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Donald Trump will visit the US-Mexico border on Thursday as the White House attempts to focus attention on the so-called immigration crisis. (Photo by Chris Kleponis /Sipa USA)
Donald Trump will visit the US-Mexico border on Thursday as the White House continues to attempt to focus attention to on a “crisis” at the border.
The announcement comes as the US government shut down enters its third week with Trump and congressional Democrats at an impasse over Trump’s demand for nearly $6 billion in federal funding to build a wall on the southern border.
CNN reports White House officials said Trump also asked aides over the weekend about delivering a prime time address on Tuesday.
The public address is reportedly in planning stages now — but Trump wants to make his case about the government shutdown and wall funding in advance of Thursday’s border trip.
An aerial photo showing houses and yards built up to the border fence in the Nido de las Aguilas section of Tijuana. (John Gibbins/San Diego Union-Tribune/TNS/Sipa USA)
Bill Shine, the deputy chief of staff for communications, was set to meet with aides on Monday afternoon to discuss a potential address to the nation. The New York Times first reported Trump’s desire to address the nation.
It’s unclear whether the networks will take it or have yet been formally asked.
Trump will “meet with those on the front lines of the national security and humanitarian crisis,” White House press secretary Sarah Sanders announced Monday morning on Twitter.
According to reports the president
She said: “President @realDonaldTrump will travel to the Southern border on Thursday to meet with those on the frontlines of the national security and humanitarian crisis. More details will be announced soon.”
As the shut down continues hundreds of thousands of federal staff are working without pay.
Transport officials at major airports across the country are not attending work and a key housing programme being carried our by the Department of Housing and Urban Development is running out of money.
Trump administration officials have pointed to a surge in migrant families crossing the border to make their case that the situation at the southern border is reaching critical proportions but they have also pointed to misleading statistics to suggest terrorists are attempting to enter the United States through the southern border.
—Watch the latest videos from Yahoo UK— | {
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Skycoin welcomes our newest addition to the Skycoin advisory board — Joe Blackburn, the founder and head of online cryptocurrency group Crypto Coin Trader.
Joe is well known within the cryptocurrency community as a passionate and active spokesperson for the transformative potential of blockchain technology. Hailing from Mississippi, he is a vocal advocate for blockchain projects that have practical and immediate benefits for everyday people. Joe brings to Skycoin vital real-world perspectives and a depth of experience in cryptocurrency community engagement.
Crypto Coin Trader is one of the largest online Facebook cryptocurrency groups with more than 110,000 members. Joe created the group to foster a positive community focusing on the fundamental practical value of blockchain technology for new adopters and enthusiasts. Joe and the CCT Admins have developed a community based on integrity, transparency, and collaboration. Crypto Coin Trader demonstrates this commitment with a group specifically aimed at promoting women in cryptocurrency and blockchain.
We asked Joe about his new position, and here are his perspectives on joining Skycoin:
Why did you agree to become a Skycoin advisor?
Skycoin and the team around Skycoin have been most impressive. The amount of time the project has existed, the dedication of the team and the thriving community that exists, shows a foundation of what Skycoin is and what it is going to become. In a space full of projects with very little substance, Skycoin has done this without marketing and flash until now. I really love the way that Synth and the other core team members believe in what they are building.
What skills do you bring to Skycoin?
As a community leader, I am privileged to bring a lot of insight into what the community expectations are and how they should be. The ability to immediately connect to the pulse of the crypto community is something I am very proud of.
Which aspect of the Skycoin ecosystem excites you the most?
I love the SkyMiners. It really is one of my favorite aspects of Sky. Not to mention the ability for an individual to create their own SkyMiner, it really is a testament to the faith in the Sky Community as well. With such a low circulation of coins and all the updates coming, what is not to love?
What direction do you see the crypto space moving in the next 6–12 months?
I am exceptionally bullish long term for crypto. Obviously, the ups and downs can shake a lot of people and crypto isn’t for everyone for that very reason. I’ve been in crypto long enough now to be able to say that, we’ve just about seen it all before. That is not always true, but it sure feels that way in hindsight. I continue to believe that blockchain and crypto will be the future of every major transaction in the next 20 years.
Joe’s approach to cryptocurrency dovetails perfectly with Skycoin’s philosophy of building the most advanced blockchain that can drive real-world adoption. He joins a highly experienced advisory board that provides expert guidance to our dedicated developer team. Joe’s experience and perspective will help bring the Skycoin vision of 1 billion users one step closer to reality.
Welcome, Joe! | {
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The Republican Party of Virginia is offering a $1,000 reward for a photo of state Attorney General Mark Herring in blackface.
In a press release obtained by Fox News on Tuesday, the local GOP group said there "has been much talk of a picture of Mark Herring in blackface existing in a [University of Virginia] Sigma Chi fraternity yearbook from his time there."
VIRGINIA AG MARK HERRING ADMITS WEARING BLACKFACE AT 1980 COLLEGE PARTY
Herring, a Democrat, said in early February that in 1980, he wore brown makeup and a wig while at a party at the university.
"In 1980, when I was a 19-year-old undergraduate in college, some friends suggested we attend a party dressed like rappers we listened to at the time, like Kurtis Blow, and perform a song,” Herring said. “It sounds ridiculous even now writing it. But because of our ignorance and glib attitudes — and because we did not have an appreciation for the experiences and perspectives of others — we dressed up and put on wigs and brown makeup.”
The organization's leadership said that Herring released the statement to "get ahead of his own blackface scandal" and questioned whether the photo existed or not.
"Does anyone really believe him? The Republican Party of Virginia is seeking further evidence of Mark Herring's blackface and the witnesses to his racist past," the press release stated.
The group is offering $1,000 "for either a verified copy of a picture of Mark Herring in blackface or verifiable contact information for Herring's Sigma Chi fraternity brothers from Herring's time as an undergraduate that ultimately leads to a verified picture of Mark Herring in blackface."
RELATED: NORTHAM VOWS TO STAY IN OFFICE TO HELP VIRGINIA 'HEAL,' BUT SAYS FAIRFAX, HERRING MAY NEED TO RESIGN
The reward will be available to the first person who's able to provide a verifiable picture, the group noted.
Herring last month said he dressed in blackface once, and would accept "full responsibility for my conduct." While he resigned as co-chairman of the Democratic Attorneys General Association, he didn't resign as Virginia's attorney general.
His admission came as Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam and Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax, both Democrats, were embroiled in their own controversies.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
Herring called on Northam to resign after a pic of someone in blackface and another in a KKK costume was discovered in Northam's 1984 medical school yearbook.
Fairfax, next in line to be a governor, has been accused of sexual misconduct, which he has denied.
Herring would be next in line to be governor after Northam and Fairfax.
Fox News Alex Pappas' contributed to this report. | {
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Shark finning is banned completely in the European Union as of last Saturday. Oceana, an advocacy group working to protect the world’s oceans, announced last week that the EU had finally closed a loophole around shark finning that had stood since 2003 — a decade after the EU first placed a ban on the practice.
As The Inquisitr has previously reported, a study released in March by American and Canadian scientists showed that as many as 100 million sharks a year are being killed in the world’s oceans — a rate of slaughter that could lead to the extinction of multiple shark species.
At that time, Canada’s Dalhousie University, which participated in the research, said that commercial shark fishing — including the gruesome practice of shark finning — was responsible for the majority of the slaughter. Finning is the practice of cutting off the shark’s fins to sell for soup and then throwing the shark back in the ocean to die a slow death from blood loss.
Despite the EU’s 2003 shark finning ban, member states had previously allowed European nations to issue a special permit that allowed commercial vessels to fin the sharks as long as the practice was performed onboard the ships. As a result, Spanish and Portuguese vessels continued to fin sharks offshore where the numbers caught couldn’t be easily monitored.
In an Oceana statement, the group said:
“The EU catches sharks in the Atlantic, Indian, Mediterranean, and Pacific Oceans. It is the largest shark fishing power in the world (with 17% of reported shark catches in 2009), and is the largest exporter of shark fins to Hong Kong and mainland China. In closing these loopholes, the European Union effectively closes a major supply of shark fins, diminishing the shark fin market worldwide.”
A Reuters report said that the EU previously caught one-third of the shark fins sold to Hong Kong, the world center of the fin trade.
The Shark Alliance, another advocacy group which fought for the ban, had announced the successful vote on the shark finning ban last month. At that time, they noted that the shark finning ban wouldn’t come into effect until seven days after being published in the Official Journal of the European Union.
shark finning witnessed in 2011
Here is video about an earlier shark finning ban in Taiwan:
Here is a video which shows the practice of shark finning:
It probably isn’t difficult to see why many people fought to get the shark finning banned.
[2011 shark finning photo credit: kqedquest via photopin cc]
[shark finning top photo by Eliro via Shutterstock] | {
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WHAT IF is the story of medical school dropout Wallace, who's been repeatedly burned by bad relationships. So while everyone around him, including his roommate Allan seems to be finding the perfect partner, Wallace decides to put his love life on hold. It is then that he meets Chantry an animator who lives with her longtime boyfriend Ben. Wallace and Chantry form an instant connection, striking up a close friendship. Still, there is no denying the chemistry between them, leading the pair to wonder, what if the love of your life is actually your best friend? Written by CBS Films | {
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Hello and welcome to this episode of Physical Attraction. I’ve been excited about this for a while. Today, on the show, for the first time ever, we have not one but TWO guests, who have co-written an excellent book together. They are both currently researching nuclear fusion, and they have written a book about the future of fusion energy called… well, the Future of Fusion Energy.
Dr Justin Ball is currently studying plasma theory at Lausanne, and Jason Parisi works on turbulent transport in highly magnetized plasmas just a few buildings away from me here at the University of Oxford.
Their book is an excellent guide to the science, history, and future of fusion energy, and of real help in compiling the marathon efforts in the show so far, so I was excited to be able to grab both of them for an interview to talk about fusion. Since this comes after I’ve already been yakking about fusion for ages, the conversation does assume some knowledge of what nuclear fusion is, but should be easy to follow if you’ve listened to some of the episodes in this series already.
Thank you for listening to this episode of Physical Attraction. My guests were Justin Ball and Jason Parisi. If you’d like to find out more, please do get their book – The Future of Fusion Energy – which is a highly entertaining and informative read. They also both have websites in the same format – Justin-ball.com and Jason-Parisi.com – and they can both be found on Twitter if you’re into that sort of thing.
Remember, comments, questions, concerns, feedback, etc. can all be directed to me on Twitter at physicspod, or via the contact form on our website at www.physicspodcast.com – it’s always so wonderful to hear from listeners, and this is your chance to help me make the show as good as it can be! You can help us out by leaving a review on iTunes, purchasing past bonus episodes from the website, or just telling as many people as possible about the show to help spread the word if you like what we do.
Until next time, then, take care. | {
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Photos Loading... AI Earth: Colonisation - Part 4 - Snekbois and the Siege of Aaaaachen Jun 4–18, 2019 | {
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Typically Toyota rngine codes are as follows. eg 4AGE: 4 - 4th design revision, A - Engine Series, G - Wide valve performance design head typically from Yamaha, E - EFI eg 3SGE: 3 - 3rd design revision of S Engine, G- Performance Head, E - EFI. eg 4AFE: 4 the revision of A engine, F - Narrow angle valve layout for economy, E - EFI. A T later in the name means turbo, Like in 3SGTE - So thats 3rd revion of S engine, with performance head, turbo, and efi. Dont confuse this with the earlier series of Engines, the T engines, eg 3TC, 3TGTE which is the 3rd T engine desin with a carb or turbo efi respectively. Over time they added more codes for more features. A Z Later on in the name typically refers to a supercharger, eg 4AGZE. It gets weirder the later the motor, with most Toyota engines now featuring two letter model designations, Like UZ, ZZ, AZ, NZ, MZ, VZ, GR, GZ, JZ etc, and these typically are just engines produced after a certain date, but it gets confusing when they reuse letters that used to mean SC in the engine codes. Some new tech that came out got different designations in the name, for example, an gernerator tuned engine that a hybrid uses is Usually designated with an X, For example the camry hybrid 2AZFXE. The direct Injection motors are S designated, for example 2GRFSE. If thats all clear as mud then factor in how enhusiasts like to build and name their own combos, from which weve seen things like the 1.5JZ, for the man who wants more power but wont upgrade turbo, heads and manfolds on his 1JZ build, or the 7age, Which is the 1.8A 4AF engine with the GE head. This is extra confusing with the 4age aftermarket, because an original takao special 7ag is just specific build of 4a 1600 that revs super high, but a later enthusiast will think its 1.8 litres. So yeah long answer to what should have been a simple question. Heres a pic of the Beams 6 speed, the starter is in a good spot at least at first glance its on the inlet side of the engine, so if its in the right spot compared to the block you could do what I have done and just chop away some extra block and give yourself the clearance you need. To be honest, a 6 speed would be a nice addition because it has the power to highway drive an ae86 at 1800rpm but it does 2900 at 100kph. Even with a 3.58 rear end gearset. You could run 3.9 or 4.1 gears and be perfectly happy with it, and make the engine haul the IS body around a bit more spritely when youre not in overdrive. To clarify my comments, the 6 cylinder G engine in the Altezza shares the pattern with the older T engine, which makes your transmission an upgrade for older corolla and celica platform cars, E and A chassis codes, that had a T engine. So thats who could use your box aside from an altezza G engine owner. I'd suggest to offload the G box and swap it for the S pattern 6 speed from the RS200 altezza, and then the 2azfe would at least connect to the box thats in the car, and you can start investigating clearances for inlet, exhaist, steering, crossmembers etc. | {
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I no longer feel bad about my ancestors taking slaves from Africa They gave their black descendants a better place to live
364 shares | {
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Во вторник 10 февраля президент США Барак Обама позвонил президенту РФ Владимиру Путину с целью обсудить эскалацию насилия в восточной Украине и продолжающуюся поддержку сепаратистов со стороны России.Президент Обама вновь подчеркнул, что Соединенные Штаты выступают в поддержку суверенитета и территориальной целостности Украины.
Он указал на растущее количество жертв в результате военных действий и подчеркнул важность того, чтобы президент Путин использовал возможность, представляющуюся в связи с продолжающимся обсуждением с участием России, Франции, Германии и Украины, направленным на достижение мирного разрешения конфликта.
Президент подчеркнул значение достижения и претворения в жизнь обсуждаемого на переговорах соглашения на основе приверженности Минским соглашениям. Вместе с тем президент Обама отметил, что если Россия продолжит агрессивные действия в Украине, в том числе отправку войск, вооружений и финансовых средств в поддержку сепаратистов, то цена, которую придется заплатить Москве, будет расти. | {
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Located just south of Mount Ararat, in Eastern Turkey, is a fridge fresh water body of water named Van Lake. The lake its self sits approximately 5,160 feet, more than one mile, above sea level, and was created during the Pleistocene era when volcanoes Sipan and Nemrut violently erupted creating a hardened magma wall in the Van basin. This newly formed wall blocked westward drainage to the Murat River and over time formed what is know known as Van Lake. One of the most unique bodies of water found on earth today, Van Lake�s tide levels rise tremendously every year, transforming peninsulas into islands and enriching the lakes waters with sodium carbonate and other salts which ordinarily would have been extracted by evaporation. Even more unique than the lake its self may be the resent eyewitness reports of what is now known as the Van Lake Monster. The Van Lake Monster first came to international attention in a Daily Telegraph article, which was dated November 2, 1995. The article read:
"Turkish authorities are sending investigators to the country's largest lake to look for what witnesses have described as a dinosaur-like monster. A parliamentary commission has agreed to send a search party designed to unveil Turkey's version of the Loch Ness Monster, after the provincial deputy governor claimed to have seen it." Unlike other lake cyrptids, it would appear that the Van Lake Monster does not have a long history in the region; in fact, the earliest known encounters with the creature come from the same year as the 1995 newspaper article. The only historical evidence of the creature appears to be persistent rumors regarding an ancient engraving, discovered in a small church on one of Lake Van's four islands, which is said to accurately depict the features of the creature in the lake. Said to be some 50 feet in length, with dark, mottled skin, two small eyes situated on top of its head and sharp triangular humps on its back, the Van Lake Monster has been described by hundreds of eyewitnesses as being almost �prehistoric� in appearance. In 1997 a short video clip of the creature was shot by 26 year old Van University teaching assistant, Unal Kozak. This Controversial video has baffled researchers as to the identification of the creature in the film. Some claim to have seen a beak; others seem positive it is nothing more than a swimming elephant, where as skeptics refuse to see anything other than a pile of garbage bags being dragged through the deep waters of the lake. In late 1997 the film was aired on CNN and since then has become the center of a firestorm of cryptozoological controversy. The Turkish scientific community is at a loss to explain the identity and origin of the animal and Biology professor at Ataturk University in Erzurum, Orhan Erman, claims that there is nothing that even remotely resembles the Van Lake Monster capable of living in the lake, stating "It is simply not possible for a creature of the size claimed by witnesses to live in a closed lake like Van." Despite what the experts may say, hundreds of eyewitness has come forward in the last ten years claiming to have seen something in the lake. Those who have photographed the creature, including Kozak, who has become a local expert on the animal, even writing a book on the creature, have not hesitated to allow their images to be examined and scrutinized by marine biologists of the prestigious Cambridge University, as well as the renowned oceanographer Jacques Cousteau. It is this willingness to expose their evidence and themselves before such impeccable academic researchers that leads some skeptics to claim that the Van Lake Monster is nothing more than an attempt to boost local tourism. The Evidence
No physical evidence of the Van Lake Monster exists to this day, eyewitness reports and small amount photographic evidence; including Kozak�s video are all we have to suggest an unknown creature lives in Van Lake. The fast that Kozak�s video was aired on CNN gives a little more hope that something strange and unknown does lurk in the murky depths of the lake. The Sightings
1997, Unal Kozak films what is to become one of the most controversial lake monster video in cryptozoological history. The Stats � (Where applicable) � Classification: Lake Monster
� Size: Approximately 50 feet long
� Weight: Unknown
� Diet: Unknown
� Location: Van Lake, Turkey
� Movement: Swimming
� Environment: Sodium Enriched Glacial Lake Water
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A woman in the United Kingdom claims she has undergone what is known as “fetal repair” surgery after learning about her baby's diagnosis of spina bifida, a birth defect that affects the spine.
Bethan Simpson, of Maldon, Essex, was informed that her unborn daughter Eloise has spina bifida in December. At that time, Simpson said she was given three options: “continuing pregnancy, ending [the] pregnancy or a new option called fetal surgery - fixing her before she is born,” she wrote on Facebook.
X-RAY OF MOM'S ABDOMEN REVEALS IUD THAT 'FELL OUT' A DECADE EARLIER: REPORT
The 26-year-old mom-to-be chose the third option — making her “one of the few” women in the U.K. to undergo the procedure to correct the defect, according to the BBC. Simpson claimed on Facebook she is the fourth woman in the country to undergo the surgery.
Spina bifida “occurs when the spine and spinal cord don't form properly,” according to the Mayo Clinic.
“It falls under the broader category of neural tube defects. The neural tube is the embryonic structure that eventually develops into the baby's brain and spinal cord and the tissues that enclose them,” the Mayo Clinic explains.
But when a portion of the neural tube doesn’t develop or close properly, it causes “defects in the spinal cord and in the bones of the spine.”
There are various types of the condition and its severity varies. In the U.S., specifically, spina bifida occurs between an estimated 1,500 and 2,000 babies out of the roughly 4 million births each year, according to the National Organization for Rare Disorders.
For Simpson, after she and Eloise were approved for the pioneering surgery — a process Simpson described as a “roller coaster" — doctors spent roughly four hours correcting the baby’s defect. They opened Simpson’s womb to expose Eloise's bottom. From there, they "sewed up" the small gap in the baby’s lower spine and also repositioned her spinal cord, the BBC reported.
“We were a success. Her lesion was small and she smashed surgery like you wouldn't believe,” Simpson, who was 24 weeks along at the time of the surgery, later wrote on Facebook.
“I'm fragile and sore but as long as she is doing fine that's all we care about,” she continued, adding, “They took her out of my womb and popped her straight back in to stay there as long as she can.”
Dominic Thompson, a neurosurgeon who led the surgery, told the outlet the procedure is “not a cure,” but noted that previous trials have indicated “the outlook can be a lot better with surgery early on.”
In fact, according to the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, “fetal surgery for spina bifida greatly reduces the need to divert fluid from the brain, improves mobility and improves the chances that a child will be able to walk independently.”
FDA ALERTS MORE DOCTORS OF RARE CANCER WITH BREAST IMPLANTS
Simpson considers her daughter, who is due in April, to be “extra special.”
“I feel our baby kick me day in and day out. That's never changed. She's extra special. She's part of history and our daughter has shown just how much she deserves this life,” she wrote. | {
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Riaan Scheepers Case Update : 2017-12-01
Alexandria Detectives made a breakthrough today after working around the clock and vigorously pursuing the investigation. A male aged 24 was arrested and is currently in custody. Brigadier Morgan Govender the Cluster Commander of Port Alfred commended the investigation team and said: “The community is commended for their assistance and information supplied. Our investigations are still continuing and any person with additional information to contact the Detective Commander Captain Leon Els.”
Several items of clothing, as well as the victim’s cell phone, was recovered. These exhibits will all be forwarded for further forensic analysis.
The suspect will appear in the Alexandria Magistrates court on Monday.
Brent McNamara, Chairman of Alexandria Agricultural Association commented as follows: The Alexandria Agricultural Association would like to express it’s heartfelt thanks to the SAPS investigation team led by Capt Leon Els for the manner in which they have tackled this investigation. Our thanks also goes out to the community who have provided input to date and who we urge to continue to forward any further information to ensure that a successful conviction of the perpetrators is obtained. – Agri Eastern Cape
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Abstract Pigeon ‘milk’ and mammalian milk have functional similarities in terms of nutritional benefit and delivery of immunoglobulins to the young. Mammalian milk has been clearly shown to aid in the development of the immune system and microbiota of the young, but similar effects have not yet been attributed to pigeon ‘milk’. Therefore, using a chicken model, we investigated the effect of pigeon ‘milk’ on immune gene expression in the Gut Associated Lymphoid Tissue (GALT) and on the composition of the caecal microbiota. Chickens fed pigeon ‘milk’ had a faster rate of growth and a better feed conversion ratio than control chickens. There was significantly enhanced expression of immune-related gene pathways and interferon-stimulated genes in the GALT of pigeon ‘milk’-fed chickens. These pathways include the innate immune response, regulation of cytokine production and regulation of B cell activation and proliferation. The caecal microbiota of pigeon ‘milk’-fed chickens was significantly more diverse than control chickens, and appears to be affected by prebiotics in pigeon ‘milk’, as well as being directly seeded by bacteria present in pigeon ‘milk’. Our results demonstrate that pigeon ‘milk’ has further modes of action which make it functionally similar to mammalian milk. We hypothesise that pigeon ‘lactation’ and mammalian lactation evolved independently but resulted in similarly functional products.
Citation: Gillespie MJ, Stanley D, Chen H, Donald JA, Nicholas KR, Moore RJ, et al. (2012) Functional Similarities between Pigeon ‘Milk’ and Mammalian Milk: Induction of Immune Gene Expression and Modification of the Microbiota. PLoS ONE 7(10): e48363. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0048363 Editor: Henri Salmon, INRA, UR1282, France Received: May 15, 2012; Accepted: September 24, 2012; Published: October 26, 2012 Copyright: © 2012 Gillespie et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Funding: MG was supported by Deakin University and CSIRO PhD scholarships. This study was funded by CSIRO. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
Introduction Pigeon ‘milk’ is a substance produced in the crop of both male and female pigeons for the nourishment of their young. Similarly, male and female flamingos [1] and male emperor penguins [2] can produce crop ‘milk’, but there is a paucity of information available about these processes. Like mammalian lactation, pigeon ‘milk’ production is regulated by the lactogenic hormone prolactin [3]. The resulting pigeon crop ‘milk’ consists of lipid-filled, protein rich keratinocytes that have proliferated and separated from the germinal epithelium of the crop sac to form a curd-like substance that is regurgitated to the squab [4]. This cheesy substance also contains bacteria [5]. Like mammalian milk, pigeon ‘milk’ is highly nutritious, consisting of protein (60%), fat (32–36%), carbohydrate (1–3%) and minerals (calcium, potassium, sodium and phosphorus) [6]; it also contains IgA antibodies [7]. Interestingly, if squabs are fed a nutritional replacement of pigeon ‘milk’ they die or fail to thrive [8], which suggests that there are factors aside from nutrition in pigeon ‘milk’ that influence development of the young. Like mammalian milk components, these factors in pigeon ‘milk’ may play a role in immune development. Mammalian milk can modulate the development of the immune system directly, by delivering immune molecules such as immunoglobulins and cytokines [9], [10], and indirectly by influencing the microbiota through prebiotics [11]. The bacterial composition of the gut of breast fed infants is very different to formula fed infants, as it is influenced by prebiotics in the breast milk [12]. Similarly, the gut microbial composition of mother-fed piglets differs to formula-fed piglets [13]. These differences in microbiota are significant as it has been shown that the gut microflora of the developing infant can play a role in the developing immune system [14] and in energy and nutrient capture [15]. The first contact between the immune system and the gut microflora is by the Gut Associated Lymphoid Tissue (GALT), which comprises the largest lymphoid tissue mass in the human body [16]. The GALT is also the largest site of IgA production in the body, synthesising over 60% of all IgA produced [16]. Development of IgA B cells is dependent on microbial colonisation [17], and consequently, colostrum contains high levels of IgA [9], as the infant has not yet established a microbiome to facilitate production of IgA. Not only does mammalian milk modulate the microbiota of the developing infant and provide copious amounts of IgA, it also contains a gamut of other immune modulators that contribute to the immune protection of the immunologically naive infant by either modulating development of the immune system or providing passive immunity [18]. At birth, the human infant is deficient in certain cytokines and cells of the myeloid lineage, and others have impaired function [19], which renders the infant reliant on maternal passive immunity and on milk components that aid in the development of the immune system. These components include cytokines, chemokines and colony stimulating factors [20], as well as maternally-derived immune cells [21], [22]. A breast fed human infant consumes an estimated 108 immune cells per day, which consist of 55–60% macrophages, 30–40% neutrophils and 5–10% lymphocytes [21], [22]. Other beneficial substances found in milk include hormones such as epidermal growth factor [23], [24], enzymes such as lysozyme (which also has antimicrobial activity) [25], and other antimicrobial proteins such as lactoferrin [26], [27]. Pigeon ‘milk’ has been shown to contain a number of bioactive proteins including IgA [7], a pigeon ‘milk’ growth factor with biological activity similar to epidermal growth factor [28], [29], and transferrin [30], a glycoprotein with a similar sequence and structure to lactoferrin [31]. In addition, it has been shown that chickens fed pigeon ‘milk’ had a higher rate of growth than chickens not receiving pigeon ‘milk’ [32], [33], which could be attributed to the increased caloric intake and/or the beneficial effect of bacteria and bioactive molecules in pigeon ‘milk’. However, there have been no studies explicitly examining whether pigeon ‘milk’ can modulate immune tissues. Previous studies in chickens have shown that bacteria is important for the development of the GALT [34]. Here we test the hypothesis that pigeon ‘milk’ will alter the intestinal microbiota and effect expression of genes in the GALT. We show that pigeon ‘milk’-fed chickens had a different microbial composition in their caeca to control chickens, and they also showed significant enrichment of immune-related genes among genes differentially expressed in GALT tissues.
Discussion This is the first study to investigate the effects of pigeon ‘milk’ on intestinal microbiota and gut gene expression. Our results demonstrate that, like mammalian milk, PM modulates the development of both the gut immune system and the gut microbiota. Pigeon ‘lactation’ and mammalian lactation, although produced by very different biological processes (one being a secretive process and the other a cellular exudate), have resulted in similarly functional products. Mammalian milk fulfils the needs of the developing young both nutritionally and immunologically. Here, we have shown that PM also appears to fulfil both these roles, as immune-related genes are significantly enriched in the gut of PM-fed chickens and there are significant differences between the microbiota of PM-fed chickens and control chickens. A previous study found that pigeons fed a nutritional replacement of PM died or failed to thrive [8], so in order to make a comparison between newly hatched young that were fed PM and those that received a control diet, we used chickens, which are precocial and do not require any parental care. Previous studies have investigated the rate of growth of PM-fed chickens, reporting large increases in growth without any ill effects [32], [33]. Despite the great advances of the past decades in chicken breeding, which have provided massive gains in growth performance, the modern broiler chickens in our study still showed a significant improvement in growth when fed PM. A nutritional replacement of PM had no significant affect on chicken growth (Figure S1). PM-fed chickens had a 12.5% higher body mass than control chickens, but they were not significantly taller or with longer leg span (Table 1). Interestingly, there was an altered body composition, with the proportion of breast muscle to body mass significantly greater (23%) in PM-fed chickens (Table 1) which could suggest that the increased rate of growth is not only attributable to the slightly higher caloric intake of the PM-fed chickens. It could also be influenced by growth hormones such as Pigeon Milk Growth Factor (PMGF) [28] and/or bioactive molecules and bacteria in the PM. This study has shown that, like mammalian milk, PM clearly influences the composition of the caecal microbiota. PM-fed chickens had a more diverse microbiota than control chickens at the level of phylum, class, order, family and genus (Table 3). Pigeon ‘milk’ could be a source of both probiotics and prebiotics. Three genera of bacteria were present in PM-fed chickens but not controls; Subdoligranulum, Sutterella and Veillonella (Table 3). Of these three genera, Veillonella and Sutterella were also present in PM but not control chickens (Table 4). Only one OTU, closest to the culturable isolate Bacteroides paurosaccharolyticus, was shared between control chickens and PM, but it was present in very low abundance in control chickens (0.06 as compared to 54.22 in PM)(Table 4), suggesting that the apparent absence in PM-fed chickens could simply be a depth of sampling issue. Species of Veillonella, one of the two genera shared by PM and PM-fed chickens, has been characterised as having inhibitory activity against the enteropathogenic bacterial species Listeria monocytogenes [35], Salmonella Typhimurium [36], and Salmonella Enteritidis [37]. It is to that end that Veillonella is included in a probiotic product designed for poultry [38], which suggests that Veillonella species could be important probiotics in pigeon ‘milk’. All four of the Veillonella species shared by PM and PM-fed chickens have a 16S rRNA sequence divergence of more than 3% from the closest cultured isolate (Table 4), which suggests that the Veillonella species present in PM and PM-fed chickens could be novel species [39]. In addition, the Sutterella species shared by PM and PM-fed chickens is more than 3% divergent from the closest culturable isolate (Table 4), so it is also likely to be a novel species. The variation in microbiota between PM-fed and control chickens and the relatively modest overlap in shared species between the PM and PM-fed chickens indicates that the PM is likely to be exerting its influence more by prebiotic effects rather than by the direct seeding of new microbiota. The presence of oligosaccharides in pigeon ‘milk’ [40] is indicative of one class of potential prebiotic. Composition of Lactobacillus populations varied greatly between groups, with PM-fed chickens having a more diverse Lactobacillus population than control chickens (Figure 3). This could be due to putative PM prebiotics, as there are many species of Lactobacillus that are amenable to the addition of prebiotics [41], [42]. In addition, there were more bacteria that were unclassified at the phylum level in PM-fed chickens (3.052%) than control chickens (0.354%) that could be potentially novel bacteria, some of which could be important in the functional modulation of the gut by PM. Changes in gut microbiota can modulate the immune capabilities of the GALT, particularly by modulating IgA B cell development [17]. Consequently, the up-regulation of IgA heavy chain mRNA in the GALT of PM-fed chickens (Figure 1) and the up-regulation of various other genes implicated in immune processes (Table S1, Table S3) suggests that there could be modulation of the PM-fed chicken GALT by the microbiota. Gene ontology processes that were significantly enriched in GALT tissues of PM-fed chickens included the innate immune response, regulation of cytokine production and regulation of B cell activation and proliferation (Table S1), which are all suggestive of an immune effect of PM. Aside from the effect of microbiota, this could also be due to the effects of other as yet unidentified PM components such as cytokines and other bioactive peptides. In a study where chickens were given different bacterial inocula from chicken caeca, there was no up-regulation of any immune pathways or groups in the chicken GALT [43], which, aside from the differences in PM bacteria and chicken caecal bacteria, could suggest that PM modulates GALT development with immunomodulatory components that are in addition to the microbiota. Six ISGs are up-regulated in the ileum of PM-fed chickens, and ten in the caecal tonsil (Table 2). Four of these ISGs are also differentially expressed in breast-fed versus formula-fed infants [44]. In the chicken, these ISGs could have multiple interferon inducers from PM, including hormones. Two of the ISGs up-regulated in PM-fed chickens have been identified as targets of prolactin (interferon regulatory factor 1)[45] and the prolactin receptor (2′-5′-oligoadenylate synthetase)[46] which could suggest that, like mammalian milk [47], [48], PM production is not only induced by prolactin, but prolactin could be delivered to the young through the milk. Interestingly, four of the ISGs up-regulated in the caecal tonsil have antiviral activity (Table 2), which indicates PM may confer antiviral activity, which is again, functionally similar to mammalian milk [49], [50]. It is possible that the up-regulation of some of these immune genes is a response by the chicken to foreign antigens in the PM. However, the increase in body mass and bacterial diversity indicates PM is having a more beneficial effect on the chicken. PM and mammalian milk both have nutritional and immune modulatory components, and the ability to modulate the microbiota of the gut. This is fascinating from an evolutionary point of view when one considers that mammals and birds evolved these processes independently. To this end, it would be interesting to investigate other bird species that have altricial young, as it may reveal additional ‘lactating’ bird species that were previously thought to be regurgitating seeds or insects to their young. This would allow comparative studies that could elucidate the evolutionary pressures that resulted in birds producing crop ‘milk’. Additionally, this would make for an interesting comparison with the evolutionary history of mammalian lactation.
Conclusions This study is the first to investigate the effects of pigeon ‘milk’ on the GALT and gut microbiota. Gene expression in the GALT of PM-fed chickens was significantly enriched with immune-related pathways, in particular ISGs, other components of the innate immune response, regulation of cytokine production and regulation of B cell activation and proliferation. The microbiota of PM-fed chickens was significantly more diverse than control chickens, and appears to be effected by prebiotics in pigeon ‘milk’, as well as being directly seeded by bacteria present in PM. Taken together, these results suggest that PM is more functionally similar to mammalian milk than was previously thought. PM and mammalian milk both have nutritional and immune modulatory components, and the ability to modulate the microbiota of the gut. This is fascinating from an evolutionary point of view when one considers that mammals and birds evolved these processes independently.
Methods Ethics statement All work using animals was conducted in accordance with the Australian Code of Practise for the Care and Use of Animals for Scientific Purposes (7th edition), and in accordance with institutional animal ethics guidelines (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) Australian Animal Health Laboratory (AAHL) Animal Ethics Committee approval numbers 1289,1357 and 1446; and Deakin University Animal Ethics Committee approval numbers AEX56/2008 and AEX57/2008). Collection of pigeon ‘milk’ Breeding pairs of King pigeons were purchased from Kooyong Squab Producers (Moama, New South Wales, Australia) and housed in temperature controlled cabinets (between 21°C to 24°C) with a 12 hour light cycle (lights on 6 am). They were supplied with nest bowls and materials and had ad libitum access to pigeon mix (pro-vit-min, Ivorsons, Geelong, Australia) and water. Pigeons were allowed to breed, and were culled, along with their squabs, at either the time the squab hatched, or 2 days after the squab hatched. Pigeon ‘milk’ was collected from the crop of the parents and the squabs into sterile 2 mL tubes and frozen at −80°C until use. Samples were thawed at 4°C and pooled before use. Chicken husbandry Sixteen newly hatched male Ross308 chickens were purchased from a commercial supplier (Bartter Enterprises, Bannockburn, Victoria, Australia). They were randomly assigned into 2 groups, wing-tagged for identification and weighed. The chicks were housed in separate cages within the same cabinet, to prevent access to the other group’s feed. Heat lamps were provided at one side of each cage to establish a temperature gradient. To keep the pigeon ‘milk’ fresh, the chicks were fed three times a day by mixing the pigeon ‘milk’ into a pre-weighed amount of antibiotic-free chicken feed (Country Heritage Feeds OPO05, Queensland, Australia), which was placed on a tray in the cage. Before each feed the amount of feed consumed by each group was calculated. Each chicken received on average 5 grams of pigeon ‘milk’ per day for 7 days. A subsequent trial investigating the effect of the protein and fat components of pigeon ‘milk’ was set up as described above, where the replacement pigeon ‘milk’ consisted of peptone proteose (Becton Dickson, Australia) equivalent to 45% and pig lard (Fonterra, Australia) equivalent to 11%. These were chosen as they had the most similar amino acid and fatty acid compositions to pigeon ‘milk’. Chicken measurements and sample collection Body mass of each chicken was determined on day 4. The chickens were culled after 7 days and their final weight was recorded. The following measurements were taken: from the top of the cranium to the cloaca (height), from the end of the furthermost wing digit on the left to the furthermost digit on the right (wing span), and from the patella to the posterior end of the tarsometatarsus (leg span). The breast muscle was removed from the breast bone with a scalpel and weighed. The caecal tonsils and ileum (adjacent to the caecal tonsils) were removed and collected in RNALater (Invitrogen) and frozen at −20°C until RNA extraction. The contents of the cecum was collected in sterile 5 mL containers and frozen at −20°C until DNA extraction. Statistical analysis of chicken body measurements A statistical comparison of control and PM-fed chicken body measurements was performed with an unpaired t-test. Average percent body mass gain of PM-fed and PM replacement-fed chickens was calculated by normalising the weight gain of each experimental group chicken to the median weight gain of the corresponding control group chickens. A Kruskal-Wallis test with Dunns post-hoc test was used to identify any statistically significant difference in body mass gain between control, PM-fed and PM replacement-fed chickens. RNA isolation, labelling and microarray hybridisation RNA was extracted from the caecal tonsil and ileum tissue of 6 control and 6 PM-fed chickens (mean weights) using a Cartagen RNA extraction kit (Inbio, Eltham, Australia) according to the manufacturer's instructions. cDNA was synthesised from 5 µg RNA using SuperScript III (Invitrogen) with oligo dt primer. This was purified with a Qiagen PCR Purification Kit and labelled with Cy3 using a Roche One-Color DNA Labelling Kit according to the manufacturer's instructions. The labelled microarray probes were resuspended with a sample tracking control and hybridisation buffer and loaded on 12-plex 135 k custom chicken microarrays (NimbleGen design #10309). The array contains 65,850 probes printed in duplicate, of which there are 32,357 probes with unique UniGene IDs. Most unique genes have 2 or more probes. Information on the custom array is available from ArrayExpress using the accession number A-MEXP-2133. These were hybridised for 20 hours in a NimbleGen Hybridisation Station (Roche) at 42°C and then washed using the NimbleGen wash buffer kit (Roche) according to the manufacturer's instructions. Each subarray was scanned at 2 µm on autogain with a NimbleGen MS200 microarray scanner (Roche). Microarray quality control and statistical analysis Sample tracking controls and control spots were used to autoalign a grid over each subarray using NimbleGen MS200 software (Roche), and Robust Multichip Average (RMA) analysis [51] was used to background correct and normalise the spot signal intensity. The datasets, along with probe annotation information, were exported into GeneSpring (Agilent) and differentially expressed genes were identified using Student's t-test, assuming unequal variances, with a false discovery rate of p = 0.05. Control ileum was compared to PM-fed ileum, and control caecal tonsil was compared to PM-fed caecal tonsil. All results have been deposited into the ArrayExpress database with accession number E-MTAB-1127. IgA expression analysis The relative expression level of the IgA heavy chain (probe CLIGG_34917) was calculated from the RMA normalised spot signal intensity by dividing each probe by the total probe intensity and multiplying by 10 million. The relative signal intensity in the ileum and caecal tonsil for PM-fed chickens and control chickens was subjected to an unpaired t-test, and the mean and standard error of the mean was calculated and graphed using GraphPad5. Gene functional analysis The DAVID functional annotation tool [52] was used to identify pathways and biological functions up-regulated in the caecal tonsil and ileum in association with pigeon ‘milk’. An ease score of 0.05 was used to determine enriched Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathways and Gene Ontology (GO) FAT biological functions. Interferon-stimulated genes were functionally annotated using the Interferon Stimulated Gene Database [53] and/or a literature search. Caecal DNA extraction and 16S amplification Total DNA was extracted from caecal contents as per the method of Yu and Morrison [54]. DNA quality and quantity was measured on a NanoDrop ND-1000 spectrophotometer. The V1-V3 region of bacterial 16S rRNA was amplified from caecal DNA following the method of Stanley et al using the primers and conditions previously detailed [55]. High throughput 16S amplicon sequencing and data pre-processing The amplified 16S rRNA gene samples from each bird were pooled using approximately equal amounts of each PCR product. The pooled sample was sequenced using the Roche/454 FLX Genome Sequencer and Titanium chemistry according to the manufacturer's instructions. Sff files were split into fasta and qual files using PyroBayes [56], and data was analysed with Qiime v1.3.0 software [57], except for OTU picking, denoising and chimera detection which was done using Otupipe [58]. Two samples (C1 and C3) were removed from analysis due to low sequence numbers per sample. Additional filtering of samples was performed to remove OTUs present in less than 3 samples or with less than 5 sequences. The default Qiime analysis parameters were used except as follows: sequence length 300–600 bases, no ambiguous sequences allowed, maximum of 6 homopolymers and classification by RDP. OTU sequences have been deposited in the European Molecular Biology Laboratory EMBL-Bank with accession numbers HE814242-HE814562. Network analysis of OTUs Filtered, multiple rarefied OTU abundance data was used to generate a network of shared OTUs in Cytoscape v2.8. Analysis of bacteria that are differentially abundant in the cecum of PM-fed chickens and control chickens Raw filtered OTU reads for each control chicken and PM-fed chicken sample were imported into Metastats [59] for statistical analysis, using 1000 permutations, to identify OTUs that were differentially abundant between control chickens and PM-fed chickens. OTUs were considered differentially abundant if the p value was less than 0.05. Identification of shared OTUs in PM, ctrl and PM-fed chickens OTUs were called as present if the filtered, multiple rarefied count was greater than zero. For shared OTUs, the representative OTU sequence was uploaded to EZTaxon [60] and the closest cultured isolate was identified.
Acknowledgments The authors would like to thank Kate Goossens and Sarah Fardy for their assistance with sample collection, and Nic Kieselbach and Adam Stein for pigeon and chicken husbandry. Thank you to Susanne Wilson for animal husbandry and assistance with chicken feeding, sample measurement and collection. Thank you to Leona McLaren from Kooyong Squab for supplying the pigeons.
Author Contributions Conceived and designed the experiments: MG TC. Performed the experiments: MG TC RM HC. Analyzed the data: MG DS. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: MG TC RM DS. Wrote the paper: MG. Contributed to formulation of ideas: RM JD KN. | {
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When matter is compressed beyond a certain density, a black hole is created. It is called black because no light can escape from it. Some black holes are the tombstones of what were once massive stars. An enormous black hole is thought to lurk at the center of the Milky Way galaxy.
All the mass of a black hole is concentrated into a point at its center called the singularity. Gravity surrounding the singularity is so strong, you would have to travel faster than light to escape. This creates a spherical zone surrounding the singularity called the event horizon from which nothing can escape.
At about one and a half times the diameter of the event horizon, photons become trapped in circular orbits around the black hole. [Gallery: Black Holes of the Universe]
All the mass of a black hole is concentrated into a point at its center called the singularity. Gravity surrounding the singularity is so strong, you would have to travel faster than light to escape. This creates a spherical zone surrounding the singularity called the event horizon from which nothing can escape.
In theory, a black hole of any size could exist. A black hole with the mass of our sun would be 3.7 miles (6 km) in diameter. In practice, the death of a star like the sun does not compress the material enough to form a black hole. Stars with about two times the sun’s mass or more form black holes. Astronomers recognize two major types. [The Strangest Black Holes in the Universe]
Stellar-mass black holes have the mass of several sun-sized stars. They form when a dying star explodes in a supernova, then collapses under its own gravity. Matter drawn toward the black hole forms an accretion disc.
Supermassive black holes can have billions of times our sun’s mass. Matter drawn toward a supermassive black hole is compressed, heats up and may be blasted out into jets thousands of light-years long.
Stellar-mass black holes are scattered throughout the galaxy. A supermassive black hole lies at the core of many galaxies, including our own. The Milky Way’s supermassive black hole is called SgrA* (Sagittarius A-star), and it is seen from Earth in the constellation Sagittarius. The supermassive black hole is about 26,000 light-years away, and has a mass of at least 4 million times the mass of our sun.
The powerful gravity of a black hole distorts light, space and time. One effect is gravitational lensing. A black hole between us and a distant galaxy will bend the rays of light, causing our view of the galaxy to be warped. We have yet to photograph a black hole in detail, but simulations suggest that the supermassive black hole at the Milky Way’s center might appear to be a distorted crescent.
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Fordi kønnet er den stærkeste identitetsmarkør for de fleste af os, bliver vi aldrig færdige med at diskutere mænd og kvinder og ligestilling. Heldigvis. Som alle efterhånden ved, har hvide akademikermænd, som undertegnede, uendeligt mange privilegier. Dem vil jeg her benytte til at kritisere dansk feminisme.
Det er muligvis ikke velkomment, men det er faktisk kærligt ment, for jeg anser mig selv for at være feminist og med på holdet. Godt nok en håbløst gammeldags en af slagsen, der aldrig kom videre end et sted mellem første og anden bølge. Altså ligeløn, lige repræsentation, far frem i bussen på børnefronten, mor ud på arbejdsmarkedet og fri sex til alle.
Jeg identificerer mig med andre ord mest med den historiske ligestillingsbevægelse og kan derfor se nogle punkter, hvor jeg oplever den nye feministiske debat og feministgeneration fejler. Here it goes:
1. Akademia som herskerteknik
Feminismen er blevet alt for akademisk, og de mange knudrede begreber gør det svært for lægmand (og her er der ikke særligt tryk på mand) at forstå, hvad der bliver sagt. De fleste feministiske debatter har et lixtal højere end en doktorafhandling. Det er vigtigt med forskning, så vi kan få kvalificeret viden og højne debatten, men som gode forskere ved, så er formidling lige så vigtig. Hvor er feminismens hverdagssprog blevet af?
Det er vigtigt med forskning, så vi kan få kvalificeret viden og højne debatten, men som gode forskere ved, så er formidling lige så vigtig. Hvor er feminismens hverdagssprog blevet af?
Feminister har tradition for at påpege brugen af herskerteknikker, men er ofte blinde for, hvordan det også er en herskerteknik at skabe et særligt sprog, som kun de indviede behersker. Hvis du ikke ved, hvad en mansplainende TERF, der blackfacer og er skyldig i kulturel appropriation er, så har du bare at være god til Google. For du får ikke nogen forklaringer serveret af dine meddebattører (hvis du da overhovedet tør spørge). Det er nemlig ikke deres opgave at oplyse dig. Nå.
2. Politisk rød slagside
De fleste feminister er venstreorienterede og har svært ved at acceptere andet. Men ved at undlade at inddrage de borgerlige i projektet, gør de sig selv svage. Det ses f.eks. ved regeringens kommende lukning af KVINFO, der skal forestille at være et neutralt forskningsbibliotek, men af alle opfattes som venstrefløjsprojekt.
Om man er til numse-twerk og 4. bølge-feminister eller ej, så er man nødt til at anerkende, at der findes borgerlige feminister. Det kan godt være, at de kalder sig noget andet, men så er det, fordi de ikke kan se sig selv i den eksisterende bevægelse. Det er der sikkert nogle blodrøde damer, der vil se som en sejr, for ’ingen kvindekamp uden klassekamp’. Men politik handler om at bygge alliancer, og sagen er bare, at man ikke kan ignorere eller buhe af de blå kvinder. For når de har regeringsmagten, kommer de og stryger de offentlige tilskud.
Om man er til numse-twerk og 4. bølge-feminister eller ej, så er man nødt til at anerkende, at der findes borgerlige feminister
3. Uforsonlig sekteriskhed
Feminister kan være nådesløse over for hinanden. Der skal ikke trædes meget ved siden af, før man frakendes enhver hæder og ære. Eksempler på feminist-kættersker er den dansk-afghanske forfatter og debattør Geeti Amiri, og Politikens debatredaktør Ditte Giese.
Begge kvinder har stukket snuden frem og blandet sig i debatter, som de færreste magter, og de har gjort reelle forskelle på hvert deres felt. Amiri har med høj røst gjort opmærksom på det negative kvindesyn og den kønsbestemte sociale kontrol, der eksisterer i nogle muslimske miljøer. Bum - dømt som islamofob og ’husmuslim’ for højrefløjen. Ditte Gieses brøde bestod i, at hun til en ligestillings-legatuddeling (af sine egne penge) kom til at sige, at der fandtes to køn. Og så havde hun tilmed været klædt ud som kineser som barn.
Dommen har været nådesløs, og Giese er nu synonym med ’white feminism’ (som er meget skidt, forstås), racisme og transfobi, hvilket fik de ultra sekteriske FedFront-aktivister til at trække sig fra prisuddelingen. Man kan selvsagt være uenig med både Amiri og Giese, men udskamningen og karaktermordet er jo helt ude af proportioner og medvirkende til, at det kun er de allermest fanatiske og sammenbidte, der kan holde feminismedebatten ud.
4. Manglende identifikation
Feminister findes i alle former og farver. Men der er en tendens til, at dem, der tegner bevægelsen, er androgyne universitetstyper med playmobil-hår og sære interesser. Hvor er ’hverdagens helte’, som forholder sig til helt almindelige dagligdagsproblemer?
Jeg er med på, at medierne bærer et vist medansvar her ved at give ordet til de mest spøjse typer, men ved at gå i de mindste sko og lege sprogpoliti, når nogen kommer til at sige eskimo i stedet for 'racegjort person' eller ’kvinde’ i stedet for ’ciskvinde’, kommer feministerne aldrig ud af ekkokammeret. | {
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Most neutrals among us would probably like to witness see-saw battles for both F1 world championship titles, preferably resolved on the last lap of the final race of the season.
Three years of domination by two drivers and one team isn't necessarily the sort of scenario that attracted us to the sport in the first place.
But that shouldn't make the achievement of Mercedes any less impressive. Three on the bounce is quite something, and it was quite right that Mercedes has this week made much of its triple success.
And even the team's top management didn't anticipate such a run of success, given the strength of the opposition.
"It's terrific," technical chief Paddy Lowe told Motorsport.com. "I don't know why in human nature there's something magical about three. We have five fingers! But there's something about three where people go, 'Right, that really is seriously good.'
"So winning three consecutive championships – I've been in the sport quite a long time and I never thought I would do that, so I'm just really made up to be within such a fantastic team of people.
"They are really the most professional group, and yet great human beings. To achieve this success is so well deserved, and achieved with such enjoyment as well. You couldn't think of anything better in the sport."
And that's the point, it's all about the people. After taking over from Brawn in 2010 Mercedes spent several years putting the pieces in place, with several folk who are no longer there – such as Ross Brawn, Norbert Haug and Bob Bell – playing key roles.
It was not by chance that the team appeared to have a surplus of guys who had been technical directors in their own right elsewhere, or that so much much resource was devoted to the hybrid project from an early stage.
Lowe and Toto Wolff came along just before the start of the hybrid era with perfect timing, and much of the hard work already done, and no one would deny that they benefited from what had gone before.
But they could easily have screwed it up, with a wrong decision here or there. No successful team can rest on its laurels, as the sport is in a constant state of development.
"People maybe don't appreciate what makes up a team," says Lowe. "We had a guy at Suzuka who doesn't normally come to races, one of our key people from the factory.
"He started with the team right at the beginning, 15 years ago. So everything he knows he's learned the hard way, and that's just one small example.
"F1 teams are made up of huge numbers of people who learned their trade over many, many years, and you put that together, and if you can put that together perfectly, you create championships or triple championships.
"But it's never grown overnight, it takes decades or multiple decades to put that experience and that intelligence together, and that team working together."
Surprised by dominance
The move to hybrid rules in 2014 was always going to create something of a shake-up, with the potential for one of the manufacturers to hit the sweet spot. Mercedes did just that and enjoyed a significant advantage in the first season.
The rest have now had a chance to close the gap, and yet the silver cars are still dominant. That's down to sheer hard work and getting everything right.
"To be honest, it's surprising," Lowe admits. "We thought 2014 was pretty exceptional. I never thought I'd see that level of dominance in the modern era, with the greater degree of professionalism we have in teams these days compared to the past.
"To see it repeated in 2015, and then in a slightly different way but further extended in 2016, we haven't had the performance margin this year but we've still won the races, it's really unexpected.
"I have huge respect for our competition. People think we've been super, super dominant these last three years, and yet 2014 was reasonably exceptional with the power units, 2015 was less so, as you move into this year the difference between the power units is not night and day.
"Ferrari and Red Bull, they are very, very strong teams, and whilst we've won a lot of races, you go and look at the numbers, you are talking about differences that are less than half a per cent between these teams.
"So if you make the slightest slip-up, you leave anything on the table, and Suzuka was the perfect example of that. If we hadn't got the set-up exactly perfect, they'll beat us. It's the way it is with the reliability we have in F1 these days, it does mean even with slim margins you can maintain that position to win."
2017 shake-up
The new aerodynamic package and wider tyres coming for 2017 create another chance for a shake-up, and don't forget too that the token system is going, which gives the other manufacturers more freedom.
Time will tell us whether rivals can take advantage, or Mercedes will simply be able to use its superior starting point as a springboard.
"It's a great foundation, and we see next year as a whole new set of rules from the chassis point of view, so it's a clean sheet of paper. We don't take anything for granted in terms of carry over of performance advantage. It's a complete re-set, and we start from scratch."
Meanwhile, we still have the 2016 drivers' title battle to enjoy, one that could yet go either way despite Nico Rosberg's handy lead over Lewis Hamilton.
Suzuka was a landmark, because the current gap means that the outcome is now out of Hamilton's hands – he can win the last four races and still not be champion.
"We're in that territory, but so many things can happen in this sport, we've seen that in the past," says Lowe. "I don't think there's anything to count up at this stage. But mathematically one of them has won the drivers, because Ricciardo is 101 behind.
"That takes a bit of pressure out of the team from that point of view. We always say, and there's nothing wrong with keeping on repeating it, you take one race at a time in this business. And that's what I'll say to Lewis, and he knows how that works." | {
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What kind of movement does a theft entail? Apple's in the process of figuring that out, today filing a patent application for a, "acceleration-based theft detection system for portable electronic devices." Apple pickers: you've just been put on watch. According to the patent filing, said device would activate an alarm of some form after determining, "whether a theft condition is present." It'll apparently figure that out based on the accelerometer built into many of Apple's mobile devices -- the same thing that figures out which way you're holding your phone. Beyond just the hardware, said theft protection system would work in concert with software to determine if the movement matches a pre-determined "profile characteristic of theft."
Of course, Apple's not the only one worried about mobile device theft, as Google already patented just such a device pertaining to its Project Glass concept. But the you'd have to be pretty brazen to steal the glasses off of someone's face without "accidentally" socking them in the eye. | {
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At Digg, we try to give you the most interesting stories from around the web. But there's too much interesting and important news from the Trump Administration to fit on our front page. So, instead, we're providing a daily updating list of the most important Trump news you should know about during the administration's first 100 days.
Friday, March 31st. Day 72.
Like getting all your Trump news in one go? Sign up to receive all the day's Trump news in your inbox.
Top Stories
Michael Flynn Offers Testimony On Trump's Russia Connections
Last night, The Wall Street Journal reported (paywall) that former National Security Advisor to President Trump, Michael Flynn, has offered to testify in front of congressional investigators for the inquiry into the Trump campaign's ties to Russia, but only in exchange for immunity.
The New York Times reports that investigators have held off on the deal until it is clear what sort of testimony Flynn has to offer. Flynn's lawyers say the request for immunity is warranted in today's climate of "witch hunts". Michael Flynn was ousted from his White House position after it was discovered that he discussed foreign policy with the Russian ambassador before President Trump's inauguration, and lied about it to White House Staff.
President Trump To Sign Order Mandating Country-By-Country Review Of 'Trade Cheaters'
President Trump signed an executive order today that mandates a review of top trade cheaters. The report, which is to be finished in 90 days, will reportedly be used to negotiate international trade deals. The Trump administration denies that the order is timed strategically to coincide with President Trump's upcoming meetings with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
Despite The Trump Administration's insistence that the meeting with the Chinese and the executive order aren't linked, President Trump tweeted last night that "The meeting next week with China will be a very difficult one in that we can no longer have massive trade deficits and job losses," referencing the issue that the executive order is trying to address.
Israel Says It Will Build Fewer Settlements Because Of President Trump…Right After Approving A New Settlement
Hours after approving new settlements in the West Bank, the office of Israel's Prime Minister said that it will slow the construction of new settlements because President Donald Trump wants them too. An official told Haaretz: "The Israeli government has made clear that going forward, its intent is to adopt a policy regarding settlement activity that takes the President's concerns into consideration."
Other Stories
Obama Staff Made List Of Russia Probe Documents To Prevent Burial By Trump Administration NBC
Attorney General Jeff Session Say Leaks Should End In Convictions The Hill
Judge Approves $25 Million Trump University Settlement Politico
Secretary Of State Rex Tillerson Ruffles Feathers At State Department By Keeping Himself Cloistered The Washington Post
This Has Got To Be FBI Director James Comey's Twitter Gizmodo
Two Journalists Sue Trump Administration Over Placement On 'Kill List' Politico
Attorney General Sessions Seeks Greater Role In Immigration Policy The Washington Post
Trump's Tweets
Donald Trump responded to the news that Flynn has offered to testify, by calling the investigation "a witch hunt". Despite the characterization, Sean Spicer says that President Trump wants Flynn to testify.
Mike Flynn should ask for immunity in that this is a witch hunt (excuse for big election loss), by media & Dems, of historic proportion! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 31, 2017
Here's What Happened Wednesday. | {
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Iceland becomes first supermarket to sell plastic-free chewing gum (it’s using tree sap instead) Iceland is the first supermarket in the UK to sell plastic-free chewing gum – making it from tree sap instead. […]
Iceland is the first supermarket in the UK to sell plastic-free chewing gum – making it from tree sap instead.
Although most people don’t realise it, the primary ingredient in the vast majority of chewing gum sold in the UK is ‘gum base’ – a non-biodegradable substance made from synthetic polymers – or plastic – as well as range of chemicals to soften and texturize the product.
With more than 100,000 tons of chewing gum being consumed every year, it’s estimated that 95 per cent of Britain’s streets contain at least some discarded gum and local councils spend around £60m each year cleaning it up.
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“I absolutely detest the mess that discarded plastic chewing gum creates on our streets,” Sir Malcolm Walker
Now, Iceland is selling Simply Gum, a biodegradable product from the US made from sap called chicle. This is taken from the sapodilla tree, which is native to central America.
“I absolutely detest the mess that discarded plastic chewing gum creates on our streets, and the fortune that is wasted by councils trying to clear it up,” said Iceland Founder Sir Malcolm Walker.
‘Gum base’ contains plastic
“For decades, regular gum makers have hidden their synthetic ingredients behind the catch-all term of ‘gum base’ which is consistently used as an ingredient on pack.
Research commissioned by Iceland found that 80 per cent had no idea what ordinary chewing gum is made of. Meanwhile, 85 per cent were unaware that it usually contains plastic.
Simply Gum is now available in Iceland stores across the country and online and costs £2 for a pack of 15, in Mint, Maple and Ginger flavours.
Plastic free gums are already available to buy in the UK but they tend to be sold in small, health stores. Any gum that contains ‘gum base’ contains plastic. | {
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Welcome to FY! SANA, this blog is dedicated to Sana- a member of JYP's girl group, TWICE! Follow us to receive the latest updates ♡ | {
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Chief mouser to the Treasury goes missing in the Westminster area
This article is more than 2 years old
This article is more than 2 years old
The Treasury’s official cat, Gladstone, otherwise known as the chief mouser to the Treasury, has gone missing.
The three-year-old cat, known as the most prolific mouse-catcher in government, is believed to have gone missing in the Westminster area.
Treasury staff have been told to keep an eye out for Gladstone, according to the Sun, who has more than 15,000 Instagram followers.
“Some people are really worried about him. They love him around the department. Hopefully we’ll find him soon,” a source told the tabloid.
Gladstone was adopted from Battersea Dogs & Cats Home in 2016 after a team of six staff agreed to look after him, paying for his food and accessories from out of their own pockets. | {
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A Delaware woman who tried to get pregnant for years with no success figured that, by age 37, it just wasn’t in the cards.
But in August, Carla Collazo began having severe back pains while she was in the bathroom. She called out for her sister-in-law to come help.
'DEMON' BABY SHOCKS PARENTS IN HILARIOUS ULTRASOUND
“It just happened so fast, everything just came out,” Alexandra Santos, Collazo’s sister-in-law, told Fox 29.
Santos said in a Facebook post that she began yelling for Collazo to open her legs so she could see what was happening, and that they were both shocked to discover that she was in the midst of giving birth to a baby girl.
“Minutes later, we had a baby come out!! It was a girl!” Santos posted on Facebook.
She told Fox 29 that she called paramedics, who coached her through tying a shoelace around the umbilical cord as they focused on keeping the tiny baby alive.
GIRL, 3, DIES OF RARE CANCER AFTER DOCTORS DIAGNOSED HER WITH CONSTIPATION
“She has a placenta in her hand and I have a baby in my hand,” Santos told the news outlet. “She’s freaking out. I’m telling her that we have a baby. We have to save her.”
Collazo said she hadn’t gained any weight during her surprise pregnancy and had chalked swelling in her ankles up to her being on her feet all day.
“I was just in shock – just in shock,” Collazo told Fox 29.
She said she had spent years praying for a baby, and had taken a few pregnancy tests that came back negative.
The baby girl, named Amoura Rose, weighed just over 2 pounds when she was born on Aug. 25. She was taken to Christina Hospital, where she has been gaining weight and is said to be thriving.
According to Fox 29, Collazo, who has already returned to work, is preparing for her daughter to come home in a few weeks.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
“I can honestly say that was the most precious moment I have ever experienced in my life,” Santos posted on Facebook. | {
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By pushing the refurbished Hubble Space Telescope to its very limits as a cosmic time machine, astronomers have identified three galaxies that may hail from an era only a few hundred million years after the Big Bang. The faint galaxies may be the most distant starlit bodies known, each lying some 13.2 billion light-years from Earth.
Detecting galaxies at such a distance is at the very edge of what current technology can accomplish, comments Richard Ellis of Caltech, who was not part of the new study. It’s uncharted territory, he says.
If the researchers are correct in the preliminary determination, then Hubble is seeing light that reveals the galaxies as they first appeared just 480 million years after the birth of the universe. (That light traveled for billions of years to reach Earth.) The radiation from such early galaxies played a crucial role, theorists believe, in reionizing the universe. That process breaks apart neutral atoms into electrons and ions, a process that enabled light from the first generation of stars to stream freely into space.
The astronomers caution that because the galaxies they found with Hubble are seen at only one wavelength, it’s not certain that the bodies are extremely distant; they could just be red and faint. “We certainly don’t have smoking gun evidence,” says study coleader Rychard Bouwens of the University of California, Santa Cruz. “We just have tantalizing evidence that suggests we may be identifying a few [extremely distant] galaxies.”
Bouwens and Garth Illingworth, also of UC Santa Cruz , along with several collaborators, posted their findings online December 23 at the physics arXiv.org site (). The team, like several others, went hunting for distant galaxies using Hubble’s newly installed Wide Field Camera 3, which in August took a long look in infrared wavelengths at a patch of sky known as the Hubble Ultra Deep Field. Another Hubble camera had examined that field five years earlier in visible light, revealing many faint, faraway galaxies, but not the most remote galaxies, which can only be seen in infrared.
Ultraviolet and visible light emitted by the youthful stars in the earliest, most distant galaxies is shifted to much longer wavelengths — the infrared part of the spectrum — by the expansion of the universe. The more remote the galaxy, the greater the redshift.
In September, two teams, including Bouwens’, reported finding galaxies with redshift values of seven to eight, corresponding to an era about 700 million years after the Big Bang. Now, the researchers estimate that another three galaxies imaged by the camera have a redshift of about 10, which if confirmed would be the largest redshift ever measured. Bouwens says that several tests, including observations with the infrared Spitzer Space Telescope, indicate that the galaxies they spotted are likely to be truly remote, reducing the possibility that his team is being fooled by intrinsically faint, infrared-emitting galaxies that lie much closer to Earth.
Other teams, notably a group that includes Rogier Windhorst of Arizona State University in Tempe and Haojing Yan of Ohio State University in Columbus, reporting earlier on arXiv.org (), claimed to have found 20 galaxies at that same high redshift using the same data from the refurbished Hubble.
Garth and Illingworth note that most of the candidate distant galaxies identified by the Windhorst team lie near known, bright galaxies. They suggest that the team may have been confused by stray light from these bright galaxies. Other astronomers say it would be surprising if all 20 galaxies were from the same early era, since the Ultra Deep Field encompasses a narrow strip of sky. That would indicate that the early universe had a surprisingly high density of such galaxies.
Although the race is on to find more-convincing examples of distant galaxies, “redshift-10 galaxies are about the very edge that our current technology can push to,” notes Yan. It’s likely that none of the distant galaxy candidates can be confirmed until the launch of Hubble’s powerful infrared successor, the James Webb Space Telescope, around 2014, astronomers agree.
Image: NASA/ESA /Z. Levay (STScI)
See Also: | {
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Bible Verses That Fall on 4:20
Kings 4:20
The people of Judah and Israel were as numerous as the sand on the seashore; they ate, they drank and they were happy.
Chronicles 4:20
The lampstands of pure gold with their lamps, to burn in front of the inner sanctuary as prescribed;
Lamentations 4:20
The LORD's anointed, our very life breath, was caught in their traps. We thought that under his shadow we would live among the nations.
Daniel 4:20
The tree you saw, which grew large and strong, with its top touching the sky, visible to the whole earth, [21] with beautiful leaves and abundant fruit, providing food for all, giving shelter to the beasts of the field, and having nesting places in its branches for the birds of the air- [22] you, O king, are that tree! You have become great and strong; your greatness has grown until it reaches the sky, and your dominion extends to distant parts of the earth.
Mark 4:20
Others, like seed sown on good soil, hear the word, accept it, and produce a crop thirty, sixty or even a hundred times what was sown?
Luke 4:20
Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him.
Philippians 4:20
To our God and Father be glory for ever and ever. Amen.
1 John 4:20
If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. | {
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A woman was punched and knocked unconscious after she stepped in to defend her Chinese friend who was accused of carrying coronavirus.
Trainee lawyer Meera Solanki, from Solihull, was out with friends celebrating her 29th birthday at Birmingham's Ana Rocha Bar and Gallery on Frederick Street.
Miss Solanki was inside the venue with her friends including Mandy Huang, 28, who was visiting from London, when the group were targeted by a group of Asian men.
Trainee lawyer Meera Solanki, from Solihull (left) with friend Mandy Huang, 28, from London (right)
Trainee lawyer Meera Solanki (pictured), from Solihull, was out with friends celebrating her 29th birthday
The friends left the bar after Miss Solanki said she was repeatedly harassed by one of the men who later followed the three women out of the venue at around 2am on Sunday 9 February.
Miss Solanki said: 'I was having birthday drinks with a group of of girls and guys including Chinese friends.
'There were a group of Asian men inside the venue - one of them kept coming up to me and harassing me. He seemed to have a problem with me being an Indian girl with a multi-racial group of friends,' she told The Sunday Mercury.
Meera Solanki (left) pictured with Mandy Huang (right), 28, who was visiting from London for Miss Solanki's 29th birthday
Miss Solanki added: 'We tried to ignore him, even when he tried to spit at one of my friends.
'Towards the end of the night - there was just the three of us girls left including my Chinese friend Mandy.
She continued: 'The man came over again and was being aggressive so we left but he followed us.
Miss Solanki was inside Birmingham's Ana Rocha Bar and Gallery (pictured file image) on Frederick Street with her friends when the group were targeted by a group of Asian men
'For some reason he got really angry with her. He started abusing her calling her a dirty c****.
'He said 'take your f****** coronavirus and take it back home.'
Miss Solanki told how she was 'shocked and angry' and shouted at the man to stop while she tried to push him away.
'He punched me in the head, I hit the pavement and was knocked unconcious,' Miss Solanki said.
An ambulance was called to the scene and a witness said: 'What I saw was beyond despicable. A totally vicious assault.'
Miss Solanki spent six hours at Heartlands Hospital where she was treated with concussion and was off work for a week.
She added: 'I was so shocked and horrified by his aggressive behaviour and horrific words.
'As I lay unconscious he continued to threaten my friends and abuse them before walking away calmly with his group of friends who did nothing to stop him or help me.'
A member of a Birmingham based Anglo-Chinese group said yesterday paranoia surrounding the disease has led to unease and confrontation.
West Midlands Police have launched an appeal to find the thug responsible for the shocking violence.
There are 400,000 Chinese people living in England and Wales.
Reports of coronavirus violence has already surfaced in Newcastle, York and Manchester.
A spokeswoman for Birmingham Chinese Society, set up to foster relations between the city's Western and East Asian residents, said: 'There has always been abuse. The virus has given some individuals a reason for that abuse.'
She explained: 'We wear masks to protect others from our coughs and sneezes.
Some wear them as a protection against pollution. Some women wear them because they don't want to be seen without make-up. We do it to protect others, not ourselves.'
A manager at Ana Rocha Bar confirmed the attack had taken place outside his premises, but said he was unaware what sparked the violence.
The popular venue has CCTV of the incident.
Co-owner of popular Chinatown restaurants Wing Wah and Caffe Dorian Chan said: 'I have heard of similar attacks based on people's shocking racism after the coronavirus outbreak.
'Thankfully, this attack has been reported to the police. And it's vital there is a proper investigation.'
A West Midlands Police spokeswoman said: 'We're investigating after a woman was assaulted after another was racially abused in Frederick Street, Hockley, around 2am on Sunday February 9.
'A man made racist marks to one woman and after he was asked to stop he punched another female, in her 20s, in the face.
'She was temporarily knocked unconscious but escaped without serious injury.
'The attacker is described as Asian, 5ft 8ins tall, of large build and was wearing a flat cap and hoodie at the time.
'Anyone with information can contact us via Live Chat at west-midlands.police.uk between 8am and midnight or call 101 anytime. Quote crime reference number 20BW/39330Q/20.'
West Midlands Ambulance Services said: 'We were called at 2:03am on February 9 to reports of an assault at an address on Frederick Street. An off-duty paramedic was already at the scene with the patient.
'The woman didn't want to be taken to accident and emergency, so our crews were stood down.' | {
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In a move that sounds like something from a cyberpunk novel, China’s ruling Communist party have begun to use virtual reality (VR) to check on the loyalty of its members and see if they have what it takes to move up through the ranks.
According to official media in Beijing, members of the CPC in Qingyang Town, Binzhou City, in East China’s Shandong Province have been required to submit to loyalty tests conducted using VR technology.
The ‘Test of Dangxing’ or Test of Party Spirit, was taken by party members in Qingyang, who were required to wear VR headsets and enter a virtual room, where they were quizzed on a variety of subjects, including party theory, members’ daily lives and how they understood the ‘pioneering role’ of the party.
The test facility was installed in April 2018 at a local Party service centre, as a cost of 7,00,000 yuan, which is the equivilent of roughly $110,000 (USD).
The test is aimed at measuring certain essential qualities that a party member must have, such as loyalty to the CPC, willingness to contribute to the people and the Party and being a role model. Questions included things such as ‘Do you agree that if you are not corrupt you will be marginalised?’
Cai Zhiqiang, a professor at the Party School of the CPC Central Committee in Beijing, told the Global Times that further data would be needed to confirm the reliability of the test results. “Dangxing tests should be used to find out how to enhance CPC members’ political quality and their capabilities to serve the people, and also how to promote local development.” Cai said.
The tests results are said to be used to determine which characteristics need to be improved upon, with members receiving consultations from experts of the party schools in Binzhou ad Qingyang who would provide guidance on how to improve.
Further news on new applications of VR technology around the world will be reported on here on VRFocus. | {
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Image: Rick and Morty
Predicting the future is hard. It’s nearly impossible to know what technological marvels await in the next few years, let alone the next eight decades. Undaunted, we’ve put together a list of 10 super-advanced technologies that should be around by the year 2100.
Some of these technologies are rather “out there,” but I’m reasonably confident in making these predictions. As radical as some of the items described here appear, most—if not all—should be around by the turn of the 22nd century. The reason has to do with an innovation that doesn’t appear on this list: Artificial superintelligence. As computer scientist I. J. Good aptly pointed out in the 1960s, “the first ultraintelligent machine is the last invention that man need ever make.”
Once greater-than-human intelligence emerges in a machine—a development that could happen as early as the 2050s—all bets are off in terms of what’s technically possible. Intelligent machines will replace humans as designers and engineers, constructing the technologies of our dreams, including some we hadn’t even thought of. Here are just 10 of those technologies that could change virtually everything.
1. Brain-Linked Virtual Reality
Wearable VR-enabling devices like Oculus Rift are all fine and well, but no matter how sophisticated these sorts of gadgets become, a “true” sense of existing in an alternate reality will remain out of reach. What’s required is something a bit more...invasive—and by the time we reach the 2100s we’ll have found a way to create a virtual reality experience that’s indistinguishable from the real thing. Incredibly, these experiences will be fed directly to our brain, bypassing our normal sensory inputs to make it all the more believable.
Image: Black Mirror Season 3 “San Junipero” Episode ponders an extremely realistic virtual reality experience.
To get that intangible feeling of what it’s like to exist in our surroundings, we’ll need to go to the source of that experience: the human brain. Indeed, the brain (among other things) is a sensory processing device. All of the things we sense on a regular basis, whether it be the smell of your tacos or the glaring glow of your computer screen, are routed to your brain. As Morpheus put it so eloquently in The Matrix: “What is real?...If you’re talking about what you can feel, what you can smell, what you can taste and see, then ‘real’ is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain.”
Futurist Ray Kurzweil, author of The Singularity is Near, explained how this could come about in a Q&A about his book.
I see this starting with nanobots in our bodies and brains. The nanobots will keep us healthy, provide full-immersion virtual reality from within the nervous system, provide direct brain-to-brain communication over the Internet, and otherwise greatly expand human intelligence. But keep in mind that nonbiological intelligence is doubling in capability each year, whereas our biological intelligence is essentially fixed in capacity. As we get to the 2030s, the nonbiological portion of our intelligence will predominate.
Kurzweil’s time lines are probably a bit optimistic, but his concepts are sound; we’re finding new ways of breaching the blood-brain-barrier and creating microscopic machines that can travel around the body. And just as importantly, we’re creating a detailed map of the brain, including areas responsible for processing incoming sensory information.
Once implanted in the brain, Kurzweil’s nanobots would locate the brain’s various sensory inputs and shut them down (e.g. disrupting the electrical signals collected by the retina, ear, etc.), making the person completely unaware of their actual surroundings (it would be the perfect sensory deprivation chamber. In place of these signals, the nanobots, fed by wireless transmission, would replace those missing signals, feeding the brain’s cortical regions with artificial senses—and an entirely new subjective experience. To the person, it would feel like they’ve been transported to another world.
2. Utility Fog
Devised by nanotech pioneer J. Storrs Hall, utility fogs are a swarm of nanobots, or “foglets,” that can take on the shape of virtually any object, and change its shape on the fly. Storrs came up with the idea when trying to imagine a futuristic seat belt. But instead of static straps and inflatable airbags, Hall imagined an intelligent cloud of interconnected snowflake-like foglets capable of morphing along with the movements of anything around it, including the passengers of cars.
Image: NanoTechNow
Utility fogs defy the imagination in terms of the technological sophistication required. Each foglet would measure just 10 microns across (roughly the same size as a human cell), be equipped with a tiny, rudimentary onboard computer to control its actions (which would be controlled externally by an artificially intelligent system), and a dozen telescopic arms that extrude outwards in the shape of a dodecahedron. When two foglets link up, they would form a circuit, allowing for the distribution of power and communications throughout the network. The foglets wouldn’t be capable of floating, but would instead form a lattice structure, called an octet truss, when holding hands in all 12 directions.
A utility fog would work like programmable matter, capable of moving around, enveloping, and and even transporting an object or person. More radically, utility fogs could be used to create a virtual world around a person—and even host a person who has uploaded themselves into this nano-infused cloud (similar to the foglet beings in Warren Ellis’ Transmetropolitan).
3. Space-Based Solar Power
As our civilization struggles to mitigate the effects of climate change and transition into a more sustainable energy economy, it’s tempting to think we’ll never be able to meet our seemingly insatiable energy needs. Space-based solar power—an idea that’s been around since the 1960s—could solve this problem once and for all.
Conceptual image of a space-based solar power farm. (Image: JAXA)
Nearly 60 years ago, Peter Glaser envisioned solar powered satellites capable of transferring captured solar energy down to receiving dishes on the Earth’s surface via microwaves. A number of different schemes have been proposed since then, with Japan leading the way in terms of having an actual plan to get it done. Called the SBSP System, the Japanese orbital farm would run in a stationary orbit about 22,400 miles above the equator, where it would transmit energy to Earth using laser beams. Each satellite would target a 1.8-mile wide receiving station that could generate an entire gigawatt of electricity, which is enough to power a half million homes. For safety, the receiving station should be positioned far from human habitation, such as a desert or island.
4. Mind Uploading
By the turn of the 22nd century, many humans will have opted for a purely digital existence, one free of all biological constraints. Called mind uploading, or whole brain emulation, this will involve the meticulous copying of an existing biological brain. The scans would capture every cognitive detail down to the molecular level, and include memories, associations, and even a person’s personality quirks.
Mind uploading as portrayed in the 2015 film, Self/Less.
Futurists aren’t entirely sure how mind uploading will happen, but a critical step will be to make sure the important parts of a brain are copied, particularly those tied to a person’s sense of identity (namely the parahippocampus and retrosplenial cortex). This could involve “destructive” copying, where an existing brain is sliced or otherwise taken apart in order to record a person’s brain state and memories. Alternately, a sufficiently powerful brain scanner could be used to take a snapshot of a person’s brain, and then “pasted” into a computer capable of translating that information into a functioning mind. In order for an uploaded person to function “normally,” they would have to be equipped with a virtual body and environment.
An important scientific and philosophical question to ask is whether or not this represents a true “transfer” of consciousness, and not just the mere copying of a person’s brain. What’s more, it’s not entirely clear if conscious self-awareness can be replicated in digital substrate. Frighteningly, each upload could be a kind of zombie that behaves and functions like the pre-existing person, but would in reality be nothing more than a script-driven bot.
5. Weather Control
It’s unlikely that our species will be able to completely control the weather by the end of the current century, but we should be able to put a serious dent into it. We’re already seeding clouds with particles to stimulate precipitation, and California has been doing this for nearly 50 years. During the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, Chinese authorities fired 1,100 rockets into the clouds to trigger downpours before the storms reached the capital city. There are even efforts to fire laser pulses into thunderclouds in hopes of drawing out lightning in a controlled manner.
Image: Horns Rev Offshore Windfarm
Looking ahead to the future, weather engineers could build massive wall-like structures to prevent devastating tornadoes from forming, or construct massive —and very strong—arrays of offshore turbines to suck the energy out of hurricanes. On that last prospect, a study in 2014 showed that a wind farm consisting of tens of thousands of individual turbines could reduce peak winds by up to 92 mph (148 km/h) and decrease storm surges by up to 79 percent. That would in effect reduce a hurricane’s power by an entire magnitude.
More radically, we could eventually build a weather machine to create a programmable atmosphere. A particularly intriguing plan calls for a thin global cloud of small transparent balloons lifted up into the stratosphere, where it would shade or reflect the amount of incoming sunlight. A mirror would be placed inside each balloon, along with a GSP to monitor its location, an actuator to control its orientation, and a small computer. Lifted by hydrogen, the “programmable green house gas” would come to a rest about 20 miles above the Earth’s surface. When the millions of mirrors face away from the Earth, they would reflect the sunlight back into space. This system, guided by AI, could influence weather patterns around the world, and turn marginally habitable areas into temperate regions.
6. Molecular Assemblers
Think 3D printers are amazing? Just wait until the arrival of molecular assemblers, a hypothetical fabricator described by nanotechnology pioneer K. Eric Drexler in his seminal book, Engines of Creation. Drexler described a molecular assembler as a device capable of manipulating individual atoms to build a desired product. If you’ve ever seen an episode of Star Trek in which a member of the crew uses a replicator to churn out a steaming hot cup of Earl Grey tea, then you’ve basically seen a molecular assembler, which some futurists refer to as fabricators, or fabs for short.
The Star Trek replicator is basically a molecular assember. (Image: Star Trek: Voyager)
Drexler basically argued that biological assemblers already exist, producing complex and wonderful structures like bacteria, trees, and even you and me. Using the same logic, he figures we’ll eventually be able to tap into the mechanical properties of the uber-small, and use similar principles to produce objects of any shape, form, or consistency.
Fabs could introduce the world to an era of “radical abundance,” allowing us to produce items and materials that would otherwise be impossible to build, constructing them from the ground up (or more accurately, from the molecules on up). But these devices could even be used to produce items we’re familiar with, like food. To make a steak, for example, the fabricator would take base materials, such as carbon, hydrogen, and nitrogen, and then arrange them into amino acids and proteins, which would then be assembled to form a steak.
7. Geoengineering
Disturbingly, the effects of climate change are likely irreversible. No matter what we do from now until the year 2100, the levels of greenhouse gasses in our atmosphere will continue to warm the planet.
Conceptual image of an unoccupied ship designed to generate clouds and reflect sunlight away from Earth (Image: Stephen Salter)
To prevent the many environmental calamities wrought by climate change—from rising sea levels and megadroughts through to superstorms and mass extinctions—we’ll begrudgingly have to start geoengineering the planet.
Some notable geohacking proposals include cirrus cloud seeding to reduce reflectivity, stratospheric particle injection for solar radiation management, sulfur-aerosol injection to induce global dimming, and simple solutions like tropical reforestation to restore the carbon balance. Other ideas include a giant space reflector (though that might be beyond our technological capacities by 2100), ocean fertilization to spawn carbon-sucking algal blooms, and ocean alkalinity enhancement to make the ocean less acidic. Clearly, there are no shortage of ideas, and we won’t be restricted to just one.
The problem with geoengineering, of course, is that we could royally wreck our planet should something go wrong, and we may become dependent upon it. But desperate times will require desperate measures, and we’ll have little choice but to rely on complex climate models and supercomputers to ensure safety and efficacy.
8. Mind-to-Mind Communication
Ongoing advances in communications technologies and neuroscience will transform humanity into a telepathic species.
Image: Ghost in the Shell: Innocence
The advent of direct mind-to-mind communication will bring us even closer together as individuals, and conceivably give rise to a “hive mind”—a vast network of interconnected minds working together over the future instantiation of the internet. In such a future, we may start to see the dissolution of the individual, and the rise of a collective mass consciousness.
Remarkably, this future may be closer than we think. Back in 2014, an international team of researchers were the first to demonstrate a direct and completely non-invasive brain-to-brain communication system. During their experiment, two participants were able to exchange mentally-conjured words despite being separated by hundreds of miles. A year later, a separate team of researchers transmitted brain signals over the internet to control the hand motions of another person, allowing them to collaborate on a computer game. These systems, though extremely rudimentary, point to a future in which we can simply use our thoughts to converse with one another, and “telekinetically” control smart devices in our environment.
9. Fusion Power
Earlier this year, physicists in Germany used a 2-megawatt microwave pulse to warm low density hydrogen plasma to 80 million degrees. The experiment didn’t produce any energy, and it only lasted for a quarter of a second, but it was an important step forward in the effort to harness an extremely promising form of energy production known as nuclear fusion.
Hot, hot, heat: Hydrogen plasma warmed to 80 million degrees. (Image: IPP)
Unlike nuclear fission, where the nucleus of an atom is divided into smaller parts, nuclear fusion creates a single heavy nucleus from two lighter nuclei. The resulting change in mass generates a tremendous amount of energy that scientists believe can be harnessed into a viable source of clean energy. Eventually, fusion power could replace fossil fuels and conventional nuclear reactors.
But to get there, scientists will have to figure out how to reliably and safely manage conditions typically found on the sun. The problem is that fusion plasmas do not like to be contained; these free-flowing streams of protons and electrons are tough to wrangle. Our sun holds on to its plasma with its intense gravity, but here on Earth, we’d have to rely on magnets or lasers to perform the same trick. Should a tiny fraction of the plasma escape, it would scar the wall of the machine, causing the fusion reactor to shut down.
10. Artificial Lifeforms
Not content to stop at genetic engineering, scientists of the future will be able to design and create new organisms from scratch—from microscopic synthetic bacteria through to redesigned humans reminiscent of the Replicants in Blade Runner. This burgeoning discipline, known as artificial life (or Alife), is the effort to recreate biological phenomenon with the help of computers and other synthetic media.
JCVI-syn3.0, a synthetic bacterium derived from just 773 genes. (Image: J. Craig Venter Institute)
The quest to create synthetic forms of life is already underway. Earlier this year, researchers from Synthetic Genomics and the J. Craig Venter Institute successfully created an artificial bacterial genome that, with its scant 473 genes, is smaller than anything found in nature. Further breakthroughs in this domain will help biologists explore the core functions of life, and to categorize essential genes within cells. Researchers could use “building block” cells like these to construct organisms with capacities not found in nature, including bacteria that can consume plastic and toxic waste, and microorganisms that can function like medicines inside the body.
In a related breakthrough, a new initiative co-founded by Harvard Medical School’s George Church is seeking to create a synthetic human genome from scratch. The researchers say they’re content to stop once they figure out how to power cells with synthetic human DNA, but the same technology could conceivably be used to create artificial organisms and even designer humans.
Any one of the technologies listed here has the potential to reshape our civilization. What’s less clear is how these marvels will work in tandem with one another; the convergent effects of technology are often hard to predict. For example, the convergence of brain-linked VR, mind uploading, and AI could result in a hybrid computer-based civilization consisting of real-world humans, emulated brains, and artificial intellects. Future geoengineering schemes could integrate weather control systems and engineered nanoparticles. And so on.
The more predictions we make about our future technologies, the more difficult it becomes to know what the future might actually look like. | {
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As TechCrunch notes, Disney Mix is approved for children "4+" on the app store, although older kids and pre-teens will probably get the most use out of it. When kids sign up, they are presented with straightforward reminders to stay safe, be respectful and "keep it clean." Bullying and harassment especially will not be tolerated. So kids can help keep their community a safe place, chat threads include a "Whistle" icon at the top of the screen that they can use to essentially call up an adult moderator to step in. Disney is also encouraging parents to talk to their kids about the community rules and to submit feedback if the app isn't making the grade.
On a more fun note, the app boasts a cache of digital chat stickers from basically any Disney franchise you could think of. Kids also have the ability to build their own custom cartoon blockhead avatar that can compete alongside their friends in original and movie tie-in games right in the chat. In the future, Disney plans to add even more features, plus the ability to share photos and videos in the same safe community.
Disney Mix is available now on the App Store and Google Play. | {
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Earlier today, the Secular Coalition for America announced that they had met with representatives from the White House Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships. It marked the first time since February of 2010 that an official, publicized meeting like this took place:
This month, Secular Coalition for America Executive Director, Edwina Rogers, along with several representatives from the nontheistic community, held a meeting with the White House Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships. The purpose of the meeting was to brief the Administration on secular and nontheistic issues, and to establish better lines of communication that can ultimately lead to greater nontheistic involvement. … “We are pleased that the White House is looking at ways to better include the nontheistic community,” said Edwina Rogers. “The Administration seemed to recognize the need for nontheistic inclusion and seemed open to finding areas where we can work together. We hope this meeting will lead to increased cooperation going forward.”
Two things.
First, that’s wonderful news. It’s great to see representatives from our community meeting with people who have a direct line to the President. Politico reported that the SCA was “pleased” with the meeting.
Second, it’s worth noting that the SCA’s press release is *very* vague. We don’t know what they discussed or what the take-away messages were. Hell, we don’t even know when this meeting took place, only that it happened earlier this month.
I spoke with the SCA’s Communications Manager Lauren Anderson Youngblood today to try and fill in some of these blanks… to little avail. She couldn’t tell me much more than what had been written in the press release.
But here’s what we do know.
The SCA requested the meeting and Melissa Rogers‘ office agreed to it. Given Rogers’ history as a supporter of church-state separation, it’s not unexpected. Still, I’m surprised it didn’t happen sooner.
Since that meeting in 2010, atheist organizations haven’t had much of a dialogue with the White House Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships (OFBNP). If this meeting leads to further discussions, great.
What issues did they discuss? We have no idea, but I’m hoping some of these questions were raised:
Will churches (like all other non-profits) be required to disclose their financial statements?
Will the government make sure that tax-exempt churches are not promoting political candidates from the pulpit (a la “Pulpit Sunday”)?
Why can church groups that receive taxpayer money through the OFBNP discriminate against LGBT individuals during the hiring process?
When will we finally get an atheist on the President’s Advisory Council on Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships?
Why does the OFBNP even exist?!
Youngblood wouldn’t give me specifics, but said that “they spoke about the inclusion of nontheists by the administration and other issues that were both policy-based as well as symbolic overtures.”
But, again, speaking about those topics doesn’t mean any action was taken (or even proposed) on them.
It’s possible that if these discussions between atheists and the White House remain private, there’s a better chance we’ll see steps in the right direction since the Religious Right won’t be tipped off and right-wing websites can’t pretend like the administration is “anti-Christian”… but that’s an annoying dichotomy: Publicize the topics being discussed and risk conservatives freaking out over them (and getting their based worked up over it) or keep the topics private and get a bit closer to significant changes being made.
Are you willing to live with that tension?
I guess what we can hope for is that this is only the first of many meetings to come. The more the two groups talk, the more likely it is that some real action steps will eventually be taken.
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Speaking at an MSNBC hosted town hall event scheduled to air tonight, Senator Rubio admitted he had regrets about some of his more juvenile attacks on Donald Trump.
Asked by an attendee at the town hall how he could “sacrifice basic Christian principles” to go after Trump in the way he did, Rubio replied, “In terms of things that have to do with personal stuff, yeah, at the end of the day it’s not something I’m entirely proud of. My kids were embarrassed by it, and if I had to do it again I wouldn’t.” That’s a reference to comments Rubio made in the lead up to Super Tuesday where he mocked Trump’s spelling and suggested he was sweating and may have wet his pants.
Rubio drew a line at “the other charges” related to Trump’s business ventures saying he didn’t regret criticizing those because, “this time the stakes are not a worthless $36,000 degree at Trump University. The stakes are the greatest nation on earth.”
Host Chuck Todd pressed Rubio for more asking, “you regret the schoolyard stuff?” Rubio responded, “This is a guy that has basically offended everyone for a year. I mean literally has mocked a disabled journalist, a female journalist, every minority group imagineable on a daily basis…he’s used profanity from the stage.”
“That said, I don’t want to be that. If that’s what it takes to be president of the United States then I don’t want to be president. I don’t think that’s what it takes to be president. In fact, I know it’s not what it takes. It’s not what we want from our next president and if I had to do it again I would have done that part differently.”
Rubio’s regrets probably come too late. He was shut out of delegates Tuesday night and is current running in 2nd place in his home state according to the most recent polls. Another sign that his support is fading came Wednesday afternoon in the form of this image of a Rubio rally in Florida: | {
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This is Day 2 of a two-day Purple Prize event focused on getting our cultural groundings here in Hawaiʻi, reflecting on our own positionings, and exploring aspects of Native Hawaiian culture's land-based paradigms. At Ka Waiwai Collective we'll have time to reflect more on our positioning and delve further into aspects of Hawaiian culture and how Native Hawaiian entrepreneurs are leading the way in applying indigenous paradigms to how we live today.
Lunch will be a group potluck to share cultural foods that connect us to place. We will strive to bring homemade foods and generate as little waste as possible (avoid plastic wrappings).
Thank you to our sponsor for this event, Ka Waiwai Collective.
Day 1 of this event can be found HERE
E Hō Mai & Opening Ask for knowledge and right conduct.
Introduction to Ka Waiwai Host orients us to the space and the mission of Ka Waiwai.
Debrief, Reflections from Last Meeting Short discussion of what we did last time we met, and what we've been thinking about since.
Oʻahu Kaʻānaniʻau Map Examine a large map of Oʻahu with traditional placenames and learn the significance of Oʻahu-based systems for understanding time and space.
Papahānaumokuākea & He Kumulipo Learn the cultural and envrionmental significance of Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, especially as it relates to a foundational Native Hawaiian cosmogonic genealogy.
Third Session TBA.
Energizer Activity Shake off the afternoon sleepies.
Native Hawaiian Business Models Panel Hear from Native Hawaiian entrepreneurs about their successes and struggles in implementing business models grounded in cultural values. | {
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Den ene föreläsaren är en imam som uppmärksammades i SVT:s Uppdrag granskning för några år sedan. Då sa han bland annat för dold kamera att en kvinna som blev slagen av sin man inte skulle gå till polisen, och att en man har rätt att gifta sig med fler än en kvinna om han bara kunde försörja dem. Den andra föreläsaren har enligt uppgifter till Sveriges Radio en känd salafistisk predikant. Nu ska de ha en föreläsning i Arenan i Bibliotekshuset i Karlstad på lördag, vilket P4 Värmland var först med att berätta om.
– Det är som vilken annan bokning som helst. Hör man av sig och vill boka Arenan, och den är ledig, så kan man boka den. Vi undersöker inte personers åsikter innan man får en bokning, säger Karin Karlsson, verksamhetschef för kultur- och föreningsstöd, till P4 Värmland.
Enligt Arenans hemsida är föreläsningen på lördag ”Ett seminarium där vi utifrån islams källor argumenterar för att islam och terrorism inte är förenliga. Vi kommer också diskutera vad det är som får folk att bli extrema och hur vi kan motarbeta det.”
Ingen åsikt om ideologiska värderingar
Karin Karlsson på Karlstads kommun säger att kommunen inte gör några ställningstaganden när det gäller ideologiska värderingar hos de medverkande när de hyr ut lokaler.
– Vi värderar verkligen yttrandefrihet, religionsfrihet och även mötesfrihet. Det är våra viktigaste grundpelare, vi kan inte registrera vilken åsikt en person har som medverkar i ett arrangemang, säger hon.
Evenemang som innebär lagbrott, eller där någon tidigare dömts för brott, är däremot inte okej, enligt kommunen.
Vid evenemanget på lördag kommer Arenan att ha egen teknisk personal på plats, som vid alla arrangemang.
– De registrerar alltid, vid alla sammanhang, om någonting sker som inte får ske där. Det kan vara både publikmässigt och något från scenen, säger Karin Karlsson till P4 Värmland. | {
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Jair Bolsonaro beyond the sound bites: What are his policies? By BBC Monitoring
Miami team Published duration 28 October 2018 Related Topics Brazil general elections 2018
image copyright Reuters
Jair Bolsonaro has won the presidential election in Brazil. Well known for his often incendiary statements, the far-right politician's actual policy positions are harder to pin down.
After being stabbed by a lone attacker on 6 September, Mr Bolsonaro spent time in hospital receiving treatment which took him away from the campaign trail.
Even after he won the first round of the election on 7 October, he did not participate in TV debates with his Workers' Party rival, Fernando Haddad.
He has nonetheless remained active on social media and given interviews where he has offered some clues about the kind of policies his administration could pursue.
Gun rights for 'all honest citizens'
Increasing security for Brazilian citizens has been one of Mr Bolsonaro's flagship campaign issues. He has portrayed himself as a hardliner who will restore safety to Brazil's streets.
image caption Henrique Nogueira is one of the voters who liked Mr Bolsonaro's plan to loosen gun laws
He has indicated that his government will aim to relax laws restricting the ownership and carrying of guns. "Every honest citizen, man or woman, if they want to have a weapon in their homes - depending on certain criteria - should be able to have one," he said of his plans on Rede TV on 11 October.
He has also strongly opposed the legalisation of abortion. Writing on Twitter on 12 October he said: "The money of Brazilians will not finance NGOs that promote that practice."
That stance has won him the support of many evangelic Christians.
Mixed signals about the economy
Many Brazilians said that they voted for Jair Bolsonaro as a reaction to what they considered the inadequate economic track-record of the left-wing Workers' Party, under which Brazil's economy went from boom to bust.
image copyright AFP image caption Fans of Mr Bolsonaro portray him as a saviour or a superhero
Mr Bolsonaro's economic policy plans resemble those of market-friendly right-wing governments in other parts of Latin America, and include proposals to reduce government "waste" and promises to reduce state intervention in the economy.
However, on occasion he has also defended more nationalistic stances, arguing for the need to keep state control over industries he deems strategic.
The former army captain has said that he wants to undertake a reform of the government in order to reduce and relocate "unnecessary expenses".
"I made a commitment to reduce the number of ministries, extinguish and privatise many of the state-owned [companies] that exist today," he wrote on Twitter.
In his party manifesto, he also suggested that state-run oil company Petrobras should "sell a substantial portion of its refining, retail, transportation and other activities where it has market power" in order to "promote competition" in the oil and gas sector for the good of consumers.
However, in a TV interview on 9 October he expressed concern that privatising electric utility company Eletrobras could lead to it being bought by Chinese investors.
He also rowed back on his earlier support for privatising Petrobras, saying that the "core" of the oil company should stay under state control.
Affinity with Donald Trump
Mr Bolsonaro has been called "Trump of the Tropics" and on foreign policy he is likely to follow an agenda closely aligned to that of the US president on issues such as the environment and the Middle East conflict.
He has suggested that Brazil could pull out of the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change, arguing that its requirements compromise Brazil's sovereignty over the Amazon region. An editorial in São Paulo's Folha newspaper called Mr Bolsonaro's reasoning "an anachronistic fear", but it is one that has won him the support of many landowners and agribusinesses.
image copyright Reuters image caption Many landowners supported Mr Bolsonaro and he is also popular with agribusinesses
Mr Bolsonaro is also thought to favour moving the Brazilian embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
He also said he would close the Palestinian embassy in Brazil. "Is Palestine a country? Palestine is not a country, so there should be no embassy here," he said in August. | {
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BUFFALO, N.Y. — EMS providers started an online petition calling for the minimum wage for first responders to increase to $17 an hour, WIVB reports.
This comes on the heels of paramedic’s viral Facebook post that supported New York raising minimum wage to $15 per hour, slammed complaints against fast food workers earning the same $15 per hour as him, and commended them for fighting for and winning a living wage.
The petition, organized by New York EMT Nolin Jackson, has more than 5,000 signatures. Once it reaches 7,500, he will send it to the governor and state legislature.
“In Western New York, most EMTs start around $10 and $11 an hour,” Jackson told WIVB. “As a starting EMT, I know it’s extremely difficult to make a living. You have to get as much overtime as you can. It can take time away from your family and you sometimes even have to get a second job.”
The petition includes all emergency responders, and points out that public safety professionals “frequently see the worst of humanity,” “risk their lives for strangers,” and “often work 80 to 100 hours a week to support their family.”
"The professionals in emergency services have dedicated their lives to protecting their communities often for less than $10.00 per hour,” part of the petition reads. “If unskilled laborers such as fast food workers are worth $15 per hour, surely the highly trained first responders are worth more.” | {
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「すべらない砂」に発がん物質 ＪＲ四国が合格祈願で配布 2018.2.9 14:05 更新
ＪＲ四国が徳島駅や松山駅などで合格祈願きっぷ購入者に配布した「すべらない砂」に、発がん物質の結晶性シリカが微量含まれていたことが９日分かった。
<< 下に続く >>
同社は「粉じんを継続して大量に吸い込まない限り危険性はないが、気になる場合は破棄するか駅で処分を依頼してほしい」と呼び掛けている。
同社によると、砂は四国内の山や川などにあるものでレールの滑り止め用。瓶や袋に入れて昨年１２月から約３３４０個を配布した。ＪＲ西日本でも同様の問題が発生したことから、今年１月に配布を中止した。
他にＪＲ九州、神戸電鉄でもレール用の砂の配布を取りやめた。 | {
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Getty Images
The UK might have ditched plans for an age filter on online porn, but Australia is going all-in with a new proposal that could require internet users to verify their identity in a face-matching database before viewing pornography.
The proposal comes as Australian lawmakers consider new restrictions around age verification for online porn and gambling as part of a bipartisan parliamentary inquiry.
In a submission to the inquiry, first reported by ZDNet, Australia's Department of Home Affairs proposed using its Face Verification Service to verify internet users wanting to look at porn.
"Home Affairs is developing a Face Verification Service which matches a person's photo against images used on one of their evidence of identity documents to help verify their identity," DHA wrote in a submission to the inquiry. "This could assist in age verification, for example by preventing a minor from using their parent's driver licence to circumvent age verification controls."
The first phase of the Face Verification Service launched in 2016 with a database that included citizenship images, accessible by government agencies including the Australian Federal Police. However, the Government has proposed expanding the Service to include drivers' license photos to capture a larger part of the population.
DHA hasn't outlined the specific technical detail on how the Face Verification Service would be rolled out as means of verifying Australians on adult websites. But the proposal comes at a time when the issue of age verification is being keenly debated, with religious groups calling for the protection of minors and civil liberties groups raising concerns about the privacy and security of adults legitimately accessing legal pornography.
A similar porn filter proposed in the UK was delayed a number of times as the British government tried to pin down a system for reliably verify ages. The UK porn block proposal was dropped earlier this month. | {
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Hey folks, Harry here... growing up going to convention culture I've grown up knowing a lot of comic book, animation and comic strip artists, so the second I saw this trailer it grabbed my interest. I like that the doc seems to be going into the long and beautiful history of the Comic Strip, its evolution of styles and how the closing of print publications is making life harder. Personally I see this as a great subject for a documentary. This one completely has my interests. This is one of those Kickstarter successes! Love that this is really changing the landscape of independent productions. Been long in coming. Anyway, check out the trailer - Looking forward to it being shown!
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Anthony Carroll, a Washington lawyer, trade expert and businessman who has had a long association with South Africa and sub-Saharan Africa more broadly, is being strongly tipped to become the next US ambassador to Pretoria. By PETER FABRICIUS.
Anthony Carroll is vice president at Manchester Trade, an international business advisory company in Washington, and has had 40 years of experience working in Africa, especially Southern Africa. He would bring a strong business focus to US-South Africa relations if President Donald Trump did choose him as the next ambassador, to replace former President Barack Obama’s ambassador, Patrick Gaspard, who left Pretoria early this year.
Carroll has worked on many US-Africa commercial issues and was an early proponent and architect of the keystone African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) which gives eligible African countries duty-free access to the US market.
His candidacy for the Pretoria job has been supported by several influential people in both countries. Whitey Basson, chief of South Africa’s Shoprite retain chain, said, “Tony Carroll is in my opinion one of the most knowledgeable and influential advisers on investment and political/socio-economic stability of countries on the African continent.
“His in-depth studies and association with policy-makers on the continent is not only beneficial to his client base but should also be recognised by the USA Government as he constantly promotes trade with the African Continent.”
Former US ambassador to SA Cameron Hume also punted Carroll, saying, “I cannot imagine a better choice. Tony Carroll actually knows South Africa. He has served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Botswana and worked in previous Republican administrations. He knows the mining industry inside and out, and is a foremost consultant on trade.”
And Cape Town mayor Patricia de Lille also commended him for the job, saying, “I have known Tony for many years and he has always been a good friend of South Africa. He always played an instrumental role in bringing the Mining Indaba and encouraging companies to invest in Cape Town.
“He has always been a good ‘ambassador’ for us and we look forward to working with him and wish him the best of luck.”
In testimony to the US House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee last month Carroll urged legislators to give strong government support to US companies to increase trade and investment with Africa.
This included support to US government agencies such as EXIM, the Export-Import Bank which gives US companies export credit, OPIC, which helps US companies invest in emerging markets, and the Foreign Agricultural Service which helps US farmers and agricultural companies sell their products abroad.
Such agencies are not popular with more radical Republicans who believe in reducing the role of government. Carroll said that in a perfect world they would not be necessary. “But we do not live in a perfect world,” he added.
He pointed out that while EXIM, for example, had provided $10-billion in export credit in 2015, the Chinese government had provided $500-billion export credit to its companies.
Carroll also urged strong support for AGOA which is sometimes criticised by American business because it allows African imports into the US quota and duty-free, but does not give reciprocal access for US exports into African markets.
Carroll pointed out, though, that AGOA was helping both sides. He said while non-petroleum US imports from AGOA countries had risen 75% between 2000 (when AGOA came into force) and 2016, US exports to AGOA countries had risen 130% – so America’s non-petroleum trade balance with Africa had improved from a deficit to a surplus.
Meanwhile, though, Carroll said AGOA had created 60,000 direct jobs and 100,000 indirect jobs in South Africa, one of the major beneficiaries of the preferential deal.
Carroll first came to southern Africa as a Peace Corps volunteer in Botswana in 1976. Later, as chairman of the Africa Law Committee of the American Bar Association, he worked with the courts, professional bar associations and universities in South Africa to further reconciliation. Carroll also recruited leading young South African lawyers to participate in the American Bar Association’s international lawyers exchange programme.
After the transition from apartheid, Carroll became more involved in economic development in South Africa, including identifying opportunities for foreign direct investment in three South African provinces.
In 1994 he helped launch the African Mining Indaba which has become the largest annual industrial conference in Africa.
He is a founding director and shareholder of Acorus Capital, a private equity fund that invests in US and Africa companies, and has advised US companies, business associations, foundations and universities on doing business in South Africa.
He has been a director of the US-South Africa Business Council and has been active in the US Chamber of Commerce Africa Center and the Corporate Council on Africa’s South Africa Working Group.
He has also been a senior associate in the Africa programme at Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and is an adjunct professor in Africa Studies at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies.
He has been an adviser to EXIM, OPIC, the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) – which provides US aid to developing countries – and to the US Trade Representative.(USTR) the government agency which sets trade policy. DM
Photo: Anthony Carroll (photo supplied) | {
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An interaction between perovskites and quantum dots could improve LED and solar technologies (Nanowerk News) Researchers in Valencia have studied the interaction of two materials, halide perovskite and quantum dots, revealing enormous potential for the development of advanced LEDs and more efficient solar cells (Science Advances, "Tunable light emission by exciplex state formation between hybrid halide perovskite and core/shell quantum dotes: Implications in advanced LEDs and photovoltaics").
Researchers from the Universitat Jaume I (James I University, UJI) and the Universitat de València (University of Valencia, UV) have quantified the exciplex state resulting from the coupling of halide perovskites and colloidal quantum dots. Both known separately for their optoelectronic properties, when brought together these materials yield much longer wavelengths than can be achieved by either material alone, plus easy tuning properties that together have the potential to usher in important changes in LED and solar technologies.
Perovskite materials are the rising stars of the photovoltaic industry. They are cheap to produce, simple to manufacture and very, very efficient. Better yet, they are relatively new to the scene and there is still much potential to explore for even more efficient solar cells. They are also used in LED technology. Quantum dots (QDs), for their part, are a family of semiconductor materials with very interesting light-emitting properties, including the ability to tune what wavelengths light is emitted at. They are also very useful in both LEDs and solar cells.
The result of bringing the two materials together is a new exciplex state where light can be emitted at much longer wavelengths, reaching well into the infrared spectrum, while also allowing control over its emission colour via applied voltage. Each material the perovskite, the QDs and the new exciplex state emits light at a different colour, each of which can be weighted within the overall light emission to pick out the desired colour.
This means LEDs can be designed which can emit light over both the visible and infrared spectrums at the same time, which would have applications in the field of telecommunications. | {
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SPOILERS! After-Credits Scenes In CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER Detailed
Ahead of reactions from Captain America: The Winter Soldier press screenings today, descriptions of both the mid- and after-credits scenes have surfaced revealing how it teases The Avengers sequel
While the much-anticipated Captain America: The Winter Soldier movie will be screened for the press this week starting today, an early dutch review of the superhero political thriller has surfaced online via BrainFreeze.be. After declaring the sequel the "most serious and dark Marvel film," the review notably explains what happens before and after the credits roll. Major Spoiler alert! "After the fall of both S.H.I.E.L.D. & HYDRA we see Baron Von Strucker (Thomas Kretschmann) in his underground lair. Loki’s scepter can be seen here, as well as 2 special prisoners: the “twins”. These are of course Quicksilver (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen). Quicksilver is bouncing from one end in his cell to another while Scarlet Witch is stacking some building blocks with her mind. Watching them, Von Strucker announces “The Age of Miracles” is upon us. And with that we learn the new name for mutants in the Marvel movieverse." As for the post-credits scene, "The Winter Soldier is visiting the Captain America exhibit in the Smithsonian museum. Here he finds the information on James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes, his real name. It appears the Winter Soldier now knows who he really was and remembers that Captain America spoke the truth about him." What do you think?
After the cataclysmic events in New York with The Avengers, “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” finds Steve Rogers, aka Captain America, living quietly in Washington, D.C. and trying to adjust to the modern world. But when a S.H.I.E.L.D. colleague comes under attack, Steve becomes embroiled in a web of intrigue that threatens to put the world at risk. Joining forces with the Black Widow, Captain America struggles to expose the ever-widening conspiracy while fighting off professional assassins sent to silence him at every turn. When the full scope of the villainous plot is revealed, Captain America and the Black Widow enlist the help of a new ally, the Falcon. However, they soon find themselves up against an unexpected and formidable enemy — the Winter Soldier. Starring Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Sebastian Stan, Anthony Mackie, Cobie Smulders, Frank Grillo, Georges St-Pierre, Hayley Atwell, Toby Jones, Emily VanCamp and Maximiliano Hernández with Samuel L. Jackson and Robert Redford, “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” is directed by the team of Anthony & Joe Russo from a screenplay written by Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely and is based on the ever-popular Marvel comic book series, first published in 1941. Marvel Studios’ President Kevin Feige is producing the film. Executive producers on the project include Alan Fine, Louis D’Esposito, Victoria Alonso, Michael Grillo and Stan Lee. The creative production team on the film includes director of photography Trent Opaloch, production designer Peter Wenham, editors Jeffrey Ford, A.C.E. and Mary Jo Markey, A.C.E. and three time Oscar®-nominated costume designer Judianna Makovsky. “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” is set for release on April 4, 2014.
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Air-displacement pipettes always have a cushion of air between the pipette piston and the liquid. The simpler of the two instrument types, air-displacement pipettes are easily influenced by factors such as temperature, atmospheric pressure, specific gravity, and the liquid’s viscosity. Keeping the liquid away from the piston or barrel is an advantage, but also provides many limitations in terms of maintaining accuracy. For instance, working with liquids that may easily evaporate would require the use of the other type of pipette–positive-displacement pipettes.
How is it used? Air-displacement and positive-displacement micropipettes involve a quicker and more efficient procedure for transferring liquids of specific volumes. The first step to using these automatic micropipettes is the push-button volume adjustment. Hold the body of the micropipette in one hand and use the other hand to rotate the push-button. Do not attempt to force the volume setting beyond the limits of your micropipette, at the risk of internal damage. Also, make sure that the numbers of your volume setting are in proper alignment. Afterwards, a disposable pipette tip is attached.
After setting the volume and attaching the disposable tip, the next step is the process of pre-rinsing. Pre-rinsing, also called pre-wetting, is a highly-advised procedure for achieving greater uniformity and precision, as it provides identical contact surfaces for the liquid to be aspirated. To pre-rinse, simply aspirate with the tip and then dispense back into the original reservoir or to a waste receptacle. Pre-rinsing should be performed each time you change a pipette tip, and when you increase the volume setting.
The operation of automatic micropipettes involves two points of resistance — the first stop, the point at which the piston reaches the calibrated volume on the digital volumeter, and the second stop, at which the remaining liquid is fully expelled or purged. When aspirating, two factors can influence the accuracy of your measurement — the aspiration angle and immersion depth. Prepare the micropipette by holding it in a nearly vertical position and depressing the plunger or push-button to the first stop position using your thumb. Once the push-button is in the first stop, immerse the pipette tip just below the surface of the liquid, to avoid droplets sticking on the outside of the pipette tip and slowly and smoothly release the plunger or push-button back to the rest position as you wait for the liquid to move up and into the tip. Do not let the plunger snap back up as this will result in air bubbles.
Once the liquid is collected, place the pipette tip at an angle of 10 to 45 degrees against the inside wall of the receiving vessel, and depress the plunger smoothly back to the first stop position to dispense the liquid. Wait one second, and then depress the plunger once more into the second stop position to “purge” or “blow-out” the tip of any residual liquid. Finally, remove the pipette tip by sliding it off the sidewall. The procedure is the same for positive-displacement micropipettes, except both the disposable pipette tip and piston are ejected and replaced after each transfer. | {
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If you've been wanting to get into JavaScript development, it's normal to feel like you don't know where to begin. There are so many tools out there, so many concepts to learn!
It can be really useful to just watch someone who knows what they're doing to code something. You can see how they approach problems, and learn how they look up things they don't know.
This is exactly the approach I took when I wanted to learn 3D modeling with Blender. It worked wonders!
So today, I built a Github profile widget that dynamically pulls information from their API and displays it on the page. All in JavaScript with no external libraries. And it's an uncut & unedited version, so you can witness me make a mistake or forget an API, but then debug through the problem or look up the right information.
Here are some topics discussed in this video:
What chunks you can break this problem into so it can be solved cleanly
How to write maintainable CSS, and a website link
Why you shouldn't use 100% grey colors
How to debug JavaScript and CSS issues
What are good online reference resources
How to query the Github API without any JS frameworks
Enjoy, and let me know what you thought of it!
Here's the source code that I came up with by the end of the session. You can run it yourself, or use it as a basis for some other project. | {
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It is an article of faith among Senate Republicans that everything liberals do is just goddamn awful, from the unelected left-wing justices who “legislate from the bench” to the blocking of Robert Bork in 1987 to the lame cries for equal treatment of everyone under the law. Indeed, Senate Republicans have so mastered the art of outsize umbrage that at Monday’s hearing for Judge Merrick Garland Neil Gorsuch, to fill a Supreme Court seat they themselves blocked and obstructed for over a year, the one note of agreement they sounded was an angry one. They are angry that Democrats believe an Obama nominee should have been afforded the courtesy of a hearing and a vote. They are angry that their nominee—who was picked by the president with promises about how he would vote in abortion and gun cases—will surely be asked about how he will vote in abortion and gun cases. But mostly they are really just incredibly steamed that Senate Democrats are even a little bit mad. Because anger is sort of the Republicans’ thing.
Get your own thing, Democrats.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, the Republican chairman of the Judiciary Committee, was furious that the cardinal principles of “separation of powers” and respect for an “independent” judicial branch are not being honored by Senate Democrats. This is the same Chuck Grassley who pre-emptively attacked the Supreme Court and its chief justice last spring for any attempts to politicize the court vacancy. GOP Sen. Orrin Hatch lectured the Judiciary Committee about the fact that the Senate “owes the president deference over his judicial nominees.” Hearing this, Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont about fell out of his chair.
Sen. Mike Lee, a Republican from Utah, mournfully warned the nominee that the “duplicity” of Monday’s politicized confirmation hearings would be unfair and unfamiliar to him. Evidently the duplicity and politicization to which Merrick Garland Neil Gorsuch will be subjected is altogether unparalleled in modern history. And Sen. Ted Cruz, who is doubtless capable of hacking up a hairball of outrage over hangnails and the existence of Velcro, was affronted that a Democratic president had the temerity to even attempt to fill the chair vacated by Justice Antonin Scalia on an “activist Supreme Court” that is dominated by “unelected lawyers.”
The president’s audacity in seeking to fill that seat with a justice of his choosing was indeed so outrageous, Cruz argued in the fall, that if Hillary Clinton were to be elected the Senate should leave Scalia’s seat open indefinitely. After Trump’s victory, Cruz is still enraged, but now it’s because Democrats are ignoring the fact that since a Republican won, the election was actually a “referendum on the kind of justice that should replace Justice Scalia.” Cruz is beside himself with fury about questions regarding Merrick Garland Neil Gorsuch’s legitimacy. Don’t these Democrats know that only Ted Cruz gets to question a jurist’s legitimacy? To ensure that this is so, Cruz officially declares that effective, like right now, “Judge Gorsuch is no ordinary nominee. … His nomination carries with it a super legitimacy.” Super legitimacy, for the uninitiated, is the power to outrun your own speeding hypocrisy.
One angry senator after another cautioned the nominee not to answer any question about anything ever. Sen. Lindsey Graham, who is mainly just angry that everyone in the Senate isn’t Lindsey Graham, said he is post-anger. He isn’t even angry that Justice Sonia Sotomayor and Justice Elena Kagan vote with the liberals 100 percent of the time (they don’t) because what else can you really expect from liberal judges. Senate Republicans took turns being angry that anything other than Scalia-era “originalism” be given voice in the jurisprudential universe, despite the fact that there is maybe only one “originalist” sitting on the Supreme Court. They were enraged that any nominee should have to sit and have his record scrutinized given that 10 years ago—before he was a judge—this Gorsuch fellow was confirmed with flying colors. It’s all too obscene to countenance.
In the glare of all this furious umbrage, some of the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee responded with the standard toolkit of those who have been lifelong victims of abusive rage disorder. They expressed some dismay. They promised to try harder. They occasionally invoked the words “Merrick Garland,” but because they have no words to express fury or betrayal, they quickly reverted to showy performances of temperate reasonableness at which Senate Democrats excel. Doctrine was reasonably invoked. Chevron was fussed at. Some of the Democratic senators actually managed a creditable display of genuine frustration about GOP hypocrisy. This reached its high point with the metaphorical unfreezing of the “frozen trucker”—a plaintiff in a case whose plight the nominee once cruelly dismissed. In an epic hurling of shade, Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin said, “It was 14 degrees below. So cold, but not as cold as your dissent, Judge Gorsuch.”
A few of the Democrats appeared ready to rumble, if rumbling involves offering up many case citations. The Republicans’ fury, by contrast, was unbridled: How dare Democrats put their nice nominee through the indignity of a hearing on the merits when they could instead just lie down on the Senate floor and form a human red carpet for the judge to walk?
The nominee was very emotional and eloquent about his daughters, black robes, and farm animals. He is extremely likeable. He named “little guys” he has, in the past, supported. That seemed to make the GOP’s rage burn even hotter. Who would dare attack a guy who likes chickens and original public meaning?
If you’re keeping score after Day 1: Senate Democrats have now defrosted a trucker, name-checked Merrick Garland, and been lectured that Senate Republicans have no choice but to be mean because Democrats have no judicial theory, no coherent strategy, and no intellectual right to fill “Scalia’s seat.” On the other side of the aisle, the GOP has nothing but bottomless umbrage. It’s taken them this far. Why would they stop now? | {
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The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer’s desperately dishonest attempt to exonerate disgraced former Senator Al Franken (D-MN) is filled with more than just deception and lies of omission. On moral grounds, what Mayer admits to doing to one of Franken’s accusers is beyond shameful.
Mayer actually tries to shame this woman, a longtime Democrat, as a way to make it seem as though the accuser is the villain and Franken is the victim.
Back in December, the far-left Politico published the story of this anonymous Democrat staffer (Mayer leaves out the fact she’s a Democrat) who accused Franken of forcibly attempting to kiss her in 2006 when she appeared on his failed Air America radio show.
When she refused his kiss, she says he told her, “It’s my right as an entertainer.”
“He was between me and the door and he was coming at me to kiss me. It was very quick and I think my brain had to work really hard to be like ‘Wait, what is happening?’ But I knew whatever was happening was not right and I ducked,” the woman told Politico. “I was really startled by it and I just sort of booked it towards the door and he said, ‘It’s my right as an entertainer.’”
Franken denies the allegation.
“This allegation is categorically not true and the idea that I would claim this as my right as an entertainer is preposterous. I look forward to fully cooperating with the ongoing ethics committee investigation,” he said in a statement.
For her New Yorker piece, Mayer did pretend to interview Franken, but because she is only interested in rewriting history and portraying him as a victim of a vast right-wing conspiracy, she didn’t ask him any tough questions. One thing Franken did admit to Mayer, though, is that it was this allegation “that killed me.”
For the record, this was the seventh of a total of eight — eight! — allegations accusing Franken of sexual misconduct.
And so, because this was the allegation that “killed” poor Franken, Mayer went after this woman with a hatchet:
Not long ago, I asked the woman if she thought that Franken had been making a sexual advance or a clumsy thank-you gesture. “Is there a difference?” she replied. “If someone tries to do something to you unwanted?” From her standpoint, because she was at work—a professional woman deserving respect—his intentions didn’t matter. Franken has maintained that the woman’s story was the allegation “that killed me.” I asked her if his behavior was bad enough to end his Senate career. [emphasis added] “I didn’t end his Senate career—he did,” she said.
Good answer. The woman pours cold water on all of Mayer’s victim-shaming, victim-blaming, “Gosh don’t you think you might have handled this differently if you thought about what’s good for Al” accusations disguised as questions: he did what I said he did, and he chose to resign. Yet Mayer allows the real victim — in her mind, Franken — to have the last word, to attack his accuser as “callous,” to blame her for how this has “affected my family”:
Franken was stricken when I related her comments to him. “Look,” he said. “This has really affected my family. I loved being in the Senate. I loved my staff—we had fun and we got good things done, big and small, and they all meant something to me.” He started to cry. “For her to say that, it’s just so callous. It’s just so wrong.” Rubbing his eyes beneath his glasses, he said, “I ended my career by saying ‘Thanks’ to her—that’s what she’s saying.”
What everyone wants to forget when it comes to Al Franken, and what Mayer is hoping everyone forgets as she screams FOX NEWS!!!!, is that eight — eight! — separate women came forward to accuse him of forcible kissing and groping.
Most importantly, at least half of those women were not only Democrats — some were supporters of his!
What’s more, Leeann Tweeden, the first woman to come forward, has an actual photograph of a leering, 55-year-old, then-married Al Franken taking advantage of her while she’s asleep to grope her, or appear to grope her… or whatever it is, it’s clearly an attempt to sexually humiliate her.
And never forget that, thus far, Tweeden’s photograph is the only photographic evidence any #MeToo victim has produced to back up their claim an actual #MeToo violation occurred.
But what does Mayer do to Tweeden? Smears her, and slut-shames the former pinup, and fabricates wild conspiracy theories about Fox News and Roger Ailes, even though seven — seven! — other women came forward to basically tell the same story Tweeden did and more than half of those seven are Democrats.
Mayer spends some 13,000 words, more than 5,000 attacking Tweeden, to exonerate Franken for one reason and one reason only — he’s a far-left Democrat, a fellow traveler.
The bottom line is this…
When eight women come forward and one of them has an actual photo of the #MeToo violation, and others can prove they were with Franken when they said they were with Franken, and others are able to produce contemporaneous witnesses who they told about the misconduct at the time, and when you can remove all suspicion of a political hatchet job because at least half of them are Democrats, that’s the whole ballgame.
But because Mayer’s bitter that her irresponsible and shoddy reporting couldn’t take down Brett Kavanaugh, because she’s furious no one believes the stupid allegations against President Trump, she’s out to settle political scores at the expense of Franken’s female accusers.
Even worse, Mayer is sending an unmistakable signal to any woman who dares come forward about a Democrat that they will not benefit from #BelieveAllWomen. Instead, they will be dragged through the mud on the pages of the New Yorker.
#MeToo was supposed to take Trump down. But what ended up happening is that legions of left-wing men in the elite media and in Hollywood were forever destroyed, and that included the precious Al Franken.
And so, Mayer is recalibrating the #MeToo movement. She is reminding women that if a Democrat assaulted you, you had better keep your mouth shut, or else…
In other words, Mayer is single-handedly dragging us back to the ’90s, to the Bill Clinton era, when rabidly-partisan, left-wing feminists like Mayer methodically destroyed Clinton’s accusers and victims with the help of the establishment media.
Mayer has just announced the end of the #MeToo era.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here. | {
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The publisher said in a statement in the games it's removing them because of "the present uncertain legal status of 'loot boxes' under Belgian law," according to the Guardian. Back in April, Belgium's gaming commission declared that loot boxes, which reward players with randomized in-game items, in some games broke gambling rules. The move has affected several titles, including Guild Wars 2, while the Netherlands has also banned them in certain games.
Some other countries and jurisdictions are considering steps to regulate loot boxes. While the UK has determined that they aren't a type of gambling if players can't sell the virtual items they receive for real money, it's keeping tabs on the issue.
With that in mind, it's worth considering how publishers might react if key markets such as the UK or the US banned loot boxes. While they might not completely remove titles that use them, they'd certainly have to retool their games, particularly if they adopt a free-to-play business model that relies on such microtransactions or include a pay-to-win aspect. | {
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Larry asks: The leaves on my plumeria trees do not look healthy. Some are turning yellow, others have brown spots and many are falling off the tree. I also see orange spots on the underside of the leaves. What’s up and what can I do?
Tropical Garden Answer: Plumeria trees are somewhat drought tolerant and will suffer if their roots are constantly wet or if the area around them is moist. Plumeria trees with “wet feet” are especially vulnerable to root rots or other fungal diseases.
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The orange spots on the underside of the leaves is indicative of the presence of the plumeria rust pathogen Coleosporium plumeriae. This is a fungal disease and is hard to get rid of once it starts. The best cure is usually prevention but using a few different treatments will likely help.
The symptoms of the disease are light-colored spots on the upper surface of the leaves and orange pustules of the rust spores on the undersides of the leaves. In severe cases, the leaves will yellow and may turn brown and drop off.
Rust spores are airborne and can spread from one plumeria to another on the wind, from water or rain backsplash. Once the spores come in contact with moist leaves, they stick and begin to grow and multiply.
To start dealing with this disease you can remove undergrowth around your trees and thin out some branches on the tree to improve air circulation and reduce moisture in and around the tree. If you only have a few infested leaves, remove them. Do not remove more than one-third of the tree’s leaves, however, or it will go into additional stress.
Remove any fallen leaves from around the tree as well. The disease can be spread from infected leaves on the ground. Plumeria rust only affects the plant’s leaves, not the stems or flowers. It is also specific to plumeria plants and will not spread to other species.
This disease can be prevented and/or controlled by planting disease resistant varieties, removing weeds and dead leaves and by applying fungicides when necessary. Research has shown that both Plumeria stenopetala and Plumeria caracasana are resistant to rust.
Several homemade fungicides can be effective against rust. An easy one is made by mixing 1 tablespoon each of baking soda, light vegetable oil and mild liquid soap in a gallon of water. Using neem oil and safer soap can increase the insecticidal properties of this formula if you want a multipurpose product. Spray the mixture in early morning or late afternoon so that it contacts the rust on the undersides of the leaves.
Fungicides like this can be used to spray all parts of the plants as well as the soil around them. Several organic commercial fungicides are also available and should be used according to the directions on the product. Both Serenade and Dr. Earth Final Stop Disease and Fungicide Control are usually effective and generally available. Fungicides should be applied about twice a month until the pathogen is no longer spreading and your plant looks better. To avoid pathogen resistance, it is best to use different types of fungicides over the season.
For more information and photos of rust fungus and infected leaves go to the UH CTAHR free publication at https://www.ctahr.hawaii.edu/oc/freepubs/pdf/pd-61.pdf.
Diana Duff is a plant adviser, educator and consultant living in a dryland forest north of Kailua-Kona.
Gardening Events
Saturday: “Work Day at Amy Greenwell Garden” from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Meet at the Garden Visitor Center across from the Manago Hotel in Captain Cook. Volunteers will be able to help with garden maintenance and are invited to bring a brown bag lunch. Water and snacks provided. Call Peter at 323-3318 for more information.
Farmer Direct Markets
Wednesday: “Ho’oulu Farmers Market” 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Sheraton Kona Resort &Spa at Keauhou Bay
“Sunset Farmers Market” 2-6 p.m. in the HPM parking lot at 74-5511 Luhia St. in Kailua-Kona (across from Target)
Saturday: “Keauhou Farmers Market” 8 a.m. to noon at Keauhou Shopping Center
“Kamuela Farmer’s Market” from 7 a.m. to noon at Pukalani Stables
“Waimea Town Market” from 7:30 a.m. to noon at the Parker School in central Waimea
“Waimea Homestead Farmers Market” from 7 a.m. to noon at the Waimea Middle and Elementary School Playground
Sunday: “Pure Kona Green Market” 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Amy Greenwell Garden in Captain Cook
“Hamakua Harvest” 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Highway 19 and Mamane St. in Honokaa
Plant Advice Lines
Anytime: [email protected]
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Tuesdays and Thursdays: 9 a.m. to noon at UH-CES in Kainaliu – 322-4893
Mondays and Fridays: 9 a.m. to noon at UH CES at Komohana in Hilo 981-5199 or [email protected] | {
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A security check at an airport in India caught a man trying to accidentally bring a venomous snake onto a plane in his carry-on.
SNAKES ON A PLANE: PASSENGER FLEW FROM GERMANY TO RUSSIA WITH 20 SNAKES IN HIS BAG
According to UPI, Central Industrial Security Force screeners at Cochin Airport saw the creature in a bag of potatoes that was inside the carry-on luggage when it was scanned through the security X-ray machine.
The snake, believed to be an Indian krait, is one of the four most venomous snakes in the region.
PHILIPPINES AIRPORT PASSENGERS PANIC OVER SNAKE SIGHTING IN DEPARTURES LOUNGE
The passenger claimed he purchased a bag of potatoes from a farmer and placed them in his luggage to bring along on his trip to Abu Dhabi. The man allegedly did not know the snake was hiding in the bag of potatoes.
FOLLOW US ON FACEBOOK FOR MORE FOX LIFESTYLE NEWS
The passenger was initially arrested for having the snake in his luggage, but was later released when police determined it was likely an accident.
This wasn’t the only snake on a plane story to make headlines this week. On Monday a little boy was left “heartbroken” when airport officials in South Africa would not let him board a plane with his “soft toy python" because it allegedly looked too much like the real thing. | {
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Not sure if I hate Facebook or if I hate all my friends
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Important for us to go big in the first innings: Smith
Australia captain Steve Smith has no doubt Ajinkya Rahane will be able to adequately lead India in the final Test should captain Virat Kohli be ruled out through injury.
Kohli will need to pass a fitness Test on his injured right shoulder in order to play in the series-decider in Dharamsala, with youngster Shreyas Iyer called in as cover.
When Kohli left the field after falling heavily attempting to prevent a boundary midway through the opening day of the third Test in Ranchi, Rahane, as vice-captain, was instilled as the interim skipper for the next 89 overs.
Australia were bowled out for 451 under Rahane’s watch but Kohli returned in Australia’s second innings, barely fielding a ball at first slip during the visitors’ 100 overs at the crease.
With Kohli racing against the clock to be fit for perhaps the biggest Test of his career, Smith expects Rahane to once again fill in as his counterpart.
"I think (India) would be fine," Smith said when asked what the impact of Kohli’s absence would have on the hosts.
"I think Ajinkya Rahane would probably step up to captain their side.
"I thought he did a pretty good job last week when he was out on the field in Virat’s absence.
"I’m confident he’ll be able to do a good job for them."
Kohli exits action after fielding mishap
After India suffered a shock loss in the opening Test at Pune, Kohli and his charges upped the aggression in the next two Tests to the point where both sides had to be spoken to by the on-field umpires at certain times.
Tensions bubbled over in Bengaluru when Smith suffered a "brain fade" by looking at his dressing room during a DRS referral while Kohli was seen to be mocked by Glenn Maxwell in Ranchi..
But without Kohli out there marshalling and motivating his troops, Smith expects to face a different, calmer India at HPCA Stadium starting Saturday.
"(Rahane) was probably a bit more chilled out on the field," Smith said.
"Probably not quite as emotional but I think he understands the game really well.
"I’ve been fortunate enough to play a fair bit of cricket with Ajinkya and he reads the game and understands the game really well so if Virat was to miss this Test match then I’m sure the Indian side will still be in very good hands."
Iyer's eye-catching tour match double-ton
Kohli’s likely replacement is the uncapped Iyer who is no stranger to the Australians.
In the tourists’ sole warm-up game in Mumbai ahead of the first Test, Iyer smashed an unbeaten double-century on a flat track at Brabourne Stadium.
Iyer was fearless against the No.2-ranked Test team in the world, which was without Test new-ball pairing Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood, hitting seven sixes in his whirlwind 210-ball 202no.
Quick Single: Smith's timely blessing on final Test eve
The 22-year-old has starred for Mumbai in the Ranji Trophy – India’s first-class equivalent of the Sheffield Shield – and the confidence he gained from that "special" innings will certainly hold him in good stead if he makes his Test debut this weekend.
"It was a really amazing experience, it was my first time playing Australia," Iyer told reporters last month after his epic knock.
"I think this was one of my best innings,"
"I really played nice strokes. I hardly got any chances while batting. Usually I get some lives."
Test Squads
India (for fourth Test): Virat Kohli (c), Murali Vijay, KL Rahul, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, Wriddhiman Saha, Ravichandaran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Ishant Sharma, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Umesh Yadav, Karun Nair, Jayant Yadav, Kuldeep Yadav, Abhinav Mukund, Shreyas Iyer
Australia: Steve Smith (c), David Warner (vc), Ashton Agar, Jackson Bird, Pat Cummins, Peter Handscomb, Josh Hazlewood, Usman Khawaja, Nathan Lyon, Shaun Marsh, Glenn Maxwell, Stephen O'Keefe, Matthew Renshaw, Marcus Stoinis, Mitchell Swepson, Matthew Wade
Australia's schedule in India
Feb 23-27, First Test, Pune – Australia won by 333 runs.
Mar 4-8, Second Test, Bengaluru – India won by 75 runs.
Mar 16-20, Third Test, Ranchi – match drawn.
Mar 25-29, Fourth Test, Dharamsala | {
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KATEERA, Uganda, April 25 (UPI) -- A 103-year-old Ugandan man died after fathering 158 children and amassing around 500 grandchildren.
Jack Kigongo of Kateera village fathered his children from 20 wives, with the oldest child being 60-years-old and the youngest being 15, The New Vision, Uganda, reported Wednesday.
Patrick Bulira Kigongo said his father, who is believed to have fathered the highest number of children in Uganda, was wealthy after serving in World War II but fell on hard times following the five-year bush-war that brought the NRM/NRA to power in Uganda.
Patrick Kigongo said 22 of his brothers died in the war.
"Three of my brothers are in the army -- a captain, a sergeant and a lieutenant," he said.
He said a number of Kigongo's widows and children live in his mansion, which still bears damage from the war. | {
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Today is April Fool’s Day, and despite Microsoft’s efforts to ban such pranks, many tech companies could not resist joining in the centuries-old spoofing tradition. However, given the already incredible achievements of cutting-edge AI technologies, some of today’s hoaxes actually look pretty convincing.
Ready to be fooled? Synced has picked some of the best April Fool’s Day jokes from the world of AI.
Self-driving pet service
Alphabet’s self-driving subsidiary announced Waymo Pet, a self-driving service tailored to pets. In a promotional video released this morning, straight-faced Waymo engineers describe how the pet-oriented ride experience incorporates for example a laser display because research shows cats and kittens love laser pointers, and a hamster-leveraging, wheel-powered cooling system.
Waymo opened applications for pet owners and many bought into it, leaving comments such as “Where can I sign up?” and “I was about to starting believing this was real…”
Google AI talks to flowers
Google always ups its game on April Fool’s, and its latest prank brings creativity to the next level. Cutting edge AI-powered Google Assistant, the company announced, can now communicate with tulips, an innovation the company says will bring great environmental and societal benefits.
Tulips are a symbol of Netherlands, and Google exploited this by associating the project with Dutch public university Wageningen University & Research. Mastering “Tulipish,” the language of tulips, allows Google Assistant to translate tulip signals to human language using neural machine translation techniques. Google even added the faux tongue to its recently introduced Interpreter Mode.
NVIDIA’s holographic smart speaker
Although US chip giant NVIDIA has not yet made any promises on smart speakers, the prototype they announced today surely seems too good to be true. Meet NVIDIA R.O.N., an AI-powered holographic assistant for PC gaming.
The list of R.O.N.’s incredible capabilities includes projecting 3D augmented reality displays of maps, levels, and data for gameplay; and translating any and all questionable languages into supportive messages for players. Want to whack haters on social media? R.O.N. features “TrollDestroyer,” which leverages AI to help you win debates on Reddit or Twitch. Prefer to game in peace? “TalkBlock” enables 208 third-party applications to redirect parents, partners or roommates so they can’t interrupt your gaming experience.
Ant Financial’s FBi-phone
Alibaba’s financial subsidiary Ant Financial announced its newest smartphone can battle fraudsters by leveraging AI, blockchain, and other cutting-edge techniques. FBi-Phone (Fraud-Busting intelligence), is packed with anti-fraud, anti-counterfeiting, and anti-evil features.
FBi-Phone can predict attempted fraud calls using cognitive computing and pattern recognition capabilities. FBi-Phone can also stall unwelcome callers with engaging conversation while simultaneously alerting authorities.
The product and features are not completely nonsensical. Synced previously reported on Alibaba’s Erha, an application that uses an AI-backed voice bot to field sales calls. In a demo call recording a random human telemarketer delivers a complete sales pitch to Erha, unaware they are dealing with a bot.
Alibaba says the FBi-phone will be available for sale in all reputable telephone shops in the future.
Baidu’s AI love bot
Chinese search engine Baidu has repeatedly trumpeted its “all-in on AI” efforts, and the company’s April Fool’s joke is an ambitious AI love bot called “Cupid.” Billed as an “interactive smart social assistant” delivering unprecedented levels of service to improve romantic relationships, Cupid can quickly detect and interpret body language and facial expressions to break down walls of misunderstanding between the sexes.
In a promotional video Cupid evaluates an uncomfortable woman’s behavior and suggests to her concerned partner she’s having menstrual cramps and would like him to keep her company through the discomfort.
The various April Fool’s AI jokes are not limited to fun and games: they also reflect various corporate visions and expectations regrading a tech-driven world that benefits both humans and nature. In all likelihood, some of these fanciful spoofs will actually become products one day. | {
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Two days after Papa John's founder John Schnatter admitted to using a racially charged slur during a May conference call, the company's CEO Steve Ritchie said racism and insensitive language will not be tolerated and the company will embark on an audit of its corporate policies.
"Papa John’s is not an individual," Ritchie said in the statement Friday. "Papa John’s is a pizza company with 120,000 corporate and franchise team members around the world. Our employees represent all walks of life, and we are committed to fostering an inclusive and equitable workplace for all. Racism and any insensitive language, no matter what the context simply cannot — and will not — be tolerated at any level of our company."
Papa John's as a brand has suffered backlash after Schnatter's comments became public. Major League Baseball indefinitely suspended its Papa Slam promotion — a campaign that both sides have collaborated on since 2016 and a number of sports teams have distanced themselves from the brand. | {
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Senate approves fiscal cliff legislation
Hours past a self-imposed deadline for action, the Senate passed legislation early New Year's Day to neutralize a fiscal cliff combination of across-the-board tax increases and spending cuts that kicked in at midnight. The pre-dawn vote was 89-8.
Senate passage set the stage for a final showdown in the House, where a vote was expected later Tuesday or perhaps Wednesday.
Under the deal, taxes would remain steady for the middle class and rise at incomes over $400,000 for individuals and $450,000 for couples — levels higher than President Obama had campaigned for in his successful drive for a second term in office.
Spending cuts totaling $24 billion over two months aimed at the Pentagon and domestic programs would be deferred. That would allow the White House and lawmakers time to regroup before plunging very quickly into a new round of budget brinkmanship certain to revolve around Republican calls to rein in the cost of Medicare and other government benefit programs.
Shortly after the Senate vote, President Obama said, "While neither Democrats nor Republicans got everything they wanted, this agreement is the right thing to do for our country and the House should pass it without delay."
Obama also said the bill takes a balanced approach to shrinking the U.S. deficit by "investing in (the) middle class" while "asking the wealthy to pay a little more."
MORE: Highlights of Senate bill averting 'fiscal cliff'
One set of taxes is set to go up in 2013: The deal does not address the end of the payroll tax holiday on Tuesday. That tax will rise by 2%, back to its 2010 level.
The deal also stops scheduled pay increases for Congress set for spring 2013 and includes a nine-month extension of the farm bill, which had been delayed for months because of differences between the House and Senate versions of the legislation that sets U.S. agricultural policy every five years.
The agreement also does not address any increase in the nation's debt ceiling, which -- combined with the delay of automatic spending cuts -- sets up the distinct possibility of another cliff-like budget battle in February.
The omission of the debt ceiling dismayed some liberal Democrats, including Sens. Tom Harkin of Iowa and Sherrod Brown of Ohio. Their criticism prompted Biden's visit to Capitol Hill late Monday.
"He's here to hear members' concerns and respond to them," said Reid spokesman Adam Jentleson.
"The argument is that this is the best that can be done on a bipartisan basis," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., when asked about the case the vice president had delivered behind closed doors.
Biden played a critical role, Feinstein said. "I think it was very important," she said, noting that McConnell and Biden "have a long prior experience" working together. "That's the reason this is bipartisan."
Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said he would put pressure on the House to pass the measure.
House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif, did not exactly endorse the deal either, saying in a statement: "When a final agreement is reached and passed by the Senate, I will present it to the House Democratic Caucus."
The final details came together hours after President Obama said Congress was making progress on a short-term deal to avert the fiscal cliff.
As the day dragged on, negotiations narrowed to a Democratic offer to pay for the spending cuts for two months, estimated to cost $24 billion, a McConnell spokesman said. Republicans wanted additional cuts to make up for supplanting those cuts and sent Democrats a list outlining $130 billion of suggested cuts for Democrats to consider.
At his White House event earlier in the day, Obama told an audience of cheering supporters that a proposal would help reduce the nation's $16 trillion-plus debt through higher taxes on the wealthy. He also said it would also extend unemployment insurance and preserve tax credits for such middle class items as child care and education.
The campaign-style event chafed some congressional Republicans. Obama's 2008 presidential rival Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., criticized it as "a cheer-leading, ridiculing-of-Republicans exercise."
Down the line, Obama said he will continue to insist that debt reduction be balanced with revenues as well as spending cuts, foreshadowing a second term defined by budgetary clashes with Republicans.
"It's going to have to be a matter of shared sacrifice, at least as long as I'm president," Obama said. "And I'm going to be president for the next four years, I hope."
Obama also cracked a joke about lawmakers: "And one thing we can count on with respect to this Congress is that if there is even one second left before you have to do what you're supposed to do, they will use that last second."
Also earlier Monday, negotiations pivoted on how and whether to turn off the impending $110 billion in spending cuts scheduled for 2013. They are part of the automatic $1.2 trillion in cuts over 10 years that Congress approved in the summer of 2011 when they failed to come up with deficit reduction on their own.
Republicans object to using new revenue to pay for the cuts because it negates the overarching goal of deficit reduction. "Everybody in this body knows that we've done nothing—nothing—to reduce a penny of debt in this country," said Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn. Any proposal to use revenue to pay for spending without additional cuts will likely face significant opposition among Republicans, particularly in the GOP-controlled House.
In a joint statement from House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio and other GOP leaders, they announced the House will "honor its commitment" to take up the Senate bill. They also left open the possibility that the House could seek to amend the deal until their members were given an opportunity to review the deal.
It was unclear how much support the package will have in the House, but McConnell spokesman Don Stewart was optimistic the chamber could approve the package. "(McConnell) has spoken to the speaker throughout the entire process," said Stewart.
Biden has proven a late but potentially crucial player in the budget negotiations. Frustrated by his failure to make progress with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., over the weekend, McConnell called on Biden to step in and help move the talks forward. The two have remained in constant contact since then, McConnell said. "I'm happy to report the effort has been a successful one," he said.
IMPACT: Even with deal, payroll tax likely to rise
The administration's willingness to raise the threshold for higher tax rates above the president's campaign pledge for earners above $250,000 was met with resistance by liberals. "This is one Democrat that doesn't agree with that at all," Harkin said. "I think that's grossly unfair." Harkin said that most Americans earn between $25,000-$60,000. "And they're the ones getting hammered right now," he said.
The AFL-CIO labor union, a major supporter of the Democratic Party, also raised objections to reported details of a possible agreement. In a tweet, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said the proposal gives Republicans the chance of "further destabilizing hostage taking" in the weeks ahead over raising the debt ceiling.
If Congress had failed to act, Obama had asked Reid to bring to the floor a stripped-down plan that would include a renewal of unemployment insurance and an extension of the Bush tax cuts for middle-class Americans who make less than $250,000 a year.
"Republicans will have to decide if they're going to block it, which will mean that middle-class taxes do go up," Obama said on Sunday on NBC's Meet the Press.
MORE: Deal would pale against expectations
FULL COVERAGE: The fiscal cliff
Budget conflicts have been a recurring theme in the 112th Congress, which ends Thursday at noon when nearly 100 new House and Senate lawmakers will be sworn in to office.
The Democratic president and divided Congress first clashed in spring 2011 over a near-government shutdown. Tensions continued that summer during the fight over raising the national debt limit.
Such tensions are likely to happen again in 2013. Congress must approve in mid-February an increase in the $16.4 trillion debt ceiling, the nation's borrowing authority, and in late March when the current federal funding runs out and another government shutdown threat looms if the partisan gridlock continues.
"When the president said (Monday) that round two is the debt ceiling, he is right," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. Republicans will fight for spending cuts, particularly in entitlement programs like Medicare, in exchange for the required congressional approval to raise the debt ceiling. "If that's too much to ask, so be it," he said.
Contributing: Associated Press | {
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Wild turkey hunting tips: preparing for your spring hunt
Now is the time to pull out all your turkey hunting gear and check that it is all in good working order and ready for your spring hunt.
Get out there and pattern your shotgun so you know what to expect when you pull the trigger. Shoot it at everything from five to 50 yards and pay close attention to how big your pattern gets. You don’t want to be shooting at a bird farther than what your expected kill range would be. After you are done patterning your shotgun, make sure to clean it to prevent misfires or jammed shells during the hunt. It should only take one shot, but it is always nice to know that second one is there if you need it.
Set up your blinds and make sure they are in good working order. Become familiar with how to set it up and take it down just in case you need to adjust quickly on your spot. Don’t forget to stake down your blind; you never know when a gust of wind will show up and “relocate” your setup.
Check and clean all your decoys, and make sure you have all the stakes to keep them standing tall. The last thing you want to happen is for your decoy to tip over as a big longbeard approaches.
Pull together all your turkey hunting camo – hats, gloves, masks and more. Make sure it all still fits (some of us expand over the winter months). It’s best to wear something that you are able to layer, as the mornings can start out well below freezing, but the afternoons can be quite balmy.
Round up all your calls and tune them up. You’ve been perfecting your turkey talk already, right? Have chalk for your box calls and sandpaper for your slate calls. Practice, practice, practice.
Other items to gather include a camo cushion, small pruner for shooting lanes, a rangefinder for judging distances, a pocket knife for notching your tag, zip ties for attaching your tag, short lengths of rope, and insect repellent for those later seasons. I keep a small plastic bag and rubber bands to put over the turkeys head to keep the mess off your back when carrying out a harvested bird.
Get prepared and good luck hunting!
Click HERE to see more blogs by Jason Revermann.
Turkey Hunting Safety article | {
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“The trouble with folks is not so much their ignorance as knowing so many things which ain’t so”
—Josh Billings (1)
Let’s see how many friends I can lose today…
Quick question: Who is the more ignorant about technical matters, scientists or lay-people? (2)
Answer: Scientists. Because where lay-people might know that they are ignorant, scientists are more likely to think that they know something when actually we don’t. This means that a lot of scientists are profoundly ignorant about fields that many lay-people don’t even know exist. Worse than that—some prominent writers, both academic and popular—have called for science (or part of it) to be ended because they are openly frightened that it might overturn their beliefs. Are scientists somehow above all this irrationality by virtue of some special acquaintance with their field? Far from it—as the saying goes “you can shoot a ballistics expert”.
This, partly at least, explains such apparently bizarre modern phenomena as highly published physicists (such as Ball State Physicist Eric Hedin) who believe in creationism, and behavioural scientists who don’t believe in . (3) But it’s not restricted to them.
Ok—that’s some pretty contentious remarks—so I had better qualify them somewhat before any (few remaining) scientific friends burn me at the stake. Here’s the problem:
Common-sense, and the intuitions that arise from it, is a lousy guide to the way the world actually works. If you study a field—and by study I mean devote at least five years of detailed hard daily work to it—you will spend much of that time unlearning things you previously thought to be true. You might not even realise that you have done this. But, rest assured, at the end of your 10000 hours (if that’s still a thing?) you will have spent just as much time disposing of common-sense as you have of learning new and exciting things. And, at the end of that you might have a highly non-natural mental toolkit that you can rely on--in a very narrow field.
Here's the danger--if you (as a scientist) think that this gives your in any other field any special authority you have compounded the usual dangers of common sense with a totally unearned sense of . And the common-sense alone was bad enough in the first place.
Why is this? Well, the main reason is that common-sense intuitions are part of the mental toolkit that allowed our ancestors to effectively predict a world of human sized objects at human-sized speeds, living in small groups (many of who were related) hunting and gathering as they went. Avoiding the sorts of threats that were common in that environment. Relying on the gut feelings of admired people in the group and the way we always did things before.
Common sense is made up of intuition, authority, and tradition. Trouble is, these three things are not just wrong—they are systematic barriers to understanding the way the world actually works. Because the universe isn’t largely made up of human sized things, and we have no evidence that it gives a damn about human concerns.
Science is recent, collaborative, and weird.
Science generates new knowledge about the world. Common-sense passes on old ways of surviving. That includes whatever comforting myths we happen to be hauling about to shore up our age-old intuitions that we are special magical snowflakes and not subject to the rules that the rest of the universe turned out (surprisingly) to have. Included in this set of charming (but false) notions is that we are not one critter among others, that rationality is species typical, and that we are made of some special essence.
I will take some physics examples to try to illustrate my point. And just to be clear—I am not talking about Einstein’s Theory of Relativity or wacky ol’ quantum mechanics as Krauss was above. Relativity is pretty tough to understand, all right, and no-one at all understands quantum mechanics (anyone who claims to is a and/or a snake oil salesman (4). Run). But--that’s not my point.
No—the oddness starts right at high school physics with the basic stuff about Newton’s laws being so wildly counter-intuitive that it takes years to teach them to someone and even when you succeed—they still get it wrong. And I know this, not because my students weren’t smart and hard working—they were. Even esteemed colleagues get these sorts of things wrong (I swear by all I hold dear that I once had a colleague teaching high school physics in the same school as me insisting that parachutes made you go upwards. He could see they did from videos…)
And it took the smartest person our species ever produced--Newton, all the millennia until only four hundred years ago to get a handle on most of it. In other words—we managed for thousands of generations without a single one of us understanding any of this stuff.
Some examples:
Intuitive Physics Example One: Ug Throw Spear
It’s intuitively obvious that the harder you throw something the longer it stays in the air. Take Ug (who has huge shoulders) and who throw the spear at the antelope. Clearly this spear has had more oomph (stop him if Ug is getting technical here) than the spear of little Uglet (who has tiny shoulders--but for the sake of this example is the same height as his dad).
Obvious but wrong. To see why have a look at the myth-busters demonstrating that a dropped bullet hits the ground at the exact same time as a fired one. The force pulling the spear (or the bullet) downwards is identical in both cases, and takes the same time.
Example Two: Ug Chase Buffalo
Ok. It’s intuitively obvious that if Ug chases a heavy thing (like a buffalo) off a cliff it falls faster than a light thing (like a rabbit) does. After all—you can just measure the splattiness (buffalo splats much more than rabbit) at the bottom (5).
Now—we went to the moon to prove this one wrong. As illustrated here:
However—think about this for a second (like Galileo did—for more than a second). We didn’t need to go to the moon to demonstrate that (correcting for air resistance) objects fall at the same rate regardless of weight.
In fact—you can do this yourself. Take a book in one hand, piece of paper in the other. Drop them both. Book hits the ground waaayy before the paper. Now put the piece of paper on top of the book (e.g. correcting for air resistance). Drop the book.
See? Now—why did it take millennia and the smartest humans to work this out?
In retrospect it’s obvious that science isn’t obvious. If it were obvious then we would have achieved success in it long ago—rather than in the last few hundred years. There are two standard explantions for this and they are both wrong.
Why is science so recent?
1) First wrong explanation: We are smarter now that our hunter gather ancestors. While its true that the Flynn effect is pulling up IQ, there are other effects pulling it down at the same time. It's likely that, in some respects, we are getting dumber. The reasons for this are complex but there is certainly no evidence that we are getting smarter, and the penalties for being dumb today (very few) are much milder than being dumb in a hunter-gatherer environment--e.g. dying.
2) Second wrong explanation: That religion stood in the way. This won’t entirely wash either. It’s true that religious authorities stood in the way of scientific advance. All authorites stand in the way of scientific advance because one of the things science does is undermine comonsense beliefs about the legitimacy of authorities... But there are highly secular figures today calling for an end to scientific endeavour—at least in certain fields. And many heroes of science were highly religious. Newton, for example, spent far more time on religion (and highly wacked-out religion at that) than he did on physics.
Ok, so, what then?
The answer, I think, lies in allowing one’s common-sense—one’s collection of gut feels--to over-ride one’s science. Science is messy, collaborative, and requires you to abandon cherished beliefs if they conflict with experiment. Most people—scientists included (in fact, sometimes they are the worst) are unwilling to do this. And even those who are capable of doing it don’t do it most of the time. Humans doing reason are like dogs walking on their hind legs—we don’t do it well and the wonder is that we do it at all.
And the only reason we can do it all is a long, constant, recorded, iterative process of winnowing out the bad ideas from the good using logic and empiricism. Reason is a collaborative enterprise not a thing that exists in one human head. It’s a group effort.
Here is one (common-sense) reason why our species finds it hard to grasp the fact that reason is a group effort—thoughts feel personal. They feel like they belong to you—that they live in a special isolated personal realm. Your inner life. Your soul.
Soul stuff
Souls are a great idea. Souls explain death (the soul has gone). Souls explain our outrageous in-group favouritism (enemies may look like us but they don’t have our magic essence—so literally dehumanizing them, is just fine). Souls also conveniently explain moral outrage via the concept of a freely choosing entity that exists separate from (mere) mechanical bodies. (6)
The notion of a soul that transcends the phsycial can go so deep that people will willingly and joyfully give up their physical lives to reach the next one. And I'm not just talking about bombers here (although I am talking about them too, of course). Have a read about how happy these members of Heaven's Gate were to die--and how opposed they were to mere "suicide". http://www.heavensgate.com/misc/letter.htm
Trouble is—modern can’t find souls and this bothers an awful lot of people.
Enter Science (stage left).
Source: Wikipedia commons
In many ways, Frederick II (1194-1250) was one of the earliest experimental psychologists. He was interested in such basic science as the existence of souls, how children acquired language, or the function of digestion. Frederick II also clearly had a fine appreciation of the importance of measurement, and the carrying out of controlled studies in advancing science.
Why Frederick II would not get a grant these days
To test the existence of souls Frederick II, had folk weighed before and after execution (7). To test whether children naturally talk Latin or Hebrew he had children raised without language by specialist deaf-mute nurses (8). Finally, he had two men disembowelled—one of whom he had run around first—to compare the effect of exercise on digestion (9).
Those pesky review boards would almost certainly take issue with a modern day Frederick II. (10)
However, Frederick II did get one thing right. He was not prepared to accept explanations for anything. Trouble is—most humans are. In fact—if there’s anything species typical about humans it’s our willingness to entertain supernatural explanations for stuff.
If there's anything that distinguishes the great scientists its their awareness of the desire of the human mind to fool itself.
Source: Media cache
Benign entertainments like conjuring, not so benign exploitations like psychics, and entire cultures (11) are built upon this fact. Conspiracy theories about nefarious groups with untestable metaphysical connections between them (plotting against us) are just another form of supernaturalism. Before believing any conspiracy take a second to check if the alleged conspirators do actually share interests.
It’s not that humans don’t get together and plot against other humans. In fact—we do it all the time. But, as any glance at modern political scandals shows, we are laughably bad at it. Cover up aliens landing? We can’t even cover up tax avoidance. (12) Human plotting is usually painfully obvious and tediously self-interested. We don’t see it only when we don’t want to—i.e. because the realization that millions of humans died because none of us had the moral courage to stand up to a deluded (13) is just too painful to face.
And it doesn’t matter whether we call ourselves scientists or not. Souls keep popping up in modern forms. Whether it’s the so-called hard-problem of consciousness, complaints about so-called reductionism, or worries that “science can’t explain everything”, you can be reasonably sure that some common-sense belief lies at the root of it.
It turns out that the universe doesn’t give a toss about your fee-fees.
Why does this matter? Because an awful lot of common-sense is highly misleading. Well, that’s putting it kindly—it is wrong. Concepts like natural, poisonous, life forces, the accuracy of eye-witness testimony, and the existence of natural kinds are all demonstrably wrong, and pernicious pieces of common-sense. Psychology is full of examples—like —of the systematic ways that common-sense has to be put aside to understand the way things actually work about human minds.
So—a quick list of utterly compelling but highly misleading concepts that we find hard to shake:
A) “Natural”. Without highly detailed qualifications the term “natural” as applied so readily to foods, drugs, and behaviors is almost completely without meaning. Worse, it carries a totally bogus moral weight along with it—as if “natural” is synonymous with “good”. And don’t get me started on the word “chemical”.
Source: Zach Weiner, SMBC shared with permission of author
Cancer is the most natural thing in the world, plumbing is highly unnatural (for any non-circular definition of the term). Connected to this is terms like “poison”. There is no such thing as a poison, or rather since everything is poisonous there is `little point in drawing to this fact for many purposes—as Paracelsus put it “the dose is the poison”. However, we evolved in circumstances where one berry might kill you instantly, while certain harmful behaviors might not do you in until you were well past reproductive age. Presumably this is why we can have health scares over trivia while (e.g.) smokers can manage to ignore the fact that their habit will kill about 50% of them. Horribly. (14)
B) “Seeing is believing”. Eye-witness testimony (and its social media counterpart, anecdotal evidence) is hard to shake. However, as every first year psychology undergraduate learns, it’s embarrassingly easy to manipulate people into thinking that they have seen something they haven’t seen. Even more alarming—it’s not hard to get people to confess to things they didn’t do and actually come to believe that they did it. Presumably this is because our minds evolved to produce socially and personally effective narratives, not to be de facto video recorders.
C) “Kinds”. We love categories and lines that can be drawn. Creationists are forever going on about “natural kinds”, and they are easy enough to laugh at (and deserve it too). But the rest of us want to know “where to draw the line” as well. Evolution teaches us that there are very few lines to be drawn and those that are, are often arbitrary.
D) “In-group/ out-group”. All varieties of political spectrum have a tendency to trust our own side, and (therefore) assume that the other side must be motivated by evil and/or stupidity. The other are then safely to be ignored—if not outright persecuted. Typically some sort of pseudo-scientific rationale is developed to underpin this—as if there is one thing that humans love, it’s a good story!
However, the story about how this class of people are fundamentally evil or this race of folk are fundamentally inferior are, in essence—the same story. E.g. one of dehumanization and the imputation of inhuman motives, when in fact, humans everywhere are motivated by pretty much the same sort of thing.
I can’t improve on Bertrand Russell’s summation of these motives as acquisitiveness, rivalry, vanity, and love of power. (15)
None of these things come from stupidity—on the contrary, some of the smartest of us can come up with some of the most ingenious reasons to believe daft things. But such beliefs are persistent, pervasive across cultures, and pernicious. The one crumb of comfort is that we all seem to be equal in this.
And the take home lesson is that the only way to have a chance of escaping it is to realize that, in order to reason, we need one another. Science requires . (16)
References
Not Mark Twain. Ironically—one of the many things which ain’t so is that Twain said this first. As anyone who knows the book will realize, this whole blog owes a great deal to Lewis Wolpert’s excellent “The Unnatural Nature of Science”. Rather than reference him throughout I’ll just acknowledge that he is inspirational—which is not to say that he is in any way responsible for things I say. My mistakes are my own. Wolpert, L. (1994). The unnatural nature of science. Harvard University Press. https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2016/05/12/id-advocate-eric-hed... http://wisdomofchopra.com/ Whatever you may have heard about noble savages living in balanced harmony with nature—the truth is that our ancestors used to chase things off cliffs and leave most of the corpses to rot. You can track human expansion with the extinction of large fauna.
Burney, D. A., & Flannery, T. F. (2005). Fifty millennia of catastrophic extinctions after human contact. Trends in ecology & evolution, 20(7), 395-401.
By the way I realize that these two intuitions are in direct conflict with each other. Did I mention that rationality is not species typical? Eventually the works its way through-as long as we have enough of each other critically exploring each other’s beliefs for consistency. This is called progress. The participants died. The participants died. The participants died. Frederick II would probably be accused of conflicts of interest by todays Institutional Review Boards. Medieval Sourcebook: Salimbene: On Frederick II, 13th Century For examples of a culture built on obviously ridiculous supernatural presumptions—use as an example any religion that you yourself don’t happen to believe in. Of course—I would say this—the illuminati lizards are paying me to cover up the fact the chemtrails are being used by communists to turn vaccines gay. Or something. Pick whichever one you like. There is no shortage of options. Alas. Incidentally, I was one of these, lest anyone think I have some smug feeling of being above all this irrationality. I still find it hard to believe how I could have done this to myself for so many years. But there you go. From Bertrand Russell’s Nobel acceptance speech, 1950. And technology. Have you ever considered how imporant sand is to human reasoning? Without silicon--no computers of course. But before that we needed glass. Without glass--no microscopes or telescopes to show us that our human sized persepctive was not the be-all and end-all. And no way to carry out controlled experiments on substances freed from outside influence. Sand is really important. There is a great discussion of it here
Dartnell, L. (2014). The Knowledge: How to Rebuild Our World from Scratch. Random House.
Are we getting dumber? It's complicated. IQ is highly measurable (whatever some fashionable folk may wish fervently to the contrary) and also highly heritable. But--not all of it is hertiable. There is a well-known Flynn effect which pulls IQ up in each generation (and much faster than selection could do it)--but what is less well-known is an inverse Flynn effect that pulls some aspects of IQ down again. At the moment they appear to be pulling in opposite directions, depending on which component of IQ you are looking at. For more details read this:
Woodley, M. A., Te Nijenhuis, J., & Murphy, R. (2013). Were the Victorians cleverer than us? The decline in estimated from a meta-analysis of the slowing of simple reaction time. Intelligence, 41(6), 843-850.
For some great (often counter-intuitive) experiments check out “smarter every day” on YouTube | {
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Oggi, 3 marzo, la comunità democratica si riunisce per eleggere il nuovo segretario nazionale del Partito Democratico. In lista Maurizio Martina, Nicola Zingaretti e Roberto Giachetti.
Ultime informazioni utili per il voto: per votare non è necessario essere iscritti, ma è possibile farlo pagando un contributo di 2€ per finanziare la vita del partito. È necessario portare carta d’identità e tessera elettorale.
Si vota presso Piazza Garibaldi, 54, di fronte all’ingresso della Villa Comunale, alle spalle del benzinaio IP. Il seggio è aperto dalle 8 alle 20.
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Команда одесского губернатора Михеила Саакашвили не гнушается “черными” надбавками к зарплатам и миллионными затратами на собственные нужды через благотворительные фонды.
Об этом сегодня заявил представитель фракции БПП Дмитрий Голубов, выступая с парламентской трибуны.
“Сегодня грузинские “реформаторы” начинают новую практику грязных надбавок чиновникам”, – сказал он.
По словам народного депутата, грузинская хакерская группировка “Хинкали” выяснила, что ежемесячно черные надбавки получают около 70 чиновников.
“Зарплаты от 442 долларов до 2 347 долларов в месяц получают лояльные грузинской команде чиновники. Сегодня стало известно больше, что общая сумма выплат порядка 80 тыс. долларов. Это десятый эшелон чиновников”, – сказал Голубов.
“А что первый эшелон? Сакварелидзе, Лорткипанидзе, Чиндаладзе. Откуда у реформаторов 80 тыс. долларов? Это банальное уклонение от уплаты налогов и коррупция. Эти деньги раздаются в административном центре”, – отметил он.
Представитель БПП пообещал передать сегодня список всех фамилий чиновников, которые “взяли грязные деньги”.
Нардеп также продемонстрировал письмо из одного из благотворительных фондов с подписью советника одесского губернатора с просьбой предоставить средства в миллионы гривен.
“Что скажет по этому поводу Саакашвили, это не подпись его советника? Это в Грузии это” чушь “, а в Украине это называется коррупция, вымогательство и рэкет. Какой антикоррупционный форум вы будете проводить, о чем там будет идти речь, о чем вы будете рассказывать, как через помещения центра админуслуг отмыть 200 тысяч долларов? Или как украсть деньги из благотворительного фонда, или как привезти певицу за деньги украинской армии?”, – подчеркнул народный депутат.
“Можно констатировать факт, что “Мишка Грузинчик “продолжает дело “Мишки Япончика” (известного одесского вора начала XX в. – ред.), только поставил это дело на государственные рельсы. И дело государства ликвидировать эту банду с депортацией на родину”, – резюмировал Голубов. | {
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PATH400 is open, and it has become a favorite spot for Buckhead walkers, joggers, bikers and pet owners to get out for some fresh air and exercise.
PATH400 runs along the spine of GA 400 and, once complete, will provide a 5.2 mile greenway through the heart of Buckhead, connecting neighborhoods, office and retail locations with a path for bicyclists and pedestrians.
The multi-use greenway will eventually join with the Atlanta Beltline in the south and trails in Sandy Springs and north Fulton County, providing a key link in a regional trail network.
PATH400 is the first step toward implementation of the Buckhead Collection, a planned network of 106 acres of parks and trails in the neighborhood.
Livable Buckhead is spearheading the PATH400 project in partnership with the Buckhead Community Improvement District (Buckhead CID) and the PATH Foundation. | {
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Notice anything weird about your News Feed today? Scores of users are confused by typically smarmy “Friends on Facebook” messages that are celebrating 46 years of friendship. It appears to be a Unix glitch of colossal proportions.
Don’t freak out. The world is not going to end because Facebook’s servers are confused about the New Year. In fact, as one developer points out, it’s most likely an issue with Unix time, also known as Epoch time. This system counts the number of seconds that have elapsed since January 1, 1970, so there’s a good chance that an error might’ve restarted the clock on this particular Facebook feature. (That’s almost exactly 46 years ago.) The glitch is not unlike the Y2K bug that hand-wringing sysadmins feared would crash computer systems around the world a decade and a half ago.
The precise explanation behind this timestamp kerfuffle remains unclear. However, another developer thinks he knows what happened. As Microsoft engineer Mark Davis explained on Facebook:
…to those of you unaware, the Unix Epoch (aka the date that has an internal value of ‘0’ on a Unix system) is 1/1/1970, which based on time zone adjustments, can become a random hour on 12/31/1969. Which is 46 years ago today. Now, you might be wondering, so what? Why is it in my Facebok feed? Well, if you click on your “memories” page, you’ll see a subset of you friends listed as having a 46 year old Facebook memory today. Scrolling through my list, it’s the people I’ve been friends with on Facebook for a very long time - chances are, the “friends with since” feature was implemented AFTER I became friends with those people. And as such, it’s stored in the database as ‘0’ rather than the actual date. The developer who wrote the “friends with since” memories algorithm should have added a case ‘WHERE friendsWithSinceDate != ‘0” or something along those lines. But they didn’t so those people appear in today’s query.
In fewer words, somebody screwed up. The explanation makes good sense, too. The person in the screenshot from my own Facebook page is someone I’ve been friends with since 2005, well before this feature existed.
We’ve reached out to Facebook for more information about the oopsie and will update this post when we hear back. In the meantime, Happy Nerdy New Year, nerds!
[Greg Otto, Yuri Victor] | {
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SALT LAKE CITY — New York Times bestselling author Shannon Hale decided to write her first graphic novel memoir, “Real Friends,” because those were the kinds of stories her daughter was reading.
Hale’s 12-year-old daughter was 8 at the time and having friendship troubles. Hale said her default when she doesn’t know how to help her children is to tell them a story.
“If you give a whole lecture, they always tune out because it’s boring and it feels like criticism,” Hale told the Deseret News. “If you tell a story with real emotional truth in it, whether it’s fiction or nonfiction, then a kid can get what they need out of it.”
Now Hale has written a sequel, “Best Friends,” (illustrated by LeUyen Pham, Macmillan, 256 pages, ages 8-11) which hit shelves in August.
In “Best Friends,” Shannon is more than ready for sixth grade with her sure spot in the in-crowd called The Group. But the rules for staying popular are always changing, and Shannon struggles to keep up with what’s cool and how she should act — especially now that everyone’s pairing up with boys. Shannon struggles to fit in and find out who she wants to become as childhood starts leaving her behind.
While “Real Friends” covers Hale’s life from kindergarten through fifth grade, “Best Friends” is exclusively about sixth grade.
“I think it’s a very interesting age,” Hale said. “It’s a transitional age, so right on the cusp of becoming a teenager, but you’re still kind of a kid and trying to figure out how to be both at the same time.”
Writing a memoir
While there are currently no plans for a third book, Hale said it’s possible there will be more — she just has to find the right story. She compared her memories to a box of Polaroids, describing how she has to pull out each snapshot and try to remember what happened right before and right after to create a scene. If she can string enough of those scenes together, then she has a book.
“That’s tricky. I’m a fiction writer mostly, and when a (fiction) story’s not working I can just make stuff up,” she said. “I can’t do that with a memoir.”
To write both graphic novel memoirs, Hale reread her childhood journals several times, looked through her school papers, read letters and talked to people. She had to remind herself she’s not a historical scholar piecing together events exactly as they happened. She can only remember things from a child’s point of view.
In fact, she changed most of the characters’ names in the book to acknowledge that her memory is flawed. She had to tune out her worries about the people who would see themselves depicted in these novels or else it would shut her down, she said.
When you’re weighing the possibility of offending a handful of adults versus the possibility of helping hundreds of thousands of kids, then the choice becomes easier. You choose the kids.
“I keep reminding myself that it’s not about me and it’s not about them,” she said. “It’s about the kids today who might need this story. When you’re weighing the possibility of offending a handful of adults versus the possibility of helping hundreds of thousands of kids, then the choice becomes easier. You choose the kids.”
Response to ‘Real Friends’
Hale hopes the response to “Best Friends” is matched with the same enthusiasm that greeted “Real Friends.”
“The book came out on a Tuesday and by Friday I was meeting readers who had read it 20 times,” she said.
And why was “Real Friends” so successful? Hale said it felt “ridiculous and self-indulgent” to write about people being mean to her in the fourth grade and think that anybody would care. But she’s learned that the more specific you make a story, the more universal it becomes.
“We’ve all felt lonely. We’ve all felt betrayal. We’ve all felt confusion. We’ve all felt out of place,” she said. “So when I tell my very specific story … people connect with it.”
It meant the most to her when the people who connected with it were children.
“When you’re a kid, you don’t have the words and experience and perspective to even communicate to somebody what you’re going through,” Hale said. “But if you give them a story they can point to and say, ‘This is how I’m feeling.’ … Then we can understand and validate that, which will make what they’re going through so much easier.”
But for all of her first graphic novel’s success, Hale said she did receive some backlash for including her upbringing in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Though the church is never specifically mentioned in the book, there are scenes that include Jesus as little Shannon’s imaginary friend or depict her family attending church and reading the scriptures.
I was a very religious kid. I prayed constantly. To erase it felt like a lie.
“It was an enormous part of my childhood,” she said. “I was a very religious kid. I prayed constantly. To erase it felt like a lie.”
Hale said she was asked to cut out the references to religion because it might affect sales, but in the end, she decided against that. She anticipated the backlash she received from school librarians who wouldn’t put it on shelves and parents who wouldn’t buy it for their kids because of the mention of religion.
While Hale said she understands adults’ concerns that a novel with a Christian character might be trying to convert children, she doesn’t think her book is doing that at all — it’s merely a background detail of her life.
She added that every book is either a mirror or a window: Children who are religious can read “Real Friends” or “Best Friends” and look in a mirror to see themselves represented. Children who are not religious can read it to look into a window and experience a life that is different from theirs.
“I think that is true of any book,” Hale said. “I would defend an atheist’s right to write a book about a child who’s an atheist, and I would defend a Muslim’s right to write about a child who’s Muslim. I think representation of any kind is important.”
Working with LeUyen Pham
To Hale, it’s important to mention that both “Real Friends” and “Best Friends” were not created alone. She calls working with her illustrator, LeUyen Pham, “supernatural.”
“We joke that she crawled into my brain and drew my memories. It’s eerie,” she said.
Hale called Pham a “genius” for her ability to draw characters who age but are still recognizable, and clearly and simply communicate any emotion through the facial expressions and body language of the characters she draws.
Pham also illustrated the “Princess in Black” children’s series Hale wrote with her husband, Dean. Because Pham is a prolific illustrator of more than 100 books, Hale didn’t think she would have time to illustrate “Real Friends.”
“I never dreamed that she would be willing to illustrate it,” she said. “Then she read it and really connected with it and asked to be considered for it. … So it’s been perfect. An ideal partnership.”
If you go …
What: Shannon Hale, LeUyen Pham and Raina Telgemeier presentation
When: Thursday, Oct. 10, 7 p.m.
Where: Provo Library, 500 N. University Ave., Provo
How much: Call the King’s English Bookshop for availability (801-484-9100)
Web: kingsenglish.com, provolibrary.com/authorlink
Note: Due to estimated crowd size, the authors will not be signing books at this event. Those interested in purchasing non-personalized, pre-signed books must do so in advance through the King’s English. | {
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CHICAGO, Illinois – The Archbishop of Chicago called for comprehensive immigration reform, which would include amnesty for illegal immigrants, during a recent ceremony focusing on the issue.
While saying a mass designated for legal and illegal immigrants at the Holy Name Cathedral in Chicago, Cardinal Blase Cupich said the Catholic Church “stands with those in the shadows,” according to the Chicago Tribune.
“It’s a time to remind our nation that we have been enriched by following the light of diversity, openness to the stranger,” Cupich said during the mass as individuals from 40 different nations attended.
Cupich also said the country must be open to accepting migrants, a program which President-Elect Donald Trump has vowed to temporarily shut down for the time-being, especially those entering the U.S. from countries where Islamic terrorism is rampant.
“When so many want to make us afraid of diversity, of the migrant, of the immigrant who is looking for a better life, can we not say, ‘Let’s see where Christ is leading us?’” Cupich asked, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. “Let us not be afraid.
“My hope would be that, as you come here today, you will experience a change,” Cupich told the congregation. “A conversion. A new way of thinking about those who are strangers. Who don’t have documents. The DREAMers who only want a chance to finish their education.”
The Catholic mass featured two Syrian refugees, Feras Shawish and Steffany Velazguez, to promote the refugee resettlement program in Chicago, which Catholic Charities is a part of.
Cupich is not actually off-course within the Catholic Church on the immigration issue, despite substantial support by Catholics for Trump’s immigration plan.
The United State Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has long pushed for amnesty in their immigration platform, where it has also called for comprehensive reform.
John Binder is a contributor for Breitbart Texas. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder. | {
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The US has named six states that will develop test sites for drones, a critical next step for the move of the unmanned aircraft into domestic skies.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) does not currently allow commercial use of drones, but it is working to develop operational guidelines by the end of 2015, although officials concede the project may take longer than expected.
Drones have been mainly used by the military, but governments, businesses, farmers and others are making plans to join the market.
Many universities are starting or expanding drone programmes.
Alaska, Nevada, New York, North Dakota, Texas and Virginia will host the research sites, providing diverse climates, geography and air-traffic environments, Michael Huerta, the FAA administrator, said on Monday.
At least one of the six sites will be up and running within 180 days, while the others are expected to come online in quick succession, Huerta said.
The growing US drone industry has critics among both conservatives and liberals.
Giving drones greater access to US skies moves the nation closer to "a surveillance society in which our every move is monitored, tracked, recorded and scrutinised by the authorities", the American Civil Liberties Union declared in a report last December.
Huerta said his agency is sensitive to privacy concerns involving drones. Test sites must have a written plan for data use and retention and will be required to conduct an annual review of privacy practices that involves public comment.
While selecting the sites, the FAA considered geography, climate, ground infrastructure, research needs, airspace use, aviation experience and risk. New York's site will look into integrating drones into the congested northeast US airspace.
Nevada offered proximity to military aircraft from several bases.
In choosing Alaska, the FAA cited a diverse set of locations in seven climatic zones.
"These test sites will give us valuable information about how best to ensure the safe introduction of this advanced technology into our nation's skies," Anthony Foxx, US transportation secretary, said in a statement. | {
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One of the gifts of living in a large city is the presence of well-endowed cultural institutions. Sitting next to our theater companies, the opera house, and the symphony–perhaps a little higher–is the Seattle Art Museum. True to its elevated position among the city’s institutions, SAM has hosted a number of admirable exhibits in the last few years but its latest, Figuring History, is something special. Returning from the third floor, where you will find the exhibit, I stopped on the second to take a look at the permanent collections, particularly the Minimalist paintings. These paintings could not be more different in their philosophy–antithetical, even–than the works upstairs.
The Figuring History exhibit (showing until May 13th) follows the popular Kerry James Marshall retrospective exhibited in Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles in 2016 and 2017. This exhibit places Kerry James Marshall next to two other Black American painters, Robert Colescott and Mickalene Thomas, whose work, to hastily sum it up, reimagines the canon of Western painting as if it were not dominated by White men portraying White subjects. Instead, by placing Black people or Black places in familiar poses or settings from western painting, rich but marginalized histories are elevated, exceed even the originals they reference and, in the process, give the old works new juice just by association. As Marshall puts it in a videotaped monologue that plays on loop at the museum,
“I never think of the paintings I make as self-expression. I think of them exclusively as platforms for an idea since the idea of representation is really interesting to me. I make a lot of work that’s about that idea. And then I’m also interested in how you reference culture and history in pictures.”
It’s a really rewarding experience and I’d recommend anyone buy a ticket (or sneak in if the ticket price is outside your means).
As the Marshall quote above makes clear, his paintings are about representation of history and culture. All art is about something. Even the earliest art is not just a thing, it is a thing about a thing1: the cave paintings in Lascaux, France
…or the Venus of Willendorf
Down the escalator from the Figuring History exhibit is the modern and contemporary art mainly housed in the Wright Gallery. The 20th Century was a wild one and there’s a lot of evocative work in here from expressionism to a giant black rat poised over a bed like a night hag. In a room adjacent to the night rat, and dating to the period beginning in the 1960s, are examples from Minimalist art. An information plaque helps explain the style:
“…’The gesture on the canvas was a gesture of liberation, from Value–political, aesthetic, moral.’ Subsequently, abstraction became a vast realm of possibility: some artists flooded the field of vision with large planes of color. Others limited their palette to white, gray and black to emphasize texture and line, and still others framed the relationship of painting to architecture.”
In the way the cave paintings are about animal hunts and venus carvings are about fertility, Minimalist painting is about painting. By looking inward and examining itself, Minimalist paintings can ask such questions as: canvas–what is it?, oil paint–what is it?, Cartesian shapes–what are they? My first contention is these are not very interesting questions and they certainly are not interesting enough to have placed Minimalist painting in the high position in art institutions and art markets where it sits today.
I could be accused of being a Philistine here. But I don’t think your kid can paint a Jackson Pollock and I think the subject of Duchamp’s urinal–art and authorship–is interesting even after the object that raised those questions has long lost its potency.
The 1960s was a period of tremendous cultural change and political agitation: Vietnam, Betty Friedan, MLK Jr., Malcolm X, Cesar Chavez, the free speech movement, riots, sexual liberation, mutually assured destruction, Presidential assassination. It’s an a capella Billy Joel song to talk about the decade this way but the list of historic events and figures remain impressive no matter how many drug store magazines and Oliver Stone movies revisit it.
During this dramatic decade Barnett Newman painted The Three which hangs in the Seattle Art Museum today.
Minimalist painting is not just an artifact of art history. It doesn’t just hang in museums as an instructive counterpoint to abstract expressionism or a (superficial) example of the Modernist Project. It maintains its relevance by commanding financial rewards in the art market. In 2014 Barnett Newman’s Black Fire I sold at auction for $84 million, the third highest sale of a painting that year after a Gauguin and a Rothko. The 1960s is also the decade when Colescott, one of the featured artists in Figuring History, got his career started with a solo show in a Portland, Oregon gallery featuring regional artists.
In between the origins of Minimalist paintings and that $84 million sale, paintings in this style continued to take their place in art institutions. Here’s Robert Ryman’s Reagan-era Associate also to be found at the Seattle Art Museum:
The museum website describes his work: “Ryman’s singular format draws attention to the basal elements of painting: the physical aspects of the paint; the manner in which it is applied; the color and texture of the paint support; the attachment of the painted square to the wall.”
The 1980s is also the decade when Marshall, perhaps the star of the Figuring History exhibit, began putting on solo shows near his art school in Southern California. His first touring retrospective was in 2016. Ryman’s was in 1993, the year Marshall painted De Style (not included in the Figuring History exhibit)
The vibrant, relevant, rewarding works of Colescott, Marshall, and Thomas now occupy the same space as the minimalist paintings in the Wright Gallery.
After Figuring History, looking at the Minimalist paintings from the permanent collection–diligently investigating squares, lines, and oil paint texture–I see them in a new light. They look self-indulgent, feckless, suspiciously apolitical, and, maybe worst of all, boring.
Museum space is a precious resource and one we all pay for by covering the tax breaks received by corporations and very wealthy individuals for their donations to these public institutions. What other artists that had something important–or beautiful or terrifying–to say over the last half century not had a chance to say it because Minimalist painting, so sanctified by institutions and critics and markets, sucked all the oxygen out of the room?
The conflict between Figuring History and Minimalist painting isn’t just an unresolved problem of the past. Earlier this year the chief curator of the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art was fired by the museum director, a “highly unusual” move according to the LA Times art critic. The chief curator, Helen Molesworth, hosted the Kerry James Marshall exhibit as it toured the country in 2017. The director, said to have a conflict of vision with Molesworth, chose to show a retrospective of Minimalist sculptor2 Carl Andre that same year. It looked like this:
In an analysis of the the market value of solo exhibits at the Museum of Contemporary Art before and after Molesworth’s appointment, Artnet’s Felix Salmon highlights the symbiotic relationship between art museums and the art market,
“Trustees and big-name art collectors, after all, tend to collect (and, therefore, want to see exhibited) the kind of expensive art, mostly by white men, that Molesworth explicitly tried to move away from. More generally, they like to see the value of their market-friendly collections ratified with prestigious museum shows. Once you’ve spent millions of dollars on a certain artist’s work, you generally want museums to reinforce what your art advisor and your dealer have been telling you, which is that the artist in question is a great genius worthy of being preserved for posterity.”
Figuring History doesn’t just make us re-examine the subjects and settings of European art, it makes us re-examine why some art is canonized in museums and auction houses while other art is lucky to wait for overdue exposure. The Seattle Art Museum and future institutions exhibiting these works can do something now to make that interrogation easier through museum labels or placing the works nearer each other. The layers of drywall that separates Figuring History from the Wright Gallery need to come down.
1.Yes, the ready-made (think: Duchamp’s signed urinal), mechanical reproduction, and time-based art have all complicated notions of object, subject, and their relationship but to the extent that a thing makes us ask the question “is this art?” and makes us enthusiastically respond, “Yes! This is art,” the object and subject relationship is maintained… otherwise it’s just a thing in the world that, at best, does something useful or looks nice.
2. I’ve chosen to focus on Minimalist painting in this article because you can see it while visiting the Figuring History exhibit and it uses the same medium. One could make the case that Minimalist sculpture deserves some re-examination too. I don’t disagree but at least the subjects Minimalist sculpture explores is space and material which, I feel confident saying, are a lot more interesting subjects than canvas and oil paints.
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Michael Goldman Michael works as a real estate valuation analyst. He graduated from the University of Washington with a Masters in Urban Planning and a specialization in real estate. Before Serial broke the long-form true crime scene wide open, he had a podcast about pet adoption. | {
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“Open source talent” has long referred to individuals who work with open source software. Today, the term is increasingly used to describe online communities that are open globally to anyone who wants to participate in them, and to organizations seeking their talent, skills, and capabilities.
Ray Anderson, CTO of BatchBlue Software, is considering using Kaggle, an online community of data scientists, to help his company develop a pricing model for its cloud-based CRM product. Anderson is turning to Kaggle because his small company lacks the in-house analytics expertise to make sense of its pricing data.
“Kaggle is relatively low cost compared to a high-end pricing consultant,” says Anderson. “By paying a reasonable fee to Kaggle, I get access to people who understand data and how to develop analytical models.”
Kaggle represents one of a growing number of online communities whose members Deloitte refers to as “open source talent,” not because they specialize in open source software development, but because they’re open to providing their skills and capabilities to organizations that may need them. Deloitte defines “open source talent” as individuals who provide services for free or for a fee, either independently or as part of a community.
Other examples of open source talent include networks like TopCoder, an online community of software developers; InnoCentive, which posts companies’ research and development problems to its community; and the CloudSpokes marketplace for cloud development. Big name companies including GE and Facebook use sites like Kaggle and TopCoder. Open source talent can also include “white hat” hackers that companies hire to test their security, as well as individuals who participate in online user groups, support forums, and freelance sites like Elance and oDesk.
“IT organizations large and small are increasingly looking to open source talent to solve problems, answer questions, and augment the capabilities of in-house staff,” says Deloitte Consulting LLP's U.S. Talent Strategies Leader Andrew Liakopoulos.
Use of open source talent has taken off in IT for a variety of reasons. For one, IT organizations have had to develop more creative talent strategies over the years due to skill shortages and the need to reduce costs, according to Judith Pennington, a director with Deloitte Consulting LLP’s Human Capital practice. Open source talent addresses cost and staffing demands, and signals the latest evolution in IT staffing strategies as IT organizations continue to diversify their sources of talent in what Deloitte calls the “open talent economy,” a collaborative, transparent, technology-enabled, rapid-cycle way of doing business.
Moreover, because of IT organizations’ experiences with outsourcing and offshoring, they’re accustomed to working with distributed, virtual teams. The project-based nature of IT work also lends itself to being “chunked out” to external contributors, according to Liakopoulos. And Pennington observes that IT’s maturity (as evidenced by certifications, widely accepted processes, and established project management methodologies) makes it easier for companies to source work through open source talent networks and evaluate the credentials of individuals bidding on projects.
Jeremy Jones, director of IT at Comfort Systems USA, a $1.3 billion provider of heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems, is willing to use open source talent, though he’s not yet needed to tap it. “IT leaders are obligated to explore all available avenues for sourcing knowledge and talent, including leveraging the wider community when it makes sense,” he says. “It’s a crucial way to maximize shareholder value, and we would be remiss if we did not consider it.”
Opportunities and Challenges
To determine how to incorporate open source talent into an IT organization, Pennington and Liakopoulos suggest IT leaders go through a workforce planning exercise to better understand their organizations’ current and future staffing requirements. Workforce planning can help IT leaders identify the critical skills they should keep in-house, along with the work that could be allocated to third-party service providers, traditional freelancers, and open source talent networks.
One way IT organizations may put open source talent networks to use is in sourcing scarce skills, such as knowledge of cutting edge development tools or older programming languages required to maintain legacy systems, according to Pennington. BatchBlue’s Anderson agrees: “These external groups provide IT organizations with a way to experiment with new technologies, without distracting core in-house staff.”
Pennington also believes open source talent can help technology departments prototype and create new technology-based products and services. The City of Chicago, for example, made some city data available to external application developers, who are using the data sets to create a variety of helpful apps for locals and visitors, according to The Wall Street Journal. As Brenna Berman from Chicago’s Department of Innovation and Technology explained: “As a city IT department, we’re never going to be able to build all the apps the people of Chicago could want.”
Anderson expresses some reluctance to using open source talent for high-end software development. “For me to try it, the cost and time savings would have to be very compelling, and I know I’d have to budget for cleaning up the code,” he says.
Indeed, to get quality work from individuals participating in open source talent networks, Pennington says IT managers should clearly articulate deliverables and timelines.
Besides potential quality issues, other challenges with open source talent may include knowledge transfer and security. Pennington recommends building knowledge transfer into individual projects and contracts, just as IT organizations should do with any external services provider. As for security, Liakopoulos says organizations may opt against releasing sensitive data externally, and should consider conducting background and reference checks on external people handling it.
“What the open source model did for software—make it more global, participatory, and innovative—it is also doing for talent acquisition,” says Liakopoulos. “As companies recognize the wealth of talent that exists outside their four walls, and as more individuals wish to make their experience available on the open market, these open source talent networks will likely become an ever more critical component of IT organizations' staffing strategies.” | {
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They agreed (some of them had seen the first one anyway, and nearly all had seen at least one film with a xenomorph in it) and so we watched it together. And as we watched, I realized again that while unfortunately you can't see a great movie again for the first time, the next-best thing is to show it to people who've never seen it.
My first time with James Cameron's sci-fi war movie was a great filmgoing experience. I saw "Aliens" at the NorthPark 1 and 2 theater at NorthPark Mall in my hometown of Dallas, with a high school classmate who was, at that time, my regular action movie-watching buddy: Gabe Michaels. We drove to NorthPark to catch the 11 a.m. show on opening day and got in line a couple of hours early. We'd already drunk a bit of soda beforehand and I think we might have downed some more while standing in line. When we got into the theater, they seated us immediately and there was only one preview, for "The Fly," and then wham, they started the movie. Neither Gabe nor I nor anyone else who'd been standing in that line wanted to get up from our seats and answer nature's call, even though we all pretty desperately had to; there was a lot of muttering and shifting in seats, quite a few "grin and bear it" expressions.
If you've seen the film, you know there are no aliens to speak of for the first hour, then suddenly there are aliens all over the place, coming out of the walls and ceiling, drooling and shrieking and dragging Marines off into the darkness to be cocooned. It's one of the greatest releases of built-up tension in action film history. Throughout this sequence the audience was enthralled, screaming as the xenomorphs attacked, cheering as Ripley took control of the all-terrain vehicle to rescue the imperiled Colonial Marines. Then when the ATV crashed through the wall, the music stopped, and Hicks told her she'd blown the trans-axle and need to "ease down, Ripley, ease down," everyone collectively seemed to realize they were being given a breather, so at that point Gabe and I and probably a fifth of the audience rose from our seats and headed for the bathrooms: fast-walking, some running.
Guys at the urinals were peeing as fast as they could because they didn't want to miss another minute of "Aliens." You'd have thought somebody was timing them. Like this was the Olympic qualifying round for the bladder evacuation team. But they weren't going fast enough to suit a guy standing near the front door of the men's room. He yelled, "Goddammit! All of you, piss faster!"
And that's when I knew "Aliens" was going to be a hit.
Anyway, the slumber party: all kids seemed to agree that "Aliens" was a good suggestion because even though it had aliens in it, it wasn't just trying to scare you, like the first "Alien." "It's basically an action movie, that's what I've heard," one of my son's friends said. Another seemed just a little bit scared, maybe, and kept suggesting other viewing options, including "Guardians of the Galaxy," "Dr. Who," and (for some reason) "Saturday Night Live." | {
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If the New England Patriots want to acquire a legitimate insurance policy for Rob Gronkowski in free agency, their options are running out.
The New Orleans Saints are expected to sign free-agent tight end Jared Cook, NFL Media's Ian Rapoport reported Thursday morning.
Cook turns 32 in April but arguably was the best free agent tight end left on the market; he posted career highs in receptions (68), receiving yards (896) and touchdowns (6) for the Oakland Raiders in 2018 while making his first Pro Bowl.
Cook joins big names like Tyler Eifert, Jesse James and Tyler Kroft who have either re-signed with their clubs or joined new teams. So, who's still out there? Here's an updated look at the some of the top remaining free-agent tight ends still available:
- Austin Seferian-Jenkins (last team: Jaguars)
- James O'Shaughnessy (Jaguars)
- A.J. Derby (Dolphins)
- Jermaine Gresham (Cardinals)
- Neal Sterling (Jets)
- Maxx Williams (Ravens)
- Levine Toilolo (Lions)
Translation: It's slim pickings out there.
The Patriots did acquire a tight end in free agency, signing 26-year-old Matt LaCosse from the Denver Broncos. After Dwayne Allen's departure, though, LaCosse and Jacob Hollister don't inspire much confidence as New England's tight end depth chart behind Gronkowski, who hasn't even confirmed he's playing in 2019.
That would suggest the Patriots may seek tight end depth via trade or the 2019 NFL Draft, where several quality prospects could fall to Bill Belichick's club at No. 32 overall.
Click here to download the new MyTeams App by NBC Sports! Receive comprehensive coverage of your teams and stream the Celtics easily on your device. | {
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The words leader and boss may have pretty similar dictionary definitions—but in the business worlds, their practical distinctions are crucial.
Just think about their connotations. Most of us think of a boss as someone who makes demands, yells at us when we screw up, and ultimately has the power to fire us at will. A leader, meanwhile, is someone who inspires us, coaches us, rallies the team, and helps everybody move forward.
So which are you? Consider some of the following:
Leaders actually lead. By contrast, a boss rules, governs, and dictates. A boss may sit in his office all day hammering out policies and telling everyone else what to do—but a leader is right there in the fray with the rest of the team, guiding everyone in the right direction. Leaders listen. A boss is not known for his acceptance of feedback or his openness toward collaboration. By contrast, a leader wants to hear what her team members have to say and to engage them in the decision-making process. Leaders empower. A boss might throw his employees into a project without much training or guidance—leaving them fearful and insecure. A great leader, meanwhile, does everything to prepare her team members, and to instill them with confidence in their own abilities and in the abilities of the team. Bosses intimidate. Leaders know better than to use fear as a tool for managing their team members. Bosses think of themselves as above the other employees. A leader, meanwhile, is open to constructive feedback from team members, and knows that there is always more she can learn—even from lower ranking employees! Bosses yell at people. Leaders ensure that their feedback is constructive and action-oriented—and that it is offered in private, not in front of the whole team. Bosses focus on hierarchies, i.e., “I’m above you and I tell you what to do.” Leaders focus on relationships, i.e., “How can we improve and move forward together?”
The difference, as you can see, is all the difference. So again: Which are you—a boss or a leader?
Dr. Rick Goodman CSP is an authority in the world of leadership and is known as one of the most sought after team building experts in the United States and internationally.
He is famous for helping organizations, corporations, and individuals with systems and strategies that produce increased profits and productivity without having the challenges of micro managing the process. Some of Dr. Rick’s clients include AT&T, Boeing, Cavium Networks, Heineken, IBM, and Hewlett Packard.
For more information on Rick’s speaking programs, audio programs, and learning programs, contact (888) 267-6098 or [email protected], or visit www.rickgoodman.com. | {
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The building design thus takes advantage of the amazing view. For instance, the building wings stretch out into the landscape, while an inner public square draws the landscape deep into the school – creating a bright and vibrant learning landscape that flows through the school on varying levels.
Besides learning and landscape, the interplay between theory and practice has also inspired the building design. The school is thus built around an inner public square that will create a focal point for everyday school life and activities across disciplines and age levels. From the public square, the varied vocational subjects are distributed across the building wings in which workshops for industrial engineering, for example, are connected with learning spaces for theoretical contemplation.
The idea is to create synergy between the varied vocational subjects and at the same time give the students a deeper understanding of the interplay between theory and practice, all with a focus on providing new perspectives on their disciplines and giving them the best way possible to take on their future careers.
Voss High School allows learning spaces to embrace the scenic landscape of Voss in the heart of Fjord Norway. The spectacular surroundings taking in the clear lakes, vast forests and rugged mountains are translated into the form and content of the 11,500 square metres school with a view that stimulates the 400 students’ well-being and ability to learn. | {
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One of a Product Manager’s biggest miseries is running over deadlines, thus delayed products.
(Originally posted on Veamly)
One thing PMs are constantly trying to avoid is having that call from a client making sure there won’t be any deadline run-ons. Or worse yet, the product launch getting delayed. It may sound fairly easy to keep everything on track, but it definitely is not! I mean, you WOULD assume that everyone will follow the plan to the letter and deliver on time. But, that kind of scripts only happens in wonderland. People will make mistakes, call in sick, or unintentionally be a blocker to someone. Sometimes they simply run into issues that are out of their hands. That’s life after all. Sadly, it’s the PM’s role to have a list of contingency plans up his sleeves. You know, just in case.
1. Denial and isolation
First, It’s the end of the world. It was all going so smoothly when suddenly, everything is delayed. The worst part is that nobody knows why. And that’s when the denial begins. Everyone says they’re innocent and that they are on top of their tasks. Yet, no one seems to know what’s the origin of the delay.
2. Anger
The second phase is the least pleasant one. This is where the PM has to stop what he was working on and try to figure out what happened. The anger part happens when he can’t track down the blocker. Having a delayed schedule while knowing that he was doing everything he could to make sure nothing fell through the cracks is very frustrating. But we all know that keeping track of every.single.thing is nearly impossible. At least not when auditing all communication channels is not your one and only main job. Knowledge workers exist for a reason.
3. Bargaining
Now it’s bargaining time. Or more like “I’m not the one causing this. I updated my .. oh wait”. This is when everybody goes back in their tracks and starts to imagine alternative scenarios. You know, the usual if-only-you-get-back-to-me-sooner or the hey-I reminded-you-but-you-just-forgot-again. It just never ends. But the work has been delayed nevertheless.
4. Depression
After all the blame is exchanged and everyone realizes their mistake, it’s time for “depression”. It’s not too clinical in this context but it’s still quite the uncomfortable feeling. Delayed work means even more work. The good part is that everyone finally recognizes that yes, they are at fault. To some extent. And that it’s time to fix things.
5. Acceptance
Once you accept the problem, you’re more likely to fix it. Or even go beyond what you’ve hoped for in the first step! This is every PM’s hardest yet favorite time. They have to pull every trick in the books, from up their sleeves, and even improvise to fix everything. And this is exactly when you know what the PM is truly made of. | {
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Nationally syndicated radio talk show host, TV host, author and American lawyer Mark Levin (Screenshot)
Nationally syndicated radio talk show host, TV host of Fox News’ “Life, Liberty & Levin,” author and American lawyer Mark Levin challenged Speaker of the House Paul Ryan on remarks the Speaker made concerning birthright citizenship Tuesday, and in a Facebook Note posted Tuesday, Levin suggested President Trump “is right” on birthright citizenship.
“Paul Ryan is utterly wrong ... ,” stated Mark Levin in the Facebook Note headline. Levin then doubled down in the first pasentence of his Note saying, “Paul Ryan has no idea what he's talking about,” and further concluded that “the president is right.”
Levin’s Facebook Note stems from comments made by Speaker Paul Ryan yesterday concerning President Trump’s consideration of an executive order to instruct federal agencies how to deal with the issue of birthright citizenship. Speaker Ryan suggested that using an executive order in this instance is not in keeping with a proper interpretation of the “Constitution as it’s written.”
But said Levin in response, “Not until the 1960's has the Constitution been interpreted to convey birthright citizenship on the children of illegal aliens. And not due to any congressional statute or court ruling, but decisions by various departments and agencies of the federal bureaucracy. So, to be clear, the president would not be altering the 14th [A]mendment or the intent of the 14th [A]mendment or the original interpretation of the 14th [A]mendment. On the contrary, the president would be taking charge of the executive branch and upholding the 14th [A]mendment.”
Then came Levin’s challenge to the Speaker of the House: | {
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I'm Not Cute you Dumb Pebble By MrBda241 Watch
200 Favourites 41 Comments 4K Views
I just loved Peridot in her recent appearance in "Catch and Release."
She was just so mean and cute.
IMAGE DETAILS Image size 1800x1600px 330 KB Show More
Published : Sep 26, 2015 | {
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Video game publishers often use the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to try to stop things like fan-games YouTube videos , and even "obsolete titles" from being distributed on the Internet. Japanese publisher Atlus, though, is using a more expansive view of DMCA protections to try to take down a PC-based PlayStation 3 emulator merely because it enables players to run copies of Persona 5.
The battle centers on the Patreon page for RPCS3, an "early, work-in-progress" effort to create a functional PS3 emulator that currently attracts more than $3,000 a month from 677 patrons. As Reddit user ssshadow notes in a thread, Atlus issued a DMCA request to Patreon to have the page taken down. While Patreon did not agree to that request, the RPCS3 team says it removed all references to Persona 5 from the Patreon page to help "resolve the situation."
Though Atlus reportedly acknowledged that "the PS3 emulator itself is not infringing on our copyrights and trademarks," the publisher argued that "no version of the P5 game should be playable on this platform; and [the RPCS3] developers are infringing on our IP by making such games playable." In a followup message to Patreon, Atlus reportedly argued that "to make Persona 5 work on the emulator, the user has to circumvent our DRM protections" and points out that the non-Patreon RPCS3 page provides generalized instructions for how to "dump" a legitimate copy of the game from your PS3.
Atlus confirmed the thrust of this DMCA request in a blog post yesterday, saying the company "believe[s] that our fans best experience our titles (like Persona 5) on the actual platforms for which they are developed. We don’t want their first experiences to be framerate drops, or crashes, or other issues that can crop up in emulation that we have not personally overseen."
Atlus says it recognizes player interest in a PC version of Persona 5 and the enthusiasm of the emulation community, but maintains that "when our content is illegally circumvented and potentially made available for free, in a format we do not think delivers the experience and quality we intend, it undermines our ability to do so by diverting potential support from new audiences."
While downloading and playing copyrighted games without the maker's consent is illegal under US law, console emulators themselves have a long history of US case-law supporting their legality. Playing personally ripped backup copies of your own legitimately purchased games is also considered legal in the US (as even the Entertainment Software Association acknowledges ), though breaking any sort of DRM to make that backup could fall afoul of the DMCA's anti-circumvention provisions
"We find it very interesting that Atlus would immediately try to shut down the Patreon page without any prior communication," ssshadow writes on Reddit. That said, with the project and Patreon page still standing for the time being, he urges "everyone to be nice" regarding the incident. "RPCS3 is not designed to enable illegal activity. We do not promote piracy nor do we allow it under any circumstances... And whatever people may wish, there's no way to stop any playable game from being executed on the emulator." | {
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المكيفات أصبحت جزء لا يتجزء من حياتنا اليومية، ولكن التكيف من الأجهزة الحساسة جداً لذلك يجب القيام بتنظيفها وصيانتها بصورة دورية مستمرة ويجب أيضاً أن تتم عمليات التنظيف والصيانة على يد مختصين لحماية الجهاز من التلف وأيضاً لان المختص لدية القدرة على التعامل مع جميع أنواع أجهزة التكييف المختلفة والتي سيتم ذكرها فيما يلي لذلك يفضل الجميع اللجوء إلى شركة تنظيف مكيفات بالمدينة المنورة فالشركة لديها أفضل الكوادر الفنية المدربة بمهارة على صيانة أجهزة التكييف وتنظيفها، وكذلك اكتشاف أي جزء تالف فيها وتغيره بأخر جديد من أفضل الأنواع (high copy ) فمع شركة صيانة مكيفات بالمدينة المنورة أنت دائماً في أمان.
هل تبحث عن شركة تنظيف مكيفات بالمدينة المنورة؟
تقدم شركة تيجان أفضل شركة تنظيف مكيفات بالمدينة المنورة لجميع عملائها افضل خدمة صيانة مكيفات بالمدينة المنورة بأفضل الطرق والتقنيات الحديثة المستخدمة لتنظيف وصيانة المكيفات (المخفي والدولابى والشباك والكاسيت والاسبليت والسبلت) بكافة أنواعها وكافة أحجامها والموديلات وتقوم شركة تنظيف مكيفات سبليت بالمدينة المنورة بالقيام بعملية النظافة والتركيب على أساس علمي بحت لحماية أجهزة المكيف لديك من حدوث أي تلفيات بالإضافة إلى عمليات الصيانة الدورية المستمرة والمتابعة لمكيفات جميع العملاء المتعاقدين مع الشركة، ويرجع ذلك لإدراك شركتنا الكامل للأهمية الكبيرة لعملية الصيانة الدورية باستمرار للمكيفات من أجل الحفاظ عليها من الإهمال أو تدهور حالتها نتيجة عدم الصيانة.
ما أهم ما يميز شركة تنظيف مكيفات بالمدينة المنورة وجعلها دائماً هي الافضل؟
أهم ما يميز شركة تنظيف مكيفات سبليت بالمدينة المنورة ويجعلها الرائدة في مجال تنظيف المكيفات وصيانتها:-
شركة تنظيف مكيفات بالمدينة المنورة تعمل جاهدة على توفير كافة الامكانيات المتطورة وكافة الالات الحديثة العصرية حتى تتمكن من القيام بعملية نظافة المكيفات بدقة عالية جداً. شركة صيانة وتنظيف مكيفات بالمدينة المنورة لديها طاقم عمل مميز بالكفائة العالية فنحن لدينا أفضل فني تكييف بالمدينة المنورة ولدينا أيضاً أفضل مهندس سبليت في المدينة المنورة لديهم من الحرفية والاتقان ما يؤهلهم للتعامل مع أي مكيف أياً كان نوعه. شركة تنظيف المكيفات بالمدينة المنورة تستخدم أجود أنواع المنظفات التي لا تترك تأثير سلبي نهائياً على التكيف. عزيزي العميل تقوم افضل شركة صيانة مكيفات بالمدينة المنورة بتوفير كافة الخدمات الخاصة بنظافة المكيفات للمساجد والشركات والافراد والفنادق والمصانع والمؤسسات واى منشأت تخصك داخل المدينة المنورة. أسعار شركة تنظيف مكيفات المدينه المنوره مميزة جداً ومنخفضة بالنسبة لغيرها من شركات التنظيف وتقوم الشركة بتقديم عروض وخصومات مستمرة لكل العملاء الدائمين والعملاء الجدد.
شركة صيانة مكيفات بالمدينة المنورة
صيانة مكيفات شباك بالمدينة المنورة
صيانة مكيفات سبليت بالمدينة
فني تكييف بالمدينة المنورة
مكيفات سبليت بالمدينة المنورة
مهندس سبليت في المدينة
حراج مكيفات المدينه
حراج مكيفات المدينة المنورة
هل تبحث عن رقم شركة تنظيف مكيفات بالمدينه المنوره ؟
خدمة العملاء اتصل بنا
عزيزي العميل إن كنت تبحث عن رقم شركة تنظيف مكيفات في المدينة المنورة فبادر على الفور بالاتصال بنا فشركتنا توفر لجميع عملائها جميع ما تحتاجة مكيفتهم من عمليات تنظيف وصيانة وإستبدال القطع التالفة وتوفير قطع الغيار.
أرخص سعر فني تكييف بالمدينة المنورة
جميعنا يقدر الأهمية البالغة للمكيفات بكافة أنواعها ويقدر من يعرف تلك الأهمية اهمية تنظيف وصيانة المكيفات من أجل حمايتها والحفاظ عليها من التلف.
عملية التنظيف والصيانة تساعد بنسبة 99% من تلافي مشكلات الأعطال المفاجئة للتكييف، وخاصة في حال إرتفاع درجة الحرارة التي تجعل من الجو شديد السخونة.
في حال حاجتك لنا اتصل بمؤسسة تيجان فوراً سنصلك في الحال خدمات شركتنا متاحة 24 ساعة وبأفضل جودة ( Quality ) تتيح لك حماية مكيف الهواء الخاص بك عن طريق استخدام أفضل التقنيات الحديثة واتقان الاداء والسرعة الاحترافية ففي حال حدوث أي مشكلة مفاجئة أتصل بنا شركة صيانة مكيفات مركزية بالمدينة المنورة وصيانة مكيفات شباك بالمدينة المنورة في خدمتك دائماً.
فوراً سنصلك في الحال خدمات شركتنا متاحة 24 ساعة وبأفضل جودة ( Quality ) تتيح لك حماية مكيف الهواء الخاص بك عن طريق استخدام أفضل التقنيات الحديثة والسرعة الاحترافية ففي حال حدوث أي مشكلة مفاجئة أتصل بنا في خدمتك دائماً. أسعار شركة تنظيف مكيفات المدينة المنورة خارج المنافسة. | {
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[This breaking news is an update to a post earlier today on EcoWatch: Millions of Chickens Feared Dead at Factory Farms in Wake of Hurricane Matthew]
Waterkeeper Alliance and Upper Neuse Riverkeeper are responding to and documenting the breach of a 1.2-billion-gallon cooling pond dam at Duke Energy's H.F. Lee plant.
The breach occurred today just minutes after Duke Energy issued a statement claiming that the "Ash basin and cooling pond dams across the state continue to operate safely; in fact, we've been pleased with their good performance during the historic flooding Hurricane Matthew brought to eastern North Carolina."
Pete Harrison, staff attorney at Waterkeeper Alliance, and Matthew Starr, Upper Neuse Riverkeeper, released the following statement:
"When families are being threatened by some of the worst flooding in North Carolina's history, they should not also have to worry about Duke Energy's dams collapsing.
"This failure likely happened because the river has begun to recede, which is when structural problems often develop. Like so many of Duke Energy's coal ash ponds across the state, the cooling pond at Lee has a long history of structural problems—these are disasters waiting to happen.
"Minutes before the dam collapsed on the cooling pond, Duke Energy issued a statement declaring it was operating safely. Duke continues to claim the dam of a 120-acre coal ash pond at Lee is operating safely, even though the river has only begun to recede. The same ash pond suffered extensive damage after flooding caused by Hurricane Floyd in 1999. We remain very concerned about the integrity of the ash pond dams at Lee as the river recedes over the next week.
"It has been more than two years since the Dan River disaster, and Duke's coal ash continues to sit behind rickety dams on the banks of flood-prone rivers all across the state. Three ash ponds at the Lee plant, totaling 160 acres, have been completely submerged since Sunday."
In response to Waterkeeper Alliances breaking news, Greenpeace organizer Caroline Hansley said:
"Duke Energy can attack environmental groups all it wants, but the fact remains that it is misleading the public and the people of North Carolina about the safety of its dams, and Governor McCrory is letting the company get away with it- again. As the flood waters from the devastating Hurricane Matthew recede, we need a Governor who will put people's safety and access to clean drinking water before the interests of his previous employer, Duke Energy.
"Duke Energy has a terrible track record when it comes to protecting the safety of North Carolina's waterways and drinking water. In the two years since the Dan River coal ash disaster, Duke Energy has fought efforts to clean up leaking coal ash pits which threaten the health and safety of nearby communities. Instead of cleaning up its hazardous messes, Duke uses its political influence with its previous employee, Governor McCrory, allowing the company to leave 70 percent of its toxic coal ash leaking across the state.
"Hurricane Matthew proves again that Governor McCrory will always put corporate interests before the people of North Carolina." | {
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Sisters and brothers-- we are immovably, unshakably intricately interlocked.
A history has breathed you into life.
The stories of what came before are embedded into every breath, every whisper, every interaction, every physical object, every social construction, every system of power, every idea or thought or notion— every scrap of what is viewed as “normal” in our present, infinitely small, marvelously insignificant lifespan on planet Earth.
Everything, everything, around you — couches, desks, plastic, books, your clothes, race, Christianity, liberal/conservative ideologies, the government, fashion, journalism — was created by your fellow apes who were and are no better or more important than you.
The enormous number of human beings making the billions of individual decisions that spin the web of our now-towering reality, are just that— human. Fallible, problematic creatures highly subject to the pull of their own self-interest, as evolution and survival has long demanded.
This way of life was fabricated by people who instituted systemic poverty, slavery, imprisonment, forced servitude, starvation, sexism, racism— so they could profit.
It holds true today that the oppression of other human beings — by private prison companies, the health care industry, low-wage corporations, farm worker employers, etc. — is enormously lucrative.
In this cruel, exploitative world— we must question everything.
And, with a slight challenge, with a faint push of logic— the shroud collapses, and the egregious truth is revealed.
In America, human beings endure poverty so deep “many people don’t believe [it] exists here.” Children go hungry. Brown and Black Americans live crippled by racial prejudice and die young. Native Americans are stricken by poverty and murdered by police. Uneducated White Americans are getting sicker and killing themselves through suicide and drug addiction. Women are raped, trafficked, abused, and discriminated against. The public school system is racist, unequal, and unfairly funded. We bury more people because of gun violence than any other developed nation in the world. Our labor force is abused and underpaid. Our people are sicker than those of any other wealthy country, and we live underneath a prison system that brutalizes people, especially those who are Hispanic, Native, Black, and Brown, a system locking Americans behind bars at a rate seen nowhere else on this Earth.
The story here is one of oppression.
Continent to continent, coast to coast, from blasted mountain to dwindling forest, from polluted sea to growing desert, human beings hurt one another. We have committed atrocity upon atrocity, for tens of thousands of years (or perhaps several hundred thousand), against the living beings around us, because we have seen atrocities and had atrocities done unto us, and because we are too-often driven by greed and desire for power.
America is no different.
And the proletariat struggle to challenge this long line of tyranny has yet to grip the populace because we are taught to obey, not to question, and because we are lied to.
In America’s public schools, children are made to sit down and listen to the teacher, obey, act nicely, raise their hand, and respect adults. They are not taught to critically analyze in fair, equal schools, but filled with facts as if they are empty vessels in racist, unequally funded schools.
And, as adults, our people are bombarded with false information, foiled into electing politicians who are paid by corporations, who will enact friendly-to-the-rich laws, who will never work to unravel and reform this corrupt system.
As The New York Times reports,
There is little question that the enormous sums flowing into candidates’ campaign coffers undermine democracy, breed cynicism and shape policy to the preferences of powerful donors. Unbridled campaign contributions invite nightmare situations in which those at the pinnacle of society purchase the power needed to preserve the yawning inequities of the status quo.
We have no control over what our government does. The basis of democracy, 1 vote for 1 person, is nowhere to be found in the United States. Our freedom is a sham.
Beholden to corporate interests, our politicians do not care what we think.
From Cambridge University Press,
...Economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence.
Our government employees neither work for us nor represent us. And while we are confused by their falsehoods, they rob us even further of a voice, of any control over our lives.
From The Nation,
The attack on voting rights has spread to virtually every state in the country. From 2011 to 2015, 395 new voting restrictions have been introduced in forty-nine states (Idaho is the lone exception). Half the states in the country have adopted measures making it harder to vote.
We are living on this tiny little spinning rock, orbiting a massive galaxy, of which there are hundreds of billions— living as unhappily, as unequally, and as miserably as we possibly can.
Human beings started at the beginning of this bizarre, head-long crash of an existence with some promise of intelligence, but we have wielded that immense power to conquer and accumulate wealth.
We could have a marvelous time here.
We could organize the land beautifully for all its people, for all its creatures.
We do not have to have this oligarchic state. We could have a country of health care, critical thinking education, living wages, prison that provides the education that should have been provided at birth, and does not punish poor people for deigning to survive.
We could have a vibrant economy powered by knowledgeable and skilled citizens, filled with creativity and innovation.
Just think of the geniuses born into poverty here, blocked from unlocking their brilliance because of how much money their parents have. Think of the great minds we have lost, the wondrous scientists, inventors, mathematicians, leaders, musicians, magicians, and artists who could have contributed to our society, could have pushed humanity above and beyond, but for our wasteful, expensive, and unjust society of prison, no education, low-wage jobs, and lack of opportunity.
To have a country so wonderful, so prosperous, so full of potential— we must only unite. We must only cast aside hatred, fear, prejudice— of Black/White, Muslim/Christian, conservative/liberal, men/women— and come together.
We must begin to follow the money, and realize we are all in the same group getting screwed by the handful of people stacking up piles of green, ludicrous amounts of money impossible to spend in fifteen lifetimes.
Instead, we continue on, trudging through this thousand-years-old slog of oppression, blind to the depths of the inequalities and injustices that bleed from America’s soil.
We must awaken; we must get angry; we must get active.
Stand up, my fellow Americans, unite with your human beings, your sisters, your brothers, and WIN this long-waged war against injustice, fight the power structure that has long controlled the masses, once and for all destroy the insidious form oppression has taken as the centuries pass—
Shut this government down as Congress does in a moment, force our employees to report to us, morph this country into the land of truth and equality that is waiting, trembling, hanging at the tips of our fingers, longing to be taken and made reality.
Pour your energy, minds, hearts, and souls into this fight, the most vital battle any of us will ever wage, and save this lurching, reeling humanity.
We are teetering, we are tottering, quaking on the brink.
You, me, him, and her— every last human living in this country, not free because we are all not free, bound because chains go unbroken, enslaved because our fellow humans suffer, each one of us, forever linked, inexorably interlocked.
The Revolution is long, stretching millennia, not confined to one human, but slow moving and heavily lumbering across the centuries of the human experience.
Will you be a warrior in this noble battle?
Will you end the endless fight for humanity’s soul?
Will the citizens vote en masse, the elite’s greatest fear? | {
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The idea behind the Morphcooker came three years ago when designer Lawrence Bass went in search of a safer way to cook at the campsite. His quest began after his father was injured in a fire that started when a faulty gas stove caught his tent on fire. It took 19 different prototypes for Bass to finally hit on a design that met his requirements of not only providing a safe way for backpackers to prepare their meals but was also environmentally friendly and extremely adaptable too.
His final design comes in two different versions — the Morphcooker Solo and Morphcooker Family. At the heart of both models is an 8-inch silicon plate that serves as the hot plate, frying pan, and heating element for the pot and stove. The silicon is riding and firm, contains the heating element, and is powered by a rechargeable lithium battery. It also comes with a magnetic handle that can be swapped out with any of the various components.
Since the entire stove uses electricity, rather than gas, it is quite efficient. According to the Kickstarter page, it can boil water in just a matter of minutes, warming up hot beverages even quicker. On its lowest setting, the battery can offer up to 104 minutes of cooking time as well and has the added benefit of being able to be recharged via wall outlet, DC car port, or a solar panel.
For those concerned with size and weight, the entire thing collapses down to a small footprint designed to fit inside a backpack. The Solo model tips the scales at 14 ounces, while the family version is just two ounces more. The battery adds an additional 26 ounces to the overall weight but has the added benefit of being able to recharge small mobile devices, such as a smartphone.
The team behind the Morphcooker are looking to raise $13,850 on Kickstarter to get the device into production. At the time of this writing, the campaign is nearing that goal and should start shipping the finished product in March for about $200. Early bird supporters can pre-order one now however for just $96 for the Solo or $105 for the Family. Both versions include not only the stove itself but also a travel case and an AC wall charger too.
Find out more at morphcooker.com or the Morphcooker Kickstarter page.
Editors' Recommendations | {
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LEO YAO thought he had nothing to fear from the environment ministry. Before, when its inspectors visited his cutlery factory, he says, they generated “loud thunder, little rain”. After warning him to clean up, they would, at worst, impose a negligible fine. Not so this time. In August dozens of inspectors swarmed over his workshop in Tianjin, just east of Beijing, and ordered production to be halted. His doors remain shut today. If he wants to go on making knives and forks, he has been told that he must move to more modern facilities in a less populated area.
Mr Yao’s company, which at its peak employed 80 people, is just one minor casualty in China’s sweeping campaign to reduce pollution. For years the government has vowed to go green, yet made little progress. It has flinched at reining in dirty industries, wary of the mass job losses that seemed likely to ensue. But in the past few months it has taken a harder line and pressed on with pollution controls, hitting coalminers, cement-makers, paper mills, chemical factories, textile firms and more.
Tens of thousands of companies—mostly smaller ones, like Mr Yao’s—have been forced to close, according to Chen Xingdong, an economist with BNP Paribas. In the region around Beijing this winter, the government has ordered steel mills to run at half-capacity and aluminium-makers to cut output by nearly a third. Implementation, half-hearted in the past, has if anything been heavy-handed. In Hebei, a northern province, a ban on coal heating left thousands of residents shivering because the replacement, a switch to natural gas, was not yet ready.
For the wider economy, the question is how steep the cost will be. A sharp tightening of environmental rules in the world’s biggest polluter has the potential to be a shock, both to China and the global economy. Two worries are commonly heard: that it will drag down growth; and, at the same time, cause inflation as production cuts boost prices. Jiang Chao, an economist with Haitong Securities, a broker, says it could end up making for “classic stagflation”. So far, though, these worries are unfounded: growth has been solid and inflation subdued. A possible explanation is that the economic impact is lagging behind the pollution controls. Another is that, contrary to received wisdom, China may be able to raise its environmental standards without paying a high price.
One thing is clear: China’s shift on pollution is real. True, some extreme measures are temporary, especially those aimed at keeping Beijing’s sky blue this winter. But many others will be lasting. As part of a “war on pollution” declared in 2014, China has detailed targets for cleaning up its air, water and soil. On January 1st it introduced an environmental-protection tax, replacing a patchwork of pollution fees. Last month it launched a market for trading carbon emissions, which, though scaled back from early plans, will be the world’s largest. Most crucially, the environment ministry, previously a political weakling, has clout at last—as Mr Yao’s cutlery business found to its chagrin. Besides fining companies, inspectors have disciplined some 18,000 officials for laxity over pollution.
The tougher tactics have already made a big dent in specific industries. Just 60% of steel blast-furnaces are now in use, down sharply since October and near a five-year low. Thermal-power output is now actually declining year by year, evidence of weakening demand. Companies are also feeling the pinch. Schaeffler Group, a German car-parts maker, warned in September that pollution controls would knock out its supplier of needle bearings. Taiwanese chipmakers in the city of Kunshan, an electronics hub not far from Shanghai, say the abrupt tightening of water-quality rules may lead them to move.
Upward pressure on production costs has been intense. A surge in coal and steel prices has attracted most attention, as China has pushed companies to cut capacity (see chart). But similar trends affect a range of smaller industries. In July China banned imports of 24 kinds of waste such as paper and plastic; the ban came fully into effect on January 1st, but demand (and prices) for raw pulp quickly jumped. Restrictions on the chemicals industry have fuelled a 50% increase in the price of glyphosate, a popular weedkiller, over the past few months. Prices of rare-earth metals, notably two used in electric magnets, have also soared.
Yet the biggest economic surprise of China’s environmental campaign so far is not that it has had an impact; it is how muted that impact has been. Yes, industrial production has recently been weaker than forecast, but it is still expanding at more than 6% year on year. And yes, some commodity prices have shot up, but this has had very little effect on general inflation. Three factors suggest that this benign trend may endure. First, despite the common assumption that industries such as steel or coal are vast, they in fact account for a small, shrinking share of the Chinese economy. Minsheng Securities, a broker, calculates that the full complement of industries affected by the pollution measures adds up to just 7% of total national investment. China has reached a stage of development where manufacturing is fading in importance. Nearly 4m people may lose jobs as a result of cuts in industrial capacity, but strong demand for labour in the services sector, from restaurants to health care, is cushioning that blow. Second, price increases have been concentrated and show little sign of spreading widely. Prices of coal and steel, the first to heat up, are already levelling off, making the increases seem big one-off changes rather than the start of inflationary spirals. For the economy as a whole, it amounts to a redistribution of resources. Companies that use commodities as inputs face higher costs. But producers benefit. And since metals and mining companies are heavily indebted, the rebound in revenues is helping to fortify their balance-sheets and, in the process, easing Chinese financial risks. Lastly, green restrictions can themselves generate growth and jobs. China’s drive for cleaner energy sources has gained momentum. Estimates suggest it installed nearly 55 gigawatts of solar-power capacity in 2017, more than the existing capacity of any other country at the start of the year. China accounts for about two-fifths of global production of electric cars. And in more established industries, companies feel pressure to upgrade. To stay in business, Mr Yao says he will move his cutlery factory to a new industrial park, where waste-disposal standards are higher.
If the economic downside from China’s clean-up remains relatively mild, it prompts an obvious question: why did it take the government so long to get tough on pollution? One big reason is surely the uneven distribution of pain. Smokestack industries are based in a small number of provinces such as Shandong in the east and Shanxi in the north. So long as enforcement was in local hands, officials had little incentive to act. None wanted to throttle companies in their own backyard. But from a national perspective, the economic trade-offs of greener growth ought to be easier to stomach. China will both pay a price and reap dividends. | {
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Washington (CNN) Democratic lawmakers pressed the National Rifle Association for more information around millions of dollars in donations the group funneled towards the campaigns of President Donald Trump and Republican congressional candidates in a letter to the NRA's president Wednesday.
The letter, from Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse and Rep. Jamie Raskin, follows a series of news reports that raised questions about the NRA's relationship with apparent shell companies that purchased political ads in potential violation of campaign finance law.
According to those reports -- which appeared in outlets including Politico, The Daily Beast and The Trace, a digital news organization funded in part by money from a gun control group -- the NRA doled out more than $50 million in support of Trump's 2016 campaign, and more than $25 million for Republican candidates in 2014, through political consulting firms that were connected to firms employed by the Republican campaigns, suggesting illegal coordination between the NRA and the campaigns, the lawmakers write.
"Any expenditure made in coordination with a candidate is considered to be an in-kind contribution to the candidate," Whitehouse and Raskin write. "The relationship between the firms the NRA employed and the firms the Trump Campaign and other Republican candidates used suggests illegal coordination."
Advocacy groups, including the gun control legal group founded by former Rep. Gabby Giffords, have filed a number of complaints with the Federal Elections Commission detailing the alleged violations.
Read More | {
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The Miami Heat will continue to be without the services of center Hassan Whiteside when they face yet another Game 7 matchup in the NBA playoffs.
Whiteside informed reporters Friday that he'll travel with the team north of the border to Toronto for Sunday's game against the Raptors. However, he won't suit up, meaning he'll miss his fourth straight outing.
The soon-to-be unrestricted free agent was diagnosed with a first-degree MCL sprain in his right knee after leaving Game 3 with the injury. He'll finish the series with averages of 9.3 points on 62.5 percent shooting, 9.7 blocks, and 1.3 rejections in 29 minutes per game.
The Heat are coming off a do-or-die victory in Game 6 on Friday at the American Airlines Arena in which they defeated the Raptors 103-91. A small-ball lineup with Luol Deng manning the five spot brought the team great success, and will likely be deployed once again on Sunday. | {
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Human spaceflight has brought us beyond Earth, but we could potentially venture even farther.
The very first launch from NASA’s Cape Kennedy space center was of the Apollo 4 rocket. Although it accelerated no faster than a sportscar, the key to its success was that the acceleration was sustained for so long. The Saturn V rockets would later take humanity to the Moon. Although we’ve never ventured farther than Apollo took us all those decades ago, our potential to explore the Universe goes far beyond what we’ve already accomplished. (NASA)
Imagine that we could constantly accelerate at the same rate as Earth’s gravitational pull, 9.8 m/s², indefinitely.
A multistage rocket that lost and jettisoned mass as it moved faster and faster would be required to reach speeds approaching the speed of light, like the Super Haas rocket shown here. You must either posses a super-efficient type of fuel or gather more fuel along your journey to achieve relativistic speeds. In theory, a ship with constant acceleration could take us farther into the Universe than anything else we’ve hitherto envisioned. (DRAGOS MURESAN, UNDER C.C.A.-S.A.-3.0)
While you’d initially speed up, you’ll rapidly approach the speed of light.
A “light clock” will appear to run different for observers moving at different relative speeds, but this is due to the constancy of the speed of light. Einstein’s law of special relativity governs how these time and distance transformations take place between different observers.(JOHN D. NORTON, VIA PITT.EDU/~JDNORTON/TEACHING/HPS_0410/CHAPTERS/SPECIAL_RELATIVITY_CLOCKS_RODS)
Owing to Einstein’s Special Relativity, time will dilate and lengths will contract.
One revolutionary aspect of relativistic motion, put forth by Einstein but previously built up by Lorentz, Fitzgerald, and others, is that rapidly moving objects appear to contract in space and dilate in time. The faster you move relative to someone at rest, the greater your lengths appear to be contracted, while the more time appears to dilate for the outside world. (CURT RENSHAW)
As you continue to accelerate, the distances and travel times to faraway destinations will plummet.
One of the most efficient uses of human life for interstellar or intergalactic travel involves accelerating at a constant rate, turning around, and then decelerating at a constant rate, ensuring you reach your destination at non-relativistic speeds while minimizing your overall travel time from your perspective. (WIKIMEDIA COMMONS USER P. FRAUNDORF)
At the halfway mark, simply reverse your thrust to accelerate in the opposite direction for the remaining journey.
A logarithmic view of our Solar System, extending out all the way to the next-nearest stars, shows the extent of the asteroid belt, the Kuiper belt, and our Oort cloud. It would take a long journey of many months, even approaching a full year, of constant acceleration followed by deceleration to reach even the innermost edge of the Oort cloud. (NASA)
Reaching the inner Oort Cloud, at the Solar System’s boundary, takes approximately one year.
The stars Alpha Centauri (upper left) including A and B, are part of the same trinary star system as Proxima Centauri (circled). These are the three nearest stars to Earth, and they’re located between 4.2 and 4.4 light-years away. From the point of view of a relativistic traveler, fewer than 4 years would pass on a journey to any of these stars. (WIKIMEDIA COMMONS USER SKATEBIKER)
But it’s only a little longer — 4 years — to arrive at the Alpha Centauri system, 4.3 light-years away.
A relativistic journey toward the constellation of Orion. As you move closer to the speed of light, not only does space appear distorted, but your distance to the stars appears contracted, and less time passes for you as you travel. StarStrider, a relativistic 3D planetarium program by FMJ-Software, was used to produce the Orion illustrations. You don’t have to break the speed of light to travel 1,000+ light-years in less than 1,000 years, but that’s only from your point of view. (ALEXIS BRANDEKER)
Journeying to the Orion Nebula, located more than 1,000 light-years distant, requires just 15 years.
The Milky way’s central region in visible light, with the location of the galactic center marked by E. Siegel. Billions of stars can be found there, but even though it’s 25,000 light-years away, we could get there by accelerating and decelerating at a constant 9.8 m/s² in just 2 decades, from the point of view of a human on the journey. (JAIME FERNÁNDEZ OF CASTILLOSDESORIA.COM)
Only 20 years of traveling brings you to the Milky Way’s center, 25,000 light-years away.
The Andromeda Galaxy resides in our local group, and is nearly twice as large in diameter as our Milky Way. It is located 2.5 million light-years away, but if we constantly accelerated towards it at 9.8 m/s², turning around to decelerate halfway along the journey, we’d reach it after traveling for just 30 years from our frame of reference. (ADAM EVANS / FLICKR)
Arrival at the Andromeda galaxy, 2.5 million light-years distant, is achievable after just 30 years.
The size of our visible Universe (yellow), along with the amount we can reach (magenta). If we accelerated at 9.8 m/s² for approximately 22.5 years and then turned around and decelerated for another 22.5 years, we could reach any galaxy within the magenta circle, even in a Universe with dark energy. (E. SIEGEL, BASED ON WORK BY WIKIMEDIA COMMONS USERS AZCOLVIN 429 AND FRÉDÉRIC MICHEL)
In fact, you could reach any galaxy presently within 15 billion light-years after merely 45 years of travel.
Different stills from a simulation of the merger of the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies. While someone on a relativistic journey might age only years or decades, someone remaining at rest will experience time without dilation; in 4-to-7 billion years, the Milky Way and Andromeda will merge, while the Sun will become a red giant and die. Anyone returning after a long, one-way journey will find their home significantly aged and irrevocably changed. (NASA, ESA, Z. LEVAY, R. VAN DER MAREL, T. HALLAS, AND A. MELLINGER)
Distant journeys are irrevocably one-way, as billions of years pass back on Earth. | {
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Att fotografera på allmän plats innebär i dag ofta att du möter privatpersoner som påstår att det är fotoförbud. Men det stämmer sällan. Du har rätt att fotografera vad och vem som helst på allmän plats så länge det inte råder fotoförbud enligt lagen. Detta skriver juristen på Svenska Fotografers Förbund (SFF), Thomas Riesler, som menar att fotografering nästan alltid är tillåten på stan.
Här är det fotoförbud
Det finns bara fyra områden som berörs av fotoförbud:
1. I domstolar är det förbjudet att fotografera. (Rättegångsbalken 5 kapitel § 9)
Skylt med fotoförbud av skyddsobjekt, enligt skyddslagen (2010:305), Länsstyrelsen.
2. Skyddsobjekt med ett förbud mot att göra avbildningar, till exempel en militär anläggning, statsministerbostaden, Haga Slott med flera. Förbudsskylten har då en överkryssad kamera som indikerar fotoförbudet. (Skyddslag 2010: 305 7 § och 32 §)
3. Kränkande fotografering. Du får inte i hemlighet och utan tillstånd fotografera någon som befinner sig i ett utrymme av privat karaktär såsom omklädningsrum, toalett eller liknande utrymme. Se artikeln Kränkande fotografering – så undviker du att bli en kriminell fotograf (Brottsbalken 4 kap. 6a §)
4. Fotografering på privat mark eller mark där någon innehar bestämmanderätt och utfärdat fotoförbud. Till exempel en privat park, musikfestival, shoppinggalleria, biograf etcetera.
Men i övrigt är fotografering alltid tillåten, poängterar Thomas Riesler. Människor på allmän plats har inte rätt att förbjuda dig att ta bilder.
Upptäck vår avdelning Fråga juristen i varje nummer av Kamera & Bild, där vi i samarbete med Thomas Riesler, förbundsjurist Svenska Fotografers Förbund (SFF), svarar på dina frågor om vad du får fotografera, hur upphovsrätten fungerar och vad du ska göra om någon har använt dina bilder utan att fråga om lov.
Har du en fundering kring vad lagen säger om olika fotosituationer, skicka in en fråga redan i dag till [email protected]. Svaren publiceras i magasinet.
Läs mer om detta på SFF:s sajt där du även kan ladda ned en PDF för att ha i bakfickan – ifall du stöter på problem. | {
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A Russian military court has just sentenced a Ukrainian filmmaker from Crimea, Oleg Sentsov, to 20 years in jail for supposedly running a “terrorist organization.” His alleged accomplice, Crimean activist Olexander Kolchenko, received a 10-year term for his role in an alleged “terrorist” attack and participation in a “terrorist organization.”
It’s clear the case against Sentsov lacked foundation and was politically motivated, while the charges of “terrorism” against Kolchenko – who admitted to a role in an arson attack – are wholly disproportionate. The trial and the conviction of the two men highlight the manipulation of justice that is becoming disturbingly common in Russia today.
Click to expand Image Ukrainian film director Oleg Sentsov looks on from a defendants' cage as he attends a court hearing in Rostov-on-Don, Russia, August 25, 2015. © 2015 Reuters
The “terrorist organization” that Sentsov allegedly ran carried out two arson attacks in Crimea in April 2014 – one on the offices of the Russian Community in Crimea association, and another at the headquarters of the pro-Kremlin United Russia Party in Simferopol. No one was injured in either attack.
Kolchenko admitted to taking part in the arson attack on the United Russia office but disputed that it was an act of terrorism. Sentsov denied all charges.
When Russia occupied Crimea in spring of 2014, Sentsov spoke out against the occupation and helped to evacuate stranded Ukrainian soldiers from military bases in Crimea. During his trial prosecutors provided no evidence of his personal involvement in the arson attacks, and the charges of him running a terrorist organization were based solely on testimony from two other alleged members of the group. But one of them, Gennady Afanasyev, withdrew his testimony toward the end of Sentsov’s trial, saying it had been extracted under torture. In court, Afanasyev described how Russian security service officials viciously beat him during interrogations, suffocated him with a gas mask, stripped him naked, and threatened him with rape to force him to testify against Sentsov. Nobody has investigated these allegations.
Neither have Russian officials properly investigated Sentsov’s complaints about cruel and degrading treatment in custody. According to media reports, prosecutors incredulously argued that Sentsov’s visible wounds were the result of a long-standing involvement in sadomasochistic sexual practices.
The trial of Sentsov and Kolchenko attracted global attention. Memorial, a leading Russian human rights group, declared Sentsov to be a political prisoner and has demanded his immediate release.
Since the Russian occupation of Crimea, Russian authorities have been quick to silence those who oppose their actions there – be they Crimean Tatars, pro-Ukraine activists, or Moscow-based independent advocates. But this latest case, and the terribly harsh sentences for Sentsov and Kolchenko, are the starkest warning yet to Russia’s critics in Crimea: keep quiet or else. | {
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Many believed it would have been timed with the special election for the 3rd District, which would have meant a late April primary and a July general election. | {
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El presupuesto, de 3.959 millones, se incrementa un 1,6% respecto al efectivo de este ejercicio, destina 2.649 millones de euros a gasto social (el 67% del total) y 330 millones a inversión, cinco millones más que en 2014.
Fotografía: Efe Javier Fernández, presidente del Principado de Asturias.
PSOE y PP han cerrado hoy con su aprobación en el Parlamentario asturiano un acuerdo presupuestario inédito en el Principado para sacar adelante la cuentas públicas de 2015, sin incorporar ninguna de las más de cien enmiendas parciales de Foro, IU y UPyD.
El Gobierno socialista del Principado volverá a disponer así, de cara al último ejercicio de la legislatura, de un presupuesto tras la prórroga de este año.
El presupuesto, de 3.959 millones, se incrementa un 1,6% respecto al efectivo de este ejercicio, destina 2.649 millones de euros a gasto social (el 67% del total) y 330 millones a inversión, cinco millones más que en 2014.
Además, recoge una rebaja de la tarifa autonómica del IRPF de dos puntos en el primer tramo de tributación y bonificaciones por la compra de libros de texto y para familias con niños en escuelas de cero a tres años, medidas introducidas a propuesta del PP.
Tras la aprobación de las cuentas regionales para 2015, el presidente del Principado, Javier Fernández, ha calificado de "muy buena noticia" que Asturias pueda contar el próximo año con un presupuesto, gracias al acuerdo alcanzado con el PP que, según ha señalado, en ningún caso es algo estable. "Sacrificio político" Por su parte, la presidenta del PP de Asturias, Mercedes Fernández, ha destacado el "sacrificio político" que ha tenido que realizar su partido para alcanzar el acuerdo en torno a los presupuestos, aunque ha advertido de que no se trata de las cuentas que hubiera elaborado su partido, ya que les hubiera "dado la vuelta como a un calcetín".
Durante el debate parlamentario, la portavoz de Foro, principal partido de la oposición, Cristina Coto, ha afirmado que el presupuesto tiene carácter continuista y sigue "a rajatabla" los "viejos" postulados de la izquierda al aplicar recetas que ni siquiera dieron fruto en tiempos de bonanza, un error que, a su juicio, "recaerá" sobre quienes han facilitado su aprobación.
La parlamentaria de IU Marta Pulgar ha lamentado que en un contexto de escasez el gobierno opte por medidas fiscales que profundizan en la merma de ingresos, mientras que el diputado de UPyD, Ignacio Prendes, ha subrayado que el pacto es "un acuerdo contra todo cambio, para que todo siga igual", que busca resolver el problema de un gobierno "presa del inmovilismo" y de un PP "que ha hecho de la defensa del status quo toda su divisa ideológica".
El portavoz socialista, Fernando Lastra, se ha mostrado especialmente crítico con IU y UPyD, que dieron su apoyo al último presupuesto aprobado, el de 2013. Ha advertido a la coalición de que el principal bipartidismo en Asturias ha sido el protagonizado por esta formación y por el PSOE, que ha garantizado durante años la estabilidad en las instituciones "y del que ahora huyen despavoridos". | {
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Leicester Tigers have signed Clayton Blommetjies from the Scarlets as injury cover in the backline.
The 28-year-old, from Paarl in South Africa, plays full-back or wing and moved to the Scarlets after previous spells with Boland Cavaliers, Blue Bulls and Free State Cheetahs. He was among the leading members of the Cheetahs squad in their first PRO14 season in 2017/18.
The newest member of the Tigers Family spoke to LTTV on his first day at the club. To see the interview CLICK HERE.
Speaking at the club's Oval Park training ground, Blommetjies told LTTV: "I think I will fit in nicely at Leicester Tigers."
"I will do my best and give 100% in everything I do for the rest of the season."
Tigers head coach Geordan Murphy said: “Injuries have stretched us with Mathew Tait’s retirement and the long-term absence of Adam Thompstone and Telusa Veainu so we’ve been looking to add to our options in the back three and we’re happy that Clayton has come in to join that group.”
Blommetjies has gained representative honours with South Africa Students and South Africa Under-20s as well as the Barbarians. | {
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This video of a twister seen above Fissure 8 in Leilani Estates was sent in by David Rule at 10 a.m. on Monday, July 9, 2018.
The weekend’s stormy weather is expected to continue throughout the day.
Showers are likely, mainly before 7 a.m. Later in the day partly sunny skies are expected, with a high near 85.
SPONSORED VIDEO
Calm wind will becoming east-northeasterly at 5 to 9 mph in the afternoon.
There is a 70% xhance of precipitation.
New precipitation in amounts of less than a .1 of an inch is possible.
Monday night, expect scattered showers, and mostly cloudy skies, with a low around 70.
East-northeast winds around 6 mph will become westerly winds in the evening.
The chance of precipitation in the evening is 50%.
New precipitation amounts of less than a .1 of an inch is possible. | {
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FIVE backpackers could be jailed for a year after being arrested in Cambodia for allegedly performing “pornographic dancing” at a party.
Cops in Siem Reap, a town close to the ancient temples of Angkor Wat, released pictures of shirtless British men straddling young women on the floor.
But member of the group, whose ages range from 19 to 35, spoke to the Press Association from their cell, under condition of strict anonymity, claiming that they are confused over their arrest.
The prisoner insisted none of those arrested were in the photographs released by police.
The unnamed man said he was cooking at a barbecue at a villa party on Thursday at 4pm local time when police arrived and began picking out revellers from the crowd.
“Honestly, it was really confusing. Everyone was confused. They raided, rounded us up — there was about 80 to 100 people at this party, some of them were tourists.
“There were about 30 of them (police officers).”
The arrested man said the group did not understand why they were being arrested and claimed he saw one of the men vomiting in shock.
The group arrested include five British men; Vincent Harley Robert Hook, 35, Daniel Richard Leeming Jones, 30, Thomas Alexander Jeffries, 22, Billy Stevens, 21, and Paul Francis Harris, 32.
A Dutch national, two Canadian women, a Norwegian man and a New Zealander were also arrested in the afternoon raid.
They said they had been assigned a Cambodian lawyer, and were due in court on Sunday.
The police website pictured a group line-up, which the prisoner confirmed to be the detained group.
The British Foreign Office confirmed they were in contact with tourists in Cambodia, on Saturday evening.
“We are assisting five British men arrested in Cambodia and are providing support to their families,” a statement said.
The group confirmed during the call that all of their embassies had been in contact, and were helping the foreign nationals and their families.
They said their lawyer told them they could face up to a year in prison, and that they could be detained on a six-month waiting period if the case went to trial.
The prisoner said from their makeshift cell on Saturday that their families were “worried sick”.
He said they have been sleeping on the floor of an office at a police station for three days, and emphasised they had been treated well by their captors — saying officers were friendly and had brought them pizza.
The prisoner said cops have been targeting expats over tourists wearing bikinis in public, specifically relating to expat-run pub crawls in Siem Reap.
“We’re innocent,” they said. “We don’t know why we’ve been arrested — we’re getting different stories from different people.”
This story originally appeared in The Sun and has been reproduced with permission. | {
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SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — A Puerto Rico court has for the first time allowed a same-sex couple to adopt a child.
Wednesday’s ruling involves a woman whose longtime partner gave birth to a girl through artificial insemination. The woman had been fighting to adopt the girl for two years.
Justice Secretary Cesar Miranda calls it a historic decision and says it represents a new civil rights achievement.
Puerto Rico until recently prohibited same-sex marriages and the recognition of such marriages. However, the government struck down those laws after a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in late June that required every state to recognize such marriages.
Gov. Alejandro Garcia Padilla previously signed orders that allow transgender and transsexual people to change their gender on their driver’s licenses and protect their rights when seeking medical services.
© 2015, Associated Press, All Rights Reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. | {
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Thanks to its bustling streets and landmarks, New York City has been a favorite filming location for years.
From Katz's Delicatessen, which was made famous when Meg Ryan pretended to have an orgasm there in "When Harry Met Sally," to the upscale 21 Club, which is where Michael Douglas recommended the steak tartare in "Wall Street," here are 25 iconic filming locations in New York City. | {
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North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un (C) attending a photo session with the participants in the Seventh Congress of the Workers' Party of Korea at an undisclosed location (AFP Photo/)
North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un waves from a balcony of the Grand People's Study House following a mass parade marking the end of the 7th Workers Party Congress in Kim Il-Sung Square in Pyongyang on May 10, 2016 (AFP Photo/Ed Jones)
North Korea's young leader Kim Jong-Un, who was personally blacklisted by the United States for the first time over allegations of human rights abuses, has repeatedly shrugged off pressure by the international community while asserting absolute control over the reclusive state.
In his late 20s when he took over from his late father Kim Jong-Il four and a half years ago, the younger Kim was considered untested, vulnerable and likely to be manipulated by senior figures.
But he has proved his mettle in dealing harshly -- sometimes brutally -- with any sign of dissent, even at the highest levels, while maintaining an aggressively provocative stance with the international community.
The latest move by the United States marks the first time that Kim has been sanctioned personally, and the first linked to the systemic human rights abuses in the country, where between 80,000 and 120,000 prisoners languish in political prison camps.
"Under Kim Jong-Un, North Korea continues to inflict intolerable cruelty and hardship on millions of its own people," said Adam Szubin, the US Treasury's acting under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence.
The new blacklist, which also names 10 other top officials, follows a ramping up of United Nations sanctions on the country in the wake of a series of nuclear and missile tests this year.
But Kim has repeatedly shown he will not be cowed by international criticism or pressure, as he has carried out further weapons tests while cementing the personality cult that surrounds him at home.
In late June, Kim was named chairman of a new supreme governing commission, underlining the 33-year-old's absolute control over every aspect of state policy in the isolated, nuclear-armed nation -- including the country's network of detention centres and labour camps, according to Washington.
After his father's death, the young Kim was expected to initially rely on a coterie of powerful aides, including his uncle Jang Song-Thaek.
But that expected tutelage was short-lived as Kim started to remove any potential challenges to his authority by executing Jang.
Other purges of high-ranking officials followed.
- Short-tempered, intolerant -
Kim Jong-Un was born to his father's third wife, Japan-born ethnic-Korean dancer Ko Yong-Hi, who is believed to have died of breast cancer in 2004.
He was sent to school in Switzerland, where he was looked after by his maternal aunt Ko Yong-Suk and her husband.
School staff and friends, who were reportedly unaware that he was a member of North Korea's ruling family, remembered him as a shy boy who liked skiing and Hollywood tough guy Jean-Claude Van Damme.
Meanwhile in a recent interview with the Washington Post, Ko -- who defected to the US in 1998 -- described Kim as short-tempered and lacking in tolerance.
He was also basketball mad, according to Ko, and even slept with a basketball.
Kim knew from his eighth birthday that he would become North Korea's leader, but he only entered the public eye in 2008 when his father suffered a stroke and Pyongyang revved up plans for the nation's second dynastic succession.
But he has distanced himself from his father's legacy and shown himself willing to alienate the North's sole major ally, China, with his unstinting efforts to advance the country's nuclear and missile programmes.
Just two days before his 33rd birthday on January 8, 2016, Pyongyang said it had successfully tested a Hydrogen bomb, a claim widely refuted by international experts.
But with the H-bomb claim, Kim's nuclear achievements outstrip those of the country's founding leader Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jong-Il.
Kim Il-Sung is still widely revered in North Korea, something his grandson has sought to play on by appearing to mimic his hairstyle, dress, mannerisms and public speaking style.
The younger Kim has also continued the time-tested ways of his forebears in selectively stoking tensions with rival South Korea, occasionally extending an olive branch only to snatch it away again. | {
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© 2001-2020 City of Hamilton - Hamilton, Ontario, Canada Terms of Use | {
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コニカミノルタは、東京・池袋にある同社運営のプラネタリウム「コニカミノルタプラネタリウム“満天”（満天 in Sunshine City）」が12月1日にリニューアルオープンすることを記念し、5人組ロックバンド「サカナクション」とのコラボレーション作品を上映する。公開は12月1日。
“満天”と「サカナクション」のコラボレーション作品「サカナクション グッドナイト・プラネタリウム」は、リニューアルした機材を活かして美しい星空が映し出されるなか「サカナクション」の楽曲が流れるというもので、ナレーションはサカナクションの山口一郎氏が担当する。
また、「南極ヒーリング ～この地球（ほし）の果てで～」というリニューアル記念作品も上映される。南極の星空や湖の様子などを鑑賞できる作品で、テーマに合わせて調合したオリジナルアロマがドーム内を包み込む仕掛けも備えている。ナレーションは女優の多部未華子さん。
リニューアル後の“満天”は、「自然で美しい星空」を忠実に再現することを追求したという最新鋭の光学式プラネタリウム「Infinium Σ」（インフィニウム シグマ）を採用。寝転んで鑑賞できる「芝シート」と、雲に乗って星を見上げることをイメージした「雲シート」も用意する。
なお、“満天”はリニューアル工事のため、9月1日～11月30日の期間は休館している。 | {
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Women’s Fightback is a socialist-feminist paper. Sarah Wright examines another feminist trend, “liberal feminism.” Future issues of Women’s Fightback will explore more “other feminisms”.
In a few words, a liberal feminist campaign would oppose anything that gets in the way of gender equality.
But the fundamental thinking of liberal feminism lies in a belief in the capacity of the individual woman. Changing the basic structures of society itself is not the issue: it is more about changing the laws that block women’s liberation. If this is done, women can change themselves and prove themselves to be equal.
Personal rights predominate over society as a whole; and through women being able to exercise our own personal rights, society will change, not the other way around.
In generalised terms, the “liberal” perspective could be described as seeing freedom as the fundamental value that must be maintained by the state and greater society. This can apply too to the liberal feminist viewpoint: humans as self-owners who should be free to solely make decisions about their own lives, and this right should apply to both men and women equally.
Men and women should have equal right to things such as freedom of expression, freedom to control your own body, freedom to acquire and control property, all free from coercive interference. The role of the state then, is to protect the individual, man and woman equally, from such coercive interference.
If, then, we are in a situation in which men and women do not have equal rights to such freedoms, the state either does not have the correct laws to prevent this, or they are not maintaining them properly. The campaign of the liberal feminist therefore is a political one, in so far as they must target the political institutions to bring about equality through political reform.
They must challenge existing laws that obstruct women’s rights, or demand new ones that will eradicate violation of women’s rights. Liberation is therefore individualistic, as it comes from being free to make your own decisions away from the coercive interference of others.
The kind of things that liberal feminists will fight for, then, tend to centre around law and policy change, such as: equal education, voting, reproductive rights, abortion rights, protection against sexual harassment and domestic violence, and equal opportunities in the work place.
Yes, these are all important things that must be fought for, however, I would argue not only that these things can be fought for as part of the class struggle, but that they must be, in order to free the lives of millions of women from oppression.
Let’s take the example of abortion. A liberal feminist campaigns for abortion rights, as illegalising abortion interferes with a women’s freedom of choice regarding her own body. Yet does winning this campaign end oppression for women?
For example, it does not acknowledge the economic and social disadvantage and prejudice that a single mother would face, which could be a factor in her choosing abortion. It does not acknowledge the social or traditional values of a community that would factor in her choice. Or what about the cost involved to have an abortion, if free health care is not available?
Legalised abortion is a far better situation for a woman making a choice than illegalised, but legal/illegal is not the only thing that could interfere in her right to choose.
Statistically, middle-class teenagers are more likely to have an abortion, arguably perhaps because they foresee a child as having more of a detrimental impact on their life, career choices, etc. The availability of abortions in theory is the same for both middle class and working class young women in Britain, but their social/economic background plays a bigger part in their decision.
What we see here is not that fighting for a change in abortion law, or whatever law, is bad, but that it is limited. It is limited because of the society we live in: the capitalist society.
Whilst we live under capitalism, any rights that women fight for will always be determined or affected by her economic position. Individual empowerment is immaterial: people’s decisions are limited by class.
Liberal feminist campaigns have been at the forefront of many, many important things, but the barrier of capitalism will only let this go so far: either you will never escape your economic situation, or you will have to leave your class behind, and succeed as an individual, not a collective.
The women’s struggle needs to not just think in terms of making the best of the way society is currently structured, but to restructure society as a whole.
If we examine part of the definition of patriarchy (in this school of thought, the overall oppressor of women) given by the London Feminist Network, we can further exemplify this point.
Patriarchy is defined as the “current and historic unequal power relations between women and men whereby women are systematically disadvantaged and oppressed.
“This takes place across almost every sphere of life but is particularly noticeable in women’s under-representation in key state institutions, in decision making positions and in employment and industry.”
Is the solution, then, to ensure that more women are in positions of power, that we have an equal gender balance in law implementing, decision making and executive positions? How would this make a difference? A female Conservative MP implementing public spending cuts would affect women no more favourably than if it had been done by a man.
But wouldn’t more female MPs mean that women’s issues would be taken more seriously in parliament, and would be more likely to carry through legislation that protect women’s rights?
Would they be more sensitive to how the cuts disproportionately hit women?
Possibly, but I think this is ignoring the issue. A government with more female MPs may pass such laws, a law that is trying to tackle our sexist culture, the censorship of lads’ mags, for example.
But this implies that our sexist culture, lads’ mags, etc., is the cause of women’s oppression, and not rather it being symptomatic of something more fundamental. The fundamental cause is capitalism, and the sexist culture we live in is a product of that.
On the issue of cuts; yes, arguably a more heavily female government might distribute the cuts more equally, but can we say this is progress? How can terms of equality or fairness be applied to welfare cuts at all? As feminists we should be fighting against cuts, full stop, rather than hoping to convince the government to balance it out.
Essentially, by getting more women into positions of power, it is only passing on oppressive decisions to a woman: it makes no odds to a working woman whether a man or a woman fires her.
On the surface, society may seem less sexist because we see more women in “successful” positions, but this is simply masking the suffering of millions of women who are oppressed by their economic situation.
I do not want to undervalue the liberal feminist position: many liberal feminist issues are important, and if they were not fought for the women’s movement would be in a worse place.
It is important, for example, to recognise and fight against how gender roles are socialised — how masculine characteristics are idealised, and feminine ones undervalued: but part of this recognition is recognising that these are also Marxist issues.
Masculine qualities are held up because they are associated with the successful capitalist; feminine qualities are looked down on because they are associated with the underpaid and under-acknowledged carer, or free-labouring housewife.
Essentially, this is not necessarily a disagreement with what they are fighting for: it is challenging the motive and the method. If we change laws that allow some women to climb the ladder and have a successful career without coercive interference, and say that this is feminism, then we are forgetting the millions of women still oppressed.
We cannot forget that class itself divides: you cannot call for solidarity with women across the world, and ignore the fact that some of these women oppress others. Sisterhood cannot exist purely and indiscriminately whilst class society exists. The women’s struggle must be fought alongside the class struggle.
One final example. During the miners’ strike, we saw how struggle transformed people. Not just the women, who abandoned traditional roles, and became frontline activists, but also the attitudes of the men towards their wives, girlfriends, mothers and sisters. Alongside the miners’ defeat, came a reversal of such attitude changes. A sign that in order for permanent change, the workers’ struggle must be won. | {
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Last Updated on May 12, 2019 by Klaus Crow
Today I’d like to share with you 5 videos with great blues guitar tips from the masters themselves. Robben Ford, Matt Schofield, Paul Gilbert, Larry Carlton and Joe Bonamassa will all give you some valuable tools and insights to optimise your blues playing.
The videos are for intermediate and more advanced levels, but even if you’re a beginner you’ll take something out of it.
Enjoy the masters!
ROBBEN FORD – “Blues Phrasing”
MATT SCHOFIELD – Blues Phrasing
PAUL GILBERT – Pentatonic Chicka and Vibrato
MATT SCHOFIELD – Sophisticated Blues
LARRY CARLTON – Melodic Soloing
JOE BONAMASSA – Electric Blues Licks Guitar Lesson
If you want to learn to improvise all over the neck, learn great blues licks, how to make up your own, connect licks together, learn to solo and really master all the blues pentatonic / blues scale shapes inside out, check out
The 50 Cool Blues Licks Improvisation course | {
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The GSA has announced that FedBizOpps.gov (FBO.gov) will begin to be decommissioned and its functionality transitioned into beta.SAM.gov starting on November 8, 2019.
What is FBO?
FBO (known as FedBizOpps) is how federal contracting agencies post notices on proposed contract actions valued at more than $25,000. These notices include solicitations, pre-solicitations, sole source justifications, and other notices.
New Accounts and Migration
In order to transition roles from FBO.gov to beta.SAM.gov, you will need to create a new account in beta.SAM.gov. As part of the ongoing efforts to enhance security and to move to single sign on for all IAE applications, GSA is implementing login.gov in beta.SAM.gov. A few weeks before the transition, you will need to create a new login.gov account or be ready to use your existing login.gov account. You also will be able to use your government issued CAC/PIV card to log in. Government officials who have roles in FBO.gov will be required to complete a simple process to migrate their roles. By providing your username and password from FBO.gov on beta.SAM.gov, you will inherit all the roles you have now.
NOTE: Legacy users will be able to migrate their roles only if their FBO.gov account is active. This means their FBO user account password cannot be expired.
What Action is Required by You?
If you are a USFCR SAM.gov verified vendor, we advise you to begin to use other resources for researching government opportunities. Your choices are to use USFCR's Advanced Procurement Portal (APP) or learn the limited SAM.gov beta site (beta.sam.gov) functionality.
Contact USFCR to Review Your SAM Registration
If you are a current USFCR customer, call (877) 252-2700 ext. 1 to speak with us about your options for replacing FBO.gov. Our knowledgeable Acquisition Specialists will help you navigate this critical federal contracting change and help enhance your contracting opportunities.
New to Government Contracting and Need a SAM Registration?
If you are interested in government contracting, call (877) 252-2700 ext. 1 to speak with us about your need, or click below to start your SAM Registration today.
To find opportunities for free, try our search page. | {
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It's probably the most notorious comic book heist ever. In 2000, high grade copies of Action Comics #1 and Detective Comics #27 were stolen from Nicolas Cage's home. Cage, a well-known comic book fan and at the time the owner of a jaw-dropping vintage comic book collection, was extremely disheartened by the theft and subsequently sold his entire collection with Heritage Auctions. The announcement of the sale became infamous late night talk show and gossip mag fodder because Cage married Lisa Marie Presley just days after announcing that he was selling his comic books.
According to the Ventura County Star, Cage's Action Comics #1 was recovered by the Los Angeles Police last month from a San Fernando Valley Storage Locker.
It remained missing for more than 10 years until last month when a man found it in a San Fernando Valley storage locker, said Balelo, who owns Balelo Inc., a liquidation merchandise business in Simi Valley. The man had bought the locker's contents through Riverside-based American Auctioneers. Not sure of its worth, the man, who did not want to be identified for this story, turned to American Auctioneers co-owner Dan Dotson. Dotson, in turn, arranged a meeting April 3 between the man and Balelo. "Dan is a good friend of mine," Balelo said. "And he knows I'm very much into collectibles." Balelo said the man brought the comic book to the meeting. Balelo took photographs of it and emailed them to New York comic book dealer Stephen Fishler, who sold the copy of Action Comics #1 to Cage.
Balelo said he knows the man who found the comic book only as Sylvester. When contacted by The Star, the man refused to give his last name. Hrycyk also refused to identify him. Is he a suspect? "I don't know," Hrycyk said. "I don't know enough about it yet. I don't want to prejudge anybody. It's just too bad that Balelo with his big mouth thought it was necessary to contact the media" about the comic book. Balelo said with a laugh that after all the time and trouble he went through trying to do the right thing without making a dime, "at least let me get some recognition."
Stephen Fishler, the comic book dealer who sold Cage the Action Comics #1 and much of the rest of his collection, flew out last week to authenticate the book, according to the Star. Fishler, whose comicconnect.com has sold an Action Comics #1 for $1.5 million last year and a copy of Amazing Fantasy #15 (first appearance of Spider-Man) for $1.1 million last month, could not comment on the ongoing police investigation.
But he did go on the record in detail about the original particulars of the theft in 2006 on the Collector's Society message board, in an effort to flush out information on another comic stolen during the incident:
In 2000, Nicolas Cage called me, slightly frantic and quite upset that 3 comic books had been stolen from his house in Los Angeles. I asked him if the police had been contacted and he informed me that they had not. I immediately placed a call to the L.A. police who arrived on the scene within 20 minutes. Here are the facts:
3 books- A VF Action Comics #1 (unrestored), a VF Detective #27 (unrestored except for a tiny sealed tear on the back cover/sold in the 1992 Sotheby's auction) and a 3rd book that I will not disclose for the time being, were missing. These books had been placed in high security frames on a wall. Those frames were now empty. However, it was nearly impossible to pinpoint exactly when the potential theft occurred. Mr. Cage had a party at his house the week before. It could have happened then. It is also possible that it had could have happened prior to the party. There was no way to know for sure. A number of household employees were interviewed about the theft. Unfortunately, nothing of substance had come from those interviews. Several weeks later, I spent a number of hours combing through the house in the hope that the books were somehow still in the house. Misplaced? Hidden by a thief in an out of the way location with the notion of retrieving them at a later date. I came up empty. The books had fallen off the face of the earth. In, 2000, I had spent considerable time quietly contacting comic book stores in the L.A. area in the hope that the books would be sold for some quick cash. Several days after the initial report of the theft, a store owner in the L.A. area informed me that he had recently received a phone call requesting pricing information for Action #1 and Detective #27. I was very hopeful that this tip would lead to a potential recovery of the stolen books but unfortunately, the store owner received no further phone calls. However, I was not discouraged in that I knew that the books were out there – somewhere. Several months later, there was a another break. On ebay, I spotted an auction for the D copy of Marvel Mystery #71 in a CGC holder. The same Marvel #71 that I had sold to Cage two years earlier. I contacted Nick abouthe book but unfortunately he was out of the country at the time. I emailed the ebay seller with questions regarding the book but received no response. One week later, I found out that a good friend of mine had purchased the Marvel #71 from the seller on ebay. That transaction had been done in person and was completed in cash. Thankfully, I was able to secure the name and address of the ebay seller. Left a phone message for the seller and again,did not receive a response. And indeed, it turned out that Nick's Marvel #71 was missing. With the Action #1 and Detective #27 in the spotlight, the fact that the Marvel #71 was missing had just been overlooked. Why someone would also take the #71 is anybody's guess. I handed over the information to Nick's people who assured me that they would take it from there. To be honest, I feel they dropped the ball. For some reason, they did not want to get the police involved. They contacted the seller of the Marvel #71, a person living in CT, and received a legal letter in return claiming harassment. Because they could not connect the person in CT to a person who had access to Nick's house, they just seemed to let the matter drop. It was infuriating for me to watch all this transpire, but at the end of the day it was not my book and it was not my investigation. The loss of the books was upsetting to Nicolas Cage. Extremely upsetting. And it was something that he has never gotten over. It was my opinion that the person who sold the Marvel #71 had information about the Action #1 and Detective #27. If I had any doubt about this, that doubt ended when I found out the following: The seller of the Marvel #71, the same person who submitted the book to CGC, the same person whom I had contacted with "questions", apparently franticly contacted CGC, asking questions about their confidentiality policies. Fearful that they would release his name to "outside parties". This occurred shortly after I had had left my first message with CT ebay seller. I had not released the information earlier in the hope that these books would "somehow" find their way back on to the comic book market. A thief, unaware that the books had been reported stolen might try to sell them looking for a quick payday. I am now taking a different tactic in the hopes that someone out there "knows something." If someone reading this thread feels that they have information regarding these stolen books, I ask you that you PM me. Do not post that information. All tips will be kept completely confidential. Stephen
It would appear the picture used by the Ventura County Star is not the actual Cage copy, but rather a scan of the Kansas City copy which sold for $1 million last year. The copy which appears in the LAPD's stolen art database, has been assumed by many to be the Cage copy. Given Fishler's unrestored VF description, the copy would be very comparable to the best copies on the market recently, and might possibly go for over $1 million in today's market.
The LAPD database also contains a high grade Detective Comics #27, possibly the copy stolen from Cage as well. Have you seen this comic? Contact LAPD Art Theft Detail at 213-485-2524. | {
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On November 30, Mayor Ed Murray signed into law Initiative 124, a union-backed measure largely designed to protect hotel workers in Seattle from injury and harassment. On December 19, a trio of industry associations — the Seattle Hotel Association, the Washington Hospitality Association, and the American Hotel & Lodging Association — filed a complaint challenging the measure.
“We’re not surprised, necessarily; it was certainly a talking point that [the industry] used during the election to try and scare voters, to insinuate that there would be some legal question,” says Abby Lawlor, staffer at Unite Here Local 8 who led the campaign for I-124. “But certainly it is disappointing. We had such overwhelming support in the election” — the initiative passed with 77 percent of the vote — and now, she says, I-124’s opponents “are trying to walk it back through the courts. It’s a big waste of time for them, and for the city. But unfortunately it’s something we’re going to have to go through.”
The primary reason for the legal challenge, according to the complaint filed Monday morning with the King County Superior Court Clerk, is the aspect of the new law that would require hotels to maintain what the plaintiffs call “a blacklist” of hotel guests who workers say harassed them. I-124 stipulates that “a hotel employer must record the accusations it receives” regarding violence or sexual harassment and obtain the guest’s name and maintain it on a list for a minimum of five years. If the allegation “is supported by a statement made under penalty of perjury or other evidence,” the employer should bar the guest from staying at at that hotel for at least three years.
Washington Hospitality Association communications manager Jillian Henze calls this “requir[ing] hotels to play judge and jury” because, as written, there is no explicit mention of getting local law enforcement involved, nor is there a requirement that the hotels notify the guests that their names may be on such a list. The complaint document states that this “forces hotels to damage the reputation of accused guests…without making any assessment of the truth of the accusations” and doesn’t create an opportunity for guests to clear themselves of wrongdoing.
“It is clear to us that this initiative violates state law,” the Washington Hospitality Association said in a statement on Tuesday about the legal challenge. The “blacklist,” in particular, “forces our industry to choose between protecting our guests or protecting our employees. Our industry must protect both.”
(Full disclosure: Seattle Weekly endorsed I-124, as did elected officials, nonprofits, unions, publications, and individuals. But others, including the Seattle Times, recommended voters reject it; the Times called it a “sloppy, illegal first draft” that “could leave hotels open to lawsuits.”)
Lawlor says that from Unite Here’s perspective, the plaintiffs “are very clearly coming after the credibility of the allegations of sexual harassment from workers.” According to the official document, hotels “stand in the shoes of hotel guests” who would be affected by the measure. But “they don’t say, ‘We’re in the shoes of housekeepers,’” says Lawlor. “There’s nothing in the interest of protecting workers in there. I think they’ve made it very clear that they’re more interested in coddling their guests than protecting their workers.”
Another basis for the legal challenge, Henze says, is that plaintiffs believe I-124 violates the Seattle City Charter’s “single-subject rule” (Article IV, Sec. 7) which says that any ordinance “shall be clearly entitled and contain but one subject, which shall be clearly expressed in its title.” The initiative does address many disparate worker protections, including health care stipends for low-income workers, protections against sexual harassment, and job protection if a hotel is sold to a new owner.
But these protections are necessary and just, I-124 backers argue, and that is exactly why Seattle voters passed the measure so overwhelmingingly.
“The passage of the initiative was a bright spot on November 8, showing that the misogyny, racism, and xenophobia evident in the election of Donald Trump had no place in Seattle,” said Nicole Grant, Executive Secretary Treasurer of the Martin Luther King, Jr. County Labor Council, in a statement released Tuesday. “Now, the hotel industry is seeking to undo this hard-fought victory.”
“We work so hard,” adds hotel housekeeper and Unite Here Local 8 member Jenny Wu, “and it was great to see voters support us and show they care about hotel workers.”
Lawlor says that Unite Here certainly expects Seattle hotels to move forward with implementing the law, though she imagines the lawsuit might encourage them to “drag their feet.” She compares the situation to what happened in Sea-Tac: After the City of Sea-Tac passed its $15 minimum wage in 2013, large employers at Sea-Tac Airport sued, arguing that the law shouldn’t apply to airport workers. In 2015, they lost the suit, and now, many employers who gambled that the law wouldn’t be upheld are paying out huge sums in backpay to their employees.
But Henze says the Washington Hospitality Association is recommending its members “continue with implementation” of I-124 and “interpret ambiguities [in the law] as best they can until they get clarification from the city or the court.” That is not likely to happen before February or March, she says.
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Foreign workers replacing Americans: Michael Reagan.
By Raif Karerat
WASHINGTON, DC: While California’s unemployment rate continues to hover at a full percentage point higher than the national average, the state has taken the controversial and somewhat ironic step of hiring Indian nationals to process its unemployment claims.
According to ABC’s Sacramento affiliate, News10, “with the exception of two managers, everyone inside the office is from outside of the U.S. They are employed by Deloitte, a major U.S. IT company hired by the state to create and manage its Unemployment Insurance Modernization project. The mostly Indian nationals are allowed to work here under a visa program called H-1B.”
Right wing pundits are rallying against the move and using it as ammo against President Obama’s immigration reform, and H1-B visas in particular.
Computerworld reports “information technology workers at Southern California Edison (SCE) are being laid off and replaced by workers from India. Some employees are training the H-1B visa holding replacements, and many have already lost their jobs.”
According to Michael Reagan, son of former U.S. President Ronald Reagan: “That’s really pouring salt in the wound. First the company makes you train the foreign workers replacing you then, after you’re fired, more foreign workers process your unemployment claim.”
Reagan also argues that the wage scale for STEM related fields will be lowered if U.S. companies continue to support the influx of foreign nationals working in the United States. He cites Sen. Jeff Sessions, a Republican out of Alabama, who claims 75 percent of U.S. citizens with STEM degrees are working in completely unrelated positions.
Conversely, major tech companies are among the strongest proponents for H1-B expansion. Major industry players regularly endorse and finance lobbying groups such as FWD.us that claim further immigration reform would create millions of jobs, reduce deficit, and keep the United States globally competitive. | {
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