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Fotostrecke: Boom 2 für Mac OS im Überblick
Vollversion: Boom 2 für Mac OS wurde zuletzt am 02.09.2013 aktualisiert und steht Ihnen hier in der Version 1.4.1 zum Download zur Verfügung.
Die CHIP Redaktion sagt:
Psst! Geheim! Hier gibt es nicht zu sehen, außer die exklusive-Oster-Vollversion für unsere Mac-Freunde. Mit "Boom 2" erhalten Sie die Vollversion des systemweiten Equalizers für Ihren Mac komplett kostenlos.
Vollversion: Boom 2 für Mac OS
Boom 2: Kostenlose Vollversion des Equalizers für Mac OS
Remote-Steuerung und individuelle Einstellungen
Der CHIP-Osterhase hat dieses Jahr auch an unsere Mac-Nutzer gedacht und eine fantastische Vollversion für OS X ins Nest gelegt. Mit "Boom 2" verbessern Sie die Audiowiedergabe Ihres Macs deutlich - zum einen lauter und auch wesentlich feiner ausgesteuert. Der intelligente Equalizer kalibriert sich selbst und und lässt sich individuell anpassen.Die Kalibrierung nach der Installation des Programms richtet sich speziell nach Ihrem Modell aus, um maximal optimierte Klanghöhen zu erreichen. Der Equalizer wird auf die komplette Audioausgabe Ihres Macs angewendet, wodurch nicht nur Musik, sondern auch VoIP-Programme wie Skype besser klingen, als je zuvor.Neben dem 10-Band-Equalizer ist auch ein erweiterter Equalizer vorhanden, mit dem Sie Ihrem System den letzten Schliff verpassen können. Auch verschiedene Modi für Musikrichtungen und fünf verschiedene Sound-Effekte wie "Night Mode", "Spatial" und "Pitch" sind mit an Bord.Besitzer von iPhone oder iPad können den Equalizer auch bequem vom Sofa aus mit Ihrem Mobile-Gerät aus steuern - dafür gibt es die Boom 2 Remote -App.Für Filme und einzelne Lieder kann mit "Boom 2" auch eine komplett individuelle Einstellung berechnet werden. Einfach die Datei in das "Boom"-Fenster ziehen und schon beginnt die Optimierung. | {
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Attorneys for a Wisconsin boy who wants to compete with his high school dance team have filed a federal civil rights complaint after the Minnesota State High School League barred him from a championship competition.
The Pacific Legal Foundation filed the complaint Tuesday with the Office for Civil Rights in the U.S. Department of Education, The Star Tribune reported . It argues that Minnesota's policy is discriminatory and violates Title IX, which bars sex discrimination in education programs that receive federal funds.
Kaiden Johnson, 15, attends Superior High School in Wisconsin. The school allows him to dance with the team. The Minnesota league told Johnson in December that he couldn't compete with his team in competitions in Minnesota because that state doesn't allow boys on high school dance teams.
Membership on athletic teams can be restricted to one gender if their overall athletic opportunities have previously been limited, according to a Minnesota state statute.
"I get that," said Ray Kosey, activities director at Superior. "If 20 boys tried out for the dance team, some girls might get cut and eliminate some girls from participating."
But Kosey said it's time to examine if the law is outdated and should be changed.
"We know boys who are in Minnesota who want to be part of a dance team," said Miranda Lynch, Johnson's mother. "But they don't want their name out there because they don't want to be bullied."
The Minnesota league shouldn't bar boys from competitive dancing, said Joshua Thompson, a Pacific Legal Foundation attorney.
"Title IX's requirement for equal opportunity for all students, regardless of sex, is crystal clear," Thompson said. "Schools cannot tell either boys or girls, 'you're the wrong sex, therefore, no dancing for you.'"
Kevin Beck, an attorney for the Minnesota league, declined comment.
___
Information from: Star Tribune, http://www.startribune.com | {
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THE Marawi crisis will likely end this month as government troops are concluding their operations in the war-torn city, President Rodrigo Duterte said Tuesday. “It looks like we’re just mopping up, and they’re just trying to find out where the leaders are,” Duterte told state-run PTV4. Duterte said that while he thinks the fight in Marawi is “almost over,” there won’t be any victory celebration. “I do not want any celebration of victory. We all lost in Marawi. Every Moro or every soldier who died breaks our heart. They’re all Filipinos,” he said in Filipino. “So when it’s over, I don’t want anybody shouting, ‘Mabuhay! Mabuhay!’Let us just pray to God, maybe thank the Lord that it’s over. We hope Allah will remember the people of Marawi,” he added. The President said the government will focus on rebuilding the war-torn city. As of Sept. 18, 673 terrorists and 149 soldiers were killed, while 47 civilians died in the fighting that began May 23. | {
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Mindestsystemanforderungen: Empfohlene Systemanforderungen:
Multiplayer Notice:
A Uplay account and key code are required to play online multiplayer, the key can be found in your virtual game shelf. Offline multiplayer does not require anything beyond a LAN connection.
Supported Video Cards at Time of Release:
ATI® Radeon® 9600–9800 / X300–850 / X1050–1950 / HD2400-2900 / HD3400–3870 / HD4300–4890
NVIDIA GeForce® 6100–6800 / 7100–7950 / 8200–8800 / 9200–9800 / 120–140 / 250–295
Laptop versions of these cards may work but are NOT supported. These chipsets are the only ones that will run this game. For the most up-to-date minimum requirement listings, please visit the FAQ for this game on the Ubisoft support website at: http://support.ubi.com
NVIDIA® nForce™ or other motherboards/soundcards containing the Dolby® Digital Interactive Content Encoder required for Dolby Digital audio. | {
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The man who was wearing an American flag bandana over his face when he allegedly slashed a woman in Ditmas Park earlier this month has been charged with a hate crime. Gregory Alfred, 25, has been charged with multiple counts of assault and attempted murder as a hate crime after he allegedly confessed to police, "I cut her because she was white."
Alfred is accused of slashing 53-year-old Janina Popko across the back of her neck in Ditmas Park around 10 a.m. on March 10th. "[He said] nothing—breathing and slash," Popko told reporters after the incident. "It’s terrible. That’s all I can say... I am very lucky, and very grateful [to be alive]."
"I was riding my bike and I saw the victim sitting on the ground and she was crying," a good Samaritan who saw Popko after the attack told us. "I thought she had fallen because the pathway was in bad condition. It wasn't until I got closer that I saw that she was bleeding. The victim said she had been walking and the man came up from behind her and cut her and ran off. A girl who had been jogging behind her called 911 and I helped the woman until the ambulance came."
Sources told the Post that Alfred told police "he set out to slash white people because he blamed them and “the system” for preventing him from freely smoking weed."
Alfred was extradited to NYC Wednesday after being picked up at his mother's home in Sayreville, NJ over the weekend. He has been charged with attempted murder as a hate crime, attempted felony assault as a hate crime, felony assault as a hate crime, misdemeanor assault, and criminal possession of a weapon.
Another report stated that Alfred was arrested last year on a trespassing charge, but doctors determined that he lacked the mental capacity to stand trial. After a voluntary (but violent) stay at Kingsboro Psychiatric Center, he was sent to a facility for the criminally insane on Wards Island, and then ultimately let go when witnesses couldn’t or wouldn’t cooperate with the investigation. | {
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Viola Davis is no stranger to success with two Oscar nominations under her belt, but the road there was paved with hunger. In the new issue of People magazine, the actress opens up about her childhood, and what she says might surprise you. "I was one of those kids who grew up hungry," she revealed. "I'm 48 years old now, and it's only been recently that I can admit that I would jump in trash bins looking for food and I would steal from the corner store because I was hungry," Viola added, "I would fall asleep in school on a daily basis because we had nothing."
The "Ender's Game" star grew up in Central Falls, R.I., and admitted that she never had friends come over because her home was condemned and infested with rats. But with the help of food programs, Viola overcame those obstacles, studied at the Juilliard School in New York City, and has become one of the most sought-after actresses in the business. And she's giving back.
The star is partnering with the Safeway Foundation and the Entertainment Industry Foundation to lead a campaign for Hunger Is, which raises awareness and money for childhood hunger. "I am the first generation of my family to go to college. Those programs made all the difference for me," Viola told People. "It's been cathartic for me because I always had a lot of shame with going in the garbage dumps that had maggots in it, too. It has brought healing in my life to be able to talk about it."
Check out the video to see Viola's public service announcement for Hunger Is, and be sure to tune in to "The Insider" on TV tonight for the latest in entertainment news.
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Dear Jess
It is true that hiding behind a screen allows – sometimes maybe encourages – people to say and do things they wouldn’t in person. And the increase in nasty, offensive, and in certain cases clearly illegal, behaviour online is a big problem which the tech platforms haven’t tackled enough. I’m sure we both agree on that.
But stripping everyone of the ability to be anonymous online is not the answer. First, imagine what would be required to make it work: I suppose people would hand over passports or ID cards to Facebook to prove who they are? The more you think about the practicalities, the worse this idea gets. Surely we’ve learned over the last few months about the many dangers of big companies knowing everything about us all the time. Are you sure you want more of that?
Even if we could make this happen without building a Chinese-style digital surveillance system, we still shouldn’t. Stripping trolls of their anonymity might lessen marginally the nastiness, although I’m not convinced: cyber-disinhibition is also caused by the lack of face-to-face, immediate contact, which this idea wouldn’t change. But let’s say it did – and we’re now two hypotheticals in, but for the sake of this exchange I’ll carry on – even then it still wouldn’t be worth it because anonymity has so many good uses too. What about the undercover journalist who joins Facebook groups to expose wrongdoing? Or the teenager who chats in a self-help forum, or the gay person from a religious community who needs to talk, but fears being found out? I’m sure you can imagine a thousand other cases. Do you wish these people out in the open too? I assume not. So how will you guard against it?
Then there’s the broader health of political debate. Our modern panopticon is creating a soft but constant self-censorship. It might not feel like that when people are screaming abuse online – but for every troll there are lurkers who watch but don’t post, for fear of the angry mob; the data collectors, the nosy employers or the hordes of professional offence-takers who shark around the net waiting to be upset. Without the freedom to explore, to imagine, to discuss ideas openly and boldly – things that are often easier when you’re not under the gaze of everyone – our politics will become duller and yet more stilted. This is the very last thing we need.
Dear Jamie
I find myself in an uncomfortable position of becoming a Mary Whitehouse figure. I’ve carried witty banners against laws that would curtail my freedoms. I hear your concerns.
I don’t want any big state actor using my identity against me, or big corporates using it to sell me another widget that will sit in the drawer with the takeaway menus. Oh, it’s too late. Already bot accounts sent to incite hatred against me for the sake of nothing but chaos are at work as I write this on a laptop I bought because the woman using it on Instagram really spoke to me. I don’t want to lecture you, a man far more learned than me, on how messages pumped out seemingly from a bone fide person have affected our politics.
Anonymity and stock-image anime avatars have spread hatred against the gay kid you hope to protect. The citizen journalist you fight for might very well be noble, but I’ve read lies about myself written by so-called truth-telling bloggers that have spread and then been presented to me by completely innocent bystanders as fact. I have no recourse. Eventually the myths become the truth, because “our Auntie Liz saw it on Facebook”.
It might be easy to brush away the febrile atmosphere online as a nasty byproduct of free expression: it’s less easy when it happens to you. When someone wrote messages about burning my vagina with molten metal and another fantasised about my children hanging by their necks I sought legal recompense: alas, they lead to a server in Colombia, a dead end.
I want, just as you do, the freedom of expression and exploration that our online world offers. If I had one wish it would be this. But I cannot be free, I cannot explore ideas any more, because what I get back silences me. It makes me think twice before entering and it censors my voice. It is no longer worth the grief for people (especially women) like me to interact; it’s just too tiring. I am not alone; young women tell me all the time that they won’t speak up because they will have their heads digitally lopped off. One young woman who was writing about her experiences of anxiety, privately messaged me to ask that I undo a retweet of her article because my sharing it had caused her to suffer hours of abuse. Her platform shrank, when you and I both want it to grow.
I am not for one second suggesting that everyone has to appear as who they are online. Have a pseudonym, keep your anime avatar or hammer and sickle for all the reasons you have outlined, but someone should be able to trace who you are. You should have to be verifiable by someone.
Dear Jess
Thanks for the thoughtful response. Likewise, I don’t want to lecture you about what it’s like to be targeted – I watched the abuse you received with horror. I also accept your point that self-censorship also occurs when you fear getting hammered by anonymous bullies.
But surely the answer is better policing. You yourself have documented police incompetence in dealing with this. But that’s changing: the number of arrests for online abuse is going up fast. We should focus on improving policing techniques and resources, rather than upending the way the internet works.
You finished by suggesting “pseudonymity”: that people could keep a mask online, but still be verifiable by someone. But who is that someone? I don’t want Facebook having everyone’s verified identities, even if I can use an avatar. And Facebook at least is run by (mostly) sensible adults. But who would be in charge of verifying the small forums, blogs, and chatrooms where people also spend their time? 4chan – one of the most popular spots for trolls – was set up by a 14-year-old American, and I wouldn’t trust him with anything. Your government might be responsible with the potential power this would create: but what about the next one, or the one after that? Did you see the other day one police force asking for “non-crimes” to be reported?
As you said, sometimes the chase leads to a server in Colombia – a dead end. You’re right. Which is why for this to have the desired effect, you’d probably need every other country in the world doing the same, as many perpetrators are overseas. I’m sure the Colombian, Turkish, Russian and Venezuelan governments would be more than happy to support this idea. Hell, they might even say that if someone so liberal and reasonable as Jess Phillips MP wants it, then why shouldn’t we?
Dear Jamie
We are at risk of reaching a consensus, which will not do. If the internet has taught me anything it is that people are either heroes or they belong in the bin. So I shall persist.
I agree with you that I don’t want rogue governments or 4chan teenagers holding information about anyone. Once again I fear this is too late. Most people don’t have these niche arguments of not wanting to be known, most people have absolutely nothing to fear. Blizzard, the games company, tried to make the players of World of Warcraft stop [using] anonymity as people were becoming feral. Fans were not happy and ended up doxing [spreading private personal information about] those who had suggested it, because it was already available if you knew where to look.
I’ve gone full Mary Whitehouse now. My husband just told me I sound like a lame mom talking about the internet, so I shall get back to things I know about and that is the policing of abuse. Of course it should be better, it definitely needs to catch up with the technology. This is true of many crimes however. I’ve seen how woeful our nation’s response is to rape, for example. A stretched police force, and even more stretched Crown Prosecution Service, cannot manage the incidents of real-life rape, so I could hope all day that policing this [area better] would be the answer. It would be the triumph of hope over experience.
So if we can agree we don’t want smaller forum-holders to have our data, and we don’t want Venezuela sending us a Christmas card, then perhaps just a first step would be to stop anonymity on the big forums such as Reddit, Facebook and Twitter? Because, ultimately, that is where Auntie Liz is getting her distorted news from, and that is where most of us feel the effect.
Dear Jess
This has become the opposite of a normal online debate: you’re trying to force a consensus that doesn’t exist. Are you trying to show the joys of de-anonymised communication? A cunning move, but I can’t agree with this first step. In fact, because a principle is at stake, we absolutely must not take it, since experience suggests it will be the first of many. And I still don’t know how this idea would work. Most likely we’ll end up with the worst of all worlds: the trolls will find ways around it, but poor Aunt Liz gets to enjoy a sterile political culture and zero privacy. If you outlaw anonymity, only outlaws have anonymity. And once that principle – a bit like our data – is gone, we’ll never get it back.
Dear Jamie
A cunning move indeed. The fact that I know who you are and I respect you certainly tempers my words. Not that my arguments or opinions would be any different but I think my manners would be, if say for example this conversation were happening on Twitter and you had a bulldog avatar and the handle “Freespeechkillssnowflakes”. This stuff creates division and dissent.
I don’t know how it would practically work across the board, but then I can’t get the microwave on to a defrost setting. I am fairly certain that there are some clever people and algorithms that could work it out. I do know that if the big platforms, as they already do in part, forced some verifiable information to back up use, we could tame this wild west.
I’ll give up on the consensus-building and just say that I might not know what to do, but I know we can’t do nothing. I’m tired of having to explain to my sons why people hate me and wish me harm when they happen on a YouTube video about me. I cannot bear that every time an anonymous face starts a pile-on, a young woman’s voice dies. I think she had something to say and now I’ll never know.
The trolls and the tweets
I’m gonna be the first thing you see when you wake up
Tweet to Stella Creasy, MP
Maybe if you didn’t pump your body full of drugs you wouldn’t have miscarried
Tweet to Lily Allen
My roast pork today was vile! Had more fat on it than Diane Abbott
Tweet to Diane Abbott, MP
My objection is to the spread of Muslims... your countries are large enough to occomodate you all, why aren’t you going back there. Your culture & religion is incompatable with ours
Tweet to Bake Off winner Nadiya Hussain
Don’t want to know anything about him. 2 Pakis ruling over Brits
Tweet to Sajid Javid, the home secretary, also referring to Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London
I will find you, and you don’t want to know what I will do when I do. You’re pathetic. Kill yourself. Before I do
Tweet to social activist Caroline Criado-Perez | {
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Steven Horwitz
For the Liberty Fund conference I'm the discussion leader at this weekend, one of the readings was the epilogue to volume three of Hayek's Law, Legislation, and Liberty (also known as "The Three Sources of Human Values"). I hadn't read this in a long time, but boy did we think it was the bee's knees in grad school. In re-reading it, it's even better than I remember and was a perfect choice for this particular LF. One passage that struck me given my current interests is reprinted below. It struck me because I think the question of whether one can make a Hayekian case for legalizing same-sex marriage (given the state's involvement in marriage) is a fascinating one because I can see both the pro and con arguments. (I'm pro, but I think you can make a Hayekian case either way.)
This passage, however, fits like a glove to the way in which our understanding of marriage is changing and I think this is the best abstract argument of Hayek's one could use to make the case FOR legalizing SSM on Hayekian grounds. From p. 167 of LLL 3, my emphasis:
It is only by recognizing the conflict between a given rule and the rest of our moral beliefs that we can justify our rejection of an established rule. Even the success of an innovation by a rule-breaker, and the trust of those who follow him, has to be bought by the esteem he has earned by the scrupulous observation of most of the existing rules. To become legitimized, the new rules have to obtain the approval of society at large - not by a formal vote, but by gradually speading acceptance.
The successive changes in morals were therefore not a moral decline, even though they offended inherited sentiments, but a necessary condition to the rise of the open society of free men.
I think the argument from equality under the law fits the first sentence perfectly. For many today, especially the young, the rule that marriage is only man-woman conflicts with other moral beliefs about love, marital choice, and their tolerance/acceptance of homosexuality. And those gays and lesbians who are pushing for same-sex marriage are great examples of the second sentence, as they want to be a part of the existing rules in the sense that they think marriage is great and they want "in" to that institution. It is precisely because same-sex couples have become part of the furniture of the lives of so many heterosexuals by living wonderfully bourgeois lives that homosexuality has become normalized and that normalization and their bourgeois lives are the best evidence of their "scrupulous" observation of the general rules of marriage. By acting married, they show their fealty to the broader rules, even as they challenge one of them. Finally, it seems clear that "gradually spreading acceptance" of same-sex couples, including same-sex parenting, has already taken place and is ahead of both the law and any formal votes.
I included the last sentence because it so perfectly captures generations of changes to the Western family. Every time the family has changed, the defenders of "inherited sentiments" said disaster was upon us and they were wrong. Those changes, like SSM, took place in largely the way Hayek describes in the longer extract above.
This passage from Hayek is a really good example of how his treatment of tradition is more "respect" than "reverence," despite what his conservative defenders would like to believe. I think this passage gets it just right and makes for a nice Hayekian justification for legalizing same-sex marriage. | {
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WSJ: Saksa harkitsee Turkin taloudellista tukemista – EU:n ja Turkin pakolaissopimuksen pelätään purkautuvan, jos Turkin talous romahtaa
Euroopassa on pohdittu Turkin auttamiseksi eurokriisin aikana käytettyjä pelastuspaketteja, projektikohtaisia lainoja, joita voisivat myöntää esimerkiksi kehityspankit, ja kahdenvälistä apua.
Saksan hallitus pohtii hätärahoituksen tarjoamista Turkille, yhdysvaltalaislehti The Wall Street Journal uutisoi tiistaina.
Saksassa ja muualla euroalueella pelätään Turkin pahenevan talouskriisin seurauksia. Jos Turkin talous romahtaisi, se voisi vaarantaa Euroopan talouskasvun, aiheuttaa lisää epävakautta Lähi-idässä ja kasvattaa pakolaisten määrää Euroopassa, mikäli Turkin ja EU:n pakolaissopimus purkaantuisi. | {
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Retired astronaut Chris Hadfield says there is a ticket to his Toronto science show waiting for a Texas teenage boy who was arrested and later released with no charges after his homemade clock was mistaken for a bomb.
Hi <a href="https://twitter.com/IStandWithAhmed">@IStandWithAhmed</a> ! I'd love you to join us for our science show Generator in Toronto on 28 Oct. There's a ticket waiting for you. —@Cmdr_Hadfield
Hadfield reached out to Ahmed Mohamed on Twitter using the hashtag #IStandWithAhmed, which was trending worldwide in the aftermath of the 14-year-old boy's arrest.
The Grade 9 student was arrested in Irving on Monday.
"It made me feel like I wasn't human. It made me feel like a criminal," the teen told the Dallas Morning News.
The arrest elicited outrage online and gestures from U.S. President Barack Obama, NASA employees and celebrities – including Canada's most famous astronaut.
Cool clock, Ahmed. Want to bring it to the White House? We should inspire more kids like you to like science. It's what makes America great. —@POTUS
Hadfield is hosting Generator, a "science-based variety show," at Massey Hall Oct. 28.
"I'd love you to join us for our science show," he tweeted Wednesday.
Others have jumped in offering to pay for Ahmed's flight to Toronto and hotel stay. | {
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It’s so easy for a child to trick her/himself into believing something and holding on to it for dear life. This is exactly what I did. I decided that I was stupid.
I made this decision based on how badly I was doing in my 5th year of primary/elementary school. Everything was lovely when I first started, though. I skated through the first 4 years. School was so easy I could have glided through them with skates on. Then something happened in that fateful 5th year. It’s like someone turned out all the lights and said, “you don’t need them anymore, kid. Figure it out!”
I was under so much pressure to perform. It was a pity too, because in year 4, my English teacher who also substituted as the Art teacher helped me discover that I had a real talent in drawing and painting.
I truly enjoyed those art lessons. It was an ego booster that I could draw better than everyone in the class. Come to think of it, the entire first years of school were just ego fluffers for me. I got good grades, I discovered my talent in art, on top of my mother discovery that I was good at playing the piano, those days were good. I was riding high on all these accomplishments. I was a confident and happy child.
Year 5 of school stripped all that away for me. As that year rolled by, I declined further and further in my school work, I grew more frustrated with myself, and so did my parents, and by the time I got into my 6th year of primary school, I was doing quite terribly. Not only with school, but with life in general. I believed I was a total failure.
As an adult looking back, I realize that I fed so much into such damaging, self-abusive voices in my head as a child that it would end up affecting me well into my adult years. I will be the first to admit that I am a very sensitive being. I feel the energy of others and myself very intensely, and as a child, I simply did not know how to process those feelings but act out, be incredibly moody all the time, (don’t get me started on my teenage years) and carry all that bad history like a mantelpiece that stayed in the most prominent place in my mind: my thoughts.
But I am not a child anymore. I am an adult.
Your history is probably nothing like mine. You probably did not live in your head as much as I did growing up. But I use my story to illustrate the fact that too many of us are walking around with decades of self-deprecating beliefs. Many of us are in our 30’s still holding on to the cruel words that someone said to us in our childhood. Our minds are very good at having us remember our very worst experiences. We end up recalling them right down to what day it was, exactly where we were and who was there with us, if anybody.
There’s a truth here that I would appeal for you to try to understand: we are holding on to a lot of junk that no longer serves us, that is still screwing with our beliefs about ourselves and what we are capable of, that we live our adult lives scared to death of moving. We refuse to take any risks, we refuse to challenge ourselves and we refuse to think beyond what has been indoctrinated in us from the generations before us.
We have committed the worst kind of disloyalty: self-betrayal. We hold the insecurities we did when we were uncertain, pre-pubescent children.
I think the reason why many of us are so conflicted and feel so rotten about ourselves is because a long time ago, we simply stopped supporting who we truly are. We stopped showing up in our lives, taking responsibility and being honest and courageous with ourselves to be FINE with who we are! We are constantly seeking validity from everybody else but us. No wonder when some motivational somebody (that would be me) talks about “creating your ultimate self.” The first thing we do is mock the idea.
Why?
Is there something wrong with the idea that you can live your fullest life or reach your highest purpose? Is it so unrealistic? Is the idea loathsome to you? Or is it because it is so easy to scoff at your own possibilities? Is it much easier because so many of us are in the same popular boat of mediocrity, living in the past that carries so much shame and guilt that it has made us bitter, belligerent and, deep down inside, filled with regret about who we could have been?
I’m asking the tough questions. I don’t like fluff. These words come from my heart and I hope they reach yours.
Know this: We are all creators.
We created the reality in which we live based on thought patterns and beliefs we have been carrying since childhood. If we want to our lives to change drastically, we will have to do three things while actively re-creating our lives:-
TOTALLY own the current circumstances of our lives in their entirety Consciously discover old memories, thoughts and triggers that are of absolutely no use to us anymore. Be brave enough to show up to ourselves and stop betraying who we really are, even, actually especially when we are at our loneliest point.
You can take all the self-help and get rich courses in the world but if you have not sorted out what has been going on inside you for the longest time, then all of what you have gained will amount to nothing.
I encourage you to dedicate as much time on your internal growth and healing as you do chasing the currency. They go hand in hand. That little kid inside of you isn’t going anywhere.
Question: What stories of past adversities and triumphs would you like to share? Do comment below. I would love to read your story. | {
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Arsenal will win trophies - Usmanov
Alisher Usmanov's more conciliatory tone towards Arsenal's board suggests the cold war between those with the power at the Emirates could be thawing - for now at least.
Success on the pitch always tends to silence the critics, even if they have a much bigger agenda and the mind-boggling wealth to act upon it.
By declaring a new era at Arsenal, the Uzbeki-born billionaire might be jumping the gun a bit. Arsenal are four points clear at the top of the Premier League going into Saturday's game at Cardiff but there is still an awfully long way to go before manager Arsene Wenger can claim the club's first league title in a decade.
quote When investors come and invest in the economy, in British football, it is big part of the entertainment economy in the United Kingdom. What's bad?
Nevertheless, it is hard for Usmanov to criticise Arsenal's "silent" American owner Stan Kroenke and Old Etonian chairman Sir Chips Keswick when they have finally released the purse-strings to buy Mesut Ozil and the team are four points clear at the top of the Premier League.
Broadcast interviews with Usmanov are rare - I can't recall him ever doing one with the BBC - but whenever he is quoted, he uses the media to send a strategic message to those in charge at Arsenal.
He also tries to reassure supporters that he has the club's best intentions at heart and that he, like them, is a fan. He has an executive box at the Emirates and six seats in the directors' box and regularly ensures they are filled. By contrast, the American is rarely sighted at games.
Despite that - and Usmanov's almost £13bn fortune - Kroenke shows no appetite to sell.
Although he has seen a massive jump in the value of Premier League TV rights deals since taking control in 2011 with a 63% holding, he is a shrewd businessman who senses the next round of TV negotiations could be even more lucrative.
He believes financial fair play and Arsenal's prudent approach will lead to a big increase in profitability in the future.
Some fans are worried Kroenke will take profits out of the club to service other parts of his sports empire. They would prefer an owner such as Usmanov, who would ensure Wenger always has the money to buy the best talent and to win trophies.
All of which begs the question: Why doesn't Usmanov make Kroenke an offer he can't refuse? He surely has the money and Kroenke surely has his price. But sources say Usmanov remains a "rational" investor and won't overpay (despite offering £14,000 a share to shareholders in the past).
When Kroenke increased his stake to 63% in 2011 he paid £11,750 per share, valuing the Gunners at £730m.
Usmanov's offer of £14,000 per share would value the north London side at £868m.
So for the time being, it's stalemate. And while things are going well on the pitch, Usmanov wants to let fans and the board know that he has no intention of rocking the boat.
Foreign investment in the Premier League Arsenal: Stan Kroenke (USA) 2011 Chelsea: Roman Abramovich (Russia) 2003 Man United: Malcolm Glazer (USA) 2005 Man City: Thaksin Shinawatra (Thailand) 2007, Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan (Abu Dhabi) 2008 Liverpool: Tom Hicks and George Gillett (USA) 2007, Fenway Sports Group (USA) 2010 Aston Villla: Randy Lerner (USA) 2006 Southampton: The estate of Markus Liebherr (Switzerland) 2009 when in League One Sunderland: Ellis Short (USA) 2008 Cardiff City: Vincent Tan (Malaysia) 2010 when in the Championship Fulham: Shahid Khan (USA) 2013
He didn't go so far as to say this, but he no doubt feels vindicated that his calls to invest in world-class players have been acted upon with such immediate impact.
Much will now depend on the outcome of this season and how Kroenke and the board respond.
One thing he and Kroenke seem to be in agreement on is the benefits of foreign ownership.
Arsenal have come to symbolise the ideological debate at the heart of English football - the self-financing model versus the super-rich benefactor.
With the Football Association establishing a commission on the state of the English game, there is renewed scrutiny on whether foreign investors have the wider interests of the national game at heart.
Put more simply: Are they in it just for the money?
Usmanov dismisses the critics and is in no doubt that men such as him and fellow Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich, who has owned Chelsea since 2003, are good for the English game and the British economy.
"It is an artificial question," he told me. "Everyone who has legal right to buy something can perform this right.
"When investors come and invest in the economy, in British football, it is big part of the entertainment economy in the United Kingdom. What's bad?"
This laissez-faire approach has driven the Premier League's startling commercial development over the last two decades.
And while television rights and other revenues keep going up, it's hard to see that coming to an end. | {
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What more can you ask of the Toronto Maple Leafs? Trick question, really. Team president Brendan Shanahan has said that, even if this franchise ever wins another Stanley Cup, the noise surrounding it — the cacophonous, sometimes silly, and essentially endless noise — will stop for a day, at most. And then, because it’s the Leafs, you can always ask for more.
Halfway through their most anticipated season in decades, the Leafs are something close to elite. They entered their 41st game Saturday night against Vancouver tied for the third-best record in the NHL. They were second in goals per game, second in goal differential, and had the league’s best scoring differential at 5-on-5.
They’re really good. That’s just not enough.
“I mean, it’s like anything: there’s good and bad,” says defenceman Morgan Rielly, in the middle of a career season by leagues. “There’s been periods of time where we’ve played really well, and you’re on the bench and you’re watching the game unfold, and you can’t help but think there’s a lot of potential to go a long way here in the playoffs. And there’s nights where you watch the game unfold and you think to yourself, we have a long way to go.”
In fairness, they haven’t been themselves for very long. John Tavares has been better than advertised. Mitch Marner has exploded. But Auston Matthews, who has led the NHL in goals per minute played, has missed 14 games. William Nylander missed 28, Zach Hyman has been out eight, and Frederik Andersen, through injury or simply rest, has missed 10. His workload and health are probably Toronto’s biggest potential worries, actually.
There are flaws, obviously. Ron Hainsey is too often miscast as a top-pair defenceman, and Nikita Zaitsev can seem miscast as a second. Nazem Kadri can’t stop hitting posts, and Patrick Marleau is fading, just enough to see. The now-concussed Garret Sparks hasn’t found consistency as the backup goaltender, and Andersen has missed four straight, though he is close to a return.
The Leafs are 6-5 against teams that started Saturday in the Eastern playoff picture; they are 3-3 against Tampa Bay, Boston, Buffalo and Montreal, and will likely face one of the latter three in the first round.
And still, there’s a lot here.
“Well, I like lots of things about us,” head coach Mike Babcock says. “I like our people, I like how bad we want to be good, I like our leadership, I like our depth. Sometimes I don’t like our details. I think we got to to be a way heavier team. Being heavy isn’t getting on a scale and measuring yourself: it’s a state of mind.
“It’s heavy on offence. It’s having the puck, it’s getting the puck back all the time, it’s checking the puck, it’s putting your work in front of your skill, it’s being determined offensively, instead of coming down and having a rush and being one and done. It’s multiple-shot shifts, it’s having some jam … And so I think we can do a better job there, and I think we can continually get better defensively so we are way better offensively. So we have a lot of work to do.”
This Leafs team is more about speed and skill than that kind of heavy, but that’s the push and pull. It might actually help that Toronto is jammed in a division with the league-leading Tampa Bay Lightning. There’s no better regular-season pacesetter in hockey.
“I mean, you always measure yourself against the best team because that’s where we want to be,” says Rielly. “So I think that if we’re able to go on a run and really be able to be consistent, and prove night in and night out that we’re able to be that good, that’s important for us.”
Rielly talks about how much better the Leafs protect leads now, and how their defensive positioning has improved. Tavares talks about how he’s impressed how well the players focus despite that Toronto cacophony. Babcock talks about how “we still think there’s lots of growth from within, because we’re a young group.”
They think no matter how tight or mucked up the games get, no matter how many posts they hit, no matter the opponent, they can be the best team on the ice any night. That’s what’s on the table.
“I think … that feeling going into games that you can just kill another team’s will to win,” says Tavares, when asked what he wants to see between now and season’s end. “And just knowing that you just feel that when (the Leafs) come into your building, you just know what a tough night it’s going to be. Even if you play your best, you know the odds are still probably against you, where we just have the ability to kind of take games over that way, and generate that momentum. It’s hard to do that on a consistent basis.”
Is that possible?
“I think so,” says Tavares. “There’s certainly probably times when we’ve had it already, where we’ve had two, three games, but it’s the ability to carry that over for long stretches.”
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Listen to them, and you hear how good they think they can be. Sometimes it’s better to zoom out a little. They’ve gotten this far without a full team for all but eight games, and most of those were with Nylander trying to get up to speed. Before Nylander and Matthews were both back, their adjusted puck possession was 12th: not bad, not great. With everyone, it’s sixth.
So now it’s about figuring out how not to get rolled by a Boston, how not to blow one against Tampa, how to show up and be the baddest team on the ice every night. Half a season left until the real stuff, and we’ll see if they’re ready when it starts. | {
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Although my home state of California, like several other states, will not recognize non-compete agreements, I am always surprised at how many companies still think that forcing employees to sign these them will prevent them from later working for the company’s competitors, or setting up a competing business themselves. California is massive in geographic size and economic impact. The “Golden State” surpassed the country of France last year to become the sixth largest economy in the world.
As a California-based lawyer, I have heard businesses argue that the California laws shouldn’t apply to them because their company is headquartered in a state that recognizes non-compete agreements. California courts have rejected this analysis. Companies have attempted to skirt the ban using “choice of law provisions” stating that the contract is to be interpreted according to a different state’s laws (one that recognizes non-competes). California courts have also rejected these arguments.
I have reviewed agreements that couched the provision in terms of giving up future employment “voluntarily” and “for consideration received.” California courts have still refused to enforce non-compete agreements. Some frustrated companies also adopted “Garden Leave” policies by requiring higher level employees to give extended periods of notice prior to their resignation (typically 90 to 180 days) during which the employee can be asked to stay home and tend to his or her garden (thus the name) while receiving full pay and full benefits. And it turns out that companies also cannot require their employees to provide any specific length of notice, even when they offer to compensate them at 100% of their salary and benefits for the duration of the notice period. California courts have found these mandatory provisions to be an unenforceable restraint, as well (although it appears that companies may be able to offer this to departing employees on a voluntary, opt-in basis – and this requires carefully crafted language from an experienced attorney that understands your business. Even then, there are no guarantees). And courts have applied California non-compete laws to California employment without regard to all of this. In short, both the legislature and the courts are wise to creative tricks, and both have stated, in no uncertain terms, that they will not waver. California will not enforce a non-compete agreement against a former employee.
California has even gone so far as to reject the “inevitable disclosure doctrine.” This means that a non-compete cannot even be enforced to prevent someone from taking a job on grounds that the former employer reasonably believes that the former employee will use prior confidences as a necessary part of performing his or her job. Instead, businesses must simply wait and see if there is a violation, and then prove, that the former employee has actually misappropriated confidential information in his or her new employment.
The foregoing demonstrates that California’s position is crystal clear: except in a few, very limited, circumstances summarized below, a non-compete agreement will not be enforced.
While some may be inclined to chalk this up to yet another anti-business rule from the so-called People’s Republic of California, the reality is that the laws are based in sound policy reasons to keep residents gainfully employed, able to provide for themselves and their families, and off the welfare and social service rolls. Whether you are a business owner or not, it is tough to argue with that logic. Accordingly, any company doing business in California would be wise to spend some time studying the scope – and the exceptions – of California’s laws with respect to non-compete agreements to better understand them.
Unenforceability only applies to limitations on one’s employment after the employment relationship. In California, non-compete agreements that prevent employees from future gainful employment are void, but this ban only applies to non-competes that are or remain effective after the termination of employment. A company may – legally and for very legitimate reasons – prohibit its employees from moonlighting during the term of their employment, particularly when the moonlighting it performed for a competitor. There are a myriad of reasons why companies would demand loyalty of current employees. Thankfully, the California legislature and the courts alike have recognized a business’s need to monopolize a current employee’s commitment to the success of the venture and minimize the risk of corporate espionage. Many companies find that these policies are shared with prospective employees before they begin their term of employment. Most also insert provisions restricting moonlighting in their employee handbooks to serve as a reminder to existing employees.
Exception to the rule: a buyer of a company can prevent a seller from competing with it. The exceptions to California’s general rule are limited, but there are a few, and they are important. The first exception applies to a business owner (sole proprietor) or fractional owner (shareholder) who may sell the “goodwill of a business” or otherwise dispose of his/her ownership interest in the business entity. This is a common sense exception. Where the business and its goodwill have been sold, Courts have held that the buyer’s benefit of the bargain means that the seller can’t then turn around and engage in the kind of competition that would diminish the value of the business and goodwill he just sold, thereby depriving the buyer of the benefit of his or her bargain.
Exception to the rule: business partners and members of a limited liability company can mutually agree that none of them will compete with the business after they leave the business or sell it. For similar reasons to the first exception, courts have held that partners in a business and members of a limited liability company can mutually agree that none of them will engage in competition within a specified geographic area of the existing partnership within some period of time after the dissolution, sale, or other disposition of the partnership business. This exception also applies following the departure of a partner for any reason. The only caveat is that an employer may not grant nominal ownership shares to an employee simply to skirt the non-compete laws. Courts scrutinize agreements to ensure that those entering into these decisions truly are partners and members, and not just employees the business is trying to freeze out of a space, geographic area, or industry.
In closing, case law regarding non-compete agreements is significant, and each set of facts has its own nuances. Businesses operating in the state of California are encouraged to seek counsel from a qualified attorney to discuss how these rules might apply to it, and how a company may best protect its intellectual property, trade secrets, proprietary and confidential information, and processes.
The foregoing is provided for informational purposes only, is not an advertisement, does not constitute legal advice or legal opinion, and does not create an attorney-client relationship. The content may not apply to the specific facts or a particular matter. You should not act or rely on any information contained in this article without first seeking the advice of an attorney licensed to practice in your jurisdiction. | {
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The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s scientific integrity watchdog is reviewing whether EPA chief Scott Pruitt violated the agency’s policies when he said in a television interview he does not believe carbon dioxide is driving global climate change, according to an email seen by Reuters on Friday.
Lawyers for environmental group the Sierra Club had asked the EPA’s Office of Inspector General to check whether Pruitt violated policy when he told a CNBC interviewer on March 9, “I would not agree that it’s a primary contributor to the global warming that we see.”
The EPA Inspector General’s office responded to the Sierra Club on Thursday in an email, saying it had referred the matter to the EPA’s Scientific Integrity Officer, Francesca Grifo, for review.
“If after the SIO review, she concludes there is some aspect of the letter itself, or her findings or conclusions that she believes are appropriate for further consideration by the OIG, she will so notify the OIG,” the email stated.
A spokesman for the EPA did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and efforts to reach Grifo were not immediately successful.
The EPA website says its scientific integrity policy requires EPA officials and staff to ensure the agency’s work respects the findings of the broader scientific community.
An overwhelming majority of scientists think that carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of fossil fuels are a major contributor to global climate change, triggering sea level rise, droughts and more frequent violent storms.
The request by Sierra Club ramps up tension between the U.S. environmental movement and the administration of President Donald Trump, who has called global warming a hoax meant to weaken the U.S. economy and has packed his cabinet with people who question the science of climate change.
Grifo is a biologist who was hired by former President Barack Obama’s administration. Before she joined the EPA in late 2013, she oversaw scientific integrity at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a non-partisan group advocating stronger environmental protections.
Pruitt, a former attorney general for Oklahoma, sued the EPA more than a dozen times over its regulations as top prosecutor for the oil and gas producing state. | {
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Today is N7 Day and BioWare is very happy and celebrating the day in full force, thanking the fans and…teasing images for the new Mass Effect game? Wait, what?!
First, the producer of the Mass Effect series at BioWare, Michael Gamble, teased the fans with an image of what appears to be him playing a ‘new’ Mass Effect title. He wrote that the next chapter of Mass Effect is upon us.
https://twitter.com/GambleMike/status/398555808856035328/
But that was not all. Yanick Roy (stylized on twitter as YaN7ck Roy), the Studio Director for BioWare Montreal, also tweeted an image of him working on some new character. He also stated, which seems to be a continuity from Michael Gamble’s tweet, that there will be new characters to fall in love with.
https://twitter.com/YanickRRoy/status/398563131258978304/
Then, Level Designer at BioWare, Gary Stewart, shared an image on twitter with him working on some sort of new level and again, with the continuation of the text from previous tweets of different individuals, Stewart wrote that there will be new enemies to encounter.
Lastly, to end the whole sentence that was continued from Michael Gamble’s tweet, Manveer Heir, Gameplay Designer at BioWare, tweeted an image showing some work on some kind of background/level stating that there will be new worlds to explore.
Apart from these personal twitter accounts, the account of the Frostbite Engine also tweeted that the next Mass Effect will be on the Frostbite Engine and that the fans should prepare themselves for some gorgeous futuristic eye candy.
Happy #N7Day13! The next @masseffect is on FB, so get ready for some gorgeous futuristic eye candy. — FrostbiteEngine (@FrostbiteEngine) November 7, 2013
Mass Effect is a critically acclaimed series from BioWare. Mass Effect 3 received so much criticism on its ending that the developers had to release a new extended ending just to satisfy the fans. From what we know, this new Mass Effect title won’t continue Commander Shepard’s story, which kind of makes us sad.
What are your thoughts about having a new Mass Effect game? Are you Ecstatic? Outraged? Let us know in the comments below. | {
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Nelke & the Legendary Alchemists: Ateliers of the New World was the top-selling new release in Japan with 18,679 retail sales on PlayStation 4, 8,046 on Switch, and 4,589 on PS Vita for a total of 31,314 opening sales, the latest Media Create sales figures reveal.
Also new last week, Dragon Marked for Death for Switch launched at 4,492 retail sales, the Switch version of Fate/EXTELLA Link launched at 4,131 units sold, and Robotics;Notes DaSH launched at 3,943 retail sales on PlayStation 4 (the Switch version did not chart in the top 20).
On the hardware side, Switch sold 69,472 units, the PlayStation 4 family sold 25,614 units, and the 3DS family sold 4,914 units.
Get the full sales charts below.
Software Sales (followed by lifetime sales)
[PS4] Kingdom Hearts III (Limited Edition Included) (Square Enix, 01/25/19) – 91,019 (701,096) [PS4] Resident Evil 2 (Z Version and Limited Edition Included) (Capcom, 01/25/19) – 51,339 (304,186) [NSW] New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe (Nintendo, 01/11/19) – 45,879 (358,748) [NSW] Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (Nintendo, 12/07/18) – 35,217 (2,799,969) [NSW] Pokemon: Let’s Go, Pikachu! / Let’s Go, Eevee! (Bundle Editions Included) (Nintendo, 11/16/18) – 21,274 (1,457,907) [PS4] Nelke & the Legendary Alchemists: Ateliers of the New World (Limited Editions Included) (Koei Tecmo, 01/31/19) – 18,679 (New) [NSW] Super Mario Party (Bundle Version Included) (Nintendo, 10/05/18) – 12,181 (996,084) [NSW] Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (Nintendo, 04/28/17) – 11,710 (2,108,522) [PS4] Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown (Limited Edition Included) (Bandai Namco, 01/17/19) – 11,444 (239,322) [NSW] Minecraft: Nintendo Switch Edition (Bundle Version Included) (Microsoft, 06/21/18) – 8,250 (590,289) [NSW] Nelke & the Legendary Alchemists: Ateliers of the New World (Koei Tecmo, 01/31/19) – 8,046 (New) [NSW] Splatoon 2 (Bundle Version Included) (Nintendo, 07/21/17) – 7,689 (2,918,368) [NSW] The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Limited Edition Included) (Nintendo, 03/03/17) – 6,957 (1,276,558) [PS4] Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 + 2.5 Remix (Square Enix, 03/09/17) – 6,023 (235,306) [NSW] Dragon Quest Builders 2 (Square Enix, 12/20/18) – 5,814 (223,424) [PSV] Nelke & the Legendary Alchemists: Ateliers of the New World (Koei Tecmo, 01/31/19) – 4,589 (New) [NSW] Dragon Marked for Death (Inti Creates, 01/31/19) – 4,492 (New) [NSW] Fate/EXTELLA Link (Marvelous, 01/31/19) – 4,131 (New) [PS4] Robotics;Notes DaSH (5pb., 01/31/19) – 3,943 (New) [NSW] Fitness Boxing (Imagineer, 12/20/18) – 3,613 (23,332)
Hardware Sales (followed by last week’s sales)
Switch – 69,472 (52,429) PlayStation 4 – 15,074 (19,612) PlayStation 4 Pro – 10,540 (33,032) New 2DS LL – 3,622 (3,781) PlayStation Vita – 1,521 (1,701) New 3DS LL – 1,188 (972) 2DS – 104 (179) Xbox One X – 86 (82) Xbox One – 17 (11)
Thanks, 4Gamer.net. | {
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Last week, the House was denied the opportunity to improve a bill that sought to bleed 70 million barrels of oil from our Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Dems use rules to keep lid on oil drilling
Putting aside whether Missouri quarterback Chase Daniel was unfairly denied the Heisman Trophy last December, the resolution the House considered this week honoring Florida’s Tim Tebow for being selected as college football’s 2007 MVP didn’t engender much opposition. Neither did the one congratulating the University of Tennessee’s women’s basketball program for winning its eighth national championship; nor the one naming a post office in upstate New York.
That’s why each of these bills was shuffled through the House under a policy known as “suspension of the rules,” an expedited process for handling noncontroversial legislation requiring the approval of two-thirds present to pass. The only trade-off? Debate time is severely restricted, and not a single amendment may be offered or considered on the floor.
But whereas the suspension calendar used to be the near-exclusive province of athletic acknowledgements and postal taxonomy, the majority leadership has taken to employing the process for a new purpose these days: bringing up controversial energy legislation designed to deny their own members — and ours — any chance to add a single gallon of new American energy to the pipeline.
The strategy was on display last month, as Democrats suspended the rules to call up their discredited “Use It or Lose It” bill. A week later, the House voted on — but barely even spoke about — a bill to “unlock” 24 million Alaskan acres where we have already been drilling wells for more than a generation. Then, last week, the House was denied the opportunity to improve a bill that sought to bleed 70 million barrels of oil from our Strategic Petroleum Reserve — all because Democratic leaders were afraid to debate the merits of unlocking billions of barrels of American energy from other, more abundant sources.
Now, with only two legislative days remaining before Congress takes off for the summer, reports indicate we’ll see the fourth iteration of this strategy this week — in the form of a bill to punish “speculators” for betting that Congress’ 27-year-old ban on accessing American energy for American consumers will remain in place.
But it’s not nameless, faceless speculators who are denying billions of barrels of American oil from reaching the consumer markets — that dubious honor belongs to Congress alone. And it’s not that genuine, bipartisan solutions to our current energy crisis don’t exist; it’s just that not a single one of them has been permitted to see the light of day.
Nor has the fear that has gripped the majority over the prospect of debating a legitimate energy policy been limited to hiding behind the suspension calendar. The congressional appropriations process has also been indefinitely shelved — if and until the majority can figure out a way to silence the growing chorus of members demanding that Congress allow an up-or-down vote on pro-energy measures.
For his part, Appropriations Committee Chairman Dave Obey (D-Wis.) has argued the appropriations process is no place to hold a debate on the need to explore for more American energy. But that rationale falls flat when one considers that it’s in his legislation — the Interior spending bill — where the 27-year-old ban on accessing America’s abundant reserves of deep-ocean energy resides. It’s also where you’ll find a provision preventing the Interior Department from spending one thin dime on the environmental assessment work needed to develop the potentially 800 billion barrels of oil shale that lay dormant out West.
But while Democrats continue to demonstrate that you can run from the energy debate, time will show — and the American people will ensure — that you cannot hide from it. Not when motorists are being forced to shell out $4 per gallon for gasoline; not when truckers are spending more than a $1,000 a week on diesel fuel; not when the American people open their electricity bills in October; not when our dangerous dependence on foreign energy is transferring hundreds of billions of dollars a year to countries around the world with strategic interests diametrically opposed to ours.
Now is the time to debate the status of our current energy policy — not tomorrow, not when we return from recess, not after a new president is sworn into office. And to ensure we have that debate, Republicans will fight this week to prevent Democratic leaders from shutting down the chamber for the whole month of August.
But whether we have that debate will depend on the degree to which Democrats genuinely want to find a solution. The substance of what we expect to see on the floor this week suggests they are not.
Rep. Roy Blunt is the Republican whip of the House and is in his sixth term serving Missouri’s 7th Congressional District. | {
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All You Need Is Love (Couples) | {
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I started looking into this in response to the constant claims that Mario Götze's transfer was cynical: That it was intended to hurt Borussia Dortmund rather than help Bayern; that Götze isn't getting a chance to play at Bayern and is instead buried on the bench (or doesn't have Pep's trust or whatever); and that he should leave in order to get first-team minutes. In looking into Bayern's rotation over the past couple of seasons it also got me thinking about what that means for this season's depth and rotation, so some thoughts on that at the end.
On the first point, here are the facts. Götze appeared in 32 of 34 Bundesliga matches for Bayern last season, tied (with Manuel Neuer and Thomas Müller) for first in the squad. Twenty eight of those were starts, which puts him behind only Neuer (and tied with Müller, Robert Lewandowski, and Juan Bernat). He was fifth in the squad in total minutes played (behind Neuer, Müller, Lewandowski, and Bernat). By every measure he is definitely a core, first-choice player at Bayern.
But, does he get to play in "big games"? Götze appeared in 11 of 12 CL matches (behind only Neuer and Bernat, tied with Lewandowski, Boateng, and Rafinha), with 9 of those being starts. He was eighth in total minutes (behind the above plus Xabi Alonso and Müller). So, there's a little more rotation there, but he's still definitely first-choice.
What about the previous year? He appeared in 27 Bundesliga matches, good for tenth in the squad (which saw less rotation). Twenty of those appearances were starts (tied with Arjen Robben for eleventh). He was eleventh in minutes.
Again, I'd say that makes him a first-choice player, but it's somewhere on the borderline between "first-choice" and "rotation" player. He appeared in 11 of 12 CL matches (tied with Toni Kroos behind only Neuer, Alaba, Lahm, and Muller), but just 6 of those were starts and he was 13th on the squad in total minutes, so for that competition, he's probably best described as a "super-sub."
But still, as a 21-year old in his first season with the club, he was borderline first-choice for league play and super-sub for CL, then as a 22-year old he worked his way up to core first-choice in both. There's no evidence whatsoever that Mario was bought just to hurt a rival, rather than to be used fully in putting together Bayern's best possible team, and there's no evidence that he's buried here or needs to leave to get playing time.
As for the lessons about squad depth and rotation, Bayern played 14 guys at least 1000 minutes in last year's Bundesliga (what we might call the "core rotation") plus another 4 for 500-1000 (the "peripheral rotation" players). The year before it was 15 in the core rotation plus 4 peripheral. And the year before that (under Jupp), it was 15 core (pushing Robben up into this group even though he had 999 minutes) plus 5 peripheral.
So that seems pretty systematic that we need about 14-15 guys who will start frequently, be named in the squad whenever healthy, and regularly sub-in in matches that they didn't get the start. Plus, another 4-5 are necessary who might get a rare start if there are injuries, fill out the back end of the squad, and get rotated in when we want to rest core players for mid-week matches, etc.
So, taking currently healthy potential core guys this year, we have Neuer, Boateng, Benatia, Alaba, Bernat, Rafinha, Lahm, Alonso, Kimmich, Hojbjerg, Rode, Vidal, Thiago, Gotze, Costa, Robben, Muller, Lewandowski. That's eighteen (I'm going ahead and calling Dante peripheral but am staying agnostic as to which of the young midfielders break into the rotation). And, if any/all of Ribery, Martinez, and Badstuber make it back, we end with way too many core players.
Except of course that we don't know in advance which potential core guys will ultimately end up outside the rotation (for injury reasons or otherwise). Last season we expected Ribery, Badstuber, Shaqiri, Thiago, and Javi (and maybe Pizarro) to be in the core rotation; Ribery and Badstuber ended up in the peripheral rotation and the others fully outside it. The year before we were less snakebitten by injury, but the point is to be prepared in case it happens again. It looks like this year we can have a couple of those prospective core guys fall to the peripheral rotation due to form/fitness/consistency, plus lose a few altogether due to injury, and we'll be right around that magic number of 15 guys in the core rotation. | {
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mumbai
Updated: Feb 21, 2018 00:32 IST
The Navi Mumbai crime branch on Tuesday arrested one more person in the missing woman police inspector’s case.
Kundan Bhandari, 51, was the driver of Abhay Kurundkar, 52, senior inspector with the security branch of Thane (rural) police. Kurundkar, also an accused in the case, was arrested on December 7.
Bhandari was arrested from Kandivli.
The second accused arrested in this case was Rajesh Patil, 44, nephew of BJP leader Eknath Khadse.
Ashwini Bidre, 37, who stayed with her family at Roadpali, went missing on April 11, 2016. Her family members suspected she was kidnapped and murdered. They approached the Bombay high court as the police failed to trace her.
The police and Kurundkar’s family suspect that he had an affair with Bidre.
The police also got some photographs and videos on Bidre’s laptop and that suggested she was close to Kurundkar. Kurundkar had misled the police saying that Bidrehad gone to a Vipasana center to learn meditation.
On the day Bidre went missing, Kurundkar had called Patil’s number several times. After that Patil travelled to Mumbai from Jalgaon. The mobile phones of all three of them were traced to the same place near Mumbai.
“Based on evidences we arrested the third accused, Bhandari on Tuesday. At this point, we cannot reveal how he was involved in the crime,” said Tushar Doshi, deputy commissioner of police (crime). | {
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Behold the most successful reset of Clinton’s career.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Hillary Rodham Clinton wiped her email server “clean,” permanently deleting all emails from it, the Republican chairman of a House committee investigating the 2012 Benghazi attacks said Friday. Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., said the former secretary of state has failed to produce a single new document in recent weeks and has refused to relinquish her server to a third party for an independent review, as Gowdy has requested.
Hey, she’s a Clinton. She’s not a fool. #SmartCorruption
Gowdy says they’re not sure yet exactly when she unilaterally wiped her personal server, deciding what the public needed and what it didn’t, but it was after the State Department made its first, extremely late request for Clinton’s emails from her tenure. Clinton’s deliberately obtuse lawyer explained helpfully to taxpayers that it’s cool because she handed over everything work-related from her personal server, so no bigs. And, the emails are all gone anyway, so why would anyone want an independent review of a server with no emails on it? That’d be silly!
Clinton was under a subpoena order from the Select Committee on Benghazi for all documents related to the 2012 attacks on the American compound there. But David Kendall, an attorney for Clinton, said the 900 pages of emails previously provided to the panel cover its request… Kendall also informed the committee that Clinton’s emails from her time at the State Department have been permanently erased… “There is no basis to support the proposed third-party review of the server that hosted the [email protected] account,” Kendall wrote. “To avoid prolonging a discussion that would be academic, I have confirmed with the secretary’s IT support that no emails…..for the time period January 21, 2009 through February 1, 2013 reside on the server or on any back-up systems associated with the server.” Kendall added, “Thus, there are no [email protected] e-mails from Secretary Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State on the server for any review, even if such review were appropriate or legally authorized.”
From the AP, subpoena, schmubpoena:
Clinton, a likely Democratic presidential candidate, faced a Friday deadline to respond to a subpoena for emails and documents related to Libya, including the 2012 attacks in a U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi that killed four Americans, including the U.S. ambassador to Libya. The Benghazi committee demanded further documents and access to the server after it was revealed that Clinton used a private email account and server during her tenure at State. Gowdy said he will work with House leaders to consider options. Speaker John Boehner has not ruled out a vote in the full House to force Clinton to turn over the server if she declines to make it available.
The NYT naturally tells the story principally from Clinton’s lawyer’s point of view, but adds this from Gowdy: | {
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These are trying times for Mohammed bin Zayed, the Darth Vader of the Middle East who plans to establish a Galactic Empire of “moderate Islamic” states. Liberal in name, police states in practice, all would end up paying tribute to the Death Star, Abu Dhabi.
Emirati military trainers have just been kicked out of Somalia, after $9.6m of cash was seized on a UAE plane. The crown prince’s plans to establish a string of ports along the Indian Ocean, including Berbera in breakaway Somaliland, have taken a hit as a result.
His plans for Libya are not faring any better either. The self-appointed field marshal, Khalifa Haftar, limped back home after a prolonged absence in a Paris hospital. He is reported to have lung cancer that has metastasised to the brain, and avoided, when he could, having to stand.
In the line of fire
Haftar’s enemies, in contrast, are in rude health. The leaders of the two warring city states, Misrata and Zintan, have reconciled. (The Zintanis represented Haftar’s best chance of establishing a military presence in western Libya.) And one of Haftar’s most prominent opponents, leading Muslim Brotherhood member Khalid al-Mishri, has just been voted head of the High Council of State.
The war in Yemen grinds on. The Saudi ambassador in Washington, Prince Khaled bin Salman, a former fighter pilot, claimed in a tweet that his elder brother, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, had ordered the attack that killed Salah al-Sammad, the head of the Houthis’ Supreme Political Council.
But it may not be wise to crow about this killing. Both the Houthis and pro-Iran Shia groups in Iraq have promised to avenge the death of their leader by killing members of the Saudi royal family. Bin Salman, who is also defence minister and launched the “quick” war in Yemen, is first in the line of fire. Perhaps this is why he now travels with three rings of bodyguards.
When you buy into Trump, you also become a stakeholder in the battles he engages in. Before long you acquire his enemies, too
More broadly, the Saudi-Emirati intervention has long since squandered the support of those Yemenis who invited them in and should have remained their natural allies.
The exiled president of Yemen, Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi, has himself become a de facto inmate of Riyadh’s prison palaces. He was forced to sign a paper agreeing to the “formation of a tripartite committee” with Saudi and the UAE “to participate in the management of the situation of his country”. Reports like these seem to confirm the Yemeni view that a war of liberation has morphed into a war of occupation.
Hadi had just lost a power battle with the Emirati-controlled militias over the control of Aden airport. Further humiliation followed when Hadi and an office manager, Abdullah al-Alimi, were transferred to a room with a sofa bed, two armchairs and no blankets for 24 hours, after meeting the king at his residence.
Expensive miscalculation
Curiously, bin Zayed’s biggest disappointment and his most expensive miscalculation may turn out to be none of the above: Somalia, Libya or Yemen. He could yet lose on the most substantial bet he has placed: on US President Donald Trump himself.
Bin Zayed spotted Trump early on in the US presidential campaign, when Hillary Clinton was still the outright favourite.
Clinton was too long in the tooth as a foreign policy hand as far as the Emiratis were concerned. They needed an aggressive novice, a truly blank page on which anyone fast and rich enough could scribble the script. The Qataris had shunned Trump’s advances. Here was an opportunity the Emiratis could not miss.
US President Donald Trump shakes hands with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the Oval Office of the White House on 20 March 2018 (AFP)
Bin Zayed alighted upon another novice - a young prince, bin Salman, who was then at two removes from the Saudi throne - in late 2015 and took him on a camping trip in the desert with falcons, the equivalent of a round of golf. The pair was on the yacht with George Nader, the Lebanese-American back channel used by successive US administrations, in which moves were made to re-align the region.
Bin Zayed instructed bin Salman on what he had to do to become king. The Machiavellian mentor knew how to nurture the ambitions of a power-hungry prince. Bin Zayed introduced bin Salman to Israel, and then to Trump’s family. Bin Zayed promoted bin Salman in Washington, using his able and hyperactive ambassador, Youssef Otaiba. This was when his elder cousin, Mohammed bin Nayef, was still the toast of the US intelligence establishment. Otaiba then successfully set about destroying bin Nayef’s reputation.
Visit delayed
The pair of crown princes spent literally a fortune buying Trump’s favours - up to $500bn in defence contracts from Saudi alone over the next decade.
All of this patient groundwork was to culminate in a series of royal visits to Washington, of which bin Zayed positioned himself to be the last. It was scheduled to come at the end of April, but I am informed that it has been postponed.
Far from being the stage upon which bin Zayed and bin Salman can strut, the US is not providing firm terrain on which to manoeuvre. True enough, the mass media is gullible and easy to hoodwink. Washington’s think-tanks are also venal and eminently buyable.
EXCLUSIVE: The secret yacht summit that realigned the Middle East Read More »
But when you buy into Trump, you also become a stakeholder in the battles he engages in. Before long you acquire his enemies, too.
I understand that bin Zayed is asking for a written undertaking that neither he nor his entourage will be stopped for questioning by special counsel Robert Mueller about his inquiry into illegal funding of Trump’s election campaign.
Mueller has inside information on bin Zayed’s past dealings from Nader, one of bin Zayed’s former advisers. Bin Zayed wants to avoid the further forensic dissections in the New York Times that this could produce.
Joker in the pack
Then there is the joker in the pack: Trump himself. Bin Zayed does not want to repeat the fiasco where bin Salman was humiliated by the former reality TV host pulling out a series of large, coloured cards showing how much the kingdom was spending on US arms. Bin Salman visibly winced when the cards were produced, and well he might.
Nor does he want Trump to repeat the lines he spoke recently to French President Emmanuel Macron, that US allies in the Middle East would crumble “within a week” if the US was not there to protect them.
“They wouldn’t be there except for the United States. They would not last a week. We are protecting them. They have to now step up and pay for what is happening,” Trump bragged.
Emirati distress was such that licensed commentators were instructed to hold forth. One of them was Abdulkhaleq Abdulla, who tweeted that the Arab Gulf States had been around well before the US was founded and would be around years after the US leaves.
Assuaging US Jewish audience
Neither has Trump played ball on Qatar, from the Saudi and Emirati perspective.
No sooner had the two crown princes congratulated themselves on dispatching Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to an early retirement, than they were told by his successor, Mike Pompeo, the same thing: Enough is enough. End the blockade.
This is not what Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir had expected to hear. They wanted to build a moat on the border of the Qatari peninsula and fill it with nuclear waste.
From the start, bin Zayed and bin Salman set out to do everything they could, bar physically prostrating themselves, to please Trump and assuage a US Jewish audience. Bin Salman went as far as telling US Jewish leaders, according to reports by Israel’s Channel 10 news, that Palestinians should accept the latest proposals or shut up.
Palestinians from the Shuafat refugee camp in occupied East Jerusalem watch as Israeli forces repair the separation wall dividing the camp from the Israeli settlement of Pisgat Zeev on 27 April 2018 (AFP)
“It is about time the Palestinians take the proposals and agree to come to the negotiations table or shut up and stop complaining,” the crown prince was reported as saying.
Trump and Israel are demanding that Palestinians accept a number of conditions as a basis for restarting talks: the loss of East Jerusalem; the abandonment of the right of return and folding of the refugee issue; and defunding of UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.
But none of this is enough. The thought must by now have occurred, even to them, that Trump’s agenda and theirs do not necessarily match.
Iranian influence
Bin Salman has recast Saudi foreign policy. It was passively aggressive; now it is just plain aggressive. Its strategic aim is to coordinate the Sunni Arab pushback against Iranian military and political influence in Yemen, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.
An air campaign against Iranian nuclear facilities and its air defence would be the culmination of this policy.
Trump is not part of the region, but the next ruler of Saudi Arabia is. When those American and Israeli fighters return to their bases, Saudi will feel the consequences first and foremost
If there is to be a conventional war against Iran, it will be an American and Israeli one. The Saudi role in such a war would be to provide cover, support and bases, as it was in George W Bush’s war against Saddam Hussein in Iraq in 2003.
The lesson of Iraq was that long before the retreat, the US lost control of the country it had conquered, ceding power to Shia politicians in Iran’s pocket. The Iraqi war was started and conducted by American rules, and ended on American terms. The Saudi interest in these was secondary to Washington’s. The result now is a belated Saudi offensive to buy influence in Iraq.
Trump is not part of the region, but the next ruler of Saudi Arabia is. When those American and Israeli fighters return to their bases, Saudi will feel the consequences first and foremost. There are any number of highly organised and trained Shia militias who could do the job.
Devastating effects
If Bush’s war on Iraq opened up a sectarian hell in the region, a war on Iran could be far worse, and the Saudi kingdom would find itself in the epicentre of this maelstrom.
Unlike 2003, the Saudis would not be protected by a brotherly feeling from fellow Arab states. When you kick out hundreds of thousands of foreign Arab workers from your land - 800,000 expatriates left Saudi in the last year and a half, according to one estimate - you lose a lot of goodwill in Jordan, Egypt and the other countries that depend on their remittances.
How Trump could be king - Saudi style Katie Miranda Read More »
An Iranian war may suit a US neo-conservative (and Netanyahu’s) regional agenda, but its effects on the stability of Saudi Arabia, and specifically the new king himself, may be devastating. The Saudi strategy should not be to dominate the Sunni world and cast the Palestinians to one side. It should be to build an alliance of Sunni states as a balance to Iran.
For their personal interest, Bin Salman’s and Bin Zayed’s bet on Trump is looking increasingly like a misjudged one.
- David Hearst is editor-in-chief of Middle East Eye. He was chief foreign leader writer of The Guardian, former Associate Foreign Editor, European Editor, Moscow Bureau Chief, European Correspondent, and Ireland Correspondent. He joined The Guardian from The Scotsman, where he was education correspondent.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
Photo: A handout picture provided by the Saudi Royal Palace on 21 May 2017 shows Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed chatting with US President Donald Trump during a meeting in Riyadh (AFP)
This article is available in French on Middle East Eye French edition. | {
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An outpouring of support and memories came in after news broke that The Cave – the music venue which had spawned many music careers over 50 years in Chapel Hill – would be closing. But amidst those memories, there was work going on behind the scenes to keep The Cave open.
Musician Melissa Swingle, who also used to bartend at The Cave, told WCHL Monday morning that she, along with Autumn Spencer, had reached an agreement with the current ownership of The Cave and the landlord to reopen the music venue.
Swingle said that the new ownership group was working to obtain a liquor license and get The Cave back up and running as quickly as possible.
“We are planning on having a Grand Reopening or a big party to say, ‘The Cave is not dead’ at the end of June,” Swingle said.
Several longtime Franklin Street establishments had recently announced they would be closing in Chapel Hill. The Cave now appears to have been revived. And Chapel Hill Restaurant Group recently announced that after the “retiring” of Spanky’s, a new restaurant named Lula’s would be opening at the corner of Franklin and Columbia streets serving Southern food staples. | {
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CANNABIS CULTURE – Worldwide rallies to free imprisoned activist Marc Emery were a huge success in over 90 locations around the globe, and photos and videos of the many protests are flooding the Internet.
Below are links to various photos and videos from the WORLDWIDE RALLIES to FREE MARC EMERY on September 18, 2010. Click here for a map of participating cities and more info about the rallies. Stay tuned for more on the global rallies from Cannabis Culture.
VIEW PHOTO GALLERIES of the event on FREEMARC.ca
Click here to see hundreds of photos of the event on Marc Emery’s Facebook Page and Fan Page.
Vancouver, British Columbia
Watch on YouTube
Go to Cannabis Culture’s Flickr Gallery
Watch on YouTube
Toronto, Ontario
Watch on YouTube
Edmonton, Alberta
Watch on YouTube
Ottawa, Ontario
Watch on YouTube
Watch on YouTube
Chatham, Ontario
Watch on YouTube
Victoria, BC
Watch on YouTube
Denver, Colorado
Watch on YouTube
Austin, Texas
Watch on YouTube
Montgomery, Alabama
Watch on YouTube
Berlin, Germany
Watch on YouTube
Copenhagen, Denmark
Watch on YouTube
Shenzhen, China
Watch on YouTube
See the China photo gallery on Facebook.
Photo Galleries
Canada
Vancouver, British Columbia: Flickr gallery, Facebook gallery, Facebook gallery
Nelson, British Columbia: Facebook gallery
Canmore, Alberta: Facebook gallery
Calgary, Alberta: Facebook gallery
Empire Stadium, Vancouver: Facebook gallery
Peterborough, Ontario: Facebook gallery
Lethbridge, Alberta: Facebook gallery, Facebook gallery
Windsor, Ontario: Facebook gallery
Toronto, Ontario: Facebook gallery, Facebook gallery
Whitby Ontario: Facebook gallery
USA
Seattle: Facebook gallery, Facebook gallery
Venice Beach: Facebook gallery
Montgomery, Alabama: CC Blog gallery
Global
Shenzhen, China: Facebook gallery
Press Reports
Rallies push for Marc Emery’s return to Canadian jail
by The Province
Supporters of the self-proclaimed “prince of pot” plan to rally at several Vancouver intersections Saturday, as well as dozens of other locations around the world, to make a plea for his return to Canada.
Marc Emery is serving a five-year jail sentence in the U.S. for drug trafficking after he was found guilty of selling marijuana seeds over the Internet.
At sentencing earlier this month, a Seattle prosecutor rejected Emery’s claims he was being selectively and vigorously prosecuted because of his pro-pot political crusade.
Click here to read more…
Rallies in support of Marc Emery held around the world
by News 1130
Marc Emery, the self-proclaimed “Prince of Pot,” has only begun to serve his sentence in the States, and already there are calls for him to come home.
A rally took place in Vancouver today to free the man who was convicted of selling pot seeds in the US via mail and online.
Jacob Hunter, the rally’s organizer, claims similar rallies are being held around the world, in countries as far as China and Norway. “I don’t think Marc should be in jail at all, but I am quite frankly willing to accept the half-measure of just bringing him home to Canada, which I would point out is actually a legal obligation for the public safety minister. He does not have a choice of whether or not to return Marc to Canada. Under the law, he actually has to.”
Click here to read more…
Global rallies to free ‘Prince of Pot’ Marc Emery, stop Bill S-10
by Digital Journal
Toronto – Rallies occurred around the world to protest the five-year prison sentence of the “Prince of Pot” Marc Emery. Protests took place in Toronto, Berlin, Antarctica, Vancouver, Oslo and other areas around the globe.
Last week, Canadian marijuana activist Marc Emery was sentenced by a United States District Court Judge to five years in prison on drug distribution charges. The U.S. federal judge recommended that the 52-year-old Emery be allowed to serve his time in Canada.
On Saturday, rallies were held worldwide to protest the imprisonment of Emery, according to Cannabis Culture. Majority of the protests were held in front of U.S. and Canadian Consulates/Embassies demanding that Emery be sent back to Canada and released immediately.
Click here to read more…
Watch this page for UPDATES and more content from the WORLDWIDE RALLIES to FREE MARC EMERY. | {
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One of the greatest differences between an open source operating systems and those that maintain a proprietary code structure is the flexibility in customizing each one.
While Windows and OS X offer a set-in-stone desktop environment, Linux enjoys a robust number of desktop environments from which to choose from – including the highly popular GNOME. Some may even argue that having a limited number of desktop environments would allow those distributions to hone in on gaining a larger market share. And perhaps that’s true, though I believe that most Linux enthusiasts chose Linux because of its diversity. In this article, I'll look at where GNOME came from, where it is now and the end goal I think it'll reach within the next couple of years.
GNOME from the past
My early experiences with GNOME dates back to a time before Linux was all that user friendly. Generally considered an advanced OS better suited for highly technical users, early releases of GNOME had little interest in providing a user-friendly experience. Back then, GNOME offered panels, launchers and was tied in with various gtk-based applications.
System, Utilities and Applications – this was the mantra GNOME offered for getting things done. It lacked polish, yet it still captured the interest of many Linux enthusiasts who preferred its straight forward method of getting things done on the Linux desktop.
My first experience with GNOME was using early Red Hat. Despite being ugly by today's standards, I fell in love with it back then because it was logically laid out. Anything that wasn't provided for with the GNOME desktop, could be tackled using the right config file. It was simple and it made using the Linux desktop a pleasure. No extra control sections to configure, just launch the applications you want to use and enjoy.
Sometime later, we came into what would be GNOME's golden age – GNOME 2. Unlike its previous layout, GNOME 2 offered a perfect storm of GUI controls along with a minor polish on an already functional user layout for managing your Linux desktop. At the top panel, the iconic Applications, Places and System launcher could be found anytime you needed it.
GNOME 2 was amazingly easy to use, even for first time users. Getting around the menu layout and tweaking the desktop settings was extremely simple. For me personally, this was when GNOME was at its best.
GNOME 3.x
When GNOME 3 first rolled out, I'll admit that I was into other desktop environments at the time - Cinnamon, KDE and XFCE were my go-to choices. But after revisiting GNOME 3 recently, I can see how it could become the tool for a unifying desktop experience.
One of the good things I’ve heard: GNOME 3 offers a clean, clear sense of purpose in how each item appears on the desktop. This includes the menus, the default icons and even the new GNOME indicators located in the upper right hand corner of the desktop. Bundle these changes from GNOME 2, and it's easy to see that GNOME 3 was created with a very specific vision in mind.
Going back to 2008, there's a great summary of what the GNOME developers were aiming for with the development of this desktop environment and where the developers want to take this user experience. As one might expect, the biggest indication here is a seamless unification of user experience for users of all skill levels. Most specifically, this is a desktop that feels like it's destined to be on tablets and smartphones, not just desktop computers.
The biggest challenge for previous Gnome users is that it's a very different overall feel when compared to GNOME 2 (now forked as MATE). Early on with GNOME 3, there was some frustration due to the lack of a minimize option, and a new work flow in how one accesses software via Activities, among other changes made to the desktop environment.
Now to be fair, there are options to further tweak GNOME 3 into a more customized experience – the GNOME Tweak Tool, for example. This tool is fantastic in giving you control over your startup applications and even using a minimize option for your applications.
Another example of a great GNOME 3 work-around is using alternative file managers in place of Nautilus. With the recent changes to Nautilus, many Linux users have found themselves jumping over to alternatives such as Marlin. I've found that Marlin is a good solution for those Nautilus users who weren't happy with the recent changes made to the file manager. When Nautilus trimmed down the file manager and merged titlebars and toolbars, it lost functionality. | {
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Colony’s fans have got behind the show in a bid to get it a fourth season (Picture: USA Network)
Fans of sci-fi series Colony have been left in uproar since it was announced last week that the series is being axed.
The Josh Holloway-topped show came to an end in the US on Wednesday after USA Network – who shows it in the US – announced they would not be renewing it for a fourth season.
All of which has – just like Lucifer and Shadowhunters before it – spawned a whole lot of outcry, as fans lobby for the series to be picked up by another network.
Yup, the #renewcolony hashtag has been pretty busy in recent days.
Wake up this morning and #Colony is cancelled… I can't believe it..?? #RenewColony — Sarah ? (@SarahK_EllWent) July 22, 2018
#Colony needs to be saved. #RenewColony. I want season 4 and beyond. This show is too good to cancel. #SaveColony — Michael Tardi (@MTARDI32) July 22, 2018
I can’t believe it’s gone! Especially with a cliffhanger like that! @netflix can you guys save this show?? #RenewColony #SaveColony — Adam Hartswick (@DocHartswick) July 28, 2018
Someone, ANYONE! PLEASE #RenewColony ! This show is so awesome! Please dont let it die. #Netflix or anyone please come to the rescue and save this amazing show.#SaveColony — Aaron Henderson (@PUMPKINHEAD911) July 27, 2018
Are you people crazy??!!!? We can't believe you cancelled Colony! It was one of our favorite shows!! Please reconsider! #RenewColony — Patti Meese (@ptm2023) July 29, 2018
#RenewColony #SaveColony NETFLIX/AMAZON PLEASE! Save Colony, it's a great show, USA lacked advertisement, that's why they didn't get many viewers on the show, + since the time and day of the streaming changed. @AmazonStudios @netflix PLEASE RENEW THE SHOW FOR A 4TH SEASON. — Waleed Akhtar (@DarkTearsx) July 27, 2018
There’s even a @savecolony account dedicated to doing, well, just that – while a change.org petition aiming to get the show picked up by another network for a fourth season has also been gathering steam, with almost 5,000 signatures.
Could Colony be saved?
The show ended in the US last week as the current season ended (Picture: USA Network)
It’s entirely possible that another network or streaming service could pick up the show for a fourth series, but so far there’s no indication that’s going to happen.
However fans shouldn’t give up hope as recent campaigns to save axed shows Brooklyn Nine-Nine and Lucifer both proved successful – with the latter being snapped up by NBC after being cancelled and the latter nabbed by Netflix.
Why was Colony axed?
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The series, about a family in Los Angeles who fight to stay together in the face of an alien invasion and new world order, proved popular when it debuted in 2015, boasting strong viewing figures for its first two series.
However its lack of presence at San Diego Comic Con – where it has been strongly featured in recent years – was noticeable, and while no official reason was given for its axing, falling viewing figures have been blamed for its demise.
While it was previously the number one scripted cable series in its Thursday night timeslot, with over two million viewers, figures for the third series had dropped to around 1.3m.
The show was also impacted by failing to score itself a California tax credit – meaning production had to relocate from LA to Vancouver, reshaping the story as a result.
Got a showbiz story? If you've got a celebrity story, video or pictures get in touch with the Metro.co.uk entertainment team by emailing us [email protected], calling 020 3615 2145 or by visiting our Submit Stuff page - we'd love to hear from you. | {
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Image copyright AP Image caption Pele on his debut for the New York Cosmos in 1975
Forty years ago this summer Brazilian football star Pele made his debut for the North American Soccer League (NASL) team, the New York Cosmos, as the US looked to embrace the global phenomenon of football.
Ten years later, in 1985, the NASL imploded, and the game limped on in indoor arenas before the founding of Major League Soccer (MLS) in 1993.
Most football fans are aware of the MLS, helped by the importation of ageing stars such as Steven Gerrard, Didier Drogba and David Beckham, but many will be unaware that the NASL brand name has also returned.
According to the US Soccer Federation (USSF), the NASL sits below the MLS as the official Division 2, but as NASL commissioner Bill Peterson tells the BBC website, "we certainly don't see ourselves as a second-status league".
Indeed, the NASL has major club expansion and commercial plans in the pipeline.
'Big opportunity'
Founded in 2009, the league is a totally different business from its predecessor, although it has taken responsibility for sustaining the memory of the NASL's "Golden Era" from 1975 to 1984.
"There is a big opportunity right now for football here in the US," says ex-NFL Europe and AEG executive Mr Peterson. "There have been major changes over the past decade.
Image copyright AP Image caption The NASL hopes football fans will enjoy following both foreign and US home-based teams
"Going into the 1980s you had millions of kids who played the sport, but there was not a chance for them to connect with clubs. Now they can connect to clubs, albeit often through TV, and often to overseas teams."
The broadcasting of overseas football, including England's Premier League, had created a new, soccer-savvy US supporter, he says.
"Our task now is not about teaching them, it is about getting them to follow our teams."
League expansion
Familiar names in the league are the re-founded New York Cosmos, Fort Lauderdale Strikers and Tampa Bay Rowdies, which all take their names from famous 1970s NASL clubs.
The NASL plans to expand from its current 11 teams (9 in the US and 2 in Canada) to 13 in 2016 - with clubs in Miami and Puerto Rico joining - and then to 15 or 17 in 2017.
Image copyright NASL Image caption Former Milan star Paolo Maldini and entrepreneur Riccardo Silva are NASL club owners in Miami
The Miami franchise has been secured by former AC Milan and Italy star Paolo Maldini. Other big names participating in the league include ex-Brazil World Cup winner Ronaldo - a minority owner at Fort Lauderdale Strikers - while one time Real Madrid and Spain star Raul is playing for New York Cosmos.
So although it seems the NASL is also looking to ageing stars, Mr Peterson says that "our teams have focused on finding world-class experience at both the ownership and player level", and big names who "understand what it takes to be successful".
The NASL is de-centralised, with each individual investor owning their club, and free to determine its own budget, player roster, wages and stadium provision.
Entry cost
Mr Peterson says that on national TV deals, sponsorship, and licensing deals, NASL clubs will work together, "so that the whole is much more than the sum of the parts".
He also says the cost of joining the NASL is less expensive than MLS membership.
Image copyright Reuters Image caption Ex-Spain and Real Madrid striker Raul is now playing for New York Cosmos in the NASL
For example, Manchester City and the New York Yankees reportedly paid $100m (£64m) for an MLS New York franchise, whereas entry to the NASL involves a seven-figure sum.
"Our entry price is different for each club," says Mr Peterson. "Our philosophy is not to try and take money at the front end from potential owners.
"We have an admission fee, in single-digit dollar millions."
He says potential owners have to be "trustworthy people with a sufficient net worth", and able to deal with any financial challenges that may emerge.
'Natural evolution'
Owners are also expected to take the initiative in forging connections with local government, businesses, and the wider community in their home cities.
Meanwhile, clubs should "not spend more money than they make".
Image copyright NASL Image caption Mr Peterson is seeking a title sponsor for the NASL
In the past, the NASL has stepped in to help those in financial difficulty, such as the Atlanta Silverbacks, but Mr Peterson says they do not envisage doing so again.
The expansion programme has also given the league what Mr Peterson says is enough critical mass to look towards securing a main presenting sponsor, and other NASL sponsor partnerships.
"With expansion to 13 clubs we felt the time was right to look for a number of sponsor deals that will benefit the whole league."
In March the NASL announced an expansion of its relationship with ESPN for the current 2015 season, with a minimum of 120 league matches streamed live via ESPN3 in 75 different countries.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Why relegation doesn't exist in US soccer
Despite a spike in football interest after the Fifa men's and women's World Cups in 2014 and 2015, there is still massive room for growth in football TV viewing in the US.
"This is our fifth year, and our clubs are performing at a high level," he says.
"In addition, we have invested in TV production, so we are in a position to have legitimate conversations with broadcasters now."
Urban v suburban
At present six of the 11 current NASL club grounds only hold 10,000 or less fans, while many are not soccer-specific arenas.
But Mr Peterson says the days when US civic authorities and taxpayers could be cajoled into funding new $1bn (£640m) sports stadiums have gone.
Image copyright Tampa Bay Rowdies Image caption Tampa Bay Rowdies are upgrading the Al Lang Stadium to nearly treble its capacity
"That is one of the reasons why we don't require clubs to build new stadiums," he says.
"Most of our clubs however are in conversations about either building a new one, or revamping existing ones, such as in Tampa Bay and Fort Lauderdale.
"It takes a lot of work to build new stadiums. We would like stadiums in urban areas rather in the suburbs, but land is expensive and not easy to find in the urban areas."
Promotion and relegation
On the playing side he advocates that European-style promotion and relegation to and from the MLS should be introduced. This does not exist at present, with movement between the leagues being determined by other factors.
For example Minnesota United FC is transferring from the NASL to the MLS in 2018, after the latter identified the club as a good fit for its own expansion plans.
Image copyright Jacksonville Armada FC Image caption The NASL has a focus on expanding football in Florida
"We would be all for promotion and relegation, and this is something I want to talk to the USSF about," says Mr Peterson. "Every amateur team needs to have the dream of going up the football pyramid."
Another challenge is establishing a competitive structure across such a large geographical area.
"That is why we have gone for four teams in Florida, which has a population bigger than some countries," says Mr Peterson, "we will do something similar on the West Coast, and then look to fill in [in between]."
Meanwhile, Mr Peterson is aware of the the "Golden Era" history his league is following.
"We feel we are the custodians of that time now," he says. "We have taken it upon ourselves to tell the stories, of who was involved. It is an important part of US soccer history." | {
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Goes to wrong section of right course all semester Aces course. Gets an F on the transcript
2,651 shares | {
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Oscar Winner Kevin Macdonald and 'Leviathan' Producer Team Up for Pre-Holocaust Doc
The film will be centered on a pre-WWII refugee crisis in Europe and will be made by Russian producer Alexander Rodnyansky's new company, AR Content.
Russian producer Alexander Rodnyansky is teaming up with Oscar-winning director Kevin Macdonald to make a documentary focused on the little known pre-Holocaust refugee crisis that took place in 1938.
"Many people believed that the horrible toll that WWII took on humanity taught us a lesson, [but] unfortunately, it didn’t," Rodnyansky told The Hollywood Reporter. "Today, when the problems of migration and refugees running away from war and genocide have become one of the most dangerous challenges in the world, it seems to me necessary to talk once again about those terrible events from the relatively recent history of humanity."
"Today, a lot of politicians and ordinary people, while speaking about these problems, are still using the rhetoric that was in their toolbox on the eve of and during WWII," he added.
The project will be produced by Rodnyansky's new company, AR Content, launched earlier this year to focus on films devoted to today's most urgent issues, directed by leading filmmakers.
Rodnyansky, Macdonald and Rosanne Korenberg will produce the as yet untitled documentary. The director is to be announced later.
Macdonald won the best documentary feature Oscar in 2000 for One Day In September, a film that chronicles a Palestinian terrorist group's attack on Israeli athletes at the 1972 Summer Olympic Games in Munich.
Rodnyansky is primarily known as the producer of Andrei Zvyagintsev's Oscar-nominated features Leviathan and Loveless.
His other producer credits include Billy Bob Thornton's Jayne Mansfield's Car and Cloud Atlas, directed by Tom Tykwer, Lana Wachowski and Lilly Wachowski.
Among AR Content's other announced projects is Debriefing the President, based on John Nixon’s nonfiction account of interrogating the Iraqi ruler, to be directed by Oscar-nominated Ziad Doueiri. | {
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Libertarian activists and volunteers from around Shiloh volunteered today to pick up trash and brush at Shiloh National Military Park. Midway through the initiative, were asked by Park Rangers to leave the property and cease their volunteer work.
A representative from the Delta Region Libertarian Party reported:
We as the Libertarian Party of Tennessee Delta Region planned a volunteer effort to clean Shiloh National Military Park. This is apart of a massive effort conducted throughout the US to help keep our parks clean during the government shutdown.
No group of volunteers has been stopped throughout this nationwide effort until today. We were told about 30 minutes into our cleaning that we were not officially “volunteers” and would have to stop. We attempted to reason with the park ranger however he blatantly told us that even walking along side the walkways and picking up trash was prohibited….
The Libertarian Party is a party that centers on volunteerism and helping our community. It is a shame in the “Volunteer State” we are stopped from volunteering.”
Check out the companion video as well: | {
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Prior to the election of our current president, you had worked on political cartoons occasionally — you responded to the Charlie Hebdo attacks — but were known primarily as a comic book artist and co-creator of Y: The Last Man. You touched upon this in the official launch announcement for Me the People, but what was it about today's environment that prompted your current output?
We had just spent a year living the day-to-day shit show of the campaign. Every day, a new “Hey lookit me!” that everyone seemed to laugh off as a great joke, and after election night, we were faced with potentially four years of this daily departure from common sense. I needed to express some anger over that. Everyone has something they use to vent, drawing was mine, and there was and continues to be a lot to vent about.
Beyond the Hebdo cartoons, what’s your background with political art? Were you an editorial cartoonist before moving into comics?
I did a few for the high school paper but that was about it. I was always set to draw comics, but every now and then I’d have an idea for a joke or commentary on an event that I would share with friends. With Twitter and Facebook, that sharing went out a lot further. After seeing how the cartoons resonated with others, I considered doing more.?
As you said, these cartoons started as something you shared on social media, and later became the basis of a weekly spot with political cartoon hub The Nib; has that changed the way you create the work or choose what you’re going to comment on?
It’s not as random now. I watch the news everyday, I read articles and scan social media for what’s being talked about. The trick really has been to find an image before the news cycle sweeps a chosen topic away with the rest of it. My comic book work is mostly on hold for the time being. At some point when these cartoons started getting traction, I decided to keep doing it until this administration was done. Part of the motivation is about it being therapeutic, part is to act as a cheering squad to others to be more proactive and vote, and another part is to just chronicle this period of time and all the craziness happening.
What is your process for these cartoons? Do you write these cartoons before drawing, is there no real line between image and caption, is it an immediate “I know what I’m doing!” epiphany or just the opposite?
It’s a lot like thinking up a joke. You read a story, you find the part that makes you roll your eyes — that hypocritical spin that makes you throw your arms up — and that’s where it starts. I focus on that, and run through images that best describe how I feel. Sometimes it’s obvious, boom, there’s the take.... But other times, it can be a slog, especially when there are a lot of components involved.
There was one cartoon I was working on for a couple of days about the Parkland shooting. It was dark and angry, showing the Grim Reaper with an AR-15 standing over a chessboard, where all the pieces were schools and he was picking out which one would be next. I struggled to make it clear. The perspective was off and I had to redo the board a few times; I was about to set it aside when CNN started showing live footage of the Parkland students at a rally and Emma Gonzalez stepped up and did her amazing “We call BS!” speech. And then the image changed — it wasn’t about who was next, it was about all these kids standing up to say no. Completely changed the tone of the cartoon. You never know where it’s going to go, just keep listening, keep drawing and see what comes up.
I’m wondering, what has the feedback been like to the work? Obviously, both The Nib gig and this new collection speak to it being positive, but what about comments from individuals? Has there been any particularly memorable encounters with fans — or nonfans, for that matter?
The reaction has been so not what I expected. I’ve had positive feedback before with Y — some very emotional responses, too — but, back then, social media was still young so it wasn’t that wall of responses, [it was] lots of nice emails, hugs at conventions.
When some of the cartoons got going, it would come in waves. I’d scan through to see where it got started like, "Oh, this person with a lot of followers shared it, boom, a bunch of responses." Then it would settle a bit, and then, someone else picked it up and pow, more. Most of it was positive, but then some jerks would jump in and try to pull me into these minibattles and I could waste time arguing or just block and move on. Sometimes, there were really interesting and engaging conversations that came out of it. It hasn’t been boring.
After the Hero’s Welcome cartoon went out, I got a response from a teacher who said she saw it while in class and started crying, and then the students asked her what was wrong, and she shared it with her class and then everyone started crying. That was very moving and intense. Seeing Dan Rather repost it was more than a little mind-blowing.
You mentioned before the idea of these cartoons being therapeutic to you. How helpful has being able to create this work been personally? Not only in terms of personal expression — or venting, screaming, crying and so on — but is there also a sense of connection, community, something similar that’s come about as a result? The short version of what I’m asking, I guess, is, has creating this work helped…?
Probably the best thing is seeing a lot of people responding with essentially, "Yeah! That’s how I feel, too!" In times like these, where so much is happening so quickly and there’s not a lot of accountability, it’s easy to feel isolated, to feel that — despite being in the majority by 2.8 million votes — you still don’t have a voice anyone wants to hear. But then you see a friend share a cartoon that speaks to you and you feel better because it’s not just you. The person who drew this feels that, your friend who shared it feels that, the people you share this with may feel that.
There’s community there — feeling that you’re all on the same page, that it’s not just you who thinks all of this is nuts. For me, seeing people share this stuff, the comments the likes, it’s the same. I feel energized to do more, I feel hopeful that all of this will change and the damage done will be mitigated.
More than anything I hope it encourages people to express themselves in their own way. Find the thing they love and use it to share their hope, too.
Me the People will be released by Image Comics on Oct. 3, both digitally and in print. | {
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Saudi Arabia will soon release Mohammed Hussein Al Amoudi, an Ethiopian-born Saudi billionaire arrested in November 2017 during a crackdown on corruption, Ethiopia’s prime minister said.
Abiy Ahmed made the remarks late on Saturday after arriving from the Gulf kingdom, where he met Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman during a two-day visit.
Al Amoudi, a son of a Saudi father and an Ethiopian mother who has invested heavily in construction, agriculture and mining in the Horn of Africa country, was among 11 princes, four current ministers and top businessmen detained during the swoop by a new anti-corruption body.
The incarceration of one Ethiopian is the incarceration of all Ethiopians. Sheikh Al Amoudi’s arrest is top in the agenda for all Ethiopians.
“The incarceration of one Ethiopian is the incarceration of all Ethiopians. Sheikh Al Amoudi’s arrest is top in the agenda for all Ethiopians,” Abiy said in the capital Addis Ababa.
“We have made the request – we are sure that he will be released very soon,” he added in a townhall-style gathering.
Saudi authorities have dismissed claims that they mishandled the anti-corruption campaign, which included the three-month detention of billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal – one of the country’s top international investors.
Officials in Riyadh say most detainees have been released, after settlements that they say secured more than $100 billion from members of the elite.
On Friday, Ethiopia also announced that Saudi Arabia had agreed to release 1,000 Ethiopian nationals who have been in prison in the Gulf state for a variety of offences.
Officials in Riyadh are in the process of deporting more than 500,000 illegal Ethiopian migrants. So far, 160,000 have arrived back in the Horn of Africa country.
REUTERS | {
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From time to time, there emerge cybersecurity stories of such potential impact that they have the effect of making all other security concerns seem minuscule and trifling by comparison. Yesterday was one of those times. Bloomberg Businessweek on Thursday published a bombshell investigation alleging that Chinese cyber spies had used a U.S.-based tech firm to secretly embed tiny computer chips into electronic devices purchased and used by almost 30 different companies. There aren’t any corroborating accounts of this scoop so far, but it is both fascinating and terrifying to look at why threats to the global technology supply chain can be so difficult to detect, verify and counter.
In the context of computer and Internet security, supply chain security refers to the challenge of validating that a given piece of electronics — and by extension the software that powers those computing parts — does not include any extraneous or fraudulent components beyond what was specified by the company that paid for the production of said item.
In a nutshell, the Bloomberg story claims that San Jose, Calif. based tech giant Supermicro was somehow caught up in a plan to quietly insert a rice-sized computer chip on the circuit boards that get put into a variety of servers and electronic components purchased by major vendors, allegedly including Amazon and Apple. The chips were alleged to have spied on users of the devices and sent unspecified data back to the Chinese military.
It’s critical to note up top that Amazon, Apple and Supermicro have categorically denied most of the claims in the Bloomberg piece. That is, their positions refuting core components of the story would appear to leave little wiggle room for future backtracking on those statements. Amazon also penned a blog post that more emphatically stated their objections to the Bloomberg piece.
Nevertheless, Bloomberg reporters write that “the companies’ denials are countered by six current and former senior national security officials, who—in conversations that began during the Obama administration and continued under the Trump administration—detailed the discovery of the chips and the government’s investigation.”
The story continues:
Today, Supermicro sells more server motherboards than almost anyone else. It also dominates the $1 billion market for boards used in special-purpose computers, from MRI machines to weapons systems. Its motherboards can be found in made-to-order server setups at banks, hedge funds, cloud computing providers, and web-hosting services, among other places. Supermicro has assembly facilities in California, the Netherlands, and Taiwan, but its motherboards—its core product—are nearly all manufactured by contractors in China.
Many readers have asked for my take on this piece. I heard similar allegations earlier this year about Supermicro and tried mightily to verify them but could not. That in itself should be zero gauge of the story’s potential merit. After all, I am just one guy, whereas this is the type of scoop that usually takes entire portions of a newsroom to research, report and vet. By Bloomberg’s own account, the story took more than a year to report and write, and cites 17 anonymous sources as confirming the activity.
Most of what I have to share here is based on conversations with some clueful people over the years who would probably find themselves confined to a tiny, windowless room for an extended period if their names or quotes ever showed up in a story like this, so I will tread carefully around this subject.
The U.S. Government isn’t eager to admit it, but there has long been an unofficial inventory of tech components and vendors that are forbidden to buy from if you’re in charge of procuring products or services on behalf of the U.S. Government. Call it the “brown list, “black list,” “entity list” or what have you, but it’s basically an indelible index of companies that are on the permanent Shit List of Uncle Sam for having been caught pulling some kind of supply chain shenanigans.
More than a decade ago when I was a reporter with The Washington Post, I heard from an extremely well-placed source that one Chinese tech company had made it onto Uncle Sam’s entity list because they sold a custom hardware component for many Internet-enabled printers that secretly made a copy of every document or image sent to the printer and forwarded that to a server allegedly controlled by hackers aligned with the Chinese government.
That example gives a whole new meaning to the term “supply chain,” doesn’t it? If Bloomberg’s reporting is accurate, that’s more or less what we’re dealing with here in Supermicro as well.
But here’s the thing: Even if you identify which technology vendors are guilty of supply-chain hacks, it can be difficult to enforce their banishment from the procurement chain. One reason is that it is often tough to tell from the brand name of a given gizmo who actually makes all the multifarious components that go into any one electronic device sold today.
Take, for instance, the problem right now with insecure Internet of Things (IoT) devices — cheapo security cameras, Internet routers and digital video recorders — sold at places like Amazon and Walmart. Many of these IoT devices have become a major security problem because they are massively insecure by default and difficult if not also impractical to secure after they are sold and put into use.
For every company in China that produces these IoT devices, there are dozens of “white label” firms that market and/or sell the core electronic components as their own. So while security researchers might identify a set of security holes in IoT products made by one company whose products are white labeled by others, actually informing consumers about which third-party products include those vulnerabilities can be extremely challenging. In some cases, a technology vendor responsible for some part of this mess may simply go out of business or close its doors and re-emerge under different names and managers.
Mind you, there is no indication anyone is purposefully engineering so many of these IoT products to be insecure; a more likely explanation is that building in more security tends to make devices considerably more expensive and slower to market. In many cases, their insecurity stems from a combination of factors: They ship with every imaginable feature turned on by default; they bundle outdated software and firmware components; and their default settings are difficult or impossible for users to change.
We don’t often hear about intentional efforts to subvert the security of the technology supply chain simply because these incidents tend to get quickly classified by the military when they are discovered. But the U.S. Congress has held multiple hearings about supply chain security challenges, and the U.S. government has taken steps on several occasions to block Chinese tech companies from doing business with the federal government and/or U.S.-based firms.
Most recently, the Pentagon banned the sale of Chinese-made ZTE and Huawei phones on military bases, according to a Defense Department directive that cites security risks posed by the devices. The U.S. Department of Commerce also has instituted a seven-year export restriction for ZTE, resulting in a ban on U.S. component makers selling to ZTE.
Still, the issue here isn’t that we can’t trust technology products made in China. Indeed there are numerous examples of other countries — including the United States and its allies — slipping their own “backdoors” into hardware and software products.
Like it or not, the vast majority of electronics are made in China, and this is unlikely to change anytime soon. The central issue is that we don’t have any other choice right now. The reason is that by nearly all accounts it would be punishingly expensive to replicate that manufacturing process here in the United States.
Even if the U.S. government and Silicon Valley somehow mustered the funding and political will to do that, insisting that products sold to U.S. consumers or the U.S. government be made only with components made here in the U.S.A. would massively drive up the cost of all forms of technology. Consumers would almost certainly balk at buying these way more expensive devices. Years of experience has shown that consumers aren’t interested in paying a huge premium for security when a comparable product with the features they want is available much more cheaply.
Indeed, noted security expert Bruce Schneier calls supply-chain security “an insurmountably hard problem.”
“Our IT industry is inexorably international, and anyone involved in the process can subvert the security of the end product,” Schneier wrote in an opinion piece published earlier this year in The Washington Post. “No one wants to even think about a US-only anything; prices would multiply many times over. We cannot trust anyone, yet we have no choice but to trust everyone. No one is ready for the costs that solving this would entail.”
The Bloomberg piece also addresses this elephant in the room:
“The problem under discussion wasn’t just technological. It spoke to decisions made decades ago to send advanced production work to Southeast Asia. In the intervening years, low-cost Chinese manufacturing had come to underpin the business models of many of America’s largest technology companies. Early on, Apple, for instance, made many of its most sophisticated electronics domestically. Then in 1992, it closed a state-of-the-art plant for motherboard and computer assembly in Fremont, Calif., and sent much of that work overseas. Over the decades, the security of the supply chain became an article of faith despite repeated warnings by Western officials. A belief formed that China was unlikely to jeopardize its position as workshop to the world by letting its spies meddle in its factories. That left the decision about where to build commercial systems resting largely on where capacity was greatest and cheapest. “You end up with a classic Satan’s bargain,” one former U.S. official says. “You can have less supply than you want and guarantee it’s secure, or you can have the supply you need, but there will be risk. Every organization has accepted the second proposition.”
Another huge challenge of securing the technology supply chain is that it’s quite time consuming and expensive to detect when products may have been intentionally compromised during some part of the manufacturing process. Your typical motherboard of the kind produced by a company like Supermicro can include hundreds of chips, but it only takes one hinky chip to subvert the security of the entire product.
Also, most of the U.S. government’s efforts to police the global technology supply chain seem to be focused on preventing counterfeits — not finding secretly added spying components.
Finally, it’s not clear that private industry is up to the job, either. At least not yet.
“In the three years since the briefing in McLean, no commercially viable way to detect attacks like the one on Supermicro’s motherboards has emerged—or has looked likely to emerge,” the Bloomberg story concludes. “Few companies have the resources of Apple and Amazon, and it took some luck even for them to spot the problem. ‘This stuff is at the cutting edge of the cutting edge, and there is no easy technological solution,’ one of the people present in McLean says. ‘You have to invest in things that the world wants. You cannot invest in things that the world is not ready to accept yet.'”
For my part, I try not to spin my wheels worrying about things I can’t change, and the supply chain challenges definitely fit into that category. I’ll have some more thoughts on the supply chain problem and what we can do about it in an interview to be published next week.
But for the time being, there are some things worth thinking about that can help mitigate the threat from stealthy supply chain hacks. Writing for this week’s newsletter put out by the SANS Institute, a security training company based in Bethesda, Md., editorial board member William Hugh Murray has a few provocative thoughts:
Abandon the password for all but trivial applications. Steve Jobs and the ubiquitous mobile computer have lowered the cost and improved the convenience of strong authentication enough to overcome all arguments against it. Abandon the flat network. Secure and trusted communication now trump ease of any-to-any communication. Move traffic monitoring from encouraged to essential. Establish and maintain end-to-end encryption for all applications. Think TLS, VPNs, VLANs and physically segmented networks. Software Defined Networks put this within the budget of most enterprises. Abandon the convenient but dangerously permissive default access control rule of “read/write/execute” in favor of restrictive “read/execute-only” or even better, “Least privilege.” Least privilege is expensive to administer but it is effective. Our current strategy of “ship low-quality early/patch late” is proving to be ineffective and more expensive in maintenance and breaches than we could ever have imagined. | {
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But wait! You're in Wyoming, where the buffalo roam free to nosh in the meadow next to the highway. Pretty cool, right? Yeah! The driver in front you agrees, so they slam on their brakes to get a better look. That's right, coming to a complete stop right in the middle of the highway. With you behind them, cruising at a healthy 60mph. Look, I get it. Buffalo are badass. But dude, the highway!!
The way I see it, you've got three choices:
Slam on your brakes, hoping you don't take out their rear bumper, and chill in your car with some Bob Marley. After all, not everyone gets to see this level of awesome on the daily. Keep driving, right into the ass end of their rental car. Let's hope they're responsible enough to opt in for the coverage. Slide open that sunroof, stand up on your seat, and let loose a mighty roar fierce enough to make the driver and the buffalo retreat in fear.
Anyone who has lived near a popular park knows how maddening groups of tourists can be. I hate to harp on Yellowstone, and it’s not their fault. But, some of the most appalling behavior I've seen was in that park. I often feel like a renegade park Ranger when I'm there. | {
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I’ve also come to learn that Houston is more than just heat, humidity, and Halliburton.
After just a few visits, I started trading tried-and-true New England notions like winter, two-lane highways, and the concept of “walkable distance” for things like tacos on days other than Tuesday, avocados that don’t require financing, and a second person plural that, frankly, I’m not sure where I’d be without, y’all.
As a lifelong Yankee, I’d always associated Houston with things like big oil, bigger hair, 10-gallon hats, and 10-lane freeways. That is, it never showed up on my short list of vacation spots. But after marrying a Texan, I’ve adopted it as an unlikely second hometown. Weird, I know.
Houston is, indeed, an absolute beast of a city, covering more than seven times the area of Boston, with more than three times as many people calling it home. And while it takes time to find the beauty in H-Town’s expanse of cracked asphalt and strip malls, it has a way of showing up right in front of you, sometimes three times a day.
For a number of reasons — Houston’s position between Gulf seafood and Texas produce, its long history of overlapping immigrant cultures, and an ever-expanding vastness that has enabled those migrant cultures to settle and thrive — the city has one of the most exciting and undiscovered food cultures in the country. In a state of old traditions, Houston is a city of newcomers. It’s also now the most diverse metropolitan area in the United States. (No, really!)
Over the past few decades, Houston’s population has been defined (and redefined) by waves of immigrants, putting down roots in Texas soil and forming thriving communities. These days, the fastest-growing populations here are Cuban, Venezuelan, and Nigerian.
The result of this (literal) melting pot are dishes that reflect a world made a little smaller by a tangle of freeways — and served a lot bigger. (This is still Texas.) The culinary crossovers evident all over Houston serve a far more practical goal than attracting the attention of food writers obsessed with “fusion” — it’s about feeding your neighbors, all 2.3 million of them.
This also makes it one of the more accessible foodie vacations you can take. Fares between Boston and Houston can be shockingly low (I’ve had more expensive round trips between South Station and Penn Station), and since the food here is defined more by cultures than by concepts, you end up spending less and eating more.
A note on logistics and lodging: Do prepare to rent a car or use ride-share services. As I’ve mentioned, there’s a whole lot of Houston, so consider staying in a central neighborhood “in the loop” (within Interstate 610).
Hotel ZaZa (888-880-3244, hotelzaza.com) is a local mainstay in the world-class Museum District — take advantage of its longhorn limos, which make for a sweet ride anywhere. Theater buffs might opt for the Lancaster Hotel (713-228-9500, thelancaster.com), a Texas historical landmark just across from Jones Hall, the home of the Houston Symphony.
Now all that’s left is to wake up and start eating.
This could be as simple as a perfect kolache. The Czech pastries are a breakfast (and anytime) staple in Texas, especially so in Houston, where Weikel’s (weikels.com) and Hruska’s (979-378-2333, hruskas-bakery.com) stand like compulsory checkpoints on routes into town. But at Christy’s (713-524-4005), a small corner doughnut and kolache shop in the Montrose neighborhood, you can also take your first cross-cultural nibble of Houston in the form of a pillow-soft boudin kolache: a N’awlins-style sausage stuffed with spicy dirty rice, itself stuffed into a pocket of sweet dough — kind of a Texas-sized pig in a blanket. (And technically, a klobásník, but try to get a Texan to say that.)
Elsewhere in Montrose, you can put your name on the list and squeeze into a booth at Baby Barnaby’s (713-522-4229, barnabyscafe.com) for some mind-blowing migas (eggs cooked with crispy tortilla strips) and proof that not everything in Texas is so big. The modest parking lot patio of La Guadalupana Bakery and Cafe (713-522-2301) fills up each morning with neighbors craving breakfast tortas, truly phenomenal chilaquiles, or even a morning slice of tres leches cake (more on that later).
If it’s Sunday, it’s Hugo’s (713-524-7744, hugosrestaurant.net). Texas is a land of buffets (Luby’s being the most prevalent, and the Luann Platter being its best-known option), but none is finer than the opulent Mexican brunch spread laid out by James Beard Award-winner Hugo Ortega — the chef behind three more of Houston’s finer restaurants, the neighborhoody Backstreet Cafe, the coastal Mexican hot spot Caracol, and the Oaxacan-focused treasure Xochi. After brunch, take a stroll up and down Westheimer — a 19-mile road that stretches across Houston and blooms into a strip of tattoo and resale shops, bars, and cafes once it hits Montrose.
Chef Hugo Ortega in the kitchen at Hugo’s. shannon o’hara
But breakfast could (and should) mean rising early and staking out a place in line at The Breakfast Klub (713-528-8561, thebreakfastklub.com) — the legendary Midtown soul food destination where deciding on wings and waffles or “katfish & grits” is the day’s first impossible choice.
ART BREAK!
Allow time between breakfast and lunch to digest at the Menil Collection (menil.org), a Renzo Piano-designed free museum tucked into a quiet Montrose neighborhood, featuring a mix of contemporary work and a stunning collection of modern and Surrealist art. The museum is central to a campus of permanent exhibits of work by artists such as Mark Rothko, Cy Twombly, and Dan Flavin. Its shady sculpture park is a favorite spot for picnics — and if one of Houston’s powerful thunderstorms barges in, Bistro Menil (713-904-3537, bistromenil.com) makes a fine alternative in a pinch.
Lunch in Houston can mean one stop or several along a particularly beaten path. A stretch of Long Point Road shooting through the once-German settlement of Spring Branch looks like a beat-up few miles of sad strip malls; pull in and park just about anywhere, however, and you’ll find a luncher’s paradise, with a dizzying mix of storefronts and food trucks offering everything from Thai to tacos, Korean to Honduran, Vietnamese to Salvadoran.
Line cooks preparing tortas at Las Tortas Perronas. shannon o’hara
My go-to is Taqueria Las Glorias (832-665-1624). The oddly Shrek-themed truck serves up life-changing tacos al pastor (pork stewed with pineapple) as well as a lengua (tongue) worth trying if you never have. The perfect Salvadoran pupusas at Cocina Latina Pupusa Buffet (713-218-6666) are irresistible, while the tortas at Las Tortas Perronas are beyond generous (713-461-1900) — especially good when paired with a cold bottle of Mexican Squirt soda. And you can’t very well just drive past the smoky Monterrey-style asada plates served from the window of the Pollos y Carnes Asadas El Norteño converted bus (713-825-1257).
Just down the road, Vieng Thai (713-688-9910, viengthai.com) specializes in “curries in a hurry” as well as two styles of som tum — tangy papaya salad with crunchy salted crabs. Korean barbecue lovers can take their pick on Long Point from a row of places — though I’m partial to Korea Garden (713-468-2800, ) for its kimchi pancake and spicy stews (surprisingly refreshing on a Houston-hot day).
Customers enjoy tacos at Taqueria Las Glorias. shannon o’hara
It would be reasonable to assume that the unshakable staples of Houston lunch time are tacos and barbecue. And while Goode Company (713-522-2530, goodecompany.com) and The Pit Room (281-888-1929, thepitroombbq.com) qualify as must-hit pit stops within the loop, the dominant lunch sandwich in these parts is undoubtedly the bánh mì.
You can find flawless specimens of these Vietnamese-French mainstays in Midtown at Cali Sandwich & Fast Food (713-520-0710) and Les Givral’s (832-582-7671, lesgivrals.com), both of which tuck perfectly charred BBQ pork (for example) into soft yet crunchy baguettes, with a rich smear of pâté and the punch of pickled carrot, cucumber, cilantro, and jalapeño.
Soup savorers can find Houston’s most beloved bowl of classic pho at Mai’s (713-520-5300, maishouston.com), while at hip Austin import Ramen Tatsu-Ya (346-226-3253, ramen-tatsuya.com) the lines get even longer when it serves up its most anticipated mash-up special: brisket ramen.
The interior of Korea Garden. Shannon O'Hara
While we’re talking about long lines, the breakout star of the soul food scene here (thanks in part to shout-outs from Snoop Dogg and James Harden) is Turkey Leg Hut (832-787-0770, theturkeyleghut.com), whose namesake fall-off-the-bone turkey legs (optionally stuffed with Cajun crawfish mac and cheese) and otherworldly gumbo (served on Thursdays and Fridays) has become the stuff of legend.
Not far from the Hut is Houston’s best-known fried chicken spot, Frenchy’s (713-748-2233, frenchyschicken.com) — which also skews heavily Creole, with a mean jambalaya and a selection of pitch-perfect po’ boys. After all of this, don’t be shocked if lunch time turns into nap time.
known fried chicken spot, Frenchy’s (713-748-2233, frenchyschicken.com) — which also skews heavily Creole, with a mean jambalaya and a selection of pitch-perfect po’ boys. After all of this, don’t be shocked if lunch time turns into nap time.
Cachetes de res (beef cheeks) with mole pasilla at Xochi. shannon o’hara
ART BREAK!
Give yourself an hour before venturing out to dinner to take in the Houston sunset through James Turrell’s stunning Twilight Epiphany Skyspace (skyspace.rice.edu), on the Rice University campus near the Museum District. At night, viewers congregate to watch the sky’s changing hues framed through the structure’s massive overhead aperture, itself colored by a sequence of gently changing lights. Open every day but Tuesday, it’s free and rather magnificent. Early birds can catch the show at sunrise, too.
For dinner, Houston’s iconic cross-cultural offering is good old Tex-Mex. And nobody in town does the fajitas and ’ritas thing better than the original Ninfa’s on Navigation (713-228-1175, ninfas.com), although El Real (713-524-1201), a former movie house turned margarita hub in Montrose, and Chuy’s (713-524-1700, chuys.com), an increasingly ubiquitous Elvis-inspired chain, will more than do in a pinch — especially if you’re tuckered from a day of shopping down Westheimer at the tony Galleria.
A server speeds past a portrait of Mama Ninfa at the original Ninfa’s on Navigation. shannon o’hara
But a trip farther afield — i.e., down Bellaire Boulevard — can be revelatory (and worth all the lane changing). It’s a miles-long stretch of strip-mall eateries and freestanding pan-Asian palaces, with every imaginable Asian language calling out from gleaming trees of signage presiding over packed parking lots. The sprawling dining room at Fung’s Kitchen (713-779-2288, eatatfungs.com) fills up for its magnificent dim sum, but I love going there just for a small shell-shaped dish of cold sesame squid, an Asian take on ceviche.
That’s usually because I’m leaving room for a visit to Crawfish & Noodles (281-988-8098, crawfishandnoodles.com), the unofficial heart of Houston’s vibrant Viet-Cajun scene. Spicy crawfish are soaked in unctuous garlic butter, paired with heaps of steaming stir-fried noodles and precarious piles of massive crab legs. Two warnings: One bib is never enough, and your hands will smell like garlic on the flight home.
The Viet-Cajun crawfish at Crawfish & Noodles. shannon o’hara
There’s also the landing strip of dinner destinations on Airline Drive, where you can find two of my favorite Mexican seafood joints, both run by Chinese families. The menu at the understated Connie’s Seafood (713-868-2144, conniesseafood.com) features classic seafood gumbo next to tangy ceviches atop crispy tostadas. Same at Golden Seafood (713-802-9989, goldenseafood.com), where big plates of jumbo shrimp a la parrilla (i.e., char-grilled) are a match made in Houston with a heap of Chinese fried rice. But my favorite on the strip (and in town) comes from Tampico (713-862-8425, tampicoseafood.com) — which knew a great idea when it saw one and serves fried rice, too.
Should your trip require a date night, Nancy’s Hustle (346-571-7931, nancyshustle.com) in the fast- developing EaDo neighborhood is a showcase of chef Jason Vaughan’s refined indecision — Turkish lamb dumplings with tart labneh feel right at home here next to hand-cut spaghetti (with crabs and fermented chili butter), and that ubiquitous pan-roasted snapper. But don’t go without sampling the Nancy Cakes (house-ground cornmeal griddle cakes with whipped butter and smoked trout roe).
Another cozy couple’s option is tucked into the Warehouse District just north of downtown. Theodore Rex (832-830-8592, trexhouston.com) is esteemed chef Justin Yu’s follow-up to his adventurous, award-winning Oxheart. Treat yourself to a divinely prepared Wagyu loin or the requisite red snapper — but don’t miss the rice and beans, among the best you’ll find in Houston.
A selection of fresh seafood at Tampico. shannon o’hara
Any touring foodie would be well served at UB Preserv (346-406-5923, ubpreserv.com), the latest offering from chef Chris Shepherd, who continues his ongoing homage to the diverse Houston food scene that inspired him to open his first haunt, the heralded Underbelly. A single dinner here could include everything from Vietnamese short-rib fajitas to wok-fried collard greens to a guava mousse cake with mint and pickled strawberry.
Of course you’ve left room for dessert, which itself isn’t immune to cross-cultural tweaks. Himalaya Restaurant (713-532-2837, himalayarestauranthouston.com) is an Indian-Pakistani favorite on the diverse strip of Hillcroft Avenue that puts a deliciously desi twist on its tres leches by coating it in luscious mango sauce. The River Oaks pan-Latin kitchen Américas (832-200-1492, americasrestaurant.com) tops its version with cloudy Italian meringue. At Griselda Barrios and Jodi Wray’s downtown dessert cafe Treacherous Leches (treacherousleches.com), a breathtaking riff on the classic competes with red velvet, key lime, and fried doughnut variations. But the ultimate tres leches comes from any of several locations of El Bolillo Bakery (713-921-3500, elbolillo.com), which offer the classic vanilla version as well as strawberry, peach, mocha pecan, caramel, and Oreo interpretations.
From the looks of Houston — its vast, featureless expanse pockmarked by potholes and parking lots — it’d be easy to mistake it for a whole lot of nothing. But Space City turns out to be a universe unto itself, and the families who have settled here are serving daily lessons in how a city of the future might look — and taste.
Reckon y’all might experience a similar change of heart, should you ever mosey down this way. And don’t worry, no one actually talks like that here. (Well, except for the y’all part. That’s a keeper.)
> MOVABLE FEASTS
Of course, if you brought a Texas-sized appetite to town with you, don’t hold back on my account: The 7th Annual Houston Barbecue Festival (houbbq.com) is April 14, and the Houston Crawfish, Crab & Grill Festival (hccgfest.com) is May 11. And if you can stick around for dessert, the Pasadena Strawberry Festival (strawberryfest.org) is the weekend of May 17. It includes strawberry celebrations topped with a rousing game of mud volleyball and a beauty pageant — which I’m assuming don’t overlap.
> WHAT TO DO BETWEEN MEALS
Houston isn’t just about eating — it’s also a perfect getaway for art lovers, music buffs, sports fans, and anyone who just needs a little “me” time.
For instance, though Houston’s octagonal oasis of quiet contemplation, the Rothko Chapel, is closed for renovations for most of 2019, you can still find a welcome stretch of exquisite silence at its parent museum, the Menil Collection (menil.org), which will celebrate its spring exhibition Collection Close-Up: John Cage (through May 12) with an open public meditation March 20.
On the opposite end of the tranquillity spectrum is the spectacle on wheels that is the Houston Art Car Parade, which rolls through downtown for its 32d installment April 11 through 14. Presented by the Orange Show Center for Visionary Art, this annual procession of more than 250 festively festooned rides gives Austin’s much- ballyhooed weirdness a run for its money (thehoustonartcarparade.com). If that’s not fast enough for you, on May 4 you can catch the Houston Dragon Boat Festival (texasdragonboat.com). This kickoff to Asian Pacific American Heritage Month brings pro paddlers to the Buffalo Bayou for a day of races, live music, and celebrations of Houston’s rich pan-Asian community.
Opera buffs could settle in for a weekend with the world-renowned Houston Grand Opera (houstongrandopera.org), which closes its spring season with a performance of Mozart’s Don Giovanni (through May 5), as well as the world premiere of The Phoenix, composer Tarik O’Regan and John Caird’s tale of the redemption of Lorenzo da Ponte, the scandal-plagued librettist of Don Giovanni (through May 10).
Or follow the Red Sox into town when they put the squeeze on the Houston Astros at Minute Maid Park (May 24-26), but you’ll find that folks around here get just as worked up over the local soccer club, the Houston Dynamo (houstondynamo.com), which has a half-dozen home matches this spring.
Michael Andor Brodeur is a Boston Globe columnist. Send comments to [email protected]. Get the best of the magazine’s award-winning stories and features right in your e-mail inbox every Sunday. Sign up here. | {
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I discovered myself shamelessly gawping at Sofy’s rump in the street and I knew I simply needed to have this cutie in my studio for a difficult pornography audition – a totally brand new brutalcastings episode. What damsel doesn’t wish to starlet in a meaty flick? This one would do anything else to make an impression the manufacturers, even inhale my penis and let me penetrate her in entrance of the digital camera. With a embark like that and the best way shaver took my beef whistle I do know precisely what sort of an appearing occupation shaver’s brilliant for. | {
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House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi Nancy PelosiPelosi seeks to put pressure on GOP in COVID-19 relief battle On The Money: Pelosi says House will stay in session until stimulus deal is reached | GOP short of votes on Trump's controversial Fed pick | WTO rules Trump tariffs on Chinese goods illegal Democratic lawmakers call for an investigation into allegations of medical neglect at Georgia ICE facility MORE (D-Calif.) blasted the Trump administration for the president's recent executive order on immigration and refugees at a CNN town hall Tuesday.
“Your family is suffering because our president is reckless and his administration is incompetent,” she told a Yemeni refugee who said her mother could no longer come to the U.S. under the measure.
“The president has made us less safe with what he has done,” Pelosi added. "This isn’t the right thing to do, but it is red meat to some of the people he wants to continue to support him.”
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“They don’t want to call it a ban even though they called it a ban. But that’s what it is. The Statue of Liberty is in tears over what they have done," she said.
The California Democrat also took a question from a Lebanese Muslim-American real estate developer who asked how she would ensure national security, especially in terms of refugees.
“Refugees have the most stringent vetting of all newcomers to our country,” she said.
“We take an oath to support and defend the American people and the Constitution of the United States,” Pelosi said of Congress members. "It is our first responsibility."
“We have to be strong and smart, but we don’t have to be reckless and rash. [Trump] has no case, in my view, with the refugees.”
Trump signed an executive order Friday imposing a 90-day ban on citizens of Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen from entering the U.S.
The measure also halts general refugee admissions into the U.S. for 120 days, and indefinitely suspends the acceptance of Syrian refugees. | {
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Updated version of Village Idiots, my Green/White Human Aggro deck. Easy to pilot, hell to play against.
Mainboard Choices:
Lands (23):
4x Sunpetal Grove: G/W Dual Land - 'nuff said
4x Razorverge Thicket: ditto
2x Gavony Township: mana sink and chump pump - gotta love it! I only run two because, well, I only want one on the board.
8x Plains: No-brainer
5x Forest: Seeing as this is only really splashing green, the low forests combined with dual lands is plenty
I'm only running 23 lands, but as fast and low-CMC this deck is, it works.
Creatures (31):
2x Elite Vanguard: Love this guy. 2/1 for W - auto include, just don't have room for a couple more.
4x Champion of the Parish: The all-star of the deck. I ant to see him in my opening draw every time, and will mulligan if he's not around, normally.
2x Adaptive Automaton: I like these for a second lord, or a lord for the mayor if he flips - only a two-of seeing as I don't want him all the time
1x Mikaeus the Lunarch: Awesome win-con all on his own, if left alone long enough. I like seeing him late game, when I can bring him out as a huge behemoth
1x Gideon Jura: He wins games all on his own. He also benefits from the Mayor/Automaton lordship when he enters the battlefield.
3x Grand Abolisher: Hits hard, and really ruins Draw/Go's day
4x Hamlet Captain: Pump the other chumps when you swing? Yes, please!
2x Fiend Hunter: Nice defender, and an alternative o-ring, to boot.
2x Elite Inquisitor: The first-strike/vigilance is the only reason he gets included. He also gets boarded out more than any other card.
3x Mirran Crusader: Second hardest hitting card in the deck. Seriously, this dude's a beast. Working on getting a fourth worked in here somewhere.
3x Avacyn's Pilgrim: Extra white mana, and can enable a turn-two crusader.
4x Mayor of Avabruck: Main lord of the deck, and if he flips, he can wreck the opponent on his own. Plays very well with automaton, too!
Spells (6):
4x Oblivion Ring: White's best removal spell, bar none.
2x Bonds of Faith: Excellent twofer card. Pumps my guy, or pacifies theirs.
Sideboard:
1x Elite Vanguard: I love this guy, and a one-of in the sideboard can come in handy
2x Fiend Hunter: An Oblivion Ring that hits the opponent. Yay!
2x Nevermore: I'm looking at you, solar flare and wolf run titans...
2x Marrow Shards: Great against mirror matches and token decks. Seriously, this card is majorly underrated.
2x Day of Judgement: I only like this as a sideboard, mainly because it screws up my tempo as badly as the other guy. That being said, definitely helpful in mirror matches.
2x Purify the Grave: With INN being as grave happy as it is, this card can be very, very handy
2x Revoke Existence: O-Ring? Burning Vengerance? Swords? Pod? I think not.
2x Stave Off: When all else fails, what is more annoying than not being able to touch my guys with your Dismember/Titan/etc? | {
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Bart Jansen
USA TODAY
Airlines and ticket agents are warning that hundreds of thousands of travelers might be getting overcharged on airline tickets to Alaska, Hawaii, and foreign destinations because of computer problems related to higher Transportation Security Administration fees.
As the higher fees went into effect a month ago, Sabre Travel Network, the company that provides ticket prices to travel agents and online comparison sites, told the TSA the computer problems applied to about 150,000 tickets per month in its system and 300,000 tickets per month for all reservation systems, or about 1% of all tickets.
But the airlines and Sabre haven't revealed how much money is at stake, or if anyone has indeed been overcharged.
The higher TSA fees took effect July 21, after Congress mandated them to help balance the budget.
The new fee is $5.60 for all flights, with any connection longer than four hours counting as a separate flight. The previous fee was $2.50 for any non-stop flight or $5 for any connecting flight.
Because of the new way fees are applied, which TSA announced in June, industry officials warned that computer problems could overcharge travelers on flights to Alaska, Hawaii and foreign countries when connections are longer than four hours and less than 12 hours.
Airlines for America, a trade group, repeatedly asked for 90 days — or until mid-September — to adopt computer changes for those flights. The airlines and Travel Technology Association told the TSA that all changes could be remedied by Sept. 30.
Anytime the government asks for complex technical changes, said Philip Minardi, a spokesman for the tech group, "it's important that they consider the significant programming, testing and quality-control measures needed to accomplish the task."
But the TSA rejected the request in a July call with industry lawyers, saying the industry expected to handle 99% of the itineraries correctly and could offer travelers refunds if they are overcharged. The TSA said delaying the higher fees would hurt the federal budget.
Sabre said 99% of tickets should be accurate, but the remainder could be overcharged. Sabre warned that rushing and cutting corners to fix problems for the inaccurate tickets could further delay the program.
The TSA expects to collect $3.6 billion per year in fees to start, so 1% would be $36 million, but that doesn't specify how much the mistakes would total.
Asked for comment, Alaska Airlines deferred to the trade group, and Hawaiian Airlines didn't respond.
An A4A spokeswoman referred to the group's Friday statement to the TSA from general counsel David Berg, who said the computer-programming requirements "were extremely complex and required extensive changes to existing systems."
The deadline was Tuesday for comments about the higher fees. The TSA collected nearly 600 comments, with many opposed to the higher charges.
And the airline group, A4A, is challenging the fee hike in the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. | {
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The super flexible little member of the Future Power Generation!
CIOKS 4 is the perfect companion for CIOKS DC7 in case you would like four additional outlets with four selectable voltages (9, 12, 15 and 18V DC) which can each deliver 660mA at 9V DC. Simply connect CIOKS 4 to your DC7 via the courtesy 24V outlet and you are good to go.
But that is definitely not all – what makes CIOKS 4 truly unique is the fact that you can power it with anything from 9V to 24V DC, 9V to 12V AC via the non-polarized DC socket input. Via its 5V USB C input CIOKS 4 can even be powered by connecting a USB powerbank to the unit or by using your tablet power supply. This flexibility means that you can use CIOKS 4 as a stand-alone unit and power it with any of the most common adapters, such as the ones you might use to power a single pedal. CIOKS 4 can also convert an unused AC outlet on your existing power supply into 4 isolated DC outlets. | {
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WASHINGTON — President Obama said Saturday that he had learned only last week that Hillary Rodham Clinton used a private email system for her official correspondence while she was secretary of state.
In an interview with Bill Plante of CBS News, Mr. Obama said the policy of his administration was to “encourage transparency” and that he was pleased that Mrs. Clinton had instructed the State Department to turn over her emails for archiving.
“My emails, the Blackberry I carry around, all those records are available and archived,” Mr. Obama said, according to an excerpt from the interview released Saturday evening. “I’m glad that Hillary’s instructed that those emails about official business need to be disclosed.”
In the portion of the interview that was released, Mr. Obama did not address how he could have avoided noticing that Mrs. Clinton was sending emails from a “clintonemail.com” address throughout the years she served in his administration. Mrs. Clinton’s use of a private email system was first reported by The New York Times last week. | {
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After reaching the Starbase, the Enterprise welcomes aboard a special advisor who will brief Riker on the mission he’s up for. And it turns out to be Riker’s dad, Kyle Riker! Who doesn’t love it when the parents visit? It’s like the number one TV trope for guaranteed hilarity. Oh wait, they’re arguing already, this isn’t fun! This is depressing!
Elsewhere, Wesley bugs Worf until he snaps and tears his head off. No, not really. Although he seems to come close. Confused by Worf’s unusually hostile attitude, Wesley decides that meddling is the best step, and ropes in Data and Geordie to help him investigate, because what else would two of the highest-ranking Enterprise crew members be doing anyway?
O’Brien and Riker are having a drink in Ten Forward when they notice Kyle and Pulaski getting friendly. It turns out they know each other and it’s just never come up. Because you know, it’s not like you’d ever mention to someone that you almost married their father if you saw them every day and had literally nothing else in common. Riker gives Pulaski a jab over this fact and then leaves. Over the other side of Ten Forward, Data and Geordi observe Worf, who gets annoyed by their irritating behaviour. Don’t we all?
Riker retires to his quarters when Worf drops by, asking to join Riker on the guaranteed suicide mission he’s been offered. Riker is understandably not keen on this assessment and shouts at Worf until he leaves. Riker then goes to meet his father for the briefing meeting, only to discover that it’s all flimsy pretext. You don’t say?
Pulaski tricks Kyle into attending a psychotherapy session with Troi, but he just ends up infuriating her. Still, it filled a few minutes of screen time. Turns out you can’t cure decades of resentment in one surprise meeting. After chatting with Pulaski about the kind of man his father really is, Riker decides to work out his baggage and the two agree to an Anbo-jitsu fight. More of which later. | {
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RUMOR: Did Zachary Quinto Come Out In New York Magazine?
Gay New York City entertainment writer Mark Harris just tweeted that actor Zachary Quinto has come out in the new issue of New York. Though we won’t believe it until we see it for ourselves, we’ve been calling Quinto gay for years.
If it is true, though, congratulations Zach! Maybe he can persuade his Heroes and Star Trek fans to start fighting for LGBT rights.
Everyone listens to Mr. Spock.
Thanks to Queerty commenter Cam. Image via preloc and kanar | {
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シチズン時計の男性向けブランド「ATTESA」と女性向けブランド「wicca」から、就職活動を始める学生や新社会人に向けたシンプルなモデルが登場している。
まずATTESAの新作(CB3010-57L)は、すっきりとして視認性の高いブルーの文字板に、シャープなケースラインを組み合わせ、スーツに似合う知的さを演出。ケースとバンドには軽くて頑丈なチタニウムを用いており、ケースサイズが径41.0×厚さ9.3mm(設計値)と薄型なので、シャツの袖口に引っかかりにくい。
また、光発電「エコ・ドライブ」、および日中米欧の標準電波に対応した電波時計であるため、定期的な電池交換と時刻合わせは不要。風防はサファイアガラス、防水性能は10気圧だ。税別価格は65,000円で、3月中旬の発売予定。
女性向けとなるwiccaの新作(KL0-430-91)は、2016年2月13日に税別36,000円で発売済み。光発電(ソーラーテック)と日本の標準電波に対応し、ピンクとアラビア数字の文字板は、3時位置にハート型のデザインを採り入れている。バンドは、手首に合うように自分で長さを微調整できる「シンプルアジャストバンド」だ。そのほか、ケースとバンドの素材はステンレススチール、ケースサイズは径25.7×厚さ7.2mm(設計値)、風防はクリスタルガラス、防水性能は5気圧。 | {
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There may never have been a fall television season as jam packed as the one we’re about to endure. New titans are arriving, dropping their generously financed catalogs into an already saturated market. The new wave of potential Netflix killers begins with the arrivals of the Apple TV Plus and Disney Plus streaming services on Nov. 1 and Nov. 12, each debuting with a small but buzzy roster of original series.
HBO and Netflix, meanwhile, are powering up in a season they’ve traditionally shied away from, trading prestige punches: HBO’s “Catherine the Great” with Helen Mirren versus Netflix’s third season of “The Crown” with Olivia Colman ; HBO’s state-of-the-world dramedy, “Mrs. Fletcher,” versus Netflix’s state-of-the-world dramedy, “The Politician.”
And then, this being an exhaustive new-show roundup, there are all the broadcast-network debuts, many of which won’t be spoken of here again. A couple picks to break out: “Stumptown” on ABC and “Almost Family” on Fox. | {
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Summary H ot new games coming to Xbox Game Pass
ot new games coming to Xbox Game Pass O ffers and benefits for all members
ffers and benefits for all members N ew Quests and updated list of games leaving soon
ew Quests and updated list of games leaving soon Kaleidoscope! (I ran out of ideas to spell out ‘Honk’)
I’m going to start with this deal, because your friends will thank you when you tell them: If they haven’t tried Xbox Game Pass Ultimate yet, they can get 3 months membership for just $1. Tell them to sign up before this expires, so you can talk about, make memes, and play all these games together. (That might just be what I do with my friends though. You do you.)
We’ve got the games you want to play, the deals you want to score, and the news you want to hear; let’s get to it.
Available December 17
Untitled Goose Game (ID@Xbox Day One Launch)
A slapstick-stealth-sandbox where you’re a goose let loose on an unsuspecting village. Make your way around town, from peoples’ back gardens to the high street to the village green, setting up pranks, stealing hats, honking a lot, and generally ruining everyone’s day.
December 19
Life is Strange 2 Ep. 5
Sean and Daniel have reached the end of the road. The border is close. One last, brutal gauntlet of challenges is all that stands between them and their goal. Caught between responsibility and freedom, can Sean find a way out of an impossible situation? Every decision Sean has made, every lesson Daniel has learned, every friend and foe they’ve met along the way: they’ve all been leading to this.
Pillars of Eternity (ID@Xbox)
Adapted for console, this unmissable RPG brings Pillars’ fantastical world, tactical combat, and unforgettable story to fans on a whole new platform. Pillars of Eternity: Complete Edition includes all previously released additional content from the PC version, including all DLC and expansions in a single package.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
A story-driven, next-generation open world role-playing game set in a visually stunning fantasy universe full of meaningful choices and impactful consequences. You are professional monster hunter, Geralt of Rivia, tasked with finding a child of prophecy in a vast world rich with merchant cities, pirate islands, dangerous mountain passes, and forgotten caverns to explore.
In Case You Missed It
Please pretend to be surprised, we added yet another game earlier this month. In case you missed it, this one is already live, and you can play it right now:
Ticket to Ride (ID@Xbox Day One Launch)
In this strategy game for all ages, try out different tactics, block your competitors’ lines and take over routes before the others do. With so many different strategies to try, each new game is a unique experience. Travel the world from Europe to India, pass through China and face new challenges by purchasing additional maps with their own special rules (available in expansion packs).
Plus, you can pre-install Gears Tactics today on Windows 10 PC, so it’ll automatically download when the game releases in April! And you can also pre-install Ori and the Will of the Wisps and Bleeding Edge, both releasing with Xbox Game Pass for console and PC on the same dates as their global releases in March:
Ori and the Will of the Wisps : Embark on an all-new adventure in a vast, exotic world where you’ll encounter towering enemies and challenging puzzles on your quest to unravel Ori’s destiny.
: Embark on an all-new adventure in a vast, exotic world where you’ll encounter towering enemies and challenging puzzles on your quest to unravel Ori’s destiny. Bleeding Edge: Grab your team and tear it up in Bleeding Edge, an electrifying online brawler where every fighter comes mechanically enhanced for mayhem.
Member Benefits & Game Updates:
Gears 5: Operation 2 Free-For-All released December 11
Check out the return of an all-time fan favorite! Battle against 13 other players, no holds barred fight to be the first to 30 kills. In addition to Free for All, Operation 2 adds four new characters, three game types, five maps, a new Versus season and a brand-new Tour of Duty full of earnable content. Plus, save 10% on the Operation Free-For-All Bundle, which will get you fully equipped with heroes Lizzie and Baird, villains Jermad and the Locust Drone, and more!
Forza Horizon 4: Eliminator update released December 12
The Eliminator invites up to 72 players to face-off within an arena set in the open world of Britain. Eliminating one another in head-to-head races to earn upgrades and a chance to pick up faster cars. Arena walls contract throughout the game, forcing players closer together until a final white-knuckle race among the survivors determines the winner.
Rocket League: Frosty Fest Event playable from December 16 – January 6
Get ready to deck the halls and your favorite vehicles with the coolest customization items that celebrate this happy season! Frosty Fest 2019 will begin in mid-December and runs into the new year.
ARK: Winter Wonderland 4 available from December 17 – January 7
Winter Wonderland is returning with brand new skins, items, and more! Our holiday helper, Raptor Claus will be roaming around dropping gifts off to survivors with GachaClaus who will happily exchange treats for gifts. In addition to holiday decorations and items from the past, we are excited to introduce a new event item for all ARK collectors.
Overcooked! 2 Free holiday event begins December 17
Get new festive recipes, two new chefs: reindeer (new for Overcooked! 2) and present head, five new levels including DLC Festively Dressed, 1 x Campfire Cook Off, 2 x Night of the Hangry Horde, and 2 x Carnival of Chaos. Plus, horde mode includes new festive enemies!
Xbox Game Pass Quests
The best part about Xbox Game Pass Quests is that you were going to play the games anyway, so why not get some extra points for it? Game Pass Quests from December 2 through January 6 include:
Biggest Games of 2019 – 200 Points Earn any achievement from our Biggest Games of the Year collection. See eligible games here.
– 200 Points Rage 2 – 200 Points Complete 2 achievements in Rage 2.
– 200 Points Subnautica – 200 Points Complete 2 achievements in Subnautica.
– 200 Points ID@Xbox – 200 Points Earn 3 achievements in any game in our ID@Xbox game collection. See eligible games here.
– 200 Points Play Something New – 100 Points Earn 1 achievement in any of these new games released. See eligible games here.
– 100 Points
Leaving Soon
We’re always sad to see games go, so get your playtime in with these before they leave. Or, pick them up today with your Xbox Game Pass member discount of 20% off so you can keep playing after they leave!
Tecmo Bowl Throwback
Headlander
It’s too good to not mention it again, if you haven’t tried Xbox Game Pass Ultimate yet, you can get your first 3 months membership for just $1 right now. That’s whole library of games to play, a mobile app at lets you remotely install to your console or your PC from anywhere, and a ton of bonus perks like 1 month of EA Access, 3 months of Discord: Nitro, and 6 months of Spotify Premium (terms apply). We throw in the memes and jokes Twitter and Instagram just for fun. | {
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Hi Auntie,
My sister is 33 years old, and has been married two times. She keeps marrying men from India, and they usually stay married about four years, then after they obtain full American citizenship, they file for divorce within a month or so. She always blames me or our mother for them leaving her, since we didn’t support her properly. She is currently on her third husband, and she’s having problems with the government allowing him access to the country, but they believe he will be here within a couple months.
The problem with that, is that she recently moved back into my parents’ home because she could not afford to pay her bills. I live with my parents, as I am a full time college student, and I work full time as well to pay for college debt-free, and we’ve never particularly gotten along well. I thought that since we are both now adults, it would be easier, but she is constantly asking me for money to pay her cell phone bill, or put gas in her car. All of this wouldn’t be a horrible thing, but she’s very hard to live with. She is a huge slob, and leaves trash and clothes all over the house, and her room is so messy, she can’t get into it, and has been sleeping on the couch for months. She also has a habit of going into my space and taking things that don’t belong to her. I don’t know what she is doing with them, but I have lost a Kindle Fire, a special edition Nintendo 3DS, an xbox 360 slim, an xbox one, and a lot of jewelry. She doesn’t speak to my father because he outed her for being in my part of the home after she denied ever going there when I confronted her about my missing 3DS, and my mother and I are constantly cleaning up after her, and I find it frustrating because I’m already very busy.
When she is asked to act like an adult and clean up after herself, and not take my things, she becomes very defensive and yells, curses, calls names, etc. until we walk away. But she used my laptop recently, and she left her gmail account up, and I found out she’s been sending upwards of $1500 per month to this guy in India. And several of the transfers I had given her were transferred directly to him. She knows I don’t support what she’s doing, and I am furious that the money I made to pay for my education was used for this. I confronted her about it, and she denied it until I showed her the receipts that I had seen. She accused me of hacking her email (I’m a computer science major, and she thinks I spend my days bringing down the FBI online, I think), and I corrected her. She got very upset, and told me I didn’t know what I was talking about, and that her husband needed the money. I called her pathetic. She is no longer speaking to me.
I know what I said was very mean, and I didn’t mean to say it. I DO feel that way sometimes, but I was so mad at her that I couldn’t stop it from coming out I guess.
After the argument, she told my parents that they needed to ask me to move out because she didn’t want this negativity around when her new husband gets here. My parents were unaware that she planned on living here with him, and told her that was unacceptable. My father told her he would not ask me to leave while I’m in college, and she could not live here with her husband, and she needed to have a new place to live by the time he gets here. She blames me for this too, and told me she no longer has a sister. She has gone about telling everybody in the family that she could get a hold of what I’ve done to her. Some think I’m a horrible person, others agree with me. But it’s causing problems.
Should I try and patch things up with her, or just wash my hands of it and ignore her?
Actually, Sparkler, I’m going to suggest a third option: One where you face down the unpleasant reality of who your sister is, and adjust both your behavior and your expectations accordingly, forever.
Because right now, neither of the paths you’re thinking of taking, whether it’s patching things up or cutting her off, seem to take into account the fact that she is not well. Emotionally and mentally healthy people do not behave the way your sister does. And as long as you (and your family, for that matters) keep approaching her like she’s a healthy person—and expecting her to react to you the way an healthy person would—you’re going to be disappointed and frustrated.
If your parents were the ones writing to me, this is the part where I’d tell them to insist that she see a psychologist, and to make continued treatment a non-negotiable requirement if she’s going to stay in their house. Not because I know for sure what’s going on with your sister (I don’t), but because whatever it is, it’s almost certainly not going to resolve itself without professional help. But as a person who is a) much younger than your sis and b) without the parental power to compel her one way or another, your best bet at this point is to find a way to make peace with the present situation.
Specifically, that means boundaries. You can start with the obvious, easiest one: Put a lock on your door, and keep all your valuables safely stowed behind it. (If you can’t secure the door itself, then a foot locker and a padlock will accomplish the same task.) Your sister can’t take your things if she can’t get to your things, you know? And the $30 it’ll cost you to secure your belongings is a small price to pay for some peace of mind—not just ’cause you can be confident that your next expensive digital toy won’t disappear into the same black hole that swallowed the rest of your stuff, but also because you’ll never have to have another fruitless, frustrating confrontation with your sister about this issue ever again.
That’s Boundary One. Boundary Two is this: Stop allowing your sister to take advantage of you. Don’t clean up her messes; don’t rise to her bait; and for the love of Mike, don’t give her any more of your hard-earned cash, when you know she’s just going to send it to Grifter Husband #3. All of this stuff is totally awful; it’s also only happening because you are consenting to it. You have to start saying no to her.
And if (and let’s be honest, it’s probably more like when) she freaks out about the boundaries you’ve set, then give yourself the following reality check: You cannot control your sister’s behavior. If she wants to throw a tantrum, it’s her prerogative—and if you want to live in a home where she also happens to be, you’ll have to deal with that. But what you do control is the cause of the tantrum: Would you rather have your sister flipping out because she got caught violating your privacy, stealing your stuff, and sending your money to her deadbeat leech of a husband—or because you wouldn’t let her do those things?
Choose your answer, darling, and then choose your path accordingly. And either way, realize that your way forward is blocked unless you first accept the reality of who your sister is and how she behaves. You can’t change that; you can only find ways to live with it.
Personally, I’d choose the way that lets me escape from the drama into a locked room where I can play on my un-stolen gaming system until the storm blows over, but you are your own master.
Got something to say? Tell us in the comments! And to get advice from Auntie, email her at [email protected].
Want more info about how this column works? Check out the Auntie SparkNotes FAQ. | {
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I check them every 5 minutes, if I'm not taking a break from the computer.
Haha same here! I never knew what otaku meant before I looked it up, but I am glad to be one as well.
And speaking of plushies, I have two Ciel plushies: one that has his normal attire, and one with him wearing the cow suit (it's so cute > u < ). I also have a Black Butler shirt with Sebastian dressed up as a cow. I used to love wearing that one, but then I've forgotten about it. | {
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PC Service and Repair
Virus removal, rejuvenating a tired machine, upgrading the operating system, etc., Global TechForce is your best resource for resolving all of your PC’s needs. We specialize in reliable repair of all Windows based computers. Whether your PC’s issues are hardware or software based, Global TechForce has been taking care of machines just like yours since 1995 | {
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A Canberra Liberals politician says the Safe Schools program has "made schools harmful" by traumatising students, damaging their innocence and asking them to sexually fantasise about their own gender.
Opposition youth spokeswoman Elizabeth Kikkert made the comments after her colleague Andrew Wall tabled a petition in the ACT Legislative Assembly, pushing for the withdrawal of government support for the program. The petition had garnered nearly 1,000 signatures.
Ms Kikkert said she had spoken to Canberra children who left school crying after being taught material from the program, which was designed to support and reduce bullying rates among LGBTIQ students and staff.
She said the children were "so upset that they could not sleep for several nights" and that they "have refused to return to their classes because they feel unsafe there".
She then claimed teachers were asking 13-year-old female students to fantasise about other girls.
"This is overt sexualisation. One could even accurately call it grooming," she said.
"Requiring young people to experiment with sexual attraction of any kind has no place in our classrooms."
Ms Kikkert said one student confessed the material made their "mind uncomfortable".
She said the decision to establish a program that supports only sexually and gender diverse students was neglecting other "vulnerable" groups who were not adequately supported, including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students.
"There are many reasons why a student might be bullied at school," she said.
"Some might be bullied because they do not seem smart, others might be bullied because they are too smart or socially awkward.
"I call on this Government to broaden its scope so we can make our schools safe and supportive for all vulnerable youth."
When tabling the petition, Canberra Liberal Education spokesman Mr Wall said he had "severe concerns" about the program being rolled out in ACT schools.
Earlier this year the ACT Education Directorate allocated up to $100,000 of funding for the controversial initiative.
Labor and Greens slam petition
Both of the ACT's other major political parties condemned the petition.
Education Minister Yvette Berry said she was deeply saddened and appalled by the move, though not surprised.
"I think Mr Wall should be ashamed of himself," Ms Berry said.
"What this petition says, Madam Speaker, to LGBTIQ kids - [is] 'there is something wrong with you, you are not welcome in our schools and you are not supported in our communities'."
She said she was sure Mr Wall had been clear about his own sexuality his whole life but that tabling the petition showed he was not prepared to help children who had not been.
Greens MLA Caroline Le Couteur criticised both the contents and timing of the petition, given LGBTIQ people were already having their sexual orientation scrutinised by national debate as the same-sex marriage postal survey approaches.
"This should not be a political issue, it is a human issue," Ms Le Couteur said.
"It is the lack of acceptance and legitimacy of being same-sex attracted, intersex or gender diverse, that simply perpetuates the harm and discrimination that these young people feel and experience.
"And this is what leads to the increased prevalence of mental health issues among these young people." | {
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Economic ideas you should forget
Bruno S. Frey, David Iselin
It is high time to forget some economic ideas that hinder progress in the field. Some examples include the assumption that GDP is the best way to measure economic progress, or the belief that economic growth will eventually improve the welfare of the population as a whole. This column discusses some of these ideas and argues that economics is a progressive science that is enriched by the ‘creative destruction’ of ideas.
Economics is a well-established discipline. Nowadays, students all over the world use similar introductory textbooks and learn the same type of methodology, theory and empirical techniques. There is indeed a great amount of consensus among academic economists.
Yet, there are many puzzles and unresolved issues in economics, especially since the Global Crisis (Coyle 2012). The narrow conception of the macroeconomy as a system in equilibrium, for instance, is problematic (Kirman 2012). Many other questions remain, such as how to deal with interest rates that have dropped below zero. How to measure, and consequently integrate into GDP figures, non-priced transactions such as the ones going on in the ‘gig’ or sharing economy? How to sell the gains of international trade to a mainly national public? A better knowledge is required of what theories still hold, and in particular, which of them are outdated and need to be discarded because they are misleading, or at least no longer fruitful. This is exactly where the problems start. In his General theory of employment, interest and money, John Maynard Keynes (1936) stated, “The difficulty lies, not in the new ideas, but in escaping from the old ones, which ramify, for those brought up as most of us have been, into every corner of our minds.” Old ideas are ramifying economists’ minds.
John Quiggin in his 2012 book, Zombie economics: How dead ideas still walk among us, labelled those old ideas as ‘zombie’ ideas. In particular, he mentions the ‘efficient markets hypothesis’ and the ‘great moderation’ as two ideas that economists cherished wrongly and for too long. John Brockman and his organisation and website, Edge.org, continued the funeral of old ideas in 2015 with the book, This idea must die, in which, for instance, Margaret Levi buried the homo economicus. However, this is not the only idea we should forget.
To be fair, economists are often attacked from outside their field for ideas they no longer hold. For instance, this applies to rational expectations as a behavioural assumption in financial markets, the assumptions that markets are always efficient, or the idea that individual utility depends only on absolute consumption.
There are also many examples of economic ideas held by the public that should be forgotten as well. Examples are that pay for performance raises performance, that natural resources bring wealth, that taxes are paid because of expected punishment or that artists are poor and thus unhappy.
Many government programmes are based on ideas that are no longer supported by the majority of academic economists. Examples are that home ownership is a good thing, that helicopter money helps to overcome the present problems in our economies, that public spending reduces unemployment over the long term, that innovation programmes lead to innovation and that abolishing cash can limit corruption and tax cheating.
But let us dig into some examples where economists are also slow to adapt. Much has been written about the flawed concept of GDP (Stiglitz 2009). Even the European Commission has started a ‘beyond GDP’ initiative where the EU is searching for indicators that are more inclusive of environmental and social aspects of progress. Even so, most economists still use GDP as a target variable that should be increased. The reasoning behind this is that per capita production and consumption of goods and services are considered to be the fundamental criterion of people’s well-being. Hence, the conclusion is that growth and well-being go together. Anything that maximises GDP is thought worthy of pursuit. This neglects the fact that well-being is a very individual experience that cannot be measured by external factors.
A counter argument would be that GDP at least allows for comparison over time and among regions, although economists are well aware of the flaws. However, if we never start with challenging GDP as our core variable, economists will be always surprised why people are dissatisfied with their situation.
The same holds true for the trickle-down or ‘a rising tide raises all boats’ allegory. The rising tide proposition is frequently made in relation to economic growth. Increases in GDP, so the argument runs, flow through to eventually improve the economic welfare of the population as a whole. As we just said, to put GDP and well-being at the same level is not appropriate. But why is the rising tide not lifting up all boats? First, economic growth over any given period is always unevenly distributed among sectors, with some sectors growing and others possibly shrinking. Second, economic growth is unevenly distributed among individuals. Does it matter, say, that the top 5% of the population enjoyed a 20% increase in their income if the income of the bottom 5% rose by only 2% over the same period? It does although one could say that the poor are still better off. But the gap between rich and poor will have grown wider, other things being equal, and the negative consequences of increasing inequality in the distribution of income will continue although everybody is supposed to be better off.
So, what could be the answer? One proposal is that it is the government’s task to maximise the happiness of the population. Forget about that. There are many concerns about a benevolent happiness maximiser. First, governments are not per se benevolent and unconstrained. Second, which happiness measure is the right one? Third, a maximisation of reported happiness reduces citizens to ‘metric variables’. Fourth, when there is an agreement on the measurement, there are incentives to manipulate the measure. Fifth, what moral values are behind achieving happiness? Should taking drugs be regarded as a happiness enhancer?
As these examples show, to have a well-balanced view on which economic ideas should be discarded is of importance far beyond the discipline of economics itself. Policymakers and the public should also educate themselves about which ideas hold and which do not. In a recently published book (Frey and Iselin 2017), we make an effort to provide such information. We collect no fewer than 71 contributions from academic scholars all over the world. Some are prominent economists – such as Daron Acemoglu, Alan S. Blinder, Richard Easterlin, David Hendry, John Kay, Margaret Levi, Andrew J. Oswald, Eric Posner, Jeffrey Sachs and Hans-Werner Sinn – and others are lesser known young scholars. The collection also includes contributions from academics outside economics, including from sociologists, psychologists and ethnologists. Younger scholars and ‘outsiders’ may be particularly well-endowed to see ‘dead wood’ in economics which is no longer useful for today’s world. We aim to reveal the diversity of opinions and evaluations, to stimulate the discussion and to push forward knowledge. We see economics as a progressive science that does not lose its force when parts of its theory are empirically rejected. On the contrary, to discard unhelpful and misleading ideas shows that a discipline is vigorous as suggested by Joseph Schumpeter’s idea of ‘creative destruction’.
Ideas are the drivers behind innovation, may they be political, economic, in the arts or in science. “Nothing is as powerful as an idea whose time has come” is a popular remark attributed to Victor Hugo. This is certainly correct. However, the power can also lie in abandoning old ideas before moving to the new ones.
References
Brockman, J (ed.) (2015), This idea must die, New York: Harper Perennial.
Coyle, D (2012), “What’s the use of economics? Introduction to the Vox debate“, VoxEU.org, 19 September.
Frey, B S and D Iselin (eds.) (2017), Economic ideas you should forget, New York: Springer.
Keynes, J M (1936), The general theory of employment, interest and money, London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Kirman, A (2012), “What’s the use of economics?”, VoxEU.org, 29 October.
Quiggin, J (2012), Zombie economics: How dead ideas still walk among us, Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Stiglitz, J (2009), “The great GDP swindle”, project-syndicate.org, 7 September. | {
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Criminals are reportedly scouting out cannabis farms to burgle using heat-seeking cameras fitted to flying drones.Criminals are using drones fitted with heat-seeking cameras to spot cannabis farms that can be raided, it has been claimed.Crooks are fitting the flying remote-controlled devices with equipment to spot the heat given off by farms' hydroponic lights, according to reports.Once a farm is identified, the property is reportedly either burgled or the owner extorted.One criminal told the Halesowen News: "It is not like I'm using my drone to see if people have nice televisions - I am just after drugs to steal and sell, if you break the law then you enter me and my drone's world."The 33-year-old criminal added: "Half the time we don’t even need to use violence to get the crop. Growing cannabis has gone mainstream and the people growing it are not gangsters."Labour MP Tom Watson, who is chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Group on drones, said the story was "remarkable".He told the paper: "It is no surprise enterprising criminals would want to get the upper hand in the criminal underworld by using drones."There are a multitude of uses for drones, which were originally developed and used by the military for combat purposes.Google recently purchased high-altitude solar-powered drone builder Titan Aerospace as part of an attempt to bring internet access to remote areas of the world. | {
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Discovering private APIs with Charles.app
Nowadays, so many companies have apps, and they have to get their data from somewhere. This has opened a whole new world of (quasi-)open data.
By using a proxy to intercept the request made by these mobile apps, you get access to often incredible private APIs.
I've built some great stuff this way, from Pug-o-matic to my Rap Genius ruby gem to my latest project, an availability finder for British Airways air mile redemptions.
In this article, I'll explain how to delve into how your favorite app works so you can use its data in new and novel ways.
Installing Charles.app
Most of my readers will be Mac users, and on OS X, I've found Charles.app to be the best tool for the job. It's also available for Windows and Linux.
Click here to download Charles. On a Mac, you'll just need to open the .DMG and drag it into your Applications directory.
Setting up your iPhone
Getting your iPhone ready to use Charles takes just two steps:
Install the SSL certificate
Set up the proxy
Most iOS apps will connect to an API with SSL enabled (i.e. over HTTPS). This will stop you from being able to read the data.
Fortunately, there's a way around this. Charles can act as the middleman, presenting its own certificate, reading the data, and then passing it onto the server behind the app you're using. To do this, you'll need to ask iOS to trust Charles's certificate.
Just go to http://charlesproxy.com/charles.crt and click "Install" a couple of times.
An important security advisory: You should think about removing this certificate between uses - otherwise, someone could intercept your requests when you're not expecting it, and you'd be none the wiser. To remove the certificate, go into Settings, then General, then Profiles.
Now, you can set up Charles as a proxy for all your device's HTTP requests. Your iOS device and computer should be connected to the same network to do this.
First, let's get your computer's IP address. You can do this in System Preferences on Mac - go to "Network", choose your interface, and it'll say just under the status.
On your iOS device, open Settings.app, go to WiFi, then click the arrow or "i" icon next to your network's name. Scroll down, set "HTTP proxy" to "Manual", then enter your IP under "Server", and "8888" as the port.
Intercepting requests
Time to open Charles.app! As an example, I'm going to show you how I discovered the API of the (Rap) Genius app. You can download it here.
The left hand side of Charles.app shows domains that have received requests. There'll already be a fair bit there, as Charles automatically configures your Mac to pass its own network requests through it. Open the Genius app, and you'll see a new entry added.
Right click it, and click "SSL Proxying" to tell Charles to spoof the SSL certificate so you can read HTTPS-secured API calls. Expand the tree for the relevant domain (you might have to go through a few, depending on the app), and have a look through.
A really good idea now is to have a click around the app, particularly doing the sorts of things you'd like to do via an API - in the case of the Genius app, I wanted to be able to programatically load annotations for songs, so I looked at a few songs and their annotations.
Once you've done that, it's a good idea to save your session in Charles. This will save you doing the same thing more than once, and it's especially given that Charles, until you've bought a copy, will close after half an hour. Click "File", then "Save As...", and put the .chls file somewhere. You can re-open this any time from the "File" menu.
Understanding the API
In my case, I've opened The Weekend's "Live For" song in the app on my phone. In Charles, I can see that there's been a request.
The "Overview" and "Request" tabs at the top are a good place to start. Under here, you'll obviously care about the URL the application hit.
Depending on how much effort the app creator has gone to to lock down the API, it's worth keeping the "User-Agent", "Accept" and "Content-Type" headers, amongst other things. There might be odd kinds of authentication, access tokens or signing routines which demand trial and error.
You might need to send these with your requests for things to work as expected. Some experimentation is likely to be required!
Once you've worked out how the requests work, you'll want to look at the data that comes back. Go to the "Response" tab, and then most likely you'll want to choose "JSON Text" at the bottom (most APIs these days respond with JSON).
Fundamentally, all you need to replicate the API is to (a) understand how to make a request and (b) get to grips with the JSON format. With this, you can build a basic library, as I've done with APIs from American Express to British Airways to Rap Genius.
A few closing points
When you're working with private APIs, there are a few things you should consider.
They can change at any time
Don't take these things for granted, or use them in production apps - an API without any kind of public documentation or commitment to versioning can change any time without notice, breaking your software.
These sorts of things are safe to use for side projects, but not for much more than that. On the bright side, private APIs are way better than screen scraping!
In an ideal situation, you'd write some sort of automated testing suite to run automatically every now and then to watch for changes in the API.
The company behind the API might not be happy
I've not experienced this personally, but it's quite conceivable that the app developer might not want you to use their private API - I've expected complaints from American Express and Avios, but fortunately haven't got them.
The key here is probably to be flexible - don't get yourself into any legal battles you can't afford. If you get a cease and desist, you should seriously consider taking down what you've built. It probably isn't worth it.
Make your code open source
Whenever I build things using APIs I've found, I open source the code (or at least write an in-depth blog post about it).
This has two benefits: it lets other make use of useful data or utilities, and it's a great way of building your profile and job prospects.
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Wikileaks-Dokumente zu Caesars Ermordung Aus sicherer Quelle ist durchgesickert: Demnächst wird Wikileaks einen bisher verschollenen Untersuchungsbericht des SPQR-Senats über die Ermordung von C. Julius Caesar im Web veröffentlichen. Die römische Geschichte muss neu geschrieben werden.
Gaius Julius Caesar. Büste im Archäologischen Nationalmuseum Neapel. (Bild: cc/ Andreas Wahra)
Der Bericht über die Ereignisse an den Iden des März 44 v.C. wurde seinerzeit im Auftrag des römischen Senats von einer Sonderkommission pensionierter Quästoren erstellt, dann aber unterdrückt. Mächtige Interessengruppen erreichten, dass aus undurchsichtigen politischen Motiven die Wahrheit über jenes epochale Ereignis dem Römischen Senat und Volk (SPQR) und überhaupt der Menschheit vorenthalten wurde. Nun ist aber auf krummen Wegen der Julius-Code zu Julian Assange, dem Gründer von Wikileaks, gelangt. Damit wird in diesem Zeitalter der Transparenz endlich Klarheit geschaffen über die damaligen Ereignisse, nach über 2000 Jahren. | {
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Joe Biden to campaign with Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams The campaign confirmed the appearance is planned for Thursday
Former Vice President Joe Biden is planning to join Georgia's Democratic gubernatorial nominee Stacey Abrams for a campaign event for the first time in Atlanta next Thursday, an Abrams campaign spokesperson told ABC News.
Abrams is running against White House-backed Republican and Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp, who leveraged the president's endorsement to leapfrog over Republican favorite Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle in May's primary.
Abrams' has been thrusted into the national spotlight for galvanizing Democrats' hopes of a victory in a southern conservative stronghold. She handily defeated her opponent in the primary, scoring more than 75 percent of the vote statewide and capturing all but six of Georgia's 159 counties, including rural areas across the state where Democrats have struggled to make inroads in their ongoing effort to turn Georgia blue.
Due to her primary victory, Georgia voters will find a black woman on their ballot for governor for the first time in the state's history. Abrams would be the first black woman to be elected governor in the country's history if she is elected.
The former vice president for Barack Obama is planning to have an active fall season on the campaign trail leading up to the midterms.
An aide to Biden told ABC News earlier this month that Biden plans to focus on areas where Democrats can pick up vulnerable red seats or hold on to key seats that they already occupy. Just this month he's campaigned for midterm elections in Michigan, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. | {
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Last week, we brought you the sad news that Tony Dyson, the British professor who built R2-D2, had passed away in his home on the Maltese island of Gozo. Dyson had a long career creating props and physical effects for movies like Star Wars, Superman III and Moonraker, but sadly, money management was not one of his strong suits. According to friends, he was essentially broke when he passed. One of those friends, sci-fi author Keith R.A. DeCandido, has been spreading word of a GoFundMe campaign to help cover Dyson’s funeral expenses.
Please help with the funeral arrangements for R2D2 creator, and my good friend, Tony Dyson https://t.co/rE9o3hKhZV via @gofundme — Keith R.A. DeCandido (@KRADeC) March 8, 2016
Dyson’s wish was to have his brain donated to science, but he died alone in his apartment and wasn’t discovered for several days, making that impossible. Dyson’s friends believe his second choice would have been cremation, but unfortunately, that’s not something you can get done in Malta. Dyson’s body will have to be flown back to his home country of England for cremation, which will cost $8,000. The GoFundMe campaign has been set up solely to raise money for Dyson’s cremation – all other funeral expenses will be paid by Dyson’s friends.
If you’d like to donate to the GoFundMe campaign, you can do so here. As of earlier today, only $80 has been raised. I think we can do better for the guy who created everybody’s favorite droid. | {
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Dear Design Log,One of our testers came up to me today and said, "Remind me why we have the fireballs in this game?"This guy obviously has a lot to learn, especially if he wants to be a designer like me. It's obvious that fireballs not only look cool, they're an important part of any game that takes itself seriously. What awesome game can you think of that doesn't have some kind of fire-based attack in it? Correct. There isn't any.After further argument, he said there was no "use" for it -- fireballs damage enemies the same as the sword. So I decided I would add doors that only open when you throw fireballs at them. That'll be a good reason to have a fireball spell.-- The Genius Game DesignerI was just playingwhen I was struck by a flash of inspiration: our game should have EPIC BATTLES.Working on the e-mail to send to the rest of the team now.-- The Genius Game DesignerTomorrow will be the first playtest session where we put this creation in front of the unwashed masses. I don't understand what the point of this is, but I guess the publishers wouldn't know brilliance unless other people told them about it. It sucks that I'm supposed to take it seriously, though -- they just invite people in off the street! How will rabble like that be able to recognize my art, let alone appreciate it? It's ridiculous.I asked the studio head why they couldn't recruit playtesters who actually understood the kind of game I'm making here. If we got some of the people who post a lot on the forums on my official website, for example, I think we'd get much, much better results.It isn't easy being a genius game designer.Dear Design Log,Today I upped the damage on the Sword of Cutting. But then it made the enemies too easy, so I raised their HP, too.-- The Genius Game DesignerBig meeting today to discuss what we should do if the player doesn't time his or her Spell Ring correctly. In order to really encourage them to get it right, I proposed having the spell damage the player instead of the enemy, take control away for 30 seconds while they stagger around, and add the failure to a permanent "number of times failed" statistic that gets uploaded to an online leaderboard ("loserboard," as I like to call it).Some of the other guys were wondering if that was too much, but if there aren't consequences, it doesn't matter, right? Plus, it's hilarious.-- The Genius Game DesignerDear Design Log,Just dealt with a bunch of playtest feedback.Some people said it was unclear how to actually enter the Temple of Sorrows, so I put in a request for the sound guys to record a line of your sidekick saying, "Come on, we have to get in!" which will repeat every 10 seconds. The urgency will prompt players to figure it out faster.There's a lot of misunderstanding about the use of fireballs, even though the loading screen with all of the controller mappings CLEARLY states that fireballs are used to open doors, not harm enemies. Players are so stupid! Anyway, I've now got some help text set to pop up any time the user hasn't cast a fireball for more than 30 seconds that says "Press X to shoot fireball."I was upset with the player's comments about being "unengaged" with the story, so I put in more detail as to why the Chogoth Empire blockaded the Council of Riversong in 523 Q.F. and the resulting outcry from the Keepers in some unskippable scrolling text at the beginning of the campaign. That will really inspire players to rally to the Baldonian cause!-- The Genius Game DesignerTime's running out. I've got to put the finishing touches on this gameplay masterpiece I'm creating. The EPIC BATTLES that I wanted never really came through even though, I wrote an e-mail about it a long time ago. I think I'll quadruple the number of enemies throughout the game and increase the rate at which they cast spells at the player to once every couple of ticks.Yeah, so, the lead programmer yelled at me for trying to make our game better. Whatever. It's his fault the lame engine can't handle the awesomeness. Going to go complain to the studio head tomorrow.Dear Design Log,Well, the reviews are in. I'm pretty proud of what I did, but the game didn't score well because of the bad tech we have and the fact that the sound guys didn't make the spell effects loud enough. I need to find a place that appreciates my talent!--The Genius Game Designer | {
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Five of six women that were reported missing earlier this week in Toronto have been located, according to Toronto Police.
On Tuesday it was revealed that six women had gone missing in a 24-hour period, sparking a Twitter campaign about violence against women.
The news that they had gone missing in such a short period of time came in the wake of a violent shooting rampage in California that left six students dead and 13 others injured.
According to police, Zhuo Luo, 40, was located on Tuesday, the same day she went missing.
Emily Clancey, 17, and Marina Doulis, 15, who police believe were together when they went missing on Monday, were located early Thursday morning.
All three women had gone missing in the Queen St. W. and Ossington Ave. area.
Gemima Oldford, 55, was located Thursday afternoon, after going missing on Saturday near Yonge St. and Dundas St. W., according to police.
Carolyn Earp, 28, was located Thursday evening in near Yonge and College Sts.
Mark Pugash, spokesperson for the Toronto Police Services, told the Star on Wednesday that there was nothing unusual about the number of women reported missing on the same day.
He estimated that up to 3,000 people are reported missing in Toronto every year and that the majority of them are quickly found.
Natasha McGregor, 38, was reportedly last seen on Monday and has not been located.
Anyone with information as to their whereabouts is asked to call police at 416-808-2222 or Crime Stoppers anonymously at 416-222-8477.
With files from Joel Eastwood | {
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Screenshot : RuPaul’s Drag Race
TV Reviews All of our TV reviews in one convenient place. Prev Next View All
RuPaul’s Drag Race is no stranger to manipulative, misleading editing. The producers’ main goal is to create an entertaining television show and frequently, they correlate entertaining with surprising, angling for shocking twists and underdog, come-from-behind victories. But what’s a producer to do when one team nails a challenge and the other utterly fails it? When there’s no way to sell the competi tion as even close? “Diva Worship” presents about as good an answer as one can hope for, honoring rather than attempting to underplay the winning queens’ accomplishments while underscoring the mistakes that led the losing queens astray.
The episode begins, as always, as the queens return from the previous runway. Three episodes in, Vanjie has cemented her place as this season’s narrator, slaying her talking heads and presenting a clear-eyed take on the dynamic in the workroom. The conversation the queens have here about how to excel at the acting challenges will likely be revisited throughout the season, as different elements of performance are tested and re-tested. The acting challenge was a wake-up call for Ariel and others; whether they’ll be able to adjust and recover remains to be seen.
The next day, the queens come dancing into the workroom, ready to tackle the mini challenge. RuPaul tests the queens’ improv comedy skills by giving them a scenario: They’re at a Seduction show in 1990 and in order to get backstage to meet Michelle Visage and her fellow girl-group performers, they need to sweet-talk Ru, who’s working the door. The queens have 15 minutes to get into quick drag and decide how they’ll approach the challenge. The results are decidedly mixed. Most of the queens wind up with surprisingly put-together, fun looks for 15 minutes, but have nothing particularly interesting to say at the door. A few of the queens take bigger swings that may not entirely work, but are at least memorable, like Yvie, who shows up pregnant and looking for Michelle to sign her baby bump, and Silky, who body slams the door and bursts in. Ra’Jah does well and gets a few chuckles out of Ru, but Nina is the clear winner. She dresses up as a young, emotional schoolgirl who has taken a maternity test and found out that Michelle is her mother. From the giant, fake teeth to the glasses complete with teardrop to her comedically furrowed and upset brows, Nina embodies her character. She goes in with a fully-formed idea for the scene and it pays off.
Ru declares Nina and Ra’Jah the winners of the mini challenge and moves right into the maxi challenge. The queens will be responsible for creating two “she-vangelical” talk shows, preaching the gospel of pop divas. Each show will be recorded live and will feature three segments: host banter, the conversion of a non-believer, and a hymn of praise. As the winners of the mini challenge, Nina and Ra’Jah are declared the deacons of each church (they’re the team leaders). Nina picks first and goes for the queens with the most distinct and biggest personalities. Ra’Jah opts for queens who did particularly well in the previous episode’s acting challenge. In the end, Nina picks Silky, Yvie, Vanjie, Brooke Lynn, Ariel, and Mercedes for her team, and Ra’Jah picks Shuga, Scarlet, Plastique, Honey, and A’Keria.
Screenshot : RuPaul’s Drag Race
Right away, the teams huddle up and start deciding which diva to choose. Nina’s team wavers between Britney Spears and Whitney Houston, but settles on Britney pretty quickly. Ra’Jah’s team has a harder time deciding. There isn’t much overlap in the queens’ knowledge base and the diva they’re most familiar with, Whitney Houston, they back away from, not sure how to celebrate Whitney without focusing on her struggles with addiction and mental health. Instead they go with Mariah Carey, seemingly because they think she’ll be easy to parody. This completely misses the point of the challenge. Yes, it’s a comedy challenge, but the brief is to convincingly and entertainingly sell their diva of choice to the audience. If they don’t believe in what they’re selling, they won’t be able to win over viewers. This could be editing of course, but they seem unable to name more than a few Mariah songs. This is a massive red flag, but even after Ru stops by and scolds them for their incomplete knowledge, they stick to their guns and move forward with their choice.
At this point, Nina’s team has a clear vision for their sketch and they’re working smoothly, with only minor tension between Ariel and Silky. Ra’Jah’s team seems doomed. This is a not-unusual state for teams to be in on Drag Race going into filming. Nina’s team could easily fall prey to overconfidence and Ra’Jah’s team surprise everyone with a come-from-behind win. As soon as filming begins, though, it’s clear that’s not happening. Nina sets the tone from the jump, leading her team with confidence. They’ve thought of the details. Their show, the Gimme More Hour of Power Prayer Session is part of IBBN, the It’s Britney, Bitch Network. Their phone number is 1-555-GIMME-MORE. They’re taking donations on behalf the Leave Britney Alone Foundation, implying (but not directly stating) that the money goes to send Britney Frappuccinos, car seats, and safety belts. They cite specifics and have internalized enough of Britney’s work and off-stage persona to be able to reference her with authority. Most of all, they commit to the bit. They mine humor from the personas they’re adopting, parodying over-the-top televangelists and overzealous fans rather than Britney herself. The queens don’t mock Britney’s 2007 head-shaving, for example, Vanjie channels it as a means of transformation for the conversion. It’s smart, underscoring rather than undermining their worship of Britney. Even if Nina’s team were less prepared and less knowledgeable about Britney, they’re a powerhouse of energy and enthusiasm, and that’s exactly what this challenge requires.
Screenshot : RuPaul’s Drag Race
Ra’Jah’s team, on the other hand, is a mess. Scarlet and Shuga are the hosts. Both seem like they’d be solid supporting co-hosts, but neither takes a strong enough lead. Shuga quotes Psalms 23:4 and sets it up well (“Yea, though I walk…”), but forgets to finish the thought (“I will fear no…”). Scarlet bungles the first cut to commercial. Plastique goes for something specific as the Mariah converter, putting on a growly, demonic voice when questioned by A’Keria’s non-believer, but it doesn’t really work. Then there’s Honey and Ra’Jah, who flounder as the music ministers. Neither know their song well enough and they slow down the pacing of the scene with extraneous asides about glitter and recording contracts. Rather than celebrating Mariah’s triumphs, Team Ra’Jah focuses on her public missteps. The aspects of Mariah’s career they most reference are her disastrous 2016 New Year’s Eve performance and 2001 box-office flop Glitter. Yes, nerves seem to get to some of the queens, but the whole performance is under-prepared and poorly thought out, with the best details being pointers taken from Ru during her walkthrough. Ross stands in as director mostly to have a judge in the room and for his reaction shots. At the end, he lays it out to Team Ra’Jah: They better bring it with their runway looks, because they’re all in danger.
Back in the workroom, viewers are treated to some future episode set-up with A’Keria side-eyeing Vanjie and Brooke’s interactions (she ‘ships it) and Mercedes pulling back from A’Keria, Silky, and Vanjie when they ask her about her faith. Mercedes is clearly uncomfortable and all but runs away from them. As she explains in a talking head, her faith is very personal to her, and not something she’s comfortable discussing. Hopefully the other queens will respect Mercedes on this. It’s an awkward moment, rather than an entertaining or enlightening one, so another shoe is likely coming down the line to warrant its inclusion. Before too long, though, the workroom interactions are dominated by Yvie, who is not shy when painting her entire body pink for her runway look, prompting lots of reactions from the queens and blurring courtesy of standards and practices.
Photo : VH1
It’s soon time for the runway. Category is: Fringe. While there are a few interesting looks, on the whole, this runway is surprisingly forgettable. The specificity of the previous runway category pointed the queens in very deliberate directions. This category is wide open, and many of the queens deliver rather expected looks. Scarlet and Plastique go for similar white and silver glamour girl looks, for example, and Ra’Jah and Vanjie, who are in red, aren’t far off. Thankfully there are a few that really stand out. Shuga takes inspiration from her Native roots for her look, using feathers, turquoise, and Apache-inspired paint. A’Keria’s headpiece is striking and she manages a different silhouette than many of the other queens. Yvie’s jellyfish couture is fabulous and creative and Mercedes’ neon and black camo ensemble is very striking.
Unlike the acting challenge last episode, the judging this episode is team-based, if only because Nina’s team did so much better than Ra’Jah’s. Ru wastes no time declaring Nina the winner and sending her team off to untuck. The entirety of Team Ra’Jah is up for elimination, and the judges don’t pull their punches with their critiques of the maxi challenge performances. After a little deliberation, Ru announces that the whole team will be lip-syncing for their lives. It’s dramatic, but unlike most, “For the first time in Drag Race herstory” pronouncements, it feels entirely justified. No one on the team particularly shone or earned their way to safety, and Ru reading them the riot act is satisfying and appropriate.
Photo : VH1
Unfortunately, they’re lip-syncing to the Hex Hector remix of “Waiting For Tonight” by Jennifer Lopez. This could have been an epic lip-sync showdown, an all-time memorable Drag Race moment. Instead, it’s monotonous and uninspiring. The song is a dance remix; the purpose is not melody or storytelling, but repetitive, consistent beat. That’s not great for building a dynamic performance. The queens do their best, and some manage to connect at least a little. A’Keria in particular is selling hard without much to work with. However, despite the use of split screen to show more of the queens in action, a much-appreciated move from the editors, it’s hard to follow what’s happening and what is shown isn’t all that compelling.
There is a clear standout, however. While the other queens more or less blend together in their approaches, Honey tries to distinguish herself from the others by jumping off the stage to the front. Rather than a dramatic and compelling moment, this move comes across as desperate. She flails a bit as she returns to the stage and it’s not a surprise when Ru sends her home. Honey never quite found her footing this season, serving some fun looks and quality talking heads (her reaction to Plastique’s choices as the Mariah converter, for example), but never settling into the competition the way she needed to to find her confidence. Ru has been much more engaged this season than she was in All Stars 4, more present in the workroom and more interactive with the queens. The highs of this episode are very high, but the lows are disappointing, both from Team Ra’Jah and the producers. Hopefully this wake-up call, that Ru will happily send half the queens in the competition to lip-sync for their lives, will push everyone to aim not for safe, but the win.
Stray observations
Once again, it’s nice to have actors on to guest judge the acting challenges. Guillermo Diaz and Troye Sivan’s critiques on pacing are right on the money.
Ru has had less patience for queens’ excuses this season, and I’m with her. If you go on RuPaul’s Drag Race, you don’t get to claim not knowing pop culture as a reason you failed a challenge. We’re in season 11. Anyone competing on Drag Race should know they’ll be expected to reference and understand pop culture. If you don’t have that background, you’re at a disadvantage, and it’s one you’re responsible for overcoming. Also, if Plastique doesn’t know Mariah at all, why not cast her as the non-believer? There are lots of ways this team could have done better.
That being said, Team Ra’Jah sticking together to share the blame for their performance is admirable and appropriate. As Michelle says, they’re absolutely right. Their failure was a group effort. This is the first time I can remember a “Who’s to blame?” prompt from Ru leading to general consensus and sharing of the blame, not drama, and I loved it.
Nina is wonderful this episode and her talking heads will likely win her a lot of new Drag Race fans, particularly the comedy and theater nerds watching who can’t imagine themselves up on the main stage with the fashion queens, but can see themselves crushing it in the sketches. Vanjie is also solidifying her place as one of the queens to beat.
Ru’s runway look is terrific, but I loved the mustard check (plaid? Tartan? Let me know the appropriate term in the comments) suit from the mini challenge.
“Stink. Stank. Stunk.” It’s going to take a lot to top Ru for best line of the season. | {
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Holocaust survivor Harry Bibring dies after giving educational talk Published duration 1 February 2019 Related Topics The Holocaust
image copyright HET Images image caption Harry Bibring came to Britain as a child during the Holocaust and gave talks for more than 20 years
Holocaust survivor and educational speaker Harry Bibring has died just a day after giving a talk.
Mr Bibring, 93, had worked as a Holocaust educator for more than 20 years during his retirement in the UK.
Last year he was awarded a British Empire Medal for his services to Holocaust education.
"We will miss him terribly," said Karen Pollock, chief executive of the Holocaust Educational Trust.
"We will do all we can to ensure his story and legacy continue to be shared across the country."
Who was Harry Bibring?
He was born in 1925 in Austria's capital, Vienna.
His family ran a clothing business but their shop was destroyed in November 1938 during the so-called Kristallnacht (German: "Night of Broken Glass") attacks in Nazi Germany, which by then had incorporated Austria.
Over two days, at least 91 Jewish people were killed and an estimated 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and sent to concentration camps at Dachau, Buchenwald and Sachsenhausen.
Harry's father was among those arrested but he was later released from prison.
After Kristallnacht, Harry's parents arranged for him and his sister to flee by train to the UK where they would be sponsored by a family friend.
They and thousands of child refugees from continental Europe came to Britain under the Kindertransport (German: "children's transport") - a rescue effort organised by the UK shortly before the outbreak of World War Two.
His parents hoped to join them in the UK, but Harry's father died of a heart attack in 1940 and his mother was killed two years later at Sobibor concentration camp in German-occupied Poland.
Harry later moved out of his sponsor's house and found work as a mechanic's apprentice until the end of the war.
By 1958 he had three degrees and worked as an engineer, and later he taught engineering until he retired in 1991.
In retirement, Mr Bibring worked with Jewish charities and gave hundreds of talks to schools and universities about the Holocaust.
He made his final appearance at a school on Wednesday, just a day before his death.
In a statement, World Jewish Relief paid tribute in a tweet.
Last month, Mr Bibring attended the burial at Bushey New Cemetery of six unknown Jews killed in Auschwitz.
In an interview with the Jewish Chronicle, Mr Bibring said the event was "the most moving day of all time". | {
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Trump will honor NATO commitment, Obama says
President-elect Donald Trump is committed to NATO, President Barack Obama said Monday.
Trump, the Republican president-elect whose unexpected victory last week shocked other world leaders, was often critical of NATO on the campaign trail, going so far as to call it “obsolete.” Those statements, coupled with his praise of Russian leader Vladimir Putin -- with whom Trump spoke by phone on Monday -- have alarmed foreign leaders, especially in the front-line states in Eastern Europe and the Baltics.
Obama, who is preparing to embark on his last trip to Europe as president, said Trump signaled when they met last week that he would not be throwing out the decades-old alliance.
“He expressed a great interest in maintaining our core strategic relationships,” Obama said at his first press conference since last week’s election. “And so, one of the messages I will be able to deliver is his commitment to NATO and the Transatlantic Alliance.”
“I think that's one of the most important functions I can serve at this stage during this trip. is to let them know that there is no weakening of resolve when it comes to America's commitment to maintaining a strong and robust NATO relationship and a recognition that those alliances aren't just good for Europe, they're good for the United States,” he added. “And they're vital for the world.”
Responding to a question about foreign leaders’ concerns about Trump, Obama also made a point to note that the president, while “the spokesperson for the nation,” is not the only person affecting U.S. foreign policy.
“The influence and the work that we have is the result not just of the president,” he said. “It is the result of countless interactions and arrangements and relationships between our military and other militaries and our diplomats and other diplomats, and intelligence officers and development workers. And there is enormous continuity beneath the day-to-day news that makes us that indispensable nation when it comes to maintaining order and promoting prosperity around the world. That will continue.”
Also on Monday, National Security Adviser Susan Rice told AFP that allies could trust the United States to fulfill its treaty obligations, even under a President Trump.
"The weight of this office, and the weight of American global leadership, and the responsibilities that it entails, and the history that we share, the interests that endure, make it reasonable for our allies and partners to expect that the United States will uphold its obligations," she said. | {
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Urmareste Modifică dimensiunea fontului: Play
Bucureşti, 17 feb /Agerpres/ - Preşedintele Klaus Iohannis a afirmat, miercuri, că abordarea ANAF în cazul televiziunilor Antena Group este "heirupsită", "nepotrivită".
"Eu cred că aţi ajuns într-o situaţie neplăcută şi inutilă. În primul rând, cred că libertatea de exprimare în media nu poate fi suprimată pentru banale motive administrative. În al doilea rând, această abordare heirupistă a ANAF mi se pare cel puţin nepotrivită, dacă nu discutabilă", a spus Iohannis, întrebat despre acţiunea ANAF în cazul Antenelor.
El a precizat că a constatat din discuţii pe care le-a avut că există deschidere la factorii de decizie în acest caz.
"Cu siguranţă, prin discuţii aşezate şi calme, până la urmă se găsesc soluţii convenabile", a conchis şeful statului. AGERPRES/(A, AS - autor: Florentina Peia, editor: Andreea Rotaru) | {
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The piracy bullies are back in the news, and this time they're bringing powerful friends. Having failed to coerce Congress into passing SOPA or PIPA last January, the RIAA, MPAA, and other members of the content cartel are getting new allies in the war on scurvey Internet scofflaws: the nation's biggest Internet service providers.
(Today's Notes From the Field is being brought to you by Four Letter Acronyms Inc., or FLAI.)
[ As Cringely pointed out, SOPA's defeat wouldn't end the fight against invasive antipiracy measures. | For a humorous take on the tech industry's shenanigans, subscribe to Robert X. Cringely's Notes from the Underground newsletter. | Get the latest insight on the tech news that matters from InfoWorld's Tech Watch blog. ]
Per Cnet's Greg Sandoval, the aforementioned FLAs outlined their plans to introduce ISP-level scanning for copyrighted materials before a meeting of the Association of American Publishers last week. Sandoval quoted RIAA CEO Cary Sherman thusly:
Each ISP has to develop their infrastructure for automating the system...[and] for establishing the database so they can keep track of repeat infringers, so they know that this is the first notice or the third notice. Every ISP has to do it differently depending on the architecture of its particular network. Some are nearing completion and others are a little further from completion.
Sandoval adds:
Participating ISPs can choose from a list of penalties, or what the RIAA calls "mitigation measures," which include throttling down the customer's connection speed and suspending Web access until the subscriber agrees to stop pirating.
Isn't that special? Yes, but not terribly surprising. This has been in the works for more than a year, and little wonder; with media companies like Time Warner (CNN, TBS, Warner Music Group, Warner Bros. Entertainment) and Comcast (NBC, MSNBC, USA Network) at the top of the broadband ISP food chain, the content deliverers are also the content owners. The news here is they've named a start date of July 12.
There are a lot of problems with this scheme, the most notable of which is that for ISPs to find copyright violators they have to sniff the data streams of all of their customers, including the 99.9 percent who did not download Young Jeezy's "Thug Motivation 103" the second it hit the torrent sites. I call that a gross violation of my privacy. (Speaking of thug motivation....) | {
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Former USC great Katinka Hosszu won her first career Olympic medal in smashing fashion, shattering the world record in the 400m individual medley on Saturday at the Rio Olympics and extending USC’s amazing streak of having a Trojan win a gold medal at every Summer Games since 1912.
Hosszu, one of Hungary’s top athletic stars who is already an NCAA and world champion in her fourth Olympic trip, dominated the 400m IM final with a 4:26.36, lowering the previous world record by 2:07 seconds and winning by almost five seconds. Hosszu, whose prelim swim of 4:28.58 (then the second-fastest time ever), was fourth in the event in 2012 and 12th in 2008.
In addition, former Trojan Amanda Weir, who had a brief tenure at USC, earned a silver in the 4×100-meter free relay. The veteran Weir, in her third Olympics, helped the U.S. qualify for the finals with her prelim swim and picked up a silver thanks to the Americans’ second-place finish in the final.
For more on Saturday’s events, visit the USC Athletics website.
To follow the 44 Trojan Olympians in Rio — most of any U.S. university — visit the USC Athletics Olympic website.
More stories about: Olympics | {
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How Did Joe Biden Do In The Debate? The Best He Could | {
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A starkly threatening internal memo to Snapchat employees was leaked to Cheddar early Friday, painting a desperate picture of the struggling young company. In a Sisyphean twist, the leaked memo was about preventing leaks. Michael O’Sullivan, chief lawyer and general counsel of Snapchat’s parent company, threatened firing, lawsuits, and even jail time for employees who leak confidential information to the press.
The language is alarming, but it’s clear why O’Sullivan is furious: Several of Snap’s recent moves have played out in the media before they were formally announced. In December, the “Stories Everywhere” feature, which lets users make and view Stories outside the app, leaked to press early. As did the plans for a major redesign, a round of layoffs in its Content team, and a wealth of confidential metrics for nearly every feature in the app. You’d think Snap’s NDAs auto-deleted after 24 hours.
The relevant section of the memo, from Cheddar:
We have a zero-tolerance policy for those who leak Snap Inc. confidential information. This applies to outright leaks and any informal “off the record” conversations with reporters, as well as any confidential information you let slip to people who are not authorized to know that information. If you leak Snap Inc. information, you will lose your job and we will pursue any and all legal remedies against you. And that’s just the start. You can face personal financial liability even if you yourself did not benefit from the leaked information. The government, our investors, and other third parties can also seek their own remedies against you for what you disclosed. The government can even put you in jail.
Snapchat’s always been a secretive company, but its war on leaks appears to have grown frantic. Employees were famously banned from using the company’s own app at the Christmas party last year. According to a Daily Beast report, the New York office has an entire banned floor that nearly all employees cannot access; almost no one actually knows what goes on there.
It’s best to look at the memo in the context of Snap’s dire financial situation. The company lost a staggering $443 million in the third quarter of 2017. According to the Daily Beast report, part of Snap’s recovery plan is doubling down on exclusive deals with publishers who pay to produce content for Snap’s Discover tab. But the metrics leaked to the Daily Beast revealed that only about 20 percent of users check out the tab. With a static userbase, Snap may have an increasingly tough time charging big bucks for exclusive access to its app.
And that’s before we get to Snapchat’s greatest enemy: Facebook. In August 2016, Facebook copied Snap’s signature product, user uploads that self-destruct after 24 hours, with the Instagram Stories feature. Last year, Facebook reported 200 million people use its Stories feature each day—that’s 25 million more users than Snapchat has in total.
It’s clear why the company is desperate, but threatening to throw people in the gulag for forwarding emails doesn’t inspire confidence. “Employee jail time” will only lead to worse press and drive out employees faster.
[Cheddar and Daily Beast]
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Marvel is courting “Selma” filmmaker Ava DuVernay to direct one of its diverse superhero movies, which include “Black Panther” and “Captain Marvel,” multiple individuals with knowledge of the situation have told TheWrap. Insiders suggest that “Black Panther,” due first in July 2018, is the most likely possibility.
Marvel has had discussions with DuVernay about taking the reins of one of its marquee comic book properties and while the studio is considering other directors, there is mutual interest in having her join the MCU.
Marvel’s courtship surfaces on the same day that the American Civil Liberties Union asked state and federal agencies to investigate Hollywood’s hiring practices at major studios, networks and talent agencies. The ACLU has alleged rampant and intentional gender discrimination in recruiting and hiring female directors.
Also Read: Ryan Coogler Confirmed to Direct Marvel's 'Black Panther'
A woman has never directed a Marvel movie, though the company did hire Patty Jenkins to direct “Thor: The Dark World.” Following creative differences, she was eventually replaced by Alan Taylor. Jenkins recently replaced Michelle MacLaren as the director of “Wonder Woman” at Warner Bros., which has been eager to beat Marvel to the proverbial punch when it comes to diversity within its comic book movie universe.
Insiders told TheWrap that Marvel is intent on hiring an African-American director for “Black Panther” and a female filmmaker for “Captain Marvel.” DuVernay’s hiring would make her Marvel’s first African-American and first female director, which would no doubt double as a public relations boon for the company.
Also Read: 'Captain America: Civil War' - Who Is Black Panther? A Short Explainer
“Black Panther” is set to star Chadwick Boseman as T’Challa, the prince of Wakanda who must take over his father’s throne and avenge his death. “Captain Marvel” follows a woman named Carol Danvers who receives powers after encountering an alien from the Kree Empire. Slated for release on Nov. 2, 2018, the film is Marvel’s first female-driven superhero movie, and will be written by Nicole Perlman (“Guardians of the Galaxy”) and Meg LeFauve (“Inside Out”).
Also Read: ACLU Demands Investigation Into Hollywood's Hiring Practices for Bias Against Women
DuVernay actually has experience with comic book movies… sort of. Back in her publicist days, she did “promotional services” for Sam Raimi‘s “Spider-Man 2,” which inexplicably remains her top credit on IMDb Pro despite the fact that “Selma,” which she directed, was Oscar-nominated for Best Picture and won a slew of other awards from critics and guilds.
There was outrage throughout Hollywood when DuVernay failed to receive a Best Director nomination from the Academy, and she has been in high demand ever since the world premiere of “Selma” moved its audience to tears. DuVernay is developing a TV series for Oprah Winfrey‘s OWN network based on the book “Queen Sugar” and recently wrapped CBS’ civil rights drama pilot “For Justice.” She has also set up an untitled Hurricane Katrina movie at Participant Media that will star her fellow producer David Oyelowo.
Also Read: Ava DuVernay Kicks Off AFFRM Membership Drive to Support Black, Brown and Female Filmmakers
DuVernay made her directorial debut with the 2008 documentary “This Is the Life” before moving on to narrative filmmaking with the 2010 indie drama “I Will Follow.” Her breakout film was 2012’s “Middle of Nowhere,” after which she was hired to direct the Martin Luther King Jr. movie “Selma” for Paramount, Oprah Winfrey‘s Harpo Films and Brad Pitt‘s Plan B Entertainment.
DuVernay, who is represented by Paradigm, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. | {
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Mary Bowerman
USA TODAY
Are magic mushrooms safe?
A new survey found that when it comes to recreational drug use, magic mushrooms appear to be the safest drug.
Only .2% of almost 10,000 people who reported taking psilocybin hallucinogenic mushrooms in 2016 reported that they needed emergency medical treatment, according to the annual Global Drug Survey. The survey, of more than 120,000 participants in 50 countries, found that the rates of emergency medical treatment for MDMA, LSD, alcohol and cocaine were almost five times higher.
Magic mushrooms can be risky and cause panic attacks or confusion, Adam Winstock, a consultant addiction psychiatrist and founder of the Global Drug Survey told the Guardian.
“Combined use with alcohol and use within risky or unfamiliar settings increase the risks of harm most commonly accidental injury, panic and short-lived confusion, disorientation, and fears of losing one’s mind,” Winstock told the Guardian.
Just weeks ago, a tourist died after jumping from a fifth-floor balcony after consuming orange juice laced with magic mushrooms, the Tribun Bali reported.
More coverage:
Doctors could tap 'shrooms to relieve pain
'Magic Mushroom' psychedelic may ease anxiety, depression
But while there have been unfortunate incidents involving mushrooms, there have been studies that have shown psilocybin mushrooms could help treat severe depression and anxiety.
The report found that LSD users were more than five times as likely as medical mushroom users to seek emergency medical treatment, possibly because of “great difficulties” in accurately identifying how much to take of the drug.
The report found that people in Colombia, New Zealand, Norway and Mexico were most likely to find and pick magic mushrooms themselves.
Follow Mary Bowerman on Twitter: @MaryBowerman | {
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Story highlights "Paid, thank you for all you do! Have a great day!" said a note on the receipt
"It was the nicest thing anyone could have ever done for us," EMT says
(CNN) As they ate breakfast after a long night shift, a group of EMTs was brought to tears by a heartwarming surprise: Their meal had been paid for.
The six volunteers were dining at an IHOP in Toms River, New Jersey, on Friday when an anonymous woman paid their bill, leaving a moving message on the receipt.
"Paid, thank you for all you do! Have a great day!" the note said. It was simply signed: "Recovering Addict."
Alyssa Golembeski, captain of the Toms River First Aid Squad, said the general manager of the IHOP came to the EMTs' table to inform them that a woman had paid for their meal.
"EMTs do not eat light," Golembeski said. "We racked up a $77 bill."
Read More | {
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Photo Credit: iStock
By Denise Ngo
We’ve all been in relationships where, at times, we’ve felt more like a mom or a secretary than a significant other. While we understand that healthy relationships require compromises, we’ve compiled a list of favors that good boyfriends know better than to consistently request. If you’re constantly taking on any of the items on this list (especially with any hint of resentment), it’s time to get your guy to lend a hand.
1. His laundry. Pairing your socks isn’t exactly our idea of a stay-at-home date, nor does living with you make us a 1950s housewife. A good compromise is for one partner to sort and start the laundry and the other to fold and put it away. Plus, studies show that helping around the house increases a man’s chances of getting laid. So, how ‘bout that pile of dishes? If you clean up the sink while we tackle the living room, we’ll get to the bedroom twice as fast.
2. Buy gifts and cards for other people on his behalf. We’ll help when we’re out with you, but no, we won’t make a pit stop at Hallmark and Laura Ashley while we’re shopping with the girls. Just because we’re women doesn’t mean we’re automatically adept at figuring out your Aunt Martha’s dress size.
3. Plan an entire vacation without his help. When we ask you whether you’d rather spend our anniversary in Cabo or Vermont, we want you to express an actual preference, not to say, “Whatever, I’m happy with what makes you happy.” The same goes for the hotel, the airline, and the restaurant reservations. Letting us take the reins isn’t considerate, it’s just lazy and boring. Instead, make sure to divvy up the planning. We pick the location and hotel; you plan the activities.
4. Make him a sandwich. The refrigerator is 10 feet away and your game control has a pause button, so get up, stretch, and slap that ham and lettuce together by yourself. We don’t care if you’re “in the zone,” because apparently, you were out of it long enough to articulate your immediate need for a nibble. Maybe we’ll consider it if you agree to break from the game for 20 minutes, put on some coffee, and enjoy your afternoon snack with us.
Story continues
5. Change your relationship status on Facebook. We believe our life outside of the Internet should speak for itself. On the off-chance that we break up, wouldn’t you rather tell your close friends in person, rather than have that ever-present broken heart appear on 500 people’s newsfeeds? Well, we would, so don’t even ask us to include our relationship status on Facebook in the first place.
6. Be his wake-up call. If we wanted a newborn, we’d just pierce the condom. Kidding! But really, buy an alarm clock. Remembering a man’s nap and wakeup schedule should be an occasional favor, not an everyday obligation.
7. Take care of his drunk friends. We’ll help them hail cabs or drive them home, but our couch really shouldn’t be a post-happy-hour crash pad.
8. Hang out with his ex. Some women like befriending the ex, and others just want to satisfy their curiosity about her, but don’t pressure the ones who would rather keep a distance.
9. Keep up with his favorite shows. How would you like it if we made you religiously watch The Bachelor? Instead, let’s pick a show we both like and make sure we follow it together.
10. Lose weight. We’ll tone up for health purposes and for ourselves, but if you’re really concerned about the 5 lbs we gained over the holidays, don’t flat-out complain that we’re getting flabby. Instead, invite us to go biking with you or to take a yoga class together. Treat exercise as a fun activity we can do together instead of something we should do just for you.
11. Keep our hair long. Trust us, short hair is cute, fun, and just as feminine as back-length hair. Just look at Halle Berry, Audrey Tautou and Keira Knightley, circa 2005. It’s not as if we’re going to shave it off or sport one of Rihanna’s hairstyles, but even if we did, we hope you’d find us just as attractive.
More from YourTango:
The 10 Biggest Mistakes Men Make In Relationships
7 Regular Things That ‘Crazy In Love’ Couples ALWAYS Do
Male Perspective: 5 Signs A Guy Is Really, REALLY Into You
The PERFECT Love Quotes For You And Your Boo
10 Of The Greatest Love Stories Of All Time | {
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Do you use any GTK applications like firefox or thunderbird? I was trying this theme but it doesn't work well with Firefox? Do you use a different theme for GTK? | {
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 26/10/2018 (701 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
The decision to end the institutionalized torture of solitary confinement in federal prisons shows commendable compassion for criminals. But where’s the plan and the funding to deal with the consequences of the change?
Prison staff say removing the option of solitary confinement as a supervisory tool could mean more violence among inmates, and even toward correctional officers. Such possible results weren’t publicly addressed on Oct. 16 when the federal Liberals announced the bill that will remove two commonly used forms of solitary confinement, administrative segregation and disciplinary segregation, from federal prisons. The bill doesn’t affect the use of solitary in provincial jails.
A growing body of medical research shows such extreme confinement for periods longer than 15 days can induce hallucinations, panic attacks, major depression and reduced brain function
The upcoming change in federal prisons will be welcomed as long overdue by people who understand the psychological damage that is done to humans who are locked in cells as small as two metres by three metres with almost no human interaction for 22 hours a day. A growing body of medical research shows such extreme confinement for periods longer than 15 days can induce hallucinations, panic attacks, major depression and reduced brain function.
But while it was wise to end solitary, it would have been more wise for the Liberals to first consult front-line prison staff who use this measure to control dangerous inmates in facilities hampered by inadequate resources. They fear it will mean more violence behind bars.
"When this goes through, the bloodbath will start," predicted Jason Godin, the national president of the Union of Canadian Correctional Officers.
If his statement seems alarmist, perhaps it’s because he understands how solitary, for its many undeniable faults, helps prison staff keep order and protect prisoners from each other.
Solitary was originally used to discipline inmates for committing violence within prisons. But its use has expanded to deal with even non-violent infractions of prison rules, to house vulnerable people who are endangered by other prisoners and to segregate gang members who would attack prisoners linked to other gangs.
To open the solitary-confinement doors for these prisoners and keep everyone safe will require a substantial hike in on-the-range staffing. Mr. Godin said segregated inmates must be supervised at a ratio of two guards per one inmate when they’re not in their units.
The Liberals’ alternative to solitary will put prisoners on "specialized living units" that provide high-risk inmates at least four hours a day outside their cells and two hours a day of "meaningful human interaction."
What was missing from this intriguing but vague scenario was how it will be accommodated in existing prison facilities, some of which have been crowded to the point of double-bunking and have inadequate resources for recreation and education.
Prisoners are generally in solitary because it’s dangerous to have them in the general population
Prisoners are generally in solitary because it’s dangerous to have them in the general population, and granting them substantially more freedom and contact with other prisoners will likely mean facilities need upgrades and possible physical-plant expansions.
If it’s backed by adequate funding, the decision to end solitary in federal prisons is the right direction. Manitoba should monitor Ottawa’s changes and consider ending solitary in provincial jails.
A responsible penal system looks ahead to the inmates’ release into the community. In ways both literal and figurative, solitary is the opposite of community. The community is not well served when it must contend with released inmates who are psychologically damaged from extended stints of solitary.
The Liberal intention is admirable. Now, it needs to put its money where its compassion is. | {
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Ham Seo-Hee supports “ROAD FC XX”
Top Korean fighter Ham Seo-Hee supports “ROAD FC XX”, Korea's first all-female league.
The pioneer of women's Mixed Martial arts in Korea is unquestionably “Hamderlei Silva” Ham Seo-Hee. Now approaching her tenth year as a professional MMA fighter, she is ranked as one of the best atomweights in the world, and is the first Korean woman to be signed to the UFC.
Because there were no opportunities for female fighters in Korea at the start of her career, Ham fought exclusively in Japan in DEEP, Smackgirl, Jewels, and Gladiator. She was the Deep Jewels champion when she finally had the opportunity to fight in her own country in ROAD FC in 2014.
ROAD FC is thrilled to have Ham Seo-Hee support the new women's league, ROAD FC XX. She spoke recently about her career, and the great opportunity that Korean female fighters will now have,
“When I started my career in MMA in Korea, there weren't a lot of female fighters here, and not many opportunities. But now ROAD FC has started a female league. I really envy the female fighters now. There used to be many more opportunities overseas than there were in Korea. Fighting overseas is really lonely. Now, we can finally hear the cheers from the Korean fans at home as they support us. I would like to see a lot of women joining ROAD FC XX.”
Now confirmed to participate in ROAD FC XX are “Schoolgirl Fighter” Lee Ye-Ji, “Wushu Queen” Lim Seo-Hee, “Little Wolf” Park Jeong-Eun, “Cage Vixen” Hong Yoon-Ha, national Muay Thai champion Shim Yoo-Ree, Taekwondo fighter Kim Hae-In, and “Female Kwon A-Sol” Kang Jin-Hee. Announcements of other fighters on the first ROAD FC XX card will be announced shortly.
Ham gave a special mention to a young talent she will be watching,
“Of the new Korean female fighters I've seen, I'm particularly impressed with Park Jung-Eun. It seems we have a similar style, don't you think?”
For all the fighters on ROAD FC XX, Ham gave her encouragement,
“This is the very first all-female card in Korean history, so I think fans will be expecting a lot of excitement. For all the women lined up on this card, I hope they will meet all expectations.”
In conclusion, Ham shared her sentiments,
“If some day I come back to Korea, I hope it will be in ROAD FC XX.” | {
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On the intersection of K Street and Wall Street lies the burgeoning “political intelligence” industry, where lobbyists, advisors and other DC insiders use their campaign contributions, connections and clout not to shape legislation, but to make investment decisions. The Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act, H.R. 1148, introduced by Representatives Walz and Slaughter would shed some light on political intelligence activities by requiring firms that specialize in gathering nonpublic information from Hill sources to register with the House and Senate, as lobbying firms are required to do. The bill also creates rules to tamp down the occurrence of insider trading by members of Congress.
It’s no wonder that savvy investors at hedge funds look to Washington insiders to help them decide to buy or sell stocks. Will a bankruptcy bill help or hurt credit card companies? Will offshore oil drilling be allowed? Will legislation to address antitrust claims be introduced? Is the pharmaceutical industry going to face new regulations? What Congress does matters very much to the business world, and early, nonpublic information about the way Congress will impact any business or industry can lead to huge profits for investors.
The political intelligence industry relies on remaining in the shadows. The website for one firm that specializes in political intelligence notes,
Our political intelligence operation differs from standard ‘lobbying’ in that the OSINT Group is not looking to influence legislation on behalf of clients, but rather provide unique ‘monitoring’ of information through our personal relationships between lawmakers, staffers, and lobbyists working the K Street – Pennsylvania Avenue corridor. Providing this service for clients who do not want their interest in an issue publicly known is an activity that does not need to be reported under the Lobbying Disclosure Act (LDA), thus providing an additional layer of confidentiality for our clients.
If the STOCK Act passes, the “additional layer of confidentiality” will disappear, helping to ensure that insider information is not driving investment decisions for a few, leaving the rest of us in the dark. | {
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Relatives and friends gathered in churches and cemeteries to remember some of the more than 320 people killed in bombings at churches and hotels in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday.
The first mass burials for the victims took place in Colombo and in Negombo, north of the capital, on Tuesday.
Mourners and relatives prayed with the clergy as coffins were carried in and out of the churches.
At St Anthony’s Shrine in Colombo – where scores died as they gathered for Easter Sunday prayers – a few dozen people held candles and prayed silently, palms pressed together.
And at St Sebastian’s Church in Negombo, an elderly man wept uncontrollably by the coffin bearing the body of his wife.
Flags were lowered to half-mast on government buildings, and people bowed their heads and reflected silently on the violence that has caused international outrage.
The island nation’s state defence minister said initial investigations showed that the attacks were carried out by two little-known Muslim organisations.
The death toll from Sri Lanka’s Easter Sunday bombings has reached 321 with many people still in hospital.
At least 500 people were wounded in the blasts, police spokesman Ruwan Gunasekera said in a statement, adding that 40 people were now under arrest in connection with the attacks.
Tuesday was a national day of mourning in Sri Lanka. | {
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Many expect Saturday to be no different. The two teams have not met in the Scottish Premiership for four years, ever since years of financial mismanagement and misdeeds caught up with Rangers and led to their liquidation. The club was dissolved and forced to start again, in the country’s fourth tier.
Since then, Celtic and Rangers have encountered each other only twice: both in Scottish cup competitions, both on neutral territory. The city, then, is crackling with anticipation for the teams’ first league meeting at Celtic Park. As early as Tuesday, The Evening Times was devoting six pages to the game. A slew of former players, from both sides, have spent the week being wheeled out for sound bites.
With that excitement, though, comes trepidation. This is an enmity with roots that run far deeper than mere sport: Rangers and Celtic is not soccer, it is religion and politics and history. It is Protestant and Catholic, Unionist and Irish Nationalist, the Union Jack and the Tricolor: two sides of several unbridgeable divides.
There was a feeling, in 2012, that perhaps the two clubs might somehow come to realize they were locked, however unwillingly, in a mutually beneficial arrangement. | {
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Drum Boogie
Continuing our A Blog Supreme-inspired series of great jazz-on-film moments, here’s a sequence featuring Barbara Stanwyck and legendary jazz/swing drummer Gene Krupa — pretty much the Keith Moon of his day — from one of my personal favorite classic-era comedies, Howard Hawks’ 1941 “Ball of Fire.” You’ll also notice Gary Cooper in there, playing an extremely sheltered professor researching the urban slang of the time.
One hallmark of classic era films is that you can be watching a noir mystery, a western, or a non-musical screwball comedy, and sometimes things will just stop for a song. As you’ll see here, that wasn’t a bad thing if the right talent was available. And, whatever you do, don’t stop watching before seeing what Krup could do with a matchbook cover, starting at about 4:17 or so.
In case anyone’s wondering, no, that’s not Ms. Stanwyck singing. The terrific vocals are by Martha Tilton.
And here’s a bonus — Krupa with the Benny Goodman band in an amazing performance of their signature tune, Louis Prima’s “Sing, Sing, Sing.” | {
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× Expand Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/AP Images Urska Velikonja, a securities law professor at Georgetown University Law Center, is under consideration for an appointment to the Securities and Exchange Commission.
A couple weeks ago Prospect contributors Jeff Hauser and David Segal expressed concern that Chuck Schumer was blowing another appointment for the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). For most five-member independent commissions like the SEC, only three commissioners can come from the party of the president. And by custom, the Senate leader of the minority party, in this case Schumer, gets wide latitude to recommend the other two, a considerable power rivaling only the president in how it molds the mindset at federal agencies.
Already in the Trump era, Schumer mistimed a recommendation for an SEC slot that Republicans opportunistically left vacant for months, creating a 3-1 split on the commission. This diminished enforcement capabilities so thoroughly that white-collar defense lawyers were gloating about it. With Rob Jackson, who fills the other Democratic seat on the SEC, slated to soon leave, Schumer appears determined not to make the same mistake. (Jackson’s term expired in June; by statute he could stay until the end of 2020, but he is expected to go sooner than that.)
Names are being floated to replace Jackson, and the recommendation could be made in a matter of days. But advocates for a stronger regulatory posture toward Wall Street have expressed concern that one of the names out there doesn't have the policy expertise necessary to combat the Republican ideologues on the commission. This is particularly important due to a number of specific rulemaking fights coming up in the near future.
It might seem of minimal importance which Democrat receives the honor of being outvoted by Republicans. But minority-party members can raise issues and carry the flag for the party's agenda. And when the presidency shifts parties, minority-party members suddenly move into the majority; just ask Federal Communications Commission chair Ajit Pai, who was once merely an outvoted Republican. So who gets installed in those roles matters a great deal, which is why there's such anxiety within the small community of financial regulation advocates.
Reuters reported on Friday that two people were under consideration for the job: Caroline Crenshaw, an attorney working in Jackson’s office who previously worked for progressive commissioner Kara Stein; and Urska Velikonja, a securities law professor at Georgetown University Law Center. These are not the only two under consideration. But the process has certainly advanced for the two women, and if one of them is chosen it would create the first majority-female panel in SEC history.
Velikonja has been one of the foremost academics studying the SEC's enforcement statistics. I spoke with her in 2015 about how the SEC artificially inflated its enforcement numbers to look tougher than it really is. She recently gave testimony to the House Financial Services Committee, advocating for stiffer enforcement.
But advocates caution that Velikonja has no known policy views on the many areas of securities law that come before the commission. “The commission does far more than enforcement,” says Micah Hauptman, financial services counsel for the Consumer Federation of America. “It's not clear to me that Ms. Velikonja has an interest or expertise in these issues. Our view is that it is critical to choose commissioners who have a demonstrated commitment to investor protection and particularly retail investor protection.”
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The Democrats already have one enforcement expert on the Commission. Allison Lee, who was sworn in for the other Democratic seat on the commission on July 8, has over two decades of experience as an enforcement attorney at the SEC and as a special assistant U.S. attorney. Given that, it would be a good thing if the two Democratic seats could be complementary, thereby providing expertise in both enforcement and policy.
Some argue that policy expertise is the more necessary. “While the bulk of the SEC staff works on enforcing its rules, the bulk of Commissioners' time is often spent on developing the policies that govern everything from how stocks and bonds trade, to what companies have to disclose, to what rights investors have,” says Tyler Gellasch, executive director of Healthy Markets Association.
Indeed, since coming to the SEC, two Republican commissioners, Hester Peirce and Elad Roisman, have established a thoroughly conservative, anti-regulatory record on policy matters. Going toe to toe with them will require sharp policy instincts. “The SEC has two GOP Commissioners with deep expertise and very well-established records on the broad range of policy matters before the SEC, and we expect the Senate Democrats will try to match that," Gellasch says.
In the coming months, the SEC will look at a number of policy matters, including: whether to regulate advisory firms that recommend voting positions on public company investor votes, known as proxy votes; whether to require stricter environmental, social, and governance (ESG) disclosures for public companies; and how to implement Regulation BI, the “best interest” standard intended to encourage investment brokers to work in the best interest of their clients.
Velikonja could have a perspective on those issues that fits within the mainstream of progressive advocacy for tighter regulations. Or she might not. There's no public record to examine, no real involvement on those issues. Crenshaw, on the other hand, has a well-established record as an SEC counsel to two Democratic commissioners.
Hauptman, of the Consumer Federation of America, said that his organization would want to work “productively” with Velikonja on issues of investor protection should she be Schumer's choice. But usually advocates have some understanding of who their putative allies put into positions of power.
Schumer's office did not respond to a request for comment. There's been some talk among those close to the process about an interest in nominating Velikonja in part because she's female and a Slovenian immigrant. Whether the symbolic value of such an appointment outweighs that of putting someone with an unknown policy profile in an important seat isn't easily determined. The last time Democrats stepped a bit outside the normal pool of potential SEC commissioners, they got Mary Jo White, who was supposed to be a tough enforcer but wound up standing with Republicans repeatedly on policy and even enforcement matters, and then stepping back through the revolving door to her former white-collar defense law firm. That’s a mistake that cannot be replicated if Democrats want to at least signal that they care about the securities laws and regulating Wall Street. | {
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We need your help to keep our feminist media analysis and educational materials easily available and accessible to anyone with an internet connection.
All of Feminist Frequency’s work – web pieces just like this one, videos, newsletters and interviews – is completely free to the public. But, everything we produce requires research, staff time and resources.
A new episode will be released every two weeks on our Youtube channel , so take a moment to subscribe to ensure that you get all of our videos delivered to you piping fresh!
We’ll be putting out four episodes between now and the middle of June, for what we’re calling “Season Zero” of The FREQ Show. We’d love to hear what you think about each episode as it gets released! Hit us up on Facebook or Twitter and share your episode questions, guest recommendations, and format suggestions. We are tuned in and we are listening!
Our first episode is a look into a discussion of “whitewashing,” cultural cannibalism, and the appalling history of ethnic stereotyping in movies and television. Join us as we take a look at the ways in which people of color have been written out of — or written horribly into — our media narratives.
Although we’ve just said goodbye to our long-running Tropes Vs. Women in Video Games series, here at Feminist Frequency, we’re staying busy! Today marks the debut of The FREQ Show , a series where we turn our lens to some of the highlights and lowlights of pop culture, and the fascinating intersection of current events with media representations.
Read the full article…
Although we’ve just said goodbye to our long-running Tropes Vs. Women in Video Games series, here at Feminist Frequency, we’re staying busy! Today marks the debut of The FREQ Show, a series where we turn our lens to some of the highlights and lowlights of pop culture, and the fascinating intersection of current events with media representations.
Our first episode is a look into a discussion of “whitewashing,” cultural cannibalism, and the appalling history of ethnic stereotyping in movies and television. Join us as we take a look at the ways in which people of color have been written out of — or written horribly into — our media narratives.
We’ll be putting out four episodes between now and the middle of June, for what we’re calling “Season Zero” of The FREQ Show. We’d love to hear what you think about each episode as it gets released! Hit us up on Facebook or Twitter and share your episode questions, guest recommendations, and format suggestions. We are tuned in and we are listening!
A new episode will be released every two weeks on our Youtube channel, so take a moment to subscribe to ensure that you get all of our videos delivered to you piping fresh!
You’ve reached the end of this piece – but there’s plenty more where this came from! All of Feminist Frequency’s work – web pieces just like this one, videos, newsletters and interviews – is completely free to the public. But, everything we produce requires research, staff time and resources. We need your help to keep our feminist media analysis and educational materials easily available and accessible to anyone with an internet connection. Pitch in and donate now to make sure these pieces keep coming.
TRANSCRIPT
“What’s the matter with you, boy?! Shooting up that man’s henhouse!”
“I’ll shoot any chicken try to follow me home!”
“But why don’t you get a job and go to work?!
“Uhhhh, I almost had me a job this morning!”
CLIP: Tropic Thunder
“I can’t believe you people!”
“What do you mean, ‘you people?’”
America was founded on the physical exploitation of ethnic Others, from enslaved Africans to Chinese immigrants. But while their physical bodies were valuable, early American cinema was not in the habit of seeing them as fully human.
The history of cultural appropriation and whitewashing in western media — essentially, treating other cultures like a grab bag of Dollar Store toys — has its roots in blackface, yellowface, or brownface — that is, white actors darkening their skins and affecting stereotypical accents and behaviors to denote some other ethnicity. Some of the most iconic examples of early American cinema feature horribly racist portrayals of black folks, Native Americans, or Asians by white actors who exist purely to highlight the supposed savage, animal-like characters of non-white peoples.
CLIP: Apache
“You want us to kill you. That’d be a sweet death, wouldn’t it? A warrior’s death.”
CLIP: Breakfast at Tiffany’s
“Oh, darling, I am sorry, but I lost my key!”
“But that was two weeks ago! You can not go on keep ringing my bell! You disturb me! You must have a key made!”
Early cinema trafficked in a ton of these kinds of two-dimensional characters, and depending on the genre, most ethnic minorities got “the treatment.” Westerns were rife with white actors playing either noble savages, demure Indian maidens, or vicious “redskins;” while the spectre of the “yellow peril” brought us a number of thrillers predicated upon the perceptions of Asians — usually Chinese — as duplicitous, conniving, and malevolent. Add some makeup meant to suggest “slitted” eyes, and white actors were good to go.
CLIP: Murder Over New York
“Oh, won’t you come in Mr. Chan?”
“Thank you very much. Most charming apartment. “
“Thank you.”
“Can only stay moment. Have found missing pearl?”
CLIP: The Conqueror
“By whose leave do you cross my lands?”
“The chief’s lands are those his men can hold with arms, Temujin.”
‘The market chief comes to dispute them?”
“Were we alone it would be easier, Targutai.”
“Blood brother speaks in riddles!”
CLIP: The Teahouse of the August Moon
“Okinawa very fortunate! Culture brought to us. Not have to leave home for it.”
One of the most insidious tools of white supremacy is its insistence on whiteness as the racial default, or as an ethnic “empty” category. White people manage to exist in a kind of invisible zone, where they are assumed to not have a race or ethnicity. This allows whiteness to wear the cultural, religious, or social signifiers of other ethnic communities as if they were merely accessories to be purchased at the mall. Oh, wait: they are!
It’s no surprise that a country founded upon the exploited labor of racialized others, would feel a divine right of ownership to both those bodies and their cultures. If you exercise total control over a human being, body and soul, then it’s not a great stretch to believe that you own their stories as well.
Cultural difference had to be repressed, denigrated, or contained. Part of this *containment* was accomplished by ensuring that opportunities for ethnic minorities in early cinema remained few and far between.
CLIP: Murder Over New York
“Pop! Hey, Pop! Pop! Gosh, I almost missed ya!”
“What are you doing in New York?”
“Got stuck in a cross-town traffic jam.”
“Inspector Vance, this is favorite offspring, Jimmy. Without whose assistance, many cases would have been solved much sooner.”
100 years later, and it’s no longer rare to see an actual person of color on screen —
CLIP: Two Broke Girls
“Oh, Han, Max and I have to do press for my movie, so we can’t work tomorrow.”
“Can you at least tell people not to put cigarettes out on my family photos? There’s a giant hole in my grandma!”
— but it’s also no surprise that the roles they get offered still often conform to 31 flavors of outdated, problematic archetypes: the pan-Asian martial arts expert, the inner-city thug, the spicy Latina — and everyone’s current favorite: the Muslim terrorist!
CLIP: Homeland
“No games, Mr. Lockhart!
“Oh, no, no!”
And the truly, utterly absurd thing is that it’s tempting to think of even those problematic roles as a small step up. Because things used to be — and sometimes still are! — so much worse.
CLIP: Prince of Persia
“I’m not letting you go!”
So it’s 2017 and we’ve moved away from many — not all, but many — of the most overt racist representations that clouded our media landscape, right?
CLIP: Ghost in the Shell
“Everyone around me, they feel connected to something I’m…not.”
Huh. Well, let’s just say that old-school blackface or yellowface are not quite so prevalent as they used to be. You would think that the race to cast white actors in roles that call for a people of color would have died a long-overdue death. But no. It’s still alive and kicking, and folks almost seem to be more and more insistent about keeping it afloat.
And depressingly there are so many more. Seriously — what’s so hard about, you know, actually casting people of color in stories that are, at least nominally, about them?
CLIP: A Mighty Heart
“You make me happy every time you smile. We’re going to create a beautiful world together.”
CLIP: A Beautiful Mind
“If I can ask you to dinner…you do eat, don’t you?
CLIP: Stuck
“I thought you said you hit a guy?”
“He’s the guy.”
“But you, you didn’t say you hit a guy and brought him home with you.
CLIP: How I Met Your Mother
“Are you Red Bird?”
“Are you sure you really know how to…?”
“What is the sound of one hand slapping?”
“I’m sorry, I don’t understand …”
“Wait. How did you–”
CLIP: Avatar: The Last Airbender
“You are the only one who can control all of the elements…and bring peace to our world.”
CLIP: The Lone Ranger
“The woman, Rebecca — you will fill her with child.”
“What? No!”
CLIP: Argo
“I need you to help me make a fake movie.”
“So you want to come to Hollywood and act like a big shot without actually doing anything.”
“Yeah.”
“You’ll fit right in.”
No sense making things hard for yourself by inviting actual people of color on-set who might reveal that your entire story is kinda racist, or super duper massively racist — a lesson learned by Adam Sandler during the making of The Ridiculous 6.
CLIP: The Ridiculous 6
“Morning, Never Wears Bra.”
“Good morning, boys!”
“You have no right to be here! This Apache land!
“And what you gon’ do, Beaver Breath?”
“How he know my name?”
“That’s her name!”
CLIP: KRQE News 13
“Video posted online today shows what happened when a group of Native American actors walked off an Adam Sandler movie.”
“You trying to tell a Native what’s disrespectful to them?”
‘It’s degrading to women. Because you know, as a Native American person, we hold our women very sacred.”
“They said women had names like, ‘Beaver’s Breath’ and ‘Wears No Bra.’
“We don’t need to sell out our people, either.”
“I understand completely. But we’re not going to change ‘Beaver Breath.’”
It’s ridiculous that audiences of color have to keep raising their hands like kids in a classroom and demand to be heard, but here we are.
And it’s not as if the explanations for whitewashing are ever new, or particularly logical. They essentially boil down to three lackluster defenses:
China Won’t Let Us
The Best Guy Got the Job
My Black Friend is Ok With It
Laid bare this way, every one of these rationalizations is clearly absurd, but that doesn’t stop directors, producers, and casting agents from trotting them out every time they feel like co-opting an ethnic experience for the latest hot white actor du jour.
One: China Won’t Let Us: a.k.a. international audiences and funders are not as ENLIGHTENED as us, and won’t let us cast all the wonderful actors of color we’ve been just dying to hire.
The argument that audiences won’t go see a film with a lead actor of color is just factually untrue. Audiences are smart enough to know when they’re being served up a counterfeit version of the real thing, and by and large, they reject it. The films that have been called out the most recently for whitewashing have also been critical and commercial disasters. Meanwhile, minority-led projects are killing it on TV and at the box office.
CLIP: Get Out
“I ain’t never seen you like this before, bruh. Taking road trips…Don’t come back all bourgie, man.”
CLIP: Master of None
“We need you to do an accent.”
“You mean like an Indian accent?”
“You know, Ben Kingsley did an accent in Gandhi and won the Oscar for it, so…”
“But, he didn’t win the Oscar just for doing the accent. I mean, it wasn’t an Oscar for “Best Indian Accent.”
Two: The Best Guy Got the Job: a.k.a. Of all the white guys we auditioned, this was the best white guy
First of all, whether you are explicit or not with your casting calls, if you have an overwhelming amount of white talent available, it is your responsibility to widen the net. Secondly, think about what these creators are actually saying: that time and time again, it just happens to be the white actors who impress them more. Is this because white actors are inherently better than actors of color? That they show more range? That they disappear into a part more? Of course not.
What is true, is that these directors, producers, and showrunners, consciously or not, have defaulted back to whiteness. If a role calls for a lawyer or a doctor, unless the casting sheet specifically calls for a BLACK doctor, or an ASIAN lawyer, then they don’t even bring POC in to audition. The generic “every man” or “every woman” in our culture is still assumed to be white, and all positive characteristics they possess are wrapped up in that whiteness. So, of course, when white actors audition for a role, they seem like a more “natural” fit. So they cast the white actor, and trust that the ethnic background or racial heritage can just be an addendum – something incidental. Because that’s how they always saw it, anyway.
And three: My Black Friend is Ok With It —
Your black friend? Probably not okay with it.
Frankly, representations of difference have been messed up for as long as we’ve been telling stories — it’s just that the development of visual media makes those representations more visceral and potentially, more damaging. There’s whitewashing, sure — but there’s also a bumper crop of white savior narratives out there, too– and directors certainly don’t seem to be taking a break from making those.
And even though critical and commercial reactions to these epics is usually of the “thanks, but no thanks” variety, white media creators continue to trot out the same, tired hope that no one will notice that the worlds they create are full of white subjects, and racialized objects.
But we do notice. And communities of color have always noticed and spoken up — but increasingly, white audiences are responding in kind. Sadly, that’s probably what it’s going to take for Hollywood power players to stop recycling the same old tired projects, with the same old familiar white faces. It’s going to take more white people speaking up. So speak up. Stop giving these terrible projects your money, and stop writing people of color out of their own stories. Oh, and also, stop making excuses for your terrible racist Halloween costumes. Hey, Chad! I mean you.
This is our brand new Feminist Frequency show! If you like what we’re doing here, please share with friends, subscribe for more videos, and donate to help us continue making them! | {
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The invoice states that the trip lasted four days in November 2012 and flew from Washington to Kabul in Afghanistan and back again stopping for fuel at Shannon, Dubai and, on the return leg, London.
Under the section listing “passengers,” the word “blocked” is typed by the aircraft leasing company Richmor Aviation, which has an address at Hudson, about two hours north of New York City. The tail number of the plane is N85VM, a Gulfstream jet, and the trip cost $198,930.30, according to the invoice dated November 15th, 2002.
The aircraft “almost certainly picked up” Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, a Saudi citizen, according to The Rendition Project, the research project compiled by two UK-based academics that tracked the CIA’s “rendition” and torture of al-Qaeda suspects around the globe, and Reprieve, the human rights group and legal charity.
The US government alleges that al-Nashiri was the mastermind behind the bombing of the USS Cole that killed 17 American sailors in Yemen in 2000. He was held at secret CIA prisons or “black sites” in Afghanistan, Thailand, Poland, Morocco and Romania, before being moved to the controversial detention centre at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The Rendition Project and Reprieve have identified 27 aircraft used by the CIA in its rendition programme which they claim landed more than 200 times at Irish airports on global circuits that ferried al-Qaeda suspects around secret prisons or “black sites” between 2001 and 2006.
Some of these circuits included so-called “tech stops” at Shannon and involved stopovers at destinations known to be central to the CIA’s so-called rendition, detention and torture programme.
The use of Shannon or other Irish airports is not mentioned, at least not referred to by name, in the 525-report on the CIA torture and rendition programme released by a Senate intelligence committee.
The Rendition Project database, which includes information on more than 11,000 flights by the 27 aircraft sourced from flight records, invoices and interviews, shows stopovers either before or after landing in Ireland, in Jordan (25 times), Afghanistan (25), United Arab Emirates (16), Egypt (11), Morocco (8), Libya (6), Guantanamo Bay (6), Iraq (5), Djibouti (4), Diego Garcia (3), Pakistan (3), Romania (3), Thailand (2), Lithuania (1) and Algeria (1).
On 11 occasions between July 2002 and October 2004, “available evidence points strongly towards Irish airports being used by the aircraft on the way to, or on the way back from, known rendition of detainees in the ‘war on terror,’” The Rendition Project and Reprieve say. The groups found that there were another 16 trips or “circuits” between September 2002 and August 2006 involving stopovers at Irish airports that involved earlier or later connections between two or more secret prisons, suggesting that these are more “rendition” operations.
Among the prisoners - or high-value detainees, as the US identifies them - who travelled on aircraft that had stopped in Shannon on the way to or from picking them up and “rendering” them elsewhere - were Hassan bin Attash, a Yemeni/Saudi national, and Ramzi bin al-Shibh, a Yemeni according to The Rendition Project/Reprieve. The two men have been at Guantanamo for 10 years and 8 years respectively.
The US claims Bin al-Shibh helped the 9-11 hijackers, while Bin Attash is the brother of Waleed Mohammed bin Attash, who has been charged with helping to train the hijackers.
The men were transported from Afghanistan to Jordan and then Morocco on another Gulfstream jet with the tail number N379P. After stopping at Morocco the plane flew to Shannon. Both men claim that they were tortured at “black sites” before being moved to Guantanamo.
“We don’t know of a flight that had a detainee on board when it went through Shannon,” said Steve Kostas, an investigator who worked with Reprieve gathering information on the rendition programme. “But I don’t think that absolves Ireland by any stretch.”
Dr Sam Raphael, a senior lecturer in international relations at Kingston University in London, said he found it hard to see the moral justification of the Irish Government allowing the CIA use Shannon and other Irish airports on the rendition circuits - it’s kind of like “helping a bank robber on the way to a bank robbery,” he said.
“Even though there weren’t detainees on board, these were fundamentally important logistical stops. Without the use of Irish territory they couldn’t have taken place in the way they did,” said Dr Raphael who built The Rendition Project database in a collaborative research project with Dr Ruth Blakeley at the University of Kent.
Mr Kostas said he interviewed pilots who told him that the oversight at Shannon for what was known as government planes or aircraft on “a government mission” was “extremely lax.”
“No one would check the manifest or look on-board the plane,” he said.
The Irish Department of Transport said that it had no role in checking aircraft or flight manifests, which is a requirement of the Garda or Revenue Commissioners.
The Department of Justice said that the Garda has “full authority to search civil aircraft where they have reasonable grounds for suspecting illegal activity such as extraordinary rendition” and that gardai had investigated complaints from members of the public about aircraft passing through Shannon but had found no evidence of rendition.
The Government has consistently stated that it is “completely opposed to the practice of extraordinary rendition,” a department spokesman said. While there is no evidence that detainees were transported through Irish airports, the department acknowledged that aircraft that may have previously or subsequently been involved in renditions might have passed through Shannon Airport, he said.
“It is recognised that a small number of commercially leased aircraft which have been involved in legitimate commercial activities may also have been involved at various other times in activities relating to extraordinary renditions,” said a Department of Justice spokesman.
“However, there is no evidence to suggest that any of these aircraft were carrying prisoners at any time when they transited through Irish airports.”
Last night a spokeswoman for the Department of Foreign Affairs said the US government had made assurances to the Irish Government “at the highest level” that no prisoners have been transported “for rendition purposes” through Irish territory. | {
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The previous page is sending you to https://jalopnik.com/florida-man-stops-street-fight-by-running-everyone-over-1789305178 If you do not want to visit that page, you can return to the previous page | {
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French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo is facing backlash from Russian officials for cartoons depicting a plane crash that killed members of Russia’s Red Army choir last week.
A military Tu-154 aircraft was carrying the choir from Syria to Russia when it crashed into the Black Sea on Dec. 25, killing all 92 on board. The cause of the crash remains unclear.
One cartoon shows a choir member singing "AAAAAA" as the plane is going down. The caption says the Russian choir has expanded its repertoire.
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Another cartoon illustrates the whole choir singing to fish at the bottom of the Black Sea with the downed plane in the background. The caption reads, "Red Army choir conquers a new audience.”A third cartoon shows the plane nosediving with the words: "Bad news... Putin was not on board."Chechnya leader Ramzan Kadyrov took to Instagram to slam the magazine, calling the editorial policy "immoral and inhuman.""The edition published cartoons of the crash of Tu-154 and the murder of the Russian ambassador in Ankara," Kadyrov wrote. "I have previously said and now repeat, that the editorial policy of the journal is immoral and inhuman.""It has nothing to do with the freedom of the press, directly or indirectly," Kadyrov continued. "Millions of Russians and our friends across the world are personally grieving the murder of Andrei Karlov and the Tu-154 disaster, and Charlie Hebdo mocks our national tragedy."Karlov was Russia's ambassador to Turkey. He was assassinated while speaking at an art gallery exhibition in Ankara by an off-duty Turkish police officer last week.Igor Konashenkov, a spokesman for Russia's Defense Ministry, said, “Even paying attention to his vile garbage is demeaning to the normal person."Charlie Hebdo has been targeted twice by terrorists in 2011 and 2015 for its depiction of the Prophet Muhammad.The 2015 attack killed 12 staffers, including several prominent cartoonists. | {
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MONTRÉAL - L'Impact de Montréal a annoncé samedi que l'attaquant américain Cameron Porter a signé un contrat avec le club.
« Cameron est un jeune joueur qui a montré du potentiel durant le camp d’entraînement et il nous a impressionné, a déclaré l'entraîneur-chef et directeur du personnel des joueurs Frank Klopas. Ce sera maintenant à lui de continuer à travailler fort et nous prouver qu’il mérite des minutes de jeu. »
Porter, âgé de 21 ans, avait été repêché par l’Impact en troisième ronde, 45e au total, lors du dernier SuperDraft de la MLS.
Il a été nommé le Joueur offensif de l'année de l'ECAC en 2014 avec l'Université Princeton, marquant 15 buts en 17 matchs, un sommet au niveau collégial américain la saison dernière. En quatre saisons universitaires, il a récolté 31 buts et 13 passes décisives. | {
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ALBANY (AP) New York’s attorney general, Andrew M. Cuomo, said Thursday that he had issued new subpoenas to Aetna, Cigna, the UnitedHealth Group, WellPoint and other health insurers in a broadening investigation of a practice that he said was unfairly costing consumers hundreds of millions of dollars.
He is also looking to subpoena testimony from the chief executives of those companies, as well as from executives of Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield, Excellus and the combined Group Health Inc. and HIP Health Plan.
Mr. Cuomo says he believes the companies used a company called Ingenix, which is owned by UnitedHealth, to set payment rates for medical treatments that resulted in consumers being reimbursed at unjustifiably low rates. Low reimbursements mean higher out-of-pocket costs for consumers when they choose or need doctors outside their health plans.
“Ingenix is a wholly owned subsidiary of the industry, and the company is determining the rates that the insurance companies use to reimburse consumers,” Mr. Cuomo said. | {
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Such large numbers can often seem quite abstract and why it is helpful to provide comparisons for scale (we often hear of icebergs many times the size of Manhattan for example). Whilst $8.6 Billion will buy you around 865 Million Tim Horton donuts or 75 Million tickets to see the Canucks the values of Canadian biggest companies provide a useful benchmark.
A company’s value or market cap is similarly determined by calculating the value of all shares outstanding. In Canada, the largest of these companies are listed on the $TSX index which is made up of 240 companies with a combined valuation of ~$1.5 Trillion dollars (that’s probably equivalent to a Timbit the size of Manhattan). The smallest company has a valuation of ~$300 Million with the largest, currently the Royal Bank of Canada, having a valuation of ~$101 Billion. Bitcoin’s current market cap of ~$8 Billion fits nicely into that range.
Using the TSX data and historical Bitcoin data from the Canadian Bitcoin Index it is possible to display Bitcoin’s relative position to the largest Canadian public companies. As this list includes the likes of well known brands such as Blackberry (~$4.8 Billion), Canadian Tire (~$7.9 Billion) and Telus (~$23.4 Billion) it presents the scale of Bitcoin in a more easily digestible way.
At the time of writing, Bitcoin is currently as large as the 47th largest Canadian company, which is Dollarama Inc (who, somewhat ironically for a Bitcoin article, operate dollar stores throughout Canada). Canada’s largest company the Royal Bank of Canada has a market cap of ~$101 Billion some 12 times larger than Bitcoin.
Depending on which side of the Bitcoin fence you currently sit there is a conclusion to be drawn here. For those skeptical of Bitcoin, it is clear that it has reached a scale of some legitimacy and for those more bullish of Bitcoin’s potential, it is clear that Bitcoin still has a long way to grow.
You can find live Bitcoin data including market capitalization and live prices from all Canadian Dollar supported exchanges on the Canadian Bitcoin Index.
Note: The stock data is updated daily so any sharp intraday moves by the constituent stocks will not be represented until the following period. | {
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A Well Known Weight Loss Program "the Fat Diminisher" by Wesley Virgin Releases Latest Updates About the System; This Report Uncovers the Aspects and Details of the Product
BAYSIDE, NY --(Marketwired - November 23, 2015) - The is a comprehensive program designed for people who want to lose weight fast and safely. It's a complete natural guide to boost up the metabolism of the body, kill extra fat and providing a healthy in-shape body. It has home-techniques to deal with overweight issues; thus no drugs, medicines or gym are required. Fat Diminisher System is a comprehensive program designed for people who want to lose weight fast and safely. It's a complete natural guide to boost up the metabolism of the body, kill extra fat and providing a healthy in-shape body. It has home-techniques to deal with overweight issues; thus no drugs, medicines or gym are required.
According to the report by Healthy Nutrition, "There are many factors that may influence the body weight. Obesity occurs when there's an imbalance between energy intake from the diet and total energy consumed by the body for physical tasks. The body starts gaining weight when it is failed to keep the fat and calories in check. Genetic and environmental factors also play a role in overweight issues. The body's extra stored fat can be removed by following healthy diet and lifestyle and this is what theall about."Ashley White reports, "Fat Diminisher is a complete system to guide people rightly through their journey of losing weight. It's a well designed program for people looking for an effective solution to their obesity or overweight problems. It has the techniques to reduce weight, strengthening metabolism of the body, boosting up fat burning and improving overall health of the body by providing fitness."the creator of the, "Counting calories and planning out your meals is a surefire way to drop pounds. The accurate information and specialized approaches about the helpful diet plans and home-exercise can reduce weight safely without using any drug or getting expensive treatments. This program is well researched-based and has been experimented on my own self as I was once an obese person who, with the help of his studies and research, succeeded in finding an ultimate solution of killing body fat." Wesley Virgin is now a famous weight loss specialist, fitness trainer and a motivational speaker as well.Ashley White explains, "Healthy diet and proper physical activity are important for maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Controlling the body weight means balancing the energy going into the body and keeping check on the energy being used for growth and repair, for physical activity, and to keep the bodily functions working. The body feels the need to consume more food for generating energy without using the energy in stored fats which is the main problem. An excess energy intake (means eating out of routine) even a small amount over a long period, will cause weight gain. Thus it is really important that a person should know what he should eat and what he should avoid, also set up the routine for proper diet consumption."has a proper schedule already planned for people to follow on their diets and exercises. The diet plans have important and effective recipes for three times meal of the day and exercise takes only 5 minutes daily and can be done at home at any time. Fat Diminisher recommends doing workout before breakfast as it the peak time of the body craving for energy and when it doesn't get any, it starts burning the stored fats for producing energy. Then if taken a proper healthy breakfast as mentioned in the system, the body will have more chances of utilizing the health benefits of the healthy ingredients included in the recipe. That increases the chances of fast results," reports Ashley."Fat Diminisher is a simple, step-by-step guide to deal with the overweight and lazy metabolism. Virgin has also provided his secret tips to keep the body weight stable after killing all the extra fat. He makes sure that the body doesn't start gaining weight again thus his tips work in keeping the body slim forever. The program is divided into several parts informing about various aspects of tackling obesity. It is available in a PDF format thus can be accessed from anywhere in the world. User reviews have been positive so far as the book is really easy to understand and effective," she added.Available with a reasonable price tag and the assurance of money back guarantee,is doing ground breaking success in the market with its positive results on its users. For more information, contact their active customer support service or visit their website.Healthy Nutrition is an independently owned company situated in New York, NY that assists consumers to find user-based information on specified products and services to help individuals determine if those specific products and services are in fact a suitable fit for them. | {
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Icahn, 80, has informally given the president-elect advice in recent months and helped Trump to pick Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt as head of the Environmental Protection Agency, according to Dow Jones, which first reported the news. Icahn will also help to choose the next chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, the report said.
"I am proud to serve President-elect Trump as a special advisor on regulatory reform. Under President Obama, America's business owners have been crippled by over $1 trillion in new regulations and over 750 billion hours dealing with paperwork," Icahn said in a statement. "It's time to break free of excessive regulation and let our entrepreneurs do what they do best: create jobs and support communities. President-elect Trump is serious about helping American families, and regulatory reform will be a critical component of making America work again."
Trump's team said in a statement that the activist investor will aid him in an "individual capacity" rather than as a federal employee or special government employee, adding that he will not have "specific duties." He therefore likely will not have to give up his varied business interests while advising Trump on policy.
Donald Trump has named billionaire investor Carl Icahn , a frequent critic of some Obama administration rules and a major fossil fuel investor, a special advisor on regulation, the president-elect's transition team announced Wednesday.
Icahn has frequently criticized Obama administration rules and told CNBC that he supported Trump's choice of Pruitt, who has battled the current president's EPA and expressed doubts about how much humans affect climate change. Icahn previously said the EPA was one of the worst-run agencies he had ever seen.
The activist investor is known for battling companies to make changes that he believes will boost their share prices. Icahn's holdings include CVR Energy, Cheniere Energy and insurance giant AIG, which could all be affected by Trump's regulatory agenda.
Icahn previously had a major stake in Apple, among other notable companies.
In a CNBC interview earlier this month, Icahn said the "most important thing" for Trump's administration to do is "absolutely change these regulatory agencies" that have overreached, pointing to the EPA.
"What's happened over the last eight years is companies are afraid to invest because they're afraid of what is going to happen if they invest ... you're afraid that they're going to come in and ruin your business," Icahn said.
However, in a CNBC interview after Trump's win in November, Icahn said he is "not against regulation," as he would not want to repeal Dodd-Frank, the post-financial crisis regulatory act that Trump has said he wants to roll back.
But he said that "you can't let the regulators start running the country."
Icahn was an early supporter of Trump's presidential bid. He donated the maximum $2,700 to Trump's campaign and gave another $200,000 to his joint fundraising committee with the Republican Party. Only $2,700 of his donation to that committee can go directly to the president-elect's campaign. | {
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Democrats are facing an uphill fight to win back Ohio in 2020 as Republicans look to solidify their grip on the Buckeye State two years after President Trump Donald John TrumpFederal prosecutor speaks out, says Barr 'has brought shame' on Justice Dept. Former Pence aide: White House staffers discussed Trump refusing to leave office Progressive group buys domain name of Trump's No. 1 Supreme Court pick MORE carried it by 8 points.
While former President Obama won the state in 2012, Trump and Republicans have since been able to capitalize on the state’s white working-class vote in areas like Mahoning County, which includes Youngstown.
Democrats are skeptical about their chances of winning the state back, but party officials and strategists stress there is a path to victory, in part, through the state’s suburbs, where polling shows Trump’s support is wearing away.
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The party’s choice to hold its fourth Democratic debate in the Columbus suburbs speaks to that goal of making inroads with the suburban vote.
“The common theme of all this shifting is that suburbs, where the debate is, are shifting from red to blue,” Ohio Democratic Party Chairman David Pepper told The Hill. “The path to victory for [former Ohio Gov.] John Kasich, or even Bush against Kerry, that really relied heavily on major margins of victory in the suburbs.”
Republicans largely dominated House races in Ohio in 2018, holding on to 12 districts Trump carried in 2016. Democrats carried four districts won by presidential nominee Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham ClintonBloomberg rolls out M ad buy to boost Biden in Florida Hillicon Valley: Productivity, fatigue, cybersecurity emerge as top concerns amid pandemic | Facebook critics launch alternative oversight board | Google to temporarily bar election ads after polls close Trump pledges to make Juneteenth a federal holiday, designate KKK a terrorist group in pitch to Black voters MORE in 2016.
However, there was movement toward Democrats at local levels.
Westerville, which is split between Franklin and Delaware counties, is a prime example of a once red stronghold trending blue.
Then-President George W. Bush defeated Democratic nominee John Kerry John Forbes KerryThe Memo: Warning signs flash for Trump on debates Divided country, divided church TV ads favored Biden 2-1 in past month MORE by 23 points in 2004, while Republican nominee Mitt Romney Willard (Mitt) Mitt RomneyCrenshaw looms large as Democrats look to flip Texas House seat The Hill's Morning Report - Sponsored by Facebook - Republicans lawmakers rebuke Trump on election Trump dumbfounds GOP with latest unforced error MORE defeated then-President Obama in the city by 8 points in 2012.
But Clinton beat Trump in the city by 4 points in 2016.
While Democrat Danny O’Connor lost his bid to unseat Ohio Rep. Troy Balderson (R) last year, Democrats point out he was able to win Westerville by 12 points.
A number of Columbus suburbs also flipped from red to blue in 2018 federal office races, including Upper Arlington, New Albany, Gahanna and Dublin.
Democratic officials point as well to Hamilton County, which includes Cincinnati, as a Republican stronghold that has turned blue.
“What we’ve seen again from both the growth in the urban core of Cincinnati, as well as changing attitudes among suburban voters in Hamilton County and Cincinnati, is that this part of the state is trending away from Republicans and it’s helping Democrats gain the kind of coalition that is needed to win statewide in Ohio,” a Democratic National Committee (DNC) official said in a call with reporters on Monday.
Democrats will still need to turn out more than just urban and suburban voters to win the state.
Former Ohio state Sen. Nina Turner (D) said Democrats will need to maintain the same messaging throughout the state’s urban centers, suburbs and rural communities.
“If I'm talking to somebody in Westerville , for example, or Youngstown or my hometown of Cleveland, the message is the same, that the system is rigged against working people like you and that we must do everything in our power to unreel a corrupt system that allows far too few people to have it all and far too many people to barely get by,” Turner told The Hill.
However, Democrats still face an uphill climb in the Republican dominated state.
While Democrats stress that three-term Sen. Sherrod Brown Sherrod Campbell BrownMnuchin says he and Pelosi have agreed to restart coronavirus stimulus talks Harris faces pivotal moment with Supreme Court battle Remote work poses state tax challenges MORE (D-Ohio) was able to defeat former Rep. Jim Renacci James (Jim) B. RenacciOhio is suddenly a 2020 battleground Democrats fear Ohio slipping further away in 2020 Medicare for All won't deliver what Democrats promise MORE (R-Ohio) by roughly 7 points in 2018, Brown remains Ohio’s only statewide elected Democrat.
Ohio’s congressional delegation is dominated by Republicans, while Gov. Mike DeWine (R) defeated Democrat Richard Cordray Richard Adams CordrayConsumer bureau revokes payday lending restrictions Supreme Court ruling could unleash new legal challenges to consumer bureau Supreme Court rules consumer bureau director can be fired at will MORE in 2018 after carrying 50 percent of the vote compared to his opponent’s 46.7 percent.
On top of that, Trump had a successful run in the state in 2016, winning nine counties that previously went for Obama in 2012.
The president also carried 80 of the state’s 88 counties in 2016, the most won by a presidential candidate since then-President Reagan won 82 of the state’s counties in 1984.
Republicans, however, are not taking any chances on the state, given that no Republican president in history has won election without Ohio.
A recent Public Policy Polling survey, conducted on behalf of the progressive group Innovation Ohio, shows Trump tied with a number of Democratic presidential front-runners, including Sens. Elizabeth Warren Elizabeth WarrenOvernight Defense: Appeals court revives House lawsuit against military funding for border wall | Dems push for limits on transferring military gear to police | Lawmakers ask for IG probe into Pentagon's use of COVID-19 funds On The Money: Half of states deplete funds for Trump's 0 unemployment expansion | EU appealing ruling in Apple tax case | House Democrats include more aid for airlines in coronavirus package Warren, Khanna request IG investigation into Pentagon's use of coronavirus funds MORE (D-Mass.) and Bernie Sanders Bernie SandersSirota reacts to report of harassment, doxing by Harris supporters Republicans not immune to the malady that hobbled Democrats The Hill's Morning Report - Sponsored by Facebook - Republicans lawmakers rebuke Trump on election MORE (I-Vt.), in the state, a potential warning sign for the GOP. The same poll showed former Vice President Joe Biden Joe BidenFormer Pence aide: White House staffers discussed Trump refusing to leave office Progressive group buys domain name of Trump's No. 1 Supreme Court pick Bloomberg rolls out M ad buy to boost Biden in Florida MORE edging Trump by 2 percentage points.
“We know the path to the White House runs through Ohio, and the RNC and the Trump campaign, we’re not taking anything for granted,” Mandi Merritt, the Republican National Committee’s (RNC) regional communications director for the Ohio Valley and the Northeast, said in an interview.
“We have activated over 10,000 volunteers just in a 2018 cycle alone. We made over 5 million voter contacts,” she continued. “Now flash forward to 2020. I mean, the Trump campaign and the RNC are developing the most expansive campaign operation in modern history, and that's including Ohio.”
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Trump, himself, has also made a number of recent visits to Ohio, underscoring the importance of his political base in the state.
Last month, he visited a manufacturing facility in Wapakoneta, Ohio, with the Australian prime minister. The town is part of Auglaize County, which Trump won in 2016 with 75 percent of the vote.
Some Democrats believe they can make inroads with working-class voters that they lost to Trump in 2016, specifically citing General Motors’ shuttered Lordstown plant.
“In 2016, Trump came to Ohio as sort of the hope of change candidate. He went into Youngstown and said, ‘I'm going to bring back all the manufacturing jobs, I'm going to save Lordstown,’ ” veteran Ohio Democratic strategist Aaron Pickrell said.
“None of those things have come to fruition. And I think a lot of voters were willing to give Trump a chance, and so far his promises haven't been met,” he continued.
However, Democrats are also focusing on swing states, like Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, that Trump flipped in 2016 and that are now seen potentially as a higher priority.
“Ohio is a tough state that is seemingly getting tougher for Democrats. It's not, you know, the swing states that Michigan or Wisconsin or Pennsylvania or Florida is,” Justin Barasky, Brown’s campaign manager in 2018, told The Hill. “It is still winnable if you have a candidate that voters believe is authentic and is fighting for them.” | {
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Photo: Helen Sloan/HBO
If you, like millions of other people on the internet, had a problem with the way Game of Thrones wrapped up on Sunday, I highly recommend watching it on three hours of sleep while jet-lagged in the airport of a foreign country. It is only there, temporarily suspended in the twilight of human consciousness, surrounded by people speaking Danish, that things begin to make a sort of nebulous sense. Making one protagonist they spent eight seasons forcing us to care about brutally murder the other protagonist they spent eight seasons convincing us to care about in cold blood out of absolutely nowhere? Makes sense! Tyrion convincing Jon Snow to pull off this murder via exactly one (1) four-minute conversation? Yes, sure. I love it. Jon Snow having his hair gel in prison? Sure. Arya becoming a proud colonizer? This tracks!
Since I didn’t get to write about last week’s episode (I was covering the Cannes Film Festival), I will weigh in briefly to say LOL. And now let’s move on. The finale begins with Jon, Davos, and Tyrion trudging through the snow and ash in King’s Landing, doing a little tour of the destruction. A man walks past Tyrion, burned to a crisp except for his underwear, which points to Dany’s great generosity. Grey Worm is randomly executing Lannister soldiers as a way to externalize his heartbreak. Jon and Davos ask him not to, and he’s like, “Absolutely not. I will leave this show only after I have totally destroyed the good will toward my character. You should think about doing the same.” He slits a throat.
Photo: Courtesy of Rachel Handler
Tyrion is searching the burnt husk of the castle for his dead incest twin siblings. He finds them beneath a pile of rocks and sobs, throwing bricks around (disrespectful, considering). I get why he’s sad for Jaime, with whom he spent a lot of time briefly showing emotion in front of a fire, but there is zero textual evidence to support his sadness for Cersei.
Photo: Imgflip and HBO
Jon Snow is not ready for the final Rose Ceremony. He hasn’t decided whether he’s going to choose Dany or choose nobody (because she is the only contestant this season). His turmoil is clear in his desperate face and his frizzy hair, which he has unforgivably neglected. Grey Worm waits for him at the top of the castle stairs, despite the fact that he was just murdering people indiscriminately in a different location 12 seconds ago. Dany’s Large Adult Dragon son flies overhead, briefly swooping down to give Jon a wedgie. Dany walks to the front of the castle steps, wearing all black and dramatic shoulder pads to indicate she is Now Bad. She clears her throat. “This is the final Rose Ceremony,” she screams. “It is the time to ask yourself, once and for all, are you here for the right reasons?”
Jon looks confused. “Where’s Chris Harrison?” he asks, tugging nervously on his wedgie. Dany laughs, furls of black smoke escaping from her mouth. “I swallowed him,” she says. “He is now speaking out of me.”
Photo: Imgflip and HBO
Tyrion approaches Dany to ask if she believes her abrupt left turn into a murderously insane character has felt believable to her, or if she, too, thinks Amanda Peet’s husband spent too much time giving himself fun little cameos and writing scenes with men briefly showing each other emotion in front of fires and not enough time figuring out how to write women. “How dare you question me, Amanda Peet’s husband, and Chris Harrison, who lives inside my mouth?!” she shrieks. “This is the highest-rated reality-television series in the world. We are changing minds. We are changing lives. Perhaps we’ve had to kill millions along the way, but what are millions of dead people when you’ve got a shot at true love?” She banishes Tyrion to prison. Jon Snow gulps audibly like a cartoon character to indicate he is Experiencing Some Moral Confusion.
Photo: Imgflip and HBO
Arya and Jon are having an argument in front of all of the soldiers. Arya is like, “Dany is never going to let you live unless you agree to a lifelong Fuck Plot.” Jon gulps again and tugs his collar, looking straight at the camera. “What if I’m not ready for a proposal?” he asks Arya. “It’s only been a few weeks. I hate this process. How do I know if I’ve met the one?”
Arya laughs. “The process works,” she says, patting Jon on the shoulder. Jon shudders involuntarily. “Did Chris tell you to say that?” he says. Arya winks and walks away.
Photo: Courtesy of Rachel Handler
Terrified that everyone in his life is actually a producer for The Bachelor, Jon visits Tyrion in prison. “Should I marry Dany?” asks Jon. “We’ve had a complicated six weeks. I love her, but she’s my aunt, and her sons terrify me. She’s also been acting kind of weird this week, burning down cities, but please don’t judge her — it’s been a rough transition. Oh, and she ate Chris Harrison. Actually, I appreciate that part. But the show has no host anymore. So I’m not really sure who’s hosting the final Rose Ceremony? Anyway.”
“Actually, you should murder her,” says Tyrion.
“Uh, what?” says Jon. “Truly what? I don’t even … what?!”
“You should kill her because we only have 40 minutes left in this episode and we absolutely must wrap this up in a way that is totally fucking out of control and random,” says Tyrion.
“Well, when you put it that way,” says Jon. “10-4.”
Photo: Imgflip and HBO
One of Dany’s sons is hiding underneath a pile of snow and pops up just as Jon walks past, screaming “Boo!!!” and pulling down Jon’s pants. Jon starts weeping uncontrollably. “Shit, dude,” says Dany’s son. “Chill.” Upstairs, Dany approaches the Iron Throne, where she herself will hold the final Rose Ceremony. She strokes it longingly, imagining what it will be like to peg Jon Snow atop it.
Photo: Imgflip and HBO
Jon walks up behind her. “Isn’t this sword chair hot?” asks Dany. “I’ve been aroused by it since I was a child.” She wiggles her eyebrows suggestively.
Jon gulps again. “Uh, Dany, listen,” he says, twiddling his thumbs. “You burned some kids to death. I don’t know how to feel about that, exactly.”
Chris Harrison speaks from Dany’s mouth. “It’s all part of the process, Jon!!!” he screams, his voice desperate and echoey, trapped inside a dark tunnel. Dany swallows hard and Chris is silenced.
Dany looks at Jon. “It’s not easy to be a woman on this show, you know,” she says. “The producers made me get naked in episode ONE. My brother touched my BOOB. I was raped multiple times and then I had to fall in love with my rapist. I had to get naked again inside a FIRE. Little girls around the world told me I was their hero, which means little girls watched me do all that shit. I had to do half of my scenes on a green screen, pretending my sons were phallic mythical creatures. My best friend, one of the only women of color on the show, got beheaded just so I’d have a good reason to go nuts. I never got any fireside chatting scenes. And now I have to act like Stalin for no reason.”
Jon nods sympathetically. “That all sounds really hard. Dany, will you accept this final rose?”
Dany is delighted. “I’ve been waiting so long to hear you say that,” she says, weeping. “Does this mean we’re engaged?”
Jon murders her. “No, sorry,” he says. “I’m not ready for a proposal.”
Photo: Imgflip and HBO
Jon cries over Dany’s body, mostly for the cameras, even though they’ve stopped rolling to deal with the insurance and public-relations fallout from Dany’s death. Her son from downstairs approaches the two of them. “Really?” he says to Jon. “The snow thing was just a practical joke. Jesus Christ.” He torches the Iron Throne, symbolically pointing out that it is stupid. “I knew I was the only woke one on this show,” he says, dragging his mom’s body off-screen. “Ever heard of Galaxy Brain? You should try it.”
Photo: Courtesy of Rachel Handler
Months (?!) have gone by, according to Tyrion’s beard. How cool. Definitely isn’t interesting at all to us what happened in the months after Dany’s death. Anyway, now everyone important on the show who is still alive has gathered to figure out who should be king next. Jon is in prison. Tyrion gets a brief reprieve to help decide (?).
Edmure Tully proposes himself; Sansa is like, “Sit the absolute fuck down.” Sam, a nerd who has had sex twice, invents the idea of democracy and everyone laughs at him because he is a nerd who has had sex twice. Ultimately, everyone chooses … Bran Fuckin’ Stark.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
Photo: Imgflip and HBO
Bran Stark, Westeros’s douchiest start-up bro. Bran Stark, who was “too busy” being uselessly psychic to be the warden of the North. Bran Stark, who admittedly is “not a person anymore.” Bran Stark, who visibly and obviously does not care about anyone except himself, who never warned anybody about the 1 billion deaths to come that he absolutely foresaw, who let people who loved him die to save his life and then just went back to scrolling idly through Twitter.
I don’t know what’s worse Bran Stark being crowned king (hahahahahahahaha) or Tyrion going on a little interlude about how “there’s nothing in the world more powerful than a good story” — in other words, Amanda Peet’s husband and Amanda Peet’s husband’s friend just fully jerking themselves off on international television.
Actually, you know, I think it’s the stories part. The writers … of this show … think that this show was good enough … to represent the foundational power … of storytelling … as a medium … that will save the world?
Photo: Imgflip and HBO
Actually, the WORST part of this scene is the smug smile Bran gives Tyrion when he suggests he become king. “Why do you think I came all this way?” he asks. “Well, besides trying to find more angel investors for my fifth start-up, which will track how many times women say ‘like’ in a sentence and slap them across the face at each instance.”
“I’ll invest!” says Edmure Tully.
“The North is independent now,” says Sansa, yanking on her domme harness. “Because, wow, do you suck.”
Bran’s first order of business as king is to appoint Tyrion as his Hand, because that went so well last time. He also orders everyone to jog barefoot from now on. “Running shoes are making our feet weak,” he says. “My next app will track how many of you actually obey this order.”
Photo: Imgflip and HBO
Jon Snow is regretting murdering Dany. “Do you think it was the right thing?” he asks Tyrion, his curls just slightly too defined to make me believe he has not been using his curly shampoo in prison. “It did great ratings, sure, but did it make sense, from a story perspective?”
“Oh, that? I don’t know, actually,” says Tyrion. “Great q.”
Jon sobs into his giant beard.
“Oh, and you have to go back to the Night’s Watch,” says Tyrion. “Sorry. This is awkward.”
Jon is aghast. “Does that make sense? Narratively? Like, why? I thought I was one of the primary protagonists and people were invested in a satisfying outcome for me?”
“Again, not super sure,” says Tyrion. “But, uh, get ready, because we only have 20 minutes left to wrap this.”
Photo: Imgflip and HBO
Jon is saying good-bye to his sisters, including Sansa, with whom he had sexual tension that nobody ever addressed in an official capacity. It’s too late for that now. He is a born-again virgin. Both kick themselves for forgetting to unpack their palpable chemistry before the show ended. Arya tells everyone she is going “west of Westeros, where the maps stop,” i.e., becoming a colonizer, which as usual totally lines up with her narrative arc of being an independent woman obsessed with justice who won’t bend to society’s will. For some reason, Jon apologizes to Bran, even though Bran is the one who just let him murder a queen and get banished to virgin town.
Photo: Imgflip and HBO
Back to the power of stories, especially Game of Thrones, a story that I will never forget!!! Brienne is updating her blog. “Jaime,” she writes, “tooted it and booted it after years of meaningful glances across battlefields. Then he died on top of his incest twin. I was reduced to a pile of wet sobs. Not sure why. Felt weird even as I did it. Anyway. The end.” She presses publish.
Photo: Imgflip and HBO
Bran’s first meeting as king. He pulls up a PowerPoint about Elon Musk. “This guy right here,” says Bran, “is the king I want to be like. So let’s do that. Can we build a little submarine today?” Everyone looks confused.
“He’s not a king, though,” says Tyrion.
Bran bursts out laughing. “Sure.” He’s barely paying attention, texting his assistant under the table: “Do not forget to ask Elon if he wants some official King’s Landing merch,” he types.
“Anyway, should we discuss official king stuff now?” asks Tyrion.
“Go for it,” says Bran. “I have a lunch thing. Gotta jet.”
Everyone stares at each other dumbly. Sam hands Tyrion a book, titled A Song of Ice and Fire.
“Are you kidding me with this derivative meta shit?” asks Tyrion.
“No,” says Sam, clearing his throat nerdily. “I wish I were. But I’m not.”
Brienne quietly updates her blog under the table.
Photo: Imgflip and HBO
It’s montage time. All of the Stark siblings are totally alone and doing jobs they didn’t really want, save for Arya. Jon approaches the Wall, already looking horny and disappointed. Sansa gets dressed for her first day as queen in the North, finally removing her domme harness, which has begun to chafe after months of wear. Arya picks up some binoculars. Jon hugs Ghost, whom Amanda Peet’s husband could suddenly afford to CGI. Bran is shown at lunch with Elon Musk, laughing as they scroll through photos of Grimes in slow-motion. He ignores a FaceTime from Tyrion.
Jon and his band of merry Wildling snowmen march off into the unknown. The music swells triumphantly, trying very hard to convince us that this is a Good Ending. The Game of Thrones theme is accompanied by vocals for the first time in the history of the series. Hilariously, they are utterly unintelligible. If this isn’t a metaphor for the entire series, I don’t know what is.
Photos: Courtesy of Rachel Handler. Photos: Courtesy of Rachel Handler. | {
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A week or so ago I was asked to make a Facebook post about a few active Wolf:ET communities. I did, and almost 1000 comments later, I realised just how excited you all are still for the game!
So, with the help of =F|A=ScoOfi, we decided it was probably a good idea to try and address a bunch of the questions that came from that Facebook post, and make a clearer guide on how to play W:ET in 2019, how to watch it and highlight some of the communities that are still trucking.
While it’s nice that you’re all still here, chatting about W:ET, there are other forums dedicated solely to the game. If you’ve got any questions about W:ET from a technical or gameplay standpoint feel free to post them here or head over to the Fearless Assassins forum to ask.
DOWNLOADS
“Where can I download Wolf:ET?” was the most prominent question aside from “People still play this?!”, so here’s what to do:
You can download Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory right here!
You can also download Return to Castle Wolfenstein here! – which also has a handy FAQ to help out with any tech queries.
CONFIGS
So you’ve downloaded the game, now what? You want the best experience, with configs that are already done for you, right? Here we go:
Here’s a list of Variables you can use and edit.
Here is a config generator.
Here are a collection of configs that are pre-made that you can download. 1, 2, 3.
SERVERS
So you’ve downloaded the game, got your config sorted and you’re ready to play. You don’t want to play vs bots, though. You want to test your mettle against real folks.
You can browse servers here or here.
ACTIVE COMMUNITIES
You’re in. You’ve caught the bug once more. Your spamming V-say commands and racking up the kills. Now what you need is a clan of like-minded folks:
There’s a nice big list of communities here for you to browse.
Or you can get in a little deeper, with the ET Pro or ET Legacy scenes.
HOW TO CHAT
Sadly, Xfire and MIRC are no more. Replaced by newer, shinier technologies. Three of the bigger communities are on Discord:
ET Pro
=F|A= Clan
ET: Legacy
There are also still a couple of big Teamspeak 3 servers:
IP: hyperion-gaming.Net:9991
IP: wolfenstein.community-ts.eu
HOW TO WATCH
Watching some really players shine is always a joy, and thankfully there are some brilliant people playing and streaming:
GamesTV is a great resource.
Twitch is also a great place to watch. You can check out VODs here, or clips here.
EVENTS
In addition to a thriving community, there are also upcoming events!
Between May 17th and 19th in Krefeld, Germany, ET LAN is taking place. Check out the link for more information.
In addition to the LAN there’s also an active ETPRO cup, with 14 teams competing in 6v6 tournament, and 20 teams competing in a 3v3 tournament.
As you can see, Wolf:ET is still going strong after all these years. A massive thank you to everyone in the community who still both love and play the game, and hopefully this makes it easier for some people to rediscover the game that started it all for Splash Damage. | {
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PITTSBURGH, PA (April 16, 2015) - The City of Pittsburgh and the Pittsburgh Penguins will host watch parties for all Penguins home playoff games in Round 1 of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
In partnership with the Pittsburgh Penguins, First Niagara, iHeartMedia, Market Square Merchants Association and Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership, the Penguins Playoff Big Screen will be in Market Square on Monday, April 20 and in PPG Place on Wednesday, April 22 for Games 3 and 4 of the first round of the playoffs.
“This is one of my favorite springtime traditions,” said Mayor William Peduto. “Penguins fans have shown up to the big screen by the thousands in years past. Working with the organization to continue the tradition for Round 1 this year was a no-brainer.”
“We appreciate Mayor Peduto and the city stepping forward to create this opportunity for the Penguins and our fans," said David Morehouse, CEO and President of the Penguins. "It's a great way to continue the tradition of the big screen and Penguins playoff hockey.”
Puck drop for both games is 7:00 p.m. Fans are welcome to arrive starting at 5:00 p.m. each day. Tall Cathy from 96.1 KISS and Katie O’Malley from the Mayor’s Office will emcee the events.
The family friendly event will be free and open to the public. Alcoholic beverages are not permitted and open container laws will be enforced. Rain or shine. | {
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"We operate in a seasonal business and throughout the year we hire seasonal associates to work with us; we appreciate their contributions. These temporary assignments end at various times, but we keep these associates in mind for future assignments and opportunities for a variety of roles." - Amazon Spokesperson | {
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SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- Two million Spectrum customers across the Northeast found themselves without cable television and internet services for hours this weekend, leaving many to wonder what could have caused such a major interruption.
Spectrum said Monday that ice and heavy snow took down its fiber optic lines in multiple locations in the Northeast starting Friday night and continuing Saturday.
How to claim a credit on your Spectrum bill for weekend’s big outage
Not only did the storm damage the company’s main lines, it also brought down backup lines that normally provide “critical redundancy,” the company said.
Making matters worse, repair crews were delayed getting to the downed lines by road closures caused by fallen trees and downed power lines, the company said.
Spectrum said safety is a “priority consideration” for its repair crews following a large-scale weather event.
“For example, in one location, there were live power lines down, along with trees, right next to damaged fiber,” the company said in a statement. “Our field teams are not allowed to access impacted areas until the area is deemed ‘clear’ by utility providers.”
Spectrum outage refunds: Here’s how much company is giving back (thanks for helping us find out)
The company declined to disclose the locations of the downed lines, citing network security concerns.
A massive winter storm has led the state to reduce the speed limit on a 140-mile-long stretch of the New York State Thruway on Friday. Lauren Long | [email protected]
Spectrum’s fiber optic lines are buried underground in some areas but are strung along utility poles in other areas. It’s those above-ground lines that are vulnerable to storm damage.
Lara Pritchard, a spokesperson for Spectrum, said the vast majority of its customers in the Northeast lost cable TV service and a smaller number lost internet service as well. One of the areas where many internet customers lost service was the Syracuse area, she said.
The problems started Friday night in Maine and spread throughout the company’s service territory in New England and Upstate New York on Saturday, according to the company. New York City was not affected, the company said.
The service was restored shortly after 5 p.m. Saturday -- in time for Syracuse University basketball fans to watch SU play Wake Forest Saturday evening.
Rep. Anthony Brindisi asks NY to investigate Spectrum’s weekend outage
Rick Moriarty covers business news and consumer issues. Have a question or news tip? Contact him anytime: Email | Twitter | Facebook | 315-470-3148
Thanks for visiting Syracuse.com. Quality local journalism has never been more important, and your subscription matters. Not a subscriber yet? Please consider supporting our work. | {
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A good proportion of the bottom 20 per cent of households have a car, but should they? Talking Point investigates.
SINGAPORE: This low-income family did not renovate their flat when they moved in. Neither do they go on holidays. But there is one sacrifice the Hans are unwilling to make: Give up their car for public transport.
So on an income of about S$3,000, which is the average income of the bottom 20 per cent of working households, they spend up to S$500 every month on car expenses like petrol. And they are not alone.
Some 16 per cent of these households own at least one car. Among the top 20 per cent, meanwhile, who earned an average of S$25,000 a month last year, 61 per cent owned at least one car.
Singapore may be one of the world’s most expensive places to buy a car, but to many Singaporeans, the costs involved are not reason enough to forego owning one.
The Hans, for example, felt that they had no other option but to buy a second-hand Fiat, for which they paid up front last year.
Talking Point host Steven Chia with the Han family.
As Mdm Joanne Marie Sim explained on the Mediacorp series Talking Point, “It’s quite (difficult) trying to travel with two young children on public transport.” (Watch the episode here.)
With the nearest MRT station about a 10-minute walk from her home, she added: “If I want to go to the MRT station, I have to either walk in the sun or squeeze onto a bus.”
CONVENIENCE OVER COST
The Hans are not the only ones to have also factored distance into the decision to drive.
According to the Land Transport Authority’s Household Interview Travel Survey, 71 per cent of those living within 400 metres of a station would primarily use public transport to commute.
This is compared with 67 per cent of those living 800m from a station, which is a 10-minute walk, and 55 per cent of those living more than two kilometres away.
So whether a person – rich or not – sees owning a car as a necessity depends on one thing, noted economist Walter Theseira from the Singapore University of Social Sciences. He said:
You’ll buy a car if you feel your transport needs aren’t that well met by public transport. The reason that people buy cars (is) to basically save time.
Amid the push to make Singapore a car-lite city, he finds it ironic that the control of car ownership here makes life with a set of wheels “much more convenient” instead.
In some cities, because there is no such policy, “the roads are very congested, so if you take a car, you’re going to spend a lot of time sitting in traffic”.
“But in Singapore, traffic is actually pretty light because there aren’t that many cars on the road for our population,” he added. “You can travel on the expressway during rush hour … at speeds of around 40 to 60 km/h.”
EFFECT OF ZERO CAR GROWTH
The latest move in the Government’s master plan, however, may make the price of convenience even costlier.
From February, the car and motorcycle growth rate will be cut to zero, it was announced last month. This means there will be no new cars on the roads unless older ones are deregistered.
Mr Ben Lau, who has been a car dealer for 24 years, thinks this will cause Certificate of Entitlement (COE) prices to rise, conservatively, by 15 to 20 per cent.
Already, the COE price for small cars is S$46,791, with a regular 1.6 litre Toyota Corolla Altis, for example, setting buyers back S$108,988.
If there are Singaporeans who should forego owning a car, Mr Lau thinks one group should be retirees, as “most of the time, the things that (they) do aren’t time sensitive (and) don’t contribute to an income”.
The car consultant added:
The other category of people who I feel shouldn’t drive are those who, most of the time, are driving alone or just with (their) girlfriend or boyfriend.
“They don’t fetch anybody, their car is empty half the time and they only use it to work and back.”
ARE DRIVERLESS CARS A SOLUTION?
For attitudes to change, however, solutions are needed, and one in the works is driverless vehicles.
Singapore opened its first autonomous vehicle test centre last week, and from 2022, self-driving buses and shuttles will be plying the roads in Punggol, Tengah and the Jurong Innovation District.
A self-driving shuttle.
Mr Doug Parker, the chief operating officer of self-driving car company nuTonomy, believes that the advantages of driverless cars, such as in terms of safety and cost-effectiveness, will help Singaporeans to give up their cars.
He reckons, for example, that autonomous cars will cost “at least 50 per cent less than a traditional taxi”.
As for convenience, he said: “They’re so good at distributing themselves (that) we think the wait time will be about half of what it is for traditional taxis.
"Our models go about from an eight-minute wait time to a four-minute wait time, which to me is less time than it takes to get my kids out of the garage or park my car at the destination."
According to nuTonomy’s research, there would be less congestion should everyone embrace autonomous cars – even if there were people riding alone in these cars. Mr Parker said:
It’ll reduce the number of cars on the road by about 70 per cent. If (we) go further and were to do carpooling in autonomous cars, we can reduce it by 80 to 90 per cent.
“It can … also allow for Singapore to keep growing without adding more roads, without adding more cars.”
PUBLIC TRANSPORT A KEY FACTOR
A car-lite society will need more than a future with smarter options, however. It also requires a better transport system commuters can rely on to work effectively – a point people have made to Government Parliamentary Committee (Transport) member Zaqy Mohamad.
And he agrees. Pointing to the infrastructure build-up taking place, the Member of Parliament (Chua Chu Kang) also thinks this will help in the long term.
“We’re building more train lines … to solve some of these redundancies in the train system. So that will provide more options for commuters to take public transport, (and) increase the volume of trains,” he said.
The Thomson-East Coast Line will be opened in stages from 2019.
By 2030, eight in 10 homes will be within a 10-minute walk from an MRT station. But this means a number of Singaporeans would still not opt for public transport.
One of Mdm Sim’s main beef about public buses used to be that prams had to be folded before boarding, which was “impossible” with two children. Since April, open prams have been allowed, an improvement she acknowledges.
When asked, however, if there was anything that would make the family give up their car, the answer was an emphatic no.
Watch this episode of Talking Point here. New episodes air on Mediacorp Channel 5 every Thursday, 9.30pm. | {
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Advertising Read more
London (AFP)
The world needs to produce 43,000 new aircraft over the next two decades to meet booming demand, Boeing's CEO forecast here on Sunday.
Dennis Muilenberg, chief executive of the US aerospace giant, revealed the outlook upgrade to reporters in London before the sector's Farnborough Air Show starting Monday.
"We continue to see the aerospace market grow very strongly," said Muilenberg.
"We see $8.1-trillion marketplace in the next ten years" for commercial, defence and services, he added.
"We further increased our estimates in the next 20 years.
"We expect the world to need roughly 43,000 new commercial airplanes. That's up from last year's estimates."
Boeing will publish exact details of its latest outlook on Tuesday, the second day of the Farnborough event held southwest of London.
European arch-rival Airbus had forecast last week that the world's passenger fleet would more than double to 48,000 aircraft over the next 20 years, on the back of keen demand from emerging economies and low-cost airlines.
In a revised market outlook, Airbus had put the value of nearly 37,400 new aircraft required to meet global demand at $5.8 trillion by 2037.
In 2017, Airbus had estimated the world would need 35,000 new planes by 2036, valued at $5.3 trillion.
Airbus and Boeing meanwhile continue their head-to-head dogfight at the biennial Farnborough event, locked in a battle for lucrative multi-billion-dollar jet orders.
© 2018 AFP | {
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Chase Martinson shouldn’t have had any problems when he decided to return to nursing school at Missouri’s Hannibal-LaGrange University after some time off. But there were problems… for two reasons.
1) Hannibal-LaGrange University is a Southern Baptist-affiliated school.
2) Chase came out publicly as gay.
Hannibal-LaGrange University can’t handle students who deviate from their student handbook — page 27 of which forbids students from even “appearing” gay. But what makes their bigotry even juicier is how excited they appeared to be to invite Chase back to their school before they found out about his orientation…
The school sent Chase a thank-you notes for reapplying and an invitation to be part of the school’s Honors program… until they realized their horrific error.
Chase explained on Facebook:
… today I receive a letter telling me that I am no longer reaccepted but I am under revision by admissions. The reasoning was that I did not comply to two specific pages dealing with sexual sins and their consequences. After a long conversation with the head of admissions, who continued to tell me that I needed to review the guidelines because it was brought to his attention (surprise!) that I was outside of them, I told him that I am withdrawing all applications from the university. It is very unfortunate that such a university, which stands so prominently on their Christian values, rebukes those who are not within those guidelines., selectively, of course. Well good thing Jesus Christ was never associated with sinners, thieves, prostitutes, cheats, the lame, etc. Hannibal-LaGrange University should be ashamed of itself, it’s repugnant. Even if invited back, I would never return to a university where I was bullied, ridiculed and put down just because of the way I am. That’s all. And a large apology to Hannibal who will not have the opportunity of me gracing their presence once again. Bye!
I’m almost positive he’ll be much happier at his new home; Chase will be going to University of Missouri-St. Louis next year.
The key word in his post may be “selective,” as Martinson suggested later:
“You want to tell me 95 percent of the guys on that campus aren’t looking at porn?” says Martinson. “I’m not the only one breaking rules.”
There’s no legal recourse here, partly because it’s a private religious school and partly because Missouri law allows discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
You can argue the school has a right to kick out (or never accept) gay students, but is there any doubt these kinds of schools treat homosexuality as a greater sin than any other?
| {
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The Halawa Correctional Facility employee found dead Monday was scheduled for arraignment in Honolulu District Court Wednesday morning on charges of sexual assault of a young girl.
When asked, the Department of Public Safety officials said they were not informed by the employee or any other source before Monday’s death about on an arrest or the charges, and deferred further questions to police.
DPS identified the employee as 37-year-old Darwin Fernandez, who is a cook supervisor for the staff dining hall at the Halawa Correctional Facility’s medium security facility. He was found in the staff bathroom.
Police do not suspect foul play but the medical examiner has not released the cause and manner of death.
He was employed with DPS since Nov. 16, 2011.
Police arrested Fernandez April 30 in Kapolei on suspicion of one count of third-degree sexual assault.
He was then charged Friday by complaint in Honolulu District Court with two counts of sexual assault that occurred between April 1 and April 30.
According to the complaints, Fernandez subjected a girl younger than 14 years of age to sexual contact by placing his tongue in her mouth and touching her buttock.
He was released Friday after posting $30,000 bail. | {
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The impact of the 24-hour news cycle and 140-character digital communication
Long-form journalism has been struggling to deal with the transition from print to the internet Jim Giles, Matter
So what's changed? Digital shifts prompt opportunities for traditional, long-form reporting
I think people are realising that 'hey, there's more to the internet, there's more to journalism and news than this' Noah Rosenberg, Narratively
Moving mobile and the impact of the app
I think this idea that we have in the backs of our minds that long-form journalism is only for lazy Sundays when you can lean back in an armchair, that's just not the way peoples' lives work. Lucia Adams, The Times
Making money - just some of the business models
We've had readers write to us and tell us that's one of the reasons that they like to subscribe to the Times, it's the fact that long-form journalism comes to life and they can really be part of it immediately as soon as it's published Lucia Adams, The Times
Mixing it up with multimedia
It's no longer inert, you can kind of plan books as you're making them to have all these additional elements whereas traditionally in magazine publishing and book publishing anything else is after the fact Alissa Quart, The Atavist
Opportunities within a niche or certain genres
And print?
If you want to be able to deep dive into a subject and discuss it and explore a range of opinions then those needs are there no matter what the technology Lucia Adams, The Times
We originally spoke to Quart, Giles and Adams for a Journalism.co.uk podcast on long-form journalism which can be listened to at this link.
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Over the past few years there have been a number of interesting projects entering the digital-only marketplace with long-form content at their core.And others which collect together such works have also launched alongside them, such as Longreads.com , which arrived in 2009, and LongForm.org in 2010.LongReads.com says o n its 'about' page , that the content it collects is the sort of material which is "perfect for the iPad, iPhone or Kindle, and apps like Read It Later, Flipboard and Instapaper."This desire to reach people with this material on portable devices was also seen with the launch of platforms such as The Atavist in the US, around a year and a half ago, which "publishes bestselling non-fiction stories that are longer than typical magazine articles but shorter than books" for Android, iPhone, iPad and Kindle devices.And in 2010 the market had seen the arrival of Byliner , which publishes fiction and non-fiction writing of between 5,000 and 30,000 words which "are sold as Kindle Singles at Amazon, Quick Reads at Apple's iBookstore, and Nook Snaps at BN.com". It also curates "new and classic stories" on its website Byliner.com.And there are more digital platforms dedicated to in-depth storytelling yet to launch, such as Matter , which will be dedicated to long-form science and technology journalism when it launches next month , and Narratively , which will be committed to publishing daily multimedia-rich stories on New York themes.So considering the many interesting players already active in the digital space, and others preparing to test the waters, Journalism.co.uk looks at the digital challenges and opportunities being faced by such players, as well as the opportunities they have found.This feature, which will also look at the different business models being adopted and publishers' pointers on content strategy, features comments from, editor-at-large for, digital development editor at, co-founder ofand, founder ofMatter's Jim Giles said that in recent times "long-form journalism has been struggling to deal with the transition from print to the internet"."In some ways you can see that transition as an unbundling of these traditional bundles of content, like newspapers and magazines and different parts of newspapers and magazines, have been picked off and made to work in online environment."So there are great sites for doing movie reviews, gadget reviews and there's lots of opinion online, there's blogs which are in some ways replacing the shorter news stories," he explained. But in comparison "long-form content hasn't made that transition" in quite the same way."I think that's just because the online economics don't work quite so well for long-form material. You need very high reader numbers to attract advertisers and you will find it hard to charge for stuff, or people have found it hard to charge for stuff in the past, so that's a real challenge if you're trying to sell long-form material."And for news outlets covering the 24-hour news cycle and big news events, the more in-depth features may get "quickly overshadowed by the next big headline", Narratively's Noah Rosenberg said. His new platform, Narratively , will aim to dedicate each week to one issue, with a daily story produced around that theme.Meanwhile in the print industry "there's been shrinking staff at newspapers, diminishing foreign bureaus to sometimes no foreign bureaus," The Atavist's Alissa Quart added."It's been a very difficult time economically for journalists and for publications. At the same time it's been an amazing time for innovations like this one [The Atavist], new kinds of storytelling and individuals who have ideas for ways of telling a story in multimedia or through graphic non-fiction."So as Quart indicates, the digital space has also fuelled innovations for long-form content.Rosenberg said he has observed "a real resurgence in the past few years for in-depth, high-quality journalism, high-quality storytelling"."I think people are realising that 'hey, there's more to the internet, there's more to journalism and news than this'."And at The Times there has been a continued demand for long-form journalism on digital platforms. Lucia Adams added that platforms such as Twitter have actually "supported the consumption of long-form journalism, precisely because it's a place where you can discover interesting things"."If you follow a bunch of really interesting people they will point you in the direction of really good reads and following up from that then it's a place where people can talk about it. If anything it sort of brings it to life."Specific new developments that have helped drive this shift include the rise of apps and the way news is consumed on tablet devices, Giles said.Apps have "made people feel comfortable with making small payments online", he explained."You know that kind of impulse buy for 99p or 99 cents, it's just become usual and people are comfortable with it."The other really interesting and important thing is the way people use tablets. So we know that when people consume content on tablets it's not the same as the way they consume it on laptops or desktops."People read longer pieces on tablets, they engage with those pieces, they read them to the end and really critically they're willing to pay for news on a tablet in a way they're not willing to do online ... on a conventional computer."Adams also identified mobile devices as "a real game-changer"."The iPad has been a real revolution for publishers and readers because it re-creates that newspaper-like experience and ultimately print is the technology that we've honed for centuries and one which readers understand and really love and so the iPad has given longer pieces a new lease of life."But I think smartphones as well. I find myself loitering at a bus stop or train station, looking at Twitter and then ending up reading really quite chunky pieces. I think the point about smartphones and long-form journalism is you have a phone in your pocket wherever you go and if you have time it's about fitting those long-reads into your life."I think this idea that we have in the backs of our minds that long-form journalism is only for lazy Sundays when you can lean back in an armchair, that's just not the way peoples' lives work. Our jobs are to make sure journalism fits into people's lifestyles and that means making it available wherever they happen to be."At The Atavist its non-fiction pieces are sold for between $2 and $3, and they are also due to publish four short documentaries which could be sold through iTunes.The Atavist is also supported by its software work, with its publishing platform available for licensing by other publishers.Giles said when Matter was still in the planning stages he "looked at the success of Atavist and thought 'well we can probably adapt that from this kind of content'".Giles said a number of business models, including both individual article payments, such as at The Atavist, and bundle models, such as the New York Times paywall, have already seen success."So [the New York Times] is selling a traditional bundle of content and making it work, which I think is much more surprising than hearing people are selling individual articles, that feels like a logical way to go online. Selling the bundles is harder so it's great to hear that they're doing well."Both Matter and Narratively took to crowdfunding website Kickstarter to raise funds to get up and running. Narratively's campaign for $50,000 still has a few weeks to go while Matter managed to raise $140,000 by the end of its campaign. Narratively, on the other hand, plans to offer its day-to-day content for free with a premium membership for added extras. It will also run live events which will be ticketed and sponsored, and long-term will look to syndicate and license content to other news outlets.Rosenberg said he wants to "grow the concept first". He added: "Of course the business model is very well thought out, and I think by allowing the content to roam free and evolve and expand and go viral ... I think when people come to realise what Narratively is all about and what more they can get from the premium membership system."The Times in the UK also has a paywall, and as well as people paying to subscribe to its online content, it has also produced Kindle Singles as another way of pushing out long-form content.Adams said the volume of comments left under its longer pieces of online content acts as a good measure of the success of such material on digital platforms."For us the thing that we find time and time again is that it's opinion pieces and it's leaders that get really exciting comment threads happening at the bottom of the piece."The old days when as a journalist you'd research a piece, you'd write it, you'd file it and then you'd move on to the next one is definitely gone. At the bottom of our opinion pieces we have the commentators chipping in, getting involved and being part of that conversation."We've had readers write to us and tell us that's one of the reasons that they like to subscribe to The Times is the fact that long-form journalism comes to life and they can really be part of it immediately as soon as it's published."And of course digital publishing affords plenty of opportunity to add colour to long-form pieces with multimedia, where appropriate.Quart spoke about how The Atavist had not only included multimedia in its products but made it an integral part of the narrative, such as by opening a piece with a video or animation in the place of the first chapter, which means the "reader's thrown into a multimedia experience".They also embed sound "as much as we can", she added, and is "now trying to get a soundtrack for one of our books".She also highlighted the impact this has on the production workflow itself and the way multimedia is thought of in the planning process."It's no longer inert, you can kind of plan books as you're making them to have all these additional elements whereas traditionally in magazine publishing and book publishing anything else is after the fact, you finish it and then the art department puts in photos and potentially there's a podcast along with it, but it's sort of an afterthought. This is like where you can plan the multimedia at its inception. That's a really different way of viewing what non-fiction is."Narratively is centred on multimedia, with the aim of running a different medium of story each day, from magazine feature-length pieces and documentaries to audio and animations.It will also aim to offer added community engagement as well, with Fridays dedicated to curating together "the social conversation" from during the week.At Matter the focus for now is on creating "really compelling narratives", but will look at multimedia capabilities in time, Giles said."What we want to do is create really compelling narratives, the kind of stuff that you end up sort of missing your stop on the bus, because you just want to keep reading it, and that is largely about getting great writers and getting great editors to tell great stories in text."That's what we're doing first and then I think we'll start thinking about audio and video and animations later on."Matter is dedicated to long-form journalism within the science and technology industries, identifying two niches that Giles and co-founder Bobbie Johnson are confident are a gap in the market."We, like many people writing in this area, just felt that there was very few outlets that were interested in running really in-depth, high quality narrative driven stuff about science and technology and we were pretty sure there was a demand for it," he said.And Quart identified a number of other genres which lend themselves to the area of digital long-form publishing.This includes memoirs, she said, as "you can have a lot of archival images", as well as historical books "because there are a lot of artefacts in any history book".She added that it is the "same for crime stories" which often include "a lot of legal documents".But while digital platforms are offering new ways to consume and deliver long-form journalism, of course it does not mean a closed door on print forms of in-depth storytelling. Even for the digital player Narratively, which hopes, in time, to release a print product to complement its online material."Really the important thing for us at the beginning is just getting our website out there, really developing a following ... so initially it will be Narrative.ly and that's a mobile-friendly, responsive website that will look just as good on your iPhone and your iPad as it will on your web browser."... Down the line I certainly am not ruling out, in fact I'm excited about, possibly doing a print product at some point down the road, whether it's a quarterly or bi-monthly, we'll figure out the timetable on it."As Adams adds, when it comes to deciding on the delivery platform for this content, it is about putting the story first and going digital for a reason."It's about thinking about the best way to present a story, sometimes through words, sometimes through graphics ... being really clear on why you're deploying those tools and not just creating a proliferation of those things so that you can be more digital."It's got to fulfil a certain need in some sort of a way."But she added that the growth of new platforms has not changed what readers ultimately want to get out of long-form journalism."I think what people want to read doesn't change in some ways. If you want to be able to deep dive into a subject and discuss it and explore a range of opinions then those needs are there no matter what the technology."
If you like our news and feature articles, you can sign up to receive our free daily (Mon-Fri) email newsletter (mobile friendly). | {
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