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The New England Patriots made their offensive intentions pretty clear early on in each of their first two playoff games this year: they are going to trust their running game to control the tempo of the game and to simultaneously keep the high-powered offenses they were facing — the Los Angeles Chargers’ in the divisional round and the Kansas City Chiefs’ in the AFC Championship Game — off the field. The plan worked both weeks.
New England ran 32 times for 156 yards and four touchdowns against L.A. and ultimately ended the game with a time of possession of 38:20. One week later, the Patriots’ running backs carried the football 47 times for a combined 177 yards and four more scores — all with the offense on the field for 43 minutes and 59 seconds, including the game-winning drive in overtime which took 4:52 off the clock.
Meanwhile, quarterbacks Philip Rivers and Patrick Mahomes only had limited time and opportunities to work with. And while likely league MVP Mahomes made them count, at least in the second half of the AFC title game, neither he nor Rivers were given much wiggle room for error or any wasted possession — something that might also happen to the Los Angeles Rams and quarterback Jared Goff in Super Bowl 53.
The Rams, of course, feature the latest potent offense to stand in the Patriots’ way: Goff has elevated his game in the second year under head coaching wunderkind Sean McVay, while the ground game behind Todd Gurley and a reinvigorated C.J. Anderson is one of the NFL’s most potent. And L.A. also features some talented weapons at the tight end and, including former Patriot Brandin Cooks, wide receiver positions.
Using a heavy dose of Sony Michel as the lead back and James White and Rex Burkhead as the change of pace runners therefore again looks like a sound battle plan. And the reasons for that actually go beyond controlling the rhythm of the game against an opponent with a powerful offense: the Rams defense, despite outstanding linemen Aaron Donald and Ndamukong Suh, has had a comparatively hard time stopping the run so far this season.
The total numbers tell only one part of the story but already illustrate Los Angeles’ problems in the ground game. In the regular season, the team ranked dead-last in the NFL in yards given up per attempt at 5.1 yards per run (the Chiefs for comparison, ranked 31st with 5.0). And while teams attempted only the 10th fewest rushes against L.A. — 386 for 1,957 yards and 12 touchdowns — the efficiency on any given run play was still bad.
When looked at through advanced statistics, the Rams defense does not get much better. According to Football Outsiders, which tracks plays based on how successful they are compared to others given the situation, it is still a bottom-third unit: Los Angeles ranks 28th in DVOA with a +1.5% rate, meaning that teams perform consistently better against the team on the ground than they do against others in the same scenario.
While the Rams are far and away better than the once again 32nd ranked Chiefs and their +9.7%, they are still no world-beaters when measured that way. That being said, L.A. improved in the playoffs and gave up only 2.3 yards per rush against the Dallas Cowboys and the New Orleans Saints in the divisional and championship rounds — two teams that have performed similarly to the Patriots during the regular season — by actively putting more men in the box.
One other difference over the last two weeks is that New England was willing to stick to its ground game to create a more balanced attack than the Cowboys and Saints had, in turn freeing up the misdirection passing game, which then helped the ground game again. This approach has served the Patriots well against the two teams they faced during the playoffs so far, and it would not be a surprise if it was a key to the Super Bowl as well.
So if you are working on your picks for game MVP, quarterback Tom Brady should still be your top choice simply because of his history on the big stage. But maybe don’t forget about a player like Sony Michel — one that has scored five touchdowns over the first two postseason games of his career and at 121.0 yards per game is on his way to become the best playoff rookie runner of the 21st century (h/t @DeeepThreat). | {
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Getty Images
There are many signs pointing towards Jim Harbaugh being the ex-head coach of the San Francisco 49ers after this season.
Who could replace Harbaugh if he leaves?
Watch as Stephen Nelson and Bleacher Report NFL Insider Jason Cole discuss the 49ers coaching situation in the video above. | {
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It’s not the kind of headline you see every day: “Chef prepared curry after wiping bottom with his bare hands ‘for cultural reasons.’”
If you’re not a traveler, the good news is that this particular chef isn’t located in the United States but in Swindon, England. The bad news is that “cultural reasons” is a euphemism for religious reasons. And the religion involved is Islam, which is everywhere.
When health inspectors visited the kitchen of a restaurant called “Yeahya Flavour of Asia,” they found an empty bottle covered with brown crust that they later concluded was fecal matter. The bottle belonged to Chef Mahbub Chowdhury, age forty-six. He explained that he filled the empty milk bottle with water from the kitchen taps before using it to clean his backside after going to the toilet.
The chef, who no longer works at the restaurant, pleaded guilty to ten counts of breaching food hygiene regulations at Swindon Magistrates Court. Apparently this isn’t his first violation. He was fined more than £5,000 (the equivalent of over $7,000) last year for ten similar offenses relating to food hygiene.
Ten?
Is this conduct really a part of Islam? Apparently it is. Just last year, in fact, the Directorate of Religious Affairs for the Republic of Turkey finally got around to publishing a decree to tell Muslims that it was “acceptable” to use toilet paper. Acceptable, but not preferred. The preferred method is to use water, as Chef Chowdhury was doing. “If water cannot be found for cleansing, other cleaning materials can be used,” reads the decree. “Even though some sources deem paper to be unsuitable as a cleaning material, as it is an apparatus for writing, there is no problem in using toilet paper.”
But that’s just Turkey. Outside of Turkey, Muslim God experts have devoted enormous energy to developing an extensive code, called the Qadaahul Haajah, governing precisely how God wants you to do your business. One English-language Muslim website, which claims to have had over 2.9 million visitors, provides a number of helpful rules for the perplexed:
One should enter the toilet with one’s left foot and exit with one’s right foot.
One should not talk or sit for a long time or read anything like a newspaper, or sing a song.
One should neither face Mecca nor turn one’s back toward it while urinating or defecating.
One should remove the feces on one’s anus with one’s finger, then wash one’s hand. [Apparently, this was Chef Chowdhury’s practice.]
When cleaning the private parts after answering the call of nature, men should wash them from the back to the front. Women should wash them from the front to the back. Thus, the genitals will not be smeared with filth, nor will it cause one to be sexually aroused by the stimulation of fingers.
One should sprinkle some water over one’s underpants after cleaning one’s private parts. By doing so, when one notices wetness on one’s underpants, one will not feel doubt as to whether it is urine or not.
One should not look at one’s private parts or spit into the toilet.
The right hand is placed on the right cheek and the left hand is placed on the left one. When there is the need to use a hand, the right hand should remain on the right cheek and the left hand should be used. This is the proper way.
Cleaning the private parts with stones and similar materials is an acceptable substitute for cleaning them with water.
Stones?
None of this is parody; all the website information is presented here nearly verbatim. Another dead serious English language website repeats many of these fascinating rules, while adding a few more:
A person must relieve themselves as infrequently as possible, as the natural functions of the body are sinful and unclean.
You shouldn’t eat while using the toilet.
If you do clean yourself with stones, you should use an odd number of them, preferably three.
Still another website provides more valuable insights:
In Paradise we will not have to relieve ourselves. Instead we will perspire and even the perspiration will be beautifully scented like musk.
Habib bin Saleh (may Allah be pleased with him) has related that when the Messenger of Allah (may Allah bless him and grant him peace) entered the toilet, he would put on his shoes and cover his head.
If the toilet is facing Mecca in your home, then try and sacrifice some money and have it changed as you will be sinning every time you use the toilet.
‘Aisha [one of Muhammad’s wives] says that, “Whosoever says that the Messenger of Allah (may Allah bless him and grant him peace) would stand up and urinate do not believe them, he would urinate but sitting down.” One of the reasons of the punishment in the grave is because of urinating standing up.
Upon entering the toilet, you should say: “O Allah I seek your protection from the male and female devils.”
One should be very careful about the splashing of urine (as this is a grave sin).
The sisters should cleanse themselves with the lower palm of the left hand, and do not separate the legs too wide.
When cleansing yourself, males should hold their penis from the top with the left hand index finger and the thumb. Gently work your way down (as if milking an animal) so if drops are left they will come out.
Without necessity do not look at your private parts, as there is a chance of the memory becoming weak.
Yet another Muslim website teaches that Muhammad himself forbade people from using bones, rather than stones, to clean themselves. Why? Because bones provide food for genies.
Islam is not the only religion with bizarre practices of hygiene. Some modern-day Jewish circumcision rituals are beyond disgusting. Christians spent centuries preaching against bathing and fought advances in medical science like smallpox inoculation tooth and nail.
My completely uninformed guess is that most ordinary Muslims, especially in this country, pay no attention to these lunatic rules, if they’re aware of them at all. Their existence, though, casts further doubt on politicians who never tire of preaching to us about “Islam’s role in advancing justice, progress, tolerance and the dignity of all human beings.” If these rules advance “progress” and “dignity,” I’d hate to see something that doesn’t. | {
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Det bryggjer opp til strid mellom kyrkja og fagrørsla i Bergen. Fagforbundet har gått til søksmål mot selskapet Akasia AS.
Det private konsernet, som er heileigd av Bergen kirkelige fellesråd (BKF), har svara med å gå til sivilt motsøksmål mot om lag nitti av sine eigne tilsette.
– Det er urovekkjande og sjokkerande. Eg har aldri vore med på noko liknande, seier Trude Haukås i Fagforbundet i Hordaland.
– Svært beklageleg, men me hadde ikkje noko val, lyder svaret frå administrerande direktør Ove-Christian Fredriksen i Akasia.
Har du tips i saka? Kontakt NRK sin journalist
Kyrkjeaktør har bygd seg opp
Bergen kirkelige fellesråd er ein av dei største aktørane på den private barnehagemarknaden i Bergen. Sidan fellesrådet kjøpte den første barnehagen i 2007, har ei utvida satsing på barnehagar gjeve BKF kontroll over 1.500 barnehageplassar fordelte på 380 tilsette. 18 barnehagar ligg i Bergen og to i Kvinnherad og Sola.
1. januar 2016 vart alle barnehagane, inkludert tilsette og kontraktar, overdregne frå Bergen kirkelige fellesråd og samla i Akasia-konsernet under Akasia Barnehage AS.
Trass i at Akasia valde ikkje å reservera seg mot tariffavtalen dei tilsette hadde, melde selskapet alle tilsette ut av den tariffesta pensjonsordninga og inn i ei pensjonsordning Akasia sjølv hadde oppretta.
STORAKTØR: Akasia er ein av dei største private aktørane på barnehagemarknaden i Bergen. Selskapet eig og driv 18 barnehagar i Bergen, i tillegg til barnehagar i Kvinnherad og Sola. Foto: Christian Lura / NRK
– Me meiner alt er gjort etter lovverket. Dei som har kome dårlegare ut har blitt kompensert for det, seier konsernsjefen i Akasia.
KRITISK: Nestleiar Odd-Haldgeir Larsen i Fagforbundet er kritisk til framgangsmetoden til Akasia. Det er første gong han er med på at ein arbeidsgjevar stemnar sine eigne. – Veldig spesielt. Foto: Presse / Fagforbundet
No har Fagforbundet stemna Akasia for arbeidsretten. Fagorganisasjonen meiner Akasia ikkje hadde høve til å innføra ei ny pensjonsordning og dermed bryt med reglane for hovudtariffavtalen. Også Utdanningsforbundet og Delta, som organiserer dei barnehagetilsette i Akasia, stiller seg bak.
Fagorganisasjonen fryktar saka skal skapa presedens.
– Me har å gjera med mange arbeidsgjevarar, men Akasia har opptredd på ein måte som overraskar oss, seier Odd-Haldgeir Larsen, nestleiar i Fagforbundet.
Det slår beina under heile tariffsystemet viss du kan overta ein tariffavtale i sin heilskap, men sjølv plukka vekk punkta du ikkje vil ha med Trude Haukås, Fagforbundet i Hordaland
– Aldri høyrt om liknande
Akasia meiner saka skal førast for ein sivil domstol, og ikkje i arbeidsretten, fordi usemja handlar om ei tolking av arbeidsmiljølova.
Som eit svar valde difor barnehagegiganten å gå til motsøksmål mot nitti av sine eigne tilsette, for å prøva saka i Bergen tingrett. Selskapet har stemna alle organiserte i Fagforbundet som blei overdregne frå BKF.
– Me har ikkje moglegheit til å få fram ei sak for tingretten ved å stemna Fagforbundet. Me måtte stemna juridiske personar, så diverre såg me oss nøydde til å stemna den gruppa tilsette, seier Fredriksen.
USEMJE: Akasia hevdar å ha gjeve dei tilsette pensjonsordning som er betre enn den dei hadde. Fagforbundet meiner ordninga er tydeleg svekt, og at ho gir kvinner ein dårlegare pensjon. Foto: Christian Lura / NRK
Direktøren forstår at dei tilsette oppfattar situasjonen som krevjande.
Haukås i Fagforbundet reagerer sterkt på at arbeidsgjevaren si framferd.
– Eg har aldri høyrt om at ein arbeidsgjevar går til sak mot eigne tilsette.
Saka skal opp i arbeidsretten i april. Motsøksmålet i Bergen tingrett er fastsett til slutten av august.
Dette er ikkje eit angrep på den enkelte tilsette – det handlar om å få avklart ei lovtolking. Ove-Christian Fredriksen, administrerande direktør i Akasia
Reagerer på at kyrkja vil gjera business
I løpet av dei siste åra har Bergen kirkelige fellesråd teke opp lån på fleire hundre millionar kroner for å byggja seg opp i marknaden. Lånet er overført til Akasia. Difor vil konsernet forhandla om pensjonsordningar som gir selskapet kostnader dei kan leva med.
Fredag blei det brot i forhandlingane mellom Fagforbundet, Utdanningsforbundet, Delta og Lederne om ny tariffavtale for selskapa innanfor Spekter.
Direktøren vedgår at ein stram økonomi gjer pensjonsforhandlingane svært viktige for framtida til konsernet.
ADMINISTRERANDE DIREKTØR: Ove-Christian Fredriksen forstår at dei tilsette reagerer på at det blir søksmål, men han understrekar at dette handlar om sak, ikkje person. – Dette handlar om å få avklart ei lovtolking. Foto: Pressebilde / Akasia
– Økonomien er stram. Me treng gode ordningar for dei tilsette og ei pensjonsordning som gjer berekraftige kostnader for Akasia. Det er viktig for å kunna vidareføra organisasjonen.
Ifølgje Klassekampen, som har omtala opprettinga av konsernet tidlegare, er målet for kyrkja å kunne ta utbyte frå barnehagane.
– Akasia vil tena pengar for å ta utbyte. Det har dei aldri lagt skjul på. Skal dei det, er det løn og pensjon dei kan spara på. Det kan ikkje me akseptera, seier Haukås.
Det avviser Fredriksen.
– Det er ikkje snakk om at noko utbyte frå barnehagedrifta styrer vala me tek. Målet er å sikra vidare drift. | {
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It's otherwise the same camera, although that's not entirely a bad thing. That means a 24-megapixel full-frame sensor mated to a 28mm f/1.7 Summilux lens, a 3.7MP digital viewfinder, a 3-inch display, NFC and WiFi. If there's a glaring omission in these familiar specs, it's 4K video -- your luxury camera can't capture more than 1080p footage at 60FPS.
The Q-P's biggest challenge may be its pricing. It's available now for $4,995, or even more than the $4,250 the regular Q commanded when new in 2015. That's a lot to pay for a stealthier, tweaked version of a three-year-old camera with a prime lens, and a lot has changed in the intervening period. You can buy relatively compact medium-format cameras from Fujifilm and Hasselblad that promise more detail and sometimes cost less, while the full-frame field includes higher-resolution competition from the likes of Zeiss. The Q-P is mainly appealing if you're as enamored with Leica's design as you are with its technical abilities. | {
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DSC Arminia Bielefeld 2 (1)
SV Darmstadt 98 0 (0)
GegnerinfosPK-BerichtBerichterstattungSpielberichtStimmen
Die Relegation bleibt unvergessen In 17 Duellen traf der DSC bereits auf Darmstadt, zwei davon bleiben wohl allen Arminen in dramatischer Erinnerung. Vor vier Jahren schickten die Lilien den DSC nach zwei verrückten Relegationsspielen in die 3. Liga. Auch im Hinspiel der laufenden Saison unterlag der DSC am Böllenfalltor, im Rückspiel sollen die Punkte nun in Bielefeld bleiben. Mit 13 Punkten aus den ersten sechs Ligaduellen und dem zwischenzeitlichen zweiten Tabellenplatz waren die Verantwortlichen um Präsident Rüdiger Fritsch mit der Leistung der Mannschaft zu Saisonbeginn mehr wie zufrieden. Doch nach dem Erfolg gegen die Arminen am sechsten Spieltag begann die Talfahrt der Lilien. Es folgten elf Pflichtspiele ohne Sieg und kurz vor der Winterpause die Trennung von Cheftrainer Torsten Frings. Nach Abschluss der Hinrunde standen die Darmstädter auf dem Relegationsplatz 16. Die Winterpause wurde in Darmstadt dazu genutzt, sich personell auf fünf Positionen zu verstärken und auch im Wintertrainingslager, welches im spanischen San Pedro del Pitar absolviert wurde, wurde hart gearbeitet. Dabei standen unter anderem auch zwei Testspiele gegen den Drittligisten Würzburger Kickers (0:0) und den belgischen Fußballklub Waasland-Beveren (3:0) auf dem Programm. Der Rückrundenauftakt begann für das Team von Dirk Schuster kurios: Das Heimspiel gegen Kaiserslautern musste wegen des medizinischen Notfalls von FCK-Coach Jeff Strasser abgebrochen werden. Dann folgten ein Auswärtssieg beim FC St. Pauli sowie Niederlagen gegen Duisburg und Bochum. Regelmäßig einer der besten Spieler auf dem Feld der Lilien ist Torwart Daniel Heuer Fernandes. Der deutsch-portugiesische Fußballer ist nach kicker-Noten zweitbester Torwart der 2. Liga und hat schon so manches Gegentor der Darmstädter verhindert. Top-Scorer des Erstligaabsteigers ist Tobias Kempe. Der offensive Mittelfeldspieler konnte nach bis zum 21. Spieltag vier Tore und fünf Vorlagen verbuchen und hat damit ebenso viele Scorerpunkte gesammelt wie die Arminen Andreas Voglsammer (acht Tore und eine Vorlage) und Konstantin Kerschbaumer (sechs Tore und drei Vorlagen). Mit Darmstadt bringt der DSC vor allem den dramatischen Abstieg in die 3. Liga vor vier Jahren in Verbindung. Nach dem Relegationshinspiel schien Arminia durch einen 3:1-Sieg in Darmstadt der Verbleib in der 2. Liga sicher, doch im Rückspiel drehten die Lilien in der SchücoArena nochmal richtig auf und schickten den DSC mit einem 4:2-Auswärtssieg in die 3.Liga. Auch im Hinspiel der laufenden Saison musste Arminia sich trotz Toren von Voglsammer, Brandy und Klos am Böllenfalltor mit 3:4 geschlagen geben. Im Rückspiel soll die offene Rechnung aus dem Hinspiel mit den Lilien nun beglichen werden.
“Wir wollen sie nicht aufbauen” Am Samstag empfängt der DSC den SV Darmstadt 98. Zu der Partie gegen den Bundesliga-Absteiger äußerten sich Cheftrainer Jeff Saibene und Verteidiger Brian Behrendt auf der Pressekonferenz. Weitere Themen im Gespräch mit den Medienvertretern waren die Torquote der Stürmer sowie das 2014er-Relegationsduell gegen Darmstadt. Nils Quaschner (Knie-OP) wird Arminia auch am Samstag wieder nicht zur Verfügung stehen, ansonsten kann das Trainerteam jedoch auf alle Akteure zurückgreifen. Dennoch deutete Saibene an, dass es personell auf der einen oder anderen Position zu Veränderungen kommen könnte. “Im Sturm haben wir mit Fabian Klos eine gute Alternative zu Leandro Putaro. Klos ist groß und kopfballstark, dass kann von Vorteil sein gegen eine Mannschaft wie Darmstadt”, erläutert der DSC-Cheftrainer. Zudem sei Patrick Weihrauch eine weitere Option als hängende Spitze. “Patrick ist vom Spielertyp ähnlich wie Putaro. Wir haben in dieser Woche auch diese Möglichkeit durchgesprochen, sie könnte eine Option sein”, so Saibene. Die aktuelle Torquote seiner Stürmer bewertet Arminias Trainer nicht über. Er sei davon überzeugt, dass auch wieder Phasen kommen werden, in denen der Ball wieder über die Linie gehe. “Manchmal gibt es solche Phasen, dass darf man alles nicht so eng sehen. Natürlich muss man die Chancen besser nutzten, aber das kommt wieder zurück”, versicherte Saibene. Den kommenden Gegner und seine jetzige Tabellensituation wusste der Arminia-Trainer gut einzuordnen. “Vor der Saison hatte Darmstadt jeder im oberen Tabellendrittel auf dem Schirm. Jetzt müssen sie diese Situation annehmen und gegen den Abstieg kämpfen. Wir wollen sie aber nicht aufbauen. Wenn wir gewinnen würden, hätten wir eine gute Ausgangslage”, äußerte Saibene. Auch Verteidiger Brian Behrendt geht optimistisch in die Partie am Samstag. “Darmstadt ist ein Bundesliga-Absteiger, natürlich hat man anderes von ihnen erwartet. Dennoch wollen wir uns nicht mit ihrer Situation beschäftigen, sondern uns auf uns konzentrieren und drei Punkte in Bielefeld behalten”, gab Behrendt die Marschrichtung vor. Vom 2014er-Relegationskrimi gegen die Lilien habe der DSC-Coach gehört und sich auch einige Szenen angeguckt. “Ich selbst war damals ja noch nicht dabei, aber man bekommt schon mit, wie geschockt die Leute teilweise noch heute über das Spiel sind. Deswegen wäre ein Sieg am Samstag, auch für die Fans, eine tolle Sache. Das Thema wollen wir insgesamt jedoch nicht überbewerten”, versicherte Saibene. Auch Behrendt, Bielefelds Nummer 3, war im Abstiegsduell gegen Darmstadt nicht dabei und versicherte, dass das Thema in der Mannschaft kein großes Thema mehr sei. “Darüber wird nich viel gesprochen. Wenn, dann hinter meinem Rücken”, sagte er lachend. Die Erinnerungen an das Hinspiel aus dieser Saison seien – trotz des Ergebnisses (3:4-Niederlage) – besser, so Saibene. “Wir haben in Darmstadt ein sehr gutes Spiel gemacht und eine tolle erste Halbzeit gespielt, letztlich haben wir nicht effizient genug gespielt. Das Ergebnis hat nicht zum Spiel gepasst”, resümierte Saibene. Mit den Leistungen der vergangenen Wochen, sei Saibene alles in allem auch zufrieden. “Der Killerinstinkt hat uns in Duisburg gefehlt, das beschäftigt die Spieler natürlich auch. Es gibt eben Phasen, wo man viele Chancen hat, aber kein Tor macht und dann läuft es irgendwann wieder andersrum. Wichtig ist, dass wir im Strafraum präsent sind, dann wird das schon werden”, blickte Saibene positiv in die Zukunft. Auch Behrendt wusste die Leistung der Mannschaft zu loben. “Wir hatten gute Phasen in den letzten Spielen und hätten das eine oder andere Tor mehr machen müssen. Positiv ist jedoch, dass wir in der Abwehr meist sehr stabil standen und nur wenig zugelassen haben”, so der Verteidiger. Sein Fokus läge auf der 40-Punkte-Marke, was dann noch nach oben drin sei, werde man sehen. Auch Behrendts unglückliche Hinrunde war Thema. “Ich hatte eine verkorkste Hinrunde, es war schwer für mich wieder reinzurutschen. Im neuen Jahr wollte ich wieder angreifen, das habe ich geschafft. Jetzt möchte ich auch weiter dabeibleiben”, gibt der Verteidiger sein Ziel in den nächsten Wochen vor. Auch in Sachen Vertragsverhandlungen gehe es voran, erklärte Behrendt. “Ich fühle mich sehr wohl in Bielefeld, wir sind in Gesprächen und dann wird man in den nächsten Wochen hören in welche Richtung es gehen wird”, so Behrendt. Als kleine Anekdote erzählte Jeff Saibene abschließend noch von seinem ersten Zusammentreffen mit Darmstadt-Trainer Dirk Schuster: “Dirk Schuster und ich haben mal als Spieler gegeneinander gespielt. Das war mit dem FC Aarau im UI-Cup gegen den KSC. Die Partie endete damals 2:1 nach Verlängerung für den KSC. Ob er sich daran noch erinnern kann, weiß ich nicht”, erzählte der DSC-Trainer mit einem Lachen.
Berichterstattung DSC – Darmstadt Wo kann ich Arminia unterwegs live verfolgen? Wann und wo sehe ich die Highlights des Spiels? Hier gibt es einen Überblick zur Berichterstattung gegen den SV Darmstadt 98. Wer keine Chance hat, sich ein Ticket zu kaufen, um am Samstag um 13:00 Uhr das Spiel gegen den SV Darmstadt 98 live in der SchücoArena zu verfolgen, dem seien folgende Alternativen empfohlen: In unserer Arminia-App bieten wir euch einen ausführlichen Liveticker inkl. interessanter Statistiken an!
Auf unserem Twitter-Kanal halten wir euch immer auf dem Laufenden.
Per ASC-Audio-Livestream werden alle Heim und Auswärts-Pflichtspiele übertragen.
Radio Bielefeld berichtet ebenfalls von der Begegnung. Reporter Ulrich Zwetz ist 90 Minuten vor Ort und meldet sich mehrmals live aus der SchücoArena.
Sky zeigt das Spiel live und in der Konferenz. Ihr wart beim entscheidenden Tor noch in der Schlange vor der Bratwurstbude oder ihr habt die Rudelbildung samt roter Karte dank eurer drückenden Blase verpasst? Hier findet ihr nach Schlusspfiff Bewegtbilder von der Partie: Sky, “Alle Spiele, alle Tore”, nach Spielende (Samstag)
ARD, “Sportschau”, 18:30 Uhr bis 19:57 Uhr (Samstag)
ZDF, “Aktuelles Sportstudio”, 23:05 Uhr bis 00:40 Uhr (Samstag)
RTL Nitro, “100 % Bundesliga”, 22:15 bis 00:10 Uhr (Montag)
Mit zwei Kontern zum Sieg Der DSC setzt sich am Samstagnachmittag durch Tore von Patrick Weihrauch und Konstantin Kerschbaumer erfolgreich gegen die Lilien aus Darmstadt durch und feiert beim 2:0 (1:0) den ersten Heimsieg im neuen Jahr. Im Spiel gegen den Tabellenvorletzten SV Darmstadt 98 setzte DSC-Cheftrainer Jeff Saibene auf dieselbe Startaufstellung wie bereits gegen Union Berlin und zuletzt den MSV Duisburg. Die Partie begann zerfahren und war von vielen kleinen Fouls geprägt. Beide Mannschaften waren jedoch sofort im Spiel und versuchten Druck aufzubauen. Bereits nach wenigen Minuten gab es den ersten Freistoß aus vielversprechender Positionen für die Bielefelder. In zwei Zweikämpfen agieren die Darmstädter Immanuel Höhn und Aytac Sulu zu ungestüm, sodass Schiedsrichter Florian Badstübner Freistöße für den DSC pfiff. Die beiden Standartsituationen konnten die Jungs in Blau jedoch nicht für sich nutzen. In der 16. Spielminute kam es dann zur ersten gefährlichen Tormöglichkeit für Arminia: Nachdem Patrick Weihrauch sich vor dem gegnerischen Sechzehner festspielte und letztlich auf Florian Dick nach rechts abgab, flankte Arminias Nummer 23 auf Florian Hartherz. Dessen abgefälschter Schuss landete am Außennetz. Anschließend ging es Schlag auf Schlag: Der DSC spielte sich vor dem Kasten von Daniel Heuer Fernandes fest und konnte durch Andreas Voglsammer, Putaro und zwei Ecken von Tom Schütz Gefahr vor dem gegnerischen Kasten heraufschwören, doch es fehlte jeweils immer eine Fußspitze, um gefährlich zum Abschluss zu kommen. Mit einem Konter kam Darmstadt nach 20 Minuten zum ersten Mal gefährlich vor den Kasten von Stefan Ortega Moreno. Artur Sobiech bediente Joevin Jones im Strafraum, dessen Abschluss von einem Bielefelder geblockt wurde. Rasant ging es dann in der 33. Minute auf beiden Seiten zu. Zunächst parierte Ortega Moreno einen Kopfball von Ji nach einer Ecke glänzend, dann rollte der DSC-Konter: Florian Hartherz schnappte sich die Kugel und bediente Andreas Voglsammer auf der rechten Seite. Arminias Nummer 21 hatte das Auge für den in den Strafraum ziehenden Weihrauch, der aus kurzer Distanz nur noch einschieben musste. Nach der Führung nahmen die Ostwestfalen das Spiel weiter in die Hand und erarbeiteten sich einige gute Abschlusspositionen, welche jedoch ungenutzt blieben. Pünktlich nach 45 Minuten schickte der Unparteiische die Mannschaften zur Halbzeit in die Kabine. Die 15.236 Zuschauer sahen einen kampfbetonten ersten Durchgang, mit der besseren Chancenverwertung auf Seiten der Bielefelder. Ohne personelle Veränderungen ging es in die zweite Hälfte. In der 48. Minute kam es zur ersten Unsicherheit auf Bielefelder Seite, welche Darmstadt gleich zur ersten Torchance im zweiten Durchgang nutzte. Arminia bekam den Ball vor dem eigenen Strafraum nicht geklärt, die Kugel fiel einem Darmstädter vor die Füße, der aus 18 Metern abzog. DSC-Schlussmann Ortega Moreno hatte den Ball im Nachfassen jedoch sicher. Die Lilien kamen nach der Halbzeit besser ins Spiel und versuchten mit kleinen Nadelstichen den DSC zu Fehlern zu zwingen. In der 55. Minute kam erneut Darmstadt durch Dong-Won Ji zum Abschluss vor dem Bielefelder Tor. Nach Vorarbeit von Jones kam Ji an der Strafraumkante zum Schuss, verzog aber deutlich über das Tor. In den folgenden Minuten verlor Arminia weiter die Spielkontrolle und die Lilien aus Darmstadt wurden immer präsenter vor dem Tor von Ortega Moreno. Nach knapp 65 Minuten Spielzeit wechselte der DSC doppelt: Für Andreas Voglsammer kam Fabian Klos in die Partie und Keanu Staude löste kurz darauf Leandro Putaro ab, der DSc agierte nun im 4-1-4-1-System. Mit zwei frischen Offensivkräften setzte das Trainerteam nochmal alles daran, die knappe Führung auszubauen. Die Idee ging auf, Arminia wurde nun wieder gefährlicher: In der 74. Minute erarbeitete sich der DSC zwei riesige Chancen. Nach einer schönen Kombination zog Kerschbaumer aus 20 Metern ab, traf aber nur den Pfosten. Im Nachsetzten verfehlte Staude den Kasten von Heuer Fernandes knapp. Die Partie wurde wieder temporeicher und auch der SV Darmstadt 98 bekam Chancen auf den Ausgleichstreffer. In der 76. Minute tauchte Ji frei vor Ortega Moreno auf, doch der machte sich breit und parierte stark zur Ecke. Danach ebbte der Darmstädter Offensivschwung wieder ab und Arminia erarbeitete sich einige gute Konterchanen, die meist nicht gut ausgespielt wurden. In der 85. Minute hatte Klos die nächste Chance auf das 2:0: Nach einer Flanke von Weihrauch von der rechten Seite kam Bielefelds Nummer 9 mit dem Kopf zum Abschluss, konnte unter Bedrängnis jedoch nicht genug Druck hinter den Ball bringen und köpfte ihn über das Tor. Die Nachspielzeit betrug drei Minuten und Arminia nutzte sie, um das Spiel zu entscheiden. Ein Konter ließ Arminias Klos und Kerschbaumer in Überzahl auf das Tor von Heuer Fernandes zulaufen. Klos behielt die Ruhe und legte den Ball vor dem Kasten für Arminias Nummer 27 quer, dieser netzte zum 2:0-Siegtreffer ein. Nach dem Tor war Schluss, der DSC besiegte Darmstadt 98 nach einer kampfbetonte Partie verdient mit 2:0 und ist damit in diesem Jahr noch ungeschlagen. ArminiaClubTV zeigt die Pressekonferenz nach dem Spiel: | {
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Emory University students are under dire threat after something incredibly disturbing happened on campus this week.
No, it wasn’t the revelation that a serial killer was stalking the campus, nor was it news breaking of a deadly virus being passed among classmates.
It was something far more terrifying — pro-Donald Trump chalk markings were found at multiple sites on campus.
After witnessing the horrific message, several students now feel “unsafe” on campus and Emory’s student government has declared “emergency” measures will be enacted to deal with the crisis. (RELATED: Emory Student Govt: Pro-Trump Chalk Justifies ‘Emergency’ Measures)
In response to students demanding the school formally denounce Trump, Emory President James Wagner expressed sympathy with the aggrieved students and felt they had legitimate concerns. (RELATED: Emory Students Complain School Is ‘Unsafe’ Because Administrators Tolerate Trump Support)
Wagner said the incident provided the impetus for the university to implement “immediate refinements to certain policy and procedural deficiencies, regular and structured opportunities for difficult dialogues, a formal process to institutionalize identification, review and [the] addressing of social justice opportunities and issues and a commitment to an annual retreat to renew our efforts.”
The student government went further in its concern over the very, very troubling situation and issued a statement that gave credence to the notion the messages jeopardized campus safety.
“[B]y nature of the fact that for a significant portion of our student population, the messages represent particularly bigoted opinions, policies, and rhetoric directed at populations represented at Emory University, we would like to express our concern regarding the values espoused by the messages displayed, and our sympathy for the pain experienced by members of our community,” the body’s Wednesday statement read.
There was even a surprising voice expressing solidarity with the outraged students — prominent libertarian writer Jeffrey Tucker. In an interview with Reason magazine, Tucker — who was on campus at the time Trump markings sent students into a frenzy — said the messages were clearly done for the purpose of racial intimidation.
“It was like cross burning,” the libertarian told Reason’s Robby Soave. Tucker has clearly come a long way from his alleged involvement with the notorious Ron Paul Newsletters in the 1980s and 90s.
In the bubble that Emory University seems to exist in, these markings represent a serious public hazard. In the real world, this uproar represents one of the silliest examples of campus insanity yet.
At worst, these harmless chalk messages should be considered a juvenile prank and promptly scraped away. Even though they probably violated some minor code about unauthorized markings on campus, the slogans declaring “Trump 2016” still represent a form of political speech. The most offensive marking merely said “Build that wall.”
No matter how much students may be offended by the golden-haired billionaire, Trump is now apart of our standard discourse. There’s no way you can wish him away through an arbitrarily-enforced and undemocratic safe space.
In declaring that the school should be free of any problematic mentions of The Donald, Emory essentially endorsed the idea of political censorship and proclaimed itself as an institution totally opposed to Trump.
So much for the idea of a neutral university that serves as a marketplace of ideas.
As the election season continues with no sign of Trump disappearing from sight and the mogul inching closer to the GOP nomination, it’s bound similar incidents like Emory’s hoopla will occur at other campuses with the exact same results.
No matter what the circumstances, college administrators will capitulate to the demands of offended students and issue statements that could be construed as Trump denunciations.
It’s worth noting that Emory’s president at first vowed to send no such condemnation, then conceded and drafted a mealy-mouthed letter of understanding to students. Wagner’s flexible spine is just another example of the strong fortitude university officials demonstrate in the face of safe space agitators.
With the strong possibility of more campus outrage over pro-Trump displays, it comes with the impression that expressing support for the Republican front-runner at a university setting is tantamount to a hate crime.
If “Trump 2016” marked out in chalk can be found to be in the same league as a cross burning, what’s stopping the campus mobs from claiming a student’s Trump sticker on a personal laptop is a form of racial intimidation? Or the sight of a red “Make America Great Again” hat is liable to cause permanent emotional damage?
You can bet on a Trump-supporting student sometime soon facing repercussions from the school over his or her display of Donald fandom. It just takes a small, yet dedicated number of students hailing from a protected class to complain to make it happen.
[dcquiz] It makes you wonder how colleges will handle Trump becoming president if students can’t even bear to see his name. Will they institute a policy to ban mentions of the commander in chief to protect the feelings of the snowflake totalitarians?
The Emory affair once again reveals to the country how our college campuses have been overrun with protesters who will exploit their protected class status to stifle free speech and isolate campuses from the American mainstream.
No wonder millions of Americans view political correctness as a threat to our society.
Follow Scott on Twitter | {
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The City of Santa Monica has 31 openings on one of 14 boards and Commissions.
According to City Hall, there are annual appointments available for the Airport Commission (2), Architectural Review Board (1), Arts Commission (3), Audit Subcommittee (1), Commission for the Senior Community (2), Commission on the Status of Women (2), Disabilities Commission (2), Housing Commission (2), Personnel Board (1), Planning Commission (3), Recreation and Parks Commission (1), Santa Monica Library Board (1), Social Services Commission (3) and the Urban Forest Task Force (7).
Most of the groups serve in advisory capacities and with self-evident jurisdictions. However, a few have a more specialized function within City Hall.
The Personnel Board is an advisory group pertaining to personnel administration and a quasi-judicial review body for hearing employee appeals of certain disciplinary actions. In addition to offering advice, the Commission also hears appeals of suspended, demoted or removed employees in classified service; holds public hearings and make recommendations to the City Council on the adoption, amendment or repeal of Civil Service rules and regulations.
Santa Monica’s Audit Subcommittee makes recommendations related to finance but the group also provides an alternative way for employees, taxpayers or other citizens to confidentially report suspected illegal, improper, wasteful or fraudulent activity and provide periodic review and selection of external and internal auditors.
Requirements for the appointments vary by commission. Most require Santa Monica residency but the Arts Commission also accepts individuals who work in the city. Some positions have additional requirements. Applicants for the Senior Commission must also be registered to vote in the city and one seat is reserved for someone over the age of 60. Both seats on the Housing Commission are reserved for Section 8 tenants and one is reserved for someone over the age of 62.
All members of boards, commissions and committees except tenant members of the Housing Commission, the Clean Beaches & Ocean Parcel Tax Citizens Oversight Committee, the Santa Monica Convention and Visitors Bureau, Downtown Santa Monica Inc, and task forces are limited to serving two consecutive terms. However, a third consecutive term may be available if the member makes a written request and Council approves that request with at two-thirds majority.
Tenant members of the Housing Commission are limited to four consecutive two-year terms. A fifth and sixth term are possible with a two-thirds vote of the Council.
Individuals that reach the limit on consecutive terms can reapply no sooner than four years after their last term expires.
Of the 2019 annual appointments, most are for terms ending in June of 2023. The Housing Commission terms run through June 30 of 2021 and the Personnel Board terms are for five years expiring in June 30 of 2024. Applications are due by noon on June 18.
Visit smgov.net/boards for more information or to apply.
Santa Monica College (SMC) is also seeking applications for the Citizens Bond Oversight Committee from representatives of the Santa Monica and Malibu business communities. The group oversees the implementation of the bond measures that are funding capital improvement projects at the college: Measure U (2002), Measure S (2004), Measure AA (2008), and Measure V (2016). The application deadline is Friday, June 14, 2019. Applications for additional members are encouraged, and are available at smc.edu/CBOCApp.
[email protected] | {
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Roto Arcade
Our group of analysts continue to tweak their rankings for the upcoming NFL season. See where you agree and disagree. | {
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One day after a cop was cleared of murder charges in the shooting death of a 59-year-old unarmed man, shocking video of the fatal incident has been released to the public.
The nearly 3-minute video shows victim David Kassick fall to the snow-covered ground after Hummelston, Pennsylvania Police Officer Lisa Mearkle hit him with a taser and screamed at him to surrender.
While Kassick doesn't appear to be putting up much of a fight, Mearkle continues to send electric shocks through the taser as the older man jerks in pain on the ground.
WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT
Video shows the last minutes of David Kassick, a 59-year-old man who was shot dead in February after fleeing from an officer who tried to pull him over for a routine traffic stop
Officer Lisa Mearkle was cleared of all charges in court on Thursday. Afterwards, the Dauphin DA released the video of the incident to the public
In the video, Kassick can be seen rolling over onto his chest and that's when Mearkle pulls out her gun and fires the fatal shots. She told the court she feared Kassick was reaching for a weapon
At one point, Kassick rolls over onto his chest, so that his hands are covered and it was at this point that the officer delivers the fatal shots.
The jury pronounced Mearkle not guilty on charges of third-degree murder, voluntary manslaughter and involuntary manslaughter on Thursday - believing her defense that she feared Kassick was reaching for a weapon.
After the verdict, Mearkle tearfully said she was sorry the shooting had happened.
'I feel relief right now, but it's going to take a little bit for me to get back to my normal self,' she told reporters. 'This has taken a toll on me that nobody understands.'
Mearkle is pictured above, holding the hand of her husband Jay, as she left court following the decision in her favor on Thursday
Acquitted: Lisa Mearkle, center, arrives at court on Thursday - the day she was acquitted
A jury found Hummelstown police Officer Mearkle not guilty on all charges on the third day of her murder trial
Mearkle said she wanted Kassick's family to know that: 'I truly wish it didn't happen. I want them to know that. I didn't want to shoot anybody.'
Mearkle, 37, testified Wednesday that she believed Kassick was still a threat even after she shocked him repeatedly with a stun gun.
In the video, which was later released to the public after the verdict was handed down, Kassick's hands repeatedly disappeared underneath his body as Mearkle screamed at him to keep them where she could see them and then fired the fatal shots.
Mearkle fatally shot David Kassick, (above) 59, after he fled from a traffic stop in Harrisburg in February
Mearkle's lawyer, Brian Perry, said Kassick's actions needed to be watched carefully, arguing that the conflict had escalated to the point where it was reasonable for Mearkle to conclude that Kassick was reaching for a weapon.
'It's unfortunate, it's tragic, nobody is celebrating death, but we think the jury reached the right verdict,' Perry said.
During the trial, prosecutor Johnny Baer had argued that Mearkle 'took David's life without justification. Took it unnecessarily.'
The encounter began when Mearkle attempted to pull over Kassick after noticing an expired inspection sticker on his sedan.
She pursued him to Kassick's sister's home, where he had been living, and he ran to the backyard.
Mearkle caught up to him in the yard. She said she was convinced he had a gun in his jacket and was reaching for it.
Lisa Mearkle, with husband Jay at far left, and attorney Brian Perry, at right, speaks to the media at the Dauphin County Courthouse after she was acquitted Thursday
She described an intense scene in which dispatchers were talking to her by radio and Kassick's brother was yelling at her to stop shocking him with the stun gun.
The two gunshots were a few seconds apart. Mearkle administered CPR as others arrived.
It's not clear why Kassick fled the traffic stop, but investigators recovered a syringe by his body and prosecutors have said alcohol and unspecified drugs were in his system.
Mearkle has been on unpaid suspension since her arrest. The 15-year police veteran said Thursday she intended to remain an officer in the Harrisburg suburb. | {
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IN another sign of society gone mad, City of Kalamunda is investigating the unauthorised erection of signs asking cyclists to be quiet in residential areas.
The signs in Pickering Brook have not been endorsed by the Constable Care Foundation or the City.
On its Facebook page, the City said they were arranging for the signage to be removed.
“We are aware there was some discussion regarding noise from cyclists very early in the morning as they chatted in large groups whilst training and the like,” the post said.
“We also believe a number of the signs are attached to road signage which is not endorsed by the City.”
The signs have prompted debate among residents on the City’s Facebook page.
One resident said cyclists were ‘a bunch of noisy buggers’ when they ride through Pickering Brook and that the Bickley Valley had unique acoustics which carried voices.
Tim Hall said Perth drivers were ‘shockingly bad’ at sharing the road with cyclists.
“I’m an avid commuting/recreational cyclist, not the club/lycra/10k carbon bike type, and they can be a bit rude, sure,” he said.
“But I’ll always back them over ridiculous complaints like this.
“Ultimately it’s about decent infrastructure for all road users and driver education.”
Neasa Jordan said the signs asking cyclists to be quiet was ridiculous.
“We use pedal power and not engines, and if we talk is that not the same as pedestrians out for a stroll having a chat?” she said.
MORE: Safety concerns at redeveloped Scarborough foreshore
MORE: Shenton Park law student crowned Miss Naidoc 2018
MORE: Family of missing Canning Vale man Ian Collett remains hopeful
MORE: Perth tops real estate sales for May | {
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Dr. Ronald W. Davis will be speaking at the upcoming Invest in ME Research – IiME Patient Day on June 2nd. He will be providing a research update on OMF’s Severely ill Big Data Study. In addition, Linda Tannenbaum, OMF CEO/President, Raeka Aiyar, PhD, Director of Communications for the Stanford Genome Technology Center, and Ashley Haugen, Events and Marketing Director for the CFS Research Center at Stanford will be hosting OMF’s exhibit table.
The conference is ticket-only and entrance to the conference is only permitted for those with confirmed tickets. The conference is currently sold-out but Invest in ME Research are maintaining a waiting list in case of cancellations and you may apply to the charity to be added to that list.
We encourage all confirmed conference participants to visit the OMF table.
Invest in ME Research (IIMER) is a UK charity facilitating and funding a strategy of biomedical research into Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME or ME / CFS) and promoting better education about ME / CFS.
Thank you for following our tour. | {
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A heatwave is the perfect moment to rediscover the joys of being naked | Alice O’Keeffe Read more
The fight is on inside British nudism between the hedonists and the disciplinarians, the radicals and the conservatives. At issue, among other things, is what Leslie Bainbridge, editor of Health and Efficiency, calls the “feast of the crotch” – the lavish and obsessive display of male and female genitalia in imported nudist magazines, particularly those from the United States.
A consignment of such American magazines – which bear the stamp of approval of one of the leading US nudist associations – was confiscated earlier this week after magistrates ruled that some of the magazines were obscene.
It is not simply that the magazines are already unretouched, there is already an unretouched British nudist magazine which you can order from your local newsagent. In the US magazines, legs are nearly always apart or spread wide, camera angles nearly always low, the subjects nearly always young and attractive.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Health & Efficiency magazine cover, September 1934. Photograph: John Frost Newspapers/Alamy Stock Photo
The issue has arisen before in the dispute-wracked history of British nudism. At one stage hostility reached such a point that members of one nudist group reported another to Scotland Yard for importing obscene publications. The magazine which triggered that off was discretion itself compared with the US magazines, and was, in fact, the predecessor of the unretouched British magazine which now circulates quite freely.
Mr James Wrate, editor of this magazine, Sun and Health, is also the importer of the US magazines. He defends their concentration on the crotch as being the “final stage” in a long process. “A few years ago,” he says, “what was being revealed was the breasts, then the navel and finally a bit of pubic hair. Now we’ve got women with their legs apart and it’s the end of the road. Once that is exhausted, it’s the end of false excitement about secret parts of the body.”
The magazines, though, are just one part of the struggle within the nudist movement. The recent AGM of the Central Council for British Naturism, which represents Britain’s 80 registered sun clubs, broke up in confusion and uproar. The basic dispute was over the alleged dictatorial control exercised over the CCBN by the North Kent club, bastion of the conservatives and also the headquarters of the council.
But lurking beneath the surface are quarrels over the place of sex in nudism, over ease of access to the clubs, drinking in the clubs, over the magazines, over the propriety of such things as dances and parties. Leslie Bainbridge explains: “There are people who wear their nudity like a hair shirt and believe that by as doing they are moving toward a sort of Nirvana. They see nudism as a regimen, a discipline.” The conservatives, he says, demand high standards of personal morality.
Response: Nudity can be erotic and naturists should not have to deny it Read more
The radicals, on the other hand, freely admit that going naked is a “sensual experience” and that in “the sharing of one’s nudity with others… sensuality has limited but real associations with sexuality.” | {
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TRIPOLI (Reuters) - Libyan state television on Sunday broadcast pictures of leader Muammar Gaddafi meeting the president of the international chess federation.
Russia’s Interfax news agency quoted Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, who is also a former Russian provincial governor, as saying he played a game of chess in Tripoli Sunday with Gaddafi.
He said the Libyan leader told him he had no intention of leaving the country.
(Reporting by Mussab Al-Khairalla in Tripoli and Douglas Busvine in Moscow; Writing by Christian Lowe; Editing by Andrew Heavens) | {
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The measures passed, narrowly, setting up Greece’s moment of truth. Would it all be enough to convince the troika that Greece had changed its ways?
“I’ve called it the ‘thriller,’” said Raphael Moissis, the deputy chairman of the Foundation for Economic and Industrial Research, the think tank from which Stournaras was plucked to lead the Ministry of Finance. “We literally stayed up the night to hear whether the Europeans were going to say yes to a restructuring program for Greece, or whether they were going to say ‘the hell with you.’”
On November 27th, the troika announced that it would release the next round of loans. Greece would remain in the Eurozone. The decision was a victory for Stournaras, one step forward in what he described as a “multifaceted war.”
* * *
But was the triumph really so clear-cut?
One morning in 2009, Chris Spirou was laid off by an Athens bakery. A divorced father, he spent three months looking diligently for a job but found nothing, eventually making his way to Norway and the Netherlands to find work before returning home when his father died. After getting the boot from a friend’s trailer, he suddenly became homeless—an “indescribable” realization, he said.
“I am below zero. Wrecked. Devastated,” said Spirou, who is fifty-four. He said he feels “hate” for the people who put him in this position: members of Parliament and technocrats like Stournaras. “He doesn’t look at the political cost even if human beings are committing suicide, losing their jobs, their children are hungry.” Austerity, Spirou said, has killed the economy.
Some prominent economists echo Spirou’s analysis. Dimitri Papadimitriou, president of the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College, said that although large-scale cutbacks may in fact be reducing Greece’s budget deficit, these gains have come with “catastrophic consequences”: homelessness, suicides, unemployment, once-comfortable families reduced to rummaging through trash bins.
Other economists, meanwhile, are asking a larger question: Does austerity even work? Paul Krugman has argued that Europe’s reliance on austerity—not just in Greece—is precisely the opposite of what should be done: according to the logic popularized by John Maynard Keynes, economies falter when people stop spending, and when that happens, only governments can step in as spenders to get things going again.
Of course, given Greece’s economic woes, the country could not have implemented this theory on its own. Other Europeans, with Germany in the lead, were willing to kick in enough for Athens to close its deficits over a period of years, but they would not offer up sufficient sums for the Greeks to spend their way out of the desert. To the contrary, they insisted on cuts.
Describing the decisions he made, Stournaras, whose compact, athletic build and frequent smile made him look younger than his years, was resolute. Along with Prime Minister Samaras, he said, he fought to mitigate the pain—by cutting property taxes, for example. But even now, Stournaras—who calls himself a “reconstructed Keynesian”—believes that cuts, though upsetting, are working; unfortunately, there aren’t many other ways to reduce the public-sector deficit, and to forgo the cuts would only damage the economy further.
“But this is not something easy that you can tell the public,” he said. “That the alternative is Argentina or even Syria.”
It was muggy during my visit, and while Stournaras spoke, he wore shirtsleeves and a tightly cinched purple tie, having removed a dark suit jacket. He ticked off the government’s accomplishments: an operating budget surplus for the first seven months of this year, increased competitiveness in once-closed markets, and a slowing of the economy’s contraction. Most of which means little to the twenty-eight per cent of Greeks who are out of work, or to those who have suffered debilitating cuts to their pay and pensions.
“It’s not easy for somebody who was earning two thousand euros suddenly to earn one thousand,” Stournaras said. The cuts he has championed have affected even his own mother. “A poor woman, because my father had died very young,” he said. “So she lives on the minimum pension.”
How does that make you feel? I asked.
“Very bad,” said the father of two, his eyes now fixed on his desk. “Very bad, really.”
* * *
Stournaras was born in Athens, in 1956. His father was a Communist, he told me, whom “ultra-rightist” gangs persecuted and tried to have arrested; years later, when Stournaras was doing graduate work at Oxford, his father, who died at the age of sixty-two, asked him not to return home because he feared his own politics would haunt his son. Early on, Stournaras took up swimming and still regularly swims long distances. (He also jogs and plays ping-pong.) In his car on the way to a meeting with the Prime Minister, he told me that swimming was the best preparation he received for the rigors of his position. These days, he avoids swimming in pools, which could seem luxurious while other Greeks are forced into homeless shelters. “So I have to train myself and go to the sea,” he said. During a recent six-kilometre swim, the waters near his vacation home on the island of Syros turned rough. When I met him, he was unable to hear from his right ear.
In many ways, Stournaras is the ideal messenger for Greece’s tough news: he is respected in European economic circles, seen as someone who operates above partisan politics. Before taking office, he was a professor at the University of Athens, chairman and C.E.O. of Emporiki Bank, and advised prior governments. Stournaras was appointed to the Ministry of Finance, not elected. This gives him the freedom to make controversial decisions, but on the flip side, of course, if his policies become too unpopular, Prime Minister Samaras can summarily fire him. The afternoon before I met Stournaras, Michael Massourakis, the chief economist at Alpha Bank, told me that in choosing Stournaras, “the political parties wanted to find somebody who is nonpolitical so they can scapegoat him if things go bad.”
For the moment that seems unlikely. Although Samaras came to office on a pledge to slow austerity measures and Stournaras has supported them, the two are now friends who work together closely, meeting often, sharing jokes.
In the midst of our discussion, Stournaras’s phone rang. It was the Prime Minister.
“I have a reporter here from the The New Yorker,” Stournaras told him. “Shall I put you on?”
Stournaras activated the speakerphone setting so I could hear. Samaras—laughing knowingly—informed me that despite “previous ideological differences” he and Stournaras share a common goal: keeping Greece in the eurozone.
“That’s what I told him!” Stournaras said.
“Do you hear me, Yannis?”
“Yeah, yeah, I do.”
“Am I correct in this assessment?”
“Absolutely.”
Then Samaras quoted Neil Diamond. “You know that song that says, ‘Used-to-bes don’t count anymore, they just lay on the floor till we sweep them away?’” he said. “The idea is that differences don’t matter as long as there is a common cause that links us together.”
As Samaras spoke, Stournaras smiled appreciatively. Despite this display of seemingly genuine affection, it was hard for me to forget what I’d been told a day earlier: that for all this friendship, Stournaras could yet prove dispensable. | {
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I dont always want to wash my face but when i do, i just rubbed my washcloth all over my balls
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Good Grief, Part 1
Day 23 of A Year of War and Peace
Where they lay the shadow had forsook them
Nothing alters a man so much as grief. So says Benjamin Partridge, Tom Jones’s bumbling sidekick, as he reflects back upon his life so full of folly, woe, and sorrow. His life has indeed been punishing. He has plenty to mourn over in his past. But grief, that great crazer of wits, exercises its power over the human mind not only by means of recollection of past anguish but also by projecting its dreadful torment onto the contemplation of future events. This anticipatory grief is the type that afflicts the Bolkonsky home over the course of the next few chapters as Prince Andrei prepares to leave for the war.
Prince Andrei arrives at his old home by carriage. His sister is occupied running through some difficult clavichord passages, part of her daily routine. His father is napping, part of his daily routine. He introduces his wife, Lize, therefore, to his father’s attendant, Tikhon, who greets them at the door. Lize comments on the beauty and spaciousness of the home and then she makes a beeline towards Marya whose music she follows to her destination. The two young women fall into great joy upon seeing each other.
But their joy is cut short when Marya starts asking Andrei about the war. Is he really going? Why?
Major buzzkill.
The simple recollection of Andrei’s upcoming deployment brings poor Lize to tears. But nothing bad has even happened yet. The mere thought that something could happen is too much for her to bear.
Andrei asks Marya to please escort his wife to her room, that she needs rest from all the travel. Then, checking the time, he notes that his father should be up by now so he goes off to see him.
The old Prince is happy to see his son. So happy, in fact, that he alters his usual post-nap schedule to spend some time with him. During this time together the two talk mostly of the war. Though nothing the old Prince does betrays any explicit worry at his son’s upcoming departure for battle, we do get the feeling that he’s at least a little upset.
For now, though, the Old Prince calls for all to gather for dinner.
DAILY MEDITATION
Sorry to spoil your fun
As we approach the end of Book One, Part One (simply Part One in some translations) we find the characters of the novel at peace rather than at war. That will soon change. Soon enough they’ll be living amid the misery and melancholy of the Tolstoyan world. So, throughout these closing chapters of Book One, Part One, in anticipation of the drama to come, I’d like to engage in an extended meditation on grief, how the characters live with it, and one potential method they could use to live with it better.
Consider Lize. In this chapter — indeed, throughout the novel so far — her primary focus has been on the joys of her life: the balls, the gossip, the fashion of society. And, yet, at the simple acknowledgement that her husband is going off to war, she breaks down into uncontrollable sobs. She may be better served by reflecting more often on the natural state of things. That is, it may be helpful to engage in a more realistic appraisal of life. That way, when something horrible happens the blow will be sapped, somewhat, of its power. Here, Arthur Schopenhauer can be of assistance: | {
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Rookie trooper shot dead by suspect who stole cop gun The suspect took a trooper's gun during the Wednesday night struggle.
An Arizona trooper, who just graduated from the academy in May, was shot dead when a suspect stole a police officer's gun during a struggle, authorities said.
"The [Department of Public Safety] family is in mourning," Colonel Frank Milstead of the Arizona Department of Public Safety said at a news conference overnight. "Lives have been shattered and ruined."
The attack unfolded Wednesday night around 10:17 p.m. after authorities received calls about a driver swerving in and out of the lanes of Interstate 10, throwing items at cars, Milstead said.
Several motorists pulled over on the side of the highway to get the man off the road, Milstead said.
Trooper Dalin Dorris was first to arrive and called for backup within one minute of getting to the scene, Milstead said.
A minute later, two more troopers arrived, including rookie Tyler Edenhofer, who was finishing his last days of field training after graduating from the academy on May 4, Milstead said.
A fight broke out, Milstead said, during which two Goodyear, Arizona, police officers arrived and helped try to take the suspect into custody.
The fight lasted for about eight minutes and involved six law enforcement officers, Milstead said.
The suspect shot troopers Edenhofer and Dorris after he got a hold of a third trooper's weapon during the altercation, Milstead said.
It is unclear if the gun became dislodged from the trooper's leather holster or if the suspect felt it and "took control of it," Milstead said, describing the holster as a "non-retention type holster" with merely a snap at the top and no mechanism release that prevents someone from grabbing it.
The trooper whose gun was used in the shooting was in plain clothes -- jeans and a T-shirt, Milstead said.
"He just looked like he was a citizen observer that night," Milstead said.
Both troopers were shot in the shoulder, said Captain Tony Mapp of the Arizona Department of Public Safety. The bullet went straight through Dorris, but the bullet that struck Edenhofer ricocheted inside his body, Mapp said.
Dorris is in "good spirits considering the circumstances," Milstead said.
Edenhofer died from his injuries. The department was planning to assign him to the Yuma area in southwest Arizona, Mapp said.
"He'd been one of my troopers for 52 days," Milstead said.
Edenhofer was engaged, and his fiancee "had her entire future in front of her and her life with Tyler to look forward to, and that is gone," Milstead said.
"We're all in a little bit of a state of shock this morning," Milstead said. "Our thoughts and prayers are with his family."
The suspect was identified as 20-year-old Isaac King, Milstead said. King has a history of mental health issues and was apparently on medication for anxiety and depression, but he has no criminal history, Milstead said.
King's parents have been cooperative in the investigation, Milstead said. As late as 9:30 p.m. that night, his mother believed he was on the trampoline at the family's home in Avondale, he said.
Milstead said the shooting is "evidence of the violent nature of policing in our nation" as well as "evidence that just because somebody is unarmed doesn't mean they won't become armed and harm somebody."
"I'm incredibly proud of the men and women that show up every night to do this job," Milstead added. "That they're brave enough to come out and face the unknown."
Detectives are still conducting interviews and reviewing physical evidence to determine what happened on the interstate, Milstead said. About 70 items from the roadway have been collected, he said. It is unclear what type of items the suspect was throwing at cars.
Edenhofer's death came just hours after a 17-year veteran of the Milwaukee Police Department veteran was shot dead in the line of duty in Wisconsin.
Gunfire was the leading cause of death among the 73 officers killed in the first half of this year, accounting for 42 percent of the deaths, according to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund.
ABC News' Rex Sakamoto contributed to this report. | {
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Jubileuszowy Akt Przyjęcia Chrystusa za Króla i Pana został przyjęty w kwietniu tego roku. Oficjalne obchody odbywają się jednak dzisiaj. Na uroczystość przybyły tłumy pielgrzymów. Wziął w nich udział także prezydent Andrzej Duda i inni politycy. Wydarzenie transmitowała Telewizja Trwam, Radio Maryja oraz Polskie Radio.
REKLAMA
Dowiedz się więcej:
Jak przebiegała uroczystość?
Dookoła sanktuarium od rana zgromadziło się ok 6 tys. pielgrzymów - podała Telewizja Trwam. Następnie odbyło się nabożeństwo i konferencja wyjaśniająca powody intronizacji. Andrzej Duda pojawił się tuż po zakończeniu tej części uroczystości i powitały go brawa. Wspomniano też, że prezydent z tej okazji podarował sanktuarium Ewangeliarz. Podczas mszy kardynał Dziwisz powiedział:
Nie lękajmy się takiego aktu. Jezus Chrystus niczego nam nie zabiera, a wszystko daje. Jego panowanie nikomu nie zagraża, bo wyraża się przez miłość, która została ukrzyżowana.
Biskup Czaja przypomniał, że zgromadzeni na uroczystości to "przedstawiciele narodu polskiego". Dodał, że są tam, aby "z radykalnością swoich postanowień przyjąć Jezusa Chrystusa na nowo za króla i pana. Zacytował także "Królestwo" Norwida. Wśród obecnych był także suspendowany ks. Piotr Natanek.
Po przyjęciu komunii i błogosławieństwie nastąpiło oficjalne ogłoszenie Jezusa Chrystusa "Królem Polski".
Króluj nam Chryste! Króluj w naszej Ojczyźnie, króluj w każdym narodzie - na większą chwałę Przenajświętszej Trójcy i dla zbawienia ludzi. Spraw, aby naszą Ojczyznę i świat cały objęło Twe Królestwo: królestwo prawdy i życia, królestwo świętości i łaski, królestwo sprawiedliwości, miłości i pokoju. Oto Polska w 1050. rocznicę swego Chrztu uroczyście uznała królowanie Jezusa Chrystusa - brzmiał akt.
Dalej zawierzono Chrystusowi państwo polskie, rządzących, "wszystko, co Polskę stanowi" oraz wszystkie narody świata, "a zwłaszcza te, które stały się sprawcami naszego polskiego krzyża".
W akcie znajdowało się także wyznanie:
Przepraszamy Cię za narodowe grzechy społeczne, za wszelkie wady, nałogi i zniewolenia. Wyrzekamy się złego ducha i wszystkich jego spraw. Pokornie poddajemy się Twemu Panowaniu i Twemu Prawu. Zobowiązujemy się porządkować całe nasze życie osobiste, rodzinne i narodowe według Twego prawa.
Jutro akt intronizacyjny zostanie odczytany we wszystkich polskich kościołach.
Skąd wziął się pomysł na intronizację?
Idea intronizacji Jezusa sięga pierwszej połowy XX wieku. Kojarzy się ją z wizjami, których miała doświadczyć polska pielęgniarka Rozalia Celakówna. Wewnętrzne głosy miały jej podpowiadać, że Jezus domaga się od polskich władz konkretnych, ściśle sprecyzowanych działań. Jednym z nich miało być uznanie go królem Polski. Był to konieczny warunek ocalenia kraju w obliczu zbliżającej się wojny. CZYTAJ WIĘCEJ>>>
Jak Episkopat oceniał pomysł intronizacji?
Episkopat w marcu 2008 roku twierdził, że ogłaszanie Chrystusa Królem Polski jest "niewłaściwe i niepotrzebne", a w 2012 r. uważali jeszcze, że "nie trzeba Chrystusa ogłaszać Królem, wprowadzać Go na tron". Zmienili jednak zdanie. W styczniu 2016 roku bp Andrzej Czaja oświadczył: „Stwierdziliśmy, że uznanie przez wspólnotę ojczysta panowania Jezusa Chrystusa nad nią jest teologicznie dopuszczalne”. | {
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A sophisticated mystery hacker group is using tactics more familiar to the world of cyber espionage to earn millions through mining malware.
Kaspersky Lab researchers report that cybercrooks have begun using infection methods and techniques borrowed from targeted attacks in order to install mining software.
The most successful such group earned at least £5m by exploiting their victims in the the space of just six months last year, according to the security software firm's estimates.
Miner vs miner: Attack script seeks out and destroys competing currency exploits READ MORE
The group is using advanced persistent threat-style (APT) techniques and tools to infect users' devices with miners. They have been using the process-hollowing method usually seen in malware and some targeted attacks of APT actors, but has never been observed in mining attacks before.
Prospective victims are lured into downloading and installing software containing a hidden miner. The installer drops a legitimate Windows utility at the same time it covertly installs crypto-mining malware.
After execution, a legitimate system process starts but the code of this process quickly turns malicious. As a result, the miner operates under the guise of a legitimate task, making it far less likely that victims will realise that anything is amiss. Even security software packages might be thrown off the scent by this tactic, according to researchers.
Infection chain of sophisticated mining malware
Process hollowing example [both graphics from Kaspersky Lab blog post]
If the user tries to stop the process, the computer system reboots. This combination of tactics make it more likely that mining malware will stay on infected systems longer, increasing the money-making potential for crooks.
The hacking group behind these tactics has been mining Electroneum coins and earned almost £5m during the second half of 2017, comparable to the sums that ransomware creators used to earn.
Rise up, miners
From September 2017, Kaspersky Lab recorded a rise of miners that begins to eclipse ransomware as a cybercrime racket. Unlike ransomware, cryptojacking doesn't destructively harm users' kit and is able to stay undetected for a long time by silently using the PC's CPU and GPU power.
The growing availability of miner builders, open miner pools and partner programs are making it easy for unskilled would-be crooks to get a slice of the action from the growing miner menace. The most popular miner tool used by threat actors is Nanopool, Kaspersky Lab reports.
"We see that ransomware is fading into the background, instead giving way to miners," said Anton Ivanov, lead malware analyst at Kaspersky Lab. "This is confirmed by our statistics, which show a steady growth of miners throughout the year, as well as by the fact that cybercriminal groups are actively developing their methods and have already started to use more sophisticated techniques to spread mining software.
"We have already seen such an evolution – ransomware hackers were using the same tricks when they were on the rise."
Overall, 2.7 million users were attacked by malicious miners in 2017, according to Kaspersky Lab data. This represents a year-on-year growth of 50 per cent compared to 2016, when 1.87 million attacks on users were logged by the firm.
Adware, cracked games and pirated software have all been used by cybercriminals to secretly infect PCs with crypto-mining malware. Web mining through a special code located in an infected web page is also growing in prevalence. The most widely used web miner was CoinHive, discovered on many popular websites. ® | {
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"You want the best for your child and when you've seen her at her lowest point and to turn around and see her at her highest point, it was emotional," he said. | {
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Tom G. Warrior gave an interview to Zero Tolerance magazine where he shed light on why Celtic Frost and most other death and black metal bands do not own the rights to their own music, his problems with Noise Records, what was changed for the 2017 reissues that BMG recently put out, and why he eventually pulled his liner notes and endorsement.
What sets these reissues apart?
“We remastered everything, including all the bonus tracks. I also submitted a lost mix of the song ‘Visual Agression’ from the 1985 period of the band, something which had been lost but we managed to track it down. I also furnished them with a ton of rehearsal tracks from the Morbid Tales period, of which we selected the best ones. I did this along with V. Santura of Triptykon at his studio – he’s a fantastic engineer, of course. We were very respectful with this material, we didn’t push it to the wall, we didn’t change anything. What we did was take the sound and get the most out of it with today’s technology. We also fixed some of the problems arising from the age of the tapes. I personally believe that the remasters of the tracks are the best versions that have ever existed.
I furnished also tonnes of memorabilia and photos from my archive that I have amassed. And I also gave them liner notes that Noise had discarded in the ’80s because they thought they weren’t worthy. I dug those up again, and then of course I wrote new liner notes. Plus I furnished them with a multi-page concept of the reissues from the remastering, layout, additional tracks – every detail right up to the promotion of the albums. They didn’t really have to do anything. Because we’d wanted to do this for many years, I had a PDF booklet on my computer about of the albums and they were able to proceed using this. | {
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Marine Le Pen has admitted that a section of a key French presidential campaign speech she made on Monday was lifted from one made by defeated conservative rival François Fillon just two weeks earlier.
Shortly after the speech at a rally in Villepinte, a video was shared on Twitter highlighting the similarities with one made by Mr Fillon, the former conservative election frontrunner, who was eliminated in the first round of the election.
On April 15, Mr Fillon, of the centre-Right Republican party, made a speech in Puy-en-Velay in which he made specific mention of the geography of France's borders, paid tribute to the French language and spoke of a third "French way" for the 21st century between globalisation and Islamic fundamentalism.
Facing accusations of plagiarism she acknowledged that she had copied part of Mr Fillon's speech.
Speaking to TF1 news, she said: "I take full responsibilty. It's not bad because this speech was seen hundreds of times."
"We share with François Fillon in part the same vision of France. It was a way of recalling this."
Ms Le Pen, who has temporarily stepped down as head of France's Front National party in a bid to widen her appeal, repeated almost verbatim four passages from Mr Fillon speech's speech. | {
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Note: We got a lot of feedback from our readers after we published Seven of the Best Coffee Shops in Michigan last month. So, we’ve brought the subject back and sent Erica Starr, a Michigan coffee expert, on a tour of the mitten to compile her list of recommendations. This is her first installment.
A cup of coffee, to many, is a simple pleasure. To some, however, that cup of coffee is much more than just a drink; it represents passion for an ever-developing craft. Similar to beer or wine, coffee is a complex beverage that holds the capability to produce a delicious flavor experience far superior to that of your average cup of joe. Here in Michigan, we’re lucky to have a large number of coffee professionals eager to share the magic of specialty coffee with the world. It’s my mission to introduce you to the coffee shops that provide their customers with an excellent experience (and maybe free wi-fi, too.)
1. The Red Hook – 220 W. 9 Mile Rd., Ferndale
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Open M-F 7a-5p, Sat 8a-5p
Named for the famed Brooklyn neighborhood, The Red Hook is a small operation located in the front of Pinwheel Bakery in Ferndale. This is the only shop in Michigan where you can enjoy coffee from Portland-based roasters, Stumptown Coffee. Approachable and knowledgeable baristas offer a simple menu of espresso beverages, drip coffee and brew-to-order coffees. Add to this a warm, charming atmosphere, a convenient location and delicious pastries and you’ve got the recipe for an awesome café experience.
2. Anthology Coffee – 1401 Vermont St., Detroit
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Open M-Sat 9a-2p
Hole-in-the-wall is a fairly literal description when it comes to Anthology Coffee’s latest digs in Detroit’s Corktown neighborhood. Located inside of Ponyride, a collective of local artists and entrepreneurs, Anthology offers espressos and brew-to-order coffees in a very intimate setting designed to allow their customers to see and learn just what goes on in the process of making coffee. They regularly host events such as tastings and introductions to various brewing methods. Dedication to coffee excellence is what drives Anthology, and what gives them recognition; you can find their beans all over Michigan, such as at Cuppa Joe in Traverse City and the (espresso) bar in Ann Arbor.
3. The Ugly Mug – 317 West Cross Avenue, Ypsilanti
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Open M-F 6a-9p, Sat&Sun 8a-8p
I hesitate to use the word “cool” as a main description for most things – but “cool” is precisely the word that best fits The Ugly Mug in Ypsilanti. With its warehouse vibe and eclectic décor, this café and roastery is the perfect space for art exhibitions, performances by local musicians, and food/coffee education – just last month they hosted a raw garlic tasting and a poetry night! Comfy couches and big tables are great for setting up shop to work on homework or just browse the interwebs while drinking a cup of coffee (which they roast in house) or snacking on one of their tasty menu items.
4. Comet Coffee – 16 Nickels Arcade, Ann Arbor
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Open M-F 7a-8p, Sat 8a-8p, Sun 8:30a-8p
If variety is something that interests you, Comet Coffee is perhaps your best bet when it comes to coffee in Michigan. At any given time, this cozy shop conveniently located in Nickels Arcade has coffees from roasters around the country such as Ritual, Terroir, Ceremony, 49th Parallel, and Counter Culture Coffee. Their bar features a menu with espresso drinks and a number of brew-to-order choices such as v-60 and eva solo. While the space is small and seats are often hard to come by, Comet is comfortable and relaxed – a perfect stop if you’re on your way to class or on break from work.
5. The (espresso) bar – 327 Braun Court, Ann Arbor
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Open M-F 9a-5p, Sat&Sun 10a-3p
This cozy barista-owned shop, located right beneath The Bar at Braun Court, opened in early 2012 and has since taken off among Ann Arbor’s coffee crowd. I don’t exaggerate when I say that this is where I’ve enjoyed the best traditional cappuccino I’ve ever had. On top of the excellent coffee (sourced by Counter Culture Coffee and Anthology Coffee,) the (espresso) bar offers pastries from Zingerman’s, home-brewing equipment and accessories, books, and events such as public cuppings and game nights. If you are looking for excellent coffee and a place that feels like home, you need look no further.
6. Madcap Coffee – 98 Monroe Center NW, Grand Rapids
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Open M-F 7a-7p, Sat 8a-7p
One of the heavy-hitters of the specialty coffee industry, Madcap is known nationwide for the quality of its coffees. The company’s founders, Trevor Corlett and Ryan Knapp, have both won titles in the United States Barista Championship and trained many of their baristas to go on and compete as well. The staff here is happy to tell customers about their impressive selection of coffees both on the bar and for retail sale (if you’re looking for beans to brew at home, this is the place to go.) Located in downtown Grand Rapids, the entire experience provided by Madcap is one that exudes quality. Clean lines, simple décor, and admirable professionalism amongst the baristas ensure your experience here will be a great one.
7. Morsels – 321 E. Front St., Traverse City
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Open M-F 7a-7p, Sat 7a-9p, Sun 8a-6p
Living in Northern Michigan, a delicious coffee beverage can be difficult to come by – that’s where Morsels comes in. In Traverse City, a town full of coffee shops, Morsels shines with well-trained staff, top-of-the-line equipment, and a variety of coffees and teas from Chicago-based Intelligentsia Coffee. While their claim to fame lies in the delectable bite-sized treats so adequately called ‘morsels,’ the owners of this popular café value quality across the board with a seasonal food menu, house-made syrups and sauces, and excellent customer service from their baristas. It’s no wonder they’re set to open a second café early in 2013!
-Erica Starr, Contributing Writer
Erica Starr has worked in the coffee industry for a seemingly-mere three years, but has worked in the service industry for seven and knows how to give the people what they want. A Traverse City native, she manages Cuppa Joe, a coffee shop with three locations in this Northern Michigan destination town. She’s visited coffee shops all over the Midwest and recently traveled to Norway to meet Tim Wendelboe, the 2004 World Barista Champion and owner of this self-named shop in Oslo. She is a self-proclaimed coffee enthusiast, though she would never call herself a coffee expert. But don’t worry, we definitely define her as one. | {
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Video: tvn24
Tomasz Zimoch: Grzegorz miał dystans do życia, do polityki,...
26.08 | Grzegorz Miecugow kochał sport, miał znajomość sportu, sport go ciekawił, był dla niego obszarem pełnym emocji, niesamowitych przeżyć - tak wspominał zainteresowania dziennikarza. - Grzesiek chyba nawet - jeśli chodzi o sport - potrafił się emocjonować. Tak, jak dystans miał do życia, do polityki, to kiedy mówiono o sporcie, to tak jakby to rzeczywiście było dla niego jeszcze bardziej wciągające - tak to odczuwałem - mówił Zimoch. - Był wielkim kibicem piłki nożnej, kibicem Cracovii - dodawał.
» | {
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The day is finally upon us - the Gmail 5.0 APK has landed, and we have it for your (production-signed) downloading pleasure.
As we've expected since we first saw the app more than a week ago, the new Gmail is very... "material." It's got a FAB, the beautiful thread interface we've come to know and love from Inbox, and a drawer that complies with guidelines.
But Gmail's beauty isn't only skin deep - the app holds some new features, too. The first one we noticed is of course support for corporate/exchange accounts, a capability that obviates the stock email app and promises to unite all your inboxes under one roof (unless of course you're using Inbox, which supports neither Exchange nor Google Apps accounts).
There may be even more goodies hiding in the new app, but while we dig around, head to the download below to get it for yourself. Note that if you want to enable Exchange support you'll need to install both of the APKs listed below.
Download
The APKs are signed by Google and upgrade your existing app. The cryptographic signatures guarantee that the files are safe to install and were not tampered with in any way. Rather than wait for Google to push the download to your devices, which can take days, download and install these just like any other APK.
File name: com.google.android.gm-5.0_(1520254)-5000600-minAPI14.apk
Version: 5.0 (1520254)
File name: com.google.android.gm.exchange-6.5-1520254-500064-minAPI14.apk
Version: 6.5-1520254
Thanks dontmindme! | {
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5 Bedroom Luxury Townhouse in Villa Amalfi, Jumeirah Bay Island
We are delighted to present this gorgeous five-bedroom townhouse in Villa Amalfi, located at the heart of Jumeira Bay Island. As one of just 64 homes, this townhouse is steeped… | {
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According to a recent report, college students are trying their hand “at mining altcoins at their dorm.” This shouldn’t be surprising, given that electricity costs are included in their dorm fees. Others use campus electricity elsewhere to mine. The trend raises some issues and is understandably concerning for dorm owners and managers.
The Penn State Dorm Miner
Patrick Cines, a Penn State College graduate spoke to CNBC, pointing to the potential of cryptocurrency and his interest. Using his dedicated software, he began mining cryptocurrency on campus grounds, using campus electricity. He said “I had basically a box, maybe a foot and a half by a foot and a half tall. It was sitting in, right at the foot of my bed. Had several graphics cards.”
Using several graphics cards, he manages to mine Ethereum and other altcoins. Mining altcoins was pretty simple for Cines since mining equipment doesn’t require active care or management 24/7. He attended classes while his rig did the work back at the dorm. Doing so, Cines gains a small passive revenue stream.
The Box: Advantages and Disadvantages
The so-called “box” that Cines operated became a respectable source of income for him. It had its advantages and its disadvantages. At the dorm, Cines wouldn’t pay for electricity, which increased his earning potential. Nevertheless, mining equipment is loud and releases copious amounts of heat. Excess heat is unbearable and nearly impossible to dissipate in a small dorm room. Cines spoke about this drawback saying that “It was unbearable… I had fans running, I had the window open. The first day I was living there, went to Home Depot, bought some dryer tubes, strapped them to the front, and used that to push all the hot air outside of my room.”
However, mining for Cines was overall advantageous. It also served to introduce him to the world of trending blockchain technology. He said the experiment in mining shaped his college career.
Hefty Electricity Bills
Cines’ operation was not illegal, but it was problematic for college administrators. The financial toll it takes on campus operations, especially if it becomes a widespread phenomenon, is hefty. At the end of the day, there is no such thing as a free lunch. Someone must pay for the electricity used.
Universities Unaware of Students Mining
Mick Banic, an executive at cybersecurity firm Vectra, says that universities might not be aware of the issue and how grave it can be: “I think there are a lot of universities that don’t know this is happening. I don’t think that they would want it to happen either, considering it costs $4,700 to mine one bitcoin. That’s about 10 percent of the annual tuition at a private university.”
Penn State paid for Cines’ mining activity. If Cines would be enrolled at the Massachusetts’ Worchester Polytechnic Institute, he would have found it harder to mine. That institute for example, is aware of the issue and has “an acceptable usage policy” regarding the usage of campus resources by students.
Other Concerns
Apart from electricity costs, college students who mine for Bitcoin or other altcoins on campus or in their dorms are exposed to certain hazards that they themselves might not be aware of. Cryptocurrency mining units can explode or implode. The heat they release can also be a fire hazard if it is not managed properly. Nevertheless, the students who manage to take advantage of on campus electricity to mine can make some money on the side and improve their living standards while they are at college or even save a little money. After all, many of them will finish college with a hefty debt – average undergraduate student debt in the US is around $30,000 USD – to deal with themselves. In many cases that debt is due to colleges and universities hiking tuition fees in a manner that is not at all reasonable, so students can easily think that they deserve their free electricity in any case. | {
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In 1971, Carolyn Davidson was a design student at Portland State University. This is where Phil Knight, one of the founders of Nike and an assistant professor at PSU, struck up a conversation with her and asked Davidson to come up with some logo designs for his new sportswear company. Davidson designed the swoosh, perhaps the most recognizable logo of the 20th century. She was paid just $35 for her work.
"Well, I don't love it," Phil Knight is reported to have said about the swoosh design at the time, "but maybe it will grow on me."
The design indeed grew on Knight, as it did the rest of the world. But as Nike swelled to become a multi-million dollar behemoth (it went public in 1980), the company realized that $35 for Davidson's design was a steal. Executives decided that she should see something more for her contributions to the company. Eventually, Davidson would be compensated more robustly, with Nike providing her a more substantial pay package in 1983.
Some estimate that her Nike stock is now worth about $600,000, though that's never been independently confirmed. Davidson simply insists that she's no millionaire. You can watch video of Davidson describing her creation of the logo at KGW in Portland.
Image: Packers Nike swoosh cleats in 2014 via Getty | {
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NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine called on people to take the threat of a meteor crashing into Earth seriously.
"We have to make sure that people understand that this is not about Hollywood. It's not about movies," Bridenstine told a conference on Monday.
He noted that a meteor exploded over central Russia in 2013, damaging thousands of buildings and injuring more than 1,400 people.
Visit BusinessInsider.com for more stories.
NASA's administrator warned that the threat of a meteor crashing into Earth is bigger than we might think.
Jim Bridenstine told the International Academy of Astronautics' Planetary Defense Conference on Monday that "the reason it's important for NASA to take this seriously is something you call the 'giggle factor,'" or scientific theories that seem too ridiculous to be likely.
"We have to make sure that people understand that this is not about Hollywood. It's not about movies. This is about ultimately protecting the only planet we know right now to host life, and that is the planet Earth," he added.
Bridenstine noted that in February 2013, a meteor measuring 20 meters (about 65 feet) in diameter and traveling at 40,000 mph entered Earth's atmosphere and exploded over Chelyabinsk, in central Russia.
A meteor streaking across the sky in Russia's Chelyabinsk region in 2013. CNN/YouTube
Read more: NASA found rare, extraterrestrial meteorite fragments in the ocean
Meteorites — smaller pieces broken from the larger meteor — crashed in the region, and a fireball streaked through the sky, the BBC reported at the time.
There was a loud, massive blast that caused a shock wave that broke windows and damaged buildings across the region, Bridenstine said, adding that the meteor's explosion had 30 times the energy of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima.
More than 1,400 people were injured. Many were hit by flying glass, CNN reported.
"I wish I could tell you that these events are exceptionally unique, but they are not," Bridenstine said.
He said that NASA's modeling had found that such events will take place "about once every 60 years." He added that on the same day of the Chelyabinsk meteor explosion, another, larger asteroid came within 17,000 miles of Earth but narrowly missed.
Scientific experts at this week's Planetary Defense Conference are discussing how the world can defend against any potentially hazardous asteroid or comet that looks likely to hit Earth, the conference said in a statement.
In such a scenario, Bridenstine said, NASA would measure the object's speed and trajectory and decide whether to deflect it or evacuate the area that it would hit.
Watch Bridenstine's speech, starting at the 2:39 mark, in the video below: | {
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From Autumnwatch Tower , head east up the mountain side and past Froki's Shack , and eventually an unmarked Shrine of Talos will be found.
*Disclosure: Some of the links above are affiliate links, meaning, at no additional cost to you, Fandom will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase. Community content is available under CC-BY-SA unless otherwise noted. | {
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I have buit in to my zombie apocalypse protocols just such a scenario. | {
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When astronauts travel to deep-space destinations like Mars, a space habitat could function as a staging point for their multi-month voyages. Aerospace giant Lockheed Martin recently unveiled an early prototype of their deep-space habitat. | {
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葉加瀬マイ、一糸まとわぬ姿で「ラブドールと恋の逃避行」表現
葉加瀬マイコメント
ミスFLASH2012グランプリに輝き、現在ではドラマ、映画などで女優、またタレント、モデルとしてバラエティ、ファッションショーに出演するなど活躍の場を広げている葉加瀬。今回、予想を遥かに超える「ラブドール」をテーマにした最新写真集をリリース。感情と意志を持ったラブドールに恋した男性との危ない逃避行――そして2人を待ち受ける運命とは。そんな官能的かつ、せつない「恋物語」を身長170センチ、Gカップのパーフェクトボディで余すところなく表現し、本人史上最高の「ラブプレイ」に挑戦している。ベッドでの一糸まとわぬ姿、ブラジャーを外し横たわる姿、「ラブドール」に囲まれる姿…“超問題作”について葉加瀬は、「今回の作品は、『ラブドールと恋の逃避行』がテーマです。この写真集のお話を頂いた時から、これまでリリースした2作品を何とか超えたいという思いがあり、最初の打ち合わせ含めて、撮影場所や内容など積極的に自分のアイデアや考えを伝えました」と企画経緯を明かし、「写真集ではなかなかない斬新なテーマになっていると思うので、いろんな妄想を膨らまして見て欲しいです」とメッセージを寄せた。（modelpress編集部）今回の作品は、「ラブドールと恋の逃避行」がテーマです。この写真集のお話を頂いた時から、これまでリリースした2作品を何とか超えたいという思いがあり、最初の打ち合わせ含めて、撮影場所や内容など積極的に自分のアイデアや考えを伝えました。撮影は上海とラブドールの工場などで行いましたが、「感情の無い人形」「感情を持って女性となった人形」という2つ人格（？）を演じなければならず、非常に難しくも勉強になった、今までにはない撮影でした。上海では多くの人が集まる場所でゲリラ的に撮影するなど、恥ずかしかった思い出が多いのですが、現地の方が家を貸してくれたり、船を出してくれたりと、いろいろな方との出会いとご協力ででき上がった大切な作品です。写真集ではなかなかない斬新なテーマになっていると思うので、いろんな妄想を膨らまして見て欲しいです。間違いなくこれまでの写真集の概念を覆す自信作です。 | {
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President Donald Trump bet big on presidential fiat once more and this time, he lost. Democrats didn't really win and Republicans didn't really lose, but overlooked is that the exceptionalism of America, and those who truly believe in her greatness, won a small victory.
We should take the small victories for American exceptionalism where we can find them, and build upon them where we can.
The ugly example of a presidential decree is, and for the past six weeks, has been the separation of children from their families that attempt to enter America illegally.
This process started in April, when the Trump administration elected to prosecute all people stopped at the border.
In doing so, the natural effect of that decision is to separate children from families. In legal logic, because one cannot prosecute children, one had to take the children away. In six weeks, more than 2,000 children were separated from their families.
As it became known about the effects that this policy had upon the children, the statements of facts but not truth came regularly from the officials serving the president of the United States. They became part of a steady and eye-opening drumbeat, including the use of a Bible passage that might have done more harm than good.
With opposition mounting, Trump signed an executive order intended to stop the separation, though as of this writing there is no relief for the children and families already affected.
Somehow, though, Trump managed to undo whatever small good came of that gesture. On Sunday, Trump struck at the heart of the judicial system, suggesting on Twitter that America eliminate due process for illegal border crossers.
"We cannot allow all of these people to invade our Country. When somebody comes in, we must immediately, with no Judges or Court Cases, bring them back from where they came. Our system is a mockery to good immigration policy and Law and Order. Most children come without parents," he wrote.
All this comes amid the summer campaign season. Congressional Republicans are fighting to keep their majority. And perhaps they hope it will fade before the fall campaign begins in earnest after Labor Day. That seems unlikely.
But there is a bigger idea at play beyond electoral politics here, and the we see the idea this way:
America is truly an exceptional country.
"Exceptional" means just that - different and better.
"Exceptional" does not, and never will, mean "perfect." It is better captured by Lincoln's words of "a more perfect union." We try, and we have to keep trying.
But "exceptional" does not distill itself down to a red baseball cap with four words. "Exceptional" is not about power, and while "exceptional" includes strength, that strength lies with people, not in presidential fiat.
Not from an order by Barack Obama nor Donald Trump.
History is littered with deceased regimes and empires that were merely "powerful" and "wealthy."
The exceptionalism of America is centered on the goodness of its people.
We are exceptional not because we are stronger than others, or better than others, but because we strive to be good. The strength comes from that goodness, not the other way around.
We often disagree exactly what that should mean, but that 200-plus year debate and evolution of America also is part of the recipe of "exceptional."
There was nothing either strong or good about this policy announced by Sessions and enforced by the federal government for six weeks.
Indeed, this policy makes America look weak, as if there is a threat to all we are unless we separate children from families. This policy makes us look small, not "great again."
And no, there is no other word than "ugly" to describe this policy. No society that imposes its power to separate families has ever been looked upon fondly by history.
That "small victory" we talked about earlier?
This policy was changed because Americans on all sides of the spectrum recoiled against it, saying in effect: children will not be used as a policy goal in this way. Americans, as an exceptional people, said "no, not this."
They crossed party lines to focus on "goodness."
It's an example of setting aside what makes us different and voicing something that makes us similar. It's a case where the people in charge of the federal government knew they were licked and changed whether they wanted to or not.
This policy was always ugly. America is beautiful and has always been great.
We don't need a baseball cap for that. | {
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More than 1,000 people filed a lawsuit against the government on Friday, seeking to halt Japan’s involvement in 12-country talks on a Pacific Rim free trade agreement, which they called “unconstitutional.”
A total of 1,063 plaintiffs, including lawmakers, claimed in the case brought to the Tokyo District Court that the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership would undermine their basic human rights under the Constitution.
The lawsuit is led by Masahiko Yamada, 73, a lawyer who served as agriculture minister in 2010 as part of the Democratic Party of Japan government.
“The TPP could violate the Japanese right to get stable food supply, or the right to live, guaranteed by Article 25 of the nation’s Constitution,” Yamada, who abandoned his party in 2012 over then-Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda’s push to join the TPP talks, said Thursday before the court filing.
The envisaged pact would benefit big corporations but would jeopardize the country’s food safety and medical systems, and destroy the domestic farm sector, according to the plaintiffs.
The litigation is another twist in efforts by Japan and the U.S., the top economies involved in the TPP, to expedite talks on the agreement that would cover about 40 percent of the world’s commerce.
An accord would deepen Japan’s dependence on farm imports and threaten its food security, Yamada said. Japan, which relies on imports for about 60 percent of its food needs, has cut its self-sufficiency target as the government expands trade deals.
An official at the Cabinet Office’s TPP task force declined to comment on the lawsuit.
While Japan and the U.S. have yet to reach a bilateral accord that would presumably pave the way for a 12-country agreement, the U.S. Senate advanced a measure Thursday that would allow President Barack Obama to accelerate approval of trade pacts.
Prospective members of the TPP have missed a series of deadlines since the U.S. said it would join the talks in 2009.The U.S. legislation granting trade promotion authority, or fast-track authority, is set to pass the Senate next week and move to the House. There, Obama has been courting reluctant Democrats to support the measure. He has said the authority is vital to wrapping up TPP negotiations.
Advocates have argued the far-flung trade deal would boost economic growth and create new jobs. The TPP could boost demand for Japan’s food exports among the 800 million people in the member nations, or 10 percent of global consumers, Agriculture Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi said last month. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has set a target of doubling the country’s food exports to ¥1 trillion by 2020.
The plaintiffs said the TPP would change a number of rules and regulations concerning people’s lives “for the sake of the freedom and profits of global corporations.”
They claimed that an influx of inexpensive foreign products under the tariff-cutting deal would harm domestic producers and lower Japan’s food self-sufficiency ratio.
They also said the pact would push up prices for medicines and violate people’s right to receive proper health care by favoring big pharmaceutical firms.
The TPP member nations have been negotiating to introduce an investor-state dispute settlement clause which would give a multinational company the right to sue a state for compensation. The plaintiffs expressed opposition to the clause, saying it would jeopardize Japan’s judicial independence.
They also pointed out that the secret nature of the TPP negotiations violates the people’s right to know, as the document is confidential and the negotiating process will be kept undisclosed for four years after the agreement takes effect.
Under the TPP, Japan could be forced to cut beef tariffs to 9 percent from 38.5 percent and pork duty to ¥50 per kilogram from a maximum ¥482, Yamada said.
“That would be a fatal blow to Japanese livestock farmers,” said Yamada, who used to run cattle and hog farms in his hometown in Nagasaki Prefecture before becoming a lawmaker in the House of Representatives in 1993.
He said his dream of expanding his farms to become one of the country’s largest meat producers did not come true because a U.S. ban on soybean exports in 1973 sent livestock feed prices soaring, making his business unprofitable.
The TPP negotiating members are Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States and Vietnam. | {
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ご指定のページは存在しません！！
お探しのページは移動または削除された等の理由により表示することができません。 タイプミスの可能性もあり
ますので、大変お手数ですが、 もう一度お試しいただくか下記のリンクよりメインページへお戻りください。
We are sorry!! Page you are looking for can't be found. It may have moved, or it may no longer be
available. Please try to visit other page by using the links below. | {
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BERLIN — German police have opened an investigation into a report from a prominent Berlin rabbi that he was insulted and spat at as he was heading home from synagogue with his son.
Police said Wednesday they were treating the incident as a religiously-motivated crime and are currently looking for suspects.
Police say Rabbi Yehuda Teichtal was walking past an apartment building in the Wilmersdorf neighbourhood Friday night when he said he was spat at and sworn at by two men inside the building.
Teichtal, who said the two men spoke in Arabic, called in a statement for “tolerance, dialogue and training.”
Despite increasing anti-Semitic incidents, he says he remains “convinced most people in Berlin do not want to accept this aggression against Jews as a sad part of everyday Jewish life”
The Associated Press | {
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The landing of Curiosity alone will be an engineering triumph; anything the rover does after will be a scientific bonus.
Be under no illusion, Mars is about to get dominated.
A nuclear-powered, one-tonne robotic rover armed with a rock-burning laser and a set of heavy-duty drills is currently preparing to land on Mars. Its mission is to carry out a vast array of experiments to help mankind understand the Red Planet’s suitability for life and, ultimately, to help answer the age-old philosophical question: Is life on Earth special?
After nearly nine months of gliding through interplanetary space, NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory, known as “Curiosity”, will feel Martian dirt crunching under its six wheels at 1:31am EDT (5:31am GMT) on Monday after the (hopefully) successful culmination of the “seven-minutes of terror” – a moniker for the mission’s entry, descent and landing (EDL).
NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft – sealed inside its payload fairing – launched on November 26, 2011 will arrive on Mars on August 5, 2012 [NASA]
Entry
As those seven minutes begin, Curiosity’s tough capsule – known as an “aeroshell” – will hit the top of the Martian atmosphere at a speed of over 13,000 miles per hour and, through the dynamic pressure of atmospheric gases buffeting its heatshield, the vehicle will rapidly slow to 1,000 miles per hour. Although it will be a violent ride, the aeroshell is able to distribute its weight so the vehicle can experience lift – much like an aircraft’s wing experiences lift – and stabilising thrusters will keep it pointing in the right direction, allowing the vehicle to use entry into the atmosphere as a means to steer it on target. It is an ingenious flight profile to say the least.
To any hypothetical Martians living on the planet’s surface, this strange meteor would streak high across the sky toward Gale Crater, a 154-kilometre wide impact crater in the Martian landscape with a conspicuous 5.5-kilometre high mountain in its centre. But the Martians would be in for a shock as they watch a carefully choreographed series of steps unfold – parachute opening, pyrotechnic bolts firing and heatshield being jettisoned away – heralding the start of arguably the most dramatic part of Curiosity’s mission.
Descent
“This huge parachute that we’ve got will only slow us down to about 200 miles per hour, and that’s not slow enough to land,” says Tom Rivellini, NASA EDL Engineer, in the dramatic NASA “7 minutes of terror” video. “So we’ve got no choice; we’ve got to cut it off… and then come down on rockets.”
This means that Curiosity will detach itself from the backshell of its now bottomless capsule (having just jettisoned the spent heatshield) and parachute, and drop as if beginning a kamikaze freefall. Fortunately, this is no freefall – Curiosity will ignite rocket engines attached to its surrounding frame, turning a terrifying drop into a graceful, controlled descent.
Once the rockets have gained control, Curiosity’s radar will guide the craft toward Gale Crater. That crater is Curiosity’s intended target and, because of the incredible thruster system developed by NASA for the mission, Curiosity will have already aligned itself quite nicely with the tiny 20km-by-7km landing zone inside Gale, a plain known as Aeolis Palus. This is the most precise landing ever attempted on Mars.
The rocket engines, controlled by fully-automated onboard computers, will do all the work. At no point during the EDL will mission control be able to send commands or check to see how the landing is proceeding – it takes over 14 minutes for any radio signal to travel across the expanse of space between Earth and Mars, removing humans from the equation.
Landing
As the rover gets closer to the landing zone, the now-famous “Sky Crane” (the frame surrounding Curiosity with rocket engines attached) will lower the rover 21 feet via a tether system to the surface. The Sky Crane is a critical point of the EDL. To avoid the rockets kicking up too much dust (that could cause a hazard to instrumentation on the rover), they need to be kept high and away from the ground. But such a manoeuver isn’t without its risks. The pyrotechnic bolts holding the tethers in place need to trigger at exactly the right moment, just as the rover touches down, so the connection can be severed. If one bolt doesn’t fire, the rover could be dragged across the surface to its potential doom.
But, assuming everything functions as it should, the tethers will detach and the Sky Crane will throttle-up and fly away, leaving the rover standing proud to begin its mission.
Now what?
With a delivery plan as complex, challenging and risky as this, what makes Curiosity so special? Is it really worth a total mission cost of $2.5 billion? The answer couldn’t be simpler: Curiosity is tasked with uncovering the habitat of past or present Martian life. If it does, our robotic emissary may have helped to answer one of the biggest questions of our time: Earth isn’t the only place where life can get a foothold. We are no longer special. It’s no leap of the imagination to think that if a world as “barren” as Mars could harbour even the most basic of lifeforms, perhaps life is possible elsewhere in our galaxy. The possibilities will seem endless.
However, Curiosity, for all its advanced experiments and tools, cannot look for life directly. It is limited to looking for the conditions for life. This means it will build upon the knowledge we’ve gained from previous (and current) missions to Mars in an attempt to find more “missing pieces” of the puzzle of Mars’ geology, climate and organics.
The Curiosity rover has a suite of nine hard-mounted cameras [NASA/JPL-Caltech]
For example, Curiosity will zap exposed rock up to seven metres from the rover, vapourising the surface with a remote sensing apparatus called ChemCam. This instrument will be able to analyse the vapour and decipher what minerals the rock contains. This is the first time such a laser has been used on a planetary mission.
Naturally, like past rovers, Curiosity will also have an advanced suite of cameras that will be used to survey the Martian landscape, help it navigate and avoid hazards. Also, a camera is attached to the rover’s robotic arm, so microscopic images of samples can be studied. And there’s the camera that will photograph the mission’s descent through the atmosphere, providing a bird’s-eye view of Gale Crater during approach. One of the first and most dramatic scenes likely to come from the rover will be that of a rocky terrain overshadowed by a huge mountain. It will be like nothing we’ve ever witnessed before.
Other instrumentation includes an experiment that will monitor meteorological conditions; a set of spectrometres that will analyse samples of Martian soil to look for signs of organic compounds; an instrument that will “sniff out” water ice locked in the layers just below the surface. Also, in an effort to understand whether Mars could, one day, become a suitable place for humans to live, one experiment will take direct measurements of the hazardous radioactive environment.
Climb, rover, climb!
All of the ten major experiments that Curiosity will operate will have a vast region to study. To our hypothetical Martians, the six-wheeled robot will look more like an invader than an explorer – it’s a nuclear-powered tank the size of a Mini Cooper that can travel day or night, which fires a rock-burning laser. It will be relentless, trekking up a huge mountain to seek out and sample any interesting geological or organic thing.
This is one of the key reasons for Gale Crater being the landing site – it features a mountain in its centre. After the meteorite impact that formed the crater billions of years ago, the pressure of the surrounding crater rim caused the convex shape to slump with gravity, forcing the centre upward. This forcing has inevitably exposed a huge wealth of geological history locked within layers of the mountain. NASA intends to send the laser-toting rover up the mountain’s slopes, taking samples as it goes, revealing eons of planetary history.
On the shoulders of rovers
This mission will be in stark contrast to its predecessors, Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit and Opportunity that landed in 2003. The two tenacious solar powered rovers – one of which, Opportunity, still soldiers on to this day – are limited in that they depend on the Sun to power their instrumentation. Curiosity – powered by a radioactive fuel source (known as a radioisotope thermoelectric generator, or RTG) – will be able to work day and night; summer or winter. It’s a “rover on steroids” with a primary mission of 687 Earth days (one Martian year) with the potential to power on for a lot longer.
The most precise landing on Mars ever attempted will be inside the Gale Crater, with the rover’s destination the mountain at its centre – Mount Sharp [NASA]
By comparison, Spirit and Opportunity had a primary mission of three months; Spirit outlived its “warranty” by seven years. After nearly 22 miles of roving, Opportunity remains operational to this day. Curiosity may be bigger, more advanced and stronger than Spirit and Opportunity, but it still has some very big solar panelled shoes to fill!
An engineering triumph
There’s little doubt that once Curiosity lands, it will give us an unprecedented look at a region of Mars we know little about. Since the 1970s we’ve seen landers and rovers land on Martian plains and polar regions. The best thing about these relatively obstacle-free regions (ignoring the huge boulders that litter the landscape) is that a wide landing zone can be selected. Curiosity is different – its EDL will be the most precise landing system ever devised for a Mars mission, allowing the rover to be placed in the guts of a crater. Not only that, NASA will be able to place the rover right next to Gale Crater’s mountain. The landing of Curiosity alone will be an engineering triumph; anything that the rover does after will be a scientific bonus.
Of course, that “bonus” would be finding further evidence for water just below the surface and mineral evidence for the presence of ancient water held in the rocks Curiosity will zap, grind and sample. Should it find organic molecules in the soil, we’ll build on our knowledge for the habitable potential of the Red Planet.
In short, if the Mars Science Laboratory becomes half of the scientific goldmine it is predicted to be, it will surely invigorate a boost in NASA funding. Sadly, politics isn’t as predictable as that, and with only one major Mars mission planned after Curiosity – the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) mission scheduled for launch in 2013 – it’s hard to be optimistic for future NASA flagship robotic missions to Mars in the near term.
Reality check
For all the preparation, engineering and cutting-edge science that has gone into making Curiosity the success it is predicted to be, it’s time for a reality check.
The reason why there is so much hype surrounding the famous EDL – or “7 minutes of terror” – is that landing on Mars is risky. There is never a “safe bet” where missions to Mars are concerned. Although NASA has fared well in recent years – landing Mars Pathfinder in 1997, the Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity in 2003 and Mars Phoenix in 2008 – it has seen its failures including the Mars Climate Orbiter and Polar Lander in 1999. Out of 13 missions, NASA has seen five failures. It may be a better track record than Russia (that has seen 15 failed missions and only four partial successes), but Mars should never be taken for granted.
So as we watch the clock count down to the anxious wait in the early hours of Monday morning, we can only wish Curiosity a safe landing. Everything else is in the hands of the NASA’s engineering prowess and a heavy dose of Martian good luck.
Ian O’Neill is Space Science Producer for Discovery News. He is also the founder and editor of space blog Astroengine.
Follow him on Twitter: @astroengine | {
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UK coronavirus death toll surges by 917 to 9,875
The number of coronavirus-related deaths in the UK rose by 917 on Saturday. Picture: PA
By Nick Hardinges
The number of people to have died in the UK after contracting coronavirus has leapt by 917 to 9,875.
A further 5,234 people have tested positive for Covid-19, bringing the nation's tally of infections to 78,991.
It comes after 73,758 people were reported as contracting the virus as of Friday.
The 917 new deaths represent another significant rise on the total tally of 8,958 reported yesterday.
The number of people to have died in hospitals after testing positive for coronavirus is accurate as of 5pm 10 April.
Similarly, as of 9am 11 April, a total of 269,598 people have been tested of which 190,607 returned negative.
There were 12,993 tests carried out on Friday.
For all the latest coronavirus updates, follow our live blog here
As of 9am 11 April, 334,974 tests have concluded, with 18,091 tests on 10 April.
269,598 people have been tested of which 78,991 tested positive.
As of 5pm on 10 April, of those hospitalised in the UK who tested positive for coronavirus, 9,875 have sadly died. pic.twitter.com/c0Bqs0JeUC — Department of Health and Social Care (@DHSCgovuk) April 11, 2020
It follows the worst day on record for coronavirus-related deaths in the UK on Friday when the tally rose by 980.
NHS England confirmed a further 823 coronavirus-related deaths, bringing the English tally to 8,937.
One of the victims was just 11-years-old and the oldest was 102.
Thirty-three of the patients had no known underlying health conditions and they were all aged between 29 and 94.
Their families have been informed.
A total of 542 people who tested positive for coronavirus in Scotland have died, a rise of 47 on Friday's figure, according to the Scottish Government.
Across the country, 29,903 people have now been tested for Covid-19, with 5,590 testing positive.
As of Friday night, 1,855 patients were in Scottish hospitals with either confirmed or suspected coronavirus, an increase of 23.
Of those, 212 were being treated in intensive care units, up five from the previous night and the same number as on Thursday.
Listen & subscribe: Global Player | Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | {
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Judge James Robart of Washington state, whose ruling in February froze President Trump's first travel ban, decided Thursday that the president's revised travel ban is not subject to the prior injunction enforced against the first one.
This happened after a federal judge in Hawaii, followed by another in Maryland, put the revised travel ban on hold hours before it was set to take effect.
Plaintiffs in the case had argued that tenets of the president's new executive order, specifically that the 90-day suspension of to travel from six majority-Muslim countries and a 120-day freeze on refugees entering the U.S., were nearly identical to that of the first order.
The administration pushed back against that assertion, saying the new order is substantially different and completely lawful.
In his ruling, Robart says "the court agrees with Defendants that the limited scope of the court's prior injunction does not carry over to EO2 [the second executive order]." He continued: "The court cannot conclude that the policy changes in EO2 are minor or that EO2 represents nothing more than a 'renumbering' of policies that the court has already enjoined. Accordingly, the court declines to apply its preliminary injunction concerning EO1 to provisions contained in EO2."
Robart said unlike in the first executive order, the second one did not go into immediate effect, the travel ban did not include nationals from Iraq and the second order "eliminates the indefinite suspension of refugees from Syria that was in EO1 and contains no preference for religious-persecution claims of religious minorities."
He also noted other distinctions, including the second executive order's narrower scope, absence of limitations on asylum seekers and analysis of the conditions in each of the six countries listed in the travel ban.
The legal fight in Washington isn't over, however.
Robart has not yet ruled on a second case against the ban on immigrant visa-holders of the new executive order, in which the plaintiffs had requested a temporary restraining order. This temporary restraining order would not expand the scope of the one put in place by the ruling in Hawaii. | {
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“There’s a rebalancing of the generation resources, not only in our company but in this country that’s going on,” Nick Akins, the chief executive of AEP, said in an interview with The Washington Post. “There’s no doubt that there’s the expectation to move to that cleaner energy economy, and an opportunity for us to rebalance our fleet, which has historically been predominantly coal.”
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Invenergy is developing the wind farm, which AEP would then purchase, pending regulatory approval. The utility company would also construct a 350-mile power line to carry the electricity generated from the Oklahoma Panhandle eastward toward Tulsa — combined the farm and power line would be dubbed the Wind Catcher Energy Connection.
Two AEP subsidiaries would then use the power to service customers in Oklahoma and parts of Texas, Arkansas and Louisiana.
The project is expected to be completed in 2020, which would allow it to take advantage of the production tax credit for wind energy, according to AEP. That credit is slowly being phased down over time but will still apply, in reduced form, to projects that get their start in 2017, 2018 and 2019.
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“Obviously what it shows, that proliferation of renewable energy continues despite of what’s going on in Washington,” said Michael Polsky, the founder and chief executive of Invenergy.
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The announcement comes as AEP, like other large utilities, has announced consistent coal plant retirements in recent years. The company said it has taken 7.2 gigawatts of coal-fired power plants offline since 2012, reducing the share of coal in its power generation mix from 70 percent to 47 percent.
“If you look at the carbon reductions associated with that, our carbon has been reduced over 40 percent since 2005 as a result,” said Akins.
More retirements are expected in the future, according to the Sierra Club, whose Beyond Coal campaign has successfully driven numerous coal plant closures. The Sierra Club hailed the deal Thursday.
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The current Oklahoma wind project is unique because of its scale, said Pete McCabe, the president and chief executive of GE’s onshore wind business. AEP serves so many customers across four states, that it has led to the need for an especially large array of wind turbines.
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“The size of the project is unparalleled, the economics of the project are compelling,” McCabe said. He also noted that the project is expected to create a lot of jobs — AEP estimates 8,400 direct and indirect jobs while construction is occurring, followed by 80 lasting jobs once the wind farm is producing power steadily.
“It’s kind of right in the sweet spot of developing the economy and jobs in the middle of the country,” he said.
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Invenergy’s Polsky said the deal was attractive to power companies because it allowed them to purchase electricity at a fixed price over decades. There is no need to buy fuel for a wind farm, so there are no energy commodity prices to take into account. Whether more deals of this scale will happen, especially after 2020 when subsidies are removed, will depend on competition from the cheap price of natural gas, he said.
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Indeed, AEP’s Akins described the large wind purchase as a way of “hedging against fuel costs,” because wind prices won’t vary no matter what coal or natural gas prices do in the coming decades. He also agreed that the project was dependent on the production tax credit: AEP will invest $ 4.5 billion but recover $ 2.5 billion because of the credit, Akins said. | {
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We have finally reached the big milestone before broadcast. Red Dwarf XII’s official trailer aired on Dave last evening. And unlike with Series XI’s trailer, this time we didn’t have to sit through the entirety of Series 2 of Red Dwarf to see it.
The trailer comes in two forms. The broadcast version has Led Zepplin’s Immigrant Song. For the online version this has understandably (but sadly) been replaced by library music.
To see the trailer in lovely HD you can find it on YouTube here.
We start with the now classic fly-by of the bigature set to the same music from the teaser trailer. This time though this time we get a slightly longer shot, and as such a bit more of the music cue.Nothing too new here, but it’s always nice to hear new Red Dwarf music.
Our first look at the modern Red Dwarf landing bay as built by the Models Unit. It’s not quite like any landing bay we’ve seen previously, but it gives enough of the flavour of what we expect that we can get on board with it. We’re particularly pleased that the set is a mix of practical and CGI, which helps with the believability somewhat.
Lister, in a joke reminiscent of Doctor Who, turns on Starbug with a slam of the fist, and gives us a nice close up of the console controls, which we’ve previously had a glance at in the XI mobile game.
It’s also at this point that the music shifts into Immigrant Song by Led Zeppelin. It’s a piece of music that often gets used in trailers due to a good exciting, driving rhythm, with recent proponents including the latest Thor film. However as it gets going across the next few shots, it becomes apparent that Robert Plant’s cries are not the only voice present in the track, as we can hear The Cat’s familiar oww’s lined up perfectly. It’s a really great little touch that might not even be picked up by a lot of people casually catching the trailer, but we hugely applaud it’s use here.
Unfortunately, as previously stated, the online version of the trailer replaces this with library music, doubtless due to copyright concerns. And while that version is basically fine, it certainly doesn’t work as well when you compare the trailers side by side. Sadly, that will almost certainly be the version that appears on the DVD, but provided they don’t getting taken down due to copyright claims of their own, there are at least ripped copies of this on Youtube for now.
We next get a side on view of Starbug taking off that is very similar to the one in Give & Take. Isn’t it nice to see Starbug have a bit of smoke while taking off again?
Now we have another look at the Starbug outer landing bay built into the Series XI Red Dwarf bigature as seen several times in Series XI. We’ll ignore the issues of size differences for now due to the practical need of using part of the existing model. Like the interior, it’s different to what we are used to, but it’s nice to have it back again, rather than skipping past it as in Series X and XI.
Starbug heading for a planet with an engine not working. This reminds us of something…
Thanks to Nik Afia the man behind #RedDwarfXI & #RedDwarfXII 's storyboards. Here's one from Friday night. pic.twitter.com/TkMKWLwF2o — Richard Naylor (@RichardDGNaylor) February 14, 2016
Yes, this was posted after the third episode was recorded so we have a pretty good idea which episode this appears in. Set reports mentioned the use of storyboards to the audience, and what we have here appears to be the practical realisation of one of those.
With the Bug heading towards what appears to be a small moon, we have to ponder on why one of the engines is out. Battle damage? general disrepair? Crash landing?
We then cut to a location shot, and there seems to be little doubt that this is filmed at Sunbury Pump House, which has of course previously appeared in the show as Justice World. For those unfamiliar, this photo of the pump house as it is day to day should jog the memory, but it should also go a long way to suggesting that this is indeed the location the crew were filming at back in January last year as this tweet from Craig shows:
Late night shoot on board Red Dwarf. Freezing and boiling in equal measure pic.twitter.com/XePCb6YAW3 — Craig Charles (@CCfunkandsoul) January 20, 2016
While it’s the same location that appeared in Justice, we’d be somewhat surprised if it was a return to the location seen in the show, and the way the set appears to be lit also seems to confirm that we are looking at something different here.
Zooming in on the action from the previous shot, we have a look at what appears to be a clean-off as two mechanoids, one of which appears to be the Lister-droid, go toe-to-toe with mops.
As with the Series XI trailer, we next cut to another scene with Rimmer’s light bee shutting down. Could this be linked to one of Starbug’s engines shutting down? Or could this be an attack by the Mechanoid Intergalactic Liberation Front?
We now jump to the “Crew Check”. This section features some nice episode specific references to keep long time fans happy, whilst re-introducing the characters for casual viewers or those who aren’t entirely familiar with the show. It’s a different way of doing things, and the thing it brings to our minds is the original trailer for The End, but one commendable upshot of it is that we get a sense of what the show is without having to spoil too much footage.
That’s not to say there aren’t some bizarre things in the written bios that appear though. They flash by too quickly to take in great details unless you’re the kind of sad wretch that screen caps the trailer to be mean about some throwaway detailing. Luckily, we happily fall into this camp, so let’s critique away!
Dave Lister ‘Cinzano Bianco’? We understand why it’s been written out like this, but it’s a bit odd. Clearly it should be written out as Dave ‘Cinzano Bianco’ Lister as is in the show, but we’d suspect the thought was that the characters name should appear in full so it isn’t confusing. But you wouldn’t ever write it out this way, and taking similar nicknames in the manner sounds weird too. You wouldn’t, for example, say Ron Harris Chopper unless you were describing the footballer’s choice of aviation device or giving a police report on what he flashed at you in a park.
For once they managed to refrain from doing a Lister likes curry joke. If you think that is surprising, just remember that they sent a curry to space to launch Series X.
Shot wise, we have him aboard Starbug with a bizarre guitar that seems to be cobbled together from junk hat includes a bowl painted with the design from Eddie Van Halen’s guitar. Given that Lister has changed the guitar he plays several times through the course of the show, it’s not surprising to see him with a new one, but the bashed together nature of this makes us wonder if this is a replaced because something has happened to his?
Next up we have Kryten, whose full name is apparently ‘Additional’. It’s such a specific mistake though that we suspect it must be taken from the cut line in the Inquisitor where Kryten states his log on name is Kryten and that his registration code is ‘Additional: 001’. It’s especially glaring given that Kryten does have a full name, and as the kind of people reading these captions will know only too well it is Kryten 2X4B-523P and is referenced directly in the show. Sigh.
As you can see, Like Kryten, we also like correcting people. Not that he has ever seemed to take great pleasure in it. Oh well…
Caption wise, The Cat’s entry is largely error free, though we’re not sure that we’d say he actively ‘likes’ mice. Yes, traditionally cats enjoy, catching, torturing, killing and eating mice before dragging the remains through your house (the little bastards), but noticing the characteristic of a cat does mean it’s a characteristic of The Cat.
What is interesting here isn’t so much the accompanying text but rather the video of Cat which features him holding some sort of gun whilst wearing a towel around his neck. He might need a towel if he got rather wet. Which brings us neatly to the previously tweeted picture of a drowning Cat.
So there you have it. It seems The Cat will get wet, and then he will get dry. Who says we don’t bring you huge plot spoilers now and then?
Finally we reach Rimmer. The trinket he is playing with could possibly be the device he appears to be holding in the teaser trailer when he appears in his Series 1 uniform. Text wise, this is the closest to being bang on, and the resurrection of trans-am wheel arch nostrils is particularly enjoyable. Again though, it’s all so very nearly correct, and then his rank is listed as Z Watch not Z shift. We realise it’s a small detail on a trailer and that ultimately it doesn’t matter, but nevertheless it’s annoying when something so well done is let down by a small detail that shouldn’t be hard to check.
Our applications for the crit-cops are duly in the post.
Coming out of the crew check, we have a wide shot of the previously revealed CGI spaceship. A shot which screams scale. One thing Series XI proved is that the current team were better at doing CGI effects than they were physical based effects so I would be happy with a move more to CGI based shots in Series XII. Could this be the Mechanoid Intergalactic Liberation Front kidnapping the crew? The one difference we have from what we saw previously is that this appears to be taking place over a planet.
Our first look at the Rimmer-droid in action. We’ve stated before, but this shot goes further to prove that the makeup here looks fantastic and really Chris’ appearance and mannerisms really shine through it. The look for absolute horror at his mechanisation (or the startling revelation that he has hands) really is superb and exactly what we would have hoped for. It certainly does whet the appetite to see the whole gang react to their mechanised predicament.
Give Rimmer’s reaction, we can probably deduce that this is just after the crew have been mechanised, and given the apparatus around them, it wouldn’t be an unreasonable guess to assume that it might be done via some kind of mind swap. Either that or they are in fact retro hairdryers and the crew are lining up for a lovely perm.
Now we see Cat, Kryten and Rimmer arrive in a white room reminiscent of the Future Zone in the resurrected Crystal Maze, and seemingly linked to the previously released pictures from the past few weeks:
Still looking good for 3 million years old! #RedDwarfXII pic.twitter.com/Zmd5YLIzbO — Red Dwarf (@RedDwarfHQ) August 4, 2017
This news is Strictly confidential, but @helen_george will guest star in #RedDwarfXII on Dave this October! pic.twitter.com/mLEnT0Y4mO — Red Dwarf (@RedDwarfHQ) September 1, 2017
Given what appear to M-Corp logos on the walls and transporter, there seems little doubt which episode this comes from. All of which could imply the crew get separated from Lister, during which he ages greatly. So far, so the novels, then. Given how highly we rate those, we could easily get on board with this idea.
Whilst some people aren’t as big fans of call backs as others, you would have to be pretty cold-hearted not to fill with joy at the sight of the gang doing the “boys from the Dwarf” hands as previously seen in Demons and Angels. Considering the computer panels in front of them and the green background, this could be in Starbug’s midsection, though the table is different from the one shown in the photos last week. The wall behind them looks like it could also serve as a mortuary. Perhaps this is a redress of the Starbug midsection to serve as another set.
Note Cat also appears wearing the towel to the far-right.
Another shot of the menacing scarred Rimmer. On first glance it might seem like this would fit with the synopsis released for Cured however one of the clues revealed by Doug Naylor for the episode Timewave was Scar.
The final scene shown in the trailer starts here with Cat and Lister on a gas moon with Rimmer, donning new but quite retro looking space suits adorned with JMC insignia. Yes the green screen work here is very apparent, but you know what? We really don’t care here.
And as is the format on the previous Dave trailers we have had, we close on a small joke, as Rimmer names a gas moon after himself and Lister proclaims that Rimmer is so full of gas. Wrapping things up on a nice laugh that while perhaps an expected line should really just be considered in the context of a small element of a scene.
Closing things out we have the same shot from the teaser, but with multiple clouded versions of the logo flying into make the familiar one, in what we’d guess may end up being how the title appears on the actual episodes. Which screen you see at the end here though will depend on which version you are watching. The online version mentioned earlier with it’s different music has the logo without the strange cutting off of the W and the A we complained about previously, and has added the actual date the series airs on Dave.
Currently, these are the only two versions of the trailer we have seen, but given there were a lot of variations in the lead up to Series XI, we certainly wouldn’t be surprised to see a few crop up over the coming days and weeks. If you aren’t already, it’s probably good time to start switching over to Dave. | {
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MEN The Doberman was taken in after he was found wandering around Birmingham
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The Doberman was taken in after he was found wandering around Birmingham New Street station on his own. Believing he was a stray, the volunteers took him on a trip to the vets only to discover he had been microchipped, tracing him back to Huddersfield - a three-hour journey. But the chip had no contact number for the canine’s owners, so the now-homeless pooch has been taken in by Hilbrae Kennels in Telford, Shropshire. Volunteers at the kennels believe the clever dog must have somehow managed to swap trains at Manchester Piccadilly, which link Birmingham New Street with Huddersfield.
Posting on their Facebook page, the Hilbrae Kennels said: “Unfortunately there is no phone number on the chip. We have informed everyone we can think of and now we are turning to Facebook to trace his owners. “He is a lovely boy and we would love to get him home.” The kennel owner confirmed they had written to the practice the hound was registered to but were still waiting for a response. The unnamed animal is described as a medium build Doberman, with a black coat and red markings.
PA The dog travelled to Birmingham New Street station
We have informed everyone we can think of and now we are turning to Facebook to trace his owners. He is a lovely boy and we would love to get him home Hilbrae Kennels
He was found wearing a silver chained collar, however it does not detail any address or name for the missing mutt. Anyone who recognises him is urged to contact the kennels on 01952 541254. Animal-lovers were keen to assist in the appeal, with more than 13,000 people sharing the post on Facebook. One woman wrote: “Ahh he’s beautiful, I hope you manage to reunite him with his family. I’ve had dobermans since 1989, they are fantastic dogs, very loyal and a great family pet.”
GOOGLE The dog was traced back to Huddersfield - a three-hour journey | {
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THERE IS A mysterious toilet bowl terrorising the Fingerpost Roundabout in Douglas, Cork. Been there since last Wednesday, like a lost soul, wandering without meaning.
Was it misplaced? Abandoned? Did it run away?
Either way, the toilet, named Douglas Jacksbowl, has taken up tweeting as it was feeling lonely. Aw.
So far, it’s going through a bit of an identity crisis
I've moved !! Don't I look welll? I've been here since Wednesday - someone MUST recognise me ?? pic.twitter.com/Wa0vWocwxU — Douglas Jacksbowl (@dougjacksbowl) July 13, 2014 Source: Douglas Jacksbowl /Twitter
It’s a bit vain…
In response to those who wanted a closer look at me - I'm delighted to oblige... pic.twitter.com/FyRgod2tP0 — Douglas Jacksbowl (@dougjacksbowl) July 13, 2014 Source: Douglas Jacksbowl /Twitter
And is a big sports fan
It's been a good day! Cork win, Germany win & I have 25 followers on the Twitter machine. Yay! pic.twitter.com/E7LtnAqjvL — Douglas Jacksbowl (@dougjacksbowl) July 13, 2014 Source: Douglas Jacksbowl /Twitter
But it cuts a lonely figure as it accepts its inevitable fate
Enjoy it while you can Douglas, before you’re put back into a bathroom captivity.
A tweeting toilet. What a time to be alive. | {
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If the Government go ahead with this proposal they must provide everyone on the electoral register with free ID so that everyone is able to vote. | {
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Everyone is doing meth And i'm just sitting here masturbating for 10 to 12 hours
199 shares | {
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DeMarcus Cousins of the Golden State Warriors during warm-ups before a game against the Los Angeles Clippers on Nov. 12, 2018, at STAPLES Center in Los Angeles.
There are two stories of how Golden State Warriors center DeMarcus “Boogie” Cousins got his nickname. One is true, one is apocryphal. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t some truth to that one as well.
One begins in Alabama, where there’s a proprietary way big black bodies get treated by the people who need them to win ballgames. As a 6-foot-9-inch 10th-grader, Cousins was kicked off his Birmingham high school team after an altercation with a coach on the bus after a game. Soon, people were saying that Cousins had beaten up his coach — because with Cousins, the story always gets bigger — and that was the beginning of the Boogie Man.
Cousins’ mother, Monique, retells the real Boogie Cousins origin story: about how former NBA star Rod Strickland, then an assistant coach at the University of Kentucky, where Cousins was a one-and-done, became enchanted by the smoothness of the big man’s moves and chalked it all up to the “boogie” in him.
More than a decade later, that story remains true. Cousins, 28, is a 6-foot-11-inch, 270-pound bruiser with this refined, almost feathery touch around the basket. Historically, it is the exact opposite of the touch he’s had with other people, which contributed to his reputation as volatile on the court and a challenge in the locker room. And explains why, to some NBA watchers, the Boogie Man is real.
The four-time NBA All-Star landed a modest one-year, $5.3 million contract with Golden State after rupturing his Achilles tendon in January 2018 while he was with the New Orleans Pelicans. After an injury-shortened season in Oakland, California, Cousins will appear in the playoffs for the first time this spring. Unlike his messy years in Sacramento or his brief time in New Orleans, the Warriors are replete with big names and outsize personalities, and Cousins doesn’t have to be the whole show. This past year, he’s gotten a chance to step back a little and consider which Boogie he’s going to bring to the court and into the future.
With a potential championship on the line and his career in the balance, this season is more than a comeback. This year, Boogie Cousins is trying on something new for size.
Two games this spring helped answer some of the questions. One was his first off the rip.
After a grueling yearlong rehabilitation — the boot, the crutches, the leg that felt useless, the thoughts he couldn’t quiet — Cousins finally got back on the court against the Los Angeles Clippers on Jan. 18. Physically, he was antsy; emotionally, he was a bundle of nerves.
He began the game with a thunderous dunk and ended up with 14 points, a block, a steal, 6 rebounds and 3 assists in a 112-94 Warriors victory. Yes, he fouled out early in the fourth quarter. But, hey, he didn’t get any technical fouls — holla! — and his new teammates rose to their feet and cheered him on his way to the bench.
“It looked like he just wanted to cry,” said forward Draymond Green. “The first points is him flying down the middle of the paint with a right-hand tomahawk. It’s like, dude, you don’t jump like that! Where is that coming from?”
“To get to that moment, it means the world to me,” Cousins remembers. “It may not mean much to others, but I knew the grind and the blood, sweat and tears put throughout that process.” After being gone for so long, “when I first play, to have an athletic play down the middle was one of the best feelings ever.”
Falling and taking a long time to get back up has changed him. “A lot of times in adversity, people just look at it like it’s the worst thing ever. In actuality, it’s not. It sucks in the moment, but you overcome in that moment. You overcome in that adversity. It builds you as a person. It’s almost like putting armor on. It’s putting armor on over your body for that next situation, ’cause it’s not gonna be the end. That next situation, you’re much stronger. You’re more prepared and tough that next moment. And then the process starts over. I think adversity builds a person.”
Earlier in the season, he had played a role in the locker room, intervening to help calm a dust-up between Green, whom he’d known from the 2016 gold medal-winning U.S. Olympic team, and Kevin Durant. “He was one of the guys talking to everybody in that situation, one of the guys making everything right,” Green said.
His return began helping the Warriors on the court as well. The team won nine out of 10 games after Cousins’ return. But by mid-March, Golden State was going through a lackluster stretch, having lost two of their previous three games, including a 128-95 blowout loss to the Boston Celtics at home on March 5 in which Cousins got a technical for a shoving match with the Celtics’ Terry Rozier. He also was getting dinged in the media with questions about his mobility and defensive shortcomings.
The Boogie of old might have felt a type of way about that.
That guy would run the fast break, catch balls in traffic, rebound every board. But he was perpetually aggrieved, always squaring up against players he thought took cheap shots, and fighting with refs and teammates. He made history as the fastest player to hit 16 technical fouls and earn a one-game suspension since the NBA instituted the rule in 2005. He got into a shouting match with the media.
This season, there’s much less of that.
The second game that helped answer who Cousins had become was on March 13 against the Rockets in Houston. It was the toughest challenge of Cousins’ return to date and a crucial foreshadowing of the playoffs. With Durant sidelined by an ankle injury, Cousins scored a then-season-high 27 points (he’s since scored 28, on April 2 against Denver), to go along with 8 rebounds and a team-high 7 assists in a 106-104 victory.
“DeMarcus was unbelievable,” said teammate Stephen Curry after the game. “He’s been through a lot this last year and has had some ups and downs since he’s been back, but nothing he does out there should surprise anybody. It’s just building that consistency, and he’s done an amazing job of that, so it’s going to get better for us.”
After the game, Cousins acknowledged the team victory, his standout performance — and the criticism from the media. “I’ve been around this team long enough to know how things go around here. You’re always looking for something to write a story about. I mean, I could care less, y’all gotta do y’all job and I gotta do mine. Y’all looking for a story. It is what it is.”
He then invoked his beloved 92-year-old grandmother, whose death over the holidays had contributed to what Cousins called the toughest year of his life. She had her soap operas — she called them her stories, he recalled — and her favorite was As the World Turns.
“I used to watch it with her and, you know, every episode it was something. That’s what this has turned into: As the World Turns.” Every day, there’s some new drama.
He’s seen it his whole life.
It’s the early December morning of the annual charity event, Santa Cuz, in Mobile, Alabama. Cousins’ mother and older sister, Ryan Knight, along with his younger sisters Auriel and twins Jessica and Jesslyn, are milling around near the doors of Target, answering questions and directing children. The only sibling missing is Cousins’ younger brother, Jaleel, who plays for the Santa Cruz Warriors of the NBA G League and couldn’t make it. His aunt Marcelete Stewart, a retired school principal, is making sure the cacophonous kids are getting in line behind color-coded banners, a different hue for each elementary school.
There’s no decision, tradition or meaningful part of Cousins’ life that doesn’t involve family. They are, for him, restorative. This is particularly true of his mom, a nurse who raised her six children — Cousins is the second-oldest — by herself on the Blues for Mister Charlie side of Birmingham.
Cousins is flying in for the seventh annual holiday shopping spree — he gives 100 kids $200 apiece — and for a quick visit. It’s just part of his charity work; he hosts a summer youth camp, has resurfaced a basketball court and paid for the funerals of shooting victims in Sacramento.
“This is my community. This is where I grew up, and I’m just spreading the love,” Cousins says.
He flew in on the Puma corporate plane, and the kids all get Puma bags and gear before the serious shopping begins. Each kid pairs up with a member of the Cousins family or one of dozens of local volunteers to power shop. And for the next two hours, Cousins walks among them, patiently posing for pictures, listening in on their shopping deliberations, sharing his thoughts.
“Monopoly?” he asks one young man.
“I had to buy it for my day care because we didn’t have one,” the boy says.
Adults come up to shake his hand and take selfies. A woman tells him she goes to church with his aunt. Another chides him for not remembering her since she knows his mother and he used to love the dressing she made especially for him. One gentleman invites him to be a guest speaker at his church any third Sunday of the month.
As he heads toward the front of the store, a 16-year-old, with four young children trailing her, says her cousin sent her to ask what she needs to do to be part of the shopping spree. He points the teen to Monique. “That’s my mom. She’ll take care of you.”
We come from “a humble beginning,” says Monique. “And we never forget. And that’s why it’s so important when you give back, the whole family is here.”
Growing up, Cousins played football, like nearly every big black boy in Alabama, until eighth grade and a chance meeting with Danny Pritchett, coach of the AAU Birmingham Storm. Pritchett saw DeMarcus and, thinking he was a high school student, asked if he knew any eighth-graders who wanted to play basketball. Within two years, Cousins was one of the top young players in the nation and all the proportions of his life were getting blown out.
“That’s what this has turned into: As the World Turns.”
Cousins was big from the time he was little, and Monique was always having to translate for her child — not his words, but his body and his age, and the ways those two things didn’t go together for many people. Their bond was born of a particular kind of imperative for the mother of a black child who is so big that he’s both sought-after and mistaken, and suffers as a consequence.
“We got a picture of him when he looked like he was 5 and he still had a pacifier in his mouth, and he was only 2,” Monique Cousins says. People would be like, “ ‘That boy’s too big to have a pacifier.’ ”
If he ran through a store and bumped into people, they got furious. “If he’s passionate about something and he beats on the table, all the dishes fall off,” Monique Cousins says. She would explain to her son why he couldn’t always act like other children, and why he was met with such contempt when he did. And because he was a child, he often didn’t understand.
His sister Ryan, a kindergarten teacher in Mobile, is also tall and says she’d feel it when people would question her brother. ” ‘Why are you acting that way?’ ” she says they’d ask him. “ ‘Why are you so tall? Are you sure you’re in the right grade?’ ”
Basketball amplified that. He was always playing against older kids looking to make a big name against his big body.
“The center position is the hardest position to play when it comes to the physicality of the game,” says Monique. “If you’re one of the guards, if you get one little touch, they’re calling the foul. But if you’re the center, you’re supposed to be able to take that. You’re the big man on the court.”
Opposing coaches would tell kids to “go in there and keep fouling him, and if they’ve got 10 people on the bench and you got five fouls, that’s 50 licks he takes in one game.” By the time DeMarcus graduated from high school, he’d gotten one of his front teeth knocked out four times. (A year later, at only 19, he became the face of the Kings, who, thirsting for a winning team, hung a full-body banner of him from the side of a building.)
Monique says she never sugarcoated his situation. “You’ve got to mentally and physically be tough,” she says. “But at times, the physical part of you is gonna tell your brain that s— hurts. And I can’t take not one more lick.”
As he got more successful, the family had to watch out for all the coaches, and all the coaches’ friends, who wanted to ply them with promises of shoe deals and scholarships to lure them away from Pritchett.
It made the family turn inward and led Cousins to put a premium on loyalty. He played with Pritchett his entire AAU career. His longtime business manager was a student manager when they were both at Kentucky. He’s engaged to a woman he’s known since high school. His head of security followed him from Sacramento. He’s got a tattoo that reads “Loyalty is Love.”
After the bus incident — Cousins said the coach put his hands on him first and he was defending himself — the state ruled he was ineligible to play at another Birmingham-area school. Monique Cousins moved her family to Mobile and introduced herself to LeFlore High School coach Otis Hughley. The coach had not sought her out, and his teams had already won six area championships, six regional championships and a state championship.
At his first practice, Cousins grabbed a rebound, sprinted the length of the court and threw a behind-the-back pass that ended in a layup. Hughley canceled practice. He needed “time to process.”
“I had to try to figure out how to use him. Because in my mind, a kid like that is fragile,” Hughley says. “He thought he wanted to play basketball, but what he needed was to be armed and equipped for this nasty world that had beat his head up until then so he didn’t trust anybody except his mother.”
Some of that belongs to the dirt of Alabama. The beat-ups were physical, but also racial and political. Football is the state religion, basketball is ascendant, and the fight for control of the black bodies that make it all run is largely unregulated. Or, as Hughley says, “In the South, it doesn’t matter what the rules are, they’ll make them up as they go. And they just went after him.”
Hughley managed his kids — like DeMarcus, a lot of them didn’t have a father at home — with consistency, accountability and honesty. “I was real hard on them, but I would take the other arm and just hug them and love on them,” said Hughley. DeMarcus was one of the nicer kids, but “he just got emotional. He just had to shut up and sit down.”
For college, Cousins chose coach John Calipari and the University of Kentucky, where he played with future NBA players John Wall, Eric Bledsoe (a friend from Alabama) and Patrick Patterson. The Wildcats went 35-3 and made it to the Elite Eight. As at LeFlore, it was a program with a winning tradition that didn’t solely rest on Cousins’ shoulders.
Put a pin in that.
To Monique Cousins, DeMarcus having to battle back after injury for a fraction of what he’d been worth was just more of the same. It’s part of the tribulations that characterized his seven years in Sacramento (with six coaches) and year and a half in New Orleans. “If it doesn’t come hard, then it’s not for DeMarcus,” she says.
But the injury unexpectedly gave Cousins something he’s never had. Time to be still. And to think.
“The past year has slowed me down,” Cousins says. It’s helped “me see the reality of this whole business, just appreciating every moment.”
He began rehabbing in Los Angeles and Las Vegas, with the early months marked by days of doubt and depression. He was starting in a game he had never played: the waiting game. Playing chess, watching movies, trying to quiet his mind. Hours in the gym, doing rep after tedious rep. He wondered if he’d ever play basketball again.
The return to playing wasn’t the end of the process, but another beginning. “I’m not where I want to be. I don’t think I’m anywhere close to being a finished product,” he said a week after his return in January. He knows that will take time.
“I suck at being patient, and this whole process has taught me how to be patient, even when I was fighting and going against it, you know? It’s crazy how you still learn lessons within lessons.”
Immediately after he tore his left Achilles, “I started trying to lie to myself. Just kind of, I guess, just keep a positive mindset with what was the reality of it. … It worked for a short distance — until I got to the MRI room.”
Then, “Everything just kind of flashed,” says Cousins. His career, his upcoming free agency. “Like, damn. You’re just kind of lost. You’re in the middle of the sea. In the middle of nowhere and there’s nothing around.”
Despite the injury, Cousins originally thought he’d re-sign with the Pelicans. He said he was told by general manager Dell Demps that the team was uninterested in bringing him back. Other teams weren’t a good fit or were unwilling to risk a contract, let alone a potential $180 million max contract, on a player who might never again be an All-Star. Stung, he signed with Golden State for $5.3 million in a move that shocked the basketball world. It even shocked his family at first. But then, they understood. The Warriors are a stable team, full of grown men who were already winning.
For Cousins, it was a chance to recover without being rushed back, on a star-studded team sure to go deep in the playoffs. Golden State got a big man in the middle to bring them new energy and extra motivation to win another championship. It’s a one-year deal, but everyone gets what they need, Hughley says.
Cousins hasn’t always used his powers for the good of the locker room. There’s a 2015 story, for instance, about how he intimidated former Sacramento guard Nik Stauskas on a team flight to China. Whatever the rap was, and whether or not it was deserved, that isn’t what teammates are saying now.
Warriors point guard Quinn Cook was Cousins’ teammate in New Orleans and has known him for a decade. “He’s just a good dude,” Cook says. He took third-year center Damian Jones “under his wing when he wasn’t playing and Damian was playing. As a young guy, to have a superstar player be so happy for your success and guide you and help you every single day.” In the locker room, “he’s fit right in. And he’s taken us to another level. He’s just such a really good guy, and he deserves all the success.”
Green saw Cousins cry in the weight room during rehab. He saw how nervous and vulnerable he was before the first game. He encouraged teammates to check on him, to make him feel welcome. “You’re coming in where you’re not just the guy, you’re a guy,” Green says. “That’s how we all view ourselves, by the way. He hasn’t come in and tried to throw his weight. He’s tried to fit in and find his role within the team.”
Green says the team wants to help Cousins get something he’s never had: a championship. “One hundred percent extra motivation. It’s a lot more special when you’re playing for something bigger than yourself.”
“I suck at being patient, and this whole process has taught me how to be patient, even when I was fighting and going against it.”
Head coach Steve Kerr says he tries to manage people according to their needs, their insecurities, their hopes for the future. So when Cousins became a Warrior, Kerr set about getting to know him. They ate together, they texted. “I think it all starts with a connection. I don’t think you can coach a guy unless you really know him. He can’t trust you unless he knows what you’re about.”
And you need trust to heal. “As an athlete, having been through some tough injuries myself, it’s beyond the physical,” Kerr said. “When you’ve been injured, you can be fragile, especially a very serious injury like an Achilles. So to get back to the level where he knows he can get out there and dominate a game can take a lot of work. It’s going to take some failure first.”
Before the Boston game in January, Cousins talked about being back. “My spirit feels unbelievable,” he said. In the recovery process, “you kind of go back and forth with yourself about continue your career, continue to fight through it, or whatever the case may be. You almost kind of lose that joy and that love for it.”
In Houston in March, he was just having a good time: “Every team wants to beat us. It’s every team’s Super Bowl,” Cousins said. “It’s a lot of fun to play with this type of talent, to share the responsibility and play the right way every night. It’s a lot of fun.”
Kerr learned he needs to check in on Cousins. Keep him posted about what to expect, what the team is trying to accomplish, “and constantly reminding him to channel the energy and channel the emotion in the right way. And when you do, you’re a powerful force for the group.”
Cousins had always been on younger teams that needed him as a focal point, Kerr observed. And he was younger too.
But the Warriors are a different type of party. The playoffs are almost a different season, in which different decisions are made about the lineup, about plays and playing time. You do what it takes to win, regardless of who’s in their feels, and “part of our job has been to get him to fully grasp what we’re walking into, where personal feelings gotta go to the side,” Kerr said.
Since his return to the court in January, Cousins has averaged 16.3 points, 8.2 rebounds and 3.6 assists over 30 games. He continues to draw technical fouls, with seven over that stretch. (He leads the league in technical fouls over the past decade.) He was tossed out of one game in late March for a flagrant foul 2, although Kerr says the contact, to the other player’s head, was inadvertent. But he stayed relatively cool after getting a tech (later rescinded by the league) for tossing another player’s lost shoe to the sidelines in a February game against Charlotte.
He’s been a force down low and adds a new suite of offensive options to the Warriors, who for decades have lacked a powerhouse big man. Still, on the eve of his first playoffs, it’s an open question whether Cousins has covered the ground he needed to cover. This summer, he’ll be looking for a new contract and probably a new team. He had to demonstrate he is capable of returning to All-Star form, of making the guys around him better, of being a good fit for a new team. It’s a subjective judgment, and historically, those have not inured to Cousins’ benefit. Teams will have to decide who it is they think they’re looking at. And which stories about him they’re willing to believe.
Cousins says he’s not thinking too much about what’s going to happen this summer. He’s trying not to even think too much about the potential championship run. Fame came early and he had to grow up under a harsh light, but he’s not stuck in time. He’s had to let go of others’ expectations.
“I want my family and myself to be comfortable wherever I am at the time, and just be able to relax and kind of let my hair down,” says Cousins. “I’m going to be judged. My life is in a fishbowl. They gonna love you and they gonna hate you. I’m being the best me every day.”
And there’s something else he’s letting go of. Something that, at times, has weighed him down and blown him out of proportion. “It’s just like, Jesus Christ! It’s so much extra put on with ‘Boogie,’ ” Cousins says.
He’s had time to face himself in the past year, and he’s come to terms with the things that scare him. “I don’t want to be Boogie,” Cousins says. “I just wanna be DeMarcus.”
It’s something new in the NBA, and in life, that he’s trying on for size.
Liner Notes Marc J. Spears, The Undefeated’s senior NBA writer, contributed to this report. | {
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Jen and Sylvia Soska's long-gestating remake has landed a pair of distributors as it readies for a planned April start date.
After years of chatter and rumor, the Soska sisters — filmmakers Jen and Sylvia Soska, known as the “Twisted Twins” in horror cirlces — are finally on deck to make their long-gestasting remake of David Cronenberg’s 1977 body horror classic “Rabid.” The remake was first announced back in 2016, but the film is now finally a go, bolstered by Shout! Studios, which has picked up all U.S. rights to the film.
Just announced at this year’s Berlin Film Festival, “this multi-year agreement provides Shout! Studios with digital, on-demand, broadcast, home entertainment, and select SVOD rights to the ‘Rabid’ feature remake for cross-platform releases in the U.S.” Clay Epstein’s Film Mode Entertainment handled sales for the project, including UK rights, which have gone to 101 FILMS.
Jen and Sylvia Soska will direct the new feature from a screenplay they have adapted with John Serge from the original Cronenberg classic. The remake is now in the pre-production phase and principal photography is expected to begin in April.
Per an official release, the film will draw “influence from the original movie, [and] the remake will follow Rose, a young woman who, after an accident leaves her scarred beyond recognition, undergoes a radical untested stem-cell treatment. While turning Rose into the belle of the ball, the experimental transformation comes at a price.” The film will reportedly also offer up a “modern and relevant spin from the woman’s perspective.”
“It’s a tremendous honor to be re-imaging David’s 1977 body horror classic, ‘Rabid,’ with such incredible support behind us. We are not fans of soulless remakes as seems to be the trend these days as they disrespect the fans and the original body of work,” the sisters said in an official statement. “Our ‘Rabid’ is a continuation of the thoughts and conversation David started with his original piece and modernized through a female perspective.”
“Remaking one of the seminal films of David Cronenberg’s early work is audacious, exciting and not a little nerve-wracking. But there are no better hands in which to place this challenge than the four belonging to the enormously talented Soska sisters. Their creative vision will both honor the Cronenberg ethos and find in ‘Rabid’ a currency that will terrify today’s audiences,” said Jordan Fields, Vice President of Acquisitions at Shout! Studios, in an official statement.
The Soskas added, “This film marks our triumphant return to body horror, which has been highly anticipated by our fans all around the world. We love our fans and have been blown away by the outstanding support from every corner of the globe. I know audiences will be ravenous to find out when and where they’ll be able to get their paws on our newest nightmare. Stay tuned.”
Back 40 Pictures will handle the theatrical distribution duties. The feature is being developed and produced by Back 40 Pictures in conjunction with Telefilm Canada and Ontario Media Development Corporation. Michael Walker, Paul Lalonde, and John Vidette are serving as producers.
Sign Up: Stay on top of the latest breaking film and TV news! Sign up for our Email Newsletters here. | {
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A callous thief ripped off an urn filled with a dearly departed’s ashes from a Long Island driveway, police said Friday.
The crook swiped the gilded, decorated urn sometime between 9:45 p.m. July 22 and 7 a.m. the next day from inside a 2010 Chrysler that was parked in the driveway of a home on Elkon Lane North in North Babylon, Suffolk County police said.
CrimeStoppers provided a photograph of the urn, which cops said was worth approximately $100.
Authorities are offering a $5,000 cash reward to anyone with information that ultimately leads to an arrest. | {
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Today’s people's choice
Just imagine what happens when some of the most creative minds in the education, research and commercial sectors get together to explore new and innovative virtual production technologies. The evolution of motion picture complexity has been driven by a continuing high-tech development.
The internet has largely facilitated in film distribution. Statistic shows that the number of people searching for : “http fmovies to watch movies online free” increase day by day. No doubt 15 years ago people did not imagine themselves searching for fmovies.to and get to huge database of movies, TV shows, series and so on.
However it makes me still wondering is it for good?
No doubt, sloth is the mother of innovation, last few decades gave us thousands of web-sites such as fmovies.ti . People who choose fmovies too watch online movies a lot. On one hand it is convenient to stay at home and watch whatever you want on the other hand people nowadays barely move.
Time flies the world is changing rapidly in few years we might not be able to recognize it. Surely, the progress will move forward by leaps thousands and millions sources as fmovie.co will appear. The Internet has largely affected our everyday life what cause us less agile way of life. Thinking of good and bad things concerning watching movies online it is obviously much more cheaper and more relaxing, although you sacrifice enjoying film on a big screen. | {
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Attorney General Eric Holder will fly to Paris tomorrow for what had been billed as high-level talks on security issues with French Justice Minister Christiane Taubira.
However it now appears that the actual motive for the trip is to investigate whether French police used profiling or excessive force in their handling of last week’s terrorist attacks in Paris.
“It hasn’t escaped the attorney general’s attention that the victims of these police shootings were North Afro-French, and the officers involved were white,” said a DOJ spokesman. “We want to know whether correct procedures were followed, and to what extent these shootings suggest institutional racism and/or white privilege on the part of the hostages who were rescued safely.”
In New York last night, a small band of protesters took the the streets, shouting slogans including, “Hands up, my AK-47 has run out of ammo,” “I can’t breathe in this stupid balaclava” and “Je suis Eric Garner et Michael Brown.” | {
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WASHINGTON — Pakistani officials say the Obama administration has demanded the identities of some of their top intelligence operatives as the United States tries to determine whether any of them had contact with Osama bin Laden or his agents in the years before the raid that led to his death early Monday morning in Pakistan.
The officials provided new details of a tense discussion between Pakistani officials and an American envoy who traveled to Pakistan on Monday, as well as the growing suspicion among United States intelligence and diplomatic officials that someone in Pakistan’s secret intelligence agency knew of Bin Laden’s location, and helped shield him.
Obama administration officials have stopped short of accusing the Pakistani government — either privately or publicly — of complicity in the hiding of Bin Laden in the years after the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. One senior administration official privately acknowledged that the administration sees its relationship with Pakistan as too crucial to risk a wholesale break, even if it turned out that past or present Pakistani intelligence officials did know about Bin Laden’s whereabouts.
Still, this official and others expressed deep frustration with Pakistani military and intelligence officials for their refusal over the years to identify members of the agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate, who were believed to have close ties to Bin Laden. In particular, American officials have demanded information on what is known as the ISI’s S directorate, which has worked closely with militants since the days of the fight against the Soviet army in Afghanistan. | {
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A controversial Northern Irish preacher has vowed not to be silenced by the courts as he faces prosecution for calling Islam "satanic."
Firebrand Belfast pastor James McConnell said he refused to accept a police warning about his anti-Islamic tirade because "they were trying to shut me up".
He is now due to be prosecuted for telling his congregation at the Whitewell Metropolitan Tabernacle in May last year that "Islam is heathen, Islam is satanic, Islam is a doctrine spawned in hell."
But the 78 year-old preacher insisted: "I’m not taking it lying down. I am not going to be gagged."
He added: "The police tried to shut me up and tell me what to preach. It’s ridiculous. I believe in freedom of speech. I’m going to keep on preaching the Gospel.
"I have nothing against Muslims, I have never hated Muslims, I have never hated anyone. But I am against what Muslims believe. They have the right to say what they believe in and I have a right to say what I believe," Mr McConnell said.
He added that he received over 20,000 messages of support after his anti-Islamic sermon went viral.
"People are supporting me and my family is behind me. I have no criminal convictions and I’ve no idea how this is all going to end up but I’m not going to be silenced," he said.
Speaking to his congregation in north Belfast last year, Mr McConnell said "a new evil had arisen" and "there are cells of Muslims right throughout Britain"."Islam is heathen, Islam is satanic, Islam is a doctrine spawned in hell," he said.
He said he agreed with the late MP Enoch Powell, whose 1968 "Rivers of Blood" speech criticised immigration.
"Enoch Powell was a prophet, he called it that blood would flow on the streets and it has happened," he said.
Following an angry backlash over his remarks Mr McConnell said he had not intended to "arouse fear or stir up or incite hatred" towards any member of the Muslim community.
At the time he said his remarks were inspired by hearing the story of pregnant woman Meriam Yehya Ibrahim (26), who was sentenced to death in Sudan after refusing to recant her Christian beliefs.
The PSNI then investigated a possible hate crime in relation to the comments which sparked anger in the Muslim and wider community and which Pastor McConnell later apologised for.
There was a political storm when First Minister Peter Robinson backed Mr McConnell during the row and was heavily criticised for comments of his own but later visited Islamic leaders to apologise.
The Public Prosecution said Mr McConnell was offered an informed warning but he declined.
The offence which the preacher will be prosecuted for is "one of sending, or causing to be sent, by means of a public electronic communications network, a message or other matter that was grossly offensive".
Belfast Telegraph | {
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Sob as asas de Bolsonaro, Paulo Guedes prepara o desmonte do BNDES, Caixa e Banco do Brasil. Os barões esfregam as mãos. A mídia cala
Por Paulo Kliass, em Outras Palavras
O primeiro dia da segunda semana do governo do capitão e de seus generais representou uma declaração de guerra do povo do financismo contra o nosso sistema dos bancos públicos federais. Ao contrário de todo o tipo de bateção de cabeça que se verificou nas definições das demais áreas da equipe de Bolsonaro, aqui nesse campo parece que o jogo é mais profissional e coordenado.
No decorrer da segunda-feira, 7 de janeiro, o que se viu foi um longo desfilar de cerimônias simbólicas e declarações de autoridades recém empossadas em seus cargos estratégicos na área econômica da administração pública federal. Em todos os momentos,o discurso uníssono gravitava em torno do espancamento do Estado, algo semelhante às cenas de malhação de Judas no sábado de Aleluia, durante o período pascal.
O superministro da economia oferecia ao pessoal do sistema financeiro privado aquilo que era por esses agentes tão ansiosamente esperado: declarações firmes a respeito da ampliação das benesses e prebendas àqueles que nada realizam em termos de produção real, mas que permanecem com a maior fatia do bolo gerado na riqueza nacional. À medida que o setor público perde espaço e atribuições, tais atividades são rapidamente absorvidas pelo capital privado.
O detalhe é que se tratava de eventos onde estavam sendo nomeados os dirigentes máximos dos principais bancos públicos da União. Ou seja, em tese, momentos em que nada havia de interesse direto com os espaços privados do financismo. Só que não! Na verdade, os novos presidentes das mais importantes instituições financeiras do País estavam afirmando — todos, em alto e bom tom — que o Estado era seu principal adversário. Ou seja, assumiam sem nenhum subterfúgio que sua missão, a partir de então, era a de manter sequência no processo de desmonte da participação pública no conjunto do sistema financeiro brasileiro.
Recados de Paulo Guedes
Paulo Guedes não poupou palavras em sua crítica à presença do Estado em nosso sistema bancário e de financiamento. Afinal, ele sempre havia defendido que as instituições bancárias governamentais fossem privatizadas de forma completa, aberta e explícita. Na impossibilidade política de levar a cabo seu projeto liberaloide extremado, o auto assumido como um integrante da banda dos “Chicago oldies” lança mão de um Plano B. Trata-se da estratégia de estrangular os bancos públicos por dentro, a partir de decisões da administração direta e das direções nomeadas para os mesmos. Morte por esquartejamento, asfixia e inanição. Segundo ele,
“Quando o credito é estatizado, sobra menos ao resto do Brasil, e os juros são absurdos. É esse tipo de distorção que essa equipe vai tentar eliminar. Essa é a filosofia do presidente. (…) Crédito também foi estatizado e sofreu intervenções danosas para o país”
Sua fala ocorria no momento em que dava posse aos principais responsáveis pelo Banco Nacional de Desenvolvimento Econômico e Social (BNDES), pelo Banco do Brasil (BB) e pela Caixa Econômica Federal (CEF). Ora, não deveria haver surpresa alguma com o que ele acusa de forma mentirosa e covarde de ser uma repentina e inesperada “estatização do crédito”. Afinal, em toda a sua vida como agente do financismo privado, ele fez vultosos negócios e ganhou fortunas exatamente com um modelo em que esses três bancos sempre foram os mais importantes no conjunto do sistema financeiro. E creditar a vigência de juros altos em nossa sociedade à presença de bancos públicos no sistema é um atentado à inteligência dos leitores.
Só que agora, a partir de sua fala, fica evidente que o financismo não está mais contente apenas com essas relações promíscuas desde sempre mantidas com as instituições públicas. O desejo revelado passa a ser o da incorporação definitiva do patrimônio desses gigantes do sistema de crédito ao setor privado, tornando desnecessária a conhecida terceirização da gestão de seus interesses a partir dos dirigentes capturados no topo da máquina pública. É como se dissessem: “Chega de intermediação! Agora nós mesmo cuidamos diretamente desse negócio!”
Para o comando do BNDES, Guedes escolheu a dedo. Convocou Joaquim Levy para a missão desmonte. Economista liberal e conservador, ele tem uma longa lista de serviços prestados ao financismo, por dentro e por fora do Estado brasileiro. A ironia da História é que o último posto ocupado por Levy na Esplanada foi o de Ministro da Fazenda, no início do segundo mandato de Dilma Roussef. Havia sido nomeado por ela para iniciar a política de austericídio, na consumação do triste episódio do estelionato eleitoral.
BNDES, CEF e BB: rumo ao privado
Segundo Levy, haveria uma distorção na origem da composição dos valores que o BNDES apresenta em seu patrimônio. Isso porque há recursos públicos no banco público. Ora, qual a contradição? No entanto, há que se recordar que esse montante está ali justamente para que a instituição tenha condições de oferecer à sociedade brasileira aquilo que constitui sua missão precípua: financiar o desenvolvimento social e econômico, oferecer crédito de longo prazo a custo reduzido.
“Precisamos adequar o nosso balanço que hoje depende em uma proporção exagerada, embora menos do que há quatro anos, dos recursos do Tesouro. E tem que ser adequado para que se tenha o adequado retorno para a população”
E assim, ele se vale de um jogo de palavras e de manipulação contábil para fugir do ponto fulcral. O BNDES é um banco público do governo federal. Assim, ele sempre terá algum tipo de participação do Tesouro Nacional em sua composição. Nada mais natural: está em sua origem, em seu DNA institucional. Na verdade, Levy faz esse contorcionismo todo para fundamentar sua missão mais relevante: terminar a “devolução” de mais de R$ 200 bilhões que o banco havia recebido do Tesouro para financiar o desenvolvimento. Ou seja, pretende esmagar a instituição financeira para que o caixa central do governo apresente um resultado fiscal menos problemático aos olhos do financismo internacional. A eterna preocupação em gerar superávit primário a qualquer custo. Um verdadeiro vale tudo contra a economia brasileira.
Na direção da CEF, a operação é ainda mais descarada. O presidente escolhido, Pedro Guimarães, tem vasta experiência com operações de privatização no mercado financeiro. Além disso, ele vem a ser genro do executivo da construtora OAS, Leo Pinheiro – o responsável pela delação premiada do polêmico caso do tríplex no Guarujá, no processo contra o ex presidente Lula.. E ele já anuncia, logo de cara, o fim das facilidades para um segmento importante, que inclusive ofereceu apoio eleitoral ao então candidato Bolsonaro. Seria um tiro no pé? Veremos mais à frente,com as reações que vierem a se expressar. De acordo com ele,
“Quem é de classe média tem de pagar mais, ou vai buscar no Santander, Bradesco e Itaú. Na Caixa, vai pagar juro maior do que MCMV certamente, e vai ser juros de mercado. A Caixa vai respeitar acima de tudo mercado, lei da oferta e da demanda”
A estratégia do novo presidente, de há muito conhecida, provavelmente passará pela desqualificação de parte das operações desenvolvidas pela empresa pública, lançando mão da chamada “política de desinvestimento”. Traduzindo para o português, isso significa promover a privatização de áreas e setores que não estejam diretamente relacionadas à política habitacional. Na prática, trata-se de caminho que reduz a dimensão da CEF no conjunto do setor financeiro e que abre ainda mais espaço para a acumulação do capital privado. Não por acaso, ele já faz propaganda e marketing gratuitos para os três principais conglomerados privados em sua fala. Como exemplo, Guimarães já adiantou a participação acionária da instituição em outros empreendimentos, além das atividades oferecidas pela Caixa Seguridade.
Já no caso do Banco do Brasil, a posse foi mais discreta, menos espalhafatosa. O escolhido foi Rubem Novaes, outra pessoa de estreita confiança de Paulo Guedes. A exemplo de seu chefe, também fez seu doutorado em economia na Universidade de Chicago e foi professor na FGV. Talvez por ter um passado de direção em áreas públicas, ele foi menos ousado em suas primeiras palavras. Afinal, ele já foi presidente do Sebrae e diretor do próprio BNDES.
Nas palavras de Novaes, a nova administração do banco será“ eficiente, transparente e honrada”. Ele foi cauteloso na avaliação da capacidade funcional da empresa e disse que, durante a transição, teve a oportunidade de conhecer funcionários e dirigentes da instituição e sua avaliação é que contará com uma equipe “extremamente eficiente”. Por outro lado, disse que não havia uma nenhuma encomenda específica de Guedes, pois “não tem um recado direto para o BB”. Apesar de reconhecer que “abrir empresa para o mercado de capitais é positivo sempre”, Novaes não adiantou nada a respeito da especulação de abertura acionaria da BB Distribuidora de Títulos e Valores Mobiliários.
A se levar em conta as intenções expressas do comando da economia de Bolsonaro para os bancos públicos, a única certeza que permanece refere-se ao profundo risco que a sociedade brasileira continua a atravessar. Trata-se de um governo que pretende privatizar esse importante segmento do sistema financeiro e que ainda permanece em mãos do Estado brasileiro. Abrir mão do comando de instituições como esses três bancos públicos significa renunciar de uma vez por todos à possibilidade de que o protagonismo do Estado seja reativado em algum momento. Seja para colaborar na superação da crise atual, seja para contribuir no desenho de um verdadeiro projeto de desenvolvimento econômico e social de médio e longo prazos.
Afinal, todos sabemos que o discurso da suposta maior eficiência das leis de mercado para esse tipo de tarefa é conversa para boi dormir. Basta ver o histórico da contribuição de nossa banca particular para o financiamento de projetos sociais e estratégicos do País ao longo do tempo. O balanço é nulo! Banco privado por aqui sempre quis ganhar dinheiro e ponto final. De preferência, em grande escala e sem nenhum risco nem custo.
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Jair Bolsonaro e seu ”Posto Ipiranga”, Paulo Guedes. Foto: Reuters | {
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SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea's top court ruled on Tuesday Japan's Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corp. 5401.T should compensate four South Koreans for their forced labor during World War Two, a decision that could freeze ties between the uneasy neighbors.
Slideshow ( 11 images )
Nippon Steel said the verdict was “deeply regrettable” and that it would review it before taking any next steps. Japan’s Foreign Ministry said it would summon the South Korean ambassador.
In a landmark ruling, South Korea’s Supreme Court upheld a 2013 order for the company to pay 100 million won ($87,700) to each of the four steel workers who initiated the suit in 2005, seeking compensation and unpaid wages.
The court ruled that the former laborers’ right to reparation was not terminated by a 1965 treaty normalizing diplomatic ties, rejecting the claim by Tokyo and Japanese courts, Yonhap news agency said.
Japan and South Korea share a bitter history that includes Japan’s 35-year occupation of the Korean peninsula until 1945 and the use of comfort women, Japan’s euphemism for girls and women, many of them Korean, forced to work in its wartime brothels.
Japan’s Foreign Ministry told Reuters that the issue of compensation was “settled completely and finally” by the 1965 deal.
Lee Choon-shik, the 98-year-old sole surviving plaintiff, welcomed the ruling, saying in a televised news conference that it was “heartbreaking to see it today, left alone alive”.
Some Seoul officials and experts fear the court’s decision, final and binding, could bring repercussions for relations.
If Nippon Steel refuses to compensate, the plaintiffs could request a seizure of the company’s property in South Korea, which may result in an exit of some Japanese businesses and a cut in investment.
South Korea’s foreign ministry said in 2016 any seizure of company assets could drive relations into an “irreversible catastrophe”.
“We might have to brace for not only a diplomatic crisis but a pull-out of some Japanese firms and a fall in new investment,” said Shin Beom-chul, a senior fellow at Asan Institute for Policy Studies in Seoul.
Nippon Steel could seek international arbitration, said Jin Chang-soo, president of the Sejong Institute think tank.
“It’s possible that the case will escalate, stoke anti-Japanese sentiment here and spill over into other areas including security at a time when we need to closely work with Japan to resolve the North Korean nuclear issue,” Jin said. | {
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Supreme Court Denies Marijuana Suit From Colorado's Neighboring States
More than a year after Nebraska and Oklahoma sought to sue Colorado over the carry-over effects of that state's law making recreational marijuana legal, the U.S. Supreme Court has denied the two states' complaint.
The court did not explain its decision, with which Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas disagreed. Thomas wrote a five-page dissent in which Alito joined (a reminder: the court is currently at eight members).
Citing the Supreme Court's constitutional role in handling disputes between states, Thomas said that Nebraska and Oklahoma's claims of "significant harms to their sovereign interests" should have been allowed to proceed, and should not have been denied without explanation.
The two states began legal proceedings months after Colorado began allowing marijuana dispensaries to start selling pot for recreational use at the start of 2014.
As the Two-Way reported, "officials in Nebraska and Oklahoma say Colorado's pot law has become a destabilizing force in their states, where their legal systems are struggling to enforce the federal ban on marijuana. They believe Colorado isn't doing enough to keep pot from leaving the state."
The neighboring states had claimed their criminal justice systems were being put under stress because of Colorado's new law.
Reacting to today's news, Nebraska Attorney General Doug Peterson said he's disappointed. He also said the high court's denial doesn't mean that Colorado's "unconstitutional facilitation of marijuana industrialization is legal" — and Peterson added that he'll be looking at possible steps "toward vindicating the rule of law."
On the other side of the issue, Mason Tvert, the director of communications for the Marijuana Policy Project, called the case meritless.
"States have every right to regulate the cultivation and sale of marijuana, just as Nebraska and Oklahoma have the right to maintain their failed prohibition policies," said Tvert, who's based in Denver — and who helped lead his state's marijuana voter initiative. "Colorado has done more to control marijuana than just about any other state in the nation." | {
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SHINee are treating their Japanese fans first by releasing a new Japanese single 'Your Number' on March 11.This is their 1st Japanese single this year. In addition, the jacket photos for the two editions of the single album are also unveiled showing the boys with upgraded charisma.'Your Number' Japanese single album will be released in Limited Edition (CD+DVD) and the Regular Edition on March 11. | {
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Have you ever thought about the first impressions you make?
On a first date, at a business meeting, or during any other kind of interpersonal exchange, your age, gender, ethnicity, posture, voice and numerous other features – varying depending on the observer – come together to produce a subjective, abstract and sometimes, unfortunately, unfair impression of you. This whole process happens as quickly as one tenth of a second, after which it becomes much more difficult to impress otherwise or fix anything that went wrong.
Yes, it seems unjust, but isn’t it better to know exactly what you’re dealing with? From the condition of your hair to the state of your shoes, each component of your image contributes to how you’re perceived each day.
So, how do you ensure you’re received warmly, rather than pointedly dismissed, by your more style savvy peers?
The answer is texture, gentlemen. Texture – whether the supple smoothness of a nappa leather jacket or the resinous effect of a sweatshirt’s painted shoulder – is what separates the men from the boys.
What Is Texture?
By definition, texture is the feel, appearance or consistency of a surface or substance. In fashion, it may come from a material’s natural appearance or the way it has been treated (woven, printed, covered, embossed, etc.) for a functional or aesthetic purpose.
A bit like a fine wine, the richer and more complex the texture, the greater the degree of attention you capture, whether that’s a double-take of appreciation from a passer-by or someone so intrigued they can’t help but cop a feel.
With this in mind, check out some of the best ways you can add eye-catching 3D interest to your warm-weather ensembles this season:
Knitwear
Just because the sun is splitting the rocks outside, it doesn’t mean you can’t take advantage of knitted textures. Cable, ribbed and waffle knit jumpers and cardigans in season-appropriate gauges are well suited to summer wardrobes in need of some textural enrichment, and especially good for throwing on over the top of a vest or tee once the evening draws in.
As well as keeping your eye out for those designs in a finer gauge, you’ll also need to consider material. 100 per cent cotton, cotton-linen and cotton-silk blends are the breathable, lightweight fabrications that will allow you to harness knitwear’s distinctive texture for the warmer months of the year, without running the risk of overheating.
Like you would with your cold-weather knits, take some time to check that the jumper or cardigan you’re about to invest in is carefully crafted – i.e. tightly rather than loosely woven.
Other features that will help bring additional depth and character to your warm-weather knitwear include dip-dye or ombré effects, patterns/prints, as well as subtle marled or flecked detailing:
Key Pieces
He By Mango Textured Degrade Sweater
He By Mango Ombre Cotton Sweater
He By Mango Shawl-collar Textured Cardigan
Vince Dip Dye Cable Knit Crewneck Sweater
Allsaints Belfort Crew Jumper
Allsaints Metz Crew Jumper
He By Mango Flecked Cotton Linen-blend Sweater
Reiss Blade Honeycomb Weave Jumper Light Grey
River Island Blue Ribbed Long Sleeve Jumper
Beams Plus Flecked Knitted Linen Cardigan
Gant Rugger Marled Crue Cotton Sweater
Club Monaco Ribbed Cotton And Linen-blend Shawl-collar Cardigan
Bomber Jackets
Since there is not always the need for an outerwear layer during the high summer months, you’ll want to make sure that your jacket introduces texture to your look without adding unnecessary bulk.
For SS15, there is only one silhouette you should be considering: the bomber. Versatile and on-trend, consider picking up a seersucker, linen, or cotton-linen blend design; breathable and cool, these summer-ready fabrics are comfortable to wear even in the heat, enabling you to craft looks full of depth and texture throughout the season.
Alternatively, for something sportier, keep an eye out for nylon bombers – the fabric’s natural sheen will bring an interesting textural and visual element to your ensemble and works particularly well in streetwear-inspired looks.
For a more rugged workerwear feel, try something in luxurious suede or this season’s key fabric: denim. Ideal for slightly cooler spring/summer days, both materials are extremely tactile and will give a sense of weight to your ensemble.
All of these styles will adapt effortlessly to both casual and smart-casual aesthetics, whether you choose to dress yours up with slim-cut denim and an Oxford shirt for a night out or combine with relaxed jersey shorts and a marl cotton tee at the weekend.
Key Pieces
Asos Suede Bomber Jacket
Topman Blue Linen Bomber Jacket
Blue Collar Worker Bomber Jacket Denim
He By Mango Grosgrain-trim Nylon Jacket
He By Mango Cotton Linen-blend Jacket
River Island Matt Nylon Bomber
Gant Chambray Bomber Jacket
Reiss Toulon Suede Bomber Jacket Grey
Club Monaco Golden Bear Suede Bomber Jacket
River Island Dark Red Nylon Zip Through Bomber Jacket
Saturdays Surf Nyc Cotton Bomber Jacket
River Island Blue Seersucker Textured Bomber Jacket
Blazers
Just because temperatures are rising, it doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice your sartorial standards. When it comes to dressing up this season, a lightweight textured blazer will make the perfect addition to your spring/summer wardrobe.
Unlined jackets in cotton, chambray and jersey are classic warm-weather options, with their unstructured silhouette producing a slightly crumpled appearance that adds another level of interest to any smart-casual look.
Alternatively, seersucker and 100 per cent linen styles are the definition of smart, summer dressing. Although many men tend to shy away from both materials due to the traits that give them their distinct appearance – seersucker’s puckering and linen’s predisposition to wrinkling/creasing – we say embrace these natural quirks, which will not only bring texture to your outfits, but also help produce refined, relaxed looks that are full of character.
Finally, if you’re after something that’s sure to stand out from the crowd, keep your eyes peeled for knitted and brocade jackets this season.
Key Pieces
Topman Vito Blue Knit Blazer
Gap Seersucker Blazer
Gap Chambray Blazer
River Island Grey Linen Floral Lined Slim Blazer
He By Mango Linen Blazer
Reiss Foster B Melange Linen Blazer Grey
Jaeger Seersucker Modern Blazer
Reiss Costa B Chambray Blazer Blue
River Island Black Knitted Blazer Jacket
Polo Ralph Lauren Blue Morgan Unstructured Cotton-seersucker Blazer
Aspesi Blue Slim-fit Chambray Blazer
Club Monaco Knitted Linen And Cotton-blend Blazer
Leather Accessories
Every style-conscious gent knows that accessories are essential during the warmer spring/summer months, when multiple layers are often a no-go. With this in mind, a high quality leather accent – whether in the form of a bag, belt, card holder or bracelet – can be just the thing you need to bring a welcome touch of texture to your stripped-back warm-weather ensembles.
When we picture leather, most of us will imagine a buttery smooth texture or something wrinkled and worn with a patina full of character after years of regular use. But there are so many other aspects to this natural material.
Take crocodile skin, also known as crocodile leather, for example. Hardly economical but inarguably luxurious, this type of leather is practically bursting with texture thanks to its undulating ridges and distinctive sheen – ideal for a wallet or folio if you have some serious cash to spare.
Of course, for those of us working with slightly more restrictive budgets, it’s not all bad news: modern tanners and brands are utilising embossing techniques that can give your leather accessories any look you want, from imitation reptile to flashy logos.
Subtler motifs, which have names like ‘saffiano’ or ‘straw grain’, are also widely available at both ends of the price spectrum, bringing depth to even the most simple of accessories, such as a classic leather holdall or your smartphone case.
Other finishes to consider include washed leather, offering a subtle effect that’s the antithesis to something like crocodile, and distressed leather, which is rugged and distinctly masculine.
And let’s not forget textural effects like woven and plaited leather, which work well not only for belts but also wallets and bracelets.
Key Pieces
Asos Smart Backpack In Black Leather With Crocodile Front Pocket
Allsaints Orchard Holdall
Reiss Patas Textured Leather Briefcase Dark Brown
Reiss Huie Textured Leather Belt Tabacco
Andersons Brown 3.5cm Woven-leather Belt
He By Mango Leather Braided Belt
Reiss Paul Textured Leather Fold Wallet Black
Parabellum Courier Zip-around Leather Wallet
Paul Smith Shoes & Accessories Burnished Leather Cardholder
Ted Baker Treebee Plaited Leather Band Bracelet
Reiss Croc Leather File Holder
Lotuff Full-grain Leather Ipad Mini Case
Footwear
Although leather and canvas are of course distinctive textures in their own right, it’s worth experimenting with other fabrics and textural details once the hot weather hits.
Suede and nubuck Derbies, brogues and monk-straps – provided you choose opportune times to wear them – will introduce a welcome tactile element to any formal outfit thanks to their plush finishes. Just make sure you maintain this luxurious appearance by caring for them properly.
For a contemporary take on classic leather footwear, why not try basket-weave loafers or espadrilles? Or, if you want to bring some personality to a more traditional silhouette, consider a dark burnished toe on your brogues or Oxfords – the contrast looks superb and shows you are a man who pays attention to the finer details.
Other things to consider include patent or high shine finishes, two-tone (whether colour or fabric) styles, and designs incorporating contrast soles, which will add richness of colour to the overall texture of your outfit.
Key Pieces
Topman Hudson Pierre Burgundy Leather Tassel Loafers
Ask The Missus Black Hole Lace Up Brown Nubuck Blue Sole
He By Mango Contrast Sole Suede Blucher
He By Mango Brogueing Leather Blucher
Asos Brogue Shoes In Leather
Topman Marne Loafer Black Leather Weaved Loafers
Office Bow Weave Slip On Tan Hi Shine Leather
Zara Braided Loafers
Hammond & Co. By Patrick Grant Designer Natural Suede Oxford Brogues
J.crew Kenton Suede Derby Shoes
Reiss Shoot Suede Double Monk Strap Shoes Mid Brown
Zara Brogued Leather Burnished Toe Bluchers
Sunglasses
An essential spring/summer accessory, sunglasses offer an easy way to add additional texture to your everyday warm-weather looks.
Swapping classic metallic or plain black frames for tortoiseshell, horn, or any other multi-coloured style (think ombré and two-tone effects) is a good start. For something a little more out of the ordinary, look for matte effect frames, which are currently trending over conventional polished versions.
Alternatively, if you really want to stand out from the crowd and step your eyewear up a notch, opt for designs in unconventional fabrications like denim (Ray-Ban has released a special denim collection for SS15) or wood (Shwood and Finlay & Co. are specialists), both of which are guaranteed to become a talking point thanks to their unconventional appearance.
You could also choose to enrich texture through your choice of lenses – gradient, coloured and mirrored versions will add another layer of subtle detail to your overall aesthetic.
Just make sure that whatever pair you end up going for, you feel completely comfortable in them – they have the potential to become a signature of your look this season, and there’s nothing worse than a bad style statement sitting on your nose.
Key Pieces
Ray-ban Wayfarer Denim Sunglasses 0rb2140
Shwood Belmont East Indian Rosewood Sunglasses
Finlay & Co Beaumont Walnut Sunglasses
L.g.r D-frame Acetate Sunglasses
Cutler And Gross Metal Mirrored Aviator Sunglasses
Saint Laurent D-frame Sunglasses
Ray-ban Aviator Sunglasses 0rb3025
Asos Wayfarer Sunglasses With Colour Fade Temples
Fade Wayfarer Sunglasses In Matte Black
Final Word
What are the qualities you look for in your materials? Which fabrics do you favour for their unique texture?
Share your thoughts below and add texture to this discussion. | {
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After Alzheimer’s disease, Lewy body disease (LBD) is the second most common form of dementia, but it’s very difficult to diagnose. Now, thanks to a neuroscientist at Florida Atlantic University, a three-minute test can not only detect LBD but also just as effectively diagnose Parkinson’s disease dementia. The test has a nearly 97 percent accuracy in distinguishing between LBD and Alzheimer’s disease, which doctors commonly mistake.
"Most patients never receive an evaluation by a neurologist skilled in the diagnosis of Lewy body dementia, and significant delays and misdiagnoses occur in most patients with this disease," said Dr. James E. Galvin, a professor of clinical biomedical science in FAU's Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine, in a press release. "This new tool has the potential to provide a clearer, more accurate picture for those patients who are unable to be seen by specialists, hastening the correct diagnosis and reducing the strain and burden placed on patients and caregivers."
Galvin’s “Lewy Body Composite Risk Score” consists of a brief rating scan that can be completed by a doctor to assess symptoms that are in line with LBD quickly. If they have rigid or unstable posture, a resting tremor, or a slowness or weakness in their movements, Galvin’s test can detect LBD without having to measure the degree of the disease’s severity, which is what made previous tests take longer to perform and with less accuracy.
The test was given to real patients in clinics with a mix of different genders, education levels, and a wide range of symptoms of disease progressions. Being able to differentiate between LBD and Alzheimer’s is key, because the two conditions manifest in similar ways and can be hard for doctors to detect when it’s early on. It affects an estimated 1.4 million people in America, and many doctors and medical professionals are not familiar with all of its characteristic symptoms. It can take more than a year or two for doctors to diagnose LBD, and early diagnosis can mean the difference between an extended quality of life with independence and being entirely dependent on a caregiver.
Like Alzheimer’s, LBD usually begins to show symptoms between the ages of 50 and 85 and in some cases much earlier. According to the Lewy Body Dementia Association, at first, people with LBD may respond well to certain dementia medications. But over time people win up responding poorly and end up worse off than people with Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, and are sometimes left with dangerous and even permanent side effects.
"Early detection of Lewy body dementias will be important to enable future interventions at the earliest stages when they are likely to be most effective," Galvin said. Their findings go beyond just earlier treatments but are expected to improve and expedite clinical trials for future studies on LBD, and help advance LBD biomarker research for genetic testing.
Source: Galvin JE, et al. Improving The Clinical Detection Of Lewy Body Dementia With The Lewy Body Composite Rick Score. Alzheimer’s & Dementia. 2015. | {
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Anti-Semitism accusations against Corbyn aimed at criminalising the left
By Chris Marsden
28 March 2018
Claims that Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has presided over a growth of anti-Semitism in the party, and is himself a closet anti-Semite, are baseless. They mark a return to efforts to remove Corbyn as leader, steering the party onto the favoured political course of the Blairite right.
This makes all the more damning Corbyn’s swift capitulation to the provocation launched by the Board of Deputies of British Jews (BoD), the Jewish Leadership Council and a clique of over a dozen Labour MPs. In addition to betraying his supporters, it facilitates the efforts of the UK’s political establishment, together with the State of Israel and the United States, to proscribe left-wing opposition to Zionism as “extremism” to justify its political suppression.
Monday night saw an unprecedented protest by no more than 200 people outside Parliament, mobilised by the BoD and JLC, dominated by Labour MPs who played a central role in 2016 in efforts to remove Corbyn as leader. Leading Zionist Labour MPs Luciana Berger, Ruth Smeeth and Louise Ellman were joined by the well-known crew of coup plotters. They included John Mann, who demanded Corbyn “must go” amid provocative chants of “Jeremy Corbyn is a racist,” along with Wes Streeting, Chuka Ummuna, Stella Creasy, Liz Kendall, Ian Austin and John Woodcock.
Jewish Voice for Labour staged a counter-protest involving relatives of Holocaust survivors, opposing the vilification of their party as anti-Semitic. Yet the filthy display of right-wing venom by upper-middle-class protesters carrying Israeli flags and anti-Corbyn placards was universally portrayed in the media as the “voice” of the “mainstream Jewish community.”
Neither this claim nor the accusations against Corbyn and the Labour Party stand up to genuine scrutiny.
The resurrection of charges of Labour anti-Semitism and of Corbyn being an apologist for anti-Semites, or even being “instinctively hostile to Jews,” signals that the party’s right wing will no longer be constrained by Corbyn’s popular support. Forced to temper its attacks on Corbyn after Labour’s gains during last June’s snap general election, the right-wing wants Corbyn’s scalp.
The prelude to this latest offensive was the vicious anti-Russian campaign triggered by the poisoning of double agent Sergei Skripal, during which the Labour leader was denounced as an appeaser, unfit to hold office. The Blairites are convinced that the time is now ripe for a fresh assault on Corbyn, especially after his sacking of frontbencher Owen Smith on Friday for proposing the second referendum on Brexit they have long demanded. Denouncing his “weakness” on Russia, on Brexit and on Israel, Corbyn’s opponents are demanding his “anti-Western” views on war, NATO and nuclear weapons be silenced.
Writing in the Guardian, Rafael Behr made explicit these connections stating, “On antisemitism, Russia and Brexit, [Labour] centrists might feel they’re in the wrong movement.”
With pro-European Tory rebel MPs “unhappy with Theresa May,” Labour MPs have been “stirred awake … If they think vital skills in a prime minister include recognising antisemitism at first sight, trusting UK security services over Vladimir Putin, and fearing that a hard Brexit is bad for Britain, they might be in the wrong party. Inevitably there is chatter about alternatives.”
The Tory Daily Telegraph suggested to Labour MPs that the question for the party was “how another such scandal would play out with Corbyn sitting in 10 Downing Street.”
The “scandal” is based on a tweet by Corbyn from October 2012 unearthed by Berger. Corbyn had responded to an appeal by street artist “Mear One,” protesting plans to paint over an East London mural, accused by some of utilising anti-Jewish tropes with representatives of banking families playing monopoly on a table supported by the naked backs of workers.
Corbyn tweeted, “You are in good company. Rockerfeller [sic] destroyed Diego [Rivera’s] mural because it includes a picture of Lenin.”
At the same time, right-wing Tory blogger Guido Fawkes revealed that Corbyn had been signed up—by supporters and without his knowledge—to two pro-Palestinian Facebook pages and had himself joined another, “Labour supporter,” which included some posts accused of anti-Semitism.
Whatever might be said of the mural in question, this served as the flimsy pretext for an open letter by the BoD and JLC to the Labour Party. The thrust of their letter was to make an amalgam between anti-imperialist criticism of Israel’s repression of the Palestinians and right-wing anti-Semitism.
Corbyn, as usual, first retreated to placate his critics, and when this failed abandoned the ideological field of battle altogether. He first said he had been wrong to support Mear One before studying the mural, pronouncing it to be “deeply disturbing” and apologising for the pain caused by “pockets” of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party.
But Corbyn’s initial mea culpa only emboldened the self-described “leaders of British Jewry” to declare in their open letter that they were tired “of hearing that Jeremy Corbyn ‘opposes anti-Semitism,’” complaining of “repeated institutional failure to tackle anti-Semitism, with the Chakrabarti Report being the most glaring example of this.”
The Chakrabarti Report, led by the former director of human rights group Liberty, had in fact rejected claims of widespread anti-Semitism in the Labour Party. But Corbyn issued no defence of Chakrabarti who now serves as the party’s shadow attorney-general. In similar vein, he abandoned long-time ally and former Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, after he was smeared as an anti-Semite. Livingstone’s suspension from the Labour Party was renewed this month.
Corbyn, the letter continued, “did not invent this form of politics,” but “personifies its problems and dangers.” The type of politics identified was “a far-left worldview that is instinctively hostile to mainstream Jewish communities.” “At best” this derived “from the far left’s obsessive hatred of Zionism, Zionists and Israel.” “At worst,” it adopted “a conspiratorial worldview in which mainstream Jewish communities are believed to be a hostile entity, a class enemy.”
The BBC concisely summarised the open letter’s definition of what is to be considered “anti-Semitic” as holding a view “of Israel as a sort of neo-colonialist, Imperialist power oppressing Palestinians, associated with America …”
Faced with the BoD and JLC open letter, Corbyn abased himself still further, declaring that anti-Semitism in the Labour Party had often been wrongly dismissed as “a matter of a few bad apples.” Action was promised to deal with all cases of anti-Semitic abuse.
The organisations and Blairite MP’s involved in this latest provocation have deep connections to Israel and the US and British intelligence services.
Labour Friends of Israel, of which most of the MPs at Monday’s protest are members, is dominated by the party’s right-wing. Its repeated charges of anti-Semitism during the attempt to remove Corbyn were levelled against his supporters and invariably focused on Internet posts opposing Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians. Their witch-hunting led to summary suspensions, part of a broader purge of tens of thousands of Corbyn supporters from the party by the National Executive Committee and the Compliance Unit.
Months later, in January 2017, a sting conducted by undercover reporters for Al Jazeera exposed just how extensive the intervention conducted by Israel in the Labour Party was.
Shai Masot, an Israeli embassy staffer in London, was secretly filmed explaining how he was plotting to “take down” MPs perceived as hostile to Israel. The main undercover reporter posed as a Labour Friends of Israel member. Masot told the reporter of his plans to set up pro-Israeli groups within the Labour Party to undermine Corbyn’s leadership, in an operation allotted £1 million by Tel Aviv to wine and dine 60 Labour MPs.
The initial anti-Semitism campaign was tied to efforts to eliminate opposition to the international adoption of a new legal definition of anti-Semitism, drawn up by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. This criminalised political criticism of Israel by including as examples of anti-Semitism, “Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a state of Israel is a racist endeavour” and any comparison between “contemporary Israeli policy” and “that of the Nazis.”
The formula advanced is that Zionism is integral to the Jewish faith and culture, which is in turn inseparable from the State of Israel.
The treatment meted out to Corbyn and his supporters is intended to ensure that the Blairite right and the Board of Deputies and related groups, elected by a handful of synagogues, will assume the role of judge, jury and executioner over the Labour Party’s half a million members.
Jonathan Arkush, BoD president, told the Guardian he intends to set out his plans to drain “the political sewer” when he accepts an invitation to meet with Corbyn. These include the permanent expulsion of Livingstone from the party (“He will have to go,” Arkush decreed) along with Jackie Walker, the former vice-chair of the pro-Corbyn group Momentum, who is half black and half Jewish, and, as the Guardian comments, “scores of other long-running cases which have been mired in the party’s compliance procedures for many months.”
Arkush “would also like action to be taken against those who minimise reports of antisemitism, including the Unite general secretary, Len McCluskey, who suggested it was ‘mood music’ to undermine the leadership.”
Chillingly, he added that “antisemitism on social media,” i.e., criticism of Israel and, by extension, of the campaign now waged against Corbyn, must be “properly and energetically” shut down.
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Happy Birthday, Lead Belly! We’re celebrating with a new Tumblr series Lead Belly: Song by Song, in anticipation of the February 24 release of Lead Belly: The Smithsonian Folkways Collection. Twice a week, we’ll be featuring a track from the set, with the song’s history, exclusive images, and notable covers. Today we’re kicking it off with one of Lead Belly’s most well known songs, “Irene (Goodnight Irene).”
IRENE (Goodnight Irene)
Also known as “Irene, Goodnight”
Disc 1, Track 1
“Goodnight Irene” – The Weavers, 1950
This is undoubtedly Lead Belly’s most famous song. According to Charles Wolfe and Kip Lornell, the song could be of Tin Pan Alley or minstrel show origins. Lead Belly apparently learned it from his uncle, Terrell, while a child and was performing it as early as 1909. When Lomax asked Lead Belly’s other uncle, Bob, if he made up the song, he answered, “No sir, it came from my brother, I don’t know who made it up. Huddie got it from us” (quoted in Wolfe and Lornell 1992, 52–53).
“Goodnight Irene” – Valerie June, 2014
Wolfe and Lornell’s research cites a sheet music folio on a minstrel piece published in 1888 that was called “Irene, Goodnight” and was performed by a traveling group called Haverly’s Colored Minstrels. Further, they found that the composer was African American Gussie Davis (1863–99), who is also credited with “Maple on the Hill” and “Footprints in the Snow.” Davis’ words are different than Lead Belly’s, but the imagery and themes are the same (ibid., 54–55). “Irene” became Lead Belly’s theme song, sung at the beginning and end of many of his radio programs. He died a year before the Weavers’ version became a nationwide hit in 1950; the fame he had so long worked for had eluded him.
The Weavers’ “Goodnight Irene,” a nationwide hit record (courtesy of John Reynolds Collection
“Goodnight Irene” went on to become the most recorded of Lead Belly’s songs, beginning with The Weavers and Frank Sinatra in 1950 to Eric Clapton in 2013. Versions of the song were also recorded by Jerry Lee Lewis, Kingston Trio, Little Richard, Ry Cooder, Meat Puppets, Tom Waits, Brian Wilson (“Folkways – A Vision Shared”), Jimmy Buffet, The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Dr. John, and Mitch Miller. The Weavers sold 2 million copies of their recording of Lead Belly’s “Goodnight, Irene” shortly after his death.
“Goodnight Irene” – Eric Clapton, 2013
“It’s one more case of black music being made famous by white people,” Pete Seeger, one of the Weavers, said in 1988, the year of Lead Belly’s induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. “It’s a pure tragedy he didn’t live another six months, because all his dreams as a performer would have come true.”
“Irene” – Lead Belly | {
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Kenya’s mobile money transactions hit $23 billion in the 10-months to October which is $4 billion more than in the same period last year, according to data from the country’s Central Bank.
The East African country leads the world in mobile money use, and could make a new record this year. Kenya’s 10-month transactions equal the country’s entire transfers for 2014.
In Kenya, mobile money has been the game changer in bringing financial services to the middle class and the poor. — Baba Nanii™ (@BabaNanii_) December 30, 2015
The use of the service this year could surpass the $27 billion mark, an unnamed information technology expert told the Xinhua news agency.
"If subscribers transact an average of $2.2 billion a month, then it means in November and December they will move at least $4.4 billion. If you add it to $23 billion it comes to $27.4 billion, which is a new record," said the expert.
Kenya’s average monthly transactions stood at $2.2 billion this year compared with $1.9 billion in 2014.
October saw the most transferred when $2.51 billion was sent via mobile phones. It’s the highest ever transaction made in the history of mobile money services.
Kenyans use mobile financial services to buy goods, pay bills, pay fares, send and receive money. It’s the easiest way to make payments as most of the people don’t have bank accounts.
Analysts relate the rise in mobile money use to an increase in mobile providers and promotion of the services.
According to the data from Central Bank of Kenya, the number of mobile money subscribers as of October reached 28.5 million, up from 27.3 million in September. The number of service agents stood 140,612 in October. | {
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Editor’s Note: This is the first in a series on “Christmas sermons I wish I could’ve given.” Imagine if clergy could say what they really believed when they gave their yearly Christmas sermon. I asked a few Clergy Project members to think about this and got some great responses.
========================
By Bob Ripley
When I look at my old sermons, the same question pops up. Who was that guy?
He was the person I am now, of course, with one huge exception. I was once an ardent apologist and proponent of Christianity. I loved to preach. I loved being, as St. Augustine put it, a “vendor of words.”
The highlight of my week was when I rose to deliver the 25-minute monologue I had carefully crafted and, for the most part, memorized.
If I could go back to those days, knowing what I know now and with the convictions I hold now, and could step into a pulpit again, what would I say? Would I tell everyone to go home and enjoy some Sabbath rest because the divinity they were there to worship doesn’t exist? Or would I simply proclaim the need for more love and kindness, whether my listeners were theists or atheists?
I honestly don’t know. But if I did have a chance to speak to a Christian congregation during Advent when believers are preparing for the coming of baby Jesus, I would likely talk about how the story came to us and leave it up to my listeners to decide if they wanted to believe it was true or not. I’d give the sermon a nifty title such as “The Birth of the Nativity” and start by pointing out that life in the first century was rife with virgin births and archetypes of a savior.
Horus of Egyptian mythology, for instance, was a divine son who left the courts of heaven and descended to Earth, was born of a virgin and became a substitute for humanity. I would also point out that the earliest of the four gospels, Mark, makes no mention the birth of Jesus or appearances after his death but by the time we get to the latest gospel, John, Jesus is the “word made flesh through whom all things were made.” Oral tradition is so malleable.
I would likely include some of the inconsistencies and improbabilities from my book Life Beyond Belief: A Preacher’s Reconversion:
Only two of the four canonical gospels, that is, the gospels of the New Testament, mention the birth of Jesus. The Christmas story we have come to know and love is a mixture of colour from the palettes of Matthew and Luke to paint a harmonious tableau, even though there are differences and discrepancies between the two accounts. In Luke’s nativity story, Jesus’ parents lived in Nazareth in the north of Galilee. A Roman census forces the family back to its ancestral city of Bethlehem in the south of Galilee near Jerusalem. While they are there, Jesus is born. The story is an invention because there was no empire-wide census and it seems highly unlikely that a Roman official would order people to be counted in cities their ancestors left years before. It would be like me travelling to Yorkshire, England today to be counted as part of the Ripley clan. Besides that, no census could have happened when “Quirinius was the governor of Syria,” as Luke suggests, if Jesus was born when Herod was king. Quirinius did not become governor until 10 years after Herod’s death. So why did the author of Luke want to have Jesus of Nazareth born in David’s City? Simple; to fulfil the Old Testament prophecy of Micah that the saviour would come from Bethlehem (Micah 5:2). Matthew and Luke both include genealogies of Jesus. There are three problems here. The first is that both writers insist Jesus’ mother was a virgin when she gave birth to him. Joseph was, for all intents and purpose, the foster father to Jesus, not a blood relative. So why do the writers trace Jesus’ genealogy through Joseph? The second problem is that the genealogies are different. In Matthew, Joseph’s father is Jacob. In Luke it is Heli. The third is that while Matthew traces Joseph’s lineage starting with Abraham, the father of the Jews, through King David to Joseph, Luke’s genealogy goes from Joseph all the way back to Adam, the father of the human race. With a little help from the Internet, I can trace my lineage back to the clan of Ripley Castle in Yorkshire, England in the 17th century. To trace a lineage back to Adam in the Garden of Eden is an amazing genealogy, to say the least.
Before my listeners felt discouraged by the problems with the Christmas story, I would shift gears and conclude by pointing out how much I still love Christmas with the lights and music and mincemeat pie even if I no longer believed that a creator entered humanity in history. I would encourage everyone, as I do now, to take the opportunity afforded by the host of mostly pagan holiday traditions, to focus on hope and charity as these short days gradually begin to lengthen.
The reason for the season, after all, is axial tilt.
====================
Bio: Bob Ripley, aka “Dave the Atheist ex-pastor” is a syndicated religion columnist, broadcaster, former preacher and author of Christian devotional material. His new book which came out in October, 2014 is titled Life Beyond Belief: A Preacher’s Deconversion.
>>>>Photo Credits: “Augustine Lateran” by Unknown – http://www.30giorni.it/us/articolo.asp?id=3553. Licensed under Public Domain via Commons – https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Augustine_Lateran.jpg#/media/File:Augustine_Lateran.jpg
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Temple_of_Edfu_05.jpg#/media/File:Temple_of_Edfu_05.jpg
“Globespin-tilt-23.4” by Wikiscient, Tdadamemd – File:Globespin.gif – created using NASA’s “Visible Earth” image (in the public domain).. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Commons – https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Globespin-tilt-23.4.gif#/media/File:Globespin-tilt-23.4.gif | {
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Depression, mental health, and anxiety are without a doubt close and personal topics. Each year it seems like these topics more and more exposure in the media. Electronic dance music artists have taken to social media to express their concerns about their own mental health and struggles. One artist in particular who has shared his journey openly and publicly is Illenium.
Since he has told the world his story, he also came out with a new song that he dedicated to his journey with addiction and anxiety. The name of the song is "Take You Down." It is an organic and beautifully blended track with soft, meaningful lyrics that complement the vocals. Illenium has voiced that this this track is very dear to him, and it hits home.
On Facebook, Illenium just announced that he is partnering up with NV Concepts , Wicked Halloween and the Suicide Prevention Lifeline for a new campaign to help raise awareness for "Illenials." The campaign is asking people to create a 15-second videos explaining their reasons for being awake and then post them to Instagram with @nvconcepts tagged including the hashtag "#Awake." NV Concepts will donate $1 to the Suicide Prevention Lifeline for every Instagram story made during this campaign. Ultimately, the purpose of the campaign is to help people who are struggling with anxiety by showing everyone that they are not alone.
The campaign follows right after National Mental Health Day, which was Wednesday. Illenium's post below explains in more detail exactly how to participate and potentially help save a life.
Remember, it is okay not to be okay and you are not alone. Someone is out there willing to listen.
The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255
Follow Illenium:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ILLENIUM/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ILLENIUMMUSIC
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/illeniummusic/
Website: https://illenium.com/ | {
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When James Watson was 24 years old, he spent more time thinking about women than work, according to his memoir "Genes, Girls and Gamow." His hair was unkempt and his letters home were full of references to "wine-soaked lunches." But when Mr. Watson wasn't chasing after girls, he was hard at work in his Cambridge lab, trying to puzzle out the structure of DNA. In 1953, when Mr. Watson was only 25, he co-wrote one of the most important scientific papers of all time.
Scientific revolutions are often led by the youngest scientists.... | {
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Kategorie Informationen & Tipps - 24. Oktober 2015
Das dürfen Sie mit Ihrem Hoverboard
Am 21. Oktober 2015 landet Marty McFly im Film „Zurück in die Zukunft II“ in einem 21. Jahrhundert, in dem es dreidimensionale Hologramme, aber keine Handys gibt. In dieser Version des Jahres 2015 können Autos fliegen und Skateboards schweben frei über dem Boden und können sogar über Wasser fahren: die Hoverboards.
Anlässlich dieses historischen Tags sorgen die Verkehrssicherheitsexpertinnen und -experten des bmvit (Bundesministerium für Verkehr, Innovation und Technologie) endlich für Rechtssicherheit und beantworten die wichtigsten Fragen zum Thema: Wenn ich mir ein Hoverboard kaufe, was darf ich laut den österreichischen Bestimmungen damit machen?
Wie wird das Hoverboard klassifiziert?
Das Hoverboard ist grundsätzlich ein „Kleinfahrzeug zur Verwendung außerhalb der Fahrbahn“, ähnlich wie ein Skateboard oder ein Kickboard. Da es auch geeignet ist, Personen in der Luft ohne mechanische Verbindung mit der Erde fortzubewegen, gilt es aber auch als Luftfahrzeug. Je nachdem, wo Sie mit Ihrem Hoverboard unterwegs sind (Wasser, Boden, Luft), können unterschiedliche Bestimmungen gelten.
Ändert sich die Klassifizierung des Hoverboards, wenn ich wie Marty im Film aus einem Roller ein Skateboard mache?
Nein, es ist nicht entscheidend, ob das Hoverboard eine Lenkstange hat oder nicht. Es bleibt weiterhin ein „Kleinfahrzeug zur Verwendung außerhalb der Fahrbahn“.
Wo darf ich mit meinem Hoverboard herumschweben?
Überall dort, wo Sie auch mit einem altertümlichen Skateboard fahren dürften: zum Beispiel in Funparks oder in Wohn- und Spielstraßen. Wichtig ist, dass beim Fahren keine Passantinnen und Passanten oder der Verkehr behindert oder gefährdet werden.
Welche Ausrüstung ist für Hoverboards vorgeschrieben?
Keine. Allerdings ist es natürlich für die eigene Sicherheit immer sinnvoll, beim Fahren einen Helm zu tragen.
Welche Bestimmungen gelten, wenn ich mit dem Hoverboard über Wasser fahre?
Wie im Film zu sehen ist, schwebt ein klassisches Hoverboard zwar über Wasser, da man sich aber mit dem Fuß nirgends abstoßen kann, ist ein gemütliches Schweben über die Donau sowieso nicht möglich. Anders verhält es sich mit den Pit-Bull-Modellen, also den raketenbetriebenen Hoverboards. Ab einer Antriebsleistung von 4,4 Kilowatt müssen sie behördlich zugelassen werden, Hoverboard-Kapitäninnen und -Kapitäne benötigen dann auch ein entsprechendes Patent. In jedem Fall müssen sich auch Hoverboards an die Wasserstraßen-Verkehrsordnung halten.
Gelten für Pit-Bull-Hoverboards mit Raketenantrieb andere Bestimmungen als für normale Hoverboards?
Von der Straßenverkehrsordnung her nicht. Auch vom Kraftfahrgesetz werden Hoverboards nicht erfasst, da dieses davon ausgeht, dass Kraftfahrzeuge durch Räder oder Ketten mit der Fahrbahn verbunden sind. Achten Sie jedoch auf eventuelle zusätzliche Bestimmungen, wenn Sie mit Ihrem Board über Wasser schweben oder abheben.
Wie hoch darf ein Hoverboard schweben bzw. fliegen?
Da das Pit-Bull-Hoverboard, wenn es kraft seines Raketenantriebs abhebt, ein Luftfahrzeug ist, müssen Sie sich an alle geltenden Bestimmungen wie Lufttüchtigkeitszertifizierungen und Registrierung im Luftfahrzeugregister halten. Wollen Sie mit dem Hoverboard fliegen, benötigen Sie einen Sonderpilotenschein und müssen sich an die Luftverkehrsregeln halten. Für das Schweben unter 150 m Höhe in unbebautem Gebiet und unter 300 m Höhe in dicht bebautem Gebiet oder über Menschenansammlungen benötigen Sie eine Genehmigung der Austro Control.
Wie schnell darf ich mit einem raketenbetriebenen Hoverboard fahren?
So schnell, dass Sie beim Fahren weder Fußgängerinnen und Fußgänger noch den Verkehr auf einer benachbarten Fahrbahn behindern oder gefährden.
Brauche ich für das Fahren mit einem raketenbetriebenen Hoverboard einen Führerschein?
Nein. Führerscheine gelten für das Lenken von Fahrzeugen, die vom Kraftfahrgesetz erfasst sind. Da die Definitionen des Kraftfahrgesetzes das Hoverboard nicht mit einschließen, benötigen Sie auch keinen Führerschein.
Das bmvit wünscht Ihnen viel Spaß mit Ihrem neuen Hoverboard! | {
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AppleやGoogleなどのテクノロジ企業はObama米大統領に対し、モバイルデバイスや通信の個人的なセキュリティを危険にさらすおそれのある新たな法律制定を止めるよう嘆願書を提出した。
米ZDNetが嘆願書を確認したところ、法執行機関がモバイルデバイス上の暗号解読されたデータを閲覧できるようにする提案の拒否について、テクノロジ企業やセキュリティ専門家などが支持を表明している。
署名した企業らは政府関係者に対して、Snowden氏の一件以降、企業がモバイルデバイスのセキュリティと暗号化を強化していることを考慮して、プライバシー権を保護するよう求めている。
米国家安全保障局（NSA）が世界中で行っている広範かつ大規模なデータ収集とスパイ活動を記録した大量の機密資料がNSA元契約社員のEdward Snowden氏によって暴露されたことを受けて、暗号化と個人のプライバシーが大きな注目を集めた。
嘆願書には、「強力な暗号化は、現代の情報経済のセキュリティの要である」と書かれている。暗号化がより広範に普及するにつれて、法執行機関が暗号解読されたデータにアクセスするには、バックドアを使用するか、セキュリティ標準を意図的に弱めるしかなくなっている（これはユーザーを危険にさらすおそれがある）。
署名した企業らは、「こうした保護対策は、暗号化されたデバイスやサービスに新たな脆弱性を強制的に混入することで、効果が薄れてしまうだろう。それらの脆弱性を『フロントドア』と呼ぼうと『バックドア』と呼ぼうと、セキュアな製品に政府が利用できる脆弱性を意図的に混入すれば、ほかの攻撃者に対するそれらの製品のセキュリティが低下してしまう」と述べる。
さらに、嘆願書には次のように書かれている。
「われわれは、自社製品のセキュリティを意図的に弱めることを米国企業に求めるすべての提案を拒絶するよう強く求める。さらに、ホワイトハウスに対し、強力な暗号化テクノロジの広範な採用を阻止するのではなく、促進するよう求める。そのような政策を採用すれば、米国と外国の両方で、サイバーセキュリティと経済成長、人権の促進と保護に寄与するだろう」（嘆願書） | {
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The curtain will be drawn back on Friday night in Kansas City and you will get your first look at the 2011 version of your Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
If there is a recurring theme to the preseason, let's simply say that it time for youth to be served.
The average age for this football team is an eye-popping 25.9 years. There are three starters over 30, the oldest being the elder statesman, Ronde Barber. Barber is the "old man" of this football team at 36, he's older than the head coach, Raheem Morris, who turns 35 two days after the final preseason game at Washington.
This preseason is very important for the rookies who were not able to take in knowledge from OTAs and rookie camps, activities wiped out by the lockout.
No one knows better than Mark Dominik that there is a lot to watch over the next four weeks.
"I want to see where we're at with the front line, how we attack the quarterback," Dominik said this week, speaking to WDAE620.
Dominik also said he's interested in the special teams. "How well we play special teams," Dominik said, is a key.
The GM also said you should notice "a bigger, more physical team." That's the direction this team has moved with its past two drafts. "I'm looking forward to seeing that in the preseason."
These preseason games should give everyone a good read on the readiness of Mason Foster, who is the starting Mike linebacker on the depth chart with Tyrone McKenzie a close second.
Another key will be the running backs. Who will step up to provide depth behind LeGarrette Blount?
Finally, you'll get a large dosh of Josh Johnson. The "lifetime backup" as Raheem Morris has called him, is in a contract year and wants to be a starter in the league. If that's the case, he'll have to go elsewhere, which means watch Rudy Carpenter closely, he could be the backup in 2012.
Of course there's plenty to keep an eye on, so without further ado, let's look at the Buccaneer preseason opponents. | {
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(CNN) Horrifying images and video show civilians -- including children -- struggling to breathe, foam coming from their mouths as they appear to die of asphyxiation after an airstrike on a rebel-held town in northwestern Syria on Tuesday.
Syria's military has denied using chemical weapons and blamed rebels for the carnage , but activists say the regime is responsible for a chemical attack which killed at least 86 people. Russia, meanwhile, has blamed the deaths on a Syrian airstrike on a "terrorist" ammunition depot.
It's not yet confirmed what chemical agent was involved in the suspected attack in Khan Sheikhoun, Idlib province. But early indicators point to the release of a nerve agent like Sarin
"The symptoms were pale skin, sweating, narrow or pin-eye pupils, very intense respiratory detachments. Those symptoms match the usage of Sarin," said a doctor in a hospital close to Khan Sheikhoun, who cannot be named for security reasons.
Does the Syrian regime have nerve agents?
The regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is supposed to have given up its chemical weapons stockpile, but not everyone is convinced.
Before the war began in 2011, Syria had research and production facilities near Damascus, Aleppo, Homs, Latakia and Hama that turned out hundreds of tons of chemical agents a year, according to the US-based James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies and the Nuclear Threat Initiative, which catalogs the world's arsenals of weapons of mass destruction.
Syria never signed the Chemical Weapons Convention, the current international treaty against the use of poison gas, but it did sign the 1925 Geneva Protocol, which banned the use of chemical and bacteriological warfare, according to the international Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW.)
Experts from the agency were part of a UN team that found "clear and convincing evidence" that Sarin was delivered by surface-to-surface rockets "on a relatively large scale" in the Ghouta area of the Syrian capital Damascus in August 2013.
JUST WATCHED Syria misses chemical weapons deadline Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Syria misses chemical weapons deadline 02:35
From October 2013, the OPCW oversaw the destruction of Syria's chemical weapon stockpile. But one Syrian general, who said he defected after he was ordered to use chemical agents, told CNN's Christiane Amanpour at the time that the regime would never give up its chemical stockpile.
"The locations of most of the scientific research centers in Syria and the storage facilities are known and under surveillance, thus, he will give up those centers and facilities for sure without lying. That said, however, Bashar al-Assad will not give up the chemical stockpile," said Brig. Gen. Zaher al-Sakat in 2013.
Could rebel forces have chemical weapons?
Russia's defense ministry claimed on its Facebook page that a Syrian airstrike had hit a "terrorist" ammunition depot in the eastern outskirts of Khan Sheikhoun.
The ministry said "terrorists had been transporting chemical munitions from this largest arsenal to the territory of Iraq."
Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Fayssal Mikdad similarly told al-Mayadeen TV that Syria had given the OPCW and United Nations information in recent weeks on the Jabhat al-Nusra terrorist group transporting toxic substances into Syria, state-run news agency SANA reported.
JUST WATCHED Russia: Syrian gas deaths due to 'terrorists' Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Russia: Syrian gas deaths due to 'terrorists' 02:20
But Dan Kaszeta, a chemical weapons specialist and managing director of Strongpoint Security, told CNN that the Russian version of events was "highly implausible."
All the nerve agents used in the Syrian conflict so far have been binary nerve agents, he said, which are mixed from different components within a few days of use. This is done because of the difficulties of handling agents such as Sarin, which has a very short shelf life, he said.
"Nerve agents are the result of a very expensive, exotic, industrial chemical process -- these are not something you just whip up," he said.
The idea that the Syrian opposition would be able to build the covert supply chain to make a nerve agent and then would move it around and store it in a warehouse, rather than a bunker, makes no sense, Kaszeta said.
"It's much more plausible that Assad, who's used nerve agents in the past, is using them again," he said.
OPCW investigators have accused ISIS of using sulfur mustard, a blister agent, in Iraq and Syria. But Kaszeta said there was no comparison, since sulfur mustard -- widely used in Saddam Hussein's Iraq -- is much easier to come by, is far less lethal and has a long shelf life.
JUST WATCHED Video shows effects of Syria attack Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Video shows effects of Syria attack 01:23
Charles Lister, a senior fellow at the US-based Middle East Institute, also rejected the Russian account of what happened as "laughable."
"Are we seriously meant to believe that the opposition has a latent chemical weapons capability, and yet somehow, it has only ever suffered the effects of its own weapons and failed to use them itself?" he said.
What happened in Khan Sheikhoun "is an almost exact replication of what we saw in the summer of 2013," Lister told CNN, adding that it had targeted a key staging area for an opposition push into northern Hama late last month.
Lister also highlighted the issue that all nerve agents known to be in Syria are binary weapons.
"First of all, nobody in their right mind would ever store both both components of a binary nerve agent in the same building. And secondly, even if they were stored together and then targeted, blowing them up would not result in any active nerve agent -- it's chemically impossible," he said.
What chemical agent was involved?
This won't be known for sure until tests are carried out but medical experts report symptoms consistent with the use of nerve agents, which include Sarin.
The World Health Organization says the victims' symptoms are consistent with exposure to nerve agents, pointing to "the apparent lack of external injuries" and "acute respiratory distress as the main cause of death."
JUST WATCHED VX, Sarin: How do nerve agents kill? Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH VX, Sarin: How do nerve agents kill? 01:34
Doctors without Borders, or MSF, said a team providing support to the emergency department of Bab Al Hawa hospital in Idlib province had "confirmed that patients' symptoms are consistent with exposure to a neurotoxic agent such as Sarin gas."
MSF teams who visited other hospitals in the area "reported that victims smelled of bleach, suggesting they had been exposed to chlorine," a news release said. "These reports strongly suggest that victims of the attack on Khan Sheikhoun were exposed to at least two different chemical agents."
A joint OPCW-UN panel found last year that Syrian government forces had used chlorine gas as a weapon. Syria denies using chemical weapons.
Khaula Sawah, board member and former CEO of the Union of Medical Care and Relief Organizations (UOSSM), said her field team in Idlib had reported that while still unconfirmed, doctors believe -- based on the symptoms of the patients -- that some form of organophosphate nerve agent was used.
A Syrian doctor treats a child at a makeshift hospital, in the town of Khan Sheikhoun, northern Idlib province, Syria, on April 4.
"The symptoms rapidly developed within minutes, including redness of eyes, foaming at the mouth, contracted pupils, severe dyspnoea (labored breathing) or shortness of breath and suffocation," she told CNN. "The symptoms progressed so rapidly that fatality occurred within 10 minutes. If there were no supportive care or ICU, people were dying."
The Syrian American Medical Society also said hospitals in the area around Khan Sheikhoun had "received patients who suffered symptoms indicative of an organophosphorus compounds agent, a category of toxic gases which includes Sarin."
So what is Sarin?
Sarin is a clear, colorless, tasteless and odorless liquid that was originally developed in 1938 in Germany as a pesticide. It was used in two terrorist attacks in Japan in 1994 and 1995.
It's less toxic than nerve agent VX but it's extremely volatile. It mixes easily with water -- symptoms can be brought on by drinking or even touching a contaminated water supply. It can also contaminate food and clothing.
Its effects depend on the degree and manner of exposure, says the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
In liquid form, symptoms are likely to appear a few minutes to a few hours after exposure, but the effect is almost instantaneous when it's an odorless gas. Then, victims can experience symptoms within seconds.
Symptoms of low to moderate exposure include a watery nose, blurred vision, tightness in the chest, nausea, drowsiness and headaches.
Exposure to large doses can lead to loss of consciousness, convulsions, paralysis and respiratory failure. Victims can die within 10 minutes. | {
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This month we are starting a monthly charts, we offer dj’s and other dedicated chillout lovers to express their taste and present us they favourite tracks. An artist will have an opportunity to select the tracks or releases, he can sort them in an alphabetical or any other order. We are starting these charts with a Japan based dj Psy-Amb. Enjoy
top 10 for July by Psy-Amb
01. Sakura – Astronaut Ape ( Planet Meditation 2 )
It’s a real pleasure to see a follow up to the original Planet Meditation album after half a decade. I was
even more pleased to see it includes Doof’s classic tune “Baleshwar Baksheesh”. A great chance for new
listeners to hear a psybient masterpeice. I have chosen Astonaut Ape’s psychill tune Sakura as it really stands out
with it sensual atmosphere and hypnotic rythm. The Ape is really climing the evolutinary ladder – his tunes
just keep getting better and better. Super tune.
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02. Bodhisattva – Kyoto ( Skywolf )
Kyoto is a city a mere one hour away from my home here in Osaka. This tune however is a million light years away
in deep,deep space. Kyoto delivers big time on his new album Skywolf. An epic track that builds and builds into
a flurry of dazzling cosmic dust. Two thumbs up !
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03. Dance Of The Firefly – E-Mantra ( Summer )
DJ Zen has waved his magic wand again and pulled another rabbit out of the hat with his latest compilation “Summer”. Consitantly showcasing
some of the best psybient music on offer, DJ Zen has excelled himslef this time with a super compilation full of potential top 10 numbers.
We all have to have a favorite though so I’ll go with the monumental offering “Dance Of The Firefly” by E-Mantra.
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04.New Leaf – Anchor Hill ( Medicine Grove )
From his base in British Columbia Richard Heart has cooked up an impressive collection of tracks on
his latest release “Medicine Grove”. Full of deep wobbly basslines, tribal percussion and glitch feedback.
For me New Leaf is the standout track here as it encompasses all the best bits of Richard’s skills. Very
laid back and cruisy with a tale to tell.
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05. Critical Mass – Misled Convoy ( Tickling The Dragon’s Tail )
July was a bit quiet regarding new psydub tunes so it is welcome news to see the debut release of Misled Convoy.
Misled Convery is the solo project of New Zealander Michael Hodgson who you may recognize as one half of the successful Pitch Black duo.
The album if packed with dark, brooding, icy dub tunes from a master bass wizard. The standout would have to be Critical Mass – a
12 minute long dub of delay guitars, reverbed pianos all covered in a delious bass goop.
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06. Crystal Genesis – Sundial Aeon ( Analysis )
Polish group Sundial Aeon recently released their sixth studio album and its quite poissbly their best yet. Their albums are always
solid. Analysis really shines with polished production. I could have chosen a number of tracks to include in this top 10 list but
when it comes to favorites it has to be the expressive and expansive psychill number Crystal Genesis.
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07. Array Of Light – Twinshape ( Biosynchronus EP )
Lots of great EPs out in July and here is another. Three tracks of deep psybient sounds from Twin Shape. This tune, Array Of Light, really
stands out with its rippling acid synth lines and growling fuzzy feedback. 12 minutes of it too !
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08. Life Goes On – Wallace Res ( Wallace Res EP )
Net Label Meta Recordings are back with a little a three track EP by Wallace Res. They say good things come in small packages. A super
three track EP of deep psychedelic spacey ambient music. Hope to hear more from this mysterious Wallace character.
More Info
09. Taiga (310 Remix) – Dirtwire ( Ondar EP )
Released on June 30 this is technically a June release but what’s 24 hours when it comes to great music !
An accomplished merging of Tuvan throat singing with electronic and traditional instruments. Dirtwire has cooked
up a very tasty five track release that includes a number or remixes of the standout tune – Taiga. As gmoney777 says
of soundcloud “just brings you into a deep warrior trance but with a side of monk ”
More Info
10. Indigo Sunrise – Om Sagar ( Sagar Om )
Sometimes you come across an album that just gets better with each listen. Om Sagar’s new album Sagar Om is a just such as release.
At first it seems somewhat minimal but the complexity is hidden withing the emotion of the tunes. I wish I could tell you more about this act
but Om Sagar has kind of popped up out of nowhere with this surprising release – kind of like what Hinkstep did a few years back.
Give this a listen – its on bandcamp as a “name your price” download.
More Info
if you missed our july releases listing you can find it here.
if you want to propose us your own chart or top 10, contact us using the contact form at about page | {
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Instead, the dead heaps signaled the killer was less mysterious, but no less devastating. The pattern matched acute pesticide poisoning. By one estimate, at a single apiary — Flowertown Bee Farm and Supply, in Summerville — 46 hives died on the spot, totaling about 2.5 million bees.
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Walking through the farm, one Summerville woman wrote on Facebook, was “like visiting a cemetery, pure sadness.”
A Clemson University scientist collected soil samples from Flowertown on Tuesday, according to WCBD-TV, to further investigate the cause of death. But to the bee farmers, the reason is already clear. Their bees had been poisoned by Dorchester’s own insecticide efforts, casualties in the war on disease-carrying mosquitoes.
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On Sunday morning, parts of Dorchester County were sprayed with Naled, a common insecticide that kills mosquitoes on contact. The United States began using Naled in 1959, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, which notes that the chemical dissipates so quickly it is not a hazard to people. That said, human exposure to Naled during spraying “should not occur.”
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In parts of South Carolina, trucks trailing pesticide clouds are not an unusual sight, thanks to a mosquito-control program that also includes destroying larvae. Given the current concerns of West Nile virus and Zika — there are several dozen cases of travel-related Zika in South Carolina, though the state health department reports no one has yet acquired the disease from a local mosquito bite — Dorchester decided to try something different Sunday.
It marked a departure from Dorchester County’s usual ground-based efforts. For the first time, an airplane dispensed Naled in a fine mist, raining insect death from above between 6:30 a.m. and 8:30 a.m. Sunday. The county says it provided plenty of warning, spreading word about the pesticide plane via a newspaper announcement Friday and a Facebook post Saturday.
Local beekeepers felt differently.
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“Had I known, I would have been camping on the steps doing whatever I had to do screaming, ‘No you can’t do this,'” beekeeper Juanita Stanley said in an interview with Charleston’s WCSC-TV. Stanley told the Charleston Post and Courier that the bees are her income, but she is more devastated by the loss of the bees than her honey.
The county acknowledged the bee deaths Tuesday. “Dorchester County is aware that some beekeepers in the area that was sprayed on Sunday lost their beehives,” Jason Ward, county administrator, said in a news release. He added, according to the Charleston Post and Courier, “I am not pleased that so many bees were killed.”
Spraying Naled from the air is not unprecedented, particularly when covering areas that cannot be reached by truck. In a single year in Florida, more than 6 million acres were fumigated with the chemical, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The agency argued in January that the technique should be used to curb Zika in Puerto Rico.
But the insect neurotoxin cannot discriminate between honey bees and bloodsuckers. A profile of the chemical in Cornell University’s pesticide database warned that “Naled is highly toxic to bees.”
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Although the insecticide was known to kill bees, to South Carolina beekeepers spraying had not been as significant a concern as parasites, disease and other hive threats. As South Carolina Beekeepers Association President Larry Haigh told the Post and Courier in June 2015, many counties will spray at night, when honey bees do not forage for pollen. Plus, given sufficient warning, beekeepers will shield their hives and protect the bees’ food and water from contamination.
Sunday was different. Summerville resident Andrew Macke, who keeps bees as a hobby, wrote on Facebook that the hot weather left bees particularly exposed. Once temperatures exceed 90 degrees, bees may exit the nest to cool down in what is called a beard, clustering on the outside of the hive in a ball. Neither Macke nor Stanley had covered their hives.
And then came the plane.
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“They passed right over the trees three times,” Stanley said to ABC 4 News. After the plane left, the familiar buzzing stopped. The silence in its wake was like a morgue, she said.
As for the dead bees, as Stanley told the AP, her farm “looks like it’s been nuked.”
A Summerville resident started a Change.org petition calling for Dorchester County to halt aerial Naled spraying. It is unclear whether those who lost bees are pursuing other recourse.
Update: Dorchester County administrator Jason Ward wrote to The Washington Post in a statement on Thursday, clarifying that the county sent out a press release at 9:15 a.m. on Friday, Aug. 26.
“The beekeepers that were on the county’s contact list that were in the zone to be sprayed were called with one exception. Mr. Scott Gaskins, who runs the Mosquito Control program, failed to call Mitch Yawn, Ms. Juanita Stanley’s business partner,” Ward said in the email. | {
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During Saturday's edition of AM Joy, host Joy Reid opened her show with video footage from a 1972 edition of NBC Nightly News announcing that the Democratic National Committee had filed a lawsuit against the Committee for the Re-Election of the President and five men who had broken into the Democratic National Committee's Headquarters at the Watergate Complex.
Throughout the first fifteen minutes of the show, Reid and her guests did their best to draw parallels between the scandal that brought down President Richard Nixon and the Trump-Russia probe that the left hopes will ultimately derail the Trump Presidency.
After playing the clip, Reid offered her analysis: “In 1972, the DNC sued the Committee for the Re-Election of the President, aka CREEP, the fundraising arm of Richard Nixon’s re-election campaign at the center of the Watergate Scandal. The campaign eventually settled with the Democrats for $750,000 on the very day Richard Nixon left office. Fast forward to today and the Democrats are suing over another break-in, alleging that the Trump campaign, Wikileaks, and Russia conspired to disrupt the 2016 election by hacking the DNC’s e-mails.”
After mocking the President for incorrectly spelling “special counsel,” Reid brought in panelists, including MSNBC legal analyst Paul Butler and former Federal Prosecutor Seema Iyer. She asked former Watergate prosecutor Nick Ackerman: “Are we taking the Watergate analogies too far or are we on the right track?”
Ackerman argued that she was on the right track, referring to the Russian interference in the 2016 election as a “high-tech Watergate” and made sure to mention that Russian meddling in the 2016 election “was all done for the purpose of getting Donald Trump elected.”
Reid then talked to fellow former Watergate attorney Jill Wine-Banks, who felt a sense of nostalgia: “I loved hearing the audio of that because it did bring back a lot of memories.” She then scolded congressional Republicans for demanding access to the Comey memos, arguing that “it’s very dangerous to give out an ongoing investigation’s documents.”
It did not take long for Reid to delve into fantasy-land, bringing up the “constant threat” of another Saturday Night Massacre, where President Trump would order Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller, just as President Nixon ordered Justice Department officials to fire Special Counsel Archibald Cox. Iyer reminded Reid not to get ahead of herself, stressing that “the Mueller investigation is still not at Obstruction of Justice or collusion.”
As the far-reaching, never-ending Russia probe approaches its one-year anniversary, the media will continue to fantasize about President Trump facing the same fate as Richard Nixon; even if it means sloppy journalism and jumping to conclusions as long as it results in the President's removal from office
MSNBC's AM Joy
04/21/18
10:00 AM
JOHN CHANCELLOR: Lawrence O’Brien, Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, today filed suit for $1 million against the Committee for the Re-election of the President and against five men arrested early Saturday who were charged with breaking into the party’s national headquarters at the Watergate in Washington.
JOY REID: Good morning and welcome to “AM Joy.” In 1972, the DNC sued the Committee for the Re-Election of the President, aka CREEP, the fundraising arm of Richard Nixon’s re-election campaign at the center of the Watergate Scandal. The campaign eventually settled with the Democrats for $750,000 on the very day Richard Nixon left office. Fast forward to today and the Democrats are suing over another break-in, alleging that the Trump campaign, Wikileaks, and Russia conspired to disrupt the 2016 election by hacking the DNC’s e-mails. Late on Friday, Trump fired back, threatening to counter-sue the DNC and it’s former chair, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, who Trump seems to think is named Wendy. The lawsuit comes as a group of House Republicans have formed a veritable committee to protect the President by attacking fired FBI Director James Comey. The Republican Chairs of several key committees forced the DOJ to release memos written by Comey about his interactions with Trump. The memos were promptly leaked to the press. Well, this attempt to discredit Comey didn’t quite work out the way the Republicans thought. The memos are consistent with Comey’s testimony to the Senate and with his book, adding only a few more unflattering details to his portrait of Trump.
RACHEL MADDOW: He told you that he’d had a personal conversation with President Putin about hookers?
JAMES COMEY: Yes.
MADDOW: Did you believe him or did you think he was speaking hyperbolically?
COMEY: He didn’t seem to be speaking hyperbolically.
REID: Alrighty then. Well, instead of eating crow, the Committee to Protect the President claimed vindication, saying “the memos show Former Director Comey never wrote that he felt obstructed or threatened.” Trump, meanwhile, wants us to think that the memos undermine Robert Mueller’s investigation entirely, tweeting “James Comey illegally leaked classified documents to the press, in order to generate a Special Council?” C-O-U-N-C-I-L rather than C-O-U-N-S-E-L. Yes, Twitter did notice that. “Therefore, the Special Counsel was established based on an illegal act? Really, does everybody know what that means?” Joining me now, former Watergate Prosecutor Nick Ackerman, Former Federal Prosecutor Seema Iyer, MSNBC Legal Analyst Paul Butler, and Former Watergate Assistant Special Prosecutor Jill Wine-Banks. Thank you all for being here. Now, I’m going to come to you first on this because this sort of these analogies to Watergate keep piling up for Donald Trump. Now you have what I am calling the Committee to Protect the President, this group of Republican lawmakers in the House of Representatives, particularly on the House Intel Committee, who are doing pretty much whatever it takes to protect Donald Trump and wanting these memos released, it didn’t work out. But there’s a Vox article that talks about Donald Trump actually pressuring the Attorney General to fire two FBI agents named Strzok and Page who were tweeting things he didn’t like, tweeting things negative about him and to feed information to these allies in the House. Here’s a quote: “The president also pressed his attorney general and FBI Director to work more aggressively to uncover derogatory information within the FBI’s files, then turn over to Congressional Republicans working to discredit the two FBI officials, according to the same sources.” In the same article, Trump did this, knowing that Page could actually be a witness against him. Are we taking the Watergate analogies too far or are we on the right track?
NICK ACKERMAN: No, I think you’re totally on the right track. I mean, what you have here is a high-tech Watergate break-in, for starters. I mean, instead of bringing a bunch of guys up from Miami to break into the Watergate headquarters, the Democratic headquarters, they did it with the Russians, who did it electronically this time, making it a lot more difficult to uncover. It’s not like they could put tape on the door and a police officer would walk in and find a bunch of burglars. This made it very hard to detect in the first instance but it also made it much more insidious in the sense that they were able to take a lot more, and you could see what they did with it. And it was all done for the purpose of getting Donald Trump elected.
REID: Yeah.
ACKERMAN: So, absolutely. This is like, just, go ahead 45 years and it’s just now met up with the technology of what we’re looking at here.
REID: Yeah. High-tech Watergate.
ACKERMAN: Right. Even, even with respect to the other pieces of it, using Facebook and the, this micro-targeting of voters in specific districts. I mean, before, they were trying to figure out how to go around to voters or keep the vote suppressed. They did that in New Hampshire when Nixon was running and he had opposition with McCloskey. They had Roger Stone go up there and donate money in the name of the Young Socialists in order to make Republicans turn against McCloskey. Now, they were able to do it with electronics, with 60 million Facebook users that they were able to take and target Hillary Clinton voters to keep them from voting.
REID: And Roger Stone appears again, apparently having to (inaudible). Jill, there’s also the other couple of Watergate parallels, of course, the potential lawsuit here, or the lawsuit that’s actually been filed by the Democrats against the Nixon campaign. At that time, what did that yield and did it interfere at all with the official investigation of Nixon?
JILL WINE-BANKS: It didn’t. I loved hearing the audio of that because it did bring back a lot of memories. But it didn’t interfere. We worked very successfully, both with Congress and weren’t involved in any way in the civil suit. Civil suits present some problems now for the Trump Administration and for Cohen because it can lead to discovery, depositions, what they’re, things they’re trying very much to avoid, by dropping in the case of Cohen, he’s dropped at least one lawsuit but the Stormy Daniels case isn’t going away and that could lead to discovery, which could be a problem. I’d say the more difficult challenge was Congress demanding to get the investigative documents, the Comey memos, which had absolutely no purpose if they had really thought it through. I don’t know what they thought they were going to get. There is a theory that they thought they might be able to show that there, some of them were classified and had been leaked and that he lied about classified material, which doesn’t seem to be the case. It seems to have totally boomeranged on them, to totally have backfired, and it would have been an important thing for the Department of Justice to stand up to Congress and say we have a protocol of not giving out ongoing investigative documents for a reason. We don’t want to interfere with the investigation that’s going on by revealing this. Other witnesses will now be able to conform their testimony because they now know, for example, what was said about the Reince Priebus conversation. There are things that could change in the investigation. So, it’s very dangerous to give out an ongoing investigation’s documents. It was the wrong thing to do. The Department has a policy for a reason.
REID: Yeah. And when you’re talking about the Reince Priebus conversation, for those who are not up on the full Comey memos and what’s in them, that is a conversation in which Comey apparently asks, is asked by Reince, is this a private conversation, I replied that it was. He said that he wanted to ask me a question, if he decided it was appropriate to answer, then asked “do you have a FISA order on Michael Flynn,” a question that might not have been appropriate to ask. I want to come back, just for a second, with you, Paul Butler, to this lawsuit because I can envision a lawsuit in which the Democratic Party then says “We would like to depose Julian Assange,” who is of course holed up in an embassy, in the Ecuadorian embassy in London. We would like to depose everyone who was in that Trump Tower meeting. That’s Jared Kushner, that’s Paul Manafort, that’s Donald Trump Jr. Is that possible that that lawsuit could yield that kind of discovery?
PAUL BUTLER: Absolutely. So there’s a different standard, first of all, in criminal cases than civil cases. There’s a lower standard of proof. So, civil cases are take longer, especially when there’s an ongoing criminal investigation. But at some point you get discovery, which means that all of the people who have relevant information are forced to come in and testify under oath what they know. Now, interestingly, President Trump is not named in this lawsuit but all of the other relevant players are, and so we know that the Watergate suit was decided the same day that the stuff went down in Watergate. So again, it takes a long time. I think we’ll eventually learn more from Mueller sooner than we’ll learn from this civil lawsuit.
REID: Yeah, let’s go back to Mueller for a second, Seema, with you because the other sort of parallel to Watergate is this constant threat of a sort of Saturday Night Massacre, that Donald Trump will attempt to fire Rod Rosenstein or fire all the way down to the guy who mops the floors to quote somebody, rather, that was in the news, until he gets to somebody who will end the, end the Mueller investigation, fire Mueller. Jeff Sessions, according to The Washington Post, has threatened to quit, or at least he has said that it could cause him, put him in a position where he’d have to resign if Rosenstein were to be fired. What do you make of that?
SEEMA IYER: I think Jeff Sessions does not want to quit but I think it’s reasonable because every Friday night, this is, so maybe not a Saturday Night massacre but definitely a Friday Night massacre because this is what happens every Friday night. But at this point, I think it’s too early to tell. But listen, I think the important thing here is the Mueller investigation is still not at Obstruction of Justice or collusion, so this whole Democratic Committee filing a lawsuit seems like it’s being rushed, number one, and number two, and I’m no political expert here and you know that, but don’t the Democrats, shouldn’t they be spending the money on the midterm elections instead of this frivolous lawsuit?
BUTLER: Trump is no fan of Sessions anyway, so wouldn’t Trump say, okay, I’ll fire Rosenstein, make my day, Sessions, resign. Then I get two for the price of one.
REID: And I know you’re still sticking to your no collusion, your no collusion theory.
IYER: And Joy, please, let me just tell you one thing. Savannah Guthrie interviewed James Comey this week on “The Today Show,” and she asked him are we at collusion or obstruction of justice and he even pointed out that we’re still not able to…
REID: We don’t know what Mueller has found yet.
IYER: But no, we can’t, we can’t, we can’t articulate the intent, the corrupt intent.
REID: But what do you think that he’s investigating?
IYER: Investigating, yes, he’s investigating it. But if James Comey isn’t at obstruction, how can we be?
REID: James Comey’s not part of the investigation.
ACKERMAN: Well, first of all, James Comey has set up the facts, he hasn’t come to conclusions. The Republicans have got it all wrong, totally backwards. It’s not what James Comey thought in his head. It’s what Donald Trump thought in his head, what his intent was.
IYER: Right. That’s exactly my point.
ACKERMAN: Did he have a corrupt intent to obstruct and drop the proceedings? That’s precisely what he admitted to Lester Holt.
REID: Let’s go through a couple of other things. So what happened to the, the Comey memo comes out, right? And now we’ve got all these memos here. These are contemporaneous notes that he took after talking to Donald Trump, with Donald Trump asking about the “pee tape” repeatedly, asking all of these questions, and also saying “Can you please see your way to letting Michael Flynn go?” Andrew McCabe, who’s one of the, he told three people afterwards what happened in those one-on-one meetings with Trump. He told Andrew McCabe, who has been fired and had his pension stripped, he told James Baker, who was the FBI General Counsel, who has been reassigned, and he told James Rybicki, Donald Trump’s Chief of Staff who resigned. One more little piece of evidence and this is a timeline of events leading to Jim Comey being fired. January 6, Comey briefs Trump on the dossier, he gets asked all these questions. Trump is inaugurated, then on the 20th. Six days later, Sally Yates, who’s the Acting Attorney General, tells the White House that Michael Flynn could be compromised. Trump then has dinner with Comey the next night. The 30th, Yates is fired. Then Flynn resigns. Then Trump asks Comey to drop the Flynn investigation. Then Trump calls Comey and says “can you please lift the cloud” over him by ending the investigation. Then Comey doesn’t do it, he gets fired. Then Trump tells the Russians he fired Comey to ease the pressure on himself.
BUTLER: First of all, whoever ends up impeaching Trump, that’s their opening statement. And if, ultimately, if there’s a criminal case, that’s the opening statement. That’s obstruction of justice. Now, again, I’ve always said, unless there’s evidence of collusion, that is conspiracy to defraud the United States, I don’t think Mueller just brings the case of obstruction but Joy, you just laid out the compelling evidence that’s corroborated. I have to say I think collusion is coming because when Comey had that conversation with Priebus, Priebus, Comey told Priebus that the allegations in the dossier had been substantiated. The dossier is about collusion. | {
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Gene Roddenberry would have been proud. More than 50 years after production commenced on Star Trek: The Original Series, his groundbreaking creation continues to live long and prosper. On Saturday afternoon, 6,000-plus fans filled Hall H at San Diego Comic-Con for the panel Star Trek: Celebrating 50 Years. Moderated by Bryan Fuller, who later showed a teaser video that revealed the title of the upcoming series to be Star Trek: Discovery, the panel featured William Shatner, Jeri Ryan, Scott Bakula, Michael Dorn and Brent Spiner.
Fuller told the fans, "I didn't want to be a writer. I wanted to be a Star Trek writer. So, being here today is a dream come true." He challenged the crowd to "think about the promise of Star Trek" and to consider "What we can all do to get there." Then he addressed the stars at the dais beside him. "They've represented the faces of the future," he observed, "for the 50 years of Star Trek."
For the better part of an hour, Fuller posed questions to the actors about their experiences on Trek and about the enduring power, societal impact and popularity of the franchise. He then opened the floor to fans who asked questions of their own.
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Shatner was asked if, assuming Kirk's death could be "undone," would that resurrection interest him? "Hell, yeah," he replied with a pure Shatner delivery. Fuller, citing the TNG episode "The Measure of a Man," queried Spiner as to his thoughts on the state of the world.
Spiner said, "I think Star Trek in general has been about individual rights and about respecting everyone, no matter who or what they are. We're living in a world right now where that sort of respect is being challenged not only all over the world, but in our country. It's disturbing. I think a lot of our politicians and a lot of our fellow citizens could take a page from Star Trek and have more respect for humanity." Bakula said, "I continue to be hopeful that, even when it gets dark, we as a species will figure things out."
Next, a fan thanked the assembled talent for "bringing such a beloved and progressive show to the world, and then addressed her question to Fuller. She wanted to know how Discovery would pick up those threads. "The new show has to continue to be progressive," he said. "It has to push boundaries. It has to give us hope for the future." He also revealed that Discovery will be "telling stories like a novel," in what he referred to as "chapters."
Other anecdotes from the panel:
Fuller, while prepping got Discovery, spoke to astronaut and TNG guest star Mae Jemison, who told him that seeing Nichelle Nichols on TOS had inspired her.
A young man stepped up the microphone to ask a question and some in the crowd booed mildly when they saw on the screen that he was sporting a Star Wars shirt. "We can like both," the fan said, a statement repeated by Fuller. Ryan agreed, saying, "Inclusion. Gene's vision. Exactly."
Everyone offered interesting answers to a question asking about the actors' favorite bits of Trek tech. Dorn chose the PADDs, while Shatner went with the communicator and Spiner selected the replicator, a choice that led to a heartfelt conversation about just how unnecessary real-world hunger, especially in the United States, could and should be. Bakula joked that Enterprise didn't have many cool gadgets, but he shared an affection for the "glow in the dark blue gel" that the cast occasionally slathered on each other in order to decontaminate themselves.
And on it went, with plenty of laughs, thoughtful memories and more. Spiner and Dorn politely declined to do their infamous dueling Gregory Peck imitations, while Ryan addressed the difficulties of joining Voyager mid-run and replacing a departing character. Near the end, Fuller compelled everyone in the audience to hold hands as one, and he encouraged everyone to "make a promise to leave this room with love, to leave this room with hope." He also led a moment of silence for Leonard Nimoy and Anton Yelchin and all those involved with Trek whom we've lost over the years. And then, to cheers, Fuller introduced a video that revealed both the latest great Trek ship, the U.S.S. Discovery (NCC-1031), and the Star Trek: Discovery logo.
Though the main public event ended there, Fuller and the actors then headed into another room for a half-hour press conference, during which they were joined by Discovery co-producers Heather Kadin and Rod Roddenberry, and fielded questions from the media.
And that was followed by a short red carpet session during which they posed for photos separately and together, and fielded a few more questions from the journalists on hand. The highlight of the press conference was an expansive, thoughtful 5-minute rumination by Shatner on Star Trek's legacy which touched on dinosaur bones and the Greeks, a few of his books, Stephen Hawking, science fiction as mythology, dilithium crystals, an executive/Trek fan who lent him a private jet, and more, all based on a so-called "mere television show" that's lasted 50 years and counting, and has changed the world. "That's what the meaning of Star Trek really is," he concluded to extended applause from his fellow actors, Fuller and the assembled journalists. | {
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Last September, in The British Journal of Sports Medicine, Australian researchers published a review of studies that compared subjective and objective measures of “athlete well-being” during training. The objective measures included state-of-the-art monitoring of heart rate, blood, hormones and more; the subjective measure boiled down to asking the athletes how they felt. The results were striking: The researchers found that as the athletes worked out, their own perception registered changes in training stress with “superior sensitivity and consistency” to the high tech measures.
Outsourcing your self-monitoring to a gadget may have another downside. Steve Magness, a track coach at the University of Houston, recently drew on arguments from Matthew Crawford’s book “The World Beyond Your Head” to argue that running with a GPS watch “slackens the bond between perception and action.” In other words, when you’re running, instead of speeding up or slowing down based on immediate and intuitive feedback from your body and environment, you’re inserting an unwieldy extra cognitive step that relies on checking your device as you go.
None of this adds up to a case that wearable fitness technology is a waste of time. For many people, the primary purpose of an activity tracker like a Fitbit is motivation. Simply knowing how many steps you take, or how much sleep you get, will spur you to seek more, especially if you’re comparing and competing with your online peers — a big difference from the un-networked $2 pedometers that came in cereal boxes a decade ago.
There’s reasonable evidence that this approach has useful effects, at least in the short term. In one study using activity trackers published in February, participants increased their daily step count by 970 after six weeks, an amount that previous studies have linked to improvements in body mass index and insulin sensitivity. Even if it’s true that more than half of users eventually stop wearing their devices, it’s still a laudable outcome that several million people exercised more than they otherwise would have for a year or two.
Ultimately, it is those aggregate numbers that offer the most exciting possibilities: The collective data stream from our devices amounts to by far the largest and most comprehensive observational health trial ever conducted. We have the data; now we just need to figure out what it means.
Technology companies are already taking the first steps. Rather than simply tracking your individual heart rate, calories burned and so on, they want to use that flood of data to enable us to make more informed decisions. Under Armour, for example, just announced a partnership with IBM to provide “cognitive coaching” that will crunch all your tracked data, and compare it to data from millions of others like you, in order to offer smarter advice on how to exercise, eat and sleep. Other wearable companies are pursuing similar projects. | {
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The latest polling shows that only seven 2020 candidates are on track to make the debate stage in September. That includes people you might expect like Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, but is also includes tech entrepreneur Andrew Yang. The presidential candidate sits down for his very first interview on The Beat to break down his signature “Freedom Dividend” plan, eliminating the penny and why he loves holograms so much. | {
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KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghanistan’s president and other senior leaders announced Thursday that they were rethinking the country’s relationship with Pakistan and its negotiations with the Taliban because talks had yielded so little.
As a result, the leaders said, they planned to work closely with the United States, Europe and India to plan the country’s future.
The shift in Afghanistan’s policies emerged in a statement released by the presidential palace on Thursday after a meeting the night before of senior government officials, including the two vice presidents, the national security adviser and several former military commanders who are close advisers to President Hamid Karzai and who fought to push the Russians out of the country in the 1980s.
“Despite making repeated attempts in the past three years, including sending several letters to the Taliban to open negotiations in order to bring peace and stability to the country, our leaders, scholars, influential figures, elders, women and children, old and young are being martyred,” the statement said, referring to a string of assassinations this year, most recently the killing of Burhanuddin Rabbani, the chairman of the peace council. | {
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Just like our debate over the ACC’s best offenses, there are plenty of candidates to post the best unit on the defensive side. Virginia, Louisville and Boston College were all good last year and could take strides in 2015, too. Florida State has too much talent to struggle two years in a row. But for now, ACC bloggers Jared Shanker and David Hale have narrowed the debate down to two: Virginia Tech and Clemson.
David says the Hokies will be the ACC’s toughest D: Remember how good Clemson’s front seven was last year? Remember how the Tigers finished as the No. 1-ranked D in the nation? Well, guess which team actually led the country in sack rate in 2015. It wasn’t Clemson. It was Virginia Tech.
Kendall Fuller is expected to be key at cornerback for Virginia Tech in 2015. Andy Mead/Icon SMI
Of course, what happened in 2014 shouldn’t necessarily mean much for 2015 -- especially since Clemson is losing nearly every starter off that vaunted front seven. But Virginia Tech is in a little different situation. The Hokies actually return nearly every key member of their defensive front, plus they’ll get back a healthy Luther Maddy. In fact, of the 18 returning ACC players who racked up at least eight tackles for loss last season, six of them are on the Hokies’ roster (and that’s not counting Maddy).
In other words, there’s probably not a better defensive front in the country than the one in Blacksburg.
Admittedly, the secondary was a bit more of a concern, and Virginia Tech gave up way too many big plays last season. But that was a function of a number of issues. Brandon Facyson missed most of the year with an injury. The starting safeties -- both gone in 2015 -- were inconsistent. And Bud Foster, as usual, put a lot of pressure on his DBs to hold up in coverage as he brought pressure again and again.
But let’s remember, Kendall Fuller is still an All-American. Facyson should be healthy in 2015. Chuck Clark could work at corner, safety or nickel, giving Foster a ton of versatility in the defensive backfield.
And even if the number of big plays surrendered isn’t cut dramatically, it might not matter much. Virginia Tech still stuffed 42 percent of its opponent’s plays for a loss or no gain last year (fifth most in the country) and utterly confounded the eventual national champs. This isn’t a team that needs to sweat a few game-breakers, because this defense is just as capable of creating its own big plays, too.
Jared is arguing for the Tigers as the ACC’s best unit: We know from watching last year’s Florida State defense that when an elite group loses its elite players, there is bound to be regression. Clemson is facing a similar exodus on the defensive side of the ball, losing nearly all of its top players from the country’s top-ranked unit.
Clemson's Brent Venables won't be short on talent despite losing several key starters. Tyler Smith/Getty Images
What the Tigers do have that Florida State did not, however, is a level of consistency at defensive coordinator. Brent Venables has made significant increases each year since taking over the Tigers’ defense, and that continuity should breed success -- even not on the same level -- despite a reloading along the front seven.
Few programs nationally are recruiting as well as the Tigers, so there is talent for Venables to work with. For starters, the secondary has potential All-American Mackensie Alexander and physically imposing Jayron Kearse -- and David already made my case for the talented secondary -- to help a defensive line as it jells and develops a pass rush. And speaking of the defensive line, it still has Shaq Lawson and D.J. Reader, and Ebenezer Ogundeko, a redshirt sophomore who was raw coming out of high school, is expected to finally blossom. Linebacker Ben Boulware should be a candidate for a spot on the All-ACC team by season’s end.
Clemson’s defense will also have more help than Virginia Tech’s this season. For starters, the Hokies’ offense is at best a question mark and at worst a hurdle that will continually set the defense up for failure. Michael Brewer needs to be able to rid himself of the big turnover that pins the Hokies deep within their own zone to begin defensive drives. Tackles for loss and short gains are a great stat to lead in, but ultimately the best defenses are going to be judged on points and wins. Clemson could have the conference’s best player leading its offense in Deshaun Watson.
The Tigers’ schedule sets up for a better defensive finish, too. There aren’t many offenses the inexperienced Tigers will face in 2015 that will instill much fear in Venables. Through the first half of the season as the Tigers gain their defensive footing, they play Louisville and Notre Dame, which each have issues at quarterback. Boston College is overhauling its offense, and Wofford and Appalachian State pose no threat. Georgia Tech could have the ACC’s best offense, but the Tigers did well against them a season ago and get the Jackets at home. Five of the first six games are at home for Clemson.
Meanwhile Virginia Tech opens against Ohio State’s bruising rushing attack, and it has Georgia Tech and the Marquise Williams-led UNC offense (which you, David, predict will be the conference’s best) in November.
It’s splitting hairs trying to pick the best defense, which is why it might come down to which unit will have the better support system in place. | {
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A new Ethernet standard that allows for up to 2.5Gbps over normal Cat 5e cables (the ones you probably have in your house) has been approved by the IEEE. The standard—formally known as IEEE 802.3bz-2016, 2.5G/5GBASE-T, or just 2.5 and 5 Gigabit Ethernet—also allows for up to 5Gbps over Cat 6 cabling.
The new standard was specifically designed to bridge the copper-twisted-pair gap between Gigabit Ethernet (1Gbps), which is currently the fastest standard for conventional Cat 5e and Cat 6 cabling, and 10 Gigabit Ethernet, which can do 10Gbps but requires special Cat 6a or 7 cabling. Rather impressively work only began on the new standard at the end of 2014, which gives you some idea of how quickly the powers that be wanted to push this through.
While Cat 6a and 7 are growing in popularity, the vast majority of homes, offices, and institutions use Cat 5e and Cat 6—and upgrading the cabling would be very expensive indeed. A wired 1Gbps connection is still fairly adequate for a single PC user, of course—but over the last few years, with the explosion of high-speed Wi-Fi, Gigabit Ethernet is now one of the bottlenecks. For example, the top end of the 802.11ac spec eventually calls for a total aggregate capacity of around 6.5Gbps; even current consumer 802.11ac gear, which maxes out at around 1.3 or 1.6Gbps, is running up against the limits of GigE.
The new 2.5G/5GBASE-T standard (PDF) will let you run 2.5Gbps over 100 metres of Cat 5e or 5Gbps over 100 metres of Cat 6, which should be fine for most homes and offices. The standard also implements other nice-to-have features, including various Power over Ethernet standards (PoE, PoE+, and UPoE)—handy for rolling out Wi-Fi access points.
The physical (PHY) layer of 2.5G/5GBASE-T is very similar to 10GBASE-T, but instead of 400MHz of spectral bandwidth it uses either 200MHz or 100MHz, thus not requiring a super-high-quality mega-shielded cable. (This is the same reason that higher-bandwidth variants of DSL such as G.fast, only work over very short distances.) Other differences from 10GBASE-T include low density parity checking (LDPC) rather than CRC-8 error correction, and PAM-16 modulation rather than DSQ128.
Now that the standard has been approved, we won't have to wait long for enterprise 2.5Gbps and 5Gbps Ethernet networking gear. What's less clear is whether we'll get consumer-grade 2.5Gbps equipment; we probably will, but not for a little while yet. | {
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Image caption Lord Mandelson warned Jeremy Corbyn's opponents to be ready for the "long haul"
Lord Mandelson has advised Labour Party members unhappy at the election of Jeremy Corbyn not to be in a hurry to see him replaced as leader.
In comments first seen by the Guardian newspaper, the peer argued Mr Corbyn had to demonstrate his "unelectability" at the polls before facing a challenge.
He also blamed the current state of the party on the legacy of New Labour and former leader Ed Miliband.
Mr Corbyn's team and the Labour Party have not commented on the remarks.
"The original New Labour generation owe the younger generation an apology: what we passed on when we left government in 2010 was not fit for purpose," Lord Mandelson said.
Under Ed Miliband, he went on, Labour "had still not acquired any coherent forward agenda but nor did we have a leadership the public recognised as 'big' figures.
"They appeared to the public more like special advisers than real politicians."
Lord Mandelson told opponents of Mr Corbyn to prepare for the "long haul".
He said: "In choosing Corbyn instead of Ed Miliband, the general public now feel we are just putting two fingers up to them, exchanging one loser for an even worse one.
'Public will decide'
"We cannot be elected with Corbyn as leader. Nobody will replace him, though, until he demonstrates to the party his unelectability at the polls.
"In this sense, the public will decide Labour's future and it would be wrong to try and force this issue from within before the public have moved to a clear verdict."
BBC political correspondent Iain Watson said the comments could be seen as a message to long-standing members of the party to wait until next spring - after elections to the Scottish Parliament and for London mayor - before making any move on Mr Corbyn's position.
If the advice is followed, it may give Mr Corbyn breathing space free from open warfare in the party, our correspondent adds.
The left-wing Islington North MP, who is 66, was elected as Labour leader with nearly 60% of the party vote earlier this month,
Ahead of the election, Lord Mandelson was joined by New Labour colleagues Tony Blair and Gordon Brown in warning of the dangers of a Corbyn leadership. | {
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あなたは「ユニモト（unimoto）」と呼ばれる乗り物をご存知だろうか？ それはフロントタイヤを欠いた、異形のバイクだ。フロントタイヤの代わりにソリのようなパーツが備え付けられたこのバイクは、バランスをとりながら地面の上を滑るようにして走っていく。市販されているモデルがあるわけでもないから、ドライヴァーは自分自身の手でマシンをつくり上げている。
比較的バイクに近いもの、蒸気機関で動くもの、飛行機のような形をしているもの…その種類はさまざまだ。ロケットエンジンにタイヤがついているだけに見えるマシンすらある。世界各地でユニモトのレースが開催されているが、なかでも注目すべきはロシアで開催される「Snow Dogs」だろう。それはただでさえ危険なこの乗り物を雪原で走らせるという、常軌を逸したレースなのだ。
イタリア出身の写真家、アレッサンドロ・ディアンジェロは2016年にSnow Dogsの存在を知った。レース参加者の並々ならぬ熱意に魅了された彼はSnow Dogsについて調べ始めたが、インターネット上にはほとんど情報が見当たらなかったのだという。「端から見ると狂気が感じられるほど人々が情熱を注いでいる物事を撮影したいんです」と語るディアンジェロは、その現場に立ち会うべくロシア・トリヤッチへ向かい、レースに興じる人々の姿をとらえた。
今年は約1000人の観客が会場を訪れ、35人のドライヴァーがレースに参加していた。現地に到着したディアンジェロは、身振り手振りとグーグル翻訳を駆使しながら人々と親交を深めてゆく。参加者たちは、テントを立てたりマシンを整備しながらひたすらウォッカを飲み続けていた。レースは11時頃から始まり、午後まで続く。夜が来ると、今度はパーティーの時間だ。キャンプファイアを囲み、スープを飲む。ときにはサウンドシステムを持ち込む者が現れ、カラオケが始まることもある。
「ドライヴァーの強さと、ユニモトのファンタジックな形状、このイヴェントのスピリットに感銘を受けました」とディアンジェロは語る。ドライヴァーの人々は、マイナス25〜35度という極寒のなかで一日中ウォッカを飲み続けていたにもかかわらず、口論や喧嘩は一切なく、会場は終始フレンドリーな空気で包まれていた。ディアンジェロも朝9時半からウォッカを飲まされ、この祝祭的な空間を楽しんだのだという。
「ユニモトに乗ったことはありますか？」と尋ねられたディアンジェロは、自分はそこまで無茶な人間ではないと返す。「わたしがドライヴァーになるとしたら、ウォッカでベロベロにならなければいけないでしょうね」と彼は語った。 | {
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wishes more people were brave enough to be whistleblowers crucifies verizon for blowing the whistle on the NSA wiretapping
114 shares | {
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College students are finding it's harder to turn a profit by mining cryptocurrencies. Even with universities footing the energy bill, it's getting more expensive to break into the mining business. Equipment prices are soaring, even as digital currencies fall.
"It's gotten pretty ludicrous now the amount of money you have to spend to get in," Alex Gilarde, a senior at Fairleigh Dickison University said.
Cryptocurrencies are created by a process called "mining." Essentially, computers solve complex mathematical equations. In exchange for lending their computing power, miners get digital coins. They can exchange those for other cryptocurrencies, hold onto them, or cash out.
But cryptomining takes up a lot of energy and computing power. So reliable electricity and hardware are a must.
The price of graphics cards from companies like AMD and Nvidia has skyrocketed alongside bitcoin's rise to the mainstream. The graphics cards have been traditionally marketed toward online gamers, but cryptominers need the hardware to build their mining rigs too. The demand for those cards has gotten so high that miners and gamers alike are struggling to get their hands on them.
Gilarde has been mining cryptocurrencies since 2012. He said he was pretty "tech-savvy" in high school, so when he and his friends heard about cryptomining, they decided to give it a try. At the time, the price of one bitcoin was less than $5.
In total, Gilarde said he spent around $4,000 to $5,000 on hardware to build his mining rigs. From the start, he's been finding ways to stretch his investment.
"When I started mining cryptocurrencies and going onward, I would do it in my parents house and in our own school actually after school. I would leave my laptop in different corners of the school," Gilarde said.
"They didn't really know I was doing it, and since when we first started off it wasn't really a big phenomenon, they kind of just let it go. It wasn't really the electricity sapping phenomenon it is today."
Now, he has three rigs running in his dorm room 24/7, and another still back at his parents' house. Gilarde said he takes out anywhere from a couple hundred to a thousand dollars from his digital wallet every couple of months. That's enough for him to pay for part of his tuition and diversify his investment portfolio.
But the price of bitcoin has been falling this year. The digital currency has lost more than half its value since its peak in late 2017. And other cryptocurrencies are following suit. | {
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Recently, St. Vincent’s Annie Clark teamed with Intelligentsia Coffee to create her own of brand of signature Joe. However, if the rich, dark taste of “Bring Me Your Mugs” isn’t quite your style, the Chicago-based brewer has teamed with another indie darling to concoct their own artisanal line of coffee: The New Pornographers.
Despite sounding like fish-flavored coffee, “Brill Brew” actually draws its name from the Canadian outfit’s first album in four years, Brill Bruisers. The collaboration came together after Intelligentsia heard the band’s members are ardent coffee consumers and invited Carl Newman to taste samples at their shop in Chelsea. Newman (more like Brew-man!) was drawn to a “Kenya coffee grown by Harrison Kiongo Miti”, which serves as the basis for “Brill Brew”. Intelligentsia described the coffee as “cheerful and sweet,” containing flavors of “mango, nectarine, and green apple shine”.
In a statement, Newman said, “As absurd as it may seem for us to have a signature blend, I think it is important that there is some sort of marker, some flag planted in the earth, so that whoever walks into Intelligentsia, whoever drinks this, will know: ‘The New Pornographers really really loved coffee.’”
Pre-orders for the coffee are ongoing. Each bag comes with a download of the Brill Bruisers LP. Or, go crazy and get the bundle that contains two tote bags and two coffee mugs. Because if you drink coffee with mango, you definitely use tote bags.
Brill Bruisers is due out August 26th via Matador Records. In support, the band will be on tour this fall, including appearances at Riot Fest Toronto and Pemberton. Consult their full schedule here.
Though it’s no sweet, sweet coffee, the music video for “War On The East Coast” is still fairly stimulating. Sip it in below: | {
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Hotties Of The Super Bowl
If you're like me, you know absolutely nothing about either team that's playing in the Super Bowl this year, but you're going to watch anyway. With that in mind, here are all the men you should plan on staring at come Sunday because they are fine as hell. | {
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Hello Rocksmith fans!
This week is an indie rock themed pack, although the distinction is murky, wikipedia tends to agree with the genre placement for all three artists.
Last week we confirmed that @xambassadors single Renegades (VHS – 2015) would be the first track included in the Indie Rock Song Pack. Today we can confirm (via Xbox NZ) that both @SnowPatrol’s Chasing Cars (Eyes Open – 2006), and the male lead vocal version of Aranbee Pop Symphony Orchestra’s cover of Bittersweet Symphony (1997) will round out the pack.
There seem’s to be an issue with The Verve licensing this song (besides the obvious one), that even prevented Activision from getting it in DJ Hero.
Indie Rock Song Pack – $7.99 / Steam
Return of the vocal lead? It’s been awhile!
Are you excited for these three Indie Rock singles? Or were you expecting something far more jangly? Let us know!
0 0 vote Article Rating | {
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descriptionDescription
Here is a smaller Sparkle boost for those who think the default one is cool but has too much sparkles. :D
Bonus: I recommend using the Gold Rush (Alpha) boost sound effects with this one, it fits well in my opinion. (Not included).
If you're interested, check my tutorial on reddit (you just need to go at the end of the post to download the file) : https://www.reddit.com/r/RocketLeagueMods/comments/5jxw5a/tutorial_changereplace_boosts_sounds/ | {
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This film was shown only once, and with no advance notice on stations in only five US cities. In March of 1995, Walt Disney Television aired an intriguing UFO special called “Alien Encounters” on The Wonderful World of Disney. This highly unusual UFO video special presented UFOs and alien visitation to our planet as a matter of fact and was part of a promotion of the “New Tomorrowland” area, in particular, the new “Alien Encounters” ride which launched around the same time and was quickly cancelled.
The show is odd because while it is made by Disney, it presents the UFO phenomenon and the associated conspiracy as absolutely real from the intro with Michael Eisner at “Area 51” with armed guards to the interviews. | {
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The health minister, Bernard Haufiku, told parliament Wednesday that the case was reported in Ohangwena, a region in the north of the country, about 800 kilometers from Windhoek.
Haufiku said the patient had been to Lubango in Angola where there has been an outbreak of yellow fever since Dec. 2015.
According to Haufiku, preliminary results had confirmed the case although the ministry has sent samples to a South Africa laboratory for confirmation.
Haufiku said Namibians travelling to Angola must be vaccinated against yellow fever that has so far killed more than 250 people and affected close to 2, 000 others. Enditem
Source: Xinhua | {
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CLAY COUNTY, Fla. – Ethan Lloyd and Christian Scheibe are fishing buddies. The 12-year-olds look forward to their weekends throwing in a line at a neighborhood pond in Oakleaf. They also look forward to watching the reality show "River Monsters" on Animal Planet. It was that show on TV that came to life in their own backyard.
"We were like, 'Whoa.' We were blown away," said Lloyd and Scheibe.
It was just a normal weekend of fishing when the boys felt a tug and new they had something special.
"It was fairly big, and whenever we pulled it up, most catfish kinda grunt, well he growled and huffed," they explained.
Lloyd recalled, "Me and Christian watch Jeremy Wade all the time, "River Monsters," and we were like, 'Is that a Red-Tailed Catfish?'"
The boys couldn't believe what they caught.
"Aubrey was like, 'There's no way.' He came out here and picked it up, and it was a Red-Tailed Catfish. Red-tailed catfish have a red line down the middle and red on the bottom and top, it has a signature look. We never thought we'd catch anything like that," Lloyd said.
And the 12-year-olds shouldn't have caught anything like that. Redtail Catfish live in the Amazon, a long way away from Clay County.
"Florida is a breeding ground for all sorts of non-native species," explained Marine Biologist Dr. Quinton White, executive director of Jacksonville University's Marine Science Research. "There are a lot of things that are here that aren't native to the area."
White says often people buy these non-native fish for their aquariums and then some actually dump them in our waterways when they don't want them anymore.
"In most cases, when it happens like that, they die. They don't adapt well to that sudden change. But, in enough cases, they survive," said White.
It's similar to the problem we're having here with Lionfish. They are beautiful in the aquariums but deadly in our local waters. Since Lionfish don't belong here in the first place, there are no natural predators. Over the years, they've been growing in numbers, all while eating the fish we rely on for our ecosystem, our livelihoods and our dinner plates..
In fact, in an effort to control the Lionfish population, starting November 26, 2014, it will be illegal to even breed Lionfish in Florida. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission says these changes were developed in coordination with the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services and include:
Prohibiting the harvest and possession of Lionfish eggs and larvae for any purpose other than destruction;
Prohibiting the intentional breeding of Lionfish in captivity.
Importation of live Lionfish into Florida was prohibited August. 1, 2014. The FWC says if you see or catch a Lionfish, you can report it by downloading the new Report Florida Lionfish app or go to MyFWC.com/Lionfish.
White says people really need to understand how much harm Lionfish and other invasive fish like Redtail Catfish can do.
"The biggest problem is that once these things are established, its virtually impossible to get rid of them. There is no way to kill them, there is no way to stop them from reproducing effectively, so they are just going to proliferate, and in some cases, take over the entire environment," he warned.
Lloyd and Scheibe did throw the fish back into the pond but the good news is it's likely the only Redtail Catfish in there. They say they're going to keep throwing a line out, hoping to hook it again and remove it from the pond for good.
"Jeremy Wade caught one that was like that like 250 lbs. for all we know, that thing is still in here, and if it gets that big and I catch it, I'm gonna taxidermy it," promised Lloyd.
If you do have an invasive fish, a fish that's not native to here, and you want to get rid of it, White says whatever you do, don't release it. You can try contacting the fish store where you bought it. Also, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission has an Exotic Amnesty Program. That number to call is 1-888-483-4681. | {
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Art: Nina PaleyLes U. Knight (get it?) is the face and the force behind the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement (VHEMT, pronounced vehement). Motto: “May we live long and die out.”
It might sound like a strident or mean-spirited campaign, but Knight is certainly not a strident or mean-spirited guy. He’s hit on a creative way to talk about the population problem and the damage humans do to ecosystems everywhere, without calling for reproductive coercion (note the prominence of the word voluntary). The gist: If we all just decided to stop procreating, humans would gradually and peacefully clear out and make room for everything else.
The delightfully irreverent yet good-hearted VHEMT website is witty enough to make a Grist punster downright jealous. A sampling of the wisecracking:
“If sex is an urge to procreate, then hunger’s an urge to defecate.”
“It has been suggested that there are only two chances of everyone volunteering to stop breeding: slim and none.”
“Warning: Some of the words in the following messages may be offensive to those who find certain combinations of letters offensive.”
“We might look for an enemy to attack when championing our righteous cause, but in reality our enemy doesn’t have a butt to kick. In the end, the real ‘enemies’ are human greed, ignorance, and oppression. We can achieve more by promoting generosity, awareness, and freedom than we can by vainly kicking at a buttless foe.”
Knight launched the site and the movement in 1996, but he claims no ownership. Thousands of people from all around the world have adopted the VHEMT cause as their own; some of the most dedicated have translated the site into 16 other languages. There’s no formal membership; if you agree with the movement’s goal, you can just declare yourself a volunteer or supporter.
I chatted with Knight to get the scoop on his vehement beliefs.
Q. How did the whole VHEMT thing come about?
A. It came about for me the same way it’s come about for millions of other people. You just start looking at the world and thinking about the problems and solutions to the problems, and eventually you come down to the fact that our excessive breeding has increased the population to the point where we’re not taking care of everybody, and if there weren’t any humans on the planet, everything would be fine. The biosphere would recover, species that we are driving to extinction would no longer be endangered and could flourish, and there’d be no more human suffering.
It’s an idea that’s probably been around for a very long time — I just gave it a name.
Q. Definitely we humans have made a mess of things on this planet, but we’ve made some great stuff too — music, art, literature. Wouldn’t it be a shame to see all of that human culture disappear?
A. We wouldn’t see it disappear.
Q. Because we wouldn’t be here?
A. [Laughs.] All those things are fun for humans, and I hope we continue doing them right to the last day, but we haven’t done anything that benefits the rest of the planet. The rest of creation could do just fine without us. Since even before we became Homo sapiens, we’ve been adversely impacting ecosystems that we inhabited.
Q. Was there a particular moment when you decided not to have kids?
A. No, it was gradual. Like most people, I always assumed that I would, because that’s what we’re culturally conditioned to think. And then as time went on, I realized that I really didn’t want to create my own. I did become a stepparent, so it isn’t that I don’t like kids and don’t really want to be a parent — it’s just that I don’t think we should create more of us, especially since we’re not taking care of all of us who are here today.
Q. Have you felt like not having a kid is a sacrifice that you’re making for a greater good?
A. No, I haven’t sacrificed at all. I’ve had the opportunity to be a parent without breeding. I have lots of kids in my life.
It is a sacrifice for a lot of people, if they’ve always wanted to have kids and they don’t see any other way of doing it. Or for women, if they really want to experience that whole pregnancy and childbirth part of life, and then decide not to for the sake of the planet or even for the sake of the child that’s not born.
There’s so much pressure to breed in all societies that it’s a wonder that as many people as do choose not to — 20 percent of American women over 40, [according to] that new study. And in a lot of cultures, women are outcast and are driven to suicide if they cannot conceive, even though of course it could be their partner’s fault.
The single most important issue is the increased status of women, not just in developing countries but all over the planet — education, reproductive freedom. Women need the freedom and the opportunity to pursue their own lives beyond being a wife and mother, and in a lot of countries they don’t have that. Even in America, I think a lot of women don’t feel that they have an option.
The basic right to breed is well-established and fought for, even though it’s not threatened. The basic right to not breed barely exists in some places, doesn’t exist in many places, and needs to be defended.
There are quite a few women who are mothers on the VHEMT list that I moderate, and some of them were coerced into having their kids. They’re not saying, “I wish my kids were never born.” They’re saying they find it encouraging that by getting their message out, other women don’t have to go through the life that they went through.
Q. Are there more men or women who are VHEMT volunteers, or is it about even?
A. It seems to be about even, and that, I think, is unusual. Population-awareness groups have always been male-dominated, and to their detriment. Men tend to see the world more mechanistically, more like a big machine: If you do the right tinkering, then things will come out right, and the baby-making portion of the machine is overproducing, so if we can turn that knob and adjust it — which means control women’s lives — then it would run properly again. So the solutions have been more what would be called population control rather than reproductive freedom. And reproductive freedom is what we really need. Our population is already far too controlled — it’s control that prevents people from having the freedom to choose how many children they have.
Several hundred million women don’t have the freedom to choose how many children they have. Maybe more, who knows? I think it could be a couple billion, at least. There is no place where true gender equality exists, and the greater the gender equality, the lower the birthrates and all the other good things that follow it, like lack of oppression.
I think that things are changing. [The population movement] is not as control-oriented as it was. The Optimum Population Trust is a good example of the new wave of it.
Q. I’ve heard from some people that being childfree can feel lonely. Are there any local chapters of VHEMT volunteers who physically meet together? An online community is great and lets you know you’re not alone, but it’s not the same as having people to go out with on a Saturday night.
A. No, I have never heard of any group of VHEMT volunteers getting together, and I wouldn’t be interested in it myself. I don’t think it’s such a great idea [because] we are a very varied group of people, and the only thing we really have in common is that we think that humans should stop breeding, and we don’t even agree on going extinct. There are people who are supporters of the movement who agree that the intentional creating of anyone anywhere can’t be justified today, but maybe someday if we get it down to a reasonable number, you know a million or so, then we’ll rethink it. Even something as basic as a woman’s right to an abortion — there are [VHEMT advocates] who consider themselves pro-life. The only thing that we absolutely all agree on is that humans should not conceive whenever possible.
Q. How do you communicate with other VHEMT volunteers and supporters? Are there discussion boards on the VHEMT site, or listservs?
A. Yes, there are several of them. There are a couple of large ones on Facebook [here and here]. I moderate one on Yahoo for volunteers or supporters. I also moderate two others, one for the specific purpose of debating whether or not we should breed, and the other whether or not we should go extinct. So there are opportunities for people to argue against it.
Q. A lot of people get touchy when one talks about choosing not to have children. What’s your strategy for broaching the topic? Say you’re at a dinner party with a lot of people you don’t know.
A. I try to figure out what their perspective is before I give my perspective, so I can present it in such a way so that it’s not an affront to their existing perspective on life. I have developed ways over the years of wording it so that it’s not so confrontational. I think it is easy to get fanatical — you know, “There’s only one way to do it and everybody’s got to do it my way! Hurry up! The world is falling apart!” I think it’s more important to maintain friendships and relationships than it is to try to convert someone to your ideology.
People who are planning on having kids know how I feel about it, and we joke about it. I say, “I’m going to have to file an environmental impact statement for that!” | {
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This isn't hyperbole: The past two weeks were two of the worst ever for American political media, all thanks to a rush to be first that easily trumped the priority of being accurate.
It already feels like months ago that ABC's Brian Ross reported on national television that former national security advisor Michael Flynn was going to testify that candidate Donald Trump Donald John TrumpOmar fires back at Trump over rally remarks: 'This is my country' Pelosi: Trump hurrying to fill SCOTUS seat so he can repeal ObamaCare Trump mocks Biden appearance, mask use ahead of first debate MORE had ordered him to contact the Russians during the campaign, only to later clarify and eventually outright correct that the order came from President-elect Trump, with the conversation centering on fighting ISIS in Syria.
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Remember that time when Reuters and Bloomberg reported that Trump's bank records were under subpoena? That was just six days ago. That turned out to not be true, either.
And of course, we had the CNN exclusive on Friday that was arguably as damaging to the network as the Ross report was to ABC. The original report stated Donald Trump Jr. and other Trump campaign officials had received WikiLeaks documents and an encryption key 10 days before anyone else. CNN reporter Manu Raju depended on an email being read to him by multiple unnamed sources and didn't wait to verify the information by seeing a copy of the email itself.
The Washington Post did take the time to obtain said email with the correct date in question, however. And after hours of CNN going wall-to-wall on its exclusive on Friday morning, the Post pushed back on the CNN account shortly after 1:00 p.m. ET, but not before CBS and NBC News somehow "confirmed" the same exact false information.
Later that afternoon, CNN issued a correction while stating that no reprimand was coming because "unlike with Brian Ross/ABC, Manu Raju followed the editorial standards process. Multiple sources provided him with incorrect info.”
So what are the three big things these stories have in common?
All pertain to the Russia investigation.
All are based solely on unnamed sources who likely have an agenda that goes well beyond just innocent whistleblowing.
All are profoundly negative toward the president.
The last point is something Trump supporters always point to on Twitter: Why is it that every story based on unnamed sources is always a negative one? And who are these sources? Are they political operatives? Lawmakers? What kind of access do they have to the president or to crucial information?
And while we're on the subject of the Trump Jr./WikiLeaks story, how exactly did three major news organizations run with the same exact error around one date based on what their sources told them?
The only logical conclusion is that this misinformation was knowingly and purposely leaked in an effort to damage the administration.
The stories were corrected, sure. But the allegation always gets 100 times the play as the exoneration.
Case in point: CNN's Jim Scuitto promoted the network's exclusive on Twitter on Friday morning. Check out the number of retweets and likes on the now-debunked report:
CNN Exclusive: Donald Trump, Trump Jr. & others in Trump Organization got email in September 2016 offering decryption key and link for hacked WikiLeaks documents https://t.co/otaTlQfd8t https://t.co/eSesmbQm6a — Jim Sciutto (@jimsciutto) December 8, 2017
More than 2,300 retweets and 3,300 likes.
Later in the day, Scuitto rightly noted the story had been corrected, but didn't delete the original tweet. Instead, he issued the correction below the original tweet, which contains false information.
CNN and reporters @mkraju & @jeremyherb corrected this story as follows: Email pointed Trump campaign to WikiLeaks documentshttp://www.cnn.com/2017/12/08/politics/email-effort-give-trump-campaign-... — Jim Sciutto (@jimsciutto) December 8, 2017
As you can see, there's just 52 retweets and 148 likes, a fraction of what the original still-live tweet received.
All of that said, the next step must be taken: The sources in this case need to be revealed.
Why? Because they likely have peddled false information before, if three news organizations accepted the information as fact. This person or these persons will undoubtedly do it again. To ensure this doesn't repeat itself, they need to be exposed in the same way the Washington Post exposed a woman posing as a Roy Moore accuser for James O'Keefe's Project Veritas last month.
More than 40 years ago, Watergate reporting by Woodward and Bernstein was mostly sober, careful and meticulous.
The rule then was “get it first, but get it right.” Now it's invariably “put it out there and see what sticks. And if it's wrong, news moves so fast and trust in media already is so low that the mistake will be forgotten in 24 hours anyway.”
Recent weeks have been our political media's worst in recent or long-term memory.
The hope would be that we learn from these mistakes. But if the past 12 months have taught us anything, it's a sure bet history will continue to repeat itself.
Joe Concha (@JoeConchaTV) is a media reporter for The Hill. | {
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The Obama administration said it does not support the portion of a new trade law that requires actions against entities that boycott goods manufactured in the West Bank.
“As with any bipartisan compromise legislation, there are provisions in this bill that we do not support, including a provision that contravenes longstanding U.S. policy towards Israel and the occupied territories, including with regard to Israeli settlement activity,” the White House said in a statement Thursday.
The United States does not recognize the West Bank as belonging to Israel.
The Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act, aimed at removing unfair barriers to competitive U.S. trade, is otherwise acceptable in its current form, the White House said, and the president will sign it. Versions of the bill were passed last year by both chambers, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a reconciled version in December and on Thursday the Senate passed it as well.
The bill, in a lengthy section on promoting U.S. Israel trade, requires non-cooperation with entities that participate in the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel, and reporting on such entities. The section includes within its definition of an Israel boycott actions that would target businesses in “Israeli-controlled territories.”
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee in a statement praised the bipartisan slate of lawmakers who advanced the anti-BDS provision, although the statement did not specify inclusion of the problematic “Israeli-controlled territories” language.
“The provision puts the U.S. firmly on record opposing BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) and supporting enhanced commercial ties between the United States and Israel,” it said. “It further establishes new requirements for administration reporting on an array of global BDS activities, including the participation of foreign companies in political boycotts of Israel. The provision also provides important legal protections for American companies operating in Israel.”
Dovish pro-Israel groups, including J Street and Americans for Peace Now, had advocated for the removal of he “Israeli-controlled territories” language.
The European Union, over strenuous Israeli objections, last year adopted a policy requiring the labeling of goods manufactured in Israeli settlements, a practice that would facilitate the targeting of settlement businesses. The Obama administration last summer said it would not object to the policy.
U.S. policy since the 1990s has also required distinct labeling of products manufactured in the West Bank; however, unlike the E.U. regulations, the rule applies not only to settlements, but to goods manufactured throughout the territory, including by Palestinians. Additionally, the George W. Bush administration on at least two occasions issued orders overriding the requirement, allowing goods manufactured in the West Bank to be labeled as made in Israel.
Separately, a bipartisan slate of lawmakers on Thursday introduced legislation that would make it easier for state legislatures choosing to target BDS, authorizing the divestment of state monies from entities engaged in BDS.
The bill, sponsored by Sens. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., and Joe Manchin, D-W.V. in the Senate and Reps. Robert Dold, R-Ill, and Juan Vargas D-Calif., in the House, follows the passage recently of a bill in Illinois targeting BDS. “This bipartisan bill would authorize state and local governments in the United States to follow Illinois’s lead and divest from companies engaged in boycotts and other forms of economic warfare against Israel,” Kirk said in a statement.
The Illinois law specifies protections for companies operating in territories controlled by Israel, as do a number of other proposed bills circulating in legislatures throughout the country. A number of proposed state-level anti-BDS bills do not specify the territories.
Meanwhile, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, on Thursday introduced legislation that would shut down the Palestine Liberation Organization office in Washington until the Palestinian Authority has been proven to end incitement against Israelis, stops paying subsidies to the families of terrorists who are in jail or who have been killed, ends its bid to obtain statehood recognition in international forums outside the framework of negotiations with Israel and pulls out of the International Criminal Court, which is investigating war crimes charges against Israeli officials. Cruz is among the front-runners for the Republican presidential nomination.
The PLO has maintained an office in Washington since 1994, following the launch of the Oslo peace process. | {
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Whoopi Goldberg of The View suggested that Antifa was created by the right, to make the left look bad. She offers as her reason that she never heard of Antifa until Trump became president. But Antifa has existed for years under the name Black Bloc. This just shows how ignorant Whoopi is.
Here’s what she said, via News Busters:
When we look to see what they were talking about, there was nothing there because when you look at the bottom of the list the year that they’re talking about is when Obama was in. So we went to see what they had been protesting, what fascist stuff Antifa had been protesting. There’s nothing there. We can’t find anything. This to me– Antifa is one of those things, I don’t want to say the right, but somebody came up with as a catch phrase so that you could say there’s violence on the other side. I don’t remember violent demonstrations before the gentleman who’s in now came in…
People kept saying on television — particularly on the other networks. Well, this group. I kept saying who is this group? Because when you see how stuff is organized, you can say that’s who we are, we’re fighting for this. Oftentimes I found that sometimes the side that is kvetching the loudest has sort of orchestrated this so they can bitch about it. I’m not sure who was storming through the streets. I’m not sure who was storming through the streets.
Watch the video:
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Also, does Whoopi not know that Antifa was declared a domestic terror threat while Obama was still president?
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Craig and Carla spent three weeks travelling in Costa Rica (Tamarindo and around Arenal) with their young children. Zack was four years old and Lucas was eight months old at the time. Most of their friends thought they were crazy to do it.
Q: I understand your friends thought it was a bit crazy to travel to a country like Costa Rica with young children. What did you find most difficult?
A: People seem to think it is an insane thing to do because of the ‘fear’ factor—it’s outside their comfort zone. But we have travelled twice to Mexico with Zack and we knew we could do this as a family. The biggest challenge is actually the flight there and back. When you walk on a plane with little kids it is obvious everyone hopes you’re not going to sit close to them. When you do sit down the expression on the faces around you is “oh my god.” Twice people asked to be moved to other seats on the plane.
Q: How do you make the flight easier?
A: My first recommendation is not to plane hop. It is not worth saving $100 if you have to change planes. If there is no choice, consider breaking up the trip, stopping the first night at an airport hotel that has a swimming pool. So the reward at the end of the day is a swim in a pool.
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Why travel with kids? Because it opens up their world
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We count on the kids sleeping 25% of the flight time, so you have to figure out what you’ll do to entertain them the rest of the time. We brought colouring books, mini story books, and lots of snacks and drinks. Some people bring little gifts that can be opened every two hours. Be sure to bring spare clothes and diapers because accidents happen!
Q: What about getting from the airport to where you were staying?
A: We made a commitment to stick to Canadian safety standards when in Costa Rica so we wouldn’t just hop in a taxi without car seats. We brought car seats from home and arranged for a private shuttle to meet us and that was a good decision.
Q: I imagine you brought lots of other stuff with you?
A: Yes, and we actually brought too much. Aside from the car seats, we brought a stroller and a portable crib (check out “travelling with children” on the airline’s website). The stroller should be a jogger one with big wheels and I picked up a used one before I left home. An umbrella stroller will not work because the roads are too rough. The stroller was our saviour and without it we would have been miserable. Each day we would load up the stroller with the kids and all our stuff and head out to the beach.
The southern end of the beach in Tamarindo is great for children and I wasn’t worried about Zack wandering out into the water a few feet on his own. We had to be careful about not getting too much sun and you can buy sun hats, sunscreen and a beach umbrella there if you need them.
Bring any special things your child needs like lactose free milk. We wished we had brought laundry detergent for sensitive skin. Other than that, we could have gotten everything else there and did not need to bring so much food and formula from home.
Q: Is it preferable to stay in an all-inclusive property or at a place where you can cook your own meals?
A: We like both ways of travelling but having a house as we did this time was great with kids. We could buy what the kids like to eat and just have it in the fridge. We packed our lunches and ate them on the beach. It’s easier to eat in your own kitchen with kids than going out to restaurants so we did that most of the time. We could also schedule meals for times that suited us.
Q: Looking back, was it worth the effort?
A: This was a great family trip and one that included extended family and friends so Carla and I were able to get breaks from the kids. Zack talks about the vacation to this day. We spent time researching activities for children and as they say, if the kids are not happy, you are not happy. The activities don’t have to be expensive. He loved a place where he could hold snakes and an exotic frog and even though the owners didn’t speak English it was so interactive.
Costa Rica is a child friendly place. Locals are good with children and so accommodating. We had to seek dental assistance for Zack and the dentist came on the weekend and someone translated for us and Zack got the antibiotics he needed.
After three weeks, we were so into the zone that we didn’t want to go home. So it certainly was a fabulous experience.
© Riding the buses 2011 | {
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Even though the Syrian state television Al-Ikhbariya announced a Kurdish curriculum would be adopted in "universities, schools and institutes," the commission in charge of the project has discussed it exclusively in universities, as is clear from interviews with the academic figures on the network.
"The Arabic alphabet is not capable of ‘absorbing’ the Kurdish phonetics, as already proven by Badarkhan's works. The regime claims to collaborate with the Kurdish Institute of Paris — how is this possible if all of their works are in Latin letters?" asked Piroz Perik, a freelance journalist from Ras al-Ain now based in Turkey, in a Skype interview. Ali Jaladat Badarkhan was an editor who standardized the Kurdish language using the Latin alphabet in the 1930s. Badarkhan's Kurdish is read in Syria and Turkey, but a Perso-Arabic alphabet is currently used by Kurds in Iraq and Iran. "The regime insists on turning the Kurdish language into an expression of the Arab culture," continued Perik.
"It is a positive step, but they decided to adopt the Arabic alphabet, even though in Syria we use the Latin letters. This means they never consulted our people before making this decision. It's simply imposed from above," Yekiti Kurdi Party member Badran Masto told Al-Monitor in a Skype interview from Ras al-Ain.
Kurdish instruction in Syria is still an imperfect practice, limited to universities and using the Arabic alphabet, while Syrian Kurds use Latin letters. It is also widely perceived as a tactical move to win the support of the Kurds and the international community ahead of the Geneva II conference . Nonetheless, this academic reform is a positive indication of the capability of the Kurds to reverse the hostility of the regime toward their cultural and political demands. Kurdish nationalist aspirations have been omnipresent throughout the uprising, and the Kurdish public has largely come to accept an entente with the government for the sake of Kurdish interests.
The Kurdish regions of Syria are increasingly isolated from the rest of the war-ravaged country. While the regime keeps shelling strongholds of the mostly Arab rebels, it allowed the Kurds to form a transitional autonomous administration in November 2013. After more than 50 years of Baathist discrimination, the Kurds achieved what was completely inconceivable a year ago: the introduction of their language in state-run universities, announced Dec. 18. In November 2012 , the Ministry of Education had ordered the temporary closure of all schools where the Kurdish language had been introduced upon an initiative of the Kurdish parties in the northeastern province of Hasakah.
"They just opened a Kurdish Department in the Faculty of Languages [of Damascus], as is the case for all the other languages," Abdul-Karim Omar, member of the Democratic Society Movement (TEV-DEM), a pro-Democratic Union Party (PYD) group, told Al-Monitor in a Skype interview from Qamishli. This would qualify Kurdish as a foreign language taught in universities, rather than the second official language of the country.
Others personally witnessed scanty institutional commitment to the introduction of Kurdish.
"I met the head of the High Institute for Languages in the University of Damascus while I was looking for a job as a qualified teacher of Kurdish. There, I realized they hired Kurds without any teaching diploma and their wage is particularly low — $100 per month — which is the salary of an MA student starting to teach at university," complained Arabic and Kurdish teacher Joan J.S.A. Ferso in a Skype interview from Amuda.
Most Kurds remain skeptical toward the genuineness of this governmental reform, as they consider it an attempt to boost Kurdish support and portray the regime as a caretaker of Syrian minorities ahead of Geneva II.
Internet cafe owner Tawfiq al-Husseini told Al-Monitor from Qamishli in a written interview, "The regime is attempting in vain to build a popular base among Kurds and send abroad the message that it is the defender of minorities," journalist Piroz Perik told Al-Monitor. "While the naturalization of the ajanib [the so-called 'foreigners,' the Kurds who were stripped of their Syrian citizenship by a census conducted in 1962] in April 2011 aimed to win over the Kurdish public at the beginning of the revolution, the introduction of the Kurdish language serves the purpose of bolstering the position of certain Kurdish parties."
Nevertheless, even the Kurdish parties that are considered close to the regime, such as the PYD, officially reject the motivation for this decision. TEV-DEM's Abdul-Karim Omar said, "We are in the run-up to Geneva II, so that opening room for the Kurdish language is a media maneuver, an attempt to clean the face of this bloody regime in front of the international community."
When asked about how the latest Kurdish achievements with the regime were possible, most Kurdish political actors deny the existence of any sort of agreement, but ordinary people show no hesitation in accepting controversial alliances in order to preserve Kurdish interests.
"The regime didn't give us anything. We have just exploited its weakness, but we are still part of the opposition and we fight against the government in Shaykh Maqsud [a neighborhood in Aleppo]," said Omar.
The most pragmatic Kurds legitimize the "truce" with the regime by prioritizing Kurdish interests and the blood spared by this decision.
"The Syrian Kurds saved their regions from a bloodbath, but they remained loyal to the revolution by not taking part in the crimes committed by the regime. In politics, you can give a hand to your enemy for the sake of serving your own people,” Ala Hussein, from Amuda, told Al-Monitor in a written interview.
"I view what has been presently offered or overlooked by the regime as something fruitful in the long term. It is a historical opportunity for Kurdish interests,” said another Syrian Kurd in a written interview.
The return of such nationalist aspirations suits the PYD's manifesto, which promotes Kurdish empowerment and local autonomy. The latter aspect also attempts to appeal to the other ethnicities populating the northeast of Syria. "Ours is not a nationalist project. It is rather similar to the [opposition-led] local administrations set up all over Syria,” Omar said.
"It's the expression of all Syrian communities,” affirmed Perik.
In the current dire economic situation, the PYD's political vision has gained more support than a costly overthrow of the regime. | {
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Welcome to American Horror Slack, where Fast Company‘s illustrious (read: procrastinating) binge-watching crew Mac and KC watch the latest episode of American Horror Story: Hotel–at work–and post running commentary in Slack. Think of us as a second-screen squad for cord cutters while you dive into episode 2: “Chutes and Ladders.” (And you might want to slip into a plastic bag before you dive–this season is gory!) As the season goes on, we hope to have some Super Special Surprise Guests join us in AHS, but if not you’re stuck with us. So get comfortable. Maybe pick up a life-size David Bowie body pillow or something. | {
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#HogsCamp: Media Day Press Conference
Head Coach Bret Bielema took the podium on Sunday afternoon to kickoff #HogsCamp media day, addressing the first four days of camp… | {
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Atualizado em 6 dez 2019, 10h43 - Publicado em 6 dez 2019, 10h12
Por Giovanna Romano - Atualizado em 6 dez 2019, 10h43 - Publicado em 6 dez 2019, 10h12
“Vira à esquerda, companheiro!” É com a animação de quem está no palanque que a voz do ex-presidente Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) dá o comando para o motorista no aplicativo Waze seguir rumo ao seu campo ideológico. A versão do petista fica mais sisuda quando tem que dar a orientação no sentido oposto: “Vire à direita”, limita-se a dizer.
Trata-se, evidentemente, de uma brincadeira: a imitação está disponível para download no aplicativo de GPS. Uma vez instalada, a voz “Lula” dá os mesmos comandos que voz padrão do app. Quando há alguma viatura por perto, o petista redobra a preocupação com o motorista: “Polícia reportada à frente, companheiro. Cuidado!”. Com o trajeto já calculado, Lula faz um convite ao usuário antes de seguir viagem: “Está pronto? Eu estou! Vamos, companheiro, tomar os meios de produção!”
A assessoria de imprensa do Waze explicou que o aplicativo permite que usuários gravem seus próprios comandos e compartilhem o áudio entre si. “No menu de Configurações > Voz e Som, todos os usuários do aplicativo têm acesso a gravação de comandos. Esse recurso está disponível desde 2017 para todos os usuários da plataforma”, informou — o recurso tem uma limitação: não fala o nome de ruas. Com a facilidade ao alcance de um botão, foi um pulo ele para virar brincadeira, mas ainda não há imitação do presidente Jair Bolsonaro.
Os apoiadores do ex-presidente estão se divertindo pelas redes sociais com a imitação. A deputada federal Erika Kokay (PT-DF) compartilhou um vídeo no qual aparece o aplicativo funcionando com o comando. “Quando vira pra esquerda, a voz de Lula fica mais alegre!”, comentou.
🚨SENSACIONAL🚨
Waze acaba de ganhar versão com voz do ex-presidente Lula!
Baixe o App e TESTE a sua capacidade de direção.
Quando vira pra esquerda, a voz de @LulaOficial fica mais alegre!😂 Clica no link : https://t.co/hkddKZ9H1d pic.twitter.com/JwDAWgvfju — Erika Kokay (@erikakokay) December 6, 2019
Confira outras reações:
Colocaram a voz do Lula no Waze. Polícia reportada, companheiro, cuidado! Kkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk pic.twitter.com/rsCSYzRC6Q — Luiz Eduardo (@luiz4001) December 6, 2019
Baixei o Waze só pra ouvir a voz do Lula.
😁 — D´Rosa Make Up (@DRosaMakeUp) December 6, 2019 Continua após a publicidade
Não vejo a hora de pegar a estrada e ligar o waze com a voz do Lula. 😅 — Sheler Souza (@sheler_souza) December 6, 2019
Ansioso para acordar amanhã e ir trabalhar com o waze ligado na voz do Lula pic.twitter.com/y9U2xygtwa — j.v (@jv_tol) December 6, 2019
Meu Waze está com a voz do meu ex presidente Lula e nada mais importa — assiar (@raissagrn) December 6, 2019
A voz do Lula no waze ficou sensacional, ele dá um ênfase quando manda manter a esquerda companheiro hahahahaha — Benjamin A. Bocca (@jao_snow) December 6, 2019 | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
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