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I went to Antarctica in December 2014. These rare shots capture the seldom-seen underside of an iceberg. For press inquires or print media requests, please use my contact page. More shots on Instagram.
Follow me here to be notified of behind-the-scenes video, gear tutorials, and project updates.
Video of the experience at the bottom of this page. | {
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by lackadaisicallexicon
The Alpha kids differ from the Betas in a few subtle ways: they’re older, more inclined to emotional entanglements, and relatively lonely. It’s a fact that the Alpha’s group is often a few moments away from breaking apart, usually due to relationship troubles with Jake. But Roxy stands out, a Void leader for a void session, and proves, even to herself, that she is a hero.
Roxy’s embrace of the Void aspect is noted by Calliope, an expert on the Alpha session, and it’s clear that her analysis, in view of Roxy’s actions and personality, is spot-on. Roxy’s alcoholism, of course, represents a clear and present obsession with Void; it’s a soporific drug that is often known to cause apparent memory loss in the user, puts people to sleep, and makes them lose their ability to accurately judge situations. But many of her other actions hint at her Void status: she compulsively defers to the will of others, even her dead mother, whose absence she says caused her drinking problem. Her drinking habit, often seen as one of Roxy’s defining characteristics, is not even something she produced on her own.
She had a crush on Jake English, much like everyone else in the Alpha session (arguably including Jake), but rather than pursue him to the exclusion of her friends, she allows them free run, and backs down even when Jane isn’t pursuing Jake but doesn’t want her to, making herself a “nothing”, a non-player in the contest for his affections.
Roxy has been for the Alphas what they always needed: the sole empty space in a four-way contest of wills, someone who gives where everyone else is eager to take. The unique identity she forms, too, is a result of her Void traits. As a teen alcoholic, Roxy is very aware of her problem, but she takes a passive stance in her attempts to maintain it; she acts so carefree and bubbly when drunk that her friends actually feel bad for telling her not to drink, as if she can’t be happy if she isn’t drinking.
But Void, due in part to its dual nature as a power that is and transcends nothingness, has two purposes, not one. Void serves as the medium which readily accepts invasion, but it is also a force of nullification, and Roxy’s actions are as nullifying as they are receiving. She breaks down interpersonal conflicts between her friends, begins to erode Calliope’s poor self-image with ceaseless and honest positivity, and she destroys the starvation experienced by the carapacians around her house by stealing pumpkins, fittingly out of thin air.
In other news, Santa’s probably a Rogue of Void, pulling presents out of thin air for all the world’s children.
Why I love Roxy’s character so much is difficult to sum up in a short essay, but I think at Roxy’s center there is a void, but one that doesn’t need filling. I mentioned nullification and reception earlier as evidence of her embrace of Void, but she does not just project those effects. She internalizes them. It’s that space inside her, that Void-born instinct to nullify the damaging, that gave her the will to quit drinking, and it’s the growth she earned by means of it that made her lament briefly falling off the wagon after exposure to the Trickster artifact.
But her ascent to godhood marks a final, crucial absence in Roxy Lalonde: the absence of pretension. Unlike god tier players like Vriska, who overestimated her importance due to the unbelievably potent nature of her powers, Roxy’s approach to god tier, despite being informed that her powers were extremely potent by Calliope, is that of steady learning and gradual development. She takes the Egbert Approach, and judging by her actions now, I think she’s finally ready to step out of her place as the hidden leader of the Alpha session and claim her place in the light of relevance once again. | {
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Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Doug Tucker, fire chief: "We're doing our best to keep it off the lab"
One of the top nuclear weapons research facilities in the US will remain closed until Thursday as fire fighters battle a wildfire raging at its boundary.
Only "essential-duties" staff at Los Alamos National Laboratory will be permitted on site on Wednesday.
Officials at the New Mexico facility have said they detected "no off-site releases of contamination".
The town outside the laboratory in the state of New Mexico was evacuated on Monday as the fire raged nearby.
Officials said the nuclear facilities faced "no immediate threat" but warned of damage to houses.
The lab, opened during World War II, led the development of the atomic bomb.
Possible toxic plume
By midday on Tuesday, the Las Conchas fire had grown to 93 sq miles (241 sq km), burning through forests, canyons, and mesas, fuelled by dry timber and powered by strong winds.
Los Alamos blaze from space NASA space shot of Los Alamos fire
The blaze was said to be as close as 50ft (15m) away from the grounds of the lab on Tuesday afternoon, raising fears it could reach a cache of 30,000 drums, each containing 55 gallons (208 litres) of plutonium-contaminated waste.
The fire had reached the lab's southwestern boundary and leapt a state road onto the land, burning roughly an acre, state fire officials said.
"The concern is that these drums will get so hot that they'll burst," Joni Arends, executive director of the Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety, told the Associated Press news agency.
"That would put this toxic material into the plume," she added.
But officials said there was very little risk of the fire actually reaching the lab's facilities and that workers were standing near the waste drums to coat them with fire-resistant foam if the blaze got too close.
Authorities said the fire could triple in size in the coming days, the Albuquerque Journal reported.
The fire blew enormous plumes of black smoke over the town of Los Alamos and forced the evacuation of the entire community, which has a population of roughly 12,000.
"We are throwing absolutely everything at this that we got," Democratic Senator Tom Udall of New Mexico said.
The south-western US has been stricken by giant wildfires this year, with millions of acres scorched in New Mexico, Arizona and Texas.
To the west of New Mexico, the largest wildfire in the history of the state of Arizona has been burning for nearly a month. | {
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Ohio's top elections official says that claims about widespread voter fraud in the state's recent special election are based on online misinformation.
"As I have always said, while voter fraud exists, it is rare and we hold those who commit it accountable," Husted said.
Ohio's 12th congressional seat has been a Republican stronghold for decades, and the close outcome has been interpreted as a sign of trouble for the party heading into the midterm elections this fall.
More than 200,000 people cast ballots last week in a special election to fill a congressional seat in Ohio's 12th District. Republican Troy Balderson declared victory with results showing he had roughly 1,500 more votes than his Democratic opponent, Danny O'Connor. Some absentee and provisional ballots are still being counted, however, and results won't be final until Aug. 24.
"To the bad actors out there who want chaos and to erode the people’s confidence in our elections, enough is enough," Husted said.
Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted has issued a detailed statement in the wake of a deeply misleading story published by Breitbart that suggested voter fraud had occurred in the state due to the fact that some registered voters in Ohio were listed as being "over 116 years old."
The misinformation started with a Breitbart report, written by Eric Eggers of the Government Accountability Institute, a conservative research organization. It cited the fact that 170 registered voters had birthdates that would make them more than 116 years old as evidence that "the Left" is trying to "create conditions favorable for voter fraud in Ohio."
"That’s 10 percent of Balderson’s current margin of victory, pending provisional ballots. And 72 voters over the age of 116 who 'live' in Balderson’s district cast ballots in the 2016 election," Breitbart reported. (The current oldest person alive is a 115-year-old woman in Japan.)
The story received more than 48,000 shares, likes, and comments on Facebook, making it the site's eighth biggest hit on Facebook so far this month. It then quickly spread to other conservative websites, such as the Daily Wire, the Western Journal, and 100% Fed Up, which has a history of sharing misleading and false information. Those articles, too, received tens of thousands of Facebook engagements, according to the social media tracking service BuzzSumo.
But according to Ohio officials, there's nothing fraudulent about the 170 registered voters with very old birth years. The reason is that, prior to the passage of a new law in 1974, Ohioans did not have to provide a date of birth when registering to vote.
As a result, local officials often used placeholder dates such as Jan. 1, 1900, or Jan. 1, 1800, when registering voters. Some older voters in Ohio, therefore, are still on the voter rolls with those placeholder birthdates.
"These individuals met the requirements at the time to become registered voters and remain legally qualified electors today," the Ohio secretary of state's office said Monday.
Ohio already has what's considered to be the most aggressive approach to purging voter rolls, a practice Republicans say is necessary to combat voter fraud. Voters in the state can have their voter registration canceled for failing to vote in a single presidential election. Democrats and voting rights groups say this system disproportionately impacts minority voters and amounts to voter suppression, and experts say there is no problem of widespread voter fraud in the United States.
The issue of Ohio's voter purges went all the way to the Supreme Court, where earlier this year the court's conservative majority ruled in a 5–4 decision that Ohio's system is lawful.
Husted said the state has removed more than 680,000 dead people from the voter rolls and reconciled 2 million duplicate registrations since 2011, when he took office as secretary of state.
Those who spread a "blatantly false narrative wholly detached from reality should find better ways to spend their time," Husted said Monday.
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Russia, apparently not wanting to be overshadowed by yesterday’s announcement that China has built a long-range heat ray weapon, has revealed plans for its nuclear submarines — including on-board battle robots and underwater drones.
Through small, unmanned drones in the air, to the invisible pain gun like that made by China, the race in military tech is to create weapons that can go mostly unnoticed, while at the same time managing for control on the battlefield and during civil unrest.
Russia’s new submarine takes that battle underwater, too.
The country’s new fifth generation submarines could feature drones that can be released by submarines and stay still, while the ship itself moves away. That would allow the submarine to evade anyone watching by giving the impression it has stayed in place, while only the drone has done so.
“They’ll be released by the submarine and stay offline before being remotely activated on command,” Nikolay Novoselov, deputy CEO of the Malakhit design engineering bureau told news service RIA-Novosti, according to Russia Today. “It will give the submarine time to leave the area, with the drone staying in place to maintain a semblance that the submarine is still there,” he said.
Britain’s Reaper drones, similar to this US version, will be controlled from an RAF base in Lincolnshire (Getty)
The fifth generation subs will carry huge torpedoes, as well as cruise missiles and anti-ship missiles.
The submarines will feature a relatively small crew because it is so highly-automated, according to RT. They will have a submerged displacement of 13,800 tons and can travel up to 30 knots.
The submarine is the latest piece of terrifying, high-tech kit to be unveiled by one of the world’s great powers. China’s long-range heat ray — which can cause searing pain by heating up water molecules under the skin, but is invisible to anyone else around, and is similar to technology that the US and Russia already have — America revealed a laser mounted gun that can disable or destroy targets last week.
The US Navy Laser Weapon, deployed on the USS Ponce, can shoot down small drones and hit targets on fast attack boats. It uses eat energy from lasers to incinerate drones and other targets.
And America’s army of drones, which patrol and attack targets including those in the Middle East, are barely acknowledged by the country’s government, let alone promoted. | {
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When it comes to holidays, January has one of the most, well, unusual events of the year. Fair warning - if you are the faint of "fart," this particular holiday may not be for you.
On the heels of National Bean Day, Jan. 7 is National Pass Gas Day. Yep, seriously folks. One day a year is devoted to, well, flatulence.
Certain foods like beans, broccoli, cabbage and eggs, may make people gassier than others. Whether intentional or accidental, silent or otherwise, everyone lets one rip from time-to-time. In fact, most people fart 14 times a day according to Dr. Billy Goldberg.
Fun Fart Facts
Fun Fart Facts – Everything you wanted to know about passing gas and more.
Fart Sounds – If you get a kick out of gas, you’ll enjoy this site.
Enjoy! | {
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FC Dallas has signed Victor Ulloa and Ryan Hollingshead to new multi-year contracts today.
Ulloa, who captained FC Dallas for the first time this past weekend has been a consistent fixture in the club's lineup since Oscar Pareja started him on March 29, 2014. Ulloa logged 2,365 in 2014, and 2,915 in 2015. He added two goals and an assist as the team advanced to the Western Conference Final. Ulloa has appeared in every match for FC Dallas this season. Dallas has a 4-0-0 record and has outscored teams 10-2 in matches when Ulloa plays the full 90 minutes.
The 25-year old Hollingshead was draft in 2013 out of UCLA. He took a year off from playing before returning to Dallas in 2014 under Pareja. He finished last season with two goals and three assists and ranked fifth in minutes played (2,171). He started the last six matches for FC Dallas this season, in which the team has a 4-0-2 record.
We won't know what salary each player is going to be moving to with these new contracts but last year they were minimum-based salaries with the team. Each getting a new deal is well deserved. | {
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Pat Kane: Ships in the nuclear night
Scots will need real debate about the pros and cons of Nato membership, given the weaponry it deploys around Europe, writes Pat Kane
By The Newsroom Friday, 27th April 2012, 1:00 am
It’s a song I’ve been performing for 25 years now, and I doubt I’ll ever stop. Shipbuilding – recorded by Robert Wyatt, with lyrics by Elvis Costello and music by Clive Langer – was a minor hit in the British charts, reaching number 35 on 28 May, 1983.
But as a response to the Falklands War, concluded the year before, it’s fair to say that Shipbuilding has become a classic of political songwriting. Referencing the Cammell-Laird shipyards of his youth in the Wirral, Costello focused on the moral dilemmas of the skilled working-class and the benefit they derived from the industrial war-machine.
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Like many independence-supporting Scots of a left persuasion, I have been extremely disquieted by the recent press speculation about a possible reversal of the SNP’s stance on Nato – from non-involvement, to possible membership after independence. And I can’t get the urgency of Costello’s song out of my head and heart.
The key questions in my mind are these: Is the SNP’s advocacy of membership of Nato rooted in a desire to participate in a wave of reform of this Cold-War-era, nuclear-defined military command?
Or is it a way to retain Scotland’s military-industrial complex – its Rosyths and Clyde shipyards, its bases with ancillary services and industries – under cover of an ostensibly “credible” commitment to European collective security? To be blunt about it: does the SNP need Nato, because Nato will keep us shipbuilding?
Before we even explore these options, I am presuming a “red line” in Scottish independence politics that cannot be crossed – and that is the decommissioning, and then physical removal of Trident missiles from Scottish soil, under the shortest possible timeline, upon the achievement of full independence.
Too many Scots – many of them the disillusioned Labour voters that enabled the SNP’s two game-changing electoral victories – have invested their moral hopes in such an outcome, for it to be mitigated or fudged in any way. The removal of Trident cannot be a “Guantanamo closure” that never really closes; nor a version of the shabby, pecuniary leasing arrangement whereby Ukraine derives a rent from hosting Russia’s missiles.
The Scotland-in-Nato question brings it all to a head. The chief objection from the Scottish Left is that Nato still defines itself as a nuclear alliance in the last instance, with the US as its ultimate guarantor, and with “first-use” of weapons still a defining protocol.
We might be able to enter as a “non-nuclear” member – but by doing so, we still legitimate a nuclear umbrella. Even five out of the 25 officially “non-nuclear” states in Nato – Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Italy and Turkey – host 200 forward-deployed US “tactical” nuclear weapons, under a “nuclear task sharing” arrangement.
In terms of the general spirit of non-proliferation, this enduringly nuclear Nato – which include the expansion of a new joint missile defence system, protecting “populations and territories against a ballistic missile attack” as a “core element” of collective defence – is still geopolitically dangerous. In particular, facing this extensive nuclearisation of Europe, Russia is given no incentive to reduce its vast stockpile of missiles.
Yes, there is a “battle of narratives” in Nato presently, as Scottish-based Nato Watch’s Ian Davis puts it – Germany would like to remove US missiles from its soil, with support from Scandinavian nations. In Davis’s view “it would be helpful to have a progressive Scottish voice within Nato, arguing on the side of the angels”.
Yet as he also admits, “if Nato cannot agree to withdraw these anachronistic weapons after three Strategic Concept reviews, it says a lot about the decision-making process (and overall legitimacy) of the alliance”. And, relatedly, about the hubris of a Scotland thinking it can influence such a frozen, big-power-dominated alliance from the inside.
The “credible” position for an independent Scotland might well be to get involved in this melee, for all manner of realpolitik reasons, for example, smoothing the way to EU membership. However, if we want an “ethical foreign policy” – to recall a recent aspiration – we should stand outwith the Nato nuclear umbrella, on the basis of objecting to its current stance as blocking non-proliferation.
In terms of Scotland’s global impact as a newly independent country, don’t we stand to gain hugely, in terms of national branding and progressive soft power – and in a world of asymmetric threats, even in terms of domestic security – if we comprehensively reject our association with the ultimate instruments of hard power?
A sovereign Scotland should be confident enough to allow our post-independence security arrangements and alliances to evolve over time, shaped by debate within a new and invigorated Scottish polity, rather than seek an ostentatiously and presumptively “credible” posture that implicates us in a nuclear future many Scots are vowed to oppose.
And this brings me to the “shipbuilding” question. Malcolm Chalmers’ very useful research paper , reported recently in our sister paper Scotland on Sunday on the future of defence in an independent Scotland sets out the hard budgetary realities. Derived from the spending of comparable small Nato states, like Norway and Denmark, Chalmers estimates a Scottish defence budget of between £1.7 and £2.1 billion – though Lithuania’s is £0.9bn, and non-Nato Ireland is £0.6bn.
Barring the effective protection of resources in sea territories, and contributions to co-ordinated anti-terror measures and humanitarian missions, what requires Scotland to spend unnecessary billions of precious post-independence revenue on its military?
Going by SNP advisor Jennifer Dempsie’s recent column in this paper, the main argument would seem to be sustaining our military-industrial complex. She suggests a Scottish defence budget of £2.5bn, an increase on current UK spending here, which would help the Scottish Government to “stand up for Govan”. She explicitly cites BAE Systems, currently toiling to build an aircraftless aircraft carrier for the Royal Navy, as worthy of attention when the job is finished in 2015. “In an independent Scotland”, she wrote, “our yards will secure orders on the basis of their skills and record – Scottish shipyards already build ships for countries outside the UK.”
Hold on a minute. Am I expected to express economic patriotism for BAE Systems as a “Scottish shipyard”? The BAE that faced bribery allegations and paid $400 million to the US Department of Justice and pled guilty to one charge of conspiring to make false statements to the US government relating to its operations and business dealings in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Saudi Arabia Dempsie vaunts Scotland’s “unique facilities and skills” for collaborative defence procurement.
Might that include, perhaps, the collective procurement demanded by Scotland’s active Nato membership? This sounds less like an engaged agenda for “shaping the narrative” of the Alliance – and more about ensuring business for our military sector.
There seems to be an insufficiency of imagination and will in the SNP that swords can be turned into ploughshares – or to use the technical term, “arms conversion and diversification”. Are we unable to imagine diverting, say, a billion of the SNP’s projected defence budget towards an investment in civil R&D – and in particular, the range of sustainable technologies and infrastructures that we claim as our primary economic and productive future? Ian Davis, and the Jimmy Reid Foundation, both suggest that we should set up a commission to accurately determine Scottish “national needs” in military provision.
There is a lingering militarism in Scottish national identity, from our cheesier national anthems to our ambivalence towards the “bonnie fechters” of our regiments. Sometimes, I think it quietly conditions the responses of those who, in the main, have the very best interests of Scotland at heart. Let’s also be electorally informed here. For an SNP worried about their low support among women – who also poll much higher in their opposition to nukes and military interventions than men – can they afford to signal a shift toward a Nato still bristling with militial menace? | {
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Humans are the world's top predator. The way we fulfill this role is often mired in controversy, from factory farming to trophy hunting to predator control. The latter is the process governments use to kill carnivores like wolves, coyotes and cougars to stop them from hunting threatened species like caribou—even though human activity is the root cause of caribou's decline.
Predation is an important natural function. But as the human population has grown, we've taken over management of ecosystems once based on mutually beneficial relationships that maintained natural balances. How are we, a "super predator" as the Raincoast Conservation Foundation dubs us, aligning with or verging from natural predation processes that shaped the world?
Human management regimes such as predator control and trophy hunting disrupt healthy predator-prey dynamics and damage ecosystems. Change.org
One way to tell is to examine the extent to which we emulate natural processes. This principle is applied in biomimicry, where humans base inventions on natural forms and functions. (Think Velcro, patented in 1955 after George de Mestral studied the burrs on his dog's back.) Some resource-management disciplines employ biomimicry. For example, forestry management is often based on trying to imitate disturbances caused by natural events such as fires.
If we are to emulate natural predators, we must look at the types of prey killed. Non-human predators usually take down the injured, old or young. This leaves the strongest genetic material to be passed on. Human predators often target the largest males (trophy hunting) or entire packs (predator control).
In the wild, non-human predators rarely kill top predators. A Science report concluded humans kill large predators at nine times the rate at which carnivores typically kill each other.
There are also differences in how prey are killed. Natural predation is violent. But human predation often goes to another level. In addition to using aerial shooting and poison baits, reports indicate British Columbia employed "Judas wolves," radio-collared wolves used to track down packs so they can be killed. The Judas wolves are left alive so that if they join a new pack, those wolves can be killed, too. It's hard to see how this fits within the boundaries of natural predation. (The British Columbia government denies using Judas wolves.)
Human management regimes such as predator control and trophy hunting disrupt healthy predator-prey dynamics and damage ecosystems. Sadly, this is often a moot point: Alberta and British Columbia use predator control because the landscape has been so pummeled by industrial activity that the large, intact forests caribou need to survive and avoid predation no longer exist. Predators are targeted as scapegoats for human activities.
Predators usually kill for sustenance. For millennia, Indigenous peoples have also relied on hunting to maintain traditional ways of life. But with trophy hunting, the government's impetus is to make money. Governments that allow continued resource extraction in imperiled caribou habitat are using predator control as a stopgap measure to keep caribou alive.
In ecosystems managed by natural processes and not for resource extraction, predators play a key role in maintaining the environment's health. In Trends in Ecology and Evolution, Enric Sala notes that predators "can regulate the structure of entire communities."
Ultimately, natural predator-prey relationships are symbiotic. Predators not only keep prey populations in check and maintain natural cycles, they can even heal degraded ecosystems. Wolves reintroduced into Yellowstone National Park in 1995 restored the natural biodiversity that had diminished in their absence. To avoid predation, elk spent less time in valley bottoms, which allowed plants and trees to regenerate, in turn attracting birds, bears and beavers. Vegetation stabilized riverbanks, beavers altered waterways and soon turtles, amphibians and river otters returned.
When judged by this dynamic of upholding natural balances, humans are failing terribly as predators. It's hubris to think we can manage complex ecosystem dynamics using simple-minded band-aid approaches.
What can we do to become better? We can stop looking for scapegoats and look in the mirror at the primary cause of species' decline across Canada. We can end trophy hunting. We can end predator control by maintaining and restoring the habitat that caribou need to survive and recover. We can plan to operate within natural limits.
It's shocking that Western society villainies predators like wolves, even though they're highly intelligent, social creatures that play a critical role in regulating nature. The predator we need to control is us! | {
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Our pal Dark Roasted Blend dug up these photos of a hydraulic excavator climbing a tower. Supposedly, it's a publicity stunt by Lebherr hydraulics, to show off the strength of their machines.
Previously on Neatorama: How To Unload an Excavator | {
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Gets talked too by cute girl on online dating site She deletes her profile
165 shares | {
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Si chiude con una punta di ottimismo il 2016 dell'economia italiana. Secondo i dati preliminari diffusi dall'Istat, a dicembre la variazione del Pil stimata sui dati trimestrali grezzi è risultata pari a +0,9%. Se il dato sarà confermato a marzo, si tratterebbe dell'incremento maggiore dal 2010, quando la crescita si attestò all'1,7%.
Da allora, il prodotto interno lordo italiano è salito dello 0,6% nel 2011, è sceso del 2,8% nel 2012 e dell'1,7% nel 2013, per poi tornare ad aumentare dello 0,1% nel 2014 e dello 0,7% nel 2015. Il dato corretto per gli effetti di calendario è anche migliore e dice +1,0%. La differenza si spiega con i due giorni lavorativi in meno contati dal 2016 rispetto al 2015.
In entrambi i casi l'andamento è superiore allo 0,8% atteso dal Governo e si traduce in una variazione acquisita per il 2017 pari a +0,3%.
Positivo è anche il risultato del quarto trimestre, durante il quale il prodotto interno lordo, corretto per gli effetti di calendario e destagionalizzato, è aumentato dello 0,2% rispetto al trimestre precedente e dell'1,1% nei confronti dello stesso periodo del 2015.
Il periodo ha avuto tre giornate lavorative in meno del trimestre precedente e due in meno rispetto al quarto trimestre del 2015. L'andamento tendenziale è uguale a quello del terzo, al top dal secondo trimestre 2011, quando la crescita si attestò all'1,5%. La variazione congiunturale, spiega l'istituto di statistica, è la sintesi di un aumento del valore aggiunto nei settori dell'industria e dei servizi e di una diminuzione del valore aggiunto nel comparto dell'agricoltura.
Dal lato della domanda, vi è un contributo positivo della componente nazionale al lordo delle scorte e un apporto negativo della componente estera netta. Nello stesso periodo il Pil è aumentato in termini congiunturali dello 0,5% negli Stati Uniti, dello 0,6% nel Regno Unito e dello 0,4% in Francia e in Germania. In termini tendenziali, la crescita è stata del 2,2% nel Regno Unito, dell'1,9% negli Stati Uniti e in Germania e dell'1,1% in Francia. (ANSA)
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We're counting down the 10 best individual games of any Big 12 player in 2012. Bowl games and nonconference play counts, but these are the performances that topped them all at the end of the season.
No. 8: Baylor RB Lache Seastrunk vs. No. 1 Kansas State
Date: Nov. 17, 2012
Why it's on the list: There was a rumbling from Seastrunk heading into this game, but K-State was a heavy favorite with one of the Big 12's best defenses. Seastrunk was a footnote when it came to storyline's entering the game. By the end of the night, amongst a delirious fan base that had stormed the field at Floyd Casey Stadium, Seastrunk was the story of the game. His second career 100-yard rushing game began a streak of four to close the season, and he arose to finish the year as one of the Big 12's best running backs. Seastrunk's 185-yard night was his career high, highlighted by an 80-yard sprint up the middle of K-State's defense that broke the Wildcats' will and any shot they had of keeping their national title hopes alive. The late third-quarter run ended any doubt that Baylor would be knocking off a No. 1 team for the first time in school history and made it clear that Seastrunk would be a serious player in Baylor's offense for the rest of the season and beyond. A flash in the pan? Nope. Maybe the Big 12's best home-run hitter outside of Tavon Austin at West Virginia.
The rest of the list: | {
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The newly elected office bearers of the Delhi Union of Journalists (DUJ), S.K. Pande and Sujata Madhok have given a joint call for the widest possible National Alliance of Journalists (NAJ) to fight jointly with a national alliance of registered journalists unions- to save journalism for tomorrow, both at the national and Delhi level. They have further called for a united front on common demands to restore dignity to the profession.
They have categorically called for closer relations with plant print unions and with the TV and broadcast media unions. They have also called for the alternative media to fight not merely on wage issues but to join the battle against authoritarian forces and to save freedom of the press. Issue based unity with the working class and even with the clubs has to be established, they said in a joint statement to Newsclick.
Specifically, they called for a Media Council of India to replace the toothless Press Council of India which they said must include websites and alternate media. The call for an autonomous Media Commission of experts to look into the state of the media is also the need of the hour. A joint fight against attempts to gag the press, physical attacks on journalists, and the voices of reason and scientific temper; besides a due new wage board for the entire industry, and fair wages for freelancers and even mofussil correspondents is the need of the hour.
They have demanded an immediate fast track machinery to ensure implementation of the previous wage board and making non-implementation of wage boards a cognisable offense.
A broad democratic and left team has swept the Delhi Union of Journalists’ elections declared on September 2 by the Returning Officer W. Chandrakanth. Eighteen members were declared elected to the Executive Committee including Cecil Victor, Rajendra Kumar, Venkatesh Ramakrishnan, Arvind Shesh, Bhagwati Prasad Dobhal, Kamaljeet Singh, Shivesh Garg, K. Radhakrishanan, Ravindra Tripathi, Swathi Chandrasekharan, Vishnu Nagar, M. Wadood Sajid, Sheikh Manzoor Ahmed, Shaukatullah Khan, Siraj Naqvi, Javed Akhtar, Mohd. Ahmed Kazmi and Suresh Nautiyal.
Twelve members were elected unopposed to the National Council including Bhagwati Prasad Dhobal, Bharat Sharma, Jigeesh A.M, Kamaljeet Singh, Masoom Moradabadi, Rakesh Tiwari, Ram Naresh Sinha, Ravindra Tripathi, Sahiram, S. K. Pande, Sujata Madhok and Vishnu Nagar.
The Delhi Union of Journalists is the oldest journalists’ body in the capital, now, 70 years old. It was born on May Day 1949 and was a pre-cursor to the journalists’ movement in India. It has among its founders and guiders the late M. Chelapathi Rao, freedom fighters like late C. P. Ramachandran, prolific journalist writer the late Shyam Lal, poet writer Fikhr Taunsvi, J. P. Chaturvedi, Atta Raghavan, M. K. Ramamurthy, and more recently Appan Menon, besides of course the old war horse B. R. Vats. It is the only body to have had a Gender Equity Council and one of the few journalist bodies to have a woman president and even earlier, a woman general secretary just after the Emergency. Its first woman secretary was none other than Sujata Madhok, now general secretary for the second term. Incidentally, the body was known for its struggle against the POTA, all the wage boards, the Bihar Press Bill and of course the fight against the Paid News syndrome and communalism in the media. Underground guests who visited the office included the late Faiz Ahmad Faiz when it was like a barrack for years, and it also housed the Newspaper press movement guided by figures like S. Y. Kolhatkar, H. L. Parwana, K. L. Kapoor, Aruna Asif Ali, Subhadra Joshi, and Madan Phadnis, to name a few. | {
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Meet the ‘data thugs’ out to expose shoddy and questionable research
In 2015, Nick Brown was skimming Twitter when something caught his eye. A tweet mentioned an article by Nicolas Guéguen, a French psychologist with a penchant for publishing titillating findings about human behavior, for example that women with large breasts get more invitations to dance at nightclubs, or blond waitresses get bigger tips. Now, Guéguen was reporting that men are less likely to assist women who tie up their hair.
Brown, a graduate student in psychology at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, sent an email about the study to James Heathers, a postdoc in behavioral science at Northeastern University in Boston whom he had met a few years earlier. The description alone triggered a laughing spell in Heathers—not an uncommon reaction to science he finds risible.
Once the chuckling stopped, Brown and Heathers took a deeper look at the findings reported by Guéguen, who works at the University of Southern Brittany in Vannes, France. Many failed the duo’s homegrown test for statistical rigor. The pair also found odd data in nine other articles from Guéguen.
Soon, Brown and Heathers were asking Guéguen and the French Psychological Society about the numbers. The pair says Guéguen failed to adequately address their questions, and the society agreed that their critique seemed well-grounded. So late last year, the men did something that many scientists might find out of bounds: They went public, sharing their concerns with a reporter for Ars Technica, which published a story, and posting their critiques on a blog. (Guéguen declined to discuss the matter with Science; the society says a university panel is examining the papers.)
When it comes to correcting scientific literature, styles vary. Some scientists prefer to go through “proper channels,” such as private conversations or letters to the editor. Others leave anonymous comments on online forums, such as PubPeer, set up to discuss papers. Then there is the more public approach Brown and Heathers are taking.
The two watchdogs have been remarkably effective at uncovering problematic publications. So far, Brown estimates that the analyses he and Heathers have done, sometimes working independently and often with other collaborators, have led to corrections to dozens of papers and the full retraction of roughly 10 more. That total includes five papers retracted over the past year or so by Brian Wansink, a high-profile nutrition researcher at Cornell University.
In short, peer review misses all the hard stuff, and a worrying amount of the easy stuff. James Heathers, Northeastern University
The duo concedes that their assertive style might rub some scientists the wrong way. Heathers, who has called himself “a data thug,” notes that in academia “the squeaky wheel gets Tasered.” But other researchers laud the pair as the vanguard of a movement to make science more rigorous. “Without people like them actively scouring the literature [it is easy for] misbehavior to go unnoticed,” says psychologist Brian Nosek of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville and founder of the Center for Open Science, which promotes replication efforts. “I might see a paper and say, ‘I don’t believe that,’ and put it aside. They’re willing to pursue it … wherever it goes.”
As a result, Brown and Heathers have become go-to whistleblowers of a sort: Researchers now pepper the pair with tips about suspect papers. “It’s like a work tumor we’ve been infected with,” Heathers says. “You talk about these things in public and all of a sudden people start bringing these things to you.”
An unlikely duo
The partnership is unlikely, an odd-couple pairing made possible only by the sociological blender that is the internet.
Brown, 57, is a demure ex-pat raised in Birmingham, the second largest city in the United Kingdom. He started out as an engineering student at the University of Cambridge, but “my maths weren’t good enough,” he says, and he wound up working as a computer network manager.
That position led to one of two encounters that Brown says fostered his current pursuits. While attending a human resources conference he met a U.K. psychologist, Richard Wiseman, who in 2010 wrote an influential blog post critiquing the methods of a soon-to-be published study by Cornell psychologist Daryl Bem purporting to demonstrate the existence of extrasensory perception. Brown says the chance meeting “planted the seed” that led him to seek a master’s degree in psychology at the University of East London.
That coursework led to his first successful scientific debunking. In 2013, he teamed up with two other academics, one of whom was Alan Sokal of New York University in New York City, a mathematician and physicist who in 1996 perpetrated one of the most famous scientific hoaxes ever by getting a cultural studies journal to publish a gobbledygook paper. They published a critique of a leading paper on psychological theory, noting that the formulas in the paper relied on irrelevant equations from the field of fluid dynamics. Their article eventually triggered the paper’s partial retraction.
Hey, we found these problems with this article in your journal, you might want to check it out. Nick Brown, University of Groningen
The episode showed Brown that well-crafted arguments about flawed research are hard for editors to ignore. In 2014, he waded into another controversy, this one surrounding Diederik Stapel, a notorious fraudster from Tilburg University in the Netherlands who fabricated dozens of studies in the field of behavioral psychology. This time, Brown jailbroke Stapel’s memoir by translating it into English and posting the document on a public website. The memoir offered Stapel’s take on the fraud, but was available only in Dutch behind an online paywall.
Brown’s second pivotal encounter came that same year with Heathers, through a Facebook group that had been discussing concerns with a paper on heart rate variability, a topic Heathers had once studied.
The two are temperamental opposites. Whereas Brown does not consider himself a crusader and has no trace of the swashbuckler, the Australian-born Heathers, 35, revels in acting like a dinner guest who farts loudly—and unapologetically—during grace. And he appears constitutionally unable to accept authority.
As an undergraduate at The University of Sydney (where he also earned master’s and doctorate degrees), Heathers began studying economics, but switched to physiology, “which I didn’t like because I got into fights with the lecturers all the time when they said stuff I didn’t agree with.” So, he shifted again, to psychology. Then his supervisor’s mother was murdered; the tragedy removed his mentor from the scene and effectively left Heathers with no one to guide him in the niceties of academia. “I spent most of the next 3 years trying to figure things out by myself,” Heathers says. “I had no sense of normal academic parameters or what I should be doing.”
Heathers drifted back to physiology, this time with an emphasis on what he loosely calls “data stuff.” Simply put, that means critiquing the results of other researchers. “My normal day at work, when I’m not doing metascience, is retrieving measurements from other people” and telling them where they’ve gone astray, he says. “I’m usually the bearer of bad news.”
When the two work together, usually one party is clearly in the lead. “We don’t turn up as the dynamic duo,” Brown says. “It’s usually an 80/20 or 90/10 split. Sometimes I’m doing most of the work and James is just there to put up with my profanity and check I’m not going down a rabbit hole, and vice versa.”
A mathematical approach
The rudiments of the duo’s mathematical approach began to take shape in 2015, as they began to jointly examine Guéguen’s papers.
One technique, which they describe in a May 2016 posting on Heathers’s blog, looks at what the researchers call the granularity-related inconsistency of means, or GRIM. The essence of the test is the disarmingly simple fact that the mean value in a collection of N integers must be a fraction whose denominator is N. For example, it might seem plausible if a researcher running a study involving 12 children aged 11 to 17 reports a mean age of 15.7. (After all, it’s less than 17 and greater than 11.) But the GRIM test reveals that value is mathematically impossible, because 15.7 is not a number that can be produced by dividing the sum of the ages by 12.
The GRIM test is little more than “glorified adding up,” says Heathers, and the two don’t see it primarily as a way of detecting misconduct. Rather, “We are looking for mistakes. That’s literally it.” The GRIM is ideal for spotting errors in psychology and other fields that report results from small samples, its creators note. But they readily acknowledge that it doesn’t work for large studies and more complex data sets.
For those, Heathers came up with a somewhat more sophisticated test, which he and Brown call sample parameter reconstruction via iterative techniques, or SPRITE. In essence, SPRITE allows the researchers to do some reverse engineering: deriving statistically possible data sets from the means and standard deviations reported in a study.
There’s no guide to spotting errors. There’s no text that you can read. What we have done so far has been quite ad hoc. James Heathers, Northeastern University
SPRITE has figured heavily in the pair’s analyses of papers by Cornell’s Wansink, who received extensive media coverage for his studies of nutrition and eating habits. The test showed that the data in at least one of his studies—a 2012 article in the journal Preventive Medicine looking at carrot consumption among school children—appeared iffy. How so? Running the published data through SPRITE showed that at least one child in the sample would have had to have eaten roughly 60 carrots in a single sitting. That amount, Heathers quips, is more appropriate for a cart horse than a child. (Wansink, who declined to be interviewed for this story, recently published a lengthy correction to the paper, stating it measured “matchstick carrots,” four of which are equivalent to one baby carrot.)
Despite the charged nature of their work—after all, careers can be on the line—Brown and Heathers have attracted surprisingly little criticism from their peers in science. In part, that’s likely because of their strategy of gently but methodically ratcheting up the pressure on authors and journals. For example, the Wansink analysis, like others the pair has undertaken, began with “some very polite” emails asking for data from the researcher’s department, Brown says, as well as from Cornell’s Office of Research Integrity and Assurance. “But both of those stopped replying to us once—we assume—our questions became too awkward.” (The university has said it is investigating the papers.) At about the same time, Brown and two collaborators—Jordan Anaya and Tim van der Zee, a graduate student at Leiden University in the Netherlands—were working on a preprint that they posted in PeerJ titled “Statistical heartburn: An attempt to digest four pizza publications from the Cornell Food and Brand Lab.”
“Once we had our preprint online, we moved to blogging about new issues as they arose,” Brown recalls. “At one point I wrote three blogs posts in as many weeks and someone commented, ‘Ah, I see it’s Wansink Wednesday.’” By early 2017, after the media picked up on the affair, Brown says, “We felt we had established enough questions to start writing to the journal editors.” But he says even those emails tended to take a sabers-sheathed tone: “‘Hey, we found these problems with this article in your journal, you might want to check it out.’ I thought that was less provocative than an outright demand for a retraction.”
Soon, however, Wansink had begun retracting five papers and correcting more than a dozen. That unusual turn of events prompted Brown to launch a Twitter poll, asking his followers whether he should add the results of his data sleuthing to his resume. The responses were decidedly mixed: Thirty-five percent said it was “cool,” whereas 24% chose “WTF.” The other options—“OK, I guess,” and “Cheesy”—earned 25% and 16% of the votes, respectively.
Editors are listening
Some editors and publishers are clearly paying attention. The Wansink episode made “clear to us … that online fora for postpublication discussion are a valuable part of the scientific record,” says Gearóid Ó Faoleán, the London-based ethics and integrity manager for Frontiers in Lausanne, Switzerland; one of its journals retracted a 2016 paper by Wansink after being alerted to the PeerJ preprint and Brown’s blog. The preprint also prompted editors at the Journal of Sensory Studies to investigate a 2014 Wansink paper they had published, and ask for a correction, which the researcher made last August.
Other would-be data whistleblowers are impressed by the duo’s success in getting journals to act. Paul Brookes, of the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York, briefly used his now-defunct blog, science-fraud.org, to highlight questionable papers anonymously. Brookes, who was outed amid legal threats in 2013 after only 6 months, says he would “routinely write dozens of emails [to journal editors], and it was common to have no response at all.”
Elisabeth Bik, now a science editor at uBiome in San Francisco, California, experienced similar silence. When Bik was a researcher at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, she spearheaded an analysis of 20,000 papers, published in mBio in 2016, that concluded that 4%, or 800, contained inappropriately manipulated images. She contacted most of the journals involved more than 2 years ago, but only about one-third have responded.
It’s not clear why Brown and Heathers have gotten a better response—it may be that the overall climate has changed—but they say just about anyone with rudimentary math skills and a willingness to go public could replicate what they are doing. So why aren’t more scientists following suit?
One big obstacle, they say, is that many are reluctant to rock the boat. “Some people have a block on criticizing others, even to themselves,” Brown says. Their reaction to evident problems is to flinch, as if a scientific superego is saying: “Am I allowed to get this professor’s article and read it? And will something bad happen to me if I recalculate the mean?”
Another hurdle is an overabundance of trust. “Other people really sort of lack the mindset that this might even be necessary,” Heathers says. “There’s no guide to spotting errors. There’s no text that you can read. What we have done so far has been quite ad hoc.”
The pair also admits it enjoys luxuries—time and freedom—that many scientists with pressing grants and academic appointments do not have. “When you have funding, people expect reports on what you’ve done with their money,” Heathers says. “They also don’t expect you to investigate them.”
Still, Heathers believes the sleuthing efforts the two have developed are the “thin end” of a growing wedge of analytic techniques that, once refined, can be formalized and taught to anyone. Eventually, he would like to produce a scalable, online course to spread the methods. “Then things get really interesting,” he predicts, in part because traditional peer review has failed to catch so many problems. “In short, peer review misses all the hard stuff, and a worrying amount of the easy stuff.”
For the moment, however, the pair is content to have helped start a conversation about publicly confronting potentially problematic results, however uncomfortable it might be for some researchers—and science writ large. “The black flag has been hoisted,” Heathers has written. “It isn’t coming down.”
Adam Marcus and Ivan Oransky are co-founders of Retraction Watch. This story is the product of a collaboration between Science and Retraction Watch.
*Correction, 14 February 2018, 5:07 p.m.: An earlier version of this article misstated the estimated number of retracted papers. Nick Brown worked as the manager of computer networks. James Heathers is 35. | {
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Kenley Jansen…married to Gianni...has a daughter, Natalia, and two sons, Kaden and Kyrian...wears the No. 74 because that is his house number in Curacao…traveled with the Dodgers to Taiwan in March 2010…played for Team Netherlands in the 2009, 2013 and 2017 World Baseball Classics...signed as a non-drafted free agent on Nov. 17, 2004…signed by scouts Camilo Pascual and Rolando Chirino.
2019
Ranked among National League pitchers in saves (33, 5th) and games finished (51, T-4th)…was one of 11 Major League pitchers with at least 30 saves ... Recorded at least 30 saves for the sixth straight year, becoming only one of three active players to reach the 30 save mark in six or more seasons, joining Aroldis Chapman (7) and Craig Kimbrel (8) ... Produced four saves of more than 1.0 inning…earned a season-long 1.2 inning save against the Mets on May 27 ... Went 5-3 with a 3.71 ERA (26 ER/63.0 IP) and a 1.06 WHIP in 62 games...struck out 80 batters against 16 walks, averaging 11.43 strikeouts per 9.0 innings while posting a 5.00 strikeout-to-walk ratio...limited opponents to a .213 average, including a .198 mark against left-handers and a .229 average against righties...on April 17 against Cincinnati, he passed Don Sutton (550) for the most all-time games pitched by a Dodger...the Dodgers went 49-13 in games in which he pitched.
2018
Earned a third consecutive All-Star selection after going 1-5 with 38 saves and a 3.01 ERA (24 ER/71.2 IP) in 69 relief appearances ... Struck out 82 batters against just 17 walks in 71.2 innings…held opposing hitters to a .201 average, while posting a 0.99 WHIP ... Ranked second in the NL with 38 saves, behind only the Rockies' Wade Davis…collected five four-plus out saves…also ranked among NL relievers in strikeout-to-walk ratio (4.82, 8th), strikeouts (9th) and WHIP (12th) ... Successfully converted 90.5 percent of his save opportunities, including a run of 21 consecutive save opportunities from April 22-July 4 ... Picked up the 250th save of his career on June 25 vs. the Cubs, becoming the 36th pitcher in MLB history to reach the milestone ... Tossed scoreless relief in seven of nine Postseason appearances, allowing two runs in 10.2 innings (1.69 ERA)…limited opposing hitters to a .114 batting average (4-for-35) with a 0.66 WHIP, while striking out nine ... Missed 10 games due to an irregular heartbeat (August 10-20)…underwent a heart ablation procedure on Nov. 26, 2018, performed by Dr. Koonlawee Nademanee in Los Angeles.
2017
Honored as the Trevor Hoffman NL Reliever of the Year for the second consecutive season and selected to his second straight All-Star game after going 5-0 with a 1.32 ERA (10 ER/68.1 IP) and 41 saves...recorded his third-career 40-plus save season (also: 2014, '16), joining Eric Gagné (2002-04) as the only pitchers in Dodger history with three seasons of 40 or more saves...Led Major League relievers in ERA (1.32), WHIP (0.75) and strikeout-to-walk ratio (15.57), while tied for the National League lead in saves (41, T-2nd ML)...also ranked among the NL relievers in strikeouts (109, 2nd), wins (5, T-10th) and strikeouts per nine innings (14.36, 2nd) • Limited hitters to a .17 7 (5th, NL)/.206 (1st, NL)/.270 (4th, NL) slashline, including holding right-handers to a .120 average (15-for- 125) and a .236 mark against lefties (29-for-123)...held batters to a .476 OPS, which was the third lowest in the National League...Held batters with runners in scoring position to a .136 average (8-for-59) and a .161 mark with runners on base...Named National League Reliever of the Month for the month of June...was perfect in save opportunities throughout the month, as he converted each of his 10 chances over 12 games in 14.0 innings, while striking out 18 against a lone walk...posted a scoreless innings streak of 17.0 innings (May 23-July 5)...Recorded the 200th save of his career after tossing a perfect ninth inning with a strikeout against the Reds on June 11...Began the season striking out 51 of 115 batters he faced without issuing a walk, which according to Elias Sports Bureau is the most strikeouts to open a season without a walk in big league history...Struck out the side on only nine pitches in the ninth inning on May 18 against the Marlins at Dodger Stadium, which was the 79th time in Major League history that an immaculate inning was recorded... became the first Dodger pitcher to throw an immaculate inning since Todd Worrell on Aug. 13, 1995...Recorded his first career extra-base hit and RBI on June 25 against the Rockies after stroking an RBI double in the eighth inning off of Greg Holland...Tossed scoreless relief in 10 of 13 postseason appearances and converted five of six save opportunities...three of the five saves were four-plus out saves...went 1-1 with a 1.62 ERA (3 ER/16.2 IP) and struck out 20 batters against just three walks, while limiting batters to a .138 average...since saves became an official stat in 1969, he is tied for fourth all-time on the career postseason saves list.
2016
Named the Trevor Hoffman NL Reliever of the Year and selected to his first-career All-Star Game, going 3-2 with 47 saves and a 1.83 ERA in 71 games...Tied with Zach Britton and Mark Melancon for second in the Majors with a career-high 47 saves, four behind Jeurys Familia...was 47 of 53 in save opportunities and was the only Dodger to record a save in 2016, marking the first time that's happened since the save became a statistic in 1969...Led the Majors in WHIP (0.67) and opponents' batting average (.150), while ranking among the National League's best relievers in ERA (1.83, 2nd) and strikeouts (104, 3rd)...walked only 11 batters in 68.2 innings and owned the best strikeout-to-walk ratio in the National League (9.45)• On June 21 vs. Washington, established new Dodger franchise marks in saves, finishing the year with 189 after surpassing Eric Gagné (161)…also set the franchise record for strikeouts as a reliever (632), eclipsing Jim Brewer's mark of 604• Tossed scoreless relief in six of seven postseason appearances and successfully converted all three save opportunities in the NLDS and NLCS...five of seven outings were more than 1.0 inning, while his 3.0 innings in NLCS Game 6 at Chicago were a career high...also established a career high with 51 pitches thrown in 2.1 innings in NLDS Game 5 at Washington.
2015
Was successful on 36 of 38 save opportunities (94.7%), while going 2-1 with a 2.41 ERA in 54 games in his sixth MLB season. ... In the postseason, picked up two saves in as many opportunities and struck out four in 3.1 scoreless innings in three NLDS games against the Mets. ... Ranked seventh in the NL in saves and third in save percentage…reached the 30-save mark for the second time in his career…became just the third Dodger reliever to post consecutive 30-save seasons (also: Todd Worrell, 1995-97 and Eric Gagne, 2002-04). ... Led MLB relievers with a 0.78 WHIP and ranked third among NL relievers with a .176 opponents' batting average. ... Struck out 80 against just eight walks, leading NL relievers with a 10.00 strikeout-to-walk ratio. ... Closed the season by tossing scoreless relief in 17 of his last 19 regular-season games after Aug 25, going a perfect 12-for-12 in save opportunities and posting a 1.93 ERA (4 ER/18.2 IP) in that span. ... Made his 2015 debut on May 15 vs. Colorado and struck out four in a scoreless eighth inning (Carlos Gonzalez reached on a passed ball), as he recorded just the sixth four-strikeout inning by a pitcher in Dodger history…did not allow a baserunner in his first five appearances of the season (5.0 IP), May 15-25. ... Missed first 34 games of the season due to Feb. 17 surgery to remove a growth from a bone in his left fifth metatarsal.
2014
Posted a 2-3 record with a 2.76 ERA and tied for third in the NL with a career-high 44 saves in his fifth big league season...Successfully converted 16 consecutive save opportunities from April 17-June 17 and 44-of-49 save opportunities overall this year (89.8%)...Became just the fourth Dodger closer to record 40 saves in a season, joining Eric Gagne (2002-04), Jeff Shaw (2001) and Todd Worrell (1996)...Ranked second among NL relievers with 101 strikeouts, as he posted his second consecutive 100-strikeout season and the 12th 100-strikeout season by a reliever in Dodger history…prior to Jansen, the only previous Dodger reliever with 100 or more Ks in consecutive seasons was Eric Gagne (2002-04)...Limited opponents to a .224 batting average, including a .169 mark against right-handed hitters (22-for-130)...Strung together 11 consecutive scoreless appearances from June 21-July 29 (11.0 IP) and beginning with that run, he closed out the season by tossing scoreless relief in 32 of 35 appearances with a 1.26 ERA (5 ER/35.2 IP), 24 saves, a .180 opponents' batting average (23-for-128) and a 0.87 WHIP in that span…did not allow a run in his last nine appearances of the season (9.0 IP) after Sept. 5...Picked up his 100th career save on Aug. 27 at Arizona, becoming the sixth Dodger reliever to reach the milestone...Appeared in one postseason game in the Dodgers' NLDS loss to the Cardinals, striking out two in a scoreless inning to pick up the save in Game 2
2013
Finished the campaign with a career-high 28 saves in 32 opportunities and ranked among the NL relief leaders in saves (T-11th), ERA (1.88, 6th), opponents' batting average (.177, 7th), WHIP (0.86, 2nd) and strikeouts (111, 2nd)... His 111 strikeouts ranked as the seventh-most all-time by a Los Angeles reliever... Was lights out from July 3-conclusion of the season, going 2-0 with 21 saves in 22 opportunities, a 1.26 ERA (5 ER/35.2 IP) and 52 strikeouts in 34 games…went 1-0 with 19 saves in 20 opportunities, a 1.19 ERA (4 ER/30.1 IP) and a .110 opponents' batting average (11-for-100) in 30 second-half appearances... Posted an ERA under 2.00 in five of six months, April (1.29, 2 ER/14.0 IP in 13 games), June (1.26 ERA, 2 ER/14.1 IP in 14 games), July (1.35 ERA, 2 ER/13.1 IP in 12 games), August (0.73 ERA, 1 ER/12.1 IP in 12 games) and September (1.80 ERA, 2 ER/10.0 IP in 10 games)... Allowed just four hits all season with runners in scoring position, limiting opponents to a .068 average (4-for-59) with 23 strikeouts in those situations... Made 75 appearances, tying for the fourth most in the NL... Retired 27 consecutive batters from July 23-Aug. 8, including 15 strikeouts, becoming the first LA pitcher to retire 27 in a row since Greg Maddux in 2006 (32)... Was dominant in his 40 home appearances, going 2-1 with 12 saves in 14 opportunities and a 1.32 ERA (6 ER/41.0 IP)…struck out 61, walked nine and allowed just one home run in 41.0 innings at Dodger Stadium... Limited right-handed hitters to a .158 batting average (25-for-158), while striking out 74 of 171 total righties faced (10 walks, three hit batters)... Made six postseason appearances for the Dodgers, successfully converting both of his save opportunities and allowing two runs on six hits in 4.1 innings (4.15 ERA)…struck out 10 and only issued one walk during postseason play…struck out the side to pick up the save in the Dodgers' NLDS-clinching victory over Atlanta in Game 4 as Los Angeles closed out the series with a 4-3 win at Dodger Stadium…entered the game with the
winning run on base and allowed a game-winning single to Carlos Beltran in the 13th inning of Game 1 of the NLCS at St. Louis in the Dodgers' 3-2 loss.
2012
2011
2010
2009
2008
2007
2006
2005
Set career highs in appearances (65), innings (65.0), wins (5), saves (25) and strikeouts (99) in his third big league season. Ranked among the NL relief leaders in wins (T-10th), saves (T-10th), strikeouts (3rd), ERA (2.35, 8th), opponents' batting average (.146, 3rd) and WHIP (0.85, 3rd). Successfully converted 25 of 32 save opportunities after taking over as the club's full-time closer in MayRecorded saves over three consecutive days twice in 2012, doing so from July 3-5 and also June 4-6. Limited first batters to a .158 batting average (9-for-57) with 32 strikeouts. Allowed four of 12 inherited runners to score. Held opposing hitters to a .146 batting average, equally keeping right-handers (.145, 16-for-110) and left-handers (.147, 17-for-116) in check. Limited opponents to a .211 average with runners in scoring position (8-for-38) and to a .181 mark with runners on base (13-for-72). Did not allow a hit over 9.0 scoreless innings in nine appearances from June 15-July 13...walked two, struck out 14 and went a perfect 6-for-6 in save opportunities in that span...had two other runs of 8.0 or more of consecutive scoreless innings, doing so from April 15-29 (8.2 IP, 9 G) and July 17-Aug. 4 (8.1 IP, 8 G). Did not appear in a game between Aug. 28-Sept. 19 after suffering an irregular heartbeat during his Aug. 27 appearance at Colorado. Had ablation heart surgery on Oct. 23 performed by Dr. Koonwalee Nademanee at White Memorial Hospital.Dominated during the second half of the season and established a new Major League record by averaging 16.10 strikeouts per nine innings, besting the mark previously held by Carlos Marmol (15.99, 2010)...Limited opponents to a .159 batting average (30-for-189), which ranked third among Major League pitchers (min. 50.0 IP)...Made his first Opening Day roster, but struggled during the month of April and was optioned to Double-A Chattanooga on May 1...returned on May 6, but placed on the disabled list with right shoulder inflammation on May 29...was activated on June 18...After being activated on June 18, went 1-0 with a 0.55 ERA (2 ER/32.2 IP) in his final 31 games...limited the opposition to a .094 average (10-for-106) and did not allow a homer over that time...struck out 61 batters over his final 32.2 innings pitched...Was hospitalized with an irregular heartbeat after his July 26 outing...was placed on the disabled list on July 29 due to blood thinning medication taken to treat the irregular heartbeat...was activated on Aug. 25 and remained healthy the rest of the season...Overall, went 2-1 with a 2.85 ERA and five saves in 51 games... allowed three homers on the season and none after April 19...Struck out 96 in 53.2 innings pitched...his 96 Ks were tied for fifth among Major League relievers (ranked second among MLB rookies)...Posted a 1.71 ERA (5 ER/26.1 IP) while limiting opponents to a .143 average in 23 road games...Did not allow a run over 17 games (19.0 IP) from June 1 to Aug. 30...the 19.0-inning scoreless streak was the longest by a Dodger reliever in 2011...With runners in scoring position and two outs, opponents went 3-for-26 (.115) with 16 strikeouts...Held batters to a .148 mark (13-for-88) in close and late situations...Only one of 21 inherited runners scored off him (95.2 %)...Batters swung and missed at 38.3 % of his pitches, which was the second-best mark in baseball, behind Craig Kimbrel's 38.6 swing-and-miss pct. (min. 30 games)...Struck out a career high-tying four batters on four different occasions...In 23 games after the All-Star break, went 1-0 and 4-for-4 in save opportunities while posting a 0.78 ERA (2 ER/23.0 IP.)Finished the season 1-0 with a 0.67 ERA (2 ER/27.0 IP) and four saves in 25 games...his ERA wasthe fourth lowest by a rookie with a minimum of 25.0 innings in Major League history ... Recalled on July 23 from Double-A Chattanooga, where he was 4-0 with eight saves and a 1.67ERA (5 ER/27.0 IP) in 22 games as the closer ... began the season with Single-A Inland Empire andappeared in 11 games for the 66ers ... earned the save in the Double-A All-Star Game on July 12 ... With Los Angeles, struck out 41 and walked just 15 in his 27.0 innings ... Averaged 13.7 strikeouts per nine innings which ranked third in the Major Leagues among pitcherswith at least 20.0 innings pitched ... Despite pitching in just 25 games, his 41 K's tied forninth among all rookie relievers ... Limited hitters to a .130 batting average (12-for-92)with just three extra-base hits (all doubles) ... righthandershit .064 (3-for-48) against him and lefties.205 (9-for-44) ... Batters were just 4-for-40 (.100) off him during theday ... No. 3 batters were 1-for-13 against him and cleanuphitters 1-for-10 ... The opposition hit .071 (3-for-42) with runners on baseand .091 (2-for-22) with runners in scoring position ... batters were 1-for-12 (.083) with RISP and two outs ... Faced 109 batters and retired 80 of them ... Allowed just one run at home over 12 appearances (13.0 IP) ... his ERA on the road was even betterat 0.64 (1 ER/14.0 IP) ... Had three saves in three opportunities and did not allow a single run against the National LeagueWest this season over 14.1 innings (13 games) ... Made his big league debut on July 24 and tossed a perfect inning ... struck out the Mets' Angel Paganand David Wright for the first two outs of his career ... Earned four saves on the season, including July 25 vs. NYM, which was his second Major Leaguegame ... the other saves came on Sept. 24, Sept. 28 and Oct. 2 ... Struck out a career-high four batters over 2.0 innings on Aug. 26 at Milwaukee ... Picked up his first and only Major League victory on Sept. 11 at HOU, firing a perfect eighth inning ... Tossed a season-high 2.0 innings on four separate occasions (8/20, 8/26, 8/29, 9/29) ... each time he threw 2.0 scorelessframes ... Was the Dodgers' Farmers Insurance September Player of the Month after giving up just one run and four hits in 10 games duringthe month (11.0 IP) ... Closed out the season by tossing 12.1 straight scoreless innings ... Named to Baseball America's second team as a relief pitcher in their season-ending minor league awards issue.Opened the season at Single-A Inland Empireand hit .202 (18-for-89) with a homer and 11RBI in 26 games...Promoted to Triple-A Albuquerque on May 29when A.J. Ellis was recalled by the Dodgers andappeared in eight games, batting .185 (5-for-27) with two RBI in eight games...collectedall of his hits off right-handed pitching, going5-for-17 (.294)...Activated by Inland Empire on July 29 and convertedto a pitcher, allowing six runs in 11.2innings (4.63 ERA) in 12 relief appearances...struck out 19 and walked only 11 batters...Following the season, played for the Peoria Javelinasof the Arizona Fall League, allowing fiveruns in 4.2 innings (9.64 ERA) in five reliefappearances...excluding his final appearance,when he allowed four runs in 0.2 inning, allowedjust one run in 4.0 innings (2.25 ERA)in four appearances...overall, struck out nineand walked only three batters...Played for Team Netherlands in the 2009World Baseball Classic, going 1-for-13 with awalk in five games...singled off Team USA's Roy Oswalt in a second-round matchupSpent the entire campaign with Single-A Great Lakes and batted .227 with 15 doubles...Ranked fourth on the club with nine homers and fifth on the team with 27 RBI in 79 games...Was a midseason Midwest League All-Star, going 0-for-1 with a walk in the contestSplit the season between Single-A Great Lakes and Rookie-advanced Ogden...Batted .102 (6-for-59) with one home run and six RBI in 20 games for Great Lakes and hit .240 (44-for-183) with two homersand 22 RBI in 53 games for Ogden...Played for West Oahu of the Hawaii Winter Baseball League following the season, batting .206 with two RBI in 21 gamesSpent the entire season with the Rookie-level Gulf Coast League Dodgers, batting .248 with a home run and 10 RBI in 35 games...Played for North Shore of the Hawaii Winter Baseball League following the season, hitting .121 (4-for-33) with two RBI in ninegamesOpened the season with Rookie-level Gulf Coast League, batting .304 (31-for-102) with one home run and 18 RBI in 34 games before being promoted to Rookie-advanced Ogden on August 26...Went 2-for-11 (.182) with an RBI in three games with Ogden to close the season. | {
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Volvo is celebrating the 40th anniversary of the 200-Series, one of its most iconic models. The 200-Series was presented to members of the media in Borlänge, Sweden, on August 21st, 1974.
Penned by Jan Wilsgaard, the boxy 200-Series was a distant evolution of the 140 it was tasked with replacing but it wore a more modern front end with a slanted plastic radiator grille and prominent bumpers on both ends, features borrowed from the experimental VESC safety car that was presented in 1972. The 200-Series was over five inches (13 centimeters) longer than the 140, and the extra sheet metal allowed designers to free up more space in the passenger compartment.
Early on, the 200-Series was available in several body styles including a coupe badged 242, a sedan called 244 and a station wagon christened 245. Base 240-Series were initially powered by Volvo’s time-tested B20 pushrod four-cylinder engine, while more expensive variants benefited from a new 2.1-liter B21 mill with an overhead cam that made 97 horsepower when fitted with a carburetor or 123 horsepower when equipped with fuel injection. The B20 was phased out in 1976.
The 260-Series flagship was introduced in October of 1974. It stood out from the less expensive 240 models thanks to a 2.7-liter Peugeot Renault Volvo (PRV) V6 engine that made 140 horsepower and 150 lb-ft. of torque. Shared with a long list of models including the Peugeot 604 and the Renault 30, the PRV V6 was initially only fitted to the 264 sedan but the lineup was expanded with the addition of the 265 station wagon in 1975 (Volvo’s first-ever six-cylinder-powered wagon), the 262C coupe and the sleek Bertone-built 262C in 1978.
Additional engines joined the lineup over the 200-Series’ production run. Some of more notable units included a straight-six diesel developed jointly by Volvo and Volkswagen and a turbo four. Volvo also introduced more variants of the 200 such as long-wheelbase version of the wagon designed to be used as a shuttle by schools, hotels and airports, and a 264-based limousine with three rows of seats.
The 240 proved remarkably popular in North America, helping Volvo boost its presence in what was at the time the world’s largest and most lucrative new car market. Interestingly, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) named the 240 the cleanest car in America in 1978 on account that it was equipped with a Lambda sensor and a three-way catalytic converter.
When Volvo introduced the all-new 700-Series in 1982, many thought it would gradually replace the aging 200-Series because it was considerably more modern inside and out. The 260 was largely overshadowed by the 760 and it was axed in 1985, but strong sales all around the world allowed the 240 to outlive the 740.
The last 240 rolled off of Volvo’s Torslanda, Sweden, plant on May 5th, 1993. All told, Volvo built 2,862,573 200-Series cars over a 19-year period. The 240 was facelifted on several occasions but its basic design remained essentially unchanged over the course of its illustrious production run.
Happy 40th, Volvo 240!
Photos courtesy of Volvo’s archives department. | {
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STOP IT, JARROD. YOU’RE BEING A DICKHEAD
On the 20th of December, 2013, the waiting world was indulged with a missive from the galaxy’s most ridiculous Attorney-General, the child-idiot Jarrod Bleijie from Queensland.
Not too long ago, Jarrod’s government declared “war” on one-percenter motorcycle clubs. He even got his spin-doctors to come up with a new name for the clubs, Criminal Motorcycle Gangs, and has managed to include the wonderfully emotive terms “Vicious” and “Lawless” in his amateurish legislation.
As you may know, the legislation came about, according to the Queensland media (all of which has its snout buried deeply in the distended and rose-scented rectums of the Premier, Campbell, and his chipmunk-like amanuensis, Jarrod), following an altercation between members of two outlaw clubs on the allegedly family-oriented, so-called “glitter-strip” of the Gold Coast.
Anyone who has ever been to that area of Queensland knows perfectly well that happy families is not what all those pubs, nightclubs, strip-joints and kebaberias are into servicing. But be that as it may.
The police, who had not even stopped trembling in their incompetent boots following that evening’s relatively uneventful carry-on, were overjoyed when Jarrod presented his master with a ream of legislation aimed at getting rid of the outlaw clubs.
Good police work could now be replaced with sheer intimidation, harassment, the reversal of the onus of proof and all that pesky civil liberties stuff that confounds police forces the world over. The Queensland Police were now free to live the Thug Life.
That the power behind Campbell, former LNP party boss (2009-2011), John-Paul Langbroek, was allegedly in that restaurant, may have had something to do with the resultant hysteria. Now if you didn’t know, John-Paul has been the Member for Surfers Paradise from 2004, is a qualified dentist and the offspring of Jehovah’s Witnesses. He has described his time in the University of Queensland as pretty much “toga parties, Lacoste shirts and university japes”. All of which is crucial in the attainment of a degree in dentistry. And all of which may, or may not, have a bearing on how John-Paul rolls vis-à-vis the perceived bikie menace to his family-focused paradise of Surfers that the Queensland LNP is all so foamy about the vagina over.
Anyway, what followed was predictable, and has been well-documented on various social media pages over the last few weeks.
Much of it has been embarrassing to motorcyclists as social clubs like the HOG and Ulysses eagerly endorsed the new legislation and even took the chubby Queensland police minister on a toy run, thus handing Campbell’s government a wonderful public relations coup.
Certainly some sections of their respective memberships protested at this betrayal, but there have been no en-masse resignations, so you are free to draw whatever conclusions you feel need to be drawn from that fact.
Some of the responses have been a direct slap to the chops of young Jarrod by various learned judges from the Supreme Court, who have made highly pointed statements regarding the legislation in their various sentencing pronouncements. A High Court challenge is imminent, and the UMCQ (United Motorcycle Clubs of Queensland) is certainly doing good work in its efforts to raise funds and get the right message out.
And most recently, and what I wish to respond to, young Jarrod has penned a rebuttal of sorts to the rather excellent piece that ran in The Australian by one Gary Johns on 17 December, 2013.
Shall we examine young Jarrod’s work? Yes, let’s…
How to win war with bikie gangs
JARROD BLEIJIE
THE AUSTRALIAN
DECEMBER 20, 2013 12:00AM
GARY Johns’s own lack of intelligence regarding the threat posed by criminal motorcycle gangs (The Australian, December 17) borders on the astonishing. Their propensity for violence, intimidation and illegality are well-documented around the world.
Jarrod, your own lack of intelligence is what is truly astonishing. You really are not all that bright, are you? Any critical examination of “intelligence regarding the threat posed by criminal motorcycle gangs” would clearly demonstrate that you and your government know nothing about them, and the alleged “threat” they pose to society. Police forces around the world and in Australia, have repeatedly explained that these clubs actually commit less than 0.4 percent of all crime. What is “well-documented” is the police hysteria and propaganda generated by police forces being forced to work within the law to prove the allegations they are so fond of making. It is instructive to note that you have taken this nonsense to be fact and are legislating (and I use the term loosely) based on that.
The Crime and Misconduct Commission, Queensland’s top crime-fighting body, has described criminal motorcycle gangs as “high-threat criminal networks” that have increased their involvement in organised crime.
Was that before or after you stacked it with your own government members? On November 20th, former Australian Federal Police Commissioner, Mick Keelty, was scathing in his criticism of your “top crime-fighting body”, Jarrod. He went so far as to imagine it was corrupt, so I can only conclude that is why you moved so quickly to remove whatever independence it may have possessed and made it another government lapdog. But I’m happy to hear evidence to the contrary if you have it.
It also says: “Changes in their internal culture have resulted in them exhibiting an increased propensity to engage in, firstly, illegal drug activity in Queensland and interstate and in the use of violence, particularly firearms related violence.”
And the evidence you have for this allegation is what, precisely? Speculation is not evidence, Jarrod. Surely there was a class about that in university. I understand that a lot of your “intelligence” regarding these clubs has come from a discredited source in the US. Why is that?
The Australian Crime Commission says these gangs are heavily involved in illicit drug markets, vehicle rebirthing, firearms trafficking, serious frauds, money laundering, extortion, prostitution, property crime and bribing and corrupting officials.
Jarrod, did you know that until very recently, the ACC had the Ulysses club listed as an outlaw motorcycle club? And the ACC says lots of things about lots of things, but the question is whether it actually provides any evidence for its statements. You know, like maybe backing up its claims by showing how many members of these clubs have actually been convicted of the offences ascribed to them. Note I said “convicted” not just “charged”. I’m also wondering, that since all of the crimes listed above are already crimes, why was more legislation required to deal with these crimes? Is it because your police force is incompetent and spends too much of its time beating people on the street and in the police stations to focus on what is important?
The ACC also says: “They often form alliances with street gangs, possibly in part as a recruitment tool to undertake the higher-risk aspects of their criminal activities, while remaining insulated from prosecution.”
If that is truly the case, Jarrod, then why not target the street gangs? Oh, you don’t know who these gangs are or if they even exist, do you? You’re relying on more speculative propaganda by a budget-hungry law-enforcement body, aren’t you? Evidence, boy. Evidence. Had you ever spent a day in court actually prosecuting a criminal (or even a civil case), you might have heard of it.
Then there is the very human proof, the casualties of the gangs’ actions, people such as Kathy Devitt. She was shot in the leg, in the middle of the day, while shopping on the Gold Coast. She was allegedly collateral damage, caught in the cross-fire of escalating conflict between rival bikie gangs. Try telling her gangs are not a problem.
Is that it? Is that all you have? One person caught in crossfire? One would think that given the insanity of your response, there would be herds of maimed and wounded and massacred innocents strewn about the streets of Queensland. But there isn’t, is there, Jarrod?
How is it you can only focus on this one, certainly terrible incident, and totally ignore the dozens of incidents and criminally violent actions by your own police force and, dare I say it, the many hundreds of criminal acts of child molestation by the Catholic church? I would be happy to tell Ms Devitt that “gangs are not a problem”. And I would be just as happy to point her to the current Royal Commission into child abuse as an illustration of what, precisely the problem is.
When the Newman government came to office, after effectively 20 years of Johns’s Labor Party, we inherited a state in which criminal motorcycle gangs were thriving. Legislation implemented by the former government simply failed. More than four years since its Criminal Organisations Act 2009 was passed, not a single group has been captured by it.
And can you work out why, Jarrod? No, seriously. Can you work out why “not a single group has been captured by it”? It all comes back to that evidence business, pesky as it is. You cannot prosecute people if there is no evidence they have committed an offence. It is up to the cops to provide this evidence. If it is there. If it is not there, then just declaring that entire groups of people are criminals simply because of what they look like (and that really is what is shitting you badly, isn’t it? Bikies just look evil. Unlike priests or clowns.) is plain wrong.
We implemented a range of new measures to tackle the bikies almost immediately, including increased penalties for firearms offences and the toughest unexplained wealth laws in the country. Despite this, the gangs continued to think they lived outside of the law and what was acceptable in society.
Oh, so now you’re the person to tell society what is and isn’t acceptable to it? That aside, your statement makes no sense. Your government implemented all these tough news laws, because the last government’s laws were not working (according to you), and then your tough news laws didn’t work either. Bastards were still riding their bastard motorcycles around with their bastard colours on, huh? Bastards. Why do you think that is? Maybe because those massive firearms caches did not exist? Could that be it? Maybe it’s because there is no “unexplained wealth”? Is that it? What else could it be, Jarrod? Tell me.
They passed the point of no return when scores of Bandidos rioted in front of diners on the Gold Coast, then surrounded a watch house when their fellow bikies were arrested.
You’ve never actually seen a riot, have you? If you think three blokes boxing on, while a dozen or so stood around being yelled at by terrified police officers constitutes a riot, I would suggest you examine freely available footage of what a riot looks like in Greece, South Korea, or Egypt. It’s nice when you use colourful language like “the point of no return”, but it would be nicer if you were honest and ’fessed up about the odious Police Union needing to be placated by your government, which is what these laws are all about, isn’t it?
The Newman government has taken the strong, necessary action that Queenslanders demanded and deserve. We have brought in, with Labor Party support, a range of reforms that are hitting criminal gangs head on and from within. We deliberately and unapologetically made the legislation and penalties severe to send a message to the bikie gangs that their time in Queensland was over.
Jarrod, do not lie. Queenslanders have neither demanded your legislation, nor do they deserve to be treated like criminals. Every single poll conducted by various outlets states the exact opposite of what you affirm. This makes you either delusional or a liar. Your cheap publicity stunts about colours being handed in are just that and very transparent. Your “reforms” are doing nothing, because there actually isn’t a problem that needs sorting out with these reforms. All you’ve really done is ensured that your legislation will be reamed by the High Court and that you will go down in history as the most ridiculous Attorney-General ever to pretend to the office.
In just 2 1/2 months, more than 430 criminal motorcycle gang members and associates have been arrested in Queensland on more than 900 charges, including extortion, drugs, affray (rioting) and firearms offences. There are also reports that members are handing in their colours and abandoning their club houses.
And how many of them have been convicted? Tell us all. How many of them have been charged with selling drugs to children, re-birthing cars, serious fraud, extortion, drug-supply, etc, etc? These are all the crimes you ascribe to them, thus you must also demonstrate the conviction rates. No-one, apart from you and your blue-suited apes, cares about charges being laid. By your own numbers, that equates to two charges per person, yes? Are all 430 of those people actual members of clubs? Or are you just arresting people with tattoos and hoping they know someone in a club or have been to a clubhouse? Come on, Jarrod, stop being a dickhead and demonstrate some integrity.
Initial crime statistics also suggest a possible ripple effect. Assaults, robberies and break and enters are down by as much as 60 per cent in parts of the state.
Bullshit. That is just patent bullshit and you know it. Let us not deal in “possible ripple effects”. Let us deal in facts. If you have facts or evidence that one-percenters have stopped climbing through peoples’ windows and knocking off their TVs, show them to us. If, for some reason, people have stopped beating the shit out of each other after a night on the piss (and the media evidence provided each Monday seems to demonstrate how full of shit you are in that regard) then you would be seeing this screamed from the rooftops. That, however is not the case at all. Cavill Avenue remains the violent bogan shithole it has always been, Jarrod. Epic fail.
Gang-related intelligence is also growing. In the past, a twisted code of silence among members and even rival groups made it difficult to prosecute them. Many bikie gang crimes also went unreported because of intimidation and threats of retribution against complainants.
HAHAHAHAAH! Intelligence is “growing”, huh? Is this the same intelligence that tells you these outlaws are infiltrating Ulysses and HOG and various sportsbike groups? Or that The Scorpions MC is a club? Or that the Sons of Anarchy is selling guns via the IRA?
The Crime and Misconduct Commission and the police now have more resources and powers, including the ability to perform intelligence-gathering hearings, and they’re using them.
I’m sure they are. These “intelligence-gathering hearings”, are they those ones you see being conducted on the side of the road when innocent bikers (and all bikers are innocent until proven guilty in a court) are being stopped, photographed and questioned by police so incompetent they cannot tell a bloke on a Ducati from a Hells Angel? Or are there other ones you don’t wanna talk about?
The weight of fear is also lifting from the community with Crime Stoppers receiving about 600 gang-related reports since the beginning of October, a 700 per cent increase.
Oh, please. “Weight of fear”? Really? Do you imagine yourself governing during a zombie apocalypse? How the hell can you equate 20 bogan grannies ringing up every few hours to screech about “bikies” as lifting of the weight of fear? Any and all fear that has been generated has been entirely generated by your propaganda. I am not surprised the A Current Affair-fed bogan fool is seeing bikies under his bed. But I am appalled that you think this is something of substance. Jarrod, please. Have you no shame? Your populist screechings are ever so see-through.
Even our political rivals have acknowledged our efforts. South Australia’s Labor attorney-general turned Speaker Michael Atkinson has been quoted as saying Queensland has found the “magic formula” in the fight against criminal motorcycle gangs. Former prime minister Julia Gillard even called for a response to organised crime earlier this year.
Oh, dear. You really are struggling a bit here, aren’t you? Those idiots in SA have been screeching about the bikie menace ever since Rann decided that bikies are keeping the ladies of SA in wet panties and that could not be tolerated. The state has failed in its Quixotic mission against the clubs, and will continue to do so. Not because the laws are inadequate, but because the crimes ascribed to these people are not actually being committed. And the Gillard call had nothing to do with bike clubs, you silly boy. Stop trying to find allies for your inanities where there aren’t any. You’re starting to remind me of various motorcycle lobby groups.
Many gang members, unsurprisingly, are doing whatever they can to get around our new laws. They are reportedly launching a legal challenge and their PR machine is in top gear, doling out misinformation and fear to legitimate, law-abiding motorcycle riders and groups.
Yeah. How that must suck, huh? Misinformation being fought by misinformation. If only we could all get along, Jarrod. Sigh. Still, I gotta hand it to you, HOG and Ulysses are firmly in your corner. They wanna play dress-up and the sooner you remove the real thing from the world, the happier they will be. But time will show us all the strength of their convictions out in the real world, huh?
Make no mistake, there is a reason these groups are called criminal motorcycle gangs. They even proudly call themselves outlaws. Violence, fear and illegality are their currency and purpose.
The reason they are called “criminal motorcycle gangs” is that your spin-doctors called them that. One would know that “violence, fear and illegality” are more accurately the “currency and purpose” of the Catholic church and the Queensland police force, but your fantasy life is rich, even if your spin-doctors are pretty shithouse.
Criminal motorcycle gangs are not the only illegal groups that will be captured by the new laws. Other organised crime gangs and pedophile rings also will be targeted.
Sure. I await the prosecution of the Catholic church and the Queensland Police Force with baited breath.
But what I most await is the abyss you and your execrable fear-mongering government will be ultimately plunged into. And that will happen. Because you do not deal in truth and justice, Jarrod. You deal in lies and fear. And each time a regime has dealt in that currency, Jarrod, it has been removed and disgraced.
And that is what will happen to you and yours, Jarrod.
Wait and see. | {
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Vancouver area Santa Dick Woldring knew he might be facing a sticky situation more than a month ago.
In early November, Woldring — who for 18 years has portrayed Santa at paid and unpaid events — tried to buy his usual supply of 7,000 peppermint candy canes and came up short.
He couldn't find any.
"This year they didn't have any and I got into a panic," said Woldring, who tried various retailers with no luck.
He isn't alone. This year, many Canadian retailers are running short of the iconic striped treat.
Woldring, for example, could only find fruit-flavoured or expensive canes embossed with animated figures like Batman or Elsa from Frozen.
"There was cherry, raspberry, and watermelon, if you can believe it. The peach ones were awful," said Woldring. "But kids like candy canes one way or another."
This year they didn't have any and I got into a panic. - Dick Woldring, semi-professional Santa Claus.
He noted the quality was poorer with some canes melting into a "gob of goo" if left in his sack.
And none were from Allan Candy, the brand he preferred.
Takeover effects felt later
It turns out that Allan Candy was taken over last year by the U.S. based Hershey Company. But the effect on candy cane production in Canada was only felt this season, according to retailers.
Many are running short, such as Shopper's Drug Mart, which has peppermint in stock in only half of its Vancouver outlets.
Mitchell Eng, who orders for London Drugs Canada, saw the candy cane crunch coming.
"They told all the retailers that they were not going to produce candy canes for this year's Christmas for 2015. At that time I think a lot of retailers were scrambling," said Eng, who placed his order early in spring.
Candy cane crisis: a shortage of the peppermint confections have mall santa crying foul. (Kenneth Wilcox/Flickr)
"I've heard a lot of retailers were not proactive and thus are out of stock," Eng added.
Only a few companies produce candy canes in North America, most are made in China, he said.
He researched manufacturers and found the company that took over the Oakville manufacturing plant, when Allan Candy moved south.
He ordered early and stocked up. Others ordered too late.
Candy canes make millions of dollars
"Hershey's did buy out Allan Candies...which does leave an opportunity for us," said Craig Bliss of Karma Candy in Hamilton where the majority of Canadian-made candy canes are produced.
"Last minute we weren't able to get everything out to all existing Allan Candy customers. So for 2016 we are already working on it," he said.
Millions of dollars. It's a huge business. - Craig Bliss, candy cane manufacturer.
"Our sales of candy canes have exploded - up, in essence, 30 per cent year over year with the same customers," said Bliss.
He urges candy cane lovers to look for the "made in Canada" label if they want quality.
As for just how big the business is, nobody will get specific, but all agree it is growing.
"Millions. Millions of dollars. It's a huge business." | {
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“I personally don’t know anybody that’s against this,” said Richard Le Jeune, who raises 200 cattle on his 573-acre property in the tiny hamlet of Halfway, Mo., 30 miles north of Springfield. “Some of these city people don’t have a clue what goes on in the country and how food is produced. We need this to keep the outsiders from trying to run things.”
While watching Fox News from his living room on Wednesday, Mr. Le Jeune interrupted himself to nod at the television when a commercial advising viewers to vote against the amendment came on. “This is the second time in two days I’ve seen this one,” he said.
Other farmers said the amendment, which is brief and vaguely worded, would permanently enshrine a special status for ranchers and farmers in the Constitution. Darvin Bentlage, who raises cattle and grows soybeans, corn and wheat in Golden City, Mo., said the people who were pushing the amendment “don’t know what kind of can of worms is going to open up.”
“One thing’s for sure — it’s going to put ag culture above everybody else,” he said. “We’re going to be a different class of people. You won’t be able to complain about anything that we do. That should never be the case.”
Agricultural groups representing cattle, soybean and corn farmers have lined up in favor of the amendment, while the editorial boards of nearly every major newspaper across the state have sounded off against it. The Kansas City Star editorial board called it an “unnecessary and potentially harmful proposal” and “a concerted effort to shield factory farms and concentrated agricultural feeding operations from regulations to protect livestock, consumers and the environment.”
“It’s the agricultural establishment trying to build a firewall against growing consumer concerns,” said John E. Ikerd, professor emeritus of agricultural economics at the University of Missouri in Columbia, likening it to early regulation of tobacco. “If we’d had a ‘right to smoke’ amendment at that time, we’d still have smoke-filled offices and airplanes.” | {
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SCOTTSVILLE, Va. -- Three-year-old Haven Melina Moses has been located and is safe, according to the Fluvanna County Sheriff's Office. Virginia State Police has confirmed the Amber Alert for Haven has been terminated.
The Amber Alert was issued for Haven Sunday afternoon. The child, who was believed to be in extreme danger, was last seen Saturday night at 5128 West River Road, Scottsville, Virginia. Police identified her likely abductor as her biological father, 25-year-old James Arnold Moses III.
Haven was located in Augusta County, where Moses lives, according to the Augusta County Sheriff's Office.
Haven was last seen Saturday night in the home of her caregiver in Scottsville, Va.
Brian Shifflett says his family has been caring for Haven for the past year, at the request of her mother. He says he was home with the child Saturday evening, when Moses showed up at the home and asked to take Haven on a quick visit.
Shifflett says he was unaware that there was a protective order against Moses or that he had recently been released from prison on charges of child abuse involving another child. Shifflett said his family, including his aunt, were heartsick until they learned that Haven was located safely.
"We were really worried, my aunt did everything she could to locate them. It's just been really stressful," Shifflett said.
Police have not confirmed where exactly Haven was located in Augusta County or who she was with at the time of discovery. Several police agency are still looking for Moses at this time.
If anyone has knowledge about the possible whereabouts of James Moses, please call the Fluvanna County Sheriff’s Office at 434-589-8211.
Haven is now in the custody of child protective services.
Amber Alert
"Haven was last seen at a caretaker’s home in Fluvanna County near Scottsville," the Fluvanna Sheriff's Office posted online. "Haven’s biological father, James Arnold Moses, age 25 from Lyndhurst, Virginia, came to the residence and took Haven from the dwelling in violation of a protective order."
"James Moses was driving a light colored sedan, possibly a Honda, at the time. James Moses may also be driving a brown Ford Explorer with Virginia registration of VKS-6171," the Sheriff's Office added. "Haven Moses is considered a missing endangered juvenile and all efforts are being done to locate her as quickly as possible. Warrants have been obtained against James Moses for abduction and violation of a protective order." | {
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The Arcturians are an alien race that comes from from the blue planet circling the red giant star Arcturus in the Bootes constellation. Arcturus orbits at around 36 light years from our solar system, yet they join us know to help us and the Earth ascend in greater light. As you read their message, they send you light codes that raise your vibration and assist your transformation.
The Arcturians are among us
“This earth is ascending much faster than ever before. All the beings that reside within it shift as well. Some of you might feel this, as you become awakened and enlightened, while others slowly yet gradually begin to shift. We have requested for this connection to benefit all of you who read now. As you do so, your frequency rises and you are open to our light code transmissions. When you don’t resist, you can feel the messages that we bring forth, not through your understanding alone, but through your perception, through your emotions, through your oneness. This message comes to bring you a step closer to your illuminated, expanded self, so allow us to work with you on an energetic level as you read the words that follow.
Earth as heaven
This earth that you now live in, was not once like this, filled with corruption, damage and fear. There was a time early on that the frequency held within resembled what you call “heaven”. Everything constituted of oneness, inner peace, and alignment of all. The trees were aligned, the animals were aligned, and you were aligned with all that existed on the physical and spiritual level. Much happened along the way, that made you sidetrack from this timeline however, and like a plague it spread more fear, negativity and ultimately resulted in separation; Separation of one with all, separation with your body, mind and spirit. We are not here to judge you, nor vouch for the paths that resulted in that separation, but rather to join you, merging with your earthly sphere, merging with your timeline to pull you upwards towards the original earth, the earth of “heaven”.
Arcturian race on earth
We are a race called Arcturians, yet we are not the only ones that come forward to help you ascend. Earth is a very important factor in the expansion of the universe, in the ascension of all souls. This is because we are all interconnected. We do not see a separation from you, and from us. When you rise, we rise. So it is now time for earth and for all beings on it, to lift in frequency and break the cycle of illusion and fear, to completely remove separation and exist in oneness.
We understand that this is not an easy journey as it has lasted for eons, yet once we join forces nothing can be more powerful than the union of souls. And so we have listened to the call of the earth. It did call us yes, it called us to help, to help it, and to help you. And so we join you, and we join the earth, and we are not alone. Many, many races and beings come forward to join this union. As more and more join the easier it becomes for the separation to fade, for you to return to complete and utter love and union of all.
Earth ascends
Many have begun to feel us here, to see our signals. We are not entirely spirit you see. We have a physical form, and we choose to be seen when needed to help more of you awaken to the truth of the shift. Look up to the sky today and ask us that we bring you proof of our presence. We reside in the clouds, we exist all around you, but we come in peace, we come to help you. The more you allow us to help, the more we can achieve.
Our call for you today is to notice how the earth is shifting. It is no longer the same as 10 years ago. The earth gathers greater life force, as beings of light conclude the merging of energy that brings it healing and restoration. If you could see through energetic eyes, you will see a light veil wrapped around the earth, restoring it. the same veil is available for you when you call for it. So why don’t you ask for the restoration light to wrap you and elevate and heal you while you sleep tonight? Once you awake you will feel restored and shifted. When you close your eyes call for the connection with the earth to merge with your own, to connect you will all around so that you can feel, sense and be one with all.
Furthermore, the veil of illusion is breaking. The illusion is anything that is not love. all that exists in love, and all that was created that brought separation, was created from the illusion that you are separate from love. Once this illusion completely fades you will come to experience loving frequencies, health, restoration, joy, abundance. even lower frequencies do exist, then you will no longer notice them. As you don’t notice them, then they are not really there.
The earth is shifting. The frequency that makes of the earth is rising in consistency and frequency. This is because it clears old patterns and timelines and joins greater dimensions. You who exist on it are changing with it. Some are resistant to these shifts and for that, they experience greater symptoms, and negativity. But hear us when we tell you that the change is inevitable and all physical beings on earth will undergo it. Do you feel the shifts? Then allow them to exist and shift you. Do you feel tension or fear arising? Then remember it’s only an illusion. No longer focus on what is dense and outdated.
The new earth arises, and we have joined you to help with the integration. You can ask us to help you with this process because that is why we are here. Ask us to help you see through the illusion, to respond and exist in love. Ask us that we help you see the change and we will openly guide you through it.
As the earth’s resonance shifts and increases and speeds up, your ascension process does the same. Do not be afraid but welcome it. You are not alone. We are beside you. There is nothing other than the shift. It is done. Welcome the new earth now.” | {
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A decade ago, California lawmakers passed a groundbreaking law that was supposed to help fight climate change by curbing urban sprawl. Senate Bill 375 required the state’s 18 regional agencies to plan and design housing and transportation projects so people wouldn’t have to drive as much, cutting the greenhouse gas emissions responsible for global warming.
That was the goal, and all 18 regions have adopted a so-called Sustainable Communities Strategies. But California today is just as sprawling and car-dominated as it was a decade ago. A report released this week from the California Air Resources Board finds people are driving more, not less. The transportation sector is the state’s largest source of greenhouse gases, and emissions have risen despite the arrival of vehicles that burn less fuel per mile.
On paper, California may have committed to building more walkable, bike-able, transit-friendly communities. In practice, cities, counties and the state are failing to follow through.
And so people are often forced to make bad choices. It’s too expensive for many people to live near their workplaces in coastal urban areas, so they buy or rent homes in far-flung suburbs and make the long commute. Within communities, there aren’t enough good options for getting around without a car. Homes are often far from grocery stores and schools. There aren’t enough parks within walking distance. The design of our cities can make it challenging, time consuming or downright dangerous to walk, bike or take public transit.
Enter the Fray: First takes on the news of the minute from L.A. Times Opinion »
Yet California will not meet its greenhouse gas reduction targets unless there is a dramatic change in the way communities and transportation systems are planned and built.
One problem is that there is no real requirement for cities and counties to follow their region’s plans, and there are no penalties when they don’t. Housing, land-use and transportation decisions are made at the local level. However, local leaders too often shy away from supporting the transformative but controversial changes needed, such as building taller, denser housing close to transit hubs or adding protected bike lanes to city streets.
Nor have state officials done enough to align transportation spending with climate goals. California still spends the vast majority of its transportation dollars on roads to serve drivers. Despite the goal of getting people out of their cars, there has been little move to spend a greater proportion of dollars on other modes of transportation. No wonder that transit ridership and carpool rates have fallen across the state, and that three out of four commuters drive alone to work.
The state will spend $1.1 trillion on transportation over the coming decades, which could dramatically expand the options for Californians to get around without a car — but only if there is a concerted effort to change. It’s clear that simply adopting sustainability plans isn’t enough. If California is going to meet its ambitious greenhouse gas reduction commitments, lawmakers and local leaders have to live up to the commitments in those plans.
Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook | {
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A third Sri Lankan cricketer has been hit with corruption charges as the International Cricket Council continues its crackdown on fixing.
Dilhara Lokuhettige became the 10th person this year to be charged with corruption offences and the third Sri Lankan in a month, although it is understood the three cases are not directly linked.
Lokuhettige, who now lives in Australia, played a handful of Twenty20 and one-day matches for Sri Lanka between 2005 and 2013. He has been charged with three breaches of the anti-corruption code relating to an alleged attempt to recruit a current Sri Lanka international to fix in last year’s T10 tournament in the United Arab Emirates, which is a competition played over 10 overs per side and featured England players, including Alex Hales and Eoin Morgan.
Lokuhettige also appeared in the first Al Jazeera cricket-fixing documentary aired this year. He was filmed in the background of a conversation when another Sri Lankan allegedly offered to fix matches for an undercover reporter. It is understood the ICC was already investigating Lokuhettige and this charge has nothing to do with the documentary. Al Jazeera has still not handed over any unedited footage or evidence to the anti-corruption authorities, but this charge will bolster its claim to have broken a fixing ring. | {
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It’s not uncommon for me to see the pope addressed on social media: Facebook conversations, Twitter repartee (less so), and all manner of other places, including in my own Messenger inbox. Some people earnestly seek clarification; others discern the demonic (or some such) at work behind the bright eyes of an 80-year-old Jesuit. Regardless, it seems what is most needed is clarification, something undertaken long ago, but seemingly (and understandably) forgotten.
These days many a Catholic applies that approach so hated as nothing more than academic gobbledygook—the hermeneutics of suspicion—to the pope as if a deviant (and deeply Fruedian) unconscious were at work within the pontiff’s head. But most of their questions—really most of their assumptions—were addressed way back when the pope was first elected and in the months and years thereafter. Newsweek, the Atlantic, PRI, the Washington Post, and the New Yorker all have published pieces on the pope’s past and what that past might mean for the present and the future. Therein lie the keys to understanding his attacks on unfettered capitalism, his denouncements of “rigidity,” and most everything else that raises American eyebrows.
In order to understand the pope, in order to clarify what he means to mean, we must revisit Pope Francis as an Argentine Jesuit and product of mid-century Latin America.
The Supreme Pontiff grew up in a fairly-lower-class, immigrant neighborhood in Buenos Aires; his initial experience of Catholicism was colored by his grandmother—Nonna Rosa—whose folksy love of novenas and processions left a deep imprint on young Jorge. His theological studies were initially opposed by his mother, who wanted him to study something more practical (and likely also more lucrative). Such formed the background of his entry into the Jesuits.
His boyhood was colored (especially due to his involvement in Catholic Action, an organization his beloved grandmother had supported in Italy) by Peronism, which was considered to have an affinity with Catholicism. A sort of “Third Way” approach, it combined authoritarian tendencies, a robust welfare state, and nationalism. The Encyclopædia Britannica traces the movement thus:
The Peronist movement arose as the personal following of Col. Juan Perón. In 1943, after participating in a successful military coup, Perón became Argentina’s minister of labour, a position through which he enacted various social measures to help the country’s growing class of urban industrial workers. Gaining the admiration of the masses, Perón called for the state to take a leading role in the economy to ensure cooperation between businesses and labour. In 1946 he was elected to the presidency with the strong support of the workers and their labour unions; he also gained the support of many lower-middle-class citizens and of the country’s industrialists. After Perón was overthrown and exiled in 1955 by the military, the leaderless Peronist movement was weakened by factional conflicts, since it was composed of many divergent elements, from left-wing trade unionists to right-wing authoritarian nationalists. Nonetheless, the movement remained the main civilian contender for power in Argentina.
Pope Francis became a Jesuit novice in 1958, in other words just after the downfall of Peronist supremacy. Combined with his early involvement in Catholic Action and the continuing influence of the ideology (something that is still the case today), it seems to have exerted a good deal of force on his worldview. As stated above, the movement fractured into Left- and Right-wing varieties, which soon, within Catholic circles, aligned with similar ideological developments after Vatican II. In other words, the political break within Peronism and the theological complexities in the aftermath of the Second Vatican Council must be attended to if Pope Francis is to be understood.
At 36, he became Jesuit Provincial for Argentina and Uruguay. The moment was filled with divisiveness. On the one hand, the advent of Liberation Theology; on the other, the emergence of Argentina’ Dirty War, during which 10,000 people were killed, and many others “disappeared.” Jorge Bergoglio was brought in as provincial specifically to replace Ricardo O’Farrell, a generally Left-leaning Jesuit. The future pope, in short, was seen as a conservative.
And rule as a conservative he did. Paul Valley, writing in the Atlantic, puts it well:
As polarization grew between an atheist, anti-Church Left and a right wing that claimed to be acting in defense of the Church and its values, Bergoglio found that it was impossible to hold to a middle way. He cracked down on Liberation Theology inside the Jesuits. Progressives within the order accused him of de-facto collusion with the worldview of the Right, if not with its tactics. Looking back he admitted, in his first interview as pope: “I had to deal with difficult situations, and I made my decisions abruptly and by myself. My authoritarian and quick manner of making decisions led me to have serious problems and to be accused of being ultra-conservative.” A titanic struggle for the soul of Catholicism ensued. Bergoglio had strong support within the Jesuits when he became provincial superior in 1973. But by the time he ended his leadership role as rector of Buenos Aires’s Jesuit seminary in 1986, those who loathed him had begun to outnumber those who loved him. By 1990, his support within the order had been eroded by his authoritarian style and his incorrigible inability, in the words of the Jesuit, Father Frank Brennan, “to let go the reins of office once a [Jesuit] provincial of a different hue was in the saddle.” Another senior Jesuit told me: “He drove people really crazy with his insistence that only he knew the right way to do things. Finally the other Jesuits said: ‘Enough.’” By the time he was sent into exile, according to one senior Jesuit in Rome, around two-thirds of Argentina’s Jesuits had lost patience with him. In his first interview after becoming pope, Francis attributed this dynamic to his own “style of government as a Jesuit at the beginning. … I found myself provincial when I was still very young. I was only 36 years old. That was crazy.” As a young priest in powerful leadership positions, Bergoglio did not have the maturity he needed to cope with the competing pressures of Jesuit factions, the Vatican, and a ruthless military dictatorship.
The pope has since lamented that he did not do enough during Argentina’s Dirty War. He cast aside two priests who took theology to the slums; they were kidnapped and tortured not long after he took away their faculties to say Mass. He hid some books for an old mentor and sometime radical, Ester Ballestrino. She helped to found “Las Madres de la Plaza de Mayo,” a group for the mothers of those who had been “disappeared.” They would march with the pictures of their children. One day she herself simply disappeared, dropped, still alive after being drugged, into the Atlantic Ocean. To this day, if his 2010 testimony on the matter is to be believed, his lack of action causes him immense pain.
Feeling the sting of failure and the imprudence of his youth, he was exiled, first to Germany and then to the distant, inland city of Córdoba. In the former, he fell in love with a painting of Mary, Untier of Knots, specifically related to the Blessed Mother’s intercession in the failing marriage of a noble couple. In the latter, he was not allowed to say Mass in the Jesuit Church, and so he spent much time doing two things: hearing confessions and walking. This seems to have transformed him. Again, from the Atlantic: | {
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The birthrate plunged, helping to usher in social changes, particularly concerning the role of women.
Iranian women attend a ceremony marking the 33rd anniversary of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s return from exile at Khomeini’s mausoleum in Tehran on February 1, 2012. His edicts making birth control widely available opened new avenues for women. (Atta Kenare / AFP / Getty Images)
By Kenneth R. Weiss, Los Angeles Times
July 22, 2012
TEHRAN — Since the 1980s, Iran has experienced the largest and fastest drop in fertility ever recorded — from about seven births per woman to fewer than two today.
“It confounded all conventional wisdom that it could happen in one of the world’s few Islamic republics,” said Jalal Abbasi-Shavazi, a demographer at the University of Tehran.
It happened largely because of the Islamic government.
In the late 1980s, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Iran’s supreme leader, issued fatwas making birth control widely available and acceptable to conservative Muslims.
Until then, Khomeini had helped foster a baby boom to produce soldiers for the war against Iraq. After the war, he was persuaded that the economy could no longer support a rapidly growing population.
Under the new decrees, contraceptives could be obtained free at government clinics, including thousands of new rural health centers. Health workers promoted contraception as a way to leave more time between births and help reduce maternal and child mortality. Couples intending to marry were required to receive counseling in family planning.
The birthrate plunged, helping to usher in social changes, particularly in the role of women.
With smaller families, parents could invest more in their children’s education, and the idea caught on even in rural areas.
Our aim is to help you know how to avoid an unwanted child.” — Government-trained midwife
At the same time, educational opportunities were opening up for girls. After the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Khomeini had resegregated schools by gender in keeping with his strict interpretation of Islam.
One result was that even the most conservative families could send girls to school without worrying that family honor would be tarnished by allowing their daughters to mix with males.
As women became better educated, their influence within the family grew.
Without intending to, Iran’s clerical leadership helped to foster “the empowerment of Iranian women,” said Djavad Salehi-Isfahani, an Iran expert at Virginia Tech. “The mullahs may be winning the battle on the streets, but women are winning the battle inside the family.”
Iranian woman have fewer legal rights than men and are limited in which jobs they can hold and what they can wear. But more of them are attending universities and postponing childbirth. In public universities, female students now outnumber males 65% to 35%, leading to calls in parliament for affirmative action for men.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, however, has sought to reverse the trend toward smaller families. Doubling the country’s population of 75 million would enable Iran to threaten the West, he said.
He has denounced the contraceptive program as “a prescription for extinction,” called on Iranian girls to marry no later than 16 or 17 and offered bonuses of more than $950 for each child. So far, he has been widely ignored.
“Iranian women are not going back,” said Sussan Tahmasebi, an Iranian women’s rights leader now living in the United States.
The changes are reinforced every day in health centers throughout the country. At a center in Tehran recently, a procession of brides-to-be, some covered head to toe in black chadors, filed into a large, well-lighted room with their bearded bridegrooms.
Some in the group stole glances at the small packages pinned to a green bulletin board — samples of condoms, birth control pills and intrauterine devices.
They had all filled out forms and provided blood and urine samples for the medical screenings required for marriage. All that was left was to sit through this hourlong class on family planning.
“Our aim is to help you know how to avoid an unwanted child,” said a government-trained midwife, a middle-aged woman with a swirl of dark hair spilling from her head scarf.
She launched into a no-nonsense PowerPoint presentation on male and female anatomy, menstrual cycles, fertility and birth control.
“The trend among ‘modern Iranians,’ ” she reminded the class, “is to have one child, two at most.”
[email protected]
Times staff writer Weiss reported from Los Angeles and special correspondent Mostaghim from Tehran.
About the series
Los Angeles Times staff writer Kenneth R. Weiss and staff photographer Rick Loomis traveled across Africa and Asia to document the causes and consequences of rapid population growth. They visited Kenya, Uganda, China, the Philippines, India, Afghanistan and other countries.
Full Coverage | Photos | Videos | Map
The series at a glance
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Експертно ревю за букмейкъра Betfair
История на букмейкъра
Букмейкърската компания Betfair е една от най-големите в своята област. Тя е световноизвестна със своята Борса за залози. Всъщност, Betfair притежава най-голямата Борса за спортни залози в световен мащаб. Безспорен лидер в тази област. Централата на компанията се намира в Лондон. Тя започва своето съществуване през 2000 г., когато е създадена от Андрю Блек и Едуард Рей.
Още със създаването си Betfair се превръща в лидер в областта на спортните залози и уникалната Борса, която от компанията предлагат. Компанията разширява своя арсенал от услуги, когато през 2005 г. закупува сайта PokerChamps.com, който предлага онлайн покер игри. Идеята на компанията е да интегрира покер игрите към своя сайт, но с нова, различна платформа. Така и се случва, като Betfair използват свой собствен разработен софтуер за покер игри. През 2006 г., Betfair е оценена на 1.5 милиарда паунда, а 23% от собствеността ѝ е закупена от Софтбанк. През същата година, Betfair придобива компанията Timefrom, която се занимава с отразяването на конни надбягвания. Година по-късно Betfair става собственик на собствено радио, което предава на живо състезания с коне, информира за резултати и изразява експертно мнение. През 2009 г. Betfair продължава с големите покупки, като придобива TVG Network, което е канал в САЩ, предлагащ излъчвания на спортни събития на живо и най-вече на конни състезания. Сделката е осъществена на стойност $50 милиона.
През 2010 г. компанията стъпва и на фондовата борса в Лондон, където е оценена на 1.4 милиарда английски лири, а една акция на компанията се равнявала на 13 паунда. Година по-късно, компанията прави важна крачка към намалянето на данъците, които трябва да заплаща, като прехвърля голяма част от операциите си в Гибралтар и оперира с тамошния лиценз. През 2012 г. Betfair продължава голямото си развитие, като анонсира услугата за залози с фиксирани коефициенти, като допълнение на спортната Борса на компанията. Така компанията влиза в голямата битка, която се води между световноизвестните букмейкърски къщи. Компанията придобива още по-големи размери, когато обявява своето сливане с букмейкъра Paddy Power, през Септември 2015 г. Самото сливане е завършено през Февруари 2016 г. Сайта е първия на пазара, който внедрява залози от тип Борса, като дори самите Бет365 нямат такъв раздел, в който играчите да разменят своите залози.
Betfair разполага с над 4 милиона потребители по цял свят, като по данни на компанията, над 1 милион от тях са активните потребители. Нетната печалба на компанията за 2014 г. е малко над 50 милиона паунда, а към момента дори може да се похвали с 50 милиона британски лири оборот на седмица! В компанията работят около 2000 човека на различни длъжности. Всички тези факти доказват колко големи са мащабите на букмейкъра Betfair, а постоянното развитие, което се забелязва у компанията е пример за постепенен възход, от който може да се поучи всяка компания в бранша.
Betfair в България
Betfair беше сред първите компании, които придобиха лиценз за извършване на хазартна дейност на територията на България. Това се случи през Февруари 2014 г., след като 3 месеца по-рано – през Декември, от компанията подадоха молба за издаване на лиценз. Betfair получи лиценз за своите предложения на спортни залози, включително и уникалната Борса, с която разполага компанията, но освен това, лиценз беше получен и за казино игрите, които предлагат от компанията. Голям интерес сред залагащите в България предизвика спортната Борса на Betfair, понеже тя беше нещо ново и непознато на българските играчи. В по-напреднала фаза на това специално ревю за Betfair, ще разгледаме и обясним какво точно е спортната Борса на компанията и как да залагате там.
Сайта на Betfair – дизайн и менюта
Няма спор, че дизайнът, по който е изграден сайта на Betfair е изключително удобен и лесен за всеки един потребител. Няма претъпкани области, всичко е изчистено, а основните менюта са разположени в горната част. В горната лява част на началната страница ще видите логото на компанията, както и бутон Помощ, който може да ви отведе в нова страница, където са събрани множество въпроси и компетентните отговори към тях, от страна на Betfair. От там, също така, може да намерите и начините за контакт с букмейкъра, ако имате някакви въпроси. В най-горната дясна част на страницата са разположени полето за вход и бутона за регистрация. Виждат се полетата за вход в системата, съответния бутон, както и бутонът за създаване на нова сметка. Отново се връщаме в горната лява част, където точно под логото на компанията са разположени два бутона с голяма важност. Те съставят меню от две категории, които са Спорт и Спортна Борса. Тях ще разгледаме обстойно в отделна точка.
Менюто, което се набива на очи, при отваряне на страницата е точно това, което има черен фон на лентата и съдържа разделите – Всички спортове, На живо, Cash Out, Price Rush, Футбол, Висша лига, Тенис, Баскетбол, Конни надбягвания и Волейбол. Както сами се досещате, първата от всички категории, ще ви запознае с всички различни спортове, на които може да залагате в Betfair, а чрез останалите раздели, имате възможността да достъпите най-залаганите спортове по най-прекия начин. Разделът Висша лига е посветен на първенството по футбол на Англия, но е добре да знаете, че този раздел не е постоянна величина в това меню, понеже ако през лятото, например, има Световно първенство по футбол, то тогава ще видите специален раздел за него. Ще разгледаме и основните категории от това меню в отделни точки, където ще обясним какво представляват услугите, които от компанията ви предлагат.
Точни под областта за вход в акаунта ви и над основното меню, може да видите бутон Отговорно залагане, при избирането на който ще бъдете пренасочени към нова страница, в която има препоръки и съвети как да залагате и как да избегнете евентуално пристрастяване. Освен това, обяснени са начините, по които може да зададете лимити на вашата сметка, като например да не можете да депозирате над определена сума, в рамките на един месец или друг период. Това е доста полезен материал, особено за тези, които са податливи на своите емоции, които ги водят към въртележка от залози и доста загуби.
Под всички тези менюта и бутони може да се видят актуални оферти и бонус предложения на Betfair. Компанията разполага с множество оферти както за нови клиенти, така и за съществуващи. След тази област в централната част на началната страница на Betfair, най-отдолу се намират връзки към информация за компанията, контакти, правилата и условията на Betfair, както и други полезни места.
Регистрация в Betfair
Ако желаете да създадете собствена сметка в системата на Betfair, която ще ви даде правомощия да се възползвате от всички услуги, които предлага компанията, ще бъде нужно да изпълните процеса по регистрация, който не представлява голяма сложност.
1. Първо трябва да посетите сайта на Betfair, като последвате този линк;
2. След това, трябва да изберете бутон Отвори сметка, който се намира в горната дясна част на началната страница, точно след полетата за име и парола, както и бутона за вход. След като го изберете, ще ви бъде отворена нова страница, където трябва да попълните определените полета, изискани от Betfair за процеса на регистрация. Всички данни, без полето Област, са задължителни за попълване от ваша страна. А полетата, които трябва да попълните с вашите данни са следните:
Трябва да изберете вашият Пол, след което да въведете Име и Фамилия;
Следват избора на Рождена дата, Държава, Адрес по лична карта, Град/Селище и Пощенски код;
Нужно е да въведете телефонния си номер, след което да изберете вашата Националност и Тип ИД, което ще рече – тип на идентификация; този номер може да бъде ЕГН, Булстат номер или Номер в НАП;
След това вниманието ви е насочено към полетата за въвеждане на Имейл и Парола;
Трябва да изберете Скрит въпрос и да напишете Отговор на него
Следващият избор е този за Валута на сметката ви, но за България единственият избор, който автоматично е избран е валутната единица Евро;
Следва поле за Промо код, като ако разполагате с такъв го въведете или пък полето ще бъде попълнено автоматично с код от Betfair;
След като сте готови с въвеждането, проверете добре въведените от вас данни и натиснете бутон Регистрация, с което процесът по създаването на вашата Betfair сметка ще бъде завършен;
Ето и как изглежда нагледно формата за регистрация на Betfair:
Верификация на акаунта ви?
Ще бъде нужно да довършите и този процес по верификация, понеже ако не го сторите, то няма да имате възможността да изтегляте средства от сметката си. Процесът по верификация е нужен, за да докажете самоличността си и съвпадението на данните, които сте въвели. Точно затова трябва да внимавате, когато въвеждате личната си информация по време на процеса по регистрация. Верификацията на акаунта ви трябва да бъде извършена в рамките на 30 дни от деня на създаването ѝ. В противен случай, Betfair има правото да закрие вашата сметка. Верификацията се осъществява посредством системата на Betfair, чрез която сканира вашият документ, като го покажете на камерата на устройството си. Другият вариант е да изпратите копие на документа по имейл, но определено първият вариант е много по удобен и бърз. След като завършите и този процес, то вие ще разполагате с един пълноценен Betfair акаунт.
При забравена парола или потребителско име?
Ако случайно забравите някое от необходимите ви данни за вход в акаунта ви, то може да ги възстановите по много лесен начин. За целта, трябва да обърнете внимание на областта, където е бутона за създаване на сметка, понеже точно под него има бутони, които са в случай на забравено потребителско име или парола. Нужно е да изберете едно от двете, за да достъпите съответната страница, която ще ви помогне с възстановяването. Помнете, че може да използвате и имейлът, с който сте се регистрирали, като потребителско име. Ако сте забравили потребителското си име и изберете съответния бутон, то ще ви бъде отворен нов прозорец, където ще бъде нужно да въведете имейлът ви на регистрация на вашият акаунт. След като го въведете и изберете бутон изпращане на напомняне ще получите по имейл забравеното ви потребителско име. Ако пък забравите своята парола, то избирате другият бутон и отново ще ви бъде отворен нов прозорец, в който има поле за въвеждане на потребителско име. След като го въведете и то бъде проверено, ще можете да зададете новата си парола за достъп до вашата Betfair сметка.
Видове пазари в Betfair
Букмейкърската компания Betfair има много голям арсенал от предложения, които отправя към своите клиенти. Компанията разполага с голям брой събития от всеки спорт, за които се предлагат залози както преди мача, така и на живо. Освен всичко, уникалната спортна Борса на Betfair е другото, с което от компанията привличат потребители. Нека се запознаем по-отблизо с двата раздела в сайта на Betfair – Спорт и Спортна Борса.
Раздел Спорт
Това е един от двата основни раздела на компанията Betfair. Спортният раздел е този, който българските играчи предимно използват. Когато достъпите този раздел, то лентата в черен фон, която имаше на началната страница, съществува и тук. Тя включва няколко раздела, като първият от тях е Всички спортове. Ако го изберете ще ви се покажат всички налични спортове, за които компанията предлага събития и пазари към тях. Възможностите са много, различните спортове наброяват над 25! Втората категория от менюто към раздел Спорт е Начална. Това е страницата, която по принцип се зарежда при избирането на раздела. В началната страница, отляво е разположено меню с бързи връзки към срещите на живо или към някой спорт. Освен това, има и бързи линкове към някои от най-популярните футболни първенства, за да можете бързо да ги достъпите. В централната част на страницата се намира област, в която ще виждате някои от актуалните предложения на Betfair, а под тях се намират т.нар. Спортни Акценти. Там са предложени някои от най-интересните събития, които предстоят. Можете да избирате да видите избраните събития за футбол, тенис, баскетбол и други. В дясната част, отново ще намерите бърза връзка с поглед към някои пазари, за някое от големите събития, които предстоят да се изиграят. Може да е футболен мач, тенис среща или пък баскетболен двубой.
В менюто може да намерите бързи връзки към някои спортове, като Футбол и Тенис, както и категории за някои от услугите на компанията и актуалните ѝ промоции. Ако обаче, искате да разберете как да разгледате определени спортни събития, то трябва да използвате категорията, която ви показва всички спортове. След това е нужно да изберете желаният от вас спорт, за да видите всички предстоящи събития, на които може да залагате.
Стандартно ще видите събитията подредени по началният им час във възходящ ред и коефициентите за пазари на краен резултат. Ако искате, обаче можете да промените този пазар и да виждате коефициентите за някой друг пазар, като Под/Над гола, пазари за Полувреме и други. Когато желаете да изберете дадено първенство, за да разгледате срещите, на които се предлагат залози, то трябва да изберете от менюто, намиращо се над показаните срещи, раздел Преглед на всичко. Тогава ще ви бъде заредена страница, от която ще е нужно да изберете държава, след това съответното първенство от тази държава и така ще стигнете до самите събития. Когато изберете дадено събитие ще видите датата и часа, за които е насрочено то. Това е от лявата част, а в дясно са разположени всички пазари, от които можете да избирате. Подобно разпределение на спортовете в лявата част на сайта може да се открие и в Efbet, който е поставил бутоните за регистрация и бонус също в горния десен ъгъл.
За големите събития, от известните футболни лиги, например, имате шанса да залагате на множество пазари. Някои от тях са следните: Краен резултат, Първи гол, Точен резултат, Над/Под голове, Голмайстор, Първи голмайстор, Двоен шанс, даден отбор да отбележи определен брой голове, различни пазари за полувреме и много, много други. Възможностите са наистина огромни. Betfair ви дава шанса да избирате от голям набор пазари. Ако изберете друг спорт, например баскетбол, ситуацията е подобна. Избирате си събитие, виждате пазарите към него, а срещу всеки пазар се намира и коефициента към него.
Единственото, което ви остава, като сте готови е да натиснете върху коефициента, намиращ се срещу пазара, на който искате да заложите. Така ще видите вашата селекция във вашият електронен фиш.
Раздел Спортна Борса
Това е един доста интересен раздел, като именно с него Betfair започва своето съществуване. От компанията първоначално залагат на борсовия спортен раздел за привличане на клиенти. В нашата страна този тип залози не са много познати на широката общественост, но сега ще се опитаме да ви запознаем с основите на спортната Борса на Betfair. Като цяло, при избирането на този раздел, началната му страница ще ви представи отново меню с черен фон, на което има категории за различни спортове, както и някои други услуги от компанията. В лявата част се намира основното вертикално меню, където са изброени и може да избирате, различните спортове, на които да залагате в борсата. В централната част отново ще намерите някои акценти на събития, а в дясно се намира фишът, където въвеждате сумата на залог за избраната от вас селекция.
За да заложите е нужно да изберете някое събитие. Да вземем, например, един тенис мач, който се състои от двама тенисисти. На пазар Краен резултат потребителите виждат коефициенти и непонятните за доста хора „ЗА” и „СРЕЩУ”. Това ще рече, че ако заложите на коефициента „ЗА” даденият играч, то ще трябва той да спечели мача, за да спечелите и вие на съответния коефициент. Ако заложите „СРЕЩУ” същият тенисист, то тогава ще трябва да се надявате да загуби мача. Освен за краен резултат, то може да залагате на същия принцип за победител в сета.
Друг пример, може да ви дадем за футболен мач. Ако имате например срещата Байерн Мюнхен 2 срещу Бургхаузен, то нека вземем пазарите за краен резултат. Имате възможност да заложите „ЗА” Бейерн Мюнхен 2 на коефициент 1.62. Ако го направите, то ще се надявате те да спечелят мача. Ако, обаче заложите на пазар „СРЕЩУ” Байерн Мюнхен 2, което е на коефициент 1.65, то тогава ще трябва срещата да завърши с победа за Бургхаузен или наравно, за да бъде успешен вашият залог.
По такъв начин действа спортната Борса на Betfair. Освен преди началото на срещите, то може да залагате и на спортна Борса На живо за определени мачове. Ако имате някакви въпроси, винаги може да се свържете с нас, за да се опитаме да ви помогнем.
Категория На живо
Ще обърнем специално внимание на този раздел от Betfair, понеже той не е обособен в отделен раздел сред главните такива, но също така е изключително важен. Самият раздел може да намерите още на началната страница, в раздел Спорт или в раздел Спортна Борса. И в трите случая, категорията На живо се намира на лентата с черен фон, намираща се точно под двата основни раздела в сайта.
В раздел На живо ще намерите събития от различните спортове, на които може да залагате по време на мача. Пазарите тук отново са много разнообразни, като до голяма степен се препокриват с тези от преди началото на срещата. На живо, обаче, имате шанса да залагате, например във футбола, на кой отбор ще отбележи следващ гол или колко гола ще има до дадена минута. Подобно е и при другите спортове, за които се предлагат пазари на живо. В лявата част на страницата, когато сте избрали дадено събитие ще виждате текущия му резултат, както и информация в каква част или време се намира срещата. От дясно са разположени и пазарите. Коефициентите, когато залагате На живо се променят с течението на самата среща и в зависимост от развитието на двубоя. Когато желаете да направите залог, просто е нужно да изберете върху коефициента на събитието, за което искате да заложите.
Разделът с пазари на живо от Betfair предлага множество събития ежедневно, като на много голяма част от мачовете, които виждате в програмата на букмейкъра, ще можете да залагате и на живо. Всъщност, за да разберете дали дадена среща ще има възможност да бъде залагана на живо, то преди името на събитието и участниците, ще видите иконка на часовник, която ви подсказва, че събитието ще премине на живо, когато то започне. По този начин лесно може да се ориентирате за дадено събитие и неговото наличие с пазари на живо.
Електронен фиш на Betfair
Това е мястото, където вашите избрани селекции се визуализират. Електронният фиш в сайта на Betfair се намира в горната дясна част на екрана, непосредствено след последният раздел от лентата с категориите и под областта за вход в системата. Когато изберете дадена селекция, то тя мигновено се показва във въпросният фиш. Фишът ви дава информация за всяка отделна селекция, която направите.
Освен, че виждате вашият избор, изписано е и името на събитието, за което е направена селекцията, както и коефициента на самото събитие. Под всички избрани селекции са и полетата, където се въвежда сумата на залог. Имате няколко избора, които се изразяват в различни видове на залог, които могат да са Тройни (както е в случая със снимката, понеже са 3 избрани селекции), Двойни, Трикси, Патент и други.
Ако пък желаете да заложите на едно от избраните събития, то въвеждате сумата в полето срещу самата селекция за желаното събитие. Тези различни възможности ви дават възможност да залагате познатата Права колонка или да залагате на различни системи, които автоматично се генерират от електронния фиш на Betfair. Автоматично се изчислява и сумата, която ще трябва да заложите за определена система. Освен всичко, виждате и сумата, която евентуално може да спечелите. Може да залагате на събития от различни спортове, различни пазари, по ваш избор.
На снимката може да видите и отметка, която гласи Подсигури се с EDGE, която ви дава шанс да подсигурите вашият залог, но за тази услуга ще говорим отделно. Когато сте готови, избирате бутон Постави залози, след което вашият фиш ще се обработи и ще имате готов залог. Вашите активни залози може да видите в категория Моята сметка или Текущи залози.
Електронният фиш на Betfair е много удобен, дава ви всичката информация, която ви е нужна за избраните селекции и определено се работи много лесно с него. Цялата система е автоматизирана, а това улеснява абсолютно целият процес по правенето на залог в сайта на букмейкърската компания Betfair.
Специални услуги от Betfair
Език на сайта – имате възможност да използвате българска и английска версия на сайта, като промяната се прави от бутона, намиращ се в горната дясна част, точно срещу бутона за създаване на акаунт. Този сайт бе сред първите, успоредно със Sportingbet, които внедриха българска версия, която да опътва хората как да регистрират и залагат. Подръжка на български език е налична 24/7.
Вид на коефициентите – може да променяте начина, по който да виждате коефициентите, като това се прави от най-долната част на сайта, където е надписа „Преглед на коефициентите като:”, след което имате избор между Десетични и Дробни.
ACCA EDGE – това е една много иновативна услуга, която от Betfair предлагат на всеки свой клиент. Самата услуга ви дава шанса да си върнете обратно залог, ако само една селекция от вашият фиш се е оказала неуспешна. За целта ще трябва да изберете селекции, независимо от вида спорт и вида пазар, които трябва да са поне 3! Също така няма и минимални коефициенти на залог при тази услуга. Ако някой от вашите залози е отложен или прекратен, то услугата ACCA EDGE няма да бъде валидна. Имате възможност да затворите залога си, но и тогава ACCA EDGE се отменя. Нека разгледаме и един конкретен пример на залог с услугата ACCA EDGE.
Както виждате, избрани са 3 селекции на футболни срещи. Под тях, точно до полето Тройни на електронния фиш е избрана отметката Подсигури се с EDGE. Ако сметнете коефициента от трите избрани селекции, то ще разберете, че е общо 14.5, но с отметката на ACCA EDGE, както се вижда от снимката, коефициента пада до 10.05! Точно тук идва основният момент на тази услуга. За да я използвате, то вие се съгласявате на по-нисък коефициент. Ако и трите селекции се окажат верни, то вие ще спечелите на общ коефициент 10.05, понеже сте избрали отметката. Ако, обаче, само една селекция се окаже губеща, то залогът ви, в случая 10 лв., ще се изплати обратно във вашата сметка. Целта на самата услуга е да се подсигурите, но тя не е задължителна и я използвате единствено по ваше желание.
Price Rush – още една много добра оферта, с която Betfair доказва, че е сред лидерите в областта на залозите. Самата функция ще рече, че има възможност коефициента на направен от вас залог да се повиши автоматично. Betfair автоматично проверява как се движат пазарите в Спортната Борса на компанията и ако има предложена по-добра цена, то вие ще я получите, като тази информация ще бъде изписана във вашият фиш. С покачването на коефициента се увеличава и потенциалната ви печалба. Трябва да запомните, че услугата Price Rush се предлага единствено за спортовете Футбол, Тенис, Голф, Конни надбягвания и баскетбол. Също така, трябва да знаете, че услугата е активна само за единични залози! Имате възможност да залагате на събития от раздел На живо, както и да затворите вашият залог, ако това е възможно, на полученият по-висок коефициент. Ако се питате дали както може да получите увеличение, така може коефициента ви да стане по-малък, то не се бойте, понеже Price Rush единствено може да увеличи вашият коефициент, а Betfair няма да го намали, когато вече сте заложили на него!
Cash Out – още една функция, която може да намерите в сайта на Betfair. Тя ви позволява да прекратите вашият залог, преди той да е приключил, с цел да подсигурите залога си на определена печалба, но не максимална или пък да избегнете пълната загуба на вашият залог, като затворите на загуба, но не максимална. Когато направите даден залог, то много лесно може да видите дали той може да бъде затворен, като от лентата с категориите изберете Cash Out. В новата страница ще ви бъдат показани вашите залози, които може да затворите. Като цяло, Betfair единствен предлага услугата да разберете точно кои пазари на дадено събитие могат да бъдат затворени на по-късен етап. Това става ясно, когато срещу конкретния пазар, било то на живо или преди мача, срещнете следната иконка:
Това, че букмейкърът ви дава тази информация е страхотно и ще ви спести размислите, дали за даден залог ще получите кеш аут. Освен всичко, запомнете, че може да прекратите залога си не само в раздел Спорт, но и в раздел Спортна Борса! С кеш аута на Betfair набора от услуги и опции, които букмейкъра предлага на своите клиенти, става доста богат.
Портал за прогнози на Betfair – това е специален сайт, в който може да прочетете анализи на спортна тема или прогноза за дадена среща, разработени специално от екип на Betfair. Сайтът може да достъпите от категорията Спорт Новини или от рекламната връзка, която може да видите в дадена част на сайта, гласяща Спортни анализи & Съвети. И в двата случая ще бъдете пренасочени към един и същ сайт, а ако искате да го разгледате веднага, може да го направите чрез този линк – https://betting.betfair.com/bg/
Мобилна версия на Betfair – друго, с което може да се похвали букмейкърската компания Betfair е, че разполага с прекрасен мобилен сайт, предназначен за всичките клиенти на компанията, които предпочитат да залагат чрез своето мобилно устройство или таблет. Единият вариант е да въведете адреса на сайта на Betfair в браузъра на вашето устройство, за да се зареди мобилната версия на сайта. Вторият вариант е да изтеглите специалните апликации на Betfair, които са разработени специално за устройства, които работят под операционна система Android или iOS. Чрез мобилната услуга на компанията ще може да ползвате всичките и услуги, които са налични в пълната версия на сайта. Също така, ще можете да се регистрирате в Betfair, да депозирате и теглите средства, да залагате преди мача, а и на живо. Ще можете да използвате и услуги, като Cash Out и Price Rush, така че мобилната услуга на Betfair ви предлага една друга възможност за използване услугите на компанията, чрез удобството да залагате от всякъде, по всяко време, през вашето мобилно устройство.
Бонуси и оферти от Betfair
Като един най-големите букмейкъри, Betfair се стреми да предлага много разнообразни и интересни оферти на своите клиенти, с което да ги привлече към своя отбор от залагащи. Офертите на компанията са насочени както към новорегистриралите се, така и към залагащите, които имат акаунт от повече време. Нека да разгледаме основните оферти, които от компанията предлагат.
Бонус 30 евро за раздел Спорт (НЕАКТИВЕН)
Това е един от основните бонуси, които компанията предлага на своите нови клиенти. Той ви дава правото да получите бонус сума от 30 евро, под формата на безплатни залози. За да се класирате за тази оферта, то по време на регистрация трябва да въведете специален бонус код, който е следният – ZBG101. Кодът се въвежда в съответното поле, по време на вашата регистрация. След като сте готови, то ще трябва да депозирате поне 10 евро и да ги заложите на пазар с коефициент поне 1.2! Когато направите и тази стъпка, Betfair ще ви преведе бонуса в рамките на 24 часа. Запомнете, че ако заложите по-малко от 10 евро, то няма да получите този бонус. Ако го получите обаче, ще имате шанса да направите 3 залога на стойност 10 евро. Залозите се явяват безплатни, като ако познаете, то само чистата печалба от залога ще бъде добавена към вашата сметка.
Условия на бонуса
Първото условие, което трябва да спазите, за да получите този бонус е, че е нужно да направите въпросното залагане от 10 евро, до 30 дни от датата на създаването на вашият акаунт. Можете да използвате получените безплатни залози само по веднъж всеки, т.е. може да заложите 3 пъти по 10 евро! Запомнете, че когато направите залог с дадения ви бонус, то опцията Cash Out на Betfair няма да бъде достъпна за този залог. И последно, бонусът ви се дава и може да се използва единствено в раздел Спорт на Betfair!
Бонус 20 евро за раздел Спортна Борса
За почитателите на Спортната Борса от Betfair също има специална бонус оферта. За да можете да се възползвате от тази оферта е нужно да бъдете нов играч в отбора на Betfair, след което разполагате с период от 7 дни от датата на регистрацията, в който трябва да направите първия си залог на стойност поне 20 евро в раздел Спортна Борса. Същността на бонуса се крие в това, че когато направите първия си залог по условието, което споменахме, то тогава, ако залогът ви се оказа неуспешен, Betfair ще ви върне 20 евро. Ако залогът ви е успешен, то ще ви бъде изплатена печалбата по него, без да се превеждат допълнителни средства.
Уловия на бонуса
Запомнете, че ако първият ви залог след регистрация в Спортна Борса на Betfair е в размер по-малък от 20 евро, няма да получите обратно сумата на залог, ако той се окаже неуспешен. Ако срещата, на която заложите е отменена по някаква причина, залогът ви няма да се класира за бонус офертата. За да се възползвате от тази промоция, първият ви депозит, който направите, не трябва да бъде чрез услугата на електронния портфейл Skrill! Ако се класирате за бонуса, т.е. заложите поне 20 евро първи залог и не познаете, Betfair ще преведе сумата от 20 евро към вашата Betfair сметка в рамките на 72 часа от приключването на залога.
25 евро бонус за мачовете от Първа Лига на България
Това е един доста нов бонус, който е насочен към мачовете от родната футболна Първа Лига. Бонусът важи за раздел Спорт и за да се възползвате от него е нужно да направите единичен залог на мач от Първа Лига на България, на пазар Краен Точен резултат. Ако вашият залог е успешен, то няма да получите никакъв бонус, но при неуспех на вашият залог и ако мачът е бил 0-0 на полувремето, вие имате шанса да получите бонус, под формата на безплатен залог, в размер до 25 евро.
Условия на бонуса
Няма да се класирате за този бонус, ако заложите в раздел Спортна Борса, направите няколко селекции, използвате различни системи или залагате в раздел На Живо! Залогът трябва да е единичен и на пазар Краен Точен резултат, преди началото на срещата. Ако се класирате за този бонус, той ще бъде преведен по вашата сметка в рамките на 12-24 часа от момента на приключването на залога. Полученият безплатен залог ще бъде валиден в рамките на 48 часа от получаването му, като може да го използвате за всякакъв тип залог, веднъж, в раздел Спорт.
Промоция футболен акумулатор
Betfair предлага още една, доста интересна оферта за раздел Спорт. За целта е нужно да заложите на Права Колонка от поне 3 селекции, на пазар Краен резултат в раздел Спорт. Ако вашите селекции се окажат печеливши, то вие ще получите допълнителен бонус към вашата печалба, която се изчислява по следната таблица:
Брой селекции Бонус 3 10% 4 15% 5 20% 6 25% 7 30% 8 или повече 35%
Условия на бонуса
Вече споменахме, че трябва да заложите Права колонка, състояща се от поне 3 селекции на пазар Краен резултат, но освен това, те трябва да са с коефициент 1.2 или повече. Нямате право да залагате на пазари от Спортната Борса на Betfair, за да се класирате за този бонус. Запомнете, че бонусът се начислява само върху размера на чистата печалба от вашата колонка! Освен това, полученият бонус се получава като безплатен залог и трябва да бъде използван до 48 часа от получаването му, за залози в раздел Спорт на Betfair. Ако не го заложите в определения срок, бонусът може да бъде отнет от Betfair. Ако някоя от вашите селекции е отложена или отменена, то вие отново имате шанс за получаване на бонус, но на базата на селекциите, които са останали активни във вашия залог. Максималният бонус, който може да получите всяка седмица е 50 евро! Всеки спечелен бонус се превежда към сметката на клиента всяка нова седмица, в Понеделник, до 19:00 часа!
25 евро бонус на тенис мачове
За почитателите на тенис срещите, от Betfair, също са приготвили специална бонус оферта. За целта трябва да заложите на тенис мачове от поне 4 селекции на пазар Краен резултат. Ако една от вашите селекции се окаже неуспешна, имате шанса да получите бонус, като безплатен залог до 25 евро.
Условия на бонуса
Всяка една от селекциите трябва да е с минимален коефициент 1.2! Ако някой от вашите мачове е отменен или прекратен, вашият залог отпада от възможността за класиране за тази оферта. Залози от раздел Спортна Борса на Betfair няма да се считат за тази оферта, а също така и залози направени, след като срещата е започнала, затова трябва да залагате единствено преди началото на мачовете. Използването на Cash Out опцията, също няма да ви даде възможност да се класирате за този бонус. Можете да направите дори няколко колонки по зададените условия на тенис срещи, но ако в различните колонки залагате на едно и също събитие, тогава нито една от колонките ви няма да се класира за бонуса. Също така, максималният бонус за 24 часа, който може да получите е 25 евро! Часовете се засичат от 14:00 до 14:00 на другия ден. Бонусът, който е под формата на безплатен залог, се превежда до 24 часа след края на събитията от вашата селекция и ще бъде активен до 48 часа, след получаването му. Безплатният залог може да се използва само за залози от раздел Спорт!
100% бонус Cash Out
Betfair предлага на своите потребители още една страхотна бонус оферта, която е свързана с опцията Кеш аут. Офертата се изразява в това да направите залог на пазари, които подлежат на кеш аут, след това при първото ви използване на услугата Cash Out, вие ще получите 100% бонус към вашата печалба. Вашият залог трябва да е съставен от 3 или повече селекции, които са избрани от раздел Спорт!
Условия на бонуса
Въпросният бонус се дава единствено при първото ви използване на кеш аут! Освен всичко, трябва да направите кеш аут на печалба! Бонусът се реализира върху чистите печалби, които натрупате с кеш аут, като максималната сума, която може да получите е 25 евро! Бонусът, който получавате е под формата на безплатен залог и трябва да бъде заложен до 48 часа, след получаването му!
Освен всички изброени промоции и оферти, букмейкърската компания Betfair предлага на своите клиенти още интересни предложения. За големи спортни събития може да намерите нови актуални бонуси и да се възползвате от тях. Освен това, широко разпространена промоция за нови клиенти е да имат шанса да заложат на избрано от букмейкъра събитие с много голямо покачване на коефициентите. Така че, оглеждайте се в сайта на Betfair за нови оферти, от които може да извлечете максимална полза!
Полезно: Може да прочетете повече за плюсовете и минусите от използването на бонуси, за да прецените дали си струва да започнете с начален такъв или да го откажете.
Методи на плащания
Всеки клиент на Betfair има на разположение няколко различни методи за разплащане с букмейкъра. Услугите по депозит и теглене, които ще намерите при Betfair ви дават едно истинско разнообразие, от което може да се възползвате и да използвате този метод, който ви е най-удобен. За да извършите съответното разплащане, просто трябва да влезете в сметката си и от падащото меню на Моята сметка, да изберете раздел Моята Betfair сметка, което ще ви отвори нова страница. В нея ще видите секция Плащания, от където избирате желаното от вас действие и метода, по който ще депозирате или теглите средства.
Методи на депозит
Дебитна/Кредитна карта – това е несъмнено един от най-известните методи за разплащания, който няма как да не намери мястото си сред набора от услуги, които Betfair поддържа. С картите на VISA и VISA Electron няма да изпитвате проблеми при депозит, както и с карти от тип MasterCard. Транзакциите чрез тези карти се обработват незабавно, като минималната сума на депозит е 6 евро, а такса за превода не се дължи.
Електронни портфейли – сред методите за депозиране в Betfair ще откриете и няколко различни електронни портфейли, които са Skrill, Neteller и paysafecard. И при трите метода преводите се обработват незабавно, като за тях не се налага да плащате никакви такси. При Skrill и paysafecard минималната сума, която може да депозирате е 10 евро, докато при услугата Neteller минимумът е 15 евро. Максималната сума на депозиране при Skrill и Neteller е 45 000 евро, докато при paysafecard е значително по-малко – 500 евро.
Банков трансфер – този метод също е наличен, като можете да прехвърляте средства единствено през ваша лична банкова сметка към сметката ви в Betfair! Минималната сума на депозит чрез този метод е 15 евро, като самия процес може да отнеме от 2 до 5 дни. Такси не се дължат. Когато желаете да депозирате по този начин, в съответното място на сайта на Betfair ще видите данните за банката в България, където се приемат тези плащания.
Методи на теглене
Дебитна/Кредитна карта – чрез картите на VISA, VISA Electron и MasterCard можете да извършвате тегления на средства от вашият акаунт в букмейкъра. Нямате ограничения по минимална сума на теглене, а максималната такава може да зависи от банката, която е издала картата. Самия превод се извършва в рамките на 2 до 5 дни, а такси не се дължат.
Електронни портфейли – чрез тази услуга, отново както при депозита, може да използвате Skrill, Neteller и paysafecard. Информацията, която от Betfair предоставят е, че за методите Skrill и Neteller тегленията се обработват в рамките до 24 часа, а такси за превода не съществуват. При метода Skrill няма минимална сума, която да е определена за теглене, докато при Neteller тя е 4 евро. Максималната сума, която може да изтеглите с Neteller е 50 000 евро.
Банков трансфер – освен депозит, банковият трансфер позволява и теглене на средства от вашата Betfair сметка. Добре е да знаете, обаче, че при този метод на теглене срокът за обработка на превода е около 5 работни дни, а таксата на превода е в размер на 5 евро. Минималната определена сума, която може да изтеглите чрез банков трансфер е 5 евро, а максимална сума няма определена.
Както сами виждате, различните методи на разплащания, поддържани от Betfair предоставят голям избор, като финалното решение кой метод да ползвате е изцяло във вашите ръце и възможности. Разбира се, всеки един от методите има своите плюсове и минуси, но след като вече ви запознахме с тях и техните особености, то лесно може да си направите сметка, кой метод на разплащане би бил най-удобен за вас.
Партньорска програма на Betfair
В сайта на Betfair, освен всички прекрасни възможности за игра, ще може да намерите и шанса да си партнирате с един от най-изявените лидери в областта на онлайн залозите и игрите. Ако вече се питате какви ползи може да ви донесе това партньорство, то знайте, че ще се радвате на сума в размер до 35% от приходите на всеки играч, който препоръчате. Преди това, обаче, ще бъде нужно да бъдете одобрени, а за да имате голям шанс това да се случи, трябва да разполагате с подходящ уеб сайт, най-добре на спортна тематика, където ще рекламирате букмейкъра. С регистрацията си като партньор на Betfair вие ще получите специални рекламни материали, които носят уникален идентификатор, гарантиращ, че точно вие сте препоръчали дадения клиент на Betfair. Възможността да работите съвместно с един от най-добрите букмейкъри си е доста добър вариант, а ако искате да кандидатствате още сега или да разгледате други подробности около партньорската програма на Betfair, посетете този сайт – http://affiliates.betfair.com/
Обслужване на клиенти и контакти с Betfair
Несъмнено, Betfair е сред лидерите в своята област. Не се съмнявайте, че компанията ще направи всичко възможно да отговори на всеки ваш въпрос, свързан със сайта или вашата сметка. Не се притеснявайте да задавате вашите въпроси, понеже има кой да ви отговори съвсем компетентно. Точно така, всички служители, които работят в центъра за обслужване на клиенти към Betfair, са специално обучени да ви помогнат за всички ваши запитвания, относно сайта. От Betfair предлагат специална страница, където са събрани отговорите на доста често задавани въпроси. Страницата може да достъпите от тук. Ако не намерите търсеният от вас отговор, то може да се насочите към различните начини за контакт с екипа на Betfair. Разполагате със следните варианти за връзка:
Чат – този чат се извършва на живо и представлява най-бързият начин, по който можете да се свържете и да получите отговор. Обикновено, отговор ще получите в рамките на 1 минута.
Телефон – чрез обаждане по телефона, също ще получите почти мигновено вашият отговор. Телефонът за България, на който може да се обадите е следният: 00359 2491 7755
e-mail – електронната поща също не е забравена, като е сред начините за връзка с Betfair. Трябва да знаете, че времето за отговор по имейл е най-дълго, като обикновено е около 8 часа. Адресът, на който може да изпращате вашите съобщения е следният: [email protected]
Оценка и заключение за Betfair
Букмейкърската компания Betfair бързо навлезе на българския пазар, но нямаше и как да е иначе, понеже компанията предлага страхотни услуги на българските играчи. В стремежа си да се развива още, Betfair може да предложи още много на своите клиенти. В Betfair ще намерите изключително богат набор от събития и пазари както в раздел Спорт, така и в раздел Спортна Борса. А с опции, като Кеш аут, Price Rush и ACCA EDGE, които описахме подробно, Betfair се превръща в много добър избор за всеки любител на онлайн залаганията. Всички тези опции и възможности ни карат да поставим отлична оценка на букмейкъра Betfair.
Сигурни сме, че в сайта на компанията ще намерите всичко, което ви интересува в спортните залози от прекрасни коефициенти, през много добри бонуси, та чак до уникални опции, които единствено Betfair предлага! Ако не ви се чака повече и желаете още сега да разгледате сайта на букмейкъра, може да го направите, като посетите Betfair още днес!
Полезни източници и референции | {
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india
Updated: Feb 12, 2020 13:43 IST
Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora on Wednesday underlined that the Election Commission will not go back to the ballot paper and that the electronic voting machines are here to stay.
The statement assumes significance after the final voter turnout figure in the Delhi polls was delayed by more than 24 hours raising questions on the reliability of the EVMs.
Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal called it “extremely shocking”. Echoing his party leader’s views, senior leader and Rajya Sabha member Sanjay Singh said that this is perhaps the first time in the country’s history that the Election Commission is not ready to release the voter turnout data, after the completion of the polls.
“The percentage of voting in Delhi elections is what the people of Delhi and the country want to know. Why is the Election Commission taking so long to tell the voting percentage? Within 1 hour in the Lok Sabha elections, the Election Commission reveals the voting percentage, why so much delay in a small state like Delhi?” Singh asked.
The CEC, speaking at the Times Now Summit, said that the Commission would engage with political parties in the coming days on various electoral reforms and the model code of conduct.
He said EVMs can malfunction like a car or a pen but they cannot be tampered with.He said the machines are in use for 20 years now and there was no question of returning to the ballot paper.
Various courts, including the Supreme Court, have upheld the use of the machines to cast votes, he pointed out.
The day-to-day political dialogue, contended the CEC, is becoming “more coarse “ and it should be “avoided”.
A case in point is the gag order on BJP’s Parvesh Verma, West Delhi lawmaker who was banned twice by the Election Commission for his inflammatory remarks in the run-up to the Delhi election. He had called Arvind Kejriwal a “terrorist”.
On January 30, the poll panel had barred Verma for four days for his remarks on Shaheen Bagh where a gathering has been on a sit-in protest for over a month. Verma had allegedly said those participating at Shaheen Bagh could enter homes to rape and kill women, indicating the site would be cleared on BJP being elected to power. | {
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Obviously we all know that Blackadder Goes Forth was set during a real-life event, but now it transpires that the characters in the BBC series also had namesakes that fought in the first world war. The Daily Telegraph reports that Forces War Records, a military genealogy website, has trawled through 6m military records and found there was actually a Captain Blackadder, Private Baldrick, Captain Darling and Lieutenant George. Dominic Hayhoe, from Forces War Records, said: “As fans of the television show, we wondered if we could find the military records of the characters’ namesakes, and we did. The only person we haven’t been able to track down so far from the first world war is a General Melchett. But according to the military records we have, he makes an appearance in the second world war.” | {
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I really did not have time to write this today, but two articles I read made me drop what I was doing. First was the Wall Street Journal article by a Yale law professor who says Chinese mothers are superior because they produce more mathematical and musical prodigies.
The reason, she says, is because none of them accept a grade less than an “A”, all insist their child be number one in the class, they don’t let their children be in school plays, play any instrument other than piano or violin, etc.
She says that this whole thing about people being individuals is a lot of crap (I’m paraphrasing a bit) and gives an example of how she spent hours getting her seven-year-old to play a very difficult piece on the piano. She uses the fact that the older daughter could do the same piece at that age as proof this was reasonable.
There are a few areas I would take exception with her article. First is her grasp of mathematics and logic. It is clearly impossible that every child in China is number one in the class, unless every classroom in the country has a thirty-way tie for first. Second, as my daughter asked, “There are 1.3 billion people in China. None of them ever got a B?” Third is the issue of claiming your parenting is such a great success when your children are not yet out of high school.
I don’t teach at Yale, but I do have a Ph.D., have published several articles in academic journals, founded two companies, and won a gold medal in the world judo championships. I raised three kids to adulthood. As for the companies, they paid enough to support the kids in what they wanted to do. That individualism crap?
Well, the first one went to NYU at age 17, graduated at 20 and if you google Maria Burns Ortiz you’ll find everything from her acceptance speech as Emerging Journalist of the Year to her stories on Major League Baseball investments in Venezuela for ESPN to Fox News Latino. Plus, she has a good husband and she is a wonderful mother.
She never took piano lessons but she is an amazing writer.
The second daughter, the Perfect Jennifer, received her Masters and teaching credential from USC at 24, after taking a couple years off after her B.A. in History. She teaches at an inner city school in Los Angeles. This isn’t her fall back plan in a bad economy. This was her first choice profession and her first choice school. They are lucky to have her and she’s happy to have them.
My third daughter was in the last two Olympics, won a bronze medal in Beijing and has now gone professional as a fighter in Mixed Martial Arts. Ironically, she was the one that played bassoon and attended a science magnet. She volunteers at a school in Watts where her older sister did her student teaching.
And STILL, I would not venture to lecture other people on how superior my parenting skills are because a) there have been times when I could cheerfully have smacked each one of them with a two by four and only my maturity, Catholic faith and felony assault laws of the state of California stayed my hand and b) as Erma Bombeck said, no mother is arrogant because she knows that, regardless of her other accomplishments in life, at any moment she may get a call from the school principal saying that her child rode a motorcycle through the auditorium.
If I got a call like that, I wouldn’t even be surprised. I would just reach for my credit card to give the principal the number over the phone and go searching the house for my two by four.
The second article I read was by Vivek Wadhwa, in Business Week, who said that Chinese and Indian engineering programs graduate several times MORE students than the U.S. but the quality of these students is generally much poorer than American students.
When I was in graduate school, I used to think arguments such as Wadhwa’s were just sour grapes from American students who couldn’t cut it, and their teachers who let them slack.
Then, I graduated, became a professor for many years and an employer. I see exactly the differences Vivek describes between American and many international students.
When I ask the latter questions such as,
“If you were going to redesign programming language X, what would you do?”
They will tell me what X does in great detail but not answer the question.
American students are more likely to jump in with ideas about how to change X, replete with statements like “X sucks because…”
My twenty-five years of experience, agrees with Wadhwa’s research findings in that the international students I have met are far less likely to question results. Of course this isn’t true of all of them. It’s silly to generalize to every member of a nation of a billion or half-billion people.
American students remind me of the nursery rhyme:
There was a little girl
Who had a little curl
Right in the middle of her forehead
And when she was good
She was very, very good
And when she was bad
She was horrid
My husband is brilliant. This is why I married him. He went to UCLA on a National Merit Scholarship, double majored in math and physics and then went on to graduate work in physics. He taught himself Calculus in elementary school and then taught himself as much physics as he could before going to college. His parents pretty much let him do what he wanted to do, which was read physics books.
My older brother has a degree in Computer Science from Washington University in St. Louis. Like most of his friends, he majored in computer science because he was really interested in math and computers. When we were in college, around 1975, I saw my first “personal computer”. One of my brother’s friends had built it from parts.
I’m a statistician because I really love statistics and fortunately for me, it pays money.
In America, people in math, computer science and other sciences generally chose those fields because that is what they want to do. They have a genuine interest, to the point of passion, and will often spend crazy hours working in their labs.
Chinese and other international students often spend crazy hours, too, but not as often for the same reasons. A lot of times it’s because of a language barrier – and they have my respect. I spent a year as a student in Japan. As a professor, I once taught a Directed Studies in Psychological Research course in Spanish. Functioning in a second language is damn hard.
The international scholars I know, far more often than American ones, chose their field for practical reasons. They could get a job. The salaries were good. Their parents really wanted them to become a doctor/ engineer.
Sometimes these Chinese (and other) students change while in America. Not always. Lots of middle managers like people to do exactly what they’re told. Not always the best thing for business but perhaps best for the comfort and convenience of that manager.
Schools really like people to do what they are told, and universities just love having graduate students who will pay high out-of-state tuition, teach for low wages, or even work in the lab for free. Hey, don’t blame us if 30% of the students we admit are from other countries, they did the best on the tests AND had a 4.0 GPA. You should have studied more, you lazy slackers!
Someone ought to ask WHY we are measuring what we measure. These tests we give, and the other admissions criteria were not handed down by God. (I know because I did my dissertation on intelligence testing. Most of these tests come from The Psychological Corporation, Pearson Education and the Educational Testing Service. God doesn’t work at any of those places. If you don’t believe me, call their switchboard and ask for God’s extension.)
Why does it matter if your child is a musical prodigy? What the hell difference does it make if your child can play some complicated piece on the piano at age seven?
My youngest daughter, the world’s most spoiled twelve-year-old, plays drums. She practices about an hour a week. She likes the drums. I want my daughter to play an instrument, if she is interested, because it might be something that brings her joy as an adult.
She is on the student council and, this last report card, she brought home her first B+ in a year. We kind of grumbled about it, but that’s all. High achievement is important in life, but it is not all of life.
WHY does it matter so much if you have a 4.0 GPA? I did not have the best behavior or GPA as either a high school student or undergraduate. Looking back, I wonder whatever possessed the admissions staff at Washington University in St. Louis to look at my SAT scores and overlook everything else, but I will be forever grateful that they did. I doubt many universities would admit a student like me today, particularly not at age 16.
What I did have was an intense desire to learn about the world.
As an undergraduate, I took a graduate course in economics because it sounded really interesting and asked the professor’s permission to enroll.
He happened to have been chair of the Council of Economic Advisers (under Richard Nixon, but he was still a great professor nonetheless). I also took courses on Urban and Regional Economics where I got to see real-life applications of matrix algebra.
My point (and by now you may have despaired of my ever having one) is that my undergraduate education gave me the gift of professors willing to respond to my interests, enough time not to interfere with my relationship with the library, and classmates I argued with for the pure intellectual exercise.
When my youngest child is ready for college, I will look for a school that will give that to her. If it is an Ivy League school, that’s fine.
Dr. Chua is raising her children to fit into the Ivy League mold.
Me, I’m raising my children to be themselves and to mold the world to fit.
How is that working out ….
There isn’t a day goes by that I don’t think several times, “I love my life.”
So, it works well for me, and for my family, all the way down to the two-year-old granddaughter whose latest favorite saying is,
“I a lucky kid!”
(Well, right after, “Grandma, buy me an iPad for Chrissmas!” )
Dr. Chua’s definition of success is to have children who are musical and mathematical prodigies.
Mine is to have children who learn well, live well and love well.
She’s a success by her standards as I am by mine.
(But I still won’t be surprised if I get that call from the principal. )
———
My day job :
Games that make you smarter. Don’t let your kids get dumber over the summer. We have three games that run on Mac and Windows. Check them out here.
Comments | {
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An army of firefighters and conservation experts went on a secret mission in Australia to help save the Wollemi Pine — a tree that has existed since the age of the dinosaurs. Experts used fire retardant and irrigation techniques to protect the trees from the wildfires ravaging the country.
One scientist described the pines as "an Opera House of the natural world," Australia's Network 10 reports. As the smoke settled in Wollemi National Park, firefighters were thrilled to see the prehistoric foliage survived the blaze.
"They've survived the dinosaurs, and they're surviving this season's bushfires. In fantastic news, the prehistoric Wollemi Pines have been confirmed as safe, thanks to a secret mission by NPWS firefighters working in partnership with the RFS," NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service wrote on Facebook. Facebook/NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service
The fire had been burning for two and a half months, but was finally brought under control this week. It has destroyed over 1 million acres northwest of Sydney, but the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service and NSW Rural Fire Service closely monitored the blaze as it approached the so called "dinosaur trees."
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NSW Environment Minister Matt Kean said the organizations did everything they could to save the rare trees. Each one was protected with a ring of fire retardant and an irrigation system, according to Network 10.
"Wollemi National Park is the only place in the world where these trees are found in the wild and, with less than 200 left, we knew we needed to do everything we could to save them," Kean told The Sydney Morning Herald.
On Facebook, NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service called the mission a "military-style" operation.
The trees were thought to be extinct until they were discovered in the area in 1994. "When the pines were discovered in 1994, you might as well have found a living dinosaur," Kean said. The mission to save the trees was kept secret because pathogens brought in by other people could destroy the ancient pines. | {
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（ＣＮＮ） 中国陝西省西都の高陵地区で、集合住宅のエレベーターに閉じ込められたまま１カ月以上放置されていたとみられる女性の遺体が見つかった。国営メディアが伝えた。
北京青年報の電子版によると、このエレベーターは１月３０日に故障して、メンテナンス作業員が点検を行った。
エレベーターは１０階と１１階の間で停止した状態にあり、作業員は中に人が乗っているかどうか確認するため、１１階から声をかけたという。しかし返事がなかったことから電力供給をストップした。
そのまま春節の休暇に入り、３月１日に現場に戻ってエレベーターを修理しようとしたところ、中から遺体が見つかった。
死亡していたのはこの建物に住む４３歳の女性で、死後１カ月以上たっていた。
地元当局は、ビル管理とエレベーターのメンテナンス会社を訴追。検視の結果、女性が殺害された可能性はないと判断した。 | {
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Dilma Rousseff: BRICS Bank Won't Affect Brazilian Policy on IMF
07/17/2014 - 09h54
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FROM BRASÍLIA
One day after officially founding the bank of the BRICS (the political bloc composed of Brazil, China, Russia, India and South Africa), President Dilma Rousseff said that the institution will not affect Brazilian participation in multilateral institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
However, Rousseff said that the IMF does not reflect the current global balance of power.
"We haven't got the slightest interest in leaving the IMF," she said. "On the contrary, we're interested in making it more democratic and representative."
"The new BRICS bank isn't against the IMF, but it is in our interest. And it will always have a different stance in relation to developing countries," she added.
The five countries unveiled the bank on Tuesday, at the BRICS summit in Fortaleza. Its headquarters will be located in Shanghai.
The bloc also agreed on the release of US$ 50 billion to finance infrastructure products in the BRICS countries and in other developing nations.
Translated by TOM GATEHOUSE
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Autumn 1995 (3.3)
Pages 34-37, 82 Behind Soviet Aeronauts
Interview with General Karim Karimov
by Betty Blair
(Excerpts of this article have been translated into Azeri Latin in this issue).
Born on November 14, 1917, Karim Karimov grew up in Baku and has been involved in Soviet aeronautics from its inception after World War II. During his career, he rose to the highest position as Chairman of the State Commission, and supervised every stage of development and operation of both manned space complexes as well as unmanned interplanetary stations for the entire former Soviet Union.
Until 1987, even Azerbaijanis did not know that the man holding the Number One position in aerospace was an Azerbaijani. At televised space launchings, cameras always focused on the cosmonauts and not the person to whom they reported their readiness to carry out the mission. As Karimov was a "secreted general", he was always hidden from the camera's view; only his voice was broadcast.
General Karimov, now retired and serving as a consultant to the Mir shuttle, has recently published his first book, "The Way to Space: The Notes of the Chairman of the State Commission," (in Russian) in which he describes the entire birth and development of the aerospace industry of the former Soviet Union. The English version is scheduled to follow next year.
Here, published in English for the first time, are some of the memorable events which shaped General Karimov's career which he shared with Azerbaijan International's Executive Editor, Betty Blair, this past June in Baku. How did the Soviet Union get involved with aerospace? What were the early beginnings? The birth of rockets dates back to the end of World War II around 1945. Prior to that time, research of outer space had been forbidden as it was considered a waste of time. In fact, Stalin had had chief scientists, Nikolai Tupolev and Sergei Korolyov, arrested in 1938 and imprisoned for six years.
But then Stalin changed his mind when he heard that the Germans had produced rockets (surface-to-surface missiles) that were used in bombing London. Churchill, himself, informed Stalin. That's when he began to realize the potential for such technology and released his scientists to rush to Germany to study these rockets. Germany had attacked England from a distance of 300 kilometers-an unprecedented feat in the history of military warfare up to that time.
Left: End of a Good Mission. The "anonymous" (secreted) Chairman of the (Aeronautics) Commission, Karimov (right) was involved with all ceremonies when the cosmonauts were launched into space. TV cameras never showed Karimov. Photo was especially prepared for him. Mid 80s. Courtesy: Karim Karimov. Americans were also interested in studying German rocket phenomena. In fact, they beat us there. Intelligence teams from the U.S. followed their front-line troops, moving across Germany. This enabled them to amass considerable data, design drawings, as well as actual missiles. But more importantly, the Americans gained access to some of the best minds of the technical staff of Peenemünde where the launchings had taken place. They took these scientists, including Wernher von Braun, back to America to assist in rocketry development.
Korolyov, after being released from prison, was the first Soviet scientist to be sent to Germany. I was part of the team that joined him a few months later to study FAU II rockets. We returned with various supply parts from which we managed to reconstruct ten rockets and launch seven. It must have been exciting to have been involved with this emerging science from the very beginning. We didn't really understand the essence of what we were doing. We had no idea what would evolve. Our task was simply to create rockets. The further they could reach, the better. Our first efforts in 1950 were directly patterned after the German R-2 Rockets, the only exception was that ours had twice the range. Ours could travel 600 kilometers. Two years later, we produced rockets with the capability of 1500 kilometers. That's when it became clear that an inter-continental range of 10,000 kilometers was only a matter of time. Did you ever believe there would come a day when the Soviet Union and the United States would be cooperating together on space projects? Back in the 1950s and 60s, there was such intense competition between us. Space flights are not play toys; every single aspect of their journeys is highly calculated. Consequently, the space race became symbolic of the intellect of each nation; advanced technology signaled national superiority -at least, that's how it was perceived by both sides. Left: The "heavyweights" of Soviet Aeronautics: L-R, Current Chief of Russian Space Agency, Koptev Yuri Nikolayevich; Beregovoy Georgi Timofeyevich, current Deputy of Center for Preparation of Cosmonauts; Karimov; Mr. Afanasiev, Minister of Common Machinery Building. Karimov and Afanasiev are both retired now. Photo: mid-80s. Courtesy: Karimov. Americans didn't believe us when we first launched Sputnik (October 4, 1957), which was the first inter-continental satellite to circle the Earth. It made a complete cycle every 96 minutes. But the world soon realized our success wasn't just propaganda. The first day, nobody paid attention. But the next day, all the newspapers wrote about it.
After the Americans began taking interest in this accomplishment, then our own media started paying attention. Coverage, prior to that time, had been minimal-more like an obituary. Nobody valued our achievement or recognized its significance. Nobody understood what we had succeeded in doing. It was really Sputnik that would usher in the Space Age. A year later, in October 1958, the U.S. was to announce the creation of NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration). You were involved with the first manned spacecrafts, weren't you? Actually, the idea of sending a human being into space originated with Korolyov. At first it seemed like a fantasy, so unbelievable. His ideas were based on experiments which had been conducted with dogs in space. Eventually, Korolyov gained the support of the government and we began building "Vostok" with the idea of sending a man into space and returning him back safely to earth.
I'll never forget the morning when we launched our first manned spacecraft-April 12, 1961. It was a beautiful day at Baykonur Launching Center in Lenninsk near the Aral Sea in Kazakhstan. Cosmonauts, Yuri Gagarin, and his backup, Gherman Titov, had slept very comfortably the night before-in fact, much better than we had. We knew because, unknown to them, we had monitored their sleep via sensors under their beds. Liftoff was at 9:07 a.m. and less than two hours later at 10:55 a.m., the spacecraft had already circled the earth and landed. It was an incredible moment in history. What about the technology of joining spacecraft in orbit-how did the idea develop? The basis for the recent joining of the Soviet (now Russian) spacecraft, "Mir", and the American spacecraft, "Atlantis", dates back to October 30, 1967, when we succeeded in docking two satellites, Kosmos 186 and Kosmos 188, together in space. This achievement signified that we could begin building orbital stations that could make profound research about the Earth, space and other planets of the solar system.
Left: Inside the Spacelab Science Module, crew members of US Atlantis and Russian Mir space craft pose for the traditional inflight portrait.(June 27-July 7, 1995. Azerbaijan space scientists were involved in designing components for the Mir. Photo NASA. Once again, Korolyov was deeply involved in the process. He proposed that a separate chamber be built in spacecraft. Previous ships didn't have such compartments. This chamber would enable the ships to be autonomous for a greater length of time. And if an emergency arose, it could serve as a locked chamber. Unfortunately, Korolyov died in January 1966, three years before we succeeded in docking manned spacecraft.
His death was a terrible loss. It made me feel incredibly lonely. I had relied on him immensely as he was the Number One man in the industry up until that time. On every space mission, there is always incredible anxiety and pressure that something could go wrong and the mission end in failure and tragedy. With his passing, the entire responsibility fell upon me. What stands out in your mind as significant determining points in your career in aerospace? One of the first events occurred in 1960. My younger brother was flying back to Moscow from Vienna, on his first trip abroad. His plane crashed while landing at the Sheremetyevo Airport. Everyone on board was killed. It was such a tragic shock and so I asked my chief for a few days off to go to my brother's funeral. You have to remember we used to work seven days a week.
That's why on that fateful day, October 24, I wasn't at the Polygon to meet the high ranking State Commissioner, Field Marshal, Mitrofan Nedelin. It turns out that as they were conducting some final tests prior to launching, Nedelin refused to go down to the bunker and stood by to watch the procedure continue. But something malfunctioned, causing the rocket ignite and explode. Everyone standing around was instantly killed. Under normal circumstances, I would have been standing right beside Marshal Nedelin. It was such a mysterious twist of fate-that my brother's death, in essence, saved mine.
As far as space missions are concerned, the first tragedy occurred in 1966, when we sent up Vladimir Komarov in Soyuz I. Everything appeared normal at first, but it wasn't long before we started running into serious difficulty. By the time he started his descent, we were in trouble. The main parachute which was supposed to open at seven kilometers before landing got tangled and wouldn't open. There was nothing to break the ship's high velocity as it slammed into earth. Of course, many people believed that if Korolyov had still been alive, the accident would never have occurred.
There was talk about holding us personally accountable for his death. The chief constructor of the parachute, indeed, did lose his job, but since Brezhnev understood the nature of these projects, he didn't fire either me or Minister Afanasyev.
But it was overwhelmingly difficult to attend Komarov's funeral in Red Square. He had been one of our most experienced cosmonauts. Emotionally, I was under extreme pressure because this was the first time one of our cosmonauts had died. And yes, the West did know all about it; they even made a film about our loss.
But there's still another tragedy that I can never forget that deeply influenced our work. The year was 1971. The orbital station (Soyuz 10 and Soyuz 11) had docked and the crew, Dobrovolsky, Volkov, and Patseyev, had managed to conduct research for 24 days. When the spaceships disconnected from each other, all seemed normal. We didn't worry much when we lost connection with the crew as these thing sometimes happen and the craft was coming down without difficulty. The flight landed as expected. However, when we opened the hatch, we were shocked to find all three cosmonauts dead.
We later learned that the flight had proceeded normally until it reached a certain point in the descent. That's when the respiratory valve seems to have opened too early causing the life-sustaining air inside the ship to escape and creating sharp differences between the pressure in the atmosphere and the blood pressure of the cosmonauts. Because the men were operating in cramped quarters, they had not been wearing space suits and had no protection when the air leaked out. They had died within minutes before being able to correct the situation. Tell me about the beginnings of work for docking in space? In 1967, I conducted the experiment to join the two "Soyuz" spaceships. (Kosmos 186 and Kosmos 188) in orbit. The union involved electrical, hydraulic and pneumatic systems. We had been able to bring ships very close to each other before, but we had never actually joined them. Our success proved that an orbital station was possible.
When I reported our success to Brezhnev, he thanked us and an hour later, the Deputy Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers called me to say I had just been awarded the title of Lieutenant General. I had received the rank of General the first time when we launched Yuri Gagarin into space.
How many cosmonauts have you launched?
I haven't counted. But I was in that position 25 years and I launched all of them during that period. I almost didn't have a personal life. I used to work Saturdays and Sundays. I couldn't fall ill. I didn't have the right to get sick.
Despite all this, I'd have to admit I'm satisfied with my life except for the fact that I lost my wife very early on. She was only 50 when she died and, afterwards, I never remarried. I had met her at school; we had studied together. Why was it that you were never shown on TV when these launching ceremonies took place? First of all, I was a "secret" general. Previously, I had been in the sphere of strategic rockets (hydrogen bombs). Later, after being transferred to aeronautics (we had given that division the non-descript name of "Ministry of General Machinery"), they continued the tradition of keeping me secreted.
My name was first mentioned publicly in the newspaper, "Pravda", on August 7, 1987. After that, everybody started interviewing me. That was during Gorbachev's "Glasnost" and "Perestroika". Prior to that, I was known as the "nameless" or "anonymous" Chairman of the Commission. Did Westerners know who you were? I'm not sure that they did prior to 1987. But now they do, of course. Maybe they knew me but never said anything possibly because they knew they weren't supposed to know. A number of American journalists came to see me, and interviewed me but I'm not aware that they ever wrote anything. Tell me about your new book. It's called "The Way to Space: The Notes of the Chairman of the State Commission." Frankly speaking, much of the information that was made public was produced as propaganda. But after 1988, it became possible to write about me as I had been in the position to have participated in all the space flights. It was then that I was asked to write about what actually happened behind the scenes-many events had not been made known. People were curious about space missions so I offered to write about my activities and to document everything that I had experienced.
The book is very technical. In fact, it's my first published work. I wanted to write about each space flight with all its shortcomings as well as its benefits. Not a single flight went smoothly. The descriptions in the book are based on reports that I made to the State Commission. If anyone wants to discover any information about the dates, time of flights, their landings, it's all there. I tried not to hide anything. There had been rumors that Gagarin was not the first cosmonaut to go into space, but that wasn't true. I write about these kinds of things. Now that you've retired, how do you spend your time? I continued to hold the chairmanship of the Commission up until 1990 when I retired. These days I live on a farm and am busy with building and repairing. Since I have tools, I do everything myself. I get up at 6 o'clock, do morning exercises. I love to swim. Professionally, I continue to consult from time to time on projects such as Shuttle Mir. I've had incredible experiences in my life time, most of which I wouldn't trade for anything in the world.
Some Notable Firsts in Space Made by Soviet Aeronautics
First Satellite
Sputnik on October 4, 1957. Circled the earth every 96 minutes.
First Man in Space
Yuri Gagarin on April 12, 1961. Orbited the earth and landed in less than 2 hours
First Woman in Space
Valentina Tereshkova on June 16, 1963. for three days.
First Three Man Crew
Komarov, Yegorov and Feoktistov on October 12, 1964. The seating arrangement was so cramped the cosmonauts didn't wear pressure suits.
First Spacewalk
Belyayev and Leonov on March 18, 1965
First Spaceflight Fatality
Vladimir Komarov on Soyuz 1 launched on April 23, 1967 (Yuri Gagarin was backup). His parachute did not open upon descent.
First Automatic Docking - Forerunner of Space Orbiting Stations
Kosmos 186 with Kosmos 188 on October 1967
First Manned Space Station
Salyut 1 launched April 19, 1971
First International Crew - Czechoslovakia
| Soyuz 28, launched on March 2, 1978
First Partial Crew Exchange
Soyuz T-14 launched September 17, 1985
First Test Flight of a Space Shuttle
VKK-1 Buran launched on November 15, 1988
From Azerbaijan International (3.3) Autumn 1995.
© Azerbaijan International 1995. All rights reserved. Back to Index AI 3.3 (Autumn 1995)
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Month of May submission, submit one link to song. Will be streamed live on last Thursday of the month at 7PM and constructive feedback will be given. I will not bash, just trying to help other artists. | {
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Readers who have managed to keep up with the latest antics of what passes at the United States Congress will be aware that the reason Republican hardliners shut down the government was to force the President to delay – or to put it less politely, dismantle – his signature legislative achievement.
In a week in which all the talk was of shutdown, the most notable development here in Washington was something that opened up.
I refer to the launch of the online federal and state health exchanges that are a key feature of Obamacare, allowing those without health insurance to shop around for the best plan.
Yet in a splendid two-finger gesture by fate, on the very day that veterans' services, national parks and a host of other government functions were closing, the health exchanges, symbol of everything those Republicans detest about Obamacare, were opening for business.
True, the moment was pretty shambolic. Overwhelmed by visitors, the websites virtually seized up on day one, though things seemed to improve slightly as the week wore on. But it was a start, and let it never be forgotten what Obamacare is attempting: to bring the US in line with every other advanced industrial country and provide healthcare for all its citizens, irrespective of their means.
Others had tried it before. Harry Truman called for universal health insurance in the late 1940s, only to be described by Republican adversaries as a crypto-communist. Two decades later, Lyndon Johnson did push through Medicare and Medicaid for elderly and poor Americans. Not, however, before a certain aspiring conservative politician named Ronald Reagan predicted that Medicare would see Americans "spending their sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was like when men were free".
Then came Bill Clinton. Alas, he created the impression that a coterie of White House officials, led by his wife, Hillary, was trying to foist its pet ideas upon a suspicious country and he, too, failed. But in 2010, after a monumental fight, Obama's plan was finally approved by Congress.
Yet still Republicans continue their Canute-like refusal to accept the rules of democracy. No matter that the measure was signed by the President and ratified by the Supreme Court, or that Republicans resoundingly lost the 2012 presidential election in which Obamacare was a prime issue. The law, their leaders say, is a "monstrosity," a "trainwreck" that must be fought by every means, even if that means closing down the government.
Now, no one would argue that the reform is perfect. Even without the distortions and abuse peddled by the right- and left-wing media alike, it is extremely hard to understand. Nor will it cover absolutely everyone. If you started from scratch, you would almost certainly go for some form of single-payer system, a universal, government-funded scheme of the sort that Truman advocated.
Determined not to make the Clintons' mistake, Obama consulted with every interested party: Democrats and Republicans, hospitals, private insurers, doctors and the pharmaceutical companies. He bent over backwards to retain the existing structure of employer-based coverage, even dropping proposals for a "public option" favoured by the left as a way of keeping the private insurers honest. In doing so, he bowed, in effect, to the conservatives' argument that an alternative state-run insurance scheme would pave the way for a single-payer system.
But, as Obama has painfully discovered, offer Republicans an olive branch and they'll use it to whip you. Since 2010, the Republican-controlled House has passed no fewer than 42 resolutions seeking to overturn Obamacare (albeit knowing that the Senate would reject every one.) Now it has shut down the government, even though 70 per cent of the US public disapproves of the tactic, and even right-wing commentators argue that the way to get rid of Obamacare is via the ballot box, not blackmail. Elect a Republican president and a Republican Congress, they say, then repeal the thing.
At state level, where Republicans dominate, the sabotage of Obamacare is endless. Many states have failed to set up health exchanges. Citizens are being urged to flout the law and pay a fine rather than obey the individual mandate that requires them to buy insurance. Most inexcusable of all, a swathe of red states is refusing to expand Medicaid, which helps the poor. That will be critical for the success of Obamacare – even though the federal government is picking up 100 per cent of the cost for the first three years, and 90 per cent thereafter.
Why this scorched-earth opposition? After all, the mandate was originally a Republican idea, put forward by the impeccably conservative Heritage Foundation some two decades ago. Obamacare, moreover, is based on the healthcare reform enacted in Massachusetts in 2006 under the state's then governor, Mitt Romney – the Republicans' White House candidate in 2012. And at a simple human level, why oppose a law providing cover for 28 million people who don't have it?
One reason is Republicans' visceral dislike of Obama, on political, personal or racist grounds – or a blend of all three. Ideologically, they are terrified not that healthcare reform will fail, with the dire consequences they predict, but that it will succeed.
Success would strike at the very core of Republican belief, that government is bad for you and should be reduced to the bare minimum to sustain a functioning state. Despite public wariness of the law as a whole, several of its main provisions are extremely popular (as the once reviled Medicare now is.) If Obamacare works, Americans would feel better about government in general; the terrible monster erected by Republican demonology would be seen to be benign, after all. What price the party's electoral prospects then?
Belfast Telegraph | {
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Mark Finkle suggested that I do some speed testing, now that a native implementation of getElementsByClassName has landed in the Mozilla trunk (destined for Firefox 3).
So I went around and dug up all of the different, existing, implementations that I could find. Currently, implementations fall into one of three categories (with some straddling more than one):
Pure DOM
This usually involves a calls to .getElementsByClassName("*") and traversing through all matched elements, analyzing each element’s className attribute along the way. Generally, the fastest method is to use a pre-compiled RegExp to test the value of the className attribute.
This usually involves a calls to and traversing through all matched elements, analyzing each element’s attribute along the way. Generally, the fastest method is to use a pre-compiled RegExp to test the value of the className attribute. DOM Tree Walker
Is a less-popular means of traversing DOM documents by setting some simple parameters, as specified by the DOM Level 2 Spec. For example, you could traverse through all text nodes in a document (something that you can’t easily do in any other way).
Is a less-popular means of traversing DOM documents by setting some simple parameters, as specified by the DOM Level 2 Spec. For example, you could traverse through all text nodes in a document (something that you can’t easily do in any other way). XPath
The most recent technique, to be popularized, was the use of XPath to find elements by classname. The implementation is generally simple: Building a single expressions and letting the XPath engine traverse through the document, finding all the relevant elements.
I’ve chosen some implementations that were representative of each of these techniques.
An implementation using the DOM Level 2 Tree Walker methods. Builds a generic filter function and traverses through all elements.
document.getElementsByClass = function(needle) { function acceptNode(node) { if (node.hasAttribute("class")) { var c = " " + node.className + " "; if (c.indexOf(" " + needle + " ") != -1) return NodeFilter.FILTER_ACCEPT; } return NodeFilter.FILTER_SKIP; } var treeWalker = document.createTreeWalker(document.documentElement, NodeFilter.SHOW_ELEMENT, acceptNode, true); var outArray = new Array(); if (treeWalker) { var node = treeWalker.nextNode(); while (node) { outArray.push(node); node = treeWalker.nextNode(); } } return outArray; }
Uses a pure DOM implementation, tries to make some optimizations for Internet Explorer.
function getElementsByClassName(oElm, strTagName, strClassName){ var arrElements = (strTagName == "*" && oElm.all)? oElm.all : oElm.getElementsByTagName(strTagName); var arrReturnElements = new Array(); strClassName = strClassName.replace(/\-/g, "\\-"); var oRegExp = new RegExp("(^|\\s)" + strClassName + "(\\s|$)"); var oElement; for(var i=0; i<arrElements.length; i++){ oElement = arrElements[i]; if(oRegExp.test(oElement.className)){ arrReturnElements.push(oElement); } } return (arrReturnElements) }[/js] <h3><a href="http://www.dustindiaz.com/getelementsbyclass">Dustin Diaz's getElementsByClass</a></h3> A pure DOM implementation, caches the regexp, and is generally quite simple and easy to use. function getElementsByClass(searchClass,node,tag) { var classElements = new Array(); if ( node == null ) node = document; if ( tag == null ) tag = '*'; var els = node.getElementsByTagName(tag); var elsLen = els.length; var pattern = new RegExp("(^|\\s)"+searchClass+"(\\s|$)"); for (i = 0, j = 0; i < elsLen; i++) { if ( pattern.test(els[i].className) ) { classElements[j] = els[i]; j++; } } return classElements; }[/js] <h3><a href="http://prototypejs.org/">Prototype 1.5.0</a> (XPath)</h3> Mixes an XPath and DOM implementation; using XPath wherever possible. document.getElementsByClassName = function(className, parentElement) { if (Prototype.BrowserFeatures.XPath) { var q = ".//*[contains(concat(' ', @class, ' '), ' " + className + " ')]"; return document._getElementsByXPath(q, parentElement); } else { var children = ($(parentElement) || document.body).getElementsByTagName('*'); var elements = [], child; for (var i = 0, length = children.length; i < length; i++) { child = children[i]; if (Element.hasClassName(child, className)) elements.push(Element.extend(child)); } return elements; } };[/js] <h3><a href="https://johnresig.com/blog/getelementsbyclassname-in-firefox-3/">Native, Firefox 3</a></h3> A native implementation, written in C++; is a part of the current CVS version of Firefox, will be included in Firefox 3. document.getElementsByClassName
The Speed Results
For the speed tests I copied the Yahoo homepage into a single HTML file and used that as the test bed. They make good use of class names (both single and multiple) and is a considerably large file with lots of elements to consider.
You can find the test files, for each of the implementations, here:
https://johnresig.com/apps/classname/
Note: “XPath” is just Prototype’s implementation.
From these figures we can see that the native implementation of getElementsByClassName, in Firefox 3, is a full 8x faster than the XPath implementation. Additionally, it’s a stunning 77x faster than the fastest DOM implementation.
Note: These numbers have been revised from what was originally posted as the lazy-loading nature of document.getElementsByClassName wasn’t taken into account. The resulting arrays are completely looped-through now, making sure that all elements are accounted for.
Currently, Prototype has the best general-use implementation: Use XPath selectors wherever possible, fall back to fast DOM parsing.
Interestingly, only Prototype actually tries to implement the document.getElementsByClassName interface (all others do one-off names). However, Prototype doesn’t check to see if the document.getElementsByClassName property already exists, and completely overwrites the, incredibly fast, native implementation that Firefox 3 provides (oops!).
In all, the results are quite astounding. The native implementation is absolutely much faster than anything I could’ve imagined. It completely decimates all the other pieces of code. I can’t wait until this hits the general public – users will, absolutely, feel a significant increase in speed. | {
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The death of Ted Binion in September 1998 had all the ingredients of a yarn tailor-made for Las Vegas.
He was the son of the late Benny Binion, an iconic casino owner whose Horseshoe Club downtown gave rise to the World Series of Poker.
The younger Binion abused illicit drugs and alcohol. He had a beautiful girlfriend half his age who worked briefly as a stripper and cheated on him. He had a hoard of silver bullion and coins that were stolen from their underground vault in the desert. And he was found dead at age 55 in his posh ranch-style home.
The girlfriend and her lover — who had built the vault — were charged with murdering Binion and stealing the silver.
The culmination was a high-profile courtroom drama that attracted national media attention and was detailed by Las Vegas Sun senior investigative reporter Jeff German in his book, “Murder in Sin City.”
The book served as the inspiration for “Sex and Lies in Sin City: The Ted Binion Scandal,” a movie that will air at 9 p.m. Saturday on the Lifetime Network, cable television channel 26.
“This story had everything you could want in a plot,” German said. “It had drugs, love, betrayal, greed and buried treasure, all of this with Las Vegas as a backdrop.”
Binion’s girlfriend, Sandy Murphy, and her lover, Rick Tabish, initially were convicted in 2000 of murdering Binion and of burglarizing his vault for the silver, with Tabish also convicted of beating a sand pit owner.
With Murphy and Tabish arguing that Binion died of a drug overdose, the Nevada Supreme Court granted them a retrial on the murder and burglary charges. The high court ruled that Tabish should not have been tried in the same case for the beating and that the trial judge, Joseph Bonaventure, improperly allowed hearsay evidence.
Murphy and Tabish were convicted of burglary but acquitted of murder in the second trial. Murphy was released from prison in 2005, after which she moved to California. Tabish remains behind bars for the beating. Binion’s antique coin and currency collection, valued at $300,000, has never been recovered.
The film stars Mena Suvari of “American Beauty” fame as Murphy, Academy Award winner Marcia Gay Harden as Binion’s sister Becky Behnen, Matthew Modine as Ted Binion, and Johnathon Schaech as Tabish.
“Sex and Lies” follows Murphy’s stormy relationship with Binion and her affair with Tabish, a married Montana businessman. When Binion learns about Murphy’s affair, he asks his lawyer to take her out of his will. Within 24 hours, Murphy finds Binion dead in his home.
Behnen tells police she believes her brother was murdered. Tabish is later caught trying to steal the silver. He and Murphy are ultimately arrested and brought to trial.
A 30-year veteran of the Sun, German covered the initial six-week trial for the newspaper and then spent two months writing “Murder in Sin City.” The paperback book, published in 2001 by Avon Books, a subsidiary of HarperCollins Publishers Inc., has sold an estimated 50,000 copies. An additional four chapters that German wrote on the retrial and the aftermath will be available as early as today as an E-book that can be purchased online at harpercollins.com.
German, who was portrayed in the movie as the character Jay Green, praised the acting but had some reservations about the script.
“I think Sandy Murphy was portrayed a little too sympathetically in the movie for my taste and the Becky Behnen character was a little too strong,” German said. “But for the most part the story line followed the same course as the book.”
The film shoot was not without its difficulties. Suvari said by telephone that changes were made to tone down the script after Murphy threatened to sue the filmmakers.
“It was a little frustrating, but you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do,” Suvari said. “I still loved the project, but it was more challenging.”
Director Peter Medak said in a separate interview that most of “Sex and Lies” was shot in New Mexico rather than in Las Vegas because the filmmakers, the Konigsberg Company and Sony Pictures Television, were able to get a lucrative tax break in New Mexico that they could not get in Southern Nevada. He estimated that the film cost $5 million to $6 million to make.
Both Suvari and Medak came away from the project unsure of the extent, if any, to which Murphy and Tabish were involved in Binion’s death.
In playing Murphy, Suvari did not rely on her own experiences with Las Vegas and gambling. (She has won a World Poker Tour celebrity event.) Instead, the actress relied on the book and on televised media interviews with Murphy and footage of her courtroom appearances.
“Sandy wasn’t just a dumb blonde,” Suvari said. “She was an intelligent girl who had a couple of traumatic things happen to her when she was young. She was raped twice as a teenager and lost a lot of motivation. When she came to Vegas she gambled away $13,000 and became somewhat desperate. When she met Binion she genuinely cared for him a lot but it became a twisted relationship. His heroin addiction put their relationship to the test.”
Medak said Murphy’s lawyers contacted Sony Pictures but he knew few details and insisted he did not allow it to influence his filmmaking.
“Film studios are always petrified of lawsuits,” he said.
As for the story, Medak said “nobody really knows what happened in real life.”
“So I wanted to leave it open to interpretation so that the audience could make up their own mind and have conversations or argue about it,” he said. “I didn’t think it was up to me to give the absolute conclusion to it.” | {
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A A
By Parisa Hafezi
DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran on Sunday announced a 42% turnout in its parliamentary election, the lowest rate since the 1979 Islamic revolution, while its top leader said Tehran's enemies played up the new coronavirus threat to dissuade people from voting.
With Iran facing growing isolation and threats of conflict over its nuclear standoff with the United States, and increasing discontent at home, the turnout is seen as a referendum on the popularity of the Islamic republic's rulers.
"The turnout across the country was 42.57% ... In Tehran, it was around 25%. Across Iran, over 24 million people voted," Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli told a televised news conference. Turnout was 62% in the 2016 parliamentary vote and 66% of voters cast ballots in 2012.
The final results, announced by the Interior Ministry, showed big gains by hardline loyalists close to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the last say on all state matters.
In Tehran, a list of hardliners gained 30 seats for the capital, with former commander of the elite Revolutionary Guards, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, topping the list.
Qalibaf's pedigree as the Guards' air force commander, a war veteran and a national police chief has endeared him to Iran's supreme leader, bolstering his chances of becoming the next parliament speaker.
Khamenei, who on Friday said that voting was "a religious duty", blamed the low turnout on the "negative propaganda" about the new coronavirus by Iran's enemies.
"This negative propaganda about the virus began a couple of months ago and grew larger ahead of the election," said Khamenei, according to his official website Khamenei.ir.
"Their media did not miss the tiniest opportunity for dissuading Iranian voters and resorting to the excuse of disease and the virus."
Iran, which confirmed its first case of the new coronavirus two days before the polls, has announced 43 cases of the virus in four different cities, including Tehran. With eight deaths, Iran has the highest death toll from the new coronavirus outside of China, the homeland of the outbreak.
The parliament has no major influence on foreign affairs or Iran's nuclear policy, which are determined by Khamenei. But it might bolster hardliners in the 2021 contest for president and toughen Tehran’s foreign policy.
The United States’ 2018 withdrawal from Iran’s nuclear deal with world powers, and its reimposition of sanctions, have hit Iran’s economy hard.
The establishment's legitimacy was badly damaged after nationwide protests in November, which were met with a violent crackdown that deepened resentment over economic hardship and corruption.
The hardline Guardian Council, which must approve candidates, removed thousands of moderates and leading conservatives from the race by barring about 6,850 hopefuls from in favor of hardliners from among 14,000 applicants.
"Our people's participation in Friday's election was good," said Khamenei.
(Writing by Parisa Hafezi; editing by Philippa Fletcher, Jane Merriman, William Maclean) | {
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Recently, I found myself in unfamiliar territory as a teacher. This was sparked when I found myself in an argument with some students during an unplanned whole class discussion. Though I was out of my comfort zone, the conversation seemed deeply important—to me and the students. Eager to make the most of the learning opportunity, that evening I turned to my community on Facebook of all places. What followed was more learning and still more questions! As I plan my next steps, I want to share the conversation here.
Here's what I posted to my community on Facebook:
"Educators and others who think about social issues— I can use some help: I got into a conversation with students in English class today about sexism, brought up by a pattern (out of the classroom, but among our students) of middle schools boys making critical comments about girls' bodies.
In the course of an energized, basically positive conversation, some boys brought up that girls can be sexist, too. In a moment that I could have handled better, I argued against this, instead of probing further.
I explained ("teacher-splained"?) that sexism is a system that gives males power and undermines women and that is bigger than any one person's actions; that individual girls or women can stereotype men, be prejudiced toward them and can be oppressive toward individual men, but that men don't experience sexism, because it's a system that by definition gives them privilege. Many girls expressed agreement with this idea, but many vocal boys had a very hard time with the idea, and shared some examples of what they perceive as sexism by females in their lives.
We didn't get to finish, so we will continue the discussion tomorrow, but this pushed some buttons and I'll need to be thoughtful when I approach it tomorrow.
As I reflect, I'm wondering... doesn't this same system confine men to narrow, sometimes harmful definitions of masculinity? Is that sexism or heterosexism or just stereotyped gender roles? Is it a matter of degree? Do the -"isms" on some level affect everyone in a negative way, though power is totally uneven? Does the argument rely on looking at the history? Is violence a key factor?
Any help would be great because we will pick the conversation right back where we left off tomorrow."
What I got back in the form of comments from my assortment of friends and colleagues, not only helped me to think through a complex issue, but it showed me the great value of a diverse online community that includes teachers and non educators.
Here is the discussion that followed:
Molly, a filmmaker and author of the amazing new book Gamechangers: The Unsung Heroines of Sports History (English and History teachers take note!) wrote: "You could do a writing exercise where all students list the past 10 tv shows they have seen and 10 movies. From there have them list the main characters and describe the roles they played.......They might be surprised."
Jenna, a literacy program director said, "I feel like this could be an entire research and debate mini-unit. Could also be a great opportunity to read a bit from what other sources/writers/bloggers are saying about the topic and examine author bias. So great that you've opened this up for discussion. Good luck!"
This got me thinking. I replied, "I know! It would take us "off track"—I mean, my curriculum is a track I created so I do have the power to change course... I could actually turn it into a writing thread concurrent with our reading plan which will deal with stereotypes as well as racism (Sherman Alexie next)."
Bill, a teacher leader at a girls' school adds: "Two good film resources if you want are "Miss Representation" (on how patriarchy affects girls and women) and "The Mask You Live In" (on how patriarchy affects boys and men). I've done the first with my kids, and it's amazing. They're both from the same people.
I also find that patriarchy is often a useful term as it focuses on the system and not the individuals within it. I also tend to use the terms gender bias and gender stereotypes when talking at the individual level. My school being a feminist girls school, these kinds of issues tend to come up. "
Adam, ELA instructional leader in NYC, adds, "Lots of thoughts. Among them, different words have different meanings to different people. There could be an inquiry into whether power impacts whether "ism" applies, as we both would argue. That's an interesting intellectual exercise but could distract from issue of IMPACT, which seems most relevant here, along with causes of behavior in terms of where we get messages about what behavior is acceptable and how we decide to act - or just succumb to behaviors without making a conscious choice or perhaps because of felt social pressure... Also, it could be interesting to consider with respect to loved ones, and how people would feel about comments being directed towards mom or sister (and if different if directed towards dad or brother). I could go on but will leave it there for now."
I replied: "Yeah, the boys felt up in arms when I said they don't experience sexism. But it bothered me not so much that they felt this way, but that their reaction was so string, it completely overshadowed or distracted them from reflecting further about their own actions; meanwhile girls were nodding at what I was saying, in a relieved way, not a gloating way at all. The response couldn't have been more contrasting. The male students' responses reminded me a bit of how "white fragility" is being used in the issue of race conversations. Except that in this case, I do think gender stereotypes are quite damaging to adolescent boys. That's the part that is tripping me up. Anyway, understanding the impact is a good place to focus. And I think we will do much better if I step off the podium and let them investigate."
Amanda replied: "So curious to hear how it goes today. Will you update us Ariel?! I think it's a good practice to step back and see where the students take the discussion, as long as it remains a safe space for dialogue."
Brielle, a math teacher in NJ writes, "I agree with your explanation as it is consistent with how I frame racism and who is racist versus prejudiced. But when we talk about racism, there's an opportunity for people to be anti-racist. Do the boys in your class see themselves in a way that could be considered anti-sexist? Or what would that mean to them?"
Amber, former ESL teacher, shares this lesson plan on diagramming sexism from teaching tolerance. She adds, "Could be interesting to have them look up various definitions of sexism-for example the one in the lesson above states it is only against women, but the Merriam dictionary says 'especially ' women but not necessarily."
Liliana, ELA teacher in NYC writes: "...that it "confines men to narrow harmful definitions of masculinity" stands out to me and feels important. I once saw a TED talk that spoke beautifully about this... I'll see if I can find it. Beautiful that you're having these conversations. All the best tomorrow."
Suzanne, ELA teacher in California, adds, "Maybe too late for tomorrow, but check out react-text: 1150 http://therepresentationproject.org/ /react-text . Misrepresentation is a good documentary about gender stereotypes and representation of females in media and how it can affect. More recently she made The Mask You Live In, a documentary about stereotypes and cultural norms around masculinity and how they affect teen boys. The Mask You Live In has been on my Netflix queue for over a year now, and I still haven't watched it for no good reason. (Waiting to be pedagogically in that mind space?) I suspect both films would be fantastic to spend a lot of time on in class along with other readings.
Dalnirys, a guidance counselor in Dominican Republic, explained that she doesn't the stereotypes and discrimination toward women and other groups of today doesn't differ too much from that of the past. She also sees that feminism can sometimes be taken too far to seemingly promote inequality.
Marie, who teaches in Michigan offered, "I did a visual rhetoric unit this year with a focus on power structures/ roles. A quick look at children's toys/ ads can establish both the message and the messenger that kids absorb at an early age... Mermaids in bikinis?"
"Another access point is Disney," adds John, an art teacher and education professor in North Carolina.
Deanna, who teaches at a Jewish Day School in Chicago brings up an important point: "The first thing I thought about was the gender gap in education: that girls graduate HS, and enroll in and graduate college at higher rates than boys in the US. What is it about the system that could be behind this? This might be another area for your students to research. Here's one article that quotes a relevant study: Boys vs. Girls: What's behind the college grad gender gap?
Nat, a playwright, sparked my thinking with another excellent point: "Sexism against men is a form of misogyny. Toxic masculinity requires that anything deemed "feminine" must be cut away from male-bodied people. If boys say 'But girls get to ____ and we don't!', ask them why they aren't allowed to do those things. The answers will come down to "it's girly/weak and therefore bad. Girls are actually permitted a much fuller range of gender expression because we have fought to gain masculine space and expression, while boys have it categorically denied. Think about how a mom is accused of child abuse if her son wears a dress, but making an analogous claim about a girl in pants is actually laughable. Masculinity is associated with freedom. A girl in pants can do more and move more. Femininity is associated with limitation. A boy in a dress = why? What can he do in it? He's not allowed to be considered beautiful or to be objectified. Femininity is seen as taxing, so impossible to be employed for net gain."
I chimed in, "I'd add... by patriarchy. There are many who can find power in their own sense of femininity, though it's impossible to detangle from cultural constructs that influence us, there are authentic responses which can challenge power structures. I know you're not denying this but still wanted to say it!
Jon shares, "As a mom who raised boys, i can see where your boys would make an objection to such a closed definition of the word sexism..."
Glenda suggested designing kind of simulation experience that could help students reflect on the issue. Shebah responded, "Yes, the "walk in my shoes" simulation would be highly effective in creating empathy and cementing comprehension on a visceral, and not simply theoretical/mental level...you could do this based on historical timelines, where boys experience the subjugation of not being able vote, for example."
Sarah, a poet in Washington, hit on an important factor in the debate with students: "It's also interesting that in their own daily lives boys often experience authority figures who are mostly women. So there's some cognitive dissonance to see larger cultural dynamics at the same time."
I responded, "This tension came up today. A male student shared a story of a teacher in elementary school who behaved in a way that's hard not to view as sexist. She apparently didn't teach the boys to tie their shoes because they "don't care" to learn. And because, as the student recalls, she said the girls were smarter. 😠 hard to hear of this kind of thing coming from a fellow teacher."
Bill added, "One point I didn't bring up this morning but which your kids might have mentioned is how all of this relates to non-binary identities and gender non-conforming people. Both of those identities and ways of being are defined in opposition to something and not from within. What are the implications of that? What does society's reaction to the expansion of the gender spectrum tell us about society? about patriarchy?"
This conversation totally opened up my thinking on these big, pressing questions of adolescence and adulthood!
I posted this update the next day:
"Quick update: we talked for a whole period and they did not want to stop. I mostly just facilitated. I promised we would continue, but probably dividing into small groups to look into different subtopics that came up and which were NOT resolved! There is so much interest and need to discuss these issues. I'll try to update more specifically on some of the conversation later. Thank you for the discussion and ideas! It's been so helpful and encouraged me to keep giving the students space. The participation by students has been overwhelming. I think even if we don't arrive at some of the key understandings I want to see, they are getting a huge lesson about the value of a community/ democratic(?) forum, where they are able to speak and listen to a diverse group--not just their friends-- on a topic that matters."
It's been about a month and students have continued asking for more time to discuss this. So now I'm revisiting and planning how to do that. If you have any resources, comments or suggestions, please share!
Image by Flickr user arno_bxl licensed under Creative Commons | {
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In the race to the 2017 Gujarat elections, Archbishop Thomas Macwan of the Archdiocese of Gandhinagar issued a letter calling on people to join hands to defeat “nationalist forces” and prevent them from “taking over the country”.
The Archbishop’s letter, dated 21 November 2017, says that “the secular and democratic fabric of our country is at stake,” and calls for his peers in churches across India to organise prayers to elect people to the Gujarat State Assembly who would remain faithful to the Constitution, and not engage in discrimination. | {
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Okinawa Marines can stay in bars, but can't drink after midnight
Marines on Okinawa are no longer allowed to drink alcohol after midnight at off-base bars and restaurants, according to a revised Liberty Campaign Order issued this month.
The order does allow them to remain in the bars, “but public consumption of alcohol is no longer authorized after midnight,” according to a Marine Corps news release announcing the change. “In the order, public consumption means drinking any alcohol off of a U.S. military installation, except when consumed in an off-base private residence.”
Under the old order, Marines had to leave bars and nightclubs at midnight but were allowed to continue drinking in restaurants until 2 a.m.
The changes to the liberty order -- which applies to all Marines, regardless of their level of liberty privileges, duty status or rank -- were made following an annual review of the policy, according to III Marine Expeditionary Force media relations officer 1st Lt. Lindsay Pirek. The majority of off-base liberty incidents involving servicemembers and alcohol occurs between midnight and 5 a.m., Marine officials said.
“It is our duty to conduct ourselves in a professional manner at all times,” Lt. Gen. Kenneth J. Glueck Jr., III Marine Expeditionary Force commanding general and Marine Corps Bases Japan commander, said in the release.
The reason for the change is to reduce the number of incidents, not to punish servicemembers, according to Sgt. Maj. Steven D. Morefield, III MEF sergeant major.
“Honorable conduct is something that is not only valued by our military personnel, but is something our host nation respects and expects from all of us,” Morefield was quoted in the release as saying. “It is our duty to act responsibly, honorably and to police our own on this issue.”
Courtesy patrols will enforce the order where possible but, for them most part, it will be up to individual Marines to follow it as a matter of honor, Pirek said.
“The Marine Corps can’t police everything,” she said. “But if an incident does happen (and Marines are found to have been drinking off-base after midnight) they will be held accountable.”
Junior sailors and Marines on Okinawa are issued red liberty cards when they leave the base, meaning they must travel with a so-called liberty buddy and be back by midnight.
Troops with exemplary records can get a gold liberty card, which entitles them to stay-off base after midnight. These gold cards can be given to Marines and sailors ranked E-3 and above under the new order.
Previously, E-3s were not eligible for gold liberty cards.
[email protected] | {
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Interested in reading this tutorial as one of many chapters in my GraphQL book? Checkout the entire The Road to GraphQL book that teaches you to become a fullstack developer with JavaScript.
There are many people out there questioning how to deal with local data in a React application when using Apollo Client for remote data with its queries and mutations. As shown in previous applications, it can be done with React's local state management. When the state management for the local data reaches a point where it becomes too complex, it may be beneficial to introduce a state management library such as Redux or MobX. However, this leaves the issue of not having a single source of truth as state. There are two state layer then. This topic is revisited later in another application, where I will point out how to use Redux side by side with Apollo Client.
In this section though, I want to show how to use apollo-link-state instead of introducing Redux or MobX in a React example application. When using Apollo Link State, the Apollo Client Cache becomes your single source of truth for state. It manages remote data and local data then. It is important to note that Apollo Link State makes only sense when having a GraphQL backend which is consumed by Apollo Client in the frontend. Only then the Apollo Link State add-on can be used as state management solution for the local data.
However, it is still important to remember that React's local state is often sufficient when dealing with co-located state, which is not reaching outside to the general application but is close to its components, even though there is a sophisticated state management layer in place. You apply the same rules as for introducing Redux or MobX: React's local state stays important even with sophisticated state management solutions such as Redux, MobX or Apollo Link State. Not everything belongs in the global state which is established by these libraries.
Table of Contents
Setup of Apollo Link State: Resolvers and Defaults
Before you can start to set up Apollo Link State in your React with Apollo Client application, you have to create a boilerplate project or use an existing project that is out there. In a previous section, you have built a minimal Apollo Client with React application which you will use as your starter project now. You can find it in this GitHub repository for cloning it.
In this boilerplate application, you have managed a list of identifiers that represent selected repositories in the local state of a React component. In order to manage the list of identifiers in Apollo Client's Cache instead of React's local state, you have to install Apollo Link State on the command line first. In addition, you have to install the Apollo Link package for combining multiple links for your Apollo Client creation.
npm install -- save apollo - link apollo - link - state
Now comes to the Apollo Link State setup, but as you have learned before, Apollo Links can be composed in a straight forward way by using the Apollo Link package. You have already set up the Apollo HTTP Link. Now it is accompanied by the Apollo Link State in the composition. The composed link can then be used by the Apollo Client creation.
import React from 'react' ; import ReactDOM from 'react-dom' ; import { ApolloProvider } from 'react-apollo' ; import { ApolloClient } from 'apollo-client' ; import { ApolloLink } from 'apollo-link' ; import { HttpLink } from 'apollo-link-http' ; import { withClientState } from 'apollo-link-state' ; import { InMemoryCache } from 'apollo-cache-inmemory' ; ... const stateLink = withClientState ( { cache , defaults : { } , resolvers : { } , } ) ; const link = ApolloLink . from ( [ stateLink , httpLink ] ) ; const client = new ApolloClient ( { link , cache , } ) ; ...
It is important to have the stateLink not far away from the end of your link chain, but it shouldn't be the last terminating link (in this case the httpLink ) which makes the network requests. If you would add the Apollo Link Error package, the stateLink should come after it, so that the errorLink can deal with the errors on behalf of it.
The withClientState() is a new function from Apollo Link State to create an instance of the link. It takes an object with a Apollo Client Cache instance, defaults and resolvers. You already have the cache, so what's left to explain are the defaults and resolvers.
The Apollo Link State Defaults are used to define an initial state for the Apollo Client's Cache. After all, the Apollo Link State is used to manage a state object. So it is mandatory to have an initial state for it. Otherwise your later introduced local queries and mutations may hit an undefined local state which would lead to an error.
The Apollo Link State Resolvers is a map of mutation and query functions for implementing the logic of these local GraphQL operations. If you have implemented a GraphQL server before, you may be aware of these resolver functions already. For instance, in case of a query, they may be used to retrieve the remote data from a database. On the other side, in case of a mutation, they are used to alter the remote data in the database. That's for the server-side though. On the client-side, you can define those resolver functions when using Apollo Link State too. But they are used to retrieve local data from the local state or to alter local data in the local state. The normal case is that there is no remote data involved at all.
In your setup, the resolvers and defaults are empty objects. You will use both of them in the next sections to read and write local data to your local state with Apollo Link State instead of using React's local state for it. This way, you will have a better understanding of what they are really used for.
Apollo Link State for Local State: Read Data
So how to read and write data to the local state? You will do it with GraphQL queries and mutations, but this time they will be used for local data instead of remote data. That's why you have set up Apollo Link State to manage this local data for you instead of React's local state.
First, let's give the defaults a filled initial state object when creating the Apollo Link State instance for the sake of querying it afterward. In your application, you have queried a list of repositories before. Since the local state in Apollo Link State should store a list of repository identifiers to keep track of selected repositories, you can insert one of the queried repository identifiers in it. This repository should be pre-selected then when starting the application. In the case of the the-road-to-learn-react organization which you may have queried before, one of the queried repositories has the id MDEwOlJlcG9zaXRvcnk2MzM1MjkwNw== . So you can go with this one in your initial state object and use the object for the defaults configuration.
... const initialState = { selectedRepositoryIds : [ 'MDEwOlJlcG9zaXRvcnk2MzM1MjkwNw==' ] , } ; const stateLink = withClientState ( { cache , defaults : initialState , resolvers : { } , } ) ; ...
Second, since this state is defined in the local state of Apollo Link State, you can remove React's local state for the list of repository identifiers from the Repository component. In addition, you can remove the handler which toggles the repository selection. After removing all this implementations, the Repositories component becomes a functional stateless component again.
const Repositories = ( { repositories } ) => ( < RepositoryList repositories = { repositories } selectedRepositoryIds = { selectedRepositoryIds } /> ) ;
So where does the list of selected repository identifiers come from? Since they are in Apollo Client's Cache due to Apollo Link State and not in React's local state anymore, you can query them with a normal GraphQL query and the Query component which you have used before for querying remote data. This time they are used for querying local data though.
const GET_SELECTED_REPOSITORIES = gql ` query { selectedRepositoryIds @client } ` ; ... const Repositories = ( { repositories } ) => ( < Query query = { GET_SELECTED_REPOSITORIES } > { ( { data : { selectedRepositoryIds } } ) => ( < RepositoryList repositories = { repositories } selectedRepositoryIds = { selectedRepositoryIds } /> ) } </ Query > ) ;
The query for local data works almost identical to the query for remote data. There is only one difference: the @client directive. As you may have learned before, there exist directives such as the @skip or @include directive in the GraphQL specification. Apollo came up with an own directive to annotate objects and fields in a query (or mutation) as local data. Basically the @client directive tells Apollo Client Cache to look up the data in the local state instead of doing a network request.
Just for the sake of demonstration, the @client directive affects all underlying fields too. So when annotating a field which fields itself, all the underlying fields are derived from the local state too.
const GET_SELECTED_REPOSITORIES = gql ` query { repositoryInformation @client { selectedRepositoryIds } } ` ;
Since a GraphQL operation is fine-tuned of a field level, the @client directive can be used for only a part of the data. All the remaining fields are fetched by using a network request with the Apollo HTTP Link. The following query gives you an example of how one query can be used to fetch local data and remote data.
const GET_SELECTED_REPOSITORIES = gql ` query { repositoryInformation @client { selectedRepositoryIds } organization { name url } } ` ;
Nevertheless, let's stick to the initial implementation of the query for not adding too much noise and keeping the example simple.
const GET_SELECTED_REPOSITORIES = gql ` query { selectedRepositoryIds @client } ` ;
When you start your application again, you should see that one of the repositories is selected, because you have defined the identifier in the defaults of the Apollo Link State initialization. Basically it is pre-selected because of the initial state. It is similar to telling React's local state to have an initial state:
class SomeComponent extends Component { state = { selectedRepositoryIds : [ 'MDEwOlJlcG9zaXRvcnk2MzM1MjkwNw==' ] , } render ( ) { ... } }
The only difference is that Apollo Link State manages a global state and React' local state only a component co-located state. After all, by using Apollo Link State, you have made your state globally accessible by using GraphQL queries.
The reading local data part of the equation works. What about the writing local data part then? The Select component is broken as it is now, because in the last implementation the toggleSelectRepository() callback function was removed since it cannot be used anymore to update the identifiers in React's local state. The state lives in Apollo Client Cache now.
Apollo Link State for Local State: Write Data
You have seen how a GraphQL query is used for reading local data from the local state in the previous section. That's half of what GraphQL operations are used for (for the savvy reader: this statement is wrong, because it is only true if you don't include GraphQL subscriptions). The second half is writing local data to the local state. Whereas you have used previously a GraphQL query to read local data, now you will use a GraphQL mutation to write local data to the local state. In the Select component, you can remove the toggleSelectRepository() callback function which was used before to update React's local state that was removed in a previous step. In addition, the function can be removed from the RepositoryList component too.
const RepositoryList = ( { repositories , selectedRepositoryIds } ) => ( < ul > { repositories . edges . map ( ( { node } ) => { const isSelected = selectedRepositoryIds . includes ( node . id ) ; const rowClassName = [ 'row' ] ; if ( isSelected ) { rowClassName . push ( 'row_selected' ) ; } return ( < li className = { rowClassName . join ( ' ' ) } key = { node . id } > < Select id = { node . id } isSelected = { isSelected } /> { ' ' } < a href = { node . url } > { node . name } </ a > { ' ' } { ! node . viewerHasStarred && < Star id = { node . id } /> } </ li > ) ; } ) } </ ul > ) ; ... const Select = ( { id , isSelected } ) => ( < button type = " button " onClick = { ( ) => { } } > { isSelected ? 'Unselect' : 'Select' } </ button > ) ;
Since the state managed by Apollo Link State is global now, you don't need to pass any callback functions anymore. Instead, identical to the reading local state part with the GraphQL query and Query component, you can use the Mutation component from React Apollo and a GraphQL mutation to write data to the state.
const SELECT_REPOSITORY = gql ` mutation($id: ID!, $isSelected: Boolean!) { toggleSelectRepository(id: $id, isSelected: $isSelected) @client } ` ; ... const Select = ( { id , isSelected } ) => ( < Mutation mutation = { SELECT_REPOSITORY } variables = { { id , isSelected } } > { toggleSelectRepository => ( < button type = " button " onClick = { toggleSelectRepository } > { isSelected ? 'Unselect' : 'Select' } </ button > ) } </ Mutation > ) ;
The GraphQL mutation for local data isn't any different from a mutation used for remote data except for the @client directive. The directive was used for the local query too in order to signalize Apollo Client that it is a local mutation, because there is no remote data involved here.
Almost identical to the toggleSelectRepository() callback function which was used before to update React's local state, the exposed mutation function toggleSelectRepository() gets implicit access to the id and isSelected values via the variables in the Mutation component.
The big question mark: How to define on the client-side what happens after executing this mutation? If you would send this mutation to your GraphQL server, a resolver would take care about it. So that's why you can define those resolvers for your local state on the client-side, only when using Apollo Link State, as well. You can define a resolver function for the actual toggleSelectRepository mutation which you have used in the previously defined GraphQL mutation.
const initialState = { selectedRepositoryIds : [ ] , } ; const toggleSelectRepository = ( _ , { id , isSelected } , { cache } ) => { ... } ; const stateLink = withClientState ( { cache , defaults : initialState , resolvers : { Mutation : { toggleSelectRepository , } , } , } ) ; ...
A client-side resolver function has the same signature as an usually on the server-side used resolver function. The arguments are parent , args , context and info .
In this example, the info argument isn't needed and thus doesn't appear in the function signature. The same applies for the parent argument, but it appears in the signature because it is the first argument of it. It can be named _ to keep it out of your sight, because it isn't used for the mutation in this example. You may wonder when you would need the parent argument. You may only need it when your query or mutation becomes deeply nested and fields in the particular operation need to be resolved with their own resolver functions which would naturally lead to multiple resolver functions. Then the parent argument can be used to pass results from one to another resolver function. In our case, you can ignore the parent argument because it is not needed. However, if you are curious,you can read more about it.
After all, you only need the args and context arguments. While the former has all the parameters which where provided as GraphQL arguments to the GraphQL mutation, the latter has access to the Apollo Client's Cache instance. Thus, both can be used to write the local data to the local state.
Before you can write data to the local state, you often need to read data from it in order to update it. In this case, you need to read the list of selected repositories from the local state in order to update it with the new selected or unselected identifier. Therefore, you can use the same query which you have used in your Repositories component. In order to use it in the src/index.js file for the resolver function, you have to export it from the src/App.js file first:
export const GET_SELECTED_REPOSITORIES = gql ` query { selectedRepositoryIds @client } ` ;
Afterward, you can import it in the src/index.js file for your resolver function:
import App , { GET_SELECTED_REPOSITORIES } from './App' ;
Finally, as first step, the query can be used in the resolver function to retrieved the list of selected repository identifiers. The cache instance offers methods such as readQuery() or readFragment() to read data from it. That's why you had to import the query.
const toggleSelectRepository = ( _ , { id , isSelected } , { cache } ) => { let { selectedRepositoryIds } = cache . readQuery ( { query : GET_SELECTED_REPOSITORIES , } ) ; ... } ;
In the second step, the list of selected repository identifiers can be updated with the provided information in the args argument.
const toggleSelectRepository = ( _ , { id , isSelected } , { cache } ) => { let { selectedRepositoryIds } = cache . readQuery ( { query : GET_SELECTED_REPOSITORIES , } ) ; selectedRepositoryIds = isSelected ? selectedRepositoryIds . filter ( itemId => itemId !== id ) : selectedRepositoryIds . concat ( id ) ; ... } ;
Third, the updated data can be written with one of the writeData() , writeQuery() or writeFragment() methods that are available for the cache instance in order to write data. In this case, since the data was read with the readQuery() method, it makes most sense to write it again with the analogous method writeQuery() because then it matches the identical data structure requirements.
const toggleSelectRepository = ( _ , { id , isSelected } , { cache } ) => { let { selectedRepositoryIds } = cache . readQuery ( { query : GET_SELECTED_REPOSITORIES , } ) ; selectedRepositoryIds = isSelected ? selectedRepositoryIds . filter ( itemId => itemId !== id ) : selectedRepositoryIds . concat ( id ) ; cache . writeQuery ( { query : GET_SELECTED_REPOSITORIES , data : { selectedRepositoryIds } , } ) ; ... } ;
Last but not least, a mutation result should be returned. In this case, no result is needed in the previously used Mutation component, so it can be null.
const toggleSelectRepository = ( _ , { id , isSelected } , { cache } ) => { let { selectedRepositoryIds } = cache . readQuery ( { query : GET_SELECTED_REPOSITORIES , } ) ; selectedRepositoryIds = isSelected ? selectedRepositoryIds . filter ( itemId => itemId !== id ) : selectedRepositoryIds . concat ( id ) ; cache . writeQuery ( { query : GET_SELECTED_REPOSITORIES , data : { selectedRepositoryIds } , } ) ; return null ; } ;
That's it for writing local data in Apollo's local state by using a GraphQL mutation which is only used locally. Once you start your application again, the select interaction should work. But this time, the data is stored and retrieved in/from Apollo Link State by using GraphQL operations instead of React's local state.
Last but not least, for the sake of mentioning it, when you would want to add a result to your mutation, you could start out by adding the wanted fields in the mutation definition:
const SELECT_REPOSITORY = gql ` mutation($id: ID!, $isSelected: Boolean!) { toggleSelectRepository(id: $id, isSelected: $isSelected) @client { id isSelected } } ` ;
Next, the resolver function can return the updated result:
const toggleSelectRepository = ( _ , { id , isSelected } , { cache } ) => { let { selectedRepositoryIds } = cache . readQuery ( { query : GET_SELECTED_REPOSITORIES , } ) ; selectedRepositoryIds = isSelected ? selectedRepositoryIds . filter ( itemId => itemId !== id ) : selectedRepositoryIds . concat ( id ) ; cache . writeQuery ( { query : GET_SELECTED_REPOSITORIES , data : { selectedRepositoryIds } , } ) ; return { id , isSelected : ! isSelected } ; } ;
And finally you would be able to access it in the Mutation's render prop child function as second argument.
const Select = ( { id , isSelected } ) => ( < Mutation mutation = { SELECT_REPOSITORY } variables = { { id , isSelected } } > { ( toggleSelectRepository , result ) => ( < button type = " button " onClick = { toggleSelectRepository } > { isSelected ? 'Unselect' : 'Select' } </ button > ) } </ Mutation > ) ;
In the end, you should be able to access the result with the previous implementations. However, in the case of this mutation it is not really needed. In case you need it in the future, you have the necessary knowledge to do it. The application which you have implemented in the previous sections can be found here as GitHub repository.
Implement select and unselect all repositories in the list mutations
Implement a batch star and unstar mutation for all selected repositories
Async Query Resolver and Device Data
You will not go any deeper implementation wise for this application. Instead, this last paragraph should only give you an outline what's possible with Apollo Link State. Foremost, Apollo Link State is used for local data which is created in the client application by having user interactions while having Apollo Client itself for remote data. You have used both kinds of data in the previous application. But what about other data? For instance, there could be device data which can be queried from a mobile phone when using Apollo Client there. Then you can use Apollo Link State as well. You can define a async query resolver in your Apollo Link State resolvers when setting up Apollo Client with Apollo Link State. In this resolver you can define your query (as you have done with your mutation before) and its implementation: how it accessed the device API (with optionally given arguments) and how it returns the result. In case you are interested in this topics, you have to dig deeper into the Apollo Link State documentation. One could argue that every other side-effect can be done in Apollo Link State too. For instance, you can perform requests to other API endpoints in a query resolver too. However, you should be cautious when mixing different use cases into Apollo Link State. It's main focus is local data after all.
The last application has shown you how to use Apollo Link State instead of React's local state to establish state management in your application for local and remote data. As mentioned, the use case isn't the best choice to demonstrate Apollo Link State, because the local data which is manage as state is only needed in one component. It would be the best choice to keep this data in React's local state to have it co-located to your component. However, if you imagine a scenario where this local data is needed and thus shared across the whole application, it might be a valid step to manage it in Apollo Link State (instead of Redux or another state management solution). Then the Apollo Client's Cache becomes the single source of truth for remote data and local data. | {
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PM refuses to comment when asked how involved he is in his children’s lives
Boris Johnson has refused to disclose how many children he has or whether he is involved in their lives, in an appearance on a radio phone-in show during which he was questioned over past comments about single mothers.
Answering listeners’ questions on LBC, Johnson was challenged by one caller about an article he wrote in 1995 in which he blamed single mothers for “producing a generation of ill-raised, ignorant, aggressive and illegitimate children.”
The caller, Ruth from Oldham, said: “I am a single mother. I don’t appreciate what you have said about single mothers, and by implication my family. Why are you happy to criticise people like me, when you refuse to discuss your family?”
It is known that Johnson has four children with his estranged wife, Marina, and it is believed he has one or possibly more offspring from other relationships, though Johnson has always refused to discuss this.
Johnson told Ruth he meant “absolutely no disrespect to you, or indeed to anybody” in the Spectator article, in which he also argued that social housing available to single mothers was “an enticement” for them to become pregnant.
Johnson went on: “But these are 25-year-old quotations culled from articles from before even I was in politics, and when you actually look at the article itself it bears no resemblance to what is claimed. Frankly, what it is is yet another attempt by the Labour party to distract from the fundamental issue at the heart of this election.”
The prime minister repeatedly, without presenting evidence, said claims that he had expressed sexist and racist opinions in articles were misrepresenting his view.
In a more recent article he described Muslim women who wear a burqa as looking like a “bank robber” or “letterbox”.
Johnson said on LBC: “Almost invariably, when you look at these articles, you will find that the actual piece is saying the opposite of what is claimed.”
The show’s host, Nick Ferrari, then pressed Johnson on how many children he had.
“I think what people what to hear is what plans we have,” Johnson replied. “I love my children very much but they are not standing at this election and I’m not therefore going to comment.”
Asked if he was “fully and wholly involved in all their lives”, Johnson again refused to comment, saying: “I am not going to put them on to the pitch in this election campaign.”
Pressed further on the tone of his articles, Johnson again apologised if offence was taken, but declined to rescind any of the stated views.
“When I write this stuff, I never set out to cause pain or hurt,” he said. “I really do want to make sure that everybody feels that they are valued, that they face no prejudice, that they face no discrimination.”
The shadow education secretary, Angela Rayner, criticised Johnson’s comments. She said: “He tried to deny what he wrote but the evidence is there in black and white for us all to see, proving once again that he’s a liar as well as a sexist.
“According to Boris Johnson, when I was a young single mum I should have been pushed into ‘destitution on a Victorian scale’. Johnson appallingly and hypocritically claims that children of single mums are ‘ill-raised, ignorant, aggressive and illegitimate’.”
Elsewhere on the hour-long show, Johnson declined to say whether he would follow other party leaders in submitting to a BBC interview by Andrew Neil, saying: “I’m much happier, frankly, to talk about my policies, what we’re doing for the people of this country, rather than endlessly talking about media and process.”
On Brexit, he guaranteed the UK would leave the EU “at the latest” on 31 January under a Conservative government. He declined to say what would happen if this deadline was not met.
“If we get a working majority in the House of Commons, I absolutely guarantee we will be out on 31 January. I am making no saving clauses,” he said. | {
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Girls Do What They W... | {
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EA recently published a sizable online update from two of Battlefield 5’s designers; Florian Le Bihan, the game’s Core Gameplay Designer, and Julian Schimek, its Weapon Designer. The pair discussed how the team at DICE had improved Battlefield 5 gunplay and other combat mechanics.
Battlefield 5 Gunplay and Its Improvements
Bihan and Schimek discuss the mindset of the development team at DICE. Specifically, they focus on how they improved the Battlefield franchise’s existing weapon mechanics. Striving for realism in the many factors which affect gunplay, such as muzzle velocity, bullet drop, and so on. Thus, the team needed to balance complexity with accessibility; “That was something that all of us on the Core Gameplay Team really wanted to improve upon for Battlefield V;” states Bihan; “so players will have an easier time understand a weapon’s behavior. We invested a huge amount of time working on solutions because we want players to have greater control over their shooting experience, and to clearly show what’s happening with a weapon.”
Rewriting Code and Improving Physicality
To do this, the team couldn’t simply build upon the systems of previous games. They had to rewrite major sections of the game’s weapon logic. Julian Schimek cited Battlefield 3 as a major source of inspiration. “In Battlefield 3,” he explains; “weapon base accuracy was very high when using the Heavy Barrel attachment, which allows players to reliably hit distant targets by reducing barrel whip. Drawing inspiration from older Battlefield games has led to many positive gunplay changes for Battlefield V, like dispersion decreasing constantly and not linearly.”
Another area which the team wanted to emphasize was the physicality of gunplay; the weight and feel of using particular firearms. They wanted to give players the feeling of actually wielding the weapon as best they could; “During the sniper rifle animation sequence,” explains Bihan; “the Animation Team placed emphasis on the bolt cycle. So when that bolt is pulled back, players see that this movement is aggressive and hopefully that visually communicates that this rifle is all about taking that one shot. Recoil benefits this further by changing a player’s field of view when a bullet is fired, and by giving the impression that the scope is kicking backwards against their eye.” | {
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No, that image up there is not a screw-up on our behalf, or a browser hiccup. That's the actual cover art for the upcoming Spiritualized album Sweet Heart Sweet Light, which is out via Fat Possum in the U.S. on April 17 and Double Six on April 16. (The release date has been pushed back from March.) Yup.
One of the album tracks, "So Long You Pretty Thing", features frontman Jason Spaceman's 11-year-old daughter Poppy, who has a co-writing credit on the song. The track "I Am What I Am" was co-written by Spaceman and Dr. John, who previously appeared on the Spiritualized track "Cop Shoot Cop" on Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space.
Spiritualized hit the road in Europe and North America from March through May. | {
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A Regina mother has filed a lawsuit alleging negligence after the tip of her baby's penis was severed during a circumcision.
In an interview, the woman says she and her husband are worried about their son's self-esteem as he grows up.
The circumcision happened last November when the boy was nine-days old. The mother has filed a statement of claim against the doctor, his business, and an unidentified intern she believes did the procedure.
The woman, whom The Canadian Press is not naming to protect the identity of the child, said she and her husband took their newborn to the Victoria East Medical Clinic in Regina for the procedure.
The mother is of African descent and said circumcision is part of her family's culture.
"It was already taking too long," she said, remembering how quick the procedure had been for her older son eight years earlier. "I could hear the baby crying so much."
She said Dr. Owen Miller, the physician they understood was going to perform the circumcision, came into the waiting area and was apologetic.
"He came out and he said, 'There's a problem. We have to call the ambulance,"' the mother recalled.
The lawsuit adds, "After the botched surgery, Miller informed the plaintiff (mother) that his intern performed the surgery."
The mother said she broke down and couldn't control her crying.
"Someone just told me he was performing some practice on my baby, that's what it sounded like," she said. "I couldn't even talk."
Lawyer Kolade Oladokun, who's representing the mother, said any damages awarded in the suit could help pay for future cosmetic surgery for the boy.
The boy's father said the family doesn't care about money.
"We just want to know if our son's going to be OK," he said.
None of the allegations has been proven in court.
In an email, Miller declined to comment, but in a statement of defence filed with the court he denies acting negligently.
"At the close of the procedure, it was noted that a small piece of the glans of the infant's penis (tip) had been removed with the foreskin," the statement reads.
"Immediate steps were undertaken to treat the wound and arrangements made to transfer the infant to specialists at Regina General Hospital for further treatment."
Miller is a longtime doctor who specializes in family medicine and has no previous disciplinary history listed on the Saskatchewan College of Physicians and Surgeons website.
The mother said her baby bled for hours and wailed in pain while he was in the emergency room.
Photographs taken by the woman show the infant lying in a hospital bed, hooked up to machines and a tube to carry urine.
She said a surgeon informed them he was too young to have the severed tip re-attached.
Dr. Todd Sorokan, a pediatrician based in British Columbia, said circumcision remains a relatively common procedure in Canada, with between ten to 30 per cent of babies having it done.
Saskatchewan has seen an average of about 430 circumcisions performed annually out of medical necessity in recent years. Non-medically necessary circumcisions aren't insured by the province, so those numbers aren't tracked.
Last year, a doctor in Regina was fined more than $10,000 for not dealing appropriately with complications arising from a circumcision done in 2014.
Sorokan said it's a straightforward procedure where minor bleeding can occur, but that's estimated to happen in only one to two cases out of 100.
"It's certainly not a good result to trim part of the glans penis (tip) along with the foreskin," he said. "I'm happy to hear that the family went and got urgent attention."
The boy's next followup appointment is in September. His penis is mostly functional, but is disfigured, said his mother.
"It's healed up, but it doesn't look normal."
The mother kept the severed part of her son's penis and stored in the freezer, she said, in case he someday has questions about his body.
"I just hope this doesn't get to that point where the boy is feeling less of himself," she said. "We don't know." | {
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Sen. Ted Cruz and his wife Heidi returned to the restaurant where protesters assailed them earlier this week to finish their “exceptional meal," according to the owner.
Fiola, the restaurant where protesters confronted Cruz, R-Texas, and his wife while they were dining Monday evening, said it “welcomes all patrons." The owner said Wednesday that the situation was resolved and Cruz and his wife came back to the restaurant after “a few minutes."
[Related: Beto O’Rourke condemns protesters who heckled Ted Cruz, wife at restaurant]
According to @fioladc chef/owner Fabio Trabocchi, @tedcruz & Heidi Cruz returned to the restaurant they were forced out of last night. After the protestors left, the Cruzes apparently came back and finished their meal in peace. pic.twitter.com/fM967Ow4Zs — Kate Bennett (@KateBennett_DC) September 26, 2018
"Per our policy for events of this nature, police were called and the guest escorted to privacy," chef and owner Fabio Trabocchi said. "When the situation resolved a few minutes later, our guests returned to thank the staff for their support and to finish their exceptional meal.”
The demonstrators were protesting Cruz's support for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. While protesters yelled, “Vote no on Kavanaugh” and “Cancel Kavanaugh for women’s rights,” Cruz could be heard saying, “God bless you,” and asked for the crowd to let his wife through as they vacated the D.C. restaurant.
Once Cruz and his wife had exited, the protesters were told to leave by a restaurant employee.
Protests and rallies have emerged around the country’s capital city and in other areas around the country as multiple women have gone public with sexual assault allegations against Kavanaugh.
Kavanaugh denies the allegations, and will appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday to testify regarding the accusations by Christine Blasey Ford stemming back 36 years. | {
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It was Electric Pencil and Visi Calc, another Killer App, which have been credited with turning the Apple II computer from a "techno-toy" into a genuine personal and small business computing tool. This is the power of the Killer App!
Since the 70s we've seen other Killers such as PageMaker, the first really practical DTP program, an application which catapulted the Apple Mac to great heights as a desktop publishing platform; and perhaps even Microsoft Windows itself which has allowed the Intel-based IBM compatible PC to steal the Mac's high-ground over the past six or seven years.
But what about the Net? What's the killer app on the Net?
Well until recently there have been "Killer Categories" such as email clients and Web browsers but no single product which has been deserving of the title.
However, I think it's fair to say that ICQ has become the first Net-based product worthy of the title. It has no peers and, for many people, it has all but replaced several other applications such as their email client and IRC program. In short, ICQ is a completely new concept which has been masterfully implemented and marketed. It is THE Killer App on the Internet.
Now boasting a user-base of over six million people, ICQ has come from nowhere to become a major product and service in just a few short months. Unfortunately it's also becoming a victim of its own success. When I first installed ICQ I could leave it "connected" all day without problems however, these days I find that I'm disconnected by the system at increasingly regular intervals - now up to six or seven times in 10 hours. Perhaps this is symptomatic of the huge amounts of traffic that six million users can generate and, given the fact that there appear to be no revenue streams being generated by the software or the service, I suspect it may be hard for them to keep upgrading their servers and connectivity at a rate which meets the demand.
Which brings us to the question... just how do ICQ plan to make money out of this service?
The current offering is marked as a "time limited free beta" which implies that at some stage either the service, the software or both will have a price tag associated with them. If that's the case, I wonder how long before some other enterprising organisation creates a competing product which will be ad-sponsored and free to all users?
I suspect the most difficult aspect of the whole ICQ story is going to be leveraging the user-base to generate a profit without exposing the service to competition. Mirabilis have done the hard work by creating a new market, it's a much easier task for someone else to clone the idea and come in at a lower price or with more features.
Regardless of the pro's and con's of the situation or the increasingly intermittent service, I strongly recommend that all those who don't already have ICQ resident on their desktop install it immediately.
ICQ can be downloaded from the Mirabilis Web site at www.mirabilis.com | {
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Where there is a celebration, there is a cake !!
What better reason to celebrate than embracing the lovely fall season and welcoming the snowy winters ? This recipe is an indulgent dessert made with healthy somethings 🙂
As a foodie couple, we are constantly on a lookout for an excuse to celebrate. Ever since i started this blog, i have to admit that i am constantly motivated to try out new foods and create gastronomical experiences in my kitchen lab. It is real fun to experiment with new ingredients but what usually hits my creative radar is coming up with interesting experiences from typical ingredients.
Sticky date coconut Cake is not only rich in texture & taste, it oozes sophistication in every slice. For me, this cake is like the lovely fall on my plate. The rich browns tending towards light caramel colour makes it look irresistible. The cake has the goodness of the dates & the coconut, making it a great dessert choice for the upcoming winters.
Sticky date coconut cake Recipe Preparation time : 20 minutes Baking time : 40 minutes Makes : One cake (9″ dia x 2″) For the Date Cake 2 cups All purpose flour
1 cup milk (can use full cream milk for a softer texture)
1 cup dates – pitted and roughly chopped
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp soda-bi-carbonate
100 gm butter
1/2 cup granulated sugar ( In case you want to use less dates, you can increase the sugar content to balance out the sweetness in the cake)
1/4 cup raisins
1/4 cup almond powder – Take about 20-25 almonds and grind to form a powder
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp cinnamon powder Topping 1/2 cup fresh coconut – grated
2/3 cup brown sugar
20 gms butter
2 tsp milk Method Set your oven at 375 degrees F and preheat. Take the spring form cake tin and line with butter paper/ wax paper to avoid the cake sticking to the tin while baking. If you don’t have butter paper, you can straight away grease the tin and sprinkle some flour on it to create an even flour surface on the tin. In a bowl, sieve through all your dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, soda-bi-carb and cinnamon powder) and mix well. Add in the almond powder and mix. In a separate bowl, take the butter and melt on low heat. Add in milk, chopped dates, raisins, sugar and vanilla essence. Heat on medium heat till the sugar melts. Remove from flame and keep aside for 15 minutes. Add spoonful of dry mixture to the wet mixture and fold in gently in one direction. Do so with the complete dry mixture. Create a homogenous batter mixture. Note : Do not whisk the mixture or else the cake will not come out fluffy post baking. Check for the consistency of the Cake batter. It should be of “Dropping consistency”. You may add a little more milk if required. Pour batter into the pan. Bake for about 30 minutes. While the cake bakes, prepare the coconut topping*. Refer below for the method for preparing the coconut topping. Generously pour the coconut topping over the cake and bake for about 15 minutes. Check if the cake is done by inserting a knife/ wooden pin. The pin should come out clean (the topping will be soft and may stick to the pin, so use your judgement here. Usually the texture for the date cake and this topping is very different so it would be easy to judge) Once the cake is baked, remove from oven and cool on the cooling rack. *For Coconut Topping : In a saucepan, take all the ingredients of the toppings and heat on medium flame till the sugar melts and the mixture is homogenous. Bring to boil and keep stirring to avoid the coconut sticking to the bottom of the pan. Depending on your preference, you may like to keep the coconut mixture on low flame till the sugar in the mixture turns a little caramel like for a divine and richer taste.
Just look at the result !! Isn’t this simply pretty ??
My kitchen lab was filled with amazing aromas originating from my oven just mid way of the cake baking and got me really excited as i anxiously waited for the baking to get over.
This cake turned out to be just as i had visualized while i mixed the magic potions (a.k.a the awesome ingredients) together like a mad scientist hoping to break into something totally cool.
This cake is a promising, sure shot party dessert. Serve it in slices or make them as individual brownies and let your guests be pampered this fall !
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Leah Gotti is an Amateur Babe who love to swallow big loads of cum on Amateur Allure. She gives head like she’s been at it for a long time. Leah deep throats and works Ray’s dick until he floods her hot mouth with hot sperm! | {
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Minister Hoekstra wil een onafhankelijke derde inschakelen om uit te zoeken of ambtenaren van de Belastingdienst in de toeslagenaffaire strafbare feiten hebben gepleegd. Hij antwoordde dat in de Tweede Kamer op vragen over zijn uitspraken van afgelopen zondag. De minister zei toen in het tv-programma Buitenhof dat hij geen aanwijzingen heeft dat in de toeslagenaffaire ambtenaren ook in strafrechtelijke zin fouten hebben gemaakt. Die uitspraak leidde tot verbazing bij onder meer SP en Denk.
Sommige advocaten zeggen dat er wel degelijk strafbare feiten zijn gepleegd en ook volgens SP-Kamerlid Leijten zijn er aanwijzingen voor machtsmisbruik, ambtsmisdrijven en plichtsverzuim door ambtenaren.
Buitenstaander van kaliber
Hoekstra herhaalde vandaag dat hij die aanwijzingen niet heeft. Maar hij voegde eraan toe dat hij geen enkele reden heeft "om te zuinigjes te zijn om dit te willen uitzoeken", omdat het gaat om herstel van vertrouwen. De minister wil een second opinion vragen aan een "buitenstaander van groot kaliber".
Ook doet hij een oproep aan mensen die denken dat er strafbare feiten zijn gepleegd, om zich te melden bij het Openbaar Ministerie en bij Financiën. Verder ligt hier volgens Hoekstra ook een taak voor de "personeelsvertrouwenspersonen" die hij wil benoemen.
De minister maakte dit weekeinde bekend dat hij de Belastingdienst ingrijpend wil reorganiseren. Gisteren werd duidelijk dat de kort voor Kerstmis afgetreden D66-staatssecretaris Snel zal worden vervangen door twee bewindslieden. Door de toeslagenaffaire is bij mogelijk duizenden gezinnen ten onrechte de kinderopvangtoeslag ingetrokken. | {
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Posted 12 April 2015 - 04:03 PM
I see Code Name Steam going much lower, probably under $20 this summer.
Just doesn't seem to be a lot of interest in it. | {
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With all the qualifier matches completed we now have the full roster of eight teams which will compete at the OGA PIT TOM CLANCY’S RAINBOW SIX® MINOR POWERED BY AMD AND SAPPHIRE in Split, Croatia from December 6th to December 8th.
The following teams will take part in the event:
Team Liquid
MIBR
SSG
Luminosity Gaming
G2 Esports
Team Secret
BDS Esport
Nora-Rengo
OGA PIT RAINBOW SIX MINOR will be played in the double-elimination format, with the lower bracket starting after the quarterfinals.
Four quarterfinal matches will be played on the first day of the event, followed by two upper bracket semifinals, the lower bracket match, and upper bracket finals on day 2. The lower bracket finals and the grand finals will be played on the third day of the tournament.
All matches will be played in the best-of-three format, except the grand finals which will be best-of-five. The upper bracket winner will have a 1 map advantage in the grand finals.
The 75,000 USD prize pool will be distributed as follows: | {
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I got asked by my Gifter my Shoe size which i found odd now i completely understand why thanks to whoever sent this (i think Nick Frost did?...)
o.s i been wanting these shoes for a while now... i love the comfort of these shoes!!!!!!!!!
THanks!!!!!!! | {
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Hei, denne artikkelen er over ett år gammel og kan inneholde utdatert informasjon
(Dagbladet): Det vekker oppsikt at innvandrings- og integreringsminster Sylvi betegner en FN-rapport som «angivelige opplysninger», og dermed tilsynelatende sår tvil om kredibiliteten.
Den kontroversielle uttalelsen falt etter et møte med en representant for FNs høykommissær for flyktninger (UNHCR) i går, hvor de blant annet diskuterte fersk informasjon fra UNHCR om at to syrere ble sendt tilbake til hjemlandet fra Russland i fjor.
Avventer rapport Men Listhaug akter ikke å umiddelbart legge FNs opplysninger til grunn. På en pressekonferanse etter møtet med UNHCRs regionale representant til Nord-Europa, Pia Prytz Phiri, gjorde statsråden det klart at regjeringen vil avvente den endelige rapporten.
- Vi er opptatt av å ha en god dialog med UNHCR og få til diskusjoner om temaer som vi er uenige om. Nå venter vi på en rapport fra UNHCR om de to som angivelig ble sendt tilbake. Den informasjonen blir viktig, sa Listhaug.
Phiri i UNHCR sa på sin side at hun ikke har noen grunn til å tvile på disse opplysningene.
Bryter norsk tradisjon Seniorforsker Elin Skaar ved Christian Michelsens institutt mener Listhaug med dette bryter med den norske FN-linja.
- Listhaugs uttalelse er ganske spesiell, og føyer seg inn i linja til regjeringen om at «målet helliggjør midlene», sier Skaar til Dagbladet.
- Norge har tradisjon for å feste lit til slike type opplysninger fra FN. Vi har tradisjon for å stå på FNs side, utdyper hun.
- Lite tillitvekkende Også i regjeringens samarbeidsparti Venstre reagerer de kraftig.
- Listhaug sår nå tvil om opplysninger fra FN om at syriske flyktninger er sendt tilbake til Syria av russiske myndigheter. Det er ikke tillitvekkende, og brudd med det som har vært den norske holdningen til FN som det overnasjonale organet som har mest kunnskap og autoritet på flyktningeområdet, sier innvandringspolitisk talsperson i Venstre, André N Skjelstad.
- Vi må lytte til og vise respekt for FN, ikke avfeie dem og vise forakt for dem.
Mente det ikke SV-leder Audun Lysbakken merket seg også statsrådens ordbruk.
- Jeg synes det var et avslørende øyeblikk. Det viste en norsk regjering som mangler den nødvendige respekten for UNHCR. Det synes jeg er veldig trist, for Norge er et land som pleier å gå foran og kreve at andre land skal vise respekt for menneskerettighetene, sier Lysbakken.
- Det er ingen tvil om at FN-representanten i veldig klare ordelag sier at de har et godt grunnlag for disse opplysningene, og da forventer jeg en norsk statsråd som er ydmyk og ikke bruker ord som trekker dette i tvil, sier han.
- Dette er storm i et vannglass. Vi hadde et godt møte med UNHCR der vi ba om å få oversendt mer informasjon. Vi venter derfor på å få rapporten og ser fram til videre samarbeid med UNHCR, som er en viktig kilde til informasjon på dette feltet, sier Listhaug via Justisdepartementets kommunikasjonssjef.
Forventer konsekvenser Både Venstre og KrF mener opplysningene om de som er returnert til Syria må få konsekvenser for vurderingen av Russland som et trygt tredjeland.
- Dette bekrefter at det har vært all grunn til å stille kritiske spørsmål rundt regjeringens utsendelsespraksis og hvorvidt den er i tråd med våre internasjonale forpliktelser, sier KrF-leder Knut Arild Hareide.
- Vi forutsetter at det er fullstendig uaktuelt for regjeringen å returnere syriske flyktninger til Russland som står i fare for å bli sendt tilbake til krig, forfølgelse og tortur i krigsherjede Syria, sier Skjelstad.
Truer med retten Bakgrunnen for møtet var at regjeringen og UNHCR har hatt ulikt syn på om den norske asylinstruksen med retur til Russland er i tråd med menneskerettighetene.
Det at Norge forbeholder seg retten til å ikke være enig med FN i håndheving i asylpolitikk er i seg selv ikke noe nytt, men etter møtet kom det også fram at UNHCR kan ta Norge til retten dersom Listhaug setter ut i livet sitt forslag om strammere regler for familiegjenforening.
Listhaug har foreslått å innføre et krav om minst fire års arbeid eller utdanning i Norge før familiegjenforening kan finne sted, og et inntektskrav på minst 305 000 kroner. Dette er ett av innstrammingsforslagene hennes som har fått aller mest kritikk.
- Jeg ser at det er muligheter for å følge opp dette gjennom rettssystemet. Hvis man ikke får familiegjenforening innen fire år så bryter det simpelthen med Norges forpliktelser under den europeiske menneskerettighetskonvensjonen, sa Phiri.
- Knallhard kritikk Elin Skaar ved Christian Michelsens institutt mener dette er meget alvorlige påstander.
- Norge har vært i front når det gjelder menneskerettighetsdialog med andre land. Nå snur Norge, og det er høyst kritikkverdig, sier hun.
KRITISK: KrF-leder Knut Arild Hareide mener de ferske opplysningene fra UNCHR viser at det har vært all grunn til å stille spørsmål ved regjeringens praksis. Foto: Lars Eivind Bones / Dagbladet Vis mer
- Dette er knallhard kritikk, og det aller mest interessante er at hun så tydelig slo fast at forslaget er utenfor folkeretten. Det eneste regjeringen kan gjøre med dette forslaget nå, er å trekke det, sier Audun Lysbakken.
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A leaked recording of conversation between an Iranian pilot and a control tower prove that Iran immediately knew it had shot down a passenger jet that crashed near Tehran last month, Ukraine’s president has said.
An audio recording obtained by Ukrainian media on Sunday evening purportedly captures a conversation between an Iranian pilot coming in to land at Tehran’s international airport and a control tower there on 8 January, shortly after Ukraine International Airways flight 752 had departed from Tehran.
About 6.12am, according to a transcript, the pilot for the Iranian airline Aseman alerted the control tower that he had seen something suspicious in the sky. “Flares on route, as if from a missile,” he said. “Should anything like this be happening there?”
Asked for clarification, he replies: “That surely is the light from a missile.”
The recording captures several attempts by the control tower to contact the Ukrainian passenger jet, which had been disabled after being struck by two missiles and was falling towards a field outside Tehran with 176 people onboard.
“Ukraine International Airlines 752, do you read?” the control tower repeatedly asks with increasing urgency over more than two minutes. All the passengers and crew onboard the jet were killed.
Iran initially attributed the plane crash to technical difficulties, a conclusion that Iranian spokesmen, military leaders and diplomats publicly defended before the government admitted three days later that its forces had mistakenly shot down the aircraft.
The country had fired a volley of cruise missiles at US forces stationed in Iraq several hours before, in retaliation for the 3 January killing of an Iranian general Qassem Suleimani, and a missile-defence operator had mistaken the plane for a US cruise missile, military leaders said.
They admitted they knew a missile had taken out the plane but attributed the delay in making a public admission to the need to properly investigate the crash to rule out other causes, such as whether foreign hacking may have been involved.
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who has repeatedly expressed frustration at the way Iran is handling the investigation into the incident, said in a television interview that the audio “proves that the Iranian side knew from the start that our plane had been hit by a missile”.
He said: “[The pilot in the recording] says that ‘it seems to me that a missile is flying’. He says it in both Persian and English, everything is fixed there.”
The chief crash investigator at Iran’s Civil Aviation Organisation appeared to verify the leaked recording on Monday morning, citing the “strange” leak as he announced he would no longer share evidence from the crash with Ukraine.
“The technical investigation team of the Ukrainian airline crash, in a strange move, published the secret audio file of the communications of a pilot of a plane that was flying at the same time as the Ukrainian plane,” Hassan Rezaifar said, according to the semi-official Mehr news agency. “This action by the Ukrainians led to us not sharing any more evidence with them.”
Ukraine has been pressing Iran to turn over to them the black box recording devices recovered from the flight so they can be decoded, which Tehran initially agreed to do before it backtracked without explanation. Ukrainian investigators were to travel to Tehran on Monday to participate in the decoding effort. | {
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LOS ANGELES — Meh. The eighth chapter in 20th Century Fox’s “Alien” series arrived to an estimated $36 million in ticket sales in North America — far from a flop, far from a sizzling hit. “Alien: Covenant,” as the latest film is titled, cost roughly $100 million to make, and has taken in an additional $30.3 million overseas.
Unless strong word-of-mouth propels “Alien: Covenant” to big ticket sales in the weeks to come, the film may become the latest example of audience pushback on long-in-the-tooth film franchises.
The domestic opening total was the third highest for the “Alien” series, which first thrilled moviegoers in 1979 with its surrealist central creature and sense of escalating dread. “Prometheus,” a 2012 prequel, arrived to $55.1 million, after adjusting for inflation. “Alien vs. Predator” had $50.6 million in 2004.
The R-rated “Alien: Covenant,” directed by Ridley Scott, who also directed the first “Alien” and “Prometheus,” received mostly positive reviews. Ticket buyers gave it a B grade in CinemaScore exit polls. | {
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one of them. But now there's a chance to become innovators instead of cogs in the gargantuan Microsoft machine. The intrepid Microserfs are striking out on their own--living together in a shared digital flophouse as they desperately try to cultivate well-rounded lives and find love amid the dislocated, subhuman whir and buzz of their computer-driven world. … ( more They are Microserfs--six code-crunching computer whizzes who spend upward of sixteen hours a day "coding" and eating "flat" foods (food which, like Kraft singles, can be passed underneath closed doors) as they fearfully scan company e-mail to learn whether the great Bill is going to "flame" | {
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Due to the shockingly short lifecycle of the average bike racer, bringing in new Cat 5 racers (and finding a way to improve retention) is vital to the health of the sport. Seeing just 36 M5 racers at last year’s Zach Koop Memorial Crit at Orchard Beach is a definitely a concerning data point. The early morning start time for that field probably doesn’t help and we toyed with the idea of shifting the calendar around, but with the overlapping field structure designed to allow racers to do multiple events it really only makes sense to start with lower categories and work our way up over time.
On the bright side, relative to last year’s final registration numbers the M5 field is actually in the best shape this year (other than the Juniors A field where we made racing free to all participants and have seen a resulting boost in registration). Otherwise all of the Men’s categorized fields are running a touch under half of last year’s turnout, with Masters and Women trailing further behind. Women’s fields tent to fill later than Men’s, on average, and there is a new schedule conflict with Woodstock moving to a Sunday race so turnout for the Women’s field may be a bit light at this year’s race (we’re still giving equal prize money either way because, duh). | {
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“Google is a digital truth serum,” Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, author of Everybody Lies, told me in a recent interview. “People tell Google things that they don't tell to possibly anybody else, things they might not tell to family members, friends, anonymous surveys, or doctors.”
Stephens-Davidowitz was working on a PhD in economics at Harvard when he became obsessed with Google Trends, a tool that tracks how frequently searches are made in a given area over a given time period.
He spent five years combing through this data. The idea was that you could get far better real-time information about what people are thinking by looking at Google Trends data than you could through polls or some other survey device.
It turns out he was right.
As a barometer of our national consciousness, Google is as accurate (and predictive) as it gets. In 2016, when the Republican primaries were just beginning, most pundits and pollsters did not believe Trump could win. After all, he had insulted veterans, women, minorities, and countless other constituencies.
But Stephens-Davidowitz saw clues in his Google research that suggested Trump was far more serious than many supposed. Searches containing racist epithets and jokes were spiking across the country during Trump’s primary run, and not merely in the South but in upstate New York, Western Pennsylvania, Eastern Ohio, rural Illinois, West Virginia, and industrial Michigan.
Stephens-Davidowitz saw in the Google Trends data a racially polarized electorate, and one primed to respond to the ethno-nationalist rhetoric of Trump.
There were earlier signs, too. On Obama’s 2008 election night, Stephens-Davidowitz found that “one in every hundred Google searches that included the word ‘Obama’ also included ‘KKK’” or the n-word. Searches for racist websites like Stormfront also spiked.
“There was a darkness and hatred that was hidden from traditional sources,” Stephens-Davidowitz says. “Those searches are hard to reconcile with a society in which racism is a small factor.”
Racial attitudes are just one of the many interesting discoveries in Stephens-Davidowitz’s research. He also explores the disconnect between our social media lives and our actual lives, between what we talk about publicly and what we think about privately.
I spoke with him about the book and why he thinks Google Trends is "the most important data set ever collected on the human psyche." I also ask him about his most startling finding, which is that America is experiencing a crisis of self-induced abortions in places where access to abortion clinics is sparse.
Our lightly edited conversation follows.
Sean Illing
You refer to Google as a digital truth serum. What does it tell us about ourselves?
Seth Stephens-Davidowitz
People tell Google things that they don't tell to possibly anybody else, things they might not tell to family members, friends, anonymous surveys, doctors. People feel very comfortable confessing things to Google. In general, Google tells us that people are different than they present themselves. One way they're different, I have to say, is that they’re nastier and meaner than they often present themselves.
I've done a lot of research on racism, for example, and I was shocked by how frequently people make racist searches, particularly for jokes mocking African Americans. This concealed ugliness can predict a lot of behaviors, particularly in the political realm.
Sean Illing
Speaking of politics, you believed way back in early 2016 that Trump was a serious candidate. You were looking at Google search activity, saw a spike in racist and misogynistic searches, and thought that was a sign of things to come.
Seth Stephens-Davidowitz
Yeah, I did say that I thought Trump was going to win very, very early, but I'm not sure if that was based purely on the data or just because I'm a total pessimist. I always have been fairly pessimistic about this kind of thing.
Sean Illing
Welcome to the club.
Seth Stephens-Davidowitz
I'm always predicting horrible things are going to happen, with or without data. But I think there were definitely some clues on the internet that Trump should have been taken more seriously than other people were taking him.
Sean Illing
What were you seeing exactly?
Seth Stephens-Davidowitz
The first thing was that the level of racism in this country was a lot higher than I had realized. I think a lot of people thought that Trump would be done as soon as he started saying all these racially charged things. I think when you look at this internet data, you see the demand for this type of material.
I mean, I had even been studying white nationalist sites like Stormfront for a long time, long before most people knew about it, and still I was shocked by how widespread the appeal of these sites were.
Sean Illing
This is what we should’ve been paying attention to, not these outdated polling methods.
Seth Stephens-Davidowitz
You can't really predict using surveys who's going to turn out in an election because everybody says they're going to vote, nobody wants to admit that they have no intention of voting. But you can predict who's going to vote based on their Google searches. People search how to vote, or where to vote, or polling places weeks before an election and that predicts that turnout will be high.
In this election, you saw very, very clearly in the data that there was a huge decrease in these searches in cities with enormous African-American populations, for example. It was very clear in the Google search data that black turnout was going to be way down in 2016, and that was one of the reasons Clinton did so much worse than the polls predicted.
Sean Illing
The political utility of this data is obvious, but it seems like there’s no limit to what we can learn about ourselves. In the book, you call it "the most important data set ever collected on the human psyche."
Seth Stephens-Davidowitz
I think the only real competition is Facebook, and I don't think that's as interesting a data set because people are so much less honest on Facebook. People are really, really honest on Google, so they tell Google things that they don't tell anybody else. They search for answers to questions they won’t ask anyone else. I've found this over the past few years: Take any subject area and look at Google searches and you can find something new and interesting and surprising that we didn't know. Whether it's hatred or abortion or child abuse or political views or pregnancy or anxiety or depression. Pretty much every time I turn to Google data, there's something there that is interesting.
Sean Illing
I guess polls are still useful, but search histories are a much better way to get a sense of what people are thinking about controversial or personal subjects.
Seth Stephens-Davidowitz
Yeah, and those are the most interesting things.
Sean Illing
No doubt.
Seth Stephens-Davidowitz
They are also often the most important. One of the studies I talk about in the book is a study of Islamophobia. It's not really Islamophobia, it's like Islamo-rage, or something like that. It’s essentially people with horrifically violent thoughts toward Muslim Americans. People search things like “kill Muslims” or “I hate Muslims” or “Muslims are evil.” These people are basically maniacs and you can actually see minute-by-minute when these searches rise and when these searches fall.
What’s interesting about this is that we’re talking about a relatively small group of maniacs. The average American does not search “kill Muslims” or “I hate Muslims”; it's a small group but it's also an important group because these types of people can create a lot of problems. They are the ones who tend to commit hate crimes or even murder Muslims.
That’s what I mean when I say you can get insights on topics that are truly important.
Sean Illing
Let’s zoom back a bit and get a broader sense of the American psyche as revealed by Google. What do Americans fear the most or worry about the most?
Seth Stephens-Davidowitz
I'd say that one's own body is a pretty big one. If you look at Google AdWords data on bodily insecurity, people who go around looking for ways to lose weight or improve their body, these are almost as popular among men as among women, which is not usually talked about. Twenty percent of searches looking to change one's breasts are from men looking into how to get rid of man boobs. I think male bodily insecurity is not usually talked about but is extremely prevalent.
Sean Illing
That’s interesting.
Seth Stephens-Davidowitz
Yeah, and also not what you’d expect given our cultural biases.
Sean Illing
Have you found that people are basically dishonest about they actually care about? In the age of social media, everyone’s a warrior for justice — you post an article or two, proclaim your outrage or support, and boom you’re an “engaged” person. But that’s not real activism and it doesn’t require any real commitment.
Seth Stephens-Davidowitz
It’s a good question. I’ve explored this is in some of my Trump-related research. I think a lot of people exaggerate the extent to which they're anxious about Trump. It's kind of a game that people play. If you look at what really keeps people up at night, what really wakes them up at 3:00 am in a cold sweat, it tends to be economic concerns or health paranoia or legal fears — basically selfish concerns. But I think there's something a little bit unpleasant about that fact.
People like to say that they're anxious about more global concerns about Trump and what he might do to the world, rather than more selfish concerns about one's own economics or health or legal problems. I think people exaggerate. There's a lot of lying about what we actually care about and what actually moves us and what actually makes us sad, what actually makes us anxious.
Sean Illing
What’s the most shocking finding of your research?
Seth Stephens-Davidowitz
I'm pretty convinced that the United States has a self-induced abortion crisis right now based on the volume of search inquiries. I was blown away by how frequently people are searching for ways to do abortions themselves now. These searches are concentrated in parts of the country where it's hard to get an abortion and they rose substantially when it became harder to get an abortion. They're also, I calculate, missing pregnancies in these states that aren't showing up in either abortion or birth rates.
That's pretty disturbing and I think isn't really being talked about. But I think, based on the data, it's clearly going on.
Sean Illing
That’s appalling if it’s true. Give me some good news. Have you discovered anything pleasant?
Seth Stephens-Davidowitz
I think it’s refreshing to learn that we’re not alone in our anxieties or insecurities or desires. Alcoholics Anonymous has this phrase, don't compare your insides to other people's outsides. But that's hard because we don't see other people's insides, but I think with this search data, we actually, for the first time, do see other people's insides, and it shows that we should be easier on ourselves.
Sean Illing
Do you think we should spend less time online?
Seth Stephens-Davidowitz
Well, I want people to spend a lot of time online so that the data gets better and I can do more research.
Sean Illing
I guess I walked right into that answer. Would you at least say that people should take it less seriously, to not take their emotional cues from their Facebook feeds?
Seth Stephens-Davidowitz
Sure. Social media can be dangerous if you think that that's real life. It’s not, and we shouldn’t forget that. But people can buy my book and then anytime they're feeling jealous they can read it and be reminded that everyone’s a mess.
Sean Illing
I think we should leave it right there.
Seth Stephens-Davidowitz
Indeed. | {
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Ali Gua Gua responde al teléfono desde Estocolmo, donde las Kumbia Queers celebran estos días varios conciertos antes de volar al festival Chico Trópico de Madrid, este viernes. En Suecia puede que no entiendan sus letras sabrosas sobre amor lésbico, fiesta y cosas del día a día, pero es que sus ritmos son para bailar. “A los güeros [algo así como blanquitos] les gusta”, dice la cantante mexicana, divertida.
Las Kumbia Queers (todas, menos Ali Gua Gua, son argentinas) hacen tropipunk, una especie de cumbia rompedora, ruidosa y desafinada para bailar. Se conocieron en 2007 y llegaron de sus respectivas bandas de rock (She Devils, Juana Chang And The Wookie, Las Ultrasónicas…) a esta banda “divertida y diferente” con la que se fueron acercando a la cumbia, “rompiendo prejuicios”, recuerda Ali Gua Gua, quien habla de los peseros (autobuses urbanos de México) como gran escuela de géneros musicales. La cumbia, suele opinar Juana Chang, es “el pulso de Latinoamérica”. Ali la define como “el castellano del español: se habla en muchos lados pero en todos es diferente. Se acentúa distinto pero es un lenguaje muy latinoamericano. A mí, como el rock, me pegó. Es hipnótica, es hermosa”. Y, aunque el impulso de los nuevos ritmos tropicales esté creciendo, las Kumbia Queers se desmarcan: “Somos medio anti hipster”, asegura.
El primer disco del grupo, Kumbia nena! (2007) versionaba con humor y temática gay éxitos de The Cure (Cumbia dark, le llamaron a su Love Song), Black Sabbath (Chica de metal), Madonna (La isla con chicas) o Bronco. Después fueron haciendo temas propios, publicaron La gran estafa del Tropipunk (2010), God Save the Queers EP ( 2010) y, por fin, el nuevo álbum hiperbailable que ahora pasean con orgullo por lugares tan recónditos para el tropipunk como Suecia: Pecados tropicales, que, por incluir, incluye hasta una versión de la mítica Caballo viejo, de Simón Díaz. No son unas estrellas del pop, pero tampoco lo pretenden: “Queríamos viajar, hacer videos, discos, tratar de sobrevivir de lo que hacemos”, recuerda Ali de sus inicios. Cada vez se les conoce más. Las seis, con sus peculiares estilismos de escenario (Ali va de marinera, Juana Chang, de deportista ochentera…- tienen 23 fechas en 25 días, y el próximo destino es la tercera edición del festival Chico Trópico, en la Nave de Música del Matadero de Madrid, junto a grupos como El Fenómeno de Taganana, Sonido Desconocido II, Hermanos Pizarro o La Gallera Social Club. No es su primera vez en España, donde aseguran que se sienten bien recibidas. No obstante, el europeo medio seguramente tenga que esforzarse por dejar la pista de baile al nivel de las seis chicas, que bailan, brincan, arrojan whisky al público y sudan mucho sobre el escenario.
Chico trópico, para bailar la crisis
El festival en el que actuarán las Kumbia, Chico Trópico, se define como un evento que “se interesa particularmente por las rutas experimentales y psicodélicas que toman ritmos tropicales como la cumbia, el mambo, el chamamé, el merengue, el reggaetón”. Y, aunque para muchos suene a jeroglífico y a cosa de modernos, y a que sea de pequeña envergadura (esperan unos 400 asistentes) los organizadores, Sara Brito y Pedro Buschi, reniegan de la etiqueta hipster. “No vamos con las bandas de moda. El año pasado vino de México un músico que toca el órgano Hammond con técnica de los años cincuenta, Igor Stepanenko. Fue hermosísimo. Encontramos magia en la fiesta popular”, cuentan. Para conocerla, agregan, hace falta mucha investigación. Este año se han trabajado el cartel a base de YouTube porque Chico Trópico se hace, por primera vez, sin apoyo financiero de instituciones. Lo han conseguido reduciendo el presupuesto (de unos 35.000 el año pasado a los 5.000 de este) y gracias a la autofinanciación y al apoyo de la Nave de Música del Matadero, explican Brito y Buschi. “No ganamos un duro. La recompensa es que se produce mucha alegría”, sintetizan. Para apañárselas, los grupos hacen una parada en España dentro de sus giras, la logística se suple con imaginación, conocidos y colaboradores aportan ideas, diseño, financiación…
Con este panorama de recortes culturales del año 2012, el festival exorcizará la crisis convirtiéndose en un evento de celebración del "fin del mundo". Literal. “Un espacio de recogimiento y fe: el Gran Altar de la Robótica Virgen Chico-Trópica, al que se accederá tras atravesar un túnel findelmundista que pondrá a prueba a los infieles. Además, junto al altar, un vidente se encargará de vaticinar para los asistentes su destino final, su salvación o su caída”. Habrá también “sesión chamánico-musical”, anuncian. “¡Que el fin del mundo nos pille bailando melodías psicotropicales!”. | {
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Is it really true that farmworkers are in short supply? America’s southern border has been wide open for decades, but we are still told that there aren’t enough pickers — perhaps at the wage that farmers want to pay.
Automation can solve the problem here, if one exists. Machines are coming into the marketplace that can do all the farming tasks that will very soon make foreign or domestic farmworkers completely unnecessary, as documented here.
In fact, it’s wrong-headed to continue mass immigration based on the idea that America’s need for inexpensive labor will continue. When machines become cheaper, they will replace human employees, from agricultural pickers to financial analysts.
Below, a Russian approach to agriculture:
Technology will soon put an end to much unpleasant physical labor — and the paychecks that accompany it. Just how that effect of advanced machines will be handled in society has gotten little attention from our political leaders.
Below is a video of a new farm robot being tested — warning, the musical audio is a little cloying. | {
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Josh Thomson re-emerged in the UFC in a big way with a TKO win over Nate Diaz at UFC on Fox 7. It was the first time Diaz had been stopped by strikes in his career, and it rocketed Thomson into the top 10 in the UFC official rankings. A few weeks after the fight, Diaz was a guest on BJPenn.com radio and went off on Thomson, accusing him of running and making "woman noises" throughout their fight. He also demanded a rematch. Thomson responded in his own interview on BJPenn.com radio, and he hurled quite an accusation at Nate - that he never actually made weight for the bout:
"I think the biggest thing is this; he is interested in a rematch with me, one thing he needs to remember before the fight even happened, he was complaining after weigh in's about how he was moving back up to 170, so he couldn't even make weight when we fought the first time. Nate knows this."
"I am going to say this directly to him. Nate, you didn't make the weight, so how are you going to make the weight when we fight again? That's the thing that's discerning, we all let it slide because it was a huge fight, but you didn't make the weight and you still lost. So unless you plan on fighting me a 170 then I'm not really interested. Like I said, I'm looking forward to the title shot, I'm looking forward to getting in there for the title. If I have to go through him again to do it, then so be it. Maybe you should start watching what you eat, maybe you should start doing that to take care of yourself. You couldn't make the weight the first time and that was something I was going to keep to myself, but you want to start talking trash? Saying all these things, knowing that I beat you fair and square, I guess next time we'll take 20% of your purse if you don't make weight."
"It's an issue I could have brought up and made a big deal about but I didn't do it because that's not the kind of person I am. I could have made a big fuss and taken it, rubbed some salt in the wound and taken 20% percent of your purse after you lost, but I didn't That's the kind of person I am, I moved on and I suggest you do the same thing." | {
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Gov. Jerry Brown calls for cuts as deficit jumps
More than a dozen boxes containing petitions with more than 1.5 million signatures for Gov. Jerry Brown's tax hike initiative are seen outside the Sacramento County Registrar of Voters in Sacramento, Calif., Thursday, May 10, 2012. Brown submitted the petitions for his initiative, one of two tax hike petitions that are expected to qualify for November ballot. Brown has warned that if voters do not pass the tax hikes there would be even deeper cuts to schools, higher education and social services.(AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli) less More than a dozen boxes containing petitions with more than 1.5 million signatures for Gov. Jerry Brown's tax hike initiative are seen outside the Sacramento County Registrar of Voters in Sacramento, Calif., ... more Photo: Rich Pedroncelli, Associated Press Photo: Rich Pedroncelli, Associated Press Image 1 of / 3 Caption Close Gov. Jerry Brown calls for cuts as deficit jumps 1 / 3 Back to Gallery
Sacramento --
California's budget deficit has jumped to $16 billion, forcing Gov. Jerry Brown to call for even deeper cuts in state spending when he releases his revised budget plan on Monday.
Brown revealed the dramatically higher deficit in a Web video posted on YouTube on Saturday. Lower than projected tax receipts along with the loss of proposed spending cuts already rejected by the courts and the federal government have increased the gap, the governor said.
Brown's January budget had projected a $9.2 billion deficit for the fiscal year beginning July 1.
"This means that we will have to go much further and make cuts far greater than I asked for at the beginning of the year," Brown said in the video.
Administration officials declined to provide specific details on how they arrived at the new estimate or what would be included in the deeper cuts. The video was released by Brown's campaign team for his November ballot measure to increase the income tax on high earners and the sales tax on everyone.
Brown concluded his campaign statement with a call for Californians to join him in working to pass the measure, which the administration estimates would bring in $9 billion in additional tax revenue. He warned that if the measure fails, it would result in "severe damage" to public safety and schools.
Risky assumptions
The new deficit numbers are a stinging blow to the governor's oft-repeated promise to turn around California's troubled finances.
Since passing the budget last June, Brown and Democratic legislative leaders have touted their work, saying they had slashed the $26 billion deficit left by Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger by nearly two-thirds. However, that budget plan relied on a number of risky assumptions, including a projection that tax revenue would grow by an additional $4 billion.
Most of that money never materialized, and federal officials and the courts have blocked proposed cuts to the In-Home Supportive Services program for the elderly, blind and disabled, along with rejecting increases in co-pays for hospital and emergency room visits for people on Medi-Cal.
In addition, lawmakers have turned down about $1.5 billion in proposed cuts for welfare and child care services, along with reductions in the Cal Grants program that provides financial aid to college students.
June 15 deadline
Lawmakers must pass a balanced budget by the June 15 deadline, less than five weeks away. But they are focusing much of their attention on the June 5 primary election.
Senate Republican leader Bob Huff of Diamond Bar (Los Angeles County) said he does not expect Democrats to take action on the budget before the primary and, given that the spending plan can pass with a simple majority vote by Democrats, he said the plan will probably have more unrealistic assumptions.
'Phony budget'
"My guess is it's another phony budget," he said. Huff said lawmakers should consider potential sources of savings, like outsourcing nonclassroom school employees, before looking to tax increases, which Republicans have staunchly opposed. He also noted that had lawmakers made Brown's proposed cuts earlier in the year, the deficit problem would be smaller.
But state Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, defended Democrats' decision to delay making cuts.
"We all hoped for better revenue numbers," he said. "But on that score, for people most in need, if they lose some of their bare subsistence, at least they will have been able to provide for themselves and their families for a few more months."
Although lawmakers will have to make more spending reductions, Steinberg said, they will not happen in areas that could lead to homelessness or threaten the lives of the sick. He specifically noted CalWORKS, the state's welfare to work program, as an area he would defend.
Steinberg said he thinks the governor released the deficit numbers early because "he probably wanted to give the public and Legislature and stakeholders a couple of days to internalize a number before laying out the details."
'Big, bad and brutal'
Advocates for Californians who rely on the state's health and human services said they expect to see deep cuts when the governor unveils his revised budget plan Monday.
Anthony Wright, executive director of Health Access California, believes Brown will again attempt to persuade the federal government and courts to allow reductions in state programs and suspects that was the topic of conversation during the governor's recent trips to Washington, D.C.
"The cuts are expected to be big, bad and brutal for California families," he said.
One of the biggest fights will be over the "trigger cuts," or automatic spending reductions if the governor's tax proposal is rejected by voters in November.
The proposal would increase the sales tax by a quarter of a cent for four years. It also would boost the income tax for seven years by either one, two or three percentage points for people making more than $250,000 per year. The highest rate increase would affect those making more than $500,000 per year.
Under the governor's January budget proposal, the automatic cuts would fall almost entirely on K-12 public schools and community colleges, with the UC and CSU systems also receiving significant midyear cuts. It is not clear if that would change under the governor's revised budget.
Hands tied
Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, chairman of the Senate Committee on Budget and Fiscal Review, said the new deficit "is as bad as our worst fears have been." But he added that voter mandates on spending, along with the federal and court limits on cutting, have tied lawmakers' hands.
"The options get fewer and fewer," Leno said. | {
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SALT LAKE CITY -- Utah will not recognize more than a thousand same-sex marriages performed within the state, pending an appeal of its constitutional amendment that defines marriage as only between a man and a woman.
Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes issued a legal opinion to the governor, saying he was unable to reach a conclusion about the validity of the marriages. However, the state will not recognize the marriages, either.
"I want to be clear that we are not saying those marriages are invalid," Reyes said in an interview Wednesday with FOX 13. "However, as a state we cannot recognize those marriages."
Reyes insisted that by refusing to recognize the marriages, the state was not effectively invalidating the unions by pointing to other states that recognize same-sex marriages.
"It's not invalidating it in the same way that if they went to Hawaii, they could potentially apply for benefits there based on the marriage that took place. They can't be recognized (here)," he said. "There is a very fine distinction, but a very important distinction based on those two things."
In an email sent to state cabinet members, Governor Gary Herbert's office declared state recognition of same-sex marital status "on hold" until further notice.
Governor's chief-of-staff Derek Miller acknowledged Utah basically would not recognize the estimated 1,360 same-sex marriages performed in the state when it came to offering state services and benefits.
"The challenge that we're faced with is that although there were marriages that were performed under the color of law based on Judge Shelby's decision, now that the Supreme Court has put a stay on that decision, the laws that existed before Judge Shelby's decision are now back in effect," Miller told FOX 13. "And that law says specifically the state shall not recognize a same-sex marriage."
On Dec. 20, U.S. District Court Judge Robert Shelby declared the constitutional amendment -- which defines marriage as between a a man and a woman -- unconstitutional and violating same-sex couples' rights to due process and equal protection under the U.S. Constitution.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday issued a stay, halting further marriages until the issue is settled by the appeals court. The governor's office says that means Amendment 3 is back in effect, thus forcing the state to not recognize the unions.
Because of the "on hold" nature of the legal opinion, the state would recognize name changes in driver licenses or joint tax returns that had been filed between Dec. 20 and Jan. 6. However, anything else will not be recognized.
Chris Caras, the director of Utah's Driver License Division told FOX 13 they did grant name changes to couples who sought them. It was under the direction of Governor Herbert, who ordered state agencies to offer services after Amendment 3 was overturned by Judge Shelby.
"There was a period of time between the court rulings when we were accepting them," Caras said. "As we were advised at that time. As of last night, we were advised to return to our original policy."
In a statement to FOX 13, Peggy Tomsic, an attorney representing the three gay couples who sued over Amendment 3, called the governor's decision "unprecedented."
"This unprecedented and disappointing action harms not only my clients, but hundreds of other same-sex couples who also were legally married, and whose families have been needlessly destabilized and stripped of basic legal protection," she wrote.
"By taking this unwarranted action, the State of Utah has discounted the lives of thousands of Utah citizens who live, work, and raise their families in Utah and pay Utah and federal taxes like all other Utah citizens. Regardless of how the State believes the Tenth Circuit will ultimately rule, these couples are legally married, and the State should treat them accordingly."
In her statement, Tomsic told same-sex couples married in Utah to contact a lawyer with questions about their legal status.
ACLU of Utah Legal Director John Mejia told FOX 13 they were "very seriously considering" a lawsuit against the state for refusing to recognize the marriages. Late Wednesday, the ACLU asked for people who felt they had been harmed by the state's decision to contact them to become plaintiffs in the case.
Asked about the threat of litigation, Miller blamed the courts for not issuing a stay in the first place.
"This is the very chaos the state sought to avoid," he told FOX 13.
Michael Ferguson and Seth Anderson, the first same-sex couple to be married in Utah, called the state's decision "frustrating."
"This is part of why it's so frustrating being a second-class citizen in your own state," said Ferguson.
Here is Miller's email to Utah state agencies:
Dear Cabinet,
I'm sure you are all aware of the issuance of the stay regarding same-sex marriage in Utah from the United States Supreme Court yesterday. This stay effectively puts a hold on the decision of the district court, which found state laws prohibiting same-sex marriage in Utah to be unconstitutional.
After the district court decision was issued on Friday, December 20th, some same-sex couples availed themselves of the opportunity to marry and to the status granted by the state to married persons. This office sent an email to each of you soon after the district court decision, directing compliance.
With the district court injunction now stayed, the original laws governing marriage in Utah return to effect pending final resolution by the courts. It is important to understand that those laws include not only a prohibition of performing same-sex marriages but also recognizing same-sex marriages.
Based on counsel from the Attorney General's Office regarding the Supreme Court decision, state recognition of same-sex marital status is ON HOLD until further notice. Please understand this position is not intended to comment on the legal status of those same-sex marriages – that is for the courts to decide. The intent of this communication is to direct state agency compliance with current laws that prohibit the state from recognizing same-sex marriages.
Wherever individuals are in the process of availing themselves of state services related to same-sex marital status, that process is on hold and will stay exactly in that position until a final court decision is issued. For example, if a same-sex married couple previously changed their names on new drivers licenses, those licenses should not be revoked. If a same-sex couple seeks to change their names on drivers licenses now, the law does not allow the state agency to recognize the marriage therefore the new drivers licenses cannot be issued.
We appreciate your patience and diligence in this matter. We recognize that different state agencies have specific questions and circumstances that will need to be worked through. Please do so with the Assistant Attorney General assigned to your respective agency in coordination with the Governor’s General Counsel. We also recognize that these changes affect real people’s lives. Let us carefully and considerately ensure that we, and our employees throughout the state, continue to treat all people with respect and understanding as we assist them.
Regards,
Derek B. Miller
Chief of Staff
Governor's Office
State of Utah | {
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How many children do you hope to have? For some families, one is the magic number. So! We asked nine parents about having only children — the pros, cons and how they decided — and here are their thoughtful, funny answers…
Prioritizing Space
Shirim (Eli, 15):
Am I allowed to say we like our two-bedroom apartment and did not want to be cramped? In truth I always grew up wanting two things: to live in an apartment, not a free-standing house, and to have only one child. I have never, ever regretted either.
I have been lucky not to have had pressure from friends or family to have more kids. Economically, it also did not make sense to me. My husband would have liked another, but was a good egg about it. Having cousins live so close has been really helpful for Eli in terms of having sibling-like relationships.
Trusting Your Gut
Erin (Reed, 3):
I guess the main thing is: We feel like our family is whole with our son. People often say the second or third or fourth child was the final piece of the puzzle. I’ve always felt as if we have all of our pieces.
Chris (2-year-old son):
My husband and I became fathers to our amazing son through domestic open adoption. Is it weird that the phrase only child now bothers me? When people say it, they lean into the only. I am a gay man in my early 40s. Even one child is so much more than I ever expected to have a few years ago, and more than my teenage self would have said I had the right to ask the universe for. Then our son’s birth mom chose us to be dads, and everything changed for our family.
Stacey (Dash, 7):
I was never one of those women who always knew I wanted a baby. My son wasn’t really planned, but we weren’t working hard to *not* get pregnant, either. After having Dash, we’d have brief conversations about more children, but they were mostly around my not wanting to push my luck after having such an awesome kid.
I don’t know about the rest of the world, but here in Brooklyn people love to comment on everything. It’s like constantly being booked on a talk show. My least favorite is when someone says something to Dash like, “Don’t you want a little brother or sister?” Not up to you, person, and not up to my seven-year-old, either! I guess the headline here is there is no right answer, so trusting your instinct is enough.
Raising a Child With Special Needs
Kate (Ocean, 7):
When Ocean was born, we were so in love with him, but it was hard. He was the kind of baby who needed to be held upright and bounced all the time. He didn’t sleep much. Nursing was hard. He dropped off his weight curve around six months. I had concerns about his development. He was so adorable and joyful, but there were red flags.
When Ocean was one, I remember sitting John down one night, shaking. I was terrified of having sex because I couldn’t go through it all again: pregnancy, but especially that first year. I was worried that John would be disappointed, but he got it.
Our pediatrician suggested physical and occupational therapy, and I began to scramble down the rabbit hole of special education. As Ocean evolved into the extraordinary and challenging person he is, I couldn’t see room in our lives for more. I felt completely fulfilled and completely overwhelmed at the same time. I’ve become his advocate. Our family feels just right.
People did ask a lot at first. I’ve always been ready with one-liners. First it was: “Well, this one was a miracle, so…” Then: “Having Ocean is kind of like having two kids.” Now it’s just: “Yup, one and done!” with a big smile showing off my wrinkles.
Reagan (Piper, 10):
I grew up in a big Mormon family, so I was surprised myself when stopping after one felt so right. It made more sense the more I thought about it, and letting go of that expectation gave me a lot of sweet relief.
My child also has serious physical disabilities that prevent her from being able to live at home with me, so I do sometimes mourn the loss of having a more typical family setup. For a long time, I thought having more kids would help heal some of the heartbreak of what she and I have gone through and what we’ve missed out on, but it feels too scary and uncertain to do.
The pro is that I get to have a very special relationship with Piper, and devote as much time as possible to her. Anything left over can go to my relationship with my fiancé, my career and any projects I feel passionate about.
The decision was also tricky at first because of my Mormon family. When I was little, having children was my main goal in life. There are tons of Mormon kids’ songs about motherhood, and I remember singing this one at four years old: “Of all the jobs, for me I’ll choose no other. I’ll raise a family. Four little, five little, six little babies of my own.” Many of the lessons I was learning at my church heavily emphasized developing motherhood skills — sewing, cooking, organizing, cleaning, crafting, even decorating. It was a challenge to break out of those expectations, versus what I really wanted.
Striving for Balance
Janna (Harley, 3):
My husband and I both come from two-child households, and before becoming parents we talked about having two. And then there was that huge recalibration of life that occurs after you have a child. It took us years to get into the groove where we each got the family time, alone time and social time that we needed to thrive. For us, this balance is what makes us good parents.
With one child, we can be spontaneous. When we take turns being on duty, the other gets to be totally off duty. We’re able to be present for Harley when we’re together — he has all of us. We live in a family-filled neighborhood, so he has playdates constantly. He is very independent, and he’s comfortable with a group of all adults or kids. We also can travel more easily with one child. We went to Barcelona for a week and ate and drank our way through the city, just the three of us. We had a blast.
I do often wonder if I’ll regret not having another child, and there’s no way to know. I’ve sought counsel from older friends who have only one child, and their continued happiness with it makes me feel confident in our decision.
Confronting Infertility
Melissa (Sammy, 7):
It took seven years — and five miscarriages — to have our child. When our healthy baby boy was born, we felt like we’d hit the jackpot. Going through the stress of trying to have another seemed absurd to us. My husband and I felt like our dreams had finally come true. I will say that our son LOVES being an only child and getting all the attention, and actually begs us not to have any more. (I’m 47, so I tell him not to worry!)
Sandy (Margot, 4):
Raising an only child was never my plan. My daughter was born in early 2013, and I conceived her sibling a year and a half later. But as I neared the end of my first trimester, I learned something: my baby’s heart had stopped beating at nine weeks gestation. That little love of mine had let go. I was pregnant one day, and then, without any prior warning, suddenly the next I was lying in an operating room while my uterus was hollowed out by a team of masked professionals. Six months later, I was diagnosed with secondary infertility.
I’ll never forget the moment my next-door neighbor commented on the size of our house, telling me we needed to have more kids to fill up the bedrooms — nor the time when a woman next to me on a plane assured me that even though I’d lost a baby, another one would come soon enough. “No, unfortunately, I’ve been told that won’t happen,” I replied.
As for pros, my daughter gets every ounce of my attention, and I get to bury her in a thousand kisses every single day. My daughter is my heart on two feet, and there’s not a con in the world about getting to raise that sweet person!
I’ve learned over these past three years that grief is anything but linear. I can go weeks with my head held high, and then, out of nowhere, a pregnant woman’s swollen belly or the sight of two car seats in the back of a car knock me right over.
But never until now have I typed this or said it aloud: I’m just now finally feeling the light of acceptance warming my face. It’s new, it’s unfamiliar, and it’s a beautiful thing.
Do you have an only child? Were you an only child? I’d love to hear your thoughts… xoxo
P.S. How did you know you were ready to have a baby?
(Photo by Harold Feinstein, Coney Island, 1957. Via Land of Women.) | {
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Check out our new site Makeup Addiction
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Baught A New Bowl Now I can't afford weed. | {
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Unlike other conventional movie sites that allows you to watch movies online only, fzmovies lets you watch and download them.
The website is pretty decent as it offers lots of Hollywood and Bollywood Movies for download. Moreover, you can download movies in different qualities that come in compressed and low sizes.
Pros
Free Movie Downloads with subtitles.
Regular movie Updates.
Offers movies in 3 different quality in compressed formats.
Cons
Regular ads page pop up.
Website Link: https://www.fzmovies.net
Fzmovies
Fzmovies offer lots of Hollywood and Bollywood movies on their platform. The movies on the site have been compressed to suit mobile phones and similar devices including PC.
One would think that the movies would lose video quality considering the fact that the sizes range from 200mb to 500mb, after conversion, but that isn’t the case. Movies still retain their picture and audio quality, although not the best but manageable and fair enough to watch.
Furthermore, the website offers subtitle for download besides the movie. You can also choose to watch movies online if you don’t want to download it.
How is the Movie Qualities of Fzmovies?
There are basically two types of movie quality on the website; 3gp and Mp4. Furthermore, the Mp4 has been split into two. There is normal mp4 and high Mp4.
The regular Mp4 has a bitrate of 210k and an aspect ratio of 16:9. This format is well suited for middle range phones.
High Mp4 has a bitrate of 250k with a scale of 640x. This format is well suited for phones, tablets, and PC.
3gp is more suited to phones, as it has the smallest file size. For 3gp movies, movies are converted with Mpeg4 codec with a bitrate of approximately 104. Also, the audios are still very clear on mobile phones, as it is of about 32k.
The movie qualities are still very clear, especially the ‘high mp4’ which plays flawlessly without any video distortion on PC.
How to download movies on fzmovies
The movie up for download on fzmovies are in 3 different quality formats; 3gp, mp4, High mp4. Movies in 3gp and mp4 have been partitioned into 2 or more files, so make sure you download all the files. Only High Mp4 is a single file and it will require you to download it once.
Visit the official site of fzmovies on fzmovies.net
Browse from the categories, or search for the movie you want to download.
Select the movie to go to the download page.
Select the quality of the movie (3gp, mp4, and High mp4). This will redirect you to the download server.
Click on the download server link to download the movie.
Tip: for fast download on mobile phones, use UC Browser. While for pc download, you can use IDM (Internet download manager).
Note: You can also watch movies online. In the download page below the download server link, you will see where to watch the movies online without downloading, simply click on it.
The watch movies online is a new feature on Fzmovies.
Fzmovies.net 2020 Best Movies to Download
Can I download Subtitles on Fzmovies?
Yes, besides movie downloads, you can also download movie subtitles on fzmovies. Movie subtitles can be found just below the movie on the download page. So, to download it simply select it.
The movie subtitle is usually in srt format and it’s a separate file on Fzmovies. So, you have to download the movie and subtitle independently.
How to Integrate the subtitle file into the movie
Depending on your video player, some video players may automatically play the movie with the subtitle loaded if they are located in the same folder.
Alternatively, you can load the subtitle manually by opening the video player settings and selecting the subtitle option. Simply browse the downloaded subtitle in the folder you have downloaded it to and load it.
Does Fzmovies Support Movie Request?
In the past, Yes but Fzmovies no longer support movie requests because of users spamming and abusive of the medium.
You will just have to wait for them to upload any movie that interests you. But if you can’t wait you can download from other similar sites like Moviewatcher, Fmovies, Ovguide, etc.
Final Thoughts
The movie website has grown popular within a short time. Recent movies that you won’t find anywhere else or are up only to watch online, chances are you will find them on Fzmovies to download. It may be compressed and not in full HD quality, but it’s manageable.
Compressed movies on Fzmovies can be downloaded easily within a couple of minutes because the file size is low. The file sizes are low, and usually ranging from 300mb to 500mb.
That sums it all up on Fzmovies. You now have a platform to download Hollywood and Bollywood movies for free. Share this article with your friend and like our pages to get updates on similar movie sites.
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Reuters file photo
MUMBAI: India is likely to achieve strong growth over the next decade and will overtake Japan in nominal GDP by 2028, to emerge as the world's third largest economy, says a foreign brokerage report.
The country has already overtaken Brazil and Russia to emerge as the second largest BRIC economy after China and is well on track to cross France and Britain to emerge as the world's fifth largest economy after Germany by 2019.
"We see India crossing Germany and Japan in nominal GDP in dollar term by 2028. This assumes that the Indian economy grows at 10 per cent (in nominal US GDP) in the next decade, well ahead of Japan's 1.6 per cent," a Bank of America Merrill Lynch report said today.
The American brokerage has conservatively projected the country's real GDP growth at 7 per cent potential.
Last year the economy closed at $2.26 trillion. But the report did not quantify the size of the economy by 2028 when it would be the third largest after China and the US.
The report titled, ' India 2028: The last BRICK in the Wall ', said falling dependency ratios, financial maturity and increasing incomes and affordability are the three key drivers for the country to stand among the large emerging economies.
"First, falling dependency ratios should raise savings and investment rates. Second, financial maturity, due to financial liberalisation and inclusion, should continue to lower lending rates structurally.
"Finally, increasing incomes and affordability will likely underpin the emergence of mass markets, supporting an expected 7 per cent real GDP growth," the report said.
It said the dependency ratio (unproductive population in the 0-14 and over-65 age group) is slated to fall to 46.2 per cent in 2028 from 52.2 per cent now and 71.7 per cent in 1990. This should sustain the savings rate at 32 per cent of GDP, at the least, in 2028, comparable to 31.4 per cent during 2000-17, up from 20.5 per cent in the 1980s and the 1990s.
A rising savings rate should push the investment rate up to 35 per cent of GDP in 2028 from 32.4 per cent in 2017 and 22.1 per cent in the 1980s and the 1990s. This assumes a sustainable current account deficit of 2-2.5 per cent of GDP.
"This, in turn, should lift growth to 10 per cent from 7.1 per cent last fiscal holding the incremental capital output ratio at current 4.8 levels," the report said.
The credit to GDP ratio, a proxy for financial maturity, will likely climb to 83 per cent of GDP from 44 per cent (2001-17) and 25 per cent during the 1980s and the 1990s driven by financial extension and inclusion, emergence of financial products and financial market development.
The report expects the country's growth to be driven by services.
It further said RBI will recoup forex reserves compared to falling import cover. "We continue to expect RBI to recoup forex reserves to guard against contagion in contrast to import cover almost halving since 2008. This should contain depreciation to 3 per cent a year over the next 10 years," the report said.
The brokerage said the country is witnessing the emergence of mass markets powered by rising incomes, on the demand side, as well as economies of scale, on the supply side.
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This is the Horsley Prettacy, starring Auxana Horsley! She is a full-blown Diva who wants to be Da Vinci’s Descendant in Apaloosa Plains. Will she be able to achieve this wish without only drawing stick figures? Will her offspring look as hideous as she does? Will she find someone to fall in love with? And will she ever put on some damn shoes?!
Generation One | {
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This artwork was shared by Fluttershy on Facebook here . And I'm really glad she did, for it exposed me to your excellent gallery of uploads. +1 Watcher for you! | {
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A Conservative senator's bid to remove the criminal prohibitions against mixed martial arts and other combat sports has been approved by the Red Chamber and is off to the House of Commons, where it will be debated when MPs return in the fall.
With the popularity of mixed martial arts growing and Ultimate Fighting Championship events drawing tens of thousands of people, some provinces, including British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec, have have found ways to get around the section of the Criminal Code that outlaws all combative sports except boxing.
"They are sort of interpreting it that this is boxing," Senator Bob Runciman, the sponsor of the bill, said in a telephone interview Friday.
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But mixed martial arts is not boxing. "And, if someone wanted to say 'you are breaking the law, why isn't this enforced?' they would have a case," Mr. Runciman explained.
His bill would change definition of a prize fight in the Criminal Code – a section of the law that has not been updated since 1934 – to allow any amateur combative sport that is on the program of the International Olympic or Paralympic Committee, allow amateur sports that involve fists, hands and feet, and permit professional mixed martial arts matches. All events would still require approval by provincial authorities.
When the Liberal government in Ontario allowed the province's first ever Ultimate Fighting Championship last year, the card drew 55,000 fans to the Rogers Centre in Toronto. That came after a protracted period of debate within the cabinet of Premier Dalton McGuinty, with several ministers expressing concern about the perceived barbarism of UFC.
But mixed martial arts is North America's fastest growing sport. There is a major event coming up in Calgary in July and matches in Montreal sell out quickly.
Massimo Pacetti, a Liberal MP from Montreal, has agreed to sponsor the bill when it gets to the House of Commons, Mr. Runciman said. "So that's a good sign in terms of the Liberal Party being on side with this," he said. "I know that in our own caucus there are a few people who may not be enthusiastic. And that may even be right across the board because a lot of people don't like the sport."
Mr. Runciman said he is no fan of mixed martial arts himself. But, as the law now stands, even karate and judo events could be deemed illegal, he said. And "it makes sense to have laws coincide with what is now accepted practice." | {
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SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. -- Two suspects involved in a mass shooting at a Southern California social services center, killing 14 people and wounding more than a dozen others, are dead, police say. A third possible suspect has been detained.
San Bernardino Police Chief Jarrod Burguan said the two suspects, one male and one female, are dead after engaging in a shootout with police hours after the initial attack. The pair had been spotted in a dark SUV as police investigated a residential area near the shooting location.
An undated photo from an online dating website shows Syed Rizwan Farook, who has been identified to CBS News as one of the suspects in the Dec. 2, 2015 shooting at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernadino, Calif. CBS News
Late Wednesday night, Burguan identified the suspects as Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, and Tashfeen Malik, 27. They were believed to be the only shooters.
Farook worked as an environmental specialist at the San Bernardino County public health department, which was holding a holiday party Wednesday at the Inland Regional Center. Burguan said authorities believe Farook attended the event but left after a dispute, and returned later to open fire.
Farhan Khan, Farook's brother-in-law, stood alongside local Muslim leaders late Wednesday evening expressing his sadness for the victims of the attack at the Inland Regional Center.
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"Why would he do that? Why would he do something like this? I have absolutely no idea, I am in shock myself," Khan, who is married to Farook's sister, told reporters. He said he last spoke to Farook about a week ago.
Kahn said Farook and Malik had been married for about two years and had a six-month-old daughter. They lived with his mother, who was caring for the child today.
Police said a person was detained who was seen running near the gunbattle between the suspects and the officers. Burguan said it was not clear if that person is connected to the shooting. After the shooting, police conducted a search of the neighborhood and declared it safe.
A police officer was injured in the gunfire with the suspects, but authorities say his injuries are non-life threatening.
The shooting at the Inland Regional Center was the deadliest mass shooting in a nation all too familiar with them since 2012, when a man killed 26 children and adults at a school in the Newtown, Connecticut.
U.S. official tells CBS News this is a joint investigation between the FBI and the local police until a motive can be established.
The FBI says it's a possibility that the shooting is "terrorism," though it was too early to make any definitive conclusions.
A federal law enforcement official told CBS News' senior investigative producer Pat Milton that the two assault weapons found in suspects' SUV were AR-15 style rifles. There were also two pistols found in the SUV. Investigators are tracing the weapons to determine if they were legally purchased, where and when.
Each of the dead suspects were dressed in actual tactical clothing and each had multiple magazines of ammunition attached to the military style clothing that they were wearing.
The suspects were "loaded with magazines for a gunfight," Meredith Davis, a spokeswoman with ATF, told CBS Los Angeles.
The official said that a piece of metal pipe was thrown from the SUV while the chase was underway but that proved not to be an explosive device.
Police said three explosive devices similar to pipe bombs were found at the center. Milton reports that the contents of the explosive devices found at the scene of the shooting is being analyzed for content and construction by bomb techs.
Meanwhile, police are serving a search warrant on a home in Redlands, California, in connection with the shooting. Law enforcement officers are calling for people to come to the front door of a home there.
One of them called out: "This is the FBI." Officers in riot gear, a bomb squad unit and armored vehicles are outside Wednesday night. They appear to have brought in robot devices. It's unclear if anyone is inside the home.
City spokesman Carl Baker says Redlands police are assisting San Bernardino police in the search connected to the San Bernardino shooting.
Burguan said upwards of 14 people were killed and 18 injured in the shooting. The number of fatalities are subject to change.
Several hundred others were in building at the time and not injured.
The Inland Regional Center provides social services for children and adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
The attack took place in a conference area where the San Bernardino County Department of Public Health was renting space to hold a banquet, said Marybeth Feild, president and CEO of the center. She said the building houses at least 25 employees as well as a library and conference center.
"48 Hours" Crimesider reporter Erin Donaghue spoke with Sandra Wood, interim executive director of the Inland Empire Lighthouse for the Blind, a school for visually impaired adults located about 200 feet from the Center.
Wood said she was on the second floor of her building around 11:15 this morning when she heard what sounded like automatic gunfire. She said she heard about 25 to 30 rounds, followed by more gunfire.
"You could tell the person stopped and re-loaded and started again," Wood said.
Terry Petit says he got a text from his daughter saying she was hiding after gunfire erupted at the social services facility in Southern California where she works.
Petit choked back tears Wednesday as he read the texts for reporters outside Inland Regional Center.
He says she wrote: "People shot. In the office waiting for cops. Pray for us. I am locked in an office."
Police searched people filing out of a building with their hands up before they reunited with loved ones. Other people were seen being wheeled away on gurneys.
Paul Lacroix said his son was able to escape after gunfire erupted. Lacroix told reporters Wednesday that his son texted him and told him alarms started going off and they got word there was shooting.
He said his son was sheltered with a group of people before they managed to get out. Lacroix said his son and colleagues were ordered to exit with their arms up and nothing in their hands.
California Gov. Jerry Brown says the shooting is a brutal attack.
He said in a statement that "California will spare no effort in bringing these killers to justice." The governor was scheduled to light the Capitol Christmas tree Wednesday evening, but his office said the ceremony will be canceled.
President Obama has been briefed by his Homeland Security Advisor Lisa Monaco about the shooting and has asked to be updated on the situation as it develops.
"We don't know that much yet" about the circumstances in San Bernardino, Mr. Obama said in an interview Wednesday afternoon with CBS News' Norah O'Donnell.
"The one thing we do know is that we have a pattern now of mass shootings in this country that has no parallel anywhere else in the world," he continued.
Stores, office buildings and at least one school were locked down in the city of 214,000 people about 60 miles east of Los Angeles.
This story will be updated as more information is available. | {
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Guvernul ar putea renunța la majorarea salariului minim brut lunar pentru românii cu o vechime în muncă de minimum 15 ani, urmând să crească doar salariul minim pentru persoanele încadrate pe funcții cu studii superioare, cu o vechime de cel puțin 1 an, acestea urmând să urce la 2.350 de lei pe lună. Documentul ar putea fi adoptate în ședința de vineri a Guvernului.
Vezi aici Nota de Fundamentare si aici Proiectul propriu zis.
Ministrul Muncii, Marius Budăi, a declarat, luni, că anticipează că salariul minim pe economie va crește de la 1 ianuarie, săptămâna aceasta urmând a avea loc noi discuții. Ministrul a mai spus că proiectul va fi aprobat la finele acestei săptămâni în ședința de Guvern.
Pe 24 octombrie, premierul Viorica Dăncilă a anunţat că este posibil ca salariul minim să fie majorat de la 1 decembrie. „Am discutat cu sindicatele. Vom vedea dacă e oportun de la 1 decembrie sau 1 ianuarie”, a precizat atunci şeful Executivului.
Propunerea inițială de a majora salariul minim pentru angajații cu 15 ani vechime a venit din partea șefului Comisiei Naționale de Prognoză, Ion Ghizdeanu, într-un raport care poate fi consultat aici.
La sfârșitul lunii octombrie, ministrul (pe atunci) al Muncii, Lia Olguța Vasilescu scria pe Facebook: "După analiza datelor transmise de Comisia de Prognoza, MMJS lucrează la creşterea salariului minim pe economie încă de la finalul acestui an şi la diferentierea salariului minim in funcţie de studii sau vechimea de peste 15 ani. Aveţi mai jos analiza Comisiei de prognoza şi a MMJS şi calendarul creşterilor".Propunerea inițială de a majora salariul minim pentru angajații cu 15 ani vechime a venit din partea șefului Comisiei Naționale de Prognoză, Ion Ghizdeanu,
„Salariul minim pe economie va mai avea astăzi o discuție și pe parcursul vizitei la Bruxelles și va fi dezbătut și aprobat vineri în ședința de Guvern, și atunci vom avea forma finală. Ce pot eu sa anticipez, cred că va intra în vigoare de la 1 ianuarie”, a declarat ministrul Muncii, Marius Budăi.Salariul minim brut ar fi urmat să crească, potrivit proiectului inițial, la 2.080 de lei pe lună, pentru toți angajații, cu excepția persoanelor cu studii superioare şi a celor cu minimum 15 ani vechime, pentru care fusese stabilit nivelul de 2.350 de lei pe lună. | {
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Reuters
During her first speech after being named as McCain’s surprise pick as a running mate, Palin said she had told Congress “‘thanks but no thanks’ on that bridge to nowhere.”
In the city Ketchikan, the planned site of the so-called “Bridge to Nowhere,” political leaders of both parties said the claim was false and a betrayal of their community, because she had supported the bridge and the earmark for it secured by Alaska’s Congressional delegation during her run for governor.
The bridge, a span from the city to Gravina Island, home to only a few dozen people, secured a $223 million earmark in 2005. The pricey designation raised a furor and critics, including McCain, used the bridge as an example of wasteful federal spending on politicians’ pet projects.
When she was running for governor in 2006, Palin said she was insulted by the term “bridge to nowhere,” according to Ketchikan Mayor Bob Weinstein, a Democrat, and Mike Elerding, a Republican who was Palin’s campaign coordinator in the southeast Alaska city.
“People are learning that she pandered to us by saying, I’m for this’ … and then when she found it was politically advantageous for her nationally, abruptly she starts using the very term that she said was insulting,” Weinstein said.
Palin’s spokeswoman in Alaska was not immediately available to comment. | {
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Start or finish your degree through BYU-Pathway Worldwide — entirely online — and at a significantly reduced cost!
Through BYU-Idaho, BYU-Pathway Worldwide provides access to nearly 40 online certificates and degrees (BYU-Pathway provides services and support; BYU-Idaho grants the degree.)
Learn MoreApply | {
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Sometimes the more you know is more than you want to know. Luckily, most of these don’t cite sources, so we can hold out hope that the ones we don’t like are false. Found on r/AskReddit
1. dandeluxe
100% of people die on or within 6 months of their birthday.
2. Johnny_Horsecock
Around 72% of black children are born out of wedlock. It was 25% in the 1960’s and that was considered an epidemic at the time.
3. mindcrazedbanjo
The amount of American dollars spent on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars could have paid for solar panels on the roof of every house in America saving Americans billions in energy costs and help towards saving the planet.
4. mindcrazedbanjo
90% of the food in our supermarkets didn’t exist 100 years ago, although cornflakes and milk did so you were still alright for breakfast.
5. FuriousLoki
You are more likely to be killed by a toaster than a shark.
6. Jimbobslow
There is enough food in the world currently to feed everyone in it.
7. FUCKFACED_REPOSTER
Florida has a higher public masturbation rate than all other states combined.
8. Planejet42
90% of Americans live within 15 minutes of a Walmart.
9. jaZoo
One in five geriatric patients dies within a year after suffering a hip fracture. (Numbers ranging from 14 to 25 per cent.)
10. Irish_Subotai
Breast cancer is responsible for the death of 300 men every year.
11. megitator & kingeryck
The world population has doubled since 1960.
In the year 1804 the world human population reached 1 billion.
In the year 1927 the world human population reached 2 billion. 123 years to reach an extra 1 billion people.
In the year 1960 the world human population reached 3 billion. 33 years. yes, one BILLION people in THIRTY THREE years.
In the year 1974 the world human population reached 4 billion. 14 years.
In the year 1987 the world human population reached 5 billion. 13 years.
On October 12th, 1999 the world human population reached 6 billion. 12 years.
7 billion in 2011
12. bgarrett9
Vending machines take the lives of 13 people per year.
13. fourtwentynine
60% of the time one partner does not show any visible signs of having genital warts when it is transferred. That means 40% of the time the uninfected partner looks down, sees warts, and thinks, “This will be worth it.”
14. banjo_07
There is essentially a 3rd world country in the middle of America. Allen, South Dakota is the poorest town in America–the median income for a family in Allen is less than $4,000 per year.
It is part of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation where a population of between 28,000-40,000 almost exclusively have no electricity, telephone lines, running water, sewage, etc. Infant mortality is 5x the national average, and life expectancy is among the shortest for any group IN THE ENTIRE WESTERN HEMISPHERE (for males it is only 48 years.)
Additionally, the population of over 28,000 is unable to support even a single bank or store, so the economy is literally nonexistent. It’s a very sad situation, I drove through there this summer. It was honestly a life changing experience for me to see this in the middle of the United States.
15. daisyink
There are 35-50 active serial killers in the United States at any given moment.
16. gapiece
Since the 1950s, around 90% of the large predatory fish in the ocean are gone.
17. found_Jimmy_hoffa
More American soldiers die from suicide than from fighting in combat.
18. Kill_That_Noise
1 in 3 Australians will develop skin cancer.
I go to the beach every week and get sun burnt quite a lot. Im screwed.
19. Chris-P
There are more empty houses in the US than there are homeless people.
20. skrolls
80% of all Russian males born in the year 1923 didn’t live past the year 1945.
21. sroyalty
The US has imprisoned more of its citizens than any society. 1% of our total population is in prison. 1 in 9 black males are in prison. There are more black males in prison than in college. The leading cause of black males being sent to prison: Non-violent drug offences. A vast majority of military and household products are produced by American prison labor. Workers are paid 25c an hour and are put in solitary for refusing to work.
TL;DR: America still has slaves, through systemic abuses.
(Where I heard all of this: http://youtu.be/nPZed8af9RI http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistics_of_incarcerated_African-American_males)
22. promptx
The US spends $660 billion a year on the military. The total the US has spent on NASA in its 55 year history is $526 billion.
23. zelblade
Every 3 seconds, one child dies due to poverty.
24. ex0th3rmic
Toothpaste was invented in 1892, whereas kissing was invented a disgustingly long time before that.
25. 1radgirl
CPR only works 2% of the time.
26. Thursamaday
58% of the US adult population never reads another book after high school.
http://www.studymode.com/mobile/essays/Scary-Statistics-About-Book-Reading-686992.html
27. SmokeyBare
Girls are on their period 25% of the time. 7 billion people/2 sexes, 3.5 billion women/4 weeks, 875 million women are on their period at any given time.
Subtract the young and menopausal, I suppose.
28. biohazard13
Single men typically change their bed sheets 4 times a year.
29. squalala
In the US, there’s an average of 217 millions white blood cells per liter of cow milk. Those white blood cells come from the pus of the infected teats of the cows.
30. druthers25
You will eat on average 5 pubic hairs per year
31. MadMat23
88% of chickens raised for human consumption in the UnS contain arsenic, a poison known to promote cancer, diabetes and cardiovascular disease. 70% of chickens have arsenic levels over the FDA safety standard.
32. megitator
50% of healthcare dollars in the US are spent on the last 6 months of life.
33. SinisterScopez
McDonalds Chicken Nuggets are 43% chicken.
34. HidingDarkness
60 percent of all rapes are girls under the age of 18. I was rather horrified when I found out.
You should like Thought Catalog on Facebook here.
WANT TO READ MORE INTERESTING STORIES FROM REDDIT? CHECK OUT OUR BOOK HERE. | {
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True Detective’s Cary Fukunaga directs British star in the first competition film to screen at this year’s Venice film festival – and the first awards contender from Netflix’s new cinema division
Director Cary Fukunaga has handled projects as diverse as the migrant drama Sin Nombre, a Jane Eyre adaptation with Mia Wasikowska and Michael Fassbender, and episodes of TV’s True Detective. This film, premiering at the Venice film festival, is his best film yet.
Fukunaga brings flair, muscular storytelling, directness and a persuasively epic sweep to this brutal, heartrending movie about child soldiers and a civil war in an imaginary West African country, based on the 2005 novel by Nigerian-American author Uzodinma Iweala.
It is a tale of fear, degradation and abusive dysfunction – a violent and disorientating nightmare with a shiver of Coppola’s Apocalypse Now. Idris Elba gives an outstanding performance as a charismatic and sinister warlord who finds that military power, however intoxicating, is subject to the fickle imperatives of politics, and the suit-wearing opportunists in the cities far from the country badlands he has come to rule.
Netflix takes on Hollywood with its first film premiere at Venice festival Read more
Newcomer Abraham Attah plays Agu, a nine-year-old boy whose village stands in a UN-regulated buffer zone adjoining a warring neighbouring state: his father, a teacher, has given some family-owned land to help house the refugees, a gesture that has alienated some in the community. Soon the chaos spreads over the border; Agu’s own country is torn apart by civil war.
His family falls prey to swaggering, trigger-happy soldiers and Agu runs, terrified, for his life, where he is taken up by a factional rebel unit in the jungle, led by the imperious Commandant (Elba), who in his enigmatic and unpleasant way, has taken a shine to little Agu and, instead of having him killed, decrees that he will be trained as a child soldier in his battalion.
These soldiers, dead-eyed and obedient to the Commandant, vary in age from kids to teens and early twenties, but they are all clearly feral and scary as children who have been given guns and trained to obey a father-figure at an impressionable stage.
Elba’s Commandant, like some warped preacher, has trained his men not merely to bark “Yes sir!” to each of his orders, but to chant and moan ritualistic replies like church congregants. “How does the Commandant look?” calls out his second-in-command. “Looks good!” they reply.
The Commandant is whimsical, eccentric, affecting a conventional military beret but in other ways preferring to look like a bandit: Idris Elba’s performance gives him that important aura of leadership that keeps his men in line, but he displays none of the occasional humour and charm shown by, say, Forest Whitaker in his portrayal of Idi Amin.
Agu has to surrender both his childhood and his humanity and become a monster of violence. Initiation ceremonies include running a gauntlet and taking part in a voodooistic mock funeral and resurrection. It is all but unwatchable when the Commandant hands Agu a machete and orders him to murder a civilian engineering student in cold blood.
To keep fighting, Agu and the others are given heroin, which they ingest in a grotesque masochistic warrior style of slashing wounds in the side of their head and rubbing it in. A delirium and horror soon sets in, and Fukunaga shows that Agu’s horrendous experiences do not propel him into a precocious adulthood but rather make him regress into a pre- or non-human state: a dazed survivor-killer, with neither the child’s innocence nor the adult’s intelligence or perspective.
As for the Commandant himself, he is not exactly a Kurtzian chieftain-god of the jungle: his weapons and provisions all come from the political faction he is fighting for and to whom he is beholden.
His favourite, Agu, is almost taken into the Commandant’s confidence about all this. But it is clear Agu’s ordeal is to reach a new low in an ambiguous scene in which he is subject to yet further intimate abuse. As the weeks and months of fighting continue, the Commandant and his men realise the prospect of victory is receding, replaced by the possibility of being rendered up to a war crimes tribunal.
Everest review – star-studded adventure proves a difficult summit Read more
The narrative voice of the film is Agu, sometimes given a potent and thoughtful voiceover. After he kills for the first time – a Satanically inverted coming-of-age moment – Agu reflects on what death smells like: “Sweet like sugar cane; rotten like palm wine.” Despite his dehumanisation, however, Agu achieves a kind of insight into himself when he is finally questioned by a kindly, well-meaning teacher, whose bland condescending smile betrays her lack of understanding about what he has gone through: “I am not a baby – I am an old man and she is a small girl.”
This is a very powerful and confidently made movie, a film that really puts its audience through the wringer, which finally refuses any palliative gestures, with towering performances from Elba and Attah. The awards season really has begun. | {
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Carmelo Anthony is reportedly expected to consider the Miami Heat an option if he's waived by the Oklahoma City Thunder, according to ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski.
A report from earlier this week claimed the Heat, Houston Rockets, and Los Angeles Lakers were the top contenders to express interest in the 10-time All-Star, according to ESPN's Wojnarowski and Royce Young.
South Beach could be a logical destination for Anthony, with no go-to scorer on the roster and a struggling offense last season. The reputation of the Heat's "culture," however, could help Anthony regain some form as well as an opportunity to become a late-game closer, something they struggled with last year until their mid-season reunion with 36-year-old Dwyane Wade.
The Rockets are also "determined" to sign Anthony, especially after losing forwards Trevor Ariza and Luc Mbah a Moute in free agency, according to Wojnarowski. Rockets point guard Chris Paul has reportedly been advocating for his franchise to land Anthony as well.
If Oklahoma City is unable to unload Anthony via trade without an expensive return, they'll likely waive and stretch his $27.9-million contract after playing just one season with the franchise, saving the Thunder approximately $100 million in luxury tax.
Anthony, 34, averaged a career-low 16.2 points last season - the only time he's ever dipped below the 20-point mark in his 15-year career. | {
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Four Democratic candidates backed by the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) won primary elections for legislative seats in Pennsylvania on Tuesday.
In the Pittsburgh area, Summer Lee and Sara Innamorato, Democrats who are both members of the DSA, won primaries for state House Districts 34 and 21.
Lee and Innamorato defeated state Reps. Paul Costa and Dom Costa, both Democrats. They do not have Republican opponents in the general election.
Costa congratulated Lee on her victory, telling the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that her campaign had done a better job getting people out to vote."
"They energized a lot of people, and they showed up at the polls," he told the outlet.
In Philadelphia, Democrats Elizabeth Fiedler and Kristin Seale won legislative primaries for House Districts 184 and 168. Fielder does not have a GOP opponent in the general election, while Seale will take on Rep. Christopher Quinn.
It was a great night for female candidates in the Keystone State in general, as all four women unseated male state representatives. Pennsylvania has an all-male delegation to the U.S. Congress, but several women won primaries for the House on Tuesday night and will be favorites in November.
The DSA hailed the legislative victories as a huge moment for the socialist movement.
Arielle Cohen, co-chair of the Pittsburgh DSA chapter, told HuffPost that she feels a "monumental shift" after the victories, noting DSA's growing membership since President Trump's election.
"We won on popular demands that were deemed impossible. We won on health care for all, we won on free education," she said.
"We're turning the state the right shade of red tonight," she added. | {
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A man in Austria saw his Tesla car totally incinerated in a road accident, in mere seconds. Now, the owner is desperately seeking to salvage it. Yet, no one seems willing to try and recycle the supposedly eco-friendly vehicle.
The electric car’s fiery demise – and what followed – shows that fossil-fuel-free vehicles still have a way to go before they become renewable and eco-friendly enough to drive us into a green future.
Dominik Freymuth, a German motorist, had been an enthusiastic supporter of a shift to electric vehicles. He willingly sold his diesel-powered Mercedes and “made a fully conscious choice in favor of Tesla’s electric car.” And he enjoyed his new vehicle “from the first minute” – until he crashed it into a tree in a minor road accident.
“In just ten seconds after I crashed at a speed of 60 km per hour, this thing was already engulfed in flames and [I] was just happy that someone who was driving by rescued [me] from a fiery death,” Freymuth, who was hospitalized with severe injuries following the accident in October, told RT Deutsch. “I am disappointed.”
Austrian man has tried to scrap his Tesla for months after it burned down in seconds after crashingREAD MORE: https://t.co/Jr166NYLRDpic.twitter.com/Bs5ihsk9gP — RT (@RT_com) November 23, 2019
Yet that was not the end of Dominik’s troubles. His car, having burned out almost completely, had to be cooled for about three days in a special container. Later, it was transported to a private parking lot and was virtually abandoned there for more than a month as literally no company in Austria was willing to scrap it, despite Freymuth's tireless efforts.
Also on rt.com Clean energy dream fuels a dirty mineral rush
The parking lot owner told Freymuth that “he was literally going round in circles as various agencies simply were sending him off to one another.” Eventually, it turned out that Tesla had signed a contract with a certain Austrian company to salvage its cars in Austria – but that firm was still lacking the necessary license from the Austrian government.
Power source from hell
Freymuth had to go through all this for one reason: his ‘eco-friendly’ car’s electric motor ran on a lithium-ion battery. Developed in the late 20th century, these batteries are now commonly used in various portable gadgets like smartphones – and in electric vehicles.
The problem with these batteries is that, if damaged, crushed or overcharged, they can catch fire and it’s almost impossible to extinguish because it basically needs no oxygen to burn. Besides, metallic lithium used in these batteries actively reacts with water and, when doused with it, could take oxygen from it, producing flammable hydrogen, which could make things even worse, Christian Kljna, a member of the Austrian motorists’ association ÖAMTC, told RT Deutsch.
This lithium cannot be extinguished with water. It continues to burn underwater, and if one tries to extinguish it with water it takes oxygen from that water. It simply burns until it is burnt to the ground.
As if this were not enough, damaged lithium batteries can potentially combust at any moment while waiting to be properly salvaged. This makes salvaging them immensely difficult, although there are technologies that allow recycling from 25 to 96 percent of materials used in a lithium-ion battery cell.
Tesla's accident record also shows that its electric cars are far from perfectly safe. They caught fire on more than a dozen occasions since 2013. The causes of these incidents, which sometimes saw the cars incinerated in mere moments and led to several people dying a horrific death in flames, range from road accidents to spontaneous self-combustion.
No more electric cars
Eventually, Tesla's own specialists agreed to scrap Freymuth's unfortunate vehicle. Yet, they still need to wait for an approval from the Austrian authorities to proceed with the recycling and it appears that Freymuth has to wait a while more before his car is finally salvaged.
After going through all these troubles, the Austrian motorist firmly believes an electric car is not worth it and says he will never buy one again. “Now, I see electric cars in an absolutely negative way,” he told RT.
As long as there are other cars on the market, electric cars simply do not exist for me.
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Bleed during sex as a virgin and no one bats an eye But have sex on your period and EVERYBODY LOSES THeir minds!
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Whenever the discussion about “rebranding” the Republican Party rolls around, the most frequent comment—whether in speeches or in the much-celebrated-then-derided autopsy of its November defeat—is that the G.O.P. has to change its means of communication, not its message.
If I may, then, I’d like to throw in a suggestion for how the G.O.P. can improve the way it speaks to voters: stop lying.
On Tuesday, House Speaker John Boehner sent out one of his myriad tweets about how the Republican Party plans to end the evils of Obama and usher in an era where sweets and flowers would be thrown at the feet of all Americans. (Oops, sorry . . . that was the G.O.P. fantasy about what would happen in Iraq. Oh well.) In his Tuesday tweet, Boehner continued the party’s endless and unsuccessful assault on Obamacare by trotting out a new canard to join the list that includes death panels and the government takeover of health care.
And this one may be the strangest yet: “ObamaCare even threatens mobile app developers & smartphone users.”
When I read that, my first thought was: “Really?” Then I remembered: this was a statement coming from a senior Republican about why Obamacare should be rejected. So my second thought was: “How did they come up with thisfalsehood?” After all, even the hoariest of lies about Obamacare is based—however loosely—on some twisted fact.
Boehner helpfully supplied a link to prove his point, which I guess was meant to convince people. After all, any reasonable person would likely assume that, if there is a link, Boehner can’t be making up this allegation out of whole cloth. Bad assumption—instead, it was a link to someone elsemaking it up out of whole cloth.
The first thing to jump out about the, shall we say, slipperiness of the allegation was the fact that the link was simply to his own press release, which in turn provided a link to another partisan press release, one from the House Energy and Commerce Committee. So Boehner was quoting his own team to make an allegation.
But even that release wasn’t willing to say that Obamacare “threatens” smartphones. And it wasn’t too hard to tell—just read the headline: “Will FDA Use Obamacare to Tax Americans’ Smartphones and Tablets?”
Catch the trick? Boehner took a questionbeing asked by one of his own and then turned it into a statement of fact in hopes of riling up the voters with a contemptible deception.
But it gets worse. Why even ask the question about whether Obamacare threatens app developers and smartphone users? Here’s the rationale put forth by Energy and Commerce:
The F.D.A. says an increasing number of mobile apps are being put out to monitor health problems, including chronic conditions like high-blood pressure and diabetes. Some of these apps are used in conjunction with medical devices that are already regulated by the F.D.A., or serve to give the phone the ability to act as such a device by using attachments, sensors, and other items. The F.D.A. has proposed regulating mobile apps when they transform a phone into the functional equivalent of a medical device.
And that’s it. If app makers want to create a program that transforms a phone into the functional equivalent of a medical device that is already regulatedby the F.D.A., then the agency has proposed that* *it might make sense to regulate them. I don’t know about you, but if my loved ones were using smartphones to check their high blood pressure, I sure would like somebodyto make sure the device wasn’t just churning out the local temperature in Albuquerque. That’s why devices that provide these functions are regulated in the first place; it’s a real brain teaser to figure out what would be so bad about the public wanting readings of critical medical information to be ensured correct, including at times when the device used for the test is a smartphone. But, in a letter to the F.D.A., the Republicans on Energy and Commerce whined that such regulations “could affect the innovation and growth in this market” because, you know, making sure medical devices work is bad for business, I guess. | {
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Word Associations This series uses the same bigram dataset as the word spectrum visualization. To eliminate occlusion, I developed an entirely different layout. Now, instead of a continuous spectrum of words, words are bucketed into one of 25 different rays. Each of these represent a different tendency of use (ranging from 0 to 100% in 4% intervals). There is a nice visual analogy at play - the "lean" of each ray represents the strength of the tendency towards one of the two terms. | {
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Party Balloons – Simply Colourful Decors!
Enhance your party with a vibrant variety of colourful balloons beautifully afloat throughout your party venue. Use a bold display of colour coordinating balloons to turn a dull room into a party wonder world. In float or stationary balloons complete any celebration. | {
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Report Viewer Configuration Error
The Report Viewer Web Control HTTP Handler has not been registered in the application's web.config file. Add <add verb="*" path="Reserved.ReportViewerWebControl.axd" type = "Microsoft.Reporting.WebForms.HttpHandler, Microsoft.ReportViewer.WebForms, Version=11.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=89845dcd8080cc91" /> to the system.web/httpHandlers section of the web.config file, or add <add name="ReportViewerWebControlHandler" preCondition="integratedMode" verb="*" path="Reserved.ReportViewerWebControl.axd" type="Microsoft.Reporting.WebForms.HttpHandler, Microsoft.ReportViewer.WebForms, Version=11.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=89845dcd8080cc91" /> to the system.webServer/handlers section for Internet Information Services 7 or later. | {
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A Norwegian journalist Paul Rebstal puts his own life in danger to bring us deep inside the Taliban network,as he brings us "RARE" and exclusive footage from within the Taliban terror cell.They seem to be very terrified of American Air Power,admittedly,in the end they retreat for this very reason,an epic fail.A remarkable video and a ""Must See."",i do believe a lot of you will find this very interesting.At the end a local high ranking Taliban commander was hunted and killed by American Special Forces.Shortly after,the Taliban were forced to retreat due the death of this commander,and due to United States Gunships swarming the skies,hunting them down.enjoy liveleak,i'm sure you will,very entertaining.(Duration 9:32)--Well worth it. | {
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I was thinking to myself recently, wondering what my weekly Chargers Will Lose/Chargers Will Win posts actually were. An attempt to avoid a jinx? A joke to avoid ever being wrong? An actual game preview, but differing from others in some way?
I looked back through some old posts and got a grip on it, I think. These posts are using history to predict what will happen in the game, and showing that history can be skewed any way you want to provide an optimistic or pessimistic point of view.
Then, I went digging through the "history" of Sunday's game and realized that there's really no way to skew it to say that the Chargers will win. Do they stand a chance? Of course. It's a divisional game, anything can happen. However, this isn't like 2013 when the Chargers had one really great advantage (running backs) and were playing an old-ish team that had nothing to play for on a short week.
Peyton Manning vs. AFC West
Since signing with the Denver Broncos before the 2012 season, Peyton Manning is 16-1 against the AFC West opponents. That lone loss was against the Chargers last season, when the Broncos were leading the division over a Chiefs team that was falling apart and two easy games left to finish out their season. They lost because they could lose, and because it was a short week. The Chargers played great, but that game doesn't change the fact that it's very difficult for AFC West teams to beat Peyton Manning.
Lack of (Healthy) Talent
Here was our preseason list of the most valuable Chargers:
Looking back at it, Mike Scifres, Ryan Mathews and Danny Woodhead should've been high up on it, but still....
#5 is essentially retired. #9 and #4 are "questionable" for the game (as is Mathews). #6 has been terrible all year long.
This team is too injured, and performing at too low of a level, to pull out a win over a force like the Denver Broncos. Brandon Oliver and Tenny Palepoi aren't going to get it done.
Pass Rush
The Broncos won with their offense last year. They're winning with their defense this year.
The last time these two teams met, the Broncos sacked Rivers just twice, but they chased him enough around to build a dominating lead. They were up 28-7 halfway through the third quarter and 35-14 with ten minutes left in the fourth.
San Diego's offensive line hasn't gotten much better since then, and Denver's 38 sacks in 13 games tells me that we can expect more of the same havoc being created in the Chargers backfield during this one.
Summary
The Chargers beating the Broncos in Denver last season was a high point. An upset that we continue to celebrate. The team overcame great odds to walk away victorious and rode it into a playoff run.
If they won on Sunday, at Qualcomm Stadium, it would be an even bigger upset. The Chargers are not as good as they were last year and the Broncos, as a team, are better than they were last year. In addition, San Diego's weaknesses play into Denver's strengths. That's before we start factoring in how many star players won't be healthy enough to play on Sunday.
I'll be rooting for the Chargers like I always do, and stranger things have happened in the NFL, but history tells me that the Chargers are screwed on this one.
To buy tickets, visit the NFL Ticket Exchange. | {
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Gary Mihoces
USA TODAY Sports
ST. LOUIS — With one Kansas freshman sensation again out with injury and another having a very off day, No. 10-seeded Stanford beat the No. 2 Jayhawks 60-57 on Sunday to advance to the Sweet 16 for the first time since 2008.
Kansas was making its nation-leading 25th consecutive appearance in the NCAA tournament. Stanford made the field for the first time since 2008.
But it is Stanford of the Pac-12 (23-12) that will advance. Next up for the 10th-seeded Cardinal in the South Region will be 11th-seeded Dayton University, coming off upset wins against No. 6 Ohio State and No. 3 Syracuse.
Joel Embiid, 7-foot freshman center for Kansas, missed his sixth consecutive game with a stress fracture in his lower back. He again watched from the bench in a warm-up suit.
Forward Andrew Wiggins, a 6-8 freshman, came in averaging 17.4 points a game. Like Embiid, he's in the discussion as one of the top picks in the 2014 NBA draft. But he finished the game with just four points and four turnovers.
"They're long. We don't go against very many teams that are bigger than us," Kansas Coach Bill Self said. "So they bothered (Wiggins) with length, and I think that he had an off game. Give them credit for that, but certainly he put himself in position to make some plays and didn't make them.''
Self was asked what advice he would give Wiggins going forward.
"Unfortunately, I expect to be here, but I don't know if he'll be with me," said Self, hinting at the expected one-and-done jump to the NBA. "Everything is a learning experience for young kids, and this isn't the worst thing that's going to happen to him in his life. If it is, he's had a charmed life. … But the kid's had a remarkable season. ... I'm sad for him that it wasn't our day or his day today."
Stanford coach Johnny Dawkins credited 6-7 forward Josh Huestis for his defense on Wiggins.
"He did a great job depending. Then we had help of course," Dawkins said. "He's a guy you are not going to guard with one player."
With one second left in the first half, freshman guard Conner Frankamp of Kansas hit a three-pointer that gave the Jawhawks a 24-22 halftime lead. That was the first lead of the game for Kansas. Wiggins was limited to two points in the first half. He also had three turnovers and a foul.
Kansas forward Tarik Black opened the second half with a dunk.
But led by Randle, Stanford went on a 10-3 run to take a 40-33 lead with 10:40 left.
Kansas (25-10) tied it 49-49 with 5:11 left on a dunk by Perry Ellis.
In the final half-minute, Stanford led 59-54. But Frankamp hit a pair of three-pointers in a span of under 10 seconds to pull Kansas within 59-57 with 14.9 second left. But Stanford hung on for the win with the help of a freethrow by Anthony Brown.
Stanford had the height to match up with Kansas up front, but one question going into the game was whether the Cardinal had the physicality. They met the challenge.
Forward Dwight Powell led Stanford with 15 points. Randle had 15. For Kansas, Tarik Black has 18 points but fouled out.
"To beat a team like this, a storied program with great coaching, great players, always feels amazing," Powell said. "And we're happy to keep playing."
Randle was aware that during a news conference on Saturday Wiggins and Wayne Selden Jr. had not gotten the scouting report yet and apparently didn't know who Randle was.
"I definitely saw that video," Randle said. "I definitely took it as a challenge. So did my teammates. It wasn't just a stab at me. It was a stab at our team. And we took it as a challenge. And it was a little bit of extra motivation for today's game." | {
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The GJEL Blog has always kept a close eye on the driver safety laws of each state, with a particular interest in California. Fortunately, the “Golden State” has maintained a record of progressive safety laws, including strict distracted driving laws and penalties for drunk drivers. Other states have been less receptive to driver safety laws, and some have even openly opposed legislation that would save lives and reduce car accident injuries. So in honor of Distracted Driving Awareness Month, we thought it would be useful to highlight the five worst states for road safety based on our research on teen driver and distracted driving laws, drunk driving penalties and statistics, and bicycle safety laws.
For the sake of this list, I looked at all of the criteria listed below, with a special emphasis on distracted driving and drunk driving laws. Teen permit and license age, bicycle helmet requirements, and motorcycle helmet laws were also important factors. Take a look at our list and join the conversation in the comments section, or on our Facebook page.
South Dakota
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Handheld ban: No
Cell phone ban: No
Texting ban: No
License suspension after 1st DUI offense: No
Ignition interlock devices required: No
% of total auto accident deaths related to DUI: 29
Permit age: 14
Unrestricted license age: 16
Bike helmets required: No
Motorcycle helmets required: Ages 17 and below
Montana
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Handheld ban: No
Cell phone ban: No
Texting ban: No
License suspension after 1st DUI offense: No
Ignition interlock devices required: Repeat offenders
% of total auto accident deaths related to DUI: 40
Permit age: 14 years 6 months
Unrestricted license age: 16
Bike helmets required: No
Motorcycle helmets required: Ages 17 and below
South Carolina
View South Carolina in a larger map
Handheld ban: No
Cell phone ban: No
Texting ban: No
License suspension after 1st DUI offense: No
Ignition interlock devices required: Repeat offenders
% of total auto accident deaths related to DUI: 44
Permit age: 15
Unrestricted license age: 16 years 6 months
Bike helmets required: No
Motorcycle helmets required: Ages 20 and below
Pennsylvania
View Pennsylvania in a larger map
Handheld ban: No
Cell phone ban: No
Texting ban: No
License suspension after 1st DUI offense: No
Ignition interlock devices required: No
% of total auto accident deaths related to DUI: 34
Permit age: 16
Unrestricted license age: 17
Bike helmets required: Ages 11 and below
Motorcycle helmets required: Ages 20 and below
Idaho
View Idaho in a larger map
Handheld ban: “Distraction in/on vehicle” law lists common distractions
Cell phone ban: No
Texting ban: No
License suspension after 1st DUI offense: 90 days
Ignition interlock devices required: No
% of total auto accident deaths related to DUI: 34
Permit age: 14 years 6 months
Unrestricted license age: 16
Bike helmets required: No
Motorcycle helmets required: Ages 17 and below
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It’s a common trend now for those involved with finance to downplay the potential of cryptocurrencies. For example, Nouriel Roubini consistently rants about the sector on Twitter, which isn’t surprising when you consider that he has received millions from banks and governments.
It appears as though the New York Federal Reserve is the latest entity to downplay cryptocurrencies. This is the conclusion made from a research paper which states that the dollar is “not threatened” by the sector at all.
About The Research
The conclusion isn’t that surprising, considering that there is no reason for the New York Federal Reserve to champion cryptocurrency, as it relies on the strength of fiat currency (the U.S. dollar). John Williams, who is the current president and chief executive officer of the New York Federal Reserve, has previously been vocal about his thoughts that cryptocurrency “doesn’t pass the basic test of what a cryptocurrency should be.”
While the paper does recognize that there are new challenges to the U.S. dollar, such as China – it concludes that cryptocurrency will not be replacing fiat currency anytime soon. However, it’s important to note that throughout history, there have been companies and organizations – such as tobacco companies – that have gone out of their way to make sure that their findings support a certain agenda.
Differing Opinions
While the New York Federal Reserve might have an agenda, there is something to be said from the fact that some of the most influential individuals are interested in the space. There have been multiple times that cryptocurrencies have been brought up on the Joe Rogan podcast, which often has more viewers/listeners than many TV stations.
It’s not as if there aren’t respected organizations that see the value in the cryptocurrency sector. Specifically, the World Trade Organization published a paper last year suggesting that there is massive potential for cryptocurrencies to change the global payments sector. Christine Lagarde, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, has suggested that state banks should issue state-backed cryptocurrencies, as well. | {
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El proyecto de ley para legalizar elya está en la Legislatura gracias al impulso del legislador oficialista, que presentó la iniciativa. Sin embargo, según consignó La Política Online, los legisladores dieron el visto bueno, pero no quieren arriesgarse a sancionar una normativa que genera polémica en medio del a campaña electoral."No alcanza que el Estado no impida el acceso, sino que debe garantizar el derecho a la Salud", aseguró a La Política Online Halperín, autor de la iniciativa. A nivel nacional, el Congreso ya aprobó por unanimidad en Senadores y Diputados el uso del Cannabis medicinal por lo que ahora las provincias deben adecuar su normativa para lograr la comercialización en sus territorios. Ya está legalizada en Jujuy, el municipio de Lamadrid y Bahía Blanca.En lo que respecta a la Ciudad, la mayoría de los bloques de la Legislatura está de acuerdo con su aprobación al igual que la ministra de salud porteña Ana María Bou Pérez. Por eso todo apunta a que el proyecto sea tratado en los próximos meses en la Comisión de Salud que encabeza el macrista José Luis Acevedo."Cada vez son más los familiares que vienen, también muchos pacientes, la última vez vino una mamá con dos chicos autistas. Me dijo que la ley la toma como una delincuente, pero también que no cambiaría su calidad de vida por nada. Acá no hay dos posiciones, desde la ciencia es una sola", explicó Halperín. | {
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Post#1 » Wed Jun 11, 2014 5:23 pm
What is Sildur's Enhanced graphics?
Be sure to check the thread and post for updates!
Screenshots:
Spoiler:
Installation:
If you're coming from a previous version before 2.0 and use a nvidia gpu, go into nvidia inspector and remove the warhammer profile or set it back to default, its no longer needed.
CHANGELOG:
Code: Select all v2.2: - Updated custom reshade binaries (reshade 4.7.0) - Improved lighting / shading even more - Added a new option to fxaa, you can now adjust a square in which FXAA is enabled to prevent quest texts and just things on the edge of your monitor to be blurred. - FXAA is disabled by default, SMAA does a good enough job while playing the game without making everything fuzzy. v2.1: - Updated custom reshade binaries - Updated shaders - Replaced sharpening shader - Improved FXAA to reduce fuzzy font - F10 now disables FXAA and sharpening if you want to reduce fozzy font even more. - Minor shader settings adjustments - Ported the uncharted 2 tonemap used in my minecraft shaders over to reshade. - Previous tonemap is now off by default, replaced by my tonemap port which is a bit more faithful to the games look. - Added latest quint shaders by martyMC (Mxao, reflections, sharpening, depth of field, lightroom, only sharpening and mxao are on by default) v2.0: - Now supports the depth buffer, allowing more shader effects that rely on it. - Added ambient occlusion (MXAO) - Added bloom - Enabled FXAA by default (antialiasing) - SMAA now uses the depth buffer to find jagged edges (antialiasing) - Added sharpening to help with antialiasing blur. v1.04: - Updated reshade binaries - Included more shaders (off by default) - WIP access to the depth buffer - Added support for 32 bit systems and win7 v1.03: - Updated to reshade 4.2.1 - Reworked tonemap, went for a more darker and grim look. More fitting to the games style. Delete old reshade folder before applying! v1.02: - Removed enbinjector, because it sometimes fails to hook the game correctly. - Added modified dinput8.dll, this file is used by warhammer but not present in the game's folder by default. So the launcher won't patch it. It's now used to hook reshade. v1.01: - Updated reshade to 3.4, use F11 to toggle ingame effects on and off. - Now using enbinjector instead of modified game files, so the launcher should no longer break it. - Color adjustements - Color dithering to reduce banding. Just looking at the sky should show the effect. Sildur's Enhanced Warhammer Profile v1.01: - Updated profile to work with 64bit exe. Sildur's Enhanced Warhammer v1.0: - Replaced enbseries+sweetFx with ReShade 2.0, some more changes to color highlighting. - Fixed Lightmaps, mod is now injected through binkw32.dll, so replace it with your old one. Sildur's Enhanced Warhammer Profile v1.0: - Removed FXAA, everythings way less blurry. Also no more fuzzy letters. - FXAA has been replaced with MSAA, might be a bit more performance tanking. - Fixed shimmering leaves.
Feel free to post your own screenshots!
If you modify my work you may not share it without my permission, thanks.
Hey there!It's my custom ReShade, modified to work with Warhammer online. (ReShade is an injector that allows custom shaders to be injected into the game)It features antialiasing, ambient occlusion (MXAO), bloom, color adjustements and sharpening.1. Download Sildur's Enhanced Warhammer v2.2 2. Unpack it in to your Warhammer online folder, where the war.exe is located at.3. That's it, you're ready to go, just start the game and it should say something about reshade in the upper left corner.You can enable/disable ReShade with F11~ Sildur | {
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But blow for government’s ‘dash for gas’ plans as large plants fail to win subsidies to generate backup power
A series of new battery power-storage plants and two small new gas power stations will be built in the UK following the award of subsidies designed to bolster energy supply and head off the threat of shortages.
But government hopes of an ambitious “dash for gas” were dealt another blow after this week’s auction of subsidies to build backup capacity for Britain’s energy network. No new gas power station of a significant scale won a subsidy contract in the bidding process, where companies and technologies competed to provide backup power for the lowest price during the winter of 2020-21.
However, the British Gas owner, Centrica, won support for a small-scale gas power plant to be built by 2019 at King’s Lynn in Norfolk. An extension will also be added to US company InterGen’s gas plant in Spalding, Lincolnshire.
Analysts at Barclays banking group said: “Overall we believe the auction will largely be viewed as a disappointment by the UK government in terms of securing the significant levels of new gas generation capacity they hoped for in order to ensure security of supply.”
The bank said that to encourage big new gas plants, capacity in the auction needed to be sold at £35-£45 per kilowatt, rather than the £22.50 reached. The auction saw 52GW of capacity purchased through government subsidies in a process overseen by National Grid, the UK power system operator.
Flexitricity, a business that works with companies which commit to cutting power demand when supply is tight, said the auction results showed the government needed to rethink its push for new gas. “After three years, the capacity market has still failed to deliver a single new-build CCGT [gas plant],” said the company’s founder, Dr Alastair Martin.
Jonathan Marshall, an analyst at the ECIU thinktank, said: “If ministers really want to incentivise new gas build, they may need something different from the capacity market in its current form.”
Batteries took a much larger share than in previous years, with about 500MW awarded to new storage plants being built by EDF, Centrica and smaller companies. Such facilities can provide electricity in seconds to keep the lights from going out, compared with gas plants such as the new one at King’s Lynn, which would take more than 40 minutes to supply electricity when called upon if, for instance, it is not windy enough to power windfarms.
“Smaller embedded generators, including batteries, were the big winners in this auction,” said Tom Edwards, an analyst at Cornwall Energy.
Green groups welcomed the news that government auction had led to diesel generators, which have been accused of causing noise and air pollution, winning a smaller share than in previous years.
But they were disappointed that coal still fared well – winning a tenth of backup capacity – despite the government’s promises to phase out the polluting fuel by 2025. Existing large coal, gas and nuclear power stations will provide 85% of backup power in 2020-21.
Rebecca Williams, an energy expert at conservation campaign group WWF, said: “I do think there is a real danger of coal continuing to linger round on the system, crowding out investment in the more flexible generation our system needs.” She urged the government to restrict coal’s access to the capacity market in future, to avoid undercutting investment in other “more attractive” forms of flexible capacity.
ScottishPower, which had hoped to win contracts for new large gas power stations, said it was disappointed that coal had won so much capacity. “Diesel was the winner last year, and coal is the winner this year. Clearing 20 times more old coal than new gas signals a willingness to sweat these assets until the bitter end,” said Neil Clitheroe, the company’s global retail director.
This week’s auction, the third so far under the capacity market, will cost consumers £15 a household in 2020-21 as energy users shoulder the cost of the subsidies. The government said energy supply was being secured at a “low cost” to bill-payers.
Greg Clark, the business and energy secretary, said: “This is about more than just keeping the lights on. A modern, reliable and flexible electricity system powers the economy and Britain’s future success.” | {
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Over the centuries many books have been written claiming that loyal readers and followers of the text will be bestowed with magical powers. In some cases these books are intended to invoke demons or angels. In other cases they promise to allow the reader enhanced skills or good luck.
While the concepts of magic and demonology remained controversial through history, many such books were translated and compiled over time, extending their reach throughout several centuries. One of these books is the Ars Notoria .
As part of a larger collection known as the Lesser Keys of Solomon , the Ars Notoria is a book that is said to allow followers a mastery of academia, giving them greater eloquence, a “perfect memory,” and wisdom. With such a book continuing in existence for several centuries, one must wonder whether its claims have some merit. Were the people of the past able to enhance their academic skills and memory by following the prayers and practices of the Ars Notoria ?
Ars Notoria: The Notory Art of Solomon, Shewing the Cabalistical Key of: Magical Operations, The liberal Science, Divine Revelation, and The Art of Memory. 1657. Image Source
The Ars Notoria is one of five books within a grimoire called the Lesser Keys of Solomon , or Clavicula Salomonis Regis . A grimoire is a textbook of occult knowledge which is meant to grant the reader the ability to cast spells, create talismans, invoke spirits, invoke demons, and perform divination. The Lesser Keys of Solomon is an anonymous grimoire that was compiled from other works in the 17th century, and focuses on demonology. The five books contained within the Lesser Keys of Solomon are the Ars Goetia , the Ars Theurgia-Goetia , the Ars Paulina , the Ars Almadel , and the Ars Notoria .
The Ars Notoria is the oldest portion of the Lesser of the Keys grimoire. It, in particular, was not a book of spells or potions, but a book of prayers and orations that are said to strengthen and focus one’s mental powers, by beseeching god for intellectual gifts. Among these intellectual gifts is the concept of a “perfect memory.”
Buer, the 10th spirit, who teaches "Moral and Natural Philosophy", from Dictionnaire Infernal, a grmoire on demonology. Public Domain
The oldest manuscripts of the Ars Notoria are dated to the 13th century. However, the texts contained within are a collection of orations, prayers, and magical words which date back to well before the 1200s. The prayers are in several languages, including Hebrew, Greek, and Latin.
Those who practice liberal arts, such as arithmetic, geometry, and philosophy, are promised a mastery of their subject if they devote themselves to the Ars Notoria . Within, it describes a daily process of visualization, contemplation, and orations, which are intended to enhance the practitioner’s focus and memory.
It has been claimed that Solomon gained his wisdom and academic powers by following the text of the Ars Notoria . To those who wished to master an academic field, this can sound like a very tempting promise. Many who wished to have a better memory, greater eloquence, wisdom, or heightened senses may have followed the Ars Notoria in hopes of improving their life and gaining power by achieving a command of academics. However, there have been instances of individuals following the instruction of the Ars Notoria and having undesirable results.
John of Morigny, a 14th century monk, devoutly followed the teachings and instruction of the Ars Notoria . Rather than achieving academic mastery, Morigny is said to have experienced haunting, demonic visions. He went on to create his own manuscript, Libor Visonum , in which he warned people away from Ars Notoria .
MORE
One interesting aspect of the Ars Notoria that has drawn much attention is an illustration of a “megnetick experiment.” It shows the reader a method in which to communicate across long distances using a lodestone and two compass needles. If the two compass needles were rubbed against the same lodestone, the needles would become “entangled” and however one was moved, the other would move as well. By placing the two entangled needles in the center of a circle of letters, two individuals could communicate across great distances by manipulating their needle to spell words by pointing to letters in the circle.
A “certain magnetick experiment” which employs a lodestone and compass needles to purportedly communicate across distances. Image Source
Today, the phrase Ars Notoria refers to a methodology of shorthand and mnemonics, as utilized by scribe Marcus Tullius Tiro, Maecenas, Quintus Ennius, and Xenophon. The use of the term Ars Notoria to describe learning and memorization tools lends some credibility to the idea that the book may have granted some users the academic powers they desired. Or, perhaps, the name of the book was used to describe these processes without any actual link between the book and academic success.
Whether the Ars Notoria gave its followers the academic powers they desired may never be known for sure. It is possible that those who were dedicated to academic greatness were naturally born with the memory and eloquence tools needed to achieve it. With many followers over the centuries, the Ars Notoria became known as a magical way for an individual to increase their memory and academic powers which would have been, and continues to be, a highly desired trait.
Featured image: Person thumbing through a grimoire. PlashingVole/ Flickr
Sources
Ars Notoria : The Notory Art of Solomon – Esoteric Archives. Available from: http://www.esotericarchives.com/notoria/notoria.htm
Item of the Week: Ars Notoria and the occult – The Clog. Available from: https://clarklibrary.wordpress.com/2012/02/08/item-of-the-week-ars-notoria-and-the-occult/
10 Ancient Books that Promise Supernatural Powers – Listverse. Available from: http://listverse.com/2014/10/18/10-ancient-books-that-promise-supernatural-powers/
Why “ Ars Notoria ”? – Ars Notoria . Available from: http://arsnotoria.com/why-ars-notoria/
By M R Reese | {
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