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WASHINGTON — A woman claims that Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) grabbed her buttocks as they posed for a photo at the Minnesota State Fair in 2010, according to CNN.
The woman, Lindsay Menz, is the second accuser to come forward to claim groping allegations against Franken. Last week, Leeann Tweeden, a newscaster in Los Angeles, claimed that Franken made inappropriate advances and groped her during a 2006 USO tour. Franken apologized and called for a Senate ethics committee investigation of the incident.
Menz told CNN that in 2010, Franken was at a booth at the state fair and they had a conversation before her husband got ready to take a photo of them. She said Franken “pulled me in really close, like awkward close, and as my husband took the picture, he put his hand full-fledged on my rear. It was wrapped tightly around my butt cheek.”
After the photo was taken and Franken left, she told her husband about what happened, along with her parents. She also posted the photo to Facebook, captioned “Dude — Al Franken TOTALLY molested me! Creeper!,” at the time.
Franken issued a statement to CNN on Sunday. “I take thousands of photos at the State Fair surrounded by hundreds of people, and I certainly don’t remember taking this picture,” he said. “I feel badly that Ms. Menz came away from our interaction feeling disrespected.”
In light of the allegations from Tweeden, PBS cut Franken’s bit from a planned telecast of the Mark Twain Prize, set to air Monday night on public television stations. | {
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Radeon RX 5700 Series: Next-Gen Navi GPU With RDNA Debuts
AMD Radeon RX 5700 Series "Navi" Specifications & Features
Radeon RX 5700 Navi GPU Die Shot Radeon RX 5700 Navi GPU Die Shot
A Tale Of Two Radeon RX Navi Cards
AMD has been talking about its next-generation Navi GPU architecture for ages. It was over 3 years ago that we first mentioned Navi here on the HotHardware, and since then there has been a slow, steady stream of information disseminated to the public, leading up the last month’s big architecture disclosure at E3 and the official unveiling of the initial Radeon RX 5700 series line-up, which we will be showing you here.If you missed our coverage of AMD's Navi GPU architecture and its newly-designed RDNA -infused microarchitecture and instruction set, you can find it right here . We strongly suggest checking that article out, because we cover a number of deep technical details, including Navi’s new compute unit design, multi-level cache hierarchy, pervasive support for Delta Color Compression, PCI Express 4.0, and the new Radeon Multimedia Engine that can handle 8K encoding while being roughly 40% faster than the previous generation. We also cover Fidelity FX, and the AMD Radeon Anti-Lag and Radeon Image Sharpening (RIS) features in the piece. AMD Radeon Anti-Lag can effectively reduce input lag in a number of popular games and RIS is a post-processing compute shader with an intelligent contrast-aware, sharpening algorithm that can draw out details in low contrast areas of a scene, without negatively impacting image quality in high contrast scenes.Since we’ve covered all of that previously, we won’t re-hash it all again here. Instead, we’re going to focus on the Radeon RX 5700 XT and Radeon RX 5700 cards themselves and see how they perform versus AMD’s previous-gen products and NVIDIA’s newly-released competitive offerings. Take a look at the cards and their main features and specifications below, and then we’ll break things down a little further to see how these things handle the in the benchmarks...Both the Radeon RX 5700 XT and Radeon RX 5700 are built around AMD's Navi 10 GPU – a few portions of the chip are simply disabled in the RX 5700 to bring its shader count down a touch. We’ll explain exactly how the cards differ shortly, but first, let's talk about the GPU powering them, because it is an important development and the technological foundation of what will likely be a multi-year effort from AMD. In the same way that GCN (Graphics Core Next) served AMD through the course of multiple GPU releases, so too will RDNA moving forward.The GPU at the heart of the Radeon RX 5700 series is manufactured using TSMC’s 7nm process node and is comprised of approximately 10.3 billion transistors. Its die size is roughly 251 square millimeters. The die size is particularly interesting because it is quite small relative to AMD’s previous-gen 14nm Vega and NVIDIA’s current-gen Turing GPUs, which are manufactured at 12nm.Although we’ll be showing you our own numbers here soon enough, at its event last month, AMD claimed the Radeon RX 5700 XT would go toe-to-toe with the GeForce RTX 2070 . The RTX 2070 is built around NVIDIA’s TU106 GPU, which features 10.8B transistors and a die size of 445 square millimeters – that’s 44% larger than Navi 10 (side note, Vega 64 was even larger at 495mm, not including its HBM2 memory). AMD seems to have taken a somewhat conservative approach here, which is to be expected when developing a new GPU architecture on a leading-edge manufacturing process. However, should AMD’s performance claims ring true, it also shows that the company could theoretically scale things up with this current design and potentially take on some of NVIDIA’s higher-end GPUs, should AMD want to take the fight to the top of Team Green’s stack.Of course, NVIDIA dedicates significant die area to Turing’s RT and Tensor cores, of which Navi currently has no equivalent. Incorporating some sort of dedicated hardware for accelerating Ray Tracing would obviously take up considerable die area in a future AMD GPU, but we are getting ahead of ourselves, so let's stay on task...For now, the fight remains in the meat in the enthusiast market, with the Radeon RX 5700 XT positioned against the GeForce RTX 2070 and recently released GeForce RTX 2060 Super . Meanwhile, AMD's Radeon RX 5700 is positioned against the original GeForce RTX 2060.The top-end Radeon RX 5700 XT features a fully-enabled Navi 10 GPU with 40 Compute Units, each with 64 Steam Processors, for a total of 2,560. The GPU is connected to 8GB of GDDR6 memory over a 256-bit interface with an effective data rate of 14Gbps, which equates to peak memory bandwidth of 448GB/s. The Radeon RX 5700 XT’s base GPU clock is 1,605MHz, with a 1,755MHz Game Clock and 1,905 max boost clock. AMD claims during real-world gaming sessions the actual GPU clock will likely fall somewhere between the Game Clock and max boost clock, assuming thermals and power are in-check. The GPU also has 64 ROPs, 160 texture units, and a max board power of 225 watts.The AMD Radeon RX 5700’s GPU is scaled back slightly. The RX 5700 has the same memory and ROP configuration as the XT, but four CUs have been disabled and the 5700’s clock speeds are tamer as well. The Radeon RX 5700 has 36 CUs, a total of 2,304 stream processors, and base, Game and max Boost clocks of 1,465MHz, 1,625MHz, and 1,725, respectively. Max board power is a bit lower at 180 watts.In addition to the different GPU configurations, the Radeon RX 5700 XT and RX 5700 have different cooler designs. The Radeon RX 5700 is reminiscent of the squared-off Radeon Vega designs, with a rectangular shroud and barrel-type fan situated off to the side of its heatsink. The Radeon RX 5700 XT, however, has been totally redesigned and commands more visual attention. The reference card will feature an aluminum shroud and back-plate, while the front shroud has an angled air-slot that reportedly helps optimize airflow over the heatsink to help keep the card quiet when it is idling or under a light load. There is a hefty vapor chamber, with a dense array of heatsink fins, that sits directly atop the GPU and RAM, and mates with the GPU through a graphite-based thermal interface. There is also a 7-phase, all-digital power circuit on the board to ensure ample power to the GPU.Both the Radeon RX 5700 and 5700 XT feature 8-pin and 6-pin PCIe power feeds, which should provide plenty of headroom for overclocking. Between the PCIe slot and the supplemental feeds, 300W will be available to the Radeon RX 5700 series cards (150 + 75 + 75).The display outputs on the Radeon RX 5700 series cards are identical as well. Both cards feature a trio of full-sized DisplayPort 1.4 (with DSC) connectors and a single HDMI port, all of which can be used at any given time for multi-monitor configurations. The remainder of the case bracket is essentially one large vent, for exhausting warm air from a system. | {
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JONESBORO, Ark. (2/22/16) – Arkansas State senior forward Khadija Brown-Haywood has been named the Sun Belt Conference Student-Athlete of the week after she helped the Red Wolves clinch a share of the regular season Sun Belt Conference championship with pair of victories in the state of Georgia this past week.
Brown-Haywood also nabbed the College Sports Madness Sun Belt Conference Player of the Week for the second consecutive week.
The senior averaged 25 points per game in the Red Wolves' two victories, while pulling down 10.5 rebounds and dishing out two assists in each game as the Red Wolves ran their record to 22-3 and 16-0 in league play. The Red Wolves, who received seven votes in the latest Associated Press Women's Basketball Top-25 poll, have the fifth longest winning streak in the country at 16 games.
The Centralia, Ill., native turned in one of the best performances of her career Thursday evening against Georgia Southern when scored a career-high 30 points and grabbed 10 rebounds in A-State's 79-52 victory. She paced the Red Wolves in the first half with 18 points on 5-of-8 shooting, including going 4-of-5 from beyond the arc.
She scored 12 points in the second half, but became a dominating presence on the glass with eight rebounds, all of which came on the defensive end. She finished the night 9-of-15 (60 percent) from the field and hit 8-of-10 (80 percent) free throws. She had a Player Efficiency Rating (PER) of 35, and now two of the three highest individual PER ratings for A-State this season.
Saturday against Georgia State, Brown-Haywood scored 20 points and grabbed 11 rebounds for her league leading eleventh double-double of the season. She produced a balance scoring attack with 10 points in each half, but again became a factor on the boards by grabbing seven rebounds in the first half as the Red Wolves went on to a 85-64 victory.
A-State returns home Thursday, Feb. 25 against Texas State. Tip-off is set for 5 p.m. at the Convocation Center.
For the latest on the A-State women's basketball follow the team log onto the team's Facebook page at Facebook.com/RedWolvesWBB, follow them on Twitter @AStateWB and on Instagram at “AStateWBB.” | {
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'Name and shame rapists online,' urges Germaine Greer
Germaine Greer claimed a website may be a better way than the law to make rape allegations
Germaine Greer sparked a row last night by suggesting rape victims should name and shame their attackers online instead of reporting the sex crime to the police.
The controversial academic, now 71, has spent years campaigning for the law on rape to be changed to boost the number of convictions.
But Professor Greer, now an academic at Warwick University, yesterday claimed a website may be a better way than the law to make rape allegations, in a move likely to anger campaigners and victims' organisations.
Speaking at the Cheltenham Literature Festival she said yesterday: 'I wish there were an online rapists' register and that it was kept up to date, because we know the courts can't get it right.
'When I say that to people, they get so scared, and say 'Oh you can't. What about privacy?'
'Years ago I knew we would never get convictions in a court of law for date rape, so I suggested women kept an online dossier, so if a woman had a date with a guy and he did something to her, or frightened her, and she asked him to stop and he didn't, then instead of going to the police she should put him online.
'Other women could check this dossier, look up a guy and see that he has form. Then she can say no, or if she does go, goes knowing it's a high risk strategy.'
It is 40 years since Germaine Greer shot to fame with the publication of The Female Eunuch, when she was just 31, a bible for feminists which became an international bestseller.
In 1995 she claimed in an article that she was raped at the age of 19 when she was a student in her native Australia, but had not reported it.
It is 40 years since Germaine Greer shot to fame with the publication of The Female Eunuch, a bible for feminists
The conviction rate in Britain is currently 6 per cent, one of the lowest in Europe. She added: 'I don't think a sexual bully should go to jail for seven years but a couple of months' community service wearing a t-shirt with the word 'rapist' on it would be good.
"As it is we get nothing. They are still walking around and doing what they have done the whole time. 'There is always one guy, say at a university who gets through lots of girls like a knife through butter.'
Greer spoke out in response to a question about a website set up by a female student encouraging women to rate their sexual partners. She said she did not regard the idea as 'very female at all'.
The feminist writer added: "It's a website where you talk about what it's like to get off with someone in terms of the size of his tackle. That's not what women are interested in.
"What I suggest is that women keep an online diary and put on it if a man goes too far. Others can then check his 'form'. "You want to be able to say 'avoid him because you will come out of the encounter feeling dirty'."
Greer claimed such a register would prevent rapes and sex assaults taking place more effectively than the legal system, which simply locks up a small minority of men who are convicted, she said.
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Wind and solar power will not replace fossil fuels—oil, coal and natural gas—any time soon; not in twelve or 30 years, and likely not in anyone’s lifetime who is alive today. The pursuit of solar and wind power also comes with a steep price, not just in higher utility bills and taxpayer-financed subsidies, but to people, wildlife and the balance of nature itself.
The proposed Gemini solar farm in southern Nevada, near Las Vegas, is the latest example of the environmental tension resulting from this renewable energy.
Solar “farms” take up a lot of land. In Gemini’s case, more than 7,000 acres, which would be the largest in the country and equivalent in size to a small city (e.g., larger than Schenectady, New York).
The U.S. Bureau of Land Management is poised to approve Gemini, which would provide enough solar energy to power 130,000 homes. Anyone traversing through Las Vegas at night surely knows it will take a lot more power than a large solar farm to keep the lights on, but it’s a start.
The BLM’s own environmental impact statement documents that the solar farm also will impact endangered species and plants, including the desert tortoise, kit fox and a rare plant I never heard of called the threecorner milkvetch.
Conservation and wildlife organizations are not pleased about this project, including the Defenders of Wildlife, even as it supports renewable energy in the abstract. Instead of disturbing endangered species and plants in vast desert lands, some organizations advocate the unrealistic alternative of having solar energy placed on every home .
Solar and wind energy projects also face a not-in-my-back-yard (“NIMBY”) problem. While the western half of the United States has more open desert space, the NIMBY issue has surfaced in the east, such as in rural Spotsylvania County, Virginia and elsewhere.
Last April, the County Board of Supervisors approved, over stiff local opposition, a solar farm project comprising more than 3,000 acres. As states like Virginia, Nevada, New York and others impose renewable energy quotas, the Spotsylvania NIMBY battle portends ongoing struggles to fulfill renewable mandates throughout the country, as CFACT has discussed.
Perhaps the most famous NIMBY example of opposition to renewable energy occurred off the coast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts where wealthy residents, including the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, opposed the Cape Wind offshore wind farm. After years of litigation, Energy Management, the company behind the project, pulled the plug in 2017.
Still, wind power is expanding throughout the U.S. as it produces more than six percent of the nation’s electricity. It is expected to grow exponentially worldwide in the next twenty years, according to the International Energy Agency. Like solar power, wind energy raises similar alarms about the amount of land-use and harm to wildlife.
Wind turbines are killing hundreds of thousands of bats and birds on an annual basis. More wind turbines mean millions more winged creatures dying every year. Wind turbines also are harming other animals, including dogs and other pets. The turbines themselves require considerable energy to produce and are not easily disposed of, bringing still more environmental concerns.
Wind power also may be causing increased temperatures, which would be a facetious irony absent the seriousness of the issue. The big reason for this forced transition from fossil fuels to renewables is to supposedly reverse “man-made” global warming, yet wind power is expanding to the point where it could be contributing to warming. Go figure.
Then there is the environmental concern about batteries used to complement renewable energy sources when it is not windy or sunny. Batteries, of course, come from mining the ingredients necessary, such as cobalt and lithium. Moreover, the cost and quantity necessary for batteries to make wind and solar power viable are enormous and downplayed as politicians continue to force-feed renewable energy mandates on the public.
The environmental downside of wind and solar energy development alone is not a reason for abandoning these sources of energy. Rather, it is an argument for lowered expectations and realism. Renewable energy is not going to bring us a carbon-free world any time soon, absent corresponding harm in a variety of ways. Accordingly, scientists and policymakers should slow down the wind and solar freight train to balance more carefully the costs and benefits to people, wildlife and nature writ large. | {
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Budget watchdog warns country is in worse shape to withstand recession than on the eve of 2007 financial crash
Britain’s public finances are in worse shape to withstand a recession than they were on the eve of the 2007 financial crash a decade ago and face the twin threat of a fresh downturn and Brexit, the Treasury’s independent forecaster has warned.
The Office for Budget Responsibility – the UK’s fiscal watchdog – said another recession was inevitable at some point and that Theresa May’s failure to win a parliamentary majority in last month’s election left the public finances more vulnerable to being blown off course than they were in 2007.
In its first in-depth analysis of the fiscal risks facing Britain, the OBR said its main message was clear: “Governments should expect nasty fiscal surprises from time to time – because policy can only reduce risks, not eliminate them – and plan accordingly.
Business Today: sign up for a morning shot of financial news Read more
“And they have to do so in the context of ongoing pressures that are likely to weigh on receipts and drive up spending and a variety of risks that governments choose to expose themselves to for policy reasons. This is true for any government, but this one also has to manage the uncertainties posed by Brexit, which could influence the likelihood or impact of other risks.”
The OBR said the size of the UK’s Brexit divorce bill – currently a matter of dispute between London and Brussels – would have little impact on the public finances. But it noted that even a small fall in Britain’s underlying growth rate after departure from the EU would lead to a big increase in the country’s debt burden.
If a knock to trade with the rest of Europe caused productivity to slip by just 0.1 percentage points over the next 50 years, tax receipts would be £36bn lower. With spending growth left unchanged, the debt-to-GDP ratio would end up around 50 percentage points higher, the OBR added.
The campaign group Open Britain said the OBR’s report showed “a hard Brexit poses a real threat to our economy. People voted for £350m a week for the NHS, not a £36bn black hole in the public finances that could mean severe cuts to the NHS”.
The shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, said years of austerity and the decision to gamble on a general election victory had left Britain in a weaker position going into the Brexit talks. “The Tories want to blame Brexit for their failures on the economy. But what this report really reveals is that one of the biggest risks to our economy is Theresa May’s weak government and the last seven years of economic failure,” he said.
The Liberal Democrat spokesman Vince Cable warned that the underlying weakness of government tax receipts and a “reckless approach to Brexit” were a toxic recipe likely to damage the economy. “Even a small deterioration in growth could mean billions of pounds less funding for our public services in the long term,” he said.
The Tories have failed to fix the roof – and now rainclouds are looming | Larry Elliott Read more
The OBR noted that Brexit was not the only threat to the government’s aim of eliminating the UK’s budget deficit. It said a hung parliament and “austerity fatigue”, alongside longer-term developments such as a rapidly ageing population, were also factors putting upward pressure on the deficit.
The almost inevitable likelihood of a recession in the years ahead, along with higher interest rates and inflation, also posed significant risks to the public finances, threatening to put them on an “unsustainable path”.
Robert Chote, the OBR’s chairman, explained that government could be landed with a higher interest bill on its debt mountain after selling billions of pounds worth of bonds with an interest rate linked to the retail prices index. A rise in inflation would add billions of pounds to the cost of financing the UK’s debts, he said.
The warning comes as the chancellor, Phillip Hammond, prepares the ground for his autumn budget, which he has already said should stick to current plans to bring down the deficit by the mid-2020s.
Ministers are known to have begun lobbying for more funds to give additional support to creaking services and offset the most painful cuts in welfare spending. The deficit is due to rise from 2.4% last year to 2.9% this year following a deterioration in the economic outlook and could go higher if pressure on the Treasury to open the spending taps is successful.
The OBR said: “Ongoing challenges must be faced while negotiating Brexit and in an environment of ‘austerity fatigue’. [The government] also faces them from a starting fiscal position that is more vulnerable than that which prevailed on the eve of the crisis 10 years ago.”
Hammond described the report as a “sober analysis” and a “stark reminder of why we must deliver on our commitment to deal with our country’s debts”. He added: “The Labour party would ignore these warning signs from the OBR, adding to the bill that our younger generation will have to pay.”
To judge the sensitivity of the public finances to shocks, the OBR replicated the Bank of England’s stress tests earlier this year on high street banks, which checked their finances were sound and they were holding sufficient reserves to guard against nasty shocks.
A stress test of the government’s plans to manage the public finances revealed that the annual deficit could rocket back to 8.1% and the debt to GDP ratio could match Italy’s at 114%. The annual deficit for the last financial year was 2.6% of GDP – the lowest since 2007-08 – and the debt-to-GDP ratio is 85%.
Compared with the OBR’s forecast in March, the risks add £66.2bn to the deficit in 2017-18, rising to £158.5bn higher by 2021-22. It said that extra spending by the government would account for almost all the shortfall.
A series of measures dropped from the recent finance bill also played a part, the OBR said. The government scrapped 17 measures that were designed to yield £3.5bn for the Treasury. “It is no longer clear when they will return to parliament to be legislated,” it said. | {
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There are few places mothers can turn to for help in Gaza, a war-ravaged enclave stunted by a crippling 12-year Israeli-imposed blockade.
Without childcare or support, and with few parenting handbooks available, that frustration, anger and despair can be channelled towards the children.
One Gazan mother, Nour al-Khodary, wants to help change that with a new app, Momy Helper.
It is the first of its kind in Arabic: at the click of a button mothers can access how-to guides for parenting, be connected to trained specialists, and get support for gender-based violence and other issues faced by women.
The former film producer says it is a simple solution to one of the most unspoken taboos in the Middle East: being a mother who cannot cope.
“Everyone is stressed here in Gaza. We don’t have peace inside ourselves. Each day we are following in the news: what will happen next, who will be killed, which building will be hit?” she tells The Independent from her offices at Gaza Sky Geeks, a tech hub in the 25-mile long militant-run strip.
“The kids pay for this: the mother, the father, the family are all under pressure,” she adds.
Gaza protests: Wounded patients being treated at MSF clinic Show all 9 1 /9 Gaza protests: Wounded patients being treated at MSF clinic Gaza protests: Wounded patients being treated at MSF clinic Palestinian patients wounded during Gaza-Israel border protests at a clinic run by medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in Gaza City Bel Trew Bel Trew/The Independent Gaza protests: Wounded patients being treated at MSF clinic 'I was a fisherman before, but I now can’t do anything, I have no work. I can’t walk. I’m struggling,' says Rami Hessi Bel Trew/The Independent Gaza protests: Wounded patients being treated at MSF clinic According to Gaza’s ministry of health, more than 5,800 Palestinians have been injured by live fire shot by Israeli soldiers during regular rallies held at the border fences since March 2018 Bel Trew/The Independent Gaza protests: Wounded patients being treated at MSF clinic Sabreen al-Najjar, left, the mother of Razan, a 20-year-old medic who was shot dead on the Gaza border last year Bel Trew/The Independent Gaza protests: Wounded patients being treated at MSF clinic Palestinian patients wounded during Gaza-Israel border protests at a clinic run by medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in Gaza City Bel Trew Bel Trew/The Independent Gaza protests: Wounded patients being treated at MSF clinic Palestinian patients wounded during Gaza-Israel border protests at a clinic run by medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in Gaza City Bel Trew Bel Trew/The Independent Gaza protests: Wounded patients being treated at MSF clinic Palestinian patients wounded during Gaza-Israel border protests at a clinic run by medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in Gaza City Bel Trew Bel Trew/The Independent Gaza protests: Wounded patients being treated at MSF clinic Palestinian patients wounded during Gaza-Israel border protests at a clinic run by medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in Gaza City Bel Trew Bel Trew/The Independent Gaza protests: Wounded patients being treated at MSF clinic Palestinian patients wounded during Gaza-Israel border protests at a clinic run by medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in Gaza City Bel Trew Bel Trew/The Independent
She says she wants to connect mothers to professional consultants specialising in psychology and parenting.
“You can’t simply can’t go to a professional in our culture – your family and your husband will not support it.
“People call you crazy, they blame the women for not being able to cope. It’s a taboo. You end up sunk in depression, which you take out on your kids. But with the app you can have discreet and confidential support,” she explains.
The app, which is registered in Delaware, aims to break through blockades, barriers and borders and help women both within Gaza and across the Arabic-speaking world on how to look after and support their children.
A Gazan mother shows her new app designed to help mothers in the Middle East (Bel Trew)
Through the app, women can also discreetly book paid sessions from among their team of more than 100 professionals, who speak multiple Arabic dialects and have been carefully vetted.
Ms Khodary acknowledges that Momy Helper can only reach those who can afford mobile phones and so cannot fix all problems women face, but hopes it can help be part of a solution.
In a trial run last year, Momy Helper paired up with Oxfam to provide free support sessions for mothers who could not afford to pay or did not dare ask their husbands.
In Gaza, where few have bank accounts or credit cards, women can pay for the $15 hour-long sessions in person.
The app, which is available on Google Play, also provides basic questionnaires to help identify what issues the user is facing and then direct them to the correct free advice in Arabic.
Ms Khodary hopes in the future to use artificial intelligence to better improve the interaction.
For now, they have step-by-step guides of what to expect each month with their new child, and how best to improve the child's development at each key stage.
There are also sections on violence against women and how that can impact children. The app lays out what kind of abuse women are subjected to and what support they can get to tackle it.
Gazan protesters head to border protests as Israeli forces fire tear gas on anniversary of Great March of Return
After hearing some of the worst stories from women who have reached out to Momy Helper, Ms Khodary also wants to pair up with charities to improve the gender-based violence section of the app and blog.
Gender-based and domestic violence is increasing in Gaza, according to a rights group, which says it is driven by soaring unemployment and poverty rates among Gaza’s trapped 1.8 million population.
According to the United Nations, more than half of women in Gaza have experienced violence at home, while nearly 80 per cent have reported being psychologically abused. Depression is also thought to be on the rise.
Ms Khodary hopes her app can, in some way, support some women across the Arab world going through this.
Nour al-Khodary, founder of Momy Helper, says she hopes it will grow into a business that will provide employment opportunities for war-ravaged Gaza (Bel Trew) (Bel Trew/The Independent)
“Sometimes mothers just need someone to hear them. We can’t provide professional therapy, but our consultants try to give them support on how they can better deal with their issues,” she says.
“With severe cases we encourage them to seek professional therapy and we try to put them in touch with facilities to help with that,” she adds.
Ms Khodary says she first came up with the idea in 2014 after having her son Bassem when she was briefly living in Chicago as her husband, who had secured a Fulbright scholarship, was finishing his Masters in Architectural Engineering.
A long way away from home, Ms Khodary turned to the wealth of childcare literature and support available in the US.
“When I was in Gaza I didn’t pay much attention to how people brought up their kids but after I read the books, I realised [back home] mothers were hitting their kids and shouting at them. Children just had to follow orders without thinking,” she says.
Users can pay for hour-long consultations with more than 100 specialists (Screen shot of Momy Helper website) (Screen shoot of Momy helper website)
“This shocked me and I started posting on Facebook about what I had learned,” she adds.
She initially received angry backlash from friends who thought she was judging them.
But that changed to a stream of questions when she put up videos showing examples of positive results from her little boy Bassem.
“Then I start thinking about connecting mothers with professional consultants, I realised there was nothing for mothers speaking Arabic,” she says.
Through Gaza Sky Geeks, a Mercy Corps-supported initiative that runs a coding academy, she put together a 10-person team to build the app. In 2017 she came second in a region-wide competition in Istanbul for best start-up in the Middle East and North Africa.
Gaza Sky Geeks offices in Gaza city, where Ms Khodary runs the app (Bel Trew/The Independent)
But the problem now is funding. Ms Khodary secured a small injection of cash from angel investors at the start, who gave her around 10 per cent of what was needed.
But two years on she has had to drop her team and is now running the business entirely on her own.
She registered the app in Delaware and with a US bank, knowing foreign investors would be nervous about money going into Gaza. Right now, she is looking into crowdfunding options.
Coders build websites at the headquarters of Gaza Sky Geeks in Gaza City (Bel Trew/The Independent)
The working mother hopes to run the app as a business, so she can create work back in Gaza where youth unemployment has soared past 70 per cent and only 19 per cent of women of working age have jobs: the highest female jobless rate in the world
“My first dream is that I can reach every woman in the Arab world that needs the support that Momy Helper can offer,” she says. | {
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Six Corners BBQ Fest View Full Caption
PORTAGE PARK — The fourth annual Six Corners BBQ Fest set for June 14-15 will offer ribs, chicken, sausage and beef — all with a side of arts and culture.
Meat lovers will get a chance to chow down from noon-10 p.m. June 14 and from noon-9 p.m. June 15 while raising money for four local arts organizations: Arts Alive Chicago, the National Veterans Art Museum, the Northwest Arts Connection and the Filament Theatre Ensemble.
Heather Cherone discusses the big events at the Six Corners:
Organizers will ask attendees for a $5 donation, and all proceeds will go to the arts groups, which are part of a burgeoning arts scene taking shape in the Six Corners Shopping District.
The festival will also feature the reopening of the Portage Theater, which had been closed for nearly a year. A comedy show and a trio of classic films starting at 4 p.m. June 14 are free.
Peace Frog, a Doors tribute band, will take the Portage Theater stage at 9 p.m. June 14. Tickets are $10 to $15.
Indie rockers Ha Ha Tonka will headline the festival's main stage June 14, while Nashville-based The Apache Relay will headline June 15. Zydeco, brass bands and rock will fill the festival with music during the day.
The Meat on Milwaukee cook off contest June 15 will award bragging rights to the best backyard chef at the festival in two categories: chicken, and pork spare ribs.
Chicago’s own horror host Svengoolie will join former World Wrestling Entertainment wrestlers Tatonke and Trent Barreta for a showdown.
Chefs from local restaurants, including The Portage and Sol De Mexico, will host cooking demonstrations and Portage Park brewery Lake Effect Brewery will be on hand as well.
Portage Park restaurant Hops & Barley will make its first appearance at the three-day festival slinging barbecue beef sliders and barbecue wings.
Filament Theater Ensemble will present a dinner theater performance of songs, scenes and neighborhood stories from its Crossing Six Corners series of shows. Tickets are $25, and includes a donation to the festival and dinner from Smoque BBQ.
The festival will include a kids corner featuring inflatables, face painting, crafts and carnival games. | {
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When my kids were younger, they asked me why the ocean was blue. I would answer that the ocean mirrors the blue sky. However, I would not think much more about it, even though it is well-known that the oceans represent the most important source for atmospheric moisture. They also play an important role for many types of internal variations, such as the El Nino Southern Oscillation. Now a new study by Durack et al. (2012) has been published in Science that presents the relationship between the oceans and the atmosphere.
When it rains over the ocean, the salty ocean water gets diluted by fresh water from the clouds, whereas in regions with high evaporation and little rainfall, the evaporation takes away the water and leaves the salt behind in the ocean. If there is a systematic increase in rainfall over some regions and enhanced evaporation in others, then this ought to leave a fingerprint in form of reduced and increased salinity in the respective regions. This is exactly what Durack et al. (2012) have found.
This finding is consistent with earlier model-based suggestions that dry regions will become drier and wet regions will become wetter in response to warming (Giorgi et al., 2011). The Durack et al. (2012) study was based on surface salinity measurements from the ARGO floats combined with sparser historical data over a period of 50 years (Durack et al., 2010). They studied the changes in the spatial structure in terms of linear regression against time over the 50-year period. The change in salinity was consistent with the notion of a strengthening of the hydrological cycle by ~8%/°C.
They also compared their results with global climate model simulations (which involve coupled atmosphere-ocean models) as well as ocean model simulations (forced by atmospheric data). Ocean models use the laws of physics to describe how the ocean currents flow, the water masses mix, and how these processes affect temperature and salinity. The most important inputs to the ocean models are wind forcing, evaporation and rainfall.
The model results give a similar picture as the observations, albeit with an under-estimation of the hydrological cycle speed-up. By looking at projections for the future, the Durack et al. (2012) analysis points to a “substantial (16 to 24%) intensification of the global water cycle [that] will occur in a future 2°C to 3°C warmer world”.
There is a sinister twist to these inferences. A warmer world is predicted to result in both increased rainfall intensity (mean precipitation estimated for the wet days only) as well as increased length of dry spells (Giorgi et al., 2011). Moreover, in a recent paper, I have together with two colleagues shown that the more extreme rainfall amounts closely follow the rainfall intensity (Benestad et al. (2012). From these results, it seems that we can expect more extremes in both floods and droughts.
Finally, the analysis by Durack et al. (2012) provides another fingerprint of a global warming. However, this finding aspect is not entirely new: the last IPCC report already concluded there is an enhancement of the hydrological cycle, based on observed ocean salinity changes. The method and the conclusion are therefore not new, but the new Argo data confirm earlier findings and strengthen previous observations: the global warming and changes to the hydrological cycle are closely entangeled.
References | {
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Twitter is a wonderful and information rich beast. I wanted to combine some of the powers of visualization, Three.js and its VR capabilities with Socket.IO and Node to create a pretty world of particles generated via a Twitter stream.
I’ve previously discussed all the basics of developing virtual reality web experiences in the SitePoint article Bringing VR to the Web with Google Cardboard and Three.js, so if you are new to this whole idea – read that one first and come back. This demo uses the same foundations.
The demo we will be building will watch a live Twitter stream for a keyword. When one is tweeted out whilst it is watching the stream, it will bring up a “tower” of shining particles that represent how long the tweet was. This demo in particular will look for mentions of the word “pizza”. Why pizza you ask? I was looking for a term which was not mentioned as frequently as “bieber” but more frequently than “boxcar racing hyenas”. In short, the best terms are ones which are relatively frequent enough that they’ll appear whilst you are watching, but not so frequent that they come through at many hundreds a second. Pizza is one of them.
Demo Code
If you’re keen to get straight into the code and try it out, you can find it here on GitHub.
Want to try it in action? I’ve got a running version hosted here: VR Twitter World.
Our Server Code
We’ll begin by looking at our Node server code. It will display our flat HTML and also operate as a Socket.IO server that’ll pull in a stream of data from Twitter.
The full server is relatively short and looks like so:
var express = require ( 'express' ) , app = express ( ) , server = require ( 'http' ) . createServer ( app ) , port = process . env . PORT || 80 , io = require ( 'socket.io' ) ( server ) , config = require ( './config.json' ) , Twitter = require ( 'node-tweet-stream' ) , t = new Twitter ( config ) ; app . get ( '/' , function ( request , response ) { response . sendFile ( __dirname + '/public/index.html' ) ; } ) ; app . get ( / ^ ( . + ) $ / , function ( req , res ) { res . sendFile ( __dirname + '/public/' + req . params [ 0 ] ) ; } ) ; app . use ( function ( err , req , res , next ) { console . error ( err . stack ) ; res . status ( 500 ) . send ( 'Something broke!' ) ; } ) ; server . listen ( port , function ( ) { console . log ( 'Listening on ' + port ) ; } ) ; t . track ( 'pizza' ) ; t . on ( 'tweet' , function ( tweet ) { console . log ( 'Roger that. Tweets incoming!' ) ; console . log ( tweet ) ; io . emit ( 'tweet' , tweet ) ; } ) ; t . on ( 'error' , function ( err ) { console . log ( 'Brace yourself! We are goin doooowwwwwwnnnnnnnn! ' , err ) ; } ) ;
Our first lines set up a server using the Node Express framework. It’s a rather simple set up that is pulling in all our dependencies and preparing the app variable for us to access our server functionality. port sets up which port we want our server to run on ( process.env.PORT is a server variable some hosting set ups like Heroku will have defined).
var express = require ( 'express' ) , app = express ( ) , server = require ( 'http' ) . createServer ( app ) , port = process . env . PORT || 80 ,
Then we set up the io variable whilst simultaneously starting up our Socket.IO server functionality, attaching it to the Express server we set up above:
io = require ( 'socket.io' ) ( server ) ,
Setting Up Twitter Access
The config variable is a nice way of keeping the application’s Twitter authentication keys and access tokens in their own file. In order to live view the Twitter stream, we will be using an npm module called node-tweet-stream which provides all the functions we will need. We assign the object for our Twitter access and all associated functions to the t variable, passing in our config JSON to prove we’re allowed to access it.
config = require ( './config.json' ) , Twitter = require ( 'node-tweet-stream' ) , t = new Twitter ( config ) ,
If you don’t have any Twitter keys for access to the Twitter API, never fear! You just need to register an app with Twitter. Head to the Twitter Application Management page, log in with your Twitter credentials and then click “Create New App”.
Once you have an app, you can get your keys and access tokens by clicking the “Keys and Access Tokens” link that will appear on your app’s management page. If you can’t find it, it will be at the URL of: https://apps.twitter.com/app/0000000/keys (replacing 0000000 with your app’s ID).
Then, create a file on the same level as index.html called config.json . Within it, add the following with your own app’s values:
{ "consumer_key" : "YOURKEY" , "consumer_secret" : "YOURKEYSECRET" , "token" : "YOURTOKEN" , "token_secret" : "YOURTOKENSECRET" }
Other Server Basics
Further along in our index.js file, we set up calls to the root of our server to load /public/index.html :
app . get ( '/' , function ( request , response ) { response . sendFile ( __dirname + '/public/index.html' ) ; } ) ;
We also have it serve up any other static files within the public directory on our server:
app . get ( / ^ ( . + ) $ / , function ( req , res ) { res . sendFile ( __dirname + '/public/' + req . params [ 0 ] ) ; } ) ;
If we do have an error, we log that error in our server’s console and return a 500 error:
app . use ( function ( err , req , res , next ) { console . error ( err . stack ) ; res . status ( 500 ) . send ( 'Something broke!' ) ; } ) ;
The following lines start our server running with all the settings above.
server . listen ( port , function ( ) { console . log ( 'Listening on ' + port ) ; } ) ;
Retrieving Our Live Twitter Stream
Finally, we set up our Twitter specific server functionality. We use the track() function to specify which keyword we would like to track in the ever expanding Twitter content stream.
t . track ( 'pizza' ) ;
We then set up a callback function to run anytime the node-tweet-stream module spots a Tweet with that keyword. If it sees one, we log it in our server’s console log (this is optional, you could remove this if you’d like) and then emit that tweet out as a Socket.IO event to any connected clients.
t . on ( 'tweet' , function ( tweet ) { console . log ( 'Roger that. Tweets incoming!' ) ; console . log ( tweet ) ; io . emit ( 'tweet' , tweet ) ; } ) ;
If we have an error for any reason with our Twitter API, it’ll be logged to our server logs:
t . on ( 'error' , function ( err ) { console . log ( 'Brace yourself! We are goin doooowwwwwwnnnnnnnn! ' , err ) ; } ) ;
All of our server dependencies and details are stored within package.json as with all Node apps. If you are new to Node.js, you might want to read up a bit on what everything means: package.json.
Our Front End Code
Our front end code begins with the same set up from the Bringing VR to the Web with Google Cardboard and Three.js article – a Three.js scene that we display through a stereoscopic effect, bringing our scene into a VR view. To keep this short and sweet, I won’t cover the bits that are the same as the previous demo from that article. If you’re unsure of anything I don’t explain here, check that earlier article for info.
Setting up Socket.IO
The only new JS file we will be adding in comparison to our previous foundation is our Socket.IO JavaScript file. It’s a simple one liner:
< script src = " /socket.io/socket.io.js " > </ script >
In order to access the functionality from Socket.IO, all we need is to assign that functionality to the io variable, as you’ll see a little further down in our index.html file:
socket = io ( ) ,
Preparing Our Towers
We then set up variables for our “towers” (basically our vertical sets of particles that represent a tweet). All of our towers are stored within a THREE.Object3D object called tweetTowers . This is a container object that lets us keep track of all of our towers:
tweetTowers = new THREE . Object3D ( ) ,
particleTexture and particleMaterial are our variables that will represent how our particles will look:
particleTexture , particleMaterial ,
maxTowerCount is the maximum number of towers we want to be visible in our scene – if this is set too high, we can end up with a laggy experience. I’ve set it to 6000 as this sets the maximum particles to be around about a million. A reasonable number in my opinion!
maxTowerCount = 6000 ,
range is how large of an area around the viewer we want these towers to be placed. The towers will be placed at random spots in the scene, so this limits how far apart they all are placed. I’ve found it is a nicer experience with them closer to the user. If they are further away from the user, it looks like there isn’t as many (despite there being thousands upon thousands of particles!). I set it to 100:
range = 100 ;
Our Init Function
There isn’t too much that is new within our init() function. It mainly sets up our VR camera and controls as explained in the previous article. The new bits are at the end.
We define our particleTexture image to be a png called particle-new.png which we have within our public folder:
particleTexture = THREE . ImageUtils . loadTexture ( 'textures/particle-new.png' ) ;
We finish the init() function by adding our tweetTowers container to our scene. With this in our scene, we don’t need to worry about adding any of our towers directly into the scene, we just add them into our tweetTowers object directly.
scene . add ( tweetTowers ) ;
Reacting to Tweets
You’ll recall that once our server finds tweets streaming through Twitter with our keyword of “pizza”, it emits an event called “tweet”. Our client side JavaScript will now watch for that event and respond:
socket . on ( 'tweet' , function ( tweet ) { } ) ;
The response code is a call to a function called generateTower() that will add a tower to our scene representing that tweet. We pass it four values:
generateTower ( { color : parseInt ( '0x' + tweet . user . profile_background_color ) , startingCoords : { x : getRandomArbitrary ( - 1 * range , range ) , y : 0 , z : getRandomArbitrary ( - 1 * range , range ) } , speed : 5 , size : ( tweet . text . length / 140 ) * 100 } ) ;
color is the color of our particle. We pass in the color of the user’s profile background. This lets us show different colors to represent different hungry users tweeting about pizza.
is the color of our particle. We pass in the color of the user’s profile background. This lets us show different colors to represent different hungry users tweeting about pizza. startingCoords is where the tower will be placed. We want these to be placed around us, so we place them between our range variable above (this should end up between -100 to 100) on the x and z axes. If we placed them randomly on y, they’d start at different levels higher and lower from the ground rather than lining up like buildings. We definitely don’t want that, so we ensure they all are placed at a y position of 0. getRandomArbitrary() is a simple random number generator between the two values.
is where the tower will be placed. We want these to be placed around us, so we place them between our range variable above (this should end up between -100 to 100) on the x and z axes. If we placed them randomly on y, they’d start at different levels higher and lower from the ground rather than lining up like buildings. We definitely don’t want that, so we ensure they all are placed at a y position of 0. is a simple random number generator between the two values. speed defines how far apart our particles end up placed (or the speed at which the tower rises if they animated upwards).
defines how far apart our particles end up placed (or the speed at which the tower rises if they animated upwards). size is how many particles high our tower will be. We average it out to a percentage, assuming a maximum Twitter length of 140 characters.
Displaying a Tower
Our generateTower() function itself begins by defining a towerGeometry variable. This is a THREE.Geometry object that will contain the positions of all of our particles within the tower. Keeping all of the points tracked within one Geometry object can help keep processing times down, as Three.js only needs to track each tower object and its points, rather than a range of independent particles. Later in the code, we will provide the geometry to a THREE.PointCloud object which can interpret those points into our particles.
function generateTower ( options ) { var towerGeometry = new THREE . Geometry ( ) ; }
We then set up a JavaScript object called particleMovements that stores where our particles will start and finish within the tower, along with how far apart they’ll be (the values we passed in earlier):
var particleMovements = { start : 0 , end : options . size , speed : options . speed } ;
The currentCoords variable tracks the last position of a particle within the tower. We initialize it at 0,0,0 . The startingCoords where the tower will be placed are parsed in from the function call earlier. If we don’t have any starting co-ordinates from the function call, we initialize them to be the same as currentCoords :
var currentCoords = { x : 0 , y : 0 , z : 0 } , startingCoords = options . startingCoords ? options . startingCoords : currentCoords ;
We then iterate through the size of our tower to create each particle. We set the current co-ordinates for y to increase by our speed value multiplied by i . Our x and z values remain at their starting spots as we’re only moving upwards.
for ( var i = 0 ; i With those co - ordinates defined for this particle , we attach that particle's position as a vertex in our towerGeometry object : [ code language = "js" ] towerGeometry . vertices . push ( new THREE . Vector3 ( currentCoords . x , currentCoords . y , currentCoords . z ) ) ;
That ensures our positioning of the particles is set correctly. Next, we define what the particles in this tower will look like within the particleMaterial variable. Our particles will be placed within a THREE.PointCloud object and thus to style them, we will use a THREE.PointCloudMaterial material:
particleMaterial = new THREE . PointCloudMaterial ( { map : particleTexture , color : options . color , blending : THREE . AdditiveBlending , transparent : true , size : 4 } ) ;
map defines the image we will be using for the particle, we pass in the particleTexture we defined earlier.
defines the image we will be using for the particle, we pass in the we defined earlier. color passes in the color we want the particle to be (defaults to 0xffffff in Three.js).
passes in the color we want the particle to be (defaults to in Three.js). blending sets up how the particles blend into the scene. THREE.AdditiveBlending adds the color of the texture to the one behind it.
sets up how the particles blend into the scene. adds the color of the texture to the one behind it. transparent ensures blending can happen as it requires a level of transparency to work.
ensures blending can happen as it requires a level of transparency to work. size is the size of our particles.
Finally, we define our tower’s point cloud within the variable of tower . We pass in our geometry containing the points we want each particle to appear on, as well as the material we defined above for each of them.
var tower = new THREE . PointCloud ( towerGeometry , particleMaterial ) ;
We add that tower to our tweetTowers collection object and then check to see how many towers are in the scene. If we have more towers than our maximum allowed, we hide the oldest one to reduce the load on the device. If you have any performance issues, chances are they’ll be a bit better if you reduce the maxTowerCount !
tweetTowers . add ( tower ) ; if ( tweetTowers . children . length > maxTowerCount ) { tweetTowers . children [ tweetTowers . children . length - maxTowerCount ] . visible = false ; }
Running Our Code
To run this demo locally, you’ll need Node installed and you’ll need to run the usual commands. Install all dependencies for the project:
npm install
Then run it:
node index.js
In order to test this on your smartphone, you will either need to ensure your smartphone is on the same local network and find your computer’s IP address, or use a tunnelling service like ngrok (I cover how to use ngrok in the article on Accessing Localhost From Anywhere).
You could also host the Node server somewhere. I personally used Heroku, however this is completely personal preference.
Once you’ve got the server somewhere up and running, open up Chrome for Mobile and visit it! Put on your Google Cardboard or other similar headset and you should see an experience that after half a minute or so looks like this if you look up:
Conclusion
This should have given you a good overview of using Node, Socket.IO and Three.js to create a 3D web API enabled virtual reality visualization. The demo itself could be developed further, adding more keywords, filters, making it run smoother with more particles and so on. There is plenty of potential! Feel free to get out there and try to make your own fantastic experience from this demo!
I’ve also got other demos here at SitePoint that use similar concepts but instead brings them into an augmented reality experience. If you are interested, Filtering Reality with JavaScript and Google Cardboard explores taking in the camera from your smartphone and adding filters to it, and Augmented Reality in the Browser with Awe.js explores going all the way and augmenting elements into your field of view via the ever powerful combination of Three.js and Awe.js!
If you do take on the challenge of putting together your own VR visualization from the demo in this article (or combining it with elements from the AR examples mentioned), leave a note in the comments or get in touch with me on Twitter (@thatpatrickguy), I’ll get out my headset and take a look! | {
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Nothing in his experience of life or politics could have prepared Kenny MacAskill for the walk towards that podium last Thursday and I wondered if he would endure the ordeal ahead. Scotland's justice minister, an honest journeyman in the minority part-government of a relatively unimportant country, had nothing beyond a desire to see that natural justice must prevail as he pondered his decision to show compassion to Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi.
This is the man whom Scots justice had found guilty of the biggest terrorist atrocity committed on these islands, the bomb aboard Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie in 1988. He knew that his decision was being scrutinised on four continents and that his character would be trashed before the hour was spent. Yet he emerged from his trial with his stature increased and Scotland woke up on Friday with its reputation for decency and fairness enhanced.
MacAskill could have washed his hands of this issue and simply had a terminally ill man spend the few remaining days of his life in a Greenock prison cell. Few, beyond the masters of the British petroleum industry, would have demurred. Certainly not Downing Street, whose haunted incumbent would have been praying for such a verdict, and certainly not America whose default position on justice is: "When in doubt, hang them from the neck… especially if they are poor, black and uneducated." In the Arab world, there would have been desultory protests but nothing more. Baghdad, Helmand, Kabul and the West Bank are of far more pressing concern than the final resting place of a man they all wished to forget.
But this unprepossessing minister of justice sought to ignore all the serried interests of the global supermen. Instead, he found refuge in the fundamental principles of a judicial system that has served Scotland soundly for more than 400 years. For 16 years now, our statutes have given us leave to release from prison anyone who is deemed by competent medical authority to have three months or less to live. It was a concession rooted in compassion, pity and forgiveness. Few in the United Kingdom have ever taken issue with it. It is a good and just law. MacAskill simply applied it. In this case, he used it merely to allow a murderer go home to die. Before Megrahi, 23 other prisoners had been shown a similar mercy in Scotland. It was also a decision buttressed by two oncologists and two urologists who provided written documentation that, in their opinions, the Libyan prisoner was in the very last stages of his final agony.
Nor had MacAskill been party to any quid pro quo deal that involved Megrahi dropping his appeal against his original conviction in return for compassionate release. The desired outcome for the Scottish government was for Megrahi to die in a Scottish jail and for his appeal to proceed.
It was easy for them to reject the Libyan government's application for release under Tony Blair's gross act of cynicism in the desert with Colonel Gaddafi in 2005 that established a prisoner transfer treaty between the UK and Libya. Only one Libyan prisoner resided in a British jail, Megrahi, and yet the Scottish government was not consulted about it.
One senior SNP politician I spoke to last night stated categorically that no deal had been struck with Megrahi: "Politically, the worst option for us was the one chosen by Kenny MacAskill. But it was also the right and proper one and consistent with the principles this nation strives to govern itself by. What no one could have foreseen two years ago was the onset of the prisoner's aggressive prostate cancer and this changed everything."
The criticism of MacAskill from opposition parties has been pitiful. Labour leader Iain Gray wasted no time in branding the decision a disgrace, yet he and his party know that the only disgraceful act by a UK politician over this affair was Blair's deal in the desert which owed more to the interests of British petrochemical companies in securing contracts with a country which owns Africa's biggest oil reserves than to any notion of justice.
The Conservatives, in the spirit of the nearby Edinburgh comedy festival, suggested that Megrahi be made to see out his final days in a detached bungalow in Newton Mearns, an affluent suburb of Glasgow.
The Liberal Democrats are always keen to demonstrate their utter irrelevance in Scottish politics and they couldn't help themselves this time either. They could do nothing more than criticise MacAskill for dithering in the time he took to come to his decision.
Megrahi's homecoming to Libya has variously been described as triumphant and joyous, strange words to describe an event about a man about to die of cancer. Did anyone ever truly believe that there would be no fanfare for a man who swears that he is blameless and whom the country believes is innocent?
But it has been the outrage of the Obama administration in Washington that has been most difficult to stomach. Hillary Clinton's cack-handed attempt to interfere in matters under the jurisdiction of Holyrood last week was highly dubious. Scotland needs no lessons in matters of fairness from a country that has been routinely waterboarding suspects in Guantánamo Bay.
America bows to no one in the art of political expediency. Surely that wasn't North Korea, top of the league in the axis of terror, that Barack Obama's new best friend Bill Clinton was bending the knee to earlier this month, to secure the release of two US nationals. Intriguingly, neither the Washington Post or New York Times elected to devote much coverage to Megrahi's release the following day. Like most observers, they probably sense that many facts about 21 December 1988 will never emerge and that if justice truly has been dragged through the mud then the process started in the weeks immediately following Lockerbie.
The next time Clinton calls to express her disgust about the decision to send Megrahi home to die, perhaps someone in the Scottish government could ask her in return about the leniency shown to US soldiers involved in the Mai Lai massacre in 1968. And then they can remind her about the US warship Vincennes, which blew an Iranian Airbus and its 290 passengers out of the sky in 1988.
There remain some doubts about the evidence used to convict Megrahi of the Lockerbie attack, yet even if it had been tested once more at a court of appeal along with any new evidence, the decision to convict may still have prevailed.
And it is simply naive to believe that somehow all the conspiracy theories surrounding the atrocity would have been laid to rest by a new trial. But there is something worse than all of this. That somehow, even if more answers were found, the pain of those closest to the 270 victims of Pan Am flight 103 could be assuaged a little. Does anyone truly believe that somehow, even if more answers were found, the pain of those closest to the victims could be assuaged a little? Further revelations in another Scottish court will not reduce their loss or remove their hurt. | {
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A policewoman collects evidence on December 21, 2014 in Dijon on the site where a driver shouting "Allahu Akbar" ("God is great") ploughed into a crowd injuring 11 people. (AFP)
A driver shouting "Allahu Akbar" ("God is greatest") ploughed into pedestrians in eastern France on Sunday, injuring 11 of them, just a day after a man yelling the same words was killed in an attack on police officers.Two of the people injured in the car attack in the city of Dijon were in a serious condition, a police source said, adding that the driver had been arrested."The man, born in 1974, is apparently unbalanced and had been in a psychiatric hospital," a source close to the investigation told AFP, adding that "for now his motives are still unclear".The man had targeted groups of passersby at five different locations in the city on Sunday evening in a rampage that lasted around half an hour, the police source said."Nine people were lightly injured and two others seriously but their lives do not appear to be in danger," the source added.Witnesses told police that the driver shouted "Allahu Akbar" and "that he was acting for the children of Palestine", a source close to the investigation said.Police sources said the driver was known to police for petty offences dating back to the 1990s.Prime Minister Manuel Valls took to Twitter to express "solidarity" with those injured in the attack.France is still reeling from a suspected radical Islamic attack on Saturday that saw a French convert to Islam shot dead after attacking police officers with a knife while also reportedly crying "Allahu Akbar" in the central town of Joue-les-Tours.The assailant, Burundi-born French national, Bertrand Nzohabonayo seriously injured two officers -- slashing one in the face -- and hurting another.The 20-year-old attacker also cried "Allahu Akbar" during the assault, said a source close to the case speaking on condition of anonymity.The assault prompted the government to step up security at police and fire stations nationwide.Nzohabonayo had previously committed petty offences but was not on a domestic intelligence watch-list although his brother is known for his radical views and once pondered going to Syria, the source said.The anti-terror branch of the Paris prosecutor's office has opened a probe into that attack, with the line of inquiry focusing on whether it was motivated by radical Islam.The weekend incidents in France come as governments around the world brace for so-called "lone wolf" attacks by individuals returning from waging jihad abroad, or who are simply following Islamic State group calls for violence in the countries involved in a coalition fighting the militants in Iraq and Syria.The group has repeatedly singled out France for such attacks, most recently in a video posted on jihadist sites this week.Last week in Australia, an Iranian-born Islamist with a history of extremism and violence entered a cafe and held people hostage for 16 hours before being killed. Two of the hostages also died.Last year in France, a recent convert to Islam also stabbed a soldier in the busy Paris commercial complex and transport hub of La Defense.
And the main suspect in the murders of four people at Brussels' Jewish Museum in May, Mehdi Nemmouche, spent more than a year fighting with extremists in Syria.Authorities in France believe around 1,200 nationals or residents are involved in one way or another in jihadist networks in Iraq and Syria. | {
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"It is one of the most recognisable props in film history, certainly the most recognisable gun in film history with its very own often imitated catchphrase." | {
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UPDATE: In a statement to MassLive, the University of Dayton said that David Becker will not be attending the school. Becker’s attorney, Thomas Rooke, had no comment.
—–
A former Massachusetts high school athlete will avoid serving jail time and registering as a sex offender after he was charged with sexually assaulting two unconscious women at a house party.
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David Becker, 18, had been charged with two counts of rape and one count of indecent assault and battery in connection with the April 2 incident after a party in Palmer, reported MassLive.
Palmer District Court Judge Thomas Estes on Aug. 15 ordered Becker’s case continued without a finding for two years, and he was sentenced Monday to two years of probation.
During that time, the former East Longmeadow High School student was ordered to avoid drugs and alcohol, submit to an evaluation for sex offender treatment and stay away from the two 18-year-old victims.
Becker, a three-sport athlete at the school, will be permitted to serve probation in Ohio, where he plans to attend college, and will not be required to register as a sex offender.
No conviction will appear on his record if he complies with the terms of his probation.
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“He can now look forward to a productive life without being burdened with the stigma of having to register as a sex offender,” said his attorney, Thomas Rooke. “The goal of this sentence was not to impede this individual from graduating high school and to go onto the next step of his life, which is a college experience.”
A classmate told a school resource officer about a rumor circulating that a high school senior had assaulted two senior girls while they were intoxicated.
The victims told the resource officer they had been drinking while a classmate’s father was out of town but stayed to help Becker and the classmate clean up.
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Police said the young women went to an upstairs bedroom, where they talked to Becker until they all three fell asleep.
The victims said they awoke to find Becker sexually assaulting them, and he apologized to one of the women by text message the following day.
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Becker denied sexual contact with the other victim but said he believed his actions with the first woman had been acceptable because she didn’t stop him.
That woman said she had heard Becker had similarly assaulted other girls in the past — earning him the nickname “David the rapist.”
Becker’s attorney strongly denied both of those claims and accused the alleged victim of “unjust character assassination.”
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Police found no evidence of previous sexual assaults, and one of the victims told the court that she did not believe jail time was necessary, and the judge closely followed the sentence recommended by Becker’s attorney.
“We all made mistakes when we were 17, 18, 19 years old, and we shouldn’t be branded for life with a felony offense and branded a sex offender,” Rooke said. “Putting this kid in jail for two years would have destroyed this kid’s life.”
The sentence comes in the wake of two other controversial sentences for students convicted of sexual assault.
Brock Turner, a 20-year-old former star swimmer at Stanford University, was found guilty of sexually assaulting an unconscious woman outside a party in January 2015, and Judge Aaron Persky ignored prosecutors’ recommended six-year prison term and imposed only a six-month sentence with the possibility of three months off for good behavior.
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Austin Wilkerson, a 22-year-old former student at the University of Colorado, admitted to sexually assaulting an intoxicated woman who had rejected his advances.
He was sentenced to two years in jail but will be permitted to leave during the day to work or attend school, and he was ordered to spend 20 years to life on probation.
Watch this video report posted online by WWLP: | {
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Wolfgang Voigt Reveals Massive GAS Box Set
Published Aug 25, 2016
Wolfgang Voigt's releases under his GAS moniker have been hailed as high water marks for not only himself but electronic music as a whole, and now the Kompakt label boss is set to take a comprehensive look back at his work with an immense box set arriving this fall.Titled GAS BOX, the collection will feature 10 LPs and four CDs, housed in one box alongside an art-print book featuring previously unreleased GAS artwork. The box will feature the four "core" GAS albums: Zauberberg, Königsforst, Pop and Oktember. While Oktember will stand as a single-vinyl release the others will be three-LP pressings featuring edits never before released on vinyl, with a press release promising "extended playtime and superior sound quality... the way they were intended to be heard." Each album will also be collected on CD.All albums included in the box have been long out of print, with original pressings going for hundreds of Canadian dollars on sites such as Discogs.The label states: "Following the much-acclaimed (and out-of-print) retrospective Nah Und Fern from 2008, Kompakt has decided that it's high time for a reissue that features the core GAS albums originally released by the legendary Mille Plateaux imprint in the 90s — the records that introduced the projectʼs trademark sound between Schönberg and Kraftwerk, Wagner and the bassdrum, an endless march through the underwoods of an imaginary, mist and into the disco."GAS BOX will arrive on October 28 via Kompakt. The box also coincides with the 20th anniversary of Zauberberg's release.Zauberberg:1/A. Zauberberg 12/B. Zauberberg 23/C. Zauberberg 34/D1. Zauberberg 45/D2. Zauberberg 56/E. Zauberberg 67/F. Zauberberg 7Königsforst:1/A. Koenigsforst 12/B. Koenigsforst 23/C1. Koenigsforst 34/C2. Koenigsforst 45/D. Koenigsforst 56/E. Koenigsforst 67/F1. Koenigsforst 78/F2. Koenigsforst 8Pop:1/A1. Pop 12/A2. Pop 23/B. Pop 34/C. Pop 45/D. Pop 56/E. Pop 67/F. Pop 7Oktember:1/A. Tal 902/B. Oktember | {
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A Q& A with Rhonda Sherman, extension specialist at North Carolina State University, sometimes called the “worm queen”:
How do earthworms eat?
They do not have teeth. A liplike extension over the mouth helps direct food into the mouth, where the muscular pharynx (throat) grabs it, coats it with saliva and pushes it down the esophagus into the crop, where it is stored before moving on to the gizzard. There it is crushed and ground apart before moving into the intestine, where it is broken down further by digestive enzymes. Some of the food is passed into the bloodstream for use by the earthworm, and the rest passes out the anus as castings (worm poop).
[Here’s how to compost (with worms) at home]
Do earthworms have eyes?
(Alla Dreyvitser/The Washington Post/iStock)
No. They have receptor cells in their skin that are sensitive to light and touch. They will move away from light because heat from the sun or a light source will dry out their skin and kill them.
How do earthworms breathe?
Earthworms do not have lungs; instead, they breathe through their skin. Their skin needs to stay moist to allow the passage of dissolved oxygen into their bloodstream. Earthworm skin is coated with mucus, and they need to live in a humid, moist environment.
How do earthworms move?
Earthworms have groups of bristles on each segment of the body that move in and out to grip surfaces as they stretch and contract their muscles to push themselves forward or backward. They tend to move forward.
If an earthworm is cut in half, will it regenerate into two worms?
No. The half with the worm’s head will survive if the cut is after the segments containing vital organs. But the other half will not grow a new head nor other vital organs.
Joseph Brownlie holds and watches a 'red wiggler' worm. (Katherine Frey/The Washington Post)
Which end is the head?
The head is at the end closest to a swollen band encircling an adult earthworm.
What is that swollen band?
The swollen band is called a clitellum. After copulation, it secretes a cocoon in which eggs and sperm are placed for conception and development.
How do they reproduce?
Earthworms are hermaphrodites, so individuals have both female and male organs. They mate by aligning themselves in opposite directions at their gonadal openings and exchanging packets of sperm. Each earthworm will form an egg capsule in its clitellum and pass it into the environment. The egg capsule is golden brown and looks like a tiny lemon the size of a match head. Two to seven Eisenia fetida babies (three, on average) will hatch from an egg capsule in 30 to 75 days.
Can earthworms survive the winter outdoors?
To survive winter, other species of earthworms can burrow into the soil below the frost line. But composting earthworms don’t burrow, so they produce cocoons that allow their babies to live through cold weather. People who are vermicomposting can counteract cold by insulating their worm bins.
How long do worms live?
The Eisenia fetida earthworms’ life expectancy is approximately 4½ to five years.
Will the worm population in a bin keep growing?
If the bin has the proper conditions (i.e., moisture level, temperature), the earthworms will thrive and reproduce. After about four to six months, you may need to thin the population. Do not put the worms in your yard because it is not their natural habitat and they probably will not survive.
For more information, see here. | {
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After the hip-hop group Bangtan Boys (BTS) was accused of sajaegi (inflating sales numbers by purchasing large quantities of albums), reportedly outselling BIGBANG on the physical album charts, Russian fans gathered online to defend BTS.
The suspicion originally arose from BTS’s ranking on the Hanteo Chart where BTS’s newest album, In the Mood for Love Part 1, ranked higher than BIGBANG’s Made Series-m. Since the accusations, Bit Hit Entertainment said, “Big Hit Entertainment doesn’t have the resources to do such a thing,” while netizens also cleared up suspicions of BTS’s alleged sajaegi.
“Hello, I’m writing on behalf of the Russian A.R.M.Y. The Russian Army includes fans not only from Russia but from its neighboring Russian-speaking countries such as Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan. There has been so much criticism and harsh comments against BTS. In response to this, we decided to voice our opinion. We would like to introduce ourselves to the reader and ask a few questions. First of all, we would like to tell you how many BTS fans we represent, and how much we love BTS. Do you love BTS as much as we do?
There are approximately 70,000 fans, and we’re growing in number everyday. On Korean websites, it’s easy to find comments that ask who BTS are. It’s amazing how a group that’s gaining so much popularity worldwide is not being recognized in its own country. We’re fans abroad but we care a great deal about the artist’s work, the quality of their music, and their appreciation of fans. We’re very thankful, and this is why our fandom is so big. And what do you care a great deal about?
It breaks our hearts that BTS is being accused of chart manipulation. We’re angry about it. There really is a huge volume of BTS album purchases. Rather than just being suspicious about it, think about the fans abroad. There are a lot of us–a lot more than you think, not only in Russia but in countries I have already mentioned; and we buy a a great number of albums together. We each buy two albums. This is because purchasing their albums is the only thing we can do to support BTS. Have you ever thought of it that way?
And speaking of V, who ever said it was V’s fault? V.I.P? We never heard anything from the BIGBANG fans. In Russia, the fans are on good terms, both within the fandom and with each other. All fandoms are in shock after seeing so many hurtful comments against V. I really wonder who’s behind all this.
We hope to find out the answer.
And we would like to let you all know how sincere and supportive we are as a fandom. We wake up in the middle of the night to watch the BTS performances live because of the time difference. We always vote for BTS. We love BTS and believe in their success. We try to always be there for them especially in tough times. We do BTS-related Twitter trending campaigns. We hope to make the BTS members happy by doing these activities. We couldn’t just sit and not do anything this time amid the manipulation controversy.
Lastly, we would like to thank the Korean A.R.M.Y, for supporting BTS in ways we foreign fans can’t. We would like to see BTS happy from now on. That’s why we’re always going to be by their side and continue to support them. We are A.R.M.Y!”
Source: Netizen Buzz | {
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Peter Thiel Adam Jeffery | CNBC
It’s not the FDA that gets in the way of innovation; it’s the limits of our knowledge
One of the key notions that undergirds the Peter Thiel view of the FDA is that if the agency just got rid of some of the pesky restrictions for drug approval, we'd usher in another golden age in drug development. (Thiel declined our interview request.) To test this idea, I asked a longtime pharmaceutical scientist (and conservative), Derek Lowe, for his views. In his 28 years in the lab, Lowe has seen hundreds of thousands of compounds tested on a huge variety of drug targets, and never, not once, has he brought a drug to market. The reason? "We don't know how to find drugs that work," he said. For every 5,000 compounds discovered at this "preclinical" phase of drug development, only about five are promising enough to be tried in humans. That's a success rate of 0.1 percent. Drug innovation comes from painstaking tinkering and a dash of luck. "It's very tempting for someone who has come out of IT to say, 'DNA is code, and cells are the hardware; go in and debug it'," Lowe said. "But this is wrong." In Silicon Valley, humans have designed the hardware, software, and computer code they're working with. In medical research, scientists do not have that advantage, Lowe said. "We have 3 billion years of spaghetti-tangled gibberish to deal with. And unless you've done [drug development], it's very hard to get across how hard it is. I don't know of anything that's harder." Biochemistry and cell biology are "like alien nanotechnology," he added. So the real hurdle researchers face when it comes to finding new drugs for people isn't overcoming a stringent regulator; it's grappling with that "alien nanotechnology" in the lab.
Cheaper, faster, but ... worse drugs?
Thiel has argued that the clinical trials required to prove a drug is effective slow down the development process. In one talk, he said that if we didn't force drugmakers to prove their products are better than the others already available, we'd have more "slightly worse, but much cheaper" options to pick from. To address this, he and other regulation skeptics typically suggest that the FDA should loosen up, or even get rid of, its efficacy requirement. Let's step back a bit to explain how the FDA approves drugs, and the three phases of clinical testing they have to pass to get the final green light. In phase one trials, researchers test drugs for safety in a small group of healthy people, and tinker with dosing. In phase two, they test the drug in a larger group of people and make sure it delivers on its promise by monitoring how well it works against the best available therapies or a placebo. In phase three, the drug is tested on an even bigger group (up to 3,000 people), and again, researchers compare how the drug works against other treatments on the market and carefully analyze safety data. If the drug makes it through phase three, the data is submitted to the FDA for approval.
It’s not like when you pick up a car and drive it and decide whether you like it or not. Knowing whether drugs are safe and work is something far beyond the common knowledge of patients, and is frankly far beyond the knowledge of most physicians. Hank Greely Director of Stanford's Center for Law and the Biosciences
Consider this. It wasn't until 1962 that the Food and Drug Administration starting asking drug companies to prove their products were both safe and effective before they hit the market. Until that time, there were some standards related to adulteration and labeling, but otherwise it was mostly a free-for-all. It took the infamous scandal around thalidomide, a morning-sickness medication that caused severe birth defects, to strengthen the FDA ... and incidentally, the FDA's efficacy standard coincided with the golden age of drug innovation in the 1970s and '80s. The failure rate for drugs in clinical trials is about 90 percent. That means the vast majority of drugs aren't safe or effective enough to be used — they don't do what they were supposed to do. As Yale FDA researcher Joe Ross noted to me, "If there is no demonstration of a benefit, does it matter if we have more options?" And here's Lowe: "The clinical failure rate is not 90 percent because the FDA are such bastards. The clinical failure rate is that high because most drugs don't do what we thought they were going to do." It's precisely the clinical trial process, with scientists closely measuring efficacy, that helps weed out drugs that don't work. Unlike hotels or taxi services, which can easily be evaluated by consumers, consumers often can't judge whether their drugs are helping or hurting them: The effects may not be obvious or appear for a very long time. "It's not like when you pick up a car and drive it and decide whether you like it or not," said Hank Greely, director of the Center for Law and the Biosciences at Stanford. "Knowing whether drugs are safe and work is something far beyond the common knowledge of patients, and is frankly far beyond the knowledge of most physicians." Greely pointed out that we already have an example of what a much less regulated drug world would look like: "It's called the nutritional supplement industry. And it's a travesty." Supplement makers don't need to demonstrate that their products are effective or even safe before putting them on store shelves — so most supplements are unproven, and problems with quality and adulteration appear to be distressingly common.
The FDA has become the fastest medical regulatory agency in the world
In the 1980s and '90s, Congress and the FDA created several programs to speed up the development and approval process for new pharmaceuticals: the orphan drug designation, priority review, fast track, and accelerated approval. These programs were intended to push the most clinically important, innovative drugs — medicines to treat rare, serious, or life-threatening diseases — out to patients more quickly, often on the basis of more limited and less rigorous clinical trial data. "These pathways along with increased funding for FDA drug reviews from user fees enacted first in 1992 were successful," said Aaron Kesselheim, an associate professor of medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital, in an email. "The average total review time, for example, has fallen from 30 months in the 1980s to currently around 8.5 months." (See chart of drug approvals here.) But the more important question is whether expedited FDA pathways increased the number of innovative new therapeutic options for patients — and here the data is far less clear. "Some transformative drugs, like imatinib (Gleevec) for chronic myeloid leukemia, have definitely benefited from speedier FDA pathways," Kesselheim said. But research continues to show that the majority of drugs that have come onto the market offer little or no improvement over the status quo. For example, several studies have found that since the mid-1990s, about 85 to 90 percentof new drugs that have come onto the market don't offer any clinical advantages for patients compared with existing therapies. More worryingly, the special expedited development and approval pathways have become the rule, rather than the exception. Newer research, led by Kesselheim in the BMJ, looked at a database of all new medicines approved by the FDA between 1987 and 2013 and found that over the past two decades, the proportion of new drugs qualifying for at least one of the FDA's expedited programs has increased by 2.4 percent per year. Kesselheim and his colleagues also concluded that "this trend is being driven by drugs that are not first in class and thus potentially less innovative." So there's little evidence that speeding up approval times has helped spur innovation.
The big opportunity for time savings is not in FDA review time. 's in the entire development process that leads up to the review — how to design clinical trials, how to enroll patients in them. Mark McClellan FDA commissioner under George W. Bush
Some even argue that if you want to bolster medical innovation, you need to look well beyond the FDA. Yale's Ross says some of the biggest barriers occur in the world of insurance payers. "Medicare essentially pays for almost everything [the] FDA approves. If payers were making more coverage decisions — including reimbursing more effective, safer medications — based on value, that would be a huge incentive to innovate better products," he says. Before descending on the agency, Silicon Valley types will also need a firmer grasp of the history of medical regulation and why it's there in the first place. Peter Thiel has said, "You would not be able to invent the polio vaccine today," echoing similar statements from some of the potential FDA picks. Yale medical historian Jason Schwartz disagreed: "This assertion is at best ahistorical, if not altogether meaningless." The famous Salk polio vaccine trial in 1954 involved more than half a million children, "a number that would be unacceptable today," Schwartz explained. And shortly after the vaccine's introduction, problems with its production resulted in the Cutter Incident: Vaccines with live polio virus (instead of killed virus) were administered to thousands of American children, sickening 40,000, leaving 200 paralyzed, and killing 10. Over the past half-century, we've seen a number of new vaccines come onto the market, including shots to prevent hepatitis B and meningococcal, which were developed without harming children. "It's exactly the production safeguards and ongoing oversight of vaccines and other products by the FDA today — both before and after approval — that keep these kinds of preventable tragedies from happening again," Schwartz said.
There are some places where Silicon Valley can help with drug innovation | {
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There are several counties in America, each with more than 10,000 homes, that have vacancy rates above 55%. The rate is above 60% in several.
Most people who follow unemployment and the housing crisis would expect high vacancy rates in hard-hit states including Nevada, Florida, and Arizona. They were among the fastest growing areas from 2000 to 2010. Disaster struck once economic growth ended.
Palm Coast, Florida; Las Vegas, Nevada; and Cape Coral, Florida were all among the former high fliers. Many large counties which have 20% or higher occupancy rates are in these same regions. Lee County, Florida; Yuma County, Arizona; Mohave County, Arizona; and Osceola, Florida each had a precipitous drop in home prices and increases in vacancy rates as home buyers disappeared when the economy collapsed.
Data from states and large metropolitan areas do not tell the story of how much the real estate disaster has turned certain areas in the country into ghost towns. Some of the affected regions are tourist destinations, but much of that traffic has disappeared as the recession has caused people to sell or desert vacation homes and delay trips for leisure. This makes these areas particularly desolate when tourists are not around. | {
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In the wake of revelations over the last few months about massive NSA surveillance programs that violate the privacy of millions of innocent Americans, members of the congressional Intelligence Committees have begun to draft legislation that they say will reform these authorities. There's just one problem – unlike reform bills proposed by other members of Congress, the Intelligence Committees' bills might do more to entrench domestic surveillance programs than rein them in.
At a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing last month, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) described her proposals , and one thing is clear: they won't fix anything. In fact, they may even make government surveillance worse. They include:
Legalizing the warrantless wiretapping of people known to be located in the U.S. for 7 days where that surveillance began abroad; and
where that surveillance began abroad; and Legalizing queries of U.S. persons' names or e-mail addresses without probable cause, so long as it is for "articulable foreign intelligence purposes."
These changes would represent significant expansions of the NSA's domestic surveillance authorities under Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act, an already overly broad law that authorizes the suspicionless surveillance and collection of millions of Americans' communications, including the contents of their emails.
Sen. Feinstein's proposal also wouldn't reform the bulk collection of Americans' call records but actually put Congress's stamp of approval on the unconstitutional and indiscriminate surveillance program. Her tweak to the program includes:
Changing how the NSA accesses Americans' phone records but NOT limiting whose records are swept up in the NSA's bulk telelphony metadata program, under Section 215 of the Patriot Act.
The purpose of this reform, according to Sen. Feinstein, is "to change but preserve [the] program." She is clear that she has no intention to fix the law or to rein in the dragnet collection of Americans' call records. These changes would merely limit who can access the records and would codify the requirement that there be a "reasonable articulable suspicion that a phone number is associated with terrorism in order to query it." This does not limit the current " 3 hops " rule that may be sweeping up millions of additional Americans' numbers into NSA databases or add any additional privacy protections.
To be fair, Sen. Feinstein's proposals do include reporting requirements, such as making public the number of phone numbers queried by the NSA each year, and accountability measures, such as Senate confirmation of the director of the NSA. While these proposals for increased transparency and oversight would be important additions to these surveillance programs, they do not fix them. They do not stop the NSA's mass surveillance of millions of innocent Americans.
As Congress considers the two dozen bills that have been introduced so far , it should ensure that, at a minimum, reforms include :
Ending bulk collection of Americans' information under Section 215 of the Patriot Act;
under Section 215 of the Patriot Act; Prohibiting suspicionless, dragnet collection of Americans' communications under Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act;
under Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act; Increasing transparency of domestic surveillance programs with public reporting by the government and private sector, and limiting the issuance of gag orders associated with national security informational requests; and
with public reporting by the government and private sector, and limiting the issuance of gag orders associated with national security informational requests; and Allowing public judicial review of the NSA's sweeping surveillance programs.
The good news is that dozens of members of Congress - like Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), and Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) - are already hard at work to pass fixes that would take big steps toward reining in the NSA's domestic surveillance programs. And don't forget that Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) got the House within 7 votes of defunding the bulk call records collection program altogether this summer. The momentum for reform is strong.
Despite this, Feinstein and some of her colleagues in the Senate and House Intelligence Committees are working on a proposal that would expand the NSA's domestic surveillance authorities. In just a few short hours, the Senate Intelligence Committee will mark it up in secret , without even publicly releasing the initial draft language.
Americans are tired of excessive surveillance and secrecy . It's time for Congress to legislate on these programs in the daylight and to pass real reforms. | {
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Article content
The federal Liberals were, curiously, still calling it the “Pan-Canadian Framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change” on Tuesday when they unveiled the details of the carbon tax they’ll be imposing on any provinces that don’t already have one. But that certainly gives a pretty good indication just how detached the entire plan has come from reality.
It is after all a stretch at this point to keep referring to it as “pan-Canadian,” the Liberals’ preferred original term intended to signal that it was an agreement between the provinces, territories and Ottawa. Now nearly half the provinces part of the original negotiations two years ago are rebelling against the plan to varying degrees and still others are threatening to.
We apologize, but this video has failed to load.
tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Kevin Libin: Trudeau’s carbon plan is so much worse than just a tax Back to video
And pretending this any longer has anything to do with “fighting climate change,” as the government continued to insist Tuesday, takes yet more gall. It was just a couple of weeks ago that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change shredded that pretext, having declared that for a carbon tax to be effective in saving the climate from apocalyptical warming it would have to start at least at US$135 a tonne and maybe even rise to US$5,500 a tonne by 2030. The Liberals’ tax starts at $20 and rises to $50. Projections currently show they won’t even meet their commitments to 2016’s Paris climate agreement unless its at least $200 a tonne, although that reality was also inverted Tuesday as the federal government publicly pretended that meeting its Paris promise was well underway without challenges. | {
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Admit it: Adorbs!
I did march with the anarchists in DC against the first Gulf war. That made a difference!
We need to do better.
So with all that said, what else do we know that might actually help us?
First, let’s consider this graph from Ben Davidow, which shows the relative number of animals harmed by the standard American diet.
Welcome and thanks for coming.If I say anything that seems like a criticism or judgment, it isn’t meant that way. I’ve made many mistakes in my life – mistakes that have actively hurt our efforts on behalf of animals. We are all fortunate there has been so much research of late that can guide our efforts to help animals as much as possible.I want to share this research and the relevant numbers with you today. These facts totally changed my approach to advocacy, although they didn’t do so right away. It took me a long time to get over my personal biases and accept and act on reality.To set the stage, I was not raised a vegetarian, or even a liberal. I didn’t have any clue what went on in the world. I just knew I loved groovy pants!When I went vegetarian and became an activist in 1980s, I adopted the “Do Something, Do Anything” mode of activism.This basically defaulted to focusing on whatever was high profile, whatever was in the news, whatever pissed me off the most.And I did whatever felt best – and this was generally something angry and in-your-face. I wasn’t trying to figure out what would make the biggest difference.It took me years to come to the most important insight:I know it goes without saying, but there is anamount of cruelty in the world. We simply don’t have the ability to address it all. When we choose what to focus on, we are saying we’re not going to be working on behalf of anything else.I know this is harsh. But it is a simple logistical truth.This matters because over the past 40 years, we’ve not done the best job.For example, this graph shows per capita meat consumption in the U.S. While beef has declined, chicken consumption has more than doubled. Given how small birds are, this means many many more animals are dying every year, compared to when Peter Singer publishedI know we all have a much greater affinity for mammals than for birds.But not only are chickens being killed in vastly greater numbers than cattle or pigs, they are suffering absolute horrific and unfathomable cruelty.So what do we know that can help us improve as activists, that can help us actually make real progress toward a better world for animals?You’ve probably all seen this slide from Animal Charity Evaluators:It is the most important graph in my entire presentation. The bottom line is that to a first approximation, every animal killed in the United States is a farm animal.Compare that to this graph, showing where animal-related charitable donations go:Now, farm animals are the tiny sliver in the bottom right.In short, when trying to make a difference for animals, we’re working with one hand tied behind our backs, because resources are in no way allocated proportionally.Unfortunately, it is even worse than that.This graph, from Harish Sethu’s “ Counting Animals ” blog, shows thebudgets of companies that exploit animals, compared to theoperating budgets of animal advocacy organizations. Just to be clear, the big circles are simply the advertising budgets for Cargill, McDonald’s, etc. The advertising budget of just one of these companies dwarfs the combined operating budgets of PETA, HSUS, MFA, etc.Now I know this isn’t happy news. I realize this can all seem overwhelming, even hopeless. It is not entirely unreasonable to look at these numbers and just want to work on whatever project is right in front of us, whatever pisses us off.And yet, before we move on, I want to hit you with one more piece of bad news. According to a number of surveys, including the most recent one by the Faunalytics (Humane Research Council), themajority of people who go vegetarian or vegan eventually go back to eating animals. Specifically, 4 out of 5 people who go veg then quit!It would be bad enough to realize that we’re throwing away 80% of advocacy efforts. But it is actually worse than that. Everyone who quits being veg becomes an anti-spokesperson for compassionate eating – a public (and often loud) example against takingsteps to help animals. Ginny Messina has written more about this ( 1 3 ).And you can see that the vast, vast majority of animals harmed are birds.To look at it a different way, we have this graph from Mark Middleton at AnimalVisuals , showing the number of deaths to produce a million calories of different foods, including grains, vegetables, and fruits:He explicitly concludes, “Leaving chicken and eggs out of our diets will have the greatest effect on reducing the suffering and death caused by what we eat.”Again though, I don’t want to just focus on death.I would much rather be a field mouse living free until killed by a combine harvesting soybeans, compared to a chicken whose entire life is utter agony.And I don’t mean this as hyperbole. Harish did an analysis of how many chickens actually suffer to death before making it to the slaughterhouse:These birds die of disease, or are killed because they aren’t growing quickly enough, or their legs break leaving them unable to make it to water, or have their hearts just give out. Harish’s calculations show that so many chickens suffer to death that their number dwarfs all those killed for fur, in shelters, and in labs. Again – this isn’t the number of chickens killed overall, just the number whoThe numbers are incredible. Again, based on research by Harish, Joe Espinosa notes that the average American consumes about two dozen land animals a year.If one person decides to give up eating birds – just birds – they go from being responsible for the deaths of over two dozen land animals a year to fewer than one.The converse is also true:Anything that mightlead someone to replace red meat with chickens will lead to a lot more suffering and killing, as noted by Ginny Messina Between 2008 and 2012, there was a decline in the consumption of chickens (which has, sadly, reversed in the ensuing years). I would love to say that this decline in killing has been driven by a rise of vegetarians and vegans. However, as Nick Cooney notes in, the change has actually been driven by meat reducers – people who are eating more meat-free meals, but aren’t vegetarian.Also from, Nick notes that people who buy “humane” animal products eat less meat than the average American. They are also more likely to go vegetarian.This is a hard bit to swallow. My reaction is to want to attack people who specifically rationalize eating animals. But the data show these people are actually our allies – people we should embrace and encourage Turning to recidivism, the data show that people who go veg for health reasons are the ones who go back to eating meat.The single biggest difference in motivation between those who are currently vegetarian and those who used to be vegetarian is concern for animals.This is backed up by The Humane League Labs, which showed concern for animals is what inspires lasting dietary change.So clearly, we need toResearch has also told us more about how we can refine our message in such a way as to get the most change for animals.The Humane League Labs specifically pointed out that we should not focus on dairy.Not only because of the numbers, but because it is the last thing people think they can give up. Rather, we should focus on chickens, which people can give up and actually makes the biggest difference in the numbers.This relates to research I was a part of this past spring at the University of Arizona. One of the many interesting take-aways from those studies was that the general public thinks veganism is impossible, and vegans are, to put it kindly, annoying.This obviously doesn’t matter if we only want to promote veganism regardless of the consequences. But if we actually want to make a difference and reduce the amount of cruelty in the world, we should take note of this.Similarly, many people go back to eating animals because they find it too hard to live up to the demand for purity.Again, if we only care about the purity of those who call themselves vegan, then the fact that we’re driving people away is irrelevant. But if we actually want to reduce cruelty, we should do everything possible to both embrace and encourage everyone......instead of reinforcing people’s stereotypes and trying to build the smallest, angriest, most exclusive club in the world.For all the bad news leading off this presentation, there is a great deal of hope and opportunity out there.A number of surveys have discovered a shocking willingness among the general population to reduce meat consumption.And if we are going to really help animals, rather than police our club, we can reach these people with an honest, realistic message that actually has a profound impact for animals...... reducing and eliminating consumption of chickens.How can we best do this?These graphs from the Humane League Labs shows that of the advocacy tools available to us, movies, conversations, websites, and online video have proven to be the most impactful.That conversation is so powerful shows just how important it is that we be positive, effective spokespeople in our daily lives.I know this is a lot to process in only a few minutes.But it is truly wonderful that we have so much information available to us, such that we know what positive, constructive steps we can take to help change the world for animals.Two last thoughts. The first is my favorite quote from Gene Baur.Even while building the world’s leading farm animal sanctuary, Gene was looking ahead to what will be necessary to make sure that one day, sanctuaries will no longer be needed. We have to go upstream and end the demand for animal products.And finally a quick note as to why this work matters. For us here, we can debate and argue, philosophize and condemn. We’re all relatively safe and well off, enjoying our sparring and our quibbles.But we need to realize that our work is a matter of gravest consequences for animals. Recognizing this actually changed my worldview, away from beingto beingWe cannot do everything. This is why I strive to know all the facts and make sure my efforts to have the greatest possible impact. Of everything Ibe doing, I want to choose the option that reduces thesuffering. I hope you agree, and that this information is useful. Thank you. | {
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A terrorist group in the Philippines has killed John Ridsdel, the 68-year-old Canadian kidnapped last September – an execution Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called "cold-blooded murder" and the man's family said was "senseless."
A second Canadian, 50-year-old Robert Hall, remains captive, a Canadian government official confirmed.
Mr. Ridsdel was a world traveller who had made the Philippines his home. He was a passionate sailor, experienced in living and travelling in conflict areas, and a father of two adult daughters.
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He was held for a ransom by the terrorist organization Abu Sayyaf and beheaded after the deadline passed.
"Our family is devastated at the loss of our father and brother John Ridsdel whose life was cut tragically short by this senseless act of violence despite us doing everything within our power to bring him home," the Ridsdel family said in a statement Monday.
"John was a kind and gregarious person who touched everyone he knew with his enthusiasm and generosity. He loved life and lived it to the fullest with his family and friends at the centre."
"He was loved by all his friends and adored by his daughters, sister, and extended family. He will be sorely missed for all our days to come."
Mr. Trudeau, speaking to reporters in Kananaskis, Alta., said his government will work with the Philippines to bring justice to the alleged killers.
"This was an act of cold-blooded murder and responsibility rests squarely with the terrorist group who took him hostage," Mr. Trudeau said.
Mr. Ridsdel and Mr. Hall were kidnapped on the resort island of Samal in the southern province of Davao del Norte last fall. Other captives include a Norwegian man and a Filipina. A member of the Hall family declined to comment. Another did not return a call seeking comment.
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Bob Rae, the former Ontario premier and member of Parliament, has known Mr. Ridsdel since 1966, when they started at the University of Toronto together.
"He wasn't someone who was going to spend his days at a country club or watching golf on television," Mr. Rae said in an interview. "That was not John. … He was definitely an adventurer."
Mr. Rae said he had been trying to help the Ridsdel family "navigate" the situation. "People tried hard. His family tried very, very hard and did a lot to try to respond," the former politician said.
Canada has a policy against paying ransoms, according a government official.
Abu Sayyaf, the jihadi group that allegedly killed Mr. Ridsdel, emerged as part of an ethnic conflict in the Philippines, according to Will Plowright, a doctoral candidate in the department of political studies at the University of British Columbia. Abu Sayyaf, however, has pledged allegiance to Islamic State, although Mr. Plowright said the two organizations "have no real connections."
Before Mr. Ridsdel went missing, he was about to join a sailing rally between the Philippines and Indonesia's Sulawesi and West Papua. He missed the start of the rally and his boat remained at the marina in the southern Philippines that served as the rally's starting point. Gunmen attacked the facility in September, 2015.
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Bill Bowen, a fellow sailor who met Mr. Ridsdel through work in the 1980s, last visited him in the Philippines about five years ago. "He's the last person on Earth that you'd expect to find involved in what was happened," Mr. Bowen said. "[He was] very mild-mannered, very polite, very inoffensive person and not in any way aggressive or threatening."
Moreover, Mr. Ridsdel was a savvy traveller. He worked in Algeria during times of conflict and was aware of the tensions in the Philippines, Mr. Bowen said. "This is somebody who is fairly clued up and you wouldn't really expect to fall … into a trap."
Mr. Ridsdel was an award-winning journalist turned oil-and-mining executive. His overseas assignments with Petro-Canada included stints in Pakistan, Myanmar and Algeria. He landed in the Philippines after joining Calgary-based TVI Pacific Inc., a mining company. He was semi-retired and working as a consultant for the mining company before he was kidnapped.
Mr. Hall, meanwhile, had recently begun dating a Filipina, Maritess Flor, who had accompanied him for part of a cross-Pacific sailboat journey – and whose family grows sugarcane not far from the marina where gunmen seized the Canadians from their yachts, along with Ms. Flor and Norwegian Kjartan Sekkingstad. Mr. Sekkingstad lived for a time in Canada and carries a Canadian passport, friends have told The Globe and Mail.
For the community around Ms. Flor, the lack of information in recent months has raised suspicions that the military has failed in its efforts to free those taken captive.
"I think they tried but weren't successful, so that's why there's been a news blackout, because it won't look good for the Philippine government," said Val Araneta, a leader in the community where Ms. Flor's family lives.
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"I'm disappointed with the government," he said.
Ms. Flor's family, he said, has been "stressed and depressed" through the ordeal.
On Monday evening, during a power outage in the Philippine municipality of Jolo, two men on motorcycles threw a plastic bag into a square near the town's municipal offices and police station.
Children playing nearby initially ran from the bag, believing it to be a bomb, said Dr. Raden Ikbala, a local physician. But when "they opened it, they saw the head of a man," he said, and reported it to police.
Such tactics have been used before by local militants.
"Sometimes they throw the heads in public places so that it will be discovered," said Dick Gordon, a Philippine senator who had been asked several months ago to negotiate the release of the hostages. He said it appears "he was executed because of the failure to pay the ransom" – although none of the circumstances are clear.
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The men on the motorcycle, Mr. Gordon said, left a chilling message as they departed.
"They threw it, and they said, 'We will be back.' We don't know why they said that."
With a report from Steven Chase in Kananaskis, Alta. | {
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‘Protect the Pope’ was a blog established in 2010 by the Rev’d Nick Donnelly, a kindly, humble and intelligent deacon in the Roman Catholic Church (and the second-nicest Catholic in the Twittersphere). His blog soon became one of the most important go-to Romish blogs in the UK (if not the world), with a million hits a year from people eager to read his incisive commentary and robust defence of Roman Catholic orthodoxy against the “lies, half-truths and misrepresentations of a coalition of aggressive secularists, atheists and homosexual activists” of the left-liberal intelligentsia (mainly media), who weren’t overly fond of Pope Benedict XVI for various reasons.
“I set up Protect the Pope to defend Benedict XVI during his state visit to the UK,” Nick Donnelly tweeted earlier this week. “Vicious attacks in the media. Now the media love Francis.”
And the media loves Pope Francis mainly because he is not as ‘rigid‘ as Pope Benedict XVI: “@Pontifex appointing pro-abortion/euthanasia advocates to the Pontifical Academy for Life was the last straw for me. Not Catholic”, Deacon Nick explained, before adding rather mournfully: “I hoped for the best, but my worst fears for the Church are being realized. He is destroying the Catholic nature of the Church”
This destruction, Deacon Nick avers, is evidenced in the appointment of the pro-choice moral theologian Professor Nigel Biggar to the Pontificia Academia pro Vita. What on earth is a pro-abortion Anglican doing on a body which was founded with the purpose of promoting and defending human life?
And so ‘Protect the Pope’ has morphed into ‘Protect the Faith’, just to dispel any notion that ‘Protect the Pope’ was actually protecting the Pope – as opposed to protecting the Pope Emeritus, which ‘Protect the Pope’ was established to do. And ‘Protect the Pope Emeritus’ is a bit of a clumsy name for a blog (and Twitter handle), so ‘Protect the Faith’ it must be, because the cardinals and bishops obviously aren’t doing it.
There’s quite a bit of backbiting (not to say backstabbing) in the Roman Catholic Church at the moment, principally down to the Francis-Benedict hermeneutic of discontinuity (or the very easy perception of such). Intra-ecclesial division is nothing new, of course: there has been a liberal-traditional fissure in the Roman Catholic Church at least since the Second Vatican Council, and arguably those consultations, declarations and decrees were an attempt to codify a response to preexisting divisions on the nature of Christ and the Church and the application of Christian theology in the (post-)modern world. The Church has always been divided (1Cor 1:12; 3:4), but the Benedict-Francis sectarianism seems to be heading inexorably toward schism.
Tweets and blog homilies abound referring to Francis quite brazenly as the Antipope who must resign for the good of the Church. These critics aren’t Protestants (well, technically, they are, by definition) but devout Roman Catholics (or a bit more devout than the Pope). There are plots and rumours of plots to depose the Pontiff; accounts of a pope utterly despised by his own clergy; tales of infighting and factionalism which is escalating to ecclesial civil war. Every utterance made by the Pope Emeritus is seized upon by traditionalists as the word of the ‘true’ Pope or the ‘real’ Pope – the one they wish had never resigned and inflicted this disastrous Papacy on the world. Did Benedict write about the “dictatorship of the zeitgeist“? He must mean the befuddled Francis. Did he mention a capsizing boat? That must be the Holy Mother Church under the heretic Francis. Many of the faithful believe that the Petrine ministry still properly resides with Benedict: God will preserve the Magisterium through him. The charisms of indefectibility and infallibility cannot be defectible or fallible, and Francis is seemingly a thousand errors and wrongs all rolled into one.
Rome seems to have become the seat of the Antichrist, or at least one of many antichrists (1Jn 2:18). And so ‘Protect the Pope’ must die in order that the Rev’d Nick Donnelly may preach Catholic truth and distinguish himself from the Pope who does not preach anything like that truth. Of course, Pope Francis would say to Deacon Nick that he is being “too rigid” in his understanding of doctrine; that he lacks mercy, grace and goodness. This upstart deacon is trying to be “more Papist than the Pope“, as the Pope once accused those Catholics who put doctrinal phariseeism before the work of the Holy Spirit.
Deacon Nick would take it on the chin, and respond along the lines of: “When the pope (lower-case) appoints pro-abortion/euthanasia advocates as advisers and no cardinal or bishop protests, I have to speak out, come what may.” The Spirit of the Lord is upon him, you see. He might add: “Also, it’s very easy nowadays to be more Catholic than the pope (lower case): you just have to uphold the doctrines contained in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.”
And that would be his rationale in two tweets.
Nick Donnelly is no stranger to disputation, occasionally correcting, rebuking and exhorting ‘with all longsuffering and doctrine‘ (2Tim 4:2). And in his ministry he has corrected and rebuked eminent Roman Catholic theologians, quite a few bishops and the odd cardinal. But on 2nd March 2014 his ‘Protect the Pope’ blog fell silent.
On 7th March of that year, his wife posted an explanation for this absence: “Nick has been asked to observe a period of prayer and reflection.” She did not specify why this reflection was being observed or by whom it had been requested. But the Diocese of Lancaster (ie Bishop Michael Campbell) helpfully issued a swift statement to the press, freely disclosing the Bishop to be the initiator of the request. It read:
After learning that a notice had been placed upon the Protect the Pope website on 7 March saying: ‘Deacon Nick stands down from Protect the Pope for a period of prayer and reflection’ the Bishop’s Office at the Diocese of Lancaster was able to confirm that Bishop Campbell had recently requested Deacon Nick Donnelly to voluntarily pause from placing new posts on the Protect the Pope site.
Meanwhile, it was also confirmed that the Bishop asked Deacon Nick to use this pause to enter into a period of prayer and reflection on the duties involved for ordained bloggers/website administrators to truth, charity and unity in the Church.
Deacon Nick has agreed to the Bishop’s request at this time.
It was interesting phraseology: Deacon Nick was “requested…to voluntarily pause” from writing his blog. What was one to infer from this other than that Deacon Nick had been somehow failing to fulfil his diaconal duties or had been otherwise deficient, disobedient or unfaithful to his church’s teaching?
This “period of prayer and reflection” was manifestly nothing of the sort: the “request” carried more than a whiff of absolutist clericalism; an enforced disciplinary censorship imposed upon the Deacon who had presumed to defend the Pope (ie the embodiment of Roman Catholic orthodoxy) against the more liberal winds blowing through the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales (CBEW). It was even more disconcerting when one considers that a conversation between a bishop and a member of his clergy remains, by convention, totally confidential: while the Diocese was happily issuing its defensive press releases, Deacon Nick was faithfully Trappist, having evidently been given no dispensation to speak or write about any conversations he may or may not have been having with his Bishop.
Filling the void – as nature requires – a number of interesting explanations about the reasons for the Bishop’s censoriousness surfaced. The Tablet stated: “Protect the Pope… regularly criticised groups and individual bishops – including Cardinal Vincent Nichols – for being at odds with church teaching on issues such as homosexuality, women’s ordination, contraception and abortion. It is understood that concerns about the site had been raised with Bishop Campbell by fellow members of the English and Welsh hierarchy.”
Fr Z, who runs the popular eponymous US blog, said: “I, for one, can imagine that a lot of pressure was exerted on the Bishop of Lancaster to have gone to such an extreme as to command a cleric under his charge not to think aloud in public.”
And Fr Tim Finigan of The Hermeneutic of Continuity wrote: “I think that it is no great secret that Catholic blogs are indeed a frequent topic of conversation at the meetings of the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales.”
It appeared, then, that Deacon Nick Donnelly was just a bit too Catholic for the Catholic Bishops of England and Wales. For as long as Pope Benedict XVI sat upon St Peter’s Throne issuing the occasional motu proprio favouring the old paths (Jer 6:16), Deacon Nick’s commitment to immutable truths and infallible moral law were tolerated, not least because they chimed with the Vatican under Benedict, if not quite with the CBEW. But under Francis, the traditionalists appear to be on the retreat: they are sidelined or censored while those progressive Roman Catholics who advocate a more tolerant approach to priestly celibacy, same-sex unions, abortion or divorce and re-marriage are not merely tolerated but actively promoted.
Benedict XVI was a Catholic Herald kind of pope; Francis inclines toward The Tablet. Or at least that’s how it appears. Certainly, the Diocese of Lancaster isn’t averse to promoting the latter on its website, giving high profile coverage to liberal bishops who are calling for a “radical re-examination of human sexuality”, while downplaying (/ignoring) the traditional teaching.
For Deacon Nick, such a radical re-examination is unnecessary, unholy and un-Catholic. Indeed, for him it amounts to apostasy: such teachings do not ‘develop’ through synodical debate and legislative resolution, for that would incline toward the more heterodox Anglican view. No, if the Magisterium is infallible, its teaching must be protected and the Deposit of Faith defended. Dissenting bishops and cardinals must be called out, corrected and rebuked using Scripture and referencing the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Those who do not repent ought to be excommunicated.
But it was Deacon Nick who was “requested” to “prayerfully reflect”.
The Catholic Herald wrote that it is impractical for bishops to seek to “censor the blogosphere”, not least because this sort of medieval inquisitorial heavy-handedness has a tendency to backfire in this fragmented digital age. Indeed, a perplexed (if not deeply upset) Mrs Donnelly reluctantly assumed the role of protecting the Pope during her husband’s voluntary-mandatory period of reflection. They might have muzzled the Deacon with appeals to lofty episcopal authority, but it’s nigh impossible to censor the new media altogether. When Bishop Michael wrote demanding that no one post on ‘Protect the Pope’, she immediately stopped out of respect for his office.
Deacon Nick was tolerated (just about) by what may be termed the ‘protestant’ bishops of the Roman Catholic Church for as long as Benedict reigned. Since his abdication, the liberals have been doing what liberals, clerical or civil, always do – silencing the opposition and using the levers of the institution to destroy it.
The Church needs more prophetic blogging watchmen like Deacon Nick Donnelly, exposing hypocrisy, challenging double standards and shining a light into its mysterious workings and often impenetrable darkness. And the Church needs more bishops like Michael Campbell who will exhort the faithful into long periods of prayer and reflection, for ‘Protect the Faith’ is the undoubted fruit of this profound reflection. Michael Campbell’s request was for Nick Donnelly “to voluntarily pause from placing new posts on the Protect the Pope site”.
That leaves him free to post to his heart’s content (as the Holy Spirit leads) on a new ‘Protect the Faith’ site. Laudate Dominum! | {
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From APEX: The Story Of The Hypercar
APEX: The Story Of The Hypercar is a fascinating documentary that follows the ideology and innovation behind the world’s current crop of performance heavyweights from Porsche, Ferrari, McLaren, Koenigsegg and Pagani as it attempts to define them. But there’s one spoken line in the first two minutes of the film that perfectly defines the idea of the hypercar, which is that “something better is possible.”
The documentary, which is currently available on Netflix and is a must watch, talks to prominent figures of the automotive industry and goes through the motions of defining a hypercar, or the hypercar, as being a combination of sport, art, experience, ego, imagination, passion, innovation, and all of the rest of it.
Yet it’s Alex Roy who perfectly defines the hypercar in the very opening of the film when he says, “a child looking at [a car] will say ‘something better is possible.’”
And that’s exactly what is so exciting about the concept of developing the ultimate car. Not just that whatever happens to be the fastest, most powerful car on the market right now is the pinnacle of innovation or as good as it gets—no, what’s even more exciting is the thought that no matter where the engineering is at, somebody one day will do something better.
APEX highlights the chance occurrence that Porsche, McLaren and Ferrari all embarked on hybrid powertrain hypercars at the same time, marking it as the big shift in how we approach the engineering of modern cars. Yet, the film breaks away to focus on Christian Von Koenigsegg, who is very cleverly engineering hypercars, with perfect power to weight ratios and gear-less transmissions, which truly challenge the title of “fastest car in the world” while being far removed from the culture and practices of its competition.
It’s this weaving back and forth between the various approaches each company is making towards creating the fastest car on the planet that proves that there is always something better already in the works.
As we drive this new generation of hypercars, and write and read about them and lust after them, it’s with the subconscious knowledge that the next great thing is already being worked on. It’s so unbelievable today to think that we could ever push faster beyond where we are right now, and yet we also are aware that endeavors to do exactly that are well into development.
Someone out there is already working on something better, and that’s the magic of the hypercar. It’s where engineering and ego meet in what could be considered an expression of pure optimism—it’s so good now, the performance is so unbelievable, and yet it’s only going to go farther and get better.
“It’s not about going fast, it’s about being fast. It’s about elevating human experience to places we’ve never been before.”
Check out APEX: The Story Of The Hypercar on Netflix. It’s a good time. | {
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ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -- While some use T-shirts, hats and yard signs to support their favorite presidential candidate, one St. Petersburg man is taking it a step further.
He got tattooed for Trump.
"This is the first time in my life I have had a choice," said Sean (he asked that his last name not be used).
"I can vote for another career politician or a citizen, a businessman, someone who knows problems and is known for solving problems."
Joshua Dunlap, owner of Sun Coast Tattoos on St. Pete Beach, did the tattoo. He has inked portrait tattoos before, but nothing quite like this.
"I was really excited to do the piece first off from an artist standpoint. I get to use color," Dunlap said. "And secondly, it's immediately recognizable. I feel that it makes it more difficult because if there's an error, the whole world will see it because they know, the whole world knows what Donald Trump looks like."
The tattoo took 13 hours and 20 different colors of ink.
Sean said the time and pain was worth it, and he's only gotten positive reactions so far.
"In a word, love," he said. "Just love. For the tattoo, for Trump. Even people who don't like Trump, love the tattoo."
Sean said he's confident Trump will win the election, but if he doesn't he has no plans to remove the tattoo.
Trump will return to Tampa on Wednesday. He will hold a rally at the Florida State Fairground entertainment hall. | {
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SINGAPORE: En bloc fever has reached a new high with an attempt by the owners of Mandarin Gardens condominium to engineer what is set to become Singapore's largest collective sale.
According to documents seen by Channel NewsAsia, owners of the 99-year leasehold development in East Coast have set a S$2.48 billion price tag in a new attempt at a collective sale.
A marketing agent has been appointed to handle the process, and an Extraordinary General Meeting will be held within two weeks to approve the sale conditions.
Analysts Channel NewsAsia spoke to have expressed surprise over the reserve price, adding that the en bloc process will be closely watched as it could raise the ceiling for collective sales attempts in Singapore.
"This would represent probably the highest land price ever in Singapore in terms of absolute quantum,” said Mr Ku Swee Yong, chief executive of International Property Advisor.
“S$2.5 billion sounds large, but that's partly also because this piece of land is one million square feet. Multiplied by the plot ratio, you could in fact build about three million square feet of residences."
Based on the collective sale agreement seen by Channel NewsAsia, C and H Realty has been appointed as the marketing agent.
The agreement states that residential owners of the 1,006-unit condominium stand to pocket between S$1.58 million and S$5.07 million at the set reserve price.
The property is located at Siglap Road, alongside the upcoming Thomson-East Coast rail network. It is close to schools such as Victoria Junior College and Tao Nan School, and has a sea-facing view of East Coast Park.
UNCHARTED TERRITORY
Analysts say that Mandarin Gardens' S$2.5 billion price tag sits in uncharted territory, and could mean that the owners face an uphill task after a failed attempt 10 years ago.
With S$2.5 billion as the reserve price, analysts say developers still need to consider the upgrading premium, development charge, and Additional Buyers’ Stamp Duty as factors that pile on the costs.
This means that the total bill to acquire the lush estate in eastern Singapore, and to build a new one, they add, could eventually balloon to S$3 billion or S$4 billion.
The record for the largest en bloc sale by dollar value currently belongs to the former Farrer Court, which has since been redeveloped into D’Leedon. That 99-year leasehold property fetched about S$1.3 billion in 2007.
Last year, 37 en bloc tenders worth more than S$8.7 billion were awarded. This includes Amber Park, which holds the record for Singapore's largest freehold collective sale by dollar value at S$906.7 million. | {
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The worst part is that you do it by pure instinct all the time. You must go against all your very being for more than half an hour to play monk ^_^U. They say Coda is the hardest but i say he's not the one you suffer the most... | {
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Pop/hip-hop trio Son Lux is on the brink of releasing its first new material since the 2015 album Bones, but they can’t do it alone. On March 21, the group posted a call on social media asking for people to lend their voices to a 400 person choir that will be included on a new song called “Remedy.”
Participants of the “Remedy” choir are given a PDF instruction sheet and two guide tracks made by band member Ryan Lott, all available on his website. The guide tracks feature piano accompanying Ryan’s vocals, with two different versions in higher and lower registers. Meanwhile, the PDF sheet provides rules and info on recording vocals for the song, as well as lyrics to sing:
Find your voice in the sea of surging bodies and breath
To form a melody, to form a melody
Free a song from their lungs, our children’s daughters and sons
To find a remedy, to find a remedy
Ooooh-oooh!
Ooooh-oooh!
To find a remedy
To form a melody
The lyrics are very meta, literally talking about singing in the choir that the band is crowdsourcing for the song. This concept is similar to previous Son Lux songs like “Change Is Everything,” where Lott sings about the process of turning his solo project into a band.
Son Lux was first started by Lott back in 2008 as a solo endeavor before officially becoming a band with the release of Bones, which introduced guitarist Rafiq Bhatia and drummer Ian Chang to the trio. The group is best known for its 2013 album Lanterns, with songs like “Lost It To Trying”—which was featured on the Paper Towns soundtrack—and “Easy,” which was later remixed by Lorde. Now that Son Lux is crowdsourcing a choir for its new song, it seems likely that a new release is on the horizon.
The deadline for the recording is by Monday, March 27 at 9 a.m. EST. With no release date given (and the guide tracks lasting only a minute and a half) it’s uncertain when the full track will be released. Until then, you can keep an eye on the lyrics to “Remedy” and check out the rest of Son Lux’s discography here on Genius. | {
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Wiley Cerilli started his sales career peddling coupons door-to-door. Unsurprisingly, he describes it as “pretty much the worst job ever.” “People would generally hate you no matter what you said,” he remembers. But he did take one valuable lesson from the experience: If you knock on enough doors, eventually someone will say yes.
“People don’t ask for things because they never want to be told no,” he says. “But sometimes being told no is the best thing that can happen to you. It means you took a chance. It can help you get to where you’re supposed to be.”
This was definitely the case for Cerilli, who graduated from his early sales experiences to become VP of Partner Sales and Services at Seamless, and co-founder and CEO of SinglePlatform— acquired by Constant Contact two years ago for $100 million. (You can read his advice for startup CEOs here.)
After building massive sales teams from scratch, he's developed an arsenal of lessons for startup founders looking to do the same thing. In this exclusive First Round Review interview, he shares the 39 pieces of sales advice that have moved the needle for him and his companies the most.
Do the Groundwork
1. You need a scripted sales pitch designed to hit your metrics.In the early days of your startup, all you should be doing is developing the right tactics to sell your products, and this is no easy feat. “It takes months and months of testing to come up with the right formula,” Cerilli says. “At SinglePlatform, we were out selling the product for four months before we even built the beta just to see what was resonating.”
2. Start by selling in person.You want to see people’s unfiltered reactions to your presentation and your deck so you can adjust accordingly. Only after months of Cerilli going out to pitch customers in person did he decide to move sales in-house and work on fine-tuning the script for phone sales.
3. Test many different pricing models. Deciphering the optimal pricing for your product is a cornerstone of your sales strategy. And if you don’t test, you won’t know where you stand. “Only through testing did we discover that we were able to sell more as we increased the price,” he says. “We went from a freemium model to now charging $79 a month for the product, and the rate of sales productivity only went up as we charged more.”
People value your product based on the price tag.
“If you offer anything for free, people will generally be skeptical,” Cerilli says. “They will believe your product has whatever amount of value you tell them. If you charge $20, people will think, ‘Oh, it’s only worth that? I don’t want to spend time on something that’s only giving me $20 worth of value…'"
4. If you undervalue your product, people will use it less. Psychologically, if people haven’t paid for something, they have no reason to use it. “Think about it. If you buy something expensive, like a gym membership, you’re going to use it because you feel obligated to yourself.” For a while, Cerilli would charge one group more and one group less just to see if it impacted engagement. The more people paid, the more often they’d log in to the SinglePlatform system. Then he’d price correct later to make the overcharged group feel like they were getting a great deal.
5. Pinpoint the best delivery methods. Most people think that effective sales can only be conducted over the phone or in person. But this depends on the type of customers you’re going after, where your audience lives, and how they like to be reached. Make sure you test any unorthodox sales methods. See how emails perform versus cold calls. Test at what point in an interaction you should ask for the sale.
6. Test on a weekly schedule.“All of these tests you’re running can be affected by a lot of things — people’s personal lives, how many closes they’ve had recently, a string of particularly easy or hard targets, etc.,” Cerilli says. “You want to make sure you end up with the script that works the best under the most conditions. Also, don’t test more than one or two changes per repetition or you won’t know what worked.” After testing for over six months, Cerilli got to the point where he could close any customer over the phone. Only then did he hire other salespeople.
7. Adopt a “buyer’s mentality.”At Seamless, the sales team was struggling. Their tactics simply weren’t working, and Cerilli realized they needed to rethink their approach. What did they have going for them? They had many pre-formed relationships with big companies that used the platform to regularly order food. “When you go in with a seller’s mentality, you say things like, ‘Hey, it would be great if you signed up for Seamless. It would be awesome for you because of all these things…,’” he says. “When you go in with a buyer’s mentality, you say, ‘Hi, we manage the food ordering for Goldman Sachs, and we’re considering adding your restaurant to our system. We have some questions for you, so how about we set up a meeting?’” You have to dress up your assets and make your service something your customers want to buy. In Seamless’ case, they had a controlled market of consumers.
8. Don’t oversell. One major way people oversell is offering too many features. When you present someone with too much upfront, they don’t know what they're buying, and you’ll probably end up creating a crappy product, Cerilli says. “Stay focused and be great at fewer things — don’t be okay at a lot of things. You don’t want customers looking at some of your features knowing they won’t use them. Then they won’t agree with the price you’re charging.”
9. Design decks that keep the attention on you.“The deck we ended up with for in-person sales calls was mostly pictures and customer success stories. Successful sales people are trained to capture and manage customers’ attention. You don’t want to give authority away to the deck that’s behind you.”
10. Find a VP with solid individual contributor sales experience. People want to work for someone who has done their job before, who can set reasonable goals and understand their problems.
There's a reason so many professional coaches were amazing athletes— they already know how to win.
Hire and Train the Right Way
11. Start with 4 new hires. When you’re just beginning to build your sales team, you have to assume there will be a lot of churn. It’s a hard job, your product is new, and sales is high turnover on average. Half the people you hire probably won’t work out — even when you’re super picky about them. That’s the reality. So really try to hire in classes as you scale.
“I hear all the time managers saying, ‘I’m starting a new sales person this week,’ and I think, ‘One person? Oh my god that’s such a waste of time because they probably won’t work out,’” Cerilli says. “When you start out with four people, you’re much more likely to get one rock star and one B-player who can grow into the role.”
12. You want new hires to be young and hungry.“You want someone who has a bit of a chip on their shoulder — I call it Tom Brady Syndrome. He was drafted so late that he’s now out to prove what a great quarterback he is. Often, we’ll hire people out of Ivy League schools who don’t have that much to prove, so they aren’t that motivated.”
Looking across the 600 sales hires he’s worked with, Cerilli says the people who have performed the best are the ones who had paid jobs in college — who had to understand the value of a dollar from a young age.
13. Ask these three questions in every sales interview:
Did you have a lemonade stand growing up? “Believe it or not, 95% of the people I’ve hired had lemonade stands when they were kids. They were born entrepreneurs.”
“Sell me something that’s in this room right now. Make up whatever you want, but sell me the chair that you’re sitting on. Now tell me why I should buy ketchup instead of mustard. Ok great, now sell me mustard over ketchup.” These are the best questions for getting at someone’s innate creativity and versatility.
If there was a movie made about you, who would play you? What would your theme song be? What would you title your autobiography? “You can pick up so much about someone’s confidence and how they perceive themselves from questions like that,” Cerilli says. “You want someone who can think on their feet, be witty at the drop of a hat, keep you engaged.”
Wiley Cerilli, Venture Partner at First Round and Founder of SinglePlatform
14. Hire people for a 3-month trial period.“We chose three months because we knew there were going to be a lot of people who didn’t make the cut, and this gives you a nice formal endpoint to part ways. Also, it makes it easy to create an exact goal for that time period. Whether someone should stay or not becomes a quantitative decision.”
Just because employees are auditioning doesn’t mean they shouldn’t ask for help, however. “During this time, it’s actually expected that sales reps raise their hand so that their managers can coach them through calls or take over if they need to. That’s just fine. In fact, if someone isn’t seeking help like that regularly in the first three months, that’s a red flag.”
15. Put new recruits through bootcamp. At SinglePlatform, all new hires train for a week before making sales. Training includes everything from breaking down personality tests — so that they can tell what kind of customer they're talking to — to written tests, to listening in on hours and hours of live sales calls. “By the end of training, you want them to know exactly what to expect and how to handle the unexpected.” The last phase of training includes making simulated calls to their manager and other people at the company to see if they can sell the toughest audience.
16. Immerse hires in success. At SinglePlatform, Cerilli’s team plays recordings of successful calls on a weekly basis. “When you play them calls that were made by people they work with who got the sale, people start assuming that they're going to make the sale too,” he says.
Statistics show when you make a sale, the probability of you making a sale on your next call is way higher.
When people assume success, they go in with the confidence necessary to make it a self-fulfilling prophecy.
17. A and B players should be able to land 80% of their sales. “You don’t want C players,” Cerilli says. “So make it clear that 80% is a completely realistic goal. Even if someone is making a lot of calls and has a great attitude — if they don’t hit their number, they still don’t make it. No exceptions.”
18. Give quarterly bonuses, not commission.“You want to give bonuses on a quarterly basis, because every three months there are people who are leaving the company and you can save that cash. In the end, you save a lot of money. And especially when you’re at an early-stage startup, a quarter of commission or bonuses can make or break your company.”
19. Give people goals they can hit.“You can always raise goals as you need to, but it’s never good to lower them,” Cerilli says. “You need to gain people’s trust that you’ve set quotas in the right place. Do whatever you need to do to figure out this number, but good employees should be getting more wins than not.”
20. Have the script in front of people at all times.This goes for new and old hires. You want people to stick to what you’ve spent so much time crafting. “You understand what your real levers are and what’s working and what’s not. Having an exact script can be one of your greatest strengths, and when you train people well, it will come off as natural. They will be able to riff while hitting all the right points.” Cerilli recommends keeping the script as consistent as possible, with no more than one noticeable change a month. It also helps to print out a new version every week with any changes highlighted.
21. Teach hires to sell with customer stories.“You don’t want people using words like ‘I’ or ‘we’ when they are selling on the phone. No one cares why someone they don’t even know thinks this product is awesome. They need to talk about people their targets can relate to and why they love the product. You want your reps to convey why other customers believe the product is valuable. They can say things like, ‘I was just talking to so-and-so who you know the other day, and he totally loves this feature.’”
22. Fire quickly.For the first three months, you have the 80% rule in effect, and after that SinglePlatform enforces a two-strikes-and-you’re-out rule. “You have to fire a decent amount of people in this business,” Cerilli says. “That’s just how it is to manage and maintain a high performance team. It’s one of the toughest things about the job but you have to get good at it.”
Create a Robust Management Layer
23. Managers should closely track their teams. At SinglePlatform, managers are constantly listening in on their reps’ calls to gather intelligence, record feedback, and help them get better at closing deals. Cerilli recommends having one manager for every 10 to 12 sales reps so that they can invest enough time figuring out how to manage each person to success.
24. Make constant coaching practical.To make it possible for managers to monitor and help their reps, Cerilli’s team uses ShoreTel's M5 phone system. This allows the VP and managers to not only listen in on calls, but also provide real-time feedback to reps that customers can’t hear. It’s literally like having someone speak in your ear and provide advice like, “Hey, it sounds like they're still worried about X, why not try saying Y?”
Managers can keep tabs on the big deals coming down the pipe so they can come to their reps’ aid if necessary. “Usually managers will let reps know in advance if they are listening in, or they’ll come sit near them, or come sit next to them afterward to provide feedback,” Cerilli says.
25. Drive weekly one-on-ones with metrics.
SinglePlatform provides two forms that managers can fill out with metrics for each employee — including deals closed, minutes spent on the phone, as well as qualitative advice for how to improve. Putting information in this format tends to be less intimidating and gives people a concrete reference point for improvement.
“Plus the form gives managers structure — which is especially important for new managers who may be supervising their former peers,” Cerilli says. “They can look at the form and say, ‘Ok, first let’s talk about your closing technique…,’ they have more control over the conversation.”Here's an example:
26. Kick off Mondays on the right note.Cerilli and his team begin every week with a sales floor meeting where the focus is motivation. Account managers come in and read the “wow” customer success story of the week so that salespeople can hear the impact they're making for the people they call all day long.
“For a while we circulated these stories over email, but people just skimmed them. When they hear it in front of everyone they work with, it makes a huge difference. Now we try to pick a story where the customer was skeptical at first but got convinced by the end. That way, when everyone hits the phones, they won’t be so nervous about running into skeptical customers.”
The sales floor meeting also includes the “close of the week” — a recording of the most successful call from the previous week. Whoever made that sale is crowned king or queen of the sales floor. And yes, there is an actual crown.
27. Motivate with group competition.SinglePlatform runs all kinds of competitions for teams: Who spent the most minutes on the phone? Who got the most closes? Who is on the most consistent winning streak? “People get really into it,” Cerilli says. “They start fighting for their managers and it really solidifies loyalty.”
Create competition that encourages people to work harder but achieve together.
28. Make it fun. In addition to these competitions (which occasionally have themes like March Madness and Battle of the Sexes), SinglePlatform awards salespeople with big Legos for big sales and small Legos for small sales. “Now when you walk through the office, you see these big Lego towers, and its this really cool, easy way to identify top performers.”
Hone Your Process, Celebrate Your Wins
29. Build a SWAT team.It’s critical that you keep up with market trends and track your customers' needs. To evolve your script in the right direction, Cerilli recommends creating a SWAT team of 2 to 3 people to test out new pricing or pitches. “Run one large test a month,” he says. “And if it’s successful, expand the new script to 4 to 8 people, then to 10 to 12 people. Recently, we had two people test a model that pitched the value our mobile product instead of our network like usual. The response was unbelievable. One rep went from selling one and half licenses a day to 40 in a week.”
To make SWAT teams as effective as possible, don’t make the changes too big. Make sure it’s a realistic pivot from the script you’re currently using. You also want the team to be a cross-section of your sales organization. “You can’t have all your best people on your SWAT team because that would skew the data. You want one rock star and then one to two other solid salespeople who represent the majority of your staff.”
30. Celebrate victories everywhere you can.You want to communicate people’s wins constantly, as visibly as possible. Send out emails to the whole team. Acknowledge people’s anniversaries with the company and their sales milestones. Maybe they had the biggest sale of the week, the month, ever. Award actual prizes — whether it’s cookies or a day of go-karting. The more positive reinforcement you give them, the more motivated everyone will feel.
SinglePlatform uses a system called Hoopla to display the faces of people who just closed deals on screens around the office. The system even plays an anthem chosen by the salesperson pictured — a literal victory dance.
31. Celebrate the no’s too.“When people hit their first 10 no’s, we’ll ring the bell and celebrate that too,” Cerilli says, harkening back to his days hawking coupons. “Part of getting people where they need to be is getting them past that fear of rejection. Making it less scary and more acceptable is huge.”
32. Promote from within.This serves several functions. First, you know you’re creating managers that share the philosophy of close monitoring, constant feedback and keeping morale high. By making them mentors for reps and new hires, you’re only refining these details that make your organization successful in the first place. Second, when you hire from within the team, you send the message that you reward hard work and results.
Build a Great Environment
33. Make your office a place people actually want to work.Last year, SinglePlatform was named one of Crain’s Best Places to Work. But this was no accident, Cerilli says. In order to get the most productivity, you have to carefully engineer an environment where people are happy first and work hard second. This is one reason the company has enforced a strict “No Asshole Rule” from the very beginning. “We fired top performers because they didn’t fit our culture,” he says. Negativity and a bad attitude are contagious.
34. Bring customers in as much as possible.This doesn’t necessarily mean inviting them to the office, but it does mean telling their stories so often that they become a significant presence.
You want your people to know their customers are winning.
To this end, managers at SinglePlatform not only circulate customer success stories over email, they also issue a monthly report that everyone reads showcasing the top 10 to 20 accounts that are having a great experience with the program. “When salespeople see and hear customers saying things like they love the system or they logged in 200 time last month, they start believing in the product more, and they can sell it better.”
35. Start a meaningful speaker series.A lot of companies bring in outside speakers, but attendance is often weak. To make this experience more meaningful, Cerilli focuses on bringing in CEOs of other sales-oriented companies who will talk about their struggles not only with sales, but account management and tech issues. “Hearing from these types of people normalizes their environment and inspires people who may be struggling too.”
36. Run product demos early and often.Cerilli recommends bringing in representatives from the product team to demo new features or products on a monthly basis so that the entire sales org has the opportunity to ask questions, get up to speed on all the products’ capabilities, and truly understand sticky issues they may run into with customers.
37. Use lunches to connect sales with the company.Salespeople are easily silo’d at tech companies because they have such a different skill set. Ensure this doesn’t happen by formalizing cross-functional lunches. And give individual employees the chance to eat with executives from other parts of the company so they can better understand the mission and direction they're rallying behind.
The more you can connect salespeople to your company's values, the stronger they will feel about its success.
Turn on the Turbo-Boosters
Once you have your script in place, your training program turning out talented salespeople, and a strong layer of management, it’s time to scale operations to sell even more.There are two things you can do that will make a bigger difference than anything else:
38. Hire someone to do the hiring.At a certain point, it becomes unmanageable for the head of sales to be involved in every single hire. By hiring an in-house recruiter to do the sourcing and the screening, you streamline that process and feed an ever-widening pipeline of candidates to ultimately get more people on the floor and on the phones. This also frees up top sales management to think more strategically about scripting, who should be promoted, and what your SWAT team should focus on next.
39. Hire someone to do the training.Teaching new people — especially the young, less experienced people who eventually make the best reps — is extremely time consuming. If you think about everything SinglePlatform does to get recruits ready for sales calls, it requires someone designing and administering tests, running all-day programming for a week, setting up simulation calls, and providing granular feedback. If you can hire someone with teaching experience who really gets what you’re trying to do, you can free up many managers’ time and end up with a better trained salesforce, Cerilli says.
At the end of the day, your human capital will always be your biggest needle-mover in sales. The best thing you can do as you enter hyper-growth is find people who can focus on optimizing this one component. If you give people all the tools they need to win, they will. | {
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PETALING JAYA: The ongoing clean-up of the abused Human Resources Development Fund revealed that a top executive and three deputies at the fund were lavished with salary increments and bonuses leading up to the last general election.
The four high-ranking officers had allegedly taken their share of a million ringgit “jackpot” at least two months prior to the general election last year.
The scale of the salary increases and bonuses paid out to the officers was staggering.
The executive’s individual bonus of RM616,000 for 2017 was more than triple the bonus received in 2016, which was RM191,000.
To put into perspective, the executive’s 2015 individual bonus package was RM60,000 and only RM17,000 the year before.
The 2017 bonus of RM616,000 translated to a growth of a whopping 3,524% in just three years.
The RM616,000 bonus was part of a package where the four pocketed RM1.25mil in individual performance bonuses for the year 2017.
The three deputies each received RM211,000, and these were on top of the corporate bonuses they received. The issue has been the exponential growth of the bonuses given out although employees of HRDF are entitled to bonuses declared and paid by the fund.
Apart from individual bonuses, employees also received a corporate bonus.
In 2017, the normal staff members of HRDF were only eligible to receive up to 5.75 months of bonus which comprised 1.75 months of corporate bonus and up to four months of individual bonus.
The executive and a deputy have left HRDF while the two remaining deputies are still with the fund. One of them was redesignated but still remains in the upper echelon.
Meanwhile, the executive also received a salary revision twice in 2017, from RM32,000 a month to RM47,000 a month in March and subsequently to RM56,000 a month just four months later.
This translated to a 75% increase in salary within a year.
This was following a “recommendation” by a consultancy firm that was engaged in November 2016 to review the executive’s salary, which was only slightly a year after the previous revision.
This is not the first instance where the board of directors was bypassed in decision-making.
While remunerations and bonuses were usually determined by HRDF’s establishment and benefits committee (EBC) and subject to the board of directors’ approval, the hefty bonus paid was allegedly approved by the Human Resources Minister.
Documents sighted by The Star revealed that Datuk Seri Richard Riot Jaem, who was the minister that time, gave the approval for the performance bonus on Feb 28 last year.
This was also approved by Riot and the EBC was not informed about it.
Under the HRDF Act, a minister may only give directives to the board, and not to bypass the board to give approvals.
In a letter to Riot on Feb 27 to request for the allocation of performance bonus, the HRDF said the board had approved a restructuring in HRDF, which involved more competitive salaries and new grades of service.
“This is to ensure that HRDF can scale greater heights in terms of competitiveness and productivity in assisting the Human Resources Ministry and the government to achieve its strategic goals and targets,” an excerpt from the letter read.It also claimed that a board meeting on Dec 21, 2017, approved for the chief executive to determine the quantum of bonuses for the deputy chief executives and that there should be a separate allocation for them.
The Star in January highlighted the purchase of a RM154mil property in Bangsar South which was done without the approval of the board of directors and investment panel.Approval was given for another property in the same area but HRDF went on to make payments for the Bangsar South property with some RM40mil allegedly paid before the tax invoice date.
The investment panel was only informed of the switch of property purchased five months after the first tranche of RM15.4mil was paid.
In November last year, Human Resources Minister M. Kulasegaran revealed that high-ranking staff members of HRDF misappropriated about RM100mil out of the RM300mil that was in the fund.
He also highlighted several wrongdoings such as abuse of power, criminal breach of trust and arriving at decisions without reporting to the board of directors.
HRDF is an agency under the Human Resources Ministry, which manages a fund comprising contributions from employers for the purpose of training and development.
There were also allegations of fraudulent training claims made by certain training providers and inflated billings were allegedly done in collusion with HRDF staff.
Both the Bukit Aman Commercial Crimes Investigation Department and the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission have since raided HRDF’s office in Damansara Heights for documents to facilitate investigations into various alleged wrongdoings since January. | {
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Swastika Spotted, Removed By Local In Logan Square On Sunday
By Stephen Gossett in News on Feb 6, 2017 5:46PM
Photo: Brennan McDowell
Over the same weekend that saw a rash of swastika vandalism in several U.S. cities, an apparently spray-painted swastika was spotted underneath a highway overpass in Logan Square.
The hateful graffiti was photographed on Sunday evening by Brennan McDowell, 30, of Logan Square, near the Kennedy Expressway on-ramp at North California Avenue, just north of West Diversey Avenue. McDowell was heading to a Super Bowl party in Avondale at around 5 p.m. when he saw the swastika tag, which "seemed very fresh, like it had gone up the night before," McDowell told Chicagoist by email.
The vandalism was still on display when he walked home, so McDowell, inspired by the subway riders who erased swastika vandalism on New York City Trains on Saturday, returned at around 10:30 p.m. to paint over it, he said. "I made it a window frame so it would be unclear what it had been before," McDowell said.
Side-by-side shots on McDowell's Facebook show the before and after.
The Nazi vandalism in Logan Square was spotted the same weekend someone defaced a Loop synagogue with swastika stickers and smashed in its window. Police are investigating that hate-crime incident, which happened early on Saturday morning. Such acts of defacement with swastikas and hate speech appear to be the rise as of late in Chicago, as seen in incidents at the University of Chicago, in Beverly and in the South Loop. Chicago police said they did not have a report of vandalism in the 2800 block of N. California Ave. over the weekend before the swastika was painted over. | {
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(Recorded November 19, 2016)
Haven’t read it yet? Pick up this issue today at Comixology!
In this episode, Jack and Brian valiantly try to discuss the latest Civil War II crossover while Kyle is more interested in providing an elaborate breakdown of the exciting Miles vs. Venom battle that’s teased on the cover of Spider-Man 9.
There’s also the bigger question…was bringing Miles into the main Marvel universe a good idea?
0:00 – Intro
2:13 – Spider-Man #9: A story about people standing around killing time. Frustration with the series (although we’re ready for a Ganke solo book). The beautiful artwork: We didn’t love reading this issue, but we certainly loved looking at it. Kyle takes over to provide an extensive analysis of this issue’s battle with Venom.
16:12 – Brian’s three-word summary. Jack’s four-letter word summary. What do *you* think? Let us know!
18:26 – Outro: Listener feedback and contact info
Stuff that we mentioned in this episode:
Also check out:
PLEASE CLICK HERE FOR OUR iTUNES PAGE TO LEAVE A REVIEW (and pick up free Marvel digital comics)!
Thank you for listening! We’d love to hear from you: Send us your comments at [email protected]! If you send us an mp3 with a comment or question, we’ll feature it in the show! | {
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Transcript:
Calvin: "To make instant fun... just add water!" Hobbes: "Looking for someone?" Calvin: "Uh, who? ME?? Ha ha ha ha ha! Um, no-o. I mean, yes..but someone ELSE. Heh heh. Not you" Hobbes: "Here's a hypothetical question you should ask yourself" Hobbes: "If you knew today was your last day on earth, what would you do different?" Hobbes: "...ESPECIALLY if, by doing something DIFFERENT, today might NOT be your last day on earth" Calvin: "I don't think that question was very hypothetical at all" | {
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This, what we just saw today, is why the San Jose Earthquakes went out and hung a shiny DP tag on Matias Perez Garcia, the diminutive Argentine who – for months and months – didn't seem to quite fit anywhere on the pitch.
He fits now. Dom Kinnear has pulled him a little deeper into midfield, and is making sure more of the game plays through MPG, and as a result the Quakes are stringing together some good soccer.
Let's take a quick look at their well-deserved 2-0 win over Seattle:
1. The Goal
Perez Garcia scored the second goal of his MLS career midway through the second half, and it was a doozy. You'll almost certainly see it nominated for AT&T Goal of the Week:
Admire the first touch. Admire the footwork and the balance. Admire the understanding of momentum – both his and the defenders'. There's no better time to go at a defense than when they're flat-footed because the angle of attack has changed so rapidly, and in this case that's exactly what San Jose got to work with.
Seattle were expecting Cordell Cato to push to the endline, then try to pull a cross back across the area, and sold out to protect against that. When Cato squared it early instead, MPG didn't just have time & space to take advantage of, he had an unprepared defense. Which he proceded to slaughter.
One other thing to understand is that while this isn't how the "third-man run" usually looks (Check out Federico Higuain's goal from last week if you want a peek at the way it's drawn up on the whiteboard), it's nonetheless a true midfielder's goal. Perez-Garcia isn't at his best just underneath a lone forward, and isn't often goal-dangerous. He's much better in the current set-up, a 4-3-3 that pushes both wingers up into the play while working off a center forward as a fulcrum.
2. The Assist
Part of what made Perez Garcia's adjustment so difficult is that he's not really a Higuain-esque goalscorer, nor is he a pure creator in the Javier Morales mold. His usage rate remains fairly low for a central midfielder, and he doesn't create a ton of chances.
He is, however, a problem solver who thrives in overloads. Part of what Kinnear has done really well this season is compress his team's game along one sideline or the other, and in so doing give MPG the chance to get on the ball in tight quarters with options around him. It's less about winning the entire game in that fashion and more about creating individual moments in which San Jose's most talented natural midfielder can draw multiple players to him, then cut them out of the play even without playing the ball forward.
Like so:
Perez Garcia isn't the first man into the play, and his final ball leaves Sanna Nyassi with a ton of work to do (which he does – brilliantly).
But he's part of the group that forces the initial turnover, and then once he gets on the ball his patience is extraordinary. By the time he releases Nyassi he has six Sounders all completely focused on him, including both the left back and left midfielder – the guys who should have been tracking Nyassi.
This is a pattern of play that's been repeated often so far in 2015. The Quakes try to turn you over along the sidelines, and then when they do, they don't dawdle. They just try to get you to overcommit.
3. The Role
So what is Perez Garcia's role, then? He's a ball circulator that doesn't get a ton of the ball; he's a playmaker who doesn't make a ton of plays; he's a goal threat who doesn't score many goals. He's a guy who constantly manages to open up the field, but doesn't play many long balls.
The passing map of San Jose defensive midfielder Fatai Alashe, provided by Opta and accessible in the matchcenter, actually tells more of the story on how the Quakes use their No. 10 than MPG's own map does:
Alashe mostly shuttles the ball to the flanks in order to let the fullbacks or wingers carry it forward. Once that happens, then MPG drifts to one side or the other and starts to combine in those channels, daring the defense to step into the overload.
It's a lot of fun, and not entirely replicable with different players pulling the strings – though subbing Tommy Thompson in for Perez Garcia perhaps tips Kinnear's hand a little bit in terms of what he sees as the future role for the US U-20.
What's clear, though, is that this Quakes group that were considered rank outsiders at the start of the season very much aren't. The defense continues to be steady and while the attack isn't exactly purring, they've been finding enough answers to stay above the red line. As they get more and more familiar with each other, and with the little Argentine who stirs the pot, those answers will come both more quickly and more emphatically. | {
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Aus dem Gericht von Annette Ramelsberger
Jetzt, ganz am Schluss, ist Tarnung nicht mehr nötig. Fünf Jahre lang haben die Verteidiger des früheren NPD-Funktionärs Ralf Wohlleben die schwarze Robe getragen und immerhin so getan, als respektierten sie die formalen Regeln des Rechtsstaats. Nun aber ist klar: Sie halten das, was im NSU-Prozess vor dem Oberlandesgericht München geschieht, nur für ein Schauspiel im "vermeintlich demokratischen Gesinnungsstrafrecht". Sie haben schon bisher alles getan, um diesen Prozess zu sabotieren: mit immer neuen Befangenheitsanträgen. Nun lassen sie alle Hemmungen fallen.
Verteidigerin Nicole Schneiders hatte den Ton gesetzt und den Richtern schon angekündigt, sie müssten sich mit ihrem Urteil vor "dem Richterstuhl des Ewigen" verantworten - ein Zitat des Hitler-Stellvertreters Rudolf Heß. Ihr Kollege Olaf Klemke bemühte dann Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring. Der hatte einst gesagt: "Wer Jude ist, bestimme ich." Und Klemke warf Oberstaatsanwalt Jochen Weingarten vor, er wolle - wie Göring - nun bestimmen, wer Nazi sei und wie "schön menschenverachtend" er zu sein habe. Er benutze den Angeklagten Wohlleben nur als Sündenbock für die Morde des NSU, weil er "nach wie vor nationaler und volkstreuer Gesinnung ist, weil er seine Ideale nicht verraten hat". Der Staatsanwalt wolle "um jeden Preis einen Nazi zur Stecke bringen".
Die Anwälte stehen auf der ganz rechten Seite
Klemke macht noch nicht halt. Nun wendet er sich an das Gericht. Er sei sich sicher, dass die Richter Wohlleben verurteilen würden, obwohl er unschuldig sei. "Ralf Wohlleben wird mit diesem Urteil leben müssen, aber Sie auch", sagt er. Und dann fügt er leise an: "Ich hoffe, Sie können das nicht." Es fühlt sich genauso an, wie es gemeint ist: Die Richter sollen keine ruhige Nacht mehr haben.
Es war immer da, die ganze Zeit, all die fünf Jahre: diese Verachtung, dieser drohende Unterton, diese Angriffe, die unvermittelt um die Ecke kamen. Die drei Verteidiger des bekennenden Rechtsextremisten Wohlleben ließen immer wieder durchblitzen, auf welcher Seite sie stehen: auf der ganz rechten. Und nun nutzen sie diese letzten Tage des Prozesses zu einem Schaulaufen für die rechte Szene, für ein Fanal ihrer Unbeugsamkeit, für die Stilisierung ihres Mandanten als Opfer des Systems.
Bundesanwaltschaft fordert zwölf jahre Haft für Wohlleben
Und sie teilen nun so aus, wie man es aus der rechten Szene kennt: ohne Hemmung, bewusst persönlich. Der Verteidiger des Aussteigers Carsten S., der Wohlleben schwer belastet, sei "weichgeklopft und gehirngewaschen durch die öffentliche Meinung". Der Angeklagte Carsten S. wolle sich "den Judaslohn" sichern, indem er Wohlleben zu Unrecht belaste. Und die Presse, die über den Prozess berichtet, ist natürlich "links-grün durchsetzt". Außerhalb des Gerichtssaals heißt das in diesen Kreisen dann "links-grün versifft". Aber ein wenig Zurückhaltung im Saal muss ja sein. Es ist nah an der Beleidigungsgrenze, an der sich Wohllebens Verteidiger bewegen. Die Angegriffenen ertragen es stoisch. Sie wissen, wer da spricht.
Wohlleben, 43, ist eine Szenegröße, früher NPD-Funktionär, für den seine rechten Kameraden mit T-Shirts auflaufen, auf denen sie "Freiheit für Wolle" fordern. Sie sitzen oft auf der Besuchertribüne. Die Solidarität mit ihm ist ungebrochen. Er hat - bevor er am 241. Verhandlungstag sein Schweigen vor Gericht brach - ausdrücklich auf rechten Internetseiten betont, dass das nichts an seiner Verbundenheit mit seinen Kameraden ändere. Er war mit Beate Zschäpe, Uwe Mundlos und Uwe Böhnhardt eng befreundet. Die Bundesanwaltschaft wirft ihm vor, die "steuernde Zentralfigur" bei der Unterstützung des NSU-Trios gewesen zu sein. Sie hat zwölf Jahre Haft für Wohlleben gefordert - wegen Beihilfe zum neunfachen Mord, weil er die Tatwaffe Ceska organisiert haben soll. | {
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January 7, 2015
Lee Sustar looks at the career of Rev. Al Sharpton and his role in the movement.
REV. AL Sharpton's prominence in anti-racist protests has long made him a target of mainstream right-wingers and assorted racists. Leading the pack these days is actor James Woods, who called Sharpton a "race pimp" who was "directly responsible" for the December murder of two New York City police officers. Assorted Fox News hosts, in a conversation with Donald Trump, voiced the same sentiments, in only slightly more measured language.
On the other end of the spectrum, being first on the scene after some racist atrocity has given Sharpton credibility among victims of racist violence. Sharpton himself was once stabbed by a racist while preparing to lead a protest.
But the fact that Sharpton is reviled by cops, racists and right-wingers doesn't mean that the Black Lives Matter movement should accept him as its leader. In fact, a new generation of activists has already made their criticisms of Sharpton quite clear. When young protesters from Ferguson tried to take the stage to speak at the December 13 march in Washington, Sharpton denounced them as "provocateurs" and threatened to call security.
Rev. Al Sharpton speaks at a National Action Network event
SHARPTON'S ATTEMPT to silence grassroots activists highlights his many contradictions. After all, the man once famous for always wearing an outsized Martin Luther King medallion and who organized the 50th anniversary commemoration of King's 1963 March on Washington was an enthusiastic informer for the FBI--the same FBI that tried to destroy King and repressed Black militants. Sharpton, who puts himself at the head of protests against the NYPD, supported the appointment of William Bratton as police commissioner--the same William Bratton who was the architect of the "broken windows" policing strategy of strict enforcement of trivial offenses.
Furthermore, at a time when the movement is voicing demands for transformative changes in policing as part of a wider anti-racist struggle, Sharpton offers a narrow vision of what those changes should be--limited to mandatory police body cameras and state attorney generals overseeing investigations of police shootings of unarmed civilians.
"Let us not give in to pettiness and emotion, for true change is at our doorstep," Sharpton wrote after the big December 13 protests. In a statement following the killing of the two NYPD officers, Sharpton said that "we have stressed that most police are not bad"--a direct challenge to the movement's developing critique of how institutional racism fuels police violence.
Thus, while Sharpton often does initiate and support important protests, he also works to ensure they remain within safe political channels. From his MSNBC television program to his partnership with Wall Street bankers to promote charter schools to his regular access at the Obama White House, Sharpton has come a long way from his days as an outsider scorned by the liberal establishment, Black as well as white.
Sharpton has a direct line to Corporate America's key players, too. For years, right-wingers have been up in arms over business donations to Sharpton's NAN. More recently, a New York Times article detailed Sharpton's corporate-sponsored birthday party that netted $1 million in donations and NAN's finances, focusing attention on chronic late payments of taxes.
DISCONTENT AMONG activists over the role of Sharpton and his National Action Network (NAN) surfaced in the aftermath of the confrontation with the Ferguson youth at the December 13 protest.
Twitter immediately lit up with criticism of Sharpton by African American grassroots activists. Indeed, concerns about Sharpton's role had been simmering for some time among activists in Ferguson and beyond. Many among the new generation of militants view Sharpton as an establishment figure more interested in containing protests than building an anti-racist movement.
Nevertheless, Sharpton is often the most prominent individual to show up after a racist outrage--like when the murder of Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Fla., finally became front-page news in the spring of 2012. Virtually no one else can offer the same resources to the victims or their families. As a Washington Post reporter put it, "Sharpton...played several parts in the Martin story virtually at once: national TV host, Martin family advocate, rally organizer and promoter, and newsmaker."
Sharpton articulated the anger of millions of people when he called for the arrest and indictment of George Zimmerman, Martin's murderer, as well as the police officers who killed Mike Brown and Eric Garner last year. But he has shown little interest in building an ongoing mass movement with wider political goals or fostering the growth of grassroots organizations beyond NAN. Instead, he has chosen to network with established groups like the NAACP or local ministers, with a focus on gaining whatever measure of justice is possible through the courts.
In the aftermath of the non-indictment in the Ferguson killing, Sharpton hailed President Obama's call for more funds for police body cameras--just two days before a New York grand jury failed to indict NYPD Officer Daniel Pantaleo for killing Eric Garner with a chokehold, despite video evidence of the murder.
Sharpton does put the question of racism and racial violence in the context of social inequality, both in speeches and on his MSNBC program. However, he is at least as likely to go on a Bill Cosby-type tirade over the supposed failings of African American youth--men in particular--for their style of dress and "ghetto" behavior. That was the case with Sharpton's comments at Mike Brown's funeral. "Some of us act like the definition of Blackness is how low can you go," he lectured, adding, "Now you want to be a n---- and call your woman a w---." Too many African Americans, Sharpton said, want to have "ghetto pity parties instead of strategizing."
What's more, Sharpton is a leading proponent of Barack Obama's political and economic policies--despite the obvious and total lack of progress for the majority of African Americans during the six years of Obama's presidency. In turn, Obama gave Sharpton's credibility a boost by appearing as the keynote speaker at the 2014 NAN convention.
To post-Ferguson activists, Sharpton's inside-outside approach to politics may seem like a straightforward case of opportunism. But the contradictions embodied in Sharpton reflect something bigger: the dilemma of the African American middle class.
Even as unprecedented and often lucrative opportunities open in business and politics for a minority of African American professionals and entrepreneurs, the vast majority of Black America has suffered a catastrophic loss of wealth and an increase in state repression, of which racist police killings are only the most obvious part.
Sharpton's rise to prominence correlates with the inability or unwillingness of the Black political establishment--from Barack Obama on down--to improve the conditions of the Black working class. At the same time, the activist left has been small and weak for many years. By stepping into the vacuum, Sharpton has played dual roles: as organizer of protests and the man who keeps activity within the framework of mainstream Democratic Party politics.
THIRTY YEARS ago, anyone attending an Al Sharpton-led demonstration or press conference would have had a hard time believing that the man who'd begun as a boy preacher in singer James Brown's entourage would someday be a key figure in mainstream U.S. politics.
After he was been taken under the wing of New York City's rising Black middle class as a young man, Sharpton founded the National Youth Movement, an organization that sought corporate donations for youth programs. James Brown introduced Sharpton to Don King, the leading Black boxing promoter, who was constantly under the pressure from law enforcement for alleged ties to organized crime. Confronted by FBI agents out to nail King, Sharpton agreed to inform on the promoter.
Sharpton's first high-profile advocacy for victims of racist violence came in late 1984, when Bernhard Goetz, a white man, shot four unarmed Black youths in a subway car after claiming that they had harassed him.
I first saw Sharpton in action at a church in Harlem about a year later at a meeting aimed at organizing around the death of 17-year-old Edmund Perry, a Harlem-raised recent graduate of the elite Philips Exeter Academy and winner of a scholarship to Stanford. The NYPD claimed Edmund and his brother Jonah--both unarmed--had assaulted a plainclothes cop, Lee Van Houten, who fatally shot Edmund in the gut.
The Perry shooting--coming amid a string of killings of unarmed African Americans by the NYPD--shocked the city. But New York's Black political establishment, by then ensconced in seats on the City Council, state legislature and Congress, did virtually nothing to organize a response.
Sharpton, along with two attorneys, Alton Maddox and C. Vernon Mason, stepped in, backing Perry's mother in a wrongful death lawsuit and defending Edmund's brother Jonah from prosecution. Sharpton, quick on his feet and adept at prodding the mainstream media to pay attention, helped to give a voice to people who had none.
The racial tensions in the city finally burst into the open the following year, when a group of racists chased Black motorist Michael Griffith into the path of a car that struck and killed him in Howard Beach, Queens. Sharpton, Mason and Maddox were the leading spokespeople for Griffith's family and organized big protests that successfully pressured then-Gov. Mario Cuomo to appoint a special prosecutor, who obtained three convictions in that case. New York magazine saw evidence of "a new Black activism," with Sharpton as a leading personality.
Maddox, Mason and Sharpton were also at the center of the controversy over the charges by Tawana Brawley in upstate New York that she was gang-raped by white men, including a local police officer. A grand jury declined to indict, dismissing the case as a hoax.
Sharpton's many critics on the New York political scene seized on the Brawley case in an attempt to destroy his credibility. But Sharpton also found himself ostracized by one-time coalition allies in New York's militant Black left when news first surfaced that he'd served as an FBI informer when the Feds were investigating Mafia ties in boxing. According to published reports, Sharpton also gave authorities information about Black leftists and Democratic Party politicians.
Those revelations led to a permanent break between Sharpton and the Black left in New York City, even as the Brawley case seemed to have burned whatever bridges Sharpton had to the political mainstream.
But a few months later, the 1989 racist murder of a 16-year-old African American youth, Yusuf Hawkins in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, put New York politics on the boil again. This time, Sharpton found new collaborators: the New Alliance Party, a strange amalgamation of a leftist group and psychotherapy cult. Many others--including those of us in the International Socialist Organization--joined Sharpton in weekly marches, not because of any illusions in his politics, but to face down the hateful racist counter-protesters and demand prosecution of Yusuf's killers.
Although Sharpton's critics denounced him as a racial demagogue and made fun of his style and dress, he was a model of calm and dignity as we marched through mobs of frenzied white racists, who shouted insults, spat at us and waved watermelons as we rallied at the spot where Yusuf was murdered.
When Sharpton was stabbed on one of the marches, barely avoiding life-threatening injuries, it reinforced his image as someone who was willing to put himself at risk to challenge racist violence. At a subsequent visit to Sharpton's hospital bedside, then-New York City Mayor David Dinkins, the city's first African American mayor, demonstrated that Sharpton' influence was forcing leading Democrats to take notice. For Black New York, it cemented his role as the person to call when the worst happened at the hands of racists or the police.
THE EARLY 1990s saw Sharpton's entrance into the political mainstream. A series of prominent profile articles--many of which are available on the NAN website, recount the shift.
The first big step was Sharpton's second run for a U.S. Senate seat in 1992, in which he "won the endorsement not only of celebrities like...[film director Spike] Lee and the soul legend James Brown, but also of more mainstream Black groups of the sort once thought to disdain him," the New York Times reported.
On the campaign trail, Sharpton tried to explain away why he had endorsed the incumbent Republican senator in the previous election, as well as his use of anti-gay epithets. He ran for the state's other Senate seat two years later against longtime incumbent Democrat Daniel Patrick Moynihan, winning 26 percent of the vote in a primary election. In 1997, Sharpton ran for mayor of New York and got 32 percent of the vote, coming within 658 votes of forcing a runoff in the Democratic primary.
Although Sharpton's quick wit and grasp of the issues usually upstaged his rivals, he had little chance of winning office. He did, however, succeed in making himself a broker of the Black vote in New York state, a position highlighted by Hillary Clinton's reliance on him to turn out African American voters during her campaign for U.S. Senate in 2000.
Despite Sharpton's bid for the mainstream, he still had plenty of enemies. They seized on a 1995 tragedy: A mentally unstable man burned down a store in Harlem whose Jewish owner was involved in evicting a Black-owned record shop. Seven people died in the blaze. Then-Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who had ridden a white backlash into office a couple years earlier, blamed Sharpton--because he, along with local activists, had led pickets against the building owner, whom he called a "white interloper" on a radio broadcast.
Sharpton survived that crisis by continuing to build his networks. The National Action Network, founded in 1991, modeled itself after Jesse Jackson's Rainbow/PUSH organization, with weekly meetings and advocacy programs, such as pressing big corporations to promote racial diversity.
AT THE same time, Sharpton continued to speak out for victims of racism in the criminal justice system--such as the Central Park Five, five young men of color falsely accused in a 1989 rape and assault case, who were later exonerated, but not until after they had spent many years in prison.
He also stood with families of African Americans brutalized or gunned down by the NYPD.
The best-known cases were the 1997 police torture and sexual assault of Abner Louima and the 1999 killing of Amadou Diallo, the unarmed young Guinean immigrant who died in a hail of 41 bullets fired by cops when Diallo reached for his wallet. In the wake of Diallo's killing, Sharpton led a series of sit-ins at police headquarters that resulted in the arrests of hundreds, including prominent politicians and entertainers. The protests forced an indictment, but the cops involved were eventually acquitted.
Rep. Charles Rangel, then, as now, the senior Black elected official in New York City, explained to a New York Times reporter why Sharpton, rather than himself or former mayor Dinkins, always got the call from victims of racist violence: ''You know it and I know it: We have not gained the credibility that Sharpton has in case after case. Why should they go to a local politician, especially one who is out of office?''
Rangel's comment points to a predicament facing almost every African American politician. Having struggled for decades to create a space within the U.S. political system, those who still want to advocate for Black working people find themselves impotent to do so.
Social inequality, institutional racism, economic crisis and a right turn by the Democratic Party have drastically curtailed the capacity of individual liberal politicians to even advocate for real change, let alone achieve it. And many such elected officials no longer even pretend to offer leadership: the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation's Corporate Advisory Council is full of representatives of big corporations like Goldman Sachs, Lockheed Martin, Merck, PepsiCo and Verizon.
With African American elected officials unable or unwilling to take up a struggle around the broader economic and social issues affecting the Black community, Sharpton often had the political stage to himself--particularly during the periodic flashpoints around racist police violence. He used his 2004 campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination to further raise his profile nationally and to occupy a niche in liberal politics abandoned by Clinton-era Democrats.
"I'm not running an African American campaign," Sharpton said back then on CNN. "We're running a broad-based campaign that includes African Americans and Latinos and gays and lesbians and laborers and others." He added: "I believe the [Democratic] Party has moved far to the right. I do believe that the party has a bunch of elephants running around in donkey clothes."
In 2006, Sharpton was again central in the protests against the police shooting of another unarmed man, Sean Bell, on his wedding night. Three cops involved in the shooting went to trial, but were acquitted. Sharpton, who served as an adviser to Bell's family, pointed out that the cops involved in Bell's killing were Black, Latino and white. "If they were all Black, we would be marching tomorrow" anyway, Sharpton said on the eve of a silent protest over the killing.
EVEN AS Sharpton became the go-to person in cases of police violence and player in Democratic politics, he struck up arrangements with leading corporations.
The most important deal came in 2011, when Sharpton's NAN, along with other civil rights organizations, signed an agreement with media giant Comcast, in which the company agreed to develop diversity programs or minority contracting provisions as a condition of its takeover of the NBC television network. Several months later, Sharpton was given his own daily show, PoliticsNation, on MSNBC, a property of the newly merged company.
Sharpton's rising media profiled corresponded with his closer ties to the White House. Indeed, Al Sharpton's and Barack Obama's careers have a certain parallel. Both rose to prominence outside the usual Democratic political machinery. Obama leapt from being an obscure state senator to the presidency, via the U.S. Senate, in just four years. Sharpton, the quintessential outsider, became the top African American vote-getter in New York state, effectively imposing himself on Black politicians who had been in office for a decade or more.
Obama apparently sees a close relationship with Sharpton as a means of keeping in touch with his Black voting base--and having a reliable ally to promote his policies among African Americans. Or, more precisely, defend Obama's lack of a "Black agenda" to assist African Americans, despite the blows they've suffered since the Great Recession.
For Sharpton, association with the sitting president opens many new doors for himself personally and for NAN. The agenda of the 2014 NAN Convention, held last April, makes that clear. With Obama as the keynote speaker, the event featured Cabinet secretaries, some left-wing African American intellectuals, community activists, liberal editors and journalists, and a smattering of labor leaders.
From the standpoint of anti-racist and social justice organizing, however, the presence of representatives of big companies raises big questions. CVS Caremark, Bank of America, Macy's, US Cellular, WalMart and, unsurprisingly, Comcast, all participated in a panel discussion called "How Can Corporations Collaborate to Affect Change in the Community?" McDonald's, which relies heavily on low-wage Black labor, also participated on that panel--and organized a separate session for itself, called "Showcase of the Stars Career Panel."
Sharpton, like President Obama, is on record of favoring an increase in the minimum wage. "Blacks suffer disproportionately from having to do work and not get the kind of wages that we need," Sharpton told a reporter for Black Enterprise. "This is a central concern in our community."
That's a stance that sits uneasily alongside Sharpton's relationship with McDonald's, the company that sponsors the annual 365Black Awards, where Sharpton was the Humanitarian Honoree for 2014.
To be sure, the media's focus on Sharpton's often-shaky finances is surely a sign of a racial double standard. Donald Trump, the loudmouth right-wing real estate magnate, has run companies into bankruptcy several times, but is still lionized as a business leader.
But for activists in the new Black Lives Matter movement, Sharpton's finances--and his connections with the state, from the FBI up to the White House--must be a concern. Can a man so dependent on Corporate America for financial support--not to mention his ties to the White House--be a consistent ally in the fight against racism? Can a person who was willing to wear a wire for the FBI be a reliable fighter against police repression? Is it possible to trust someone with regular access to the White House to undertake a serious challenge to the system?
Some may draw the conclusion, as many New York leftists did in the 1980s, that it is best to stay away from any protest campaign led by Sharpton. That would be a mistake. Victims of racist police violence will continue to look to Sharpton for resources and support. Grassroots activists need to be there, organizing for justice, despite their criticisms of Sharpton.
At the same time, however, it's clear that when Al Sharpton is involved in a struggle, there will be many, many strings attached. Those committed to fighting for justice should stay involved, no matter who appears to be "in charge"--but work to build a lasting, independent and democratic movement. | {
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It's just a shame Joe Hockey and Tony Abbott seem so intent on ignoring the issue.
The Reserve Bank has become the latest powerful voice to weigh into the always-contested debate about how housing is taxed. In a submission to a parliamentary inquiry, it backed a review of negative gearing, stressing it should be part of a wider discussion about how we tax housing.
With investors driving rapid house price growth in Melbourne and Sydney, the central bank highlighted what many critics of the current policy have been saying for years: the current rules encourage speculation.
In particular, the RBA is concerned about the combination of negative gearing – being able to deduct losses against other types of income – and a 50 per cent discount on capital gains.
Put these two together, and people have an incentive to speculate on property prices, and to do it with plenty of debt. | {
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Barcelona have had to deal with a gastric virus tearing its way through the squad this week, with four players and coaches so far affected and one even ending up in hospital for treatment.
A report from Mundo Deportivo notes that head coach Ernesto Valverde, fitness coach Juan Antonio Pozanco and Sergio Busquets have all suffered from the illness.
Andre Gomes, however, has been worst affected. The Portuguese midfielder is said to first contracted a fever last Saturday and was eventually hospitalise on Wednesday. He went on two drip to combat the dehydration and was soon allowed to go home.
Gomes, who had started each of Barça's two La Liga games against Real Sociedad and Real Betis prior to missing the Alaves game with the illness, was understandably ruled out of the Copa del Rey semi-final first leg clash against former club Valencia on Thursday.
It remains to be seen if he will return to the squad on Sunday when Barça host Getafe at Camp Nou.
(You may also be interested in REVEALED: The Top 20 Football Clubs in the World Ranked by Twitter Interactions)
A single goal from Luis Suarez gave Barça a 1-0 aggregate lead over Valencia in the Copa, while the first leg in the other semi-final between Leganes, conquerors of Real Madrid in the last round, and Sevilla ended in an evenly balanced 1-1 draw.
Defending champions Barça will hope to hold onto their aggregate lead when they travel to the Mestalla next Thursday.
Gianluigi Buffon You're an absolute club legend! Strong, wise and massively respected by your teammates. Roy Keane You're fiercely committed, outspoken and love to get stuck in! A leader of men who commands respect and demands only the best. John Terry You would run through walls for your team! Commanding in nature and a warrior on the pitch! Cristiano Ronaldo You're the talisman and a class apart from the rest of your team. You're not the loudest, or the bravest, but you deliver the goals and the results! Steven Gerrard You are the absolute heartbeat of your club. A 'Captain Fantastic' that can do it all and leads by example. Your striker has just been cut down by a horrendous tackle, do you... Which of these terms best describes you as a captain? Your fans have booed you after a poor home performance, do you... You're 1-0 down and the team's playing bad, how do you respond? You're 32 and you've been at your boyhood club your entire career, do you...
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EL SEGUNDO, California — Featuring both a gas tank and a charge port, plug-in hybrids split the difference between conventional hybrids and full EVs, offering buyers the green silence of pure electric driving without any range anxiety. The catch is that the all-electric range of these vehicles is limited.
The 2017 Audi A3 Sportback e-tron is Ingolstadt's PHEV offering (it's also the only way to get yourself into a new A3 hatchback). While it offers 380 miles of total range thanks to an EPA rating of 33/37 mpg city/highway and 83 MPGe, the 8.8-kWh battery only holds enough juice for 16 miles of all-electric range on a full charge. By comparison, the 238-mile Chevy Bolt EV uses a 60-kWh one.
That juice is used by a three-phase electric motor, which is located inside the six-speed dual-clutch transmission. The motor makes for 102 hp and 243 lb-ft of torque, while the 1.4-liter turbo-four engine is good for 150 hp and 184 lb-ft of torque.
See all 11 photos
The two combine for a peak output of 204 hp and 258 lb-ft of torque, which is sent to the front wheels and gets the 3,616-lb A3 e-tron to 60 mph in 7.6 seconds. Not quick, but considerably faster than two of its rivals: the Chevy Volt, which takes 8.4 seconds to get there, and the Toyota Prius Prime, which needs a whopping 11 seconds.
There are five powertrain modes to choose from on the A3 e-tron: EV, hybrid, battery hold, charge battery, and Sport mode. EV and hybrid are self-explanatory, battery hold maintains a steady level of charge, charge battery pulls a little extra juice from the engine to charge the battery at highway speeds, and Sport throws pretenses of economy out the window and uses maximum power from both sources. The first four are selected via the MMI interface, while Sport is selected by moving the shifter into S.
In addition, there are four driving settings to choose from - comfort, auto, dynamic, and individual.
Unlike other plug-ins, the A3 e-tron's charging port is not located on the side of the car. Instead, it's located behind the Audi rings on the center of the grille. The car must be unlocked before the port can be opened by turning a dial on the second ring to the left; give it a twist and the four rings will slide open. The bumper-level placement makes it vulnerable to minor accidents that could cause it to get stuck, such as being backed into by an inattentive parallel parker.
Fully charging the A3 plug-in electric hybrid requires two hours and 15 minutes with a 240-volt power source or about eight hours using a standard 120-volt outlet. Additional juice is provided by regenerative braking, which operates at maximum efficiency in Dynamic mode, creating the sensation that the parking brake is engaged as soon as you let off the hybrid's accelerator. The pedal feels a bit springy, especially when the vehicle is at a standstill.
See all 11 photos
Looks wise, the four-door hatch appears more humpback-shaped than sporty; from the side profile, the body looks a bit short for its 103.5-inch wheelbase. On the plus side, the five-seater offers a good amount of storage space and cuts a decent enough profile from the front end. The Tango Red metallic model we tested even turned a few heads around town.
The car is fun to drive and packed full of the latest tech. The infotainment system can be controlled via a knob or a touchpad, but you can also use voice commands. It uses Google Maps for navigating and includes support for Android Auto and Apple CarPlay friendly, which is always a big plus. The Google maps are so detailed that you can even zoom out into space to see the entire planet if you want. It's that good.
In full electric mode the car is quiet and stealthy, but you can detect a bit of road noise coming from the undercarriage on rougher roads. Compared to other Audis the ride feels more functional than sporty. Still, you can have a lot of fun with it, but it's no R8, TT or even A4.
The panoramic sunroof and rearview camera are now standard, while LED daytime running lights with LED headlights are available on the Premium Plus and Prestige trims. There's a digital compass on the mirror, and a volume knob that's handy despite being located closer to the passenger seat than the driver's.
Virtual cockpit, part of the $3,150 technology package is a highly recommended option. Out tester also featured the $3,100 sport package, which adds a three-spoke flat bottom steering wheel with paddles, 18-inch 15-spoke wheels with all-season rubber, front sport seats, and an S line roof spoiler.
See all 11 photos
The biggest challenge for the A3 e-tron out in the real world is finding a place to charge. Audi's sultry voiced navigation system can happily tell you where the nearest charge station is located, but it takes a bit of research to determine the hours of operation or whether or not the charger is open and available to the public. You'll also need an app for charging stations that don't accept credit cards at the chargers themselves. If you don't have access to a garage where you can charge your vehicle at home and/or work — or simply have a long commute — you'll be better off going for a regular hybrid instead of a plug-in. | {
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Harm reduction services such as adulterant screening and drug user peer counseling are proven means of reducing risks related to drug use, and shows the attendees of your event that you care about their well-being regardless of the drug-related choices they make. Amnesty bins and intense pat-downs of attendees upon entrance cater to drug elimination. Providing access to EMTs cater to those who have already taken their experience too far. There is a large gap in responsibility between these extremes that needs to be addressed that harm reduction methods help provide. Adulterant screening services such as those provided by DanceSafe/StaySafeSeattle work as secondary drug abuse prevention in a way that doesn't compromise existing security measures. Rather than encouraging drug use, such harm reduction services address the needs of those that choose to use despite the best efforts of you (USC Events), public health officials, and law enforcement.
Harm reduction is not simply adulterant screening or peer counseling, but a holistic approach to reducing the health risks at your events. The absolute biggest risk to any event attendee, high or sober, is heat stroke compounded by dehydration. Any event with high energy music in the heat of the day should provide shade, free water refill stations and misting tents so attendees can cool down.
Heat stroke and drug-related emergencies are not events that 'just happen.' Event promoters can, and should, take reasonable steps to protect their patrons' health and safety regardless of ones' attitudes about drug use. USC Events, you can do better, and you should. | {
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But papa, that picture is a repost. But it is their cake day, son. It must be upvoted.
149 shares | {
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Empire hosting election forum
All four candidates for Nipissing-Timiskaming riding will take part in a forum at the Empire Living Centre on Fraser St. tomorrow evening.
Conservative Jay Aspin, Liberal Anthony Rota, NDP Kat Jodouin and Green Nicole Peltier have all confirmed attendance.
The event is open to the public, and is the only remaining all-candidate's meeting that will take questions from the floor.
The meet and greet starts at 6:30, and the Q&A portion begins at 7 p.m.
Roving microphones for the audience will be used to assist in asking questions.
While the evening is expected to have somewhat of a seniors point of view, a wide range of topics like the economy, international affairs, and local issues are expected. | {
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SPARKS, Nevada, July 26, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – The mayor of a town in Nevada is speaking out against a local library’s decision to host a Drag Queen Story Hour event, detailing his unsuccessful efforts to block the event.
When Sparks Mayor Ron Smith caught wind that Washoe County Public Library would be hosting one of the events – in which adult crossdressers read to children between the ages of three and eight, hold question-and-answer sessions, and pose for photos – he was outraged, the Reno Gazette Journal reports.
"It doesn't make any sense to me," he said. "It is absolutely ridiculous. Why would you have transgender people talking to kids?" Smith said he was concerned about reports of how drag queens have conducted themselves in similar events across the country, and insufficient background checks leading to children being placed near convicted sex offenders. Recently, an Oregon library deleted pictures of children lying on top of a drag queen.
So Smith contacted Washoe County Library Director Jeff Scott and County Commissioner Vaughn Hartung in hopes of canceling the event, but “they told me there is nothing they can do," he said.
"It is storytime like any other storytime," Scott claimed in response. "It is ridiculous and offensive to the LGBTQ community to say that anyone is going to molest children."
The Nevada Family Alliance disagrees. “Do you think it is appropriate for county tax dollars to be used on a ‘program’ that exposes kids to such a provocative lifestyle?” the group asked, noting that the event dovetails with the library’s support for the broader LGBT agenda. “This story time is to compliment the library participating in the Reno Gay Pride Parade with their Cart Drill Team.”
Such events around the world have drawn controversy for the individuals they’ve put in close proximity to children, such as performers behind X-rated skits involving children’s characters, and for attracting radical transgender protesters. Pro-family advocates also warn that the trend is dangerous for its true goal: indoctrinating children into accepting gender fluidity.
The San Francisco-based Drag Queen Story Hour program describes its express purpose as capturing the “imagination and play of the gender fluidity of childhood” and giving children “unabashedly queer role models”; while Louisiana drag queen Dylan Pontiff admits the events are about “the grooming of the next generation.”
Despite the mayor's efforts, the event took place on July 20, and drew “hundreds” of attendees, KOLO reports.
While many framed the event positively, some members of the community expressed concern. "That sends chills up my spine, I don't believe that should be what we are subjecting our kids to," Loy Mach said. A more liberal parent, Nichole Lander, said she brought her daughter to see the drag queens because she was “kind of at an impressionable age.” | {
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Across the globe, algorithms are quietly but increasingly being relied upon to make important decisions that impact our lives. This includes determining the number of hours of in-home medical care patients will receive, whether a child is so at risk that child protective services should investigate, if a teacher adds value to a classroom or should be fired, and whether or not someone should continue receiving welfare benefits.
The use of algorithmic decision-making is typically well-intentioned, but it can result in serious unintended consequences. In the hype of trying to figure out if and how they can use an algorithm, organizations often skip over one of the most important questions: will the introduction of the algorithm reduce or reinforce inequity in the system?
There are various factors that impact the analysis. Here are a few that all organizations need to consider to determine if implementing a system based on algorithmic decision-making is an appropriate and ethical solution to their problem:
Will this algorithm influence—or serve as the basis of—decisions with the potential to negatively impact people’s lives?
Before implementing a decision-making system that relies on an algorithm, an organization must assess the potential for the algorithm to impact people’s lives. This requires taking a close look at who the system could impact and what that would look like, and identifying the inequalities that already exist in the current system—all before ever automating anything. We should be using algorithms to improve human life and well-being, not to cause harm. Yet, as a result of bad proxies, bias built into the system, decision makers who don’t understand statistics and who overly trust machines, and many other challenges, algorithms will never give us “perfect” results. And given the inherent risk of inequitable outcomes, the greater the potential for a negative impact on people’s lives, the less appropriate it is to ask an algorithm to make that decision—especially without implementing sufficient safeguards.
In Indiana, for example, after an algorithm categorized incomplete welfare paperwork as “failure to cooperate,“ one million people were denied access to food stamps, health care, and cash benefits over the course of three years. Among them was Omega Young, who died on March 1, 2009 after she was unable to afford her medication; the day after she died, she won her wrongful termination appeal and all of her benefits were restored. Indiana’s system had woefully inadequate safeguards and appeals processes, but the the stakes of deciding whether someone should continue receiving Medicaid benefits will always be incredibly high—so high as to question whether an algorithm alone should ever be the answer.
Virginia Eubanks discusses the failed Indiana system in Automating Inequality, her book about how technology affects civil and human rights and economic equity. Eubanks explains that algorithms can provide “emotional distance” from difficult societal problems by allowing machines to make difficult policy decisions for us—so we don’t have to. But some decisions cannot, and should not, be delegated to machines. We must not use algorithms to avoid making difficult policy decisions or to shirk our responsibility to care for one another. In those contexts, an algorithm is not the answer. Math alone cannot solve deeply-rooted societal problems, and attempting to rely on it will only reinforce inequalities that already exist in the system.
Can the available data actually lead to a good outcome?
Algorithms rely on input data—and they need the right data in order to function as intended. Before implementing a decision-making system that relies on an algorithm, organizations need to drill down on the problem they are trying to solve and do some honest soul-searching about whether they have the data needed to address it.
Take, for example, the department of Children, Youth and Families (CYF) in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, which has implemented an algorithm to assign children “threat scores” for each incident of potential child abuse reported to the agency and help case workers decide which reports to investigate—another case discussed in Eubanks’ book. The algorithm’s goal is a common one: to help a social services agency most effectively use limited resources to help the community they serve. To achieve their goal, the county sought to predict which children are likely to become victims of abuse, i.e., the “outcome variable.” But the county didn’t have enough data concerning child-maltreatment-related fatalities or near fatalities to create a statistically meaningful model, so it used two variables that it had a lot of data on—community re-referrals to the CYF hotline and placement in foster care within two years—as proxies for child mistreatment. That means the county’s algorithm predicts a child’s likelihood of re-referral and of placement in foster care, and uses those predictions to assign the child a maltreatment “threat score.”
The problem? These proxy variables are not good proxies for child abuse. For one, they are subjective. As Eubanks explains, the re-referral proxy includes a hidden bias: “anonymous reporters and mandated reporters report black and biracial families for abuse and neglect three and a half more often than they report white families"— sometimes even by angry neighbors, landlords, or family members making intentionally false reports as punishment or retribution. As she wrote in Automating Inequality, “Predictive modeling requires clear, unambiguous measures with lots of associated data in order to function accurately.” Those measures weren’t available in Allegheny County, yet CYF pushed ahead and implemented an algorithm anyway.
The result? An algorithm with limited accuracy. As Eubanks reports, in 2016, a year with 15,139 reports of abuse, the algorithm would have made 3,633 incorrect predictions. This equates to the unwarranted intrusion into and surveillance of the lives of thousands of poor, minority families.
Is the algorithm fair?
The lack of sufficient data may also render the application of an algorithm inherently unfair. Allegheny County, for example, didn’t have data on all of its families; its data had been collected only from families using public resources—i.e., low-income families. This resulted in an algorithm that targeted low-income families for scrutiny, and that potentially created feedback loops, making it difficult for families swept up into the system to ever completely escape the monitoring and surveillance it entails. This outcome offends basic notions of what it means to be fair. It certainly must not feel fair to Allegheny County families adversely impacted.
There are many measures of algorithmic fairness. Does the algorithm treat like groups similarly, or disparately? Is the system optimizing for fairness, for public safety, for equal treatment, or for the most efficient allocation of resources? Was there an opportunity for the community that will be impacted to participate in and influence decisions about how the algorithm would be designed, implemented, and used, including decisions about how fairness would be measured? Is there an opportunity for those adversely impacted to seek meaningful and expeditious review, before the algorithm has caused any undue harm?
Organizations should be transparent about the standard of fairness employed, and should engage the various stakeholders—including (and most importantly) the community that will be directly impacted—in the decision about what fairness measure to apply. If the algorithm doesn’t pass muster, it should not be the answer. And in cases where a system based on algorithmic decision-making is implemented, there should be a continuous review process to evaluate the outcomes and correct any disparate impacts.
How will the results (really) be used by humans?
Another variable organizations must consider is how the results will be used by humans. In Allegheny County, despite the fact that the algorithm’s “threat score” was supposed to serve as one of many factors for caseworkers to consider before deciding which families to investigation, Eubanks observed that “in practice, the algorithm seems to be training the intake workers.” Caseworker judgment had, historically, helped counteract the hidden bias within the referrals. When the algorithm came along and caseworkers started substituting their own judgment with that of the algorithm, they effectively relinquished their gatekeeping role and the system became more class and race biased as a result
Algorithmic-decision making is often touted for its superiority over human instinct. The tendency to view machines as objective and inherently trustworthy—even though they are not— is referred to as “automation bias.” There are of course many cognitive biases at play whenever we try to make a decision; automation bias adds an additional layer of complexity. Knowing that we as humans harbor this bias (and many others), when the result of an algorithm is intended to serve as only one factor underlying a decision, an organization must take care to create systems and practices that control for automation bias. This includes engineering the algorithm to provide a narrative report rather than a numerical score, and making sure that human decision makers receive basic training both in statistics and on the potential limits and shortcomings of the specific algorithmic systems they will be interacting with.
And in some circumstances, the mere possibility that a decision maker will be biased toward the algorithm’s answer is enough to counsel against its use. This includes, for example, in the context of predicting recidivism rates for the purpose of determining prison sentences. In Wisconsin, a court upheld the use of the COMPAS algorithm to predict a defendant’s recidivism rate on the ground that, at the end of the day, the judge was the one making the decision. But knowing what we do about the human instinct to trust machines, it is naïve to think that the judge’s ‘inherent distraction’ was not unduly influenced by the algorithm. One study on the impact of algorithmic risk assessments on judges in Kentucky found that algorithms only impacted judges’ decision making for a short time, after which they return to previous habits, but the impact may be different across various communities of judges, and adversely impacting even one person is a big deal given what’s at stake—lost liberty. Given the significance of sentencing decisions, and the serious issues with trying to predict recidivism in the first place (the system “essentially demonizes black offenders while simultaneously giving white criminals the benefit of the doubt”), use of algorithms in this context is inappropriate and unethical.
Will people affected by these decisions have any influence over the system?
Finally, algorithms should be built to serve the community that they will be impacting—and never solely to save time and resources at whatever cost. This requires that data scientists take into account the fears and concerns of the community impacted. But data scientists are often far removed from the communities in which their algorithms will be applied. As Cathy O’Neil, author of Weapons of Math Destruction, told Wired earlier this year, “We have a total disconnect between the people building the algorithms and the people who are actually affected by them.” Whenever this is the case, even the most well-intended system is doomed to have serious unintended side effects.
Any disconnect between the data scientists, the implementing organization, and the impacted community must be addressed before deploying an algorithmic system. O’Neil proposes that data scientists prepare an “ethical matrix” taking into account the concerns of the various stakeholders that may be impacted by the system, to help “lay out all of these competing implications, motivations and considerations and allows data scientists to consider the bigger impact of their designs.” The communities that will be impacted should also have the opportunity to evaluate, correct, and influence these systems.
***
As the Guardian has noted, “Bad intentions are not needed to make bad AI.” The same goes for any system based on algorithmic decision-making. Even the most well-intentioned systems can cause significant harm, especially if an organization doesn’t take a step back and consider whether it is ethical and appropriate to use algorithmic decision-making in the first place. These questions are just starting points, and they won’t guarantee equitable results, but they are questions that all organizations should be asking themselves before implementing a decision-making system that relies on an algorithm. | {
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By his own description, Lawayne Musselwhite is a lucky guy. A lifelong car nut, he bought, sold and restored early Mustangs from the age of 16. “Give me a Mustang in a box and I’ll tell you where every screw goes,” he says.
Lucky, yes. There was the lottery win in 2010, and then another win: a brand new 2014 Shelby GT500 with 662 pounding ponies under the hood, won with a $50 ticket bought while Musselwhite was in Boulder, Colo., attending a fundraiser for the Shelby American Collection Museum.
Yes, he’s a Shelby nut. The homebuilder from Fort Saskatchewan, Alta. — 45 minutes northeast of Edmonton — has one of the most impressive Shelby collections in the country. He has eight of them.
Owning eight rare classic Shelby collectibles certainly reflects good fortune. But things got even better for Musselwhite when he recently discovered what is arguably Canada’s ultimate barn find — 40 current and future collectible vehicles stored in a Quonset hut at a Lethbridge dairy farm.
As Musselwhite explains it, the wealthy owner of the dairy farm had years ago gone to his local Ford dealer with $1 million to spend, and asked a salesman to buy cars that would go up in value starting in 1999. Left inside the dirt-floor storage were rows of exotic sports cars, low production factory muscle cars and Harley Davidson Special Edition Ford pickups. The vehicles were new or had hardly any miles on them. Some still wore window stickers.
Musselwhite and friend Darren Boychuk jumped at the opportunity to spend $1.1 million for all 40 vehicles. Boychuk’s E & S Motorcycles dealership in Fort Saskatchewan now looks like an exotic car sales lot with rows of fresh Corvettes, other exotics and pickup trucks parked there.
But Boychuk’s shop at home holds the real crown jewels from the barn find — four Plymouth Prowlers and three Ford GTs. One of the rare lightweight, rear-engine 2006 Ford GTs is one of only 400 Heritage Edition models offered for sale. It shows only 10.8 miles on the odometer. It had been trucked to the dairy farm and never driven. All three Ford GT sports cars were sold through a Montreal dealership and have Canadian specifications.
These are very desirable and valuable. Heritage Edition Ford GT sports cars have sold for up to $700,000. The others trade for half that. “This car is brand new, never been driven, is still in the wrapper and has all the factory window stickers,” Musselwhite enthuses. One of the four Plymouth Prowlers is the “limousine edition” and is virtually a new car. Among the six Corvettes, two are 2007 roadsters.
“The farmer was very wealthy and bought the cars as an investment believing they would go up in value,” Musselwhite says, explaining he bought the lot sight unseen. Health issues forced the sale of the cars, but there are still 10 that the farmer wouldn’t sell. Musselwhite says he doesn’t know what was left behind.
Update: Click here to see the 10 cars that were left behind and not for sale after this great Canadian barn find
That wasn’t an issue for Musselwhite. He already owns one of the most impressive Shelby collections in the country. The first one he bought was a rare 1965 Shelby that came from Edmonton. “I always said if I ever won the lottery, I would buy a 1965 Shelby,” the affable, former heavy-duty mechanic and coin store operator says. It is Shelby number 47 out of only 519 built.
But his second 1965 Shelby has got everyone in the collector car hobby buzzing – particularly after Shelby number 242 made the cover of Mustang Monthly a year ago and took the two top awards at the Shelby American Automotive Club show in Fontana, Calif.
Well-known southern California drag racer Jerry Mendes bought the car as a demonstrator from a Long Beach Ford dealership on Jan. 22, 1966, for $3,377. He took it directly to Performance Associates to have the “drag pack” options installed for a further $1,694. 64 – half the purchase price of the car.
The race-prepped Shelby travelled one-quarter mile at a time setting a National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) record running the standing quarter mile in 12.32 seconds at 109.92 mph. But, with the introduction of the big block 427 and 428 cubic inch Shelby in 1967, his car was no longer a competitor in its class. Jerry Mendes retired it where it remained up on blocks for the next 48 years.
This is likely the lowest mileage and rarest early Shelby in existence, showing just 6,452 miles on the odometer. Musselwhite and wife Marilyn Hodgkinson own other Shelbys, such as their matching red and blue 1968 GT500 convertibles (there were only 402 made) and a very rare 1968 Shelby GT350 fastback – one of 224 sold as Hertz “rent a racers” on which a reputed $277,000 was spent on restoration.
Musselwhite and business partner Darren Boychuk are selling most of the 40 barn find vehicles. “They are flying out of here,” Musselwhite says at the E & S Motorcycles dealership where many are stored.
He and Boychuk hope to put some cars aside for themselves — possibly a pair of Ford GT’s, a Prowler or two, and a red 2007 Shelby GT500 convertible that has never been street driven.
Musselwhite also has bigger ambitions related to the popularity of the amazing performance delivered under the name of Shelby. He is partnering with internationally-known Shelby restorer Jeff Yergovich of R & A Motorsports to build a dealership named Shelby Canadian Inc. in Fort Saskatchewan to refit Ford cars with Shelby performance packages. R & A Motorsports will open an adjacent Canadian operation.
“At Shelby Canadian Inc., we’ll be Super Snaking all the prior models up to 2014 and there will be a new package for 2015,” he says. “Rumour has it, there will be a package for the new aluminum-bodied pickups,” he says. “It’s a good time to get into it.”
Knowing Musselwhite’s luck, it is bound to be a success.
Here are all 40 cars included in Lawayne Musselwhite’s ultimate barn find:
Ford
1979 Mustang GT Pace Car, grey
1990 Mustang GT Convertible, green on white
1990 Thunderbird, black on grey
1990 Thunderbird S, black on blue
1994 Thunderbird S Coupe, white
1996 Lincoln Mark 8, silver
1997 F-150 Flairside
1998 Thunderbird Turbo Coupe, silver
1998 Lincoln Mark 8 LSC, black
2000 F-150, Harley-Davidson, black
2000 Lincoln LS, white
2001 Mustang GT Bullitt, black
2005 Mustang, yellow
2006 Ford GT, red
2006 Ford GT, blue
2006 Ford GT Heritage Edition
2007 Shelby GT500 Convertible, red
2008 Ford F-150, Harley-Davidson, black
2008 Ford F-150, Harley-Davidson, black
2008 Ford F-350, Harley-Davidson, black
2010 Ford F-150, Harley-Davidson, purple
2010 Ford Raptor, orange
2012 Mustang GT/CS, yellow
Chrysler
1999 Plymouth Prowler, purple
2000 Plymouth Prowler, yellow
2001 Plymouth Prowler, black on silver
2001 Plymouth Prowler, blue
2006 Chrysler 300 SRT-8, silver
2008 Dodge Charger SRT-8, orange
2010 Dodge Ram 1500
GM
2001 Chevrolet Corvette, silver
2002 Chevrolet Corvette Targa, silver
2002 Camaro Z/28 SS, red
2003 Chevrolet Corvette Z06, black
2006 Chevrolet Corvette Convertible, silver on black
2007 Chevrolet Corvette Convertible, silver on black
2007 Chevrolet Corvette Convertible, orange on tan
2008 Pontiac Solstice Convertible, red | {
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Each year, Gray whales set out on one of the longest migratory journeys on the planet: a nearly 13,000-mile swim from their feeding grounds in Alaska to the warm waters of Baja California Sur in Mexico.
In Baja California Sur whales birth and raise their calves - after which they turn around and swim back again.
Experts estimate that by the time a Gray whale turns 50 it has traveled the distance from the earth to the moon and back.
But this impressive, 50-foot mammal and its migratory feat are threatened by one of the world's first marine phosphate mines.
If the project gets the green light, the mine could gravely damage the environment the Gray whale needs to breed and nurse during winter months.
The scope of the threat to whale populations became all too clear in late February when more than 2,600 Gray whales arrived at the San Ignacio and Ojo de Liebre lagoons in Baja California Sur, very close to Ulloa Bay.
This was the highest number of whales recorded in the past 19 years. The whale migration provides an important source of income for local families who depend on tourism dollars from whale watchers.
Clearly, just the place for a 225,000 acre undersea mine
Yet it's precisely in this area near Ulloa Bay that the American company Odyssey Marine Explorations intends to start the 'Don Diego' phosphate mine. The proposed mine would include five work sites in an area of more than 225,000 acres.
Each site would be exploited for 10 years, resulting in a 50-year-long project. The goal is to extract 350 million tons of phosphate sand from the marine floor-a quantity that would fill Mexico City's Aztec Stadium 264 times.
Gray whales, as well as Humpback and Blue whales and Loggerhead turtles that live in or pass through the zone, depend on sound to communicate, stay together and find food. The Don Diego project will use dredging to collect the phosphate sand, producing a lot of noise in the process.
Even the company's own environmental assessment concedes that the mine could create a "modification of vocal behavior or surprise reaction" in the whales. The noise could jeopardize the survival of the whales by causing changes in their behavior and migration route, and it could also disrupt mothers feeding their calves.
Moreover, large boats will dredge the seabed to extract sand, but in the process they will also upend living organisms. The dredged material will be separated to obtain phosphate, and the leftover material dumped back into the sea.
The sediments returning to the ocean may contain high levels of toxic elements such as uranium and thorium, which are exposed during the phosphate-separation process. These toxins may be consumed by fish that then arrive on our tables, making phosphate mining a potential source of radioactive contamination.
Mexico's chance to prove itself a wise guardian of the oceans
In September 2014, Odyssey presented its environmental impact assessment to Mexico's Secretariat of Environment and Natural Resources. AIDA, the Interamerican Association for Environmental Defense, presented comments on the Don Diego environmental assessment before the secretariat, spotlighting the ecological reasons the project should be shelved and requesting more detailed information from the company.
Last month the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC), which includes the United States, Mexico and Canada, voted against a request that the nations investigate whether Mexico appropriately considers environmental risks of proposed projects with coastal impacts.
However the question is certain to recur at CEC's 12th Council Session which is taking place in Boston next month, 14th-15th July - all the more so if civil society draws the matter to the Council's attention.
Now, Mexico has the opportunity to demonstrate that it is in fact a good steward of the oceans by rejecting the Don Diego plan. A pristine marine area favored by tourists, sensitive ecosystems and the continued well-being of the Gray whale depend on the decision the Mexican government is about to make.
In places such as Namibia and New Zealand, after analyzing similar projects, governments revoked permissions or declared a moratorium on phosphate mining until the industry can show it does not cause grave environmental harm.
The Mexican government should follow their example and err on the side of caution.
Action: Ask CEC to reconsider its decision not to investigate the risks of Mexico's coastal projects via Facebook and Twitter.
Action: Ask Odyssey Marine Explorations to desist from the project via its website, Facebook and Twitter.
Haydée Rodríguez is an environmental law attorney with a master's in environmental science and public policy from Columbia University, New York. Based in San José, Costa Rica, Haydée has been working for AIDA on marine protection, freshwater and mining issues since 2013.
This article was originally published by EarthJustice. | {
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The Salsa Room is moving out next month, and other tenants are being put on short-term leases.
All signs point to the planned redevelopment of the Fillmore Gardens Shopping Center, on Columbia Pike just east of Walter Reed Drive and west of Penrose Square, starting soon.
The plan is to replace the aging, single-story commercial buildings — housing CVS, H&R Block, Atilla’s restaurant, the Salsa Room, and the Burritos Bros food stand — with a six-story apartment building featuring ground-floor retail. Work could start as soon as 2021, though merchants are also being told it could be 2-3 years from now.
“Hopefully something will come together as early as mid-next year,” said Harald Mangold, president and CEO of Scott Management, which operates the shopping center and the adjacent Fillmore Gardens Apartments. “It depends on lots of things… ounty approvals, the economy, and so on.”
Mangold said the redevelopment plan, presented last year to the county’s Form Based Code Advisory Working Group, remains the same.
The Salsa Room, meanwhile, is moving to Tysons in March. Co-owner Victor Villarreal said the owners of the shopping center “have been really honest with the tenants that they are actively seeking to redevelop.” All leases end in October and will then go month-to-month, he said.
Villarreal said he regrets moving out of Arlington but feels the club had little choice.
“It’s hard to find a building, build it out and do all that stuff. It takes time,” he said. “We’re going to miss the space a lot. I really feel that we contributed to the growth of that area and we’ve held a lot of fundraisers… It’s a nice location. It’s close to D.C. and everything. I wish we could stay there forever, but unfortunately [could not].”
A portion of the current CVS parking lot is expected to be ceded to the county, to be added to Penrose Square park, as part of the redevelopment.
Catherine Moran contributed to this report. | {
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This PodCast is not cheap. We are working hard to upgrade and remodel the studio to hopefully bring better quality video and images. If you can find it in your perverted little heart to donate it would be beneficial not only for us but for you as well. Even if it is just enough for an energy drink every little bit gets us close to the goal and cover costs ;)
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Sal & CoN | {
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The world is high on football fever. And why it wouldn’t be! It’s the most anticipated season…it’s the FIFA World Cup season. The whole of West is under the frenzy which is quite contagious. India being a cricket-obsessed country rarely notices anything other than its favorite sport, but football definitely is an exceptional case.
While it’s a bit hard to follow each and every match given the hectic schedule, I’m sure each one of you must be having that one favorite team for which you are rooting this FIFA. And while the world still needs to find its Paul, the octopus for this year, a random guess would have narrowed down the prospective winners to these five teams.
1. Spain: Ok. I know the team is out of the World Cup already! But Spain came with the same old team that got all those titles and also won the last World Cup. Sadly, the tiki-taka effect was a flop show this time.
2. Germany: The recent matches saw Klose, one of the finest players of Germany, scoring the record goal as equal to Ronaldo’s. With all three wins till now, Germany has indeed a strong chance to break its 3rd place curse.
3. Portugal: Just the fact that Cristiano Ronaldo is in Portugal makes it one of the strongest teams in this World Cup. And the fact that it’s the team that has been seen scoring from more corners than any other finalists again proves the previous point.
4. Argentina: Messi…Messi. The popularity that Messi enjoys is prolific. With this football phenomenon and an added strength of attacking talent at hand, Argentina is definitely on the right track to launch an assault.
5. Brazil: Noted for their defense than their attack, Brazil rarely allows anybody to come close to the goal. The kind of performance that Brazil showed, they are expected to reach the knock-out stages with no trouble.
Well, these are the five teams that I think have the strongest chance to make it in this World Cup. While they make their way to the finals, I’d really like to know your favorite team. Do share. | {
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The Grid+ team has been heads down focusing on scaling our operations. We’ve had quite a few success stories that we wish to share.
Hiring
In order to achieve the ambitious goals set forth in our white paper, we recognize the need to bring on a strong team across many verticals. This past month we interviewed 40+ candidates for a handful of roles and are excited to announce the following new additions to our team. We do not expect to continue to grow at this rate (doubling in the span of 30 days), but the following individuals are all critical hires at this juncture.
John Werner
John Werner has been hired as the CEO of GridPlus Texas Inc., our first retail energy provider with a specific focus on the Texas market. Prior to Grid+, John founded and operated a retail energy company which served energy to 50,000+ customers in ERCOT (Electric Reliability Council of Texas) and PJM. Throughout his 16-year tenure in the industry he has worked with several other retailers as an attorney and in numerous business-related roles. He also recently served on the ERCOT Board of Directors, which represents all of the electric retailers in Texas.
Gabe Shapiro
Gabe Shapiro is joining Grid+ as our Chief Legal Officer. Gabe is an attorney and technologist specializing in fintech, corporate and securities law and strategic transactions. He has extensive experience advising Fortune 500 technology companies in their mergers and acquisitions transactions under the umbrella of several AmLaw 100 law firms. In recent years, after becoming an avid student of, and advocate for, blockchain technologies, he has expanded his practice to advise emerging companies regarding blockchain-specific issues and transactions such as token sales. He is dedicated to advancing legal standards, best practices and dialogue around new technologies that solve pressing real-world issues. Further, Gabe was an integral member of the Hogan Lovells’ team who helped Grid+ on the token analysis for GRID. I’m personally very excited for Gabe to join for numerous reasons, but especially because we can now kick our BOLT workstream into high gear.
John Boyd
John is joining the Grid+ team as an embedded engineer. He has formal training as an electrical engineer with a graduate degree in mixed signal electronic design from Texas A&M and a background in semiconductor design. John also has experience in embedded hardware and embedded firmware development. When not at work, you are likely to find him tinkering behind a soldering iron or rock climbing at the local climbing gym.
Riza Forrester
Riza Forrester is joining Grid+ as a business analyst wherein he will work closely with myself on many operational and client service projects. Riza has 4 years of experience in the financial services industry, the majority spent at Morgan Stanley where he worked as a senior member at one of their Hedge Fund operations teams. Riza’s team handled $10+ billion in AUM and serviced over 2,000 investors. Riza is a Lean Six Sigma Green Belt and has aided Morgan Stanley in expediting a portion of their operational processes by up to 50%.
We expect to onboard another handful of hardware, software and Ethereum researchers in the coming months. Please check our careers page for all openings. We are very aggressively looking for Ethereum researchers to work directly with Alex on relay networks. If scalability work is of interest to you, please send us a note at [email protected].
REP (Retail Energy Provider) Application
Our largest operational push since our token sale has been the submission of our REP application to the PUC (Public Utility Commission) of Texas. There are too many moving parts to enumerate in a single blog post, but this achievement required substantial effort by many of our team members, both from an operational and strategic perspective. In particular I would like to thank both Cole D’ambrosio and John Werner for the countless hours and long nights coordinating with vendors, professional service firms and various regulators to ensure the most robust submission possible.
The important takeaway here is that to serve energy to retail customers in Texas, you need to be approved by the PUC. This is a major milestone achieved in order to maintain the roadmap we identified in our whitepaper. The application deadline was January 17 to be eligible to participate in the upcoming test flight, wherein we will prove that our technology is able to interoperate with the systems used at ERCOT. If this deadline was missed, we would need to wait another four months to apply in the next application window. Our submission was covered in a local publication, which should provide some visibility to the market on the groundbreaking technology we are bringing to Texas. If you would like to learn more about what this process entails, please feel free to read up on ERCOT’s website.
Office
Alex recently tweeted the above photo which is the only picture we have of our office. You’re not missing much else since this is pretty much the entire space. We actually have two rooms, both about this size, which can fit four people in each. Currently, Karl and John Boyd will be the two daily frequenters, with the rest of the team flying in every few weeks to join them. I’m actually writing this update on a plane headed to Austin now to sign for an apartment, thus I’ll likely spend substantially more time in this office as well. If you’re a Grid+ enthusiast and find yourself in the area, drop us a line and you can check out our new space. If you’re lucky you may also run into Niran Babalola. He is a member of the ConsenSys mesh focused on the diligence spoke and he has been working out of our office as well. It’s nice to continue to work side-by-side with ConsenSys team members who are some of the most valuable contributors in the Ethereum ecosystem.
Engaging with Energy Companies
On a normal day, I end up talking to 2–4 energy companies who are interested in learning more about Grid+. Many of these are multinational, large entities who do not have extensive experience with blockchain, but are very interested in how they could improve their operations. Some of these may end up being partners who license our technology, or perhaps advisors to help guide us as we enter the global marketplace. In an attempt to help streamline these conversations, our team is contemplating the launch of a Grid+ affiliate program wherein we will host regular webinars to present our research on both Ethereum and our plans in the energy ecosystem. We are actively in discussions to bring on a team member to help organize and manage such an endeavor.
One such meeting this week was in person with Mathew Sachs, VP, Distributed Energy at National Grid Ventures. He offered a quote for his thoughts on the Grid+ model.
In our efforts to adapt with an increasingly decentralized, digitized and decarbonized energy landscape, National Grid Ventures remains keenly interested in how distributed technologies are shaping the future. Grid+’s strategy to leverage blockchain across a broad spectrum of energy consumers — from the tech-savvy solar adopter to the classic set-and-forget energy user — seemingly offers potential to scale today. Perhaps the future will come quicker than we anticipate.
Community
Quick shoutout as a thank you to many of our community members who have taken an active role in educating new comers and helping to make our Telegram group a great resource for all. Thank you CryptoDM, Rock Lobster and Banan for your tireless efforts — the entire team appreciates it.
Relays, Bridges, Sidechains, Extensions, Viaducts or some other name which conveys scaling
As some of you may have noticed, our CTO and Co-Founder Alex Miller has recently been releasing preliminary details regarding his evolving ideas on “relay networks” (which we also refer to interchangeably as “bridge networks” or more simply as “relays” or “bridges”). We believe relay networks represent an exciting new contribution to the ongoing discussion around scaling Ethereum, but what may be less obvious are the ways they were inspired by Grid+’s own scaling needs and dovetail with Grid+’s existing business model for smart agents and retail energy.
If you haven’t read about our relay networks concept, we strongly encourage you to check out our posts here, here and here. Broadly speaking, relay networks represent a new potential method of scaling Ethereum applications, and are thus meant to be considered alongside other (not necessarily mutually exclusive) scaling proposals such as those embodied in Plasma, Raiden, Polkadot and sharding.
Similar to Plasma, relay networks are being designed to facilitate scaling by establishing smart-contract-driven bridges between the highly secure (but throughput-bounded) Ethereum mainnet and smaller (private or public) networks or “sidechains” that have EVM smart contract functionality. As detailed in the above links, under Alex’s current design, opening a bridge between the mainnet and a sidechain requires depositing Ether or an ERC20 token as the “stake” in smart contracts on both the mainnet and the relevant sidechain. We refer to Ether or ERC20 tokens used in this way as “staking tokens” or “staking coins.”
One of the main reasons we are so excited about relay/bridge networks is that we believe they will be very well suited to run on the Grid+ agent devices that were summarized in our whitepaper, which we are currently continuing to develop. Maintaining a bridge requires three things:
Access to a staking token, configured when the bridge is set up Storage of a small amount of data in memory Sufficient connectivity and uptime
These are already planned features of our Grid+ agent devices, making them potentially well suited to implement relays. As detailed in the links above, under Alex’s conception of relay networks, proposers would have the opportunity to collect fees for maintaining a bridge, which would be similar to “mining rewards” in proof-of-work systems. As these fees were earned, they would be sent to the Grid+ agent serving as a proposer for a particular relay, and could then be used for other purposes as directed by the user (depending on the particular token being utilized to reward proposers, which may be Ether or any ERC20 token). These concepts fit in with our philosophy of allowing (and incentivizing) users to passively provide services via Grid+ agent devices.
Grid+ anticipates creating its own official EVM-based networks over which Grid+ and its customers could send and store data about their energy use or purchase electricity at greater scale than currently possible on the Ethereum mainnet. These networks would write data to a Grid+ sidechain, which would “relay” or “bridge” back to the Ethereum mainnet to harness the mainnet’s strong security and consensus features. We would likely then configure our Grid+ agents to connect to these “official” Grid+ sidechains/ relay networks by default. To maintain the quality and security of Grid+ applications, we currently anticipate that only official Grid+ agent devices will be “whitelisted” so that they may stake tokens to open official Grid+ relays. However, our current plan is to open-source the relay network software and Grid+ agent devices to the greatest extent reasonably possible, with the aim that anyone may adapt our technology to run their own relay networks and bridge any two EVM blockchains, whether on the Grid+ smart agent or another smart agent, device or software stack. And, of course, our plan remains that Grid+ smart agents will not only be available for sale to Grid+ energy customers, but, following our beta phase, also to the general public.
The issue arises as to what token to use for staking on these “official” bridges that run on Grid+ agents. Theoretically, it would be possible to use any number of tokens for staking, including Ether or any ERC20 token. Indeed, those who adapt our open source software to their own purposes would be able to select any token at all, including tokens that Grid+ has nothing to do with and does not stand to gain any benefit from. However, we currently anticipate that we will configure our Grid+ agent devices, official Grid+ relays, and official Grid+ sidechains to accept GRID tokens as the staking token on both sides of the bridge. We hope this will incentivize GRID holders to purchase Grid+ agents (when available) and participate in the process of scaling Ethereum. Of course, GRID tokens will still be redeemable for 500 kWh of electricity at wholesale prices through Grid+ Energy retailers (and, potentially, partners) as set forth in the GRID token terms and conditions posted on our website.
To expedite the process of developing our relay networks and associated technology, we will be putting up bounties to incentivize development of various aspects of our relay designs. Currently we have one posted bounty to incentivize the implementation of a Merkle proof in Solidity. We are also sponsoring EthDenver, where we will likely post additional bounties related to Ethereum scalability. If you’re at the event, please stop by to say hi to myself and Alex. Alex plans to give a talk focused on relay networks to further elaborate on our technical design decisions.
A few caveats:
Currently we do not anticipate creating a new type of token specifically as a staking token for our relay networks, nor do we anticipate accepting any tokens other than GRID tokens as staking coins for our official Grid+ relays and sidechains. We have not yet determined what token(s) will be used to reward proposers for opening and maintaining Grid+ relays. It is important to note that our work on relay networks — and Grid+’s technology and business generally — remains preliminary and we reserve the right to create new tokens, to accept tokens other than GRID as staking coins and to distribute tokens other than GRID as rewards for proposers. We are still in the process of fine-tuning the interplays among the GRID token and our planned BOLT token, Grid+ smart agent, energy retail business and relay networks, and may need to modify or supplement our plans, models and features as our business evolves. We plan to update the GRID token terms and conditions with additional legal details governing the planned staking feature of GRID tokens closer to the launch of our relay network implementation, and such definitive terms and conditions, rather than the statements above, will determine the rights and obligations of Grid+ and GRID holders in relation to the staking feature of GRID tokens. The forward-looking statements in this update are subject to numerous assumptions, risks and uncertainties which are subject to change over time. There are many risk factors, including those relating to blockchain and cryptographic technology generally, as well Grid+’s business, operations and results of operations, that could cause our actual results or developments anticipated by us not to be realized or, even if substantially realized, to fail to achieve any or all of the benefits that could be expected therefrom, We reserve the right to change the plans, expectations and intentions stated herein at any time and for any reason, in our sole and absolute discretion, and we undertake no obligation to update publicly or revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future developments or otherwise. ACCORDINGLY, WE RECOMMEND THAT YOU DO NOT RELY ON, AND DO NOT MAKE ANY FINANCIAL DECISION OR INVESTMENT BASED ON, THE STATEMENTS CONTAINED IN THIS UPDATE — INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY SELLING OR TRADING OF GRID TOKENS, ETHER OR ANY OTHER CRYPTOGRAPHIC OR BLOCKCHAIN TOKEN, OR THE SECURITIES OF ANY COMPANY.
Conclusion
We’ve made great strides this past month in augmenting our team and researching areas that will be of critical importance for our operations. If you would like to become involved, please join our Telegram group, or follow us on Twitter. Looking forward to delivering in 2018. | {
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Ariana Fajardo Orshan, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, Brian Swain, Special Agent in Charge, U.S. Secret Service (USSS), Miami Field Office, and George L. Piro, Special Agent in Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Miami Field Office announced that Yujing Zhang, 33, a Chinese national, was convicted by a South Florida federal jury today of unlawful entry of restricted buildings or grounds, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1752(a)(1) (Count 1), and making false statements to the U.S. Secret Service, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1001 (Count 2) (Case No. 19CR80056).
Zhang is scheduled to be sentenced by U.S. District Judge Roy K. Altman, in Fort Lauderdale, on November 22, 2019, at 10 a.m. Zhang faces a maximum statutory sentence of 1 year in prison, up to 1 year of supervised release and up to a $1,000 fine as to Count 1, and a maximum statutory sentence of 5 years in prison, up to 3 years of supervised release and up to a $250,000 fine as to Count 2.
According to the trial record, Zhang fraudulently gained entry onto the restricted grounds at the Mar-a-Lago Club where the U.S. President and other persons protected by the U.S. Secret Service were temporarily visiting. U.S. Secret Service agents detained Zhang at the main reception area due to her suspicious actions. Zhang was then escorted off the property for further questioning. During questioning, Zhang repeatedly misrepresented to U.S. Secret Service agents that she was at the Mar-a-Lago Club to attend a “United Nations Friendship Event.”
U.S. Attorney Fajardo Orshan commended the investigative efforts of the USSS’s Miami Field Office, and the FBI’s Miami Field Office in this matter. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Rolando Garcia and Michael Sherwin. | {
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The singer will guest-star on the Netflix series, which hails from DreamWorks Animation TV.
Cher is getting animated.
The iconic singer is voicing a role on the animated series Home: Adventures With Tip & Oh, Netflix's adaptation of the feature film that hails from DreamWorks Animation TV. She will also sing on the episode.
Cher will play a new character, Chercophonie, the biggest rock diva in Boovsland. Chercophonie is an innovative, avant-garde GirlBoy Boov known for her dissonant music and outrageous fashion sense. She's elusive and mysterious and so enormously popular that the only way she can go out in public is in disguise.
In the episode, Tip becomes a Boov rock star due to her awful guitar playing and a little mentorship from Boovland's biggest rock Diva, Chercophonie. But when Tip’s playing begins to improve, she risks losing her fans who hate her "new" sound. With help from Oh, Tip learns that fame is meaningless if your heart isn't "in" what you're being celebrated for.
Meanwhile, Chercophonie harbors a personal secret that no one knows (not yet, anyway): Becoming an intergalactic rock star was her fallback plan — her true desire is a mysterious talent that is brought back to life when Chercophonie is inspired by Tip.
Home: Adventures With Tip & Oh, now in its third season, stars Rachel Crow as Tip and Mark Whitten as Oh, the roles voiced by Rihanna and Jim Parsons, respectively, in the 2015 film.
Cher, who won an Oscar in 1988 for Moonstruck, also was nominated in 1984 for Silkwood. Her last acting credit was voicing the role of Janet the Lioness in 2011's Zookeeper. Other credits include Mermaids, Burlesque and Mask.
Cher also recently performed at the Billboard Music Awards, where she received the Icon Award.
Watch a clip from Cher's episode of Home below. | {
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Gourdoughs Public House Review – Burger Donuts!
Gourdoughs is a food trailer turned brick-and-mortar restaurant that has been named one of The 10 Food Trucks You Need to Visit in Austin, one of the 25 Best Austin Restaurants and has been featured by the Food Network UK and Bizarre Foods America.
When you think of Texas, a few things conjure up in your mind – desert, cowboys, guns, secession from the Union – and then there is Austin. Keep Austin Weird is the motto and Austin has more hipsters than cowboys, but when it comes to food, Austin is quintessential Texas. The primary conversation revolves around beef ribs the size of your arm and whether La Barbecue or Franklins is better. But if you extend your adventures outside of the traditional BBQ and Tex-Mex, you will find a mecca of other unexpected culinary creations. Enter Gourdough’s, a 1978 Airstream trailer cranking out piping hot fresh donuts that are out of this world.
The trailer was created by Paula Samford and Ryan Palmer and became so wildly popular that it quickly expanded to two brick-and-mortar locations. Originally created as a distraction from their real estate jobs, Samford realized it was meant to be when all of the 23 original menu items came to her within an hour. Neither Samford or Palmer have classic training, so in expanding their menu the pair relied on their friends’ and family’s favorite foods to imagine such creations as the Ron Burgundy.
There is no proper way to start this meal but I recommend bringing friends so you can try several menu items. A donut burger is a must and there is no better than the El Camino. They take a fresh-fried donut, cut it in half and stuff it with Angus beef, a chipotle cheese blend, chipotle mayo, jalapeños, bacon, cilantro and fried onions. It sounds absurd (like a heart attack between a bun) but it somehow works. The donut is heavier than a regular donut in order to hold its contents yet remains pillowy soft inside making this warm bun the perfect vessel for a burger. The donut isn’t sweet and the smokiness from the chipotle makes this dish truly savory.
Now this is where Gourdough’s really hits the mark (and all those late-night cravings). The Flying Pig is a maple-glazed donut topped with bacon. At first, you may think it is crazy to pay $6 for a donut. But these are no ordinary donuts. That will be clear when you see the sheer size alone as it is delivered piping hot to your table and a fork and knife is needed to conquer it. After your first bite, your mouth will be filled with all of the flavors of breakfast with this classic salty-sweet combo and you will soon be throwing around dollar bills in celebration. I recommend it with a side of bourbon.
The Salty Balls – so many jokes, so little time. After you snicker through the order, you will be delivered a bowl of donut balls covered with cream cheese frosting, salted butter caramel sauce and dry roasted peanuts. Each bite has everything you could ever want: soft, sweet, salty and crunchy. Euphoria sets in and everything becomes right in the world as you slip into a food coma. These balls are worth every calorie and surely will not be the worst thing you did this weekend.
Gourdough’s menu ranges from diabetic-shock sweet (see the Black Betty) to savory with some heat (see the Dirty South) and even has salads (not that such a thing is encouraged here), so there truly is something for everyone. The staff is also stocked with donut enthusiasts who are standing by to assist you in narrowing your options, put your faith in them.
It is hard to miss with all of the smells of fresh-fried dough wafting through the air, but Gourdough’s Public House (in downtown Austin and on South Lamar) is also a bar, and a damn good one at that serving up local craft beers, delectable cocktails and $3 fireball shots. The downtown location is open until 3 a.m., so after you are done partying on West 6th Street stumble on over for some doughy creations that are sure to soak up all that alcohol you consumed while gyrating to Tove Lo in the club.
Gourdoughs Gourdoughs Gourdoughs Gourdoughs | {
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Homeowners in a Laois housing estate are living in fear of a family that councillors want evicted from their council house.
A litany of intimidating behaviour and crime including machete fights, training dogs at night, neighbours assaulted, and car chases across footpaths.
Laois councillor Aisling Moran listed the claims at the September meeting of the Graiguecullen Portarlington Municipal District.
"A neighbour in a window got a sling shot in the face, they are fighting with machetes, they are training dogs at one in the morning," she said.
The family should be evicted, she said.
"There should be a three strike rule, and then they should be evicted. Why should it cost the state money? Decent people wouldn't act like that. I know if we evict them they go back on the council housing list. If we don't let them back on the list, we put the onus on them. If they say they can't provide a home for their kids, then we will provide a home for your kids," she said.
She tabled a motion before making her claims, to install a second bollard on the roadway between the Graiguecullen housing estates of Heatherhill Square and Heatherhill.
"This bollard was put up because when they were being chased by the Gardaí they drove up on a path," Cllr Moran said.
Cllr Padraig Fleming seconded and described more behaviour by the family.
"Half this estate of about 36 houses are council, half mortgaged. There's none that haven't been affected. They have made major complaints to the council. Young people are knocking on doors asking people to buy beer because they are under age. Families are afraid to let children out to play. Children are after being attacked. They are being intimidated, threatened, still nothing has happened. The trouble a family can make destroys the balance, the niceness the decency and the safety.
"Rubbish is piling out the back of their house. The smell is terrible. A caravan was pulled in to the front door for big parties, the council told them to move it but it just continues. Horses were brought into the back garden," Cllr Fleming said.
While the council has conditions that a tenant signs up to on contract, "the process doesn't work", Cllr Fleming claimed.
Laois County Council says it will arrange for additional bollards to be installed in order to deter anti-social behaviour".
The Director of Services Gerry Murphy said the other problems were a Garda issue. | {
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В Госдуме задумали реформу по унификации налоговых нарушений в КоАП. Но в результате нововведений штрафы возрастут многократно, а бизнесу станет еще сложнее оспаривать свою правоту в судах
Фото: Олег Яковлев / РБК
В Госдуме задумали новую реформу, в результате которой могут ужесточиться наказания за налоговые правонарушения. Комитет по конституционному законодательству и госстроительству намерен перенести в новую редакцию Кодекса об административных правонарушениях (КоАП) налоговые статьи, по которым сейчас не предусмотрена административная ответственность, а также увеличить штрафы по налоговым статьям в КоАП. За счет этого в новой редакции КоАП также будет унифицирован и расширен круг тех, кто подпадает под ответственность за налоговые нарушения — это индивидуальные предприниматели, компании и должностные лица. Такие изменения содержатся в проекте поправок (копия есть у РБК).
В пояснениях к документу говорится, что предлагаемые изменения направлены на «полную кодификацию», то есть систематизацию всех норм федерального законодательства, устанавливающих административную ответственность, в том числе за нарушения в области финансов, налогов и сборов, а также страховых взносов.
Унификация норм в кодексе — это положительный момент, полагает старший юрист адвокатского бюро A2 Екатерина Ильина. Однако вместе с систематизацией депутаты предлагают повысить штрафные санкции по целому ряду налоговых нарушений (см. таблицу во врезе). Кроме того, в КоАП предлагается внести и новые статьи. В их числе — неуплата или неполная уплата сумм налога или сбора.
Один из авторов проекта, председатель комитета Госдумы по конституционному законодательству и госстроительству Владимир Плигин сказал РБК, что содержание новой редакции КоАП еще обсуждается, поэтому он не готов пока его комментировать. Он также затруднился сказать, когда документ будет внесен в Думу. Еще один автор новой редакции — замглавы комитета по конституционному законодательству Дмитрий Вяткин говорит, что глава по налоговым нарушениям уже есть в КоАП, комментировать ее новое содержание он отказался. В ФНС не стали комментировать нововведения, порекомендовав обратиться за разъяснениями в Госдуму и Минфин России. В Минфине не ответили на запрос РБК. Глава комитета Госдумы по бюджету и налогам Андрей Макаров не ответил на звонки и СМС. | {
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Who Stands to Lose If the Final SNAP Work Requirements Rule Takes Effect? The U.S. Department of Agriculture has released a final rule that would limit eligibility for SNAP work requirement waivers based on the economic conditions of places across the United States. A nationwide preliminary injunction halting this rule was ordered on March 13, 2020 by the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia; as of April 1 USDA had not appealed. SNAP work requirements have been suspended during the COVID-19 health emergency. Those work requirements will return when the Secretary for Health and Human Services declares the health emergency over, even if the economic emergency remains. Enter your zip code to find out the SNAP work requirement waiver “eligibility gap” in your location during the Great Recession (in 2009) and during an expansion (in 2018). Click the national, state, and county bars to find out the share of people and SNAP households there that would have lost eligibility for waivers had the final rule been in place in 2009 and 2018, showing who would lose eligibility under different economic conditions if the Administration appeals the ruling and prevails. Go Source: U.S. Population: Population Estimates Program, U.S. Census Bureau 2000–18; SNAP Households: American Community Survey, U.S. Census Bureau 2007–11, 2014–18. County-level waiver eligibility: Local Area Unemployment Statistics, Bureau of Labor Statistics (2000–2018); Extended Benefits and Emergency Unemployment Compensation trigger notices (Department of Labor n.d.); Bureau of Labor Statistics (2000–2018); authors’ calculations. Note: Estimates of SNAP households come from pooled 5-year American Community Survey data for 2009 (2007–11 data) and 2018 (2014–18 data). County-level eligibility data are for 2009 and 2018. New England counties which are part of more than one Labor Market Area (LMA) are considered eligible if they are part of at least one eligible LMA. Monthly county-level eligibility triggers for a calendar year are annualized on a fiscal year basis. If a county is eligible for a waiver for any month within a fiscal year, then it is eligible for the entire fiscal year. Counties only have values of 100 percent coverage loss, maintained waiver, or did not have waiver. This interactive requires a modern browser. Interactive data analysis by Jana Parsons. Interactive design and development by Becca Portman. See accompanying technical appendix for more details.
Introduction
On April 1, 2020, a nationwide Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP; formerly the Food Stamp Program) work requirement suspension took effect due to the health emergency declared in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. April 1 would have been the effective date of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) final and more restrictive work requirement waiver eligibility rule, a policy change that would have removed work requirement waivers from many places and caused roughly a million individuals to face a time limit on SNAP eligibility unless they satisfied the work requirement (USDA 2020). An injunction against the final rule in conjunction with new legislation suspending work requirements during this health emergency ensure that in the near-term, SNAP enrollment will expand as the economy contracts.
In mid-March 2020 the U.S. District Court for Washington, DC, issued a preliminary injunction against USDA, halting the implementation of its final work requirement rule.1 This rule would have changed the economic conditions under which a state could apply for SNAP work requirement waivers. The Families First Coronavirus Response Act (Families First) suspended work requirements for the duration of the national health emergency, but the standing waiver eligibility rules will go back into effect when the health emergency is declared over. Although an appeal is not imminent as of late March 2020, the administration can still appeal the ruling and a ruling on the merits would likely occur this fall.
Had the final rule gone into effect, by USDA’s estimates about 700,000 people would have lost access to SNAP benefits. By our estimate, more than 1.3 million people would have been newly exposed to time limits and potentially lost benefits.2 Given the substantial impact on program participants that such a rule has, it is important to understand its reach even if the requirements are currently suspended to make sure proper policies are in place when the suspension ends.
Our estimate that 1.3 million people would be newly exposed to time limits by the final rule is based on enrollment patterns of able-bodied adults without dependents (ABAWDs) in SNAP prior to the outbreak of COVID-19, the disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus. Forthcoming data will demonstrate the extent of the damage, but the U.S. economy is almost certainly already in a recession, with millions losing their jobs in March. Given the economic upheaval currently underway, it is highly likely that more households will become SNAP eligible and enroll in SNAP. Because it is likely going to be very difficult to find employment for the foreseeable future, work requirements represent a sizable burden to maintaining program eligibility.
In our prior research modeling SNAP work requirement waivers, we looked at the share of counties that would be affected by changing the criteria for waiver eligibility (Bauer and Shambaugh 2018; Nunn, Parsons, and Shambaugh 2019). We asked, how many counties would have lost eligibility for a SNAP work requirement waiver had USDA’s proposed or final rules been in place during the Great Recession?
In this economic analysis we model how many people live in places that would have lost SNAP work requirement waivers because of the final rule. Specifically, we model the share of the U.S. Population, the share of households receiving SNAP benefits, and the share of U.S. households that live in places that would have lost SNAP work requirement waiver eligibility under the Trump administration’s final rule had these criteria been in place during the Great Recession (in 2009) or during an economic expansion, as recently as 2018.
The analysis that follows demonstrates the importance of the nationwide work requirement suspension, prompted by the public health crisis, that Congress passed as well as the nationwide injunction affirmed in federal court. Looking historically, we find that 73 percent of the population and 69 percent of SNAP households (including but not exclusively ABAWD households) lived in places that would have lost work requirement waivers in the depths of the Great Recession in 2009 had only the Trump administration’s final work requirement rule been in place.
We again enter a period where a nationwide SNAP work requirement suspension is necessary. Without this action, millions of otherwise eligible SNAP participants would be on the precipice of losing benefits. One of the missions of The Hamilton Project is to promote policies that support economic security and a strong and inclusive safety net. SNAP serves a critical role for families and the economy in providing resources to purchase food and by serving as an engine for fiscal stimulus. When the national health emergency ends, this Economic Analysis provides evidence to policymakers of the implications of different SNAP work requirement rules.
How Would SNAP Eligibility Have Changed during the Last Decade if Different Work Requirement Rules Were in Place?
In this section we model a historical counterfactual: Who would have lost the protection of an economic condition–based SNAP work requirement waiver had the final Trump administration rule been in place from 2007 to 2018? These estimates build on prior analyses of county-level coverage we submitted to USDA in response to their notice of proposed rulemaking, and subsequent models of these waivers (Bauer, Parsons, and Shambaugh 2019a, 2019b).
In figures 1 and 2 we model the following scenarios as a share of counties and the U.S. population from 2007 to 2018:
Standing Rule (purple): The purple lines in figures 1 and 2 show the existing set of eligibility standards as well as policy changes made by USDA and Congress over the course of the Great Recession to increase waiver eligibility: (1) a 3-month and a 12-month average unemployment rate of 10 percent, (2) a 24-month average unemployment rate20 percent above the national average for the same period, (3) qualifying for unemployment insurance extended benefits (EB); as well as temporary criteria added during the Great Recession, (4) qualifying for emergency unemployment compensation (EUC), and (5) qualifying under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA). 3
Proposed Rule (green): The green lines in figures 1 and 2 model the set of eligibility standards for county-level work requirement waivers had the proposed rule (USDA 2019) been in place with the following criteria: (1) a 12-month average unemployment rate of 10 percent, (2) a 24-month average unemployment rate 20 percent above the national average for the same period with a 7 percent unemployment rate floor, and (3) qualifying for EB.
Final Rule (orange): The orange lines in figures 1 and 2 model the set of eligibility standards for counties in eligible labor market areas (LMAs) for work requirement waivers had the final rule been in place with the following criteria: (1) a 12-month average unemployment rate of 10 percent, and (2) a 24-month average unemployment rate 20 percent above the national average for the same period with a 6 percent unemployment rate floor.4 A crucial difference between the proposed rule and the final rule was the removal of qualifying for EB as a means of qualifying for the waivers.
The accompanying interactive models the difference between the standing rule and the final rule at two points in time, 2009 and 2018. The interactive shows the share of the total population and the share of SNAP households nationally, in a state, or in a county, who would have lost the protection of a work requirement waiver had the final rule and not the standing rule been in place at the time. Due to limited data availability, the interactive and the figures do not show an estimate for the number of ABAWDs who would have been exposed to a work requirement had waiver rules been different.
Which Counties Lose Snap Work Requirement Waivers under Various Scenarios?
Figure 1 models eligibility for work requirement waivers from 2007 through 2018 for counties. We do not model changes to eligibility among ad hoc substate geographic areas nor to the newly restricted time period for data.
Notable in this analysis are the differences in the share of counties that are eligible under the Trump administration’s proposed rule versus the final rule. Because the unemployment rate floor is lower in the final rule (6 percent) than in the proposed rule (7 percent), more counties are eligible both before the Great Recession and late in the recovery under the final rule than they are in the proposed rule. But because eligibility is no longer tied to qualifying for EB and because only LMAs qualify, the final rule drastically limits the number of counties that would have been eligible for a work requirement waiver during the Great Recession.
At the onset of the Great Recession (shaded gray in figure 1), neither the standing rules, the proposed rule, nor the final rule provided the extent of coverage that the combination of standing rules, the Bush and Obama administrations, and congressional action permitted. That is, the Bush and Obama administrations and Congress took actions to extend waivers because the standing rules were too slow to do so. While the final rule would have allowed for slightly more waivers than the proposed rule through 2008, it would have in effect destroyed the countercyclicality of SNAP, with waivers never being granted to more than 40 percent of counties throughout the duration of the recession.
Effective countercyclical policy would waive the work requirements as soon as a recession begins. None of the policies—standing, proposed, or final—do so. The proposed rule would waive work requirements more slowly and cover a smaller population than the standing rules, and the final rule more slowly and a smaller population still. With both the Great Recession and COVID-19, it has taken an act of Congress to ensure a widespread work requirement suspension at the onset of a downturn.
Who Loses Access to SNAP When Places Are No Longer Eligible for a Work Requirement Waiver?
Only ABAWDs face a time limit for SNAP eligibility for failing to meet a work requirement, but we do not have sufficient data on the age, dependent status, and disability status by county needed to model the share of ABAWDs who would be exposed to time limits under different waiver assumptions. The analysis that follows and that is shown in the accompanying interactive differentiates between the number of counties, the size of the population in those counties, and the share of households receiving SNAP benefits in those counties. This analysis does not indicate the exact number of ABAWDs who would have or would face a time limit.
Figure 2 models eligibility for work requirement waivers from 2007 to 2018 for the total U.S. population; while figure 1 is monthly, figure 2 shows one data point per year.5 The accompanying data interactive shows the share of the U.S. population and SNAP households that lived in places losing waiver eligibility in 2009 and 2018; we discuss the national numbers from the data interactive here.
Because of the nationwide SNAP work requirement suspension included in ARRA, waivers were available to 100 percent of the population under the standing rules in 2009. Had the proposed rule been in place in 2009, 293.6 million people would have lived in a county that was eligible for a work requirement waiver. This corresponds to 95.6 percent of U.S. households and 96.0 percent of SNAP households (not shown in figure 2; SNAP households shown in the interactive).6 Had the final rule been in place in 2009, only 83.8 million people would have lived in a place eligible for a work requirement waiver (corresponding to 26.8 percent of U.S. households and 30.9 percent of SNAP households). Under the final rule, only a small portion of the population is granted waivers as the economy deteriorates; the final rule effectively ends the countercyclicality of SNAP work requirement waivers.
Comparing the share of the U.S. population living in places losing eligibility (73 percent) under the final rule to the share of counties losing eligibility (71 percent) under the final rule in 2009, we see that a slightly higher share of the population lives in the counties that would have lost eligibility (authors’ calculations). This indicates that the places that would have lost eligibility in the wake of the Great Recession are slightly more densely populated. In 2018, however, the opposite was true. A higher share of counties (23 percent) than people living in those counties (14 percent) would have lost eligibility had the final rule been in effect. This shows that the counties that would have been affected by the final rule in 2018 are more rural than those that would not have been affected.
There are other differences in the demographics of counties that would have lost waiver eligibility. In both 2009 and 2018 the counties that would have lost eligibility under the final rule had substantially higher shares of Black and non-white populations than both the overall population and the population of counties that maintained eligibility (authors’ calculations).
Waiver Eligibility Among SNAP Households in States
The accompanying data interactive allows users to see how the Trump administration’s work requirement waiver rule would have affected people in their states, down to their zip code. In this section we highlight a point-in-time estimate of state-level waiver eligibility losses among SNAP households at the height of the Great Recession (in 2009; exact estimates can be found using the accompanying interactive). We pair this analysis with examples that states provided in federal court regarding the populations that would be affected in 2019.
The distribution of those losing eligibility is not spread evenly across the country. The map of the United States in figure 3 shows the share of SNAP households in each state that resided in places losing SNAP work requirement waiver eligibility in 2009. Again, every ABAWD household is a SNAP household, but not every SNAP household is an ABAWD household. This map illustrates that households receiving SNAP across the country would have faced drastically different waiver availability (and work requirements) depending on where they lived. At the nadir of the Great Recession, broad swaths of the American Midwest and the Mid-Atlantic would have seen material increases in exposure to work requirements, with between 90 and 100 percent of SNAP households living in places that would have lost eligibility for waivers from work requirements under the final rule.
Figure 3 shows high levels of eligibility loss in 2009 by state; in 2020 some states with waivers sued USDA to stop the implementation of its final work requirement waiver eligibility rule.7 In doing so, those states provided a state-by-state portrait of who would have been affected by the rule. In that lawsuit 14 states, Washington, DC, and New York City described who would be harmed today by the imposition of the final work requirement rule and how aspects of the rule would produce inconsistent and unexpected results when applied to different places across the country. For example, in New York City 30 percent of ABAWDs lacked a permanent address and 4 percent lived in homeless shelters; in Minnesota, 22 percent of ABAWDs were homeless. Massachusetts reported that those losing access would be veterans, the formerly incarcerated, victims of domestic violence, those aging out of the foster care system, and those with mental health and other disabilities.
Furthermore, conditioning waivers on eligibility at the LMA level would affect both urban and rural areas. Take, for example, Washington, DC, and Connecticut. By allowing waivers only at the LMA level, more urban areas with high levels of unemployment (e.g., Washington, DC or Bridgeport, Connecticut) would be grouped with areas of low unemployment (e.g., Maryland and Virginia; or Greenwich and Darien, Connecticut). The areas that have high unemployment and that are in need of work requirement waivers would lose waiver eligibility. By contrast, in the state of Oregon, the majority of those losing waivers live in rural and/or agricultural areas.
These examples are consistent with our calculations. Median household incomes tended to be higher and percent in poverty tended to be lower in counties that would have lost eligibility. However, as noted above, economic conditions of the ABAWD population are often different from local economic conditions. ABAWDs tend to have more unstable work situations (Bauer, Schanzenbach, and Shambaugh 2018) or face barriers to employment (Bauer and Shambaugh 2018; Nunn, Parsons, and Shambaugh 2019). Furthermore, by choosing a large geographic area as the unit of analysis—LMAs—smaller locations with especially weak economic conditions were averaged together with stronger locations.
Conclusion
SNAP is a critical automatic stabilizer and safety net program. Work requirements are a material impediment to SNAP’s countercyclical expansion unless they are waived expeditiously. As our research has shown, the final rule would weaken SNAP’s ability to expand its rolls during an economic downturn, consequently destabilizing households and the economy as a whole. For now, the final rule will not be in place when the Families First national work requirement suspension ends; but, the standing rules are also not sufficiently responsive to rapidly changing economic conditions.
A Hamilton Project policy proposal by Hilary Hoynes and Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach (2019) and proposals for the food security response to COVID-19 by Bauer and Schanzenbach (2020) make new recommendations regarding ways to link work requirement waivers to economic conditions. These recommendations would improve waiver eligibility criteria in order to improve SNAP’s countercyclical response.
In addition to using its discretion to enact work requirement waivers, Congress should consider making additions to the “lack of sufficient jobs” evidence:
National: A nationwide work requirement suspension would go into effect (or maintain an enacted waiver) when the Sahm recession indicator (Sahm 2019) triggers on. This waiver would sunset a year after the Sahm recession indicator turns on or when the three-month moving average of the national unemployment rate falls to within 2 percentage points of the prerecession level, whichever comes later.
State: State-wide work requirement waivers would go into effect when Congress authorizes EUC and would sunset two years past the final date in which EUC is effective in the state. The link to EB (that was removed from the proposed rule to the final rule) should be maintained for statewide waiver eligibility.
During difficult economic times SNAP alleviates hardship and stimulates the economy by subsidizing food consumption; at the depths of the Great Recession, SNAP provided resources to purchase food for one out of every six Americans (Hoynes and Schanzenbach 2019). While we do not yet know how the COVID-19 pandemic will shape the economy in the coming weeks, months, and years, a nationwide SNAP work requirement suspension can only help the country and its most vulnerable households to weather this crisis. | {
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By By JohnThomas Didymus Oct 2, 2012 in Science Russian astronomers have discovered a new comet C/2012 S1 hurtling toward Earth. Astronomers say that the comet, a two-mile-wide lump of ice and rock, may be the brightest in history and may shine brighter than the Moon when it passes close to the Earth. According to Astronomers at the Remanzacco Observatory, Italy have assured that the comet is not on collision course with Earth. They say C/2012 S1 "will get to within 0.012AU of the Sun at the end of November 2013 and then to ~0.4AU (about 37 million miles) from Earth at the beginning of January 2014." However, it remains uncertain where the comet came from, although its orbit suggests it may have its origin in a spherical cloud of comets surrounding the solar system called the False color rendition of C/2012 S1 at its discovery in September 2012. Remanzacco Observatory, Italy This comet’s orbit will bring it near the sun in 2013 and by November 2013, it may actually outshine the Moon in the sky. Remanzacco Observatory C/2012 S1 was observed close to Saturn and may still be observed with powerful telescopes as a faint glow in the constellation Cancer. It is expected to become visible to the naked eye beginning in 2013. According to National Geographic, predictions of its orbital trajectory indicate that if it survives its close approach to the Sun, the comet will be brightest in the sky in November 28, 2013 as it moves away from the Sun. It will be visible during December after sunset and in the morning sky before sunrise. Astronomers say that the orbit of C/2012 S1 is similar to that of the However, Samra cautions: "While some predictions suggest it may become as bright as the full moon, and even visible during the day, one should be cautious when predicting how exciting a comet may get. Some comets have been notorious for creating a buzz but failing to put on a dazzling display. Only time will tell." "... and one last note to the Mayan death and doom-mongers: the universe apologizes but, despite its name, 2012 S1 is actually arriving in 2013 holiday season." According to Space.com , Vitali Nevski and Artyom Novichonok of the International Scientific Optical Network (ISON) near Kislovodsk, Russia, discovered comet C/2012 S1 (ISON) on 21 September via images taken with a 40-centimeter reflecting telescope. The International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts confirmed the discovery and announced it on 24 September.According to National Geographic , astronomers say the comet is now approximately 615 million miles (990 million kilometers) from Earth, between the orbits of the two giant planets Saturn and Jupiter. Preliminary reports say the orbit will make its closest (perihelion) approach to the Sun on 28 November, 2013 at a distance of 0.012 AU (1,800,000 km; 1,100,000 mi) from the center-point of the Sun. Astronomers say the comet will pass approximately 1,100,000 kilometers (680,000 mi) above the Sun's surface. National Geographic reports C/2012 S1 is expected to pass at about 6.2 million miles/10 million kilometers (0.07 AU (10,000,000 km; 6,500,000 mi) from Mars on October 1, 2013. This will allow NASA's Curiosity rover on Mars opportunity to snap pictures.Astronomers at the Remanzacco Observatory, Italy have assured that the comet is not on collision course with Earth. They say C/2012 S1 "will get to within 0.012AU of the Sun at the end of November 2013 and then to ~0.4AU (about 37 million miles) from Earth at the beginning of January 2014."However, it remains uncertain where the comet came from, although its orbit suggests it may have its origin in a spherical cloud of comets surrounding the solar system called the Oort Cloud where there are billions of other comets in orbit. Raminder Singh Samra of the H.R. MacMillan Space Center in Vancouver, Canada, said: "For astronomers, these distant origins are exciting because it allows us to study one of the oldest objects in the solar system still in its original, pristine condition."C/2012 S1 was observed close to Saturn and may still be observed with powerful telescopes as a faint glow in the constellation Cancer. It is expected to become visible to the naked eye beginning in 2013.According to National Geographic, predictions of its orbital trajectory indicate that if it survives its close approach to the Sun, the comet will be brightest in the sky in November 28, 2013 as it moves away from the Sun. It will be visible during December after sunset and in the morning sky before sunrise. New Scientist reports that scientists at the Remanzacco Observatory say that by December 9 it should be about as bright as Polaris, the North Star, and should remain visible to the naked eye until mid-January 2014. According to Astronomy Now , the comet could become brighter than the full moon around its closest approach to the Sun.Astronomers say that the orbit of C/2012 S1 is similar to that of the Great Comet of 1680 , one of the brightest in history. Space.com reports that the Great Comet of 1680 was very bright in the sky and was visible even in daylight, throwing off a bright tail that spanned the western twilight sky. Some astronomers say that given the close orbital relationship between C/2012 S1 and the Great Comet of 1680, the objects may be the same. Gizmodo reports that Samra, says "if it lives up to expectations, this comet may be one of the brightest in history." According to The National Geographic, the brightness of C/2012 S1, will depend on how much gas and dust is blasted off the central core of ice and rocks at its close approach to the Sun.The bigger the cloud and tail, the more reflective the comet, astronomers say.However, Samra cautions: "While some predictions suggest it may become as bright as the full moon, and even visible during the day, one should be cautious when predicting how exciting a comet may get. Some comets have been notorious for creating a buzz but failing to put on a dazzling display. Only time will tell." Gizmodo leaves a note for Mayan "doom-mongers": More about comet C2012 S1, Astronomers, Earth More news from comet C2012 S1 Astronomers Earth | {
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Consider much of this hearsay, but it’s apparently a good time to be a product employee at Google…as long as you don’t mind a little snooping. TechCrunch reports that the company offered two key employees stock grants worth between $50 and $100 million to keep them at Google, as in before they’d told their employer they were considering leaving.
Anonymous sources told TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington that both Sundar Pichai and Neal Mohan were offered the Chief Product role at Twitter–a role eventually filled by Jack Dorsey–but that both refused when Google offered Pichai $50 million and Mohan $100 million to stay.
Arrington says other sources (also unnamed–see the problem here?) tell him Google knew to make the offers because someone with access to confidential information inside Twitter was leaking info direct to Google–a mole, if you will. While Twitter and Google have so far refrained from commenting on the story, one thing seems certain: If you work at Google and tease your prospects of scoring a distinguished position with a high-profile tech company, it sounds like Google could make it more than worth your while to stick around.
More on Techland:
Google Science Fair Invites YouTube, Gmail Submissions
Google with Larry Page as CEO Could Look More Aggressive
CNN Strikes A Chord With Google Over Facial Recognition Article | {
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琵琶湖の自然環境について親子で理解を深めてもらおうと、滋賀県草津市下物町の県立琵琶湖博物館で２８日、特別講座「びわ湖に生息する魚と湖の環境について学ぼう」が開かれた。講座には、県内をはじめ近畿各地から家族連れが参加し、学芸員の話を聞いたり、固有種のビワコオオナマズやビワマスを間近で観察したりした。
講座を主催したのは、日本自動車連盟（ＪＡＦ）の滋賀支部。ＪＡＦでは、自動車業界の社会貢献策として、各支部が「自然」をテーマにした親子の体験行事を毎年開催しており、滋賀支部は今回、初めて琵琶湖博物館の協力を得て、同館での講座を企画した。
講座では、はじめに中井克樹専門学芸員（５３）が、琵琶湖本来の環境を脅かす外来魚について講義。昭和６０年代に外来魚のオオクチバスが急増した結果、３０種いた在来種の半分が湖から姿を消したことや、外来魚の駆除に取り組んでいることなどを説明した。
参加者はこのあと、展示室へ移動。中井学芸員が「水槽内をそれぞれの魚の生息環境と同じ水温にしています」などと説明。子供たちは、ビワマスの水槽を観察しながら、水温が８度に設定されていることを確認していた。
初めて同館を訪れた兵庫県宝塚市の男児（１０）は「魚釣りが好きで、よく魚の図鑑を見ますが、ビワマスという魚がいるのを初めて知りました。将来は魚の研究者になりたい」と話していた。 | {
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Book Now Office Space In Greater Noida It is one of the most planned regions in the NCR with an excellent road... | {
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The Lancashire Telegraph has reported that Blackburn Rovers have not yet received any offers for Spanish goalkeeper David Raya, despite reported interest from fellow Championship side Brentford.
Reports emerged last week claiming that Championship side Brentford were keen on Blackburn Rover shot-stopper David Raya. However, the Lancashire Telegraph has said Rovers are yet to receive any offers for their number one goalkeeper.
Brentford could be on the lookout for a new goalkeeper this summer. Both of their goalkeeper Daniel Bentley and Luke Daniels have contracts that expire at the end of next season, and Bentley is reportedly attracting interest from other clubs.
Blackburn Rovers are expected to be in the market for a new goalkeeper this summer. It had seemed that Canadian ‘keeper Jayson Leutwiler was set to leave the club this summer, with his contract set to expire upon the end of the season.
However, Rovers opted to trigger a 12-month extension in his contract at Ewood Park, keeping him at the club until the end of next season. But, Rovers boss Tony Mowbray has said that Leutwiler could still make a move away from the club, with Rovers open to letting him go if a better option becomes available, where he can get guaranteed first-team football.
Raya has been the first-choice ‘keeper at Ewood Park since first breaking into the first-team during the 2016/17 season. Since then, he has gone on to play an impressive 108 times for the Lancashire based, club helping them back into the Championship in the 2017/18 season. | {
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State strips then delays Native voting rights by C.S. Hagen | .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) | News |
BISMARCK – Men in state government and on the U.S. Supreme Court crippled Native suffrage recently, but women are leading the fight to bring Native votes in record numbers to the polls.
Some women are offering rides on Election Day to Natives lacking transportation. Others are filming videos on social media trying to explain what Native people need to prepare for ahead of time. Secretary of State promises to handle address switches from a post office box to a physical address are failing as multiple sources have reported waiting for three weeks to hear back from a county 911 coordinator.
On October 9 the U.S. Supreme court voted 6 - 2 to disallow post office boxes as valid addresses to use while voting in North Dakota. All identification papers must have a physical address, which means many Native IDs are useless.
Two of three female Supreme Court justices, Elena Kagan and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, were the only dissenting votes. Approximately 70,000 state residents lack qualifying IDs and another 18,000 residents do not have supplemental documents that would permit them to vote, according to court documents.
While the Secretary of State’s office has said repeatedly that the intentions behind discontinuing post office box addresses are benign, Natives disagree. In 2016, six members of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa sued North Dakota Secretary of State Alvin Jaeger claiming disenfranchisement and that the rule violated the federal Voting Rights Act.
A year later state legislation approved House Bill 1333 clarifying that the only valid forms of voter ID were driver’s licenses, state identification cards issued by the Department of Transportation, tribal government official IDs, and a long-term care certificates with registered, and not post office box, addresses.
U.S. District Court Judge Daniel Hovland later ruled the state must accept all IDs including ones with post office boxes as addresses. The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals later appealed his ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court on September 24.
The U.S. Supreme Court said in its arguments that the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa’s disenfranchisement argument was “overheated rhetoric rather than evidence in the record.”
One of the plaintiffs from the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa, Elvis Norquay, is homeless, but the U.S. Supreme Court said the state law allows Norquay to use a valid address prior to becoming homeless or the address of his homeless shelter as proof he is a North Dakota resident.
Courts and legislators are concerned with fraud that doesn’t exist, attorney Tom Dickson said.
“There isn’t any voter fraud. Seriously, there isn’t any,” Dickson said. “This is so much bologna that they sell to their voters so they can look the other way when discrimination is going on. Particularly in North Dakota there isn’t any. They also don’t want college students to vote, they want to make it as complicated as they can so everyone can turn their heads to racism.”
The six Natives suing Jaeger have obtained proper identification since they initiated the lawsuit, the U.S. Supreme Court stated, and justices based their verdict on the fact that none of the plaintiffs were being denied the right to vote any longer. There was no basis to grant them extraordinary relief, the U.S. Supreme Court stated.
Thousands of Natives across America and hundreds in Standing Rock Sioux Reservation won’t be able to vote, especially with only a month left to satisfy the new requirements, Standing Rock Sioux Chairman Mike Faith said in a press release.
“Why is it getting harder and harder for Native Americans to vote?” Faith said. “This law clearly discriminates against Native Americans in North Dakota. Native Americans can live on the reservation without an address. They’re living in accordance with the law and treaties, but now all of a sudden they can’t vote.”
Dickson, the main attorney behind the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa lawsuit, said the U.S. Supreme Court ruling is a calculated effort that is widespread across the nation -- from Georgia to North Dakota and beyond -- to suppress minority votes.
“This is a deliberate plan by the Republicans nationwide, they’re preparing for minority rule in America,” Dickson said. “With voter suppression and voter ID laws… the angry white man constituency is getting smaller every year.
“It’s all about power and control. It’s all connected. It’s bad for our country in the long run. They don’t want people who are a minority to be in power… They really shouldn’t have to cheat, but it’s in their DNA.”
Creating classes
Lissa Yellowbird-Chase is eager to vote on November 6. She’s part Arikara, part Mandan, part Hidatsa, and a registered member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, and she has a car. Yellowbird-Chase believes that Indigenous communities should take the recent U.S. Supreme Court affirmation of what many are calling state voter suppression as a challenge to do whatever is necessary to vote.
White privileged legislators have no idea about the troubles Native people go through on a day-to-day basis, Yellowbird-Chase said.
“Basically, they’re trying to eliminate the voting power of the lower class, the poor, and the people of color,” Yellowbird-Chase said. “They want to turn this into a hierarchy.”
When a single mother, or a family in a rural area perhaps without internet access is faced with survival or voting, the decision always turns to survival, she said. Complicate voting requirements and many more won’t take the time to prepare. Although Yellow-bird Chase hopes Native people are challenged by the ruling to vote, she knows many who won’t, or can’t.
“When you have four little ones at home, and you don’t have a vehicle, and you don’t have an ID, what are you going to do?” Yellowbird-Chase said. “Who is going to watch those kids? Who is going to walk across town to cast that vote? In some cities, public transportation is closed by the time they get off work? What is your priority: survival or casting that vote?
“This is a place where community organizations and employers will have to step up, but who is going to take the time to do that? They would rather do a fund drive for kids and Christmas drives than to help you vote.”
The primarily Republican attempt to suppress Native voters is creating a sub-sub class of poor and Indigenous people, she said.
“There are a lot of poor people in the back country that don’t have registered addresses,” Yellowbird-Chase said. “Basically they’re trying to eliminate our voting power of the lower class, the poor, and the people of color. They want to turn this into a hierarchy.”
In an election year that has seen a record number of Native women running for office – at least 60 women, with 51 for state legislatures, and others for U.S. Congress and state positions, Ruth Buffalo is fighting for a seat on the state’s House of Representatives. She is a member of the Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara Nation, and running for the legislature in South Fargo’s District 27.
Buffalo was disappointed with the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision, saying every North Dakotan must have the proper infrastructure in place to practice their right to vote. The state’s hurry to push the emergency appeal through was a disservice to North Dakotans.
“Waiting until the last minute to implement these changes is not fair to the people of North Dakota,” Buffalo said. “And is a profound disservice to the traditions of democracy and of the promise of freedom of our country. We should not be working to disenfranchise voters, but instead should be doing everything we can to elevate voting as a fundamental civic duty.”
The state should create mandatory outreach programs to help educate high school seniors and leaders throughout North Dakota to encourage voting, Buffalo said.
‘Racism is still very much alive’
Nicole Montclair Donaghy is from Standing Rock, but lives in Bismarck, surrounded on a daily basis by racism. As a child, trips to the grocery store became nightmares.
“People were yelling and telling us to go back to the reservation,” Donaghy said. She also played basketball and remembers being called horrible names.
“It [racism] is still very much alive in North Dakota, it’s a part of life for us, and we are just trying to make the world a better place for our children.”
She’s lived in Illinois and other parts of the United States but, “When I come back home, it’s always the same old situation. People don’t like feeling uncomfortable where they have to identify their privilege or their biases.”
The racism has once again crept into legislation and is directly affecting people from Standing Rock, she said.
“Looking at the way our elections are, how Native people are being limited to participate in elections in rural areas, and now they’re making it harder for people without physical addresses,” Donaghy said. “It is very blatant to Native people and to me it is another attempt to overrun the citizens.
“We need a more representative body of decision makers especially in North Dakota. There’s a resistance to having our representation there even though in North Dakota there is such a rich history of our people here.”
Jessie Quinn is one of many Bismarck residents offering transportation to the voting booths on Election Day because the state is at a tipping point, she said.
Quinn was born and raised in coal country North Dakota. She’s “white as Casper,” but until the Dakota Access Pipeline controversy two years ago she never thought racism existed in the state.
“I had no idea racism was so prevalent in this state,” Quinn said. “I’m stunned, almost all the time, at the open displays of racism here. The Trump Administration handed closeted racists a license to come out, say what they’ve been feeling, and now they feel very free to fling their hate.”
Quinn hopes to offer 100 or more trips to the polls on Election Day, she said.
“I sincerely hope Natives show up in droves to vote,” Quinn said. “I see women as the major force behind this movement, but, much to my surprise I see many men stepping up and cheering us on.”
The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe will also be sending out drivers to help bring people to the polls, according to a press release.
Kavanaugh connection
The recent nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court reaffirmed Quinn’s fears that she could no longer be quiet.
“I think the Kavanaugh debacle brought to light what women have been up against,” Quinn said. “And the fact that powerful men eagerly turned their backs on women and with little evidence concluded Dr. Ford was lying. It was an ugly reminder of every dark and shameful moment women have had to endure. We start out with zero credibility; men start out 50 points ahead automatically.”
Women are at the front lines for many Native issues, Lissa Yellowbird-Chase said.
“We are a matriarchal society and that scares people,” Yellowbird-Chase said. “So when Native women start entering the patriarchal kind of government, men get scared. Waspy men get scared.”
“We either step up and do what we can right now to stop one party from complete control, or I cave and go silent,” Quinn said. “Anybody who knows me knows I never cave and I’ll never be silent. Republicans are terrified Heitkamp will return as a senator. They need Cramer, their ‘yes’ man in the Senate to support whatever they want.”
North Dakota’s only Democratic senator, Heidi Heitkamp, known as one of the nation’s most endangered senators in her race against challenger U.S. Congressman Kevin Cramer, a Republican, also condemned the Supreme Court’s decision. As a member of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, she has been working since 2014 on the Native American Voting Rights Act, a bill that would increase voter protections and poll access to Indigenous communities.
Until 1957, Natives were not allowed to participate in elections.
“After the Supreme Court declined to hear an emergency appeal based on the confusion created by reverting back to North Dakota’s burdensome voter ID law that makes it harder for Native Americans to vote, our bill is especially needed to prevent Native voters from being disenfranchised,” Heitkamp said.
“Voting should be an accessible, simple, and fair process for every American, but that has not been the case everywhere in Indian Country. Given the number of Native Americans who have served, fought, and died for this country, it is appalling that some people would still try and erect barriers to suppress their ability to vote. Native Americans served in the military before they were even allowed to vote, and they continue to serve at the highest rate of any population in this country. We need to put an end to every form of voter discrimination, and our bill would be an important starting point to bring equal access and equal rights to voters in Indian Country and Native Americans around the country.”
911 coordinators
Nicole Montclair Donaghy is confused about the memo from the Secretary of State’s office saying that people with post office box addresses could contact their county 911 coordinators to start the “no charge” process of assigning an address with a description of the home’s location.
Perhaps county coordinators didn’t see the memo, Donaghy is wondering, because she has friends who contacted 911 coordinators three weeks ago, but haven’t been called back. She is trying to help people get their addresses changed, and organizing transportation to and from voting booths.
“I’m seeing so many things, trying to discover what is acceptable,” Donaghy said. “It’s a lengthier process and either the county boards don’t have the capacity to take on 300 calls, or do they know they have this responsibility, or are they prepared?
“They don’t understand this is a symbol of oppression. Five dollars is a lot of money to get a new ID card in some places.”
The North Dakota Secretary of State’s office said they had received no complaints, and referred all questions to the 53 different county 911 coordinators.
In Standing Rock, many Natives do not have residential addresses; tribal IDs often do not list residential addresses. Natives across the country are disproportionately homeless, and few Natives have driver’s licenses on and near reservations, Mike Faith stated.
Joshua Boschee, a Democrat who is running for Jaeger’s position as Secretary of State this year, said he has been working for months on helping people switch to physical addresses, and that he has heard reports of people being put in waiting lines.
“I’m hearing a little of both,” Boschee said. “Some say it should take a few hours, and others that the process might take up to three weeks. The biggest thing we’re advising people to do is to do the 911 coordinator process but if they live on the reservation go to your tribal office.”
Sounds simple enough, but also complicated enough for Boschee to encourage anyone interested to help with direct voter contact, including door knocking and phone calling.
“We only have 30 days to do this, too,” Boschee said. “It certainly is going to be a challenge for some. They’ve had a year’s time to get those updated, now we have 20 some days. This is where the Secretary of State’s office needs to be all hands on deck educating people.
“All he did was send an email and that is not voter education. If you want to make people who are able to vote and cast their vote, you need to take it seriously and I don’t think he’s done that.”
Voter ID requirements
Francine White, a member of the Three Affiliated Tribes, said in a video posted to Facebook that the state is accepting only tribal IDs with a physical addresses, reminding people to change their post office box addresses or by bringing accompanying information that includes a physical address.
There is no fee for changing a post office box address to a physical address, the North Dakota Insurance Department reported.
- According to the North Dakota Secretary of State, the state will accept:
- Driver’s licenses
- Non-driver’s license identification cards
- Tribal government issued identification that includes the member’s name, date of birth, and current residential address
- Long-term care identification certificates
If a voter’s ID card does not contain a residential address or date of birth, the person may submit identification along with a current utility bill, bank statement, a paycheck, or documents issued by the federal, state, local, or tribal government.
“If an individual is not able to show a valid form of identification but asserts qualifications as an elector, the individual may mark a ballot that will be securely set aside,” the Secretary of State’s office reported. “When the individual provides valid identification to the proper election official prior to the meeting of the canvassing board, the set aside ballot will be presented to the canvassing board for proper inclusion in the tally.”
The canvassing board meets immediately after votes are in, and usually at the polling place, according to the North Dakota Century Code. On the sixth day following every election the canvassing board meets again to recount and make corrections if needed.
While the state feels it has given ample notice to voters, in the real word thousands of people will not, or cannot, vote, Lissa Yellowbird-Chase said. Another aspect of obtaining the proper identification is the money, needed for internet, telephone, transportation, or even a home or apartment.
“Go to these homeless shelters, and a lot of the time one of the major issues for people is finding employment, or entering a shelter as they require ID, and nobody has the ways or means to get that,” Yellowbird-Chase said. “The constraints of that are even getting higher, they’re really crunching down on the people to prove our identities but all these things cost money. How are they supposed to legitimize themselves as a human when it all costs money?”
Ruth Buffalo said the state should focus more on building relationships to mitigate party line challenges such as the voter ID changes.
“We need to work to build a healthier, cohesive, stronger North Dakota instead of continuing to disenfranchise voters even further,” Buffalo said.
North Dakota’s stricter voting laws will possibly have an opposite effect than apparently desired by currently elected officials, attorney Tom Dickson said.
“The tribal communities are pretty geared up right now, this has fired them up,” Dickson said. “We’re expecting a strong turnout, by all voters by all persuasions.”
“This most recent move is, most definitely, is another voter suppression tactic,” Jessie Quinn said. “I feel like we’re out here, even though we’ve had to operate like a secret society for so long. We’re here and we’re not moving away. If there’s only a 1 percent chance of turning this country onto a different path, we’ll be fighting.” | {
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En 1998 Graciela Mónica Hammes asesinó a su esposo para cobrar un seguro de vida de 100 mil pesos. Dos años más tarde la Justicia la encontró responsable de “homicidio calificado agravado por el vínculo, con alevosía y con concurso premeditado con dos o más personas” y fue condenada a prisión perpetua. Pero en 2005, luego de que su abogado le consiguiera un permiso para salir transitoriamente del penal de Los Hornos para visitar a su madre enferma, logró fugar y permaneció en el anonimato durante 14 años. Este viernes fue recapturada mientras caminaba por la calle Córdoba al 2500, en Vicente López. Era la mujer más buscada de la Argentina.
// Detuvieron a un prófugo por el crimen de un policía cuando iba a jugar al fútbol con sus amigos
Hammes fue interceptada en el barrio de Olivos luego de una profunda investigación de la Policía de la provincia de Buenos Aires. El operativo fue realizado por efectivos de la DDI de San Isidro, quienes lograron identificar a la mujer de 54 años a pesar de que había cambiado su identidad y que vivía bajo el nombre de Marcela Beatriz Robledo.
Según informan fuentes policiales, una persona llamó a las fuerzas de seguridad para pasar información sobre Hammes. La mujer vivía en la ciudad de Buenos Aires pero iba con frecuencia a Vicente López, en donde trabajaba cuidando a personas enfermas. Ese dato fue fundamental para que fuera detenida a muy pocas cuadras de la Quinta presidencial de Olivos.
En el año 2000 Hammes fue encontrada culpable de haber asesinado a su esposo, Alberto Ortega con el objetivo de cobrar un millonario seguro de vida. El 8 de junio de 1998, el hombre de 46 años fue golpeado y quemado vivo dentro de su Fiat 600, en la localidad de Benavídez, en Tigre.
Su fuga en 2005 abrió una intensa búsqueda, que durante años no tuvo éxito. De hecho, en 2015, las autoridades de la provincia de Buenos Aires habían puesto una recompensa de 150 mil pesos a todo aquel que diera información precisa sobre Hammes. Finalmente, tras 14 años escapando de la ley, la mujer regresará a la cárcel. | {
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In order to position itself as a major participant in the expanding worldwide cannabis market estimated at $180 billion annually, CannTrust has to-date invested close to $40 million at the Facility.
The Facility will position CannTrust as one of the lowest cost producers of high quality cannabis flower and dramatically increases CannTrust's cost-efficiency of taking cannabis from seed to sale through a unique combination of technology, science and expertise. CannTrust's perpetual harvest facility, while maintaining and in most cases exceeding indoor product quality, is projected to produce at a cost per gram that is significantly below traditional indoor production facilities. Future on-site innovations at the Facility indicate that the production cost per gram will drop even further.
Industry-leading highlights at the Facility include:
The first cannabis production facility in Canada to combine moving containerized benches with a perpetual harvest cropping system. The combination of technology and agronomy produces cannabis 365 days a year and the constant harvesting allows for a continuous work cycle, creating a steady production capacity and a more stable work environment for employees;
A natural gas co-generation system which significantly reduces energy costs and provides maximum efficiency for heat and power generation. This allows CannTrust to control two of its largest expenses and to keep production costs low;
Precise control of every aspect of the facility's environment, from light and irrigation to temperature and air movement, to ensure optimum growing conditions.
The Facility will ultimately employ around 250 people, most from within the local Niagara region. CannTrust is proud to be a valued member of the Niagara Community and has joined with Niagara College to help develop its Commercial Cannabis Production (CCP) Graduate Certificate Program. CannTrust will participate in practicals and teaching sessions at the College and will hire College interns and summer students to work at the Facility. The graduates from this program will help address CannTrust's growing need for knowledgeable employees in this specialized field. "It truly is a win-win for all involved," said Michael Camplin, General Manager of the Facility and a member of the local Niagara community.
"The size and scope of this facility is a testament to CannTrust's industry leading achievements and is setting new industry benchmarks for high-quality yields and reduced costs. Operating a facility of this scale, CannTrust is well-positioned to meet the increased Canadian and global demand for cannabis. With the legislation legalizing cannabis for adult consumer use having now passed its final official step and retail sales due to commence on October 17, 2018, our perpetual harvest facility offers CannTrust even more opportunities to lead the industry with its disciplined, scientific approach. It is a very exciting time for the industry and CannTrust is poised to be at the forefront of this evolving landscape," says Brad Rogers, President, CannTrust.
About CannTrust
Since its inception in 2014, CannTrust has led the Canadian market in producing standardized product.
As a federally regulated licensed producer, CannTrust brings more than 40 years of pharmacy and healthcare experience to the medical cannabis industry. CannTrust currently operates a 60,000 sq. ft. state-of-the-art hydroponic facility in Vaughan, Ontario, as well as the recently completed 250,000 sq. ft. Phase One redevelopment of its 450,000 sq. ft. Niagara Perpetual Harvest Facility. The Phase Two expansion is underway and is anticipated to be completed and in cultivation by fall 2018. Phase Three construction, with an additional projected 600,000 sq. ft., is fully funded and has begun.
CannTrust is committed to research and innovation, as well as contributing to the growing body of evidence-based research regarding the use and efficacy of cannabis. Our product development teams along with our exclusive global pharma partner, Apotex Inc., are diligently innovating and developing products that will make it easier for patients to use medical cannabis. We support ongoing patient education about medical cannabis and have a compassionate use program to support patients with financial needs. For more information, please visit: www.canntrust.ca.
Forward Looking Statements
This press release contains "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation which are based upon CannTrust's current internal expectations, estimates, projections, assumptions and beliefs and views of future events. Forward-looking information can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "expect", "likely", "may", "will", "should", "intend", "anticipate", "potential", "proposed", "estimate" and other similar words, including negative and grammatical variations thereof, or statements that certain events or conditions "may", "would" or "will" happen, or by discussions of strategy.
The forward-looking information in this news release is based upon the expectations, estimates, projections, assumptions and views of future events which management believes to be reasonable in the circumstances. Forward-looking information includes estimates, plans, expectations, opinions, forecasts, projections, targets, guidance or other statements that are not statements of fact. Forward-looking statements in this news release include, but are not limited to, statements with respect to internal expectations, expectations with respect to actual production volumes, expectations for future growing capacity and the completion of any capital project or expansions. Forward-looking statements necessarily involve known and unknown risks, including, without limitation, risks associated with general economic conditions; adverse industry events; loss of markets; future legislative and regulatory developments; inability to access sufficient capital from internal and external sources, and/or inability to access sufficient capital on favourable terms; the medical cannabis industry in Canada generally; the ability of CannTrust to implement its business strategies; competition; crop failure; and other risks.
Any forward-looking information speaks only as of the date on which it is made, and, except as required by law, CannTrust does not undertake any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. New factors emerge from time to time, and it is not possible for CannTrust to predict all such factors. When considering these forward-looking statements, readers should keep in mind the risk factors and other cautionary statements in CannTrust's Annual Information Form dated March 29, 2018 (the "AIF") and filed with the applicable Canadian securities regulatory authorities on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. The risk factors and other factors noted in the AIF could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those described in any forward-looking information.
The TSX does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
Copyright © 2017 CannTrust Holdings Inc..
SOURCE CannTrust Holdings Inc.
For further information: or to arrange an interview please contact Shane McKenna at Strategic Objectives, Tel: (416) 366-7735 X224 Email: [email protected]
Related Links
www.canntrust.ca
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“It’s been one nightmare that I cannot explain,” said Mary Jo Cordova, the mother of Earl Roybal. “I never knew that a parent could hurt as much as that because it’s not easy to lose a kid.”
According to documents, 59-year-old Earl Roybal was washing his motorcycle with his fiancé when he was approached by a man waiting to use his carwash bay. That same man, James Morales, told police he was forced to pull and fire his weapon when an argument over that station escalated.
"The guy said he had a gun, hit me in the face. I had a gun too,” said Morales in a 911 call to police after shooting Roybal. When asked if he shot him, he told dispatch “Yes I did self-defense."
“There just wasn't any justice done,” said Rita Nunez Gallegos, Roybal’s Aunt.
Days, months then years went by.
“No one was held responsible,” said Cordova.
The man, who called 911 on himself, was released from police custody.
Bernalillo County District Attorney Raul Torrez decided not to pursue charges. Back in June 2017, he released his findings saying, “the state did not have a good faith belief that it could convict Mr. Morales given the available evidence."
“I’m 77-years-old,” said Cordova. “I just want justice for my son.”
She's hoping to find justice in the pages of this lawsuit. Her attorney, David Urias, of Freedman Boyd Hollander Goldberg Urias & Ward, filed a wrongful death lawsuit against James Morales.
According to the document, he was negligent when he initiated a confrontation and fired his weapon. The suit is seeking damages for medical and funeral expenses, pain and suffering, emotional distress and more.
“We want to see justice done in the right way,” said Nunez Gallegos. “I know it’s going to take a long time, it’s been a long time but I know these things don’t work on an overnight basis. But we want to see justice done.”
Now, Nunez Gallegos said they're leaving it up to court. | {
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SRINAGAR, Kashmir — He is known as one of Kashmir’s gutsiest news photographers covering the intensifying hostility in his home region, and when violence broke out he was always among the first to the scene.
But the photographer, Kamran Yousuf, 21, has been stuck in jail since September — the victim, his friends and family say, of the Indian authorities’ strange and harsh definition of what a “real” journalist is.
Those officials insist that Mr. Yousuf is part of an international terrorist gang conspiring to wage war against the Indian security forces in Kashmir. They said he could not possibly be a journalist because he never takes any pictures of government developmental projects or the inaugurations of hospitals, schools or bridges. | {
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The officer who was involved in the shooting is also said to have sustained injuries to their face and is being taken to the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania as well, police said. | {
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The Github issue has since been deleted, as shown here: https://github.com/plaid/link/issues/68. I'm hoping this isn't a repost, but this behavior seems ridiculous to me, and I'm hoping to bring it to wider attention (if it isn't already).
Edit: post flagged for some reason. Oh well. | {
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The Canadian government has legalized marijuana. Ontario has unveiled the look of the stores that will sell it and Health Canada has even put out ideas on how the packaging for the product should look.
Now colleges and universities in the province are looking at how to handle marijuana on campus at the start of the next school year.
Each school will have its own approach how to handle the issue and some schools have more detailed plans than others right now.
@ryerson_uembedded via
Ryerson University, for example, will be launching an educational campaign about marijuana similar to the ones it already has on binge drinking and safe sex.
Both Ryerson and York University are also looking for the best way to update their policy around marijuana.
@gbcollegeembedded via
The University of Toronto has put together a team of people to look at the issue and the school will apparently move forward based of the recommendations the group makes.
At George Brown College on the other hand there isn’t any immediate planning going into how to treat marijuana once it is legal. Employees of the college will still be expected to be 100 per cent substance free while on the job.
@gbcollegeembedded via
No school yet has said whether students will be allowed to smoke on campus the same way they’re allowed to smoke cigarettes.
So if you’re heading to college or university in the fall you may have to sit through some kind of lecture or presentation about marijuana, or you may not.
It really depends on where you go.
Source: Toronto Star | {
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It’s been half a century since the Stonewall uprising began on June 28, 1969, the reason we celebrate Pride each June. But there’s another fitting date to commemorate this month, and it falls just two days before the 50th anniversary of Stonewall.
June 26 marks the anniversary of the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in 2003 striking down state laws that criminalized same-sex intimacy. The court’s opinion in Lawrence v. Texas did much more than decriminalize being LGBTQ; it was the first step toward recognizing the equal dignity of same-sex relationships under law.
What’s more, June 26 isn’t the anniversary of just one blockbuster Supreme Court opinion advancing LGBTQ rights. It’s also the anniversary of two others. Ten years to the day after its decision in Lawrence, the court struck down the Defense of Marriage Act, which consigned the marriages of same-sex couples to second-class status. Exactly two years later, the court held that same-sex couples have the freedom to marry.
While it’s fitting that the anniversaries of these court decisions fall during Pride month, it isn’t a coincidence. The Supreme Court’s yearly term ends in June, and decisions in the most high-profile cases typically aren’t announced until the final month, giving the justices until the very last minute to put the finishing touches on their opinions. The landmark 1994 case Farmer v. Brennan, in which the court concluded that prison officials could not allow a transgender woman to be raped in prison, was also decided in June, though not on June 26. Still, that three key decisions were announced on the exact same day in June feels significant.
This June 26, however, brings not the end, but the opening salvo in the next major LGBTQ rights issue before the court. Today, LGBTQ employees filed their opening briefs in three cases that will determine whether we are protected from discrimination on the job.
The cases involve three workers who were fired because of who they are. Aimee Stephens, a funeral director in Michigan represented by the ACLU, was fired for being transgender. Donald Zarda, a skydiving instructor in New York represented by the ACLU as co-counsel with NY lawyer Greg Antollino and the Stanford Law School Supreme Court Litigation Clinic, was fired for being gay, as was Gerald Bostock, a child welfare services coordinator in Georgia.
That’s illegal under prevailing interpretations of federal law, but the court could reverse decades of progress and announce that it is perfectly legal to fire someone for being LGBTQ. That would be shocking to most people in this country. Yet the fact that the court agreed to hear the cases raises that alarming possibility, particularly now that Justice Kennedy, long seen as the court’s champion of LGBTQ rights, has been replaced by Justice Kavanaugh.
There are reasons for LGBTQ people to stay optimistic, however.
For starters, there’s the text of the statute itself. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits job discrimination “because of sex.” Firing someone for being a man who dates other men, or for being a woman who was assigned the sex male at birth, is literally discrimination “because of sex.”
Then there’s the Supreme Court’s robust history of interpreting Title VII to protect workers from sex discrimination in myriad forms. The court’s very first Title VII case involved Ida Phillips, who was disqualified from applying for a job because she was a mother with young children. The problem was not that Phillips was a woman; the employer hired women in droves. It was the kind of woman she was: one who, the employer assumed, would be too busy with her preschoolers to do the job.
That is precisely the kind of group-based assumption that Title VII was intended to stamp out. Just as Ida Phillips was entitled to the opportunity to prove that she could do the job, so too LGBTQ people must be free to compete based on their own merit, not assumptions about gender roles.
Finally, there’s the fact that the current crop of cases, unlike the June 26 trio of years past, involves not constitutional rights, but the words of a statute. That means the justices don’t have to agree that the marriage question was rightly decided—or that they are bound to follow it—to rule in favor of the LGBTQ employees here. That will be key to the path to victory, because the workers will need the vote of at least one justice who opposed marriage equality in 2015 or who has since been appointed by President Trump.
We won’t find out whether the court will affirm workplace protections for LGBTQ people this Pride month, however. For that, we’ll have to wait until next year—perhaps until June 26.
In the meantime, employers don’t need to wait to do the right thing. And all of us should call on the Senate to pass the Equality Act—which will provide express protection against discrimination because a person is lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender—right now. This Pride month, it’s never been more important to make our voices heard. | {
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Tom Rolfe with his girlfriend Sam Edwards(Picture: Athena)
A British tourist has been kicked out of Canada for helping his girlfriend decorate her flat.
Tom Rolfe was accused of ‘doing a Canadian out of a job’ by immigration officials who found photographs of him and girlfriend Sam Edwards filling cracks in the walls of her flat.
The 24-year-old said: ‘It is ridiculous, I was just helping Sam to tidy up her flat before she sold it so we could get a place together. I was treated like a criminal and told I have eight days to get out of the country – it has wrecked our plans.’
MORE: There’s a mistake in this road sign – and it could prove fatal
MORE: This transgender man won’t have a full sex change – until he is a mother
Mr Rolfe, of Abergavenny, Monmouthshire, hoped to open a dog rescue centre with his 27-year-old girlfriend in her home city of Edmonton, Alberta.
He applied for a resident’s permit and had to leave Canada to get his new visa stamped at immigration control.
But on their return, the pair were put through a three-hour ordeal and locked in separate rooms while officials searched their car and belongings.
Mr Rolfe said: ‘They found photos on my camera of me helping Sam fill cracks in her walls.
‘They said that by doing that I was denying a Canadian person a job. I was completely staggered when they said I had eight days to get out of the country.’
Mr Rolfe, who was accused of breaking the terms of his tourist visa, was packing his bags to fly home yesterday with Ms Edwards following him in a few months with their two dogs.
He said: ‘I’m done with Canada now. I thought they were part of the Commonwealth so I’m surprised to be treated like this.
The Canadian Border Services Agency said: ‘We do not provide any specific information on any traveller’s entry or status in Canada due to Canadian privacy laws.’ | {
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It’s a rearticulation of the agenda of terrorists thriving in Pakistan: Home Ministry
As 26/11 Mumbai attacks mastermind Hafiz Saeed vowed to continue his struggle to “free” Kashmir from India in a sermon just hours after his release from house arrest on Friday, the Union Home Ministry described his comments as a “rearticulation” of the agenda of terrorists “who have thrived across the border.”
‘J&K will remain India’s’
Asserting that Jammu and Kashmir “is and will remain an integral part” of India, the Ministry said that such repeated utterances by terrorists have been given an appropriate response on the ground every time by the law enforcement agencies and the people of the State.
“The principled and consistent stand of the government of India on the issue is that Jammu and Kashmir is and will remain an integral part of India,” it said in reaction to Saeed’s remark that he would mobilise people in the cause of Kashmir. A Home Ministry official noted that statements such as those made by Saeed on Friday were made repeatedly in the past.
Home Minister Rajnath Singh refused comment.
Saeed, at a Friday prayer sermon at Markaz Al-Qadsia in Lahore, also made a scathing attack on ousted prime minister Nawaz Sharif calling him a traitor for wanting peace with India.
“You took oath on defending Pakistan and Kashmir, you betrayed the people of Kashmir. I want to tell you that you were ousted from power because you committed treason for trying to develop close relations with Modi,” he said.
Saeed was freed from house arrest as the Home department decided not to file any other case against him. Police guards were removed from his residence after midnight where a large number of supporters gathered to celebrate the end of his house arrest.
Addressing his supporters, Saeed said: “I was detained for 10 months only to stop my voice for Kashmir. I fight for the cause of Kashmiris. I will gather the people from across the country for the cause of Kashmir and we will try to help Kashmiris get their destination of freedom.”
A Review Board of the Lahore High Court had ordered him to be freed on Tuesday after authorities failed to file any formal charges against him since his house arrest in January this year. The board also rejected the request of the Punjab government for further extension of his house arrest. A government lawyer had urged the board to extend the house arrest for another three months as the country may face cut in aid or limited sanctions for freeing a UN-designated terrorist.
A picture of Saeed was posted by the social media team where he is seen cutting a cake after his release. The post was titled “The Freedom Cake.”
Saeed addressed supporters at his Johar Town residence in Lahore in which he vowed to continue his struggle to free Kashmir from India. “Although there are only a few days left in this year, we will continue our struggle in the next year and mobilise people and take forward our movement to free Kashmir. God willing, with the support of the people, we will take Kashmir to its destiny,” he said.
He has been designated a declared terrorist by the UN, U.S. and India for his involvement in the 2008 Mumbai attacks.
Last month, authorities had withdrawn terrorism charges against Saeed and Jamaat-ud-Dawa and kept him under detention under the Maintenance of Public Order (MPO) rules paving the way for his release. His detention had been extended five times since he was detained in a crackdown, after the government put JuD and its charity arm Falah-i-Insaaniyat Foundation on the sanctions and terror watch list.
Saeed challenged his detention in the Lahore High Court in February. His lawyer A.K. Dogar had urged the court to order the release of Saeed and his four aides since no formal charges were filed against his client after so many months of detention.
In September this year the Pakistan Election Commission had stalled the JuD’s attempt to enter the mainstream by rejecting the application of Milli Muslim League party, its front organisation. The Interior Ministry wrote a letter to the Election Commission that JuD and its charity wing Falah-i-Insaaniyat are under sanctions within the country and internationally as well. | {
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First Drafts is a series exploring the early work of our architectural icons, examining their careers through the lens of their debut projects. Every day in August, we'll profile one architect's first finished building—often surprising, always insightful—as a solo practitioner. Within the vast field of great building design, we aim to uncover the significance of first acts.
Mies van der Rohe
Riehl House, Spitzweggasse 3, Potsdam, Germany
Date completed: 1907
Getting the Gig:
While looking to build a weekend retreat in Neubabelsberg, an area that would later become part of Potsdam, philosophy professor Alois Riehl and his wife Sophie decided to give a talented rookie a shot at a first commission rather than work with an established designer. The name of 20-year-old draftsman Mies van der Rohe, who was then working in the office of architect and designer Bruno Paul, was mentioned by Joseph Popp, a friend of Mies who had helped Sophie design a birdbath. According to Mies, the couple reached out and invited him to a stylish party at their Berlin apartment to discuss the job and see if he was the right fit. Lacking proper attire, the young architect went around the office asking to borrow money until he had gathered enough to afford a dinner jacket. While the professor initially balked, saying he didn't want to be a "guinea pig" for someone's first project, Mies charmed the couple enough to win the commission. He resisted all aid and advice from Paul, preferring to go out on his own. Supposedly, his then boss would later say of the project, "there's only one this wrong with this house—I didn't build it."
Description and Reception:
Decidedly quaint, the two-story cottage would seem like a clear outlier in an oeuvre defined by glass-and-steel temples. The rectangular home with a steep tiled roof and stucco walls featured two main alcoves along with built-ins in the kitchen and bookcase. The restrained interior, done in a style many have compared to traditional English design, also drew inspiration from Paul's previous work, especially a dining room for a 1906 Dresden Exhibition. Two separate gardens set upon the sloping yard, both a French-influenced, more manicured upper level and a more unkempt, natural green space below, helped frame views of Lake Griebnitz, just 500 feet away. The Riehls were thrilled with the finished design, nicknaming their new home the "Klösterli" (little cloister). The charming young architect was promptly invited into their social circle, where he would meet industrialists and philosophers, as well as a number of future clients (his home for another local family, the Urbigs, became known as the Churchill Villa after the British leader stayed there during conferences at the conclusion of WWII). They even paid for him to take a six-week trip to Munich and Italy, and stayed so close with the up-and-coming architect over the proceeding years that he would later be commissioned to design Alois's headstone when he passed away in 1928.
Impact on His Career:
While he had fond memories of his first clients, Mies didn't always look favorably upon his first building. When a major retrospective of his work in the United States was being organized at the Museum of Modern Art in 1947, Mies asked them to leave out the Riehl House, wanting to keep the narrative of an uncompromising modernist unsullied by a quaint old cottage. But a closer look at the structure reveals that it's not as much of an oddity as he may have presumed. The home rests on a long flat podium, which predates the temple-like forms he would utilize for masterpieces such as Crown Hall. More importantly to his later works, the home earned plaudits from the press, which called the work "irreproachable," and a favorable look from Paul Thiersch, head of the Bruno Paul office. He would put in a good word for Mies with Peter Behrens, who would later become an important mentor to Mies van der Rohe's modernist vision.
Famous Future Works:
Crown Hall (Chicago: 1956); Seagram Building (New York: 1958); Farnsworth House (Plano, IL: 1951); Lafayette Park (Detroit: 1965)
Current Status: Only a handful of owners lived inside the house at number three, Spitzweg Lane. It was abandoned for a long stretch in the middle of the 20th century; during the Cold War, an East German film school took advantage of the building and used it as a set. But over the last 20 years, it's been properly restored. A couple purchased the home for 1.7 million marks in 1997, and in 2001, architect Heiko Folkerts, a German pioneer of green construction, led an extensive renovation project.
・Mapping Mies Most Important Works [Curbed]
・How Mies van der Rohe's Design for a Bacardi HQ in Cuba Became Berlin's Iconic Neue Nationalgalerie [Curbed]
・The Challenges of Restoring Mies, Or the Search for the Right Shade of Black [Curbed] | {
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We’re getting close, Trainers! The next generation of Pokemon games, Pokemon X and Y, are not too far away but it doesn’t help that Nintendo and Gamefreak are constantly teasing us with slow releases of Pokemon and all around info on the games. Don’t stress to much because Bluemouth Interactive have just announced the release of three gaming accessories and a guidebook, Officially licensed, that will accompany the release of the games themselves. They are definitely set for release on the 12th of October, the very same day the games are set for release. If you’re excited for the games than I’m sure you’re excited for these guys, it really is the perfect thing to go with your next Pokemon adventure.
Pokemon X and Y – Official Kalos Region Guidebook, RRP $34.95:
Key details:
– Premium hardcover binding-dust jacket. Includes region map.
– A complete walkthrough of all Gym Badges.
– Detailed info on all the new game features.
– A guide to find Hidden Iteams and Special Pokemon. Includes a location index.
– Hints on the best ways to use Roller Skates, Ride Pokemon and challenge Gym Leaders.
– A Pokemon screen cleaner for your console.
– Tips and tricks for getting the most out of the PSS and Online features.
– An updated type matchup chart that includes the all-new Fairy type.
– A pull out map of the Kalos region.
Pokemon X and Y – Pokeball Zip Case, RRP $29.95:
Key Details:
– Pokeball graphics.
– Sturdey EVA shell with soft interior lining protects any Nintendo DS system.
-Stores up to 6 Ninento DS/3DS game cards and 2 replacement styluses.
Pokemon X and Y – Essentials Kit, RRP $29.95:
Key Details:
– Dual-sided graphics case displays the Pokemon X and Y theme.
– Kit includes total storage for 6 game cards.
– Holds any Nintendo DS system accessories.
– System Case stores up to 4 Nintendo DS/3DS game cards and 2 replacement styluses.
– Kit includes: System Case, 2 character styluses, 2 Single game cases.
Pokemon X and Y: Traveller Kit, RRP $24.95:
Key Details:
– Dual-sided graphics display the X and Y theme.
– Sturdy shell with soft lining protects any Nintendo DS system.
– Stores up to 4 Nintendo DS/3DS game cards and 2 replacement styluses. | {
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Description
Do you need this item fast?
Please help me by selecting express shipping or adding the Express Shipping listing to your cart ~ link ~ below
Perfectly Mori Kei Adorable Mushroom/Toadstool Brooch/Pin handmade.
Perfect for wearing on your clothes or on a bag or backpack. You could pin this mushroom to your curtains to create an adorable space.
100% Australian wool toadstool in Red and White with a small brooch pin in the back.
Brooch size varies a little. About 4.5cm or 2 inches long
about 2.5cm wide or 0.78 of an inch.
I have tried to capture the true colour of this item, however, images may vary in colour due to differences in screens.
Disclaimer:
I do my best to post every order out as soon as it comes through. However, I am not responsible for items not arriving on an estimated date to a destination due to postage delays. Please allow 30-40 days’ delivery. Overseas packages now automatically comes with a tracking number.
Australia postage is shipped without a tracking number. If you require this item fast, please select the express post option in shipping at checkout.
Thank you for reading until the end. Seashellanna | {
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En six semaines, quatre indigènes de l’ethnie guajajara ont été assassinés au nord-est du Brésil. Certains d'entre eux étaient présents à Paris le 12 novembre dernier pour plaider leur cause auprès des Européens.
Au Brésil, un indigène a été assassiné ce vendredi dans l’État du Maranhao. En six semaines, quatre membres de l’ethnie guajajara ont été assassinés en Amazonie après un regain de tension entre les indiens, les exploitants forestiers et les orpailleurs.
Publicité Lire la suite
Avec notre correspondant à Sao Paulo, Martin Bernard
La victime aurait été poignardée lors d’une rixe à l’issue d’une fête, selon les autorités locales. Le corps de Dorivan Guajajara, 28 ans, a été retrouvé dans la localité d'Amarante do Maranhao, à environ 700 km de Sao Luis, la capitale de l'État. Les enquêteurs ont d’emblée écarté la thèse d’un crime lié à la déforestation ou à un règlement de comptes avec les indigènes.
Une plainte contre Bolsonaro
Pourtant, l’une des leaders de cette communauté a dénoncé ce « crime brutal contre le peuple guajajara ». Au début du mois dernier, un jeune chef de cette tribu a été assassiné après être tombé dans une embuscade.
Paulo Guajajara faisait justement partie d’un groupe d’autodéfense intitulé « les gardiens de la forêt ». Alors que la pression des Blancs se fait de plus en plus sentir, deux autres indigènes ont, à leur tour, été assassinés dans la même région, le week-end dernier.
Le ministre de la Justice a dépêché sur place la Force Nationale de Sécurité pour tenter de contrôler la situation, mais un Collectif d’avocats pour les droits de l’homme n’a pas hésité à déposer une plainte contre le président Bolsonaro devant le Tribunal pénal international pour « incitation au génocide contre les indigènes et crime contre l’humanité ».
► Des chiffres inquiétants sur la déforestation au Brésil qui devrait empirer
NewsletterRecevez toute l'actualité internationale directement dans votre boite mail Je m'abonne | {
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Monday morning brought with it a fresh impeachment hearing in the House Judiciary Committee. During his opening statement, Democrat counsel Barry Berke added a page to the already quite thick Big Book of Woke Kids and the Questions They Ask:
Majority counsel Barry Berke says his young son once asked him whether the president has to be a good person. "I said, 'Son it is not a requirement that the president be a good person. But that is the hope.'" https://t.co/vmXd0rtVSF #impeachmenthearings pic.twitter.com/pb6gRq0Ama — ABC News (@ABC) December 9, 2019
The House Democrat Counsel Barry Berke: "My young son asked me a question. He said, Dad, does the President have to be a good person?" pic.twitter.com/YlAlO6E6FE — Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) December 9, 2019
To be fair, the Dem counsel’s young son probably has the same amount of firsthand information as most of the Democrat “witnesses” during the impeachment hearings, but nevertheless many are skeptical of this latest example of “what my kid asked”:
OH MY GOSH. Democrats' counsel is literally using the old "my son asked me why Trump is so terrible" strategy. Yikes. Shameless. — Jason Howerton (@jason_howerton) December 9, 2019
Could the “my young child said…” approach get any more cliche?
LOL file that kid asking some bullshit under things that never happened — off to a good lying start for the Dems — Storm Paglia ?? (@storm_paglia) December 9, 2019
So Dem majority counsel citing his little son in opening statement — sure your young kid posed a question to you about #impeachment #webelievethat — Legal Insurrection (@LegInsurrection) December 9, 2019
It’s all about feelings and emotions. That is how they operate. This soap opera is set up for those who cannot think independently, are ignorant of procedure and meek minded. — Fortunecookieconfucious (@fcconfucious) December 9, 2019
Greg Gutfeld and Trump War Room responded in kind:
on my way to the hearing, my young daughter Paisley looked up at me and said, "How can our country survive under an evil autocratic tyrant who subverts justice and puts people in cages?" She's only two, but it got to the heart of the impeachment process (and totally happened) — GregGutfeld (@greggutfeld) December 9, 2019
This morning, my 18-month old son asked me 'Why won't the Democrats let the whistleblower testify?' What a moment. — Trump War Room (Text TRUMP to 88022) (@TrumpWarRoom) December 9, 2019
And those are just as believable as the Dem counsel’s story. The hearing is off to a roaring start. | {
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(Image via YouTube)
Inner liberty may be the most important and most radical freedom of all.
Linden, Va. — About an hour and a half away from the White House, a cloistered nun tells me — from behind the grille that separates her physically from the world (even from a friendly visitor like me) — about what freedom she lives.
Outside, above the Shenandoah Valley, fog envelops St. Dominic’s Monastery as I talk to her downstairs in a meeting room made for encounters with family and friends and inquisitors (usually young women who are discerning a vocation to this way of life).
She explains to me how “you can live externally free but internally bound.” In the monastery, these contemplative nuns live in utter transparency to God and one another, even in their many hours of silence each day. Their vocal chords are used the most for the set prayers of their life together, although there also is designated time for recreation and addressing the needs of community life.
Her comment brings to mind a favorite devotion of Pope Francis’s (before he was Pope Francis) to Mary, Our Lady, Undoer of Knots. I think, too, of a sentence in Robert Royal’s Catholic Martyrs of the Twentieth Century: “Willingness to die liberates.”
The nun in the cloister has chosen a kind of death to the world, certainly the world in which most of us operate. She does so quite radically. Her choice provides a spotlight on the kind of lives Christians true to the name choose to live, as they believe they are called to live.
At the monastery, we’re not all that far from Dulles airport. So my thoughts wander. That can happen in an unusually pleasant way when you discover that the WiFi doesn’t work — as it does not in the basement of the monastery where my guest quarters are. I think about Avery Dulles, the Catholic cardinal who was the son of former secretary of state John Foster Dulles, and about an article he wrote on freedom and truth. He quoted Pope John Paul II, a saint who not only knew about freedom but fought for it in his personal life and in history-changing ways on the world stage: “For freedom on the one hand is for the sake of truth and on the other hand it cannot be perfected except by means of truth. Hence the words of our Lord, which speak so clearly to everyone: ‘The truth will make you free’ (John 8:32). There is no freedom without truth.”
Just days before the Independence Day holiday, the Oxford English Dictionary added the word “post-truth” to its mix — an entry to put us on guard about freedom.
Royal also writes about truth in his book about 20th-century martyrs. In part by way of explaining his remark about death and liberation, he writes: “Martyrs do more than entertain various possibilities; they put their lives behind the truth.” He goes on to quote from Bishop James Edward Walsh, a Maryknoll missionary in China who spent nearly two decades in captivity. Walsh asserted:
Christianity is not a private way of salvation and a guide to a pious life; it is a way of world salvation and a philosophy of total life. This makes it a sort of dynamite. So when you send missioners out to preach it, it is well to get ready for some explosions.
The word “martyr,” like religion itself, has had its manipulations. During a week that marked the martyrdom of Saints Peter and Paul and other early Church martyrs, Pope Francis told his weekly Wednesday crowd at St. Peter’s Square that the martyrs are icons of hope. They imitate Christ’s self-sacrifice and love. They are what this world needs, “a witness to the sure hope that faith inspires.”
Religious freedom matters — it’s the greatest gift that does the greatest honor to humanity: restoring its dignity.
“The martyrs who even today lay down their lives for the faith do so out of love,” he said. “By their example and intercession, may we become ever more convincing witnesses, above all in the events of our daily lives, to our undying hope in the promises of Christ.”
Royal wrote the book so that the lives of so many would not go unnoticed — and so that we would see Christianity at its truest, most liberating. The monastery in Linden may not be the best spot for viewing Fourth of July fireworks — you’re not going to find a TV to watch, even in the priest’s apartment. But it is a place to take a few hours away from the constant headline bombardment, including headlines about religious freedom, to consider what it is about religion that we need, and why it’s worth giving a life for it in so many different, radical ways.
It was just about a year ago that Pope Francis was in John Paul II’s native land. In the days before, I went to Auschwitz, accompanied by other religious sisters, the Sisters of Life, some of New York’s finest. They were walking, praying contrasts to the brutality still in the air there, a community of women dedicated to helping all know that they are loved and can live that love and give it to others. That’s why religious freedom matters — it’s the greatest gift that does the greatest honor to humanity: restoring its dignity, like fireworks. An explosion of the kind we need for respite from the kind that plagues us.
READ MORE:
Holiness Gone Wild
Getting Marian about Our Options
A Pope, a President, and May | {
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４月２日、麻生太郎財務相（写真）は閣議後会見で、１０月の消費増税について「法律に決めたとおり２％上げさせていただく」との従来見解を繰り返した。写真は都内で昨年１１月撮影（２０１９年 ロイター／Issei Kato）
［東京 ２日 ロイター］ - 麻生太郎財務相は２日の閣議後会見で、１０月の消費増税について「法律に決めたとおり２％上げさせていただく」との従来見解を繰り返した。
政府はリーマンショック級の事態が起きない限り実施すると説明しているが「度々申してきたようにそれ（前提条件）が大きく変わったことはない」と指摘し、増税を実現できる経済環境が続いているとの認識を示した。
新元号「令和」については「広く国民に受け入れられたらよいのではないか」とコメントした。
森友学園をめぐる文書改ざん問題で、大阪地検特捜部が虚偽公文書作成などの疑いで刑事告発された財務省元理財局長の佐川宣寿氏らを不起訴処分としたことについて、大阪第１検察審査会は「不起訴不当」とする議決書を公表したが、麻生氏は「司法の世界のプロセスにおけることがらなので、コメントすることはない」とした。
＊内容を追加しました。 | {
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To Amir Bar-Lev, the director of The Tillman Story, one of the great tragedies of the saga is how the myth came to obscure the man. Tillman, he says, 'was taken twice from his family, the first time by death, and the second time by the appropriation that happened, not just by the military but by the culture at large. The government tried to appropriate him as their hero but so did everyone else. The Californians can say he was a great Californian, the Arizonians can say he was a great Arizonian, the right can say he was a great warrior, and the left can say he was a great leftist. The irony is that at the same time as we lionised Pat we dismissed his wishes for privacy. We were going to have him whether he and his family liked it or not.’ | {
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A photo that went viral on Thursday shows a Whole Foods grocery store in California selling a peeled orange inside a plastic container — and now the company is apologizing.
The photo, shared by Nathalie Gordon, shows an apparent misuse of plastic packaging. Gordon tweeted, “If only nature would find a way to cover these oranges so we didn’t need to waste so much plastic on them.”
If only nature would find a way to cover these oranges so we didn't need to waste so much plastic on them. pic.twitter.com/00YECaHB4D — Nathalie Gordon (@awlilnatty) March 3, 2016
The tweet has been retweeted over 54,000 times.
Whole Foods tweeted an apology on Thursday, saying the product has been pulled from the shelves.
“Definitely our mistake. These have been pulled. We hear you, and we will leave them in their natural packaging: the peel.”
@awlilnatty Definitely our mistake. These have been pulled. We hear you, and we will leave them in their natural packaging: the peel. — Whole Foods Market (@WholeFoods) March 3, 2016
A company spokeswoman told the Huffington Post: | {
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Adulting can be tons of fun. Cereal for dinner! Coming home to an apartment that's exactly the way you left it! Actually being excited about having a good credit score! And, adulting can be not so fun — new, four-day hangovers, meal prep, and of course, how hard it is to make new friends as an adult, especially if you are child-free. After a certain age, it will start to seem like all of your friends are having kids — and they're making new friends at parent-child yoga, or at play group, or whatever the case may be.
People who are child-free by choice can encounter difficulties when their social circles either shrink, become unavailable, or start to feel kid-focused to the extreme. And what if you move to a new place and don't have kids to facilitate meeting other adults, via the school pick up line or Saturday soccer games? If you don't have children, it can be easy to feel like your social options are more limited, especially if you're trying to expand your group of friends or create an entirely new one. Guess what, though: making friends without the aid of children is absolutely possible when you're an adult. Take it from these child-free people who've done it.
1 Check Out Adults-Only Spaces & Hobbies Giphy Sometimes the best place to meet fellow adults is in places that don't necessarily allow children. "Libraries," suggests Fiona. "No free desks = sharing and coffee = friends. I’ve seen it happen with my own eyes." Jennifer adds, "Hobbies. Preferably active ones with a social aspect. Find ones where mean babies are 100% optional." Adults-only social areas don't have to just be bars; they can also include a host of activities that mean you'll be able to bond with people who may or may not have kids of their own.
2 Open Your Eyes To Online Dating Giphy If you're both child-free and single, online dating can be a good way to spread your wings. "I have a large circle of friends who mostly know each other from online dating," says Florian. "People go on dates, stay in touch, have sexual friendships that morph into connections with their friends' other friends, etc." Just because a hookup or second date didn't quite make it into a relationship doesn't necessarily mean that your connection can't become a friendship, if both parties are down with the idea. There are also a host of dating-app-like apps that are exclusively for meeting friends.
3 Work With Kids In Other Ways Giphy If you love kids, want to be around them, but don't necessarily want any of your own, volunteering with them is a good way both to spend some child-friendly time and bond with groups of parents. "I used to be very involved as a youth leader in the Scouts, and also an educational charity, and have lots of friends from that time," says Florian. And there's a plus: finding new people who are connected in different places. "When you volunteer for large, international organisations [sic] like the Scouts, you'll quickly find a wonderful and like minded group of people nearly everywhere."
4 Take The Initiative Giphy Remember: making new friends is hard work. "It's important to remember you can't replicate the depth and strength of your lifelong friendships in two months of knowing a new person, no matter how cool they are," says Sophie. "That kind of thing takes time." Get proactive to get around the feeling of inertia: "I try to suggest/organise [sic] new activities and invites others, rather than waiting for invites to be offered to me," she says.
5 Realize You're Not The Only Awkward One Giphy One of the major social benefits of kids is that it's easy to read the room: you're all here to pick up a toddler, watch five year olds on the swing, or supervise a birthday party. Without those rhythms in place, things can feel like they lack structure — like when you moved from high school to college and suddenly all social interactions become much less rigid. "Take the connection chances that appear," says Annika, "and risk the occasional awkward moment when what you thought was a 'yes' was in fact an 'err... nope'. I salve my dignity by deciding that at least it makes for (hopefully entertaining) anecdotes afterwards. People are weird, and if it's not them it's you, so you might as well go for it." And that can prompt you into taking leaps of faith. "I constantly remind myself that other people are just as insecure and nervous about making new friends as I am," says Sophie, "so I might as well be the awkward turtle for five minutes and ask them to come on a hike or check out a gallery with me." This can be tough if you're introverted, so don't be hard on yourself if you find it tricky. | {
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Through RNA sequencing, researchers can measure which genes are expressed in each individual cell of a sample. A new statistical method allows researchers to infer different developmental processes from a cell mixture consisting of asynchronous stages. This finding has been published by researchers of Helmholtz Zentrum München in collaboration with colleagues from Technical University Munich in the journal ‘Nature Methods’.
Today, cell biology no longer focuses only on static states, but rather seeks to understand the dynamic development of cells. One example for this is the formation of various types of blood cells, such as red blood cells or endothelial cells from their precursors, the blood stem cells. To understand how this process is genetically controlled, scientists analyze which genes are expressed by means of transcriptome analysis.
“To me, it’s still amazing that we are now even able to determine the transcriptome of single cells,” said lead author Laleh Haghverdi, “especially when one realizes that a typical cell contains only a few picograms of RNA*.” The availability of these data is now beginning to revolutionize many fields of research, but new statistical methods are required to interpret these correctly. “For example, all cells of a sample never start their development synchronously, and their development takes different lengths of time. Therefore, we are always dealing with a dynamic mixture,” added Haghverdi, doctoral student at the Institute of Computational Biology (ICB) at Helmholtz Zentrum München. “It is immensely difficult to construct multiple steps of a process from this, especially since the cells are only available for one measurement.”
Welcome to the era of pseudotime
To decrypt developmental processes from the measurement of a single time point, quasi a snapshot measurement, the researchers led by ICB Director Prof. Dr. Dr. Fabian Theis developed an algorithm called diffusion pseudotime to interpret single cell sequencing data. This algorithm orders cells on a virtual timeline – the pseudotime – along which they show continuous changes in the transcriptome. Thus, it can be reconstructed which genes are expressed sequentially. By means of this method, researchers can graphically display the branching lineages of the developmental paths of different cell types.
“For example, we can show how a relatively uniform cluster of blood stem cells develops into different cell types,” said study leader Theis. “While some become red blood cells, others differentiate into endothelial cells. We can trace these fates based on the transcriptome data of the single cells.” In addition, the scientists obtain information about which gene switches underlie the developments. The relatively diffuse mixture of cells which were found to be at different stages of their development can be disentangled on the computer and, after the analysis, provides a clear picture of the ongoing individual steps.
However, this is only the beginning for the researchers because the processes of blood formation are relatively well understood. They served only as a test object to determine how well the method works. “In the future we want to focus on processes that have remained elusive until now or which may not have been discovered at all,” said Theis.**
*RNA stands for ribonucleic acids which make up the raw material for the transcriptome analyses.
** In collaboration with experimental institutes at Helmholtz Zentrum München, the scientists are focusing on the development of brain cells and the insulin-producing beta cells in the pancreas, among other research projects. They hope that by elucidating the formation of individual cell groups, they will develop approaches to intervene in these processes – for example, when they are disturbed due to disease. | {
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Sentai Filmworks has a very fun release coming up next month with the February 16th, 2016 debut of Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya 2wei on DVD and Blu-ray. Ahead of that, the distributor has now revealed the English language dub cast for the show, which is being directed by Kyle Colby Jones.
This season, which ran for ten episodes, was originally directed by Shin Oonuma (Dusk maiden of Amnesia, ef: a tale of memories) with art direction by Ken Tateishi ([email protected], Kotoura-san), sound direction by Masanori Tsuchiya (Brynhildr in the Darkness, Five Numbers!) and animation production by SILVER LINK (WATAMOTE, Penguindrum).
ENGLISH DUB CAST LIST
Illyasviel von Einzbern – Cynthia Martinez
Miyu – Caitlynn French
Kuro – Kira Vincent-Davis
Luviagelita Edelfelt – Shelley Calene-Black
Rin Tosaka – Carli Mosier
Ruby – Joanne Bonasso
Sapphire – Molly Searcy
Suzuka Kurihara – Nancy Novotny
Tatsuko Gakumazawa – Emily Neves
Nanaki Moriyama – Juliet Simmons
Mimi Katsura – Brittney Karbowski
Leysritt “Liz” – Meaghan Avocato
El-Melloi II – Leraldo Anzaldua
Sella – Tiffany Grant
Shiro Emiya – Patrick Poole
Taiga Fujimura – Allison Sumrall
Plot concept: The magical girls are back, and ready for another round of adventure! After successfully recovering the Class Cards, eighth graders-turned magical girls Illya and Miyu think they can finally take it easy. But as fate would have it, the girls are once again called back into active duty when they find out that the Cards have left some very nasty side effects on their world. However, their seemingly easy mission goes totally awry with the appearance of a dark stranger who looks just like Illya! Who is this new but familiar face, where did she come from, and what does she want from Illya? With the arrival of this new foe, it seems like Illya’s finally met her match when her everyday life takes one dark turn!
Chris Beveridge http://www.fandompost.com Chris has been writing about anime, manga, movies and comics for well on twenty years now. He began AnimeOnDVD.com back in 1998 and has covered nearly every anime release that’s come out in the US ever since. He likes to write a lot, as you can see. See author's posts
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Check out our new site Makeup Addiction
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Now that i cleared my history I should clear my history | {
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Philadelphia Democratic convention 'great' for Delaware
Democrats have chosen Philadelphia to host the 2016 Democratic National Convention, and that decision comes with side benefits for Delaware.
The convention will be held the week of July 25, party leaders said. Philadelphia and Democratic Party officials signed a contract Thursday morning.
Convention events, including the nomination of the party's presidential candidate, will be staged in the Wells Fargo Center, home of the Philadelphia 76ers and the Philadelphia Flyers.
Delaware hotels are likely to see significant business with thousands of visitors and delegates from across the country flocking to the area. Visitors filled hundreds of New Castle County hotel rooms in 2000 when Republicans held their national convention in Philadelphia.
"This is honestly bigger than the pope," said Bill Sullivan, a board member at the Delaware Hotel and Lodging Association who manages the Courtyard Newark at the University of Delaware, where he teaches hospitality classes.
Pope Francis is scheduled to visit Philadelphia in September. That trip is expected to generate a wealth of bookings for Delaware hotels. But convention business will top that, Sullivan said.
"There's more people coming, and they come in groups by state," he said. "They will take over a whole hotel."
Philadelphia beat out New York and Columbus, Ohio, to host the convention.
The National Democratic Party chair, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, noted that Philadelphia offers a rich historic backdrop for convention events. Independence Hall, where the U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence were signed, is a short trip from the convention site.
"Philadelphia's deep-rooted place in American history provides a perfect setting for this special gathering," Schultz said.
Delaware hotels were booked with delegates, visitors and political VIPs in 2000 when Republicans nominated President George W. Bush in Philadelphia, said Priscilla Rakestraw, longtime national committeewoman for the Delaware GOP.
Rakestraw said party leaders housed top donors at the Hotel du Pont in downtown Wilmington.
"I loved Philadelphia," Rakestraw said. "It was a great experience. I wish the Democratic party and their delegates well."
Delaware Republican Party chair Charlie Copeland called Philadelphia a "terrific" city but had few kind words for Democrats.
"It's going to take a lot of convention blue smoke and mirrors to weave a tapestry out of the Democrats' fibers of failure," Copeland said in a written statement to party supporters.
U.S. Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., said Philadelphia offers an ideal setting for the convention. Coons also celebrated the site's proximity to Delaware.
"I hope that having the convention so close will also mean that more Delawareans will get involved," Coons said in emailed statements. "There will be lots of opportunities for Delawareans not only to volunteer at the convention, but to attend events and debate ideas and really take a more active part in our democracy. That's pretty exciting."
Even Delaware students could benefit from having the national political convention nearby.
"It's great for us," said Paul Brewer, professor and research director in the University of Delaware's Center for Political Communication. "It will be a great active learning opportunity for our students to get involved in visiting the convention, and maybe interning at the convention."
In an emailed statement, Democratic Gov. Jack Markell, who spoke at the 2012 Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, called Philadelphia "a great city in which to nominate the 45th President of the United States."
"I'm sure the entire Philadelphia-Wilmington region will be wonderfully hospitable for convention guests and show off the many wonderful things to do in our area," Markell said.
For Delaware, the convention will come during an open race for governor. On the Democratic side, Beau Biden, the eldest son of Vice President Joe Biden who delivered nominating speeches at the 2008 and 2012 national conventions, has announced plans to seek the governor's office.
The vice president, who visited Iowa on Thursday for a roundtable discussion on education, has yet to rule out a repeat run for president next year. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is considered a front-runner for the Democratic nomination.
Rhett Ruggerio, a Legislative Hall lobbyist and former national committeeman for the Delaware Democratic Party, said the convention in Philadelphia would mean tourism dollars for Delaware, sponsorship opportunities for Delaware businesses and visibility for the state Democratic party.
Ruggerio served as a super delegate to the 2008 Democratic convention in Denver.
"I think you'll see our entire party establishment make an effort to get up there and show their colors," Ruggerio said.
Delaware Democratic National Committeeman Bob Gilligan, the former state House speaker, joked that traveling to Philadelphia is "cheaper than flying to Charlotte."
"It will give us some visibility," Gilligan said.
Contact Jonathan Starkey at (302) 983-6756, on Twitter @jwstarkey or at [email protected]. | {
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My brother Ian Smart is not a racist. He is worse than that.
A racist is normally someone with a grievance, who out of ignorance, and fuelled by urban and media myths, wrongly blames ethic minorities who have absolutely nothing to do with whatever their problem might be. My brother Ian has few problems, is rather well healed, well educated and mixes amongst the very highest echelons of the Scottish establishment. So when he asserts that there will be some sort of pogrom against the Polish and Pakistani communities (and presumably others) in a post independence Scotland, he is not doing this out of ignorance or prejudice, but out of political calculation. The calculation that if he asserts it loudly and often enough Scotland's ethnic communities and others can be scared into voting No.
This is called playing the race card. It is one of the most dangerous things an individual can do in any context, and of course normally done by politicians of the far right. But for a Labour blogger to do it in Scotland, where there is a hard worked for and commendable cross-party and cross-society consensus against racial prejudice, and inject it into the highly charge debate on independence is despicable.
No better that Enoch Powell in 1968: Allow fair non racial immigration into the UK and there will be “rivers of blood” he predicted, with no evidence and no basis in reality as events have proven. Vote for Independence in 2014 and my brother predicts something similar for Scotland.
And what has been the reaction of the Scottish Labour establishment to the gratuitous playing of the race card by one of their own? At best silence, and in the case of old chum Jack McConnell supportive. Because sadly, Ian, the leading Labour blogger in Scotland and a regular TV pundit on this basis, is an outrider for more than a few of them.
Apologise and retire. All the advice I can offer.
And Ted Heath sacked Enoch Powell, Johan and co please note.
A Postscript: This is my first blog post here for near on a year, My last one below is on a similar theme. A response to George Galloway playing the Green Card in a near identical context. Same time warped and unsupported bullshit from a washed out "lefty" And hear that silence from the Laborites on both occasions.
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MOGADISHU, Somalia -- Gunmen stormed a hotel in Somalia's seaside capital Saturday, taking guests hostage and "shooting at everyone they could see," before security forces pursued the grenade-throwing assailants to the top floor and ended the hours-long assault, police and witnesses said. At least 14 people were killed.
Islamic extremist group al-Shabab claimed responsibility for the latest in a series of hotel attacks in Mogadishu, one that began with a powerful explosion at the entry gate.
"We have finally ended the siege. The last remaining militants were killed on the top floor," police Capt. Mohamed Hussein said after security forces cornered the gunmen, who had set up sniper posts on the roof of the Nasa-Hablod hotel. Police said at least four gunmen were involved in the attack, and two were killed.
"We have so far confirmed the deaths of 14 people. Some of them died in the hospitals," Hussein said. The deaths included women who were selling khat, a stimulant leaf popular with Somali men, outside the hotel, he said.
Security forces rescued most of the hostages; it was not clear whether any were killed. Police and medical workers said another nine people were wounded in the assault.
Police said the attack began when a suicide bomber detonated an explosives-laden vehicle at the hotel entrance, ripping off its gate. Gunmen fought their way inside, and a witness said they began shooting randomly at hotel guests.
Blood was splattered on the hotel floor. The bodies of two men, including one thought to be a hotel guard and an attacker dressed in a military uniform, lay on the first floor.
Bullets pockmarked the hotel walls. Security forces combed through the dark hotel rooms, searching for explosives.
A witness, Ali Mohamud, said the attackers randomly shot at guests. "They were shooting at everyone they could see. I escaped through the back door," he said.
Yusuf Ali, an ambulance driver, told The Associated Press he evacuated 11 people injured in the attack to hospitals.
"Most of them were wounded in crossfire," he said.
The Somalia-based, al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabab has been waging a deadly insurgency across large parts of Somalia and often employs suicide car bomb attacks to penetrate heavily fortified targets in Mogadishu and elsewhere.
In early June, an overnight siege by extremist gunmen at another hotel in the capital killed least 15 people, including two members of parliament. Al-Shabab claimed responsibility for that attack.
The latest attack comes during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, during which extremists often step up attacks in this volatile East African country.
"They came shouting 'Allahu Akbar' and fired bullets on every side," said a hotel staffer who escaped through the back door. He declined to be identified for fear of reprisal.
"They are devils who merely care for death and blood," the staffer said.
The assaults in the capital have highlighted the challenges facing the Somali government and African Union forces that are struggling to secure the country. An attack on another Mogadishu hotel and public garden in February killed at least nine civilians. A car bomb outside a restaurant in the capital in April killed at least five.
The African Union force faces shrinking resources after the European Union recently cut its funding to the AU mission in Somalia by 20 per cent. Citing that cut, Uganda's military chief said Friday his country plans to withdraw its more than 6,000 troops from the AU force in Somalia by December 2017. | {
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With the Sundance Film Festival in full action, here are a few of the celebrities we’ve seen so far in Park City.
(Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)
Daveed Diggs, co-producer, co-writer and co-star of “Blindspotting,” poses at the film’s premiere on opening night of the Sundance Film Festival, Thursday, Jan. 18.
(Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)
Kathryn Hahn, a cast member in "Private Life," is interviewed at the premiere of the film on the opening night of the Sundance Film Festival on Thursday, Jan. 18.
(Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)
Molly Shannon, a cast member in "Private Life," poses at the premiere of the film on the opening night of the Sundance Film Festival on Thursday, Jan. 18.
(Photo by Danny Moloshok/Invision/AP)
Actor Nicolas Cage is interviewed at the premiere of "Mandy" during the 2018 Sundance Film Festival on Friday, Jan. 19.
(Photo by Danny Moloshok/Invision/AP)
Actor Chloe Sevigny is interviewed at the premiere of "Lizzie" during the Sundance Film Festival on Friday, Jan. 19.
(Photo by Danny Moloshok/Invision/AP)
Producer Elijah Wood poses at the premiere of "Mandy" during the 2018 Sundance Film Festival on Friday, Jan. 19.
(Photo by Arthur Mola/Invision/AP)
Actor Rose Byrne poses during the premiere of the film "Juliet, Naked" at the Eccles Theatre during the Sundance Film Festival on Friday, Jan. 19.
(Photo by Danny Moloshok/Invision/AP)
Actors Barry Keoghan, left, and Evan Peters, right, pose at the premiere of "American Animals" during the Sundance Film Festival on Friday, Jan. 19.
(Photo by Danny Moloshok/Invision/AP)
Actor Andrea Riseborough poses at the premiere of "Mandy" during the 2018 Sundance Film Festival on Friday, Jan. 19.
(Photo by Arthur Mola/Invision/AP)
Actor Ethan Hawke poses during the premiere of the film "Juliet, Naked" at the Eccles Theatre during the Sundance Film Festival on Friday, Jan. 19.
(Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)
Common, a cast member in "The Tale," poses at the premiere of the film at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival on Saturday, Jan. 20.
(Photo by Arthur Mola/Invision/AP)
Jaden Smith, right, and Jada Pinkett Smith speak during the premiere of "Skate Kitchen" at the Library Theatre during the 2018 Sundance Film Festival on Sunday, Jan. 21.
(Photo by Danny Moloshok/Invision/AP)
Actors Chloe Grace Moretz, left, and Sasha Lane appear at the premiere of "The Miseducation of Cameron Post" during the 2018 Sundance Film Festival on Monday, Jan. 22.
(Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)
Filmmaker Spike Lee poses at the premiere of the film "Monster" at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival on Monday, Jan. 22, in Park City.
(Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)
Rupert Everett, center, the writer, director and star of "The Happy Prince," poses alongside cast members Colin Morgan, left, and Edwin Thomas at the premiere of the film at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival on Sunday, Jan. 21.
(Photo by Danny Moloshok/Invision/AP)
Actor Forest Whitaker, left, and singer Usher Raymond, right, pose at the premiere of "Burden" during the 2018 Sundance Film Festival on Sunday, Jan. 21.
(Photo by Arthur Mola/Invision/AP)
Actor Danny Glover speaks to reporters during the premiere of "Come Sunday" at the Eccles Theatre during the 2018 Sundance Film Festival on Sunday, Jan. 21.
(Photo by Danny Moloshok/Invision/AP)
Attorney Gloria Allred poses at the premiere of "Seeing Allred" during the 2018 Sundance Film Festival on Sunday, Jan. 21.
(Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)
Nick Offerman, a voice cast member in the animated film "White Fang," holds an 8-week-old Siberian husky at the premiere of the film at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival on Sunday, Jan. 21.
(Photo by Arthur Mola/Invision/AP)
Director Idris Elba, right, poses with Sabrina Dhowre during the premiere of "Yardie" at the Ray Theatre during the 2018 Sundance Film Festival on Saturday, Jan. 20.
(Photo by Arthur Mola/Invision/AP)
From left, actor Elle Fanning, director Reed Morano and actor Peter Dinklage pose during the premiere of "I Think We're Alone Now" at the Eccles Theatre during the 2018 Sundance Film Festival on Sunday, Jan. 21.
(Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)
Keira Knightley, a cast member in "Colette," poses at the premiere of the film at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival on Saturday, Jan. 20, in Park City.
(Photo by Arthur Mola/Invision/AP)
Actor Luke Wilson poses during the premiere of "Arizona" at the Egyptian Theatre during the 2018 Sundance Film Festival on Saturday, Jan. 20.
(Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)
Paul Dano, third from right, director/co-writer of "Wildlife," and his girlfriend, Zoe Kazan, far right, pose with cast members, from left, Zoe Colletti, Ed Oxenbould, Jake Gyllenhaal and Carey Mulligan at the premiere of the film at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival on Saturday, Jan. 20.
(Photo by Arthur Mola/Invision/AP)
Actor Bella Thorne poses during the premiere of "Assassination Nation" at the Library Theatre during the 2018 Sundance Film Festival on Sunday, Jan. 21.
(Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)
Naomi Watts, a cast member in "Ophelia," poses at the premiere of the film at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival on Monday, Jan. 22.
(Photo by Danny Moloshok/Invision/AP)
Actor Jon Hamm poses at the premiere of "Beirut" during the 2018 Sundance Film Festival on Monday, Jan. 22.
(Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)
Maggie Gyllenhaal, left, and Rosa Salazar, cast members in "The Kindergarten Teacher," pose together at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival on Friday, Jan. 19, 2018.
(Photo by Arthur Mola/Invision/AP)
Actor Jack Black poses during the premiere of the film "Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot" at the Eccles Theatre during the Sundance Film Festival on Friday, Jan. 19, 2018.
(Photo by Arthur Mola/Invision/AP) | {
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The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (Extended Edition) | {
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My Bad Romance Kagney Linn Karter & Johnny Sins
Kagney has an idea; it involves taking advantage of a new online dating platform. The incorporation of video streaming has made it possible for millions of Americans to meet their soul mates; Kagney sees a different opportunity, she has a feeling big cocks can be discovered meaning she can pull off being fucked by a new guy everyday. | {
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Actor Brad Pitt went on a politically charged rants in his Academy Award acceptance speech on Sunday ripping the Senate impeachment trial and specifically the absence of John Bolton from the proceedings as a witness.
Pitt, who won the supporting actor award for Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, had largely avoided mentioning politics during this Hollywood awards season. But on Sunday, he made his speech overtly political.
“They told me I only have 45 seconds up here, which is 45 seconds more than the Senate gave John Bolton this week,” he said.
“I’m thinking maybe Quentin does a movie about it. In the end, the adults do the right thing.”
Pitt thanked his co-star Leonardo DiCaprio, Tarantino, as well as the actors and directors who helped his career, including his Thelma & Louise co-star Geena Davis.
According to a Vulture report this week, Pitt has turned to former Obama and Clinton speech writers to help craft his acceptance speeches this year.
Follow David Ng on Twitter @HeyItsDavidNg. Have a tip? Contact me at [email protected] | {
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Thus the spoken Word is indeed the word of a human being, but it has been instituted by divine authority for salvation. For God wants to govern the world through angels and through human beings, His creatures, as through His servants, just as He gives light through the sun, the moon, and even through fire and candles. Here, too, you could say: “No external thing profits. The sun is an external thing. Hence it profits nothing; that is, it does not give light, it does not warm, etc.” Who would put up with one who argues in such a silly way? Therefore the rule of which I have also spoken above stands. It states that God no longer wants to act in accordance with His extraordinary or, as the scholastics express it, absolute power but wants to act through His creatures, whom He does not want to be idle. Thus He gives food, not as He did to the Jews in the desert, when He gave manna from heaven, but through labor, when we diligently perform the work of our calling. Furthermore, He no longer wants to form human beings from a clod, as He formed Adam, but He makes use of a union of a male and a female, on whom He bestows His blessing. This they call God’s “ordered” power, namely, when He makes use of the service either of angels or of human beings. Thus in the prophet Amos (3:7) there is the noteworthy statement that God does nothing that He does not first reveal to His prophets. But if at times some things happen without the service either of angels or of human beings, you would be right in saying: “What is beyond us does not concern us.” We must keep the ordered power in mind and form our opinion on the basis of it. God is able to save without Baptism, just as we believe that infants who, as sometimes happens through the neglect of their parents or through some other mishap, do not receive Baptism are not damned on this account. But in the church we must judge and teach, in accordance with God’s ordered power, that without the outward Baptism no one is saved. Thus it is due to God’s ordered power that water makes wet, that fire burns, etc. But in Babylon Daniel’s companions continued to live unharmed in the midst of the fire (Dan. 3:25). This took place through God’s absolute power, in accordance with which He acted at that time; but He does not command us to act in accordance with this absolute power, for He wants us to act in accordance with the ordered power.
Martin Luther, Lectures on Genesis, AE 3:273-274
Because daily I see and hear with what carelessness and lack of solemnity—to say nothing of out-and-out levity—people treat the high, holy, and comforting sacrament of baptism for infants, in part caused, I believe, by the fact that those present understand nothing of what is being said and done, I have decided that it is not only helpful but necessary to conduct the service in the German language For this reason I have translated those portions that used to be said in Latin in order to begin baptizing in German, so that the sponsors and others present may be all the more aroused to faith and earnest devotion and so that the priests who baptize have to show more diligence for the sake of the listeners. Out of a sense of Christian commitment, I appeal to all those who baptize, sponsor infants, or witness a baptism to take to heart the tremendous work and great solemnity present here For here in the words of these prayers you hear how plaintively and earnestly the Christian church brings the infant to God, confesses before him with such unchanging, undoubting words that the infant is possessed by the devil and a child of sin and wrath, and so diligently asks for help and grace through baptism, that the infant may become a child of God. Therefore, you have to realize that it is no joke at all to take action against the devil and not only to drive him away from the little child but also to hang around the child’s neck such a mighty, lifelong enemy. Thus it is extremely necessary to stand by the poor child with all your heart and with a strong faith and to plead with great devotion that God, in accordance with these prayers, would not only free the child from the devil’s power but also strengthen the child, so that the child might resist him valiantly in life and in death. I fear that people turn out so badly after baptism because we have dealt with them in such a cold and casual way and have prayed for them at their baptism without any zeal at all. …see to it that you are present there in true faith, that you listen to God’s Word, and that you pray along earnestly. For wherever the priest says, “Let us pray,” he is exhorting you to pray with him. Moreover, all sponsors and the others present ought to speak along with him the words of his prayer in their hearts to God For this reason, the priest should speak these prayers very clearly and slowly, so that the sponsors can hear and understand them and can also pray with the priest with one mind in their hearts, carrying before God the need of this little child with all earnestness, on the child’s behalf setting themselves against the devil with all their strength, and demonstrating that they take seriously what is no joke to the devil. For this reason it is right and proper not to allow drunken and boorish priests to baptize nor to select good-for-nothings as godparents. Instead fine, moral, serious, upright priests and godparents ought to be chose, who can be expected to treat the matter with seriousness and true faith, lest this high sacrament be abandoned to the devil’s mockery and dishonor God, who in this sacrament showers upon us the vast and boundless riches of His grace…
Martin Luther, “Baptismal Booklet”, in The Book of Concord, eds. Robert Kolb and Timothy J. Wengert, pp. 371-373.
Thus we do…with infant baptism. We bring the child with the intent and hope that it may believe, and we pray God to grant it faith But we do not baptize on this basis, but solely on the command of God…
Martin Luther, Large Catechism IV: 57. In The Book of Concord, eds. Robert Kolb and Timothy J. Wengert, p. 464.
I keep finding more stuff that Luther had to say about the faith of unbaptized infants and about the role of the intercessory prayer of the Church or of Christians for unbelievers. The more I read, the more convinced I am that confessional Lutherans don’t have a good grasp of the place of prayer in Luther’s theology. It would probably be better to say–many confessional Lutheran pastors don’t have a good grasp of it. At any rate, I clearly did not.
As you see from the first quote from the Genesis lectures (I think this portion of the lectures was given between 1538 and 1542), Luther emphasizes: God no longer wants to act in His naked majesty. He did that when He gave the Israelites bread from heaven and when He preserved Shadrach and company in the furnace. But now God wants to act not in His “absolute power”: “Therefore the rule stands…God no longer wants to act in accordance with His…absolute power, but wants to act through His creatures, whom He does not want to be idle.”
That statement is fascinating in itself, and I want to return to it in a minute. But Luther goes on to say: Of course, God is able to save without using means. We don’t say that unbaptized infants are damned–and Luther specifically names infants who are unbaptized because their parents neglected baptism! But he says, yes, unbaptized infants are not damned, but it is still necessary for us to say that baptism is necessary for salvation. In other words, even though God can grant the Holy Spirit apart from means, it is necessary for us to point people to the appointed means and to adhere to the means of grace. God is not limited to the means of grace, but we are.
That is clearly what Luther is saying. The Augsburg Confession’s statement that “baptism is necessary for salvation,” along with Luther’s statement in the Smalcald Articles to the effect that “every spirit that is separated from the Word” is the devil–must be read in this light. It’s not that God is forced to damn all stillborn babies, all miscarriages, and all children of Lutheran parents who fail to baptize their babies the second they exit the womb, and whose babies are unlucky enough to die before baptism. It’s that we are not permitted to despise the appointed means.
Now, why is it that Luther says that God “no longer” wants to act in His absolute, unmediated power? Because “now in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son,” I think is what Luther is getting at. Since God has become man, we are not to look apart from His flesh for God, since “all the fullness of the Godhead dwells in Him bodily (Colossians 2).” Now that He has ascended and is not visible, He directs us to find Him in the means He has appointed to come to us and give us His Spirit–in His Word, in the sacrament of His body and blood, in Holy Absolution.
I’m not exactly sure of the details of this, but I know some Lutheran theologians believed or taught that Jesus’ body, since it is joined to the divine nature, is able to fill all places in creation. Luther writes about this in the confessions–the Large Catechism?–but simply presents it in explanation to the question, “How can Christ give His flesh and blood in numerous places at the same time?” He doesn’t say, “This is how it happens,” but simply provides it as a possible solution. That’s because saying that Christ fills all creation as both God and man could easily be turned into a theory that overthrows the Gospel. For instance, you could argue that since Christ now is exalted and fills all things, we could also eat His flesh and drink His blood not merely in the Lord’s Supper but in everything.
The same thing could happen with the idea that since we can pray for little children of Christians, that they will be saved, and have certainty about the answer to our prayers. We could say “We’ve prayed for all the children in the world, so they’re all saved, with or without Baptism.” That would have the consequence of undermining baptism. Instead we are bound to the means God has instituted.
On the other hand, what does Luther say? The reason so many baptized kids turn out so badly is: the sponsors don’t pray for the child from the heart–both that God would grant the child deliverance from Satan’s kingdom, and that the child would remain in the faith. Luther says the same thing in the Large CAtechism on baptism; we pray that the Lord would grant the child faith.
I think we tend to underestimate the power of the prayer of the church. When I first read Pieper or Walther saying that the gift of the Holy Spirit necessary for the ministry is not given through the laying on of hands but through the prayer of the church, I kind of thought that that was crazy. Why would it happen through the prayer of the church?
It turns out Pieper and Walther were just reproducing Luther’s theology here. Luther thinks that intercessory prayer is a mighty thing. He thinks that it can be relied on for the salvation of unbaptized infants. He says in the Large Catechism that the reason that the Lutheran Church and Germany hadn’t been destroyed was because of a handful of pious, belieivng Christians who prayed, “Thy Kingdom come; thy will be done.”
In its own way, this idea of Luther’s actually fits quite well with the earlier point that “God does not want to act in absolute power anymore” now that He has become incarnate. God, of course, doesn’t need our prayer to make a baptism effective. But God wants to work not according to His naked power, but through instruments (because He is incarnate), and so God teaches us to pray. By means of our prayer and in answer to them, God tells moutnains to be thrown into the sea; He causes the church to pray for peace int he world and then answers their prayer. Or he causes farmers to pray for rain and then grants it. God works by His ordinary power, which means that He wants to use angels and human beings to do work for Him. And that is the great privilege. God could have done all the work Himself. He didn’t need the angels, nor us. But He lets the angels and us participate in the work that He could just as easily do without us. He makes us learn to pray and intercede from the heart to Him; then He answers our prayer. God could give daily bread without the prayer of the Church, but instead He teaches the Chruch to pray for it and then He gives it. He makes us participants in His work.
This is why Jesus said, “whatever you ask in faith, you will receive.”
I’m trying to make some good points here but I keep falling asleep. So I’ll have to elaborate later. Hopefully if you’re reading this you understand what I’m trying to say.
Also, these quotes aren’t really supposed to prove anything. This is kind of like supporting information. But when you read this in after conjunction with Luther’s “Comfort to women who have had a misscarriage,” as well as the 3rd Sunday after Epiphany church postil, I think it is indisputable that Luther taught that unbaptized infants were given faith prior to baptism in response to the prayers of parents, christian sponsors, adn the congregation. Anyway, I’m done now.
Relahttp://infanttheology.wordpress.com/2012/10/05/macgyver-the-dog-the-bone-the-reflection-and-the-christian-life/ted articles | {
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The last time we saw John Oliver on “Last Week Tonight,” the weekly comedy series he hosts for HBO, he was blowing up a giant 2016 sign in a soccer stadium, bidding farewell to a year that seemed unmatchable in its capacity for tumult and forehead-pounding news events. Then 2017 came along.
As Mr. Oliver prepares for the fourth-season premiere of “Last Week Tonight” on Sunday, he returns to an arena where President Trump, the bête noire of the late-night shows, has been in charge of the country for nearly a month. During that time, the Trump administration has already made the picture more complicated for many issues that Mr. Oliver has addressed in his long-form segments, like net neutrality, voter fraud, torture and nuclear weapons.
Now, who wants to hear some jokes?
In an interview on Monday at HBO’s New York offices, Mr. Oliver, 39, said that despite some clear challenges to his way of looking at the world, he did not believe his past work had been in vain. “I’m not a complete nihilist,” he said with a laugh. “I haven’t quite got to the point where I’m going, ‘What’s the point in anything? Burn it down.’”
Though he was mum on the subject of Sunday’s episode, Mr. Oliver said “Last Week Tonight” would continue to resist the impulse to go “all Trump, all the time,” and instead try to focus on subjects not addressed by his late-night peers. “It’s a lot of people feeding on the same carcass,” he said. “We try to pick a different carcass because of how many different beaks have already gotten to it.” | {
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Singer 911 Reading time: about 2 minutes. British
Cars
Engineering
Luxury
Porsche
The Singer 911 is a modern re-imagining of how the Porsche 911 could have evolved, in an alternate universe where certain headlight design mistakes were avoided. The design team at Singer begin the process of creating a new 911 by acquiring a 1990 to 1994 Porsche 911 (the 964), this donor car is then stripped back to its bare essentials – many of which are discarded.
The central shell is media blasted before having additional stiffening fitted throughout, new body panels made of carbon fibre are added – these new panels are designed to fit the 964 monocoque perfectly whilst adding a late ’60s design touch to the car’s front end.
Each engine is shipped to the US division of Cosworth where it’s bored from 3.6 to 3.9 litres, it’s then fitted with Cosworth-designed cylinder heads before being blueprinted to 380hp – a staggeringly high output for what is essentially a late-80s-designed, air-cooled engine.
The transmission of the stock 964 wouldn’t last more than a couple of spirited afternoons with the new engine so a rebuilt 6-speed G50 is installed, with a high-performance clutch and a new limited-slip differential.
The interior of the new 911 is just about the best design work I’ve seen applied to a car’s insides, the minimalist nature of the new additions coupled with the overwhelming sense of quality and a feeling of this-has-been-properly-thought-through is undeniable.
If you’d like to pick up a Singer 911, you may be dismayed to learn that they tend to sell for between $200,000 and $350,000 a pop. Despite the fact that they cost slightly more than the bribes required to buy a Zimbabwean election, I think the Singer represents a trend towards modifying 911s that I’d love to see catch on with a wider audience. At the moment Rob Dickinson and Magnus Walker are both world leaders in the field, interestingly both are Brits living in California though I’m not sure that’s relevant. Just interesting.
If you’d like to see more from Singer you can click here to visit their website and see their other builds, if you’d like to read more about their 911s you can click here to read the excellent Evo Magazine feature on them by Richard Meaden.
Author Details Ben Branch Founder + Senior Editor Ben Branch has had his work featured on CNN, Popular Mechanics, the official Smithsonian Magazine, Road & Track Magazine, the official Pinterest blog, the official eBay Motors blog, BuzzFeed, and many more. Silodrome was founded by Ben back in 2010, in the years since the site has grown to become a world leader in the alternative and vintage motoring sector, with millions of readers around the world and hundreds of thousands of followers on social media. You can follow Ben on Instagram here, Twitter here, or LinkedIn here.
This article and its contents are protected by copyright, and may only be republished with a credit and link back to Silodrome.com - ©2020 | {
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German scientist Gangolf Jobb pulled the license to his genetic mapping software to protest against politically-engineered mass immigration — which he says prolongs the “collapse of capitalism.”
Jobb wrote on his website:
I am no longer willing to support with my work the political system in Europe and Germany, of which the science system is part. There is no genuine democracy, and I disagree with almost all of the policies. In particular, I disagree with immigration policy. Immigration to my country harms me, it harms my family, it harms my people. Whoever invites or welcomes immigrants to Europe and Germany is my enemy. Immigration is the huge corporations’ interest, not peoples’ interest. I am not against helping refugees, but they would have to be kept strictly separated from us Europeans, for some limited time only until they return home, and not being integrated here as cheap workers and additional consumers. Immigration unnecessarily defers the collapse of capitalism, its final crisis.
He previously pulled his license from the U.S. to protest the government’s immigration policies.
“I dislike that the USA and the EU aggressively promote a way of life that conflicts with my own way of life. I dislike the flood of immigrants they caused to come here — come here to replace unprofitable Europeans like me,” he wrote in February.
Mass immigration is preventing the glorious onset of communism (and true freedom), Jobbs declares:
I have not yet been rewarded for my work. I think we need a completely different political system. Nobody should depend on employers and landlords. Nobody should be profitable for someone rich. Nobody should have to pay rent, have to migrate. Most of all, we must limit private property. We must expropriate the rich. Free land for all! A very small elite of very rich people is trying to establish a new world order, and the scientific system is being misused to promote their goals. I am beeing [sic] oppressed and I cannot work as a scientist, because my traditional views and values conflict with that elite’s doctrine. I am being oppressed, because I am not willing to migrate, not willing to serve. Because I insist to be free. Evil old men rule the world.
Beginning Thursday, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Sweden, and Germany, which are “the countries that together host most of the non-European immigrants,” will have to find alternative software.
Scientists who used TreeFinder to map possible evolutionary relationships between different species were puzzled by Jobb’s move. He hasn’t updated the software in several years, they told Science News. His co-author said he hasn’t seen hide or hair of Jobbs in the past decade, but heard he sent ranting emails to other professors in Germany. | {
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