text
stringlengths 14
100k
| meta
dict |
|---|---|
K-Beauty is evolving again, but not in the way you’d expect. After igniting beauty trends on a global scale, South Korea is now seeing an underground revolution that is calling for more realistic beauty standards. So, why now, and what’s changed?
The international enthusiasm for beauty technology and innovative delivery systems from South Korea is seemingly insatiable, with retailers, including Sephora, launching dedicated space on their sites for their K-Beauty offering (so-called for its sibling export, K-Pop). This furore accounts for K-Beauty’s value tipping $13 billion with $511 million worth of K-Beauty exported to the US in 2018 alone. Global market research and insights firm Mintel reports that South Korea is now among the top 10 global beauty markets, with facial skincare accounting for 51 per cent of that sum. It also predicts that by 2020, K-Beauty colour cosmetics will be worth in the region of $2.8 billion and facial skincare will hit $7.2 billion.
© Augustas Cetkauskas / EyeEm
What does K-Beauty look like?
K-Beauty hasn’t only introduced us to new products, it has established a “look” that’s desirable for some but almost mandatory in South Korea. Outward appearance is not merely about self-expression in most traditional South Korean circles, it’s about what is considered feminine and appropriate. Wearing no make-up when you go out, for example, is considered bad manners. And individuals expressing themselves through their make-up is rare; conforming to a homogenised idea still reigns. Delicate features, pore-free, porcelain skin, large, doll-like eyes with sweeping lashes, rose-petal lips and long hair have become a compulsory uniform of sorts. YouTube is buckling under the weight of millions of tutorials detailing how to create this cartoon-esque look and social media filters pick up where the make-up brushes stop.
South Korea has a higher per capita rate of cosmetic surgery than anywhere else in the world. Women are asking for procedures to create a double eyelid and surgery to create a narrower jawline. The end goal is a prescribed, youthful appearance and the pressure on women to fit into this unattainable mould is spiralling rapidly.
© ED JONES
Read more: The Experts' Take On How To Fight Mid-Year Burnout Once And For All
What’s prompted the K-Beauty backlash?
Beneath the cacophony of beauty YouTubers, social influencers and near constant assault of ad campaigns for plastic surgery clinics, a social movement has been bubbling away, and now this rumbling of unease has spilled over into a very loud war cry against the unrealistic societal expectations levied against women. The Escape the Corset movement is South Korean women’s public display of dissatisfaction with the status quo, a challenge to anyone who expects women to dress or wear their make-up and hair a certain way, for what is primarily a traditional male gaze.
“This feminist movement is symbolic in nature,” explains Alicia Yoon, a South Korean entrepreneur and founder of skincare brand Peach & Lily. “Women are discarding their make-up and cutting their hair short to signify that they will no longer conform to a specific look. Of course you can love long hair and make-up and still be a feminist, but this movement is a way for some women to express themselves and fight patriarchal standards.”
Escape the Corset joins other feminist movements happening in Korea at the moment, including #MeToo in the workplace and increasing demands for equal pay. “I think the broader feminist movement is critically important, and the micro-movements that take place within this tapestry, including the Escape the Corset movement is great as it helps to move the needle,” says Yoon.
© JUNG YEON-JE
Read more: The Best High-Street Holistic Beauty Services To Try Now
How is the Escape the Corset movement playing out in South Korea?
Last year South Korean news anchor Lim Hyeon-ju swapped her usual contact lenses for a pair of glasses on the MBC morning show. They were discreet and not too dissimilar in design from the styles often worn by her male counterparts; the difference being, however, that women do not wear glasses on TV in South Korea, which made Lim the first female presenter ever to wear them on a mainstream network show.
A flurry of similarly bold actions have followed in the wake of Lim’s on-air sartorial protest. Former beauty YouTuber Lina Bae posted a video in June 2018 titled “I am not pretty”, in which she goes through the motions replacing her glasses with contact lenses, blending foundation into her skin, buffing multiple eyeshadows onto her lids, applying false eyelashes, mascara, blush and, finally, a vibrant red lipstick. So far, so standard make-up tutorial. However, as the make-up builds, harsh comments about her looks flash up on the screen – presumably from trolls – until she eventually wipes away all of the make-up, removes her contact lenses, puts her glasses back on and gathers her long hair back into a ponytail. The final caption reads, “I am not pretty, but it’s fine… Don’t compare yourself to (a) media image. You’re special just the way you are.” The video has been viewed over 7.5 million times.
© JUNG YEON-JE
Jiwon Park (who goes by @3xl_joy on Instagram) is a part-time, plus-size model who describes herself as a body positive influencer and activist. She tells me, “There is a saying in Korea that you have to be slim to be a woman. We have been trained to wear certain clothes since school. We wear uniforms – women wear skirts while men can wear trousers. As women, we are suppressing ourselves, we are suffering depression and self-loathing just so we can meet beauty standards.” Frustrated and determined to make a difference, Joy started her own Instagram account where she shares body positive imagery and advice. “I hated myself and I hated my body, but after seeing other body positive accounts I found the courage to change my life and try and bring some of that positivity to Korea. Now I get messages from other girls, telling me that my account has helped them to make changes in their lives too.”
Is Skip-Care set to be the next global beauty trend?
While Escape the Corset strengthens its position in the public consciousness, many other women in South Korea are adopting the practice of Skip-Care, where the traditional multi-step skincare regime is abandoned in favour of a simpler, more pared-back routine. Hwa Jun Lee, senior beauty and personal care analyst at Mintel, says, “Skip-Care is a rising trend among beauty minimalists in South Korea. In essence, a backlash against complex beauty routines which are common in K-Beauty.”
However, as Yoon is quick to point out, while Skip-Care does reflect a growing desire among women to distance themselves from a time-consuming and conforming beauty routine, it doesn’t carry the same message as Escape the Corset, especially as the trend has mostly been driven by brands looking for a commercial take on the movement. “I think it’s important not to conflate the two,” she says. “Escape the Corset is very much a statement of expression against patriarchal pressures, while Skip-Care is essentially a shortening of a skincare routine. In Korea skincare is still very much part of wellbeing and self-care, and you are unlikely to hear women say they are no longer going to take care of their skin because they want to fight the patriarchy. But some will certainly stop wearing make-up to do so.”
More from British Vogue: | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Catherine Bolder didn’t find Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee convincing. In fact, Bolder thinks Ford’s description of an assault she said she suffered 36 years ago at the hands Brett Kavanaugh was “laughable — from the innocent little girl with the messy hair act, to the fake crying and the mucousy, crackling voice.”
“Total deception,” Bolder, a resident of Macomb County, Mich., wrote to me via text message. “Tell me — where was the Kleenex?”
True to her name, Bolder’s language was bolder than that used by most of the other dozen female Trump supporters I interviewed after last Friday’s testimony. But all of the women felt that Ford’s accusation was part of a conspiracy to keep a conservative, Trump nominee off the Supreme Court.
The women criticized the rush to condemn Kavanaugh with little evidence that he had committed a crime. “I mean really, how does a woman with a PhD not know what exculpatory evidence means?” Bolder wrote of Ford, a psychology professor.
After watching Ford’s gripping testimony, Sandy Chilson of Howard County, Iowa, said she didn’t doubt that Ford had been victimized. But she also doesn’t believe Kavanaugh was involved in the assault. “There is no corroborating evidence,” she said, adding that she’s confident that if any sexual abuse or criminal activity were in Kavanaugh’s past, the FBI would have discovered it in its six previous background checks.
Gayle Mazurkiewicz also believes that Ford was assaulted but that Kavanaugh wasn’t the perpetrator. “I think she might be mistaken, and may have been mistaken for decades, in identifying her attacker,” she said.
“There ought to be some sort of restitution for defamation of Kavanaugh's character if nothing can be proven,” Mazurkiewicz, a resident of Macomb County, Mich., added.
Cathy Kulig of Trempealeau County, Wisc., texted to say that she was “appalled” and “frustrate[ed]” by the presumption that Kavanaugh is guilty.
“I cannot understand [why] women would not be concerned about the same rush to judgment against a son, brother, husband, father or friend,” she wrote.
Several of the women questioned the last-minute release of a letter detailing the alleged assault that Ford sent to Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee. “Why didn’t the Democrats bring forth the letter in July?” Lois Morales of Orange County, Calif., asked. “I am sick of politicians and their games.”
Terry Mongold of Grant County, W.Va., thinks Ford’s allegation should have been investigated many weeks ago. “I believe that Dr. Ford has been treated terribly by the Democrats,” she said.
“This is a bad, sad game from the Democrats,” Jasmine Alsabunji of Erie, Pa., wrote to me via Facebook, also questioning why Kavanaugh’s accusers waited decades before going public. Alsabunji believes mistakes made in the past should stay there.
Nahren Anweya of Macomb County, Mich., questioned Ford’s motives in coming forward with the allegation. “There was over $378,000 raised on behalf of Dr. [Ford] in a GoFundMe account during the time of the hearing,” she wrote. “That explains a lot!”
I selected my interviewees from among people I’ve met over the last year and a half for Into Trump’s America , a reporting project from nine counties that played a crucial role in the 2016 election and that will help decide whether Trump wins re-election in 2020.
Democrats have seized upon several sexual assault allegations against Kavanaugh as evidence of the Republican Party’s problem with women voters. But polls show that political affiliation is a much stronger predictor than sex of one’s feelings toward Kavanaugh.
It would be easy to dismiss these women as conservative die-hards and Republican Party loyalists who would support the president’s nominee no matter who it was. But even though all the women are Trump supporters, they’re not all conservatives, or even Trump voters. The group includes a woman who voted for Bernie Sanders, another who voted for Evan McMullin, at least three former Barack Obama voters, and a Muslim immigrant who only recently gained the right to vote.
While geographically and ideologically disparate, the women are united in their belief that Kavanaugh is being treated unfairly, that President Trump should not withdraw his nomination, and that the Senate should confirm Kavanaugh.
Mongold is willing to wait for the FBI to perform its investigation. “If none of the accusations can be proven,” she said, “then I feel that Judge Kavanaugh should be confirmed and soon.”
Former Obama voter Sandi Hodgden of Volusia County, Fla., wrote that she was “disappointed and pissed” about the Democrats’ attempts to discredit Kavanaugh.
Calling the confirmation hearings “a disgrace,” Hodgden is confident that Kavanaugh will ultimately be confirmed. Trump “will succeed as he always does,” she predicted.
Daniel Allott is the author of Into Trump’s America and formerly the Washington Examiner’s deputy commentary editor. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Halle (Saale) -
Der Mann aus Pakistan (52) wohnt seit 1995 in Deutschland, sein Komplize aus Indien (29) seit 2010. Gemeinsam haben sie vom Großraum Leipzig aus ein lukratives Geschäftsfeld aufgebaut. Seit Jahren organisieren sie offenbar mit mehreren Dutzend Helfern, die in Thüringen und Bayern wohnen, die Schließung von Scheinehen. Der Bundespolizei liegen Erkenntnisse vor, dass sie auf diese Weise mindestens 30 indischen und pakistanischen Staatsbürgern ein Aufenthaltsrecht in Mitteldeutschland verschafft haben, darunter auch in Sachsen-Anhalt.
Dafür wurden Ehen mit Frauen aus Osteuropa geschlossen - entweder mit gefälschten Heiratsurkunden oder mit Eheschließungen etwa auf Zypern oder in Dänemark. Der Service richtet sich danach, wie viel Geld die Kunden zahlen können. Zwischen 15.000 und 22.000 Euro müssen die „Heiratswilligen“ für eine Scheinehe auf den Tisch legen. Die Hintermänner verdienten so über eine halbe Million Euro.
Kriminalitätsbekämpfung der Bundespolizei: Schuldscheine gefunden
Seit 2017 hatte die Kriminalitätsbekämpfung der Bundespolizei, die für Mitteldeutschland in Halle ihren Hauptsitz hat, gegen die Schleuser ermittelt. Am Mittwoch schlugen zeitgleich 550 Einsatzkräfte im Raum Leipzig, in Altenburg (Thüringen), Ludwigshafen am Rhein (Rheinland-Pfalz) sowie in Günzburg und Neufahrn (beides Bayern) zu. 38 Objekte wurden durchsucht, die meisten in Leipzig.
Auch der zweite Hauptverdächtige, ein 52 Jahre alter Pakistani, wurde am Mittwoch von der Bundespolizei vorläufig festgenommen. Bundespolizei Foto:
Die Razzia war nach Angaben der Bundespolizei ein Erfolg. 29 Personen wurden vorläufig festgenommen, darunter die beiden Hauptverdächtigen. Gegen 60 Beschuldigte wird ermittelt. Die Bundespolizisten stellten umfangreiches Beweismaterial sicher, darunter Schuldscheine von Indern und Pakistani, die für die geschlossenen Scheinehen noch zahlen müssen.
„Heute haben wir unseren langwierigen und komplizierten Ermittlungen einen empfindlichen Schlag folgen lassen.“
„Heute haben wir unseren langwierigen und komplizierten Ermittlungen einen empfindlichen Schlag gegen die Bande folgen lassen. Die beschuldigten Täter haben den Rechtsstaat auf Kosten der Allgemeinheit gezielt getäuscht“, sagte Markus Pfau, Leiter der Kriminalitätsbekämpfung der Bundespolizei in Halle.
Im Sommer 2015 waren Ausländerbehörden in Sachsen, aber auch im Landkreis Anhalt-Bitterfeld das erste Mal stutzig geworden. Dort häuften sich Anträge von indischen und pakistanischen Staatsangehörigen auf Erteilung von EU-Aufenthaltskarten. Die Männer gaben an, Frauen aus der EU geheiratet zu haben. Gemeinsam wolle man nun hier in Deutschland leben. „Auf diese Weise wollten die Männer einen unbegrenzten Zugang zum deutschen Arbeitsmarkt und dem Sozialversicherungssystem erhalten“, so Pfau.
Hintermänner der Schleuser machten auch den großen Reibach
Die Schleuser unterstützten die kriminellen Machenschaften zudem mit fingierten Arbeits- und Mietverträgen für Wohnungen. Mitunter wurden Liebesgeschichten erfunden und Fotos nachgestellt, um die Behörden zu täuschen. Die Hintermänner machten auch den großen Reibach. Von ihrem Honorar bis zu 22.000 Euro pro Fall gaben sie 2.000 bis 3.000 Euro an die Frauen aus Osteuropa ab. Die „Ehepartnerinnen“ reisten zurück in ihre Heimat - wo sie die Hochzeit nicht angaben. Teilweise gingen Frauen auf diese Weise mehrere Scheinehen ein.
In der Einsatzzentrale der Bundespolizei in Halle wurde am Mittwoch die Razzia in vier Bundesländern koordiniert. Dirk Skrzypczak Foto:
Die Bundespolizei geht davon aus, dass sie bislang nur die Spitze des Eisbergs kennt und die Dunkelziffer bei Scheinehen hoch sein dürfte. Hinzu kommt nach MZ-Recherchen ein Problem in der Strafverfolgung, begünstigt durch eine Gesetzeslücke. Das deutsche EU-Freizügigkeitsgesetz stellt eine Scheinehe erheblich milder unter Strafe als die illegale Migration nach dem wesentlich strengeren Aufenthaltsgesetz.
Schleusern drohen Haftstrafen bis zu zehn Jahren
So drohen Schleusern, die Migranten beispielsweise per Lkw nach Deutschland schmuggeln, Haftstrafen bis zu zehn Jahren. Wer Scheinehen organisiert und erwischt wird, geht höchstens für drei Jahre ins Gefängnis. Zumeist bleiben die Täter aber auf freiem Fuß. Die Furcht vor den Konsequenzen ist also gering. Außerdem sind der Bundespolizei angesichts des niedrigeren Strafmaßes bei ihren Ermittlungen die Hände gebunden. Verdeckte Observationen wie eine Handyüberwachung werden meist nicht genehmigt. Innenexperten fordern daher schon länger, die Gesetze anzupassen und auch das Schleusen über Scheinehen härter zu bestrafen.
Nach drei Jahren können Nicht-EU-Bürger übrigens einen eigenen Aufenthaltstitel beantragen. Und die fingierten Ehen werden dann sofort geschieden. (mz) | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
raprelated:
“Not every white person” is racist BUT every white person benefits from racism. How many times do we need to say this. Shut the fuck up and unfollow me for real. Or send me a message so I can block your annoying asses.
Being raised white in a white-supremacist society makes you pretty damn racist, same way being raised male in a male-supremacist society makes you misogynistic, though. You gotta work hard to deconstruct your own internalized prejudices and some things you will just never understand, so you gotta learn to back the fuck off. So yeah, every white person is a racist and understanding that is essential to changing anything. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
This graphic is an illustration of how the asteroid 2012 DA14 will fly between Earth and the constellation of geosynchronous satellites on Feb. 15, 2013, when the asteroid flies within 17,200 miles of the planet.
UPDATE: Scroll down for the last asteroid 2012 DA14 webcast of the day, a 12 a.m. EST (0500 GMT) presentation by the Slooh Space Camera.
When the asteroid 2012 DA14 gives Earth a close shave on Friday (Feb. 15), it will be a record-setting close encounter with a space rock of its size and you can track the flyby live online. The asteroid was discovered in 2012 and its Friday flyby is the closest of an object its size ever seen, NASA scientists say.
NASA and several professional and amateur stargazing groups will offer live webcasts of the asteroid 2012 DA14 flyby, which will be at its nearest to Earth at 2:24 p.m. EST (1924 GMT). The asteroid is 150 feet (45 meters) wide, about half the size of a football field, and will approach within 17,200 miles (27,000 kilometers) —closer than the planet's ring of geosynchronous satellites —when it flies by.
Read below to learn how to watch the asteroid flyby from NASA, the Slooh Space Camera, Virtual Telescope Project (Italy) and Bareket Observatory (Israel):
Live broadcast by Ustream
NASA Television webcast, Australia and California
NASA will provide a 30-minute webcast on its NASA TV channel beginning at 12 p.m. EST (1700 GMT/9 a.m. PST) to offer live commentary during asteroid 2012 DA14's flyby. The webcast will be provided in the window above.
This NASA diagram depicts the passage of asteroid 2012 DA14 through the Earth-moon system on Feb. 15, 2013. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)
"The half-hour broadcast from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., will incorporate real-time animation to show the location of the asteroid in relation to Earth, along with live or near real-time views of the asteroid from observatories in Australia, weather permitting," NASA officials said.
You can also access the webcast live via the NASA TV webcast page and the JPL Ustream webcast page.
Planetary Society, Pasadena, Calif.
The Planetary Society will host its own webcast from 2:15 to 3 p.m. EST (1915 to 2000 GMT/11:15 a.m. to 12 p.m. PST) to chronicle the Friday flyby of asteroid 2012 DA14.
The webcast will include live asteroid views from NASA, a video tour of La Sagra Observatory in Spain (where the asteroid was discovered in February 2012 using a Planetary Society camera), a live conversation with 2012 DA14 co-discoverer Jaime Nomen (if available), and a potential "surprise guest," Society officials said.
Planetary Society director of projects Bruce Betts will host the webcast along with Planetary Radio host Mat Kaplan.
"It may be the biggest show in space this year," Society officials said.
Bareket Observatory webcast, Israel
The Bareket Observatory in Israel will providing at de a free live webcast of the 2012 DA14 asteroid flyby on Friday from at 2 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. EST (1900 to 2039 GMT).
"The flyby will provide a unique opportunity for researchers to study a near-Earth object up close. The observatory will offer a special Live view of the close approach, using a remote telescope coupled with a cooled CCD camera, accessible via the Internet," observatory officials said in an announcement.
If possible, the webcast will be embedded here. You can also follow the event live at the Bareket Observatory's 2012 DA14 webcast page.
Virtual Telescope Project webcast, Italy
Amateur astronomer Gianluca Masi, who leads the Virtual Telescope Project, will provide live views of asteroid 2012 DA14 from Ceccano, Italy, beginning at 5 p.m. EST (2200 GMT).
#1 rated Beginner Telescope. Celestron NexStar 130SLT Computerized Telescope. Buy Here (Image credit: Space.com Store)
"We have been contacted by a lot of people for this show and all suggests it will be a memorable event!" Masi told SPACE.com. "I'm impressed to see how asteroids never fail to grasp people imagination. Of course, this is a close encounter, but we must admit that the asteroids never fail to get such attention!"
You can watch the webcast in the window above or directly from the Virtual Telescope Project asteroid 2012 DA14 flyby page.
NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center webcast, Alabama
In addition to the live commentary on NASA TV, the space agency will also provide near real-time images of asteroid 2012 DA14 before and after closest approach via a telescope at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.
The webcast will begin at 9 p.m. EST (0200 Feb. 16 GMT/6 p.m. PST) and last three hours. It will be visible in the window above. You can also follow it directly at the Marshall Space Flight Center Ustream webcast page.
Slooh Space Camera, Africa and Arizona
The online Slooh Space Camera stargazing website will hold several free online webcasts on Friday to chronicle asteroid 2012 DA14's flyby, beginning at 9 p.m. EST (0200 Feb. 16 GMT). The webcasts will feature real-time commentary by Slooh Space Camera's Paul Cox, astronomer Bob Berman of Astronomy Magazine, and Matt Francis, the manager of Prescott Observatory at Embry-Riddle University in Arizona.
Graphic depicts the trajectory of asteroid 2012 DA14 on Feb 15, 2013. In this view, we are looking down from above Earth's north pole. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech )
The Slooh webcasts will provide views of asteroid 2012 DA14 from observatories in the Canary Islands, off the west coast of Africa, and in Arizona. They will also be viewable on iOS and Android mobile devices.
You can watch the Slooh webcast in the window at show time, or directly from the Slooh Space Camera website.
SPACE.com is providing complete coverage of asteroid 2012 DA14's flyby. Visit SPACE.com on Friday (Feb. 15) for day-long coverage as the asteroid buzzes Earth.
You can follow SPACE.com Managing Editor Tariq Malik on Twitter @tariqjmalik. Follow SPACE.com on Twitter @Spacedotcom. We're also on Facebook & Google+. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Last updated on .From the section Basketball
"I want to win, that's all," says LeBron James as he ponders where his future lies
Imagine this: Lionel Messi is on the open market for any team to sign.
No transfer fee involved. No deal to be negotiated with Barcelona. But plenty of clubs lining up to tempt Argentina's football superstar.
That is the scenario in the United States following LeBron James's decision to opt out of his contract with top basketball side Miami Heat.
James does his job as well as Messi does his.
He also plays in a sport where one player has a greater impact on a game's outcome and can lift a franchise, even an entire city.
So his decision to opt out of the final two years of his Heat contract this week has caused a free-for-all of hope, hyperventilating, possibility and infernal noise across much of sporting America.
Miami fans cheer for James - but who will be cheering for him next season?
In Miami, there is panic on the streets as radio talk-shows debate whether James is really going to leave or, as many predict, eventually sign a lucrative new deal.
In other cities, fans are salivating and teams plotting in the hope of luring this once-in-a-generation player who shimmers before them, taunting them with his brilliance, encapsulating everything desired in a player: talent, health, charisma, attitude, championships.
At 6ft 8in and weighing almost 18st, the 29-year-old is a powerful physical package of unusual size and speed who can play all five positions on the court in a given game.
He is also a team player. He finished third in the league in scoring last season, was 11th in assists and led Miami in rebounds.
In four years as a Heat player, James has led them to two National Basketball Association titles and won two Most Valuable Player awards, giving him four in the past six years.
James has guided Miami to two NBA titles in four years
In fact, Miami have advanced to four consecutive NBA Finals in James's four years there, only the fourth team to achieve the feat.
Off the court, James, an Olympic champion in 2008 and 2012, has been similarly impactful.
Within days of signing the former Cleveland Cavaliers player and two talented team-mates - Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh - in July 2010, Miami released its entire ticket-selling department.
All tickets had been sold and 'The Heatles', as the Heat were nicknamed, have played to sell-out arenas and record TV ratings ever since.
Indiana coach Frank Vogel even called James "the Michael Jordan of this generation" after losing to Miami in the play-offs for the third consecutive year.
Michael Jordan LeBron James 6 NBA titles 2 6 MVP awards in NBA Finals 2 5 NBA MVP awards 4 14 NBA All-Star appearances 10 2 (1984 & 1992) Olympic gold medals 2 (2008 & 2012)
Jordan, a six-time NBA champion, is widely acclaimed as basketball's best ever player. external-link
Like him, James considers winning championships the priority as he looks to cement his name among the greatest to play his sport.
"I want to win, that's all," he said, a few days before declaring himself a free agent.
But how will opting out of the final two years of his contract with Miami, worth $42m (£24.6m), advance him to that goal? And will he really leave the Heat?
Teams cannot negotiate with James until 1 July, and cannot officially sign him before 9 July. In the meantime, there is almost constant speculation about his future plans.
Will his good friend Chris Paul, the Los Angeles Clippers guard, help recruit him to the West Coast?
Will another friend and current free agent, Carmelo Anthony, join forces with him and Kobe Bryant at LA's more storied team, the Lakers?
Are Chicago in play? Houston? New York?
And could he return to Cleveland, the Ohio team where he played the first seven years of his career and near his beloved hometown, Akron?
James left Cleveland in 2010, after seven years with the Cavaliers.
James was the number one pick in the 2003 NBA Draft
The vehicle he chose to announce his departure - an hour-long, prime-time TV show called The Decision - made him a polarising figure in American sport.
James has since said the off-putting arrogance of The Decision was a mistake, as was his confident response on signing for Miami.
Asked if he would win a title with Miami, he replied: "Not one. Not two. Not three. Not four…"
He stopped at seven but was lampooned given he had not won a single title at that point. No rival is laughing now.
Miami will have Shabazz Napier next season, much to the delight of James
As James ponders his future, every tweet and quote is interpreted as some kind of sign.
When his wife Savannah sent out an Instagram message reading "Home sweet home" on returning to Akron for a summer visit, it caused a seismic internet reaction, with many believing it indicated James might be moving back to Cleveland.
Before then, Heat team president Pat Riley, a basketball legend himself, had issued a public challenge to James.
"This is hard, building championships, and you've got to stay together if you've got the guts and you don't find the first door and run out of it," he said.
Many wondered how James might react but, when the NBA draft was held on Thursday, Riley sent a more conciliatory message.
James tweeted in April about his admiration for University of Connecticut point guard Shabazz Napier.
Sure enough, Riley swung a trade with Charlotte Bobcats to get Napier with the 24th pick.
James was delighted, prompting speculation he would remain at Miami after all. "He's not going anywhere," ESPN's Jalen Rose said during the draft coverage.
Complicating the James question are the NBA's Byzantine rules that manage how and how much teams can spend on players.
Unlike sports such as football, the NBA is financially structured so the richest teams cannot outspend rivals for the best players.
Each team has the same salary cap, which was $58.7m last year.
That is expected to increase to about $63m for the forthcoming season, but any team signing James would have to trade other players to make financial room for him.
James lost out to Tim Duncan's Spurs in this year's NBA Finals
Alternatively, current players could be asked to restructure their contracts to take millions less.
Maybe James will take less than he can, too. Some basketball peers have for the sake of winning.
San Antonio star Tim Duncan is the most relevant example. Just last week, he re-signed on the same salary as his previous deal - $10m. He could, perhaps, have earned twice that much.
Such financial sacrifice by Duncan and team-mates such as Tony Parker explain how a small market team like San Antonio could build a team that dethroned Miami in the NBA Finals a couple of weeks ago.
But will James do something similar? He certainly isn't hurting for money.
Forbes magazine estimated James has a net worth of $250m.
Highest-paid sports stars in 2013 Floyd Mayweather (boxing) - $105m Cristiano Ronaldo (football) - $80m LeBron James (basketball) - $72.3m Lionel Messi (football) - $64.7m Kobe Bryant (basketball) - $61.5m Source: Forbes Rich List external-link
James has reportedly added to that this year, including possibly the largest equity pay-out for an athlete in history.
As part of Apple's $3bn purchase of Beats Electronics, he would receive $30m from his stake, according to ESPN.
He is hitting his financial prime, too.
His earnings last year were $72.3m, with only boxer Floyd Mayweather ($105m) and football's Cristiano Ronaldo ($80m) collecting more.
The Decision 2.0, as it is being called, is as much about finance as geography.
James could sign a four-year deal for an estimated $98m with any suitor except Miami.
Because NBA rules value players returning to their current teams, he could also sign a maximum five-year deal worth an estimated $127m with the Heat.
And what might Miami's two other star players, Wade and Bosh, do?
Wade opted out of his Miami contract on Saturday, with reports that Bosh will soon follow suit.
The three were spotted having dinner on Wednesday at a South Beach restaurant, again sending the social media world into a tizzy.
Their contracts combine for $61m for this coming season - or just below the $63m salary cap.
Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh and LeBron James - who will be at Miami next season?
However, if Wade and Bosh re-sign for less money, it would allow Miami the financial flexibility to add enough new players to compete for another championship.
Then James could be tempted to stay.
Of course, James can set his price within the allowed limits and most teams would gladly pay it.
Think Messi on the open market. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
thanks for this.
———————————————- Jeff Goodell Contributing Editor, Rolling Stone 518-xxx-xxxx @jeffgoodell
On Sep 3, 2013, at 5:04 PM, “Anthony Watts” wrote: My view is that AR5 is going to stillborn, mainly because it is already outdated by new science that won’t be included. There have been 19 separate peer reviewed papers published in climate sensitivity to CO2 by 42 scientists since January 1, 2012 all describing a lower climate sensitivity. There have been recent revelations in journals (Yu Kosaka & Shang-Ping Xie Nature 2013 and de Freitas &McLean, 2013 International Journal of Geosciences) that demonstrate ENSO (El Niño) in the Pacific is responsible for the 15 plus years of global warming slowdown known as “the pause”. These two papers strongly suggest natural variability is still the dominant climate control. Then there is the lack of reality matching what the climate models tell us, such as this leaked graph from an AR5 draft: Original from AR5 draft: http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/ipcc_ar5_draft_fig1-4_with.png Annotated version: http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/ipcc-ar5draft-fig-1-4.gif All this while global CO2 emissions have been growing steadily. The lack of temperature match to models, “the pause”, combined with these new ENSO findings tell us that global warming has gone from a planetary crisis to a minor problem in a Banana Republic where only a few vocal science rebels are arguing for immediate intervention. The costs of mitigating the perceived problem are also staggering compared to the benefit, as the 50:1 project demonstrates: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zw5Lda06iK0 best regards, Anthony Watts Editor, WUWT 530-xxx-xxxx —–Original Message—– From: Jeff Goodell Sent: Tuesday, September 03, 2013 10:41 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Rolling Stone inquiry Name: Jeff Goodell Email: [email protected] Message: Hi Anthony I’m a writer for Rolling Stone, working on piece about upcoming IPCC report. I’m checking in with a few people to get their views on how they think it will be received. Thoughts? Thanks Jeff Time: September 3, 2013 at 10:41 am =================================================================
And what did I get for my effort? A single word. Here is the paragraph where I appear:
But, of course, this is nothing new. In 2007, when the IPCC released its Fourth Assessment Report, it was also nearly certain that human activity was heating up the planet, with grave consequences for our future well-being. And six years before that, when the IPCC released its Third Assessment, scientists were pretty certain about it too. But phrases like “high confidence” in warming do not, to the unscientific ear, inspire high confidence in the report’s finding, since they imply the existence of doubt, no matter how slight. And in the climate wars, “Doubt is what deniers thrive on and exploit,” says Bob Watson, who was head of the IPCC from 1997 to 2002. The final report has not even been released yet, and already prominent bloggers in the denial-sphere, like Anthony Watts, are calling it “stillborn.“
(added) What is most galling, is that Goodell asked me for my opinion prior the release of the IPCC AR5 report, then chastises me in his article for giving it. Whatta guy. (/end add)
Meanwhile, full quotes exist in the article from Naomi Oreskes, Rajendra Pachauri, Bob Watson, Anthony Leiserowitz, Ben Santer, blogger Joe Romm, and last but not least the anonymous tweeting person(s) behind Organizing for Action, the successor of President Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign.
Besides giving liberal use of the word “denier” in the most derogatory way possible, the article also mentions “Why the City of Miami is Doomed to Drown“. Where he fantasizes about the year 2030.
Read it all here: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/global-warming-is-very-real-20130912?print=true
I suppose it’s par for the course from people that can’t tell the difference between water vapor from cooling towers and “carbon emissions”.
The stupid, it burns! http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/global-warmings-denier-elite-20130912
My single word with a “denier” label to my name is what I get for talking to “The Delinquent Teenager” crowd as if they were adults I suppose. I suggest that anyone who encounters Jeff Goodell in any future interview request, simply not respond – he’s shamelessly biased, fine with hatefully labeling people he doesn’t agree with, runs in the company of fools that can’t tell pollution from non-pollution, and now proven himself to be not worth the effort.
UPDATE: Shortly after I wrote this article, Goodell took notice on his Twitter feed, and shortly after that, the erroneous caption was replaced along with a different photo of the same power station in Germany, but with no explanation as to the error. Here’s what it looks like now: | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Tags
Bob Murphy is our returning guest this weekend, as we wrap up a three-part series on the lousy, anti-market healthcare system in the US.
He’s co-authored a terrific new book called The Primal Prescription, which may well be the first thorough analysis of the modern American healthcare system by an Austrian economist.
Bob eviscerates the arguments for Obamacare, and debunks all of the many myths progressives use to claim a “right” to healthcare—and to justify interfering with the very market forces that could make medical treatments cheaper and better. His co-author, a libertarian ER doctor, provides some great practical advice about how you should navigate your own health issues, your own doctors, and the absurd insurance networks to protect your health and pocketbook. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
In my last blog I was mentioning the “Distribution Wettstreit” which translates in “distribution competition” held on the Chemnitzer Linuxtage event. The idea of that session is to have distros lined up on stage and give them a task and see how each of them is able to solve it and compare that. I participated for openSUSE but the session left some question marks for me. Here are my thoughts how the idea could be improved.
As far as I know it happened the second time in Chemnitz, were Debian, Fedora, Mandriva, Pardus, Ubuntu and openSUSE were on stage. The tasks we got were every day problems, such as playing a flash movie or how to display a html 5 page. openSUSE was lucky with a one week old release, so wonder why we can handle HTML5 directly and others who released earlier can not?
I have to say that I do not like this kind of session too much. It is great to compare distributions, and also to do it kind of interactively and live. But even given that all involved know that its not about finding a winner and a looser, in this format there are too many parameters that influence the whole thing: First, the release date. Younger distros tend to be better than older ones. Second, it highly depends on the person who sits in front of the machine and explains what he does to solve the problem. One must be able to solve the task technically, and than she/he must be able to talk about it appealingly.
Different distros target at different user groups, and you quickly compare apples with oranges. I think it should be realized as a benefit that we’re different, and that does not necessarily need to end up in a competition everywhere. Moreover, we should appreciate if people remain playful and try distros as they like instead of trying to nail them to one forever.
Maybe next time we can rather have a “The combined power of the Linux variety” -session [working title] instead? In that we could try to work out the differences between the distros and which user groups could benefit from them. I mean, the variety in the FOSS community is the great advantage that we have over other systems and we should express it. And our similarities which we certainly have should also be brought on the table. To whom do we really compete? I guess we should be compared against commercial systems which tend to lock the user in with huge consequences or have security-, innovation- and other issues. Why not line up on stage and show the audience how we together beat these system with free software in various ways for the good of the user?
Yes, playing flash movies is a every users problem, and I know the “I don’t care, it simply needs to work!”-attitude lots of users do have. We as free software distributions had and have to find ways to deal with it, and we all have our solutions. But whats really important is not to present new users that we even though in general can not work with Flash, we found a workaround.
The more important message is why its dark in some corners of FOSS world, how that can be improved and who is able to change that. I think it would be awesome if that could be taken more into account the next time we have the opportunity to speak to such an audience as distributions together.
Both comments and pings are currently closed. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - Palestinians condemned as blackmail on Wednesday U.S. President Donald Trump’s threat to withhold future aid payments over what he called the Palestinians’ unwillingness to talk peace with Israel.
Trump drew praise from a cabinet minister in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government but a warning from a former Israeli peace negotiator of the dangers in cutting off financial assistance to the Palestinians.
On Twitter on Tuesday, Trump said that Washington gives Palestinians “HUNDRED OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS a year and get no appreciation or respect. They don’t even want to negotiate a long overdue peace treaty with Israel ... with the Palestinians no longer willing to talk peace, why should we make any of these massive future payments to them?”
Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s executive committee, said in response: “We will not be blackmailed.”
Palestinian anger at Trump is already high over his Dec. 6 recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, a declaration that also generated outrage across the Arab world and concern among Washington’s Western allies.
Commenting on Trump’s tweets, Nabil Abu Rdainah, a spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, said: “Jerusalem is not for sale, neither for gold nor for silver.”
Abu Rdainah said the Palestinians were not opposed to returning to peace talks that collapsed in 2014, but only on the basis of establishing a state of their own along the lines that existed before Israel captured the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 war.
Slideshow ( 11 images )
“If the United States is keen about peace and about its interests it must abide by that,” he said.
Israel, which withdrew troops and settlers from the Gaza Strip in 2005, has called the pre-1967 war West Bank boundaries indefensible and has pledged to hold on to all of Jerusalem forever.
UNRWA FUNDING
A report prepared for the U.S. Congress in December 2016 by the U.S. Congressional Research Service said annual U.S. economic support to the West Bank and Gaza Strip has averaged around $400 million since fiscal 2008.
Much of the money has gone toward U.S. Agency for International Development-administered project assistance and the rest toward budget support for the Palestinian Authority (PA), which administers limited self-rule in the Palestinian territories under interim peace agreements.
Israeli Culture Minister Miri Regev, a member of Netanyahu’s Likud party, welcomed Trump’s aid comments, saying on Army Radio: “I am very satisfied ... (Trump) is saying the time has come to stop saying flattering words (to the Palestinians).”
Slideshow ( 11 images )
But Tzipi Livni, an Israeli opposition politician and a former peace negotiator, said “a responsible and serious (Israeli) government” should quietly tell Trump that it would be in Israel’s interest to prevent a “humanitarian crisis in Gaza” and to continue to fund Palestinian security forces cooperating with Israel.
Earlier on Tuesday, Trump’s U.N. ambassador disclosed plans to stop funding a United Nations agency that provides humanitarian aid to Palestinian refugees.
“The president has basically said he doesn’t want to give any additional funding, or stop funding, until the Palestinians agree to come back to the negotiation table,” Ambassador Nikki Haley told reporters when asked about future U.S. funding for the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA)for Palestinian refugees.
In an emailed statement, UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness said “UNRWA has not been informed by the United States administration of any changes in U.S. funding to the Agency”.
The United States is the largest donor to the agency, with a pledge of nearly $370 million as of 2016, according to UNRWA’s website.
According to UNRWA’s website, there are 5.9 million UNRWA refugees and other registered persons eligible for its services, which include education and health care, in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
chipsprites:
Pokémon Mysteries - Are Ditto failed clones of Mew? [xx]
Mew and Ditto both weigh 8.8 lbs. They have the same sprite color scheme, with the same shinies. They both can learn every move (some exceptions for Mew), though in Ditto’s case it’s temporary. They both learn Transform. Many Ditto can be found in Cinnabar Mansion where many experiments took place between Mew and Mewtwo. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
How Democratic voters are being funneled into controlled opposition without knowing it.
One of the sole positive effects of Trump’s 2016 election is awakening increased social and political consciousness in the U.S. public. This phenomenon has been shorthanded as “woke.” Yet this “wokeness” has too often congealed into superficial critiques, a Resist hashtag and concern with tokenism rather than real structural change. This tends to think our problems sprung from Trump like Athena from the head of Zeus — rather than Trump being a metastasized result of 40+ years of human-crushing neoliberal policy under both Republicans and Democrats.
For those newly emerging into wakefulness, this ahistorical perspective is understandable: the nasty rhetoric and in-your-face casual cruelty are the first and most obvious sign. But it focuses on the symptoms rather than the deeper, root causes.
2017 Climate change rally in the aftermath of the Trump election
“The Democratic establishment mixes social critique with ‘around the edges’ reform to mitigate the most obvious abuses to prevent a head-on challenge to the fundamental premise of the system.”
Controlling Opposition
This focus on social outrage actually works in favor of the trans-national corporatocracy and oligarchs by funneling activist impulses, fueled by justified anger, away from deep structural inequalities in the system and into social wedge issues. Interestingly, there’s a mirror on the Right: ‘Red Pilled.’ This term uses the same metaphor (taking a cue from the film The Matrix wherein a red pill to awakens one from the simulation). Like the ‘woke left’ outrage is similarly channeled.
To be clear: as a progressive I firmly believe racism, sexism and homophobia are real, important and valid social issues that need addressing. I also believe the misdirection peddled to the right is more damaging because of the way attention is focused off inequities is through scapegoating the powerless (i.e. don’t blame the billionaire that off-shored your job. Blame the Mexican dishwasher, et. all).
However, #Resistance often misses that addressing issues of economic justice and war and peace on a deep systemic level will have a vastly greater effect on social justice problems than putting an intersectionally-friendly face on the neoliberal machine. As a minority, I would love a person of color as president. I would would love a woman president. However, that’s the icing not the cake. If you eat nothing but icing you’ll get sick.
I’m throwing ‘neoliberal’ around a lot, so let’s quickly define it: an ideology framing societal relationships as transactions (and citizens as consumers) that defines freedom in terms of buying and selling: the freedom of trade and capital. It favors deregulation of markets and corporations — on the premise that perpetual national economic growth and corporate profit growth are key to social well-being and stability. Often economic domination of other countries to open markets and resources (a form of mercantilism) is required.
Two great primers on Neoliberalism can be found on YouTube if you want to delve deeper:
“Neoliberalism Explained” by Stuart Bass
“Crash Course in Neoliberalism” by Mad Blender
Since the late 70’s/early 80’s neoliberalism has been dominant in U.S. and key western nation policy. Republicans and Democrats from Reagan (& Thatcher in the UK) onward have been in it’s thrall. Bill Clinton’s ‘third way’ triangulation was a combination of being somewhat more socially liberal (vs. Republicans) married to a neoliberal economic & foreign policy. Bush Sr., Dubya and Obama also presided over neoliberal policy administrations. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
This.. Is so... CUTEEEEEE
Parents: Honey are you looking at stevidot pictures again?
me: ....
Parents: this is the tenth scream this week you need to stop looking at these.
Me: Wha? NO! THIS IS MY LIFE NOW!
Parents: Honey....
Youre mentally insane.
Me: *throws Stevidot photos at them* | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
"But these words were heavier than even the death of a clan champion—or a brother. This scroll, this particular piece of paper, was likely the most important he would ever write. No, this scroll would be the most important one that would be written—during his lifetime, at least."
–D.G. Laderoute, "Tiger Stalks His Prey"
Order your own copy of Children of the Empire at your local retailer or online through our website today!
The land of Rokugan is shifting. Where once there was balance in the elements, there is now chaos. And where once there was peace amongst the Great Clans, there is now conflict. Though mending this wound in the world is of the utmost importance, a monumental edict from Hantei XXXVIII will once again shift the course of history, and it will fall to the children of the empire to find a peaceful way forward for the Emerald Empire.
Fantasy Flight Games is proud to present Children of the Empire, a new Premium Expansion for Legend of the Five Rings: The Card Game!
A Premium Expansion is a new level of product for Legend of the Five Rings: The Card Game, featuring 234 cards (three copies each of 76 cards and one copy each of six cards), a number comparable to the Legend of the Five Rings: The Card Game Core Set. Unlike previous expansions, Premium Expansions are not tied to a specific clan, nor do they form part of a cycle—instead, these expansions focus on developing specific themes and mechanics, rewarding every clan with a wealth of new cards in a single expansion!
In Children of the Empire, you'll find a celebration of the tranquility brought to Rokugan by the Hantei Dynasty. Every Great Clan gets new tools, with themes of dueling and honor persistent throughout the expansion. Children of the Empire also provides a snapshot of characters and events in the Legend of the Five Rings story as they stand today. Look for cards that represent some of the biggest moments from Legend of the Five Rings fiction, and an updated version of an iconic character whose role in the celestial order has shifted!
With 234 new cards covering every clan and dedicated themes, Children of the Empire is the perfect companion to the Legend of the Five Rings: The Card Game Core Set for new players, and it offers a meta-shifting influx of new cards for veteran players from every clan!
Maintaining Composure
Children of the Empire places a heavy emphasis on honor—not just on the honor of your individual characters, but your clan as a whole. In the field of battle and in the courts, composure is key to victory.
Composure is a new mechanic introduced here, in Children of the Empire. So long as your honor bid is lower than an opponent’s, you are considered to have composure. While this does nothing on its own, every clan gains new cards with effects that only activate if you have achieved composure. For example, the Student of War (Children of the Empire, 23) is a straightforward Bushi with three military and two political skill. However, if you have composure, the Student of War cannot lose fate or be discarded! If you can consistently keep your honor dial lower than your opponent’s, the Student of War will never abandon you, fighting by your side until victory is reached.
Of course, maintaining composure can be just as hard as achieving it, especially if your enemy operates by undermining your honor. The Scorpion thrive on high-honor bids, and may struggle to gain composure through traditional means… but the Scorpion have never been the most traditional clan.
As long as you have composure, the Scorpion can manipulate the target of your opponent’s events with the Social Puppeteer (Children of the Empire, 34). While this is a strong ability on its own, this three-cost Courtier also offers a way to gain composure by switching honor dials with your opponent during a conflict! If you steal an honor dial with a lower bid than yours, this can quickly swing things in your favor. Not only must your opponent now focus on the Puppeteer, their own composure characters deactivate, giving the Scorpion the advantage.
Gaining and maintaining composure can be a difficult task, but the rewards can be game-defining.
A Test of Skill
You'll make an honor bid every round as you draw more cards, but that's not the only time that you can gain or lose composure. Fittingly, Children of the Empire also places a heavy emphasis on duels, and it starts by updating the template for the mechanic. Repetitive wording on cards like Policy Debate (For Honor and Glory, 40) has been replaced by the simple phrase, “Initiate a duel,” making cards clearer and allowing space for more complicated effects. To initiate a duel, the player resolving the ability simply chooses two characters to duel against each other: one they control and one controlled by an opponent. If the duel was triggered by the ability of a character, that character must be your representative in the duel.
More importantly, every clan will receive at least one new Duelist character to add to their ranks—challenger characters that initiate duels during conflicts for potent effects.
The court is the domain of the Crane, and though their Kakita duelists are deadly with steel, the clan’s words cut just as deep. The Courtly Challenger (Children of the Empire, 12) is a two-cost Duelist that becomes honored when it wins a duel, and dishonored when it loses a duel. Moreover, as an Action, you may initiate a political duel, with the winner drawing two cards. With powerful composure cards introduced in Children of the Empire, low honor bids will be attractive, but this means less cards for your conflict hand. Luckily for the Crane, cards like the Courtly Challenger can keep your hand stocked and your honor bid low.
The Unicorn, meanwhile, gain the power of the Honest Challenger (Children of the Empire, 37). This more traditional Duelist gains two military skill while you have composure, and a successful military duel lets you move a character into the conflict, perhaps giving you the backup to break a province. If you maintain your composure, your opponent will be hard-pressed to defeat the Honest Challenger in a one-on-one duel, especially considering you're always picking your opponent.
Of course, this cycle isn’t the only duel support in Children of the Empire—you can look for events that trigger duels, more experienced duelists to join your clan, and more.
For example, the Mirumoto Daishō (Children of the Empire, 58) is a powerful new Dragon attachment that provides a buff to both military and political skill. However, it’s true power is revealed during a duel, as it prevents your opponent from bidding 1 or 5. Not only does this restrict your opponent’s options, it can ensure victory for your Duelist when the time is right.
Specters of the Past
Children of the Empire is a snapshot of Rokugan, a celebration and examination of the events that have unfolded since the launch of the game. As such, it includes cards that reference some of the most important story moments in Legend of the Five Rings: The Card Game.
Hida Kisada constantly oversees the fight against attacks from the Shadowlands. Some attacks are worse than others, and one led by an obsidian-plated oni was significant enough that Kisada himself had to intervene, as described in “Dark Hands of Heaven” by Annie VanderMeer Mitsoda. While Kisada was evenly matched with the oni, his leadership was needed elsewhere in the battle, so a loyal retainer named Hida Tomonatsu intervened and sacrificed herself to bring the oni down.
In Defense of Rokugan (Children of the Empire, 52) recreates that moment of Tomonatsu’s sacrifice, allowing the Crab to sacrifice a defender to reduce an attacker’s military skill to zero for a conflict. Not every character is created equal, and a Marauding Oni dwarfs the skill of an Eager Scout. But for one moment, the scales equal and a moment of bravery and self-sacrifice can defeat even the strongest of foes.
In Robert Denton III’s novella, The Sword and the Spirits, Shiba Tsukune pursued Isawa Tadaka to the remote shrine of Sanpuku Seidō. What neither expected to find was a shrine haunted by spirits from Tōshigoku, the Realm of Slaughter. Together, the two—with the help of an unassuming shrine maiden named Kaito Kosori—banded together to fight the spirits that infested the shrine and cleanse it of a long-forgotten enemy.
Subdue the Spirits (Children of the Empire, 68) represents this conflict, allowing you to add your characters' glory to their skills during a conflict in which you are more honorable than your opponent. Since this even stacks with characters who are already honored, this can give a massive boost to the Phoenix regardless of what conflict type you find yourself in!
The Emerald Lion
Finally, Children of the Empire includes multiple neutral cards focusing on the Hantei dynasty, and includes a new version of one of Legend of the Five Rings most prolific characters. Akodo Toturi (Core Set, 79) began his journey as the Lion Clan Champion, but the heavens have forged a new path for him as the Emperor’s right hand. As the Emerald Champion, Akodo Toturi must now balance his duty to his clan and his duty to the Emperor.
Children of the Empire’s Akodo Toturi (Children of the Empire, 45) is a neutral, five-cost character with impressive skills, and so long as you hold the Imperial Favor, the ability to lock your opponent down. As an Action during a conflict with Akodo Toturi, you may declare that each player cannot play cards from their hand until the end of the conflict!
Akodo Toturi seeks the truth and has no patience for underhanded methods. You’ll have to succeed on the field of battle or in court if you have any hope of victory. While triggering this Action also prevents you from playing cards, Toturi's ability can be used at any point in the conflict, ultimately triggering this only after you've played any cards you need to!
Akodo Toturi is just one of the many neutral cards featured in Children of the Empire. Look for Duelists, Courtiers, Magistrates, and even the Son of Heaven himself to join the Imperial ranks.
A New Dawn
Rokugan sits on the edge of change. But before the Emerald Empire can move forward, celebrate the tranquility of the Hantei Dynasty with the 234 cards featured in Children of the Empire, and prepare for the future of Legend of the Five Rings: The Card Game! | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
TWITTER Armed guards have been deployed
FREE now and never miss the top politics stories again. SUBSCRIBE Invalid email Sign up fornow and never miss the top politics stories again. We will use your email address only for sending you newsletters. Please see our Privacy Notice for details of your data protection rights.
Voters were rushed out of the polling stations after a stolen vehicle was abandoned outside with the engine running while voting was taking place. Bomb disposal experts were called to examine the vehicle - a 308 Peugeot black-coloured car which was flagged as stolen and had fake number plates. Witnesses say the car was driven just 50m from the polling station at a local school, where two occupants got out and ran away - leaving the engine to run.
TWITTER Armed guards are on patrol outside the polling station
TWITTER The suspicious car was flagged as stolen and had fake number plates
Police rushed to the scene to examine the vehicle, where they found a gun - believed to be a shotgun - left in the car. Photos from the town show armed guards on patrol outside the centre in Besançon, eastern France. Mayor of Besançon Jean-Louis Fousseret said: ”The situation is completely re-established, the polling stations are reopened, we can vote in complete safety.” According to him, "the car arrived at very low speed, with two people on board, before stopping in a hedge of privet, then the two people fled”. FRANCE GOES TO THE POLLS AS LE PEN AND MACRON NECK AND NECK
Live images: Terror at French election Tue, April 18, 2017 Play slideshow AFP/Getty Images 1 of 8 Members of the French RAID police unit leave after searching the home of one of two men arrested in Marseille on April 18, 2017 after they were suspected of plotting an
Officials stressed the incident was "not a terrorist act at all, it is a matter of common law", according to Doubs Regional Director of Public Security (DDSP), Benoît Desferet. The two polling stations, whch were closed for jsut over an hour, have since been reopened to the public. Bomb squads claim the scene has now been made safe. France's citizens are currently voting in the first round of a presidential election today amid heightened security.
REUTERS Almost 47 million voters could cast their ballots today | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
The app called Happy Fishing - Catch Fish and Treasures by Fishing King Studios has a 4.6 star rating and looks like a legit app. However, I want to let everyone know that it is without a doubt in my mind... a complete and total scam! Player Beware!
My Angry Rant
It bothers me so much that a scam like this is on the google play collection... and it has such a high rating. It turns out that even their high score is a bag of lies. When you first start playing the game you get asked to rate the game while still in the game. If you rate 4 or 5 stars then you immediately get taken over to the google app page to make a second rating. If you rate 3 stars or lower.... it just simply says thank you for the feedback. So if you don't feel like rating then... give a low rating. If you want to give them a low rating, then give them a high rating at first, be taken to the page... and then give a low rating.
I maxed the levels in the game and I still never got a payout.
My line got to the max of 500M, I got to the max of catching 50 fish at a time and I even completed my aquarium! Yet, I still couldn't get to $10 in my wallet?
I was never able to reach the $10, no matter how determined I was.
I got to $9.44, now the bottles appear under my hook... making it impossible for me to get to the $10 minimum pay out. I watched a lot of ads that will provide income to the makers of this game... and got nothing back. More importantly, this means that this company is using false advertising. So this company is using illegal tactics to make their income and I am just yet another victim. However, I can blog about it.
Beware the Sister Apps of Happy Fishing
There appears to be several sister apps that are all based off of the same programming and the same concept. One of them is called Fish Mania - Epic Fishing Game by Go Fishing Studio. However, there are several more out there and there are probably going to be new made all the time. So please be cautious with all fishing apps that promise 'real money'.
Don't even download the game!
I can't prove it, but there is something fishy about this app (pun intended). Every time I open the app, it opens two windows... why? Some of their sister apps do the same thing too. I think it might have something to do with data mining... with that said, I am just guessing.
Hello. Nice to meet you! How are you? Hmm... this feels like a really one sided conversation... why don't you follow me on social media so I can get to know you too!
About the Author
I started blogging about two years ago and my collection of blogs and articles is getting pretty impressive. I’ve taken online classes for writing and even some classes about the art of blogging itself. It would be really awesome if you join the adventure and maybe even help me think of what to write about next. If you would like to submit some feedback or ideas, you can always tweet me on Twitter.
Like the story? Share it on social media!
Thank you for reading my article. Would it be okay if I ask another favour though? Would it be okay if you share this on your Facebook page or Twitter? If you can't share, there is a tiny little donate box at the bottom too. No pressure though, just thought I would mention. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Goldman settles with SEC for $550 million
Goldman Sachs and CEO Lloyd Blankfein have faced intense scrutiny and questions about their role in the downturn of the housing market.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Goldman Sachs paid $550 million to settle charges of defrauding investors in a sale of securities tied to subprime mortgages, the Securities and Exchange Commission said Thursday.
Goldman (GS, Fortune 500) shares jumped almost 8% in after-hours trading on the announcement, as many predicted the company would be forced to pay $1 billion to settle the case.
The settlement amount represents roughly 4% of the $13.4 billion in profits Goldman earned last year. In its first quarter of this year, the bank logged $3.5 billion in profits.
Still, the $550 million was the largest penalty a Wall Street company has ever paid to the SEC. Regulators said $250 million would be returned to affected investors and $300 million would be paid to the U.S. Treasury.
The settlement is subject to approval by a judge. Within 30 days, Goldman must wire money to three parties: $150 million to Deutsche Bank, $100 million to the Royal Bank of Scotland and $300 million to the SEC.
In a statement, the SEC called the settlement "a stark lesson to Wall Street firms that no product is too complex ... to avoid a heavy price if a firm violates the fundamental principles of honest treatment and fair dealing."
Charges filed in April: The SEC filed the fraud charges in April against New York-based Goldman and one of its vice presidents, Fabrice Tourre, for failing to disclose conflicts in a 2007 sale of a so-called collateralized debt obligation dubbed Abacus.
The SEC said Goldman acknowledged it gave investors "incomplete information," though the company neither admitted nor denied the allegations. Goldman will also "reform its business practices" as part of the settlement.
Investors in Abacus lost $1 billion, the SEC said when filing the fraud charges. The commission's complaint alleged that Goldman allowed hedge fund Paulson & Co. to help choose the securities included in the CDO, which is a financial instrument backed by a pool of assets such as loans or bonds.
But Goldman didn't tell investors that Paulson was shorting the CDO, or betting its value would fall.
Goldman shot back in April, saying the charges were "completely unfounded in law and fact" and that the company lost $90 million on the deal.
What Goldman has to change: As part of the settlement, the SEC required Goldman to comply with certain business practices for three years. The company will be required to certify in writing, each year, that it has followed all of the rules.
Goldman must expand the role of its firmwide capital committee in approving the sale of mortgage-backed securities.
In addition, the company's legal or compliance departments must review all written marketing materials. Goldman will have to keep a list of all materials reviewed, including the person who approved them and the date of review. The firm will have to conduct an internal audit of this process at least once a year.
If Goldman is the lead underwriter of a sale of mortgage-backed securities and hires an outside firm to advise, that adviser also will have to review marketing materials.
Within 60 days of hiring an employee who will be involved in mortgage-backed securities sales, that worker will have to take a training class about the laws involved. All employees involved in mortgage securities will be required to take a class each year, and Goldman will need to keep records of that training.
Goldman under fire: Despite Goldman's protests, the charges brought scrutiny and criticism to the company and its chief executive Lloyd Blankfein, who still managed to hold onto his job as chairman in May.
Blankfein and other Goldman executives faced a blistering ten-hour cross-examination from members of a Senate panel in April following the SEC's allegations. Lawmakers skewered current and former executives about Goldman's role in the downturn of the housing market, which started to unravel in 2007.
The SEC lawsuit also publicized e-mails sent by Tourre, the vice president named in the charges, to a girlfriend. The messages, sent in late 2007, revealed both Tourre's cavalier attitude and his doubts about the CDO business.
Tourre, then a 28-year-old trader, referred to himself in one e-mail as "fabulous Fab." He also described himself as "the only potential survivor" of the collapsing subprime-mortgage-backed securities business.
In a press conference later Thursday, an SEC rep said there was "no settlement with Mr. Tourre and we are still pursuing that case." | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
HOME >
Hiding by the Window - My wife has cucked me for some time now but I have never been able to watch her. It is something that really makes a difference for me but something that she and her lover (s) are less comfortable with.
Well, one evening just before bed my wife ask me if I would shave her. Right away I knew she had plans, but I shaved her underarms legs and pussy smooth and painted her toes. After bugging the hell out of her for details she tells me that her lover is off work tomorrow and he is comming to the house for some fun before she runs to work. I beg her to let me watch but she denies me and says they want some time alone.
I do some quick thinking and call work to tell them I want to take the morning off and rest easy that night. Really wanting to watch him enjoy my wife's body I start to plan. So I set up the video camera so it pointed at the bed, moved the shades in the bed room so I could see in from the outside, and fixed a window in the kids room so I could get in easily and without being heard. Then I ask her what she was wearing for him and she said that she was undecided. I turned on the camera and left for "work" at my normal time. I drove a few blocks from the house and parked my car, walked back home sat in a chair on the back deck and waited.
I looked thru the window once in awhile to see what she was doing. She was in her robe until the kids got on the bus, but as soon as they were out the door the robe was off. She walked into the bathroom naked and it sounded like she was fixing her hair and putting on make up. When she came back to the bedroom she stood at the dresser rummaging thur her panty drawer. She put on two or three diffrent ones before she decided on her sheer red g string. She sprayed perfume on her neck and a bit in her hair and I could smell it thru the open window, I was hard as a rock and was as excited for him to get there as she was. Her phone rang and she went into the other room to get it. When she walked back into the room I could tell by the tone of her voice she was talking to him. She prepared the bed and lit candles as she spoke on the phone. After she said bye she turned on some music went into closet came out wearing a long shear red nightgown that I bought her for an anniversary gift a few years back. She lay on the bed and played with her hair, she looked so sexy laying there waiting............waiting for her lover to fuck her. I wanted to jerk off, but wanted to save it.
Her phone rang again and I heard her say that she was ready and walked to the other room, just then I heard a car pull into the driveway, he was here. I had butterflies in my stomach, my heart was racing. I could hear them talking, her giggling and they entered the room with her leading him by the hand. They stood by the bed kissing passionately, his hands touching all over her body. She removed his shirt pulled his shorts to the floor, and she invited him to the bed. He pulled her night gown off so she was wearing nothing but her panties. They rolled around kissing and touching for what seemed like forever. Then he started at her neck and kissed his way down to her tits where he gave each one attention, then down to her belly where he squeezed licked and kissed for a good while. Then he pulled her panties to the side and started working her pussy. He got beside her on his hands and knees face burried in her cunt, and her stroking his cock.
Then I remembered I purposly left my pager on the dresser so I called it. They never even paused, so I called it again. On the fourth time she got up and turned it off without even looking at it. Then she did what I had hoped she would not do, she turned off the lights ! ! ! Now all I can see is shadows ! I can tell that she is between his legs licking and sucking his thick cock. I can hear them both moaning and I have my pants to my knees working my rock hard throbbing cock slowly and just once in awhile because I want to enjoy all of this. Then I blew my load, damn I wanted it to last longer.
I was straining to see what was going on inside just a mere few feet away but all I could see were two shadows combined, moaning with pleasure. I was nervous about my next move but it had to be done, I was going to crawl in the open window. I took my shoes off so not no make noise on the deck. I crept off then sprinted to the window. I could hear the bed squeeking, I made my move up and in not to much noise. I crawled to my sons bed and lay beside it just in case. They had not stopped.
I made my way slowly to the door where I knew I could see clearly. My cock was instantly hard again when I saw her on her hands and knees getting her pussy pounded. Then she was on top of him riding cowgirl and his hands are exploring her body from her tits to her belly. I can hear him saying how good her pussy feels, she says she loves the way he feels in her.
Next he turns her and is licking her cunt again. He looked up and said he's going to take his time and enjoy this. After the licking session she's on him again now reverse doggie. He's got two hand fulls of belly, and as she goes up and down on his meat her little tits are bouncing. I'm stroking my own throbbing meat but slowly. Those two fucked in every position they could think of for an hour. She is cumming like crazy. When he gets close he either changes positions or starts licking her pussy. Finally he said "Oh shit I'm gonna cum"
He groans loudly and she starts screaming. Then he fell to her side. They started kissing nice and slow, telling each other how they loved what they just did. He tells her how much he loves the way her body looks and feels. Finally they got up, he dressed. They kissed she walked him to the door and they were making plans for their next alone time.
I crawled back to the side of my sons bed and waited for her to dress and leave. I lay there for awhile fearing that she forgot something. After I felt the coast was clear I got up went to the bedroom where my wife was just made love to, and to my suprize found her red panties laying there soaked with their love juices (she was wearing them the whole time they were just pulled to the side. I licked them put them over my face and started to wank again and blew my load again for the fourth time that morning. I had to do one more thing before I ran to work, check the camera. I rewound it a bit and found that the tape had ran out right when she got back from turning off my pager.
As I got back in my truck my phone rang, it was her. I ask her how it went, she said good, I ask for high lites she gave me a few. Then I told her I watched the whole thing, she didn't believe me. Later that evening she replayed the whole thing for me, when I told her that she forgot a detail or two her eyes got big and she said, "OH MY GOD YOU DID WATCH" then I told her how I did it. She came as I told her.
Franken's
WIVES POST THEIR PERSONAL ADS ... COUPLES FOR MEN VIDEO & PICTURE ADS
FUCK SOMEONE'S WIFE!
... OR ...
GET YOUR WIFE FUCKED!
Cuckold Forum || Cuckold Stories || Cuckold Pics || Cuckold Blog || Cuckold Chat ||
Cuckold Couple || Sitting on a Cock || Couples || Dating || Personals || Hotwife Emily ||
Video || Fuck My Wife || She's Horny || Shari and Mark || LA Cuck || Watching Wife || Couple Rooms ||
| {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
× Attention! Important update to ToS! Attention!
Dear partners!
We make every effort to maintain our payouts for Tier groups: we communicate with managers of ad agencies, negotiate the best terms, change networks constantly, and develop anti-AdBlock scripts, among many other actions.
In this regard, we STRONGLY REQUEST that you do the following immediately:
1. Open your file manager.
2. Check the adult video using the checkbox.
3. Assign the selected adult video to the category "Adult" (pay attention - "category"), using the "Set category for selected" button.
4. From now on, if you work with adult content, you must always check the "Adult" category for adult content.
Separating the content into "adult" and "not adult" enables us to continue building relationships with various ad agencies and to develop our service.
Thank you for your understanding,
Your affiliate managers team. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Being called "Iceland's Strongest Man" is no small feat. But it is a title that Hafthor Julius Bjornsson, better known to "Game of Thrones" fans as "The Mountain," knows all too well. That's because he has been named the strongest man in Iceland — for the fifth year in a row.
That might not be that significant in America, but in Iceland, it is the stuff of Nordic legend. Icelandic men are, quite simply, giants. And these über-strong men are national icons because of their resemblance to Vikings. But Björnsson is a legitimate legend, as shown by this video:
The log he is carrying is no ordinary log. It was the mast of the Ormen Lange, one of the most famous of the Viking longships. It weighs 640 kg (1,410 lbs). Though he only carried it for five steps, no one man has been able to carry it since the days of real Vikings until Björnsson did it in February, which basically makes him a modern-day Viking. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
People gather at a park in Isla Vista for a candlelight vigil to honour the victims of the mass shooting. Photo: AP
Over the weekend, six people were killed in a Californian neighbourhood near UC Santa Barbara. Their murderer was a man whose name I’ll elect not to use, because it doesn’t deserve to be remembered. But he was a young man who hated women and resented them for withholding their affections from him. To punish them for these transgressions, he determined to target the ‘hottest sorority house’ at UCSB and ‘slaughter’ every ‘spoiled, stuck-up, blonde slut [he sees] inside there.’
In a video posted to YouTube, the shooter (who began his killing spree by stabbing his three roommates to death) lamented that, “For the last eight years of my life, since I hit puberty, I’ve been forced to endure an existence of loneliness, rejection and unfulfilled desires, all because girls have never been attracted to me. Girls gave their affection and sex and love to other men, never to me.”
There are few things uglier and more threatening to women than misogynist male entitlement. It reminds us that our right to exist with some semblance of freedom is viewed as a contractual arrangement; as long as we behave ourselves, we won’t be punished too severely for the simple crime of being a woman.
Under the hashtag #yesallwomen, a litany of complaints and outrages have swept across the Twittersphere. Within hours, the hashtag was trending internationally. Women raged against the violence that was to threaten them and keep them in line; men (for the most part) offered their solidarity and support, while urging others to read the rolling timeline of tweets regardless of how challenging and uncomfortable they might prove to be.
One of the most retweeted pictures under the #yesallwomen tag was a meme that’s been floating around for some time now. It perfectly illustrates the troubling cognitive dissonance that comes with according value to a woman based on her male connections.
In addition to furious objections over subjugations of living in a culture which normalises violence towards women and charges them with being responsible for avoiding it came anger over the lack of respect shown for women’s autonomy. Women argued accurately and with fierce eloquence against the idea that a woman is ‘off limits’ if she ‘belongs’ to another man; that street harassment isn’t a ‘compliment’ but another manifestation of entitlement, one which seeks to remind women that their bodies and dignity belong to someone else; and that even their outrage and anger is stolen from them and portrayed as the misandric criminalisation of male sexuality and/or identity.
#YesAllWomen because when a girl is harassed or even groped by a stranger in public, we're told to "take it as a compliment" — AB (@bottrill) May 25, 2014
#YesAllWomen because when women stand up for their right to feel safe & not get killed or raped, men turn it around & make it anti-male. — ♕☮ Genny Λstartiel ❤ (@Astartiel) May 25, 2014
Because "the friendzone" is not just an annoying meme; it is an expression of entitlement and threat of violence against women. #YesAllWomen — Charles Clymer (@cmclymer) May 24, 2014
#Yesallwomen are taught that it’s their responsibility to modify and shrink their behaviour to protect themselves from sexual violence. — Clementine Ford (@clementine_ford) May 25, 2014
The outpouring of female anger was not, as some have called it, ‘armchair activism’ but a meaningful and spontaneous public response to the dreadful hate crime that happened in Santa Barbara. Despite the support offered by many men to #yesallwomen, it’s frustrating to see so many others insist that these senseless deaths had nothing to do with the perceived emasculation of being denied the alpha identity that the gunman felt women owed to him.
At its most benign, those hesitant to identify the misogyny present are focusing instead on the gunman’s fragile mental health - as if misogyny (particularly the homicidal kind) isn’t a clear and indisputable expression of acute mental illness exacerbated by the frequenting of MRA websites and pick up artist communities.
Because the friendzone is the fictional exile of the entitled. “Sexual partner” is not a woman’s default mode. #yesallwomen — Harrison Mooney (@HarrisonMooney) May 25, 2014
Because when a guy kills six people because he's a virgin and women reject him, he's met with sympathy. #YesAllWomen pic.twitter.com/elZfnRTi5T — Bekah (@RebekahBolser) May 25, 2014
But frighteningly, there are others who appear to empathise with the fact that loneliness and female rejection ‘caused’ this young man to exact his cruel form of revenge. That if it weren’t for the ‘agony’ of female rejection and the refusal to ‘give’ sex to him, he might be a well-adjusted person.
This is what misogyny and male entitlement writ large looks like. The denial of its existence is what allows ongoing violence against women to flourish. Women experience a broad range of gender related violence every day, from incessant street harassment to sexual assaults to murder. It is the shadow we live under and the threat we live in fear of, and we endure it solely because we are women. It’s what leads to a young girl being stabbed to death by a schoolmate because she won’t go to prom with him. And it’s what allows a young man to believe so fervently that he is ‘owed’ female attention and adoration that when he is repeatedly denied it, he decides someone must be punished in order to reinstate his power as a dominant male.
If this isn’t a result of structural misogyny and male entitlement, what is it? A coincidence? Why is it that one woman murdered every week in Australia by her partner or ex-partner is not considered a manifestation of the ongoing, ritualised hate crime that specifically targets women? Why must we be further insulted by having our anger explained away as irrational and misplaced? We know what pure, unadulterated misogyny is because we have felt its wrath; yet we’re once again being told our instincts are wrong by people for whom such hatred can never be anything more than theoretical.
Margaret Atwood famously said that men’s greatest fear is that women will laugh at them, while women’s greatest fear is that men will kill them. Misogyny and male entitlement are sustained acts of aggression against women that everyone should be invested in opposing.
No, not all men kill or harm women.
But yes - all women have a right to be angry and afraid when they do. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
The spiritual leader of one of the largest Buddhist organizations in the Western world is facing more sexual misconduct allegations as a Halifax law firm prepares to launch an independent investigation into claims against him.
A Chilean woman alleges Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche dragged her into a bathroom, groped her and tried to remove her clothes during a dinner party in Santiago, Chile, in 2002.
The woman, whose name has not been made public, came forward with her account of the alleged incident after multiple women accused the Shambhala International leader of sexual misconduct in a report published last month.
Her claims are included in a new memo by Carol Merchasin, a lawyer who oversaw a preliminary investigation into the initial claims against the Halifax-based Buddhist leader.
The woman says she was working as an assistant cook at a dinner party when Mipham, who was described as "visibly drunk," invited the staff to join the gathering while he read poetry.
'Told him "no" several times'
According to Merchasin's memo, released Wednesday, he took her hand and dragged her to a bathroom, where he locked the door and prevented her from leaving.
"He groped her breasts and began trying to remove her clothes," says Merchasin's report, which is based on interviews with the woman and a corroborating witness. "He forced her hand to his genitals, even though she told him 'no' several times."
After roughly 15 minutes, she says she managed to push Mipham away from the door, unlock it and escape.
She says she immediately described the alleged assault to the main cook, and says the next day she spoke about the incident to a person who was travelling with the Shambhala leader.
That person, referred to as a corroborating witness, was able to confirm the story the woman first recounted in 2002, Merchasin said.
"I found this woman very credible," she said. "She reached out immediately after the incident to others, telling them the same story."
The allegations follow Mipham's alleged "patterns of behaviour" detailed in the report last month, Merchasin said.
In that report, by former Shambhala community member Andrea Winn, several women accuse him of heavy drinking and using his attendant to "procure women students for his own sexual gratification."
Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche and his wife Princess Tseyang Palmo pictured at their wedding in Halifax in 2006. Multiple unnamed women accused Mipham of sexual misconduct in a report last month. (The Canadian Press/Andrew Vaughan)
None of the allegations has been tested in court and no charges have been laid. Mipham's lawyer said he received the new report and was reviewing it.
"For the moment, and so as not to interfere with the independent investigation, my client will not be offering any comment at this time," Michael Scott said in an email.
However, Mipham said in a letter Tuesday that he takes responsibility for the pain the Buddhist community is experiencing.
"I feel a tremendous amount of sorrow for the pain, confusion, and anger that our [community] is experiencing," he said.
Mipham stepping back
The spiritual leader has stepped back from his duties pending the outcome of a third-party investigation.
The Kalapa Council, the leadership body of the Shambhala organization and its more than 200 meditation centres worldwide, will also be stepping down through a "phased departure."
A source close to the organization confirmed that law firm Wickwire Holm has been contracted to conduct the third-party investigation into claims of harm against any Shambhala teacher, including Mipham.
A lawyer with Wickwire Holm did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
The report on Mipham's alleged sexual misconduct came after a report in February detailed alleged abuse in the Buddhist community.
Winn, who says she was a victim of sexual abuse as a child growing up in the Shambhala community, said the first report alleged decades of sexualized violence.
It also encouraged women to come forward with allegations against the spiritual leader, she said.
Read more articles from CBC Nova Scotia | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Ivan Savvidis is expected to be fined at least €50,000 and banned from stadiums for up to five years
The Russian oligarch and football club proprietor who stunned spectators when he stormed on to the pitch carrying a gun during a match in Greece has been ordered to appear to before a public prosecutor on Friday after criminal charges were brought against him.
Ivan Savvidis attempted to confront the referee after a goal by his PAOK Salonika team was disallowed in the 89th minute of the Superleague match against AEK Athens on Sunday. The game was subsequently abandoned.
The 59-year-old former member of the Russian duma, who reputedly has close ties to Vladimir Putin and is one of Greece’s most powerful businessmen, is already facing disciplinary action from football authorities over the incident.
Savvidis is expected to be fined at least €50,000 (£44,000) and prohibited from entering stadiums for the next three to five years. PAOK, who had been tipped to win the Superleague, could face relegation.
“He has not been seen since the incident and, under Greek law, it is no longer in our jurisdiction to arrest him,” police spokesman Theodoros Chronopoulos said. “The matter is now in the hands of justice.”
After the criminal charges were announced, the tycoon’s son wrote in English on Instagram: “We are off to Russia - one small message to all our enemies before I leave.”
The Panhellenic Federation of Police expressed dismay that Savvidis had not been arrested and asked if he had “privileged protection”.
In an effort to distance itself from the tycoon, whose controversial business portfolio has grown considerably under Athens’ leftist-led Syriza party administration, the government announced it would take tough retaliatory measures including the indefinite suspension of the Superleague.
Speaking from the US, the main opposition leader, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, accused the prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, of being “in bed” with Savvidis, helping him expand his business empire in return for favourable overage from the media outlets that were part of it.
The tycoon, who was made an honorary citizen of Greece in 2013, bought shares in Mega channel TV and three prominent newspapers last year including the Ethnos titles. His other assets include the strategic port of Thessaloniki, in the country’s north, and tobacco companies.
Given the country’s strategic importance on Europe’s eastern flank, and evidence of growing Russian influence in the Balkans, the oligarch’s ever-extending reach has been cause for alarm among western diplomats. On his website, where he is pictured being honoured by Putin, Savvidis writes of his “contribution to the social and economic development of Russia”.
On Wednesday, the world soccer federation, Fifa, warned that Greek football was “on the edge of the cliff.” The country’s premier league clubs would be excluded from international competition if the notoriously violence-prone sport was not immediately cleaned up, said Hubert Hubel, the Austrian who heads a Fifa committee set up to monitor Greek soccer and is on a visit to the country. “This behaviour has pushed us to come here to make recommendations. The situation is very serious. The violence has to stop for the games to continue.”
In a statement on PAOK’s website, Savvidis apologised for his behaviour, blaming it on the “widespread negative situation prevailing in Greek football”. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
For those of you who wanted these when they appeared in the OCG, this is your chance.
Kaiba Corporation is the technological leader in the gaming industry, constantly advancing what we know about Dueling systems. Your Deck is your most prized procession as a Duelist, and Kaiba Corporation understands that you value its protection. This has led to the introduction of the cutting-edge Kaiba Corporation Deck Case! Slimmer than previous models, the Kaiba Corporation Deck Case’s streamlined design is the perfect fit for your Main, Side, and Extra Deck. The Deck Case is available exclusively in a pearl white frame with a translucent, azure blue base to help you keep an eye on your cards. This design features the signature Kaiba Corporation circuitry pattern and a holographic KC logo. To maximize efficiency, each Deck Case also includes a Deck Divider, boasting a complementary style, to help you keep organized so you can focus on the Duel at hand. *Product title and design subject to change.
Kaiba Corporation is an industry leader in Dueling system technology. However, sometimes a transformative approach is necessary to meet customers’ needs, and those can be more basic than holographic projection interfaces. Introducing, the Kaiba Corporation Card Sleeves! These next-generation Card Sleeves are designed for optimal performance where it matters most, in real world usage. Featuring the signature Kaiba Corporation circuitry design along with the stunning KC logo on top of a pearl white base with a holographic frame, each pack contains 50 sleeves specifically designed to meet tournament regulation standards. *Product title and design subject to change.
Kaiba Corporation Card Sleeves and Deck Case, available Friday, September 28. Kaiba Corporation Card Sleeves, designed for optimal performance, feature Kaiba Corporation signature circuitry design along with the stunning KC logo on top of a pearl white base with a holographic frame. Kaiba Corporation Deck Case is similarly designed and features a Deck Divider to help Duelists keep organized so they can focus on the Duel at hand. Kaiba Corporation Card Sleeves contains 50 sleeves designed to meet regulation standards, while Kaiba Corporation Deck Case is a slimmer version of previous models, forming the perfect fit for Main, Side and Extra Decks. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
"La ultima sedinta de Consiliu General a fost aprobata o rectificare bugetara prin care s-au alocat unui numar de 14 spitale, sume suplimentare de 130 de milioane de lei. Din cei aproape 36 de milioane de lei alocati pentru spitalul de nefrologie dr. Carol Davilla - 5,9 milioane de lei sunt alocati pentru un sistem Fortigate 100D. Este vorba de un sistem de securitate pentru retelele informatice, care poate fi achizitionat pe Amazon pentru suma de 1450 de dolari. Poate ne lamuresc cei care au intocmit aceasta propunere de rectificare bugetara ce stie sa faca in plus acel echipament achizitionat de merita platit o suma de 1000 de ori mai mare decat pretul pietei. Asemenea nerusinare in jefuirea banului public trebuie sa inceteze! Doamna primar Firea, incetati sa folositi bugetul Primariei Capitalei ca pe pusculita de partid a PSD. Aceasta deturnare a fondurilor pentru sanatate este o adevarata crima, pentru care mai devreme sau mai tarziu, cei responsabili vor fi trasi la raspundere", scrie Clotilde Armand pe pagina de Facebook.Reprezentantii municipalitatii spun ca este vorba despre o eroare materiala."Este vorba despre o eroare materiala care, din pacate, nu a fost sesizata initial nici de catre managerii spitalelor care si-au asumat, sub semnatura, preturile estimate. Ulterior, aceste erori au fost identificate si corectate. Mai mult, printr-o adresa a Spitalului Clinic de Nefrologie Dr. Carol Davila, se explica foarte clar faptul ca "dintr-o eroare materiala la unele pozitii s-au trecut preturile in lei in loc de mii lei, dupa cum urmeaza : la pozitia 11 (Defibrilator portabil) din lista de investitii, apare la pret unitar suma de 80.000 lei in loc de 8,00 mii lei; la pozitia 38 (Panou radioprotectie) din lista de investitii, apare la pret unitar suma de 15.500 lei , in loc de 15,50 mii lei; La pozitia 39 (Echipament fortigate 100D) din lista de investitii, apare la pret unitar suma de 5.892 lei , in loc de 5,89 mii lei". Mai mult decat atat, echipamentul Fortigate 100D nu este un aparat medical ci un firewall care se instaleaza in reteaua de calculatoare", se arata intr-un raspuns trimis de Primaria Capitalei la solicitarea HotNews.ro.Potrivit sursei citae, eroarea materiala nu are cum sa produca efecte, pentru ca, la licitatiile care se vor efectua prin SEAP, se vor regulariza toate preturile estimate.Spitalul de Nefrologie a trimis municipalitatii o scrisoare in care cerea sa corecteze erorile materiaale inca de pe 22 septembrie. Document atasat.Totusi, dupa corectarea acestor "erori", suma alocata spitalului nu mai este de 36 milioane lei, ci cu 20 de milioane lei mai putin, iar Consiliul General al Municipiului Bucuresti trebuie sa aprobe printr-o hotarare modificarea erorilor.In replica, pe pagina de Facebook, Clotilde Armand a postat ca astfel de erori materiale nu s-ar produce daca Primaria Capitalei ar face ceea ce USB ii solicita de foarte multa vreme, sa puna la dispozitia consilierilorpropunerile de alocari financiare in fisierele originale Excel, inainte ca acestea sa fie votate in Consiliu."Dupa ce am semnalat alocarile suspecte pentru achizitiile aprobate de Consiliul General controlat de majoritatea PSD-ALDE-PMP, Primaria Capitalei a reactionat printr-un comunicat si a spus ca este vorba de o eroare materiala. Totusi, ma intreb daca doamna Firea stie ce a votat? In proiectul de rectificare votat de Consiliul General, spitalul Carol Davilla primeste suma de 35,9 milioane de lei. Conform matematicii pe care am invatat-o eu in scoala primara, fara acele achizitii bugetul alocat spitalului ar fi cu 21 de milioane de lei mai mic. Poate doamna Firea si majoritatea PSD functioneaza dupa alte reguli matematice. Oricum, astfel de erori materiale nu s-ar produce daca Primaria Capitalei ar face ceea ce-i solicitam de foarte multa vreme, sa ne puna la dispozitie spre verificare propunerile de alocari financiare in fisierele originale Excel inainte ca acestea sa fie votate in Consiliu. De asemenea, aceasta eroare nu s-ar fi produs daca majoritatea PSD-ALDE-PMP nu ar fi fost asa grabita sa voteze fara dezbatere aceste propuneri pentru a masca alocarile dubioase. Mie mi se pare ca singura eroare materiala sunteti chiar dumneavoastra, doamna Firea!", a postat Clotilde Armand pe pagina de Facebook. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Those who love literature rather take for granted the idea of a literary tradition. In part, it is a temporal map, a means of negotiating the centuries and the connections between writers. It helps to know that Shakespeare preceded Keats who preceded Wilfred Owen because lines of influence might be traced. And in part, a tradition implies a hierarchy, a canon; most conventionally, it has Shakespeare dominant, like a lonely figurine on top of a wedding cake, and all the other writers arranged on descending tiers. In recent years, the canon has been attacked for being too male, too middle class, too Euro-centric; what remains untouched is the value of a canon itself: clearly, if it did not exist, it could not be challenged.
But above all, a literary tradition implies an active historical sense of the past, living in and shaping the present. And reciprocally, a work of literature produced now infinitesimally shifts our understanding of what has gone before. You cannot value a poet alone, TS Eliot argued in his famous essay, "Tradition and the Individual Talent", "you must set him, for contrast and comparison, among the dead." Eliot did not find it preposterous "that the past should be altered by the present as much as the present is directed by the past." We might discern the ghost of Auden in the lines of a poem by James Fenton, or hear echoes of Wordsworth in Seamus Heaney, or Donne in Craig Raine. Ideally, having read our contemporaries, we return to re-read the dead poets with a fresh understanding. In a living artistic tradition, the dead never quite lie down.
Can science and science writing, a vast and half forgotten accumulation over the centuries, offer us a parallel living tradition? If it can, how do we begin to describe it? The problems of choice are equalled only by those of criteria. Literature does not improve; it simply changes. Science, on the other hand, as an intricate, self-correcting thought system, advances and refines its understanding of the thousands of objects of its study. This is how it derives it power and status. Science prefers to forget much of its past - it is constitutionally bound to a form of selective amnesia.
Is accuracy, being on the right track, or some approximation of it, the most important criterion for selection? Or is style the final arbiter? The writings of Thomas Browne or Francis Bacon or Robert Burton contain many fine passages that we now know to be factually wrong - but we would surely not wish to exclude them. The tradition must keep a place for Aristotle and Galen because of the hold they had over people's minds for centuries. We have to beware of implying a Whig history of science, a history of the lonely road that leads to the present. We need to remember the various discarded toys of science - the humours, the four elements, phlogiston, the ether and, more recently, protoplasm. Modern chemistry was born out of the futile ambitions of alchemy. Scientists who hurl themselves down blind alleys perform a service - they save everyone a great deal of trouble. They may also refine techniques along the way, and offer points of resistance, intellectual cantilevers, to their contemporaries.
I say all this somewhat dutifully, because there actually is a special pleasure to be shared, when a scientist or science writer leads us towards the light of a powerful idea which in turn opens avenues of exploration and discovery leading far into the future, binding many different phenomena in many different fields of study. Some might call this truth. It has an aesthetic value that is not to be found in Galen's confident and muddled assertions about the nature of disease. For example, there is something of the luminous quality of great literature when the 29-year-old Charles Darwin, just two years back from his Beagle voyage and 21 years before he will publish The Origin of Species, confides to a pocket note-book the first hints of a simple, beautiful idea: "Origin of man now proved ... He who understands baboon would do more towards metaphysics than Locke."
Far better, perhaps, to set aside issues of truth and inaccuracy, criteria and definitions. We know what we like when we taste it. Until recently, the purely literary tradition was never obliged to set out its terms. The work came first, and then the talk about it. In a sense, I am merely making an appeal for a grand parlour game: what might a scientific literary tradition be? Which books are going on our shelves? To propose is to ask to be challenged; already, I suspect my own suggestions are too male, too middle class, too Eurocentric.
Here is the opening of an essay - strictly speaking, a letter - on immunology.
"It is whispered in Christian Europe that the English are mad and maniacs: mad because they give their children smallpox to prevent their getting it, and maniacs because they cheerfully communicate to their children a certain and terrible illness with the object of preventing an uncertain one. The English on their side say: 'The other Europeans are cowardly and unnatural: cowardly in that they are afraid of giving a little pain to their children, and unnatural because they expose them to death from smallpox some time in the future'. To judge who is right in this dispute, here is the history of this famous inoculation which is spoken of with such horror outside England."
This is Voltaire, writing in the late 1720s during an extended visit to England, presenting a rare instance of a French intellectual impressed by English ideas. Voltaire wrote beautifully in his Lettres philosophiques - translated as Letters on England - on religion, politics, and literature. He was delighted by the degree of political freedom he found here, by the powers of parliament, the absence of religious absolutism and divine right. He attended Newton's funeral and was amazed that a humble scientist was buried like a king in Westminster Abbey. Crucially, he placed himself between a scientist and an interested public and offered superb expositions of Newton's theories of optics and gravitation, which still stand today. If you want to know what was daring and original in what Newton said, read Voltaire. He communicates the excitement of a new idea, and sets the highest standards of lucidity.
Last year, my son William completed an undergraduate biology course at UCL. When he came to study genetics, he was advised to read no papers written before 1997. One can see the point of this advice. In recent years, estimates of the size of the human genome have shrunk by a factor of three, or even four. Such is the headlong nature of contemporary science. But if we understand science merely as a band of light moving through time, advancing on the darkness, and leaving ignorant darkness behind it, always at its best only in the incandescent present, we turn our backs on an epic tale of ingenuity propelled by curiosity.
Here is a man who has ground up some lenses with infinite care and arranged them in a novel way. He has taken some water from a lake and has been studying it scrupulously, with an open mind: "I found floating therein divers earthy particles and some green streaks , spirally wound serpent-wise and orderly arranged ... Other particles had but the beginning of the foresaid streak; but all consisted of very small green globules joined together; and there were very many small green globules as well ... These animacules had divers colours, some being whitish and transparent, others with green and very glittering little scales ... And the motion of most of these animacules in the water was so swift, and so various upwards, downwards and roundabout, that 'twas wonderful to see: and I judge that some of these little creatures were above a thousand times smaller than the smallest ones I have ever yet seen ..."
This is Anton van Leeuwenhoek writing from Holland to the Royal Society in 1674, giving the first account of spirogyra, among other organisms. He sent his observations to the Royal Society over a period of 50 years, and it was no accident that he should have sent his letters there. At that time, in a small space, within a triangle formed by London, Cambridge, and Oxford, and within a couple of generations, there existed nearly all the world's science. Newton, Locke, (I think we need to include certain philosophers - Hume most certainly) Willis, Hooke, Boyle, Wren, Flamsteed, Halley - an incredible concentration of talent, and the core of our library - its classical moment, if you like.
This year marks the thirtieth anniversary of the publication of Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene. There has never been a science book quite like it. Drawing on the work of a handful of scientists, it bound together genetics and Darwinian natural selection in a creative synthesis that amazed even those few who were already familiar with the concepts. It hastened a sea change in evolutionary theory, it affected profoundly the teaching of biology, it enticed an enthusiastic younger generation into the subject, and spawned a huge literature, and eventually a new discipline - memetics. At the same time, and this is the measure of its achievement, it addressed itself without condescension to the layman. It did so provocatively, and with style.
"Individuals are not stable things, they are fleeting. Chromosomes too are shuffled into oblivion, like hands of cards soon after they are dealt. But the cards themselves survive the shuffling. The cards are the genes. The genes are not destroyed by crossing over, they merely change partners and march on. Of course they march on. That is their business. They are the replicators and we are their survival machines. When we have served our purpose, we are cast aside. But genes are the denizens of geological time: genes are forever."
It is a lovely phrase, "shuffled into oblivion", and the analogy with cards - the hand being the information, the cards themselves the genes - is apt, economical and informative: true eloquence. In the years since then, Dawkins' work might be seen as one extended invitation addressed to us non-scientists to enjoy science, to indulge ourselves at a feast of human ingenuity. Just as we can sit around the kitchen table and discuss operas, movies or novels without being composers, directors or novelists, so we can engage with this subject, one more sublime achievement of accumulated creativity. We can make it "ours" just as we might the music of Bach or Bill Evans.
A literary tradition in science would certainly help us in that, and one important contribution to the development of the idea of a living past is John Carey's Faber Book of Science, a magisterial anthology, superbly annotated. In it there is a long extract from Thomas Huxley's famous lecture "On a Piece of Chalk", delivered to a packed hall of working men in Norwich in 1868. The lecture contains the seductive sentence, "A great chapter in the history of the world is written in the chalk ..."
Huxley leads us, of course to Darwin. My particular favourite is The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, in which he makes the case for emotions as human universals, shared across cultures. He also makes an anti-racist argument for a common human nature. This is one of the first science books to make use of photographs - in this case, one of the Darwin babies bawling in a high chair. The edition by Paul Ekman is unsurpassed.
When we come to the present, our parlour game intensifies, for we are wallowing in riches. The Selfish Gene stood at the beginning of a golden age of science writing. With a fine sense of literary tradition, the physicist Steven Weinberg, in his book Dreams of a Final Theory, revisited Huxley's lecture on chalk in order to make the case for reductionism. Steven Pinker's application of Darwinian thought to Chomskyan linguistics in The Language Instinct is one of the finest celebrations of language I know. Among many other indispensable "classics", I would propose EO Wilson's The Diversity of Life on the ecological wonders of the Amazon rain forest, and on the teeming micro-organisms in a handful of soil; David Deutsch's masterly account of the Many Worlds theory in The Fabric of Reality; Jared Diamond's melding of history with biological thought in Guns, Germs and Steel; Antonio Damasio's hypnotic account of the neuroscience of the emotions in The Feeling of What Happens; Matt Ridley, unweaving the opposition of nature and nurture in Nature via Nurture; and recently, the philosopher Daniel Dennett, conscious of Hume as well as Dawkins, laying out for us the memetics of faith in Breaking the Spell
An important part of Richard Dawkins' writing and public speaking has been devoted to religion - he has refused to gloss over the innate contradictions between reason and faith. Few of us, I think, in the mid-1970s, when The Selfish Gene was published, would have thought we would be dedicating so much mental space to discussing religious faith in this new century. We thought that since it has nothing useful at all to say about cosmology, the age of the earth, the origin of species, the curing of disease or any other aspect of the physical world, it had retreated finally to where it belongs, to the privacy of individual conscience. We were wrong. A variety of sky-god worshippers with their numerous, mutually exclusive certainties (all of which we must "respect") appears to be occupying more and more of the space of public discourse. Increasingly, they seem to want to tell us how to live and think, or inflict upon us the strictures they choose to impose upon themselves. This is a passage taken from Carey's anthology, and in my ideal science library I would want it carved in some special place - perhaps over the door as you go in. Here is a man who has just been threatened with torture and indefinite imprisonment, unless he signs on the dotted line: "... having before my eyes and touching with my hands the Holy Gospels, swear that I have always believed, do believe, and with God's help will in the future believe all that is held, preached and taught by the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church ... I must altogether abandon the false opinion that the sun is the centre of the world and immovable, and that the earth is not the centre of the world and moves and that I must not hold, defend or teach in any way whatsoever, verbally and in writing the said false doctrine ..."
Or, as Orwell would have it, two plus two equals five. In 1632 Galileo might just have whispered to himself as he signed, "but it still moves" - we will never know. But his confession reminds us that open-minded rational enquiry has always had its enemies. We can take nothing for granted, for totalitarian thinking, religious or political, will always be with us in some form or other. For this reason alone, we should nurture a living scientific literary tradition.
© Ian McEwan 2006. This is an expanded version of a talk given by Ian McEwan at the London School of Economics to mark the 30th anniversary of The Selfish Gene.
A science canon
Francis Bacon Advancement of Learning
Antonio Damasio The Feeling of What Happens
Charles Darwin The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (ed Ekman)
Richard Dawkins The Selfish Gene
David Deutsch The Fabric of Reality
Jared Diamond Guns, Germs and Steel
Galileo Galilei Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences
Brian Green The Elegant Universe
David Hume A Treatise of Human Nature
Ernst Mayr This Is Biology
Steven Pinker The Language Instinct
Matt Ridley Nature Via Nurture
Voltaire Letters on England
Steven Weinberg Dreams of a Final Theory
EO Wilson The Diversity of Life | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
As a touch of crispness tints the air and the leaves begin to dazzle, it’s the perfect time to enjoy some apple pickin’ and fun autumn activities, just north of the city. Explore the Georgia Apple Festival (October 11-12 and 18-19) with its 5K race, classic auto show, parade, pageant, and all things apple-related then pick your own bag o’ deliciousness at one of these fab Georgia orchards. Picking your own apples is a great way to get some tasty fruit, exercise, sunshine, and fall fun, all at the same time. Quadruple win!
Family owned and operated since 1960, BJ Reece apples were originally sold from a shed, about half a mile west of the present location.
Location: 9131 Highway 52 East in Ellijay
When to pick: The U-pick option is from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. (last orchard ticket is sold at 5 p.m.), seven days a week from August 30 through October 31. The season for Gala, Red Delicious, and Stayman Winesap is over, but there are still plenty of Golden Delicious, Red Rome Beauty, Rome Beauty, Granny Smith, and Arkansas Black apples available through the 31st.
Bonus fun: If you’re having a cheat day, grab one of the famous fried apple pies from the newly remodeled bakery before heading out to check out the petting farm, wagon ride, apple cannons, scavenger hunt, cow milking, giant jumping pillow, pig racing, and barrel train. It’s all free. Pony rides and 1,000-foot racing zip lines cost extra.
Another family-owned farm, this orchard has been growing on the same land since 1966. A word of advice: This popular picking spot can get crowded. If the lots are full, just park near the pumpkin patch in the hayfield. Don’t forget to pick up some cider, jams, and apple breads from the farm store.
Location: 3379 Tails Creek Road in Ellijay
When to pick: The farm is open during the week, but if you want to do your own pickin’, you’ll need to turn up on a Saturday between 10:30 a.m. and 5 p.m. or a Sunday between 1 p.m. and 4 p.m.
Bonus fun: The pumpkin patch is open! Head over and choose from traditional pumpkins, Cinderella pumpkins, or ghost (white) pumpkins. Cornhole, horse shoes, picnic areas, flower picking, and a hayfield are all free. For $5, you can get a tractor ride to and from the orchard, a tour of the farm, a cup of cold cider, and an apple cider donut. Yum!
This mega-busy orchard has been in the same family for four generations. Depending on what time of year you go, you’ll find strawberries, peaches, blueberries, pumpkins, cherries, peaches, plums, nectarines, and more than 50 varieties of apples on this 300 acre farm.
Location: 8660 Blue Ridge Drive in Blue Ridge
When to pick: Pick your own on Saturdays and Sundays (August through the end of October) from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. If you’ve got any doubts about the weather, be sure to call ahead to make sure picking is available (800-361-7731). The large market and bakery are open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., every day.
Bonus fun: Fire an apple cannon, take a tractor ride, get a bite at the deli, grab your Halloween pumpkin ($6 regardless of size), then stop by the winery to taste fruit wines and hard cider.
Sure, you can pick apples at the self-proclaimed “most popular apple orchard” in the North Georgia Mountains, but you can also do just about anything else your heart desires, from playing hillbilly mini golf to wandering through the moonshine museum (see below). Allow yourself a whole day to experience the Apple Pickin’ Jubilee.
Location: 9696 Highway 52 East in Ellijay
When to pick: Every weekend in October from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Bonus fun: The number of activities offered here is somewhat overwhelming. Milk a cow, watch live pig races, visit the petting farm, take a wagon ride through the orchard, visit the Moonshine Museum, watch live bands and cloggers, head to the playground, ride a giant slide down the mountain, chow down at the bakery and ice cream parlor, drink some fresh apple cider, cruise down the hipline, jump on the giant jumping pillow, play Hillbilly Mini Golf, explore the Apple Adventure Museum, hike down the nature trails, see a live honey bee demonstration, race pedal cars, bounce on the bungee trampoline, take a mule-drawn wagon ride, and rock out to live bands. See? Overwhelming. But fun. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
EARLIER this month, Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei decided to mark the anniversary of the day in April 2011 when he was detained by police, taken to a secret location, held in solitary confinement for 81 days and interrogated, he reckons, about fifty times. Since his release last June, he has been forbidden to leave Beijing and compelled to ask police for permission whenever he wants to leave the courtyard compound where he lives and works, on the north-eastern edge of the capital. He has also been the subject of intense surveillance. He is certain that his phones and computers are tapped. And he knows of at least 15 police surveillance cameras mounted within 100 metres of his home. Spotting them is easy, as the police have helpfully chosen to decorate each camera with a bright red lantern. Not unreasonably, Mr Ai thought he was being helpful when he resolved to mark the anniversary by mounting four cameras of his own, covering nearly all his own movements, and streaming the live video footage onto the internet at a website he created, called weiweicam.com “I decided to give this, my privacy, as a gift to the people who care about me as a friend, or any people who have any curiosity about me,” he said while sitting in his garden with The Economist on a pleasant spring afternoon.
“I wanted to give this gift not only to the public, but also to the Public Security Bureau, because they are so eager to know about me. I wanted them to know what I'm doing in the office, who I meet in this garden, and how I've been sleeping,” he said.
The response from the Public Security Bureau, or China's police, to this gift was an odd one—amounting more or less to, “Oh, really, you shouldn't have!”
Less than two days after he turned his cameras on, Mr Ai recounted, police called to ask him whether he was in fact streaming his own self-surveillance video online. He answered truthfully. They asked what he would think of stopping it. He answered truthfully again, saying he thought it was a good thing, and that this was why he bothered to do it. If they really wanted him to stop, they would have to order it. They did, and he complied. The cameras are off and the website now displays only a blank white page.
It would seem a thoroughly Orwellian absurdity that police could put him under near-total surveillance while forbidding him from surveilling himself. Asked about this, Mr Ai thought for a moment before saying, “Yes, Orwell. Or maybe Kafka.”
Indeed, that description—part Orwellian and part Kafkaesque—applies to much of Mr Ai's experience over the past year. While it is always the police who deal with him (and always very politely, he is quick to add), he has no idea who in the government is handling his case. “Nobody even knows. That's so beautiful!” the artist said.
This, he said, is how the Chinese regime works. “It's there, but it's not there. It's not there, but it's there. So freedom, anyone who pushes extra, just a little bit further, is always dangerous for the people who want to have absolute control,” he said.
His detention came after many previous run-ins with the authorities over his increasingly bold and outspoken statements about China's suppression of expression and individuality. He also drew official attention with a high-profile campaign to publicise the role of corruption and shoddy school construction that led to the deaths of thousands of children in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake.
Only after his detention last year, and the search of his house and the interrogation of many of his friends, colleagues and relatives, did authorities announce that his legal problem had to do with tax irregularities.
But Mr Ai said that his interrogations never touched on the issue of taxes. He has never been formally charged, with tax violations or anything else.
“They told the whole world it's my tax problem, but they told me it's not a tax problem, so I shouldn't even argue about this,” he said.
His release last year came on the condition that he not leave Beijing, submit for one year to his bizarre form of semi-house arrest, and refrain from tweeting, writing, or meeting with foreigners and journalists. He readily acknowledges that he has violated these promises, and his meeting with The Economist was only one of many such instances. In part he blames his lack of self-discipline: “C'mon, I can't even lose weight!” he said. And indeed, he has largely reverted to the portly form he had lost during his 81 days of detention.
But he also makes a principled case for breaking his promises. “I feel sorry, because this is my life and I have to do this and that to explain my situation, especially after the kind of dirt they have put on me. This is the case I have to make about writing and talking to the press.”
He also believes that allowing people like him to express themselves would be good for China.
“The individual under this kind of life, with no rights, has absolutely no power in this land,” he said. “How can they even ask you for creativity? Or imagination, or courage or passion?”
Excellent questions all, and if Chinese police commissars keep an eye on their own video feeds of Mr Ai's activities, they may just glimpse some answers. They might even think about asking him to turn his own cameras back on. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Hawaii Department of Education officials are hoping a new statewide facilities master plan will persuade lawmakers to provide more money for maintaining and renovating aging public schools and building new facilities.
Extensive and wide-ranging, the master plan lays out an exhaustive list of 1,300 desired capital improvement projects across all 261 DOE campuses.
It was published late last week on a website managed by Jacobs Engineering Group, an outside firm commissioned by the DOE to conduct the study.
The estimated total price tag for “top priority” projects, such as additional classroom space to account for overcrowding or basic repair and maintenance to make schools safer, is $7 billion, according to the 309-page report. That figure rises to $11 billion when accounting for all levels of priorities.
Under the DOE’s current approximately $300 million annual CIP allocation from the Legislature, those “Priority 1” projects — which include the “highest, non-negotiable needs” identified in each area of Hawaii — would take 23 years to address.
Cory Lum/Civil Beat
“This is the first time the state Department of Education has a facility master plan – how are we going to invest in the important and often small amounts of CIP funding we get,” said Assistant Superintendent Dann Carlson, who is in charge of facilities for DOE.
“It also says, if we’re only to get $300 million for the next 10 years, this is what we can expect to get done, but the reality is we have a lot of priorities the communities have prioritized. We’re not going to be able to accomplish all that if we’re only getting $300 million a year.”
A Large List Of Needs
The master plan is the culmination of a years-long contract Jacobs had with the DOE to complete a statewide facilities assessment, evaluate how the needs match up with education standards and determine the best process to address those needs.
That contract was initially estimated to cost $4.6 million in 2014, but rose to $7.9 million as the scope was broadened from developing an Oahu schools’ master plan to a statewide assessment, according to contracts between DOE and Jacobs.
The purpose of the master plan is to provide a “10-year roadmap” for school officials to consider how it wants to prioritize capital improvement projects and actually deliver on them.
“The goal of this facility master plan is simple: a quality school for every child, regardless of where they live,” the report states.
The categories for these capital improvement projects include capacity and instructional needs, such as building more classrooms that support STEM, visual arts, career and technical education. They also cover meeting gender equity and accessibility requirements, as well as basic repair and maintenance, starkly captured in anonymous comments sprinkled throughout the report.
“Main building is sinking in certain areas. I have to put my legs around the desk to stay still because my chair slides off,” the principal of Naalehu Elementary on Big Island, whose name is not included in the report, is quoted as saying.
The proposed projects include meeting basic needs such as air-conditioning for classrooms. But there are also highly ambitious proposals like a $20 million to $40 million construction project at Central Oahu’s Mililani Uka Elementary, complete with a new three-story classroom building, cafeteria, kitchen and covered multi-purpose area.
Another major proposal is a $40 million to $75 million plan for combining Jarrett Middle School with Palolo Elementary into a pre-K through 8 school, while turning the Palolo school building into a “Honolulu Professional Development Center.”
DOE officials emphasize that the wish list was compiled through extensive community engagement.
The effort involved 500 people, including parents, students, teachers, principals and administrators around the state. There were 100 workshops held during the past year culminating in a two day “summit” on Oahu in February to discuss goals and objectives, according to the report.
Inequitable Spending
DOE faces complicated challenges.
Many of its buildings are worn and aging — DOE facilities, which span 20 million square feet of space across the state, average 60 years in age. Changing migration patterns around the state have contributed to schools that are both over- and under-capacity. And a politicized system of “legislative add-on” line item projects often bump other projects off the DOE capital improvements priority list, the report notes.
“Without a strategic plan, the result has been sustained inequitable allocation of public resources, with some students benefitting at the expense of others who are under-represented,” the plan states.
There are schools in “high-growth areas” that are short of seats for up to 12,000 students. Other areas shrinking in population have “more than 22,000 surplus capacity for students that are no longer there,” the report notes.
Cory Lum/Civil Beat
The more open question is how the facilities master plan will drive DOE decisions moving forward.
There’s an existing DOE “priority list” for CIP projects and this plan is just a “starting point” to steer it in certain directions, Carlson said.
“It’s a valuable resource we can draw from and look at in making our decisions for planning as we go forward,” said John Chung, public works administrator for the DOE.
Where’s The Funding?
There are big questions about where the funding will come from. The plan recommends finding new funding sources and models, including issuing asset revenue bonds, or raising the sales tax, tourism tax or property tax for education.
The current funding framework is “insufficient to deliver top statewide priorities within a reasonable timeframe,” the plan says.
But the 10-year plan will take “a fundamental change of political institutions” that involves a “broad legislative information campaign and courageous leadership from HIDOE, Board of Education and legislature,” the report continues.
The DOE in the 2019 fiscal year requested $783 million for its CIP budget. The Legislature approved $281 million.
It’s not clear whether the existence of this new facility master plan will sway lawmakers in appropriating more down the road.
Senate Ways and Means Committee Chair Donovan Dela Cruz said the DOE needs to come up with “a portfolio of ways” to fund projects and that the Legislature needs to balance the school system’s needs with other needs throughout the state.
“I don’t think the Legislature, or the governor or budget director will give up their fiduciary responsibility and just take whatever (figure) the board (of education) sends to the Legislature verbatim,” he said.
“There’s so many different needs statewide. There has to be a portfolio of ways to pay for these improvements, even new facilities.” | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Emmy Insider The Emmy race is here! Vulture is taking a close look at the nominees until voting closes on August 29. Anna Konkle and Maya Erskine in PEN15. Photo: Alex Lombardi/Hulu
It’s very teenage to declare — all hyperbole, zero irony — that your life is about to change forever. Endless hours are devoted to hyping yourself up for these supposedly major moments, getting worked into a frenzy for something that often turns out to be a nonevent: a party that’s a bust, a kiss that feels like nothing. And then the stuff that actually, irrevocably changes your life comes in some startling way, from an unexpected angle, and is all the more scarring because of it.
Hulu’s PEN15, which chronicles the 2000s-era best friendship of Anna Kone and Maya Ishii-Peters (played by 32-year-old co-creators Anna Konkle and Maya Erskine), is both a totally absurd and excruciatingly realistic depiction of that stretch of adolescence. I know as many millennial friends who’ve devoured it, delighting in its period accuracy — the high-rise thongs whale-tailing out of low-rise jeans! The eerr-EERRAH-erNERRGH sounds of dial-up internet! — as those who were too physically pained by memories of full-body awkwardness to make it through the first episode.
Konkle and Erskine, along with writer Stacy Osei-Kuffour, are nominated for an Emmy for outstanding writing for a comedy series, PEN15’s first nod in a stacked category that also includes Barry, Fleabag, The Good Place, Russian Doll, and Veep. The honored episode is “Anna Ishii-Peters,” the second-to-last installment of the season. It’s not quite a bottle episode, but it has that same intensity and claustrophobia, as what starts as a best friends’ shared fantasy — back-to-back sleepovers on a school night while Anna’s parents are away — devolves into disaster. Both girls, unbeknownst to each other, are going through something seismic and life-altering: Anna’s parents have left for a “couples’ retreat” that will end in their decision to get a divorce, and Maya is getting her period for the first time.
“I would say from the beginning, when we were writing it, we knew it would be slightly dramatic and there would be a horror element,” Erskine told Vulture. Tension builds and builds and builds, and then “it turns into this horror thriller.” Below, Erskine and Konkle break down how they plotted out the episode’s emotional beats, scene by scene.
The Origin of ‘Anna Ishii-Peters’
Photo: Hulu
The premise of the episode came from pairing a memory of Konkle’s with one of Erskine’s. Konkle, whose parents divorced when she was the same age as her PEN15 character, remembered staying at her best friend’s house all the time. “I fantasized about turning into that second daughter in their family,” Konkle said.
As for Erskine, “I felt very jealous of the connection my best childhood friend had with my mom.”
“There was something on both sides of that experience, for the girl whose house it is and the girl visiting the house,” Erskine said. “How that can be the best thing in the world for the first 24 hours, how it can quickly devolve into jealousy, invasion of privacy, losing boundaries, and how that can erupt into a big fight.”
To get to that massive blowup, they knew they needed to start with heightened, almost smothering intimacy. Anna and Maya are so physically and psychically close to each other in the episode that, for long stretches of time, they’re either wearing identical outfits or stretching out a single T-shirt they’ve squeezed into together. The sleepover starts with a montage set to the Cranberries’ “Dreams,” with Anna and Maya basking in their uninhibited togetherness. They’re all over each other in that way of girls at that age, before a late-teenage intermission of self-consciousness makes goofy, guileless touching feel awkward.
“We actually filmed a lot more in the montage sequence of joy,” Erskine said, and in the original writing, it was “a lot wackier.” In editing, though, after they saw co-creator Sam Zvibleman’s direction, “it became a lot more emotional. [We] realized, Oh, this is a love story! It’s pure joy, pure unabashed love for each other. As an adult, it’s so rare that you get to express that.”
Creating a ‘Twisted Love Triangle’
Photo: Hulu
“I avoided my house when my parents were fighting,” Konkle said. “I went to my friend’s house. And you can’t help but fantasize about, What if I was part of this family?” In the episode, Anna’s stay at the Ishii-Peters residence is a chance to cosplay as the kid in “this more traditional family unit,” Konkle said, where she can have “normal” experiences: an older brother to tease, a sister to play with, and parents who get along.
“We wanted to play with Anna not having a sibling,” Erskine said. “What’s that like, when you’re sleeping over? It’s almost sexy! It’s almost exciting for Anna to be like, Let’s hang out with your brother. For Maya, that’s every other day. So the jealousy starts to form there. Like, Anna is trying to hang with my brother over me.”
Does Anna lean into her life with the Ishii-Peters as hard as she does because she knows, on some level, that her parents are about to divorce? “At that age, it’s almost so overwhelming, what is happening for Anna at home, that I don’t know if she can put words to it yet,” Konkle said. “On some subconscious level, she knows what is going to happen with her parents. [It’s] that feeling of, Is that other shoe going to drop? There was always a paranoia.” Still, while Anna has “been privy to their fighting,” the divorce bomb is meant to be a shock.
Maya doesn’t have any of this context, though, and the gusto with which Anna ingratiates herself into the Ishii-Peters family leaves Maya feeling adrift and replaced. This is both crushing and hilarious, as Maya’s efforts to elbow her way back into the action get increasingly desperate. (When her brother teases Anna for farting, Maya cries out, “I HAVE A BIG HOLE IN MY BUTT. I POOP A LOT OUT OF IT. YOU GUYS JUST DON’T REALIZE IT. I’M THE SMELLIEST SHIT THERE EVER WAS.”)
During a family-dinner scene, Erskine said, “it starts to turn sour.” Maya’s dad, Fred, compliments Anna’s singing skills, which leads to the two of them scatting together — truly the most embarrassing form of singing, even when done well — and just as they’re vibing, Maya forces her way in and word-vomits some aggressive scatting of her own that goes totally off the rails. “It starts to turn a little into a horror movie at that point.”
Woven through all of this are little moments of Yuki, Maya’s mom (played by Erskine’s real mother, Mutsuko Erskine), tending to Anna. Yuki has clocked that Anna needs a maternal figure and is eager to provide the care she senses Anna isn’t getting at home. But from Maya’s perspective, her mom is being nicer to her friend that she is to her own kid: bandaging a finger that Anna stapled (on purpose, for attention), running Anna a bath, eventually brushing Anna’s hair just before the sleepover comes to its emotionally violent conclusion.
Maya is feeling so abandoned and replaced that she briefly hallucinates Anna with long dark hair. That is, as Maya 2.0., the daughter who is actually worthy of her mother’s affection. For that shot, the first wig Konkle tried on was a bowl cut, just like Maya’s. “But she looked too much like Lord Farquad from Shrek,” Erskine said, so they swapped in a long wig instead. “Which is so perfect! Because Maya doesn’t even need brushing anymore, because her hair is a fucking one-inch mop. It was also symbolizing this other part of innocence and beauty that she doesn’t have, but Anna does have.”
“There was always that crescendo with the wig, and that was always intended to be kind of eerie,” Konkle said. “It just started to go in that direction, in the writing, and then Sam took it to another level.”
“It’s this love story between Anna, the mom, and Maya. A love triangle,” Erskine said. “Which is very twisted.”
There Will Be ‘Clumpy’ Blood
Photo: Hulu
Konkle and Erskine knew they wanted Maya to get her period “at the climax of the season,” since it’s “literally a loss of childhood,” Konkle said. “It was a good place to continue the story lines we’d begun of Maya’s loss of innocence and feeling like she was getting away from her family.”
By the end of the episode, Maya is feeling so displaced and enraged that she lashes out at Anna, telling her to “go back to your own fucking family.” Yuki, as you might expect, is dismayed by her daughter’s behavior and chastizes her for her immaturity: “You’re not a little girl anymore.” Maya bolts to the bathroom, where she discovers that she’s just gotten her first period.
This might seem too on-the-nose, even for a fictional comedy, except for the fact that it actually did happen to Erskine.
“I was very close with my mom,” Erskine said. “I’d sleep in the same bed as her. One night we had a fight and she was like, ‘You need to sleep in your own bed. You’re not a little girl anymore.’”
Erskine was “crushed,” she remembered. “It felt like my first heartbreak. Someone telling me, ‘You need to be on your own now.’ And the next morning, I woke up and got my period.”
“It was devastating,” she went on. “I was singing, by myself, in the alleyway, a sad, dramatic, [Britney Spears voice] “I’m not a giiiiirl,” crying about it to myself.”
Perhaps some girls, like Judy Blume heroines, might brag about having their periods and being closer to adulthood than their peers. But not Erskine. “I lied about it for a year to everyone. I felt so much shame. Looking back now in hindsight, it was traumatizing. It was coming on the heels of being told I’m not a little girl anymore, which signified, You don’t love me as much. It weirdly instilled in me: When you’re a little girl you’re able to be loved by your parents, but when you’re a woman, you get sent to an island to stuff toilet paper up your crotches, and you’re left to bleed and die there.”
When Konkle learned about Erskine’s real-life experience, “I was just so blown away by that, and by your ability to look at it as clearly as you did, which then allows us to write about it. If you don’t mine for it at all, there’s nothing to write.”
“And,” she added, “it was really exciting to see the blood!” (Erskine, delighted: “It’s CLUMPY.”)
In a world of pad commercials that suggest period blood is the smooth, translucent blue of laundry detergent, Erskine and Konkle were thrilled “to be like, Let’s just see it,” Konkle said. “It didn’t feel gratuitous to me. It felt like part of the story.”
That ‘Especially Devastating’ Ending
Building to the episode’s conclusion was a challenge, Konkle and Erskine said. How could they show, “quickly and authentically,” the way that Yuki’s treatment of Anna led to Maya’s explosion? And how could they do it without making Maya seem like a villain?
The solution came in splitting the characters up, just as they reached their most vulnerable moments. While Maya is shouting at Anna to get out, Anna’s parents arrive. They pick her up, drive her home, and tell her they’re getting a divorce. During the shooting of that scene when Anna’s parents break the news, Erskine said, “I didn’t even want to be near set. It felt very heightened emotionally. All of our senses were so acute.” When she watched it back, for the first time in making the show, Erskine didn’t have any notes or suggestions. “It was so perfect. It could have easily become this saccharine scene, and it was just more than I could ever want.”
The episode then jumps back into the Ishii-Peters home, where Maya sobs in her mother’s lap while her mom strokes her back and sings “an old Japanese folk lullaby.” The scene is quite tender and moving, but Erskine remembers filming differently: “Having to do an emotional scene with my mom just made me angry. I was just like, You’re touching me too much.”
By the time Anna calls Maya to tell her what happened, Maya has fallen asleep in bed next to her mom. So Anna calls up Heather, a popular girl and fellow daughter of divorce, deepening the rift between the once-inseparable best friends. The episode ends with both Anna and Maya dealing privately with their heartache, yearning for but also making do without the one person they usually rely on the most.
“That’s really heavy stuff, and it’s the first age you start dealing with those feelings in a more intense way,” Konkle said. “To not have your friend by your side for that, we thought would be especially devastating.” | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — University of Minnesota basketball standout Reggie Lynch is facing suspension until at least 2020 for his alleged role in a sexual misconduct incident.
Lynch also faces a complete ban from the campus as well. The school began investigating Lynch last fall after a woman filed a complaint, saying he assaulted her in his dorm room in April of 2016.
Sources told WCCO that two women came forward with accusations regarding Lynch and his conduct over the past year, but only one woman went through with the University’s investigation process.
A third woman came forward, accusing Reggie Lynch of raping her, in 2016. He was never criminally charged and was cleared by the University.
Victim tells me she does not wish to comment on whether or not she will pursue criminal charges against Lynch @WCCO #lynch #gophers — Mary McGuire (@mcguirereports) January 5, 2018
That source also claims they sat down with Gophers Athletics officials in early 2017 and told them, on behalf of the victims, about the experiences with Lynch. They say those Gophers Athletics officials brushed aside the complaint and allowed Lynch to continue playing.
NEW: Local activist says there are more Reggie Lynch victims. Star @GopherMBB player facing suspension after allegations of sexual misconduct @WCCO https://t.co/GnTEeJCSXZ — Mary McGuire (@mcguirereports) January 5, 2018
This is not the first time Lynch has been accused of sexual misconduct. In 2016, he was arrested on suspicion of raping a 19-year-old woman. He did not face criminal charges, but was suspended from the team while the incident was investigated.
Lynch can appeal the current suspension he faces, which will be effective Jan. 9, 2018 and will last until at least Aug. 1, 2020.
If Lynch appeals the findings, all sanctions are essentially paused pending the outcome of that appeal. The sanctions will only go into effect once the student either exhausts their appeals or elects not to make an appeal and accepts the recommended sanctions.
Lynch is a native of Edina, Minnesota. He came to the U from the Illinois State University after playing for two seasons there. Last season, he was named the Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year.
Athletic Director Mark Coyle and head coach Richard Pitino addressed Lynch’s suspension Friday. Coyle said privacy laws prevent him from going into specifics about the allegations, but acknowledged Lynch will not play in Saturday’s game. Lynch is suspended from athletic competition, but still has access to team practices, team medical services, academic support and other team services.
“Reggie is a member of our basketball team,” Coyle said.
Coyle said student athletes receive an average of seven hours training on sexual misconduct and other topics throughout the year. He stressed that the university has procedures and processes in place that are followed for every student athlete involved in an incident like this.
“People should trust the procedures we have in place,” Coyle said. “We have procedures that have been reviewed by outside agencies. We have procedures that people have focused on and worked on and have followed.”
Pitino said he’s spoken to Lynch about the accusations, but wouldn’t get into specifics. He said he has “no idea to predict” if Lynch will play for the Gophers again.
Pitino also said the Gophers “never saw any red flags leading up to this” when recruiting Lynch.
Attorney Lee Hutton told WCCO Lynch will appeal his suspension.
Abby Honold is an advocate for victims of sexual assault, and alumna of the University of Minnesota.
“I think, at a minimum, Gopher Athletics should have taken Reggie off the team a while ago. I know that they were aware of these allegations. I know they were aware of the report,” she said.
Honold feels officials are talking a good game, but doing little to back up what they preach.
“I do think when it came to things like training and education that they were really on board with that,” she said. “But it was harder to get across when I was talking about accountability, because no matter how much training, how much education you have, if there is no accountability when you break those rules, what incentive is there to go by them? And I really brought up Reggie as an example of that.” | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Follow CBSMIAMI.COM: Facebook | Twitter
MIAMI (CBSMiami) — President Donald Trump started the day on Twitter saying he feels total and complete vindication after his former FBI director’s congressional testimony then used a Rose Garden news conference to elaborate – saying he’d be willing to testify under oath “100%.”
Trump faced the media at a joint news conference with his Romanian counterpart – ready for questions about fired FBI Director James Comey.
“No collusion. No obstruction. He’s a leaker,” said Trump when asked about Comey.
On Thursday, Comey revealed he gave notes about his conversations with the president to a friend to give to a reporter.
Trump’s personal attorney plans to file a complaint with the Justice Department and Senate Intelligence Committee next week, taking issue with Comey handing off notes about private conversations with the president.
Related: Comey: Trump Is A Liar Who Can’t Be Trusted
Comey explained to lawmakers why he wrote the detailed memos.
“I was honestly concerned he might lie about the nature of our meeting so I thought it really important to document,” said Comey on Thursday.
Comey also testified he took the suggestion that he “let go” the investigation into former national security adviser Mike Flynn as an order from the president.
“I think there is no question he abused power – whether obstructed justice remains for the facts to come forward – and that’s what we want are the facts,” said House Minority Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).
Related: “President Never Told Comey ‘I Need Loyalty'”: Trump Atty On Testimony
Two congressional committees and special counsel Robert Mueller continue to investigate Russian meddling in the 2016 election and possible ties between Trump associates and Moscow.
The president’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner is expected to speak to the Senate Intelligence Committee in the coming weeks.
A former Assistant U.S. Attorney told CBS News that the leaked memo was unclassified which means Comey could leak it legally. He also believes there is a good chance the Russia investigation may still be unresolved by the mid-term elections. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Iran has signalled that Canada's Transportation Safety Board (TSB) will play a more active role than international rules require in the investigation of the Iranian military's shooting down of a Ukrainian airliner last week, according to the agency's head, Kathy Fox.
A missile fired by Iran brought down the Ukrainian airlines plane on January 8 killing all 176 on board, including 57 Canadians. The incident, which Tehran has said was unintentional, came just hours after Iran fired missiles at two Iraqi bases housing US soldiers in retaliation for the US drone-strike killing of Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani last week.
More:
"In this investigation - and I want to be clear about this - we do not yet fully know what the scope of our role will be," Fox said in a news conference on Monday in Ottowa.
She added that "there have been early signs that Iran is allowing the TSB to play a more active role than normally permitted", including by inviting its investigators to participate in downloading and analysing the data in the cockpit voice and flight data recorders "whenever and wherever that takes place".
Canada has been invited to participate in the probe because a large number of its citizens were involved, but according to international rules, Iran leads the investigation.
Fox added that Canada's investigation will pose questions that will be "very uncomfortable" for Iran.
One of the central questions is why Iran did not shut down the airspace around Tehran given the tensions created by Iran's missile attack on the Iraqi bases earlier in the day, the TSB's director of investigations, Natacha Van Themsche, said during the press briefing.
On Sunday, the TSB said it had obtained visas for two of its investigators to travel to Iran.
A second team of investigators who specialise in aircraft recorder download and analysis will be deployed once TSB confirms where and when that activity would take place, the agency said.
Van Themsche added that Iran has said it will allow the Canadian investigators to examine the remains of the wreckage. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
The group said it was willing to accept the consequences. A senior Peruvian official told The Associated Press on Tuesday evening that his government would seek criminal charges against Greenpeace activists who allegedly damaged the lines by leaving footprints in the adjacent desert. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
what if all the discordians are in /r/conspiracy and the conspiracists all lurk /r/discordian
224 shares | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
The bipartisan panel created to investigate the roots of the financial crisis voted Wednesday to delay the Dec. 15 publication of their report despite Republican opposition, foreshadowing disagreements that are sure to arise when the commission attempts to reach a consensus on the causes of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.
The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission's 6-to-3 vote came after the panel's four Republicans argued privately against the decision to ignore the statutory deadline set by Congress. One of the Republicans, former Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Holtz-Eakin, was unable to participate in the vote, though he made his dissent known. The report will now be released in January.
The move comes on the heels of revelations that the nation's biggest mortgage companies employed possibly-fraudulent tactics in trying to foreclose on distressed homeowners. The recent disclosures by the likes of Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Ally Financial that they used flawed documentation practices sparked inquiries by all 50 state attorneys general, as well as federal prosecutors and federal regulators, among others. Those investigations are ongoing.
The crisis commission is also looking into the matter, said Phil Angelides, the panel's Democratic chairman. The Republicans on the panel are resisting further inquiries, according to people familiar with the matter. Angelides said in an interview that "there are very powerful interests" seeking to undermine the panel's investigation.
"People who have trillions of dollars at stake who have been watching our efforts closely," Angelides said. "There have been efforts throughout the year to undermine me and my fellow commissioners."
Among other things, Angelides' panel is probing the documentation practices that federal watchdogs say may be emblematic of the entire mortgage securitization chain, in which lenders may have used bogus documents when originating mortgages and passed them through to other entities before they were sold to investors, ignoring basic due diligence along the way. The discovery of the use of "robo-signers" -- employees whose sole job was to rubber-stamp documents without actually reading them or verifying their contents -- "may have concealed much deeper problems in the mortgage market," the Congressional Oversight Panel reported Tuesday.
Large lenders and Wall Street banks may be on the hook for hundreds of billions of dollars in unexpected losses, threatening to undermine "the very financial stability that the Troubled Asset Relief Program was designed to protect," the COP report noted.
The information the crisis commission has gathered from its numerous public hearings has added fuel to that fire.
During an April hearing, the panel heard from Richard Bowen, former chief underwriter for Citigroup's consumer-lending unit, who said he discovered in mid-2006 that more than 60 percent of mortgages the bank bought from other firms and sold to investors were "defective." Investors were not informed, however.
In September, the former president of the nation's leading home-loan due-diligence firm testified that as many as 28 percent of mortgages given to borrowers with poor credit that the firm examined for Wall Street banks failed to meet basic underwriting standards, and that nearly half of them were likely sold to investors anyway. Keith Johnson, formerly of Clayton Holdings, said he was unaware of any disclosure to unwitting investors by the banks.
Together, the testimony and accompanying data could bolster pension funds and other investors in their pursuit to force Wall Street banks to buy back the bogus mortgages they peddled. Investors are trying to use the rights prescribed in the agreements from their initial purchases of the mortgage-linked securities.
Analysts from Compass Point Research and Trading LLC pegged potential losses for 11 global banks to reach $179.2 billion, the Washington-based firm said in an Aug. 17 report.
The crisis panel, though, was expected to be wrapping up its report on the crisis. The law that created the commission says: "On December 15, 2010, the commission shall submit to the President and to the Congress a report containing the findings and conclusions of the commission on the causes of the current financial and economic crisis in the United States."
In a statement, the four Republicans on the panel -- Holtz-Eakin, Vice Chairman Bill Thomas, Keith Hennessey and Peter Wallison -- said that the commission is "statutorily required to deliver the report on December 15." They added that the panel "has had over a year to complete the report" and that the delay was due to a need to "accommodate the publication of a book-length document."
The FCIC hopes to publish a book on its findings, similar to the national best-seller that came from the work of the 9/11 Commission. The crisis panel recently switched publishers.
The law allows the panel an additional 60 days "for the purpose of concluding the activities of the commission ... and disseminating the final report." It's under that additional 60-day authority that Angelides and his fellow Democrats are using to justify their delay by up to six weeks. The panel's authority formally ends Feb. 13.
To date, the commission has interviewed more than 700 people, examined hundreds of thousands of documents and held 19 days of public hearings, Angelides wrote in a Wednesday letter to President Barack Obama.
In an interview, Angelides said his team of investigators continue to pursue leads in their "ongoing investigation." He added that they're also interviewing new witnesses, in addition to circling back to old ones, indicating that the panel continues to push its investigation further.
Congress tasked the panel to deliver its findings on 22 distinct areas, ranging from monetary policy to accounting rules and international capital flows. They also include the role of "fraud and abuse in the financial sector, including fraud and abuse towards consumers in the mortgage sector"; "lending practices and securitization"; and "the quality of due diligence undertaken by financial institutions."
All three of those areas would seem to include the current mortgage and foreclosure documentation issues roiling big banks and the financial sector.
However, there may be complications in trying to advance its investigation. Because the law says that the commission's findings must be sent to the President by Dec. 15, there are open questions regarding the validity of further investigative actions beyond that date, including issuing subpoenas, people familiar with the crisis panel's efforts said. For example, a firm may have grounds to resist the subpoena, these people said.
Hennessey wrote that a vote to delay the report "would violate the law, or at a minimum would be inconsistent with the law," according to a post on his blog. "The FCIC is a creation of a law, and we must be governed by that law whether we commissioners like it or not," he wrote.
The crisis panel isn't the first to unilaterally delay the release of its congressionally-mandated report. The Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism blew past its deadline, as did the National Bipartisan Commission on the Future of Medicare and the Commission on Affordable Housing and Health Care Facility Needs in the 21st Century.
Those panels, however, didn't have subpoena authority. And their reports were largely advisory. The FCIC can make criminal referrals to the Department of Justice.
Like the FCIC, the 9/11 Commission also had substantial powers, and it, too, extended its own deadline. However, the 9/11 panel got its extension from an act of Congress.
Angelides said the extra time will be critical for the panel's investigation and subsequent report.
In a statement, the spokesman for Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd said the Connecticut Democrat supports the panel's investigation, and was not opposed to the report's delay.
Dodd indicated that a "brief delay to allow the commission to finalize and prepare a more thorough report was not unreasonable," spokesman Sean Oblack wrote in an email. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
SPLAIN DAT SHIT
I was massively into Industrial Metal when it started. The Mind is a Terrible thing to Taste by Ministry, Streetcleaner by Godflesh, Cleansing by Prong and some KMFDM and White Zombie. Also loved it even when it got bigger with stuff like Wisconsin Death Trip by Static-X, Demanufacture by Fear Factory and City by Strapping Young Lad.
Wonder How Vinyl would like Drone… | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
The absolute #1 question in the Church, according to polls I may or may not have actually conducted, is “Why do the 16 year old priests have to squish the bread so hard when they’re ripping up the sacrament?” It gives the whole thing a very distracting, mashed and rubber-like consistency.
If I may, I’d like to suggest a solution. Give everyone in the congregation their own entire slice of bread. Two if it’s thin sliced and a fast Sunday. We would take it right out of the bag ourselves, of course. The only possible squishing then would be in the shopping cart under a bag of apples. Such damage would taste a lot less teenage-fingery. I feel like I could cope with that better.
A close second most-asked question, of course, pertains to tithing discounts. I have it on good authority that we all get one of those on our baptism anniversary. (I don’t have that on any authority.)
do the modern prophets actually see Jesus Christ? You want to know, right? Everyone does, really. It doesn’t matter though. I mean it really shouldn’t matter to a testimony. If your testimony hinges totally on someone else’s spiritual experiences, you may want to add to it. The third-most asked question, according to several internets, isYou want to know, right? Everyone does, really. It doesn’t matter though. I mean it really shouldn’t matter to a testimony. If your testimony hinges totally on someone else’s spiritual experiences, you may want to add to it.
VAST) majority have seen Him. Some have written about the experience themselves. Some have kept it sacred and close to the chest – telling only family members. Some of those family members, thankfully, didn’t keep it as close to their chest. Below is a list. I do not believe it has every sighting of every prophet. But it does show that heaven plays a very active role in our top tiers. Heaven plays big roles in all the other tiers too, but that’s for another post. I do have good news for you though. Of the 17 prophets that have presided since the restoration of God’s Church, a vast (and I mean) majorityseen Him. Some have written about the experience themselves. Some have kept it sacred and close to the chest – telling only family members. Some of those family members, thankfully, didn’t keep it as close tochest. Below is a list. I do not believe it has every sighting of every prophet. But it does show that heaven plays a very active role in our top tiers. Heaven plays big roles in all the other tiers too, but that’s for another post.
Below is every single prophet in chronological order along with whether there’s any recording of them seeing Jesus Christ. Excerpts from some of their experiences are included where they could be:
Joseph Smith - (Seen Him!) 1)
Joseph Smith, putting it bluntly, saw the Father and Son a lot. Listing the sacred grove experience would be easy. It’s not even included in the numbers listed below. For the sake of keeping things a bit more interesting - here’s a lesser-known example:
“In addition to the four appearances of the Father and Son during this five-year span (1831-36), historical sources reveal that Joseph Smith saw Jesus Christ separately on four occasions. Thirteen-year-old Mary Elizabeth Rollins was present when one of these visitations transpired. She remembered the event occurring in 1831, at a meeting of Saints held at the Isaac Morley farm, where the Prophet was the main speaker. She recalled Joseph speaking very solemnly during the meeting. “All at once his countenance changed and he stood mute,” Rollins recounted. “Those who looked at him . . . said there was a search light within him, over every part of his body. I never saw anything like in on the earth. I could not take my eyes off of him. He got so white that anyone who saw him would have thought he was transparent. I . . . thought I could almost see the bones through the flesh.” The Prophet stood silent for several minutes before he asked those present if they knew who had been in their midst. Martin Harris told them it was the Savior, to which the Prophet responded that God had revealed that truth to Martin. He then said, “Brothers and Sisters, . . . the Savior has been here this night and I want to tell you to remember it. There is a vail [sic] over your eyes for you could not endure to look upon Him.”” ( https://devotional.byuh.edu/node/160 )
Notice Joseph started to glow when this vision occurred. We’ve talked about that phenomenon before
2) Brigham Young - (Seen Him!)
Brigham Young wrongfully has a rep for not being as spiritually in-tune as JS. That, I boldly say, is not true. Did you know he once commanded a sea storm to calm in a very Biblical manner? Did you know that after the martyrdom he was caught up into ‘eternity’ and met with Joseph Smith? You can read more about all that here
“I have had many revelations, I have seen and heard for myself.” But that’s pretty vague. He may not like to brag, but his good friend Heber C. Kimball wasn’t afraid to bolster faith in the prophet: But this, specifically, is about Brigham Young Seeing Christ. In his own words he said
“You need not ask who administer to brother Brigham; for I will tell you: They are Moses and Aaron, Elijah, Jesus, Peter, James, and John, brother Joseph, Michael the Archangel, and the hosts of the righteous behind the veil: they are all engaged in this great work.” ( http://ogdenkraut.com/?page_id=358 )
3) John Taylor - (Seen Him!)
John Taylor’s experience comes to us via Spencer W. Kimball. It is simple and straight forward:
“‘I know that Jesus Christ lives,’ said John Taylor, my predecessor, ‘for I have seen him.’ I bear this testimony to you brethren in the name of Jesus Christ.” (“Strengthening the Family—the Basic Unit of Society,” Ensign, May 1978, 48) .
It’s also President Kimball talking about what he himself has seen. More on that later. We’re still way back in the 1800s here…
Wilford Woodruff - (Seen Him!) 4)
Wilford Woodruff had a vision of the Salt Lake Temple around 50 years before it was built . He was in Boston at the time. He became almost obsessed with finishing it. It makes sense, then, that his experience with the Savior happened at it’s long prophesied dedication:
“One brother in attendance at the dedication of the Salt Lake Temple reported, “President Wilford Woodruff told some of the saints that our Savior had appeared unto him in the east room in the Holy of Holies, and [Jesus] told him that he had accepted of the Temple and of the dedicatory services. . . . President Woodruff saw the Savior and talked with him face to face.”” ( https://rsc.byu.edu/archived/banner-gospel-wilford-woodruff/5-every-man-given-gift-spiritual-legacy-wilford-woodruff )
Lorenzo Snow - (Seen Him!) 5)
Aside from the billions of visits to Joseph Smith (slightly exaggerated), this visitation of Christ is probably the best known. The setting is that Wilford Woodruff just died. Snow was next in line and was absolutely overwhelmed by the thought of it. He prayed and prayed for some kind of guidance but an answer didn’t come – at first:
He often stayed late into the evening to finish his work. President Snow’s granddaughter Allie Young loved to visit him at his office. In those days, family members of the temple president were allowed to visit him there. They were not allowed to go through the entire temple, however, until they were old enough and had been found worthy and ready to make the sacred temple covenants. This special evening Allie was with her grandfather in his office. The doorkeepers had gone home and the night watchmen had not yet come in, so they were alone. When Allie was ready to leave, President Snow went to a dresser and took a large bunch of keys from the drawer so that he could let her out the main entrance. Together they walked down a large corridor near the celestial room. President Snow suddenly stopped and said, “Wait a moment, Allie. I want to tell you something.” Allie listened intently as her grandfather told her of an unforgettable experience he had once had at that place in the temple: “It was right here that the Lord Jesus Christ appeared to me at the time of the death of President Woodruff. He instructed me to go right ahead and reorganize the First Presidency of the Church at once and not wait as had been done after the death of the previous presidents, and that I was to succeed President Woodruff [as President of the Church].”President Snow held out his left hand and said, “He stood right here, about three feet above the floor. It looked as though he stood on a plate of solid gold. ”Still speaking in hushed, reverent tones, President Snow told Allie that the Savior’s appearance was so glorious and bright that he could hardly look at Him. President Snow put his right hand on Allie’s head and said, “Now granddaughter, I want you to remember that this is the testimony of your grandfather, that he told you with his own lips that he actually saw the Savior, here in the temple, and talked with him face to face.”” “Lorenzo Snow was still at work in his office in the Salt Lake Temple. It was dark outside, and the stars had come out. He was the fifth President of the Church, but he was also serving as the first president of the Salt Lake Temple at the time.He often stayed late into the evening to finish his work. President Snow’s granddaughter Allie Young loved to visit him at his office. In those days, family members of the temple president were allowed to visit him there.They were not allowed to go through the entire temple, however, until they were old enough and had been found worthy and ready to make the sacred temple covenants. This special evening Allie was with her grandfather in his office. The doorkeepers had gone home and the night watchmen had not yet come in, so they were alone. When Allie was ready to leave, President Snow went to a dresser and took a large bunch of keys from the drawer so that he could let her out the main entrance. Together they walked down a large corridor near the celestial room. President Snow suddenly stopped and said,“Wait a moment, Allie. I want to tell you something.” Allie listened intently as her grandfather told her of an unforgettable experience he had once had at that place in the temple: “It was right here that the Lord Jesus Christ appeared to me at the time of the death of President Woodruff. He instructed me to go right ahead and reorganize the First Presidency of the Church at once and not wait as had been done after the death of the previous presidents, and that I was to succeed President Woodruff [as President of the Church].”President Snow held out his left hand and said, “He stood right here, about three feet above the floor. It looked as though he stood on a plate of solid gold. ”Still speaking in hushed, reverent tones, President Snow told Allie that the Savior’s appearance was so glorious and bright that he could hardly look at Him. President Snow put his right hand on Allie’s head and said, “Now granddaughter, I want you to remember that this is the testimony of your grandfather, that he told you with his own lips that he actually saw the Savior, here in the temple, and talked with him face to face.””
In some of these visitations we have to take the word of but one person that they heard these events happened. If you desperately don’t want to believe any of this, one person’s word can be easy to discount. We have Allie Young above with her Grandfather’s tale – but was she honest?
LeRoi C. Snow agreeing with her. In a 1933 issue of the Improvement Era The Younger Snow wrote an article called ‘An Experience of My Father’s.’ Here is an excerpt: Luckily we also have
“After finishing his prayer, [my father] expected a reply, some special manifestation from the Lord. So he waited—and waited—and waited. There was no reply, no voice, no visitation, no manifestation. He left the altar and the room in great disappointment. Passing through the celestial room and out into the large corridor, a glorious manifestation was given President Snow which I relate in the words of his granddaughter, Allie Young Pond. …”
[He then quotes from his niece (see above)]
LeRoi goes on to state:
“… I related this experience in the Eighteenth Ward sacramental service. After the meeting Elder Arthur Winter told me he also had heard my father tell of the Savior’s appearance to him in the temple instructing him not only to reorganize the First Presidency at once but also to select the same counselors that President Woodruff had, Presidents George Q. Cannon and Joseph F. Smith.” ( https://www.lds.org/ensign/2015/09/a-visit-from-the-savior?lang=eng
knew about this. So did Heber J. Grant: So what does this prove so far? It proves that the family Snow definitely talked about this. Theyabout this. So did Heber J. Grant:
"In confirmation of the testimony given by Brother LeRoi C. Snow quoting the granddaughter of Lorenzo Snow, I want to call attention to the fact that several years elapsed after the death of the Prophet Joseph Smith before President Young was sustained as the president of the Church. After the death of President Young, several years elapsed again before President Taylor was sustained, and again when he died several years elapsed before President Woodruff was sustained.
"After the funeral of President Wilford Woodruff the Apostles met in the office of the First Presidency and Brother Francis M. Lyman said: 'I feel impressed although one of the younger members of the quorum, to say that I believe it would be pleasing in the sight of the Lord if the First Presidency of the Church was reorganized right here and right now. If I am in error regarding this impression, President Snow and the senior members of the council can correct me.'
"President Snow said that he would be pleased to hear from all the brethren upon this question, and each and all of us expressed ourselves as believing it would be pleasing to the Lord and that it would be the proper thing to have the Presidency organized at once.
"When we had finished, then and not until then did Brother Snow tell us that he was instructed of the Lord in the Temple the night after President Woodruff died, to organize the Presidency of the Church at once. President Anthon H. Lund and myself are the only men now living who were present at that meeting." ( https://scottwoodward.org/lorenzosnow_sawtheLordintemple.html )
Joseph F. Smith - (Seen Him!) 6)
Joseph F. Smith is another easy one. His sighting is the only one, Joseph Smith Jr. aside, whose vision of Christ is canonized.
“I saw the hosts of the dead, And while this vast multitude waited and conversed, ... the Son of God appeared, declaring liberty to the captives who had been faithful” (D&C 138:11, 18) ( https://www.lds.org/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/138.16-19 )
7) Heber J. Grant - (Seen Him!)
Heber J. Grant – much more than just backup for LeRoi Snow. He was kind of an everyman president. Of course, so far on this list an ‘everyman’ would have had to see Christ:
“As I rode along alone, I seemed to see a Council in Heaven. The Savior was there; the Prophet Joseph was there; my father and others that I knew were there. In this Council it seemed that they decided that a mistake had been made in not filling the vacancies in the quorum of the Twelve, and conference had adjourned. The chances were the brethren would wait another six months, and the way to remedy the situation was to send a revelation naming the men who should fill the vacancies. In this council the Prophet said, “I want to be represented by one of my own on that council.”
“I had always understood and known that my mother was sealed to the Prophet, and that Brigham Young had told my father that he would not marry my mother to him for eternity, because he had instructions from the Prophet that if anything happened to him before he was married to Rachel Ivins she must be sealed to him for eternity, that she belonged to him.
“That is the reason that father spoke up in this council to which I have referred, and said: “Why not choose the boy who bears my name who belongs to you, to be one of the Apostles?” That is the inspiration that was given to me.
“I can truthfully say that from February, 1883, until today I have never had any of that trouble, and I can bear testimony that I know that God lives and that Jesus is the Christ, the Savior of the world, and that Joseph Smith is a Prophet of the living God.” ( https://www.mormoninterpreter.com/dissenters-portraying-the-church-as-wrong-so-they-can-be-right-without-it/ )
8) George Albert Smith - (Didn't See Him!)
George Albert Smith didn’t see Christ, and he’s refreshingly straight forward about it.
I don’t know at what point in his apostleship he made the statement below, but I’ve found no reference to him having a divine vision of that exact type. He did, however, feel he had spent some time in the company of the unseen Lord:
“I have not seen Him face to face but have enjoyed the companionship of His spirit and felt His presence in a way not to be mistaken. I know that my Redeemer lives and gladly yield my humble efforts to establish His teachings. ... Every fiber of my being vibrates with the knowledge that He lives and some day all men will know it.”
this President Smith makes no claim of seeing Christ. It proves, without a doubt, that there are no conspirators meeting in dimly lit (but smoke-free) rooms to manufacture such tales. I believe it lends real credence to the other claims. It is almost refreshing thatPresident Smith makes no claim of seeing Christ. It proves, without a doubt, that there are no conspirators meeting in dimly lit (but smoke-free) rooms to manufacture such tales. I believe it lends real credence to the other claims.
GA Smith did receive other revelations, though. Here’s one if you’re interested. It involves a panoramic life review – something that pops up all over the place in different apostolic stories (It’s on my list of future posts).
David O. McKay - (Seen Him!) 9)
this vision: President McKay was once seen emitting light through his skin after returning from the Holy of Holies. Though he never said what happened in that room that day, he did say what happened invision:
"During a tour of the Church in the South Pacific in 1921, President David O. McKay, then a member of the Quorum of the Twelve, had a remarkable vision of the celestial kingdom. His description provides a glimpse of how the premortal heavenly home probably appeared.
"I ... beheld in vision something infinitely sublime. In the distance I beheld a beautiful white city. Though far away, yet I seemed to realize that trees with luscious fruit, shrubbery with gorgeously tinted leaves, and flowers in perfect bloom abounded everywhere. The clear sky above seemed to reflect these beautiful shades of color. I then saw a great concourse of people approaching the city. Each one wore a white flowing robe, and a white headdress. Instantly my attention seemed centered upon their Leader, and though I could see only the profile of his features and his body, I recognized him at once as my Savior! The tint and radiance of his countenance were glorious to behold. There was a peace about him which seemed sublime—it was divine!" ( https://grandmapalspocket.blogspot.com/2015_01_14_archive.html )
Joseph Fielding Smith - (Didn't See Him!) 10)
Joseph Fielding Smith was son of the canonized Joseph F. Smith (seen above) and grandson of Hyrum Smith, one of the 8 Book of Mormon witnesses . He was a humble man. Humble enough to say:
“I have not beheld him. His Father and He have not felt it necessary to grant me such a great blessing as this. But it is not necessary. I have felt his presence. I know that the Holy Spirit has enlightened my mind and revealed him unto me, so that I do love my Redeemer...” ( https://www.lds.org/manual/teachings-of-presidents-of-the-church-joseph-fielding-smith/chapter-2-our-savior-jesus-christ?lang=eng
felt Christ’s presence. Interesting how that repeats. It’s also interesting that he, too, is so open about it. So, much like George Albert Smith, Joseph Fielding claimed no visual visitations from Christ. But also like George Albert – heChrist’s presence. Interesting how that repeats. It’s also interesting that he, too, is so open about it.
Harold B. Lee - (Seen Him!) 11)
I’m excited to talk about Harold B Lee. But first I’ll let him talk:
“I shall never forget my feelings of loneliness the Saturday night after I was told by the President of the Church that I was to be sustained the next day as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. That was a sleepless night….
And then one of the Brethren, who arranged for Sunday evening radio programs, said, “Now you know that after having been ordained, you are a special witness to the mission of the Lord Jesus Christ. We want you to give the Easter talk next Sunday night.”
“The assignment was to bear testimony of the mission of the Lord concerning His resurrection, His life, and His ministry, so I went to a room in the Church Office Building where I could be alone, and I read the Gospels, particularly those that had to do with the closing days and weeks and months of the life of Jesus. And as I read, I realized that I was having a new experience.
“It wasn’t any longer just a story; it seemed as though I was actually seeing the events about which I was reading, and when I gave my talk and closed with my testimony, I said, “I am now the least of all my brethren and want to witness to you that I know, as I have never known before this call came, that Jesus is the Savior of this world. He lives and He died for us.” Why did I know? Because there had come a witness, that special kind of a witness, that may have been the more sure word of prophecy that one must have if he is to be a special witness.” ( https://www.fairmormon.org/answers/Question:_Did_any_twentieth_century_leader_after_Joseph_Smith_report_divine_visions%3F#cite_note-10 )
But we're getting sidetracked. Here is one more thing from President Lee. It is only a comment from a Facebook group – but it is profound. This fits the Lorenzo Snow pattern like a glove. It happened in the Salt Lake Temple and it was a small, personal statement meant only to bolster the testimony of the listener:
“Harold B. Lee was walking with me right behind him, down a corridor in the SL Temple, he stopped and said that THIS spot, was where he FIRST saw the Saviour. I believed him.”
Here’s a pic of that beautiful first hand statement so you can see I’m not making it up:
not believe it? It fits the pattern. It fits a distinct pattern. It was a comment on a post talking about James E. Faust seeing Christ. It really strikes home to me. I believe it. It's first hand. I’m sold. Do you believe it? Do you want to believe it? Do you want tobelieve it? It fits the pattern. It fits apattern. It was a comment on a post talking about James E. Faust seeing Christ. It really strikes home to me. I believe it. It's first hand. I’m sold.
Spencer W. Kimball 12) - (Seen Him!)
President Kimball is another exciting one. Remember the John Taylor quote up towards the top of the post? That was this same man – and it included his own testimony of seeing Christ. And then you have stuff like this:
“…I want to add to these testimonies of these prophets my testimony that I know that He lives. And I know that we may see him, and that we may be with him, and that we may enjoy his presence always if we will live the commandments of the Lord and do the things which we have been commanded by him to do and reminded by the Brethren to do.”
“I know that we may see him, and that we may be with him…” is pretty direct, but it doesn’t specifically say President Kimball saw Christ himself. But this does - from an article originally posted 17 February 2014. It was titled Grandma Burton’s Witness By Justin Collings, a grandson. The setting is just after J. Collings returned from his mission. His grandfather recently passed and his grandmother, perhaps sensing her own mortality, seemed eager to share her most spiritual experiences. This is one of them. It appears to be a zone-conference type setting with Spencer W. Kimball of the twelve presiding:
“After the testimonies had been borne, Elder Kimball addressed Grandma and her fellowlaborers. She told me that because of the caliber of missionaries he was addressing, Elder Kimball felt at liberty to speak more freely than the Brethren generally do about the sacred and solemn interviews involved in calling [an] apostle and qualifying him to stand as a special witness of the Lord Jesus Christ in all the earth. He told them a story familiar to many of us—of the anxiety and the inadequacy he felt; of the nagging doubt that he had been called, not by revelation, but because he was the grandson of President Heber C. Kimball; and of his flight to the mountains, amid fasting and prayer, to seek a witness from the Lord that the call had come from Him and not from man. From the familiar story, we know that Elder Kimball obtained the witness. But to Grandma Burton and to her stalwart missionary peers, this mighty man of God revealed an additional and dramatic detail about how that witness came. President Kimball, like so many others of the noble and great ones called to the holy apostleship in this final dispensation of grace, saw the Lord Jesus and heard from the mouth of the Savior Himself the soulcheering affirmation, "I have called you to be my witness to the world. Doubt not, but be of good cheer."” ( https://www.familysearch.org/photos/artifacts/5299320 )
13) Ezra Taft Benson - (Seen Him!)
President Benson is straight up blunt about it. Were people listening? I, most definitely, wasn’t. But President Benson – I hear you now:
“There have been many in this dispensation who have seen Him. As one of those special witnesses so called in this day, I testify to you that He lives. He lives with a resurrected body. There is no truth or fact of which I am more assured or more confident than the truth of the literal resurrection of our Lord.” ( https://www.lds.org/ensign/1991/04/jesus-christ-our-savior-our-god?lang=eng )
Howard W. Hunter - (Maybe Saw Him!) 14)
‘An Apostle’s Witness of the Resurrection.’ The purpose of this talk, as the title suggests, was to hammer home the point of apostleship. He starts out with a Joseph Smith Quote: Howard W. Hunter got called as an apostle in 1959. In 1986 he gave a spectacular talk at the April General Conference calledThe purpose of this talk, as the title suggests, was to hammer home the point of apostleship. He starts out with a Joseph Smith Quote:
“Joseph Smith said, “The fundamental principles of our religion are the testimony of the Apostles and Prophets, concerning Jesus Christ, that He died, was buried, and rose again the third day, and ascended into heaven; and all other things which pertain to our religion are only appendages to it.””
He then quotes Peter: He then quotes Peter:
“Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ.” (Acts 2:36.) “Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ.” (Acts 2:36.)
“But ye denied the Holy One and the Just, ... and killed the Prince of life, whom God hath raised from the dead; whereof we are witnesses.” (Acts 3:14–15.)
Then Paul:
“And when they had fulfilled all that was written of him, they took him down from the tree, and laid him in a sepulchre.
“But God raised him from the dead:
“And he was seen many days of them which came up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are his witnesses unto the people.” (Acts 13:29–31.)
And more Paul:
“Am I not an apostle? am I not free? have I not seen Jesus Christ our Lord? are not ye my work in the Lord? ... For the seal of mine apostleship are ye in the Lord.” (1 Cor. 9:1–2.)
Then Hunter throws in, almost casually:
“I humbly testify of my privilege to bear the holy apostleship and to work daily with a modern Quorum of Twelve Apostles who are disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ. We are to go forth as “special witnesses of the name of Christ in all the world.” (D&C 107:23.) And so have the Apostles always testified.”
that kind of apostle. He never says he didn’t see Jesus either, which thus far is a clear move for the prophets that haven’t (see G.A. Smith & the younger J.F. Smith up there). Now Hunter doesn’t directly say anything here, but he does clearly say that apostles testify of their witness of the risen Lord – and that he iskind of apostle. He never says he didn’t see Jesus either, which thus far is a clear move for the prophets that haven’t (see G.A. Smith & the younger J.F. Smith up there).
At best, with everything I’ve found so far, I can only put President Hunter in the ‘Maybe’ column.
Gordon B. Hinckley 15) - (Seen Him!)
This next bit is from a video made by the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve in 2001 titled Special Witnesses of Christ . It’s a pretty long transcript so the below quotes kind of jump around a little bit – and it really echoes Hunter:
“In our day the Lord has called 15 special witnesses to testify of His divinity before all the world. Theirs is a unique calling; they are Apostles of the Lord Jesus Christ , chosen and commissioned by Him. They have been commanded to bear witness of His living reality by the power and authority of the holy apostleship in them vested….
[Speaking of Christ’s Biblical apostles] “Those who were witnesses of that event, all who saw and heard and spoke with the Risen Lord, testified of the reality of this greatest of all miracles. His followers through the centuries lived and died in proclamation of the truth of this supernal act….
To all of these we add our testimony that He who died on Calvary’s cross arose again in wondrous splendor as the Son of God, the Master of life and death….
“Of the reality and personality of the living God and of His Son, our Redeemer, I stand as a solemn and reverent witness, speaking these words by the power of the Holy Ghost.” ( https://www.lds.org/ensign/2001/04/special-witnesses-of-christ?lang=eng )
Now think about the word ‘personality’ up there. It kind of jumps off the page. The Google definition of Personality sums it up pretty well: ‘ the combination of characteristics or qualities that form an individual's distinctive character.’
Can one learn the qualities that form an individual’s distinctive character without personal interaction? I don’t think so. Given the apparent free-flowing visitations listed above, I think GB Hinckley may have been telling us something big there.
If that’s not enough, interestingly, here’s a third hand account of Gordon B. Hinckley describing what Christ looks like. I’ve never seen it before and it is, somewhat, an uncommon description. This is a quote from a former believer named Tom Philips, taken from an email he wrote to the author of MormonPath.com. For the life of me I can’t think of why a former believer would want to push this if he hadn’t actually heard it :
“Harold G. Hillam of the Seventy (now deceased) said to me that President Hinckley had described Jesus as having fair hair and blue eyes with no beard.” ( http://www.mormonpath.com/2017/12/28/ )
Thomas S. Monson - (Maybe Saw Him!) 16)
President Monson was a giant among men, and I do believe he saw Christ but there are no direct public statements. Below is a smattering of statements that could be interpreted as such:
1) In one week we will celebrate Easter. Our thoughts will turn to the Savior’s life, His death, and His Resurrection. As His special witness, I testify to you that He lives and that He awaits our triumphant return. That such a return will be ours, I pray humbly in His holy name—even Jesus Christ, our Savior and our Redeemer, amen. Thomas S. Monson , “The Race of Life,” Ensign, May 2012
2) I know without question, my brothers and sisters, that God lives. I testify to you that this is His work. I testify as well that our Savior Jesus Christ is at the head of this Church, which bears His name. I know that the sweetest experience in all this life is to feel His promptings as He directs us in the furtherance of His work. ("Looking Back and Moving Forward," Ensign , May 2008)
There are Mormon-lore type legends about Monson seeing Christ. I found this one in the comments section of a something or other:
“Mon Aug 20, 2012 2:19 pm
“Pres. Monson saw the Saviour during the San Diego Temple dedication (after the day's sessions) while he was First Counselor (reported by the Temple president to the Temple workers the first week the Temple was open for ordinance work).” ( https://www.ldsfreedomforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=23995 )
‘Seen Him’ column. Anyone who has ever had an in-depth talk with a temple worker has heard stories like this. I’ve heard some myself and trust the sources. I couldn’t find anything about this specific item though, so I’ve got to keep President Monson in the ‘Maybe’ column. If I could find a first hand account – like the HB Lee comment listed above, I’d happily slide President Monson on over to the concretecolumn.
Russell M. Nelson - (Maybe Saw Him!) 17)
President Nelson has been Q&A-ed a few times. Some of those Qs, predictably, have gone like this: “As an apostle, you are a special witness of Jesus Christ. Does that mean you’ve seen Jesus Christ?
heard him. I’ve felt him…” The answer to this question has been something along the lines of “No it does not necessarily mean that.” I’ve heard two such stories recently. In one of the tellings (a ward member over the pulpit recently in a fast & testimony meeting) that answer was quickly followed up with “But I’vehim. I’vehim…”
“I’ve felt him” very much echoes G.A. and J Fielding Smith. However – President Nelson has only just become the Prophet. Perhaps he has had an experience akin unto Lorenzo Snow – seeing Christ just after assuming the mantle. For now I feel confident putting President Nelson in the ‘Maybe’ column too. very much echoes G.A. and J Fielding Smith. However – President Nelson has only just become the Prophet. Perhaps he has had an experience akin unto Lorenzo Snow – seeing Christ just after assuming the mantle. For now I feel confident putting President Nelson in the ‘Maybe’ column too.
have seen Christ – seeing him isn’t mandatory. He can guide his prophets without making eye contact. This list makes it apparent that although the vast majority of Latter-Day prophetsseen Christ – seeing him isn’t mandatory. He can guide his prophets without making eye contact.
Let’s allow President Nelson to close things in his own words:
“As a special witness of Jesus Christ, I testify that He lives! I also testify that the veil of death is very thin. I know by experiences too sacred to relate that those who have gone before are not strangers to leaders of this Church.” ( https://www.lds.org/ensign/1992/05/doors-of-death?lang=eng )
| {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Here’s a lesson in media ethics, courtesy of Fox News’ Eric Bolling: do not make unconfirmed claims about George Clooney‘s sexuality.
Bolling was chatting away with his co-hosts Monday on “The Five” about Clooney’s engagement to Amal Alamuddin (and tying it into a study that claims that marriage leads to depression) when he brazenly called Clooney gay.
Also read: George Clooney, Hollywood’s Most Famous Bachelor, Is Finally Engaged
“It’s clear, though. George Clooney‘s gay,” Bolling says, which is immediately followed with an audible gasp from one of his co-hosts. “Let me explain. For all the ladies out there who think he’s amazing, just admit it. He’s gay or he’s married, just get over it, move on.”
Obviously producers behind the scenes had an issue with Bolling’s statement, because he had to apologize not once, but twice almost immediately after the claim.
Also read: George Clooney Rips Las Vegas Casino Mogul in Defense of ‘Longtime Friend’ Obama
“They want me to point out that I was kidding about Clooney being gay,” Bolling says, before butting in after the commercial break to reiterate that he was kidding and to “clarify the clarification.”
Watch the video:
| {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Donald Trump: Do Character, Morality and Kindness Still Matter?
By Randy Alcorn
I promised myself I wouldn’t endorse any presidential candidate in 2016. I’m sticking with that. But I never would have believed I’d have to write what I feel the Lord compelling me to. (This isn’t to blame God for everything I say!)
This is WAY longer than my normal blogs, three times longer, but I don’t want to follow up with another, so this is all of it. Four years ago I wrote seven election related blogs; not this time.
This isn’t really a blog, it’s a long article, more of an essay—only for those with time and interest. I’m including many links to show I’m not making these things up (some will want to check them out), though I suppose it’s inevitable there will be a few inaccuracies. (Please note: since this was first published, many of the articles and videos I linked to have since been removed. However, each quotation I share below was taken directly from an article or video source that was available at the time.)
People have been asking me to write on this, but some will be sorry I did. If this seems too little too late, I get that. If it seems to some irresponsible (I know it will), I still think every Jesus-follower needs to do some real soul-searching. I’m talking about much more than just voting, and the principles here apply to other candidates too, not only Trump.
I’m asking whether we should support, defend, or be entertained by behavior that’s condemned in Scripture. I’m questioning what leadership qualities we are drawn to. I avoid politics whenever possible. This time it’s not possible. My concern here is that God’s people should consistently value biblical Jesus-honoring principles, character, and behavior in all aspects of life.
I realize the races for the party nominations aren’t over yet, though they may be soon. As of today, the fact is this: a candidate who wouldn’t have been taken seriously by most evangelical Christians just twenty years ago, who would have been dismissed out-of-hand for his behavior and speech, is now the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, and is supported by many evangelicals (though not as many as headlines suggest).
I know some will dismiss this the same way they dismiss all criticisms of Trump. Some concerns will be pragmatic: surely we must all vote for Donald Trump in the general election in order to stop a pro-abortion candidate with other problematic policies, right?
Please don’t let other concerns distract you from the only subject of this blog: what are Trump’s character qualities and moral standards, and should they matter to Christ-followers?
MY PURPOSE IS NOT TO OFFER A SOLUTION TO THE PROBLEM I’M RAISING. Given where we’re at now, I don’t know the solution! My purpose is to address the problem itself—and my conversations and reading indicate that many evangelical Christians do not recognize it’s a problem.
I can’t be held hostage to the pervasive viewpoint, “To criticize or oppose Trump is to support Hillary Clinton.” We dare not act as if any presidential candidate is immune to or above biblical principles and moral standards just because we may (rightly) oppose other candidates.
My other caveat is that of course I realize Jesus is not running for president! I’m not naïve; obviously we are not electing a pastor-in-chief, but a commander-in-chief. I agree we can’t expect moral perfection or even devout behavior in a candidate. Yes, there are countless compromises in politics. But after all the abandonment of idealism and lowering of standards for politicians, surely that doesn’t mean we should dismiss as irrelevant character qualities, decency, and respect and kindness toward others. Those can and should coexist with vision, courage, conviction, and the ability to lead. (See Max Lucado’s excellent article, “Decency for President.”)
I’ll pose a question. What would you do if a dinner guest in your home told a person of Mexican descent that most of her people crossing the border to come to America are criminals and rapists? What if he called one woman a dog, another a bimbo and another “a fat pig,” then addressed others as dummies and losers? What if he told certain people to “go F--- themselves?”
What if he made a demeaning reference to a woman’s menstrual cycle, then a lusting comment to a young woman in your home, in which he fantasized about her assuming a sexual position for him? What would you do if he started telling stories of his sexual conquests, saying, “Oftentimes when I was sleeping with one of the top women in the world I would say to myself, thinking about me as a boy from Queens, ‘Can you believe what I am getting?’” (Donald Trump, Think Big: Make it Happen in Business and Life, p. 272)?
What if your guest said of a woman, she “is unattractive, both inside and out. I fully understand why her former husband left her for a man—he made a good decision”? What if he said at your dinner table, “You know, it really doesn’t matter what the media writes as long as you’ve got a young, and beautiful, piece of ass”?
What if your children heard this and witnessed this behavior? My guess is you wouldn’t laugh and make excuses for this man. I hope you’d insist that he apologize, then escort him out of your home and use him as an example for your children of how men should not talk about women. (My guess is you would not put out a lawn sign supporting him for president.)
As a husband of a wife and a father of two daughters I deeply respect, I wouldn’t tolerate someone demeaning women like that. I wouldn’t laugh—I’d confront him and if he persisted, I would escort him to the door.
Would any of us be able to explain to our children or grandchildren why we’d tolerate such immoral behavior that violates so many biblical principles? (Not just principles Christians hold to, but that many atheists and agnostics consider basic human decency.)
I find it ironic that many of the current supporters of Donald Trump, including some pastors and Christian leaders, were vocal opponents of Bill Clinton in the 90’s, openly castigating him for his immorality. If character mattered in the case of Bill Clinton (as I believe it did), why doesn’t it matter in the case of Donald Trump? Isn’t it hypocritical to have been outraged by the behavior of one but not the other? If Barack Obama (who I generally don’t support) had said and done many of the same things Donald Trump has, would you view them differently? Why? Aren’t things right or wrong regardless of who does them?
The Bible is emphatic that the words we speak matter to God. What statement, for instance, do we make to disabled people by supporting someone who makes fun of a disabled man by waving his arms to mock his particular disorder?
Russell Moore writes:
One may say that Trump’s personal life and business dealings are irrelevant to his candidacy, but conservatives have argued for generations that virtue matters, in the citizenry and in the nation’s leaders. Can conservatives really believe that, if elected, Trump would care about protecting the family’s place in society when his own life is — unapologetically — what conservatives used to recognize as decadent?
So why are so many people, including evangelicals, enthusiastically supporting Trump?
They believe he “tells it like it is,” without political correctness. He stands up to the media and aggressively confronts their biases.
They believe Trump’s promises that he will “make America great again.” He’s a negotiator, a successful businessman and strong persona, who they believe can get things done for the people and improve the economy.
His words have tapped into the anger and frustrations of many who are weary of higher taxes, crime, and seeing America’s continual international decline.
Those disillusioned with “politics as usual” like that Trump doesn’t have previous political experience; as an outsider, maybe he’ll be a change agent.
I get it, believe me. I too am weary of politicians and their broken promises. I roll my eyes at some media coverage of events, including events I’ve been involved in (of course, now that there’s a strong right-wing media too, there are biases both ways.) I like the idea of a political outsider. But shouldn’t we be looking for an outsider with stronger character, integrity, and humility than past leaders?
As for political correctness, I agree it’s often vapid and pretentious, but that doesn’t make political incorrectness inherently virtuous. Sure, it’s “politically correct” to be respectful to women, refrain from demeaning people, and to avoid profanity, sexual innuendo, racism and disparaging disabled citizens—but it’s also Christ-honoring, isn’t it? (If I yelled at my wife and called her names would you applaud me for not being politically correct?)
What would Jesus say to someone who attacked a mild-mannered rival candidate rising in the polls by comparing an anger problem that person had 50 years ago to being a child molester? Would he approve? (As a physician, Ben Carson’s 14-second response was classic.)
Do we want America’s president to say to our children and to the world things like these?
“The beauty of me is that I’m very rich.”
“My fingers are long and beautiful, as, it has been well documented, are various other parts of my body.”
“My IQ is one of the highest—and you all know it! Please don't feel so stupid or insecure; it's not your fault.”
“Rosie O’Donnell is disgusting, both inside and out. You look at her, she’s a slob…If I were running The View, I’d fire Rosie O’Donnell. I mean, I’d look at her right in that fat, ugly face of hers, I’d say ‘Rosie, you’re fired.’”
“All of the women on The Apprentice flirted with me – consciously or unconsciously. That’s to be expected.”(The Daily News, March 24, 2004)
“The only difference between me and the other candidates is that I’m more honest and my women are more beautiful.”
Regarding Carly Fiorina’s appearance: “Look at that face! Would anyone vote for that? Can you imagine that, the face of our next president?!”
Regarding John McCain, who flew twenty-three missions in Vietnam and spent over five years as a prisoner of war: he’s “not a war hero. … He is a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured, OK?”
Trump wrote, “Our great African American President hasn't exactly had a positive impact on the thugs who are so happily and openly destroying Baltimore!” That got 6,500 retweets. Okay…so if elected will Donald Trump take responsibility for the actions of all white criminals?
My main problem is not that Donald Trump says what he thinks, though the self-control to at times remain silent is certainly a virtue: “The quiet words of the wise are more to be heeded than the shouts of a ruler of fools” (Ecclesiastes 9:17). My problem is with what he actually thinks: especially his obsession with outward appearance, sexiness, superficiality, wealth, his own status and accomplishments, and his quickness to berate and insult people and seek revenge on his critics. (My other big problem is hearing the laughter and applause for Trump when he has said some of these things at churches and Christian universities.)
Here’s a list of direct quotes from Donald Trump, posted by him on Twitter, insulting and name-calling a wide variety of people. Just skim it. There’s no end to the insults, and it doesn’t include others, such as his tweets about Bette Midler’s “ugly face and body.” If anyone criticizes Donald Trump, he’s determined to crush them. He routinely calls people dummies, losers and bimbos. (If he were president, one of the most powerful people on the planet, would he be tempted to use that power to go after people? Or would his character, ego, and personality magically change?)
Does it matter to God whether a presidential candidate (or anyone else) acts as a defensive, demeaning, ridiculing, mean-spirited, self-obsessed, foul-mouthed bully?
Does it matter even more when a person behaves this way while claiming to be a Christian?
In light of his profession to be a believer, when asked if he has ever asked God for forgiveness, Trump responded, “I’m not sure…I don’t think so.”
So though he claims he's a believer, he has never asked God for forgiveness or at least never remembers having done so. Seriously? Is it actually possible to be a Christian without asking God for forgiveness? “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). Isn’t believing you don’t need to ask God for forgiveness the ultimate arrogance?
If we don’t confess our own sins and seek forgiveness, what can we do when things go wrong but blame everyone else? The natural target is outsiders, people who don’t look and talk and act like us. Isn’t this utterly contrary to the Gospel, which involves us confessing our own sins and unworthiness, and gratefully embracing the loving forgiveness of Jesus?
Can you imagine Donald Trump as president accepting responsibility for making bad decisions? Wouldn’t he always find someone else to blame?
If, as he claims, the Bible is Donald Trump’s favorite book, shouldn’t it matter to him that the Bible says, “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen” (Ephesians 4:29)?
Let’s examine one claim. Trump writes, “You can’t be too greedy” (The Art of the Deal, p. 48).
What does the Bible say about being greedy? The tenth commandment condemns coveting, which is greed (Exodus 20:17). Jesus said, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions” (Luke 12:15). Jesus denounced greed in the parable of the rich fool. God says that [apart from repenting and seeking his forgiveness] “the greedy… [will not] inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Corinthians 6:10). God commands us to “put to death…greed, which is idolatry” (Colossians 3:5). Since it’s idolatry, greed also violates the first and second commandments.
Whose beliefs about being greedy do you believe? Donald Trump’s or God’s?
Regarding the parable of the rich fool (Luke 12:16-21), Bible teachers often point out this man repeatedly engaged in self-reference (I, me, mine), bragging about himself and all he accomplished. The transcript of Trump’s announcement that he was running for president shows he said “I” 195 times, “my” or “mine” 28 times, “me” 22 times and “I’ve or “I’d” 12 times. That’s 257 self-references. Read it and it sounds remarkably like a long version of the parable of the rich fool. (Yes, most politicians are self-promoters, perhaps many are narcissists, but Trump takes it to a new level.)
If he believes it’s impossible to be too greedy, is there anything about Donald Trump that suggests he would not use public power for private gain?
How do we evaluate whether a profession of faith in Christ is real? Jesus told us, “Every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit” (Matthew 7:17).
It’s difficult for me to believe anyone could read, watch and listen to Donald Trump without concluding he is unusually arrogant and prideful, well above the 90th percentile of people we know. What does God say about pride?
Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall. (Proverbs 16:18)
The fear of the Lord is hatred of evil. Pride and arrogance and the way of evil and perverted speech I hate. (Proverbs 8:13)
When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with the humble is wisdom. (Proverbs 11:2)
One's pride will bring him low, but he who is lowly in spirit will obtain honor. (Proverbs 29:23)
The haughty looks of man shall be brought low, and the lofty pride of men shall be humbled, and the Lord alone will be exalted in that day. (Isaiah 2:11)
When arrogance brings down a man, doesn’t it often bring down his family, business, and whatever else he has authority over? Why would we think God’s promise to bring low, disgrace, or destroy a proud man wouldn’t result in bringing low, disgracing, or destroying the country he leads?
God has often humbled proud leaders of nations. Nebuchadnezzar is a prime example (Daniel 4). If God opposes and humbles Donald Trump the businessman, casino owner and entertainer, that’s one thing. But if God humbles Donald Trump the president, might an entire country be humbled with him, paying the price for disregarding God’s warnings against pride and arrogance?
Any commander-in-chief who holds in his hands lives of our armed forces, both men and women, should be a man willing to humble himself before God. He should not be tempted to wage war and sacrifice lives (both domestic and foreign) against any international leader who dares to question or offend him. (Do we want a president whose default reaction to criticism is arrogance and retribution?)
“Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good conduct let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom” (James 3:13 ESV). Is it unreasonable to expect a United States president to be not only strong but also wise and understanding and to be characterized by the meekness of wisdom?
The Message is only a paraphrase of Scripture, but sometimes it’s a good one. Here’s how it renders James 3:13-16:
Do you want to be counted wise, to build a reputation for wisdom? Here’s what you do: Live well, live wisely, live humbly. It’s the way you live, not the way you talk, that counts. Mean-spirited ambition isn’t wisdom. Boasting that you are wise isn’t wisdom. Twisting the truth to make yourselves sound wise isn’t wisdom. It’s the furthest thing from wisdom—it’s animal cunning, devilish conniving. Whenever you’re trying to look better than others or get the better of others, things fall apart and everyone ends up at the others’ throats.
Ask yourself how those words above match up to Donald Trump (and any that remain in the presidential race).
I vowed many years ago never to vote for a candidate who defends the legalized killing of children, any more than I would vote for one who defends the legalized killing of Jews or the disabled. But I have sometimes, with reluctance, voted for “the lesser of evils” (I prefer the “greatest good of a limited field”). I have voted for them largely to support their prolife position (I’m not always certain how genuine their prolife profession is, and certainly the same applies to Donald Trump).
I’ve always advised people that they should be idealistic in the primaries, then realistically vote for the best remaining candidate in the general election. But I confess that if the current leaders win the nomination, I will be faced with a moral dilemma. Others have confided they feel the same.
I’m well aware of the pragmatic arguments against voting for third party candidates or writing in someone who can’t win. But in the face of the evidence concerning pride, selfishness, immoral sexual references, and bullying tactics, some Christ-followers can’t help but ask themselves whether voting for such a candidate would violate their conscience and the Christian values they seek to live by (Romans 14:23). If you have no sympathy for them, please realize that some of your brothers and sisters in Christ are equally dismayed at how people of faith could support Donald Trump without embarrassment or shame or the conviction of the Holy Spirit concerning so much of what he says that flies in the face of Jesus and God’s Word.
“God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble” (James 4:6). If Donald Trump is as proud as he appears, doesn’t that mean God promises to oppose him? (And yes, he can oppose another candidate for that and other reasons.) It’s one thing to vote for someone who falls short of God’s standards; most of us have been doing that for decades. But isn’t it counterintuitive for God’s children to support those who God explicitly says He opposes? (A vote is not an unconditional endorsement, but surely it reflects at least some support.)
I’m well aware of the pushback I’ll get for writing this. Many friends will disagree. (For all I know, our ministry may lose supporters.) People will say, “By speaking against Donald, you might as well be voting for Hillary, and putting her bumper sticker on your car.” But this blog isn’t about Hillary. I do not and will not support or vote for her. But that doesn’t mean I can’t or shouldn’t express my deep-seated concerns about Trump.
If the two front runners win the primaries, I have Christian friends who will unreservedly vote for Trump, others who will vote for him with great reluctance, some who will vote for Hillary, and still others will write someone in or not vote because in good conscience they can’t. I know the arguments against all of these. But I also know that despite the constant calls to pragmatism, when a candidate’s statements and actions clearly contradict the words of Jesus, we dare not ignore or minimize them, and we certainly should never applaud them.
In the end, some of us will not be able to live with ourselves if we allow a pro-abortion candidate to be elected, and some will not be able to live with ourselves if we help elect someone whose pride and boastfulness and treatment of others dishonors the Jesus we know and love, while he professes to believe in Him and love His Word (and in the process wins votes).
This “no win” feeling troubles me, and I’m not alone. I console myself that God is on the throne, indeed, “O LORD, the God of our fathers, are You not God in the heavens? And are You not ruler over all the kingdoms of the nations? Power and might are in Your hand so that no one can stand against You” (2 Chronicles 20:6).
I trust God’s sovereignty over all, including elections. But that doesn’t mean what we do doesn’t matter. It does. Part of me says, as in the past, we will get the president we deserve, and that is not an encouraging thought. Like many of you, I am still wrestling, and seeking God’s wisdom. But it doesn’t help God’s people to deny that there are profound moral principles at stake with the electable candidates who will likely be on the ballot in November. This isn’t nearly as easy a decision as some people are telling me it should be.
This we should agree on: we really need to pray and ask for God’s grace, even if we deserve His judgment. And we need to remind ourselves that no matter what happens to the USA, we are first and foremost citizens of another country, one whose future isn’t in jeopardy, and which will forever thrive on God’s New Earth.
Okay, I’ll wrap it up. I appreciate the ministry of Desiring God, and wholeheartedly agree with Jon Bloom’s compilation of Bible verses, “How to Recognize a Foolish Leader.”
Christianity Today proposes some interesting thoughts on why so many evangelicals are Trump supporters despite the fact that he violates so many of the most basic evangelical values. Here’s a fascinating analysis of how Trump uses language differently than other candidates, giving people the feeling he’s making strong points even when what he’s saying has little or no substance.
Finally, here’s columnist Matt Barber’s thought-provoking piece, with quotes from both Donald Trump and Scripture:
God Has Coffee with Donald Trump What would happen if Donald Trump sat down with the Creator of the universe in a SoHo bistro? The following statements attributed to Mr. Trump are not fabricated. The man truly uttered them. Those attributed to God are likewise genuine. With whom do you agree? Lattes are poured and chairs, scooted. The discussion begins. Read the rest.
Photo credit: By Gage Skidmore [CC BY-SA 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Cultural Marxism emerged from the failure of fin-de-siecle and interwar Orthodox Marxism to properly grapple with the national question, and with the failure of historical materialism to deal with psychological motives of economic classes. The work of French and Italian Marxist revisionists in the making of proto-fascist ideology is well known, but a similar process evolved in the rigidly leftist side as well. Orthodox Marxism had increasingly become a rote and vulgarized system of keywords to be applied in order to confirm a predetermined consensus. Words like “imperialism” and “bourgeoisie” had gone on to mean just about anything, with the absence of a well-defined Marxist theory of the state contributing to this state of affairs. Eduard Bernstein and the social-democratic reformists had accepted social liberalism in everything but name. The antibourgeois character of Marxism never had a very strong psychological foundation to begin with. The Junker’s existence is threatened by the burgher in a way that the proletarian’s isn’t. No surprise the prole would want to emulate his “class enemy,” the burgher, especially since there were no hereditary restrictions to accomplishing this, and as it became easier with increasing consumerization and expansion of credit.
The Frankfurt School were not the key culprits behind Cultural Marxism, except insofar as they served as prime examples of the general humanist shift in Western Marxism after the Western disillusionment with Stalinism. This tendency, however, begins with the German Marxist Karl Korsch’s calls for a return to Hegel and phenomenology in the 1920s, marking the start of Marxism becoming ever more an intellectual hobby of academics rather than an intellectual framework for revolutionary praxis. So too with Gyorgy Lukacs revisiting dialectics, and thus introducing Marxist-humanist preoccupations with “rationalization,” (influenced by Weber) “ascribed consciousness” and most famously “reification” — an idea that would become one of the ultimate ancestors of the modern academic preoccupation with social constructionism. Later on we get Marcuse’s more explicitly Freudian themes of “repression” and “sublimation.” The concept of “alienation” is shifted from the economic connotations of commodification of labor-power (an artifact of the division of labor more generally) into one of psychological malaise, the “external objectification of human objectivity” as Korsch dubbed it. Even Louis Althusser, who was supposedly the architect of a materialist reaction against Marxist humanism, ended up strengthening humanism through his concept of “ideological state apparatuses,” becoming a corollary to Gramsci’s “cultural hegemony” and hence an impetus for Marxist critiques of what was once considered superstructural and not basic.
I have previously written about the American student radical movement of the 1930s, with its themes of racial equality, anti-fascism and New Deal collaborationism (like being bailed out of permit violations under FDR’s orders by a New Deal aide nicknamed “Tommy the Cork” — true story), as anticipating the New Left three decades later.
One also cannot ignore the general technocratic atmosphere of postwar Keynesian social democracy, with its ethos intoxicating many former radicals. The Labor Party in Britain eventually abandoned its former commitment to nationalization of the “commanding heights,” in favor of promoting the embourgeoisement of the proletariat instead. In 1956, Anthony Crosland published a book entitled The Future of Socialism where he explicitly condoned this shift, stating quite dramatically that:
We need not only higher exports and old-age pensions, but more open-air cafes, brighter and gayer streets at night, later closing hours for public houses, more local repertory theatres, better and more hospitable hoteliers and restaurateurs, brighter and cleaner eating houses, more riverside cafes… better design for furniture and pottery and women’s clothes…
If I had to select one paragraph to demonstrate “Cultural Marxism” as most people use it in the sense of “Why did the left stop caring about DA WURKURZ?!,” that would be it.
However, the humanist transition did not occur spontaneously. There are five episodes in the history of Marxist thought that I believe are illustrative in having prefigured this. All of them have to do with Marxism’s relationship to nationalism. 1) Marx and Engels’ own views on the national question; 2) Lenin, Stalin, Kautsky, Luxemburg and the Orthodox Marxist debates on the subject; 3) the fin-de-siecle French Marxism led by Jules Guesde, and their response to the emergence of both French integralist nationalism and the intensification of coolie labor inflows; 4) the widespread adoption of nationalism by Marxist-Leninist states — Bulgaria, Romania, Russia, etc.; 5) the CPUSA’s flirtations with black nationalism in the 1930s.
Friedrich Engels considered Pan-Slavism to be reactionary, and instead thought that the Austrian Slavs would eventually be assimilated into German and Hungarian mores. Hence my jokingly calling him a Habsburg imperialist. “In history nothing is achieved without violence and implacable ruthlessness, and if Alexander, Caesar, and Napoleon had been capable of being moved by the same sort of appeal as that which pan-Slavism now makes on behalf of its ruined clients, what would have become of history,” he wrote.
More specifically, Engels drew a distinction between “historic” and “non-historic” nations. The former had centuries of economic development and consolidation behind them, and hence were progressive, whereas the latter were the romantic appeals of newly educated bourgeois representatives of what had until then been marginal vassal nations. Advocating their causes was retrograde for the achievement of socialism.
On the other hand, it is an error to consider Engels an anti-nationalist, exactly. In an 1882 letter to Karl Kautsky, he says that “It is historically impossible for a great people even to discuss internal problems of any kind seriously, as long as it lacks national independence. Before 1859, there was no question of socialism in Italy; even the number of Republicans was small, although they formed the most active element. Only after 1861 the Republicans increased in influence and later transferred their best elements to the Socialists. The same was true in Germany. Lassalle was at the point of giving up his work as a failure, when he had the fortune of being shot. Only when in the year 1866 the greater Prussian unity of petty Germany had been actually decided, the Lassallean, as well as the so-called Eisenach parties assumed some importance. And only after 1870 when the Bonapartist appetite of intervention had been removed definitively the thing got really going.”
More succinctly, that an international movement of the proletariat is possible only among independent nations. Engels in particular strongly endorsed Polish and Irish nationalism, saying that not only did they have the right, but the duty to be nationalistic before they became internationalists. More importantly, Polish independence was necessary to act as a bulwark against Russian tsarist expansion. In this sense, Engels and Pilsudski were of the exact same conviction.
In an 1870 letter to two Americans, Karl Marx voiced his support for Irish independence. The reason being that England, as the “metropolis of capital,” was ripe for revolution like no other counry. However, the working class was divided by ethnic antagonisms between English and Irish, and so the means of hastening revolution was to make Ireland independent.
Decades later, Lenin would support Marx’s opinion by writing that “if the Irish and English proletariat had not accepted Marx’s policy and had not made the secession of Ireland their slogan, this would have been the worst sort of opportunism, a neglect of their duties as democrats and socialists, and a concession to English reaction and the English bourgeoisie.”
Hence, we already see the role of ethnicity as a material factor in class consciousness. “English” reaction. Furthermore, Irish independence was now elevated to a duty as part of being a democrat and socialist in general, i.e. it is not mere bourgeois chauvinism.
By 1920, the 2nd World Congress of the Comintern would elevate this to a communist orthodoxy. Though distancing itself from “petty-bourgeois nationalism,” it advocated a united front of communist-led national liberation movements allied to Soviet Russia: “The international political situation has now placed the dictatorship of the proletariat on the order of the day, and all the events in international politics are concentrated inevitably around one single central point, around the struggle of the international bourgeoisie against the Russian Soviet Republic. The latter rallies around itself, on the one hand, the soviet movements of the vanguard of the working class in every country and, on the other hand, all the national liberation movements of the colonies and the oppressed nationalities who have been convinced by bitter experience that for them there is no salvation outside an alliance with the revolutionary proletariat and the victory of soviet power over world imperialism.”
In effect, this position was similar to that of Bukharin, who five years earlier rejected the slogan of “national self-determination” because he considered it both insufficiently emancipatory and “utopian.” “It is therefore impossible to struggle against the enslavement of nations other than through a struggle against imperialism. Ergo a struggle against imperialism; ergo a struggle against finance capital; ergo a struggle against capitalism in general.”
The opposition to “self-determination” as a positively enumerated right concealed the revolutionary-nationalist implications of backing anti-colonial movements en masse.
Rosa Luxemburg, for example, is frequently held to have been a dogmatic anti-nationalist. This doesn’t seem quite right. On one hand, Luxemburg did hold views similar to Engels, in that she regarded the ambitions of national independence for many peripheral nations to be a reversion to kleinstaaterei that would stall socialist revolution.
Rather, she opposed using “rights-talk,” regarding it as a bourgeois fiction: “If we recognize the right of each nation to self-determination, it is obviously a logical conclusion that we must condemn every attempt to place one nation over another, or for one nation to force upon another any form of national existence. However, the duty of the class party of the proletariat to protest and resist national oppression arises not from any special “right of nations,” just as, for example, its striving for the social and political equality of sexes does not at all result from any special “rights of women” which the movement of bourgeois emancipationists refers to. This duty arises solely from the general opposition to the class regime and to every form of social inequality and social domination, in a word, from the basic position of socialism.” (The National Question, 1909).
Yet this “basic position of socialism” would clearly have to emphasize some inequalities over others depending on historical and economic circumstances, and in practice the nation-state would prove the most durable rallying cry.
Luxemburg herself published a pamphlet in 1900 entitled “In Defense of Nationality,” a vigorous incitement for Poles to rise up against Prussianization: “Your hair stands up when you think about these attempts, your fist clenches out of desperation, that such things have been happening in broad daylight before the eyes of all Europe and the entire civilized world for decades, and none of the elites speak out, no one pushes back the Germanizing power; the Hakatists [colonization society members] laugh at our weakness and quietly continue their work of uprooting Polish identity, as if they were doing the world’s most honorable and righteous work. So it is a crime to speak your own language, which you imbibed with your mother’s milk; so it is a crime to belong to a people, into which you were born! Truly, it is about time for the Polish people to shake off its lifelessness, to express its indignation, to rise and fight against Germanization. In which way this fight shall be led, in which way the defense of Polish nationality will be achieved most effectively – these are questions which it pays to consider seriously.”
Here is Luxemburg the Polish nationalist. Note she does not advocate a nation-state, but rather “national cultural autonomy,” a view compatible both with believing in the importance of ethnic identity while rejecting national self-determination as a bourgeois fraud to mask class exploitation, a view to be shared later by the Austromarxist school of Otto Bauer and Karl Renner, one not too dissimilar from a diaspora model of nationhood. Nevertheless, this is a clear example of the use of nationalist rhetoric to recruit people into a socialist party (Chapter 3).
Now Lenin ends up explicitly backing national self-determination, as in early 1916 when he writes that “the proletariat cannot but fight against the forcible retention of the oppressed nations within the boundaries of a given state, and this is exactly what the struggle for the right of self-determination means. The proletariat must demand the right of political secession for the colonies and for the nations that “its own” nation oppresses.” He explicitly equates national self-determination as a prerequisite for proletarian internationalism.
However it was Stalin who developed the seminal Marxist-Leninist theory of the nation in Marxism and the National Question (1913), where he defines a nation as a “historically constituted, stable community of people, formed on the basis of a common language, territory, economic life, and psychological make-up manifested in a common culture.”
Stalin rejected the Austromarxist idea of cultural-national autonomy, seeing it as incompatible with the historical tendency for capitalism to dissolve cultural ties by displacing laborers. Furthermore, Bauer was an explicit national socialist, saying that “socialism not only does not obliterate national differences but reinforces and develops them by bringing culture to the masses and making the national idea the property of everyone,” which was something that Stalin found distasteful.
Hence, he favored self-determination for larger nations and regional autonomy for smaller, peripheral nations. Stalin believed regional autonomy would accelerate class divisions while healing ethnic tensions by giving minorities rights to build their own schools and disseminate their own language.
In 1924, Stalin would reiterate this analysis in Chapter 6 of The Foundations of Leninism. In it, he devised ten strategic points for national liberation movements, going as far as to say that the world is divided into two camps: the camp of a handful of civilised nations, which possess finance capital and exploit the vast majority of the population of the globe; and the camp of the oppressed and exploited peoples in the colonies and dependent countries, which constitute the majority. Here we have a much clearer oppressor-oppressed dichotomy, and a predecessor to dependency theory. Moreover, it’s a very common style of argument for populists of all stripes.
Returning to Bauer’s aforementioned idea of socialism reinforcing nationalism by making the national idea the property of everyone, Karl Kautsky, dubbed the “pope” of Marxism at one point, agreed about this in his 1907 essay Nationality and Internationality. Specifically, he referred to this statement of Bauer’s as a marvellous idea: “These may be called evolutionist politics, because not only do they not simply prevent the further development of the national character, but also because they make the whole people into the nation and wants to do so. This is not only about the development of the nation, but making the entire people into the nation.”
Since communism aims at a classless society, promoting nationalism to destroy crowns and estates was an obvious and logical strategy for the time. This necessarily involved the development of native literary vernaculars, poetry, song, novels, newspapers, theater, etc.
Robert Stuart documents the history of the French Workers’ Party (POF), founded by Jules Guesde and Paul Lafargue, in his monograph Marxism and National Identity.
The POF, in its editorials, was tempted to embrace organicist protectionism and nativism when politically useful, even if not quite in line with Marxian economics and its Ricardian foundations, as when complaining of “‘patriotic’ bosses who don’t show the slightest repugnance when profiting from foreign goods at the expense of the products of their own country.” (p.55)
Or when it rattled against the yellow peril: “No taxes, abundant manpower at low prices, lots of raw material, and steam engines! Tomorrow, China will inundate Europe with its inordinately cheap products.” (They sure were prescient on that!) Also, communism was the only way to keep the gooks out: “We have no time to lose, and there is no other barrier that can stop the Chinese or Japanese coolie except the communist and collectivist civilization that will not accept [the Asian’s] low-cost labor, and will repel him back to Asia.” (p.99)
Coolie and migrant laborers were “a jealous and hostile mob which, . . . having lived off us and spied on us, will return arms-in-hand.” (p.58) There was also a tendency to neo-Jacobinism, with Paul Lafargue declaring that “France has been and still is one of those nations that initiates and guides human development: she cannot herself develop and change without exercising an international influence… The socialists will once again place France at the head of the European peoples. She will once again become the nation that awakens the world with her ideas and her social struggles.” (p.76)
The POF was further alarmed by immigrant fecundity, not entirely without justification, but again as a mostly opportunistic gambit upon realizing that class consciousness wasn’t working: “The French nationality is on its way to being suffocated under the pressure of ultraprolific Italians and Germans. And in order to save ourselves from tomorrow’s inevitable invasion, all that our ‘ultrapatriotic’ economists can imagine is to have us invaded today by introducing into our factories, into our shops, even into our public service, the largest possible number of trans-Vosgiens and trans-Alpins. Prussianize ourselves! Such is the apex of their science. Thanks, idiots!” (p.85)
Virtually all Marxist-Leninist states were explicitly nationalistic in both their domestic and foreign policy considerations. The pragmatic reasoning behind this was very simple. The promise of “human emancipation” being the bunk it is, any philosophy founded on the principle of a workers’ state could lead to nothing else but the workers becoming the fixed capital of the bureaucracy, who now had to figure out how to maximally reduce slack capacity in order to fulfill the five-year plans. “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need,” accordingly was transformed into “From each according to his ability, to each according to his labor input,” which then became “He who does not work shall not eat,” and ultimately into “You shall toil ceaselessly without the expectation of any return, for only that is selfless, only that is communist. Expecting things in return is bourgeois greed!”
Now the USSR, following Lenin’s philosophy, issued the Declaration of the Rights of the Peoples of Russia and proceeded to forge new national states for the many Asiatic, Turkic and peripheral peoples of the former Russian Empire through two processes: razmezhevanie (demarcation/delimitation) and korenizatsiya (nativization).
Unsurprisingly, this led to the newly consciousness-raised ethnic minorities engaging in dreaded “petit-bourgeois nationalism.” So the project had to be scaled down, and ended up being replaced with Soviet socialist patriotism by the 1930s. In 1934, Pravda was blurting: “For our fatherland! This call fans the flame of heroism, the flame of creative initiative in pursuits and all fields of our rich life. For our fatherland! This call arouses millions of workers and alerts them in the defense of their great country. The defense of the fatherland is the supreme law of life. And he who raises his hand against his country, he who betrays his country should be destroyed.”
It is this component that leads many deracinated fools today to engage in defenses of Bolshevism. Nonetheless, the results speak for themselves: out-of-wedlock births are off the charts.
Definitive treatments of the Bulgarian and Romanian cases, respectively, are Yannis Syglekos’ Nationalism from the Left: The Bulgarian Communist Party During the Second World War and the Early Post-War Years (2011), and Katherine Verdery’s National Ideology Under Socialism: Identity and Cultural Politics in Ceausescu’s Romania (1991). Agrarianism was still dominant and proletarianization modest in those nations, again making nationalism attractive. Less than 30% of the BCP’s membership was working class, and there’s only so much you can play the altruist until it gets boring. “Traditionalist” was used as a pejorative word in Ceaucescu’s Romania against political opponents (Verdery, p.162), making such “right-wing” defenses of it as Bretonescu’s all the more hilarious.
I’ve mentioned the CPUSA’s relationship to black nationalism before, but it is worth reiterating.
In 1928 and 1930, two resolutions were passed by the Comintern on the Negro Question. In both of them, the idea of the American negroes as a separate nation with the right to self-determine and with a mission to specifically fight for social as opposed to simply economic rights, was affirmed. Even further, the Comintern resolution accepted the Negro Question as part of a broader “World Problem” of the struggle of negroes against capitalist imperialism worldwide. Texts reproduced here.
The commitment to black self-determination is restated in a CPUSA organizational manual from 1935, following the Comintern resolution on said issue.
In 1948, Haywood’s book Negro Liberation (see Ch VII, “The Negro Nation”) would set the foundation for black nationalism, and for the modern contradictory school of left-wing identity politics where race is simultaneously held to be of paramount importance and dismissed as a groundless social construct all the same. Haywood does not conceive of the Negro Question as primarily economic, but following the Comintern 20 years earlier, a national question. To be sure, it follows the Marxist-Leninist analysis of nationality pioneered by Stalin in 1913. But it went beyond in actively treating black culture as an autonomous element rather than a mere superstructure to a capitalist base, and specifically argued that self-government and democratic institutions were the proximate goal of the black struggle, and not proletarian class dictatorship as a more standard Leninist would say.
Quite fascinatingly, the veteran Marxist-Leninist M.J. Olgin, in his well-known at the time pamphlet “Why Communism?” (1933), Ch 5 exhorts white workers to back a negro state in America: “We say to the white workers: to prove your sincerity about Negro freedom you must fight for the self-determination of the Negroes in the Black Belt. By this we mean the right of the Negroes, if they choose to do so, to establish their own State in that territory of the South where they form the majority of the population. The Negroes are a nation like any other nation and they are entitled to their own State.”
Elsewhere, Olgin declared (as quoted by Anthony Dawahare) that “Humanity is not split into races but into oppressors and oppressed,” another unambiguous use of this dichotomy.
The CPUSA during the Popular Front period was especially prone to hijacking patriotism, as with the infamous slogan “Communism is the Americanism of the twentieth century.” Earl Browder in 1936 when he published What is Communism? laid claim to the “revolutionary nationalist” heritage of the American Revolution, appealing to labor protectionism, and taking up the mantle of Patrick Henry, Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson. So too did the black communist leader James Ford cave in to calls for “[uniting] more than ever for the defense of our glorious past” in 1938 during this period of party discipline.
The CPUSA’s endorsement of black nationalism was probably the most dramatic example of a Marxist party coming close to elevating ethnic rather than class consciousness to an orthodoxy.
Things like Frantz Fanon’s Wretched of the Earth on reciprocal bases of national culture and the fight for freedom become intelligible. So too, Paulo Freire’s “pedagogy of the oppressed,” and the non-economistic “Africa for the Africans” anti-colonial insurgent ideology of an Amilcar Cabral in Portuguese Guinea.
From Marxism and the national question we get the diluted oppressor-oppressed dichotomy, Afro-Marxism, adventuristic anti-colonial activism and ultimately postcolonialism and negritude. From the concurrent return to Young Hegelian idealism and away from dogmatic historical materialism, all of the myriad of ideas in critical theory. The intersection of the two is Cultural Marxism, which balkanizes into radical feminism, critical race theory, and so forth. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Codi Wilson, CP24.com
A new poll suggests that despite the fact that nearly half of voters say they disapprove of Doug Ford as leader of the Ontario PC Party, the Tories would still be poised to form a majority government.
The Forum Research poll, which was conducted on March 11, found that 48 per cent of those surveyed said they do not approve of Ford as leader, while 36 per cent said they support his leadership. About 16 per cent said they were unsure if he was the right fit for the party.
Those most likely to disapprove of the newly elected leader include people ages 55 to 64 (53 per cent), females (52 per cent), and those living in the 905 (54 per cent).
His strongest support comes from people ages 35 to 44 (41 per cent), and 45 to 54 (41 per cent), males (46 per cent), and those living in Toronto (41 per cent).
About 48 per cent of people polled said they would be less likely to vote PC in the next election with Ford as leader while 20 per cent said they would be more likely now the Ford is at the helm.
According to the poll, amongst those who are considered “decided” and “leaning” voters, it appears the PCs would garner 44 per cent of the vote, with the NDP gaining 27 per cent and the Liberals only 23 per cent.
“Doug Ford’s leadership of the Progressive Conservatives has polarized Ontarians, with half saying they are less likely to vote for the party in the next election,” Lorne Bozinoff, president of Forum Research, said in his analysis accompanying the poll.
“However, four in ten would still vote for Ford’s Conservatives, more than enough to propel Ford into the Premier’s office, with a healthy majority. Despite the positive numbers for the conservatives under Ford, it seems that Ontarians are not so much accepting Doug Ford and his leadership, as they are rejecting the other alternatives.”
The poll, which randomly sampled 923 Ontario voters, is considered accurate plus or minus three per cent, 19 times out of 20. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
With this week being a rare week off for the UFC and most other promotions, I found myself with a golden opportunity to write about one of the things that irks me the most. It’s a topic that overlaps politics and sports, business and morality, history and mythology. It’s also a topic that is written about by anti MMA journalists and too oft disregarded by those of us who love the sport; “Is the sport of MMA barbaric”? It’s time the uninformed receive a response.
It’s important to start this piece my making sure it is understood that MMA is a sport. It is not a case of two individuals randomly getting into a cage fighting to the death. When fighters enter UFC’s Octagon, they are finely tuned athletes competing at the pinnacle of a sport that is the fastest growing in both viewership and participation in history.
England’s next great heavyweight boxing hope, Anthony Joshua is currently 3-0 with three KO’s after starting his career in October. The fighters he has face thus far have one job; to go in the ring and last as long as possible before being decisively knocked out by this unbelievable talent. It has been brutal to watch. The idea, of course, is to build up Joshua’s profile before actually giving him a worthy challenge. It isn’t entertaining to watch and it isn’t responsible to put on, yet nobody says anything because this is how boxing has operated for decades and boxing is accepted by the masses. It is worth saying that I am a huge boxing fan and have actually worked in the sport, but I am merely drawing a comparison. The way MMA works is that matchmakers look to put on the best and most competitive fights available. This means that more often than not, fighters are extremely well matched, which makes for good entertainment and prevents horrifying pulverisation you sometimes do see in boxing.
Download the new Independent Premium app Sharing the full story, not just the headlines
Why then is this the case? The reason is that in MMA, the organisation is the promoter. Fighters are after UFC Championships, and it is the UFC that promote their fighters and the events. This means that it is in the UFC’s best interest to put on the most competitive fights regardless of the result.
In boxing there are four major organisations and promoters represent only the fighters. A boxing promoter’s job is two fold. Firstly, they must make fights to enable their fighter to win a World Championship by the quickest and easiest road possible. Secondly, they must do this by ensuring their fighter earns as much money as possible in the process.
In the UFC, if a fighter wants to win a belt, they must beat who’s put in front of them. It will certainly be a long hard road, but fighters reach their goals through merit and not entitlement.
My argument is that there will be those that love MMA and those who hate MMA, in the same way that there are those that love football and those that hate football. This is inevitable. Currently however, the sport of MMA is being dismissed by those that know nothing about it. Rugby players take to the pitch week after week, charging into each other trying to land the biggest tackle (I’m also a big rugby fan by the way), often resulting in injury and sightings of blood, yet this goes largely unmentioned. It is seen as merely an occupational hazard of a rugby player. Why then in MMA is that not also the case? Why is MMA more barbaric than raking somebody on the bottom of a ruck or dump tackling them unnecessarily?
In the NFL and other sports, there are enormous issues with concussions. Their seriousness has not been fully appreciated until now and the long term damage to those that played through them has been tragic. Still, there are cases of people playing through concussion, whether due to being due to feeling a responsibility to their team or any other reason. In the UFC, when somebody is knocked out, regardless of the severity, the fighter receives an automatic 90 day medical suspension from any physical contact. After this 90 days, they must be cleared by a doctor before being able to fight again. Medical suspensions are handed out to all fighters by a doctor after a fight of varying lengths depending on damage sustained. When Anderson Silva broke his leg last month in the Octagon, the surgeon was present at ring side and arranged for immediate transportation to the hospital. Two hours later He was operating on the past champion. That is how the UFC conduct medical procedure. The UFC often pay for fighters’ surgeries and medical help from their own pocket. You are bound to see some blood at an MMA event, yet this will likely be due to surface cuts of no significance. The UFC still maintains a record of never having sustained a death or serious injury, unlike rugby and boxing.
It is also a common misconception to think that the small 4oz gloves worn by MMA fighters make the sport more barbaric. Boxing gloves are not there to protect the one being punched, but are in fact there to protect the hand of the puncher. The human hand is far weaker and more vulnerable than the head. With more protection and padding to the hand, the puncher is able to punch harder, not softer, with the concussive damage being more and not less.
We are in an age where so many youngsters look up to footballers who too often set horrific examples, whilst getting paid astronomical sums of money (I’m also a huge football fan). Conversely, MMA fighters are disciplined and respectful, yet are unfairly looked at by so many as being barbaric thugs. They are not street fighters, they are martial artists. The skills and techniques utilised in MMA take years to learn and an enormous amount of dedication to perfect. Whilst you might not like or want to watch MMA, it is time the sport is respected. It is time the nonsense stopped. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
En av tidernas främsta skidåkare går till angrepp mot ”storstadsbornas tillåtande syn på vargen”.
– Det är bara en tidsfråga innan den kommer och tar ett barn söderut. Så illa är det, säger Thomas Wassberg. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
There are so many intolerant aunts on reddit because they don't have to tolerate your beliefs as your parents do.
137 shares | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
feel kinda butts ---> draw sleeping fluttershy ---> did not really help to lessen buttsness but at least there is now extra floofnote: my favourite thing to draw is sleeping things.Art made by me (* ponymonster My Little Pony and characters belong to and copyright of Hasbro | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Recently I decided it was time to give my lawn a makeover. Years of brutally hot Atlanta summers have taken their toll on my grass and its well … dead. I chose the do it yourself route and as usual went over budget and invested far more time than I had planned. None the less I now have a decent looking backyard.
Given my investment and how much I travel I decided it would be worth the extra money to install an automated sprinkler system. There are several of these that exist in the market so I set out doing my research. I chose Rachio (http://rachio.com) for its ability to control watering based on weather and other conditions which is awesome! While Rachio is a great product with several features it had a few shortcomings that I was hoping to supplement with my existing home setup (powered by Apache NiFi of course). The idea was the use all of the existing features that Rachio offered and then use data from my local home automation setup to further supplement the watering system. There were two main features that Rachio didn’t offer that I wanted to add.
Dog (Zeke) Location - My wife and I have the world’s coolest dog (Zeke). He does have a few weaknesses however and water happens to be one of them. Since he spends much of his time in the fenced in backyard by himself I can’t risk them turning on while he is back there or he will enter hyper puppy play mode and dig them all up. Worse yet he will bring that mud back in the house with him once he is done. It is a must that my the system understand when he is outside and not allow watering to occur.
- My wife and I have the world’s coolest dog (Zeke). He does have a few weaknesses however and water happens to be one of them. Since he spends much of his time in the fenced in backyard by himself I can’t risk them turning on while he is back there or he will enter hyper puppy play mode and dig them all up. Worse yet he will bring that mud back in the house with him once he is done. It is a must that my the system understand when he is outside and not allow watering to occur. Outdoor Gatherings - We use our backyard a lot and don’t want unexpected waterings while we have guests in the backyard. While Rachio allows you to manually control this with an app I wanted a more automated approach that understood when we were in the backyard without any manual process.
After settling on the features that I wanted to my system I set out to solve the technical implementation and landed on the approaches listed below.
Dog (Zeke) Location - This problem was a little tough to solve. I finally landed on installing an iBeacon (Gimbal Series 10) on Zeke’s collar and setting up a custom Raspberry PI BLE scanner that I had made for another project. This is out of the scope of this blog but at a high level the scanner sits at his only entrance/exit to the yard and toggles between him being either inside of outside. This is c++ and python application that uses Linux bluez. An instance of Apache NiFi is also running on this Raspberry PI and forwarding the JSON iBeacon payload to my NiFi master cluster for further analysis.
Outdoor Gatherings - Similar to tracking Zeke with his iBeacon collar I have a separate wireless network in my backyard and uses a MikroTik RouterOS software to monitor for MAC addresses of friends and family’s mobile phones. The logic is if a known MAC address is connected to that network in the backyard then someone is back there and we should delay the sprinklers being turned on. Another instance of Apache NiFi is gathering output from RouterOS and sending that information the the main NiFi instance for further analysis.
To recap I have three instances of Apache NiFi running. Two instances are gathering data from its point of inception and passing that data along to the third instance where the data is analyzed. This instance also sends requests to the Rachio API to turn off the watering system if a dog or human being is detected in the backyard. Lets take a look at the NiFi workflow of the third instance that ultimately controls the water system.
The workflow was created with out of the box features and simple steps to follow. Clearly Apache NiFi is the cadillac of integrating with other awesome 3rd party systems! | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
I often talk about superstitions - the ones that you can't say out loud what you fear... or it will happen. But let me just state that I firmly believe in science. (It's sad that one actually has to state that these days!) I don't believe in fate and I know that I can't tempt fate by saying something out loud - or typing it - or even thinking it.
Despite all that, I have threatened to ban people from my rides because they insist saying something silly like, "At least it's not raining." Despite all scientific evidence that this cannot possibly cause us to suddenly get soaked, it almost always does. As a result, I practically forbid ride companions from evening uttering the R-word. See what I did there: cause and effect. You talk about rain... it rains... causing me to not want to ride with you again.
So given my reputation for this weather superstition, readers must have noticed me tempting fate by vowing not to write about yet another injury/recovery. Well, here we go again... I do promise to post way more about rides and tours, but humor me now as I write about my latest adventure.
In January of 2017, I was out riding my new fat bike and let's just say that I found myself in conditions beyond my skill level. I recognized this relatively quickly and turned back. I was inching my way back down the icy rutted track and almost within sight of the end of the dodgy part, I found myself on the ground with a busted collarbone. It wasn't too bad. I walked most of the rest of the way back to where we started. I saw a surgeon and had it repaired with a plate and was back riding within a month. Eleven months later, the plate was bothering me so much that I had it taken out. Then three weeks after that I was reaching overhead to adjust a heat vent and it re-broke in the same spot. The surgeon who took the plate out was adamant that it had healed properly and that we couldn't do anything else until the screw holes fully healed. A second opinion suggested otherwise and after more downtime than I'd prefer, I got it repaired again, this time with a bone graft from my hip. A rubbery fibrous joint had formed at the original fracture site. This was cleaned out and bone and barrow from the iliac crest were packed in to form a basis for healing. The new surgeon put in a plate across the full length of the collarbone, and now we just get to watch it heal.
I had hoped to go home the same day, but woke in so much pain that I agreed to stay the night at the hospital, just so they could give me strong pain meds. While the donor site, the iliac crest is not weight bearing, it was extremely painful and I could barely stand up. I'm sure the surgeon had warned me that it would hurt, but I didn't realize just quite how much.
In the last five years I have broken my left collarbone three times. I fractured 4 vertebrae and crushed a fifth. I also broke 6 ribs. I have been treated for breast cancer, complete with a year of infusions and a bilateral mastectomy. Then last spring the osteoarthritis in my right shoulder resulted in me having no cartilage left at all, so I had a total shoulder replacement.
When I got the shoulder prognosis, I bought a recumbent trike to enable me to ride without any stress on the shoulder. The trike was handy because it allowed me to safely ride through my recovery. While it was fun like a go-cart, it was also very hard work and I was thrilled after a couple of months to get back on my regular bike so I could keep up with friends and ride my beloved dirt roads and trails.
Maybe it's superstition talking, but I'd just packed the trike away in the basement when I re-broke my collarbone.
Needless to say, there has a lot of pain in the last 5 years, and my pain scale has been adjusted accordingly. I've also become way too familiar with pain medication.
But the current climate is one that is unfavorable for prescription painkillers. So despite the fact that I have some amount of pain everyday, I am completely off all painkillers and anti-inflammatories.
Shortly after my latest surgery, a friend, who is also an anesthesiologist, sent me a link to an article about the experience of American woman in Germany, who had just given birth, and was told to simply take OTC Tylenol. The thinking there is that pain should be a guide/limiter. You should rest and recover.
The problem I have is that a lot of my pain is a result of weakness and I need to do some strength training to rebuild muscle. But those activities are painful. So where is the point that I let pain stop me, versus pushing through.
The big problem for me is guilt. I can't rest. I have to ride or walk or something, because otherwise I'm just being lazy. I'm also not a spring chicken and after so much trauma in the last 5 years, each recovery is harder and harder, and each comeback fails to bring me to the level I was before. Do I accept it or push harder?
I'm still trying to find that balance.
| {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
BECKLEY, W.Va. – Parents are sounding off after a West Virginia elementary school opted to ditch its planned Christmas celebrations in the name of political correctness.
Hollywood Elementary School officials planned to celebrate with the “12 Days of Christmas” leading up to the holiday with fun themes like “elf day” and “Christmas sweater day,” but principal Tamber Hodges told WVNS a single complaint forced them to cancel the celebrations.
MORE NEWS: UI prof scrambles to rewrite slavery assignment after student complains on Twitter
“This was something we honestly thought would be a great way to celebrate this month,” Hodges said.
On “Carols Day” students would have brought in their favorite holiday CDs, and “Tree Topper Day” would have gave kids an opportunity to “show off your best Christmas hat.” Monday, Dec. 14, was set aside as “Toy Drive Day.”
“Bring in a new unwrapped toy and we will donate them to Mac’s Toy Fund,” the school calendar read.
But as WVNS reporter Brandon Bates put it as he shredded the calendar with his hands in the news broadcast, “that schedule got almost immediately thrown out because not all people share the same beliefs.”
Hodges said “a lot of people are upset, and I can’t blame anyone for being upset.”
WBOY reports a lot of parents are plan to go through with the celebratory days – sending their kids to school with Christmas hats and funky socks – in defiance of the cancellation.
MORE NEWS: ASU student group holds ‘charity fundraiser’ for alleged Kenosha killer Klye Rittenhouse
“It’s always been a tradition,” parent Jennifer Myers told WVNS.
Myers posted to Facebook about the Hollywood Christmas cancellation and encouraged parents to allow their kids to participate, and it caught fire with hundreds of shares within hours.
“My son is in pre-K at Hollywood Elementary. They were supposed to have ‘The 12 Days of Christmas’ in which the kids were going to do something different each day, like dress like an elf, wear their pj’s and slippers, wear Christmas colors, ugly Christmas sweaters, etc,” Meyers wrote.
“However, ONE person, that’s right, ONE person, called and complained, and now The 12 Days of Christmas has been canceled for everyone. Christmas is a time for peace, giving, love and most importantly, to celebrate the One who died for us. He died for everyone…even the ones who try to take Him out of schools, ballgames, court houses, etc. He died for EVERYone!”
“I refuse to stand around and do nothing when it comes to taking Him out of everything. I know the school might not be ‘allowed’ to do The 12 Days of Christmas, but we most certainly can do it ourselves! They can’t tell me that my son can’t wear Christmas sweaters to school. I say we, as parents, stand up for Christmas and for Christ and proceed with The 12 Days of Christmas at Hollywood Elementary. Put on our full armor of God and fight back!” she wrote.
“Don’t tell me that my son dressing like an elf ‘offends’ you. He’s 4!” she continued. “He still believes in the magic of Christmas. Let him be a kid! You might not agree with me, and that’s okay. But my child WILL be participating, even if he’s the only one. You’ll be able to recognize him…he’ll be the one dressed like an elf. Merry Christmas and God bless!”
“I was hoping people would share the post so it would get out and other parents would allow their kids to participate,” Myers told the new site.
Since the news broadcast Myers’ post has ballooned to 844 shares and counting.
“There is always one that ruins it for everyone,” JessandJermey Hall posted in the comments.
“It’s time we as Christians started standing up to this nonsense!” Rick Hatfield added.
“The world needs a lot more Christians who are not afraid to stand up for what they believe in!” Holly Steele wrote. “I think what you are doing is awesome.” | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Alamo Drafthouse is a unique movie-going experience and Kalamazoo is lucky enough to have one of their few locations. The building owner, EPR Properties is kicking them out! Save the Alamo!
Alamo Drafthouse's "no talking policy" makes going to the movies fun for people who enjoy the movies, and not listening to people talking and interrupting. No other theater in this area offers that. They also have themed menus for special releases and who doesn't want to enjoy a delicious locally brewed beer with their movie?
Alamo not only shows movies, but provides special events and unique artfully crafted experiences for their patrons (sing alongs, quote-alongs, parties, etc.)
Losing this unique venue will be a detriment to the Kalamazoo downtown area, and we will lose a feature that draws tourists to our city as well.
Save the Alamo! Tell EPR properties that we want Alamo to stay, and not another "generic" movie theatre chain! | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
You'll have plenty to celebrate when you subscribe to the Liverpool FC newsletter Sign me up Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Invalid Email
Ryan Kent is in contention to make his Liverpool debut against Exeter City in the FA Cup next week.
The talented 19-year-old winger is heading back to Merseyside after being recalled from his loan spell with Coventry City by Reds boss Jurgen Klopp .
Kent received a standing ovation in the dressing room from his Sky Blues team-mates after making his final appearance for the League One outfit in their 5-0 thrashing of Crewe on Saturday.
The teenager could now feature for the Reds in the FA Cup third round tie at St James' Park next Friday night.
“There are a number of injuries and a lot of games so that’s why I’ve been recalled,” Kent said.
“Hopefully I can make my debut against Exeter in the FA Cup but I’ll have to see what happens.”
Kent, who made 17 appearances for Coventry, believes he has benefited greatly from his time in the Midlands.
“I have to say my game has improved a lot,” he told the Coventry Telegraph.
“I feel a much better player after stepping up from under-21s football into a first team.
“Tony Mowbray has been excellent with me and I have learned a lot under him both in training and in games. So it’s a big thanks to him.
“I’ve got a feeling of mixed emotions. It’s disappointing to be leaving because I’ve enjoyed it so much at Coventry but I’m also looking forward to the next step in my career.” | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
California, Texas, Florida, and even New York. The Zika epidemic has arrived on US shores. And the virus is already wreaking havoc on the lives on pregnant women.
This summer, several babies born in the US have been diagnosed with Zika-related microcephaly and one of them has died because of it. While we’re able to identify women and babies who test positive for the virus, there’s no definitive way to know whether these infants will have the developmental problems related to Zika.
Because this is the first Zika outbreak of this magnitude, much is still unknown about virus, its transmission, and the way it affects our bodies. The disease has been connected with serious pregnancy complications, including a higher risk of miscarriage and stillbirth, and neonatal conditions, such as microcephaly and other serious neurological and developmental conditions. It is believed that the risk of microcephaly may be in babies whose mothers contracted Zika in the first trimester of pregnancy, although mothers who contracted the virus during the third trimester gave birth to babies with normal-sized brains but were still born with cerebral damage.
The latest guidelines recommend testing for pregnant women who live in an area where Zika is endemic (which in the US is still limited) or women who have traveled to an infected area in the months prior to the pregnancy, even if they don’t present symptoms of Zika. Testing is also recommended for asymptomatic pregnant women whose partner has traveled to, or lives in, areas of active Zika transmission.
Robert Segal, a cardiologist and the founder of LabFinder, explained that a few commercially available tests have received a temporary Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) from the Food and Drugs Administration (FDA), but the FDA has yet to provide permanent approval, as well as specific guidelines for use.
The tests, Segal said, are at risk of giving false positive and false negative results—though he notes there are more false positives than false negatives—so sometimes one test isn’t be enough to give a final diagnosis. Women who have been exposed to the virus and show symptoms of Zika infection can take a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test to look for the presence of Zika’s genetic material in the patient. This test is administered within the first two weeks of the onset of flu-like symptoms or a rash. After that window, another test is recommended that looks for signs of residual or previous infection and immune system response to Zika. If this test comes back positive, the CDC recommends performing a further antibody test to confirm the diagnosis.
If a woman has tested positive, the current recommendation is to wait at least eight weeks before becoming pregnant, and six months if her partner has tested positive for Zika. Yet it may be hard to determine exactly when a woman contracted Zika, if her infection was asymptomatic (which, Segal notes, happens in up to 80% cases). Doctors believe that a woman who tests negative weeks after exposure should be outside of the window of concern.
But what if a woman who is already pregnant tests positive?
The likelihood that a pregnancy would be affected, resulting in miscarriage or stillbirth, or that the baby would present a serious abnormality, is uncertain. Research has found the chances of developing microencephaly may be up to 13%, but the data set is still so small that nothing should be taken as definitive. For comparison, this is a slightly higher likelihood than whether a 49-year-old woman carrying a fetus will develop Down Syndrome.
Currently, it’s not possible to determine whether a fetus will have birth defects or lifelong problems because of Zika even at a more advanced stage of pregnancy, which makes it especially hard for women to contemplate terminating a pregnancy.
Clark Johnson, an assistant professor of maternal fetal medicine at Johns Hopkins University and a fellow with Physicians for Reproductive Health, says the recommendation for pregnant women who test positive for Zika is to increase the number of ultrasounds during gestation. In pregnancies that aren’t particularly risky, a woman usually undergoes two to five scans, the latest of which is around the 20th week. In the case of Zika, as well as other high-risk conditions, the recommendation is an ultrasound every four to six weeks, which is the time it takes for any significant fetal change to occur.
The scan, Johnson said, would look for anomalies in the shape and size of the head, which becomes visible around the 16th week or at times the 14th. Another warning sign may be an unusual deposit of calcium in the brain area. However, while it’s the best (and only) tool to diagnose Zika-related birth defects, Johnson said that “we don’t know that the ultrasound is perfectly diagnostic.” A woman can also test her amniotic fluid for Zika (a test usually performed around week 14 to 16) but that won’t necessarily give hard evidence on whether the fetus will have serious damage or not.
Similarly, it’s impossible to rule out conditions that are not visible. Some infants may have delayed development of the brain, which could happen in months after birth, or other problems that have been linked to Zika, such as trouble swallowing or moving. There could also be, Johnson said, babies with “normally sized heads but lower IQs” as a consequence of the infection—another thing that current diagnostics wouldn’t be able to reveal before birth.
As research on Zika progresses, improved testing will likely be able to deliver earlier and more accurate diagnoses. More data will help in understanding the likelihood of serious conditions for babies of Zika-positive women. This will put women in a better position to make informed decisions about pregnancies affected by the virus. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Experts solve mystery of ancient stone monument near Atlanta
Submitted by: manso
Editorial Articles
04 / 12 / 2011
April 11th, 2011 9:07 am ET. Richard Thornton. Architecture & Design Examiner. Rock art specialists from around North America have finally solved this century old archaeological riddle. The stone slab is evidence that native peoples from Puerto Rico or Cuba once lived within the interior of Eastern North America.
One day, long before Christopher Columbus claimed to have landed on the eastern edge of Asia, a forgotten people cut steps in the rocks leading up a steep bluff near the Chattahoochee River in the northwest section of the State of Georgia. They carved a supernatural figure on a four feet by one foot granite slab and erected it on the top of the knoll. The strange, primitive art was very different than the highly realistic stone sculptures found in the region that are known to have been created by the ancestors of Georgia’s Creek Indians.
During the mid-1800s a major industrial complex was developed near the ancient rock shrine. Somehow during the town’s construction, the tablet was overlooked; most likely because of a covering of soil. The town was called Manchester. It would have inevitably become a major city of the Southeast, but in the autumn of 1864 the notorious Union general, William Tecumseh Sherman, ordered the town burned, and the hundreds of teenage girls who worked at its mills, transported to a concentration camp in the Ohio.
The ruins of Manchester have remained a testimony to the fact that war is hell. The town was never rebuilt and its landscape converted back to scrub woodlands within a decade after the Civil War. In 1909 a man named W. H. Roberts was hunting wild turkeys in a hilly area next to the ruins of Manchester. After climbing the bluff over Sweetwater Creek that was known as “an Indian cemetery” because of the stone artifacts scattered on its slopes, Roberts happened to notice a granite slab laying flat on the ground. Apparently, rains had washed away the thin top soil that had concealed it for centuries.
Most scholars, who viewed the images incised on the slab in the early 1900s, assumed it was created by Native Americans, but had no further explanation. Primitive rock art such as on the slab found by Roberts is now known as petroglyphs. There are now professionals and organizations, that have developed the study of petroglyphs into a science, but a century ago such artifacts were viewed as curiosities
Throughout the mid-20th century, the Roberts (or Sweetwater Creek) petroglyph was on display at the Rhodes Mansion on Peachtree Street in Atlanta. This landmark house was the original office of the Georgia Division of Archives and History. After the state agency moved to a large marble structure near the Capitol, the petroglyphs were put in storage. The granite slab stayed there until Sweetwater Creek State Park was created around the ruins of Manchester in the 1970s. The slab is now on display at the park and protected by a Plexiglas screen.
A comment from a California professor opens Pandora’s Box
The national architecture & design column of the Examiner is currently running a series on the petroglyphs of the Southern Highlands. One of the articles of this series discussed the Sweetwater Creek petroglyph and an cluster of petroglyphs on nearby Nickajack Creek. Film maker and amateur archaeologist, Jon Haskell of Carmel, Indiana, was intrigued by the strange appearance of the Sweetwater Creek petroglyph. He had filmed documentaries in many parts of the Americas, but had never seen any petroglyph like the Sweetwater Creek Petroglyph in the United States.
During the first week of April 2011, Haskell sent emails throughout North America to friends, who were either archaeologists, petroglyph specialists or experts on Native American art. Most of the responses also expressed bafflement that such a strange petroglyph design would be found near Atlanta. Some respondents commented that it was similar to Ice Age cave art found in Spain and North Africa. However, because of its placement on a hill top shrine associated with Native American artifacts, the Sweetwater Petroglyph appears to date from a much more recent epoch.
Stephen C. Jett is a geography professor at the University of California at Davis and a recognized scholar of the petroglyphs and pictographs of the American Southwest. His brief comment emailed back to Jon Haskell was the first interpretation in a century that assigned an ethnic identity to the Sweetwater Petroglyph. He wrote, “It looks vaguely Caribbean to me, but that's just an impression, I am not conversant with the rock art of that region.”
Images and descriptions of the Sweetwater Petroglyph were immediately emailed to several specialists on Caribbean rock art. The respondents sent back photographs of rock art in Cuba, Puerto Rico and Hispaniola that were the same style as the one in Georgia. One petroglyph from Puerto Rico seems to portray the very same supernatural figure. It is a “guardian spirit” whose presence warned travelers that they were entering a province or sacred area. This style of art was typically placed on stone slabs 3-5 tall, which were located on hilltops or beside major trails.
The Sweetwater Petroglyph is a stone slab 4 feet tall that was originally on a hilltop. It is very significant evidence that Native Americans originally from Puerto Rico, Cuba or Hispaniola paddled to the Florida Peninsula; followed the Gulf Coast up to the mouth of the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee River; then ulitimately settled in the vicinity of what is now Atlanta. The most likely time period for this migration is from 1000 to 2000 years ago, but the date of the carvings on the granite slab are currently unknown.
Waves of South American peoples settled the Caribbean Basin
Archaeologists currently believe that the Caribbean Basin was settled by waves of peoples moving northward out of South America. The presence of the oldest known pottery of the Western Hemisphere in Georgia suggests that there may have also been movements of population and cultural innovations in the other direction. It is documented, though, that the agricultural villagers began island-hopping, northward out of Venezuela around 500 BC and by 500 AD had occupied most islands in the Caribbean Basin. These early people grew tobacco and sweet potatoes, but not many other cultivated plants. Their presence in the Caribbean Basin coincides with the appearance of tobacco in the Southeastern United States.
In the late 1960s archaeologists working in advance of an industrial park on the Chattahoochee River near Sweetwater Creek's outlet, found three varieties of indigenous sweet potatoes growing wild. They looked like "bushy" morning glories, but had large,edible tubers growing underground. Intensive land development since then has eliminated the wild sweet potato patches.
A second wave of Caribbean immigration by Natives speaking dialects of the Arawak language, began around 600 AD. These immigrants are associated with the Taino People of the Caribbean Basin and the Timucua of Florida. They introduced the bow and arrow, plus advanced varieties of Indian corn to the Caribbean Basin. They were much sophisticated artisans and farmers than the first wave of immigrants. The period also marks the introduction of the bow & arrow, plus advanced varieties of corn into the Southeastern United States. By 1150 AD the second wave of Arawak immigrants had reached the Florida peninsula. About that same time, numerous towns with mounds were abandoned in northeastern Florida as was the large megapolis on the Ocmulgee River near Macon, GA, which is now known as Ocmulgee National Monument.
Caribbean peoples in North America
It is commonly known that the Arawak-speaking Timucua occupied northeastern Florida and the southeastern tip of Georgia in the 1500s when Spain colonized the region. The public is not generally aware that there was also a small cluster of Arawak-speaking villages in the vicinity of Birmingham, AL until the mid-1700s, when they were absorbed by the Creek Indian Confederacy. The presence of what appears to be an Caribbean rock art in northern Georgia, suggests that the first wave of Caribbean immigrants were pushed northward into the mainland of North America by the second wave, who were better armed with bows and arrows, and better fed, by a wide range of cultivated crops.
In 1541 the Hernando de Soto Expedition observed an ethnic group in what is now South Carolina that had a culture very similar to the first wave of Arawakl immigrants into the Caribbean. They were described as primitive hunters who went naked, did not know how to grow corn & beans, and relied on roots that they dug from the ground for nutrition. The Creek Indian guides of the expedition called this primitive people, the Chalo-ke, which means bass (fish) people. They were not the same people as the Cherokees, and are last seen on a map by French cartographer, Delisle, living in southeast Georgia in the early 1700s.
The earlier occupants of the Caribbean depended on hunting, gathering, and the digging up of wild yucca roots (cassava) or sweet potatoes for nutrition. They went almost naked. The Guanajatabeyes and Siboney people were pushed into the western sections of Cuba and Hispaniola by the more sophisticated Taino. The Siboney often lived in caves. They both soon became extinct after the Spanish arrived.
The Sweetwater Petroglyph has never been scientifically dated by geologists. In order to interpret the stone more precisely, the general range of its age must be determined. There may be other stones like it hidden under the soil or forgotten in the basements of museums. By Richard Thornton, Architecture & Design Examiner.
Source: www.examiner.com/architecture-design-in-national/ | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Just a day earlier, Trump had barely suppressed his rage at Sen. John McCain (R) in the senator's home state of Arizona for being the third Republican to oppose a less sweeping version of overhaul that ultimately derailed the entire effort. (Of course, Trump and McCain have quite a history and that probably influenced Trump's remarks).
AD
AD
“One vote away — I will not mention any names. Very presidential, isn’t it?” Trump said at Monday's campaign-style rally in Phoenix, in an indirect but obvious jab at McCain.
Yet Trump did a 180 yesterday, refraining from any direct or indirect criticisms as he addressed the national convention of the American Legion. Instead, it was the kind of unity message you might expect Pope Francis to deliver, my colleague Philip Rucker writes. “It is time to heal the wounds that divide us and to seek a new unity based on the common values that unite us,” Trump said, reading from a teleprompter.
But over the past three months, as the White House and Senate GOP leadership struggled to gain enough support for a bill repealing Obamacare, one of Trump's foremost campaign promises -- moderate Republicans from politically purple Nevada were among the sharpest thorns in their sides.
Heller's done a bit of an about-face on health care ever since it became clear the Senate effort was stalled, expressing more public skepticism for parts of Obamacare. But in a speech yesterday, he bragged about his role in pressuring Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to bring to the floor a bill that would have left the ACA's Medicaid expansions intact.
AD
AD
“There’s only one reason why Medicaid was kept in that final version and that’s because of me,” Heller told a Hispanic group in Las Vegas, according to the Nevada Independent. “It was because of me and my efforts that we were able to protect low-income families in this state with the Medicaid expansion.”
Heller almost immediately bucked McConnell on his initial Better Care Reconciliation Act, joining with Sandoval in a news conference to announce his opposition just a day after the bill was rolled out in late June. The two men cited a laundry list of problems with the bill, most notably its gradual rollback of the ACA's Medicaid expansion. More than 200,000 Nevadans have enrolled in Medicaid ever since the state expanded the program for low-income Americans.
“It’s going to be very difficult to get me to a yes,” Heller said at the time.
AD
AD
Heller basically maintained that skeptical posture until the end, when he ultimately did vote for a dramatically scaled-down version of Obamacare repeal. Resistance from him, and the Senate's other most moderate and conservative Republicans, kept McConnell constantly trying to negotiate his way out of the Obamacare box, which he sorely wanted to close by now.
Trump hasn't always held his tongue on Heller. During a lunch with Senate Republicans before the Senate votes, the president joked that the senator -- one of the only GOP incumbent's in a tough 2018 reelection race -- might lose. And after Heller first came out against the Senate bill, a conservative organization aligned with Trump vowed to launch an expensive ad campaign against him, angering and shocking many mainstream GOP allies of the senator. Later, the group backed off.
Sandoval, who greeted Trump at the airport yesterday, has largely welcomed the ACA in his state, which narrowly voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016.
AD
AD
Back in 2012, Sandoval became the first GOP governor to embrace a central component of the law that lawmakers in more conservative states have eyed with suspicion – its expansion of Medicaid for childless adults earning less than 133 percent of the federal poverty level. As McConnell was writing his health-care bill in secret this summer, Sandoval joined six other governors on a bipartisan letter opposing the House’s version of Obamacare repeal for its steep Medicaid cuts.
“It calls into question coverage for the vulnerable and fails to provide the necessary resources to ensure that no one is left out, while shifting significant costs to the states,” the letter said.
As it became clear the Senate version would also deeply cut Medicaid, Sandoval kept heavy pressure on Heller to oppose it. In that June news conference with Heller, Sandoval praised the effects of the ACA.
AD
AD
“Today, Nevada’s in a much better place than it was six years ago, four years ago, even two years ago,” Sandoval said at the time. “And I want to keep that momentum going, because your health is the base of everything.”
Indeed, Nevada's uninsured rate fell from 29 percent in 2013 to 14.5 percent last year. Its childhood uninsured rate has dropped more than any other state in the wake of the ACA. And in addition to the new Medicaid enrollees, 90,000 more people obtained coverage through the state’s marketplace.
Of course, those aren't the effects of Obamacare that Trump has been emphasizing. Every time an insurer has announced it's leaving the marketplaces in 2018, his Department of Health and Human Services has issued a news release charging that the ACA is melting down with fewer and fewer options for consumers.
AD
AD
But even though moderate Republicans don't see eye-to-eye with Trump on health care, the president's diplomatic behavior in Reno shows they can duck his attacks as long as someone else (McCain) is in his cross-hairs. Trump's volatility means unexpected aggression but unexpected grace, too. It's Trump whiplash, as my colleague Philip characterizes it.
"In the span of 48 hours this week, President Trump has boomeranged among three roles: the commander in chief, the divider and the uniter," Philip writes. "Like a contestant on one of his reality TV shows, Trump has taken on contrasting personas, showcasing divergent traits with flourishes seemingly to survive another day of his beleaguered presidency. Or, as Trump the television producer might put it, to keep up the ratings."
AHH, OOF and OUCH
AHH: At that Tuesday rally where Trump attacked McCain for his health-care vote (without naming him), an attendee reportedly called for the senator's death A picture shared by journalist David Catanese showed a man wearing a Make America Great Again hat outside the rally in Phoenix. “This Trump supporter is shouting at protestors: ‘McCain needs to die now!'” Catanese tweeted.
AD
AD
McCain is currently undergoing treatment for glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer. McCain's daughter Meghan retweeted Catanese a few hours later (but didn't mention her father's medical condition):
OOF: The American Psychological Association has warned against trying to diagnose Trump's mental state if you aren't his doctor, but California Democrats are nonetheless stoking a debate over the president's mental health and fitness for office.
Amid questions about Trump’s stability after his volatile responses to the violence in Charlottesville — most recently raised by GOP Sen. Bob Corker and former Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. — California’s Democratic House delegation has seized on an issue that until recently was limited to the Internet fever swamps, Politico's Carla Marinucci writes.
AD
AD
--Rep. Zoe Lofgren introduced a congressional resolution urging Trump to seek a medical and psychiatric evaluation to determine if he is unfit for the office.
--Rep. Jackie Speier called for invoking the 25th Amendment — which empowers the vice president and Cabinet to remove a president who is incapable of serving — after last week's news conference from Trump Tower in which the president appeared to equate white supremacists with counterprotesters.
--And Rep. Ted Lieu has advocated for legislation requiring a psychiatrist at the White House.
"[Trump] has demonstrated that his mental capacity and his erratic behavior are issues we need to be concerned about for our national security,” Speier told Politico. “And I think I’m not the first person that’s talked about it. I’m just the first person that’s been public about it.”
"Yet the concentrated focus on Trump’s mental health worries many Democrats — even in the blue-state stronghold of California — who fear the party is expending too much energy obsessing over Trump at the expense of winning over voters to the party message," Carla writes.
OUCH: In the wake of reports detailing the splintering relationship between Trump and top Senate Republican Mitch McConnell, both GOP leaders issued statements yesterday talking up their “unity” on key agenda items.
In a statement Wednesday afternoon, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said that Trump and McConnell “remain united on many shared priorities, including middle class tax relief, strengthening the military, constructing a southern border wall and other important issues.” She seemed to acknowledge that the two do not plan to speak until Congress returns from the August recess after Labor Day.
“They will hold previously scheduled meetings following the August recess to discuss these critical items with members of the congressional leadership and the president’s Cabinet,” Huckabee Sanders said. “White House and leadership staff are coordinating regarding the details of those meetings.”
In his own statement, McConnell more sharply refuted the reports of conflict with Trump.
“We have a lot of work ahead of us, and we are committed to advancing our shared agenda together and anyone who suggests otherwise is clearly not part of the conversation,” McConnell said. The leader also gave a list of his priorities, which included providing "relief from Obamacare" (not repealing and replacing it, notably). Unlike the White House, McConnell didn't mention funding for a border wall.
"Trump has waged a public war with McConnell in recent weeks, blaming him for the Senate's failure to approve the Republicans' health-care bill and pushing him to change Senate rules so that most legislation would require only a simple majority to be approved," The Post's Abby Phillip reports. "A rift between Trump and McConnell would be a highly unusual roadblock for a president in his first term hoping to move forward with major legislation in a Congress controlled by his party....Come September, Congress must approve funding for the government for the remainder of the year and increase the debt limit to keep the government open. The White House hopes to also revisit health-care legislation and tackle a tax overhaul."
HEALTH ON THE HILL
House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) deflected questions yesterday about Trump's criticisms of McCain and Sen. Jeff Flake, Arizona's other GOP senator, saying simply that Republicans must stay united to pass their agenda.
"I think the president feels that's a strategy that works for him," Ryan said at an event at Intel's campus in Hillsboro, Oregon, according to the Washington Examiner. "I think it's important that we all stay unified as Republicans to complete our agenda."
--The Republican and Democratic leaders of an influential health-care committee (Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, more commonly known as HELP) announced earlier this week they'll hold two bipartisan hearings on improving the ACA marketplaces. The biggest goal here is to pass legislation providing long-term funds for extra subsidies known as cost-sharing reductions -- something insurers say they've got to have and which GOP Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) is determined to give them.
The hearings open up a rare bipartisan door to improve Obamacare. But it might not open very wide, according to Axios, which is reporting that another potentially bipartisan idea won't be part of negotiations. Republican aides say that reinsurance programs, which would help cover insurers' costs for their most expensive enrollees, aren't on the table -- even though reinsurance was part of several versions of health-care legislation Republicans took up this year.
A few more good reads from The Post and beyond:
MEDICAL MISSIVES
STATE SCAN
REPRODUCTIVE WARS
DAYBOOK
Coming Up
The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee will hold health care hearings on September 6 and 7.
SUGAR RUSH
Learn more about the interesting past of the man behind the ‘Blacks for Trump’ signs:
On script vs. off the cuff: Comparing Trump’s speaking styles: | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
(Reuters) - DowDuPont, formed through the merger of chemical giants Dow Chemical and DuPont, is shifting some operations in the three units it plans to create, potentially averting a prolonged fight with activist investors over its post-merger plans.
Dow and DuPont will split into three companies focusing on agriculture, specialty chemicals and materials, but some investors including Nelson Peltz’s Trian Partners and Daniel Loeb’s Third Point LLC urged the companies to take another look at the way business units are aligned.
The company said on Tuesday its would now move businesses totaling more than $8 billion in annual sales from its materials science division to the specialty-chemical unit, including water purification and automotive systems.
“We expect that this updated portfolio was seen by legacy Dow as the bare minimum to avoid an activist fight,” Bernstein analyst Jonas Oxgaard wrote in a client note.
DowDuPont’s shares rose 2.5 percent on the New York Stock Exchange in late-afternoon trading.
The changes were the result of a four-month review led by consultancy firm McKinsey & Co, which talked to 25 of the company’s biggest shareholders, Andrew Liveris, executive chairman of the combined company said in an interview. Liveris was formerly chief executive of Dow, and is set to retire from DowDuPont next year.
Loeb’s Third Point, which has been critical of Liveris’ leadership, said in May the companies could unlock $20 billion in additional value by tweaking the original spinoff plan.
Slideshow ( 2 images )
As part of the revised plan, DowDuPont will split the old Dow Corning and distribute its lucrative silicone business among the materials and specialty companies.
Earlier, this business was expected to stay under the materials science division - which will account for more legacy Dow businesses and retain the Dow brand. The business produces silicon-based products for aerospace, automotive and electrical industries.
The materials science company will be the biggest in terms of revenue generation, Liveris said, followed by the chemicals and agriculture businesses.
Peltz’s Trian said it fully supports the portfolio adjustments announced by DowDuPont.
“Since we first became involved in the merger discussions in November 2015, we planned to help the company execute this critical review at the appropriate time. We believe this is a great outcome for shareholders.”
The merger is expected to save around $3 billion for the companies.
Minority shareholder Glenview Capital Management said DowDuPont’s move was “an important first step” but leaves the company significantly undervalued, and recommended share buybacks. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- The Los Angeles City Council is considering a new gun ordinance that would require gun owners in L.A. to store their firearms in locked containers and apply the trigger locks when not using them.
Proponents say there is a loophole in state law that requires guns to come with safety locks, but there is no requirement to actually use the locks.
"Can the simple act of locking up guns save lives? Of course the answer is yes it can," said L.A. City Councilman Paul Koretz.
Proponents say the ordinance, which was proposed on Friday, would try to stop unlocked guns from falling into the hands of a child or somebody who might want to commit a crime.
The Council also declared Friday "Talk Day" in the City of Los Angeles to remind people about the importance of safely storing away firearms.
Hollye Dexter from Women Against Gun Violence said her brother was shot in the head at the age of 7 by a neighbor who was playing with his father's rifle.
"We had no idea that our neighbors kept a loaded gun in their home. It never occurred to us to ask but you can and I urge you to," Dexter said.
However, Sam Paredes from the Gun Owners of California says the ordinance would be against the law.
"The Supreme court has said in Heller versus Washington D.C. that the government might require you to have locks but that you are not required to use them in your own home. The government cannot force law abiding citizens to have inoperable firearms in their homes," Paredes said in a statement.
L.A. City Councilman Paul Krekorian said an estimated 68 percent of school shootings involve a gun brought from home. He said this ordinance would help stop that, and it doesn't take away any gun owners' rights.
"It helps to make gun owners more responsible, and it helps make people who come into contact with those gun owners safer by making those gun owners more responsible," Krekorian said.
The full City Council is expected to debate the proposed ordinance in December.
| {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Water in blockaded Gaza ‘not fit for human consumption’
Follow RT on
The water in Gaza is too dangerous to drink as it is contaminated with fertilizers and sewage, says a new report. Several charitable organizations have called on Israel to immediately lift its blockade to allow crucial sanitation equipment in.
Sanitary conditions have reached crisis point in Gaza after five years of blockade. Authorities have warned inhabitants that the only source of running water is too dangerous to consume. A report by charities Save the Children and Medical Aid for Palestinians says that the levels of contamination are more often than not ten times what is safe for consumption. Many poor families have no choice but to drink the water.“The children of Gaza are living in prison-like conditions, entrapped on a strip of hostile land that prevents them from even dreaming of a better future. Since the beginning of the blockade in 2007, the number of children under 3 years of age being treated for diarrhea has doubled,” said Save the Children director Valerio Neri. He added that conditions were so dire in the region that “even a simple case of diarrhea can be fatal for a child.”As well as the blockade, the report cites war damage and lack of investment as the root causes of the sanitary crisis.The charities highlighted the fact that Israel’s repeated bombing of Gaza had left the sewage system “completely broken.”The Israeli government maintains that it has eased up the blockade on the region over the past couple of months with a view curbing the crisis. It says that medical supplies and building materials are being allowed through to aid in Gaza’s reconstruction. However, the report says this is not enough and calls on the international community and the Palestinian Authority to do more."As a matter of urgent priority for the health and well-being of Gaza's children, Israel must lift the blockade in its entirety to enable the free movement of people and goods in and out of Gaza." | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Ronpaul.com Ronpaul is ranked 5,741 in the United States. 'Ron Paul .com.'
5,741Rank in United States 32,682Worldwide Rank Monthly pages viewed 1,523,983 Monthly visits 351,041 Value per visitor $0.87
Estimated worth $253,331.8 External links 4,941 Number of pages 154,500 Last Updated: 04/15/2018 . Estimated data, read disclaimer.
Visitors Country Country Rank Users % Pageviews % Other countries 11.80% 10.60% United States 5,741 74.10% 76.00% New Zealand 8,121 0.60% 0.50% Canada 11,816 3.90% 4.10% Peru 12,915 1.00% 0.80% Portugal 14,320 0.70% 0.80% Sweden 20,321 0.90% 0.70% Netherlands 21,052 1.50% 1.70% Australia 24,944 1.20% 1.30% United Kingdom 41,779 2.30% 1.70% Brazil 53,286 1.00% 0.90% India 169,794 1.00% 1.00% It is most popular in the countries, Sweden, Portugal, Peru, Canada, New Zealand & United States. City City Rank Users Pageviews Pageviews per user New York 8215 5.70% 6.70% 1.80 Los Angeles 10673 5.00% 5.00% 1.50 Traffic History 90 Day Average Worldwide Rank 27,464 1,260 Daily Visitors 16,050 -9% Daily Visitors Rank 21,907 1,372 Daily Pageviews 18,005 -7% Daily Pageviews Rank 59,659 1,706 Pageviews Per User 1.66 +2%
Content www.Ronpaul.com Topics: Ron Paul, Upcoming, Endorsements, and Money Bombs. The estimated 17,550 daily visitors, each view 1.66 pages on average. Server The programming language environment is W3 Total Cache/0.9.2.4. There are 2 Nameservers, myns1.fabulous.com, and myns2.fabulous.com. IP: 72.9.145.44 Powered by: W3 Total Cache/0.9.2.4 Web Server: Apache/2 Encoding: utf-8 | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Get local stories sent straight to your inbox as news breaks.
Advertisement Police arrest dozens of people after correction officer attacked Share Shares Copy Link Copy
Boston Police called it "Operation Clean Sweep" as they cleared needles and garbage and dozens of homeless people from an area off Mass. Ave known as the "methadone mile." | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
When Richard Gatarski and a few friends wanted to dine in the Swedish city of Norrköping a few weeks ago, they booked a table at a downtown Italian restaurant that seemed nice.
When they arrived, they were greeted by the headwaiter, who asked if they had a reservation. Richard confirmed, and the headwaiter looked at his computer screen.
”Gatarski? Hm, let’s see .. yes, there’s your reservation. Welcome!”
The headwaiter then picked up what Richard first thought must be some kind of new, electronic touch-pen, and moved it toward the screen. Richard is a tech savvy Internet entrepreneur, and therefore quite curious about what kind of new gadget they used at this restaurant. So he leaned in and looked a little closer …
… and suddenly realized that it was a perfectly ordinary whiteboard felt-tip pen. The headwaiter just draw an ”X” over their booking, directly on the computer screen!
”That’s very interesting,” Richard asked the headwaiter. ”How come you do that?”
”Well, you know,” the headwaiter answered with a big sigh. ”The guys that create these kinds of systems … they have …. Well, you can’t do things the way you wanna do them. You can check off a reservation in the system, with the mouse, but hey, it’s at least four clicks away from this screen. And you can’t tell if the guests have been showed to their table or are waiting in the bar. So it’s much easier just to draw on the screen. (And when the evening is over you just wipe the screen with a cloth.) We’re very busy here, and this works just fine.”
The food, by the way, was excellent.
* * *
So, what does this real-world story tell us?
Computer systems are not always used as the developers suppose. People are creative. If they can, they will invent ways to simplify their everyday tasks. ”We’re very busy.” Users have a lot of more important things to do at work. The time to learn things, for which the value or purpose is not obvious, is rather spent on things we think are more important (like, making the best sauce the customer has ever tasted). Doesn’t the expense for a booking system seem all wasted here? A small real-world whiteboard would probably have solved the task at hand cheaper and simpler. There’s a possibility that the computerized booking system (as opposed to a real whiteboard) could generate some kind of statistics: number of guest per month, typical reservation profile for a week, percentage of tables booked for any given period … And the companies selling computer systems (of all kinds, in many businesses) usually push the possibilities to get such data as big advantages with their system. But is it worth the effort? In many cases, a headwaiter would probably know most of what really matters anyway from experience or rule-of-thumb. So the hassle of going through a time-consuming number of clicks, just to generate that data, is probably not worth it. And finally: to really find out what’s important to the users, and how a system is actually used, you need to observe real users, in the field.
What’s this: I’m a Swedish UX designer and writer, specializing in systems used in the workplace. This blog is about my most recent book, covering how such badly designed systems are a major cause of stress (and eventually health problems). You can read a bit more about it in English here.
(BTW, the book is quite a success over here; topping the best-seller list in its category.)
If you liked this story, you’ll probably also find this real-world example from health care interesting: The doctor that rocks the mouse (Sep 24, 2012).
Many thanks to Richard for sharing this! :)
Kommentarer | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
So many FBI officials are talking to the press and attending "social events" with the media that it's impossible to say who might have leaked confidential information to the media during the investigation into Hillary Clinton's private emails, according to a report from the Justice Department's Office of Inspector General.
That report said the IG has "profound concerns about the volume and extent of unauthorized media contacts by FBI personnel that we have uncovered during our review.”
One mission of the IG was to see who might have leaked information from the FBI during the Clinton email probe. But it said that investigation had to continue, in part because so many FBI officials are talking to the press.
[READ: DOJ inspector general's report on Hillary Clinton emails investigation]
“We frequently find that the universe of Department and FBI employees who had access to sensitive information that has been leaked is substantial, often involving dozens, and in some instances, more than 100 people,” the IG said.
Despite FBI policy limiting the employees who are authorized to speak to the media, the IG found the policy was “widely ignored."
"We identified numerous FBI employees, at all levels of the organization and with no official reason to be in contact with the media, who were nevertheless in frequent contact with reporters,” the IG said. “The large number of FBI employees who were in contact with journalists during this time period impacted our ability to identify the sources of leaks.”
That number of FBI employees is in the dozens, said the report.
The IG also found social interactions between FBI personnel and journalists that “were, at a minimum, inconsistent with FBI policy and Department ethics rules.”
“[W]e identified instances where FBI employees received tickets to sporting events from journalists, went on golfing outings with media representatives, were treated to drinks and meals after work by reporters, and were the guests of journalists at nonpublic social events.”
The investigations into the leaks are ongoing, said the IG, and a report will be issued when concluded. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
In line with our efforts to provide quality service and excellent customer care, we have put together a list of frequently asked questions we have encountered over the many years of our experience:
How much is your service fee?
Our brokerage fee based on Customs Administrative Order (CAO 1-2014) is 1/8 of 1% from the total dutiable value in pesos.
What are the possible expenses for importation?
Ocean Freight ( depending on incoterms 2010 )
Duty/Tax
Shipping charges
Arrastre
Trucking
Brokerage fee & Processing
How many days can you release the cargo?
2 days average upon arrival of vessel.
What are the requirements for accreditation in customs?
BCOR evidencing payment of application fee
BIR Importer Clearance Certificate (BIR-ICC)
Corporate Secretary Certificate or Special Power of Attorney (SPA) for designated signatories (with sample original signatures) in the import entries
Original copy of NBI Clearance issued within three (3) months prior to the date of application of responsible officers/majority stockholders
Two (2) valid government issued I.D., with picture
Printed copy of CPRS profile of applicant
Personal profile of responsible officers/majority stockholders
Company profile with picture of premises
License/permit/accreditation from concerned agency, when applicable, i.e., food (LTO & CPR), rice (NFA), sugar (SRA), etc.
What are the dimensions of our container vans?
Interior Dimensions Door Opening Tare Weight Cubic Capacity Payload RSA Road Limit 20′ Dry Container Steel L: 5,898 mm
W: 2,350 mm
H: 2,390 mm W: 2,340 mm
H: 2,280 mm 2,200 kg
4,850 lbs 33.0 cbm.
1,179 cu. Ft. 24,000 kg
54,673 lbs 21,800 kg 40′ Dry Container Steel L: 12,035 mm
W: 2,350 mm
H: 2,393 mm W: 2,339 mm
H: 2,274 mm 3,700 kg
8,156 lbs 67.0 cbm.
2,393 cu. Ft. 28,000 kg
63,491 lbs 20,300 kg 40′ High Cube Container Steel L: 12,030 mm
W: 2,350 mm
H: 2,690 mm W: 2,340 mm
H: 2,579 mm 3,930 kg
8,663 lbs 76.0 cbm.
2,714 cu. Ft. 28,570 kg
62,984 lbs 20,070 kg
What are the requirements for applying the Certificate Of Exemption for Import Clearance Certificate (ICC)? | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., insists that the FBI has unfairly charged incidents of domestic terrorism based on race or religion, despite being told that such charges don't exist in a House hearing on Tuesday.
Ocasio-Cortez argued that violent perpetrators who were white, like at the Tree of Life synagogue shooting or the 2015 shooting at the South Carolina church where nine African Americans were killed, were let "off the hook" with hate crime charges instead of being charged with "domestic terrorism." Domestic terrorism charges, however, do not exist, nor has a law been passed by Congress defining specifically what domestic terrorism charges would be, though there is a statute defining domestic terrorism itself.
"You're using the word 'charge,'" FBI Assistant Director for Counterterrorism Michael McGarrity said to Ocasio-Cortez in the hearing. "So, as I said before, there is no domestic terrorism charge 18 USC § 2339 ABCD for a foreign terrorist organization. So, what we do both on the international terrorism side with the homegrown violent extremists and domestic terrorism, we'll use any tool in the toolkit to arrest them.”
McGarrity reiterated multiple times that the cases Ocasio-Cortez mentioned were treated as domestic terrorist cases and events, but said that those cases would end up being charged through the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Homeland Security. After McGarrity's explanation, Ocasio-Cortez asked again if the "actual charge" was domestic terrorism.
"You're not going to find a charge of domestic terrorism out there," McGarrity said. “Some of the definitions we’re using, I think we’re talking past each other.”
Ocasio-Cortez brought up the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando and the San Bernadino shooting as examples of terrorism charges, positing that the the cases were only tried as such because the suspects were Muslim.
"Doesn't it seem like because the perpetrator was Muslim, that the designation would say it's a foreign organization?" Ocasio-Cortez asked.
McGarrity constantly said "no" during Ocasio-Cortez's question, explaining to her that charges are not dictated by a perpetrator's race or religion.
Instead, McGarrity said that in the incidents perpetrated by Muslims, the offenders were adhering to the doctrine of a foreign terrorist organization, such as al Qaeda, ISIS, or al Shabaab. The FBI refers to individuals like this as "homegrown violent extremists," which is a different distinction than what they call a "domestic terrorist." McGarrity explained that hate crimes and weapons charges were used to prosecute domestic terrorists.
While McGarrity concurred with Ocasio-Cortez that white supremacy is a global issue, there has not been a group or network of white supremacists classified by the federal government as a terrorist organization, according to ABC News.
Ocasio-Cortez would later call the hearing "wild" on Twitter, saying that her team followed up on the info McGarrity gave her, but insists that she still wasn't wrong.
"This hearing was wild," Ocasio-Cortez said. "First the FBI witness tried to say I was wrong. I tried to be generous + give benefit of doubt, but then we checked. I wasn’t. Violence by Muslims is routinely treated as 'terrorism,' White Supremacist violence isn’t. Neo-Nazis are getting off the hook."
Ocasio-Cortez has yet to explain what McGarrity may have gotten wrong or what specific information she looked back over with her team.
| {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Lava Lamp Centrifuge
Would a Lava Lamp work in a high-gravity environment such as Jupiter? Would the wax still rise to the surface? Would the blobs be smaller and faster? With broad disagreement on the answers, I built a large centrifuge to find out.
[Music credit: Riverdance by Bill Whelan.]
The centrifuge is made of Meccano, spans a diameter of 3 meters, weighs about 50 kilograms and rotates at 42 RPM. At one end is the payload container which holds the lava lamp and data recorders. At the other end is a set of counterweights.
The payload container pivots freely so that it is always facing 'down'. In the middle is a 20 oz Motion Lamp from Google. Next to it is a Nexus One Android phone which runs G-Force to monitor the current gravity conditions (in the photo below the Android is not present since it was being used to take the photo). Recording both the lamp and the gravity monitor is a digital camera set to record a movie.
A set of counterweights are at the other end of the arm. These are very carefully configured to eliminate any lateral forces on the main bearing. The heaviest counterweight is a big steel cylinder borrowed from the equatorial mount of my telescope. Enclosed within the girders are two rectangular juice bottles filled with glass marbles and topped off with water. A set of steel bars lashed to the top of the girders offer the ability to fine-tune the total weight.
The turntable is a large 25 cm thrust bearing using eight roller wheels. Suspended in the middle of the turntable is a 1/4" mono audio connector. This connector can rotate 360° continuously and is wired to 120 volts AC thus allowing uninterrupted power to flow to the lava lamp at the end of the arm. The entire centrifuge is driven by one 12 volt motor in the base. The motor draws somewhere between 15 amps and 33 amps (far beyond the upper range of my multimeter).
The centrifuge is a genuinely terrifying device. The lights dim when it is switched on. A strong wind is produced as the centrifuge induces a cyclone in the room. The smell of boiling insulation emanates from the overloaded 25 amp cables. If not perfectly adjusted and lubricated, it will shred the teeth off solid brass gears in under a second. Runs were conducted from the relative safety of the next room while peeking through a crack in the door.
Despite the technical hurdles, the centrifuge performed its job well. It turns out that the accelerometers in the Nexus One are badly mis-calibrated; although 0.0 G and 1.0 G are both properly reported, what it reports as 2.0 G is actually 3.0 G (Googlers can view the resulting bug: #2485924). As one can see in the video above, the lava lamp continues to operate well at three times the force of gravity. That's slightly higher than Jupiter's gravity (2.3 G) and it is equivalent to launching in the Space Shuttle. Below are some raw source videos of the operation:
3g-floor.avi (159 MB) External view of centrifuge. 3g-payload.avi (43 MB) Watching the lava lamp and gravity monitor (first at 3 G then at 1 G as a control). 3g-side.3gp (16 MB) Side-mounted camera on payload container (a different run from the previous two videos). nasa.jpg (200 KB) On exhibit at NASA Ames. maker.avi (46 MB) Running at 2 G at Maker Faire.
Last modified: 28 July 2014 | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Two Ronnies 'Four Candles' sketch recreated in 280-year-old shop Published duration 24 February
image caption Stevie Loft, Jim Oldham and David Odell said the "Four Candles" sketch is often mentioned by customers
A classic Two Ronnies sketch has been recreated by residents of a town who wanted to "shine a light" on a 280-year-old shop.
Odell & Co has been trading in the same spot on Stony Stratford High Street in Milton Keynes since 1740.
Vicky Holton, who has lived in the town all her life, said the hardware shop had "always reminded" her of the "Four Candles" sketch.
Co-owner David Odell said the sketch was mentioned by customers every week.
"I was taken aback by the video because I knew the original Two Ronnies sketch and it's often mentioned in the shop," he said.
"Never a Saturday goes by without a couple of people mentioning fork handles."
media caption The sketch has been voted the greatest Two Ronnies moment
Ronnie Corbett and Ronnie Barker's BBC sketch show The Two Ronnies was one of the most successful of the 1970s and '80s.
It ran from 1971 to 1987 and the "Four Candles" episode was first aired in September 1976.
image copyright Odells image caption Sean Calvert and Dave Pibworth playing the roles filled by Corbett and Barker in the original
Miss Holton was behind recreating the iconic sketch in the hardware shop and enlisted the help of a local videographer and actors from the Milton Keynes amateur dramatics scene - with Sean Calvert and Dave Pibworth playing the roles filled by Corbett and Barker in the original version.
Miss Holton herself makes a brief appearance, as does Mr Odell.
She said she hoped the video would "shine a light on a marvellous shop, especially as High Streets are at risk in all towns".
"A similar hardware shop a few miles away closed down a few years ago and it was so sad," Miss Holton said.
"Odell's has been around since 1740 and it's a real community hub. They've got a really good ethos, fantastic service and always sell tickets to local events in the shop."
image copyright Odell & Co image caption David Odell's great grandfather bought the business in 1863
Mr Odell, who owns the shop alongside his brother Richard, said his great grandfather bought the business in 1863 but it had been trading in the same building since 1740.
"We are a very old established business," he said.
"For it to have been in the family since 1863 is quite a major feat."
The 66-year-old said he believed the business had lasted the test of time as it "changed with all the changes that were thrown at it".
"During the Victorian period after my great grandfather bought the business we had the industrial revolution and things were becoming much more mechanised and manufacturing changed," he said.
"We adapted to gas coming into the town, electricity coming into the town, the addition of the motor car and we're still here striving to make a living and keep the local people of Stony Stratford happy and buying what they need."
image copyright Odell & Co image caption David and Richard Odell are the fourth generation to run the family business
image caption Odell & Co as it stands today is a well-loved and well-used shop in the centre of Stony Stratford
Mr Odell said the introduction of the internet had made things "much more difficult" for business, but he insisted: "One has to be positive about the future."
Despite the convenience of shopping online the store attracts new customers regularly.
One customer who recently visited the 280-year-old shop for the first time is Bram Davies, who has moved into a property which was occupied by its previous owners for 40 years.
"I was clearing out the house and found items from decades ago with Odell written on them so I had to come in," Mr Davies said. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Dell today unveiled new additions to its state-of-the-art portfolio of business-class computers enabling companies to give employees devices they want to use while maintaining the IT security and manageability necessary for enterprise-class deployments. The three new devices include the Latitude 10-inch touch-enabled tablet, the Latitude 6430u Ultrabook that brings leading design to the boardroom, and a touch-enabled OptiPlex 9010 All-in-One desktop helping people interact with technology in more intuitive ways."Never before has the intersection between great design and data security and manageability been as important as employees increasingly ask for support for gorgeous products while IT needs to maintain corporate controls. Dell is providing the answer with these new Latitude and OptiPlex products designed to inspire workers and meet the needs of IT," said Sam Burd, global vice president, Personal Computing Product Group. "Dell's approach is rooted in our heritage of deep familiarity with the needs of IT professionals combined with our new, world-class set of commercial products that meet user demands."Images courtesy of SlashGear The Latitude 10 is a 10-inch tablet that takes advantage of the latest advances in touch-enabled applications and allows businesses to confidently bring tablets into their enterprises. The Latitude 10 fits easily into current IT environments by supporting existing Microsoft productivity applications and plugging into existing management consoles. Like all Latitude products, the Latitude 10 is engineered for business productivity by providing easy support and maintenance like a swappable battery and robust security options like Dell Data Protection | Encryption, which encrypts all data from the hard drive to the USB port.Dell understands some computing environments like healthcare, government and education require integration with specific industry software and additional levels of security will be offered with enhanced security features for industries where the ultimate in data protection is required. To address these needs, this product includes a fingerprint reader and smart card reader for effective two-factor authentication.The Latitude 6430u is a 14-inch Ultrabook that strikes the balance between aesthetic appeal and corporate needs with the combination of security, manageability and durability in a thin, highly mobile form factor and striking design. Designed to meet MIL-STD-810G testing, a United States Military test standard where systems are subjected to the harshest conditions, the 14-inch Latitude takes durability to new extremes. The new design is 33 percent slimmer and 16 percent lighter than Dell's current 14-inch Latitude notebook, making it a desirable option for mobile workers. Preliminary battery life testing shows all-day productivity with a single battery charge, an advantage for road warriors and always on-the-go sales executives.The highly mobile Latitude 6430u builds on the success of the Dell XPS 13, by delivering a great design that also offers the security and manageability businesses need with the industry's best data protection in Dell Data Protection | Encryption and the industry's best manageability with Intel vPro Technology and Dell unique extensions.The sleek OptiPlex 9010 23-inch All-in-One continues to empower productivity while preserving precious desk space. As businesses incorporate touch interfaces into work environments, collaboration and productivity can increase, but some workers have space limitations. The business-class All-in-One offers options for a multipoint touchscreen, fixed or rotating camera, and an articulating stand to optimize the user's work experience."Business class customers are looking for innovative, consumer-like form factors for their business PCs," said Bob O'Donnell, program vice president, Clients and Displays, IDC. "Vendors like Dell that can deliver these kinds of machines, while still maintaining the security and management capabilities and tools that businesses need, will be well-positioned to succeed with IT managers who want to stay on top of the consumerization trends impacting business IT."The Latitude 10, Latitude 6430u and OptiPlex 9010 AIO will be available for sale with the launch of Windows 8. More details on global pricing and dates will be announced when available. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
No one knows his real name. He's a conspiracy theorist who goes by Reinhardt, his old Google Group message board handle. And he made headlines six years ago for accurately predicting the 2008 stock market crash… down to the day.
The 2008 stock market crash first started with irresponsible financiers who doled out loans to "subprime" borrowers with poor credit histories. They knew the borrowers would struggle to repay them. Meanwhile, the risky mortgages were being passed on by the financiers to the big banks, which then spun them into allegedly low-risk securities. Investors bought the securities up.
According to The Economist, "Failures in finance were at the heart of the crash. But bankers were not the only people to blame. Central bankers and other regulators bear responsibility too, for mishandling the crisis, for failing to keep economic imbalances in check and for failing to exercise proper oversight of financial institutions."
While these are the events that lead to full-blown economic disaster, the mid-September 2008 bankruptcy of global bank Lehman Brothers was the harbinger of the Great Recession's arrival.
One lone Internet user – Reinhardt – saw it coming. And he issued a warning. Unfortunately, his prediction went unnoticed.
Here are the events that led Reinhardt to make his astonishing forecast.
All Roads Lead to Rome – and Then a Stock Market Crash
The media blames big banks for the 2008 stock market crash. But Reinhardt pinned the crash on Legatus, a Catholic networking group formed in 2007 by powerful businessmen.
"[Legatus] are the richest and the most influential. While they advertise for open membership, they have closed-door meetings. They've been compared to Opus Dei," Michael Stone, a subscriber to the same Internet finance message board as Reinhardt, explained to former Minnesota governor Jessie Ventura in a truTV interview on Nov. 5, 2010.
Who Is Opus Dei? Opus Dei, as some of us know thanks to Dan Brown's bestseller The Da Vinci Code, is an institution of the Roman Catholic Church. Founded in 1928 by a Spanish priest, it allegedly employs cult-like recruitment practices, including corporal mortification (flagellation). Like Legatus today, it also supposedly once wielded incredible influence over the Church and global government entities while in its prime.
Reinhardt believed members of Opus Dei and Legatus made pilgrimages to the Vatican in Rome right before the stock market crashes they're respectively tied to:
Opus Dei – the Stock Market Crash of 1929.
Legatus – the 2008 stock market crash and Great Recession.
Reinhardt also claimed the organizations made these "pilgrimages" regularly, with the true intention of laundering large amounts of money by means of massive checks made to the church.
Later, these checks would conspicuously clear all at once on a single day.
In July 2008, Reinhardt declared in a Google Finance Group that members of Legatus had just made a pilgrimage to Rome. He saw the trip as a catalyst, and predicted that the U.S. stock market would crash Sept. 15, 2008.
Reinhardt derived the date by examining two major pilgrimages that took place in the past – one preceding the crash of 1928, the other before the crash of 1987.
He also referred to an incident with Tyco International Ltd.'s Chief Legal Officer Mark Belnick, who was accused of securities fraud in 2002. Belnick received at least $12 million in low-to-no interest loans, without shareholder approval. These funds were smuggled out of the company, usually disguised as executive bonuses or benefits.
According to Wall Street Journal reporter Laurie Cohen, during this time Belnick also converted to Catholicism, met the Pope and other Vatican members of Opus Dei, and donated several million to Catholic charities.
Cohen says Belnick was particularly close to a Father McCloskey, a known active Opus Dei member who many believe helped orchestrate Tyco's downfall using Belnick as a channel. In early 2002, Tyco stock fell almost 80% in a six-week period of time. Belnick was sentenced to 25 years in jail, then was later acquitted.
Still today, Father McCloskey continues to "guide people to the church."
Here is Reinhardt's original prediction of a Sept. 15, 2008 stock market crash, the first archived by Gawker on Sept. 15, 2008; the second archived by abovetopsecret.com on the same date:
And crash it did.
Monday, Sept. 15, 2008, was the day Lehman Bros. failed. We know that for sure. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 504 points, or 4.4%, that day. The slip triggered what would culminate in a 35% crash over six months ending mid-March 2009.
You see, the same day, billions of dollars were taken from money market accounts around the nation in one massive outflow, accelerating the crash. Several money market accounts were heavily invested in – you guessed it – Lehman Bros.
That accounts for a portion of the outflow at least, but not billions worth. There are two versions of what accounts for the rest – one told to the public, and one according to Reinhardt…
What Caused the Massive Outflow-Turned-Stock Market Crash?
Reason Behind Disappearing Funds – the Version Told to the Public: It marked the first day of a slow and steady draw-down of money market accounts. Under this theory, $550 billion was not yanked away from money markets on Sept. 15, 2008 alone. Rather, the money poured out over the course of a few days, due to Lehman Bros. going belly up.
In response to the money outflow from the Reserve Primary Fund, a giant money market fund that had heavy investments tied to Lehman Bros., New York Times reporter Tara Siegel Bernard said, "So far, it appears that no other money market funds have fallen below a dollar a share. And other money market managers have hastened to reassure investors that their money is safe. But the Primary Fund's announcement did raise this question: What, in today's world, is truly safe?"
Felix Salmon of Upstart Business Journal explained the phenomenon this way: "On September 15, Lehman Brothers failed. The Reserve fund – which was $64 billion that morning, and which had a substantial investment in Lehman debt – saw $10 billion of withdrawals that day. The following day, Sept. 16, it saw another $10 billion of withdrawals; on Sept. 17, when withdrawals had reached a total of about $40 billion, it announced that redemptions would take 'as long as seven days'; as we all know, that was massively overoptimistic."
This seems a logical scenario behind the massive money outflow on Sept. 15.
But another plausible theory exists…
Reason Behind Disappearing Funds – Reinhardt's Theory: A mysterious person or organization stole the money out from under our noses: In a video clip that went viral on Feb. 6, 2009, Capital Markets Subcommittee Chair Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D-PA) told C-SPAN that on Sept. 15, 2008, there had been "a tremendous draw-down of money market accounts in the U.S., to the tune of $550 billion." [Note that the video clip has since been removed from the Internet, but is still written about extensively.]
Kajorski explained the public couldn't know about it; making such an announcement would surely would have incited instantaneous mass panic. So it was kept a secret. Kajorski also said while the Treasury tried to help salvage the massive damage done on that day by putting up $150 billion of its own reserve, it still wasn't enough.
It was this devastating "run on the banks" that sank the U.S. economy – coordinated by Legatus, according to Reinhardt.
However, the stock market crash could have been worse, apparently. Kajorski told C-SPAN that "had they not closed down the accounts, they estimated that by 2:00 PM that afternoon – within 3 hours – five trillion dollars would have been drawn out of the money market system of the United States and would have collapsed within 24 hours the world economy."
Reinhardt – if you're out there – let us know when Legatus makes their next move…
And Then I Said… "Pay taxes? What Am I – Poor?!" This year, the IRS collected roughly $1.4 trillion from U.S. taxpayers on April 15. Even individuals exempt from the federal income tax are subject to payroll taxes – and even the 14% exempt from both still must pay a sales tax. But there are 11 S&P 500 Index giants that pay no taxes. None. Nada. In fact, most of them got refunds. Here they are all are, on one conveniently organized chart…
Related Articles: | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
A majority of voters disagree with Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's view that "there has never been a more exciting time to be an Australian", a new poll has found.
Asked their views of election slogans, 53 per cent said they disagreed or strongly disagreed with Mr Turnbull's oft repeated statement. A further 31 per cent said they agreed or strongly agreed, while 16 per cent didn't know.
The Australian-Insitute commissioned poll of 1437 people found the Coalition and Labor were near even on who was best placed to deliver "jobs and growth", at 33 per cent to 31 per cent. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Aunque la cantidad de usuarios afectados está lejos de los récords que se alcanzó en 2018 (cuando llegó a haber más de 300 mil damnificados), la ola de calor de esta última semana de enero de 2019 no está exenta de los temidos cortes de luz en la Ciudad de Buenos Aires y el conurbano.
Cortes de luz con las altas temperatura: un clásico de cada verano en Buenos Aires. (Foto: Emmanuel Fernández)
Según informó el Ente Nacional Regulador de la Electricidad (ENRE) a las 15 hs. de este martes 29 se contabilizaban más de 65 mil usuarios sin suministro eléctrico entre clientes de las empresas Edenor y Edesur.
Dónde hay cortes de luz
Dentro del primer grupo, los barrios más afectados son Saavedra (4.527 usuarios) y Ramos Mejía (3.759).
En total, en toda la red hay 22.988 usuarios de Edenor sin suministro de electricidad.
⚠⚡ATENCIÓN 24 HORAS
Si tenés falta de suministro comunicate las 24 horas al 0800 3333787 o por nuestros canales digitales: https://t.co/boG8NsIPUA y Edesur Oficial en Twitter y Facebook. pic.twitter.com/T49c2L63pV — Edesur Argentina (@OficialEdesur) January 29, 2019
En tanto, los barrios más comprometidos con cortes pertenecientes a la empresa Edesur son Lomas de Zamora (4.404 en la zona rural), Nueva Pompeya (3.923 usuarios) y Temperley (3.327). En total, en toda la red hay 43.294 usuarios de Edesur sin suministro de electricidad.
El el mapa de cortes de suministro, actualizado varias veces al día, se puede consultar en este link de la web de ENRE.
Entre Edenor y Edesur hay más de 20 mil usuarios sin suministro de electricidad.
Dónde reclamar por cortes de luz
Se puede reclamar de manera gratuita. Hay seis vías para hacer el trámite.
- Por Internet: es necesario completar un formulario online.
- Por teléfono: llamar a la línea gratuita 0800-333-3000, todos los días, las 24 horas.
- Por SMS: enviar al 11 3134 4444 un mensaje con el nombre de la distribuidora responsable [ESPACIO], el número de usuario [ESPACIO], los tres últimos dígitos del número de tu medidor.
- Por fax: contactarse con la línea gratuita 0800-333-5962, de lunes a viernes, de 9 a 16.
- Personalmente: dirigirse a Suipacha 615, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires, de lunes a viernes de 9 a 18.
- Por correo postal: enviar los datos y documentos requeridos al Ente Nacional Regulador de la Electricidad, Atención de Usuarios, a Suipacha 615 (C1008AAM - Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires) o al Apartado Gratuito N° 505 del Correo Argentino.
En cualquiera de los casos es necesario presentar hora de inicio del corte, número de identificación según la distribuidora (número de cliente para Edesur; número de cuenta para Edenor), domicilio (entre qué calles, localidad, barrio, partido, código postal), un domicilio donde ENRE remita las comunicaciones relativas al reclamo y un número de teléfono. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
The longlist for this year's Polaris Music Prize has been revealed, with Carly Rae Jepsen , PUP , Orville Peck , and more up the award.
40 artists have been announced in the longlist for Canada's best album of the year, which was awarded to Jeremy Dutcher last year.
The list will be narrowed down to just 10 next month by a panel of 199 Canadian jurors. The decision will be solely based on artistic merit, with no consideration for genre or record sales.
The 2019 Polaris Music Prize Longlist:
Tim Baker - Forever Overhead
Tanika Charles - The Gumption
Clairmont the Second - Do You Drive?
Charlotte Cornfield - The Shape of Your Name
Marie Davidson - Working Class Woman
Dilly Dally - Heaven
The Dirty Nil - Master Volume
Dizzy - Baby Teeth
Elisapie - The Ballad of the Runaway Girl
FET.NAT - Le Mal
Dominique Fils-Aimé - Stay Tuned!
Fucked Up - Dose Your Dreams
Yves Jarvis - The Same but by Different Means
Carly Rae Jepsen - Dedicated
Kaia Kater - Grenades
Kimmortal - X Marks the Swirl
La Force - La Force
LAL - Dark Beings
Laurence-Anne - Première apparition
Salomé Leclerc - Les choses extérieures
Lee Harvey Osmond - Mohawk
Jean Leloup - L'étrange pays
Shay Lia - Dangerous
Les Louanges - La nuit est une panthère
Loud - Tout ça pour ça
Shawn Mendes - Shawn Mendes
Haviah Mighty - 13th Floor
Operators - Radiant Dawn
Orville Peck - Pony
Sandro Perri - In Another Life
Pup - Morbid Stuff
Lee Reed - The Steal City EP
Jessie Reyez - Being Human in Public
Shad - A Short Story About a War
Snotty Nose Rez Kids - Trapline
Alexandra Stréliski - Inscape
Sydanie - 999
Tobi - Still
Voivod - The Wake
Wintersleep - In the Land Of
The Polaris Music Prize shortlist will be announced on 16 July. The final Polaris Music Prize gala takes place on 16 September. Find out more. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
As part of a long-standing agreement between the NFL, ESPN and the NFL Network, the latter two rotate each year on who gets the first interview with the No. 1 overall pick of the NFL draft immediately after he is selected. For instance, last year the NFL Network had the first interview with Jadeveon Clowney, the former South Carolina defensive end who was taken by the Houston Texans. This year ESPN was given dibs on all odd-number picks (No. 1, No. 3, etc.) meaning the first interview with Jameis Winston should have gone to ESPN and reporter Tom Rinaldi, who was with Winston in Bessemer, Alabama.
Except, it didn’t.
Two NFL media sources told SI.com that Winston’s camp, which was upset at the network’s overall coverage of the top pick prior to the draft, declined to grant ESPN the first post-draft interview. Instead, Winston spoke with the NFL Network’s Steve Wyche around the time Oregon quarterback Marcus Mariota was being selected at No. 2 by the Tennessee Titans. The Winston interview aired on the NFL Network after the fifth overall selection.
Rinaldi eventually interviewed Winston but that interview never ran during the draft telecast. Instead, it ran on SportsCenter after the opening round of the draft concluded last Thursday. Why that decision? Because by the time ESPN got the interview, it was six or so picks into the draft and ESPN executives, sources said, decided it made no sense to show an interview then with the top pick.
On Sunday, ESPN senior coordinating producer Seth Markman declined to comment on the specifics of the Winston interview, as did NFL Network executive producer Eric Weinberger. (Winston's agent, Greg Genske, responded to an email from SI.com on Monday morning: "On the night Jameis joined the NFL, it was simply our preference that his first interview be with NFL Network," Genske said. "A few seconds later, Jameis enjoyed his interview with Tom Rinaldi and looks forward to future interviews with ESPN.").
Had Winston been at the draft site, it’s likely the NFL, which is a partner in this agreement, would have stepped in and prompted Team Winston to talk first with ESPN.
THE NOISE REPORT
SI.com examines some of the bigger sports media stories of the week.
1. I initially planned to lead this column with a long piece about watching every major event on Saturday, but my afternoon turned when CNN’s Rachel Nichols and ESPN and HBO Sports’s Michelle Beadle, both fervent critics of Floyd Mayweather with a focus on his domestic violence abuse, sent word out through their Twitter accounts that they had their credentials revoked by members of Mayweather’s team. Neither ended up covering the fight.
Denying credential requests has long been a tool of organizations in sports and politics as a way of punishing media members who have been critical of an organization. Nichols’s reputation as a journalist is of the highest order and Beadle has been as outspoken as anyone at ESPN on Mayweather’s domestic abuse record. Based on my reporting, I believe this was an effort on Mayweather’s camp to restrict two prominent critics from covering the fight.
1a. NBC Sports chairman Mark Lazarus said that Saturday felt like one of those memorable days during the middle of the Summer Olympic Games when track and field, swimming, beach volleyball and other high-profile events all converge for a day-long sportsapalooza.
“Each event was huge in itself on Saturday but bring them together and what a huge day,” Lazarus said by phone on Sunday.
American Pharoah's Kentucky Derby victory ends two long waits
Lazarus’s company played a major role in what will easily be the biggest sports television day of 2015, a wonderland that included Premier League soccer, the final rounds of the NFL draft, the Stanley Cup playoffs (Rangers-Capitals), a full slate of MLB games (including Red Sox-Yankees), a NASCAR race (the Winn-Dixie 300 at Talladega), the Kentucky Derby, a thrilling NBA Game 7 (Clippers-Spurs), the PGA Tour WGC-Cadillac Match Play Championship and Floyd Mayweather’s win over Manny Pacquiao.
While he’s admittedly a little parochial toward the events his company was part of (that includes the fight given the Comcast connections), Lazarus is also a huge sports fan. He said he watched the NBC broadcast of Leicester City-Newcastle from his hotel room in Louisville and then moved to an NBC production truck at Churchill Downs to watch more EPL soccer, the Rangers-Capitals and the early Churchill Downs coverage on NBCSN. He then watched the Derby live from the stands and headed back home to Connecticut to catch the conclusion of the PGA event and the fight.
As for NBC, both the Derby (more on this below) and the golf event did terrific numbers. Lazarus said he thought the pre-publicity for all the sports airing through social media, television newspapers, radio and other mediums helped push viewership for all networks.
“I think everything built on each other,” Lazarus said. “Sports fans found ways and times to watch on Saturday.”
1b. NBC's coverage of American Pharoah's win in the Derby drew a 10.8 overnight rating, the highest Derby overnight in 23 years since Lil E.Tee won in 1992. It was also NBC’s best overnight since it took over the coverage 15 years ago. The overnight was up 7% from last year.
1c. The highest-rated TV markets for the Derby:
1. Louisville
2. Ft. Myers
3. Cincinnati
4. West Palm Beach
5. Dayton
6. Tampa
7. Indy
8. Richmond
9. Orlando
10. Knoxville
2. On Sunday afternoon I spoke with Markman (ESPN) and Weinberger (NFL Network) about how they viewed their coverage:
SI.com: What worked for you?
Markman: Adding Louis Riddick for Day 1 worked for us. Having a front office guy for Day 1 gave us a different perspective. The talent lineup and depth of our talent was on display for all three days. We don’t go with the same lineup; we try to diversity it for viewers and go deeper with guys that really know these players. We gave it a fresh look each day.
Weinberger: I was amazed by the turnout by the city of Chicago. It far surpassed what I expected and it turned into so much more of an event than a meeting to take players. And I was really pleased with how our team covered it. They recognized it before the draft started, the scope of it, and from shots on top of the skyline to the buildings, I thought we really took advantage of that to create some new energy to the event. Between the NFL, NFL Network and the city of Chicago, we created something new that was very exciting. I think we just did a really good job of covering the outside. No one had any idea what it would like.
2015 NFL draft grades
SI.com: What could have been better?
Markman: Hard for me to say without looking a tape. Nothing to do with us specifically, but we might have to figure out some things if the draft goes back to Chicago. I loved Day 3. I thought it was great—the atmosphere, the people, being outside. But I think there was a little bit of a lack of energy that we saw in New York City. I’m not sure why. It just felt like flatter. Maybe it had something to do with the Bears picking No. 7 and there being so many Bears fans versus fans of different teams. After they picked, I saw some people leave which we don’t see ever at Radio City. I also think, and this can sound weird, it lacked the edge of the New York crowd. The fans of Chicago are so nice and you did not get the booing of certain teams, picks and players. Chicago did a great job and I hope we come back, but I think there are a few things the NFL and us need to look at far as fan engagement.
Weinberger: The draft moves so quickly that I’m not sure we were able to talk about whether a team got better on Night 1. One of our goals was to ask the question, “Did they just get better?” We did our usual great job of analyzing the player that got picked, but I think we didn’t get to the analysis of the team, which is how we wanted to broaden it this year. But I have to watch the tape to be sure.
SI.com: What is something watch for in 2016?
Markman: Riddick being a permanent part of the television coverage next year.
"It’s just too early to talk about assignments, but he impressed all of us and I think it will be hard not to have him back. He will be a hard guy to move."
Weinberger: The NFL Network showed every selection as it was made for the whole draft. NFLN did that through the third round while ESPN opted out of that thesis in the 60s and talked about other things during picks before catching viewers up with draft selections
"With the speed and ‘event’ of the draft, we have to evaluate if that’s what we want to do and what a fan really wants. We do have four guys between D.J. [Daniel Jeremiah] Charles Davis, Mike Mayock and Rich Eisen who could still be talking if it was Round 12; they know all the players. We have to decide if that’s what the fan wants to do we start talking bigger topics."
2a. The standout on Day 1 of the NFL draft? ESPN analyst Louis Riddick, who filled in for Ray Lewis. I spoke to Riddick last Friday about working the draft on television.
2b. ESPN’s first-round coverage of the draft averaged 7,026,000 viewers, down significantly from last year’s record-setting 9.943M. ESPN said WatchESPN had 603,000 unique viewers.
2c. The NFL Network averaged 1.816 million viewers for its first-round coverage last Thursday, down from 2.43 million in 2014.
• BANKS: Brett Hundley a mere afterthought on Day 3 of draft
2d. Here were the top TV markets for ESPN’s coverage of the 2015 NFL draft:
New Orleans (5.3 rating) Cleveland (4.7) Columbus (3.7)
T4. Jacksonville (3.3)
T4. Birmingham (3.3)
T4. Philadelphia (3.3)
7. Buffalo (3.1)
8. Denver (3.0)
T9. Norfolk (2.9)
T9. Greensboro (2.9)
11. Baltimore (2.8)
T12. Las Vegas (2.7)
T12. Atlanta (2.7)
14. West Palm Beach (2.6)
[pagebreak]
2e. Including all three days, ESPN said it averaged 2.931 million viewers for its live draft coverage, down significantly from 2014 (4,121,000 viewers) and '13 (3,035,000) but above '12 (2,924,000).
3. TNT NBA analyst Chris Webber was terrific during the thrilling Game 7 between the Clippers and Spurs, particularly in the final minutes. First, Webber was quick and decisive to call out the phantom foul call on Tim Duncan against Chris Paul with 13 seconds left. But where he really shined was on the game’s final play when the clock inadvertently ran to zero prior to the inbounds play. That set off Spurs coach Gregg Popovich, who went off on the officials.
Chris Paul hits game-winner, silences critics in Clippers' Game 7 win
“If I’m Popovich, I am very upset, too,” Webber said. “This messes with your rhythm, your cadence as a play call. This allows the defense to get set back up. An inadvertent whistle in the middle of a last-second play is not something you expect. It gives the defense a chance to scout that same play.”
It was great to see Webber and play-by-play announcer Kevin Harlan as excited to call the game as viewers were to watch it. Webber also offered a poignant end note for what was easily the most dramatic watch on Saturday.
“Sports are so fair to everyone because they are unfair to all,” said Webber.
4.Sports pieces of note:
• A sensational oral history by Dan Greene on Muhammad Ali, Ric Flair and a group of pro wrestlers in North Korea
• Bloomberg Businessweek had a cover story on FIFA head Sepp Blatter
• Via Deadspin’s Diana Moskovitz: This Is How Las Vegas Protects Floyd Mayweather
• SI’s Alan Shipnuck profiled Miguel Angel Jimenez. Read the first page, then thank me, and finish it.
• The NFL Class of ’90: Where Are They Now? Rich, broke, addled, philosophical, broken. Great work from the NYT’s Ken Belson
• A first-person from the mother of an NFL QB prospect
• The 25 Greatest Super Fights: Boxing’s biggest bouts that lived up to the hype
• Deadspin’s Greg Howard profiled ESPN commentator Jason Whitlock.
• SI's Tim Layden on Derby winner American Pharoah
• BISHOP: Mayweather beats Pacquiao but will never have victory he wants
Non-sports pieces of note
• David Simon on Baltimore’s anguish
• New York Times public editor Margaret Sullivan offers “everything I know about journalism in 395 words”
• A Washington, D.C. middle school teacher writes a letter to her white Facebook friends
• Enjoyed this piece by Zachary Crockett on the rise and fall of the hotel mini-bar
• More terrific work from Jessica Contrera of The Washington Post: The (almost) secret life of a K-pop star at Georgetown University
• Sonja Sohn, the excellent actress from The Wire, on Baltimore
• The New York Times had an excellent Q&A with David Letterman
• Via GQ: Welcome to Pariahville
• The Baltimore Sun's coverage of Freddie Gray and Baltimore unrest
5.A sports radio mock draft held by sports-talk radio directors across the country
5a. This was a good back and forth between ESPN’s J.A. Adande and Bomani Jones on the morality of purchasing Mayweather-Pacquiao
5b. Richard Sandomir of The New York Timesreviewed the Mayweather-Pacquiao broadcast
• MANNIX: Mayweather-Pacquiao fight fails to live up to hype
5c. Thought it was a significant overreaction by the Houston Rockets to fire social media coordinator Chad Shanks over a single tweet
5d. Pacquiao promoter Bob Arum told Yahoo!’s Kevin Iole that the pay-per-view buys for the fight could be 4-5 million, which would shatter the previous boxing record
5e. ESPN2's broadcast of Heroes of the Dorm, the first competitive e-gaming tournament to air live on ESPN or ESPN 2, averaged 96,000 homes. I’d watch for more on-air e-gaming heading forward on ESPN2; it’s a forward-thinking idea with great potential to attract millennial viewers.
5f.I thought this was poignant, sad and sweet
5g. Deadspin’s Tim Burke is unlikely to be invited onto Pardon The Interruption or Around The Horn (executive produced by the same group) given the first five words of this piece | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
The survey comes as three parents today commence legal action in the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal, alleging that the Education Department segregates children on religious grounds and discriminates against those whom parents opt out of the classes.
One of the parents, Sophie Aitken, says in her complaint her children were put in the corridor or given Lego to play with when she opted them out of special religious instruction at Ivanhoe East Primary.
''I am troubled by this segregation and the limitations it causes my children … Once [my son] was told by another child that he would go to hell because he didn't believe in God,'' she says.
Yarraville West Primary is one of 71 state primary schools in Melbourne's western suburbs that does not offer special religious instruction.
School council president Lisel Thomas says the school is relieved it has never been approached by an accredited instructor and therefore is not compelled to hold the classes under the contentious Victorian legislation. ''We have raised the issue of how we would feel if we were approached and basically told we had to deliver special religious instruction without us having a choice in the matter and that certainly concerned our school council,'' Ms Thomas said. ''We have children from a number of different religious backgrounds. We believe it is important for children to stay together and learn together rather than being segregated on the basis of their religious belief.'' | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
British photographer Jason Sheldon has won a settlement of £20,000 (about $32,300 US) over a stolen image of his (seen above), after initially being offered less than one percent of that.
The dispute centered around a backstage photo Sheldon captured in July of 2011 of pop star Ke$sha partying with rap duo LMFAO. Daybrook House Promotions grabbed the image and used it in an ad last year for a Nottingham nightclub, reasoning that since the picture had been posted on Tumblr, it must be free to reuse at will.
Sheldon tried to explain that copyright doesn’t work that way and sent the company an invoice for £1,351 ($2,200). In response, Daybrook said they never would have used the image if they had realized it was not free to use, and therefore would pay him only £150 ($242).
Instead of accepting that paltry offer, Sheldon decided to take the case to court, and after several rounds of preliminary judgments that went the photographer’s way, Daybrook agreed to an out-of-court settlement of £20,000.
UK media lawyer Charles Swan told Amateur Photographer he hopes the hefty settlement sends a message to media outlets ignorant or dismissive of copyright law.
“The case shows how persistence can pay off for photographers when it comes to enforcing copyright,” said Swan, “and how expensive it can be for infringers if they don’t quickly settle out of court for a reasonable amount.”
(via Amateur Photographer)
Image credits: Header photo by Jason Sheldon/Junction10 Photography and Keep Calm and Report Art Theft by cypher-neo | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Joe Robbins/Getty Images
Milwaukee Brewers pitcher Josh Hader earned a save in dominant style Monday in his team's 6-5 victory over the Cincinnati Reds at Great American Ball Park.
The southpaw entered in the bottom of the seventh inning and proceeded to strike out eight of the nine batters he faced, walking the other one. The Brewers cited Elias Sports and announced Hader became the first pitcher in modern Major League Baseball history (dating back to 1900) to tally eight strikeouts in less than three full innings.
Hader took the mound with Milwaukee nursing a one-run lead after it exploded for three runs in the top half of the frame. A throwing error by Tucker Barnhart allowed Christian Yelich to score, and Domingo Santana's double brought home two more and gave the Brewers the lead for good.
The relief pitcher was able to throw so many innings since he was relatively fresh, having not appeared in a game since Wednesday's victory over the Kansas City Royals. Monday was the first time he pitched more than two innings this season.
He has been dominant in the early going of the 2018 campaign and sports a 1.00 ERA, 0.50 WHIP and 39.0 strikeouts through 18.0 innings. Opposing batters have been virtually helpless against him with a .070 batting average, per MLB.com.
According to Jeff Wallner of MLB.com, Randy Johnson was the last pitcher to notch a save with eight strikeouts, but his performance came in a four-inning save in 1996.
It was just the type of performance the Brewers needed to bounce back from their four-game sweep at the hands of the division rival Chicago Cubs over the weekend. Hader didn't appear in any of those contests, but he helped keep Milwaukee just one game back of the National League Central leaders with Monday's historic outing. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Oct 20, 2018 at 13:26 // News
Coin Idol Author
Digital currencies attracts more and more attention from investors. They are keen on the young developing financial market, however, potential investors still lack ground knowledge of the field. Before investing your money in crypto, you should consider the many risks associated with virtual coins, payments, and tax implications.
Common Risks
First of all, some cryptos are hard to liquidate, so they can’t be exchanged for fiat money directly. They need to be converted to another token before converted to fiat. This can have a great influence on your choice of cryptos you might want to deal with. Besides, the crypto market is highly volatile, so prices can change every minute. One must be careful with such fluctuations and may need to be advised on when to cash out or to hold his funds.
It is also important to check on the transaction fee each crypto requires. That is really a tricky thing because transaction costs can vary from one cent to thirty dollars for a single transaction. If you don’t want to lose much money on transaction fees, it is better to monitor them.
Another risk is associated with the digital currency exchange. They basically work as non-regulated private companies. You need to consider the risk of placing your funds there. And remember, that you should never use an exchange as a storage for your crypto coins. Crypto trading platform should be used only to when you need to perform a transaction.
Secure Storage
If it is dangerous to store your coins on the exchange, then where should you keep them? There are two options that perfectly serve for this purpose. The first one is a hardware wallet, which is basically a hard drive or USB device. Nevertheless, such wallet has some risks too. They are produced by a non-regulated private company and it is kind of a counter-party risk. Furthermore, hard wallets can be stolen or destroyed.
Another option is a software wallet, which stores digital currency on the hard drive of your computer. Using such a wallet, you can face risks related to simple technical problems, such as electrical, water, or fire damage that can destroy your computer files. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Activision Blizzard has announced over 4.6 million Guardians took part in the recent Destiny beta.
The exact figure came in at 4,638,937, which is pretty astonishing considering how short a period it was available for. The beta kicked off on Sony platforms on July 17, before coming to Xbox owners the following week.Bungie COO Pete Parsons said, "We were totally blown away by the number of people who played the beta. We surpassed even our own goals and the feedback was invaluable. We cannot thank the community enough, the response was humbling and in the weeks ahead we’ll be working hard to ensure that Destiny lives up to the expectations at launch.”For more specific information on rumored story missions and strikes, check out the Destiny IGN Wiki . For more on Destiny in general, check out our extensive month-long coverage of Destiny from IGN First, including our latest piece where Bungie personally responds to all your questions
Luke Karmali is IGN UK News Editor. You too can revel in mediocrity by following him on Twitter | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
L'attesa svolta nella storia del Milan ci sarà sicuramente, ma a quanto pare non sarà così epocale: Silvio Berlusconi ha incontrato Bee Taechaubol all'Hotel Park Hyatt di Milano e al termine del summit ha prospettato l'ipotesi di restare azionista di maggioranza del club. La sua era, di fatto, non si chiude. "C'è la possibilità che io mantenga il 51%", ha detto al termine del summit. Al di là delle sua dichiarazioni, è quanto filtra anche dal suo entourage: il presidente al momento ha la ferma volontà di restare al comando. Nel nuovo Milan, in ogni caso, sarà ancora lui presidente, come lui stesso ha confermato, e gli attuali a.d., la figlia Barbara e Adriano Galliani, resteranno in società, mentre il fondo Doyen sarà advisor sul mercato per Mr Bee.
berlusconi — "La mia preoccupazione è che il Milan torni protagonista in Italia, in Europa e nel mondo - ha detto il presidente al termine dell'incontro - Ho trovato in mister Bee (in realtà fa un piccolo lapsus e pronuncia Mr. Lee, rappresentante della cordata cinese, n.d.r.) una persona assolutamente seria che ha rispettato tutti quelli che erano gli adempimenti tecnici che sono prodromici alla stesura degli accordi e del contratto. Con mister Bee siamo diventati amici e pensiamo di poter fare buone cose continuando nel nostro rapporto. L'operazione permetterebbe al brand del Milan, che fra le società di calcio è il più conosciuto al mondo, di avere una commercializzazione nei paesi asiatici e questo è un progetto a cui stiamo lavorando. È tutto in discussione: c'è la possibilità che io mantenga il 51%. Ci siamo dati appuntamento tra qualche tempo per poter definire ogni aspetto per quanto riguarda il futuro del Milan. Per me è un affare di cuore, troppo importante, che esce assolutamente dai normali rapporti con le aziende. Se resto presidente? Sì".
mr. bee — Il thailandese ha incontrato intorno alle 5 del mattino Licia Ronzulli, l'ex eurodeputata che ha fatto da mediatrice nell'affare, poi ha aspettato l'arrivo di Berlusconi in hotel: l'incontro è cominciato alle 11.20 ed è durato una ventina di minuti. "Voglio ringraziare il presidente per l'opportunità. È un grande onore far parte della famiglia Milan: è il club più grande. Tornerò in Thailandia tra poche ore, ma spero di poter concludere presto. Ci sono ancora un po' di cose su cui dobbiamo lavorare, ci restano diversi dettagli da definire e continueremo a lavorare insieme: ci prenderemo un altro po' di tempo". Il thailandese resta vago sulla cifra ("Non posso entrare nei dettagli") e sulla futura dirigenza ("Maldini? Sono venute fuori molte cose, non ho parlato con nessuno per quanto riguarda il lato sportivo, valuteremo insieme cosa fare per il bene del club"). Solo un caso, allora, che i due abbiano pranzato nello stesso ristorante, ma in tavoli diversi: seduto con Mr Bee c'era invece Nelio Lucas, proprietario del fondo Doyen Sports che cura gli interessi di una serie di giocatori, tra cui Falcao, Kondogbia e Brahimi. I due, insieme, hanno avuto un incontro con gli avvocati della Belgioioso, probabilmente per discutere alcuni dettagli dell'operazione Milan. Per il broker, di fatto, è l'ultimo atto del suo viaggio d'affari a Milano: ha già lasciato l'hotel Park Hyatt prima di pranzo, volerà in Thailandia. E tornerà presto in Italia per riscrivere un altro pezzo di storia.
il comunicato — Poco dopo le 18, Fininvest attraverso un comunicato ha ufficializzato la proposta di Mr Bee. Ecco il testo integrale: "L'incontro di Milano con Mr. Bee è stato positivo - si legge -. Sono state discusse tematiche centrali per il futuro del club come, ad esempio, la valorizzazione e la commercializzazione del brand nei paesi asiatici, dove si può dare un forte e decisivo impulso per sviluppare i ricavi e reperire così quelle risorse finanziarie indispensabili per allestire un progetto tecnico e sportivo che riporti il club ai vertici del calcio italiano, europeo e mondiale. La collaborazione proposta, ancora da definire in molti punti, prevede l'acquisizione da parte di una cordata finanziaria di una quota di minoranza e che il controllo del club rimanga saldamente nelle mani del Presidente Silvio Berlusconi e della Fininvest". | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Mysterious disappearances come in many forms, and one very baffling type is that of mass disappearances, in which more than one person goes missing at the same time, often vanishing into thin air to leave searchers scrabbling for answers that may never come. One very strange such case of a mass vanishing happened in the country of Sweden, and which involves a series of strange events that have left investigators struggling to connect the dots ever since.
There was nothing particularly remarkable about the day of July 29, 1965 when it began in the city of Gothenburg, Sweden other than all of the rain. People went out about their business as usual, including three friends by the names of Gay Karlsson, Jan Olof Dahlsjö, and Kjell Ake Johansson who worked at the local shipyards. Yet at some point during the day things took a turn for the strange when the three men piled up into a blue Volvo owned by Karlsson’s brother to drive off out of town and apparently off the face of the earth.
The initial investigation into the vanishings faced trouble from the beginning, as the reports of the disappearances trickled in individually and it was not until later that police would connect them and figure out that the three men had all been together when they had vanished, giving them a slow response on the matter to say the least. Upon realizing this there were found to be other oddities, such as the fact that none of the men had had driver’s licenses and they should not have been driving at all, not to mention the fact that no one had any clue as to why they would suddenly up and take of in their car or where they might have been headed. The best idea any one had was that they had perhaps left to go camping, but considering the downpour that day this seemed unlikely, and they had informed no one of this intention.
It was also found that although they had been town trouble makers they had all been reasonably well-liked, happy individuals, had left all of their money behind, and that one of the men had even been expecting a baby, meaning that it seemed unlikely they had just run away. Foul play was considered, but there was really no evidence either way, no trace of them or the car was found, and it was as if the men had all just ceased to exist along with their vehicle. Even as police wrestled with the conundrum of this vanishing things got weirder still when it was realized that there had been yet another separate unexplained disappearance in the same city on the very same day.
It turns out that an 18-year-old art student named Hübner Lundqvist had been traveling through Gothenburg on his way to Lysekil to the north on that fateful day, and that he had sent his family a postcard simply saying “All is well, don’t worry!” before himself vanishing into thin air. It was speculated by the police that he may have even hitched a ride with the other missing men and that they had all disappeared together, but there has never been anything concrete to link the two cases and it may all just be coincidence. Lundqvist has never been found, his disappearance remains unsolved, and the extent of his connection to the other three missing men, if any, is still a mystery.
Adding yet another layer of bizarreness to the whole thing was a strange incident that occurred on the same day as these disparate vanishings. At around 2PM on that day a local bank in Gothenburg was held up by two men, with one dressed in drag. By all accounts they made quite a scene, shouting threats and firing their guns into the air like something out of a heist movie. One brave hostage reportedly managed to tackle one to the ground, and in the ensuing melee the would-be robber’s gun went off to shoot himself in the leg. This prompted them to flee with any money they could grab, which was actually quite a a lot, and they ran off chased by a mob of bank employees hurling rocks at them, which they only just managed to escape by firing wildly back at them.
It must have been quite a surreal scene, and only got odder when the two robbers got to the nearby river and tore off their clothes to reveal full scuba diving gear underneath. The injured one was unable to keep up with the other, who made off with a bag of cash. Police were eventually able to arrest the two robbers, plus another accomplice, and they were all found to be Hungarian citizens. It has been suspected that what has come to be known as the “Frogman Heist” may have been linked somehow to the disappearances, but whether it is or not it is still another bizarre event on a day already filled with strangeness.
In the years since the disappearances there has been very little progress made in solving the cases, although there have been some sporadic leads. In the years after his vanishing the missing art student, Lundqvist, had been allegedly sighted in both Singapore and Australia, but this has never led anywhere. Another rather odd lead came when the sister of Gay Karlsson went to her missing brother’s apartment in the days after his vanishing and was met with the sight of a stranger standing at the door wearing one of Karlsson’s sweaters. When she asked why the man was there he said that he knew where her brother was, and that he could be found in the pub district. What did this mean and who was the stranger? It remains a mystery and it seems that this alleged trespasser was never found.
Even after decades of police investigation, analysis by amateur sleuths, and endless debate and speculation the case of the “Dahlsjö Disappearances” has never been solved and is just as mysterious as it has always been. The four men who vanished have turned up not a shred of evidence as to where they went or why, the link with Lundqvist remains murky at best, and it is unknown what the Frogman Heist had to do with it all, if anything. Although little is available in English on this strange case it is infamous in Sweden, where there are books and countless Internet forums that have tried to pick apart the case and figure out just what was going on that odd day, and it is widely known there as the only unsolved mass disappearance in Swedish history, as well as the weirdest. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
The Los Angeles Times published a lengthy editorial Friday dismissing Trump’s voter fraud commission — the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity (PEIC) — as a “sham.”
The 864-word piece, “Trump’s Voter Fraud Commission is a Sham. That doesn’t mean our election system is perfect,”— ridicules the commission, trashing the voter fraud panel’s mission and leadership as “illegitimate”:
Donald J. Trump became president by winning the Electoral College despite collecting nearly 3 million fewer votes nationwide than his opponent. To Trump, the popular vote results weren’t simply a reflection of his campaign strategy or large blue-state populations. They were proof of election fraud.
…
Not coincidentally, the commission also tapped into an ongoing argument between Republicans, who say voter fraud is a real problem that needs to be addressed with new safeguards at the polls, and Democrats, who say fraud is a smokescreen that the GOP is using to justify its voter-suppression tactics.
…
We haven’t seen evidence of widespread fraud in either Trump’s election or previous ones — indeed, the research has mostly suggested that there’s been very little of it. Nevertheless, we have no objection to a meaningful, concerted effort to get to the bottom of the issue once and for all.
…
Based on the history and initial actions by its point person, Vice Chairman Kris Kobach, there’s little reason to think this commission can produce credible answers to the questions that Republicans have been raising about the sanctity of elections. Worse, we fear it will ignore the very real threat to election integrity posed by hackers and meddling foreign powers, as seen in the last presidential campaign. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
A Laramie Christmas tradition continues this year at the Wyoming Territorial Prison State Historic Site. You can experience a dazzling show of over 10,000 lights on 20 displays synchronized to holiday music at the Wyoming Territorial Prison State. The show runs nightly from 5:30 PM until 11:30 PM through December 31.
Visitors can park in the parking lot and listen along with the music on their car radios.
“WY State Parks’ mission is to impact communities and enrich lives.” Site Superintendent Deborah Cease said in a press release. “We hope this gift from us to the community will give joy, make memories for families, and become a holiday tradition for years to come.”
MORE: The History Of The Wyoming Territorial Prison Light Show
For more information contact Wyoming Territorial Prison at 307-745-3733 or visit www.wyomingterritorialprison. com . | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
TORONTO, November 24, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) – An estimated 600 to 700 participants at the “Stop bullying Christians” rally prayed, listened, waved signs, danced and sang hymns in Toronto’s Dundas Square on a cold, overcast Saturday afternoon before marching to City Hall to protest what they say is the city’s blatant discrimination against Christians.
Rally organizer David Lynn urged the crowd, which gathered on one side of Yonge Street to face an Eaton’s Centre teeming with Christmas shoppers, to stand up for their Christian faith whatever the cost.
“Stop being afraid!” said the charismatic street preacher and pastor-founder of the non-denominational Christ’s Forgiveness Ministries. “I am a Christian! You are a Christian! And being a Christian is the greatest thing that you could ever be!”
The rally was the latest pushback against the City of Toronto and the management board of Yonge-Dundas Square’s October decision to ban the Christian group, Voices of the Nations (VON), from using the square for its annual August music event.
Peter Ruparelia, president of Voices of the Nations, with wife Beena at his right, told the rally-goers that Christians need to fight discrimination together: “We are one. I thank you.” SOURCE: Lianne Laurence / LifeSiteNews
Voices of the Nations was denied a permit to use the square for the first time in six years because it allegedly violated a law against proselytizing in the public square.
“If you’re praising Jesus, ‘praise the Lord,’ and ‘there’s no God like Jehovah,’ that type of thing, that’s proselytizing,” Natalie Belman, manager of events for Yonge-Dundas Square, told VON’s Leye Oyelami, as verified in an audio recording obtained by LifeSiteNews.
LifeSiteNews subsequently launched a petition urging the city to repeal its decision, drawing about 30,000 signatures. VON director Peter Ruparelia has delivered it, along with a 10,000-name petition from TheRebel.media, to Mayor John Tory’s office.
(The LifeSiteNews petition is still active and has reached 34,153 signatures, and VON now has its own petition as well.)
Calgary-based Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms, acting on VON’s behalf, threatened to sue the City of Toronto for violating VON’s religious and freedom of expression rights if it did not repeal the decision by November 10.
The rally concluded with a march to Toronto’s City Hall for a prayer service, then a march back to Dundas Square. SOURCE: Lianne Laurence / LifeSiteNews
JCCF is now appealing the Dundas-Yonge management board’s decision to the City of Toronto on December 10, on VON’s behalf.
Dr. Charles McVety, president of Canada Christian College, told Saturday’s rally that Christians should be at that public appeal hearing.
“The public, that’s us, this is our city,” he said. “We need you to be there front and centre. The government doesn’t always recognize the power of God, but they do recognize power.”
Faith Goldy, Christian political commentator and broadcaster, told the rally that Voices of the Nations experienced not just bullying but “illegal censorship.”
“And the truth is that in this country, there is a new normal, and that is that Christians can be treated as second-class citizens,” she said.
She pointed to other examples: Justin Trudeau, Liberal prime minister, “bans pro-lifers from his party,” while Ontario’s Liberal premier Kathleen Wynne “institutes gay-straight alliances and an insidious, secular sex-ed into schools that have the denominational right to teach that Jesus Christ is Lord.”
“And now we are being told we cannot say ‘Jesus’ in public?” she asked. “I have a right to freedom of religion, expression, assembly, conscience, and I will exercise that right.”
Goldy also excoriated Toronto Mayor John Tory.
“Why so quiet, Mr. Mayor? Would you allow Muslims to be banned for daring to utter the name ‘Mohammed’? Why can we not say ‘Jesus’ in this square?” she asked rhetorically, before exhorting the crowd: “Say it with me: ‘Jesus! Jesus!’” and the crowd responded enthusiastically, as the square resounded for several minutes with the name of “Jesus!”
“I hope Mayor Tory can hear you all the way from City Hall,” observed Goldy. “Because he better get used to it, because we’re not going anywhere.”
Participants march down Bay Street back to Yonge-Dundas Square after praying in front of Toronto's City Hall. SOURCE: Lianne Laurence / LifeSiteNews
VON director Ruparelia told the rally that “to this day” the City of Toronto has not contacted him, despite a VON delegation, including himself, hand-delivering the 40,000-name petition. “So basically, they’re telling us that 40,000 people’s opinion doesn’t matter.
“That’s not right.”
Moreover, had it not been for their lawyers with the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms, VON would not even be aware there was an appeal process, Ruparelia said.
“It’s sad ... we live in one of the best cities in the world, where all religions and cultures abide together in unity and peace,” the softspoken Ruparelia told the rally. “So it just saddens me that [the city] didn’t even email us or even acknowledge us.”
He urged rally participants to contact their city councilors to protest the decision.
Street preacher and rally organizer David Lynn speaks from a makeshift stage at Yonge-Dundas Square, Yonge Street behind him, telling Christians to “Stop being afraid!" SOURCE: Lianne Laurence / LifeSiteNews
“I just want to thank those who came out today, from the bottom of my heart,” Ruparelia said. “We need to show unity, and right now I see unity, I see every culture, I see every denomination. We are one. I thank you.”
Organizer Lynn told the crowd about his own experience of persecution in his street ministry, and that he had listened to the audio between VON’s Oleyami and Belman “and it was awful.”
But “God arranged this situation so we could come together,” Lynn said.
“It’s funny, I’ve learned…that every time the enemy tries to stop the Gospel, all that God does is use that to bring Christians together and to create a louder voice,” he told the crowd. “So I’m encouraged today to know that Christians are coming together, standing up and being empowered.”
Lynn told LifeSiteNews that “coming to a rally, this is a new thing for the Christian community.”
He sees two reasons for this. “I think a lot of Christians may not know there is a strong anti-Christian bias” in the culture, “or if they do, they’re afraid to talk about it. They don’t want any trouble, they just kind of let it go.”
Lynn says that the anti-Christian prejudice “is getting worse,” but that in the history of the Christian faith, “great revivals” have occurred in the midst of persecutions.
“I’m believing that Toronto will see a revival and many will get saved, and we might just spare another generation before the coming of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,” Lynn said. “It’s possible, and as we can see, so many people are rising up. It is possible.”
McVety, too, stressed that Christians need to unite and stand up.
VON’s Ruparelia is “under attack, and we as a church stand with him, because we know that if he falls, we fall,” he stated in prayer. “If he loses his right to proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord, then we lose our right.”
Ruparelia’s wife Beena, who converted to Christianity from Hinduism, agreed. “We need to stand for Jesus,” she told LifeSiteNews. “It’s about souls. The Bible says that we have to win souls and spread the Gospel.”
She reiterated that Voices of the Nations is willing to “go right to the Supreme Court” to reverse the decision by the Dundas-Square management, but right now they are looking to the appeal.
“We’re just going by faith. We’re fasting and praying that they’ll overturn their decision on December 10.”
Those who wish to donate to Voices of the Nations, sign their petition, or want more information on December 10 appeal, can go here. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
A transgender woman whose brutal beating in Dallas was recorded on video last month was found fatally shot and lying face down in the road on Saturday, authorities said.
Police found Muhlaysia Booker, 23, with a gunshot wound around 6:40 a.m. and pronounced her dead at the scene, the Dallas Morning News reported. Her death was ruled a homicide, the report said.
Booker was severely beaten and hospitalized last month after a minor traffic accident in the parking lot of an apartment complex. A purported video that circulated online showed a man beating Booker while a crowd of onlookers shouted slurs.
Police arrested 29-year-old Edward Thomas two days later for his alleged role in the aggravated assault, the Dallas Morning News reported, citing police.
MICHIGAN MAN CHARGED WITH MURDER IN FATAL BEATING OF 2 WOMEN
Police declined to say whether Booker had received death threats before she was found dead. Dallas civil rights attorney Lee Merritt said Booker’s death is concerning for minority communities who fear retaliation for reporting hate crimes.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
Authorities are asking anyone with information to call Detective David Grubbs at 214-671-3675 or email [email protected] | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
The first Ebola vaccines will be shipped to West Africa Friday, loaded aboard a commercial flight from Brussels, Belgium, to Liberia.
Vaccine maker GlaxoSmithKline says it will eventually send 30,000 Ebola vaccines to Liberia for use in the first clinical trial testing in people who are at actual risk of catching Ebola – health care workers, close contacts of cases and perhaps burial workers as well.
“They’ve passed all the quality checks and now can be sent to the site,” Glaxo vice president Dr. Rip Ballou told NBC News. “We are also working on scaling up the production of the vaccine.”
“There will be another epidemic if there’s not a vaccine to prevent this."
On Thursday, the U.S. government announced the trial would be starting within the next two weeks. The National Institutes of Health helped develop the two vaccines that will be tested – one made by Okairos, a Swiss-Italian biotech company that Glaxo bought, and another one made by a collaboration of Canadian health experts, NewLink Genetics and licensed by Merck
“There will be another epidemic if there’s not a vaccine to prevent this,” Ballou said.
The Morning Rundown Get a head start on the morning's top stories. This site is protected by recaptcha
Ebola has infected more than 21,000 people in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, and it's killed 8,600 of them. While the spread is slowing a little, the World Health Organization doesn't project an end to the epidemic before the middle of the year, and only then with a sustained effort.
“If we can come up with a vaccine that can be put into either a stockpile for emergency use or become a routine vaccine in these areas, I think this has a very big potential impact,” Ballou said.
“This is an unprecedented epidemic,” he added. “It is a highly populated part of Africa. It is an economically important part of Africa. If it were to spread into surrounding countries – think about Nigeria, the most populous nation in Africa.”
The enthusiasm for making the vaccines hasn’t always been there. Ebola vaccines have been in the works for years, but because there was no real pressure to get them made, funding was thin and work agonizingly slow. With the epidemic in West Africa, there’s been a renewed infusion of cash, interest and support for the work – and big drugmakers like Glaxo and Merck have jumped into the mix.
Health regulators have also put their approvals into the fast lane. The two vaccines that will be tested in Liberia and, later, in Sierra Leone, are jumping straight into the final phase of testing. New drugs and vaccines go through a multi-step testing process – after they’ve been shown to be safe and effective in animals. They usually must pass three phases of human testing: Phase 1 trials in a very small number of people to show they are safe; Phase 2 trials to check safety in more people and to start to look to see what dose might be effective; and then Phase 3 trials to truly show whether the new product is effective.
“I don’t think anybody would prefer to see it done this way."
These vaccines are jumping straight from Phase 1 trials among volunteers in the U.S. and Europe to Phase 3 trials among people at true risk in West Africa.
“I don’t think anybody would prefer to see it done this way. There are many, many things we would prefer to have much more information about,” Ballou said.
“This is a very serious emergency and we are doing everything we can to respond to it while being fully responsible for the actions that we take.”
The vaccine makers and the groups that will distribute and administer the vaccines face big challenges even if they are shown to protect people. The vaccines both use live viruses – not Ebola, but carrier viruses with tiny, harmless pieces of Ebola attached. They must be kept frozen at very cold temperatures, far colder than most freezers can manage.
“We have to tweak the formula to make them more stable,” Ballou said. That takes more testing. “It takes months and months to be able to generate data,” he added. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
The bulls and bears are taking a big beating on Wall Street — by the dog sector.
Bankers, money managers and traders mostly pooh-poohed the parade of pets who accompanied other employees to work last week, celebrating National Pet Week across America. The furry-companion celebration was begun by Pet Sitters International in 1999.
The open-door policy of firms like pet-friendly Amazon, Ben & Jerry’s and New York’s Contently are ridiculed by some Street pros.
But on any given day, as many as 6,000 dogs roam the Seattle-based headquarters at Amazon, a canine heaven which pampers the pets with dog parks, a doggie deck and special treats at the reception desk.
While many Amazon employees may be pleased, some financial pros are aggravated by the growing popularity of pets at work.
And Friday’s National Take Your Dog to Work Day was no doggone fun, they said.
“It is the politically correct thing to do, and I do not support the idea,” said Dan Shaffer, CEO of Shaffer Asset Management. “It has gone too far.”
Pets in the office could boost company culture, admits Jill Fopiano, CEO of O’Brien Wealth Partners. But she said it’s only fair to acknowledge that not everybody loves Fido.
“Perhaps a compromise of designated ‘take your dog to work days,’ coupled with the flexibility for those with allergies or phobias to work offsite, is a good solution,” Fopiano said.
Still, the pet craze is big business. Sales of pet food — which rose 30 percent per US household between 2006 and 2010 — are forecast to soar to $31.68 billion this year, up from about $30.32 billion in 2018.
Many traders and advisers are bullish on pet food products and stocks. But pets on the trading floor and in the corner office are like a red rag to a bull, they say. Some say dogs on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, for example, would be more disruptive than an algorithm run amok in high-speed trading.
“In addition, the pets themselves may experience stress or confusion in the unfamiliar environment of an office or workplace,” said Karen Elliot of law firm Eckert Seamans. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Just before the beginning of 2015, Iron Maiden singer Bruce Dickinson got the news that he had a small cancerous tumor on the back of his tongue. In the time since, he has completed a seven week course of chemotherapy and radiology treatments and has begun the recovery process.
The band and their manager have been very good about keeping fans up to date on the progress of the singer. Drummer Nicko McBrain revealed that the group had finished recording their next album, but would wait until Dickinson was better before making plans to release it.
Meanwhile, the band's manager Rod Smallwood went into greater detail about what Dickinson has gone through and the optimism that surrounded his recovery process.
Now comes more info on Dickinson's status courtesy of the band's Facebook page. Check out the post below.
Over the last few days, Bruce has been to see his specialists and following examinations, including visual, we’re delighted to update everyone that the situation remains extremely optimistic for a full recovery. We will still not have final confirmation that the cancer has been completely eradicated until Bruce can have an MRI scan in May, as previously advised in Rod’s recent message to the fans on this site, and the period to full recovery will continue for a few months yet. Typically Bruce’s immediate reaction to the specialists’ good news was to be as active as feasibly possible, taking in a couple of visits to the Maiden office, one to the Hybrid Air Vehicle hangar to see latest progress, and a brief trip to his local pub, much to the surprise and delight of all his friends there! We just wanted to share this latest piece of good news with all Maiden’s fans and, as usual, we’ll continue to keep you all updated officially on Bruce’s progress through ironmaiden.com
We send our best to Dickinson, his family and the band as the singer continues his recovery. Stay tuned to Loudwire as we'll keep you up to date on Dickinson and all things Maiden.
10 Amazing Bruce Dickinson Moments | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
As exportações brasileiras superaram as compras do exterior, resultando em superávit da balança comercial de US$ 3,04 bilhões em fevereiro deste ano, informou nesta terça-feira (1º) o Ministério do Desenvolvimento, Indústria e Comércio Exterior (MDIC).
Balança Comercial Brasileira Para meses de fevereiro, em US$ bilhões Fonte: MDIC
Foi o primeiro saldo positivo para meses de fevereiro desde 2012 (+US$ 1,7 bilhão) e o melhor resultado para o mês desde 1989.
(Correção: Ao ser publicado, o texto informava que o superávit da balança em fevereiro era o maior em 37 anos, ou seja, desde 1980. Apesar de o MDIC dispor em seu site da série histórica a partir de 1980, pediu, após a publicação do texto, que fossem considerados os valores apenas a partir de 1989, devido a desatualização dos números.)
Até então, o maior resultado positivo para meses de fevereiro havia sido registrado em 2007, quando foi contabilizado um superávit de US$ 2,9 bilhões. Em feverreiro do ano passado, houve déficit (importações maiores do que vendas externas) de US$ 2,84 bilhões.
Exportações e importações
O saldo positivo da balança comercial em fevereiro se deve não só ao aumento das exportações, mas também à forte queda nas importações, influenciada pela alta do dólar e pelo menor nível de atividade econômica, segundo números oficiais.
Segundo o governo, as vendas ao exterior somaram US$ 13,34 bilhões em fevereiro e, com isso, tiveram um aumento de 4,8% sobre fevereiro de 2015. A média diária de exportações somou US$ 702 milhões, a maior para meses de fevereiro desde 2014 (US$ 796 milhões). Duas das três categorias de produtos, semimanufaturados e manufaturados, registraram alta nas exportações, enquanto os básicos tiveram retração de vendas no mês passado.
Os dados do governo mostram que as importações continuaram recuando fortemente em fevereiro deste ano. No mês passado, caíram 34,6%, na comparação com fevereiro de 2015, para US$ 10,30 bilhões. A média diária de importações, que é a principal forma histórica de comparação, somou US$ 542 milhões em fevereiro, o valor mais baixo para este mês desde 2009 (US$ 434 milhões).
Primeiro bimestre
Já no acumulado do primeiro bimestre deste ano, informou o governo, a balança comercial registrou um superávit de US$ 3,96 bilhões. Foi o primeiro saldo positivo para este período desde 2012 e o melhor resultado desde 2007 (+US$ 5,42 bilhões), ou seja, em nove anos.
O resultado também é melhor que o verificado no mesmo período do ano passado: déficit de US$ 6 bilhões.
Na parcial de 2016, as exportações somaram US$ 24,59 bilhões, com média diária de US$ 630 milhões (queda de 4,7% sobre o mesmo período do ano passado). As importações, por sua vez, somaram US$ 20,62 bilhões, ou US$ 528 milhões por dia útil, uma queda de 35,1% em relação ao mesmo período de 2015.
Resultado de 2015
No ano passado, ainda de acordo com informações do governo, o saldo positivo (superávit) das transações comerciais do Brasil com o resto do mundo somou US$ 19,69 bilhões. Foi o maior valor para um ano fechado desde 2011, quando o superávit comercial somou US$ 29,79 bilhões.
O resultado foi influenciado pelo baixo nível de atividade. Com a economia brasileira em recessão e o dólar alto, as importações desabaram 24,3% em 2015. Dólar alto torna as vendas externas mais baratas e as importações mais caras.
Ainda segundo números oficiais, a melhora da balança comercial em 2015 também foi influenciada pela queda do preço do petróleo. Como o Brasil mais importa do que vende petróleo ao exterior, o recuo do preço favoreceu a melhora do saldo comercial do país.
Estimativas do mercado e do BC para 2016
A expectativa do mercado financeiro para este ano é de melhora do saldo comercial, segundo pesquisa realizada pelo Banco Central com mais de 100 instituições financeiras na semana passada. O próprio BC também prevê melhora no saldo comercial.
A previsão dos analistas dos bancos é de um superávit de US$ 40 bilhões nas transações comerciais do país com o exterior para 2016. Até o momento, o Ministério do Desenvolvimento estima um superávit de cerca de US$ 35 bilhões neste ano.
Já o Banco Central prevê um superávit da balança comercial de US$ 30 bilhões para este ano, com exportações em US$ 190 bilhões e compras do exterior no valor de US$ 160 bilhões. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Peter McNaughton, a professor of pharmacology at King’s College London, is a devoted optimist. He acknowledges that his positivity can sometimes seem irrational, but he also knows that without it he wouldn’t have achieved all that he has. And what he’s achieved is quite possibly monumental. After decades of research into the cellular basis of chronic pain, McNaughton believes he has discovered the fundamentals of a drug that might eradicate it. If he’s right, he could transform millions, even billions, of lives. What more could anyone hope for than a world without pain?
McNaughton, nearly 70, is long-limbed, grey-haired and bespectacled. Though he has lived in London for decades, his voice still carries the cheery cadence of his native New Zealand. He wears blue Levis and black Nikes and delights in a late-blooming informality after years of heading university departments and turning up in a suit. Now, running his own lab, he can dress as he likes. On a Friday morning in April he waited for his young team to arrive at the modern, red-brick building in south London where he conducts his research. (McNaughton is always the first to arrive.) Today the team was assembled to hear a presentation by Rafaela Lone, a Brazilian scientist, who had spent the past six months in McNaughton’s lab breeding mice with symptoms that mimic fibromyalgia, a long-term condition that causes widespread pain and chronic fatigue. Lone explained that her mother had suffered from fibromyalgia for seven years. Her life had been reduced to a misery of symptoms ranging from urinary-tract infections to intense sensitivity to cold. Some days were bear-able; on others she couldn’t get out of bed. “She learns how to hold the pain,” said Lone.
McNaughton looked aggrieved at this (he finds it so hard to tolerate other people’s discomfort that, when his grandchildren come to stay, he lets them sleep in his bed because he can’t bear to disappoint them). But there was hope. Lone’s slides revealed her preliminary findings. Using genetic and pharmacological methods based on McNaughton’s research, she had achieved a consistent eradication of the mice’s pain. McNaughton looked exultant: “It’s really worked spectacularly well, hasn’t it?”
His eureka moment occurred back in 2010. From previous research, he knew that a group of ion channels (protein molecules that span a cell’s membrane), known as the HCN family, modulated pain sensation. When a nerve is stimulated, a message is sent via the spinal cord to the brain, which then interprets it as pain. The challenge was to find the right ion channel to target with a drug. His team slowly worked their way through the group: blocking HCN 1 had little effect and they didn’t want to interfere with HCN 4 as it regulates the heart rate. Then they tried HCN 2.
The team bred genetically engineered mice from embryos that had HCN 2 excised from their DNA . Subsequent experiments showed that these mice did not develop neuropathic pain (the kind that affects the nervous system and is often caused by long-term conditions such as cancer or diabetes). Not only that, the mice with HCN 2 cut out were still able to feel acute pain – the necessary, protective jolt that tells us to remove our finger from a drawing pin. “That’s the holy grail,” McNaughton told me, sitting in his modest office in his lab, pictures of his family looping on his computer screensaver. “It is! It really is!” (On the mice in question, McNaughton was remorseful: “I’m acutely aware that this is unpleasant for the mice,” he said.)
After his discovery, McNaughton’s research group developed chemical compounds able to achieve, by blocking the HCN 2 ion channel, the same effect in mice as the genetic technique. These form the basis for a prospective painkilling drug with the potential to treat multiple chronic-pain conditions (further research has shown strong evidence that blocking HCN 2 has a positive effect on mice mimicking symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis and migraine).
McNaughton filed three patents, pitched his research around the large pharmaceutical companies and a deal was then reached earlier this year between King’s College London and the Wellcome Trust (who helped fund the research) and Merck, an American pharmaceutical giant (known as MSD outside America and Canada). The deal is worth $340m plus royalties if the drug comes to market. That may sound like a large sum, but it is nothing compared with the profits that Merck could reap, in an industry where the larger the potential patient pool, the greater the reward. Chronic pain is estimated to affect a fifth of the global population, or 1.5bn people. “It’s an absolutely vast market,” said McNaughton.
The windfall would not touch McNaughton himself. “Do I need a helicopter? Do I need a house in Mustique?” he asked happily. “The answer is no.” Instead, if his drug survives Merck’s rigorous clinical trials, he will be content that he has helped people like the elderly woman in rural Canada who recently wrote to him pleading for assistance in a life blighted by pain caused by type-2 diabetes. Her suffering made no sense to him. What was its purpose? Think how much happier we would all be without pain, how productive, how hopeful. Here, surely, was a problem like any other scientific problem, one that must logically have a solution. “Give them a pill that makes the pain go away and then their life blooms once more!” he said, delighted by the thought. “Do you think that’s over-optimistic?”
We need pain, even if we don’t want it. Acute pain – the finger on the pin – is a defence against danger, our brain’s way of telling us to react to something that’s wrong. The rare, poor souls who suffer from congenital insensitivity to pain have a reduced life expectancy, the cumulative effect of multiple injuries and burns from infancy onwards. Pain is the natural early-warning system that keeps us alive.
But the purpose of chronic pain, which scientists define as pain that lasts for more than three months after its initial cause, is more mysterious. The pain’s origin might be muscular-skeletal – the result of a fall, perhaps – or neuropathic, caused by damage to the nervous system. Or it might be a result of a long-term condition, such as fibromyalgia. Whichever way, it is a pain that has gone on beyond its expected life span and does not respond to medication. Often it is a discomfort that has become invisible and shifted shape, growing harder to understand the greater the distance from its original cause. A physiotherapist suggested to me that chronic pain was like a musician being given a piece of sheet music to play. The musician learns the music and when the music is taken away, she continues to play it. The body has learned the pain by heart.
Our instinct when in any kind of pain, acute or chronic, is to make it stop. We reach for drugs, typically one of two groups: anti-inflammatories such as aspirin and ibuprofen, or opioids. Both types of drug are blunt, ancient instruments that have been around in various forms for thousands of years, a fact that would be quaint if the pills weren’t also potentially lethal. Aspirin derives from willow bark, whose first-recorded use as a painkiller was in Egypt in 1500 BC . The opium poppy is known to have been cultivated in Mesopotamia in 3400 BC (the Sumerians apparently called it the “joy plant”) and opium was recommended before surgery from at least as early as the second century AD , when the Greek philosopher Celsus recorded its use as an anaesthetic.
Though these drugs are cheap and effective at dealing with acute pain, prolonged use can lead to problems. Multiple studies have shown that anti-inflammatories increase the risk of heart disease and stroke. A paper from 2017 by researchers in Denmark found that standard prescriptions of ibuprofen were associated with a 31% increased risk of cardiac arrest. This prompted calls for over-the-counter sales of the drug to be restricted.
Opioids, meanwhile, are so addictive they can make people dependent within weeks and kill them within months. The unfolding catastrophe in America shows how great our desire is to medicate chronic pain: opioids have become a blight on whole regions. At the peak of the crisis in 2017 in Huntington, West Virginia, deaths from drug overdoses stood at ten times the national average. Over the past 20 years, the drugs have caused the deaths of an estimated 430,000 people and turned plenty more to heroin once their prescriptions ran out. When Oklahoma’s attorney-general brought one of hundreds of state lawsuits against the multiple drug companies involved, he described the situation as the worst man-made public-health crisis in American history.
The opioid crisis has intensified the race among pharmaceutical companies to find a new, safe, targeted painkiller. (In August, pain researchers were excited by the discovery that subcutaneous cells known as Schwann cells play a role in the transmission of pain.) Phil L’Huillier, Merck’s head of business development in Europe and the man who brokered the deal with McNaughton and King’s, told me he’d been actively looking for “pain opportunities” since he joined the company two years ago. L’Huillier is a well-ironed executive with the fluid, even tones of someone who gives frequent PowerPoint presentations. As he led me through Merck’s London offices, we passed a lobby adorned with huge images of smiling African and Indian children whose lives have been transformed by the company’s drugs.
When it comes to pain, Merck’s history is less poster-friendly. In 2004, five years after Vioxx, its new selective anti-inflammatory painkiller, had been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration, Merck was forced to withdraw it after studies showed that long-term use was associated with an increased risk of heart disease. (One paper estimated the drug might have caused up to 139,000 heart attacks while it was available.) By 2006, 190 class-action lawsuits had been filed against Merck and the following year the company agreed to a settlement of $4.85bn to cover 27,000 individual cases in America alone.
L’Huillier didn’t want to dwell on the Vioxx scandal when we met. “It’s a long time before my time,” he said. Instead he was keen to emphasise that Merck is committed to “developing really good molecules”. He knows the race is on: drug companies across the world are combing through scientific research to find the next painkiller, the one that won’t spawn a generation of addicts. L’Hui-llier admitted McNaughton’s research wasn’t the only opportunity he was pursuing: “You have to have more than one shot on goal.” Often research that looks tantalising on paper or when tested on mice doesn’t work in the same way on humans. Translation from the controlled environment of the laboratory to the unpredictability of real life is notoriously hard, humans being both fickle in their responses to medication, and not identical to mice.
L’Huillier was excited by the enormous potential of McNaughton’s work. Teams of Merck scientists were now finessing McNaughton’s compound before selecting the two that had performed best on mice – what they call a lead and a back-up molecule. These would then be put through three phases of clinical trials. Ideally, the drug would become what L’Huillier called a broad-spectrum painkiller: one that could safely be used to treat multiple chronic-pain conditions.
To reach this point the drug would have to succeed where so many have failed. Pain medication faces distinctive problems that don’t apply to other drugs. Unlike cancer, for example, pain doesn’t have clear biomarkers: you can’t measure the effect of a drug that treats it by counting white blood cells. Instead, researchers rely on patients giving their pain a score on numbered scales, from one to ten, say, or on a visual scale, where the individual marks the level of their pain at a point on a line between two extremes. But pain is infuriatingly subjective. The placebo effect is significant: give someone a sugar pill and they’ll report an improvement in their pain just because it has been noticed and apparently treated. There is no way of knowing if one person’s report of their pain means the same as another’s. “Your nine is different to my nine,” said L’Huillier, who looked somewhat despairing at the thought of such a crude measure being used to determine the efficacy of a drug in which his company had just invested hundreds of millions of dollars. “I have no idea what your nine is versus my nine. And that’s what we’re using in trials.”
The worst pain I’ve ever experienced – I write this with some embarrassment – was a fairly mild lower backache that seemed to take up permanent residence in my body during my early 20s. I’ve since given birth twice, once after a 48-hour labour and an epidural that didn’t work, and once with no pain relief (and everything tore). But the backache was worse. The pain of childbirth is deranged in its intensity and I remember, as a nice nurse sewed me up, shaking, weeping and vowing never to let anything travel from my womb to the outside world again. I couldn’t articulate the pain afterwards. I still can’t. All I can recall is the noise I emitted as my baby came out, a sort of baritone roar I’d never heard before and hope never to again. But at least the pain of childbirth has a purpose. It ends relatively quickly and is offset by a surge of helpful hormones, such as oxytocin. You heal, you have a baby that needs looking after, and you forget (sort of).
The backache, by contrast, went on for months, even years. It was near-constant when I was sitting at a computer and meant that I spent hours every day at work distracted and mildly irritated. Also, it didn’t sound that bad and you couldn’t see it, so it was hard to make others sympathise. Everyone has backache, for goodness sake. The pain didn’t feel urgent or legitimate. I couldn’t go on talking about it: there was nothing to say, and nothing, it seemed, to do. I saw the same expression pass over the faces of GP s, physiotherapists and osteopaths as they thought, “oh, one of them, the untreatable lower-back-pain brigade.” I’d always thought that pain was measured by intensity: that the worst was the sharpest. But it struck me that an intense, brief pain was probably preferable to a duller one with no end in sight. The way you think about pain, it turns out, can be as painful as the sensation itself.
Despite advances in brain imaging and rapidly expanding biological knowledge, there is still much about pain that we don’t fully grasp. “We haven’t really understood what pain is,” admitted Jane Ballantyne, a professor at the University of Washington and one of the world’s leading pain researchers, in a recent interview on the Pain Research Forum’s website. “We have this disconnect between nociception” – our sensory response to harmful stimuli – “and what we feel as pain.” In other words, we have not yet fathomed the gap between the physiological responses to pain and the mental experience of it.
We know, at least, that pain is relative: my daughter stubs her toe and the agony is entirely real and catastrophic because it is the worst pain she has known in her five years alive. Though I can empathise, I can’t truly understand what her pain feels like: it’s simultaneously as close and as distant to me as her thoughts. Similarly, I have no idea if my friend’s experience of the pain of childbirth was anything like mine, even though we both ended up with a baby. Beyond generalities, our experiences are entirely singular. “When one hears about another person’s physical pain,” writes the American writer Elaine Scarry in her book, “The Body in Pain”, “the events happening within the interior of that person’s body may seem to have the remote character of some deep subterranean fact.”
All we can rely on is the way a sufferer describes her pain. Language often falls down in these moments: how do you put words to an invisible, internal sensation? “It was a pain unlike anything I’d ever felt,” Rafaela Lone’s mother wrote to me in an email about the pain of her fibromyalgia. Cold water felt like needle pricks on her skin, she said. On online fibromyalgia forums, I read countless accounts of symptoms. The sufferers – almost all women – tended to reach for similes to make the intangible seem solid. “It feels as if someone is twisting the upper and lower ends of my limbs in opposite directions,” wrote Julia. “It feels like I’ve been in a massive car accident and should be bruised, broken and bleeding, but I look in the mirror and I look fine,” replied Kathleen.
You can almost detect a wistfulness. It would be easier to be covered in blood and bruises than suffer from a pain with no visible cause. It often takes people a long time to receive a diagnosis of fibromyalgia: its symptoms are poorly understood and inconstant. Women are nine times more likely to have the condition than men and sufferers often report that they encounter suspicion from male clinicians who wonder if their account of fluctuating pain and profound fatigue is simply a version of anxiety (also far more common among women than men). This can be compounded by the fact that fibromyalgia is sometimes triggered by stress or a traumatic event. Lone told me that her mother started having symptoms after the suicide of her brother. Emotional anguish was at the root of her fibromyalgia, but that didn’t negate its bodily reality: the two were now working in delicate and distressing harmony. Once pain takes up long-term residence in both body and mind, it can be hard to dislodge. The usual approach – to quell it with drugs – stops working. The longer it goes on the harder it becomes to say precisely where the pain had started, or to see how it might end.
On a fibromyalgia Facebook forum, a place where sufferers gather to compare notes about morphing symptoms, I found Louise. When we spoke, she told me that her pain story had two beginnings. One was physical, when she hurt her arm two years ago after falling down some stairs at home while carrying a washing basket. The other was emotional, when she divorced her husband four years before that. Both, she felt, had played a part in the development of her condition.
After her fall, Louise was referred to a specialist who found nerve damage in her arm. She had three operations and a sympathy-inducing cast. But then the pain got worse and spread to her back. She went to another specialist to have a spinal-cord implant. An MRI scan showed she had a herniated disc. The pain continued to spread. It became so all-encompassing, from arm to back to entire body, that Louise started to struggle at work. She wondered if the pain was partly caused by stress. She worked for a large IT firm, travelled frequently and had recently been promoted. She spoke to a manager who said he understood because he’d had toothache last week. This was nothing like toothache, she wanted to say. Nothing at all.
Soon, Louise was taking a mix of painkillers. One caused bruising as a side-effect. When she discovered bruises all over her legs she went to her GP . He told her he couldn’t see anything, suggested her problem might be psychological, asked if she felt depressed and handed her a leaflet for counselling. Louise felt ashamed, as though she’d imagined it all. She carried on at work, hoping the pain would pass. Her body kept going until her mind gave way. On a Tuesday in January, when she could no longer walk in a straight line or hear anything her colleagues were saying, Louise stood in the middle of her office and assumed she was having a nervous breakdown.
At this point, Louise realised she couldn’t carry on. She changed GP and was signed off from work. She saw a rheumatologist, received a diagnosis of fibromyalgia and started taking about 15 different pills a day. She was also referred for cognitive behavioural therapy. Though she knew her physical pain was acutely real, she also knew that her experience of its symptoms was entwined with her emotional life. “I’ve noticed when I get upset and stressed about something I start shaking,” Louise told me. “The pain gets really extreme.” To solve her pain, or at least to understand it, she knew she would have to change the way she lived. And to do that, she knew she would have to change the way she thought.
Now, Louise makes a judgment each day about what her body will allow her to do and what her mind can tolerate. Flare-ups can render her immobile for several days, but she tries not to overreact in a way that will magnify the stress. She knows that if she goes out to dinner with her partner, she will need to rest the next day. She has been off work for six months, but hopes to return part-time when she can. She’s worried about money – recently, her application for disability benefit was rejected after an assessment that she found, in itself, traumatic and exhausting. Financial worries make her emotionally volatile, as does all the time spent at home alone. She has become more sensitive to how people treat her. Trivial things, such as someone being curt on the phone, can upset her hugely and trigger her symptoms. The cycle continues.
Sometimes Louise slips into understandable sadness. “I was in a really good position,” she told me of her life before pain. “Why now? Why me?” But then she will try to pull herself back, and think that perhaps these things happen for a reason. Perhaps the pain is the body’s way of telling the mind that something needs to change. “Maybe it was to make me step back and think about what matters.” She takes little for granted now. And with the help of her partner, she tries hard to remain positive. Every morning he asks her how her earlobes feel, because that is one of the few places in her body where she has never felt pain. At night, when she can’t get to sleep because her left leg hurts, she thinks about her right leg instead, and how lucky she is to feel no discomfort there.
Many people with chronic pain have had that moment in a doctor’s office: when they are told that it is all in their head, when they feel their sanity is doubted. A referral for psychiatric treatment can be galling if you believe you are suffering from a purely physical condition. Often patients bounce from doctor to doctor, hoping for clarity and ending up with ever more prescriptions. At this point, when they’ve bounced just about as far as they can, they might end up at the door of Dr Parashar Ramanuj, a consultant psychiatrist at the Royal Northern Orthopaedic Hospital in London.
Ramanuj treats pain patients with the most protracted, entrenched conditions: those who might have found themselves dependent on drugs with very little improvement, or whose life has become arrested by pain whose origin is often no longer even detectable under the layers of medication-induced effects. He knows that when patients finally reach his office, they have probably passed through multiple layers of the medical system which has been confounded by their symptoms. His patients’ ambivalence towards further intervention can be obvious before he even meets them face to face. Ramanuj sends all new patients three questionnaires covering their physical and psychological histories. Many don’t complete them and a significant minority don’t answer a single question. “But to a psychodynamic psychiatrist”, said Ramanuj, “that is information in itself.” Ramanuj will then try to fathom why his patient is reluctant to engage.
In person, Ramanuj is reassuring, lucid and calm, the kind of doctor who makes you feel like the world in all its chaos could be organised into rows. His understanding of pain is almost the precise opposite of Peter McNaughton’s. Pain, he believes, cannot be located in a molecule or a cell. It is not a peripheral phenomenon that exists at the edges of our bodies. While it might be caused by a physical event, pain is felt and lives on in the mind. In Ramanuj’s conception, a person’s experience of pain is shaped by their experience of life: their personality, their environment, their family, their social class. This is known as the “biopsychosocial” model, pioneered in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s.
Bill Fordyce, an American psychologist, established the first multi-disciplinary pain programme at the University of Washington in 1961. This serves as a model for most specialist pain services successfully treating chronic pain patients today. It treats patients with a combination of physical, pharmacological and psychological therapies.
When Ramanuj meets a patient in person, he asks them for a history of their physical pain. “The first thing I need to do”, he told me, “is validate their experience.” Then he explores their psychiatric history to identify any obvious psychological disorders. Many of his patients have experienced significant emotional trauma (people who have had damaging childhood experiences are twice as likely to develop chronic pain). “Some of my patients have horrific stories to tell,” he said. “It is often painful for me just to hear them; it must be unimaginable to have lived through them.” The last half hour is spent going through what he calls theory testing – he tries out his interpretation of the person in order to come up with a shared understanding of their experience, explaining to them, for example, that their physical pain might be drawing their attention away from an emotional pain that is harder to confront.
Often Ramanuj hopes to have moved his patients from a position of sceptical resistance to a place where they can engage with the idea that their physical pain is entwined with their mental health. He explains theories about chronic pain to his patients, highlighting the biological similarities between how anxiety and pain are perceived. Finally, he suggests various treatments, usually a combination of non-addictive medication, psychological therapy and physiotherapy. The last thing Ramanuj typically tells his patients is that it’s absolutely true their pain is in their head. “If I cut you, the nerves go to the brain – that’s where you feel it. It is in your head,” he explained. After an hour and a half in his company, he hopes the notion might no longer seem so shameful.
At the British Pain Society’s annual scientific meeting – a late-spring jamboree at the Tower Bridge Hilton – Ramanuj gave a talk about the effects and side-effects of pain medications. In a windowless conference room, he asked how many of the attendees were anaesthetists. Almost everyone raised a hand – the room was full of people equipped with the power to erase pain completely. Ramanuj gave a jaded nod, and a little later showed a slide of a Venn diagram. “People with mental illness” was written in the loop to the left and “people in chronic pain” was written in the loop to the right. The overlapping middle section contained a statistic: 60-75%. Ramanuj sighed. “And yet I’m one of only two psychiatrists here.”
Outside the conference room were rows of stalls advertising pain-relieving gizmos to attendees as they drank their break-time tea. On one, a huge picture of a serene mother holding a newborn baby was positioned next to a display of epidural catheters. “Wireless pain relief” and “Freedom stimulators” were on show at the stall next door. “Qutenza®”, a capsaicin patch, in which chilli-pepper extract is used to soothe neuropathic pain, was advertised with a huge poster-sized image of a middle-aged woman in jaunty glasses, curled blonde hair and dark red nails sipping cheerily from a large mug. “Like your patients, we’re different”, read the tagline. To the pharmaceutical industry, this woman was clearly as zany as they come. Or perhaps, once pain-free, we women always put ringlets in our hair and paint our nails.
After his talk, Ramanuj retreated to the balcony of a nearby pub overlooking the Thames. He drank a pint of beer and had the unbuttoned air of a professional released into the wild. If your days are spent treating patients suffering from the most insoluble chronic conditions, a pain conference can feel like a holiday. When we’d spoken previously, I’d mentioned Peter McNaughton and his dream of a drug capable of eradicating chronic pain. “I’m sceptical about magic pills,” Ramanuj had replied. He listed a few so-called magic pills – valium, morphine – that had not lived up to their promise. “They’ve not just fallen out of favour, they’ve fallen out of grace.” That is, they’ve become morally dubious, capable of more harm than good if improperly prescribed or abused. When I put to him the theory that a truly effective painkiller might also be able to cure a chronic-pain patient’s depression, he shook his head. “There are so many theories as to why that would not happen at all,” he said. “The physical pain may actually be keeping the emotional pain at bay.”
Ramanuj pointed to plentiful research that shows how physical and emotional pain fire up the same regions of the brain. One pain can mask the other; it is far easier, after all, to confront a physical affliction than an emotional wound. Even if there were some kind of miracle cure, you would still need to contend with the vagaries of human behaviour. Patients regularly choose not to take drugs that might help them; sometimes, they seem not to want to get better. The lives of people in entrenched chronic pain have often unravelled: they might have lost jobs or relationships, years of productive existence. We all need a story to tell about our lives, to explain why we are where we are. For some, pain has become the explanation. “Pain occupies so much of your mind, you’re hardwired to attend to it; that’s what its purpose is,” said Ramanuj. “When you’re attending to physical pain there are other things you don’t need to attend to.”
For a scientist like McNaughton, who believes in the reassuring logic of causality, the notion that chronic pain might be so bound up with a person’s psychology that it can’t be eradicated by a well-designed drug strikes him as “deeply pessimistic”. The last time we met, in a café outside the 7th International Congress on Neuropathic Pain (in yet another London Hilton), he’d just been listening to a presentation about why so little scientific research into the phenomenon had ever been translated into successful drugs. The tone of the talk, he felt, had been typically negative. Recently, he’d had a dispiriting conversation with one researcher at Merck. When he suggested that his drug might be the game-changer they were all waiting for, she’d scoffed and told him it was impossible. In her entire professional life, she’d never observed anything like that happening. No drug changes the world overnight.
McNaughton refused to be discouraged. As we spoke, he happened to be sitting beneath a large circular pendant light that made him look as if he was wearing a halo. It suited his undimmed faith. “Sometimes people in the field laugh at us,” he told me. “They say, ‘People have been trying for many tens of years to solve these problems and no one has been successful. Why do you think you’re going to be?’” Such doubt makes him furious, as furious as the world’s most optimistic man can ever be. “How can they be so arrogant and so puffed up with themselves to suggest that? There are many problems in the past that appeared absolutely intractable, medical problems, and then we have solutions.”
He’s right. The history of medical science is full of breakthroughs that at one point seemed impossible. Look at penicillin or HIV medication. If the consequences of infections and AIDS could be dramatically mitigated, why can’t the same thing happen to pain? We are drawn to the idea of being fixed: the “fantasy of cure” as one psychologist described it to me. Hope is much more seductive than a shrugging acceptance of the human condition. We don’t want to be told our pain can’t be cured and that instead we have to change the way we think about it. We aspire to a life without discomfort, without unpleasantness. But what kind of life would that be? It is as hard to imagine a world without pain as a person without sadness: a whole dimension of existence would be missing.
Under his halo, McNaughton wondered whether he’d live to see his work come to fruition. He was nearing 70, but he’d always said he’d work until he was 95. Having just secured a multi-million-pound deal for his university, he wasn’t about to be shuffled off into retirement. If he could live for another ten years, he’d know if his drug would make it to market. Ten more after that, and he’d see whether it had successfully treated millions of people in chronic pain. These things take time, of course, but it all seemed entirely possible, in the best of all possible worlds. “Nobody believes me,” he laughed. “But you just wait.”■ | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
In the summer of 2013, my wife and I watched the first season of Orange Is the New Black in seven days. In the summer of 2014, we watched the second season of Orange Is the New Black in eight days. This summer, we watched the third season of Orange Is the New Black.
It took us 67 days.
There were a couple extraneous reasons for the delay, including a weeklong vacation, but not many. While we thoroughly enjoyed this season of OITNB, it didn’t hook us as deeply as previous years. That compulsion to plow through episode after episode simply wasn’t there. We took our time, watching an episode every so often between other serialized dramas and reality shows from network TV.
Our sluggish progression through OINTB: Season 3 came a few months after it took us three times longer to get through House of Cards’ third season as it did the second, which we devoured, Joey Chestnut-style, over the course of a single weekend. In between, I struggled to get through the first seasons of Netflix’s Daredevil (based on a comic book I love) and Sense8 (directed by filmmakers I love, the Wachowskis). I didn’t even try Bloodline — even though it starred an actor I love, Kyle Chandler of Friday Night Lights (a show the wife and I housed all 76 hours of in just 149 days in 2012) — after the general consensus from critics and friends was that the season was “tortuously slow.”
“Netflix is the perfect medium for binge-watching, but more and more the shows they’re releasing are not.”
Those reviews didn’t surprise me in the slightest. Increasingly, when a Netflix series is recommended to me, it almost always comes with a variation on the same caveat:
“You have to stick with it. The first six episodes are really slow. But if you stick with it, it gets good.”
(This from people who moan and groan when I tell them a new movie is two hours and 20 minutes long. But that’s a subject for another time.)
To be sure, all these shows were written and directed by different creators with different goals, and your experience watching them might be very different than mine. But it’s hard to argue that all of these shows produced for (or released through) Netflix share a similarly methodical pace, along with a structure that emphasizes the importance of whole seasons over individual episodes.
At Vox, Todd VanDerWerff recently called these shows “a new art form — not quite TV and not quite film,” one that has sprung out of the viewing habits of Netflix users and the programming habits of Netflix executives, who rejected the traditional network television model of distributing new episodes weekly in favor of dumping entire seasons online all at once. Comparing his experience watching Halt and Catch Fire episodically on AMC to a colleague who watched the show in one big chunk on Netflix, VanDerWerff suggested that:
“…binge-watching fundamentally changes the basic unit of cinematic storytelling from the episode (30 to 60 minutes) or film (90 to 180 minutes) to the season, which can run well into the hundreds of minutes. And storytellers aren’t just adjusting to this; they’re increasingly catering to it, telling longer and longer stories.”
If true, that’s a canny move by television creators to play to an audience craving bingeable content. Lord knows I certainly enjoy a series I can guzzle down like a frat boy doing a keg stand. Before Netflix offered their streaming service, I once ran (literally ran down the street!) to get to my local video store before it closed in order to rent the last disc of the first season of Alias. A few months later, I stayed up all night watching the back half of the second season of The Wire. It was dawn by the time I finished “Port in a Storm”; I’d watched seven episodes in one night without a break. I didn’t have any kind of deadline to return the DVDs, and I had to work the next day. But I just couldn’t stop watching.
Many of the best shows of the last 15 years were highly addictive; The Sopranos, Lost, FNL. As TV storytelling got richer (and more shows became available in total as DVD box sets or on DVRs), binge-watching became more prevalent. The rise of Netflix Instant only fueled that process; now everything was available, right at your fingertips. No more late-night dashes to the video store, no more discs out of stock. You don’t even have to use your remote to binge-watch a show on Netflix; when one episode ends, Netflix autoplays you right into the next.
Netflix
Lately, though, I find myself reaching for that remote to cancel the autoplay before it can kick in. The latest season of Orange Is the New Black features some of the show’s funniest moments, and one of the deepest and richest supporting casts in the history of television. But it also lacked the driving narrative force of previous years; there was no Vee to challenge Litchfield’s established hierarchy, nor a true will-they-won’t-they? love triangle like the one that enveloped Piper, Larry, and Alex. House of Cards’ third season meandered through a variety of storylines, none as gripping as Frank Underwood’s Machiavellian ascent to the Oval Office. I made it seven hours into Sense8, and when I gave up the show was still laying expository groundwork. More than halfway through its first season, most of the main cast were still trying to understand their powers and their connections to the other characters.
Great TV shows may have sparked binge-watching, and binge-watching may have sparked this so-called “new art form,” but Netflix’s new art form feels oddly resistant to binge-watching. By downplaying the importance of individual episodes in favor of longform narratives, the company has also downplayed the propulsive storytelling style and shocking cliffhangers that define the best binge-watch shows. A television show structured as a one giant 13-hour story can be highly absorbing. But without those big hooks and twists at the end of every episode, it’s very difficult to make it addictive.
Again, some of this is a matter of taste. Someone reading this might have really enjoyed the first season of Daredevil, or gotten a lot out of the last season of House of Cards. But it’s tough to dispute that, on the whole, Netflix’s series move more deliberately than their TV-first counterparts. According to Netflix’s chief content officer, Ted Sarandos, that’s a conscious choice on his part. He told VanDerWerff that “The first season of Bloodline is the pilot. It’s not like the first episode of Bloodline is the pilot.” Netflix is the perfect medium for binge-watching, but more and more the shows they’re releasing are not.
The thing I’ve really struggled with here is the why; why, if Netflix has built an audience on binge-watching, would they produce so much content that’s difficult to binge-watch. Audiences’ attention spans are getting shorter, not longer. In that environment, it seems like the logical approach is to make shows as peppy as possible; to deny viewers any excuse to change the channel or look away. That’s how television’s always done things, and it’s worked well for more than half a century.
When Netflix started dumping entire seasons online at once, though, they did more than alter the release and reception of television; they also endangered their primary revenue stream. They know their customers like to binge-watch. They know that intricately serialized stories with hugely suspenseful cliffhangers tend to provoke that sort of binge-watching. But they also know that they make their money on subscriptions, on users plunking down their eight bucks month after month. If users did a little too much binge-watching, particularly of Netflix’s exclusive content, that could potentially threaten renewals. If viewers demolished a whole season of House of Cards in a single weekend, and they know there won’t be a new season of House of Cards for another 18 months, they have one less reason to re-up their subscription in the short-term.
Netflix
Netflix’s new art form, whatever we want to call it, encourages users to consume at a slower rate; to savor rather than gorge. To be sure, that’s a delicate balance to strike. Breathless pacing might encourage viewers to finish a show too quickly and seek entertainment elsewhere; excessively plodding pacing could push the audience to permanently tune out. But get it just right and you can snare customers in an endless viewership cycle. Making Orange Is the New Black compelling enough to keep me coming back — but not so addictive that I watched it all at once — meant that Netflix guaranteed my subscription for two full months. It also meant I finished the show just in time to watch the next Netflix series, Narcos, which premieres on the service this Friday. The early reviews for the show, a docudrama about the Medellin drug cartels, describe its “loping narrative cadence” and “an endless barrage of exposition.”
That doesn’t sound like a great show to binge-watch. But I bet if you stick with it, it’ll get good — just in time for Netflix’s new Aziz Ansari series, Master of None. That might start slow, but hang with it; there’s Marvel’s Jessica Jones on the way. And if that seems like it gets off to a slow start, don’t give up; BoJack Horseman season three is due in 2016. That might not grab you right away, but don’t quit; Luke Cage is right around the corner. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
After being unfairly sacked by FFA for writing this piece of journalistic excellence, we offered poor old “Stiff Righter” a second chance to right his wrongs and prove his worth as an expert on women’s football. Here’s his first article for The Football Sack.
We’ve given the FFA’s Stiff Righter a second chance
1: The Matildas, well, they just aren’t that good
A team that plays with the bog standard raison d’etre of simply scoring more goals than the opposition are living in the 1800s. The Matildas style of football is outdated and just dire to watch.
Who wants to see speedy, overlapping full-backs, crisp passing and shots at goal? Throughout the ninety minutes against Nigeria there were no overhead kicks and not one Matilda even tried a ‘rabona’ for Christ’s sake.
I mean what sort of second rate nonsense is stringing together a couple of passes and scoring?
You can watch the A-League live for only $25 a month. Click here to read our review of Kayo Sports and to start your 14-day free trial.
‘Get the ball in the danger area and score goals’ seems the default game plan of a team stuck in the past. World football has moved on and if there are not a hundred pointless step-overs in the lead up to a goal then it’s not worth the price of admission.
Jog on Australia.
2: Australia’s shorts are too baggy to be considered a world-class team
They may have the players to go far into the tournament but there is no chance of the Matildas winning the cup. Why? Well their shorts are way too baggy.
Sepp Blatter, the doyen of the World Game who never had a bad idea ever, said back in 2004 (that’s over a decade ago Australia!) that women footballers “could, for example, have tighter shorts. Female players are pretty, if you excuse me for saying so, and they already have some different rules to men – such as playing with a lighter ball. That decision was taken to create a more female aesthetic, so why not do it in fashion?”
If they can’t even get that right eleven years later what chance of actually winning a World Cup? Do the easy things first.
3: Caitlin Foord is more super-human than ever
The dynamo from the ‘Gong can do no wrong. That should be on a greeting card or something. Nice alliteration. Against the USA she was superb, against Nigeria she took it to another level.
Short of wearing her pants outside of her shorts she couldn’t have been more super-human. Well, maybe the addition of a cape and some sort of emblem on the front of the gold jersey would help and a twenty-part TV Series on Netflix. Anyone got Netflix? Daredevil is awesome.
Anyway, that might make her team-mates jealous and that wouldn’t be good for camp morale. That’s camp as in the training camp not camp as in the South African ‘fenced field or enclosed area for grazing.’ So maybe next game Caitlin, be less super-human?
4: Lisa De Vanna is out of her depth
It’s abundantly clear to all Women’s football experts, and I include myself amongst that number having watched one Matildas match ever (the game versus USA), that striker Lisa De Vanna is out of her depth at international level.
Yes, she may have 100 caps for her country, and scored numerous goals but at 1.56m she would, literally, be out of her depth in the deep end of any standard size swimming pool which, given the monsoon conditions witnessed in some matches at this tournament, is a worry.
Come to think of it there are a number of Matildas in this boat which leaves me to believe that Alen Stajcic needs to pick taller players. Maybe someone like basketball superstar Lauren Jackson for example.
At 1.96m she wouldn’t be out of her depth. Don’t know whether she can play football but with the likelihood of having to face the USA later in the competition if the Matildas are to win it, then that won’t matter because ‘well, they just aren’t that good’ are they? | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Af Frederik Lasserre og Kristian Weise
Hhv. analytiker og direktør i Tænketanken Cevea
Lørdag 15. september 2008 indvarslede et tabt årti. Det kan vi konstatere her ti år efter, at Lehman Brothers gik konkurs og udløste en global finanskrise, der bragte flere års økonomisk recession og massearbejdsløshed. Og som i øvrigt ligeledes hidkaldte en katastrofal europæisk sparepolitik og en kriserespons, der satte fut under udviklingen i den allerede galoperende ulighed.
Storbankernes overdrevne spekulation og kompromisløse profitjagt i stræben efter at etablere finansimperier var drivkraften bag krisen, hvis efterdønninger banede vejen for den politiske polarisering og de opbrud, vi har set i Europa og USA de seneste år.
I tillæg til de politiske og sociale omkostninger kommer den økonomiske regning. Ifølge Rangvid-udvalget kostede finanskrisen Danmark alene 400 milliarder kroner, hvoraf 200 milliarder kroner udgør et permanent velstandstab. Det vil sige en regning, som vores og fremtidige generationer må bære rundt på til tid og evighed.
Vi har altså af bitter erfaring lært, at finanskriser mildt sagt er vanvittigt dyre. Derfor er det altafgørende, at den finansielle regulering bidrager til at sikre en velfungerende og robust finanssektor. Ser vi på de mange nationale og internationale reformer siden 2008, er det dog ikke tydeligt, at reguleringen har været tilstrækkeligt ambitiøs til at opnå det formål.
De store banker er stadig for fede til at fejle
Det altoverskyggende mantra for det styrkede internationale samarbejde og den skærpede regulering efter krisen var, at skatteydernes penge aldrig igen skulle bruges til at redde konkurstruede banker. Som nationalbanksdirektør Lars Rohde for nylig slog fast, er vi ikke der endnu. Selvom vi på det principielle plan er på plads med lovgivning om, at aktionærer og kreditorer – fremfor småopsparende og skatteydere – skal holde først for, når en bank skal afvikles, er det endnu ikke troværdigt, at skatteyderne slipper helt.
De seneste ti års reformarbejde har ikke realiseret det løfte, politikerne gav skatteyderne. For en af de vigtigste underliggende årsager til finanskrisen er endnu ikke løst: Vi har fortsat banker, der er for fede til at fejle.
De politiske reformbestræbelser har i altovervejende grad været fokuseret på smalle institutionelle reformer – øgede krav til bankernes kapital- og likviditetsposition samt skærpede rammer for kreditgivning. Selvom vi i Danmark stiller mindre krav til bankernes kapitalfinansiering end vores nordiske nabolande, er den øgede polstring isoleret set positiv. Med større kapitalbuffere kan bankerne nemlig bedre modstå store, pludselige tab.
Mens man har forsøgt at reducere muligheden for, at banker kommer i økonomisk uføre, er der ikke gjort nok for at fjerne den uudtalte statsgaranti, der frister storbankerne til at optage de store risici, som fører dem ud i problemer i første omgang. De større strukturelle reformer af bankmarkederne og bankernes størrelse blev efterladt på perronen, så snart det stærke politiske momentum for gennemgribende reformer begyndte at ebbe ud i årene efter krisen.
Det er problematisk, fordi risikoen for at gå nedenom og hjem og selv stå tilbage med regningen er det stærkeste og simpleste markedskorrektiv for enhver privat virksomheds risikovillighed.
Den brændende platform for det etiske selvopgør mangler
Når vi har set både Danske Bank, Jyske Bank og Nordea være involveret i hvidvask og skattely til trods for tættere regulering siden krisen, og når vi samtidig ser tidlige krisetegn i en faretruende udlånsvækst, som hovedsaligt er koncentreret i storbankerne, tyder det på, at deres etiske selvransagelse efter krisen er udeblevet.
Det er fristende at konkludere, at det skyldes fraværet af en brændende platform. Storbankerne jagter fortsat urealistisk høje afkast, som tvinger dem ud i tvivlsom adfærd. Og de tager ofte, bevidst eller ubevidst, større risici, end de burde, fordi banker kan forvente at putte overskuddet på de unødigt risikobetonede aktiviteter i lommen, men blive reddet af staten, hvis det skulle gå helt galt.
Hvis vi vil undgå, at finansiel spekulation atter påfører os en årelang politisk og økonomisk krise, er vores vigtigste opgave derfor at sikre troværdighed omkring, at bankerne selv betaler gildet, hvis de bringer sig selv i uføre igen.
Oprydning i de finansielle supermarkeder
Den gode nyhed er, at vi ikke behøver gøre noget nyt og potentielt farligt for at undgå, at vores store banker er for fede til at fejle. Vi skal faktisk bare arbejde henimod at genetablere nogle af de vandtætte skodder mellem forskellige typer af finansiel virksomhed, som blev udvandet i løbet af 1980’erne og 1990’erne.
De finansielle supermarkeder er som sådan blot en parentes i 170 års dansk bankhistorie. Kombinationen af finansiel deregulering, juridisk kreativitet og en bølge af fusioner og opkøb udviskede de ellers faste grænseopdelinger mellem pengeinstitutvirksomhed, forsikringsvirksomhed, realkreditvirksomhed og fondsmæglervirksomhed, som igennem årtier havde sikret en sund og stabil finanssektor i Danmark.
Samlingen af finansielle aktiviteter har med andre ord banet vejen for konsolideringen, som har givet os banker, der er for store til selv at skulle stå til regnskab for selvpåførte problemer. Derfor kan en gradvis adskillelse af de forskellige former for virksomhed også være en vej til at fjerne storbankernes uudtalte statsgaranti.
Det er oplagt at starte med realkreditten, fordi man samtidig vil kunne løse den monopollignende markedssituation, der i de seneste år har gjort det ekstra dyrt at være boligejer. Danske Bank, Nykredit og Jyske Bank sidder på 80 procent af realkreditmarkedet, som med en værdi på 6.500 milliarder kroner svarer til cirka tre gange Danmarks samlede økonomi. Konkurrenceudfordringen understreges af, at realkreditinstitutternes samlede indtjening per omkostningskrone er mere end fordoblet fra 1,8 i 2013 til 4,1 i 2017.
Når bankerne har hævet bidragssatserne for kunderne, afspejler det altså ikke nødvendigvis, at det er blevet dyrere at drive realkreditvirksomhed. Tværtimod indikerer den øgede lønsomhed, at de finansielle supermarkeder har kunnet lukrere på fraværet af reel konkurrence, når der var lavvande i de øvrige forretningsområder.
Et krav om, at de finansielle supermarkeder skal reducere deres balancer ved at udskille realkreditten i selvstændige virksomheder, ville være et vigtigt skridt i forhold til at sikre, at storbankerne kun tager de risici, de selv kan betale for. Samtidig ville vi værne om den særlige danske realkreditmodel, politikerne normalt vil gøre alt for at beholde.
Ti år efter krisen kan politikerne med fordel tage ved lære af fortiden for at sikre en robust og velfungerende finanssektor i fremtiden.
[email protected] | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Don't be alarmed! Your Alexa-enabled device may lapse into a sudden fit of giggles, but Amazon is aware of the problem. Recent reports detail a quirky bug that has Amazon's virtual assistant Alexa laughing for no apparent reason, scaring the daylights out of unsuspecting users.
According to a Bloomberg report, Amazon is aware of the issue and is working to fix it. The news comes a few days after users took to social media to share their stories of strange laughter coming from their Echo devices. Some claim Alexa laughed in response to unrelated or misunderstood commands, while others claim Alexa simply laughed out of the blue.
It's not uncommon for Echo devices to hear sounds and mistake them for a user's wake word. Amazon's smart speakers can be programmed to respond to a few words: "Alexa" is the most common, but other options like "Echo" and "Amazon" are available as well. These bouts of laughter could be a byproduct of Echo devices mistakenly hearing their wake words.
But reported situations of unprompted laughter in silent homes are obviously quite creepy. Some users have resorted to unplugging their Echo devices to ensure that Alexa cannot interject anything, ominous or not.
While my Echo device has lit up and responded to random noises in my home a few times, I've never experienced the laughing issue. When asked, "Alexa, how do you laugh?" my Echo replied, "Sure, I can laugh—tee hee!"
It's always worth checking the History section of the Alexa mobile app in situations like this. Since Echo devices are always listening for their wake words, they record and save clips to the cloud every time they hear something that they think Alexa needs to respond to. Users can review and delete these clips at any time in the Alexa app's History section.
Update (8:26am ET March 8): An Amazon representative provided the following statement to Ars, explaining that Alexa's unprompted laughter was caused by an incorrectly heard phrase. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
welder for Stewarts Inc., an oilfield service company, works on a pipe that will be used in the fracking industry in the Permian Basin oil field on January 20, 2016 in the oil town of Andrews, Texas. Spencer Platt/Getty President Barack Obama is handing off to President-elect Donald Trump after an impressive labor-market recovery.
December 2016 marked the 75th straight month of job creation in the US. There has never been a streak this long in the 78 years the Bureau of Labor Statistics has reported employment figures.
The unemployment rate was 4.7%, less than half of the 10% peak in 2009.
The jump in average hourly earnings — to the highest year-over-year growth rate since 2009 — showed that the labor market continued to tighten.
"Obama gets high marks for a pretty solid and complete labor market recovery," said Harry Holzer, a professor of public policy at Georgetown University. "But there are at least two or three large problems remaining," he told Business Insider.
The first is labor-force participation. The share of the population that is currently employed or actively looking for a job has fallen since its peak in 2001, including through Obama's term in office.
This overall decline has not been all that surprising to economists. It has been driven, in part, by the demographic reality that baby boomers are getting older and starting to retire. This trend is expected to continue, putting the lid on how high the participation rate can rise.
What's worrying, Holzer said, is that labor-force participation among non-college graduates has also continued to fall.
Related to this is the issue of wage stagnation, which plagued the eight years of Obama's presidency but has received a jolt in the last year.
It's an indicator of a broader problem with inequality: People with college degrees have made progress, but those who only got as far as high school have not, Holzer said.
"That's part of why so many of them have been dropping out of the labor force, especially men — white, less educated men," a demographic that voted predominantly for Trump, Holzer noted. While the skills gap among these two groups makes it reasonable to expect an income disparity, it could be smaller.
Adding to that disparity, nearly everyone with the skills most in demand has been hired. That's what Federal Reserve officials allude to when they say the economy is near full employment. But it also exposes the lack of skills among those who would prefer to work in higher-paying jobs. Holzer said Betsy DeVos, Trump's nominee for Secretary of Education, was not the best person to improve higher education.
Holzer said he's skeptical that Trump's approach would address these issues. For one, the low unemployment rate indicates that there is not much spare capacity left in the economy.
Also, Trump's focus on reworking trade relationships and reforming immigration wouldn't necessarily fix these problems.
"Trade and immigration really don't account for the wage stagnation of these workers," Holzer said. "It has more to do with technology and weakening of some labor-market institutions."
Take manufacturing, for example. Even though employment has slowed, the higher per-worker output of remaining workers has more than made up for the shortfall, thanks to increased automation. A big push to boost American manufacturing, then, might not necessarily create more jobs.
During a commencement speech at the University of Baltimore in December, Fed Chair Janet Yellen said that while automation has cheapened some repetitive tasks, it has created demand for workers in other industries where technology is important.
"Like technological change, globalization has reinforced the shift away from lower-skilled jobs that require less education to higher-skilled jobs that require college and advanced degrees," she told the graduating students. "The jobs that globalization creates in the United States, serving a global economy of billions of people, are more likely to be filled by those who, like you, have secured the advantage of higher education."
"He's going to do these showy things like he does with Ford and Carrier, and maybe he'll build the wall," Holzer said of Trump. "I expect that would do very little for American workers," Holzer said. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
In this week’s #SkepticalTuesday post, I discuss the latest changes that may be coming to Google’s search ranking algorithms: a litmus test for factuality.
***
Sometimes the truth is unpopular. That’s the problem currently plaguing the search engine Google, which ranks sites according to how many parts of the web link back to any given site. Since the total readership of this blog is roughly 300 people in a given month, for instance, there’s not a lot you can do to make it show up on the first couple pages of Google search results. (Yes, I know I could use SEO, thank you myriad bot commenters). This method of ranking results isn’t actually a bad thing much of the time — if all voices are equal, the crowd very often gets things right. It’s an idea called “the wisdom of the crowd,” and for things like multiple choice answers, anyway, it tends to be right.
But when it comes to more complicated questions, or when the crowd’s responses aren’t equal to one another, the system fails.
The wisdom of the crowd logic is that in any given group, some people will know what the answers are, and others will know what the answers aren’t, and still others won’t know at all. The ones who don’t know at all will balance each other out, but the other two groups will give a response that elevates the correct answer above the others.
But what if some voices speak louder?
That’s the problem Google’s having: thanks to its popularity-based ratings, the people who are either wrong or who are outright lying get a serious boost. Climate change deniers like Senator Inhofe and anti-vaccine spokespeople like Jenny McCarthy have louder voices, because they’re already public figures. And by god, do we love celebrities. Another part of it is that even well-meaning news sources like to provide “balance” on every issue, giving fringe views a lot more publicity than they might generally deserve. Our human propensities tend to skew the results.
So it’s interesting for me to see this study by a bunch of Google engineers, published this week on arxiv.org, in which they suggest a method that might be used to correct this: determine the trustworthiness of a site based on its propensity to be factually correct.
The system they’ve devised produces a value called KBT, or Knowledge-Based Trust. The process would be to extract facts from a given page, and then determine their accuracy, and use the propensity for making accurate statements (the example given, I’m not lying, is “Barack Obama’s nationality”) to determine the general trustworthiness of a given site. But how does it know what statements are facts?
“Inference is an iterative process, since we believe a source is accurate if its facts are correct, and we believe the facts are correct if they are extracted from an accurate source. We leverage the redundancy of information on the web to break the symmetry. Furthermore, we show how to initialize our estimate of the accuracy of sources based on authoritative information, in order to ensure that this iterative process converges to a good solution.”
Basically, they can start the ball rolling by feeding in a few hundred thousand statements (“triples,” they call them, like “Barack Obama, nationality, USA”) that they’ve manually verified as true — for example data pulled from the Knowledge Vault — and then use those to verify trustworthy sources, and use those trustworthy sources to verify other trustworthy sources, and so on. They’ve already human-tested a large subset of the algorithm’s responses, and found them to be pretty accurate so far.
So will this help with, say, the crazy that floats to the top every time you search “vaccines”?
The answer: maybe. But it won’t be a cure-all.
And it probably shouldn’t be.
While I have about as little sympathy for the upset Fox “news” pundits who make a living off denying science to the ignorant as I have for things like staph infections and the bacteria that cause stomach ulcers, I have to admit that Google having the power to change what you see is a little unnerving. It should be: after all, skeptics haven’t been treated well throughout history by the gatekeepers of knowledge.
But it’s not like we aren’t already subject to the same gatekeepers. Right now you’re probably seeing this article because facebook decided you’d be interested in it. Or maybe you saw it on reddit. But these are also catered ways of getting your information.
The question is, am I more worried that Google will deliberately “downvote” things that are scientifically accurate because they’re unpopular, or that they’ll do so because it thinks they’re genuinely incorrect? Because what we have right now is the former, and it’s bad enough that I’m willing to take a chance on the latter.
Besides, as the paper notes: “source trustworthiness provides an additional signal for evaluating the quality of a website” (emphasis mine). Even under the new system, if enough people want something, it’ll still be in Google’s interest to serve it to them.
So let’s all stumble a little closer to the truth, shall we? | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
The Steelers regular season finale will be played at 1 p.m. Sunday at Heinz Field, and the theme for the game is Fan Appreciation. There will be a slew of thingson game day associated with that theme, but as with all sporting events what fans appreciate most is seeing their team win.
Mike Tomlin said he appreciates Steelers fans and the plan is to show that appreciation by preparing the team and then playing Sunday's regular season finale to win. But because the Steelers have clinched the AFC North Division and are locked into the postseason as the No. 3 seed in the AFC, which means single-elimination play will begin for them on the weekend of Jan. 7-8, there will be some adjustments made with respect to the personnel charged with securing a victory. Where possible, of course.
"There are several guys I'll look hard at preserving and protecting and getting into the playoff round with the understanding that we are a No. 3 seed," said Tomlin. "Guys like Ben will get that consideration. Le'Veon Bell will get that consideration. It'll be nice to take Le'Veon Bell into a playoff stadium. That's something we haven't been able to do in either of the last two years. Antonio Brown. It'll be nice to take Antonio into a playoff stadium. We went to Denver last year without Antonio. That's not quite as fun as doing it with Antonio. Maurkice Pouncey is another guy. I've been in playoff stadiums without Maurkice Pouncey. I've been in the Super Bowl without Maurkice Pouncey. It's more fun to do it with Maurkice Pouncey.
"So, those are some of the guys I'll give consideration to, and if I get an opportunity to deem those guys inactive, then I will."
The Steelers will carry a six-game winning streak into Sunday's game against the Cleveland Browns, who eliminated the possibility of becoming the second 0-16 team in NFL history last Saturday by defeating the San Diego Chargers at FirstEnergy Stadium.
But while this game will represent the polar opposite of the Christmas Day game against the Ravens in both hype and significance, Tomlin is not of the mind to treat it in a polar opposite fashion.
"In general our approach is going to be: if you're dressed it's business as usual," said Tomlin, "and I think that's the appropriate approach to take from a play standpoint, from a preparation-to-play standpoint, and from a planning standpoint. As a staff, we're not going to live in our fears. We're not going to fear the what-ifs. We're going to prepare, and we're going to play this game to give Steelers Nation what it is they deserve, which is preparation that leads to a winning performance."
For the Steelers, Sunday's game against the Browns will be somewhat similar to the 2004 regular season finale in Buffalo against the Bills. Back then the Steelers went to Western New York having secured the top seed in the AFC Playoffs, and Coach Bill Cowher took the opportunity to rest some key guys. Jerome Bettis, rookie quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, Deshea Townsend, Plaxico Burress, and Clark Haggans all were among the inactives that day, and many other starters played sparingly.
But the backups played hard, and even though the Bills needed a victory to clinch a playoff spot for themselves, the Steelers won, 29-25.
"A lot of people like to compare these opportunities to a preseason game, to a fourth preseason game. The numbers are very different," said Tomlin in a reference to the disparity in the size of preseason rosters to the size of regular season rosters. "That's the mentality we're bringing to the table. It's business as usual for those who are dressed. We have to prepare that way. We have to ultimately play that way, and we will." | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
One employer is now making it harder for potential employees to get work…but do they have the right to ask employees not to smoke?
Baylor Health Care System out of Texas is causing a stir amongst potential employees who feel they are being discriminated against by a new mandate that states that the company will overlook hiring potential employees if they smoke or refuse to give up smoking.
The decree has outraged smokers who argue that they are being prejudiced against, because whilst it’s one thing what an employee does at work, it should not be of any concern to an employer what they as private citizens do in their own spare time.
Baylor for its part points to the increasing cost of healthcare which has swayed its recent decision, pointing to the fact that according to the FDA, smoking costs employers an estimated $200 billion a year in lost productivity and medical charges.
Whilst employers are legally not allowed to hire someone on the basis of their gender or sexuality, they are at least in the state of Texas allowed to preclude hiring you if you smoke. In fact rather than assuming that Baylor might be the last place employees would want to work, Baylor points to the Dallas Business Journal which listed Baylor as the best place to work.
All of which raises some compelling questions. If a company like Baylor (who are in the business of hearts and vasculars) wishes to set up a healthy environment does that mean that next week we should expect to see it announce that it will no longer be accepting applications from obese people, people who have high blood pressure, people who have an affinity for stunt performing on the weekends (after all, what use could one argue it is to employ someone who because of their extreme sports recreation on the weekend could hypothetically may not be alive come Monday morning), people who like to recreationally use drugs in their own spare time or even people who are involved in unhealthy family relationships lest that lead to sick days at work?
Of course it’s understandable that a company should want to employ the most healthiest employees it can possibly find, but creating barriers like whether one smokes may soon be proceeded by mandates such as does one have more than one sexual partner at the time, do they have any sick relatives living at home (who could potentially pass on their illness) and are there any dangerous practices or thoughts (while we’re at it) that the potential employee likes to engage in outside of work that the company should have a right to know about? Does that mean if I’m old, wear a nose ring or tattoo that a company can choose not to hire me (after all a company still has the right as much as I have the right to a tattoo not to hire me if I wear a tattoo)?
With respect to smokers, I would be the first one to admit as a part time smoker myself the temptation to quietly leave my booth and have a smoko (thus arguably ensuring a congregation between myself and other smokers by the front door) is more than just a seldom act, which by virtue of my and fellow smoker’s actions are apt to make our place of work smell at times like an oversized ashtray, something that a non smoker shouldn’t have to be subjected to never mind the lost productivity that might be incurred by the number of breaks smokers tend to enjoy taking during the course of the day (which on the other hand could be argued to install team bonding).
That said one ultimately ought to be mindful as to how much an employer asks of a company and whilst it may make sense on some level for a company that specializes in heart repair that its employees don’t smoke can we really ask the same of a company whose business is that of recreation or legal work? And if we insist on earmarking on smokers how long before we begin to earmark individuals with what some may consider perilous lifestyles or conditions that they have little control over? Then again last time I checked, as long an individual is free to choose as he or she wills one can also argue by the same token (as long as it is not by creed, sexuality or gender) a company can on the flip side choose who it chooses to hire, then again it’ll be interesting to see how much discretion a company is allowed lest it infringe on a private citizen’s rights….
dailymail.co.uk | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Conservative commentator Ben Shapiro delivered his much-anticipated speech at the University of Connecticut Wednesday night -- and sharply criticized the school for implementing a list of restrictions making it harder for people to watch.
“Something has to be done about a system where a few crazed leftists decide they don’t want to hear somebody speak -- and therefore, people from the outside who pay taxes to universities like this one can’t get in,” Shapiro told the audience..
He sarcastically added that nobody needed to try grabbing his speech because he provided one under every seat. Shapiro was referring to a November 28, 2017 incident at UConn when somebody snatched paperwork off the lectern of conservative commentator Lucian Wintrich, inciting an altercation. Wintrich was led away by police and released on bail, bringing a sudden end to his event entitled, “It's OK to Be White.”
Speaking to Fox News’ Laura Ingraham on “The Ingraham Angle,” Shapiro said the university prevented more people from attending the event and the “number of people allowed in was limited” to about the 500 seats in the room.
He also said that he was told by the College Republicans that an additional 500-600 people were outside trying to attend.
Shapiro said his event was closed to the public by the university despite other speeches last week being open to the public.
A student introducing Shapiro was asked to read a statement from the university, saying UConn considered freedom of speech to be a core value, adding that anyone should be able “to speak without interruption.”
Once on stage, Shapiro poked fun at the idea that the university felt the need to read a “disclaimer.” When a student asked to take a selfie with him, he joked that it wasn’t up to him because the university was responsible for providing tight security.
An event for the left was also being held at the same time as Shapiro's speech.
“I do find it sort of amazing by the way that the left is so afraid of open conversation that they scheduled an event at the exact same time,” Shapiro responded, adding that he would like left-leaning students to come to his event because he “prefers speaking to people with whom I disagree... because discussions are useful.”
Last month the university also sent out an email alerting students about Shapiro’s speech, adding that counseling would be available.
Students seemed to act respectful of the conservative speaker Wednesday night, during both his speech and the Q&A portion of the event. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Germany's conservative interior minister, Horst Seehofer, is coming under increased pressure from both within and outside the government over his handling of what have been described as "massive irregularities" in asylum cases.
It's alleged that the Bremen branch of the Office for Migrants and Refugees (BAMF), which is subordinate to the Interior Ministry, simply admitted more than 1,200 refugees to Germany without properly reviewing their cases. Bremen prosecutors are currently investigating whether bribes changed hands, and questions have been asked whether BAMF head Jutta Cordt kept herself adequately informed, and if she did enough to investigate the possible irregularities.
Read more: Illegal African migration to Germany: What can and should be done
On Tuesday, Seehofer told a German newspaper that he would be taking "organizational and possibly personnel decisions" related to the scandal next week. Members of the grand-coalition government have called on Seehofer to be more forthcoming with information about the scandal, including when he first learned of it.
Seehofer has also confirmed that he will testify before a special meeting of the Bundestag internal affairs committee next Tuesday. The meeting is being convened at the request of the opposition Green Party. Two of Germany's other opposition parties — the far-right populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) and the center-right FDP — are calling for a full-blown parliamentary investigation.
Thus far, the Greens have resisted that idea. But they say that they could change their minds if Seehofer doesn't provide them with quality information.
The Greens say they need information about precisely what irregularities went on at the BAMF
Is Seehofer stonewalling?
The votes of one-quarter of the Bundestag's deputies are needed to convene a full parliamentary investigation, which could be an embarrassment for Chancellor Angela Merkel's government and Seehofer in particular. With the Greens' support, such a procedure could go ahead. For now, though, the Greens say they prefer other options.
"We're not categorically ruling it out, but a parliamentary investigation takes a long time," Green refugee policy spokeswoman Luise Amtsberg told DW. "It's not enough to achieve results in two years. We can't permit that. Ultimately the BAMF decides on asylum cases every day, and if there are shortcomings, they would be prolonged."
Seehofer could leave Cordt holding the bag for the scandal
Amtsberg complained that despite her requests, Seehofer has yet to provide her party with access to internal BAMF documents pertaining to the case, even though some of their contents have been leaked to newspapers.
"That really takes the cake," Amtsberg said, adding that, if the Greens felt Seehofer was stonewalling, they would consider forcing information out of him with a parliamentary investigation.
Cordt hanging by a thread
Along with the claims that the Bremen BAMF office and possibly other local branches simply rubber-stamped asylum applications, there have been allegations that Cordt failed to investigate the irregularities after being made aware of them.
Cordt has ordered the review of 18,000 asylum decisions made in Bremen. And her office has denied media reports that she had known about the alleged abuses of power since February 2017. But Seehofer's remarks are being read as an indication of how tenuous her position may be.
The Greens are say they're less interested in seeing Cordt dismissed than in reforming Germany's asylum system as a whole, although they do agree that the current BAMF president should not be allowed to lead the investigation into the office's possible shortcomings.
German asylum scandal: A timeline Corruption scandal at BAMF On April 20, 2018, a number of employees at the regional BAMF office in Bremen were accused of having illegally accepted hundreds of asylum applicants between 2013 and 2017, mainly from Iraq's Yazidi community. Bremen public prosecutors announced that six people, including the former director of the Bremen BAMF office, were under investigation for alleged corruption in about 1,200 cases.
German asylum scandal: A timeline Damage control Steffen Seibert, spokesman for German Chancellor Angela Merkel, reacted swiftly to the allegations, saying it would be wrong to speculate on what consequences the incident could have for the BAMF immigration offices. He said that the "extremely serious allegations" would first have to be resolved. The BAMF scandal could be a major embarrassment to Chancellor Merkel's open-door policy to refugees.
German asylum scandal: A timeline The plot thickens A few weeks into the scandal, German media reported that 13 further regional BAMF branches were going to be subject to checks regarding their approval of asylum applications. The branches had apparently come under scrutiny for showing noticeable differences in the number of asylum applications accepted or rejected in comparison to other offices. Some 8,000 applications will have to be re-checked.
German asylum scandal: A timeline BAMF head under fire A month into the scandal, details emerged that BAMF had been informed about the possible improprieties in Bremen earlier than thought, German news magazine Der Spiegel reported. The irregularities were reportedly flagged back in February 2017. In the light of the growing scandal, BAMF head Jutta Cordt announced that some 18,000 asylum decisions made in Bremen since 2000 now had to be re-checked.
German asylum scandal: A timeline Seehofer to face parliamentary committee German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer meanwhile confirmed that he would testify before a special meeting of the Bundestag internal affairs committee to be convened at the request of the Green Party. The committee hopes to avoid a full-blown parliamentary investigation, which two other opposition parties — the populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) and the center-right FDP — are calling for.
German asylum scandal: A timeline Man of the hour This might be the man who would have to answer some serious questions if a comprehensive parliamentary inquiry should be launched. Thomas de Maiziere was Germany's interior minister until the beginning of the year, overseeing the management of asylum application at the height of the refugee crisis. De Maiziere, an ally of Merkel's, criticized the shortcomings of the assessment system in the past.
German asylum scandal: A timeline Stripped of authority On May 23, the German Interior Ministry prohibited the regional BAMF office in Bremen from deciding whether individual refugees will be given asylum in the country. Seehofer said an internal BAMF report had shown that "legal regulations and internal policies" had been "disregarded" at the center.
German asylum scandal: A timeline Federal Police join probe The city of Bremen has said Germany's Federal Criminal Police are now part of the inquiry into the wide-ranging corruption. The decision came after a crisis meeting on the scandal surrounding the city's asylum procedure for refugees. Author: Sertan Sanderson
"She definitely can't take charge of clearing up the internal deficits and structural problems," Antsberg said. "But if Mr. Seehofer removes Ms. Cordt, it will be difficult to hold anyone politically responsible. We want Ms. Cordt to give us clear information about what has been going on in the past years and months. It's not enough simply to remove Ms. Cordt."
The BAMF has come under intense criticism since the large-scale migration of people largely from the Middle East and Northern Africa in 2015. Critics accuse the office of, among other things, being unable to handle the number of people applying for asylum in Germany.
Not a one-directional scandal
The political fault lines in the case are clear. Both the AfD and the FDP want to see the BAMF keep more people out of Germany. Refugee advocacy groups, on the other hand, say that just as many, if not more, mistakes are made in rejecting would-be refugees. The group Pro Asyl, for instance, is calling for a moratorium on deportations.
The Greens say that all BAMF policies and practices need to be scrutinized.
"There is not just a scandal in one direction and not the other," Amtsberg explained. "It's typical that the minister says we should look at all the positive asylum decisions and Pro Asyl says that we should look at all the negative ones. We Greens say that we're for the rule of law, so we have to look at all of the cases."
Nonetheless, if the Greens aren't happy with the answers they get from the conservative interior minister next week, they could somewhat ironically find themselves joining the right-wing opposition parties in calling for a wider investigation. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
New suitors are circling 21st Century Fox Inc., affirming that the media empire built by Rupert Murdoch is now in play.
Comcast Corp. has approached the media company to express interest in buying a substantial piece of it, according to people familiar with the situation. Verizon Communications Inc. is also kicking the tires on Fox assets, though a person familiar with its thinking cautioned the exploration was in the early stages. And Sony Corp.’s entertainment unit has also informally approached Fox, the people familiar... | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
1st Annual Sportsnet 650 Sports Day Burnaby on June 16th
Deal Link: https://www.sportsnet.ca/650/650-events/4042841/ Expiry: June 16, 2018
Join us for the 1st Annual Sportsnet 650 Sports Day, presented by Granville Island Brewing. The Summer Mingler is back, so with beers like these, it must be summer!
WHEN: Saturday, June 16 from noon to 4 p.m.
WHERE: Swangard Stadium, at 3883 Imperial Street, Burnaby
The first 50 people through the gates get a pair of tickets to the BC Lions Home Opener that night at BC Place Stadium. PLUS, every hour, we’ll have tickets up for grabs to see the Blue Jays in Seattle. AND, someone will win a road trip to see the Jays TWICE in Seattle this August (hotel and tickets included).
This is a FREE event that gives everyone the chance to compete in various activities and games against Sportsnet 650 personalities and alumni athletes! You never know who might drop by.
Play some old-school sports and try out new games customized for this event.
Everyone gets a participation ribbon as long as you try your best and have fun!
You don’t need to be an athlete to compete… couch potatoes and couch coaches welcome.
We’ll have food trucks onsite, and adults can enjoy beverages courtesy of Granville Island Brewing. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
We’re excited to announce that we’re making the first location in HITMAN 2 free to play for everyone!
The start of the game brings you to the moonlit beaches and roaring waves off the coast of Hawke’s Bay, New Zealand, where Agent 47’s hunt for the elusive Shadow Client leads him to get caught in a dangerous turn of events. Can you get out alive? Find out for yourself starting on February 26, when we release the HITMAN 2 – Starter Pack, a FREE download on PS4, Xbox One and PC.
The HITMAN 2 – Starter Pack is your FREE entry into the World of Assassination and includes access to ‘Nightcall’, the opening campaign mission in HITMAN 2. You’ll get full access to the Hawke’s Bay challenges and unlocks – including hidden stashes, new starting locations and weapons that will change the way you can approach the mission. When you feel like you’ve mastered the location, you can prove it with the Professional and Master difficulty levels that introduce new ways to play.
All progression that you earn from the Starter Pack will carry over into the full game when you choose to buy it. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.