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As chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, Cummings led multiple investigations into Donald Trump.
Maryland Democratic Representative Elijah Cummings died on Thursday at Johns Hopkins Hospital after complications from longstanding health challenges, his congressional office said.
Cummings, who was 68, became the powerful chairman of a US House committee that investigated President Donald Trump, and was a formidable orator who passionately advocated for the poor in his district that encompassed a large portion of Baltimore.
As chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, Cummings led multiple investigations into Trump’s governmental dealings.
The investigations angered the president, who criticised the congressman’s district in 2019 as a “rodent-infested mess” where “no human being would want to live”.
Cummings responded that government officials must stop making “hateful, incendiary comments” that only serve to divide and distract the nation from its real problems. | {
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With the Marlins vying with the Cardinals and Mets for the second wild-card spot in the National League and inching closer to the first-place Nationals in the East since the All-Star break, viewership surged 17 percent during July. From June to July, average household ratings increased 24 percent, Nielsen sampling showed. | {
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I'm going to try to keep this clean, but the recent California Supreme Court ruling that a woman who changes her mind during sexual intercourse qualifies as a rape victim tests one's commitment to decorum.
Yes, you read it right. The 6-1 ruling changes the definition of rape so significantly that a man who doesn't withdraw immediately upon his partner's shift in attitude can go to prison. One young man already has.
A 17-year-old --John Z.--served six months in a juvenile detention facility on a rape conviction following just such an encounter. He and Laura T. were having consensual sex when Laura decided she needed to get home. She didn't say, "Stop." She didn't cry out or struggle. She merely said, "I should be going now" and "I need to go home," according to her testimony.
Because it reportedly took John Z. a full minute and a half to cease and desist--an act of rare self-control among the primate known as a 17-year-old male--he was convicted of rape.
I don't know who was holding the timer during this intimate act. Was the rape victim monitoring her watch's second hand?
With its ruling last week, the California Supreme Court affirmed John Z.'s conviction.
Although Justice Janice Rogers Brown agreed with the rape definition, she dissented on whether the boy had been guilty of rape. She noted that he might have had an "honest and reasonable belief" that the girl didn't waive consent, a defense recognized by California courts.
Honest and reasonable? That sounds right. Given that the girl wanted to have sex, or at least said she did, then proceeded to have sex, and only then said she needed to go home, one could leap to the wild conclusion that the young man may not have divined her intent that he retreat.
I'm sorry, but when did girls get so stupid? In the old days--when girls were apparently both smarter and tougher--a girl who didn't want to have sex didn't have sex. She said no thanks, grabbed her purse and walked out the door. The boy may have been disappointed and frustrated, but he wasn't confused. "No" meant "no."
And "yes" meant yes to the finish line. If you want a guy to stop midway through the first act, pick an older boyfriend. Say fiftyish.
Once upon a time, fathers taught their daughters better. You don't take a boy to bed and then say "no." In a similar vein, as my father taught me, you don't pull a gun on someone unless you intend to kill him. There are certain things you don't kid around with, and hormonally charged teenage boys and loaded guns are among the top two.
I'm not suggesting that girls get what they deserve. So stifle the swoon, sisters. Nor am I suggesting that there aren't times when boys and men fail to listen carefully when girls and women speak. In my vast experience, they mostly pay close attention when food is involved.
But I am prepared to defend males against the sort of insanity that makes them criminals for not being able to read a girl's mind. Who exactly will bear witness to these "he said-she said" debacles? What words will suffice to mean "Stop," if "I need to get home" is enough to convict a boy of rape?
What if she'd said, "Oh, gosh, I've got to buy cat food." Would that do? "Clearly my heart wasn't in it, Your Honor. He should have known I meant stop!"
And how quick is quick enough for the man to cease his foul play? A minute? Thirty seconds? The court didn't say.
I hate to be the one to break it to you, fellas, but the gelding of the American male is nearly complete and the message clear: You can do nothing right. As a friend's world-weary 15-year-old son correctly summarized the zeitgeist: "Women good, men bad."
John Z. wasn't guilty of rape; he was guilty of being male. If I were a guy, I'd find another country.
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E-mail: [email protected] | {
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“Where do you get your protein?” It’s one of the most common questions for vegans and probably one of the easiest to answer. Protein, like carbohydrates and fat, is a macronutrient that we need to survive. While the question of protein is important, there are several other micronutrients vegans need to include in their diet to ensure optimal health for an active lifestyle. Here are the essential nutrients for vegans and exactly how to eat them for most benefits.
1. Iron The primary source of iron in the Standard American Diet is meat, but there are plenty of plant sources for this important nutrient. Iron is is a part of hemoglobin, which is the binder for oxygen in red blood cells. If we fall short of our daily supply of iron, we can become anemic and suffer symptoms like fatigue, lethargy, and dizziness. Because plant-based iron is harder to absorb, it should be consumed with a source of vitamin C which aids in the metabolic process. Great sources of iron rich foods are: Dark leafy greens, legumes, tofu, and dried fruits such as apricots, prunes and dates. Try throwing some lemon juice on your next leafy green salad to get the maximum absorption of this vital nutrient.
2. Zinc Zinc is important in over 100 different cell functions in the body, including but not limited to: growth, hormone functions, immunity, fertility, and skin health. Zinc is best found in beans, nuts, peanut butter, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, bran flakes, wheat germ and tempeh. as with iron, zinc is not easily metabolized by the body. To maximize absorption from these sources, try sprouting nuts and grains.
3. Iodine is important for thyroid function, which produces hormones and helps control metabolism. A diet that is too low in iodine can cause hypothyroidism, which can slow metabolism, elevate cholesterol, and cause weight gain. People usually get iodine by eating fish or consuming dairy products. For vegans, iodine can be found in small quantities in sea vegetables such as seaweed or kelp. Iodized salt is also another way to get your daily recommended dose. These sources have varying amounts of iodine, so taking a daily vegan multi-vitamin that contains iodine should cover your needs.
4. Calcium is important in bone health, blood clotting, transmission of nerve impulses, and heart rhythm. Since the body sheds calcium every day, it needs to be constantly replenished. Calcium is found in leafy greens and is most easily absorbed from kale, collards, and mustard and turnip greens. Other great sources for this essential mineral are fortified tofu, juices and plant milks. Again, leafy green sources need to be combined with vitamin C in order to get the greatest benefit. But here’s the catch: studies have shown that calcium inhibits iron absorption when ingested together. This means individuals with high iron needs—such as adolescents and pregnant women—should limit calcium-rich foods during main meals and may need to get their calcium from supplements, preferably taken before bed.
5. B12 is needed for energy, nervous system production, cell division, and formation of healthy blood cells. B12, also known as cobalamin, is made by a bacterium that is found in the intestines of animals which makes this one of the few nutrients that is solely found in animal products. It can be found in fortified foods, but the best and most reliable way to ensure daily requirements are met is by taking a sublingual or chewable supplement. You can also try adding fortified nutritional yeast into your diet; some recommended brands are Red Star and Bragg’s.
Try these nutritious recipes: Earth and Sea Buddha Bowl with Sweet Ginger Dressing (Iron, iodine, calcium, B12)
Cumin Dijon Dressing (B12, Zinc)
Related: 5 Best Hormone Balancing Foods for Women
For further reading, try: Vegan for Life – Virginia Messina, MPH, RD
Photo: 123rf | {
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Freelancing for bitcoin like never before.
Features
Multisig escrows keep funds safe for mediators, clients, and freelancers.
Master-delegate ECDSA scheme provides security and convenience.
A decentralized microhosting network connects freelancers with clients.
Design Principles
Trustless Trade - Payments are stored in 2-of-3 and mandatory multisig addresses. Signatures provide accountability and a foundation for ratings and reputation.
Psuedonymity - Rein does not require proof of identity outside the crypto. You can create one or as many identities as you'd like, however, tools will inevitably be built around reputation common sense states that those with established, positive track records will enjoy the most favorable work and output.
Innovation @ the edges - Rather than spawn a new p2p network, Rein is modeled after the internet. Microhosting servers operate out of self-interest while competing on price and quality. Server logic is minimized, leaving most of it in the client. This principle will enable Rein to support many different order flows, transaction types, and services.
For developers - Decentralization. ECDSA auth. Microhosting. Multisig escrow. How can you NOT work on this? Check out the code. | {
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We have had it on the cards to interview Brad Pitt, the man behind backpack.tf, for some time. As the year turned we posted a request for you to submit questions. Some time later we’d sorted through the 6000+ entries and selected some good ones. I asked HelenAngel from SteamRep, Helene our head admin for the KK|GU servers, as well as Brad Pitt himself to pick out a couple of their favourite questions from the 240 short-list.
What follows is the interview we recorded Feb 14th 2013. Those lucky few who’s questions were asked and answered here you each receive a Vintage Lo-Fi Longwave and a badge on your bp profile.
Congratulations go to:
Lemons from Dublin, Ireland
That One Guy from London, England
Bracey from St Neots, England
Turtle from Brisbane, Australia
Jevgein from Hamburg, Germany
Crit from USA
Stex from Pennsylvania, USA
Fusilli Zaitsev from NJ, USA
alberto balsalm from (the great unknown)
Rickybobby from Virginia Beach, Virginia
Ryo from (the great unknown)
Haydn from Leeds, England
Feuer from Hungary
Brian from United States
SlowJoe from Würzburg, Germany
Cedar from Ontario, Canada
Ryan Dang from United States
Metaphor from Singapore
Crosshack from Australia
snesk from Sweden
Long218 from Orlando, Florida
Mattie from United States
RedXM from Massachusetts, USA
Our thanks go to everyone who submitted questions, Brad Pitt for being so good as to answer them and to Voltey for his SFM artwork. So long as there’s Team Fortress 2 there will be KritzKast. | {
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In the early decades of television, some of the considerable snobbery that the medium suffered came from lovers of novels: teachers and parents would exhort regular viewers to lower their eyes to a good book rather than level them at the screen. The later coinage by writers for the box in the corner such as Dennis Potter and Steve Bochco of the term “novel for TV” – to describe the multi-strand multi-episode series – was sniffed at by some practitioners of printed fiction.
These days, though, celebrated novelists seem to be competing as cheerleaders for reading’s once-disreputable rival. Endorsing the BBC’s planned adaptation of the His Dark Materials books this week, Philip Pullman – whose work has previously been adapted for cinema, theatre and radio – suggested that TV is especially suited to the dramatisation of long and complex fiction.
Pullman’s tribute echoes a recent comment by Sir Salman Rushdie at the Cheltenham literary festival that TV box sets are now increasingly competing with novels as an immersive fictional experience. The Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk also expressed concern, during a recent Guardian Live event, at the number of people who now tell him they prefer to get their stories from the screen rather than the page.
Pullman says that series such as Game of Thrones and The Wire have shown him that TV is able to achieve “depths of characterisation and heights of suspense by taking the time for events to make their proper impact and for consequences to unravel”.
Kit Harington as Jon Snow in Game of Thrones. Photograph: HBO
As a committed Dickensian, the writer of His Dark Materials will be well aware of the often-remarked structural connection between the 19th-century novel and the long-form TV drama: both were written in the form of periodic serials, with plots and longevity to some extent affected by public response.
The greater overlap, though, is less in the division of the material than, as Pullman acknowledged, in the length and depth. The longest movies – even in the days when intermissions expanded the possible span – cannot spend the tens of hours with a character or narrative that are allowed to writers and actors in The Wire, The Sopranos or Transparent.
This love-in between novelists and television, however, raises a couple of worries. When Potter and Bochco spoke of the “novel for TV”, they meant scripts written originally for television but which aspired to the density of novels. The compliment from Rushdie, who recently wrote the pilot for a TV series that did not proceed to production, also referred to such projects, of which a recent example in British TV would be Sally Wainwright’s Happy Valley.
A recent example of a ‘novel for TV’ – the BBC series Happy Valley. Photograph: BBC
What Pullman seems to be suggesting is that the shaping and pacing of a TV serial are better suited than a movie to the adaptation of novels, which is less of a revelation: the books of John le Carré have been generally better served on the smaller screen and it seems unlikely that Hilary Mantel had to agonise much before granting the rights in the first two parts of the Wolf Hall sequence to the BBC rather than to Hollywood. The default decision of a TV drama department with a slot to fill is already to option a novel, and it would be a pity if the flattery of the medium from Pullman leads to producers being even more nervous of completely new work.
I am also slightly worried by the promise from the producers of the TV version of His Dark Materials to “sound every note” in the books, with the implication that the BBC series will be more “faithful” to the source stories than the 2007 film The Golden Compass was.
Adaptation of a literary work to another medium, though, is a rare area of life in which absolute fidelity is a grievous sin. The story of Sir Alec Guinness crossing out speeches or even pages in the scripts for his performance as George Smiley in the BBC’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, arguing that he could convey the same information with a look or silence, showed an understanding that a screen version needs to do very different things to achieve the same effects as a book. The way in which social media have offered book-lovers a chance to monitor changes or omissions in the televised text risks TV adaptations that are true to the original but so inclusive of it that they become gluey viewing.
Whether written from scratch or from a bestseller, television drama should aim to be a challenger and competitor to the published novel rather than a subservient disciple. | {
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my boss has been up my ass all day
378 shares | {
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From April 2020, HMRC will have greater priority to recover taxes paid by employees and customers in the event of an insolvency, a move aimed at ensuring ‘that an extra £185m in taxes already paid each year reaches the government’
The Budget has seen the return of HMRC as a preferred creditor in insolvency cases, a state of affairs which was last seen in 2002, when under the Enterprise Act, HMRC removed its right as a preferential creditor in the pecking order and ranked alongside unsecured creditors.
Under the current rules, taxes paid by employees and customers are not always provided to HMRC in circumstances when the business temporarily holding them goes into insolvency before passing them on to the government. Instead, they often go towards paying off the company’s debts to other creditors.
According to the Budget Red Book, ‘from 6 April 2020, when a business enters insolvency, more of the taxes paid in good faith by its employees and customers, and temporarily held in trust by the business, will go to fund public services rather than being distributed to other creditors. This reform will only apply to taxes collected and held by businesses on behalf of other taxpayers (VAT, PAYE Income Tax, employee national insurance contributions (NICs), and construction industry scheme deductions). The rules will remain unchanged for taxes owed by businesses themselves, such as corporation tax and employer NICs’.
According to Chancellor Philip Hammond, speaking in the House of Commons, ‘We will make HMRC a preferred creditor in business insolvencies…to ensure that tax which has been collected on behalf of HMRC, is actually paid to HMRC’.
However, HMRC will remain below other preferential credits, such as the Redundancy Payment Service. This is so that the change has no material impact on lending, as financial institutions will have precedence over HMRC in recovering assets. Taxes owed by businesses will remain unaffected.
Both the Office of Budget Responsibility and the government predict that this, combined with the fact that the debts that financial institutions will no longer collect will remain a fraction of the whole, will have no effect on the UK lending market, which in the 12 months to July 2018 measured at £57bn lent to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
HMRC is also to continue to offer time to pay (TTP) arrangements where appropriate, in order to ‘help viable businesses with tax debt avoid insolvency’.
Peter Kubik, partner at UHY Hacker Young, said: 'HMRC getting preferred creditor status in insolvencies is going to push ordinary trade creditors much further down the pecking order.'
'The Chancellor has suggested that this is a measure to combat tax avoidance, but there is a risk that this will simply transfer losses from the Treasury to the private sector.'
'It is going to be the ordinary suppliers left out of pocket in a lot of cases, such as the raft of big CVAs we have seen in recent times.'
'In some cases, employees are also going to see significantly smaller pots when their businesses go bust as more money goes to HMRC.'
'There may well also be knock-on effects on the cost of borrowing – banks will want to see the additional risk they are now taking reflected in the rates they charge.'
Report by James Bunney | {
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The case involving former FBI official Andrew McCabe seems to have descended into a series of threats and rumors as reports continue to emerge amid the Justice Department’s denial of his appeal.
With the former FBI deputy director facing potential criminal charges for lying to investigators about leaks to the media, his lawyer has reportedly made another attempt to get the case dropped due to “rumors” of a grand jury decision.
The attorney questioned whether a grand jury that convened on Thursday left without filing an indictment against McCabe, according to Fox News.
McCabe’s legal team, in an email sent late Thursday and obtained by the news outlet, cited “rumors from reporters starting this morning that the grand jury considering charges against Mr. McCabe had declined to vote an indictment.”
“The only fair and just result is for you to accept the grand jury’s decision and end these proceedings,” McCabe’s attorney Michael Bromwich wrote. The DOJ was exhorted by the attorney to not “resubmit” the McCabe’s case if “the evidence presented by your office was insufficient to convince 12 members of the grand jury to find probable cause to believe that Mr. McCabe had committed any crimes.”
“Please confirm that if this in fact occurred, you would advise us promptly,” Bromwich requested in another email.
The former deputy and acting director of the FBI was informed Thursday via email from Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen that his appeal to drop the charges recommended by Jessie Liu, the U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C. was denied.
Rejected — disgraced Andrew McCabe must face charges, says DOJ https://t.co/tAbQlVyJND — Conservative News (@BIZPACReview) September 12, 2019
While McCabe has alleged in a lawsuit against the FBI and DOJ that his firing in March by then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions was politically motivated, Liu recommended moving forward with charges against him which stem from findings by the internal DOJ watchdog.
“We do not know the specific basis for the rumors, but they were credible enough that both the NY Times and Washington Post published stories suggesting that the grand jury may have declined to vote in favor of charges,” Bromwich said in the letter sent to Liu as well as the Justice Department.
On Thursday, The New York Times cited an article by The Washington Post which reported that a grand jury was “summoned back after a months-long hiatus to consider the case” but “came and went with no public charges being filed.”
“No grand jury indictments were presented Thursday at a daily hearing in the downtown courthouse where such indictments are typically discussed,” CNN – where McCabe is now a paid contributor – reported Friday, adding that it is “rare” for a grand jury, which conducts its business in secret, to not deliver an indictment when evidence is presented by prosecutors. | {
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Lori Gruen interviewed by Richard Marshall.
Lori Gruen is a leading feminist philosopher who asks deep questions about the ethics of captivity, ethics, animals and what we’re doing to nature. She thinks that human exceptionalism is a prejudice, that considering marginal cases helpful in seeing why, is skeptical about intuitions about far fetched cases digging up important ethical insights, that two big issues concerning ethics and animals are captivity and industrial animal agriculture, thinks ecotourism is complicated, has problems with holisic approaches to environmental ethics, thinks women have it tough, that the ethics of captivity are both complex and have had little philosophical treatment, that self-direction matters when considering how we treat animals, that ideas of a wild free of human management is unrealistic, and that some captivity is necessary. It’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there…
3:AM: What made you become a philosopher?
Lori Gruen: I went to college when I was quite young and I was pretty idealistic. Philosophy sounded cool, but my first philosophy class kicked my butt. I had absolutely no idea what was going on. Because I have a stubborn streak, I decided to take another philosophy course and this time I got it. With a couple of courses in the history of philosophy behind me, I was very excited by my social and political philosophy courses. I found the work I was reading liberating and still see philosophy as having the potential to change the world, although there were periods when I was less sure.
I went to graduate school right out of college, so I was still young. And while I was studying political philosophy I was increasingly interested in practical ethical and political problems. And to that point I had not yet taken any philosophy class, as an undergraduate or a graduate student, taught by a woman. So I decided to leave graduate school to do activist work.
After several years working for various social justice causes, I began to miss doing philosophy. And I thought I might have more success trying to combat social woes by teaching students how to think more clearly and argue more rigorously. At the moment, I feel strongly that philosophy has the promise I thought it did in my youth. Teaching political philosophy in a maximum security men’s prison has reinvigorated my excitement about the liberatory potential of philosophy. For example, philosophy not only gives the students tools for analyzing their incarceration but provides opportunities for them to imagine other possibilities.
3:AM: A recent book of yours looks at ethics and animals. You begin by looking at the position of human exceptionalism, something that goes back to at least Aristotle. What is the position, and is it a kind of default position for those who just don’t think we should think about animals ethically?
LG: Human exceptionalism is a prejudice that not only sees humans as different from other animals but that also sees humans as better than other animals. Of course humans are unique in a variety of ways, although those differences are often articulated based on naïve views about other animals. In Ethics and Animals, I explore some of the claims that have been made to differentiate humans from other animals (that we are the only beings that use tools or that use language or that have a theory of mind) and show that they do not establish that humans are unique in the ways postulated. But I also discuss the ways that other animals are indeed different from us and different from each other. These differences are important for understanding them and for promoting, or at least not negatively impacting, their well being.
Human exceptionalism also underlies skepticism about including other animals in the sphere of moral concern. It is related to two other views that are discussed more often in the literature about moral considerability – speciesism and anthropocentrism. Speciesism is the view that I only owe moral consideration to members of my own species. Although this view is usually thought to be focused on humans, it seems consistent with the view that only Vulcans matter to members of that species, or only orangutans matter to that species. Anthopocentrism is the view that humans are at the center of everything and that everything is understood through our human interpretive lenses. Of course we humans experience everything as humans, so in some sense humans are necessarily the center of our own perceptions, but that doesn’t mean we are unable to try to understand or care about non-humans. There is a sense in which we are inevitable anthropocentrists, but we needn’t be human exceptionalists.
Human exceptionalism sees humans as the only beings worthy of moral concern. Normative exceptionalist arguments generally fail in one of two ways—they pick out a supposedly unique characteristic or property upon which moral worth is supposed to supervene but it turns out that either not all humans have that property or that humans aren’t the only ones that have it.
3:AM: Are marginal cases relevant?
LG: And this is why marginal cases are relevant. If there are some humans who do not have the morally valuable traits that the human exceptionalist prize, but they are nonetheless included in the group of those who do have the traits, then this suggests that it isn’t that trait that is morally important, but species membership. But membership in a species isn’t morally interesting and assigning moral significance to membership in a species amounts to a prejudice in favor of those thought to be in one’s group. I myself am uncomfortable with the “marginal” cases terminology, but it is a remnant of the human exceptionalist view that promotes the idea that all humans fit neatly into a category based on morally worthy properties that only humans share, when there are no such properties.
3:AM: Why is the ethical case about animals so important? If you want to stop people being nasty to animals then aren’t there things other than morals you could or should appeal to? Couldn’t taste do the job ie we ought squash bugs because it’s disgusting? Or it’s unfashionable now, so nineteenth century etc?
LG: The magnitude of the harms done to animals is almost incomprehensible — 60 billion suffer before they are slaughtered for food in global industrial agricultural production annually and that contributes more greenhouse gas emissions than any other sector, which in turn is wreaking havoc on animal habitats on land and in the sea. When we also consider the additional threats that other animals face from human activities, it becomes clearer that the problems are structural and remedies cannot solely rely on individual tastes. But there are some really hard philosophical questions about what, if anything, individuals can do to help curtail these harms.
Consider what sometimes gets called the “impotence problem.” When one goes out to eat and orders bbq chicken rather than a veggie burger, the chicken isn’t slaughtered-to-order, so buying the veggie burger doesn’t save any particular chicken’s life. It seems that whatever one orders, it doesn’t really have an effect either way on whether chickens suffer and die in food production. But surely individual actions must have some impact since if everybody abstained from eating chickens that would make a very large difference to very large number of chickens. This is one sort of problem Derek Parfit discusses in Reasons and Persons and Shelley Kagan and others have taken up by considering the impacts of our choices on other animals. Though I won’t rehearse some of the proposed solutions to the problem here, what I want to mention is that when we are exploring the bad consequences of complex systems, ethical and political analyses are crucial.
In saying that, I don’t want to completely dismiss the role that taste and disgust can play in perhaps making people aware of an ethical problem and motivating and sustaining people to stop harming others. But to my mind, taste and disgust, which are themselves shaped by cultural and social norms as well as idiosyncratic personal histories, are not particularly reliable and in the face of mass harms and injustice, are not always helpful.
3:AM: How important is it for people arguing for animals to be treated ethically to know what is happening to them? Your book is really full of information about this – is there a sense that you feel people who resist the ethical stance are ignorant of current problems?
LG: I’ve always been puzzled by the way that some moral philosophers create extraordinarily far fetched examples and then ask us to see what sorts of intuitions we have about these cases. I am skeptical that any intuitions we might dig up contain important ethical insights. But I’m also puzzled by those who argue from abstract general principles, for example, about the unethical treatment of causing other animals to suffer or fail to flourish, without knowing many details about particular animals and what might constitute their well-being. Having specific details are crucial for making ethical judgments. So, I think we should try to engage in some version of the process Rawls’ called reflective equilibrium in which we consider the details as we understand them (and we should also be reflective about what we see as details to start with), our intuitions, and our more general ethical and political commitments.
Having details about the general treatment of other animals combined with particular cases promotes the reflective process. But there is more needed than just knowing what is happening to them. I think an under theorized part of our ethical lives relationships – what relationships are we in, what is the nature and quality of those relationships, and what obligations those relationships generate? Once we see that we are in relationships with specific animal others and come to understand how our actions impact individuals and their conspecifics, we can view our responsibility or complicity differently. Nobody wants to be in a bad relationship, so part of what I do in my work is include descriptions of these relationships in ways that allow for re-consideration.
One of the central ideas that I have been developing is what I call “entangled empathy” which is a type of moral perception directed at attending to the well-being of others. Very briefly, the “entanglement” part of the idea is based on a recognition that we are in all sorts of inextricable relationships with one another. The “empathy” part is not the standard form of moral emotion often discussed in the literature, but rather it refers to a perceptive skill that involves affect and cognition. Entangled empathy is developed by having a fuller picture of what is happening to others, coming to discern what the interests of others may be, imagining how those interests are experienced, and figuring out how our actions directly and indirectly impact another’s well-being.
3:AM: So what are some of the key contemporary issues that help mobilise ethical arguments towards animals?
LG: There are two current issues – captivity and industrial animal agriculture — that have generated a lot of attention to animals of late and that have lead to questions about our obligations to them, to ourselves, and to the rest of nature. The issue of keeping animals captive in zoos and aquaria has become a pressing topic again. The movie Blackfish that looks behind the scenes at Sea World, the plight of elephants and polar bears suffering in unnatural conditions in zoos, and the practice of publicly killing animals at zoos in Europe have lead to renewed discussion of questions about liberty, conservation, individual well-being vs. species protection, and reproductive freedom. (see my oup blog and Ethics of Captivity).
In addition, as concerns about climate change become more pressing, awareness of the destructive contribution from industrialized food production has lead many people to reevaluate what they eat. The United Nations conservatively estimates that roughly 18% of the total greenhouse gases emitted come from industrialized livestock production, more greenhouse gas emissions than all transportion—planes, trains, and cars—combined. Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), made an explicit call urging individuals to “Please eat less meat—meat is a very carbon intensive commodity. . . .”
More people are giving up animal products once they recognize that personal taste can’t justify harms to other animals, the environment, and future generations. Of course, as human populations grow and wealth accumulates, more animals then ever before are being threatened and killed. Ethical arguments that convince individuals only go so far and there is a dire need for ethical engagement that can impact policy.
3:AM: You take a nuanced approach to ecotourism? Why not condemn it outright?
LG: Ecotourism is a complicated issue. On the one hand there are places where ecotourism has raised awareness of the complex ethical issues that arise in contexts in which animal well-being, environmental protection, and human flourishing come into direct conflict and ecotourism provides one mechanism for minimizing these conflicts. It also often motivates the “tourists” to work on behalf of protecting wild animals and their habitats. Coming face to face (so to speak) with an animal in her natural environment can deepen one’s sense of responsibility. On the other hand, ecotourism has the potential to further instrumentalize other animals and perpetuate problematic arrogant attitudes about human relationships with the more than human world. I don’t think a sound ethical judgment can be made about ecotourism unless the context is fully explored.
3:AM: You are unhappy with holistic approaches to environmental ethics. First of all, can you say what you mean by ‘holistic’ in this context, and who are the main proponents?
LG: Holism in environmental ethics is the view that value lies in whole systems rather than individual parts of the system or particular members of the community. Aldo Leopold, a holist who developed “the land ethic,” argued that an action is right when it preserves and protects “the integrity, stability, and beauty” of an ecological community because integrity, stability, and beauty are the locus of value. In Ethics and Animals, I explore the complicated issue of anthropogenic extinctions through the lens of holism in the hopes that it might provide an answer to the question of why species are valuable. Holists view extinctions as, what one prominent holist, Holmes Rolston III, calls superkillings. Holists find that the value of species is more than the sum of the welfare of individual members of the species. The holist view allows that the death of individual members of a species would be justified if those deaths led to the betterment of the species as a whole and, by extension, the preservation of the species.
3:AM: So what is the problem?
LG: There are a number of problems with holism of this sort. But my main worry is that they have a limited view of how to value nature. Holists tend to think we either value nature instrumentally, which for them amounts to not valuing nature at all, or intrinsically, where value attaches either to individuals or to collectives. But nature can be valued in a variety of ways; we can value both collectives and individuals; we can value things as means to ends (like money); we can value things as ultimate ends (much as we value our companions, partners, or children); and we can value things as neither ultimate ends nor mere means, but rather as constitutive of other things that we value (perhaps, freedom of choice and privacy are such things.). Some values lie between means values and ends values and, while it makes ethical analysis tricky, that may be the most sensible way to address tricky conflicts.
We could argue that species have value that doesn’t reduce simply to the cumulative well being of each individual member of the species, but that value doesn’t transcend the members either. There is value in the relations that the existence of the collective allows to be realized. For example, the well-being of most animals, particularly social animals, relies centrally on their ability to develop relations with others of their kind, to learn species-typical behaviors, to develop specific cultures, to communicate, to hunt, to play. Individual flourishing, in humans and other animals, crucially depends on a sustaining and sustainable context much larger than the individual, and thus valuing the individual necessitates valuing the whole within which the individual makes her life meaningful. Of course, that meaningful life is of value too.
3:AM: Things are particularly toxic for women across the globe at the moment. What are contemporary feminisms arguing to combat this situation?
LG: I don’t think things are any worse now than they have always been, sadly, I just think with social media and 24/7 news we are hearing more about various manifestations of gender oppression and violence. Women and other marginal groups are being impacted in different ways now — for example, climate change and food scarcity will affect women and children first and harder than it will affect men initially. The arguments that feminists have long been making for equality and respect are rooted in an analysis of the indefensibility of exercises of unearned privilege, e.g. male privilege, white privilege, class privilege. Feminist philosophers and theorists continue to draw attention to the social construction of social categories that have been naturalized. We try to reveal the logic of domination that allows members of one group to create social structures that favor themselves while at the same time creating or perpetuating social structures that disadvantage “others.” One of the strengths of contemporary feminist thinking about privilege and domination comes from increased attention to intersecting oppressions – the complex ways in which gender, gender non-conformity, sexuality, race, ethnicity, class, and I would suggest species as well, interact to generate very specific forms of injustice. Attention to intersecting oppressions complicates thinking about how we might achieve more just social arrangements and it has the potential to bring together groups that those with power have worked to keep apart and at odds.
3:AM: And in philosophy departments also there are big issues. There have been a few high profile cases recently. As a philosopher what is like from the inside, what do you think the reason is for academic philosophy being so poor in this respect and are there things that should be done?
LG: The high profile cases within philosophy departments are focused on sexual harassment and sexual predation. It is so important that women who are being harassed are speaking out. For too long that wasn’t the case and I think part of the reason women are speaking out now is because there are many philosophers of all genders who are working to make changes in the profession so victims of sexual harassment feel they will be supported. I do worry a bit that the focus on sexual harassment in the profession has obscured the more day in and day out sexism that exists in philosophy.
I think the fact that the situation is so bad for women and minorities in the profession is, in some sense, over-determined. Old stereotypical views about women and scholars of color are still prevalent, if not as overt as they once were, and stereotype threat still operates. I have heard from more than a few students and colleagues that they have to spend energy battling the idea that they are “imposters” or “aren’t smart enough.” There is very little philosophical work by women or minority philosophers taught in most philosophy classes so for women students and students of color to pursue philosophy they have to have a deep passion as well as courage, we usually don’t just “fall into” philosophy. One of the things I love about philosophy but I know drives non-philosophers a bit crazy is how we have a habit of trying to understand and explain things in great detail. Given this habit and that the majority of faculty are men in almost all philosophy departments, the phenomena popularly referred to as “mansplaining” is thus rather common and can subtly shape the climate.
There is a lot going on to try to remedy these problems. Changing what is taught in undergraduate courses; working to avoid conferences or edited volumes that only include men (see the gendered conference campaign); and talking more openly about what positive changes can be made to create more inclusive environments in individual departments and philosophy as a whole all are promising developments. But these changes will take time and require vigilance. As a profession, we have a long way to go.
3:AM: In your new book on captivity – which looks at both human and non-human captivity and the issues that arise – there are some examples that might strike some as strange, such as the inclusion of pets. Some might thinks that including pets in discussions about captivity takes us away from crucial examples, such as prisons and zoos? Do pets raise interesting issues at the margins that help bring into sharper focus what the issues are around captivity?
LG: The ethical issues around captivity are remarkably complex and it is surprising how little philosophical attention has been paid to them. You are right to think that prisons and zoos raise the most obvious issues –the individuals that are held captive in these environments are there against their wills, they endure a wide variety of restrictions on their liberty, and they are under the control of their captors. But when we describe captivity as a condition in which a competent adult is confined and controlled and is reliant on those in control to satisfy her basic needs, it becomes clearer that there are many captive environments beyond prisons and zoos, environments that are not ordinarily thought of in those terms.
When we start thinking about pets or “companion animals” as captives then we may start reflecting in new ways on how we treat them. Clare Palmer and Peter Sandoe wrote a provocative chapter in the book that questions the received wisdom that routinely confining cats indoors promotes their well-being. Cats may be happy with our affections and their lives may be longer if we keep them safe indoors, but there is a loss here, to their freedom to go where they want and interact with and shape their larger environment.
In captive contexts, the trade-offs, between safety and freedom, protection and choice, are often obscured. For example, in the US, over 2 million people are incarcerated and not only are they denied freedom but their families and communities are impoverished in the name of social “safety” which is often illusory. Within prisons too, as two of the chapters in the book vividly illustrate, autonomy and basic respect are sacrificed in the name of safety and security. Comparing various kinds of captive institutions provides an opportunity to analyze the language of “safety” and reveals its strategic use in obscuring the loss of other valuable things.
Seeing pets as captives, I think, does bring some of the complexities of captivity into sharper focus.
3:AM: At first it seems obvious that conditions of captivity are really important – but then again, even a well looked after slave is still a slave – and no one is going to use the conditions as a justification in that kind of case are they? So where do you stand on this – how far should we be interested in conditions of captivity?
LG: One justification for keeping individuals captive has been that captivity is better for them. In the context of companion animals and zoo animals, for example, one often hears that they will live longer lives and they won’t have to worry about injury or predation or hunger. The sense is that they are better off having lost their freedom. The same sorts of justifications were also heard in the case of slaves. Captors wanted to believe that slaves were better off, became more civilized, more human, because of their captivity. Of course, this is odious in the case of human beings, and there are some who argue that this attitude is equally objectionable in the case of other animals.
Comparing captivity to a type of slavery, some animal advocates are opposed to all forms of captivity, even keeping pets. They take the label “abolitionist” as a way of linking their views to earlier abolitionist struggles to end slavery.
But I think our relationships with other animals (of course humans, but also nonhumans) are a central part of what makes lives meaningful. Rather than thinking we must end all captivity and thus all our relationships with other animals, we’d do better working to improve those relationships by being more perceptive of and more responsive to others’ needs and interests and sensibilities. Since we are already, inevitably, in relationships, rather than ending them we might try to figure out how to make them better, more meaningful, and more mutually satisfying. Importantly, by recognizing that we are inevitably in relationships to other animals, replete with vulnerability, dependency, and even some instrumentalization, and working to understand and improve these relationships, I’m not condoning exploitation. Acknowledging that we are in relationships doesn’t mean that all relationships are equally defensible or should stay as they are. Relationships of exploitation or complete instrumentalization are precisely the sorts of relationships that should change.
And this is where an exploration of conditions of captivity and the complexity of the individual captives’ interests comes in. Some animals, like whales and elephants, cannot thrive in captive conditions. As much as we might want to have closer relationships with them, it isn’t good for them. Others, like dogs and chimpanzees, can live meaningful lives in captivity but only if the conditions they are captive in are conducive to their flourishing and they are respected. Part of the problem with captivity is the relationship of domination that it tends to maintain. By re-evaluating captivity (and for many in our non-ideal situation, there is no real alternative) we can start to ask questions about whether and how captive conditions can, while denying certain freedoms, still promote the dignity of the captives.
3:AM: Putting a wasp in a jar seems less bad than putting a chimp in a cage. Does this intuition track anything ethical?
LG: The loss of freedom has different implications for different individuals within the same species and for members of other species. Usually, denying individuals their liberty negatively impacts the quality of their lives, but this can happen in two ways. Doing what one wants, being free to make choices and to act on them, and not being interfered with in the pursuit of one’s desires are important because they contribute to making an individual’s life go better. Individuals who are confined, restrained, or subordinated can’t follow their desires. Putting the wasp in a jar and putting a chimpanzee in a cage denies them both freedom of movement and the freedom to get what they want.
But perhaps what underlies the intuition that it is worse to make a chimpanzee captive than to confine a wasp is the sophisticated cognitive capacities of the chimpanzee who values her freedom, not just instrumentally because of what it gets her, but because it is constitutive of her well-being. This may sound odd, but I think from what is now known about chimpanzee cognition, the boredom and frustration that accompanies captivity and the documented need for environmental, emotional, social, and intellectual enrichment suggests that chimpanzees do value their freedom. The process of satisfying one’s own interests and correcting one’s self when she changes her mind or makes bad choices are part of what makes a life a good life for beings who have these sorts of cognitive capacities. I believe chimpanzees can do these things, so it makes sense to think that they, like us, value their freedom more than just instrumentally.
And its not just chimpanzees. Many other animals are self-directed, adapt to changing circumstances, make choices and resist changes, and improve their environments, often through collective action. Other animals learn from conspecifics and modify what they learn to suit themselves and their needs. Not all animals in a social group do exactly the same things, eat exactly the same things, or spend time with the same individuals. They are making independent choices. There are species-typical behavioral repertoires that constrain an individual’s absolute expression of this their autonomy, but none of us is ever completely free of constraints. So I think there are a lot of other animals for whom captivity is ethically problematic because it violates their autonomy, but probably not wasps.
But, maybe I just don’t know enough about wasps.
3:AM: Some animals wouldn’t exist if they weren’t in captivity. How do we decide whether species death or life is morally justified?
LG: There is a long-standing debate about the conservationist justification for keeping animals captive rather than let them go extinct. Some have argued that we shouldn’t sacrifice the interests of the one for the good of the many. But I confess, I’m vexed by the hard questions of extinction and also worry about whether “we” can make much useful difference.
In Ethics and Animals I recount the story of the dwindling existence of rhinoceros. I wrote about the death of one of the rarest large mammals on the planet, the Javan rhinoceros who was found shot dead in Vietnam’s Cat Tien National Park. The rhino was shot by poachers so they could to take the horn. At the time, conservation authorities said there are only three to five Javan rhinos left in Vietnam. In 2013, they were declared extinct. Also last year, the Western Black rhino was declared extinct. Elephants, orangutans, tigers, and a host of other less “charismatic” animals will not be around (outside of zoos and preserves) for much longer.
If there were a way to hold some individuals in ideal captive conditions in the hopes of reintroducing them to the wild in order to avoid extinction that might justify captivity. But that is no longer realistic. In fact, the very idea that there is a “wild” free of human management is itself unrealistic. One of the new ways of thinking about what used to be considered a choice between individuals in captivity and wild populations free of human interference, is to recognize that all endangered or threatened animals are in some sense already in captivity – not in zoos, but rather in conditions in which they have their freedom managed and controlled.
3:AM: There are lots of reasons for captivity that aren’t ethical – practical, aesthetic, taste, politics, emotive and so on – so do you think the ethical reason must always override these other possible reasons?
LG: This question bumps up against discussions about the scope and nature of ethical reasoning. I have sympathies with broadly consequentialist answers to this sort of question — the divisions between types of reasons can be helpful for a variety of purposes, but basically whatever divisions one makes, we can evaluate reasons in ethical terms. So if I have a taste for hamburgers, the production of which causes intense suffering, my aesthetic desire for burgers can be evaluated on ethical grounds. It may be politically expedient to disproportionately stop and frisk black youth, but the implications of acting on reasons of expedience can be evaluated ethically.
Captivity is the same way. In fact, in many instances, the only thing to do is keep some individuals captive. My own interest in the ethics of captivity arose in my working with captive chimpanzees almost a decade ago. I felt truly conflicted about the fact that these incredibly smart, sociable, often charming, always complicated, individuals had to spend their lives (some live to be 50-60) in captivity. Many of the chimpanzees I know are 5th or 6th generation captives. Chimpanzee habitats are being decimated and the fastest growing populations of captive chimpanzees are in Africa, in native range countries for chimpanzees, where they are orphaned due to bush meat hunting and forest destruction. So even if it was possible to teach individuals who have only known captivity to survive outside of captivity, there really isn’t a safe place to release them. This raised a genuine moral dilemma – any thing we do, release them or hold them captive, can be considered wrong. So that lead me to thinking about whether and how we could minimize the ethical costs of captivity.
3:AM: And for the curious readers here at 3:AM are there five books (other than your own) you could recommend that would take us further into your philosophical world?
LG: I know many of those you interview have a hard time coming up with only five books and I’m having a hard time too. There are so many important books in practical ethics and social and political philosophy, but here are five books that have been important to my current thinking —Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center by bell hooks, The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander, Resisting Reality by Sally Haslanger, Every Twelve Seconds by Timothy Pachirat, www.bookdepository.com/Setting-Moral-Compass/9780195154757 edited by Cheshire Calhoun.
ABOUT THE INTERVIEWER
Richard Marshall is still biding his time.
Buy the book here to keep him biding! | {
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Chinese investments in the European Union fell sharply for the second consecutive year in 2018, a report by the Berlin-based Mercator Institute for China Studies (MERICS) and US consulting firm Rhodium Group showed.
Chinese companies completed FDI deals worth €17.3 billion ($19.6 billion) last year, down 40 percent from 2017 levels and way below the record €37.2 billion investment seen in 2016.
The decline is part of a trend that has seen Chinese investments fall in most regions of the world over the past two years as Beijing continues to maintain a tight grip on outward investment by its residents amid slowing economic growth and a trade war with the United States.
Chinese investors have also been forced to back away by "growing political and regulatory backlash against Chinese capital around the globe," the authors of the report, Thilo Hanemann, Agatha Kratz and Mikko Huotari, wrote.
"This shift in attitudes has been remarkably rapid in Europe," they said.
Worried about Beijing's growing appetite for foreign technology and the potential national security risks, most EU countries have increased regulatory scrutiny on foreign mergers and acquisitions, especially those of technology and innovation assets.
Germany leads the way
In December, Germany sharply lowered the threshold for screening purchases of stakes in German companies by non-European investors, in a bid to deter takeovers by Chinese investors in strategic areas.
Read more: Is angst about China behind Germany's stricter foreign investment rules?
The rules came months after the German government agreed to veto the acquisition of machine tool manufacturer Leifeld by a Chinese investor.
In July, a German state bank bought a stake in 50Hertz to prevent the purchase of the high-voltage grid operator by China's State Grid.
German officials have been alarmed by Chinese investments ever since China's Midea Group made a successful €4.5 billion purchase of German robotics firm Kuka in 2016. They have expressed concerns over a situation in which China buys key German high-tech know-how, but shields its own companies.
Despite the regulatory hurdles, Chinese firms increased their investments in Germany by €300 million to €2.1 billion last year, the report showed. The figure does not include Geely's €7.3 billion purchase of a 9.7 percent stake in Daimler. Only purchases of stakes of 10 percent or more qualify as foreign direct investment.
Chinese selling foreign assets
In a first, the report showed that Chinese investors shed their European assets on a significant scale last year.
Chinese firms divested at least €4 billion worth of assets in the EU, driven by conglomerate HNA's sales of stakes in Dublin-based plane lessor Avolon and German lender Deutsche Bank.
The divestment mirrored a global trend. Chinese companies sold tens of billions of dollars of overseas assets last year amid pressure by Beijing on highly leveraged firms to dispose of overseas assets.
Strong outlook
The authors of the report said despite increased regulatory scrutiny in the EU, the bloc will continue to be an attractive hunting ground for Chinese investors, mainly due to the ongoing trade spat between China and the United States.
"Chinese investment in Europe is likely to get a further boost from the recent expansion of the US investment screening regime and the broader deterioration of US-China relations, which will cause some investors to divert capital from North America to the European continent," the authors wrote.
At the beginning of 2019, Chinese investors had more than €15 billion worth of proposed deals pending.
But the authors warned that the favorable outlook could change based on a host of factors, including how the bloc responds to espionage charges against China's Huawei. | {
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There is a tiny little pedestrian crossing in the city. There are no traffic lights, just a crossing; and there is an endless stream of people crossing. I use that crossing twice a day. One day last month, I crossed the road and was apparently too slow for the driver of a cane toad-like sports utility vehicle who nosed his vehicle onto the crossing and tooted me. Guess he was desperate to join the queue of motorists inching along Parramatta Road in the city.
I walk somewhere between six and 11 kilometres a day. Where I live, it's quicker to walk than it is to take public transport but it carries a far greater risk. This year in NSW, 29 pedestrians have already been killed, more than one a week; and nearly double where we were same time last year. So far, it's 11 in Queensland and 32 in Victoria.
Pedestrians are second-class citizens in NSW. Credit:Jessica Hromas
The vast majority of these deaths are avoidable – last week in NSW, a vehicle went around another car which was stopped at a pedestrian crossing and hit a woman who was crossing. She is still in hospital.
In Australia, the rise of the entitled motorist is ceaseless; and only one group has managed to stem that entitlement in any measurable way. Cyclists are the beneficiaries of the campaign to force motorists to keep a metre's distance from any bicycle. There is no outstanding, memorable campaign – equivalent to campaigns such the A Metre Matters project conducted by the Amy Gillett Foundation – to save pedestrians, although they are at greater risk on our roads than cyclists, far greater. | {
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The Beta version of Pizza Heroes is approaching, and Dapp Evolution released the first gameplay teaser. The video features clips from the defense mode, the first one that will become available.
It is worthwhile to mention that Pizza Heroes is under development on TRON blockchain, and it’s the first time we see a game of this kind on this platform. Until today, most TRON Game was gamified gambling dapps.
About Pizza Heroes
Pizza Heroes features an online universe with a variety of game modes where players truly own their characters and items in the form of TRC tokens. Pizza Heroes aims to become a rewarding blockchain gaming platform with focus to play to earn model and actual fun gameplay.
Clothing items are also NFT’s and have attributes, such as armor and other perks that players can collect and trade.
Dapp Evolution
The team behind Pizza Heroes, Dapp Evolution is moving forward with the game development, they are ready to deliver the first 3D Game on TRON blockchain always with the community input in mind.
As they approach the beta release, community feedback is necessary and from what we see online, Dapp Evolution claims that this is only the tip of the iceberg, meaning that huge updates will come to the game. The game looks fun and probably will make a success in the blockchain gaming space. | {
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Officiellement, M. Harper se dit neutre dans la course. Mais ses ministres québécois ont déjà indiqué qu'ils comptent donner la réplique si le gouvernement conservateur est attaqué pendant la campagne.
Le premier ministre Stephen Harper s'active discrètement devant la possibilité qu'un gouvernement péquiste majoritaire prenne le pouvoir à Québec. Il a discuté de la question au cours des derniers jours avec ses homologues provinciaux et avec les chefs de l'opposition à Ottawa.
Des sources confirment à La Presse que le premier ministre a parlé à plusieurs de ses homologues provinciaux et que l'élection québécoise a fait partie des discussions.
M. Harper a également rencontré le chef néo-démocrate Thomas Mulcair et le chef libéral Justin Trudeau. Bien que plusieurs enjeux aient été abordés - notamment la réponse canadienne à la crise en Ukraine -, le scrutin au Québec a aussi fait partie des échanges.
«Dans des enjeux aussi importants que l'unité nationale, on veut une relation très productive avec les autres partis fédéraux», a indiqué une source.
Faire face à un gouvernement majoritaire
À l'époque du référendum de 1995, Stephen Harper était député du Parti réformiste. Porte-parole en matière d'affaires intergouvernementales, il avait maintes fois pressé le gouvernement Chrétien de fixer des règles plus strictes sur la tenue d'une consultation sur l'indépendance. Et il l'avait sévèrement critiqué pour son manque de préparation après la mince victoire du Non.
Aujourd'hui premier ministre, il a donné plusieurs indices que son gouvernement entend être prêt à faire face à un éventuel gouvernement souverainiste majoritaire.
Prêt à répliquer
Officiellement, M. Harper se dit neutre dans la course. Mais ses ministres québécois ont déjà indiqué qu'ils comptent donner la réplique si le gouvernement conservateur est attaqué pendant la campagne, ce qu'ils n'ont pas fait lors de l'élection de 2012 quand les péquistes ont multiplié les pointes à l'égard d'Ottawa.
La Presse révélait le mois dernier que les stratèges conservateurs s'attendaient à une victoire du Parti québécois. Une telle situation présente un important défi pour M. Harper, qui ne compte que cinq députés dans la province et où son Parti conservateur ne recueille que 12 % des intentions de vote, selon le dernier sondage La Presse.
Au bureau du premier ministre, on n'a pas voulu commenter la vague d'appels, vendredi. Mais on n'a pas nié l'information.
«Le premier ministre s'entretient avec les premiers ministres provinciaux de manière régulière, a indiqué son porte-parole, Carl Vallée. Nous n'avons pas l'intention d'élaborer sur des discussions de nature privée.»
Même son de cloche aux bureaux de MM. Mulcair et Trudeau.
«C'était une conversation privée et le sujet était l'Ukraine», a indiqué le porte-parole de M. Mulcair, George Smith. | {
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Note – If you have read this article before and are checking back in, it would be a good idea to clear your cache, to ensure that you are viewing the very latest version of this post. I do add material and make corrections from time to time.
It’s been about a year since I finished building The Sproutie, and it’s been a good year. Of all my scratch-built projects, it has been the most satisfying to own. It works well, looks pretty good and also, there is always the lure of possible of tweaks and improvements. This is partially because it’s a home-brew project, and also because it’s a regen 🙂 It was really enjoyable to build a receiver with the basic circuit architecture taken from the 1930’s, but with a combination of solid state devices and lovely old vintage parts.
I have continued to occasionally purchase vintage reduction drives and variable capacitors. After using a National N Dial for the main tuning control in The Sproutie, I became quite pre-occupied with what, to me, is close to the ultimate dial and drive for an analog receiver – the classic National HRO micrometer-type dial and gear drive. I wanted to find a good example of one of these, and use it in a regen. I also spent quite a bit of time performing Google searches using phrases such as “best regen receiver ever”, and “the ultimate regen”. These are the kinds of things I search for when at a loose end, in the vague hope that I’ll magically find the most amazing regenerative receiver ever designed and built! One very inspirational regen I did discover while searching for the “ultimate regen”, was Jim K4XAF’s build of Bruce NR5Q’s “Ultimate Regen”. What a beautiful receiver! It’s a tube set, built on 2 separate chassis. One chassis contains the main receiver, while the other houses the power supply, the speaker, and the “Selecto-O-Jet” audio filtering. It makes use of a National HRO dial and gear drive for the main tuning, along with National “Velvet Vernier” drives to control the regeneration and variable antenna coupling. Now this was the type of regen that inspires true longing, and convinced me that as enjoyable as The Sproutie was to build and own, I needed to build just one more regen 🙂
Initially, I was hoping to use a different type of circuit for this receiver from the tried-and-tested front end used in The Sproutie. I did build VE7BPO’s regen #4 and had some trouble with it picking up a local FM broadcast station. In retrospect, I should have realized that I have had this issue with other simple receivers at this location, until they were cased up and grounded properly. The problem seemed to be a little worse than normal, but this could well have been due to the amplification factor of Professor Vasily Ivanenko’s hycas detector. I gave up far too soon and headed for the security of the front end I used in both the first version of my Sproutie, and the WBR. It is, of course, the circuit used in Nicky’s TRF, as featured in issue 70 of SPRAT (with a few corrections and suggested mods in issue 72). Incidentally, “Bear” NH7SR built a very functional version of Prof V’s Regen #4 which he described in this thread over on The Radio Board.
However, I didn’t just want to exactly duplicate the circuit of The Sproutie, even if the new receiver was going to have a different physical form and different hardware. This new receiver would have to have some alternate type of circuitry that would make it worth building. I was interested in trying a different type of filtering in the audio chain, and a tip from Prof V in his Solid State Regenerative Receivers group on Google+ clued me in to a great tool for designing active audio filters (more on that later). The pieces were beginning to come together. I had a bunch of NE5532’s in my parts stash that had sat unused for a couple of years and it struck me that a regen which utilized a series of active audio filters for different bandwidths, switched from the front panel, might be an interesting idea for a receiver. The LM380 output stage I had used in The Sproutie works well, so I saw no reason to change it. It is fairly low noise, a welcome factor that makes it possible to listen to a receiver comfortably for long periods of time.
Here’s the block diagram of The Sproutie MK II. As it contains 6 separate AF filters, I decided to also switch the +ve supply to the filter. A 5532 active filter draws about 7mA (14mA if using 2 x op-amp stages). Although it’s not a lot of current, it’s a fairly significant amount relative to the total consumption of this receiver if all 6 filters are continuously powered. One of the reasons I prefer solid state over tubes is the power efficiency, so no reason to keep all 6 filters powered if only one is being used at a time –
The front end, as I mentioned, is exactly the same one I used in the original Sproutie. It is the one used in Nicky’s TRF featured in issue 70 of SPRAT. I thoroughly recommend joining G-QRP. Your initial membership includes an archival DVD of past issues of the club magazine SPRAT, which is a very valuable resource for homebrewers. If you have access to this archive, you should also take a look at issue 105, in which a slightly different version of the same receiver is featured. It employs a simple passive LC audio filter, if you’re not keen on the extra complexity that my version here entails.
Here’s the schematic of the front end. The oscillator tank circuit has been simplified to just one variable capacitor, and all details of the plug-in coils removed, purely for the purposes of making the circuit a bit easier to understand. If I drew the octal coil socket without the coil (as I did with the schematic for The Sproutie) it would make the process of understanding the circuit diagram a bit less intuitive –
Here are details of the coil base, using an octal tube socket. You can use any pin configuration you like – this is the one that worked for me. It is the same configuration as used in The Sproutie –
The final AF amp is a simple LM380 circuit. It’s easy to build, is fairly low-noise, and it works. If you’re used to AF circuits which use an lm386 in high-gain mode, with a 10uF cap between pins 1 and 8, you are going to love the much lower-noise performance of this circuit! As well as a phone jack, I included a jack for an external speaker on the rear panel. It took me a while to figure out how to wire the internal speaker and the 2 jacks properly. I wanted the internal speaker to cut out if either headphones or an external speaker were plugged in. I also wanted the the external speaker to cut out if the headphones were plugged in. It’s a simple problem really, but simple things often elude me. I got there in the end –
The thing that makes this receiver different from the original Sproutie, electrically speaking, is the bank of switched active audio filters. If you don’t want to be bothered with building multiple filters, and switching them all with a switch, you could permanently wire just one filter into the circuit. Another idea would be to replace this bank of switched filters with an adjustable filter made from op-amps, with the center frequency and bandwidth controlled by potentiometers on the front panel. Once you bring op-amps into the mix, all sorts of things are possible. Another idea suggested by Bear NH7SR, is a 5KHz audio notch filter, which could be quite useful for AM SWBC listening. The design tool that made all this happen for me was by Texas Instruments (thanks Prof V). There is an online version called Webench Filter Designer. It has a user-friendly interface that actually made the process of filter design harder for me than the offline software they also offer, called Filter Pro. Use which one works best for you – they are both accessible from this page (opens in a new browser window). Of the two, I recommend Filter Pro. You can use this software to design low-pass, high-pass, bandwidth, allpass (time delay) and notch filters. I stuck with low-pass filters. I was tempted to try a bandpass design for the CW filter, and may still do at some point. The CW filter I constructed was the very last filter out of 6. By that time, I didn’t have the patience for the slightly more complex design of the bandpass filter. I also rationalized that I might need to tune through a CW signal to hear the other side of it, if trying to escape QRM, so a lowpass would make this easier, as I’d be able to hear the signal all the way through to zero-beat and out the other side. This might simply have been my excuse for not wanting to build a bandpass filter 🙂
I wanted a “straight-through” position to give me something to compare the other filters to. All the filters, with the exception of the narrow CW filter, were designed with a 6dB gain, so I designed my “straight-thru” filter with a 6dB gain also, so I could step through the bandwidths seamlessly. If doing this again, I would have given the filters a bit more gain. I’ll explain why later. Dan N7VE gave a talk to the Arizona QRP Scorpions a few years ago on (among other things) designing active audio filters. It’s definitely worth taking a look at his presentation, which is available here. In fact, I wish I’d paid attention to it before embarking on designing the filters for this receiver, as I would have tweaked some of the resistor and capacitor values a bit. Dan explains how it’s desirable to keep the resistors in the main signal chain fairly low in value, to avoid noise. He recommends trying to stay under 1K. I only read the presentation before designing the very final filter – the CW one with a cut-off of 700Hz – so while my resistor values in that filter are nice and low, they are not quite so low in the others (though in my defense, they are not atrociously high either).
Here’s the first, and widest filter. As far the ear is concerned, it’s not really a filter, as it has a cut-off set at 20KHz, with a gain of 6dB –
I wasn’t interested in the shape of the response as, for this stage, all I wanted was effectively an unfiltered stage with a gain of 6dB. For this reason, I used just one half of a dual op-amp 5532 package as a real-pole filter. Filter Pro doesn’t show the power supply and biasing arrangements, so I added the 2 x 47K resistors to keep the input biased at about half of the supply voltage. I also added the 10uF capacitor, which keeps the bottom end of the 1K resistor at ground potential for audio signals, while blocking the DC bias. I also added the lowpass filter formed by the 10 ohm resistor and the 100uF electrolytic on the supply line, as well as the 0.1uF ceramic RF bypass cap on pin 8 of the IC (mounted close to the pin). I don’t know how essential these 0.1uF caps are, but the datasheet suggests them, and they can’t do any harm.
The other filters were all 4th order low-pass filters (2 stages = 1 x 5532 dual op-amp package), with the exception of the 2.4KHz filter, which was an 8th order low-pass filter (4 stages = 2 x 5532 dual op-amp packages). The 8th order filter has a sharper cut-off, of course. Feel free to design your own filters, with the help of Filter Pro, for whatever cut-off frequency and rate of roll-off you wish. I’ll show you the R and C values I used for my filters but you might want to fiddle around with the software and come up with your own values that keep the R values in the main signal chain at or below 1K, if possible. The resistors in the first stage of the filter are particularly important, as the noise they produce is amplified more than noise produced in later stages. Just click on a component in Filter Pro, enter a different value, and hit return to see what new values of the other components the software has calculated. A bit of trial and error should get you close. Also note that you can specify the series of resistor and capacitor values you want to use (E96, E48, E12 etc), and watch how the filter response curve changes as you change the tolerances and values.
First of all, here’s the gentler roll-off 4th order filter that uses just one 5532 8-pin dual op-amp IC – or use the op-amp of your choice. I chose the 5532 because I had a bunch of them in my parts stash and because they are the 2N2222 of the op-amp world – plentiful, reasonably priced, and all over the place –
Here are the component values I used for my 4th order filters –
For a sharper roll-off, an 8th order filter, which uses 2 x 5532 dual op-amp packages (or equivalent) –
The 2.4KHz 8th order filter I used, although a bit on the narrow side for SSB, is good for listening when there are nearby stations higher in pitch that need cutting out. If you think about it, this 2.4KHz LPF is going to sound roughly like the 2.1KHz filter in a regular SSB rig. The reason for this is that your regular SSB filter is a bandpass filter, with the bottom edge being set to cut off at about 300Hz. This means that a 2.1KHz SSB bandpass filter will pass frequencies up to about 2.4KHz (2.1KHz + 300Hz). Here are the values I used in mine –
After I had built the receiver and all these filters, and done some listening, I concluded that for SSB and CW, a bit more filter gain would be helpful. The set has plenty of gain when listening to AM but on CW/SSB, the RF gain has to be wound right down to prevent the oscillator pulling. This creates a need for more AF gain in the CW/SSB modes. At the time of writing this, I have only just finished building this set and have no enthusiasm for building more filters. I actually had to build 8 filter boards to get the 6 that I used, and 3 front end boards to arrive at the final one. Together with the physical side of the construction, I am tapped out right now and have no desire to construct anything else at all for a while!
If you want to use this receiver mainly for SSB and/or CW, you may want to experiment with the value of the NPO capacitor in the front end that connects the hot end of the main tuning coil to the base of the 2N3904 oscillator transistor. It is listed on the schematic as being 39pF, and that is the value I used. However, it is possible that a lower value will cause the oscillator to pull less on strong signals. Of course, the lower value might also reduce the signal strength into the detector which will put you back to square one. It’s worth trying though. I’d be tempted to try a value as low as just a few pF. Remember that changing this capacitor will affect the frequency coverage – particularly at the top end of each range.
When building the filters, I originally built the 700Hz CW filter with a gain of 6dB, like the other filters. The idea is that if they all have the same gain within their passband, the operator can step through the different bandwidths without a change in the volume of the wanted signal in the speaker. This was the way it worked except with the 2 narrowest filters. The 2.4KHz 4 stage filter had a slight, but noticeable drop-off in volume. The effect was very pronounced with the 700Hz filter – so much so that I redesigned it with a gain of 20dB and still found that there was a slight drop-off in volume within the passband as compared to the other filters. I don’t know the reason for this. EDIT – Thomas LA3PNA Tweeted the following explanation – “The perceived loss when changing filters is because the power delivered to your ear is 10log(BW of filter) and less with less BW. So basically, the reduction in noise makes it sound like the volume goes down” He also gave a very useful tip for adjusting the gain of the filters so as to preserve the perception of constant volume – “I like to add gain in a filter circuit after the formula 20log(bw/orginal bw) for AF filters” That is very useful information Thomas. I’m a little tapped out after building The Sproutie, but if and when I decide to revamp the filter bank, I’ll be paying attention to this formula.
I may, at some point, rebuild the 3 narrowest filters with higher gains. If that ever happens, I’ll report the results here in this post. Incidentally, at this point, allow me to say one more thing about the filters. If building and wiring up all these filters sounds like it is making the construction of a regen overly-complicated, I can definitely sympathize. If you want to use this set for CW, SSB and AM and you want to permanently wire in just one filter, I’d go for a 4th order (2-stage) LPF with a cut-off of 3KHz. The one I have is perhaps a touch wide for SSB (it’s roughly equivalent to a 3.3KHz passband filter, as explained earlier) and a bit narrow for AM broadcast, but it’s a good compromise for both. If it were the only filter I had, I know I would get used to the sound of it. As for the gain, mine has a gain of just 6dB, but I’d like to up it in order to have a good volume when turning the RF right down, as is necessary to prevent oscillator pulling on SSB/CW. I can’t know until I’ve tried it, but I’m thinking something along the lines of 26dB gain. Just make sure to be careful when on AM, as you may find that you have way more gain than you need – so keep an eye (and a hand) on that RF gain control.
A big part of the inspiration for building this receiver, as I mentioned earlier, was the physical form of K4XAF’s version of NR5Q’s Ultimate Regen. In the search for a National HRO dial and gear drive in really nice condition, I bought several, and finally came up with a dial and drive combination that just cried out to be included in this receiver. This gear drive has a shaft rotation limiter, which was perfect, as the tuning capacitor I wanted to use didn’t have any kind of rotation limiting built in – it was the capacitor in the first photo in this post – a Hammarlund MCD-50-M. The final M stands for midline, referring to the fact that the off-center shaft and shape of the vanes help to make the tuning a lot more linear than with regular variable capacitors. With a standard capacitor, you’d find that the frequencies would become very compressed at the top of the tuning range i.e. the tuning would get a lot more fiddly. Try to get a midline unit. I believe they also go by other names, depending on the manufacturer.
Of course, a big dial and gear drive need a big chassis, and Terry from Seaside Chassis, who made the chassis for The Sproutie, came to the rescue again. I decided to use a chassis and front panel that would be compatible with 19″ rack cabinets, for a variety of good enclosure options. A chassis that big needs to be fairly thick in order to still be stout and solid. Terry does offer the use of 12 gauge aluminum for bigger enclosures, and I wanted this receiver to be big and solid (although compared to your average boat anchor, it’s still relatively light). As well as a large, stout chassis, I decided that I wanted to try designing a custom front panel with the services of Front Panel Express in Seattle using their free design software. Right at the beginning of this whole project, in the first month or two of 2015, I downloaded their software and casually laid out a very rough front panel, mainly for the practice, and the fun of learning something new. As the project progressed, I’d spend a few weeks working on circuit boards, then go back to the front panel, then do a bit of work on the plans for the chassis, to send to Terry. I had an idea that, with a bit of luck, I’d complete the whole thing in or around the fall, and that’s how it worked out. At no point did I rush though. Why rush? Besides, the longer a project takes, the less it costs per month. I could see that building this regen in the way I had chosen to build it was not going to be a cheap affair, so I took my sweet time.
Here is the chassis as it arrived from Seaside Chassis, along with 2 side braces for supporting the front panel, 2 mounting brackets for the main tuning capacitor, and 2 mounting brackets for the regeneration pot. I only needed 1 of each of these brackets, but like to have extras on hand. As it turned out, an extra bracket was needed to help secure the main tuning capacitor which I forgot to ask Terry for, so I put in an extra order. The shipping from Canada dwarfed the cost of the bracket but at this point, it was easier to ask him for it than to find someone local and besides – I just wanted him to fabricate all the chassis components. Terry’s work is first-rate. It’s good to give him as much relevant information as you can. Simple drawings with penciled-in dimensions work well. If it’s important to you, remember to take into account the thickness of the aluminum if there are any dimensions that are particularly critical. Also remember that he is bending and fabricating these components by hand, so allow for a certain amount of tolerance in the final dimensions. Having said that, the chassis he supplied was remarkably close to the exact dimensions I requested, and within the tolerances I had allowed for. If you have any dimensions that are particularly critical or non-critical, I think this is all good information to pass onto him when making your request –
Figuring out exactly where to drill holes for controls in front panels and enclosures usually takes quite a lot of time. It’s a bit like a game of chess in that every decision you make affects everything else down the road. To make matters tougher, I have trouble thinking about more than one thing at a time, so juggling all the variables in my head takes a lot of thinking, measuring, and drawing. For front panels, I always draw the shape of the panel on a full-size sheet of paper, and place all the knobs and controls on it to see how they look in various configurations. Just when I think I have it right, I leave it and walk away, often overnight. On returning, I inevitably come up with an improvement or two. Building something like this is all baby steps for me. I am impressed and amazed by builders who claim to be able to throw something like this together in a few afternoons – this one took me over 6 months. Heaven knows how long a more complex receiver, such as a multiband superhet, would take me.
I took a great deal of time and care in designing the front panel. They are worth every penny, but they are not cheap. I didn’t want to make a mistake that would result in having to re-order the whole thing. So after checking, rechecking, going to sleep, then waking up and rechecking again, I went through this whole process several more times before finally clicking “order”. A week or so later, this beautiful 4mm thick aluminum panel arrived via UPS, packed with a little bag of gummie bears –
Look at this beautiful, black anodized front panel!
I just couldn’t get enough of this thing when I first saw it –
There were some scratches in the black finish on the rear, but this is normal. I later found out that it is possible to add a note when ordering, to ask the people working with the milling machinery to take extra care with the back side of the panel. The front surface is guaranteed, but not the back. I decided I was OK with the rear of my panel as, well, it was the rear, and the bottom half of it would be in direct contact with the front of the chassis anyway –
You’ll notice a number of “blind” holes milled on both the front and rear. The panel is so thick (4mm) that controls sticking through both the chassis and this panel wouldn’t protrude far enough for the nuts to thread onto the bushings. For the RF gain, AF gain and filter rotary switch, the blind hole was milled on the front side, as the knob would cover it. For the phone jack and bass switch, the blind holes were milled on the rear. Here’s a close-up of the blind hole on the rear side for the bass toggle switch. You’ve probably figured (if you didn’t already know) that a “blind” hole is one that doesn’t go all the way through the panel –
After the initial euphoria of receiving this fantastic front panel had subsided a little, it was time to put some time and labor into making all the remaining cut-outs in the chassis. I had asked Terry to make the holes for the octal tube socket and the main controls, but there were others that still needed to be done. My usual method of making non-standard cut-outs and holes is very time and labor-intensive, but it works quite well. I mark the edges of the cutout with a pen or pencil, then with a hand-drill, drill lots of small holes around the perimeter. Then, with an old screwdriver, I knock out the piece of metal in the center, and clean up the edges with files, usually using a bastard file first, and finishing off with something finer. These photos should help illustrate the process. The speaker cut-out was inspired by a WW2-era British military R107 receiver that I owned as a teenager. It is simple – just 4 large holes arranged in a square. This is the “during” photo, showing the series of small holes drilled around the edges of the holes. The rectangular cut-outs to the right were made using the same technique, incidentally –
– and after –
Here’s another photo, taken a bit later during the assembly, showing the placement of some of the main components. This particular National HRO NPW gear drive, unlike most that I have seen, has a shaft rotation limiter. The tuning shaft is a little on the short side. I needed to mount the gear box as close to the front panel as possible in order to be able to mount the dial properly. If you scroll back and look at the photos of the front panel, you’ll see there are 3 smaller holes located around the main hole for the gear drive. These holes helped in locating the gear box as close to the front panel as possible (the 3 screw heads fit into the 3 smaller holes on the front panel). Most of these gear boxes don’t have this rotation limiter, so the extra holes won’t be necessary. Also, do you see the aluminum shaft couplers on the regen pot and fine tuning capacitor? Those are quality parts personally machined by John Farnsworth KW2N. The one on the right is a standard 1/4″ to 1/4″ coupler, while the one on the left was made to order. It couples the 1/4″ shaft of the 10-turn regeneration pot to a short 3/16″ shaft that the National knob fits onto. I wanted to use the same type of National Velvet Vernier knob and escutcheon plate for the regeneration that I used for the fine tuning, but I didn’t want to use the 5:1 reduction drive. I wanted to use a 10-turn wirewound pot instead, as I like the feel of those pots. From the front (as you will see in later photos) the 2 National knobs and escutcheon plates look the same. However, the knob on the left is connected directly to the 10-turn pot and not to a National Velvet Vernier reduction drive. The black escutcheon plate for the regen control is spaced away from the front panel by one washer thickness, and bolted to the front panel with 4-40 hardware. It is not used for anything, other than looks.
Now, let’s look at some of the boards. They were built, as always, with W1REX’s very useful MeSQUARES and MePADS. This is the AF output stage and the 4KHz filter mounted on one board, and installed in the chassis. The idea was that this board, together with the main RF board, would form a working receiver, after which I could build and install the other filters, one by one –
Mounted above the AF output stage, on the stand-offs, is this next filter board, carrying 2 LPF’s. The first filter to be built was the 6KHz one –
Next came the 3KHz filter (in the foreground of the next shot). The grey rectangular poly capacitors were from Tayda Electronics. Thier prices are low, and the caps seem good. The resistors are 2 types – either 5% carbon film from the parts stash I had as a kid in England in the early 80’s. They lasted a long time, but I am beginning to run out of them. The others are newly-acquired Xicon 1% metal film parts, purchased in lots of 200 from Mouser –
The same board, taken from above (3KHz filter on the left, 6KHz filter on the right) –
The same board, with the 3KHz and 6KHz filters, mounted in the chassis above the 4KHz filter and AF output stage –
Here are 2 shots of the 4-stage (8th order) 2.4KHz LPF, with temporary leads in place for testing. It’s quite the QRM-buster –
At this point, allow me to introduce the main RF board. Electrically, it is exactly the same as the one in the original Sproutie. I tried a couple of small mods but went back to the original. So – nothing new here, except for a small physical detail that I learned from my experience with The Sproutie. There are 2 pads on the board that connect to the octal tube socket with (ideally) short, stiff wires. In the original Sproutie, I used very short lengths of solid 16 gauge wire. They were so stiff that, over time, with repeated insertions of coils, the wires placed enough stress on the pads to detach them from the board. It took me a while to figure out why the dial calibration was suddenly off by about 10KHz. The pads had only separated from the board by 1mm at most, so it was hard to see, but it was enough to throw off the dial calibration, and cause it to change slightly in an unpredictable fashion. I did 2 things to remedy this. The first was to replace these 2 wires with thick stranded wire, which I tinned thoroughly. The tinning stiffened the wire, but it still had more flex than the original solid 16 gauge wires. Secondly, I removed the 2 pads, and re-attached them with epoxy instead of superglue. Problem solved! When I built the Sproutie MK II board, I attached these 2 pads with epoxy (I used JB Weld). Superglue gel was used with all the other pads, as before. The 2 pads in question are at the very front edge of the board in the next shot. They are the second and third pads from the right. Missing from this shot is the 0.1uF capacitor that couples the audio to the next stage. There is also one extra capacitor that was part of a mod I later uninstalled. I’m showing you these shots to give you the overall idea of layout, what it looks like, and because it’s fun looking at circuit boards. For absolute accuracy of the circuit, follow the schematic –
The next 2 shots are the same board, but at an earlier point when I was using 1uF caps for interstage coupling. They are the 2 blue box-like caps. They didn’t make it to the final version of the board –
Here’s a wider view of the underside of the chassis at this stage of the construction, showing the main RF board wired to the octal tube socket, as well as the AF output stage with 4KHz filter, the 3KHz and 6KHz filter board on top of it, and the 2.4KHz filter board sitting on it’s own for the time being –
A closer view from a slightly different angle. At this point, it was beginning to dawn on me that keeping all this wiring tidy would take a bit more work than I had anticipated. I never did get the wiring as tidy as I wanted, but it’ll do –
This one’s a bit boring. It’s the “straight-through” real-pole LPF with a cut-off frequency of 20KHz, shown installed in the chassis on top of the 2.4KHz LPF –
and the 700Hz CW low-pass filter –
Here are all those filter boards stacked on top of each other. Looking at the left-hand stack first, from the top down is the 700Hz filter, the 20KHz “straight-through” filter and, at the bottom, the 2.4KHz sharp roll-off filter. On the right-hand side is the 3KHz and 6KHz filter board, with the 4KHz filter and AF output stage board on the bottom. You can also see the 6-position rotary switch that selects between the different filters. I had no trouble finding a 6-position switch with 2 poles but when I decided to also switch the +ve supply line to the filters, finding one with more than 2 poles proved tricky. I finally found it from a supplier of parts for musical instruments. It is distributed by AllParts, and is part number EP-0920-000. It is a 6-position 4-pole switch (one pole goes unused). Prices vary a bit, so search around for the best deal if you want this particular switch. If you want fewer filters, then you’ll probably find it easier to locate a switch that has 3 or 4 poles and 4 positions or less. This is the finished receiver, by the way. Well, finished for the time being – until I decide I just have to modify something –
Some more views of the underside of the finished receiver. You’ll notice that I designed a rear panel too. That also came from Front Panel Express – a more detailed view of it is coming later. The speaker is an 8 ohm, 4 inch, 6 watt unit made by CUI, model # GF1004. I got it from Digi-Key, part # GF1004-ND. Before finding this speaker, I purchased one from a company well-known for supplying vintage radio parts. It turned out to be very lightweight, with a small magnet, and generally rather disappointing. I liked the speaker I used in The Sproutie, so got the 4″ version of that one instead (the one in my Sproutie is a 3″ version). The aluminum speaker grille was custom cut by speakerworks.com –
Coils were constructed in the same fashion as the coils for The Sproutie. In fact, the pinouts used on the octal socket are the same, so my Sproutie coils work in the Sproutie MK II, though they cover a wider range, due to the greater maximum capacitance of the tuning capacitor I used – a 2 x 50pF instead of the 2 x 35pF used in the original Sproutie. I decided to wind a complete set of new coils for this receiver. As of writing this post, I have 6 coils wound with a few more to go, as needs and desires dictate.
With The Sproutie, I used nylon hardware to secure the larger T68-6 toroids for the lower frequency bands. On the higher frequency bands, I used T50-7 toroids, and secured them with hot glue. This time around, I found that hot glue worked perfectly well for securing the T68-6 toroid cores too, so I used that technique exclusively. It’s faster and easier than using nylon nuts, washers and bolts. I didn’t think it would be the case, but if you need to re-make a coil, you can peel/break the glue off and re-use a tube base. In fact both the coils in the photos below were made with bases that were used at least once before –
I like these ceramic bases, because they are just a little higher than the phenolic ones, offering a bit more protection to the toroid. Wherever you get yours from, if they’re ceramic, they may well be the same ones as these, as most of these bases and sockets seem to be made in China these days –
You’ll need to figure out the exact details of your coils with the help of online calculators (I like the ones on W8DIZ’ site) and good old trial and error, but here are my details – they should give you a start. Remember to take into account the values of main and fine tuning capacitors, if they are different from mine – and the value of that 39pF capacitor between the tank and the base of the oscillator transistor, if you try a different value. I’ll update this table as I wind more coils. The plan is to wind general coverage coils up to about 21MHz or so, and a few more coils for specific bands. It is much easier, with the aid of the dial calibration graphs, to pinpoint exactly which 5KHz channel you are on, when the band coverage is limited to 1MHz or less. With the 20:1 reduction ratio of this National HRO drive, and the large, relatively massive dial, I found it quite easy to tune in stations even on the 13500-18300KHz coil, which spans almost 5MHz. For pinpointing which 5KHz “channel” I am on though, a general coverage receiver to listen to the oscillator of The Sproutie is more reliable (and faster) than reading dial calibration graphs.
For dial calibration, I use a piece of freeware called Graph. You won’t be able to read the following graph, as it’s a bit small. The original is a bit larger, and the software has an option for zooming in on a particular area of the graph. This is the dial calibration graph (so far) for my 5475-8450KHz coil –
I guess it’s time to do a reveal and show you what this little feller looks like from the front. You wouldn’t think it, but I spent a great deal of time on the front panel, figuring out the exact placement of all controls, placement of the lettering, and fonts. I was looking for a specific type of vintage knob for the RF gain, filter, and AF gain controls, but didn’t find any in good condition while building the receiver. Then I found some knobs on clearance at my local Radio Shack. Those are brand new RS knobs, but I think they look good and fit in well with everything else on the front panel. My main concern was to not “overdo it”. When sitting at the computer with the Front Panel Designer software running, it’s quite tempting to go overboard on the lettering, or try a colored panel, and colored letters in a fancy font. Just because you can do something though, doesn’t mean you should, and I wanted a front panel that was understated, functional, and that would still look good, regardless of how my personal aesthetic might change. Minimalism is the key, though the one extravagance I did allow myself was the larger “Sproutie MK II” declaration, and my callsign. I did try my callsign in red but decided that it looked gaudy. Best to play it safe, I think. I was also concerned that the finish might be a bit too shiny or glossy, but it turned out to be matt with a slight sheen. I’m very happy with how this looks –
Although the regen and fine tuning knobs, and escutcheon plates look the same, the ones on the right are attached to a National “Velvet Vernier” 5:1 reduction drive, via a fairly long coupling shaft. The knob on the left is connected to the 10-turn regen pot (via a 3/16″ to 1/4″ shaft coupler), while the black escutcheon plate is spaced away from the front panel by washers, and attached to it in a fixed position with 4-40 hardware –
Here’s The Sproutie MK II with her little sister, for size comparison –
A quick word about that regen control. On first installing the main RF board, one filter, and the AF amp into the chassis, I noticed that occasionally, when receiving a strong carrier, I’d hear a ringing in the speaker. My first thought was that it was microphonics caused by physical feedback between the internal speaker, which was bolted to the chassis, and some part of the circuit. Plugging in headphones didn’t cause it to go away, however. Undeterred, I continued building, and it was only after finishing the whole receiver, that I realized what was going on. I discovered that if I hear a ringing, all I have to do it back off the regeneration control a bit, and it disappears. I think this ringing is due to the high Q of the circuit when set right at the threshold of oscillation. If you recall Dan N7VE’s presentation on filters that I referenced earlier, he talks about how ringing in filters is caused by abrupt phase changes at the edges of the passband. The cure, when designing them, is to limit the Q in any one stage. Similarly, if you experience ringing in your regen, backing away from the critical threshold of oscillation will lower the Q of the circuit, and should solve the problem. Fascinating. I’ll be interested to hear if any other regen operators have experienced this. My guess is this would be less likely to happen in a regen that utilizes a bipolar transistor for the detector (or combined oscillator/detector if it’s just one device, unlike this design).
I had to try a shot from a lower angle, for that authoritative look. When I’m spinning that big old dial and listening to CW, I can almost kid myself that I’m intercepting enemy broadcasts for the valiant code-breakers at Bletchley Park. In reality, I’m usually just listening to some ham tell some other ham what the weather is like at his QTH! –
The rear panel (thanks again, Front Panel Express) –
I like this receiver as it is, with the partially open chassis. From using The Sproutie, I have become used to seeing the vanes of the variable capacitor rotate as I tune the band, and I like that. I like seeing these vintage radio parts in action. However, I did learn from The Sproutie that whatever isn’t covered picks up dust – and when you’re living with 3 cats, 2 of whom are long-haired, a lot of cat hair too. I designed this receiver so that it would fit any standard 19″ enclosure that is also 6RU (rack units) or more high. The first plan was to make use of a hack (as the kids call it) of an IKEA product to make a low-cost rack cabinet. The IKEA Rast nightstand is the right size, and only costs US$14.99. For that, and the cost of a pair of rack strips, you can have a rack cabinet that is either 6RU or 8RU high, depending on how you construct it. A Google search on “IKEA Rast rack cabinet” or similar will yield a lot of sites and info on how to do this useful mod.
That was my plan for this receiver until I came across nice-racks.com. David Tatelbaum makes beautiful studio racks out of his workshop in Massachusetts. He uses furniture-grade pine, though he will use other woods if you request them. The mahogany racks look gorgeous (but they do cost a bit more, of course). From his website –
“Nice-Racks are constructed of solid Pine furniture-grade panels…not just pressed wood or particle board covered in a laminate like some studio racks, but 100% real wood. The panels are cut to size and the components joined together securely using pocket-hole construction and self-tapping pocket-hole screws. The front sides and top edges are rounded, then the racks are sanded and stained. The finish is a clear matte enamel, scuff sanded between coats, to preserve the look and feel of real wood. Finally, hardware is installed and the fully assembled rack is boxed up and shipped out to its new home.”
After finding his site, I was hooked. Yes, it was going to cost more than the cheap IKEA hack but at some point during the design and construction of this regen, I decided that I wanted it to look really nice, and expense was going to be a secondary concern. I was going full-hog on this. Besides, it took me over 6 months to plan and put together and spreading the cost over that time, the cost per month for my hobby was actually quite reasonable – especially if I take into account all those movies and dinners I didn’t go to because I was at home building! Incidentally, David’s racks are most definitely not expensive. When you consider the cost of your standard rack cabinet – the ones you find in music stores that are made of heavy particle board and covered in black veneer, his racks compare in price very favorably – and they are vastly nicer. They’re not ideal for the rough life of touring but for a home studio, they are perfect – and very good-looking.
OK, so time for the big reveal. This rack cabinet makes The Sproutie MK II look so great –
David also fitted rack rails to the top half of the cabinet at the rear, and supplied a 3RU-high steel panel to help enclose the receiver, and hopefully keep the cat hair away. On the left interior side you can see the recesses for the self-tapping pocket-hole screws that hold the whole cabinet together –
And in case anyone ever wonders who made this fantastic cabinet for my regen, David left his mark. What a quality job! –
The National HRO gear box does have a small amount of backlash – even when I apply as much tension to the anti-backlash gear as my poor little fingers can manage. At first, the backlash was something like 1 – 1 1/2 dial divisions. After increasing the tension on the anti-backlash gear as much as I could reasonably easily manage without the use of tools, the backlash, though still there, decreased to about 1/2 a dial division. It is a small amount, and also predictable, so not really a problem. For the purposes of dial calibration, I always turn the dial in the direction of increasing frequency before taking a dial reading. This ensures consistency in the readings.
Some videos of The Sproutie MK II in action. In the first one, the towels are on top because Sproutie, my 3 1/2 year-old kitty (aka Sprat The QRP Cat) likes to sit on top of it, and I don’t want her claws to do to the wood what they have already done to my leather sofa –
The Sproutie MK II on 49M, 41M and 40M (though mainly 49M) –
There are some more videos of the Sproutie MK II, showing how a regen can be used in exalted carrier mode to enhance reception of weak AM stations, and on the 25M band, in this slightly more recent post.
There are a couple of things about my Sproutie MK II build that I’d like to change. The first is that, especially at the higher frequencies, the set is slightly sensitive to physical shock. A knock on the cabinet will shift the frequency slightly. I don’t recall noticing this effect with the original Sproutie, although to be fair, I didn’t do as much listening to SSB and CW with it as I do with the new receiver. I think one reason for this slight frequency shift may be the fact that the thick wires connecting the 2 stators of the main tuning capacitor to the coil socket are longer than in the original Sproutie. Although the effect is only slight, it is there, and that bugs me. It may also have to do with the much larger chassis, meaning more metal in the vicinity of a tuned circuit, that flexes when a physical shock is applied. The more I think about it, the more I think this second factor is the main reason. In practice, it is not a problem, but it is there, and I’d like to reduce it, if not eliminate it completely. Fixing a bottom plate to the chassis may help in this regard. Incidentally, banging the desk on which the Sproutie MK II is sitting has no effect. The rubber feet probably help a lot.
The above phenomenon is responsible for an interesting ringing effect that happens occasionally when the regen is set close to the critical point for receiving AM. It only happens with the internal speaker, so is being caused by sound from the speaker vibrating the main chassis. I did mount the internal speaker on small grommets, but this didn’t cure the issue. I have been looking for a reason to purchase a Palstar SP-30B external speaker, and this may be it! This is what the ringing effect sounds like –
The second thing is that, because the cabinet is wood, the receiver is not completely shielded. This would be useful were I to wind a coil for the 2-3MHz region and use The Sproutie MK II in conjunction with crystal-controlled converters to cover specific bands. This is a Regenorodyne approach, like Gary WD4NKA’s inspiring Regenerodyne receiver here. It would also be nice to reduce the possibility of picking up very local QRM in the shack. I could achieve better shielding with my Sproutie MK II by either simply housing it in an all-metal rack cabinet, or by cladding the interior of the existing wooden rack cabinet with thin metal plate or mesh. There is absolutely no hand-capacitance effect when using the set, due to the metal front panel, but when my cat Sprout jumps up on top of it (as she often does) the frequency shifts by about 20Hz. This is also due to the lack of shielding on top of the set. Again, it is not much, but it is there. | {
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As President Obama counts down his final days in the White House, a recent CNN/ORC poll shows that he will close out his presidency with a 60 percent approval rating, the highest number he has achieved since his first June in office.
The year 2016 could be viewed as a complicated one for the president, as he watched his successor win the election by campaigning largely against his policies. Yet Obama will walk away with one of the higher approval ratings a modern president has ever achieved at the end of his term, coming in just behind Ronald Reagan, who had approval ratings of 64 percent, and Bill Clinton, who had ratings of 66 percent.
Moreover, 25 percent of Americans surveyed say they believe that Obama was one of the nation’s greatest presidents, far outstripping Presidents Reagan (whom 14 percent said was one of the greatest), Clinton (11 percent), George H.W. Bush (five percent), and George W. Bush (four percent).
And another 65 percent surveyed said they view Obama’s presidency as a success overall, with 49 percent attributing that to his own personal strengths rather than circumstances beyond his control, according to CNN.
A Washington Post-ABC News poll finds 61 percent approve of President Obama’s economic policies, with 53 percent supporting his handling of terrorist threats and 52 percent approve of his stance on health care – a surprisingly high number considering that healthcare was one of the primary items in President-elect Donald Trump’s overall campaign, with Trump frequently promising to immediately repeal the affordable care act known as "Obamacare.”
But despite the strong numbers, the recent polling data does also reflect the incredibly partisan nature of the nation's current political climate.
While 54 percent of Democrats surveyed say they consider Obama to be one of history’s greatest US presidents, 54 percent of Republicans surveyed say they consider his overall performance to be poor.
So although he earned 95 percent approval ratings within his own party, President Obama had only 18 percent approval among Republicans. Both Presidents Clinton and Reagan, by contrast, had over 90 percent approval ratings within their own parties, while 39 percent of Republicans approved of Clinton and 38 percent of Democrats approved of Reagan at the end of their terms.
The same CNN/ORC poll shows that President-elect Trump will take office on Friday with a 40 percent approval rating, the lowest of any modern incoming president, one that is 44 points below Obama at the time of his initial inauguration.
"What's happening here is the public fight that Mr. Trump is having with CNN and other media groups has taken some skin off his poll numbers and it's gone down,” Rep. Sean Duffy, a Republican from Wisconsin, told CNN.
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But Trump himself dismissed the poll numbers on Twitter, saying “The same people who did the phony election polls, and were so wrong, are now doing approval rating polls. They are rigged just like before.”
According to CNN, public impressions of Trump have continued dropping since the election in November with his overall disapproval rating climbing to 52 percent. The percentage of people saying they have lost confidence in his presidential ability has grown 10 points. | {
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Of the numerous humanitarian applications of blockchain that are being tested, and in some cases already used around the world, implementing cryptocurrency in places where populations are under-served by financial institutes is considered a winner.
Poor countries or island nations with rural people living far from city centers, who have had no chance at getting loans to create a small business or to take payments from family members working abroad through the banking system, can now by using Bitcoin or any number of cryptocurrencies.
Bitcoin ATMs are Becoming the Norm in Poor US Neighborhoods
Normally it is countries in Africa, South East Asia, or South America that are presented as case studies for the use of digital money. But the number of Bitcoin ATMs popping up in poor inner-city neighborhoods in the US are being used for the same reasons. According to The Virginian-Pilot, there are 80 Bitcoin ATMs in the Detroit area and 2,032 across the country.
Some may wonder how a Bitcoin ATM in the back of a Detroit gas station convenience store could solve anyone’s financial service needs. But the owner of just such a service station, Andy Attisha, has the answer at hand; “People who use the machine most likely don’t have bank accounts,”
Low-income households are likely to manage their finances outside of the traditional banking system. Many people working as day laborers, or off the books in some other way, use check cashing or payday loan centers to avoid reporting income that may conflict with government services their families receive. Others can be shut out of the banking system for having chronic low balances or bouncing too many checks.
John Sedunov, assistant professor of finance for Villanova University in Pennsylvania, has another viewpoint on why Bitcoin ATMs are showing up in poorer neighborhoods across the US. “It does seem that they are starting to pop up more and more in lower income areas,” he said, before adding “people may be viewing bitcoin as a lottery ticket in and of itself,”
Sedunov speculates that some people are only now hearing about the vast increases Bitcoin made in value during the bull market of 2017 and are depositing money in the cryptocurrency ATMs hoping for big returns on their one, two and three hundred dollar investments.
“A lot of people do day trading on it,” Attisha said. “I see people coming in here every day messing with the machine.”
Money Laundering or Lottery Machine
Any kind of cash transaction that also promises anonymity is going to attract money laundering and Bitcoin ATM’s seem an ideal solution for street-level drug dealers to store their cash in exchange for the 7 or 8 percent fee that the machine charges.
Joe Ciccolo, founder of BitAML, a compliance firm that offers consulting services to digital currency startups, says that money laundering with ATM’s is an overrated concern. He noted the ATMs enable operators to obtain customer information, including a driver’s licenses. The ATM can also enforce transaction controls such as daily limits per person and caps on transaction denominations.
Whether ATM’s are becoming a regular fixture in poor neighborhoods as a service to the community, or because companies expect to make a lot of money from fees as people use them either as a lottery substitute or to store their cash, there is no denying their popularity and the fact that numbers are increasing in major cities.
Image from Shutterstock | {
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An investigation found that Baylor University had mishandled sexual assault accusations against its football players.
By Kate Wheeling
Then-Baylor head coach Art Briles looks on from the sidelines. (Photo: Ron Jenkins/Getty Images)
Last week, Kenneth W. Starr was stripped of his title as president of Baylor University after an independent investigation found that the university had mishandled sexual assault accusations against football players. Football head coach Art Briles was also fired as a result of the investigation.Starr, who will continue to serve as both chancellor and a law professor, gained notoriety as an independent counsel for his investigation of President Bill Clinton, the New York Timesreports:
Mr. Starr’s demotion delivered a twist to the biography of a man whose reputation was built on what many considered an overzealous pursuit of allegations of sexual transgressions by Mr. Clinton. Now he is being punished for leading an administration that, according to a report from an ostensibly independent investigator, looked the other way when Baylor football players were accused of sex crimes, and sometimes convicted of them.
The relationship between athletes and sexual assault is a decades-old discussion. Since at least the 1980s, high-profile rape cases involving famous athletes have led the press to speculate on whether players might be more prone to committing acts of sexual violence. A string of sexual assault allegations in recent years has ensured that college athletic programs and the athletes that populate them will remain in the spotlight. In the last two years alone, players from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, Florida State University, and the University of Oregon have made headlines for assault allegations. More than 160 higher education institutions are under investigation by the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights for sexual violence allegations. But are athletes actually more likely to commit sexual assaults, or are we just more likely to pay attention when they’re the ones accused of committing the crime?
One factor to consider is that sexual violence does not occur in a vacuum. Anthropological research suggests that, rather than a purely psychological- or biological-driven act, sexual assaults are also highly influenced by culture. Peggy Sanday, an emeritus professor of anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania, found that some societies are more prone to rape than others; tribal societies with higher levels of male dominance, sex segregation, and tolerance of interpersonal violence had higher rates of rape. In other words, some environments can encourage sexual aggression.
The recent investigation into Baylor concluded that university officials “created a cultural perception that football was above the rules.”
College athletics are highly sex segregated, extremely male dominated, and, at least in the case of some sports — football and hockey, for example — violent by design. While no university could be accused of explicitly encouraging sexual assault, several have been blamed for condoning such behaviors, or sweeping assault allegations under the rug. The recent investigation into Baylor, for example, concluded that university officials “created a cultural perception that football was above the rules.”
And the perceived lack of consequences for star athletes might embolden them to behave in sexually aggressive ways. Consider surveys that have found that between one in six and one in three men would be willing to “use force” to obtain sex from women as long as there were no consequences for their actions.
While members of sports teams — and other male-dominated groups like fraternities and the military — are indeed more likely to commit gang rapes than the average person, there are few conclusive studies to show that athletes are more likely to commit sex crimes. There is some evidence that not all athletes are equally likely to be violent, according to Laura Finley, a sociologist at Barry University. Finley told Wisconsin Public Radio that players of “power and performance sports” — football, hockey, wrestling, and basketball — commit violent crimes more often that their peers in sports like swimming or tennis. An analysis of National Football League players by Benjamin Morris at FiveThirtyEight showed that, though the football stars displayed lower levels of domestic and sexual violence than the national average, the rate of domestic violence was still much higher than expected given their income bracket.
Without better data, it’s hard to say anything definitive on the matter. Even the oft-cited statistic that one in three sexual assaults on college campuses are carried out by athletes dates back not to a scientific study, but to a 1986 Philadelphia Daily Newsarticle. (One 1995 study did, however, find that male athletes were overrepresented in reports of sexual assault on campuses.) Literature reviews, which are usually useful for identifying patterns in the sea of conflicting single studies that science produces, are also unreliable here: One recent review found that the bulk of research on the subject was inconclusive; another, however, found higher rates of violence among student athletes.
We can at least say with certainty that universities have not been effective in handling the cases of sexual misconduct by athletes. A 2014 survey found that, in more than one-fifth of universities, the athletic department oversaw cases involving sexual assault allegations against athletes, prompting the National Collegiate Athletic Association to issue a resolution that athletic departments can only participate in, but never lead, investigations into such allegations. Still, the recent investigation at Baylor found that the university’s football program frequently dealt with sexual assault allegations internally.
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La Justicia cuestionó a la AFIP por demorar la devolución de los recargos cobrados por compras en el exterior o adquisición de moneda extranjera, y le impuso la obligación de dar respuesta inmediata a la solicitud del ciudadano que presentó una acción de amparo. Sólo con una orden judicial a su favor, varios meses después de haber presentado el formulario correspondiente, y tras haber elevado seis pedidos de pronto despacho, esta persona logró recuperar el dinero que se le había retenido en concepto de "pago a cuenta" de impuestos que él, en rigor, no paga (por no estar alcanzado).
La decisión judicial tomada en la causa "Fichter, Lautaro contra el Estado Nacional-AFIP-DGI s/amparo por mora" se conoció ahora, porque hace pocos días la sala IV de la Cámara Contencioso Administrativo Federal dictó su fallo, publicado luego por el portal Diario Judicial. Sin embargo, en ese escrito los jueces de segunda instancia hacen referencia a un "desistimiento implícito" de la apelación hecha por la AFIP contra la decisión del juez de primera instancia, quien le había dado la razón al demandante. ¿Qué ocurrió? Que, a pesar de apelar, el organismo obedeció y pagó.
Eso ocurrió luego de que el juez Pablo Cayssials, del Juzgado N° 9, hizo lugar a la acción de amparo por mora y ordenara al Estado nacional (en concreto, a la AFIP) que resolviera el expediente de Fichter en un plazo de diez días contados desde la notificación judicial.
La persona a quien le habían cobrado los recargos no es contribuyente ni de Ganancias ni de Bienes Personales. Se trata de los dos impuestos para los cuales pueden tomarse como pago a cuenta las cargas que se aplican cuando se compran bienes o servicios en el exterior o moneda extranjera para viajar (se adiciona un 35%), o dólares para ahorro (se suma un adicional de 20% a menos que, en lugar de retirar los billetes del banco, se depositan bajo determinadas condiciones). Para las situaciones en las que no existe una obligación tributaria contra la cual se puedan descargar esas "percepciones", se debe presentar el formulario 746 y pedir la devolución del dinero.
La AFIP no tiene facultades para imponer nuevas cargas impositivas a los ciudadanos, ya que eso es una atribución del Poder Legislativo. Por eso, al disponerse estos sobrecargos, se establecieron también los mecanismos para el recupero.
Para los asalariados alcanzados por Ganancias, el reintegro por lo abonado durante 2014 debería llegar en los próximos días (si se hizo antes el pedido completando el formulario 572), con el cobro de los sueldos de febrero, que es el mes de la liquidación anual del impuesto.
En el caso de Fichter, además de completar y presentar en enero de 2014 el formulario 746, se habían hecho seis pedidos de pronto despacho. Pero la AFIP sólo abonó tras la orden judicial de octubre, según se relata en los expedientes de la causa, que pueden consultarse en la página de Internet del Poder Judicial.
La resolución 3420, que estableció el procedimiento para recuperar las percepciones en caso de no pagar Ganancias, no definió en qué tiempos debe el fisco cumplir con esa tarea. El juez consideró que, en caso de no existir plazos determinados para resolver un trámite, es viable el amparo por mora si "hubiere transcurrido un plazo que excediera lo razonable" sin dictamen o resolución.
Aunque el juez apeló a la irracionalidad del tiempo transcurrido sin respuesta, el peticionante había argumentado que debería tenerse en cuenta lo dispuesto por la ley de procedimiento administrativo. Allí se especifica que si las normas especiales "no previeran un plazo determinado para el pronunciamiento, éste no podrá exceder de 60 días".
La causa de este demandante fue considerada en segunda instancia, pero eso no cambió las cosas: los jueces consideraron que hubo un desistimiento implícito tras el pago de la AFIP, por lo que no se expidieron sobre la cuestión de fondo. De todas maneras, expresaron que la acción del organismo se debió "no a una conducta propia, libre y diligente", sino "al cumplimiento de un mandato judicial imperativo". | {
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Seal of Approval
unsticking your bells
from your inner thigh
these captions aren't guaranteed to be correct | {
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The human chain was formed at 4 PM, following which the preamble of the Constitution was readout. (Photo: Twitter/AiyoSaar)
A 620 km long human chain from the northern part of Kerala to the south was formed on Sunday, Republic day, by the ruling CPI(M) led Left Democratic Front, demanding withdrawal of the Citizenship Amendment Act.
The LDF organised the human chain from Kasaragod in north Kerala to Kaliyakkavilai in the southernmost part of the state.
Lakhs of people take to the streets of Kerala to form mega human chain against CAA. Kerala Chief Minister @vijayanpinarayi and other left leaders join the 620 km chain at various parts of the state.#ReporterDiary by @itsgopikrishnan
More videos: https://t.co/FAHzdk9TO8 pic.twitter.com/47dlEFPG95 India Today (@IndiaToday) January 26, 2020
Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and CPI leader Kanam Rajendran joined the protest in Thiruvananthapuram.
Kerala CM @vijayanpinarayi along with other leaders participated in the historic 620 km long #KeralaHumanChain pic.twitter.com/YVE1wTILcR CPIM Maharashtra (@mahacpimspeak) January 26, 2020
Not a chain, but an ocean. People from all the walks of life joined #KeralaHumanChain pic.twitter.com/LbtUxS3zRQ The Left Turn (@LeftTurn0) January 26, 2020
The LDF claimed that around 60 to 70 lakh people participated in the human chain.
The human chain was formed at 4 PM, following which the preamble of the Constitution was readout.
Later, an oath was taken to protect the Constitution from the "attempts of the Central government" to destroy it.
Senior CPI(M) leader S Ramachandran Pillai was the first link of the 620-km-long human chain at Kasaragod, while M A Baby was the last link at Kaliyakkavilai.
#KeralaHumanChain
15 minutes to 4 pm. The great human chain against CAA/NRC is already forming in Thiruvananthapuram. pic.twitter.com/Ljg7o7o0tm January 26, 2020
Many prominent personalities from all walks of life participated in the human chain.
Also read: LDF to form human chain to protest against CAA on Republic Day in Kerala
ALSO WATCH| Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan moves resolution against CAA | {
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Vert Re-Vert By DNH2031ART Watch
43 Favourites 2 Comments 1K Views
I'm ending 2018 on a spicy note. This is a little something I did for a friend of mine; thought I might as well share it here, too.
Damn, been a while since I drew Vert(Hell, it's been a while since I drew anything Nep related at all). Very happy to have the honor of drafting her... endowments, once again.
Iris Heart is up next :^)
IMAGE DETAILS Image size 1252x1809px 1.5 MB Show More
Published : Dec 28, 2018 | Mature | {
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The Pros Will Help You Know Why Content is Important in a Website
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８月１０日、日銀が公表した７月の企業物価指数（ＣＧＰＩ）は９９．２となり、前年比で３．９％下落した。写真は都内で３月撮影（２０１６年 ロイター/Toru Hanai）
［東京 １０日 ロイター］ - 日銀が１０日公表した７月の企業物価指数（ＣＧＰＩ）は９９．２となり、前年比で３．９％下落した。１６カ月連続で下落しているが、下げ幅は前月の同４．２％下落から縮小した。昨年に比べて原油価格が下落していることや、円高の進行が影響している。前月比は横ばいだった。
ロイターがまとめた民間調査機関の予測中央値は前年比４．０％下落だった。
前年比で下落したのは石油・石炭製品（１９．５％下落）やスクラップ類（１７．８％下落）、非鉄金属（１４．２％下落）、電力・都市ガス・水道（１２．０％下落）など。原油など国際商品市況が昨年に比べて下落していることや、円高が国内企業物価の下げ圧力となっているが、原油価格の下げ止まりなどを背景にマイナス幅は縮小している。
全８１４品目のうち前年比で上昇したのは２３０品目で、下落は５０８品目。下落が上昇を２７８品目上回った。６月は下落が２６０品目上回っており、差が拡大している。
前月比は６月の０．１％下落から横ばいに回復したものの、７─９月に適用される夏季電力料金の調整後では０．３％下落となった。電力・都市ガス・水道や非鉄金属などが上昇に寄与する一方、石油・石炭製品や農林水産物などが押し下げ要因となっている。
企業物価指数は、企業間で取引される財の価格を合成した指数。企業間の需給や為替、国際商品市況などで変動する。 | {
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Nirmala Sitharaman said the health scheme managed to provide succour to poorest of poor. (File)
Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has termed it unfortunate that some states have chosen to opt out of the Centre''s ambitious Ayushman Bharat scheme for "political expediency".
In a Facebook post dated January 23, Ms Sitharaman said, "It (Ayushman Bharat) has already achieved a paradigm shift in healthcare within 3 months of its launch and has managed to provide succour to the poorest of the poor and the middle class...it is very unfortunate that some states have chosen to opt out of the scheme for reasons of political expediency."
She added that once fully implemented, Ayushman Bharat - which is also known as PM-JAY or Pradhanmantri Jan Aarogya Yojana - will become world's largest fully government-financed health protection scheme.
On January 10, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had announced that the state was pulling out of the scheme, accusing the Narendra Modi-led NDA government of "playing dirty politics" under the garb of the health coverage programme.
"You (Narendra Modi) are sending letters with your photograph on them to every household in the state, making tall claims to take credit for the scheme. Then why should I bear 40 per cent? The NDA government should take the entire responsibility," she had said.
The Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP government in Delhi has also given a cold shoulder to the scheme.
The scheme plans to cover over 10.74 crore poor and vulnerable families as per the socio-economic caste census (SECC). It provides a cover of up to Rs 5 lakhs per family per year which includes 1,400 pre-defined packages spread over 23 specialities.
The expenses incurred is shared between the Centre and the state in 60:40 ratio.
"More than 8 lakh beneficiaries have been admitted to empanelled hospitals and claims worth Rs 662 Cr have been settled. Within 100 days of its launch, it has been lauded by organisations like WHO and independent philanthropists like Bill Gates," Ms Sitharaman wrote on Facebook.
Before the launch of Ayushman Bharat, around 62.58 per cent of our population had to pay for their own health and hospitalisation expenses and were not covered by any form of health protection, she said.
She pointed out that each year, 4.6 per cent of the population is pushed below the poverty line as people meet their healthcare needs spending large proportion of their income and savings, borrowing money or selling their assets.
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Σύμφωνα με το πρακτορείο «Reuters», οι τουρίστες που είναι στην Ελλάδα ή θα έρθουν τις επόμενες ημέρες και έχουν στην κατοχή τους ξένες πιστωτικές κάρτες θα είναι σε θέση να βγάλουν όσα χρήματα θέλουν ανάλογα με το όριο που έχει η τράπεζα τους.
Αυτό σημαίνει ότι σε καμία περίπτωση δεν ισχύουν τα «capital controls» των 60 ευρώ για τους τουρίστες.
«Ενημερώνονται όσοι επισκέπτονται ή πρόκειται να επισκεφτούν την Ελλάδα ότι τα μέτρα περιορισμού στην κίνηση κεφαλαίων που επέβαλε η ελληνική κυβέρνηση δεν αφορούν όσους επιθυμούν να κάνουν συναλλαγές ή αναλήψεις μέσω ΑΤΜ κάνοντας χρήση χρεωστικών ή πιστωτικών καρτών που έχουν εκδοθεί στη χώρα τους», αναφέρουν κυβερνητικοί κύκλοι. | {
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Carl Sagan has quite a legacy. As a scientist, writer, television host and so much more, he made his impact on the worlds of astronomy, entertainment and pop culture that will continue for many more years. Even though he left us all the way back in 1996, his name is still being used today in a variety of ways, and we can still feel his impact on various parts of our world.
The Asteroid
There is an asteroid that bears Sagan’s name and that is hurtling through space at this very moment. It is called Asteroid 2709 Sagan. If the story stopped there, it would be a noteworthy blip on his career, but it goes on to be something even more wonderful. Asteroid 4970 was found to be locked into orbit with the Sagan asteroid. They are intertwined together endlessly and unless something happens to them, they will stay locked together for eternity. This second asteroid was renamed Asteroid Druyan, after Sagan’s wife and a constant contributor to the sciences just like him.
Druyan is still alive today, and her and Carl Sagan share another connection to the stars that still lives on as well. That would be the message that was shot into space on two separate spacecrafts back in 1974. It is still hurtling through space on a quest for alien life to give its message to, and it contains the brainwaves of both Ann Druyan and Carl Sagan.
The Number
There was a catchphrase that Carl Sagan was famous for, even though he ironically never used it initially. That is “billions and billions”, which was classified as his catchphrase before he even said the words. It was only after these words had been linked to him for years that he finally gave in and said them as a form of fanservice.
Now this phrase lives on as one attached to his name, but it is also attached to number. A sagan is a number that is at least four billion, and it is considered a unit of measurement.
The Show
One of the accomplishments that Carl Sagan is most well known for is hosting the television series Cosmos. This show has been considered an inspiration to many of the great scientific minds of today, and it is well regarded for bringing lofty, complicated scientific concepts to the masses that most people would otherwise not understand or care about. Carl Sagan had a way of making many of these high ideas comprehensible for people who had not had his extensive education or experience.
The show continued years later under a sequel hosted by Neil deGrasse Tyson. Like Sagan’s original show, it helped bring large scientific ideas to the general public. The show was continued once more, this time hosted by animator Seth MacFarlane in 2014. Sagan may no longer be hosting the show, but his legacy definitely lives on through it, and the creators and hosts of the show are constantly referencing what Mr. Sagan did for science during his lifetime. | {
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Bill Cosby Case: Race, Gender, Fame Questions Loom as Jurors Sought
Lawyers in Pittsburgh on Monday began the work of finding a dozen jurors and six alternates willing to spend two weeks or more sequestered nearly 300 miles from home.
Thirteen years after a Temple University basketball team manager went to famous alumnus Bill Cosby's nearby home for career advice, her complaint that Cosby drugged and molested her that night will soon be a task for a Pennsylvania jury.
Lawyers in Pittsburgh on Monday began the work of finding a dozen jurors and six alternates willing to spend two weeks or more sequestered nearly 300 miles (482 kilometers) from home.
The case has attracted worldwide publicity that the judge hopes to shield from jurors when the trial starts June 5 in suburban Philadelphia. Cosby arrived at the courthouse in Pittsburgh Monday morning, holding onto the arm of an assistant and ignoring reporters' questions. His lawyer, though, said the comedian was eager to get things started.
"He's holding up fine, he's looking forward to it ... and we're looking forward to getting a trial," said defense lawyer Brian McMonagle, who thanked the county for handling the jury selection process. "We look forward to getting it done as soon as possible and starting this trial."
Asked if he thought they could get an impartial jury, he said, "We sure hope so."
Lawyers hope to have the panel in place by the end of the week.
Cosby showed little emotion sitting beside three of his lawyers at the defense table.
"You want to see if they're a celebrity-conscious person — if they read celebrity stuff, if they worship celebrity," trial consultant Howard Varinsky said. "Prosecutors have to be very worried about fans."
The lawyers also will be weighing a potential juror's race, gender, age, occupation and interests as the questioning gets underway. They hope to tease out whether they relate more to the beloved actor who brought the world Fat Albert, Dr. Cliff Huxtable and bemused quips about family and fatherhood, or a woman who was rebuffed when she first filed a police complaint, only to relive the case a decade later after Cosby's testimony from her lawsuit became public and dozens of other accusers came forward to support her.
"In a normal case, juries are all banging the door to get out, bringing up every hardship in the world," Varinsky said. "But on this case, you're going to see people that may lie to get on, and people who convince themselves that they can be fair, but they can't."
"Whatever side you're on, you have to really weed through this," he said. "I'm looking (as a consultant) for every single micro-expression, each body movement."
Jurors will be dismissed "for cause" if they admit to strong views about the case or persuade the judge they have family, health or financial situations that prevent them from serving. After that, each side can strike seven people during jury selection and three more when they choose alternates.
Accuser Andrea Constand went to police in January 2005 to report that Cosby had sexually assaulted her a year earlier. She had left Temple the previous March and was back home in the Toronto area, setting aside a life in basketball to retrain as a massage therapist.
Then-District Attorney Bruce Castor declined to press charges. Constand then sued the comedian, negotiating a settlement after he gave sworn testimony about a string of sexual liaisons with young women. Cosby admitted giving some of them pills or alcohol beforehand.
New prosecutors read that testimony and reopened the case in mid-2015. Cosby was arrested on Dec. 30, 2015, days before the 12-year statute of limitations expired. He has pleaded not guilty and remains free on $1 million bail.
He told a talk show host this week that he hopes to beat back the charges and resume his career.
"I want people to understand my work as an artist and a performer," he said. "I want to get back to the laughter and the enjoyment of things that I've written and things that I perform on stage."
One-third of the potential jurors questioned in Bill Cosby's sex assault case Monday said they've formed opinions about his guilt or innocence while the majority said it would be difficult to spend several weeks sequestered across the state.
And 35 of the 100 people questioned said they or a family member or close friend has been the victim of a sexual assault. Jurors are being selected this week in Pittsburgh for the trial that begins June 5 in suburban Philadelphia.
The case against the once wildly popular actor-comedian has attracted worldwide publicity that the judge hopes to shield from jurors during the trial.
The initial questioning Monday suggested it may take some time to find an unbiased jury. The judge has not yet ruled on anyone's qualification to serve, but was expected to question people individually throughout the afternoon.
"No one should make an effort to be on this jury, and no one should make an effort to not be on this jury," Judge Steven T. O'Neill told the group.
Sixty-seven people said it would be a hardship to spend up to three weeks sequestered near Philadelphia next month.
Cosby entered the courtroom in Pittsburgh on the arm of an aide, using a cane and carrying a box of tissues. He
Lead lawyer Brian McMonagle had earlier said he hoped an unbiased jury could be found fairly quickly this week. He said Cosby was "looking forward" to getting the process started. Cosby has said he does not expect to testify.
The trial will take place in Norristown in Montgomery County, where Cosby had invited Andrea Constand to his home in 2004. She said she went seeking career advice as she considered leaving her job managing the women's basketball team at Temple University. She said Cosby gave her wine and pills that put her in a stupor before molesting her on his couch.
Constand was 30 and dating a woman at the time, while Cosby was 66 and long married. Cosby in sworn testimony has said he put his hand down her pants, but said she did not protest.
The judge plans to bring 100 potential jurors to the courthouse each day this week until a dozen jurors and six alternates are found. The first group included 53 women and 47 men, and 16 people of color.
In answering questions, 67 said they had a family, financial or other hardship that would make it difficult to serve; 34 had formed an opinion about Cosby's guilt or innocence; 25 said they would have trouble being fair because of the nature of the charges; and 14 said they had a preconceived notion that would prevent them from deciding the case fairly. | {
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Johannesburg - Four taxi operators have been arrested in Woodmead for allegedly being in possession of three unlicensed firearms and ammunition, Johannesburg metro police said on Friday.
They were arrested along Woodmead Drive around 10.30am on Thursday during a joint operation by metro police and SAPS, Chief Superintendent Wayne Minnaar said.
“The operation was done following taxi violence in the area since Monday, when one taxi was burnt.”
The taxi operators were expected to appear in court soon.
Sapa | {
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Donald Trump again on Tuesday rejected support from white supremacists and went a step further, saying that no one has done as “much for equality as I have.”
The GOP frontrunner has been thrown off message since Sunday when he failed to disavow backing from former KKK grand wizard David Duke.
Trump has since said he wants nothing to do with Duke and other white nationalists.
“I disavow him every time I speak to someone virtually,” Trump told “Good Morning America” on Tuesday. “It was totally disavowed.”
‘There’s nobody that’s done so much for equality as I have.’ - Donald Trump
Trump’s campaign has been highlighted by harsh words about immigrants, pledging to build a wall along the US-Mexican border and calling for a halt to immigration of any Muslims. He’s also drawn fire from women by insulting Fox News Channel personality Megyn Kelly and one-time GOP presidential candidate Carly Fiorina.
Still, on “GMA” Tuesday, said: “There’s nobody that’s done so much for equality as I have.”
The GOP front-runner insisted Tuesday he’s not worried about GOP leaders who said they won’t support him if he’s the party’s nominee.
Trump cited record GOP turnout in early voting states as evidence he’s energizing party faithful.
“The party is going to get bigger,” Trump said. “The Republican Party is growing larger. And if it didn’t it has no chance – it’ll be like Mitt Romney four years ago. It has no chance of winning. We are getting people into the party that it never had before.”
Polls show him losing to both Democrats, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, in hypothetical November matchups. | {
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MINISTERS have signalled a further push for full control of Scotland's railways, claiming "an honest conversation" was needed with the trains' operator over the causes for delays and disruption.
Transport minister Humza Yousaf said he planned to discuss the limited powers of the recently created Scotrail Alliance and the reasons for much passenger unhappiness when the firm's new chief takes the reins in June.
In a briefing to MSPs, Mr Yousaf described the operation, which has welded together franchise operator ScotRail with infrastructure manager Network Rail, as "optically flawed" and "work in progress", expressing ongoing frustrations over the impact of signal and track failings on customer delays.
The comments come as the SNP at both Holyrood and Westminster seek support for the full devolution of Network Rail, with all signalling and timetabling operated from Milton Keynes.
Champions of the move include former UK transport minister Tom Harris, with the Scottish Government claiming it would save the taxpayer £100 million a year and enhance customer experience on the railways by reducing journey times and delays.
One senior transport source told The Herald the recent improvement in Scotland's performance was largely due to "the Milton Keynes operation being told to get the finger out".
Others have claimed the nature of the relationship has meant ScotRail has taken the blame for issues beyond its control and been unable to rectify that.
Network Rail has said that the ScotRail Alliance “already provides a dedicated and devolved rail network to Scotland”.
The latest move comes Mr Yousaf announced that the delayed redevelopment of one of Scotland's busiest stations was ion the cusp on being unlocked.
Following claims by Network Rail that contractual and legal wranglings stalling the overhaul of Glasgow's Queen Street station, Mr Yousaf said the required Government authorisations, knows as TAWS orders, would be signed off within 48 hours following an eight months hold up.
Addressing Holyrood's Rural Economy and Connectivity (REC) Committee, Mr Yousaf said the former ScotRail Alliance chief Phil Verster had already left his post, with his replacement not due to be in place until June.
He said Alex Hines could not secure his release from train firm Arriva Northern until that stage. Asked whether the fact he would be ultimately employed by Network Rail present a conflict of interests, Mr Yousaf said: "I wouldn't say conflict of interest but ScotRail Alliance can seem optically flawed.
"I get very frustrated by delays caused by signalling or track flaws. When this is discussed with the person in charge of the Alliance the response was 'I don't have full control'.
"The Alliance is work in progress. We need to have an honest conversation about the powers that person has when appointed to head up the Alliance."
Meanwhile, Mr Yousaf said he did not anticipate the delays to Queen Street Station to impact upon train services but would be felt by the actual building. The minister said the electrification of the Glasgow to Edinburgh line would be completed and operational by July, that "greener, faster, longer" trains would run from the autumn, while an entire new fleet would be in place by December. | {
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La lutte contre l'anonymat sur Internet fait son grand retour. Après Harlem Désir, lundi 16 décembre sur BFM-TV, c'est François Hollande, en recevant le même jour le Conseil représentatif des institutions juives de France, qui a pris pour cible « la tranquillité de l'anonymat sur Internet ».
« Nous travaillons avec Jean-Marc Ayrault (...) pour éviter la tranquillité de l'anonymat qui permet de dire des choses innommables sans être retrouvé », a déclaré le président. Pas plus que le premier secrétaire du Parti socialiste, ce dernier ne dit pas s'il envisage, comme le sénateur Jean-Louis Masson en son temps, une loi pour limiter l'usage du pseudonymat et de l'anonymat sur Internet.
Cette question semble revenir dans la bouche des décideurs dans la même forme que lors de sa dernière incursion dans le débat public. Pourtant, les termes du débat n'ont pas beaucoup changé.
Il est de plus en plus difficile d'être anonyme sur Internet aux yeux des autorités. Plusieurs textes européens et français entrés en vigueur dans les années 2000 obligent les divers acteurs techniques d'Internet à conserver les traces de l'activité d'un internaute et d'être en mesure de les communiquer aux forces de l'ordre qui en feraient la demande. On en a d'ailleurs eu un exemple récent : l'activiste Rokhaya Diallo, menacée − sous pseudo − de viol par un internaute a réussi à assigner ce dernier devant la justice, vendredi 6 décembre.
Lire : Twitter sommé de respecter le droit français
Les dispositifs existants contre les propos hors-la-loi (racisme, insultes, menaces) s'appliquent aussi à ceux qui sont proférés sur les réseaux. C'est parfois la question de leur application concrète qui pose question. Le problème de l'identification d'internautes auteurs de propos racistes et antisémites avait a déjà été évoqué lorsque l'Union des étudiants juifs de France (UEJF) a assigné le réseau social Twitter en justice, lui demandant de fournir les identités d'internautes coupables d'injures racistes et antisémites. L'organisation a obtenu gain de cause auprès du tribunal, et Twitter a fourni à l'UEJF les informations demandées en juillet.
QUESTION DE PRINCIPES
La prise de position de François Hollande pose par ailleurs des questions sur le respect de l'équilibre entre l'application de la loi et la préservation de la liberté d'expression. S'exprimer en son nom propre est un privilège dont tous les internautes ne peuvent se prévaloir, qu'ils soient soumis au secret professionnel (médecins, avocats), ou simplement désireux de laisser d'éventuelles opinions politiques en dehors de leur vie personnelle ou professionnelle.
Outre l'infaisabilité technique d'une mesure qui obligerait tout internaute à afficher en permanence son état-civil complet, la possibilité d'exprimer son opinion de manière anonyme est, dans certains cas, protégée par la loi – notamment dans l'isoloir. | {
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India’s Grid-Connected Renewable Energy Capacity Tops 50 Gigawatts
February 8th, 2017 by Saurabh
India’s renewable energy sector recently achieved yet another major milestone, the Ministry of New & Renewable Energy announced.
As of the 31st of December 2016, India had achieved an operational grid-connected renewable energy capacity of more than 50 gigawatts. More than half of this capacity is based on wind energy, while solar power remains a distant second. Other technologies like small hydro, bioenergy, and waste-to-energy have a much smaller share.
India’s wind energy capacity stands at 28.7 gigawatts and wind remains the largest and most trusted renewable energy technology in the nation. The country’s solar power capacity stands at just over 9 gigawatts and is expected to grow at a much faster rate compared to any other technology over the next few years.
The Indian government has already specified that solar power will be its focus for the several years. The government hopes to have an operational solar capacity of 100 gigawatts by March 2022, while the target for wind energy is 65 gigawatts. An additional 10 gigawatts capacity target is set for other technologies.
India plans to add 12 gigawatts of solar power capacity between April 2016 and March 2017. However, only around 2.1 gigawatts have been added between April and December 2016.
A large number of solar power tenders have been lined up, at the central as well as state level, but there are doubts about the timely execution of projects. The problem could simply be the sheer size of annual targets — up to 17 gigawatts capacity planned for addition every year.
India also recently conducted its first wind energy auction which is expected to yield the lowest-ever tariffs seen in the Indian market.
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European heatwave: Spain battles major Catalonia wildfire Published duration 27 June 2019 Related Topics Europe heatwaves
media caption The fire is expected to spread rapidly in the intense heat
Hundreds of firefighters are battling wildfires in Spain's Catalonia region, as temperatures soared to 40C (104F) and above across parts of Europe.
Officials say the fires are the worst in the region for 20 years and may spread rapidly.
Much of Europe is experiencing extreme heat. Germany, France, Poland and the Czech Republic have all recorded their highest ever June temperatures.
Meteorologists say hot air drawn in from northern Africa is responsible.
The heat is expected to rise further in many countries over the next three days, meteorologists warn.
France could break its all-time record on Friday. 44.1C was recorded in the Gard region in August 2003 but temperatures could now go as high as 45C.
Gard is one of four southern regions to be placed on red alert, the highest crisis level. The others are Hérault, Vaucluse and Bouches-du-Rhône. Another 76 of the remaining 92 are on orange alert.
By mid-afternoon temperatures had reached 39C in Turin in Italy and 41C in the Spanish city of Zaragoza.
Grospierres in southern France recorded a high of 42.3C on Thursday afternoon - a national June record.
The ski resort of Val D'Isere - which sits at 1,850m altitude - experienced its highest temperature ever recorded with 29.2C.
What is happening in Catalonia?
At least 6,500 hectares (16,000 acres) are affected by the wildfires, near the town of La Torre de l'Espanyol, 80km from the coastal city of Tarragona.
Officials said that in the intense heat the area of the fire could increase to 20,000ha.
At least 45 people have been evacuated and five roads have been closed. There have been no reports of casualties.
media caption Simon King explains the causes behind the heatwave
Regional interior minister Miquel Buch told Catalan radio the fire might have been caused by "an accumulation of manure in a farm that generated enough heat to explode and generate sparks".
In total, 11 provinces in the east and centre of Spain have experienced or are set to experience temperatures above 40C. In parts of the north-east, they may reach 45C.
What about elsewhere in southwestern Europe?
Temperatures are expected to top 40C in Italy too, particularly in central and northern regions. Several cities, including Rome, have issued the highest heat warnings.
image copyright AFP image caption Milan also expects the mercury to top 40C on Thursday
On Thursday morning the body of a 72-year-old homeless Romanian man was found near Milan's central train station. Officials say the heat may have been a factor in his death.
Philip Trackfield, a British tourist in Rome, told the BBC: "Last night at the Spanish steps it was 41C. It's exhausting when you're trying to do all the sights."
Meanwhile the whole of France - where a heatwave in 2003 was blamed for 15,000 deaths - is now on orange alert, the second-highest warning level.
media caption BBC colleagues from hot countries give their tips for staying cool
In Paris, fountains and sprinklers connected to hydrants have been set up. Some schools have delayed important exams and even closed.
In Toulouse, where temperatures are expected to reach 41C on Thursday, charities have been handing out water to homeless people.
How hot was Wednesday?
Temperatures have been climbing in recent days. On Wednesday, Coschen in Brandenburg peaked at 38.6C - a new German record for June.
Radzyn in Poland and Doksany in the Czech Republic also recorded new national highs, with temperatures hitting 38.2C and 38.9C respectively.
Even in the high-altitude Alps, temperatures topped 30C in places. Parts of Austria recorded their local all-time highest temperatures on Wednesday.
media caption A coati eating iced fruit in a Rome zoo
While the UK will avoid the worst of the heat, parts of the country - including London - are expected to see temperatures top 30C on Saturday.
Is climate change to blame?
Linking a single event to global warming is complicated.
While extreme weather events like heatwaves occur naturally, experts say these will happen more often because of climate change.
Records going back to the late 19th Century show that the average temperature of the Earth's surface has increased by about one degree since industrialisation.
A climatology institute in Potsdam, Germany, says Europe's five hottest summers since 1500 have all been in the 21st Century.
Scientists are concerned that rapid warming linked to human use of fossil fuel has serious implications for the stability of the planet's climate.
What measures are you taking to cope with the heatwave? Share your stories. Email [email protected] | {
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Men of today, have got more choices, than ever before! However, choosing a haircut is now far more complicated, than just deciding, if you want long, short or medium hair.
But don’t worry, today we will show you, or rather help you, decipher the best haircuts and how to tame them to suit your personality.
Be it pompadours or quiffs, buzz cut or blowouts, we will talk about all of them so that you know which one to choose for yourself.
Blowout
It is designed to look windblown and wild, and trust me, that is me putting it as mildly as I could. The character of the look is the full-volume top that stands tall with faded sides.
Buzz Cut
Short and simple! And at times, opted by the ones who have hair receding issues. You can easily identity this hairdo, as you would find hair to be clipped close to the head with clippers. Easy to wear and maintain, you need no extra styling for these.
Just trim them when they grow out and you will be sorted!
Disconnected Undercut
Thanks to David Beckham, men’s grooming market has changed completely, and it took no time for undercuts to become a rage. It is popular, yes, but I think it’s becoming common too.
A longer length of hair on top with shorter, very short, sides – is what defines it.
Fade and Taper
It usually features a longer length on top that gradually runs shorter towards sides and back of the head. It can either fade down till the skin is exposed around ears or just taper to a shorter length of hair.
Take your pick!
Ivy League
They call it Princeton or Harvard clip, which in simple words is a bit lengthier version of the all-so-traditional crew cut.
Man Braid
This, is my personal favorite. Being a guy who prefers his own hair to be long, this scores big for me. The latest entrants in the men’s hairdo business, their appeal is the ability to create a range of different stylish looks.
Young or old, this one is a game changer for all! And if you have a beard to go with it, then that’s just the perfection you were striving for.
Pompadour
Did you know that this hairdo date back to the 1700s? Initially, they were worn by only women, but a certain King made it look cool on men. Yes, Elvis, The Presley, King! | {
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By Stephen Dietrich, Managing Editor
The headlines are ablaze today with harsh accusations that Donald Trump’s wife, Melania, plagiarized a passage from First Lady Michelle Obama’s 2008 Democratic National Convention speech.
It’s enough to give the gossip columnists and late night chuckle-heads a field day, for sure.
And although the apparently lifted passage was of very little consequence, the video evidence is hard to deny.
But while the mainstream media and political talking heads are gloating over the misstep, there’s another issue that deserves serious attention.
Her speech writer (or speech writers) were either incompetent — or intentionally sabotaged her.
It’s no secret that journalists, like a pack of hungry wolves, look for lifted passages in convention speeches. In fact, Michelle Obama herself was criticized after her 2008 speech for allegedly plagiarizing a passage from Chapter 2 Saul Alinsky’s book, “Rules for Radicals.” (And, for the record, President Barack Obama has been accused of plagiarism, too.)
It’s an incident that any seasoned political speech writer would remember. And the idea that a speech writer would subsequently lift language for Melania Trump’s speech (especially from a speech given by Michelle Obama) is almost shocking in its audacity.
And, unfortunately, the shenanigans don’t stop there.
During one part of her speech, Mrs. Trump seems to have unintentionally “Rickrolled” the audience — a popular Internet prank that involves surprising an unsuspecting audience with lyrics from the 1980’s pop-song “Never Gonna Give You Up”.
It’s something young Americans are very familiar with — but something a Slovenian-born, non-native English speaker is probably unaware of. And you can be certain it wasn’t her idea.
The speech included an almost verbatim quote from a verse of the song, likely no coincidence.
But to reiterate (and to paraphrase @tvoti), the real speechwriter's scandal here is this ACTUAL RICKROLL?!?!?!?!?! pic.twitter.com/eSuFbbVs43 — mr. sonia (@soniasaraiya) July 19, 2016
Mrs. Trump is not a politician, she is a jewelry and watch designer. English is not her first language, Slovene is. And she has never spoken in front of an audience this large.
So, like most of us would, she relied — at least partially — on the help of professional speech writers.
Either intentionally — or with extreme recklessness and incompetence — those writers let her down.
Embarrassing?
Of course.
But news that is worthy of the front page of every mainstream media outlet?
Hardly.
There are much, much bigger stories than a non-English speaker being tricked into unknowing public humiliation. Media outlets busy gloating today are acting less like adults, and more like mean girls at a Middle School dance.
Grow up. There are far more important things to talk about.
Below is Mrs. Melania Trump’s full speech. Take a look, then let us know your thoughts — Is it possible Melania Trump was set up? Or is she guilty of plagiarism?
Comment with your opinion below.
— Stephen Dietrich is the Managing Editor of The Horn News | {
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A view of Choccolocco Creek, Talledega County, Alabama, where a surviving population of the wicker ancylid limpet Rhodacmea filosa (insert, not to scale), was recently rediscovered. Credit: Paul Johnson, Alabama Aquatic Biodiversity Center ANN ARBOR—Think “mass extinction” and you probably envision dinosaurs dropping dead in the long-ago past or exotic tropical creatures being wiped out when their rainforest habitats are decimated. But a major mass extinction took place right here in North America in the first half of the 20th century, when 47 species of mollusk disappeared after the watershed in which they lived was dammed.
Now, a population of one of those species—a freshwater limpet last seen more than 60 years ago and presumed extinct—has been found in a tributary of the heavily dammed Coosa River in Alabama’s Mobile River Basin. Researchers from the University of Michigan, the Alabama Aquatic Biodiversity Center and the Kentucky State Nature Preserves Commission reported the rediscovery May 31 in the online, open-access journal PLoS One.
The story of Rhodacmea filosa’s disappearance and reappearance is both a conservation success story and a cautionary tale for other parts of the world where rivers are being dammed, said Diarmaid O’Foighil, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology and a curator at the U-M Museum of Zoology. It’s also an example of how museum specimens collected generations ago can inform scientists of today.
Limpets are snails with shells shaped like caps rather than coils. They make their homes in the riffles and shoals of fast-flowing rivers and streams, where they graze on microscopic algae. When rivers are dammed, shoals and riffles are replaced with reservoirs, and the swiftly-moving water the limpets require is stilled.
The Mobile River Basin, a “global hotspot of temperate freshwater biodiversity,” was extensively industrialized throughout the 20th century, and 36 major dams and locks were built. At the time, few thought much about preserving biodiversity. The prevailing attitude was, “What’s not to like about getting electricity from a natural source—especially in impoverished, rural areas—and using that to drive industrialization?” O’Foighil said. “The dams were seen as signs of progress.”
But progress came at the expense of mollusks that were found only in that area and nowhere else in the world.
“Their habitat was destroyed in huge chunks,” O’Foighil said. The result: 47 of 139 endemic mollusk species were lost, representing a full one-third of all known freshwater mollusk extinctions worldwide.
Then, about 20 years ago, thanks to increased interest in and funding for conservation projects, biologists began searching patches of the drainage that weren’t affected by damming, trying to find remnants of the original, rich fauna and save whatever still could be saved. At the Alabama Aquatic Biodiversity Center (AABC), a former catfish experimental research station has been converted into a captive breeding facility, with the aim of breeding survivors of the mass extinction and reintroducing them into unaffected parts of the watershed.
It was through those efforts that AABC director Paul Johnson discovered the surviving population of what he thought might be Rhodacmea filosa. But how does one definitively identify a species that hasn’t been seen in decades? There are no other living members of the group with which to compare specimens.
That’s where the U-M Museum of Zoology collection comes in. It just so happens that 100 years ago, biologists collected multitudes of mollusks from the Mobile River Basin—never envisioning the habitat destruction and resulting extinctions that were to come—and those specimens ended up in the U-M collection. Coincidentally, the mollusk portion of that collection was largely established by Bryant Walker, an early authority on—you guessed it—the limpet genus Rhodacmea. Furthermore, the last person to study Rhodacmea was a U-M graduate student, some 50 years ago.
Using century-old reference specimens, O’Foighil, professor emeritus John Burch, graduate student Jingchun Li and collection coordinator Taehwan Lee were able to confirm the identity in addition to performing detailed morphometric and DNA analyses.
“This is very good news,” O’Foighil said. “With conservation biology, usually it’s all gloom and doom, but this is one of those rare events where we have something positive to say.”
But just because survivors have been found, does that mean the species can continue to survive?
“I think they can, because of two things,” O’Foighil said. “We have a persistent population in this little tributary, but we also now have in place the infrastructure for their captive breeding and reintroduction to other tributaries.”
This snail tale might well serve as an object lesson, O’Foighil said. “The industrialization of freshwater watersheds that happened across the U.S. in the last century is now happening all over the world. For instance, right now one of the most egregious examples is the ongoing damming of the Mekong, and there are likely thousands of endemic species there. Even though we’re now more aware of this—of the negative downsides—when it comes to issues of economic development, freshwater biodiversity almost always loses.”
In addition to O’Foighil, Li, Lee, Johnson and Burch, the paper’s authors include Ryan Evans of the Kentucky State Nature Preserves Commission. Funding was provided by the State Wildlife Grant Program, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Science Foundation.
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OTTAWA—The Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists is warning pregnant and breastfeeding women about the potential dangers of cannabis use.
The society points to evidence-based studies that suggest potential growth and development issues if cannabis is used while pregnant or breastfeeding.
That includes pre-term labour, low birth weight, lower IQ scores and impulsivity and hyperactivity in childhood.
Read more:
Canadian doctors given advice on prescribing medical pot
More women in California are using marijuana during pregnancy, study finds
Ontario prepping reefer awareness campaign on the dangers of marijuana as legalization date approaches
The group says the main psychoactive component of cannabis — THC — crosses the placenta into fetal tissue and can also accumulate in breast milk. And that’s regardless of whether cannabis is vaped, smoked, eaten, or in pill or topical form.
The organization announced its public awareness campaign on April 20, a date associated with pro-cannabis activism. The campaign includes two videos and material on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.
The doctors’ group also pointed to research that suggests 70 per cent of pregnant and non-pregnant women believe there is a slight or no risk in using cannabis once or twice a week during pregnancy.
“Should cannabis become available for sale this summer, it is important that individuals be aware of the health risks, particularly for vulnerable populations such as pregnant women,” the society’s head, Dr. Jennifer Blake, said Friday in a release. | {
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This is an archived article and the information in the article may be outdated. Please look at the time stamp on the story to see when it was last updated.
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HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (WHNT) - Remington's decision to move two gun production lines from New York to Huntsville is drawing sharp criticism from northern lawmakers who said their state's stringent gun laws are costing jobs.
The gun manufacturer announced Friday it would move production of its Bushmaster and R1 handgun lines to its new Alabama facility.
The Bushmaster, a semiautomatic weapon, is no longer allowed to be sold in New York unless it is modified.
Alabama's pro-2nd Amendment political climate is without a doubt an attractor to the Remington company.
Everyone knows in Alabama - we like our guns.
It's all well and good for our neighbors to the north to chide Alabamians and our lawmakers for what some characterize as a regressive, backwoods, homegrown approach to gun laws - but when it comes to losing jobs and growth to gun-toting southerners - that's a different story altogether.
While it most certainly will take some hefty renovations for the sprawling old Chrysler facility near Huntsville International Airport to accommodate Remington Outdoor Company, the business and political climates are already perfectly primed to welcome a major firearms manufacturer to move business here. Some New York leaders and lawmakers are sore over Huntsville's recent acquisition. The local business community's reaction to the recent squabblings? 'New York - why are you surprised?'
"They obviously want to know that they're wanted," said Huntsville Madison County Chamber of Commerce President & CEO Chip Cherry, matter-of-factly. "And that the community and the state and the leadership of that state embraces them as a company and welcomes them."
Remington did not cite the New York regulations - known as the SAFE Act – in its announcement to move from New York to Alabama but the company had been one of the measure's harshest critics. The move will cost the company's Ilion, NY facility about 80 jobs.
"The feeling and the message that was being sent out was they didn't welcome that type of activity in their state so therefore you really shouldn't be surprised if that type of activity doesn't expand and grow in your state," Cherry responds.
Tom King, president of the New York State Rifle and Pistol Association, was quoted as saying, "I don't think moving Bushmaster and their pistol line this early in the process to Alabama bodes well.'' King went on to say, "I wouldn't doubt it's SAFE Act-related in a New York minute. The company made statements over and over again that when they bought the property in Huntsville, Ala., that having a manufacturing facility in a Second Amendment-friendly area means a lot to them."
"In Alabama, we embrace the 2nd Amendment Rights." Chip Cherry says though, it's not all about politics.
"They want to make a superior product and we are a great place to make a superior product because we are used to machining things to tight tolerances and a high quality with a great workforce," Cherry concludes.
"This was a strategic business decision to concentrate our resources into fewer locations and improve manufacturing efficiency and quality. We are working hard to retain as many people from the affected facilities as possible,'' Remington spokesperson Teddy Novin told the Buffalo News.
"For the first time in our almost 200-year history we will innovate, design, and build in one place," Novin said elsewhere.
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The employment front is not the only sector reaping benefits from Remington's move to Huntsville. One local technical college says demand for Remington jobs - and the skills those jobs require - has their phones ringing off the hook.
"We receive now two to three phone calls a day of interest in what programs we might have that would be appropriate for the Remington facility," says John Reutter, Drake State Director of Planning & Resource Development. "Fortunately we have already done an analysis of their facility and manufacturing needs in terms of technical backgrounds of entry workers. We can't find a single program at Drake that can't fill some need that they might have."
Reutter says with an education from Drake State, you really can't go wrong in Remington's eyes. He says a facility of that size will require everything from nurses to chefs to HVAC and design specialists.
"We have programs in machining, we have programs in electronics, we have programs in hydraulics and pneumatics and robotics - everything we offer seems to fit exactly what we assess their needs to be," Reutter says proudly.
Drake's Director of Planning says the interest is also represented by diverse demographics. In addition to parents of high school students inquiring about associate programs available right after graduation, the employed and underemployed are also interested in gaining new skills. Drake also offers a special program to help veterans transition from military service to the civilian workforce.
"There's really not anybody that I can think of who wouldn't be eligible in some fashion or another to come and get upgraded training to get themselves ready for the next round of technologies."
Click here for more information on Drake State's technical programs. | {
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Two WOW air planes have been grounded, one in Montreal and the second in Santa Clara in Cuba. The planes were grounded on request of the company that rents the planes to WOW air.
Bookings for nine destinations have been closed on the WOW air website. | {
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Two Mothers: A Comic Based on Interviews with the Mothers of Akai Gurley and Peter Liang
‘How should I feel after bringing someone into the world to them have them unjustly taken from me?’
On November 20, 2014, 27-year-old NYPD officer Peter Liang shot and killed 28-year-old Akai Gurley, an unarmed Black man, in a dark stairwell in the Louis H Pink Houses in East New York, Brooklyn. Neither Liang nor his fellow officer administered CPR on Gurley, who died from the gunshot. Liang was found guilty of manslaughter and official misconduct on February 11 of this year, but on Tuesday, April 19, his sentence was reduced to 800 hours of community service and five years probation, with no jail time. Jenn Fang wrote on Reappropriate.com, “The system failed the family of Akai Gurley today, and we should all be ashamed.”
The following is a web comic by an anonymous artist based upon interviews with the mothers of Akai Gurley and Peter Liang. It has been reproduced with the permission of the artist and the Tumblr Asians4Peace, where it was first posted. | {
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Because they’re so small and light, it costs much less to get a CubeSat into Earth orbit than a traditional communication or GPS satellite.
CubeSats upon release from the International Space Station.
NASA Johnson, CC BY-NC
Elizabeth Garbee, Arizona State University and Andrew Maynard, Arizona State University The future of personal satellite technology is here – are we ready for it?
Satellites used to be the exclusive playthings of rich governments and wealthy corporations. But increasingly, as space becomes more democratized, these sophisticated technologies are coming within reach of ordinary people. Just like drones before them, miniature satellites are beginning to fundamentally transform our conceptions of who gets to do what up above our heads.
As a recent report from the National Academy of Sciences highlights, these satellites hold tremendous potential for making satellite-based science more accessible than ever before. However, as the cost of getting your own satellite in orbit plummets, the risks of irresponsible use grow.
The question here is no longer “Can we?” but “Should we?” What are the potential downsides of having a slice of space densely populated by equipment built by people not traditionally labeled as “professionals”? And what would the responsible and beneficial development and use of this technology actually look like?
Some of the answers may come from a nonprofit organization that has been building and launching amateur satellites for nearly 50 years.
The communication technology we’re talking about
Having your own personal satellite launched into orbit might sound like an idea straight out of science fiction. But over the past few decades a unique class of satellites has been created that fits the bill: CubeSats.
The “Cube” here simply refers to the satellite’s shape. The most common CubeSat (the so-called “1U” satellite) is a 10 cm (roughly 4 inches) cube, so small that a single CubeSat could easily be mistaken for a paperweight on your desk. These mini, modular satellites can fit in a launch vehicle’s formerly “wasted space.” Multiples can be deployed in combination for more complex missions than could be achieved by one CubeSat alone.
Within their compact bodies these minute satellites are able to house sensors and communication receivers/transmitters that enable operators to study the Earth from space, as well as space around the Earth.
They’re primarily designed for Low Earth Orbit (LEO) – an easily accessible region of space from around 200 to 800 miles above the Earth, where human-tended missions like the Hubble Space Telescope and the International Space Station (ISS) hang out. But they can attain more distant orbits; NASA plans for most of its future Earth-escaping payloads (to the moon and Mars especially) to carry CubeSats.
Because they’re so small and light, it costs much less to get a CubeSat into Earth orbit than a traditional communication or GPS satellite. For instance, a research group here at Arizona State University recently claimed their developmental “femtosats” (especially small CubeSats) could cost as little as US$3,000 to put in orbit. This decrease in cost is allowing researchers, hobbyists and even elementary school groups to put simple instruments into LEO, by piggybacking onto rocket launches, or even having them deployed from the ISS.
The first CubeSat was created in the early 2000s, as a way of enabling CalPoly and Stanford graduate students to design, build, test and operate a spacecraft with similar capabilities to the USSR’s Sputnik.
Since then, NASA, the National Reconnaissance Office and even Boeing have all launched and operated CubeSats. There are more than 130 currently operational in orbit. The NASA Educational Launch of Nano Satellite (ELaNa) program, which offers free launches for educational groups and science missions, is now open to U.S. nonprofit corporations as well.
Clearly, satellites are not just for rocket scientists anymore.
Thinking inside the box
The National Academy of Sciences report emphasizes CubeSats’ importance in scientific discovery and the training of future space scientists and engineers. Yet it also acknowledges that widespread deployment of LEO CubeSats isn’t risk-free.
The greatest concern the authors raise is space debris – pieces of “junk” that orbit the earth, with the potential to cause serious damage if they collide with operational units, including the ISS.
Currently, there aren’t many CubeSats and they’re tracked closely. Yet as LEO opens up to more amateur satellites, they may pose an increasing threat. As the report authors point out, even near-misses might lead to the “creation of an onerous regulatory framework and affect the future disposition of science CubeSats.”
More broadly, the report authors focus on factors that might impede greater use of CubeSat technologies. These include regulations around earth-space radio communication, possible impacts of International Traffic in Arms Regulations (which govern import and export of defense-related articles and services in the U.S.), and potential issues around extra-terrestrial contamination.
But what about the rest of us? How can we be sure that hobbyists and others aren’t launching their own “spy” satellites, or (intentionally or not) placing polluting technologies into LEO, or even deploying low-cost CubeSat networks that could be hijacked and used nefariously?
Read Also: From miniature satellites to giant sun shields – the extreme technology transforming space engineering
As CubeSat researchers are quick to point out, these are far-fetched scenarios. But they suggest that now’s the time to ponder unexpected and unintended possible consequences of more people than ever having access to their own small slice of space. In an era when you can simply buy a CubeSat kit off the shelf, how can we trust the satellites over our heads were developed with good intentions by people who knew what they were doing?
Some “expert amateurs” in the satellite game could provide some inspiration for how to proceed responsibly.
Guidance from some experienced satellite communication amateurs
In 1969, the Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation (AMSAT) was created in order to foster ham radio enthusiasts’ participation in space research and communication. It continued the efforts, begun in 1961, by Project OSCAR – a U.S.-based group that built and launched the very first nongovernmental satellite just four years after Sputnik.
As an organization of volunteers, AMSAT was putting “amateur” satellites in orbit decades before the current CubeSat craze. And over time, its members have learned a thing or two about responsibility.
Here, open-source development has been a central principle. Within the organization, AMSAT has a philosophy of open sourcing everything – making technical data on all aspects of their satellites fully available to everyone in the organization, and when possible, the public. According to a member of the team responsible for FOX 1-A, AMSAT’s first CubeSat:
This means that it would be incredibly difficult to sneak something by us … there’s no way to smuggle explosives or an energy emitter into an amateur satellite when everyone has access to the designs and implementation.
However, they’re more cautious about sharing info with nonmembers, as the organization guards against others developing the ability to hijack and take control of their satellites.
This form of “self-governance” is possible within long-standing amateur organizations that, over time, are able to build a sense of responsibility to community members, as well as society more generally.
How does responsible communication satellite development evolve?
But what happens when new players emerge, who don’t have deep roots within the existing culture?
Hobbyist and student “new kids on the block” are gaining access to technologies without being part of a longstanding amateur establishment. They are still constrained by funders, launch providers and a tapestry of regulations – all of which rein in what CubeSat developers can and cannot do. But there is a danger they’re ill-equipped to think through potential unintended consequences.
What these unintended consequences might be is admittedly far from clear. Certainly, CubeSat developers would argue it’s hard to imagine these tiny satellites causing substantial physical harm. Yet we know innovators can be remarkably creative with taking technologies in unexpected directions. Think of something as seemingly benign as the cellphone – we have microfinance and text-based social networking at one end of the spectrum, improvised explosive devices at the other.
This is where a culture of social responsibility around CubeSats becomes important – not simply for ensuring that physical risks are minimized (and good practices are adhered to), but also to engage with a much larger community in anticipating and managing less obvious consequences of the technology.
This is not an easy task. Yet the evidence from AMSAT and other areas of technology development suggest that responsible amateur communities can and do emerge around novel technologies.
For instance, see the diy-bio community, where hobbyists work in advanced community biotech labs. Their growing community commitment to safety and responsibility is highlighting how amateurs can embrace responsibility in research and innovation. A similar commitment is seen within open-source software and hardware communities, such as the members of the Linux Foundation.
The challenge here, of course, is ensuring that what an amateur community considers to be responsible, actually is. Here’s where there needs to be a much wider public conversation that extends beyond government agencies and scientific communities to include students, hobbyists, and anyone who may potentially stand to be affected by the use of CubeSat technology.
Elizabeth Garbee, Ph.D. Student in the Human and Social Dimensions of Science and Technology, Arizona State University and Andrew Maynard, Director, Risk Innovation Lab, Arizona State University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. | {
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About US$ 20
(3) Enamel pins of your choice! (Per unlocked selection) Limited offer discount for the early birds!
Estimated delivery Jun 2018 | {
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Why do I need a home inspection in Mesa?
Purchasing a home in is the single largest expense most people ever make. The small investment in having a professional home inspection performed in most cases, identifies items that are in need of repair that can be negotiated to have the seller either repair the items at the sellers cost, or have the seller discount the house the estimated cost for repairs so the buyer can make the repairs without having to come out of pocket to do so.
1st Insight Inspections is a service-oriented home inspection company, which serves both home buyers and home sellers (listing inspections). We conduct property inspections which include: Attic, Basement, Bathrooms, Chimney, Cooling/ Heating, Doors, Electrical, Exterior, Foundation, Garage, Grounds, Insulation, Interior, Kitchen, Plumbing, Roof, Water Heater, Windows, and even the irrigation is looked at as a courtesy. 1st Insight conducts inspections in Mesa and throughout the Greater East Valley.
Contact Us to make an appointment, or email us at [email protected]
Frequently asked questions about home inspections
What typically happens about the items found on a home inspection report?
When a buyer presents findings from a Mesa home inspector and asks to have the items repaired, in many cases, the seller will either pay to have them repaired, or negotiate an amount to cover the cost of repairs to be discounted from the sales price so the buyer can get the repairs completed.
Money is tight when buying a home; what about getting my friend in construction to look over the home for me?
While everyone in the city of Mesa knows someone in the construction industry, they may not be qualified to evaluate all aspects of a home, like a certified home inspector does. A general practitioner is a doctor, but, you wouldn’t trust him to do heart surgery, would you?
I am buying a new construction home, why would I need an inspection?
Even a new construction property can need repairs to items that are not readily visible to an untrained eye. During construction, it is possible for roof trusses to be broken during installation. This can lead problems down the road. Roof shingles or concrete tiles are sometimes damaged in the construction process, foundation sometimes are damaged by landscaping equipment, along with dozens of other items that can go unnoticed.
Are all Mesa home inspectors equal? Should I choose the lowest price inspector?
Not quite. While the certifications of the inspectors in Mesa may be the same, nothing substitutes for experience and professionalism. An inspector that has had years of experience building and remodeling homes typically has a more thorough knowledge of the inner workings of a home and what defects typically are left unrepaired1st Insight’s principal is a home inspector with 17 years of experience, and also has been a licensed general contractor, an inspector with these credentials certainly would be a more likely choice. | {
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Donald Trump axed as Scots business ambassador
DONALD Trump has had his GlobalScot ambassador status revoked by the Scottish Government.
By The Newsroom Wednesday, 9th December 2015, 3:10 pm
Donald Trump has had his GlobalScot ambassador status revoked. Picture: Getty Images
Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon withdrew the US entrepreneur’s membership of the GlobalScot business network ‘with immediate effect’, following Mr Trump’s comments about Muslims.
Earlier this week, Mr Trump called for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States” following terror attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, in California.
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A spokesperson for the Scottish Government said: “Mr Trump’s recent remarks have shown that he is no longer fit to be a business ambassador for Scotland and the First Minister has decided his membership of the respected GlobalScot business network should be withdrawn with immediate effect.”
The GlobalScot network is a Scottish Development International (SDI) scheme, made up of more than 700 ‘executives’ with strong links to Scotland.
The network is primarily aimed at promoting Scottish businesses overseas, and includes such figureheads as Stagecoach bus tycoon Brian Souter and oil chief Sir Ian Wood.
Mr Trump was invited to become a GlobalScot by First Minister Jack McConnell in April 2006.
Mr McConnell said at the time: “Donald has shown a real passion for Scotland. He is a globally recognised figure who can help us to promote Scotland. This is a good bit of business for all concerned.”
Mr Trump is no stranger to controversial comments, having previously compared wind farms with the Lockerbie bombing. | {
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Australia is world-famous as a swimming nation. We have a celebrated beach culture, not to mention more privately owned pools per person than any other country. Yet few urban Australians would consider swimming in their city’s river.
Almost every major Australian city sits on the banks of a large river. But judging by online reactions to the suggestion of a dip in the Brisbane River, most people are worried about everything from ear infections to a painful death from brain-eating amoebae.
Melbourne’s Yarra River has been the butt of many jokes, most famously when Norman Gunston extolled its virtues as the river where you could go fishing and land a catch pre-wrapped in newspaper. In Sydney and Perth people just prefer the beach.
Australian War Memorial
It wasn’t always like this. Our modern distaste for river swimming is a stark constrast with a history where urban rivers provided a venue for sport, recreation and entertainment – all within easy distance of shops, offices and public transport.
There were clubs such as the North Adelaide District Swimming Club, formed in 1905, and open water swimming competitions such as those held on Perth’s Swan River from 1912. The Yarra River’s three-mile swim was held from 1917 to 1964, and at its peak was the largest open water swimming competition in the World.
There was spectacle as well as sport, with feats of aquatic derring-do that made swimming look like vaudeville theatre. In the Yarra, Annette Kellerman – one of the first women to reject pantaloons in favour of a one-piece bathing costume – swam her way to a world record between Church Street bridge and Princes Bridge in 1904. After leaving Australia she developed her own swimwear line and went on to become an author and renowned Hollywood actress. The Yarra was her unlikely springboard to global celebrity.
Endurance was similarly tested by “Professor” Alec Lamb in 1907 who swam 7 miles (11km) and dove from eight bridges, stopping for sustaining glasses of milk and whisky from his trainer’s boat. As the Argus newspaper faithfully noted, the first of his bridge dives was so high that the force of the impact tore off his swimming costume. Harry Houdini also famously attracted a crowd of 20,000 to watch him emerge triumphant from chains, handcuffs and the Yarra mud in 1910.
Melbourne’s river even hosted innovative fund-raising events. In 1910 the Royal Life Saving Society used it to stage a fake near-drowning, with a society member throwing himself off Princes Bridge before being “rescued” by a “policeman”. A third member then produced a megaphone to request donations from the concerned crowd of onlookers.
An arguably less brazen charity appeal centred on Solomon Islands swimmer Alick Wickham’s record-breaking dive of 250 feet (76m) into the river in 1917, attracting 50,000 spectators with the proceeds going to the Soldiers Amelioration Fund.
Several lengths behind
Some projects are now aiming to recast Australia’s urban rivers as fun places to swim, including Our Living River in Sydney’s Parramatta River, and the Swim Thru Perth open water swimming event to be held in the Swan River. Meanwhile, the Yarra Swim Co. is planning to revive the three-mile race and build a river-fed swimming pool on the Yarra’s banks.
Fears about pollution are understandable, but can be managed by websites such as Yarra Bay Watch and the New South Wales Office of Environment Health . While important, the official advice inadvertently adds to the view that Australian urban rivers are little more than an extension of the stormwater system.
Compare that with the renaissance of river swimming internationally. British writer Caitlin Davies swam of the length of London’s Thames to uncover a multitude of present and historical swimming cultures. And municipal governments in Copenhagen, Portland, Berlin, New York and Boston have all embraced river swimming.
The Swiss must surely be the world leaders, even advocating for river swimming in international diplomacy. Every year, large Swiss cities host mass swimming events like the Rhineschwimmen in Basel.
As the Swiss have already realised, to swim in an urban river is to reclaim, one stroke at a time, a public space and a wilder romantic past. It is no coincidence that the same country that zealously promotes urban river and lake swimming can also lay claim to a distinguished environmental record. Our regular, primary contact with this most primal of elements can act in a way to force change in the way our rivers are managed, helping both people and the environment to be a bit healthier.
This article was coauthored by Sally McPhee, based on her honours thesis for RMIT’s Bachelor of Urban and Regional Planning. | {
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Hello everyone! Today we’ve got a very special treat for you guys! Executive Editor Brandon Bui got to take some time and speak with the CEO of Image and Form, Brjánn Sigurgeirsson, about his newest title, Steamworld Heist. And it is a doozy. Not only do we cover their new title, but we spent some time talking about game design philosophy and how Image and Form was built up.
A brief note: Image and Form is a gaming development studio out of Gothenburg, Sweden, created in 1997. This studio has created several high profile titles, such as Steamworld Tower Defense and Steamworld Dig, a highly popular and critically acclaimed platformer that released on the Nintendo 3DS and followed up with other platforms. Their latest addition to the Steamworld series is Steamworld Heist, which is due for release in Autumn of 2015 for Nintendo 3DS, release date to be announced on other platforms. Their website can be found here, and they are frequently on Twitter at @ImageForm.
Brandon: Thank you very much for taking the time out of your busy schedule to chat with me! Having met up with you at E3 this year, Steamworld Heist is actually one of my most anticipated titles of the year. How is the development of the title going?
Brjánn: My pleasure! Development is going great, we’re reaching the final stages of the process and are nearing the release.
Brandon: What was the inspiration of creating the game using the Steampunk idea? Of all the different themes out there, was there something that drew you to Steampunk?
Brjánn: *laughs* Oh boy, the is a trip down memory lane for me, going back years and years ago! A lot of people think that Steamworld Dig was the first title in the franchise, but that’s incorrect as Steamworld started out as a tower defense title back in 2010 on the Nintendo DSi, as Steamworld Tower Defense. The Nintendo DSi was Nintendo’s first foray into digital gaming, and we wanted to try the process out. At the time, there weren’t a ton of good 2D Steampunk-inspired titles, and they especially did not have a Western-themed one. So that’s how Steamworld was born.
Brandon: One of my concerns at E3 when I was playing was adjusting to the controls since I was playing on a Macbook Air. How do the controls on the PC version become more intuitive? You mentioned that the gameplay was more natural on the 3DS, or that there was an adapter of sorts for the PC version, if I recall correctly.
Brjánn: The Nintendo 3DS version was built from the ground up. Steamworld Dig followed the same concept. Starting out on the PC would be difficult because of the graphical fidelity requirements to create an HD experience. The 3DS version has a lower power processor and a lower resolution screen, so while it has constraints, it has a trump card in its dual screen feature.
With the PC version, we were able to use the second screen of the 3DS as a means to help us map features onto the PC version, such as mapping or inventories. While the PC HD versions don’t have a map fully accessible like the 3DS version, there are (hypothetically) means in which we can implement them, such as via hotkey or putting a map that is visible in the right hand corner that fades out when important action sequences are taking place.
Brandon: You know, whoever came up with the angling shot mechanic needs to be praised. Can you tell me a bit more about that, and how that came to be? It seems like a very well-executed mechanic.
Brjánn: The shooting mechanic was an issue that came up early in the developmental process, back on one of those random lunch break discussions we had. My lead designer, Olle Håkansson, played the popular shooter XCOM and sometime after that, we started to question how we could bring that shooter concept to a 2D tactical setting… which gave form to the game design document for Steamworld Heist. Then, the question was, “how could a strategy game benefit from a 2D environment setting?”
The answer lies in making it a core feature. The bounce/ricochet mechanic makes things gratifying if you do it right – especially if you see the shot bounce five times! And next thing you know, the target just crumples into a bucket of parts. Our shooter though comes out and makes things more organic (funny thing since we’re dealing with robots) because we introduce a wavering erratic factor. Editor’s note: The wavering erratic factor is seen as a moving aim that goes above and below the line of target, to add an angle to the shots. We actually got this mechanic as an idea from looking at insects.
Brandon: Insects? Do tell.
Brjánn: An iOS title that helped this along was Anthill – a real-time strategy title developed by us here at Image and Form. When we look at ants, they follow some sense of order in that they have a given sense of purpose… but they follow that order in the most erratic way possible. Their movements are all zig-zags and there is that clumsiness to it, but they get there eventually. We decided to take that erratic factor and apply it to a real time shooter, to give it a more organic feel. Which is, again, hilarious since we’re dealing with robots, and the first thought of robots is stiff movements. And then we see spiders and how perfect they are in their movements… no wonder everyone hates them. *laughs*
Brandon: When I played this game at E3 earlier this year with you, I remember sweating through that tutorial, which I found interesting because a lot of titles don’t do that to me nowadays. It makes me feel like I’m putting my soul out there in the game. What kinds of difficulties are we expecting for Heist?
Brjánn: *pulls out Nintendo 3DS* There’s going to be multiple difficulties – five of them, to be exact. The game starts out on a simple mode that is geared towards players who have never really experienced a tactical strategy game. And then there’s the second difficulty, geared towards the average player… and then it goes all the way to the biggest difficulty which is geared towards the most hardcore players… not too many people can beat this, but it is possible.
What makes our game more intuitive is that our difficulties can be changed on the fly. Usually, when a game gets difficult, it allows you to change the difficulty to a lower one, but it’s stuck there for the duration of the game. If Steamworld Heist has a mission that you find difficult, you can scale it down a notch to make it through, and then bring it back up to normal because things happen! The reverse also holds true. If you’re blasting through the game and want a bit of an extra challenge, you can also ramp things up.
Brandon: With a lot of these mechanics, they seem like they’re very polished up and had a lot of time put into them. How does game testing and bug fixing work at Image and Form?
Brjánn: Game testing at Image and Form involves our team just replaying the game constantly. For a period of several months I had eyes behind the screen, in a way, and it just was a lot of constant play throughs… which is incredibly tedious, but I loved it. I loved it and I felt that this was something that I had to keep doing. We don’t want to release a buggy product on an initial release, and we wanted to do this right.
Brandon: So, what’s next for this group of robots and for the franchise as a whole? How do you guys top the success of a previously successful title?
Brjánn: I’m going to backtrack a little bit because this goes back to Steamworld Dig. When we released this title, we had no idea whether or not this title was going to be successful. There wasn’t a great way for us to check on its status and sales back then as sales numbers were surprisingly difficult to come by. There wasn’t a means to see if the title was amazing or mediocre for us, sales wise. And we put a ton of money into the game, which was a bit of a risk because it’s terrifying if a cost-heavy game tanks. There would have been nowhere else for us to go.
Luckily for us, we made a bit more money than we put in due to the success of the title. We did have measures in place in the event that the game did do poorly, and those involved making some smaller titles. We currently have two titles that were being worked on… one of them is probably going to be shelved, but the other one actually has some potential and we might end up releasing that title as part of the Steamworld franchise. Right now though, we want to make a Game of the Year contender and do the process right. Initially, we wanted Heist out in December 2014, but due to constraints and just a feeling of unhappiness we decided to hold back on it because we just want to do things right, and deliver a game our team could be satisfied with. Thankfully, Steamworld Dig sustained itself so it allowed us a bit of time to make things better.
Brandon: Given that the date was scheduled for Fall 2015, we’re in that season now (even if it’s 37-38 C here in California in October…) and rapidly approaching the holiday season. Any idea on a more concrete release date?
Brjánn: Our goal is to aim for a release in early December… but I won’t make promises.
Brandon: Slowly going to wrap things up, but I get a lot of questions from my readers, potential applicants, and from people out there who just want to know a bit more about the video games industry and its more intricate workings. How does a developer or media journalist get started in the industry? Any tips?
Brjánn: You know, that’s a great question to ask. My big answer to that is to pester your peers. It’s intimidating to talk to people that are so big out there, but you’d be surprised at how much people are willing to help if you put in the time and ask them… especially in the indie community. Don’t be afraid to ask us for help, as we know how it feels to struggle and try to make a name for something.
For me, it used to be a completely different attitude. When I started out, I remember having to do the cold calls and emails to get a grip on some contacts, and I recall how some groups were all about having the information to themselves… but this attitude changed when I met and spoke to Anders Hejdenberg, head of a fellow Swedish development group, 1337 Games. There’s a lot more to be shared and now my mindset is changed to the point where I find it better to share information with people. Bottom line is that the industry is a friendly place, and it’s always better to try and reach out.
Brandon: Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me, I really do appreciate your forthcoming answers. I look very forward to playing Steamworld Heist when it releases. Best of luck with everything, and take care!
Brjánn: You too, have a great rest of the day!
Steamworld Heist is scheduled for release in Q4 2015 for the Nintendo 3DS and for other platforms, including Playstation 4, Wii U, XBOX One, PC, and Mobile, in 2016. | {
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The Mushkin Enhanced Chronos 2.5" SSD is great for your new system build or upgrade by delivering speed and capacity at a great price point. It utilizes the premium quality NAND chips, and proven and highly acclaimed SandForce controller, to enable it to achieve blazing fast sequential and random read/write speed over SATA 6 Gbps interface. Along with the SSD's inherent low power use, quiet operation and vibration resistance, the Mushkin Enhanced Chronos will bring new life to your computer, whether desktop or laptop. Say goodbye to rotational hard drive sluggishness by adding a Chronos SSD to your system today!
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The Chronos Series SSDs offer native TRIM support featured in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. Designed to maintain the performance of SSD at an optimal level over the lifetime of the drive, TRIM functions by actively deleting invalid data from the SSD’s memory cells to ensure that write operations perform at full speed. Since a memory block must be erased before it can be re-programmed, TRIM improves performance by pro-actively erasing pages containing invalid data, allowing the SSD to write new data without first having to perform a time-consuming erase command. | {
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CME Presentations Archive
Here is a searchable archive of worthy CME presentations: | {
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Schools across Puerto Rico remained closed on Wednesday as more than a half-million people remained without electricity after the island's worst earthquake in a century.
President Trump declared an emergency, freeing up federal funds, and Puerto Rico Gov. Wanda Vázquez activated the National Guard after the magnitude 6.4 quake struck Tuesday, killing one person and injuring nine others while knocking out power across the U.S. territory. Vázquez, who also declared a state of emergency, said power should return to most of the island in 24 to 48 hours.
“All of Puerto Rico has seen the devastation of this earthquake,” Vázquez told reporters.
PUERTO RICO EARTHQUAKE CAUSES POPULAR TOURIST ROCK FORMATION TO COLLAPSE
Some Puerto Ricans in the hard-hit south area of the island in towns such as Guánica moved beds outside Tuesday night over concerns their homes would collapse if another earthquake hit. The flurry of quakes in Puerto Rico's southern region began the night of Dec. 28.
In Guánica, more than 200 people took shelter in a gymnasium after a quake Monday, only for the latest temblor on Tuesday to damage that structure — forcing them to sleep outside.
“There's no power. There's no water. There is nothing. This is horrible,” Lupita Martínez, 80, told the Associated Press as she sat in the parking lot with her 96-year-old husband.
While officials said it was too early to estimate the total damage caused by the string of quakes, hundreds of homes and businesses in the southwest region were damaged or destroyed. In Guánica, a town of roughly 15,000 people, nearly 150 homes were affected by the quake, along with three schools, including a three-story structure where two floors were completely flattened.
Tuesday's quake was the strongest to hit Puerto Rico since October 1918, when a magnitude 7.3 quake struck near the island’s northwest coast, unleashing a tsunami and killing 116 people.
Nearly all of the island’s more than 3 million people lost power and only 100,000 customers had energy by late Tuesday night, according to the AEE electricity authority.
The agency scrambled to restart power plants that automatically shut down for safety during the quake. The large Costa Sur plant suffered “severe damage” and was put out of service, Vázquez said.
PUERTO RICO HIT WITH 6.4 MAGNITUDE EARTHQUAKE, ISLANDWIDE BLACKOUT REPORTED
Authorities said they were working on how to shelter people as they handed out blankets, food, and water to families gathered at the gymnasium in Guánica for the second night in a row.
Many who spent the night sleeping in their cars or outside said they were used to hurricanes, but nothing like what has been happening.
“There’s a lot of uncertainty, this is the first time this has happened to us,” Patricia Alonso told Reuters as she was heading to her mother's apartment building because it had a generator.
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The U.S. Geologic Survey said that while it’s virtually certain there will be many aftershocks in the next week, the chance of a magnitude 6 quake -- similar to Tuesday’s -- or stronger is around 22 percent.
Puerto Rico is still recovering from when Hurricane Maria hit in 2017, causing an estimated 2,975 deaths and more than $100 billion in estimated damage. The island is also working through a bankruptcy process to restructure about $120 billion of debt and pension obligations.
The Associated Press contributed to this report. | {
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Nas cinco temporadas em que defendeu o clube inglês, integrou a vencedora geração comandada por Henry que conquistou a Premier League duas vezes, em 2001/02 e 2003/04, sendo essa última de maneira invicta.
Ele pendurou as chuteiras em janeiro de 2011 e poucos meses depois foi anunciado como gerente de futebol do Corinthians, clube pelo qual iniciou e encerrou sua carreira. Em junho de 2016, recebeu o convite CBF para assumir o posto de coordenador técnico da seleção brasileira e trabalhar novamente ao lado de Tite. | {
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After a morning of meditation and philosophical exercises, Thakpa Kunga and his classmates—all Buddhist monks-in-training—decided to temporarily skip spinning prayer wheels and start spinning basketballs.
They snuck out of their monastery in McLeod Ganj—a mountain town in India, more than 6,500 feet above sea level in the Himalayan Mountains—and rolled down to their neighborhood court, wearing traditional monk robes: a decorated golden or yellow chogu (undershirt) with a red shawl covering their bodies. The niftier monks among them found sneakers, while the rest descended in flip-flops. To save time, Kunga and his friends played unchanged in their robes. A few hours later, they snuck back into the monastery for more lessons in spirituality.
Nearly a decade later, I meet Kunga on another court. He’s continued on his path to full monkhood, and the 27-year-old is now enrolled in Tibetan Higher Studies at the Sarah College in Dharamshala, which is a larger mountain town a short walk down from McLeod Ganj.
But Kunga hasn’t abandoned his love of hoops. Every year, he played for Sarah in the Martyr’s Memorial Basketball Tournament, a championship for the community of Tibetan refugees in Dharamshala and beyond who escaped Tibet’s Chinese rule. “Basketball is like meditation on court. Sometimes, I play just to clear tension. When you play basketball, there are no problems.”
For years, I held the mountain hamlets of Dharamshala and McLeod Ganj in great regard, partly because of my addiction to the Himalayas, and partly because of the organic love for basketball among the area’s refugees. So when I found out about the Martyr’s Memorial Tournament, I traveled back up the mountains. I met a myriad of people, including monks who had devoted their lives to achieving nirvana, refugees with stories of pain and danger, and young men and women with ambitions like every other young Indian in the country’s growing economy.
And I found that the game of basketball—in its own small way—bonded them all together.
Tibet—Xizang in Chinese—is China’s second-largest province. It sits on the world’s highest plateau and has long served as a buffer between the planet’s two largest and occasionally hostile populations: China and India. In 1950, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) “liberated” Tibet and soon, China’s government won complete sovereignty over the region.
But many Tibetans have opposed China’s claim and have been fighting for Tibet’s freedom from Big Brother in Beijing for decades. There was much violence and bloodshed in the late ’50s, and in contemporary times, the largest uprising for Tibet’s cause was in the lead-up to the Beijing Olympics in 2008, when hundreds were shot by the Chinese and thousands arrested. In recent years, over 140 Tibetan monks have performed self-immolations in opposition to Chinese rule.
Back in 1959, Tibetan Buddhism’s spiritual leader, the 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, fled to exile in India, where he eventually settled in McLeod Ganj. Scores of refugees followed him.
Estimates have about 150,000 Tibetans living in exile around the world, with over 94,000 in India. As the birthplace of Buddhism (the Buddha received enlightenment and gave his sermons in North India) and current home of the Dalai Lama, India was an easy choice for refugees hoping for a new life. About 2,500 Tibetan refugees make the journey out of China annually. They cross glaciers, trek through mountain passes and walk in the blanket of night to avoid detection. In Dharamshala, the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA), a government for those in exile, has been set up.
Two schools of thought have developed among Tibetans for the political status of their homeland: the Dalai Lama-supported Middle Way that asks for autonomy for the Tibetan people as a part of China, and the Tibetan Independence Movement that demands complete freedom.
Despite protests and support of many world leaders, neither approach has worked. As far as China sees it, Tibet, unsettled and rich in resources, will always be a part of its country.
Directly below where the CTA is located in Dharamshala is the newly renovated Gangyi Court, which is playing host to the Martyr’s Tournament. On the day of the finals, the hillside is abuzz. Young hoopheads wearing NBA t-shirts mingle with monks in robes and enthusiastically cheering girls in traditional chupas. Tibetan flags and Buddhist prayer flags fly around the court.
Among the fans is Tsetan Tenzin, age 30: by day an assistant at a Tibetan herbal medicine clinic, by night a long-range threat for Example Team, which was ousted earlier in the tournament. Tenzin was born in Tibet but his parents hired a guide to help him escape to India when he was 7. He hasn’t seen them since.
Tenzin’s love grew when he was in school at a refugee orphanage in Mussoorie, in North India. He carried it with him when he moved to Dharamshala. “We play basketball so much in Dharamshala because, surrounded by mountains, there is no room for bigger games,” he says. “Tibetans love the NBA. My favorite player is Stephen Curry; I love to shoot from outside.”
The refugees’ love for the game is also an ode to their “motherland,” where basketball is one of the most popular sports, too. “In Tibet, people play a lot of basketball, too, especially in school,” Tenzin adds. “So it’s normal for refugees to come [to India] and continue playing.”
***
China, with more than 1.3 billion people, has the largest hoops fan base on Earth. The sport was always popular, but after Yao Ming was drafted No. 1 in 2002, it took center stage. China has a fast-growing league (CBA) and is one of Asia’s most powerful national teams. Their second-tier league, the National Basketball League (NBL), expanded to Tibet this year, where the region’s capital city of Lhasa will host rivals in what China Daily called “the world’s highest basketball court” at 3,658 meters above sea level.
China pushed swift development in infrastructure and economy in Tibet, but what they call development and modernization, Tibetans call environmental deterioration and cultural genocide. International human rights groups have exposed stories of violations and the unwelcome indoctrination of Chinese communist thought and philosophy among the Tibetan population, replacing centuries of lifestyle, language, spirituality and culture.
To raise awareness, the Dalai Lama has traveled the world speaking to leaders and humanitarian organizations. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989.
Hours before the tourney’s finals, I met Wangden Krab, president of the Regional TYC office in McLeod Ganj, who organizes the event. “The purpose is to remember the Tibetan martyrs who have sacrificed for their country,” Krab says. “Most Tibetan youth are now born in India or come here very young. In this tournament, we want to remind them of their martyrs. We want to bring youngsters together and unite them.”
The TYC is the largest Tibetan non-governmental organization of Tibetan exiles, mostly young Tibetans with hopes of Tibetan independence. They have around 80 chapters and over 20,000 members around the world.
“We are still fighting for complete independence,” Krab says. “We report to world governments, the UN and other human rights organizations about the critical situation in Tibet, including losing freedom of speech and fighting for human rights. Many refugees are not ready to settle in India; they always dream of Tibet.”
Krab has dissent in his blood. His grandfather fought in the war against China in the late ’50s before being imprisoned for 30 years by the Chinese. His father was arrested for protesting Chinese deforestation in Tibet’s Dzorge area. Krab himself escaped to India in ’99, at age 16.
But today, his main agenda is basketball. “In Tibetan schools here, all types of players—tall, short, good, bad—stop and try their hand at basketball and are eager to learn,” he says. “It is a more ‘freestyle’ sport, with less structure and has rules that people can understand. There are no limits to basketball. Everyone can come to the ground and play.”
***
McLeod Ganj is a vibrant community where Tibetan refugees, NGO workers, tourists, monks and locals live in relative harmony. Tibetan culture is still preserved strongly here. Most refugees can speak and read the Tibetan language, know folk songs, speak of Tibetan “freedom fighters” and dream of Lhasa as their Promised Land.
Around town, there is also talk of the tournament—among the youth, monks, working men and women. The girls’ final is won by Men-Tse-Khang (Tibetan Medical and Astrological Institute), dressed in Miami Heat colors. The boys’ teams—both wearing practice jerseys that have slogans like “Free Tibet” or faces of the Dalai Lama—step out for their final. Before the game tips off, both teams greet each other with traditional Tibetan presents of white scarves.
The last two teams are “Dhasa,” comprised mainly of second-generation Tibetans born to refugee parents in India, and “Nomads,” who feature 20-somethings who escaped from China more recently. The action on court immediately speeds up. Each fall takes a little longer to recover from. Tough layups between crowds of defenders are the go-to approach. There are no dunks, but athletic lay-ups with the and-1 call prevail.
Eventually the Nomads break open the contest with a barrage of long-range shots. They win by 3 and the crowd rushes the court.Players are lifted on shoulders and drenched with water under a flurry of happy prayer flags.
Despite the differences between the Tibetans and the Chinese majority in politics, philosophy and the fight for freedom, basketball could close the gap. Nearly every refugee I spoke with had played basketball at some point. The Han Chinese love basketball, too; the sport is a common thread between two cultures that have such a wide cultural gap and often view each other in suspicion and distrust.
Days after I left Dharamshala and McLeod Ganj, I reflected on a sense of incompleteness among the refugees. They are exiled from China but not fully assimilated into mainstreem Indian society. Stuck in this purgatory, all they have is their community, their culture and their spirituality to accompany them. And basketball.
—
Portraits by Angad Sodhi
369 | {
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Kyiv ready to file claim against Russia's violation of UN convention on law of sea, no political decision of authorities
The materials for filing claims to international courts by Ukraine against Russia's violation of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea due to the annexation of Crimea have been drawn up and only the political decision of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko is left to launch the process, Deputy Foreign Minister of Ukraine for European Integration Olena Zerkal has said.
"In October 2015, the Ukrainian delegation proposed that consultations are held with Russia, but there is still no response. This does not stop us in preparing the claim. We've been doing this recently. Now we're at the final stage of the preparations," she said in an interview with ZN.UA (Dzerkalo Tyzhnia. Ukraine).
She said that all claims of Ukraine could be narrowed down to four key points.
"First, the seizure of fields with mineral reserves and illegal oil and gas on the continental shelf of Ukraine in the Black Sea. Secondly, the unlawful seizure of power to regulate fish catch, unlawful fish catch and not allowing Ukrainian fishing companies to catch fish in the offshore zone near the Crimean peninsula. Third, construction of a gas pipeline, a power line and a bridge across the Kerch Strait without the consent of Ukraine, the unlawful blocking of transit of Ukrainian vessels across the Kerch Strait and the unlawful seizure of navigation rights. Fourth, the conducting of studies of archeological and historical sites in the Black Sea bed without the consent of Ukraine," Zerkal said.
She said that these are key points and Ukraine could expand the list of claims.
Zerkal said that in the past 18 months the ministry was collecting information on the infringements and drawing up the claim and all materials that are to be submitted to court.
She said that Poroshenko at the latest conference clearly formed his position regarding the issue that the interests and rights of Ukraine violated due to the annexation of Crimea and Russia's aggression Ukraine will protect in international courts. | {
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"The past is the past and you can't really look at what last year was for me, or the year before," Stewart said of his injuries, per The Charlotte Observer. "You can only take what you've learned and you can only make the best out of what's to come. | {
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A Vallejo man came up with a smelly solution to fighting off package thieves this holiday season.
Bryan Nalette tells KPIX that after a package disappeared from his doorstep in October — and then again last week — he began setting up decoy boxes as a way to get photos of the thieves in the act.
“I don’t like being stolen from,” he said. “I don’t think anybody does.”
After allowing thieves to get away with two empty boxes, “I filled up the third box with dog crap,” he said. The source? His dog, Chance.
“I wish I could have been there in the car when they opened the box,” he said, laughing.
Nalette has since turned over the photos to the Vallejo Police Department, but no arrests have been made.
Flashback: A Noe Valley woman famously stopped a package thief in 2012 when she set up a decoy box and doused the culprit with bear spray before he could get away. | {
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The annual BBC Radio 1 Teen Awards took place with Taylor Swift, The Vamps, Shawn Mendes and Adele among the big winners. | {
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For his hat trick in a 5-3 win against NPSL North Conference foe Minnesota TwinStars, forward Jade Johnson of Dakota Fusion FC has been named the Mitre National Player of the Week for Week 19 of the NPSL season.
The three-goal outburst raised his his season total to 17, which moved him into elite company among the top few goalscorers in the league.
“Jade had been an integral part of our team and our success in our inaugural year with the Fusion,” said Dakota Fusion FC coach Jim Robbins in the press release announcing the award. “He possesses a unique combination of size, strength, speed, power, and goal scoring ability. He is very difficult to defend in 1v1 situations and he can beat defenders and score with either foot. Most teams try to double team him whenever possible, sometimes they even try to defend him with three. He has earned his place as the top goalscorer in our conference and is one of the top goal scorers in the entire NPSL.”
The win left Johnson and the rest of his Dakota teammates with a second-place finish in their conference. The club ended up with a stellar 9W-0D-5L record, 27 points and — most importantly — a playoff berth.
“This is more of a team achievement to me than an individual accolade based off of what we’ve been able to accomplish over the past two weeks,” Johnson said. “The preparation and dedication in the offseason, as well as the sacrifices made over the best months of the year in North Dakota, is beginning to pay itself off heading into the regional playoffs this weekend.”
***
You can follow Kevin on Twitter: @KJboxing.
Soc Takes is on Patreon. Get access to patron-only Soc Takes Pod episodes, exclusive written content and tier rewards. Click here to become a patron today. | {
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Now you can book our Education Into Action program for distance learning this school year! Learn more. | {
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PHOTO: Rob Williams
UPDATE: A crane has been used to lift a car stuck on the tram tracks on the Sundale bridge.
Around 8:15am, an elderly woman drove on to the light rail tracks near the Queens Park Tennis Centre on Queen Street.
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She continued driving on to the light rail bridge before her car tyres became stuck.
Power was cut to the tracks as emergency services tried to work out how to remove the vehicle from the bridge.
A crane lifted the vehicle from the tracks this afternoon.
EARLIER: GoldLinq communications director Jason Ward said he is still not 100 percent sure how the driver got onto the tracks.
“We are still trying to determine how the car entered the tracks and at what point. We are relying on the police to investigate that,” he said.
“There are signs all over the place and there is a lot of road markings and tram only signs. We believe everything is in place to (stop) this type of incident; it just seems to be an unfortunate mistake that has been made.”
“We are now in the process of removing the car. We have a lot of people on site, emergency services and our own crews, trying to determine the best way to remove it,” said Mr Ward.
It’s believed a crane or a temporary ramp may be used to remove the car.
The driver was reportedly treated for shock by paramedics and has now left the scene. | {
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WASHINGTON — American counterterrorism officials are voicing increased alarm about a Qaeda affiliate in Syria that they say is plotting attacks against the West by exploiting the chaotic security situation in the country’s northwest and the protection inadvertently afforded by Russian air defenses shielding Syrian government forces allied with Moscow.
The rise of this latest Qaeda branch in Syria, as well as the operations of other Qaeda affiliates in West Africa, Somalia, Yemen and Afghanistan, underscore the terrorist group’s enduring threat despite the death of Osama bin Laden and being largely eclipsed in recent years by the Islamic State, or ISIS, as the terrorist group of choice of global jihadis.
The new Qaeda branch, called Hurras al-Din, emerged in early 2018 after several factions broke away from a larger affiliate in Syria. It is the successor to the Khorasan Group, a small but dangerous organization of hardened senior Qaeda operatives that Ayman al-Zawahri, Al Qaeda’s leader, sent to Syria to plot attacks against the West.
The Khorasan Group was effectively wiped out by a series of American airstrikes a few years ago. But with as many as 2,000 fighters, including seasoned leaders from Jordan and Egypt, the successor Hurras al-Din group is much larger and is operating in areas where Russian air defenses largely shield them from American airstrikes and the persistent stare of American surveillance planes. Moscow dispatched military aid and advisers to Syria in late 2015 to support the beleaguered government of President Bashar al-Assad. | {
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Pour inspirer, le leader ne doit pas se contenter de cartographier, c’est-à-dire de donner un plan d’action, ni s’appuyer uniquement sur l’autorité qui lui est conférée grâce à sa position dans la hiérarchie. Pour donner vie à la musique, le chef d’orchestre transmet l’émotion par ses gestes. Pour mettre ses équipes en mouvement, le leader transmet l’émotion par sa parole et son comportement. | {
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Donald Trump speaks at the First in the Nation Leadership Summit in Nashua, New Hampshire, on April 18, 2015. (Photo: Andrew Cline/Shutterstock)
One area where there's a large disconnect between what political scientists know and what the public believes is campaign spending. Political scientists have accrued a great many studies showing that spending just isn't terribly influential in elections. Much of the public, conversely, is convinced that money is a grave threat to the political system, and that someone with enough cash and fame can simply buy high political office. Donald Trump is about to prove them wrong.
Now don't get me wrong: Saying that money isn't that influential isn't the same as saying it's irrelevant. Money can be important in the sense that it conveys legitimacy. A candidate who can't raise money is going to have a hard time getting people to endorse her, no less vote for her. And at least below some threshold, you really do need money to be able to put together a credible campaign. Setting up field offices, hiring staff, printing lawn signs, running ads, and traveling to rallies all require money, and the candidate who doesn't have enough to do those basic things simply isn't going to register in voters' minds.
Reformers often express concern that a sufficiently rich and famous person could buy his way into office. Trump will be putting this theory to the test over the next six months.
Beyond that, though, general elections are frequently lost by the bigger spender. And to the extent that the bigger spender wins a race, it's often because people donate to the person they think will win, rather than the donations turning a candidate into a winner. Above a certain level of spending, you're just not buying much more. Even massively outspending an opponent only conveys a modest advantage at the polls.
Money can help a bit more in primaries and caucuses, but only so much. Studies have shown that, at least in presidential elections, endorsements by politicians are a far better predictor of who will win the nomination than fundraising.
Here's where Donald Trump comes in. By virtue of his celebrity, he can certainly attract media attention. (Indeed, he got far more attention for his announcement last week than did Jeb Bush, who is widely seen as one of the more likely candidates for the nomination.) And by virtue of his substantial personal fortune, he can buy all the things a presidential candidate needs—offices, staffers, advertising, planes, etc. He could literally spend a billion dollars on winning the Republican presidential nomination and still be a billionaire when it's over.
But here's the catch: He won't win it. He'll never get close to the Republican nomination, for the very simple reason that party insiders despise him. They think him a clown and an embarrassment to the party. You can get a great sense of this from Kevin Williamson's magnificently titled National Review piece "Witless Ape Rides Escalator." Trump will likely receive the endorsements of zero governors, senators, and House members, and probably not many more state legislators. Why? Because he's demonstrated no serious commitment to any party issue or cause other than a hatred of President Obama, because his professional accomplishments consist of building casinos and making money between bankruptcies and starring in a reality TV show in which he fires people with his children, and because he's, well, a clown.
Reformers often express concern that a sufficiently rich and famous person could buy his way into office. Trump will be putting this theory to the test over the next six months. He's got more money and greater name recognition than anyone else running for the Republican nomination. If those things are enough, he should do well in this process. But they're not, and he won't.
This would be a good time, by the way, to give thanks for parties and the gatekeeping function they serve. The main reason Trump won't come within a mile of the White House is because you need the backing of a major party to do that. The Republicans won't back him because they think he'd be bad for them—and they're right.
What Makes Us Politic? is Seth Masket’s weekly column on politics and policy. | {
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Hakim Ziyech stapte over van FC Twente naar Ajax. - Foto: KNVB Media
Deze zomer zijn er 582 transfers geweest van, naar en binnen Nederland. Dat zijn vijf overschrijvingen meer dan vorig jaar, en dit betekent een nieuw transferrecord voor Nederland.
Deze zomer werd er een record aantal transfers geregistreerd.
170 spelers maakten de overstap naar een buitenlandse club, 133 spelers kwamen van het buitenland naar Nederland en 279 spelers verkasten binnen Nederland van club. De overstap van Jean-Willy Mapinga van N.E.C. naar Almere City was deze zomer de eerste transfer die de KNVB behandelde. De laatste overschrijving deze transferperiode was speler Matthew Miazga. Hij ging van Chelsea naar Vitesse, om 23.56 uur. In totaal 52 spelers maakten in de laatste 24 uur de overstap.
Deadline
De transfermarkt sloot vannacht om 00.00 uur. De KNVB houdt de Nederlandse tijd aan voor spelers die naar of binnen Nederland getransfereerd worden. Voor spelers die naar het buitenland vertrekken, geldt de lokale tijd en 'transferwindow' van het land waar de speler heen gaat. Werkloze spelers kunnen ook buiten de transferperiodes overgeschreven worden indien zij een contract tekenen.
Transferperiode zomer 2015
577 overschrijvingen
138 zijn van Nederland naar het buitenland vertrokken
104 zijn van het buitenland naar Nederland gekomen
335 zijn binnen Nederland getransfereerd
Van de 577 zijn er 39 in de laatste 24 uur overgeschreven. Vergeleken met 2014 (533) waren er 8% meer zomerse overschrijvingen.
Transferperiode zomer 2014
533 overschrijvingen:
147 zijn van Nederland naar het buitenland vertrokken
108 zijn van het buitenland naar Nederland gekomen
278 zijn binnen Nederland getransfereerd
Van de 533 zijn er 57 in de laatste 24 uur overgeschreven. Vergeleken met 2013 (471) waren er 13,2% meer zomerse overschrijvingen.
Transferperiode zomer 2013
471 overschrijvingen
97 zijn van Nederland naar het buitenland vertrokken
97 zijn van het buitenland naar Nederland gekomen
277 zijn binnen Nederland getransfereerd
Van de 471 zijn er 56 in de laatste 24 uur overgeschreven. Vergeleken met 2012 (543) waren er 13,3% minder zomerse overschrijvingen.
Transferperiode zomer 2012
543 overschrijvingen:
119 zijn van Nederland naar het buitenland vertrokken
117 zijn van het buitenland naar Nederland gekomen
307 zijn binnen Nederland getransfereerd
Van de 543 zijn er 45 in de laatste 24 uur overgeschreven. Vergeleken met de 2011 (509) waren er 6,7% meer zomerse overschrijvingen.
Transferperiode zomer 2011
509 overschrijvingen:
134 zijn van Nederland naar het buitenland vertrokken
103 zijn van het buitenland naar Nederland gekomen
272 zijn binnen Nederland getransfereerd
Van de 509 zijn er 53 in de laatste 24 uur overgeschreven. Vergeleken met 2010 (452) waren er in 2011 12,6% meer zomerse overschrijvingen. | {
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LINDYTOWN, W.Va.
To reach a lost American place, here just a moment ago, follow a thin country road as it unspools across an Appalachian valley’s grimy floor, past a coal operation or two, a church or two, a village called Twilight. Beware of the truck traffic. Watch out for that car-chasing dog.
After passing an abandoned union hall with its front door agape, look to the right for a solitary house, tidy, yellow and tucked into the stillness. This is nearly all that remains of a West Virginia community called Lindytown.
In the small living room, five generations of family portraits gaze upon Quinnie Richmond, 85, who has trouble summoning the memories, and her son, Roger, 62, who cannot forget them: the many children all about, enough to fill Mr. Cook’s school bus every morning; the Sunday services at the simple church; the white laundry strung on clotheslines; the echoing clatter of evening horseshoes; the sense of home.
But the coal that helped to create Lindytown also destroyed it. Here was the church; here was its steeple; now it’s all gone, along with its people. Gone, too, are the surrounding mountaintops. To mine the soft rock that we burn to help power our light bulbs, our laptops, our way of life, heavy equipment has stripped away the trees, the soil, the rock — what coal companies call the “overburden.” | {
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The Trump administration on Friday announced that it would allow for the year-round sale of gasoline with higher concentrations of ethanol.
Continue Reading Below
The action addresses a rule the Environmental Protection Agency had in place preventing the sale of so-called E15 fuel, which contains 15 percent ethanol and 85 percent gasoline, between June 1 and Sept. 15. The purpose was to prevent air pollution and curb dependence on foreign petroleum, but the ban has stopped some retailers from selling E15 at all because of the need to change out pumps.
President Trump promised to end the ban last year, as corn farmers were voicing a concern over the trade war between the U.S. and China, which remains ongoing. Corn is widely used to domestically make ethanol.
Gasoline generally contains about 10 percent ethanol. Allowing for the year-round sale of E15 will give farmers more avenues to sell corn, which could bolster revenue especially when prices are low.
Since ethanol is cheaper to produce than gasoline, for some motorists it could bring down prices at the pump, which were at about $2.82 per gallon as of Friday afternoon, according to AAA. Last year at this time, the average price of gas was $2.95.
"The year-round approval of E15 will mean another outlet for corn growers, and lower prices for consumers that want to fill up with E15, which is generally offered 5 to 10 cents per gallon lower than E10 gasoline," Patrick DeHaan, a senior petroleum analyst at GasBuddy, told FOX Business. DeHaan noted, however, that E10 is the default regular fuel sold across most of the counry.
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Lifting the ban has been opposed by oil refiners.
The announcement comes as farmers have been voicing concerns over a growing trade war between the White House and China, which has featured tit-for-tat tariff implementation. It also comes one day after the president threatened to impose 5 percent tariffs on goods from Mexico. | {
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OTTAWA — When the Ottawa REDBLACKS take on the Edmonton Eskimos this week, they’ll be doing so without a No. 1 quarterback.
Pivots Jonathon Jennings and Dominique Davis will split snaps on Saturday, according to the Ottawa Sun’s Tim Baines.
QBs Dominique Davis and Jonathon Jennings will split time for #Redblacks this week vs. #Eskimos #CFL — Tim Baines (@TimCBaines) September 24, 2019
Davis opened the season as the starter, being trusted as the man under centre for the first four games of the campaign. Over eight games this season, he has put up 1,846 yards and five touchdowns while throwing 14 interceptions.
Jennings has been the starter as of late for the red and black. The 27-year-old has completed 63 percent of his passes for 1,096 yards, three touchdowns, and seven picks.
The REDBLACKS will welcome the Edmonton Eskimos to TD Place on Saturday for their Week 16 showdown. The inter-divisional rivals kick-off at 4:00 p.m. ET. | {
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PayPal is seen as the easiest, most convenient way to send and receive money online, but the company has run into trouble as it has grown larger – including unnecessary account freezes, a lack of communication with its users, and increasing fees.
As a freelancer, most of my clients prefer to pay me via PayPal. It’s fast, convenient, and anybody with an e-mail address can sign up for free. However, the problem is that PayPal takes a large chunk of my pay cheque with its 2.9 per cent fees (plus a 30 cent transaction fee).
This year, I have paid $271.24 in merchant fees alone. PayPal charges an additional 2.5 per cent fee if I receive funds in U.S. dollars and want to convert it to Canadian dollars, as well as 50 cents per transaction every time I want to transfer less than $150 into my bank account.
Here are three PayPal alternatives for Canadians:
Payza.com
While all accounts are free, the basic personal account allows you to send funds, as well as receive funds up to $400 US per month for free. The Personal pro account charges 2.5 per cent (plus a 30 cent transaction fee) to receive funds. The fees are high, but still a cheaper option than PayPal. You can add money to your account via bank transfer, wire transfer, certified cheque or money order, as well as a credit card.
Related: 5 alternatives to eBay
MoneyBookers.com
This is a payment processing company based in the United Kingdom. Receiving money is free, and there is a one per cent fee when sending money to someone. Personal accounts are charged a monthly service fee of $1.50, but the fee will be waived if the user has logged into the account or made a transaction every 18 months.
Interac e-Transfer
There is no fee for receiving money through Interac e-Transfer, however the sender may have to pay a small fee from their financial institution. For example, President’s Choice financial charges a flat fee of $1.50 for each e-Transfer.
Related: How to make money by selling an old cell phone
There aren't many options for online payment websites in Canada, so over the past few months, I’ve tried to limit my usage on PayPal by asking my clients if they can send money through Interac e-Transfer, or a cheque. Even though payment by cheque is a lot slower, I feel better knowing that less of my hard-earned money is going to pay fees.
Do you use PayPal?
Krystal Yee lives in Vancouver and blogs at Give Me Back My Five Bucks and Frugal Wanderer. You can reach her on Twitter (@krystalatwork), or by e-mail at [email protected]. | {
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New Mexico, home to several of the nation's premier scientific, nuclear and military institutions, is planning to take part in an unprecedented science project -- a petri dish, of sorts, the size of a small U.S. city.
A Washington, D.C.-based technology company announced plans Tuesday to build the state's newest ghost town, a 20-square-mile model metropolis that will be used to test everything from renewable energy innovations to intelligent traffic systems, next-generation wireless networks and smart-grid cyber security systems.
Although no one will live there, the replica city will be modeled after a typical American town of 35,000 people, complete with highways, houses and commercial buildings, old and new.
Pegasus Global Holdings CEO Bob Brumley says the $200 million project, known as The Center, will be a first of its kind in the U.S., creating a place for scientists at the state's universities, federal labs and military installations to test their innovations for upgrading cities to 21st century green technology and infrastructure in a real world setting.
It will also enable them to rub shoulders with investors, meaning it could ultimately draw enough new businesses to give the state a technology corridor like that in California's Silicon Valley or Virginia's Reston, Brumley said.
"The idea for The Center was born out of our own company's challenges in trying to test new and emerging technologies beyond the confines of a sterile lab environment," said Brumley. "The Center will allow private companies, not for profits, educational institutions and government agencies to test in a unique facility with real world infrastructure, allowing them to better understand the cost and potential limitations of new technologies prior to introduction."
For instance, he said, developers of solar technology would be able to assess exactly how their systems would be delivered and used in one house where the thermostat is set at 78, and another where it's set at 68. The center could also help show how efficient it might be in an old building versus a new one.
Brumley said Pegasus has been working with the state on the project for about 18 months, and has some initial plans already drawn up. It is now working on appointing a public-private advisory board and selecting a final site.
He said it will be developed on state-owned land, either in the Albuquerque-Santa Fe corridor or in the Las Cruces area near the Texas and Mexico borders. The northern part of the state is home to the Los Alamos and Sandia national laboratories and an Intel factory. Southern New Mexico has White Sands Missile Range, Fort Bliss and New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology.
Brumley indicate he had a site narrowed down but said it will likely be a few months before anything final is announced.
Initially, the project will employ about 350 people, Brumley said. But he estimates it could ultimately create 3,500 new jobs "outside the fence."
"This could give New Mexico a leadership position in the commercialization of federal research," he said. "It will serve as a magnet for investors."
Brumley said the ghost town will make money by charging user and operation and maintenance fees, selling energy to the grid by subleasing some of its state land for the development of office buildings, hotels and restaurants.
Gov. Susana Martinez said the state is committed to working with Brumley.
"I am confident this innovative project would provide a great boost to New Mexico's economy," she said in a statement. "We are pleased to be able to offer the resources, open spaces, and talented workforce required to make this effort a success."
My administration is committed to an ongoing relationship with Pegasus that will allow The Center to thrive and create New Mexico jobs." | {
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New Delhi: Bharatiya Janata Party and Bajrang Dal workers on Friday clashed with the police in Ghaziabad over the marriage of a Muslim boy and a Hindu girl which they claimed was an act of ‘love jihad‘.
Thirty-year-old Mansoor Harhat Khan, an MBA, married 28-year-old Nupur Singhal, a doctor at a Ghaziabad court under the Special Marriage Act and held a reception at the girl’s house at Raj Nagar in Ghaziabad. By afternoon, a massive group consisting of various Hindutva outfits, led by BJP Ghaziabad city president Ajay Sharma, created a ruckus outside the woman’s home. They staged a sit-in protest outside the house and disrupted traffic.
‘Love jihad’ is a term coined by Hindutva groups to project inter-religious romance or marriage between consenting adults as an “attack” on “Hindus”.
The police first tried to pacify the protesters, asking them to move out of the area, but when they refused to relent, the police lathi-charged them.
The police even tried to organise a dialogue between the Bajrang Dal members and the family, but the protesters refused to budge. The family too was not interested in any such dialogue, insisting that the marriage was their private business.
Pushpendra Kumar, the father of the bride, told IANS, “I had been receiving phone calls for last two days to stop this marriage. But both are major and mature enough to know what’s wrong and what’s right.”
“They have decided to live together, so they have registered their marriage under the Special Marriage Act in Ghaziabad. We had arranged a reception party today (Friday). I don’t see any love-jihad in their marriage,” Kumar said
The BJP’s Sharma told the Times of Indiathat the families had not taken “permission” to hold the marriage and it was a case of forced conversion.
Bajrang Dal Meerut province convenor Balraj Dungar told the Times of India, “We will not tolerate this at any cost. We will see how long they hide behind the police”.
“I was expecting something of this sort and was well prepared. It does not matter what people think. It was our decision,” the bride told the Times of India.
The police said they used mild force to disperse the crowd. “How can the police allow people to barge into someone’s house? We got a distress call and we performed our duty,” said SSP H.N. Singh.
The family has filed a complaint at Kavi Nagar police station and an FIR is expected to be filed soon.
(With IANS inputs) | {
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The player wearing All Purpose Goggles in H1Z1
The All-Purpose Goggles is a piece of eyewear in H1Z1
It is one of the glasses the player can wear in the game.
Description [ edit ]
100% protection against harmful UVA/UVB Rays | {
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Trump’s political success was a triumph of style over substance: UBC research
Style, not substance, accounts for Donald Trump’s U.S. Republican presidential nomination, according to a psychological analysis from the University of British Columbia.
Psychology researchers at the university compared Trump’s speech style and Twitter usage to that of the other top nine Republican contenders. The real-estate mogul and reality star consistently ranked highest in ratings of grandiosity, “I”-statements, informal language, vocal pitch variation, and use of Twitter.
“Trump’s outrageous statements over the course of the campaign led many political pundits to underestimate his chances of success,” said supervising author Delroy L. Paulhus, a personality psychology researcher and professor at UBC. “Contrary to what might be expected, grandiosity, simplistic language and rampant Twitter activity were statistical predictors of success in the Republican primaries. Although Trump’s bombastic communication style was shocking—even detestable to many viewers—our research suggests that this style helped him win the Republican nomination.”
Speech segments from Trump, Ted Cruz, John Kasich, Ben Carson, Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, Rick Perry, Lindsey Graham and Mike Huckabee were transcribed and analyzed using a computerized text analysis software. The transcriptions were also coded for grandiosity by trained raters, after all personal information and references to the candidate’s party were removed. The researchers also conducted an acoustical analysis of the speeches, to determine pitch variability, which tends to promote an image of energy and dynamism. Finally, the researchers examined each candidate’s Tweet count in the three months before they announced their candidacy.
“Even in everyday life, the difficulty of fact-checking everything people tell us forces us to rely on how they say it —and we’ve shown that this holds true even in political elections,” said Paulhus. “This phenomenon not only helps explain Donald Trump’s political rise, but how questionable political leaders might gain power—even in democracies.”
“Explaining Trump via Communication Style: Grandiosity, Informality, and Dynamism” appears today in Personality and Individual Differences. Co-authors are Sara Ahmadian and Sara Azarshahi. | {
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Prihod od turizma past će i do pola milijarde eura, predviđa Miroslav Dragičević, direktor konzultantske tvrtke Horwath HTL.
Loše vrijeme, nepovoljan raspored praznika, ponovno uvođenje viza za turiste iz Rusije i Ukrajine, oporavak konkurencije , pa i negativan imidž Hrvatske kao slijedeće žrtve koju će EU morati spašavati – redom su utjecali na pad turističkih pokazatelja u travnju, kažu analitičari.
11,3posto pao je broj noćenja stranih turista u travnju
Broj turističkih noćenja u travnju je pao čak 10,2 posto, pri čemu je broj noćenja stranih turista, koji čine 82,6 posto ukupnog broja noćenja, pao 11,3 posto, objavio je DZS privremene podatke u petak. Broj dolazaka je također pao i to 4,6 posto, pri čemu je stranih turista bilo 5,7 posto manje, dok je domaćih bilo isto kao i lani. Pod utjecajem lošijih travanjskih rezultata u prva četiri mjeseca broj noćenja je smanjen 1,9 posto. Stranci su pritom imali 1,3 posto manje noćenja, a domaći turisti 3,3 posto manje. Broj dolazaka u prva je četiri mjeseca ipak bio 0,7 posto bolji: stranaca je bilo 0,6 posto više, a domaćih turista 1,1 posto više.
Nema brze reakcije
Na travanjski pad je svakako utjecala činjenica da su uskršnji blagdani započeli u ožujku, no to svakako nije jedini razlog. "Prvi i osnovni problem je što marketinški menadžment, odnosno menadžment prodaje u Hrvatskoj još uvijek ne funkcionira na način da može promptno provesti protu-krizne marketinške aktivnosti koje mogu preokrenuti negativne trendove", ističe Miroslav Dragičević, direktor konzultantske tvrtke Horwath HTL. "Činjenica je da se očekuje oporavak u zemljama na teret kojih smo mi profitirali proteklih godina, poput Grčke, Egipta ili Tunisa", kaže Dragičević. "Također, javnost ulazak Hrvatske u EU dočekuje s pesimizmom i Hrvatska se u medijima percipira kao zemlja koja će biti slijedeća problematična zemlja koju će članice EU morati spašavati. Nažalost, nitko u Hrvatskoj nije reagirao na to, nema nikakve kontra-propagande, a ukupna turistička industrija i institucije trebali bi se podići na noge", upozorava Dragičević, dodajući kako se nakon finala Lige prvaka u Njemačkoj mogla izvrsno iskoristiti popularnost Maria Mandžukića.
Dragičević Uvođenje viza za turiste iz Rusije i Ukrajine rezultirat će padom u tom segmentu za deset do dvadeset posto
Nevrijeme nas kažnjava
"Osim toga, naša struktura ponude je kupališna pa nas kiša i nevrijeme kažnjavaju. Uvođenje viza za turiste iz Rusije i Ukrajine rezultirat će padom u tom segmentu za deset do dvadeset posto. Kad se gleda na čitavu sezonu, bit će odlično ako ostvarimo prošlogodišnje rezultate" kaže Dragičević. Međutim, istaknuo je, kako on sam ne vjeruje da će ćemo u tome uspjeti te predviđa da će prihod od turizma pasti i do pola milijarde eura. Upozorava da nedovoljno dobro kontroliramo svoju tržišnu poziciju te stoga treba pojačati profesionalizam ukupne marketinške aparature.
Konkurencija
Grci očekuju rekorde u 2013.
Grčka je nedavno objavila kako ove godine, na temelju rezervacija u hotelima i kapacitetu zrakoplovnih kompanija, koje su osigurale više od milijun dodatnih sjedala na nizu novih linija, očekuju rekordnih 17 milijuna turista, pri čemu očekuju najveći rast turista iz Njemačke, Rusije i Velike Britanije. Turiste privlači pad cijena grčkih hotela i do 40 posto, ali Grčka je i manje prisutna u medijima s negativnim napisima. | {
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Celtic sweat over Olivier Ntcham fitness ahead of AEK Athens showdown
Celtic could be without influential midfielder Olivier Ntcham for the Champions League clash with AEK Athens after the Frenchman picked up an ankle injury in the opening day win over Livingston.
By The Newsroom Saturday, 4th August 2018, 7:19 pm Updated Saturday, 4th August 2018, 7:23 pm
Olivier Ntcham grimaces after hurting his ankle in a challenge with Livingston's Egli Kaja. Picture: SNS Group
The 22-year-old, who scored from the penalty spot in a 3-1 win over the promoted side, appeared to roll his ankle in the closing stages of the match, causing concern ahead of Wednesday’s match with the Greeks.
Ntcham was seen limping after a challenge with Livi’s Egli Kaja as the match reached its conclusion.
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• READ MORE - James Forrest ‘satisfied’ with European football and trophies at Celtic
Speaking to BBC Sportsound after the match, Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers confirmed that the Parkhead medical staff would have to assess the Frenchman adding: “It looks like he’s hurt his ankle”.
Adding that he was “really pleased” on the back of the midweek trip to face Rosenborg, Rodgers continued: “For large parts we were outstanding. It’s always difficult against an honest team like Livingston who are sat in.
“I thought we scored three very good goals and the only disappointment was right at the end. | {
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An unusual lineup of artists, musicians, actors, and comedians will take the stage as presenters at the 60th Annual Grammy Awards, which air live from New York’s Madison Square Garden on Sunday. Presenters announced today include 18-time Grammy winner Tony Bennett, comedian Dave Chappelle, three-time Grammy winner and current nominee Kelly Clarkson, NFL player Victor Cruz, Grammy winner Eve, current nominee Jim Gaffigan, actress Katie Holmes, singer Nick Jonas, actress Anna Kendrick, 15-time Grammy winner Alicia Keys, 10-time Grammy winner John Legend, actor Shemar Moore, comedian and television host Trevor Noah, current Grammy nominee Sarah Silverman, actress and singer Hailee Steinfeld, and Grammy nominee Donnie Wahlberg.
Previously announced performers include Jon Batiste, Brothers Osborne, Alessia Cara, Cardi B, Childish Gambino, Eric Church, Gary Clark Jr., Miley Cyrus, Daddy Yankee, DJ Khaled, Luis Fonsi, Emmylou Harris, Elton John, Kesha, Khalid, Lady Gaga, Kendrick Lamar, Little Big Town, Logic, Patti LuPone, Bruno Mars, Maren Morris, P!nk, Ben Platt, Rihanna, Zuleyka Rivera, Sam Smith, Chris Stapleton, Sting, SZA, Bryson Tiller, and U2.
Hosted by James Corden, the 60th Annual Grammy Awards will air live on CBS on Sunday, Jan. 28, 2018, at 7:30 p.m. ET/4:30 p.m. PT. | {
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GUANGDONG, South China — Zhu Lili takes her first bite of the burger and raises her eyebrows. The lettuce is fresh. The bun is soft. And the juicy patty packed with umami flavor seems too good to be true. “Don’t kid me,” she says. “This really isn’t meat?”
The 43-year-old is chowing down at Artificial Food Lab, a pop-up in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen that specializes in vegan snacks. Like many of the other foodies here, Zhu is having her first taste of the Whole Perfect burger — a meat-free meal created by the Chinese food company Whole Perfect Foods.
Whole Perfect is one of several domestic companies scrambling to create plant-based patties that can compete with the Beyond burger and Impossible burger — the ultra-realistic fake meat products made by U.S. food tech firms Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods — which are about to hit the Chinese mainland.
The California-based businesses see huge potential for plant-based meat in China, a country that consumes more meat than the European Union and United States combined. Both are already expanding rapidly in Hong Kong and preparing to launch across the mainland — Beyond by the end of 2019, and Impossible within two years.
Are Chinese vegetarian food producers ready to join the global mock meat movement? By Zhu Yuqing and Xue Yujie/Sixth Tone
But they will face tough competition from Chinese food companies like Whole Perfect, which are trying to replicate the uncannily meaty flavor of the U.S.-made burgers and think they can beat the Americans with lower prices and a better understanding of Chinese tastes.
Like most of the domestic players, Whole Perfect only recently woke up to the market potential for fake meat in China. Founded in 1993, the company discovered its niche producing soy-based imitation chicken, fish, and shrimp for specialist Buddhist and vegetarian restaurants — a market the Shenzhen-based firm now dominates. But the hype over Beyond and Impossible convinced the firm to target a much larger market.
Artificial meat is receiving unprecedented attention. - Zhou Qiyu, Whole Perfect
“Artificial meat is receiving unprecedented attention — people are curious to find out more and try it,” says Zhou Qiyu, marketing manager at Whole Perfect. “Of course, you have to thank Beyond and Impossible for taking the first step.”
The lightbulb moment for China’s food industry was Beyond Meat’s stellar Nasdaq debut in May, which also sparked an investment frenzy on the other side of the Pacific. In the days following the initial public offering, shares in nearly every Chinese company with even a tangential relation to plant-based protein skyrocketed on Shanghai’s A-share market. Weiwei Group, a soy products maker, even had to issue a clarification reminding buyers that it did not offer U.S.-style fake meat, after its stock price also surged.
“We’re seeing a shift — companies targeting the mass market are showing an interest in investing in this industry,” says Jeff Chiu, deputy general manager at Hong Chang Biotechnology, another leading vegan food producer based in the eastern city of Suzhou.
And there are good reasons to feel the Chinese market is fertile ground for alternative meat. The government aims to convince consumers to halve their meat consumption by 2030 to cut carbon emissions and combat obesity, and research suggests that people are becoming more open to a flexitarian — or mainly vegetarian — diet. According to a recent study published in the academic journal Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems, 96% of respondents said they would consider purchasing plant-based meat.
Hong Chang Biotechnology’s workers pack frozen plant-based fillet steaks in Suzhou, Jiangsu province, July 19, 2019. Xue Yujie/Sixth Tone
Like in the West, millennials are especially curious: Over 80% of consumers who have eaten plant-based meat within the past six months are born after 1990, according to research by the China Plant Based Foods Alliance (CPBFA). But Chinese consumers differ in that their interest is driven more by health concerns than climate change activism, according to Zhou. “Chinese people are getting more aware of what they put into their mouths and what is healthy,” says Zhou.
Another major factor driving consumers to turn to vegan substitutes is the African swine fever epidemic, which has led to large shortfalls in pork supplies and rising concerns about food safety issues in the meat supply chain.
“Plant-based meat is made completely from plants, and the whole production process is controllable,” says Zhou. “It avoids the safety risks caused by hormone residues or animal viruses.”
The question is whether the Chinese takes on U.S.-style alternative meat can compete with the real thing. Kiki Wu, the owner of Planet Green, a vegan restaurant that co-opened the Artificial Food Lab with Whole Perfect, thinks the Chinese firms still have a long way to go. She places two burgers on the counter in front of Sixth Tone — one is an Impossible burger, which Planet Green has brought over from Hong Kong, and the other is a Whole Perfect patty.
Planet Green’s head chef Xie Haihui makes a burger using American plant-based meat company Impossible Foods’ ground beef, which the restaurant brought over from Hong Kong, in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, July 6, 2019. Xue Yujie/Sixth Tone
Wu cuts the two patties open, and points out the red juice oozing from the Impossible burger. This is heme, an iron-containing molecule that Impossible claims is the magic ingredient making its products taste like meat. Impossible uses genetic engineering to harvest soy heme in large volumes from yeast, but no Chinese firm has yet developed a similar technique.
“See how different the tastes are?” says Wu, adding that the Whole Perfect burger has a distinct bean-like aftertaste. “At the moment, the Chinese plant-based meat players are just food companies, not food tech companies.”
The Chinese players are working overtime to make their mock meat more convincing. Planet Green has partnered with Hong Chang Biotechnology to create a new range of alternative meat products with improved taste, texture, and nutritional value. Their new venture, Starfield, launched its first burgers and hot dogs on Sept. 1. Whole Perfect, meanwhile, plans to unveil its own next-generation plant-based meat in October.
At the moment, the Chinese plant-based meat players are just food companies, not food tech companies. - Kiki Wu, Planet Green owner
Chiu admits that Beyond and Impossible are ahead in terms of technology and marketing, but says domestic firms can still find a way to win in their home market. “Plant-based meat is deeply rooted in Chinese culture — we have been making imitation meat way longer than the Americans,” says Chiu.
Chinese Buddhists began developing vegetarian versions of popular Chinese meat dishes as early as the Tang dynasty (618 – 907 A.D.), and vegetarian restaurants today offer a huge variety of options, from mock pickled fish to imitation braised pork belly. Though these dishes do not look as realistic or replicate the nutrient composition of meat as well as U.S.-style plant-based protein, this can sometimes be an advantage.
Impossible’s bleeding burgers can be a turn-off for Buddhists, for example, who make up a large chunk of the country’s approximately 50 million vegetarians. “We don’t even like to eat meat anymore,” says Zhu, the diner at the Artificial Food Lab, who is Buddhist. “If you make it (mock meat) taste similar (to real meat), we actually wouldn’t want it.”
Some experts doubt how well the U.S. firms’ fake meat can be integrated into Chinese cuisine. Their vegan mince works perfectly for Western staples like burgers, hot dogs, and fried chicken, but chefs in China usually prefer to cook with a whole joint. “Chinese diners are particularly picky about taste, but judging what makes for good fake meat is complicated,” says Zhang Bo, a researcher from the Institute of Food Science and Technology at the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences.
The plant-based shrimp dish made by Whole Perfect’s vegan shrimp product, at Buddhist vegan restaurant Amrita in Shanghai, June 20, 2019. Xue Yujie/Sixth Tone
U.S. companies are also yet to develop a convincing alternative to high-fat meats like pork, which accounts for more than 60% of China’s total meat consumption. According to Xue Yan, secretary general of CPBFA, this could hand the advantage to Hong Kong-based Omnipork, a startup that has already begun selling plant-based pork filling for dumplings.
Then there is the price issue. Convincing consumers to pay a premium is already a challenge for Beyond and Impossible in their home market, but the problem will be far greater in China. Though the firms are working hard to reduce costs, the small batch of Impossible burgers on sale at Planet Green is priced at 88 yuan ($12) — far higher than the 28 yuan Starfield is charging for its own plant-based burgers.
“Chinese consumers are more price-sensitive,” says Xue. “If they have tofu and domestic mock meat products that are much cheaper to choose from, you have to have a good reason to convince them to pay more.”
The Chinese firms hope that if they can match the brand power of the U.S. firms, their cheaper products will win by default. Whole Perfect, once a low-profile supplier to vegan restaurants and religious organizations, now wants its products available everywhere.
Customers wait in line outside of the Artificial Food Lab pop-up co-opened by Whole Perfect and Planet Green in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, June 19, 2019. Courtesy of Whole Perfect Food
The Shenzhen-based firm has signed deals to sell its vegan sausages via Walmart and Hema, the Alibaba-backed supermarket chain. It is also partnering with fitness brand Super Tough to sell healthy vegan meals to consumers on e-commerce platform Taobao and selected gyms in Shanghai from late September.
But the Chinese firm’s biggest challenge may be winning over millennials. Attracting this demographic is key, but it remains to be seen whether an old-school operator like Whole Perfect can do this as well as Silicon Valley’s finest. Ventures like the Artificial Food Lab, however, are a promising start. “We are showing them (millennials) that being vegan can be cool and fun,” says Wu.
Editor: Dominic Morgan.
(Header image: A worker at Hong Chang Biotechnology examines the company’s plant-based beef burger patties on a production line in Suzhou, Jiangsu province, July 19, 2019. Xue Yujie/Sixth Tone) | {
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The number of measles cases in the United States so far this year marks a 20-year high, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced today (May 29).
Just in the first months of 2014, from Jan. 1 through May 23, a total of 288 confirmed measles cases have been reported to the CDC, surpassing the highest number of reported cases happening in a full year since the disease was eliminated in the country almost 15 years ago.
The largest number of cases in previous years had occurred during 2011, with 220 cases. The number of cases so far in 2014 is the largest reported in the first five months of a year since 1994, CDC officials said.
Public health efforts stopped the continuous spread of measles in the United States in 2000. However, travelers who are infected with measles in another country can bring the virus into the United States and spread it to others in communities where many people are not vaccinated. [5 Dangerous Vaccination Myths]
"Imported measles virus is landing in places in the U.S. where groups of unimmunized people live," said Dr. Anne Schuchat, assistant surgeon general and director of CDC's National Center for Immunizations and Respiratory Diseases. "That setting gives the measles virus a welcome wagon by providing a chance for outbreaks to occur."
The number of measles cases in the United States so far this year has surpassed the highest number of reported cases happening in a full year since the disease was eliminated in 2000. (Image credit: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)
Measles is a highly contagious respiratory disease caused by a virus, and can lead to serious illness and death. In 2012, there were 122,000 measles deaths globally, according to the World Health Organization.
Out of 288 cases, health officials linked 280 (97 percent) to people who became infected in another country. Almost half of these imported cases of measles were travelers returning from the Philippines, where a large outbreak has been ongoing since October 2013.
Ninety percent of U.S. measles cases this year occurred in people who were not vaccinated or whose vaccination status was unknown, according to the CDC. Among the 195 U.S. residents with measles who were not vaccinated, 165 people, or 85 percent, were not vaccinated for religious, philosophical or personal reasons.
Eighty percent, or 227, of the reported cases happened during 15 outbreaks, including the largest outbreak of measles reported in the United States since the disease's elimination. This ongoing outbreak is occurring primarily among unvaccinated Amish communities in Ohio and has so far included 138 cases. Public health officials believe that members of these communities who had travelled to the Philippines for religious service introduced the virus to their communities, Schuchat said.
Seventeen other states have reported measles cases as well, with large numbers of cases reported in California (60 cases) and New York City (26 cases).
The ages of measles patients this year have ranged from 2 weeks to 65 years; 18 (6 percent) were younger than 12 months; 48 (17 percent) were ages 1 to 4 years, and 71 (25 percent) were ages 5 to 19 years.
More than half of the people in this year's cases, or 151, were 20 years of age or older.
"We also think of measles as a childhood disease, but today's report reminds us that there are many adults who never have received the childhood vaccines but are still traveling the world," Schuchat said.
"People may not think of MMR as a travel vaccine, the way they think of typhoid or yellow fever vaccines, but acquiring measles while traveling is likely if you have not actually been vaccinated," Schuchat said. (MMR is a vaccine against measles, mumps and rubella.)
Forty-three measles patients (15 percent) this year required hospitalization. Five patients developed pneumonia; one developed hepatitis, and two developed blood conditions, CDC officials said. No deaths have been reported so far.
In the United States, less than 1 percent of toddlers receive no vaccines for any disease. However, the vaccination rates differ on state and local levels.
"We know there are communities where a large number of individuals have decided not to be vaccinated," Schuchat said, adding that in some states the number of people exempting from vaccination is decreasing and in other states it is increasing.
Many U.S. health care providers may have never seen or treated a patient with measles because of robust vaccination efforts, Schuchat said.
"If you are a parent or a clinician, you need to know this: Measles may be forgotten, but it isn't gone," Schuchat said. "Measles vaccine is safe and effective, and is necessary to protect you and your family from measles. Measles is extremely infectious and will find you if you are not vaccinated."
Email Bahar Gholipour. Follow us @LiveScience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science. | {
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API Doc for a Symfony Project
Keeping your projects documented is very important. Everyone want to have it, but it must be simple, efficient and well maintained.
API Blueprint is another specification for describing REST APIs. It written in a Markdown-flavored syntax, but not exactly. It’s based on on the element names, order, spacing, and other details. If you describe your API with API Blueprint, you will find a lot of tools that support it.
API Blueprint is simple and accessible to everybody involved in the API lifecycle. Its syntax is concise yet expressive. With API Blueprint you can quickly design and prototype APIs to be created or document and test already deployed mission-critical APIs.
The API Blueprint ecosystem is very big, there’re plenty of tools in every language. Have a look to their “Tools” section.
Using Snowboard !
Snowboard (https://github.com/bukalapak/snowboard) is an awesome GoLang project to render HTML documentation from API blueprint file. It support custom templates and is an executable (or available as a Golang library). Could be integrate in your CI process or used directly with their Docker image.
One of the great feature provided by Snowboard is the ability to define the template used for HTML rendering. If your using Bootstrap (the front-end component library), you can generate it using an accordion and list group for menus. You can use it from my gist: https://gist.github.com/ScullWM/776ded66a812bdf28e05c93be48c21df
Generate HTML documentation to this file, using this template file, from the API description
Now that we have our custom HTML template, we can include it in our application using Twig.
And here’s our beautiful API Doc integrated in our application:
Caramba! PepperReport.io
Here was my small tip about API Doc in my Symfony project. Now share yours! | {
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Read: What you lose when you gain a spouse
But suppose you’ve managed to survive your courtship without any problems. (This may take more imagination.) You’ve just graduated from dating to blissful matrimony. Your soul soars, your heart sings, and your brain is awash in oxytocin, dopamine, and other neurochemicals associated with love. You are probably in no mood to participate in a scientific study, but some other newlyweds were persuaded to do so for a long‑term project called PAIR. (The full, unromantic name is Processes of Adaptation in Intimate Relationships.) These couples, in central Pennsylvania, were interviewed during their first two years of marriage by psychologists who cataloged both the positive and negative aspects of the relationships.
Some of the people were already ambivalent or hostile toward their partners—and tended to get divorced quickly—but most couples showed lots of mutual affection and went on to celebrate several anniversaries. Over the long haul, though, those tender early feelings were not a reliable harbinger. More than a decade later, a disproportionate number of the couples who had been “almost giddily affectionate” were no longer together. As a group, those who divorced had been a third more affectionate during the early years than the ones who went on to have long, happy marriages. Over the short term, their passion had enabled them to surmount their misgivings and their fights, but those positive feelings couldn’t keep the marriage going forever. It was how they dealt with the negative stuff—their doubts, their frustrations, their problems—that predicted whether the marriage would survive. Negativity hits young people especially hard, which is one reason that people who marry earlier in life are more likely to divorce than ones who delay marriage. (Another reason is that younger people tend to have less money, which means more stress.)
Some couples, of course, are better off splitting up, but far too many of them sabotage a relationship that could have worked. Researchers who track couples have repeatedly been puzzled to see relationships destroyed even when there are no obvious causes. To test a theory, the psychologists Sandra Murray and John Holmes brought couples into a lab and gave them questionnaires to be filled out at tables arranged so that the partners sat with their backs to each other. They’d both be answering the same questions, the experimenter explained, and it was important that they not communicate in any way as they filled out the forms.
In fact, though, the questionnaires were different. One form asked people what they didn’t like about their partners. They could list as many traits as they wanted, but were told it was fine to name just one. These people, who’d been dating on average for a year and a half, had a few complaints but were mostly pretty satisfied. They typically wrote down one or two things about their partners that were less than ideal, and then they put down their pens. The other partners were given a much different task: listing all the things in their home. Instructed to name at least 25 items, they’d start writing—cataloging pieces of furniture, kitchenware, gadgets, books, artwork, whatever—and were often still working away at it five minutes later. | {
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La critique que l'on a le plus entendue à l'issue du Sommet sur l'enseignement supérieur c'est que l'on n'y a pratiquement pas parlé d'éducation ni supérieure ni tout court.
Soyez heureux, cette chronique parlera d'éducation, de la mienne d'abord mais avec le projet de faire le lien avec la vôtre, surtout avec celle dont vous rêvez pour vos enfants.
J'ai grandi dans une maison sans livres, sauf deux ou trois sur les animaux que lisait et relisait mon père. J'ai fréquenté l'école républicaine française où des instituteurs qui portaient de longues blouses grises nous donnaient de vigoureuses gifles qui laissaient longtemps la marque de leurs doigts sur nos joues.
Mais en fait, mon éducation tient surtout à deux événements fortuits qui m'ont marqué pour la vie. Très tôt, le matin, ma mère faisait le ménage à la bibliothèque de la SNCF de notre petite ville, je devais avoir 10 ans quand qu'elle a décidé que je l'accompagnerais pour l'aider à cirer les planchers, pour le reste j'étais libre de faire ce que je voulais et que voulezvous que je fisse dans une bibliothèque ? Je lisais.
Le deuxième événement est survenu à la fin du primaire, après trois mois dans un centre d'apprentissage où je m'étais inscrit en mécanique automobile. On me fit valoir que j'étais nul en mécanique. Tu lis beaucoup, t'es bon en français, pourquoi n'essaies-tu pas plutôt la typographie ? J'ai adoré la typographie, je l'ai dit souvent ici.
J'avais 17 ans, c'était lundi ou jeudi, il pleuvait sur Paris ou c'était la canicule, vous n'auriez pas trouvé jeune homme plus heureux dans cet autobus bondé qui le conduisait à Bobigny où il allait composer toute la journée, en minuscules lettres de plomb, des horaires de chemin de fer.
Normalement, s'il n'y avait pas eu tous ces changements technologiques, je serais aujourd'hui un heureux pensionné des métiers de l'imprimerie, pour le reste je sera is le même vieux monsieur, lecteur boulimique et cycliste impénitent, mais je reviens sur heureux, plus heureux que le suis maintenant ? Possiblement.
Plus serein, sûrement. Mais je ne chipoterai pas : j'ai eu cette double chance incroyable dans la vie, impensable aujourd'hui , d'exercer un métier qui me passionnait, de le voir disparaître en quelques années et d'en trouver aussitôt un autre que j'aime presque autant.
Ai-je précisé que je ne suis jamais allé à l'université ? On vous entend venir avec vos gros sabots, monsieur le chroniqueur. Vous parlez d'un autre temps .
Vous savez bien qu'il vous faudrait aujourd'hui passer par l'université pour devenir journaliste...
Qui vous parle de journalisme ? Qu'avez-vous tous à vouloir être journal istes ? Avocats ? Médecins ? Architectes ? Les coiffeuses puent de la gueule ou quoi ? Et plombier ? Et maçon? Et flic ? Et réceptionniste ? Et garçon de café ? Et glacier? Et chauffeur d'autobus ? Et femme de ménage? Et agriculteur? C'est pas bien?
Je suis tanné de vous entendre parler d'accessibilité comme si l'université était le passage obligé vers... la respectabilité.
Accessibilité mon cul , je suis partisan du contraire, exactement le contraire : de la porte étroite. Il devrait être aussi difficile d'entrer à l'université en art, en histoire, en littérature qu'en médecine ou en architecture. Combien j 'en connais . . . petit talent en dessin, zéro sens critique, zéro goût, zéro partout, navrantes erreurs d'aiguillage, on leur donnera quand même leur bac en art, ce qu'ils en feront est une autre histoire...
Ma fille est en psychologie à McGill...
Pis ! Votre fils en plomberie vous n'en parlez pas ? Votre autre fille en technique policière ? Votre petit voisin qui vend des chars sur le boulevard Taschereau?
Un sommet sur l'éducation devrait avoir pour première préoccupation l'éducation des coiffeuses. Le premier projet d'éducation d'un pays, 10 fois plus prioritaire que tous les autres, devrait être de donner à celui-là en plomberie, à celle-là en technique policière, à celui-là ouvrier agricole, une éducation qui les prépare à entrer dans la vie, et très très accessoirement à l'université. Leur donner des outils, un langage qui leur permettra d'être plus que des veaux, je veux dire plus que des consommateurs, que des gobeurs d'information, que des pitonneurs de twits. Leur donner la curiosité. Leur donner envie de résister.
On s'interrogera (et on s'engueulera) sur les moyens, sur les méthodes, sur les compétences transversales après. On parlera réforme après. Commençons par nous entendre sur cela : l'éducation vise à former des citoyens pas trop tatas et non pas à envoyer le plus de tatas possible à l'université.
J'AI UN DOUTE - J'ai déjà dit que j'étais un fan de À la semaine prochaine, la très drôle émission de Philippe Laguë et de sa gang à la radio de Radio-Canada le samedi. De leur galerie de personnages le poète Jean-Paul Daoust est un de mes préférés comme il l'est sans doute pour une major ité d'auditeurs. La caricature est [criante de ressemblance] me disait l'autre jour un de mes amis qui n'a pourtant aucune idée de à qui ou à quoi peut bien ressembler Jean-Paul Daoust.
Juste pour vous dire, dans la vie Jean-Paul est beaucoup plus drôle que sa caricature, plus délirant aussi. Ce n'est pas un ami mais c'est un poète que je pratique depuis les années 90, depuis 111, Wooster Street et jusqu'à Taxi pour Babylone et j'ai tout d'un coup un doute : de qui ou de quoi rit-on ici ? De Jean- Paul Daoust le poète un peu fofolle ? Si c'est ça, c'est pas bien grave i l est capable d'en prendre (ou de faire semblant).
Mais pourquoi ai-je l'impression que c'est surtout de la poésie qu'on rit?
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Glon Profile Joined December 2010 United States 568 Posts Last Edited: 2013-03-04 20:08:47 #1
1.0 Zerg versus Terran ......................................................................................................................................................................... 1.1 Defending the Two Barracks Play ..................................................................................................................
1.2 Defending Hellion/Banshee Agression ..........................................................................................................
1.3 The Standard Macro Game ..............................................................................................................................
1.4 The Late Game ....................................................................................................................................................
1.5 Creep Spread .......................................................................................................................................................
1.6 VODs ...................................................................................................................................................................... 2.0 Zerg versus Zerg ............................................................................................................................................................................ 2.1 Opening 1: Fast Spawning Pool ....................................................................................................................
2.2 Opening 2: Standard 14 Pool .........................................................................................................................
2.3 Hatchery First ......................................................................................................................................................
2.4 The Mid Game .....................................................................................................................................................
2.5 Composition Counters/Fights ..........................................................................................................................
2.6 Creep Spread .......................................................................................................................................................
2.7 VODs ...................................................................................................................................................................... 3.0 Zerg versus Protoss ..................................................................................................................................................................... 3.1 The Macro Game .................................................................................................................................................
3.2 The Late Game Engagement ...........................................................................................................................
3.3 Creep Spread ........................................................................................................................................................
3.4 VODs .......................................................................................................................................................................
Preface This guide is meant to be accessable to all levels of players. Whether you're a bronze zerg trying to gain a better understanding of the game or a masters level player looking to polish and standardize your play, this guide will improve your skill and understanding of the game. Keep in mind that there are only general, or *standard*, strategies discussed in this guide, and that it is impossible to discuss every aspect of Starcraft II. Give it a read, improve your play, and good luck!
Zerg versus Terran Top In Zerg vs Terran, overlord placement can be tricky, map depending. However, most maps allow players to move their first 2 overlords out across the map to helpful positions. For more information, we would suggest watching some player's stream for overlord placement hints.
The Basics Almost all builds in Zerg Versus Terran start off with a 15 hatchery. To deal with 2 barracks play, it is heavily suggested to scout on 15 supply with a drone. Both drones are generally from your main mineral line at the same time, one building the hatchery at your natural and the other moving across the map to scout your opponent. Alternatively, some players opt to go for a earlier scout, sent as early as 12 supply, because they feel insecure holding off 2 barracks play. Each player should make their own choice for each map, depending on how confident they are on holding off this early cheese.
The Basic Build
15 hatchery
16 spawning pool
2 queens when pool finishes
If you would like to tech
17-21 gas
Speed @ 100
At Next 150 gas, 2 evolution chambers
Start 1/1. Get rest of gasses, expand.
If you would like to take a fast third
2 more queens (queen 3/4). Move initial 2 queens after inject to front of natural to begin creep spread (Queen 3/4 will be injecting)
Take third immediately when minerals available (should be ~ when Queen 3/4 are at 50-75% complete)
Take 2 gasses at same time as taking third (do not delay)
as taking third (do not delay)
Generally, players gas progression is: Ling Speed, 1/1, start lair (2 more gasses), lair finishes (last 2 gasses)
I did not bother to put in exact supply counts since your build order will depend on what your opponent does. If you have to build more lings, delay these timings in order to get out more drones and not be mineral starved.
Defending the Two Barracks Play
The very first thing any Zerg must do is identify that it is a 2 barracks play. With the 15 scout, move into the opponents main base:
If you see 1 barracks building at the top of your opponent's ramp, it's usually not a 2 barracks play (but still could be). Generally, the terran will take his natural expansion at the 3:08 mark - if this is not seen, start getting suspicious. Send a drone to the watchtower, just to check. Another clear giveaway is if the Terran sends more than 1 SCV to "scout." If so, you're probably being 2 barracks rushed.
you see 1 barracks building at the top of your opponent's ramp, it's not a 2 barracks play (but still could be). Generally, the terran will take his natural expansion at the 3:08 mark - if this is not seen, start getting suspicious. Send a drone to the watchtower, just to check. Another clear giveaway is if the Terran sends more than 1 SCV to "scout." If so, you're being 2 barracks rushed.
If you see 2 barracks building, you've identified the build.
you see 2 barracks building, you've identified the build.
If you see no barracks building (and no gas), keep in mind that your opponent can be doing 1 of 3 things: proxy 2 barracks, proxy 1 barracks to pressure, and finally command center first. The proper thing to do here is to search with both your scouting drone and 1 drone from your main for barracks play - if you can't find any quickly in the most likely spots - move one of your drones to a watchtower or a position in front of your base where you can see pressure coming.
OK, so now we you've identified the 2 barracks play. Great - good for you - you should be ok. Keep 1 drone in front of your natural, checking for bunkers. Keep in mind that Zerg player's don't want to over pull drones - and should mine as much money as possible before sending all of their drones to defend. When you see the first bunker building, pull ~5 drones. 2 bunker rushes generally happen in stages:
Stage 1
2/3 SCV + 1 marine versus ~ 6/7 drones. This is the initial poke by Terran, aimed at getting up an initial bunker (if this bunker goes up, chances are the game is lost). Here, the goal is to stick 2 drones on his marine, the rest killing SCVs. Ideally, the goal should also be to kill the building bunker, however, if you can't, stay calm and proceed to stage 2.
Stage 2
Multiple SCVs (depends how many Terran pulls) + 4/6 marines versus everything. For this push, pull all but 2 drones from your main to the natural. Immediately when your hatchery finishes, build a spine crawler at the back of the base, so the Terran player cannot snipe it before it becomes useful. If there is enough money, build a queen at your natural (depends on if you panicked in Stage 1 and over pulled drones + your drone micro in Stage 1 - how well did you pull hurt drones back?) Otherwise, pump out zerglings and wait for your Terran friend to overextend. Generally, there is a timing when you have 8-10 zerglings (+ all of your drones) and the bunker is not done for the Terran player yet that you may choose to use and try to break the terran player - you judge whether your micro is good enough compared to your opponents to see if it is possible exploit this timing. If able to manage to clean up the bunker/SCVs, forcing the marines back, this is a winning position for the game, and move down to stage 4. Otherwise, your goal is to defend your spine crawler and get it into position, continually making zerglings.
Stage 3
This is the runbye stage. Generally, players try to run 8 lings by their opponents bunker in order to pick off or stop the Terran from reinforcing. Try to pick a path around the bunker that gives the least amount of hits to the Terran. This tactic is then transitioned into a 'crunch' manuever, where you now have ~6 lings on the other side of his bunker, and are able to pull everything in a more effective way to kill the bunker, ect. Try to engage when your hatchery is at ~400 health -- you don't want to engage too soon, because that would mean losing out on a potentially larger force. However, keep in mind that your opponent may choose to just focus your hatchery when you engage - so you want some amount of breathing room to clear out his forces.
Stage 4
Assuming that you aren't dead, the bunker rush has now been held off. Even if you have lost 5-6 drones, remember that you have also killed an equivalent amount of SCVs from the Terran player - plus you have had more mining time and more bases are established! The most important thing to do here is to scout whether he is expanding, getting gas for a cheeky follow up all-in, or is throwing down 2 more barracks for a follow up all-in play. Generally, simply scouting whether or not your opponent has gotten another command center is most important - if he has, play normally (but keep in mind that your opponent will be able to poke with ~12 marines in a couple of minutes) with a huge advantage. If he hasn't, throw down spines (but keep droning), maybe get an extra queen or 2. Defend the all in (this should be relatively easy once you spot the lack of command center), and you've won the game.
Defending Helion/Banshee Aggression Perhaps one of the most common strategies used for aggression in the mid game is the combination of helions and banshees to harass the Zerg while the Zerg is still trying to establish an economy and teching up to lair. If the Zerg player chooses to go for a 2 base tech build, defending helion banshee play shouldn't be a problem - the Zerg will have speed lings out and lair tech soon to come in order to defend the helions. However, in general, whenever you see a helion/banshee composition come out:
1 spore per base (yes, even the main)
1 spore between your natural and your third (helps when jumping between bases)
I prefer to get 1 spine at my third (Helps if you under make zerglings, ect)
Make ~16 zerglings and 1-2 extra queens
Position zerglings to stop helions from entering your natural or third - They're there to prevent runby's, not to chase helions. Basically, the goal is to defend without losing drones until either the Terran loses his units in a mistake or until lair tech is out. Remember to split any zerglings - if the Terran player dives with his helions, split the zerglings, pull the drones back, and move the queens/zerglings in. Queens should be focusing down banshees - they are the most dangerous units - while zerglings take care of helions. Most player's prefer to not get up roaches unless facing multiple factories, which requires that you not get caught out of position, and not chase helions off of creep.
The Standard Macro Game We will add all in builds at a later time, however for now let's just look at the standard macro game. Options for the zerg range from what we have discussed above, however here we're going to go more in depth into the strategy of such compositions. Let it be known right now - we will not be discussing roach/hydra play: it very rarely works if both players are of equal skill level and at relatively equal economic/army situations, period. So, for now, let's focus on what compositions Zerg can have in the mid game: Infestor ling or mutalisk/baneling/zergling. We will leave out roaches for now - however note that many players get at least a few roaches to help versus early game helions and to supplement their mid game army.
The Mutalisk mid game
Generally, this style is filled with harassment, multitasking, and counter attacks. As the mutalisk player, you would rather cut off an army in the middle of the map, wait to macro up a lot more units, then crush it. Drops shouldn't be too much of a problem, and can be swatted aside easily. In engagements, target groups of banelings at marines and mutalisks to focus down tanks (or, if it's a mech composition, stick to the counter attacks until you have teched to brood lords). In general, the goal should be to overwhelm, and capitalize on any terran mistake or opening that allows you to swoop in and kill a base/get an excellent engagement.
The Infestor Mid Game
This style requires the Zerg player to be very conscious of positioning. Being caught out of position just once can cost the Zerg player the game - resulting in one/two lost bases or several infestors lost. Remember that while infestors are strong, they rely on being pocketed in a safe place out of enemy fire. Remember as well, when using an infestor based composition, your goal should be cost efficiency, not necessarily overwhelming your opponent with units but having good trades with him that allow you to pull ahead after each engagement. Also keep in mind that it is usually not good to fall into the "infested terran trap." Be careful not to blow all of your infestor energy on infested terrans - generally, this will be for a kill move at an opponent's base where he cannot simply retreat and wait for the infested terrans to time out (because his base would die). Also, keep in mind that fungals can be very powerful, even against mech compositions. If you can take engagements slowly, doing as much damage with fungal as possible before the fight even happens, you will be much more successful.
The Late Game Currently, we would like to dissuade you from going for an ultralisk composition and sticking to it. While it can be very effective to go for ultralisks, then switch to brood lords, it is usually not effective to stick to ultralisks as the game goes later and later (unless you have a big lead, then it really doesn't matter what you do). Therefore, we will now go over what composition your late game army should look like:
6-8 brood lords
~10 infestors
6-8 queens
Rest Corrupter/ling
Keep in mind that a Zerg doesn't need as many brood lords in ZvT as in ZvP. The main threat to the brood lords are vikings, and tank splash combined with fungal takes care of marines easily (the marines will be held back, not able to get to the brood lords like stalkers can). Be sure not to be caught out of position, as this is how most players will lose their games. The other major threat is drop play - make sure to have 10-15 lings and 2-4 banelings supplemented by spines and spores at each of the outlying bases, but be careful to watch for dropships that run past these defenses to an inner base that may not be as well protected (spores and maybe leaving 1 infestor can take care of this). Other than that - focus your fungals on clumps of units, be careful not to waste all of your energy on infested terrans, and don't rush into anything you're unsure about - take the late game slow. Happy hunting
Creep Spread In ZvT, creep spread defines how well the matchup is going for the Zerg player. If creep is covering the map like a carpet, the Zerg player is 99% of the time dominating the game and is in good position to take it. If creep spread is constricted to just the pocket of the Zerg territory connecting the natural/third, then the Zerg player is likely in a bad spot and will have a very difficult time continuing the game into the later stages. Therefore, creep spread is a much higher priority here than in either of the other matchups. Make sure to pay attention to creep tumors and spread them as much as possible - the benefits of a great creep spread greatly enhances the chances of a Zerg player to win the game.
VODs MarineKing vs. RorO on Cloud Kingdom from GSL 2013 Season 1. Bunker-rush from MarineKing with a great hold from RorO, into a beautiful roach/baneling all-in.
Ryung vs. Losira on Neo Planet S from GSL 2013 Season 1. Standard macro game with ultralisks, ling/baneling and infestors. Highlights good anti-drop management.
Leenock vs. GanZi on Whirlwind from Iron Squid Chapter II. Standard macro game with ultralisks and ling/baneling. The Terran played bio/medivac really marine heavy.
Zerg versus Zerg Top Before we even start discussing build orders: your first three Overlords must be sent across the map. This is one of the most important keys to playing ZvZ successfully, and it is essential to learn to do this automatically. In most cases, the first overlord should head towards your opponent's natural, the next one to your opponent's third (or some place near it that gives you as much vision as possible), and the third one to the middle of the map. Future overlords can be placed at your own discretion, but it may be a good choice to leave them near your base to avoid being picked off.
There are 3 basic openers that can be done in the ZvZ matchup: these openers are fast pool (6,7,8,10,11), standard pool into expand, and hatchery first. There will be a outline for each standard opener mentioned which you can see below, followed by general strategy tips for each opener.
Opening 1: Fast Spawning Pool Opening with a 6 or 7 spawning pool is strongly discouraged, and while these two builds can work, they are as all-in as you can get with the lack of possible follow-ups availabe afterwards. Opening with a 10 or 11 spawning pool on the other hand is strongly encouraged.
Build Order 10 overlord
11 drone
11 spawning pool
14 queen/6 lings
At this point there are a few choices to be made. You can take one of your gases (like Life does, plan on aggression, usually all in) OR you can take the natural expansion.
The next step is to harass with the first set of 6 lings. When these lings get to your opponents base, here are the courses of action that should be taken:
If your opponent opened with a 14 pool, start focusing down his hatchery at the natural expansion. The point here is to either force a cancel on the natural's hatchery, or to kill drones if they are pulled in order to defend the building hatchery. Remember that you're looking to cause economic damage here to either help when you all in later (if you took speed) or to get ahead by taking a your own expansion.
Follow-ups: The Trivial
After the harassment has been done, it is time pull back to your natural. Generally, it is a good idea to get a spine - remember that your opponent will have more larva, and potentially more zerglings. In order to insure your safety, two queens should be blocking your ramp, and when possible it is important to morph 1-2 banelings for defense.
Follow-ups: Moving into the Mid Game
As a general guideline, if the initial harassment killed more than 2 drones and/or cancelled their hatchery, you are ahead at this point. If you forced a drone pull, but only killed 1-2 drones, everything is about even. Now if there was a drone pull, and none of them were killed and his hatchery remains standing, you are unfortunately far behind.
If you are Ahead of your Opponent : Going for two base mutalisks is suggested here. When the player that is ahead goes for fast mutalisks, it allows him to start a snowball effect that will result in a massive supply lead. Keep in mind that as the mutalisk player, you will have far more time than normal to get your damage done before your opponent gets out infestors or mutalisks of their own (in which case you will have a free win).
: Going for two base mutalisks is suggested here. When the player that is ahead goes for fast mutalisks, it allows him to start a snowball effect that will result in a massive supply lead. Keep in mind that as the mutalisk player, you will have far more time than normal to get your damage done before your opponent gets out infestors or mutalisks of their own (in which case you will have a free win).
If you are Even with your Opponent : Take your pick of strategy. There is a possibility of going for mutalisks, infestor/ling, and even roach/hydra/infestor. Segments for these will be added at a later date.
: Take your pick of strategy. There is a possibility of going for mutalisks, infestor/ling, and even roach/hydra/infestor. Segments for these will be added at a later date.
If you are Behind your Opponent: This is a tricky spot, and one that is not ideal to be in. One option is to go for a baneling all-in, with the hope that your opponent over-produces drones; however, this is a risky situation that relies on a critical mistake from the opponent to be successful. Going for a roach/baneling all in generally will not work - even if your opponent goes for mutalisks, they will have enough of a early lead to build defense and get their mutalisks out. The suggested option would be going for fast infestors with burrow if your opponent happens to take a fast third; you can hope for some lucky burrowed infestor harass while at the same time have a efficient defense set up with well placed fungal growths.
Opening 2: Standard 14 Pool This is the most standard build, and if you are looking to improve, it is the build most recommended to learn and master. The 14 pool can be used in any situation, on any map and can defend any all in (if scouted) while also having the potential to keep up with any macro build from your opponent.
Build Order 14 spawning pool
15 hatchery
14 drone
15 queen
17 overlord
17 gas
16 zergling
If your opponent takes a 14 pool or 15 hatchery, use 2 early lings to scout out the opponent's base. It is preferred to take a baneling nest at 50 gas and speed on the next 100 gas mined, however you can flip the order you get these 2 buildings if you wish. Enter a standard mid game!
If your opponent chooses to go for an aggressive spawning pool, there are several different deviations that you must memorize and react to depending on what you see; however, it is always standard to stop mining gas and/or cancel your extractor if possible, you'll need all the minerals you can get to defend and then recover to a favorable position.
Situations
If your Opponent pulls Drones with his Zerglings
The natural hatchery must be cancelled. Generally, the goal here is simply to stall until you are able to get a sizable number of zerglings/queens/spine crawlers. Be sure to also cancel any spine crawlers being built before your opponent's lings/drones get to your base - any delay helps! When your opponent's lings/drones enter your base, mineral walk your drones to your natural mineral patch, build a queen, and build lings. Try to sneak 1 of your drones behind your mineral line before hand to build a spine crawler. As a general rule, when your queen pops you can fight your opponent. You will have 8-10 zerglings, and more drones. Continue to rally zerglings and micro as best as possible (pull back lings/drones, ect). Keep in mind that it is ideal to engage when all of your minerals are spent - you will have as many units as possible at this point.
If your Opponent Does not pull Drones with his Zerglings
The goal of the opponent here is to cancel your natural hatchery. Once you see your opponent's zerglings crossing the map with your first overlord, immediately build an overlord and pump out lings as larva permits. Grab a queen after building your initial 4 lings. Generally, you will want to pull 4 drones with your initial 4 zerglings (2 drones for each extra ling your opponent has over you). Continue to build lings if your opponent does - your opponent should take a hatchery, however if he does not, block your ramp with 2 queens and grab a spine crawler (you will scout this with your first overlord). Be careful to not lose drones - if you don't lose any, you will be far ahead and in a winning position. See above for what to do if ahead/behind your opponent.
Opening 3: Hatchery First Generally, this play relies on a larger map or the player having excellent micro skills to hold off early aggression. Realize that going for a hatchery first puts you in a vulnerable position to several all in plays - however, the early economic boost is always welcome.
Build Order 15 hatchery
16 spawning pool
17 gas
When the spawning pool finishes, grab 2 queens. Again, it is preferred to grab a baneling nest at 50 gas in order to play very safely, and then start zergling speed at 100 gas. However, this is a small touch that I may make a short write up about if anyone shows any interest (copied from Scarlett/Leenock).
If your opponent goes for a 14 spawning pool or 15 hatchery, play standard. There will be a pick of what unit composition you would like to build towards.
If your opponent goes for a 6-10 pool, this will put you in a tricky spot. The natural hatchery will have to be cancelled if your opponent does not pull drones (only lings), and this will result in being behind your opponent (although not so far behind that you cannot recover with a few nice plays). If your opponent chooses to pull drones, hide 2 drones behind your main mineral line (canceling your natural). Mineral walk your drones to your natural, and clog up the ramp to prevent further reinforcements. If you can stall until your queen and lings come out, you may be able to hold off and win. However, this is a tricky situation that relies on your opponent making a mistake in order for you to win the game.
The Mid Game
Playing in the mid game in ZvZ is all about reacting to what your opponent does.
Versus a mutalisk player (you are not going for mutalisks), your goal should be to establish a third base and get infestors onto the field. Typically, as soon as the infestor player scouts the spire, he/she will place two spores at his third, one at his main and natural, and another between his natural and third. Keep in mind that, after getting 5-6 infestors, the infestor player must wait until he gets up hydralisks in order to push out across the maps (because mutalisks can split up to avoid being fungaled en mass), so remember not to put out across the map too early. In the mean time, prepare to defend yourself against zergling/mutalisk harass.
Should you choose to tech mutalisks, them in a mutalisk versus mutalisks situation, frame your strategy around harassment and timings. To begin, immediately once your spire is done start +1 armor. Take mutalisk engagements right after any upgrade finishes - An upgrade advantage in mutalisk versus mutalisk makes or breaks an engagement. The upgrade progression for your spire should be: +1 armor --> +1 attack --> +2 armor. The reason you get +1 attack before +2 is because of the drastically lower cost and lower production time. Remember to harass your opponent's bases with mutalisks - typically a player will attack with lings at one base while moving in with mutalisks at a base on the opposite side of the map.
To defend all ins, scouting is key. If you see your opponent saving up a lot of larva, you are being all inned. Also keep in mind that 8:30 timing - when a player can save up a large amount of roaches to move out across the map and surprise you. The best way to scout for timings such as these is to simply be active with units - if you are poking at your opponent's natural with lings, he will be forces to partially reveal his hand in order to defend. Do remember, however, that ZvZ is a volatile matchup. Sometimes, build orders will just counter others and there's not much you can do about it.
Extra Tip: Due to infested terran's being nerfed heavily (along with infestors), I would suggest going for 5-6 infestors and then transitioning over to hydralisks. Having a solid hydralisk base in your army will allow you to push on positions that you could otherwise not (with mass infestor and roach).
Composition Counters/Fights Almost all games end up in a roach/hydralisk/infestor based fight. Remember to spread your units - the player with the concave nearly always wins the game! Now that infested terrans have been nerfed so heavily, be careful throwing down all of your energy into a mass of beachballs. Generally, it is found that saving your energy for fungals is nearly always the best option unless you are desperate - The extra energy saved means that you can take another fight soon after the initial one ended. Again, just remember to split your units into an arc!
Counter attacks in ZvZ make the game dynamic and exciting. Preparing 6 roaches to hit a base without your opponent knowing not only kills drones, but also pulls your opponent's army out of position. It is common practice to sneak some roaches or a couple of infestors around the side of the map to gain positioning over your opponent - small mineral/gas investment, huge gain on map positioning.
Creep Spread Creep spreading in ZvZ is tricky - spread too much creep in some situations and you end up helping your opponent more than yourself. However, don't spread enough creep and it can hinder your ability to defend attacks in the Mid/Late game. Remember that it's usually not a good idea to sacrifice a larva inject on your queen for a creep tumor unless you have an abundance of larva/little money. Usually this occurs either with your second queen (if you have gone for an early gas), or around the time you are teching to lair and taking your third. I would categorize creep spread as thus:
In ALL situations, spreading creep from your natural to your third, then fourth is a smart move. It helps to position your units in key situations where you have to bounce your army from your third to natural, ect. Also keep in mind that your units will move more quickly than your opponents (assuming there is no creep where he is moving his units.
If you are going for a mutalisk opener, I would suggest not spreading any creep past connecting your natural to third until after your initial harassment. Most players that go for a mutalisk play end up dieing to an all in from their opponent - Spreading creep in this situation only helps your opponent get to you sooner.
If you are going for a roach opener of any kind, creep spread is your friend. Spread as much of it as possible - not only will the extra speed help you out, but the vision granted is essential.
VODs Life vs NesTea on Daybreak From GSL 2012 Season 4.
HyuN vs. BBoongBBoong on Abyssal City from GSL 2013 Season 1. Hatchery first (HyuN) vs. pool first (BBoongBBoong)
DRG vs. Leenock on Akilon Flats from Iron Squid Chapter II. Pool first into hatchery (DRG) vs. one base ling/baneling aggression (Leenock).
Zerg versus Protoss Top
The Basics To start, your first 2 overlords should move across the map. The first overlord needs to check your opponents natural to confirm whether he went for a gateway --> cybernetics build or a forge fast expand. This first overlord should then move into the main base, moving to a place of safety immediately if your opponent is going for a fast stalker or just hanging out near the main nexus if he did not. The second overlord should go to some place near the natural (the point is that you see the natural gasses, or can move your overlord in to see them at a specific point).
A important thing to teach students in ZvP, would be to remember 2 timings: 6:30 and ~10:00. At 6:30, the Zerg player needs to scout the Protoss with his 2 overlords - the main overlord moving into the main to attempt to see the tech buildings the Protoss put down and the natural overlord moving into the natural to see how many gasses he took.
If the Protoss player took only 1 gas at his natural, play like he only has 2 total gasses. The Protoss player is likely going for a fast third base or for a gateway all in.
If the Protoss player took 2 gasses at his natural, play like he has 4 total gasses. This could be any range of possibilities - a sentry heavy three base (not common at all), double stargate, blink all-in, or the ever common immortal sentry all-in (Mavvie's guide to defend immortal sentry).
The next timing is at ~10:00, which everyone must remember. At this timing is when most 2 base Protoss all-ins will hit. If your opponent is on 2 bases and you have 60 drones, you should only be making units (this should be at around the 8:30-9:00 for a professional, however it may be later if your macro is not spot on. That's ok -- learn what 60 drones looks like spread out across 3 bases and estimate while in game). As a general rule, do not stop making units until your opponent takes a third - yes, professionals do sometimes drone, however as a general rule continue to produce units.
Finally, my last overarching piece of advice, is to always have a zergling behind your opponent's third base. Get in the habit of doing this - it will let you know if/when your opponent takes a third, in which case you may stop making units, and proceed into a macro game.
Build Order
If your opponent goes for a forge fast expand:
14 spawning pool
15 hatchery*
14 drone
15 queen
17 overlord
17 zergling
Hatchery @ third after second queen in main*
*If your opponent pylon blocks your natural, move one drone to your third and another drone from your main to your natural (to see if the Protoss cancels his pylon or not). If the third is also pylon blocked, immediately build an overlord/queen/lings. Just be sure to spend all of the larva, and not stack up on it. Remember that your opponent is spending a significant amount of money on pylons, so it will be ok.
If your opponent goes for a gateway --> cybernetics core: 14 spawning pool
15 hatchery*
14 drone
15 queen
17 overlord
17 zergling
17 gas
*In this case, if your opponent pylon blocks your natural, do not take your third. While some pros choose to take their thirds first anyways, I do not suggest it unless you are very confident in your micro/timings - one bad click and the game will be over to stalker pressure. Instead just build your queen/overlord/4-6 lings before taking your natural.
It is utterly important to be careful of any kind of 4 gate scenarios - if your overlord (it will be your second one for 90% of maps) sees no natural expansion at the 5:30 mark, you're being 4 gated. Spine and ling up - don't be afraid to spend energy on transfuses if need be. Defend, and you will be ok (you can pull off gas after starting ling speed in this situation as well - it's all that is really needed to continue defending, and any extra gas mined is just wasted resources).
Between the 2: Assuming that your Protoss opponent is on 2 bases you should be taking 2 gasses at the 6 minute mark. At 100 gas, begin lair, a roach warren, and an evolution chamber. When lair is ~50% done, add 2 more gasses (bringing it up to a total of 4). With the next 100 gas, begin researching ling speed. When lair is done, you should have roach speed and +1 ranged attack researching as well. Don't forget to throw down a macro hatchery when money permits, this is usually put down in the main.
The Macro Game So - you've scouted your opponent's taking a third base. First things first - assuming that this opponent does not have a warp prism harassing on the map, take any units you may have built in case of a 3 base all in and move them into an aggressive stance outside of your opponent's 3 bases. As you get better, you will figure out how to poke and harass your opponent without losing units to forcefield traps, ect.
At home, this when it is important to be taking a fourth base, adding a second evolution chamber (It is recommended to research missile and melee upgrades, leaving armor until hive when taking a third evolution chamber), and droning up. Generally, you want to overdrone your fourth base a tad, in order to place down a spine crawler wall (but still be mining adequately). Tech to infestors, and build units to defend any pushes while teching to hive. Usually, players start their hives at around the 12:00-12:30 mark in order to have brood lords out in a reasonable time. It is discourage by players from taking their hive sooner than this point - it leaves them vulnerable to certain 3 base all ins; as well as later from this point - players often get stuck in a low tech late game that simply does not work versus the monstrous Protoss death ball.
The Late Game Engagement Assuming that your Protoss opponent is not going air-toss (carriers, mothership, void rays oh my! (have 6 brood lords to focus templar, rest of army should consist of queen/infestor/corrupter)), your army should consist of:
5-6 queens
8-12 infestors
~15-20 brood lords
~5-10 corrupters
Keep in mind that you will be on ~50-60 drones at this point
Also don't forget about overseers - I like to get ~4 to be safe
There should be no fight that you take that you don't want. Any fight taken should be presplit, with infestors and queens under or slightly behind the brood lord wall to avoid feedbacks. Throw down a thin(ish) wall of infested terrans - remember you don't want to spend too much energy on this, only enough to take away some fire - and make sure that everything is attacking. In these fights, the zerg player is forced to manually select units and micro them away or forward for specific spells. Here is what the professional's are doing in such a late game engagement: try to copy as much of it as possible, however, don't be overwhelmed. As long as your units are presplit and you're spamming fungal/infested terrans along with some transfuse, it will be fine (a few attempted neural's never hurt anyone either).
Ideal Micro
1-2 burrowed infestors behind or beside the opponent's army at all times, dodging detection while also looking for a neural on the mothership.
Select forward infestors to throw down infested terrans, move to back of fight to conserve for later engagements.
Kite back with brood lords - Get into a rhythm, however only kite back brood lords that are under threat of stalkers. Generally, with good fungals, stalkers will only have 1 potential forward blink.
Corrupters focused on colossus - Generally, the mothership will be neuralled or can be chased down after the fight anyways, colossi are more important.
Constantly select 1 infestor and move forward for an attemped neural on the mothership - if you get it, instantly waste it's energy on vortexes on your opponent's army.
Whenever templar come forward, pull back queens/infestors and focus closest 3-5 brood lords on the templar.
Look for chain fungal growths - specifically on the stalkers - these are the most important part of the standard protoss late game that must die.
Creep Spread Creep spreading in ZvP can only help you - some players choose not to focus on it, but we think they are making a critical mistake. Not only does creep give you a huge amount of vision, but creep also can delay all-ins/pressure from the opponent - forcing them to wait for the creep to dissipate before moving out. Therefore, we would suggest following this *creep guide* in ZvP:
With your first queen, inject larva at your main hatchery before moving it down to your natural (assuming a 14 pool 15 hatch opener). I like to place a creep tumor at my natural immediately with my next 25 energy - skipping inject #2 on that queen. The extra creep spread means that you can spread creep out to around the middle of the map by the time any kind of 2 base all in would hit - to your opponent's fourth by the time a 3 base all in would hit.
It is worthwhile to get 1 extra queen as you are taking your fourth base to spread creep. Try to hard 4 active tumors down. This will assure that your creep spread will at least cover your half of the map, making scouting warp prisms and army movements much easier.
VODs MC vs. viOlet on Daybreak from Iron Squid Chapter II. Standard ZvP. Zerg with fifteen pool into three base then a twelve minute maxed out roach/ling push. Protoss with nexus first into three base.
CreatorPrime vs. DongRaeGu on Ohana from Iron Squid Chapter II. Very standard ZvP game. Roach/ling/infestor without greater spire vs standard Protoss late game army.
Brown vs. Scarlett on Cloud Kingdom from Iron Squid Chapter II. Dealing with a three base colossus attack with ling/infestor/brood lord.
Graphics by pathy
Other contributions by Flicer, monk, PolskaGora, SixtusTheFifth, TheEmulator, and wo1fwood
Glon is a semi-professional Zerg playing for Quantic Gaming. He is currently the top ranked American on the HotS GM ladder. You can follow Glon on twitter Writeup by GlonGraphics by pathyOther contributions by Flicer, monk, PolskaGora, SixtusTheFifth, TheEmulator, and wo1fwoodGlon is a semi-professional Zerg playing for Quantic Gaming. He is currently the top ranked American on the HotS GM ladder. You can follow Glon on twitter @QuanticGlon and watch his stream here at www.twitch.tv/vvvglon @QuanticGlon https://twitter.com/QuanticGlon | {
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US Republican presidential candidates, particularly Donald Trump, fear Bernie Sanders the most as their possible Democratic challenger, but Sanders is not revolutionary given his support for American wars of aggression, an American political analyst and activist says.
Myles Hoenig told Press TV on Wednesday that Jill Stein of the Green Party is a true revolutionary politician in the United States, not Sanders or Trump.
On Tuesday, Trump called Sanders to run as an Independent in the 2016 presidential race.
Trump made the comment after the Vermont senator complained in a Sunday’s interview with NBC News channel, about his unfair treatment at the hands of the Democratic Party.
“It is very unlikely that Sanders would run an independent campaign. He said he would remain a Democrat and is known for his honesty and integrity. To make this radical departure, as Trump suggests, would kill his credibility. He never said anything about campaigning for Clinton, however,” Hoenig said.
“The one candidate most Republicans, and especially Trump, fear the most in a Democratic challenger is Sanders. All polls have shown a large lead for this Democrat if he were matched up with any on the other side. Both Trump and Sanders speak to the anger of the American people, especially with regards to this being a rigged system. However, Sanders’ positions are far more detailed than Trump’s and speak directly to the economic and political concerns of Democrats, Independents, and even Republicans,” he stated.
“For him to split from the Democrats would splinter the already weak support that Clinton has,” the analyst noted.
Clinton is a representative of US establishment
“Clinton, on the other hand, represents status quo and the establishment. Such a contest between Trump and Clinton favors the Republicans. She is disliked and not trusted by many Democrats, nearly all Republicans, and Independents. Only the Democratic Party machine’s efforts in getting out the vote can win it for her. And with the scenarios of an indictment, no indictment, or a stall in progressing with the investigation, Trump, or any other Republican, would have a field day with her,” Hoenig said.
“One likely scenario is that many of Sanders’ supporters will support Clinton, whether he campaigns for her with his lukewarm endorsement. However, a very large percent, some say 30, say they would never vote for her under any condition. That is one thing that is so unusual about this election. Regardless of positions, voting is often done based on party loyalty. When Kucinich, considered the peace candidate, lost to Kerry and none of his ideas were accepted into the platform, not only did he endorse Kerry, a warmonger, but many of his supporters held their noses and did likewise. Today, the conditions have radically changed,” he added.
Sanders’ supporters will go for Green Party
“Who benefits from all of this? The Green Party. Where will Sanders’ supporters go if they won’t go to Clinton? These voters are progressive and untrusting of our political establishment. The Green Party addresses all their needs and goes much further than even Sanders on positions,” the commentator stated.
“Sanders wants free college but wants to make student debt more affordable. [Jill] Stein of the Green Party wants to abolish student debt as the US abolished bankers’ debt,” he said.
“Sanders wants to pay for single payer and education with taxes on the wealthy and their transactions. He says nothing about the bloated military. Stein calls for at least 50% reduction of military funding and the closing of our bases overseas,” he added.
“Sanders votes against certain (not all) wars but votes to fund them all. He even supports the murderous drone program under Bush and exaggerated under Obama,” he stated.
“The Green Party takes a non-violent, diplomatic approach to foreign policy.”
Sanders supports Israel 100%
“Sanders, the first ever on a national stage, actually gave recognition to the plight of the Palestinians. However, he supports Israel ‘100%’. Many in the Green Party support a One-State Solution,” said Hoenig.
“Trump is smart to add fuel to the fires burning in the Democratic Party. He knows it’ll be a tough fight taking on Clinton and her establishment but very doable. No one other than Clinton provides so much ammunition to an opposing camp as she does,” he stated.
“Soon, Sanders will become irrelevant. His supporters will be the ones changing the direction of our political establishment with the Green Party taking the lead. This will not be a victory for the Green Party, though, as both the Electoral College and the House of Representatives, the only two groups who actually have a say in our presidential elections. They would never give up power to a third party that sees the 1% as the predators in our society, and those that feed the two mainstream political parties,” he concluded. | {
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Screwed up: Hilarious expressions of divers captured moments after they leap from springboard
From the look on these divers' pained faces, it would be easy to think they had just belly-flopped into the water.
But their eye-rolling grimaces, which range from the outright hilarious to the frankly frightening, were a common sight at the FINA World Championships in Shanghai, China.
As the athletes leapt off the springboard, these amazing photos show their fierce level of concentration on getting every move right - even if it did mean gurning all the way to the bottom.
Diving is obviously a hair-raising experience for Jonathan Joernfalk of Sweden who rolls his eyes to heaven as he jumps Russia's Evgeny Kuznetsov feels the pressure as eyebrows and mouth head in opposite directions Ooph... Qin Kai of China looks like he's been punched in the face as he competes in the Men's 3m Springboard preliminary round
Photographers at the 14th FINA World Championships and captured the athlete's expressions as they twisted and turned before hitting the water.
They could regret pulling these faces if the wind changes.
There may only be one gold medal up for grabs, but these divers' expressions are all winners.
Holding on for dear life, Jonathon Joernfalk of Sweden grits his teeth as he competes in the men's 1-metre springboard preliminary in Shanghai
In pain or just concentrating? Evgeny Kuznetsov of Russia remembers to keep his toes well pointed
Muscles bulging and eyebrows stretched, Qin Kai's face is completely distorted as he leaves the springboard Feel the pain: Qin Kai of China apears to be in agony as he dives during the final at the FINA Swimming World Championships in Shanghai
Sayaka Shibusawa of Japan wraps herself up during the preliminary round of the women's 3m springboard diving event
With his clenched teeth and narrowed eyes, Julian Sanchez of Mexico looks determined to get the perfect score in the Men's 3m Springboard round
Top lip flying, Rashid Alharbi of Kuwait holds tight to his legs while he dives in the Men's 3m Springboard round
Qin Kai of China could be in a wind tunnel as he leaps, with puffed up cheeks and mouth distorted
Their strained faces, paired with their acrobatic aquatics, are perhaps more entertaining than their displays.
The Fédération Internationale de Natation (FINA) is the international governing body of swimming, diving, water polo, synchronized swimming and open water swimming.
While they are probably more concerned with their performance than their faces, the divers' might be a little embarrassed at these photos when they've dried off.
Wai Ching Jason Poon of Hong Kong's face is almost as impressive as his acrobatics, as he competes in the Men's 1m Springboard preliminary round
Bottom first: Evgeny Kuznetsov of Russia looks decidedly uncomfortable in this particular pose
Something about... Ukraine's Olena Fedorova, who has a hairy moment during the Women's 3m Springboard semi final
Don't hold your breath: Espen Valhein of Norway looks fit to burst during the Men's 3m Springboard preliminary round
Japan's Sho Sakai tenses every muscle - including the ones in his face - as he dives
Ipsen Kristian of the U.S. opens wide during the preliminary round of the men's 3m springboard
Ilya Zakharov of Russia Federation looks like he's about to sneeze as he dives in | {
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Primal Instinct: Olivier Rousteing
Olivier Rousteing didn’t want to wait for his moment — he made it happen. Now, the 27-year-old creative director of Balmain has the fashion world at his feet.
Above: Photography by Santiago & Mauricio
Olivier Rousteing is ready for his close-up: “This is my first time posing topless,” he says during his shoot for Out. “Even though I’m pretty much topless all day long.” He’s sitting in his office at the Paris headquarters of Balmain, the prestigious French fashion house he’s been heading for five seasons. It’s an overcast morning, but Rousteing is wearing a low-cut tank top that exposes a nipple every time he leans forward to take a sip of his Starbucks coffee.
“I hate being covered up,” he says. “Some designers today are like, ‘For me, in 2013, it’s more interesting to play with the body by not showing anything.’ I have a more primal approach to that: When you have an asset, you have to be proud of it, not hide it.”
Rousteing knows what he’s talking about. With his high cheekbones and glowing cinnamon skin, he has captivated the fashion industry. His sex appeal would be paralyzing were it not for his boyish charm. Becoming creative director of a legendary brand at the age of 25 would go to anyone’s head, but Rousteing credits his staff for keeping him grounded. “Even when I start acting like a diva, they remind me where I come from,” he says.
Rousteing’s career began at 18, when he dropped out of law school and left his adoptive parents in Bordeaux. “I got a little bored,” he says bluntly. “My parents wanted me to be an international lawyer, but I wanted to do something I felt passionate about. I didn’t want to lead a quiet life.”
He pursued his passion all the way to Rome, where he joined his Italian boyfriend and knocked on the gilded doors of every fashion palazzo until finding a home at Roberto Cavalli. “I considered Roberto and his wife, Eva, like a second family,” he says. “They helped me grow professionally and as a person.”
After five years with Cavalli, Rousteing took another gamble and wrote directly to Christophe Decarnin, then creative director of Balmain. “I loved his shows, his creativity, his strong personality,” Rousteing says. “And I loved Balmain’s past — the beautiful silhouettes and Oscar de la Renta’s couture.”
Decarnin must have recognized the potential in his young acolyte. Rousteing was hired as an assistant, and then, when Decarnin stepped down in 2011, promoted to creative director. The virtual unknown was propelled into the limelight to salute the audience after his debut collection — a triumph — and became an instant hit. But could this young man carry the entire label on his shoulders?
From left: T-shirt, coat, and pants by Balmain; sweater and jeans by Balmain; T-shirt, jacket, and pants by Balmain.
Above Photography by Jason Kim.
It turns out that Rousteing could. His creations blur the boundaries between haute couture and ready-to-wear, with an architectural approach to tailoring and a flair for Baroque embellishment that few of his peers can rival. “This shit is art, like you don’t even wanna touch it!!!” Rihanna posted on Instagram. Prince wore Balmain in his latest video. Kanye West is a fan (natch).
Still, Rousteing has not forgotten one of the chief lessons from his mentors. “When I started working for Christophe, it was the sexual aspect of his work that I really found interesting,” he says. “I’ve kept this sexual force because it’s important for a man or a woman to arouse. That’s something I learned at Cavalli.” His vision for the Balmain man is a blend of the classic elegance embodied by Yves Saint Laurent and the late French singer Serge Gainsbourg (the inspiration for Rousteing’s spring 2014 collection), and the sexual ambiguity of George Michael and Michael Jackson. His current style icons are Pharrell Williams and Frank Ocean.
And suddenly Rousteing is playing Ocean’s “Eyes Like Sky,” reminiscing about an ex-lover who used the song as an alarm on his phone. “I woke up with this song in the morning after spending the night with him, and we decided that it would be our song,” he says. “I’ve only seen him twice, but I keep him in a corner of my mind.”
Rousteing admits he’s received “plenty” of offers from attractive men since his rise to fame, but says he’s happy being single until he meets the man who wants more than “to date the Balmain guy.” The end of a five-year relationship with his Italian boyfriend left him heartbroken but prompted him to come out to his family. “I never took my parents aside and said, ‘Guess what, Mom and Dad? I’m gay,’ just like they never took me aside and said, ‘Guess what, Olivier? You’re adopted,’ ” he explains. “I never talked about love with them, but they understood me. They accepted and supported me. They’re very protective of me.” | {
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Highlighted Issues:
Debt of The School- We as a whole do not know what happened with our school to get into as much debt as it did several years ago. However, they are no longer in debt now and within the last 4 years tuition and other fees has jumped to nearly 10,000 more dollars than it used to be. There has been very little change that we see, for those of us who have been here. For those of us who have just entered, we come in with prejudged notions of what college is about. Only quickly realizing after 1 semester how limited we are for what we pay. The question is, are we responsible for the schools debt?
Tuition & Room and Board- If you are a fulltime student and you live on campus; here is what you pay and how it breaks down per room:
Single room: 45,720
Double Room: 44,240
Triple/Quad: 43,840
Commuter Students: 30,970
When students opt to transfer out of this school it is always a fight, but for some they end up staying because the school offers a deal to keep them here. That is not fair for those who work hard to pay our money to get a quality education.
Alumni- Most who have graduated from here, feel scammed of how much they paid. They are able to get a job, but not a career because they are competing with other candidates that may be more reputable given the brand of education they have received. We pay for a reputation, a style and connections; very seldom do you receive that at Newbury. For those who are successful most often utilize their own resources to leverage them instead of the degree and it's college's connections.
Student Body- We as students are all diverse, but we face the same reason why we came to Newbury: It was our last resorts. There is no pride in ourselves on where we go to College. We should feel proud, a sense of worth and gratitude from our school. We shall not feel embarrassed to share with new people we meet, from other schools on where we go.
Limit of Resources- We are in College, in this day in age our primary source is the internet, yet there have been countless times that the internet both on the main campus and dorms that the internet was down, yet we were still expected to complete our work. Constantly having to worry if our assignments are going to be in on time makes many students lack motivation in continuing to do their work.
Dining Services- For starters, the hours that the cafe is open are so limited that many people do not eat as many times as they should through out the day. Closing at 730 during the week and 6 during the weekend forcing us to eat early leaving many students hungry by the time they get back to their dorm. We all have different schedules and instead of accommodating more students, the cafe accommodates themselves for monetary reasons. In addition, there is not much variety in the food we are served week to week which leads to the majority of students eating a sandwich everyday for both lunch and dinner.
Acceptance of Students- Newbury accepts more and more students each year. This may seem like a good thing, but they brand themselves this way in order to get students in so that they can have the tuition money. Allowing students in who have little to no desire to even go to college can make it difficult for those who actually want to learn to do so. It is frustrating to sit in a class room with those who do not want to be there and are simply there as a distraction. We are paying at a private school level yet our school is more like a community college, allowing anyone in who can afford it.
Faculty Members- If we as students feel as though coming here was our last resort than what does it say about the staff. There are some students here who simply through their life experiences, are more knowledgeable than some professors.some professors simply teach from a text book with little passion behind it. Anyone can teach from a book, but a college professor should have experienced at least a portion of what they are teaching. Also, this school is very diverse, yet some professors do not shape their curriculum to reach diverse students. If a student does raise a concern then the professors take it as an insult and begin to play favorites instead of acknowledging the valid concerns and make the necessary changes to better help all students. They make college about how well we get along with their personality instead of how we relate to their material which is often inadequate.
Advisors- 4 years is not only a long time to be in school but it is also very expensive, yet numerous students have had to come back for extra semesters due to misguidance by their advisors. It can be looked at as a simple mistake, yet it occurs so frequently that it now seems that it is a plot to get more money out of the student. Not only does the student have to pay for the current classes they are in, but then have to worry about paying even more money for extra courses that could have and should have already been completed within the 4 years.
Administration- The administration walks around campus with a posh, pompous attitude that makes them seems unapproachable by many students. If a student does come to them with a concern, instead of taking it seriously and working with the student to meet their needs, they often lack the answers. The administration is unorganized with meeting students’ needs in regards to their financials, etc. which causes mistrust between the students and the administration. The administration is not transparent with the mission of this school and where it’s going and the finances that the student body pays to upkeep. They have public year to year records in the library but we don’t really know if it is accurate to what is really going on with finances.
Financial Aid & Student Accounts- There have been countless students who have had to postpone starting their classes because of issues with financial aid. They are not notified about these issues until weeks before classes begin yet I’m sure the school knew about the issue much earlier. This causes students to feel as though they cannot trust the financials regarding what we pay as a whole and where our money is actually being spent.
Graduation Rate- Graduation rate is only 40%, which would be much lower if credits actually transferred over to other colleges (they transfer to some). Those who do chose to transfer are left having to stay in school much longer causing them to spend even more money. Students feel no pride in being here which is why so many people transfer. Even those who do make it to their senior year question whether they want to continue and get their degree from here.
Careers After College- For potential career placement companies, geared towards most major's, Other than the two we are slightly known for at Newbury, they are reluctant in partnering up at our Career fair as well as hiring Newbury College students (depending on the organization) Most of us do not know why that is, However as I stated before those that get good careers, utilized their own resources. There is not a lot of help when it comes to career placement, when there are those who are successful on their own, Newbury will contact them in hopes to utilize them for their own benefit. They need to evolve!
Internship Placement- When they provide their annual internship fair, there are mainly placements for culinary and hospitality majors. Even then the internships provided are basically jobs where people work for free for a certain amount of credit hours.
Curriculum- In comparison to other schools in Boston around the same $ bracket we pay, we are 3 to even 4 semesters behind them. You often find those students who are smart that need more of a challenge, stay in the safe zone and settle for Newbury even though their potential is greater than what they are receiving in terms of quality education. You can tell they are afraid of a challenge; there are also those students who are not challenged enough so they lack motivation to push forward and complete the workload. Waste of time is one reason and if you are in sophomore or junior, it is hard transferring because some credits will not transfer so you become stuck or making up a couple years. Newbury College is a nonprofit and private college, when they do their fundraising, for the culinary and hospitality students they take from their cooking curriculum to fundraise for the college, so most of the time the students are not able to cover everything on the syllabus for their academic semester.
Activities- There is no real activities at Newbury, throughout the week and weekends, the students themselves find a unique ways to keep entertained. However the few activities that the College comes up with are more so their idea on what they think should entertain us. They should make it more about the students experience not accommodating theirs. We feel as though the College as a whole does things on what they feel college is supposed to be about.
Clubs & Groups- In college, students should be able to develop different groups, share ideas and be part of the decision making process to make our community better. The Ideas that some of the students come up with are often no more than that. We hear more no's than yes, when we see how much more other college's/universities have we envy them. If you ask most students here if they feel as though this is a real college to them given all issues raised in this petition you would not be surprised about the answer.
Excuses told to the student on why thing are not changing:
When we raise the concerns, faculty and administration give us the loop around.
They ask/tell us things like:
- Why didn't we transfer?
-Didn't you know how the school was when you applied?
-We didn't keep you hostage. (But then it contradicts what they are saying because they get mad when people transfer.)
-If you are unhappy than leave.
To hear answers such as these shows they do not care, we came here because they false advertised it as a cheaper school when in all actuality it is not, they do not live up to what they sell to you on their website:
www.newbury.edu
Where is our money going? Show us the financials; for those that helped bail the college out of debt we deserve a partial refund.
We as a whole who are associated with this College have the rights to know what the future plans of making this College a better place; we shall be able to partake in the decision making process as well.
Newbury College truly shows us how the whole education system is just a way to get our money. They make you believe you need a degree and in this day in age you do not, it is experience that is more so valued. The reputable degrees from other colleges are starting to not have merit. What does that say for people like us who attends a place like Newbury? We pay nearly the same amount of money as these other reputable schools.
I do not know how other students feel about their schools but that is how most within feel about ours. If you agree with any of this, support us by signing the petition and helping us make our College a better place. | {
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Story highlights Some Republicans are calling for Pence to replace Trump as their presidential nominee
He faced protests in Indiana over "religious freedom" and anti-abortion measures
Washington (CNN) Mike Pence has emerged as a popular alternative for top Republicans looking to replace Donald Trump as the party's presidential nominee, but the Indiana governor's own record with women could make it a short-lived courtship that doesn't change the result in November.
Pence's record on hot-button items from vowing to shut down the government over Planned Parenthood funding to graphic protests over his recent crackdown on abortion access, would make it difficult for Republicans to peel away suburban women voters from Hillary Clinton.
As talk of Pence replacing Trump bubbled up Saturday -- sparked by top Republicans like Sen. Kelly Ayotte saying she was rejecting Trump and would write in Pence for president -- Planned Parenthood quickly jumped on the attack.
"Trading Trump's violent language for Pence's devastating policy proposals is a horrifying substitution. Donald Trump and Mike Pence have been partners in the same agenda -- and that's what we have to reject," Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards said in a statement.
A campaign spokesman for Pence said Saturday he would "not engage in hypotheticals" over questions of Pence's record.
Read More | {
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Image copyright AP Image caption Unemployment and falling income has prompted further foreclosures
America feels a gloomier place today than when I arrived two years ago.
It is not hard to work out why. Most, including the president and the White House, expected people would be feeling the effects of the recovery by now.
The Washington Post's Ezra Klein has written a fascinating analysis of what went wrong.
"The promised recovery was always just around the corner, but it never quite came. Eventually, the American people stopped listening. A September poll showed that 50% of Americans thought Obama's policies had hurt the economy."
But a report from Sentier Research out today suggests the gloom isn't just down to punctured expectations.
People are actually poorer.
The report says that household income has gone down more in the period officially labelled as a recovery than in the recession itself.
The authors, Gordon Green and John Coder, who used to work for the US Census bureau, write that during the official recession, the real median annual household income fell from $55,309 (£35,287) to $53,518, a difference of 3.2%
But between June 2009 and June 2011 - a time when the US economy was in recovery - that same indicator of household income fell by an additional 6.7%, from $53,518 to $49,909.
Not surprisingly the figures indicate the unemployed suffered the largest drop in income (18.4% decline in median average income), but single-parent families (7.3%) and African-Americans (9.4%) also did badly.
The report found from the entire period of December 2007 to June 2011, real median annual household income has declined by 9.8%
"A decline of this magnitude represents a significant reduction in the American standard of living," the report authors say.
Being told the economy is officially in recovery when personally it feels nothing of the sort underlines the sense of disconnection between politicians and people.
This report is important because it suggests that this is not a question of mood, or the experience of some, but a hard fact of life for the average, or even median, American. | {
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The burqa has globally become the symbol of Muslim women. A common misconception is that all Muslim women cover themselves with it. “I was surprised to see that hardly any women in Lahore were wearing a burqa,” noted a friend from Mumbai who was visiting Pakistan. I could relate to what she said.
On my visits to India, I had noticed that the Muslims there exerted their religious identity much more than the Muslims in Pakistan. On the roads of Mumbai and Bengaluru, one came across many women wearing burqas. While wearing one has been a minority practice till now, at least in the urban centres of the country, there has been an increasing trend to “revert” to a display of religious symbols like the beard and hijab in the past few years.
I use the word “revert” with caution here because it implies going back to certain practices or searching for some historical roots. I believe that this is, in fact, a new phenomenon that might have parallels in Islamic history but remains a product of historical contingencies – 9/11 in particular.
In a post 9/11 world, marred with religious terrorism and counter-insurgency terrorism, it seems the world is divided into two large camps – Muslims and everybody else. In these times of heightened search for identity, Muslims have turned towards their religion to grapple with the new emerging political realities.
This soul searching, in many cases, has resulted in urban, educated Muslims adopting a version of Islam that is puritanical.
In Pakistan, there has been an increasing trend of people being drawn towards religiosity, an Islamic tradition that is not a legacy of religious syncretism like Chistiya or Barelvi, but reactionary and exclusivist, originating out of the Deoband and Ahle-Hadith schools of thought. Given the fact that this renewed interest in Islamic identity is a product of Muslim separateness from the rest of the world, it doesn’t come as a surprise that the schools of thought in vogue are those which are exclusivist.
While the impact of Islamic revivalism has trickled down to rural and “underdeveloped” places, for the most part it remains confined to urban centres due to the existing biases of the educated class in relation to non-Muslims propagated through the Pakistani education system.
In order to understand the phenomenon better, I decided to visit my former professor of Anthropology at LUMS (Lahore University of Management Sciences), Dr Sadaf Ahmad, who has recently written a book called Transforming Faith: The Story of Al-Huda and Islamic Revivalism among Urban Pakistani Women. Al-Huda is one of the most prominent Pakistani religious revivalist organisations, based in Islamabad, which aims to educate women about the Quran and the Sunnah. Established in 1994, in the past few years, it has spread rapidly across the educated middle class of Islamabad.
Now Islamic lectures of Al-Huda are available online and are widely consumed. I was particularly interested in understanding Islamic revivalist movements in the country as a threat posed to the shrine culture discussed in this book.
Sitting across from Sadaf in her office in one of the leading universities of the country, I looked out of the window behind her and saw girls wearing jeans and freely intermingling with boys. The School of Social Sciences and Humanities has played a major role in protecting the secular culture of the university from the onslaught of fundamentalist Islamists. “It [LUMS] is an interesting island,” I remember Ayesha Siddiqa, a well-known political analyst, saying once.
But over the past few years, there have been rumours about the religious right slowly dominating the administration of the university and transforming its culture. Every time a liberal or a leftist professor leaves LUMS, there are rumours about the internal politics being the cause of his or her departure. The number of students at the university who have a beard or wear an abaya has increased considerably. I asked Sadaf if “Islamic revivalist” movements like Al-Huda were also spreading into places like LUMS.
Sadaf was conscious of the fact that the display of Islamic religiosity in the university was on the rise, much like it was in general Pakistani society, but she was not sure if that could be attributed to any particular religious movement.
“I sometimes receive emails from students saying that they cannot study Anthropology of Religion. ‘Our faith is not strong enough at this stage,’ is what they say,” she told me. “Study of anthropology allows one to understand concepts from different perspectives. It means recognising that different people have different truths. This, some students feel, will undermine their faith.”
I asked Sadaf if the women who were attracted to Al-Huda and were critical of shrine culture were aware of the cultural and philosophical underpinnings of these shrines.
“No,” she said. “They criticise the rituals and rites at these shrines but beyond that they have little understanding of its culture. Most of the women who had joined Al-Huda at the time I studied them were those who had a disconnect with the local traditions. They respected the saints but were also apologetic about them. ‘The saints did what they did because of the conditions prevalent at that time’ is a common argument they give.
It is said, for example, that Muslim Sufis had to turn to qawwalis to attract Hindus who enjoyed bhajans. On the other hand, it is interesting to note that women who come from backgrounds imbued in Barelvi ethos are not easily attracted to this movement.”
“This means, according to them, that there is no longer any need to practise that form of Islam because there aren’t any Hindus around,” I added.
“At the classes the women are instructed about Islamic culture and ethos that is not indigenous but Arabic in essence. Local cultural practices like Basant or Mehndi are looked down upon and discouraged. Particularly, attention is given to da’wa [preaching of Islam] and dars. Women who are trained at this institution take up an active role in spreading their messages within their communities and societies through dars.
“One of the main reasons behind the success of the movement is the religious background of its students. Most of the women who come to Al-Huda already have faith in Islam by virtue of growing up in a Muslim household and nation and also being educated in an Islamised education system. What they don’t have is scriptural knowledge, which is then provided to them through their study of Islam at Al-Huda.
“Even though Al-Huda claims that it doesn’t adhere to any particular school of thought, their interpretation of Islam is similar to the Ahle-Hadith strand. They thus propagate a particular understanding of Islam as ‘true’ Islam and that is how it is perceived by its students who have no access to alternate approaches to Islamic scriptural knowledge. Another key reason why Al-Huda is successful in spreading its understanding of Islam among middle-class women is that its approach resonates with the kind of women who come to the school to study Islam.
“The middle class values education and as such they lean towards an institute that offers scriptural knowledge [as opposed to leaning towards a religious group which focuses on traditional rituals]. Their reason for deeming the Islamic discourse that they are exposed to as authoritative is not just related to their lack of alternative scriptural knowledge but also because they deem Farhat Hashmi, who began the school, to be a religious authority.
“Farhat Hashmi has a PhD in Hadith Sciences from Glasgow and heavily relies upon scientic concepts and logic to explain her religious arguments. Such credentials and such an approach resonate in a class that values education and science, and enhances the credibility of the school and subsequently its message.”
Sadaf explained that Al-Huda’s proselytising takes place in a faith-based framework that is already extant in Pakistani society through its politics and educational system. Here at the school, for the first time, these women study primary texts and understand them literally. I told her about the shrine of Baba Naulakha where the visitors who are generally uneducated are made to believe that the natural marks on the rocks are miraculous names of God and the Prophet, and thus sacred.
“For an educated mind, such a tradition would be difficult to absorb,” I commented.
“Faith or belief has little to do with education. But certainly, the fact that Al-Huda is making inroads into the elite class of the society and is able to spread a particular understanding of Islam within it, is significantly due to the fact that no other spiritual movement has been able to provide an avenue for the educated class to explore the scriptural texts in a manner that resonates with them,” Sadaf replied.
“When a puritanical religious approach becomes the dominant school of thought, could it be said then that Pakistani society would eventually become an extremist state in terms of its politics?” I asked.
“Al-Huda claims that it is an apolitical organisation and strictly forbids political discussions in its classrooms. ‘Focus on becoming better Muslims’, is what the teachers tell their students who wish to discuss political matters. They also strongly discourage participation in political rallies. So they essentially have a bottom-up approach: they train the women who Islamise the environment in their households and neighbourhoods. This eventually would create an environment in which the implementation of Sharia would be the next logical step.”
“When that happens I will grow a beard and you can wear a burqa to fit in,” I joked with her. “That would be the time to leave the country,” she replied with a straight face.
“In this growing environment of religious puritanism, how do you think these shrines are likely to fare in the future? Would shrine culture eventually end?” I asked her.
“I don’t know. I think for shrine culture to end, things would have to become much worse than they are right now, and stay that way for a considerably long period of time. This is because shrine culture is so deeply embedded in our society that it would be hard to remove it. In order to get rid of it, the next generation needs to internalise the concept that it is wrong and unIslamic. On the other hand, you can also see that there is resurgence in the interest in Sufi poetry and music. Admittedly this section of society is still a minority and for it to have any serious impact it needs to grow in size. But that is where hope lies,” Sadaf said.
“Oh my God, Haroon. If you were at the session you would have killed her,” my sister told me at the end of the three-hour long dars. “She said that the youth of our country have strayed away from our culture. They mimic the West or India by celebrating Valentine’s Day or Basant. These festivals have nothing to do with our culture and also that women should not work because their incomes bring ill-fate to a household.”
“You don’t know how I controlled myself,” Anam told me.
“I thought the session was nice,” said Uzma, my sister’s friend. She has done her Master’s in Journalism from a leading women’s college of the country and is now a housewife. “Some of the things she said were informative.”
“How can she even say it is unIslamic for women to work?” I asked. “What about Hazrat Khadijah, the first wife of the Prophet? Wasn’t she a businesswoman? She can only impress people who don’t know history or culture. What ‘our’ culture is she talking about? Isn’t Heer Ranjha part of Punjabi culture? It is the most celebrated folk story here. For centuries it has been sung and dramatised. It is essentially a celebration of love. How is it any different from the celebration of Valentine’s Day? In fact, the celebration of Heer Ranjha’s love is much more profound than Valentine’s Day. In our culture it has taken metaphysical dimensions, by becoming part of the folk religion. We worship love, not only celebrate it.”
Excerpted with permission from In Search of Shiva: A Study of Folk Religious Practices in Pakistan, Haroon Khalid, Rupa Books. | {
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Professor Hugh White takes a more measured position in his later Interpreter post advising against 'Option J', but this reply focuses on the Fairfax piece because it is here that White most clearly (and selectively) lays out the 'big risks'. But he fails to acknowledge both the significant opportunity costs of rejecting the Japanese bid and the bigger risks to Australian interests this poses. Equally worrying is White's failure to frame the deal in terms of the major selection criterion for any Australian sub deal: which subs have the capacity to best serve Australia's defense needs?
Professor White claims that a sub deal with Japan automatically ties us into an alliance with Tokyo. I have not seen the contract the deal would be based on, but am pretty sure it does not include an alliance clause. Contractual obligations aside, I am yet to hear of any Japanese statements remotely suggesting this. The Abe Government clearly is keen to develop a closer security relationship with Australia, and the U.S. is keen to see this happen as a way of 'cross-bracing' the alliances it maintains with both countries.
But to claim that Japan sees the sub deal guaranteeing a fully-fledged alliance commitment from Canberra is pure speculation. What Japanese policy makers do see in the sub deal, however, is an opportunity to further strengthen the existing bilateral strategic partnership, which is still a long way short of committing to militarily support Japan in a conflict.
How this 'sub-induced entrapment' scenario would play out, according to White's argument, is that a failure to come to Japan's aid in the event of a conflict would cause Japan to renege on the deal, thereby leaving Australia without the subs it expected, and our relations with Japan seriously damaged. “Why wouldn't Japan walk away from the deal?” he asks.
Firstly, that any Japanese government would risk the many important benefits of its bilateral relationship with Australia, not to mention its international reputation as a reliable business partner, by blackmailing Australia over military support, particularly in the absence of any formal alliance commitment, beggars belief. Secondly, the question itself is a red herring. Apart from the extremely unlikely prospect that Japan would provoke a conflict with China, any such conflict almost certainly would involve the U.S., which would trigger Australia's involvement under the ANZUS alliance.
Put simply, the only way Canberra could avoid involvement in a China-Japan conflict — sub deal or no sub deal — would be if Australians were also willing to sacrifice their relationship with the U.S. rather than take sides against China. Hugh White's argument ignores the fact that the risk of entrapment through closer security relations with Japan stems from our long-standing reliance on U.S. extended deterrence, not our more recent security cooperation with Japan and the prospect of buying Japanese subs.
So unless Australian security thinking dramatically changes over the next 20 years — that is, changes in a way that would make the prospect of sacrificing our relations with the US and Japan (also unlikely to change; see Brad Glosserman ) in favor of China an attractive proposition — buying Japanese subs does not increase our risk of being entangled in a conflict against our interests. Buying Japanese subs will, however, further strengthen the interest-based commitment we have with the US, and by default also Japan; a commitment that successive Australian governments have kept over the last sixty years as insurance against precisely the kind of threat to our broader interests now being posed by an increasingly revisionist China. White's argument amounts to saying we should default on our house insurance premiums as soon as we smell smoke.
The 'big risks' White says are posed by accepting the Japanese sub deal need to be measured against the risks of not taking the opportunity to further deepen security relations with Japan. Most prominent among these risks would be the perception in Beijing that we did not buy Japan's subs because we were afraid of China's growing power. For China's leadership, this would be stunning proof that its strategy of creating division among US allies in the region is working, further emboldening China to become even more adventurous in its attempts to undermine the post-war regional order.
Moreover, by effectively free-riding on U.S. primacy, we are endangering the U.S. commitment to the region and also, therefore, the very core interests we believe the US-led status quo serves. As a middle power, Australia would be foolish to gamble that an order dominated by China's interests and its view of its rightful place in the region would not roll back our ability to influence regional affairs. Finally, we also would forego the related benefits of a broader relationship with Japan, including increased technological cooperation and exchange, greater trade and investment opportunities, and even greater levels of political credibility and trust.
Hugh White recommends we buy European subs because all they want is our money. On this point, he is partially right. The Japanese do want more than our money — they want a stronger and closer relationship. So if Japan has the best subs on offer, and if we value what we already have in terms of a stable regional order, Australia should embrace this once-in-a-generation opportunity. | {
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After Trump departed from script Tuesday night to emphasize that Hussein wasn’t all bad (he murdered people without due process after all) a number of reporters chimed in to note that what Trump said wasn’t entirely new. He’s been praising the former Iraqi dictator for killing terrorists (or suspected terrorists or just people he didn’t like) for months, and the media has covered those episodes vigilantly.
Here’s how the Washington Post’s Dave Weigel summed up the disconnect between the oldness of the news and the newness of the outrage.
By consistently covering Trump’s argument over time, and by following up on it, media outlets did their job to inform voters. That was why Tuesday night’s collective Captain Renault moment was so strange, and so demonstrative of why many media consumers are skeptical of what they’re hearing. Instead of a debate on the facts—should Hussein have been removed? Did he “kill terrorists,” in a contradiction of what Americans were told before the war?—there was manufactured outrage, straight from a rival campaign.
It sells the reporters who discovered Trump’s Saddam sympathies anew somewhat short to suggest this was a case of Hillary Clinton saying jump and them asking “how high?” When I was a freshman beat reporter, an editor of mine had to remind me constantly that old news can become newsworthy again in fresh contexts. It isn’t particularly fun to rehash things that have already been reported, and the profession prizes information that really, truly is new. But even if Trump had repeated one of his past paeans to Saddam verbatim, it would have been a newsworthy moment nonetheless.
The new context is twofold: First, the campaign has transitioned from the primary to the general election. Trump is facing an opponent who isn’t constrained in attacking him, and is speaking to a much larger audience of voters than he was when he first upsold Saddam’s killing ways. Second, Trump is beset by concerns that he’s too erratic to capitalize on Clinton’s weaknesses. The fact that he reached for the old Saddam chestnut on the same day the FBI director took Clinton to the woodshed validated those concerns. No less a liberal media sympathizer than Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has been at pains to criticize Trump for being unable to stick to a script. Reporters would be doing their jobs poorly if they ignored the fact that Trump can’t break old habits, just because the habits are old. Nobody criticized reporters in 2012 for scandalizing Mitt Romney’s infamous 47 percent comments, even though he and Paul Ryan had framed the entire campaign as a morality tale pitting makers against moochers. New context and clearer phrasing are what made that story so explosive. This is really no different. | {
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'Hey bro?' 'Yeah matt?' I just saw a UFO | {
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The Buffalo Bills are looking to add a veteran presence to the locker room based on two reports that emerged on Thursday.
It was reported early in the morning that Buffalo expressed interest in signing veteran tight end Ben Watson. That idea quickly went out the window with Watson signing a one-year deal to play for the New England Patriots. After missing out on Watson, it appears the team turned their attention to Lee Smith.
Lorenzo Alexander revealed on One Bills Live that Buffalo planned on bringing the veteran tight end in for a free-agent visit.
“Most rooms have a guy that’s at least been in the league six or seven years," said Alexander. "I’m just kind of going through it real quick in my mind. Maybe the only position that doesn’t have that is probably tight end. That’s why you have a guy like Lee Smith coming in on a visit.”
Alexander didn’t mention any specific time frame regarding when Smith would be visiting the Bills.
Smith, 31, was recently released by the Oakland Raiders after spending four seasons with the team. Before his stint in Oakland, Smith played for the Bills from 2011-2014.
In eight seasons in the league, Smith has caught 56 passes for 392 yards and seven touchdowns. Although Smith does not have much to show in his career from a receiving standpoint, he’s viewed as one of the better blocking tight ends in the league.
As it stands, the Bills currently have five tight ends on their roster. The unit includes draft picks Dawson Knox and Tommy Sweeney, former offensive tackle Jake Fisher, Tyler Kroft and Jason Croom. | {
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Vous vous êtes déjà demandé à quoi ressemble Marseille vu de la Bonne Mère ? La statue de la Vierge de la Garde qui a fêté ses 800 ans en 2015, pouvait encore se visiter dans la seconde moitié du 20e siècle. Mais voilà environ 30 ans que les badauds ne peuvent plus s’y rendre. Made in marseille vous invite à redécouvrir ce privilège des anciens…
Attention, vous vous trouvez dans la tête de la statue de la Vierge Marie surplombant la rade de Marseille. La Bonne Mère mesure 11,20 mètres de haut et pèse quasiment 1 tonne. Elle est conçue en cuivre et entièrement recouverte de feuilles d’or. Au centre de la statue, un escalier en colimaçon permettait aux visiteurs de pouvoir scruter la ville par les yeux de la vierge. Un privilège exceptionnel… Que made in marseille vous propose de vivre en vidéo !
Dans les yeux de la Bonne Mère :
L’histoire d’un escalier en colimaçon
En fait, l’architecte Espérandieu insère au centre de la sculpture de la Vierge une tige en fer, noyau de l’escalier à colimaçon accédant à la tête de la statue pour l’entretien et la contemplation du site. Cette structure métallique, qui sert de support à la statue, permet de consolider l’ensemble en le reliant au gros œuvre de la tour.
800 ans que Notre Dame de la Garde veille sur les Marseillais et les marins qui partent en mer. Il n’en fallait pas plus pour pousser un petit peu plus loin le fantasme de cette oeuvre monumentale culminant à 225,70 mètres, un sommet à ne pas dépasser à Marseille. Mais, rassurez-vous la Bonne Mère telle qu’on la voit aujourd’hui n’est pas celle bâtie en 1214…
Un brin d’histoire
L’histoire démarre en 1214, lorsqu’un prêtre de Marseille, prénommé Pierre, fit édifier un petit sanctuaire dédié à la Vierge Marie sur le triangle rocheux constituant le haut d’une colline de 161 m face à la ville de Marseille, alors très petite. La colline s’appelant « La Garde », le sanctuaire fut tout naturellement appelé Notre-Dame de la Garde. En 1477, elle fut un peu agrandie. Mais elle restait très petite, pouvant contenir au plus cinquante à soixante personnes.
Par la suite, le monument fut plusieurs fois agrandi puis ceinturé par un fort. Et ce n’est qu’au milieu du 19e siècle que Monseigneur de Mazenod décide de construire une Basilique, pour agrandir considérablement le site trop étriqué. La première pierre est posée en 1853. Et c’est l’architecte Henry-Jacques Espérandieu qui bâtit l’édifice.
De son côté la statue de la vierge, a été réalisée par l’entreprise Christofle, selon un procédé nouveau à l’époque : la galvanoplastie, qui consiste à faire des moules en latex des quatre tronçons. Chaque partie de la statue, quatre au total, fut plongée dans un bain de sulfate de cuivre et, par électrolyse, quelques millimètres de cuivre se déposèrent sur ces moules. Fabriqués à Paris, ces tronçons arrivèrent à Marseille par chemin de fer en décembre 1869. On les dora à la feuille d’or.
Nous recherchons des témoins qui auraient conservé des photos de cette époque où l’on pouvait visiter la vierge. N’hésitez pas à nous envoyer vos photos à l’adresse [email protected] | {
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Play video content AP
Prince Harry is defending his use of private jets, saying that on the rare occasions he might opt for one ... it's only for the well-being of his family.
The Duke of Sussex and his wife, Meghan Markle, have received some heavy criticism lately for cruising around in gas-guzzling private jets ... they took them at least twice in August.
At a presentation in Amsterdam Tuesday -- where PH was discussing a new environmental project within the travel industry called Travalyst -- he told reporters that he actually spends 99% of his life travelling the world by commercial plane.
However, he went on to say ... "Occasionally there needs to be an opportunity based on a unique circumstance to ensure that my family are safe. It's generally as simple as that."
Waiting for your permission to load the Instagram Media.
You'll recall ... Elton John went to bat for Harry and Meghan when they came to visit him in the South of France, backing up Harry's words here by saying their private jet use was necessary for security reasons. The couple also flew private to Ibiza shortly before that.
For Harry, he says balance is the key with his private jet use -- adding that if he has to use a private flight, he works to offset his CO2 output (without getting specific). He says he wants to make that a regular thing in tourism and other travel in general. | {
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The stock market’s steady rise, still low long-term bond yields and a sagging dollar are girding the Fed’s intent to raise interest rates again this year despite concerns about weak inflation, according to comments this week from Fed officials and analysts anticipating remarks next week by Chair Janet Yellen.
FILE PHOTO - Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen delivers semiannual monetary policy testimony during a House Financial Services Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S. on February 15, 2017. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas/File Photo
Minutes of the July Federal Open Market Committee meeting released this week flagged a division among policymakers focused on weak inflation as a reason to stall further rate increases and those who feel still loose financial conditions pose a risk the Fed needs to counter.
Two officials this week, including vice chair William Dudley who has in the past taken a more dovish approach to policymaking, said the fact that financial conditions have recently eased despite Fed rate increases is a reason to keep plans to tighten policy in place.
When the Fed said Thursday that Yellen next week would use a keynote speech at Jackson Hole to address “financial stability,” it was a clue to some that she may agree.
“I would not be surprised to see Chair Yellen outline a similar argument at Jackson Hole -- namely, that financial conditions are a piece of the puzzle that currently support maintaining a gradual pace of tightening,” analysts from NatWest Markets Strategy wrote in a morning note.
TD Securities analysts said they expect Yellen’s comments to be more neutral, but that her speech could yield a “hawkish” surprise if “she elevates concern about financial stability as a factor that would warrant a more aggressive path of rate hikes.”
Yellen spoke to the issue in June and did not sound overly concerned. Asked directly about whether the easing of financial conditions might warrant faster rate increases, she noted that the state of financial markets was only one factor in the set of information the Fed used in determining policy.
“We have certainly noticed the stock market is up considerably over the past year,” she said. But “we’re not targeting financial conditions...We’re trying to generate paths for employment and inflation that meet our mandated objectives.”
The most recent forecasts by Fed officials showed policymakers expect to raise rates once more this year, likely in December, while in the meantime beginning to reduce the size of the asset holdings accumulated during the economic crisis. Taken together, the steps would add upward pressure on both short-term borrowing costs and the longer-term rates critical to business and household investment decisions.
Recent weak inflation data have led some at the Fed to argue those plans - at least the expected rate increase - need to be put on hold until it is clear the economic recovery remains durable and that the pace of price rises will move towards the Fed’s two percent target. They are currently about half a percentage point below that.
The counter: policy remains loose, and the fact that financial conditions have eased even as the Fed has raised rates gives the central bank leeway to tighten policy further without much risk of slowing the economy. Long-term bond rates have been edging lower recently, and coupled with strong corporate earnings that has pushed stocks higher. The fact that the rest of the world economy is doing better, particularly the eurozone, has meant looser financial conditions as well in the form of a cheaper dollar.
In the minutes, the views of “one participant” were singled out noting that a slow but continued tightening of policy, in the current environment, “would likely strike the appropriate balance” among committee members worried about financial excesses and those focused on inflation.
Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester said in a Reuters interview this week that even with inflation weakening, the Fed should think “preemptively” about how continued loose financial conditions may turn into problems down the road.
“We do have relatively easy financial conditions. That is another reason you want to continue on this gradual retraction of accommodation,” through higher short term interest rates and a shrinking balance sheet, she said. “It we don’t we could be engendering some imbalances in the financial markets.” | {
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Checking Breitbart News before bed last night (I’m both an employee and a fan), I thought I knew exactly what had happened based on the headline of Matthew Boyle’s story about Matt Drudge paying a “Liberty Tax.” Based on a previous tweet, I was already aware that Drudge was not going to enroll in ObamaCare. Therefore, I simply assumed he had filed his quarterly business taxes in advance, used Twitter to announce he had chosen to pay the ObamaCare fine, and in turn this had caused outrage from the Obama White House and Left.
What I didn’t expect was for them to declare their own astonishing ignorance of how business works by calling Drudge a liar.
But that is exactly what they did. Jesse Lee, Director of Progressive Media at Barack Obama’s White House, Talking Points Memo, The Huffington Post, an employee for the National Journal… All of them, full of their own sanctimonious indignation, couldn’t wait to accuse Drudge of lying. Huffing and puffing, they incorrectly told their readers and/or Twitter followers that Drudge had to be lying because there was no ObamaCare penalty last year.
Not a single one of these outlets was aware of the widely known fact that some small business owners pay quarterly taxes in advance.
These are America’s Thought Leaders. These are the outlets whose editorials shape media coverage. These are the outlets that supply talking heads to America’s many media outlets. But they have spent so little time in the real world that they had no idea that small business owners are ALREADY paying the ObamaCare tax. | {
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KABUL, Afghanistan — On Sunday morning, as Taliban officials in Qatar began discussing with an Afghan delegation the need to reduce civilian casualties, more than a hundred schoolchildren were wounded during a Taliban attack in eastern Afghanistan.
Early Tuesday morning, Afghan commandos raided a hospital in central Afghanistan, reportedly killing four hospital employees — just after the Taliban and Afghans released a joint declaration promising to “minimize civilian casualties to zero.”
The two attacks underscored a sobering reality in Afghanistan: Public pledges to spare civilians mean little as long as the combatants seek leverage by continuing attacks that endanger innocent bystanders. As negotiations inch toward a possible peace deal, those commitments will be tested daily on the ground.
The unprecedented joint declaration on civilian casualties came after the Taliban met for the first time with Afghan officials, face to face in a luxury hotel ballroom. The so-called intra-Afghan dialogue was followed Tuesday by a pause in the seventh round of peace talks between the United States and the Taliban in Doha, Qatar. | {
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Welcome to this week’s edition of the Social Media Marketing Talk Show, a news show for marketers who want to stay on the leading edge of social media.
On this week’s Social Media Marketing Talk Show, Erik Fisher and Kim Reynolds explore Twitter expanding verification and other breaking social media marketing news of the week!
Watch the Social Media Marketing Talk Show
If you’re new to the show, click on the green “Watch replay” button below and sign in or register to watch our latest episode from Friday, March 16, 2018. You can also listen to the show as an audio podcast, found on iTunes/Apple Podcast, Android, Google Play, Stitcher, and RSS.
For this week’s top stories, you’ll find timestamps below that allow you to fast-forward in the replay above.
Twitter Plans to Expand Verification to All Users: In a Periscope stream, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey shared that the company is working to expand its blue checkmark verification process to all users and plans “to do it in a way that’s scalable.” Twitter’s blue checkmark was initially intended to designate celebrities, athletes, and public figures from would-be imposters on Twitter, but was eventually expanded any users who applied and could justify needing verification. Business Insider reports that by making verification more accessible, “Twitter intends to shift the focus of the designation away from any presumption of endorsement and emphasize proof of identity.” (6:16)
Twitter is considering verifying all of its users https://t.co/DQYXo2T5mH by @FortuneMagazine pic.twitter.com/MbiRE7NVfh — Business Insider (@businessinsider) March 9, 2018
Twitter Test Makes News the First Thing Users See in the Timeline: Twitter users could soon see the biggest news events first when opening the timeline. The social media platform recently confirmed a test of a news highlight reel at the top of user feeds. The tested feature would push news, while platforms such as Facebook are putting a lower priority on news items in an ongoing fight against fake news. (13:56)
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Twitter is creating new, algorithmically curated timelines of news tweets and promoting them at the top of users’ feeds as part of a test https://t.co/iY7RTsCqTA — BuzzFeed News (@BuzzFeedNews) March 14, 2018
Snapchat Adds Instagram-Style Mention Tagging to Stories: Snapchat confirms that it’s currently testing the ability to @tag someone in a story. TechCrunch reports that this new feature would allow users to call out another person’s name, handle, bitmoji, and an Add button so others can follow them, too.
Snapchat Allows Branded Content Ads From Discover Publishers: Snapchat now allows publishers in the app’s Discover section to share branded content among the articles and videos they post for professional media partners such as BuzzFeed, Hearst, NBC Universal, Scripps Networks Interactive, and others. Publishers can now work directly with advertisers and sponsors to craft messages and ads that “look more like the rest of their channels and perhaps drive up value for their services on the platform.”
Get YouTube Marketing Training - Online! Want to improve your engagement and sales with YouTube? Then join the largest and best gathering of YouTube marketing experts as they share their proven strategies. You’ll receive step-by-step live instruction focused on YouTube strategy, video creation, and YouTube ads. Become the YouTube marketing hero for your company and clients as you implement strategies that get proven results. This is a live online training event from your friends at Social Media Examiner. CLICK HERE FOR DETAILS — SALE ENDS SEPTEMBER 22ND!
Snapchat approves branded content ads for Discover publishers like BuzzFeed https://t.co/rMM8U3jBeC pic.twitter.com/8KllkJzQtT — Ad Age (@adage) March 9, 2018
Get More Useful Information With Captions on Google Images: Google is “adding captions to image results, showing you the title of the web page where each image is published. This extra piece of information gives you more context so you can easily find out what the image is about and whether the website would contain more relevant content for your needs.”
Facebook Filters on Personal Profiles: This feature allows mobile users to filter posts in their news feed, allowing them to see posts made on a specific date, published by specific people, and assigned a specific privacy level. This new profile filter feature was spotted on mobile by Michael Stelzner.
LinkedIn Updates Data and Content Rights in Terms of Service: Driven by the General Data Protection Regulation that will take effect across Europe in May 2018, LinkedIn announced several changes to its terms of service. The platform added more options for members looking to personalize the ads they see on LinkedIn. It also promised to provide more information on how it uses this data to customize its members’ experiences on the network and updated when advertisers are allowed to access users’ personal information. LinkedIn explains each of these changes with a guided tour on its Privacy Policy page.
WhatsApp Set to Disrupt India Market With Push Into Digital Payments: The messaging app is testing a payment service that lets users transfer money to each other. The feature, dubbed WhatsApp Pay, is only available to a fraction of Indian users, but Bloomberg reports that a full rollout could come to all users by April.
WhatsApp Messages Can Now Be Deleted an Hour After You Sent Them by Mistake: The Verge reports the latest version of the WhatsApp Delete for Everyone feature, which “used to only allow you to delete messages up to seven minutes after you sent them…extends that time limit significantly to one hour, eight minutes, and 16 seconds.”
A new WhatsApp for iOS update (2.18.31) is available on AppStore.
It is a bug fixes update, but it has the new “Delete for everyone” limit, that’s 1 hour, 8 minutes and 16 seconds. — WABetaInfo (@WABetaInfo) March 8, 2018
Amazon Adds Follow-Up Mode for Alexa to Let You Make Back-to-Back Requests: Amazon has added a new feature for its Alexa voice assistant that will let you make successive requests without needing to repeat your Echo speaker’s wake word, as noted today by CNET. Amazon is calling the new setting Follow-Up Mode, and while it won’t let you nest one request into another, it will let you make multiple requests back to back. For instance, you won’t be able to ask Alexa to turn off the lights and change the temperature in the same breath, but you can make one request and follow it up with another without needing to say “Alexa” again.
Facebook Tests Location-Based Augmented Reality Effects: Facebook is experimenting with augmented reality experiences triggered by precise location markers in the real world. TechCrunch reports that Facebook is running a closed beta test of this new feature with promotions for two upcoming films, Ready Player One and A Wrinkle in Time.
Facebook launches AR effects tied to real-world tracking markers https://t.co/huV4QA8bga by @joshconstine — TechCrunch (@TechCrunch) March 9, 2018
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