text
stringlengths 1
134k
| label
int64 0
1
|
|---|---|
Shopify Erased Our Store From The Internet While I Was Fulfilling 55 Orders Shopify Erased Our Store From The Internet While I Was Fulfilling 55 Orders November 15, 2016 Work & Money
To launch a Return Of Kings t-shirt shop, I decided to go with Shopify because of how much easier it is to launch than a self-hosted store. I signed up with them, paid for one year of service, and did a pre-launch with a small group of readers, which resulted in 55 orders. As I began fulfilling them, Shopify pulled the plug on the entire store without warning, both the public storefront and the administrative backend with all our data.
Because of Shopify’s decision, my customers couldn’t access their order status, I had no way of informing them of what happened, and I couldn’t fulfill remaining orders. They put both me and 55 individuals in the lurch for no legitamate reason, forcing me to threaten legal action in order to get enough information to complete fulfillment of all orders. The Backstory
There are many open source solutions for hosting a web store. The problem with them is that it takes extra time to create the store and maintain it, compared to services like Shopify, Squarespace, Bigcommerce, Magento, and others. To get the ROK store up and running as quickly as possible, I picked Shopify because of their competitive prices, not knowing that I was in for a far greater price down the road.
After I set up the store, featuring photos of yours truly in our first t-shirt, I collected email addresses of those who were most interested with participating in the pre-launch. I sent this group an email announcing the store and 55 of them took action, ordering a t-shirt or two. The shirt in question
During this time, I received an email from a Shopify risk analyst by the name of Justin. He asked me to send in identification, which I was happy to do, and then asked me for more information:
Thanks for signing up with Shopify Payments and providing your ID.
In order to complete this initial review and ensure payments continue to be sent to your account we would need a little bit more information.
If you could send me any documentation you may have to validate the business that would be great. Examples would be a business bank statement, business license or business registration documents.
Could you also confirm where you’re primarily operating your business from?
I sent in my business incorporation documents, my IRS employer number designation, a recent bank statement (from my US-based bank), and a note of how I often travel through Eastern Europe, but that my business, bank accounts, and tax status all reside in the United States. In spite of that, Shopify unjustly classified me as a foreign business and gave me no means to dispute it.
Unfortunately, Shopify Payments is currently only available to companies that are based in Australia, Canada, United Kingdom and the United States, so we are not able to help with payments for your site right now. It’s frustrating for us to have to turn down good businesses, but we need to make sure we’re abiding by both US and international regulations. This means that any successful charges you have will be transferred to you on schedule, but you won’t be able to use Shopify Payments to accept any further payments. […]
Despite the information provided, our payment processing partner needs to ensure that the shops are based, operating from and have a substantial presence in the United States.
Ultimately, their decision is final and we must respect it.
According to the United States Federal Government and the IRS, my company is American and liable to pay American taxes, but to Shopify, I’m not an American business. The repercussion from this was that I couldn’t use Shopify’s own payment system (Shopify Payments) and had to pay a 2% extra commision on all orders, but this wasn’t a huge setback since there were many other payment options. I stayed the course because I wanted to do an on-time opening for my readers. I could always change stores later when it was convenient for me. The Disaster
I have a worker based in the United States who maintains the shirt inventory and is charge of shipping them out. He printed most of the shipping labels for the first batch of orders and got ready for shipment. Before he was finished, I tried to log into the admin area of the store to monitor his progress and saw this:
The public storefront was also taken down. There was no longer any way for me to know who my customers were and what they ordered. I couldn’t even send them an email. I then received this from Justin:
Hello,
I’m afraid that after reviewing your information and website we believe your business presents a level of risk for customer disputes that we will be unable to support on Shopify.
We will transfer your existing payments to you, but will be unable to accept any additional payments on your behalf from Shopify Payments.
I’m sorry we won’t be able to help with your business.
Regards,
Justin
After I read this email, I was absolutely livid. I’ve been doing business on the internet for over fifteen years, and have never had a situation where a company pulled the rug out from under me and my customers in a way that I would personally classify as fraud.
They allowed me to take 55 orders, begin processing them, and then removed all access so I could not complete fulfillment. Imagine if you bought a shirt from me and then tried to access the store to see the status of your order. You would have no way to know what’s going on and would probably think that I took your money and ran. Shopify created a situation of unneeded worry for 55 individuals while directly hurting my reputation as if I’m running some sort a scam operation. The Phone Call To Support
I called support and got on the line with a Level 1 support tech. I told him the situation as calmly as I could. His response: send an email reply to Justin. This was unacceptable because politely complying with him through email beforehand had only resulted in the deletion of my entire store without warning. I demanded to speak with someone from the risk department but the support tech told me there was no way to patch me through since he was working remotely. I was not calling Shopify’s main office but someone sitting in the middle of nowhere in his pajamas.
I also told the support tech that there was no further information asked of me, that this was a unilateral closing of my shop while I was in the middle of fulfillment. If Shopify is so worried about fraud, why would they leave 55 individuals in a position where they would believe they got defrauded and start initiating chargebacks with their credit card companies? I had no choice but to threaten legal action. I told the support tech that if Shopify doesn’t give me a way to complete these 55 orders, I would pursue all legal means as a response to what I saw as fraud.
The support tech put me on hold. After a few minutes of chatting with the risk team, he said that they have given him permission to send me a CSV file of all my orders. I decided that this was enough to satisfy the 55 individuals who purchased from me, but it still didn’t allow me an easyway to process exchanges or refunds if one of my customers was unsatisfied with the shirt.
Before ending the call with the support tech, I told him to relay to Justin and his team that they have created so much ill will by the way they have treated me that I will ensure that everyone knows exactly what they did, not just to me but also to my customers, who had an unfortunate experience because of their e-commerce platform.
Using the CSV file I received, I was able to contact my customers to let them know of the situation and complete fulfillment. Many of them have already received their t-shirts in the mail. The Lesson
Shopify has every right to choose who to do business with, and I would not be particularly upset if they said I have to go elsewhere after fulfilling open orders , but the way they removed all access from my store is absolutely reprehensible and the stuff of nightmares for a business owner. No owner wants to wake up one day and find that everything is gone with no way to contact his customers. I have never been treated so poorly by an American internet business before, and I’m confident that any business who treats people in this way won’t be in business for long.
Maybe my situation was special, as I am often abroad, but Shopify operates as if its customers are not even allowed to take a vacation out of the country. If you log in from a certain IP address pool, their algorithms go crazy and here comes Justin to hit the delete button on your store with one click.
Whatever the reason, it’s important for existing and potential Shopify customers to know that it doesn’t take much for them to shut you down at any moment and for any cause. They will take all your information and prevent you from contacting customers or fulfilling orders. Your only recourse to receive your data is to threaten legal action, and that may be no guarantee of success. If any of my friends ask me about which web store platform to use, I will strongly warn them against Shopify.
As for the ROK store, I’ve decided to try the open source method. Hopefully we will be ready for orders again within two months. Nov 15, 2016 Roosh Valizadeh | 0 |
130,000 Americans demand to forbid Soros manipulate elections 08.11.2016 More than 129,000 Americans have already signed petition on the website of the White House, demanding to meet in emergency session to deprive George Soros of possibility to influence presidential elections. Information that Lord Malloch-Brown, Director General of a company which produces election technology and voting machine, has close partnership relations with global fraudster and speculator George Soros, occurred in the US media in mid-October. And it was the last straw for the Americans. It's also confirmed implicitly by the fact that Soros himself has stood for Hillary Clinton many times. A famous financier of colour revolutions makes everything possible not to let Donald Trump come to power, as the latter has claimed several times that in case he won, he would cease policy of 'implanting democracy' in other countries. Taking into account sorrowful experience of the Soros' structures in the post-Soviet countries as well as those in the Central and Eastern Europe, these relations really allow to seriously suspect the financier and sponsor of colour revolutions of attempts to influence unbiased will of the American citizens. There has been no reaction to the petition so far, however Administration of the US president has been caught several times in deleting 'unwanted' petitions and signatures. Pravda.Ru | 0 |
IT’S ABOUT TIME: Maryland School Official Declares End To Student Trump Protests With No Consequences shares Facebook
Students at a Maryland high school staged a walkout to protest the election of Trump on Monday. They ended up blocking a highway in the process, which is incredibly dangerous.
One school official has now said enough is enough. Students who try to protest during school time will suffer consequences. Better late than never, right?
Conservative Review reports:
Party’s over, kids: MD school official declares end to consequence-free Trump protests
A Maryland school official is finally promising disciplinary action for students who protest during school hours after student-led anti-Trump protests turned violent Wednesday morning in Rockville, Md.
Montgomery County Public Schools Superintendent Jack Smith is “asking and expecting all students to remain in school and participate in the daily educational program as intended,” WTOP in Washington, D.C., reports. Students that refuse to attend class “may be subjected to the regular disciplinary actions that align with whatever infraction is involved.”
Earlier this week, hundreds of students from Richard Montgomery High School carried signs reading “Love Trumps Hate” and made their way to the local courthouse chanting in protest of Donald Trump’s election. During the protest, a 15-year-old boy wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat was attacked by four students, unprovoked. (Just the latest incident nationwide.)
Hopefully, other schools will follow suit.
When did this become acceptable for schoolchildren in the first place? | 0 |
Email
Sex crimes with children, child exploitation, money laundering, perjury, and pay to play, reads the partial list of crimes that, claim New York City Police Department sources, could “put Hillary and her crew away for life.”
Shocking evidence of such criminality has been found on ex-congressman Anthony Weiner’s laptop computer, claim the sources, which was seized from him by NYC officials investigating his allegedly having sent sexually explicit texts to a 15-year-old girl. Moreover, Hillary Clinton’s “crew” supposedly includes not just close aide and confidante Huma Abedin and her husband, Weiner, but other aides and insiders — and even members of Congress. According to True Pundit : NYPD sources said these new emails include evidence linking Clinton herself and associates to: • Money laundering • Sex crimes with minors (children) • Perjury • Pay to play through Clinton Foundation • Obstruction of justice • Other felony crimes NYPD detectives and a [sic] NYPD Chief, the department’s highest rank under Commissioner, said openly that if the FBI and Justice Department fail to garner timely indictments against Clinton and co- conspirators, NYPD will go public with the damaging emails now in the hands of FBI Director James Comey and many FBI field offices. “What’s in the emails is staggering and as a father, it turned my stomach,” the NYPD Chief said. “There is not going to be any Houdini-like escape from what we found. We have copies of everything. We will ship them to Wikileaks or I will personally hold my own press conference if it comes to that.”
These allegations, if true, could explain why Director Comey reopened the investigation into Clinton’s mishandling of classified information, a move that shook the political world and caused Comey to come under fire. As the NYPD chief put it, the new e-mails contents truly are “alarming.”
True Pundit also says that, according to FBI sources, both Abedin and Weiner are trying to cut immunity deals with federal officials and that, if they didn’t cooperate, they’d face long prison sentences. Abedin’s turning state’s evidence would no doubt be devastating for Clinton, as the two women have for years been joined at the hip. Abedin has at times been like Clinton’s shadow, has been called her “body woman,” and has even been rumored to be Clinton’s lesbian lover. So Abedin likely knows where, as is said, the bodies are buried.
Of particular note, the new e-mails allegedly contain information revealing that Hillary, Bill Clinton, Weiner, and numerous congressmen took trips to convicted billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein’s private island, where he is said to pimp out underage minors of both sexes to prominent people. The trips were taken aboard Epstein’s Boeing 747, dubbed the “Lolita Express”; the pedophile’s island, in the US Virgin Islands, has been called “ Sex Slave Island .”
These revelations would also explain why Clinton used powerful software called BleachBit to scrub damning information from her private server. According to BleachBit’s website, its program gives criminals and others the ability to “shred files to hide their contents and prevent data recovery.”
Yet it can’t scrub bumbling perverts from your personal life, and Weiner’s laptop also contains incriminating e-mails revealing the mishandling of classified information by Abedin and Clinton, say the sources. Both women “sent and received thousands of classified and top secret documents to personal email accounts,” and this information could have been “accessed, printed, discussed, leaked, or distributed by untold numbers ... of unknown individuals,” writes True Pundit .
Consequently, according to True Pundit , FBI sources say the new Clinton investigation has been broadened and now includes matters such as how: • Abedin forwarded classified and top secret State Department emails to Weiner’s email • Abedin stored emails, containing government secrets, in a special folder shared with Weiner warehousing over 500,000 archived State Department emails. • Weiner had access to these classified and top secret documents without proper security clearance to view the records • Abedin also used a personal yahoo address and her Clintonemail.com address to send/receive/store classified and top secret documents • [a] private consultant managed Weiner’s site for the last six years, including three years when Clinton was secretary of state, and therefore, had full access to all emails as the domain’s listed registrant and administrator via Whois email contacts.
If the new allegations in the True Pundit story are all accurate, they just add more intrigue to a presidential campaign that is truly unprecedented, with a torrent of WikiLeaks and Project Veritas revelations and now Clinton’s Weiner woes. From vote fraud to inciting violence to child sex abuse to pay-for-play to perjury, it’s becoming clear to many that the Democratic Party — and the Clintons in particular — are essentially a criminal syndicate. As former assistant FBI director James Kallstrom said in a Sunday interview, “The Clintons, that’s a crime family, basically. It’s like organized crime. I mean the Clinton Foundation is a cesspool.... God forbid we put someone like that [Clinton] in the White House.” And now we know better why, as I wrote Sunday, this “appears standard FBI sentiment. I personally know of an ex-agent — someone with knowledge of Clinton ‘crime family’ dealings — who I’m told is having trouble sleeping at night due to the prospect of a Clinton presidency.”
All these revelations raise important questions: How could Hillary Clinton and her cohorts have bumbled so badly that they appear a cross between Inspector Clouseau and Boss Tweed ?
And if Clinton is so careless with her own personal survival, how can she be trusted with national survival?
Part of the explanation is general incompetence, yet there’s another factor: Both Clintons have engaged in continual criminality over the decades — and have been allowed to skate at every turn. This lack of accountability has led to complacency and ever-increasing brazenness, just as with a child never punished for wrongdoing.
So, finally, perhaps, Clinton corruption has reached critical mass. And with Donald Trump ahead 10 points (according to one respected poll) among the 88 percent of voters who have definitely made up their minds, maybe, come late Tuesday evening, some tossing and turning FBI agents will finally be able to enjoy a good night’s rest.
| 0 |
Posted on November 1, 2016 by Carl Herman
“Let us therefore animate and encourage each other, and show the whole world that a Freeman, contending for liberty on his own ground, is superior to any slavish mercenary on earth.” ~ George Washington, General Orders, Headquarters, New York (2 July 1776)
language warning: we speak in the direct language of rebels who would have hanged for treason against God and King in the days of our Founders.
Setting: Boston’s Green Dragon Tavern dining room at the far corner booth, 5PM a few days before the 2016 so-called “election,” having beer flights and lobster rolls with George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams. They appear age 40-50; that is, mature yet vigorous. Their health maladies are corrected:
George: wearing a grey business suit with the jacket off, white dress shirt with two unbuttoned front buttons, sleeves rolled up two times. His hair is business-short, just longer than military. His troubled teeth are now restored in perfect health. His 6’3” physique is powerfully muscular on a large-boned frame; an athletic man who works out. His demeanor exudes controlled confidence. He sits next to Tom, and on the outside of the booth.
Tom: wearing jeans, a 1/4 zip forrest green sweater, and tennis shoes. Tom’s hair is on the longish side, fading red as is George’s. He’s almost as tall as George, but of medium frame and easy athleticism and elegance of a cat, with healthy appearance of a man who runs for fitness. Tom is attentive, not assertive, at times lounging in the corner of the booth. Tom and George’s accents are not Southern by today’s standards; with only a hint of how those dialects would develop.
John: At 5’6” and unathletically portly, he wears dark navy dress slacks, a blue dress shirt with only one unbuttoned button, and sleeves buttoned. His hair is between the lengths of George and Tom, and balding. John is talkative, creatively intelligent, energetic, and at ease in a role of facilitator of our discussion. John’s accent is Bostonian.
**
A few minutes early, I walk toward the entrance spotting Jefferson examining a flower box next to the door. His elegant fingers gently lift the leaves to his gaze. I approach behind him, and hug his upper arms.
Carl: (warm smile) Bro.
Tom: (smooth and calm pivot to bro-hug) Carl. (looking back to the flowers) These annuals have about a month left until the first freeze kills them. Perhaps their seed will bloom into the brighter Spring we’re all working for. (half-smile, and placing a hand on my shoulder as we walk into the tavern)
Washington sees us enter, and stands. Adams is preoccupied with a waiter to position three plates of lobster rolls and two orders each of beer flights.
George: Gentlemen.
John: (turning with a broad smile) Ah! Thomas! Carl! Thank you for coming, thank you! (bro hugs)
Carl: Thank you ; all of you. Sir. (extending a hand to Washington, whose powerful hand engulfs it)
John: Please, friends, enjoy! (raising the first glass in the beer flight) To liberty. (all: “To liberty”)
So, please, everyone let’s enjoy some conversation and sustenance! Let us speak as patriots and friends! (we all take note with appreciation of Adams’ energy and intentionality as our facilitator)
Tom: Carl, in combination with our previous conversation on July 4th , we thought it helpful to speak with interested readers before the so-called US “election” for a so-called “president” as the leader of so-called “public information” under limited government of a constitutional republic.
Carl: Good call. Who’s up first? (raising my glass with my left hand to hide my right pointing to Adams sitting on my left)
John: (face already reddening, jumping at the opening) “So-called election,” exactly! Don’t ever call that a fucking “election” when there’s nothing for the people to count! Those electronic voting machines are proven as election fraud tools of the elite! Carl, when you recount our conversation, put right fucking here the evidence!
(the three of us observing, again, appreciate Adams’ straight-forward and to-the-point passion)
Carl: Will do, bro.
John: Fucking elite “our blood is superior” assholes! Fuck them and put them in fucking prison!
Tom: (amused smile) Please, John. Don’t hold back.
John: I’m sorry, but what else can one say who isn’t a .01% ass-kisser? Fooling the people every election with false promises is one thing, but then taking those elections away altogether is just fucked-up.
George: Agreed. Prison is the only place for such criminals.
Carl: Here, bros; this two minute video will help:
Tom: (in careful study) These videos are truly more powerful than just the pen.
John: Thank you, Carl. I know you’ll present the evidence effectively. God Bless us all, I just don’t know what else to do other than speak the truth!
(the evidence John requested) :
When Americans are told an election is defined by touching a computer screen without a countable receipt that can be verified, they are being told a criminal lie to allow election fraud . This is self-evident, but Princeton , Stanford , and the President of the American Statistical Association are among the leaders pointing to the obvious (and here , here , here , here , here , here , here , here , here , here , here , here , here , here , here , here , here , here , here ). Again, no professional would/can argue an election is legitimate when there is nothing for anyone to count.
George: Thank you, John. Thomas?
Tom: Yes, General. Americans embrace the ideals of the Declaration of Independence as who they are (lightly taps the table with his fist). This Brother and Sisterhood bound in Love resonates with all Americans not ensnared by the elite.
This bond of love and equality demands truthful public information.
What Americans receive instead is “official” and corporate media lies of omission and commission to herd the people as work animals.
It is the most vile and base disinformation that, Carl, your modern times most accurately assert as bullshit . Six corporations have been bought and owned for relentless lies to thinly veil a rogue state oligarchy. Without this constant “covering” of crimes centered in money and war, Americans would end these crimes.
As we discussed , I wrote a pamphlet of the people’s rights contrasted with the tyrannical treatment we received from our own government. Tom Paine’s Common Sense was discussed in every tavern of America. There are so many powerful journalists pointing to the facts today in 2016; an Emperor’s New Clothes moment will come when people and God align for the bright light of truth to reveal all.
John: (smiling) That’s why we had him write the Declaration of Independence. We thought Franklin could also do it, but he’d throw in too many jokes.
George: (a half-laugh, but not prone to much more, then gravitas) I shall conclude.
Without military support, Americans are lost. From strategic necessity, I will say nothing of those evolving events. I can say this: outside of divine intervention, ordinary Americans must build a demand to arrest .01% criminal leaders for treason , Wars of Aggression , Crimes Against Humanity , destruction of the Bill of Rights , looting led by central banking , political assassinations that include President Kennedy and Martin King , and official lying with complicit media .
These crimes are the opposite of the Declaration of Independence and US Constitution.
The US has devolved into a viciously rogue state .
There exists no argument against those facts except from the treasonous who only have bullshit in place of reason . As God watches over us, that truth will be made clear. (controlled passion in voice and eyes, with clenched fist tapped and held on our table)
When demand grows strong, patriots within military and government will act, and obviously within the law. They will honor their Oaths to defend humanity from a criminal elite who annually kill millions, harm billions, and loot trillions.
John: (raising his last glass) Here, here!
Carl: (addressing Washington) Sir, you’ll appreciate these two minutes from Martin King :
George: Silence in the face of these tyrants’ crimes is betrayal to God and nation, yes.
Tom: Perhaps we should remind readers how the oligarchs “pay” their minions, Carl. As I struggled to understand and express in my day , the fundamental economic crime is how our oligarchs create what is used as money: debt owed to them .
Carl, among many in alternative media, you document $1,000,000 per US household in withheld benefits (and here ) of an honest monetary system, with the .01% parasite-class hoarding about $30 trillion in off-shore tax-havens .
Americans, and humanity, are being used as propagandized work animals.
John: They certainly fucking are! As you two (gesturing to Tom and me, spilling a little beer) help us understand, $30 trillion is thirty times what’s needed to end global poverty and save a million children’s lives every month! Americans must demand arrests of these demons who laugh as children die !
Tom: Yes. As you document , Carl, the total deaths from preventable poverty in just the last 20 years is more than from all wars and violence of any kind in all recorded human history . The .01% tyrant class, so-called “leaders” of so-called “former” colonial powers have promised the end of poverty with just 0.7% of GNI since 1969, but prefer ongoing looting. They use those subjects as work animals, hoping they’ll feel “lucky” to have a job for the empire rather than slow, painful death from poverty.
Ending poverty decreases population growth rates in every historical case. The CIA reports that ending poverty is the best way to end terrorism. And the total investment over ten years for world peace and civilization is just about a trillion dollars: just 1/6th of what the US War Department reported “losing” in 2016 if we were to pay for it all rather than all developed nations.
George: There are no US “Presidents,” only puppets to lie and cover the looting.
Carl, please show your readers John Perkins ’ 2-minutes of context as an illustration of what US Presidents execute:
John: The US is not just a rogue state , but a looting, lying, psychopathic, assassinating, child-killing, war-mongering, empire-driven, drug-dealing, minion-spawning, election-stealing, environment-and-food-poisoning, criminal pyramid!
People should “vote” for Truth about that , not some asshole, murdering, Left or Right arm puppet of the most vicious .01% fucks in all fucking history!!
What more do the Gods need to make clear that isn’t already clear? Fuck!!
George: (dead-pan) I have nothing to amend John’s summary.
Tom: (nodding to John) And he’s the milder cousin compared to Sam.
Carl: (raising the last of my glasses) Well, gentlemen: to the breakthrough for a brighter future.
(all raise their glasses to that!)
Tom: And Carl, you’ll conclude your documentation of our meeting with the argument for .01% arrests for consideration of our American Brethren?
Carl: Of course. The Crimes The US is a literal rogue state empire led by neocolonial looting liars. The history is uncontested and taught to anyone taking comprehensive courses. If anyone has any refutations of this professional academic factual claim for any of this easy-to-read and documented content , please provide it. US ongoing lie-started and Orwellian-illegal Wars of Aggression require all US military and government to refuse all war orders because there are no lawful orders for obviously unlawful wars. Officers are required to arrest those who issue obviously unlawful orders. And again, those of us working for this area of justice are aware of zero attempts to refute this with, “War law states (a, b, c), so the wars are legal because (d, e, f).” All we receive is easy-to-reveal bullshit . When Americans are told an election is defined by touching a computer screen without a countable receipt that can be verified, they are being told a criminal lie to allow election fraud . This is self-evident, but Princeton , Stanford , and the President of the American Statistical Association are among the leaders pointing to the obvious (and here , here , here , here , here , here , here , here , here , here , here , here , here , here , here , here , here , here ). Again, no professional would/can argue an election is legitimate when there is nothing for anyone to count. And, duh, corporate media are criminally complicit through constant lies of omission and commission to “cover” all these crimes. Historic tragic-comic empire is only possible through such straight-face lying, making our Emperor’s New Clothes analogy perfectly chosen. The top three benefits each of monetary reform and public banking total ~$1,000,000 for the average American household, and would be received nearly instantly. Please read that twice. Now look to verify for yourself . Demanding arrests as the required and obvious public response rather than ‘voting’ for more disaster:
The categories of crime include: Wars of Aggression (the worst crime a nation can commit). Likely treason for lying to US military, ordering unlawful attack and invasions of foreign lands, and causing thousands of US military deaths. Crimes Against Humanity for ongoing intentional policy of poverty that’s killed over 400 million human beings just since 1995 (~75% children; more deaths than from all wars in Earth’s recorded history).
US military, law enforcement, and all with Oaths to support and defend the US Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, face an endgame choice: Demand arrests , with those with lawful authority to enact it. An arrest is the lawful action to stop apparent crimes , with the most serious crimes documented here meaning the most serious need for arrests. Watch the US escalate its rogue state crimes that annually kill millions, harm billions, and loot trillions.
In just 90 seconds , former US Marine Ken O’Keefe powerfully states how you may choose to voice “very obvious solutions”: arrest the criminal leaders (video starts at 20:51, then finishes this episode of Cross Talk ): Solutions worth literal tens of trillions to ‘We the People’:
Again: The top three benefits each of monetary reform and public banking total ~$1,000,000 for the average American household, and would be received nearly instantly. Please read that twice. Now look to verify for yourself . We can quantify the end of the lie-started and illegal Wars of Aggression quickly into the trillions, and that said, it’s worth a lot more than what we quantify. Truth : a world in which education is expressed in its full potential to only and always begin with good-faith effort for objective, comprehensive, and verifiable data.
“Interview” series: | 0 |
By Jay Syrmopoulos
The goal of U.S. policy in Syria doesn’t get any more clear; the actual mission being supported by the United States in Syria is regime change, not fighting ISIS.
Reports this week indicated that Islamic State militants were decimated by recent Russian airstrikes, and have lost “most” of their ammunition, heavy vehicles and equipment in the precision strikes, according to the Russian Defense Ministry.
An array of Russian bombers and ground support aircrafts targeted Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) sites in the provinces of Raqqah, Hama, Idlib, Latakia and Aleppo, according to the Russian Defense Ministry. The attacks reportedly destroyed command posts, heavy weapons, ammunition and armament depots, military vehicles, plants producing explosives, field camps and bases.
A report by RT stated :
According to intercepted communications, the militants suffer from shortages of ammunition, small arms and grenade guns. Several commanders allegedly say they will withdraw their units unless their ammunition needs are satisfied.
“Russian airstrikes resulted in the elimination of the majority of ISIS ammunition, heavy vehicles and equipment,” the Defense Ministry tweeted.
Russian anti-terror military operations in the Syrian theater were launched on September, 30, at the request of the Syrian government. The United States has since accused Russia of targeting moderate opposition in Syria, but Moscow says it is after terrorist groups such as IS and Al-Nusra Front.
#SYRIA Russian air strikes resulted in elimination of the most part of #ISIS ammunition, heavy vehicles and equipment
— Минобороны России (@mod_russia) October 13, 2015
To understand the U.S. position, one has to understand the rapidly evolving U.S. strategy in Syria.
The Obama Administration recently announced that its $500 million plan to train and equip vetted “moderate” rebels was a total failure. Incredibly, the U.S. came up with an even worse plan – remove the training and vetting requirement of the program , and start sending military equipment.
The new protocol embraced by the U.S. would require only leaders of the rebel groups to be vetted. Once the leader of the group is vetted weapons would flow to the group, no questions asked.
Moving quickly to operationalize their new strategy, the U.S. airdropped 50 tons of weapons and ammunition to the newly branded “Syrian Arab Coalition” forces — a U.S. rebel group re-branded, but known for its unreliability and willingness to hand weapons over to al-Qaeda and ISIS.
“Probably 60 to 80 percent of the arms that America shoveled in have gone to al-Qaeda and its affiliates,” according to Joshua Landis, a Syria expert at the University of Oklahoma.
It seems quite obvious that while the U.S. likely supplies al-Qaeda affiliate the al-Nusra front, Ahrar al Shams, and other jihadists in the Syrian combat theater, the idea that the U.S. is once again using the al-Qaeda terror network, similarly to how they were used to fight a proxy war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, should give pause to every American as a potential replaying of past U.S. foreign policy failures.
In addition to the U.S. airdropping 50 tons of weapons to Syrian rebel groups, Saudi Arabia delivered 500 TOW anti-tank missiles to anti-Assad Syrian rebels.
Highlighting the actual motivation behind the U.S. and Saudis supply rebel groups heavy weaponry, TOW anti-tank missiles provided to the rebels by the US and its allies have not been used against ISIS, but to strike Russian-made tanks of the Syrian Arab Army as it fights against al-Qaeda and ISIS.
The goal of U.S. policy in Syria doesn’t get any more clear; the actual mission being supported by the United States in Syria is regime change, not fighting ISIS.
According to a report by the Ron Paul Institute :
The TOW missile program is a CIA program, separate from the failed Defense Department rebel training program. The CIA has been arming and training unvetted rebels — many if not most foreign mercenaries rather than Syrians — to overthrow the Assad government since 2011 or 2012. The shot in the arm it has received from new shipments is obvious, as one rebel commander describes a recent attack on Assad’s forces:
‘It was a tank massacre,’ said Capt. Mustafa Moarati, whose Tajamu al-Izza group says it destroyed seven tanks and armored vehicles Wednesday.
More missiles are on the way, he said. New supplies arrived after the Russian deployments began, he said, and the rebels’ allies have promised further deliveries soon, bringing echoes of the role played by U.S.-supplied Stinger anti-aircraft missiles in forcing the Soviet Union to withdraw from Afghanistan in the 1980s.
The current strategy being undertaken is a virtual instant replay of the 1980s US proxy war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. The U.S.’s arming of Afghan Islamist rebels to defeat the USSR, directly resulted in the attacks of 9/11 and the ongoing global war on terror. It would be a grave mistake for the U.S. to once again repeat the same mistakes of the past.
It’s stunning how quickly American politicians disregard the clear and present dangers of arming Islamist extremists in an effort to spur regime change. The reality that the U.S. government is supplying weapons to the same extremist groups that attacked the twin towers should serve as a wake-up call to the corrupt nature of international power politics.
Source: Mint Press
Via: Global Research
| 0 |
2 Shares
1 0 0 1
As radicalism and hatred continue to empty their venom onto the world: sowing discord, enmity, and self-righteous arrogance, a group of Shia Muslim entrepreneurs from Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Iraq and the US, imagined a technology which would speak unity amid furious sectarianism, and cohesion where there was distrust.
Keen not only denounce but oppose the ideological abomination which is Wahhabism – this dogma the House of Saud rose atop the fanaticism of one heretic scholar: Muhammad Ibn Abdel-Wahhab (18th century) Muslims have chosen to anchor their rebuttal of extremism through the promotion of a new media platform Messenger 40.
will likely argue that another social media platform is hardly revolutionary … especially if we consider how many apps are already available, this one particular product defiantly taps into a religious movement and expression Wahhabist Saudi Arabia has worked to silence.
What in the world am I talking about?
I am referring to Resistance … more particularly social resistance through the affirmation of Islam’s most sacred and universal principle: Justice.
MORE... Why Muslims Hold the Biggest Human Gathering under the Threat of ISIS in Iraq? The 10th Day’s new campaign – community-building and social solidarity Shia Muslims gather in DC for anti-terror rally Letting freedom ring: How Islam’s universal message continues to speak through Imam Husayn ibn Ali If Islam has often been portrayed as the religion of peace, I would personally argue that Islam promotes in fact, Justice – this innate yearning we all share beyond the many labels we have chosen for ourselves. At the heart of most
It is our refusal to bow to tyranny and accept oppression which prompted communities of man to rise against the Establishment, and from the ashes of empires dream themselves free.
Today such principles have been packaged into an app … several lines of coding put together to defy Saudi Arabia’s radical construct, a tool to break free from the shackles of religious oppression.
Who said technology could not be revolutionary?
here is where Messenger 40 really promises to break the social sound barrier – beyond a simple exercise in technological entrepreneurship and an imperious need to reject theo-fascism, Messenger 40 carries the very essence of Islam’s tradition in it name: Arbaeen.
Arbaeen means 40 in Arabic, a reference to the mourning of Imam Hussain ibn Ali, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, and Third Imam of Islam.
A symbol of fortitude, courage, and exceptional piety, Imam Hussain’s name has long echoed of Islam’s most brilliant principles - that before Tyranny none should relent, that even in the most suffocating of darkness it is Truth which must be spoken, beyond self-interest, and beyond all fears.
It is those principles Messenger 40 ambition to promote by speaking Freedom in a region locked in oppression – all thanks to Saudi Arabia’s desire to project hatred onto a faith it has proclaimed ownership over.
Should you have missed the momentous act of resistance this one app represents, I would like to remind you that Saudi Arabia still forbids women to drive … that and a few other wonderful vapid social restrictions. In a region where being a religious minority often equates to a death sentence, thinking Freedom is a revolutionary act – never mind speaking tolerance, and acceptance.
With less than a fortnight to go before Arbaeen, just as millions are making their way to Karbala to remember the martyrdom of their Imam, he, who was claimed by the forefather of Terror: Yazid Ibn Mu’awiyah, Messenger 40 is preparing its grand launch.
Haidar Attouq, a member of the board of developers, who refers to himself as a Saudi citizen explained how Messenger 40 aims to reform the way Muslims think communication by fostering tolerance and peaceful exchange.
“This interactive application is the product of IT industry professionals, and efforts by young people from different Muslim countries, regardless of their nationality, race and language, to promote unity.”
If the idea is simple enough, the message behind it is powerful indeed!
“This interactive application is the product of IT industry professionals, and efforts by young people from different Muslim countries, regardless of their nationality, race, and language, to promote unity.” | 0 |
Egypt The file photo shows Mohammed Badie, a senior figure of Egypt's now outlawed Muslim Brotherhood.
Egypt's Appeals Court has upheld a draconian life sentence that was handed down to Mohammed Badie, the spiritual leader of the now outlawed Muslim Brotherhood.
The court ruled on Wednesday that Badie, along with 36 others, who served as ministers in the government led by the country's first democratically elected president, Mohamed Morsi, who was supported by the Brotherhood between 2011 and 2013, deserved life behind bars for inciting violence and murder.
Badie has been viewed as a key element in the Muslim Brotherhood, a party which operated under numerous restrictions during the era of the country's former dictator, Hosni Mubarak. The senior Brotherhood figure played a major role in the popular uprising that led to the ouster of Mubarak in January 2011.
During the Wednesday session, the court also upheld the death sentences for 10 other individuals, who had been tried in absentia.
A criminal court in 2014 tried 47 defendants, who include former youth and supplies ministers, for charges of murder, attempted murder, resisting authorities, assaulting policemen, sabotage, and blocking a main road in the Nile Delta city of Qalyubia.
The general legal procedure against the Muslim Brotherhood began in July 2013, when Morsi was ousted in a military coup. The head of the Egyptian armed forces, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, came to power afterward. Sisi is believed to have orchestrated the coup as well as the ensuing crackdown on the Brotherhood.
Estimates provided by human rights campaigners show that 1,400 people have been killed and 22,000 have been arrested in relation to the crackdown on the members and supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Morsi himself has been sentenced to 20 years in jail for escaping prison in 2011. The Appeals Court endorsed the sentence last week, rejecting his appeal. Loading ... | 0 |
Notify me of follow-up comments by email. Notify me of new posts by email. PLEASE DONATE TO KEEP BARE NAKED ISLAM UP AND RUNNING. Choose DONATE for one-time donation or SUBSCRIBE for monthly donations Payment Options GET ALL NEW BNI POSTS/LINKS ON TWITTER Subscribe to Blog via Email
Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. Email Address | 0 |
Dolly Parton recently sat down with “Southern Living” to talk about being a Southern woman, of course.
And in total Parton fashion, she was hilarious— especially her simple and blunt reveal of the pre-show “ritual” she does before performing... | 0 |
It was a little shimmy of her shoulders — cheeky, insouciant — accompanied by a big, toothy grin. Her opponent smirked. She looked as if she was having fun. He, not so much. The exchange came as the first presidential debate was building toward its conclusion Monday night. What was it about? I have no idea. Per instructions from my editor, I was watching with the sound off. Alone. No checking my email, no talking to my wife, no social media. It was, for me, a silent debate. The idea was simple: to test the theory that what presidential candidates — in this instance, Hillary Clinton and Donald J. Trump — say during debates is less important than what they look like while they’re saying it. There is plenty of anecdotal evidence to support this theory, dating from the nation’s first televised presidential debate: Richard M. Nixon versus John F. Kennedy in 1960, which set the handsome and composed Kennedy on a course to victory over the conspicuously underweight and sweaty Nixon. Ever since, presidential debates have routinely been defined more powerfully by images than by words. You can even find academic research on the subject: nonverbal expression, the experts call it. A psychology professor has had some success predicting the outcome of elections based purely on which candidate blinks less frequently during debates, the idea being that blinking is a sign of stress and anxiety, generally not desirable qualities in a commander in chief. (For what it’s worth, it’s also possible to blink too little, which can make a candidate seem reptilian.) Hence our experiment: Can you learn more about who won the debate by watching it on mute? It began, of course, with the ritual handshake at center stage before the candidates retreated to their lecterns. After the shake, Mr. Trump placed his hand gently on Mrs. Clinton’s back. There were different ways to interpret the gesture. Was he being patronizing — trying to assert his dominance from the — or just looking to demonstrate that he felt comfortable, relaxed, unthreatened by the professional politician? Whether involuntary or intentional, the signal was unmistakable: I’m the strong one here. And either way, they were soon off, discussing … the most pressing issues facing our nation, I can only assume. It will be no surprise to learn that Mr. Trump is loud even with the sound off. He delivered 90 minutes of increasingly exaggerated pantomime, announcing the presence of someone who is restless, impassioned, emphatic and at times belligerent. (“No idea what he’s talking about, but he’s def going at it hard,” read my notes from the mark.) Do not call this man . He has an extensive repertoire of almost manic hand and arm gestures: the karate chop, the accordion, his patented cobra. The performance is so physical — with the pincer fingers, the hyperactive eyebrows, the “C’mon already!” shrugs — that there’s not much work left for the words to do. There is no ambiguity about the message: Actions speak louder than words. Also: Bring it on. Even when it was Mrs. Clinton’s turn to speak, Mr. Trump couldn’t stand still. He fidgeted. He smirked. He grimaced. He squinted. He adjusted his microphone. He grabbed hold of the sides of his lectern. He rocked back and forth on his heels. He pursed his lips. He threw his opponent a disbelieving sidelong glance, and then an eye roll. He shook his head. He appeared to interrupt her, repeatedly. (On one occasion, I could make out a word — a word! — “wrong. ”) He took a sip of water. And then another, licking his lips as he set the glass back down. He’s more expressive while listening than most people are while speaking. In the face of this continual turbulence, Mrs. Clinton had a studied serenity. She has made no secret of her assiduous debate preparation, and I couldn’t help feeling that she had prepared for the very exercise I was engaged in. She seemed determined to make sure that her body language and facial expressions didn’t communicate frustration or irritation — see Al Gore in 2000 — no matter what her opponent said. And she seemed equally determined to appear to be having fun. Whether she was or not — could this possibly be fun? — she succeeded in looking the part. She appeared unbothered, even amused, by Mr. Trump’s apparent assaults. At times, she looked a little smug — surely a lot smug to Mr. Trump’s supporters. There was plenty of smiling — another product of the debate prep, no doubt — and laughing, too, presumably at Mr. Trump’s expense. The suggestion seemed to be that we were all in on the joke. She had her hand gestures, as well, including her version of the trademark “Clinton thumb,” but she did little in the way of violence to the air around her. Visually, anyway, there was a discernible arc to the event, with Mr. Trump growing more agitated as the night wore on, and Mrs. Clinton becoming almost giddy with what felt increasingly like genuine pleasure. Which brings us back to the shimmy. Absent words, it felt like the most telling moment of the evening, a memorable, instinctive reaction to what I imagined must have been a Trump howler. In that instant, it was clear that the debate had produced a winner, at least to those of us who hadn’t actually heard a word of what the candidates had said: Mrs. Clinton. He had vibrated with anxiety she had radiated cool confidence. He had seemed to be crawling out of his own skin she had looked uncharacteristically comfortable in hers. Minutes later, it was all over. Once again, the candidates came together. Once again, Mr. Trump put his hand on Mrs. Clinton’s back, this time with a little pat, as if to confer his approval on a job well done. Mr. Trump’s family came out to greet him, but they opted not to linger, exiting while Mrs. Clinton and her husband celebrated the moment with their fans in the audience. | 1 |
The hidden secrets of the Great Pyramid of Giza have intrigued explorers and experts for a long time.
There are probably many hidden chambers that are still left untouched which could give us a lead to the true purpose of this colossal pyramid.
But one mystery surrounding the mega structure is the fact that the capstone is missing. How come? Was there a capstone in the first place?
Some researchers say that the capstone may have been completely built in gold, so, if it was in fact made of such a solid material then how did they achieve on removing such a large massive piece with aproximately 9 meters in height?
Another theory suggests that the pyramid had a large sphere in it's summit, which served as a conductor of cosmic energy and would turn the pyramid into a massive power plant. The sphere could also be associated with the "Eye of Horus" and the brightest star in the sky "Sirius" .
Watch the following video to learn more!
Disclose TV SOURCE | 0 |
In this News Shot, Joe Joseph explains how the public is rapidly losing faith in the mainstream media.
Have a listen!
Watch on YouTube
Source: New York Times Reports 95.7 Percent Fall in Quarterly Profit
Delivered by The Daily Sheeple
We encourage you to share and republish our reports, analyses, breaking news and videos ( Click for details ).
Contributed by The Daily Sheeple of www.TheDailySheeple.com .
This content may be freely reproduced in full or in part in digital form with full attribution to the author and a link to www.TheDailySheeple.com. | 0 |
A few weeks after the election of Donald J. Trump, pundits with their eyes glued to Twitter believed they’d finally deciphered the master plan behind the ’s tweeting. Every time he detonated a bomb on Twitter, they suspected, it was a sly bid to divert the public eye from more serious news about his impending administration. So when Mr. Trump reignited the dormant debate over flag burning one morning — tweeting that those who set fire to the flag should suffer “loss of citizenship or year in jail!” — New York magazine’s Jonathan Chait quickly produced a column decoding the message. He called it a “strange fight” and a “classic nationalist distraction” that proves Mr. Trump’s “dangerous and authoritarian politics is calculated, and not merely crazy. ” But soon a competing theory emerged: Minutes before Mr. Trump’s tweet, “Fox Friends,” one of the ’s favorite shows, ran a segment referencing an American flag burned on a college campus to protest his victory. He wasn’t carrying out some strategy. He was his TV. Twitter is an impulsive medium. Log in and you’re greeted immediately with a text box asking “What’s happening?” — as in, right this second. Mr. Trump, who is set to become the nation’s 45th president on Friday, is a master of Twitter, but also in its thrall. Theories of some grand Trump Twitter plot forget that impetuous and aggressive tweeting has been a habit of Mr. Trump’s for years. He famously avoids alcohol Twitter is his vice. And after eight years of posts from @BarackObama, equally journalists are transfixed by Mr. Trump’s timeline, too. Mr. Trump has always been hooked on recognition. He is obsessed with his television ratings. His office is festooned with magazine covers featuring himself. Even negative attention can be a win he’s thrilled to be named Time’s “Person of the Year” even if the cover might evoke images of both Hitler and Satan. But today magazine covers and TV hits lack the cultural dominance they once held. (As Mr. Trump tweeted in 2013, Time “looks really flimsy like a free handout at a parking lot! ”) Now he’s found a medium where recognition arrives every fraction of a second, and his reach is quantified in real time — ratings, but for every sentence you ever write. Scroll through the list of accounts Mr. Trump follows and you’ll find a tightly curated crew of Trump relatives (like Ivanka) properties (Trump Waikiki) celebrities (Roma Downey, wife to “The Apprentice” producer Mark Burnett) and reliably outlets (“Fox Friends,” naturally). It’s a remarkable picture of social media restraint for Twitter’s most uninhibited star, and it gives a glimpse at the image Mr. Trump intends to project: devoted family man, tremendous business magnate, friend to Gary Player. But Mr. Trump’s dominant posture is reactive, and his real focus is on who follows him. He almost exclusively retweets praise from fans. He tweets about all the credit he deserves (“Thank you, so many people have given me credit for winning the debate last night”) then waits for more virtual credit to roll in. He brags to journalists about the rate at which likes and retweets hit. He gets high on his own supply. Part of the peculiarity of Mr. Trump’s tweets is that he tweets like a celebrity, not a politician or a businessman. Even his handle, @realdonaldtrump, suggests his full immersion in the most basic of our celebrity culture. Though he’s preparing to assume the presidency, he tweets like a Hollywood social climber — he fans celebrity feuds with Graydon Carter (“no talent”) and Meryl Streep (“ ”) and posts product endorsements (“Buy L. L. Bean. ”). The highest office in the land has afforded Mr. Trump his most prominent celebrity perch. His account has risen from a few million followers to nearly 20 million in the past year. There was a time when some assumed that Mr. Trump’s public persona would evolve as he rose in the political ranks. But there’s just one Trump, and that’s been key to his success. As Kim Kardashian once said, the secret to social media dominance is authenticity and consistency. Mr. Trump’s projection of realness relies on him being reliably and wildly inappropriate. That may seem like a liability for the leader of the free world, but it’s an asset in the celebrity roles that have led him to this moment: reality TV boss, Howard Stern guest, heel. Eight years ago, Barack Obama was the social media wonder headed to the White House, and his tech savvy was heralded as a bright light for democracy. The tweets he posts to @POTUS never seem impulsive they seem made for posterity. Even his jokes are calculated to be minimally offensive and maximally educational. When the NASA rover Curiosity carried Mr. Obama’s signature to the surface of Mars, Mr. Obama responded in the form of a dad joke: “That is out of this world. ” If Mr. Obama came to power in a time of great optimism for Twitter, Mr. Trump lords over a waning platform. What was once a hopeful place for global connection and resistance has become a site for coordinating harassment campaigns, connecting with white supremacists and accelerating unverified and sometimes dangerous rumors. Its growth has slumped and its stock price has stagnated. But the place suits Mr. Trump’s purposes fine. For the guy who’s all about appearances, Twitter provides the veneer of populist connection without the hassle of accountability. Sean Spicer, Mr. Trump’s incoming press secretary, has suggested that Twitter town halls and Reddit forums may replace some typical presidential press interactions, where he can easily make himself available to anonymous fans instead of the scrutiny of the press. The social media platforms that were once heralded as democratic tools could also be used to undermine democratic norms. All of this works because one group is as intoxicated by Twitter as Mr. Trump is: journalists. It’s hard to explain to a normal person — one of the 79 percent of American adults who don’t use Twitter — why the platform mesmerizes the news media. Its search function means you can conjure material on any kind of news topic — or just spend your time searching for your own name. Reporters still crave the ego rush of a published byline, but that pales in comparison to the animated feedback loop that Twitter offers. The more time you spend, and the more tweets you send, the bigger your following becomes. But Twitter provides little actual reach — compared with Facebook or Google, it hardly drives any traffic to articles. It’s like a video game for professional validation. Mr. Trump expertly exploits journalists’ unwavering attention to their Twitter feeds, their competitive spirit and their ingrained journalistic conventions — chiefly, that what the president says is inherently newsworthy. As a developer and reality show star, he lobbied the news media for coverage. Now journalists feel obligated to pay attention to him. Mr. Trump overwhelms the media with boatloads of what was once a rare commodity: access. He creates impressions faster than journalists can check them. By the time they turn up the facts, the news cycle has moved on to his next missive, leaving less time (and reader attention) for the stories Mr. Trump does not highlight on his feed. Mr. Trump may not follow a deliberate distraction strategy, but he doesn’t need one. He distracts instinctively. All he needs is a phone, the press and whatever thought just entered his mind. | 1 |
The Vatican’s Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin said Monday that the Holy See is concerned over growing populist and nationalist movements, both in Europe and in the United States. [In an interview for the Italian evening news on the RAI network, Cardinal Parolin was asked whether the Vatican is worried about what the interviewer called “the spread of nationalism and populism not only in Europe but also in the United States with Donald Trump. ” “I think so, I think so,” Parolin said. “Certainly these closings are not a good sign,” since many of them “are born of fear, which is not a good counsellor. ” The Cardinal also recalled recent comments by Pope Francis, saying that “there is a risk of history repeating itself. ” In a lengthy interview with the Spanish daily El País in late January, Pope Francis was asked whether he was concerned about the spread of a populism that capitalizes on “people’s fears,” preaching “a message of hate. ” In his reply, Francis distinguished between a good, grassroots populism, where it is the people who are “the protagonists,” and a cult of personality where a charismatic figure like Hitler rises to power and is welcomed as a savior figure. “For me the most typical example of populism in the European sense is the Germany of 1933,” Francis said. After Hindenburg, “Germany tries to get back up, searches for its identity, looks for a leader, someone to give it back its identity and a youngster named Adolf Hitler says, ‘I can do it I can do it. ’” Whereas the first sort of populism is a good thing, the latter can be very dangerous, he said. The risk, Francis said, is that in times of crisis we lack judgment and people can begin to think, “Let’s look for a savior who gives us back our identity and let’s defend ourselves with walls, whatever, from other people that may rob us of our identity. ” “And that is a very serious thing,” he said. “That is why I always try to say: talk among yourselves, talk to one another. ” In the same interview, the Pope was asked specifically whether he was worried about Donald Trump, whom the interviewer described as a xenophobe filled with “hatred for foreigners. ” Francis said that the new U. S. President deserved to be judged by his actions, not by “prophecies” of what he may or may not do. “I think that we must wait and see,” Francis said. “I don’t like to get ahead of myself nor judge people prematurely. We will see how he acts, what he does, and then I will have an opinion. ” The Pope said it is “most unwise” to be afraid of something that might or might not happen. “It would be like prophets predicting calamities or windfalls that don’t take place. We will see. We will see what he does and then evaluate,” he said. “I prefer to wait and see,” he said. Follow Thomas D. Williams on Twitter Follow @tdwilliamsrome | 1 |
WASHINGTON — The White House on Thursday defended the planning and execution of a Special Operations raid in Yemen on Sunday — the first approved by President Trump since taking office — that left one American commando dead and three others injured, and most likely killed several civilians, including children. Sean M. Spicer, President Trump’s press secretary, offered an unusually detailed chronology of the mission involving members of the Navy’s SEAL Team 6 against the home of a senior Qaeda collaborator. He said it started with a plan submitted by the military’s Central Command in November under the Obama administration and ended with Mr. Trump receiving updates in the White House on Saturday night as the mission unfolded eight time zones away. “This was a very, very and executed effort,” Mr. Spicer said. Mr. Trump has justified the risky attack on the heavily guarded house, saying the commandos recovered valuable information, including laptops and cellphones, that could help thwart future terrorist attacks. Military officials said on Thursday that while that could prove to be true, analysts were only just beginning to delve into the materials. Almost everything on the mission that could go wrong did. A Yemeni tribal sheikh said the Qaeda fighters were somehow tipped off to the troops’ stealthy advance toward the village — perhaps by the whine of American drones that the tribal leader said were flying lower and louder than usual. The assault force, which also included elite troops from the United Arab Emirates, quickly found itself under intense fire from all sides — even from female combatants who unexpectedly took up weapons from assigned fighting positions — forcing the Americans to call in strikes from helicopter gunships and attack planes. A Pentagon spokesman, Capt. Jeff Davis, denied on Thursday that the mission had been compromised. On Wednesday, Mr. Trump flew to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware to be present as the body of the American commando killed in the raid, Chief Petty Officer William Owens, was returned home. It was the first military death on the new commander in chief’s watch. Mr. Spicer insisted on Thursday that the commandos had accomplished their mission, even though “it is tough to ever use the word ‘success’ when you know that somebody has lost their life. ” His explanation did not quell calls from human rights groups and at least one Democratic member of the House Armed Services Committee for an investigation into the mission and the allegations of civilian casualties. The Central Command said on Wednesday that civilian casualties were likely and that it was investigating. According to Al Qaeda’s branch in Yemen, the dead include the daughter of Anwar the Qaeda leader who was killed in a targeted drone strike in 2011. Planning for the mission started months ago, Mr. Spicer said. On Nov. 7, the Central Command submitted its plan to the Pentagon for review. The Defense Department approved it on Dec. 19, and the plan was sent to Mr. Obama’s National Security Council staff. On Jan. 6, a meeting of senior Obama security aides, called the deputies committee, recommended that the plan go forward, Mr. Spicer said. Military officials have said that Mr. Obama did not act because the Pentagon wanted to launch the attack on a moonless night, and the next one after the meeting would come after Mr. Obama’s term had ended. On Jan. 24, shortly after taking office, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis read the plan and sent it back to the White House with his support. On Jan. 25, Mr. Trump was briefed by his national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, on the plan and on Mr. Mattis’s endorsement. Mr. Trump summoned Mr. Mattis to dinner at the White House that night, along with Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr. the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Mr. Flynn. Also attending were two of Mr. Trump’s closest advisers, Jared Kushner and Stephen K. Bannon, as well as Vice President Mike Pence and Mike Pompeo, the C. I. A. director. “The operation was laid out in great extent,” Mr. Spicer said. “The indication at that time was to go ahead. ” On Jan. 26, last Thursday, Mr. Trump formally signed the memo authorizing the action, Mr. Spicer said. Mr. Mattis and other aides updated the president on the raid throughout the night Saturday, Mr. Spicer said. Members of Mr. Obama’s national security team pushed back Thursday at Mr. Spicer’s description of how the former president had set the stage for the decision. They said the attack had not been approved by Mr. Obama, and that materials left for the Trump team emphasized considerable risks. “Not what happened,” Colin Kahl, the national security adviser to former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. wrote on Twitter after Mr. Spicer’s briefing. Mr. Kahl’s colleagues said that Lisa Monaco, Mr. Obama’s homeland security adviser, told the national security staff in early January that Mr. Obama was not prepared to approve the concept for the raid. Instead, they prepared a memorandum for Mr. Trump’s team that described a variety of options, and underscored the risks. | 1 |
When Beyoncé’s album “Lemonade” was released late Saturday night, it was available only on Tidal, a big win for that subscription streaming service, in which Beyoncé is a part owner. But Tidal’s period of exclusivity appears to be quite short — just 24 hours, as the album is expected to be released for sale on iTunes at midnight on Sunday, according to two people briefed on the plans for the release, who, following the usual ironclad rules of secrecy surrounding Beyoncé’s projects, were not authorized to discuss them. Apple declined to comment. A spokeswoman for Beyoncé did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Late Sunday afternoon, Tidal announced that in addition to its streaming version of “Lemonade,” it would be selling a version for download at $17. 99. A Tidal spokesman said that the service would have the exclusive streaming version “in perpetuity. ” Amazon also confirmed that it would soon begin selling both digital and physical versions of the album. The brief window of exclusivity for Tidal reflects the growing complexity and fragmentation of the digital music market. For Beyoncé, whose every move is watched intensely by the music business, releasing an album comes with seemingly irreconcilable pressures regarding, on the one hand, managing her business interests and, on the other, reaching as wide an audience as possible. Adele declined to stream her blockbuster album “25” on any service, and Taylor Swift removed all her albums from Spotify before the release of “1989,” her latest album, which is available on Apple Music, the company’s streaming service. As a partner in Tidal — the service that her husband, Jay Z, bought just over a year ago for $56 million and reintroduced as an alternative to Spotify — Beyoncé faced a strong incentive to release the album exclusively through that outlet, to draw attention to the service and attract subscribers to it. Yet with Tidal claiming just three million subscribers, she would risk alienating the vast majority of the online market if she were to keep the album on that service alone for too long. (Spotify has 30 million paying subscribers, and Apple Music has 11 million.) And the extremely brief window for keeping “Lemonade” — a video album whose companion film had its premiere on HBO on Saturday night — restricted to Tidal shows how intense the pressure is for a star of Beyoncé’s stature to reach as many fans as she can. When Tidal was reintroduced to the public last year by Jay Z, a key part of its strategy was to offer exclusive content from a tag team of superstar acts, whose fame and artistic power would draw new consumers. (Tidal also offered audio than most streaming platforms, as well as a rich video catalog and other benefits like splashy live events.) After months of struggles, including the troubled release of Rihanna’s latest album, “Anti,” which began as a Tidal exclusive, the strategy has seemed to be paying off well lately. In February Tidal released “The Life of Pablo” by Kanye West, another partner, which the company said brought in 250 million streams in just 10 days, and held on to its exclusive for nearly two months. And the last week has been a big one for Tidal. In addition to Beyoncé’s release, the service was the only streaming outlet that had the complete catalog of Prince, who died unexpectedly on Thursday. Those two stars alone are capable of driving an enormous amount of traffic and potential subscribers to Tidal, although the company has not released details on its streaming numbers for either act. For Beyoncé, and for the business closely monitoring her moves, the effect of “Lemonade” was not immediately clear on Sunday. This Friday, a new album is expected by Drake, who has had a close relationship with Apple and for much of the last year released most of his music through Apple Music first, before releasing it more widely after about a week. Exclusivity, it seems, is as flexible as the music business, and its biggest stars, need it to be. | 1 |
Violent crime, including murder, continued its rise across the country during the first half of 2016, and the largest cities seeing a 21. 6 percent increase in murders, says a new FBI report. [Comparing the first six months of 2015 to the first six months of 2016, the FBI found murders rose 5. 2 percent, aggravated assaults rose 6. 5 percent, robbery rose 3. 2 percent, and rapes under both the “legacy” and “revised” definitions increased 4. 4 percent and 3. 5 percent, respectively. The report was issued days after President Barack Obama publicly denied the rising tide of crime. “There is no growing crime wave,” Obama insisted in an essay for the Harvard law Review, published Jan. 5. Regardless of Obama’s statements, crime rates rose nationwide, the FBI report shows: Violent crime increased in all city groupings. Among cities, violent crime rose the most over the previous year (9. 7 percent) in those with populations of 1, 000, 000 and over. In cities with populations from 500, 000 to 999, 999, violent crime increased 5. 2 percent, and in cities with 250, 000 to 499, 999 inhabitants, violent crime was up 4. 3 percent. Violent crime increased 6. 3 percent in metropolitan counties and rose 1. 6 percent in nonmetropolitan counties. Violent crime increased in all four regions of the nation. These crimes were up 6. 4 percent in the West, 5. 9 percent in both the Midwest and in the South, and 1. 2 percent in the Northeast, U. S. cities with populations of one million or more people include New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Antonio, San Diego, and Dallas. The largest cities saw shocking increases in violent crime compared to the first half of 2015: Overall, violent crime increased 9. 7 percent. Murders spiked 21. 6 percent. Rapes under the revised definition — defined as “penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim” — rose 11. 3 percent. Robbery increased 6. 3 percent. Aggravated assault rose 11. 4 percent. Burglary declined by 5. 4 percent, while motor vehicle thefts rose 5. 9 percent and larceny rose 3. 3 percent. Arson rose 5. 3 percent. While property crimes declined overall at 0. 6 percent, they rose in the largest U. S. cities by 2. 1 percent. As Breitbart News previously reported, the FBI’s 2015 crime report revealed a 10. 8 percent increase in murders from 2014 to 2015 — the largest increase in a single year since 1971 — and a 3. 9 percent increase in violent crime overall. Chicago’s gun crime death toll is so high it’s distorting national murder figures. TheWall Street Journal reports “37 of the 65 largest police agencies” counted homicide increases in 2016. Obama claimed in his Harvard essay that “there is no growing crime wave. ” That claim ignores the dramatic murder wave that took place under his watch, and allows him to ignore the bodies of at least 1, 500 additional dead Americans to declare that crime remains “near historic lows. ” Under Obama, the nation is seeing the sudden reversal of a decline in violent crime. The reversal began in 2014, after the Ferguson race riot and as he launched his “ ” campaign against state and local police. The FBI was quick to see the reversal. In October 2015, FBI Director James Comey said “part of the explanation” for rising crime “is a chill wind blowing through American law enforcement over the last year,” implicitly criticizing Obama’s strategy of using activist groups and his Justice Department’s law enforcement regulations to reshape local policing. The reversal also comes as Obama releases more criminals from prison. Obama has also boasted of that he will be the “first president in decades to leave office with a federal prison population lower than when I took office. ” That’s true, according to a vocal critic of Obama’s attitude towards incarceration rates: Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton says the administration used revised sentencing guidelines to release 30, 000 felons from federal prison, bringing the total number of federal prisoners to fewer than 200, 000. And Obama has continued to commute the sentences of drug traffickers as drugs kill more Americans. In 2014, more than 47, 000 people died from deaths. Thanks to Obama’s commutations, former armed drug traffickers will be back in American communities as early as March. | 1 |
America is getting a new stock exchange from the most prominent critics of trading. After months of delays and a brutal lobbying battle that divided Wall Street, the IEX Group won approval on Friday from the Securities and Exchange Commission to become the nation’s 13th official stock exchange. IEX is run by the people at the center of the Michael Lewis book, “Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt,” which profiles the early efforts of the IEX team to create a trading exchange that would be somewhat shielded from traders. Other exchanges and trading firms had urged the S. E. C. to reject the IEX application to become an exchange. Opponents of IEX, including the other stock exchanges, have argued that the structure of the new exchange will add unnecessary new complexities into an already complex stock market, and potentially end up hurting small investors. But the three S. E. C. commissioners all voted on Friday to approve the IEX exchange, with one commissioner, Michael S. Piwowar, a Republican, dissenting on a few points. “Today’s actions promote competition and innovation, which our equity markets depend on to continue to deliver robust, efficient service to both retail and institutional investors,” Mary Jo White, the S. E. C. chairwoman, said in a statement. The most novel and controversial feature of the IEX exchange is a speed bump that would slow down trading slightly to throw off traders that rely only on speed. The speed bump slows trades down by only 350 microseconds — or millionths of a second — but that is an eternity in a stock exchange universe in which computers can buy and sell stocks in nanoseconds — or billionths of a second. The Nasdaq, and other existing exchanges, have said that the IEX’s speed bump will violate rules mandating that exchanges make their prices available to all parties at the same time. IEX’s critics have also said that the speed bump could add new complications into a stock market infrastructure that is already criticized for its complexity. In a statement, the S. E. C. said that the commissioners “determined that a small delay will not prevent investors from accessing stock prices in a fair and efficient manner. ” The S. E. C. did say, though, that within two years it will do a study to examine whether the delays lead to problems in the markets. If nothing else, the approval of the exchange will provide an opportunity to test the many competing theories about what impact the IEX’s speed bump will have on the pattern of trading. The IEX has been a flash point in the broader debate over technological changes that have altered the basic functioning of the American stock markets over the last two decades. IEX won support — and financial backing — from several large mutual fund companies, which said that the exchange would help them trade more cheaply and efficiently, as well as from hundreds of small investors, many of whom read “Flash Boys” and wrote in to the S. E. C. Brad Katsuyama, the chief executive of IEX, said on Friday night that the company was “grateful and humbled by the support we’ve received from the investor community, without it, we may have faced a different result. ” In addition to the speed bump, the IEX has said it will not offer the same fees or rebates that other exchanges do to attract traders, a common practice at other exchanges that has been criticized for distorting trading incentives. The IEX also offers fewer complicated ways to enter trades than other exchanges, in an effort to simplify trading. Mr. Katsuyama has argued throughout the application process that IEX would provide a solution to the problems created by trading rather than requiring the S. E. C. to change the rules governing the markets. The other exchanges have complained that the IEX was essentially asking to be exempt from rules that governed them. In a letter written in May, Nasdaq’s lawyers suggested that the S. E. C. could face a lawsuit if it approved the IEX application. A spokesman for Nasdaq said on Friday that the exchange company had no comment on the S. E. C. ’s decision. Larry Tabb, a market analyst with the Tabb Group, said the IEX speed bump could end up benefiting more sophisticated traders, like traders, who can find ways to take advantage of the small delays. “It hurts the broad middle who may not have access to the best tools,” Mr. Tabb said. The hedge fund and trading firm Citadel has been one of the most outspoken critics of the IEX application. On Friday, a spokeswoman for Citadel said that the S. E. C. ’s decision “will test and potentially reverse the gains in fairness, efficiency and transparency that have been made to our markets over the last decade. We must be vigilant to identify unintended consequences. ” Another relatively new American stock exchange company, BATS Global Markets, initially supported the IEX application, but earlier this year withdrew its support, pointing to “gross omissions of fact” by IEX. BATS wrote that the problems “call into question the applicant’s professional judgment. ” On Friday, a BATS spokesman, Randy Williams, said that the company “congratulates IEX and appreciates the significant changes they made to their application to address industry concerns. ” IEX has already been operating as a private trading pool and has recently been attracting about 1. 6 percent of all daily trading volume. | 1 |
Attract beneficial types of birds to your garden and watch your plants flourish!
Nuthatches Nuthatches search crevices for ants, scale, beetles, moth eggs, caterpillars, and cocoons. During the winter season, they feed on seeds and nuts, but during the summer season, they are 100% insectivorous. They also raise their young exclusively on insects.
Nuthatches are most likely to settle into nesting boxes that are located in clearings in or along the edges of wooded areas.
Chickadees During the winter, chickadees can be seen searching bark crevices for hibernating insects and the eggs of moths, plant lice, pear psylla, and katydids.
Chickadees are wonderful pest-control birds due to their diet consisting of 90% insects including moths, caterpillars, flies, beetles, scale, plant lice, leafhoppers, and tree hoppers.
You can provide some suet in a mesh bag or a feeder filled with sunflower seeds to keep chickadees around over the winter season. In the spring, provide a nest box packed with wood chips. It is best to place the nest box at the edge of a wooded area.
Bluebirds During the spring, western bluebirds eat insects such as grasshoppers, beetles, weevils, crickets, and caterpillars. Bluebirds prefer to nest in sunny, open areas.
The perfect nest box for these birds should be mounted on a post within 50 feet of a tree, fence, or other structure away from bushy hedgerows.
Although sparrows mostly rely on seeds for their diet, they also enjoy eating insects, especially during nesting season. Sparrows often prefer weed seeds, such as crabgrass, ragweed, and pigweed, so their seed eating habit is even beneficial to crops.
The insects of choice for sparrows include grasshoppers, caterpillars, beetles, leafhoppers, and beetles.
Warning: In warmer areas, sparrows sometimes supplement their diet with winter garden crops by clipping off seedlings and sprouts. You can avoid this by using row covers to protect your crops.
Provide nesting material for sparrows to use. Good material to provide include straw, bark, and pieces of string.
Nighthawks These little birds enjoy eating flying ants, leaf chafers, flies, mosquitoes, moths, and grasshoppers. Nighthawks even eat Colorado potato beetles, squash bugs, and cucumber beetles.
There is not much that can be done to attract nighthawks but you can watch out for their eggs and be careful not to harm them. Nighthawks are known to lay 1 to 3 whitish olive eggs with dark blotches on stumps, sandy soils, old robin’s nests, and even gravel.
Phoebes Phoebes will feast on everything from flies, mosquitoes, small moths, flying ants, and small beetles to grasshoppers, crickets, and caterpillars.
You can use water to entice these stealthy hunters into your yard. Phoebes enjoy building their mud nests in, on, or around manmade structures. Attract them by providing them with a safe nesting area.
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 is currently finishing her last year at The Evergreen State College getting her undergraduate degree in Sustainable Design and Environmental Science. Follow her adventures on Instagram.
Photo Credits: | 0 |
Next Swipe left/right Forget online shopping – these 7 deals are what makes the high street great! Yes, internet shopping is easy and convenient – but look at the kind of amazing deals you’ll miss out on if you don’t go down the high street…
1. | 0 |
Prison Planet.com October 26, 2016
Infowars reporter Owen Shroyer speaks to a Trump supporter that was attacked by Hillary zombies at a polling station in Austin, Texas. This article was posted: Wednesday, October 26, 2016 at 6:13 am Share this article | 0 |
The United States is adding a few new faces to its currency. Harriet Tubman will appear on the front of a new $20 bill to be unveiled in 2020, and a pair of civil rights scenes, one featuring suffragist leaders, will appear on the backs of redesigned $5 and $10 bills, the Treasury Department said on Wednesday. The old faces will remain. Alexander Hamilton stays on the front of the $10 and Andrew Jackson moves to the back of the $20. But there will be women in American wallets for the first time in more than a century (when Martha Washington appeared) and for the first time in the nation’s history. Wesley Morris, a Jennifer Schuessler, a culture reporter, and Binyamin Appelbaum, who covers the economy, talk about what the monetary makeover all means. SCHUESSLER: For all the debate over the past year about the fate of Hamilton, the top news here is really that Harriet Tubman will replace Andrew Jackson on the $20, becoming the first to appear on the front of a United States bank note. The Treasury won’t release the design until 2020, but people are already sharing Photoshopped Tubman twenties online, and they feel wonderfully jolting and radical. What do you think? Does having her on the bill make a real difference — either to how we think about our history, or how we think about our money? APPELBAUM: I think it does make a difference. There were more than 8. 5 billion $20 bills in circulation last year. Our money is right up there with the Golden Arches as an instantly and globally recognizable emblem of America. And our bills are stale. The seven white men on the seven notes in general circulation were all dead by 1885. Ulysses S. Grant is the only one who lived past the end of the Civil War. More than half of American history has happened since. Countries historically have used their currency to make sure everyone knows who’s in charge. The United Kingdom still puts the queen on every single bill, although she always has company. Putting Tubman on the $20 strikes me as a powerful and necessary realignment of our symbols and our professed values. I guess one question on my mind is this: Do these changes go far enough? Tubman isn’t exactly a modern figure she died in 1913. And amazingly, there’s still a Masonic pyramid on the back of the $1 bill. MORRIS: Oooo, Binyamin. You mess with that pyramid, and the Illuminati will hunt you down. Stand down, man! And by “illuminati,” I mean in 100 years we might be talking about Beyoncé on all currency. Just kidding. Those meetings started happening last week. Harriet Tubman died in 1913 ( New York Times obituary right here! Two paragraphs.) but her legacy endures. Her legacy is typing a third of this conversation. But ought there be a degree of catching up? For instance, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who died in 1902, is deserving of more than the possible “Avengers” treatment Treasury apparently has planned for suffragists. Having Tubman on cash is not simply reparative, although the idea of seeing her face and hearing her name during the months of the year that aren’t February becomes nourishment in itself. Having her on cash is to me an uncontroversial . But generally, yes, let’s get some more modern candidates on our moola. SCHUESSLER: Speaking of the “Avengers” treatment, does anyone else find the plans for the new $10 a little awkward? Hamilton will stay on the front, while the picture of the Treasury Department Building on the back will be replaced with an image of a 1913 women’s suffrage march that ended at that building, along with portraits of five suffrage leaders. There’s currently only one bill that features a group scene: the $2 bill, introduced in 1976, which shows Jefferson on the front and the presentation of a draft of the Declaration of Independence on the back. This makes sense, as — in a more indirect way — does the plan to add images of Eleanor Roosevelt, Marian Anderson and Martin Luther King Jr. to the back of the $5, which has Abraham Lincoln on the front. The Treasury Building connection aside, does pairing of Hamilton with suffragists make any sense? Or does it simply reflect the strange currency politics of our moment? APPELBAUM: Oh, it’s clearly a political marriage. Jack Lew, the secretary of the Treasury, did something fairly unusual, at least by Washington standards: He changed his mind. Mr. Lew announced last year, to great fanfare, that the government would put a woman on the $10. He apparently had Susan B. Anthony in mind. (There are lots of great women in American history, but somehow Anthony is the one the government always wants to put on money.) Well, it turned out this was the wrong moment to mess with Alexander Hamilton, who as you may have heard is currently starring on Broadway. Lew also was stung by his own peer group. Ben Bernanke, the former Federal Reserve chairman, said publicly that he was “appalled,” which is pretty much the strongest language I’ve ever heard him use about anything. So Treasury needed another bill. Andrew Jackson actually thought the United States shouldn’t print paper money. He was also a bad president. So he gets shunted to the back of the $20, and Hamilton stays on the front of the $10 and women get the balance of the real estate. MORRIS: It’s awkward! It’s also fascinating. The conceptual coups of the show reside in its placing the stress on Hamilton’s being an outsider and having that status align with the modern conversation about who “belongs” in this country. In the show, that line, “Immigrants, we get the job done” simultaneously brings down the house and electrifies it. It’s exhilaratingly punctual. This is to say that an amazing thing has happened to Hamilton thanks to the success of the show. He’s the subject of Ron Chernow’s book, but now he’s also Miranda. So to Mr. Miranda’s fans (and to Hamilton’s partisans) removing him from the $10 bill might feel like apostasy, confirming not only how cool this guy suddenly is, but how he has been recast as nonwhite — and, consequently, how protected he is by our current identity politics. SCHUESSLER: Exactly. Am I crazy to think that the show has effectively turned Hamilton — a white man born in the British West Indies — into our nonwhite founder, or our founder, in a Bill Clinton “first black president” kind of way? It has certainly made Hamilton, an unabashed elitist, into a populist hero, embraced by people who (like me) probably didn’t quite notice until the last year that he was even on our currency. But is it important that the people on our money, and in our history books, are likable and relatable (to use two good words)? APPELBAUM: I’d like to admire the people on our currency, but it’s unlikely that “we,” in the sense of all Americans, are going to agree about any given historical figure. The eurozone has skirted this problem by putting bridges on its bank notes. And they’re not even actual bridges: just archetypes of different styles: Classical on the five euro note, Romanesque on the 10 euro note, and so forth. Putting presidents on currency is also a kind of safe harbor. Those are the 43 people who have actually won a national popularity contest. Tubman now joins the shorter list of nonpresidents who have been selected as “representative Americans,” alongside Hamilton and Benjamin Franklin. MORRIS: Jenny, I can tell you a story that’s worse than never looking at my money. On Saturdays, I go to the same ATM to withdraw cash for the week. I prefer that particular set of machines because it gives out $10s and $50s, and getting them feels, I don’t know, special. Well, last weekend it gave me a $100 bill that, in the shallow pockets of my sweats, might have as well have been a one, since the money was quickly gone. That’s a little story about why I hate “athleisure. ” It’s also a story about why I hate cash. But this Harriet Tubman news will make me reconsider. For one thing, she’s “representative. ” For another, $20 bills are the favorite denomination of most ATMs, and I predict I’ll feel scrupulous in spending it. How do I pay for a of toilet paper with a Tubman? Who knows, my savings game might go through the roof. And even if who’s on what money doesn’t matter to most people, it definitely matters to rebellious rappers, who’ll have to adjust their rhymes to take in what it means to have a great black woman stacked among what “dead presidents” are still standing (Sorry, Mr. Jackson). SCHUESSLER: Speaking of national popularity contests, it’s interesting — if surely coincidental — that “Hamilton” has helped delay putting a woman on the front of a bill, just at the moment when we may elect an actual woman president. (The Tubman bill won’t circulate until after 2020.) If Hillary Clinton wins the White House, how many decades will it be before she’s on the money? (And don’t you want to still be alive for those arguments?) APPELBAUM: So there’s a legal hurdle: To quote “Hamilton,” you have to be “super dead” before you’re eligible to be portrayed on American currency. There’s also the Mount Rushmore problem. The bar is always lower for initial membership. Once the lineup is full, each decision is doubled: Every addition also requires a subtraction. Which raises an important question: Does Hamilton deserve to keep his spot? SCHUESSLER: Oh man! I’m wary of answering that before I take a course in . And I’ll leave responding to your sick burn of Jackson as a “bad president” to professional historians and political scientists, who have often ranked him in the top 10 — well ahead of Ulysses S. Grant, our man on the $50. Sticking just to the founders, I’d venture that Hamilton has as good a claim as anyone after Washington and Jefferson (especially as played by Daveed Diggs). But the changes also raise another question: Should we introduce lots more people on currency? APPELBAUM: The United Kingdom rotates the faces on its currency every few years, so it can honor a range of great Britains. Jane Austen is due for a turn on the note starting next year. The British chancellor, God save him, tweeted that the choice showed “sense and sensibility. ” Bad jokes aside, they’re on to something. Rotating the honor would allow recognition for a broader group of notable Americans, and it would take the pressure off each decision. MORRIS: That’s been my whole problem with the stress of this conversation ever since it heated up last summer: the pressure. Just flip these suckers. That would temper the pernicious exasperation of White Male Threat. You can depict white guys and everybody else, opening our currency to a galaxy of history, as opposed to this limiting Rushmore approach we’ve got now — sorry, no space for you! Yes, Eleanor Roosevelt and Marian Anderson will be on the back of the $5 bill. But I’m interested in fronts. Why not have stints for folks like Ida B. Wells, Clara Barton, Charles R. Drew, Marian Anderson, Jackie Cochran, Cesar Chavez, Paul Robeson, Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, Shirley Chisholm, Nelly Bly, August Wilson, Amelia Earhart, Richard Pryor and James Wong Howe: Americans who helped make America great before it was deemed in need of being made great again. SCHUESSLER: I’d personally like to see some writers on our currency. Just sticking to the and classics, what about Phillis Wheatley, or Emily Dickinson, or Walt Whitman, who after all wrote a lot about the color green? APPELBAUM: You’ll love the new Austen note, which features the “Pride and Prejudice” line, “I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading. ” SCHUESSLER: So true, my dear Jane! After, of course, the enjoyment of listening to the “Hamilton” album. | 1 |
The Oval Office was redecorated with gold drapes just in time for President Trump’s arrival at the White House Friday. [The drapes were a change from the crimson drapes former President Obama had in his Oval Office, the Hill reported. The change was first spotted as Trump signed executive orders on Obamacare and other things as his initial major acts as President. The couches and other furniture seemed to be different, but the Resolute Desk, which has been in place for decades, remained, ABC News reported. Trump also returned a bust of former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill to the Oval Office. Obama had removed it to make room for a bust of civil rights activist Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Trump also displays the MLK bust in his office it sits on a small wooden desk. Most presidents use furnishings already in the White House collection to decorate the Oval Office, according to the White House Historical Association. | 1 |
97925 Views October 29, 2016 BROADCAST King World News FOR DIRECTIONS ON HOW TO PLAY OR DOWNLOAD AUDIOS: CLICK HERE Rick Rule: Chairman / Founder of Sprott US Holdings & President of USA; Portfolio Manager – Rick is known as one of the most “street-smart” people in the natural resource sector and gold world with nearly 40 years of experience. USA Inc. manages over a billion and through acquisition is now part of the $7 billion LP. USA Inc. provides investment advice and brokerage services to high net worth individuals, institutional investors and corporate entities worldwide. Rick and his team are also successfully involved in agriculture, alternative energy, conventional energy, forestry, infrastructure, mining and water resources investing on a world wide basis. Rick Rule: Chairman / Founder of Sprott US Holdings & President of USA; Portfolio Manager – Mr. Rule has dedicated his entire adult life to many aspects of natural resource securities investing. In addition to the knowledge and experience gained in a long, successful and focused career, he has a worldwide network of contacts in the natural resource and finance worlds. As Chairman of Sprott US Holdings, Mr. Rule leads a highly skilled team of earth science and finance professionals who enjoy a worldwide reputation for resource investment management. Mr. Rule and his team have long experience in many resource sectors including agriculture, alternative energy, forestry, oil and gas, mining and water. Mr. Rule is particularly active in private placement markets, having originated and participated in hundreds of debt and equity transactions with private, pre-public and public companies. USA Inc – (“Sprott USA”) is an SEC Registered Investment Adviser firm that is a member of the Sprott Group of Companies (“Sprott Group”). The Sprott Group offers a collection of investment managers united by one common goal: delivering excellent long-term returns to our investors. Our investment team pursues a deeper level of knowledge and understanding which allows it to develop macroeconomic, sector and company insights. With decades of combined experience, our investment professionals will provide you with service that cannot be found in many investment management companies. Our portfolio managers have experience in the technical side of the business, so we feel that our investment advisory service is invaluable to our clients. We know that you have other obligations and priorities in your life, so let us use our experience and sector knowledge to your advantage. Please CLICK HERE for Sprott’s free report on Energy and Metals investing, and to receive Sprott’s free e-newsletter, Sprott’s Thoughts. Natural Resource Managed Account Investing RESOURCE-FOC– USED WEALTH MANAGEMENT USA Inc. – (“Sprott USA”) is an SEC Registered Investment Adviser firm that is a member of the Sprott Group of Companies (“Sprott Group”). The Sprott Group offers a collection of investment managers united by one common goal: delivering long-term returns to our investors. Sprott USA offers a Managed Account program for investors looking for distinctive and personalized resource portfolio management. LP – (“SAM”) is a Toronto-based alternative asset manager that offers a wide variety of investment solutions to Canadian and international investors. Our product offerings include mutual funds, alternative strategies, physical bullion trusts and tax-efficient funds. With a history dating back to 1981, our team of investment professionals is united by one common goal: delivering outstanding long-term returns to our clients and investors. To achieve that end, we have assembled a group of best-in-class portfolio managers, market strategists, technical experts and analysts that is widely-recognized for its investment expertise and unique investment approach. We are committed to conducting deep fundamental research to develop unique macroeconomic insights. About author | 0 |
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
The western banking system is broken. With U.S. treasuries selling off, the banking system will be caught on the wrong side of the trade when it comes to derivatives on interest rate swaps. As the U.S. banks collapse, get ready for foreign banks to take their place. This and much more with a viewers’ questions edition of the Silver Doctors’ podcast with the one and only Dr. Jim Willie!
CLICK HERE to SUBSCRIBE for free to the Silver Doctors’ YouTube channel so you do not miss part 3! | 0 |
Trump Leads Independent Voters In Several Early Voting States
Trump’s gains appeared to come largely from a re-consolidation of the Republican base following the flurry of sexual harassment allegations against Trump after the leak of the “Access Hollywood” tape, as well as from non-partisan independent voters , where he led Clinton 49-37 percent.
The GOP nominee has also increased his lead over Clinton among white voters, interestingly enough even among white women, who now favor Trump by a margin of 48-43 percent, almost exactly opposite of their 49-43 point lean toward Clinton a mere week ago.
The poll also queried respondents on the issue of voter fraud and the sanctity of the election, something that has become a hot topic following the release of the Project Veritas undercover videos and scattered reports of voting irregularities in early voting.
Unsurprisingly, Clinton supporters were far more likely to downplay the issue of voter fraud than Trump supporters. Altogether, some 37 percent of voters suspected that fraud occurs “somewhat” or “very often,” while 59 percent believed fraudulent voting only takes place “occasionally” or “rarely.”
Despite the closing of the gap between Trump and Clinton, some 60 percent of respondents thought Clinton will still win the race.
As far as the internal ideological breakdown of the poll went, we once again find it to be weighted somewhat in favor of Clinton, as the sample of registered and likely voters included 37 percent who self-identified as Democrats, compared to only 28 percent Republican and 29 percent independent, giving Clinton a more or less built-in 9-point advantage among respondents.
Expect these numbers to continue shifting over the remaining week and a half before Election Day, as the situation in the race remains quite fluid. | 0 |
FALLUJA, Iraq — In the days leading up to the storming of Falluja by Iraqi forces, Brig. Gen. Hadi Razaij, the leading Sunni police commander in the campaign, sat on a cot in an abandoned house near the front line. He described the resistance that lay ahead: a determined force of hundreds of jihadists that had months to prepare. General Razaij’s presence on the battlefield shows that local Sunnis, and not just the Shiite forces that now dominate Iraqi politics, are fighting to liberate their own communities, and has helped tamp down fears that the battle for Falluja would heighten sectarian tensions. He was dispassionate as he described the challenges, but for him the fight was personal, too. General Razaij’s brother stands accused of being a member of the Islamic State and is in a prison cell after being arrested at a checkpoint with a car full of explosives. In northern Iraq, Nofal Hammadi, the of Mosul, is working with the United States to plan for that city’s liberation from the Islamic State. He, too, has family in the fight: Mr. Hammadi’s brother is an Islamic State official, having appeared in a video pledging his allegiance to the terror group and disowning his brother. Even as the central question of Iraq remains unanswered — whether the country’s Sunni minority and Shiite majority can ever peacefully coexist in a unified state — the experiences of General Razaij, Mr. Hammadi and others add a troubling corollary: It is not clear that Iraq’s divided Sunnis will ever be able to find peace among themselves after a conflict that in many ways is playing out as a war within families. After all, when Iraqi Sunnis talk about fighting the Islamic State, it is not a discussion of some shadowy and unknowable force. It is about sons and brothers, nephews and neighbors. “Today we don’t necessarily need reconciliation between Sunnis and Shiites,” General Razaij said. “We need reconciliation among one sect. ” (General Razaij has given conflicting statements about his jailed brother, telling the local news media that he had disowned him. But in an interview with The New York Times, he said he believed his brother was innocent.) General Razaij was asked how many of his men were fighting against brothers or other close relatives who had joined the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL. “It’s so many,” he said. One of General Razaij’s men, Salih Ibrahim Sharmoot, is a policeman from Falluja who has been fighting along the city’s southern edge — a battle in which government forces made quick and surprising gains on Friday, capturing the main government compound. He said his brother Muwafaq joined ISIS in 2013. Antigovernment fervor was running strong in Falluja, in opposition to the sectarian policies of Nuri Kamal the prime minister at the time, who had ordered the mass arrests of Sunni men on often unsubstantiated terrorism charges. “If I catch him during the battles, I will kill him with my own hands because he is a criminal,” Mr. Sharmoot said about his brother. For Iraq ever to be at peace with itself after the end of the Islamic State, it will require reconciliation on a number of levels, especially within the Sunni community. That minority fell from power after the United invasion in 2003 and has witnessed its own decimation, with millions of its followers now displaced from their homes as fighting between government forces and ISIS rages across areas. The last time this happened, in 2006 and 2007, it took American money and influence to pacify Sunni areas then in the grip of Al Qaeda in Iraq, the forerunner of the Islamic State. With the Sunni Awakening, former insurgents were paid to switch sides and ally with the government. That required a measure of reconciliation, if not forgiveness, within the Sunni community. This time, most everyone agrees, will be different. Without the United States as a mediator, or its money to buy loyalty, and revenge are likely to rule the day. “Never,” General Razaij said when asked if peaceful reconciliation was possible among Sunnis. “For those who slaughtered Iraqis, it’s a crime for them to live. ” Iraq’s Shiites seem to recognize this, and have been keen to essentially outsource the business of determining who is or is not an Islamic State collaborator or sympathizer. When government forces liberate a village from ISIS, they often turn to local Sunnis to determine who should be arrested, according to interviews with officials and Sunni residents. And when allegations of militia abuses surfaced recently, including the torture and executions of men fleeing the fighting around Falluja, a prominent group of Sunnis came to the defense of the government, emphasizing the importance of taking a hard line. In a televised news conference, Abu Azam a leader of Sunni tribal fighters in Anbar Province, which includes Falluja, stressed the tribal traditions of Iraq. He said he would not “forget or forgive the killers from ISIS. ” More than a dozen recent interviews, with Sunnis from areas where the Islamic State has had a presence, revealed the extent to which the terror organization has divided families. In many cases, they described a familiar pattern of radicalization for their relatives — beginning not with any special interest in religion, but rather the 2003 invasion and the Sunni insurgency that followed. Many spent time in prisons in Iraq, where they studied the Quran and plotted jihad. In 2013, when Mr. Maliki’s policies sparked nationwide Sunni protests, there was a ready constituency of aggrieved and radicalized Sunnis the Islamic State could exploit. Alaa a Sunni from Salahuddin Province who has joined a militia, said that his uncle, a member of the Islamic State, was not religious before he spent time in an American prison in Iraq. “He used to not even pray or fast, and did not like religious subjects,” Mr. Jibouri said. In Diyala Province, a farmer who asked to be identified as Abu Anas said his younger brother, Hatim, was swayed in 2014 by politicians and clerics calling for an end to the unjust treatment of Sunnis carried out by the government. “The Sunni youth, among them my brother, were caught up in the swirl of sectarian tensions,” he said. At the time, Mr. Anas said, the movement felt like a tribal revolution against oppression, but was quickly subsumed by the Islamic State. “I never would have imagined my simple, naïve, brother would turn into a human monster,” he said. “He used to be afraid of even slaughtering a chicken, and would make excuses not to do so. ” Mr. Anas joined with government forces to fight the Islamic State, carrying a Kalashnikov rifle that had been in his family for almost two decades. He said he later had received a text message from his brother: “You chose the path of hell, and I chose the path of heaven. ” The Islamic State recently released a video from Mosul that purported to show a fighter executing his older brother, described in the video as a government spy. As the bearded ISIS fighter stood over his kneeling brother, who was dressed in an orange jumpsuit, he addressed his family and tribe and said he was acting in their name to “purify” the shame his brother brought to them. Then he shot him in the head. Thousands of Sunni tribal fighters and local policemen, partly motivated by revenge for the devastation the Islamic State has brought to their communities, have joined government security forces and Shiite militia groups in the fight for Falluja, the third major battle for that city since 2003. “This is the last time we are going to go into Falluja,” said Mouwafak a prominent Shiite politician and Iraq’s former national security adviser, who has predicted a bloody battle after the city was liberated. “There is not going to be any appeasement. The Sunnis who liberate Falluja are going to govern Falluja. ” He said that those men were more attuned to the traditional tribal rhythms of life in Anbar, and that their loyalty to Baghdad could be bought. “The tribal fighters don’t even know how to pray,” he said. “They like their booze and they enjoy life. They are motivated by two things: money and power. ” | 1 |
We Are Change
A GoFundMe campaign to crowd-source a modest $5,000 to cover the cost of basic needs of those camping out in protest of the Dakota Access Pipeline has raised over $1.3 million since it launched in April.
Dakota Access Pipeline Protest
“It still feels unreal sometimes because it is such an astronomical figure to me,” said Ho Waste Wakiya Wicasa, the protester who set up the GoFundMe account, told CBS .
Over 28,000 people have contributed to the GoFundMe over the last six months, with $200,000 being donated last Thursday and Friday alone. The surge in donations came after militarized police arrived to clear out the camp, making mass arrests in the process.
“The money goes as quickly as it comes, but without it having been as much as it is, we certainly wouldn’t have been able to be as productive as we have been in the fight,” Wicasa continued.
As of Sunday, 412 people have been arrested on various protest related charges, ranging from engaging in a riot, criminal trespassing, and conspiracy to endanger by fire.
The campaign is one of several, which have collectively raised over $3 million in total to help with food, supplies, and legal expenses.
“Militarized law enforcement agencies moved in on water protectors with tanks and riot gear today,” Dave Archambault II, the chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux, said in a statement. “We have repeatedly seen a disproportionate response from law enforcement to water protectors’ nonviolent exercise of their constitutional rights.”
In another effort this week, over 1.3 million people checked in to the Standing Rock Indian Reservation on Facebook. The goal was reported to have been throwing off law enforcement officials who were tracking protesters on social media, though the effectiveness of that is questionable. What the effort did do however, was spark many conversations and spread awareness of a very large and effective scale.
The costs for preparing for winter are not cheap however — and the account setup for donations to Wicasa’s GoFundMe had just $100,000 left as of Friday.
“The money has been used for grocery store trips every two days that cost about $2,000 each, 20 yurts purchased for $160,000, and around $7,000 for bail money. It has also paid for a storage area, composting toilets, tiny houses, tepees, a medical area and generators powered by solar panels and wind,” CBS reported.
The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe is suing the US federal government to stop construction of the 1,160-mile pipeline. They claim that tribal administration was not consulted, even though the pipeline runs through tribal lands, and that it endangers the water of millions of people.
The pipeline will transport some 450,000 barrels of oil per day across the Missouri River — which provides the water for eighteen million people — meaning a leak would be absolutely catastrophic.
The post Dakota Access Protesters Try to Raise $5K, Bring in Over $1.3 Million appeared first on We Are Change .
| 0 |
I was 26 and on the platform of the uptown 6 train in New York. My messenger bag had flipped over my head. A constellation of trampled, blackened gum wads hovered inches from my face. My hands and feet: numb. I hadn’t tripped. No one had pushed me. I’d been moving through the human flow of rush hour like everyone else, heading from my day job at an educational publisher to my night job writing copy for a marketing firm. I’d been it for a year while my wife was in graduate school, balancing two sets of deadlines and workloads, coming home close to midnight for most of each week. As strangers helped me to a nearby bench, then pointed out the line of blood running from my elbow, I knew what had happened. I’d been warned. Two years earlier, I had walked into an emergency room with what I thought was a migraine, and discovered that a benign tumor had ruptured on my pituitary gland, which sends signals to the body’s other glands to brew hormones. As a result, my body was no longer making any hormones, including adrenocorticotropic hormone, or ACTH. That in particular has worried my specialists. My body no longer responds to stress like everyone else’s. It fails to send ACTH into the bloodstream to battle the adrenaline gusts that fuel situations. Basically, I don’t have a response, and stress can trigger sharp fatigue, low blood pressure, deranged cognition or an “adrenal crisis,” which, in its worst cases, can wash over my body like a stroke, and can even be fatal. I was ordered to take cortisol pills at strategic times each day, and to never, ever break that schedule. Every few weeks I went to my endocrinologist for hormone tuneup sessions, and at the start of each one she asked, “How’s your stress?” The lies I told her (“Not a problem! ”) were noble, I thought, and I even came to believe them myself. I was fine. Stress was fine. Stress was everywhere — how could it not be? At my day job, I took smoke breaks with on our building’s rooftop and rushed through conversations made of almost nothing but stress comparisons: the creeping deadlines, the tasks we juggled, all of us proud of our ability to spread ourselves ever thinner. At my moonlighting job, my were struggling actors, filmmakers and writers who used their days to audition, or pitch magazines, or assemble their reels. The stress we compared there was more about what we didn’t have, and what we were suffering through to get it. I convinced myself that I was good at stress. I knew its rhythms (I thought) and I liked the exhaustion it produced, whether or not it was healthy. Stress was seductive in that way — a currency that proved my worth far more than my low paychecks did. But that subway platform fall shook something in me. It drew a boundary I couldn’t unsee. In the weeks and months afterward, I had more episodes like that one. They were more pointed, and nearly as debilitating. A misstep in an email to clients, a break from a project plan, even the tiniest workplace realities triggered a similar paralysis. I typed emails with numb hands, grew unable to track the simplest details, then grew anxious at the mistakes I’d caused, frozen in a high, swampy anxiety that I had created and couldn’t escape. I was exhausted and confused. I couldn’t sleep. “Take more cortisol when you know stress is coming,” my doctor said. But who can truly know that? Stress’s most insidious power is its ability, like water, to find the cracks and then flood right through them. I had to make a change, but to what? Stress seemed to be the lifeblood of a productive career. What did it mean, now, to have to avoid it at all costs? The best answer I could find: Quit everything. In the eight years after that platform fall, I quit 12 jobs. Freelance jobs, staff jobs, administrative jobs, management jobs. Some I hated, some I loved, but I became a serial quitter, working hard until the stress snowballed enough to pose a serious threat, and then I was gone. I became a master of the notice. I took a perverse pride in it — I’m the best quitter in the game nobody quits jobs better than I — while I knew my reputation was being irreparably damaged. I gained a reputation among friends as a career flake, and I felt myself acquiring a new label — one I had never had before: lazy. By my the constant shifts from job to job were hard on my finances, my résumé and ultimately my marriage. I’d taken that poisonous job stress and relocated it to my home, and it flooded through the cracks there, too. My wife began to lose trust in my explanations for why I needed to leave every job, and soon I did as well. My hormone condition was below the skin, and so hard to track. It turned me timid and unsure in a way I hadn’t been before. Was my illness the real problem, or was it me? “Find something easy that you don’t mind being bad at,” my wife said. It made a brilliant kind of sense, so I took a coordinator gig at a nonprofit with a tiny staff and a simple focus. Maybe it was a case of busted confidence, or knowing my health’s boundaries and the danger of crossing them, but the results at that job were the same as what had come before. By the time my wife woke, at 3 a. m. to my pacing at the foot of our bed, thinking aloud through a thick, adrenal fog about some minor detail I’d forgotten to handle for an event the next day, we both began, sadly, to consider that my most productive career choice might be to chase no career at all. One resignation and one transition document later, I was back on another search, weary and defeated, when job No. 13 came my way: developing tests for a education center. The work reminded me of the kind I had done in my 20s, at the educational publisher and the TV marketing company. But the people here were calm and quiet and tended to leave at 5 p. m. My boss was a former college Spanish teacher who ended each conversation by saying, “It is what it is,” or, “That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it. ” She said she’d train me on everything, that she had a good feeling. Still, I feared letting her down. So when, weeks in, I found I had formatted some specs incorrectly on a very large product delivery, I fell at once into a spell of anxiety and inner fracture. and nauseated (again) I rushed to her office to confess my errors, then prepared to quit (again). She took a deep breath. “Do you know what my husband does for work?” she said. “He’s a military surgeon. He sees people die. Every single day. ” “Here it comes,” I thought, and braced for an implication about my work ethic, or my toughness. “Stress is a part of life. Deal with it,” she would say, as though I hadn’t spent the last eight years doing exactly that. “This job? Nobody dies at this job,” she said. “Everything can be fixed. ” After that, she and I calmly worked out a plan. We did the same thing the next day, and the day after that, until soon my work became what proved to be the rarest of all career currencies: just a job. Nothing more, nothing less, and I hung on to it like grim death. | 1 |
Posted on November 6, 2016 How Hillary Courts the Black Vote Ethnomasochism reaches a new low.
The Democratic presidential primary was one of unprecedented pandering for the non-white vote. As The Guardian summed up one of the debates: “Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders made a conspicuous play for Latino and African American voters.” Mrs. Clinton won the “conspicuous play” hands down, and with it, the nomination. The failure of Senator Sanders to win the necessary quotient of non-white votes was repeatedly pointed out by the chattering class up until the time he dropped out.
In February one black commenter pointedly wrote that Sen. Sanders, “has many miles to go to convince black voters that he can fight for our interests.” By May, black commenter Steven Thrasher wrote a piece titled, “ Bernie Sanders isn’t winning minority votes – and it’s his own fault .” Mr. Thrasher identified Sen. Sanders’s problem as “failing to talk about racism at every turn.”
This accusation may seem ludicrous, since Sen. Sanders surrendered his stage to Black Lives Matter activists several times. But in comparison to Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Thrasher was right about Sen. Sanders. No mainstream candidate in the history of the United States has more thoroughly debased himself in the quest for the black vote than Mrs. Clinton. Since this helped her win the Democratic nomination, she has continued the strategy. In the few days remaining before November 8th, let’s take a look at Hillary Clinton’s most ethnomasochistic moments.
1) In January of 2016, Mrs. Clinton was at something called the Iowa Brown and Black Forum (with none other than Jorge Ramos ), where she was asked “Can you tell us what the term ‘white privilege’ means to you? And can you give me an example from your life or career when you think you have benefitted from it?” This is how she began her answer:
Where do I start? I think it is hard when you are swimming in the ocean to know exactly what is happening around you so much as it is when you’re standing on the shore perhaps watching . . . . I was born white, middle-class, in the middle of America. . . .
2) Early in the Democratic nomination, Mrs. Clinton’s campaign released a memo aimed at stifling the rising momentum of Bernie Sanders:
[W]hereas the electorates in Iowa and New Hampshire are largely rural/suburban and predominantly white, the March [primary] states better reflect the true diversity of the Democratic Party and the nation . . . . It will be very difficult, if not impossible, for a Democrat to win the nomination without strong levels of support among African American and Hispanic voters. We believe that’s how it should be. emphasis added
3) Shortly before the South Carolina primary, at Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem, Mrs. Clinton explained how to break down barriers for African Americans:
Ending systemic racism requires contributions from all of us—especially those of us who haven’t experienced it ourselves. White Americans need to do a better job of listening when African Americans talk about the seen and unseen barriers that you face every day.
We need to recognize our privilege and practice humility, rather than assume that our experiences are everyone’s experiences. All of us need to bring our skills to bear—and especially young people coming up today, who have a passion for social justice and are helping to create new ways to solve intractable problems.
4) In April of 2016, while on a back radio show, Mrs. Clinton was asked what she always carries in her bag. She immediately answered, “hot sauce.” When one of the black hosts noted that she would be accused of pandering to black people for giving that answer, she asked hopeully, “Is it working?”
5) Just a few weeks after a Black Lives Matter supporter murdered five police officers , the Democratic National Convention that convened to nominate Mrs. Clinton passed a resolution, no doubt with her approval, supporting Black Lives Matter :
[T]he DNC joins with Americans across the country in affirming ‘Black lives matter’ and the ‘say her name’ efforts to make visible the pain of our fellow and sister Americans as they condemn extrajudicial killings of unarmed African American men, women and children.
White politicians have tried to win elections through public displays of ethnomasochism for decades, but this election has set a new low. And if Mrs. Clinton loses, her pandering could live on in another form. As the Black Lives Matter activist Tef Poe explained , if Mr. Trump wins, “young niggas such as myself are fully hell bent on inciting riots everywhere we go . . . ain’t no more rules. We’ve been too nice as is.” | 0 |
By Michael J.R. Schindler on November 5, 2016 Proven, No-Cost IT Training for Veterans
Transitioning from active duty military back into the civilian sector often presents a number of new challenges – one being how to reposition ones’ skills, abilities, and leadership training into a well-paying civilian job.
While the majority of veterans eventually land on their feet, close to 50 percent live through or experience unemployment after separation. One program, SAP National Security Services (SAP NS2), under the leadership of retired U.S. Navy Vice Admiral Joseph Kernan and SAP NS2 CEO Mark Testoni , is set on closing that gap and doing so with great success.
NS2 Serves helps veterans by providing valuable IT training and employment assistance, at no cost to the veterans and has pledged to train & place 400 veterans in new careers by 2021.
To date more than 100 veterans have completed the training and been placed in high-tech careers.
Those who qualify and are selected to take part in the 3 month in-house program will find that their travel, room and board are covered, leaving the GI Bill dollars for college courses. In addition, a monthly stipend is provided during the training program as well as mid-term bonuses for completion of requirements.
The training courses in SAP solutions are geared for U.S. national security missions, leading to “Certified SAP Associate” status, a credential that is valuable in many career paths in the U.S. and worldwide.
The Certified Consultants who emerge from the NS2 Serves Training Program will be qualified for several kinds of career opportunities: Data Warehouse Administrator •Data Modeler •Data Architect •Data Warehouse Architect Data Extraction Consultant •Business Intelligence Platform Administrator
In order to be considered for the program, one needs to meet the following qualifications: Honorably discharged U.S. military veterans, including disabled veterans Veterans must be within (3) three years of their date of separation A minimum of a high school diploma or GED, and relevant technology experience Gold Star Spouses who meet the same education and experience requirements listed above
Upon graduation, placement assistance is provided to work in the U.S. national security field. And as mentioned earlier, every participant to date has been placed in careers with starting salaries around $60k.
Bottom line: Today’s veterans and their families have had some of the best training in the world while on active duty. The NS2 Serves Training Program is one program that recognizes that with just a bit of additional training, America’s Greatest Asset can be repurposed to still help with our national security. Related Posts: | 0 |
Pinterest
Donald Trump took about two hours after a grueling cross-country campaign schedule to announce the opening of a new, beautiful hotel in the nation’s capital.
The man has been moving non-stop for months, while Hillary puts on one lame rally, then takes a nap for what seems like days .
So it was absolutely amazing when CNN reporter Dana Bash made the accusation that Trump was merely trying to get “free advertising” for his new hotel and neglecting his duties on the campaign trail.
Do they ask these questions of Hillary Clinton? Of course they don’t. Here’s the video: Dana Bash: Is your DC hotel opening free advertising?Donald Trump: “No, not at all” https://t.co/6OZtrfIwim https://t.co/9HHqooom8r
— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) October 26, 2016
“So to people who say you’re taking time out of swing states to go do this, you say?” Bash asked.
“I say the following: You have been covering me for the last — long time. I did yesterday eight stops and three major speeches, and I’ve been doing this for weeks straight,” Trump responded.
“For you to ask me that question is actually very insulting because Hillary Clinton does one stop and then she goes home and sleeps. And yet you’ll ask me that question. I think that’s a very rude question, to be honest with you.” Trump exclaimed.
Trump added that the opening of the hotel also served to prove a point that he can get things built under budget and ahead of schedule, suggesting that the country needs to be able to follow suit.
Did the media ask Hillary where she was when she went off the grid for six days with only one event last month? Nope.
Did they make any comments when she took the entire first half of August off to recuperate from exhaustion/pneumonia/dehydration or whatever they’re making up? Of course not.
“Her speeches are so short – they don’t last long, they’re like 10 minutes and ‘let’s get out of here,’” Donald Trump said about her schedule. “Go back home and go to sleep.” | 0 |
(Want to get this briefing by email? Here’s the .) Good evening. Here’s the latest. 1. Obamacare lives on. Faced with resistance from within the party, Republican leaders in the House pulled legislation to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Paul D. Ryan, the House speaker, said Americans will be “living with Obamacare for the foreseeable future. ” It was a humiliating defeat for President Trump, who has prided himself on his skills and campaigned on repealing the health care law. In an interview after the bill was pulled, Mr. Trump blamed Democrats and predicted they would seek a deal within a year when “Obamacare explodes. ” _____ 2. The Keystone XL pipeline plans will move forward after the State Department granted TransCanada a permit for construction, reversing Obama administration policy. “Today we begin to make things right,” President Trump said. There are still obstacles to overcome before it can be built, and protests by environmentalists are likely to continue. But its proponents, including Republicans, some labor unions and the oil industry, welcomed the news, arguing that the pipeline would guarantee national energy security. _____ 3. Millions of tourists, business travelers and relatives of American residents will undergo new security checks before getting visas into the United States, in the first evidence of “extreme vetting” from the Trump administration and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. The rules generally do not apply to citizens of 38 countries, including much of Europe and longstanding American allies. For those who have ever been in territory controlled by the Islamic State, the extra scrutiny will include mandatory checks of social media history. _____ 4. The police in London made two “significant” arrests in Wednesday’s attack outside Parliament that left five people dead, including the attacker, and wounded at least 50. Nine people were in custody and were being questioned in an investigation into Khalid Masood, above, the assailant whose connections to the Islamic State were unclear. The attack was a reminder of how inaccurate information can spread in the immediate aftermath of breaking news. Online sleuths pegged the wrong suspect, and the inaccurate identification spread rapidly on social media and a live British TV program. _____ 5. Paul Manafort, the campaign manager for Donald Trump who has been under fire for his ties to Russia, will testify before the House Intelligence Committee as it investigates Russian interference in the presidential election. The chairman of the committee, Representative Devin Nunes, Republican of California, angered Democrats when he said he would replace a public hearing with former intelligence and law enforcement officers with a proceeding. Democrats accused him of trying to “choke off” public information under pressure from the White House. _____ 6. China’s smog crisis, long attributed to the chemicals emitted from power plants, steel factories and cars, has been exacerbated by global warming, new research suggests. Changing weather patterns have reduced wind, which helps blow away the smog in several of the country’s most populous cities. The findings could pressure China’s leaders not just to curb its own pollution, but also to take a more forceful role in international climate change efforts. _____ 7. Hosni Mubarak, the former president of Egypt, was quietly freed from a hospital in Cairo where he had been detained, disappointing Egyptians who hoped to punish him further for decades of corruption and human rights abuses. He was sentenced to life in prison in 2012 for the deaths of Tahrir Square protesters, but the verdict was overturned and the political will to pursue him dissipated. Mr. Mubarak, 88, will now enjoy the typical benefits of a former head of state, including a security detail. _____ 8. A jury in Pennsylvania found Graham B. Spanier, the former president of Penn State University, guilty of one count of child endangerment over his handling of sexual abuse accusations against Jerry Sandusky, a former assistant football coach. The jury acquitted him of conspiracy and another count of child endangerment. Mr. Spanier maintained that he was unaware of the seriousness of the accusations. _____ 9. Need a break? There’s plenty to distract you from politics this weekend. For sports fans, the makeup of the Final Four of the N. C. A. A. men’s basketball tournament will be decided with games on Saturday and Sunday. The women’s Final Four will be set after games on Sunday and Monday. New possibilities for moviegoers include “Life,” the thriller starring Jake Gyllenhaal and “Saban’s Power Rangers,” a modern repackaging of a popular 1990s Fox Kids series. If you just want to stay on your couch, here are the shows our TV critic recommends, or you can read these 17 great stories that have nothing to do with politics. _____ 10. Historians considered James K. Polk, the 11th president of the United States, to be “priggish” and “colorless,” but a debate over his resting place is stirring passions in Tennessee. A new proposal calls for relocating the bodies of Mr. Polk and his wife from the State Capitol grounds to a family home and museum in Columbia. Depending on whom you ask, it’s either a proper remembrance for an overlooked president or a macabre for a town. _____ 11. Finally, it’s been a long week. You deserve some panda photos. Bao Bao, a panda born in the National Zoo in Washington, is adjusting to her new life in China and made her first public appearance after 30 days in quarantine. She’s had much the same culture shock a human would — she didn’t like all of the local food at first, and she’s had to learn commands in Chinese instead of English. But her new handlers say she’s adapting well and settling into the land of her ancestors. Thanks for reading, and we hope you settle nicely into your weekend. Photographs may appear out of order for some readers. Viewing this version of the briefing should help. Your Evening Briefing is posted at 6 p. m. Eastern. And don’t miss Your Morning Briefing, posted weekdays at 6 a. m. Eastern, and Your Weekend Briefing, posted at 6 a. m. Sundays. Want to look back? Here’s last night’s briefing. What did you like? What do you want to see here? Let us know at briefing@nytimes. com. | 1 |
This November full moon will be unlike any other you have ever seen.
We have all seen supermoons before, but this particular full moon will be the second in a series of three this fall. The moon will peak on Monday, November 14th and it will be closer to the Earth than any other since 1948. The full moon will not come this close to Earth until 2034.
The scientific term for a moon this magnificent is “perigree moon” which refers to when the moon is at its closest point to Earth in its orbit. When a perigree moon is full, it is known as a supermoon.
This month’s supermoon will appear 30% brighter and 14% larger than a normal full moon. This means that the night of November 14th will be one you will want to go outside for.
NASA reports that we will be able to see a “moon illusion” that will make the moon look exceptionally big when viewed through foreground objects like tall buildings.
The moon will reach the crest of its full moon phase at 8:52 a.m. Eastern time but it will look exceptionally big and bright all night.
Astronomers have been monitoring the moon closely in order to better understand our solar system. For the past seven years, NASA’s Lunar Reonnaissance Orbiter (LRO) has been mapping the surface of the moon as well as taking high-resolution photos to better understand the moon and Earth. Mapping the surface of the moon and learning about how it’s been impacted by collisions with asteroids can shed light on the Earth’s history as well.
If you miss this month’s supermoon, you will have one more chance to catch the last supermoon of 2016 on December 14th. Yet, the December supermoon will not be as magnificent as the one coming up in November so mark your calendars and go outside with friends and family to see this once in a lifetime show!
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 |
Wednesday in Ranchos Palos Verdes, CA at the annual Code Conference, former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said the media coverage of the investigation into her handling of classified emails turned into “the biggest ‘ ever. ” Clinton said a factor in her losing the election to Donald Trump was that the media treated the email story like “Pearl Harbor. ” She said, “The overriding issue that affected the election that I had any control over — because I had no control over the Russians, too bad about that — was the way of the use of my email account was turned into the greatest scandal since Lord knows when. This was the biggest ‘ ’ ever. ” ( CNBC) Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN | 1 |
Home | World | Angry Vegetable Lib Dem Tim Farron Fights Back Angry Vegetable Lib Dem Tim Farron Fights Back By Buster Speculum 22/11/2016 11:18:16
LONDON – England – An ode to the political meanderings of wayward Lib Dem treacherous angry vegetable, Tim Farron.
When it comes to turnips, one imagines the permanent angry scowl of Tim Farron as he vacillates to and fro across the vegetable patch, a spitting noxious veggie, this piece of putrid detritus they call Tim Farron.
As annoying as his predecessor, Farron is the epitome of Marxism at work, his politics stuck in a swamp of excrement, out dated and spoiling, rotten to the core.
Here is a turnip that wants to scupper Brexit, and he is going on tirade after tirade trying his best to justify disallowing the vote of 52% of the electorate to leave the EU.
We say to you and your ilk Farron, you are to be served up on the dinner plate of ineptitude, festering aggressive pustulence and swine.
Fed to the pigs, your rotting marrow will be excreted out of their puckered arse holes and spread across the sty where you wholeheartedly belong. Share on : | 0 |
The Anatomy of Crisis and the Decline of US Empire Submitted by Danny Haiphong on Tue, 11/08/2016 - 12:18 Tweet Widget by Danny Haiphong
There are multiple dimensions to the crisis that afflicts U.S. imperialism. The latest election is evidence of a crisis of legitimacy for the ruling parties. Americans are estranged from a government that spies on every one its citizens – and on the rest of the world, too. “Unemployment, poverty, racist state repression, and war are all the system has to offer.” Unable to escape a 40-year economic slump, the U.S. instead plots the destruction of its rivals. The Anatomy of Crisis and the Decline of US Empire by Danny Haiphong
“ The vast majority of oppressed communities, particularly Black workers, have seen their labor become disposable in a post-industrial society.”
Whether one analyzes the economic, military, or political spheres of US imperialism, one thing is abundantly clear. The very fabric of the United States is in deep crisis. The crisis is largely misunderstood by the vast majority of working and oppressed people living under it. But a specter haunts the US and it isn't anything like Hollywood's scary movies. That specter is the possibility that the people will become a conscious force of opposition to the crisis and seek to dismantle the system of capitalist empire that governs it.
Crises are genuinely thought of in economic terms. The economic base of capitalism is indeed suffering from protracted economic crisis. The US capitalist economy, and thus the world capitalist economy pegged to its hip, entered a period of stagnation in the mid to late 1970s. What followed was a slowdown in production facilitated by the increased monopolization, financialization, and increased technological capacity of the system. Capitalism's source of profit, labor, was now being exploited by an apparatus too big to expand the profits of the system without intensified exploitation. The aftermath of capitalism's periodic collapses from overproduction and under consumption have been characterized ever since by a complete and total assault on all workers.
“Wages have declined or remained stagnant for nearly four decades.”
The conditions of the crisis speak for themselves. Workers in the US, and the entire Western world for that matter, have seen conditions rapidly deteriorate as the capitalist system has sought to maximize profits in the face of productive slowdown. Free trade agreements such as NAFTA have given corporations the freedom to eliminate production domestically in order to seek a better deal internationally. Wages have declined or remained stagnant for nearly four decades . Unemployment has become a permanent fixture of life for millions and nearly one of two people in the US are considered poor or "near poor."
At this time, the US is a low-wage capitalist economy dominated by service oriented, precarious employment. Racism has played a large part in the disparity inherent under these conditions. The wealth gap between Black America and White America is larger than it was in the Civil rights era. Not only has Black America been the target of racist housing policies from predatory lenders leading up to the 2008 crisis, but the burden of privatization and austerity has been directly aimed at Black families. Hedge funds, for example, have used working class Black communities as the guinea pig to test the effectiveness of massive school closures and teacher layoffs as well as the expansion of charter schools. Thousands of Black teachers have lost their jobs as a result to the mostly white demographic of Teach for America corps members.
“ The wealth gap between Black America and White America is larger than it was in the Civil rights era.”
However, it is not enough to understand the crisis of capitalism through an economic lens. The crisis possesses many forms. Repressive state activity has become more pronounced, especially in the aftermath of the War on Terror. Racist repression in particular has intensified as the vast majority of oppressed communities, particularly Black workers, have seen their labor become disposable in a post-industrial society. Nearly 1100 Black Americans are killed every year by law enforcement all over the country. The war on Black and indigenous peoples that laid the foundation of the United States has only become more severe, as evidenced by the fact that one of every eight prisoners in the world is a Black American. The Dakota Access Pipeline struggle has shown that not even the concentration camps forced upon indigenous people are safe from the profit-seeking tentacles of the crisis-ridden system.
And every American can guarantee that civil liberties are a thing of the past. The NSA, FBI, and the rest of the intelligence community possess access to the entire population's mail and phone devices. A massive surveillance dragnet accountable to no one but the ruling class allows the US state to keep tabs on whoever resists the conditions of the crisis. War at home is ultimately a reflection of the broader war being waged around the world. The US capitalist system is a global system with the largest military state in human history. War has thus played a critical role in the response to system crisis.
The US military acts as the enforcement arm of neo-colonialism and capitalist exploitation around the world. It has expanded into nearly every African state through the US African Command (AFRICOM). The US military state continues to support fascism in Ukraine and fundamentalist Islam in places like Saudi Arabia and Qatar. It has destabilized a number of nations in the last decade alone, including Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya. The US has collaborated with NATO, Israel, and Turkey to militarily encircle Russia and China militarily and sponsor terror groups responsible for the massacres in Syria.
“The US imperialist system is predicated on the expansion of global capital by any means at its disposal, including the use military force to clear the way for corporate plunder.
But the US military is in crisis too. It is plagued by a disillusioned rank and file and the inevitability of a global confrontation with Russia and China if it continues on the current course. The demands of a stagnating global capitalist economy and the ever-increasing exploitation of masses of working people offer no potential for a reversal of fortune. The US imperialist system is predicated on the expansion of global capital by any means at its disposal, including the use military force to clear the way for corporate plunder. The US military state has grown both in size and in violence in order to prevent the global shift of power currently underway.
Russia and China have become the number one challengers to US global hegemony. China's economy will soon surpass that of the US and Russia's recovery from post-Soviet collapse has propelled the Putin-led nation back onto the global scene as a major factor in world affairs. These two powers are becoming increasingly close both economically and militarily. This has made the US ruling class increasingly nervous in the midst of economic decline. To maintain hegemony, the US military state set the world ablaze through endless war in every region of the world that dares to seek ties with Russia and China.
At this point, the US imperialist system cannot peacefully compete in any way with its so-called rivals to the East. The contradictions of the system have become unmanageable. Unemployment, poverty, racist state repression, and war are all the system has to offer. Another economic collapse is on the horizon. Crisis is built into the global capitalist system's constant drive to accumulate profit in the face of global misery. The decline of US imperialism and empire will not change regardless of the election. What is sure to change is the mass reaction to the decline as life becomes more and more unbearable under the grip of empire. Danny Haiphong is an Asian activist and political analyst in the Boston area. He can be reached at [email protected] | 0 |
The U. S. and Russia have been trading barbs since President Donald Trump ordered airstrikes on the Assad regime’s military assets in Syria last week, but now Russian President Vladimir Putin has closed the door on a meeting with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson when the U. S. top diplomat visits the country later this week. [Russia has long supported Syrian President Bashar Assad and refutes the U. S. claim that the dictator ordered the recent chemical weapons attack in Syria that killed innocent people, including many children. “We have not announced any such meetings and right now there is no meeting with Tillerson in the president’s diary,” spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on a Monday press conference call, according to Reuters. Before Tillerson became Secretary of State, he was the CEO of ExxonMobil, a job that included dealings with the Kremlin. In 2013, Putin presented Tillerson with the Russian Order of Friendship award. Tillerson is expected to meet with his Russian counterpart, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, during his stop in Moscow, according to Reuters. Reuters reported that Putin regularly met with John Kerry, Secretary of State under Barack Obama. “Reacting to media reports that Tillerson would use his visit to press Moscow to stop supporting Syrian President Bashar Russia’s closet Middle East ally, Peskov called that a ” Reuters reported. “Returning to to resolve the crisis by repeating mantras that Assad must step down cannot help sort things out,” Peskov said. Other thorny issues may surface during Tillerson’s visit to Moscow, including Russia’s alleged interference in the 2016 U. S. presidential election, its violation of an arms control treaty, and finding common ground on fighting radical Islamic terrorism in Syria. Tillerson had some tough words for Russia on Thursday about the chemical weapons attack. Speaking from Trump’s estate in Florida, where Trump was meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Tillerson cited Russia’s 2013 agreement to oversee the destruction of Syria’s chemical stockpile, saying Russia has “clearly failed in its responsibility” to eliminate those weapons. “Either Russia has been complicit or Russia has been simply incompetent on its ability to deliver,” Tillerson said. U. S. military officials have said they are certain Assad is responsible for the attack. “We highly suspect, and in fact, there’s no credible alternative to a Syrian regime air attack as the source of the chemicals that killed so many Syrian civilians,” a military official said. “ISIS has experimented with mustard agents, blister agents, not nerve agents,” an official said. “But this is well beyond the technical capability of the opposition. ” | 1 |
in: Mainstream Media , Politics , Propaganda Last week, I reported that the MSM was doing a great deal to try and undermine the truths that are being revealed about our government, the rigged election , and their darling, Hillary Clinton. My suspicion was that they were going so far as to set up fake websites and use skewed polls to prepare us for a Clinton victory. It appears I was not alone in that suspicion because all sorts of people began to bring up the topic of skewed polls, including the Trump campaign. Today, I noticed in the headlines that all of the “ official polls ” are telling a different story. They’re telling a story of a battle that is too close to call. Some are even saying that Trump is ahead by a point or two. Some are saying Clinton is a little bit ahead. It’s because they’ve been busted and they’re scrambling to cover the evidence of their dishonesty, of course. Politico even wrote a scathing article about the conspiratorial nature of the very idea of rigged elections . How did this happen? I believe that the combined voices of people who are sick of their baloney have made a difference. They realized that they weren’t pulling the wool over everyone’s eyes and they regrouped. Don’t let this convince you that the election is somehow magically “unrigged.” They’re just dialing back the rhetoric because it was so blatant that everyone was noticing it. It’s still a disgusting mess but the truth is our defense. Who can you trust? Here are at least two organizations who have a strong record for telling the truth: Project Veritas (It’s hard to doubt your own eyes on secret videos – find them on YouTube and Twitter ) Wikileaks (In 10 years their documents have never once been discredited – find them on Twitter and on their website ) Alternative media sites that have been around for a few years are likely to be more trustworthy than the mainstream sites, but let’s be honest. We have a bias too – nearly all of us despise Hillary Clinton, the Clinton Foundation, and the Clinton Money Machine that has so overloaded the system with corruption that it’s becoming obvious to even the most oblivious Kool-Aid drinker that something is awry. Check the sources. The bottom line is, don’t just blindly trust anyone. Vet your sources. Click the links the websites provide and decide whether or not the sources they’re quoting seem to be legitimate. When you see the exact same wording repeated over and over, generally it’s because it’s a talking point that someone has informed the media they are to emphasize. Have you ever noticed phrases like “an abundance of caution” or “for your own safety” getting used over and over? It’s a talking point and the collusive media is using it as a propaganda tool. Never trust a talking point. We’re all being played. I believe that the decision of who will be the next president has already been made. It would take a scandal of massive proportion to derail this train before it gets to the station on November 8th. And that’s really saying something, considering the scandals that have already been unearthed, many of which should have landed Clinton in an orange jumpsuit but have somehow been glossed over with little mention in the MSM. If you’re as worried about a Clinton presidency as I am, the biggest thing that you can do is fight for the truth to be known. Share reliable information about Hillary Clinton where everyone can learn about it. When we all raise our voices together, we are heard. Telling the truth – and doing so loudly – has never been more important than it is right now. Article first posted at DaisyLuther.com Submit your review | 0 |
Email Artwork from book cover | America at War with Itself
Donald Trump most likely will not be elected President. Still, his historic campaign has sent shock waves through the American body politic. All are asking what it means and what it portends. The focus is on America at home rather than abroad. Foreign policy issues have been overshadowed by anxious domestic concerns. Moreover, Trump never formulated a coherent view of international issues. Like the average guy, he simply spat out whatever thoughts passed through his head as he had caught snippets of Fox news. Any attempt to discern logic and strategy from Trump’s disjointed exclamations proves frustrating.
Trump’s entire campaign conveyed emotions rather than considered thoughts. It played to the public’s feelings – amplifying them and channeling them into a turbid brew of primitive slogans. Energy was imparted through unbridled vehemence and the showmanship of the born despot. So it is those emotions that we should look at to see what is simmering behind the formal façade of our democracy in action. For they will outlast the election. Therein lies their significance for possible effects on the United States relations with the rest of the world.
If there is an appropriate label to stick on this fermenting vat, it is “nativism.” By that we mean a rather inchoate mix of atavistic nationalism, xenophobia, aggressiveness, righteous religiosity and racism dressed up as patriotism. Deep-seated sense of grievance and pervasive feelings that the true American has been sold out provide the fuel. Each of these elements has precedents in American history and roots in American society. They periodically have surfaced in political movements from the ‘Know-Nothings’ who in the 1850s were empowered by popular fears that the country was being overwhelmed by German and Irish Catholic immigrants, to the paranoia that accompanied the Red Scare in the aftermath of the Bolshevik Revolution and then reappeared with greater intensity in the form of McCarthyism.
Today’s manifestations have a larger economic component. The plight of salaried workers after decades of wealth redistribution upwards, the hollowing out of the country’s industrial core, the financializing of business, and the emergence of a “gig’ economy that promises only more dislocation, insecurity, skimpy or no benefits, and declining living standards have eroded the optimistic creed that has been the lifeblood of America. Rugged individualism dictates that individual persons should assume responsibility for their failings; stoic fatalism in the face of external forces that drain all hope is quite another matter.
Blame, like discontent, is free-floating. Its locus shifts among Wall Street, Government leaders, and foreigners. The last most interests us here. Factors originating beyond the nation’s borders are prominent targets. They range from “globalization” as an abstract new reality to Benedict Arnold companies that off-shore jobs and tax liabilities to American leaders who sign away American interests in one-sided trade deals to hostile governments who are cheaters. There is more than a grain of truth in the complaints directed at all of those mentioned. The “common man,” as we quaintly used to call workers, indeed has been sold out by the “bosses” – economic and political. In truth, most of that selling out has been by elites favoring other elites here at home at the expense of the general populace. Foreigners are politically more convenient targets, though.
The primary question is whether the disposition to blame external parties will manifest itself in antagonistic action. That has been the pattern elsewhere at other times. It is by no means obvious, though, that this logic holds in the case of the United States today. This is certainly true as regards any large-scale use of military force. Fifteen years of relentless, failed wars in the greater Middle East have drained the country of the passion for violence with which we retaliated for 9/11. Whether a President Clinton will expand operations in Syria is unaffected by what the American public’s anger over illegal immigration or biased “trade” agreements. A vague distaste for ungrateful, grasping foreigners does not eclipse aversion to expensive new adventures abroad or skepticism that they will work.
As to Russia, the current high decibel condemnation of Moscow’s alleged machinations is more an elite phenomenon, led by the security Establishment, than it is an expression of popular outrage. Few Americans identify with the Syrian “rebels” whom Putin is fighting or Ukrainian para-militaries burning people alive in Odessa. The negative view of Russia, and Putin personally, so assiduously cultivated by politicos and the MSM does not translate into fear or hatred. The pervasive obsession with the Red Menace that marked the Cold War remains dormant. That is even true in Europe – except for the Poles and the Baltics. Although that state of sentiment allows Washington to be rhetorically aggressive, and to take the much publicized steps of building up NATO forces around Russia’s periphery. However, any action that is seen as actually raising a risk of direct conflict will be rejected.
Conclusion : American policy toward Russia and the Middle East will follow the tracks laid down by the Obama administration with little deviation – and no greater success.
It is immigration that has been the hot button issue involving other countries. Passions are aroused by two things: the presence of millions of illegals from Mexico and Central America; and the prospect of Islamic terrorists entering the United States masquerading as refugees. The two merge at the most primitive level of emotions. Together, they deepen worries that the world is spinning out of control in ways that call into question the country they know (or imagine they know). Projections of rapidly increasing Latino populations which threaten to overwhelm school districts and voter rolls ruffle the feathers of many Middle Americans. Alarm that welfare and other social problems are siphoning off much needed public moneys in the age of austerity add a tangible economic element to these anxieties.
Could this lead to implementation of the sorts of draconian ‘ethnic cleansing” programs advocated by Donald Trump? Unlikely – despite his ability to insert them into so-called “mainstream” discourse about the problem. It is easy to exaggerate the extent and the intensity of anti-immigrant feelings. Most Americans encounter little of it in their daily lives. Those who do in places like Texas or California pretty much take it as a given: something that should be dealt with but not a matter requiring urgent action. Arizona is different. It’s the extreme Rightists and the Republican politicos whom they have intimidated into obedience who make most of the noise.
Foreign observers should note that the situation here is very different from that in Western Europe. Not only is the United States a very big country where relatively large populations can get lost but, equally important, social space is not as tightly configured. Outside of small towns, there is little sense of traditional community to be protected. Americanism trumps all as the successful integration of waves of immigrants throughout the country’s history has demonstrated. While Latinos do present some unusual complications (unlike South or East Asian immigrants), visceral concerns about a denaturing of culture and society are relatively weak. (25% of all baseball players in the professional leagues are Latinos – most from abroad).
Conclusion : the politics of immigration policy reform has not changed. So, the policies and unresolved dispute over what to do next will remain in their present indeterminate state.
The immigration-terrorism link is a far more passionate matter. It taps the terrorism psychosis that has gripped the country since 9/11. The graphic outbreak of mass violence over the past year has rekindled feverish emotions. The fact that the Orlando/San Bernadino/NY-NJ perpetrators had some vague connection with jihadi groups in the Middle East has given these events a transnational dimension. In fact, all of the perps were American-born citizens or had grown up in the US. Logically speaking, a detached observer could infer that restrictive immigration from the region or of Muslims generally would have no bearing on the level of terrorist threat. Facts in the age of Trump have lost much of their purchase on the American mind, though.
One fact that is incontrovertible is that politicians run scared on all matters that are related to terrorism – however oblique. The foot-dragging of President Obama on accepting any significant number of Syrian refugees is exhibit number one. Hostility toward Muslims generally is on the rise as witness the spike in abusive incidents in recent months. They now are occurring at a higher rate than they did in the wake of 9/11. By contrast, public authorities at all levels are less inclined to pursue surveillance and detention policies that skirt the law compared to that earlier period.
The net effect will be a deepening perception around the world that the United States is hostile toward Islam. That is grist for the mill of the jihadis and opportunistic politicians. While it seems unlikely that signs of Islamo-phobia in American society will affect the thinking and actions of government leaders, they very well could register in the communities from which suicide bombers and terrorists are drawn – in Europe especially and among certain unbalanced individuals in the United States itself. That cycle thereby gains velocity.
What about the economic sphere? It is there that one might reasonably expect the preoccupations of the presidential campaign to affect the policy of a new administration. Economic nationalism follows naturally from aroused popular discontents that finger the forces of globalization as a prime cause of the economic plight in which tens of millions of American find themselves. That is to say, one might anticipate that American officials will take a more searching look at the “bottom-line’ impact of the accelerating integration of the world economy whose promotion has been a centerpiece of American foreign policy since the early 1990s – as actively and optimistically promoted by HRC’s husband. The process has tremendous momentum – institutional (via the IMF, World Bank, EMU, mega-banks and MNS), political and intellectual. Economic thinking, academic and governmental, has been totally dominated by the twin market fundamentalist concepts of General Market Equilibrium Theory and benign globalization. While it has become trendy for all and sundry to make a ceremonial bow to the inequality phenomenon, it is hard to see the momentum of this juggernaut being blocked by disorganized displays of populism.
Larry Summers personifies this state of affairs. One of the architects and master builders of the financialized, unregulated transnational economy who fought ruthlessly to bail out Wall Sreet at the expense of Main Street under Obama, he now punctuates his innumerable public appearances with warnings that we should attention to inequality dilemma. This homily is not a prelude to any action. Rather, it is akin to the Mafia don who devoutly crosses himself every time that his limousine crosses the path of a religious procession on a Saint’s Day.
That is the outlook in the United States under HRC. The one exception might by the TPP and TIIP treaties. Both were crafted by elites imbued by the optimistic globalization creed, both were kept secret except for the financial and commercial interests who were participants in their drafting, and both go far beyond traditional trade matters. The former, in particular, represents a radical transference of power from national governments to private parties institutionalized in expert panels heavily biased toward the latter. Indeed, many of its provisions may be unconstitutional – as a fair-minded Supreme Court could rule. That recondite aspect of TPP did not get an airing during the campaign. However, the tying of the treaty to the damaging effects of “trade” treaties forced even its supporters to equivocate. Hillary Clinton had been an enthusiastic backer until Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump began to reap political hay by condemning it. She now declares that is acceptable only if significant new conditions are met.
What will be her ultimate position? She may be spared that agonizing decision were Obama able to push a lame-duck session of the Senate to ratify it. Otherwise, it may just be the one and only piece of American foreign relations that changes as a result of the election campaign.
Continuity will prevail elsewhere. Americans overall will remain the insular, parochial, moralizing and largely ignorant citizens they have been. That leaves plenty of space for a foreign policy Establishment driven by a powerful inertia to add to its long string of mishaps.
* Every society has its dark and dangerous undercurrents. America’s is laced with racism and fed by a deep pool of personal insecurities. The recrudescence of coarse racism, the deep psychic anxieties of the white males of Middle America, the embrace of jingoism, the frustrations of trailer park super-patriots, and the desperation of tormented Evangelicals torn over the question of whether a prospective nuclear Iran is a sign that the End Days are approaching or a serious speed-bump on the road to Rapture – together, these elements are creating an emotional maelstrom that has found an odd idol in the buffoonish persona of Donald Trump. The longer it lasts, the more attached he himself becomes to the pipe-dream of writing his name on the wind forever – and the more his followers see themselves affirmed and exalted.
Finally, we have to come to terms with the dismaying truth that public opinion, in individuals and in aggregate, is only exceptionally the outcome of an informed and thoughtful process of deliberation. It is the rationalist myth that we are by nature thinking creatures inclined to viewing the world around us in an emotionally detached, mature manner. Very, very few persons approximate that model. Inherited loyalties, deep seated prejudices and preferences, private emotions, the attraction or repulsion of personality – all of these elements come into play to considerable degree. In today’s society where attachments of all sorts are weak and evanescent, where political parties have little cohesion, where associational life has faded, where we are exposed to the barrage of media imagery and messaging, the rationalist model has become less and less valid. Most of us are shaped by influences that we only dimly perceive – whether calculated intent lies behind them or not. | 0 |
Trump Presents Plan To Expand U.S. Navy To 350 Ships
Under the Obama administration, NASA has mostly focused on research and development. Space exploration has ground to a halt, thanks to ridiculous restrictions imposed on NASA by Washington politicians who don’t know the first thing about space travel.
Trump wants America to lead in space once again, and with that in mind he promised more investment in NASA as well as the expansion of current private-public partnerships to maximize America’s potential.
“I will free NASA from the restriction of serving primarily as a logistics agency for low-Earth orbit activity,” Trump stated. “Instead, we will refocus its mission on space exploration.”
Years ago, America led the world in space innovation. Astronauts like Neil Armstrong inspired generations of Americans to shoot for the stars . Science and technology programs flourished because America’s children wanted to achieve the impossible.
That dream has faded as our government has scaled back space programs over time. NASA used to regularly redefine the word “wow,” but now all it does is maintain the status quo.
What Trump is promising is a bright future for America. A revitalized space program would create thousand of jobs, spur advanced technological developments and inspire America’s children to achieve the impossible once again.
That’s what America needs right now. | 0 |
FILE – In this Sept. 15, 2005 file photo, the marker that welcomes commuters to Cushing, Okla. is seen. (AP Photo/The Oklahoman, Matt Strasen, File)
Underscoring once again the dangers of America’s unreliable fossil fuel infrastructure, a significant U.S. oil pipeline has been shut down after a leak was reported Monday morning.
Enterprise Products Partners said Monday it had shut its Seaway Crude Pipeline, a 400,000-barrel per day conduit that transports crude oil from Cushing, Oklahoma to Gulf coast refineries. The leak occurred Sunday night in an industrial area of Cushing. The company did not provide an estimate of the volume spilled, but said there was no danger to the public.
“Seaway personnel continue to make progress in cleaning up the spill, substantially all of which has been contained in a retention pond at Enbridge’s facility,” the company said in a news release (pdf), explaining that the pipeline is a “50/50 joint venture” between Enterprise and Enbridge Inc. “Vacuum trucks are being used to recover the crude oil and return it to storage tanks on-site.”
“The impacted segment of the legacy pipeline has a capacity of 50,000 barrels,” the release added, “however the actual amount of crude oil released will be significantly less and won’t be determined until recovery efforts are complete.”
The incident comes after another pipeline rupture in Pennsylvania early on Friday, where 55,000 gallons of gasoline poured into the Susquehanna River, and about one month after a major gasoline pipeline run by Colonial Pipeline Co. had to halt pumping for a couple of weeks due to a spill in Alabama .
Meanwhile, UPI reports that “[t]he release from the Seaway pipeline is the second associated with the Cushing storage hub in less than a month. Plains All American Pipeline reported problems with infrastructure from Colorado City [Texas] to Cushing earlier this month.”
Environmentalists, Indigenous people, and energy companies are in the midst of a heated debate over pipeline safety . Water protectors and their allies along the proposed route of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) have been saying for months that the project threatens their right to safe drinking water.
“Oil pipelines break, spill, and leak—it’s not a question of if, it’s a question of where and when,” 13-year-old Anna Lee Rain YellowHammer, a member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, wrote in a recent appeal.
“With such a high chance that this pipeline will leak,” she wrote of the Enbridge-backed DAPL , “I can only guess that the oil industry keeps pushing for it because it doesn’t care about our health and safety. The industry seems to think our lives are more expendable than others’.”
Indeed, referring to the Cushing leak, one observer tweeted on Monday: “That’s why we’re screaming #NoDAPL ! They always break!”
Seaway Crude pipeline system shut after Cushing, OK spill. That's why we're screaming #NoDAPL ! They always break! https://t.co/oXiLXcBRly
— Deanna Rilling (@DeannaRilling) October 24, 2016 | 0 |
Here's something interesting from The Unz Review... Recipient Name Recipient Email =>
I’ve written a couple pieces of the smoking hot issue in Pivotland, Philippine president Duterte’s swerve toward a pro-PRC foreign policy, and what the U.S. and pro-American sector of the Manila elite are going to do about it.
The first piece, Reports of death of US-Philippine alliance may be exaggerated , addresses the fact that Duterte’s freedom of movement is constrained by the need to keep the Philippine military happy, and notes that ex-prez and retired general Fidel Ramos, who facilitated Duterte’s entrance on the national political stage, is signaling dissatisfaction with Duterte.
The second piece, Duterte Plays the ‘Mamasapano’ Card , covers a Duterte counter-attack: a threat to relitigate the death of 44 Philippine National Police commandos at Mamasapano in Mindanao, a 2014 special ops fiasco conducted under the aegis of the United States which a) exposes ex-president Aquino to serious legal jeopardy b) posits that the US alliance is doing a better job of killing Filipinos than the PRC can ever hope to do.
The US seems to be embedded in a colonial mindset when it comes to the Philippines, something along the lines of “we’ve been selflessly looking after the Philippines for a century, and that thug Duterte won’t be allowed to screw that up during his brief (maybe curtailed) presidency.”
It takes a pretty superficial view of Philippine history, one that accepts the US self-definition as the Philippines’ security savior while ignoring the distortions and shortcomings of the colonial and neo-colonial relationship.
For me this tunnel vision was typified by the US media crowing over the formal delivery of a refurbished C-130 transport to the Philippine government by outgoing ambo Philip Goldberg. Message: here’s the US making provisions for Philippine defense at the same time Duterte’s selling out the country to China.
To me, the inadvertent message was 1) here’s the US blindly stroking the pivot fetish while Duterte tries to solve the Mindanao insurgency that has cost at least 400,000 lives over the last century, win his drug war, and find a place for the Philippines in Asia that doesn’t give primacy to the US preoccupation confronting the PRC and 2) the U.S., in my opinion, pretty much has a policy of keeping the Philippines flat on its behind as an independent military force by trickling out second-hand gear to the Philippine military while the sweet stuff is dangled in front of it during US joint military maneuvers and port calls.
But the United States is trying to find political leverage wherever it can and the Western media will, I’m sure, put its shoulder to the wheel to help out.
Philip Goldberg sat down for a 45-minute exit interview with Rappler . As befitting Rappler’s origins in the Soros/Omidyar network of pro-US globalization advocacy, the interview was a stream of softballs about what to do about Duterte’s disregard of the awesomeness of the American relationship, an awesomeness that is acknowledged by virtually all Filipinos who inexplicably (and, if the US has anything to do about it, temporarily) at the same time give Duterte approval ratings of over 80% .
It’s worth watching if you have the patience. Goldberg is a smooth cat, and the Rappler tonguebath gives you no inkling of the fact that he intimately familiar with the wet work of end-arounding national governments to cultivate secessionist movements, you know, like what he did in Bolivia (declared persona non grata as a result) and Kosovo, and like that thing in Duterte’s home province of Mindanao, which in my opinion probably the main reason why Duterte wanted him out of the Philippines.
Goldberg also discretely plays the economic threat card, concern-trolling that anti-US attitudes will dismay “foreign investors”.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out in subsequent weeks. As far as I can tell, the biggest U.S. factor in the domestic Philippine economy is the call-center industry . I doubt US corporations are interested in actually pulling their operations out and subjecting them to the English-language mercies of India, but certainly a call from the State Department or White House would convince them of the wisdom of at least making the threat.
And I also wonder if expected President Hillary Clinton will find it necessary to drop the hammer on Duterte, in order to demonstrate to a rather dubious Asia that there is no alternative to loyalty to the pivot.
I expect the next few months, in other words, to be very interesting. (Reprinted from China Matters by permission of author or representative) | 0 |
The world of superhero comics is filled with tortured souls. One guy, after the vicious murder of his parents, dresses up as a bat to fight crime. Another similarly fellow dresses up as a spider. And those are the heroes. Even in that world, the psychological profile of Harley Quinn stands out. Best known as the former girlfriend of the Joker, Harley suffers from multiple personalities, homicidal tendencies, Stockholm syndrome and possibly “shared psychotic disorder. ” A survivor of domestic violence (not surprising, given her former beau) she has murdered and kids. Her weapons of choice include mallets, baseball bats and exploding cupcakes. Despite her mental issues and misdeeds (or perhaps because of them) Harley is having a moment. This year, she headlined three books, including a monthly comic and two . She’s a lead character on “DC Super Hero Girls,” an animated web series, and can be seen in the new video game Batman: Arkham Underworld (one of more than a dozen games she has appeared in since 1994). And then there’s the new Warner Bros. film “Suicide Squad. ” Based on a comic series about a team of incarcerated supervillains, the film stars Margot Robbie as Harley in the character’s first appearance. How did Harley become one of the most popular female characters in the DC Universe? In part, by cleaning up her act, or what passes for clean in her world. In several incarnations — most notably, her foray into video games — Harley has been a true supervillain, maiming and killing with unbridled glee. Now she’s more of an antihero, as in “Suicide Squad,” where she and a team of bad guys take on even worse guys in “Dirty Dozen” missions. In “DC Super Hero Girls,” which is aimed at a tween audience, she’s even tamer. Harley is actually one of the good guys, sharing a dorm room with her pal Wonder Woman at a very exclusive high school (only teen superheroes allowed). Her rise is all the more intriguing when you factor in her love life. As the Joker’s girlfriend, she was the prototypical victim, enduring beatings, murder attempts and the most sadistic sorts of mind games — and always coming back for more. Then there’s her relationship with her fellow supervillain Poison Ivy. The long hugs, the sleepovers, the soulful stares? Even Batgirl put two and two together. Last year, DC’s official Twitter account confirmed that Harley and Ivy were indeed girlfriends, albeit “without the jealousy of monogamy. ” As an abuse survivor and free agent, Harley has become something of a feminist icon — magazines like Bust have praised her complexity, smarts and subversive sexuality — even as she revels in her own bouts of sadistic fun. When the writer Paul Dini and the artist Bruce Timm first introduced the character in 1992 in an episode of “Batman: The Animated Series,” it was a small role, the lone female among the Joker’s motley crew of henchmen. The twist: Unlike the others, Harley clearly had a thing for her boss. It was strictly a . “We didn’t want to give Joker a girlfriend because it humanizes him,” Mr. Timm said, “and we were really trying to stress how bizarre and creepy he could be. ” But Harley clearly had something. Between Mr. Timm’s striking take on the classic harlequin costume — he ditched the “frills and spangles” of the commedia dell’arte original for a skintight bodysuit of alternating blacks and reds — and the voice actress Arleen Sorkin’s reads (a singsongy Brooklyn accent that could, in a jump from pure sugar to nuts) Harley became an instant hit. Two years later, her creators finally got around to revealing her origin in the comic The Batman Adventures: Mad Love. Née Harleen Frances Quinzel, Harley was working in Gotham City’s infamous Arkham Asylum as a psychiatrist when she met and fell in love with one of her patients: the Joker. The comic won an Eisner (the industry’s equivalent of an Oscar) for best single story and explored the bizarre love triangle between the Joker (obsessed with Batman, but hot and cold about Harley) Batman (thinks about the Joker a lot, but maybe not obsessively) and Harley (loves the Joker and sees Batman as a rival for his attention). “Harley’s point of view is very pragmatic,” Mr. Dini said. “She’s like, ‘Why don’t you just shoot the guy?’ But the Joker can’t just shoot him: He has to triumph over him. ” Over the next several years, Harley got her own solo comic book, starred in the 2002 TV series “Birds of Prey” and played a major role in the critically acclaimed 2009 video game Batman: Arkham Asylum, which sold 2. 5 million units within weeks of its release. Tara Strong (“Teen Titans,” “The Powerpuff Girls”) has voiced Harley in several animated series and video games and considers her one of her favorite characters. “In general, video games are the most taxing on a voice actor’s instrument, because you’re constantly screaming and doing death sounds and kicking noises,” Ms. Strong said. “It can make you cranky. But I never get cranky when it’s time for Harley. I don’t care if I have to do a thousand death noises. ” But as the video game Harley got darker and meaner and her comic book artists traded in her cat suit for corsets, short shorts and pigtails, longtime fans balked at what they saw as the hypersexualization of a character who, unlike other DC heroines, was never really about that. The fourth incarnation of the comic series Suicide Squad, which featured a more bare, more murderous Harley, was canceled. “When they first started messing with her, with the fishnets and the really extreme makeup and the nasty hairstyles, I was frankly put off by it,” Mr. Timm said. Harley’s redemption began with the 2013 start of the comic series Harley Quinn, written by Amanda Conner and Jimmy Palmiotti. For the team, the emphasis was on fun. Finally away from her boyfriend, Harley swaps grim Gotham for the joys of Coney Island, and her day job as a for more dignified work as a landlady, member of a team and shrink. She hasn’t stopped killing people, not completely, but there’s notably less of it (a recent match involved decapitations and poison gas). Whatever your preference in Harleys — classic 1990s jester or this year’s Margot Robbie — someone somewhere is dressing up as her, from cosplay events to comic conventions. “I just did a show in France a couple months ago,” Mr. Timm said, “and even in France, there are more Harley cosplayers than any other character. There are people who dress up as her as a psychiatrist, before she even became Harley Quinn. ” In “Suicide Squad,” Ms. Robbie sports several outfits and looks during the course of the story. “One of my complaints with these movies is that everyone always wears the exact same thing,” said David Ayer, the movie’s director. Even so, the biggest criticism he still hears from fans is: Why isn’t Harley in her original jester outfit? “You know, I tried,” he said. “There is this sort of a flashback where she appears in it. We tried different things, but it was the more aesthetic that worked for the character. ” Harley is much more than the sum of her costumes, anyway. “I’ve got daughters,” Mr. Ayer said, “and I think they connect with her freedom to be whatever and whoever she wants to be. ” For Ms. Strong, there’s something even more primal going on. “Sometimes you want to crack someone’s skull in, but you can’t, because that’s illegal,” she said. “People love Harley so much because she lets her crazy out. ” | 1 |
In Las Vegas last week, Donald J. Trump’s Nevada headquarters stood dark. A sign taped to the door declared that it had moved, with “no forwarding information available. ” On a weekday morning in New Hampshire, another battleground state in November, a single worker hovered in Mr. Trump’s main office in Manchester. And at the hub of his national campaign in Trump Tower in Manhattan, Mr. Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, has cloistered himself with a tiny group of relatives and longtime business associates, relying on a staff of about six dozen people to win over an electorate of more than 120 million. Even as Mr. Trump dominates the campaign on cable news and social media, drawing large crowds with incendiary speeches about immigration and national security, his candidacy has faltered in the test of political organization. Having swept through the primaries and caucuses with a skeletal campaign staff and a budget funded largely out of his bank account, he must compete against Hillary Clinton, his presumptive Democratic opponent, with only a shadow of the financial and political infrastructure she has amassed. In crucial states, Mr. Trump’s campaign offices have withered. He has not yet put out a single television ad in the general election. He has about as much money on hand for his campaign as the Manhattan district attorney and the New York City comptroller each disclosed having in their last reports. The situation has grown so dire for Mr. Trump that on Tuesday, he suggested that he might tap his personal fortune to keep the campaign afloat. He disclosed on Monday that his campaign finished May with little more than $1 million in the bank. Mrs. Clinton reported having about $42 million. In a defiant statement, Mr. Trump said that he was just getting started as a competitor against Mrs. Clinton, and that there had been a “tremendous outpouring of support” from donors since the beginning of June. But he has mused publicly in recent days about funding the race himself, and on Tuesday opened the door wider to that possibility. “If need be, there could be unlimited ‘cash on hand’ as I would put up my own money, as I have already done through the primaries, spending over $50 million,” he said. Even the stark disparity in cash on hand may understate the desperate straits in which Mr. Trump finds himself. His led largely by the Republican National Committee, has slowed. He canceled a with 90 people in Boston last week, after the shooting in Orlando, Fla. it has been rescheduled for June 29. Mr. Trump is to be feted at two in Manhattan this week, organized by Woody Johnson, the owner of the New York Jets, with one event featuring Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey. But the ticket price for that event is only $500, a paltry sum for a presidential campaign, and only 260 people have signed up, according to a person involved in Mr. Trump’s who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the information was not intended for the public. Charles Spies, a Republican election lawyer who advised the “super PAC” that supported Jeb Bush, said Mr. Trump would have to put in an enormous amount of his own money to his campaign and win over big donors. He suggested an appropriate figure would be $100 million to $200 million. Mr. Spies said Mr. Trump should also forgive the loans he had made to his campaign, to reassure contributors that he would not use their money to repay himself. Mr. Trump has already raised eyebrows among party donors by spending freely to hold campaign events at properties he owns, and for the cost of flights on his private jet. “For donors to invest in his campaign, he’s got to show that he’s investing in it also,” Mr. Spies said. “He’s got to have $500 million to run a campaign, and that would mean getting outspent by Hillary Clinton and her allies, between two and three to one. ” Dwight Schar, a former finance chairman of the Republican National Committee, said Mr. Trump’s grim predicament came as little surprise. Mr. Trump never courted party donors during the primary season and accused them of seeking to buy influence in government, boasting that as a wealthy man he would be immune to their entreaties. “I think Mr. Trump has got all the money, so he doesn’t need any financing,” said Mr. Schar, who said he was undecided about whether to back Mr. Trump or Mrs. Clinton. He added, “I think my mother used to say, ‘What you sow, you reap. ’” Mr. Trump has reported that his net worth is about $10 billion, though it is unclear how much is in cash, or could readily be converted to cash, that could be used for a presidential campaign. Mr. Trump’s advisers spent much of Tuesday morning huddled at Trump Tower to discuss the way forward, including a speech he has planned for Wednesday attacking Mrs. Clinton. The address, advisers said, will be the first of several speeches Mr. Trump plans to give, with the goal of regaining traction in the race. Mr. Trump’s knack for commanding news media attention, however, is no substitute for a campaign organization. Mrs. Clinton’s staff is larger than Mr. Trump’s by nearly tenfold, and her stable of advisers includes the polling and advertising firms that steered President Obama’s campaigns. Mr. Trump’s campaign, by contrast, rolled from state to state during the Republican primaries, building operations as needed, but left few resources behind that he could now draw upon in the general election. In New Hampshire, for example, Stephen Stepanek, a state lawmaker who helped steer Mr. Trump’s primary campaign, said there was catching up to do in the state. He predicted there would be 30 or 40 paid staff members in New Hampshire by July. “Trump ran a very tight campaign, and we’re very well aware of that,” Mr. Stepanek said. “After we got through with the primary in New Hampshire, the entire staff moved on to the next primary state. They’re all drifting back now. ” In New York, Mr. Trump has kept a tight circle of advisers and leaned heavily on familiar faces, including his children Michael Cohen, his longtime lawyer and Paul Manafort, a veteran Republican operative with business ties to Mr. Trump that date to the 1980s. He has only the thinnest of communications operations, relying on Hope Hicks, a former spokeswoman for his daughter Ivanka, to handle the avalanche of daily news media requests. And Mr. Trump has struggled to expand his operation, facing cold shoulders and arch skepticism from strategists with deep campaign experience. He has sought to hire a communications director, but has been rebuffed by at least two seasoned operatives who were concerned that working for Mr. Trump could harm their careers, according to Republicans briefed on the hiring efforts. He has recently recruited the pollsters Tony Fabrizio and John McLaughlin, as well as a strategist, Kevin Kellems, to oversee the activities of his campaign surrogates. But he has also shed staff, and late last month dismissed a recently hired political director, Rick Wiley, whom he viewed as insufficiently tough in negotiations with the Republican National Committee. On Monday, Mr. Trump fired his campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, tearing another hole in the architecture of his campaign. Mr. Lewandowski was a close adviser to Mr. Trump, but was viewed with distrust by national party leaders, other Trump advisers and members of the Trump family. The Trump campaign is said to favor hiring a new campaign manager to play a more conventional role, focused on ensuring that basic functions of the organization work together smoothly. There was no one lined up for the job at the time of Mr. Lewandowski’s dismissal. | 1 |
Home › HEALTH › WARNING: USDA ALLOWING OVER 20 SYNTHETIC SUBSTANCES IN ORGANIC FOODS WARNING: USDA ALLOWING OVER 20 SYNTHETIC SUBSTANCES IN ORGANIC FOODS 0 SHARES
[10/26/16] VICKI BATTS – Just one month ago, a California judge refused to dismiss a lawsuit that seeks to challenge the USDA on their recent, unlawful changes to how synthetic substances are evaluated in the production of organic goods.
While the charges are simply “alleged” for now, more than a dozen organizations came forward to press the issue. They discovered that at least 20 substances that would have been banned under the previous evaluation method had been allowed to slide through and into our organic foods .
Unsurprisingly, the federal agency requested that the case be dismissed because they believe that these organizations do not have the legal standing to press such a lawsuit. Our founding fathers probably rolled in their graves when the USDA suggested that any of the citizens of the country for which it serves did not have the “legal standing” to challenge them in court, but particularly those who may be be harmed by its doings.
Fortunately, U.S. District Judge Haywood Gilliam Jr. of San Francisco disagreed with the USDA’s sentiments, and is allowing the litigation to move forward. Capital Press reports, “Gilliam ruled that it’s plausible the plaintiffs will be harmed by the USDA’s policy change, which they say has allowed more than 20 synthetic substances to continue being used in organic agriculture.”
The organizations came together to voice their concerns (and press charges) last year, arguing that the agency’s changes to their procedures for handling synthetic substances in organics have effectively made it much more difficult to remove a synthetic ingredient from the list of approved substances. In other words, these new regulations are making it harder to keep organic food clean.
The organizations’ concerns are primarily focused on the USDA’s decision in 2013 to change the five-year “sunset process” for synthetics that are approved for organic farming. In the past, synthetic substances were banned from the list, unless two-thirds of the 15-member National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) agreed that they should be permitted to remain on the list.
The USDA has taken this policy and flipped it on its head; in order to eliminate a synthetic chemical from the list, now the NOSB must obtain a vote of at least two-thirds. So instead of voting for a chemical to remain on the list, the NOSB now has to vote to remove them. This means that even a majority of nine people will not be able to effectively remove unwanted substances from organic foods.
Will Fantle, co-founder of the Cornucopia Institute, a nonprofit organic industry watchdog site, commented, “This gets at the heart of decision-making at the National Organic Standards Board.” Fantle also noted that now, instead of allowing these products to “sunset,” or simply fade out of use, the USDA’s new policy will force these ingredients into the “land of the midnight sun.”
The plaintiffs state that the USDA’s newly-minted process harms consumers who pay a premium for organic produce and products, because there is an expectation that these goods are produced with a minimal amount of synthetics. This deception also harms farmers, because it undermines the “organic” label. These are products that are supposed to be produced with integrity in mind.
The first lawsuit presented by the group was dismissed because it lacked specificity. Not to be deterred, the plaintiffs identified 20 different substances that would have been banned under the previous NOSB policy. In their lawsuit, they also state that “ the USDA promulgated the regulation without providing the public the opportunity for notice and comment and acted in an arbitrary and capricious manner[.]”
Hopefully, the lawsuit will be successful and the USDA will be forced to revoke their terrible new policy. If Americans continue to band together and fight against such deceitful practices, we may eventually be able to clean up our food (and our country). Post navigation | 0 |
On a clear February morning, executives from Union Square Hospitality Group and several architects sipped hot coffee and milled around a table in the partly demolished remains of a shuttered restaurant, waiting for Danny Meyer. Winter light through immense, windows cast a pall on the stained, walls. A sculpture of a red crab dangled above the front door. Architectural drawings were spread across the table. Mr. Meyer arrived and everybody turned toward them like physicians attending to a critical patient. When Union Square Cafe reboots next month in its new location at 19th Street and Park Avenue South — the bygone home of City Crab Seafood Company — Mr. Meyer’s first, signature restaurant will be engaged in a quasiscientific enterprise. Take one of the most cherished establishments in the city, a longtime regular atop the Zagat list. Keep the chef, the staff, even the old favorites from the menu, but (isolating the variable) move three blocks. Then determine: Precisely how much, in a business built on food and service, does “place” (more specifically, architecture) matter? And is it possible to uproot a classic without destroying its essence? It’s hard to think of many attempts that have worked. The man in charge of this experiment is the architect and restaurant whisperer David Rockwell, whose design credits include a Tony for the musical “She Loves Me,” hotels from the W in Paris to the Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas, and restaurants like Nobu Fifty Seven in Midtown Manhattan and Gato downtown. For the last year or so, Mr. Rockwell and his colleagues at Rockwell Group have been laboring to extract the ambient DNA of the old Union Square Cafe and implant it into a new, very different body. Part of the experiment has involved mixing two yet dissimilar auteurs. “David is allergic to the status quo, while Danny arrives at a project with about 15 design elements he already wants, which come from places he’s been, things he’s found,” said Richard Coraine, Union Square’s chief development officer, who has worked with both of them for years. “Danny will say, ‘I’ve been to this place where you can see into the wine cellar,’ and David will pull out a piece of tracing paper and pick up a red pen in his left hand, waving it around. I’ve told him he’s got the best left arm since Sandy Koufax. ‘What if the wine rack looked like an apothecary cabinet?’ he’ll ask Danny, and then start sketching. ” That exchange produced the wine room at Maialino, Mr. Meyer’s Italian restaurant on Gramercy Park. For Union Square Cafe, Mr. Meyer didn’t want “another Rockwell,” as he put it to me last fall, when I started dropping in from time to time on planning sessions, where the two men sometimes approximated an old married couple. Mr. Rockwell would propose some floor tile or light fixture. Then he would nod and purse his lips without actually agreeing while Mr. Meyer would make a countersuggestion, claiming to defer to Mr. Rockwell’s expertise but expecting to get what he wanted. What he wanted was Union Square Cafe, only different. “We’re usually called on to invent things at a much more visible, bigger scale,” Mr. Rockwell said. “The invention here took place more on a micro scale. ” So did meetings, where Mr. Meyer’s team, including Sam Lipp, Union Square Cafe’s director of operations, and Carmen Quagliata, the restaurant’s executive chef, would suddenly deliver a dissertation on the turning radius a barista needs behind the coffee station, or the effects of citrus on different types of wood. Mr. Meyer himself spent the better part of one session musing on the width of the mullions in the new windows. He wanted them to recall the ones in the old restaurant so that, from the sidewalk, even before entering the restaurant, as Mr. Coraine put it, “people will feel they’ve come home. ” Mr. Rockwell elaborated: “The best restaurant designs are made up of large decisions and lots of tiny details. But ultimately, what comes from long experience, Danny’s and mine, involves what I’d call ‘in between’ things: Designing for when a restaurant isn’t full. Ensuring there’s easy eye contact from every table with the waiters’ stations, so diners feel they’re always in control, never swallowed up in a big space. Designing spaces so people want to explore the room, because a restaurant shouldn’t be a . “A restaurant should unfold, like a series of snapshots,” he added. “That was part of what defined the original Union Square Cafe. It was episodic. ” The original occupied a side street that into Union Square Park. It was what Mr. Rockwell calls a “slow” locale. The new address, Park Avenue South, is almost the reverse, choked with traffic and lined with singles bars. Mr. Meyer and Mr. Rockwell agreed from the start that the new entrance should be on 19th Street, not Park. That was the easy move. At 10, 000 square feet, the new place is as cavernous as the original, Union Square Cafe was a deteriorating rabbit warren. Faucets leaked, the wiring dated back to the Truman administration. Repairs would cost a fortune. Then, in 2014, as the expiration of the lease loomed, the landlord proposed more than doubling the rent. “The numbers just didn’t add up,” said Mr. Meyer, declining to be specific. “Suffice it to say, we would have been working for the landlord instead of giving raises and promotions to our staff. ” Briefly, he thought about ending a great run, then decided that “Union Square Cafe had to go on,” he said. “It’s my firstborn. It’s a New York institution. For our company, it’s the mother yeast of every loaf we’ve ever baked. ” His team started scouring for a new home not more than a ride (not seven or eight minutes — six) from the Union Square Greenmarket, whose fresh food provided the restaurant’s lifeblood from Day 1. Three decades ago, Union Square was a derelict magnet for drug dealers and crime, and the newly opened cafe was a pioneer. It became a victim of the very prosperity it helped bring to the neighborhood — and today it is following the northward creep of restaurants from the square that it also set off. Usefully, Mr. Rockwell, 60, had been a regular at the original. He knew its pluses and minuses, including the narrow corridors and terrible circulation, the back room that was Siberia, the kitchen that was a dungeon. And yet almost despite itself, the restaurant achieved what Mr. Meyer, now 58 and then a novice, and Larry Bogdanow, the original architect, set out to accomplish in 1985: to blur the line between going out and coming home. The architecture, or really the apparent lack of any, reinforced the cafe’s vaguely Midwestern mood. The fuzzy aesthetic blending Italian trattoria, San Francisco bistro and Shaker Meeting House echoed the borderless cuisine. The layout’s flaws only amplified loyalists’ affection, as did the strategically selected furniture and art collection the umbrella stand in the vestibule the long mahogany bar, with its shelves of wine bottles and ample room to eat, and the jazzy Judy Rifka murals of gamboling figures, “Satyricon” lite. Mr. Lipp sat down to chat one early December afternoon, just before the old place closed. “This restaurant has been a club to many of our regular diners,” he said. “Any time you move an iconic brand, even a few blocks, it’s a big concern, in this case not just because Park Avenue isn’t 16th Street. People by their nature are habitual. ” He cited the business management book “Who Moved My Cheese?” “Like Danny says, we want to make this move with our regulars, not do it to them,” Mr. Lipp said. “At the end of the day, I can buy the same chicken Tom Keller buys and cook it the same way he does. But he can’t create the feeling evoked at Union Square Cafe. That’s why David is so key. ” Mr. Meyer put it this way: “You don’t hire David Rockwell if you just need a cover band. ” The new layout looks airy, sunny, logical. It doesn’t make any big statements or break any new architectural ground, because that wasn’t the assignment. The design manages to bring a lofty space with immense windows down to human scale by breaking it up. Not counting the addition of a private dining room (it has its own staff) the restaurant will grow by only about eight seats, to 138. As in the old place, a vestibule directs diners past a few cafe tables toward the bar. The main room is lined with wainscoting, its color to update the original green wainscoting. A big staircase becomes the main architectural focus and spatial divider, implying a separation of rooms. A scrim of lights, at nine feet, aligned with the mezzanine, creates a layer of intimacy, slicing the restaurant’s lofty height in half. Discreet spotlights in the ceiling focus pools of light around clusters of tables. On the mezzanine, booths look down onto the main floor like opera boxes, these may well become the best seats in the house. There’s a second bar upstairs for a or so guests, a remnant salvaged from the original cafe, illuminated by some of Mr. Bogdanow’s old glass fixtures. cherry wood floors, like the ones on 16th Street but now variously patterned, demarcate spaces to underscore the episodic layout. It’s a kind of homage, the same but not, updated and, for a celebrity designer, with nods that may register only subliminally, like the main bar, which is the exact same length as the old bar (27 feet 1 inch) the concrete floor tiles next to it, which are the same width as the ones at 16th Street the brass light fixtures over the bar, hung at the same height. “Union Square Cafe had its own community,” Mr. Rockwell said. “It was where many other people came to celebrate. It’s near and dear to me. Restaurants were my introduction to New York, places like Schrafft’s. I know this sounds kind of heavy, but having lost my dad when I was 3, moving a lot, then my mom passing away when I was 15, places that marked celebration and connection, they’ve made a big impact on me. “Something as simple but complicated as getting a meal, it’s one of the things that makes a city so vital,” Mr. Rockwell said. “This was a rare opportunity, to take a seminal place for New Yorkers and prove that the city remains alive. ” | 1 |
A Black Agenda Radio Commentary by Bruce A. Dixon
When astute political commentary from a half century ago eloquently describes the current political conundrum it means we’ve been stuck in a bad place for a long time. Do we really want Malcolm’s observation to apply four or eight or twenty years further into the future? Malcolm X on Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump A Black Agenda Radio Commentary by Bruce A. Dixon
It’s that time again, it’s presidential election season, and as we hear every four years, THIS is the most important presidential election of our lives. The fact that you’ve heard that before should tell us something. It should us that in presidential years, many old things becomes new again, often because so much of what we’re told IS new is really pretty old.
Malcolm X has been dead now a half century, dead for more years than he was ever alive. But since at least one of the tricks and traps deployed to fool, frustrate and neutralize our grandparents’ right to vote hasn’t changed much we might want to listen carefully to what Malcolm’s words in the aftermath of the 1964 presidential election.
“ If Johnson had been running all by himself, he would not have been acceptable to anyone. The only thing that made him acceptable to the world was that the shrewd capitalists, the shrewd imperialists, knew that the only way people would run toward the fox would be if you showed them a wolf. So they created a ghastly alternative. And it had the whole world — including people who call themselves Marxists — hoping that Johnson would beat Goldwater.”
Like today’s Donald Trump, Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater was a truly reprehensible and frightening figure, who had opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that banned racial discrimination in public accommodations, and who favored the use of nuclear weapons to defoliate the Vietnamese countryside. Also like Donald Trump, Goldwater never really stood a chance of winning the election. Goldwater the wolf was buried beneath a Johnson landslide, carrying only 6 out of the 50 states. Republican officeholders are running away from Donald Trump not because he’s a racist bufoon but because he’s expected to lose states Republicans are accustomed to winning.
The fox, Lyndon Baines Johnson went on to start a war in Indochina that killed three million Vietnamese alone. LBJ defoliated the Vietnamese countryside with millions of tons of Agent Orange instead of nukes, causing hundreds of thousands of hideous and gruesome birth defects that continue to this day.
The wolf and the fox this year are Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. Trump is a real estate con man, a racist and a hyper-entitled sexual predator who talks about building walls and banning Muslims. Fortunately for us all, Trump has never been in government. Hillary has scarcely ever been out of government. She’s fronted for Wal-Mart, executed bloody regime change in Libya, brought US troops to Ukraine on the Russian border, and publicly itches for a showdown in Syria. Thanks to Wikileaks there is copious evidence that Hillary’s public stands on a wide range of issues from charter schools to so-called trade agreements, to fracking and social security stand in stark contrast to the promises she makes to the powerful.
Just as it worked 52 years ago, the overwhelming defeat of her wolvish opponent will give Hillary the appearance of a mandate. But the margin of Hillary’s victory provides those of us on the left an unprecedented opportunity. It means there is no need for those who imagine themselves on the of jobs, justice, peace and the planet to ride to Hilllary’s rescue and ensure the defeat of Donald Trump. Trump has already beaten himself.
This election is our best chance to break out of the decades-old two party trap and build a new political force, a new political party. The Green Party is the only peace party, the only party that stands for people and planet over profit, and our only opportunity to vote our hopes, not our fears. It’s time to choose.
We vote Green and build Green, we can consign the political conundrum Malcolm X eloquently described a half century ago to the garbage can of history. Or we can vote for Hillary, and Malcolm’s words will be as applicable four or eight years or twenty years from now as they have been for the last fifty. For Black Agenda Radio I’m Bruce Dixon. Bruce Dixon is managing editor at Black Agenda Report and the co-chair of the GA Green party. He lives and works near Marietta GA and can be reached | 0 |
The Zika virus caught the world’s attention last year after experts noticed that a small percentage of women carrying the virus in Latin America were giving birth to children with microcephaly, a defect that causes malformed heads and severely stunts brain development. The virus is now endemic there, and scientists fear that caseloads may spike again during the hot, wet months of the Southern Hemisphere’s summer, which begins in December. But although the Zika strain circulating in Latin America is originally from Asia, health experts know little about its history on that side of the Pacific. “We know the virus has been circulating in the region for the better part of 70 years, but we don’t know how extensively,” said Duane J. Gubler, an emeritus professor at the Medical School in Singapore. Zika may have been understudied for decades because there were no routine tests for it until recently, scientists say, and perhaps also because the symptoms resemble those of mild dengue fever. Another possibility, they say, is that women carrying the Zika virus gave birth to microcephalic children at home. Microcephaly was first noticed in Brazil only because doctors in neonatal intensive care units of several hospitals realized that they had far more children with the problem than they normally did, and many of the mothers reported having Zika symptoms months earlier. But the Zika scare in Latin America has prompted a recent surge in awareness and monitoring of the virus in Asia. Health ministries across the region have reported hundreds of new infections in recent months. And in October, the World Health Organization said that the Western Pacific region was “highly likely” to report more cases — and possibly new outbreaks. Humans are primarily infected with Zika through the bites of mosquitoes from the Aedes genus — the same ones that carry dengue, yellow fever and other illnesses. Zika can also be transmitted sexually, although scientists have not yet determined how long the virus lingers in semen or vaginal fluids. The majority of people who contract Zika never experience symptoms, and the symptoms that do appear — including fever, rash, joint pain and conjunctivitis — are often mild. But Zika can cause microcephaly and other birth defects in infants born to women who are infected during pregnancy. Scientists also believe that Zika infections are linked to the prevalence of syndrome, a rare disease of the nervous system that can cause muscle weakness and even paralysis. A Zika vaccine is being developed, but the process may take years. In February, as microcephaly and cases that scientists believed were linked to Zika appeared in Latin America and the Caribbean, the World Health Organization declared the Zika epidemic a public health emergency. The agency announced an end to that emergency this month but cautioned that the disease should now be viewed, like malaria and yellow fever, as a continuing threat. By 75 countries had reported Zika transmissions for the first time since 2007, with nearly half of the new transmissions occurring this year alone. In Southeast Asia, Singapore and Thailand have reported many of the cases this year, with hundreds each. Thailand also reported Southeast Asia’s first two cases of microcephaly in infants in late September, and Vietnam reported what it said was probably its first microcephaly case in late October. The United States Centers for Disease Control said in a September memo that pregnant women should “consider postponing nonessential” travel to 11 Southeast Asian countries because the virus is linked to birth defects. But the number of reported Zika infections and infant malformation cases with likely links to Zika in the region is still significantly lower than the number in Latin America and the Caribbean. (More than 2, 000 babies have been born with microcephaly in Brazil, far more than in any other country.) The C. D. C. has also said that recent reports of new Zika cases in Southeast Asia may simply reflect increased awareness or monitoring, rather than increasing transmission. Scientists say that tropical Asian countries’ long experience with diseases may help their response. Girls who contract Zika are believed to be immune when they reach their childbearing years, meaning they cannot give birth to microcephalic babies. People who live in countries that are “hyperendemic” to dengue — including Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines — also carry natural antibodies that some scientists say may help them to suppress or protect against Zika infections. Dr. Sutee Yoksan, a dengue expert at Mahidol University in Thailand, said that theory is now being tested through research projects in multiple countries. (Other scientists, by contrast, worry that dengue antibodies may make Zika infections worse.) Southeast Asian officials so far appear relatively sanguine about the risks that Zika poses to their citizens, and dengue remains a greater threat, said Tikki Pang, a former director of policy research at the World Health Organization. But those officials probably would feel political pressure to respond to Zika more aggressively, he added, if it became clearer to them that the virus posed a risk to unborn children. Asia’s experience with Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or SARS, and other infectious diseases has prompted increased coordination among its countries’ health ministries since the early 2000s, health experts said in interviews, and that coordination may come in handy if Zika transmission surges in the region. But officials may be underestimating Zika’s spread in Southeast Asia, in part because some countries lack the resources to test for Zika infections on a large scale, the experts said. The fight could also be hindered by a chronic lack of political will in the region to address diseases with investments in vaccine development, public education and new technologies, they said. | 1 |
FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) — Apple says it will give $200 million to Corning Inc. so it can invest in a Kentucky plant that makes glass screens for iPhones and iPads. [advertisement | 1 |
JERUSALEM — A monthslong wave of bomb threats against Jewish institutions in the United States that prompted evacuations, heightened security and fears of rising gave way to an unexpected twist on Thursday. The person responsible for many of the threats, law enforcement officials said, was half a world away, in Israel, a Jewish teenager. An intensive investigation spanning multiple countries culminated on Thursday in the arrest of the suspect, who holds dual Israeli and American citizenship, and his father. The teenager’s lawyer said he had a brain tumor that could affect his behavior. The surge in threats over the past few months — well over 100 sent to Jewish community centers, schools and museums since the start of the year — coincided with an increase in hate crimes against a number of groups, from scrawled swastikas to homicides, feeding worries about a new era of bigotry. American and Israeli officials refused to say how many of those threats the suspect was accused of making. And some recent acts were apparently committed by others, like threats against Jewish centers for which a Missouri man was charged, and the vandalizing of Jewish cemeteries. But officials made it clear that they considered the teenager, who lived in the Ashkelon area of southern Israel, to be the primary source of the threats, though they did not offer a motive. “This is the guy we are talking about,” an Israeli police spokesman, Micky Rosenfeld, said. The suspect made threats to sites in Australia and New Zealand, as well as in the United States, and to at least one commercial airline flight, prompting an emergency landing, Mr. Rosenfeld said. A judge ordered the suspect, who has not been charged, held until at least March 30 and ordered a medical examination. His father was ordered held for eight days, on suspicion that he might have been aware of the threats, or even been involved. The father denies any knowledge of the threats, his lawyer said. The judge imposed an order of silence forbidding the Israeli authorities to release either man’s name. The teenager, who was born in Israel, has a brain tumor that can affect his cognitive abilities and lead to “irrational” behavior, his lawyer, Galit Bash, said. She would not say whether her client, who she said did not have a criminal record, had admitted or denied involvement. Ms. Bash and the father’s lawyer, Eran Rau, who are both from the Office of the Israeli Public Defender, said the young man was an only child who lived with his parents and had been which is unusual in Israel. While most Israelis are drafted into military service, the teenager was rejected, which Ms. Bash said was because of his medical condition. Israeli news media reported that she had said in court that he had the tumor since he was 14. The father, an engineer in his early 50s, was cooperating with investigators, Mr. Rau said. He said his client, who also has no criminal record, was concerned primarily with his son’s welfare, given his medical condition. “This all seems very strange and preliminary to me,” Mr. Rau said. Israeli news outlets reported that when the teenager was arrested, he tried to grab an officer’s gun. In his brief court appearance, the suspect, wearing khaki cargo pants, bowed his head and pulled up his shirt to conceal his face. On Thursday morning, after months of investigation and waves of turmoil and panic, the Federal Bureau of Investigation held a conference call with leaders of Jewish organizations to discuss the surprising denouement to the investigation. As the news spread, it drew mixed reactions from Jewish leaders and groups who tried to make sense of it. Joel Dinkin, the executive vice president of the Evelyn Rubenstein Jewish Community Center of Houston, said that it was “a little bit perplexing from the standpoint of the fact that it’s somebody Jewish. ” Jonathan A. Greenblatt, chief executive of the League, cautioned that many of the people responsible for threats, vandalism and “a torrent of abuse online” remained at large. And even the threats attributed to the Israeli teenager, he said, should still be considered acts of . “The motive may have been unclear, but the impact was crystal clear,” Mr. Greenblatt said. “These were acts that terrorized a community just because of their faith. ” Critics of President Trump have accused him of playing down hatred and violence against minority groups and charged that his remarks are fueling conflict. He did not publicly condemn the threats and vandalism until Feb. 21, weeks after Jewish groups began calling on him to speak out. On Feb. 28, in a meeting with state attorneys general, Mr. Trump suggested that some of the threats and vandalism could be a politically motivated effort to “make people look bad,” rather than actual expressions of bias, according to people who took part in the meeting. Despite the arrest, “we hope our elected officials will directly confront the wave of hate violence that we’ve seen since the election,” said Heidi Beirich, the director of the Southern Poverty Law Center Intelligence Project. The authorities said the person who made the calls had sent them through the internet and used sophisticated software to disguise his location and camouflage his voice, which slowed the investigation. When the Israeli police searched the suspect’s house, investigators confiscated computers, an antenna and other equipment. An American official said it appeared that the man had used Tor, widely available anonymity software that masks a computer’s true whereabouts by routing its internet traffic through various points around the globe. Many people use Tor, which is managed by a nonprofit digital privacy group, including those conducting illicit business and activists trying to avoid government censorship or surveillance. “The investigation began in several countries at the same time, in which dozens of threatening calls were received at public places, events, synagogues and community buildings that caused panic and disrupted events and activities in various organizations,” the Israeli police said in a statement. The F. B. I. worked closely with the Israeli authorities on the investigation, starting in September — months before American organizations began to note a surge in threats to American targets, according to Cary Gleicher, the bureau’s top agent in Israel. Some of the earliest American targets of bomb threats were schools, centers and museums in Alaska, Florida and New York that were affiliated with an Orthodox Jewish movement, according to a Chabad official. The movement did not publicize the threats, which received little or no news coverage. Mr. Gleicher said he had met in early March in Washington with James B. Comey, the F. B. I. director, who asked about efforts to find the person making the threatening calls, and made it clear that he had “great interest in getting this thing done. ” In Mr. Comey met with Jewish leaders at bureau headquarters to brief them on the investigation. “I left with a level of confidence that they were definitively making strides,” said Jerry B. Silverman, the chief executive of the Jewish Federations of North America. “It was clear that they were moving at a very rapid pace. ” The cooperation intensified last week, when the F. B. I. sent 14 people — both agents and technical experts — to Israel to assist in the investigation, Mr. Gleicher said in an interview from Israel. “This was a big deal,” he said, adding that it had taken the resources of both countries to get “across the finish line. ” “Monday was the eureka moment,” he said, when investigators figured out who was making the calls. In a statement, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who described the threats as “hate crimes,” said, “The Department of Justice is committed to protecting the civil rights of all Americans, and we will not tolerate the targeting of any community in this country on the basis of their religious beliefs. ” | 1 |
MEXICO CITY — Municipal police officers encircled the bus, detonated tear gas, punctured the tires and forced the college students who were onboard to get off. “We’re going to kill all of you,” the officers warned, according to the bus driver. A policeman approached the driver and pointed a pistol at his chest. “You, too,” the officer said. With a military intelligence official looking on and state and federal police officers in the immediate vicinity, witnesses said, the students were put into police vehicles and taken away. They have not been seen since. They were among the 43 students who vanished in the city of Iguala one night in September 2014 amid violent, chaotic circumstances laid bare by an international panel of investigators who have been examining the matter for more than a year. The reason for the students’ abduction remains a mystery. Despite apparent stonewalling by the Mexican government in recent months, the panel’s two reports on the case, the most recent of which was released on Sunday, provide the fullest accounting of the events surrounding the students’ disappearance, which also left six other people dead, including three students, and scores wounded. The reports describe a night of confusion and terror for the students and city residents, and a seemingly clinical, coordinated harvest by Mexican law enforcement officials and other gunmen operating in and around Iguala, in Guerrero, one of Mexico’s poorest and most violent states. The government said 123 people, including 73 municipal police officials, had been detained on charges in relation to the night’s events, and the Mexican authorities have linked the Iguala police force to a powerful drug gang. The 43 students were undergraduates at Escuela Normal Rural Raúl Isidro Burgos, a teachers college, in Ayotzinapa, with a history of activism. They were among about 100 students who headed out on the evening of Sept. 26, 2014, with a plan to steal some buses. This was a tradition that students at the school had done for many years: They would take the buses, use them to transport their peers to an event and then return them when they were done. The bus companies and the authorities mostly tolerated it. The plan for the outing that evening was to secure several buses to carry students to a march in Mexico City several days later to commemorate a student massacre that had occurred in 1968. Riding in two buses they had commandeered on earlier occasions, they stationed themselves on a main road on the outskirts of Iguala, planning to intercept a few buses. “All of us were happy, having a blast, relaxed, happy with the drivers, playing,” a student later testified, according to the panel’s first report. It relied on testimony from survivors, government security officials and other witnesses as well as reports from an interagency government command center. But the region’s security forces were already onto the students’ plans. The federal police stepped up patrols near the buses, and the command center linking local, state and federal police forces, as well as the military, kept tabs on the students. At 8:15 p. m. the students made their first strike, boarding a bus that had stopped in front of a restaurant. The driver knew the drill bus companies generally instruct drivers that in the event of a student hijacking, they should remain with the buses to ensure their safe return. The bus driver said he needed to make a pit stop at Iguala’s central bus station. At the station, the driver surprised the students and locked them in the bus. Around 9:15 p. m. the students in the two other buses arrived at the station and freed their classmates. The group commandeered three more buses, leaving behind one that had no driver. The five buses then left for Ayotzinapa, three heading toward Iguala’s northern beltway, two toward the southern beltway. Then the shooting began. Several police cars pursuing the three northbound buses started firing warning shots into the air. But the threat of violence did not deter the students. A group of them left the buses and started throwing rocks at a police car that had blocked their path until the car drove away. At another point, a student sneaked up behind a police officer and tried to disarm him. As other police officers came to their colleague’s aid, the student ran away, and a police bullet ricocheted and struck him, lightly wounding him. As the convoy resumed its northward course through the city, police bullets hit the buses. The students threw themselves flat on the floor but ordered the drivers to keep going. Near the beltway, however, the police had blocked the road with a vehicle. Several students got off the buses and tried to lift the cruiser out of the roadway, but officers posted on the highway opened fire on the group, forcing the students to seek cover behind the buses. Investigators later counted 30 bullet holes in one of the buses. As bullets flew and windows shattered, one of the students, Aldo Gutiérrez, was shot in the head. The first call to an emergency dispatch number was received at 9:48 p. m. Police officers shot at students who tried to rush to Mr. Gutiérrez’s aid. Another student was shot in a hand the bullet sheared off several fingers. He sought shelter behind a truck, where two police officers ran over to him, and kicked and punched him. A third student was struck in an arm by a bullet. Ambulance crews managed to retrieve the three wounded students and take them to a hospital, along with a fourth student who suffered an asthma attack. “They all felt confusion, terror and helplessness,” wrote the panel, five lawyers and human rights experts from around Latin America. At one point, the police made a group of students who were hiding in the third bus disembark and lie on the ground. About 10:50 p. m. they were taken away in six or seven patrol cars. They are among the 43 students who disappeared. Meanwhile, the two buses that took the southerly route had also run into trouble. About 9:40 p. m. just as the convoy was intercepted near the northern beltway, the police cut off one of the southbound buses, shattered its windows with tree branches and shot tear gas inside to flush out the passengers. The passengers were pulled from the bus and taken away: the rest of the 43 missing students. Elsewhere in the city, the police had stopped the other southbound bus. The students on board, who had received word by telephone of the other attacks, got off the bus and fled into woods. In a measure of the violent pandemonium that overcame Iguala that night, another bus and several other civilian vehicles came under attack even though they had nothing to do with the students. Los Avispones, a soccer team of high schoolers from the city of Chilpancingo, had played a match that night against a local team in Iguala. By 11:15 p. m. the players were aboard their bus and heading home. Their route out of Iguala took them through a state police roadblock where they were rerouted because of the confrontation between the students and the police, witnesses said. About seven miles outside Iguala, gunmen fired on the bus, killing a soccer player and the driver, and wounding seven other passengers. The attackers also fired at other passing cars, killing a woman who was riding in a taxi. Witnesses said the gunmen had included police officers, and ballistic tests found that some of the weapons used in the attack belonged to the Iguala municipal police department. “The most probable hypothesis is that the bus had been confused for one of those carrying the student teachers,” the investigators wrote. Some soccer players, including one who had been wounded in the eye and was bleeding profusely, managed to drive to a nearby army battalion but were offered no help. “They indicated that they couldn’t do anything because it wasn’t in their jurisdiction,” a witness testified. Elsewhere, on routes leading from Iguala to Ayotzinapa, at least two roadblocks were set up by unidentified gunmen, and one by police officers from the city of Huitzuco. Two civilians were wounded by gunfire at one of the roadblocks. The expert panel concluded that “the joint action shows a coordinated modus operandi to stop the flight of the buses. ” Meanwhile, at the entrance to the northern beltway, students who had survived the police fusillade against the convoy began to emerge from their hiding places and regroup at the scene around 11 p. m. The police had left by then, and the students sought to record the evidence of the attack while trying to communicate with their classmates in the other buses. Journalists, as well as some teachers, began to show up, and by midnight an impromptu news conference was taking shape in the middle of the road. About 12:30 a. m. a white sport utility vehicle and a black car drove by, their occupants taking photos of the gathering. Some were wearing bulletproof vests and hoods. Some witnesses said they also had seen a police car in the area. Fifteen minutes later, the vehicles returned, and three men jumped out and fired on the news conference from close range. Two young men were killed, and other people, including students and teachers, were wounded. The survivors fled into the surrounding blocks. A teacher and several students ran to a clinic to find help for the wounded. No doctor was present, but despite their appeals to emergency dispatchers and to military personnel who appeared at the clinic, an ambulance did not arrive for more than an hour. As late as 3 a. m. the bodies of the two young men still lay in the street, uncovered, in the pouring rain. By dawn, the situation had calmed down, and the surviving students who had been hiding across the city received word by telephone that it was safe to come out. Over the course of the morning, they gathered at the local offices of the attorney general, where they met with the authorities. That morning, the authorities also found the body of another student, Julio César Mondragón, who had been at the news conference. He had fled when the shooting began and had become separated from the group. His facial skin and muscles had been torn away from his head, his skull was fractured in several places, and his internal organs were ruptured. His condition, the investigators wrote, “shows the level of atrocities committed that night. ” | 1 |
Comments
Swedish EDM star Axwell has today announced plans top quit the music industry after discovering that he was not a real DJ while taking the poweful hallucinogenic DMT.
DMT, often described as a window into the soul, is the main ingredient in ayahuasca, a psychedelic brew used by the people of the Amazon to contact the spirit world for ceremonial or healing purposes. DMT use can often lead to people having deep and profound spiritual experiences and, as in Axwell’s case, can lead to users making extreme lifestyle changing decisions.
“I can finally see clearly, all of these years I thought I knew what I was doing but I was clueless, like a snowflake floating in a winter tundra,” explained Axwell calmly.
“I delved deep inside my mind and questioned my inner self about the fabric of time, the meaning of life and my purpose on earth,” explained the enlightened DJ, “I looked directly into the eyes of nature and all existence and I knew straight away that I wasn’t a real DJ and I never had been. I’m a fraud and my entire life has been a lie. I’m just glad I found out while I’m still young enough to make a change.”
“Im my heart I think I already knew. To be honest I think anyone who’s ever heard Swedish House Mafia or any of my solo work or any of Steve (Angello) or Seb’s (Ingrosso) solo work or any of the music myself and Seb made already knew. It’s pretty obvious really,” he admitted. “But now it’s official, I’ve told the guys and they actually agree that they’re not real DJs either but they’re happy enough to keep living the masquerade because, to be honest, the money is rather good.”
“I however am ready to move on, to spread my wing and fly if you will,” continued Axwell. “I’ve heard my new calling and I’m ready to act on it. I’m going to change my name to Acts Well which will be a reflection of all of my future behavior and I’m also going to be opening a chain of fair-trade vegan tofu bars, which will employ only reformed convicts and double up as a shelter for sick animals. It’s the least I can do after the plethora of shit music I’ve inflicted on the world.” | 0 |
Re: WINDOWS 10 « Reply #91 on: November 17, 2015, 01:37:05 PM » nVidia even admitted that they intentionally cripple Linux drivers to put performance under Linux the same as performance under Windows.Clips its own product's wings to please MicrosoftBy Chris MerrimanMon Oct 07 2013, 15:28 CHIP DESIGNER Nvidia has revealed that it crippled its Linux driver to ensure parity with Windows.According to a forum poster at the Nvidia Developer Zone , the v310 version of the drivers for Basemosaic has reduced the number of monitors a user can connect simultaneously to three.The firm's reply to the post was the type of dismissive response that the Linux community has come to expect in its dealings with Nvidia.Nvidia said, "For feature parity between Windows and Linux we set Basemosaic to [three] screens."So let's be clear about this. Nvidia has chosen to remove functionality from a Linux driver to ensure that it isn't more capable than the Windows version. This really doesn't sound like the action of a company that wants to get along well with Linux developers and users. So far, Nvidia hasn't indicated whether this is a temporary situation, or more likely a permanent arrangement.There can be one of two obvious motives for this, which amount to two sides of the same coin. Either Nvidia doesn't want to be seen to show up an embarrassing limitation in Windows or the Windows driver, or the continuing acrimony between the graphics firm and Linux is not over yet.While for most users three monitors are ample, making this a fairly niche problem, it's an example of a company manipulating the marketplace. Of course controlling the flow of progress in order to sell another product is nothing new - video games makers have been doing that since the 1980s.But to control the flow of progress to favour one platform over another is playing "technology god" and sets a disturbing precedent. Logged | 0 |
MARTON, England — Andrew Woodward grew up with a soccer ball between his feet. His room, in a housing estate, was filled with posters of famous players and his head with dreams of becoming a defender for England. When he was 9, he scored a goal from the halfway line in a school match and raced across the field into the arms of his father, who said he was “the proudest dad in the world. ” Two years later, Mr. Woodward was spotted by Barry Bennell, a soccer scout and youth coach in northern England. It was September 1984, and Mr. Bennell told Mr. Woodward’s parents that he could turn their son into a professional player. Could he come train at Crewe Alexandra, a professional club, and stay with him on weekends to improve his skills? It would prove to be the beginning of a ordeal of harrowing sexual abuse — and it has turned out not to be the only one. After scandals in children’s homes, in the Roman Catholic Church, in the police and in the entertainment industry, where the child abuser Jimmy Savile is said to have assaulted dozens of youngsters, soccer is the latest British institution to face allegations of the sexual exploitation of children on a broad scale. The nature and extent of the abuse has come as a shock to the country that invented modern soccer and is home to the Premier League, the richest and most widely watched league in the world. Just as troubling is the apparent reluctance at club level to act decisively to stop the abuse then, and more recently. Two years ago, Chelsea, one of the richest clubs in the world, paid a former player, Gary Johnson, 50, 000 pounds, about $63, 000, in an agreement that stopped him from going public with his allegations of sexual abuse at the hands of a former Chelsea youth coach. Four weeks ago, Mr. Woodward, who eventually became a defender for Crewe Alexandra, became the first professional soccer player to go public with his claims of abuse. Since then, at least 20 other former players have followed, and many more have contacted the police privately. A help line has fielded over 1, 000 calls. At least 20 police forces across Britain have opened investigations into 83 suspects in cases involving about 350 possible victims and 98 soccer clubs from the amateur level to the Premier League. In the words of Greg Clarke, the chairman of the Football Association, the governing body that oversees much of soccer in England, it is “one of the biggest crises” in the sport’s history, one that has left Mr. Woodward and many others who suffered at the hands of coaches and officials permanently scarred. At first, Mr. Woodward recalled in an interview last week, the opportunity to become a professional player seemed almost too good to be true. Mr. Bennell could spin a ball on his finger, flick it off his shoulders and rest it on his neck before catching it with his heel. “Like a magician,” Mr. Woodward said. The coach’s home, an isolated cottage on the edge of the Peak District in the middle of England, was the stuff of a boy’s dreams. There was a pool table and a jukebox and a monkey that would sit on Mr. Woodward’s shoulder and eat cucumbers. Mr. Woodward said the television was the biggest he had ever seen. The first time Mr. Woodward stayed at the cottage, Mr. Bennell gave him a pair of soccer cleats to keep. The second time, he asked him to come into bed and play a game he called “follow me,” where they took turns touching each other, at Mr. Bennell’s direction. The third time, the rapes started and they continued for four years: in a bunk bed with another boy lying above in a car on the way to training in youth hostels during soccer tournaments and, occasionally, in Mr. Woodward’s own house, after Mr. Bennell had eaten dinner with Mr. Woodward’s family. When Mr. Woodward resisted, he would be dropped from the next match and made to sit on the bench. “I can ruin your football tomorrow,” Mr. Bennell would tell him, warning: “Keep quiet or you’re finished. ” Mr. Woodward did keep quiet, until 1998, when the police knocked on his door and told him that Mr. Bennell faced charges of sexual abuse. Mr. Woodward became an anonymous witness in a case in which Mr. Bennell, now 62, was sent to jail for nine years on 23 charges of sexual abuse, including buggery, against six boys. Mr. Bennell had already served a prison sentence in the United States for raping a boy at a soccer holiday camp, and he was convicted again as recently as 2015. Since then, Mr. Bennell has been living under an assumed name, but he was taken back into custody after Mr. Woodward went public with his story in The Guardian, a British newspaper, on Nov. 16. Mr. Bennell now faces eight counts of child sexual assault, the Crown Prosecution Service announced last month. For years, Mr. Bennell and other pedophilic coaches appear to have been protected by powerful individuals at the clubs where they worked. The manager of Crewe Alexandra when Mr. Woodward was being abused, Dario Gradi, was still employed as the club’s director of football until this last weekend. Mr. Gradi was suspended by the Football Association only after another former player said that when Mr. Gradi was assistant manager of Chelsea in the 1970s, he had visited the player’s parents to smooth over the sexual advances of another youth coach, Eddie Heath. Mr. Gradi, who in 1998 was honored by Queen Elizabeth II for his services to soccer, could not be reached for comment. In the past, when players tried to bring abuse to the attention of the soccer authorities, they found little sympathy. The settlement between Chelsea and Mr. Johnson, who says he was also abused by Mr. Heath, who is now dead, came after Mr. Johnson tried in 2013 to tell the police and soccer authorities about the abuse, prompted by the investigation into Jimmy Savile’s actions. He was ignored every step of the way, Mr. Johnson says. Only last week did Chelsea’s leadership apologize to Mr. Johnson in person, after the club waived the condition that he remain silent. The Heath problem has been an internal headache for Chelsea for some time, according to one lawyer familiar with the case, speaking on condition of anonymity because of a continuing investigation. The instinct to close ranks and protect the club is one of the reasons Richard Scorer, a lawyer at Slater and Gordon who has worked on sexual abuse cases for 20 years, says he believes that the scandal in soccer will snowball. His firm represented abuse victims in children’s homes in the in the Catholic Church in the late 1990s, and, more recently, Mr. Johnson. “Professional football unites all the risk factors,” he said. Like priests, soccer coaches have easy access to children and the trust of parents. But they also have the opportunity for intimate contact with children in showers, changing rooms and on tours. Above all, coaches have a relationship with their players characterized by what Mr. Scorer called “near absolute power. ” “They are the gatekeepers of dreams,” he said. Mr. Bennell always had two boys to stay for the weekend and sometimes three. During the day, he played soccer with them, took them to matches and treated them to meals at McDonald’s. At night, he showed them scary movies to frighten them and then pull them close. Mr. Bennell had a nunchaku — a weapon made of two short bars with a chain in the middle — that he liked to show off. He made the boys hold a newspaper and then split it in two with the chain. “What we have is special,” he would say. “Don’t ruin it. ” Mr. Woodward, and introverted, was his favorite. “He would always pick the soft ones with the quiet parents who were less likely to challenge him,” Mr. Woodward recalled. Mr. Bennell would come for dinners at his home and wink at him across the table. Sometimes he would stay over in the room next to his parents’ bedroom. Mr. Woodward’s mother would ask her son why he was so quiet when his coach visited. When Mr. Woodward was 14, Mr. Bennell began seeing his sister. Two years later, he married her. It is a subject Mr. Woodward cannot bear to talk about except to say that his sister left Mr. Bennell in 1998, the year his former coach went to prison and he finally mustered the courage to tell his family about the years of abuse. Coming forward has been a relief, said Mr. Woodward, who has been told he has stress disorder and who has tried to take his life several times. His soccer career ended because of recurring panic attacks on the field. “I was playing under a cloud,” he says today. For 12 years, he worked for the police, but he was recently dismissed after a disciplinary tribunal over his having had a relationship with the adult sister of a victim of a crime. Even now, age 43, when the soccer results are read out on the radio and his old club is mentioned, he says his stomach turns. He has never returned to Crewe, though it is less than an hour’s drive from his house. | 1 |
Los Angeles Valley College was the victim of a ransomware hacking attack that took down the campus’s website and email system on New Year’s Day until the school paid $28, 000 to free hostage data. [1, 900 students and faculty were locked out of their computers with the message: “You have 7 days to send us the BitCoin after 7 days we will remove your private keys and it’s impossible to recover your files,” according to the campus newspaper. It took the college 72 hours of computer systems freezing up throughout the Valley Glen campus before college administrators caved and made the payment the day after school had reopened. But even after the criminals delivered a decryption “key” to unlock LAVC servers, it will take weeks to unlock every campus computer and try to assess damages. After social media reports began circulating about the details of the administration’s response, Los Angeles Community College District Chancellor Francisco C. Rodriguez, issued a statement on January 6, quoted by the Los Angeles Daily News: “In consultation with district and college leadership, outside cybersecurity experts and law enforcement, a payment of $28, 000 was made by the District … . It was the assessment of our outside cybersecurity experts that making a payment would offer an extremely high probability of restoring access to the affected systems, while failure to pay would virtually guarantee that data would be lost. ” The Global Risks 2015 report, published last January by the World Economic Forum (WEF) warned: “90 percent of companies worldwide recognize they are insufficiently prepared to protect themselves against [cyber attacks]. ” WEF lamented that a significant portion of goes undetected, particularly industrial espionage where access to confidential documents and data is difficult to spot. Those crimes would move the needle on the numbers much higher. usually fall into two broad categories: breaches in data security, and sabotage. Personal data, intellectual property, trade secrets, research and information relating to bids, mergers and prices are tempting targets for cyber thieves. Sabotage usually take the form of denial of service attacks, which flood web services with bogus messages, as well as efforts to disable systems and infrastructure. The law firm of White Case warns that in addition to commercial losses and public relations problems, disruption of operations and the possibility of extortion, cyber attacks may also expose an organization to regulatory action, negligence claims, inability to meet contractual obligations, and a damaging loss of trust among customers and suppliers. British insurance company Lloyd’s has estimated that global costs, which includes direct damage plus disruption to the normal course of business, at $400 billion in 2015. Lloyd’s forecast that about 3, 000 companies in the United States had systems compromised by cost had quadrupled since 2013. Juniper Networks expects that due to the rapid digitization of consumers’ lives and enterprise records, criminal global costs will have quadrupled again to about $2. 1 trillion by 2019. Only about 60 percent of companies and large organizations believe they can retrieve all their own data from backup files in the event of a ransomware attack. | 1 |
12 Austrian Schools Evacuated Over Radioactive Rock None of the schools realized the danger Image Credits: Marcin Wichary/Flickr .
Twelve schools have been evacuated after a lump of uranium was found in a science classroom sparking nuclear terror.
The discovery was made when antinuclear campaigner Thomas Neff was giving a lecture to pupils about an old wristwatch from the 1960s with a radium dial.
The numerals on the watch contain the material to help them to glow in the dark and were created when little was known about the damage caused by radiation. | 0 |
. Colorado Cannabis Industry Contributes More to Economy Than All Other Industries The Colorado cannabis industry has quickly gone from bud to full flower, as indicated by a new in-de... Print Email http://humansarefree.com/2016/11/colorado-cannabis-industry-contributes.html The Colorado cannabis industry has quickly gone from bud to full flower, as indicated by a new in-depth data analysis by the Marijuana Policy Group. Using a new “Marijuana Impact Model” they say is the first to “accurately characterize how this industry impacts the overall state economy,” the researchers confirmed the astounding positive impact that legalization has brought upon Colorado. Legal cannabis activities generated an output of $2.39 billion in 2015, with almost $1 billion in sales for the year. The sales represent a 42.4 percent increase from the previous year, translating into a staggering 112 metric tons of buds and 132 metric tons of “flower-equivalent” products (edibles, concentrates, etc.).Cannabis now ranks number six in terms of product sales, following closely behind cigarette sales. It beats gold mining by a large margin, and even performing arts and sports venues as well as all non-grain crop farming. However, the real impact is seen when put in terms of “output and employment per dollar spent,” where spending in the cannabis industry outperforms all private industries in Colorado – including coal and other mining, oil and gas, casinos, business services, general manufacturing and retail trade (incl. alcohol). Each dollar spent on retail cannabis generates $2.40 in state output, while cannabis manufacturing follows with $2.34 and cannabis cultivation comes in at a close $2.13. Combining the three, cannabis is generating far more than any other entity, including federal government spending. Much of this has to do with the fact that the Colorado cannabis industry operates almost entirely within the state, due to continuing prohibition in other states. George Jung, the Biggest Marijuana Dealer of the 60s: " Marijuana was accepted and almost legalized " There is equally impressive news in the jobs sector, where legal cannabis created more than 18,000 jobs in a year . “Legalization of marijuana created 18,005 fulltime equivalent (FTE) jobs in 2015. Among those jobs, 12,591 were employees directly involved with the marijuana business — either in stores and dispensaries, cultivations, or infused product manufacturing operations. “The remaining 5,414 full-time equivalent positions were generated by intermediate input purchases made by the cannabis industry for general business goods and services, and through general spending by marijuana industry employees and proprietors.” Security guards comprise a significant portion of these indirect jobs, due in large part to the fact that the industry is still being forced to operate on a cash basis — because of asinine banking prohibitions by the federal government and the Federal Reserve . This isn’t stopping entrepreneurs and other productive individuals from taking advantage of the new, wildly popular market. Legal cannabis is having profound effects in many other industries, including commercial real estate, construction, and a raft of business services. The cannabis industry itself is growing at a faster pace than any other sector, at an astonishing 42.4 percent. Colorado’s general economic growth is at 3.5 percent and the U.S. average is 1.75 percent. The growth analysis found a very interesting result that supports a primary argument for ending prohibition. 36.2 percent of the economic growth was the result of the disappearance of the black market . When people are free to indulge in the personal behavior of ingesting a substance – as they can with alcohol – they will naturally choose to do so through the legal market, even if it means having to pay exorbitant taxes. And Colorado is gladly raking in this tax revenue. “In 2015, marijuana taxes were the second largest revenue source among excise products in the state (e.g., tobacco, alcohol, and gaming). “Combined marijuana excise and sales tax revenues were $63.4 million in 2014, and $121.2 million in 2015. 5 For 2015, they were 14 percent larger than casino/gaming revenues, 6 about 5 percent less than lottery revenues, and almost three times larger than alcohol revenues.” The huge increase in tax revenue is primarily caused by the rapid increase in recreational use sales since legalization in 2014, and the fact that recreational products are taxed at a much higher rate than medical cannabis products. Interestingly, the report noted that a significant portion of the cannabis industry growth is coming from visitors who go to Colorado on cannabis vacations, rather than some other reason like skiing or hiking. “This visitor demand segment is poised to grow from 14 metric tons in 2015, to 55.1 metric tons by 2020, based upon these new, sole-purpose visitors choosing Colorado as a marijuana destination.” If there is one negative aspect to the report, it is that small cannabusinesses are struggling to stay alive as the industry becomes dominated by larger companies. While some of this is the natural result of competition, it appears that many of them are being regulated out of business by the state. “Private industry owners purport that consolidation is not being caused purely by price competition, but instead by high compliance costs. “For example, the owner of one of Colorado’s largest retailers recently stated that many small operations are unable to properly comply with the state’s complex regulations, leading them to exit the market.” There lies the hidden barb of legalization. There’s no question that ending prohibition is the right thing to do, but government tends to place needless, cumbersome burdens on free enterprise which favors larger conglomerates and smothers the little guy. This ultimately leads to less competition and the tendency for monopolies to develop, which makes it easier for government to siphon their taxes. All in all, though, the analysis by the Marijuana Policy Group is heartening, and it shows other states how incredibly beneficial it is when people regain freedom and a new market is born. The report is especially timely, as nine states will be voting in less than a week to expand legal access to cannabis through recreational and medicinal means. By Justin Gardner | 0 |
Monday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” host Joe Scarborough reacted to President Donald Trump’s interview a night earlier with Fox News Channel’s Bill O’Reilly prior to the kickoff of Super Bowl LI. In that interview, Trump was reluctant to criticize Russian President Vladimir Putin and for that Scarborough insisted that Trump must come out publicly and state that he opposes assassinating journalists and political rivals, as Putin has been accused of doing in the past. “If Donald Trump keeps being asked to criticize Vladimir Putin for assassinating journalists and Donald Trump refuses to criticize Vladimir Putin for assassinating journalists and say, ‘Well, we do it too,’ in a sense, does that suggest he thinks it’s OK to assassinate journalists?” Scarborough said. “Does that suggest he thinks it’s OK to jail political opponents? To assassinate political opponents? If you don’t condemn, after being repeatedly asked to condemn these actions, at some point you go back to the ‘he who does not deny admits’ story. And it suggested he does. I suggest somebody at the White House get him to write a statement — a very strong statement letting the world know that he condemns the assassination of journalists and political rivals because he suggests in the two interviews with O’Reilly and us that he does not. ” Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor | 1 |
Here's something interesting from The Unz Review... Recipient Name Recipient Email =>
Dear Mexican: ¿ Por que no hay un pinche líder entre nosotros o de nosotros los mexicanos? Para que tuviera los tanates bien puestos y hablara frente al congreso y les dijera sus verdades a los hipócritas políticos. ¿Será que “nuestros lideres” son unos miedosos o vendidos? No hay uno solo (solo el Chapulín Colorado) que nos defienda, tanta humillación que han tenido los negros, siempre de sirvientes o mozos, pandilleros y drogadictos (en Hollywood) y nadie protesta y salen con que Memín Penguin es ofensivo, otra de esas y nos subimos el cierre, ¿eh? En serio , “Ask a Mexican” , ¿Como podría yo hablar delante del congreso, local, estatal o federal? ¿Sería mucho pedir?
Pónganse las Pilas, Putos
Dear Readers: For those of you who still don’t habla —and if you don’t habla , ¿ que chingado estas esperando ?— the writer asked where’s the Mexican leader who’ll take us into the Promised Land of American acceptance, then couldn’t help but to attack blacks while he had my attention. Ya cállate con los “pinche negros,” pendejo . And Mexicans did have a messiah who saved us all—his name was Juan Gabriel, and he recently died.
Are there any states in which Mexicans are not yet a majority?
Gabacho Really Wants to Know
Dear Gabacho: Bruh, the Reconquista ain’t that advanced—yet. New Mexico has the highest percentage of Latinos at 47 percent of its total population, but most of them don’t even consider themselves Mexican. The next-highest states are California and Texas, with 38.2 percent of their respective populations Latino per the U.S. Census, although Texas has the higher percentage of Mexicans in that group because of all the South Americans and Central Americans in California. And the state with the lowest Latino percentage of its people? West Virgina, at 1.3 percent. Raza : don’t be scared, and move to the Mountain State. Don’t forget that hillbillies are just brothers from a different madre .
Forgive me for not using neat-sounding Spanish words in this email; my Spanish is rusty, and it’s late. While I plan to learn it again, I’m getting ahead of myself. Reading through the archives of your column, it seems that you have forgotten, or chosen to ignore, those gabachos who actually do not hate the Mexicans. Take me for example. While this email is relatively devoid of Spanish phrases, I love the Spanish language. I studied it in high school, and wholly intend to learn it again, probably next semester. I love Mexican food, and I mean the real stuff (although I do enjoy Taco Bell as well). My high school was relatively small, and we had a lady come in to tutor the few of us who cared to learn Spanish. While she had lived here quite awhile, she had not assimilated into America . She cooked for us one day, and that started my love for authentic Mexican food. She also instilled in me a fascination for Mexican culture. I even would go so far as to say that I would support an amnesty program: Mexicans will always be here, so why not make them legal? If they’re not gonna do it the legal way, then we might as well throw in the towel. I wrote all this to simply remind you that not all Americans hate Mexicans: quite the contrary. Some of us love them!
Too Tired to Think Up an Interesting Pen Name, or Any Interesting Questions
Dear Gabachos: While I appreciate you and other gabachos who stand by Mexicans, be careful with your words: Trump just might deport you to if he wins. Oh, and #fucktrump
Ask the Mexican at [email protected], be his fan on Facebook, follow him on Twitter @gustavoarellano or follow him on Instagram @gustavo_arellano! | 0 |
Get short URL 0 18 0 0 Officials responsible for overpaying re-enlistment bonuses to soldiers a decade ago and officials who ordered those bonuses repaid earlier this month need to be held responsible, US Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain said in a statement.
WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — Members of the National Guard in the US state of California were paid excessive bonuses at the height of conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan and were ordered to repay those bonuses earlier this month after an audit discovered the overpayments. "That is why I will work together with the Department of Defense and my colleagues in the Senate to explore all options available to hold those responsible for this unacceptable situation accountable and to ensure this never happens again," McCain stated on Wednesday.
McCain called a Defense Department decision to suspend collection of the payments "a long overdue first step."
However, he added that thousands of service members and their families, whose lives have been disrupted through no fault of their own, are still waiting for certainty that the problem will be fixed.
The Defense Department said earlier on Wednesday that about 2,000 soldiers are affected and that it will set up a system to review each case before any efforts to collect money resume. ... | 0 |
This week, Republicans unveiled the American Health Care Act, the bill written by Congress, and adopted by President Donald Trump, to replace Obamacare (without quite repealing it). [The rollout has been less than stunning. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan ( ) made a valiant effort, and the White House is backing him. Yet conservatives in both the House and Senate rejected the bill, Democrats want nothing to do with it, and it looks doomed to fail — if it even comes to a vote. On the surface, this is a big potential failure for the young Trump presidency. But with the Trump White House, as with the campaign, there is always a certain amount of chaos that is deliberate (though Trump, quite deliberately, never indicates how much). In this case, the debacle allows the president to improve his leverage over all of the other policymakers: the Republican leadership, the conservative caucus, and the Democratic Party. (Perhaps they just don’t know it yet.) The Republican leadership will be the most severely chastened. They had six years to devise an alternative to the Affordable Care Act, and came up with a plan that, surprisingly, falls well short of full repeal, while frightening voters who worry about losing their current (albeit expensive, limited, and widely disliked) health insurance plans. President Trump has shown them he is willing to suffer for supporting them. But he has also proved to them their plans are political . The House Freedom Caucus, Sen. Rand Paul ( ) and other conservatives are happy to see the Speaker’s bill struggle. But Trump has put them on notice, declaring that he will not back their own plans, and that the only alternative is to let Obamacare fail — with major consequences for the 2018 midterms. (More voters will blame Congress than Obama, fairly or unfairly.) Conservatives do have a unique opportunity to push their own ideas — but they know they must agree to something. Democrats, meanwhile are bemused by the fact that Obamacare is proving so hard to repeal (not because it works — if it did, Hillary Clinton would have won — but because of the poison political pills Pelosi planted in it). But the fact is that Democrats have 25 Senate seats up for in 2018, of which ten are in states Trump won. Unless they can vote for a successful replacement for Obamacare, they will be in far more danger than the conservative holdouts. This week has rattled them, too. In The Art of the Deal — which liberals ought to study as carefully as conservatives studied Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals if they want to begin to understand a president they have only demonized and caricatured thus far — Trump explains that one of his core negotiating principles is: “Protect the Downside and the Upside Will Take Care of Itself. ” Today, the upside is obvious, but extremely elusive: a replacement for Obamacare that does not create new headaches for millions of patients. The downside is failure — either no deal, or a deal that hurts enough people to create a new opposition constituency. President Trump has used the launch, and decline, of the American Health Care Act to highlight the downside — and take some wind out of the sails of the politicians and policy wonks who convinced themselves they had all the answers. As the bill falters, the next, inevitable step will be for nervous Republican leaders to ask Trump to offer a new plan. And that plan will be more of a classic Trump bargain — one that does what Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama refused to do: namely, bring all of the stakeholders together, including doctors and patients, to hash out something everyone can accept. The final flourish will be incorporating the changes as amendments to the American Health Care Act, so Trump can claim to have kept his word, while also allowing Congress to save face. Do not be fooled by the bill’s early troubles. Another principle in Art of the Deal is: “Deliver the Goods. ” Watch. 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 |
The N. F. L. gave its approval on Monday for the Oakland Raiders to move to Las Vegas, casting aside decades of fears that putting a team in the gambling capital would corrupt the sport, while sending the team to a new and growing market but one that is far smaller. The team owners, meeting in Phoenix, voted overwhelmingly, persuaded that having a team in Las Vegas would allow the league to capitalize on the city’s booming tourist trade and image of excitement, and on its willingness to contribute hundreds of millions of dollars toward the construction of a new stadium. For years, major leagues steered clear of Las Vegas because some owners worried that putting a team there would lead more players and referees to rub elbows with unsavory characters from the gambling world trying to influence games. But such attitudes have faded with the growth and acceptance of gambling around the country, and with the city’s reduced reliance on revenue from its many casinos. The N. H. L. agreed last year to create a team in Las Vegas, the Golden Knights, that will begin play this year. The Raiders, known for a passionate fan base that delights in a image, are likely to begin playing in Las Vegas as soon as 2019, in temporary quarters, with the lease at their current stadium expiring after the 2018 season. In 2020, they are expected to move into a nearly $2 billion stadium, with $750 million in public financing, an arrangement that helped attract the league’s interest. The rest of the money was expected to come from a $600 million loan from Bank of America to the team, $200 million from the league and revenue from naming rights and other deals. “We know that some fans will be disappointed and even angry,” said Mark Davis, the Raiders’ principal owner. “But we hope they do not direct that frustration to the players, coaches and staff. ” Libby Schaaf, the mayor of Oakland, said that losing the team would tear at the city’s psyche and pride, and that the league would regret its decision. “The Raider nation is the last of the fan bases, and it absolutely breaks my heart to lose this team,” she said. The team will become the first to leave its home city, return and then leave again. The Raiders are also the third N. F. L. team to move, or announce a move, in a little more than a year, ending a period of turmoil in which the owners agreed to abandon longtime N. F. L. cities that were unable to appease the owners’ desire for bigger markets and more public financing for new stadiums. Last year, the Rams left St. Louis for Los Angeles, and then the Chargers announced that they would leave San Diego to move in with the Rams, starting in the fall. Davis said repeatedly that he was frustrated with the efforts by lawmakers in California to replace the team’s current home, County Coliseum, one of the oldest stadiums in the league. Unlike the Rams and the Chargers, who left immediately for their new homes, the Raiders will remain in Oakland for at least two more seasons while their new home is built, creating the specter of awkward seasons. Davis said the team would continue to be called the Oakland Raiders during that time. Only Stephen M. Ross, the owner of the Miami Dolphins, voted against the deal. He said in a statement after the vote that not all the options to stay in Oakland had been exhausted. Other owners voted reluctantly for the move because, they said, the league would be leaving the television market in the country for the . Oakland is also in the booming San Francisco Bay Area, home to some of the wealthiest fans and sponsors in the country. Las Vegas is recovering from one of the most brutal recessions in its history. Unemployment in Clark County, Nev. was 5. 1 percent in January, compared with 14. 1 percent in 2010. A region that was once the face of the foreclosure crisis is turning around, economists say. Las Vegas, which long led the nation in foreclosures, was ranked No. 22 in February, according to Attom Data Solutions, a housing tracker. The median price of a house in the Las Vegas region was $199, 000 in January, a nearly 5 percent jump over the year before, still a far cry from the booming housing market in Oakland. And revenue from gambling — a key marker for tracking the health of the economy — increased 2. 7 percent statewide compared with six months ago, according to the Center for Gaming Research at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas. The league owners preferred the certainty of a substantial amount of tax dollars for a stadium over uncertain prospects for the team in Oakland, where Ms. Schaaf said often that her city could not afford to pay for the construction of a new stadium. She suggested it could provide the land and infrastructure improvements, and said she was working with Fortress Investments to secure construction financing. Yet in a letter he sent to the mayor last week, Commissioner Roger Goodell said that was not enough, all but sealing the team’s fate. While the league’s stance on Las Vegas has softened, it continues to uphold rules that prevent owners from holding stakes in gambling operations. That was a big reason that Davis ended his dalliance with Sheldon Adelson, the chairman of the Las Vegas Sands Corp. who offered to pay for part of a new stadium in Las Vegas. The Raiders will be the second major team to go to Las Vegas, after the N. H. L. team, and there has been talk of Major League Baseball, M. L. S. and the N. B. A. moving to Las Vegas as well. The moves by the Rams, the Chargers and the Raiders ended a long period of relative stability. They were the first franchises to move in the league since the when the Browns moved to Baltimore, the Rams to St. Louis and the Oilers to Tennessee. The decision to let the teams move has been wrenching and filled with vitriol. Lawmakers in St. Louis approved funding for a new stadium for the Rams, yet the N. F. L. owners rejected their efforts in favor of a proposal by the Rams’ owner, E. Stanley Kroenke, to pay for a $2. 6 billion stadium in Inglewood, Calif. south of downtown Los Angeles. After trying for years to get a new stadium in San Diego, the Chargers applied to move to Los Angeles in 2015. When the owners chose the Rams instead, the Chargers did an and backed a referendum that would have provided hundreds of millions of dollars for a stadium in downtown San Diego. Voters soundly rejected the proposal. The Raiders, though, have a much wider following, in Oakland and across the nation. The team got its start as a charter member of the American Football League in 1960, then went to the N. F. L. when the leagues merged in 1970. After two Super Bowl victories in Oakland, the team owner Al Davis defied the other owners and moved to Los Angeles for the 1982 season, only to return to Oakland in 1995 after the city agreed to expand the Coliseum for him. The team’s tough image delighted the port city’s fans, who earned a reputation for tormenting visiting players. Fans sitting in the “Black Hole,” a cheering section near the field, perpetuated the team’s menacing reputation. But as team after team moved into new stadiums over the last decade, and as the teams’ valuations soared, Mark Davis, who took over ownership when Al Davis died in 2011, started to complain openly about his team’s stadium. The team is the only one in the league that shares a building with a baseball team, the Oakland A’s, and the Raiders are among the teams that generate the least amount of revenue from their home games, lacking the fancy suites and epicurean dining options that other stadiums have. Yet fans continue to flock to their games, including last season, when the team was and, after 13 seasons without a playoff appearance, made the game, in which it lost to the Texans. Now it is Oakland that will be losing the Raiders. Again. | 1 |
Contact Us Woman Facing Jail For Giving Water To Thirsty Pigs Pigs have been known to courageously jump into water to rescue drowning children., but this woman is facing jail for giving water to pigs that were in "sever distress" , World // 0 Comments
Giving water to thirsty pigs on a hot day can now lead to jail time, as has been proven by a Toronto woman who is on trial and facing sentencing for doing just that.
Anita Kranjc tells her story :
On a scorching hot day in June 2015, I gave water to thirsty pigs on board a transport truck headed for the slaughterhouse. As the (now famous) video of the incident shows, the driver jumped out of the cab, telling me to stop. I replied with a reference to the Bible: “Jesus said, ‘If [they] are thirsty, give them water.’”
The driver shouted back, “These are not humans, you dumb frickin’ broad!”
He called the police, and now I’m on trial in a Canadian court for criminal mischief.
When someone is suffering, I believe it is wrong to look the other away. It doesn’t matter if the sufferer has two legs or four or asks for help in words we can understand or with body language that is just as easy to comprehend. Leo Tolstoy, an ethical vegetarian and one of my inspirations, wrote, “[W]e should take pity on animals in the same way as we do on each other. And we all know this, if we do not deaden the voice of our conscience inside us.”
The pigs I was trying to help on that fateful day were undoubtedly suffering. Crammed into a transport truck on a sweltering day, these helpless animals – covered with their own excrement, being crushed together and slowly suffocating from heat – stared at me through the trailer’s metal slats with their pleading eyes. As Dr Armaiti May, a veterinary expert, testified during my trial, some of the pigs were foaming at the mouth and in “severe distress”, appearing to breathe as quickly as 180 breaths per minute.
I think we have not only a right but also a duty to help suffering animals. Toronto Pig Save , the group that I helped start with my dog Mr Bean in 2010, has continued to give water to thirsty pigs to this day. Our approach is to collectively bear witness to ill-fated animals at the end of their miserable lives and hold weekly vigils outside slaughterhouses.
A slaughterhouse might seem like the last place that animal lovers would want to be, but for us – as for the Quakers, Greenpeace and similar groups – bearing witness is about being present at sites of great injustice. Our personal contact puts a face on the nameless numbers, to borrow from Charles Dickens, and helps people see animal victims as unique individuals who want to live.
There’s little doubt in my mind that if those were dogs in distress in that truck instead of pigs, my actions would be applauded and it would be the driver facing charges instead. This double standard should have everyone questioning the ethics of the meat, dairy and egg industry, our legal system and our food choices. Like dogs, pigs are friendly, loyal and sensitive animals who have a strong sense of self and intelligence. They are playful and affectionate: they love to snuggle. They feel love and joy, but also pain and fear. They possess protective feelings for their families and friends. Pigs have been known to courageously jump into water to rescue drowning children.
In Esther the Wonder Pig, a New York Times bestseller , Esther’s human dads attest to the porcine internet star’s big personality, her keen intelligence and her sense of humor. Our laws need to be changed to reflect this: all animals should be treated as thinking, feeling individuals under the law, because that is what they are. They are not property, nor cogs in the machine, with numbered tags slapped on their ears.
Humans need to recognize that we are also animals and that we are all interconnected. We are like animals in all the ways that matter – we feel pain, we suffer, we grieve, we are afraid of being killed and we get thirsty on a hot day. By showing people this, we hope we will reach their hearts so they will feel what animals feel. Then finally we will be able to end the horrific suffering at farms and slaughterhouses and shift towards a nonviolent plant-based economy.
We are all in this together, humans and pigs. I am, quite literally, because I am facing jail time for giving pigs some small comfort in their final moments. My trial resumes 1 November. The cruelty inflicted on pigs at animal farms and slaughterhouses touches all of us, by harming animals, by polluting the environment, by harming our health and our conscience when we consume the products of this suffering. By bearing witness to animals in distress, we discover the unity of life. | 0 |
The organizers of the annual Los Angeles gay pride have announced that this year’s march will be replaced by a protest against President Donald Trump. [Local West Hollywood news outlet wehoville. com revealed late last that “the annual pride parade has been canceled, ceding to the nationwide LGBT Resist March that is scheduled in many U. S. cities for Sunday, June 11, the day the Los Angeles pride parade would normally occur. ” There will still be a smaller “Pride Festival,” which will be smaller than usual for reasons: West Hollywood Park, the traditional venue for the event, will be under renovation. In a press statement, Christopher Street West, the organization that stages L. A. Pride Parade and Festival, said: “Given the current political climate where divisiveness and discrimination continue to be part of mainstream dialogue, CSW is determined to make the LA Pride brand a unifying force for the LGBTQ+ community and its allies across all of Los Angeles. ” West Hollywood’s culture of tolerance, however, has been tested by the rise of Donald Trump. Though Trump has been quite sympathetic to gay rights, and has inspired a vocal group of gay supporters, he has been rejected by gay activists inclined to regard any Republican as a potential threat, and hostile to the notion of states’ rights on issues they consider fundamental. A local official tried to ban Trump from West Hollywood last year, and a woman assaulted a Trump supporter in a local restaurant. There are “a to a people expected to participate in the march,” wehoville. com reports. LAist. com adds that some gay rights activists are excited about politicizing the parade. It quotes organizer Brian Pendleton, via Queerty: “We want to resist apathy. We want to resist having our rights rolled back by an unenlightened administration. And we want to be . We want to make sure that it’s everyone in the rainbow spectrum out there being represented. ” 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 |
Bicycles are often taken for granted in the U.S., as even some of the poorest people in the nation often own bikes and use them regularly to commute to work. In countries like Africa, however, bikes... | 0 |
VANCOUVER, British Columbia — It happens all the time: Young gay people leave their small towns and head to the big city, where they can find love, acceptance and, in Canada at least, a curling league to call their own. Yes, the winter sport that involves ice, round rocks and a good deal of sweeping has a passionate following among those who have come out of the closet, taking their brooms with them. They are men like Brock Endean, 27, the scion of national curling champions who grew up playing the sport in the rural British Columbia village of Chase, population 2, 500. “When I walked down the street, I was the entire gay pride parade,” said Mr. Endean, a consultant. After moving to Vancouver, he joined the gay Pacific Rim Curling League, which this year marched in the Vancouver gay pride parade, carrying brooms and wearing shirts that proclaimed, “I swept with your husband. ” Canada has for decades been at the forefront of gay rights, legalizing homosexual activity, openly gay military service and marriage long before the United States and other Western democracies did. This summer, Justin Trudeau became the first sitting Canadian prime minister to march in a gay pride parade. Gay curling leagues have blossomed in recent decades, highlighting a distinctly Canadian aspect of modern gay life. The country’s oldest gay curling league, Rotators, was started in Toronto in 1962 and went publicly gay six years later. Its founders were largely men who worked as train porters. “They were the flight attendants of the railway,” said Murray Leaning, the president of Rotators and Riverdale, the nation’s largest gay curling league, comprising 56 teams. Canada has 12 gay curling leagues with hundreds of teams. The leagues take a communal pastime beloved for its traditions of friendly competition and drinking and add campy humor and flamboyantly themed tournaments, or “bonspiels” in curling lingo. Among the teams in the Pacific Rim league are Don’t Curl for Me Argentina, Sweeping Beauties, Fruit of the Broom and Curls Gone Wild. During one recreational tournament, players dressed as Disney villainesses and as the sartorial embodiment of a “Sound of Music” lyric: girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes. In Winnipeg, Manitoba, players have dressed as characters from “The Golden Girls” and “The Wizard of Oz. ” This year, the Riverdale tournament had a “shipwrecked” theme. “There were an awful lot of slutty sailor outfits,” Mr. Leaning said. The Pacific Rim league, founded in 1983, plays on Sunday afternoons at a Vancouver facility where the 2010 Olympic curling events were held. In curling, teams of four take turns pushing stones across the ice toward a target of concentric circles, aiming for the bull’ known as the button. One player, the lead, thrusts a stone, and then two teammates sweep the ice in front in a frenzy while the skip shouts directions. On a recent weekend, the leads glided gracefully across the ice with one leg extended behind, looking like winterized flamingos. The air resounded with the squeaks of frantic sweeping and the crack of colliding rocks. In the lounge overlooking the ice, opposing teams sat together drinking beer and greeting their fellow players with a “hello, darling. ” Brought to Canada by Scottish immigrants, the sport has long been part of communal life, particularly in the frigid prairie provinces. At one curling facility in Winnipeg, a phone on the ice connects directly to the bar so cocktails can be delivered while the players curl. “When you grow up in a small town where the winter is long, you’ve got to do something or you’ll lose your mind,” said Glen Broad, 62, an Air Canada employee who moved to Vancouver from Saskatchewan. A member of the team Old Broad and Her Gurls, Mr. Broad started curling at 12, in an era when there were ashtrays on the ice and his father would sweep with a cigarette in his mouth, he said. Many curling enthusiasts first learned the sport by watching their parents play. “In the 1970s, curling club was like day care,” said Greg Elzinga, 47, a construction project manager and member of the Pacific Rim league. “My mom would say, ‘Don’t play in the ashtrays, and don’t drink the punch. ’” As curling brooms have evolved, from straw to hog hair to synthetic bristles, so has the sport, which has grown in popularity since it returned to the Olympics in 1998 after a absence. Smoking on the ice is no longer permitted, and many provinces prohibit imbibing during play. “We have flasks, but you need to be discreet,” Mr. Broad said. Much of the drinking occurs after matches, when, according to curling tradition, the winners buy a round for the losing team, which then reciprocates. Despite the boozy heritage and reputation for camaraderie, curling requires skill and strategy. After all, as I discovered during my visit, pushing large rocks across ice while balancing on one knee is harder than it looks. (I tipped over on my first try.) Mark Trowell, 51, a human resources manager, who was on the winning team at this year’s Canadian Gay Curling Championships, said the sport’s civility had sometimes decreased as the competition had become fiercer. “There have definitely been some Tonya Harding moments,” he said, referring to the figure skater who was implicated in an attack on her rival Nancy Kerrigan at the 1994 United States Figure Skating Championships. But Mr. Trowell was quick to clarify that no battery had occurred. “Brooms smack on the ice,” he said, “not people’s heads. ” Given the modest prizes — a national championship team receives 1, 000 Canadian dollars — few players are in it for the money. Until a few years ago, the leagues relied on sponsors that provided considerably less lucrative prizes, like flashlights, hand blenders or toasters. Canada’s gay curling leagues welcome players of any sexuality or gender. Heather Kisbee, 57, an executive assistant, joined the Pacific Rim league five years ago with a few female friends, though she failed to tell them that most of the participants were gay until one of the women remarked excitedly on the large number of men. “She was single and quite desperately looking,” Ms. Kisbee said. “Still is, poor girl. ” Inclusiveness goes both ways, said Jack Holmes, 53, a theater facilities manager whose team of gay players has twice won mainstream league tournaments. “The men get really serious, particularly if they’re playing us, because we’re openly gay,” he said. Straight players have not always been so tolerant, Mr. Holmes added, recalling a derogatory comment made in a locker room eight years ago. For many enthusiasts, gay curling truly hit the mainstream in 2010 when Mr. Trudeau attended the first bonspiel held by the gay curling league in Halifax, Nova Scotia. It immediately became clear that he was not as skilled at curling as at some of his favorite sports, like snowboarding and boxing, according to Mr. Leaning, the president of the Toronto leagues. After saying a few words, Mr. Trudeau slid a ceremonial rock down the ice. His throw, Mr. Leaning said, went wide of the mark. | 1 |
Blame it on its proximity to New York Fashion Week, which officially starts on Thursday (unofficially, it starts on Wednesday) but the United States Open (which started last week) has always attracted a disproportionate amount of style scrutiny. It tends to focus on ways in which tennis imitates fashion, with players calling center court their “runway,” discussing their “evening dress” and acknowledging their awareness of trends. But for anyone who spent the holiday weekend watching the tournament at Arthur Ashe Stadium, there’s been a lesson in fashion to take away from the tennis — especially when it comes to the athleisure end. Put simply: There is danger in too much neon. It has been a slow creep over the last few tournaments, with fluorescent shades popping up at the Australian Open, receding slightly for the French Open and disappearing entirely in the sea of Wimbledon white. You can understand it: Neon has always had a certain attraction for the extreme sports world, and bringing it to establishment events gives them a veneer of cool. Plus, it’s got a New York edge (“They say the neon lights are bright on Broadway,” and all that). And it means you can see the player, pretty much wherever he or she is, even in a giant stadium. But with Nike’s decision to turn many of its athletes at this Open into what is effectively a rainbow of human highlighters in yellow, black, green and pink, there’s no closing your eyes to the problem. I am not talking here about the easy mockery, which has prompted people on social media to compare players to “tennis balls,” “safety” signs and “the 2008 Radiohead light show. ” I am talking about the fact that all this neon is such a big statement that it overshadows the actual person inside the clothes. Suddenly, instead of looking like individual players with specific and carefully honed individual styles, they look like anonymous bodies in very bright clothes. They look the same. Twitter has taken note. and more like that. The neon is such a strong statement that it has even overshadowed the Adidas multicolor prints, an evolution of the “dazzle camouflage” pattern its athletes wore at the French Open. Not to mention pretty much every other outfit on the court. Maybe that was the point. And the neon may work well for Nike (you can’t forget it, anyway). But it emphasizes the brand over the player. And as the tournament reaches the quarterfinals, it is increasingly clear that the net (no pun intended) result has been to make the few athletes who are the exceptions to the rule stand out even more than they might have otherwise. Suddenly, Andy Murray, with his stubborn adherence to Under Armour minimalism in all black, white and gray, looks like an example of striking serenity — a word not often associated with his name. And then there’s Serena Williams, who, along with her sister Venus, has made something of a habit of upending tennis sartorial tradition. Though she is also part of the Nike stable, she has her own line with the brand, and this tournament, she seems to be channeling Audrey Hepburn in a little black (or white) dress, complete with cap sleeves, high neck and flashes of pink between the pleats. Also, of course, “Wonder Woman” sleeves. They’re an accessory, however, which is the point. Neon used sparingly is most effective as a — well, highlighter. In dress as in school. (Which, coincidentally, also begins this week in New York.) Something to consider, anyway, as we sit by the catwalks in the coming days. | 1 |
BuzzFeed is facing a lawsuit from a technology firm following its publication of an unverified dossier claiming President Donald Trump has close ties to the Russian government. [According to a report by McClatchy DC, XBT Holdings — a technology firm named in the dosser with Russian interests — is filing a defamation lawsuit against BuzzFeed, its Ben Smith, as well as former British intelligence spy Christopher Steele, for the publication of what it describes as “libelous, unverified and untrue allegations. ” “The dossier included libelous, unverified and untrue allegations regarding XBT, Webzilla and Gubarev. The lawsuits seek yet undetermined compensation for the damages suffered by XBT, Webzilla and Gubarev as the result of the publication of the dossier,” a statement from XBT read. “We were shocked to see our good name wrongly included and published in this unsubstantiated report. We are confident that the courts will review the evidence of our and provide fair and reasonable compensation from the perpetrators of this outrageous allegation,” it continued. Some of the unverified claims included in the dossier were that Donald Trump had worked in collaboration with the Russian government in the hacking of DNC internal emails. as well as that Trump had participated in extremely graphic sexual fetishism in the Moscow . The dossier also implicated the Russian technology entrepreneur Aleksej Gubarev as being heavily involved in the collaboration, without providing any evidence to substantiate the claim. BuzzFeed has since retracted his name from the dossier and apologized for its publication, although the lawsuit contends that it has left his “personal and professional reputation in tatters,” and presented a threat to his family’s safety. Much of the intelligence provided in the dossier came from the former British spy Christopher Steele, who was hired by Trump’s opponents in both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party to conduct research and investigate his past. Following its publication, Steele went into hiding. CNN also republished the claims, although they are not named in the lawsuit. Responding to the claims last month, Trump described the dossier as “fake news,” adding that BuzzFeed was “a failing pile of garbage. ” You can follow Ben Kew on Facebook, on Twitter at @ben_kew, or email him at bkew@breitbart. com | 1 |
… from Sputnik News , Moscow We are led to believe that this blast photo has something to do with the photo below, which is a very poor hoax [ Editor’s Note : My, my… are rogue elements in the Pentagon running these strikes to keep wind in the sails of the US’ phony anti-terrorism campaign in Syria, or are Obama and Kerry in on it? The lead classroom photo used in mass media for this “bombing attack” was an obvious fake. From the size of the blast column, there would have been nothing left to photograph but a hole in the ground, since the blast column photo looks like a 2000-lb bomb. Our make-believe newswires are supposed to have talent to catch obvious hoax stories, and this is certainly one of those. Maybe they would want to put us under contract to help them out. There is no excuse for the UN doing its jump-on-the-bandwagon routine. It has access to a lot of talent, including photo analysts, for situations like this. And the UN must be aware of the history of faked attacks by the Jihadi media during the Syrian war. ISIS has been piecing together stock footage for several years now, whenever they need a headline grabber. Mass media is even worse. With their big budgets, they are supposed to have expert people to send images to for some reality smell-testing. Even an amateur could spot this hoax. Somebody is desperate to create a climate calling for attacks on the Syrian and Russian Air Forces. Gosh, who could possibly want that? … Jim W. Dean ] This was an instant fake. A bomb coming through that wall would have blown the desks to smithereens, plus would have penetrated the roof, not the side. – First published … October 27, 2016 –
Russian reconnaissance means have registered a US attack drone in the area where a school in Syrua’s Idlib had been bombed, the Russian Defense Ministry said Thursday.
A US’ MQ-1B Predator drone has been seen in the area, the ministry’s spokesman Igor Konashenkov said. No Russian aircraft entered the area over the Syrian Idlib, where the alleged strike took place, he added. Moreover, Russian UAVs have not registered any signs of the destruction of the school’s roof or shell craters, Maj. Gen. Konashenkov said. A Russian drone has been sent to the area Thursday morning. “According to a photo made by a Russian UAV, the school’s roof is not damaged and there are no bomb craters in the area near the school. Similar information may be requested from our American colleagues. Russian reconnaissance means registered a US’ MQ-1B Predator attack drone.” Video footage published in media showing the alleged strike on the Idlib school have been fabricated, the ministry added. “Video footage published by a number of foreign media outlets of an alleged strike on the residential area of Hass [in Idlib] consists of more than 10 pieces pasted together, being shot at different times of the day.” Moreover, Konashenkov added that the school’s fence has not been damaged at all, while if an aerial bomb exploded, “the fence and all the walls of the buildings would have been destroyed and damaged by shrapnel, while the furniture would have been swept away by the shock wave.”
According to the spokesman, the photo published by the AFP agency showed that the nature and the extent of the damage sustained by the school were not similar to the destruction caused by airstrikes.
Earlier in the day, the executive director of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Anthony Lake said that as many as 22 children and six teachers were killed in an attack on a school in Idlib. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova condemned the attack on a school in Syria’s Idlib and called for an investigation into the bombing. She also said that international media “launched an attack” on Russia by claiming that Moscow and Damascus are behind the bombing without presenting evidence.
The UNICEF has fallen victim to another hoax by the White Helmets NGO, the Russian Defense Ministry spokesman added. “Before making statements, UNISEF officials should check the sources of its information,” he said, adding that such a respected organization should not undermine its reputation. | 0 |
Quebec — Patrick Beaudry, bejeweled, tattooed and bearded, lives on a remote wooded hillside in rural Quebec, worrying about living under Shariah law. A year and a half ago, he huddled with two friends in a Quebec maple sugar shack, discussing how to stop the spread of what they call “invasive political Islam” in Canada. They formed a group called La Meute, or Wolfpack, created a Facebook page and invited people to join. Within a month, they had 15, 000 followers. Today, the number has surpassed 50, 000, and the group is still attracting people. Now, Mr. Beaudry and his colleagues say they are shaping those followers into members who will give the group financial muscle and, they hope, political clout. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has publicly opened Canada’s doors to refugees and presented a face of tolerance and inclusion in a world increasingly hostile to migration. But as Canadian immigration policy has transformed the nation over decades, pockets of intolerance have grown across the country. Nowhere has it galvanized such large numbers as in Quebec, where many people still refer to themselves as pure laine, or pure wool, direct descendants of the settlers of New France. The most emotional response has focused on conservative Muslim immigrants, who perhaps present the greatest contrast to traditional culture and the secularism that Quebec struggled hard to win from the Roman Catholic Church. The concerns are outsize by any measure. Muslims represent just 3 percent of Canada’s population, and while Islam is one of the religions in the country, Muslims will still account for less than 6 percent of the population in 2050, according to the Pew Research Center. Nonetheless, Mr. Beaudry and his peers say they believe there is a real threat that Islamists are bending Canada’s tolerant culture to their will. The group’s main concern is political Islam pushed by the Muslim Brotherhood, the movement that grew out of Egypt after the fall of the Ottoman Empire following World War I. “Political Islam is slowly invading our institutions,” Mr. Beaudry declared, claiming that his group had documentary proof, though he was not prepared to show it. “We have to wake up people and shake them up, and then we will be able to bring change. ” The theme is popular among groups across North America and Europe, where the slow integration of conservative Muslim immigrants into cultures has excited fears among some of a global culture war. A 2004 move to set up Shariah mediation for Muslim family disputes in Ontario, which already allowed Jewish and Catholic tribunals to operate in the province, incited a national outcry. Quebec subsequently passed a law banning Shariah tribunals. Ontario eventually banned tribunals for all religions. Nonetheless, the events left an impression among many people that conservative Muslims were working to instill Shariah law in Canada. Canadian Muslims say that not only are such fears unfounded, but that propagating them is also dangerous, to Muslims and to society as a whole. “They are creating a problem where there is no problem,” said Hassan Guillet, a lawyer and imam. Mr. Guillet said Canadian Muslims were caught between what he called a relentless and media focus on Islam and groups like La Meute that spread misinformation. “If you keep rejecting the young, they will feel frustrated and feel that they don’t belong, and they will look for their own society,” Mr. Guillet warned, adding that such disenfranchisement had led some young European Muslims down the path of radicalization. “We don’t want that. We want our kids to feel that they belong, we want our kids to feel Canadian. ” As for the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood in Canada, Samer Majzoub, president of the Canadian Muslim Forum and a frequent target of conspiracy theories, called it simple fearmongering. He noted that the largest recent terrorist attack in Canada did not come from Muslims, but targeted them. He was referring to the January killing of six worshipers at a mosque in Quebec by a gunman the man accused of the killings espoused views. Small, violent groups have appeared in the decades since Canada relaxed its immigration laws to embrace multiculturalism. But revulsion toward violence and hate speech has kept such groups on the margins. La Meute has created a more moderate setting where people can communicate their fears. “La Meute is very different from what we have seen so far,” said Samuel Tanner, an associate professor at the International Center for Comparative Criminology at the University of Montreal who studies Canada’s far right. He likened the group’s followers to the Democrats in the United States who supported President Trump. “They are a new type of right, blending conservatism with some liberal values,” he said. Some experts warn that groups like La Meute, however much they eschew violence, create an enabling environment in which hate can grow. “They are embedded in a broader cultural ethos that bestows ‘permission to hate,’” said Barbara Perry, a professor at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology who has written extensively on extremism in Canada. The conversation within La Meute’s private Facebook page can border on hateful. In response to one person’s request about what could be done to prevent construction of a mosque in the neighborhood, another follower suggested pouring pig’s blood on the ground and letting Muslims know the land had been desecrated. While primarily confined to Canada, La Meute lies on a continuum of conservative thought that is propelling politicians like Kellie Leitch, a member of Parliament who is vying for leadership of Canada’s Conservative Party. Ms. Leitch once proposed a tip line for people to report “barbaric cultural practices,” and has suggested that immigrants be screened for “Canadian values” so that the country can maintain “a unified Canadian identity. ” Mr. Beaudry, the son of a onetime lumberjack and heavy equipment operator, joined the Canadian Army when he was 17 and spent years in Germany. He retired from the army after a car accident in 2002 and subsequently spent several months working as a private contractor in Afghanistan. He was greatly influenced by the specter of Taliban rule. He said he and his friends were motivated by the 2014 killing of two soldiers in Canada in separate episodes, both at the hands of Canadian extremists who had converted to Islam. “We realized something was happening,” Mr. Beaudry said, adding that terrorist attacks in France and Belgium followed soon after. He said that the primary goal in founding La Meute was to educate members and others about the growth of political Islam in Canada. Mr. Beaudry spoke specifically about the group’s opposition to the niqab and the burqa, Islamic styles of dress that cover women’s faces. Only a tiny sliver of the Canadian population adopts them, but “if people cannot blend with the society,” Mr. Beaudry said, “it becomes a cancer and if you want to save your life, you have to take action. ” He also believes a parliamentary motion passed last month that condemns Islamophobia is a move to silence criticism of political Islam and is the first step toward an Islamic law. On the private Facebook page, La Meute’s leaders quiz followers, screening for the most informed and dedicated who might fill positions in the hierarchy. Mr. Beaudry said La Meute was assigning followers to 17 geographic “clans,” each with officers and staff, “so people know who to report to and where to go when things happen. ” He said five clans were “fully operational,” and he expected all to be formed by the end of the year. The group has transportation cells that take people to meetings and has medical units to care for the injured. Some members recently started an online radio station. Last month, La Meute fielded about 400 people in four cities to protest the motion. “We are trying to teach people that they have much more political power, they matter much more than the majority believes,” Mr. Beaudry said. “We want to influence our world, our politics. ” | 1 |
"As Aging Population Increases, Elders and Allies Fight for Social Supports". Oh, boo hoo. Look at the polls, and discovered is this same "Aging Population" is disproportionately Trump supporters, when Trump has indicated no intention of providing "Social Supports". | 0 |
November 3, 2016 - Fort Russ - Yurasumy, PolitRussia - translated by J. Arnoldski -
On October 27th, 2016, the heads of the Verkhovna Rada committee on culture and freedom of speech, Ruslan Knyazhnitsky and Viktoriya Syumar, put forth a bill which, besides guaranteeing new preferences for the Ukrainian language, proposes to ban Russian-language print products. It’s not difficult to understand this Russophobia. For 25 years, they have been struggling to oust the Russian language from official usage in the country, but the last decade has shown the futility of their attempts. The Russian language is becoming the language of communication among the youth of Ukrainian cities, even those who earlier spoke Ukrainian.
Language is the beginning of everything
When in the middle of the 19th century the construction of Ukrainian self-identity began, its foundation was largely based on the language principle. It was then that scholars of the Russian Empire began to create a map of the Russian language with its division into dialects. For theorists, the geographical distribution of the Malorossiyan dialect (in the terminology of the late 19th-early 20th centuries) was the first wave of the construction of the Ukrainian ‘nation’, the place where experiments in creating the “Ukraine is not Russia” theory began.
It was in this time that a literary language and grammar were created. Literature and community began to take shape around them. This process coincided with another process: the mass exodus of villagers to the city.
From the village to the city
In this article, we will not consider the economic causes of this displacement, but note that it was this relocation that allowed the Ukrainian intelligentsia to very quickly find followers and consistently maintain their number. The mass exodus of Ukrainian-speaking masses of people to the cities allowed for the formation of an interlayer very easily subjected to “Ukrainianization.”
This was largely a poor mass of people, only recently serfs, who saw in Russian-speaking city-dwellers some kind of other, alien group of people. Naturally, they felt a kind of alienation towards this group. Language became their main criterion of “us vs. the other.” Circles and communities appeared, the ultimate result of which was the emergence of the idea “Ukraine is not Russia.”
The first to systematize this in a globally historic work was Mikhail Grushevsky, who before 1917 started to write his History of Ukraine-Rus . No one should be deceived by the title of this book. Its main leitmotif was that Ukraine is not Russia and that the two have always been antagonistic ever since the time of princely quarrels.
The city wins
During the second half of the 19th century, masses of peasants poured into the cities. Their children went to schools and colleges, became workers and civil servants, and many even rose higher up the social ladder of the empire. But the vast majority of them in their first and at least second generations became Russian-speaking.
New and new masses of peasants came to replace them. The melting pot of the empire worked fine until the empire itself ceased to exist. 1917 destroyed many of the state’s institutions, including integration ones. The resulting ideological gap was quickly filled with doctrines telling yesterday’s and today's Ukrainian peasants why they live so badly and who is to blame. Seventy years later, the supporters of the new theory “quickly found answers” to all the current issues of society and brought the country to ruin. The outbreak of bloody civil strife and more of the same ruin in the West did not allow the problem to drag on for decades, and was quickly resolved…
Even taking into account the early USSR’s acceleration of the process of Ukrainianization, strong resistance to this process in the cities was evident. The youth gradually Russified and the ongoing process of industrialization contributed to the rapid movement of the labor force and its linguistic unification, which was possible only on the basis of the Russian language. Nevertheless, in the 1950’s-1960’s, the problem of reteaching “Ukrainian” students in Soviet universities still existed. This was uncomfortable, so in the 1970’s the Ukrainian language was finally put on the back burner in the schools of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.
At the time, it was normal in Ukrainian city families, in which the parents had left for the city from the countryside, to speak in Ukrainian or Surzhyk (in Eastern Ukraine). But at work and in schools, children grew up and communicated in Russian. Usually, the children of parents who moved to the city gradually moved on to communicating in Russian and it turned out that the melting pot of the USSR worked exactly like the Russian Empire did 100 years before, when Malorossiyan villagers were quickly made into Russians in the cities.
But history went down another roundabout...
Attempt #2
The collapse of the USSR, like the collapse of the Russian Empire, offered a second chance to the apologists of the idea of “Ukraine is not Russia.” They long and carefully planned “pedagogical” plans and, as soon as the iron curtain fell, the first wave of “teachers” came to Ukraine from the West. There is no point in dwelling in detail on the technicalities of the work of this and all other “reformer” groups, but their successes by the mid-2010’s were impressive.
Preschool, school, and higher education in Ukraine became almost entirely held in the Ukrainian language. Russian culture and language were driven off of TV and the radio. Russian speaking print was not only discouraged, but often persecuted. It would seem like this was the last nail in the coffin, but this time the Ukrainian “patriotic” intelligentsia began to all the more strongly demand that authorities fight for the purity of the Ukrainian logic because “all was lost.”
So what’s the deal? What do these “fighters” for the Ukrainian language lack today?
The 21st century against Ukrainianization
The point is that what has repeatedly happened in the history of Ukraine happened again. With each passing year, its territory began to feel the work of the empire’s melting pot. But where did this come from without an existing empire? Every child in Ukraine received their first mobile phone in elementary school and then their smartphone. Today, it is easy to imagine a student in school without textbooks or notebooks, but they never forget their smartphone.
The mobile phone was a window to a larger world, the world of social networking. And it just so happened that there were no popular Ukrainian-language social networks, but there were Russian-language ones. Just like there were English-language ones. The age-old affinity between the peoples of Ukraine and Russia played its role here. A child in elementary school doesn’t know foreign languages, but Russian is habitual and almost native for him.
Around 80% of Ukrainian children are on VKontakte, which is by and large in Russian. Thus, it turns out that in many provincial Ukrainian cities which logically should have long since been finally Ukrainianized, children spoke Ukrainian in elementary school only to speak Surzhyk in middle school, and then, in upper classes to a significant degree outside of their families, became Russians-speakers.
I studied this phenomenon in my own children and their friends and relatives….There are exceptions, but relatively few.
Children’s interests take their toll, and this is why the advocates of total Ukrainianization are in panic today. They see that they are losing and and cannot offer anything in return. They demand and demand, bringing the situation to insanity, and then still lose….
Consequences
Thus, the information revolution has struck the bottom of the ship of “Ukraine is not Russia.” Youth are very quickly Russifying and there is no chance of stopping this process. Even people moving from the village, the eternal saviors of “patriots,” are drying up. Moreover, children from the cities have stopped going back to the villages and absorb the customs and culture of their ancestors, of whom there are none left alive. They have no one to go to.
The internet is teaching Ukrainian children, making them largely stupid, but also Russians. Hence why today such ugly formations as Azov, the Azov Civil Corpus, and its latest incarnation in the National Corpus have been born out of the bosom of the Maidan. The vast majority of people in them are Russians trying to find a basis for how to become Ukrainian nationalists. It is clear that confrontation can no longer be built on the basis of language. They have to find new reasons to be non-Russians or, rather, Russians who want to build on the territory of the former USSR and beyond its borders a new integration project - Greater Eurasia…
Follow us on Facebook!
Follow us on Twitter!
Donate!
| 0 |
posted by Eddie As it turns out – according to studies— our planets magnetic field could flip in our lifetime. According to experts , the position of the South Pole has shifted and is not located precisely at Antarctica, the North Pole is also believed to be ‘racing’ across the Arctic Ocean. Earth’s magnetic field appears to be collapsing which could severely damage our climate and WIPE OUT power grids across the world. Our planet’s magnetic field exists because Earth has a massive ‘ball of iron’ at its core which is surrounded by an outer layer of molten metal. As the earth’s magnetic field varies over time, the positions of the north and south magnetic poles gradually change. The magnetic declination at a given location also changes over time. As it turns out a lot has changed in the last couple of hundred years, and to see what we are taking about visit NOAA and take a look at Historical Magnetic Declination . Interestingly, according to previous studies, Earth’s magnetic field – which shields our planet from blasts of deadly solar radiation has dangerously weakened in the last couple of years. According to reports from the European Space Agency , the biggest weak spots seen in the magnetic field are located in the western hemisphere. Experts are unsure why the magnetic field is weakening but one of the MOST LIKELY reasons is that our planets magnetic poles are getting ready to flip said Rune Floberghagen, the ESA’s Swarm mission manager. Researchers have concluded that the magnetic field had diminished at a rate of around five percent per century. However, new studies who that the magnetic field is weakening at an accelerated rate of five percent per decade –meaning that it is deteriorating five times faster than previously believed. If we take a look at the animation of secular variation in geomagnetic total intensity for the last 400 years, we will see that the magnetic field began weakening in 1600 . Animation of secular variation in geomagnetic total intensity for the last 400 years: Furthermore, the magnetic field weakened a staggering 10 percent from the 1800’s to 2000. Ok so… what would happen if it really flips? According to experts, if the pole switch does happen the entire planet and everything on it will become exposed to solar winds which could punch giant holes into the ozone layer which in turn could have a devastating effect on mankind. If the planet’s Magnetosphere starts collapsing power grids could collapse, the weather would abruptly change and humans would have serious health risks. According to reports from the European Space Agency, as of 2014 the magnetic field is continuing to weaken rapidly . With the help of SWARM, scientists have obtained unprecedented insights into the complex workings of Earth’s magnetic field. Reports show that the general trend of the magnetic field is weakening and the most dramatic declines are present over the Western Hemisphere.
The latest measurements also confirm the movement of magnetic North towards Siberia. It is believed that the magnetic field is speeding away at a rate of about 40 miles per year. But what is most terrifying is perhaps a study that warns that magnetic reversals lead to extinction events. The highlights of the study indicate : Geomagnetic field reversal substantially weakens the protection for the atmosphere. Solar wind energizes more oxygen ions to escape when geomagnetic field is weakened. Oxygen escape may explain the drop of atmospheric level during mass extinction. The causal relation between reversal and mass extinction should be “many-to-one”. The simulated oxygen escape rate based on knowledge of Mars support our hypothesis. Furthermore, it is believed that magnetic reversals can be responsible for floods of biblical proportions as you can see in the video below:
source: | 0 |
Founder, The Daily WTF It's Thanksgiving, in the US. Be thankful you're not supporting this block of code. --Remy
“When a ‘customer’ of ours needs custom-developed software to suit their business requirements,” Kelly Adams writes, “they can either ‘buy’ the development services from the IT department, or go to an outside vendor. In the latter case, then we’re supposed to approve that the software meets corporate security guidelines.”
“Most of the time, our ‘approval’ is treated as a recommendation, and we end up having to install the application anyway. But recently, they actually listened to us and told the vendor to fix the ‘blatant SQL-injection vulnerabilities’ that we discovered. A few weeks later, when it came time for our second review, we noticed the following as their ‘fix’.” internal static string FQ(string WhichField) { string expression = ""; int num2 = Strings.Len(WhichField); for (int i = 1; i <= num2; i++) { string str = Strings.Mid(WhichField, i, 1); if (str == "'") { str = str + "'"; } expression = expression + str; } return Strings.Trim( Strings.Replace(Strings.Replace(Strings.Replace(Strings.Replace( Strings.Replace(Strings.Replace(Strings.Replace(Strings.Replace( Strings.Replace(Strings.Replace(Strings.Replace(Strings.Replace( Strings.Replace(Strings.Replace(Strings.Replace(Strings.Replace( Strings.Replace(Strings.Replace(Strings.Replace(Strings.Replace( Strings.Replace(Strings.Replace(Strings.Replace(Strings.Replace( expression, "xp_", "", 1, -1, CompareMethod.Text), "sp_", "", 1, -1, CompareMethod.Text), "--", "-", 1, -1, CompareMethod.Binary), "alter table", "", 1, -1, CompareMethod.Text), "drop table", "", 1, -1, CompareMethod.Text), "create table", "", 1, -1, CompareMethod.Text), "create database", "", 1, -1, CompareMethod.Text), "alter table", "", 1, -1, CompareMethod.Text), "alter column", "", 1, -1, CompareMethod.Text), "drop column", "", 1, -1, CompareMethod.Text), "drop database", "", 1, -1, CompareMethod.Text), "1=1", "", 1, -1, CompareMethod.Text), "union select", "", 1, -1, CompareMethod.Text), "/*", "", 1, -1, CompareMethod.Text), "*/", "", 1, -1, CompareMethod.Text), "boot.ini", "", 1, -1, CompareMethod.Text), "../", "", 1, -1, CompareMethod.Text), "%27", "", 1, -1, CompareMethod.Text), ";dir", "", 1, -1, CompareMethod.Text), "|dir", "", 1, -1, CompareMethod.Text), "<script", "", 1, -1, CompareMethod.Text), "</script>", "", 1, -1, CompareMethod.Text), "language=javascript", "", 1, -1, CompareMethod.Text), "language=\"javascript\"", "", 1, -1, CompareMethod.Text)); }
Kelly adds, “of course this time, when we told them the application was still vulnerable so long that a hacker typed ‘1 = 1’ instead of ‘1=1’, they told us were beeing too picky, and had us install the application anyway.” [Advertisement] Manage IT infrastructure as code across all environments with Puppet . Puppet Enterprise now offers more control and insight, with role-based access control, activity logging and all-new Puppet Apps. Start your free trial today! | 0 |
By Jameson Parker Feminist Issues , News October 26, 2016 Congressman Who Said He Couldn’t Look His Daughter In The Eye And Endorse Trump Is Voting Trump 9143 Google Pinterest Digg Linkedin Reddit Stumbleupon Print Delicious Pocket Tumblr
Thumb through the pages of the dictionary until you find the word “craven” and a picture of Republican congressman Jason Chaffetz’s picture will probably greet you. In a year full of pathetic spinelessness from Republicans, his efforts seem to stand out.
It’s hard to imagine a congressman doing more damage to his lasting reputation than Chaffetz pulled off on October 26th, 2016 – a date that will live in infamy. First, news broke that Chaffetz was already prepping for a Clinton White House by pre-planning two years worth of senseless investigations in a shameless attempt to destroy any chance of her – or congress – accomplishing anything. And yet sadly that story was only half of the reason why Chaffetz singlehandedly proved Mark Twain wasn’t kidding when he quipped “Suppose you were an idiot and suppose you were a member of Congress, but then I repeat myself.” Congressman Chaffetz is a very big idiot.
A little over one week after Chaffetz tried to score some cheap political points by unendorsing Donald Trump following the release of an audio tape in which the Republican nominee bragged about sexual assault, he sent out a tweet clarifying that when he said he wouldn’t endorse or defend Trump, he never said he wouldn’t vote for him. I will not defend or endorse @realDonaldTrump , but I am voting for him. HRC is that bad. HRC is bad for the USA.
— Jason Chaffetz (@jasoninthehouse) October 27, 2016
What’s the distinction between “endorsing” and “voting for” you ask? Well, for Jason Chaffetz it’s like when you want to bake a cake but you also want to eat it too. See? Simple. Chaffetz is a very, very big idiot.
Making Chaffetz’s cowardice all the more apparent is the reason why he said he was unendorsing Trump in the first place. Like the rest of the country, he heard Trump’s boasts about grabbing women’s genitals and found it abhorrent. He also said he couldn’t face his 15-year-old daughter and support a potential sexual predator like Trump.
“I can no longer in good conscience endorse this person for president. It is some of the most abhorrent and offensive comments that you can possibly imagine. My wife and I, we have a 15-year-old daughter, and if I can’t look her in the eye and tell her these things, I can’t endorse this person.”
So to be perfectly clear, Jason Chaffetz, Republican congressman from Utah, can’t look his daughter in the eye and endorse Donald Trump, but he can stare her straight in the face and say “Dad just voted for this monster.”
Nice work, Jason. You pathetic, small man. I’m forwarding your congressional photo to Webster’s.
Featured image via Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images Share this Article! | 0 |
The legendary carmaker Aston Martin is loved and revered in Britain, famed for providing James Bond with his getaway vehicles, as well as having a colorful company history as packed with twists, turns and escapes as the secret agent himself. The road has been far from smooth in the 103 years since the car brand was founded although it has manufactured a long line of racing and sports cars, beloved by celebrities and the world’s superrich alike, Aston Martin has been insolvent seven times since its establishment in 1913. Still, after being mired in the red since 2010, there are signs that the company finally is steering itself toward profitability, helped by a recent 200 million pound ($249. 2 million) investment program. Under a chief executive, Andy Palmer, who arrived from Nissan two years ago, Aston Martin plans to renew its entire lineup of car models in the next six years. That effort began as its successor to the DB9, the £155, 000 DB11, was unveiled at the Geneva Motor Show in March (to rave reviews) and vehicle production began this fall at Gaydon, the group’s headquarters and main factory site in the heart of the Warwickshire countryside. In a bid to broaden its customer base in emerging markets and among women, the DBX, a new crossover Sports Utility Vehicle, will be at a new factory in South Wales from 2018. Following a absence, the brand made a glitzy return to the Formula One racing circuit with Red Bull, in a partnership linked to a road car collaboration, the £205 million 001. And in September, weeks after opening a flagship store in the Mayfair neighborhood of London showcasing branded handbags, caps and leather jackets, Aston Martin even introduced the AM37, a powerboat with a price tag of £1. 3 million, as it seeks to shift gears and become a global luxury lifestyle brand. With the wheels now in motion on so many ambitious and initiatives (the expansion efforts will increase Aston Martin’s unit output from 4, 000 to 7, 000 per year) one would expect a sense of pressure and expectation at the Gaydon plant. But the Midlands site, with its futuristic corporate offices, orderly single factory floor and glistening moat upon which several parked models appear to float majestically, continues to move at a pace than that of most rivals. Vehicles and their parts are made at a series of work stations, where a team of 800 workers the cars. Once work is competed at one station, the bodies gently move to the next station on the line, buffed by a team of human hands and robotic technology. Most employees, whether the seamstresses stitching at the leather seats or the paint specialists who spend about 50 hours per vehicle on the perfect finish, draw on decades of experience (although there also is a crop of youthful looking employees on the payroll). “There is a quiet confidence here, quite simply, because we know we have many of the world’s greatest car technicians in the world on site,” Marek Reichman, the brand’s chief creative officer, said. “They build sports cars like our DB111 with the same level of skill and handicraft as they would a hyper car like our AM RB 001. One takes 215 hours, the other 2, 000 but fundamentally they are very similar processes — one just takes longer than the other, but they all happen in the same place. ” Aston Martin has made 80, 000 cars in its history, he said, with 90 percent still on the road the number that Toyota would make in three days, given the Japanese giant’s annual vehicle output of five million units. “Lots of the men and women who work here know that if they turned left down the road, to the Jaguar Land Rover factory, they could earn 20 percent more than they do here,” Mr. Reichman said. “But instead they turn right. And they do that because they love our product, love our reputation and being part of one of the best British auto engineering legacies in history. ” Aston Martin is the last British carmaker not owned by one of the powerful global giants of the auto industry. Volkswagen bought Bentley in 1998 BMW owns Motor Cars and Mini. Ford bought a majority stake in Aston Martin in 1987 but sold it in 2007 to a consortium, including Kuwaiti investors. In 2013, Investindustrial — an Italian private equity outfit that turned around Ducati before selling it to Audi — acquired a 37. 5 percent holding. And in 2014, Daimler took a 5 percent stake. The plan for the future, both management and investors agree, is to make the brand better ensuring its chances of survival despite the waning demand for superluxury sports cars. (It now exports 80 percent of its cars, with its largest markets in the United States, China, the Far East and Middle East.) Still, Mr. Reichman appears convinced of the group’s chances of success. “When you buy a sports car today, be it a Ferrari, or a Lamborghini or even an Aston Martin, then you are making a decision about yourself, your fortune and how you want the world to see you,” he said. “And we are not provocative, we are more acceptable — at ease with ourselves and a car that people feel comfortable about when they admire. “We think that the understated beauty the Aston Martin, both inside and out, will resonate more and more in today’s climate. It’s been quite the journey so far. But the best — we hope — is ultimately still to come. ” | 1 |
WASHINGTON — It was a blunt, set of senators who gathered last Monday at the Washington home of Senator Heidi Heitkamp, Democrat of North Dakota, dining on Chinese food as they vented frustration about the missteps of the Democratic Party. To this decidedly centrist group, the 2016 election was nothing short of a fiasco: final proof that its national party had grown indifferent to the rural, more conservative areas represented by Democrats like Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Claire McCaskill of Missouri, Joe Donnelly of Indiana and Jon Tester of Montana, who attended the dinner. All face difficult races in 2018. The party, these senators said, had grown overly fixated on cultural issues with limited appeal to the heartland. They criticized Hillary Clinton’s campaign slogan, “Stronger Together,” as flat and opaque, according to multiple people present at the dinner, some of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity. Most of all, they lamented, Democrats had simply failed to offer a clarion message about the economy with appeal to all 50 states. “Why did the working people, who have always been our base, turn away?” Mr. Manchin said in an interview, recounting the tenor of the dinner conversation. Moderate Democrats are not alone in their sense of urgency about honing a new economic message. After a stinging loss to Donald J. Trump, liberals in the party are also trying to figure out how to tap into the populist unrest that convulsed both parties in 2016. Only by making pocketbook issues the central focus, they say, can Democrats recover in the 2018 midterm elections and unseat Mr. Trump in 2020. “We need to double down and double down again on the importance of building an economy not just for those at the top, but for everyone,” said Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, a progressive who is seen as a leading potential opponent for Mr. Trump. This approach offers an added benefit in the minds of Democratic strategists: It papers over the party’s differences on how much to focus on cultural issues. There is little appetite among most Democrats to substantively revise their stances on issues like abortion, gay rights, gun control and immigration, where trends on the national level continue to favor the party. By constructing a platform focused on an overarching theme of economic fairness, Democrats are hoping to avoid yoking their candidates to a more divisive agenda that could sink them in states like North Dakota and West Virginia, which are crucial to control of the Senate. This is markedly different from the approach that party leaders have taken over the last eight years, when President Obama defined the party from top to bottom with his personality and policies. Instead, Democrats intend to focus on a sparer agenda of priorities that can win support from both liberal and moderate officeholders — and appeal to voters just as much in red states as along the two coasts. Beyond that, they expect wide variance in how officeholders handle Mr. Trump and his agenda, from moderates who seek out accommodation to leaders who pursue total war. Their emerging message is likely to focus on protecting Medicare and Social Security, attacking income inequality and political corruption, and blocking legislation that might restrict access to health care. The first salvo in the fight will be over Mr. Trump’s pick of Representative Tom Price of Georgia, a vocal supporter of privatizing Medicare, as secretary of health and human services: The Democrats at Ms. Heitkamp’s dinner discussed how to highlight and, potentially, block Mr. Price’s appointment, according to an attendee. Many Democrats, especially those from the party’s more liberal wing, see significant reasons for optimism about their political prospects in the medium and long terms. Though Mr. Trump prevailed in the Electoral College, he did so thanks to the slimmest of margins in three states — Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — and he lost the popular vote nationally by nearly three million votes. With the country growing more urban and racially diverse, Democrats like their chances in the 2020 presidential race, when nonwhite voters are likely to make up more than 30 percent of the electorate for the first time in history. Even in Mrs. Clinton’s defeat, the country’s changing hue helped her come closer than any Democrat in decades to flipping Arizona and Georgia, two traditional Republican bastions. But before the next presidential race, Democrats must navigate a treacherous landscape of midterm elections. They must defend 10 Senate seats in states Mr. Trump won, many of them in the Rust Belt and the West. And unless they break the Republican lock on state governments by winning governorships in a handful of big states, like Wisconsin and Ohio, they may be unable to prevent Republicans from continuing to draw congressional maps that favor their candidates. Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, a new member of the Democratic leadership team in the House, said he considered Mr. Trump an “Electoral College president” and cautioned Democrats not to overreact to his victory. But Mr. Jeffries agreed that Democrats must court “ voters we lost, without abandoning our core constituencies and principles that made up the Obama coalition. ”’ “We will not take back the majority,” Mr. Jeffries said, “unless we have a approach. ” At a meeting of House Democrats this past week, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. said the party did not have to move away from its liberal values or cease to be a party that “welcomes those who seem to have been left behind for a long time,” said Representative Dan Kildee of Michigan, who paraphrased Mr. Biden’s remarks. But Mr. Biden encouraged Democrats to represent themselves as a “party of working people. ” Mr. Kildee, who is weighing a bid for governor in 2018, said they would have to reorganize their message around issues that are “fundamental to economic security,” and await opportunities to exploit Mr. Trump’s shortcomings. Evidence of a narrower, more tightly focused Democratic agenda was on display this past week at a Capitol Hill news conference, where a range of Democrats spoke beside nurses and older voters holding up signs that read: “It’s not wise to privatize. ” Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the incoming Democratic Senate leader, warned gravely that Republicans were “gearing up for a war on seniors. ” Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, echoing the economic themes that propelled his White House bid and first drew Democratic attention to the potency of populism this year, vowed, “We are not going to allow the billionaire class or Trump or anybody else to cut the programs that the elderly, the disabled and disabled vets absolutely depend upon. ” This effort to defend popular government programs appeals to all elements of the party and offers the promise of winning back some of the older white voters it has lost in recent elections. And it recalls the strategy Democrats turned to the last time they were trying to reclaim control of Congress when Republicans had full control of the government, and the left was united in opposition to President George W. Bush’s attempted Social Security overhaul. Still, the Democrats’ fortunes may rest chiefly with Mr. Trump. If he shuns the lawmakers in his own party who want to overhaul entitlements such as Medicare and governs more as a populist than as a conservative, it could complicate the Democratic comeback strategy. Outside Washington, some party leaders plan on taking the fight to Mr. Trump more immediately. Progressives in capitals appear primed to take a more combative approach, attacking Mr. Trump and obstructing him on issues important to liberal voters. These Democrats have already pledged to put up a front of resistance to Mr. Trump’s policies, much as Republican governors and attorneys general did against Mr. Obama. Representative Xavier Becerra, who has been appointed the new attorney general of California, said leaders in the states would hold the line on policy where Democrats in Washington could not. “Our role will principally be to defend the progress we have made in recent years,” Mr. Becerra said. He pointed to a resolution the California State Legislature passed stating that “California stands unified in rejecting the politics of hatred and exclusion” and demanding that Mr. Trump “not pursue mass deportation strategies that needlessly tear families apart, or target immigrants for deportation based on vague and unjustified criteria. ” At a retreat for Democratic governors in New Orleans last weekend, Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington argued forcefully that governors should send a message to the White House on health care, among other issues. “There is so much threatened in my state,” Mr. Inslee said in an interview. “We will be engaged vigorously in making sure that the public understands what’s going on and how damaging it can be. ” But even liberals believe Democrats must work harder to compete for voters who lean to the right, if only to shave a few points off the Republican Party’s margin of victory in rural America. In some cases, they said, that may mean embracing candidates who hold wildly different views from the national party on certain core priorities. Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia, Mrs. Clinton’s running mate, said Democrats did not have to choose between supporting liberal policies and competing for conservative votes. But he seemed to imply that Democrats had made a mistake in 2016 by not working harder to win over skeptical voters. “In the presidential race, where there’s just a much bigger playing field, there’s a tendency to say, ‘Well, I’m only going to get 35 percent, so I’m not going to go there,’” Mr. Kaine said. “Well, the difference between 35 and 25 is big. ” | 1 |
BRASÍLIA — The wall, nearly a mile of corrugated metal, plunges down the center of the majestic lawn that faces Brazil’s National Congress, the modernist icon designed by Oscar Niemeyer. It was hastily erected in recent days, and is meant to separate the hundreds of thousands of protesters expected to descend on Brasília, the Brazilian capital, this weekend as members of Congress vote on whether to begin impeachment proceedings against President Dilma Rousseff. The left side of the wall, facing Congress, is reserved for supporters of the Ms. Rousseff, the right for people demanding her ouster. “It’s not pretty, but the wall is necessary to keep the two sides from tearing each other apart,” a police officer in riot gear said as she stood in the searing sun on Friday afternoon. “When these protesters come together, they behave like soccer hooligans. ” Brazilian politics is a blood sport in the best of times, but the battle over Ms. Rousseff’s impeachment is inflaming passions as never before, cleaving families, turning friends into enemies and transforming children into unwitting surrogates for the warring sides. Social media has been flooded with venom, and those who claim to be neutral often find themselves accused of treachery. On the streets of Brazilian cities, political rallies organized by one side or the other have been devolving into shouting matches or worse, including a brawl last month in São Paulo that left a former city councilor with a bloody lip. “I don’t think this will turn into a civil war because you’d have to be stupid to fight for these politicians, but people are very stressed right now,” said Rafael Alcadipani da Silveira, 39, a professor of organizational studies at Fundação Getúlio Vargas, one of the country’s top universities. “I’ve never seen things this bad. ” Political passions have turned ordinary sartorial decisions into perceived acts of provocation. Lauana de Lima Oliveira, 22, a saleswoman from São Paulo, recalled a recent day when she decided to go to work in a red tank top. Red is the color associated with Ms. Rousseff’s Workers’ Party. As she rode in a crowded subway car, several passengers began to elbow her while hissing “petralha,” a pejorative for party stalwarts. Ms. de Lima Oliveira, who said she was agnostic on the impeachment drive, was stunned. “People have become like horses that wear blinders so they can’t see anything on either side of them,” she said. “Red happens to be my favorite color, and I’m not going to stop wearing it. ” In the southern city of Porto Alegre, Ariane Leitão, a surrogate councilwoman with the Workers’ Party, filed a formal complaint against her longtime pediatrician who, citing Ms. Leitão’s party affiliation, abruptly cut off ties. “Given all that has happened,” the doctor wrote to her, according to the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo. “I am not in the position to treat your son. ” Most alarming, experts say, is the extent to which the political maelstrom has affected those too young to vote. Last month, students at a private school in São Paulo reportedly terrorized a boy after he showed up to class wearing a red shirt emblazoned with the Swiss flag — a gesture of neutrality, according to his father, who discussed the episode on Facebook in a posting shared more than 4, 500 times. School officials say many children have been parroting the caustic expressions they hear at home, and teachers at one school in São Paulo were alarmed when a child drew a picture of Ms. Rousseff hanging by a noose. Ilana Katz, a psychoanalyst who works with children, said she was worried that many young people were learning intolerance from their parents, and that it is acceptable to express disagreements through aggression. “It’s this idea that there is only one way to live, and that those who live differently need to be eliminated,” she said. “We should be teaching the opposite of that. ” For the fallout has been even more pronounced. Among urban professionals, it’s common to hear stories about relationships that have been shattered by the mounting political warfare. Fátima Nobre, 57, an advertising executive, said a neighbor threw her out of his apartment during lunch a few weeks ago when she expressed support for Ms. Rousseff’s impeachment. “It was as if he was channeling Dilma’s spirit, like he had turned into the devil,” she said, referring to the president by her first name. “I don’t want to be friends with a person like that. ” The most searing rancor often finds expression on Facebook, where Brazilians’ postings about pets and food have been almost entirely supplanted by political shouting matches. Andressa Umeki, 34, a journalist, said a verbal imbroglio on Facebook ended her relationship with a cousin who used to shower her with words of affection. After Ms. Umeki publicly cast her lot with the opposition seeking impeachment, the cousin unfriended her. “We used to speak by phone but not anymore,” she added. Alarmed by the surge in social strife, some Brazilians have taken a hard line on political chatter. Tarciano André Barbosa, 40, a tech analyst in São Paulo, said he had to warn his about cracking political jokes during his daughter’s recent birthday party. “You see people on TV in the Middle East throwing bombs at one another, and here we are fighting, too, though in a different way,” he said. “People have become so extremist. It’s absurd, and in the end this will pass, but relationships can’t be lost over ignorance. ” Though it sometimes feels as if all of Brazilian society is consumed by the machinations taking place in Brasília, those who study the growing polarization say much of the fury is confined to older, professionals. Pablo Ortellado, a professor at the University of São Paulo who studies protest movements in Brazil, said a recent survey he conducted showed that Brazilians and people under 35 had largely stayed away from the political rallies that were roiling many cities. “Even I was surprised by the results because it sometimes seems that these protests are affecting all of society,” he said. His hypothesis? Because educated, older Brazilians came of age when the Workers’ Party was battling the dictatorship that ruled Brazil until the they are more invested in the outcome of the current political struggle. “Either they are still enthusiastic for the party or they feel betrayed by the party or they never liked it,” Mr. Ortellado said, adding that he felt optimistic that younger Brazilians would one day be less dogmatic about party politics. “It points to a future, perhaps 10 years from now, when we can work out our political differences in another way. ” Even at the wall that cleaves the national mall, such levelheaded pragmatism was not hard to find. On Friday afternoon, two colleagues from the Ministry of Health spent their lunch break taking photos of each other amid a phalanx of riot police. The men, Leonardo Ferreira de Almeida, 28, and Wanderson Gontijo, 38, are on opposite sides in the impeachment debate — and acknowledged spending way too much time at work talking politics — but they said their discussions rarely turned venomous. “The way I see it, democracy is an opportunity to have different opinions but to not be blind to the weaknesses of your argument,” said Mr. Almeida, a social policy analyst at the ministry. Mr. Gontijo, a technology specialist, nodded in agreement and then looked at the wall, which was already festooned with posters comparing it to the Berlin Wall. “This is a shame because it doesn’t represent democracy,” he said. With that, the men threw their arms around each other, smiled broadly and posed for one more photograph. | 1 |
(REUTERS) — The names of German military barracks honoring a handful of World War Two officers should changed to show that the country’s armed forces have made a clean break from their Nazi past, Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen said on Sunday. [Having come in for criticism herself after accusing the Bundeswehr armed forces of “weak leadership” amid a national debate over whether there are extremists in the military, von der Leyen told Bild am Sonntag newspaper the barracks should no longer be named after officers. “The Bundeswehr has to send signals both internally and externally that it is not rooted in the tradition of the Wehrmacht,” she said, referring to the World War name for the German army. The Bundeswehr was created in 1955. Read more here. | 1 |
SANA, Yemen — For decades, Mustafa Elaghil’s family produced snack foods popular in Yemen, chips and corn curls in bright packaging decorated with the image of Ernie from “Sesame Street. ” But over the summer, a military coalition led by Saudi Arabia sent warplanes over Yemen and bombed the Elaghils’ factory. The explosion destroyed it, setting it ablaze and trapping the workers inside. The attack killed 10 employees and wiped out a business that had employed dozens of families. “It was everything for us,” Mr. Elaghil said. The coalition has bombed Yemen for the last 19 months, trying to oust a rebel group aligned with Iran that took control of the capital, Sana, in 2014. The Saudis want to restore the country’s exiled president, Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi, who led an internationally recognized government more aligned with its interests. But instead of defeating the rebels, the campaign has sunk into a grinding stalemate, systematically obliterating Yemen’s already economy. The coalition has destroyed a wide variety of civilian targets that critics say have no clear link to the rebels. It has hit hospitals and schools. It has destroyed bridges, power stations, poultry farms, a key seaport and factories that produce yogurt, tea, tissues, ceramics, and potato chips. It has bombed weddings and a funeral. The bombing campaign has exacerbated a humanitarian crisis in the Arab world’s poorest country, where cholera is spreading, millions of people are struggling to get enough food, and malnourished babies are overwhelming hospitals, according to the United Nations. Millions have been forced from their homes, and since August, the government has been unable to pay the salaries of most of the 1. 2 million civil servants. Publicly, the United States has kept its distance from the war, but its alliance with Saudi Arabia, underpinned by tens of billions of dollars in weapons sales, has left American fingerprints on the air campaign. Many strikes are carried out by pilots trained by the United States, who fly jets that are refueled in the air by American planes. And Yemenis often find the remains of munitions, as they did in the ruins after a strike that killed more than 100 mourners at a funeral last month. Graffiti on walls across Sana reads: “America is killing the Yemeni people. ” Donald J. Trump has not said whether he will continue United States support for the war, but has been very critical of Saudi Arabia, saying it does not “survive without us. ” At a rally in January, he said Iran was “going into Yemen” and was “going to have everything” in the region, but he did not clarify how he would respond. The sweeping destruction of civilian infrastructure has led analysts and aid workers to conclude that hitting Yemen’s economy is part of the coalition’s strategy. “The economic dimension of this war has become a tactic,” said Jamie McGoldrick, the United Nations’ humanitarian coordinator for Yemen. “It is all consistent — the port, the bridges, the factories. They are getting destroyed, and it is to put pressure on the politics. ” In a written response to questions, a coalition spokesman, Maj. Gen. Ahmed Asseri, said the air campaign had halted the rebels’ advance, destroyed 90 percent of their rockets and aircraft and pressured them to join talks aimed at ending the war. He denied that the coalition sought to inflict suffering on civilians and said only facilities connected to the war effort had been hit. He blamed the rebel group, the Houthis, for the humanitarian crisis. “This is primarily the responsibility of the rebels, who have displaced Yemen’s legitimate government and who are impeding the flow of humanitarian supplies,” General Asseri said. Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf countries are also among the top donors of aid to Yemen. So even as they undermine its they help sustain the population. The air campaign’s civilian toll has led to calls by some American lawmakers to postpone arms sales to Saudi Arabia. “It is a significant moral outrage that we continue to provide arms to Saudi Arabia and to participate in military operations in Yemen,” said Representative Ted Lieu, a Democrat from California who was a military prosecutor in the Air Force. “The United States is at risk of aiding and abetting war crimes in Yemen. ” The difficulty in just getting to Yemen demonstrates how much the war has upended the country. The internationally recognized government is based in Saudi Arabia and in the south of Yemen. For a recent trip to Sana and surrounding areas, a photographer and I had to obtain visas from the Houthis. We could not book flights into Sana because the coalition had halted all commercial air traffic. The United Nations allowed us onto an aid flight. As soon as we touched down, we saw traces of the war: the scattered carcasses of destroyed airplanes along the runway. Once in Yemen, we were told that we could not go anywhere without a representative of the Houthis. He was with us whenever we left the hotel. We did not visit military sites, which the coalition has heavily bombed to destroy the ballistic missiles that the rebels have fired into the kingdom, killing civilians. But the damage and suffering caused by the war were everywhere. Beggars displaced by the fighting thronged our car, pleading for money and food. Buildings destroyed by airstrikes dotted the capital: the Defense and Interior Ministries, the army and central security headquarters, the Police Academy and Officers’ Club, the Sana Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the homes of officials who had joined the rebels. The conflict has split the country, with forces backed by gulf nations and nominally loyal to the exiled president in the south and east, where Al Qaeda and the Islamic State have staged deadly attacks. But in the areas we visited in Yemen’s northwest, the rebels were firmly in control, their gunmen running checkpoints alongside police officers who had joined them. In Sana’s Old City, posters of “martyrs” killed in the war covered entire buildings. Trucks with mounted machine guns, carrying fighters, occasionally sped by. across the city was the Houthis’ rallying cry: “God is great. Death to America. Death to Israel. Curse on the Jews. Victory for Islam. ” On the edge of town, Yemeni families snapped photos of the ruins of a reception center that the coalition hit with two airstrikes in a single attack last month while the interior minister was receiving condolences for his deceased father. Human Rights Watch called the attack on the funeral “an apparent war crime. ” United Nations officials gave us photos of remnants found at the site that indicated it had been hit with at least one bomb. American warplanes routinely use that class of bomb, and the United States has provided such bombs to the Saudi military. On an expanse of rocky ground near the town of Khamer northwest of the capital, where they have been since fleeing their homes last year, hundreds of families have built shelters out of canvas, plastic sheeting and mud bricks. Most survive on charity, eating rice and bread cooked on mud stoves fired with wood or garbage. In one tent, Farea Gayid, 55, said he had worked as an army engineer until his unit collapsed when the airstrikes began. An attack near his home killed his neighbors, so he and his family fled on foot. A trucker gave them a ride to Khamer, so they settled there, joining the more than 2. 5 million Yemenis who the United Nations says are internally displaced. In August, the government could no longer afford to pay Mr. Gayid his $200 monthly salary. “Now my children beg in the market,” he said. “If the situation continues like this, there is no future. ” While the war spawned Yemen’s humanitarian crisis, aid workers say coalition bombings of critical infrastructure have exacerbated it. Before the war, Yemen imported 90 percent of its food, mostly through the Red Sea port of Hodeida. Last year, the coalition bombed the port, damaging its cranes. Now ships often wait for weeks at sea to unload, and some goods are close to expiration by the time they arrive, said Mr. McGoldrick, the United Nations official. The coalition has also bombed key bridges, including the main one between the port and the capital, forcing truckers to take long detours. “It is an applied economic suppression and strangulation that is causing everyone here to feel it,” Mr. McGoldrick said. “The collapse of the economy is starting to bite very hard. ” According to the World Food Program, 14. 4 million of Yemen’s 26 million people do not have enough food, and malnutrition is rising. The suffering is clear in the capital. “What’s missing? Everything!” said Manal a doctor in Sana’s main pediatric hospital. “We lack medical staff, nurses and medicine. ” Upstairs, nearly every room contained a malnourished baby. Most had been born to mothers who had fled the war and were too disturbed or malnourished to normally, said Ali a nurse. In one room lay twin girls, Ruqaya and Suqaina, both with sunken cheeks. “We lost everything because of the war,” their grandmother Shariya said when asked why the girls were so small. “All we brought with us were our clothes. ” The destruction in Yemen could cripple its economy long into the future, and it is unclear how the country will rebuild. “They have hit many factories on the basis of suspicion, but we never get the real reasons,” said Al Manj, a lawyer at the Sana Chamber of Commerce and Industry who is helping businesses document the strikes with an eye toward future prosecution. “Any institution that has a big hangar, they hit it directly. ” Some businesses said they suspected they were targets only because they continued to operate after the Houthi takeover. “For Saudi Arabia, we are all Houthis,” said Haroon of the Amran Cement Factory, which once employed 1, 500 people before it was bombed twice. Plant workers showed us the remains of munitions they had collected, including pieces of at least one a cluster bomb unit that contains 10 submunitions. They are manufactured by Textron Defense Systems of Rhode Island. General Asseri, the coalition spokesman, said it had “no interest in damaging any aspect of the Yemeni economy,” and had made great efforts to avoid harming civilians. He declined to provide details about specific sites, but said the coalition had “accurate intelligence” that the sites we visited were “being used by militias to store weapons and ammunition or a center. ” The war has left nothing untouched for the Alsonidar brothers, Khalid and Abdullah, who own a group of factories outside Sana. The family works with an Italian company, Caprari, to produce agricultural water pumps. It also owns a brick factory, which was out of use, and was preparing to open a factory to produce metal pipes to go with the pumps, also with an Italian partner. Twice in September, the compound was bombed, destroying all three factories. Saudi news reports said the factories had produced rockets for the rebels, a charge the brothers denied. They and their Italian partners have written to the United Nations to state that the factories could not produce military technology, and to call for an investigation, which is continuing, they said. “We’re not talking about something useless,” Abdullah Alsonidar said. “We’re talking about infrastructure and people’s lives. Strikes like this can bring a family to the ground. ” Remains of munitions that the brothers found at the site indicate that it was hit with weapons, including one with equipment that was made in October 2015. | 1 |
Posted on November 5, 2016 by DCG | 3 Comments
From The Independent : Saudi Arabia is set to behead a disabled man for taking part in anti-government protests.
A specialised criminal court in Riyadh , the Arab kingdom’s capital, sentenced Munir al-Adam, to death for “attacks on police” and other offences they said took place during protests in the Shia-dominated east in late 2011 .
The 23-year-old is partially blind and was already partially deaf at the time of arrest; he alleges he is now completely deaf in one ear as a result of being severely beaten by police. His family issued a statement rejecting the verdict and claiming that Mr. Adam was tortured into confessing, The Times reported.
The steel cable worker said he had only signed a document admitting the offences after being repeatedly beaten. He said he had been accused of “sending texts” when he was too poor to own a mobile phone.
Forty-seven protesters and alleged supporters of al-Qaeda were executed in a single day in January. In July, the number of beheadings in Saudi Arabia reached 108 this year, putting the country, which has a population of nearly 29 million people, on track to exceed its 2015 execution total.
Saudi Arabia is one of the world’s most prolific executioners. Research last year by human rights organisation Reprieve found that, of those identified as facing execution in Saudi Arabia, some 72 per cent were sentenced to death for non-violent alleged crimes, while torture and forced confessions were common.
“Munir Adam’s appalling case illustrates how the Saudi authorities are all too happy to subject the most vulnerable people to the swordsman’s blade,” said Maya Foa, of Reprieve. “Saudi Arabia’s close allies, including the UK, must urge the kingdom to release Munir, along with juveniles and others who were sentenced to death for protesting.”
The traditionally close relationship between Saudi Arabia and Britain has become strained in the past year as people in the West have protested against the use of the death penalty, including against minors. Protests also erupted across the Middle East in January.
Sara Hashah, Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa spokesperson, said Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Iran were responsible for 90 per cent of all recorded executions globally and were out of step with the rest of the world .
“In Saudi Arabia, where people are routinely sentenced to death after grossly unfair trials, we have seen a dramatic surge in the number of executions in the past two years which has shown no sign of abating in 2016,” she told The Independent in July.
“This clearly demonstrates that Saudi Arabia’s authorities are increasingly out of step with a global trend of states moving away from the death penalty. “Saudi Arabia’s authorities must end their reliance on this cruel, inhuman and degrading form of punishment immediately.”
Mr. Adam was reportedly detained in February 2012 for taking part in protests in his home town of Qatif the previous year, when he was 18 years old.
Read the rest of the story here .
DCG | 0 |
Holistic Medicine
It is beyond belief that I have to continue to write about the problems with the flu vaccine. The flu vaccine has a long history of not protecting the vast majority who receives if from becoming ill with the flu. Nor does it change mortality rates. Nor does it change hospitalization rates.
The flu vaccine is ineffective for the elderly—the most susceptible group recommended to receive annual injections. Although the Powers-That-Be will say the flu vaccine is approximately 50% effective, the real data provides a different picture. (I have written about this many times in my newsletter and in blog posts. Go here to read one post: http://blog.drbrownstein.com/the-truth-about-the-flu-vaccine/ ).
The Cochrane Collaboration, an independent group who does not take Big Pharma Cartel money has reported that the flu vaccine does not protect adults against influenza nor does it affect the number of people hospitalized for the flu. Furthermore, Cochrane scientists have reported that the flu vaccine does not prevent people from missing work due to influenza illness. (1)
There is not one randomized, double-blind controlled study that shows the flu vaccine is effective at preventing the flu. Not one. In fact, there are studies that show those who get the flu vaccine are more susceptible to other viral agents.
Do all hospital workers need to be vaccinated with the flu vaccine? There is not a single study showing that this practice is effective.
I would take this a step further: no one needs a flu vaccine since it fails well over 50% who receives one.
Conventional doctors are proud to say they practice evidence-based medicine. The next time your health care provider tells you to get a flu vaccine, ask them to show you the evidence that the flu vaccine works. If they were truly practicing evidence-based medicine, they would refuse to vaccinate with a product that fails well over 50% who receives it.
(1) Cochrane Database of Systemic Review, 2010. Issue 7. Art No. CD001269
Read the full article at Dr.Brownstein.com.
Comment on this article at VaccineImpact.com. Leaving a lucrative career as a nephrologist (kidney doctor), Dr. Suzanne Humphries is now free to actually help cure people. In this autobiography she explains why good doctors are constrained within the current corrupt medical system from practicing real, ethical medicine. FREE Shipping Available! Order here . Medical Doctors Opposed to Forced Vaccinations – Should Their Views be Silenced? eBook – Available for immediate download.
One of the biggest myths being propagated in the compliant mainstream media today is that doctors are either pro-vaccine or anti-vaccine, and that the anti-vaccine doctors are all “quacks.”
However, nothing could be further from the truth in the vaccine debate. Doctors are not unified at all on their positions regarding “the science” of vaccines, nor are they unified in the position of removing informed consent to a medical procedure like vaccines.
The two most extreme positions are those doctors who are 100% against vaccines and do not administer them at all, and those doctors that believe that ALL vaccines are safe and effective for ALL people, ALL the time, by force if necessary.
Very few doctors fall into either of these two extremist positions, and yet it is the extreme pro-vaccine position that is presented by the U.S. Government and mainstream media as being the dominant position of the medical field.
In between these two extreme views, however, is where the vast majority of doctors practicing today would probably categorize their position. Many doctors who consider themselves “pro-vaccine,” for example, do not believe that every single vaccine is appropriate for every single individual.
Many doctors recommend a “delayed” vaccine schedule for some patients, and not always the recommended one-size-fits-all CDC childhood schedule. Other doctors choose to recommend vaccines based on the actual science and merit of each vaccine, recommending some, while determining that others are not worth the risk for children, such as the suspect seasonal flu shot.
These doctors who do not hold extreme positions would be opposed to government-mandated vaccinations and the removal of all parental exemptions.
In this eBook, I am going to summarize the many doctors today who do not take the most extremist pro-vaccine position, which is probably not held by very many doctors at all, in spite of what the pharmaceutical industry, the federal government, and the mainstream media would like the public to believe. Read : Medical Doctors Opposed to Forced Vaccinations – Should Their Views be Silenced? on your mobile device! | 0 |
After weeks of reports of severe exhaustion and ensuing hospitalization, Kanye West walked into Trump Tower on Tuesday morning. Journalists who caught a glimpse of the musician entering the tightly guarded building in Manhattan took to Twitter to document the strange spectacle. Mr. West’s appearance occurred shortly before former Gov. Rick Perry of Texas was named as Donald J. Trump’s pick to lead the Energy Department — the same agency that Mr. Perry said during the 2012 presidential race that he wanted to abolish. For Mr. Trump, the visit was another stuffed into a series of more consequential events, including the possibility of a showdown with Republicans in Congress over intelligence reports that Russia may have interfered in the election. Once Mr. West returned to the lobby with Mr. Trump, he didn’t provide much information about the reasons for his visit. “We’ve been friends for a long time,” Mr. Trump told reporters. Asked what he and Mr. West talked about, he responded: “Life. We discussed life. ” Mr. West’s visit was probably a welcome one for the . It came hours after Mr. Trump’s announcement on Monday that he would refrain from any new business deals with his real estate company while in the Oval Office. In addition, the focus this past week has been on Mr. Trump’s potential conflicts of interest as president, which would include the growing cadre of billionaires and multimillionaires he wants to install in his cabinet. There is also substantial interest around his choice for secretary of state: Rex W. Tillerson, the chief executive of Exxon Mobil, who has friendly ties with the Russians. For his part, Mr. West dodged questions about the possibility of performing at Mr. Trump’s inauguration in January. The rapper only smiled at reporters and said, “I just want to take a picture right now. ” It is unclear why the musician and sometime fashion designer stepped out from a reported recovery and into the center of the media circus at Trump Tower, but Hope Hicks, Mr. Trump’s spokeswoman, said in an email that Mr. West had requested the meeting. “The meeting was requested by Kanye and we were delighted to host him,” Ms. Hicks wrote, adding, “They had a very positive and productive conversation. ” She did not elaborate, but later in the afternoon, Mr. West said on Twitter that he wanted to meet with Mr. Trump to discuss “multicultural issues” that included “bullying, supporting teachers, modernizing curriculums and violence in Chicago. ” He added: “I feel it is important to have a direct line of communication with our future President if we truly want change. ” Much about Mr. West’s public presence has been a mystery of late. He abruptly canceled his Saint Pablo tour in November after a series of unsettling concert appearances. He was hospitalized in what was characterized in dispatches as a “psychiatric emergency. ” In one rant a few weeks ago, Mr. West voiced his support for Mr. Trump and ended the performance, much to the shock and disappointment of his fans. “Yeah, I’m taking his lead,” Mr. West said of Mr. Trump, after spending some time railing against the news media and praising Mr. Trump’s policy against political correctness. His statements, some of which targeted his contemporaries in the music industry, including Jay Z and Beyoncé, came weeks after his wife, Kim Kardashian West, was robbed at gunpoint in a Paris apartment. Mr. West has expressed interest in politics before, declaring in a rambling speech last year that he wanted to run for president in 2020. He has also been an outspoken critic of politicians. In 2005, he lashed out at a sitting president on live TV, declaring during a for Hurricane Katrina victims, “George Bush doesn’t care about black people. ” Mr. Bush later called Mr. West’s criticism a “disgusting moment” for his presidency. On Tuesday, Mr. West’s relationship with the Trump administration seemed to be off to a rosier start. When the two said their goodbyes, Mr. Trump leaned in to say something to Mr. West, then headed back into the elevator with his daughter Ivanka. | 1 |
Russia’s first driverless electronic bus unveiled at Skolkovo October 28, 2016 Gazeta.ru ‘Matrёshka’ self-driving bus could hit the streets as early as 2017 Facebook 1 / 5
At Moscow’s Skolkovo Innovation Center, "Matrёshka" (“Matryoshka”) the first electronic driverless bus was revealed. This is the first vehicle of its kind in Russia, and it is designed to carry up to eight passengers. The debut took place at the annual international forum of innovative development, "Open Innovation", which runs Oct. 26-28, 2016, reports the news agency Moscow.
The bus is controlled by computers and is equipped with self-learning software. There are specialized sensors and cameras on board which are able to observe the situation on the road in real-time. With a full battery, the bus can travel 80 miles, with a maximum speed of 20 mph. Testing for the bus was supposed to start in October this year, it was earlier reported, in a closed area of the Skolkovo Innovation Center. Production of the bus is planned for 2017 at the Volgabus factory in Vladimirsky Region. It was also reported that the Volgabus factory created the first Russian self-driving bus.
First published in Russian by Gazeta.ru . Subscribe to get the hand picked best stories every week Subscribe to our mailing list Facebook | 0 |
Still on the highest level of alert after a series of deadly terror attacks, France will see unprecedented numbers of security personnel on duty on New Year’s Eve. [Weeks after the French government extended the national State of Emergency — already in place for over a year — thousands of police, crowd control specialists, and soldiers will protect celebrations from terror attacks. France’s Le Figaro reports among the near 100, 000 force deployed tonight will be 52, 500 police officers, 5, 600 border police, 4, 000 members of the specially trained Republican Security Companies, and officers of the elite RAID force. This force will be backed up by tens of thousands of soldiers presently deployed on Operation Sentinel, the French military mission providing security to the mainland since the November 2015 Bataclan attack which killed 130. The deployment has predominantly focused on protecting schools, synagogues, railway stations, and other public sites considered prime terror targets. Speaking to the press one officer involved in planning the layered defence for New Year’s Eve celebrations said: “The security measures take into account the terrorist risk and in particular the new operating modes which use a vehicle such as a truck as a weapon”. Measures include the deployment of concrete blocks like those seen in Berlin after the Christmas market attack, and heavy government vehicles parked as improvised roadblocks. Similar deployments are to be seen on New Year’s Eve in New York where dozens of garbage trucks loaded with sand are to be deployed around Times Square to prevent attacks like those seen in France and Germany this year. In addition to these measures, restrictions on the sale of alcohol, fireworks, and petrol will also be in place. Other powers granted by the state of emergency including the ability to enforce house arrest for those considered to pose a threat and the power for police to close down gatherings and meetings remain in place. While Nice — already the target of one of the most deadly terror attacks in France ever this year — are witnessing comparatively limited police deployments of a few hundred officers and soldiers, other cities are seeing more. Strasbourg, the second home of the European Parliament will see over 600 men deployed for security. France’s cities aren’t the only settlements seeing major security deployments for New Year’s Eve. Breitbart London reported today with exclusive pictures the situation in the United Kingdom’s capital, with extensive measures in place to prepare. In addition to officers and concrete barriers on the street, the Metropolitan Police announced they would be staging regular armed patrols on underground trains over the course of the evening. | 1 |
The U. S. economy gained 227, 000 jobs in January according to statistics released by the Labor Department on Friday, while unemployment ticked up slightly to 4. 8 percent. [Wages also increased 2. 5 percent compared to January 2016, rising six cents in December. The economy added 157, 000 jobs in December and unemployment stood at 4. 7 percent. A number of companies announced before Trump’s inauguration they planned to expand in the U. S. not overseas, and hire American workers. These included Ford, SAP SE, Amazon. com, Lockheed Martin, GM, Bayer AG, Walmart, and many more. Employers have also found themselves managing a tighter employment market, according to the New York Times: Regardless of government estimates, however, employers across sectors and across the nation have increasingly complained about the difficulty of finding workers, a competition that kept the increase in the average hourly wage ahead of a 1. 6 percent price inflation rate. “We’re still continuing to see wage pressure as the candidate market continues to shrink,” said Amy Glaser, senior vice president of Adecco Staffing USA, which has 300 branch offices. In addition to the omnipresent hunger for engineers, Ms. Glaser said there is a demand for those with trade skills like welding that fell into disuse during the recession, as well as warehouse and light assembly workers. “Employers are getting very creative,” said Ms. Glaser, whose office is in Lexington, Ky. “We’re seeing bonuses. They have added sabbaticals to their packages, increases to stock options, free child care on site and free meals. Anything to get a competitive edge. ” After Election Day, many companies, especially small businesses, responded with soaring optimism. During his inaugural address, Trump said: “We will follow two simple rules: Buy American and hire American. ” | 1 |
Alternative News Thousands of Wild Bison Appear At Standing Rock Out Of Nowhere! A Sign From Mother Earth?
For those of you who may not know, the largest Native American protest in HISTORY is happening right now . Over 500 Native American tribes from all over North, Central, and South America as well as Canada, all uniting under one cause: Protection of our water from greedy corporate interests.
It certainly hasn’t been easy. Just this week alone hundreds of innocent people have been assaulted and arrested just for occupying the land the corporation behind the Dakota Access Pipeline stole using imminent domain.
Its been a major struggle for our water protectors. Not just because of the rampant violence they’ve had to face from police hired by the pipeline builders, but also because they are literally living in a camp set up in a field right now. Do you have any idea how cold it’s already getting there and it’s not even winter yet? TOO COLD.
They’ve certainly been needing a pick-me-up.. And they just got one! (Video at the bottom of this article)
According to White Wolf Pack , a Native American website:
“The great bison or buffalo of North America is a very powerful symbol to American Indians. Though best suited to cooler climates, bison roamed virtually in entire continent.
The smaller woodlands bison and its bigger cousin, the plains bison were revered and honored in ceremony and everyday life. To the plains Indian, our Bison Brother meant sacred life and the abundance of the Creator’s blessing on Mother Earth.
The bison is powerful medicine that is a symbol of sacrifice and service to the community. The bison people agreed to give their lives so the American Indian could have food, shelter and clothing.
The bison is also a symbol of gratitude and honor as it is happy to accept its meager existence as it stands proud against the winds of adversity.
The bison represents abundance of the Creator’s bounty and respect for all creation knowing that all things are sacred.” The chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe criticized law enforcement’s “militarized” response to the camp and called for demonstrations to remain peaceful, but stressed that activists would not give up their cause.
“Militarized law enforcement agencies moved in on water protectors with tanks and riot gear today. We continue to pray for peace,” Dave Archambault II said in a statement Thursday evening.
“We won’t step down from this fight,” he added. “As peoples of this earth, we all need water. This is about our water, our rights, and our dignity as human beings.””
| 0 |
Leonard Cohen, who was 82 when he died on Monday, was young once. That can be hard to remember after his years of public, eminence: touring arenas while he was in his 70s and playing leisurely shows that seemed to slow down time itself. He intoned his songs with serene gravity, revealing once again how carefully chiseled every one of his quatrains is. And with every line he shared, implicitly and in his lyrics, there was a humbling knowledge of mortality: one that grows even more significant on Mr. Cohen’s final studio album, “You Want It Darker,” which was released less than a month ago. In “Who By Fire,” from 1974, one of his many songs that is both a list and an incantation, he itemized causes and sites of death, getting morbid while keeping a hint of puckishness: Mr. Cohen was aware, always, of every option. In his concerts, Mr. Cohen played the venerable sage, dapper in his suits and precisely angled hats. He was also sly and avuncular, making droll, deadpan comments in his sepulchral voice. He had aged to match the perspective he had brought to his lyrics since the late 1960s: a long view that stretched back to biblical and psychological archetypes and envisioned myth and history — and the economy of Zen koans — far more often than the everyday. Perhaps because he was already in his 30s when he set aside novels and poetry for songwriting, he was a from the start. Mr. Cohen was a monumentally painstaking songwriter who described, in interviews, a process of endless writing and rewriting for his lyrics. By his accounts, he tinkered with some of his songs for years on end. That meticulousness was obvious in the songs he did release, which he did in no great hurry: 14 studio albums in 49 years. Bob Dylan’s associations were sometimes a influence, particularly on Mr. Cohen’s albums, but the Cohen trademark was the paradox, the finely balanced lyrics that can be deliberately heard (and read) in contradictory ways: reverence or blasphemy, affection or animosity, reportage or mockery, tragedy or comedy. “Everybody Knows,” a dark masterpiece of bitter cynicism from 1988 that Mr. Cohen wrote with the singer Sharon Robinson, opens with politics that still ring unfortunately true: Then, because political battles are not always physically felt, the song’s catalog of betrayals veers toward the personal: “Everybody knows that you’ve been give or take a night or two. ” As serious as he was, Mr. Cohen was always frisky too. His first albums, especially, are suffused with appreciative eroticism and sensuality: describing a lover with “your hair upon the pillow like a sleepy golden storm” in “Hey, That’s No Way to Say Goodbye,” or recalling, with explicit details, a tryst with Janis Joplin in “Chelsea Hotel #2,” which has her declaring, “We are ugly but we have the music. ” The Cohen song that became an unlikely pop perennial, “Hallelujah,” veers between biblical allusions and ecstatic sex. In its melody and chord progression, “Hallelujah,” which has been subjected to renditions both humble and bombastic, points to something Mr. Cohen’s countless literary admirers don’t mention: He understood tunes, and he knew they were more than just backdrops to his words. It’s one thing — a complicated, prodigious thing — to write such fastidious lyrics, and then to mock that fastidiousness by rhyming “Hallelujah” with “what’s it to ya. ” It’s another to carry them in a melody that, once created, seems to sing itself. “Hallelujah” is a succession of tensions and releases, which stay no less magical despite the way Mr. Cohen analyzes them in the first verse of his lyrics: “the fourth, the fifth, the minor fall, the major lift. ” Mr. Cohen had to cope with the limitations of his vocal cords. That’s why his first exposure, with songs like the conundrums of “Famous Blue Raincoat,” came via the prettier voices of singers like Judy Collins. In Mr. Cohen’s early years he was a low tenor, decent enough technically and smart enough as a melody writer to keep his songs where he could sing them. On his debut album, “Songs of Leonard Cohen,” the producer John Simon gave Mr. Cohen exactly as much counterpoint as he needed, although Mr. Cohen complained, in a 1967 interview with The Village Voice, “They tried to make my songs into music. ” Later, as his voice plummeted down to a bass register, he used the voices of women — as angels, consorts, muses, ghosts — to provide melodies around him. Mr. Cohen was clearly aware of how many of his album titles insisted that his work was music above all: “Songs from a Room,” “Songs of Love and Hate,” “Recent Songs,” “Ten New Songs. ” Sometimes, he tried to be palatable to pop radio. He delved widely across idioms, writing not just folk and pop but tunes that hinted at rock, blues, country, klezmer, Viennese waltzes and Greek rebetika — even disco on the trenchant “I’m Your Man” in 1988. And in one of the most improbable (and mismatched) collaborations in pop history, Mr. Cohen made his 1977 album “Death of a Ladies’ Man” with Phil Spector. Mr. Cohen could frustrate his listeners by treating some albums, like the 2004 record “Dear Heather,” merely as skeletal demos. One of the benefits of his touring was that he rescued some songs from misbegotten studio arrangements. On his final studio albums — in 2012, 2014 and 2016 — he collaborated with an unexpected and adept fan: the producer Patrick Leonard, who wrote and produced “Like a Prayer,” among many other songs, with Madonna. Yet it’s inevitable that Mr. Cohen will be remembered above all for his lyrics. They are terse and acrobatic, scriptural and bawdy, vividly descriptive and enduringly ambiguous, never far from either a riddle or a punch line. “There is a crack in ’s how the light gets in,” he advised in “Anthem. ” His final ruminations on his last album, “You Want It Darker,” were on mortality, love and a divinity that he faced and questioned to the very end. “Steer your way through the pain that is far more real than ’s smashed the cosmic model, that blinded every please don’t make me go there, though there be a God or not,” he intoned in “Steer Your Way. ” In his last songs, as always, he sought stark truth before comfort. | 1 |
A new study by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) reveals savings created by reducing illegal immigration through an effective border wall could save taxpayers $64 billion over the next ten years. [Even a small reduction in the numbers of illegal border crossings could save enough money to pay for the estimated $12 to $15 billion cost of building the wall promised by President Donald Trump during his presidential campaign. The conclusions of the analysis by CIS’ Director of Research Dr. Steven Camarota are based on fiscal estimated developed by the Naional Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NAS). The NAS calculated the fiscal impact of impacts — taxes paid minus costs, Camarota wrote. Camarota offers the following conclusions from his study: The report of fiscal costs of immigrant border crossers is based on “net present value” (NPV). This process has a net effect of reducing the size of the net drain on economic resources based on their education level. “Rhe actual net lifetime fiscal cost of illegal given their education levels, is possibly $140, 000 to $150, 000 each in their lifetimes if the NPV concept is not used,” Camarota stated. A copy of the complete report is attached below. Bob Price serves as associate editor and senior political news contributor for Breitbart Texas. He is a founding member of the Breitbart Texas team. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX. Center for Immigration Studies — Camarota Wall Costs by Bob Price on Scribd, | 1 |
in: General Health What is Vitamin E? Vitamin E is an important fat-soluble antioxidant compound that aids the body in neutralizing the harmful after-effects of oxidation of fats. Current research is even looking into the important role that this vitamin plays in stopping free-radical production, a key method of preventing the development of chronic diseases and aging. It is also a vital element in the overall maintenance of a healthy immune system. Some studies are even looking into its role in preventing degenerative mental imbalances such as dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. And while many of us may do well in taking extra vitamin E supplements, we can use an organic diet to get a large amount of the daily requirements for this powerful antioxidant lipid. In fact, there are many common foods with vitamin E. You probably have a few in your house right now. Foods With Vitamin E Here are fifteen foods with vitamin E that you should strongly consider adding to your diet. 1. Almonds Almonds are one the best vitamin E foods. Just an ounce of almonds offers a whopping 7.4 milligrams of vitamin E. You can also get your vitamin E needs in the form of almond milk and almond oils. We would recommend eating raw almonds, if possible. 2. Raw Seeds Select raw seeds , such as sunflower, pumpkin and sesame, are another common food with vitamin E. In fact, eating just ¼ of a cup of sunflower seeds gives you 90.5% of your recommended daily value, making them one of the best vitamin E foods you can eat daily. 3. Swiss Chard Swiss chard is easily one of the healthiest vegetables you can eat on a daily basis. Commonly known to be high in vitamin K, vitamin A and vitamin C, Swiss chard is another food high in vitamin E. Just one cup of boiled swiss chard greens will provide you with almost 17% of your daily recommended values. 4. Mustard Greens Similar to swiss chard, mustard greens are very nutrient dense and will provide a variety of health benefits. Not only are they one of the best vitamin E foods, but mustard greens are also high in vitamin K, vitamin A, folate , and vitamin c. Eating just one cup of boiled mustard greens contains about 14% of your daily dietary requirements. We would recommend eating organic mustard greens, if possible. 5. Spinach Spinach may not be your favorite veggie, but it is one of the best leafy greens you can add to your diet. Not only is it one of the best calcium foods and naturally high in folate, it’s also one of the best vitamin E foods as well. Just one cup of boiled spinach will provide you with approximately 20% of your daily needs. Try adding fresh spinach to your sandwiches to make them extra healthy. 6. Turnip Greens While turnip greens may have a slightly bitter taste, they are very high in many essential nutrients. Like the rest of the leafy greens on this list, just one cup will provide you with plenty of vitamin K, vitamin A, vitamin C and folate. Not to mention approximately 12% of your daily requirements of vitamin E. 7. Kale Kale is another great cruciferous vegetable you should eat as often as possible. Kale is very high in many nutrients, in fact, just one cup of boiled kale can give you almost 6% of your daily vitamin E requirements. We would recommend eating organic kale, if possible. 8. Plant oils Most plant seed oils are very good sources for Vitamin E as well. The best oil with vitamin E is Wheat germ oil. In fact, one tablespoon of this oil holds 100% of your daily Vitamin E requirements. Sunflower oil is another excellent option, as it provides over 5 mg of the vitamin, and can easily be be used for cooking. Other great Vitamin-E-rich oils include hempseed oil, coconut oil, cottonseed oil (with almost 5 mg of vitamin E), olive oil and safflower oil. We would recommend only buying oils that are cold pressed unrefined and organic. 9. Hazelnuts A perfect snack during a long workday, eating just one ounce of hazelnuts can provide you with approximately 20% of our daily requirements of vitamin E. For an alternative to eating nuts, try drinking hazelnut milk in your morning coffee instead of milk or flavored creamer. 10. Pine Nuts Add an ounce of these nuts to anything you please! One serving contains 2.6 mg of vitamin E. You can also use pine nut oil for added health benefits. 11. Avocado Perhaps one of the tastiest foods with Vitamin E, avocados represent natures creamiest, oil-rich food. Just half of an avocado holds more than 2 mg of vitamin E. Avocados are very easy to incorporate into your diet. We would recommend adding sliced avocados to your salad, a sandwich, or mashed up as guacamole! 12. Broccoli For generations now, broccoli has been considered one of the best detox foods , but it’s also one of the healthiest foods high in Vitamin E. Just one cup of steamed broccoli will provide you with 4% of your daily requirements. Broccoli may not be as nutrient dense as other Vitamin E foods on this list, but it is definitely one of the healthiest foods you can eat daily. 13. Parsley An excellent spice, parsley is another great Vitamin E food. Try adding fresh parsley to salads and dishes for an extra Vitamin-E kick. Dried parsley will also provide you with this important vitamin, but the fresher the better. 14. Papaya This popular fruit is most commonly known as one of the best vitamin C foods , but it’s also high in Vitamin E. Just one papaya will give you approximately 17% of your daily needs. Try adding fresh or frozen papaya to fruit smoothies, along with other fruity vitamin E foods on this list for an extra healthy snack! 15. Olives From the oil to the fruit, eating olives is an excellent way of getting your daily needs for vitamin E. Just one cup of olives can give you approximately 20% of your daily recommended amount. These are just a few examples of foods with vitamin E. There are plenty more that aren’t listed here. Which vitamin E food is your favorite? Let’s hear your thoughts below. Submit your review | 0 |
Charles Robinson Master Bug Finder Extraordinaire
Brad was brought in as a new hire to work on improvements for a big-name ERP system. His supposed role would be that of the "input guy" for a new I/O module where engineers would enter some numbers, they would be crunched, and it would output a wireframe design of what they needed to build. While he got started, the development manager Cindy assured him they'd have an "output guy" soon enough.
A month passed while Brad was making good progress. One Monday, Cindy walked up to his desk with a tall, dark-haired gentleman in tow. "Brad, this is Dmitry, your 'output guy'."
"Hello Bard. I am Dmitry. Please to see you," he introduced himself with a firm handshake and large grin.
After Dmitry got settled in, Cindy came back to Brad and told him in a hushed tone, "He just got here from Russia. He might be a little hard to understand, but boy can he code! You might need to give him a little guidance since your part of the application comes first, but I'm sure it will work out great!"
So began several arduous weeks of Brad working on his input interface about 15 minutes a day, while assisting Dmitry the rest of the time. They got far enough to prepare an end-to-end demo for Cindy. When she arrived, Brad put in the specifications for some plumbing parts he found online. They were passed to Dmitry's code and out came what looked like a reject from Rorschach's inkblot test.
"Oh no!" Dmitry cried. "I think I forget to check in part of code. Need a little more time," he requested with a grin and a nod.
"Brad!" Cindy shouted, crossing her arms. "You obviously aren't getting through to Dmitry. Before the next end-to-end test, I want you to test your own components first, then cross-test each other's. I expect better results next time!"
Brad ran through his own code exhaustively while Dmitry supposedly did the same. "Dmitry, I'm ready to exchange code when you are. Everything seems ok on my end."
"Oh yes! My code is good, yes. Add a few more DLL, more logging. Great now," Dmitry assured him.
Brad attempted to test Dmitry's code but couldn't even get it to run. He found several initial run blocks, proving Dmitry never even once ran his code because surely he would have noticed the myriad uninitialized collections and NullReferenceExceptions.
Brad explained the situation and offered assistance but Dmitry assured him "No, no. You sit, I code and fix it up." An hour passed before Brad got an email from Dmitry with a .zip attachment that said "Deploy new DLL. Code working." Brad did just that only to find the code NOT working.
With day turning to night on the Thursday before their Friday demo, Brad decided it would be more efficient to dig in and fix Dmitry's code himself. "Dmitry, just head home. I have some troubleshooting to do on my code," he lied. "I'll get it fixed up before the demo."
"Maybe you need the coding practice!" Dmitry grinned while putting on his jacket. "Goodest luck, tomorrow bring great success."
Brad committed the changes to Dmitry's code around midnight in what amounted to a complete re-write. Weary, he went home relieved that Cindy would be off his back for a while after the demo. That would give him time to figure out what to do about Dmitry.
The following afternoon, the demo to Cindy went off without a hitch now that it had been purged of most of Dmitry's code. Cindy was pleased with the results, "great job gentlemen! How about we go out to the pub to celebrate! I'm buying the first round."
Brad would have preferred to go home to collapse, but he couldn't pass up a free drink. The three of them engaged in awkward small talk over a round of beers. Dmitry offered to buy the next round when he switched to vodka. Cindy left after Round 2, leaving Brad and Dmitry who both seemed to have an unquenchable thirst.
Brad was growing to like Dmitry when he ordered yet another round, putting them on the verge of not being able to stand. Dmitry leaned over to him, bleary eyed and said, "let me tell you a little secret." In perfectly clear English but still with a heavy Russian accent, he shared, "I apologize. I do the broken English thing so people don't expect a lot out of me. It's really the whole logic part of the job that I struggle with. I have a hard time understanding computers. Sorry you had to spend so much time fixing my code."
The stunning revelation caused Brad to temporarily snap out of his stupor. When Dmitry went to the bathroom, he pulled out his phone to text Cindy, "We need to talk about Dmitry on Monday. Don't call me tomorrow, the phone ringing will hurt my head." [Advertisement] Incrementally adopt DevOps best practices with BuildMaster , ProGet and Otter , creating a robust, secure, scalable, and reliable DevOps toolchain. | 0 |
By Nili Nathan
Posted Friday, October 28, 2016 at 07:48am EDT
Keywords: autism and vaccines , robert de niro and vaxxed , robert de niro on autism and vaccines , un-vaxxed , vaxxed
The answer is evident to film festival attendees who were shocked when Robert De Niro, under enormous pressure, pulled the film “VAXXED” from the Tribeca Film Festival. For all others, you may not need to see VAXXED first before you see Un-VAXXED.
A new film by award-winning author and filmmaker, Dr. Leonard G. Horowitz, contributes more than the “discussion” actor Robert De Niro sought to prompt by screening the controversial film VAXXED at the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival in New York. De Niro, whose son, like millions of other children who became vaccine-injured, came under fire from both sides of the vaccination safety debate after “pulling” VAXXED from the event. Agents pressured the Hollywood celebrity to censor that film by producer Del Bigtree and director Andy Wakefield. De Niro later pledged to investigate who caused the censorship, and why.
“Un-Vaxxed: A Docu-Commentary for Robert DeNiro” was the Overall Grand Jury Winner of Cinema Los Angeles, a Film Festival which takes place annually in central Los Angeles from November 1-2 nd .
I saw the trailer and the filmmakers, Dr. Leonard Horowitz and Sherri Kane promise to continue the dialogue and contribute to the questions actor Robert De Niro asked while being interviewed on TODAY (April 2016). He wanted answers and an investigation to the autism controversy around vaccines.
You can see “Un-Vaxxed: A Docu-Commentary for Robert DeNiro” at the World International Film Festival (WIFF) on November 1, 2016 playing at the Crest Theatre, 1262 Westwood Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90024. For tickets visit the venue’s website at:
http://www.crestwestwood.com/events/2016/11/1/cinema-los-angeles-un-vaxxed-a-docu-commentary-for-robert-de-niro
Bio on Dr. Leonard G. Horowitz taken from his website: Dr. Leonard G. Horowitz is the world’s most prolific, best credential, and most controversial drug industry whistleblower. This award-winning author, film-maker, pharmaceutical industry critic, and intelligence industry analyst has published seventeen books and dozens of peer reviewed scientific articles. Dr. Horowitz’s first of three American bestsellers, Emerging Viruses: AIDS & Ebola–Nature, Accident or Intentional?, is largely credited for prompting the global vaccination risk awareness movement. The book caused several governments to reconsider their “immunization” policies, and became the center of political debate in 2008 when Barack Obama’s minister, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, credited Horowitz and this book for evidencing HIV/AIDS as a genocidal weapon of mass depopulation targeting Africans and African Americans courtesy of covert U.S. military contractors named in the publication. Dr. Horowitz’s second bestseller, Healing Codes for the Biological Apocalypse, prompted a revolution in the music and natural healing industries. The retired dentist and naturopathic physician’s consumer health guidebook, Healing Celebrations: Miraculous Recoveries Through Ancient Scripture, Natural Medicine and Modern Science, pioneered the protocol adopted by thousands of natural healers and doctors worldwide. | 0 |
In a panel discussing the follies of government at CPAC, Charlie Kirk advocated ousting Senators Lisa Murkowski ( ) and Susan Collins ( ) for voting against Betsy DeVos’ nomination. [Charlie Kirk moderated the panel that featured Tim Carney of the Washington Examiner, Rep. Barry Loudermilk ( ) Jonathan Riches of the Goldwater Institute, and Jonathan Small of the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs. Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, said, “Look at these problems with education, it’s a tragedy that these two senators, Murkowski and Collins voted no on Betsy DeVos, forcing Vice President Mike Pence to break the first tie ever for a cabinet secretary nomination in the Senate. They have to go. ” The panel discussed many problems of government but quickly centered on the issues surrounding public education. Jonathan Riches started the discussion addressing the failures of public education. He said, “Chicago is a great example of government failure. We have rubber rooms for teachers with disciplinary problems that just cannot be fired. They receive full pay and full pensions. ” Riches outlined reforms for education. He explained, “Do you think that your parents or the government officials have your children’s best interests at heart? We have a chance to enact real educational opportunities. Educational savings accounts and school vouchers offer parents to have a real choice regarding their kids’ education. ” Jonathan Small of the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs said that the real reason Democrats oppose Betsy DeVos’ nomination is that Devos, as education secretary, could rid the Democrats of their chance to indoctrinate America’s youth. He said, “They oppose Betsy DeVos because they are frightened about kids getting out of the indoctrinating children in the school room. Once they lose the ability to control kid’s thoughts, they lose the ability control culture. ” Congressman Loudermilk said that removing regulations in any industry is “all about draining the swamp. ” He continued, “This is the most incredible opportunity for every American to benefit from lower taxes, and for Americans to benefit from an improved school system. ” Charlie Kirk concluded the panel saying, “Now that we control the House and the Senate, we have to hold both Republicans and Democrats accountable. ” | 1 |
A previously deported illegal immigrant, who is also a convicted sex offender, was arrested in New Jersey by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents. [Illegal immigrant Javier 37, of Mexico, was arrested after leaving his residence, just weeks after being placed on ICE’s ‘Most Wanted Fugitives’ list, according to an ICE news release. “Protecting national security, public safety and our borders by identifying and removing dangerous criminal fugitives from our communities is the top priority of our fugitive operations teams,” Field Office Director for the Newark Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) John Tsoukaris said in a statement. “A convicted felon and one of our most wanted fugitives,” Tsoukaris continued. “Mr. is a threat no more and is in custody awaiting removal from the United States. I commend the hard work and dedication of our officers. ” was convicted of multiple felonies, including sexually assaulting a minor, selling narcotics and failing to appear in a U. S. court. After being convicted in 2004, was ordered to be deported by an immigration and swiftly removed from the country and placed back in Mexico days later. ICE officials say sometime after 2004, the U. S. John Binder is a contributor for Breitbart Texas. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder. | 1 |
On Friday’s “Hugh Hewitt Show,” CBS’s “Face the Nation” moderator John Dickerson stated that the public doesn’t believe the media anymore “and it’s not because of anything obviously Donald Trump did. The press did all that good work ruining its reputation on its own, and we can have a long conversation about what created that. Part of it, though, is … a lot of hysterical coverage about every little last thing that doesn’t warrant it. ” After Hewitt said that the “media handwringing” has gotten to be too much, Dickerson said, “I agree with you, to a point. You’re absolutely right. Focus on the big things. ” He added, “I think that the problem is, the Flynn matter, and, you know, when you have a press conference like yesterday, you would have liked to have heard somebody and somewhere in the Flynn saga say, you know, he had to resign because we don’t lie to the American people, and just make it — and that’s never been said. It’s never been said in this whole thing about, you know, this is about giving misinformation to the American people about a not unimportant thing. And the culture of truth telling that should be a part of a White House is not — you don’t get that. You know, the President was loose about the Electoral College thing. He said that for months. Nobody stepped in to say, Mr. President, that’s not right. Or they did, and it’s just no big deal. So that’s — and why does that matter? You know why it matters, because little shadings end up to be a big shading at the end. ” Dickerson further stated, “My point is, if you’re going to make a case on honesty grounds and truthfulness grounds, if that’s the turf on which you’re going to hold your press conference and open your press conference, so we’re talking about veracity here, and the importance and necessity of that, then when it comes to veracity in your own backyard, to elide it completely, seems inconsistent with the argument that you’re making in the 77 minute press conference. ” Hewitt then stated that people don’t believe the media anymore, to which Dickerson responded, “Well, yes. I mean, yes, it’s true, and it’s not because of anything obviously Donald Trump did. The press did all that good work ruining its reputation on its own, and we can have a long conversation about what created that. Part of it, though, is what you mentioned about the local weather report, which is to say a lot of hysterical coverage about every little last thing that doesn’t warrant it. Having said that, it doesn’t mean, and in fact, it most explicitly does not mean, that the press just throws out the standards. And one of the roles of the press is to make sure that the President, in the voice of the people, is telling the truth. ” ( Mediaite) Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett | 1 |
DISASTER: Hillary Herself Helped Raise Money Donated to Wife of FBI Dep. Dir.
FBI Director James Comey attributed the decision to the release of new emails that “appear to be pertinent to the investigation” into Clinton’s private server.
While Comey explained in a letter to House and Senate leaders on Friday that the FBI would be further investigating the situation, he did not yet know if the newly discovered material would actually be “significant.”
Nevertheless, Trump and his supporters were ecstatic at one more chance for Clinton to be held accountable for her misconduct, particularly after she managed to escape liability when the FBI initially closed the investigation in July. Advertisement - story continues below
“Hillary Clinton’s corruption is on a scale that we have never seen before,” Trump said. “We must not let her take her criminal scheme into the Oval Office. I have great respect for the fact that the FBI and the Department of Justice are now willing to have the courage to right the horrible mistake that they made.”
Trump called the FBI’s first investigation a “grave miscarriage of justice,” but he was optimistic that the mistake was about to be corrected.
Watch Trump respond to the FBI’s announcement here:
Hopefully we will know something more solid about the investigation before the rapidly approaching Nov. 8 election. Advertisement - story continues below | 0 |
Thursday, 27 October 2016 The main campus building
For all the children inspired by the tales of Harry Potter, it will come as a pleasant surprise to learn that Americans themselves have been training in magic for some time.
One of the most illustrious schools is the Dark Cypress School of Magic in Louisiana. The school is located on an isolated, abandoned sugar plantation along the Bayou Teche.
Originally founded by a band of escaped French Louisiana slaves in the 1700's, the early school prospered with support from free blacks and creoles of New Orleans. The group used magic to live hidden in the area's swampy wilderness, but were willing to share their secrets with select outsiders. Their core magic teachings centered on Voodoo.
One of the school's great patrons throughout the 1800's was Marie Laveau, Voodoo Queen of New Orleans. She continued teaching at the school after death.
In the mid 1800's, macabre writer Edgar Alan Poe visited the group from the East Coast. Poe felt mysteriously called to visit a childhood friend who bought Bayside Plantation in the area. While staying with his friend Poe was secretly contacted and brought to see the school and learn. His spirit has been a regular visitor since his premature and mysterious death in 1849.
The early school joined forces with some of the planter society as a result of the Last Island Hurricane of 1856. The hurricane demolished a Louisiana barrier island that was a favorite vacation spot for the local rich. About 200 lives were lost on the island in the storm (half of those present) and another 133 lost at sea.
Many of the spirits of those lost in the hurricane joined the school. A mother and 2 children associated with the Shadows-on-the-Teche Plantation of New Iberia became part of the school's leadership. Frances Weeks and her daughters Mary Ida and Augustine brought knowledge of European-based witchcraft into the curriculum.
The school acquired 2 ghost ships as a result of this hurricane: the steamers Nautilus and Manilla.
The campus moved to its present location during the chaos of the civil war. The main school building, a stately Greek Revival style manor house, features a front facade of 2-story, white columns. The grounds boast lovely grand oaks dripping with Spanish moss. The estate is surrounded by swampland, guarded by alligators and spells.
No roads to the school exist. Any roads that once led to the plantation have long been overgrown and lost. Students reach the school by catching a ghost steamer in New Orleans. The boat travels up a branch of the bayou not shown on any maps.
Students are notified of their admission to the school each year by receiving a talisman. It appears one morning mysteriously under their pillow. Prospective students should watch for it in mid-March. Make pinkwalrus's | 0 |
Rock singer Chris Cornell, actor Jack Black and the Los Angeles Freedom Choir have been added to the lineup for the Los Angeles “ Ball” this week, which will be hosted by supergroup Prophets of Rage. [The concert, which will be held Friday at the Teragram Ballroom, is the latest in a string of events to be held in protest of Donald Trump’s inauguration on Friday. According to Billboard, Cornell will perform with his former Audioslave bandmates Tom Morello, Tim Commerford and Brad Wilk at the event, marking the band’s first appearance together in 11 years. Prophets of Rage — the group that “disrupted” the Republican National Convention in July and afterward launched a nationwide “Make America Rage Again” tour — consists of former Rage Against the Machine bandmates Morello, Commerford and Wilk, plus DJ Lord and of the rap group Cypress Hill and Public Enemy’s Chuck D. Other artists expected to participate in the event include rapper Vic Mensa and Jackson Browne. In a statement, Morello promised the Ball would be a “celebration of resistance,” including resistance to racism, sexism, homophobia, bullying and Donald Trump. “We are staring down the barrel of a dystopian nightmare unless we act now, unless we fight back now,” Morello said. “We intend to create ‘No Trump Zones’ across the country in our homes, our schools, our places of work, and our concert stages. Bad Presidents make for great music. Join us as we get loud and stand together to defend our rights, our country, and our planet. ” Tickets for the event are reportedly already sold out, though the full concert can be on the Prophets of Rage Facebook page. The concert is just the latest protest event timed to coincide with Trump’s inauguration. On Saturday, tens of thousands of demonstrators — including celebrities like Katy Perry and America Ferrera — are expected to join the Women’s March on Washington in a massive display of dissent against Trump’s presidency. Talk show host Chelsea Handler will lead a sister march, the Women’s March on Main, the same day at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. Follow Daniel Nussbaum on Twitter: @dznussbaum | 1 |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.