always consult with your veterinarian. Keeping a level head is always the best way to go!
For more information on colics and Dr. Ramey visit www.doctorramey.com |
(CNN) -- U.S. gasoline prices increased nearly 33 cents in two weeks, the second-biggest two-week jump in the history of the gasoline market, according to a new survey of filling stations.
The latest Lundberg Survey of cities in the continental United States was conducted Friday. It showed the national average for a price of self-serve unleaded gasoline at $3.51, an increase of 32.7 cents from the last survey two weeks earlier, survey publisher Trilby Lundberg said.
The jump was the biggest since a 38-cent hike between August and September 2005. At the time, the price increase was driven by damage caused by Hurricane Katrina.
"This time around, the spike comes not from nature, but from people," Lundberg said. "The armed struggle in Libya has shocked international oil markets and here it is at the pump."
As the fighting between opposition forces and Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's troops begins to look more like a civil war, expect prices to continue to rise, she said.
Prices have risen nearly 82 cents since September 2010, the survey found.
While Libya is not among the top suppliers of U.S. oil, and only 3% of Libyan oil exports head to the United States, global economics link the events there to the pumps at home.
Libya produces a light, high-gravity crude oil that is most in demand by less complex refineries around the world, Lundberg said. As this oil becomes unavailable, it forces buyers of crude to substitute crude with similar properties from other oil producers, thereby increasing demand and starting a chain reaction that raises prices of crude and gasoline in the United States.
The current average price of $3.51 is 61 cents below the all-time high price recorded in July 2008. Today's price is 78 cents higher than a year ago, Lundberg said.
On a side note, Lundberg noted that the rising gas prices could dampen the nation's economic recovery. Gas demand -- one of the reflections of the American economy -- has been growing at a rate of 1%, she said.
"Higher prices today are certainly capable of halting that gasoline demand growth, which would reflect bad news in the economy," she said.
The Lundberg Survey sampled prices at about 2,500 gas stations. Of the cities surveyed, the highest average price in the continental United States was in San Diego at $3.87 per gallon. The lowest price was in Billings, Montana, at $3.15.
California has garnered headlines lately for its high gas prices, though the average price in the state remained below $4, at $3.83 per gallon for regular gas. The average California price for premium does break that barrier, at $4.04 per gallon.
Average per-gallon prices in other cities:
-Charleston, South Carolina: $3.32
-Houston: $3.36
-Atlanta: $3.43
-Boston: $3.48
-Las Vegas: $3.51
-Seattle: $3.60
-Chicago: $3.75 |
Experts know far more than they did about daily life in North Korea, but very little about the country's elite politics
North Korea's vicious denunciation of Jang Song-thaek offered unprecedented detail of the case against him – but did not necessarily help analysts understand why he was purged, as the multiple and conflicting surmises about his removal indicate.
While experts have vastly more information on daily life in the country than a few years ago, basic details of elite politics remain a mystery.
When Kim Jong-il vanished from public view in 2008, world leaders were left to wonder whether he was even alive; it later emerged he had suffered a stroke. News of his death in 2010 did not leak before Pyongyang's announcement two days later.
"We don't even know when Kim Jong-un was born – how do we dare to pretend we know anything that goes beyond that?" said Ruediger Frank of the University of Vienna, who has spent 25 years following the country.
"There's very little that we know for sure."
North Korea watchers have limited tools at their disposal. One of the most important is simply parsing official propaganda and comparing it to historical precedent, sometimes judging the absences and omissions to be as significant as what appears.
Others say that information from defectors and outsiders who deal with North Koreans is gradually expanding knowledge of top-level affairs. Much of the information on the Kim family's personal affairs has come from Kim Jong-il's former sushi chef, a Japanese citizen who worked for the late leader for several years. Snippets have also come from Kim Jong-il's eldest son, Kim Jong-nam, who lives in Macau.
"Up until the last few years, even the intelligence agencies didn't know much. The US agencies still don't, but South Korea now have extremely good knowledge," said Hazel Smith, a North Korea expert at the University of Central Lancashire.
"They have hugely improved human intelligence sources. People are phoning out of the North on mobile phones. North Korean agents are coming into South Korea – which means South Koreans are going into the North. You have a whole stream of information which you never used to have."
The North's announcement of Jang's expulsion from the party and removal from his posts was presaged by briefings from South Korean intelligence last week. The two aides who the spy agency said had been executed were attacked as "confidants" in Friday's KCNA report.
The South has benefited from a number of well-placed defectors who were not at top levels of the system but had a good sense of how it was working, Smith said. There are widespread rumours that the purge of Jang has led to attempts by senior aides to defect.
Foreigners involved in business deals with the North are another conduit for information, Smith said, and the South is also likely to have some access to signal intelligence.
But with tight controls on who knows what, strictly limited access for foreigners and heavy potential punishment for those who let information slip, North Korea's elite remains one of the most secretive in the world. |
Nicolas Ghesquière by Juergen Teller | Source: System
PARIS, France — After months of silence, Nicolas Ghesquière has finally spoken out.
System magazine's Jonathan Wingfield interviewed Nicolas Ghesquière several times between early December 2012 and late March 2013. This was the first time Ghesquière had chosen to speak publicly about his shock departure after 15 years at Balenciaga.
Ghesquière opens up about why he left Balenciaga, his thoughts and impressions about the current state of the fashion industry and what the future has in store. As he mentions at one point in this defining conversation, “The best way to move forward is to go back to work.”
What follows is a global exclusive excerpt from the interview.
At what point into the job at Balenciaga did you realise you needed to wise up to the business side of the brand?
NG: Straight away. It’s part of being a creative because the vision you have ends up in the stores. It actually makes me smile today when I think about it because it was me who had to invent the concept of being commercial at Balenciaga. Right from the start I wanted it to be commercial, but the first group who owned the house didn’t have the first notion of commerce; there was no production team. There was nothing.
What was your vision for the brand?
NG: For me, Balenciaga has a history that is just as important as that of Chanel, even if it’s a lesser-known name. It had the modernity, it was contemporary, and I’ve always positioned it as a little Chanel or Prada.
But what makes Chanel and Prada bigger structures?
NG: The people that surround the designers. Miuccia Prada has an extraordinary partner, whereas I was doing everything by myself.
So without the right people, building something as big as a Chanel or Prada is unimaginable?
NG: I don’t know if it’s impossible, maybe the system will change, but what’s clear is that those brands have family and partners surrounding them, and they have creative carte blanche. Prada, for example, has made this model where you can be a business and an opinion leader at the same time, which is totally admirable. It’s the same thing at Chanel. Sadly, I never had that. I never had a partner, and I ended up feeling too alone. I had a marvellous studio and design team who were close to me, but it started becoming a bureaucracy and gradually became more corporate, until it was no longer even linked to fashion. In the end, it felt as though they just wanted to be like any other house.
You’re saying this spanned from a lack of dialogue?
NG: From the fact that there was no one helping me on the business side, for example.
Can you be more specific?
NG: They wanted to open up a load of stores but in really mediocre spaces, where people weren’t aware of the brand. It was a strategy that I just couldn’t relate to. I found this garage space on Faubourg-Saint-Honoré; I got in contact with the real estate guy who’s a friend of a friend, and we started talking… And when I went back to Balenciaga, the reaction was, ‘Oh no, no, no, not Faubourg-Saint-Honoré, you can’t be serious?’ And I said yes really, the architecture is amazing, it’s not a classic shop. Oh really, really… then six months went by, six long months of negotiations… it was just so frustrating. Everything was like that.
And the conversations, like that one about the store, who would you have them with?
NG: I’d rather not say. There wasn’t really any direction. I think with Karl and Miuccia, you can feel that it’s the creative people who have the power. It was around that time that I heard people saying, ‘Your style is so Balenciaga now, it’s no longer Nicolas Ghesquière, it’s Balenciaga’s style.’ It all became so dehumanised. Everything became an asset for the brand, trying to make it ever more corporate – it was all about branding. I don’t have anything against that; actually, the thing that I’m most proud of is that Balenciaga has become a big financial entity and will continue to exist. But I began to feel as though I was being sucked dry, like they wanted to steal my identity while trying to homogenise things. It just wasn’t fulfilling anymore.
When was the first time you felt your ambitions for the house were no longer compatible with Balenciaga’s management?
NG: It was all the time, but especially over the last two or three years it became one frustration after another. It was really that lack of culture which bothered me in the end. The strongest pieces that we made for the catwalk got ignored by the business people. They forgot that in order to get to that easily sellable biker jacket, it had to go via a technically mastered piece that had been shown on the catwalk. I started to become unhappy when I realised that there was no esteem, interest, or recognition for the research that I’d done; they only cared about what the merchandisable result would look like. This accelerated desire meant they ignored the fact that all the pieces that remain the most popular today are from collections we made ten years ago. They have become classics and will carry on being so. Although the catwalk was extremely rich in ideas and products, there was no follow-up merchandising. With just one jacket we could have triggered whole commercial strategies. It’s what I wanted to do, but I couldn’t do everything. I was switching between the designs for the catwalk and the merchandisable pieces – I became Mr Merchandiser. There was never a merchandiser at Balenciaga, which I regret terribly.
Did you never go to the top of the group and ask for the support you needed?
NG: Yes, endlessly! But they didn’t understand. More than anything else, you need people who understand fashion. There are people I’ve worked with who have never understood how fashion works. They keep saying they love fashion, yet they’ve never actually grasped that this isn’t yoghurt or a piece of furniture - products in the purest sense of the term. They just don’t understand the process at all, and so now they’re transforming it into something much more reproducible and flat.
What’s the alternative to this?
NG: You need to have the right people around you: people who adore the luxury domain. There has to be a vision, but there also has to be a partner, a duo, someone to help you carry it. I haven’t lost hope!
At the time when you were starting to feel that frustration, did you talk to any other designers who were in the same situation?
NG: Yes. What’s interesting is how my split from Balenciaga has encouraged people to get in touch with me, and they’ve said, ‘Me too, I’m in the same situation. I want to leave too.’ There are others, but my situation at Balenciaga was very particular.
In spite of the increasingly stifling conditions you felt you were operating in, were you nonetheless scared by the prospect of leaving Balenciaga?
NG: I just said to myself, ‘Okay, well you have to leave, you have to cut the cord.’ But I didn’t say anything to anyone, apart from to a few very close people, because, you know, I’ve become pretty good at standing on my own two feet.
Once you’d decided enough was enough and you made your intentions clear, was management surprised that you wanted to leave?
NG: Yes. I think so, because I’d shown my ambitions for the house. There’d been lots of discussions, of course, and there were clearly some differences, but that sort of decision doesn’t just come out of nowhere. I’d been thinking a lot too. I was having trouble sleeping at one point. [Laughs] But there’s usually something keeping me awake.
After the announcement, did lots of people in the fashion world contact you?
NG: I didn’t actually see all the reactions straight away because I was in Japan at the time; one of my best friends had taken me on something of a spiritual trip to observe people who make traditional lacquer and obi belts; it was such a privileged environment with tea ceremonies. On the other side of the world, there was this violent announcement being made. When I got back to Paris I saw the press, and with all the commentary going on I actually learnt things about myself; it was quite beautiful in fact. Generally the reaction had been very positive, even on Twitter there were some very satisfactory things being written. Ultimately, I felt okay in the end because it seemed very dignified. I haven’t expressed myself up until now, but I would like to say thank you to everyone, I really am very grateful.
Did you ever think about making a personal announcement?
NG: No, I never wanted to express myself like that. I don’t know how to do that.
What’s the most exciting thing about this period of time for you?
NG: Preparing for the next chapter and having the time to observe what’s going on in the industry. People could have forever associated me with Balenciaga. We saw clearly when the split took place that there was a desire for my name, so I disassociated myself naturally from the house. That could have been a risk. It would have been different if Balenciaga had disassociated itself from me, but people had seen me develop my signature and knew that it might happen. That’s exciting because whatever choice I make, the possibilities are open, and that was confirmed with the freeing of my name from Balenciaga. I’d made so much effort and been such a good obedient kid in associating myself… Now I can imagine a whole new vocabulary. I’m regenerating again, and that’s very exciting because it’s a feeling I haven’t had since I was in my twenties.
Guest-edited by Marie-Amélie Sauvé, the debut issue of System magazine hits newsstands this week. In addition to the full interview with Nicolas Ghesquière, it includes interviews with designers Azzedine Alaïa and Valentino, art director Marc Ascoli, and former Louis Vuitton chief executive Yves Carcelle. |
For most in Brazil, what happened in the Rasunda Stadium in 1958 was a gleeful affirmation of what they had always known. They were the world's great football nation and beating the hosts, Sweden, in the final was vindication after the trauma of the defeat to Uruguay in the Maracanã eight years earlier. In an asylum in Barbacena in the state of Minas Gerais, patients clustered anxiously round a radio as the game entered the final minute. A cross came over, Pelé rose and made it 5-2: the world title was confirmed. Patients and staff celebrated together – all except one. In his room, alone, Heleno de Freitas filled his mouth with cigarettes, lit them all and tried to smoke himself to death.
A decade earlier, Heleno had been Brazil's greatest forward. He had dreamed of playing in a World Cup, of winning it for Brazil. What Pelé did at 17, he had yearned for and had the talent to achieve. For him, hearing of Pelé's success was too much. He was prevented from committing suicide but from then on his dementia worsened. He ate the newspaper clippings detailing his triumphs, peeling them from the wall where a nurse had lovingly pasted them, and drifted deeper into decline. He died the following year aged just 39.
"Heleno de Freitas was clearly a gypsy," the Uruguayan poet Eduardo Galeano wrote. "He had Rudolph Valentino's face and the temper of a mad dog. On the playing field he sparkled. One night, in a casino, he lost all his money. Another night, who knows where, he lost all his desire to live."
The Brazilian actor Rodrigo Santoro, who played Xerxes in 300 but is probably still best known in Britain as the bloke in the preposterously expensive Baz Luhrmann-directed Chanel advert with Nicole Kidman, had not heard of Heleno when he was approached by the director Jose Henrique Fonseca. "He brought a photograph of Heleno," Santoro said, "and my first impression was very strong. There was something about him that caught the attention, an elegance."
The actor and director had been looking for a project to work on together and Santoro, without seeing a script, knew this was it. The result is a highly unusual football film, shot in black and white with a self-conscious artistry, a languid portrait of a genius seduced into oblivion by his own demons and by the temptations of the Rio de Janeiro of the 40s.
Fonseca and Santoro had Marcos Eduardo Neves's biography Nunca Houve um Homem Como Heleno to use as source material and scoured Rio looking for people who had known Heleno or seen him play. Santoro discovered his 96-year-old grandfather, a Botafogo fan, had watched him. "There was no footage, just pictures," Santoro said. "But it didn't matter whether people hated him or loved him, he left his mark." He found frustration at talent wasted, anger at how badly Heleno had treated people – women particularly – and adoration for the player he had been. "The guy was a myth," Santoro said. "He was lost in time. He'd been the biggest celebrity at the time and the 40s really saw the birth of soccer. It wasn't cool to be a player at the time; soccer didn't have a good reputation. He was wealthy, he was a prince in Rio society and he left it all behind to be a soccer player."
Heleno, as tradition demands, was spotted juggling oranges on the beach and signed by Botafogo at the age of 17. Two years later, he was in the first team, scoring goals, berating team-mates and opponents, creating his legend. He qualified as a lawyer, but by the early 40s he was the clear star of Botafogo. Fans adapted carnival songs to celebrate him and he would respond by dancing samba on the pitch and mimic distributing bananas to the stands. And he scored goals – lots of them.
Galeano describes – with his usual romanticism – a strike against Flamengo in 1947: "Heleno had his back to the net. The ball flew down from above. He trapped it with his chest and whipped around without letting it fall. His body arched, the ball still resting on his chest, he surveyed the scene. Between him and the goal stood a multitude. There were more people in Flamengo's area than in all Brazil. If the ball hit the ground he was lost. So Heleno started walking and calmly crossed the enemy lines with his body curved back and the ball on his chest. No one could knock it off him without committing a foul, and he was in the goal area. When Heleno reached the goalmouth, he straightened up. The ball slid to his feet and he scored."
But by then, the decline had already begun. Heleno was not just a great player, he was an inveterate drinker, gambler and womaniser, a man of great charm and recklessness. He became addicted to ether, soaking a handkerchief in it and sniffing it for a temporary but damaging high. At some point, he contracted syphilis but always refused treatment, terrified as to the potential impact in his playing career.
He went to the 1945 South American championship in Chile and finished as joint top scorer, but Brazil lost out to Argentina by a point. When he returned, he drove a motorbike across the pitch at Botafogo's training ground and, after being asked to speak to his team-mates to stress their unity ahead of the new season, ended up attacking them for not being as good as him. Fans loved him far more than his team-mates did. In a game against Fluminense, he responded to the jeers of the opposing fans by dropping his shorts and waving his testicles at them, before pointing to the scoreboard, which at the time read 1-1, and holding up two fingers. Almost immediately, Teixeirinha put Botafogo ahead; it was Heleno, though, rather than the goalscorer who was chaired from the field.
Botafogo had finished second in the Carioca championship in 1944 and 1945 and they did so again in 1946. That year Brazil, with Heleno up front, came second again in the South American Championship. Heleno became obsessed by two dreams: winning the World Cup, which had twice been postponed because of the second world war, and winning the Carioca championship.
His behaviour became increasingly erratic. Rival fans began to taunt him by chanting "Gilda", comparing him to the beautiful but impossibly temperamental character in the Rita Hayworth film. With four games of the 1947 season remaining, Botafogo trailed Vasco da Gama, who had played a game more, by four points. They met at the São Januário and drew 0-0. Still there was some hope but when Heleno missed a penalty against Fluminese in their next game with the score at 2-2, Botafogo were doomed to a fourth successive runners-up spot.
If the film is accurate, he reacted badly, punching a wall in the dressing-room until his hand was bleeding, refusing his bonus payments, accusing his team-mates of a lack of effort and then smashing a series of lockers. Carlito Rocha, the president of Botafogo, decided the star was the problem and sold Heleno to Boca Juniors. For the club, it was undoubtedly the right decision: they won the league in 1948. For Heleno, it was a disaster.
Without his wife, Ilma (although in the film she is called Silvia) to act as even some kind of check, he spun further out of control in Buenos Aires. He hated the cold of the Argentinian winter, training in an overcoat and, although he enjoyed his social life – even being rumoured to have had an affair with Eva Perón – he never settled. He returned, contrite, to Rio, but Rocha would not take him back.
Heleno joined Vasco, who won the title that season, but for him it was an empty triumph: he had long since been dropped. After being upbraided for his lackadaisical attitude in training, Heleno returned to the stadium with a gun, placed it against the head of the coach, Flavio Costa, and pulled the trigger. Thankfully it was not loaded.
After leaving Vasco, Heleno joined the rebel league in Colombia, playing for the Barranquilla side Atlético Junior. There he met Gabriel García Márquez, at the time a young journalist. "As a football player, Heleno de Freitas could blow hot and cold," he wrote. "But he was more than just a centre-forward. He was a permanent opportunity for others to speak ill of him."
It was in Barranquilla that Heleno discovered that Brazil had failed to secure the draw they needed against Uruguay to win the 1950 World Cup, the tournament that had for years been earmarked as his. Even had he managed a remarkable return to form in Colombia, he would never have been picked; Brazil had appointed Flavio Costa as coach. Would he have made a difference? Santoro believes so. "He'd played with Obdulio Varela [the Uruguay centre-half] in Argentina," he said. "He knew how to beat him." Well, perhaps, but football rarely offers absolute solutions and it is not as though Ademir, who did play at centre-forward and who had kept Heleno out of the team at Vasco, was a poor player.
Still driven by dreams of the Maracana, the vast concrete symbol of the new Brazil and of the might of Brazilian football, Heleno returned to Rio in 1951, signing for América. He spoke of winning titles and made his debut for them in the Maracana. The film shows him confused and disoriented, spinning in the lights as the game goes on around him. It was his final match. Within two years he had been consigned to the asylum.
In some ways, Heleno is not a football film. There is very little actual football in it – which is probably a good thing given the notorious difficulty of shooting the sport realistically – and what there is is impressionistic. There is rain, gleaming floodlights, challenges hissing by and the occasional thwack of ball on net but that is not where the drama of the film lies. Scorelines, on the handful of occasions they are necessary, are passed on via shots of a scoreboard or the next day's newspapers.
In part that was practical but it was also an artistic consideration. "It's very expensive to shoot football scenes," Santoro said, "getting all the extras and the crowds to look like the 1940s but this was a decision the director took right at the start. It's Heleno looking back from the institution and that's why it's so dreamlike." As Santoro readily agrees, Heleno could be about a pianist or a lawyer – professions the real Heleno seems to have considered if a letter to his mother is to be believed; it is a film about talent and one man's struggle to come to terms with the expectations that brings, both from himself and others.
It becomes a tragedy, the prince of Rio, the prince of Brazilian football, becomes the king of an asylum, goading and bullying other patients as he had once tried to dominate his team-mates. "He had an absolute desire for mastery," Santoro said. "He wanted to be bigger than life." In that dream, as in so many others, he was disappointed.
Heleno was released in the USA last week. Plans for a UK release have yet to be finalised. Jonathan Wilson's new book, The Outsider, was published last week and can be bought through the Guardian bookshop. A detailed history of Colombia's rebel league features in the latest issue of The Blizzard, which went on general sale this week. |
Updated at 11.50pm
THE LÉ SAMUEL Beckett will replace the LÉ Niamh in the Mediterranean at the end of September, the government has confirmed.
The coalition has decided to extend the mission of the Naval Service responding to the migrant crisis, with defence minister Simon Coveney noting today:
“The success of the operations carried out to date by L.É. Eithne and L.É. Niamh involving recovering over 6,000 migrants demonstrates clearly the value of Ireland’s participation in this important humanitarian response.”
The ‘Beckett’ was commissioned in May of last year at a naming ceremony beside the Samuel Beckett Bridge in Dublin city centre.
Manned by a crew of up to 44 personnel, she replaced the LÉ Emer which was decommissioned and sold in 2013.
She will be the third Naval Service vessel to be deployed to the region, after the LÉ Eithne was sent to respond to the crisis at the start of the summer.
According to a statement:
“The L.E. Samuel Beckett will replace the L.É. Niamh at the end of September and will deploy until 30 November 2015 dependent on the operational demands and requirements arising.”
The Minister added:
“While our role in the Mediterranean is making an impact in the short term in terms of saving lives, longer term solutions to address the migrant crisis are needed. I will be meeting my EU colleagues tomorrow at the Informal Ministerial meeting in Luxembourg to discuss a range of issues including progress of the EU military mission in the Mediterranean.”
The Minister concluded that ”a comprehensive approach is required to address this complex crisis with a view to developing longer term solutions ”. |
Get all the latest updates on Lok Sabha elections throughout the day:
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9.20 pm Senior leader and BJP’s Lok Sabha candidate from Jhansi, Uma Bharti, on Friday denied reports that she had written to party president Rajnath Singh and asked for a ticket from Bhopal.
8.50 pm: Congress’ city unit chief Narendra Rawat will take on Narendra Modi in Vadodara Lok Sabha constituency but the party is still undecided on a nominee to be fielded against the Bharatiya Janata Party’s prime ministerial candidate in Varanasi.
8.30 pm: Telugu actor Pawan Kalyan, Congress leader K Chiranjeevi’s brother, today met Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and declared support to him for the Prime Minister’s post.
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8.00 pm: Continuing his tirade against Narendra Modi, RJD President Lalu Prasad today called him a ‘sinner’ and said he will not be able to “wash his sins” at Varanasi.
7.38 pm: In an apparent dig at the Bharatiya Janata Party prime ministerial nominee Narendra Modi, West Bengal Chief Mnister Mamata Banerjee on Friday said she loved the people of Gujarat, but not ‘NaMo’ and termed the BJP as “communal”.
6.45 pm: Downplaying Shiv Sena’s decision to field candidates in UP and other states, BJP on Friday asserted that the two parties are “inseparable” and any “shortcoming” can be resolved through talks.
6.13 pm: Aam Aadmi Party candidate Ashutosh Srivastava today filed his nomination papers from Chandni Chowk Lok Sabha constituency.
6.08 pm: Former Punjab chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh against BJP’s Arun Jaitley in Amritsar
6.02 pm: I am grateful to Rajnath ji to trust me enough to give me this ticket: Colonel Sonaram Choudhary (BJP) on his LS ticket from Barmer.
5.58 pm: Hemlal Murmu, who joined the BJP recently, put in his papers from the membership of Jharkhand Assembly today. “Hemlal Murmu has resigned from Assembly membership,” Speaker Shashank Sekhar Bhokta said.
5.29 pm: MP Shivanand Tiwari today pledged his support to AAP and said he would campaign for AAP candidates in three Lok Sabha seats including Varanasi where Arvind Kejriwal may take on BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi.
4.58 pm:
Accompanied Dr.Harshvardhan to file his nomination from Chandni Chowk. Confident of winning this seat which BJP won twice when I contested. — Vijay Goel (@VijayGoelBJP) March 21, 2014
4.42 pm: Congress leader Ajay Maken and BJP spokesperson Meenakshi Lekhi today filed their nomination papers from the high-profile New Delhi Lok Sabha constituency.
4.35 pm: Infosys co-founder and Congress candidate Nandan Nilekani today filed his nominations for the Bangalore South Lok Sabha constituency, where he is locked in a tough battle against five-time MP BJP’s Ananth Kumar.
4.28 pm: Congress defector Sonaram to contest from Barmer after the BJP denied veteran party leader Jaswant Singh the opportunity.
03.59 pm: Jaswant Singh denied BJP ticket from Barmer, Rajasthan, Congress defector Sonaram choudhary to contest from there.
03.40 pm: Vice President Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi hits out at opposition, says Narendra Modi was an ‘ambassador of development’ and not a ‘symbol of fear’.
03. 30 pm: Seeking to cut bureaucratic red tape, Election Commission orders setting up of ‘single window system’ in all parliamentary seats to provide clearance to political parties to hold rallies during the Lok Sabha polls.
03. 20 pm: Delhi High Court asks Election Commission to give details relating to registration of Aam Aadmi Party with it.
03. 15 pm: BJP spokesman and MP Prakash Javadekar expressed hope that parties opposed to Congress would quickly clinch an electoral understanding.
Read: BJP hopes alliance talks with anti-Cong forces clinches soon
02. 51 pm: 3 Lok Sabha, 23 Assembly contestants have filed their nomination papers for the April 9 simultaneous polls in Arunachal Pradesh.
02. 48 pm: In spite of strict warning Vijaykumar Gavit is falling pray for allurement of Gopinath Munde, says NCP Maharashtra president Bhaskar Jadhav
02. 47 pm: JD(U) leader NK Singh resigns, likely to join BJP.
02. 47 pm: Congress candidate and sitting MP Sandeep Dikshit filed his nomination papers from East Delhi Lok Sabha constituency.
Read: Sandeep Dikshit files nomination papers
02. 45 pm: Protests outside Arvind Kejriwal’s house over ticket distribution
02. 35 pm: Shatrughan Sinha files nomination, shown black flags in Patna.
02. 27 pm: BJD chief Naveen Patnaik picked up the sitting MP and almost all sitting MLAs of Cuttack district to contest next month’s twin elections.
02. 25 pm: BJP’s Delhi unit president Harsh Vardhan filed his nomination papers from Chandni Chowk parliamentary constituency, and will take on Union Minister and Congress leader Kapil Sibal.
Harsh Vardhan files nomination, to contest against Kapil Sibal from Chandni Chowk
02. 17 pm: Tripura Chief Electoral Officer: Displaced people of Bru community will be allowed to vote through postal ballots.
02. 15 pm: AAP expels party leaders Aruna Singh, Ashok Kumar over bribery charges.
Read: AAP sacks two leaders for demanding money
02. 10: Aam Aadmi Party expels leaders who promised tickets in exchange of money.
02. 05 pm:
I am now on my way to Jamnagar to file my nomination papers. Our fight to make the nation first has begun. #NaMo4PM #Lekhi4NewDelhi — Meenakashi Lekhi (@M_Lekhi) March 21, 2014
02. 00 pm:
Mahila shakti at Dana bunder this morning ! Time to sweep our country clean :) pic.twitter.com/i6d0HSNLEM — Meera Sanyal (@meerasanyal) March 21, 2014
1.55 pm:
In the ring now. Nomination filed. With our campaign manager. @DrMunishRaizada #Selfie — Gul Panag (@GulPanag) March 21, 2014
1.45 pm:
An important Announcement by Arvind Kejriwal will be made at 2:00 PM. Can be watched at http://t.co/hk04vSZ4He — Aam Aadmi Party (@AamAadmiParty) March 21, 2014
12.50 pm: Shiv Sena has decided to field its candidates for Lok Sabha elections in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Delhi.
Read: Shiv Sena to contest LS polls in UP, Bihar and Delhi
12.25 pm: Goa BJP has said it would remind people that the best way to say no to drugs is by not voting for rival candidate.
12.09: BJP Sangeet Som, accused of instigating Muzaffarnagar riots, denied ticket
12.05 pm: Kirron Kher files nomination on BJP ticket
12.02 pm: EC orders to defer the shoot of the Gujarat tourism ad film by megastar Amitabh Bachchan until the poll-process is over in the state.
Read: Amitabh Bachchan’s Gujarat ad film shoot deferred by EC
11.45: Infighting broke out within the Chhattisgarh Congress over the distribution of tickets for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.
Read: Discord in Chhattisgarh Cong over LS ticket distribution
11.40: Congress leader Satpal Maharaj joins BJP
11.32: BJP mocks Congress, says it has no will to fight elections, has conceded defeat.
11.7 am: Crime Branch of Varanasi police launched a probe into a case involving the sharing of hate photographs of Gujarat riots allegedly by a Samajwadi Party corporator.
10.39 am: Former Home Minister Buta Singh to contest LS polls from Jalore seat in Rajasthan on SP ticket.
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10. 27 am: A case of violation of Model Code of Conduct registered against the Rashtriya Lok Dal candidate for Kairana constituency, Kartar Singh Bhadana, and two others. |
Last weekend was Eternal Weekend! I had the great honor and pleasure of Head Judging this year’s Legacy Championships. With around 750 players, 11 rounds of Swiss, and over 20 judges on staff, it was the largest event I’ve been in charge of. Many thanks to Nick Coss for giving me this opportunity, and for all the amazing judges and Card Titan staff members who pulled together to make Eternal Weekend a fantastic experience for everyone involved.
Although I will likely write up a tournament report for Eternal Weekend, this post is not that report. Instead, I’d like to focus on something a bit different: taking notes!
Post-event feedback is one of the key tenets of the judge program. Although these sort of communications take numerous forms and have many different names depending on the context — reviews, self-evaluation, and tournament reports all fall into this category — they all share one fundamental tenet: remembering what you want to talk about! And unless you have a memory like Mike Ross from Suits, written notes are a huge help.
I’ve found, however, that simply knowing that written notes are helpful isn’t enough. In order for me to actually takes notes, I have to actively put myself in a position to make that happen. For the past few events I’ve floor judged, one way I’ve done this is by packing a notebook that I really enjoy taking notes in.
Specifically, I’ve started using a very nice, fairly large notebook that SCG gave out to judges who applied to the Keystone program. The size of the notebook is actually quite critical: my handwriting is relatively large and (to be perfectly honest) rather sloppy, and I discovered from experience that writing in smaller notebooks was very constraining. Although the notebook is large, it still fits snugly in the largest pocket of my standard judge pants . The physical weight and sensation of the notebook also helps me remember that it’s there, waiting for me to fill it with relevant insights…and prevents me from leaving it lying on a table somewhere!
Although all of the above may sound a little silly, a judge’s notebook is one of our foremost tools, no different than a craftsman’s hammers and drills. One way to convince yourself to do something is to make yourself look forward to doing it, and having a new notebook definitely did that for me!
At Eternal Weekend, however, I didn’t pack my notebook. Instead, I used my laptop to keep notes while I was Head Judging on Saturday.
Although I made this choice intentionally, I was a bit apprehensive about it. When I was preparing for the Providence Open a few months ago, Eric Levine gave me some fantastic advice: “The Head Judge sitting on the stage on his laptop waiting for appeals is not an authority; he’s a guy with a laptop.” After having had a few events to mull this over, I agree with Eric that the impact using a laptop can have on judges’ perception of you, and your actual attention to the event, is very real.
To that end, I set a few rules for myself about my laptop usage on Saturday.
First, I made an effort to be on my laptop as little as possible. This speaks directly to Eric’s point about authority being closely tied with being available. I love getting feedback from other judges on staff, but to do so, you generally have to go down onto the floor and get it.
Second, I tried to write down something about every appeal and notable ruling. I feel that being able to write things down quickly is one of a laptop’s big advantages over pen and paper, so I’d rather write down as much as possible, even if it turns out not to matter so much later.
Third, I made sure to use my laptop to track round turnover times. Arranging this information in a spreadsheet makes it very straightforward to calculate how the event is going, and while it obviously can be done by hand instead, I really prefer doing it electronically.
Fourth, I wanted to clearly delineate different types of notes. This was pretty easy to do by creating different sheets labeled Notes, Improvements, DQ (*frowny face*), Turnover, Schedule, and so on. (I kept my notes for the event in Excel, rather than a typical word processing program. This is largely because I like having ready access to Excel’s formulas for easily calculating round turnover. Another advantage is that some things like the staff schedule are already in Excel format anyway, and it’s simply easier to keep everything together.)
Finally, I started setting aside a particular section of my notes to use as “notes to myself.” This included things like a reminder to make certain announcements at the start of Round 1, or to have a judge meeting after Round 8. Compared to the other rules, I actually developed this one on the fly during the event, but it worked very well.
Happily, I was able to follow through on virtually all of these goals. The only one that suffered was the second goal, to write down a little something about everything that went on. My notes became sparser for the later rounds, and while this is partially because fewer interesting things occurred, I know that the length of the event also took its roll. Overall, though, I was very happy with how my plan for taking notes on my laptop worked out.
The downside of leaving my notebook at home, however, became apparent on Sunday, when I was not a Head Judge but instead floor judging on Dan Collins ‘ deck checks team. As expected, Dan did a solid job — but I don’t have much more feedback for him, because I have no notes! Although I did use my cell phone to jot a couple things down, these notes are far briefer and more fragmented than if I’d had my regular notebook. I’m sure taking notes on your phone works for some judges (and I like the idea a lot in theory), but at least for me, the lack of a physical notebook simply means I don’t prioritize it as much.
I hope this post has given you a different perspective on the importance of notes in the judge program, and how the methods we use to take notes can have a profound impact on our success. No one method will work for everyone, so I’d love to hear about what works for you in the comments! And make sure to check back next week, when I’ll share stories from both Eternal Weekend and the upcoming SCG Invitational.
Until next time, may you note well what others are doing well. |
There's little doubt that PC gaming is undergoing a renaissance at the moment. With the current generation consoles chugging interminably slowly toward retirement, frustrated gamers are switching to computers with quad-core processors and top-end graphics cards that produce visuals of breathtaking fluidity and detail.
But it's not all about graphics performance. While there are certainly detractors, Valve's digital download service Steam has revolutionalised the games buying experience, offering easy access to hundreds of titles, many at vastly reduced prices.
Meanwhile, increasingly popular online multiplayer titles like DotA, Guild Wars 2 and Tera are only playable on PC. Plus there's the explosive rise of the indie scene, with many small studios ignoring the console platforms altogether in favour of PC development. If you didn't have a PC last year, you had no chance of playing brilliant offbeat titles like FTL, Slender and Hotline Miami. You were out of the loop.
And while we're expecting huge announcements from Microsoft and Sony this year, we won't see a new console until October, with the PS4 more likely in Spring 2014. Even when these new machines arrive, current speculation suggests they're going to be built from the same sort of off-the-shelf components you could jam into a gaming PC – except with a gaming PC you can switch the key elements out a year later for something more up-to-date.
So if you're a new PC owner, or just want to upgrade your current machine, we've compiled a guide to building a decent gaming machine for 2013. I've asked several PC developers for their input, and we've tried to look at both high-end and budget options. Here goes...
The brain Credit: 3D4Medical.com/Getty Creative Photograph: 3D4Medical.com/Getty Images/3D4Medical.com
Processor (CPU)
For the brain of your computer there are really only two manufacturers in the running: Intel and AMD. "I would definitely recommend Intel," says James Hannett of Mode7, creators of award-winning strategy game Frozen Synapse. "AMD processors currently use more power and are generally slower than the Intel equivalents. AMD's Bulldozer series was a disappointment for the desktop market. Bulldozer's successor Piledriver was a big improvement in some ways, but by then Intel had moved on as well. Now Steamroller's been delayed until next year, and what I hear isn't very encouraging".
If you go with intel, and can afford it, you'll be wanting one of the Ivy Bridge processors, which come in three increasingly powerful flavours: i3, i5 and i7. "If it's top-flight you're after, the Core i7-3770 line is where it's at," says Al Bickham at Total War developer, Creative Assembly. "That's not just for games, but for other multithreading-heavy tasks, such as video encoding. They tend to retail around £230 depending on the clock-speed – they go up to 3.6GHz out of the box. But you can still get fantastic performance – and arguably much better bang for your buck – from the i5 series. Ivy Bridge i5 CPUs come in dual or quad-core flavours, so if it's a quad-core you're after, something like an i5-3570K is a great choice, and around £170".
And here comes your first big construction dilemma: do you want to overclock your PC? Overclocking is when you tweak the settings of the CPU to run at a faster speed than the manufacturer guarantees it is stable at. It's something many experienced gamers do, and its fine if you have a well-built machine with lots of fans to keep things cool. If you head down this route, you'll want the i53570k and a Z77 motherboard; if that all sounds a bit scary (it does to me), stick with the cheaper combo of i5-3570 and H77 motherboard.
Some PC retailers are suggesting that the bottom of the range i3 is now too slow to handle modern games, but our panel refutes that. "The i3 3220 can certainly hold its own when paired with a decent graphics card," says Hannett. "However, as it's only a dual core processor you might find that games released in the next couple of years will cause it to struggle."
Ah, yes, cores. Currently, most PCs at the lower end of the market will offer dual-core CPUs, which as Hannett says is absolutely fine for most current game releases. However, as 2013 goes on, we're going to get lots more Triple A titles looking for quad-core power. If you're only running indie titles or older budget titles you've downloaded from steam, you should be fine on dual-core for a good while. But with PCs it always pays to think as far ahead as your wallet will allow.
At the ultra-budget end, you're going to be wanting at least two cores running at 3Ghz or more. Hannett reckons AMD still does well with integrated CPUs and that the AMD A10-5800K will be fine. Bickham says, "if you're on the strictest of budgets, a dual-core i3 such as the 3.3GHz i3-2120 will still do the job at around £90. And it's a great overclocker if you fancy dabbling in the dark arts…"
Bottom line: The Intel i7-3770 if you're rich, the i5 2500K, i53570 or i53570k if you're doing okay, the AMD A10-5800K or i3 if you're just about hanging in there.
Far Cry 3
Graphics card (GPU)
This is the thing that does all the calculations for the game visuals, including rendering geometry and spitting out all those lovely special effects. According to most of the developers I spoke to this is where the big money should go if you can afford to max out on just one component.
Once again, we're looking at a two-horse race: Nvidia v AMD, the former with its Geforce range, the latter with Radeon. This is a much closer competition though and both brands have their acolytes.
"If money is no object and you want the best right now, something like the Nvidia 690 is available for around £800-£1,000." says Philip Robinson of indie developer Born Ready Games, which has just launched its visually stunning space shooter, Strike Suit Zero. Boasting 4GB of RAM and a dual-GPU set-up the 690 is a formidable beast – and will need a larger PC chassis to house it.
"If you want close to the top of the line, then I would recommend either the Nvidia GTX 680 or the AMD HD 7970, both approximately £400," continues Robinson. "However, I believe the best approach is to go for the Nvidia GTX 660 Ti or the nearest AMD equivalent at £230, and then replace it 18 months on". This may sound expensive to some – my Xbox 360 has pretty much done the business for six years at just £250 (plus £40 a year on Xbox Live Gold, of course) – but then every PC gamer has to decide how up-to-date they can afford to be.
Hannett, too, has his eye on those mid-range cards: "I would recommend either an NVIDIA 660 Ti or an AMD 7870. There's not much to tell them apart so shop around on price and bundled games".
As for budget options? "Right now, you can net a Radeon HD 6870 – AMD's previous-gen top-end card which handles DX11 games with aplomb – for the miserly sum of £100, if you shop around," says Bickham. "This will offer great frame rates at resolutions up to 1920x1200, and it'll even make a respectable stab at 2560x1600 – the kind of resolution output by 30-inch panels".
Richard Leadbetter of Digital Foundry has just written a guide to budget graphics cards for Eurogamer. "Less than £100 gets a GTX 650," he says. "If you can afford £130, get a Radeon HD 7850 1GB. The Digital Foundry PC has a Radeon HD 6770 which is old, but actually outperforms its successor and we got ours for £70 – a fair bit cheaper than the GTX 650".
Whatever you go for, though, check the card's onboard RAM. Cheaper options will offer 1GB, more expensive items, 2GB or more. "1GB would probably just scrape through for games in 2013," says Simon Barratt of FourDoorLemon. "However, I imagine you will be making tradeoffs with performance depending on the texture quality you select without a 2GB GPU".
That's an important point. Although your graphics card is important, if you're prepare to dial down all those extravagant effects and play at a lower screen resolution, you can get away with cheaper hardware. If you want texture detail at photorealistic levels as well as super smooth tri-linear filtering and dynamic lighting on every pixel, compromise clearly isn't for you.
The bottom line: unless you're a lottery winner, stay clear of the ultra top-end cards, the performance hikes aren't noticeable enough to warrant the £1,000 price tags. At £200-250, look for the Nvidia GTX 670 or 660 Ti, or for just over £100 the Radeon HD 7850 or 7870. At the bargain bucket end, a Nvidia GTX 650 or Radeon HD 6770.
RAM
The amount of memory your PC has will affect how quickly it can deal with software tasks. So how much do you need? "Since we're talking about gaming PCs and not computers designed for intense graphical rendering or particularly memory-intensive programs we don't have to go crazy," says Nick Tannahill of Firefly Studios, creator of the Stronghold Kingdoms series. "Get 4GB if you're on a budget and 8GB if you're not. Onboard memory is one of the easiest components to upgrade or replace, just make sure you buy DDR3 and don't mix different types of RAM. Ignore MHz, there is little difference between 1333MHz and 1600MHz and price is more important".
Bottom line: aim for 8GB if you can – it'll be fine for several years. 16GB will really sort you out.
Every move involves sifting through things we'd forgotten we even had. Photograph: Alamy
Storage
You have two options here. Well, three actually. You can go for a classic hard disc drive (HDD) or you can opt for a more modern solid state drive (SSD), which has no mechanical parts and is much quicker. SSD drives are also much more expensive though, so once again, compromise might be the best option.
"I highly recommend both an SSD and a hard drive," says Robinson. "The concept here is to use an SSD – ideally 128GB – for your operating system. This massively decreases the computer's boot-up time. Everything else should be stored on a hard drive. You can get a decent 1TB (one Terabyte) drive for less than the SSD. If you want even faster gaming, and you can afford it, you could buy a second SSD as well, and then install the games you are currently playing to that drive. This will decrease load times".
Bottom line: Go for at least a modest SSD and a large hard drive. Install only your current games on the SSD and remove to the HDD when you're finished with them. A 128GB SDD should be enough to hold your operating system and a couple of games.
Motherboard
This is the PCB to which all the components are attached, the unglamorous middleman of the PC innards. Does it matter which you go for? "Yes," says Bickham. "But it depends how many frills you want. Most motherboards carry onboard 5.1 sound-cards, but high-end ones tend to pack frilly extras such as fan-speed controllers and built-in Wi-Fi modules.
"The crucial thing is to match the socket type of your processor to a relevant motherboard; for example the Core i5-3330 requires a motherboard with an 1155-pin socket. Motherboards also support a range of different memory speeds, but of course, you need to match the right type of memory to the motherboard. However, the variance between memory speeds makes much less of a difference to gaming frame rates than your selection of CPU and GPU. Just make sure you get more than 4GB of memory – we tend to use 6 or 8GB – as Windows consumes a base amount of this beneath the game itself."
Bottom line: If you just want something that does the job, make sure it's compatible with you graphics card and CPU socket. "Think about whether you want to overclock or have more than one graphics card," says Tannahill. "This may sound crazy at first, but later on you may want to do this if the price of your card drops dramatically".
Case, fan and power
The big box you jam all the stuff into is mostly an aesthetic choice, but you'll need to make sure it's big enough to contain all the components you've chosen – and that it has room for a fan to cool everything down. At the budget end you have less concerns: "You can skimp on the case and fans as low-end components don't tend to pump out much heat," says Leadbetter. "The case we chose cost £16 and has just one 80mm fan. I'd be a bit more wary about the PSU (power supply unit) though. The 430W Corsair Builder we chose is £35, but it's superb value and great quality."
It's important to select a good quality PSU that can cope with the power required by your PC's components. This is measured in watts, and you can get units that will support over 1000w, although you're unlikely to need that amount of oomph for a standard gaming PC – if you're unsure, use a PC stockist who'll provide advice based on your machine's specifications. There's a detailed guide to PSUs here.
Bottom line: choose a case that's big enough for all your components (duh) and allow space for cooling. And according to several of the developers I spoke to, a low quality PSU can damage components over time, so don't scrimp on that.
Engineering skills open opportunities in a whole range of sectors, including telecoms Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty
The big question: build it yourself?
It is possible to buy all the components you need and construct the machine yourself. This will be cheaper than purchasing a ready-built machine, you'll know exactly what's in it, and you can install the operating system yourself without the retailer bunging in loads of ad-ware. The downside is that you'll need to check the compatibility of all the parts and if you do anything wrong, like accidentally salthering thermal paste all over your graphics card, it could end up being very expensive.
Fortunately, there are lots of places you can go for advice and guidance. Digital Foundry has galleries showing you exactly how to build its recommended £300 PC. Computer Active has a video guide to building a PC, as does NewEgg. There's also a dated but still very good guide here. Ebuyer and Aria are both good places to buy components as they'll help you check the compatibility of all your bits.
If you choose to have a company assemble your set-up for you, there are plenty of options. Guardian Games Blog reader Simon Beck has been building gaming PCs for years and has advised other readers on where to buy their own machines:
"Nowadays, you can buy really very good pre-built machines like the Gladiator range from Aria, the Titan range from Overclockers. It's worth bearing in mind that a well-chosen £600 system will be able to run all the latest games at close to maximum settings. The PC arms-race has really slowed down now that all the big FPS titles are also on consoles – I am still using a PC I built for £900 two years ago and it will run BF3 on Ultra.
"There is also the middle ground of PCSpecialist – I've sent a number of Games Blog readers there for a gaming machine. They will build everything for you, but their PCs are very highly configurable – you can really have pretty much any spec you want. If you start with something like the Fusion 650 it will be fantastic out of the box, or can be made into an absolute beast by upgrading some of the components. The Vortex 500 is a more budget-friendly choice, but again you can adjust the specification as much as you want".
Bottom line: building your own PC from scratch is reasonably straightforward and has price and performance advantages, but it's intimidating for tech newcomers. Buying your kit from a company that will put it all together will ensure you're getting the machine you want with no cheap components hidden away inside – but you'll pay more for it.
Finally, there's another possibility looming on the horizon: the Steam Box. For years, Valve has been threatening to launch its own PC-like console; a high-spec machine designed specifically for digital gaming. An opening gambit – the Piston – was announced at CES this year, but we can probably expect a more powerful model later this year. So should gamers wait?
Most of the developers I spoke to said that there was too much uncertainty right now, and it could be a year or more before we have a Steam Box that really showcases the concept. As Bickham puts it, "as a PC developer, we're interested in everything that Valve does. But for gaming in the here-and-now, nothing beats a decent rig with some shiny innards. Plus, the occasional overstocking incident with e-tailers means that shopping around – once you've isolated the parts you want – can net you some real bargains".
The thing with PCs is, there is always something spectacularly powerful just down the road – that's Moore's Law for you. At some point, you've just got to hold your breath and jump in.
Update: Lots of readers have provided great advice (and some firm backing for AMD processors) in the comments section below.
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A Muslim and a Jewish father had never met before bringing their children to O'Hare International Airport Monday to join in a protest of President Donald Trump's immigration ban. But after a photograph showing their son and daughter interacting went viral, they decided to bring their families together next week for dinner to celebrate peace.
As of midday Tuesday, the photograph taken by Chicago Tribune photographer Nuccio DiNuzzo and shared on Twitter by @ChiTribPhoto had been retweeted by other Twitter users more than 16,000 times. The two fathers said they have fielded calls from friends, acquaintances and national news outlets wanting to hear their story.
"It all happened pretty quickly," said Rabbi Jordan Bendat-Appell, of Deerfield, who lifted his 9-year-old son, Adin, onto his shoulders Monday night when the boy asked for a better view of the crowd there to protest Trump's executive order that freezes entry of all refugees for 120 days and blocks entry for 90 days of citizens from seven predominantly Muslim countries.
At about the same time, Fatih Yildirim had lifted his 7-year-old daughter, Meryem, onto his shoulders because she was getting tired of standing.
Adin was wearing his kippah, or yarmulke, while holding a sign that read "Hate has no home here." Meryem wore her black hijab while holding a sign that said "Love."
DiNuzzo, a Tribune photographer for 25 years who had been assigned to capture images of Monday's protests, said the scene immediately caught his eye.
"I thought, 'This is too good to be true. I've got a Muslim kid on one side, I've got a Jewish boy and his dad — all cute kids,'" DiNuzzo said. "I knew that this was an important picture to make."
But because the children were young and didn't realize they were being photographed, DiNuzzo said they were fidgeting so much with the signs he wasn't sure he'd be able to catch them in focus. Finally, when the dads turned to each other in conversation, the signs were visible enough .
"I knew I had my shot of the night," DiNuzzo said. "This is what it's all about. It's about human beings being together in harmony."
Bendat-Appell brought his son to the airport after his weekly swimming lesson to help show the boy how to stand up for what they believe in. The boy's maternal grandparents were Holocaust survivors who spent time in refugee camps, Bendat-Appell said. And as a rabbi at the Institute for Jewish Spirituality in New York, Bendat-Appell said he believes strongly in using history to guide actions.
"Our tradition is not ambiguous about remembering our history for the sake of acting out in this world today," he said.
Yildirim, a store manager from Schaumburg, had come to the airport with his wife and four children to bring cookies to the lawyers offering pro bono services to immigrants that had been detained.
"I told them they are the real heroes here," said Yildirim, who, along with his family, joined the protest as lawyers munched on his wife's homemade chocolate chip sweets.
Neither of the fathers know what their children said to prompt the huge grin on the boy's face in the photograph, perhaps because they were engrossed in their own conversation about where to find a good kosher steak house and other pleasantries, they said.
"I know the tension between the Jews and the Muslims. People think we hate each other. But we're not fighting. When we come next to each other we can have normal conversations," Yildirim said. "We can promote the peace together."
The day after a Tribune photo went viral of his child and him protesting at O’Hare side by side with a Muslim family, Rabbi Jordan Bendat-Appell, of Deerfield, tells the story behind the photo. (Nuccio DiNuzzo / Chicago Tribune) The day after a Tribune photo went viral of his child and him protesting at O’Hare side by side with a Muslim family, Rabbi Jordan Bendat-Appell, of Deerfield, tells the story behind the photo. (Nuccio DiNuzzo / Chicago Tribune) SEE MORE VIDEOS
When the children jumped off their father's shoulders, Adin happily approached the little girl and asked her name. Meryem, a bit shy, managed a "hello" before the fathers exchanged phone numbers.
When they started hearing from hundreds of friends and acquaintances, they texted each other, in awe of the way the small moment became momentous.
As the response grew, they spoke on the phone and finalized plans for a Shabbat dinner at the Bendat-Appells' home next week.
"I just feel like if this picture, in some small way, can bring a bit more light and love into the world, I'm so happy about that," he said.
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Twitter @vikkiortiz |
Insane Clown Posse have filed a lawsuit against the FBI and the U.S. Justice Department, insisting that the government's decision to classify their fan base—the infamous Juggalos—as an actual criminal gang is "unwarranted and unlawful", The New York Times reports.
Along with ICP rappers Joseph Bruce (Violent J) and Joseph Utsler (Shaggy 2 Dope), the plaintiffs in the suit include four Juggalos. The suit was filed in Michigan by the band's lawyers as well as lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan.
The suit argues that the U.S. government's categorization of Juggalos has led to harassment from authorities and has caused the group's fans "significant harm." This stems from a 2011 report from the FBI's National Gang Intelligence Center, which claimed the Juggalos, a "loosely organized hybrid gang," were "expanding into many U.S. communities."
“Among the supporters of almost any group—whether it be a band, sports team, university, political organization or religion—there will be some people who violate the law,” the lawsuit reads. “However, it is wrong to designate the entire group of supporters as a criminal gang based on the acts of a few. Unfortunately, that is exactly what happened here.” The suit also lists various injustices enacted against Juggalos—one was allegedly forbidden to join the Army unless he removed his Juggalo tattoos.
This morning, ICP's Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope held a press conference about the suit at Michigan ACLU headquarters in Detroit. |
This is the seventh post in an article series about MIT's lecture course "Introduction to Algorithms." In this post I will review lecture eleven, which is on the topic of Augmenting Data Structures.
There are some programming situations that can be perfectly solved with standard data structures such as a linked lists, hash tables, or binary search trees. Many others require a dash of creativity. Only in rare situations will you need to create an entirely new type of data structure, though. More often, it will suffice to augment (to modify) an existing data structure by storing additional information in it. You can then program new operations for the data structure to support the desired application. Augmenting a data structure is not always straightforward, however, since the added information must be updated and maintained by the ordinary operations on the data structure.
This lecture discusses two data structures that are constructed by augmenting red-black trees (see the previous post on red-black trees).
The first part of the lecture describes a data structure that supports general order-statistic operations on a dynamic set. It's called dynamic order statistics. The notion of order statistics was introduced in lecture six. In lecture six it was shown that any order statistic could be retrieved in O(n) time from an unordered set. In this lecture it is shown how red-black trees can be modified so that any order statistic can be determined in O(lg(n)) time. It presents two algorithms OS-Select(i), which returns i-th smallest item in a dynamic set, and OS-Rank(x), which returns rank (position) of element x in sorted order.
The lecture continues with general methodology of how to augment a data structure. Augmenting a data structure can be broken into four steps:
1. Choosing an underlying data structure,
2. Determining additional information to be maintained in the underlying data structure,
3. Verifying that the additional information can be maintained for the basic modifying operations (insert, delete, rotate, etc.) on the underlying data structure, and
4. Developing new operations.
The second part of the lecture applies this methodology to construct a data structure called interval trees. This data structure maintains a dynamic set of elements, with each element x containing an interval. Interval is simply pair of numbers (low, high). For example, a time interval from 3 o'clock to 7 o'clock is a pair (3, 7).
Lecture gives an algorithm called Interval-Search(x), which given a query interval x, quickly finds an interval in the set that overlaps it. Time complexity of this algorithm is O(lg(n)).
The lecture ends with the correctness proof of Interval-Search(x) algorithm.
You're welcome to watch lecture eleven:
Topics covered in lecture eleven:
[00:20] Concept of augmenting data structures.
[02:00] Dynamic order statistics.
[02:20] OS-Select operation on dynamic order statistics.
[02:50] OS-Rank operation on dynamic order statistics.
[03:49] Dynamic order statistics key idea - keep the sizes of subtrees in nodes of a red-black tree.
[04:10] Example of a tree representing dynamic order statistic.
[10:10] OS-Select algorithm.
[16:40] Analysis of OS-Select.
[17:30] OS-Rank algorithm.
[20:15] Modifying operations of dynamic order statistics tree.
[22:55] Example of inserting an element into the tree.
[26:11] Example of rotating a tree.
[29:30] Methodology of data structure augmentation.
[36:45] Data structure augmentation applied to construct interval trees.
[37:31] Example of time-intervals.
[39:48] Query operation on interval trees - find an interval in the set that overlaps a given query interval.
[41:15] Step 1, underlying data structure: red-black tree keyed on low endpoint.
[45:10] Step 2, additional node information: largest value in the subtree rooted at that node.
[50:24] Step 3, modifying ops: insert, delete.
[56:55] Step 4, new ops: Interval-Search.
[01:00:00] Example of Interval-Search algorithm.
[01:06:30] Running time of Interval-Search -- O(lg(n)).
[01:07:20] List all overlaps (k of them) in O(k*lg(n)) time.
[01:08:50] Best algorithm to find all overlaps to date os O(k + lg(n)).
[01:09:11] Correctness proof of Interval-Search algorithm.
Lecture eleven notes:
Lecture 11, page 1 of 2. Lecture 11, page 2 of 2.
Have fun augmenting data structures! The next post will be about a simple and efficient search structure called skip list. |
Bentley signs bill blocking Birmingham minimum wage
CLOSE As the Alabama House prepares to debate a bill pre-empting Birmingham's minimum wage increase, Silent Session looks at the power of the minimum wage and the fight around the Magic City's move. Brian Lyman / Advertiser
The legislative battle over Birmingham's minimum wage ended Thursday.
Buy Photo The Legislature Tuesday approved a wide variety of tax measures. (Photo: Albert Cesare /Advertiser)
The Alabama Senate gave final approval to a bill to block the Magic City from setting a $10.10 an hour wage floor, capping two weeks of intense debate over wages in Alabama and the proper relationship of state and local government.
Gov. Robert Bentley signed the bill Thursday afternoon, less than an hour after the final vote. ABC 33/40 in Birmingham reported that the city's legal department said the vote "voided" Birmingham's ordinance. In a statement, Birmingham City Council president Johnathan Austin said "the fight has just begun."
"The very people who have refused to expand Medicaid in the state to help the most vulnerable amongst us receive critical medical care, are once again keeping their boots on the necks of people in desperate need of financial relief," the statement said. "People can not pull themselves up by the bootstraps if they can’t afford to buy boots."
The Senate approved the measure by a 23-11 vote, mainly on party lines. Eight Democrats voted against the measure, as did Republican Sens. Paul Bussman of Cullman and Bill Holtzclaw of Madison. Independent Harri Anne Smith of Slocomb also voted against the measure.
Nearly every remaining Republican in the chamber voted for the measure. Sen. Tom Whatley, R-Auburn, was listed as not voting.
In the Montgomery delegation, Senate Minority Leader Quinton Ross, D-Montgomery, voted against the bill and Sen. Dick Brewbaker, R-Montgomery voted for it.
The legislation prevents cities and municipalities from setting their own minimum wages, and also imposes limits on the wages and benefits they can negotiate with employers looking to locate in their areas.
Democrats sharply criticized the legislation as interference in city affairs and an attempt to end discussion about proper compensation in Alabama.
“(Republicans) pick and choose,” Ross said. “You don’t want banks regulated. Big business doesn’t want to be regulated, but you want to regulate the discussion of a fair, workable wage.”
Republican supporters, in turn, said they wanted to prevent costs from rising on businesses, which they said could lead to job losses.
Sen. Jabo Waggoner, R-Vestavia Hills, who carried the bill in the Senate, said the wage could lead to “worrisome job trends” in Birmingham.
“What a hodgepodge we would have in this state if Birmingham passed a minimum wage and Montgomery passed one,” he said.
Sen. Bill Hightower, R-Mobile, said that a higher minimum would pull older workers into the market.
"What happens when we raise minimum wage is we crowd people out of the job market," he said.
Birmingham and the Alabama Legislature tried to match each other stride-for-stride after the city voted last August to establish its own minimum wage, to be phased in over two years. Rep. David Faulkner, R-Mountain Brook, first filed the bill in last September’s special session, but it failed to advance to a vote.
The Birmingham City Council began moving to speed up implementation of the minimum wage earlier this month when it appeared Faulkner would bring his legislation back. After the Alabama House approved Faulkner’s measure last week, the City Council voted to implement the measure. The ordinance was scheduled to go into effect Sunday.
City council members argue the minimum wage is a way to improve quality of life. Birmingham senators echoed that.
“We’re talking about the bare survival of people,” said Sen. Rodger Smitherman, D-Birmingham. “And we’re talking about a Legislature . . . that says we don’t care about y’all.”
Coleman-Madison said the working poor needed to keep up with rising costs of living.
"It even costs more to die," she said. "Everything has gone up. Yet we don’t feel the working poor deserve a break."
Brewbaker said he was concerned about the bill generally, but that Birmingham's efforts to implement it in a single step made it worse.
"Montgomery would probably follow suit," he said. "I think it would have a negative effect on business and employment."
Updated: An earlier version of this story, reflecting the vote record, said Sen. Linda Coleman-Madison, D-Birmingham, was listed as not voting. Coleman-Madison said her no vote was not heard in the initial tally. The vote record and the story have been updated.
Read or Share this story: http://on.mgmadv.com/20XFnB4 |
New York’s transportation agency is following in London‘s footsteps by providing free “Baby on Board” buttons to pregnant passengers, in a bid to help them get a seat on the subway.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) launched the pilot program on Mother’s Day, the latest in a series of initiatives by the agency to encourage politeness on New York’s crammed public transportation system. The new yellow and blue buttons, which will be available through to Labor Day, aim to help riders identify customers who need seats, according to an MTA press release.
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The idea is inspired by a similar program on London’s bus and subway system. Since 2005, Transport of London has distributed about 130,000 “Baby on Board” badges. Kate Middleton, the Duchess of Cambridge, wore one when she was pregnant in 2013.
New York’s free buttons can be ordered online and will take about three weeks to arrive. There will also be separate badges, which say “Please Offer Me a Seat,” available for older riders and those with disabilities.
“Pregnant riders, seniors and those with disabilities often need seats more than others but their condition may not always be visible,” MTA Interim Executive Director Ronnie Hakim said in a press release. “We hope this campaign will help their fellow riders to be more willing to offer them a seat without having to ask a personal question first.”
Contact us at [email protected]. |
Note that you can observe this effect with not just do , but also let , if , \ , case , the extensions mdo and proc …and the dread unary - . I cannot think of a case in which this is ambiguous except for unary - . Here’s how the grammar is defined in the Haskell 2010 Language Report, §3: Expressions.
exp → infixexp :: [context =>] type | infixexp infixexp → lexp qop infixexp | - infixexp | lexp lexp → \ apat1 … apatn -> exp | let decls in exp | if exp [;] then exp [;] else exp | case exp of { alts } | do { stmts } | fexp fexp → [fexp] aexp aexp → ( exp ) | …
There just happens to be no case defined in fexp (function application) or aexp (literal expression) that allows an unparenthesised lexp (lambda, let , etc.). I would consider this a bug in the grammar. |
This fantasy adventure series is based on the young adult fantasy book series by Cassandra Clare, The Mortal Instruments. The books have been popular for years. Will the Shadowhunters TV show on Freeform have the same kind of longevity? How will it perform in the ratings? Cancelled or renewed for a second season? Stay tuned.
On the Shadowhunters TV show, young Clary Fray (Katherine McNamara) celebrates her 18th birthday at a New York City nightclub and sees a group of teenagers with supernatural abilities attacking a demon. She realizes that she is the only person who can see them and later learns that she’s one of a long line of demon hunters. When her mother is kidnapped, she must join other hunters to try to save her, all while learning about her new supernatural abilities. The rest of the cast includes Dominic Sherwood, Alberto Rosende, Matthew Daddario, Emeraude Toubia, Isaiah Mustafa, and Harry Shum, Jr.
Below are the show’s TV ratings, typically the best way to tell if the series will be cancelled or renewed. These figures will be updated as the weeks progress.
3/14 update: Freeform has renewed Shadowhunters for a second season. Details here.
Note: If you’re not seeing the updated chart, please try reloading the page or view it here.
Cable ratings are typically released within a day or so of the show’s airing, except for in the case of weekends and holidays. They are sometimes harder to come by so there may be occasional delays or gaps.
What do you think? Do you like the Shadowhunters TV series? Do you think it should be cancelled or renewed for a second season? |
It was very easy to miss in the news cycle today, but President Trump signed an executive order to protect the jobs of coal miners in Appalachia:
“LETTING COAL COUNTRY WORK AGAIN: Today, President Donald J. Trump signed legislation (House Joint Resolution 38) to stop the costly “Stream Protection Rule” from further harming coal workers and the communities that depend on them.
H.J. Res. 38 blocks an overly burdensome regulation from harming the coal industry.
The regulation was expected to reduce coal production, leading to fewer coal jobs across the country.
The blocked regulation threatened the coal industry with millions of dollars in compliance costs.
Complying with the regulation would have put an unsustainable financial burden on small mines, most of which are in the Appalachian Basin.
The blocked regulation would have duplicated existing regulations already in place to protect Americans. …” |
Critical steps within the protocol
As remotely-supervised tDCS is administered away from the direct supervision of a clinician, inclusion and exclusion criteria are designed to ensure that the participant has no contraindicated health conditions or environmental distractions, and are fully capable to use a laptop computer (including those with adaptive technology) for communication with the research team. In addition, participants must be able to tolerate a tDCS session and commit to the scheduled session time for the duration of the study.
While remote tDCS offers a convenience to the study and administration of the therapy, self-directed participant use is not advisable due to both safety concerns and the inability to monitor and standardize the stimulation that is delivered. Instead, our protocol follows the standards and guidelines for remotely-supervised tDCS16 to extend clinic standards through delivery in a remote location. The guidelines ensure that research staff are properly trained for participant interactions, that users have proper ability to participate in remote tDCS, and that there are ongoing training materials as well as assessments made of the participant at each step of the study. The stimulation was uniform and reproducible with exactly 20 min of 1.5 mA delivered at every session without any interruption or variation across sessions or individuals.
Modifications to the protocol and troubleshooting tips
The protocol includes several small modifications. Firstly, we expanded the use of this protocol to MS participants that have an EDSS score above 6.5 in the instance where there is a proxy accessible to administer each dose. In addition, we have implemented a procedure whereby we remotely access the participant's study provided laptop to initiate the web conference for those who need extra support and review measures of tolerability and study experiences through a shared document. A future modification to the current protocol includes allowing various degrees of remote supervision so that participants who prove most competent with the technique would only require early supervision to confirm device set up and to receive the unlock code.
Limitations of the technique
While our preliminary results support the feasibility of this protocol, the sample size is limited. As enrollment expands, analyses will be made for gaps in training, ways to streamline sessions, enhance the instructional video, and make the technique more accessible to those with motor impairment (i.e., adaptive mice for computer usage, sponge pocket/headset modification to further ease application). Some participants in the EDSS range below 6.5 (not requiring proxy), may still experience some difficulty in headset preparation and troubleshooting computer related issues. Furthermore, while this study recommends full remote monitoring of participants throughout all sessions, future studies may deem some participants sufficiently trained to operate the device without supervision for the entirety of a session.
Significance of the method with respect to existing methods
These initial results demonstrate the feasibility of our protocol for remotely-supervised tDCS delivery for clinical trials, following a set of guidelines and standards that must be employed to safely, and effectively administer tDCS under remote supervision. The protocol was designed to have a decision-tree series of checkpoints with "stop" criteria (section 2.5.1 above) that must be cleared in order to proceed at each step (see Figure 1). These checkpoints addressed tolerability (experiences of pain or adverse effects to the treatment) and compliance (timely session attendance and proper technique). For each session 1 through 10, participants completed brief adverse event reports before and after their sessions (with items derived from a list of the most common tDCS side-effects in previous trials). In addition, participants completed the self-report measures to address tolerability (before and after the session) and can complete symptom inventories as well. This study is significant in that it establishes a technique to examine a therapy in MS with adequate power while also providing broader access to tDCS treatment.
Future applications of the technique
Once the method for remotely-supervised tDCS has been fully piloted in the MS population, a larger, randomized controlled trial can be initiated to target symptom management. Through the use of the instructional training materials and structure around daily participant interactions, remotely-supervised tDCS can be accessed by a wider range of patient populations and expand clinical study of the technique. |
Yesterday, the House Intelligence Committee released proposed changes to the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act of 2011, also known as CISPA that, according to its sponsors, represent "huge progress" towards addressing the privacy and internet freedom community's concerns.
But, many privacy advocates, including the ACLU, and groups including the Center for Democracy and Technology, Free Press, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Constitution Project still maintain their opposition. The changes are so underwhelming that even the Obama administration issued a statement yesterday that their privacy concerns persist.
Here are some of the main problems with CISPA:
1. CISPA still allows companies to share lots of sensitive and private information about our internet use with the government. The proposal amended the definition of what could be shared by taking out its explicit reference to stealing "intellectual property." But it still allows the sharing of Internet use records or the content of emails for "cybersecurity purposes" and unlike proposals drafted by Sens. Joe Lieberman and Dianne Feinstein or the Obama administration, CISPA does not require companies to even make an effort to remove information that could be tied to a specific individual.
2. CISPA still lets military agencies such as the National Security Agency directly collect the Internet records of American citizens who use the public, domestic, civilian Internet. The proposed changes state that the Department of Homeland Security should be cc'd when companies share our private details with the military and others, but this is no substitute for ensuring that a civilian agency is put in charge of collecting Americans' information.
3. CISPA still lets the government use the private information it collects about us for any purpose it deems fit outside of regulation. For four months, the draft bill has remained the same: the government can use information collected under this broad new program for "any lawful purpose" so long as a "significant purpose" of its use is a cybersecurity or national security one. But as former federal and FISA court judge James Robertson said at a congressional briefing this week, this "significant purpose" limitation is meaningless. The Patriot Act inserted this language into our foreign intelligence surveillance laws, and since then, in Judge Robertson's words, they've had a "hole you could drive a truck through."
Hard to see the progress here.
CISPA is still expected to hit the House floor for "Cybersecurity Week" next week. You can find out more about the bills in this memo, and more importantly, help us spread the word on Twitter and write to your Member of Congress today. Let Congress know that in spite of the minor changes floated by the House Intelligence Committee, you still oppose CISPA.
Learn more about cybersecurity: Sign up for breaking news alerts, follow us on Twitter, and like us on Facebook. |
The GT80 Titan looks like a gaming laptop for people who hate gaming laptops. The 10 pound heavyweight, with an 18-inch 1080p display, challenges most of the conventional issues gamers have with laptops compared to desktop rigs.
Hate cramped chiclet keyboards? The GT80 is the first laptop to use an actual mechanical keyboard. It has Cherry MX Brown switches. Want to be able to upgrade your components? A panel on top of the laptop gives you access to M.2 SSD slots, RAM, and a 2.5-inch drive bay. Even the graphics cards, a pair of Nvidia GTX 980Ms in SLI, can be swapped out for newer MXM mobile graphics down the road. Aren't happy without a triple-monitor setup? The GT80 supports Nvidia Surround thanks to two DisplayPort and one HDMI output on the back.
Think laptop performance just isn't good enough? Well, a pair of 980Ms running in SLI is comparable to (and even slightly outperforms) the desktop 980, according to MSI. A 350 watt power brick ensures they have enough juice to run at full capacity.
That just leaves one major sticking point: price. And the GT80 Dominator isn't cheap. It starts at $3300, though the version on display at CES cost $3700 thanks to a step-up Intel Extreme 4980HQ processor. The system also included 24GB of RAM, a 1TB 7200 RPM HDD and two 128GB M.2 SSDs running in RAID. A trackpad on the right side of the keyboard doubles as a 10 key numberpad with haptic feedback.
This is absolutely a chunky laptop. In fact, I think "laptop" is a poor descriptor for it. The ventilation is designed to shunt most of its heat out the back, and MSI included a convenient button toggle to turn the fans on full blast if you want to keep the graphics cards as cool as possible while playing demanding games. Even if it doesn't get leg-burning hot, it's hard to imagine anyone using this system in their lap. It's absolutely a desktop replacement.
Because of its size, the GT80 is surprisingly light--much lighter than I expected before I picked it up. It's not a system you'd want to take on-the-go regularly, but for a gaming party at a friend's place? No problem (and MSI said they're throwing in a backpack to carry the Titan, as there aren't many bags for 18.4-inch laptops). You'll be the only one with a mechanical keyboard built into your laptop.
The screen is the one real weakness here. It's only a 1080p panel, which MSI says is an issue of availability—1440p or higher resolution panels simply aren't being produced at this unusual 18.4-inch size with the regularity they'd need to sell the GT80. Thankfully, MSI chose a Samsung PLS panel, which is a step up from the cheap, washed-out TN panels (with poor viewing angles, to boot) that many laptops use. 1080p is also a decent pixel density for the size, and games will naturally run better at 1080p than at 1440p. But if you're a stickler for high pixel density, you'll want to plug the GT80 into an external monitor.
For $3300, we'd rather build a small mini-ITX system in a compact case, throw a GTX 980 and desktop Core i5 into it, and pocket the extra $2000 or so. But it's cool to see MSI tackling upgradability, which we'd say is the major shortcoming of gaming laptops, with a system that's so open and accessible. You can even pop the Cherry MX Brown keys off the keyboard and replace them with another set, if you're so inclined.
The MSI GT80 Titan should be hitting online retailers soon. MSI's website has a list of sites you'll be able to buy it from, including Newegg and Amazon. And now for some more photos: |
They will include a prototype device unveiled last week, similar to a home pregnancy test, that may make diagnosis possible in under 15 minutes, a potential game-changer, Jean-Francois Delfraissy, who spearheads France's Ebola campaign, told journalists in Paris.
"It will make a big difference not to have to wait for six hours, but only 15 minutes," he said, referring to the time it currently takes for results to come back from the laboratory.
The biggest Ebola epidemic in history has claimed more than 4,900 lives in west Africa since the beginning of the year, according to the World Health Organization -- almost all of them in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
Earlier this month, France's Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) announced that a new 15-minute Ebola test has proved effective in high-security laboratory trials.
It has not yet been validated by regulators.
The diagnostic tool works by antibodies reacting to the presence of the virus in a tiny sample, which can be a drop of blood, plasma or urine, it said.
A European pharma company Vedalab is turning the prototype into a user-friendly kit called eZYSCREEN that will see a positive result yield a small stripe in a results window on the hand-held device.
The kit is simple to use in the field without any additional equipment, said the CEA.
Other pharmaceutical teams are also working on fast diagnostic tools for Ebola. They include Primerdesign, a spinoff company of Britain's University of Southampton, and Corgenix Medical Corp of the United States.
Work is also under way in several laboratories on developing a vaccine or cure for the killer haemorrhagic fever against which no drug treatment exists.
Delfraissy said the diagnostics experiments will be conducted by volunteers Doctors Without Borders (MSF -- Medecins Sans Frontieres) under the supervision of experts from the French Institute of Health and Medical Research (Inserm).
Some of the trials will take place at a new, French-sponsored health centre in Macenta in southeast Guinea.
Delfraissy said he hoped the tests would yield "reliable information by the beginning of December to allow the tests to be used in the field". |
“I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live up to what light I have. ” ~Abraham Lincoln
As a child, my father always told me, “At everything you do, you have to be number one.” I tried. In some ways, I succeeded. I got high grades. Sometimes, the highest. Sometimes, I got awards.
I became an expert at figuring out other people’s expectations and meeting them. This got me approval, but it never made me happy. I wasn’t passionate about grades, awards, or approval. I didn’t feel butterflies in my stomach while doing math. I didn’t feel shivers down my spine while conjugating French verbs.
I loved to write, sing, dance. I was the girl who made up song lyrics and got them stuck in her head. I was the girl who stayed up after her parents went to bed to dance around, sing into my pillow, and crawl out onto the roof to dream about flying far, far away. I was that girl who couldn’t understand my thoughts until I wrote them down.
Despite my parents’ wishes for me to pursue an academic, intellectual route, I went to theatre school. There, I thought I would explore the deepest crevices of my desires. I was wrong.
I found the fine art education world to be shallow, and I found myself to be the same. My mind fixated on being the best. I never was. Disappointed with myself as much as the program, I dropped out. I slunk back to logic and facts. Skepticism. Analysis. Things I was good at. I got good grades. I got awards.
But being good at something is never a replacement for loving it. I was addicted to academic achievement because it earned me approval. I could never get enough. Again, I got hungry for art.
After I almost led myself into an early grave, I realized how important it was to make time for the things that made me feel alive. Yet on that journey, I’ve found myself constantly in the intermediate pile. Sometimes, beginner. Never, ever the best.
I run all the time, but I’m not fast. I’ve been doing yoga for ten years, but I still can’t do Crow Pose. I’ve been playing acoustic guitar on and off for years, and I still struggle with barre chords. I’ve been singing since I was a kid, and my performances are inconsistent. I’ve been writing since I could hold a pen and doing it for a living since 2012, but most people have never heard of me.
For years, my father’s voice haunted me, telling me to always be number one. I tried to reject his advice, refuse it, write it off as worthless egotism. But still, it gnawed at me.
One voice in my head said I should accept myself just the way I am. Another part couldn’t help but point out all the room for improvement. Along the way, I’ve realized that one voice doesn’t need to defeat the other. They just need to learn to get along.
Accepting my skill level at something is self-loving. Who would doubt that? But assuming that my skills can’t or won’t ever get better is self-sabotage. To work on improving myself is a kind of self-acceptance too. I accept my ability to learn—however slow and awkward that learning process might be.
Some people say that we should always try to be better than who we were yesterday. I can’t agree with that. Some days, I’m less patient, less energetic, and less kind than I was the day before. And that’s okay.
Because, for me, the goal isn’t to be number one compared to others. And it’s not even to be number one compared to past versions of myself. Instead, I’ve learned to do be the best at just one thing: being my own number one fan, supporter, friend, and mentor.
It’s not an easy job. It’s not easy to unconditionally love someone and motivate them to make changes. It’s not easy to hold someone when they’re breaking down one day and push them to do better the next day. It’s a paradox and a balancing act. It’s hard. But it’s incredibly worthwhile.
I spent all those years competing. Trying to be the best. Trying to be perfect. Trying to get recognized, acknowledged, noticed. Trying. Trying. Trying. Never succeeding.
But now I know that the reward for pursuing the passions that light me on fire isn’t the same as the reward for pursuing status, recognition, or achievement. There are no grades, no awards, no medals that can quantify the way my chest bursts open when I sing something real. There are no numbers to measure the lightness I feel in my body when I write words that make me sob and cry and heal. The reward is the experience.
We live in the age of self-esteem. The school system tells young kids: “You can be anything you want to be! You can do it all!” But the message woven into even the most encouraging words is that the measuring stick of success is achievement, recognition, award.
What if all that those kids want to be is happy? Or angry? Or tortured? Or whatever it is that they feel in that moment.
Self-esteem is nothing but a cheap replacement for self-love. I don’t need to esteem myself. I know I’m an awkward, beautiful, human mess. At most of the things I do, I’m somewhere between mediocre and interesting. At some things, I’m between awful and mediocre. But I love that I do them anyway.
I appreciate myself so much for doing the things I love, even though I’m not “number one” at them. I am grateful for how much time, care, and effort I put into trying to be a good friend to myself.
And that’s what I think life is really about: learning about myself. Trying to be a good friend to my reflection. A best friend, even.
So many of us miss out on the chance to experience self-intimacy because we forget what friendship is all about. It’s about secrets, inside jokes, and adventures. It’s about heartbreak, healing, and presence. We don’t love our friends for how skilled, accomplished, or perfect they are. We love them for being real, for walking beside us on the confusing, chaotic road of life.
And that’s what I seek to be for myself: an intimate friend. A fellow voyager. A curious companion. Maybe it doesn’t sound like much. But to me, it’s an accomplishment that I achieve and celebrate every single day.
—
**Editor’s Note: Vironika has generously offered to give away ten digital copies of her new book, The Art of Talking to Yourself (preview available here). A different kind of self-help book. Instead of giving you expert advice and magical solutions, this book will help you discover your own expertise and use it to hear, understand, and change your inner conversation. You can learn more and read reviews on Amazon here.
For a chance to win, leave a comment below. You don’t have to write anything specific. “Count me in” is sufficient! You can enter until midnight PST on Sunday, August 13th.
UPDATE: The winners for this giveaway have been chosen. They are: Aegira, Simona Celarova, Ted Young, Kat Gál, Bernadine, Gregory Dees, Athreyi Raj, Jessica Rodriguez, Gayne Brenneman, and Marty Lesak Sloditski.
Photo by Allef Vinicius
About Vironika Tugaleva Like every human being, Vironika Tugaleva is an ever-changing mystery. At the time of writing this, she was a life coach, digital nomad, and award-winning author of two books (The Love Mindset and The Art of Talking to Yourself). She spent her days writing, dancing, singing, running, doing yoga, going on adventures, and having long conversations. But that was then. Who knows what she’s doing now? Keep up at www.vironika.org. |
August's Lowdown
In 2002, it was reported that British Prime Minister Tony Blair had told a friend an amusing tale about our man George W. Bush. It seems that the two of them and French President Jacques Chirac had gotten into an economics discussion, after which George supposedly confided to Tony that he was decidedly unimpressed with Jacques' views: "The problem with the French," Bush scoffed, "is that they don't have a word for 'entrepreneur.'"
W's head has always been a no-fly-zone for factual reality. However, what would boggle his mind even more than the fact that we Americans filched that word from the French, is the reality that government is not quite the entrepreneur-devouring ogre (Mon dieu! George, another French word!) that Bush's cartoonish dogma paints it to be. Actually, government-at-its-best can be an entrepreneur's buddy. One surprising place to see this buddyship at work is in one of the most mundane of government offices: Procurement (i.e., the Department of Buying Stuff).
Where does your mayor, school board, governor, or any other "public shopper" go to purchase fixtures, food, furniture, ferns, and whatnot? Where I live, various agencies have Buy Austin, Buy Texas, Buy American, Buy Green, Buy Sweatshop-Free, and other targeted policies that apply our tax dollars to our values. This sensible idea has swept across the country, most likely including where you live, and these agency purchases add up to a big financial boost for start-ups, independents, women-owned, and other homegrown enterprises. Rather than buying everything from Walmart or China (excuse the redundancy there)--thus shipping truckloads and boatloads of cash out of our communities--plow that public money back into the home turf for grassroots economic growth and the flowering of local jobs.
Stop making sense
My administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government. We will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration. ----President Obama, January 26, 2009 Memo to Executive branch officials
Imagine the uproar if President Obama and Congress tried to pass a bill to outlaw such "preferential procurement" policies, summarily cancelling our democratic right to decide where to make public purchases. I'd get pretty PO'd, wouldn't you? And what if they also proposed that foreign corporations in Brunei, New Zealand, Vietnam, and other nations must be given the right to make the sale on any and all products purchased with our tax dollars? That'd set my hair on fire!
The American people would never stand for this brazen affront to our sovereignty, so I can assure you that Obama and Congress will definitely NOT be proposing any such thing. Not directly, that is.
Instead, their hope is to tiptoe it around us. The nullification of our people's right to direct expenditures of our own tax dollars is but one of the horror stories being quietly packed into a political-and-economic bombshell benignly labeled TPP --the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
This thing is a supersized and nuclearized NAFTA, the 1994 trade scam rammed through Congress by Bill Clinton, Wall Street's Robert Rubin, and the entire corporate establishment. They promised that the "glories of globalization" would shower prosperity across our land. They lied. Corporations got the gold. We got the shaft--thousands of factories closed, millions of middle-class jobs went south, and the economies of hundreds of towns and cities (including Detroit) were hollowed out. (Most Mexicans got the NAFTA shafta, too. US grain traders like ADM dumped corn into Mexico, wiping out millions of peasant farmers' livelihoods, and thousands of local businesses were crushed when Walmart invaded with its Chinese-made wares.)
Twenty years later, the corporate gang that stuck us with NAFTA is back, hoping to fool us with an even more destructive multinational deal. (This calls for another immortal quote from George W: "Fool me once, shame on--shame on you. Fool me--you can't get fooled again." Well, you know what he meant).
This time we really must pay attention, because TPP is not just another trade deal. First, it is massive and open-ended. It would hitch us immediately to 11 Pacific Rim nations (Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam), and its door would remain wide open to lure China, Indonesia, Russia, and other nations to come in. Second, note that many of those countries already have trade agreements with the US. Hence, THIS AMAZING FACT: TPP is a "trade deal" that mostly does not deal with trade. In fact, of the 29 chapters in this document, only five cover traditional trade matters!
The other two dozen chapters amount to a devilish "partnership" for corporate protectionism. They create sweeping new "rights" and escape hatches to protect multinational corporations from accountability to our governments... and to us. Here are a few of TPP's provisos that would make our daily lives riskier, poorer, and less free:
Food safety. Any of our government's food safety regulations (on pesticide levels, bacterial contamination, fecal exposure, toxic additives, GMOs, non-edible fillers, etc.) that are stricter than "international standards," as most are, could be ruled as "illegal trade barriers." Then our government would have to revise our consumer protections to comply with the weaker global standards. Also, our government could no longer ban meat imports that don't meet our safe-to-eat laws, as long as the exporting nation simply claims that its inspection system is "equivalent" to ours. In addition, food labeling laws we rely on (organic, country-of-origin, animal-welfare approved, GMO-free, etc.) would also be subject to challenge as trade barriers.
Fracking. Our Department of Energy would lose its authority to regulate exports of natural gas to any TPP nation. This would create an explosion of the destructive fracking process across our land, for both foreign and US corporations could export fracked gas from America to member nations without any DOE review of the environmental and economic impacts on local communities--or on our national interests. It also means that most of the gas produced by this violently polluting process will not go to us, but to foreign users, which will raise our consumer prices and cut manufacturing growth.
Jobs. US corporations would get special foreign-investor protections to limit the cost and risk of relocating their factories to low-wage nations that sign onto this agreement. For example, an American corporation thinking about moving a factory would know it is guaranteed a sweetheart deal if it exports to a TPP nation like Vietnam. The corporation could skirt Vietnam's laws and demand compensation at an international tribunal for any government policy or action (such as a hike in the minimum wage) that undermined its "expected" profits. These guarantees would be strong incentives for corporate chieftains to export even more of our middle-class jobs.
Drug prices. Big Pharma would be given more years of monopoly pricing on each of their patents and be empowered to block distribution of cheaper generic drugs. Besides artificially keeping everyone's prices high, this would be a death sentence to many people suffering from cancer, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and other treatable diseases in impoverished lands. The deal would also restrict the rights of our government to negotiate with drug giants to get lower consumer prices with bulk purchases, as Medicare and Medicaid do in the US.
Banksters. Wall Street and the financial giants in other TPP countries would make out like bandits: The deal explicitly prohibits transaction taxes (such as the proposed Robin Hood Tax here) that would shut down super-rich speculators who have repeatedly triggered financial crises and economic crashes around the world; it restricts "firewall" reforms that separate consumer banking from risky investment banking (thus prohibiting Congress from reinstating the much needed Glass-Steagall firewall in our country); it could roll back reforms that governments adopted to fix the extreme bank-deregulation regimen that caused Wall Street's 2007 crash; and it provides a backdoor escape from national rules that would limit the size of "too-big-to-fail" behemoths. These extreme provisions would be enforceable by the banks themselves--TPP empowers them to force governments either to repeal reform laws or to compensate banks with taxpayer money for "losses" they say are caused by reforms.
Internet freedom. Thanks to public rebellion, corporations hoping to lock up and monopolize the internet failed in Congress last year to pass their repressive "Stop Online Piracy Act." However, they've slipped SOPA's most pernicious provisions into TPP. Corporate-created content, for example, would be given copyright protection for a stunning 120 years! The deal would also transform internet service providers into a private, Big Brother police force, empowered to monitor our "user activity," arbitrarily take down our content, and cut off our access to the internet. To top that off, consumers could be assessed mandatory fines for non-commercial, small-scale copying--like sending your mom a recipe you got off of a paid site.
Public services. TPP rules would limit how governments regulate such public services as utilities, transportation, and education, including restricting policies meant to ensure broad or universal access to those essential needs. One especially insidious rule says that member countries must open their service sectors to private competitors, which would allow the corporate provider to cherry pick the profitable customers and sink the public service. Also, corporations from any TPP nation must be allowed to bid on contracts to provide public services in the US on the same terms as American corporations.
A corporatocracy
Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen's superb research and activist group, Global Trade Watch, correctly calls the Trans-Pacific Partnership "a corporate coup d'etat." Indeed, nations that join must conform their laws and rules to TPP's strictures, effectively supplanting US sovereignty and cancelling our people's right to be self-governing. Worse, it creates virtually permanent corporate rule over us--there's no expiration date on the agreement, and no provision in it can be altered unless all countries agree. Thus, even if Americans voted in an election to make changes, any other TPP country could overrule us by not agreeing.
Well, you might think, we'll still have our courts to redress corporate misuse of TPP's provisions. Uh... no. One of the deal's chapters creates a monstrous monkey wrench called the "Investor-State Dispute Resolution" system. In this private, supra-legal "court," corporations are empowered to sue TPP governments over environmental, health, consumer, zoning, or any other public policies that the corporations claim are either undermining their TPP "rights" or diminishing--get this--their "expected future profits."
This elevates thousands of private, profit-seeking entities to the legal status of sovereign nations. Under the investor-state system, a smaller version of which was included in NAFTA and other free-trade schemes, the deck is stacked for corporate interests. Cases are decided behind closed doors by three-person international tribunals of private attorneys who often have a glaring corporate bias. The same lawyers who represent corporations in these cases routinely switch over in other cases to serve as "judges." Holy revolving door!
These "tribunalists" are not accountable to any electorate, and their decisions are final--there's no appeal to a real court. If a corporation wins a case, taxpayers of the government being sued lose, for they must pony up cash to compensate the corporation for its "loss" of profit.
At present, even before the elephantine TPP is imposed on us, corporations are demanding a total of nearly $14 billion just in cases brought under free trade arrangements that include the US. Among the current corporate giants suing governments in investor-state tribunals are (1) Philip Morris (Altria), attacking Australia's and Uruguay's cigarette labeling policies; (2) Chevron, trying to avoid its liability for the gross toxic contamination of people and nature in the Ecuadorian Amazon; (3) Eli Lilly, demanding that Canada rewrite its patent law to give its drugs extended monopoly protection; and (4) several European investment firms, assaulting Egypt's minimum wage law.
Shhhhh!
Why isn't this a screaming, bold-type, take-to-the-streets, call-out-the-dogs, roll-out-the-guillotine news story and political issue? Because the corporate and political powers (apologies again for redundancy) definitely don't want us to kick up a fuss that could squirrel their little surprise, so they've thrown a suffocating blanket of secrecy over the whole process.
TPP negotiations were initiated back in 2008 by none other than President Can't-Be-Fooled-Again. (Okay, one more Bushism: "I think--tide turning. See, as I remember--I was raised in the desert, but tides kind of--it's easy to see a tide turn.") The incurious mass media, however, didn't see the story then and have since devoted zero investigative energy to it. They've accepted the official cover story that the deal is just another yawner of a trade agreement, so pay no mind--even as 17 rounds of closed-door negotiations have zipped under their radar.
Obama--who pledged in 2008 to avoid sneaky, NAFTA-style, corporate sell-outs--promptly surrendered to the global schemers once in office. Team Obama goosed up the TPP negotiating process and has gone to extremes to make it more furtive than Bush did. In 2010, all nations involved even signed a formal pledge to keep details of their deliberations from the public--and to keep documents related to the deal under cover until four years after the process is completed.
WARNING--BUCKLE UP BEFORE READING THIS: Last year, Obama's top trade rep, Ron Kirk, declared that locking out the people is necessary, because the deal's details would outrage Americans and spook Congress from rubber stamping it. In short, to win public approval of TPP, the Obamacans say they must keep it hidden from the public.
Where, you might ask, is Congress? In the dark.
Even though the Constitution says Congress has exclusive authority "to regulate commerce with foreign nations," the White House has repeatedly rejected pretty-please requests by lawmakers merely to attend negotiations as observers, and congressional leaders have not been allowed to review, much less have any meaningful input on, the draft texts of TPP's 29 chapters. (Update: In June, our progressive friend, Rep. Alan Grayson, who has been a tenacious critic of the shady process, was finally granted a peek at the full draft--though not allowed to take a copy. "It's easy to understand why [it's] been kept secret," Grayson says, confirming that "It puts corporate interests ahead of American interests.")
The corporate team
There are, however, 600 or so "outsiders" who've been welcomed inside to help write TPP. They are handpicked members of the 16 Industry Trade Advisory Committees--practically all of them corporate executives. From AT&T to Zippo Manufacturing, and from the Koch boys' empire to Walmart's billionaires, corporate powers are cheek to jowl with the government negotiators to make sure the final document serves their very special interests.
In addition, Obama has now named one of their own to replace Kirk: Michael Froman, an Obama classmate in law school and a protege of Robert Rubin in the Clinton administration. Post-Clinton, Froman traipsed along with Rubin to Citigroup, which made him a Wall Street multi-millionaire. From there, he went back to Obama in 2004 as a senate campaign advisor and money-bagger (including introducing the rising political star to Rubin). Now he's been brought in to wire all these connections to the TPP sovereignty bomb.
Will the new trade representative finally apply Obama's 2009 pledge of "transparency, public participation, and collaboration" to these momentous negotiations? Sen. Elizabeth Warren asked Froman this very question in June, offering three specific suggestions for shining a little of democracy's beneficial light on the process. "Mr. Froman's response was clear," Sen. Warren later reported: "No, no, no."
Obama & Co. can shut us out of the room, but they can't consummate the deal there. While he wants to wrap up formal negotiations by October, he then has to get Congress's okay. This means imploring the same members he's been stiffing to sign America's name (i.e., yours and mine) to the document.
How will he get them to do that? As Clinton and Bush did in previous free trade hustles, he'll try to use a rush-rush legislative procedure called "fast track," while TPP's boosters simultaneously envelop the public debate in a disorienting fog of corporate PR.
The White House and its corporate allies will also mount a heavy-handed lobbying campaign to shove their package into law. Yet, even with all of the above, by no means is passage assured--or likely.
Start with fast track. The very term suggests a railroad job, which is apt, for it's a little-used, anti-democratic maneuver to choo-choo a bill right over Congress. Under this procedure, Obama is allowed to sign TPP before Congress votes. Then he writes an "implementing bill" to make US laws conform to the hundreds of pages of TPP dictates. That's what he sends to Congress, where no amendments will be allowed and debate will be strictly limited.
The idea is to force members to swallow the whole deal in one, hurried, up-or-down vote. However, Congress first has to authorize the White House's use of the fast track ploy--and that's very iffy. Republican leaders have shown they're unwilling to give anything to Obama. Meanwhile, congressional Democrats are not likely to grease the skids for this stinker of a deal.
The people's team
But the fundamental problem for the deal's boosters is not procedure, it's content: TPP stinks. If Americans get a whiff of it, they'll gag. Yes, corporations will put a ton of money behind TPP's passage, but even they might not have enough PR perfume to make Congress hug it.
There is also a broad, well-organized, knowledgeable, and politically experienced coalition of grassroots groups already at work to prevent this perversion of America's fundamental governing principles. Still, many pundits will tell us that it's impossible to stop them, because the public can't understand these complex deals.
Baloney. First, this one is not at all complex; it's a plain old power grab by the world's moneyed elites, and people today have no interest in giving more money and power to the world's 1-percenters. Second, populist forces now opposing TPP have won many of these brawls in the past, including:
Stopping Clinton's demand for fast track authority in 1998.
Sidetracking the Multilateral Agreement on Investment in 1998.
Derailing an expansion of the World Trade Organization in 1999 and again in 2010.
Defeating the Free Trade Area of the Americas (a 14-nation expansion of NAFTA) in 1999.
Halting such multi-nation trade deals as AFTA (Andean countries) and NAFTA-style deals with APEC (an earlier attempt at the TPP with 18 Pacific Rim Countries), SACU (Southern Africa), Malaysia, and Thailand.
My message: We can do this. We The People can protect our democratic rights from this latest threat of corporate usurpation. The only way the Powers That Be can win is to keep the public in the dark about what TPP is. So now is the time for Lowdowners to sound the alarm, spread the news about the Trans-Pacific Partnership (start by sharing this article with your social networks!), and shine the light of day on their power play before it gets to Congress. |
Concord grapes are usually in season up north around the end of August and early September, and that’s about the only time I can find them here in Central Florida. Concord grapes are my favorite grapes. The flavor is unique so that it stands out among other grape varieties. I like them so much that I can tolerate the small bitter seeds. This season I bought my fair share of Concord grapes, but I decided the best way to savor the flavor all year-long was to make jelly. I bought 4 pounds. I used 3 pounds to make the fruit juice for the jelly, and I used one pound to make Concord grape juice (sorry, we drank it before I could record the process).
My recipe for Concord Grape Jelly is a combination of my grandmother’s jelly recipe and canning techniques and the recommended instructions found on the CERTO package. My grandmother used the dry powder pectin, but I find that the liquid pectin works better than the dry version to make the jelly thick and firm. I always blame the humid Florida weather for my cooking failures, but I’m sure it’s because I’m queen of the substitutes and shortcuts when it comes to cooking.
To make and can Concord grape jelly, you will need the following supplies in addition to the ingredients listed in the recipe:
Print Concord Grape Jelly Recipe Prep Time 30 minutes Cook Time 15 minutes Total Time 45 minutes Servings 8 jars Author Olives-n-Okra Ingredients 3 pounds Concord grapes
1 1/2 cups water
1 teaspoon butter
7 cups granulated sugar
1 pouch CERTO or BALL liquid pectin Instructions Prepare supplies: Wash jars, lids, and rings in hot soapy water. Put jars in the water bath canner, and cover completely with water. Bring water to a simmer (don't need to boil). In a small saucepan, add lids and bring to a simmer. You don't need to add the rings. It is important to keep jars and lids hot or your jelly might not seal. Prepare fruit: In a large saucepan, crush grapes with a potato masher. Add water; stir. Bring to boil; simmer on medium-low heat for 10 minutes. Strain juice through a fine sieve or strainer to remove debris. Juice should equal 4 cups. Add up to 1/2 cup of water, if needed, to make 4 cups. Cook the jelly: Add juice, sugar, and butter to large saucepan; mix well. Bring mixture to a full rolling boil (a boil that doesn't stop bubbling when stirred) on high heat, stirring constantly. Boil exactly 1 minute, stirring constantly. Stir in liquid pectin. Return to a full rolling boil; boil exactly 1 minute, stirring constantly. Remove from heat. If not using a jelly bag, pour mixture through a strainer lined with 3 layers of cheesecloth. Tie cheesecloth closed; and let drip into bowl until dripping stops. Press gently with fingers or back of spoon. Insert funnel in top of jars and immediately ladle hot jelly mixture into prepared jars. Fill jars within ¼ or an eighth of top. Remove air bubbles using bubble remover and head space tool. Wipe jar lids and threads. Remove lid from pot using jar lifter. Center lid on jar, add ring, and screw tightly. To process jelly: Place all jars in canner using jar lifter. Add enough water to cover by at least 1-2 inches and increase heat to high. Add additional boiling water if necessary. Once the water reaches a full boil, cover and boil for 5 minutes. Turn off heat and remove lid. Remove jars from canner; sit upright on towel. Cool completely before storing. After jars cool, check seals by pressing middle lids with finger. If lid springs back, lids are not sealed and jars will need to be refrigerated immediately. Add label to each jar and mark with contents and date. Store in a cool dry place for up to one year.
Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means that if you click on a link and buy the product, I will receive a very small commission of the sales price. This helps me keep Olives-n-Okra alive. I use all of the products listed in this post routinely, and I trust the companies that make them. |
Tim Leiweke of Miami Beckham United gave a presentation tonight on what the group is planning for a new soccer stadium.
It will be built without parking garages. The focus is on being pedestrian and mass transit friendly, and they count almost 7,000 spaces already in the area.
Cost is expected to be about $220 million. A new financial backer will be announced soon.
There will be about 25,000 seats.
Seats will be covered by a roof. They want the field itself to be under open air for a quality natural turf.
The stadium will be LEED certified, and the focus is on making it as environmentally friendly as possible.
They will be assessed and pay property taxes. No government or CRA subsidies whatsoever.
There won’t be a retail or restaurant component in the stadium. They want area shopping and retail to thrive, and not be contained within the stadium.
Concept stadium from Marlins Stadium site, moved to Overtown. Leiweke guarantees the new stadium won’t look like this: |
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North Carolina might not be where you'd typically expect to find a French-style chteau, but the Biltmore Forest area of Asheville isn't your typical North Carolina neighborhood.
"We have people from all over the world" who buy homes in the area, attracted by its temperate climate, wide array of fine dining, and its extensive outdoor entertainment options, says Ann Skoglund, listing agent for this 16,221-square-foot, chateau-inspired mansion that's on the market for $10.75 million.
Built on nearly 2 acres by the owners over a five-year period, 2000 to 2005, the estate seems right at home in this exclusive area that borders the fabled Biltmore Estate built by George Vanderbilt in the 1890s.
"It's a fabulous house," says Skoglund. "The people who see it, I think, overwhelmingly are impressed by the incredible quality and substance of the house." Italian limestone was used to construct the home, which features a dramatic central staircase to its second floor.
The home, with five bedrooms and 8.5 bathrooms, also includes an indoor pool on an entertainment level, which has a card room, a home theater with kitchen, and a wine room.
The second-floor master suite includes his-and-her bathrooms, his-and-her closets, and a morning kitchen, one of six kitchens throughout the home.
The main kitchen on the first floor features "every appliance you can think of, including a steamer, warming oven, and built-in espresso maker," says Skoglund. And adjoining it is a catering kitchen, perfect for preparing a sumptuous menu for any party held in the formal dining area. Partygoers can easily spill over into the grand living room with its dramatic fireplace and second-floor gallery.
The home's second floor also features a separate two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment with a private entrance.
Finding the right buyer for the exclusive property is taking some time. The house has been on the market for two-and-a-half years, Skoglund notes. But she's been marketing it internationally and in other parts of the U.S. as well, noting that international buyers who might first buy in Florida often turn their gaze to the Asheville area because of its more moderate climate.
After discussing potential buyers with her seller, Skoglund says the idea of a buyer with a net worth of at least $50 million emerged as a target.
"If they are of the quality to afford this house, there really isn't that much else to choose from that's this spectacular," she says. |
Buy Photo Marshall Works/Billy Long (Photo: News-Leader)Buy Photo
He lacks name recognition and funding, but one Springfield Republican is seeking to oust U.S. Rep. Billy Long in the August primary by punching hard — going after Long's international travel and seeking to paint the congressman as out of touch with southwest Missouri.
Marshall Works, who works in insurance, describes himself as an independent Republican, a fiscal conservative seeking common sense in government. The Springfield man is not impressed with Long's record.
"Frankly, I don't think he's done much. Not only has he not done much, he hasn't done a very good job of what he has done," Works said.
Long, first elected in 2010, said he takes his job seriously and has not missed a vote in the 113th Congress. He said he has been an effective legislator, working with both Democrats and Republicans.
"I'm a workhorse, I'm not a showhorse," Long said.
Long points to his seat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee as well as his taxpayer transparency act, which passed the House unanimously earlier this year. The bill, which is sitting in the Senate, requires government agencies to disclose when advertisements have been paid for with tax money.
In addition, Long said he has been involved in the controversy surrounding the Blueways designation for the White River in Missouri. Some critics feared the Blueways program, designed to further conservation, was actually a step toward federal control.
"We had a field hearing and got the Department of Interior to back off that plan," Long said.
Long also advocates for expanding domestic oil production by developing oil production in Alaska.
In an interview, Works had the harshest words for Long when it came to the Congressman's international travel. Long is among the most frequent travelers in the Congress.
In March, the News-Leader reported Long ranked 20th among members of Congress when it came to the total cost of privately funded trips. In Long's case, it was about $46,960.
The trips included jaunts to Las Vegas, Boston, Shanghai, Istanbul and Azerbaijan.
"I know a boondoggle when I see one. And here's a guy that has accepted $47,000 worth of graft for he and his wife to go on vacations. My wife and I love to travel but we pay for our own vacations," Works said.
Long has strongly defended his travel, both in the past and in a Friday interview with the News-Leader. He said he represents his constituents abroad and that the trips can help Springfield businesses.
For example, after his trip to Shanghai, China, Long said a constituent thanked him for making the trip. During the trip, Long attended meetings with Chinese officials and business leaders to discuss trade issues and business opportunities in the country.
"I think it's ridiculous," Long said of the attacks on his travel.
Long has also said the trips help him become more informed on a range of issues.
"It's important for members of Congress to travel. We make decisions about the world," Long told the News-Leader earlier this year. "Anytime you do something like that, you're picking up knowledge that's going to help you in your career as a congressman."
Works does not buy that explanation.
"That's a guy that's not doing his job and worse yet he's trying to justify not doing it by saying as a congressman he needs to educate himself. What did you learn in Azerbaijan? What did you learn the two times you went to Vegas?" Works said.
Works also faults Long and Congress as a whole for the government shutdown this fall, which he said happened because Tea Party Republicans failed to negotiate a deal. Works said he shares much of the same beliefs as the Tea Party but disagrees with its methods.
"They just go in and say it's my way or no way and we're not budging and I think the people of this corner of the state deserve better than this," Works said.
What does better mean? According to Works, his agenda includes undertaking an audit of tax spending and revisiting the recommendation of the Bowles-Simpson report, which proposed a combination of spending cuts and tax increases — about $3 in cuts for every $1 in new revenue.
Works also says the country needs "more makers and fewer takers" according to a flier he distributes. He writes he will propose legislation to encourage young adults to volunteer in exchange for secondary education or training credits.
Works' campaign comes in the shadow of Rep. Eric Cantor's Virginia primary loss in June. Among the most powerful Republicans in Congress, his loss to professor Dave Brat raised the possibility that other incumbent Republicans could be unseated.
So far, that has not happened. Mississippi Sen. Thad Chochran successfully fended off Tea Party challenger Chris McDaniel a few weeks ago.
But the Long-Works contest is different in that Works is not trying to mount a challenge from the right of Long but is instead branding himself an independent.
Works said defeating Long will be much more difficult than Brat's victory over Cantor, the majority floor leader. Still, he said "maybe lightning will strike twice."
"This is much more of a David and Goliath thing than Dave Brat and Eric Cantor. But I'm OK with that. I knew that going in," Works said.
Long said he takes all of his races seriously — before Cantor's loss and after Cantor's loss. Cantor's district suffered, Long said, because of Cantor's position in leadership.
For his part, Long said he returns to the district three or four times a month, adding he also has good staff in the district.
Though Works faults Long for being out of touch with the district, Works has only lived in Springfield since last year. Before that he lived in the St. Louis area.
Works said the concerns and interests of voters in other parts of the country are not so different than those in southwest Missouri.
Democrats compete in primary
Southwest Missouri Democrats will choose a congressional candidate on Aug. 5. Whoever wins will face a Republican challenger in the fall in a heavily conservative area of the state.
Jim Evans, a retired teacher who ran against Billy Long in the general election in 2012, is once again running for the Democratic nomination. This time, he's facing 26-year-old Genevieve Williams, a college student.
Evans has said he is committed to fiscal responsibility and will defend Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and veterans benefits.
Evans' campaign has also criticized Long for taking privately paid trips to Las Vegas and overseas and for acting to shut down the government.
Williams is a journalism student at MSU, but is originally from Neosho.
Williams also helped run the "Joplin Tornado Info" website and Facebook page, which became a clearinghouse for information after the 2011 disaster. The Facebook page has attracted more than 45,000 likes.
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DISGRUNTLED members of Iran’s militias are ready to turn on the country’s theocratic leadership in the event of a popular uprising, according to the country’s exiled crown prince.
However, His Imperial Highness Reza Pahlavi also expressed concerns that hardliners within the Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) could attempt a coup and impose a “paramilitary dictatorship” when 77-year-old Supreme leader Ali Khamenei dies.
Prince Reza is now urging foreign governments to support an overthrow of the existing Iranian regime, which he predicted would herald a new dawn both for the people of Iran and his country’s role in the region.
“The (Iranian) regime is already fragmented and Khamenei’s death will complicate matters for the regime,” he said in an exclusive interview.
“Would the clerical fundamental nature of the regime change? It could under two plausible scenarios.
“Some factions within the IRGC might attempt a coup and transform the regime to a simpler paramilitary dictatorship, in order to keep control of their interests and power.
“Or they might join the people and allow for a complete regime change to occur with much less bloodshed.
Support
“My focus, desire and expectations are for the latter to happen – and again it depends on a clear decision by foreign governments to support the people of Iran.”
Prince Reza was just 17 when he left Iran for the US, shortly before the 1979 Islamic Revolution of Grand Ayatollah Khomeini.
The heir apparent to the throne of the Imperial State of Iran is publicly advocating a peaceful uprising, strikes and non-co-operation by members of the Iranian public – in the hope of overthrowing those who ousted his father the Shah, who died just over a year after being forced into exile.
“If the ingredients that I am calling for were to be available, both in terms of domestic upheavals and also in the context of foreign governments’ support for the people of Iran, we may indeed see such a scenario successfully work out,” he said.
“I am not suggesting that all members of the IRGC will jump ship, but many will.
“I take great care in cultivating my relations with exactly such elements within the regime.
“I can personally assure you they exist and are increasingly nervous about the ticking of the clock.
“The stronger the resolve of Iranians and the international community of nations, the faster we shall witness defections and the ultimate collapse of the regime.
“Consider this the least costly scenario of change for the people of Iran and for the world. It is certainly a much wiser choice over war.”
Prince Reza said he was able to maintain such contacts from exile thanks to new technologies that allowed a free-flow of information, which he described as “the greatest challenge” facing Iran’s clerics.
In 2014 he founded his own television and radio network, while in 2011 he was named Person Of The Year following an online poll by US-funded Persian station Radio Farda.
“The walls of theocratic regimes have crumbled, in that nothing can be kept in or out of their borders,” he explained.
“Information free-flow is the greatest challenge to the clerical regime that wishes to take Iran back to the 6th or 7th Centuries.
“The clock is ticking and with it the hour of reckoning.”
However, he said he did not pin his hopes for change on America’s tougher approach to Tehran following the election of US President Donald Trump.
“In all my years I have never counted on or depended on any foreign government, the US included,” said Prince Reza.
Mission
“But it is my mission to inform the world, including all foreign governments I am in touch with, that they are best served to invest their focus on the Iranian people – and not a regime that has proven its distrustful nature over and over again.
“The regime is irreformable and no amount of negotiations will change its fundamental commitment to expand its reach and control of an entire region.”
Yet he warned against an all-out war with Iran, saying that could serve to bolster the current regime.
“War is not the answer,” he added.
“War will only bring instability to the region, destroy my country as well as unify the regime and throw it another lifeline.”
One of his proposals is to grant an amnesty to “many disillusioned” members of the IRGC and the Basij militia, who he described as being in a “no man’s land”.
“They need an exit strategy,” he said.
“I know this first hand and for a fact. This is why I have called for a national reconciliation and amnesty.
“This will provide an opportunity for these elements to join the people against the regime.
“They need to be assured that they will have a future beyond this regime.
“The world needs to also stop threatening my country with military attacks.
“This will not help this process, it will force them to rally around the regime and force many of us to oppose such actions.
Legitimacy
“It will be a lose-lose scenario, which will only benefit the regime.”
Meanwhile, he argued the current regime had “long lost any semblance of legitimacy inside Iran” and stated it was “simply a matter time” until the people demanded change.
He said the only question was “how long, or at what cost” would the clerics be able to hold onto power in Iran.
“The method of change I prescribe is an advocacy of a campaign of non-violent, civil disobedience,” he explained.
“It is a means to bring paralysis to the regime from within.
“This coupled with external support for the Iranian people, in the form of political, diplomatic and economic pressures – such as smart sanctions solely targeted against the ruling elite and the controlling IRGC mafia – can tilt the balance in favour of the people.” |
The gap in pay between men and women will take 100 years to close, a campaign group has warned.
Campaigners highlight 10 November as the point in 2017 when a woman on an average wage stops being paid relative to their male counterparts.
But in some parts of the UK, the gender pay gap is so wide, it is as though women work unpaid from September.
Vivienne Hayes, of the Women's Resource Centre, said progress had moved at a "snail's pace".
Campaign group the Fawcett Society said that progress in closing the pay gap has "stalled".
If the mean average pay gap for full time workers of 14.1% closes at the rate it has over the last five years, it won't reach 0% until 2117, it said.
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The government wants large firms to disclose their pay gap, but will not force them to comply.
Ms Hayes, chief executive of charity the Women's Resource Centre, said: "We are here again, year after year lamenting the seemingly impervious issue of equal pay for men and women.
"Even though we have had a law since 1970 outlawing the practice of sex discrimination in pay, our progress is probably not even at a snail's pace."
Why does it differ from area to area?
There are different ways of calculating the pay gap.
For example, for full time workers. the gap based on median hourly earnings has narrowed to its smallest for 20 years, according to the Office for National Statistics, but was still 9.1% in 2017.
Taking into account all workers, both full and part time, the median average gap has risen slightly from 18.2% in 2016 to 18.4% this year.
In 183 out of 206 local authority areas, men in full time jobs earn more on average than women, but the gap varies from place to place.
The top 10 includes the City of London and Tower Hamlets, which contains the financial area Canary Wharf.
However, it is not a simple case of the gap being highest in the areas with the most lucrative jobs.
Blaenau Gwent in Wales has the highest percentage gap between male and female full-time workers, with the average man on £14.07 an hour and average woman on £9.54, a difference of 32%. That is equivalent to women not being paid from 4 September.
Knowsley in Merseyside, one of the most deprived areas of England, also appears in the top 10.
Roger Smith from the Office for National Statistics said women tend to earn more in areas with a higher rate of people working in the public sector while the age of the workforce also played a part.
The Fawcett Society said when higher earning jobs, more commonly held by men, are given more weight the average would mean effectively women stopped being paid from 10 November.
Jemima Olchawski, of the society, said: "One of the biggest gaps is in finance, which is why you'll see the City of London and Tower Hamlets high up.
"There will also be issues around care. Women still make up the vast majority of carers. So we need to see more support for fathers to take time out to be with their children or care for relatives."
Image copyright Leigh Day Image caption Lawyer Linda Wong says financial penalties are needed when firms do not disclose their pay gap
Linda Wong, a solicitor with law firm Leigh Day, said: "The pay gap will persist unless there is commitment and consistency across the board."
The firm has been representing 17,000 former and current employees of Asda and 1,000 Sainsbury's workers in claims for equal pay. An employment tribunal found in 2016 that the Asda women, who mainly worked at check-outs or stacking shelves, could compare themselves to higher paid men working in warehouses.
Lawyers said the difference in pay was between £1 and £3 an hour.
Asda strongly disputed the claims and is appealing. It said the demands of the jobs were different.
"Pay rates in stores differ from pay rates in distribution centres for legitimate reasons, including the different market rates for different jobs in different sectors," a spokeswoman said.
Presenters want 'real change' at BBC
Image copyright PA/Getty Images Image caption Chris Evans and Claudia Winkleman are the BBC's highest paid male and female stars
The gender pay gap at the BBC has also been exposed with men found to be earning an average of 9.3% more than women.
However, Director General Tony Hall said it showed the BBC was "in a better place than many organisations" where the gap is higher.
Female presenters have demanded "real change" by the end of 2017 after it was revealed two-thirds of stars on more than £150,000 a year were men.
Analysis by Robert Cuffe, BBC News Head of Statistics
If official figures say the gap is 9% and campaigners say it's 14%, is someone using a dodgy number?
Not necessarily. Both figures come from the Office for National Statistics. They use different averages. The 9% figure uses the middle (median) number. The 14% figure uses the mean average.
The mean can be pushed up by very a small number of high values. If Bill Gates walks into your local pub, the mean wealth there will shoot up by millions, but the median won't change much.
The ONS prefer 9% for that reason but campaigners say that the average should reflect the gaps across all of society.
Whether equal pay day lands on 10 November (mean), 27 November (median) or on a different day in your area, this analysis shows that there are few places in the UK where it lands on 31 December.
Where women make more than men
There were 23 areas of the UK where women's average pay was greater than men's.
This included Middlesbrough and Stoke-on-Trent, which have a high proportion of people out of work due to unemployment, sickness, disability or caring duties.
However, they also included areas like Bexley, Havering and Sutton, which have low levels of unemployment.
Image copyright Getty Images
Across the UK, the average full-time male chief executive or senior official earns £48.53 an hour, or £93,960 a year. A woman in a similar role earns an average of £36.54 an hour, or £70,000 a year.
The UK ranks 20th out of 144 countries around the world for closing the gender pay gap, but no country has absolute equality.
In Iceland, which is ranked the best by the World Economic Forum, women walked out of their workplaces at 14:38 on 24 October 2016 in protest at the gap. According to unions, this was the time of day that women began working unpaid relative to men.
Minister of state for apprenticeships, skills and women Anne Milton said the government had introduced a legal requirement for all large employers to publish their gender pay and bonus data by April 2018.
"By shining a light on where there are gaps, they can take action to address it," she said. "There are no excuses, employers now need to get on with the job of publishing their pay gap and pledge to improve workplace equality."
The fight for equal pay
Image copyright PA Image caption Female workers won an equal pay claim against Birmingham City Council
Women who worked for decades for Birmingham City Council celebrated when they were told they had won their battle for equal pay, but were angry it had ever had to go to court.
In 2012 the Supreme Court ruled the council would have to pay claims brought by former employees who earned less than male counterparts. The following year the council agreed to settle 11,000 claims.
Pam Saunders spent almost 30 years with the authority and worked as a mobile home care assistant, helping people to wash, do their shopping and housework.
She told the BBC in 2012: "At the end of the day we did work hard for them. We really, really did and so why shouldn't they have paid us the right amount in the beginning?"
More about this story
The BBC England Data Unit used the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings published by the Office for National Statistics and analysed the full time hourly median earnings, excluding overtime, for male and female workers in each local authority area to get the percentage gap between their earnings.
We then calculated the dates on which the average female worker in each area effectively stops being paid, relative to male workers, because of the gap in their earnings.
Produced by Becca Meier, Daniel Dunford and Nassos Stylianou. Design by Sue Bridge. |
Claranet, one of Europe’s leading managed services providers, has acquired LinuxIT, an expert in Linux-based technologies, for undisclosed sums. The UK-based companies, which are being incorporated into the UK operations of the Claranet Group, complement Claranet’s existing portfolio and will add to its capability to deliver industry-leading IT services.
Useful links:
LinuxIT.com technical support
Tel: 0330 390 0500
Email: [email protected]
Hours: 08:00-18:00, Mon-Fri LinuxIT.com sales enquiries
Tel: 0207 685 8014
Email: [email protected]
Hours: 08:00-18:00, Mon-Fri
LinuxIT is an IT services company specialising in professional and managed services for Linux-based applications. Founded in 1999 and based in Bristol, the company provides end-to-end best practice managed services for the lifecycle of Linux-based technologies, be they on-premises or hosted. With 20 members of staff, LinuxIT works with over 200 customers, including ITV, Hopkins Architects, Euro Car Parts, Liz Earle and CAE. Revenues for the year ending 31December 2014 were £2.6 million.
The management and employee structures of both companies are being maintained and the companies will continue to trade under their respective brand names. In joining the Claranet Group, Techgate and LinuxIT bring with them a wealth of experience and expertise, which will enhance Claranet’s ability to do amazing things for its customers and facilitate further innovation of its services.
The acquisitions broaden Claranet’s existing service portfolio, and sees the Claranet Group grow to over 850 employees, with over 5,000 customers and operations in six European markets. The newly enlarged Group will have annual revenues of £150 million.
View New Linux Consulting and Support services |
One of the world’s most successful ancient civilizations didn’t take long to form. A new study assigns precise dates to ancient Egypt’s earliest years and finds that the transition from widely dispersed, small communities to a centralized state with powerful rulers took centuries less than previously thought.
“This is the first comprehensive study of this period that’s ever been accomplished,” says Sturt Manning, an archaeologist at Cornell University who was not involved in the research. “It’s dramatically changing views over how states form.”
Ancient Egypt has captivated scientists for centuries because of its advanced technology, sophisticated writing system and intricate bureaucracy. Researchers know of monarchs’ identities and the society they ruled thanks to the recovery of many artifacts. But the dates of these rulers’ reigns and other major events are fuzzy prior to the construction of the first pyramids around 2700 B.C. To chart the civilization’s rise, scientists have relied on a relative sequence developed in 1899 that is based on the artistic styles of ceramics uncovered from tombs.
The new study, published in the Sept. 4 Proceedings of the Royal Society A, assigns precise dates to that chronology based on statistical analysis of data collected from about 150 artifacts. First, chronologist Michael Dee of the University of Oxford in England and colleagues called up museums and acquired dozens of reeds, textiles, hairs and bones found in burial sites predating the pyramids. They broke off small pieces, dating each using radiocarbon methods. The researchers also gathered previously published radiocarbon dating data on nearly 100 other artifacts.
Unfortunately, radiocarbon dating alone can’t do the job — it has a margin of error of as much as 300 years. But Dee and his team had a second data set to help them narrow the time range for the artifacts in the form of the 1899 chronology: The researchers knew the chronological order of the samples, and they could safely assume that artifacts uncovered from the same tomb were roughly the same age.
Dee’s team relied on statistics to assemble these clues into reliable dates. They plugged the data into a computer algorithm, which came up with millions of possibilities for dates that matched all the criteria. For each set of artifacts that were roughly the same age, most of those possibilities coalesced around a specific range of dates, allowing the researchers to come up with estimates they were confident of.
For the most part, the results were consistent with previous approximations. But two dates stood out: 3700 B.C. and 3100 B.C. for, respectively, the first permanent agricultural villages and the assumption of power by the first monarch, Aha. The researchers conclude that Egypt took only 600 years to evolve from a migrating population of cattle owners to a centralized state.
Many Egyptologists had thought that span was hundreds of years longer. Dee says the study challenges scientists to determine how Egyptians could have settled into villages, adopted agriculture, developed writing and sacrificed local interests for the good of the state in such a short period.
The computer also pushed back the date for the development of writing in Egypt to around 3200 B.C. This date is similar to the estimate of 3500-3400 B.C. for the earliest evidence of writing in nearby Mesopotamia, which is based on radiocarbon dating of a single sample. Archaeologists want to determine when and where writing first developed in the Middle East, and whether one civilization adopted writing from another.
John Baines, an Egyptologist at Oxford who was not involved in the study, says that the dates aren’t perfect — for example, the researchers estimate that one king ruled for 20 or so years, while historical evidence strongly suggests he ruled for at least double that. But he says the study gives archaeologists more confidence in the timeline of early Egypt’s development.
Combined with their 2010 Science paper that used the same methods to examine the dates of ancient Egypt’s golden age, Dee and colleagues’ new study creates a 2,600-year timeline of the civilization that includes the reigns of famous pharaohs like Ramesses the Great. |
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The NYTimes reports that the Anne Frank Foundation, a Swiss nonprofit that holds Anne Frank's copyrights, is now telling publishers that the eponymous diary was not the sole work of Anne Frank.
But now the Swiss foundation that holds the copyright to “The Diary of Anne Frank” is alerting publishers that her father is not only the editor but also legally the co-author of the celebrated book. The move has a practical effect: It extends the copyright from Jan. 1, when it is set to expire in most of Europe, to the end of 2050. Copyrights in Europe generally end 70 years after an author’s death. Anne Frank died 70 years ago at Bergen-Belsen, a concentration camp, and Otto Frank died in 1980. Extending the copyright would block others from being able to publish the book without paying royalties or receiving permission. In the United States, the diary’s copyright will still end in 2047, 95 years after the first publication of the book in 1952.
That last sentence is not quite true; the English translation of The Diary of Anne Frank has a copyright term that expires in 2047 (I checked), but the original Dutch work was published in 1947. Its US copyright registration was renewed and will expire in 2042.
Edit: And do you know what else? A reader has pointed out that the copyright has already expired in countries which have a copyright term of death plus fifty years. This includes Canada, Australia, New Zealand, China, and a whole swath of Africa. So that means the foundation is trying to put the genie back in the bottle.
But that is a side issue.
The real problem today is that, after six decades of claiming that the diary contains the thoughts of a teen-aged girl, the foundation is now saying that one of the book's editors was in fact the co-author. with all the rights that entails.
While I have long thought that the idea of the "author as sole creator" was a myth, and that editors should get credit for their contributions, when it comes to the legal issue I have to agree with Cory Doctorow's take. He's pointed out that if this stands it will create a thorny legal mess:
The question of giving copyright protection to editors undermines the rights of authors. If my editors are co-proprietors of all my works, then they get the right to trump how I may use those words. My ability to resell my books after they go out of print would be contingent upon approval of my editor, who works for a competing house. No creator should support this view -- it represents eternal corporate bondage for all authors.
This legal idea has yet to be tried in the courts, but it has the potential to set a precedent that would throw all book copyrights in Europe into doubt.
It's not just that authors would be stymied when they tried to get their works republished, but also that we'd no longer be able to tell when a work entered the public domain. There's no public record which could tell us the names of a book's editors and other secondary contributors, and in many cases no records exist which identify the editor of a book (who keeps decades-old paperwork like that?).
In short, the foundation's rights grab could to lead to a massive new orphan works problem.
Fortunately, the foundation is already facing fierce opposition:
While the foundation, the Anne Frank Fonds, in Basel, signaled its intentions a year ago, warnings about the change have provoked a furor as the deadline approaches. Some people opposed to the move have declared that they would defy the foundation and publish portions of her text. Foundation officials “should think very carefully about the consequences,” said Agnès Tricoire, a lawyer in Paris who specializes in intellectual property rights in France, where critics have been the most vociferous and are organizing a challenge. “If you follow their arguments, it means that they have lied for years about the fact that it was only written by Anne Frank.” The decision has also set the foundation on a possible collision course with the Anne Frank House museum in Amsterdam, a separate entity that for years has sparred with the Anne Frank foundation over legal questions, such as ownership of archives and trademark issues. The museum has been working for five years with historians and researchers on an elaborate web version of the diary intended for publication once the copyright expires. The research is still progressing with a historical and textual analysis of her writing, including deletions, corrections and stains. “We haven’t decided yet when or how the results will be published,” said Maatje Mostart, a spokeswoman for the Anne Frank House. “Any publishing will always be done within the legal frameworks.” She added pointedly that neither “Otto Frank nor any other person is co-author.”
What's most noteworthy about the Anne Frank House museum deciding to pursue this project is that the foundation insists that only it can be entrusted to protect Anne's legacy. The foundation’s Yves Kugelmann told the NYTimes that its aim is to “make sure that Anne Frank stays Anne". He added: “When she died, she was a young girl who was not even 16. We are protecting her. That is our task.”
Hogwash.
This is a money grab, pure and simple.
image by heatheronhertravels |
CHARLOTTE, NC- The Charlotte Independence announced Tuesday that veteran midfielder and 2016 Independence fan favorite, Jorge Herrera, would be returning for the 2017 season, pending US Soccer and USL approval.
The Colombian-born Herrera will be returning for his third season with the Independence and as one of the most successful players in USL history slating 40 goals and 25 assists before his upcoming 11th season.
“I've been a part of the Independence since day one and it is an honor to be able to keep playing professional soccer with this organization,” Herrera said. “To be honest, I didn't choose the Independence, I just accepted a great invitation from my team.”
At 36-years-old, Herrera will return as one of the oldest players in the league, a fact that Charlotte Independence Head Coach Mike Jeffries is not concerned about.
“His fitness level and daily work rate would be top shelf for a 29-year-old, so we do not focus on his age,” Jeffries said. “In addition to his lengthy Charlotte experience, Jorge works to be a mentor to younger players in our group through his professionalism and his example.”
Herrera says his increasing age allows him an opportunity to play differently that he has in previous years.
“Last season was a different kind of season for me, I think my main input to our group was to be available for the coaching staff whenever they needed me during every game of the season,” Herrera said.
Herrera, who finished the 2016 season with seven goals and two assists, will be the 12th returning player for the Independence heading into the 2017 preseason.
“Having a big group of guys coming back is a big plus for the team. It is easier heading into the preseason with a group of friends that you have worked with for a whole season,” Herrera said. “Now, we can focus on continuing to grow as a team, instead of getting to know each other.”
Herrera says he is also looking forward to returning to the community that in voted him Team MVP and Fan Favorite in consecutive years.
“Not just for me, but for our team, it is an honor and privilege to have a group of supporters behind our backs pushing us forward and recognizing all the work we put in during the week,” Herrera said.
“We would love to see that group of fans continue to grow and to continue being a vital part of our Independence family.” |
It’s no secret that the NBA All-Star Game has become stale, leaving fans craving a midseason showcase with a little more substance.
Those cries have finally been answered, with the NBA announcing its traditional East vs West format will be scrapped in Los Angeles next year.
Instead, team captains will select the lineups, as if they were playing pickup at the park.
It’s a move which should inject interest back into the game for the players, and by extension the fans, who will have a refreshed on-court product to enjoy, and hopefully a more competitive one.
They just made us care about the 2018 NBA All-Star Game — Marc Stein (@TheSteinLine) October 3, 2017
The NBA is a league filled with more egos than Wall Street, and all it will take for the players to go hard on All Star Sunday is getting picked after someone they think they’re better than.
Bearing in mind, most of these guys think they’re better than everyone.
Adding further intrigue will be the politics surrounding players snubbing their rivals (read: KD and Russ) or choosing their buddies, teammates, former teammates or even guys with the same agent or shoe deal.
In another tantalising twist, the new format also allows teammates to face off against each other (what a shame we didn’t get to see that during the Shaq and Kobe era).
It’s also worth noting there will still be 12 players voted in from each conference.
But the East and West labels will mean nothing once the players start making their picks, and the captains will be the leading vote getters from each conference.
Captains will select from the 10 players voted in as starters first.
The winning team will have a donation made to a charity of their choice!
Hopefully this’ll make things interesting again… |
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A Victoria’s Secret model is fighting for her life after being involved in a horrific jet surf accident.
Yfke Sturm, 33, was left in coma with a fractured skull and severe spinal injuries after being hit by another rider while on holiday in Italy - near the island of Ischia.
The model – who is based in London – welcomed her first son Alexander just last month.
(Image: WireImage)
Yfke was riding the motorised surfboard last week when she fell in and was then hit as she attempted to swim to shore.
She was airlifted to hospital in Naples, where she continues to be treated by specialists.
The blonde model is best known for working for Calvin Klein, Marc Jacobs, Chanel and many more of the major fashion labels.
She is believed to be at serious risk of permanent paralysis. We’ve contacted her rep for further comment on her condition.
Last month the 5ft 11 star shared a picture of her newborn son writing: “Words can not descibe how excited we are for the arrival of our son Alexander!!”
Yfke Sturm walking in the Victoria's Secret catwalk show
She has not posted on Facebook since his arrival.
It's thought she welcomed her son with her French boyfriend - a 24-year-old supermodel called Constance Jablonski. She was previously married to businessman Imad Izemrane for three years.
Yfke was born in Almere, Flevoland and was scouted by a model agency in 1997.
Her career took off when she was just 15 when she won the 1997 International Elite Model Look Contest.
As well as modelling for pretty much everyone she has also forged a career in TV – hosting Holland's Next Top Model. |
This article is written from a real-world point of view.
Rashida Leah Jones Born February 25, 1976 Birth Place Los Angeles, California, U.S. Gender Female Family {{{family}}} Significant Other Spouse Children Relatives {{{relatives}}} Ocupation {{{occupation}}} Religion Jewish Nationality {{{nationality}}} Residence Portrays Ann Perkins
Rashida Leah Jones (born February 25, 1976) is an American actress, model, and musician, best-known for her portrayal of Louisa Fenn on Boston Public, Karen Filippelli on The Office and Zooey Rice in I Love You, Man. Jones currently stars in the series Parks and Recreation as Ann Perkins.
Contents show]
Early life Edit
Jones was born in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of media mogul and musician Quincy Jones and his then-wife, actress Peggy Lipton. Her father is African-American and her mother is Jewish, descended from immigrants from Ireland and Russia. She has an older sister, Kidada Jones, and five half-siblings by her father's other relationships. She was raised in Bel Air, California.
In his autobiography, Jones's father recalled how he would often find his five-year-old daughter under the covers after bedtime with a flashlight reading five books at a time.[1] Jones also displayed musical ability at a young age by playing classical concerts and winning awards. Her mother told Entertainment Tonight that Jones is "also a fabulous singer and songwriter, so she has inherited it (from Quincy), there's no question about it. Her dad's teaching her how to orchestrate and arrange too."[2]
Jones attended The Buckley School in Sherman Oaks, California, where she made the National Honor Society and was voted "Most Likely To Succeed" by her classmates.[3] She also attended Hebrew school.[4] Jones's parents divorced when she was 14 years old; her sister subsequently remained with their father while she moved to Brentwood with their mother. In 1994, Jones garnered attention with an open letter responding to scathing remarks made by Tupac Shakur about her parents' interracial marriage.[5] She later befriended Shakur, who was engaged to her sister Kidada Jones before he was killed.[1] After high school, Jones left California to attend Harvard University.
At Harvard, Jones was a resident of Eliot House and belonged to the Hasty Pudding Theatricals, Harvard Radcliffe Dramatic Club, Harvard-Radcliffe Opportunes, Black Students Association and the "semi-secret" Signet Society.[6] She was initially interested in becoming a lawyer but lost interest after being disillusioned by the O.J. Simpson murder case.[1] Instead, she became involved in the performing arts, and served as musical director for the Opportunes a cappella group, co-composed the score for the 149th annual Hasty Pudding Theatricals performance, and acted in several plays.[7] She studied Religion and Philosophy and graduated in 1997.
Career Edit
Jones made her professional acting debut in The Last Don, a 1997 mini-series based on the novel by Mario Puzo. She then appeared in Myth America, East of A and If These Walls Could Talk 2. In 2000, she guest starred as Karen Scarfolli in an episode of Freaks and Geeks before landing the role of Louisa Fenn on Boston Public. Between 2000 and 2002, she appeared in 26 episodes, earning an NAACP Image Award nomination in her final year.[8] Though she only had a minor supporting role in the series, film opportunities quickly surfaced. She had a small role in Full Frontal, directed by Steven Soderbergh, and starred in Now You Know, written and directed by Kevin Smith regular Jeff Anderson. She also starred in short film Roadside Assistance with Adam Brody.
After Jones left Boston Public, she appeared in Death of a Dynasty, directed by Damon Dash, and two episodes of Chappelle's Show on Comedy Central. In 2004, she was cast in Strip Search, an HBO film directed by Sidney Lumet, but her scenes were cut from the final broadcast version. Later that year, she played Dr Rachel Keyes in Little Black Book and starred as Edie Miller in British drama series NY-LON. In 2005, Jones played Karen in the Stella pilot on Comedy Central and special government agent Carla Merced in the TNT police drama Wanted.
Jones joined the ensemble cast of The Office in September 2006, playing the role of Karen Filippelli. She appeared regularly during the third season and then returned as a guest star for two episodes in season four and another in season five. She also played Karen in the February 2007 Saturday Night Live episode hosted by Rainn Wilson, appearing briefly in the opening monologue's Office parody. Jones filmed cameo roles in The Ten and Role Models, both directed by David Wain, but the latter was cut from the theatrical version and appears only on the Blu-ray release.[9] She then co-starred in Unhitched, the short-lived 2008 comedy series produced by the Farrelly brothers.
In January 2009, Jones voiced several characters in an episode of the Adult Swim show Robot Chicken.[10] She played Hannah in Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, an independent film written and directed by John Krasinski that screened in competition at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival. She then played Zooey Rice in I Love You, Man, a Dreamworks comedy starring Paul Rudd and Jason Segel. Jones sold her first screenplay, co-written with actor Will McCormack, in March 2009. It is a comedy titled Celeste and Jesse Forever and she is attached to star in the film.[11] Jones currently plays nurse Ann Perkins in the NBC comedy series Parks and Recreation. She will next star alongside Chris Messina in Monogamy, an indie romantic comedy directed by Dana Adam Shapiro.[12]
Personal life Edit
Jones had a 2½ year relationship with actor Tobey Maguire, ending in 2000.[13][14] Jones became engaged to the Grammy Award-winning music producer Mark Ronson in February 2003. He proposed on her 27th birthday, using a custom-made crossword puzzle spelling out "Will you marry me?". Their relationship ended approximately one year later.[15][16] Jones then dated writer and performer Seth Meyers and actor John Krasinski, her co-star on The Office.[17][14]Her character (Karen Fillipelli) dated his character (Jim Halpert) on this hit TV show. She briefly dated Jon Favreau, the Director of Speechwriting for President Barack Obama.[18]
Though raised Jewish, Jones began practicing Hinduism in her early teens after her mother took her to an Ashram in India.[1] Today, however, she practices Judaism and told a reporter, "In this day and age, you can choose how you practice and what is your relationship with God. I feel pretty strongly about my connection, definitely through the Jewish traditions and the things that I learned dating the guy that I dated. My boyfriends tend to be Jewish and also be practicing ... I don’t see it as a necessity, but there’s something about it that I connect with for whatever reason."[4]
Belfast post-hardcore band Pigs as People have a song dedicated to her named 'Rashida'
Awards Edit
Jones was nominated for an NAACP Image Award and also contributed to the Grammy Award-winning audio version of Q: The Autobiography Of Quincy Jones.
Filmography Edit
Film Year Film Role Other notes 1998 Myth America 2000 East of A Emily 2001 Roadside Assistance Lucy 2002 Full Frontal Now You Know Kerri 2003 Death of a Dynasty Layna Hudson 2004 Little Black Book Dr. Rachel Keyes 2007 The Ten Hostess Rebecca Fornier 2009 Brief Interviews with Hideous Men Hannah I Love You, Man Zooey Television Year Title Role Notes 1997 The Last Don Johanna Miniseries 2000 If These Walls Could Talk 2 Feminist Television movie, segment: "1972" Freaks and Geeks Karen Scarfolli 1 episode 2000-2002 Boston Public Louisa Fenn 26 episodes 2003-2004 Chappelle's Show Pam 2 episodes 2004 Strip Search Television movie, scenes deleted NY-LON Edie Miller 7 episodes 2005 Stella Karen 1 episode Wanted Detective Carla Merced 13 episodes Our Thirties Liz Television movie 2006-2009 The Office Karen Filippelli 24 episodes 2007 Wainy Days Wainette Davids 1 episode 2008 Unhitched Kate 6 episodes 2009 Parks and Recreation Ann Perkins Main Cast |
Disney may now market and distribute any future Indiana Jones movies, thanks to an agreement with Paramount, both the studios said Friday.
Disney would not comment on whether or not Friday’s agreement clears the way for Indiana Jones sequels, however an insider said it is the first step before any such discussion could take place.
Prior to the new agreement, Paramount, which distributed all four films in the adventure franchise, had an option to distribute any future sequels, an individual with knowledge of the pact told TheWrap. It only earned a distribution fee for its pains, but that money would have come out of any profits Disney would garner.
Also read: Jerry Bruckheimer: Paramount Will Give Me Freedom I Didn’t Have at Disney
Instead of receiving a distribution fee in possible future Indiana Jones films, Paramount would get an undisclosed percentage of the profits. Whereas with the 2008 rollout of “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,” Paramount received a distribution fee of 12.5 percent of theatrical, home entertainment, and television revenue, the individual said.
When it purchased LucasFilm in 2012 for roughly $4 billion, Disney claimed that it had no immediate plans to exploit the Indiana Jones franchise with additional films or television properties.
This is not the first time that Disney has worked out an agreement to buy back distribution rights to valuable film franchises it has acquired. After buying Marvel in 2009 for more than $4 billion, the company spent an additional $115 million to buy back distribution of Marvel properties like “The Avengers” and “Iron Man 3″ from Paramount.
The post Disney to Release Any Future Indiana Jones Movies appeared first on TheWrap.
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Hillary Clinton during a rally recently in Sioux City, Iowa. (Jae C. Hong / AP)
America’s refusal to fund and sustain its intellectual and cultural heritage means it has lost touch with its past, obliterated its understanding of the present, crushed its capacity to transform itself through self-reflection and self-criticism, and descended into a deadening provincialism. Ignorance and illiteracy come with a cost. The obsequious worship of technology, hedonism and power comes with a cost. The primacy of emotion and spectacle over wisdom and rational thought comes with a cost. And we are paying the bill.
The decades-long assault on the arts, the humanities, journalism and civic literacy is largely complete. All the disciplines that once helped us interpret who we were as a people and our place in the world—history, theater, the study of foreign languages, music, journalism, philosophy, literature, religion and the arts—have been corrupted or relegated to the margins. We have surrendered judgment for prejudice. We have created a binary universe of good and evil. And our colossal capacity for violence is unleashed around the globe, as well as on city streets in poor communities, with no more discernment than that of the blinded giant Polyphemus. The marriage of ignorance and force always generates unfathomable evil, an evil that is unseen by perpetrators who mistake their own stupidity and blindness for innocence.
“We are in danger of forgetting, and such an oblivion—quite apart from the contents themselves that could be lost—would mean that, humanly speaking, we would deprive ourselves of one dimension, the dimension of depth in human existence,” Hannah Arendt wrote. “For memory and depth are the same, or rather, depth cannot be reached by man except through remembrance.”
Those few who acknowledge the death of our democracy, the needless suffering inflicted on the poor and the working class in the name of austerity, and the crimes of empire—in short those who name our present and past reality—are whitewashed out of the public sphere. If you pay homage to the fiction of the democratic state and the supposed “virtues” of the nation, including its right to wage endless imperial war, you get huge fees, tenure, a television perch, book, film or recording contracts, grants and prizes, investors for your theater project or praise as an pundit, artist or public intellectual. The pseudo-politicians, pseudo-intellectuals and pseudo-artists know what to say and what not to say. They offer the veneer of criticism—comedians such as Stephen Colbert do this—without naming the cause of our malaise. And they are used by the elites as attack dogs to discredit and destroy genuine dissent. This is not, as James Madison warned, the prologue to a farce or a tragedy; we are living both farce and tragedy.
“The withdrawal of intellectuals from political concerns is itself a political act,” sociologist C. Wright Mills wrote. “Which is to say that it is at best a pseudo-withdrawal. To withdraw from politics today can only mean ‘in intent’; it cannot mean ‘in effect.’ For its effect is to serve whatever powers prevail, even if only by distracting public attention from them. Such attempts may be the result of fear or fashion; or of sincere conviction—induced by success. Regardless of the motive, the attempted withdrawal means to become subservient to prevailing authorities and to allow the meaning of one’s own work to be determined, in effect, by other men.”
Amid the swelling disparity between reality and reality as the corporate state seeks to have it portrayed, the idiocy and mendacity of the elites and their courtiers grow more ludicrous. The institutions that educated the public and fostered the common good are even more fiercely attacked, defunded and rendered anemic. The dumbing down of the country—fed by the crippling of the safe spaces where ideas, dissent and creativity could be expressed, where structures and assumptions could be questioned—accelerates.
Presidential candidate Donald Trump may be boorish, narcissistic, stupid, racist and elitist, but he does not have Hillary Clinton’s carefully honed and chilling amoral artifice. It was she, and an ethically bankrupt liberal establishment, that created the fertile ground for Trump by fleecing the citizens on behalf of corporations and imposing the neoliberal project. If she is elected, Trump may disappear, but another Trump-like figure, probably even more frightening, will be vomited up from our cultural and political sewer.
Trump and Clinton, along with fellow candidate Bernie Sanders, refuse to admit what they know: Our most basic civil and political rights have been taken from us, the corporate oligarchy will remain entrenched in power no matter who wins the presidency, and elections are a carnival act. The downward spiral of lost jobs and declining incomes, of shredded civil liberties, of endless war, is unstoppable as long as we use the traditional mechanisms of reform, including elections, to try to cope with the existential threat we face. A vote for Clinton, in essence, is a vote for Trump or someone as bad as Trump. Right-wing populism, here and in Europe, is not the product of an individual but the disenfranchisement, rage and despair stemming from the damage caused by globalization. And until we wrest back control of our destiny by breaking corporate power, demagogues like Trump, and his repugnant doppelgangers in Europe, will proliferate. The institutions that make possible wisdom, knowledge, self-criticism and transcendence are in ruins. Public radio and public television, created to give a voice to those not beholden to the elites, are now echo chambers for the privileged and the powerful. The arts, like public broadcasting a victim of massive cuts by government, have descended to the lowest common denominator. Symphony orchestras are closing along with libraries. Music and art have been removed from school curriculums. Theater, along with the film industry, has been taken over by corporations such as Disney. Audiences on Broadway and in movie houses participate in exorbitantly priced forms of escapism that, at their core, celebrate American power and narcissism.
There was a time, a few decades ago, when the work and thought of intellectuals and artists mattered. Writers and social critics such as Mills, Dwight Macdonald, James Baldwin, Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Noam Chomsky, Susan Sontag, Mary McCarthy, Ralph Nader, Howard Zinn and Jane Jacobs wrote for and spoke to a broad audience. Authors William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, Flannery O’Connor, Gore Vidal, Toni Morrison, Ken Kesey, Russell Banks and Norman Mailer, along with playwrights such as Eugene O’Neill, Arthur Miller, Lorraine Hansberry, Tennessee Williams, August Wilson, David Mamet, Ntozake Shange, Sam Shepard, Marsha Norman, Edward Albee and Tony Kushner, held up a mirror to the nation. And it was not a reflection many people wanted to see. Orson Welles and Stanley Kubrick in film, Allen Ginsberg and Amiri Baraka in poetry, Bob Dylan, Curtis Mayfield, Bruce Springsteen and Patti Smith in music shook the social, cultural and political landscape.
These artists and intellectuals, who did not cater to the herd, were nationally known figures. They altered our perceptions. They were taken seriously. They sparked contentious debate, and the elites attempted, sometimes successfully, to censor their work. It is not that new independent, brilliant and creative minds are not out there; it is that nearly all of them—Tupac Shakur and Lupe Fiasco having been two exceptions—are locked out. And this has turned our artistic, cultural and intellectual terrain into a commercialized wasteland. I doubt that a young Bruce Springsteen or a young Patti Smith, or even a young Chomsky, all of whom exhibit the rare quality of never having sold out the marginalized, the working class and the poor, and who are not afraid of speaking truths about our nation that others will not utter, could today break into the corporatized music industry or the corporatized university. Sales, branding and marketing, even in academia, overpower content.
T.S. Eliot, seven decades ago, warned of a condition that now enmeshes us. In his “What Is a Classic?” address to the Virgil Society in 1944 he argued that a civilization that did not engage with its greatest artists and intellectual traditions, that did not protect and nurture its artistic and intellectual patrimony, committed suicide.
“In our age,” Eliot said, “when men seem more than ever prone to confuse wisdom with knowledge, and knowledge with information, and to try to solve problems of life, in terms of engineering, there is coming into existence a new kind of provincialism, not of space, but of time; one for which history is merely the chronicle of human devices which have served their turn and been scrapped, one for which the world is the property solely of the living, a property in which the dead hold no shares. The menace of this kind of provincialism is, that we can all, all the peoples on the globe, be provincials together: and those who are not content to be provincials, can only become hermits.” |
Donald Trump yesterday announced the “Reagan Alumni Advisory Council for Trump-Pence,” made up of 240 former Reagan advisers who support Trump for president.
The first quote in Trump’s press release, from Reagan’s attorney general Edwin Meese, begins like this: “Many of us remember 1980, a time when, as today, America suffered from high unemployment and even higher interest rates.”
In fact, the unemployment rate in October 1980 was 7.5 percent. The unemployment rate today is 5.0 percent.
Interest rates in 1980 were 15.3 percent. Today they are 3.3 percent.
The current unemployment rate is so low that conservatives are loudly demanding that the Federal Reserve raise interest rates to force unemployment higher. Current interest rates are the lowest they’ve been in at least 55 years.
Meese provides a useful public service by reminding Americans that Trump’s bizarrely obsessive fantasizing isn’t an aberration for top Republicans. The GOP gave up on this universe long ago, starting with Ronald Reagan, so it makes sense that Reagan’s old staffers would feel right at home with Trump.
You could spend your entire life cataloguing Reagan’s peculiar beliefs about the world, but here are just a few:
In 1983, during a ceremony for winners of the Congressional Medal of Honor, Reagan told a story about a World War II pilot who chose to stay with a trapped underling on a crashing B-17 rather than jumping to safety. This didn’t happen in real life, but it did happen in “Wing and a Prayer,” one of Reagan’s favorite movies.
In 1984, while meeting with the prime minister of Israel, Reagan told him that he had been part of a U.S. military unit that had filmed concentration camps at the end of World War II. Moreover, Reagan said, he had saved a personal copy of the footage to show to anyone who might claim the Holocaust never happened. During the war Reagan lived in Hollywood and never left the U.S.
In 1985, he claimed that apartheid South Africa had “eliminated the segregation that we once had in our own country.”
In 1986, after the U.S. had traded weapons to Iran in return for the release of U.S. hostages in Lebanon, Reagan said, “We did not — repeat — did not trade weapons or anything else for hostages, nor will we.”
For Meese’s part, he enthusiastically followed the lead of his boss. Just before Christmas in 1983, he told the National Press Club that Ebenezer Scrooge in “A Christmas Carol” suffered from “bad press in his time. If you really look at the facts, he didn’t exploit Bob Cratchit. … Bob, in fact, had good cause to be happy with his situation. … Let’s be fair to Scrooge.”
All of these examples are from the truly essential 1989 book “The Clothes Have No Emperor” by comedy writer Paul Slansky. It’s the best resource there is if you want to know more — much, much, much more — about the era when the Republican Party finally slipped the surly bonds of reality. |
Ninja Grandmaster Hanzo Collectible Tin
Product Title: Ninja Grandmaster Hanzo Collectible Tin Product Type: Collectible Tin Launch Date: 10/30/12 Konami Tournament Legal Date: 10/30/12 MSRP: $19.99
(Caught you by surprise, didn’t we?)
Ninjas! Nobody ever sees them coming. And nobody expected the Ninja Grandmaster Hanzo Collectible Tin. But it IS real – if you can find it, before it vanishes in a puff of smoke!
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The Ninja Grandmaster Hanzo Collectible Tin includes:
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1 Super Rare Maxx "C"
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1 Super Rare Number 16: Shock Master
1 Super Rare Rescue Rabbit
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Needing a win to clinch the number-one seed in the West Division of the America East Conference, No. 18 Stanford women’s field hockey (10-7, 4-2 America East) produced a dominant performance against UC Davis (1-16, 0-6) on Saturday’s senior night. In their final regular season home game, senior attackers Marissa Cicione and Kristina Bassi led the Cardinal offense to a 6-2 victory, the most goals Stanford has scored in a single game this season.
“It was a senior game, but it was also the last game to clinch the number-one spot for the conference,” head coach Tara Danielson said. “I think the team was really intentional about why we’re here and what we’re doing and how we need to go about it.”
The Cardinal came out with a strong attack, outshooting the Aggies 13-2 in the first half while keeping possession for most of the period. Before the match was two minutes old, Bassi delivered a cross to Cicione, who one-touched the ball to the left corner. The duo connected again just 25 seconds later when Cicione led the attack to send a pass to Bassi for a tip-in goal.
“Coming out hard puts the opponent’s’ confidence down right at the beginning of the game,” Cicione said. “Immediately, we have so much momentum and generate a lot of attack.”
On its first drive of the game, UC Davis tipped the ball into the circle, which was collected for a goal by Aggie midfielder Emily Chen on senior goalkeeper Maddy Belin. Belin started her first career game on her senior night, eventually earning the complete-game win.
In the 22nd minute, Cicione fought the ball off a defender and sent in a cross to Bassi for the goal to bring the lead to 3-1. On the strong start from the Cardinal upperclassmen, Cicione spoke to the significance of senior night. “I think all of the seniors wanted to go out with a bang, and I think we all left it all on the field,” she said.
Soon after, freshman attacker Corinne Zanolli struck on a penalty stroke to score her team-leading 12th goal of the season. The opportunity was Stanford’s first penalty stroke of the season. Cicione kept piling on a minute later, earning her second goal of the night off a left side cross from Bassi.
Despite a comfortable 5-1 lead, Stanford came out just as aggressively on offense in the second half. In the 40th minute, freshman defender Sarah Johnson took a pass from Zanolli on a penalty corner to put in her fourth goal of the season. The Cardinal let another goal from Chen slip through with less than one minute left in the match, but the dominant offensive performance ensured the victory and the number-one seed.
“I think the team has been slowly putting pieces together with combination play over the season, and now they’re starting to put a full game together,” Danielson said. “We’re kind of bubbling on the surface, and we’re ready now. I think we’re right at the right place.”
Boasting the number-one seed in the America East Conference tournament, Stanford looks to defend its 2016 conference title in Lowell, Massachusetts next week. The Cardinal will take on UMass Lowell on Thursday at 12:30 p.m.
Contact Laura Anderson at lauraand ‘at’ stanford.edu. |
The Republican Speaker of the Missouri House says recent problems with the Veterans Health Administration support the stance his caucus has taken against Medicaid expansion. Tim Jones (R-Eureka) has been opposed to using federal dollars to expand eligibility for that program in Missouri since Governor Jay Nixon (D) raised the issue in late 2012.
He says issues that have come to light – veterans needing care being on secret waiting lists, some veterans dying while waiting for care, and records being falsified to reflect shorter wait times than actually experienced – illustrate the problems of having government-run a healthcare system.
“We actually look extremely smart and wise in not expanding Medicaid up to this point,” says Jones.
“The VA healthcare system, the federal Obamacare law and state Medicaid systems – the commonality is they’re all run by a form of the government,” says Jones. “The Medicaid system has now got the heavy hand of the federal government trying to use the carrot-and-stick approach of using the federal bill to expand the state systems.”
“We cannot put our heads in the sand and ignore potential similarities and analogies that can be drawn between the federal government running one massive national healthcare system on one hand versus another,” he adds.
Jones says Medicaid must be reformed rather than just have millions more in tax dollars be applied to the current system.
Medicaid expansion is an issue many Democrats running this year for state legislative seats will focus on.
AUDIO: Jones says running on Medicaid expansion in this year’s campaigns would be a mistake |
Phoenix Suns center Marcin Gortat, left, of Poland, falls backward to the floor as Washington Wizards center JaVale McGee, right, is called for a charge last season. The league set out to stop these kinds of plays this season. (Photo: PAUL CONNORS AP) Story Highlights Seven flopping violations were issued first month, none this month
Coaches and players say it's still around, but not as bad
Players have stopped because of the fines issued by the league
The NBA issued seven flopping violations in the first month of the 2012-13 season and seven in the second month. There were just three flopping violations in the third month of the season, and there have been zero flopping violations in February.
"We feel that the new flopping rule is working well," NBA executive vice president of basketball operations Stu Jackson told USA TODAY Sports.
The anti-flopping rule, implemented at the start of the season, is designed to trim player embellishments that trick or fool a referee into a calling a foul that didn't happen.
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Jackson said the rule works for three primary reasons.
1) Simply, there's a rule forbidding it. "It had an effect and served noticed to the players and the teams that this is something we're going to be looking at very closely," Jackson said.
2) Players have been warned and fined. "It put everyone on notice again that we were actually looking at these flops and making some decisions," Jackson said.
3) No one wants to lead the league in flops. "It's the scarlet letter syndrome. Most players don't want to be known or called out for having flopped," Jackson said.
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Thirteen players have been caught flopping 17 times. Four players have been busted twice, resulting in a $5,000 fine for each: Minnesota's J.J. Barea, Brooklyn's Reggie Evans and Gerald Wallace and Oklahoma City's Kevin Martin. The next flop for any of those players will result in a $10,000 fine.
"We have definitely noticed less (flopping)," Washington Wizards forward Chris Singleton said. "People don't want that fine. It's the money."
Just because a flop violation hasn't been issued since Jan. 24, it doesn't mean the league has decreased its vigilance. Video loggers watch every NBA and potential flops are sent to appropriate staffers. Potential violations are whittled further and delivered to Jackson where "ultimately, I, along with some of the other basketball people on my staff, make a decision after that as to whether or not we would warn a player," he said.
Jackson admits the flops that have been singled out by the league are the more egregious ones.
"Even though we know there's a whole universe of other embellishments out there where players try to fool the referee, we've elected to warn the most bright-lined flops and that has seemed to be effective," he said.
Washington coach Randy Wittman likes the direction the rule has taken the game.
"It sounds like it's been quieted, but I still see some flops," he said. "It's not wiped it out. In reality, it's taken it in a good step. It's helped. Hey, they're going to call you out on it and lose (money) … I don't care how much money you make, you lose five grand … it's gotten their attention."
The growing concern and frustration over flops peaked during last season's playoffs when there were more than 70 flops in 79 games – almost one a playoff game – Jackson said.
"Teams and players are always looking for that extra edge or that extra possession," Jackson said.
While penalties and fines have not been determined for flopping in this season's playoffs, there will be a schedule by time the first round begins.
"The one area of concern to me going forward is when we get to this year's playoffs," Jackson said. "How are players going to react? And that's going to be something that we're really going to have to monitor."
PHOTOS: DANCE TEAMS FROM AROUND THE NBA |
Not only the military, but ex-military people who were involved in doing a lot of the flights in and out of Afghanistan began shipping drugs out, claims Jim W. Dean, Managing Editor of Veterans Today.
A report by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), suggests the US war in Afghanistan has been fueling America's drug crisis.
RT: Do you think there are any links between the record production of opium in Afghanistan and America's heroin crisis?
Jim Dean: It is a connection in that before we went into Afghanistan there was almost no heroin production there. And then after we went in it miraculously began to skyrocket, because the northern warlords went back into growing opium to fund the war and also enrich themselves. What also happened is, we found out much later that US contractors – particularly not only the military but the ex-military people who were involved in doing a lot of the flights in and out of the country began shipping drugs out.
We did not know whether they were just doing it on the side. But later we found out a lot of the increase in heroin production was being officially done and the money … eventually ending up in political campaigns in the US, and also to fund black projects for intelligence operations that they didn’t want anyone in Congress to know.
So yes, the big increase in production did come as a result of the US invasion of Afghanistan. But the story gets a little more complicated because once you have opium, it has to be turned into heroin. That is a long story that evolved over what’s been many years now.
RT: There has been a warning that heroin has been smuggled from Afghanistan into the US through Canada. How is it possible?
JD: Canada has a lot of their heroin coming in from Afghanistan. The Canadian border is the most porous because it has the least number of border enforcement people. In terms of carrying things in, they can’t have people stationed every 100 yards.
'It’s US baby, and I’m not proud of it - Afghanistan is world’s biggest drug dealer' (Op-Ed) https://t.co/S50lMlX5K5pic.twitter.com/Urg50Covy7 — RT (@RT_com) August 3, 2017
We hear in the US that heroin production in Mexico has also greatly increased and officials here, although there is disagreement on this, say most of the heroin currently coming into the US is coming from Canada, but that the amounts coming in from Afghanistan are increasing. The question is: how are they getting in after all of those long fights. The danger of shipping it for a long distance.
Our information is that a lot of it is being brought in are government operations that are being secret, they don’t go through normal customs, because their operations are classified, and they have their own air transport. This is how a lot of this drug trafficking is going into political campaigns, and big wigs are moving around through the defense and intelligence contractors that are being widely used now by the US.
“Americans putting their lives on the line in Afghanistan deserve better from their commander-in-chief" - #McCainhttps://t.co/PuFTWmX5Ap — RT America (@RT_America) August 10, 2017
RT: What is the main cause of opium production increase in Afghanistan?
JD: The US campaign just made it completely wide open. The country was devastated economically – there was no real economy. So growing drugs, and particularly poppies, no other crop could really compete with it. And the Taliban was no longer there to stop drug production because they knew what the long-term consequences would be.
It is a little bit more complicated because a lot of that heroin and opium was traveling not only into the former Soviet Union states but also into Russia. They have their own growing epidemic because they were being flooded with cheap heroin coming out of Afghanistan. We see now that was part of the destabilization process that the West and NATO was beginning with Russia; to increase the problem that they have with drug addiction, and Putin spoke out about this very early on. |
I read today in the local newspaper that the pope is now saying that Christians are the most persecuted of all religious groups, and apparently he thinks that they are not free to worship, due to religious intolerance. Unbelievable.
Here is a history lesson for you Mr. Voice of God.
Ever hear of Charlemagne? Yeah that guy that murdered people for not being willing to convert to Christianity.
Ever hear of the pagans those people, your predecessors murdered in the name of your merciful God. Thousands of them.
And what of the many women who were killed for being witches? Or the women killed for sins against the church over the centuries. Oh the men were fine screwing whomever, they still are today. The woman gets called a whore, the man a stud. At least we aren’t killing them anymore. I will give you that.
Have you ever heard of the Crusades? A time in which Christians went on a 200 year rampage throughout Europe and on their path to Isreal in which they slaughtered innocent people in the name of your God?
Have you heard of the Huguenauts? A group of people who were driven out of their homes at best and murdered at worst by the Catholics, okay yes they were Christians but guess who was doing the persecuting? YES Mr. VofG your religious group was doing it.
Have you ever heard of the Inquisition? A time in which intellectuals were murdered at your religion’s hands for, well, being intellectuals.
Hey ever hear of the word flaming faggot? Yeah that was the fine and Christian act of murdering people for the biological urge to be gay, rather than following your religion’s ignorant view that humans are only two straight up black and white genders.
Oh okay how about the Native peoples (sorry should I say ignorant savages so that you know whom I am speaking of?) How many of them were killed with intent? How many of them were killed via the shaving of their heads, the forbidding of their native tongues and dress? The tearing away of children from their families, and killed for their disobedience? What of the good Christians who intentionally infected them with small pox? One of the first recorded instances of biological warfare. What of those people who died in the millions when the Jesuits first set foot on this continent?
How about the holocaust? How many Jews and gypsies were murdered by in the name of your God?
Hey what about now Mr. VofG I know this was all years ago, you cannot be held liable. And besides it wasn’t you. Right? How many Native people are now committing suicide as a long term effect of those good Christian policies? How many gay teens? How many people suffer at the hands of your ignorant people’s foolishness (pushing their Christian ideals on non-Christians in a way that doesn’t kill but certainly makes their lives harder, and over ridiculous stupid reasons. ) I can tell you that as a non-Christian in a Christian country, I have to be very careful to not voice my religion aloud. It is a subtle thing, but it exists. Non-Christian is not viewed very positively.
What of your ridiculous no birth control policy which is a policy which hastens the death of our home, planet Earth through over population. What can you say for that?
I know that I have barely scratched the surface of what Christianity has done in history to persecute others. I cannot believe you have the stones to complain. I will say that religious persecution is awful and should not be happening. But to say Christians have it worst of all is absolutely ludicrous.
Get the hell over yourself Mr. VofG. Get over yourself.
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If you're deep in the Southern Appalachian Mountains around dusk and spy a hazy blue circle crawling across the ground, take note: you just might be in the presence of a ghost. A blue ghost firefly, that is.
When most of us think of fireflies (or lightning bugs, as we call them in the North), we picture yellow and green-flashing orbs against a darkening summer sky. But the truth is, there’s an astonishing amount of diversity among these bioluminescent beetles. Over 2,000 species of lightning bug sparkle and flicker on this Earth, with more than 125 species living in the United States. And each one speaks its own language.
Lightning bug lamps can glow yellow, orange or, as is the case with the ghosts, even shades bordering on electric blue. They can appear as single blinks or long, glowing trails. Some fireflies will flicker when threatened by a predator or caught in a spiderweb. Others light up to compete with rivals or after they’ve been rejected by a suitor. Some females are completely dark, while others offer flickers to let males know they’re on the market.
For the last 26 years, Lynn Faust has been working to catalog and decipher the bioluminescent Morse Code each species flickers out come spring and summer. “Lightning bug flashes are works of art,” says Faust, a naturalist who recently penned the definitive book on the topic, Fireflies, Glow-worms, and Lightning Bugs, published by University of Georgia Press. “It blows my mind how they evolved these things.”
Take Photinus pyralis, one of the largest and most recognizable fireflies in the eastern U.S. On warm summer evenings from mid-June to early July, the males of this species can be found floating about your backyard as dusk falls, usually about waist-high. And while many closely related insect species can only be told apart by dissection and close-up examination of their genitalia, you can identify this one without ever laying hands on it. Just look for the leisurely scrawled "J" shape their butts drag across the darkening sky. That shape has also earned them the nickname "Big Dippers."
Elsewhere in firefly pageantry, Photuris pennsylvanica can be recognized across the Mid-Atlantic states from its quick, yellow-green flash followed by a longer pulse that lasts one to three seconds. Faust calls this firefly the "Dot-dash." The "Marsh Diver," Pyractomena palustris, likes to light up for several milliseconds before diving into wetlands grass. It then repeats the maneuver three seconds later. Look for them as far north as Pennsylvania and south to Tennessee.
For Phausis reticulata, which is the Blue Ghost’s less-spooky official title, the name of the game is low and slow. These males sport a bluish-green lamp that they can leave on for a minute or more as they hover near the ground looking for a female. (By and large, firefly displays are about finding that special someone.) Sometimes, the males will even do a move called “spotlighting,” where they point their lamp at the ground while flying in small circles. This can look particularly eerie, says Faust, because you see these lights moving across the ground but not the lightning bug.
In her book, Faust writes of a particularly memorable night in the Cumberland Mountains of Tennessee where there were so many blue ghosts lighting up about 18 inches off the ground that it looked like “an earthbound aurora borealis.” The horse she was riding seemed confused by the whole affair, and kept trying to step up onto the layer of light they created.
Interestingly, Faust says each species’ display is not set in stone, but can change slightly depending on the time of the year, the time of night and the temperature of the air. Warmer weather, for instance, means the displays get a little extra pep in their step. Likewise, colder temperatures have a slow-motion effect. And when temperatures plunge below 50 degrees Fahrenheit, even the horniest of fireflies can’t muster the strength to get turned on.
While flashing is typically associated with males, one exception is the females of the Photuris versicolor complex. Most females that flash have a lamp that’s “shorter, paler, and simpler” than the males, according to Faust. But these so-called femme fatales can perform an array of robust flashes meant to mimic the come-hither calls of females from other firefly species. As it turns out, they aren’t just trying to get a date—they’re looking for (literal) fresh meat. Desperate to mate, males soar in to investigate what looks like an amorous female of their own species, and are promptly devoured.
Sometimes, femme fatales will even take to the skies and hunt blinking males on-the-wing. This is known as hawking, and best observed while blasting Highway to the Danger Zone from some earbuds. Femme fatales have also been known to filch other fireflies that have become trapped in spider webs.
This predatory behavior is particularly interesting, because fireflies don’t usually eat during the few weeks they spend as adults before flickering out for good. In fact, a firefly spends the vast majority of its life (one to two years) as a ravenous little larvae known as a glow-worm. These tiny, glowing predators prowl about the underbrush hunting for worms, slugs, snails and anything else they can seize with their mandibles and inject with a paralysis-inducing venom. (Fortunately, glow-worms are too teensy to bite us humans.)
Why all the ravenous ladies, then? Well, many firefly species possess chemical compounds that make them unappealing to predators. This makes sense, given that lightning bugs are relatively slow-flying insects that flit about with the equivalent of a neon billboard on their butts. Without chemical weapons, they'd would be easy pickings for bats, birds, and a whole host of other predators. And while femme fatales have been found to produce at least some of these compounds on their own, Faust and her colleagues believe they acquire others through acts of cannibalism. The females then pass these defenses onto their eggs and larvae.
Unfortunately for the fellas, femme fatales don’t just eat rival species. Potential mates are also on the menu. A femme fatale will even break off an active mating session to turn around and wolf down her paramour, mid-coitus. (And you thought black widows were jerks.) Perhaps this is why males in this genus possess two “arms” on either side of their aedeagus—which is what we call an insect’s penis—that remain outside the female while mating. It’s suspected that these arms act as an Incoming Cannibalism Alarm System that alerts the male if the female should start to shift beneath him.
For all we now know about the language of lightning bug optics, plenty more is out there just waiting to be illuminated. For instance, there are some Photuris fireflies that can only be found in a few far-flung swamps, and appear to be variations of a new species. Faust refers to the ones nearest her home in Eastern Tennessee as the "Loopy 5s." These fireflies flash rapidly for five to seven seconds before ending with a flourish and then disappearing for 11 seconds, only to repeat the flash train elsewhere.
In fact, the Loopy 5s are so different from other fireflies, and so seldom seen, that at one point Faust started to think that she’d imagined them. That is, until she called up a scientist she refers to affectionately as Dr. Photuris—James E. Lloyd, professor emeritus at the University of Florida.
Lloyd has been studying lightning bugs for sixty-some years, and he and Faust often bounce sightings and identifications off each other. A few years ago, Faust called Lloyd to tell him about the Loopy 5s and he stopped her mid-sentence and said he’d seen a very similar flash train in a North Carolina swamp back in the 1960s. He likened the buildup and flourish to a sneeze—ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, CHOOOOOO!
Unfortunately, the next time Lloyd went back to the site of the swamp sneezers, bulldozers were busy converting the wetlands into a golf course. Faust’s Tennessee population of Loopy 5s may also be under threat, as their wetlands were recently slated to become a housing plan (before being spared by the economic downturn). If the project were to ever go through, and the Loopy 5s eradicated, it would mean only one site for this potentially new species would remain—the cedar swamp found in Mississippi’s Wall Doxey State Park.
Faust has certainly seen her fair share of firefly species, having traveled as far as Southeast Asia to search for their flashes. (In fact, she’s created an amazing illustrative chart that depicts the primary courtship flashes for many of the most common firefly species in the U.S., but you’ll have to buy the book to get it!) But there’s one flasher she still longs to lay eyes upon: the Pleotomus davisii, also known as "Davis’s Oddballs." This species is rarely seen, but there are historical records of it existing from the Cumberland Gap on down to the Great Smoky Mountains.
As far as fireflies go, Faust admits that the Oddballs aren’t that sexy. The males are mostly dark with feathery antennae. The females don’t fly; instead, they resemble large, glowing grubs that do most of the flashing. As a result, many of the specimens we have of this insect are of males that had been attracted to artificial sources of light.
So every night, Faust sets up a light trap in her backyard as the dusk gives way to dark—a candle in the window, if you will. One day, she hopes, an oddball will fly up to greet her.
“Other people have seen them,” says Faust, “and I have haunted those woods, but I have never seen one alive.” |
Diego Maradona scored the opening goal of the 1986 World Cup quarterfinal with his hand.
Argentina legend Diego Maradona has dismissed Dani Alves' criticism of him, describing the Juventus and Brazil right-back as "an idiot" and criticising his passing ability.
Alves told Brazilian TV channel "Canais Esporte Interativo" there could be no comparison between Lionel Messi and Maradona because of the latter's infamous "Hand of God" goal in the 1986 World Cup quarterfinal against England.
"You want to compare Messi to Maradona? You can't compare them," Alves said.
"I would not be proud to say that I won a World Cup with a 'Hand of God.' I wouldn't be able to tell my son that I won a World Cup like this with the whole world talking about it.
"The 'Hand of God' tricked us, you have to take this firm position. A sportsman like this can't be an example for youngsters."
Maradona, however, responded by telling TyC Sports: "Dani Alves is an idiot. He makes 28 passes and only gets four right. As a '4' [right-back], Cafu and Maicon were good. Dani Alves? Poor thing.
"He speaks because he plays in a position on the pitch where football is not played.
"They [right-backs] touch the ball three times and make eight fouls per game."
Maradona's daughter, Dalma, also weighed in with a lengthy post on Twitter.
Como lo critico mucho a mi papá , tmb lo defiendo y así será SIEMPRE! Ojalá @DaniAlvesD2 tenga un segundo para leerme! pic.twitter.com/wxkjhDP5OE - Dalma Maradona (@dalmaradona) June 17, 2017
"Mr Dani Alves, I'm writing to you with the aim of explaining who my father is as I think I have that knowledge that you don't," she wrote.
"I saw an except in which you said that you cannot compare Messi with my father (I couldn't agree more and I always said that only ignorant people would make such a comparison) and, as an Argentinian, I love Messi and I always celebrate his successes.
"You say you wouldn't be proud of winning a World Cup with a handball goal, and I ask you -- did you have a chance to see the other goal my father scored in that same game?
"To top it all off you say that you wouldn't consider my father as a sporting example to youngsters and I think my father would agree with you on that because he never wanted to be an example of anything and did what he could."
Information from ESPN FC's Spain correspondent Adriana Garcia was used in this report.
Follow @ESPNFC on Twitter to keep up with the latest football updates. |
Don't you hate it when your wife gets jealous? No one does more than Afghan men! That's why one Afghan man cut his wife's nose off when she heard of his plans to get a second wife.
A really, really younger second wife.
A six-year-old! If this weren't a culture we were told we had to respect, we might call that pedophilia!
The woman, Reza Gul, 20, was attacked by her husband with a knife on Sunday in Shar-Shar, a village in an impoverished and Taliban-controlled part of Faryab Province. On Sunday afternoon, Zarghona said, Reza Gul and Mr. Khan got into an argument over his having taken his uncle's 6- or 7-year-old daughter as his fiancée, with the intention of making her his second wife this year. During the dispute, Mr. Khan erupted into a rage, took a knife and cut off his wife's nose, said Zarghona, who goes by a single name. Mr. Khan and one of his brothers then threw Reza Gul on the back of a motorcycle with the intention of taking her away to kill her, Zarghona said. But news of the attack spread quickly in the village, causing an uproar, and Mr. Khan fled for his life. "I went to the Taliban," Zarghona said. "I asked them: 'Is this the Islam we are following? My daughter's nose chopped off? But you are doing nothing about it. I want justice.' " Mr. Yaqubi, the police official, said the authorities had heard that "the Taliban has already arrested Muhammad Khan, and he is presently in their custody." "We don't know what they plan to do with him, but we will follow the case and bring him to justice."
If you had to list all the things that were messed up about this situation, what would they be?
1) A man having two wives.
2) A man indulging pedophilia with a six-year-old he calls his wife (who also, by the way, is his first cousin, but that is just a small cherry on the top of this perverted sundae).
3) A man mutilating his first wife for objecting to polygamous pedophilia (an alliterative term I'd never thought to write!).
4) A woman's father going to the Taliban for "justice."
5) America giving hundreds of billions of dollars to "build" this country.
6) Thinking that all cultures are equal.
7) Thinking that this is a rare situation in the Middle East (like the kid who chopped off his own hand for offending the Prophet Mohammad, or the woman who was ripped apart by an Afghan mob after trying to expose fraudulent dealers of magical pregnancy amulets).
8) Thinking that this will change if only we spend more money there.
9) Feminists caring more about the lack of female computer programmers than women getting their noses cut off in the Middle East.
9) Thinking that bringing Afghans to America is a great idea.
This article was written by Ed Straker, senior writer of NewsMachete.com, the conservative news site. |
Stephen Adekolu admits football wasn’t always in his long term plans while growing up in Brampton, Ontario.
“I wanted to be a zookeeper,” the Nigerian-born wide receiver said with a smile. “Dating back to about first grade, I always loved animals.”
It was only after seeing his oldest brother Emmanuel’s kick return touchdown in a youth game Adekolu decided he wanted to pursue his own career on the gridiron.
After playing five years at Bishop’s, where he double majored in business and drama, Adekolu went unselected in the 2013 CFL draft and was contemplating a return to the classroom when the Lions came calling.
“It was a surreal feeling. I talked to my agent briefly and right after that it was on the phone with Shawn Gore to get the sense of numbers and where I might slot in.”
Adekolu and Gore were teammates at Bishop’s and the former says that relationship has helped him make great strides as a pro.
“Shawn’s been great since the day I signed,” Adekulo says. “He’ll give you all the details because he has been through it himself. A lot of players don’t get that from someone who is so close.”
Adekolu’s journey hasn’t come without having to stay patient. The 6’4, 200 pound receiver dressed for just six games in his rookie season, recording one catch and also spent time on the practice roster. His sophomore season provided more promise as Adekolu appeared in every game and became a reliable member of the Lions special teams unit.
“Playing special teams gives you the speed and allows you to gauge the strength of the game. People think special teams is not a glorious position, but I find it to be one of the most important aspects of the game,” Adekolu says.
With the offseason departures of Andrew Harris and Austin Collie, there appears to be room for at least one new Canadian starter on offence. Adekolu hopes an offseason of intense training will go a long way in securing a spot on the receiving corps when camp breaks June 16th.
Along with sessions from strength and conditioning coach Chris Boyko, Adekolu has spent time in Ontario working out with fellow CFL pass catchers Chad Owens, Andre Durie and Shamawd Chambers.
The third-year Lion was impressed with what Owens, who is one of the fittest CFL players you will see, had to offer. “Chad is a technician. He always has something to give you constructive criticism on whether its body posture or how many steps you need to run an out. It’s good to get that inside from another veteran player.”
Adekolu also takes great advice from the Lions teammates he works with in practice, particularly the two quarterbacks.
“Jennings is an exciting, young up and comer. Lulay will tell you how to run your route before you even hear the play. He helps guide young receivers into being comfortable with how things go.”
Adekolu’s offseason commitment and determination are impressive to his long-time football friend. “A lot of people have potential, but not everybody makes good on it,” Gore says. “He’s taken advantage of the opportunity. Just like any business you have to work your way up. In football you have to grind your way on special teams and do things most players don’t want to do but you have to.”
Gore, who turned 29 on Tuesday, believes Adekolu’s presence is also beneficial to him.
“It’s great having someone you know. He’s stayed over when he’s come to visit me in the city. It’s great having people around you go back with, the conversations are a bit deeper. It’s a pretty surreal experience,” Gore adds.
Even though his football career appears to just be taking off, Adekolu is already making plans for his next chapter. He’d like to continue to pursue acting. Prior to his fine arts experience in university, he performed in a few musicals, including a rendition of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. More recently he appeared in commercials for large retail company Dick’s Sporting Goods.
“Being out in BC in the offseason, I figure it is a good place to dive into acting,” the wide receiver says.
Adekolu has also put his business background to use serving as a consultant for My Road Workout, a mobile fitness company that promotes natural health. Giving back to youth is a big part of his off the field activity as well. Adekolu opened A.Mile Football camp in Sherbrooke, Quebec and is planning to open a children’s daycare in the same area.
In the unlikely event none of those work out, you know he has what it takes to be the best zookeeper in town.
Matt Baker: [email protected] |
Image copyright Getty Images
UK industry fell back into recession as it shrank for the second quarter in a row, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
It is the third time UK industry has been in recession in eight years.
Although industrial production rose 0.3% from February to March, it fell 0.4% both in the first three months of 2016 and in the last three of 2015.
Compared with a year ago, manufacturing production in the first quarter fell 1.9%, the biggest fall since 2013.
The biggest fall in output came from the basic iron and steel sector which saw production drop in March by 37.3% percent compared with a year earlier.
However, the oil and gas industries saw sharp gains, increasing production 17% in February, and 10.9% in March from the same months a year earlier.
Manufacturing and construction is proving to be a drag on the whole economy, helping slow UK economic growth from 0.6% in the last three months of 2015 to 0.4% between January and March, according to the ONS.
Weaker growth
Earlier this month a survey by Markit/CIPS also showed manufacturing contracting. Chris Williamson, chief economist at Markit said: "The goods-producing sector therefore looks to be on course to act as a drag on the economy again in the second quarter, contributing to a slowing in economic growth to near-stagnation.
"Growth could be even weaker if the surveys disappoint in coming month, which seems probable given the intensifying uncertainty over the outcome of the EU referendum."
Despite this, economist Ruth Miller from Capital Economics is optimistic for the rest of the year.
She said: "We still expect things to look up as the year progresses. Sterling's recent depreciation and our expectations that global growth will pick up slightly in 2016 should allow the sector to return to modest growth later this year." |
Renowned academician and social sciences expert Dr Tahir Jamil said that certain elements in Pakistan kept resisting the population census as they saw it as a threat to their vested interests.
“The population census will reveal the truth about the province and locality populations and will affect the redistribution of national resources through the national finance commission (NFC) award,” he said.
He expressed these views during his lecture titled ‘Demographic transition in Pakistan: challenges and opportunities’, organised by the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) on Monday.
Dr Jamil regretted that Pakistan had become a nation without any regard for data or information. “Hence, we were failing to develop and design policies according to actual needs of the different segments of society,” he added.
He suggested that providing quality education and data based planning were the only way forward to remain relevant in the world in the coming years. With the help of his detailed presentation, Dr Tahir Jamil said that economic growth could be found to be a function of demographic transition as it gave the basis for the maximum use of the population’s potential.
He explained that the demographic dividend was not itself an economic benefit but provided an opportunity to reap the economic benefits resulting from it. “To materialise such a demographic shift into economic benefits, a well thought out economic plan is needed to provide a suitable environment for saving and investment,” he added.
Dr Tahir said that Pakistan’s economic development and healthcare and education facilities were not encouraging because of imbalanced population growth. He suggested that the fundamental challenge for a government was to stabilise the level of population in order to increase the productivity.
Shahid Minhas of the SDPI earlier highlighted the importance of demographics and said that the developmental initiatives in health and education sectors had failed to produce the desired results due to non-availability of information about the population. |
By Christopher Bollyn
American Free Press The fact that a Spanish skyscraper is still standing after an intense
fire consumed the steel and concrete tower for 24 hours provides real
world evidence that fire alone does not cause high-rise towers to
collapse.
As an intense fire consumed the 32-story Windsor Building in Madrid's
business district, the press reports all began with the words "fear
of collapse." After 24 hours, however, the tower, which was a similar
construction to the twin towers of the World Trade Center, remained
standing.
The fact that an extremely severe fire did not cause the Spanish
steel and concrete tower to collapse raises serious questions about
the events of 9/11 and how they have been explained. Why did the
Windsor Building remain standing when similar towers in New York City
collapsed completely after being affected by much less intense fires
burning for considerably shorter periods of time?
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) sponsored engineers to
conduct the World Trade Center Building Performance Study (BPS) to
examine how the buildings of the WTC responded to the airplane
crashes and fires that allegedly caused the collapses of the twin
towers and WTC 7, a 47-story office building on the next block.
"Prior to September 11, 2001, there was little, if any, record of
fire-induced collapse of large fire-protected steel buildings," the
BPS says in the chapter about the mysterious collapse of WTC 7, the
third tower to collapse on 9/11. WTC 7 was not hit by aircraft or
large pieces of debris and had only sporadic fires. At about 5:25
p.m., WTC 7, owned by Larry Silverstein, collapsed in what appeared
to be a controlled demolition.
It would be more accurate to say that no steel framed high-rise, like
WTC 7, has ever collapsed due to fire. The fact that the Windsor
Building is still standing is proof that fire alone does not cause
properly constructed steel and concrete towers to collapse.
Dr. W. Gene Corley, Senior Vice President of Construction Technology
Laboratories (CTL) of Skokie, Ill., was team leader of the engineers
who wrote the BPS.
CTL is a subsidiary of the Portland Cement Association and "provides
structural and architectural engineering, testing, and materials
technology services throughout the U.S. and internationally."
According to its website, "CTL’s expertise extends beyond cement and
concrete, encompassing virtually all structural systems and
construction materials."
WACO, OKLAHOMA CITY, AND WTC
Corley served as expert adviser during the government's investigation
of the 1993 fatal fire at the Branch Davidian complex in Waco, Texas.
In 1995, Corley led a Building Performance Assessment Team (BPAT)
investigation of the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in
Oklahoma City. In September 2001, once again, Corley was selected to
head the team to study building performance after the attack on New
York’s World Trade Center.
In the executive summary of the WTC study, Corley wrote that
secondary fires caused the twin towers to collapse:
"The heat produced by this burning jet fuel does not by itself appear
to have been sufficient to initiate the structural collapses.
However, as the burning jet fuel spread across several floors of the
buildings, it ignited much of the buildings' contents, causing
simultaneous fires across several floors of both buildings," Corley
wrote. "Over a period of many minutes, this heat induced additional
stresses into the damaged structural frames while simultaneously
softening and weakening these frames. This additional loading and the
resulting damage were sufficient to induce the collapse of both
structures."
In the section that deals with the collapse of the twin towers, the
BPS says: "Because the aircraft impacts into the two buildings are
not believed to have been sufficient to cause collapse without the
ensuing fires, the obvious question is whether the fires alone,
without the damage from the aircraft impact, would have been
sufficient to cause such a collapse…it is impossible, without
extensive modeling and other analysis, to make a credible prediction
of how the buildings would have responded to an extremely severe fire
in a situation where there was no prior structural damage."
The Windsor Building fire in Madrid provides an excellent real-world
model to show how the twin towers should have responded to "an
extremely severe fire" alone. The Windsor Building has central
support columns in its core section, which is similar to the
construction of the twin towers. This central core is what supported
the gravity load of the towers.
In the Windsor Building fire, the fire is thought to have started on
the 21st floor late on Saturday night, Feb. 12. The upper floors were
consumed by intense fire for at least 18 hours. The fire moved down
the building and burned the entire structure. The fire is reported to
have burned temperatures of at 800 degrees Celsius, or nearly 1,500
degrees Fahrenheit.
There was a partial collapse of parts of the top 10 floors as the
trusses, which went from the core columns to the outside walls,
appear to have failed. It is important to note, however, that the
lower floors did not collapse and the core section is still standing
with a construction crane on the roof.
The complete failure of the 47-central support columns in the twin
towers of the WTC is one of the key outstanding questions about what
caused their collapses. It would be expected that they should have
remained standing even if some of the floor trusses failed. There is
no explanation for what caused the huge box columns to fail.
Two of the contractors who removed the rubble told AFP that they had
found molten steel in the 7th basement level when they reached the
bedrock where the columns were based. There is no explanation for
what caused such intense residual heat to be found at the base of the
twin towers, although some experts have pointed to powerful
explosives.
By press time, Dr. Corley had not responded to questions about the
BPS findings and the questions raised by the Windsor Building fire.
Corley's assistant told AFP that he had just gone to the airport and
would not be returning to the office until Feb. 28.
The Windsor Building was built from 1973-1979 in an area of Madrid
where commercial property was developed on land owned by Rio Tinto,
the international mining giant. This is thought to be the reason why
the Windsor Building carries the name of the British royal family.
The WTC towers were completed in the early 1970's.
The Windsor Building housed the offices of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu,
a multinational financial services company, which occupied 20 floors
of the tower.
The area where the Windsor Building stands is a mixed residential and
commercial area known as the AZCA zone. Dubbed 'Madrid's Manhattan',
AZCA contains a cluster of modern skyscrapers. The tallest one is the
Torre Picasso, a 516-foot tower built in 1989. The Picasso Tower was
designed by Minoru Yamasaki, who also designed the twin towers of the
WTC. Unión de Explosivos Río Tinto, S.A., owns the land where the
tower stands.
Finis
The Windsor Building (Edificio Windsor) in Madrid, Spain burned "like
a torch" for more than 18 hours from Saturday night, Feb. 12. After
burning in an uncontrolled inferno the tower's core columns remain
standing with a huge construction crane on top of the roof. This
evidence supports the fact that prior to 9/11 NO steel-framed high-
rise had ever collapsed due to fire. On 9/11 the 47-story WTC 7,
owned by Larry Silverstein, collapsed at 5:25 p.m. There is no
explanation for why the WTC 7 collapsed except for the fact that
Silverstein told PBS that the decision was made to "pull it" and "we
watched it come down." |
I’m never sure when to say it’s the second generation, so we will start now I guess since we know the heir.
Not much is going on in the Kincaid house, George and Kayla had aged up and were now elders, spending their time dreaming of retirement. Lizzie spent all of her time with her piano or Jebediah. They were becoming really great friends. In fact, she was meeting him later that night to see if they could take their friendship to the next level.
As luck would have it, Omari showed up and wanted to join their group. It turned out really awkward, so they just played horseshoes all night. Lizzie decided she would have time later to talk to Jebediah.
The following weekend was Lizzie’s birthday. Her parents threw a party for her. Her sisters came which made it the best party ever. She loved whenever she could see them. She thought long and hard about her birthday wish before entering adulthood.
L: “I wish I could have as happy a life as my sisters.”
Lizzie has now reached young adulthood. She gained a new trait, she is now: Night Owl, Clumsy, Vehicle Enthusiast, Green Thumb, and Heavy Sleeper. Her lifetime wish is to be an Alchemy Artisan. This should be fun, I’ve never had this before.
Lizzie paid a visit to her local Alchemy Consignment shop and started researching. She was there all night, until finally they kicked her out. She decided to buy a station of her own. She brought it home and went straight back to researching. She loved learning about all the different potions she can make.
The next day was graduation day. Her and her family headed down to City Hall for the ceremony. She was voted valedictorian and graduated with the highest honor. After graduation she spotted Jebediah and decided to invite him out.
They went across the street to the park and played some soccer. Jebediah decided to sport some swim trunks to play in. After a while they both started to stink, so they ran home to shower and met back up at the theater to see a movie. After the movie, someone decided to pay an unexpected visit, dang it Grim. But Jebediah and Lizzie didn’t let that ruin their evening.
Lizzie invited Jebediah back to her place after the movie. We all know where this is going, I mean why else would she invite him over? The couple had some fun that night.
The next morning, Lizzie got to thinking.
L: “Look Jebediah, I love what we have, and I was wondering if you wanted to make it more, I don’t know, official..” J: “I’m kind of insane, I don’t usually settle down with anyone, but for some reason I am drawn to you. Sure Lizzie, let’s make it official.”
The next day, Lizzie invited Omari over to break the news to him. But, once he got there, she was blinded by his deep voice, his beautiful eyes, his long flowing hair.. She couldn’t help herself, and when he leaned in to kiss her she didn’t pull away. One thing led to another and well… Lizzie was weak…
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MILWAUKEE COUNTY -- The two-month old baby grazed by the bullet of a road rage suspect on I-43 Sunday is reportedly back home, and police are asking for the public's help to find that suspect.
A witness described the suspect vehicle as a maroon, or possibly a darker red, newer model Lincoln MKS or MKZ four-door sedan. The most distinguishing features were the very dark tinted windows. No license plate information is available at this time. The vehicle was last seen exiting the ramp from northbound I-43 to the Hampton Ave. (east) exit.
A witness described the suspect vehicle as a maroon, or possibly a darker red, newer model Lincoln MKS or MKZ four-door sedan. Image Credit: Milwaukee County Sheriff's Office.
Anyone having information or knowledge related to the shooting or the whereabouts of a vehicle that matches this description is encouraged to call the Milwaukee County Sheriff's Office at 414-278-4788 to report the last known location of that vehicle and license plate.
Baby Back Home
On Tuesday night, Patch.com was made aware of a GoFundMe page set up for the family of Ava Schowalter, the 2-month-old baby who was shot in Sunday's incident. According to Ava's story on the GoFundMe page, she returned home sometime Monday to begin her recovery.
The fund raiser, set up to help the family cover expenses and time off work reported the following:
"Anyone who knows this family knows how wonderful and caring they are, and how much they love their children. This is why I want to help raise money for them, to take some of the financial burden off and so they can focus on their daughter's help."
You can visit the family's $5,000 fundraiser here.
The family of Ava Schowalter is back home recovering after their infant daughter was grazed by a bullet in a road rage incident.Image Credit: GoFundMe
Monday
New information released by the Milwaukee County Sheriff's office indicates the 2-month-old girl struck by gunfire on I-43 Sunday was grazed by a bullet that passed through the nearest car door and also through the infant's safety seat.
The two-month old girl is expected to live.
Milwaukee County Sheriff's detectives are attempting to identify the suspect's vehicle.
Sunday Night
Motorists were greeted to an open road on I-43 for their morning commute Monday, about 12 hours after authorities shut down a stretch of highway near Keefe Ave. on Milwaukee's north side to investigate the shooting.
The incident happened at about 4:45 p.m. on I-43 near the Keefe Avenue exit located just west of Shorewood on Milwaukee's north side, according to North Shore Fire and Rescue.
Coming up at 10..A 2-month old old girl shot in a car on a #Milwaukee freeway. How she's doing tonight @WISN12News pic.twitter.com/EdOo1czxI5
— Ben Hutchison (@BennyHutch) September 12, 2016
At the time of the shooting, the driver pulled off the freeway and into the nearest parking lot on Hampton Road to await emergency responders. The young female was treated on the scene and promptly transported to Children's hospital where she is expected to survive.
The Milwaukee County Sheriff's Office is overseeing the investigation. Officials shut down northbound I-43 at Keefe for a period of three hours as deputies investigated the location of the actual shooting.
Here was the scene Sunday night as authorities shut down I-43 to investigate the incident where a two-month-old female was shot
The circumstances surrounding the apparent road rage shooting on I-43 are currently under investigation as officers from the Milwaukee County Sheriff's office and the Glendale Police Department tend to the scene.
Photo: WISdot traffic camera, Milwaukee County Sheriff, GoFundME |
DETROIT -- Kris Draper was back in the gym on Monday, a day after returning home from what he described as a fantastic golf trip to Scotland and Ireland.
Whether he is training for another hockey season or just trying to stay in shape remains to be seen.
Draper would like to return to the Detroit Red Wings, but they might not have a spot for him. He expects to hear from general manager Ken Holland this week.
"I’m not going to assume anything, just go about my day-to-day training,” Draper said on Wednesday. "Just waiting to see which way it’s going to go.”
The Red Wings have 13 forwards signed to one-way contracts and another, rookie Cory Emmerton, has a two-way deal but must clear waivers to be sent back to the Grand Rapids Griffins. Holland has said he likely will carry 14 forwards.
Draper played in 47 games last season, his 17th in Detroit. He reiterated that he will not accept a two-way contract and compete for a spot in training camp like Kirk Maltby, his longtime linemate, did last year (Maltby retired on Oct. 12).
"I don’t want to go to camp on a tryout or anything like that,” Draper said.
If the Red Wings don’t re-sign him, he doesn’t appear inclined to seek a contract from another team.
"I played through all kinds of different scenarios,” Draper said. "I want to do what’s best for my family. I’m just going to listen to Kenny, then I’ll talk to my family and go from there.”
The uncertainty regarding his future didn’t dampen a trip Draper had planned from the start of the 2010-11 season. The occasion was his 40th birthday (May 24). The traveling party of 16 featured several Red Wings, including Chris Osgood, whose teammates rewarded him for his 400th win.
"We had a ton of fun, lots of laughs,” Draper said. "For most of the guys, it was their first time over there. We played the big Scottish courses.”
Niklas Kronwall recorded his first hole-in-one on the 206-yard 15th at historic Turnberry, the site of four British Open championships.
Draper said partners Kronwall and Johan Franzen won the "trip championship,” a two-day event in which he said, "they had a full handicap.” Individually, he said Danny Cleary "played some great golf.”
Red Wings Henrik Zetterberg, Jimmy Howard and Valtteri Filppula also were on the trip, as was Edmonton Oilers forward Shawn Horcoff. |
"Climate Change Not A Top Worry In US," reports Gallup, deadpan. Washington's Potemkin parliament can hold as many pajama parties as it wants, but Big Climate absolutism is going nowhere, and the savvier scientists - the ones who haven't been seduced by political patrons and celebrity pals - are beginning to understand they need to figure out a different tack. Dr Judith Curry's recent post on "positioning skeptics" (drawing on a longer essay by Ben Pile) includes the following observation by Professor Jonathan Jones of Oxford University:
It has been amusing to watch the apparent surprise of many climate scientists at their discovery that many "climate sceptics" are actually lukewarmers. Taking a rough and ready definition, that lukewarmers believe in AGW but doubt catastrophic AGW, one could reasonably place many of the more famous sceptics (Liljegren, McIntyre implicitly, Montford, Watts explicitly) in that camp, together with a number of "maverick" climate scientists (Curry, Lewis, Lindzen).
Mustafa Prize winner Michael E Mann doesn't want you to think like this. In Mann's world, there are two teams - Scientists vs Deniers - and if you don't root root root for the home team you must be with the other fellows'. Thus, Dr Curry was a scientist until she found herself in partial disagreement with Mann, at which point he moved her on to the "#AntiScience" team. Michael Liebreich is on the UN Secretary-General's High Level Group on Sustainable Energy and the Clinton Global Initiative's Climate Change working group, but he linked to a piece by James Delingpole, so Dr Mann moved him into the "fan of uber-deniers" category, and for good measure added "#Damning #Unconstructive" (Dr Mann holds the Nobel Prize in Hashtags).
Mann's cheerleaders love this stuff and wave their pom-poms ever more frenziedly. So do a few dogmatic politicians (Gore) and airhead celebs in need of a cause sufficiently grandiose to validate their self-importance. But very few other people do. In reality, there aren't two opposing blocs of ideological rigidity. Within both the "Scientists" and "Deniers" camps, there is a wide spectrum of opinion, especially when it comes to public policy. Mann can't look at it that way because, once you do, it's obvious that he's a real outlier. An uber-outlier, as he would say. "Deniers" have a particular antipathy to him, well aired in public. But so do scientists, well aired in private - for the moment.
Michael Mann Climate Absolutism is increasingly untenable as the global warming "pause" heads toward the start of its third decade, and the soaraway climate models fail to pan out. In reality, "deniers" are already "working with" the scientists. Ben Pile again:
Matthew England's recent discovery of the 'missing heat' — right or wrong — in the oceans followed years of his somewhat angry criticisms of climate sceptics rightly pointing out the missing heat, leading to their claims, rightly or wrongly that climate science had erred. Once it became obvious that the heat was missing, England decided to go find it. Sceptics, far from distorting the scientific debate, had in fact, driven scientific discovery...
...and in an environment in which bullies like Mann enforced the climate science "consensus" ruthlessly:
Moreover, anyone suggesting that the missing heat had found its way to the oceans might have found themselves thrown out of the academy for suggesting such a thing.
What would it take to help real scientists climb in off the ever more wobbly branch they've been lured out on to? Professor Jonathan Jones lists the principal targets of the "deniers":
And straying briefly into more dangerous territory, lukewarmers can and do remain highly critical of the IPCC, the hockey stick, the climategate fiasco, the Lewandowsky nonsense, and the bizarre idea that sceptics are a bunch of "fossil fuel funded deniers". True peace in our time requires mainstream climate science to acknowledge a few uncomfortable truths.
What do all those things have in common? Who likes the IPCC so much he laid claim to their Nobel Prize? Who's the guy at the transatlantic end of the East Anglia emails threatening to blacklist journals and fire editors, and pushing Keith Briffa further than he wants to go? Who co-authored the Lewandowsky paper arguing in effect that climate "deniers" are mentally unbalanced? And who pumps out #KochMachineDenialMachineKochMachine codswallop on his Twitter feed all day long? Michael E Mann. On all the worst excesses of Big Climate absolutism, Mann has a perfect score. He's wearing every single item on Professor Jones' grubby laundry list. To reprise Judith Curry:
For the past decade, scientists have come to the defense of Michael Mann, somehow thinking that defending Michael Mann is fighting against the 'war on science' and is standing up for academic freedom. It's time to let Michael Mann sink or swim on his own. Michael Mann is having all these problems because he chooses to try to muzzle people that are critical of Mann's science, critical of Mann's professional and personal behavior, and critical of Mann's behavior as revealed in the climategate emails. All this has nothing to do with defending climate science or academic freedom.
And a line from The Prussian:
Perhaps Mann being tossed overboard is just the thing that climate science needs.
~Today I filed with the DC Superior Court an Amended Answer and Counterclaims to Mann's Amended Complaint. You can read it here. The new bit is the third counterclaim way down on page 21. We're moving toward trial, and if you want to support my pushback against Mann I hope you'll consider buying a SteynOnline gift certificate or one of our new Clash of Sticks products. |
CLEVELAND, Ohio - Franklin County has likely overtaken Cuyahoga as the most populated county in Ohio, but official word will have to wait another year.
New estimates released Thursday by the Census Bureau showed Cuyahoga County holding a narrow lead over Franklin - 1,255,921 to 1,251,722.
But those estimates are for July 1, 2015.
Based on the trends for both counties, Franklin has since passed Cuyahoga - unless there has been a drastic change in the pattern in the last few months. The Census Bureau will not release its 2016 estimates until next year.
Cuyahoga lost an estimated 4,689 people from 2014 to 2015, while Franklin, home for Columbus, gained 17,596 residents.
The estimated annual loss for Cuyahoga was its sharpest since 2010-2011, when the county lost an estimated 8,406 people from July to July.
Cuyahoga's population stood at 1,280,122 at the time of the census in April 2010, well ahead of Franklin County's total of 1,163,414.
The population for the seven-county Greater Cleveland area of Cuyahoga, Geauga, Lake, Lorain, Medina, Portage and Summit, slipped by 3,861 people from 2014 to 2015 to 2,765,053. But the area remains the most densely population region of Ohio.
Cuyahoga and Summit lost population; the other five gained.
Franklin and its surrounding six counties total 1,922,082 in population, leaving the immediate Columbus area 842,971 smaller than Greater Cleveland.
One reason Cuyahoga has lost is that it is more fully built out than all other counties in Ohio. So as family sizes shrink, population goes down. Additionally, vacancies are widespread in Cleveland, especially on the East Side.
Rich Exner, data analysis editor for cleveland.com, examines a variety of issues with Numbers Behind the News. Follow on Twitter @RichExner
County population estimates
Here are the latest estimates for Ohio's 88 counties, listed in order of size. |
Cassini projection of the world
Cassini projection with 1,000 km indicatrices
√ 3 ⁄ 2 ) Cassini projection of the world modeled as a highly oblate ellipsoid with flattening 1:2 (= eccentricity
The Cassini projection (also sometimes known as the Cassini–Soldner projection or Soldner projection[1]) is a map projection described by César-François Cassini de Thury in 1745.[2] It is the transverse aspect of the equirectangular projection, in that the globe is first rotated so the central meridian becomes the "equator", and then the normal equirectangular projection is applied. Considering the earth as a sphere, the projection is composed of the operations:
x = arcsin ( cos φ sin λ ) y = arctan ( tan φ cos λ ) . {\displaystyle x=\arcsin(\cos \varphi \sin \lambda )\qquad y=\arctan \left({\frac {\tan \varphi }{\cos \lambda }}\right).}
where λ is the longitude from the central meridian and φ is the latitude. When programming these equations, the inverse tangent function used is actually the atan2 function, with the first argument sin φ) and the second cos φ cos λ.
The reverse operation is composed of the operations:
φ = arcsin ( sin y cos x ) λ = atan2 ( tan x , cos y ) . {\displaystyle \varphi =\arcsin(\sin y\cos x)\qquad \lambda =\operatorname {atan2} (\tan x,\cos y).}
In practice, the projection has always been applied to models of the earth as an ellipsoid, which greatly complicates the mathematical development but is suitable for surveying. Nevertheless, the use of the Cassini projection has largely been superseded by the transverse Mercator projection, at least with central mapping agencies.
Distortions [ edit ]
Areas along the central meridian, and at right angles to it, are not distorted. Elsewhere, the distortion is largely in a north-south direction, and varies by the square of the distance from the central meridian. As such, the greater the longitudinal extent of the area, the worse the distortion becomes.
Due to this, the Cassini projection works best on long, narrow areas, and worst on wide areas.
Elliptical form [ edit ]
Cassini is known as a spherical projection, but can be generalised as an elliptical form.
Considering the earth as an ellipse, the projection is composed of these operations:
N = ( 1 − e 2 sin 2 φ ) − 1 / 2 {\displaystyle N=(1-e^{2}\sin ^{2}\varphi )^{-1/2}} T = tan 2 φ {\displaystyle T=\tan ^{2}\varphi } A = λ cos φ {\displaystyle A=\lambda \cos \varphi } C = e 2 1 − e 2 cos 2 φ {\displaystyle C={\frac {e^{2}}{1-e^{2}}}\cos ^{2}\varphi } x = N ( A − T A 3 6 − ( 8 − T + 8 C ) T A 5 120 ) {\displaystyle x=N\left(A-T{\frac {A^{3}}{6}}-(8-T+8C)T{\frac {A^{5}}{120}}\right)} y = M ( φ ) − M ( φ 0 ) + ( N tan φ ) ( A 2 2 + ( 5 − T + 6 C ) A 4 24 ) {\displaystyle y=M(\varphi )-M(\varphi _{0})+(N\tan \varphi )\left({\frac {A^{2}}{2}}+(5-T+6C){\frac {A^{4}}{24}}\right)}
and M is the meridional distance function.
The reverse operation is composed of the operations:
φ ′ = M − 1 ( M ( φ 0 ) + y ) {\displaystyle \varphi '=M^{-1}(M(\varphi _{0})+y)}
If φ ′ = π 2 {\displaystyle \varphi '={\frac {\pi }{2}}} then φ = φ ′ {\displaystyle \varphi =\varphi '} and λ = 0. {\displaystyle \lambda =0.}
Otherwise calculate T and N as above with φ ′ {\displaystyle \varphi '} , and
R = ( 1 − e 2 ) ( 1 − e 2 sin 2 φ ′ ) − 3 / 2 {\displaystyle R=(1-e^{2})(1-e^{2}\sin ^{2}\varphi ')^{-3/2}} D = x / N {\displaystyle D=x/N} φ = φ ′ − N tan φ ′ R ( D 2 2 − ( 1 + 3 T ) D 4 24 ) {\displaystyle \varphi =\varphi '-{\frac {N\tan \varphi '}{R}}\left({\frac {D^{2}}{2}}-(1+3T){\frac {D^{4}}{24}}\right)} λ = D − T D 3 3 + ( 1 + 3 T ) T D 5 15 cos φ ′ {\displaystyle \lambda ={\frac {D-T{\frac {D^{3}}{3}}+(1+3T)T{\frac {D^{5}}{15}}}{\cos \varphi '}}}
See also [ edit ] |
Remember when 3D TVs came on the scene and revolutionized the way we viewed content from the comfort of our couches? No? Ok, what about when 3D printers started a manufacturing revolution in the homes of each and every American? Also no?
I think we can all agree that 3D anything hasn’t exactly found its way into the ‘daily use’ category for the average nerd (unless you love your Nintendo 3DS like I do), even though I’m sure most of us also assume that in another decade Princess Leia-style holograms # will be the norm and 3D printers will be saving us trips to the local hardware store.
In the meantime though, 3D printing is at least good enough to inject some high-tech Christmas cheer into your holiday season. That’s because there’s Scandy, a New Orleans-based startup that can capture your memories and then seamlessly 3D print them as a sphere which can be illuminated and used a Christmas ornament or pleasant secular memory bauble.
Just check out this gorgeous Random Nerds sphere in all of its rotating glory…
Why print photos of my family when I can print branded Random Nerds stuff?
When I saw Scandy on Kickstarter, I immediately knew that I wanted to back it. It looked weird and awesome and throwing money at weird and awesome things is the whole point of Kickstarter, especially when you can rationalize it as Christmas shopping. It also should be noted that Scandy is the only Kickstarter campaign in recent memory aside from the Pebble Time that I decided to back while totally sober (I’m apparently a producer of the kickster Sci-Fi movie, Theoxenia # , which may never see the light of the day but does allow me to tell people that I am in fact a movie producer).
But just watch this video and you’ll see why I got hooked on these things: |
Nick Saban isn't a licensed sports psychologist and he's the first to tell you that.
The Alabama head coach insists he knows more about Xs and Os and diagnosing zone blocking than anything to do with the mind, and that might be true. Yet Saban might be more in tune with the psyche and the ways to impact it than any football coach in America.
Just look at kicker Adam Griffith.
The confidence of a kicker is always a precarious item. One bad kick can mess with the player's head, in turn setting him up for even more failure. It's a vicious cycle and can get ugly when fans turn on the kicker.
Griffith started off the season poorly and was in a funk. He missed his first four field goals to start the season, including one from only 24-yards, and the public criticism of the Alabama kicker grew. There were fans that wanted Saban to make a change and booed Griffith after a missed kick against Middle Tennessee, but instead he doubled down on his kicker. He knew Griffith needed a confidence boost rather than another person putting him down, so he publicly backed the junior kicker.
Since then, Griffith has made 13 of his last 15 kicks.
"We stuck with him and we believe in him and we try to be positive with him and try to help him so that he can accomplish what he wants to accomplish," Saban said. "I don't know that anybody knows a positive attitude works, but everybody knows a negative one doesn't so we try to stay positive with our guys."
At the start of the season, no one could have imagined Adam Griffith hitting a 55-yard field goal. It's to Saban's credit that Griffith had the confidence to sidle up to his head coach during the game and tell him he could make the long kick. Saban obliged and Griffith delivered to give Alabama a 13-10 halftime lead against LSU. He'd later add another field goal in Alabama's 30-16 win.
After the game, Griffith had a swagger that hadn't been seen all year.
"I'm surprised they think I can't do it," he said about the long field goal. "I'm not sure if they watch me in practice or whatever. I can kick it far and I finally got a chance to prove it to everyone."
People love to joke about "The Process" and Saban's way of getting players to buy into his system, but it's brilliant in its simplicity. He's the master of knowing when to build up his team -- after a loss or close win -- and when to tear them down and point out every little flaw as he does after a blowout win or before a cupcake FCS opponent. He studies his players' body language, consults with experts and comes up with the best way to motivate each player.
Without the right approach from Saban, Griffith could have been a lost cause this season. Instead, he's made his last eight field goals and can be counted on in big moments. That could be huge Saturday against No. 17 Mississippi State in what's been a close game in recent years.
He's not Dr. Saban, but he deserves an honorary degree. |
Fourth Estate In Defense of David Petraeus So he might have slipped a few secrets to his biographer/lover. Who am I to judge?
Jack Shafer is POLITICO's senior media writer. Previously, Jack wrote a column about the press and politics for Reuters and before that worked at Slate as a columnist and as the site's deputy editor. He also edited two alternative weeklies, SF Weekly and Washington City Paper. His work has been published in The New York Times Magazine, The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, the Columbia Journalism Review, Foreign Affairs, The New Republic, BookForum and the op-ed page of The Wall Street Journal.
If you’re bored with defending NSA-megaleaker Edward Snowden, there’s another suspected leaker worthy of your sympathy: Retired Gen. David H. Petraeus.
According to anonymous “officials” cited late last week by the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal, and other outlets, federal law enforcement officials have recommended that Petraeus—former commander of U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as former head of the CIA—be prosecuted for leaking classified documents. According to press reports, the FBI discovered the classified documents in the possession of Petraeus’s biographer (and ex-lover) Paula Broadwell in 2012 while investigating a cyberstalking case. In the ensuing blow-up, the Petraeus-Broadwell affair was revealed, forcing the four-star general to resign from the CIA.
Story Continued Below
Petraeus has denied passing the documents to Broadwell, and she backs that assertion. Whether Petraeus is guilty or innocent, this leak is as unfair to him as it is predictable. Prosecutors have long leaked like this whenever they can’t make a case against a suspect and hope that a newspaper story will panic him into a plea bargain. The identity of the leakers—and their motivations for leaking—are almost as good a news story as the decision to prosecute. It seems unlikely that Attorney General Eric Holder, who will be leaving the office as soon as his replacement, Loretta Lynch, is confirmed, was behind the leak. Better to speculate that the prosecutors who have been working on the Petraeus case for two years, but don’t really have a case, took the initiative, hoping to score a last scalp as the Holder era fades and their team disbands. Or the leakers could be sending a message to Lynch, saying, “Hey, we’ve got a hot case for you over here.”
Now, there’s plenty of irony wrapped up in the idea of a suspected leaker’s reputation being destroyed by leaks, but that’s not the main reason we should care about this case.
Perhaps, instead, I can stir your conscience by asking if the case should have been brought in the first place. Government officials leak classified information day in and day out, sometimes as “whistle-blowers,” sometimes to float a policy balloon, sometimes to undermine their bureaucratic opponents, sometimes by mistake, and sometimes (I’m only guessing here) to placate the mistress who is writing an adulatory biography. Upwards of 1.4 million people hold “top secret” clearances, and the secrecy machine creates tens of millions of new classified documents each year. That sort of profligacy makes a mockery of the government’s definition of “top secret” as information that “could be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security.” As Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan concluded as the last century closed, such over-classification tends to leave us less safe, not more, by slowing the information flow between policy makers. If neither justice nor national security are being served by pressuring the general, prosecutors should back off.
Powerful figures in government shouldn’t be allowed to leak anything they want to leak, nor should Petraeus escape reprimand if he broke his oath to keep secrets secret. You can’t very well let him off the hook and still expect lower-ranking government employees to keep classified information safe. That’s not the message anybody wants to send. But it’s worth asking how secret were the documents in the Petraeus case and what, if any, damage to national security did their leak cause? Did we experience a genuine security lapse in the Petraeus case, or are we merely relearning the lesson that Moynihan taught, that the bureaucracy, determined to cover its ass in advance, classifies way too much material? We don’t really have answers to those questions yet, but we do have glimmers. In November 2012, the Washington Post reported (anonymously sourced again) that Petraeus had assigned aides and military officials to give Broadwell documents, but that the documents had “been described as sensitive but relatively benign. Officials who have been briefed on them said they were mostly schedules and PowerPoint presentations classified as ‘secret.’” Another hint of the innocuous nature of the leaks appeared in a recent Bloomberg View piece. Petraeus has maintained his security clearance ever since the investigation began, it reported, and he has been “casually advising the White House on Iraq.” Does the right hand of the government know what the left is doing?
If we assume that Petraeus did violate his security clearance by releasing classified documents to Broadwell, wouldn’t that put him in the legal proximity of Edward Snowden? Snowden gave his classified stash to journalists he carefully selected, hoping that they would advance his policy views. That’s similar to what prosecutors seem to think Petraeus did, namely dumping a stash of documents to advance his policy agenda to a simpatico writer. Okay, okay, stop yelling at me! I know that what Snowden did and what prosecutors think Petraeus did are very different. There’s the matter of volume, scale, and the fact that Petraeus serves those in power while Snowden serves those who dissent.
Ever the strategist, Petraeus surely recalls the saga of John M. Deutch, who served as head of the CIA under President Bill Clinton, and endured a two-year investigation of his own for a security lapse. In that case, President Clinton granted Deutch a pardon, relieving him from the possibility of prosecution. (While we’re at it, let’s not forget the investigation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, which likewise concluded a security breach but did not result in a prosecution.) Given this precedent, Petraeus probably understands that even if convicted, the first available president will pardon him, making this lengthy investigation and his prosecution a joke. America might be comfortable sending a retired four-star general to jail for burning down a bank. But for passing a bad check? Never.
******
New location, same old byline. Do a broken-down journalist a favor by subscribing to his email alerts. Send correspondence, insults and leaks to [email protected]. |
High-profile comedians have been badmouthing offense-prone college audiences for several months – Chris Rock, Jerry Seinfeld, Patton Oswalt. College students themselves recognize it. Small-time comedians are particularly endangered when someone gets offended.
But there’s a greater threat, according to Luke Terry of Spiked (which is kind of like Reason for the U.K.): Student comedians are getting shut out.
A comedian himself, Terry shines a light on “the innumerable times that students, restricted by the Safe Space policies of their own [student] unions, have been unable to perform stand-up to their peers” in the U.K.:
First of all, unless you live in London or Manchester, most young comedians have only a few local places where they can perform – nights run by union comedy societies are godsends. I studied in Birmingham, which only has two regular comedy nights – one is union-run, the other is at a pub called The Holly Bush. Now, as much as I liked the people at The Holly Bush, the allure of playing to five affable drunks soon wore off. This meant I had to water down my routine in order to get a decent gig – and even then, I ruffled a few feathers.
The essence of standup comedy is experimentation, but that’s practically impossible at a student union-run event:
Safe Spaces operate on the logic that certain words and topics cannot be mentioned – no matter the context, tone or point. … The way Dave Chappelle talks about race is vastly different to the way Nick Griffin does. And when you can be called a homophobe, as I was, for making a joke about gay sex, or accused of ‘triggering’ someone, me again, for mentioning 9/11, this nuance is lost. Never mind that the joke I made about gay sex was in the middle of an extended bit railing against homophobia. … This attitude is toxic to comedy. Stand-up is nerve-racking enough; if young comics are constantly worried about being banned for speaking out of turn, how are they supposed to take the risks that allow you to grow as a performer?
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Picking up from where Don’t Forget to Look Up left off last time, the next section of Fifth Avenue–from 59th Street to 79th Street–is known as the Gold Coast of Manhattan. This primarily residential area of the Upper East Side runs along Central Park, with stunning views for anyone lucky enough (and fabulously rich enough) to live here. For those just passing through, we can enjoy the shade on Fifth Avenue along the Park and take in the gorgeous architecture.
781 Fifth Avenue, the Sherry-Netherland Hotel
Completed in 1927 by Schultze & Weaver–the same firm that designed the Waldorf Astoria on Park Avenue–and Buchman & Kahn, the Gothic-looking Sherry-Netherland Hotel is striking for its tall peaked roof, pointed finial, and prominently projecting gargoyles. Not surprisingly, the views from the upper floors are spectacular.
795 Fifth Avenue, the Pierre Hotel
A little further up Fifth Avenue is another Schultze & Weaver creation: the Pierre Hotel, completed in 1930. The building has two distinct parts: a solid palazzo base with a strong street presence, topped by a tall tower. The hotel’s lofty tower is crowned by a mansard roof with ornately framed circular windows and decorative urns, easily visible from Central Park and beyond.
1-11 East 60th Street, the Metropolitan Club
Set on a site formerly owned by the Duchess of Marlborough (formerly Conseulo Vanderbilt), the Metropolitan Club was designed by Stanford White of McKim, Mead & White. The Club’s first president was J. Pierpont Morgan, and the building’s stately architecture reflects the illustriousness of the Club’s members, which included Vanderbilts and Roosevelts. The Italian Renaissance style clubhouse has a limestone facade edged with quoins at the corners and topped with a copper cornice. Note the Metropolitan “M”s inscribed above the second floor windows.
807 Fifth Avenue, the Knickerbocker Club
One block away is another of Manhattan’s exclusive social clubs, the Knickerbocker Club, founded in 1871. The clubhouse at 807 Fifth Avenue–the Club’s third home–was built in 1915 and designed by Delano & Aldrich. The red brick and limestone building is a mix of London Georgian and American Federal. At the time, a revival of these eighteenth-century styles was underway in early twentieth-century New York.
821 Fifth Avenue, the Arsenal
One of only two buildings within Central Park’s borders that are older than the Park itself, the Arsenal was constructed between 1847 and 1851 (the design for Central Park was selected in 1858) and currently houses New York City’s Department of Parks & Recreation. Designed by Martin E. Thompson, the Arsenal sports a crenulated, medieval castle-style cornice and solid brick walls and towers.
The Arsenal’s Eagle
The cast-iron eagle, flanked by crossed swords and cannonballs, above the Arsenal’s entrance alludes to the building’s original use as a storage place for New York State’s National Guards’ munitions in the mid-nineteenth century. The building has also served as a police station, an early home of the American Museum of Natural History, and a menagerie for animals from P.T. Barnum’s circus.
834 Fifth Avenue
The luxury apartment building at 834 Fifth Avenue was designed by Rosario Candela–architect of numerous apartment buildings across New York City–and completed in 1931. Though understated over all, the limestone facade has a few Art Deco touches, including fruit-laden garlands and a carving of what appears to be the Roman god Mercury, often depicted wearing a winged helmet.
840 Fifth Avenue, the Temple Emanu-El
After its original home in midtown was demolished, the Temple Emanu-El moved further uptown to this 1929 building designed by Robert D. Kohn, Charles Butler, Clarence Stein, and Mayers, Murray & Philip. What we see is an impressively ornate hodgepodge of styles. Covered in rich decorations that borrow from both western European and Near Eastern sources, the Temple’s architecture represents the expansive extent of the Jewish Diaspora.
854 Fifth Avenue, Permanent Mission of the Republic of Serbia to the United Nations
Warren & Wetmore’s building at 854 Fifth Avenue, completed in 1905, was originally the mansion of politician R. Livingston Beeckman. Though dwarfed by much taller apartment buildings on either side, 854 Fifth Avenue stands out from its neighbors: its two-story copper mansard roof, with its two large oculi and dormer windows below, is brightly patinated. Right below the cornice is a decorative frieze of alternating trigylphs and metopes, which include a shield depicting the head of Medusa–classical elements and mythological allusions abound in Beaux-Arts architecture.
1 East 70th Street, the Frick Collection
The Frick Collection is difficult to miss–it is one of the very few buildings set back from Fifth Avenue. The cream-colored limestone facade rising above the garden exudes the tranquility and elegance of an eighteenth-century chateau. Carrere & Hasting’s restrained neoclassical design for industrialist Henry Clay Frick is now a very fitting home for the Frick Collection’s exceedingly fine array of European paintings and sculptures. There’s also a bowling alley, hidden away for centuries and only recently discovered.
926 Fifth Avenue
Architect C. P. H. Gilbert designed both 926 Fifth Avenue and its neighbor at 925 Fifth Avenue in the late 1890s. These five-story town houses are typical examples of turn-of-the-century Fifth Avenue homes, and are a refreshing change after dozens of high-rise apartment buildings–the scale is comparatively cozy. 926 Fifth Avenue is topped with two gracefully arched and pedimented dormer windows flanked by Ionic columns.
927 Fifth Avenue, home of Pale Male
This 1917 Warren & Wetmore apartment building, topped with a cornice and neo-Italian Renaissance decorations, is perhaps best known for what you can see above the ornate frame of the window in the upper right corner of the photo above: the nest of the red-tailed hawk Pale Male. Back in 2004, a controversy arose when some of the building’s residents strongly opposed having a hawk’s nest on their building. Pale Male’s supporters eventually won–the nest was removed and then restored three weeks later.
1 East 75th Street
Originally the Edward S. and Mary Stillman Harkness House, the neo-Renaissance palazzo on the northeast corner of Fifth Avenue and 75th Street has strikingly rich bands of decoration beneath its projecting cornice and balustrade. Completed in 1909 and designed by Hale & Rogers, the ornate frieze of 1 East 75th Street is covered with curving vines, with larger leavers and flowers above the windows.
960 Fifth Avenue
Designed by Rosario Candela with Warren & Wetmore, 960 Fifth Avenue is yet another luxury apartment building for the inconceivably wealthy. Amidst the garlands, flowers, urns, and drapery on the limestone facade are eleven somewhat ominous-looking hooded figures whose faces are completely hidden in shadow when seen from below.
1 East 78th Street, the Institute of Fine Arts
This former home of James B. Duke, a founding partner of the American Tobacco Company, is now New York University’s Institute of Fine Arts. Designed by Horace Trumbauer and based on the eighteenth-century Hotel Labottiere in Bordeaux, the Institute of Fine Arts is a well-proportioned exemplar of neoclassicism, with a dentilated pediment and elegant balcony.
972 Fifth Avenue, French Embassy Cultural Services
This High Italian Renaissance palazzo with the graceful bow-front facade and Corinthian pilasters was designed by Stanford White of McKim, Mead & White and completed in 1909 as the mansion of financier Payne Whitney, brother-in-law to Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, the founder of the Whitney Museum.
2 East 79th Street, the Ukrainian Institute of America
Right next door to the French Embassy’s Cultural Services building is the former home of banker Isaac D. Fletcher, completed in 1899 and designed by C. P. H. Gilbert. Past residents have included oil baron Harry F. Sinclair, who was involved in the 1922 Teapot Dome scandal, and August Van Horne Stuyvesant Jr., a descendant of Peter Stuyvesant. Now the Ukrainian Institute of America, 2 East 79th Street is a picturesque example of the French Gothic style with pointed arches, carved faces, a steep slate roof, and numerous finials–a miniature chateau on Fifth Avenue.
Next week, our journey up Fifth Avenue along Central Park continues. We’ll cover 80th Street to 110th Street in the next installment of Don’t Forget to Look Up!
Don’t Forget to Look Up |
A diagram explaining the anti-pee technology. (Screenshot: Youtube/IG St. Pauli)
Pamplona’s famous Running of the Bulls involves both running and bulls, but it also features a lot of eating, drinking, and dancing. By its end, many revelers have to pee like, well, racebulls, and some choose to do so directly on the walls, giving the city a distinct smell.
But if you try to relieve yourself on Pamplona this year, urine for a surprise. In advance of the July festival, officials are installing invisible liquid-repellant paint in “key problem areas” of the city, according to The Local.
“As a result of the repellent, the stream of urine rebounds from the surface and soaks the trousers and shoes of those who decide to relieve themselves in a public place,” a city council spokesman explained to the outlet, vividly.
The paint was first used for this purpose in Hamburg, Germany, where drunk tourists were targeting walls, and San Francisco installed similar technology last summer. As one Hamburg resident put it, “it’s peeback time.”
Every day, we track down a fleeting wonder—something amazing that’s only happening right now. Have a tip for us? Tell us about it! Send your temporary miracles to [email protected]. |
President Donald Trump on Saturday sought to distance himself from the Justice Department’s negotiations with AT&T over its $85 billion bid for Time Warner, responding to reports this week that DOJ had asked the telecom giant to sell off CNN’s parent company, Turner Broadcasting.
“I didn’t make that decision,” Trump told reporters. “It was made by a man who’s a very respected person, a very, very respected person.”
The “person” in Trump’s remarks is likely Makan Delrahim, DOJ’s recently confirmed antitrust chief. Delrahim, who supported Trump during the campaign and served nine months as a White House lawyer, is responsible for overseeing the AT&T transaction.
This week, Delrahim and other agency officials told AT&T that the deal as it currently stands raises anti-competition concerns, and that the company will need to shed some assets, perhaps either Turner or DirecTV. In light of Trump’s frequent critiques of CNN, the move raised questions about Trump’s possible political interference in what is supposed to be an impartial economic analysis.
“I did make a comment as to what I think,” Trump acknowledged, appearing to reference previous remarks he had made on the campaign trail criticizing the AT&T deal. Then he added: “I do feel you should have as many news outlets as you can – especially since so many are fake.”
The president has frequently referred to CNN as “fake news.”
Delrahim has said he was never given instructions by the White House on how to conduct his analysis. The White House has also said that Trump has not spoken to Attorney General Jeff Sessions about the matter, nor were any White House officials authorized to speak to DOJ on it.
AT&T’s chief executive, Randall Stephenson, said this week he has no intention of selling CNN or making any other major divestments. Those remarks put AT&T and DOJ on a collision course, policy analysts said, which may lead to DOJ suing to block the deal.
“We’re prepared to litigate now,” Stephenson said at a conference this week hosted by the New York Times. |
Samsung invited a host of random guests on stage during its CES 2015 press conference today, but perhaps the most notable was designer Yves Behar. When the company introduced its new lineup of SUHD TV, it took a moment to introduce a particularly special model, the S9W, that was designed in concert by Behar, his Fuseproject design house, and Samsung itself — the first product in a newly-announced, long-term partnership between Fuseproject and Samsung.
Fuseproject has given us more details on the S9W, and it sounds like a uniquely impressive piece of AV gear, albeit probably not a TV that'll work in most people's living rooms. The main components of the TV are a curved, 82-inch UHD screen that rests on top of a "gallery-like cube." It's a 21:9 TV, much wider than the 16:9 TVs we're used to, and has more in common with a movie screen than TV screen. Behar writes that "an image on a curve instantly becomes a sculpture" rather than something more akin to a painting. As such, the cube felt like the most appropriate way to display the screen — and it also let designers put the majority of the guts and technology right into the cube, resulting in an incredibly thin design. |
In one Oregon home, rats were coming through a rotten floor to bite children, while another kid, in need of a physician, threw their urine soaked clothing on the floor.
Parents in another home threatened their 7-year-old with a return to foster care if his behavior didn’t change.
Elsewhere in the state, children were regularly exposed to methamphetamine users. They were only taken from the caregiver a year later after police found one of the children in the backseat of a car, sitting in the lap of a prostitute who was covered in meth.
In all these instances, child protective service caseworkers at the Oregon Department of Human Services were responding to reports of child abuse and either deemed the children were safe or failed to fully diagnose the dangers in the home.
“If those assessments are ending in the determination that those kids are safe, we have a very severe problem,” said state Sen. Sara Gelser, who chairs the Senate Human Services Committee, at a public hearing this week in Salem.
These cases illustrate failures in the state’s CPS program that workers say is overwhelmed and understaffed by employees who often lack adequate training to performing time-consuming and challenging work.
The incidents were part of an internal review by the Oregon Department of Human Services, which found a number of serious problems in the way its employees investigate cases of child abuse.
Bradley W. Parks/OPB
The report was the subject of a public hearing Monday in Salem, where lawmakers used it to advocate for a bill they say would bring DHS back to basic assessments in an effort to address some of the dangers children in some Oregon homes face on a daily basis.
“I’m incredibly depressed at this moment,” said Rep. Duane Stark, who testified in favor of the bill after hearing the report.
“We have to change something and the problems need to be addressed with urgency,” Gelser said.
The report was the result of a child who died after numerous visits by CPS case workers.
DHS reviewed 101 recent cases from 11 counties, including Lane, Washington, Jackson and Clackamas.
In 47 percent of the CPS cases examined, the reviewer did not agree with the case worker’s conclusion the children were in a safe home.
DHS Director Clyde Saiki testified during the hearing that the report was not sent to him internally. Rather, he received it when Gelser emailed it to him last week.
“The report that came out of your child safety program where you had 47 kids identified as safe that were clearly very unsafe; what is happening right now, today to address that problem to make sure that there aren’t people out assessing kids today and saying they’re safe and leaving them in those kinds of conditions?” Gelser asked during the hearing. “What’s happened since you got that report?”
Saiki responded that he only received the report last Friday.
“I haven’t even had a chance to sit down with staff and say, ‘So, tell me what this report says,’” he testified.
Gelser said it’s a report DHS has had for several months.
“Am I the only person that gave you the report?” she asked.
“What’s that?” Saiki replied.
“Did you receive the report from me?” Gelser asked.
“Yes,” he responded.
“Am I the only person who gave you the report?” she asked.
“Yes,” Saiki replied.
“Does that concern you?” Gelser asked.
“Yes, it concerns me a great deal,” Saiki said. “Those are internal issues that I need to deal with.”
Gelser, a Corvallis Democrat, is pushing a bill that would require DHS caseworkers determine whether or not a child was abused at the conclusion of each investigation.
A new program Oregon rolled out beginning in May 2014 doesn’t require case workers to make that final determination.
While its goal is well intended, Gelser said, the state’s CPS system is too understaffed and poorly resourced to adequately implement it on a regular basis.
“The way I’ve described it is you don’t install a hot tub in the backyard before you even have running water in the house,” she said during an interview. “We don’t have indoor plumbing right now.”
Without that final step where caseworkers determine if abuse occurred, Gelser said, the cases get lost and it skews child abuse statistics.
“All of the sudden in these counties, it makes it look like child abuse is falling. But just because you’re not entering the disposition, doesn’t mean it occurred,” she said in an interview. “We’re not then able to compare whether kids are safe or not safe.”
Gelser’s bill would require DHS to continue making determinations in child abuse cases until
the agency is adequately staffed;
DHS can show they can complete assessments on time;
the kids are seen on time;
DHS can operate a centralized, statewide child abuse hotline for six consecutive months.
“This is not about the workers, who are trying very hard to do this work,” she testified. “We, as a legislature, have not adequately funded our child welfare program.”
During Monday’s hearing, Saiki said the agency needs a new approach to fixing its problems.
He said these types of situations in the past have yielded reports with dozens of recommendations that then try and get implemented simultaneously.
“And when you’re an agency that’s already under-resourced, if you try and do 20 or 30 things — especially when some of those things are significant — at once then you’re not going to be successful,” he testified. “We have to prioritize.”
Gelser said she’s pulling a series of her own bills this session to help DHS focus on improving the basics.
“These are real lives and real kids and real families and generations of families that are suffering with this,” she said. “We all talk about it for a day and go back to our regular lives. Their regular life is what was described in that report. And that’s not ok with me and it shouldn’t be OK with anybody.” |
It’s the type of business idea that provokes skeptical reactions.
Really? You want to make vinyl records? In 2017?
Caren Kelleher says she isn’t too troubled by the skeptics, because the former band manager, who also worked at Google, knows more about the demand for vinyl records than most people.
When Kelleher tried to order vinyl records for the bands she managed, she was told it would take as long as seven months to get the records delivered -- often meaning they’d arrive too late to be able to sell them at shows.
The reason for this delay has to do with a shortage of vinyl record manufacturing facilities -- called pressing facilities -- that are able to do smaller runs for independent artists.
“Up until now, the factories that had survived the (vinyl) downturn had been at capacity,” Kelleher said.
Kelleher is trying to solve this problem by opening a vinyl record pressing plant in Austin called Gold Rush Vinyl. She plans to open it in December, after the equipment arrives from Canada to make the records.
“We’re going to focus on special orders,” Kelleher said, working primarily with independent artists interested in printing up to 1,000 copies. “Other plants can print more than that,” she said.
She plans to initially hire eight employees, including Build A Sign veteran Gator Russo.
Kelleher expects the operation to eventually grow to 20 employees. She has already secured the space: an 8,400-square-foot warehouse in Northeast Austin.
Though Kelleher’s vinyl pressing facility will be the only one in Austin, there is at least one other business in town that can make vinyl records. Recording studio Austin Signal uses a lathe-cut technique to carve out grooves.
Patrick Floyd works among the vinyl Rock Pop section in Waterloo Records. This photo was taken in 2013.
Ralph Barrera/AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Jon Niess, who owns Austin Signal, described the lathe-cutting process as essentially creating a record one at a time. It only makes sense for very short runs, such as 10 records, or for people who want personalized records.
Kelleher’s idea makes sense, he said, especially if she’s using new record-making technology. A lot of the older record manufacturing plants are relying on aging manufacturing equipment, he said.
“There’s still a lot of demand for vinyl,” he said.
Kelleher has ordered new manufacturing equipment from a Canadian company called Viryl Technologies.
Kelleher’s background is actually in music technology. After getting an MBA from Harvard, she went to work for Songkick, which is a concert ticketing firm, and then Google’s music division.
“By the end of my career at Google I was instead managing the partnerships that Google had with other mobile services,” Kelleher said. “One of the things that struck me was how little innovation was left for mobile music.”
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