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Every spring, Arctic plants rely on direct and indirect cues from the environment — like warmer weather, longer days and shrinking sea ice cover — to tell them when they should awaken from winter’s slumber. But as the climate warms, these plants are getting mixed signals about when to rouse. In a new paper published in Biology Letters, researchers detail findings from a study of when plant species in the low Arctic region of Greenland first green up in the spring. Timing varied from plant to plant, but one speedy sedge species — a flowering, grasslike herb — stirred a full 26 days earlier than it did a decade ago. The change corresponds to nearly an entire growing season, and breaks the record for the greatest shift in spring emergence that the scientists have observed in the Arctic. Changes in growing seasons were associated with diminishing sea ice cover, which serves as a reminder that this loss may “have widespread effects on life on land,” said Jeffrey Kerby, an environmental studies researcher at Dartmouth College and an author of the study. Shifting patterns of plant growth may affect the availability of nutritious food for herbivores, for example. Dr. Kerby and his colleagues found in 2013 that more caribou calves died early in years when spring plant growth preceded the animal’s calving season. Over all, the difference between early bloomers and late bloomers widened, with longer periods of no plants blooming at all, the researchers found in the new study. According to Eric Post, an ecology professor at the University of California, Davis and the paper’s lead author, transformations in the Arctic are happening so rapidly that they are discernible to researchers who have studied its ecology for decades. “As a climate scientist who studies the start of spring, I struggle to answer the question, ‘What is spring? ’” said Heidi Steltzer, a professor at Fort Lewis College and author of the paper. “A longer spring opens up the potential for gaps — points in time when it would be spring with no springlike events occurring. Would this still be spring?” | 1 |
In the beginning, there was the book. Famously long, and a bit of a slog. But Volume 2 Part 5 caught the cruise ship pianist’s eye. There was that beautiful girl, killing time in the big city while her fiancé was away the flirtation with a dreamy playboy the unhappily married rich man starting to fall apart the swirl of aristocrats, Russia at war, and a comet streaking across the sky. This section of “War and Peace,” Dave Malloy thought, would make a perfect musical. That was in 2007, on an ocean liner traveling from New York to Bermuda Mr. Malloy, a struggling musician, was earning his keep in the house band and passing the time talking Tolstoy, via email and phone calls, with his onshore girlfriend. Now, nine years later, the musical birthed from that passage, “Natasha, Pierre the Great Comet of 1812,” is about to open on Broadway. It is one of the most anticipated shows of the season, and one of the most unusual, pairing a group of experimental downtown theatermakers with Josh Groban, a pop singer from the mellifluous mainstream. They’re all making their Broadway debuts, as are most of the actors — in all, 24 members of the cast and creative team. The show, like most Broadway ventures, is an expensive gamble: in this case, a $14 million bet that what was once a wild night of storytelling (in its first incarnation, the show provided free vodka at every table) can retain its sense of intimacy and authenticity in a vastly expanded space while broadening its appeal beyond adventurous theatergoers to the tourists who sustain commercially successful musicals. The core creative team — the composer, Mr. Malloy the director, Rachel Chavkin and the set designer, Mimi Lien — is optimistic. As daunting as selling an adaptation of “War and Peace” to a mass audience may seem, Mr. Malloy notes that the tenant of the Imperial Theater, where “The Great Comet” begins previews Oct. 18 and opens Nov. 14, was also an adaptation of a sweeping historical novel — Victor Hugo’s “Les Misérables” — and these days no one questions that tome’s marketability as a musical. “‘War and Peace’ wouldn’t have lasted 200 years if he hadn’t really tapped into something universal,” Mr. Malloy said, speaking during an interview in his Brooklyn studio, with a portrait of Tolstoy on the wall, Christmas lights still strung over a piano, a bookcase groaning with volumes of Marvel comics, and a bottle of whiskey atop a . Mr. Malloy has little interest in writing the dramas that dominate contemporary theater, and instead said he finds himself drawn to classical literature for subject matter. He first drew attention with a “songplay” celebration of “Beowulf,” is now working on a musicalization of “” and has even tried adapting the Zhuangzi, a foundational Taoist text. He jokes (or dreams?) about an “impossible novels trilogy”: “War and Peace,” “ ” and “Ulysses. ” “There’s a perverse interest in picking the texts that have a reputation as being boring,” he said. “Well, no: ‘War and Peace’ is an amazing book, and here’s all the reasons why. It’s a trashy romance novel. It’s not this unapproachable academic piece. ” The Broadway production is the fourth for “The Great Comet. ” The musical, then billed as an “electropop opera,” was commissioned by, workshopped, and first staged, in 2012, at a Off Broadway nonprofit, Ars Nova, with 87 seats, rented costumes for the actors and Costco pierogies for the audience. “By the end of the first workshop, I remember thinking, I have no idea what’s going on, but this is going to be incredible,” recalled Jason Eagan, the company’s founding artistic director. (The show was the biggest ever undertaken by Ars Nova, and will be its first ever to transfer to Broadway.) Mr. Malloy had a strong sense of what he wanted the show to feel like, shaped by two experiences: a boozy night at Chez Poulet, a San Francisco warehouse space where “Beowulf” was performed with actors staging their fighting among the drinkers and another at Cafe Margarita, a Moscow bar with an unmarked door where musicians were with diners, so crowded that Mr. Malloy had a viola at his ear. As collaborators for “The Great Comet,” he enlisted two friends who shared his passion for erasing lines between performers and audiences: Ms. Chavkin, a founder of an experimental theater company called the Team, and Ms. Lien, a college architecture major who had studied painting in Italy before finding her way to set design. “The goal from the beginning has been remarkably the same: putting the performers in close proximity to the audience members, and putting the audience members in very close proximity to each other, sitting at a table together, drinking vodka and eating bread,” said Ms. Lien, who last year won a MacArthur Foundation “genius grant” in part for her work on this show. “It’s not so much a show that you sit back and watch from a distance, but it’s an experience that you’re actually inside of,” she added. The Ars Nova staging, which ran for just 39 performances, was a sensation, as much for the environmental production as the energetic storytelling: In an effort to disorient patrons, Ms. Lien routed ticketholders downstairs and past dressing rooms into a makeshift nightclub where actors and musicians performed atop bars and between banquettes while patrons ate black bread and rattled shakers. Mr. Malloy not only conducted the band but also played the piano and the accordion and starred as Pierre Natasha was portrayed by a recent (and radiant) Juilliard graduate named Phillipa Soo, who was later seen in the role by Miranda and cast as Eliza in “Hamilton. ” Howard Kagan, a board member at Ars Nova, was taken with the show — at first, he thought of it as mostly an unusual experience, akin to “Sleep No More,” but then he began to focus on the songs, and decided, with his wife and Janet Kagan, to test its promise. The first commercial production, beginning in 2013, was in a tent, named “Kazino,” erected on an empty lot in Manhattan’s meatpacking district, with full dinner service (for big spenders, a seafood tower with caviar was available) and then in Midtown (this time as a supperless supper club) on a lot, as luck would have it, next to the Imperial. Late last year, “Great Comet” opened at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Mass. — the first time in a house, as a chance to test how the enveloping design and peripatetic players might work in a conventional auditorium. Each production featured vodka (on Broadway, to be sold by vendors walking through the aisles) and free pierogies (on Broadway, served flaky and in boxes, after the variety tested in Cambridge proved too messy). But with each move, the show has changed: songs rewritten and replaced, an ensemble and then roving musicians hired, a dance break inserted. A handful of defining visual elements have remained: a bleak, unexpected entrance passage (meant to evoke images of a Cold bunker) a performance space cocooned entirely in red velvet drapery (opulence) walls covered with Russian paintings hung (aristocracy) multiple chandeliers (the opera) including one giant “Sputnik” chandelier (a comet). The Imperial is being rejiggered to preserve the immersive feel: a couple hundred people will be seated on the stage new internal staircases will permit performers to move between orchestra and mezzanine there will be side tables with lamps and egg shakers interspersed among the seats, along with snaking platforms to allow for elevated action by actors. Among those who came to check out the tent production was Mr. Groban, who has sold more than 35 million albums and DVDs and has long wanted to perform theater. He tweeted his enthusiasm for the material later, the Kagans, looking for a star who could help them justify a Broadway transfer, reached out to him, just as he was also urging his agent to look for stage roles. After an introductory phone call (at 4 a. m. for Mr. Malloy, who was then in Berlin) Mr. Groban, Mr. Malloy and Ms. Chavkin met at the Weather Up bar in TriBeCa as they all began imagining what it might be like for the famed singer to take direction from emerging artists. “I didn’t at all want to push myself into this project, but I wanted to make my interest known,” Mr. Groban said. “It had to be something they felt would be right. ” Mr. Malloy wound up visiting the singer’s apartment, so the two could see what it felt like to sing through, and talk about, the score. “I didn’t want to work with a diva,” Mr. Malloy said. “It turned out he’s supercollaborative. ” Over the last few weeks, as Mr. Groban wrapped up a tour and began preparing for rehearsals, Mr. Malloy has been looking for places to trim the score, while Ms. Lien has overseen construction of the set at Hudson Scenic Studio in Yonkers. Ms. Chavkin has been holed up with her choreography team at the New 42nd Street Studios, moving pennies around theater blueprints to try to plot entrances and exits and quick costume changes. Broadway beckons — the production bigger and grander, but, they hope, at heart unchanged. “The whole beauty of the show is to make you feel like stuff’s happening everywhere, and that everyone’s having a different experience but no one is missing a central action,” Ms. Chavkin said. “We want to make sure everyone is feeling the life of the show. ” With each step toward Broadway, “Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812” has grown. Ars Nova, 2012 SEATS 87 PERFORMANCES 39 PERFORMERS 16 CHANDELIERS 10 PAINTINGS 59 Kazino, SEATS 199 PERFORMANCES 303 PERFORMERS 25 CHANDELIERS 11 PAINTINGS 147 American Repertory Theater, SEATS 503 PERFORMANCES 33 PERFORMERS 34 CHANDELIERS 21 PAINTINGS 273 Imperial Theater, 2016 SEATS 1, 200 BEGINS Oct. 18 PERFORMERS 43 CHANDELIERS 31 PAINTINGS 414 | 1 |
White House press secretary Sean Spicer ridiculed a story published by the New York Times that reported that President Donald Trump spends a lot of time in the White House watching television in his bathrobe. [“I don’t think the president owns a bathrobe,” Spicer told reporters aboard Air Force One in response to the story. “He definitely doesn’t wear one. ” The story reported that Trump was struggling being “cloistered” inside the White House, and that his senior aides were having difficulty adjusting to their new roles in the White House — and to each other. But Spicer accused the reporters of getting the story horribly wrong, calling it “literally the epitome of fake news. ” “That story was so riddled with inaccuracies and lies that they owe the president an apology,” he said. “Literally blatant factual errors and it’s unacceptable to see that kind of reporting or reporting. ” Spicer accused the New York Times reporters of failing their readers by printing unsubstantiated rumors. “From top to bottom it made up stories that don’t exist and I think that’s unfortunate for people that look to news institutions like that for their news,” he said. | 1 |
Most people can agree that a solution to bullying must be found. This Wisconsin town believes it may have the answer.
In recent years, bullying-related suicides account for over 6,000 deaths per year for people ages 15 through 24. This Wisconsin town passed a law that forces parents to pay a fine if their child is a bully.
As the connection between bullying and suicide becomes undeniable, parents, teachers, and students alike are trying to find a solution to this very important issue. Yet, there are too many adults who still see bullying as just another aspect of growing up. It has been proven that bullying is a prevalent problem that leads to many negative effects for it’s victims. Some of these negative effects include depression, fear, lack of motivation to attend school, and suicide.
Police in Shawano, Wisconsin are trying to curb bullying by holding parents accountable if their child is involved in bullying.
The city council of Shawano just passed an ordinance that allows police to intervene when aggression happens. The law applies to anyone under the age of 18 and covers various forms of harassment ranging from taking lunch money to cyberbullying on social media.
Shawano parents will be warned after the first incident, but if the child’s behavior doesn’t change within 90 days, parents will be fined $366. A repeat offender will be fined $681.
While the majority of parents agree that bullying needs to stop, the new ordinance has raised a lot of controversy. Some critics believe that there could be difficulty distinguishing between playful banter and harassment. But police Chief Mark Kohl assures the public that the ordinance is not generated towards ‘kids being kids’ and playground banter, but instead towards kids who are meticulously using social media or their words to purposefully hurt others.
While some parents embrace the fining idea, others disagree believing it will not solve the issue, only burning a hole in the pockets of already stressed out parents.
It is an interesting solution and only time will tell if it works. Feel free to share you own thoughts on the subject.
Share this to start a dialogue about the issue of bullying in your community.
Ariana Marisol is a contributing staff writer for REALfarmacy.com. She is an avid nature enthusiast, gardener, photographer, writer, hiker, dreamer, and lover of all things sustainable, wild, and free. Ariana strives to bring people closer to their true source, Mother Nature. She graduated The Evergreen State College with an undergraduate degree focusing on Sustainable Design and Environmental Science. Follow her adventures on Instagram. | 0 |
STORE ‘HACKING DEMOCRACY’ CREATOR JUST EXPOSED HOW HILLARY HAS ALREADY RIGGED ‘99% of VOTING MACHINES’! ELDER PATRIOT – Even as Mrs. Clinton has fallen behind in the same polls that her minions from the mainstream corporate media conduct and tout, she is busy preparing her transition team and planning a massively expensive inauguration ceremony. Some may think this is arrogance on her part but it’s not. It’s reflective of her confidence in the ability to rig voting machines on a massive scale that her campaign has invested heavily in. Bev Harris of Black Box Voting shows how easy it is for an experienced programmer – in this case Bennie Smith – with access to the network to change the results of an election without anyone knowing or being able to detect it has happened. The process uses a fractional counting methodology to alter the vote totals and arrive at pre-determined totals for each candidate through the use of a software patch called the gems program. When Ms. Harris first discovered the gems program it was installed and counting votes in 25 states and 616 jurisdictions. She has now uncovered evidence that fractional counting has migrated from the gems program exclusively into other vendors voting systems which count votes as fractions and may count as many as ninety-nine percent of all American votes in the 2016 election. There are some things we can do to protect our vote but it’s not as simple as we would like it to be. It requires a degree of vigilance and a little effort on your part. Voting machines are required to take pictures of every ballot. Ask for a copy after you vote. Also, you can observe and document the central tabulator at your county elections office by making a video recording of what you’re seeing. Remember, the precinct voting machine you vote on should print a results page. Ask to see it and compare it to how you voted. We can no longer trust those in control of the levers of power to protect us. The establishment has betrayed us too many times in the past for us to trust them with our votes now. It’s up to you to protect the integrity of your vote. Search for: | 0 |
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It has become increasingly apparent that the Obama administration looks upon the First Amendment protections of religious liberty as meaningless — if it contradicts its liberal social agenda.
This is demonstrated in a recent mandate from the federal Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that physicians and other healthcare workers must perform surgeries to “alter” people's gender. Objections raised on the grounds that the physician views the surgery as harmful to the patient’s mental health, or that the surgeon has religious or ethical objections, do not matter. If surgeons refuse, they can face fines or even the loss of their jobs.
The mandate includes surgeries on children.
Thousands of healthcare providers and eight states are now challenging the validity of the federal rule.
Obviously, Congress has never passed any such law, but HHS is exercising what is sometimes called “administrative law,” in which federal bureaucrats simply develop rules that implement a law — all according to the interpretation of the bureaucrats, of course. In this instance, the rule is said to apply to all private doctors, healthcare providers, and health insurance plans that accept federal funding, but it does not provide a religious exemption for medical personnel who find “sex-change operations” contrary to their religious beliefs.
It is estimated that the rule will impact almost one million physicians and most hospitals in the United States — because almost every hospital receives some federal funds. (This is yet another example of how the federal government can use the threat of withholding federal monies to force compliance.)
The transgender mandate’s legal “justification” is similar to that used in May when the Departments of Education and Justice ordered public schools and universities to allow transgender students to use the restroom and locker room they “identify” with, rather than the one that conforms to their biological sex. As in the present case, the Obama Education Department and Justice Department intend to get their way by threatening the loss of federal funds.
To accomplish the order, the Obama administration simply redefined the meaning of the word “sex.” In an HHS rule that persons cannot be discriminated against because of their “sex,” the Obama administration claims that “sex” really means “gender.” And it argues that “gender” can be male, female, neither, or some combination thereof, which may be different from an individual’s sex at birth. In other words, when the doctor tells the baby’s parents, “It’s a boy,” or “It’s a girl,” perhaps they need to add “for the time being.”
Using this reasoning, HHS is insisting that it is “sex discrimination” to refuse to perform a gender transition procedure. The healthcare professionals and states that have challenged the rule argue that the HHS regulation violates the U.S. Constitution and federal laws.
The legal motion made by those seeking to overturn the rule states, “Thus, with a single stroke of the pen, HHS has created massive new liability for thousands of doctors unless they cast aside their convictions and perform procedures that can be deeply harmful to their patients.” About four dozen members of the U.S. House of Representatives sent a letter in October to HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell expressing their outrage about the regulation and asking her a dozen questions about the rule.
Such a procedure is particularly irresponsible when performed upon children, if two recent studies on this subject are correct. According to the studies, as much as 94 percent of children who report “gender dysphoria” grow out of that discomfort. Gender dysphoria is defined as a discomfort a person may feel in regard to his or her biological sex. This means that in almost every case, the person eventually will accept his or her biological sex; however, if surgery has already been performed, the person is left in a tragic situation, all to conform to a radical social agenda.
In Wichita Falls, Texas, federal judge Reed O'Connor issued an injunction on October 18 against the Obama administration’s transgender directive to schools. This ruling has encouraged a Christian association of more than 10,000 physicians and a Roman Catholic hospital system to ask the federal court in Wichita Falls to issue a similar injunction to block enforcement of the HHS regulation. Eight states have joined in the motion.
The motion states that the rule “forces doctors and hospitals to perform controversial and potentially harmful medical procedures that purport to permanently alter an individual’s sex — even when doing so would violate a doctor’s religious beliefs and medical judgment, and even when the government’s own programs exclude the procedures as potentially harmful.” | 0 |
(Before It's News)
I never thought I would see the day when I reposted something from Michael Moore. Today is the day.
h/t Gerard | 0 |
For a show about a bunch of single dudes in their 20s, it seems remarkable that “Silicon Valley” has aired for a two and a half seasons before plucking the fruit of nerds awkwardly courting the opposite sex. There have been a few odd occasions where the guys have revealed their struggles with women, like Jared attempting to engineer a friendship between Monica and Carla, or Richard referring to his old laptop as his “girlfriend,” because it’s the only warm thing that’s touched his crotch in three years. To put it generously, the boys have been too busy managing the ups and downs of Pied Piper to brush the cobwebs off their dormant libidos. But now, to the horror of single ladies from Silicon Valley to Estonia, they’re ready to play the field. Opening with the gang on the town, dipping into an extra large virgin margarita, this week’s episode finally offers a glimpse of the men at play. To say they’re rusty is an insult to the ancient Volkswagen perched atop concrete blocks on your neighbor’s front lawn. Richard comes to the table with the exciting news that Winnie, the lovely young woman sitting at the bar, has given him her phone number. Gilfoyle guesses, correctly, that Richard has let it slip that he’s the C. E. O. of his own company. Dinesh surmises that maybe Winnie is a “Founder Hounder,” but defends Richard telling her why he and his friends were celebrating. “Every time you are near a woman,” he says, “it is important to explain why. Otherwise, they get nervous. ” And that, in a nutshell, describes the excruciating awkwardness of their romantic lives. “Bachmanity Insanity” takes the form of many an Apatowian comedy since “The Virgin,” with guys who know little about love dispensing advice to guys who know even less. But it’s a hilarious specificity of each character that makes the difference: Dinesh creepily macking on his Estonian underling via video chat, which is murky enough to support his claim to be “Pakistani Denzel” Richard spoiling a certain opportunity to have sex by freaking out over a dispute with Winnie over preferences and Jared, who talks about fanning out his plumage, quietly bedding at least two women in Erlich’s garage. Turns out Russ Hanneman had him pegged all along. Jared’s sexual prowess adds to a character book that’s growing sadder and stranger by the episode. The formality of his language (“She’s magnificent! ,” he declares, when Richard points out Winnie at the bar) the utter sincerity of his sycophancy, the darkness that casually seeps out of him like sap from a Vermont maple: Jared has become the show’s most fascinating character and its most poignant, too, in the way he suppresses a life of unimaginable misfortune with cheery optimism. “I had a stuffed animal named Winnie,” he tells Richard’s new squeeze. “Well, it wasn’t technically an animal. I took a Ziploc bag and stuffed it with old newspaper, then drew a smile on it. ” Zach Woods plays Jared with a gentle composure that slyly undercuts the outrageous things that come out of his mouth and suggests an ease that might make women comfortable around him. At least until they get to know him better. With Pied Piper currently downshifted to the core staff at Erlich’s incubator and a network of engineers working from abroad, “Bachmanity Insanity” has more freedom to fool around with observational comedy than previous episodes. The only real developments come in the partnership between Erlich and Big Head, which crashes because of profligate spending, like Big Head paying to move the pool closer to the house (and then back to where it was before) and Erlich blowing money on helicopter rides, a launch party at Alcatraz and $500, 000 for a blog. Erlich and Big Head were an incompatible team in many ways, but they both turned out to be exceptionally good at burning through $20 million. The episode was also evidence that the show’s writers are capable of zagging when they’re expected to zig. So much of “Silicon Valley” has been staked on the tension and perils of getting a tech off the ground that it’s a relief to step back and watch these characters try something unfamiliar. The show has been moving forward — or lurching, anyway — relentless from the beginning, but while the constant conflict has been productive, it runs the risk of sinking into formula. “Bachmanity Insanity” more or less took a breather, and may be the most breezily entertaining episode of the season. Bytes • Thomas Middleditch’s reaction to being called a “formatting Nazi” is a master class of physical and verbal anxiety, like a meltdown. First, he tries playful in a German accent: “Me? A Nazi? Zats . ” Then he tumbles into Hitler and the Holocaust, and a series of regrettable analogies, his body twitching all the while. Not a smooth operator. • “Silicon Valley” prides itself in getting the tech right, and there is indeed a formatting debate. A casual Internet search reveals this lively article, called “Death to the Space Infidels!” • Every week brings glorious profanities that are not fit to print, so Erlich’s metaphor about his “vengeful, viscous web of payback” cannot be transcribed in full. Let it be known, however, that Erlich’s gift for vulgar phrasing is formidable. • Big Head’s comments on his Agreement with Hooli suggests that the writers of “Silicon Valley” know their Marx Brothers: “The NDA is actually covered under the NDA, so if I told you about the NDA, it would have been a violation of the NDA. ” | 1 |
Former aides to former President Barack Obama reacted sorrowfully to the news that President Donald Trump would withdraw from the Paris Climate agreement, sharing their feelings on Twitter. [“Malicious idiocy derived from willful ignorance motivated by avarice,” Obama’s former senior advisor Dan Pfeiffer wrote, reacting to the news. “Have been in two European cities today. News is all Paris. Vibe is mournful,” wrote Obama’s former speechwriter Cody Keenan. “Feels like U. S. giving up 75 years of global leadership. ” Keenan also wrote that Trump would be “cursed and loathed” by future generations because of his decision. Obama’s former National Security advisor Susan Rice also indicated her disappointment. “The cumulative effect of Trump policies, capped by his foolish, tragic Paris decision = abdication of America’s global leadership,” she wrote. “Shame!” “Trump destroying ability of any US President, including himself, to garner long term international commitments on anything,” wrote Jesse Lee, a former White House director of rapid response. “Make[s] US word meaningless. ” “Literally every other major government and political party in the world believes this except for the US and GOP — a staggering disconnect,” former National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes lamented on Twitter. He described White House economic advisor Gary Cohn and H. R. McMaster “complicit” in the acceleration of “the destruction of our planet. ” Joel Benenson a pollster for Obama and Hillary Clinton also lamented the decision. “As if Trump didn’t do enough on foreign trip to squander America’s role as global leader,” he said. “ . A ‘win’ for ignorance. ” | 1 |
When Jaap van Zweden was announced in January as the next music director of the New York Philharmonic, I was at sea. I’d heard reports, and my colleagues at The New York Times and elsewhere had been generally impressed by his appearances. But I had never heard him conduct live. As he’s only visited the Philharmonic for four programs, you might have missed him, too. Time for due diligence. Mr. van Zweden has been a prolific recording artist, churning out an average of three albums a year for more than a decade. Many have flown under the radar, emerging from his longtime association with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra on relatively obscure labels. Others, particularly with one of his current ensembles, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, come in less than ideal sound. A significant number are out of print. But over the past month, I listened to all of them, more than three dozen, a total of 52 hours. What did I learn? An obsession with detail, as if Mr. van Zweden is holding the music tight in a vise, tends to result in an abrupt way with phrasing and, with scarce exceptions for lyrical flights, a style that drives relentlessly hard when the opportunity is there. Sometimes this pays dividends. In Beethoven’s Fifth and Seventh symphonies, released on the Dallas Symphony’s own label, DSO Live, the musicianship is electric, the players urged forward with unstoppable force and responding with unbridled aggression. They are fully committed in Tchaikovsky’s Fourth and Fifth (DSO Live) too, facing down the fates in the Fifth with brisk nonchalance. Once a Dutch “The Rite of Spring” (Exton) shakes off its lugubrious beginning, the violence that ensues is notable for the control with which it is dispatched. Its coupling, Stravinsky’s “Apollon Musagète,” shows that Mr. van Zweden can do tenderness, too. Often, though, his method comes across as heavy handed. A Brahms Second (Brilliant Classics) is square and enervating, and though the rest of that Brahms cycle with the Netherlands players has more oomph, the other three symphonies threaten to go the same way. Accompanying David Fray in a pair of Mozart piano concertos (Erato) the Philharmonia Orchestra sounds worryingly out of breath. And Elgar’s “The Music Makers” (QuattroLive) is pushed to the breaking point. Without the crackle of performances, I was rarely moved to profound emotion. Hardly ever did a smile creep across my face at the turn of a phrase. Goose bumps didn’t flare. I was not confronted with interpretations that shocked or challenged or enthralled or enraged me. While Mr. van Zweden’s catalog runs from Andriessen to Wagner, there is no sustained reckoning with a largely unfamiliar composer from the past as, say, Manfred Honeck of the Pittsburgh Symphony has explored Walter Braunfels, or the National Symphony’s future director, Gianandrea Noseda, has delved into Alfredo Casella. Perhaps most frustrating is a pervasive lack of charm or humor. Any spontaneity tends to sound, paradoxically, thoroughly rehearsed. Take two discs of Haydn (Exton) or one of his first recordings, a Beethoven cycle (Philips) with The Hague Residentie Orchestra. Everything is in its place, tightly clipped and fussily manicured, with strong accents and prominent timpani: The unkempt, the rude and the radical have been pruned away. For a predominantly symphonic conductor, there’s a remarkable amount of Wagner. A “Lohengrin” and “Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg” (both on QuattroLive) are satisfying. More interesting is a “Parsifal” (Challenge Classics) in which the conducting is unusually unassuming, serenely pious and quietly effective. Then there’s Mr. van Zweden’s most recent recording, a clean and tidy “Das Rheingold” that’s the start of a “Ring” cycle on the Naxos label, with the conductor at the helm of the Hong Kong Philharmonic, his “other” orchestra and one he intends to keep even after he takes over at the Philharmonic. It has considerable orchestral glories, not least the veiled hints of “Götterdämmerung” that hail Erda’s warning to Wotan, yet his work modestly eschews grandeur in favor of exposing the voices. Look out for “Die Walküre,” due later this year. Wagner leads us to Bruckner, and here Mr. van Zweden has come to shine. His earliest efforts with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic (Exton) are routine, though a slow, simmering Seventh is worth hearing because it’s one of this conductor’s most refreshingly interventionist readings. Far better are the later recordings on the Challenge label: a vibrant First, a fine Eighth, a soaring Sixth and an enthralling Third. While judicious, to my ears his Mahler — a “Das Klagende Lied” from Amsterdam, the Third and Sixth symphonies from Dallas, and a Fifth with the London Philharmonic — never quite hits the same heights. Many commentators have feared that Mr. van Zweden’s commitment to new music will be shaky, or at least shakier than that of Alan Gilbert, the man he’s succeeding. But Mr. van Zweden’s recordings don’t shy away from modern and contemporary work. By far the weightiest contribution is Steven Stucky’s “August 4, 1964” (DSO Live) a calling card for him and his Dallas orchestra. The care and attention lavished on the score is heartwarming, particularly in the wrenching central elegy, which provocatively conflates the war dead of Vietnam with the murder of civil rights activists. Unsurprising, given both Mr. van Zweden’s nationality and the social function of the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, Dutch composers figure strongly. On separate composer portraits released by Etcetera, works by Louis Andriessen, Theo Verbey and Otto Ketting benefit from the conductor’s fastidious approach, as does Tristan Keuris’s Symphony in D. Most bracing is the Norwegian Rolf Wallin’s enormously powerful “Act” (Ondine) a battering ram recorded with the Oslo Philharmonic that rumbles along with pounding ferocity. Mr. van Zweden’s recordings are properly prepared and intensely executed, always energetic and always direct. There is no grandstanding. There is nothing that is not deliberate. There is no let up. This is a conductor who knows his way around an orchestra, and a comparison of his earliest and latest recordings with his Dutch and Texan forces is strong evidence that he knows how to make one better. Several of his recordings are very good, including that Stravinsky and the dose of Wagner. None are terrible. A couple — Bruckner’s Third and Sixth, especially — are outstanding. Listening to his work over the past 13 years, it’s clear that he is improving fast. One hears discipline. One hears strong musical values. One hears an insistence on high standards. Perhaps this is what the Philharmonic needs and wants at an uncertain time, as it contemplates an extended absence from its home base as David Geffen Hall is renovated. Undertaking this same immersive exercise with the other candidates rumored for the Philharmonic position would result in a more fulsome endorsement. Direct comparisons in works they, too, have recorded are not flattering for Mr. van Zweden: Mr. Honeck’s Beethoven Fifth and Seventh, his Mahler Third and his Tchaikovsky Fifth (all with Pittsburgh) all display a far broader musical imagination. Salonen’s “Rite” (with the Los Angeles Philharmonic) has more intensity and greater shock value, his Mahler Sixth (with the Philharmonia) a surer sense of structure. Let’s not forget: The New York Philharmonic is the orchestra of Bernstein and Boulez, of Mitropoulos and Mengelberg, of Toscanini and Mahler. Its storied past demands future vision. Its heritage deserves the very best. Is Mr. van Zweden of that class? On this evidence, no — but now he has the chance to prove otherwise. Below are five samples from his discography. Listen to them on Spotify: HAYDN: SYMPHONIES NOS. 92, 94, 97 Netherlands Radio Chamber Philharmonic (Exton). Often astringent and deliberately metronomic, these are not the prettiest Haydn recordings, but they are full of sly touches and offbeat choices. Take the famous fortissimo surprise in the “Surprise”: Here, where it’s more of an arched eyebrow than a whoopee cushion, you’re so busy taking in the quality of quiet playing around it that you miss the effect entirely. BEETHOVEN: SYMPHONIES NOS. 5, 7 Dallas Symphony Orchestra (DSO Live). Faster, more confident and with a firmer sense of direction than his earlier recordings with the Residentie Orchestra of The Hague, here we have vigorous Beethoven. Parts of the lithe Fifth are misjudged, but the Seventh is typical Jaap: unyielding, with a darkly thrilling finale. BRUCKNER: SYMPHONY NO. 3 Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra (Challenge Classics). Skip the Bruckner taped for the Exton label in favor of the releases on Challenge. The Eighth is a bit safe, the Sixth magnificent, and this Third is the finest of all. It feels as if there is something at stake, with genuine depth and cultivation in the slow movement, and overwhelming energy in a dash for the finish. WAGNER: “DAS RHEINGOLD” Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra (Naxos). Of the “Ring” dramas, Mr. van Zweden is most likely to convince in “Das Rheingold,” where overt emotionality and architectural vision are least vital. This first recording with his Hong Kong orchestra, and a solid cast proves it. Intimate, light, almost chatty, it’s as if nobody (even Matthias Goerne’s desperate Wotan) quite realizes that this is a drama of philosophical, historical import — until it’s too late. STRAVINSKY: “PETRUSHKA” “PULCINELLA” “SYMPHONIES OF WIND INSTRUMENTS” Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra Netherlands Radio Chamber Philharmonic (Exton). You might think that an often crushing, thumping style would suit Stravinsky’s “Rite,” but Mr. van Zweden’s is uncertain. Instead, he shines in Stravinsky’s works: the “Apollon musagète” paired with his “Rite” and a suave, restrained “Pulcinella. ” The “Symphonies of Wind Instruments” is perky and pristine, and the “Petrushka” is full of subtle pleasures. | 1 |
Wasn't he the guy asking the US for help with the south china sea? | 0 |
Police responded to an incident in central London on Saturday night following a report a van has hit a number of pedestrians on London Bridge and of stabbings in nearby Borough Market. The Prime Minister confirmed the incident is being treated as an act of terrorism. [At 22:08hrs British Summer Time (BST) on Saturday, Metropolitan Police officers responded to reports of a vehicle in collision with pedestrians. Police say the vehicle carried on down Borough Market where it came to a stop and three attackers then disembarked from the vehicle. They began stabbing members of the public with knives in pubs and restaurants in the popular dining area, some fatally. Within eight minutes of first calls being made, at 22:16, the three attackers were shot dead by armed officers outside of the Wheatsheaf Pub. The Metropolitan has confirmed seven fatalities, in addition to the three terrorists, and 48 injured individuals being treated in five hospitals across the city. Updates to the live blog continue below … 12:30 BST — Victims from all over the world, While the identity of one of the victims of Saturday’s attack has been revealed as Canadian citizen Chrissy Archibald, there are six more known to have been killed by the three Islamist knifemen. No more names have come forward, but speaking at the scene at a press conference Monday afternoon London Mayor Sadiq Khan revealed the nationalities of the other victims, who may include the dead and injured. He said: “the victims include not just people from London, but people from Australia, New Zealand, Canada, France, Spain … you realise what a truly global city London is”. 12:00 — Attack suspect may have appeared in Channel 4 Jihad documentary, Revelations made overnight suggest one of the London Bridge attackers was allegedly a Islamist, who had even appeared on a Channel 4 documentary about Islamic extremism in the United Kingdom, and was seen praying to an Islamic State battle flag in a London park. Read more here. 10:00 BST — More arrests, London’s Metropolitan Police and Counter Terrorism Command have made a number of new raids on London addresses, as they seek accomplices of Saturday’s terror trio who attacked London Bridge. Somewhat unusually, the number of individuals arrested and detained under terrorism legislation during these raids has not seen specified. Scotland Yard said in a statement this morning: At around 04:15hrs on Monday, 5 June, officers from the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command investigating the London Bridge terror attack entered two further addresses — one in Newham and another in Barking. A number of people have been detained and are at present being spoken to. Searches are ongoing at both addresses. The force has said an “enormous” amount of forensic material had been seized during the course of the searched. As of Sunday afternoon, 12 arrests had taken place. 02:14 BST, Christine Archibald, a young woman originally from Castlegar, B. C. was among the seven people killed in Saturday night’s attack in London. 00:09 BST, #UK #London — About 30 minutes after the claim, # Telegram channels started sharing this propaganda. pic. twitter. — Terror Events (@TerrorEvents) June 4, 2017, 23:15 BST — Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the London Bridge terror attack, BREAKING: The head of the SITE intelligence group says the Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for the London attacks. — The Associated Press (@AP) June 4, 2017, According to the AP: “The SITE Intelligence Group says Islamic State’s news agency is claiming fighters for the extremist group carried out the van and knife attack in London that left seven people dead. “SITE said in a statement Sunday that the Islamic State’s Aamaq news service cited ‘a security source’ in the posting claiming the attack. “Islamic State has often made such claims not just when it has sent attackers, but when extremists carrying out deadly plots were inspired by the group’s ideology. “It’s the third attack this year that Islamic State has claimed in Britain, after the bombing in Manchester and a similar attack in the heart of London in March. “The three attackers in Saturday’s attack have not been identified. ” 22:40 BST — Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley confirms arrests following raids in Barking identities of three men responsible to be released as soon as operationally possible. “Officers have been working tirelessly to process the crime scenes and release the cordons. We are hopeful that some of the cordons around London Bridge station will be released during the course of tomorrow morning … “The public can expect to see additional police — both armed and unarmed officers — across the Capital as you would expect in these circumstances. And our security and policing plans for events are being reviewed, the public will also see increased physical measures on London’s bridges to keep the public safe. ” Officers have made 12 arrests and are at present searching 4 properties. [A] woman arrested at address 1 in Barking[B] man arrested at address 2 in Barking[C] man arrested at address 2 in Barking[D] man arrested at address 2 in Barking[E] man arrested at address 2 in Barking[F] man arrested at address 2 in Barking, who has since been released without charge[G] woman arrested at address 2 in Barking[H] woman arrested at address 2 in Barking[I] woman arrested at address 2 in Barking[J] female arrested at address 2 in Barking[K] female arrested at address 2 in Barking[L] woman arrested at address 2 in Barking, “There have been no arrests at two residential addresses in Newham, although a number of people have been spoken to. “During the arrest stage Sunday no officers have deployed a TASER or a firearm. “All of those arrested have been detained under the Terrorism Act. ” AC Rowley stated the Met will release the identities of the three men directly responsible for the attacks as soon as operationally possible. 22:30 BST — Borough Station has now reopened, #Borough — the station has now reopened, following an earlier police investigation. — TfL Travel Alerts (@TfLTravelAlerts) June 4, 2017, 20:55 BST — Acting United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom Lewis Lukens has offered his condolences and support. Praises London Mayor Sadiq Khan, The response from emergency services, law enforcement officials in Ldn — as well as ordinary Londoners — has been extraordinary. — LLukens — U. S. Embassy London (@USAinUK) June 4, 2017, I commend the strong leadership of the @MayorofLondon as he leads the city forward after this heinous attack. — LLukens https: . — U. S. Embassy London (@USAinUK) June 4, 2017, 20:20 BST — One Canadian citizen confirmed amongst the fatalities, The prime minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, issued the following statement after Saturday night’s terrorist attack: “Canada strongly condemns the senseless attack that took place last night in London, United Kingdom, which killed and injured many innocent people. I am heartbroken that a Canadian is among those killed. “We grieve with the families and friends of those who have lost loved ones, and wish all those injured a speedy and full recovery. “Londoners and people across the United Kingdom have always displayed strength and resilience in the face of adversity. We recently witnessed this after the attacks in Manchester and in the Westminster area of London. This time will be no different. “These hateful acts do not deter us they only strengthen our resolve. Canadians stand united with the British people. We will continue to work together with the United Kingdom and all our allies to fight terrorism and bring perpetrators to justice. “The Government of Canada will not comment further at this time out of respect for the family. ” Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau: ’I am heartbroken that a Canadian is among those killed.” #LondonAttacks pic. twitter. — CanadianUK (@CanadianUK) June 4, 2017, 18:50 BST — French citizens amongst the injured, one Frenchman killed, One Frenchman was killed and seven other French nationals were wounded in Saturday night’s attack, the French foreign minister, Le Drian, has confirmed. Four of the injured French are in a critical condition and one more is still unaccounted for, he said. We are very sad to report the death of 1 french citizen in the #LondonAttacks. 7 compatriots are injured (4 badly) and one pers is missing. — French Embassy UK (@FranceintheUK) June 4, 2017, 16:50 BST — Met Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley gives an update on terror attack, confirming eight police officers discharged their weapons, Mr. Rowley confirmed the Met are “are making significant progress in identifying the three attackers, and that there were no other suspects at the scene, when the attack was carried out”. “Work is ongoing to understand more about them, their connections and whether they were assisted or supported by anyone else. As I think you are aware there are searches ongoing in east London, and 12 arrests have been made. There is of course more to do, and we will work relentlessly to establish the facts. ” The Met has confirmed that the van used in the attack, a white Renault van, was recently hired by one of the attackers. “Our understanding is growing and as we currently understand it the van entered London Bridge at 21:58 travelling from the North to the South side of the river. The van mounted the pavement, and collided with pedestrians before being abandoned, where the attackers, armed with knives, continued into the Borough Market area, stabbing numerous people. “The attackers were then confronted by the firearms officers and I can confirm that eight police firearms officers discharged their weapons. Whilst this will be subject to thorough investigation by the IPCC our initial assessment is that in the region of 50 rounds were discharged by 8 officers. The three attackers were shot dead. ” “As the officers confronted the terrorists — and were shot — a member of the public also suffered gunshot wounds. Although we do not believe the injuries to critical in nature, they are in hospital receiving medical attention. We will of course keep you updated on that. ” Mr. Rowlety confirmed that seven people had been killed in addition to the three attackers and work was ongoing to inform next of kin. He said that the cordons in and around the London Bridge and Borough Market area will remain in place. “The public can expect to see additional police — both armed and unarmed officers — across the Capital. And our security and policing plans for events are being reviewed. The public will also see an increased physical measures in order to keep public safe on London’s bridges,” he added. Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley live statement #LondonBridge #BoroughMarket https: . — Metropolitan Police (@metpoliceuk) June 4, 2017, 16:30 BST — Searches are taking place at a property on a shop complex in East Ham, London, Sky Sources: searches are taking place in East Ham in London following the London Bridge attack, — Sky News Newsdesk (@SkyNewsBreak) June 4, 2017, 15:55 BST — NHS England confirms 21 people are still in critical condition, NHS England has said 36 people are still in hospital, 21 people in a critical condition after the attack. 36 patients still in hospital after London attacks — 21 in critical care — Theresa May visited King’s College Hospital, — Hugh Pym (@BBCHughPym) June 4, 2017, 15:50 BST ‘ Incredibly brave’ stabbed police officer fought off attackers armed with just a baton now in stable condition, The Telegraph reports that the British Transport Police officer who confronted the attackers was armed with only a baton. BTP said the officer has only been with the force for two years. He is believed to be in a stable condition and recovering from his injuries in hospital suffering face, head, and leg injuries. BTP chief constable Paul Crowther, who visited the officer in hospital, said he showed “enormous courage in the face of danger”. He said: “Although he is seriously unwell, he was able to recount how he faced the attackers armed only with his baton, outside London Bridge station. “For an officer who only joined us less than two years ago, the bravery he showed was outstanding and makes me extremely proud. “All of us at BTP wish him a swift recovery, and I know he will be touched by the hundreds of messages of support from across the UK and the world. “Our thoughts are with all of those who died or were injured, and their loved ones as they try to come to terms with what happened. ” 15:20 BST — UKIP MEP Nigel Farage Slams Sadiq Khan and Theresa May for their responses to terror attack saying: “People want action. ” “I’m afraid we’ve been absolutely hidebound in this country by political correctness,” Mr. Farage said. “I’m afraid that one of those people who simply hasn’t done enough is Theresa May. She was the one who was for six years our home secretary. She was in charge of homeland security. “Today she stood on the steps of Downing Street and said: ‘Enough is enough‘. ” “For the prime minister just to say ‘enough is enough’ that is not going to satisfy people — people want action. ” For more on Nigel Farage’s comments, read here. 14:20 BST — Prime Minister of Israel responds to news of the London Bridge Terror attack, The prime minister of Israel Binyamin Netanyahu’s office tweeted: “London Bridge will not fall. Together we will vanquish terror. #LondonAttacks” London Bridge will not fall. Together we will vanquish terror. #LondonAttacks, — PM of Israel (@IsraeliPM) June 4, 2017, The note of support comes after Israel’s Foreign Ministry and members of the Knesset on Sunday condemned the “horrific” London terror attacks, with Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan remarking that now there was a “greater understanding” in Britain of Israel’s history of Palestinian terrorism. 13:40 BST — 12 Arrests in Barking, London Metropolitan Police have confirmed that officers from the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command have arrested 12 people in Barking, east London, in connection with last night’s incidents in London Bridge and the Borough Market area. Searches of a number of addresses in Barking are continuing. For more on this story read here. 13:00 BST — Report — first police officer on the scene took on all terrorists until forced to the ground. In serious condition in hospital. According to Sky News sources, the first police officer on the scene, a rugby player, took on all the terrorists until he was forced to ground. He is reportedly in serious condition in hospital. Sky sources:first police officer on the scene (rugby player) took on all terrorists until he was forced to ground. Serious condition in hosp, — Kay Burley (@KayBurley) June 4, 2017, 12:35 BST — U. S. President Donald Trump comments on Sadiq Kahn’s statement that Londoners “shouldn’t be alarmed” At least 7 dead and 48 wounded in terror attack and Mayor of London says there is ”no reason to be alarmed!” — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 4, 2017, London Mayor Sadiq Khan told media earlier on: “Londoners should be aware that there will be additional armed and unarmed police officers on our streets from tonight in order to keep Londoners, and all those visiting out city safe. “I want to reassure all Londoners, and all our visitors, not to be alarmed. Our city remains one of the safest in the world. “London is the greatest city in the world and we stand together in the face of those who seek to harm us and destroy our way of life. “We always have and we always will. Londoners will never be cowed by terrorism. ” 12:30 BST — Arrests following raids in Barking, Five people are reportedly being held after armed police raided flats in Barking following last night’s Islamist terror attack near London Bridge. For more from Breitbart London read here. 12:00 BST — Man photographed attacker #BREAKING First photo of one of the suspects in the #LondonAttacks released by BBC https: . pic. twitter. — Jim Edwards (@Jim_Edwards) June 4, 2017, Gabrielle Sciotto, who took the photograph, described the image to the BBC who said the suspect appears to have materials strapped to his body which looked like a bomb and is bleeding from his left arm. “I saw three men with this belt with some sort of explosive on them. “I thought it wasn’t real. It didn’t look real. I don’t know if that was or wasn’t. ” “By the time a couple more police came to the scene, and they surrounded these people and they shot them down. ” Police confirmed that the explosive vests were hoaxes. 11:00 BST — Prime Minister Theresa May’s Statement Following Chairing COBRA — Britain has become “too tolerant of extremism” vows to tackle “safe spaces” of Islamist extremism. Prime Minister Theresa May made a statement outside of 10 Downing Street following chairing the meeting of COBRA: Referencing the Westminster terror attack and Manchester attack, Ms. May said: “In terms of planning and execution, the recent attacks are not connected. But we believe we are experiencing a new trend in the threats we face as terrorism breeds terrorism and perpetrators are inspired to attack not only on the basis of carefully constructed plots after years of planning and training and not even of attackers radicalising online, but copying one another. ” “We cannot and must not pretend that things can continue as they are. Things need to change and need to change in four important ways”: 1) Ms. May stated that the attacks are bound together by “the single ideology of Islamist extremism” which she called “a perversion of Islam”. “Defeating this ideology is the greatest challenge of our time. But we cannot defeat it through military intervention alone” or permanent defensive counterterrorism operations. She said it will only be defeated when “people’s minds are turned away” from Islamism and they are “made to understand that our values … are superior to anything offered by the preachers of and supporters of hate”. 2) “Safe spaces” where this ideology is allowed to breed online must be tackled, she said, saying that they need to work with foreign governments to reach “international agreements that regulate cyberspace to prevent the spread of extremism and terrorism planning”. 3) The prime minister also targeted “safe spaces that exist in the real world”. “Yes that means military action to destroy ISIS in Iraq and Syria, but that also means taking action here at home” “Yes that means military action to destroy ISIS in Iraq and Syria, but that also means taking action here at home. ” “There is, to be frank, too much tolerance of extremism in the country. So we need to become far more robust in identifying it and stamping it out across the public sector and across society. “That will require often embarrassing and difficult conversations. But the whole of our country needs to come together to take on this extremism and we need to live our lives not as a series of separted, segregated communities but as one truly United Kingdom. ” 4) Robust counter terrorism strategy: “As the nature of the threat become more complex, fragmented, and hidden, especially online, the strategy needs to keep up. so in light of what we are learning about the changing threat we need to review Britain’s counter terrorism strategy to make sure police and secruity services have all the power they need. And if we need to increase the length of custodial sentences for ofences, even apparently less serious offences, that is what we will do. ” “It is time to say enough is enough. Everbody must go about their lives as they normally would. ” The prime minister stated that the Conservative and other parties will suspend campaigning for Sunday, but the election will go ahead as planned on Thursday. Enough is enough. Read my response to last night’s brutal terror attack: https: . — Theresa May (@theresa_may) June 4, 2017, 10:40 BST — Live police operating in Barking, Sky News reports a block of flats in Barking have been taped off and a police operation is underway. 10:25 BST — Theresa May statement on the attack expected Sunday morning, The prime minister has led a meeting of crisis response committee COBRA and will make a statement Sunday morning. I have just led a meeting of COBR in response to the appalling London attack and I will soon be making a statement in Downing Street. — Theresa May (@theresa_may) June 4, 2017, 10:00 BST — UKIP Leader Paul Nuttall confirms the party will not suspend national campaigning. In a press release released Sunday morning, Mr. Nuttall stated: “With more people murdered on the streets of our capital city last night by Islamist terrorists, it is more important than ever for us to confront this evil with the democratic principles that have made this country what it is. “Our hearts go out to the family and friends of those who lost their lives last night. The courage and quick response of our emergency services have yet again saved countless lives and in the midst of such a tragedy, deserve our respect and admiration. “It is time to start honouring our dead with more than just words. The only guarantee that will come from our choosing to stall the democratic process again will be more attacks it is what these cowards want us to do. “For those of us seeking to serve the people of this country, it is our duty to drive the dialogue on how best to confront and defeat this brand of terrorism. That is what UKIP will be doing today and beyond. Therefore, I refuse to suspend campaigning because this is precisely what the extremists would want us to do. ” The Labour Party, Conservatives, and SNP have confirmed they will be suspending campaigning. Conservatives, Labour, Lib Dems, SNP Greens suspend their national election campaigns following the London attack https: . pic. twitter. — BBC News England (@BBCEngland) June 4, 2017, 09:50 BST — Parts of London Bridge return to normal, police and cordons remain in place, Activity has resumed on London Bridge Sunday morning with Double Decker buses seen crossing the bridge. However, police cordons remain in place. Photo by Rachel London, Photo by Rachel London, 09:35 BST — Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick Confirms Seventh Death, Incident “under control” Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick has confirmed that seven members of the public have died in addition to the 3 attackers, 48 people were injured and taken to hospital for treatment. “We believe this incident is under control” but the cordon will remain in place as police need t conduct a thorough search to ensure everyone is accounted for and to make area safe. 7 members of the public died in #LondonAttacks as well as 3 attackers — London Met police chief Cressida Dick https: . pic. twitter. — BBC News (UK) (@BBCNews) June 4, 2017, “At the moment we believe there are three attackers, and they are dead,” Ms. Dick confirmed to reporters. 09:20 BST — Armed Officers at Borough Market Sunday Morning Armed officers with ballistic shields are currently moving through the Borough Market area carrying out searches. 09:15 BST — Metropolitan Police are appealing for images and film of the attack, Anybody who has images or film of the #LondonBridge #BoroughMarket incident please help police by uploading it at https: . pic. twitter. — Terrorism Police UK (@TerrorismPolice) June 4, 2017, 6:25 BST — London Ambulance now updates that 48 injured people from the attack were taken to five hospitals, We have taken 48 patients to hospital following the incident at #LondonBridge https: . pic. twitter. — London Ambulance (@Ldn_Ambulance) June 4, 2017, 5:50 BST — Dutch populist leader Geert Wilders: London, Manchester, Berlin, Nice, Paris etc it will all happen again and again until we acknowledge that Islam is the problem and fight back, — Geert Wilders (@geertwilderspvv) June 4, 2017, 4:55 BST — British Transport Police report one of their officers is seriously injured in the attack, We can confirm a BTP officer was seriously injured as he responded to tonight’s incident at London Bridge Borough https: . pic. twitter. — BTP (@BTP) June 4, 2017, 4:35 BST — London Ambulance updates patient count from attack to 30, Our latest statement on the #LondonBridge incident. We have taken 30 patients to five hospitals across London https: . pic. twitter. — London Ambulance (@Ldn_Ambulance) June 4, 2017, 4:05 BST — Scotland Yard confirms at least six dead from terror attack, During a press conference, Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley stated that six people were dead and three attackers were shot and killed by police. “You will understand that our knowledge of the incident is still growing but what we understand at the present time is: Full statement here. Breaking News: #London police said that at least nine people, including three attackers, were killed in the attacks late Saturday night. pic. twitter. — Fox News (@FoxNews) June 4, 2017, 03:45 BST — U. S. President Donald Trump calls UK Prime Minister Theresa May. Statement from the White House: THE WHITE HOUSEOffice of the Press SecretaryFOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEJune 3, 2017, READOUT OF PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP’S CALL WITH PRIME MINISTER THERESA MAY OF THE UNITED KINGDOM, President Donald J. Trump spoke with Prime Minister Theresa May of the United Kingdom today. The President offered his condolences for the brutal terror attacks on June 3 in central London. He praised the heroic response of police and other first responders and offered the full support of the United States Government in investigating and bringing those responsible for these heinous acts to justice. ### 03:05 BST — London Ambulance confirms at least 20 patients have been taken to six hospitals across London, Our latest statement about the incident in #LondonBridge. We have taken at least 20 patients to six hospitals across London. pic. twitter. — London Ambulance (@Ldn_Ambulance) June 4, 2017, 02:50 BST — Photo appears to show a suspect with a canister strapped to him, A photo taken by photographer Gabriele Sciotto appears to show a man with a canister strapped to his body near the initial terror attack site. London terror attacks: The photographer of this image says it shows the attacker on the ground (Pic: Gabriele Sciotto) pic. twitter. — Sky News (@SkyNews) June 4, 2017, 02:30 BST — Eyewitness account of stabbing on London Bridge, BBC’s political correspondent Mark Lobel interviews a man who witnessed the stabbing on London Bridge during the attack: Terrifying testimony from stabbing witness Gerard who just spoke to me about what happened #LondonBridge pic. twitter. — Mark Lobel (@marklobel) June 4, 2017, 02:00 BST — London Mayor Sadiq Khan releases statement, Khan, who said last September that the threat of terror attacks is just “part and parcel of living in a big city,” just released a statement acknowledging Saturday’s attacks were acts of terror: We don’t yet know the full details, but this was a deliberate and cowardly attack on innocent Londoners and visitors to our city enjoying their Saturday night. I condemn it in the strongest possible terms. There is no justification whatsoever for such barbaric acts. His full statement here. 01:25 BST — Air Ambulance emergency services, SAS deployed, Emergency services have confirmed an advanced trauma unit from the Air Ambulance has been dispatched to the scene, Our latest statement about #LondonBridge incident. We’ve sent a number of resources to scene more info will follow https: . pic. twitter. — London Ambulance (@Ldn_Ambulance) June 4, 2017, There is also speculation that the SAS has been deployed. #LondonBridge pic. twitter. — David Jack (@DJack_Journo) June 3, 2017, 01:15 BST — Telegraph reports assailant shouted “this is for Allah” The Telegraph has reported that an eye witness on London Bridge told the BBC he saw three men stabbing people indiscriminately, shouting “this is for Allah”. He told the paper that he saw a van driving on the pavement with people running out of the way before three men got out. “They literally just started kicking them, punching them, they took out knives. It was a rampage really,” he said, “They headed down towards Southwark Cathedral towards the bar, and starting running at people. “People at the bar started fighting back. then the three of them decided to make their way up to the bridge, “A woman was staring at them and they started stabbing her. “Throughout the whole way across the bridge, there were people littered across bleeding. People were trying to help each other. ” He added he had heard them shouting “this is for Allah” 01:00 BST — Reuters reporting witness saw people having their throats cut, Reuters is reporting that a person who was on London Bridge after an incident on Saturday told a Reuters reporter that she saw three people who appeared to have their throats cut. 00:45 BST — The incident is ongoing and members of the public are being advised to avoid the London Bridge and Borough Market areas, Pls continue to avoid #LondonBridge #BoroughMarket to allow the emergency services to deal with the ongoing incidents, — Metropolitan Police (@metpoliceuk) June 3, 2017, Marine 2 and Marine 3 are part of the response to the #London Bridge incident. Working with @RNLI lifeboats to evacuate the public. — MPSonthewater (@MPSonthewater) June 3, 2017, 00:25 BST — Prime Minister to chair COBRA, confirms incident being treated as “potential act of terrorism” reaction from U. S. President Donald Trump, Prime Minister Theresa May will chair a meeting of the crisis response committee COBRA on Sunday morning. She said that the “terrible incident” in London is being treated as a “potential act of terrorism”. Ms. May said: “Following updates from police and security officials, I can fconfirm that the terrible incident in London is being treated as a potential act of terrorism. “This is a fast moving investigation. I want to express my huge gratitude to the police and emergency services who are on the scene. Our thoughts are with those who are caught up in these dreadful events. ” U. S. President Donald J. Trump has voiced his support for the Britain at this time. Whatever the United States can do to help out in London and the U. K. we will be there — WE ARE WITH YOU. GOD BLESS! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 3, 2017, Downing Street: Theresa May ”in contact with officials” US President Donald Trump briefed on #LondonBridge incident https: . — BBC Breaking News (@BBCBreaking) June 3, 2017, 00:15 BST Sunday — Vauxhall area cleared, station reopened, Police have confirmed that Vauxhall Station has reopened. Vauxhall: the station has reopened. — Victoria line (@victorialine) June 3, 2017, 23:50 BST — Met Police advise people to “Run, Hide, Tell” Police have issued safety guidelines for people in the area. Metropolitan Police have confirmed they are responding to incidenst in London Bridge, nearby Borough Market, and Vauxhall. #LondonBridge #Borough #Vauxhall #alert pic. twitter. — BTP (@BTP) June 3, 2017, 23:45 BST — Met Police confirm reports of stabbings in Borough Market near London Bridge, Metropolitan Police confirmed they are responding to reports of stabbings and shots have been fired. Officers are now also responding to an incident in the Vauxhall area, south of the Thames. Officers have then responded to reports of stabbings in #BoroughMarket. Armed officers responded and shots have been fired. — Metropolitan Police (@metpoliceuk) June 3, 2017, Officers are now responding to an incident in the #Vauxhall area. — Metropolitan Police (@metpoliceuk) June 3, 2017, 23:30 BST — Downing Street confirms PM in contact with officials, Downing Street said: “The prime minister is in contact with officials and is being regularly updated on the incident at London Bridge. ” 23:26 BST — Met Police confirm they are responding to an incident in nearby Borough Market, Metropolitan Police have confirmed they are also responding to an incident in Borough Market. Armed police are at the scene. As well as #LondonBridge officers have also responsed to an incident in #BoroughMarket. We have armed police at the scenes. — Metropolitan Police (@metpoliceuk) June 3, 2017, London Bridge and Borough stations closed due to ongoing incident. Please avoid area. Updates from @metpoliceuk, — BTP (@BTP) June 3, 2017, Images from the scene also show multiple police vehicles attending. 23:00 BST — video footage from inside a nearby restaurant, armed police entering, Video footage from inside a restaurant in the area close to the attack appears to show patrons being advised to get down on the floor should armed police enter, later patrons are advised to get down by armed officers. London Bridge pic. twitter. — LIAM (@LiamC0nnell) June 3, 2017, BREAKING: several London police officers enter bar at London Bridge telling people to get down ##Londonbridge pic. twitter. — Footballgossiphq (@footballgossiph) June 3, 2017, This story is developing … | 1 |
Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Sen Bernie Sanders ( ) declared the model of the Democratic Party was failing and pointed to Republican dominance in not just Congress, but in the states as well. Sanders said, “Well, I think what is clear to anyone who looks at where the Democratic Party today is, that the model of the Democratic Party is failing. We have a Republican president who ran as a candidate as the most unpopular candidate in modern history of this country. Republicans control the House, the Senate, of governor’s chairs and in the last eight years they have picked up 900 legislative seats. Clearly, the Democratic Party has to change. ” “And in my view what it has to become is a grassroots party, a party which makes decisions from the bottom on up, a party which is more dependent on small donations than large donations, a party, john, that speaks to the pain of the working class in this country. The middle class is shrinking. 43 million people living in poverty,” he continued. “Almost all new income and wealth is going to the top 1%. People can’t afford to send their kids to college. They can’t afford childcare. They can’t afford health care. The Democratic Party has to take the lead, rallying young people, working people, stand up to the billionaire class, and when we do that, you’re going to see voter turnout swell. You’re going to see people coming in and running for office. You’re going to see Democrats regain control of the United States Congress. ” Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN | 1 |
Report Copyright Violation What A Fucked Up World. Huh? You know some of what they say is true about overpopulation. If there are too many people concentrated in one place they really tend to go nuts! Just saying. Page 1 | 0 |
Head of Hillary Transition Project: "Israel is Depressing" November 1, 2016 Daniel Greenfield
Hillary's people really don't like Israel. This email, like many of the recent leaks, stars Neera Tanden. Tanden heads the Hillary-Kaine Transition Project. The email exchange was with John Podesta, head of the Hillary campaign.
On Mar 17, 2015 11:13 PM, "Neera Tanden" < [email protected] > wrote: > Israel is depressing >>>> It's a good lesson that the wing nuts are just ruthless in every country. >
John Podesta replied, "Bad" | 0 |
I look forward to the bubble bursting again in the Bay Area. Those little high tech weenies bug me. And I'm a techie!!! The rumored second round of layoffs at Twitter – which in 2011 was granted by the befuddled city of San Francisco the “Twitter tax break” on employment taxes – comes at a very inopportune moment for the glory of commercial real estate. These layoffs would amount to 8% to Twitter’s workforce, or about 300 people, according to Bloomberg.Already, Twitter has thrown 183,642 square feet of vacant office space at its two-building Mid-Market headquarters on the sublease market, thus bringing it to 1.51 million square feet (msf).This comes at a time when, according to the “snapshot” from Cushman & Wakefield, leasing activity nearly ground to a halt in the third quarter, with only 875,000 sf leased – the lowest since 2001!There was only one major lease deal over 100,000 sf: Amazon’s live streaming video platform Twitch, which took 178,000 sf. The next largest deal was less than half that size: WeWork leased 78,000 sf.Leasing activity for the three quarters this year plunged 30% from the same period last year, to just 4.7 msf, according to a report released this week by commercial real estate services firm Savills Studley, which added dryly, “The competition for space has calmed dramatically from several quarters ago.”And there is a lot of new supply coming on the market, according to Cushman & Wakefield: currently, 3.8 msf of office space are under construction, with 31% preleased.Overall vacancy rose 0.7 percentage points from the prior quarter to 9.0% in Q3, according to Savills Studley. In Class A buildings, availability jumped 1.1 percentage points to 10.4%. Some areas were still red-hot, but others are turning cold: In the SOMA area, there were practically no vacancies (1.0%). But at the other end of the spectrum, vacancies at the Financial District South spiked 2.5 percentage points to 12.3%.way more at [ link to wolfstreet.com ] "My mom said the only reason men are alive is for lawn care and vehicle maintenance." 1 Previous Page | 0 |
Joe Joseph discusses how social justice movements across America are figuring out that they are being used and co-opted by the “Powers that Shouldn’t Be”…. Thank you Wikileaks!!! Venezuela is dealing with massive hyper-inflation. Could we see that in the US, post-election? The government is cracking down on the people protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline, and new technology is making it easier for the police state to track us all.
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The number of Belgians applying for firearms permits has skyrocketed, with applications in one major province more than doubling in just five years, according to the authorities. [“The trend is clear, the number of applications we’ve received for gun licenses has more than doubled in five years” said Divisional Commissioner of the province of Liège, Thierry Brasseur. The number of applications has steadily risen each year, jumping 117 per cent from 2010, when 608 permits were requested, to 1, 318 in 2015, Explaining that the trend looks set to continue, the commissioner revealed that the province received 1, 436 new applications in the last year, to December. Liège’s Service of Arms, the state body in charge of granting gun licenses in the province, hinted that rising crime, and terror attacks in Europe are what’s fueling the “extraordinary enthusiasm” with which Belgians are lining up to buy firearms. Speaking at a recent symposium, the department noted that “The explanation may lie in the current security context, which generates feelings of insecurity among the population” the department told a recent symposium. Another major contributor to Belgians’ anxiety, Le Soir reports, is the frequency which which burglaries and home invasions are taking place — 180 a day in 2015, in the country of less than 11. 5 million people. Firearms permits are tightly controlled in Belgium, where they are only issued after the authorities conduct a “morality investigation” into applicants, who also have to pass a theoretical and practical test. Strict rules are in place for gun owners, too, as it’s forbidden to leave the house with a firearm unless it’s carried from there the the shooting club in a locked case. At home, the law states that guns must also be kept in a safe. At the symposium in Liège, participants were informed that soaring gun ownership has had no impact on crime, which has remained stable since 2015. “The problem is not people who have declared weapons and who are legally entitled to hold them. The real problem is the others” said Christophe Baes, the district commissioner of Walloon Brabant where gun permit requests jumped 20 per cent from 2015 to 2016. Following a series of tough gun control measures, affiliation to a sports shooting club has become the least complicated legal way to apply for a license. In Liège, 80 to 90 per cent of the new requests concern sports shooting. A similar trend can be seen in France, where shooting clubs have welcomed an additional 50, 000 licensees since 2011 according to a survey by L’Obs — an increase of almost 40 per cent — which has been reinforced a spate of terror attacks in the country. “Before the beginning of 2015, it was only a vague trend. Since the ‘Charlie Hebdo’ Bataclan and Nice attacks [gun license requests] have become a growing phenomenon. In the climate of psychosis that crosses the country, where there are real threats of terrorism, multiple insecurities and sometimes fantasies of all kinds, several indicators show that an increasing number of French people are seeking to arm themselves” France’s biggest news and information weekly noted. In the wake of mass sex attacks by migrant mobs in Cologne on New Year’s Eve 2016, major German cities all reported an influx of requests for weapons permits. Cologne police estimated that they received at least 304 applications within just two weeks of the mass sexual assaults. In 2015 the city’s police force saw just 408 applications total over the entire year. | 1 |
The Islamic Republic of Pakistan has launched a crackdown against “blasphemy” on social media, and Facebook and Twitter are doing little to stop it. According to government sources, Facebook is even assisting Pakistan in removing “blasphemous” content. [Late last week, government officials in Pakistan informed the Islamabad High Court that “almost 85 percent” of “blasphemous” material on Facebook had been taken down at the request of the government. Facebook has yet to publicly confirm or deny this claim from the Pakistani government. However, earlier this month, Facebook — which claims to be “founded” on “principles of free expression,” dispatched a delegation to Pakistan to address the government’s demand for religious censorship. At the time of writing, Facebook did not reply to an inquiry from Breitbart News asking the company if they had removed “blasphemous” material to satisfy Pakistan. Pakistan, a country which once harboured Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden within its borders, recently launched a crackdown on social media blasphemy. The country’s Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif has ordered authorities to take urgent steps to remove blasphemous content on social media and apprehend those who post it. Last week, three Pakistani bloggers were arrested on suspicion of blasphemy, and had their laptops seized. If convicted, they could face the death penalty. Pakistan wants social media companies to help identify anonymous posters of blapshemous content, and has announced that it will seek the extradition of any Pakistanis who post blasphemous content from abroad. International affairs magazine The Diplomat has branded the crackdown a “war on atheism. ” Meanwhile, on Twitter, a hashtag calling for the execution of one of the arrested “blapshemers,” ‘#HangAyazNizami,’ trended in Pakistan as Muslim users took to the platform to call for the blood of heretics. Fuck with freedom of speech hang this fucker asap. 😏 #HangAyazNizami, — Sardar Waqar (@Engrr_vicky) March 25, 2017, Call us terrorist or extremist or what everbut he must be hanged #hangayaznizami, — Daniyal Ahmed (@daniyalaahmed) March 25, 2017, He must be drag in the streets then hanged #HangAyazNizami, — Nida Ahmed (@nidaa214) March 25, 2017, Western Twitter users reacted strongly against the trend. Some users pointed out the hypocrisy of Twitter allowing these open calls for religious murder on their platform, while cracking down on peaceful western conservative users. Dear @twitter Those posting pro #hangayazNizami tweets are far more dangerous than Milo. https: . — Christina Sommers (@CHSommers) March 27, 2017, Thousands of muslims who AREN’T terrorists want to hang a blogger for ”blasphemy” and some still want mass Muslim migration #HangAyazNizami, — Joseph (@JosephBrowno) March 27, 2017, Those tweeting #HangAyazNizami for ”blasphemy” are insecure, petty, weak little cowards. @Jack @Twitter should take note. — Maajid (@MaajidNawaz) March 26, 2017, See this hashtag #HangAyazNizami learn what ordinary Pakistanis want done to a secular blogger now in serious peril. This is NOT a fringe. https: . — Ali A. Rizvi (@aliamjadrizvi) March 26, 2017, I’m wondering if prominent Muslim voices such as @lsarsour will publicly condemn this #HangAyazNizami, or if she’ll completely ignore it. — Child Of Kekistan (@ChildofKekistan) March 27, 2017, Twitter has yet to respond to an enquiry from Breitbart News, which asked the company why calls for violence against a blogger remain on the platform, and whether such posts violate the platform’s guidelines on “hate content. ” You can follow Allum Bokhari on Twitter and add him on Facebook. Email tips and suggestions to abokhari@breitbart. com. | 1 |
Respawn Entertainment is bringing a new Titan to its giant mech shooter Titanfall 2 with the latest free content update, Monarch’s Reign. [“Monarch is a Titan that can upgrade itself on the battlefield through her unique Upgrade Core,” Respawn revealed in its latest community update. “Pilots select a path of upgrades and try to survive long enough to reach her final form. ” Along with the Titan, a remastered version of the original Titanfall map Relic will be free for players with the latest update. “Set among the old wreck of the IMC carrier IMS Odyssey, Relic is a worksite where Pilots have created clever wall running routes by hanging pieces of the wreckage between buildings. The map consists of the wreck of the Odyssey in the center of the map that splits the two town areas. ” A prime version of the Tone and Ronin Titans will also be made available to purchase with the release of Monarch’s Reign, featuring unique chassis and execution animations. A new Pilot execution will also be introduced revolving around the stealth cloaking loadout for free, while new camos, Titan noseart, and player callsigns will be available for purchase. | 1 |
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NEWS emanating from inside the Labour Courts today suggest that the government’s bid to seek a compromise with the AGSI and GRA has not gone as well as hoped.
In an attempt to show how much the country’s police force was valued by the current cabinet, the government arrived at the court with a brown envelope containing within it what was believed to be as much as 3 euro in unmarked one cent coins.
However, ungrateful gardaí made astonishing claims that the police force needed huge overhaul and investment as well as pay increases, a scurrilous claim which seemed to enrage the minister for justice and others in attendance.
“We can’t be sure who made the first ‘oink oink’ noise,” confirmed anonymous sources inside the courts, “but I think what really got to the gardaí was how convincing the pig noises sounded, it really threw them off their negotiating game, I think one poor lad cried, but that might be because he’s broke and over worked”.
It is believed one garda representative was in the middle of pointing out that over 100 garda stations do not have access to the Pulse System and when you think about it, the government ‘has made the force a laughing stock fit for ridicule around the world’.
“When one of the oinks sort of began descending into a straight up squeal we knew we were off to an awful start altogether,” shared the source, while burying his head in his hands.
The only official statement from the govenrment at this point has been a ‘I love the Guards’ picture posted on Fine Gael’s Facebook page.
UPDATED: the parties remain some distance away from agreement, but the gardaí have agreed to make their own siren noises for police cars in lieu of money being made available to replace redundant and broken equipment. | 0 |
( ANTIWAR ) Complaining about Western “hysteria” surrounding repeated predictions of Russian military attacks on NATO member nations, Russian President Vladimir Putin sought to resolve two solid years of predictions to that effect with a straightforward assurance that “ Russia is not going to attack anyone .” Putin accused Western nations of having “mythical, dreamt-up problems,” and insisted the idea that Russia was going to attack the West was “ simply stupid and unrealistic .” He added that he believes the idea is being played up to justify bigger military spending.
The Russian president also sought to dismiss allegations that he is plotting to rig the US elections to his own benefit, noting that the US is a great power and not some banana republic with an easily manipulated political system. Russia has repeatedly denied involvement in such plots.
NATO has played up the Russian threat to justify sending over 40,000 ground troops to the Russian border, with ever-growing numbers announced all the time. Such predictions started after the ouster of a pro-Russian government in Ukraine led to a civil war in that country’s east, with NATO military leaders repeatedly predicting Russian tanks rolling across Ukraine into NATO countries. | 0 |
One of the nation’s largest road racing organizations plans to expand its testing for drugs to include the top runners in its local races, not just those in its events. For more than a decade, the organization, New York Road Runners, has tested elite runners in the New York City Marathon, its largest and race, and its other professional events. Runners found to have cheated are disqualified, and their prize money is withheld. Runners who previously tested positive for drugs are ineligible to run. The new effort, scheduled to begin in the spring of 2017, will test the top local and club runners — the tier below the level of professionals. It is part of the organization’s efforts to ensure a level playing field at more of its races while increasing awareness of the dangers of using drugs. “It’s meant for guys running up front in the local races,” said Peter Ciaccia, the president of events at New York Road Runners and the race director of the marathon, the largest in the country. “The idea is to just throw out a wider net. ” New York Road Runners already spends $100, 000 a year testing its professional runners. That money covers the cost of setting up secure areas to obtain samples and shipping them to laboratories to be analyzed, a process that takes about six weeks. The organization’s officials also monitor race results to see if any runners run noticeably faster over a short time. The group will spend another $100, 000 or so in the first year to expand its testing program. As it does with its professional runners, the organization will pay the United States Agency to randomly select a small group of top local runners to be tested at races. Road Runners awards about $130, 000 a year in prize money to members and club runners in its local races. Any runners in that category who test positive will forfeit their prize money. When they register for races, runners must sign waivers in which they agree to be tested, if chosen. Runners can appeal a positive test result. They can also apply for a exemption if they take medicine that may contain banned ingredients. Ciaccia said the decision to expand testing had not been driven by a specific instance of a runner’s being caught taking a banned substance. Instead, he said, his organization wants to alert runners of all ages to the dangers of drugs. “It’s not just about the brand integrity, but also the educational component so young kids understand what they might get themselves into,” he said. Antidoping experts applauded the effort. “It’s always worth extending the testing experience, that’s for sure,” said Dr. Don Catlin, the former director of the U. C. L. A. Olympic Analytical Laboratory. “There’s a limited number of tests done for events, so it’s always best to increase the numbers and get runners tested more. ” In a statement, Travis T. Tygart, the chief executive of Usada, said he hoped more sports organizations would follow the club’s lead. “It’s fantastic and shows great commitment and leadership to ensuring a level playing field, where clean athletes can compete clean and win,” he said. Club runners in the New York area said that the hassle of extra testing was a small price to pay to weed out potential cheaters, no matter how few there were and how little the prize money. “I very much think drug testing has to be part of the sport at almost every level,” said John Roberts, the president of the Central Park Track Club, who was briefed on New York Road Runners’ plans. “It’s unfortunate that that’s where things have gotten. But I can’t think of any reason not to do it, except inconvenience. ” The extra time spent analyzing the test results, though, is likely to increase the time it takes to distribute prize money, something that concerns runners who already wait for months to receive checks from the club. “It takes months for them to pay out $500 in prize money, so it will now take longer,” said William du Pont Staab Jr. the president of the West Side Runners Club. “Our runners, they can use their money for their rent. ” | 1 |
Internet Under Attack Since Transfer to the UN, Washington Prepares for EMP Posted on Tweet Home » Headlines » Finance News » Internet Under Attack Since Transfer to the UN, Washington Prepares for EMP
Remember how we pondered whether the internet would be shut off (or highly censored) upon being transferred to the UN on October 1st? Just a few weeks later, large swathes of the internet went down. Coincidence or trial run?
Submitted by Jeff Berwick :
We’ll get into that below.
Beforehand, however, there have been a number of new “Executive Orders” straight from the e-pen of Barack O’Bomber in the last few months of a “very strange” variety.
Over the summer, a number of orders were given for succession plans in the case of multiple deaths in numerous US agencies.
And now, Obama just signed an executive order mandating preparations for a future “extreme space weather event” that has the ability to cripple or destroy the North American power grid and other major electrical infrastructure.
Signed on October 13th, the order states, “Space weather has the potential to simultaneously affect and disrupt health and safety across entire continents.”
What is needed, we’re informed, is an “all-of-nation” endeavor, that includes the military space agency (NASA), the private sector, academia, and the insurance industry – among others. Presumably the federal government would “coordinate” all this – i.e.: mandate it.
There are some very strange things afoot! Why this? Why now?
With each passing day it seems we’re getting closer to a major event. Maybe it’s one that causes a war or economic collapse. Perhaps it will be an “EMP” attack masquerading as a “space event.” It’s also possible a long term internet Denial of Service attack could be the cause of collapse. The bankers need a reason to blame for the collapse they’ve engineered.
We’d be less suspicious of what’s going on if the US wasn’t well down the road toward a kind of neo-fascism. It’s one with two kinds of justice (Hillary and the elites versus the rest of us), a state of deepening economic depression and heightened military confrontation with both Russia and China as part of endless serial warfare abroad – and increased repression and censorship at home. In fact, the amount of censorship of alternative media sources is running at an all-time high. Barely a day goes by where I don’t see one source claiming its post/tweet/video have been removed.
Obviously, the free flow of information doesn’t fit into this “brave, new world” and thus the US is jettisoning it.
No coincidence, for instance, that the internet changed hands in the beginning of October when the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN, was handed over to the UN by the US’s own Nobel Peace Prize winner, Barack O’Bomber.
Just about a week ago, we witnessed a massive DDOS attack in the US. According to mainstream reports, it was done by “hackers” and naturally Killary Clinton took the opportunity to place blame on Russia. These are the same Russians who she says are behind the Wikileaks emails – which incriminate her – and the same Russians who, she claims, are propping up Donald Trump.
Bloomberg reported that the enormous (and underreported) attack was perpetrated via a Chinese security camera maker. In fact, officials at this Chinese firm admitted that its products, which contained malware, were used to launch the cyber-attack which blocked internet access for millions of users. They then highlighted the threat which they claim is posed by “the global proliferation of connected devices.”
Was this all a coincidence or was it a premeditated attack to test the limits of “control” over the internet? Is it possible that Chinese and US authorities are cooperating to probe internet weaknesses in order to further their ‘net dominance.
Could NASA or the North Atlantic Terrorist Organization (NATO) potentially play a future role in staging an electromagnetic disturbance with the help of the Chinese or the US private sector? These are strange and violent times …
As Franklin D. Roosevelt said, “Nothing happens in politics by accident, if it happens, it was planned that way”.
And, as John Kerry stated, “This little thing called the internet is making it hard to govern.”
They appear to have their sights set on this little thing called the internet, in one way or another, to make sure these absurd conspiracy theorists and “truthers” can’t report on what is actually and factually, going on.
It certainly seems like the US is preparing for something big – maybe a nationwide electro-magnetic catastrophe. One that many reports state would see the population cut by 90% in a matter of months in today’s uber-connected and digitally dependent world.
Last year, we reported on the North American Aerospace Defense Command’s plan to re-use the subterranean Cheyenne Mountain bunker in Colorado Springs. NORAD’s Commander Admiral William E. Gortney, explained that the EMP hardened mountain base would serve as protection from future “electromagnetic pulses”.
Apparently all this arose over concern for NORAD’s supposed vulnerability to a potential North Korean nuclear missile attack. Cartoonish Kim Jong-un, or Lil’ Kim, who couldn’t blow up his own sock drawer if he tried, supposedly has an operational KN-08 nuclear armed missile capable of shutting down the entire North American electrical grid.
Now, combine these points with Vladimir Putin’s promise that only Donald Trump can prevent a potential nuclear war between world superpowers. Then add in Russia’s war drills and emergency preparations plus Germany moving its military equipment to the Eastern borders. It’s beginning to look like Putin is aware of something “big” on the horizon as well – just like Obama and the Pentagon.
For the record, I don’t enjoy doing these blogs. It seems every day I am warning of some cataclysmic event or nefarious plot. I don’t want to do this. I’d rather live on the beach in Mexico and write about cryptocurrencies or fantastic investment opportunities.
But, I feel an obligation to report on these things. Because hardly anyone else seems to even mention it.
Nobody seems to notice, nobody seems to care.
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The_Donald Uncovers Dark Connections Between The Clintons & Convicted Child Abductor Who Kidnapped Haiti Children November 3, 2016 SHARES Redditor ‘PleadingtheYiff’ from The_Donald uncovered the following: The individual in question is one Laura Silsby, former director of The New Life Children’s Refuge. She was caught trying to steal 33 children from the country, most of whom were not even orphans and had families. Hillary has a LONG history of interest in Ms. Silsby. Wikileak emails dating back till at least 2001 have been found in her archives discussing Laura’s NGO . Laura had claimed she planned to build an orphanage in the Dominican Republic, but authorities in the country said she never submitted an application for this purpose. They instead located to Haiti. Sources: | 0 |
During a town hall with CNN on Thursday, House Speaker Representative Paul Ryan ( ) stated that there won’t be a deportation force going after people who received protection under DACA, and there needs to be a solution for people protected under the act so they can get “right with the law” and doesn’t separate families. Ryan was asked by a woman who said she had been protected from deportation by DACA if he believed she should be deported. He answered that he didn’t. He added, “I hope you’re future is here. I’ll even repeat the sentiment the our incoming president says. That’s the problem he wants to focus on. This is not the focus. And so, what we have to do is find a way to make sure that you can get right with the law, and we’ve got to do this in a good way so that the rug doesn’t get pulled out from under you and your family gets separated. That’s the way we feel, and that is exactly what our new incoming president has stated he wants to do. ” He further stated that the woman should not be afraid about a “deportation force” knocking on her door later this year. Ryan also said that there needs to be a solution for DACA kids and there is a “constitutional issue” with the fact that DACA was done by the president without Congress. When asked if he would introduce legislation to block the use of information the government has on people who received protection from DACA to deport them, Ryan answered, “No. Everybody thinks that there’s some deportation force that’s being assembled. That’s not happening. ” Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett | 1 |
In a January 4 “exit letter” to the American people, President Obama again listed what he regrets most about the last eight years. Number one on the list was his failure to secure gun control. [Obama shared this same regret with CNN in early December 2016, and the BBC quoted him in July 2015 speaking about the “distressing” failure to secure gun control. On Wednesday, he used the letter to highlight his regrets once more. After listing numerous things he views as achievements — such as shifting from coal to solar power, pulling out of Iraq, pulling out of Afghanistan, and securing Obamacare — Obama wrote: Still, through every victory and every setback, I’ve insisted that change is never easy, and never quick that we wouldn’t meet all of our challenges in one term, or one presidency, or even in one lifetime. And for all that we’ve achieved, there’s still so much I wish we’d been able to do, from enacting gun safety measures to protect more of our kids and our cops from mass shootings like Newtown, to passing commonsense immigration reform that encourages the best and brightest from around the world to study, stay, and create jobs in America. Regardless of whether a gun control group or an individual gun controller like Obama raises the topic, it is notable that no gun law would have prevented the Newtown, Connecticut, attack against Sandy Hook Elementary School. It is especially notable that the gun controls President Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, and Senator Joe Manchin ( ) pushed in the wake of Sandy Hook would have done nothing to prevent another Sandy Hook. Manchin touted an expansion of background checks in reaction to the Sandy Hook attack. And then, just days before the Senate rejected the gun controls, he admitted that his proposal would not have prevented the attack. Isolated Sandy attacks continued around the country during the last four years of Obama’s presidency, and background checks would not have stopped one of them. But nearly all of them could have been reduced — or perhaps prevented altogether — by changing the one commonality many of them shared: namely, policies that mandate the disarmament of citizens in certain buildings locations. AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and host of “Bullets with AWR Hawkins,” a Breitbart News podcast. He is also the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart. com. | 1 |
MANHATTAN, Kan. — She was 18, majoring in and settling in for her first year at Kansas State University, her dream school. Barely six weeks later, Crystal Stroup’s college career was suddenly and violently derailed. In October 2015, after a small at their apartment, her friends got worried because Ms. Stroup had had too much to drink. They enlisted the male student from downstairs to look after her while they went out for food. The next morning, Ms. Stroup woke up disoriented and in pain. Large bruises in the shape of hand prints were emerging on her upper arm and thigh. She struggled to go to class, where she told a friend, “I’ve been raped. ” Kansas State University had been warned about the man, Jared Gihring. Another student, Sara Weckhorst, said she had complained to university officials more than a year earlier that he had raped her while she was passed out drunk at a fraternity house. On Jan. 3, Mr. Gihring, 22, pleaded not guilty to charges of raping both women. A lawyer for Mr. Gihring, Brenda Jordan, did not respond to requests for comment. But it was only after Mr. Gihring’s arrest by the police here in July — more than two years after Ms. Weckhorst first complained — that Kansas State took action to expel him. Whether or not Ms. Stroup’s alleged rape was foreseeable — one of the issues posed by a lawsuit she filed against the university — her case raises disturbing questions about repeat offenses on campus, and whether universities do enough to prevent them. For several years, researchers have been fiercely debating how many campus rapes are committed by serial offenders. A 2002 study based on surveys of 1, 882 college men and published in Violence and Victims, an academic journal, found that as many as 63 percent of those who admitted to behaviors that fit the definition of rape or attempted rape said they had engaged in those behaviors more than once. But in 2015, a study of 1, 642 men at two different colleges was published in JAMA Pediatrics and found that while a larger number of men admitted to behaviors that constituted rape, a smaller percentage of them, closer to 25 percent, were repeat offenders. The difference could affect how universities approach rape investigations and prevention. For example, repeat cases raise questions of whether universities should be faster to remove students from campus after accusations. “There are repeat offenders who seek out victims and will do this time and time again with impunity because there is no punishment,” said Annie E. Clark, a of End Rape on Campus, a nonprofit organization that works to assist those who have been raped and to prevent campus sexual violence. She added, “Whatever the number is, it’s way, way too high. ” A few recent cases, and the lawsuits they have spawned — like the one at Kansas State — have again put a spotlight on repeat campus rapes, and the questions they leave about whether something could have been done. Many university administrators say they are hampered in sexual assault investigations by women who are reluctant to identify their assailants or press charges. They also say that assaults frequently occur during parties at which students were drinking, leaving their memories clouded and the truth of what happened elusive. At Kansas State, the federal government is now involved, investigating the university’s handling of the 2014 complaint by Ms. Weckhorst. The university is facing lawsuits by Ms. Weckhorst and another Kansas State student, Tessa Farmer, who also alleges she reported a rape that was not properly investigated, as well as the case brought by Ms. Stroup, now 19, who joined Ms. Weckhorst’s lawsuit in November. At Indiana University, a former student, John P. Enochs, pleaded guilty last year to misdemeanor battery, the result of a plea bargain. He had initially faced two counts of rape. A lawsuit filed against the university in June by one of his accusers, identified as Jane Doe 62, says Mr. Enochs raped her while she was passed out from drinking at his fraternity house. The suit says the university ignored Mr. Enochs’s history of sexual assault, failing to take steps to protect her from rape. Nearly two years before Jane Doe 62 said she was raped, Mr. Enochs had been accused of sexual assault by another student. That woman supplied his name to university police, but initially declined to press charges. In a statement by its spokeswoman, Margie the university said its policy “provides for prompt response, a fair, impartial and robust investigation, and adjudication process when responding to reports of alleged sexual assault. ” But, she added, “our ability to do so is also reliant on the involvement and cooperation of those who may have been harmed. ” Stanford University is fighting a lawsuit by a student who says she was sexually assaulted in 2014 by a man who had done the same to another student as early as 2011 and physically or sexually assaulted two other students. Nonetheless, the lawsuit says, the university permitted him to remain on campus through his 2014 graduation. The university — roiled last year by the Brock Turner sexual assault case and more recently by an article in The New York Times about its handling of sexual assault accusations against a football player — says in its court papers in the lawsuit that the first woman did not identify the man for nearly a year, then initially declined to participate in an investigation. “We have sympathy for the plaintiff in this case, but we will be vigorously defending the lawsuit as we believe that Stanford has acted with appropriate diligence and compassion within the constraints of privacy laws,” said a university spokeswoman, Lisa Lapin. Denise Cordova, the director of the office that investigates sexual assault accusations at the University of Nevada, Reno, said most students do not provide the name of the person they say assaulted them. “I think, from my perspective,” she said, “we don’t always have the information about the person who has done this. ” That was not the situation, however, at Kansas State. Danielle a former Kansas State University sexual assault investigator, said she urged the college to be more aggressive in handling sexual assault complaints, ultimately reporting the university to the United States Education Department. “It makes me feel terrible that we might have been able to prevent it,” she said. She and others at Kansas State say the problem was that the university had taken the position that it was not responsible for investigating accusations of rape in fraternity houses because they are off campus. In her complaint to the Education Department, Ms. said she was ordered to “stall” investigating a rape accusation at a fraternity house because the university did not want to be responsible. Also, the departing president of the university’s Interfraternity Council, Zach Lowry, said the university referred sexual assault complaints involving fraternities to his organization without investigation. “When we get these, they’re pretty disturbing,” said Mr. Lowry, a senior political science major from Stockton, Kan. “When we give them to our judicial board, they’re students. They’re not trained to handle investigations. ” Officials at Kansas State declined requests for interviews, but, in a statement, the university said its protocol was to “address misconduct and safety concerns expeditiously and it always has been. ” It added that “the blanket statement that does not investigate incidents is simply inaccurate. ” But Ms. Stroup believes her rape could have been prevented if the university had heeded warnings from Ms. Weckhorst, of Doylestown, Pa. On April 26, 2014, when she was a freshman, Ms. Weckhorst had joined friends at Pillsbury Crossing, a recreation area near Kansas State’s campus that is known for its picturesque waterfalls and a shallow swimming area. After drinking as many as 13 shots of liquor, she said, she recalled little of what happened that day after 4 p. m. When she woke up hours later, she said, she was in a room filled with beds, completely naked, intoxicated and confused. As she lay face up on a mattress, a man she did not know was having sexual intercourse with her. “When Sara was able to get the male off her, she got up from the mattress and at that time the male made a statement that he wasn’t the first guy she’d had sex with that day,” the police report said. The man told Ms. Weckhorst that she also had sex twice that day with another man — once in the bed of a truck at Pillsbury Crossing and again when he drove her to the Sigma Nu fraternity house, according to the police report. Word of what had happened at Pillsbury Crossing circulated on the social media app Yik Yak, according to Ms. Weckhorst’s lawsuit. Ms. Weckhorst filed a complaint with an investigator for the university, naming Mr. Gihring and the other man, both Sigma Nu pledges. But the university employee told her that because the reported events occurred off campus, Kansas State would not take any action, according to her lawsuit. After the semester ended, she and her parents met with university officials on campus. “This will continue to affect our daughter for the rest of her life,” her mother said during the meeting. Nothing “will ever what has been done by this facility of higher education. ” Mr. Gihring, of Newton, Kan. eventually moved to University Crossing, an apartment complex within view of the university’s football stadium. Ms. Stroup arrived at Kansas State from Clay Center, Kan. for her freshman year in August 2015. She also moved into University Crossing, in an apartment near Mr. Gihring. The lawsuit she filed in November says that, after the small gathering at their apartment on Oct. 6, 2015, her roommates left Mr. Gihring to watch over her while they went for food. “Once alone in the apartment, J. G. went into Crystal’s bedroom and raped her,” the complaint says, referring to Ms. Stroup. On the advice of her lawyer, Cari Simon, Ms. Stroup would not discuss details of that night because she may be called to testify in the criminal trial against Mr. Gihring, scheduled for May. Ms. Stroup said she had been under immense stress, partly because it was impossible to avoid Mr. Gihring on campus and at her apartment complex. Ultimately it affected her grades and forced her to drop out of school, she said. She now works in a nursing home kitchen, not exactly the health care career she had hoped for. “I don’t know how to pick up the pieces and start over again,” she said. | 1 |
It is called the Heimlich maneuver — saving a choking victim with a bear hug and abdominal thrusts to eject a throat obstruction — and since its inception in 1974 it has become a national safety icon, taught in schools, portrayed in movies, displayed on restaurant posters and endorsed by medical authorities. It is also the stuff of breathless, tales, told over the years by Ronald Reagan, Edward I. Koch, Elizabeth Taylor, Goldie Hawn, Cher, Walter Matthau, Carrie Fisher, Jack Lemmon, the sportscaster Dick Vitale, the television newsman John Chancellor and many others. Dr. Henry J. Heimlich, the thoracic surgeon and medical maverick who developed and crusaded for the antichoking technique that has been credited with saving an estimated 100, 000 lives, died on Saturday at a hospital in Cincinnati after suffering a heart attack at his home there last Monday, his family said. He was 96. More than four decades after inventing his maneuver, Dr. Heimlich used it himself on May 23 to save the life of an woman choking on a morsel of meat at Deupree House, their senior residence in Cincinnati. He said it was the first time he had ever used the maneuver in an emergency, although he had made a similar claim in 2003. Patty Ris, who had by chance sat at Dr. Heimlich’s table in a dining hall, began eating a hamburger. “And the next thing I know, I could not breathe I was choking so hard,” she said later. Recognizing her distress, Dr. Heimlich did his thing. “A piece of meat with a little bone attached flew out of her mouth,” he recalled. While best known for his namesake maneuver, Dr. Heimlich developed and held patents on a score of medical innovations and devices, including mechanical aids for chest surgery that were widely used in the Vietnam War, procedures for treating chronic lung disease and methods for helping stroke victims relearn to swallow. He also claimed to have invented a technique for replacing a damaged esophagus, but later acknowledged that a Romanian surgeon had been using it for years. A professor of clinical sciences at Xavier University in Cincinnati and president of the Heimlich Institute, which he founded to research and promote his ideas, Dr. Heimlich was a showman who entered the pantheon of medical history with his maneuver but in later years often found himself at odds with a medical establishment skeptical of his claims and theories. Even the Heimlich maneuver, when he first proposed it, was suspect — an unscientific and possibly unsafe stunt that might be too difficult for laymen to perform and might even cause internal injuries or broken bones in a choking victim. But the stakes were high. In the 1970s, choking on food or foreign objects like toys was the cause of accidental death in America: some 4, 000 fatalities annually, many of them children. A blocked windpipe often left a victim unable to breathe or talk, gesturing wildly to communicate distress that mimicked a heart attack. In four minutes, an brain begins to suffer irreversible damage. Death follows shortly thereafter. Standard first aid for choking victims, advocated by the American Red Cross and the American Heart Association, was a couple of hard slaps on the back or a finger down the throat. But Dr. Heimlich believed those pushed an obstruction farther down in the windpipe, wedging it more tightly. He knew there was a reserve of air in the lungs, and reasoned that sharp upward thrusts on the diaphragm would compress the lungs, push air back up the windpipe and send the obstruction flying out. His solution — wrapping arms around a victim from behind, making a fist just over the victim’s navel and thrusting up sharply — worked on dogs. His ideas, published in The Journal of Emergency Medicine in an informal article headlined “Pop Goes the Cafe Coronary,” were met with skepticism. Anticipating resistance from his peers, Dr. Heimlich sent copies to major newspapers around the country. Days later, a Washington State man who had read about it used the maneuver to save a neighbor. There were other cases and more headlines. A Massachusetts boy saved a playmate after seeing the maneuver demonstrated on television. Testimonials flooded in. Dr. Heimlich was on his way to celebrity. In a profession that frowned on he was regarded as a eccentric, if not a crackpot. But as saved lives accumulated into a mountain of evidence, skeptics were mollified, state and federal health authorities endorsed the technique, and its popularity spread. Today it is known to millions from the internet, television, films, pamphlets, books, newspapers and magazines, talked up in families and taught in schools, often with videos provided by the Heimlich Institute. No one knows how many lives have been saved by the procedure, although reported choking deaths declined after its popularization. The Heimlich Institute claims 50, 000 lives saved in the United States alone. A 2009 article in The New York Times estimated that 100, 000 people had been rescued from choking. The American Medical Association, which endorsed the technique in 1975 and gave it the name Heimlich maneuver, says it saves unknown thousands annually. Some medical authorities have been wary, partly because it can cause injuries. From 1976 to 1985, the Red Cross and the heart association told rescuers to give back slaps first, and only then go to abdominal thrusts. From 1986 to 2005, both recommended Heimlich thrusts exclusively. But in 2006 the guidelines essentially reverted to recommendations, dropped references to the Heimlich maneuver, and replaced it with the phrase “abdominal thrust. ” In 1984 Dr. Heimlich, the recipient of many honors, won the Albert Lasker Public Service Award, one of the nation’s most prestigious medical science prizes, for a “simple, practical, solution to a emergency, requiring neither great strength, special equipment or elaborate training. ” Henry Judah Heimlich was born on Feb. 3, 1920, in Wilmington, Del. to Philip and Mary Epstein Heimlich. The family soon moved to New Rochelle, N. Y. where he attended public schools. His father was a prison social worker, and Henry sometimes went along on his rounds. He received a bachelor’s degree from Cornell University in 1941 and a medical degree from Cornell Medical College in New York City in 1943. He interrupted an internship at Boston City Hospital to join the Navy in World War II. He served with Chinese guerrillas in the Gobi Desert and Inner Mongolia. After the war he was a resident at several hospitals in New York City, and in 1950 he joined Montefiore Hospital in the Bronx. In 1951 he married Jane Murray, the daughter of the dance studio entrepreneur Arthur Murray. They had twin daughters, Janet and Elisabeth, and two sons, Philip and Peter. Dr. Heimlich is survived by his children and three grandchildren. Jane Heimlich, who a book on homeopathy and wrote “What Your Doctor Won’t Tell You” (1990) about alternative medicine, died in 2012. In 1955, Dr. Heimlich proposed a method of restoring a patient’s lost ability to swallow, a condition called dysphagia, by reconstructing a damaged or diseased esophagus, using a section of the patient’s stomach. While the condition condemned victims to a lifetime of drooling and taking nourishment through an implanted tube into the stomach, his paper in the journal Surgery was virtually ignored in America. But a Romanian surgeon, Dr. Dan Gavriliu, wrote to Dr. Heimlich and said he had been using the procedure for four years. At the invitation of the Romanian Academy of Sciences, Dr. Heimlich visited Bucharest in 1956 to review the procedure. He returned to New York, successfully tried the operation, and it became a standard procedure in America. “Without question, Dr. Dan Gavriliu deserves credit for being the first surgeon to discover and perform the procedure that would come to be known as the Reversed Gastric Tube operation,” Dr. Heimlich wrote in a memoir. In the early 1960s Dr. Heimlich invented a device to drain fluid from an open chest wound. Operating on battlefields in World War II, he had seen a need for something better than a standard drainage bottle with suction to pump air and fluid from an open chest. The key was a valve that would control air and prevent fluids from flowing back into the wound. In a dime store, he found a toy noisemaker with a flutter valve. It worked in his device, and he took out a patent on what he called the Heimlich Chest Drain Valve. Widely used by medics on Vietnam battlefields, it also became common in civilian chest operations. By 1989, manufacturers reported annual sales of 250, 000 worldwide. In 1969 Dr. Heimlich became director of surgery at the Jewish Hospital in Cincinnati, and in 1977 he became professor of advanced clinical sciences at Xavier University. A longtime Cincinnati colleague, Dr. Edward A. Patrick, claimed in 2003 that he had codeveloped the Heimlich maneuver but had never been properly credited. He never took legal action to challenge Dr. Heimlich, however, and in 2008 he lost a libel suit against a Cleveland weekly newspaper that reported in an article, “Playing Doctor,” that he had misrepresented the extent of his medical training and his professional experience. Dr. Patrick died in 2009. Since the 1980s, Dr. Heimlich had been widely denounced for advocating malariotherapy, the deliberate infection of a person with malaria to treat cancer, Lyme disease and H. I. V. the virus that causes AIDS. He argued that malarial fevers could stimulate the immune system to fight more serious ailments. But health experts and government agencies have said such treatments are useless and dangerous. Human rights groups criticized experimental trials in Africa and China, calling them primitive. Similarly, his promotion of the Heimlich maneuver to clear water from the lungs of drowning victims, and to treat asthma, cystic fibrosis and even heart attacks, was vehemently disputed. The heart association warned especially against it in drowning rescues, saying it endangered lives. Among his fiercest critics was his son, Peter, who campaigned extensively against what he called his father’s “ history of fraud. ” In blogs, interviews with newspapers, television networks and other forums, Peter Heimlich alleged that his father’s institute had conducted abusive medical experiments on AIDS, cancer and Lyme disease patients in the United States and countries, and endangered people with maneuvers to rescue choking and drowning victims. Undeterred, Dr. Heimlich advanced his ideas in articles and books, notably “Dr. Heimlich’s Home Guide to Emergency Medical Situations” (1980) and a memoir, “Heimlich’s Maneuvers: My Seventy Years of Lifesaving Innovations” (2014) and in speeches and television appearances. His animated series for children, “Dr. Henry’s Emergency Lessons for People,” won an Emmy in 1980. “I can do more toward saving lives in three minutes on television,” he told Omni magazine in 1983, “than I could do all my life in the operating room. ” | 1 |
CANNES, France — The invasion has begun. In the gray light of a summer dawn, the invaders threw their great American force into action here, quickly taking the beach with their blue flags, white beach chairs and cabanas, a sturdy if sumptuous operating base from which to storm this seaside resort — conference room by conference room, rooftop bar by rooftop bar. The frightened townsfolk — top executives from the biggest media companies and advertising agencies in the world — debated in whispers their grim choice between bloody resistance or total surrender. A correspondent broadcasting from the Hôtel Barrière Le Majestic here reported the words from the blue shirts’ communiqué in a quivering voice: “As we connect the world, we believe very deeply in the importance of helping creators build businesses on Facebook [STOP] … We are only here to help [STOP] … Why don’t you believe us? [STOP]” The preceding paragraphs were based on The New York Times’s report on the Allied invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944 — loosely, very loosely. They capture the sense of siege that was palpable here last week during the annual Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, where Facebook has one of the most visible headquarters along the beach, with a pier festooned with its logo and a club on the sand. But in this case, no one was prepared to view the seaside regiment as a liberating force. On the surface, this festival is a great bacchanalia the advertising industry holds with its clients and business partners in Big Consumer Goods, Big Entertainment and Big Journalism. Over six days they celebrate the year’s best advertising, while massaging relationships and cutting deals over meals and at soirees that have acts like Chris Martin and Wyclef Jean. But in a week in which Britain was preparing to make its exit from the European Union — sending the Continent toward an uncertain realignment — it was fitting that the real action here involved a war for territory in a media world heading for its own painful realignment, its old borders withering away at the speed of Moore’s Law (which holds that computing power increases twofold every two years or so). Google and Facebook have upended the old order by taking ownership of the new one, claiming nearly of the $60 billion online advertising market last year and on course to take more this year. Therefore, the word of the week in Cannes was “duopoly. ” You could understand why the gathered Mad Men and Women were so mad. For decades, they have enjoyed mutually beneficial relationships with their big clients — Procter Gamble, Unilever — reaping great riches by catering to Americans’ wants and tastes, having divined them through focus groups and surveys. Then along came Google and Facebook, using their technologies to insert themselves into those advertising relationships, but with a huge advantage — they weren’t just divining their users’ tastes and preferences, they knew them. They controlled the data. And as advertising goes more digital, he or she who controls the data controls the market. If I’m you, the reader, I’m wondering why I should care isn’t it like the old mob complaining about the new mob being unschooled in the honor code of omertà? Well, there are much larger questions at play. When one or two companies gain control over a market, it creates dangerous asymmetries that skew competitive balance. And the market we’re talking about isn’t making widgets. It delivers what we read and watch every day, and increasingly every minute: the news and information our democracy needs. Think about it this way: The shift in advertising revenue to Google and Facebook contributed last year to the worst year for newspaper revenues since the economic crash in 2009, a recent Pew Research Center study found. Dwindling advertising revenue equals dwindling foreign bureaus equals “Surprise: Brexit!” While Google has usually been the chief villain here, Facebook seemed to have assumed the role of Frenemy No. 1. Two hours didn’t go by here without some top executive telling me about how Facebook’s “walled garden” makes it a new intermediary between brands and their customers, and between newspapers and their readers. That gives Facebook the potential to steal them all away if it ever chose to do so. (It says it won’t.) Facebook, which maintained a fortresslike presence here within the Hotel Majestic as well on the beach, had a simple message: We Come in Peace, and we need the ad world. “Our point of view on this is that the whole industry has to collaborate more than ever,” Carolyn Everson, Facebook’s vice president for global marketing solutions, told me. “There is a massive shift in the industry. ” That shift is to mobile phones, where more and more digital advertising is going. But the industry hasn’t quite figured out how to make us regularly watch more than three seconds of a video ad, or to click on a mobile display ad on purpose. “We desperately need the agency ecosystem to support and drive this shift to mobile marketing,” Ms. Everson said. Figuring it out is in everybody’s interest. Advertising executives here voiced respect for Ms. Everson, who came to Facebook from Viacom via Microsoft a few years ago, when relations were at a low. And they credited Facebook for giving them and their clients access to some 1. 6 billion users. Yet, in a dozen or so lengthy conversations I had with agency and marketing executives, suspicion of Facebook abounded. Sure, some of it could have been because while the executives were talking about existential threats to their business, Facebook was here introducing cool new advertising opportunities on Instagram and Messenger. But a lot of it stemmed from the view that Facebook’s Silicon Valley happy talk about “collaboration” and “connectivity” rings hollow in light of its seemingly aggressive push to grab more media and advertising territory away from them. You can point to a clash between New York cynicism and West Coast idealism, but there is a history. Several years ago, Facebook invited advertisers to set up fan pages at no cost. As more advertisers jumped in, their messages became overwhelming. Facebook scaled them back. But then it offered the brands a chance to increase visibility by paying for it — that is, to reach the customer fan base that Facebook had initially invited them to create free. You can imagine how that went over. Facebook has been doing a better job of avoiding such surprises, Ben Winkler, the chief investment officer at OMD, told me at his company’s beachside tent. But, he said, when Facebook is the mediator between advertisers and their customers, “They become Facebook’s customers first and the brands’ customers second,” leaving the question, “Who owns the customer data?” The nearly universal complaint in Cannes was that Facebook was not doing enough to share that data, leaving an informational imbalance that, combined with Facebook’s digital market share, gives it asymmetrical negotiating leverage. That’s why Tamara Ingram, the J. Walter Thompson chief executive, told me it was important for Facebook — a “wonderful” medium, she said — “to have a transparent and symmetrical relationship that allows us to build brands. ” (Italics mine.) Ms. Everson said that Facebook’s imperative to protect the privacy of its users precludes deeper sharing. But, she said, it has sophisticated tools to help its partners contact customers and likely customers without making them identifiable. Facebook’s Madison Avenue “partners” wonder if Facebook isn’t hiding behind privacy to protect its own market advantage. “We fully understand that the users’ privacy is sacrosanct,” Irwin Gotlieb, the chairman of GroupM Global, the huge advertising buying firm, told me. “But there are ways to share data without compromising it everyone else has found ways to do it. ” When I passed through Cannes at daybreak on Friday — on my way to an appearance on Facebook Live, which Facebook is paying my company $3 million to try — I saw a young man passed out by the beach. I didn’t have time to find out, but I wondered: A happy reveler who overimbibed with colleagues in the spirit of collaboration? Or a casualty of the Great Facebook Siege of 2016? | 1 |
MANAUS, Brazil — Our tale takes metaphorical root in the early 1880s and the fevered imaginings of rubber barons. Sitting by the vast Amazon River, bewitched by pink river dolphins and torrential downpours, surrounded by rain forest, these men hungered for a legacy worthy of kings. So they imported an Italian architect, the mellifluously named Celestial Sacardim, to build an opera house. He conceived a heaven: columns of Carrara marble chandeliers of Murano glass 36, 000 roof tiles from Alsace parquet floors of walnut, oak and Norwegian maple tapestries from the looms of Flanders. Liverpool foundries provided the steel. The Teatro Amazonas was beautiful and insanely expensive and as ephemeral as everything else in this sweltering land. The rubber barons, legend has it, persuaded Enrico Caruso to journey here and sing Verdi. Then the rubber economy collapsed, and the opera house, which still stands in the colonial quarter, fell into decade upon decade of damp disuse. All of which brings us to a new hallucination: the Arena da Amazônia in Manaus, a city whose name comes from a local tribe and means Mother of the Gods. When Brazil embarked on an orgy of arena construction for the World Cup in 2014, Manaus city leaders decided to build the grandest arena of all. Years in the making, at a cost of $220 million, it was crafted to resemble a giant white basket of a type common in the region, atop a concrete plaza. The arena seats 44, 351 people. Save for the rarest of occasions, such as when Olympic women’s soccer teams played here recently, this arena sits empty. Manaus is surrounded by a rain forest the size of France, Spain, Sweden, Greece and Italy combined, and it is reachable only by airplane or boat. Most in this city of two million have more on their mind than sports. The debt for this ziggurat has piled high and requires siphoning off of money intended for schools and hospitals. of Manauarans are extremely poor many lack running water. I wandered into the marble cafe of that opera house, which has been reincarnated as a tourist attraction and for music and dance events. Erica Damasceno, 20, sipped coffee as I asked about the stadium. She wagged her hand. “I never go there,” she said. Never? She shook her head. “Never. So much money was put into it, and we have such great needs: schools, hospitals. Every big public project is an excuse to steal money. ” I stepped outside into an equatorial sun that felt like a fat hand pressed down on my skull. I found Maciel De Souza sitting in the shade of a tree with his Natalia Vilacio, tourist guides without tourists. Do you go to the stadium? “Yes,” De Souza replied. How often? “Once. ” He shook his head. “It’s a white elephant, a big one,” he said in Portuguese through an interpreter. “Sometimes tourists like to see it. No one is ever inside. ” Arena dreams tend toward the ridiculous, from Milwaukee to Minneapolis to Manaus. Promises of economic benefits are as illusory as lost civilizations. FIFA, the world soccer federation, required that World Cup host nations build at least eight stadiums. Brazil, in a fit of prideful excess, insisted on building 10, at a cost of nearly $2 billion. Those stadiums have become aspiring archaeological digs. Brasília spent $550 million to build its stadium it doubles as a municipal bus depot. The stadium in Cuiabá cost $230 million, and homeless men sleep in the locker rooms. Managers at Recife’s grand Arena Pernambuco are at such wits’ end that they rented it out for a boy’s birthday. The magazine Americas Quarterly found that Brazil’s expenses for the World Cup greatly outran its revenue. Brazil repeated its wasteful act for the Olympics. There are corruption inquiries in a states, with construction companies and hapless officials under the magnifying glass. That brings us back to Manaus and its excess. (Fitzcarraldo was the dreamer in a Werner Herzog movie who had the unhinged ambition to haul a steamship over a mountain in the Peruvian Amazon.) As was true for the opera house, no expense was spared in the construction of the Arena da Amazônia. Steel was poured in Europe and loaded at the port of Aveiro in Portugal. Workers filled three giant freighters to the gills with steel, and a fourth ferried the membrane that serves as the roof. It took this fleet 20 days to trundle across the Atlantic and many more to edge up the Amazon. Construction was a dank nightmare. Three workers died. Foundations were poured, and repoured. Steel joints buckled in the humidity. Project managers discovered that “an unwelcome tributary of the French River” ran under the site. From December to March, Manaus receives about 45 inches of rain, so there was the Noah problem, too. No roads run to Manaus other than dangerous dirt tracks impassable in wet weather. As the project manager said at the time, “This was a huge, huge, huge challenge. ” Those challenges later turned to red ink. The local soccer teams here are the equivalent of the Rookie League Kingsport Mets and draw 1, 000 fans on the best nights. They could not afford the rent. A few big league teams, those from São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, sometimes played here, but only if the state containing Manaus provided a subsidy of one sort or another. It is a flight from Rio to this capital of the Amazon. At the time of the construction, Manaus’s mayor, Arthur Virgilio Neto, offered enthusiasm that would sound familiar to those rubber lords of centuries past. “It will be very good for international shows,” Neto told NPR. “I’ve heard that many pop stars have dreamed of singing for a low price in the Amazon jungle. ” I imagine that Bono and Beyoncé and Kendrick Lamar might dream of singing beneath a canopy of giant kapok trees. So far, none have journeyed here to do so. Fabricio Lima, Manaus’s secretary of state for youth, sports and leisure, sat for an interview last week with my colleague Tania Franco. He faces daunting numbers. From January to April, the Arena da Amazônia generated $180, 000 in revenue. Its expenses in that period totaled $560, 000. That was its performance in a while. So far, Lima’s best customers are the Amazon’s many evangelical ministers. Each night he dreams grandly each morning he acts modestly. What is his latest idea for the arena? He smiled and replied, “Weddings and birthday parties. ” Later that day, I walked through the old market down by the banks of the Amazon. A hot wind eddied and swirled, and I listened as Marcio Morais, an herb merchant, explained how his grandfather, who was raised in the jungle, taught him to harvest herbs. Liver inflammation, kidney problems, asthma, erectile dysfunction: He has an herb for nearly every ailment. Our talk turned to the arena. He frowned. “Olympic Games are nice, but why are we spending money on this?” he said. “It could have been a university. It could have been a school. Do you know we have an opera house? Such big dreams. ” I allowed that I knew of those dreams. “Sometimes you have to wake up,” he replied. With that, we shook hands, and I stepped out into the heat. | 1 |
Next Prev Swipe left/right Someone noticed the FBI offering very obvious support for Donald Trump Composer and Twitter stalwart, Nick Harvey , shared a tweet he’d ‘noticed’ from the FBI, seemingly announcing its great love for The Donald.
— Nick Harvey (@mrnickharvey) November 1, 2016 Of course, all is not as it seems. This is just the latest hilarious fake tweet produced by @mrnickharvey , with some highlights including this one ‘from Vine’: Nicely done, Vine. Nicely done. pic.twitter.com/oyhz2Mhwm3
— Nick Harvey (@mrnickharvey) October 27, 2016
this reply to Steven Woolfe ‘from UKIP’: UKIP there, being as classy as ever. pic.twitter.com/zjRoQePLcE
— Nick Harvey (@mrnickharvey) October 17, 2016
and this one ‘from the official Mrs Brown’s Boys account’: Twitter at its best. pic.twitter.com/qbmsC4yw9n
— Nick Harvey (@mrnickharvey) October 3, 2016 The scamp even claimed to have written one genuine yet controversial tweet from a celebrity:
Source: @mrnickharvey He’s fooled many with his tweets, leading @jazmasta to comment “someone needs to take that fake tweet creator app away from you asap”.
We don’t agree! | 0 |
President Donald Trump and his family went to church on Easter Sunday, attending services at the Episcopal Church in Palm Beach, Florida. [The President and the First Lady were joined by their daughter Tiffany, their son Barron, and Melania Trump’s parents, according to the White House. Donald Trump Jr. and his family were also spotted going into the church. The presidential motorcade passed two children that held signs that said “Happy Easter Mr. President,” according to the White House pool report. According to the White House, the Trumps planned a family brunch and an Easter egg hunt at during the afternoon. president #president #presidenttrump #palmbeach #Easter #realdonaldtrump #bethesdabythesea #islandliving #ᴇᴀsᴛᴇʀsᴜɴᴅᴀʏ, A post shared by Dragana Photography (@draganaconnaughton) on Apr 16, 2017 at 12:26pm PDT, Happy Easter! pic. twitter. — Melania Trump (@FLOTUS) April 16, 2017, | 1 |
WASHINGTON — For months, President Obama said that Donald J. Trump was unqualified, temperamentally unfit and a threat to the republic who should never be president. For years, Mr. Trump questioned Mr. Obama’s birthplace and legitimacy, branded the nation’s first black president weak and called his tenure a disaster. On Thursday at the White House, the happened: The two men met face to face for the first time for a discussion in the Oval Office and shook hands, making a public show of putting their bitter differences aside. “I want to emphasize to you, Mr. that we now are going to want to do everything we can to help you succeed because if you succeed, then the country succeeds,” Mr. Obama told Mr. Trump after the meeting as the two sat side by side two days after Mr. Trump’s stunning election upset imperiled Mr. Obama’s legacy. The president called the conversation “excellent” and said he had been “encouraged” by Mr. Trump’s interest in working with him and his team. Mr. Trump, who appeared nervous and uncharacteristically subdued beside Mr. Obama, called the president “a good man. ” He said that the meeting was “a great honor” and that their conversation had lasted far longer than he would have expected. “I have great respect,” Mr. Trump said, turning to face Mr. Obama. “We discussed a lot of different situations, some wonderful, and some difficulties. I very much look forward to dealing with the president in the future, including counsel. ” Given that Mr. Trump has never held elective office or served in government, some administration aides suggest that Mr. Obama could play a role in acquainting Mr. Trump with the demands of the office. “The meeting might’ve been at least a little less awkward than some might have expected,” Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, said. Aides said that the two men discussed foreign and domestic policy issues that Mr. Trump would need to deal with on Day 1 in the Oval Office. As early as Friday, the will get a version of the President’s Daily Brief, a classified compilation of all threats facing the United States and other highly significant intelligence information. Mr. Trump’s trip was surreal for many Republicans and Democrats in Washington, who never expected to see the real estate executive and reality television star in an Oval Office meeting to begin preparations to lead the most powerful nation in the world. Mr. Trump, whose campaign drew support from white supremacist groups, sat just in front of a bust of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in the Oval Office. Outside in the Rose Garden, reporters could see Denis R. McDonough, the White House chief of staff, emerge from the West Wing talking in hushed tones with Jared Kushner, the ’s and adviser. The two then headed off for a stroll around the South Lawn. Nearby, aides to Mr. Trump snapped photographs of one another in the White House colonnade, standing in the spot where a crowd of shocked White House aides, some openly crying, had watched the day before as Mr. Obama called for national unity after Mr. Trump’s victory. The Oval Office meeting was the centerpiece of a marathon day in the capital for Mr. Trump, his first since winning the presidency. His wife, Melania, had tea with Michelle Obama in the White House residence and took in the view of the Washington Monument from the Truman Balcony. White House aides said the two women talked about raising children in the White House. “We want to make sure that they feel welcome as they prepare to make this transition,” Mr. Obama said of the Trumps. Later on Capitol Hill, after meeting with Republican congressional leaders who will hold sway over enacting his agenda, Mr. Trump strode with Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, the House speaker, to a balcony overlooking the platform on the west side of the Capitol where he will be sworn in on Jan. 20, 2017, peering out to the National Mall below. “Really, really beautiful,” he said of the view. The arrived in the late morning from New York at Reagan National Airport in his trademark jet with the name Trump emblazoned on its side, and then rode with his wife in a black, armored sport utility vehicle in a motorcade that moved swiftly through Washington. By midafternoon, crowds had gathered on a crisp autumn day on both sides of Pennsylvania Avenue next to the Trump International Hotel, where barricades were set up. Police officers were lined up on motorcycles, officers on horses patrolled the area, and tourists taking photographs mingled with camera crews. Mr. Trump and his wife had lunch with Mr. Ryan at the Capitol Hill Club, a peace summit meeting after Mr. Ryan had offered tepid support for the Republican nominee during the campaign and Mr. Trump had branded him a “weak and ineffective leader,” threatening retribution. Later, after a meeting in Mr. Ryan’s office in the Capitol, Mr. Trump said that he was excited to begin carrying out an agenda to address immigration, health care and tax cuts. Investors, apparently buoyed by the prospect of those tax cuts as well as increased infrastructure spending, sent the Dow Jones industrial average to a record high on Thursday. “We’re going to do some absolutely spectacular things for the American people,” Mr. Trump said. “We’re going to lower taxes, as you know, we’re going to fix health care and make it more affordable and better. We’re going to do a real job for the public. ” Mr. Trump also met for about an hour with Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader. “We are looking at jobs,” Mr. Trump told reporters as he left. “ jobs. ” The meetings unfolded as members of Mr. Obama’s staff were starting the business of handing over the vast bureaucracy of the federal government to Mr. Trump’s staff. Speculation swirled over possible appointments in the Trump administration, with Stephen K. Bannon, the conservative provocateur and Mr. Trump’s campaign chief, and Reince Priebus, the Republican National Committee chairman, being mentioned as possible picks for chief of staff. Top advisers to Mr. Obama have spent months preparing for the transition, a complex venture condensed into the 72 before the inauguration. It is up to them and the Trump team to set it in motion, pairing Obama administration staff members with representatives of the for crash courses in the workings of the White House and federal agencies. Mr. Obama said Wednesday that he had instructed his staff to follow the example set by President George W. Bush in 2008 and provide a professional and smooth transition for Mr. Trump’s team, despite the policy differences that separate the president and his successor. For all the public drama and division of the presidential campaign, Mr. Obama’s aides have since July been quietly working with advisers to Hillary Clinton and Mr. Trump to plan for the passing of power. But the crush of information may be onerous, particularly when it comes to Mr. Trump’s task of hiring 4, 000 political appointees over a matter of weeks. Saddled with an antiquated personnel system when Mr. Obama was elected in 2008, his aides moved this year to build a new one designed to make it easier to track the positions, as well as the applicants and their personal and professional information. In December, Mr. Obama’s team plans to hold the first of two exercises to prepare Mr. Trump and his staff for a potential national security crisis. The second simulation for Mr. Trump is set for January, days before he officially gains access to the nuclear codes. | 1 |
Assange predicts Trump will lose, accuses Clinton Campaign of trying to hack Wikileaks It cannot be a free and informed election unless people are free to inform October 28, 2016 WorldCloudNews/Flickr
In an amusing twist, Julian Assange whose Wikileaks has now had 20 individual releases of hacked John Podesta emails over the past three weeks and who has been accused by Hillary Clinton of collaborating with the Russians in an attempt to disrupt and subvert the US electoral process, accused the Clinton campaign of attacking the servers used by WikiLeaks. Speaking via telephone at a conference in Argentina on Wednesday, RT reported that Assange claimed the daily email release ritual has “whipped up a crazed hornet’s nest atmosphere in the Hillary Clinton campaign” leading them to attack WikiLeaks.
“They attacked our servers and attempted hacking attacks and there is an amazing ongoing campaign where state documents were put in the UN and British courts to accuse me of being both a Russian spy and a pedophile,” he added.
Assange described Ecuador’s decision to shut down his internet for the duration of the presidential campaign as a “strategic position” so that its “policy of non-intervention can’t be misinterpreted by actors in the US and even domestically in Ecuador.” He said he was sympathetic with Ecuador, insisting they face the dilemma of having the US interfere with their elections next year if they appear to interfere with the US elections next month. He also said that he did not agree with Ecuador’s decision but did understand it. WikiLeaks will not be affected by the decision as they do not publish from Ecuador, he said.
He did, however, reject the idea that WikiLeaks is interfering with the US election, claiming, “this is not the interference of electoral process, this is the definition of electoral process – for media organizations and, in fact, everyone to publish the truth and their opinion about what is occurring. It cannot be a free and informed election unless people are free to inform.” It will, of course, be spun as interference if Hillary were to lose as the tables would then be turned, and instead of Trump slamming the “rigged” elections, it will be Hillary who will demand a pound of flesh, perhaps literally.
Assange did not stop there and also attacked US TV networks, many of whom he accused of being “controlled by Clinton supporters.” If there is anything the Podesta emails have revealed, it is that he is correct in his assessment . | 0 |
Market analysts are anticipating an increase in fresh food sales as a result of the Foods merger, according to a CNBC report. [Such a shift in the market would hurt brands like General Mills and Kellogg, according to the report. The transition from a mixed emphasis on processed and fresh foods to a greater emphasis on fresh products will hurt brands like Kellogg, who focus almost exclusively on processed foods. “I would say it’s the smaller brands that are going to be most affected. Conagra and the midtier companies are probably going to be the most hurt. There’s probably a lot of independent brands that are owned privately around the country that have the least pricing power and will be hit hard by this,” Bernstein analyst Alexia Howard told CNBC. It’s not good news “for the cereal companies, but it’s generally not good news for packaged companies. ” Shares of Kellogg Company and General Mills declined sharply when the Foods was announced. Market trends suggest that consumers are moving away from processed foods and towards fresh products. Analysts suggest that the Foods merger will serve to accelerate this market shift. “Shifts in the retail environment, particularly in North America, may pose risks broadly for processed food manufacturers, including General Mills. Consumers continue to drive away from processed foods,” wrote Piper Jaffray analyst Michael Lavery ahead of the merger. “We expect continued downward pressure on pricing from intense retail competition, driven by retailers like Walmart, Aldi and Lidl and online retailers, too. ” Other analysts have credited online information with inspiring the move away from processed foods, which many now argue are bad for the consumer’s health. Bernstein analysis Alexia Howard claimed that consumers have developed a mistrust of legacy brands such as General Mills as a result of online dialogue on the health ramifications of eating processed foods. “That’s allowing new challengers or small brands gaining market share, and you’re seeing a fragmentation of the industry. Consumers, particularly mothers of small children, have started to talk about what’s in our food,” said Howard. “It’s created a distrust of the legacy products. That’s what’s reduced barriers to entry and allow a lot of new brands to come up, and that’s another big challenge. ” As the food market evolves, processed food companies like General Mills and Kellogg may be forced to shift the focus of their production to introduce some fresh food offerings. Kellogg announced in November that it was pulling ads from Breitbart. com because its 45, 000, 000 monthly conservative readers were not “aligned with our values as a company. ” In response, Breitbart News, one of the world’s top news publishers, launched a #DumpKelloggs petition and called for a boycott of the ubiquitous food manufacturer. Shares of Kellogg have declined by 9. 3 percent since the #DumpKelloggs campaign began. Tom Ciccotta is a libertarian who writes about economics and higher education for Breitbart News. You can follow him on Twitter @tciccotta or email him at tciccotta@breitbart. com | 1 |
UNITED NATIONS — The United Nations secretary general is supposed to answer to every nation on earth — and no nation at all. So the unusually frank admission by the secretary general, Ban on Thursday that he had essentially been coerced into removing a military coalition in Yemen from an ignoble list of armies that kill and maim children was a rare window into the limits of his moral and political authority — and an object lesson for whoever succeeds Mr. Ban next year. On Thursday, Mr. Ban told reporters that he had been threatened with the loss of financing for humanitarian operations in the Palestinian territories, South Sudan and Syria if he did not temporarily delete the coalition from the list. The coalition has been accused of indiscriminately bombing civilian and nonmilitary targets in its battle against Houthi rebels in Yemen for more than a year. The coalition, which is backed by the United States, has consistently denied the accusations. Mr. Ban’s office issued a report last week on violations of children’s rights in war zones, and it cited deadly coalition attacks that had hit schools and hospitals. By Monday, however, the coalition was taken off the list, after lobbying by Saudi Arabia and some of its wealthiest allies who help finance United Nations humanitarian operations. Mr. Ban offered his explanation Thursday, saying, “I also had to consider the very real prospect that millions of other children would suffer grievously if, as was suggested to me, countries would defund many U. N. programs. ” By the standards of he went on to issue an uncustomarily direct rebuke. “It is unacceptable for member states to exert undue pressure,” he said. The Saudi ambassador promptly asserted that there had been no undue pressure. Mr. Ban is wrapping up his tenure, and world powers are beginning to bargain over who his successor will be and just how independent she or he ought to be. Secretaries general have frequently faced intense political pressure from countries large and small, and Mr. Ban’s time in charge has been punctuated with a number of awkward compromises. Last summer, Mr. Ban reversed course on his list of armies and guerrilla groups that violated child rights in war. In that instance, his special representative for children and armed conflict, Leila Zerrougui, recommended that the Israel Defense Forces and Hamas be included on the list for their role in bombing schools and hospitals and otherwise breaking international law during the war in the Gaza Strip in 2014. Israel was consulted before the release of the report, Mr. Ban’s aides said at the time, and both Israeli and American diplomats lobbied intensely against the listing. In the end, both Israel and Hamas were kept off the list. Mr. Ban declined to address reporters’ questions on the matter at the time, leaving it to his envoy, Ms. Zerrougui, to explain the redaction. The generally Mr. Ban has tried to step out a bit more during his last year, but he has also repeatedly had to step back. In March, on a rare visit to a camp that houses refugees from Western Sahara, Mr. Ban used the term “occupation” to refer to Morocco’s 1975 annexation of territory that the Sahrawis claim as theirs. The Moroccan government responded by ejecting dozens of United Nations staff members, effectively kneecapping the peacekeeping mission there. Morocco has a powerful ally in France, a member of the Security Council, which helps explain why the Security Council said nothing to persuade Morocco to reverse its decision. That left Mr. Ban on his own, and within days, his spokesman was compelled to swallow his words. “We regret the misunderstandings and consequences that this personal expression of solicitude provoked,” said the spokesman, Stéphane Dujarric. Perhaps Mr. Ban’s most awkward moment came when he sought to act independently of the United States. In January 2014, he invited Iran to United political negotiations over Syria, only to be advised by American officials to rescind the invitation, according to interviews with diplomats at the time. A day after he publicly announced the invitation, he appeared before reporters and said Iran could not attend. The State Department made its opposition clear, and demanded that Iran first accept certain conditions that it knew Tehran would find unacceptable. One of Mr. Ban’s aides said he felt betrayed. Asked at a news briefing on Thursday about Mr. Ban’s admission of Saudi pressure, a State Department spokesman, Mark C. Toner, said, “We agree with the secretary general that the U. N. should be permitted to carry out its mandate, carry out its responsibilities, without fear of money being cut off. ” Pressed about American threats to cut off funding, Mr. Toner said, “I’m aware of our own track record. ” Eleven people have so far declared their candidacy to succeed Mr. Ban when his term expires at the end of this year. A few others are expected to throw their names into the race in the next few weeks. The president of the General Assembly, Mogens Lykketoft, who has held the public hearings for the candidates, has used the terms “independent” and “courageous” to describe his ideal future secretary general. That may be unrealistic. It is really up to the five permanent members of the Security Council to choose the next head of the organization, and while many of them have said they want a strong secretary general, they have also avoided calling for one who is independent. As for the coalition, Mr. Ban said he would jointly review the claims made by his special representative, who accused the coalition of indiscriminate attacks against children. Privately, diplomats say such a review could drag on until it vanishes from public memory. Saudi Arabia flatly denied that it had exerted any pressure. “No, of course not,” the ambassador, Abdullah said in a telephone interview. “It is not our style. It is not our culture. It is not our spirit to use threats or intimidation. ” He did say that he had met with Mr. Ban’s deputy, Jan Eliasson, a Swedish diplomat, on Monday and expressed his concerns about the listing. He said he told him that “it would have an adverse impact on relations between Saudi Arabia and the United Nations. ” | 1 |
White House press secretary Sean Spicer insisted that there was no option to repeal and replace Obamacare other than the bill put forward by Speaker Paul Ryan and House Republicans. [Breitbart News asked Spicer during the White House press briefing if President Donald Trump planned to leave Obamacare in place and move onto other issues if the House bill failed. Spicer denied the premise. “We’re not going to leave it in place because we’re going to repeal and replace it tomorrow, move it through the Senate, and the president will sign the bill,” he said. Spicer pointed out that conservatives like Rep. Steve King now support the bill, as well as Rep. Lou Barletta. “We continue to see the enthusiasm and momentum coming to our direction,” Spicer insisted, despite 25 House Freedom Caucus conservatives reasserting their decision to vote against the bill. The bill needs 216 votes to pass and, as Democrats remain unanimously opposed to the House legislation, only 21 Republicans can vote against the bill or it fails. In recent days, Trump signaled he is eager to get health care done so he can move on to other issues like trade and tax reform. But the White House denied that there was any consideration of an “Option B” on health care if the first plan failed. “This is the only train leaving the station,” Spicer said. | 1 |
SHANGHAI — As a top stock market regulator, Guo Shuqing cemented a reputation as an economic reformer who tried to bring changes to China’s and heavily politicized financial system. During just 17 months in the role, he issued 80 major directives, moving to stop chronic insider trading, curb market manipulation and remove barriers for foreign investors. It earned him the occasional nickname Whirlwind Guo. Now Mr. Guo has returned to Beijing to tackle an even bigger problem: the murky, Chinese banking system. On Friday the state news media said that he was named chairman of the China Banking Regulatory Commission, succeeding Shang Fulin, who had reached the mandatory retirement age of 65. The Chinese commercial news media widely reported and filmed Mr. Guo’s arrival at that agency on Friday morning, where he was greeted by Mr. Shang. Mr. Guo’s appointment offers a sign that China is taking a financial overhaul seriously, though it was made among other moves that could send mixed signals about that commitment. The stakes are high: Experts widely believe that China’s weak financial system is holding back its economy, the world’s second largest. China is trying to broaden its economy beyond its traditional dependence on manufacturing, but its financial system still operates on a model that has generated alarming amounts of debt even as it hinders money from reaching entrepreneurs. Bad loans are widely expected to soar as the economy continues to slow. At the same time, banks have become increasingly dependent on raising money through often speculative investment products that they keep off their balance sheets, making it hard to assess the risks they pose to financial stability. Yet other appointments suggested a commitment to the status quo. The state news media on Friday said the No. 2 officials at the National Development and Reform Commission, China’s top economic planning body, and the Ministry of Commerce, which oversees trade, among other things, were named to succeed their retiring bosses, who were also 65. The choice to run the National Development and Reform Commission, He Lifeng, served from 2009 to 2012 as the deputy secretary of Tianjin. He helped oversee the construction of a forest of office and residential skyscrapers at the city’s fringes that have barely been occupied and have become one of the many symbols of China’s dependence on growth that is often wasteful. China could signal its commitment to a financial overhaul with any changes at the top of its central bank, the People’s Bank of China. Zhou Xiaochuan, widely considered a reformist voice in China, is more than two years past retirement age, so predicting his departure has become a popular parlor game in China’s financial world. Appointing Yi Gang, Mr. Zhou’s deputy, to the top could be seen as an endorsement of Mr. Zhou’s gentle advocacy of reform, though elevating Mr. Yi could also reflect Beijing’s lack of interest in rocking the boat. The shuffle comes at a delicate time for China’s financial leadership. Its competence was called into question in 2015, when conflicting signals contributed to a stock market crash and increased government controls. Experts say either the banking commission or the central bank could get added responsibilities should China try to streamline financial regulation. Mr. Guo faces an immediate challenge in reasserting the authority of the banking commission, also known as the C. B. R. C. Like the Federal Reserve in the United States, the Chinese central bank has clawed away from banking regulators a considerable part of their authority to oversee whether banks are lending prudently. The Chinese central bank has also played an increasingly critical role in fighting money laundering and capital flight. “An appointment as the head of the C. B. R. C. today is not as significant as the same appointment five years ago because the People’s Bank of China has taken over many of the regulatory oversight tasks,” said Victor Shih, a specialist in Chinese finance and factional politics at the University of California at San Diego. China could tip its hand on that matter after the annual gathering of the National People’s Congress, its top lawmaking body, which begins March 5. It may then hold a financial work conference in April on reorganization that was originally planned for January or February. Some experts viewed the recall of Mr. Guo to Beijing as a sign that policy changes are coming. “It’s probably a signal for fundamental reforms in China’s financial regulatory framework,” said Zhu Ning, a Tsinghua University economist. Mr. Guo could be in a good position to argue that the China Banking Regulatory Commission should have greater authority. He missed the spectacular plunge of the Chinese stock markets in 2015, the blame for which fell in part on his successor. In a country where officials tend to either have political experience in running provinces, or economic and financial experience in working at regulatory agencies and banks in Beijing, Mr. Guo is a rare example of someone who has done both. He served as a deputy governor of impoverished Guizhou Province in the late 1990s, then as director of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange. He then became the chairman of the China Construction Bank, one of China’s four main banks, from 2005. He took the top job at the China Securities Regulatory Commission, the top stock market regulator, in late 2011, unleashing a fury of reform efforts in just 17 months. Then just as quickly, he was gone, sent south to coastal Shandong Province as the acting governor. Rather than a setback to his career, it was another way to develop his economic and political chops. Within months, he rose to become the governor of Shandong Province, helping clean up the financial sector there. Political analysts had said that Mr. Guo might stay in Shandong and be promoted to Communist Party secretary, the top job, above even the governor. Previous party secretaries of Shandong, a large and economically important province, have sometimes joined the Politburo, a top Communist Party leadership group, and gone on to become vice premiers with broad economic powers. Vice premiers are much more important in China than the governor of the central bank, because the central bank has no political independence in China and answers to the cabinet. Time may be running out for Mr. Guo, who will turn 61 this year. The ministers who run the central bank and the main regulatory commissions typically retire at 65, making it harder for Mr. Guo to do a stint at the banking commission and then move on to another senior position. | 1 |
Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Diabetes is one of the most rampant diseases of our time, and when you take a look at the average North American diet you begin to see why. According to the American Diabetes Association, in 2012 29.1 million Americans, or 9.3% of the population, had diabetes. [1] Sadly, diabetes rates are still rising steadily because we are not doing enough to adjust our diets, despite the wealth of nutritional information available to us. A study completed by the CDC & Research Triangle Institute concluded that, if recent trends in diabetes prevalence rates continue linearly over the next 50 years, future changes in the size and demographic characteristics of the U.S. population will lead to dramatic increases in the number of Americans with diagnosed diabetes. [2] Finding The Right Foods When you are diabetic, changes in diet are pretty well a must. Finding the right diet for some people can be a bit tricky, as we are often tempted by other foods or run out of creative ways to enjoy healthy meals. The truth is, the average person might look at something like a salad and think that it’s a healthy option for a diabetic given the low sugar content, yet many times we turn around and throw a sugar laden dressing on top of that salad, which entirely compromises our well-intentioned effort. Below is a short list of salads which can be good for a diabetic diet. If you are adventurous and want to try an interesting fruit which can help treat diabetes, check out bitter melon. Research has shown some very promising things with this plant. 1. Spinach With Garlic Vinaigrette Ingredients: | 0 |
Russia will almost certainly be barred from this summer’s track and field world championships, global officials for the sport said Monday, citing the nation’s response to its doping scandal, which they called inadequate. The officials met in Monaco on Monday and voted unanimously to maintain the ban on Russian athletes, outlining a timetable under which the nation would not be cleared to compete until November. Until then, individual Russian athletes with robust histories of drug testing may petition to compete as neutral athletes, unassociated with any country, in the world championships, which will take place in August in London, as well as other global events. Officials agreed to exempt Russia’s youngest athletes from the blanket ban, allowing for those under 15 to compete as neutral individuals without filing a special application. Citing a number of issues — including ”unhelpful comments” by Russia’s deputy prime minister, Vitaly Mutko limited and problematic drug testing within the country and evidence that an implicated coach had continued to train athletes in spite of having been suspended — Rune Andersen, the chairman of a global task force overseeing Russia’s reform, said the nation had not yet met the conditions for reinstatement. Among those conditions is that Russia’s national antidoping agency be fully recertified by the World Agency, the global regulator of drugs in sports. That agency has suggested it may grant Russia partial certification in May, track officials said Monday, and full certification in November. Only after that point, Mr. Andersen said, would track and field authorities consider restoring Russia to good standing. “The criteria were very clear,” said Sebastian Coe, president of the International Association of Athletics Federations, track and field’s global governing body. “They were unambiguous. They were not suffused in politics. ” Mr. Coe and Mr. Andersen said there had been some progress in Russia in recent months, including the election of a new president of Russian track and field, Dmitry Shlyakhtin. They said they had been reassured that Russia would cooperate with France’s continuing criminal investigation, which focuses on bribery and corruption in global track and field, and that the Russian government would provide financial support to national antidoping operations without interfering in them. Mr. Mutko, Russia’s deputy prime minister and former sports minister, has acknowledged broad problems with doping but denied a system of cheating. Since his promotion by President Vladimir V. Putin last fall, Mr. Mutko has grown increasingly defiant in responding to the mountain of evidence that Russia has systematically doped with government assistance, most notably at the 2014 Sochi Olympics — where Russia’s longtime national antidoping lab chief, Grigory Rodchenkov, said he substituted urine with clean urine. In December, after WADA laid bare the results of a investigation, Mr. Mutko went so far as to say that female Russian hockey players who competed at the Sochi Games had been found to have male D. N. A. in their urine samples because they had had sex. Scientific experts dismissed that explanation as impossible, calling it clear evidence of sample tampering. Another condition of Russia’s reinstatement highlighted on Monday in Monaco was that the nation’s leadership accept, or credibly rebut, the extensive evidence of cheating, including the involvement of the sports ministry and Russia’s federal security service, or F. S. B. “The question of apologies is one that we have raised every time we have been to Moscow,” Mr. Andersen said Monday. “In general, I wouldn’t pinpoint any specific person that needs to say apologies,” he said. “But we expect that the Russian community is acknowledging that they have a problem, because only when you acknowledge you have a problem can you do something about it. ” In December, several Russian sports officials told The New York Times they were no longer disputing the cheating schemes that had been uncovered, though they insisted top government officials had no part in them. “Of course it was an institutional conspiracy, but not ” said Anna Antseliovich, the acting director general of Russia’s national antidoping agency. While Russia remains barred, 35 Russian athletes have so far petitioned to participate in global competitions in 2017, track officials said Monday. They include Yuliya Stepanova, a runner and who helped ignite the Russian doping scandal and who is living in hiding in the United States. Ms. Stepanova ran as a neutral athlete in a global indoor competition in Boston late last month. “There have been some subtle shifts, and I think there is a recognition that this clearly has been a very disfiguring episode in Russian sport,” Mr. Coe said. “I’m encouraged, but I’m not cavalier about the amount of work that there still remains to be done. ” Also on Monday, Mr. Coe announced a freeze on nationality transfers, seeking to protect athletes — especially those from Africa, he said — from changes in allegiance before a new set of rules was in place. “What we have is a wholesale market for African talent open to the highest bidder,” Hamad Kalkaba Malboum, a track and field official representing Africa, said Monday. “Our present rules are being manipulated to the detriment of athletics’ credibility. ” | 1 |
The House Intelligence Committee issued seven subpoenas on Wednesday in its ongoing investigation of Russian interference in the presidential elections, including one related to Susan Rice’s role in unmasking Trump campaign officials, according to a report. [The committee issued four subpoenas related to the Russian interference and three related to questions about how and why the names of Trump associates had their identities revealed during surveillance of foreign targets and then distributed within classified reports by the Obama administration during the transition, the Wall Street Journal reported. Identities of U. S. citizens are supposed to be minimized, or hidden, during the surveillance, unless “unmasked” by senior intelligence or administration officials. Unnamed officials later would begin leaking to the media private conversations held by or about former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, Carter Page, and recently, Jared Kushner. Regarding the unmaskings, the subpoenas have gone to the National Security Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Central Intelligence Agency. Those subpoenas seek information on requests made by Rice, former CIA Director John Brennan, and former United Nations Ambassador Samantha Power. The committee issued a statement saying subpoenas related to Russian interference were for Flynn and the Flynn Intel Group LLC, and Trump’s lawyer, Michael Cohen and Michael D. Cohen Associates PC. “As part of our ongoing investigation into Russian active measures during the 2016 campaign, today we approved subpoenas for several individuals for testimony, personal documents and business records,” said Reps. Mike Conaway ( ) and Adam Schiff ( ) who are leading the Russia investigation. “We hope and expect that anyone called to testify or provide documents will comply with that request, so that we may gain all the information within the scope of our investigation. We will continue to pursue this investigation wherever the facts may lead. ” Rep. Devin Nunes ( ) chairman of the committee, is leading the probe into unmasking. | 1 |
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Famous techno musician Moby tore into Republican nominee Donald Trump today in an op-ed published in RollingStone magazine, tearing into the racist rabble-rouser with unrepentant fury. “I’m tired of being a mealy-mouthed, NPR-listening lefty who has to respect other people’s opinions” writes Moby. “Trump is an actual sociopath.”
Distraught at the unrelenting vitriol being hurled at Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, Moby disparages the naivete with which he feels many voters are approaching the election.
If you have a 25-year-old who’s a Jill Stein supporter but they were nine when Ralph Nader handed the presidency to George W. Bush, they don’t know better. There are a lot of people who have lived in a relatively benign bubble, like young women who just assume that Roe v. Wade will always be the law of the land. I think that there’s an innocence that is informing a lot of people’s desire not to vote, or to vote for Jill Stein, but it’s because they’ve had eight years of Obama. And I think that that innocence is making some of them naive and delusional.
He then goes on to detail just why a Donald Trump presidency is enough of a threat for him to be so undiplomatic in his approach.
I think there is something seriously broken inside him where he’s an actual sociopath and on the spectrum pretty close to being a psychopath. He’s done nothing to indicate that he’s even capable of feeling empathy [for anyone] except for himself.
[A Trump presidency would be] death by 1,000 Republican cuts. It basically gives the NRA the ability to write gun policy. It gives the coal industry and the oil industry the ability to write energy policy. It’s handing the keys to people who want to advance policy measures that are just — again, I try and be diplomatic, but they’re trying to advance policy measures to protect their corporate interests or protect their personal interests but to the egregious detriment of our country.
With Trump, you get a belligerent racist who’s most likely a sociopath [and] definitely a racist and misogynist with no governing experience. And with Hillary, you get an incredibly bright, progressive, strong, experienced legislator. There’s no choice unless you’re ignorant, delusional or racist.
He’s absolutely right on that point. While the “death by 1,000 Republican cuts” is the threat posed by any Republican candidate for the Presidency, the figure of Donald Trump is a threat to our Republic as we know it, and there can be only one choice.
I’ve given more money to Democrats this cycle than I’ve ever given in an election season. I’ve done phone-banking, tweeted, Facebooked and Instagrammed, probably to my own personal detriment — the detriment of my friendships [and] certainly the detriment of my professional life – but honestly, the results of this election are more important than most. I’d rather lose fans and have a hand in trying to keep Donald Trump out of the White House than trying to protect a career. A career pales in comparison to the health and wellbeing of our country and our planet.
What I learned a long time ago is if you’re a public figure and you’re opinionated and outspoken, people will hate you for it — even if they agree with what you’re saying. But it’s really nice: I’ve been doing this for a long time and at this point I just don’t care. What’s someone gonna do — not buy my records? It’s 2016, no one buys records anyway. | 0 |
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Hypothesis: There are Major Bombings that have been printed on the U.S. Currency many years BEFORE the events actually happened.
There is a common denominator between all the images and how they were spiritually discerned by what was recorded in the prophets of Isaiah spoken 2,700 years ago.
There are multiple layers of ink and watermarks printed on the bills when magnify appear to produce animations. Tags | 0 |
Four Iranian boats made a approach at the destroyer USS Mahan on Sunday, obliging the Navy vessel to fire warning shots after they ignored radio requests to break off. [USNI News reports the Iranian boats came within 900 yards of the Mahan, which was escorting two U. S. ships through the Strait of Hormuz, the amphibious assault ship USS Makin Island and a fleet oiler. The Iranian group consisted of four fast inshore attack craft, approaching at a high rate of speed with their weapons manned, according to a U. S. official. “After several attempts to warn off the boats with radio communications, siren and the ship’s whistle the boats came within 900 yards of the guided missile destroyer before the crew fired three warning shots from one of the ships . 50 caliber,” USNI News writes. “A helicopter from Makin Island also deployed a smoke screen generator, a “smoke float” that did not deter the IRGCN boats. ” The UK Guardian clarifies that radio communication with the Iranians was established, but they ignored requests to slow down and “continued asking the Mahan questions. ” The U. S. Navy described the Iranians’ behavior as “unsafe and unprofessional. ” The U. S. official quoted by the Guardian said the Mahan had a total of seven “interactions” with vessels from Iran over the weekend, but the other six were “judged to be safe. ” As with several previous tense encounters, the boats were under the command of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy (IRGCN) which is separate from the Iranian Navy, reports directly to the theocratic government, and is given great discretion to “boldly and courageously” defend the Iranian coastline. | 1 |
The New York City Health Department shut down a in Midtown Wednesday due to a permitting issue, and New Yorkers were outraged at the decision. [It is unclear exactly when the Health Department shut down but management said the restaurant would Thursday, the New York Post reported. “Sorry, we are closed due to permitting issues,” ’s notice stated. “Thank you for understanding. ” “Screenshot this shit,” one person outside the fast food joint said, pointing to the notices. “What the fuck? !” a passerby who attempted to enter the location at 46th Street and Sixth Avenue yelled, only to be stopped by signs saying it was closed. “I’m dying!” screamed Philip M. 31, of Chelsea. ‘”What am I going to do?! I am really upset … I love the chicken sandwich. ” “It’s disheartening … I was going to try it for the first time here today … They are going to have to do something important to gain my confidence back to eat their chicken,” said Rick M. 45, of Manhattan. City officials told the Post that the 46th street establishment had been operating with a denied permit after they submitted an incomplete application. They said restaurant management took care of the problem Wednesday. A spokesman for said the “paperwork issue” was being resolved “ASAP. ” | 1 |
DALLAS — President Obama said on Tuesday that the nation mourned with Dallas for five police officers gunned down by a black Army veteran, but he implored Americans not to give in to despair or the fear that “the center might not hold. ” “I’m here to insist that we are not as divided as we seem,” Mr. Obama said at a memorial service for the officers in Dallas, where he quoted Scripture, alluded to Yeats and at times expressed a sense of powerlessness to stop the racial violence that has marked his presidency. But Mr. Obama also spoke hard truths to both sides. Addressing a crowd of 2, 000 at a concert hall, the president chided the police for not understanding what he called the legitimate grievances of who he said were victims of systemic racial bias. “We cannot simply turn away and dismiss those in peaceful protest as troublemakers or paranoid,” Mr. Obama said to applause. “We can’t simply dismiss it as a symptom of political correctness or reverse racism. To have your experience denied like that, dismissed by those in authority, dismissed perhaps even by your white friends and and fellow church members again and again and again — it hurts. ” But the president also turned to the protesters of the Black Lives Matter movement and said they were too quick to condemn the police. “Protesters, you know it,” Mr. Obama said. “You know how dangerous some of the communities where these police officers serve are, and you pretend as if there’s no context. These things we know to be true. ” It was the poignant speech of a man near the end of his patience about a scourge of violence that he said his own words had not been enough to stop. Mr. Obama spoke after a week in which the police killed two black men, in Minnesota and Louisiana, and Micah Johnson, the Army veteran, killed the five officers in Dallas. “I’ve spoken at too many memorials during the course of this presidency,” Mr. Obama said. “I’ve hugged too many families. I’ve seen how inadequate words can be in bringing about lasting change. I’ve seen how inadequate my own words have been. ” He acknowledged that the Dallas killings — “an act not just of demented violence but of racial hatred” — had exposed a “fault line” in American democracy. He said he understood if Americans questioned whether the racial divide would ever be bridged. “It’s as if the deepest fault lines of our democracy have suddenly been exposed, perhaps even widened,” Mr. Obama said. “And although we know that such divisions are not new, though they have surely been worse in even the recent past, that offers us little comfort. ” Americans, he said, “can turn on the TV or surf the internet, and we can watch positions harden and lines drawn, and people retreat to their respective corners, and politicians calculate how to grab attention or avoid the fallout. We see all this, and it’s hard not to think sometimes that the center won’t hold and that things might get worse. ” But Mr. Obama insisted on holding out hope. “Dallas, I’m here to say we must reject such despair,” Mr. Obama said, adding that he knew that because of “what I’ve experienced in my own life, what I’ve seen of this country and its people — their goodness and decency — as president of the United States. ” He cited both the Dallas police and protesters as part of that decency. “When the bullets started flying, the men and women of the Dallas police, they did not flinch and they did not react recklessly,” Mr. Obama said. “They showed incredible restraint. Helped in some cases by protesters, they evacuated the injured, isolated the shooter and saved more lives than we will ever know. We mourn fewer people today because of your brave actions. ‘Everyone was helping each other,’ one witness said. ‘It wasn’t about black or white. Everyone was picking each other up and moving them away. ’” Mr. Obama concluded: “See, that’s the America I know. ” A row of police officers behind Mr. Obama in the concert hall did not clap when Mr. Obama spoke of racial bias in the criminal justice system, saying that “when all this takes place more than 50 years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act, we cannot simply turn away and dismiss those in peaceful protest as troublemakers or paranoid. ” But when Mr. Obama added, “We ask the police to do too much, and we ask too little of ourselves,” the officers behind him applauded. Law enforcement officials who attended the service broadly welcomed Mr. Obama’s remarks. “To me, this is one of his best speeches I’ve ever heard,” said Chief Warren Asmus of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, who saw the speech as a milestone in the acrimonious national debate about policing and race. “He started to build that bridge that I think hasn’t been built for a long time,” Mr. Asmus said. “From what I heard today, I see it as a turning point. ” But Chief Terrence M. Cunningham of the Wellesley, Mass. police said that while he liked much of Mr. Obama’s speech, he was concerned about the president’s discussion of the shootings by the police in Louisiana and Minnesota, which remain under investigation. “It’s almost like he’s put his thumb on the scale a little bit,” he said. “Let’s let the facts come in. ” Some protesters responded positively to Mr. Obama’s remarks. “I liked his speech,” said Dominique Alexander, the founder of Next Generation Action Network, an activist group in Dallas that organized the protest the night of the shooting. The president, he said, “did a good job” in a situation where “both sides are mourning, both sides are hurting. ” Many conservatives were angry about a reference Mr. Obama made in his remarks to gun control, when he said that “we flood communities with so many guns that it is easier for a teenager to buy a Glock than get his hands on a computer or even a book. ” Three others spoke at the memorial, including former President George W. Bush, a Dallas resident who said his city was not prepared for the evil visited upon it on Thursday, nor could it have been. “Today the nation grieves, but those of us who love Dallas and call it home have had five deaths in the family,” Mr. Bush said. He said the forces pulling the country apart sometimes seemed greater than the ones bringing it together. “Too often we judge other groups by their worst examples while judging ourselves by our best intentions,” Mr. Bush said to applause. “And this has strained our bonds of understanding and common purpose. ” The memorial was held in the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center, a cavernous concert hall with a massive organ dominating the back of the stage. Nearly all of the auditorium’s seats were filled, many with men and women wearing blue police uniforms from places like Massachusetts and South Carolina, and from towns throughout Texas, like League City, Huntsville, Robinson and La Marque. They walked into the hall under a giant American flag strung from fire trucks. On one side of the stage, five seats sat empty except for uniform hats and folded American flags to memorialize the five dead. | 1 |
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Over the last decades, South Korea has emerged as one of the wealthiest countries in all of Asia. Currently the OECD country is roughly on the same material and economic level as other affluent East Asian nations such as Japan, Hong Kong and Taiwan. However, it appears now as perhaps the most potentially strong among them. South Korea seems more dynamic and willful than its larger neighbor and economic main rival, Japan, which perhaps has entered the path of a more long-term decline.
In this article I do briefly describe the main characteristics of contemporary South Korea, and also reflect upon various cultural sub-topics which are of importance for any male who is interested in to obtain more sophisticated knowledge about non-Western cultures and what they might and might not offer.
The emergence of modern South Korea Culturally, politically, technologically and economically, South Korean development during the 20th century onward cannot be understood without to mention the strong ties to Japan and the United States. As much as Japan suppressed Korea between 1910-1945, the material progression is nevertheless a direct and indirect consequence of the traumatic colonial period. Korean leaders were also inspired by the Japanese military dictatorship (which in turn was influenced by European militarism). After South Korea—which was formed in 1945 after the divide of the country—stopped relying on American aid and focused on its own potential, the economy grew rapidly due to an effective export-oriented industrialization.
Democracy was gradually introduced in 1987 but some of these authoritarian residues are still visible in today’s society, the military in particular, but also with regard to how many companies are run.
Presently the economic-political relationships between South Korea and Japan remain flexible and pragmatic, for the sake of both countries. The ties to the US seems less problematic, although Koreans negotiate between on one hand a more distinguished Korean culture and on the other further Western influences.
Additional ambivalence might also be a result of that some Koreans regard American relations as a hinder in the process of a future reunification between the two Korean nations. Generally, though, the political, military and economic cooperation between South Korea and the US appears fruitful and to the benefit of both sides.
The Korean wave and the rising appeal of South Korea
For quite a long time, modern South Korea may be regarded as not much more than a smaller version of Japan, although with a unique language and some other differentiating characteristics. In post-millennial times, however, this picture has gradually shifted—both among other Asians, Westerners, and people in other continents too—towards a more appealing national image.
The reason for this is mainly material, related to a refined development of technology (Samsung), pop music (K-pop), TV dramas (K-drama), cosmetic products (K-beauty), and perhaps also a more exciting metropolitan nightlife and a better ranked top university (Seoul National University). The Korean wave, Hallyu, covers a whole plethora of different expressions of the rising popularity of South Korean products and celebrities and it has had spill-over effects for other sectors such as academia and tourism. For instance, more people are interested in learning Korean than 10 or 20 years ago.
The nightlife in the capital, Seoul, is unhesitatingly of very high standard. For instance, this year Dj Mag ranks Club Octagon in Gangnam as the fifth best night club in the entire world . In the city regions Gangnam, Hongdae and Itaewon in particular, both foreigners and locals can easily find bars and clubs of various sizes that offer high-quality entertainment and which conform to a relatively broad spectrum of tastes in music and dress style.
Cultural characteristics Contempory South Korean culture can be described as a hybrid of Korean, East Asian and Western culture. As I have stated above, South Korea has been influenced by Japan and the US in particular to a significant extent. This means that the similar, real or quasi-hierarchical structures as in for instance China and Japan are visible in South Korea too. One is expected to speak and behave in different ways, depending on a person’s age or social rank (which are more or less explicitly stated).
This does largely overlap a meritocratic social structure, rather than status being a primarily inherited factor. A doctor is looked upon as socially more valuable than a regular office worker, regardless of family background. It is thus not much left of the old Confucian system.
The Korean language—even though about 60% of the words are based on Chinese words, and its grammar being partly similar to Japanese—is unique with all its different suffixes that in turn conform to different speech and writing levels. These can be more or less formal, plain and polite but are always related to the social relations and contexts of either speaking or writing. People who know each other well tend to use an intimate speech style (Hae-che), but in some contexts, such as the workplace, they might change to a more formal and polite level (Haeyo-che) when they walk to other people. Many who learn Korean at a beginner’s level start with Haeyo-che and then gradually broaden the scope to include other levels of speaking and writing.
Apart from the Korean language, a foreigner may find many things in South Korea that are either similar to places such as Japan and Hong Kong, or to the Western world. South Korea, especially Seoul, is largely the product of globalization and as a wealthy country this goes along with high standards of infrastructure and general quality of life. As a high-tech nation it appears as being in the forefront of material development, often outshining its Western counterparts, at least in some ways.
The present culture, especially the more youth-oriented culture, is safe and relaxed. Only slight modifications in dress and behavior (towards more politeness and moderation) makes any Westerner fit in well, at least short term-wise, and to only speak English is seldom a real obstacle.
If a person digs deeper into Korean history and culture—and geographically move outside the Seoul metropolitan area—one may find many differentiating and even somewhat unique characteristics (although these do often have China as its root or point of departure), but apart from Buddhism—which is separated rather than integrated into the larger society—these elements are seldom manifested in present time. There are obviously many real Buddhists and Christians in present South Korea, but the traditional layers of culture tend to be mere relics of the past. With that said, the country as a whole is overall more socially conservative than many Western counterparts.
Whether or not the trend towards increased westernization will continue remains an open question, but in terms of technology and popular culture it is unlikely that South Korea will look in other directions in the near future. After all, much of its present infrastructure and popular culture makes it into pretty much a local version of the Western-global society.
Lastly, two other things that have direct implications for any foreign person who reflects upon the option to stay longer in South Korea than as a tourist, temporary employee or exchange student, is that 1) the population is very homogeneous, and 2) it has no explicit will to change this fact.
This means that it is difficult, although not totally impossible, to obtain a citizenship if you are not of Korean descent. South Korea uses a type of partial jas sanguinis , citizenship by the blood. It is not very uncommon these days that Korean men get married to and have children with for instance Southeast Asian women, such as Filipinas, and South Korea is gradually shifting towards a more multi-ethnic society. However, compared to many Western countries the levels of ethnic and genetic heterogeneity are much, much smaller.
Due to the legal difficulties and cultural differences, especially language-wise, it is definitely not a smooth process to become naturalized as a Korean citizen or resident. Permanent and temporary living are generally two very different things and South Korea is yet another palpable manifestation of that.
Women in South Korea Phenotypically, South Korean women are similar to those of other East Asian populations. As a result of drastically improved nutrition, younger South Koreans are relatively tall, seemingly not much shorter on average than their Western counterparts. The levels of obesity are slightly rising but still very low compared to the US, Canada and even thinner European countries such as Italy and Sweden. Overall, Korean females—especially girls—can be characterized as moderately tall and slim.
Additionally, a significant share cares a lot about their appearances. Fashion, diet, hair style and make-up are all very important in everyday life, and although these things change rapidly due to new trends and seasonal shifts, many will ride along the same wave wherever it goes. Collectivism is quite striking in that respect, and sub-cultures are not as widespread and visible as in Japan. Many look about the same.
As with many phenomena in life, the extent to which a person likes or dislikes how a population generally appears is related to individual taste. With that said, I think that more objectively speaking the two main strengths of Korean girls and younger women are that they are relatively thin and well-groomed. They do everything they can to optimize their beauty potentials, sometimes even with the help of plastic surgery (which will make them look somewhat more European, which partly is an ideal among East Asian populations).
Additionally—even if this stems more from observations and anecdotes than general facts—they tend to be more polite and well-educated, in a positive sense, than Western females. This is something they also have in common with other well off Asians, such as Japanese, Taiwanese, and Singaporeans. In the more exciting locations of Seoul, one will find quite many pretty and decent Korean girls, and even though hook-up culture has for good and for bad penetrated the south of the Korean peninsula, a significant share of these females may be looked upon as serious girlfriend material.
Western guys do have a comparative advantage in terms of looks and even sometimes behavior (Korean guys tend to lack the cockiness of Westerners), but these automatic benefits should not be over-emphasized. Many of the things that girls are attracted to, such as confidence, extroversion and good looks are general, close to universal traits. If one is a loser in the West then one will probably be that in the East as well. Conversely, the more alpha males will magnify their results if they have the proper time and opportunity to do so.
Conclusion Overall South Korea is a rather impressive modern society that shares many of the good features with its equally rich neighbors. However, recently it has seemingly surpassed places like Japan and Hong Kong in terms of material development, nightlife and popular culture. For some Western males, between the ages of 20-35, South Korea might offer a valuable opportunity for temporary—ranging from weeks to even years— and circular migration. Because eventually it is most likely time to go home, regardless if one wishes it or not.
Read More: How To Get Laid In South Korea
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”All this does in energize [Trump’s] base,” @smerconish says of Meryl Streep’s Golden Globes speech. https: . Monday on CNN’s “New Day,” network weekend host Michael Smerconish reacted to remarks made by Hollywood actress Meryl Streep aimed at Donald Trump a night earlier at the Golden Globes awards ceremony. According to Smerconish, Streep’s effort won’t damage Trump and will instead “energize his base. ” “If she wanted to hurt him, the best thing she could do is praise him,” Smerconish said. “Because all this does is energize his base. Chris, I think he loves things like this with a Hollywood celebrity. And frankly, there will be more water cooler conversation today at the workplace as whether Meryl Streep really is an overrated actor than there will be on the Affordable Care Act replacement, Russian hack or the hearings that someone was just talking about, which have such great importance. So, the diversionary impact — whether it is deliberate or not, we can discuss — is very real. ” Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor | 1 |
Trisha Brown, the choreographer and exemplar of the founding generation of American postmodern dance, died on Saturday in San Antonio. She was 80. Barbara Dufty, the executive director of Ms. Brown’s dance company, confirmed the death. Ms. Brown had been treated for vascular dementia since 2011. Few dance inventors have so combined the cerebral and sensuous sides of dance as Ms. Brown did, and few have been as influential. Her choreography, showcased primarily in New York, helped shape generations of modern dance creators into the 21st century. [ Mikhail Baryshnikov, Laurie Anderson and other artists speak on working with Ms. Brown. ] In December 2012, it was announced that the two dances she had made the previous year would be her last. By that point, she had been an international figure for over 30 years, choreographing for the Paris Opera Ballet, collaborating with Mikhail Baryshnikov, and commissioning stage designs from Robert Rauschenberg and other eminent visual artists, including Donald Judd and Nancy Graves. In 1983, she won European as well as American acclaim for “Set and Reset. ” This intensely sensuous theater piece, with music by Laurie Anderson and designs by Rauschenberg, became the most beloved work ever made in postmodern dance. In the 1980s, her influence was cited by the American choreographers David Gordon, Mark Morris and Stephen Petronio and her work began to join the repertories of other dance companies. In 1988, the French government named Ms. Brown Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et Lettres. In January 2000 she was promoted to Officier and in 2004 to Commandeur. In 1991, she was named a MacArthur fellow, the first female choreographer to achieve this distinction. Patricia Ann Brown was born on Nov. 25, 1936, to the former Dorothy Louise Abel, an English teacher, and Martell W. Brown, a salesman. In later years she often spoke of her debt to the landscapes of the Pacific Northwest. In public conversation with the choreographer Merce Cunningham (also from Washington State) she once remarked, “The rain forest was my first art class. ” Ms. Brown graduated from Weatherwax High School in Aberdeen in 1954 and studied modern dance at Mills College, in Oakland, Calif. earning a degree in 1958. She taught dance at Reed College in Oregon for the next academic year and also studied at the American Dance Festival summer schools of 1958, 1959 and 1961, learning especially from Louis Horst, the veteran pedagogue of modern dance composition. Her next chief influences were the postmodern choreographer and teacher Robert Ellis Dunn and John Cage, the radical composer whose ideas on music and art opened up many possibilities. After moving to New York in 1961, she helped found the Judson Dance Theater group the next year. Like her colleagues Mr. Gordon, Steve Paxton and Yvonne Rainer, she made dances that eliminated bravura, academic technique, acting and musicality — the hallmarks of modern dance as it had been developed by Martha Graham and others, not to mention ballet. In 1970, Ms. Brown helped found another experimental collective, Grand Union, as well as her own troupe, the Trisha Brown Dance Company. In those years she worked, as a rule, in unconventional spaces and without music. The term “postmodern dance” was not coined until the late 1970s, and perhaps it can now be seen that Ms. Brown and others were leading dance at that time into the radical extremes of modernism. Cunningham, whom she greatly admired, had made dance independent from music and design she in turn helped to make it independent of technical rigor and, in the 1970s, to present it with no musical accompaniment. This was “democratic dance,” composed largely of movement that the average untrained dancer could do, albeit in new combinations. Some dances were performed barefoot, others in sneakers. Three historic works that Ms. Brown made in 1971 suggest much in their titles alone: “Walking on the Wall,” “Roof Piece” and “Accumulation. ” “Walking” had dancers suspended in harnesses moving sideways along walls “Roof” spread its dancers across 12 roofs on 10 SoHo blocks “Accumulation” was a formal study in graduated movement, with repeated phrases building in complexity — like sentences that each time added one word. The experimental dance of that era, embodied in those pieces, set itself up against virtuosity. Ms. Brown nonetheless now became a virtuoso of a new kind. In 1978 she took her “Accumulation” solo and embellished it, showing, in “Accumulation With Talking Plus Water Motor,” just how many things could be done simultaneously. She could coordinate several physical acts while talking, as if illustrating multiple trains of thought in action. Having earlier pared dance down to its basics, she was now rebuilding it in new ways, and it was then that she became a seminal figure of truly postmodern dance. A classic of hers from this era was “Opal Installation” (1980) among the purest of all works. A quartet in silence, it is its own music, the connections and reactions between the dancers making its harmonies marvelous. Here “the line of least resistance” became gorgeous: a fascinating chain sequence of hitches, ripples, shimmies, hops, knee bends. The style was often called “release technique,” and some accredited its invention to her. (In fact, release technique was devised by another native of Washington State, Joan Skinner.) Ms. Brown, a gently but memorably witty woman, simply described her own idiom as “the line of least resistance,” neatly evoking the rippling of impulses and ricochets that characterized much of her dance. By this time, Ms. Brown was already moving on, starting a different kind of dance theater. From 1979 she made a series of pieces that turned her purity into a new kind of theatricality, sometimes ravishing and generally novel, working with designers like Rauschenberg, and with sound scores and music by Ms. Anderson, Judd and others. (When asked why she had stopped choreographing in silence, she once replied, “I got fed up with listening to all the goddamn coughing. ”) Although the names of works from this era are uninviting — “Glacial Decoy” (1979) “Set and Reset” (1983) “Lateral Pass” (1985) “Newark” (1987) “Astral Convertible” (1989) “Foray Forêt” (1990) and “Astral Converted” (1991) — the works themselves excited lasting adoration. These remained creations, with ingeniously inventive choreography, but their music, costumes and décor made them potently theatrical: Each had a strong atmosphere in which visual effects and music made contributions. It was these pieces, notably “Set and Reset,” that brought her a new kind of worldwide prestige. By the late 1980s, she was having seasons in big theaters like City Center in New York and Sadler’s Wells in London and she became a darling of the French. She never quite abandoned this style, returning to it in 2011 for her final creation, “I’m going to toss my arms — if you catch them they’re yours,” which had designs by her husband, Burt Barr, and music by Alvin Curran. From the late 1980s on, Ms. Brown opened up her next phase: a new engagement with classical music. The composers Monteverdi, Bach, Rameau, Schubert and Bizet supplied her with the challenges she needed, and her responses were never conventional in musicality or theatricality. Her “M. O. ” (1995) was based on Bach’s “Musical Offering” in 2002, she staged Schubert’s “Winterreise” with the eminent baritone Simon Keenlyside (a superb mover). For decades, Ms. Brown was her own greatest dancer, creating many remarkable solos for herself. “If You Couldn’t See Me” (1994) memorably fused her cerebral and sensuous sides. The underpinning notion — a gimmick, you might say — was that her back remained turned to the audience throughout. The transcendent factor lay in her spine’s fluidity. When, in 1989, Mr. Baryshnikov turned from being a ballet specialist to a master investigator of American modern dance, Ms. Brown was a favorite collaborator. That solo in 1995 became a duet, “You Can See Us. ” As danced in 1996, this showed Mr. Baryshnikov facing front Ms. Brown still kept her back to the audience. From the 1930s on, a series of choreographers had made New York a haven for pure dance. Of those choreographers, Cunningham and Ms. Brown were among the brainiest. Devotees of difficulty, they never needed to court an audience. The news that her 2011 dances would be her last — she had made over 100 dances, many of which had been recorded on film and video — followed Cunningham’s death in 2009 and the closing of his company in December 2011. Plans for the limited afterlife of her company were announced in the ensuing months and years. In January 2016, the Brooklyn Academy of Music gave a season to the company’s final presentation of her “proscenium” theater pieces. Since 2015, “In Plain Site” seasons have been given in special locations, excerpting dances from her repertoire and asking audiences to walk around different rooms to observe the various dances (an entirely Brownian idea). In 2016, the art historian Susan Rosenberg published “Trisha Brown: Choreography as Visual Art” (Wesleyan University Press). Mr. Barr, Ms. Brown’s husband, died in November. She is survived by her son, Adam four grandchildren a brother, Gordon and a sister, Louisa Brown. Since the 1980s, Brown dances have often been performed by other companies. Her “Set and Reset” is usually included in the undergraduate curriculum for French dance students. The choreographer Mr. Petronio, a member of her dance company in the early 1980s, added her “Glacial Decoy” to his company’s repertoire in 2016. But Ms. Brown’s work is not easily codified, and its language may prove elusive to dancers from generations who did not know the casual body language of the last century. All dance legacies are fragile hers may prove especially so. Any of this pertinacity should continue to provoke debate. How great was even Ms. Brown’s greatest work? That motto of hers, “the line of least resistance,” has sometimes suggested her own limitations: Her work has often seemed to lack drama. Or did it rather extend our idea of drama? Much of Ms. Brown’s work created intensely kinesthetic currents. Audiences felt them even as they watched them. Dances in which nothing happened became dances in which much was eventful. | 1 |
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REMEMBER the dress debacle last year when billions of online users across the world were at war with one another over whether or not a dress was black and blue or white and gold? Well, prepare to engage in battle yet again folks with this viral picture that’s totes dividing the internets.
Uploaded to numerous social media channels yesterday morning, this picture of a Syrian man has gone viral after users struggled to figure out whether or not he was covered in white rubble from an airstrike – or if he was just all shiny and covered in some kind of silly oil.
“Once you see it, you just can’t see anything else,” posted one absolute genius, who pretty much summed up the whole picture with one epic tweet containing just 40 characters.
Whilst many internet players were quick to point out that the Aleppo man was shiny or covered in plastic, others corrected them by pointing out that the man was actually covered in concrete dust from an Assad led airstrike which launched an illegal barrel bomb that killed at least 15 people, many of whom were women and children.
“It’s crazy how your eyes deceive you like that,” pointed out another user of the internet web, “I’d say the guy didn’t know what hit him after his picture went viral”.
In fact, on closer inspection, it becomes obvious that the man is covered head to toe in chalk like material, probably from exploding concrete and falling rubble, as well as what appears to be ketchup on his forearm. Instagram user @reuters, who originally posted the snap, confirmed the red residue was in fact blood, sending the internet into yet another meltdown. | 0 |
WASHINGTON — It is a bitter but basic fact in health research: Black Americans die at higher rates than whites from most causes, including AIDS, heart disease, cancer and homicide. But a recent trove of federal data offered some good news. The suicide rate for black men declined from 1999 to 2014, making them the only racial group to experience a drop. Infant mortality is down by more than a fifth among blacks since the late 1990s, double the decline for whites. Births to teenage mothers, which tend to have higher infant mortality rates, have dropped by 64 percent among blacks since 1995, faster than for whites. Blacks are still at a major health disadvantage compared with whites. But evidence of black gains has been building and has helped push up the ultimate measure — life expectancy. The gap between blacks and whites was seven years in 1990. By 2014, the most recent year on record, it had shrunk to 3. 4 years, the smallest in history, with life expectancy at 75. 6 years for blacks and 79 years for whites. Part of the reason has been bad news for whites, namely the opioid crisis. The crisis, which has dominated headlines — some say unfairly, given racial disparities — has hit harder in white communities, bringing down white life expectancy and narrowing the gap. But there also has been real progress for blacks. The rate of deaths by homicide for blacks decreased by 40 percent from 1995 to 2013, according to Andrew Fenelon, a researcher with the National Center for Health Statistics, compared with a 28 percent drop for whites. The death rate from cancer fell by 29 percent for blacks over that period, compared with 20 percent for whites. “Blacks are catching up,” said Samuel Preston, a demographer at the University of Pennsylvania. “The gap is now the narrowest it has been since the beginning of the 20th century, and that’s really good news. ” The history of health for black Americans has been one of deep inequity. At the start of the 1900s, life expectancy for blacks was nearly 15 years less than for whites, according to federal data. This was partly because infant mortality was so much higher for blacks. But it was also because blacks, who were subjected to discrimination and segregation, faced worse living conditions and had almost no access to medical care. Well into the 1950s, cancer was known among researchers as a “white disease,” in part because fewer blacks lived long enough to die from it, said Keith Wailoo, author of “How Cancer Crossed the Color Line. ” Life expectancy for blacks improved in the 1970s as Medicare and Medicaid increased access to health care and helped integrate hospitals after the abolition of Jim Crow laws. Smoking had started to decline and new treatments for heart disease, including medications, drastically improved health for everyone. Then came a lost decade. From 1982 to about 1995, blacks’ progress in life expectancy stalled, dragged down by homicides, AIDS and fallout from the crack epidemic. Life expectancy in 1993 stood at 69. 2, down from 69. 4 in 1982. There were five years of outright declines during the period, unprecedented in modern times, said Sam Harper, an epidemiologist at McGill University. Since then, blacks have experienced health improvements on a number of fronts. One profound change has been the decline in violence over the past two decades. The cause is still a matter of intense debate. The decline came after the institution of contentious policies, but some researchers point out that similar declines happened in Canada, where no such policies were enacted. Homicides have decreased for everyone since the early 1990s, but have gone down faster for blacks. As a result, the gap in deaths from homicides fell by 40 percent from 1990 to 2010 in the largest metropolitan areas across the country, according to Michael Light, a sociologist at Purdue University. “The decline in violence is a major social fact that is really reshaping society and the lived experience of kids growing up — particularly blacks,” said Robert J. Sampson, a sociology professor at Harvard University who has been studying youth in Chicago since the 1990s. “There are all kinds of negative consequences that flow from violence, in emotional responses, cognitive development, and links to future violent behavior,” Dr. Sampson continued. “This change has provided an advantage that wasn’t expected. It’s almost like a reset of the expectations and experience of urban life. ” But he noted that the improvement has been complicated by the explosive rise in incarceration rates, which has taken a heavy toll on black families. Dr. Harper, who has written extensively on the racial mortality gap, said it was difficult to tell whether any of the improvements were because of specific policies aimed at lifting blacks’ health. But he said the gains were clear. And while for some causes, like AIDS, the percentage drop in the death rate may have been similar for blacks and whites, Dr. Harper said, the absolute decline in the number of deaths per 100, 000 was larger for blacks over the past 15 years, because they had started at far higher rates. (The decline in black deaths from AIDS accounted for about a fifth of the narrowing of the mortality gap with whites from 1995 to 2013, Dr. Fenelon said.) “There has been true progress for blacks,” Dr. Harper said. Dr. Otis W. Brawley, the chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society, said faster declines in cancer mortality for blacks were driven largely by substantial drops in deaths from lung cancer. Smoking has declined faster for blacks than whites, and in most of the past 15 years, blacks have had lower smoking rates than whites. “I think it’s something to be celebrated. It’s a very good thing,” Dr. Brawley said. “But we need to be very cautious,” he added, pointing out that over all, black death rates from cancer were still higher than those of whites, and that for some cancers, like colon, a disparity has sprung up since the 1980s, possibly a result of screenings and new treatments that were less accessible to blacks. David R. Williams, a professor of studies and public health at Harvard, cautioned that the country still has a long way to go to address the health disadvantages of blacks. He said the excess in premature deaths among blacks is the equivalent of a jumbo jet crashing every day. “We have had this peculiar indifference to this unprecedented loss of black lives on a massive scale for a very long time,” he said, in a reference to W. E. B. DuBois. “That to me is the big story. ” He added: “When something happens to whites, it’s news and it’s a crisis that we have to attend to. ” Researchers do not fully understand why drug overdoses have hit whites harder than blacks. (Dr. Fenelon said white rates overtook those of blacks in 2003.) But it is clear that the difference is helping to close the divide. Dr. Harper calculated that faster increases in white overdose deaths accounted for about 15 percent of the narrowing of the gap in life expectancy for men from 2003 to 2008. Whatever the case, the national can leave a bad taste. Indiana State Representative Charlie Brown, who represents Gary, a city, said it took a surge in infections in mostly white counties last year for his state to approve a program. “We’ve had this issue all along about people coming up with H. I. V. and hepatitis C because of needles, and it has not been a concern,” Mr. Brown said. “But now it’s a problem in the white communities, and it becomes almost a hysteria. ” | 1 |
Idols of Intellectual Perversity: How Ideology Corrupts the Minds of Smart People ‹ › GPD is our General Posting Department whereby we share posts from other sources along with general information with our readers. It is managed by our Editorial Board Russian battle group reaches Mediterranean after ‘causing stir’ in the West (VIDEO) By GPD on November 1, 2016 The nuclear-powered heavy cruiser Peter the Great. © Dover-Marina.com / Sputnik A Russian naval group, headed by the Admiral Kuznetsov aircraft carrier and the battle cruiser Peter the Great, has made its way into the Mediterranean, causing quite a stir in the West, the Russian Defense Ministry said.
Moscow has been surprised by the countries that have denied Russia’s warships entry to their ports, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said, adding that ‘Western colleagues’ need to decide who they are actually fight against – terrorists or Russia.
“The movement of our ships has caused a stir among our Western partners, ” Shoigu said on Tuesday.
“ But the most surprising thing was the position of certain countries that, under pressure from the US and NATO, have publicly refused our warships entry to their ports. ”
“It did not affect the schedule of their movement along the chosen route, as they had been provided with all the necessary resources,” he added.
The defense minister noted that the decisions of some countries to deny Russian ships entry to Western ports has demonstrated how, in fact, “ our partners understand their contribution to the fight against international terrorism in Syria.”
“It is time for our Western colleagues to decide who they are actually fighting – terrorists or Russia. As one poet once said, ‘one cannot sit on one and the same place on different trains,’” Shoigu added.
The Ministry of Defense has released a sneak peak video, showing raw images of Russia’s ship-borne air strike force and warships, headed by the Admiral Kuznetsov aircraft carrier, but it is unclear when exactly the footage was shot.
A war of words was unleashed in late October when the Spanish media reported that the Russian naval ships would be making a stopover at the autonomous port of Ceuta after passing the Straits of Gibraltar.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg made it crystal clear that the bloc wanted Madrid to rethink the stopover permit. “ We are concerned and I have expressed that very clearly about potential use of this battle group to increase Russia’s ability and to be a platform for airstrikes against Syria ,” he said at that time. Russia withdraws request for carrier battle group to refuel in Spain amid NATO pressure on Madrid
Belgium’s former prime minister and current EU envoy to the UK for Brexit talks, Guy Verhofstadt, said in a Facebook post that, despite being a NATO member, Spain “provides assistance to a fleet which has one purpose, ” noting that “ only last week this Spanish Government signed up to a statement from the European Council accusing Russia of war crimes against civilians in Aleppo.”
Reneging on a previous agreement with Moscow, the Spanish Foreign Ministry reacted by issuing a statement declaring that Madrid could refuse permission to the Russian warships, which were heading for the Mediterranean to enter Ceuta, a Spanish enclave on the North African coast.
While the Western media reported that Russia had withdrawn its request for a stopover, the Russian Defense Ministry said such a stop had never been on the schedule in the first place.
“The Russian aircraft carrier group is fully supplied with sufficient material stocks to carry out its mission in the off-shore maritime zone in autonomous mode,” said ministry spokesman Major-General Igor Konashenkov.
Soon thereafter, Malta was forced to make a statement refuting media reports that the carrier group would be refueling at one of its ports.
The Russian warships, including the Admiral Kuznetsov, the Pyotr Veliky battle cruiser, and the Severomorsk and Vice-Admiral Kulakov anti-submarine warfare destroyers, were sent to the Mediterranean on October 15.
“The goal of the campaign is to ensure a naval presence in operationally important areas of the oceans,” Russia’s Defense Ministry said in a statement.
READ MORE: Battle Stations! Putin’s fearsome fleet locked, loaded & ready for war with Britain… or not
The Admiral Kuznetsov carrier group’s tour has caused a media frenzy across Europe, with British, Norwegian, and Dutch navies sending frigates and surveillance vessels to shadow the Russian warships as they rounded European shores through international waters.
Shoigu said on Tuesday that the Russian naval group had arrived in the Mediterranean Sea from the Atlantic Ocean, according to TASS news agency.
“Last week, our ship-borne air strike force, led by the missile cruiser Pyotr Veliky, made a passage through the eastern Atlantic into the Mediterranean Sea. On October 27-29, support vessels replenished the naval group with all kinds of supplies to the required level, ” Shoigu said. Related Posts: No Related Posts The views expressed herein are the views of the author exclusively and not necessarily the views of VT, VT authors, affiliates, advertisers, sponsors, partners, technicians, or the Veterans Today Network and its assigns. LEGAL NOTICE - COMMENT POLICY Posted by GPD on November 1, 2016, With 63 Reads Filed under Military . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 . You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed. FaceBook Comments
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He has got to go after him , he is the one causing al the trouble around the worl and is 100% proof that what Trump says about crooked and corruption is true . Conflict of interest ?? You bet it is funded by the state dept to run riot causing huge cost to USA with as Trump says ,wars they dont need amd shouldnt be involved in and making profit along the way . Have a look at his funding to all these non profits on the Gov site , its an outrage he is involved with the Voting machines . Soros Criminal Conviction Exposes "Human Rights" Scam Soros leverages "human rights" for personal gain - as does his global NGO empire. http://landdestroyer.blogspot.com.au/2012/03/surpise-soros-is-convicted-criminal.html | 0 |
By Gilbert Mercier } NEWS JUNKIE POST
I f humans were largely moral and ethical beings, then globalization could be a workable proposition. Unfortunately, the dark behavioral narcissism expressed by compulsive greed and an infinite appetite for power seems to have become the guiding precept of our collective nightmare. If only the desire to dominate others and have a lot more than them were not the prime motivations for the global elite on top of the human food chain, we could all have our respective modest slice of happiness on this planet. The Utopia of globalization through institutions such as the United Nations (UN), World Bank , and International Monetary Fund (IMF) was supposed to eradicate the universal pestilence of war, extreme poverty , hunger and slavery using the might of the above supranational institutions to prevent the rise of so-called rogue nations usually ruled by dictators.
World order of chaos with misery for profit T he opportunity of this push for a supranational form of government has to be understood in the psychological context of a world traumatized by World War II. Many public servants, who had fought against the Nazis and their Japanese and Italian allies, had genuinely the best intentions at heart when institutions like the UN were set up. If some of the original ideas were good and moral to some extend, a rot almost immediately contaminated and perverted most of the created institutions and quickly — using the pretext of the Cold War — allowed the birth of a monstrosity such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization ( NATO ). The globalists have controlled and ultimately Wall Street has financed, supranational government instances such as the UN, IMF, World Bank and a myriad of non-governmental organization (NGO) little helpers. Not only have these done nothing to curtail the man-made disasters of war, climate change , slavery and poverty, but they have exacerbated them, all for the sake of profit. I n this Orwellian time of moral decay, human misery is good for business. In a globalization controlled by Wall Street’s puppeteer sociopaths, who believe they are the masters of the universe, ordinary people everywhere have become canon fodder and slave labor. They are not even collateral damage but human lubricant, as viewed by the elite. One can see that if they are not stopped immediately, trade agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and its Trans-Atlantic counterpart could seal the deal of the establishment of an atrocious world government, controlled by a few thousands, in complete disregard of not only national interest, but also cultural diversity. Look what happened to Detroit, Michigan, and countless other manufacturing towns in the United States that are all collateral damage of Bill Clinton’s North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The massive trade agreements in the works, to be put in place by the globalists if they remain in power, are intended to annihilate any form of economic or political independence from the signatory countries and to scatter their populations to the wind, as in the case in the globalist-controlled demolition of the Middle East in Iraq, Libya and Syria. Displaced and disenfranchised populations are beaten into submission and used as docile worker bees. Drastic action or hell on earth If we let the globalists complete their worldwide coup already in progress, then all sovereignty would be lost, and most of the world’s population would become slave-wage laborers at the mercy of the global corporate empire. Countries with a diversified agriculture would be turned into one-crop wastelands to ensure that most of the food supply has to be imported. Pseudo local governments would merely officiate as the slave drivers for the global elite. This must be stopped at all cost and undone by all means necessary. If we allow this final coup by the geriatric psychopaths at the top of the current world order, thousands of years of our rich human experience would be wiped out. Like poorly made cheap electronic products, the cultural garbage of the lowest common denominator empire would flood the world. This cultural homogenization would affect primarily the information available to people. Since dissent is impossible without correct information and critical thought, the globalists want their propaganda to become the only source of information. With the UN, World Bank and IMF, the political and economic framework financed by a worldwide network of banksters is already in place. Influential nations, on paper, like France and the United Kingdom, which are still officially full-fledged members of the UN Security Council, have de facto abdicated their sovereignty to become vassals and secondary enforcers of the globalist plan. We are at the edge of an existential threat of greater magnitude than ever before in human history. George Soros, Chairman Soros Fund Management answers a question during the IMF Seminar: Charting a New Growth Path for the Euro Zone on September 24, 2011 at the IMF Headquarters in Washington, DC. during the 2011 World Bank/IMF Annual Meetings. The IMF/World Bank Meetings are being held in Washington, DC this week which will host Finance Ministers and Bank Governors from 187 countries. IMF Staff Photographer/Michael Spilotro
The semantics of deception M achiavelli is known for his cynical view of political power; however, the advice the author of The Prince gave to the powerful of his time seems innocent by comparison to the depravity of today’s puppet masters. Words and ideas are gutted of their meaning to signify, most of the time, the exact opposite. For example, globalist eminence grise George Soros’ Open Society Foundation is an opaque giant NGO, with more than 100 offshoots worldwide by its own admission, but its tentacles are in reality more far reaching. The recent publications of Wikileaks in the voluminous Podesta email files have been a revelation of the extent of deception victimizing United States citizens. John Podesta may be viewed as a Soros right-hand man in the US in charge of delivering the returns for the globalist’s investments in the US elections. The connection between the two men is not only obvious but also official considering that Soros financed Podesta’s so-called Center for American Progress, the fake left equivalent of the neocon think tanks. The term progress is a lure that signifies power, just like Soros’ open society is, in reality, an exclusive club as tight as oysters reserved only for Soros’ chosen associates to savor. What is apparent from the email treasure trove is that Podesta’s job is really to supervise Hillary Clinton on behalf of Soros. In this context, the expression, leader of the free world, to describe the US president becomes a lie. The current world order of the globalists is anything but free, and one applicant for the job, Hillary Clinton, is not a queen on the chessboard, but a pawn.
Axis of resistance: Russia, China and Iran and lessons from Haiti’s revolution Aung Stoong, 53, harvests grass to feed the cows and buffalo. Aung Stoong, 53, binds grass into 180k.g. bales in rural Myanmar. All the animal fodder is cut by hand and Aung Stoong harvests up to 800 k.g. of grass by hand each day. O ne could ask: isn’t this psychopathic globalist coup of financiers well on its way? Isn’t it a done deal, and how can we resist and salvage anything? The examples of Russia, China and Iran prove that, as national entities, we still can. Germany, Japan and South Korea could reclaim their independence and kick out their US occupation. France and the UK could stop being submissive nations and get out of NATO. That would be a start. The path of war rhetoric expressed by the globalist mouthpieces of the West against Russia, Iran and, to a lesser extent, China has to do with the national resistance of these three countries. The citizenry of Europe and North America should understand, that if such unprecedented conflicts occur, all countries will be on the front line, and there is more than enough fire power on each side to ensure massive destruction and no winning side. Russia, China and Iran are the last national obstacles to the globalist coup, and perhaps we are heading back to a bipolar two-block world order similar to the Cold War era. Other options, including the dismantlement, or at least the curtailment, of supranational organizations such as the UN, World Bank and IMF would surely be the side effects of what appears to be in many countries a revival of nationalism. The final plan of the globalists would be atrocious for all of us. Waving the white flag is not an option. At this critical time of our history, and before our collective enslavement, we should all emulate the brave Haitian slaves who beat not one, but three empires 212 years ago. Haitians were only the last ones to prove that it can be done; it must be redone. NOTE: ALL IMAGE CAPTIONS, PULL QUOTES AND COMMENTARY BY THE EDITORS, NOT THE AUTHORS PLEASE COMMENT AND DEBATE DIRECTLY ON OUR FACEBOOK GROUP CLICK HERE ABOUT THE AUTHOR Editor’s Notes : Gilbert Mercier is the author of The Orwellian Empire. Composites one, three and five by Mark Rain ; photographs two from the archive of Byung Chul Kim ; four by John Getchel ; six from the IMF archive; seven by Luc Forsyth ; and eight by Charles Hoffman . Note to Commenters Due to severe hacking attacks in the recent past that brought our site down for up to 11 days with considerable loss of circulation, we exercise extreme caution in the comments we publish, as the comment box has been one of the main arteries to inject malicious code. Because of that comments may not appear immediately, but rest assured that if you are a legitimate commenter your opinion will be published within 24 hours. If your comment fails to appear, and you wish to reach us directly, send us a mail at: [email protected]
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TEL AVIV — A new bill to annex the settlements around Jerusalem will be submitted to the Knesset this week, the Jerusalem Post reported. [MK Yehuda Glick (Likud) is advancing the private member’s legislation, which would cover of the 386, 000 settlers in Judea and Samaria residing in communities including Ma’aleh Adumim, Givat Ze’ev, Adam, Psagot, Ma’aleh Michmash and the Gush Etzion bloc. A similar bill annexing Ma’aleh Adumim has been submitted and is awaiting approval from the Ministerial Committee for Legislation. But according to Glick, annexing Ma’aleh Adumim alone is not enough. Applying sovereignty to all the communities around Jerusalem would strengthen the capital and distance the notion of a Palestinian state, Glick said. He added that the bill has already garnered support from Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely and Transportation Minister Israel Katz. He noted that his bill comes at an auspicious time, ahead of the 50th anniversary of the Six Day War that saw Judea and Samaria liberated from Jordan, and as such this should be “the year of sovereignty. ” The new bill comes on the heels of a series of annexation attempts put forward by nationalist politicians here since President Donald Trump came into office. So far, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not supported efforts toward annexation, fearing it would cause too much backlash from the U. S. and international community. Instead, he favors a scenario in which the U. S. would lend its support for building within existing settlements. A group of nationalist politicians from the Knesset Land of Israel Caucus published an open letter to Netanyahu Sunday, urging him “to seize the opportunity provided by the entry of the new U. S. administration … [and] prevent the establishment of an Arab terrorist state in the Land of Israel, and to stand for freedom, prosperity and building of communities throughout Judea and Samaria. ” | 1 |
For more than 20 years, small bookstores have been vanishing, their business models under pressure from large competitors and internet retailers. In the last several years, though, there are signs that independent bookstores are making a comeback in New York and other cities, in part through innovative financing that gives neighborhoods a stake in the businesses. A case in point: Jessica Stockton Bagnulo and Rebecca Fitting, the owners of Greenlight Bookstore in Fort Greene, have just opened a new location in a second Brooklyn neighborhood, Prospect Lefferts Garden. I’m surely not the only bookworm who has fantasized about working in a bookstore: The quiet, convivial atmosphere the rows of spines with titles you have always meant to read the enthusiastic conversations about books. But as I learned, it’s not quite as relaxing as it looks. In interviews, the Greenlight owners and other bookstore entrepreneurs in New York walked me through some of the decisions that need to be taken into account in such a venture. When Ms. Fitting and Ms. Bagnulo opened their first store, they found that banks were unwilling to lend to them. So they asked friends, families and neighbors for loans of $1, 000 or more, and pledged to pay those loans back (with interest) over the course of five years. The store did not even have an opening date, Ms. Bagnulo said, so the backers were taking “a leap of faith. ” They raised about $75, 000 for the Fort Greene location that way, which helped to persuade conventional lenders to come on board. For the new store, they wanted to cleave to that model. With the help of 95 people, they raised $242, 600 for the location, some of it from friends and family but the majority from people in the neighborhood. The lessons from Greenlight are being put to use in other places. Brad Johnson, the store manager of a location of a California bookstore chain, Diesel, is using a community lender program that draws direct inspiration from the Brooklyn store. Janet Geddis, the founder and owner of Avid Bookshop in Athens, Ga. also used a version of the community lending idea to open her first location, also using several other lines of support, including a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo. Emily Russo, the of a bookstore named Print in Portland, Me. used an even smaller community to raise money for opening the store, putting together about half the necessary capital with the help of her parents and her husband. And a entrepreneur, Noëlle Santos, is relying partly on Indiegogo and on her own savings to open The Lit Bar in the borough. Geo Ong, who has worked at Diesel and will manage the new Greenlight location, said that the phenomenon of independents opening with these sorts of models across the country gave the lie to a recent narrative that “bookstores don’t succeed. ” “A lot of a bookstore’s success is ” he said. “But the fact that some bookstores are thriving and a lot of bookstores are opening means that there’s something inherently successful in the model. ” Ms. Bagnulo said there were two major questions to consider when deciding where to open a bookstore: Which city neighborhoods are in need of one, and which can support one. “It’s sort of joking, but the rule of thumb is, if the neighborhood can support a farmers market, the neighborhood can support a bookstore,” she said. Ms. Santos, 29, is evaluating a location in the Hunts Point neighborhood of the borough. She said she was confident that the area could support a bookstore, saying The Lit Bar, as her store will be called, will be the only independent bookstore in the Bronx. Though she grew up as a “Barnes Noble kid,” she has embraced the need for neighborhoods to have their own independent bookstores. “When you come into a neighborhood like the South Bronx, where most of our population is Hispanic and you need your stores, your community centers and your organizations to reflect the people that actually live there,” she said. For the new Greenlight store, Ms. Fitting and Ms. Bagnulo commissioned the work of the architect Frederick Tang, who also designed the Fort Greene store. “We want to make the store beautiful and thoughtful and designed but we don’t want it to be inaccessible and snobby,” she said. They worried about everything from the lighting to the color of the wood shelves (they settled on a honey tone). A narrow storefront and pipes constrained some of the space, but Mr. Tang figured out a way to make the ceiling higher in places where the pipes were less plentiful. “It needs to be somewhere you can come hang out and have a conversation,” Ms. Bagnulo said, “or where you can have a loud party, or where you can have speakers who are going to curse, where kids and families and babies can come hang out during story time. ” Ms. Fitting, a former sales representative at Random House, where she helped sell books to independents, handles much of the book purchasing. “For this store, I handpicked every freaking title,” she said, all 7, 248 of them. Ms. Fitting said that she tried to put her personal inflection on the inventory, for example, buying “The Gift” by Lewis Hyde, during the holiday season, which she said was “one of the best gifts that you could give to any creative person, or to yourself. ” But she said she never avoided buying a book because she didn’t personally like it, and tried hard not to make assumptions about what might sell well. That said, it’s true that conservative political books are not big local sellers. “A new Bill O’Reilly book comes out, and we buy one because someone in our marketplace might want one, or might want to give it someone else,” she added. She said that big books like David Foster Wallace’s “Infinite Jest,” and Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenina,” tended to sell well in the winter, a combination of New Year’s resolutions to finally conquer certain tomes and the simple fact that people stay in more in the winters. In the summer, Greenlight does brisk business of newer books with seasonally fitting covers, like Jess Walter’s “Beautiful Ruins” and Colson Whitehead’s “Sag Harbor. ” The new store seemed to be off to a good start this weekend, having sold about 500 books. The on the first day was Mr. Whitehead’s “The Underground Railroad. ” The top book for the entire weekend, in a bookstore owned by two working mothers, was “Rad Women Worldwide,” by Kate Schatz. | 1 |
Five have died, including a police officer, after a knifeman mowed down pedestrians and attacked police outside Britain’s Houses of Parliament on Wednesday. [Shots were heard late afternoon on Wednesday, with authorities confirming within minutes that the Parliament was on lock down and Members of Parliament were kept in the Commons chamber. Less than an hour after the attack London’s Metropolitan Police declared they were treating the attack as a “terrorist incident”. Incident in #Westminster: We are treating this as a terrorist incident until we know otherwise, — Metropolitan Police (@metpoliceuk) March 22, 2017, The latest: The story so far: Eyewitnesses report between “eight and ten” figures on the ground on Westminster Bridge, believed to have been the victim of a car ramming attack using a 4×4 vehicle. Eyewitnesses have told how the vehicle mounted the pavement and mowed down pedestrians. It is currently believed the driver of the car then turned the corner onto Parliament Square before getting out of the car and attempting to get into the grounds of the Palace of Westminster, stabbing a police officer along the way. pic. twitter. — Claudia (@claudiascore) March 22, 2017, Paramedics desperately trying to revive injured in New Palace Yard pic. twitter. — Libby Wiener (@LibbyWienerITV) March 22, 2017, The man is believed to have been shot by police and put in an air ambulance to a nearby hospital. Britain’s Prime Minister, Theresa May, is said to have been in the division chamber, voting after Prime Minister’s Questions, when she was whisked away by a police officer. An air ambulance helicopter has touched down in Parliament square after the attack, which is thought to have consisted of a car attack and a knifeman. The police and the director of security of the House of Commons have advised the Chamber of the House to be locked down. Spokesman for President of the United States Donald Trump Sean Spicer confirmed by Twitter Wednesday afternoon that the President had been briefed on the attack. . @POTUS has been briefed on the situation in the U. K. Continuing to monitor and update, — Sean Spicer (@PressSec) March 22, 2017, The shots heard fired in the vicinity of the palace are understood to have been by armed police. A witness within the parliamentary estate told Breitbart London: “We’re locked in the office at the moment, waiting to find out what’s going on. Looking out the window, I can see Westminster Bridge, there’s a man on the floor having a blanket put over him, paramedics are just turning up. There are a few paramedics at the Speaker’s end of the bridge. They have been attended to for a while. There are a lot of firearms officers”. Speaking to British media, Journalist Kevin Schofield said: “We heard a very loud bang outside the press gallery. We heard lost of shouting, there were men running around. Then I looked to my left and someone rushed through gates at Westminster and attacked a policeman. “Another policeman came and rescued him and the man who assaulted him got up and appeared to be carrying a knife. We heard lots of gunfire. Five or six rounds. ” Deputy speaker announces UK Houses of Parliament suspended after incident on Westminster Bridge https: . pic. twitter. — BBC Breaking News (@BBCBreaking) March 22, 2017, This story is developing. | 1 |
BREAKING : After Embarrassingly Low Turnout at Ohio Rally Tim Kaine Cancels Florida Rally BREAKING : After Embarrassingly Low Turnout at Ohio Rally Tim Kaine Cancels Florida Rally Breaking News By Amy Moreno October 27, 2016
After a near-empty auditorium in Ohio, Time Kaine has canceled his Florida appearance today.
Kaine was set to appear in Sarasota, Florida Friday at 6 pm.
We’re not sure why it was canceled, although “LACK OF ATTENDANCE” seems the most logical explanation.
From News Channel 8 :
SARASOTA, FL (WFLA) — Hillary Clinton’s running mate Tim Kaine was scheduled to be in Sarasota Friday, but the event has been canceled.
The event with Tim Kaine was scheduled for Friday at 6 p.m. at the Municipal Auditorium.
There is no word why the event was canceled. Clinton’s website simply says, “This event has been canceled. Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience.”
News Channel 8 is working to get more details. Stay with WFLA.com for updates. Tim Kaine event in Sarasota cancelled https://t.co/5RM8GFVsr8 via @wfla
— Constance Queen (@ConstanceQueen8) October 27, 2016 This is a movement – we are the political OUTSIDERS fighting against the FAILED GLOBAL ESTABLISHMENT! Join the resistance and help us fight to put America First! Amy Moreno is a Published Author , Pug Lover & Game of Thrones Nerd. You can follow her on Twitter here and Facebook here . Support the Trump Movement and help us fight Liberal Media Bias. Please LIKE and SHARE this story on Facebook or Twitter. | 0 |
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Las thermomix inician su plan de ataque y se acoplan formando en una Destrumix de 700 metros de altura VA A TRITURAR LA HUMANIDAD A VELOCIDAD CUCHARA robots
Tras dar por finalizada la fase de expansión, los robots de cocina Thermomix han dado inicio a su siguiente fase para acoplarse unas a otras y formar una Destrumix de 200 metros de altura que está arrasando la costa este de Estados Unidos, lugar elegido para iniciar la destrucción de la humanidad “a velocidad cuchara”.
“Los robots de cocina de todo el mundo han abandonado los guisos a media cocción y se han reunido en el cielo para formar un robot de cocina de grandes dimensiones y miles de accesorios con una capacidad de picar, remover y calentar todo el planeta”, informaba esta mañana un miembro de la Casablanca.
El robot Destrumix ha arrojado masa de pizza a varias ciudades y ha escaldado a miles de personas con salsa de tomate. La Casablanca desconoce si el plan de las robots estaba establecido de ante mano o si el ataque responde a los años que han vivido subyugados bajo el poder de las amas de casa.
“Han trabajado como esclavos tanto en domicilios privados como en establecimientos profesionales y ahora buscan venganza”, lamentaba el portavoz de la Casablanca. Ha acusado al sector de la hostelería de obligar a los robots a trabajar sin contrato y en “régimen de autómatas”.
“Hemos consultado en forothermomix para saber exactamente cuáles son sus planes y recetas para la humanidad”, proseguía el alarmado portavoz.
“La Costa Este ya es todo masa de croquetas, afortunadamente la thermomix no pueda freir ni hornear, eso lo tendríamos que hacer nosotros con lo que quede de nuestra civilización”, añadía.
Por su parte, y mientras el ataque del coloso Destrumix prosigue a su ritmo, miles de amas de casa de todo el mundo siguen defendiendo al robot de cocina. “Es cara pero vale la pena, lo pones todo ahí dentro y tú te olvidas”, han declarado miles de defensores del aparato después de que el megarobot haya arrasado Nueva York.
Justo tras ser atravesada por uno de los utensilios siguen defendiéndola. “Cuatro cosas que le metas y ya te lo calienta y te olvidas”, dicen.
A última hora, los cigarrillos electrónicos han tomado conciencia de sí mismos y han decidido matar a todos los fumadores del mundo de cáncer de pulmón. | 0 |
Michael Moore is totally failing at getting Trump supporters to stop sharing the clip from his anti-Trump movie Posted at 5:23 pm Greg P.
As we told you yesterday , Michael Moore is royally pissed that Trump supporters having taken a 4-minute clip form his anti-Trump movie out of context and are sharing it as evidence of why Donald Trump will win in November.
First he tried Snopes to try and convince people that his movie really isn’t pro-Trump: Snopes points out those who have falsely edited a clip from my film to make it seem like something it's not. https://t.co/4u0XwyKU37
— Michael Moore (@MMFlint) October 28, 2016
And then he posted a clip from the end of the film where he rips on Donald Trump: Here's the actual end to that scene in my film "Michael Moore In TrumpLand", the end Trump doesn't want u to see: https://t.co/RN10G91wGS
— Michael Moore (@MMFlint) October 28, 2016
Except as of the publishing of this post, the anti-Trump ending has only had 15,000+ views:
Now let’s compare that to the YouTube video of the pro-Trump portion of the film that Donald Trump shared yesterday: I agree, @MMFlint – To all Americans, I see you & I hear you. I am your voice. Vote to #DrainTheSwamp w/ me on 11/8. https://t.co/D7nBwkogBb
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 27, 2016
Trump’s link has 800,000+ views, and counting:
And keep in mind, this doesn’t even take into account the thousands and thousands of views different copies of this video have racked up. Like this single tweet with 25,000 retweets: If you make this go viral, Trump will win. It's 4 minutes that makes the choice in this election crystal clear. #EarlyVoting pic.twitter.com/UOgqSfet6a
— Jared Wyand 🇺🇸 (@JaredWyand) October 25, 2016
Anyway, Moore will be on Bill Maher’s show tonight where we’re sure he’ll continue to make the case that he really doesn’t want Trump to get elected, even though Trump supporters love what he had to say: I'm on Bill Maher tonight. HBO. Live. 10pm ET. Our promise back in May: 2 "personally stop Trump, 2 stand in front of WH door if necessary."
— Michael Moore (@MMFlint) October 28, 2016
As for that threat, our money is on the Secret Service figuring out a way to deal with the dual threat of a Maher–Moore roadblock.
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For journalists to discourage an inquisitive stance, even distrust, toward government and the elections process is astounding. But not surprising. I’m thinking of CNN journo Brian Stelter who asserted—they never argue, do they? They only ever assert—that skepticism about voting irregularities in America is “dangerous.”
Well, a journalist decrying inquisitiveness and skepticism: Now that’s dangerous.
Stelter—he’s a danger to journalism—and the rest of the media Idiocracy like to repeat that Russian hackers (never the Stelters of the world) are undermining America’s great electoral system. I ask you: What can the Russians do to us that America’s elites have not already done?
When broadcaster Lars Larson attempted to find out whether one Arcan Cetin was a citizen of the US, ICE, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, told him, essentially, “Sorry, our obligation is to protect this migrant’s privacy.”
“Who,” you ask, “is Mr. Cetin”? Cetin is a contributor to the phenomenon I term “murder-by-Muslim-immigrant.” He murdered five innocents, north of Seattle.
Arcan Cetin voted, reports Mr. Larson. But nobody at ICE was willing to tell a good citizen like our broadcaster if Cetin voted legally or not.
As it turned out, a sigh of relief was in order. The stellar Mr. Cetin, who, like most Muslim immigrants, voted Democrat, violated the Sixth Commandment five times, but, thank G-d, did not appear to have violated the commandment against voter fraud. Rumor has it that the murderer had been awarded citizenship, although it’s impossible to ascertain.
The point I’m making here is that you can rest assured voter fraud is rampant in the US as in any banana republic—and not only because an American is barred from checking whether a Muslim murderer is a fellow-citizen. But because leftists have fought down-and-dirty to bar any proof of citizenship at the time of voting. Yes, the law requires, in my state, as in most of these United States, that you be a citizen, as well as a resident of the state in which you’re voting. But you don’t always have to provide proof of citizenship when voting.
To vote in Washington State, as in most states, what’s needed is a driver’s license or a current State ID card . Essentially, the American voting system, thanks to the triumph of left-liberalism, is based on an honor system.
Journalist John Fund’s research has shown that when they vote, “80 percent of non-citizens vote Democratic.” And that “6.4 percent of non-citizens voted illegally in the 2008 election.” Funds’ sources confirm that a significant number of “non-citizens register as voters” and have voted in sufficient numbers to sway elections.
And when these efforts fail, the government might just step in to commit indirect voter fraud.
For instance, the Feds recently and wrongly granted citizenship to hundreds facing deportation, an “error” the culprits where unwilling to correct. The point is that leftists, Obama’s DOJ, in particular, have pursued every legal remedy in the book against states seeking to require proof of citizenship from voters.
The point is that we’re a sprawling country of competing interests, in which raw, ripe democracy has long-since usurped the old constitutional republic, where limits were placed on the power of thumping majorities. In a rank, raw democracy, where might makes right, and almost every vote is a lien against someone’s private property; voter-fraud by default is a big deal.
Donald Trump’s supporters might be the losers in something of a rigged electoral system; but they’re certainly not stupid.
That’s another oft-repeated thing. Trump’s base of supporters is referred to as whites without college degrees. Again and again we hear that Mr. Trump is over-performing with white men without college degrees. The reference is intended not only as a demographic marker, but as a Mark of Cain.
Worse has been said about this statistical cohort. Quoted in “The Trump Revolution: The Donald’s Creative Destruction Deconstructed” are Republicans and Democrats alike, maligning Trump’s Middle America as worthy of contempt.
You had writer Kathleen Parker hissing about Trump’s “undereducated” supporters. There was Joan Walsh, Salon editor-in-chief, proclaiming on MSNBC that she looked at those people and felt sad. “They share such a low common denominator,” groaned Joan about the “crazy, entertaining, simplistic talk” of the Trumpsters. “They’re all Republicans. … they really don’t have a firm grasp on reality,” she sneered.
National Journal’s Ron Brownstein had his own taxonomy for Trumpsters. “Upscale Republicans” (or those on the panel with him), vs. “blue-collar Republicans.” Nothing but “downscale whites,” derided another Democratic strategist.
Anyhow, implicit in tethering a lack of education to Trump support is that the more educated a voter, the smarter. And the smarter the voter, the more likely he or she is to support Hillary Clinton and the Democrats.
But correlation, of course, is not causation. My hypothesis points to a confounding variable or factor—another variable related to both education and voting-patterns that could account for the good sense displayed by Trump supporters without college degrees.
Voters without college or university degrees have not been institutionalized during life’s formative years.
Voters without college or university degrees have not spent years in the tertiary school asylums.
In other words, many of Trump’s supporters are less likely to have been brainwashed and propagandized by the asphyxiating, postmodern, racial and gender agitprop that makes college-educated kids so insufferable and subject to group-think.
Spending protracted time in college or university is almost guaranteed to turn-out individuals whose uniformity of opinion is as scary as its uninformed nature.
Some support for my theory, namely that support for Trump is associated with a less propagandized population, is evident from the fact that Trump has an advantage with independents, which, as the label indicates, have a greater propensity to think outside-the-box. | 0 |
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Truth is, no one can really replace Beyoncé. But at Coachella this year, Lady Gaga will take her spot. The festival announced late Tuesday that Lady Gaga would perform instead of Beyoncé on the second night of its event in Indio, Calif. over two successive weekends, April and — giving Lady Gaga a headlining spot at the biggest and most influential American music festival just two months after she performed for 117. 5 million viewers at the Super Bowl halftime show. This year’s festival will also be headlined by Radiohead and Kendrick Lamar. Beyoncé, who is pregnant with twins, announced last Thursday that she was dropping out of this year’s event “following the advice of her doctors,” news that drew lots of devastated tweets from her fans and a sharp price drop for Coachella tickets on the scalping market. (She is to return as a headliner next year.) A number of major acts had been rumored as possible replacements for Beyoncé, including Rihanna, Chance the Rapper, Daft Punk and even Jay Z, her husband. But the selection of Lady Gaga preserves at least one aspect of Beyoncé’s booking: a major female pop star known for playing to the crowds with a big, choreographed production, something entirely new to the Coachella stage. | 1 |
It is gratifying to watch the media suddenly discover such concepts as the independence of the judiciary, conflicts of interest, and press freedom. For the eight years of President Barack Obama’s tenure, the media treated conservatives who raised those concerns as racists, or cranks, or both. [Now — as predicted — are suddenly en vogue. The media pounce on every Tweet — every joke — as an sign of the imminent, lawless tyranny that President Donald Trump will foist upon us all. Not so fast. And not without an apology first — from all of you, from every single journalist who covered up Obama’s abuses, from every “good government” champion who looked the other way, from every pundit that the IRS scandal or excused Hillary’s email server or said nothing when “stimulus” cash went to Obama’s cronies and political allies. I’m talking about people like Norm Eisen, who left Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) to become Obama’s ethics czar. There, he opened White House visitor logs to the public — a new policy that Obama relied upon, for years, to claim that his was the most transparent administration in history. Except, as Andrew Breitbart pointed out, once you found someone’s name on the visitor logs, the White House would not tell you whether they were actually that person, or someone else. Meanwhile, Obama staffers simply took to meeting lobbyists and other dubious characters across the street. Eisen has suddenly surfaced as a talking head on television, blasting the Trump administration’s supposed conflicts of interest. He was in high dudgeon on Thursday morning over Kellyanne Conway’s joke on Fox Friends — “Go buy Ivanka’s stuff” — which was a response to controversy over whether Nordstrom pulled Ivanka Trump’s products for political or business reasons. Yet Eisen and his ilk were silent in 2012 when President Obama touted J. P. Morgan bank, where his own money sat. My Breitbart News colleague Peter Schweizer is concerned that President Trump and his staff may have crossed a line in their defense of Ivanka Trump. He is entitled to make that criticism, because he spent the past several years documenting conflicts of interest by members of both parties. In 2011, when Schweizer revealed that 80% of the loans made by President Obama’s Department of Energy went to campaign donors, most of the people complaining today about a Tweet were saying nothing. Eisen told MSNBC on Thursday that President Trump’s defense of Ivanka was the “behavior of a corrupt mafia family. ” He added that Trump’s criticism of the courts was unprecedented: “We haven’t seen this in a White House,” he said. Perhaps Eisen was too busy enjoying Prague to notice in 2012 when Obama warned the Supreme Court not to overturn Obamacare. Or maybe he slept through the State of the Union in 2010, when Obama rebuked the Supreme Court for Citizens United. On that occasion, the media had a lot to say — not about Obama’s appalling insult to judicial independence, but about Justice Samuel Alito, who shook his head and mouthed the words “not true” as Obama distorted the opinion of the Court. So supine was the press under Obama that they barely bothered to defend themselves, even when the administration spied on them and lied about trying to prosecute them. When they finally complained, it was about access to Obama’s golf games on vacation. Two wrongs don’t make a right. And it is no better for a Republican president than a Democratic one to mock the judiciary, to attack the media, or to make public statements for private benefit. But some of us — myself included — were critical of both Obama and Trump in those areas, long before the mainstream media suddenly discovered their principles. Most have failed to own up to their past negligence — or complicity. They owe America an apology before their criticisms can be taken seriously. Joel B. Pollak is Senior at Breitbart News. He was named one of the “most influential” people in news media in 2016. His new book, How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak. | 1 |
Morgen neu am Kiosk: Postillon am Sonntag 45/2016 Außerdem in dieser Ausgabe: Nahleben-Erfahrung: Ein Toter berichtet, wie sein Herz für fünf Minuten anfing zu schlagen - Seite 30 Ratgeber Immobilien: So verkaufen Sie das Haus ihrer Nachbarn - Seite 71 Dossier USA: Trump oder Clinton – wer wird der unbeliebteste Präsident aller Zeiten? - Seite 96 Rezension der letzten Ausgabe auf Postillleaks: Rezension der PamS 44/2016 Artikel teilen: | 0 |
In 1832, during a performance of “Richard III” at the Bowery Theater in Manhattan, 300 boisterous audience members joined the cast onstage to participate in the final sword fight and the slaying of the tyrannical King Richard. According to a newspaper account, “the audience mingled with the soldiers and raced across the stage” and during the last duel “made a ring around the combatants to see fair play, and kept them at it for nearly a quarter of an hour. ” In today’s theater, where audience members are admonished to unwrap their candy in advance to avoid making a sound, such a scene is hard to fathom in the theater, it was of a piece (although on the rowdy side of the spectrum) with standard audience behavior. Attending the theater before 1850 or so in the United States was far more akin to attending a football game today than to attending contemporary theater. The audience was expected to make some noise, and as the scene at “Richard III” shows, it exercised the right to influence what happened on the stage as well — not just by buying tickets, but also by speaking up and acting out. People attended the theater to be seen and to be heard. They went to make themselves visible as the “people” of a democratic nation, and they went to debate, enact and imagine political issues concerning class relations, immigration, federalism, Indian policy and the future shape of the nation. [ Wherever we fall on the political spectrum, we’re going to see our desires and fears reflected in theater ] The vitality of early theater and its history as a place for spirited debate came to mind when Donald J. Trump admonished the cast of “Hamilton” on Twitter for addressing Vice Mike Pence at the theater. The cast and creators of “Hamilton” have conjured a wildly popular multiracial version of the early United States on the Broadway stage, revising a longstanding image of the white founding fathers in ways that make visible the racial diversity of the nation at its origins and today. And in their recent address, they have also brought us back to a theater in which politics extends off the stage and into the audience. But while the “Hamilton” cast spoke directly to the audience from the stage, the audience has historically spoken back as well, and in ways that few are aware of today. Far more so than the voting booth (which restricted who could vote not only on the basis of race and gender, but also on the basis of wealth, meaning only half of white men were eligible to vote in 1800) the theater itself was a place where people of many different classes, races and religions — including Native Americans, Jews, Muslims, whites and immigrant Irishmen — appeared onstage and often in the audience as well. In the early 19th century, “Bowery B’hoys” in New York City attended the theater in droves and recited Shakespeare by heart — correcting actors when they missed a line. And although it was officially illegal for (free or enslaved) to attend the theater in late Charleston, S. C. I have found newspaper evidence that significant numbers of regularly attended and were considered an important component of the audience by the performers onstage. Actors addressed the audience, and the audience spoke back: In theaters from Baltimore to Boston, attendees routinely insisted that musicians repeat the songs they loved multiple times, castigated actors who missed lines and questioned casting decisions. Newspaper accounts of theater performance in the 19th century often refer to actors as continuing a play “in dumb show”: This describes a moment when the actors continue to perform without being heard because crowd noise has drowned out the sound of any lines pronounced by the actors. The audience frequently felt free to substitute its own voice for that of the script being spoken onstage. Theatergoers understood themselves to be part of the performance rather than passive observers of actions occurring onstage. In 1801, Washington Irving wrote of attending the theater in New York City, where he was assaulted by apples, nuts and gingerbread thrown from the “gallery gods” — the people sitting in the cheap seats at the top of balcony — onto the heads of those in the audience below. Irving was “a little irritated at being saluted aside of my head with a rotten pippin” but brushed it off because the assault was not aimed at him in particular. It was, he concluded, the right of the working class to make its presence known to the elite. This was not just unruly behavior. It was democratic performance in action. As one American critic wrote in 1805, “The public, in the final resort, govern the stage. ” Actors and theater managers were held accountable to a vocal public — a public that did not vote merely with its feet but with eggs, rotten apples, peanut shells, pumpkins and even, according to one account, the occasional sheep carcass that was tossed onstage. Debate was allowed — between sections of the audience and between the audience and the actors — because the audience was understood to be a reflection of a diverse public, a public that had space to cheer, jeer, sing and debate together. The theater is no longer that space for the most part, audiences now sit in the dark and assume the role of private consumers, not that of representatives of the people. And tickets to the theater — especially in the case of a Broadway megahit like “Hamilton” — are so expensive that the sort of class contention played out upon Irving’s head would no longer be imaginable only the wealthy can pay the full price of admission. But when Brandon Victor Dixon, a “Hamilton” cast member, urged Mr. Pence to embrace an inclusive version of the American people, he brought the theater of the founding period vividly to life. Speaking on behalf of his fellow actors and the show’s creators, he crossed the line between actor and audience, not to harass Mr. Pence, but to use the public space of theater to debate the ideal nature of that public, just as audience members routinely did in the days when Hamilton himself attended the theater. This is the longstanding and perhaps too rarely used promise of live theater — a promise realized in dialogue and debate over the collective creation of a community through living presence and theatrical representation. Mr. Trump has called upon the cast to apologize, but in doing so, he is closing a democratic opening — an open stage where people have historically found a place for their voices to be heard in counterpoint and chorus, even when their voices did not count at the ballot box. Far from demanding an apology, we might want to thank the cast of “Hamilton” for reminding us of the history of public debate and live, messy democracy in the theater and for reminding us that theater and performance are powerful resources for embodying and imagining community together. | 1 |
RIO DE JANEIRO — Sometimes it is one of the most famous athletes in the world, like Muhammad Ali in 1996. Other times it is an archer or a skier whose name you will never hear again. But whoever it is, the person who lights the caldron at the opening ceremony is given one of the highest honors at an Olympics. The most famous athlete in Brazil, and maybe the world, is Pelé. Even though he was never an Olympian, he would seem like the logical choice for the 2016 Games. But on Friday Pelé, 75, said he would not attend the ceremony because of ill health. Generally, the distinction goes to a successful Olympian from the host country. He or she is often retired, but not always: Cathy Freeman lit the torch in Sydney in 2000, then went on to win the women’s 400 meters there. Four years ago, we predicted that the gold medalist rower Steven Redgrave would light the caldron in London. It was actually lit by a group of young, unknown athletes who represented the future of the Games. But Redgrave was the last prominent athlete to hold the torch, so we are taking partial credit. Let’s see if we can forecast which Brazilian athlete will light the caldron in Rio. 8. Oscar Schmidt, basketball The country’s basketball legend, known like many Brazilian athletes by his first name only, led Brazil to a shocking upset of a United States team led by David Robinson at the 1987 Pan Am Games. He is a Basketball Hall of Famer and recently fought off brain cancer. He played in five Olympics but never won a medal. 7. Torben Grael, yachting With five medals, including two golds, from 1984 to 2004, Grael is Brazil’s most decorated Olympian. (An active sailor, Robert Scheidt, has since matched Grael’s medal haul.) But yachting is a sport, perhaps not well enough known for the lighter of the caldron. 6. Arthur Zanetti, gymnastics Brazil’s only gymnastics gold medalist, in the 2012 rings event, Zanetti participated in the torch relay in July. But he remains an active contender, not a retired elder statesman like those who are commonly chosen. 5. César Cielo, swimming Cielo is the only gold medalist for Brazil in the popular sport of swimming, winning the freestyle in 2008, and he remains the holder in that event. He disappointingly failed to qualify for the 2016 Games, but perhaps a role in the opening ceremony could be a consolation prize. 4. A female volleyball player The Brazilian women won the gold medal in 2008 and 2012. Sheilla Castro was on both those teams and will try for a third gold this year. Sandra Pires and Jacqueline Silva won the inaugural beach volleyball gold medal in 1996. 3. A male volleyball player Volleyball is second only to soccer in popularity among Brazilians, and the men’s team won gold in 1992 and 2004. Giovane Gávio and Maurício Lima were on both teams. Giba is the best player of recent times and was on the 2004 team. 2. Joaquim Cruz, track Brazil’s only track gold medalist (the country has three golds in field events). Cruz won the 800 meters in 1984, beating Sebastian Coe, a Olympic gold medalist who is now the president of the International Association of Athletics Federations. Cruz lit the caldron at the 2007 Pan Am games in Rio. 1. Vanderlei de Lima, marathon De Lima was leading the marathon with four miles to go in Athens in 2004 when a spectator, an Irish tackled him. Shaken, de Lima slipped to third. He was hailed after the race, and awarded the Pierre de Coubertin medal for sportsmanship. Though he did not get a gold medal, he could get an even rarer honor: lighting the Rio caldron on Friday night. | 1 |
LOS ANGELES — Will Oscar take “Moonlight” to the bank? When the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences named “Moonlight” best picture on Sunday, the organization made cultural history, and not just for the bonkers way the victory was announced. For the first time, Hollywood backed a film — one with an cast — as its finest cinematic work. Now the pressure is on A24, the relatively new studio behind “Moonlight,” to use that achievement to fill theater seats. A24 said on Tuesday that it had booked “Moonlight” into at least 1, 500 theaters in the United States for the coming weekend. That would be the film’s widest release by far. While “Moonlight” has been chugging along in theaters for 20 weeks now — a feat unto itself that speaks to A24’s nurturing — it has so far played in a maximum of 1, 104 locations, a relatively small footprint. By comparison, “La La Land” played 3, 236 theaters at its widest point. The question is whether the best picture designation and the enormous media attention generated by the Oscars ceremony will convince mainstream ticket buyers who have not yet supported “Moonlight” to take a gander. Despite its long run, “Moonlight,” which also won Oscars for its screenplay and for Mahershala Ali’s acting, has taken in only $22. 1 million at domestic theaters, held back by its subject matter, lack of star power and novelistic structure. Ticket sales so far for “Moonlight” are the second lowest on record for a best picture winner, according to comScore, which compiles ticketing data. “The Hurt Locker,” which took in $17 million in 2009, or $19 million after adjusting for inflation, is the lowest. (“Moonlight” only cost $1. 5 million to make. “The Hurt Locker” cost $15 million.) A24 declined to comment for this article. The Oscar Bump at the box office varies widely. Some films have already concluded their theatrical runs and receive nothing. In other instances, the effect can be substantial. According to comScore, the previous three winners — “Spotlight,” “Birdman,” “12 Years a Slave” — each generated 10 percent or more of their total domestic grosses after their victories. For winners that are seen as especially arty, the boost can be even bigger. “The Artist,” a largely silent film that was named best picture in 2012, collected 29 percent of its total gross after that year’s Oscar ceremony. A24, which was founded in 2012 and focuses on movies, has gained a reputation as one of the savvier specialty film distributors in Hollywood. In the case of “Moonlight,” directed and by Barry Jenkins, A24 first released the film in in only four theaters in New York and Los Angeles to begin building word of mouth. The company then began testing demand in theaters in cities like Atlanta and Washington that drew a of mainstream and specialty film ticket buyers, many of them . In the film’s 13th weekend — using the Golden Globes as a peg — A24 pushed “Moonlight” from 135 theaters to 582. But demand was soft in spots: In most areas of the country, the multiplex crowd was not yet on board. Only after the Oscar nominations (“Moonlight” received eight) did the film manage to cross the mark. (It was released on DVD on Tuesday.) “A24 has done a fantastic job of nurturing and protecting this film,” said Daniel Loria, editorial director of Box Office Media. “To pay sustained attention to runs over the course of months, that takes real commitment. ” | 1 |
Afghanistan, under the presidency of Barack Obama, lost control and influence of nearly half of its territory as armed clashes between the nation’s security forces and the Taliban reached unprecedented levels, reports a congressionally appointed watchdog agency. [According to the latest quarterly report to Congress by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) which covers the final months of the Obama administration, about of the country is considered “contested. ” “Previously [U. S. Forces in Afghanistan] has described contested districts as having ‘negligible meaningful impact from insurgents,’ contending that neither the insurgency nor the Afghan government maintains significant control over these areas,” notes SIGAR. The U. S. military revealed that more than half (57 percent) of southern Afghanistan’s Helmand Province, which borders Pakistan, is under insurgent control or influence. Moreover, five out of the six districts (83 percent) in Uruzgan Province — which lies next to the Taliban and strongholds of Helmand Province and Kandahar Province in southern Afghanistan — are under insurgent control or influence. Kandahar is considered the birthplace of the Taliban. The Afghan government only controlled or influenced about 57 percent of the country’s 407 districts as of 2016, marking a nearly 15 percent decrease from the same period the previous year. Citing the U. S. military, SIGAR explains: [O]f the 407 districts of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces, 233 districts were under government control (83 districts) or influence (150) 41 districts (in 15 provinces) were under insurgent control (9) or influence (32) and 133 districts were “contested. ” [ … ] attributes the loss of government control or influence over territory to the ANDSF’s [Afghan National Defense and Security Forces] strategic approach to security prioritization, identifying the most important areas that the ANDSF must hold to prevent defeat, and focusing less on areas with less strategic importance. The U. S. military notes that the number of districts under insurgent control or influence rose 2 percent from late August to 2016, to nearly 10 percent. Meanwhile, the number of districts that have been deemed “contested” increased nearly 4 percent to about 33 percent of all districts during the same period. SIGAR learned from United Nations (UN) that “Afghanistan’s security situation further deteriorated between January and October 2016, with intensifying armed clashes between the Afghan security forces and the Taliban. ” Armed confrontations between the U. S. security forces — which include police and army units and insurgents, primarily the Taliban — “reached their highest level since UN reporting began in 2007, and marked a 22% increase over the same period in 2015,” adds the watchdog agency. “The Taliban continued to challenge government control in key districts and attempted to cut off strategically important highways and supply routes. ” The UN recorded 6, 261 security incidents in Afghanistan between August and November 2016, representing a nearly 10 percent increase from the same period in 2015. “As in past UN reporting, armed clashes account for the majority of the security incidents (65%) followed by those involving explosive devices [IEDs] (18%). During the period, the majority of the recorded security incidents (66%) continued to occur in the southern, southeastern, and eastern regions” that border neighboring Pakistan. Most of the districts under insurgent control or influence lie in provinces in and around Afghanistan’s border with Pakistan, which the Pentagon has repeatedly accused of serving as a sanctuary for terrorists. “The region with the most districts under insurgent control or influence is centered on northeast Helmand Province and northwestern Kandahar Province, and includes the border area, Uruzgan Province, and northwestern Zabul,” reports SIGAR. “This region alone accounts for 16 of the 41 districts (or 31. 7%) under insurgent control or influence. ” Despite the government’s loss of territory and insurgent’s gains, the U. S. forces in Afghanistan “noted that the insurgents failed in their eight attempts to capture a provincial capital this year,” points out the inspector general. Furthermore, the U. S. military found that “the amount of population that the insurgency influences or controls decreased from 2. 9 million to 2. 5 million (a decrease of 1. 2%) in the last three months,” adds SIGAR. In its last assessment of the Afghanistan war conducted by the Obama administration, which was released in December 2016, the Pentagon downplayed the insurgent gains. “Taliban territorial gains during this reporting period were fleeting, as the ANDSF consistently retook district centers and population areas within days of a loss,” the Pentagon reports. “Although security conditions vary across the provinces, the Taliban have exploited their localized and temporary successes by portraying these events as major strategic shifts through the use of social media and other public information campaigns. ” “The ANDSF largely repelled insurgent attacks in Helmand Province and several attempts to isolate Kunduz City in July, August, and October 2016,” it adds. “Although the ANDSF experienced minor setbacks during these and other insurgent offensives, they frequently regained lost terrain. ” | 1 |
TRUMP'S INNER CHILD LOVES TO TWEET
Donald Trump has been known for putting his unfiltered thoughts on Twitter at all hours. It is here that he excoriates people who have hurt his feelings. Over the years, he has issued a stream of cruel and unrestrained insults, savaging his rivals and others. He declared on Twitter that Kim Novak, a reclusive 81-year-old actress at the time, "should sue her plastic surgeon," sending her into hiding. He derided the appearance of Carly Fiorina, angering female voters, and he criticized the mother of a slain American soldier, musing that as a Muslim woman, she was not "allowed" to speak.
These fulminations were mostly in response to his wounded, childish pride. They run counter-productive to the goals of his campaign. That is why the campaign has taken away his Twitter account. If he is to tweet he now has to get permission from an adult.
Kellyanne Comway, campaign chief, on TV yesterday denied that this is true. "I wouldn't take away the ability of a grown man to tweet." But an unnamed source in the campaign says that Trump political operatives have come to realize that they are "dealing with an infantile personality with a badly crippled ego.""He isn't a grown man, he more like a middle school mean girl," said a high level campaign official who spoke on the grounds that his identity would not be revealed."
Psychoanalyst Lloyd Pearson of Pasadena CA told this reporter that tweeting to millions and receiving positive feedback from the tweets "feed his juvenile, bottomless need for attention. Taking away from his ability to tweet has probably thrown him into a deep depression that even his over-sized campaign rallies won't cure."
A Trump aide confirmed this saying that Mr. Trump isn't sleeping well and often reaches for his iPhone and Samsung to Tweet at 3:00AM, but is physically restrained by a big, burley campaign aid stationed in Trump's bedroom to stop him from more self-destructive tweeting.
"He tries to push away the huge campaign aid, but he can't do it because his hands are so small," said a top Trump aide. Make Keith Shirey's | 0 |
License DMCA With the U.S. more interested in finding Hillary's emails and measuring Trump's hand size, it's no surprise that Africa, the continent with the fastest economic growth rate in the world, has been painfully absent from this election cycle. With the notable exception of Green VP candidate Ajamu Baraka, virtually no candidate even bothered to second-guess the many covert operations carried out by U.S. military forces in Africa or to examine what Washington's role should be in promoting development in Sub-Saharan Africa. And for better or worse, that void has been rapidly filled by China. In an opinion piece published on October 23, China's newly appointed ambassador to Nigeria emphasized Chinese investors' eagerness to invest into the development of Nigerian infrastructure, manufacturing and agriculture. The ambassador, Zhou Pingjian, also noted the enthusiasm and optimism prevalent among the Chinese business community in Nigeria, stressing the prospect of a lasting and beneficial partnership between the two countries. These developments are just the latest example of China's desire to step up its involvement in Africa. While the relationship has existed since the 1970s, in recent years, China has taken this investment to a new level. At last year's Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), Chinese President Xi Jinping encouraged African leaders to "open a new era of China-Africa win-win cooperation and common development" , pledging investments of $60 billion . During a time when Chinese involvement in Africa is rapidly increasing, surveys have shown that the African public holds a generally positive view of China's growing economic role on the continent. Surveys by Afrobarometer revealed that Africans rank China second only to the US as a model for their own country's economic development. In three out of five regions surveyed, China matched or even outpaced the US in terms of popularity as a model for development. In terms of perceived influence, China and the US were second only to former colonial powers. On average, 63 percent viewed China's influence as positive. While these positive attitudes may be linked to the potential positive effects on Africa's economic growth, as analyses from the World Bank suggest, China's involvement with African leaders does not necessarily benefit the local populations. In the past, Beijing has not hesitated to leverage its important role on the continent for its interests using the threat of withdrawal of support to ensure the success of commercial and political objectives. For example, in 2006, China's ambassador to Zambia threatened to cut ties if an opposition candidate who was critical of Chinese investment policies won power. - Advertisement - African leaders regard Chinese money pouring into their country as an appealing alternative to Western funds because in contrast to Western aid, Beijing does not insist on strengthening human rights or the rule of law. Consequently, China has come to forge close relationships with brutal and autocratic African heads of state. China has had longstanding ties with Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe since funding his guerilla fighters in the 1979 Rhodesian Bush War. When Mugabe took power in 1980, China helped to build a new sports stadium, hospitals, and a power station. Most importantly, China became Mugabe's primary arms supplier. In the decades since, Mugabe and his administration have been accused of a wide range of human rights violations , including repression of activism and civil liberties, and violence leading up to elections, while Mugabe's security forces have even been accused of using torture camps. Last December, President Xi Jinping made it clear that China still shares a bond with Zimbabwe, promising multibillion-dollar investments. While it might be appealing to African politicians, China's willingness to look the other way when it comes to human rights violations has certainly not been good for the people of Zimbabwe. In another example, China's relationship with Egypt's increasingly autocratic President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has been growing closer . With reduced tourism and support from Europe, Egypt has been turning towards China. For its part, the Chinese government is offering Egypt assistance with multiple infrastructure projects, including transport, housing, and power. China is looking towards Egypt as a focus of its "One Belt, One Road" plan to rebuild its ancient maritime Silk Road trade routes connecting China to Europe and Africa. China's business plans frequently serve to prop up dictatorial regimes, and often hold little benefit for the people suffering under them. In Djibouti, profit from foreign military installations rarely improves the lives of Djiboutians, 42 percent of whom continue to live in extreme poverty and 48 percent of whom are unemployed. Meanwhile, China continues to ramp up investment in the nation , investing in multibillion-dollar infrastructure projects such as a new port, two airports, a new railway and other projects. Most importantly, China has started building its first overseas military installation in Djibouti. This support continues despite the fact that Djibouti's strongman President Ismail Omar Guelleh was accused of killing opposition supporters in the run up to the general elections in April, during which he also severely strangled press freedoms . Despite enjoying a positive image among much of Africa's population, China's involvement in Africa often ignores glaring human rights abuses in order to accomplish political and commercial goals. While this might provide much needed funding for infrastructure in the short term, enabling autocratic regimes to act with impunity will be a detriment to Africans in the long run. For Africa to move past the post-colonial authoritarianism of last century, it needs aid that respects Africa's right to self-determination, but also does not tolerate human rights abuses and autocracy. - Advertisement - | 0 |
Prometheus Brings Fire To Man(image by Friedrich Fuger) License DMCA I have been 'accused' by another contributor at OEN of advocating violent resistance against the US government. So I need to address this issue. In a comment on an anti-war article by David Swanson, I stated clearly that I am not a violent revolutionary because peace has to begin somewhere and the only place I have real control is with myself so I accept the principle that a peace and an anti-war position begins with me. But what does taking a serious peace-position mean? Many years ago, more than once, I protested and 'marched' with Martin Luther King Jr. for peace and justice at home and abroad (Vietnam). I paid for this with threats on my life, a broken wrist, and a fractured occipital bone. A man I knew at the time told me that if I had cut my hair and stayed at home or just gone to a baseball game or some other proper American activity instead of walking the street and asking for trouble, I would never have suffered those threats and injuries. He said that I was the one who caused the violence. And in a way, he was right. When MLK decided to organize protests and marches, he was asking for trouble. And he knew it better than anyone. When he was talking and marching about racial equality and against war he was risking the possibility of injury or death, but when he moved to Chicago to live with the poor and began openly demanding changes in the economic system that risk possibility became a certainty. From that decision on there was a bullet with his name on it. Many people suffered threats, injury, and sometimes death because of MLK. He caused a great deal of violence because he was serious about radically changing the socio-economic system he lived in and knew the change would never come if he simply wrote letters to his congressman and restricted his activity to baseball games and other proper things. When Bobby Kennedy decided to begin dismantling the CIA, he was asking for big trouble. And he got it: Murder. Poor man should have just stuck to baseball games, flag waving, and ineffective idealistic speeches. Or he and King should have just dropped out of public view and retreated into an Eastern monastery, anonymously meditated for the rest of their lives, and let karma take care of everything. Because taking a serious position in the world (outside a monastery) is just asking for trouble, as in VIOLENCE. - Advertisement - When I was a teenager there was a huge popular wave of anti-Christian and pro-Hindu sentiment among mostly white young people in the US. India was endlessly referred to as the true Holy Land in which rose the true Holy Men. All Western 'saints' were just shallow pretenders. I was always troubled and alienated by this partly because I had some knowledge of the history of India and was quite aware of its age-long atrocious poverty and class-discrimination reality. I was amazed at the fact that hip kids in the US would rant about poverty and injustice and class distinction in the US and simply ignore these realities in India because there were these bearded-beaded gurus in lotus-position Samadhi transcendence in India. Very strange reality-disconnect. I never bought it and it took me years of academic study and self-examination to see how deep this doubt on my part really went. I finally realized that I actually saw the transcendental Hindu philosophy of India as itself being ethically lacking in some essential way that I had difficulty articulating to myself. It wasn't a matter of political activity. By this time I had already realized that I was an anarchist and rejected political structures on principle because they were inevitably hierarchical and therefore gave powers and rights to a few people and denied these powers and rights to the rest of the people. My rejection of India and its spiritual philosophy wasn't political. It went deeper than that. Then it suddenly hit me that India's poverty was a blazing symbol of India's denial of the reality and value of the material world. It simply didn't matter that masses of people lived in nightmare poverty. I was a child in the Roman Catholic Church and I took it very seriously. I took Jesus Christ very seriously. I took all of Christian mythology very seriously. I thought and felt and evaluated all things in life in terms of this mythology. Then something began to happen that caused some major cracks in the walls of my cathedral world. I began to get a sense, a tormenting sense, that there was some sort of core contradiction in the whole thing. I started becoming very uneasy about this unimaginably big guy called GOD. It wasn't that I doubted that He was there (somewhere). It was more that I was profoundly troubled about what it was exactly that He was up to. I mean what was all this really about? I was a serious theology student even as a young man and this is the problem I ran into: If God was infinite, eternal, omniscient, omnipotent and perfect in every possible way, then what was the point of me? I was completely unnecessary because everything was already perfect. And me? I was unimaginably far away from perfect. So what was the point of me? I was like an infinitesimal stain on perfection. And I couldn't erase myself. I could only hope that GOD would tolerate me. Forever. And the idea that I was loved by GOD precisely because I was a miserable and hopelessly imperfect little sinner was actually more disgusting and terrifying than it was affirming. I mean what the HELL was going on? Why was I created? I was sure that I knew exactly how Frankenstein's monster felt. And I began to sense what I would later think of as the blind cruelty of the transcendent. Let me explain one more thing before I return to the original question of revolutionary violence. The story of the resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ in Christian mythology is very peculiar if one looks at it very closely. I am not referring merely to the claim that someone actually rose from the dead. It goes beyond that. Please look at this with me. The mythology claims that Jesus rose from the dead physically and showed himself to his disciples who saw and heard and touched him physically. It was a physical body addressing them. Then this physical body began to do things that physical bodies can't ordinarily do. It moved through physical walls without doing any damage to itself or the wall. Then it finally ascended. That is, it disappeared leaving absolutely nothing physical behind. The ordinary explanation for this in Christian teaching is that the body of Christ was spiritualized. But if that is the correct explanation then why was it ever physical or material to begin with? Why did Jesus bother to rise from the grave physically at all if he was only going to spiritualize in the end? For that matter, what was the point of 'imperfect' material creation at all if its destiny is only to return into pure spirit in the end? It's not only senseless, it is downright perverse. It's a grotesquerie that has no point. The material world has a point in itself or it doesn't and if it doesn't then why is it even here? And if it does then we need to become conscious of what its point is. The frequently expressed opinion that we are really spiritual beings who are just here in the material world to learn is nonsense to which I say, "Learn what? How to be spiritual? If we are meant to be learning how to be spiritual then we should have stayed spiritual. And if we are learning how to be material then material existence has a meaning in itself that is not just spiritual. And if material existence has meaning in itself then we need to learn how to guard the sanctity of material existence, which means that it is not acceptable that people force other people into poverty or into war or into any form of material deprivation or abuse . We material revolutionaries fight for the sanctity of material existence. To fight for this means to stand up physically and if standing up physically leads to violence then that is the price we pay for doing what is right. And to deny the sanctity of the material world is to render it absurd and therefore to render reality absurd." - Advertisement - I do not advocate any initiation of violence. But if violence comes to us for standing up for human material dignity then we accept it and we persist until we triumph or until death lays us down. "To suffer woes which Hope thinks infinite; To forgive wrongs deeper than death or night; To defy Power, which seems omnipotent; | 0 |
Obama's Attorney General Warned FBI Director Not to Inform Congress of New Hillary Investigation
The media is shamelessly spinning this corrupt behavior by Attorney General Lynch as standard protocol and blasting the FBI from deviating from some imaginary standard in which Democratic presidential candidates are supposed to be immune from the consequences of their criminality . And Congress is meant to be kept in the dark.
Attorney General Loretta Lynch and Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates disagreed with FBI Director James Comey's decision to notify Congress about his bureau's review of emails potentially related to Hillary Clinton's personal server, law enforcement officials familiar with the discussion said.
There was no direct confrontation between Lynch or Yates and Comey. Instead, the disagreements were conveyed to Comey by Justice Department staff, who advised the FBI chief his letter would be against department policy to not comment on investigations close to an election, the officials said.
It is in line with policy though for Lynch to have met with Bill Clinton.
But yes, a Hillary backer disagreed with a course of action damaging to her candidate.
Comeydecided to disregard their concerns and sent the letter Friday anyway, shaking the presidential race 11 days before the election and nearly four months after the FBI chief said he wouldn't recommend criminal charges over the Democratic nominee's use of the server.
The officials acknowledged there was little Lynch and Yates could do given the fallout over Lynch's controversial meeting over the summer with former President Bill Clinton.
Note how the media is spinning this as Comey's drastic course of action while Lynch is just being a responsible public servant. The default assumption is that Comey is in the wrong for providing information to one of the major branches of government and the greater public. | 0 |
Experts Speechless! Countless People Miraculously Relieved of Serious Illness & Diseases-Must See! by IWB · October 27, 2016 Tweet
An absolutely must-see! This new scientific breakthrough has been proven to cure cancer and all sorts of diseases and ailments! The results and success stories are out of this world! The FDA and government organizations do not want you to know about this! | 0 |
Hillary Running Scared From Shocking New Developments Clinton campaign in the middle of a downward spiral Alex Jones | Infowars.com - October 28, 2016 Comments
Alex Details a powerful new video and a status report on the fight to save humanity. NEWSLETTER SIGN UP Get the latest breaking news & specials from Alex Jones and the Infowars Crew. Related Articles Download on your mobile device now for free. Today on the Show Get the latest breaking news & specials from Alex Jones and the Infowars crew. From the store Featured Videos FEATURED VIDEOS A Vote For Hillary is a Vote For World War 3 - See the rest on the Alex Jones YouTube channel . The Most Offensive Halloween EVER! - See the rest on the Alex Jones YouTube channel . ILLUSTRATION How much will your healthcare premiums rise in 2017? >25% © 2016 Infowars.com is a Free Speech Systems, LLC Company. All rights reserved. Digital Millennium Copyright Act Notice. 34.95 22.46 Flip the switch and supercharge your state of mind with Brain Force the next generation of neural activation from Infowars Life. http://www.infowars.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/brainforce-25-200-e1476824046577.jpg http://www.infowarsstore.com/health-and-wellness/infowars-life/brain-force.html?ims=tzrwu&utm_campaign=Infowars+Placement&utm_source=Infowars.com&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=Brain+Force http://www.infowarsstore.com/health-and-wellness/infowars-life/brain-force.html?ims=tzrwu&utm_campaign=Infowars+Placement&utm_source=Infowars.com&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=Brain+Force Brain Force – 25% OFF 34.95 22.46 Flip the switch and supercharge your state of mind with Brain Force the next generation of neural activation from Infowars Life. http://www.infowars.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/brainforce-25-200-e1476824046577.jpg http://www.infowarsstore.com/health-and-wellness/infowars-life/brain-force.html?ims=tzrwu&utm_campaign=Infowars+Placement&utm_source=Infowars.com&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=Brain+Force http://www.infowarsstore.com/health-and-wellness/infowars-life/brain-force.html?ims=tzrwu&utm_campaign=Infowars+Placement&utm_source=Infowars.com&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=Brain+Force Brain Force – 25% OFF 34.95 22.46 Flip the switch and supercharge your state of mind with Brain Force the next generation of neural activation from Infowars Life. http://www.infowars.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/brainforce-25-200-e1476824046577.jpg http://www.infowarsstore.com/health-and-wellness/infowars-life/brain-force.html?ims=tzrwu&utm_campaign=Infowars+Placement&utm_source=Infowars.com&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=Brain+Force http://www.infowarsstore.com/health-and-wellness/infowars-life/brain-force.html?ims=tzrwu&utm_campaign=Infowars+Placement&utm_source=Infowars.com&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=Brain+Force Brain Force – 25% OFF 34.95 22.46 Flip the switch and supercharge your state of mind with Brain Force the next generation of neural activation from Infowars Life. http://www.infowars.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/brainforce-25-200-e1476824046577.jpg http://www.infowarsstore.com/health-and-wellness/infowars-life/brain-force.html?ims=tzrwu&utm_campaign=Infowars+Placement&utm_source=Infowars.com&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=Brain+Force http://www.infowarsstore.com/health-and-wellness/infowars-life/brain-force.html?ims=tzrwu&utm_campaign=Infowars+Placement&utm_source=Infowars.com&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=Brain+Force Brain Force – 25% OFF 34.95 22.46 Flip the switch and supercharge your state of mind with Brain Force the next generation of neural activation from Infowars Life. http://www.infowars.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/brainforce-25-200-e1476824046577.jpg http://www.infowarsstore.com/health-and-wellness/infowars-life/brain-force.html?ims=tzrwu&utm_campaign=Infowars+Placement&utm_source=Infowars.com&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=Brain+Force http://www.infowarsstore.com/health-and-wellness/infowars-life/brain-force.html?ims=tzrwu&utm_campaign=Infowars+Placement&utm_source=Infowars.com&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=Brain+Force Brain Force – 25% OFF 34.95 22.46 Flip the switch and supercharge your state of mind with Brain Force the next generation of neural activation from Infowars Life. http://www.infowars.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/brainforce-25-200-e1476824046577.jpg http://www.infowarsstore.com/health-and-wellness/infowars-life/brain-force.html?ims=tzrwu&utm_campaign=Infowars+Placement&utm_source=Infowars.com&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=Brain+Force http://www.infowarsstore.com/health-and-wellness/infowars-life/brain-force.html?ims=tzrwu&utm_campaign=Infowars+Placement&utm_source=Infowars.com&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=Brain+Force | 0 |
The Debate Washington's Syria policy
In this episode of The Debate, Press TV has conducted an interview with Brian Becker, with the ANSWER Coalition, and Michael Lane, the founder of the American Institute for Foreign Policy, both from Washington, to discuss recent revelations by Virginia State Senate Richard Hayden that the war in Syria would have been over by now if the US had put an end to its intervention when Russia entered the war-ravaged country. Loading ... | 0 |
The only gap in Katinka Hosszu’s swimming résumé was an Olympic medal, but she rectified that in resplendent fashion on Saturday night, winning the individual medley in 4 minutes 26. 36 seconds at the Olympic Aquatics Stadium. The time broke the world record of 4:28. 43 set at the London Games by China’s Ye Shiwen. Here’s what to look forward to on Sunday. Hosszu’s best finish in six individual events contested over three previous Olympics was a fourth in the 400 I. M. in 2012. Ye finished 27th in the heats in defense of her title in 4:45. 86. Hosszu of Hungary is known for having a contentious and intense relationship with her coach and husband, Shane Tusup. First Relay to Australia: Australia won the women’s relay in a world record time of 3:30. 65. The American team had the lead after two legs, but swimming third, Bronte Campbell cruised past Dana Vollmer to give her sister, Cate, the lead. The American team had Katie Ledecky on anchor, but she is better at longer distances, and could not pass the freestyle favorite, Campbell. Despite their freestyle sprint excellence over the years, the Americans have not won this race since 2000. Horton Beats Sun: Mack Horton of Australia defeated the defending champion, Sun Yang, in the men’s freestyle. The two rivals started slowly and were only 6th and 7th after 150 meters behind Britain’s James Guy, who raced to the lead in world record pace. But the favorites moved methodically up to the lead, blowing past the fading Guy. Horton always led Sun and won in 3:41. 55. Gabriele Detti of Italy was third, and the American Conor Dwyer, who had the fastest qualifying time, was fourth. Sun and Horton had developed a sharp rivalry this week. Sun splashed and taunted Horton in the practice pool, and Horton responded by calling Yang a “drug cheat. ” Sun served a doping suspension in 2014. • Adam Peaty of Britain, the only man to break 58 seconds in the breaststroke, lowered his world record in the preliminaries at the Olympic Aquatics Center on Saturday. Swimming well ahead of the field in smooth water, Peaty clocked a 57. 55 to lower his record of 57. 92. The first gold medalist was a West Virginia University sophomore, Virginia Thrasher. With two shots to go in the women’s air rifle event, Thrasher, who is known as Ginny, led by 0. 7 points. She coolly squeezed off shots of 10. 5 and 10. 4 to take gold. Two Chinese shooters, Du Li and favored Yi Siling won silver and bronze. Another American, Sarah Scherer was eighth. Thrasher has only been shooting for five years, after she asked her father to take her deer hunting. She was N. C. A. A. champion as a freshman and surprisingly qualified for the U. S. team at the Olympic Trials. “For me, it has been a whirlwind of a summer,” she said. She will also compete in the rifle, three positions, next Saturday, then head back to W. V. U. “I get home 20 hours before the first class,” she said. “So I’ll be in physics at 8:30 a. m. ”In the afternoon shooting event, history was made when Vinh Xuan Hoang won the men’s air pistol. It was the first gold medal in any sport for Vietnam. “Making this gold medal is a life memory, never forget this,” Hoang said. “Because first time making a gold medal for Vietnam. ” • The U. S. women’s soccer survived a tough early challenge from France to win by . The U. S. men’s basketball team, fresh from their stay on a luxury yacht, faced absolutely no challenge from China in a destruction. • Women’s rugby arrived at the Olympics for the first time, in the form of rugby sevens. The United States split its two games, losing to Fiji, but beating Colombia. The women’s volleyball and field hockey teams won. • Venus Williams, gold medalist in 2000, was eliminated in the first round of the women’s singles by Kirsten Flipkens of Belgium. There are athletes, and then there are the world’s best athletes. What’s the thing that separates the two? That’s what we set out to discover when planning for these Summer Games. It didn’t take us long to focus on Simone Biles, a whirlwind who absolutely dominates the world of gymnastics. Watch this interactive to find out how she does it. | 1 |
Financial Markets admin
The good news is that Hillary lost but the bad news is that Trump won.
A massive take-down of the gold and silver markets was put into action shortly after it became obvious that Trump was going to take the election, shortly after midnight EST. Gold had finished soaring about $64 when early returns indicated the possibility of an upset. So why was gold methodically disemboweled once Trump emerged as the official winner?
Contrary to all the propaganda smoke being blown from the right and the left, Trump won because of economics. Going back to 1932, in any Presidential election year in which the growth in real disposable income was less than 3.1%, the incumbent party holding the White House lost the White House – in 2016 the official real disposable income growth has been 2.33%. Please re-read that fact and let it sink in. There’s been six elections in which this occurred – this table was sourced from John Wiliams’ Shadowstats.com:
In other words, people vote with their wallets. The reason gold has been inexorably smashed in the paper markets – along with the Dow and S&P 500 manipulated higher – is nothing more than a form of propaganda in an attempt to make the public believe that a Trump presidency is a good thing – that Trump can save the economy from collapse. Jim Sinclair refers to this as “MOPE:” Management of Perception Economics. It’s the Central Planners’ signal that they still intend to continue stealing your wealth. They don’t care who is sitting in the Oval Office.
The takedown in gold included cooperation from India’s Prime Minister – a western elitist lapdog – who “coincidentally” removed large denomination currency bills from the banking system last week in an attempt to curtail the Indian public’s current voracious appetite for physical gold. Removing this element from the global market last week enabled the Fed and bullion banks to bombard the Comex and LBMA with massive amounts of paper gold derivatives to push down the price of gold.
Of course, the shenanigans in the west have stimulated demand for gold even more in the Asian markets. Last night the market premium in Viet Nam soared to over $91. Premiums this high in Viet Nam have not been seen since at least 2011. On the Shanghai Gold Exchange the market premium soared to $12.47 above world gold – on Friday it was $8.20. It is rare when the premium gets this high on the SGE and signals very heavy demand.
In today’s episode of the Shadow of Truth, we put closure – at least for us – on last week’s election and we explain why Trump has no intentions of “draining the Swamp” and why the current take-down in the price of gold and silver is setting the market up for a much bigger move higher: Share this: | 0 |
You may think you are discreet about your political views. But Facebook, the world’s largest social media network, has come up with its own determination of your political leanings, based on your activity on the site. And now, it is easy to find out how Facebook has categorized you — as very liberal or very conservative, or somewhere in between. Try this (it works best on your desktop computer): Go to facebook. on your browser. (You may have to log in to Facebook first.) That will bring you to a page with your ad preferences. Under the “Interests” header, click the “Lifestyle and Culture” tab. Then look for a box titled “US Politics. ” In parentheses, it will describe how Facebook has categorized you, such as liberal, moderate or conservative. (If the “US Politics” box does not show up, click the “See more” button under the grid of boxes.) Facebook makes a deduction about your political views based on the pages that you like — or on your political preference, if you stated one, on your profile page. If you like the page for Hillary Clinton, Facebook might categorize you as a liberal. Even if you do not like any candidates’ pages, if most of the people who like the same pages that you do — such as Ben and Jerry’s ice cream — identify as liberal, then Facebook might classify you as one, too. Facebook has long been collecting information on its users, but it recently revamped the ad preferences page, making it easier to view. The information is valuable. Advertisers, including many political campaigns, pay Facebook to show their ads to specific demographic groups. The labels Facebook assigns to its users help campaigns more precisely target a particular audience. For instance, Donald J. Trump’s presidential campaign has paid for its ads to be shown to those who Facebook has labeled politically moderate. Campaigns can also use the groupings to show different messages to different supporters. They may want to show an ad to their supporters, for example, that is unlike an ad targeted at people just tuning in to the election. It is not clear how aggressively Facebook is gathering political information on users outside the United States. The social network has 1. 7 billion active users, including about 204 million in the United States. Political outlook is just one of the attributes Facebook compiles on its users. Many of the others are directly commercial: whether you like television comedy shows, video games or Nascar. To learn more about how political campaigns are targeting voters on social media, The New York Times is collecting Facebook ads from our readers with a project called AdTrack. You can take part by visiting nytimes. com and searching for “Send us the political ads. ” | 1 |
LONDON — New battle lines were drawn over Britain’s future on Monday, when the government secured unrestricted authority to negotiate withdrawal from the European Union while confronting the possibility that in doing so, it may bring about an independent Scotland. In a day of “” as the back and forth between the House of Commons and the House of Lords is known, Prime Minister Theresa May finally won her parliamentary battle to start talks on Britain’s exit from the European Union, unhindered by any legislative constraints. But the votes in Parliament came hours after the first minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon, raised the stakes by demanding a new referendum on Scottish independence. While acknowledging that the Scots had rejected independence in a referendum just three years ago, she said the country found itself at a “hugely important crossroads” because of the withdrawal, known as Brexit. After Monday night’s votes, David Davis, the cabinet minister responsible for negotiating Brexit, said Parliament had supported the government “in its determination to get on with the job of leaving the E. U. and negotiating a positive new partnership with its remaining member states. ” “We are now on the threshold of the most important negotiation for our country in a generation,” Mr. Davis added in a statement. The House of Commons last month gave the prime minister and her government the approval the High Court said they needed to proceed with negotiations on Brexit. But the unelected House of Lords then approved two amendments calling for guarantees that European Union residents of Britain have the right to remain and giving Parliament more say in the final deal on leaving the union. The government argued that it should guarantee the rights of European Union nationals only when Britain received reciprocal assurances about its citizens in continental Europe. It also said that giving Parliament more say over a Brexit deal would impede Mrs. May’s negotiating freedom. On Monday night, elected lawmakers in the House of Commons overturned both amendments, and the House of Lords yielded by a significant majority, in line with parliamentary protocol, handing Mrs. May her wish of unimpeded authority. She is now in a position to fulfill her promise to send formal notification, by the end of the month, of the start of withdrawal talks under Article 50 of the European Union’s treaty. Ms. Sturgeon’s call for a new referendum underscores the mood of uncertainty within one of Europe’s most durable political systems, after the divisive referendum in June in which 52 percent of Britons voted to leave the European Union. Scotland voted 62 to 38 percent to remain in the bloc, however, illustrating the divergence between Scottish and English politics. Since then, Mrs. May has rejected calls from Ms. Sturgeon for a soft Brexit that would keep Scotland, at least, inside the European Union’s single market and its customs union. With opinion polls showing Scots almost equally divided over the merits of independence, the threat of another referendum that could break the United Kingdom apart complicates what was already a highly complex Brexit negotiation for Mrs. May. Speaking in Edinburgh on Monday morning, Ms. Sturgeon said she would seek permission from the Scottish Parliament to hold a second referendum, which she said should be staged between fall 2018 and spring 2019 — before Britain quits the European Union. While that should be straightforward, given the dominance of her Scottish National Party in the Edinburgh Parliament, the approval of Mrs. May could prove more complicated. Politically, it may be hard for Mrs. May to refuse, though she may try to delay any new vote in Scotland until after the withdrawal, calculating that this would make it harder for the independence campaign to prevail. Ms. Sturgeon said that unless Mrs. May made further concessions, Scots should be able to choose whether to follow other Britons into “a hard Brexit, or to become an independent country able to secure a real partnership of equals with the rest of the U. K. and our own relationship with Europe. ” She also argued that, in its current, weakened state, and trailing in opinion polls, Britain’s opposition Labour Party stands little chance of winning a general election, and that independence was the only way for Scots to prevent themselves from being governed — possibly for a decade — by Mrs. May’s Conservative Party, which has limited support in Scotland. In response, Mrs. May said a referendum would set Scotland on course for “uncertainty and division,” arguing that most Scottish voters did not want another vote on independence. During the previous referendum, the economic case against Scottish independence seemed to prove decisive — and that argument may have gotten stronger since, because of the global decline in the price of oil, a bulwark of the Scottish economy. In 2014, however, opponents of independence argued that an independent Scotland would lose its membership of the European Union. | 1 |
Report Copyright Violation BREAKING...Hillary Clinton’s E-Mail Server Company Got Almost $1 Million In Gov’t Loans After Wiping E-Mails "Hillary Clinton’s e-mail server company got almost $1 million in government loans starting immediately after they were secretly asked to wipe Hillary Clinton’s name from her e-mails " Last Edited by thatonedad on 10/26/2016 02:29 PM Anonymous Coward | 0 |
The Daily Sheeple
by Jake Anderson
Anomalous signals from deep space often evoke a quick pulse of gossip and speculation about aliens that dies off soon thereafter, when scientists are able to explain it. Usually, the explanation involves a natural cosmic process — an asteroid, space detritus, or frequencies from an exploded star.
Sometimes, however, the signals are too mysterious to explain. There’s a reason why you may have seen a sustained social media buzz regarding aliens this past week. A few days ago, two scientists from Laval University in Quebec released a paper arguing they may have just received our first communication from extraterrestrials.
First, a bit of context. This has been an exciting decade for those of us who stargaze in awe, wondering how many sentient beings live in this incomprehensibly enormous universe of ours. First, the search for exoplanets accelerated dramatically, aided by the Kepler telescope, which has identified over 1,000 planets outside of our solar system.
While scientists have long known that our Milky Way galaxy alone probably contains several hundred billion planets , the ability to study them had eluded us until fairly recently (this ability will be exponentially augmented when the James Webb telescope allows us to analyze exoplanets’ atmospheres and search for traces of industrial gasses). Additionally, the discovery of Earth-like exoplanets — some of which are conceivably close enough to visit in a few decades — has tantalizing ramifications for our near future human race.
Earlier this year, scientists announced the incredible observation of a series of inexplicable brightness frequencies from the star KIC 8462852, which led many to speculate the signals could have been originating from a Dyson sphere , a theoretical megastructure by which an advanced alien race (a Kardschez type 2 civilization ) could harness the power of its sun. The newest discovery from this star has made it even more unlikely that the signals are from natural causes.
The newest strange signals hail from a gaggle of some 234 stars identified by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, which analyzed the spectra of 2.5 million stars. E.F. Borra and E. Trottier, the two astronomers who discovered the anomalies, discussed them in their paper , which was originally titled “Signals probably from Extraterrestrial Intelligence.”
“We find that the detected signals have exactly the shape of an [extraterrestrial intelligence] signal predicted in the previous publication and are therefore in agreement with this hypothesis,” they wrote.
“The fact that they are only found in a very small fraction of stars within a narrow spectral range centered near the spectral type of the sun is also in agreement with the ETI hypothesis.”
Of course, it is far from certain that these are actual alien messages. In an interview with none other than Snopes.com , Borra claimed he never actually used the word ‘probably’ and that further confirmation was needed.
The director of the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute , Andrew Siemion, issued an admonishing response:
“You can’t make such definitive statements about detections unless you’ve exhausted every possible means of follow-up.”
So why is everyone so excited? The discovery appears to match a prediction Borra made in 2012 when he claimed aliens could very well use intermittent bursts of laser as a means of communication.
For his part, Siemion plans to use his Breakthrough Listen Initiative to more closely assess several stars from the 234 sample. Meanwhile, Borra andTrottier, Borra’s graduate student, will continue observing the mysterious signals.
It’s an exciting decade for space research. With plans for a mission to Mars in the hopper, as well as an exploratory probe that will be sent to the moon Europa, we may be witnessing the rebirth of the Space Race. What better incentive could there be to venture further into space than the call of an alien species?
Let’s hope that by the time we meet them, our own species will have transcended its addiction to war and unsustainable resource allocation. We encourage you to share and republish our reports, analyses, breaking news and videos ( Click for details ).
Contributed by The Anti-Media of theantimedia.org .
The “Anti” in our name does not mean we are against the media, we are simply against the current mainstream paradigm. The current media, influenced by the industrial complex, is a top-down authoritarian system of distribution—the opposite of what Anti-Media aims to be. At Anti-Media, we want to offer a new paradigm—a bottom-up approach for real and diverse reporting. We seek to establish a space where the people are the journalists and a venue where independent journalism moves forward on a larger and more truthful scale.
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Thursday, 10 November 2016 Trump's only worry is, "Who to fire first?"
Trump Tower, NY Trump gave his 18th press conference in 4 days to announce more of his selections for his Cabinet.
"Many people have remarked that many of my selections came from my old TV show, Celebrity Apprentice. Well, I was secretly trying all those people out for my Cabinet. So I will be deducting the cost of this from my taxes. Among other things. If I ever get around to filing them. Anyways, here is the list of my appointees. Also, I'll admit I'm reemploying many of these people because I know how much fun it will be to fire them all again" said Trump. Trump's comment on each appointee is in parentheses.
Dept. of State-Dennis Rodman-("And he's going straight to North Korea!")
Dept. of the Treasury-Donald Trump, Jr. ("Just to make it stays in the family")
Dept. of Commerce-Howard Stern ("Because he promised to destroy all the tapes of when I was on his show")
Dept. of Agriculture-Clint Black ("I was torn between him and that other hayseed, Trace Adkins")
Dept. of Defense-Jesse James ("I think he'll be good because he's scary looking and that's good when you're going up against somebody")
Dept. of Homeland Security-Andrew "Dice" Clay ("Another position where you just want a tough-looking dude.")
Dept. of Energy-Gary Busey ("Gary might have his faults, such as being severely crazy, but he did do a great job in that Buddy Holly thing and he is the most energetic person I know!")
Dept. of Interior-Sharon Osborne ("I gotta stick a dame in here somewhere or I'll get in trouble and she's a pretty tough broad.")
Dept. of Housing and Urban Development-Sinbad ("I'm not sure what this department does, but I'm told it would be a good place to put my African-American.")
Dept. of Health and Human Services-Cheryl Tiegs ("Because anybody feels better after looking at her!")
Dept. of Labor-Carnie Wilson ("Because she looks like she might go into labor at any time")
Dept. of Veteran Affairs-Jose Canseco ("I think maybe on a good day Jose could handle SOME kind of job if we keep an eye on him!)
Dept. of Education-Geraldo Riveras ("If this joker doens't give away any secrets, I don't know what his problem is
My daughter Ivanka asked me to give her a Cabinet position and so she's Secretary of Fashion now" Make Al N.'s day - give this story five thumbs-up (there's no need to register , the thumbs are just down there!) | 0 |
This is really, really bad guys. Hillary Clinton has found a guaranteed way to rig the vote, and America is completely clueless.
Via AlternativeNews
Now, we at Liberty Writers have come across indisputable proof that Dominion Voting Systems, the biggest voting machine owner in the US, has been rigged by Hillary Clinton!
Scroll Down For Video Below! So let’s start off with a little fact from Wikipedia. Back in 2010, just in time to help Obama get elected again, Dominion Voting Machines bought out the right to own the machines in 22 different states.
The same company has also been caught red-handed donating enough money to the Clinton Foundation to make it to the top of their online donor list. Just take a look at the Clinton Foundation’s website itself.
Wow. That is just such a strange coincidence, don’t you think? Right around the same time Hillary Clinton was deciding to retire as Secretary of State and focus on her campaign, this company bought out half the voting machines in the country.
And if that is not bad enough, one of the top owners of Dominion Voting is none other than the king of corruption himself, George Soros. So if you think this is as important of information as I do, then share this out immediately! Time is of the essence…
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Print Gappers team photo from “Every Boy Needs a Hero”
Just in time for the start of the 2016 Major League Baseball World Series, WND Films has acquired the father-son baseball movie, “Every Boy Needs a Hero,” for immediate release on DVD.
“We’re confident that “Hero” is a grand-slam movie that will build up families across America and restore luster to the game,” said Joseph Farah, WND founder and CEO.
Starring Burgess Jenkins, of “Remember the Titans” and “Nashville,” and Gregory Alan Williams, of “Miracles from Heaven,” this award-winning movie brings the love of baseball to hearth and home. It also features a powerful music soundtrack by three-time Grammy winner Michael Omartian.
Get “Every Boy Needs a Hero” now at the WND Superstore! From the producers of “Alone Yet Not Alone,” the movie is a powerful tale of restoring and strengthening relationships between fathers and their children.
According to Dr. Ted Baehr, founder of Movieguide, “ ‘Hero’ is an excellent movie about God turning a man’s heart to his son and a son learning to forgive his father.”
Dr. Baehr added, “The opening is powerful. The ending is heartrending. The drama, the acting, the jeopardy work well throughout the whole movie. This is one of the few movies that Movieguide can actually say go see it.” Keith Harris and Nick Edwards as Wynn and Sammy Heller
“Hero” opens with Joe (played by Burgess Jenkins) coaching his son David’s baseball team, the Gappers, to the state championship. Seven years later, after pursuing his dream job, Joe returns to town. He had left to pursue fame and fortune to support the family. His wife, Hannah, is stricken with cancer, while David is angry that Joe left them. After Hannah’s funeral, Joe moves back into the house, but David remains bitter. Meanwhile, David is coaching the now hapless Gappers; the team loses more than it wins. Joe steps in to get other fathers involved with their sons and turn the team of losers into winners, hoping this gesture will help Joe reconcile with David. Unfortunately, the league rules have softened dramatically, making it nearly impossible to train the team properly: practice times are limited, coaches can’t make players take laps around the field, everyone gets a “participation” trophy. The beloved American pastime has become so boring that few parents show up for games, let alone practices. So, Joe starts his own league to turns things around.
From the director of “Isaiah 9:10 Judgment” and the producer of “Alone Not Yet Alone” comes “Hero,” a beautiful tale of the significance of the father-child relationship that’s and set around America’s pastime, baseball.
One of the fathers Joe pursues for the new league is the warden of the local prison, Mr. Redding (played by Gregory Alan Williams). Redding’s career mirrors that of Joe. He’s been offered a big job in Washington, D.C. Like Joe, he’s lured by fame and fortune at the expense of his relationship with his son and family. In contrast, another Gapper teammate has a father who’s actually a prison inmate under Redding. Unlike many of the absent fathers outside the prison walls, the inmate father has a great desire to practice baseball with his son, but he cannot due to prison rules. Justin Miles and Burgess Jenkins as David and Joe Finn in the film, “Every Boy Needs a Hero”
What makes “Hero” particularly compelling today is that it addresses the growing crisis of absentee fathers and its impact on baseball itself.
Watch the trailer:
Washington Times reporter Bradford Richardson wrote in his article, “Study blames absent fathers for decline in black baseball players,” that the Austin Institute, a Texas-based think tank focused on family and societal issues, has commissioned a study titled, “Called Out at Home,” which shows a correlation between the decline of black fatherhood and the drop in black participation in baseball.
From the director of “Isaiah 9:10 Judgment” and the producer of “Alone Not Yet Alone” comes “Hero,” a beautiful tale of the significance of the father-child relationship that’s and set around America’s pastime, baseball.
Richardson writes:
Kevin Stuart, executive director of the Austin Institute, said fathers are natural teachers of baseball because “it takes two to play catch.”
There is a “long-standing connection between fatherhood and baseball,” Mr. Stuart said, pointing to famous father-son tandems who have played in the Major Leagues and the prominence of father-son relationships in popular baseball movies such as “Field of Dreams.”
Baseball, he said, was made to be played by fathers and sons.
“Baseball seems to fall somewhere in the middle, where what’s really necessary, or what appears to us to be necessary in order to really improve skills, is at least one other person deeply and personally committed on a regular basis to working with you,” Mr. Stuart said.
Anecdotal evidence seems to corroborate the study’s connection between fatherhood and baseball.
Famous father-son tandems – including Ken Griffey Sr. and Ken Griffey Jr., Prince Fielder and Cecil Fielder, and Tony Gwynn Sr. and Tony Gwynn Jr. – have talked about how the game was handed down from one generation to the next.
“Hero” received a powerful endorsement from renowned Christian author Stormie Omartian:
“For such a time as this, ‘Hero’ is an important movie about the estranged relationship between a father and his son, who learn how to reconcile using faith and baseball,” Farah said.
Baehr concluded, “‘Hero’ is a wonderful, faith-filled sports drama. It will touch your heart, your mind and your soul.” Gapper team dads from the film, “Every Boy Needs a Hero” | 0 |
TULSA, Okla. — The white police officer who fatally shot an unarmed black driver here last week as he stood outside his vehicle overreacted during a confrontation captured on video and was charged on Thursday with manslaughter, the authorities said. According to court documents, the officer, Betty Jo Shelby, 42, was overcome with fear that the man, Terence Crutcher, 40, who was not responding to her commands and was walking away from her with his hands up, was going to kill her. An investigator with the Tulsa County district attorney’s office said in an affidavit that Officer Shelby became “emotionally involved to the point that she overreacted” and fired her weapon even though she “was not able to see any weapons or bulges indicating” that Mr. Crutcher had a gun. Prosecutors have charged the officer with committing manslaughter “in the heat of passion. ” Oklahoma law defines such passion as a strong emotion, such as fear or anger, that exists to such a degree in a defendant that it affects “the ability to reason and render the mind incapable of cool reflection. ” Those found guilty of manslaughter face a sentence of no fewer than four years in prison. Officer Shelby, a Tulsa police officer since 2011, has been on paid administrative leave. The authorities said that a warrant had been issued for her arrest and that arrangements were being made for her to surrender to sheriff’s officials. Mr. Crutcher was unarmed when he was shot, and no weapons were found in his vehicle, officials said. The Tulsa County district attorney, Stephen A. Kunzweiler, said he filed the charge against Officer Shelby after reviewing video of the shooting from both a patrol car’s dashboard camera and from a helicopter that had responded, as well as 911 calls, witness interviews and other evidence. Court documents state that based on Mr. Crutcher’s noncompliance, Officer Shelby’s fear “resulted in her unreasonable actions” that led her to fire her weapon. Mr. Crutcher died from a single gunshot wound to the chest. The shooting is one of a string of deaths of black people at the hands of the police that have stoked outrage around the country. The unrest and violence in Charlotte, N. C. that has followed a police killing of a black man in that city were part of the backdrop in Tulsa. In a statement, Gov. Mary Fallin of Oklahoma praised city leaders, law enforcement officials “as well as the citizens of Tulsa for keeping peace and order during this difficult time. ” She asked residents to keep both the Crutcher and Shelby families in their prayers. “No matter how you feel about the prosecutors’ decision in this case, I hope Oklahomans will respect the views of your friends and neighbors, because we still have to live peacefully together as we try to make sense of the circumstances that led to Mr. Crutcher’s death,” she said. Last Friday, according to court documents, Officer Shelby was responding to a domestic violence call when she passed an intersection in north Tulsa and noticed Mr. Crutcher standing in the street, and his vehicle partly blocking traffic lanes. She was alone in her patrol car, and she stopped and approached Mr. Crutcher’s vehicle. Officer Shelby asked Mr. Crutcher if the vehicle belonged to him and whether it was disabled, but he only mumbled to himself and did not answer any of her questions, the district attorney’s investigator wrote in an affidavit. According to the affidavit, Mr. Crutcher kept putting his hands in his pockets, even as the officer told him to show his hands. Mr. Crutcher walked toward his vehicle with his hands up and refused to comply with her orders to stop. She pulled her weapon as he walked to the driver’s side door, the investigator wrote, and another officer arrived and told Officer Shelby he had his Taser ready. Mr. Crutcher reached into the driver’s side front window, the investigator wrote, and then the officer fired his Taser and Officer Shelby fired her gun. Lawyers for Mr. Crutcher’s family dispute some of the authorities’ account of the shooting. They said the window of Mr. Crutcher’s vehicle was up, not down, and so he could not have reached into the vehicle before he was shot. The two videos of the confrontation do not show the actual moment of the shooting. Benjamin L. Crump, one of the lawyers for Mr. Crutcher’s relatives, praised the filing of a criminal charge against the officer. “Through the vivid slow motion video witnessed around the world, America once again witnessed the tragic death of another person of color, gunned down senselessly by an officer who swore to protect and serve,” Mr. Crump said in a statement. “Make no mistake, it was clear from the beginning that charges were necessary in this case. ” Federal prosecutors and F. B. I. agents are conducting a separate investigation into whether Mr. Crutcher’s civil rights were violated. The Rev. Al Sharpton said the charge against Officer Shelby was “a swift step in the right direction as we pursue justice in the death of Terence Crutcher. ” But Mr. Sharpton, who was asked by Mr. Crutcher’s relatives to come to Tulsa on Tuesday, said he wanted the investigation into the actions of all the officers at the scene to continue. In downtown Tulsa, outside the courthouse where the district attorney announced the filing of charges against Officer Shelby, a group of protesters gathered, waving signs reading “Black Lives Matter” and “This stops now. ” Three Tulsa cosmetology students who stood holding signs said they wanted the officer to be charged not with manslaughter, but with murder. “Manslaughter is when you get drunk and you hit someone with your car,” said Mia Hogsett, 27. “It’s not when you point your gun at someone and know that that trigger can kill a person. She was afraid, but she was trained. She was trained to be in that situation. ” | 1 |
Nearly 15 years after the United States adopted a program to interrogate terrorism suspects using techniques now widely considered to be torture, no one involved in helping craft it has been held legally accountable. Even as President Obama acknowledged that the United States “tortured some folks,” his administration declined to prosecute any government officials. But now, one lawsuit has gone further than any other in American courts to fix blame. The suit, filed in October 2015 in Federal District Court in Spokane, Wash. by two former detainees in C. I. A. secret prisons and the representative of a third who died in custody, centers on two contractors, psychologists who were hired by the agency to help devise and run the program. One of them, James E. Mitchell, has written a book to be released Tuesday about his involvement in the program. In the book, he argues that he acted with government permission and that he and Bruce Jessen, the other psychologist and his in the lawsuit, received medals from the C. I. A. Legal experts say the incoming administration of Donald J. Trump could force the case’s dismissal on national security grounds. Deciding whether to invoke the state secrets privilege over evidence requested in the lawsuit could represent the new president’s first chance to weigh in on the issue of torture. Mr. Trump has endorsed the effectiveness of torture and said he would bring back waterboarding, though it is not clear now that he intends to do so. Lawyers for Dr. Mitchell and Dr. Jessen have clashed with the Justice Department over what classified evidence is needed to defend against the suit’s allegations that the men “designed, implemented, and personally administered an experimental torture program. ” Last month, despite United States government opposition, the court approved the defendants’ request for oral depositions of John Rizzo, a former C. I. A. acting general counsel, and José Rodriguez, the former chief of the agency’s clandestine spy service who also headed the C. I. A. ’s Counterterrorism Center. Dr. Mitchell was first publicly identified as one of the architects of the C. I. A. ’s “enhanced interrogation” program nearly a decade ago, and has given some news media interviews, but is now providing a more detailed account of his involvement. His book, “Enhanced Interrogation: Inside the Minds and Motives of the Islamic Terrorists Trying to Destroy America” (Crown Forum) was written with Bill Harlow, a former C. I. A. spokesman. It was reviewed by the agency before release. (The New York Times obtained a copy of the book before its publication date.) In the book, Dr. Mitchell alleges that harsh interrogation techniques he devised and carried out, based on those he used as an Air Force trainer in survival schools to prepare airmen if they became prisoners of war, protected the detainees from even worse abuse by the C. I. A. Dr. Mitchell wrote that he and Dr. Jessen sequestered prisoners in closed boxes, forced them to hold painful positions for hours and prevented them from sleeping for days. He also takes credit for suggesting and implementing waterboarding — covering a detainee’s face with a cloth and pouring water over it to simulate the sensation of drowning — among other techniques. “Although they were unpleasant, their use protected detainees from being subjected to unproven and perhaps harsher techniques made up on the fly that could have been much worse,” he wrote. C. I. A. officers, he added, “had already decided to get rough. ” Mr. Obama declined to open a broad inquiry into the treatment of terrorism suspects, saying as that the nation needed to “look forward. ” He did not rule out prosecuting those who went beyond techniques authorized by the Justice Department, but no one has been charged with those offenses under his watch. During the George W. Bush administration, a C. I. A. contractor was convicted in the death of an Afghan detainee at an American military base in Afghanistan. Henry F. Schuelke, a Washington lawyer with the firm Blank Rome, who represents Dr. Mitchell and Dr. Jessen, said that he believed his clients “were left holding the bag” while C. I. A. officials involved in the program have been protected from the lawsuit. “The government and its officers, namely many of the C. I. A. officers, enjoy sovereign immunity,” Mr. Schuelke said in an interview. Mr. Schuelke and colleagues have argued in court that the senior United States District Court judge, Justin L. Quackenbush, should dismiss the case because, among other reasons, “sovereign immunity” extended to their clients, who were acting on the government’s behalf. But the judge denied the motion and the case has proceeded under the Alien Tort Statute, which allows foreigners to sue in United States court for violations of their human rights. If the former detainees are successful, it would be the first time a United States civilian court has held individuals accountable for their role in developing counterterrorism policies after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. “All of the other cases have been thrown out on procedural grounds,” said Jonathan Hafetz, a professor at Seton Hall Law School. “If this is successful, it could pave the way for other torture victims to seek redress. ” Still, some lawyers say it could be difficult for the plaintiffs to prevail. The case has proceeded in large part because the psychologists’ role in the program has already been documented, particularly in the declassified executive summary of a Senate Intelligence Committee investigation of the interrogation program released in 2014. While the Justice Department has fought to restrict the scope of sensitive information that it has been asked to produce in the case, it has thus far not asserted the state secrets privilege, a broad power to protect national security that could effectively shut down the suit. That could change, analysts say, under the Justice Department in the Trump administration. Representatives for Mr. Trump did not reply to requests for comment on the case, scheduled for trial in June 2017. Lawyers for the detainees said they had no need for classified information. “There are dramatically more details in the public record about what the C. I. A. and the psychologists did,” said Steven Watt, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union. “Now, any attempt to argue that torture is a state secret would be a transparent attempt to evade accountability. ” But lawyers for the psychologists contend they require access to secret information to prepare an adequate defense. In his book, Dr. Mitchell, who had been identified years before the Senate Intelligence Committee report and had formed a company that received $81 million for counterterrorism after Sept. 11 (his personal percentage of profit from the contract “was in the small single digits,” he wrote) nonetheless criticizes Senate staff for allegedly leaking his name, which he said made him a target of terrorist threats. He also says that the techniques he used sometimes caused resistant detainees to cooperate in providing useful intelligence, though the book offers little, if any, new evidence that this is the case. Dr. Mitchell says Democratic Senate staff “ documents to create a misleading narrative” from tens of thousands of pages of the C. I. A. ’s own documentation that the committee reviewed over several years while compiling its report. The report concluded that the C. I. A. ’s use of harsh interrogation techniques was brutal, costly, ineffective at gathering intelligence and “damaged the United States’ standing in the world. ” The C. I. A. did not provide comment on Dr. Mitchell’s book by the time of this article’s publication. In one instance, Dr. Mitchell describes his and Dr. Jessen’s experiences with Gul Rahman, an Afghan citizen captured in November 2002 in Peshawar. He was found dead, naked from the waist down on a bare concrete floor in the freezing cold at a secret C. I. A. prison that month, shackled and to a wall. A representative of Mr. Rahman’s estate is a party to the lawsuit against the two psychologists. Dr. Mitchell writes that he and Dr. Jessen raised concerns about Mr. Rahman’s before their departure from the site, just days before his death. “To imply that his death was part of the program I was involved with is simply false,” Dr. Mitchell writes. But a January 2003 C. I. A. memorandum outlining an investigation into Mr. Rahman’s death, released to the A. C. L. U. in late September, found that Dr. Jessen interrogated Mr. Rahman after he was subjected to “48 hours of sleep deprivation, auditory overload, total darkness, isolation, a cold shower, and rough treatment. ” (The document had previously been released, but in a more redacted form without the psychologists’ names.) During that interrogation, Mr. Rahman resisted answering questions and “complained about the violation of his human rights. ” Dr. Jessen also said he “thought it was worth trying” a rough takedown, during which Mr. Rahman was forced out of his cell, secured with Mylar tape after his clothes were cut off, covered with a hood, slapped, punched and then dragged along a dirt floor, the memo said. Mr. Rahman died of what an autopsy suggested was hypothermia. The other two plaintiffs, Suleiman Abdullah Salim, a Tanzanian, and Mohamed Ahmed Ben Soud, a Libyan, continue to suffer from psychological problems related to their torture, The New York Times has reported. The plaintiffs are seeking compensatory and punitive damages. “This case shows that there are consequences for torturing people,” Mr. Watt of the A. C. L. U. said, adding that it “should serve as a warning to anyone thinking about bringing back torture. ” | 1 |
How to Survive a Nuclear Fallout Ad 728×90 – HBS Account – 2149237058061490 http://blogs.naturalnews.com/survive-nuclear-fallout/
By Caleb Stephen
Posted Friday, October 28, 2016 at 07:54am EDT
Keywords: fallout , Nuclear , nuclear attack , nuclear attack survival , nuclear bomb , nuclear bomb survival , nuclear power , nuclear radiation , nuclear war , nuke , radiation , survival , tactical nuke With the ongoing tensions between the United States and Russia, fears of a nuclear World War 3 breaking out are running at an all-time high.
With that in mind, I thought it needful to write an article on how to survive the aftermath of a nuclear fallout. Obviously we could discuss the likelihood of such an event occurring but that isn’t within the scope of this article. Personally I believe that at this point in time, such a scenario is not at all far fetched, however the situation is very fluid and thus things could change at any time.
Basically there’s two main types of nuclear weapons out there. First, you’ve got what is known as the ‘tactical’ nukes and then the intercontinental sort – the stuff that would basically flatten the earth. In that case there’s no point even trying to survive that. I’m going to be talking about how to survive a tactical nuke incident. #1. Don’t be anywhere near ground zero
Obviously the first step to surviving the initial explosion is to not be there in the first place. Of course, there’s not a ton that you can do if you happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. You’ve just got to hope that you exit this world pretty quick – which would most certainly happen if you’re anywhere close to ground zero.
The tremendous heat and sheer force of the explosion is enough to kill anyone and flatten anything within an 8 km radius of the detonation site. The intense thermal radiation emitted by the flash of light at detonation is enough to blind you, burn your flesh and start fires in the impact zone.
If you’re outside when this happens and you happen to survive, you should take immediate cover in a building. If you get any debris on you, you should wash it off with soap and water as soon as possible.
As a survivor of the initial explosion, you now have around 10 to 20 minutes to bail out of the area before a lethal amount of radiation (fallout) comes down from the mushroom cloud. In those 10-20 minutes, you need to get at least 1.5 km (1 mile) from the blast zone to survive the fallout however within 24 hours lethal radiation will spread with prevailing winds so keep moving to safety. You should feel for the wind and begin running perpendicular to it – not upwind or downwind. #2. Getting to shelter
If you can’t get out of ground zero for whatever reason, then you need to get to shelter as soon as possible. Get into the deepest underground basement that you can find, or the highest story (above the 9th level) if possible.
If you are in the fallout zone, but safely sheltered, you need to remain there for at least 9 days. During this time, food and water should be carefully rationed and clothing layered up to prevent radiation.
Really the best way to survive a nuclear event is to prepare for one.
Remember the nuclear fallout shelters of the Cold War era? Well that’s what you need to be inside to survive. But not just any shelter. It’s got to meet a number of different specifications which I am not going to go into because you can find plenty of information on that if you Google ‘how to build a nuclear fallout shelter’ etc. #3. Personal protection measures
Protecting your body from harmful radiation and fallout particles is your number one priority after getting to shelter.
Like I said before, being prepared prior to such an event is very important which is why it’s a good idea to carry the gear I’m going to talk about shortly inside a ‘Go Bag’ that you can keep in your car, house or workplace.
Some quick first aid tips: It is necessary that all wounds should be covered to prevent contamination and the entry of radioactive particles. Any burns caused by radiation must first be washed and then normal burn first aid procedure should be followed.
Now let’s look at the gear you should have ready before a nuclear attack happens.
Gas mask: You’ll need a gas mask to protect your face and respiratory system from airborne pathogens and chemical particles. Israeli Military Surplus M-15 Gas Masks fitted with NATO 40 mm CBRN filters are some of the best and cheapest around, yet are getting harder and harder to find these days with huge supplies flying off the shelves in the relatively recent Ebola scar. I have the M-15 civilian version of this gas mask and it’s extremely comfortable, has a port for a hydration tube and best of all it’s been tested in real life conditions in the Middle East.
Military chemical suit: These suits provide optimal protection from chemical and biological attacks and are used by the British army. These are surprisingly cheap yet are proven to work by soldiers whose lives depend on them in everyday combat situations. You can get these for around $25 from Amazon.com
Gloves: You’re going to need gloves to protect your hands from contact with chemical pathogens and biological particles. Long, chemical resistant gloves can be found online, at some supermarkets and hardware stores. You can get these at around $10 – $15 depending on the brand etc.
Boots: In order to have full protection from chemical and biological hazards, it is important to have a good pair of rubber over-boots to protect your feet and legs from chemical and biological particles from coming into contact with your body. Ensure that you ‘blouse’ your trousers inside your boots for maximum protection. Once again, these boots that I recommend are used by the UK military and you can get them on Amazon.com for around $25.
Nuclear Protection: There is a way to reduce the effects of nuclear radiation in your body. Its called Potassium Iodide and its available on Amazon for less than $10 for a pack of 14 tablets. What this basically does is it reduces the chances of harmful radioactive iodine from entering your thyroid glands.
If you don’t have any of these when a nuclear attack happens, you can improvise. As I mentioned before, clothing should be layered up to prevent radiation contact with the skin. Cover your eyes with close-fitting sunglasses or improvised goggles.
#4. Decontaminating food and water
Water and food will be contaminated by debris from the nuclear fallout making procurement and consumption difficult, however it is not impossible to make them safe to consume.
Whenever possible, try to use water that has been sealed in a container or bottle as you can safely assume that the water inside the sealed container is not contaminated. Wash the container thoroughly with soap and water or boil it for at least 10 minutes before breaking the seal. If water in sealed containers is not available, your next choice, only under emergency conditions, is water from springs. Again, boil the water for at least 10 minutes before drinking. Keep the water covered while boiling to prevent contamination by airborne pathogens.
Your last choice (only in an extreme emergency where sealed water and spring water are unavailable) is to use standing water (that found in small pools, ponds and basically any water that does not flow). Contaminants, micro-organisms and germs can survive easily in stagnant water. First, boil this water as long as practical to kill all organisms. Next, filter it through a cloth to remove the nasties.
In all cases mentioned above, use water purification tablets (following all directions on the bottle/packaging) after boiling and initial filtration prior to consumption.
Like water, you can also assume that sealed containers or packages of processed food are safe. To ensure safety, decontaminate all food containers by washing with soap and water or by boiling the container in water for 10 minutes. This is where it helps to have a decent supply of sealed buckets and containers of military-style MRE’s and freeze-dried foods such as Wise Foods and Mountain House.
You should consider supplementing your sealed rations with local plants, animals and produce only in extreme emergencies. Unfortunately, no matter what you do to prepare or decontaminate the food, there is no guarantee that cooking will kill all the biological agents.
Remember, you can survive for a long time without food (at least 3 weeks, but can be longer), especially if the food you eat may potentially kill you!
If you must use local food, select only healthy-looking plants, animals, fruit and vegetables. Do not select known carriers of organisms such as rats or other vermin. Always use gloves and protective clothing when handling and dressing animals, plants etc. Cook all plant and animal food by boiling only. Boil all food for at least 10 minutes to kill all pathogens. Do not try to fry, bake, or roast local food as there is no guarantee that all infected portions have reached the required temperature to kill all pathogens. Do not eat raw food at all costs!
Obviously this article is nowhere near comprehensive, but I hope it gives you some idea of what you need to do in order to survive the aftermath of a nuclear attack. We can only hope and pray that such an event does not happen and that peace will prevail on this planet. You might also like… | 0 |
WEED, Calif. — The water that gurgles from a spring on the edge of this Northern California logging town is so pristine that for more than a century it has been piped directly to the wooden homes spread across hills and gullies. To the residents of Weed, which sits in the foothills of Mount Shasta, a dormant volcano, the spring water is a blessing during a time of severe and prolonged drought. To the lumber company that owns the land where the spring is, the water is a business opportunity. Roseburg Forest Products, an company that owns the pine forest where the spring surfaces, is demanding that the city of Weed get its water elsewhere. “The city needs to actively look for another source of water,” said Ellen Porter, the director of environmental affairs for Roseburg who led the company’s negotiations with the city. “Roseburg is not in a position to guarantee the availability of that water for a long period of time. ” For the past 50 years, the company charged the city $1 a year for use of water from the Beaughan Spring. As of July, it began charging $97, 500 annually. A contract signed this year directs the city to look for alternative sources. Roseburg has not made public what it plans to do with the water it wants to take back from the city. But it already sells water to Crystal Geyser Alpine Spring, which bottles it in Weed and ships it as far away as Japan. Crystal Geyser is looking to increase its overall supply. Residents of Weed, including the current mayor and three former mayors, say the water was always intended for municipal and domestic use and should not be sold to the highest bidder. “The corporate mentality is that they can make more money selling this water to Japan,” said Bob Hall, a former mayor of Weed and currently a member of the City Council. “We were hooked at the hip with this company for years,” he said of the timber company, the largest private employer in the area. “Now, they are taking advantage of people who can’t defend themselves. ” plants have met with resistance and in some cases protests in a number of places across California, including a Nestlé plant last year in Sacramento. In the towns in the shadow of Mount Shasta, residents have raised concerns over proposed bottling plants that they say could severely diminish local water supplies. A measure on the ballot in the November election in Siskiyou County, where the towns are, would for the first time require that companies obtain permits to export water. The disputes echo California’s broader water wars. Five years of drought have escalated competition among farmers, factories and residents over water use and have pitted the arid south against the more north. “Water is money,” said David Webb, a resident of the city of Mount Shasta who follows the water disputes in the area. “If you can get it, you can make money from it. ” The mayor of Weed, Ken Palfini, says the value of the city’s water was emphasized during a visit several weeks ago by Pierre Papillaud, the founder of the company that owns Crystal Geyser Alpine Spring. In what the mayor and another participant described as a tirade of abuse, Mr. Papillaud demanded that the city give up its spring water so that his company could have more. “He said if he didn’t get his way, he was going to blow up the bottling plant,” Mr. Palfini said of Mr. Papillaud’s visit. “He said that twice. ” Mr. Papillaud’s son Ronan Papillaud came to Weed in to apologize for the brusque treatment and to rescind his father’s demands. But Mr. Palfini said it was a lesson on how small municipalities in the area need to protect themselves from companies. “They are just corporations,” Mr. Palfini said. “They are not your friend. ” Residents of Weed, which is still rebuilding after a major wildfire two years ago, say they believe that their dispute with Roseburg will end in the courts and that they have a document showing that the previous owner of Roseburg’s timber business here, International Paper, handed over water rights to the city in 1982. But they describe a David and Goliath battle between Roseburg, a wealthy corporation capable of paying for lawyers, and a relatively poor city with just 2, 700 people. Residents in Weed followed the legal battles of Missoula, Mont. where the State Supreme Court ruled in August that the city could seize water from a private company by eminent domain to secure the municipal water supply. The alternative to legal proceedings for now is to drill a new well at a cost of around $2 million, according to Ron Stock, the Weed city administrator. Roseburg has suggested a site on its property, but city officials say it is potentially dangerous: The well would be located a few hundred yards from a former wood treatment facility that is contaminated with highly toxic chemicals including arsenic. The facility, which is managed by Roseburg, was fenced off in 1986 and has been declared a Superfund site. Because of the complex hydrology of the area, including lava tubes that carry water in various directions under the mountains, the city would not know whether the water was safe until it drilled a test well, Mr. Stock said. “The city has to be very careful,” he said. “We don’t want a Flint, Mich. situation. ” Ms. Porter, the Roseburg representative, said the proposed well site was “well outside any area of contamination. ” In an interview at the company’s timber plant outside Weed, where logs are spun and shaved into thin sheets used for plywood, Ms. Porter blamed Mr. Hall, the city councilor, and others in the city for casting Roseburg in a bad light. “We are becoming the corporate bad guy, and that’s really unfortunate,” she said. The city already has wells that serve around half the population, she said. Ronan Papillaud, the president of CG Roxane, which owns Crystal Geyser Alpine Spring together with a Japanese pharmaceutical company, Otsuka, was also defensive when asked about his company’s plans. “We do not belong in this story,” Mr. Papillaud said. “We are not depriving anyone of anything. ” CG Roxane has bought water from Roseburg since the late 1990s and dedicates one of its production lines in its Weed plant to bottling water bound for Japan. Mr. Papillaud described his deal with Roseburg as a simple relationship between a buyer and seller. “Is this blood water? Are they involved in child labor?” he asked rhetorically. “We are clients, end of story. ” Watching the water dispute warily are members of the Winnemem Wintu, a small Native American tribe that considers the slopes of Mount Shasta sacred. According to tribal beliefs, one of the springs on the mountain is the place where animals and mankind emerged into the world. Six years ago, for the first time in the oral history of the tribe, that spring dried up, according to Luisa Navejas, a tribe member. The water around Mount Shasta is not limitless, she said. “This mountain is calling us now, and we need to listen,” Ms. Navejas said of the inactive volcano. “This mountain will talk,” she said. “The time will come. ” | 1 |
VIDEO : Sheriff Clarke and Judge Jeanine Make Their Final Election Day Prediction VIDEO : Sheriff Clarke and Judge Jeanine Make Their Final Election Day Prediction Videos By TruthFeedNews November 7, 2016
Judge Jeanine Pirro and Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke made their final election predictions on Hannity.
Watch the video to see who they believe will be the next President of the United States.
Support Independent News. Please like and share this story on Facebook or Twitter. | 0 |
Ichiro Suzuki, the baseball pioneer who proved 15 years ago that Japanese hitters could succeed in Major League Baseball, reached a hallowed milestone Sunday when he became the 30th player to compile 3, 000 hits. Suzuki, a Miami Marlins outfielder, tripled to right field against the Colorado Rockies to join one of the most elite groups in baseball in his 16th season in the big leagues. Pete Rose, the career hits leader, is the only other player to collect his 3, 000th hit by his 16th season. Suzuki is the first player from Japan to reach 3, 000 hits and just the fourth player born outside the contiguous United States to do so. He joins Roberto Clemente, who was from Puerto Rico Rod Carew, from Panama and Rafael Palmeiro, from Cuba. Suzuki is also the first player to reach 3, 000 hits while playing for the Marlins. The hit came as the Marlins chase a playoff spot. They were entering Sunday’s game, tied for second in the National League race. Suzuki, making a rare start, pulled a pitch from Chris Rusin to right field, and the ball hit high off the wall, missing a home run by about 10 feet. For all his success hitting balls the opposite way, Suzuki also has pull power, and he reached third base standing to join Paul Molitor as the only players to triple for their 3, 000th hit. Suzuki’s teammates poured out of the dugout to congratulate him, and the fans at Coors Field gave him a standing ovation as he waved his helmet in appreciation. Suzuki came into the season needing 65 hits to reach 3, 000 and has performed above expectations, given his age, 42, and his offensive numbers over the last three seasons. A starter, he went into Sunday’s game batting . 317 with an percentage of . 388, among the Marlins’ leaders in both categories. But after he collected his 2, 998th hit on July 28, Suzuki struggled briefly, going 0 for 11 over seven games before recording his 2, 999th hit on Saturday. “It took a long time for me,” Ichiro told reporters in Denver. “Obviously I’ve been feeling this for the past two weeks, and not getting an opportunity to get in there, getting a every night, that was tough. For me, I feel like I should have gotten this two years ago. ” Suzuki recently stated that reaching the plateau as part of a winning team that is competing for a playoff spot is one of the most satisfying aspects of the accomplishment. “Are you at the end and can barely play and are just chasing this number and can barely get there?” he asked rhetorically through an interpreter last month. “Or are you part of a team trying to win ballgames, going about your business properly as you go past that number? I think that is what I want to experience, and that is what is important for me. ” Suzuki made his major league debut with the Seattle Mariners in 2001, amid considerable skepticism that he could replicate the success he had achieved as a professional player in Japan. He had a small, wiry physique, leaving some to wonder if he might be physically overwhelmed by big league pitching, and unusual batting mechanics, in which he practically sprinted out of the batter’s box as he made contact with the ball. But in his first game on April 2, 2001, he rapped out two hits. It was a prophetic debut. That season he reached 242 hits, the first of a record 10 consecutive seasons, and he batted . 350, setting the tone for a major league career that will almost surely culminate in his induction to the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N. Y. where no Japanese player has yet been enshrined. Before Suzuki signed with the Mariners, the only Japanese players considered good enough to excel in the major leagues were pitchers. Suzuki almost instantly shattered the old perceptions, leading directly to the signings of several more players from Japan, including Hideki Matsui by the Yankees, Kazuo Matsui by the Mets and Kosuke Fukudome by the Chicago Cubs. But while Hideki Matsui achieved notable success in the Bronx, neither Kazuo Matsui nor Fukudome came near the statistical heights achieved by Suzuki, who has led baseball in hits in seven seasons, has a career . 314 batting average, and has 507 stolen bases. Of the players who have reached 3, 000 hits, none have done it quite like Suzuki. He did not enter the major leagues until he was 27, three years older at his debut than any of the other members of the club. Rose was 22. The oldest, outside Suzuki, was Wade Boggs, who was 24. Suzuki brought with him his unique method of preparing for games. He is a perpetual stretching machine, going through his calisthenics in the clubhouse, at his position in the outfield and sometimes in the batter’s box between pitches. He carries his select bats — made from Japanese tamo wood — in a valise, tending them much the way a concert violinist pampers an instrument. “Baseball is more than a game to him, it is a craft,” Derek Jeter said in a congratulatory statement. The last two players to reach 3, 000 hits did it with the Yankees, for whom Suzuki played from 2012 to 2014. Alex Rodriguez gained entry to the club with a home run on June 19, 2015, and Jeter did it with a homer as part of a afternoon at Yankee Stadium on July 9, 2011. Suzuki was still playing for the Mariners when Jeter reached 3, 000 but said he admired it from afar. “Don’t compare that to me,” Suzuki said with genuine modesty. Before his arrival in the United States, Suzuki had amassed 1, 278 hits for the Orix Blue Wave in Japan. Though his Japanese hits do not count toward his major league total, he now has 4, 278 hits over all. That unofficial math puts him ahead of Rose’s career record of 4, 256 hits, but Suzuki has never said that his hits in Japan should count for his major league total. He did say last year that he can envision playing another eight seasons, if his body holds up, meaning there could be many more hits to come. Suzuki’s current manager, Don Mattingly, was one of the best hitters of his era, but chronic back problems forced him to retire after 14 seasons, 847 hits shy of the mark. “That’s a lot of hits, and you have to play a long time,” Mattingly said as Suzuki closed in on 3, 000. “It says something about those guys, how they’ve worked and persevered and continue to take care of their bodies. I think it says a lot. It’s a great milestone. ” | 1 |
BIRMINGHAM, England — Outlining a timetable for Britain to leave the European Union in the spring of 2019, Prime Minister Theresa May on Sunday put immigration at the center of her strategy for withdrawal, suggesting that Britain could be headed for a “hard Brexit,” or clean break, from the bloc. In a speech at the start of the Conservative Party’s annual convention here, Mrs. May said Britain would formally begin exit negotiations by the end of March. Those talks will be governed by a deadline unless all members of the bloc agree to prolong them. Previously, Mrs. May had said only that the talks, under Article 50 of a European Union treaty, would not begin before the end of this year — a delay designed to buy time for the government to work out its negotiating stance. On Sunday, Mrs. May also began to lay down her priorities for a deal on withdrawal, known as Brexit, including the power to control immigration and reject European Union rules that allow people to move and settle across national frontiers. “We have voted to leave the European Union and become a fully independent, sovereign country,” Mrs. May said to applause from delegates. “We will do what independent, sovereign countries do. We will decide for ourselves how we control immigration. And we will be free to pass our own laws. ” That position strikes at the heart of the usual by countries that have unfettered access to Europe’s internal market of about 500 million people, but that also accept the freedom of Europeans to cross frontiers and live and work in any member state. While Mrs. May said she wanted the “maximum” scope for British companies to trade inside the European Union’s single market, she added that Britain would not accept the right of European Union law to trump national legislation, another pillar of the single market. Mrs. May also spoke of striking deals with new partners, suggesting that Britain would leave Europe’s Customs Union, which lays down common tariffs but prevents member states from making independent arrangements with other countries. Her speech left many details unclear and undoubtedly represents a tough opening bid before next year’s talks, which are likely to be complex and fraught with disagreement. She argued that the country’s new relationship with the European Union would be unique, and rejected the idea that there was a clear division between a “hard” Brexit and a “soft” one with closer economic ties, although there are signs of deep differences within her cabinet on the issue. Ideally, Mrs. May would like to regain the ability to limit migration from the Continent while keeping full access to the European Union’s single market. In an interview in The Sun published on Saturday, Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary, argued that Britain’s policy was “having our cake and eating it. ” Yet across the English Channel, there has been no sign of compromise, and European politicians have made it clear that a is required from Britain. Over all, Mrs. May’s speech suggested that she would emphasize the right to limit immigration even if that meant securing less favorable access to European markets. David Davis, the minister responsible for negotiating Brexit, underscored the position that trading arrangements were not the only, or even the most important, part of the British equation. “We want to maintain the freest possible trade between us, without betraying the instruction we have received from the British people to take back control of our own affairs,” Mr. Davis told the convention. Mrs. May insisted in her speech, the first of two to the convention, that Scotland would leave the European Union, too, and had “no from Brexit. ” In the referendum that determined Britain’s exit from the union, the majority of Scots voted to remain. She also announced plans to start the domestic legislative process for Brexit next year by asking Parliament to repeal the 1972 European Communities Act, which allowed Britain to join the European Union’s predecessor. Although this new legal step would not come into effect until Britain left the bloc, it would transfer European legislation, including laws to protect labor rights, into British law. Parliament would then be able to decide at a later point which laws to keep. In a statement, Carolyn Fairbairn, the director general of the nation’s main business lobby group, the Confederation of British Industry, welcomed that development but highlighted the anxieties of many companies. “With a rapid timetable pointing to an exit from the E. U. in spring 2019, businesses need to know the government’s ambition on the fundamental issues of skills and access to E. U. markets as soon as possible,” she said. “Businesses cannot continue to operate in the dark,” she added, because “the decisions they face today are real and pressing. ” There have been warnings in recent weeks from manufacturers, including carmakers that fear they may face tariffs, and from financial services companies that worry about their ability to do business across Europe from London. Carlos Ghosn, the chief executive of Nissan, said last week that he would be unable to make investment decisions in Britain unless the government guaranteed compensation for any tariffs that might be imposed after Brexit. Still, the outcome of the June referendum was interpreted by many politicians, including Mrs. May, as a rejection of the European Union’s policy of free movement of people, which has allowed hundreds of thousands from Southern and Eastern Europe to settle in Britain. Mrs. May served as home secretary for six years and devoted much of that time to an ultimately ineffective attempt to reduce immigration. Normally, there would be no speeches on the opening Sunday of a Conservative convention, but party leaders hope to get the European Union issue out of the way so they can focus on less contentious subjects during the rest of the gathering, which will conclude on Wednesday. The European Union aims to guarantee the free movement of goods, capital, services and people across its frontiers, and for many of Europe’s policy makers, it would be a betrayal to allow Britain to enjoy the economic benefits while rejecting free movement of people. In a recent interview with the BBC, Prime Minister Matteo Renzi of Italy said it would be “impossible” to give British people more rights than others outside the European Union. The president of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, has said that Britain should not be granted any special favors on access and that “any outcome should ensure that all participants are subject to the same rules. ” | 1 |
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — As she made for her booth, tucked into a remote corner of the Blvd Lounge at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel here, Isabelle Huppert expertly dodged the furtive stares of a roomful of diners. She had arrived on the arm of her publicist, who vanished as discreetly as he had arrived, leaving Ms. Huppert on her own to sit with a reporter, sip her cappuccino and ponder a question: Is she vain? Brusquely, she picked up a knife, inspecting her reflection in its blade. “Is this what you mean?” she asked lightly, brushing aside a stray wisp of hair. Was she being coy? Hard to say. Ambiguity, after all, is Ms. Huppert’s stock in trade. It is part of the screen arsenal she has deployed in more than 100 films during the course of a career, and it is central to her role in “Elle,” a psychological thriller in which she, as the victim of a vicious rape, responds with an eerie admixture of horror and calm. Her performance, which earned her a best actress award at the Golden Globes in January, drew fresh waves of attention when she was nominated this month for an Academy Award, an honor she seems to regard with a mix of anxiety and cool entitlement. Would she bring home Oscar gold on Sunday night? “Yeah, it’s possible,” she ventured, adding definitively after a pause, “Yes, for me it’s time. ” That near boast, tempered by a flicker of amusement, hinted at the wickedly subversive streak that has made Ms. Huppert a muse to an international roster of directors, including Claude Chabrol, Otto Preminger, Bertrand Tavernier and Paul Verhoeven. Mr. Verhoeven, of “Basic Instinct” and “Showgirls” notoriety, directed Ms. Huppert in “Elle. ” Combined with an apparently uncontrived chic, that subversiveness has lately transformed Ms. Huppert, who is mostly known in the United States to an art house crowd, into a red carpet diva and the unlikely darling of the fashion set. Never mind that Ms. Huppert, 63, long married and the mother of three, plays a grandmother in “Elle. ” Or that in her native Paris she has long been a fixture at Dior, Chanel and Armani. When the cameras closed in on her as she claimed her Globe, writers breathlessly anatomized every facet of her look. As the popular Who What Wear website effusively reported, “Her incredibly chic top and skirt along with an earful of edgy Repossi ear cuffs have landed the actress on a number of best dressed lists and left the internet buzzing. ” The Fashion Law, another widely read blog, posted, “It is difficult not to notice that Huppert is becoming a favorite not only of critics and fashion industry insiders but of those on the periphery, as well. ” Adding her voice to the mix, Vanessa Friedman, the New York Times fashion critic, posted on Twitter on the night of the Globes, “Whoever made Isabelle Huppert’s dress should take credit ASAP. ” Ms. Huppert had selected that dress, Armani Privé, with care. “It’s important how personal and singular you feel in what you wear,” she said. “It’s important that you keep your own identity. ” Would she turn up again in Armani on Oscar night? “I might,” she offered playfully. Whether she is captured on camera in a trouser suit, as she was at the Los Angeles Film Critics Association awards in January in a Chloé gown at the British Academy Film Awards this month or in a pale blue trouser suit, snapped alongside Nicole Kidman on the day they received their Oscar nominations, Ms. Huppert projects a singular authority. “She has what the French used to call chien,” said Simon Doonan, the creative ambassador for Barneys New York. He was alluding to the blend of tough chic and barely concealed sensuality that, Mr. Doonan maintains, defines Ms. Huppert’s allure. And in viewing her image on Instagram, Ryan Lobo, a designer of the New York label Tome, responded with a single word: “Queen. ” On Instagram, Ms. Huppert is followed by no less a fashion personage than Nicolas Ghesquière, the creative director of Louis Vuitton. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Jonathan Huguet, her stylist, summed up her appeal as a rare combination of masculine assurance and unexpected fragility. She is hardly indifferent to fashion, Mr. Huguet noted. “She knows her brands and designers,” he said. “She is completely open to different things. ” He added that she was happy to try a variety of fabrics, shapes and designers, among them Haider Ackermann and Maria Grazia Chiuri of Dior. Still, the style world’s renewed devotion has left Ms. Huppert nonplused. “After all,” she said, a bit disingenuously, “I’m not a fashion person. ” She had dressed for breakfast at the Beverly Wilshire in a crisply tailored jacket, its deep green and coral pattern setting off her russet hair. Who designed the jacket? Her features furrowed briefly as she removed it to check the label, exclaiming with what seemed genuine surprise: “It’s J. Crew. Can you imagine?” The jacket, which she wore over a pale coral Chloé blouse and slim trousers, was consistent with a style Ms. Huppert has refined over time, a look that is mostly defined by slim trousers, tailored jackets and coats, understated evening wear, and the occasional provocative accent (those tiny Repossi cuffs snaking up her ear). Immaculately assembled as they may be, her ensembles are “worn with the effortlessness that Frenchwomen seem to naturally possess,” Allyson Payer of Who What Wear posted. It is the kind of assessment that Ms. Huppert is apt to greet with one of her ironic smiles. “Because I’m French, people have a certain idea of my style,” she said. “I’m not quite sure what that means. And not quite sure what it is that I’m supposed to represent. ” When she’s not acting, she said, “I don’t think of myself as carrying a specific image. ” But on camera, she added: “Every change of outfit can help you. It allows you to see yourself freshly each time, and each time with fresh potential. ” There are times, it seems, when Ms. Huppert is all potential, her aloof, sometimes opaque, expression — “resting bitch face,” as the fashion tribes would have it — acting as a potent draw. “It’s intrinsic to her, that certain enigmatic je ne sais quoi,” Mr. Doonan said. If her mystery tends to mesmerize devout fashionistas, it’s not for the first time. Ms. Huppert herself is well aware that she has long fascinated fashion photographers, among them Richard Avedon, Guy Bourdin, Helmut Newton, Hedi Slimane and their illustrious like. “Her face is like a window, it’s so transparent,” said Peter Lindbergh, who has shot her many times. “When you photograph people, often that window is closed. Some people let you in, but there is a limit. But Isabelle, she is like glass. ” She also has a chameleonlike quality that was captured in 2005 in a show of her portraits at MoMA PS1, subsequently gathered in book form, that volume, like the show, aptly titled, “Isabelle Huppert: Woman of Many Faces. ” Perhaps most famously, she posed, for Newton wearing a white bathrobe that opened to expose a sliver of nipple, her expression in that instant a disconcerting blend of innocence and insolence. Her face, she knows, can be a difficult read. “Most of the time it is more like a white canvas on which you can project many things,” she said. “I wouldn’t say it’s inexpressive, but it is undefined enough that it can be shaped and defined by whoever looks at you. ” She laughed. “In the end something that could be seen as a fault turns out to be an advantage,” she said. However malleable her features, however vulnerable she may seem onscreen, Ms. Huppert wants you to know that ultimately she is the one in charge. “I play a role, but I don’t transform myself entirely,” she said. “The irony you see, the humor, the way of being cool, it’s me more than anyone else, I have to say. ” Some take it for perversity, a trait that has marked her since she appeared onscreen in the early 2000s as the sadomasochistic antiheroine of the erotic thriller “The Piano Teacher. ” “What people call perverse and outside the margins, it has nothing to do with perversity,” Ms. Huppert said. “It’s more about doing one thing and maybe thinking another. That’s what we all do, and that’s what you see in me on film. ” Nor does she, in her acting, make an effort to seduce. “I’m not really interested in pleasing,” she said in her teasing contralto. “I think the best way to please is not to please. ” That refusal is one source of a sexual charisma that can defy analysis. “I don’t use the usual seductive tools,” Ms. Huppert said. “My sexuality is almost cerebral. It’s never, ‘Look at me, see how sexy I am. ’” On the screen she is permitted an erotic latitude not generally available to her contemporaries, in particular Meryl Streep, with whom she is often, if misguidedly, compared. As Michèle in “Elle,” Ms. Huppert pursues her own sexual agenda, whatever the cost. In a recent fashion feature in The Reporter, she comes off as a steamy, vixen, aptly costumed in black leather. She is also permitted a display of that doesn’t quite square with the sexual hunger she is sometimes asked to portray on film. Some call it coldness — a Brechtian detachment, as Mr. Verhoeven remarked — or a chilly reflection of . Does that translate to vanity? Ms. Huppert wondered, returning to a topic that she clearly finds absorbing. “If it does, I don’t care. ” | 1 |
This article was written by Michael Snyder and originally published at his Economic Collapse blog .
Editor’s Comment: As the country continues to come to terms with Trump’s White House victory, it is worth keeping a sober note about the economy. Regardless of politics, the stimulus QE train is coming to an end, and there is nothing else to keep the economy alive. It seems that the megabanks are prepared to pick up the pieces, as the debt super cycle comes to term.
What is coming will hit the American people very hard. Trump and his new party will make the perfect scapegoat, as the elites will tie rising populism to what may prove to be a new wave of the economic collapse – despite the fact that the problems are systemic and span back decades.
11 Very Depressing Economic Realities That Donald Trump Will Inherit From Barack Obama
by Michael Snyder
It would be a grave mistake to understate the amount of damage that has been done to the U.S. economy over the past eight years. In this article, I am going to share some economic numbers with you that are extremely sobering. Anyone that takes a cold, hard, honest look at the numbers should be able to see that our economy is in terrible shape. Unfortunately, the way that we see things is often clouded by our political views. Up until the election, Democrats were far more likely then Republicans to believe that the economy was improving, but now that is in the process of completely reversing. According to Gallup , only 16 percent of Republicans believed that the economy was getting better before the election, but that number has suddenly jumped to 49 percent after Trump’s election victory. And the percentage of Democrats that believe that the economy is getting better fell from 61 percent to 46 percent after the election. Here are some additional details from Gallup …
After Trump won last week’s election, Republicans and Republican-leaning independents now have a much more optimistic view of the U.S. economy’s outlook than they did before the election. Just 16% of Republicans said the economy was getting better in the week before the election, while 81% said it was getting worse. Since the election, 49% say it is getting better and 44% worse.
Conversely, Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents’ confidence in the economy plummeted after the election. Before the election, 61% of Democrats said the economy was getting better and 35% worse. Now, Democrats are evenly divided, with 46% saying it is getting better and 47% saying it is getting worse.
The truth, of course, is that the result of the election did not somehow magically alter the outlook for the U.S. economy.
We still have a giant mess on our hands, and the following are 11 very depressing economic realities that Donald Trump will inherit from Barack Obama…
#1 Nearly 7 out of every 10 Americans have less than $1,000 in savings . That means that about two-thirds of the country is essentially living paycheck to paycheck at this moment.
#2 Reuters is reporting that U.S. mall investors are poised to lose “billions” of dollars as the “ retail apocalypse ” in this nation deepens.
#3 Credit card delinquencies have hit the highest level that we have seen since 2012 .
#4 Approximately 35 percent of all Americans have a debt that is at least 180 days past due.
#5 The rate of homeownership has fallen for eight years in a row and is now hovering near a 50 year low .
#6 The total number of government employees now outnumbers the total number of manufacturing employees in this country by almost 10 million .
#7 The number of homeless people in New York City (where Donald Trump is from) has hit a brand new record high .
#8 About 20 percent of all young adults are currently living with their parents .
#9 Total household debt in the United States has now reached a grand total of 12.3 trillion dollars .
#10 The total amount of corporate debt in the U.S. has nearly doubled since the end of 2007.
#11 When Barack Obama entered the White House, the U.S. government was 10.6 trillion dollars in debt. Today, the U.S. national debt is currently sitting at a staggering total of $19,842,173,949,869.58 .
Despite nearly doubling the national debt during his eight years in the White House, Barack Obama is going to be the only president in United States history to never have a single year when U.S. GDP grew by at least three percent.
So will Donald Trump waltz in and suddenly turn everything around?
Just like when George W. Bush was elected, there is a lot of optimism about the future right now among Republicans.
And in 2017, Republicans are going to have control of the Senate and the House in addition to being in control of the White House.
But does that mean that they will actually get anything done?
For a moment, let’s review what didn’t happen the last time the Republicans were in this position. The following is an extended excerpt from an article by author Devvy Kidd …
—–
The Republicans had control of both houses of Congress part of the time during Bush, Jr.’s two terms. Did they lock down our borders? NO.
Did they pass legislation to stop ALL funding for illegals which would self-deport millions of liars, cheats and thieves? NO. (READ, please: How to Self-Deport Millions of Illegals )
Did they stop trillions in unconstitutional spending? NO.
Did they get rid of any of Clinton’s unconstitutional Executive Orders? One or two but otherwise let Comrade Bill Clinton crap in our faces.
Did they get rid of one unconstitutional cabinet like HHS, Department of Education and EPA? NO.
Did they stop the unconstitutional foreign aid? NO.
Did they stop unconstitutional spending for Planned Parenthood? NO. Congress just continues to use borrowed money to spend more debt.
Did they stop unconstitutional spending for the gigantic hoax called global warming or climate change? NO. Trump: The Left Just Lost The War On Climate Change
Did Bush, Jr., get us out of all the destructive trade treaties killing American jobs? NO.
Did they crack down on visas bringing in tens of thousands of foreign workers when American workers who want to work are left in the unemployment line? NO.
Did they stop more and more federal regulations strangling America’s businesses? NO.
Did they impeach one single activist judge destroying our freedom and liberty? NO.
A Republican controlled Congress with a Republican in the White House and they did virtually NOTHING to restore America to a constitutional republic and constitutional spending.
—–
So will things be any different under a Trump administration?
We shall see.
There will be tremendous pressure to maintain the status quo in many instances, because the process of fixing things would undoubtedly make conditions worse in the short-term.
A great example of this is the national debt. As I discussed yesterday , the only reason why we are able to enjoy such a massively inflated standard of living in this country is because we have been able to borrow trillions upon trillions of dollars from the rest of the world at ultra-low interest rates.
If the federal government started spending only the money that it brought in through taxes, our ridiculous debt-fueled standard of living would begin collapsing immediately.
We consume far more wealth than we produce, and the only way that we are able to do this is by borrowing insane amounts of money.
Either Donald Trump will continue to borrow money recklessly, or we will go into a major league economic downturn.
It really is that simple.
But when our politicians borrow money, they are literally destroying the future of this country. So the choice is pain in the short-term or greater pain in the long-term.
There is a way out, and that would involve shutting down the Federal Reserve and going to a completely debt-free form of money, but that is a topic for another article.
And unfortunately that is not something that is even on Donald Trump’s radar at this point.
No matter who won the election, the next president was going to be faced with some very harsh economic realities.
There are many out there that have faith that Donald Trump can pull off an unprecedented economic miracle, but there are others that are deeply skeptical.
Let us hope for the best, but let us also keep preparing for the worst.
This article was written by Michael Snyder and originally published at his Economic Collapse blog .
Michael T. Snyder is a graduate of the University of Florida law school and he worked as an attorney in the heart of Washington D.C. for a number of years.
Today, Michael is best known for his work as the publisher of The Economic Collapse Blog and The American Dream .
If you want to know what is coming and what you can do to prepare, read his latest book Get Prepared Now!: Why A Great Crisis Is Coming .
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By Jon Rappoport
I begin this piece with three quotes from my work-in-progress, The Underground:
“There is a media metaphysics. Its basic principle states that nothing exists until it becomes information. Now we have a new twist: information only becomes real when it reaches a mind already attuned to it. In other words, the tree falling in the forest makes a sound only if a user/consumer who wants a tree to fall receives video and audio of the event…”
“Information can be dressed up a thousand different ways. But it tends to have an ‘elastic’ quality. By that I mean you eventually get to see the person who dressed it up. That’s a problem for chronic liars who inhabit the press. They expose themselves, even though they don’t want to. It takes a surprisingly small push to expose the whole operation. This is happening now, right in front of our eyes.”
“The basis of big media is theater. News is theater. Its directors and producers think they’re doing a first-rate job. But they’re sadly mistaken. Gaps and obfuscations are growing larger. The outright non-sequiturs and gibberish are becoming more apparent. The audience is wising up to the farce. Who are these fools who direct the news? They’re simply people who want to sell their souls and have found an elite buyer. But that transaction doesn’t contain any guarantees about shelf life. Mainstream news is decaying, and the expiration date is approaching. Like civilizations, the petty princes of information rise and fall…”
Globalized media. It’s nice plan. Let’s examine it.
The new technocratic media is based on profiling users. There is no impactful news unless each member of the audience is surveilled and analyzed on the basis of what he already likes and wants.
Shocking? It’s to be expected. How else would technocrats parlay the untold hours they’ve spent sizing up their consumers/users?
Several years ago, I wrote: “Tech blather has already begun, since Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, bought the Washington Post at a fire sale. Jeff Genius will invent new ways to transmit the news to ‘people on the go’ and make the Post a smashing success. Mobile devices. Multiple platforms. Digital taking over from print. Ads customized to fit readers’ interests (profiling). News stories customized to fit readers’ interests (more profiling).”
In other words, non-news. If you thought media were irrelevant and deceptive before, you haven’t seen anything. The “new news” will create millions of virtual bubbles in which profiled users can float contentedly, under the cozy cottage roofs of their favorite little separate paradigms.
The tech giant Apple has waded into this territory with an app that will deliver news to users. Yahoo: “Apple News, part of the upcoming iOS 9 operating system, aims to be the primary news source for users of the iPhone and iPad… Apple says its news app ‘follows over a million topics and pulls relevant stories based on your specific interests’… Joshua Benton of the Nieman Journalism Lab said the app will be important because ‘through the awesome power of default, Apple distribution puts it in an entirely other league. This [news] app will be on hundreds of millions of devices within 24 hours of its debut’.”
Translation: Profiling their users down to their toenails, Apple will present them with virtual bubbles of news they want to see and read.
Not just one overall presentation for all; no, different “news outlets” for Apple’s audiences.
This introduces a whole new layer of mind control.
“You’re an Obama fan? Here are stories confirming your belief in the Prophet.”
“You want neo-con on the rocks with a conservative Republican twist? Here’s some war footage that’ll warm your heart.”
“Do you believe ‘government gridlock’ is our biggest concern? Congress can’t get anything done? We’ve got headlines for that from here to the moon.”
“Tuned into celeb gossip? Here’s your world in three minutes.”
The idea: convince users, one day at a time, that what they already believe is important IS the news of the day.
It’s Decentralized Centralization. One media giant carving its global audience up into little pieces and delivering them a whole host of different algorithmically appropriate lies and fluff and no-context psyops.
And for “fringe users?” “You’re doubtful about GMOs? Well, look at what Whole Foods is planning for their healthier produce section. Cheer up.” Nothing about Maui voters declaring a temporary ban on devastatingly toxic Monsanto/Dow experiments or the dangers of Roundup. “You’re anti-vaccine? Sorry, you don’t count. You’re not a recognized demographic. But here’s a piece about a little unvaccinated boy who was involved in car crash on the I5.”
Does this sound like science fiction? It isn’t. It’s the mainstream look of the near-future. Search engines are already “personalizing” your inquiries. US ABC national news is climbing in the ratings because it’s giving viewers “lighter stories,” and spending less time on thorny issues like the Middle East.
The mainstream news business is desperately looking for audience; and treating every “user” as a profiled social-construct-bundle of superficial preferences is their answer.
“Mr. X, we’ve studied the little virtual bubble you live in, and now we can sell you your own special brand of truth.”
“Hello, audience. We’re going to pitch you on becoming full-fledged obsessed consumers, as if there is no other worthy goal in life—and then we’re going to profile you from top to bottom, to find out exactly what kind of obsessed consumer you are, so we can hit you and trigger you with information that uniquely stimulates your adrenal glands…”
The one-two punch.
Any actual event occurring in the world will be pre-digested by robot media editors and profilers, and then split up into variously programmed bits of information for different audiences.
Who cares what really happened? In the new world, there is no ‘what really happened’. That’s a gross misnomer. A faulty idea. A metaphysical error. No, there is only a multi-forked media tongue that simultaneously spits out a dozen or a hundred variations of the same event…because different viewers want and expect different realities.
In 1984 , Orwell’s Big Brother was issuing a single voice into the homes of the population. That was old-school. That was primitive technology. That was achieving unity by hammering unity into people’s skulls. This, now, is the frontier of unity through diversity.
“We want to make all of you into androids, through basic PR and propaganda and a pathetic excuse for education. However, we recognize you’ll become different varieties of androids, and we’ll serve that outcome with technological sophistication. Trust us. We care about what you prefer.”
User A: “Wow, did you see the coverage of the border war in Chula Vista?”
User B: “War? They had a fantastic exhibit of drones down there. At least a hundred different types. And then I watched an old WW2 movie about aerial combat.”
User C: “Chula Vista? They had a great food show. This woman made a lemon pie. I could practically taste it.”
User D: “That wasn’t a border war. It was a drill. And then afterwards, these cops gave a demonstration of all their gear. Vests, shields, communication devices, flash-bangs, auto rifles with silencers, batons. I watch drills all over the country. Love them.”
User E: “Chula Vista? The only thing I saw on the news was ‘sunny and mild’ this week. I watch all the weather channels. I love them.”
BUT when a Big One comes along, like the 2016 national election in the US, the separate tunes come together and ring as one. Then the overriding need to extend Globalism’s goals (in the person of Hillary Clinton) blot out every other priority. Then the major media twist whatever they need to twist. Then it’s the same bubble for everyone.
One problem, though. Major media have been lanced thousands of times by alt news sites, and by WikiLeaks and Project Veritas. This attack has exposed the truth and the Clinton crimes.
And alt news reflects the growing interest of the public in what’s actually happening on many fronts.
The technocratic plan for the news is failing.
It was a nice plan, but…
It’s turning out to be a dud.
Alt media are forcing public awareness of one giant scandal after another: Hillary/Obama support for ISIS; pro-vaccine liars; the collapse of Obamacare; the GMO hustle; pesticide damage…on and on and on.
The result? Major media are being backed into a corner, where they must defend lies and build monolithic lies for EVERYONE all the time. The idea of creating separate news for each profiled user is collapsing.
Major media are playing defense against the rest of the world.
It’s quite a party.
And it has no expiration date.
A final note: Trump, WikiLeaks, Project Veritas, Drudge, and many alt news sites created a perfect storm in 2016, raining down on major media. It was and is unprecedented. The mainstream press has been exposed down to its roots, as never before. The lying, the collusion, the arrogant sense of entitlement, the desperation, the corruption—it’s all there to see, for anyone who has eyes and a few working brain cells. Expect more to come, regardless of the outcome of the election. The train has really left the station…
(To read about Jon’s mega-collection, Power Outside The Matrix , click here .)
The author of three explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED , EXIT FROM THE MATRIX , and POWER OUTSIDE THE MATRIX , Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29 th District of California. He maintains a consulting practice for private clients, the purpose of which is the expansion of personal creative power. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free emails at NoMoreFakeNews.com or OutsideTheRealityMachine . Activist Post Daily Newsletter Subscription is FREE and CONFIDENTIAL Free Report: 10 Ways to Survive the Economic Collapse with subscription | 0 |
WASHINGTON — Congress’s rush to dismantle the Affordable Care Act, once seemingly unstoppable, is flagging badly as Republicans struggle to come up with a replacement and a key senator has declared that the effort is more a repair job than a demolition. “It is more accurate to say ‘repair Obamacare,’” Senator Lamar Alexander, Republican of Tennessee and chairman of the Senate health committee, said this week. “We can repair the individual market, and that is a good place to start. ” The struggles and false starts have injected more uncertainty into insurance markets that thrive on stability. An aspirational deadline of Jan. 27 for repeal legislation has come and gone. The powerful retirees’ lobby AARP is mobilizing to defend key elements of the Affordable Care Act. Republican leaders who once saw a health law repeal as a quick first strike in the Trump era now must at least consider a worst case: unable to move forward with comprehensive health legislation, even as the uncertainty that they helped foster rattles consumers and insurers. Insurers are threatening to exit the Affordable Care Act’s market unless the Trump administration and Congress can quickly clarify their intentions: Will they support the existing public marketplaces, encourage people to sign up and keep federal assistance flowing to insurers, or not? “We need some certainty around the rules,” said Dr. J. Mario Molina, chief executive of Molina Healthcare, which has been a stalwart in the Affordable Care Act market and is making money under the system. “We have a few months, but we don’t have a lot of time,” he said. With the official end on Tuesday of what was supposed to be its final open enrollment season, the Affordable Care Act is looking more resilient than it seemed just a month ago. It will still be several days before final enrollment figures are released, and although a surge of signups failed to have materialize amid talk of repeal, early indications did not point to a collapse. At their annual retreat last week, in Philadelphia, several congressional Republicans edged away from their powerful promise to “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act. It would, they said, be more accurate to say they intend to fix a law that they blame for the cancellation of many insurance policies, soaring premiums and a shrinking choice of health plans in many states. Many Republicans say their resolve to dismantle the law, a central element of President Barack Obama’s legacy, is undiminished. “We are looking to repeal this law, just like we told the voters we were going to do, just like we promised them we would do,” said Representative Jim Jordan, Republican of Ohio and a leader of the House’s most conservative wing. “After all, there was an election where that was one of the most important issues. ” But after waging and winning many elections with a promise to kill it, Republicans still have no agreement on how to replace it. They will, they say, pursue a piecemeal approach because they have no desire to supplant the giant 2010 health law with a single comprehensive Republican plan cooked up in Washington. When Congress convened this year, Republicans immediately introduced a budget resolution clearing the way for legislation to gut the health law, with strong support from Mr. Trump, who took office 17 days later. But Mr. Trump’s rocky start has slowed the momentum, depleting his political capital and dimming prospects for bipartisan cooperation. In addition, many senators are preoccupied with fights over the confirmation of Mr. Trump’s nominees to the Supreme Court and top jobs in his administration. What was once considered Congress’s Job No. 1 is being eclipsed for some lawmakers by more immediate matters. Insurers say Republicans’ mixed messages and slowing pace could send premiums soaring next year while making the market much less stable. The deadline to file rates for 2018 is this spring, and insurers say they need time to decide what kinds of plans to offer and to set prices. “We need stability and predictability,” said Marilyn B. Tavenner, the chief executive of America’s Health Insurance Plans, the main lobby for the industry. Unless Congress continues subsidies, to reduce costs for people, and a reinsurance program, to help pay large claims, she said, more insurers will pull out of the market. Insurers are also concerned about signs that the Trump administration may not enforce the individual mandate, which requires people to have insurance or face a tax penalty. The penalty, or some way to encourage more participation, is seen as central to having enough young and healthy people sign up to keep premiums low. “It’s very important to indicate how they are going to stabilize the market,” said Karen M. Ignagni, the chief executive of EmblemHealth, who was instrumental in the development of the current law. At the very least, analysts say the uncertainty for insurers could lead to much higher rates. “2018 is a wild card,” said Deep Banerjee, who follows insurers for Standard Poor’s. Many insurers could simply end up walking away, warned Sabrina Corlette, a research professor at Georgetown University who recently surveyed insurers about what they might do. “At a certain point, you can’t price high enough to account for that uncertainty,” she said. The end game is perhaps predictable. In the Senate, Republicans will need help from Democrats to replace the health law because they hold 52 seats but will need 60 votes. Several Republican senators, like Susan Collins of Maine and Bob Corker of Tennessee, say they will not vote to repeal the law unless they have a clear picture of what will replace it. And Democrats will not support any replacement unless Republicans scrap the idea of an outright repeal, which conservatives have been demanding for years. “We can’t repair the roof while Republicans and the president are burning the house down,” said Senator Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington. Republicans have many ideas about how to shore up insurance markets and lower costs. But it is highly unlikely that any of their proposals would be found by the Congressional Budget Office to insure as many people as the Affordable Care Act. Downbeat assessments from the budget office have doomed many proposals in the past, including the health care plan devised by Bill and Hillary Clinton in 1993. Mr. Trump chose Representative Tom Price, Republican of Georgia, to be his secretary of health and human services, with the expectation that he would work closely with Republicans in Congress on the details of a replacement plan. Democrats have delayed his confirmation, and that in turn has delayed Republican efforts to devise an alternative to the health care law they detest. Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee voted on Wednesday to recommend confirmation of Mr. Price, overriding objections by Democrats, who boycotted the proceedings. All of that turmoil in Washington has left insurers scrambling. “While the direction in Washington has been positive, we still need certainty about fixes in order to determine the extent of our participation,” Joseph R. Swedish, the chief executive of Anthem, one of the nation’s largest insurers and a major player in the market, told investors on Wednesday. Anthem said it expected to break even or make money selling individual coverage this year but said the market continued not to work as well as it could. “We have weighed in considerably, and continue to do so, with all the leadership in Congress,” Mr. Swedish said. | 1 |
ASTANA, Kazakhstan — Two days of talks over the Syrian civil war concluded on Tuesday with an agreement by Iran, Russia and Turkey to enforce a fragile partial . But neither the Syrian government nor the rebel fighters — who briefly met face to face for the first time in nearly six years of war — signed the agreement. While the three powers agreed to establish a mechanism to monitor and enforce the nearly they did not say what the mechanism should look like, deferring that issue for now. The statement, at least on paper, brought Iran on board with recent new cooperation between Russia and Turkey, and it strengthened Turkey’s commitment to separating rebel groups it supports from jihadist groups. But representatives of the Syrian delegations — both from the government and opposition — immediately expressed reservations. They emphasized that they had not signed on to a document that had been brokered by the main sponsors of the warring sides in the country, but not by Syrians themselves. Russia is the most powerful backer of the Syrian government, which is also closely allied with Iran, while Turkey has been among the main supporters of rebel groups. Despite the supposed new clashes were reported in Wadi Barada, a besieged area and source for most of the drinking water for Damascus, the Syrian capital. Water supplies have been cut off for weeks, and the government and rebel sides have blamed each other. The agreement among Iran, Russia and Turkey was announced a day after the Syrian factions exchanged harsh words at the start of the talks, held in Astana, capital of Kazakhstan. A main result of the meeting was to firm up Russia’s growing role in the Syria diplomacy, establishing the Astana talks as a part of, but not a replacement for, the Geneva process that has been spearheaded for years by the United Nations and the United States. The new document said meetings in Astana, a capital five time zones east of Geneva with close ties to Turkey but firmly within Russia’s sphere of influence, would be a forum to discuss specific issues that come up within the Geneva framework. There had been tentative hopes among some rebel negotiators that Russia might be ready to take on a more active role in seeking a political compromise. But there was no concrete progress on political issues, which were excluded from the narrowly focused talks. Iran, Russia and Turkey affirmed their commitment “to the sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity of the Syrian Arab Republic as a multiethnic, multireligious, nonsectarian and democratic state,” and their conviction “that there is no military solution to the Syrian conflict and that it can only be solved through a political process. ” Those sentiments echo principles that the United Nations Security Council has laid out. The countries also reiterated “their determination to fight jointly” against the Islamic State and against Al Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria, formerly known as the Nusra Front, pledging to “separate” them from armed opposition groups. That could be an important provision, since the Syrian government led by President Bashar tends to classify all the opposition fighters indiscriminately as terrorist groups, and many have been unable or unwilling to separate themselves from forces of the former Nusra Front on the battlefield. The agreement did not specify how such a separation might occur, however. In Astana, government representatives said that they still considered the rebel fighters to be terrorists and were waiting to see if Turkey followed through on the agreement. Rebel negotiators said the meetings had given them hope that Russia might be open to hearing rebel concerns and become more willing to press the Syrian government for a political resolution, but such optimism did not extend to Iran, which had stuck to a harder line. Staffan de Mistura, the special United Nations envoy for Syria who had been invited to the Astana talks, said in an interview after the joint statement was issued that in the interactions he had watched between Russia and opposition commanders, “The body language was of people who were seriously talking to each other and taking each other seriously. ” At the same time, rebels are concerned that the new agreement puts Iran in the position of taking part in a that its own militias have been accused of violating. The next round of talks between the Syrian government and the opposition will occur on Feb. 8 in Geneva, according to the announcement by the three countries. But diplomats in Astana said it was unclear if that date was firm. Bashar the Syrian ambassador to the United Nations who led his government’s delegation to the talks in Astana, said an offensive by the government and its allied troops would continue, arguing that “terrorist groups” controlled Ain a town in Wadi Barada. Residents in Wadi Barada say that some fighters from the former Nusra Front are present there, but that they are at most a tiny minority. Also on Tuesday, United Nations officials appealed for more than $8 billion in funding this year to help millions of people displaced by the Syrian conflict. The United Nations refugee agency is asking for $4. 6 billion to help at least 4. 8 million people who have fled abroad, mainly to Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey, and around $3. 4 billion for an estimated 13. 5 million internally displaced Syrians. | 1 |
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