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Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) didn’t mince words about the Senate GOP’s Obamacare repeal bill, which is slated for a vote later this week.
“It’s a terrible bill,” he told reporters Monday evening at the Capitol.
Paul under questioning then went further, saying he would not vote for the bill itself or on the procedural motion to proceed, threatening to kill the bill before its gets a floor vote. Due to Republicans’ narrow majority in the Senate, the GOP can only lose two votes.
Paul’s remarks came shortly after a CBO report showed the Senate bill would drive up out-of-pockets costs for consumers even as it knocked 22 million off coverage by 2026.
Paul, who has been loudly skeptical of the GOP’s effort to repeal Obamacare, argued that it doesn’t go far enough. “Republicans were elected to repeal Obamacare, not to keep Obamacare,” he said.
Paul insisted that Republicans will be better off politically in next year’s midterm elections if they pass no bill at all rather than pass one that doesn’t completely repeal Obamacare and leaves the GOP owning a “broken” health care system.
“We’re not doing anything to fix the problem,” he said. “And I think there’s actually more blame to be attached to not doing a real thorough fixing than there is to doing nothing.”
Paul was one of a handful of senators Monday night to announce an intent to vote no on a motion to proceed this week—the precursor to a vote on the bill itself. Together with Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), Sen. Dean Heller (R-NV) and Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), the mini-revolt could stop the bill in its tracks.
But most lawmakers, even those who have been vocally critical of the bill, were much more cagey—telling reporters either that they needed more time to study the CBO report, or needed to talk to their governor. Some avoided reporters’ questions altogether by pretending to take a phone call while others speed-walked into the nearest senators-only elevator.
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) noted that “the Medicaid portion is obviously the area of greatest concern for me,” but refused to answer how she would vote later this week.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) similarly declined to answer how he would vote on a motion to proceed, saying only: “At this point, we need to do considerably more to lower premiums. Significant work remains to be done.” The CBO analysis found that premiums would initially rise by 20 percent under the Senate GOP bill, and while they would decrease over time, deductibles and other costs would skyrocket.
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), whose constituents would be hit particularly hard by the gutting of the Medicaid expansion, refused to comment until he spoke to Gov. Doug Ducey (R). “I’ll see what he wants.” Pressed further, he snapped at TPM: “I’m not going to talk to you about the status of my conversations with the governor of my state. I’m sorry.”
Yet while these senators appeared stressed and sobered by the prospect of the looming vote that could decide their political futures and that of the nation’s health care system, others were more sanguine.
“Look, we still have a long ways to go on this process,” a smiling Sen. Corey Gardner (R-CO) told reporters, despite the fact that Republicans are preparing to vote in just a few days.
Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK), asked if the bill would too severely cut Medicaid, replied calmly: “I’m not sure what it does. I just know that it’s better than Obamacare. That’s the question we should really be talking about.” Asked why the bill is better than Obamacare, Inhofe appeared flustered as he made his way to an elevator in the Capitol’s basement. “Well, if you want to go back and discuss Obamacare, that would be another issue.” |
Even though we knew that Steve Jobs had become more sick recently, his death has still shocked the world. Companies and leaders have been issuing statements describing what he meant to them. As a co-founder of Pixar, Jobs played a large role in helping Pixar become the most critically acclaimed movie studio out there. Pixar’s John Lasseter and Ed Catmull have just released a statement about the passing of their friend.
The statement, which was issued through the Disney/Pixar Facebook page reads:
Steve Jobs was an extraordinary visionary, our very dear friend and the guiding light of the Pixar family. He saw the potential of what Pixar could be before the rest of us, and beyond what anyone ever imagined. Steve took a chance on us and believed in our crazy dream of making computer animated films; the one thing he always said was to simply ‘make it great.’ He is why Pixar turned out the way we did and his strength, integrity and love of life has made us all better people. He will forever be a part of Pixar’s DNA. Our hearts go out to his wife Laurene and their children during this incredibly difficult time.
I couldn’t have said it any better. |
There’s no 10-cent fare hike actively under discussion — yet. But the TTC’s chief executive is warning that transit riders should probably brace for sardine-like conditions on the buses and the possibility of higher ticket prices in the New Year. Gary Webster said a fare increase is probably unavoidable, given that the transit system still has a $30 million outstanding shortfall on its 2012 operating budget.
The TTC will forgo adding to its current order of the newly introduced Toronto Rocket subway trains to save some money in the capital budget. ( GILBERT NDIKUBWAYEZU / TORONTO STAR FILE PHOTO )
• Read: Gary Webster’s letter to TTC workers A budget report released Tuesday by the Toronto Transit Commission recommends a host of stringent cost-cutting measures, including eliminating about 1,000 jobs, a return to old crowding standards on the buses and the termination of Wheel-Trans service to some dialysis patients. But that won’t be enough to entirely eliminate a combined $101 million operating shortfall being faced next year by the TTC, including its paratransit system. The report is before the city councillors on the commission at a special meeting Friday.
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But that is too soon to put ticket prices on the table, Webster said. The last thing the system needs is to trigger token hoarding in September as transit officials continue the search for other efficiencies this fall. “We’re well aware that there are contracting-out opportunities being pursued; there’s all this service review process underway. Will there be some savings coming from that? Yeah. Will there be $30 million? I don’t think so. Are we likely going to need a fare increase? I think so. But we need to see where we end up in December,” he told the Toronto Star. “We can make a decision in December and still have a fare increase in January,” Webster said. Meantime, the TTC is recommending a return in January to old standards for how much crowding is allowed on the system — a move expected to drive 3.7 million riders right off the system. The shame, said Webster, is that some will never return to transit even if there’s relief in future years. The TTC is also preparing to evict dialysis patients from Wheel-Trans to save $5 million annually. Many are frail but will not qualify for the expensive door-to-door service because they don’t use wheelchairs or walkers.
About 1,000 TTC jobs will be eliminated, including about 500 unionized positions — some through attrition, some through voluntary buy-outs and layoffs. But it’s the return to pre-2008 loading standards that will affect most customers. Riders, already struggling to find a place on the bus, will be packed tighter and wait longer on about 50 rush-hour routes and about 60 routes in the off-peak, in a bid to save $11.7 million annually.
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The service rollback will affect customer service at the worst possible time, with the TTC expecting record ridership next year of about 15 million more trips. “Considering where we are on customer satisfaction, this is not the direction we want to be going in with customer service. It’s a contradiction,” said transit workers union president Bob Kinnear. “We’re already overcrowded. That’s one of the biggest deterrents from people using the system.” He also warned that contracting out TTC jobs poses a danger to the public because it’s critical that safety regulations be applied consistently throughout the system. “Our cleaning people are not just cleaning people, they’re the eyes and the ears of the system. They’re thoroughly trained on how to respond to a variety of instances,” said Kinnear. • SURVEY: Thestar.com readers would higher taxes, TTC fares over cuts The TTC is not supporting the city manager’s proposal to cut the Blue Night bus network that serves about 12,000 riders a day. “Some of our customers have no other way of getting to or from work. We see that as part of our core business. This is not a city that only works for 20 hours — it’s a 24-hour city,” Webster said. City councillor and TTC chair Karen Stintz downplayed the possibility of a fare increase, telling reporters: “The mayor’s office has been clear — they don’t want a fare increase. I think we have to be able to demonstrate to the public that we’ve done everything we can, internally, to do more with less before we go out and ask them to contribute.” She also stressed that there would be no wholesale route cuts such as the evening and weekend service reductions taken last May. “It could be that people wait a minute or two more for a bus. It could be they find the bus a little more crowded. But every route will be operating, so people who rely on that route will have that service,” said Stintz. TTC commissioners will also consider a capital budget report at Friday’s meeting that Webster called “a higher risk story.” Faced with a $1.5 billion capital shortfall over the next 10 years, the TTC has cancelled a plan to add 10 more Toronto Rocket subway trains to its current order, to save $161 million; 15 new streetcars to save $70.8 million; and 134 buses, for $49.8 million. Those and other measures will eliminate about half the capital shortfall. But since most of the outstanding $750 million gap is in the first five years of the expansion plan, the problem isn’t solved, said Webster. While the TTC is set to begin taking delivery of new streetcars in 2013, there’s no money to build the storage yard at Ashbridge’s Bay, for about $300 million. “As painful as the operating budget is, there are solutions, at least for this year. We have a capital budget problem and there’s no answer for that. We’ve gone as far as we can go. There are some real short-term issues,” he said. With files from Daniel Dale Packing the Dufferin bus To see what rolling back loading standards means, take the example of the Dufferin bus, a route that carries streetcar-like passenger loads of about 40,000 riders a day. It runs every 2 minutes and 37 seconds in the morning rush. Under the recommended return to pre-2008 loading standards, that interval would be lengthened to 2 minutes and 54 seconds, increasing the passenger load by five people on average. But, given the traffic congestion on Dufferin and the TTC’s struggle to keep crowding at bay on the route, it’s likely many riders will wait much longer, and some will inevitably be left at the curb because the bus is full at peak hours. TTC budget by the numbers Combined 2012 operating shortfall (TTC and Wheel-Trans): $101 million Cost-cutting measures, totaling $70 million, recommended to councillors on the Toronto Transit Commission, include: $15 million Diesel fuel $14 million Staff cuts at the TTC, Wheel-Trans and Toronto Coach Terminal $5.5 million Service cutbacks on 50 routes, rush-hour $8.2 million Service cutbacks on 60 routes, off-peak $5 million Reduced costs for overtime and absenteeism $2 million Workforce gapping levels (letting more time lapse between a job becoming vacant and being filled) $2 million Reduced promotional campaigns, security and other services $5 million Unspecified property issue saving $5 million Eliminating Wheel-Trans service for dialysis patients who don’t use mobility aids $3 million Wheel-Trans efficiencies Gain of $5 million in advertising revenue |
BAGHDAD -- Iraq's Defence Ministry says the body of a pilot whose military plane crashed during a training mission in the United States has been found at the crash site.
Friday's ministry statement says search teams found the body of Brig. Gen. Rafid Mohammed Hassan at the crash site in southern Arizona.
He was the only person aboard when the F-16 Fighting Falcon plane went down during a Wednesday night training mission with the Arizona Air National Guard's 162nd Wing.
The crash site was 8 kilometres (5 miles) east of Douglas Municipal Airport, southeast of Tucson.
Iraq is to expecting its first batch of F-16s with U.S.-trained Iraqi pilots and spare parts. Iraqi military has said the planes would be immediately used to carry out operations against the extremist Islamic State group. |
Illustration by JAC
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“THIS paper is the manifestation of a guilty conscience.” With those words, Paul Krugman began the recent presentation of his new study of trade and wages at the Brookings Institution. Mr Krugman, a leading trade economist (as well as a New York Times columnist), had concluded in a 1995 Brookings paper* that trade with poor countries played only a small role in America's rising wage inequality, explaining perhaps one-tenth of the widening income gap between skilled and unskilled workers during the 1980s. Together with several studies in the mid-1990s that had similar findings, Mr Krugman's paper convinced economists that trade was a bit-part player in causing inequality. Other factors, particularly technological innovation that favoured those with skills, were much more important.
At some level that was a surprise. In theory, although trade brings gains to the economy as a whole, it can have substantial effects on the distribution of income. When a country with relatively more high-skilled workers (such as America) trades with poorer countries that have relatively more low-skilled workers, America's low skilled will lose out. But when the effect appeared modest, economists heaved a sigh of relief and moved on.
In recent years, however, the issue has returned. Opinion polls suggest that Americans have become increasingly convinced that globalisation harms ordinary workers. As a commentator, Mr Krugman has become more sceptical. “It's no longer safe to assert that trade's impact on the income distribution in wealthy countries is fairly minor,” he wrote on the VoxEU blog last year. “There's a good case that it is big and getting bigger.” He offered two reasons why. First, more of America's trade is with poor countries, such as China. Second, the growing fragmentation of production means more tasks have become tradable, increasing the universe of labour-intensive jobs in which Chinese workers compete with Americans. His new paper set out to substantiate these assertions.
That proved hard. Certainly, America's trade patterns have changed. Poor countries' share of commerce in manufactured goods has doubled. In contrast to the 1980s, the average wage of America's top-ten trading partners has fallen since 1990. All of which, you might think, would increase the impact of trade on wage inequality.
But by how much? If you simply update the approach used in Mr Krugman's 1995 paper to take into account today's trade patterns, you find that the effect on wages has increased. Josh Bivens, of the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington, DC, think-tank, did just that and found that trade widened wage inequality between skilled and unskilled workers by 6.9% in 2006 and 4.8% in 1995. But even with that increase, trade is still far from being the main cause of wage inequality. Lawrence Katz, a Harvard economist who discussed Mr Krugman's paper at Brookings, estimates that, using Mr Bivens's approach, trade with poor countries can account for about 15% of the growth in the wage gap between skilled and unskilled workers since 1979.
Even this is almost certainly an overstatement. Many imports from China have moved up-market from easy-to-produce products, such as footwear, to more sophisticated goods, such as computers and electronics. As a result, to use economists' jargon, the “factor content” of American imports—in effect, the amount of skilled labour they contain—has not shifted downwards. Mr Katz says factor-based models suggest trade with poor countries explains only 5% of rising income inequality.
Mr Krugman argues that the effect is bigger, but that import statistics are too coarse to capture it. Thanks to the fragmentation of production, Chinese workers are doing the low-skill parts of producing computers. Just because computers from China are classified as skill-intensive in America's imports does not prevent them from hurting less-skilled American workers. Mr Krugman may be right but, as he admits, it is hard to prove.
Blame it on the rich
Robert Lawrence, another Harvard economist, has looked at the same evidence and reached rather different conclusions. In a new book, “Blue Collar Blues”, he points out that the contours of American inequality sit ill with the idea that trade with poor countries is to blame. Once you measure income properly, the gap between white- and blue-collar workers has not risen that much since the late 1990s when China's global integration accelerated. The wages of the least skilled have improved relative to those in the middle. Some types of inequality have increased, notably the share of income going to the very richest. But there is little sign that wage inequality has behaved as traditional trade theory might suggest.
Mr Lawrence offers two reasons why. One possibility is that America no longer makes some of the low-skilled, labour-intensive goods that it imports. In those goods there are no domestic workers to lose out to foreign competition. Second, even when America does produce something that is imported from China, it may make it in a different way, with more machinery and only a few high-skilled workers. If imports from China and other poor countries compete with more-skilled American workers, they may displace workers but will not widen wage inequality.
Given the lack of fine-grained statistics, none of these studies settles the debate. It is possible that globalisation is becoming a bigger cause of American wage inequality. But contrary to the tone of the political debate, and the thrust of Mr Krugman's commentary, the evidence is inconclusive. “How can we quantify the actual effect of rising trade on wages?” Mr Krugman asked at the end of his paper. “The answer, given the current state of the data, is that we can't.” |
Snapchat
Snapchat's legal team is going on the offensive in the hopes of preventing more seemingly incriminating video footage or statements from appearing in the press.
Friday, the Los Angeles-based company's lawyers filed a motion with California's Central District Court seeking a temporary restraining order against the jilted Reggie Brown. Brown is suing Snapchat, its co-founders Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy, and the company's investors for a stake in the application he claims to have invented in the spring of 2011.
The suit, which was first filed by Brown and his lawyers in state court in February of this year, was moved to federal court by the defendants in November. It continues to gain media attention as Snapchat's popularity and value escalate with each passing month.
But the issue at hand now is whether Brown and his attorneys have the right to talk to the press about protected matters. Snapchat's legal team, Quinn Emaneul, is seeking the temporary restraining order against Brown because the firm believes that Brown provided Business Insider with deposition videos that were marked confidential. In the motion, Quinn Emanuel partner Bruce Van Dalsem alleges that Brown's lawyer, Luan Tran, confirmed in a December 2 phone call that his firm provided the video snippets of Spiegel's and Murphy's depositions to Business Insider.
"Plaintiff and his counsel boldly claimed they had a right to make such disclosures -- despite the contrary terms of the Protective Order -- because they unilaterally (and wrongly) determined that Snapchat had waived its rights under the Protective Order," Van Dalsem wrote. "Plaintiff and his counsel also refused to cease further violations of the Protective Order, stating that they reserve the right to disclose Snapchat's confidential documents and information to the media -- at any time and without any warning or meet and confer -- whenever they unilaterally determine that Snapchat has, in their erroneous view waived its rights under that Order."
The leaked videos show portions of the taped depositions of Brown, Murphy, and Spiegel, which were conducted earlier this year. In one telling clip, Spiegel testified that "Reggie may deserve something for some of his contributions."
And surely, there are more juicy bits of information that we haven't seen yet, as hinted at by Snapchat's lawyer. "Snapchat will suffer great or irreparable injury if plaintiff is permitted to disclose Snapchat's confidential information to the public," Van Dalsem said.
Brown, according to Quinn Emanuel, is said to have scheduled an "exclusive interview" with GQ. Clearly, Snapchat's legal team would like to have the restraining order granted before said interview takes place. Quinn Emaneul is also seeking monetary sanctions against the opposition for what it believes is a violation of a previously issued protective order.
When reached for comment, Tran told CNET that he would file his team's opposition to the restraining order request later Monday.
The motion is embedded below.
[via TechCrunch] |
The Croatian Minister of Culture, Mr. Zlatko Hasanbegovic unambiguously glorified the Ustasha movement and advocated the establishment of the Greater Croatia in the magazine ‘The Independent State of Croatia’ published during the 1990s. He was photographed with Mladen Schwartz, Velimir Bujanec, and the son-in-law of Ante Pavelic. In one of the photographs he even wears an Ustasha cap. The then editor-in-chief of the ‘Independent State of Croatia’ (‘ NDH ’) monthly was Srecko Psenicnik, the son-in-law of Ante Pavelic and the President of the Croatian Liberation Movement ( HOP ), a pro-Ustasha party founded by Pavelic, the leader of the Croatian Ustasha movement during the Second World War. In 1996, Hasanbegovic wrote at least two articles for the monthly which propagated the work and the political ideas of Ante Pavelic and systematically denied the crimes committed by the fascist Independent State of Croatia.
As a history student at the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, Hasanbegovic wrote about the history of Muslims in Croatia, emphasizing their political and social renaissance during the political reign of Ante Pavelic. In a short commentary, illustrated by a photograph of a ceremonial opening of the Mosque in Zagreb featuring Pavelic in the company of Muslim dignitaries from the Ustasha movement, Hasanbegovic criticized a policy of partitioning of Bosnia and Herzegovina. He accused the advocates of such policy of ‘abusing the honorable symbols and names of Ustasha heroes whose bones of martyrs and shaheeds are now turning in their graves from shame and misery inflicted upon them fifty years later by their so-called followers’. As an alternative to those fake followers, Hasanbegovic offers authentic followers of Ante Starcevic and Ustasha ‘heroes and martyrs’ who, like the author himself, are driven by a desire of creating a Greater Croatia, as envisioned by Pavelic.
Hasanbegovic accused the advocates of such policy of ‘abusing the honorable symbols and names of Ustasha heroes, whose bones of martyrs and shaheeds are now turning in their graves from shame and misery’
‘Precisely in the name of those true heroes, martyrs and shaheeds who gave their lives for our Homeland, from the fields of Bleiburg to Foca and Fazlagic Tower, we, the true Croatian nationalists and followers of Starcevic, the deceived and defeated Muslims and Catholics, should expose those hypocrites and moral freaks for who they really are, and show the people the way out of this dark tunnel towards peace and unity and religious tolerance which can only happen in a truly free and unified Homeland stretching from Mura, Drava and Drina rivers to the Adriatic Sea’, wrote Hasanbegovic.
The present Minister is listed as an associate writer for the ‘ NDH ’ publication from April to November 1996, but is featured as an author already in the February edition of ‘ NDH ’ as well as in the first edition printed in Croatia after being issued abroad for many years. Psenicnik, a political immigrant and the president of HOP party managed to transfer the publication of the ‘ NDH ’ monthly from Canada to Croatia, and even successfully registered the HOP as a legitimate political party in Croatia, despite their political platform affiliating them to the Ustasha movement and to the acts of terrorism. The party is still active in Croatia and it still promotes the political agenda of Ante Pavelic. Its activity is not substantial, but according to the latest available data it has 650 members.
In his most recent public appearances, Hasanbegovic has tried to deny his previous political involvement with HOP . However, in one of the photographs featured in ‘ NDH ’ monthly, he is described as a ‘young HOP member’. In other photographs of Hasanbegovic, he is described as a member of a party called the Young Croatian Rightists, headed at the time by Velimir Bujanec. Ha was also photographed in the company of Mladen Schwatrz, a right-wing political activist who during the 1990es advocated the establishment of a fascist regime in Croatia. Regardless of the formal and legal nature of his connections to Pavelic’s and Bujanec’s radical parties, the fact remains that Hasanbegovic had intensive social contacts with some of their most prominent members and attended events organized by the radical right. The photographs featured in the monthly corroborate this. They show Hasanbegovic protesting against the Dayton Agreement, participating in the Bleiburg commemoration, and posing on the Split promenade wearing an Ustasha cap. In Bleiburg he was photographed with the representatives of HOP and with Pavelic’s son-in-law Srecko Psenicnik, the author of the text accompanying the photographs. In a report from Bleiburg, illustrated by this and other photos with numerous Ustasha insignia, Psenicnik is openly glorifying the Ustasha movement.
In Split, Hasanbegovic poses with five young men all described as ‘young nationalist’ in the caption. Among them is Bujanec, who in the featured interview proclaims: ‘The future is ours’, just before the parliamentary elections in October 1995. In all three photos, Hasanbegovic is in the company of Bujanec, a man who will later become a member of the HOP youth fraction, a board representative of the ‘ NDH ’ magazine and their public relations officer. At that time Bujanec, who is now the host of the TV show Bujica, was one of the many members of the Croatian Party of Right ( HSP ) and of the Young Croatian Rightists, who subsequently joined HOP . Pavelic’s son-in-law Srecko Psenicnik wrote in ‘ NDH ’ that there were many reasons for their massive transfer to HOP , but the key reason was their dissatisfaction with the fact that Pavelic’s photos were removed from all the HSP offices.
Prime Minister Tihomir Oreskovic stated that Hasanbegovic is an anti-fascist. After these most recent revelations, we are eager to hear once again what the Prime Minister has to say
Later on Bujanec tried to distance himself from his own neo-fascist past, especially the part related to the ‘ NDH ’ monthly. His fellow comrade at the time, the present Minister of Culture, later became a frequent guest in his TV show ‘Bujica’. As a guest of the ‘Bujica’ show in 2015 Minister Hasanbegovic stated that the Government should stop sponsoring the Jasenovac commemoration because it does not serve to commemorate the victims, but to rehabilitate Yugoslav communism. In 1996, Hasanbegovic was elected the president of the youth fraction of the Croatian Pure Party of Right ( HCSP ) and remained at that position until the end of 1997. In an article featured on the HCSP ’s official website it is claimed that the organization gained additional strength and membership precisely during Hasanbegovic’s tenure.
The party was at the time led by the politician Ivan Gabelica, who, after winning a seat in the Parliament, left the HSP and reactivated his HCSP membership. Gabelica dedicated many years of his political work to the rehabilitation of the Ustasha movement, claiming that the negative interpretation of the Ustasha movement should be viewed in light of the Yugoslav-Communist historiography. His ideological habitus is well illustrated by the fact that Mladen Schwartz and Psenicnik considered him the only person worthy of leading the unification of all the existing parties based on the teachings of Starcevic. HCSP shared Gabelica’s ideological views. During the 1990s, HCSP and HOP organized Catholic masses commemorating Ante Pavelic and to this day they remain regular visitors to such masses that annually take place in the center of the Croatian capital. They have regularly participated in the demonstrations against Gay Pride, as well as those against non-governmental organizations which demanded that a square in the center of Zagreb be returned its past name, the Square of the Victims of Fascism.
Their inclination towards the idea of NDH has been expressed on many other occasions, be it through the use of the ‘Za dom spremni’ Ustasha salute, their cooperation with the neo-nazi groups such as the Hungarian Jobbik, or more recently through promotional videos on YouTube in which they attract new members with propaganda posters from the NDH era. The recently appointed minister of culture spent a considerable part of his political life in extremist political organizations and has never distanced himself from this past. Instead, he has directed his efforts towards denying the claims that his statements represent relativization of the WWII events, emphasizing that all of his statements were taken out of context.
The context, however, is that Hasanbegovic was a contributor to the monthly magazine called ‘Independent State of Croatia’, that he glorified the Ustasha movement under the editorial authority of Ante Pavelic’s son-in-law, that he called the Ustashas ‘heroes and martyrs’, and that he posed wearing an Ustasha cap. When recently asked about the controversies regarding minister Hasanbegovic, the Prime Minister Tihomir Oreskovic stated that Hasanbegovic is an anti-fascist. He reiterated this statement more recently when he said to the media that Hasanbegović is in fact a ‘convinced antifascist’. After these most recent revelations, we are eager to hear once again what the Prime Minister has to say. |
Vance Joseph sat in a metal chair in the far corner of the Broncos’ grand auditorium flashing a boyish smile he couldn’t hide, try as he might. In his hands were folded notes for his first speech as the Broncos’ head coach and by his side was John Elway, his new boss and a guy notorious for his competitive edge and intolerance for mediocrity.
Joseph’s wife, Holly, and two children — son Stone and daughter Nataly — sat in the front row as he told of his vision and of his plan and of the pressure-packed opportunity.
“Most jobs that are taken by a first-time head coach or most jobs that are open, it’s a rebuild,” Joseph said that January afternoon. “This job is not broken. It’s a reboot.”
Of course Joseph understood the expectations, and he admitted that he prefers jobs in which winning “four or five games isn’t OK,” and he was able to say confidently at the time that “when you don’t make the playoffs it’s probably a team issue.”
“I’ve watched the offense and I’ve watched the quarterbacks and the problem was moving the ball,” he said of the Broncos’ disappointing 2016 season. “You win at all three phases and you lose the same way.” Related Articles O’Halloran: Broncos’ priority at the NFL combine? Looking for free agents.
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Joseph believed that day that he was rattling off all the things that would be corrected by the Broncos in 2017. But in hindsight, he seemed to foretell the team’s ultimate undoing. The season that began with great promise is ending with tremendous uncertainty in nearly every facet.
And the reboot Joseph anticipated in January is suddenly looking a lot like a rebuild.
“If you look at the leadership that we have here — two times not going to the playoffs is just not going to ride,” said outside linebacker Von Miller. “There are going to be some drastic changes this offseason and I’m all for it. I want to get back in the mode to being competitive and winning.”
In the coming days and weeks, the Broncos will determine just how drastic those changes need to be and how close they really are to becoming a Super Bowl contender again.
But first, a final audition.
The grand finale
One game stands between the Broncos’ push to 2018 and end to 2017. Sunday’s meeting with the Kansas City Chiefs will be one for youth, as rookie quarterback Patrick Mahomes starts for the red team and second-year quarterback Paxton Lynch starts for the blue team.
It will be the fourth start of Lynch’s career and possibly a final shot to show what he has before Elway and Co. decide the direction of the Broncos’ future.
In recent weeks, however, as the Broncos have limped to the finish line, Elway has dropped hints about which way he’s headed as he’s attended bowl game after bowl game. He was there to see Wyoming quarterback Josh Allen in the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl. He was there to see Southern California’s Sam Darnold in the Cotton Bowl. He might be there to see Heisman Trophy winner Baker Mayfield in the Rose Bowl, and he certainly will be there to see Mayfield in the Senior Bowl.
What Elway is looking for is the same thing he looked for in 2016, before he drafted Lynch in the first round.
“You get to see them on tape and a lot of times when you go to games, you go there to kind of see them on the hoof and see them live and see how they react on the sidelines and look at what they’re doing, not necessarily during the play, but when the play is over and what they do on the sidelines between series,” Elway said on the Broncos’ partnering radio station.
“… Plus when you talk about evaluating a quarterback, 50 percent of that is the physical side and the other 50 percent is trying to figure out what their makeup is — if they can fit and handle the situation of being in the NFL. Having that job in the NFL is a big job and there are times when the world caves in, and trying to figure out how they’re going to handle when the world is caving in, because at some point in time for everybody, the world will cave in on them and it’s how they react to it.”
Elway’s itinerary is packed this winter to exhaust all options because, while the Broncos emphasize that Lynch needs time and needs reps and needs more opportunities, the reality is time is running out.
“We know he’s got the physical talent,” Elway told the Broncos’ website, “but it’d be good for him to get the mental experience and get out there and compete and play against somebody else. … That would be a successful week, if he goes out and goes to the right spots with the ball and makes the right decisions and, hopefully, win the football game.”
Despite their weeks-long plan to get Lynch on the field one last time to see how he’d react, how he’d respond (or not respond) to adversity in 60 minutes of live reps, the Broncos had two years to build an assessment. They saw him in practices, in meetings, how he returned from offseasons, how he handled starting competitions, how he worked his way back from injury.
After two years, they know.
“I think it’s going to be good to see Paxton and see how he plays for the second time,” cornerback Chris Harris said. “… It’s about consistency on that side. He’s definitely going to need to play well to show that he can be the guy next year.”
Eyes on the coach
When the Broncos leave Sports Authority Field at Mile High for the final time this season, some will trickle off to Magness Arena on the University of Denver campus for a star-studded New Year’s Eve party. Some, primarily coaches, will head back to Dove Valley to begin evaluations. Then all will regroup at Broncos headquarters the next morning to clean out their lockers for what is dreadfully known as “Black Monday,” the day many coaching jobs are terminated in the NFL.
This year, more than ever, nearly every Denver player and coach is a candidate to be shown the exits.
“You never know what’s going to happen,” Harris said. “We don’t know if we’re going to rebuild or are we trying to win a Super Bowl next year. We don’t know the plans. Everybody’s just trying to put good film out there on the field this week, go hard and be pros.”
As Elway searches for help at quarterback, among other positions, much attention will be on Joseph and his coaching staff.
Since Week 6 against the then-winless Giants, the Broncos were a consistently inconsistent mess, with all three quarterbacks rotating through every slot — starter, backup, inactive — twice, with a coordinator fired in between and the dubious feats piling up.
After 16 weeks, it can no longer be a surprise the Broncos are 5-10 when they have amassed 31 turnovers that have led to a jaw-dropping 135 points by opponents and, including Sunday’s outing by Lynch, five starting quarterback changes.
They lost their way. They lost their identity. And inevitably, fingers point to the man leading the pack.
“Obviously, it’s been a tough year for us,” Joseph said. “And you learn as a coach that you can’t ride the ups and downs of the season. You have to stay consistent because the message comes from the coach. So when things are not going right, I can’t walk in and change my overall behavior when it comes to doing things right. I can’t panic, and hopefully I didn’t.”
Since Pat Bowlen purchased the team in 1984, the Broncos have never had a one-and-done coach. In franchise history, only three Broncos head coaches posted winning seasons in their first full years with the team. And throughout NFL history, scores of coaching greats began their careers with losing seasons.
But the Broncos’ 10 losses this year were doozies — eight by double digits, five by 15 points or more and one a shutout, the team’s first in nearly 25 years.
Although there is a prevailing belief that Sunday’s game against the Chiefs could make or break Joseph’s future with the Broncos — that an embarrassing blowout would be the final straw, or that a close game or win would keep him in the fold — after 15 games this year, Elway and the Broncos have likely seen all they need. Like the quarterbacks, they know what they have in Joseph.
And they have heard countless times how players see him, too, and how they regard his first year with context.
“I love V.J. He’s a great coach. I stand behind him 100 percent,” linebacker Todd Davis said.
“He’s just a truthful coach. It was just a tough hand that he was dealt,” Miller added. “I feel that Coach V.J. is one of my favorite coaches that I have ever played with. I could relate to Coach (John) Fox and (Gary) Kubiak and all of those guys. But Coach V.J. taking on the job that he had and still trying to finish the way that he is trying to finish, I respect him for that. I respect him for not changing and being the exact same coach that he was Day One in the spring that he is today. I respect him for that.”
But the Broncos have one more showing before their plans for 2018 will begin to come into shape and looming questions will be answered.
“We still have good players. We have a great staff,” Joseph said Thursday. “We have great support here from the operations side of things. It’s been a winning program for a long time, so that part is not going to change. We have to make some tweaks, obviously, to get back to where we want to be.
“But I think we’re really close.”
First impressions
How Vance Joseph’s first season — or at least the first 16 weeks — with the Broncos compare with other rookie head coaches in the NFL this year:
Sean McVay, Los Angeles Rams (11-4, NFC West champions)
Sean McDermott, Buffalo Bills (8-7, No. 2 in AFC East)
Anthony Lynn, Los Angeles Chargers (8-7, No. 2 in AFC West)
Vance Joseph, Denver Broncos (5-10)
Kyle Shanahan, San Francisco 49ers (5-10)
How Joseph’s first year compares to the first full seasons of past Broncos head coaches. Only three finished with a winning record:
Frank Filchock, 1960 (4-9-1)
Jack Faulkner, 1962 (7-7)
Mac Speedie, 1965 (4-10)
Lou Saban, 1967 (3-11)
John Ralson, 1972 (5-9)
Red Miller, 1977 (12-2, AFC champions)
Dan Reeves, 1981 (10-6)
Wade Phillips, 1993 (9-7)
Mike Shanahan, 1995 (8-8)
Josh McDaniels, 2009 (8-8)
John Fox, 2011 (8-8)
Gary Kubiak, 2015 (12-4, won Super Bowl 50)
Vance Joseph, 2017 (5-10 through Week 16) |
Dave and I started the latest ShopTalk Show with an audio clip from Tim Brown responding to some of our previous chatter regarding vertical rhythm (and such). Transcription here. It sparked another interesting conversation about these things.
A small part of that was about Tim's coined phrase "molten leading", which is essentially line-height that depends on line length.
It's actually a "triadic" relationship, as Tim puts it:
What interests me most here is a fundamental triadic relationship in typesetting — that of a text’s font size, line height, and line length. Adjusting any one of these elements without also adjusting the others is a recipe for uncomfortable reading, which is one reason designers have such a difficult time with fluid web layout.
There is no simple obvious way to connect an element's width and its line-height in CSS (although you can with JavaScript). I'd call this yet-another use-case for container queries! You can adjust line-height with media queries (as Andy Clarke suggested). Basic example:
main { line-height: 1.4; } @media (max-width: 600px) { main { line-height: 1.3; } }
But, the browser window width isn't necessarily indicative of the current element width.
Also, any kind of fixed breakpoint solution isn't the perfect solution here anyway. A more fluid connection between these three properties would be better. Something that gets us a little closer here (since Tim-and-friends original explorations in 2012) is calc() and combining it with viewport units.
We've talked about viewport units around here before. By setting font-size with vw , we can make type that sizes based on the browser window width.
Here's an example where we have some base values that we just sprinkle with viewport units:
body { font-size: calc(1em + 1vw); line-height: calc(1.2em + 1vw); }
See the Pen Molten Leading by Chris Coyier (@chriscoyier) on CodePen.
That's pretty simplistic. Tim originally suggested a more complex formula:
((current width − min-width) / (max-width − min-width)) × (line-height − min-line-height) + min-line-height = line-height
Turns out Mike Riethmuller has played with this already. Which plays out like this, for example:
body { font-size: 1em; line-height: 1.4em; } @media screen and (min-width: 20em) { body { font-size: calc(1em + (1.3125 - 1) * ((100vw - 20em) / (80 - 20))); line-height: calc(1.4em + (1.8 - 1.4) * ((100vw - 20em) / (80 - 20))); } } @media (min-width: 80em) { body { font-size: 1.3125em; line-height: 1.8em; } }
Mike even Sass'd that up:
$min_width: 400; $max_width: 800; $min_font: 12; $max_font: 24; :root { font-size: #{$min_font}px; } @media (min-width: #{$min_width}px) and (max-width: #{$max_width}px) { :root { font-size: calc(#{$min_font}px + (#{$max_font} - #{$min_font}) * ( (100vw - #{$min_width}px) / ( #{$max_width} - #{$min_width}))); } } @media (min-width: #{$max_width}px) { :root { font-size: #{$max_font}px; } }
See the Pen Precision responsive typography by Mike (@MadeByMike) on CodePen.
So yeah: it's a thing you can do. |
A first-term Denver City Council member was the driving force behind a new rule that soon will open the floor to the public once a month to talk about any city-related topic.
The rule, approved Monday night, falls short of practices in smaller nearby cities, including Aurora, Lakewood and Boulder. Those councils allow members of the public to chime in for two or three minutes apiece during every regular meeting. It’s less common for city councils in larger cities to allow general public comment — though some, including Seattle, allot time at every meeting.
Paul Kashmann was among seven new members elected last year. In presenting the resolution Monday, he said Denver’s new rule was an important step toward expanding access to city government. It passed in a unanimous block vote.
“There are 13 of us that generally sit up here on the dais,” Kashmann said. “There are 682,000 people living in the City and County of Denver, and I’m hopeful that providing this additional opportunity to hear from constituents will result in new ideas to make Denver an even greater place to live.”
At the end of the discussion about the rule change, Thad Tecza, who frequently speaks at committee meetings and designated public hearings for specific council agenda items, stood and applauded.
The open-mic sessions will be set the first meeting of each month starting July 11, since no council meeting is scheduled on the July 4 holiday.
The 30-minute period, with up to three minutes allotted to each speaker, will begin at 5 p.m., before the regular 5:30 p.m. council meeting gets underway. The rule says comments should address “any matter of city concern” except for matters that already are set for public hearings that night or at future meetings, such as zoning changes and landmark designations.
Council members won’t be required to attend, since no roll call will be taken.
But Councilman Rafael Espinoza, who wanted a stronger rule mandating attendance, and several colleagues said they looked forward to hearing what people had to say.
Four years ago, the council added 15-minute public hearings on some matters to committee meetings. At the time, its members didn’t support a general comment session at the full council meetings that occur each Monday, noted Robin Kniech, an at-large member who’s now in her second term.
But she observed that remarks from the public at committee hearings have prompted more extensive discussions among council members at times.
“And I think it’s given folks the chance not just to speak to us but to have their fellow citizens hear each other,” Kniech added, expressing hope that the new open-comment sessions would result in “constructive dialogue.”
How it will work: People who want to speak to the council can register between noon on the Friday before the first meeting of each month and 4:30 p.m. on the day of the meeting. They can visit the council’s office (on the City and County Building’s fourth floor), send an e-mail to [email protected] or call 720-337-2000.
Council staff will post a list of speakers in order of registration. Since the comment session is limited to 30 minutes, it’s possible some may not get a chance to speak if too many sign up. |
“After 18 years at the University of Oklahoma, I've decided to step down as the head football coach. I understand there has been some speculation about my health. My health was not the deciding factor in this decision and I've had no incidents that would prevent me from coaching. I feel the timing is perfect to hand over the reins. The program is in tremendous shape. We have outstanding players and coaches and are poised to make another run at a Big 12 and national championship. We have new state-of-the-art facilities and a great start on next year's recruiting class. The time is now because Lincoln Riley will provide a seamless transition as the new head coach, capitalizing on an excellent staff that is already in place and providing familiarity and confidence for our players. Now is simply the ideal time for me and our program to make this transition. |
Johannesburg - ANCYL president Collen Maine has retracted the call he made at the weekend for the MKMVA to take up arms in defence of President Jacob Zuma.
Maine made the about-turn following a meeting with ANC leaders, including Zuma, at the party's headquarters on Monday.
"The president gave me a stern talking to," Maine said on Tuesday.
He told News24 that although he did not believe his comments were inciting violence, he listened to his leaders and was unconditionally apologising to South Africans.
He said when ANC leaders talked, he listened, unlike expelled ANCYL president and current EFF leader Julius Malema.
"I am not like that popcorn Malema."
The ANC on Monday told Maine to retract his call.
"His call is reckless and irresponsible," ANC spokesperson Zizi Kodwa said at the time.
Kodwa said peace in South Africa had come at a price and the ANC dissolved its military wing, Umkhonto weSizwe, in 1990.
During a pro-Zuma march in eThekwini at the weekend, Maine made a plea to the Umkhonto weSizwe Military Veterans Association (MKMVA) to defend the party and the country's leader.
"Comrades from Umkhonto weSizwe, bring your guns. Now is the time to defend the revolution," he said.
The ANC said it hoped his remarks would not be given space to flourish.
"In a democratic South Africa, there is no room for the private army," Kodwa said. |
First trade activities under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor project (CPEC) began as over a hundred Chinese containers arrived at the Sust port in Gilgit-Baltistan after clearance from customs.
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Sust is a village in Hunza. It is the last town in Pakistan on the Karakoram highway before the Chinese border.
The inaugural ceremony on Monday was attended by Chinese officials as well as Gilgit-Baltistan Chief Minister Hafeezur Rehman and the Force Commander of Gilgit-Baltistan, Saqib Mahmud Malik, Dawn news reported.
Addressing the inaugural ceremony, Rehman said that under the CPEC the fate of Gilgit-Baltistan would change, adding that one thousand Chinese containers would pass through the Karakoram highway in Gilgit-Baltistan every week.
“This activity will bring prosperity and end unemployment in the region,” the Chief Minister said.
He said that it was an important day for both Chinese and Pakistani people since trade activity under the CPEC had officially started.
“The federal government has approved projects worth Rs72 billion in the region to provide GB with modern technology. The Shuntar pass, Babusar road and Gilgit-Skardu road would also be constructed under the CPEC,” Rehman said.
Speaking to Dawn news, the customs superintendent at the Sust port, Ishaq Kiani, said containers loaded with CPEC projects goods were exempted from paying import tax.
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“Forty-five Chinese containers have departed from Sust and the remaining would leave after clearance,” he said. |
Family of bears killed in Pa. after eating poisonous plant
Game commission officials say a poisonous ornamental shrub likely killed a bear and her three cubs found dead in a church parking lot in northeastern Pennsylvania. The bears were found in the parking lot of St. Monica's church in West Wyoming on Dec. 6. The Pennsylvania Game Commission says the bears ate the leaves and seeds of an English yew plant before they died. The plant is highly toxic to people and most animals if ingested. Game Commission wildlife veterinarian Justin Brown says he's not aware of another case of black bear deaths from yew poisoning. Officials called it a "perfect storm" of circumstances. The 300-pound sow and her cubs were known to frequent populated areas, where yew typically grow, and the bears were likely foraging for food as they prepared for hibernation. Officials say the bears likely died suddenly.
Game commission officials say a poisonous ornamental shrub likely killed a bear and her three cubs found dead in a church parking lot in northeastern Pennsylvania.
The bears were found in the parking lot of St. Monica's church in West Wyoming on Dec. 6.
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The Pennsylvania Game Commission says the bears ate the leaves and seeds of an English yew plant before they died. The plant is highly toxic to people and most animals if ingested.
Game Commission wildlife veterinarian Justin Brown says he's not aware of another case of black bear deaths from yew poisoning.
Officials called it a "perfect storm" of circumstances. The 300-pound sow and her cubs were known to frequent populated areas, where yew typically grow, and the bears were likely foraging for food as they prepared for hibernation.
Officials say the bears likely died suddenly.
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Fifteen years after the dramatic sinking of the Kursk nuclear submarine with the loss 118 lives in August 2000, lawyer Boris Kuznetsov sees the tragedy as a turning point for modern Russia.
The Kursk disaster and its aftermath, Kuznetsov says, was President Vladimir Putin's "first lie."
"The lies began with the sinking of the Kursk," Kuznetsov says. "When the Kursk sank, the government began interfering with the legal and law-enforcement systems. The government began gathering all the mass media under its control. The entire process of undermining democracy in Russia, in many regards, began with this."
Kuznetsov, 67, represented the families of 55 of the drowned Kursk seamen. Now he has political asylum in the United States. The Russian government has opened a criminal case against him and issued an international arrest warrant for him. He says the charges -- which accuse him of revealing state secrets because he demonstrated to a Russian court that the Federal Security Service (FSB) was illegally wiretapping a member of parliament -- were intended to prevent him from carrying out his high-profile legal work.
Indeed, Russia was a different country when the Kursk sank on August 12, 2000, during a massive naval exercise in the Barents Sea. It was just a few months after Putin began his first term as president. National television was controlled by oligarchs and had feisty relations with the government.
In October 2000, prominent television journalist Sergei Dorenko ran a one-hour special on the Kursk tragedy on Russia's national ORT television, then controlled by tycoon Boris Berezovsky. After enumerating the government's failures in its handling of the disaster, Dorenko ended the piece with this conclusion:
"The story of the Kursk is not finished. We have only raised the very first questions and conclusions. The main conclusion is that the government does not respect any of us -- and so it is lying. And the main thing is that the government treats us this way only because we allow it to."
When a visibly rattled Putin met with the wives and families of Kursk seamen on August 22, 2000, no one was afraid to scream at him and accuse him of incompetence or worse:
That encounter, Kuznetsov says, may have been "the worst moment" of Putin's life -- and he immediately set out to make sure he would never face anything like it again.
Kuznetsov is marking the 15th anniversary by issuing the second edition of his book on the case. The volume -- titled It Sank, which is what Putin famously answered when U.S. journalist Larry King asked him what happened to the Kursk -- details what Kuznetsov sees as the government's culpability in the tragedy, as well as the Kremlin's efforts to prevent him from finding out the facts of the case.
The government's 133-volume report on the incident remains classified and only a four-page summary was issued to the public in 2002.
Kuznetsov dismisses all the conspiracy theories about the Kursk disaster -- that the submarine collided with another sub or a surface ship, that it was sunk by a NATO submarine or by "friendly fire" from another Russian ship participating in the exercise.
The acoustic evidence and the damage to the Kursk -- part of which was recovered about 14 months after the sinking -- show convincingly, he says, that the fuel of a torpedo that was being prepared for launch exploded and that the blast led, two minutes later, to a massive explosion of the warheads of many of the 10 torpedoes on board. The second blast was so large that it was picked up by seismographs across Europe and in Alaska.
Nonetheless, Kuznetsov says, the Russian government and military still have much to answer for, beginning with Putin himself. As commander in chief of the armed forces, Kuznetsov says, Putin was obligated to know the fatal naval exercise -- which was the largest in Russia's post-Soviet history -- inside and out.
"He was obligated to listen to the experts and the reports of the commanders and the reports of the naval command. He was obligated to do all this," Kuznetsov says. "And he did not."
If he had done so, Kuznetsov concludes, he would have known, for example, that the Kursk had never before fired this kind of torpedo under any circumstances. He might also have known that the mechanism for attaching a rescue vehicle to the Kursk's escape hatch had never been tested on the Kursk. Many experts have concluded that the Russian Navy's attempt to open the hatch failed because the Kursk had a special antiacoustic coating that prevented the mechanism from establishing a watertight seal.
In addition, Kuznetsov says, a sonar operator aboard the battle cruiser Pyotr Veliky identified and reported an explosion at 11:28 a.m. on August 12. He located the explosion at the exact position where the Kursk was known to be.
However, nothing happened.
INFOGRAPHIC: The Tragedy Of The Kursk (click to enlarge)
"What should the commander of the ship and the leaders of the exercises have done?" Kuznetsov says. "They should have identified the explosion and determined where it came from and what caused it. They did not do this."
Instead, the clock began ticking on the 23 seamen who survived the initial disaster and managed to barricade themselves in the stricken submarine's ninth compartment.
"The Kursk was declared to be in trouble only at 23:30," Kuznetsov says. "That is, 12 hours had passed. Those 12 hours were lost time."
Naval commanders assured Putin that they could handle a rescue attempt without accepting the offers of foreign assistance that came in from Britain, Norway, the United States, and others. Putin only accepted such offers five days after the disaster.
When commanders made such assurances, Kuznetsov says, they knew that the deep-submergence rescue vehicles had never been tested in conjunction with the Kursk.
"The fact is that these [vehicles] were created especially for use with various types of submarines, including for the Kursk," Kuznetsov says. "But they were never, not once, tested with it -- not during sea trials, not during the submarine's [four years of] service, and not during the preparation for these exercises."
No one was ever held responsible for the Kursk disaster. Kuznetsov said Putin made "a political decision" to protect Admiral Vladimir Kuroyedov, commander of the Navy. Kuroyedov offered to resign over the incident, but that offer was rejected and he was allowed to retire in 2005.
Putin removed a total of 13 senior officers, including Northern Fleet submarine commander Vice Admiral Oleg Burtsov, but all of them were soon given prestigious positions in government or state-controlled businesses. |
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Magnitude 4.2 quake affects Canterbury, Margate and Whitstable, with people jolted from sleep and taking to social media to express their alarm
An earthquake hit parts of Kent in the early hours of Friday morning, shaking houses, rattling windows and waking people in the county.
The magnitude 4.2 earthquake was being investigated by seismologists at the British Geological Survey which said tremors had been felt in areas including Margate.
BGS (@BritGeoSurvey) Here's seismicity map for this morning's 4.2 earthquake, 5km south of Ramsgate, Kent & approx 100km east of London pic.twitter.com/XaF9cRY4gm
Kent police were inundated with calls.
A spokesman said: “It has now been confirmed parts of east Kent has been affected by an earthquake measuring just 4.3 on the Richter scale (British Geological Survey).
“Police began receiving reports of the earthquake tremor in the east Kent area at around 2.57am. Police and the fire and rescue service had no reports of structural damage or injuries. We will continue to liaise with our partner agencies to ensure we are providing help and support in any areas needed.”
Musician Jake West was in his terraced house in Canterbury when he reported it started shaking.
“At 3am it’s normally quiet,” he told the Guardian. “There was silence, then there was shaking. It was very odd. It felt like there was someone very heavy who was stomping down the stairs.”
Jake West (@UKJakeWest) Either a giant just bounced on my roof, or I just felt a little earthquake. #kent
Other Kent residents tweeted their reactions after being woken by the tremors.
Katie Blackamore (@KateBlackamore) I thought someone was shaking me to get up and then realised the whole bloody house is shaking!
Katie Blackamore (@KateBlackamore) Worst thing is I immediately went to Twitter to find out what was going on and for reassurance that I wasn't going crazy. #earthquake
Vikki Petts said: “So we just had a 4.3 magnitude earthquake in Kent and my housemates slept through the entire thing. Certainly woke me up!”
Jonathan Tapp said: “Earthquake in East Kent and now can’t get back to sleep. Despite months spent in NZ this is my first one that I’ve felt.”
Iain Buchanan, of Ramsgate, said: “So I’m not going mental, my house shook due to an earthquake in Kent of all places. Thank god for 24 hrs news & social media to find out.
“Lying in bed when the house suddenly shook. Thought something had collapsed outside, so got up to check.
“I’ve looked outside and all appears to be fine in the street. No damage that I can see. Will obviously see more later when it’s lighter. Weird experience anyway.”
Other agencies initially recorded varying measurements, including the European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre, based in Paris, said the earthquake measured 4.3 on the Richter scale.
It tweeted: “M4.3 earthquake strikes 46km SE of Southend-on-Sea (United Kingdom).”
The US Geological Survey measured the quake as magnitude 4.0.
British seismologists sent a series of tweets in the early hours of the morning and provided some perspective by drawing a comparison with the disaster in Nepal:
BGS (@BritGeoSurvey) Today's 4.2 magnitude Ramsgate earthquake is approx 260,000 times smaller than the 7.8 #NepalQuake event
Some people having been having fun with that fact...
Mark Roberts (@cortexrock) First pic of #kent #earthquake damage comes in pic.twitter.com/7I7NFtk4wU
But all the same it was a relatively unusual event for the UK: |
Robert Saul (Photo: Provided)
Mention guns and immediately some people start to worry that you are talking about gun control. Well, people who care about children do think about ways to assure children are not victims of gun violence. Too many children suffer from gun accidents and gun violence and need protection. Too many parents and caregivers lose their lives prematurely from gun violence — and their children are thrust into a traumatic situation with lifelong consequences. Pediatricians are appropriately concerned about guns and think we should do more as a society to protect children and their parents.
Let’s review some data from the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence:
Every day, 48 children and teens are shot in murders, assaults, suicides and suicide attempts, unintentional shootings, and police intervention.
Every day, seven children and teens die from gun violence and 41 children and teens are shot and survive.
Every day, 32 are shot in assaults, one survives a suicide attempt, and eight are shot unintentionally.
Every year, 2,624 children die from gun violence — 1,591 are murdered, 853 children and teens kill themselves, 123 children and teens are killed unintentionally, 25 are killed by police intervention, 32 die but the intent was unknown.
Every year, 14,736 kids survive gun injuries.
The Brady Campaign is a nonpartisan organization formed after the initial efforts of the Brady family. Then White House press secretary James Brady suffered a permanent head injury during the assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan in 1981, leaving Brady with partial paralysis. Rep. Gabby Giffords suffered a similar fate after senseless gun violence in 2011.
Four incidents have had a profound impact on me — Columbine High School (1999), Sandy Hook Elementary School (2012), Emmanuel AME Church (2015) and Townville Elementary School last week. They all involved individuals who should not have had weapons of death in their possession.
The statistics above demonstrate that guns are a public health concern for our children. When our society is faced with public health hazards, we typically investigate the causes, come up with a plan and implement it. Unfortunately for reasons that really don’t make sense, we have not been able to properly investigate the impact of gun violence that would allow us to propose a viable plan and implement it. This is indeed unfortunate. While we debate gun control, we should never debate the need to protect our children from senseless gun violence. We regulate tools of potential destruction and death like cars (with rules of the road and licensure) and driving under the influence (with laws). Our inability to identify and implement reasonable gun violence prevention measures is disheartening.
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The American Academy of Pediatrics has started a campaign to prevent inadvertent gun violence at home. The Asking Saves Kids (ASK) campaign (“Are there unlocked guns in the home?”) is meant to help prevent children from becoming the statistics noted above.
One newly constituted non-partisan organization in South Carolina seeks to correct this problem. GunSenseSC (formed after the Emmanuel AME Church shootings) has the following mission statement — to address the public health crisis of gun violence by educating citizens, building awareness and supporting nonpartisan legislation. GunSenseSC supports the Second Amendment but recognizes that gaps can be closed to prevent guns from getting into the wrong hands.
While the debate continues, we should never lose track of our most vulnerable citizens. Our children and their parents need our protection. I quite frankly don’t understand why we don’t understand this. The senseless injuries and deaths that occur to our children from guns are an unnecessary and preventable blight in our society. We can do better.
Robert A. Saul is a pediatrician and author of “My Children’s Children: Raising Young Citizens in the Age of Columbine.”
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["Freaked Out Businesswoman Ready To Smash Her Laptop Computer" on Shutterstock]
Conservatives reacted with outrage on Easter Sunday after seeing that the search engine Google had honored labor activist and civil rights leader Cesar Chavez, who died 20 years ago.
“I thought the Chavez-google thing was a hoax or an early April Fool’s Day prank…are they just going to leave that up there all day?” Fox News host Dana Perino wrote on Twitter.
Other conservatives also expressed their disapproval of the “doodle” via Twitter. Some of the reactions were compiled by the website Twitchy, showing conservatives announce their astonishment that the search engine didn’t recognize the religious holiday.
One man declared that Google had alienated “all Christians in America today.” Others promised to switch to Microsoft’s search engine Bing, which featured Easter Eggs on its website.
Radio host Glenn Beck also joined the chorus of conservative outrage on Twitter, writing, “Cool for Google to not celebrate Easter but really?!!? Go to //google.com . HAPPY Caesar Chavez day everybody! #HELIVES!”
The “doodle” placed a portrait of Chavez in the middle of Google’s logo to commemorated his birthday on March 31. The date is celebrated as a state holiday in California, Colorado and Texas.
The Chicano labor leader gained iconic status after co-founding the United Farm Workers to fight against unfair labor conditions. The conservative publication Breitbart.com described Chavez as a “cult figure in California” and complained it was “not the first time that Google has chosen to honor leftists over tradition.”
[Woman yells at her computer via Shutterstock] |
Twitter made a product decision today to “streamline” its Android app. Twitter wouldn’t know a great, monetizeable, joyful feature if it hit it in the face. And I’ve spent the last couple of years hitting Twitter in the face with this feature in what has turned out to be a vain effort to keep it from being pulled. I’m talking about Highlights, the best part of the Twitter experience on Android.
As part of our continued work to streamline the Twitter for Android app experience, Highlights will now be available via push notifications and within the Notifications tab.https://t.co/9UJMPFPi21 — Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) December 19, 2017
Since it was (basically) Android-only and buried in the side menu, I need to explain Highlights every time I talk about it. So here goes: it’s a side-swiping list of tweets and links, chosen by an algorithm, based on the best stuff from the people you follow. It’s a brief, quick list of popular tweets and links from the people you follow, that lets you catch up on what you missed.
In a world where most of my main Twitter timeline is usually awash in the Outrage Of The Moment, Twitter Highlights has been a rare fulfillment of the promise of social media: it presented delightful things that I care about from people that I care about, in a format that was quick and easy to digest.
Rather than build on it, Twitter went and turned it into yet another thing you’ll miss in your Notifications tab. (It is also available on iOS as a random notification.) And that’s just a shame, because this immersive, horizontal-swipe format could have been Twitter’s “Story” format, designed to compete with Instagram and Snapchat. It’s a lot like Twitter Moments, but built with an algorithm and with none of the convoluted UI required to build a Moment.
Twitter could have built on it, expanded on it, and (yes) put ads on it. Instead, Twitter just buried it. You know how Stories let you feel like you’ve caught up on what your friends are doing on Instagram or Snapchat? Highlights was that, but for Twitter.
Twitter just killed my favorite feature. This is awful.
RIP the only Twitter feature that made me feel the joy of catching up on what my friends care about.
You idiots. You jerks. https://t.co/VgRGX0QQTT — Dieter Bohn (@backlon) December 20, 2017
All is not lost, however! Highlights still exist in the Twitter app, but there’s no longer a link to get to them in the sidebar. Samuel Maskell, a former senior engineer on the Android notifications team at Twitter, has taken it upon himself to create a tiny little Android “app” that restores a quick link to Twitter Highlights. You click the app on the home screen and it opens up the Twitter app directly into Highlights.
Don't mind me while I shamelessly plug my app to anyone reading the comments on this tweet.
Easy way to get highlights back -> https://t.co/WC01kafGhl — Samta☃️Claus (@samuelmaskell) December 20, 2017
In an email, Maskell tells me that Highlighter is “literally 3 lines of code. The app just opens the same deep-link that the notification uses and then exits. Other than that, the only thing I have to say is that I'm sorry for the ugly icon. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
At some point, Twitter will probably kill this feature altogether, so that it can devote more engineering resources to ignoring the problem of making tweets editable. Until then, if you’re an Android user, I highly recommend sticking Highligher on your home screen somewhere, ugly icon and all.
Twitter Highlights respect your time. They let you catch up on Twitter without asking you to deal with the main feed’s latest whims and rants. If Twitter were any kind of smart, it would build up Highlights into a Story format that lives alongside your main feed instead of incessantly mucking around with the order of tweets on the home tab.
But, as we have seen time and time again over the past few years, Twitter is not any kind of smart. |
LISTEN: Marina attack suspect missing again after unexpected release Your browser does not support the audio element.
The man accused of assaulting a local restaurant owner who had caught him breaking into a marina boathouse has again disappeared after his attorneys successfully argued for his release from custody so he could enter drug counseling.
According to a letter from the King County Prosecutor’s Office to Tim Ptak, the victim of the attack, accused thief and assailant Paul Story, 44, was released from King County Jail over the objections of local prosecutors.
“On July 17, 2017,” noted the letter from Senior Prosecuting Attorney William L. Doyle, “the defense asked again for Story to be released from custody, this time claiming that he would be transported directly to inpatient drug treatment by a family member. The State again strongly objected to Story’s release. Over the State’s objection, the judge agreed to release the defendant temporarily to inpatient treatment and said that by today (July 27, 2017), the defendant needed to provide proof that Story was in compliance with treatment.
“Today, we received no proof that the defendant even ended up going to treatment, and no one appeared in court on his behalf. In short, the defense would not provide the court with any details about Story’s whereabouts. As a result, the court today issued a warrant in the amount of $200,000 for Story’s arrest.”
Ptak, 45, said it was another troubling turn of events. “He was in for five weeks already,” Ptak said. “He didn’t get any drug counseling? The judge’s decision should really be questioned.”
This is the second time Story has been released from custody following the arrest for the alleged marina assault. Initially, he was arrested on March 22.
On that day, Ptak caught Story breaking into a boathouse at a West Seattle marina. In an attempt to escape, Story sprayed mace into Ptak’s eyes and punched him. After a brief fight, Story fell into the frigid water and swam underneath the dock where he tried to hide. Ptak called 911. Police dive crews attempted to get Story to come out. After an hour of unsuccessful attempts, officers brought in a chainsaw to cut a hole in the dock and extract him.
“I thought he was going to drown,” Ptak said at the time. “The water is so cold. I’ve jumped in there intentionally and it is cold. It takes your breath away. That he survived in that water for an hour is incredible.”
Story was treated for hypothermia and then taken into custody. In addition to the assault, he is suspected in a series of thefts at the marina. But a paperwork error by Seattle police put Story back on the streets 72 hours later.
After a month-long search and an alert on Washington’s Most Wanted, Seattle police received a tip and re-arrested Story at a West Seattle homeless camp in late April.
But now prosecutors don’t know where he is. Story has been arrested 22 times in the past decade.
Doyle called Story, “a potential danger to the community.” |
It was a planned stop by border guards on the Canadian side of the Rainbow Bridge, a steel arch over the Niagara Gorge connecting New York State to Ontario; if it had not been for a tip from Toronto police, the van with a Canadian couple and their two children inside might well have blended in with other travellers and a concealed arsenal may have slipped through.
Rainbow Bridge is popular with tourists and vacationers because all commercial trucks are diverted to other, less scenic, crossings.
As it was, on Sunday, March 16, the van was stopped and searched by Canada Border Services Agency officials. Six handguns were found hidden inside and a seventh pistol found on the father, according to police.
Also found were two hand grenades, ammunition and over-capacity magazines for holding bullets and knives, police said. Until the hand grenades were found to be inert, several lanes of the border crossing were closed.
A search warrant of the couple’s home in Proton Station — listed now as a virtual ghost town, 145 kilometres northwest of Toronto — turned up another 34 guns, including 20 handguns and hundreds of rounds of ammunition, Toronto police said.
An investigation of the guns by Toronto police’s Firearm Enforcement Unit traced five guns, allegedly smuggled into Canada by the same couple, that had been found at crime scenes in Toronto and Peel region, to the west and northwest of Toronto, police said.
One of the guns, police said Monday, had been used in an attempted murder.
Donald Earl Hare, 44, and Amanda Brent, 43, of Proton Station, have been charged with 73 firearm and firearm-trafficking-related charges. They are scheduled for a court appearance on Tuesday.
Police are still investigating and have asked the public to forward any information.
Toronto police’s Firearm Enforcement Unit worked with CBSA, the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Peel Regional Police Service and the Provincial Weapons Enforcement Unit.
National Post
• Email: [email protected] | Twitter: AD_Humphreys |
The Unstoppable Wasp #1-8
Jeremy Whitley (Writer), Elsa Charretier (Artist), Megan Wilson (Colorist)
Marvel Comics
January – August, 2017
The Unstoppable Wasp was released in January 2017 as part of the Marvel NOW! initiative. The series focuses on Nadia Pym (later Nadia Van Dyne), the super-scientist daughter of Henry Pym and his first wife Maria Trovaya. Nadia was raised in the Red Room, a secret Russian facility for training young girls to be assassins. She escaped and fled to New York City, hoping to meet her father, but ended up taking the role of the superhero the Wasp. Throughout the series, Nadia learns to balance science and superheroics as she confronts her past and helps push her way to a brighter future.
Obviously, comics are for everybody, but The Unstoppable Wasp reads as a love letter to girls in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields. One of the main threads of the series is G.I.R.L. (Genius In Action Research Lab), Nadia’s team of herself and her teenage female friends. Each member of G.I.R.L. has a different focus: Shay the physicist, Priya the biologist, Taina the robotic engineer, Ying the chemist, and Alexis who’s not really interested in science but came along with her sister. Nadia has more of a generic “comic book science” discipline, but since she has the most “comic book” backstory, that’s a bit to be expected. The team itself is also a reflection of the modern, diverse New York City that it’s set in. Shay is African-American and is implied to be queer, Priya is a first generation Indian immigrant, Alexis and Taina are Puerto Rican, Ying is Asian and also implied to be queer, and Taina has a disease which requires her to use either a wheelchair or crutches. These are women from all walks of life and varying socioeconomic backgrounds, all united by their love of science. The comic as a whole tries to present a more realistic view of science, with some exceptions for Pym particles and sentient telepathic dinosaurs. Issues include “Nadia’s Neat Science Facts,” which explain topics from how joints work to radio transmissions to fun trivia about dinosaurs. Each issue ends with an interview with one or two women currently active in a STEM field. The fields include mechanical engineering, paleontology, and analytical chemistry among others. Notably, a few questions about comics are asked as well, as these are all women still holding onto their love of comics. These interviews are amazingly done and I can only hope that they show up in the trade.
Importantly, The Unstoppable Wasp isn’t afraid to call out failings and complications of the STEM fields. We first meet Priya as she struggles with balancing her love of science with her desire for social acceptance. Near the end of the first issue, Bobbi Morse (Mockingbird) calls out an aspect of the pervasive sexism in STEM fields: men are more likely to lift up their male colleagues instead of seeking out new people from a more diverse landscape. One of the important themes of G.I.R.L. is that these young women help to bring each other to new heights and challenge each other in a way that they aren’t receiving in their home lives. In August 2017, Unstoppable Wasp ended at the eighth issue, approximately one month before the first trade came out. As was the case with guest star Mockingbird’s solo series and World of Wakanda, Marvel canceled a new reader-friendly, female-targeted comic book before much of the potential audience could even read it. Others have already covered the problems with Marvel canceling series before the first trade paperback release better than I have. Instead, I’m going to use the launch of the trade paperback to say one thing: get The Unstoppable Wasp for that young girl you know who is taking an interest in science.
Though the series is technically rated T+, there are very few moments that aren’t appropriate for a preteen audience. Those moments, most notably Nadia’s conflicting views on violence in issue #4 and a talk about domestic abuse in issue #8, are handled with grace and in a mature manner. The Unstoppable Wasp never talks down to its audience either, and never gets bogged down in confusing technobabble; science is an important aspect of the book, but understanding science is just as important.
If Marvel goes out of their way to promote it even the slightest bit, The Unstoppable Wasp is going to do amazing in trades. This is old news but I’m going to say it again: girls buy graphic novels. DC Superhero Girls: Finals Crisis, a graphic novel targeted to a young female audience, outsold many of its male-oriented counterparts. And outside of cape comics, middle-grade graphic novels by Raina Telgemeier such as Smile, Ghosts, and her adaptations of the Babysitters Club series, often hit the New York Times best-sellers list. While The Unstoppable Wasp skews to an audience a little older, it still is a buying demographic that would respond amazingly well to a cute, fun, STEM-focused series.
And really? It can’t be overstated how much a fun, bright series about a young female scientist is needed. There have been numerous studies about the lack of representation of women in STEM fields and how to change those numbers. One of those ways is simply knowing someone who works in a STEM field. A study by the Girl Scouts of America shows that two-thirds of preteen girls interested in a STEM field know someone in a STEM career and around half know a woman in a STEM career. Likewise, there are fewer media portrayals of women in a STEM field compared to men—which is a shame, considering that having a solid media portrayal of women in a STEM field helps dispel the stereotype that women aren’t good at the hard sciences and helps normalize the idea that women can be scientists for both men and women.
At the moment, Nadia is still showing up in the Marvel universe, though most of her recent appearances have been in Secret Empire, a slog of an event that’s on the opposite end of the tonal spectrum from The Unstoppable Wasp’s joy, brightness, and spark. Let’s hope that Nadia will see new life in another series with even a hint of the same fun, female-focused, STEM bent that The Unstoppable Wasp had. |
Bush’s top counter-terrorism official for his first year as president – Richard Clarke – tells Democracy Now that Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld committed war crimes in Iraq … and that they can be tried at the Hague:
(Clarke retired in protest at the start of the Iraq war.)
Clarke is right:
The Iraq war was launched under false pretenses
Top Bush administration officials clearly committed war crimes in Iraq
War crimes generally have no statute of limitations under international law
Indeed, it is not too late to charge Bush, Cheney or Rumsfeld for war crimes even under American law
And – as odd as it may sound – it’s not too late to impeach Bush, Cheney or Rumsfeld … even though they are no longer in office.
Of course, Obama is also committing war crimes. For example, the Obama administration has ordered numerous indiscriminate drone strikes … which are war crimes (more here and here). And torture is also apparently continuing under Obama. See this and this.
And Obama should also be impeached. |
New or renewed appreciation for a given song can come from anywhere. In terms of Cassidy what made the difference for me was a discussion over at the RUKind forum. One of the regular contributors over there goes by Rusty the Scoob. He’s a bass player and well-versed in music theory. I think he was explaining modes or something similar in a video and he used Cassidy as an example. Seeing the application of a concept like modes in an erudite manner really opened my eyes to Cassidy and what was going on there. So a song that I previously wrote off, more or less, came to be more interesting in my opinion.
The other motive behind this selection was 1976. It’s kind of a funky year because the Dead were knocking off the rust from their hiatus. On the plus side, a more conventional sound system meant that this was the era where Donna started sounding better because she could hear herself on stage. Her duet with Bobby here showcases that improvement, in my opinion. Also, when I looked at the track timing for this one it was on the shorter end so I wanted to give a good listen to a shorter version of the song to see if it still had all the markings of a good airing. My thoughts are below but you can make up your own mind.
Phil is really low here and it sounds like there’s too much space in the mix, but on the bright side Bob and Donna duet here beautifully. Keith plays a very nice run heading into the bridge. Jerry’s solo is fairly standard here, but Keith continues to add some very tasteful flourishes and embellishments. Jerry unleashes one of his trademark pull-off riffs going back into the chorus. Gotta love it when he does that. The jam that follows is nice. The sound is much fuller, as the drummers’ toms are very clear and present. Still need more Phil though! Oh well. Apparently it’s not meant to be on this day. On to the next one!
Complete Setlist 9/24/76
Previous Cassidy DFAY Selections |
Virtual reality adventure game Loading Human won two awards at the latest edition of Game Connection’s Selected Projects competition.
The title was chosen by a panel of judges, including Develop, as not only the best project in the Console & PC Hardcore category, but all the best project overall.
Loading Human is currently in development for Oculus Rift, and uses motion controllers to allow players to realistically pick up and analyse objects themselves.
“We’re really excited about this – we weren’t expecting it,” Untold Games’ Elisa di Lorenzo (above in middle) told Develop. “It’s cool because we know we have a game that’s really experimental, and this shows that the industry is looking for that. We’re looking forward to what’s going to happen next.”
Other winners included Glowforth’s Last Inua (best Tablet Handheld project) and Gamester’s Hordemaster (best Social, Casual and Online project).
You can read more about the finalists in our round-ups for each of the three categories: Console and PC Hardcore, Tablet Handheld and Social, Casual and Online.
Game Connection’s Eric Lacroix told Develop: “It’s been another great year, and the competition was very tight – every time we received a new vote from the jury, the winner changed.
“It was really interesting to see that this year’s winner is an Oculus game. Oculus is far from being released – as far as we know – so it’s interesting the jury chose to reward a game based on the technology. |
"It was April. It was Spring in Bangladesh. I had one suit, which I was wearing, because that was given to me by my in-laws for a wedding present. The Aeroflot flight flew from Delhi to Moscow. I stayed a couple of days in Moscow. When I got to Moscow, I had a completely different experience because the whole airport was full of police. And it was like almost everybody was a convict. I had to submit my passport to the police. After about an hour and a half, they arranged a hotel for me. I was very hungry but I couldn't buy anything because everything I wanted to do had to be accompanied by a police officer. I think there were maybe three times more police officers than passengers in the airport." |
China Humbly Launches Serial Production of Stolen Russian Fighter Jets
China has launched the serial production of J-10, J-11 and FC-1 fighter jets, which are rip-offs of Russia’s Su-27/30 and MiG-29 aircraft. The nation intends to build and sell not less than 1,200 planes at the prices which will be much lower than those of the Russian planes.
China Humbly Launches Serial Production of Stolen Russian Fighter Jets
The report is not the news for the Russian defense industry. In 2003, China refused to prolong the license for the production of Su-27CK planes and started working on the construction of its own jet – a copy of the Russian analogue. China will put competitive pressure on Russia on the market of spare parts too.
Beijing plans to challenge Russia on its traditional defense industry markets and become the maker of inexpensive and efficient air materiel. Malaysian military officials have already expressed their readiness to cooperate with China at this point. A senior official of Malaysia’s Air Force said that his nation was going to purchase a batch of spare parts to Russian fighter jets from China.
Malaysia ’s Royal Air Force has 18 Russian-made Su-30MKM aircraft. Their technical servicing is the corner stone of Russia’s entire arms export. There were a number of serious incidents when Russian manufacturers could not execute their contracts with delivering spare parts to Malaysia. Malaysia had to refuse from the exploitation of MiG-29 planes. The promised technical center in India was never materialized either.
Russia has delivered 76 Su-27 fighter jets to China since 1992. In 1995 Moscow granted a license to Beijing to assemble 200 more of those planes. As a result, Russia’s renowned Su-27 fighter jet was “cloned” in China as J-11. Russia was originally delivering spare parts to China, but Beijing refused to prolong the license in 2003. By 2008, China had designed its only analogues of the Russian engine, radar and other equipment.
Chain started the licensed and non-licensed production of analogues of Soviet planes a long time ago. The nation’s J-6 and J-7 fighters were created on the base of MiG-10 and MiG-21. H-6 bombers were copied from Tu-16; Y-5, Y-7 and Y-8 are rip-offs of Russia’s An-2, An-24 and An-12.
The military cooperation between Russia and China has had a 62-percent reduction since 2007. There are practically no new contracts between the two countries.
The Pentagon traditionally evaluated China’s defense technologies in its recent report about the level of the nation’s defense power. US officials believe that China’s level of technological development in the defense industry was much lower than that of the United States. Nevertheless, the Pentagon acknowledged that China’s defense budget was growing faster than the nation’s economy.
China is going to start the production of large vessels and develop a new generation of arms and military hardware for its navy. Priority will be paid to the construction of superships, a new type of submarines, supersonic jets, missiles and other arms.
After 2020, Beijing plans to build two nuclear-powered aircraft-carriers in addition to two other conventional vessels which are going to be launched in 2015. When it happens, China will establish control over the entire western part of the Pacific Ocean.
Izvestia |
Marked For Death Vinyl
Vents
$40
After super high demand from rabid fans on social media, Vents' sophomore
album 'MARKED FOR DEATH' is heading to vinyl with a brand new track. Once
again enlisting TRIALS of the FUNKOARS to handle production duties. TRIALS
has recently experienced a huge amount of success behind the boards -
producing DRAPHT's platinum single 'RAPUNZEL' and working with ASH
GRUNWALD, HILLTOP HOODS, ABBE MAY as well as countless others. Gifted
newcomer, DJ ADFU comes on board to complete the team. Label mates SESTA
& HILLTOP HOODS add guest vocals to the album supplying another dimension
to the project.
Tracklist:
A
1 Angry Man In Van (Intro) (1:03)
2 Marked For Death (3:45)
3 History Of The World (4:24)
4 Rollin' Balls (4:17)
5 Where's God Now? Featuring – Sesta (4:00)
6 Falling Down (3:23)
7 The Punisher (3:23) | Guitar – Faculty (3) By [Guitar] – DJ Reflux
B
8 Every Day Is A Blast (3:54) | Drums – Conrad Tracey Engineer [Drums] – Zedsix
9 Sick (4:24)
10 Chaos Featuring – Hilltop Hoods (3:45)
11 No Rest For The Wicked (4:08)
12 F.T.M. (3:22)
13 The Unliving (3:27)
14 S.A.S. Style (Bonus Track)
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Pay later with Learn more |
The United Arab Emirates orchestrated the hacking of Qatari government news and social media sites in order to post incendiary false quotes attributed to Qatar’s emir, Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad al-Thani, in late May that sparked the ongoing upheaval between Qatar and its neighbors, according to U.S. intelligence officials.
Officials became aware last week that newly analyzed information gathered by U.S. intelligence agencies confirmed that on May 23, senior members of the UAE government discussed the plan and its implementation. The officials said it remains unclear whether the UAE carried out the hacks itself or contracted to have them done. The false reports said that the emir, among other things, had called Iran an “Islamic power” and praised Hamas.
The hacks and posting took place on May 24, shortly after President Trump completed a lengthy counterterrorism meeting with Persian Gulf leaders in neighboring Saudi Arabia and declared them unified.
Citing the emir’s reported comments, the Saudis, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt immediately banned all Qatari media. They then broke relations with Qatar and declared a trade and diplomatic boycott, sending the region into a political and diplomatic tailspin that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has warned could undermine U.S. counterterrorism efforts against the Islamic State.
(The Washington Post)
In a statement released in Washington by its ambassador, Yousef al-Otaiba, the UAE said the Post article was “false.”
“The UAE had no role whatsoever in the alleged hacking described in the article,” the statement said. “What is true is Qatar’s behavior. Funding, supporting, and enabling extremists from the Taliban to Hamas and Qadafi. Inciting violence, encouraging radicalization, and undermining the stability of its neighbors.”
The revelations come as emails purportedly hacked from Otaiba’s private account have circulated to journalists over the past several months. That hack has been claimed by an apparently pro-
Qatari organization calling itself GlobalLeaks. Many of the emails highlight the UAE’s determination over the years to rally Washington thinkers and policymakers to its side on the issues at the center of its dispute with Qatar.
All of the Persian Gulf nations are members of the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State. More than 10,000 U.S. troops are based at Qatar’s al-Udeid Air Base, the U.S. Central Command’s regional headquarters, and Bahrain is the home of the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet. All are purchasers of U.S. defense equipment and tied to U.S. foreign policy priorities in numerous ways.
The conflict has also exposed sharp differences between Trump — who has clearly taken the Saudi and UAE side in a series of tweets and statements — and Tillerson, who has urged compromise and spent most of last week in The conflict has also exposed sharp differences between Trump — who has clearly taken the Saudi and UAE side in a series of tweets and statements — and Tillerson, who has urged compromise and spent most of last week in shuttle diplomacy among the regional capitals that has been unsuccessful so far.
“We don’t expect any near-term resolution,” Tillerson aide R.C. Hammond said Saturday. He said the secretary had left behind proposals with the “Saudi bloc” and with Qatar including “a common set of principles that all countries can agree to so that we start from . . . a common place.”
Qatar has repeatedly charged that its sites were hacked, but it has not released the results of its investigation. Intelligence officials said their working theory since the Qatar hacks has been that Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt or some combination of those countries were involved. It remains unclear whether the others also participated in the plan.
U.S. intelligence and other officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment, as did the CIA. The FBI, which Qatar has said was helping in its investigation, also declined to comment.
A spokesman for the Qatari Embassy in Washington responded by drawing attention to a statement by that government’s attorney general, Ali Bin Fetais al-Marri, who said late last month that “Qatar has evidence that certain iPhones originating from countries laying siege to Qatar were used in the hack.”
Hammond said he did not know of the newly analyzed U.S. intelligence on the UAE or whether Tillerson was aware of it.
The hacking incident reopened a bitter feud among the gulf monarchies that has simmered for years. It last erupted in 2013, when Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain accused Qatar of providing safe haven for their political dissidents and supporting the pan-Arab Muslim Brotherhood; funding terrorists, including U.S.-designated terrorist groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah; and using its state-funded media outlets to destabilize its neighbors.
Qatar — an energy-rich country ruled by its own unelected monarchy — saw the Saudi-led accusations as an attempt by neighboring autocrats to stifle its more liberal tendencies. Separately, the United States warned Qatar to keep a tighter rein on wealthy individuals there who surreptitiously funded Islamist terror groups — a charge that Washington has also made in the past against the Saudis and other gulf countries. While Qatar promised some steps in response to the charges in a 2014 agreement with the others, it took little action.
During his two-day visit to Riyadh, Trump met with the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council — Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman and Qatar — and held individual closed-door meetings with several GCC leaders, including the Qatar emir. The day before his departure on the morning of May 22, Trump delivered a speech, focused on the need for religious tolerance and unity against terrorism, to more than 50 Muslim leaders gathered from around the world for the occasion.
But he devoted most of his attention to Saudi King Salman, praising as a wise leader the man who controls his country’s vast oil reserves. In what the administration hailed as a high point of the visit, the Saudis agreed to purchase $110 billion in U.S. arms and signed letters of intent to invest hundreds of billions in deals with U.S. companies.
He had told the Saudis in advance, Trump said He had told the Saudis in advance, Trump said in an interview Wednesday with the Christian Broadcasting Network , that the agreements and purchases were a prerequisite for his presence. “I said, you have to do that, otherwise I’m not going,” Trump recounted.
The statements attributed to the emir first appeared on the Qatar News Agency’s website early on the morning of May 24, in a report on his appearance at a military ceremony, as Trump was wrapping up the next stop on his nine-day overseas trip, in Israel. According to the Qatari government, alerts were sent out within 45 minutes saying the information was false.
Later that morning, the same false information appeared on a ticker at the bottom of a video of the emir’s appearance that was posted on Qatar News Agency’s YouTube channel. Similar material appeared on government Twitter feeds.
The reports were repeatedly broadcast on Saudi Arabian government outlets, continuing even after the Qatari alert said it was false. The UAE shut down all broadcasts of Qatari media inside its borders, including the Qatari-funded Al Jazeera satellite network, the most watched in the Arab world.
The first week in June, the Saudi-led countries severed relations, ordered all Qatari nationals inside their countries to leave, and closed their borders to all land, air and sea traffic with Qatar, a peninsular nation in the Persian Gulf whose only land connection is with Saudi Arabia.
In addition to charges of supporting terrorism and promoting instability inside their countries, they accused Qatar of being too close to Iran, Saudi Arabia’s main rival for regional power and, according to the United States, the world’s foremost supporter of global terrorism. Iran conducts robust trade with most of the gulf, including the UAE, and shares the world’s largest natural gas field with Qatar.
The day after the boycott was announced, Trump indirectly took credit for it. “So good to see the Saudi Arabia visit with King and 50 countries already paying off,” he tweeted. “They said they would take a hard line on funding extremism, and all reference was pointing to Qatar.”
At the same time, Tillerson and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis called for negotiations and a quick resolution of the dispute. When the Saudi-led group released a list of 13 “non-negotiable” demands for Qatar — including shutting down Al Jazeera and expelling a number of people deemed terrorists — the State Department suggested that they were unreasonable and that the terrorism funding issue was a smokescreen for long-standing regional grievances that should be resolved through mediation and negotiation.
Qatar rejected the demands. Tillerson appeared to agree that they were draconian. But when he called for the boycott to be eased, saying it was causing both security and humanitarian hardship, Trump said the measure was harsh “but necessary.”
The one concrete result of Tillerson’s stops in the region last week was a new bilateral agreement signed with Qatar on stopping terrorism financing, the only one of the gulf countries that had responded to an invitation to do so, Hammond said.
Speaking to reporters on his plane flying back to Washington on Friday, Tillerson said the trip was useful “first to listen and get a sense of how serious the situation is, how emotional some of these issues are.” He said that he had left proposals with both sides that suggested “some ways that we might move this forward.”
All of the countries involved, Tillerson said, are “really important to us from a national security standpoint. . . . We need this part of the world to be stable, and this particular conflict between these parties is obviously not helpful.”
Asked about Trump’s tweets and other comments, he noted that being secretary of state “is a lot different than being CEO of Exxon,” his previous job, “because I was the ultimate decision-maker.” He knew what to expect from long-standing colleagues, he said, and decision-making was disciplined and “highly structured.”
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“Those are not the characteristics of the United States government. And I don’t say that as a criticism, it’s just an observation of fact,” Tillerson said. While neither he nor the president came from the political world, he said, his old job put him in contact with the rest of the world and “that engagement . . . is actually very easy for me.”
For his part, Trump agreed in the Christian Broadcasting Network interview that he and Tillerson “had a little bit of a difference, only in terms of tone” over the gulf conflict.
Qatar, Trump said, “is now a little bit on the outs, but I think they’re being brought back in.” Asked about the U.S. military base in Qatar, Trump said he was not concerned.
“We’ll be all right,” he said. “Look, if we ever have to leave” the base, “we would have 10 countries willing to build us another one, believe me. And they’ll pay for it.”
Kareem Fahim in Istanbul and
Carol Morello in Washington contributed to this report. |
One small three letter word has come to dominate debate in the media since disturbing news began to emerge of mass sexual assaults on hundreds of young women by migrants and asylum seekers in Cologne on New Year's Eve.
One small three letter word has come to dominate debate in the media since disturbing news began to emerge of mass sexual assaults on hundreds of young women by migrants and asylum seekers in Cologne on New Year's Eve.
It's been on the lips of self-styled progressives everywhere. You know, the sort of people who'd be marching in the streets demanding action if the perpetrators had been white, working-class football fans on their way home from the pub or privately-educated male students in the Fellows' Square at Trinity College. That word, predictably, is "but".
"What happened was terrible... but what about the sexual abuse of women by men in our society too? The experience of those women was awful... but we mustn't let it be exploited by the far right. It shouldn't have happened… but let's not talk about it in case our words are misunderstood or misused. Sssh, someone might be listening."
The "far right" is now a term applied, with insulting looseness, to anyone who dares to have qualms about the impact of mass immigration from the Islamic world into Europe, and it's deliberately used to shut down and shout down not only dissent but inconvenient facts as well.
When it became clear that Cologne was not an isolated incident, and that the same thing had happened at a rock festival in Sweden last summer, the police chief in Stockholm openly declared: "Sometimes we do not dare to say how things really are because we believe it will play into the hands of the Sweden Democrats." In other words, they refuse to make bogeymen out of young Muslim men who surround, grope and rob young Swedish women, in order that they can make bogeymen and bogeywomen out of anyone in their society who refuses to sign up to a fiction that all is hunky dory. Don't demonise asylum seekers, the underlying message seems to say. Demonise right wingers instead.
This should have been one instance where the moral relativists could have taken a day off from excusing the inexcusable and just admitted that what had happened was intolerable and had to stop. That the right of women to walk unmolested was greater and more important than the right of Muslims not be made feel under scrutiny for deplorable aspects of their culture. Instead they started working overtime to make those who were fearful of the future feel that they were the problem.
One German woman who went public with her account of being groped by migrants that night was immediately attacked on social media for being a "racist" and "right winger". A video revealing her full name and attacking her story was viewed 250,000 times and even shared on Facebook by a radical Islamic preacher in Germany before she noticed it was being circulated. She got threatening calls at work, and now feels understandably frightened that she might be the target of reprisals. Instead of rallying to her defence, there was manufactured outrage about a cartoon in the latest issue of Charlie Hebdo which shows the three-year-old boy who was washed up on a Turkish beach after drowning as he and his family fled Syria as a teenager under the caption: "What would have happened to little Aylan when he grew up? He'd have groped women's arses in Germany."
It's horrible, feeble, provocative stuff. A cartoon has still never groped or killed anyone.
It's about priorities. Those on the left make theirs dispiritingly clear. These people simply cannot be trusted in the fight to defend European enlightenment values from attack. Of course women, younger ones especially, have always faced the threat of sexual harassment and violence, and of course that should be tackled; doing so, however, means understanding what's going on, and it is criminally irresponsible not to admit that the spectacle of large numbers of feral men surrounding women in public places, groping their breasts, putting their hands inside their clothing and inside their victims, is scary and new.
In the Arab world it's called "tarrahush" and it probably first came to wider attention in the west when CBS reporter Lara Logan was subjected to the experience whilst reporting from Cairo's Tahrir Square.
Refusing to see what happened in Cologne as a new phenomenon which needs new responses, rather than subsuming the problem into one of violence against women generally, is the inevitable outcome of a culture of complaint which, for decades, has decried western society as irredeemably sexist and patriarchal, refusing to accept and celebrate huge progress when it's been made. Once you've done down your own society to that extent, it's impossible to protect it when it encounters something worse. Even the concept of "worse" is controversial.
In order to defend their own culture, they would need to admit that it's objectively better than certain other cultures, and this directly clashes with a paralysing moral relativism which tells them that they shouldn't judge other people, other cultures, because they're all equally valid.
Except the "far right", naturally, who must be vilified.
If it was conservative Christians who had a problem with our freedoms, rather than Muslims, there'd be no talk of compromise. They'd be told to shut up and get used to it. The only reason no one says that to Muslim migrants is because we're afraid to cause offence. It makes us hesitant even to acknowledge that Islamic countries make up 16 of the 20 worst places on the planet to be a woman, or that more than 90pc of Moroccans and Tunisians (the nationality of a majority of those arrested in Cologne) think that a wife should always obey her husband, an idea both laughable and repugnant to us.
Those figures come from The Economist whose leader last week makes an important point that requiring asylum seekers and migrants to obey the law is only the start.
If integration is to work, they must also respect, accept and finally come to embrace European values of tolerance and sexual equality. The door has to stay open to those fleeing war and poverty, but the culture to which they flee has no obligation to change in response, certainly not when being this way is what makes us attractive as a refuge. Some gratitude, rather than groping, should be the first step.
Sunday Independent |
THE Kenyan national cricket team is coming to Darwin to take on the Territory’s best talent.
The NT News can reveal the team will stop in the Territory next month and play three games in the Top End.
It is understood NT Cricket is just days away from finalising the deal to bring Kenya to Darwin in May.
Kenya will play three 50-over matches against the Northern Territory Strike at Marrara Cricket Ground between May 18 and 25.
The Territory’s connection with Papua New Guinea, through the SACA Premier League, instigated the African side’s upcoming visit.
Kenya and PNG are set to play the final third-round matches of ICC World Cricket League Championships on May 28 and 30 at Amini Park in Port Moresby.
Cricket Kenya asked the PNG Barramundis about the potential of any warm-up games on the way to PNG, with PNG officials suggesting the Strike.
For the Strike, the games against Kenya will be used as a training camp ahead of the SACA Premier League, which will commence following the climax of the Darwin and Districts cricket competition.
It is understood a wider Strike squad will be selected to give a number of players a chance to impress against the international opposition and push their chances for selection.
The squad will not be limited to Top End cricketers, with Alice Springs-based players expected to be included also, with Megha Hettige and Ben Ellis at the top of the list for potential inclusions.
Kenya have played at five cricket World Cups with their best result a semi-finals berth in 2003, where many called for the minnows to be handed Test playing status.
Since then, the positive results have dried up on the international stage, as they lost their One Day International and T20 International status in 2014, after failing to qualify for the 2015 World Cup and the 2014 World Twenty20.
The ICC WCLC that Kenya and PNG compete in is an elite 50-over competition played between leading Associate and Affiliate members and is pathway for participating teams to play in the ICC Cricket World Cup Qualifier 2018 and subsequently have a chance to qualify for ICC Cricket World Cup 2019.
Kenya are in a transition phase after celebrated cricketers Steve Tikolo and Martin Suji were axed by Cricket Kenya from their coaching roles in recent weeks.
The two had been members of CK coaching staff for more than two years.
Kenya are fourth on the ICC WCLC table, with the Barramundis two slots lower in the eight-nation tournament. |
Sunday saw four Western Conference teams lock up Audi 2017 MLS Cup Playoff berths with the Portland Timbers being one team that did it in spectacular fashion.
The Timbers dominated the visiting D.C. United to the tune of a 4-0 victory at Providence Park. Diego Valeri had a goal and two assists, bringing his season totals to 21 goals and 11 assists. In the process he became just the second player in MLS history to have 20 goals and 10 assists in a season.
Valeri earned his place on the Week 32 Team of the Week and is joined by teammates Sebastian Blanco and Alvas Powell. Blanco scored two fantastic goals to seal the Timbers' victory while Powell was a constant threat down the right flank, leading to a goal of his own.
Will Bruin helped the Seattle Sounders down FC Dallas 4-0 with a brace of his own and Chicago's Nemanja Nikolic scored a hat trick that not only put him in great position to get the Golden Boot, but also earned him a place on this week's team.
Bench: Brad Guzan (ATL)-Jake Nerwinski (VAN)-Aaron Long (NY)-Wil Trapp (CLB)-Djordje Mihailovic (CHI)-Jonathan dos Santos (LA)-Yordy Reyna (VAN)
Coach: Caleb Porter (POR) |
Coming straight out of the Department of What the Fuck? is a beef that’s erupted between US rockers Portugal. The Man and Perth favourites HAMJAM. We’re not even quite sure just what the hell is going on, so bear with us.
As The Music reports, the bizarre feud is centred on a cover of ‘Tuesday’, iLoveMakonnen’s hit collaboration with Canadian rapper Drake. HAMJAM have been performing a reworked cover of the tune for some time and Portugal apparently really dug it.
During a recent Australian tour, Portugal apparently caught a HAMJAM performance and were so taken by the band’s cover of ‘Tuesday’ they decided to perform their own cover with Kirin J Callinan as guest star.
The cover basically laid dormant until a few days ago when Portugal excavated it, uploaded it to their SoundCloud account, and shared across their social media channels, after being inspired by, of all things, A$AP Rocky.
The fan response was largely mixed, with some pointing out its similarities to HAMJAM’s version. There was enough of a backlash that Portugal. The Man decided to issue a tongue-in-cheek response a couple of days later.
“We recorded a minimalist cover version of the minimalist song “Tuesday” for funsies after watching HAMJAM cover it in Australia. Dongs,” the band wrote on Twitter. “Previously unaware of both covers and underground Grammy winning smash hits.”
HAMJAM took exception to being called “dongs”, if that’s what the band was implying, that is. They’re not quite sure, to be honest. “S0o0o [sic] you admit we’re right… then call us dongs? or are you calling yourselves dongs?” they wrote on Facebook.
The Perth outfit decided to take their grievance to the studio and composed a diss track aimed at Portugal. The Man, in which they explain their dissatisfaction with the actions of the Alaskan outfit in ominous, buzzing style.
“Go to a fuckin’ show / And bring your other fuckin’ bros / And bring your fuckin’ iPhone / Film a band you don’t even know“, the band recount on the track, which also features WA collective the Char Kway Palz.
Yeah, we never said you wouldn’t be coming out of this with unanswered questions. We’re still not quite sure just what went on between Portugal. The Man and HAMJAM, but you can hear the ‘Tuesday’ cover and HAMJAM’s diss track below. |
Five people were arrested after a brawl erupted outside a Jacksonville, Fla. movie theatre on Christmas night, ABC News reports.
The incident, which police described as a “melee,” began around 8:30 p.m. when an off-duty officer was rushed by 25-30 people trying to get into the Regal River City Marketplace theatre without any tickets, according to News 4 Jax. The officer called for backup and used pepper spray to try to control the situation.
After the officer used pepper spray and locked the doors, “upward of 600 people moving throughout a parking lot about the size of a football field began fighting, disrupting and jumping on cars,” Lauri-Ellen Smith, a spokeswoman for the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office told ABC News.
From News 4 Jax:
“Our response was quick and effective,” said Smith. “Our job is to keep people safe, first and foremost, obviously and that’s what our officers did. They do that through tactical activities through crowd control by sequestering the group and again, keeping these folks safe, determining who’s fighting, who’s not.” Police say a total of five people were arrested on charges of fighting. Three of them are under 18, one is 18-years-old and the other is 19-years-old.
It took about 62 officers more than an hour to disperse the crowd, according to Florida Today. There was minor damage to vehicles, but no injuries or gunshots reported.
Business Insider |
Magnetic disc storage is what most of us rely on inside our computers. SSD and flash memory is coming on strong, but it does not yet match the price/size trade off offered by typical magnetic hard drives. However, we are nearing the limits of how much data we can store on a magnetic disc and how fast we can read/write that data using existing methods.
IBM has decided to approach the issue of increasing storage on a magnetic disc by solving the problem at the atomic level. It has managed to fit a single bit of data on just 12 atoms, paving the way for 400TB hard drives. But IBM’s ideas still rely on the use of a magnetic field to store that data.
Researchers from around the world are collaborating on solving the speed problem, and they’ve come up with a new technique that promises to one day record terabytes of data per second (even the fastest SSDs only manage around 500MB/s today).
The research has been carried out at the Paul Scherrer Institut in Switzerland and relies on replacing the magnetic field typically used for recording with heat. What the team has managed to do is replace the magnetic field used to switch the poles of a magnet with a heat pulse created by a laser.
A single heat pulse will switch the magnetic orientation of a nanometer-sized magnetic grain in just a few picoseconds (1 picosecond is 0.000000000001 seconds). As a comparison, today’s hard drives take a few nanoseconds to record 1 bit of data. A nanosecond is 1000 picoseconds, making it very clear how much faster the heat pulse solution will be.
The heat pulse technique is still at the prototype stage, but has been demonstrated to work using magneto-optical microscopy on thin films. Although it is expected to scale to terabyte data transfers every second, initially it is expected the technique will allow data to be stored at a density of 10 petabytes/m2 and using a data transfer rate of 200Gb/s. That’s a 10-fold increase in storage capacity as well as a 300x improvement in performance over today’s drives.
The good news doesn’t end there, though. Even though this new technique relies on heat, it is thought to be much more energy efficient than existing magnetic disc drives. So not only will we get a massive increase in storage size and performance, those same drives will require much less power.
Read more at the University of York and Paul Scherrer Institut |
CLOSE FC Cincinnati welcomed newly-acquired striker Danni Konig to training this week. Konig traveled about 13 hours by car to Cincinnati and has been recovering from that taxing drive, but is still expected to see time in Saturday's match against Orlando City B. The Enquirer/Patrick Brennan
Jun 15, 2016; Dallas, TX, USA; Oklahoma City Energy forward Danni Konig (9) celebrates scoring a penalty kick goal against FC Dallas at Wescott Field. FC Dallas won 6-5 on penalty kicks. Mandatory Credit: Tim Heitman-USA TODAY Sports (Photo: Tim Heitman, Tim Heitman-USA TODAY Sports)
When Danni Konig's now-former OKC Energy FC teammates found out he'd been traded to Futbol Club Cincinnati, they didn't just wish him well. They congratulated him, too.
As Konig explained during a post-training interview Thursday at Nippert Stadium, many players at his former club and elsewhere view FC Cincinnati as perhaps the top playing destination in the United Soccer League.
Many at Energy FC understood what the opportunity represented for Konig, who has chased playing in Major League Soccer since the 30-year-old's career landed him in the U.S.
FC Cincinnati, Konig said, might be the next best opportunity available to players outside MLS.
So, Konig loaded up his car Monday and drove straight through to Cincinnati. It was a 13-hour haul from the Oklahoma City area, and one that head Cincinnati coach Alan Koch said was still affecting Konig in training Thursday.
Konig wanted to have his car in Cincinnati and was advised to break the journey up over two days, but he didn't want to delay his arrival at what he called "one of the biggest clubs outside of MLS."
"We talk about Cincinnati many times, like, how impressed we are at what the crowd is like," Konig told The Enquirer Thursday. "I can tell you one thing: Every team, they look forward – for them, it's the match of the year when they're playing Cincinnati because everybody wants to experience this crowd. I haven't done it myself, but I talk to some other guys and have some friends and... they want to experience this, too."
Konig was initially tipped to make an appearance in Saturday's home match against Orlando City B, but Koch cautioned that Konig still appears fatigued and that a final decision on his possible selection would have to wait until at least Friday.
Thursday marked Konig's first official training session after a Tuesday yoga session following his 13-hour drive and some physical testing on Wednesday, Koch said.
"He showed some elements of what he's good at," Koch said. "He also showed that he's just been through a long travel and a lot of things that have happened in the last few weeks, so we'll get through training tomorrow before we make any decisions."
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KOCH: AFC CLEVELAND 'HAS SOMETHING ABOUT THEM'
By virtue of AFC Cleveland's 3-1 Wednesday victory over the Des Moines Menace, FC Cincinnati will host a second-round Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup match for the second consecutive year.
Several Cincinnati players said they watched the first-round match and most agreed they were relieved to avoid a trip to Iowa, which would have come to fruition had Des Moines topped Cleveland.
MORE: FC Cincinnati to host AFC Cleveland in U.S. Open Cup
Koch said he, too, watched the match, adding he was impressed by Cleveland, the defending champions of the fourth-division National Premier Soccer League (NPSL).
"From what I could tell – I just analyzed that game in itself – a good team. (They) like to try to play. Look like they're a little more experienced," Koch said. "I don't know the exact age of the players, but to go to Des Moines, which is certainly not an easy place to go and try to get a positive result, shows they have obviously got something about them.
"We know it will be a good challenge."
PERSONNEL NOTES
Midfielder Aaron Walker is the latest FC Cincinnati player to pick up an injury. He's expected to miss several weeks after sustaining injury during an intrasquad scrimmage this week, Koch said.
Walker was on crutches at Thursday's training session.
Kenney Walker, the team's assists leader (four), is listed as day-to-day. His status for Saturday's match is still to be determined. He missed this past weekend's match through injury.
Former Premier League defender Justin Hoyte, who's missed five consecutive matches (hamstring), is "coming along," Koch said.
Hoyte is now listed as day-to-day.
Djiby Fall will reach the halfway mark of his six-game suspension Saturday, but will be available for the midweek U.S. Open Cup match against Cleveland. |
What Matters Are Consequences, Not Context
Should libertarians support Title II of the 1964 Civil Rights Act? David Bernstein believes they should. David’s position is understandable, and his arguments are well-crafted. But libertarians should not only oppose Title II; they should shout that opposition from the highest roof tops.
The essence of Bernstein’s position is that discrimination in the pre-1964 South did not consist merely of actions by purely private actors, like employers or restaurant owners. It also consisted of an explicitly racist legal regime that mandated discrimination in education, public accommodations, transportation, and more, as well as implicit government backing for extra-legal actions taken by private citizens (who were themselves often police or other government officials) against both whites and blacks who tried to deviate from the discriminatory regime.
Bernstein then argues that the federal government had two choices for ending Jim Crow: federal laws invalidating state and local Jim Crow laws, or a federal law banning discrimination, i.e., Titles II and VII of the CRA.
The fact that Jim Crow was a government imposed and supported system is undeniable. But Bernstein’s prescription for ending Jim Crow is off the mark.
To begin, Title II is a bald-faced assault on a principle that libertarians hold dear: that private property is private. This means libertarians should be incredibly suspicious of Title II and insist on an overwhelming case before violating this principle. No such case exists.
Bernstein’s argument is also suspect because he asserts, rather than demonstrates, that restricting federal actions to overturning Jim Crow laws – roughly, the goal of Titles I and III-VI – would not have been sufficient to break Jim Crow. Yet much of the South was unenthusiastic about Jim Crow, whether for noble reasons or self-interest, so a CRA that merely targeted government discrimination would likely have changed the social norm, allowed non-discriminatory forces to emerge, and toppled the Jim Crow regime.
This is exactly what occurred in some instances, such as integration of state universities. Plus, as Sheldon Richman rightly emphasizes, purely private mechanisms, from boycotts to migration of blacks from the South to the North, were putting real pressure on Jim Crow independent of government efforts.
Even if these problems with Bernstein’s perspective are ignored, moreover, Title II was bad policy because it generated a range of undesired consequences that libertarians presumably abhor.
By violating the principle that private property is private, Title II created a precedent for other policies that violate property rights and have far less justification than Title II.
One example is smoking bans in restaurants. If the law views these establishments as entirely the property of their owners, it is hard to defend laws that ban smoking since non-smoking customers are not required to frequent any particular restaurant. If the law turns restaurants into “public accommodations,” however, then restaurants become places where the law can impose public health concerns and where customers have “rights,” other than just choosing not to frequent the restaurants they do not like.
Similar considerations apply to occupational health and safety regulation. So long as any workplace is the private property of the owner, it is difficult to defend rules about safety equipment, hours of work, and so on. These are concerns only for employers and their employees. Once workplaces are somehow “public,” the door is open for the state to pursue various goals that libertarians find objectionable. Mandatory maternity leave is a good example.
Most relevant to the civil rights debate, treating businesses as partially public sets the stage for government bans on private affirmative action. Yet reverse discrimination practiced by private parties is a crucial way that markets, not government, can limit the negative impact of discriminatory preferences exhibited by some restaurants owners and employers.
A different negative consequence of Title II is institutionalizing the view that blacks are too weak to overcome discrimination on their own. This is not just insulting; it is counter-factual. Private actions like boycotts and migration were undermining Jim Crow before the Civil Rights Act, and this process would have continued. In the North, where governments did not (generally) impose discrimination, blacks were succeeding on their own even more. Under the CRA and its sequelae such as affirmative action, however, many people view black success with suspicion because it might have been generated by federal law.
Title II also eliminates “transparency,” meaning the ability for everyone, black or white, to know who is racist and who is not. In response to a post on the Rand Paul Incident, one of my blog readers wrote the following:
I agree wholeheartedly that he [Paul] should have stood his ground and explained why his view is not a racist view, but that it, in fact, supports ones humanity. The last thing that I would want to do is to spend money at an establishment that did not want me. By passing a law that eliminates transparency, I, as a black man, lose the ability to discern who wants my business and who does not. Wouldn’t it be better for people to patronize businesses that desire their business? I definitely believe so.
The commenter makes an excellent point; by requiring non-discrimination, Title II makes it easier for racist whites to take money from blacks.
Thus whether or not the CRA had the beneficial impact of breaking the discriminatory social norm that existed under Jim Crow — and any such effect is easily overstated, since norms were changing before CRA — it has other effects on social norms that are plausibly worse. Since private mechanisms, and federal actions against Jim Crow laws, would have generated the gains achieved by blacks anyway, Title II means we are stuck with the bad effects on social norms while getting only passing benefit from the (alleged) good effect.
The most stunning aspect of the Rand Paul episode is not that Paul voiced objections to the CRA, nor that he backtracked once the political firestorm erupted.
The most surprising aspect, instead, is how many libertarians have voiced support for the CRA in the aftermath. The exact reasons for libertarian support are not clear, but it seems many libertarians have concluded that, whatever they believe in their guts, opposition to the CRA is so incendiary that libertarians must find a way to make peace with it. Thus they have trotted out arguments about historical context and social norms to defend a position that seems antithetical to everything libertarians believe.
Libertarians are, of course, free to believe whatever they wish about the CRA. Perhaps many find the historical context and social norm arguments convincing, although I suspect they would be skeptical of such arguments in other contexts.
But if libertarians are supporting Title II out of political expediency, they are on a fool’s errand. Libertarians are never going to be widely popular or get elected in significant numbers; we hold far too many positions that are anathema in the political arena.
What libertarians can do is attempt to keep both sides honest. That means sticking to our principles no matter how awkward that might be. |
argparse – Command line option and argument parsing.¶
Purpose: Command line option and argument parsing. Available In: 2.7 and later
The argparse module was added to Python 2.7 as a replacement for optparse . The implementation of argparse supports features that would not have been easy to add to optparse , and that would have required backwards-incompatible API changes, so a new module was brought into the library instead. optparse is still supported, but is not likely to receive new features.
Comparing with optparse¶ The API for argparse is similar to the one provided by optparse , and in many cases argparse can be used as a straightforward replacement by updating the names of the classes and methods used. There are a few places where direct compatibility could not be preserved as new features were added, however. You will have to decide whether to upgrade existing programs on a case-by-case basis. If you have written extra code to work around limitations of optparse , you may want to upgrade to reduce the amount of code you need to maintain. New programs should probably use argparse, if it is available on all deployment platforms.
Setting up a Parser¶ The first step when using argparse is to create a parser object and tell it what arguments to expect. The parser can then be used to process the command line arguments when your program runs. The parser class is ArgumentParser . The constructor takes several arguments to set up the description used in the help text for the program and other global behaviors or settings. import argparse parser = argparse . ArgumentParser ( description = 'This is a PyMOTW sample program' )
Defining Arguments¶ argparse is a complete argument processing library. Arguments can trigger different actions, specified by the action argument to add_argument() . Supported actions include storing the argument (singly, or as part of a list), storing a constant value when the argument is encountered (including special handling for true/false values for boolean switches), counting the number of times an argument is seen, and calling a callback. The default action is to store the argument value. In this case, if a type is provided, the value is converted to that type before it is stored. If the dest argument is provided, the value is saved to an attribute of that name on the Namespace object returned when the command line arguments are parsed.
Parsing a Command Line¶ Once all of the arguments are defined, you can parse the command line by passing a sequence of argument strings to parse_args() . By default, the arguments are taken from sys.argv[1:] , but you can also pass your own list. The options are processed using the GNU/POSIX syntax, so option and argument values can be mixed in the sequence. The return value from parse_args() is a Namespace containing the arguments to the command. The object holds the argument values as attributes, so if your argument dest is "myoption" , you access the value as args.myoption .
Simple Examples¶ Here is a simple example with 3 different options: a boolean option ( -a ), a simple string option ( -b ), and an integer option ( -c ). import argparse parser = argparse . ArgumentParser ( description = 'Short sample app' ) parser . add_argument ( '-a' , action = "store_true" , default = False ) parser . add_argument ( '-b' , action = "store" , dest = "b" ) parser . add_argument ( '-c' , action = "store" , dest = "c" , type = int ) print parser . parse_args ([ '-a' , '-bval' , '-c' , '3' ]) There are a few ways to pass values to single character options. The example above uses two different forms, -bval and -c val . $ python argparse_short.py Namespace(a=True, b='val', c=3) The type of the value associated with 'c' in the output is an integer, since the ArgumentParser was told to convert the argument before storing it. “Long” option names, with more than a single character in their name, are handled in the same way. import argparse parser = argparse . ArgumentParser ( description = 'Example with long option names' ) parser . add_argument ( '--noarg' , action = "store_true" , default = False ) parser . add_argument ( '--witharg' , action = "store" , dest = "witharg" ) parser . add_argument ( '--witharg2' , action = "store" , dest = "witharg2" , type = int ) print parser . parse_args ([ '--noarg' , '--witharg' , 'val' , '--witharg2=3' ]) And the results are similar: $ python argparse_long.py Namespace(noarg=True, witharg='val', witharg2=3) One area in which argparse differs from optparse is the treatment of non-optional argument values. While optparse sticks to option parsing, argparse is a full command-line argument parser tool, and handles non-optional arguments as well. import argparse parser = argparse . ArgumentParser ( description = 'Example with non-optional arguments' ) parser . add_argument ( 'count' , action = "store" , type = int ) parser . add_argument ( 'units' , action = "store" ) print parser . parse_args () In this example, the “count” argument is an integer and the “units” argument is saved as a string. If either is not provided on the command line, or the value given cannot be converted to the right type, an error is reported. $ python argparse_arguments.py 3 inches Namespace(count=3, units='inches') $ python argparse_arguments.py some inches usage: argparse_arguments.py [-h] count units argparse_arguments.py: error: argument count: invalid int value: 'some' $ python argparse_arguments.py usage: argparse_arguments.py [-h] count units argparse_arguments.py: error: too few arguments Argument Actions¶ There are six built-in actions that can be triggered when an argument is encountered: store Save the value, after optionally converting it to a different type. This is the default action taken if none is specified expliclity. store_const Save a value defined as part of the argument specification, rather than a value that comes from the arguments being parsed. This is typically used to implement command line flags that aren’t booleans. store_true / store_false Save the appropriate boolean value. These actions are used to implement boolean switches. append Save the value to a list. Multiple values are saved if the argument is repeated. append_const Save a value defined in the argument specification to a list. version Prints version details about the program and then exits. import argparse parser = argparse . ArgumentParser () parser . add_argument ( '-s' , action = 'store' , dest = 'simple_value' , help = 'Store a simple value' ) parser . add_argument ( '-c' , action = 'store_const' , dest = 'constant_value' , const = 'value-to-store' , help = 'Store a constant value' ) parser . add_argument ( '-t' , action = 'store_true' , default = False , dest = 'boolean_switch' , help = 'Set a switch to true' ) parser . add_argument ( '-f' , action = 'store_false' , default = False , dest = 'boolean_switch' , help = 'Set a switch to false' ) parser . add_argument ( '-a' , action = 'append' , dest = 'collection' , default = [], help = 'Add repeated values to a list' , ) parser . add_argument ( '-A' , action = 'append_const' , dest = 'const_collection' , const = 'value-1-to-append' , default = [], help = 'Add different values to list' ) parser . add_argument ( '-B' , action = 'append_const' , dest = 'const_collection' , const = 'value-2-to-append' , help = 'Add different values to list' ) parser . add_argument ( '--version' , action = 'version' , version = ' %(prog)s 1.0' ) results = parser . parse_args () print 'simple_value =' , results . simple_value print 'constant_value =' , results . constant_value print 'boolean_switch =' , results . boolean_switch print 'collection =' , results . collection print 'const_collection =' , results . const_collection $ python argparse_action.py -h usage: argparse_action.py [-h] [-s SIMPLE_VALUE] [-c] [-t] [-f] [-a COLLECTION] [-A] [-B] [--version] optional arguments: -h, --help show this help message and exit -s SIMPLE_VALUE Store a simple value -c Store a constant value -t Set a switch to true -f Set a switch to false -a COLLECTION Add repeated values to a list -A Add different values to list -B Add different values to list --version show program's version number and exit $ python argparse_action.py -s value simple_value = value constant_value = None boolean_switch = False collection = [] const_collection = [] $ python argparse_action.py -c simple_value = None constant_value = value-to-store boolean_switch = False collection = [] const_collection = [] $ python argparse_action.py -t simple_value = None constant_value = None boolean_switch = True collection = [] const_collection = [] $ python argparse_action.py -f simple_value = None constant_value = None boolean_switch = False collection = [] const_collection = [] $ python argparse_action.py -a one -a two -a three simple_value = None constant_value = None boolean_switch = False collection = ['one', 'two', 'three'] const_collection = [] $ python argparse_action.py -B -A simple_value = None constant_value = None boolean_switch = False collection = [] const_collection = ['value-2-to-append', 'value-1-to-append'] $ python argparse_action.py --version argparse_action.py 1.0 Option Prefixes¶ The default syntax for options is based on the Unix convention of signifying command line switches using a prefix of “-”. argparse supports other prefixes, so you can make your program conform to the local platform default (i.e., use “/” on Windows) or follow a different convention. import argparse parser = argparse . ArgumentParser ( description = 'Change the option prefix characters' , prefix_chars = '-+/' , ) parser . add_argument ( '-a' , action = "store_false" , default = None , help = 'Turn A off' , ) parser . add_argument ( '+a' , action = "store_true" , default = None , help = 'Turn A on' , ) parser . add_argument ( '//noarg' , '++noarg' , action = "store_true" , default = False ) print parser . parse_args () Set the prefix_chars parameter for the ArgumentParser to a string containing all of the characters that should be allowed to signify options. It is important to understand that although prefix_chars establishes the allowed switch characters, the individual argument definitions specify the syntax for a given switch. This gives you explicit control over whether options using different prefixes are aliases (such as might be the case for platform-independent command line syntax) or alternatives (e.g., using “ + ” to indicate turning a switch on and “ - ” to turn it off). In the example above, +a and -a are separate arguments, and //noarg can also be given as ++noarg , but not --noarg . $ python argparse_prefix_chars.py -h usage: argparse_prefix_chars.py [-h] [-a] [+a] [//noarg] Change the option prefix characters optional arguments: -h, --help show this help message and exit -a Turn A off +a Turn A on //noarg, ++noarg $ python argparse_prefix_chars.py +a Namespace(a=True, noarg=False) $ python argparse_prefix_chars.py -a Namespace(a=False, noarg=False) $ python argparse_prefix_chars.py //noarg Namespace(a=None, noarg=True) $ python argparse_prefix_chars.py ++noarg Namespace(a=None, noarg=True) $ python argparse_prefix_chars.py --noarg usage: argparse_prefix_chars.py [-h] [-a] [+a] [//noarg] argparse_prefix_chars.py: error: unrecognized arguments: --noarg Sources of Arguments¶ In the examples so far, the list of arguments given to the parser have come from a list passed in explicitly, or were taken implicitly from sys.argv. Passing the list explicitly is useful when you are using argparse to process command line-like instructions that do not come from the command line (such as in a configuration file). import argparse from ConfigParser import ConfigParser import shlex parser = argparse . ArgumentParser ( description = 'Short sample app' ) parser . add_argument ( '-a' , action = "store_true" , default = False ) parser . add_argument ( '-b' , action = "store" , dest = "b" ) parser . add_argument ( '-c' , action = "store" , dest = "c" , type = int ) config = ConfigParser () config . read ( 'argparse_witH_shlex.ini' ) config_value = config . get ( 'cli' , 'options' ) print 'Config :' , config_value argument_list = shlex . split ( config_value ) print 'Arg List:' , argument_list print 'Results :' , parser . parse_args ( argument_list ) shlex makes it easy to split the string stored in the configuration file. $ python argparse_with_shlex.py Config : -a -b 2 Arg List: ['-a', '-b', '2'] Results : Namespace(a=True, b='2', c=None) An alternative to processing the configuration file yourself is to tell argparse how to recognize an argument that specifies an input file containing a set of arguments to be processed using fromfile_prefix_chars. import argparse from ConfigParser import ConfigParser import shlex parser = argparse . ArgumentParser ( description = 'Short sample app' , fromfile_prefix_chars = '@' , ) parser . add_argument ( '-a' , action = "store_true" , default = False ) parser . add_argument ( '-b' , action = "store" , dest = "b" ) parser . add_argument ( '-c' , action = "store" , dest = "c" , type = int ) print parser . parse_args ([ '@argparse_fromfile_prefix_chars.txt' ]) This example stops when it finds an argument prefixed with @ , then reads the named file to find more arguments. For example, an input file argparse_fromfile_prefix_chars.txt contains a series of arguments, one per line: - a - b 2 The output produced when processing the file is: $ python argparse_fromfile_prefix_chars.py Namespace(a=True, b='2', c=None)
Automatically Generated Options¶ argparse will automatically add options to generate help and show the version information for your application, if configured to do so. The add_help argument to ArgumentParser controls the help-related options. import argparse parser = argparse . ArgumentParser ( add_help = True ) parser . add_argument ( '-a' , action = "store_true" , default = False ) parser . add_argument ( '-b' , action = "store" , dest = "b" ) parser . add_argument ( '-c' , action = "store" , dest = "c" , type = int ) print parser . parse_args () The help options ( -h and --help ) are added by default, but can be disabled by setting add_help to false. import argparse parser = argparse . ArgumentParser ( add_help = False ) parser . add_argument ( '-a' , action = "store_true" , default = False ) parser . add_argument ( '-b' , action = "store" , dest = "b" ) parser . add_argument ( '-c' , action = "store" , dest = "c" , type = int ) print parser . parse_args () Although -h and --help are defacto standard option names for requesting help, some applications or uses of argparse either don’t need to provide help or need to use those option names for other purposes. $ python argparse_with_help.py -h usage: argparse_with_help.py [-h] [-a] [-b B] [-c C] optional arguments: -h, --help show this help message and exit -a -b B -c C $ python argparse_without_help.py -h usage: argparse_without_help.py [-a] [-b B] [-c C] argparse_without_help.py: error: unrecognized arguments: -h The version options ( -v and --version ) are added when version is set in the ArgumentParser constructor. import argparse parser = argparse . ArgumentParser ( version = '1.0' ) parser . add_argument ( '-a' , action = "store_true" , default = False ) parser . add_argument ( '-b' , action = "store" , dest = "b" ) parser . add_argument ( '-c' , action = "store" , dest = "c" , type = int ) print parser . parse_args () print 'This is not printed' Both forms of the option print the program’s version string, then cause it to exit immediately. $ python argparse_with_version.py -h usage: argparse_with_version.py [-h] [-v] [-a] [-b B] [-c C] optional arguments: -h, --help show this help message and exit -v, --version show program's version number and exit -a -b B -c C $ python argparse_with_version.py -v 1.0 $ python argparse_with_version.py --version 1.0
Parser Organization¶ argparse includes several features for organizing your argument parsers, to make implementation easier or to improve the usability of the help output. Sharing Parser Rules¶ It is common to need to implement a suite of command line programs that all take a set of arguments, and then specialize in some way. For example, if the programs all need to authenticate the user before taking any real action, they would all need to support --user and --password options. Rather than add the options explicitly to every ArgumentParser , you can define a “parent” parser with the shared options, and then have the parsers for the individual programs inherit from its options. The first step is to set up the parser with the shared argument definitions. Since each subsequent user of the parent parser is going to try to add the same help options, causing an exception, we turn off automatic help generation in the base parser. import argparse parser = argparse . ArgumentParser ( add_help = False ) parser . add_argument ( '--user' , action = "store" ) parser . add_argument ( '--password' , action = "store" ) Next, create another parser with parents set: import argparse import argparse_parent_base parser = argparse . ArgumentParser ( parents = [ argparse_parent_base . parser ]) parser . add_argument ( '--local-arg' , action = "store_true" , default = False ) print parser . parse_args () And the resulting program takes all three options: $ python argparse_uses_parent.py -h usage: argparse_uses_parent.py [-h] [--user USER] [--password PASSWORD] [--local-arg] optional arguments: -h, --help show this help message and exit --user USER --password PASSWORD --local-arg Conflicting Options¶ The previous example pointed out that adding two argument handlers to a parser using the same argument name causes an exception. Change the conflict resolution behavior by passing a conflict_handler. The two built-in handlers are error (the default), and resolve , which picks a handler based on the order they are added. import argparse parser = argparse . ArgumentParser ( conflict_handler = 'resolve' ) parser . add_argument ( '-a' , action = "store" ) parser . add_argument ( '-b' , action = "store" , help = 'Short alone' ) parser . add_argument ( '--long-b' , '-b' , action = "store" , help = 'Long and short together' ) print parser . parse_args ([ '-h' ]) Since the last handler with a given argument name is used, in this example the stand-alone option -b is masked by the alias for --long-b . $ python argparse_conflict_handler_resolve.py usage: argparse_conflict_handler_resolve.py [-h] [-a A] [--long-b LONG_B] optional arguments: -h, --help show this help message and exit -a A --long-b LONG_B, -b LONG_B Long and short together Switching the order of the calls to add_argument() unmasks the stand-alone option: import argparse parser = argparse . ArgumentParser ( conflict_handler = 'resolve' ) parser . add_argument ( '-a' , action = "store" ) parser . add_argument ( '--long-b' , '-b' , action = "store" , help = 'Long and short together' ) parser . add_argument ( '-b' , action = "store" , help = 'Short alone' ) print parser . parse_args ([ '-h' ]) Now both options can be used together. $ python argparse_conflict_handler_resolve2.py usage: argparse_conflict_handler_resolve2.py [-h] [-a A] [--long-b LONG_B] [-b B] optional arguments: -h, --help show this help message and exit -a A --long-b LONG_B Long and short together -b B Short alone Argument Groups¶ argparse combines the argument definitions into “groups.” By default, it uses two groups, with one for options and another for required position-based arguments. import argparse parser = argparse . ArgumentParser ( description = 'Short sample app' ) parser . add_argument ( '--optional' , action = "store_true" , default = False ) parser . add_argument ( 'positional' , action = "store" ) print parser . parse_args () The grouping is reflected in the separate “positional arguments” and “optional arguments” section of the help output: $ python argparse_default_grouping.py -h usage: argparse_default_grouping.py [-h] [--optional] positional Short sample app positional arguments: positional optional arguments: -h, --help show this help message and exit --optional You can adjust the grouping to make it more logical in the help, so that related options or values are documented together. The shared-option example from earlier could be written using custom grouping so that the authentication options are shown together in the help. Create the “authentication” group with add_argument_group() and then add each of the authentication-related options to the group, instead of the base parser. import argparse parser = argparse . ArgumentParser ( add_help = False ) group = parser . add_argument_group ( 'authentication' ) group . add_argument ( '--user' , action = "store" ) group . add_argument ( '--password' , action = "store" ) The program using the group-based parent lists it in the parents value, just as before. import argparse import argparse_parent_with_group parser = argparse . ArgumentParser ( parents = [ argparse_parent_with_group . parser ]) parser . add_argument ( '--local-arg' , action = "store_true" , default = False ) print parser . parse_args () The help output now shows the authentication options together. $ python argparse_uses_parent_with_group.py -h usage: argparse_uses_parent_with_group.py [-h] [--user USER] [--password PASSWORD] [--local-arg] optional arguments: -h, --help show this help message and exit --local-arg authentication: --user USER --password PASSWORD Mutually Exclusive Options¶ Defining mutually exclusive options is a special case of the option grouping feature, and uses add_mutually_exclusive_group() instead of add_argument_group() . import argparse parser = argparse . ArgumentParser () group = parser . add_mutually_exclusive_group () group . add_argument ( '-a' , action = 'store_true' ) group . add_argument ( '-b' , action = 'store_true' ) print parser . parse_args () argparse enforces the mutal exclusivity for you, so that only one of the options from the group can be given. $ python argparse_mutually_exclusive.py -h usage: argparse_mutually_exclusive.py [-h] [-a | -b] optional arguments: -h, --help show this help message and exit -a -b $ python argparse_mutually_exclusive.py -a Namespace(a=True, b=False) $ python argparse_mutually_exclusive.py -b Namespace(a=False, b=True) $ python argparse_mutually_exclusive.py -a -b usage: argparse_mutually_exclusive.py [-h] [-a | -b] argparse_mutually_exclusive.py: error: argument -b: not allowed with argument -a Nesting Parsers¶ The parent parser approach described above is one way to share options between related commands. An alternate approach is to combine the commands into a single program, and use subparsers to handle each portion of the command line. The result works in the way svn , hg , and other programs with multiple command line actions, or sub-commands, does. A program to work with directories on the filesystem might define commands for creating, deleting, and listing the contents of a directory like this: import argparse parser = argparse . ArgumentParser () subparsers = parser . add_subparsers ( help = 'commands' ) # A list command list_parser = subparsers . add_parser ( 'list' , help = 'List contents' ) list_parser . add_argument ( 'dirname' , action = 'store' , help = 'Directory to list' ) # A create command create_parser = subparsers . add_parser ( 'create' , help = 'Create a directory' ) create_parser . add_argument ( 'dirname' , action = 'store' , help = 'New directory to create' ) create_parser . add_argument ( '--read-only' , default = False , action = 'store_true' , help = 'Set permissions to prevent writing to the directory' , ) # A delete command delete_parser = subparsers . add_parser ( 'delete' , help = 'Remove a directory' ) delete_parser . add_argument ( 'dirname' , action = 'store' , help = 'The directory to remove' ) delete_parser . add_argument ( '--recursive' , '-r' , default = False , action = 'store_true' , help = 'Remove the contents of the directory, too' , ) print parser . parse_args () The help output shows the named subparsers as “commands” that can be specified on the command line as positional arguments. $ python argparse_subparsers.py -h usage: argparse_subparsers.py [-h] {list,create,delete} ... positional arguments: {list,create,delete} commands list List contents create Create a directory delete Remove a directory optional arguments: -h, --help show this help message and exit Each subparser also has its own help, describing the arguments and options for that command. $ python argparse_subparsers.py create -h usage: argparse_subparsers.py create [-h] [--read-only] dirname positional arguments: dirname New directory to create optional arguments: -h, --help show this help message and exit --read-only Set permissions to prevent writing to the directory And when the arguments are parsed, the Namespace object returned by parse_args() includes only the values related to the command specified. $ python argparse_subparsers.py delete -r foo Namespace(dirname='foo', recursive=True) |
Violence against foreign nationals has once more unfurled itself on South African front pages. Make no mistake; much of South Africa is outraged. We are after all, a morally decent people. At least, we hope so. But in the outpouring of condemnation and the expressions of shame, there is also an undercurrent of bigotry, even racism, at play writes KHADIJA PATEL.
There is a sense that xenophobia is the sole preserve of black South Africans living in townships. There is a sense that the savage is no longer repressed and the doomsday long foretold by sceptics of majority rule has arrived.
So let’s be clear: xenophobia is not just something other people do. This deep-rooted, irrational hatred towards foreigners, as the dictionary defines it, permeates South African society.
In late 2006, the South African Migration Projection undertook a national survey of the attitudes of the South African population towards foreign nationals in the country. Among other findings, the survey found that South Africans do not want it to be easier for foreign nationals to trade informally with South Africa (59% opposed), to start small businesses in South Africa (61% opposed), or to obtain South African citizenship (68% opposed).
The survey also found xenophobic attitudes to be stronger among white people than black people, and stronger among the poor, working class and wealthy than the middle class.
The violence of 2008 showed us how dangerous these convictions are when left to fester, but the hatred is more prevalent than we admit. Perhaps what we need to acknowledge, more than anything else, is that this hatred of the foreigner is simply more combustible in certain spaces for various reasons.
For instance, in the relatively middle-class suburb of Mayfair, in Johannesburg, which is home to an eclectic mix of foreigners from across the African content and beyond, xenophobia exists. Here the complaint is about “these Somalis taking over”. Even in the upmarket suburb of Houghton where an address is like a status symbol, xenophobia exists. Here foreigners are regarded as the number one suspect when anything goes wrong.
But what about those who persecute and mistreat foreigns on their farms, in their hotels, or in mines and homes across the country? Is this not a form of exploitation – or indeed, xenophobia?
We know too well that violence against foreign nationals is not new. The fact that this particular brand of violence has not been defeated is an indictment on us all.
Unreasonable fear and hatred of a particular type of foreigner is prevalent in this country. It’s often a few lines in the back pages of regional newspapers; it’s in the queues of people at the Refugee Reception Centre; it’s there in the streets many of us never have to walk, because it is removed from our daily reality.
In January, when xenophobic violence in Soweto broke out like the chorus of a song we all know the words to, forcing migrants to leave Soweto, the government insisted it was not a special brand of hatred motivating these crimes, just a regular brand of criminality.
Whatever the government chooses to call it, incidents of violence against foreigners in South Africa have been on the increase in recent months.
In February, the South African Human Rights Council said it had “been aware of the simmering tensions between locals and foreigners for sometime from the number of complaints we have received and dealt with”.
And yet, even as foreigners returned to Soweto and looters returned to patronise their stores, little has been done to prevent seeing a replay of January’s scenes in Soweto or elsewhere.
Just three months later, we’ve seen the streets of Durban contort with violence as formations of South Africans seek to rid the city of foreign nationals and we’ve seen panic and confusion send thousands of foreign nationals fleeing from their homes and businesses in Johannesburg. We’ve watched a Mozambican national stabbed to death. It’s all a slow-motion replay of an ugliness we would sooner wish away.
We need, however, to break away from the chorus of condemnation that assumes it is only a mad fringe among us that is culpable of violence against another people. We need to remember that a great many people in this country are jobless, and that this too is also kind of violence. The fact that a great many people in this country live on a pittance is a another kind of violence, a violence we exert over each other. It is a violence that has become so normal we fail to see it as a destructive force. And then when this violence escalates into another kind of violence we are shocked by its intensity, confused about what it all must means.
There is a structural violence that plays out every day in South Africa that is unacknowledged. But it is also not unique to South Africa.
A group of anti-government protesters in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, attacked and looted about 50 Chinese-owned shops in January. According to one media report, some stores displayed a sign reading “Ya bino moko” – “It belongs to you, too” – in a bid to discourage the rioting demonstrators who shattered windows, broke down doors and picked shelves clean in shops owned by Chinese nationals.
Just three months later, and hundreds of Congolese nationals are victims of similar violence in Durban.
Let us be clear. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, that can condone, or explain away, the murder and persecution of foreign nationals in South Africa, or elsewhere. It is wrong. It is evil. And we should be fighting against it. But it’s not just some other people’s problem. It is our problem. Now let’s fix it.
– Featured image by Qiniso Mbili. |
Bitcoin Community These 27 Companies Support Bitcoin Unlimited, 44 Oppose
While Bitcoin Unlimited is gaining traction among miners, only a handful of Bitcoin companies are in favor of its bigger block and Emergent Consensus proposal.
Breakdown by Company
The scaling debate in which two predominant Bitcoin improvement proposals, SegWit and Bitcoin Unlimited, are competing for miners’ support is becoming more and more intense.
As the debate escalates, supporters from both sides are now threatening to push for user activated forks (both soft and hard). While Bitcoin Unlimited is considered the most popular proposal in terms of hashing power, a look at the companies that support it or SegWit reveals the exact opposite.
As of this writing, out of the companies listed in Coin Dance, 66 support SegWit and 58 are ready for it. Only 8 companies oppose SegWit.
On the BU side, there are 27 in favor, with 9 companies ready for it. This means that 70% of companies actively support SegWit, compared to 20% for BU. The other 10% are undecided or “unknown”. The companies that support BU include:
AntPool
Atlanta Bitcoin
BitAddress.org
Bitcoin.com (Saint Bitts LLC)
BitcoinPlug
Bitmain
BTCPOP
Canoe
Coinucopia
GoUrl.io
Bitcoin WordPress/PHP Gateway
Keys4Coins
MrCoin
Slon BTM
Bitfire.io
Bittoku GK
btc.top
GBMiners
Keyois
Prohashing
Satoricoin
ViaBTC
Bitzillions
Magnr
Bitaps.com
CTY Bitcoin Vietnam TNHH
OKCoin
Trezor (Ready)
Electrum (Ready)
Bitcoin Wallet for Android (Ready)
Bifinex (Ready)
Breadwallet (Ready)
Gemini (Ready)
Lamassu (Ready)
Rocketr (Ready)
It should be noted that even among the 9 companies that are ready for BU, two also support SegWit (Electrum and Trezor) and 5 are ready for SegWit (including Bitfinex and Gemini).
It’s also worth noting that some of the companies that are against Bitcoin Unlimited are not even supporting SegWit. They are simply opposed to BU’s Emergent Consensus.
Meanwhile, 4 of the 8 companies that oppose SegWit and signaling for BU are mining pools.
Who Supports What?
We can see that some predominant exchanges like Poloniex, LocalBitcoins, CoinCheck and others are ready for SegWit, while other names like BTCC, Xapo and Bitso support it.
On the BU side, in addition to Bitcoin.com, Magnr, BitAddress.org, and several BTM providers, the biggest names by far are mining pools such as Bitmain’s Antpool, ViaBTC and GBMiners. However, the independence of these mining pools has recently come under question by the community.
Chinese pool @ViaBTC to launch its overseas #Bitcoin exchange in the second half of 2017, and raised ￥20 million (Round A), led by Bitmain pic.twitter.com/1XCy857SAH — cnLedger (@cnLedger) April 5, 2017
At the same time, the only major exchanges that support BU also support SegWit, including OKCoin, Bitfinex (ready) and Gemini (ready).
The companies that actively oppose SegWit include 4 mining pools and 4 other small companies that don’t have much bearing in the Bitcoin ecosystem. Conversely, among the companies that oppose BU actively, we find names like BitGo, Vaultoro, Bitsquare, and GreenAddress.
Among the undecided, we still have names like Bitstamp, Bittrex, Bitmex, Kraken, and others.
Bitcoin Businesses Generally Against BU, Hard Fork
The general animosity towards Bitcoin Unlimited can also be observed in the industry letters that have been signed so far. For example, a list of nearly 20 exchanges has signed a hard fork contingency plan in which the BU token would be listed as BTU or XBU.
Canada’s Bitcoin ecosystem has also produced an industry letter in which a large number of economic nodes operators signaled their rejection for BU and proposed industry guidelines for hard forks.
Moreover, the data is also reflected (despite varying statistics depending on the source) by the share of Bitcoin Core (84-91%) nodes among total network nodes compared to Bitcoin Unlimited’s (2-9%).
The conclusion that can be drawn from this data is that despite the growing popularity of Bitcoin Unlimited among mining pools, Bitcoin companies, as well as user nodes, are largely opposed to the Bitcoin Unlimited proposal.
Would you boycott a company based on their support or lack thereof? Let us know in the comment below!
Images courtesy of Coin.dance, Shutterstock, nodecounter.com |
Sega encourages fans to keep making Sonic content, takes shot at Nintendo
Looks like Sega does what Nintendon’t. At least in the case of fan-made games using their IPs.
These past few months, we’ve had the release of fan games such as the Metroid II remake AM2R, No Mario’s Sky, and most recently a Sonic game by the name of Green Hill Paradise Act 2. To put it briefly: it acts as a 3D version of the classic Green Hill Zone, but with open-world elements. Check out the trailer below for more details.
The first two games previously mentioned, AM2R and No Mario’s Sky, were unfortunately forced by Nintendo to be taken down for using their IPs. For Green Hill Paradise Act 2, however, Sega had a different approach. The game was being played on the famous Let’s Play channel The Game Grumps, and the Sonic the Hedgehog YouTube page had one thing to say:
Talk about being a good sport. While a huge company such as Nintendo acts like Disney when it comes to protecting their IPs, some would argue that the way they handle it is a little too far-fetched. These fan developers aren’t making any money off the property and are instead devoting their time and effort to make something that represents their love for Nintendo. AM2R for example took NINE years to make! With that in mind, it is fantastic to see Sega supporting their fans to make great content.
I didn’t think I would be saying this, but it looks like Nintendo could learn a thing or two from Sega.
Source: Kotaku |
The Orlando Pride were literally two minutes from clinching a playoff spot, but Seattle Reign's Jess Fishlock had other plans.
(Photo by Victor Tan / New Day Review)
Match Recap
ORLANDO, Fla. – The scene was set.
Alex Morgan was poised to send the Orlando Pride to their first-ever playoff appearance with a stoppage-time goal against the Seattle Reign. But Jess Fishlock had other plans, scoring an equalizer no more than one minute later in a 1-1 draw at Orlando City Stadium in front of 4,341 people Thursday night.
“Yeah, when I scored, I felt like that was the game-winner that we needed to hold on for probably one minute,” Morgan said after the draw. “And I heard [head coach Tom Sermanni] and [assistant coach Khano Smith] kinda yelling over at me after the celebration to get organized and get prepared. And I feel like once I got on the other side of the half-line, they were already down in the final third, and it didn’t take more than 30 seconds before they converted, so I feel like we just switched off for a second.
“You know, it’s not that the crosses, by any means, were extremely dangerous. I feel like we could have definitely handled them. I think we just switched off for a second, but, you know, we could have definitely been, you know, in the playoffs for sure at this point, but we’re not in a bad position by any means.”
One errant headed pass by Seattle landed at the feet of Pride midfielder Dani Weatherholt, who hopped the ball to Morgan down the middle-left flank. Morgan then drove into the Reign’s box and took a left-footed strike to the far post, past a rooted Lydia Williams for the supposed game-winner.
In the 94th minute, second-half substitute Nahomi Kawasumi crossed the ball to Fishlock for a headed goal, beating Pride center-backs Monica Hickmann Alves and Ali Krieger for the equalizer.
“I mean, we were really organized in the back. We were very, you know, tight in the box,” Krieger said after the match. “Obviously, players score goals, spaces don’t. So you have to make sure that, you know, you’re tight on players, especially players running through the midfield. And you can’t just let players run through. So we have to continue to work on that. And, obviously, when you’re in the box, you have to make sure you’re grabbing onto players.”
Both sides remained scoreless until stoppage time in the second half, but there were plenty of chances during regulation. Two of the Pride’s greatest chances came from rookie Rachel Hill, who scored a 16-mnute brace against the Boston Breakers on Sept. 2. In the seventh minute, Morgan headed a ball that led Hill down the middle-right flank. Hill steadily worked into the box and unloaded a shot that was deflected.
In the 47th minute, Hill’s number was called again. After Camila Martins Pereira staved off a couple of Seattle defenders, she turned toward the six-yard box and crossed it to Hill on the back post. Hill met the ball with her head, and the ball met the crossbar for a goal kick.
Hill continued her goal-scoring effort in the 66th and 68th minutes with near-goal efforts before being replaced by Jasmyne Spencer in the 74th minute.
“I definitely thought [Hill] had at least one tonight, especially the header,” Morgan said of her fellow forward. “I thought that was for sure in. It went off the…crossbar, unfortunately. But she’s been playing really well. She’s been taking on players. I feel like her game has definitely escalated the more that she’s gotten playing time, and she’s fun to play with, and so I think she’s just going to continue to grow the more playing time she gets.”
Seattle had its share of chances, too, putting the only ball in the back of either net during regulation. Megan Rapinoe worked the ball down the left flank and crossed it to a cutting Fishlock, who slid a shot in that ricocheted off Pride goalkeeper Ashlyn Harris and into the net. One of Seattle’s 10 offside calls negated the score to keep the game level in the 59th minute.
Woman of the Match: Alex Morgan
Morgan finished the match with just one shot (one on goal), but she made it count, giving the Pride the late lead. She also created four chances, second only to teammate Marta Vieira da Silva, who had a match-high six created chances. Morgan finished the game completing 70.8 percent of her 24 passes, drawing one foul and recording one tackle in her 90 minutes of play.
What’s next?
The Pride will host the Portland Thorns on Sept. 23 at 3:30 p.m. for their second-to-last regular-season game, their last home game.
Highlights
20′ “Beautiful communication between Marta and Alex Morgan,” but it’s deflected wide. #ORLvSEA 0-0 pic.twitter.com/UTDN7iSfqz — NWSL (@NWSL) September 8, 2017
26′ @mPinoe fires from distance, but @Ashlyn_Harris is there for the save and the Pride defend the rebound. Still 0-0 in Orlando. #ORLvSEA pic.twitter.com/q6gSpH5NBV — NWSL (@NWSL) September 8, 2017
54′ | Chi going on an adventurous run and almost sneaks one near post! 0-0 | #ORLvSEA pic.twitter.com/qclAJmVYEd — Orlando Pride (@ORLPride) September 8, 2017
55′ Marta with a backwards pass to Ubogagu for the shot, but it’s saved by @lydsaussie. #ORLvSEA pic.twitter.com/vZIU9VBlax — NWSL (@NWSL) September 8, 2017
61′ | Everybody in the house thought that was going in… WOW. 0-0 | #ORLvSEA pic.twitter.com/aLdxaR9K1a — Orlando Pride (@ORLPride) September 8, 2017
90-4′ And @JessFishlock‘s answer via a header to tie the score in stoppage time! #ORLvSEA 1-1 pic.twitter.com/7iOxyGIxuz — NWSL (@NWSL) September 8, 2017
NDR Notes
Morgan scored her ninth goal of the season in the draw.
The Pride’s five-game winning streak came to a stop with the draw Thursday night.
Orlando is still riding a seven-game unbeaten streak, dating back to Aug. 5’s 1-1 draw with the Chicago Red Stars.
Weatherholt recorded her first career assist on the late goal by Morgan.
Scoring
Time Team Goal-scorer Assisted by 92’ Orlando Pride Alex Morgan Dani Weatherholt 94’ Seattle Reign Jess Fishlock Nahomi Kawasumi
Statistics and Starting Lineups
Goals Assists Shots Shots on Goal Possession % Orlando Pride 1 1 20 5 51.4% Seattle Reign 1 1 10 3 48.6%
Orlando Pride starting XI (4-3-3): Ashlyn Harris (GK/C); Steph Catley, Ali Krieger, Monica Hickmann Alves, Camila Martins Pereira; Alanna Kennedy, Marta Vieira da Silva, Dani Weatherholt; Chioma Ubogagu, Alex Morgan, Rachel Hill
Seattle Reign starting XI (4-2-3-1): Lydia Williams (GK); Carson Pickett, Lauren Barnes (C), Rachel Corsie, Rebekah Stott; Christine Nairn, Rumi Utsugi; Megan Rapinoe, Jessica Fishlock, Beverly Yanez; Meritt Mathias
For more on the Pride, follow Victor Tan on Twitter at @NDR_VictorTan. |
From the backyard, one can look through a pair of trees to the Trondheimsfjord below. The water is glistening in a golden sunset. It's a cool, late-summer evening in the small Norwegian city of Stjørdal, roughly 30 kilometers east of Trondheim. Lights flicker on inside the beautiful, single-family units of this housing development in Geving; mosquitoes circle gardens in search of an evening meal. Rune Vist leans against his balcony railing, sipping on a bottle of beer, and hollers down toward the fjord.
"Living here is better for the family," he says. "It's a beautiful place for children. It's also more peaceful and relaxed - higher quality of life."
The 41-year-old financial broker works at a large Norwegian bank in Trondheim. Every morning he takes the bus into the city, returning home at about 4 p.m. to his family.
Norway builds
After living in the capital city of Oslo for ten years, Vist, his wife, Nina, and his two young daughters only recently moved into their new home. It's a pre-fabricated home from a catalog: bright, modern, large glass windows, spaciously partitioned inside with high ceilings. The living space is 250 square meters (2,690 square feet) spread over three floors - a lot of space - and the price tag shows it.
Geving - A neighborhood in Norway - modern and expensive
Vist's wife, Nina, steps outside. She needs help with her daughter's tablet computer. "We paid six million krones for our house," she says. That's around 750,000 euros ($988,000). Real estate prices in a small, Norwegian city can easily keep up with those in a major German city. Still, towns like Stjørdal, are being developed everywhere in Norway.
"The immigration of skilled labor to Norway is currently very high," says Rune. "There's too little property. That's why it's worth it at the moment to buy houses in order to rent them out."
Most Norwegians, however, prefer to invest in their own homes. Like the Vists and their neighbors, a young couple with two children who have just bought their second home in a short period of time. In Norway, even young families receive easy credit - or at least, with a little money in the bank and a job contract. And work is something that just about every Norwegian has. National unemployment stands at just over three percent; in Stjørdal it's even lower. The two neighbors, Atle and Lina Eikedal, are both employed. She's a stewardess, and he, a manager at the Trondheim airport. After a little work in the backyard, they load a lawnmower into a trailer together with Atle's father, Stig. Behind the new house the grass has to be mowed for the first time. All three salute each other happily.
Lamentations on high
Easily-financed homes, hardly a sign of unemployment anywhere, and any time there's a survey about the quality of life in Europe, Norway is high on the list. Do Norwegians have any problems at all?
"Our streets are poor - our train system, too," says Stig Eikedal. Beggars, he adds, should disappear from the streets. "And besides, a higher percentage of the oil funds should flow into our social welfare system. There's enough money there. Why not invest it here in our own country?"
Much of Norway's wealth comes from oil and gas in the North Sea
Potholes, a handful of illegal immigrants from eastern Europe, begging, and a bit of disunity over how much money should be diverted into the social welfare system? That's it? Other countries would be glad if that was the extend of their problems.
Still, in Norway these are central issues that could sway the outcome of Monday's parliamentary election (09.09.2013). Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg of the social-democratic Labor Party has a reputation for not being assertive enough. On the one hand, he received praise after the Utøya massacre for his prudent upholding of Norway's open-minded society; on the other, in the eyes of many, he hasn't lived up to expectations regarding the development of the country's infrastructure and the social system.
Many Norwegians would like to see a strengthening of the latter by tapping into revenues generated by the national oil fund, fueled by gas and oil fields off the Norwegian coast. It's a topic that Rune Vist, too, is familiar with.
Heaps of money
Rune Vist wonders what Norway should do with all its money
"Norway's national oil fund is split in two: A smaller part is being invested in the country, providing funds for public retirement and social security systems. The other larger part is being used exclusively for investments abroad," Vist explains. During the time he worked in Oslo, he had been advising large companies on their international investments; among them, the national oil fund, oftentimes involving considerable amounts of money: "The Oil Fund holds between one and two percent of all European stocks," Vist says. "That makes Norway globally the largest public investor." Currently, the fund is said to be worth around 560 billion euros ($738 billion) - a nice bit of change for a country of 4.9 million - should it ever be needed.
And it's a fortune that keeps growing - after all, it's being reinvested prudently: "The investment key currently lies at 60 percent in stocks, 35 percent in loans and five percent in property," Vist says. "Recently, the Oil Fund has made large scale property investments in London, Switzerland and the US. In London, a section of Regent Street - a big shopping street - was purchased; in Switzerland it was the company headquarters of Credit Suisse in Basel, and in the US a number of shopping malls and the like."
Rune Vist calls these "sensible investments" - and follows suit: After all, he has just made a costly property purchase himself - in a quiet, peaceful future by the fjord. |
About one per cent of Canadians account for a third of health-care costs, and there are striking differences by age group, say researchers who hope the findings will help doctors to meet patient needs.
Their findings, published Monday in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, were based on almost 15 million people in Ontario who were eligible for health-care funding between 2009 and 2011.
The study revealed how health-care spending is concentrated among high-cost users in different age groups and with different illnesses. Researchers did not undertake the study as a cost-saving exercise but to help plan policies to better meet patient needs, said study author Dr. David Henry of the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto.
"We need to better predict who's going to become a high-cost user," Henry said. "We need to be much better at doing that for their sake and for society's sake."
For Henry, the breakdowns by age group were revealing.
Among children and teens, nearly 40 per cent of total spending was focused on the top one per cent of users, who cost about $8,000 per person annually. The reasons included low-birth weight and prematurity that require neonatal intensive care, lengthy treatment for depression for some teens, and chemotherapy for cancer.
For those aged 18 to 64, chronic diseases such as atherosclerosis or hardening of the arteries, congestive heart failure with heart damage, and the requirement for palliative care, cost about $22,000 per person a year. Those in the top one per cent accounted for 36 per cent of total spending.
For those over 65, the top one per cent accounted for 16 per cent of total expenditures, about $83,000 per person annually. The reasons included congestive heart failure, chronic lung disease, hip fractures and pneumonia.
Better transitions
Costs were less concentrated among those in the oldest age group, said Henry, who is also a researcher at the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES).
"The majority of over 65s don't cost the health-care system very much. As long as we keep ourselves in good health and many people try very hard to do that, then it will work."
Henry said if medical and social interventions are focused on those at risk of becoming sick with chronic disease then it's hoped they'll stay out of hospital and long-term care while maintaining quality of life with reasonable symptom control.
The findings highlight how little health care the average person uses, said Dr. Rick Glazier, a family physician at St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto and ICES scientist who was not involved in the study.
For Glazier, the research points to how fragmented the health-care system remains. It's a frustration that comes to the fore during transitions in care, such as when someone is discharged from hospital and doesn't bring the discharge summary to their next appointment.
"A lot of time and effort is just starting now to go into figure out how to manage those transitions better," Glazier said. "For the public, it's an area of our health system that isn't functioning all that well, but there's a real hope for."
The Ontario government spent $42 billion on health care in 2009. About 75 per cent of the funds were for individuals and the rest on public health, community service agencies and administration.
Previous Canadian data has shown that spending has been concentrated on high-cost users for decades. |
I eventually got around to wiring up this larch yesterday. This is it before work.
This tree has fantastic old bark, as good as I’ve seen on a larch. It originated in Scotland and I’ve had it in my collection for many years. It’s not a WOW! tree by any means but I do like the formal image that can be produced from it. It got a year of little or no pruning to allow me to have some extra length to the branches that I could play with to increase the amount of different levels I could create.
In the 18 years that I’ve been playing with bonsai I have been using aluminium wire. This year I’ve gathered up enough copper to give it a go on my conifers. Yesterdays wiring saw me using only copper wire.
The final image saw me adjust the front slightly to the right.
For scale, I added myself to the image.
Side by side
Back in 2002
The bark
2003
Spring 2012
Other images here |
First Lady Melania Trump has settled her libel lawsuit against a Maryland blogger who wrote about rumors that Melania Trump had been a “high-end escort” and that she had “a mental breakdown” during the presidential campaign. As part of the settlement, the blogger, Wester Griffin Tarpley, has issued a written statement and will, according to a statement from Trump’s lawyer, “pay a substantial sum as a settlement.”
Tarpley’s retraction reads:
I posted an article on August 2, 2016 about Melania Trump that was replete with false and defamatory statements about her. I had no legitimate factual basis to make these false statements and I fully retract them. I acknowledge that these false statements were very harmful and hurtful to Mrs. Trump and her family, and therefore I sincerely apologize to Mrs. Trump, her son, her husband and her parents for making these false statements.
The first lady’s lawsuit against the Daily Mail -- which published Tarpley’s post -- was dismissed in Maryland last week. The Daily Mail had argued that Maryland wasn’t the appropriate venue for the lawsuit, and Trump refiled it in New York on Monday.
Melania Trump's approach as first lady
At the heart of Trump’s argument is the claim that she lost out on earnings she could have generated while first lady, because the Daily Mail published the false allegation that she once worked as an escort. Her lawyers’ brief alleges that as a result of the statements about her, Melania Trump’s brand “has lost significant value, and major business opportunities that were otherwise available to her have been lost and/or substantially impacted.”
In the lawsuit that was refiled in New York, Trump’s lawyers argue that she “had the unique, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” presumably as first lady, “to launch a broad-based commercial brand in multiple product categories, each of which could have garnered multi-million dollar business relationships for a multi-year term during which Plaintiff (Trump) is one of the most photographed women in the world.”
Trump’s lawyers also wrote in their brief, “These product categories would have included, among other things, apparel, accessories, shoes, jewelry, cosmetics, hair care, skin care and fragrance.”
This raises unprecedented ethics concerns, although the argument she’s making largely stems from the very high bar set for a libel plaintiff who happens to be an all-purpose public figure. Her lawyer is trying to prove she suffered commercial and economic injury. She is seeking $150 million in this lawsuit, and her lawyer needs to make a case that rises to that injury claim -- which is why her lost business profits are a part of the brief submitted to the court.
Outside of the context of the litigation, however, the claim raises real ethical questions about profiting from being first lady. This is an unprecedented claim – alleging that a first lady expected to make millions for her brand as the most photographed woman in the world.
Her legal argument could be problematic for her husband and for White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus. Richard Painter, former Bush White House Chief Ethics lawyer, pointed out that the first lady is not a public official and not a federal employee, but her husband and Priebus are responsible for ensuring that the White House is not exploited for private gain.
If it were to be exploited by the first lady, Painter says, it would be a violation of the standards and conduct for federal employees. For example, the president and chief of staff cannot let the White House building to be used for private gain -- including photographs of the White House or photographs of the first lady at official White House events.
In any case, it is clear that Melania Trump has taken these accusations personally, given that she took the time to appear at a small courthouse to attend a procedural hearing and make the point that she felt heavily invested in this case. Trump has the resources to fight this case, so she is likely to continue to do so even if it threatens to pose an ethical dilemma.
CBS News’ Laura Strickler contributed to this report. |
Twin investigations are probing an incident at the Naval Special Warfare training complex in Coronado that left one Navy SEAL candidate in a coma.
Authorities this week said that Naval Criminal Investigative Service agents and members of the Naval Special Warfare Center in Coronado are reviewing an Oct. 12 mishap that occurred during a study session for the land navigation course of the Basic Under Water Demolition/SEAL training program, or BUD/S.
As an incentive to correctly answer questions, two sailors allegedly agreed to slap whichever one got a response wrong. BUD/S candidates typically challenge each other to perform acts of physical exertion, such as push ups, because striking another student is forbidden.
One of the candidates reportedly reeled from a slap and fell to the floor, striking his head. He was rushed to Naval Medical Center San Diego where surgeons placed him in a medically-induced coma to help heal what SEAL spokesman Lt. Trevor Davids said was an unintentional injury.
“The staff on site immediately rendered medical attention and quickly transported the injured student to the hospital,” Davids said in a written statement. “He is currently in good condition and recovering; we continue to provide all the necessary support to our student and his family.
“Naval Special Warfare Center takes any injury during training extremely seriously and in response is conducting a thorough investigation into this matter. (The center) trains elite maritime special operators in a professional and dignified training environment. Actions which fall short of this high standard are not tolerated.”
The center declined to name either the BUD/S students or the SEAL instructor who was in the classroom during the incident.
The Center’s probe began immediately after the incident. NCIS spokesman Ed Buice said that his agency started the following morning.
“There's no timetable for completion; each case is unique and moves at its own pace,” Buice said by email. “NCIS is a fact-finding entity; it will be up to the convening authority to determine whether charges should be filed.”
Land navigation instruction usually takes place in the third phase of the six-month BUD/S training program in the Laguna Mountains east of San Diego. Candidates learn how to read maps, plot coordinates and traverse many types of terrain. Students often study training materials before the course begins.
The SEALs began probing the incident on the very day the Navy announced it finally closed the case of the 2016 drowning death of SEAL candidate James Derek Lovelace.
The 15-month probe ended after investigators for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in San Diego decided to forgo prosecution of the unnamed SEAL instructors who were present during his death.
Lovelace died on May 6, 2016, during the combat swimmer orientation, a test that takes place in the first week of BUD/S to assess a student’s swimming abilities.
Candidates tread water and perform ocean survival skills, including removal of a swim mask, uniform and boots.
The San Diego County medical examiner ruled the 21-year-old sailor’s death a homicide, saying in an autopsy report that the “actions, or inactions, of the instructors and other individuals involved were excessive and directly contributed to the death.”
One unidentified SEAL instructor repeatedly dunked Lovelace during the test, but the Florida sailor’s death was exacerbated by an anomalous coronary artery, a heart condition that might have triggered sudden cardiac death during the intensive exercise.
Navy leaders long contended that the medical examiner’s homicide ruling meant only that Lovelace died “at the hands of another” and did not necessarily suggest a crime occurred, a perspective shared by multiple military commanders all the way to the Pentagon and then civilian federal prosecutors last month.
Even without judicial action against Lovelace’s instructors, however, the SEALs instituted what they said were wide-ranging reforms designed to make training safer at the Coronado complex.
Naval Special Warfare Basic Training Command temporarilty halted the entire BUD/S program after the drowning to review and reinforce protocols for pre-training briefs, emergency action and in-water instruction procedures, Navy officials said.
It’s unclear whether those reforms should have prevented the Oct. 12 slapping incident, pending the investigations.
Even if NCIS agents rule the latest mishap an accident and commanders decline court-martial prosecution or non-judicial punishment proceedings, the Navy has in its arsenal other means of addressing possible wrongdoing uncovered by investigators.
Naval Special Warfare can convene an administrative board to strip the instructor of his coveted SEAL trident. Commanders also can issue formal or informal reprimands or counseling statements to the sailors involved in the mishap, stalling a sailor’s promotion to higher rank.
CAPTION Retired school teacher Tom Rice of Coronado did a tandem jump in France as part of the annual D-Day remembrance. Retired school teacher Tom Rice of Coronado did a tandem jump in France as part of the annual D-Day remembrance. CAPTION Retired school teacher Tom Rice of Coronado did a tandem jump in France as part of the annual D-Day remembrance. Retired school teacher Tom Rice of Coronado did a tandem jump in France as part of the annual D-Day remembrance. CAPTION Vietnam War veterans use Memorial Day weekend to read out loud the names of San Diegans killed in the Vietnam War and still missing. Vietnam War veterans use Memorial Day weekend to read out loud the names of San Diegans killed in the Vietnam War and still missing. CAPTION The restored B-17 Flying Fortress was a tough act for anyone to follow but Donald Foulks was up to the task. As a 22-year-old bombardier, he was imprisoned in Nazi Germany's infamous Stalag Luft III, site of "The Great Escape." The restored B-17 Flying Fortress was a tough act for anyone to follow but Donald Foulks was up to the task. As a 22-year-old bombardier, he was imprisoned in Nazi Germany's infamous Stalag Luft III, site of "The Great Escape." CAPTION The littoral combat ship Omaha arrived in San Diego on Friday and will be commissioned on Feb. 3. The littoral combat ship Omaha arrived in San Diego on Friday and will be commissioned on Feb. 3. CAPTION The U.S. Navy filing military criminal charges on Tuesday (January 16) against the former commanding officers of two U.S. warships, after collisions in Asia last year left 17 sailors dead. In June, the guided missile destroyer USS Fitzgerald crashed into a Philippines container ship. In August, the USS John S. McCain collided with a tanker near Singapore, leaving a huge hole in the side of that destroyer The U.S. Navy filing military criminal charges on Tuesday (January 16) against the former commanding officers of two U.S. warships, after collisions in Asia last year left 17 sailors dead. In June, the guided missile destroyer USS Fitzgerald crashed into a Philippines container ship. In August, the USS John S. McCain collided with a tanker near Singapore, leaving a huge hole in the side of that destroyer
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The head of the UN refugee agency has said Europe’s migrant crisis is "manageable" if countries worked together.
In an interview with French TV and radio stations, Antonio Guterres said: "The European asylum system is deeply dysfunctional, it works badly.
"Some countries make the necessary effort and the effort of many others is nearly non-existant"
"With 4,000 refugees arriving in Europe every day... the system has become chaotic, nothing is in place that allows this to be handled in an efficient and humane manner," he said, calling for "effective reception centres" where migrants arrive in Greece, Italy and Hungary.
"It is a very serious problem... but on the scale of the planet it is not one of the biggest crises," said the former Portuguese prime minister.
He said: "It is a manageable crisis if everyone agrees on a joint action plan."
Mr Guterres said the number of people displaced by conflicts had soared from 11,000 a day in 2010 to 42,5000 a day in 2014.
"That means there is an increase in conflicts in the world and that old conflicts have no solutions," he said, adding that he feared the situation would only get worse.
Yesterday the UNHCR said 366,402 migrants have crossed the Mediterranean to Europe this year, with 2,800 killed or missing en route. Meanwhile, Pope Francis called on every European parish and religious community to take in one refugee family each in a gesture of solidarity he said would start in the Vatican.
Pope Francis said: "I appeal to the parishes, the religious communities, the monasteries and sanctuaries of all Europe to ... take in one family of refugees," he said after his customary Sunday address in the Vatican.
"Every parish, every religious community, every monastery, every sanctuary of Europe, take in one family," the pope said, to applause from the crowd at St Peter's Square.
Two parishes in the Vatican will take in a family of refugees each in the coming days, he said.
Elsewhere, the Government has announced that it would provide €60m in funding to the United Nations refugee programme.
Minister for Defence Simon Coveney said that the spotlight is on the acute refugee crisis we are seeing day after day in Europe and this demands a response.
He said: "We cannot ignore the awful spectre of masses of ordinary people fleeing their homelands in search of safety and a better life for their loved ones.
"We are privileged in Europe and that privilege carries a responsibility to care for those that are less fortunate than we are."
Former minister for justice Alan Shatter has said that there needs to be a common asylum system across Europe.
Speaking to RTÉ's This Week, Mr Shatter said Ireland cannot solve the refugee crisis but it can play a very central role at EU level.
He said that the Dublin Convention needs to be suspended and too many EU states "sat back" knowing that under this convention that asylum seekers had to apply for asylum in the first country they arrived in.
He said this had put pressure on Greece and Italy initially.
Mr Shatter described Germany as a beacon of light in the manner in which they were dealing with the refugee crisis and said there may be a case for a Minister of State to be solely put in place to deal with the crisis but the way in which we looked at Ireland taking in refugees needs to change.
Meanwhile, Austria and Germany threw open their borders to thousands of exhausted people from the east, bussed to the frontier by a Hungarian government that had initially tried to stop them, but was overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of people yesterday.
Left to walk the final stretch into Austria, rain-soaked migrants, many of them refugees from Syria's civil war were taken by train and shuttle bus first to Vienna and then by train to Munich and other cities in Germany.
The last train carrying an estimated 1,000 refugees pulled into Munich from Austria at 1.30am, bringing the total to have arrived in the Bavarian capital since yesterday to about 8,000.
Police immediately ushered the arrivals onto another train bound for Dortmund on the opposite platform, cordoned off from onlookers in the main station terminal.
Some who wanted to stay in Munich initially refused to get on the second train, which eventually set off with all the passengers about an hour later.
Most of those who arrived yesterday were bussed to reception centres in and around the Munich after being medically screened, fed and offered fresh clothing.
Many said they were from Syria, while others were from Afghanistan or Iraq.
They seemed dazed by the calls of "welcome to Munich", from the few dozen well-wishers remaining at around midnight, as well as by their determination to thrust chocolate bars, bananas or bread rolls into their hands.
It is reported almost 11,000 new refugees arrived through the southern state of Bavaria today. This is in addition to 6,800 who arrived there on Saturday.
Munich police said Arabic-speaking interpreters were helping refugees with procedures at the emergency registration centres.
The seemingly efficient Austrian and German reception contrasted with the disorder prevalent in Hungary.
German Interior Ministry spokesman Harald Neymanns said Berlin's decision to open its borders to Syrians was an exceptional case for humanitarian reasons.
He said Europe's so-called Dublin rules, which require people to apply for asylum in the first EU country they enter, had not been suspended.
"The Dublin rules are still valid and we expect other European Union member states to stick to them," he said.
After days of confrontation and chaos, Hungary deployed more than 100 buses overnight to take thousands of the migrants who had streamed there from southeast Europe to the Austrian frontier.
Austria said it had agreed with Germany to allow the migrants access, waiving the asylum rules. |
The nurse turned to me and said, “You’re going to meet your little girl tonight.”
I’ll never forget those words for the rest of my life.
My partner Rachel and I had just raced to the hospital. Our first child wasn’t due for another two days, but Rachel felt like the baby was coming, so the baby was coming. We packed an overnight bag and we were off. I phoned my mum in London and told her to get on a train to Bournemouth.
When we got to the hospital, the nurse did a scan on Rachel’s belly to see how the baby was doing. She found a heartbeat and smiled. She said the heartbeat was a bit fast, so she was going to do a more sophisticated scan and call the doctor.
Then she said the words I’ll never forget.
“You should go and get Rachel’s bag,” she said. “You’re going to meet your little girl tonight.”
When I walked out to the car park, I was floating. I was so excited. I had come from a big family — five of us kids in all — and I wanted that same feeling of love and madness around all the time. When I grabbed the bag from the car, I thought, When you walk back in that hospital, your life is going to change.
I was gone maybe five minutes.
When I came back to the room, Rachel was crying her eyes out. She was in absolute pieces. I didn’t understand what was happening. There was a doctor standing by the bed, and he had a blank expression on his face.
Rachel said, “She’s gone.”
I went numb. I didn’t understand. Five minutes before that, everything was fine. We were about to meet our little girl. She has a name. Her name is Renée. She had a heartbeat. She was about to meet this world, just five minutes before.
I just kept saying to the doctor, “Tell me what’s wrong. Tell me what’s wrong. Tell me …”
He explained that Renée had died in the womb. The nurse had picked up the wrong heartbeat on the first scan. She had picked up Rachel’s heartbeat by mistake. That’s why it was so fast.
Our baby was gone.
David Klein/PA Wire/ZUMA Press
I can’t really explain what happened next. I went into complete shock. I remember calling my mum. She was already at the train station, and when she picked up the phone, she was so excited. I had to tell her that Renée hadn’t made it.
The hardest part was still to come. The doctors explained to us that at that late stage of the pregnancy, the only option was for Rachel to deliver Renée naturally. In that moment … I can’t even explain how brave Rachel was. I have never felt such a deep respect for the courage of another human being. I always knew that women had a deeper inner-strength than men, but I never really understood the courage of a mother.
It was a long 10 hours before Rachel was able to give birth. It was the most difficult 10 hours of our lives. When the doctors delivered Renée, I was in such a total state of shock that I didn’t have the strength to hold her in my arms.
It is my biggest regret.
I couldn’t embrace the reality of what happened. It’s human nature, I think: You never think something like this is going to happen to you. In your mind, these terrible things only happen to other people. And so when it really happens, you don’t react in a “normal” way.
At the time, we were telling each other, “Let’s just get through this and move on. We’ll pretend it never happened. It’s just a horrible nightmare.”
I don’t know why that was our reaction. Maybe we were trying to protect ourselves from the grief of the moment. I am just sharing this so that others who have lost a child know that they’re not alone in feeling these strange emotions.
I had an immediate desire to forget. When I got back to our house, I was obsessed with packing up Renée’s nursery. It was just too painful to walk past. That seems totally shocking to me now, because now I’d never, ever, ever want to forget her.
Luckily, I had Charlie Daniels and Simon Francis, two of my best mates, come and help me out of a really dark place. They came over straight away and put everything in the nursery in storage for us, because I think they knew that, eventually, we would want to build that nursery again. I can’t imagine how tough it must have been for them to walk into that situation. They’re true friends.
The next few days were a blur of emotion. I used football to distract myself from the pain, at least for a few hours. We had a match against Manchester United three days after we lost Renée. My heart was somewhere else, but I wanted to play, and Rachel supported it. She drove me to the ground herself.
I don’t know whether it was the right decision. I just know that, when I was still just a kid, my older sister married a footballer named Scott Parker. When he was playing for West Ham, their kids used to go watch him play with their little Parker kits on, and I thought that was the coolest thing in the world. I always wanted that same feeling that he must’ve felt. Not that long ago, I was playing fifth-tier football. Now we were playing Manchester United. I just felt like I wanted to make Renée proud of her dad that day.
When Rachel and I pulled into the car park, I thought I was ready. But when I saw the Bournemouth fans all lined up, holding their scarves, I was paralyzed. I couldn’t get out of the car. Nobody except for my teammates knew what had happened. And I saw all these people smiling, excited for the match, and I thought, I can’t do this.
But Rachel told me to be strong and to make our family proud. The walk to the dressing room was the longest of my life. But when I got there, I didn’t feel alone at all. Our manager Eddie Howe was incredible about everything. He arranged for a chaplain to come to the dressing room, and we all said a prayer for Renée in our huddle just before we went out to the tunnel.
It was very emotional. We went out and won the match, but that was beside the point. I just wanted to finish the match for Renée. Straight after the match, we were overwhelmed with so much support from everyone. I had more than 3,000 text messages from people all over the world.
But, eventually, it all quieted down, and we were left to truly deal with our grief. Anyone who has lost a child can probably relate to this moment — when your loved ones leave your side, and the text messages end, and everyone just kind of goes on with their lives, as they should do.
Your shock wears off, and all you are left with is reality. That can be a very dark time.
If I’m being honest, my grief didn’t fully hit me until about a week after Renée’s death, when we were away at West Brom. It was Christmastime, and I kept seeing all these happy families everywhere preparing for the holiday, and it was just devastating to me. The night before our match, I was in the hotel trying to sleep. Around midnight, I started feeling really hot. It felt like the walls were closing in on me. I went outside and took a long walk around Birmingham, and there were some tears. You can’t help but ask yourself, Why her?
Luckily, I had a long chat that night with my mate Richard Hughes, who works for the club. He really calmed me down just by letting me talk. I cannot stress enough how much it helps just to talk to somebody. Even telling the story again now helps. The process of grief is a tricky thing. One thing I’ve learned in the years since Renée’s death is that the sadness can hit you at any time. There’s no reason for it. It just comes rolling in like a wave.
Everyone who has lost a child tries to cope in their own way. My temporary distraction was football, but it wasn’t helping me process what happened. At first, when a wave of sadness would hit me, I would try to forget it. I would try to distract myself from the pain. Now, I actually embrace it. When I get upset, I tell myself that it’s a reminder that Renée was here, and that I loved her very much, and that I need to use every day I have left to make her proud.
The hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life was the day that I gathered the strength to look inside the little box that sits on the mantle in the front room of our house. It’s called a memory box. It was provided to us by the hospital after Renée’s death. It took me months before I was able to summon the courage to open the box.
Inside, there were photos of Renée. There was her little hand print in clay. There was a snippet of her hair.
I felt so much love for someone I never got to meet. It’s impossible to explain.
In June 2016, Rachel found out that she was pregnant with our second child. I’ll never forget when we did the test to find out the baby’s gender, the results came back through email while I was at training. So I told Rachel, “You absolutely have to wait for me. Do not open that email until you get down here!”
So she drove down to the Bournemouth ground and we opened it together. She had a little smile on her face, so I’m not sure if she actually waited for me. She likely cheated. But when we opened the email, it said that we were having a baby girl.
Michael Steele/Getty Images
That was such a happy moment, knowing Renée was going to have a sister. It was a long nine months, but it was so worth all the anxiety and waiting. Raine Renée Arter came into the world on February 17, 2017.
Rachel had a planned cesarean and I just remember it all happened so fast. It took what felt like 10 minutes. All of a sudden, the doctor was holding my baby girl. He put Raine on Rachel’s chest, and if I’m being honest, I went into shock again.
You’re looking at this tiny, little baby, and you’re filled with so much love in your heart. You’re thinking, This is the most beautiful little baby I’ve ever seen. You’re looking at the doctor like, Of all the babies you’ve ever delivered, is that not the most beautiful little baby?
It was the most special moment of my life.
Immediately followed by the most embarrassing.
My family knew that I was really nervous about changing nappies, and when the nurses got wind of this information, they had some fun with me. They made me change Raine’s nappy straight away in front of a packed audience of all our family and close friends.
My technique was horrible. I didn’t know what I was doing, and they were trying to instruct me. My hands were shaking, and …
Well, she had made a poo.
It was a little poo, thank God.
I managed to figure it out and get a fresh one on her without her making too much of a fuss. When we took Raine home a few days later, we placed her in her sister’s old nursery. Even now, we still see it as Renée and Raine’s room. They are a part of one another’s story.
I hope that when Raine is old enough to understand what happened, she will read this story and know how much she is loved, and how much her sister is still loved. For all the attention that one troll’s vile tweet to me received in the media, there were thousands of people who reached out to our family with their love and support.
I’ll never forget, four days before Raine was due, we played Manchester City and Pep Guardiola walked up to me after the final whistle. I thought he was just going to shake my hand, but he said, “I heard what happened and I am so very sorry. I want to wish you the very best this week.”
I was really moved by that. It shows that Pep is not just a great manager, but also a great man.
On what would have been Renée’s first birthday, we were playing away at Burnley, and in the eighth minute, the whole ground stood up and applauded in her memory. I still have that match recorded on my TV, and I watch it sometimes to remind myself of Renée’s impact on the world, and of the goodness of people. I will keep that recording forever.
The waves of sadness will probably never go away, and I am thankful for that. As long as those waves live on, then so does Renée. |
Because the Web was created in such a rapid and decentralized manner, the history of the Internet could have been lost completely, had it not been for organizations like the Internet Archive. For that reason, we’re big fans of the initiative — plus we can’t help being tech history geeks ourselves.
With this sentiment in mind, we were excited to find that the Internet Archive is now greatly expanding its collection of historic software. According to the Internet Archive’s Jason Scott, the organization now hosts “the largest collection of historical software online in the world.” Scott challenges you to find something bigger.
This rapid expansion came in part through partnerships with many independent archives, including the Shareware CD Archive, the TOSEC archive, the FTP site boneyard, and the Disk Drives collection. In addition to actual software, documentation is also being invested in, like this Apple I manual.
Today’s news is cause for celebration, but the Internet Archive’s growing collection is imperfect: Scott elaborates that its “metadata is shit.”
We’re not good at having all the careful twee metadata entry that most archives and libraries demand. If you look at, say, the Apple I manual we have online, it’s kind of just that – an Apple I manual. Not much detail, page listing, context. It’s just there. Preserved, easily accessed, easily read – but not described all that much. That’s a thing. People in more formal disciplines might call that a showstopper. I call it a minor issue for the moment, but one worth improving.
Head here to explore the archive. If you’re looking for somewhere to start, check out this collection of coverdisks from old issues of MacAddicts, GameStar and Linux Format Magazine. Or, check out this collection of vintage PC games, including titles like Dungeon Keeper (1997) and Need for Speed III: Hot Pursuit (1998).
Let the flashbacks commence!
Read more: The Internet Archive is trying to raise enough funds to buy 3 petabytes of storage in 17 days
Image credit: Jupiterimages / Thinkstock
Read next: Meetup passes 100 million RSVPs for its community gathering service |
CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — The Australian government on Tuesday rejected a plan to generate 42 percent of the country’s power from wind and solar energy, in a setback for compliance with climate change commitments
Conservation groups have condemned the ruling conservative coalition for abandoning the renewable energy target for 2030 that was recommended this year by Australia’s chief scientist to comply with the Paris climate change agreement.
The government instead plans to require power companies to provide a certain minimum amount of power from coal, gas and hydroelectric generation. Reliance on solar and wind generation would be limited according to the needs of each state for guarantee of supply.
The policy change will end subsidies paid to wind and solar generators from 2020, to help reduce costs for consumers.
“Past energy plans have subsidized some industries, punished others and slugged consumers,” Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said in a statement.
“The Turnbull government will take a different approach,” he added.
Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg told Parliament that coal and gas would generate 64 to 72 percent of Australia’s electricity by 2030.
Coal and gas will account for 76.5 percent by 2020, meaning Australia was on track to achieve its current clean energy target of 23.5 percent of electricity from renewable sources such as wind, solar and hydro by then, Frydenberg said.
Hydro is reliable, clean and renewable but is a fairly small component of the energy mix.
Australians per capita are among the world’s worst greenhouse gas polluters because of the country’s heavy reliance on its abundant coal reserves for power. But no new coal-fired generators are being built because of uncertainty over how Australia intends to achieve its greenhouse gas cuts.
Australia was about to overtake Qatar as the world’s largest exporter of liquefied natural gas but the government has restricted exports because state governments have created a domestic supply shortage by blocking new gas field development.
Mark Wakeham, chief executive of Environment Victoria, a Victoria state-based conservation group, accused the government of rejecting “a clean energy target in favor of a coal energy target.”
“Australia joins Donald Trump’s United States as one of only two major national governments to remove support for investment in renewable energy and redirect it to aging and polluting power stations,” Wakeham said in a statement.
The government has accused center-left Labor Party-controlled states of irresponsibly switching to clean electricity sources at the cost of ensuring reliable supply.
The government blames a heavy reliance on wind and solar energy for a statewide blackout in South Australia during a storm in 2016. The state’s power operator, however, said the outage was unavoidable due to the storm’s ferocity.
The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, a business advocacy group, welcomed the government’s plan, saying it would cut costs for power, ensure reliability and meet Australia’s carbon emission reduction targets while maintaining international competitiveness.
Australia’s Paris target is to reduce emissions by 26 percent below 2005 levels by 2030. |
The FIBA Basketball World Cup ended last week for Gilas Pilipinas, the Philippine national team. The Andray Blatche–led squad failed to advance from the group round, finishing with one overtime win over Senegal and four competitive losses (three of which were legitimately heartbreaking).
That’s it, right? The basketball world developed a brief crush on Philippine basketball and the sheer chutzpah of 5-foot-7 guards who careen into the paint against Greek 7-footers. Blatche, the newly naturalized Filipino, seemed to exhibit more leadership, toughness, and passion in five games with Gilas than in nine years in the NBA, and as a still-unsigned free agent, he could be rewarded handsomely for it.
Great. Fun story. Time to move on to the World Cup’s more pressing concerns, like the potential Spain-USA final and Nenad Krstic’s exquisite baldness. Well, nobody’s moving on quite yet in the Philippines, if the Tagalog poems dedicated to team captain Jimmy Alapag being passed around Facebook are any indication. And rightfully so. There may be no nation that loves basketball as much as the Philippines does, yet most Filipinos aren’t old enough to remember when fellow Pinoys like Carlos “Caloy” Loyzaga and Danny Florencio competed and held their own with the best players in the world. Now, thanks to Alapag and Marc Pingris and Gabe Norwood and Ranidel de Ocampo and L.A. Tenorio and Junmar Fajardo and the entire Gilas team, a new generation of Filipino basketball fans has seen its team play at the highest level of international competition and be a possession or two away from beating Argentina, Croatia, and Puerto Rico.
For me, a foreigner who lived in the Philippines, fell in love with its basketball culture, and came to see the country as a second home, watching Gilas play swelled me with the kind of fullhearted pride I’ve felt only a few times before. Gilas showed that Philippine basketball — this thing that I’d felt was special since I first landed at Ninoy Aquino International Airport in 2005, that I’d dedicated much of my career to — was not just a quirky hoops human interest story but instead a brand of world-class basketball that charmed and impressed fans all over the globe. Basically, Gilas validated me. And I imagine that millions of Filipinos felt a similar fulfillment last week, only several times greater, because in my case Philippine basketball is an interest that I care deeply about, and for them, it’s in their bones.
But as much as we may feel like throwing this 1-4 team a ticker-tape parade down Roxas Boulevard, the Gilas players and coaches have been adamant in calling their tournament run the beginning of an era that will include regular appearances for the Philippines at FIBA Basketball World Cups and Olympic Games. With that in mind, here are three takeaways from Spain that look toward the future of the Philippine national basketball team.
1. Et tu, Andray?
No, Andray Blatche is not going to somehow stab Gilas in the back, as Brutus did to Caesar. I just find Blatche puns irresistible. In fact, based on how well Gilas performed with Blatche at the World Cup, it seems likely he’ll continue playing for the Philippines in future tournaments. Before Spain, Gilas head coach Chot Reyes told me that was the plan — that Blatche would return for the 2015 FIBA Asia Championship, where the Philippines hopes to qualify for the 2016 Rio Olympics, and that if the team managed to reach its first Olympic basketball tournament since 1972, that Blatche would once again be their man.
The plan was for Blatche to be back in uniform for the Philippines much sooner than that — at the Asian Games, which begin in less than two weeks in South Korea. After some international hoops bureaucratic wrangling between the Olympic Council of Asia, the Philippine basketball federation, and FIBA, it appears as if Blatche will be banned from competing in the Asian Games thanks to a selective interpretation of residency requirement rules for naturalized players. Despite being backed by FIBA, which sent a strongly worded letter urging Asian Games organizers to reinstate Blatche, the Philippines is now considering withdrawing from the competition.
During the World Cup, some fans observed that Blatche could be a ball-stopper in Gilas’s attacking dribble-drive offense, that he forced a number of ill-advised passes that became turnovers, and that the team probably could have done without so many Blatche-as–point forward escapades. These are fair criticisms, but they don’t amount to a case for replacing Blatche with a different naturalized big man.
Yes, there are better players in the world than Andray Blatche. None of them, currently, have indicated a burning desire to play for Gilas Pilipinas. The team already went through the lengthy legal process of turning Blatche into a Filipino citizen. He averaged 21.2 points and 13.8 rebounds in the FIBA Basketball World Cup, played through injuries, demonstrably bought in to the team’s puso, or “heart,” identity, and embraced his teammates. He’s a classic give-and-take player — he gives his team scoring and size, and his perimeter skills create mismatches against most international teams; he also takes away from his team’s success with turnovers, sometimes questionable shot selection, and by slowing down the offensive rhythm. I think there’s little doubt that Reyes and the Gilas coaching staff will accept the negatives in Blatche’s game to keep the positives.
2. Dual Citizens, FIBA, and the 16-year-old limit
Gilas players Alapag, Norwood, and Jared Dillinger are Filipino American. So is 2014 second-round NBA draft pick Jordan Clarkson, who recently signed a two-year deal with the Lakers. So is former Saint Mary’s guard Stephen Holt, who played with the Atlanta Hawks at summer league and signed to play in the German Bundesliga next season. And so is Jason Brickman, who led the NCAA in assists last season at Long Island University and who will play pro ball for Dynamo Moscow.
Clarkson, Holt, and Brickman would be meaningful additions to the Gilas lineup, but none of them are eligible to play for the Philippines. This is because FIBA rules require players eligible for dual citizenship to acquire it before they turn 16 years old if they want to someday represent that country in international basketball. So for a Filipino American like Clarkson to play for the Philippines, he would have had to get his Philippine passport before his 16th birthday. This rule has been on FIBA’s books for several years, but according to FIBA communications coordinator Simon Wilkinson, it was amended in late 2010 “to clarify the rule and prevent it from being circumvented by certain countries.”
The scuttlebutt in Asian basketball circles has long been that FIBA ramped up its enforcement of the rule to prevent Emirati countries from stacking their rosters with American and African dual citizens who were essentially ringers. Qatar was notorious for this, a strategy they’ve also employed with Bulgarian weightlifters, Kenyan distance runners, and South American soccer players. Reyes joked that he and his coaching staff used to call Qatar’s basketball team the “AfriQataris.”
FIBA’s 16-year-old limit makes it much more difficult for a country like Qatar to cherry-pick basketball players, turn them into dual citizens overnight, and trot them out onto the court. Unfortunately, the rule arguably hurts the Philippines more than any other country. The worldwide Filipino diaspora is estimated at more than 10 million people, including more than 3 million Filipino Americans, and practically every Filipino community in every corner of the world has a basketball league. It’s hard to imagine a talented young Filipino American players like Clarkson and Brickman, when they were still 15, knowing that they needed to apply for Philippine passports if they ever wanted the opportunity to play for the country. So the Philippines loses the chance to add players with legitimate Filipino heritage to the national team, and it’s not just high-profile talents like Clarkson but also Philippine Basketball Association stalwarts like Joe DeVance and Sol Mercado, who have made their lives in Manila but were raised in the United States and didn’t become dual citizens at an early enough age to play for their country.
It’s unlikely FIBA will change the rule or make some kind of exception for the Philippines, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the Gilas program increases its outreach effort to Filipino American youth basketball programs to spread the message for promising young players: If you want to play for Gilas Pilipinas, get your dual citizenship before 16.
3. The Next Jimmy
When I visited the team’s pre–World Cup training camp in Miami, Gilas assistant coach Tab Baldwin said this about Philippine point guard Jimmy Alapag: “He’s the shortest guy in international basketball — and one of the slowest, probably — but still is a very, very effective basketball player.”
Baldwin, the former head coach of the New Zealand, Jordanian, and Lebanese national teams, meant it as compliment — that Alapag would find a way to create space and hit big shots under any circumstances, against any level of competition. For the better part of a decade, the Philippine team could count on heroic late-game performances from Alapag, but the 36-year-old guard announced during the World Cup that he intended to retire from international play after Spain. He played so well in the World Cup that pressure is already building for him to reverse that decision, but in Miami, Alapag told me that he was stepping down from the national team to give younger players a chance to take over. “There has to be a transition sooner or later,” he said. “The Asian Games is the only big tournament before the Olympic qualifier next August. I told coach, I really think it’s important that whatever team he’s planning to put together for [the qualifier] really needs to be together now.”
If that’s so, then Alapag may have saved his most unforgettable performance for his last competition. In the Philippines’ near upset of Argentina, he dragged Gilas back from a 15-point deficit late in the third quarter with five 3-pointers — all off the dribble — whose degree of difficulty would make Jamal Crawford envious. This Gilas team played with heaps of confidence, much of which seemed to stem from Alapag, who carries himself as if he’s absolutely certain his team will win every game. That’s not how basketball works, and the Philippines obviously didn’t win every game, but they played like they expected to win and they gave themselves a chance to win them all.
Alapag, one of the smallest members of the team, was also its backbone, and it’s unclear who will step into his role whenever he finally leaves the national team. Fellow point guard L.A. Tenorio has the same kind of unwavering drive as Alapag, but Tenorio’s unorthodox game can limit his effectiveness in some matchups and he doesn’t shoot well enough to consistently take over the ends of games. Combo guard Paul Lee can slash and shoot well enough to carry Gilas, and he plays with a toughness and a chip on his shoulder that teams can rally behind, but he’s a new addition to the lineup and his lack of experience in international competitions showed in how many fouls he gave up and the number of bad passes he forced. Jayson Castro has been the best guard in the Philippines for the last few years, but an Achilles injury slowed him during the World Cup. Besides, even at his best, Castro has seemed like the type of player who can lead Gilas for three and a half quarters before stepping aside and letting a designated finisher like Alapag take the shots in nut-cutting time.
It could be any of these guards, or some combination of them and other players. It could be a recent college star like Kiefer Ravena or Ray Ray Parks. It could also be that the second coming of Jimmy Alapag doesn’t exist. But Alapag is ready to pass the torch, and Gilas Pilipinas needs someone to run with it. |
BEIJING — The stylish women of North Korea’s most famous pop band had just arrived in Beijing for a series of concerts to showcase their country’s warming relationship with China when the man who had sent them here, Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader, made an unexpected announcement.
Even for Mr. Kim, this piece of bravado seemed out of the blue: Speaking in Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, this month, he declared that his country had developed a hydrogen bomb, a claim immediately dismissed as far-fetched by the United States and others, though North Korea has tested less destructive nuclear weapons.
Within 48 hours, the Moranbong Band was on its way home. There would be no performances of patriotic tunes in miniskirts, no cheering audiences in China’s national concert hall, only a diplomatic mess — and a mystery. In military-style serge overcoats with high winter hats pulled down over their ears, the 20 musicians were in such a hurry to leave that they were whisked onto a North Korean plane waiting at the Beijing airport. They had arrived by train.
The North Korean government is so practiced at propaganda, especially for its home audience, that it seemed strange that an effort to cozy up to its most important ally with song and dance could go so spectacularly wrong. More than a week later, it is still unclear what exactly led Pyongyang to pull the plug on the concerts. Yet some aspects seem clear. |
BERLIN — StarVR, the ambitious high-res VR headset, is a prototype no more.
In a partnership between Starbreeze and Acer, the latter PC maker announced at tech show IFA 2016 that the VR headset would start shipping immediately.
While not quite as well known as the Oculus Rift, HTC Vive or even the Samsung Gear VR, the StarVR headset is notable for its 5K resolution and ultra-wide field of view (FOV).
The headset has a 210-degree FOV compared with the Rift's 110 degrees, which means viewers will feel even more immersed in the virtual world when wearing the StarVR.
IMAX wants moviegoers to be able to "step into the movie" using StarVR headsets in an adjacent room after watching movies in IMAX.
"Since announcing the StarVR headset in 2015, we’re finally at a place where we can see the pieces of our vision coming together," Starbreeze CEO Bo Andersson Klint said in a press release. "From day one we’ve been convinced that we can deliver premium experiences with premium hardware. The search for great partners sharing the same vision was long, but we’re happy to be able to lay down these two fundamental parts in Starbreeze VR-ecosystem together with Acer and IMAX."
But don't get too excited just yet. Neither company has announced pricing for the StarVR headset, probably because it's not targeting consumers.
The StarVR headset is designed for professionals and "location-based entertainment markets".
After the announcement, Acer brought on stage Robert D. Lister, IMAX's chief business development officer, to talk about how the partnership would augment IMAX movie experiences.
The plan is for moviegoers to be able to "step into the movie" using StarVR headsets in an adjacent room. He suggested the total IMAX movie plus VR experience might cost more than $25.
Acer and IMAX want you watch an IMAX movie, then "walk" into the movie afterwards with VR in a room next door #IFA2016 — Raymond Wong 💾📼🍕 (@raywongy) August 31, 2016
IMAX believes people will go to a theater to see an IMAX VR experience for more than $25 for a ticket using Star VR...you kidding me? #ifa — Raymond Wong 💾📼🍕 (@raywongy) August 31, 2016
IMAX plans to start offering VR "centers" in cities by the end of the year, the first of which will open in Los Angeles. |
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The Trump-supporting sheriff of Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, has an unusual plan to crack down on illegal immigration: He wants to prosecute the mayors of so-called sanctuary cities.
Sheriff David A. Clarke, a conservative darling and immigration hard-liner, delivered the proposal Thursday at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference outside Washington, DC. During a panel titled “When Did World War III Start: Threats at Home?,” Clarke launched into a speech about the alleged dangers posed by cities, counties, and states that limit the ability of local law enforcement to cooperate with federal immigration agents. After claiming that sanctuary cities are filled with immigrants who are violent criminals, Clarke read from a federal statute that says that any person who harbors or conceals undocumented immigrants can be imprisoned for up to 10 years.
“I’m telling you right now folks: You charge one mayor, one governor, one council president…this stuff is going to end right away,” Clarke said to applause.
In the wake of Trump’s executive orders calling for the defunding of sanctuary cities, mayors including Bill de Blasio of New York and Ed Murray of Seattle pledged to protect undocumented immigrants from deportation. In Milwaukee, 20,000 people marched in support of immigrants and refugees following comments Clarke made on Facebook about how he intends to work with Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials to crackdown on undocumented immigrants. |
This post is part of a series in which we count down the 25 best GMs in history. For an explanation, please see this post.
The Pittsburgh Pirates have won three World Series in the past 89 years, and all three of them were substantially built by the same man. Joe L. Brown replaced a legend, but carved out a great legacy in Pittsburgh for 21 seasons.
Today, hundreds of bright young men (and a few women) without any playing experience descend on baseball’s winter meetings looking for a job, many hoping to eventually become a big league general manager. Since the advent of Moneyball and the application of analytics, a front office position has become a highly sought after opportunity. It has not always been this way. Until recently, front offices were much smaller and the road to becoming a general manager was much more haphazard. Joe L. Brown may have been the first to consciously and successfully aspire to be a general manager at a young age.
While a student at UCLA in the late 1930s, Brown told his dad he wanted to run a baseball team. His father, the famous comedian Joe E. Brown, tried to discourage his son, telling him there were only 19 top executive jobs in baseball: sixteen general managers, two league presidents, and one commissioner. Nevertheless, the well-connected elder Brown hooked his son up with Harry Grabiner, an executive with the White Sox, who gave Brown a position as assistant business manager for Class D club in Lubbock, Texas, about as entry level as one could get.
The personable Brown slowly worked his way up the baseball ladder. After World War II he was hired by the Pirates organization to run one of their farm clubs. When Pittsburgh decided to replace Branch Rickey in late 1955 after four consecutive last place finishes, owner John Galbreath turned to the 37-year-old Brown.
Despite the futility at the major league level, Rickey and his scouts left a fairly well-stocked farm system. Brown brilliantly restructured the talent on hand: keeping the key players, trading others to fill holes, and continuing to work his scouts for new ones. When the Pirates finished second in 1958, with their first winning record in 10 years, Brown was named the Executive of the Year by The Sporting News. Two years later they won the World Series. This club included several players who were in the system when Brown took over — right fielder Roberto Clemente, second baseman Bill Mazeroski, shortstop Dick Groat and hurlers Vern Law and Bob Friend — but all of them had to further develop under Brown’s reign. Moreover, he recognized these players as future stars and didn’t trade them despite several opportunities. Brown filled in around these stars by acquiring several major contributors: catcher Smoky Burgess, third baseman Don Hoak, center fielder Bill Virdon, and pitchers Harvey Haddix and Vinegar Bend Mizell.
The Pirates fell all the way to sixth after their championship season with principally the same lineup and pitching rotation. Several players regressed, but a principal factor was that National League at this time was as strong as any league has ever been. Well in front of the dysfunctional American League in signing African Americans, the NL was filled with competitive teams and great ballplayers. To remain in contention Brown relied on both trades and his development staff — the latter more successfully than the former.
Brown had inherited Howie Haak, one of Latin America’s most successful scouts, when he took over the club, and Pittsburgh’s farm system continued its productive run under Brown’s leadership. With the continued influx of young talent, such as Willie Stargell, Gene Alley, Bob Bailey, and Steve Blass, a great trade for Matty Alou, and an MVP season from Clemente, the 1966 team finished only three games back, and Brown felt the team was only a couple players short of breaking through. He traded Bailey for speedy infielder Maury Wills, but when the team regressed in 1967 he traded some quality prospects for veteran hurler Jim Bunning. This time injuries (and Bunning’s off year) kept them out of contention.
Help, though, was on the way. The farm system delivered another generation of Pirate stars and valuable regulars, many of them African American and Latino. The first wave, broadly speaking, included Dave Cash, Al Oliver, Manny Sanguillen, Richie Hebner, Dock Ellis, Bob Moose, Bob Robertson, Bruce Kison, Rennie Stennett, and Freddie Patek. Brown and manager Danny Murtaugh successfully integrated these youngsters into their existing nucleus, winning the NL East in 1970 before losing in the NLCS. The next year Pirates won the World Series, the second under Brown’s tenure. On September 1, 1971 the Pirates started the first all-black (African-American or dark-skinned Latino) lineup. And while it was the 1979 team that came to be associated with the hit song “We are Family”, Al Oliver remembered: “The ‘Family’ originated in the early ‘70s, we just didn’t have a song, but ‘family’ is something we always talked about, starting with our general manager Joe Brown.”
During the first half of the 1970s, talent continued to flow into the organization, and the team kept winning. Players such as Dave Parker, Milt May, Craig Reynolds, Willie Randolph, Richie Zisk, Frank Taveras, John Candelaria, Kent Tekulve, and Omar Moreno joined the major league team or were used for trades. Beginning in 1970 the Pirates won five of the next six division titles. After the team fell back to second in 1976, the fifty-eight-year-old Brown decided to retire to California after 21 years at the helm. The talent accumulated under his watch would carry the team to several more excellent seasons, including its 1979 World Series victory. He made a brief return in 1985 at the behest of the Galbreath family to steady the Pirates ship in the midst of drug scandals, low attendance, and on-field struggles.
When it came to hiring a manager, Brown always came back to Murtaugh. Murtaugh had managed for Brown in New Orleans, and the general manager promoted him to be the Pirates skipper in 1957 after firing Bobby Bragan. Murtaugh retired after the 1964 season for health reasons, but returned several times after Brown let other managers go, and was at the helm of both the 1960 and 1971 World Champions. Brown liked trading, but was never again as successful as he was when he assembled the 1960 squad. By not shying away from African American and Latin American players, though, his scouting and developmental system produced a generation of ballplayers that would make the Pirates one of the top clubs of the 1970s.
— Dan
(We invite your comments below.)
To read more about the history of baseball operations and the GM, please buy our new book In Pursuit of Pennants–Baseball Operations from Deadball to Moneyball via the publisher or at your favorite on-line store.
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Jake Tapper touting Christiane Amanpour’s Tuesday interview with Hillary Clinton, asked guest Bill Maher if he agreed with Clinton’s claim she was winning the ’16 election until FBI director James Comey’s letter and Russian Wikileaks dumps scared away some voters.
Maher said she was not wrong, but added, provocatively, “I don’t know why she need to be coming back; she had her turn and it didn’t work out.” Maher also agreed with Clinton’s contention misogyny played a role in her electoral college defeat. “I think we learned a lot about this country – and we’re learning more as we watch what goes on with Fox News every day,” he said.
Maher forecast a crowded field of Dem hopefuls in four years, and hoped the party had learned some lessons in ’16, “like have a message – ‘At Least We’re Not Crazy’ didn’t work.”
Tapper asked Maher to explain his claim liberals must stop trying to win over Trump voters with facts. Maher suggested easing up on “the identity politics” too.
“They pulled off quite a neat trick in 2016; they made white people feel like a minority, or enough of them to swing the election,” Maher said. “That’s important: make sure you represent everybody, including the majority.”
“And go where the energy is in the party,” Maher continued. “Hillary is a lovely lady, but she wouldn’t fill the function room at the Olive Garden.” Meanwhile this “74-year-old man…was getting crowds of 20K young people to come see him. Rallies matter. Trump proved that. It shows something about what people want,” the political satirist observed. He will end this week’s edition of Friday’s Real Time chastising people who called Hillary ‘the lesser of two evils” during the race.
“Now we have 100 days of empirical evidence of what a Trump presidency looks like. They should be ashamed of themselves,” he said.
Tapper tried to get Maher to talk about the “tense” moment on his last week’s show, in which he called guest/Dem Sen. Elizabeth Warren “Pocahontas” as Trump loves to call her. Tapper wondered if that was an ethnic slur.
“Technically yes,” Maher said. “Should we get that upset about it? Of course not!”
“This is one of the problems Democrats have,” Maher said, shooting down Tapper’s line of questioning. “They obsess about things like Halloween costumes and the name of the Washington Redskins.” Meanwhile, “there’s millions of people in this country saying, ‘How about a little more of “I’m going to get your job back”?'”
That’s why millions of voters “listened to a con man about that,” Maher insisted. |
The Super Bowl seems like a distant memory, but Atlanta Falcons players are still trying to explain their second half collapse at the hands of the New England Patriots. For his part, wide receiver Mohamed Sanu is blaming Lady Gaga’s halftime performance.
During an appearance on the NFL Network last week, Sanu was asked if the lengthy halftime break affected the team’s performance. He said it “definitely did,” explaining, “Usually, halftime is only like 15 minutes, and when you’re not on the field for like an hour, it’s just like going to work out, like a great workout, and you go sit on the couch for an hour and then try to start working out again.”
Despite the gripes among players, don’t expect the NFL to alter the Super Bowl Halftime anytime soon. This year’s death-dying performance was among the most watched events in music history. |
By Robert Samuelson - March 2, 2012
WASHINGTON -- If you believe the conventional wisdom, the presidential election is virtually finished. Barack Obama will win. Perhaps in a walk. Game over.
I don't say this as a preference one way or the other -- I have reached the stage in my journalistic career when I disapprove of most politicians -- but simply as a matter of fact and logic.
The conventional wisdom, as I read it, rests heavily on the following propositions.
(1) The economy is improving and will continue to improve, depriving the Republicans (and particularly the front-runner, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney) of their most powerful issue. This week, the government reported that economic growth hit a 3 percent annual rate in the fourth quarter of 2011. Not great, but better than recent performance.
(2) Romney and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, now his closest rival, are -- each in his own way -- alienating crucial independent voters. Romney is typecast as a wealthy businessman out of touch with most Americans. A recent Pew poll asked respondents whether he "understands the needs of people like you." Only 31 percent agreed; 60 percent didn't. For his part, Santorum is regarded as an extreme social conservative bent on imposing his moral code on the nation.
(3) The leading Republican candidates can be counted on to commit regular gaffes -- Romney's offhand comment about his wife's Cadillacs, Santorum's reference to the president as a "snob" -- that make them look disconnected and un-presidential. In the general election, Obama will run circles around either of them.
(4) Finally, the Republican House of Representatives will serve as a priceless foil for Obama. It's hard to overstate the public's low esteem for Congress, especially the House. The latest monthly Political Report from the American Enterprise Institute discloses the following: 76 percent of Americans think most members of Congress should be defeated (although about 90 percent usually win re-election); only 12 percent think congressional Republicans have "brought the right kind of change to the country" (Obama scores 35 percent on this question); only 21 percent approve of how congressional Republicans are "handling their job" (Democrats score 33 percent). Controversial Republican governors in some battleground states (Wisconsin, Ohio) compound Obama's advantage.
All in all, the conventional wisdom seems compelling. As a card-carrying member of the mainstream media -- a group that creates and sustains the conventional wisdom -- I'm inclined to accept it. And yet there's one conspicuous gap in the-election-is-already-over story: the polls. While the Republicans have been destroying each other and embarrassing themselves, the polls for a general election should have shown a collapse in Republican support. They haven't -- at least so far.
Go to Real Clear Politics (www.realclearpolitics.com) for the latest figures. The average of the polls it follows shows (for the period from Feb. 10 to Feb. 29) Obama beating Romney by 4.6 percentage points (49 percent to 44.4 percent). Obama's margin of victory over Santorum is slightly larger (49.3 percent to 44.2 percent).
If these were the final outcomes, they would be near-landslides, but at this point in the race -- when the Republicans are attacking each other and Obama is also attacking them -- the differences are fairly modest and not unusual. Guesses about the Electoral College lead to the same conclusion. Obama is ahead, but the outcome isn't certain. Real Clear Politics gives him 227 electoral votes against 181 for the Republican nominee, with 130 in doubt; 270 are needed to win.
So it's a puzzle. Logic and most evidence suggest the election is over. But the polls seem to dissent. Could it be that the real story is that Obama's not a shoo-in even when he should be? |
Screengrab via Video from WhiteHouse.Gov
There's been a well-documented gray area surrounding the cooperative operations of BP and federal governmental agencies in the response to the Gulf spill. Questions were raised about press access, for instance, as the government seemed to be abetting BP in restricting media access to sensitive or potentially embarrassing spill-impacted sites. Later, there was the NOAA's report that 75% of the oil had vanished -- such fine news for BP that many deemed it too good to be true. And it was. Now, concerns that the Obama administration was and is working with BP to minimize the PR damage done by the spill are coming to a head -- two green groups have directly accused federal agencies of withholding data. Here are the allegations:First, the National Wildlife Federation has alleged that the Obama administration is failing to provide accurate numbers on wildlife casualties, especially sea bird deaths. Second, the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility is charging that the administration is keeping key information about the spill -- specifically related to the flow rate early on.
the Obama administration still faces a big trust gap over its handling of the spill, with environmentalists and scientists growing more vocal about their suspicions that the US public is being spun ...
Fishy Figures in Wildlife Casualties
Here's what led to the breach in trust over the wildlife figures. The Guardian reports:
Conservation groups had been pushing officials to provide a breakdown of the types of birds caught up in the spill: brown pelicans, laughing gulls, northern gannets. But the numbers which FWS handed over on Wednesday, 10 days after an original deadline had passed, turned out to be 40% lower than the rolling tally posted each day on the Deepwater Horizon Response website. The FWS report listed only 4,676 affected birds up to 14 September, while the latest FWS figures on the Deepwater Horizon response site on the same date listed 7,996 birds. On further scrutiny, it turns out the FWS tally was not up to date. But the low number left an impression that the FWS was trying to play down the effects of the spill on wildlife.
The Guardian spoke with Doug Inkley, a senior scientist for the NWF, who said, "I don't have a problem with releasing partial data. What concerns me is that they represented it as complete.I think both BP and the federal government have had a very strong resistance to giving out information."
I'm split in my reaction to this case -- if there was a rolling tally on one publicly available source monitored by the government, then it could very well stand to reason that bureaucratic mismanagement or miscommunication was to blame in the F&W; Service coming up with the wrong numbers. And how much more outraged would the public really be at learning 8,000 birds had perished, rather than 5,000? It does seem fishy, and odd, but my gut leans towards ineptitude and over-caution being the culprits rather than deceit. But that's just my gut. And the other charge is far more serious ...
Withholding Spill Data?
Here's the Guardian again:
On Thursday, Peer accused the US Geological Survey of hiding hundreds of pages of reports and internal memos related to the work of a group of technical experts who were charged with producing an authoritative estimate of the flow rate from BP's ruptured well. Peer's director, Jeff Ruch, said in a statement: "Our concern is that the administration took, and is still taking, steps to falsely minimise public perception about the extent and severity of the BP spill."
This, if true, is a flagrant offense, and would be a severe infringement on the public's right to get the best and most accurate information about the spill. It's pretty well agreed-upon at this point that the omnipresent 5,000 barrels a day figure the government supported was laughable. But if it turns out that the federal government had information proving otherwise, and they refuse to disclose it for the sake of saving face -- that would be a most serious offense indeed. PEER has sued the government to get access to the paper trail to those early assessments, so we may soon find out.
More on the BP Spill
What, Exactly, is BP Hiding from Reporters?
The BP Gulf Oil Spill By the Numbers
BP Contractors and Coast Guard Prevent CBS From Filming Oil Spill
Breaking Down the BP Gulf Spill Blame Game |
Nov 14 2011 6:23PM GMT
A group of major U.S. vendors such as Google, Microsoft, Citigroup, IBM, and GE, working under the aegis of the National Foreign Trade Council, is urging the United States to fight for trade rules that protect the free flow of information over the Internet, and against “digital protectionism.”
Such actions include requirements that companies locate data centers in a country to provide services there, as well as blocking access to services such as Facebook, Twitter, WordPress, and YouTube, according to the Reuters writeup of the group’s recommendations, which they issued in a report called “Promoting Cross‐Border Data Flows: Priorities for the Business Community.”
Ironically, this is happening at the same time that European countries — which have much higher levels of data privacy than the U.S. — are issuing their own reports talking about the risks of “life logging” systems such as Facebook, and generally asking why everybody can’t be more like Europe in terms of personal data privacy.
Similarly, as we discussed a few months ago, a number of non-U.S. countries are concerned about the possibility of their data virtually “entering” the U.S., consequently becoming subject to laws that would enable the U.S. government to seize the data — perhaps without the parent company even knowing about it.
And in the same way the U.S. thinks the Europeans are being awfully stuffy about laws protecting things like data privacy, there’s likely to be a number of countries that think the U.S. is being awfully stuffy about laws protecting things like copyright, patents, and ownership, yet oddly there don’t seem to be too many business groups suggesting that those laws be relaxed.
Numerous other worldwide business organizations are also weighing in on how countries should make it easier for them to conduct business over the Internet. The European Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has issued its own report calling for European governments to promote cross-border data flows. And a new law that was supposed to protect Europeans from cookies is thought to be so strict that its implementation is being put off for a year while they try to figure out a better way to do it.
Just how exactly countries are supposed to make the Internet more open to business, while still protecting business ownership of content, and hopefully not throwing consumer privacy under the bus in the process, is going to be an interesting juggling act. |
For a country that has rice as its staple grain, Japan has nonetheless embraced bread completely: its numerous bakeries offer a wide variety or types and flavors and all supermarkets carry several brands of sliced bread. Big soft slices of bread have become synonymous with luxury, leisure and pampering (this is probably thanks to Western advertising!) and the Fuwafuwa Loaf of Bread Sofa is a tribute to this idea: a single-seat mini sofa shaped as a slice of fluffy (fuwafuwa) bread!
This plush, low one-seater is the perfect place to enjoy a relaxed Sunday morning breakfast (with or without toast!). Wide enough to accommodate most body types and shaped like the famous bread from Yamagata Prefecture (i.e. with a rounded top), it really looks like a freshly baked slice waiting to be buttered. So make a cup of coffee, grab your favorite book or your tablet, and spread yourself out on this wonderfully weird and cute sofa, courtesy of a land that knows weird and cute - and, apparently, bread!
The Fuwafuwa Loaf of Bread Sofa features: |
NIH Research Grants for Gun Violence Quietly Double — from Three to Six Rabies cases, by comparison, are far more rare than shootings, yet the disease receives exponentially more research awards from the National Institutes of Health.
The remains of 15-year-old Hadiya Pendleton are taken to her final resting place at the Cedar Park Cemetery in Illinois in February 2013. Pendleton was shot and killed in a park during a gang dispute she had nothing to do with.
In January 2013, a diverse group of researchers from institutions across the country sent a letter to Vice President Joe Biden’s Gun Violence Commission. The message was straightforward: The previous month’s massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, was the latest evidence that gun violence was a public health threat that the country could no longer afford to ignore.
One of the primary barriers to gun violence prevention, the authors argued, was the extraordinarily low level of basic research on firearms. There were over 4 million gun injuries from 1973 to 2012, but the National Institutes of Health awarded just three major grants to study gun violence over that time. (Rabies, with 65 total cases, received 89 NIH research awards. Cholera, with 400 total cases, received 212.)
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“A blue-ribbon commission appointed by the National Academy of Sciences concluded that very little is currently known about effective ways to reduce gun violence,” the researchers wrote. “One consequence is that our current approach of ‘muddling through’ has led to little long-term progress in addressing this problem: While mortality rates from almost every major cause of death declined dramatically over the past half-century, the homicide rate in America today is almost exactly the same as it was in 1950.”
Public health researchers widely agree that more research on gun violence is needed, but federal health agencies have largely avoided conducting even basic research, for fear of violating a statutory prohibition on using tax dollars to “advocate or promote gun control.” In 1997, Congress approved an appropriations rider for the Centers for Disease Control that included that language. In 2012, the NIH became subject to the same prohibition. “This language has been in all subsequent appropriations bills, so the restriction still applies today,” said Emma Wojtowicz, a spokesperson for the NIH, in an emailed statement to The Trace.
While the CDC has interpreted Congress’s restriction as self-imposed ban, the NIH has cautiously supported some new studies on firearms — the key word being some.
In September 2013, a few months after the researchers released their letter, the NIH announced a call for research projects examining gun violence. The funding opportunity, which would support research projects over the next three years, was driven largely by a memorandum from President Obama that ordered federal science agencies to support research into the causes and prevention of firearm injuries.
Three years after the NIH announced its new funding opportunity, The Trace found that the agency has made little progress in expanding gun violence studies, based on an analysis of research grants made by the agency. Our analysis* was inspired by previous studies by researchers from the University of Pennsylvania and University of Chicago, who compared the number of gun violence research grants awarded by the NIH to the number of grants that funded studies on four rare diseases in the U.S.
Our results show that while the NIH has publicly called for more gun violence studies, the agency still isn’t awarding very many grants. From 2013 to 2016, the number of major NIH-funded studies on gun violence prevention doubled — from three to six. Some of the grants funded direct gun violence research, such as an ongoing study from the University of California, Davis, that analyzes the relationship between alcohol abuse and handgun purchases. Others funded more indirect research, such as a study on a juvenile treatment center in Madison, Wisconsin that aimed to reduce recidivism for all violent crime, including firearm offenses.
“NIH has and will continue to support research that develops more effective interventions to prevent the injuries and mortality associated with violence,” Wojtowicz, the NIH spokeswoman, said in the email. “This research may be conducted within the context of multiple types of violence, of which firearms violence is only one example.”
In total, the NIH devoted $3,218,432 to major gun research grants from 2013 to 2016. As The Trace noted in April, a single cancer or HIV study can cost almost twice as much. A nicotine-dependence study funded by the NIH in 2016, for example, received $1,020,517, more than double the amount of some firearms studies.
While the increase in NIH research grants is ultimately a positive sign, it remains to be seen when research funding will better reflect the human toll of gun violence. From 2013 to 2014, the most recent years available in CDC datasets, firearms claimed 67,235 lives and resulted in 165,292 injuries.
*We obtained our data on research awards from NIH RePORTER, an online database of NIH-funded projects. To replicate the methodology of researchers who have conducted similar analyses in the past, we tallied only R01 grants, which are the major research awards given out by the NIH.
[Photo: AP /Charles Rex Arbogast, File] |
CLOSE Delaware prisons have been put on lockdown following a reported hostage taking at the state's maximum security facility. (Feb. 1) AP
A prison guard stands at one of the towers at Vaughn Correctional Center after all Delaware prisons went on lockdown due to a hostage situation unfolding at the prison. (Photo11: Suchat Pederson, The (Wilmington, Del.) News Journal)
BEAR, Del. — The Delaware prison siege ended Thursday 18 hours after it began with a longtime corrections officer dead, another injured and a new administration rocked by crisis weeks after taking control.
Sgt. Steven Floyd, a 16-year veteran of the Delaware Department of Correction, was found dead Thursday morning after a hostage situation that spanned most of Wednesday and through the night at James T. Vaughn Correctional Center near Smyrna, Del.
Robert M. Coupe, secretary of the state Department of Safety and Homeland Security, said at a Thursday morning news conference that they could not say the exact manner of Floyd's death. The 47-year-old man's body has been turned over to the state Division of Forensic Science for an autopsy.
Coupe said inmates stalled tactical teams for hours while they used water, turned back on as part of their demands, to fill metal foot lockers and built a wall to block entrances to the prison. This blockade stopped police teams from entering the prison sooner and required calls for a vehicle to knock down the wall from other agencies.
A Department of Correction backhoe, driven by a department employee, was ultimately used to knock down the walls into the prison and gain access to hostages and inmates in Building C, which was under control from 10:30 a.m. Wednesday until daybreak Thursday morning, he said. A female counselor was found alert and safe inside, Coupe said, noting that some inmates shielded her from injury during the hostage situation.
When asked how a situation like this occurred in the prison, Coupe stressed the dangers associated with the job of a correctional officer.
“Prisons are very dangerous,” he said. “Our officers train. Our officers work together ... but every day it’s dangerous.”
All 120 inmates inside Building C, where the hostage situation occurred, are actively considered suspects in the investigation, Coupe said. While some came out of the building on their own, Coupe said investigators have not determined who was responsible for the hostages and that it was unclear whether some inmates came out voluntarily or early to avoid blame.
The building, arranged in the shape of a T with three narrow hallways and a center hub area, is used to house men transitioning between security levels, Coupe said. Some of the inmates did have sharp objects, but Coupe said he was not briefed on what those were Thursday morning.
Delaware Gov. John Carney reiterated that a full investigation will be carried out to determine how and what prompted this attack, and how the state will ensure this situation will never happen again.
“We will leave no stone unturned,” he said at the news conference. “We will bring every resource that we have to sort out this issue and this problem to make sure that correctional facilities are secure and that the employees who work there are safe, recognizing that this is very dangerous work.”
Delaware Gov. John Carney, left, listens to Perry Phelps, commissioner of the state Department of Correction, during a news conference held at Troop 2 in Bear, Del., on the loss of one of the prison guards at James T. Vaughn Correctional Center on Thursday, Feb. 2, 2017, during the hostage situation. (Photo11: Suchat Pederson, The (Wilmington, Del.) News Journal)
Earlier Thursday morning, the Department of Correction released a statement that said the officer was found unresponsive shortly after police made entry into the building and was pronounced dead at 5:29 a.m.
The other hostage, who has only been identified as a female counselor at the prison, was safely rescued and has been released after evaluation and treatment at a local hospital.
Carney said flags would be flown at half-staff in honor of Floyd.
"My prayers all day yesterday were that this event would end with a different result. But it didn't," he said at the news conference.
Among the inmates' demands were prison reforms and better living conditions.
The siege started Wednesday and rolled into Thursday morning, when at 5:06 a.m. ET, Delaware State Police breached Building C, which is secure, according to a news release.
The remaining hostage, identified as man, was found unresponsive. He was pronounced dead at 5:29. Building C is secured #netde — Brittany Horn (@brittanyhorn) February 2, 2017
Around 2 p.m. Wednesday, The (Wilmington, Del.) News Journal tip line received a call from a woman who said her fiancé is an inmate at the Smyrna-area prison and was being held hostage. Then, a man’s voice was patched onto the line, and he said he was asked by hostage takers to relay demands to The News Journal.
"I'm just doing what I'm being told to. I'm just trying to help, ma'am," the man told a News Journal reporter. "They just need somebody to hear their demands." The man would not give his name because he said he was instructed not to.
The demands came in the form of a manifesto or decree and mostly called for prison reforms.
"Improper sentencing orders. Status sheets being wrong. Oppression towards the inmates," the voice continued.
A second call came from a woman who said her son was in the prison and was being held hostage.
"We’re trying to explain the reasons for doing what we’re doing," one of the voices on the call said. "Donald Trump. Everything that he did. All the things that he’s doing now. We know that the institution is going to change for the worse. We know the institution is going to change for the worse. We got demands that you need to pay attention to, that you need to listen to and you need to let them know. Education, we want education first and foremost. We want a rehabilitation program that works for everybody. We want the money to be allocated so we can know exactly what is going on in the prison, the budget."
The News Journal turned over the audios to police and prison officials.
According to the Department of Correction website, the prison houses minimum-, medium- and maximum-security inmates, along with Kent County detainees awaiting trial. It also is the site of the state's death row and where executions were carried out until the Delaware Supreme Court ruled in August that the state's sentencing scheme was unconstitutional. The prison opened in 1971.
Contributing: Adam Duvernay and Scott Goss, The (Wilmington, Del.) News Journal. Follow Karl Baker, Esteban Parra and Brittany Horn on Twitter: @kbaker6, @eparra3, @brittanyhorn
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/2k2ACuC |
Jeremy Cooper says group made mistakes in past and often drifted into political activism rather than supportive, animal welfare society
Failed prosecutions in the name of animal rights, politicised campaigns and adversarial leadership at the RSPCA have damaged the organisation, its new head has said.
Jeremy Cooper said his arrival heralds a new direction for the charity that will in future try to “make friends and influence people” and depart from the fiery rhetoric deployed in the past.
He said the backlash over the way the RSPCA had pursued its aims “hurts”, as it detracted from the work of the charity’s 1,600 employees and volunteers.
Speaking to The Daily Telegraph, the incoming chief executive said he wanted to see the number of prosecutions brought by the charity reduced, and virtually eliminated for fox hunting.
The RSPCA infamously prosecuted the Heythrop, David Cameron’s local hunt, with success coming after huge sums were spent. The charity also attracted negative publicity for its failed prosecution of a family for alleged cruelty to its cat.
“We have made mistakes,” Cooper said. “We have to be honest about that. We have to admit that and acknowledge that. The important thing when you make mistakes is what you do about it.”
This RSPCA attack is a masterclass in how conservatives argue | Zoe Willams Read more
The dog owner, who will reportedly be paid £150,000 in the new role, said the RSPCA would move away from partisan tub-thumping on big issues, such as the badger cull, which was seen to alienate farmers.
“We are going to be a lot less political. It doesn’t mean we won’t stand up for animals. But we are not a political organisation,” he said. The charity’s next big campaign will be on tackling the illegal puppy trade, which Cooper said was a real problem.
“People may have had the perception we were becoming an animal rights organisation. It is not the reality now and it won’t be in the future,” he said.
The former RAF corporal with a background in the supermarket trade took up the permanent post after it had laid vacant for nearly two years. He said: “My style of advocacy is encouragement and dialogue.
“The [previous] leadership was too adversarial. If you want to shout and use rhetoric that’s fine, but it isn’t helpful to anybody. It is not going to make friends and influence people. People won’t like you for it.” |
OBERLIN, Ohio (AP) — Students at Oberlin College have long enjoyed pastries, bagels and chocolates from Gibson’s Bakery, a century-old, family-owned business near campus. That sweet relationship has turned bitter amid hotly disputed accusations of racism, roiling a school and town long known for their liberal politics.
The dispute, which began in November 2016 with the arrest of three black Oberlin students who tried stealing wine from Gibson’s, is now a lawsuit in which the exasperated bakery owners accuse the college and a top dean of slandering Gibson’s as a “racist establishment” and taking steps to destroy the family’s livelihood.
Caught in the middle are longtime residents of this town of 8,300 people, many of whom identify themselves as liberals but who have patronized Gibson’s for decades. Many believe the timing was right for the conflict to boil over; the arrests came the day after Donald Trump won the presidential election, electrifying students who had long heard suspicions of racial profiling at Gibson’s.
“I can understand why people were looking for some outlet for their frustration, but it’s just counterproductive to bend that anger towards a small family business that to my knowledge is not guilty of the sort of racial profiling that people accuse it of,” said retired Oberlin professor Roger Copeland.
The three students were arrested after punching and kicking the white shopkeeper. The 18- and 19-year-old students said that they were racially profiled and that their only crime was trying to buy alcohol with fake identification; the shopkeeper, Allyn Gibson, said the students attacked him after he caught them trying to steal bottles of wine.
The day after the arrests, hundreds of students protested outside the bakery. Members of Oberlin’s student senate published a resolution saying Gibson’s had “a history of racial profiling and discriminatory treatment.”
Few colleges put the “liberal” into “liberal arts” more than Oberlin, which in the early 1800s became the first in the country to regularly admit women and minorities. But it also more recently has become, for conservatives, a symbol of political correctness gone awry and entitled youth.
News articles in 2015 quoted students decrying the school dining hall’s sushi and Vietnamese banh mi sandwiches as cultural appropriation. The divisive, voice-of-a-generation actress Lena Dunham, famously a 2008 Oberlin alumna, was quoted in Food & Wine magazine as saying, “The press reported it as, ‘How crazy are Oberlin kids?’ But to me, it was actually, ‘Right on.’”
With Oberlin’s reputation preceding it and news of the Gibson’s protests spreading online, bikers and out-of-town counter-protesters soon converged on the town to jeer students and buy doughnuts from Gibson’s. Conservatives derided the students on social media as coddled “snowflakes” with a mob mentality, while students attacked the store as a symbol of systemic racism.
The three students arrested at Gibson’s pleaded guilty in August to attempted theft and aggravated trespassing and said in statements required by a plea agreement that their actions were wrong and that the store wasn’t racist.
Even so, students continue to boycott Gibson’s over perceived racial profiling, causing business to suffer. Pressed by a reporter to provide evidence or examples of profiling, they said only that when black students enter the store, they feel as though they’re being watched.
“Racism can’t always be proven on an Excel sheet,” said Kameron Dunbar, an Oberlin junior and vice chair of the student senate.
Copeland and other residents say the accusations of racism are unfounded.
“I’ve never seen evidence; it’s always hearsay,” Copeland said. “When your fellow student is shutting down a conversation because he or she is made uncomfortable, it leads to a hive mentality.”
On Nov. 7, the Gibsons sued Oberlin and Meredith Raimondo, vice president and dean of students, for slander, accusing faculty members of encouraging demonstrations against the bakery by suspending classes, distributing flyers, and supplying protesters with free food and drink.
It says Raimondo took part in the demonstration against Gibson’s with a bullhorn and distributed a flyer that said the bakery is a “RACIST establishment with a LONG ACCOUNT of RACIAL PROFILING and DISCRIMINATION.”
Today, the lawsuit says, college tour guides continue to inform prospective students that Gibson’s is racist.
Dave Gibson, the bakery’s owner, says the lawsuit is about standing up for his right to crack down on shoplifting without being branded as a racist. The suit says Oberlin demanded that he stop pushing criminal charges on first-time shoplifters and call school deans instead.
“I have not taken a paycheck since this happened more than a year ago,” Gibson said in an email. “Sometimes you have to stand up to a large institution. Powerful institutions — including Oberlin College — and their members must follow the same laws as the rest of us.”
Gibson’s loses thousands of dollars to theft, the lawsuit said. It rejects any accusations of racial bias, pointing to police figures in the past five years that show only six out of 40 adults arrested for shoplifting at the bakery were black.
The school said in a statement after the lawsuit was filed that it and Raimondo deny Gibson’s claims and that the college has stopped buying the bakery’s goods, ending what had been a decades-long relationship. Raimondo did not respond to an email seeking comment.
Attempts by the Oberlin Business Partnership to mediate between the school and bakery ended in failure, said partnership Director Janet Haar, with neither side appearing to be interested.
The clash has inspired Oberlin senior Jake Berstein, who said he witnessed the initial altercation, to produce a podcast trying to create a conversation that “isn’t being had” between the two sides.
“Gibson’s has become all that is wrong with America,” Berstein said. “It’s a classic case of those political bubbles that don’t communicate with each other, and don’t want to.”
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Associated Press writer Michael Rubinkam contributed to this report. |
Jeremy Corbyn has defied the pundits and the pollsters to restore the Labour party as a serious electoral force and deliver a devastating blow to Theresa May’s political authority. But how?
This remarkable election saw a surge in both Conservative and Labour votes as the first-past-the-post system amplified the return of the two-party system after an absence of nearly 20 years.
Young people have spoken. And they said Jeremy Corbyn | Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett Read more
More than anything else it was a night in which Britain’s younger generation flexed their political muscles to real effect for the first time.
Despite their calamitous campaign, the Conservatives increased their share of the vote to 42% – up five points since 2015 – which in any other election in the past three decades would have been enough to build a commanding majority.
But Labour outperformed even that achievement as a unique alliance of enthused younger voters and previous non-voters combined with older austerity-hit, anti-establishment Ukippers to deliver a 10-point rise in Labour’s vote compared with two years ago, to 40%. This is just below the 41% secured by Tony Blair in his 2001 landslide victory.
Turnout
The “youthquake” was a key component of Corbyn’s 10-point advance in Labour’s share of the vote – exceeding even Blair’s nine-point gain in his first 1997 landslide. No official data exists for the scale of the youth vote but an NME-led exit poll suggests turnout among under-35s rose by 12 points compared with 2015, to 56%. The survey said nearly two-thirds of younger voters backed Labour, with Brexit being their main concern.
Overall turnout was up 2% at 69%, the highest since 1997, with 85% of seats seeing an increase in voters. The top five seats with the highest turnouts of 78-79% were Winchester, Twickenham, St Albans, Wirral West and Wirral South. The first three featured fierce Lib Dem/Tory battles, including Vince Cable’s successful fight in Twickenham.
Ten seats that saw the largest 10%-plus increases in turnout included Newcastle upon Tyne East, Ilford South, Foyle, Rossendale and Darwen, Lewisham East and Staffordshire South. It is likely the youth vote had a decisive influence in seats such as Manchester Central, Canterbury and Cambridge, which are also in the top 22 seats for increased turnout.
London experienced the biggest concentration of seats with above average turnout, 39 being above the national 69% benchmark. The largest turnout falls came in Scotland, where 20 SNP-held seats recorded drops of up to 8%, marking a turn in the nationalist tide. Only two seats in Scotland saw increased turnout – Orkney and Glasgow.
What happened to the Ukip vote?
Analysis of the local election results led many to conclude that the shift of Ukip’s 4 million former voters had almost all gone directly back to the Conservatives. They appeared to be fuelling the massive 15-point-plus Tory leads when the snap election was called and confirming Boris Johnson’s claim they were “a lost Tory tribe”.
But the data shows that picture to be a lot more complicated; the Ukip vote has fragmented, with more than a third going to parties other than the Conservatives. In at least one seat – Canterbury – where Labour won for the first time – Ukip’s failure to stand in a constituency where it secured 7,289 votes in 2015 seemed to fuel Labour’s 12,000 vote increase. In Wrexham, another seat where Ukip stood down, it appears Labour and the Tories equally benefited from Ukip’s former voters, keeping the seat Labour despite its high leave profile.
This fragmentation of the Ukip vote also enabled Labour to hold on to Nottinghamshire marginals, such as Vernon Coaker’s Gedling. The much-touted Tory surge across the Midlands, the north-west and the north-east failed to materialise, partly as a result of this effect. Nigel Farage claimed the Conservatives had made a major miscalculation in assuming Ukippers were just disaffected Tory voters.
Marginals
The new battleground seats include some unfamiliar names, such as Kensington in London, as key marginals. In Hastings and Rye the home secretary, Amber Rudd, now sits on a majority of just 346 and may have to spend more time in her constituency if she does not move to safer territory.
Winners, losers and survivors on election night Read more
The Tories are now defending 40 seats which are vulnerable to a swing of just 2.5%, while there are only 29 Labour MPs sitting on such a slim majority. This advantage to Labour, however, may be eroded when the new constituency boundary changes come into effect next year which were expected to benefit the Conservatives..
The swing
There were fears during the campaign that the Corbyn surge, fuelled by big Labour leads among voters under 35, would simply stack up bigger majorities in the party’s safe seats. But Labour made gains across the country in unexpected places, such as Canterbury, Plymouth and Ipswich, while the Tories saw their more modest but still substantial increase in support concentrated largely in the seats they already held.
The national swing from Conservatives to Labour was 1.8% but there was a sharp Brexit variation between remain and leave seats.
The results show an 8% swing from Conservatives to Labour in those seats that voted remain in last year’s referendum. In seats that voted leave there was a 1% swing from Labour to the Conservatives. It appears Corbyn’s fudged Brexit stance proved highly effective in minimising defections among leave voters while still proving positive enough for unhappy remain voters, especially in London.
May v Corbyn
It was also very much a personal triumph for Corbyn. The Conservatives, fuelled by a stratospheric +28-point approval rating for May, far outstripping her party’s standing with voters, chose to base their campaign around her. The word “Conservative” was reduced to a footnote.
Corbyn’s ratings began at -23 points and he faced a campaign of vilification in the Tory papers not seen since their 1980s assault on Michael Foot. Corbyn minimised the damage through his unplugged style of mass rallies, growing in strength through the campaign and eschewing May’s itinerary of highly targeted marginal visits.
He ended the campaign with a remarkable YouGov personal rating of +39. May, whose wooden leadership and shortcomings became painfully plain to the public in the full glare of the campaign, finished on a rating of +6. She was no longer the electoral asset her party had invested in so heavily.
Play Video 2:52 ‘Now let’s get to work’: Theresa May’s Downing Street speech in full - video
Two-party politics
But the election was not a uniform national story. Labour gained most in London and produced good results in Wales. Meanwhile, the most effective part of the Tory surge came in Scotland, where they won more seats from the SNP than Labour.
It was, however, overwhelmingly a realignment among the parties’ voters that produced this hung parliament. Labour gained strongly among younger, more affluent urban voters while the Conservatives reached working-class voters who had never supported them before.
The big casualties were the minor parties, with Ukip being the biggest. Its vote fell from 13% in 2015 to 2% and the party faces implosion after the resignation of its leader, Paul Nuttall. It was a happier story for the Liberal Democrats, despite losing Nick Clegg. The party’s national vote share was little changed at 7% but its strategy of fighting the campaign as a series of individual byelections paid off, increasing the number of seats from eight to 12 – its first advance since 2005. |
Two US prosecutors who covered up police killings lose primary elections
By David Brown
18 March 2016
Last Tuesday, the state’s attorneys in Cleveland and Chicago lost primary races to secure the Democratic Party’s nomination. The two prosecutors, Timothy McGinty of Cuyahoga County, Ohio and Anita Alvarez of Cook County, Illinois, had protected police from criminal charges in high profile killings. Both defeats were the result of widespread anger over police brutality.
In Cleveland, McGinty was responsible for the decision not to prosecute Officer Timothy Loehmann for killing 12-year-old Tamir Rice in November 2014. Video in that case showed the policeman shooting the child within seconds of getting out of his vehicle. McGinty solicited reports from “independent investigators” chosen for their sympathy to law enforcement who declared that shooting this child was “objectively reasonable.”
A year after the killing, the grand jury led by McGinty exonerated Loehmann, with McGinty declaring: “The Supreme Court prohibits second-guessing police tactics with 20/20 hindsight, and the law gives the benefit of the doubt to the officers, who must make split-second decisions when they reasonably believe their lives or those of innocent bystanders are in danger.”
McGinty lost the primary to Michael O’Malley who received 56 percent of the vote. Since there is no other general-election candidate for the office in heavily Democratic Cuyahoga County, O’Malley has in effect won the position.
In Chicago, Alvarez was complicit in the attempted cover-up of the killing of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald in October 2014. The administration of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel sought to prevent video of the shooting from being released to the public and authorized a $5 million wrongful death settlement with McDonald’s family on the condition that the video not be publicized.
Alvarez had delayed any charges against Officer Jason Van Dyke, who shot McDonald 16 times, including as he lay bleeding on the ground, until a judge ordered the release of the dashcam footage which showed the officer’s claims of self-defense were a complete fabrication. Alvarez filed the charges against Van Dyke the day that video of the killing was released in order to stem the protests that erupted after the official cover story collapsed.
Alvarez lost to Kim Foxx, a former prosecutor in her office, by 36 percentage points. Foxx will compete with a token Republican candidate in November.
Despite the popular hostility to incumbents who shielded killer cops, the channeling of this thoroughly justified anger through the Democratic Party insures that the replacement prosecutors have been carefully vetted and are just as much part of the anti-working class “criminal justice” system as those voted out.
Both O’Malley and Foxx have had thoroughly conventional careers, with many years in and around law enforcement, and they received endorsements from the same figures that originally promoted Alvarez and McGinty. Their role is to use talk of reform to divert and disperse the popular anger over the well-publicized police killings so that police brutality and corruption can continue largely undisturbed.
O’Malley is a former Cleveland City Councilman with a background as a bailiff and probation officer. For eight years he has been working as an assistant prosecutor under McGinty and McGinty’s predecessor Bill Mason. As part of his campaign, O’Malley received endorsements from the mayors, state representatives, city councilors and other Democratic establishment figures.
In Chicago, Foxx is the former aide of Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle and ran with her endorsement. Despite the widespread protests demanding Emanuel’s resignation that had surrounded the McDonald killing, the day after Foxx’s victory, Preckwinkle told the Chicago Sun-Times: “I don’t think it’s a message for the mayor. The message is simply that the people of Cook County believe it’s time for a transformative change in the states attorney’s office.”
For her own part, Foxx made no direct mention of the McDonald case during her victory speech, only saying that her victory was about “turning the page.” Her campaign received large donations from major Democratic donors. Fred Eychaner, who gave more than $14 million to Democratic super PACs in the 2012 election, donated $600,000 to the Foxx campaign. Preckwinkle’s campaign provided another $300,000, and Service Employees International Union affiliates added more than $200,000.
Although Foxx criticized Alvarez for her handling of the McDonald case, Foxx has raised no criticisms of police brutality in general despite the Chicago Police Department’s long history of violence and torture.
Police killings in the United States continue at a steady rate of nearly three a day with at least 223 victims so far this year. Far from being anomalies, the killings of Rice and McDonald express the fact that under conditions of ever-greater social inequality, the financial elite responds to mounting opposition and unrest by systematically building up its police force and arming it to the teeth.
Under the Obama administration, with the support of both Democrats and Republicans, the police have been armed with military surplus equipment and increasingly trained as an occupying force to suppress dissent in cities like Ferguson and Baltimore. Democrats like Foxx and O’Malley do not represent an alternative to this program, just a desire from some Democrats to be more sophisticated in the justification and defense of police brutality.
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Donald Trump Donald John TrumpHouse committee believes it has evidence Trump requested putting ally in charge of Cohen probe: report Vietnamese airline takes steps to open flights to US on sidelines of Trump-Kim summit Manafort's attorneys say he should get less than 10 years in prison MORE is looking to shake up the Republican convention this summer and said he's considering doing away with lengthy speeches by politicians that don't pay enough attention to the nominee.
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"What I’m thinking about doing for the convention is rather [than] these politicians, you know — they're gonna get up and speak and speak and speak," Trump said at a rally in Richmond, Va., Friday. "You remember last time with [Mitt] Romney, all these politicians got up and they kept speaking and they didn’t mention Romney’s name. They spoke— one guy spoke for like 45 minutes. He never mentioned Romney's name. He said, 'Oh good luck by the way with the election,' at the end, walked off.
"Well we're going to do it a little differently, if it's OK."
"I’m thinking of getting some of the great sports people that I know that like me a lot and that I like," Trump continued. "And not even sports — we may call it the winners' evening."
Trump, who had earlier told the story of his endorsement by famed basketball coach Bobby Knight, mentioned NASCAR head Brian France and UFC fighter as potential speakers. |
Pensioner Jyparkul Karaseyitova says she cannot afford meat anymore. At her local bazaar in Kyrgyzstan’s capital, Bishkek, the price for beef has jumped nine per cent in the last six weeks.
She is not alone in feeling the pain of rising inflation. Butcher Aigul Shalpykova says her sales have fallen 40% in the last month. “If I usually sell 400kg of meat every month, in September I sold only 250kg,” she said.
A sharp decline in the value of Russia’s ruble since early September is rippling across Central Asia, where economies are dependent on transfers from workers in Russia, and on imports too. As local currencies follow the ruble downward, the costs of imported essentials rise, reminding those living here just how dependent they are on their former colonial master.
The ruble is down 20% against the dollar since the start of the year, in part due to western sanctions against Moscow for its role in the Ukraine crisis. The fall accelerated in September as the price of oil – Russia’s main export – dropped to four-year lows. The feeble ruble has helped push down currencies around the region, sometimes by double-digit figures.
In Bishkek, food prices have increased by 20 to 25% over the past 12 months, says Zaynidin Jumaliev, the chief for Kyrgyzstan’s northern regions at the economics ministry, who partially blames the rising cost of Russian-sourced fuel.
The IMF said it expects consumer prices in Kyrgyzstan to grow eight per cent in 2014 and 8.9% in 2015
In Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, remittances from millions of workers in Russia have started to fall. In recent years, these cash transfers have contributed the equivalent of about 30% of Kyrgyzstan’s economy and about 50% of Tajikistan’s. As the ruble depreciates, however, it buys fewer dollars to send home.
“A weaker ruble weighs on [foreign] workers’ salaries […] which brings some pain to these countries,” said Oleg Kouzmin, Russia and CIS economist at Renaissance Capital in Moscow. This month the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said it expects consumer prices in Kyrgyzstan to grow eight per cent in 2014 and 8.9% in 2015, compared with 6.6% last year. Kazakhstan and Tajikistan should see similar increases.
A Dushanbe resident says he went on holiday for three weeks in July and when he returned food prices were approximately 10% higher. In Uzbekistan, the IMF said it expects inflation “will likely remain in the double digits”.
The one country unlikely to feel the pressure is Turkmenistan, which is sheltered from the market’s moods because it sells its chief export – natural gas – to China at a fixed price. The region is also vulnerable to policy shifts by Russia’s Central Bank, which has already spent more than $50bn this year defending the ruble. Some Russians, including former finance minister Alexei Kudrin, have condemned efforts to prop up the currency, arguing that a weaker ruble is good for exports.
The tumbling ruble and the drop in the price of oil have helped steer Kazakhstan’s economy into a cul-de-sac, slowing growth projections, forcing officials to recalculate the budget, and suggesting the tenge is overvalued. The National Bank devalued the currency by 19% in February. On 21 October, National Bank Chairman Kairat Kelimbetov urged Kazakhs not to worry about another devaluation, but investors grumble that he said the same thing less than a month before February’s devaluation.
The tumbling ruble and the drop in the price of oil have helped steer Kazakhstan’s economy into a cul-de-sac
Another devaluation would send a distress signal to investors, says one Almaty banker. Astana “lost a fair bit of credibility last time,” the banker said on condition of anonymity, fearing new legislation designed to combat panic selling. “They need to be much more careful about how they handle expectations going forward. And that is affecting how things are happening this time. People seem to be a lot more dollar[s] compared to a year ago and more hesitant to hold large tenge balances.”
“My personal position?” the banker added. “I’m not holding tenge.” Meanwhile, a mystery investor has been propping up the tenge by selling hundreds of millions of dollars a day, according to Halyk Finance in Almaty. On 21 October “a larger player, again off-setting the intra-day trend, sold about $650m,” Halyk said in a note to investors. On 20 October a “large player” also sold about $600m, which kept the tenge stable at about 181/US dollar. Observers believe the “large player” is a state-run company with ample reserves, but are mystified that the Central Bank refuses to comment and concerned that the interventions appear to be growing.
In Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, central banks have dipped into limited reserves to ease their currencies’ slides. Nevertheless, the Kyrgyz som has fallen by 12% against the dollar this year, the Tajik somoni by about 5%. The World Bank said this month it expects the somoni to sink further. Renaissance Capital’s Kouzmin cautions against bank interventions which use up reserves and widen trade deficits. “It makes sense for the national banks of these countries to let currencies depreciate to some extent to keep national competitiveness,” he said. Overall, the slowdown in Russia has long-term effects on Central Asia. “Portfolio investors look at the region as a whole. If you’re a CIS fund, the news on Russia has been bad and has caused the withdrawal of funds” from the region, said Dominic Lewenz of Visor Capital, an investment bank in Almaty. “So the trouble in Russia has hit things here.” GDP growth projections have fallen markedly across the region, but nowhere near the levels seen during the 2008-9 financial crisis. Everything, it seems, depends on Ukraine. Any worsening scenario there would have “far-reaching implications” for the region, possibly on food security, according to the European Bank for Reconstruction & Development. Back at the bazaar in Bishkek, Orunbay Jolchuev was forced to increase what he charges for flour by 15% this month. But at least sales have not been affected. “We all need flour, we all need to eat bread, macaroni, dough,” Jolchuev said. “It’s not something people can cut back even if it becomes too expensive.” |
Enrique Allen is the co-director of Designer Fund where he provides angel funding, mentorship and connections to designers creating businesses with meaningful impact. He also teaches at the Stanford d.school.
We’re on a roll as more designers succeed on the path of entrepreneurship, but how do we decide which startups to work with? We need to be more diligent about not spending our scarce attention working on startups that go nowhere and learn how to pick ones that actually live up to all the hype.
Here are five simple questions we asked before deciding to partner with startups like Airbnb, Dropbox, Pinterest, Square, Khan Academy and Coursera for our design education program, Bridge.
1) Do you believe in the mission?
Start with the “Why?” when you talk with the founders and the rest of team. Ask them to articulate the mission and what gets them up in the morning day after day. Do you think they genuinely believe in the purpose of the company and does it strike a chord in your heart?
The mission is what intrinsically motivates and sustains you through all the ups and downs of startup life. It makes getting in early and staying up late sweating details worth all the effort because you know you’re contributing to something positive that’s greater than yourself.
In the case of Airbnb, its mission is to “make people feel at home, anywhere in the world.” If you are someone who believes in living like a local to authentically experience a foreign place, this is where your missions align.
Airbnb Global Growth via Airbnb Annual Report
2) Who’s on the team?
Arguably the most important factor in deciding to join a startup is the team.
Ideally, you can surround yourself with teammates who are “better” than you in many ways because of their diverse backgrounds, skills and experiences. You’re greatly influenced by your peers and if they’re extraordinary, you’ll learn from them and continuously be pushed to improve yourself.
Just like great engineers attract other great engineers, the same is true with designers. As you talk to designers and engineers at a startup, do you feel inspired and confident that you can learn a ton from them? Do you see evidence that the founders invest in design and value it at the same level as engineering and business?
One essential criteria to ask is if the startup even has a design team. If the company has dozens of engineers and only one or no designers, this could be an opportunity for you to lead and create a design team… if you’re prepared for that.
If not, try to look for your design dream team. For instance, many of designers at Dropbox have “past experience shipping wildly successful products including the original designers of Facebook, Spotify, Rdio, Instagram, and many more,” says Andrew Chin, Bridge alum.
You want to surround yourself with people who are going to push the quality of your work to the next level.
New Dropbox Designers (Photo by Tim Van Damme)
3) Will you be a partner in making decisions?
Watch out for big companies that have multiple layers of bureaucratic hierarchy or companies that are so established that they only make incremental changes for fear of losing what they’ve already gained. You want to be able to take risks and influence everything from the product all the way up to how the company itself is designed.
Dig into how decisions actually get made at the company. Is there essentially a waterfall method where the founders or engineers make all the key decisions and then want designers to make it “pretty?”
If so, turn around and walk away. You want a place with true collaboration.
“We don’t like drawing lines between skill-sets like Design, Engineering, and Brand,” says Evan Sharp, Pinterest’s designer and cofounder. “We know that we’ll only be successful as a company if we empower the best people to build their absolute best work, and so design everything around that.
“In this way, we’re always “knitting” and collaborating to produce the best results we can for Pinners.”
Knitting at Pinterest (Photo by Bex Finch)
4) Is there a healthy culture that values design?
Keep an eye out for how the company is organized. Does design have a strong voice and seat at the executive level or is it subordinate to some vice president? Does the company give designers amble budget to build the right team and invest in creativity, everything from supplies like white boards to large format printing?
Also take a look at basic indicators like how the space is designed. Has the company invested in creating an environment that fosters collaboration across disciplines? When you talk to anyone at the company are they finding meaning in their work and does their behavior actually imbue the company’s values?
I remember walking into Square’s creative space and being blown away by the creative energy flowing through the place – not just from product designers. There was something special when I saw photographers, filmmakers, and storytellers – roles you don’t normally see in startups.
These kind of small details add up to create a culture that shows it values design in everything they do.
Square’s headquarters in San Francisco
5) How much value can you and the company create?
Last but not least, if you join a startup, make sure you know what you could work on and how valuable your work might be.
Are you going to be able to solve problems holistically or will you be pigeon holed into polishing off a feature? Is there a design need the company has that you can uniquely fill and if you succeed, will it move the needle for the business?
Consider whether the company is at an interesting stage of growth, where they’re just at the cusp of taking off or at the early stages of developing a transformative product – these are moments where design can really make a difference.
Ideally, there’s potential for you have a hand in affecting millions of people and potentially creating billions of dollars’ worth of value in the long run. You also want to make sure that if the company does well, you will too by having a significant equity stake.
Very few opportunities in the world offer the type of upside startups can have in terms of impact and scale.
“Working on a product that is used by millions of people is awesome, but one that empowers those millions to improve their lives and the lives of those around them creates orders of magnitude more impact in the world,” says Jason Rosoff, lead designer at Khan Academy.
I hope these questions serve you well before you consider joining a startup.
Khan Academy (Photo by Jason Rosoff)
If you’re interested in connecting with world class designers and startups in San Francisco, check out Bridge. Apply early by February 9th; applications close March 2nd.
Read next: Laudville graduates its social entertainment discovery platform from beta |
As part of our week-long focus on the media in Wales in the run up to the #iwamedia summit on 29 March, Ifan Morgan Jones discusses the move to online for Welsh language journalism
Ifan Morgan Jones is a Lecturer in the School of Creative Studies and Media at Bangor University
One of the topics under scrutiny at the Institute of Welsh Affairs Media Summit on 29th March will be how can the media best serve the Welsh language community. The discussion will no doubt focus to an extent on the move to online media and what challenges and opportunities this presents for the language.
The Welsh language has always been an early adopter of new technologies and has enjoyed a relatively vibrant media for 150 years. The second half on the 19th century saw a ‘golden age’ of Welsh-language journalism in print, with 15 newspapers in circulation at its peak in 1893. And the second half of the 20th century saw the establishment of Welsh-language radio and TV channels Radio Cymru and S4C.
Despite these successes, the continued growth of the Welsh language depends on its ability to negotiate the essential but difficult transition to online technologies. As in previous centuries, the language has not been slow to respond to the changing technological climate, and there are currently five professionally run Welsh-language news websites; two that update regularly throughout the day, Golwg360 and BBC Cymru Fyw, as well as three other sites, Y Cymro, Barn and O’r Pedwar Gwynt, that upload some unique content every month.
As part of my current research into online Welsh-language media, I interviewed journalists from these news sites, and was also given access to Golwg360’s statistics and survey results.
There are a number of broad conclusions that can be draw from the research done so far:
It’s safe to say that Welsh language journalism is attracting more readers than at any time since the ‘golden age’ on the 19 th century. BBC Cymru Fyw and Golwg360 enjoy over 57,000 unique weekly visitors between them. In comparison, during the ‘golden age’ of the 19 th century, the best-selling newspaper, Baner ac Amserau Cymru , had a circulation of about 15,000.
This audience is also unsurprisingly younger than that for Welsh-language print publications, television and radio, with around half the audience being under 40 years of age.
Welsh language news sites, particularly BBC Cymru Fyw, have used social media as an effective means of attracting a new, and younger, audience that would not traditionally have turned to Welsh-language print publications, TV and Radio. Because the content appears in their Facebook or Twitter feeds, they are more likely to click on it than they would to go out and buy a Welsh-language website or magazine, or tune in to a Welsh-language TV or radio channel.
The flip side, however, is that the audience is very promiscuous. They are not turning exclusively to Welsh-language journalism for their online news, but also making use of a number of English-language news sites; particularly the BBC’s English-language services, The Guardian, Wales Online , and The Daily Post .
Because of this promiscuity, they visit Welsh-language news sites in search of a particular kind of news – news concerning the language itself, Welsh politics, education in Wales, the Welsh media, the Welsh-language arts, and Welsh institutions. Topics such as British politics, international news and sport do not attract as large an audience. In other words, users were attracted by topics that are little discussed, or often discussed with limited understanding, in the English-language media.
However, some topics not directly related to the Welsh-language, arts or institutions did well when discussed in a Welsh context or involved a geographical area where the Welsh language was widely spoken. For example, even though articles about technology or sport did not do as well overall as some of the topics discussed above, articles about famous Welsh scientists, and an article about cage fighting in Welsh-speaking Caernarfon, did well for BBC Cymru Fyw . Golwg360 also found an audience for international stories when told from the perspective of a Welsh speaking eyewitness.
Several of the journalists interviewed suggested that Welsh language journalism was essential in order to offer a different perspective on the world, but also because topics concerning the Welsh language were often covered in a ham-fisted manner by the English-language media. An article discussing the low sales of Welsh Scrabble at Carmarthen Waterstones was touted as an example. It was covered by British and Welsh English language media, but no-one pointed out that the game had been on sale for over a decade, and that most Welsh speakers buy Welsh-language games, books and other items at Welsh-language shops, such as Siop y Pentan in the same town. It could be argued therefore that part of the demand for Welsh online media arises from the fact that Welsh speakers simply don’t trust the English language media’s ability to understand the linguistic world in which they live, and so tend to turn to Welsh-language media for an informed discussion on these topics.
The audience for Welsh-language journalism is primarily in the Welsh-speaking ‘Fro Gymraeg’ in West Wales, and also in Cardiff. This isn’t surprising until one realises that most of the Welsh-speaking population reside outside of these areas. Attracting a Welsh-speaking audience outside the core readership that may not be interested in the kind of topics traditionally discussed by Welsh-language media could be a challenge.
The resources in order to carry out in-depth, investigatory journalism are limited, particularly outside the BBC. This problem could be exacerbated by a continued demand for resource intensive multimedia news, such as video interviews, which many Welsh-language journalists did not feel they had the time, the resources or the technological capability to deliver.
The inability to carry out much in the way of investigative journalism meant that while the number of sources for Welsh-language news online is impressive, there may be a lack of plurality, with BBC Cymru Fyw, Golwg360 , and Y Cymro in particular covering many of the same topics.
One answer could be for those sites outside the BBC to work together, pooling online content on one central news hub rather than spending money maintaining separate news sites. Y Cymro, Barn and O’r Pedwar Gwynt’s websites are secondary to their print publications, and there are numerous magazines and newspapers funded by the Welsh Books Council with no online presence at all. Publishing some of this content on a single site, such as the already popular Golwg 360, could attract a larger (and younger) audience for these magazines’ and newspapers’ content while also strengthening and diversifying Golwg360’s output.
The findings have also opened up avenues for further research. One is whether the emphasis put on news about Welsh political institutions by Welsh online media means that their readers, listeners and viewers are more likely to value those institutions and therefore profess Welsh nationalism than the readers, listeners and viewers of English language online media in Wales. Of course, it could also be suggested that Welsh-language media concentrate on Welsh politics to a greater extent because of the close ties between Welsh cultural and civic nationalism. The relationship between Welsh language media and Welsh nationalism is something of a chicken and egg question, with its origins in the printing press of the 19thcentury, if not earlier.
I am also currently researching how Wales’ indigenous journalism can withstand, or make use of, platforms such as Facebook and their perceived ability to effectively target linguistic or geographical audiences. Although useful as a means of reaching new users, Facebook poses a similar threat to Welsh-language journalism, not least because it offers a means by which Welsh-language speakers can be directly targeted by advertisers.
Overall, Welsh language online journalism is in a strong position, at least relative to other online minority language media. However, it’s worth noting that the burgeoning Welsh-language press of 19th century Wales declined quickly in the 20th century as technological developments allowed the London-based press to monopolise the market, offering a better service at a lower price. As the demand for costly, multimedia content such as video and VR increases, online Welsh-language news needs to ensure it is not swept aside in the same way.
Editorial note: This is part of Click on Wales’ week-long focus on media issues. The Media Policy Group of the Institute of Welsh Affairs is holding the third Cardiff Media Summit on 29th March and booking information can be found here |
Although Scott Walker said he was bowing out of the presidential race to help the Republican Party rally around an alternative to “the current front-runner” -- whom he declined to name -- Walker's problem wasn't so much Donald Trump as himself.
The Wisconsin governor, a novice to national politics, was plagued by blunders even before declaring his candidacy. In February, for instance, he said his struggles with state employee unions had prepared him to take on Islamic State.
When he entered the race in July, however, he was polling strong in Iowa, which holds the first nominating contest. His Midwestern roots and his family's religious ties made him a favorite.
By Sunday, after a lackluster performance in two debates, his support had plummeted to zero in a CNN/ORC poll. His fundraising had tanked too.
Here are three areas where Walker stumbled.
His entrance into the race
Walker entered the 2016 campaign under a spotlight no candidate would enjoy -- a public tiff with his family.
When the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June that same-sex couples had a constitutional right to marry, Walker objected.
“I believe this Supreme Court decision is a grave mistake,” he said.
The next day, Walker toned down his comments, noting that the high court's ruling was the law of the land.
But the damage was done, casting Walker not as a moderate but as one pandering to the far right.
Weeks later, as Walker prepared to declare his candidacy, his sons Matt, 21, and Alex, 20, told CNN they disagreed with his stance on gay marriage. Their mother had foreshadowed the family divide in an interview with the Washington Post.
“That was a hard one,” Tonette Walker had told the Post. "Our sons were disappointed.... I was torn. I have children who are very passionate [in favor of same-sex marriage], and Scott was on his side very passionate.”
Birthright citizenship must end
Trump, the billionaire businessman and front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination, brought the issue to the fore earlier this summer when he unveiled his immigration plan.
Several GOP hopefuls objected that ending birthright citizenship would require a constitutional amendment.
But Walker sided with Trump, who contends that a simple act of Congress would be enough to ensure that children born to mothers in the U.S. illegally would not be American citizens.
That wasn't the end of Walker's debate with himself, however. He flipped back and forth on the issue several times until eventually deciding he did not support ending birthright citizenship.
Many political observers viewed his shifting stances as amateurish. Questions began to rise about Walker's candidacy and whether he was ready for the national spotlight.
Build a wall along the U.S.-Canada border?
Walker said New Hampshire voters had asked him about putting up a wall at the Canadian border, and he was open to the idea.
His comment set off ridicule and raised eyebrows among Democrats and Republicans alike. Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky called it a “dumb” idea. The Canadian Embassy in Washington issued a statement of objection.
To Republicans, securing the U.S.-Mexico border is vital for immigration reform, but the Canadian border doesn't inspire the same level of anxiety.
Walker ultimately was the odd man out on the issue, and soon backed down. |
“I can’t look you in the face because of shame,” Mr. Roh told reporters before he presented himself for questioning by prosecutors in Seoul, who had accused him of taking $6 million in bribes from a businessman while in office. “I apologize for disappointing the people.”
In his last posting on his Web site, on April 22, he wrote, “You should now discard me.”
He added: “I no longer symbolize the values you pursue. I am no longer qualified to speak for such things as democracy, progressiveness and justice.”
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His apology was typical for a South Korean politician, who is expected to take moral responsibility for a corruption scandal that implicated aides and relatives, even if Mr. Roh denied most of the bribery allegations against him. But prosecutors had been considering indicting him on bribery charges.
In recent weeks, several of his aides and relatives had been arrested or questioned on charges of taking bribes. His elder brother also was arrested in December on bribery charges.
Prosecutors suspected that Mr. Roh, while president, solicited a total of $6 million from a shoe manufacturer, payments that are alleged to have been made to his wife, his son and his brother’s son-in-law. Both his wife and son have been questioned by the prosecutors.
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Mr. Roh’s case, which involves a relatively unknown businessman, appeared relatively minor in scandal-ridden South Korean politics. Former presidents Chun Doo-hwan and Roh Tae-woo were imprisoned in the 1990s for collecting hundreds of millions of dollars from the nation’s biggest conglomerate.
The scandal and the ensuing criticism from his political enemies dealt a devastating blow to Mr. Roh.
In his will, which was released to the news media on Saturday, Mr. Roh wrote, “I owe too much to many people. Many people suffered too much because of me.”
He added, “I have thought about this for a long time.”
A former human rights and labor lawyer considered a political maverick, Mr. Roh swept into power in the December 2002 election on the crest of nationalistic — and sometimes anti-American — sentiments among young voters. During his campaign he famously declared that he would be the first South Korean leader “not to kowtow to the Americans.”
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But his efforts to free South Korea from its traditional dependence on Washington in its diplomacy alienated many South Koreans. |
Burn Notice
Isaac Simpson Blocked Unblock Follow Following Mar 15, 2017
How to stay zen when you run the hottest restaurant in Detroit and then it burns down.
The Detroit Free Press is the largest daily newspaper in Detroit and an absolute authority on local cuisine. On February 9th, 2017, the Free Press chose a Thai-fusion project named Katoi for the #1 spot on its yearly list of Best New Restaurants. On February 15th, Katoi became the only restaurant in Michigan named as a James Beard Best New Restaurant Semifinalist. Two days later, in the early morning hours of February 17th, Katoi burned to the ground.
Katoi encapsulated everything great about Detroit’s ambitious food scene, one where low costs allow adventurous creatives like Katoi’s three founders — Courtney Henriette, Phillip Kafka and Chef Brad Greenhill — to experiment in ways that would be impossible in bigger cities with higher rents. From the fish sauce to the ambiance, Katoi reeked of Detroit funk. “Distressed cinder-block walls of the old garage…plates brimming with Midwestern ingredients.” The Rust Belt’s answer to coastal fusion landmarks like Pok Pok and Night+Market.
Things like this happen in Detroit. And the people in Detroit, because they are people in Detroit, seem to take it in stride. We spoke with Katoi co-creator Courtney Henriette about the catastrophe and how she’s staying remarkably zen while moving forward.
So what was your personal experience of the fire?
Well, my personal experience was, you know it’s funny, I don’t usually stay so late at the restaurant. I generally leave at like ten or something. But that Thursday night, I happened to be there until two, just doing work. When I left it was just the bartenders and the security guards left. And I remember explicitly saying, “are you guys good to shut down?” And they’re like, “yeah, yeah.” I remember I hugged both of them.
How did you receive the news?
So I live in a quonset hut with these sort of metal and polycarbonate walls, and…
Wait, a what?
A quonset hut.
What’s that?
They were originally used for barns. They’re these circular type buildings, like half circles. My business partner, Phillip, is very much into architecture and he’s building a quonset hut village called True North with the architect Edwin Chan. So, there’s this village which is about to open and I live in the test hut. It’s this funny little structure in Detroit.
Anyway, so it’s like 7 o’clock in the morning and there’s a knock on the door. And in the hut, when you knock loud enough the whole thing shakes. So, here I am at 7 in the morning, thinking my hut’s being robbed. But it’s the sous chefs and they’re like, “It’s gone, Courtney, it’s gone! Get up, get up, get up. Katoi is gone!” I’m like, “what are you talking about?” They’re like, “there was a fire.” So we go there, and sure enough all the firefighters were just leaving.
So what happened?
What we think happened is that somebody broke in, probably just to steal some booze, because they didn’t steal anything else of value. We think that maybe they thought they were on camera so they lit a fire.
So you’re sure it’s not someone with some sort of vendetta against you? I’ve definitely fantasized about burning down certain places, if you know what I mean.
No, because you know what? We had been broken into before. Detroit is a desperate, poor city. It’s interesting, I talked to this firefighter afterwards and he’s like, “you know in some cities, you steal a car, you strip it, you leave it. In Detroit, you steal a car, you strip it, you light it on fire.” So, I think these are some of the realities that make this place different than other places.
Wow.
But, on the other hand, the day after this happened people were already mobilized for us without us even asking. That’s the other side of Detroit. They were like, raising money for our front of house staff, which is amazing, right? We had a lot of displaced hourly workers. So I think there’s room for a really critical, larger conversation about the city and some of the underlying issues, way beyond Katoi.
“In some cities, you steal a car, you strip it, you leave it. In Detroit, you steal a car, you strip it, you light it on fire.”
You mean about poverty?
Yeah. People would come up to me and be like, “well who did it?” And quite frankly it doesn’t matter who did it because there’s ten other guys that might do the same thing.
When you saw this creation of yours burned to the ground, what were you thinking?
Well, you know, there really was no time to react. For a minute, I was alone with the police officer. And then my boyfriend showed up. Of course there was this moment of fear because my one business partner was in Dallas, my other business partner was in Thailand, so I had to figure all of this out in that moment by myself. Which would have been really scary except for that, even though this is very early in the morning, all of our staff kept hearing about it and they were driving by to see what was going on. They were coming to help. So, suddenly, I was surrounded by everyone. They were like, “okay, what do we do?” More than anything, and this sounds so crazy, I was really overwhelmed with the compassion and the fact that we made this team and that we were all together.
Courtney and her co-founders Phillip Kafka and Chef Brad Greenhill
So what did you do next?
For the next two days we were still all together. We met up in Phillip’s hut, another quonset hut, and talked about how we could move forward as a team. Which I think was the biggest gift to all of this, realizing that you’ve created a group of 30 some people, who continue to be united after their building goes up in flames.
Do you think that Detroit breeds that kind of solidarity?
Detroit, it’s so small. Say I go to a coffee shop. Doesn’t matter who I am, I’m going to be nice to the person working there because you know, it’s Detroit. This person who’s running a coffee shop could also be running an art gallery and like, be putting together something I’m a fan of. Everyone has something else going on, so everybody is sort of in it together in a very real way.
Does it feel like us versus them though? Like the wealthier people creating stuff versus the people who are so desperate that they have to steal it?
No, I don’t think it does. I mean, there are so many different people in Detroit and I think the beauty is that you can still reach out and connect. For instance, there is this project called Bandhu Gardens out of Hamtramck. It’s this network of Bangladeshi women and they all have these amazing backyard gardens. If you went to their neighborhood, you wouldn’t even realize because everything is behind the houses. They grow produce for their families. Throughout the winter, they have these deep chest freezers. Long beans, in the summer you can see them spreading out chilis to dry in their lawns. It’s really beautiful.
They sell their surplus to restaurants. The Sunday before the building burned down, Minara, the woman who organizes it, was scheduled to have a pop-up at Katoi. Obviously we couldn’t have it at Katoi because the building burned down, so we hosted it at Phillip’s hut. So, we had a dinner at this quonset hut with these Bangladeshi women. It was incredible. I think more than anything we have a sort of duty to put forth the effort to get to know our neighbors.
So there was insurance right? What happens next logistically?
So, we have a staff of maybe ten people that we keep on. We’re doing pop-ups and we’re doing events. We’re all planning for Katoi 2.0. We are tweaking the design a little bit. We are hoping in four months we can re-open, better.
Do you want to catch the people who did it?
You know, I don’t know if it’s bad to say, but I don’t know what good it would do, really. Because, I mean, like I said, I don’t know who this is, I mean they’re probably in some sort of desperate situation. I don’t think they meant to light our restaurant on fire. I think they probably meant to light a security camera on fire and it got out of control. I don’t think we will catch them, and I don’t know what benefit would come from it if we did. |
Faced with an increasingly dire financial situation, Portugal has started negotiating a bailout package with the European Union (EU) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). It follows in the footsteps of Greece and Ireland, two countries where bailouts have proved ineffective. Still, few dare defend the most effective policy option in all three cases: a managed sovereign-debt default.
Such a default would allow the Greek, Irish, and Portuguese governments to push back their accumulated debt obligations, lowering the interest rates they serve, postponing reimbursement, and, if necessary, repaying only part of the capital they owe. Like personal bankruptcy – which allows an over-indebted individual to renegotiate reimbursement terms – a sovereign default allows countries to repay current debts according to future income expectations. A bailout, on the contrary, prioritises lenders by reimbursing them completely and abiding by the initially agreed-upon interest rates and repayment schedules, forcing the government to adjust future income to the weight of accumulated debt.
Bailout proponents continue to sing its praises. By forcing the troubled government to change its economic policy, it supposedly fosters growth and prevents further debt crises. By imposing the majority of the costs on the rescued countries, it purportedly stiffens their fiscal discipline. Finally, by preventing a sovereign default by a member of the eurozone, it allegedly stabilises debt and currency markets.
Upon closer inspection, however, none of these benefits materialise. In Greece and Ireland, bailouts did not stabilise markets, did not encourage economic growth, and did not inspire a change of heart about credit. If anything, these cases suggest that, within the straitjacket of a monetary union, the bailout mix does not work. It requires strict fiscal measures that discourage economic growth and make it impossible to lower the debt-to-GDP ratio.
On the contrary, the conditional bailouts imposed on Greece, Ireland, and, now, Portugal, lead to an insidious cycle of spending cuts and tax rises which produce economic stagnation, social unrest and political turmoil. These countries can expect economic and social agony, imperiling their political situation and easing the push in favour of populism. Is Europe prepared to allow a few of its member states to fall into prolonged economic stagnation, producing social unrest while bolstering fringe parties that capitalise on discontent and undermine democratic processes? In short, do we want to see the problems that led to the demise of Weimar Germany spread across Europe's periphery?
A managed default could bring three benefits.
It would allow troubled countries to jump-start their economic recovery. The immediate debt relief would make space for growth-oriented reforms with visible short-term results. A default could thus save Europe a decade of incipient economic growth, weighed down by the debt-ridden albatrosses in the periphery.
A sovereign default would also give markets a firm signal about the EU's commitment to limit moral hazard. By shifting some of the costs of the debt crisis away from the borrowers, a default would discipline lenders that have continuously supplied cheap money to troubled economies under the expectation that, if necessary, an EU or IMF bailout would guarantee their capital. Whereas a bailout supposedly disciplines the demand side of credit markets, a default effectively disciplines both demand and supply, producing a long-term stabilising effect. A debt restructuring would also clarify the eurozone's underlying tensions by removing speculative pressures and forcing more coherent fiscal policies across the entire area.
More importantly, a structured credit default would limit the political risks associated with the bailout option. It would dampen the rise of populist trends in the troubled countries in reaction to punishing bailout policy mixes. It would also limit the damage to Europe's cohesiveness caused by the perception – accurate or not – that the EU is forcing unfair, asymmetric solutions upon recipient countries.
To be sure, a debt restructuring would have to be carefully designed, with a well-considered mix of lender haircuts, extended loan maturities, and trimmed interest rates. Even the ideal default – one co-ordinated at the EU level – would stir credit markets. German, French (and, in the Portuguese case, Spanish) banks are the main creditors of the debt-ridden governments and would bear the brunt of a joint default. Other countries might witness a short-term spike in interest rates, requiring additional European commitments.
Beyond these manageable issues, however, economic, financial and electoral self-interest have prevented Germany from discussing the default option. Likewise, France and Italy, both of whom possess higher debt-to-GDP ratios than Portugal, have benefited from the markets' focus on Lisbon's problems. The Portuguese firewall has also shielded Spain and Belgium, likely the next targets of the markets.
Pretending the default option does not exist violates fundamental economic principles that will eventually override any political preference. To avoid wasting a decade, the governments of Greece, Ireland and Portugal should force Europe to discuss a debt restructuring. France, Germany, Italy and Spain, for their part, would be well advised to listen. As the economist Irving Fisher wrote in an article on debt during the Great Depression, to assume that under excruciating socio-economic conditions all debts will be repaid is as absurd as assuming "that the Atlantic Ocean can ever be without a wave".
A debt default would dispel the spectre of Weimar, with stagnant – or worse, contracting – economies leading to rising populist tendencies that could undermine democracy in member states and thus imperil European peace. A co-ordinated debt default would not endanger the stability of the euro and the EU. In fact, it might be the best way to preserve it. |
Talk about star power.
David O. Russell is prepping a TV series starring Robert De Niro and Julianne Moore, The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed.
Details about the plot are being kept under wraps. There is neither a production company attached nor a network, but CAA — who reps Russell — already has multiple offers for the project sight unseen. Sources say Russell's camp is looking for a major commitment for the project, which is said to be a limited series, and its high-level cast.
Russell is expected to begin pitching the potential series next week when he returns from vacation. It's unclear who is hearing the pitch and whether the outlets that have already made offers for the A-list project are from the broadcast, cable, premium or streaming side.
Scott Lambert, Alexandra Milchan and Megan Ellison are attached to produce the series with Russell at the helm. Insiders caution that the entire package could still fall apart, but given the high-level talent attached, that seems unlikely.
Russell's largest TV commitment to date is 2014's The Club, which was picked up with a 12-episode straight-to-series order at ABC. He quickly exited the project and ABC reversed course on the series, which was poised to star Betsy Brandt.
The latest project comes as A-list talent continues to segue to the small screen, where many are drawn by limited episode counts, stronger creative and more time to explore the material and characters. On the TV side, high-level talent helps broadcast, cable and streaming outlets cut through the increasing amount of original scripted programming in the so-called Peak TV world where talent and recognizable IP are considered keys to breaking through the clutter.
The Russell/De Niro/Moore project comes after Russell earned back-to-back screenwriting Oscar nominations for Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle. Moore recently won an Emmy for HBO's Game Change. De Niro, for his part, scored a supporting Oscar nomination for his role in Silver Lining Playbook. |
HOUSTON, TX, Aug 07, 2014 (Marketwired via COMTEX) -- What are the hottest, fastest growing and best paying temp jobs? From manufacturing and transportation, to business and healthcare services, companies all over the country are in high demand for temporary employees across various industries and job-types.
Many of these fast growing opportunities not only offer higher wages, but also substantial career growth. Due to the tight labor market and hard to fill positions, many HR departments are outsourcing temporary staffing companies like Link Staffing Services to fill these positions for them.
The following list, from Economic Modeling Specialists, is comprised of occupations in the temporary help services industry that are projected to grow by at least three times the projected rate of all job growth, have more than 20,000 projected temporary workers employed by year end, and pay more than $16 per hour.
The Top Temp Occupations for 2014
Occupation Total Temp % Change Med. Jobs (2013) (2013-2014) Earnings/Hr. Human Resources Specialists 58,016 5% $26.96 Machinists 20,277 5% $18.95 Heavy and Tractor-Trailer 21,264 3% $18.09 Truck Drivers Maintenance and Repair 26,021 3% $16.93 Workers, General Inspectors, Testers, 24,276 3% $16.72 Sorters, Samplers, and Weighers Bookkeeping, Accounting, and 26,154 3% $16.92 Auditing Clerks Licensed Practical and 37,895 3% $20.04 Licensed Vocational Nurses Registered Nurses 59,632 3% $31.40 Sales Representatives, 19,861 3% $24.26 Services, All Other
Source: Economic Modeling Specialists Intl. 2013.4 Class of Worker Dataset; Temporary Help Services Industry
It's no coincidence that the occupations on this list look remarkably similar to the list of toughest jobs to fill. In cases where in-house HR departments don't have the resources to find the right candidates for hard-to-fill positions, they turn to the staffing and recruiting industry like us to provide skilled temporary workers at the right time, especially for skilled labor positions.
According to an annual forecast by Careerbuilder, forty-two percent of private sector employers plan to hire contract or temporary workers in 2014; that's up 36 percent from last year alone. Of these companies, 42 percent plan to offer some of their temporary workers permanent, full-time work. This coincides with the finding that half of HR managers (51 percent) currently have open positions at their company for which they cannot find qualified candidates.
Temporary Staffing Companies like Link Staffing Services can assist companies who don't continuously recruit by making connections, providing solutions and delivering quality talent right to your door. We can search our massive database for the candidates and skills that you need. Once we find them we will put their skills to the test, perform background and drug tests, and check their references before you ever get to the first interview. Your company can also save time and money on payroll processing and benefits administration. It's really a pretty great deal for employers who face the challenge of hiring elusive skilled labor employees. If you need help, contact us or give us a call 1-888-929-LINK.
SOURCE: Link Staffing Services
(C) 2014 Marketwire L.P. All rights reserved. |
Imagine a Pennsylvania Dutch farmer working the land in 18th century America. Maybe you’re picturing someone from one of the Plain sects, such as the Amish, behind a plow, building a barn, or planting seeds by hand. Maybe you’re picturing someone by an old stone hearth, kneading bread made with wheat grown right outside that very house. Perhaps you are imagining this family going faithfully to church, and avoiding work on the Sabbath.
But maybe you’re not imagining one of the Fancy Dutch–that is, the Pennsylvania Dutch settlers who were not part of the Plain communities that believed in simple dress and minimal home decor. The Fancy Dutch brought from their homeland traditions such as bright and colorful clothing, vividly painted Fraktur and hex signs, folk medicine, a system of magic, and the names and stories of the Germanic Gods and Goddesses. It is within this community that even the Norse runes were brought over and passed down into modern times.
It’s hard to believe, right? After all, if you went and asked any Pennsylvania Dutch settler, Plain or Fancy, what their religion was, they would proudly tell you that they were Christian. In fact, they’d be outright insulted if you implied otherwise. Nevertheless, they brought over and continued distinctly pagan practices within and alongside their Christian faith. The most prominent of these practices is the system of magic known as Braucherei, sometimes called Pow-Wow. In Braucherei, the roots of Germanic paganism, medieval grimoires, Pennsylvania Dutch folk medicine, and Lenape herbalism blend into a unique magical and healing practice that has continued via both formal guilds and personal mentor-apprentice relationships into the present day.
Ok, so, cool story, but what does any of this have to do with Urglaawe? And what’s an Urglaawe anyway?
Glad you asked! (Or allowed me to ask for you.) Urglaawe is a denomination of Heathenry that is inspired by the Pennsylvania Dutch culture–called Deitsch in that language. There are many other culturally inspired denominations of Heathenry that you might be familiar with, such as the Icelandic, Anglo-Saxon, Swedish, Norwegian, and others.
Urglaawe incorporates both the survivals and reconstruction of religious practices originating from what is now Germany, especially the Southwestern region, as these practices appeared in the United States during the Detisch migration (the late 1600s to mid-1800s). Some practices survived in the Braucherei guilds, folklore, art, music, holidays, and other traditions of the Deitsch people. Others are reconstructed based on research, much as you would approach reconstruction in any other Heathen denomination.
As a denomination of Heathenry, Urglaawe has many elements that you will recognize–holy days such as Midsummer and Yuul (Yule), Gods like Dunner (Thor), Wudan (Odin), and Ziu (Tyr), rituals like the Sege (blot) and Sammel (sumbel)–held with a Seidel (drinking stein) rather than a horn. The Seidel might be holding familiar offerings from other branches of Heathenry like mead and ale, but it could also hold apple cider, apple juice, herbal tea, or other non-alcoholic libations.
Some elements of Urglaawe theology and cosmology are different too. The most prominent deity in Urglaawe is Frau Holle, a Goddess Who comes to us from Germany and is credited in our tradition with guiding the Deitsch migration to America. She orders the cycles of the universe, keeping the seasons of both nature and our lives moving at their proper pace and in accordance with Wurt (Wyrd). Other deities in Urglaawe that may not be well-known outside of Deitsch traditions include Zisa, the wife of Ziu (Tyr), known for undoing the knots and tangles of trouble in our lives, Weisskepicch Fraa, the White Haired Lady, known for Her blessings of healing, and Ewicher Yeeger, the Eternal Hunter, Who saved an early Deitsch village from starvation during a harsh winter. The deities we know from other Germanic traditions continued to evolve, grow, and interact with Their people after the migration from Germany, and new Gods and Spirits came to be known in the new land, bringing about new stories and traditions that are now part of Urglaawe.
The altar for a ceremony in Urglaawe might look a little different from what you’re used to, as Urglaawe altars are colorful and well-decorated. Icons–in figurine or painted form, colorful vintage printed tablecloths, painted hex signs, vivid redware pottery for offering bowls or plates, and glazed ceramic steins might all be found on an Urglaawe altar. In addition to the Deitsch inspiration, there’s a lot of influence from agriculture and working with the land, so elements such as the sickle, fresh flowers, homemade bread, eggs, fruits, and vegetables, might also be present as tools or offerings. Check out this video tour of an Urglaawe Yuul altar to see some of these elements and this more detailed video altar tour for more about some of the deities in Urglaawe.
As you can gather from this high-level overview, there’s far more to learn about Urglaawe than I could ever cover in one post. Luckily for me, I don’t have to! I’ll be blogging regularly here at Huginn’s Heathen Hoff about all things Urglaawe, and I really look forward to sharing more about this rich tradition with you. If you’re curious or just can’t wait for more, I invite you to join the Facebook Urglaawe group and take a look at A Brief Introduction to Urglaawe, or some of the many excellent resources on the Distlefink site. As we like to say in Urglaawe, Macht’s immer besser! (Make it always better!) |
FBI Director James Comey is set to appear before the House Oversight Committee Thursday amid a fierce backlash over his decision earlier this week to recommend that the Justice Department decline to pursue criminal charges against Hillary Clinton for her "extremely careless" handling of classified information.
The decision rankled Republicans and prompted four congressional leaders to pursue hearings or probes that could shed additional light on the FBI's decision.
Rep. Jason Chaffetz, chairman of the Oversight Committee, said he found Comey's announcement " surprising and confusing" given the gap between the case against Clinton he laid out and the conclusion he drew from it.
The move to end the Clinton email probe without charging anyone involved with a crime has raised many questions among skeptical observers. Here are seven that Comey could face at the oversight hearing Thursday.
1. What about the Clinton Foundation?
The FBI's investigation had reportedly expanded to include the activities of the Clinton Foundation months before Comey concluded its work.
Anonymously-sourced reports had indicated FBI investigators were looking into allegations of "public corruption" stemming from the intersection of the foundation and the State Department under Clinton.
Matthew Whitaker, president of the Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust, said the public corruption probe is likely still underway.
"I am presuming that, based on reports, that that investigation continues and is still outstanding," Whitaker said, acknowledging that it would be difficult to know for certain.
The Clinton Foundation has come under fire for accepting large foreign donations while Clinton served as secretary of state, creating potential conflicts of interest when foundation donors seemingly received preferential treatment from Clinton's State Department.
David Bossie, president of Citizens United, said that Comey's announcement Tuesday has no bearing on the question of the Clinton Foundation investigation.
"I think that the pressure on the FBI to make a statement on the email case was gaining on the FBI, that they needed to make a decision," Bossie said.
"I think that they got started later on the public corruption case, and so I wouldn't necessarily expect an announcement on that anytime soon," he added.
2. Why did Bryan Pagliano need an immunity agreement if no laws were broken?
Clinton's information technology specialist struck an immunity deal with the Justice Department in exchange for his testimony about how the server system was set up.
Pagliano invoked his Fifth Amendment rights and refused to answer questions about the email controversy when called before the House Select Committee on Benghazi last year and when pulled into a deposition in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.
His lawyers cited reasonable fear of self-incrimination when attempting to avoid the deposition last month.
3. What reason did witnesses give for setting up the servers in the first place?
Clinton has repeatedly argued since March of last year that she set up her private email system for "convenience," in order to consolidate her work and personal accounts on one mobile device.
That reasoning has been debunked consistently by reports that Clinton carried multiple devices and was impeached entirely by Comey when he announced that, not only did Clinton carry several different devices, but she hosted her emails on multiple servers.
Critics have contended that Clinton set up the network to shield her communications from open-records requests in anticipation of her presidential campaign.
Whatever the true motivation for setting up the private servers, evidence does not support Clinton's claim that it was a matter of convenience.
4. How much did this investigation cost?
Sen. Ron Johnson, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, has already asked the Justice Department to provide an estimate of the cost to taxpayers of the Clinton email investigation.
Comey said the process of piecing together deleted records from Clinton's multiple servers was "painstaking" and consumed significant agency resources.
Congressional Republicans in particular may be interested in the figure because Democrats have repeatedly used the roughly $7 million price tag of the House Select Committee on Benghazi's probe as a political weapon. GOP lawmakers could attack Clinton for misconduct that forced a large expenditure of taxpayer money if the cost of the FBI's investigation turns out to be steep.
5. Why was a special prosecutor never appointed?
Republicans have been calling on Attorney General Loretta Lynch to appoint a special prosecutor to rule on the Clinton email case since September of last year amid fears that political bias could affect the Justice Department's ultimate decision.
Although Lynch repeatedly argued such an appointment was not necessary due to her agency's commitment to impartiality, her judgement was called into question last week after a reporter exposed her secret meeting with Clinton's husband aboard a private jet.
A special prosecutor could have eliminated some of the backlash over potential bias in the Clinton email probe by cutting political appointees out of the decision-making process.
6. How is "extreme carelessness" different from "gross negligence"?
GOP lawmakers have demanded Comey explain how the " extreme carelessness" in handling classified information that he attributed to Clinton and her aides differs from the "gross negligence" that constitutes a violation of the law.
Rudy Giuliani, former mayor of New York City and a former U.S. attorney, suggested during an appearance on MSNBC Wednesday that there was virtually no daylight between the two characterizations in the eyes of the law.
Much of the outrage surrounding Comey's decision has centered on the fact that the evidence against Clinton made public Tuesday amounted to a compelling case that the former secretary of state had broken laws, but was not strong enough to convince Comey to recommend a criminal indictment.
7. Were the FBI recommendations to Lynch the same for every individual involved in the Clinton email network?
Whitaker said Comey's remarks Tuesday left the door open for aides involved in the Clinton email controversy to face criminal charges, even if Clinton herself had been cleared.
"I'm probably reading the tea leaves a little bit, but I do think the door is still open for some of the other people involved to potentially still face consequences because they all had different roles," he said.
During an appearance on Fox News Tuesday, Chaffetz said he had asked Comey whether individuals other than Clinton could be charged for their involvement in transmitting classified material. He said he asked specifically about the fate of Bryan Pagliano, the technology aide who received an immunity agreement in exchange for his testimony about how the private server system was set up.
Chaffetz said Comey responded that he was unable to comment.
But Lynch's announcement late Wednesday that no one involved in the investigation would be charged shut the door on indictments for the aides who forwarded Clinton some of the most sensitive emails related to the probe.
Comey could face questions about whether he recommended indictments for others, such as Cheryl Mills, Huma Abedin or Jake Sullivan. |
It’s not a good time to be Richard Dawkins, for he alone, like the scapegoat of Leviticus, must bear the brunt of everyone’s hatred of atheism. (Sam Harris sometimes serves as a backup goat.) Even though Dawkins has never proclaimed himself as any kind of atheist “leader”—his eminence among nonbelievers was purely a byproduct of his books and talks—he is the poster child for atheism, and everyone who hates atheists, including some other atheists, comes down on him. I don’t have either the time or interest to point out all the poorly founded attacks on the man, but one that has just appeared that, as we Americans say, “takes the cake.”
John Gray is an English writer, philosopher, and an atheist who hates New Atheists. I’ve analyzed his missteps before (see here, here, and here, for instance), and he seems to be one of those atheists who doesn’t like science, claims that its bad effects are as prominent as its good ones, and has a sneaking love of religion. But in his latest article he shows yet another side of his character: pure, unabashed nastiness. And it’s nastiness with no purpose other than to smear Dawkins, whom he clearly despises. He does this by pretending to review Dawkins’s latest book—the first volume of his autobiography (An Appetite for Wonder)—but in reality levels smear after smear at Dawkins to no end except, like a spitting cobra, to spew venom.
Now it’s okay to slam a book if the ideas are bad, or its thesis is insupportable. I’m thinking here of the best critical review of a science book I’ve ever seen: Peter Medawar’s crushing review of Teilhard de Chardin’s The Phenomenon of Man, in which Medawar fatally demolishes de Chardin’s gaseous lucubrations (free copy at link). But there’s not the same kind of stuff in Dawkins’s book. If you’ve read it, and I have, you’ll find it a fairly workmanlike autobiography, which dwells mostly on the details of Dawkins’s life. There are a few bits about atheism (mostly about how Dawkins lost his faith, which appears to be a gradual process involving his learning about Darwinism), but most of it is of the “I did this and then went here” variety. The best bits, for me, are at the end when Dawkins starts talking about science—it ends when he publishes The Selfish Gene, as a second volume is in the offing—for science is what really gets Richard’s juices flowing, and he’s best when writing about that, or about atheism. One senses that he’s unenthusiastically recounting the details of his life as a kind of duty, perhaps goaded by an agent or publisher.
Nevertheless, John Gray uses this lean framework to hang a bunch of slanders (yes, slanders) on Dawkins. You can find the bile in Gray’s review of the autobiography, “The closed mind of Richard Dawkins: How atheism is its own kind of narrow religion.” I’m sad to say that this longish hit-piece appeared in The New Republic, a magazine that I’ve written for frequently. It is a shameful piece that does no credit to the magazine.
So, something is wrong on the Internet. Let me summarize and comment on Gray’s diatribe as briefly as I can. Here are his tactics:
1. Interpret innocuous statements about evolution as evidence of Dawkins’s arrogance and smugness.
This tactic occurs right at the beginning (Gray’s quotes are indented):
In what is meant to be a two-volume memoir, Dawkins cites the opening lines of the first chapter of the book that made him famous, The Selfish Gene, published in 1976: “Intelligent life on a planet comes of an age when it first works out the reason for its own existence. If superior creatures from space ever visit earth, the first question they will ask, in order to assess the level of our civilisation, is: “Have they discovered evolution yet?” Living organisms had existed on earth, without ever knowing why, for over three thousand million years before the truth finally dawned on one of them. His name was Charles Darwin.”
How does Gray parse this? Like so:
Several of the traits that Dawkins displays in his campaign against religion are on show here. There is his equation of superiority with cleverness: the visiting aliens are more advanced creatures than humans because they are smarter and know more than humans do. The theory of evolution by natural selection is treated not as a fallible theory—the best account we have so far of how life emerged and developed—but as an unalterable truth, which has been revealed to a single individual of transcendent genius. There cannot be much doubt that Dawkins sees himself as a Darwin-like figure, propagating the revelation that came to the Victorian naturalist.
Only someone with an agenda of hatred could write something like that. In fact, let’s jump to the end of Gray’s piece, where he once again psychologizes Dawkins, saying that Richard wants to be the Charles Darwin of our time:
We must await the second volume of his memoirs to discover how Dawkins envisions his future. But near the end of the present volume, an inadvertent remark hints at what he might want for himself. Darwin was “never Sir Charles,” he writes, “and what an amazing indictment of our honours system that is.” It is hard to resist the thought that the public recognition that in Britain is conferred by a knighthood is Dawkins’s secret dream. A life peerage would be even better. What could be more fitting for this tireless evangelist than to become the country’s officially appointed atheist, seated alongside the bishops in the House of Lords? He may lack their redeeming tolerance and display none of their sense of humor, but there cannot be any reasonable doubt that he belongs in the same profession.
It is “hard to resist the thought that a knighthood is Dawkins secret dream” only if you’re carrying a burden of dislike for the man (I’m reminded of the story of the two monks). How dare Gray put stuff like this in a book review? It is pure, unfounded psychologizing. And yes, it’s unconscionable that Darwin was never knighted, but I’ve never seen any signs that Dawkins thinks he deserves a knighthood. And if you told him that he thought he should be as eminent as Darwin, Dawkins would just laugh at you, for he regards Darwin as the greatest biologist of the last two centuries, if not of all time. If one is psychologizing, one might as well speculate that Gray has an overarching hatred for atheists (in fact, one could say he has a self-hatred because he wants to believe but can’t), and takes it out on Dawkins. And perhaps Gray is jealous of Dawkin’s success. What’s good for the goose is good for the slanderer.
2. Dawkins had no interest in Africa, even though he was brought up there, and was in fact a British snob:
Unlike the best of the colonial administrators, some of whom were deeply versed in the languages and histories of the peoples they ruled, Dawkins displays no interest in the cultures of the African countries where he lived as a boy. It is the obedient devotion of those who served his family that has remained in his memory. . . . The tone of indulgent superiority is telling. Dawkins is ready to smile on those he regards as beneath him as long as it is clear who is on top. . . . As anyone who reads his sermons against religion can attest, his attitude towards believers is one of bullying and contempt reminiscent of the attitude of some of the more obtuse colonial missionaries towards those they aimed to convert.
Indeed, as did nearly all British colonials in Africa at that time, Dawkins lived a pretty privileged life compared to the locals. But what Gray gets from that description is not what I get, and I suggest you read the book and judge for himself. The “bullying and contempt toward believers” stuff is simply nonsense; what Gray is describing is Dawkins’s passionate dislike for the perfidies of religion. There is no “bullying and contempt” in the book (but again, read it for yourself). And, by the way, Red Strangers, by Elspeth Huxley—a novel about the Kikuyu of Africa written from their point of view, one that portrays Westerners as ultimately toxic—is one of Dawkins’s five favorite books, and he campaigned successfully to get it back into print, writing the introduction to the 2006 Penguin edition.
3. Dawkins’s conversion to atheism was mundane.
Nothing striking happened to convert Richard to nonbelief (unlike my own story, which was an instantaneous conversion involving a Beatles album); he gradually gave it up, probably influenced by Darwin. Somehow Gray finds fault with this:
What is striking is the commonplace quality of Dawkins’s rebellion against religion. In turning away from the milk-and-water Anglicanism in which he had been reared—after his conversion from theism, he “refused to kneel in chapel,” he writes proudly—he was doing what tens of thousands of Britain’s young people did at the time. Compulsory religious instruction of the kind that exists in British schools, it has often been observed, creates a fertile environment for atheism. Dawkins’s career illustrates the soundness of this truism. If there is anything remarkable in his adolescent rebellion, it is that he has remained stuck in it. At no point has Dawkins thrown off his Christian inheritance. Instead, emptying the faith he was taught of its transcendental content, he became a neo-Christian evangelist. A more inquiring mind would have noticed at some point that religion comes in a great many varieties, with belief in a creator god figuring in only a few of the world’s faiths and most having no interest in proselytizing. It is only against the background of a certain kind of monotheism that Dawkins’s evangelical atheism makes any sense.
So what? Was he supposed to have an anti-road-to-Damascus moment, falling off his horse as the light of atheism reached him? And as for the “evangelical atheism” bit, it’s not only an oxymoron, but misleading. Being passionate is not being “evangelical,” and it’s a deliberate slur to try to lump Dawkins with the religious people he opposes. At any rate, most of this has nothing to do with the book itself or its ideas; it’s a pure rant on Gray’s part.
4. Dawkins attacks a straw-God religion, for until fairly recently nobody believed in the literal truth of the Bible.
Quite apart from the substance of the idea, there is no reason to suppose that the Genesis myth to which Dawkins refers was meant literally. Coarse and tendentious atheists of the Dawkins variety prefer to overlook the vast traditions of figurative and allegorical interpretations with which believers have read Scripture. Both Augustine and before him the Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria explicitly cautioned against literalism in interpreting the biblical creation story. Later, in the twelfth century, Maimonides took a similar view. It was only around the time of the Reformation that the idea that the story was a factual account of events became widely held. When he maintains that Darwin’s account of evolution displaced the biblical story, Dawkins is assuming that both are explanatory theories—one primitive and erroneous, the other more advanced and literally true. In treating religion as a set of factual propositions, Dawkins is mimicking Christianity at its most fundamentalist.
Gray apparently doesn’t know beans about the history of theology. Even I, a lowly biologist, know that many of the “church fathers,” including Augustine and Aquinas, took the Genesis story literally (including Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden), although they said that after you accepted the historicity of these events, you could also read into them other lessons. And get your story straight, you faitheists! The usual line (just as false) is that literalism began with the rise of Fundamentalism in the early twentieth century, while Gray says it began with the Reformation. Which is it? (It’s neither, of course.)
It’s time to dispel the stupid trope that nobody took Genesis literally until recent times. For millennia, theologians and believers have taken it as historical truth, and you don’t have to do much research to find that out. Millions still do, too, and these, as well as more “liberal” believers who still take parts of the Bible literally (or Muslims who do the same with the Qur’an), were the intended audience of The God Delusion.
Gray then interpolates some confusing palaver about how “science may show that religion cannot be eradicated from the human mind” (note to Gray: it already has in many of us. Have you been to Scandinavia lately?), but then he goes on to play Alvin Plantinga:
5. Evolution (aka Dawkins) cannot explain why humans have true beliefs.
If the human mind has evolved in obedience to the imperatives of survival, what reason is there for thinking that it can acquire knowledge of reality, when all that is required in order to reproduce the species is that its errors and illusions are not fatal? A purely naturalistic philosophy cannot account for the knowledge that we believe we possess. As he framed the problem in The Foundations of Belief in 1895, “We have not merely stumbled on truth in spite of error and illusion, which is odd, but because of error and illusion, which is even odder.” Balfour’s solution was that naturalism is self-defeating: humans can gain access to the truth only because the human mind has been shaped by a divine mind. Similar arguments can be found in a number of contemporary philosophers, most notably Alvin Plantinga. Again, one does not need to accept Balfour’s theistic solution to see the force of his argument. A rigorously naturalistic account of the human mind entails a much more skeptical view of human knowledge than is commonly acknowledged.
This, of course, is Plantinga’s argument against naturalism, and why Dr. Alvin postulates that “true beliefs” must come from a sensus divinitatis installed in humans by God (the Christian God, of course). I can’t go into this in detail, but first of all, human beliefs aren’t all true. We believe in many things that are false, including the view that we’re smarter than we really are, that a tetherball severed from its rope will fly off in a spiral rather than a straight line, that we have libertarian free will, and so on. Science has been useful in correcting many of our false beliefs and our takes on reality (the sun doesn’t really “rise”, for instance). And, yes, in general we do perceive reality (at least on the human level) pretty accurately, but naturalism can explain that. Natural selection would have molded our minds so we perceive reality largely as it really is, or to learn how it really is. Accurate perception promotes survival and reproduction. We don’t need God to explain that. Finally, if we haven’t come to acquire fairly accurate knowledge of reality through naturalistic processes, Dr. Gray, what alternative do you suggest?
6. Dawkins isn’t much interested in, or knows much about, theology and the philosophy of science, and he doesn’t discuss them in the book.
For all his fervent enthusiasm for science, Dawkins shows very little interest in asking what scientific knowledge is or how it comes to be possible.
Here Gray is criticizing Richard for not going into this in the first volume of his autobiography? Seriously? Again, Dawkins is attacked for what he left out, rather than what he put in, and what he left out isn’t relevant to this autobiography. Maybe it is to a discussion of the nature of science, but not this book.
And. . .
Unlike most of those who debated then [in Victorian times], Dawkins knows practically nothing of the philosophy of science, still less about theology or the history of religion. From his point of view, he has no need to know. He can deduce everything he wants to say from first principles. Religion is a type of supernatural belief, which is irrational, and we will all be better off without it: for all its paraphernalia of evolution and memes, this is the sum total of Dawkins’s argument for atheism. His attack on religion has a crudity that would make a militant Victorian unbeliever such as T.H. Huxley—described by his contemporaries as “Darwin’s bulldog” because he was so fierce in his defense of evolution—blush scarlet with embarrassment.
Again, philosophy and theology aren’t even in the book. Gray’s captious remarks simply reflect Gray’s irritation of his having a hair up his fundament about Dawkins and atheism. Yes, religion is a supernatural belief that is irrational, and Dawkins, in his other writings (NOT THIS BOOK) makes a good case we’d be better off without it. The “crudity” of The God Delusion probably reflects Gray’s rancor motivated by a combination of jealousy for its success and its effectiveness. Had Dawkins written a dry tome contesting the arcane claims of people like David Bentley Hart, Alvin Plantinga, and Karen Armstrong, it would have been neither successful nor effective. But this is all beside the point, for Gray is simply ranting about Dawkins while ignoring the book, in which atheism plays a very minor role.
7. Dawkins is a “comic figure”.
It is in this bit (as well as in Gray’s invidious speculations about Dawkins’s desire for a knighthood) that Gray shows himself to be a petty, mean-spirited little man. Have a gander:
One might wager a decent sum of money that it has never occurred to Dawkins that to many people he appears as a comic figure. His default mode is one of rational indignation—a stance of withering patrician disdain for the untutored mind of a kind one might expect in a schoolmaster in a minor public school sometime in the 1930s. He seems to have no suspicion that any of those he despises could find his stilted pose of indignant rationality merely laughable. “I am not a good observer,” he writes modestly. He is referring to his observations of animals and plants, but his weakness applies more obviously in the case of humans. Transfixed in wonderment at the workings of his own mind, Dawkins misses much that is of importance in human beings—himself and others.
and, finally:
But Pascal’s wager was meant as a pedagogical device rather than a demonstrative argument, and he reached faith himself by way of skeptical doubt. In contrast, Dawkins shows not a trace of skepticism anywhere in his writings. In comparison with Pascal, a man of restless intellectual energy, Dawkins is a monument to unthinking certitude.
I won’t dignify the first paragraph with a response, for Gray simply shows his nastiness here, as he has often before (see the links above). As for Dawkins’s “lack of skepticism,” that’s crazy. Dawkins’s atheism rests on skepticism—a skepticism that caused him to reject religion. And as for his certitude, Dawkins has said he’s not absolutely sure there’s no God, in contrast to the 54% of Americans who are absolutely certain there is a God.
This piece is odious, full of ad hominem remarks (that’s what you do when you lack a substantive argument), and, not least, is a tirade that almost completely ignores the book under review. John Gray is the intellectual’s version of Peter Hitchens and Andrew Brown: he has some academic credibility but is seething with bile against atheism. In fact, he’s far more arrogant and smug than is Dawkins. Why that is, I don’t know. I’ll avoid psychologizing the man in the way he does to Dawkins.
___________
p.s. Reader Mark informs me that Gray has also just reviewed Karen Armstrong’s new book (the one on how religion never causes violence) at The New Statesman. Guess what kind of verdict he gave it? Go see for yourself. |
What is objective? The weather.
What is consciousness? Rain on your face.
What is subjective? “My hairstyle is a mess and my make-up is ruined.”
Objective is what happens.
Consciousness is presence.
Subjective is complaint.
Objectivity is appropriation.
Consciousness is absorbency.
Subjectivity is defeat.
Object is ground.
Consciousness is mask.
Subject is projectile.
You say:
“there is much to be learned by hurling ourselves, again and again, against the bars of our cage. It is in our necessary failures as much as in our partial, modest and always fragile successes that we learn how this society has crippled us, what it strips from us in terms of dignity and fulfilled desire. But we shouldn’t pretend that we are liberated when we are not.”
Once, monsters born to the village being not suitable for manual work sold their deformities, physical, and of the soul, to the circus. In this way they were both set free of the conventions of village idiocy and constrained to contemplate themselves only as other saw them, an entertainment; today, abortion has greater cost effectiveness than lifelong confinement.
Tell me, which spectacular creature has an instinct for self-harm? Answer, the social activist.
The activist, whose phantom subject consciousness is defined by its vain wounds, collects injuries by throwing its body at a motionless objectivity, these are my chains, see how they chafe, this is my cage, how the shadows of its bars fall across me; Jesus and Rome. Anti-capitalism is a freakshow, a wound parade. Must I cut me and rub earth in the gash to learn that dust is dry? In the hot days of Tehran and Beirut, demonstrators by-passed self-preservation instincts to prove the interpenetration of their subjectivity with the object by hitting themselves on the head until blood ran over their faces. Ketchup is as red but smeared over the head as a sign of fanatical commitment, ultimately inscrutable. Fire workers demonstrate subjective control of their consciousness and thus confound the invitation to conform with objectivity, it is true that their feet are not burnt but their heads are full of ashes.
I do not feel the need to hurl myself, I am hurled. I do not require lessons in necessary failure. My life is lived amidst the failing petals of disappointment. So they say, where there is no pain, in that very place, there is no gain. But I say, learning at the school of hard knocks makes you stupid, look at boxers. Starving all morning doesn’t make you appreciate your dinner at twelve and the staged, white knuckled contest with objective conditions, riot shield, pepper spray, water cannon does not illuminate subject/object relations it merely transforms consciousness into a crash helmet. Let the demonstration of force be equal to its capacity to force home the demonstration. Foot dragging non-cooperation remains the best option, the doing of nothing that contributes nothing, the sullen stare that so infuriates our redeemers. Sufficiency. Adequacy.
Life is best in idleness and comfort; intelligence and sensitivity are characteristic of a subject position squeezed from sunshine and soft clothing like red juice from a pomegranate. Revolution is the actualisation of human beings as the object of their subjectivity, it is not religious martyrdom minus the religion. If the walls are not made of paper, don’t punch them, if the bars are not made of chocolate, don’t eat them. If you cannot win, refuse the fight.
You say,
“...cops, priests, and parents, or anarchists and activists-come into existence through complicated social processes .... the collective human dynamic by which social groups and professions (cops, priests or activists) emerge out of the division of labor ... activism cannot be given up by the individual; it must be superseded in the collective process of overthrowing capitalism ... the subject in the context of its complex, objective social mediations...”
At all times the subject referred to as activist in our investigation is the historically specific, anti-capitalist activist which we do not accept is a subject at all but a phantom of political consciousness. Anti-capitalism in its own words:
“From tribal resistance against Indonesia to the festive attack on the financial heart of London on June 18th these are the voices, not of outsiders or journalists, but of those in involved in the struggle themselves. In these times of concrete alienation these voices shine hope from movements that aim to defend nature, create revolution and re-wild humanity” (Do or Die journal).
Stillness, quiet. Noise, frenzy. Staring at a blank wall or senses overloaded? Activism supplies itself as a means of addressing the appearance of social deadlock. The activist can’t take it any more, the terrible, terrible silence. It strains at the conventions of appropriate behaviour, let me dash out into the blizzard and howl, naked and true, if I fail no man may doubt the true grain of my soul. To the activist’s running mouth morality we say, steady boys, steady, wait, steady. But the hothead runs into the street, come out you murdering dogs, are its dying words. A fullstop of automatic fire. Good unit but overwrought. Authenticity, publicly witnessed authenticity, drives activism, it senses falseness and aims its critique more at mass conformity than capitalist exploitation; there is little moral doubt in activist heads that social change is predicated only on more people becoming just like them. In its passion for cultural alternatives we see the desire of activism to be not just a negation of present conditions but an incarnation of the future, like Jesus turning up before John The Baptist.
The activist makes its appearance in conditions of tableaux. There is desert, there is sky, of this we can be certain but as to where one begins and the other ends... where there should be definition there is haze. If we are waiting, waiting and watching, for something to happen, for change, the haze is maddening; we cannot make out the horizon. We can see nothing, we pull at our collars, push back our caps, wipe sweat from our eyes; more time passes and still nothing; we have no timetable. We sense something is wrong, is something wrong? Or is this normal? To be expected? And then at last a sail, is it a sail or just a mirage, we’ve been wrong so many times, is it one of ours or theirs, it approaches in dust. Omar Sharif. Is the desert subjective or objective? In our head, or out? Must try and remember objective is call and subjective is response. Objectiveness is reality and subjectiveness is perspective on reality. So you say.
You say, do you say, objectivity, because it is real, is also true and subjectivity being ‘bourgeois, individualist’ is fragmented and secondary? In contradiction we say, objectivity is also absorbed, it is not merely ‘objective’. It is in us, it is the historical condition of our perspective. And subjectivity is dictatorship, the capture of reality; the ruling class is a subject and its subjectivity defines our objectivity. The ruling class is a subject not because it has been produced by objective process but because it possesses objective processes, or that is, a bigger chunk of them than anybody else. And this is how it is that the subject became not merely product but also producer; it is the subject in the morning that names itself by taking up its axe, stepping out into the world. The subject is not only defeat, it is also resistance and making. Objectivity is obscured when the subject separates itself by aiming at another subject. Shall we say, that there is no objectivity, only the temporary tension, the aggregate of all subjective forces at work in one instance? That and ideology, objectivity is a weapon that the subject uses on the subjected. The dominant subject imposes hierarchically graded subjections on rival subjects. The dominant subject seemingly dissolves its own subject position and transforms it into objectivity. The only legitimate activity assigned to the subjected subject is to articulate a motive for choosing to do what it would be forced to do anyway.
Activists choose to be activists, They choose not to be what is assigned to them. Their struggle with reality is external to their subjectivity; they adopt a subject position not assigned them and in consequence cease to function as a subject component at all, becoming a projection. By choice activists become something other than what they are objectively. And this is a revolutionary act. It is a revolutionary decision which fails to coincide with revolutionary events.
It is the stillness in which they move that forces activists upon our attention. They are the seizure on the bus, the fainting guardsman on parade.
Activism is the military imposition of a would-be dominant subject position but without sufficient force of arms. Who asked them? Delegated by nobody, in accord with no process, emerging at no particular juncture they are, historically, putschists; by their intervention they hope to inspire force. But force does not follow intent, just cause, or compelling argument, it follows force; power tends toward power and activists, good time gatecrashers to a wake, lack the necessary muscle; they chant, ring bells, wave coloured cloth but the world stays mute, we stare at them, then they fade away, like phantoms, join us, they whisper but we carry on greyly. They act in the name of the earth or justice or the working class, whatever is mute, big and objective-seeming but they do not register, they are not real.
Activism is not produced by the some processes that make the police or managers or plumbers or counter staff or machine minders — as these, precisely, are the invisible, the objective, the grains of sand, the function/defunctioning, the writhing backdrop across which subjects inscribe their routes, the stuff from which collectivities are formed and frustrated. Activism is not a function of political economy, it has little connection to the objective and therefore no claim to subjectivity (perhaps it is an existential function of reality). It describes a negative figure in consciousness, it is one part phantom subject and one part appropriated subjection, it has a need to feel oppression, to take on board suffering from elsewhere. It perceives what is wrong and simultaneously imposes itself, inappropriately, as a solution. At all times it affirms the necessity of what it does, deriving the justification for its actions from higher exigencies, objective laws.
The drive to affirm ‘action’ is an apparent anomaly for a negative social construct, we would otherwise expect ambivalence, uncertainty, the nagging doubt: if we are not part of the objective, then with what is our interest bound? In the positivity of activists, their not despairing, there is another element present, folded into the accentuated rebellion — activists search for solutions within existing conditions, they ask themselves, of all the ingredients present in this moment, which is the one that will abolish it? They rarely fail to identify themselves.
Activism refuses what it is first given but its drive against passivity draws it at last to act both within the zone of the dominant subject and in a manner appropriate to that zone. It begins in attacking a manifest appearance, the golden arches, and ends up in attacking the non-appearance of the masses. If structural oppressiveness supplies the entrance for the anti-capitalist character, generalised political indifference marks its exit.
Behind the vaunted alternatives to globalisation are the bourgeois values of social democracy, the concept of universal abstract equality of individuals; real democracy requires only that individuals become their abstract value, if only people participated and made their voices heard, incarnate the theoretical human being of rights and belief, fill out the legalistic skeleton of right bequeathed to every individual with the flesh and blood of engagement in civic forums, then, a-ha then money could never withstand the advented blossoming of this new Athens. When the masses do not lift up their snouts from the all-consuming, filthy and destructive self-indulgences then it is time to drink the bitter tea of decision: the question is formulated, whether to work with those who are listening (the state as charities/capital as alternative markets) or to go on and do it anyway, force it on those bastards who don’t give a damn. Either way the charred and grisly chunk that floats to the surface of activism’s cauldroning stew is, with or without wood ash, a final contempt for the working class.
At the structural level, that is the most cruel level, and in the guise of a rancid consciousness, activism is the dominant subject’s judgment on itself, it is the negative judgment of imagined, objective authority.
That which at last must out itself as reformism (a recent anti-capitalist counter conference in Porto Alegre, ’Une internationale rebelle mois democrotique... Une internationale patiente, sons grand soir ni illusion lyrique. Une internationale sans dogme, sons hymne... [le Nouvel Observerteur], an international so keen to get the job done that if it has to it is prepared to work with the least bad bits of the state (to get things done, to make achievement concrete), an international of pragmatism, of works, an international that the least bad bits of the state recognise as people it can do business with; the common ground is effectiveness, the radical scythe that cuts through the old Byzantine hierarchies, the fire that burns but renews. What the least bad bits of state/capital recognise in anti-capitalism is the entrepreneurial impulse to begin again — the optimistic search for green shoots, the management of crisis, the positive factor in economic meltdown. In the social structure, anti-capitalism appears as the angel of destruction but it is a deity nonetheless dedicated in the Pantheon — a catalyst in the change of details. Activism is the begin again Finnegan. The mutual interest of state and anti-state is the factor of effectiveness, to getting things done on tighter lines. But effectiveness in the capitalist sphere is always a movement towards the maximisation of productive efficiency.
Revolutionary positions begin to take shape in activist groups within this context of reformation and the re-alignment of apparent enemies in terms of achievable detail. The revolutionary reflection on doing it takes the character of despair, it begins by listing failure, limitations and unnatural couplings.
The revolutionary critique of activism’s rejoining the world, which begins within the terms activism has set, is manifested separately at precisely the point where a negative evaluation is imposed as a reflection on small group action. Despair finds that the self-defined subject, that is revolutionary desire, does not have sufficient force to strike at the world; and if it greatly increased its resources it could only swap seats with the present incumbents (and so the foraging for resources, endorsements and recruits by activist parties) — the more activist individuals there are, the more custard like their consciousness, the closer their organisations resemble those of the state; twelve.
The revolutionary reflection on activism is constituted as an awareness of the powerlessness of activism and its deluded march on power. The revolutionary position found after activism is not a fully formed subject position but a mode of consciousness (for-revolutionist); it maintains itself by doing nothing until it is finally abolished by or fused with the revolutionary subject proper. (For-revolutionist is the term given to a position which desires revolution but is conscious of its inability to make it.) It is likely that the revolutionary subject under pressure of events, will immediately grasp everything for-revolutionary consciousness has struggled to articulate in two hundred years.
The revolutionary subject is, quite plainly, the revolutionary working class but this is not a theological matter, there is no necessity for belief; it is so, simply because only the working class have direct access to the processing of power and simultaneously no structural interest in the continued existence of the process. Revolution begins exclusively in the self-interested actions of the working class, defining itself as a subject and defending itself against objectivity. What any future relation might be between for-revolutionary consciousness and the formation of the revolutionary subject is unclear. The revolutionary subject is mode from the working class which is the subjected subject position, how is the working class to become the revolutionary working class? Impossible to say.
they saw the effect but not the cause
You say,
“the need for a theory, a theory that can think the ‘subjective’ and ‘objective’ simultaneously, seeing them in all their mutually-conditioning relatedness ... We all know that one of the main characteristics of the traditional activist is a disdain for theory...”
The need you talk of is that of vinegar for salad. But revolutionary theory is not the dressing of practice, it is practice; it does not inform or motivate, it cannot be acted on, it does not explain, it does not provide justification or understanding. I tell my mysteries to those who are worthy of my mysteries.
As ideas do not determine reality, theory does not have to be servant of reality.
Revolutionary theory engages or it is philosophy but the form of engagement is not set in advance, revolutionary theory has no role to play but that of being itself.
We are not concerned with the convenience of the revolutionary organisation. Spring does not raise up the dead leaves of Autumn and sew them to the trees, the project assigned to theoreticians of revolution by events is to theorise.
Elsewhere, theory is a trick, the window-dressing that gets the punters in. Today I saw a Socialist Workers’ Party sticker in new ‘protest’ graphics and radical, groovy typeface. It did not say, ‘trotskyists go to raves too.’ It did say, ‘our resistance must be as global as capitalism,’ (dozens of passers-by nodded off after only momentary glances). The left wing fragments of the state are generally submitting themselves to a stylistic makeover, everybody’s funky nowadays. Several left groups have shifted the emphasis of their rhetoric and it’s no more ‘come on workers sign a petition to defend the NHS’, now its, ‘rebel’ ‘resist’ ‘fightback’ — they are the sting without a bee, they are the pie without a filling; these dull trudgers with pingpong eyes and feet like penguins, the slogan this is consciousness tattooed to their foreheads; these are the issue troops marching, marching, marching, all dressed in slice ‘o’ bread jackets soaking up the rain like gravy. Selling revolution on street corners to the Saturday shoppers is altogether futile, unless that is you are some kind of Reggie Perrin.
The hope of revolutionary theory is for its own potential usefulness, but that is not its function. What is said, as theory, is not significant — theoretical intervention rarely has a consequential content; for it, context is all. Where it speaks, who it speaks to, that’s what matters. So long as it addresses the revolutionary milieu, revolutionary theory can say anything. So never hold back, do not appeal, do not sell, do not imagine that what you are saying is reasonable or convincing, don’t overestimate the power of truth, which in most lives is no more than an irritant, treatable with lotion. He who has ears, let him hear! We shall connect only with those who are able to connect.
The object of revolutionary theory is not to address consciousness and thereby correct it, the eyes that browse along the supermarket shelf see just another can.
Revolutionary theory is bound up in events; what is its relation to the revolutionary position and what is that position’s relation to the revolutionary subject?
Clownish absurdities at the right moment are more magical than understanding and the luxury of nonsense demonstrates mastery of conditions. Natural selection asks of birds an exhibition of their startling plumage, simple communication of information is not sufficient.
When the event is the event of falling apart it is the theory that may be broken into pieces that is most useful. Theory to be kept in pockets or scratched onto surfaces — theory is what prevents you being broken down, it’s what stops you playing for the other side; in crisis, theories are instruments for changing terms; in crisis theories are portable tools that connect to larger forces, levers to weights; a ladder, an aspirin, a jackhammer and becomes a shelter for the birds of the sky. |
Annie Leibovitz/Vanity Fair
You Can Stop Sharing That Meme: ESPN Confirms There Was Never A ‘Runner-Up’ For Caitlyn Jenner's Arthur Ashe Award
Since Caitlyn Jenner's Vanity Fair cover debuted on Monday, the Internet -- and the world at large -- has been buzzing. That same day, ESPN also announced that Jenner would receive the Arthur Ashe Courage Award at the 2015 ESPYs. But almost as soon as that announcement was made, some eyebrow-raising misinformation began making the rounds on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
Specifically, this image of U.S. army vet Noah Galloway, along with the assertion that Jenner was essentially standing in the way of the brave soldier's shot at the award:
In a statement to MTV News on Wednesday (June 3), an ESPN spokesperson confirmed there is "no such thing as a runner up for the three major awards," referring to the Arthur Ashe Courage award, the Pat Tillman Award for Service and the Jimmy V Perseverance Award.
"The Arthur Ashe Courage Award is meant to honor individuals whose contributions transcend sports through courageous action," ESPN posted later today, "At all times, there are many worthy candidates. This year, we are proud to honor Caitlyn Jenner embracing her identity and doing so in a public way to help move forward a constructive dialogue about progress and acceptance."
While the exact origin of the image is uncertain, Snopes.com suggests it might have originated from this tweet by Boston-area sports columnist and radio personality Gerry Callahan:
MTV News has reached out to Callahan for comment as well and will follow up on this story. |
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Several people have asked me to comment on a new WSJ article by Andrew Huszar, who managed the Fed’s bond-buying program:
It wasn’t long before my old doubts resurfaced. Despite the Fed’s rhetoric, my program wasn’t helping to make credit any more accessible for the average American. The banks were only issuing fewer and fewer loans. More insidiously, whatever credit they were extending wasn’t getting much cheaper. QE may have been driving down the wholesale cost for banks to make loans, but Wall Street was pocketing most of the extra cash.
The Fed should not be trying to affect the supply of credit or the price of credit, so I’m glad to hear that it didn’t seem to have those effects. The goal should be to stabilize the growth rate of NGDP.
From the trenches, several other Fed managers also began voicing the concern that QE wasn’t working as planned. Our warnings fell on deaf ears. In the past, Fed leaders””even if they ultimately erred””would have worried obsessively about the costs versus the benefits of any major initiative. Now the only obsession seemed to be with the newest survey of financial-market expectations or the latest in-person feedback from Wall Street’s leading bankers and hedge-fund managers. Sorry, U.S. taxpayer.
Huszar doesn’t seem to realize that financial-market reactions are the best indication of how these programs are working, indeed the only reliable indication. Everything else (such as borrowing costs) is meaningless without a counterfactual.
Trading for the first round of QE ended on March 31, 2010. . . . You’d think the Fed would have finally stopped to question the wisdom of QE. Think again. Only a few months later””after a 14% drop in the U.S. stock market and renewed weakening in the banking sector””the Fed announced a new round of bond buying: QE2. Germany’s finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, immediately called the decision “clueless.”
If you are going to criticize Fed policy, you really ought not mention any eurozone policymakers, especially German policymakers. The Germans were the ones pressing the ECB to adopt a tighter monetary policy. How did that work out? Well back in 2009 and 2010 the eurozone and the US had almost identical unemployment rates (close to 10%). Since then the eurozone rate has risen to 12.2% while the US rate has fallen to 7.3%. And what explains that vast difference in performance? Mostly differences in NGDP growth, i.e. monetary policy.
[See David Beckworth and Lars Christensen for excellent posts on the US/eurozone divergence.]
And what explains the difference in monetary policy? The Fed was doing one QE after another, with the avowed intention of boosting aggregate demand. The ECB was raising short term interest rates in 2011 with the intention of reducing aggregate demand. Both “succeeded.”
It’s certainly fair to point out that the US recovery has been weak, despite QE. But if you are going to criticize QE you need a counterfactual policy. What should the Fed have done to boost NGDP growth? Huszar doesn’t say. Quoting eurozone hawks isn’t going to convince anyone outside the WSJ editorial page, over on this side of the pond. FWIW, I would have preferred NGDPLT and elimination of IOR, as an alternative to QE.
The article contains a lot of discussion about how QE is a subsidy to banks. There’s s tiny bit of truth in that claim, as the Fed does pay 0.25% interest on reserves. And they should not do so. But the $5 billion or so that flows to the banking industry via QE is peanuts compared to the $100 billion the Feds are taking from banks through extortion.
Others argue that low interest rates are a subsidy to banks, which makes no sense. Interest rates are set in the free market. Back in the old days when central banks did tight money the progressives cried that it was a subsidy to big bankers. Now when the Fed does “easy money” progressives and many conservatives cry that it is a subsidy to big bankers. Neither is a subsidy.
And the impact? Even by the Fed’s sunniest calculations, aggressive QE over five years has generated only a few percentage points of U.S. growth. By contrast, experts outside the Fed, such as Mohammed El Erian at the Pimco investment firm, suggest that the Fed may have created and spent over $4 trillion for a total return of as little as 0.25% of GDP (i.e., a mere $40 billion bump in U.S. economic output). Both of those estimates indicate that QE isn’t really working.
Actually if the bump is only $40 billion then QE is working. Huszar makes the mistake of assuming the “cost” is the amount of bonds purchased. But that’s not a sensible definition of cost, as the Fed is simply swapping one government liability for another. A better measure of cost is the interest on reserves program, which has cost about $5 billion per year on average. And even that is an exaggeration; earnings on the Fed’s bond portfolio offset it. BTW, “a few percentage points” might be a million jobs, or more. Does Huszar think unemployment is not a big problem?
And how is Mr. El Erian an “expert” on the macroeconomic impact of QE? What model does he use? Where does his expertise come from? When I went to grad school we were never taught how to model a QE/IOR program. Did he study how to model these programs in grad school? If so, which one? I’m not trying to pick on Mr. El Erian, who I don’t know, my point is that it is not at all clear where one would get expertise in this area. It’s very possible that El Erian knows more about QE than anyone else in the world, but is still not an expert.
In my view there is only one expert—the market.
HT: Frank McCormick, Caroline Baum
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This entry was posted on November 12th, 2013 and is filed under Monetary Policy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or Trackback from your own site. |
INDIANAPOLIS – Despite the best efforts of Chael Sonnen and Wanderlei Silva to pick a fight with each other, it doesn’t look as if that’s a bout that will go down before year’s end.
So if Sonnen (29-13-1 MMA, 7-6 UFC) wants to fight again, and especially if he wants to be a part of November’s UFC 167, which will celebrate the promotion’s 20th anniversary, someone else will have to do.
According to UFC President Dana White, that someone could be Phil Davis rather than Silva (35-12-1 MMA, 5-7 UFC).
Sonnen called out Silva after his win earlier this month over Mauricio Rua, which headlined UFC on Fight Night 26 in Boston. Silva responded to that challenge with a YouTube video in Portuguese that told Sonnen what he thinks of him.
But White reiterated on Wednesday following the post-event news conference for UFC Fight Night 27 at Bankers Life Fieldhouse in Indianapolis that Silva was injured.
“He’s not going to be healthy till January,” White said. “He can’t even start training till January.”
So that rules him out of the running for UFC 167, which takes place Nov. 16 at MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.
White said Sonnen, who recently has challenged for titles in both the middleweight and light heavyweight very likely could wind up getting his wish to fight on the card – and hinted that a recent Davis callout of Sonnen could lead to a pairing of the two in a light heavyweight bout.
“We talked a little bit tonight,” White said of Sonnen. “He wants to fight on that 20th anniversary card. He wants to co-main that (card). I’m working on it. That fight (against Phil Davis) could happen.”
Prior to Sonnen’s win over Rua, he dropped a light heavyweight title fight to champ Jon Jones. Before that, he was stopped in the second by Anderson Silva in a middleweight title rematch.
Davis, meanwhile, is coming off a split-decision win over former champion that gave him a three-fight winning streak.
For more on the UFC’s upcoming schedule, stay tuned to the UFC Rumors section of the site.
(Pictured: Chael Sonnen) |
Got the main part of the stage decor in place; now for the back layer. After that... I MIGHT possibly be done! (Unless I decide I want to add the gold filigree to the shell.) Scooting in the stage to allow room for the stage decor ruined the view from the box though... I might want to z-shrink it again. x)This stage WIP strains my computer at over 100 thousand (~150 thousand) polys--but deleting the candles saved around 40k! I'm a little sad to lose the candles, but those little pinpricks wouldn't be easily spotted anyways, given the scale of this stage. ... Then again, there are even less odds, I think, of the camera panning up high enough to see the chandelier I was thinking of adding to the ceiling to replace 'em... XDMaybe I'll add back some of the candles later, but for now, they're staying out.If anyone's interested, here are all the ref images I've been leaning heaviest on thus far. |
Florida Gators recruiting is doing well and this week’s recruiting mailbag had a lot of great questions about the Gators recruiting class heading into the stretch run of the class of 2016.
As you have noticed Gator Country and Andrew Spivey have mixed things up and we have taken our Florida Gators recruiting mailbag to podcast form, as well as continuing the written version of the mailbag.
Make sure to listen as Andrew answer’s everyone’s questions from this mailbag and don’t forget to get your questions in every week so he can answer your question next time on all things Florida Gators recruiting.
Here’s the written version of this week’s Florida Gators recruiting mailbag:
Lemonhope: with so many marquis receiver’s left on the board (Nate Craig-Myers Binjinem Victor, Eli Stove, Sam Bruce, Tre Nixon and Tyrie Cleveland) who is Florida highest on/most confident to real in. Does Marcus Tatum going to Tennessee Volunteers help our chances with Landon Dickerson? As always great work AS
AS: Florida likes all of those receivers but the guys I feel the most confident on are Stove and Cleveland heading into visits. Of course both of those guys are committed elsewhere but I feel Florida has the bets chance with those two. Tatum going to Tennessee doesn’t hurt Florida’s chances with Tatum but I don’t see it helping that much either because Florida wanted him no matter what. I don’t see Tennessee as a threat for Dickerson.
MrB-Gator: How many more offensive linemen do we take and who are the possibilities?
AS: Florida would like to get two more from this group. Landon Dickerson, Marcus Tatum, Jauan Williams, John Simpson and Malcolm Pridgeon. Florida may also visit a few other guys this month that aren’t on this list.
FrankGator627: When’s the next Spivey senses report?
AS: After this weekend’s official visits are over with, I should have a new report up.
Gatorstuckey: How do we finish at linebacker? How many total linebackers will we get?
AS: Florida would like to get another linebacker in the class to go with David Reese, Jeremiah Moon and Vosean Joseph. Dontavious Jackson, Mack Wilson, Josh Uche, Elyse Mbem-Bosse, Dee Walker and Jaleel Laguins all plan to visit this month. Right now I think the Gators have the best chance with Uche and Wilson.
Byrus: Do you feel we are fading as signing day nears? Thanks.
AS: I don’t think Florida is fading at all but some of the momentum did slip due to the last season losses but that can be made up on the recruiting trail when the coaches hit the road on Thursday. Also official visits are key.
Lam4ufg8ors: Are there and 5 Star offensive line flips or uncommitted from Army All-American game or Under Armour All-American game that we are targeting?
AS: Landon Dickerson and John Simpson are two guys that Florida is going hard after and both of them were in all-star games.
Dhainer24: Does Jachai Polite stick in this class? Does he stick even if we get Brian Burns?
Does Aaron Robinson have the grades to get in?
Does Rick Wells stick even if we get 2 more “bigger name” receivers?
Is C.J. McWilliams going to be asked to leave to make room for bigger fish? Are we OK at defensive back even if he leaves and we don’t get Kristian Fulton? Or does he only get asked to leave if we do get Fulton?
AS: Right now I lean towards Polite sticking in the class but USC is a big threat. Polite is a take no matter what Burns does on signing day.
Robinson has the grades but must get a test score in order to qualify.
Yes, Rick Wells sticks to Florida in fact I doubt he takes any visits besides Florida.
McWilliams is a guy that will take visits to other schools.
Lurkingator1: What’s looks like out biggest Recruiting Weekend? How many guys will we be waiting on to sign on NSD?
AS: I think the big weekend right now is January 29th when Mack Wilson, Kristian Fulton, Jamal Pettigrew, Josh Uche, Tyrie Cleveland and any other late surprises come into town. Florida will also have commits Lamical Perine and Rick Wells in town to help that weekend.
Millio21: What are our chances with the JUCO DE Jonathan Kongbo?
AS: Right now they’re slim unless Florida can get a visit from the JUCO prospect.
Gatorintx2014: Are we looking at any other JUCO players besides the “big name” guys on our boards? Any surprises left?
AS: Right now the Gators are only after Kongbo and Pridgeon from the JUCO ranks but that could change as the coaches hit the road again.
Taejr7747: Who are the lead recruiters for the OL? And how are they going to improve their effectiveness.
AS: Mike Summers is the main recruiter of offensive linemen but the area recruiters also recruit the position as well.
Kurt_borglum: Where is your mock 2017, 18 and 19 classes???
AS: Haha you forgot the class of 2020.
Gatorphan: Also, do you have any idea when we are bringing our currently committed players in for visits, as many of them have not officially visited yet?
AS: They will be scattered over the next few weeks but a majority of them are visiting on January 29th.
Nickelgators: Do you think Florida is going to flip Dwayne Haskins?
Is Mack Wilson gonna be a Gator?
Who do you feel fills out the WR class?
AS: Right now, I say Florida has a shot at Haskins but I don’t feel confident at all. I think Wilson is either a Gator or goes to Georgia. I really like Stove and Cleveland being the two final receivers in the class.
Gator_nica: Are we a legit landing place for Tyrie Cleveland, or just a hat on the table?
AS: Yes, Florida is a legit landing spot for Cleveland and he will visit on the 29th. He has family in Florida and his family wants him to move out of the state of Texas from what people have told me.
Gatorfanseth: Is Kristian Fulton a Gator or nah?
AS: I really like where Florida is at with Fulton at this time. Winning over his parents on his official visit will be huge but right now the Gators are giving LSU a run for its money.
Enickelsen: You consistently stated we would not sign a graduate transfer quarterback, yet we got Appleby. Any hope your denial of our interest in Jake Raulerson is also trying to mislead us in a similar way? If not why we would not be interested in pursuing him? He still has 2 years remaining, could play right away and is a huge position of need.
AS: Florida isn’t pursuing Raulerson at this time and I don’t recall saying Florida wouldn’t sign a graduate transfer. I recall saying it wouldn’t be the Davis Webb but that’s all.
Captainjoe24: Even after Shavar Manuel committed, it has felt like the momentum has slid downward. Can we expect a good/great finish?
AS: I think Florida finishes with a really good class. Florida has a great class already and adding a few more big names will make this an even better class for them.
Haljordan: Outside of Eddy Pineiro, who do you see contributing immediately next year when it comes to those who were early enrollees?
AS: Chauncey Gardner, Mark Thompson, David Reese, Dre Massey and Freddie Swain are all guys that I think can play next year. Josh Hammond is another one that could get on the field.
RVG: Is D’Anferee McGriff still expected to enroll at Florida, and if so, when?
AS: McGriff hasn’t been on the Gators radar since he went to Prep School. It simply isnt going to happen.
Gators197: How bad do you think the Michigan game hurt our recruiting? It seemed like we were on a roll up till then.
AS: It took away a little momentum for sure but again that can be regained during coaches visits and official visits.
Juggernautz: > Do you think the negative UF recruiting has tempered down?
gt; If Saban leaves for the NFL(very slim chance) do we have to worry
about Mac being targeted as their next coach and if these rumours
persist could that impact our recruiting?
AS: Schools will always negative recruit against each other as that’s the nature of the business and as far Mac leaving that’s just not something that’s happening right now.
Tiwari218: Who are the best recruiters on staff and who needs work/may have to leave?
AS: Tim Skipper, Chris Rumph, Randy Shannon and Kerry Dixon are really good recruiters on the staff and Geoff Collins and Doug Nussmeier are as well but they’re the coordinators so it’s tough for them to recruit as much during the season.
Brainstorm: If we don’t sign Eubanks does Mac go to Jacob Mathis, take a flyer on Kelvin Lucky (my preference) or just pass on TE this year?
AS: Florida’s isn’t pushing for Mathis or Lucky right now but they’re still monitoring a few other guys as they go down the stretch run. Florida definitely wants one in the class though.
Gatordon: Do you expect things to start popping for the Gators when the dead period expires?
AS: I do because it’s January and it’s full of excitement and roller coasters in the world of recruiting.
Kinggator12: Anything on Nick Eubanks? And is that UGA LB commit Jaleel Laguins visiting Florida this weekend? Also do you see Florida landing a surprising commit on NSD?
AS: Eubanks is going to visit Florida in January and right now the Gators have a good shot at him but just need to have a good official visit. Laguins is sticking with Georgia from everything I have heard but he’s looking for a back up option just in case.
Dopplegangerg8r: Will you post where and who the coaches are visiting starting tomorrow?
AS: Yes, I will have it up before you’re reading this story. |
Let’s abandon the pretense.
Republicans’ “health care” bill is not really about health care. It’s not about improving access to health insurance, or reducing premiums, or making sure you get to keep your doctor if you like your doctor. And it’s certainly not about preventing people from dying in the streets.
Instead, it’s about hundreds of billions of dollars in tax cuts — tax cuts that will quietly pave the way for more, and far larger, tax cuts.
The American Health Care Act, which has been opposed by nearly every possible stakeholder of nearly every ideological orientation, is being rushed through Congress with non-extreme vetting. In fact, it passed out of one committee in the middle of the night, overseen by a committee chairman who just a day earlier criticized Obamacare for being “written in the dark of night.”
From the bill text, we can tell the directionality of some of the changes Republicans are proposing — i.e., tax revenue will fall, lots of people will lose health coverage and the Medicare trust fund will be exhausted sooner. But we still don’t know the magnitude of these changes — i.e., how much, how many or when, respectively.
[The GOP can no longer claim it believes in fiscal responsibility]
We don’t know the answers to these questions yet, because Republicans don’t want us to know them. Part of the reason they have rushed the bill through committees is to front-run an (inevitably unflattering) analysis from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
In the meantime, other experts and government bodies have scrambled to compile their own estimates for the bill’s effects.
The ratings and analytics firm S&P Global has ballparked the number of people who would lose their insurance at 6 million to 10 million; others have offered figures as high as 15 million and 20 million. Meanwhile, a group of health researchers calculated that the bill would increase costs for enrollees on the individual insurance market by, on average, more than $1,500 per year when it would take effect, and by more than $2,400 per year by 2020.
Oh, and the Medicare trust fund would be exhausted by 2024, according to Brookings Institution researchers.
For those keeping score, that means fewer people would have insurance, those who get insurance on the exchanges would pay a higher price for it and Medicare’s solvency would be jeopardized as a bonus.
Hard to see how this achieves any of President Trump’s stated goals to “lower costs, expand choices, increase competition and ensure health-care access for all Americans.”
(Bastien Inzaurralde,Sarah Parnass,Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post)
On the other hand, it’s quite easy to see how another well-established Republican goal would be achieved: tax cuts. Specifically, $600 billion of them, predominantly benefiting the rich.
The Joint Committee on Taxation has released a series of estimates showing what some of the tax-related provisions of Trumpcare would do.
Among the biggest are repeals of two ACA surtaxes on the highest-earning Americans: a 0.9 percent payroll tax add-on and a 3.8 percent tax on net investment income for couples whose incomes exceed $250,000 ($200,000 for individuals).
Repealing these would cost $275 billion over the next decade.
The law also axes other taxes, such as the tanning tax (once nicknamed the Snooki Tax, but now apparently a symbol of patriarchal oppression), and excise taxes on insurers; drug manufacturers and importers; and medical-device manufacturers and importers.
Based on what the Joint Committee has scored so far — and it has not analyzed every revenue loser in the bill — these tax cuts come to about $600 billion.
[The GOP health-care plan would quietly kill the Medicaid expansion. Here’s how.]
The presence of expensive tax cuts in a bill purportedly about health-care reform is not a side effect; it’s the entire point. They make it easier for Republicans’ (much bigger) individual and corporate tax cuts to sail through the Senate with minimal Democratic obstruction in a few months’ time.
Why? Under normal circumstances, Democrats would almost certainly filibuster the coming tax overhaul, preventing it from ever getting to a vote. But Republicans can take the filibuster option away by using the “reconciliation” process, which is an option if, and only if, the tax bill doesn’t increase government deficits in the long term, relative to existing law.
How do you keep tax cuts from increasing deficits relative to existing law? One useful tool is to change existing law — that is, to move the goalposts. Cutting taxes in the Obamacare repeal bill today lowers the revenue baseline against which a tax overhaul plan will be judged tomorrow.
So for those who have been scratching their heads about why Republican leadership is standing by a “health care” bill that does nothing to improve access to health care, remember: When you hear hoof beats, think tax cuts. |
COLUMBUS, Ohio - The state school board will vote next month on several adjustments to state learning standards that shift them further away from the controversial Common Core.
The changes range from asking students to learn about money at younger grades to adjusting statistical analysis expectations to bringing back old expectations that students draw upon personal experiences and apply those to literature they read in class.
Some changes, like those above, affect what students are expected to learn and when. But most are just refinements of the language to add clarity or context.
How much Ohio's standards will differ from the Common Core standards that Ohio adopted in 2010, even after the changes, is still being debated. But Ohio Department of Education officials say the changes aren't intended to be a re-write, just an adjustment based on what teachers have learned through using them.
State testing director Jim Wright said the standards will be reviewed and adjusted regularly, not shelved for years until someone decides to throw them out and start over.
"We're making improvements," Wright said. "We're making clarifications. As people use them, they figure out ways to improve them."
He added: "We're trying to make this a system that can grow."
The department had two public surveys about revisions last year and collected feedback from several education organizations, including both major teachers unions in Ohio and the Ohio Council of Teachers of English Language Arts and the Ohio Council of Teachers of Mathematics.
See below for a full comparison of all of the old standards to the new proposed ones.
Highlights include:
- Instead of leaving all discussion of money to second grade, kindergarteners will use pennies as a counting tool. They will add dimes and learn the names and values of both in first grade.
- Students will learn the metric system first, starting in fourth grade, because it reinforces the base 10 number system. The usual American measurements - ounces, gallons, miles - will come in 5th grade.
- More details of how early stages of statistical analysis will start in 6th grade. The changes call for teachers to use the Guidelines for Assessment and Instruction in Statistics Education from the American Statistical Association.
- Setting a new plan for how several geometry concepts are presented over time.
English Language Arts changes include:
- Adjustments to how students are supposed to identify and describe themes of literature and present summaries.
- Better distinguishing between "point of view" - whether something is written in first-person or third-person - and "perspective" - a person's position or approach to something.
- Asking students to "activate prior knowledge and draw on previous experiences" to compare two texts or to compare the text to students' own experiences.
Ohio students used to be asked to relate what they read to their own life, but the Common Core de-emphasized that. The standards, until this new adjustment, focused on having students write about what was in the text, not their own lives.
The changes don't have unanimous support, with some complaints centering on them not going far enough to ease the expectations on young students.
Board member Sarah Fowler, whose district includes all or part of Geauga, Lake and Portage counties, said she still considers some expectations to be inappropriate for the youngest grades. She particularly objected to asking kindergarten students to write instead of focusing on reading.
"There's a huge emphasis on the students being able to compose writing, as opposed to learning how to write - as in drawing the letters," she said.
And she objected to one kindergarten standard asking students, with adult help, to write and publish their work.
"It isn't just using an app to learn letter sounds and being interactive," she said. "Its asking a student to perform several higher level functions."
Elyria teacher Dawn Neely-Randall, who attracted some national attention with anti-testing pieces in the Washington Post, said she considers the updated standards little different from the Common Core.
She said she is most bothered by how many writing requirements students have by third grade to quickly pull together multiple sources and cite portions of text to defend answers to questions.
Since the standards will serve as the basis for state tests, she said those expectations are unreasonable for young children.
"The new standards are like the old," she said, "only with some new requirements morphed up to demand failure."
Here is a comparison of proposed new English learning standards and the Common Core ones Ohio adopted in 2010. See below for a similar math comparison. |
I am currently waiting for some books from amazon, so when I found a card from the deliveryguys at my home, I didn't expect the big package they handed me. Boy, I was super excited all of a sudden! Finally, my package from my first reddit-giftexchange had arrived!
As a firsttimer, I wasn't sure what exactly to expect, but man, those california girls deliverd! I opened the package, and the first thing falling into my hands is this giant bowl of Everything. Never heard of it before, but it's tasty as sin!
Next thing I noticed was to handwritten Notes with the cutest (and scariest) Monsters greeting me and a very kind letter. Tell your sweet girl I was very happy about it, will you? :)
Further gifts: 5 Issues of Tree, a comic series I only heard good things about. I am very eager to sit down and read it, some very american Chocolate (also very eager to sit down and nom those), an awesome couldron (will be part of my Halloweendecoration from now on, be sure) and some very cool but also veery creepy tin-type photos. Definetly not something coming up on my bedroom wall. But definetly an interestening treasure :)
So, my dear Santa, THANK YOU VERY MUCH!! You made me very happy!! :D I will totally stick to the gift exchanges <3 Thankyouthankyouthankyou! You did the best with the few informations I left here (sorry for that ;_;), and I am very happy tonight! Thank you! :D |
Jason Plato admitted to feeling mixed emotions having picked up his first pole position of the BTCC season at Knockhill.
The Team BMR driver returned to the front of the grid for the first time since the corresponding meeting last year with what was his 50th career pole, with the former champion edging out team-mate Ash Sutton for top spot.
Plato’s pole came after a topsy-turvy qualifying session on a drying circuit, with the quickest laps coming right at the death as the chequered flag flew.
However, although happy to have picked up pole for the second successive season, Plato said he remained frustrated at the ultimate performance of his car and was expecting a difficult race day.
“Of course I’m pleased to be on pole, but the reason to smile today comes from the fact that the weather dealt us a tricky circuit,” he said. “Had it been dry, we’d have been eighth or ninth as I wouldn’t have had the grip in the car so I’m still p***ed off about that. I can’t be happy with a situation where I’m not competitive under normal circumstances, and even in qualifying, with the weight I was carrying compared to Ash, I should have been further up the road.
“Unless we can sort the understeer in the car, and we haven’t been able to do it all season, then it’s going to be a struggle tomorrow. Obviously it’s better to be at the front, but I don’t want to get in the way of Ash as I want him to win the championship, and there are probably conversations to be had. I’m happy to have those conversations because we are all here to race for the team, and for Subaru and our sponsors, but I want to be competitive and I’m not.
“I know that probably sounds stupid when I’m sat on pole position but this has just been one of those years; it’s probably been the hardest since I started racing.” |
After his article in the Daily Mail where Michael Foster refers to Jeremy Corbyn supporters and Momentum members as "Nazi Stormtroopers", Michael Foster has insulted and defamed thousands of fellow Labour Party members.
The Labour Party NEC has already stated that it will expel any member who uses insults or threats to other members during the course of the Leadership election. This article in the Daily Mail is incredibly insulting and distressing by comparing those who support Jeremy Corbyn as Nazi Stormtroopers.
Read the article here: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-3739516/Why-despise-Jeremy-Corbyn-Nazi-stormtroopers-Jewish-Labour-donor-MICHAEL-FOSTER.html
Updated as per petition by Nick Robinson on Change.org
"We welcome, with faint praise, a statement from the Labour Party NEC that they will be investigating Michael Foster's irresponsible and highly offensive comments printed in an interview with the Mail on Sunday, last weekend.
We say this, because an immediate suspension, pending further investigation would be the correct and consistent course of action taken in these circumstances.
We question whether Mr Foster's financial relationship with the Labour Party have spared his course of action.
The recent Chakrabarti report was very clear: 'no Nazi analogies' are to be used by Labour Party members.
We implore the NEC to take further, decisive action and immediately suspend Michael Foster, for the sake of justice and integrity." |
Its 1.4 Ready!
Do you like Adventures and Challanges?
Are you an Elderscrolls/TwoWorlds/Rpg player?
This is for you.
The IMF clan presents, Admania - The heat of Fire [Beta]
I know its in beta, but still worth to play. Its 3-4 hours gameplay!
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Texture pack for Admania: (Required)
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-.- "There is a problem at the spawntown. A Chest with late-game weapons and armor. Don't touch!"
This is only beta, so I will not focus on making this page awsome just yet.
* Trailer is comming
* Lets plays are comming
* Better design on page
* The map finished.
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Info about the map:
Its an adventure/freeroam questing rpg map, made for up to 4 players. (1-4)
Its a whole new system of adventure maps, something that only the latest updates can give you.
It is really epic, with boss fights, and amasing puzzles.
There will be atlest 1,5 hours of play if you rush it, but easly 3-4 hours if you read everything, explore, and do sidequestes.
Everything is automatics, but there is rules, and those rules will be provided in-game.
Example of things that is new to this map is a Stable/horse system, Custom Wepons, Armor and Items.
NO - MOD - REQUIRED!!!
ITS AMAZING
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In case that the Download link is broken again, use this : Admania Beta 1.4 (In case)
Skins working good with the map:
Wizard/Mage class:
Assasin Class:
Tank class:
Ranger Class:
Additional Notes
Do you like Minecraft?Will be updated |
Dubai's Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) said it has launched the trial run of the first electric hydrogen fuel-cell electric vehicle, Toyota Mirai, in collaboration with Al Futtaim Motors.
Being inducted into the Dubai Taxi fleet, the new hydrogen fuel-cell vehicle has only water emissions. It is noiseless and can travel 500 km on a full tank, and refilling it takes not more than five minutes.
The emission-free Toyota Mirai is powered by hydrogen, which generates electricity inside the engine after being mixed with oxygen supplied through the grill intake at the front of the vehicle.
The vehicle is characterised by high-level driving convenience and uses Toyota Fuel Cell System (TFCS), that combines the fuel-cell technology and the hybrid technology. It contains a fuel-cell stack and a high-pressure hydrogen tank.
"RTA attaches paramount importance to protecting the environment and saving power consumption, and safety and environmental sustainability is its strategic goal," remarked Mattar Al Tayer, the director-general and chairman of the board of executive directors.
"We have announced a plan to convert 50 per cent of Dubai Taxicabs into hybrid vehicles by 2021," he noted.
"The plan involves raising the number of hybrid taxis in Dubai from 791 in 2016 to 4,750 in 2021. The Dubai Taxi Corporation accounts for the largest share of hybrid vehicles (2,280 vehicles), and the number of hybrid vehicles currently accounts for 20 per cent of the fleet," he added.
Expressing his delight at the DTC becoming the first taxi operator in the Middle East to deploy a hydrogen fuel-cell electric vehicle (Mirai) in its fleet, Al Tayer said: "RTA will start a trial run of the vehicle as part of its limousine service in the Dubai International Airport to assess the economic feasibility and environmental benefits of its operation besides verifying the efficiency of the engine, maintenance cost and other parameters."
According to him, RTA was the first entity in the region to start the trial run of hybrid (fuel and electricity) vehicles as part of its taxi fleet from 2008 to 2011.
"Results have proved the economic and environmental feasibility of the experiment by saving fuel consumption by 30 per cent and reducing carbon emission by 30 per cent as well," he added.-TradeArabia News Service |
Tutorial links a guest Oct 3rd, 2012 304 Never a guest304Never
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rawdownloadcloneembedreportprint text 1.53 KB OPENGL: 2.x openGL tutorials, kind of old, but full of usefulness http://www.swiftless.com/opengltuts.html Modern GL, relies on shaders http://www.swiftless.com/opengltuts/opengl4tuts.html GLSL tutorials [shader language built into openGL] : http://www.swiftless.com/glsltuts.html http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/GLSL_Programming/GLUT Wikibook containing a bunch of GL things http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/OpenGL_Programming [A BUNCH OF D3D STUFF, CONCEPT AND MATH IS THE SAME, STILL WORTH A LOOK AT] Anything from this website: http://www.braynzarsoft.net/index.php?p=DX11Lessons [A few useful ones from said website] Loading an MD5 model: http://www.braynzarsoft.net/index.php?p=D3D11MD51 Skeletal animation using MD5 model: http://www.braynzarsoft.net/index.php?p=D3D11MD52 Bounding volumes: http://www.braynzarsoft.net/index.php?p=D3D11BOUNDINGVOLUMES Bounding Volume collision: http://www.braynzarsoft.net/index.php?p=D3D11BVCD Sliding camera collision [can be used with models] : http://www.braynzarsoft.net/index.php?p=D3D11SlidingCamera [END OF D3D STUFF] Anything from this page too: http://www.wildbunny.co.uk/blog/ Notable ones: Physics engines stuff, nothing too in depth: http://www.wildbunny.co.uk/blog/2011/04/06/physics-engines-for-dummies/ More collision detection [2D] : http://www.wildbunny.co.uk/blog/2011/04/06/physics-engines-for-dummies/ Continuous collision detection: http://www.wildbunny.co.uk/blog/2011/03/25/speculative-contacts-an-continuous-collision-engine-approach-part-1/
RAW Paste Data
OPENGL: 2.x openGL tutorials, kind of old, but full of usefulness http://www.swiftless.com/opengltuts.html Modern GL, relies on shaders http://www.swiftless.com/opengltuts/opengl4tuts.html GLSL tutorials [shader language built into openGL] : http://www.swiftless.com/glsltuts.html http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/GLSL_Programming/GLUT Wikibook containing a bunch of GL things http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/OpenGL_Programming [A BUNCH OF D3D STUFF, CONCEPT AND MATH IS THE SAME, STILL WORTH A LOOK AT] Anything from this website: http://www.braynzarsoft.net/index.php?p=DX11Lessons [A few useful ones from said website] Loading an MD5 model: http://www.braynzarsoft.net/index.php?p=D3D11MD51 Skeletal animation using MD5 model: http://www.braynzarsoft.net/index.php?p=D3D11MD52 Bounding volumes: http://www.braynzarsoft.net/index.php?p=D3D11BOUNDINGVOLUMES Bounding Volume collision: http://www.braynzarsoft.net/index.php?p=D3D11BVCD Sliding camera collision [can be used with models] : http://www.braynzarsoft.net/index.php?p=D3D11SlidingCamera [END OF D3D STUFF] Anything from this page too: http://www.wildbunny.co.uk/blog/ Notable ones: Physics engines stuff, nothing too in depth: http://www.wildbunny.co.uk/blog/2011/04/06/physics-engines-for-dummies/ More collision detection [2D] : http://www.wildbunny.co.uk/blog/2011/04/06/physics-engines-for-dummies/ Continuous collision detection: http://www.wildbunny.co.uk/blog/2011/03/25/speculative-contacts-an-continuous-collision-engine-approach-part-1/ |
Andrew Theising was sitting behind the steering wheel of his car, pointing out the pathways of city streets that vanished long ago beneath a parking lot in downtown East St. Louis.
“This is where the homes were burned,’’ he said, solemnly. “This is where African-Americans were hung from the streetlights. This was the height of the violence and the bloodshed.’’
Theising, an associate professor of political science at Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville, was describing the 1917 East St. Louis race riot.
He was parked outside the East St. Louis Higher Education Campus, just off Eighth Street. A century ago, a mob of white people burned the African-American neighborhood that stood on this spot and then shot many of the victims as they fled the flames. Others were lynched from streetlights.
Officially, 39 African-Americans and 9 whites died during the violence of July 2-3, 1917, but most historians put the toll much higher.
Most people don't realize the college campus is located where some of the worst incidents occurred because the sites have never been marked, Theising said.
One of the goals of the East St. Louis Centennial Commission that’s commemorating the anniversary of the race riot is to place historical markers at more than 20 locations associated with the deadly violence a century ago. Theising, who’s a member of the commission, calls them “sacred sites.”
“People go through East St. Louis — we drive by these sites all the time. But we have no idea of the tremendous history and the pain and the suffering that happened on these places,” he said.
“East St. Louis was this place that had no rules”
Before the official anniversary events, scheduled for July 1-3, Theising will take small groups from SIUE on tours of the sites, much as he was doing for a reporter on this morning.
He began by playing music — Duke Ellington’s “East St. Louis Toodle-Oo,” recorded in 1927, 10 years after the riot.
“Doesn’t that just sound kind of sinister and sultry,’’ he said, after a few moments.
“This was Duke Ellington’s view of East St. Louis. I think it helps to understand that before the riot and after the riot, East St. Louis was this place that had no rules. Where laws were never enforced. That the riot happened in this place is not surprising.’’
As Theising drove, he told the story of the city’s industrial past: corrupt politicians who aided or ignored organized crime, factory owners who made no investment in the community; the clash between labor unions fearful of losing jobs to black workers who were migrating from the South in search of better lives.
Listen to Professor Andrew Theising discuss the "sacred sites" of the East St. Louis race riot.
Most of the buildings from 1917 have been gone for decades, including the labor temple at Collinsville and St. Louis avenues, where speakers incited the rioters to go home and get their guns. Theising stood at the intersection as cars and trucks rumbled by and described the start of the riot a hundred years ago.
“They marched past Missouri Avenue, and then when they got to Broadway that’s when they started encountering African-Americans,’’ he said, pointing down the street. “And they randomly just started grabbing and beating people on the streets. There’s a very famous picture of a streetcar that was stopped and the African-Americans were pulled off the streetcar. That happened right down here.’’
“Lives were lived here, and lives were given here”
Theising hopes the historical markers will spur an ongoing discussion of the causes and legacy of the riot.
He is director of the Institute for Urban Research at SIUE and has researched East St. Louis for 25 years. He’s also written extensively about the city’s history and development.
Theising uses old city street maps and satellite imagery to trace the locations of the sites, which are detailed in historical accounts of the riot.
And, he weaves the harrowing testimony of victims into his narrative.
At a vacant lot at North Fourth and Division streets, he read the words of Narcis Gurley, 71, whose home was burned: “Between five and six o’clock we noticed a house nearby burning and heard the men outside. We were afraid to come outside and remained in the house, which caught fire from the other house. When the house began falling in we ran out, terribly burned, and one white man said, ‘Let those old women alone.’ We were allowed to escape. Lost everything, clothing and household goods.’’
Gurley had lived in East St. Louis for 30 years before the riot, making her living by keeping “roomers” and working as a laundress.
Theising said these stories need to be heard today.
“The worst thing we can do is ignore this place. Because lives were lived here and lives were given here and people still struggle in this community,’’ he said. “How can we ever think of fixing the problems in our cities if we don’t understand where they came from and if we don’t understand that they exist.’’
The Meridian Society, a philanthropic organization at SIU-Edwardsville, is paying for the historical markers. Theising hopes they will be in place by fall.
The centennial commission is also raising funds for permanent memorials that will be placed at the Higher Education Campus and at the base of the Eads Bridge. Hundreds fled across the bridge during the riots, seeking shelter and safety in St. Louis.
Follow Mary Delach Leonard on Twitter: @marydleonard
Help inform our coverage
If you are a descendant of someone who went through the East St. Louis race riot of 1917, or know someone who is, we invite you to share your story: What's your connection to the 1917 race riot in East St. Louis? |
We had the Iron Lady, now we have the Irn Bru Lady, said a speaker on BBC's Morning Call.
I'm not sure which is worse, being compared to Margaret Thatcher or Scotland's other national drink. But Nicola Sturgeon should get used to it. Women leaders are still a novelty in British politics.
These are truly extraordinary times in Holyrood however. Three women - the Tory leader Ruth Davidson, the interim Labour leader, Jackie Baillie and the new First Minister -dominating the chamber and promising to promote 50/50 gender equality (though not presumably at First Minister's Question Time).
It's a great achievement of the Scottish Parliament that it has so comprehensively shattered the political glass ceiling. Gender shouldn't matter any more, but inevitably it will. This is a good and a bad thing for the new First Minister.
Good: cartoonists and commentators have to be more careful when presenting her in a grotesque light as they will risk being accused of being "obsessed with what she looks like instead of what she says".
Bad: many voters will still judge her on what she looks like rather than on what she says. And that includes women voters, whose support for the new First Minister is assumed but not guaranteed. The Daily Mail is read by many women and it will portray Ms Sturgeon as a childless, leftist harridan with a phoney smile who wants to press-gang mothers into the work place instead of letting them look after their families.
Having women in opposition does not guarantee an easy ride in the chamber either. Forget sisterhood; this is politics. Ms Davidson and Kezia Dugdale, the front runner to take over for Labour at FMQs, won't be inhibited, as some men might be about going below the belt.
The Labour Tory tag team will try to lure Ms Sturgeon into rows - like the famous stairheid dialectic between her and Johann Lamont on STV last year - because they think this will damage her more than them. She is more shout-down-able than Alex Salmond.
Ms Sturgeon also has an unfortunate habit of actually trying to answer questions, unlike Mr Salmond who just gave prepared lectures - and this could open up interesting possibilities for an aggressive opposition against a background of spending cuts.
As for Westminster, unionist politicians will applaud her for being a woman - jolly good show - and then try to put her firmly in her place. Messrs Cameron and Miliband realise nationalism is still a threat to the Union - just look at Labour's dismal poll ratings.
They will be at one in looking for an early opportunity to knock Ms Sturgeon about a bit. They will ram the Smith Commission down her throat and try to take an axe to Barnett and Scottish representation in Westminster. See how she likes that!
UK debt is still rising and the Financial Times forecasts the Chancellor is going to have to make cuts of not just £25billion, but £48bn next year - 33 per cent in non-ring fenced departments. It is almost inconceivable the Barnett Formula which gives Scotland a premium of around £1,400 per head above the UK average, will remain untouched in the post-2015 spending round.
And Ms Sturgeon is a spending First Minister in a way Mr Salmond wasn't - despite all the talk of "give-aways". She has promised above-inflation rises in NHS spending and her policy on extending free child care will punch a £400 million a year hole in the other budgets with a £600m start-up cost.
The Westminster parties will tell her that if she wants to spend then fine: she can start raising income taxes in Scotland to pay for her social democratic schemes. But they will of course cut the Barnett subsidies at the same time - tee hee. This will force her to shrink Scottish spending, and consequently the state, which means council job losses.
Labour local authorities will pile in with their usual demands to dump the "free stuff": measures like free personal care, free prescriptions and free bus passes, and which Labour politicians believe benefit the wealthy.
Kezia Dugdale said yesterday: "The SNP have quite a record on redistributing wealth - from the poor to the rich." Her solution is to lift the freeze on council tax to redistribute wealth instead to Scottish councils. Mind you, if she does that Labour will attack her for increasing bills for hard-pressed families.
There has been speculation Ms Sturgeon will revive the SNP's scheme to replace the council tax with a local income tax. But she could find that almost as damaging as raising the cap on council spending. Voters dislike new taxes almost as much as increased ones. But council costs are going up and up, what with all this equality pay, living wage and child care. How will Ms Sturgeon respond when all those women council workers start going on strike?
She can't abandon measures like free university tuition because her predecessor said "rocks would melt in the sun" before that happened.
Could it be Ms Sturgeon will become the first First Minister actually to use Holyrood's powers to raise taxes? A double whammy of council tax increases and higher income tax for Scots. It's some way off, but I wouldn't rule it out after 2016.
That will certainly test the unity of her party and the much-vaunted social democratic ethos of Scottish voters.
Labour will celebrate by accusing her of being a Tartan Tory in a red dress who also puts up taxes.
Ms Sturgeon will, of course, blame Westminster and the Union for all this. And by implication those Scots who voted No. Didn't the Yes Campaign forecast Barnett would be scrapped and Scotland would lose its influence in London? But she can't go on saying that indefinitely.
Meanwhile, Mr Salmond's influence in Westminster could be growing by the day. Assuming he returns to Westminster as MP for Gordon (and it's really time he made clear his intentions). Seeing him sitting in Holyrood while the women congratulated each other, just didn't look right. He's not a natural backbencher.
In Westminster the former First Minister will enjoy what is supposedly the prerogative of the harlot: power without responsibility. He's certainly having all the fun, poking his oar into debates about English voting, perhaps deciding the shape of the next UK government, getting on Have I Got News For You.
Will he be able to stand idly by while his golden inheritance is squandered in Scotland? The SNP's current popularity can't go anywhere but down. The first hint of tax rises and the press will round on Ms Sturgeon.
Everything they say about the new First Minister is true. She is capable, intelligent and very trough. However, that isn't enough. Nor is it enough to just be the first woman First Minister. Now the glass is shattered everyone can start blaming her for everything that goes wrong. |
Ohio State's quarterbacks have dominated the post-championship headlines. Running back Ezekiel Elliott wedged his way into the spotlight with some Heisman hype and an anthem from ex-Buckeye and rapper Mekka Don.
The Buckeyes' defense, meanwhile, is feeling a little left out. Although quarterback Cardale Jones and Elliott received the most acclaim during Ohio State's title run, the defense picked off three passes against Alabama (returning one for a touchdown) and held Oregon's dynamic offense in check.
Linebacker Darron Lee, whose emergence late last season was a major factor in Ohio State's national title, recently approached Mekka Don about a theme song for the defense. Mekka delivered and today released a new track and video entitled "The Silver Bullets Are Back," a nod to the nickname for the Buckeyes' defense.
The video begins with shots of past Buckeye defensive stars like Antoine Winfield and Andy Katzenmoyer, and then jumps to current standouts like defensive end Joey Bosa, Lee and safety Vonn Bell. There's a reference to being overlooked ("We heard 'em talk about us/We heard 'em try to doubt us").
Penn State fans might want to avoid watching the end of the video, which replays Bosa pushing PSU running back Akeel Lynch into quarterback Christian Hackenberg. It's fortunate Hackenberg avoided a serious knee injury on the play.
Ohio State's defense returns seven starters, including Bosa, the 2014 Big Ten defensive player of the year and a consensus All-American.
The hype machine for the defending champs likely won't switch off any time soon. Preseason No. 1 rankings are coming. Can Ohio State live up to all of this? We'll soon find out. |
Santo Domingo.- The antinarcotics agency (DNCD) has takencontrol of at least seven aircraft in various airports, seized frominternational drug traffickers that used Dominican territory as way station to ferrydrugs from South America to Central America, and from there to the UnitedStates by land.
The DNCD has determined that the planes, mostly housed at Higueroairport, depart from the US, Bahamas and other nearby areas and reach DominicanRepublic legally, with a registered crew.
After departing from here they divert their flight once inthe air to fetch drug shipments in Venezuela and Colombia, take them toHonduras, where they are passed on to local cartels which smuggle it to the US throughthe Mexican border.
Mexican cartels coordinate most of the operations and untiljust a few months ago were being carried out normally until Dominicanauthorities, in coordination with British and US agencies, detected them and startedto provide follow up.
The result thus far has been the confiscation of at leastseven aircraft retained by the DNCD, including Falcon jet, and soon even a Boeing737.
There are two more planes that were to be confiscated, one inHaiti that is unable to fly, and another that crashed in Venezuela near LakeMaracaibo last April.
The authorities have determined that the planes were boughtprecisely to haul drug, but are previously flown within Dominican territory.
Rings of Central and South America
Outlet eldia.com.do reports that Dominican and US authorities have determined that among thegroups that buy aircraft to haul drugs from South America figure alias"Niño Tamal" and others identified only as Juan Alberto, Javier,Alberto and Ezekiel, who have their operations centers.
The DNCD notes that some of the planes were modified as"enchonches" to increase their fuel capacity and extend their flightrange, with Cessna and Piper Navajo the aircraft of choice. |
By Captain Pyke | November 5, 2010 - 3:46 pm
The iconic Star Trek theme music penned by Alexander Courage is known throughout the world. And, in a small way, may have launched the career of one of the most popular comedians of the past 15 years. Love his movies or hate them, you have to admire Will Ferrell simply for starting his career in comedy by "singing" the theme to TOS. In a recent Youtube video posted by ABC News, Will talks of his early beginnings in the Southern California comedy scene.
"One of the first shots was at The Barn in Tustin, California, which had a comedy night... and I didn't get a lot of laughs that night, I'm not going to lie to you." He continues, "I'm not a joke teller perse, so... my opening bit was 'I don't know if you know this, but I used to be the lead vocalist of the original theme to Star Trek.' So, I would then sing that song". Will then goes into a rendition of the TOS Theme. We got a good chuckle from it, although we can't tell if Will is saying "Star Trek" or "Star Track". Check out the video below and tell us what you think. |
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