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"Levensgevaarlijk", noemt Stephan Wevers, voorzitter van Brandweer Nederland en commandant bij de brandweer Twente, het illegale vuurwerk dat rond de jaarwisseling in Nederland wordt afgestoken. "Als dit soort bommen 's zomers zou worden afgestoken, zouden we het aanslagen noemen, maar nu behandelen we het als vuurwerkincident."
"Voor gebruikers, omstanders en hulpverleners is het levensgevaarlijk en het hoort niet thuis op straat en in de drukte van een feestavond. En dan heb ik het nog niet eens over de 10 tot 15 miljoen euro directe schade aan gebouwen en auto's", zegt hij.
Drukste dag van het jaar
Het aantal incidenten tijdens Oud en Nieuw nam na een dalende trend vorig jaar weer toe, met 21 procent ten opzichte van 2017. "We hoopten dat de daling van de afgelopen jaren zich zou voortzetten. Dat was helaas niet het geval. 5 tot 10 procent van het totaal aantal incidenten per jaar vindt nog altijd plaats in deze ene nacht. Dat is te veel. "
Wevers vindt het wrang dat de jaarwisseling voor de brandweer de drukste dag van het jaar is. "364 dagen in het jaar werken we samen aan de missie minder branden, minder slachtoffers en minder schade. Maar op één dag lukt ons dat niet. Dan zijn er juist meer branden, meer schade en meer slachtoffers. De cijfers laten zien dat Oud en Nieuw niet voor iedereen een feest is."
Hogere straffen
Deze maand werd een nieuwe wet van minister Grapperhaus van kracht. Wie, waar dan ook, hulpverleners hindert, kan rekenen op straf. Ook is de maximumstraf verhoogd van één naar drie maanden cel. Daar is Wevers blij mee. "Onze brandweermensen moeten ongehinderd hun werk kunnen uitvoeren. Het kan toch niet zo zijn dat we worden belemmerd tijdens het blussen van brand en tijdens het verlenen van hulp aan mensen in nood?"
"Excessen moeten eruit", zegt Wevers. De brandweerregio's bereiden de jaarwisseling daarom altijd goed voor, samen met de politie, gemeentes en omgevingsdiensten. Er wordt veel extra personeel ingezet om alle meldingen af te kunnen handelen. "In situaties waarbij dat nodig is en op risicolocaties trekken we samen met de politie op."
Lokale initiatieven
"Ik constateer dat de samenleving de vele incidenten, gewonden en schade door het afsteken van vuurwerk steeds minder accepteert", zegt de brandweercommandant. Er zijn dan ook steeds meer lokale initiatieven die moeten bijdragen aan een veilig Oud en Nieuw en die krijgen alle steun van de brandweer.
"Omdat het een feest moet zijn, maar ook omdat de brandweer veilig moet kunnen werken", zegt Wevers. "Laten we die mooie lokale initiatieven niet vergeten." | {
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Prince William County generated more than $570 million in travel-related spending and was the largest growth in tourism dollars for Northern Virginia in 2016.
WASHINGTON — Prince William County is attracting as many thirsty visitors as it is battlefield buffs these days.
The county had a record year for tourism in 2016, generating more than $570 million in travel-related spending and, at 5.4 percent more than 2015, it was the largest growth in tourism dollars in Northern Virginia.
An experiential trail in Prince William County set to open this fall will likely boost tourist visits even more.
Arlington County generates Northern Virginia’s most tourism spending — $3.1 billion of it in 2016 — but that was up 2 percent from 2015 according to the U.S. Travel Association, less than half the growth in Prince William County last year.
“With the construction of several new hotels, local craft beverage and dining developments, and the ongoing investment into new entertainment, shopping and sports tourism venues, the destination continues to grow as a place to visit and stay for domestic and international visitors,” said Ann Marie Maher, president and CEO of Discover Prince William & Manassas.
Several breweries came on line in Prince William County last year, including Heroic Aleworks in Woodbridge, Waters End Brewing in Lake Ridge, and Brew Republic Beirworks in Woodbridge, in addition to the new Aroma Wine Tasting tasting room at Morais Vineyards & Winery in Historic Manassas.
Four-year-old Heritage Brewing Company is investing $8.9 million in a new, larger Manassas location
There are several others coming to Prince William County, including 2 Silos Brewing Company, Effingham Manor Winery and Sinistral Brewing Co.
Deluth Trading Co. opened its first brick and mortar store in Virginia, in Manassas, last fall.
Prince William County also hosted several big sporting events in 2016, including the USA BMX Tournament, the Little League Baseball National Championship and the 3V3 Soccer Tournament.
And of course there is Prince William County’s best known tourist attraction, the Manassas National Battlefield Park, which attracts nearly 1 million visitors a year.
This fall, Prince William County will open its “Steins, Vines & Moonshine Trail,” a trail that connects to the craft breweries, wineries and tasting rooms, and distilleries located throughout Manassas and the county, aimed at attracting more millennial visitors.
Discover Prince William & Manassas says tourism supported more than 6,500 jobs in the county last year and visitor-related tax receipts in the county accounted for more than $34 million in both local and state receipts.
It was a good year overall for tourism in the state of Virginia. The Commonwealth welcomed more than 45 million visitors last year, a record high.
Virginia ranks ninth in the nation for domestic traveler spending. The travel industry in the Commonwealth’s fifth-largest private employer.
Copyright © 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, written or redistributed. | {
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Winston Peters says it is "just outrageous" for Mike Hosking to be hosting TVNZ's election debates.
NZ First leader Winston Peters is urging TVNZ to reconsider its decision to have "wholly unsuitable" Mike Hosking host its election debates.
The broadcaster confirmed Hosking would host all three of its televised election debates, as he did in 2014.
Peters told reporters it was "just outrageous" that TVNZ had picked Hosking to moderate its debates. He said Hosking could not be seen as a neutral moderator, suggesting he was biased.
Cameron Burnell/Stuff Winston Peters is urging TVNZ to reconsider letting Mike Hosking host the election debates. NZ First Leader Winston Peters Speaks at Victoria University
"There's no way that Mike Hosking can possibly be described as neutral. He's spent most of his time attacking one line of political thought and that means he should rule himself out," Peters said.
Peters also urged TVNZ to give minor parties, including his, a seat at the major debates with the Government and opposition leaders.
READ MORE:
* Mike Hosking responds to opposition leaders' criticisms of political bias
* John Key dismisses opposition leaders accusing Mike Hosking of 'political bias'
* Mike Hosking may be the only person in the world defending Donald Trump
SUPPLIED Mike Hosking will present TVNZ's election debates.
But Labour leader Jacinda Ardern said she wasn't concerned with Hosking moderating the debates.
"My focus isn't particularly on the moderators, it's on the opponent I'll be up against for the debate," she said.
Green leader James Shaw said he was "pretty comfortable" with Hosking in the chair and United Future's Peter Dunne said he "didn't care ... it's the politicians that matter in those debates".
Prime Minister Bill English agreed, saying it was "up to TVNZ", and his deputy Paula Bennett said Hosking wouldn't favour either side. "I think you can look at journalists and surmise where their politics might be and I don't think it's fair in this country....I don't think he favours one over the other," she said.
Former TVNZ head of news Bill Ralston poured scorn on Peter's statement, saying: "Every year, every election debate season, Winston throws a paddy about something."
He said that even if Hosking had biases, it wouldn't affect his ability to moderate the debate.
STUFF Bill Ralston says those attacking Mike Hosking are just attention seeking.
"He's really putting the same questions to both leaders, I wouldn't expect him to get argumentative," Ralston said.
TVNZ head of current affairs John Gillespie declined an interview but in a statement defended the decision, saying TVNZ was providing a range of perspectives across its election team. He promised no politician would be getting an easy run during the debates.
"Mike has skilfully and fairly moderated many Election debates for us over the years – this Election will be no different," Gillespie said.
SUPPLIED TVNZ head of news and current affairs John Gillespie is backing Mike Hosking.
Hosking would moderate two leaders debates on August 31 and September 20 with National leader Bill English and Labour leader Ardern. He would also host a further multi-party debate between the minor parties on September 8.
The election night special would also be fronted by Hosking, alongside Breakfast's Hilary Barry, Sunday's Jehan Casinader and 1News anchors Simon Dallow and Wendy Petrie.
By Thursday afternoon, a petition to replace Hosking as the election moderator had already been launched. The petition had more than 2000 signatures only three hours after TVNZ made the announcement.
AUT journalism professor Wayne Hope said Hosking shouldn't moderate the debate because he regularly broadcast his personal opinions on matters political. He said objective reporters should be the only people moderating these debates. "Mike's more in the rent-a-quote category, he's not writing as a journalist," Hope said.
Hope said he supported Peters' call to include minor parties in the debates alongside Ardern and English.
The election night special would also be fronted by Hosking, alongside Breakfast's Hilary Barry, Sunday's Jehan Casinader and 1News anchors Simon Dallow and Wendy Petrie.
The debates would be broadcast live on social media and on Newstalk ZB as well as TVNZ1, the statement said.
Breakfast co-host Jack Tame would present an online only young voters debate on September 14.
A change.org petition to TVNZ to remove Hosking as debate moderator had reached over 2,000 signatures by 1.30pm Thursday.
The Maori Party has been approached for comment. | {
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…by that, I mean of course, they rip on those damn elitist, pot-smoking, sodomy-loving liberals, including first-year unionized teachers and comparative literature grad students “working” as community organizers, who must all have multi-million dollar Upper West Side apartments of their own, which they bought by ruthlessly taxing hard-working, salt-of-the-earth people like Rush.
From the Wall Street Journal, (Limbaugh Gets Mega Millions on Condo Sale) my highlights added:
In all seriousness, though, it never made sense why he would keep such a luxury suite in a city he only spends 15 days a year in. New York City is the gilded embodiment of the left-wing gun-hating, anti-God mindset that Rush and his listeners hate, how could he in good conscience continue to supply this anti-capitalist city’s coffers with his riches? I have a good friend who hated the idea of tax revenue from gainful employment being used to fund wars, so he chose living at home to take care of his parents and grandparents; can’t Rush at least find a low-tax, conservative mecca that meets his luxurious cultural (but, of course, totally American and patriotic and old-fashioned moral) tastes?
Personally, I don’t have a problem with Rush living high-on-the-hog with the money he made off of his listeners…it’s just kind of an odd way to show those liberals how an honest man lives. Also, if his fans had heard a story about Al Gore owning a gold-leaf ceiling apartment that he lived in only 15 days of the year, I doubt they’d congratulate him for all the money he made off his global warming slideshow. | {
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Bright light arouses us. Bright light makes it easier to stay awake. Very bright light not only arouses us but is known to have antidepressant effects. Conversely, dark rooms can make us sleepy. It's the reason some people use masks to make sure light doesn't wake them while they sleep.
Now researchers at UCLA have identified the group of neurons that mediates whether light arouses us — or not. Jerome Siegel, a professor of psychiatry at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA, and colleagues report in the current online edition of the Journal of Neuroscience that the cells necessary for a light-induced arousal response are located in the hypothalamus, an area at the base of the brain responsible for, among other things, control of the autonomic nervous system, body temperature, hunger, thirst, fatigue — and sleep.
These cells release a neurotransmitter called hypocretin, Siegel said. The researchers compared mice with and without hypocretin and found that those who didn't have it were unable to stay awake in the light, while those who had it showed intense activation of these cells in the light but not while they were awake in the dark.
This same UCLA research group earlier determined that the loss of hypocretin was responsible for narcolepsy and the sleepiness associated with Parkinson's disease. But the neurotransmitter's role in normal behavior was, until now, unclear.
"This current finding explains prior work in humans that found that narcoleptics lack the arousing response to light, unlike other equally sleepy individuals, and that both narcoleptics and Parkinson's patients have an increased tendency to be depressed compared to others with chronic illnesses," said Siegel, who is also a member of the UCLA Brain Research Institute and chief of neurobiology research at the Sepulveda Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Mission Hills, Calif.
Prior studies of the behavioral role of hypocretin in rodents had examined the neurotransmitter's function during only light phases (normal sleep time for mice) or dark phases (their normal wake time), but not both. And the studies only examined the rodents when they were performing a single task.
In the current study, researchers examined the behavioral capabilities of mice that had their hypocretin genetically "knocked-out" (KO mice) and compared them with the activities of normal, wild-type mice (WT) that still had their hypocretin neurons. The researchers tested the two groups while they performed a variety of tasks during both light and dark phases.
Surprisingly, they found that the KO mice were only deficient at working for positive rewards during the light phase. During the dark phase, however, these mice learned at the same rate as their WT littermates and were completely unimpaired in working for the same rewards.
Consistent with the data in the KO mice, the activity of hypocretin neurons in their WT littermates was maximized when working for positive rewards during the light phase, but the cells were not activated when performing the same tasks in the dark phase.
"The findings suggest that administering hypocretin and boosting the function of hypocretin cells will increase the light-induced arousal response," Siegel said. "Conversely, blocking their function by administering hypocretin receptor blockers will reduce this response and thereby induce sleep."
Further, Siegel noted, "The administration of hypocretin may also have antidepressant properties, and blocking it may increase tendencies toward depression. So we feel this work has implications for treating sleep disorders as well as depression."
Source: University of California - Los Angeles | {
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As complaints about the placement of New York's new bike share stations have shown, parking bicycles in an urban setting can be tricky.
A company in Japan has found a novel solution: Put them underground.
On the television show Culture Japan, which airs in Japan, host Danny Choo takes a look at the Eco Cycle bike garages at Tokyo's Shinagawa Station.
Each high-tech garage, built by construction company Giken, can hold 204 bikes in a 38-foot deep well beneath the ground.
As the human, all you have to do is get a membership and roll your bike up to the station. Robots park it underground, and fetch it when you want it back.
It's like valet parking, but with bikes and robots.
Watch the Culture Japan video, or click through to take a look. | {
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Finance Commission to consider offering sops to States that have better population control
Following criticism from southern States that they were being discriminated against for performing well on development parameters, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday said the Centre had suggested to the 15th Finance Commission to consider incentivising States that have worked on population control.
“A baseless allegation is being made about the Terms of Reference of the 15th Finance Commission being biased against certain States, or a particular region. Let me tell you something that our critics seem to have missed. The Union government has suggested to the Finance Commission to consider incentivising States who have worked on population control,” Mr. Modi said at a function at the Adyar Cancer Institute in the city on Thursday.
“By this yardstick, a State like Tamil Nadu, which has devoted a lot of effort, energy and resources towards population control, would certainly benefit. This was not the case earlier,” he contended.
Southern unease
Acting president of the DMK M.K. Stalin had written to Chief Ministers of all non-BJP, non-Congress ruled States alleging that the 15th Finance Commission was seeking to allocate the States’ share of Central taxes based on the 2011 census, which would amount to punishing States that had effectively implemented the family planning programmes. On Tuesday, Kerala hosted a meeting of Finance Ministers from the southern States to discuss the issue.
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami has also expressed concerns and sought amendments to the Terms of Reference in a letter to the Prime Minister, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and Chairman of the Commission N.K. Singh, a government release said.
Mr. Modi said, “The Union government is committed to cooperative federalism. Our mantra is Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas [together with all, development for all].”
Mr. Modi also listed the various healthcare initiatives undertaken by the Union government, including plans to set up 20 State cancer institutes and 50 Tertiary Care Cancer Centres. Proposals can be approved, for eligible institutions, up to ₹45 crore for setting up of Tertiary Care Cancer Centre and up to ₹120 crore for setting up of State Cancer Institute, he said.
Also Read Narendra Modi blasts his predecessors’ defence policy
Slams laxity
Earlier in the day, speaking at the inauguration of the Defence Expo 2018 at Thiruvidanthai on the outskirts of the city, Mr. Modi criticised previous governments for being lax in procurement of defence equipment. Such “laziness” had caused damage to the nation, he said.
“There was a time when, like many other aspects of governance, the critical issue of defence preparedness was also hampered by policy paralysis. We have seen the damage such laziness, incompetence or perhaps some hidden motives, can cause to the nation,” Mr. Modi said. | {
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Extremely Rare Quadruple Rainbow Spotted in New York
An extremely rare quadruple rainbow was spotted on Long Island in New York. The rainy weather turned into an early spring day and double rainbow pictures popped up across social media. However, one twitter user took an epic photograph while waiting for the Long Island Railroad.
“I didn’t realize how rare it was, I just knew it was beautiful,” Amanda Curtis told a radio station. “My train was coming, but I just took out my phone, snapped a quick photo and ran after my train.”
This beautiful picture probably has reminded quite a few people of the character in the below epic ‘Double Rainbow’ video: | {
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According to a study by WalletHub, Texas has some of the country's worst conditions for women.
March is Women's History Month, a time to reflect on how far we have come as a country in women's rights. It wasn't that long ago that women weren't allowed to vote, hold a public office, or get paid a similar salary to that of men. And women are still fighting for their rights today.
WalletHub took several different factors to compare how states meet the needs of women. They looked at median earning for female employees, unemployment rates among women, percent of women in poverty, female business owners, high school dropout rates, percent of women who voted in the last election, number of women with insurance, life expectancy at birth, and homicide rates among women.
According to the study, Texas ranked #42 out of the 50 states, with the highest rate of uninsured women in the country.
The study named Louisiana as the worst state for women, having high homicide and poverty rates among women. The best state is Minnesota, with low unemployment, low dropout rates, a high percent of active female voters, high percent of insured women, and high life expectancy.
The map shows that there isn't exactly a particular area of the U.S. with better or worse women's rights, although many Southern states ranked in the bottom half of the list.
See more here. | {
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Welcome to Bobalu Cigar Company!
Each month we give away a box of Bobalu Cigars to one lucky winner (in fact, luck has nothing to do with it… we’ll show you exactly how you can win on the next page!)
Plus, everybody that enters our contest will be placed on our VIP Priority list and receive a $10 coupon for their first order at Bobalu.com
Enter below. Remember, Everybody Wins at least $10!
(Use your best email address because your $10 gift code will be emailed to you after successful registration) | {
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Hardly a day goes by without President Trump tweet-bragging about the relentless rise of the stock market to fresh record highs — Exhibit A in his mind about how he is, indeed, making America great again.
But, while strong equity markets are certainly a Good Thing, let’s not forget that, like so many effects of Mr. Trump’s policies, those higher share prices are propelled upward in considerable measure by the new president’s pro-business policies and benefit the wealthy far more than the average American.
The unsurprising reality is that the rich are far more likely to hold stocks, and when they do, they own them in much larger chunks than their less-well-off brethren. | {
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The construction arm of St Hilliers Property has placed itself in voluntary administration throwing into disarray building projects in the Illawarra, Shoalhaven, Coffs Harbour and Victoria.
The New South Wales Government announced just two months ago St Hilliers Construction as the successful tenderer to take over failed public housing projects in regional New South Wales.
Work on the sites is almost completed, but workers have not been paid.
Mick Lane from the construction union says the government needs to step in immediately.
"There's all sorts of dire consequences for a lot of sub-contractors if this is not fixed and fixed quickly", he said.
Mr Lane says he is trying to set up meetings but has already had distraught members on the phone.
"I've had a sub-contractor on the phone in tears this morning having ploughed hundreds of thousands of dollars in materials and labour (into the project)", he said.
Coffs Harbour Coalition MP Andrew Fraser says heads should roll and he has the Department of Housing in his sights.
"The Department of Housing ought to be hung out to dry," he said.
"I've got a call into the Minister.
"I'm waiting to hear back from him, but as far as I'm concerned we as a state government must make good these losses".
In Victoria, St Hilliers was working on a $350 million dollar expansion of the Ararat Prison.
A spokesman for the administrator says St Hilliers Ararat has gone into liquidation. | {
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Is the next U.S. Supreme Court Justice going to be Ted Cruz? As wild as that might sound, there is buzz that it might actually happen. We all remember the bitter words that were exchanged between Ted Cruz and Donald Trump during the Republican primaries, but since that time they have mended fences, and Cruz ultimately ended up endorsing Trump. And Trump has shown that he is willing to work with his former rivals. He has already chosen Ben Carson to be his Housing Secretary, for a while there it looked like Mitt Romney was the leading contender to be Secretary of State, and on Monday Carly Fiorina actually met with Trump about a potential position in his administration. So just because Ted Cruz and Donald Trump clashed on the campaign trail does not mean that Trump would hold a grudge.
In fact, GotNews is reporting that “a deal” is in the works that would result in Cruz being nominated to the Supreme Court once Trump ascends to the presidency…
Texas Senator Ted Cruz is set to be nominated for a position on the Supreme Court by President-elect Donald J. Trump if current trends hold, a source close to the process tells GotNews. The source told GotNews that “a deal” is being cut which would see Cruz nominated to the Supreme Court on the condition that a pro-Trump Republican could be found to replace Ted Cruz in the Senate. It is unclear whether Cruz would be immediately nominated to replace Justice Antonin Scalia, who died earlier this year, or if his nomination would come later. While Cruz was not on Trump’s list of potential Supreme Court picks, he undoubtedly fits the bill as a staunch conservative constitutionalist.
Of course this report has not been confirmed, and even if it is accurate we all know that Trump is prone to change his mind about these sorts of things.
So Ted Cruz should not be counting his chickens just yet, but he has not exactly been downplaying the chatter either. When speculation about a potential Supreme Court position first came up, Cruz said that he was “humbled” to be considered…
Cruz has been floated as a possible Supreme Court appointee, chatter he said he’s “humbled” to hear. But if that doesn’t materialize, the Texas senator, who’s favored to win reelection in 2018, says he’ll devote himself to holding Trump and the Republican Congress accountable to their campaign promises. “The American people have entrusted Republicans with control of the White House, the Senate and the House. That happens very rarely,” Cruz said late last week. “We now have a responsibility to stand up and deliver.”
More recently, Cruz sounded very much like a politician eager for a new job when asked specifically about his chances of becoming the next Supreme Court Justice…
“What I will say is that history is long and can take unexpected paths,” he said in response to an audience question about his filling the vacancy. “I think it is absolutely vital that that seat and every other seat that comes vacant on the court be filled by principled constitutionalists who will be faithful to the law and will check their own policy preferences at the door and simply honor their oath.” “I can also tell you that I have right now the privilege of serving in the United States Senate, of representing 27 million Texans,” he said. “That is a privilege and a responsibility I take very, very seriously. And I look forward to continuing to carry out that responsibility and continuing to fight for the principles of freedom and the principles embodied in the Constitution and Bill of Rights,” he added.
And just a few weeks ago the Washington Examiner reported that a “Trump transition insider” said that Cruz would definitely accept a seat on the Supreme Court if it was offered to him…
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz has informed Trump transition insiders that he would accept the nomination to take the place of the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, potentially cementing the power of the court’s conservative wing for decades, according to sources. But another source close to Cruz said that while he is eager to help the new administration, he hasn’t committed to any new position. Cruz hinted at his openness to joining the court Friday at a legal conference. “Ted Cruz would absolutely accept it if offered a seat on the court,” said a transition insider.
Needless to say, the nomination of Ted Cruz would be enthusiastically welcomed by tens of millions of social conservatives and evangelical Christians that voted for Trump in November.
So if Trump wanted to send them a thank you gift, there would be few things that Trump could do that would please them more.
And it would also remove a potential rival for the Republican nomination in 2020 if things don’t go so well for Trump during his first term.
But could Cruz be confirmed by the Senate? It is no secret that many of his fellow Senators greatly dislike Cruz, but they may just confirm him to finally be rid of him.
And even his detractors agree that Cruz is highly qualified. In fact, even CNN says that Cruz is “well qualified” to serve on the Supreme Court…
Cruz is a former clerk for Chief Justice William Rehnquist and a darling of judicial conservatives. He’s well qualified, and argued before the Court when he served as the Solicitor General of Texas. Trump might consider Cruz would kill two potential birds with one stone. He’d appoint a conservative and at the same time clear him out of the political arena.
It seems clear that Cruz wants the job, and it appears that Trump is definitely considering him.
A lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court is no small thing, and if Cruz does make it on to the Supreme Court he could become a thorn in the side of the liberal agenda in this country for potentially decades to come.
About the author: Michael Snyder is the founder and publisher of The Economic Collapse Blog and The Most Important News. Michael’s controversial new book about Bible prophecy entitled “The Rapture Verdict” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com. | {
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How much revenue did you generate for Facebook last year? That depends on where you live.
Facebook announced on Jan. 27 that its revenue reached almost $18 billion last year, representing more than 40% growth over 2014. It also made almost $4 billion in profit last year, as its user base grew to 1.6 billion monthly active users.
Worldwide, the average Facebook user generated almost $12 in revenue for the company last year—mostly from advertising. But it was dramatically higher in the US and Canada, where the ad market is most lucrative, than other regions.
Overall, Facebook’s average revenue per user continues to grow. It almost doubled from 2013 to 2015 as the company continued to get better at generating ad revenue on mobile devices.
The company is mostly getting better at generating revenue in its richest markets, though. In 2015, Facebook made almost $13 more per user in the US and Canada than it did in 2014. But it only extracted another $0.51 per user—about 15%—in the non-Europe, non-Asia-Pacific “Rest of World” region. That’s slower growth than the year before.
We calculated Facebook’s annual average revenue per user by adding up its published quarterly figures over the course of the year. This isn’t a perfect methodology, but it’s the one Facebook uses in its annual reports filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. | {
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The month of Ramadan is a time for deep reflection and self-discipline as Muslims restrict themselves from food, water, immoral behavior, and other urges from dawn till dusk. Death is inevitable. The Quran states, “every soul tastes death” and from there, our life will begin in the Hereafter. We take with us nothing to our graves except the beneficial knowledge that we left behind for others to follow and benefit from, a sustainable charity that continues to help people after our passing, and our children who offer prayers for themselves and us and seek forgiveness.
Is it true?
A commonly raised question is that what is the reward for passing away during the blessed month of Ramadan? Does the soul of the deceased person go straight to Heaven to meet with the soul of our beloved Prophet Muhammad (SAW) and his Sahaba?
What Hadith Reveals about death in Ramadan?
It is mentioned in a Hadith, that during the month of Ramadan, the gates of hell are shut closed and the devil is chained whilst the doors of heaven fly open. This hadith helps us deduce that the one who passes away during Ramadan is protected from punishment by the Mercy and Grace of the Almighty.
Imam Ahmed quotes in his Hadith compilation that the messenger of Allah, Prophet Muhammad (SAW) said, “Whoever professes La Ilaha Illah (there is no god besides Allah) seeking the pleasure of Allah and happens to pass away in that state, he will enter paradise. Whoever fasts a day seeking the pleasure of Allah and happens to pass away in that state, he will enter paradise.’ Thus, a person who dies whilst in a state of fasting will also enter Heaven.
Regarding the question about the departed person’s soul meeting his or her predecessors, if he or she is successful in correctly answering the questions in the grave and is of good fortune, he or she will be able to meet whomever they wish to meet.
Being on the Righteous Path Holds much Importance than the time of Death
The promise of entering Heaven upon dying during the holy month of Ramadan is for those who do righteous deeds and that his or her final deed was a righteous one as well. It does not simply work for dying in Ramadan. Furthermore, there is no mention of the possession of a specific virtue for entering Paradise without being brought to account. Regardless, one should always seek repentance for Allah is the Most Beneficent, the Almighty, and the Most Merciful.
For Special Economy Ramadan Umrah Packages offered by ILinkTours.com / include 5-star accommodation both Makkah and Madinah hotels near Haram.
For bookings and more details, please call: +1-201-366-1155 or email at [email protected] | {
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Brandish your blade, dust off your grimoire, and rally your online adventuring party. Dragon’s Crown thrusts you into a fantastical medieval world packed with labyrinthine dungeons to explore, vile monstrosities to smite, and nearly endless online adventure. Your mission is to dive into the dank underworld, uncovering treasure and strengthening your mettle as you unlock the secret behind the ancient dragon threatening the world.
Enjoy this week’s The Drop!
(Also on Blu-ray / PS Vita Game Card) — Dragon’s Crown thrusts you into a fantastical medieval world packed with labyrinthine dungeons to explore, vile monstrosities to smite, and nearly endless online adventure. Your mission is to dive into the dank underworld, uncovering treasure and strengthening your mettle as you unlock the secret behind the ancient dragon threatening the world. Simple, easy-to-learn controls allow anyone to dive into the fray and enjoy the breathtaking sword-and-sorcery action. In addition to long-lasting gameplay, the game also features a vast array of character customization features – with six wildly different classes to play as, raiding the catacombs for epic loot remains fresh and engaging.
Although intrepid adventurers can certainly enjoy Dragon’s Crown on their own, the real excitement begins when four players team up online for a four-player cooperative mission. And don’t expect the portable Dragon’s Crown to be scaled back in any way: The game will offer the same fluid hand-drawn animation, blazing special effects, and haunting soundtrack on both PS3TM and the new PS Vita, with some special interoperability features between the two versions to be revealed at a later date.
Ibb and Obb — Ibb and Obb is a two-player game. You have to work together to find your way through the non-newtonian world. Gravity isn’t what it used to be. In the bottom half of the world gravity is reversed, enabling ibb and obb to walk on both sides of the floor. You can move from one half to the other through warps in the floor. The layout of the level creates all kinds of puzzles which you’ll only solve if you work together. Collect the diamonds on your way through the world and earn more if you play fast and work like a team.
Superfrog HD (Cross Buy / Cross Play) — Superfrog HD is a 2D amphibian platformer that is an HD remake of Team17’s classic Superfrog, which was released in 1993 on the Amiga. It will feature all-new graphics and will be appearing on the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita.
Tales of Xillia — Tales of Xillia follows Jude Mathis, a clever medical student attending school in the capital city, and Milla Maxwell, a mysterious woman accompanied by four unseen beings. Players will be able to choose either Milla or Jude at the outset of their adventure through the world of Rieze Maxia, where humans and spirits live together in harmony. The kingdom of Rashugal has been experimenting with a powerful device that has been draining the mana from the world. Realizing the harm it is inflicting on the world, Milla and Jude set off on a journey to destroy it and restore the mana back to the world. Over the course of the game their lives will intersect with a vast ensemble of characters that will teach them the strength of unwavering conviction.
Players will engage enemies with the critically acclaimed Linear Motion Battle System that the Tales of series is famous for. The system allows for real-time movement and attacks, giving the player a more tactile role in the midst of fights. The battle system in Tales of Xillia has been upgraded to Double Raid Linear Motion Battle System to let two characters combine their attacks to utilize devastating dual-character attack, letting fans strategize the best party setup for their style of play.
Demos
PlayStation 2 Classics
The Red Star — The setting is 1939. The European continent is plunged into war. The globe is carved into 50 naval districts. Players must take command of Naval forces from the United States, Japan, Great Britain, or Germany. The objective is to seize control of as many districts as possible, and defend against enemy aggression. From the North Sea to Midway to Okinawa- every conquest is one step closer to victory!
[Editor’s Note: The following dates are subject to change. Game details are gathered from Press Releases, Retail Descriptions, from their individual publishers and/or ESRB rating descriptions.] | {
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Given the recent drama unfolding in crypto-Twitter, I find it important to move beyond the limitations of the 280 character format to, hopefully, give people a foundation for critiquing preconsensus mechanism proposals.
I do not pretend that this is a comprehensive review of preconsensus mechanisms in general - in fact, I will only go into some depth regarding one of the more popular proposals, Weak Blocks - instead, I aim to provide a new perspective to people those who do not have a sufficient understanding of Bitcoin to fully analyze and critique such proposals.
Preconsensus
On a very basic level, a "preconsensus mechanism" is a tool that is used to identify transactions that miners intend to include in the next block that they mine. The intention of such a mechanism is to allow miners to verify blocks over more time, rather than racing to verify and propagate blocks as soon as a block is mined.
By doing this, the node hardware (as opposed to hashing hardware) of a mining setup will be less expensive for a given block size because the calculations are spread out over more time.
Weak Blocks
On the surface, Weak Blocks makes a lot of sense.
The idea is that miners are constantly hashing, and they always come up with a hash even if it does not satisfy the difficulty conditions of the mining process. But so many of those hashes go to waste, considering they're not currently used for anything of value.
What if you were to accept hashes with less leading zeroes - essentially, hashes at a lower difficulty - than the main chain to create a sort of "sub chain," which consists of "preconsensus blocks" that are being built on top of each other until a block is found at the main chain's difficulty?
Those sub chain blocks, we can call them "weak blocks," would be proof that miners are building blocks including specific transactions. This enables miners to start verifying blocks before the "real" block is completed. It is "pre-consensus" in that way, and helps to organize miner's mempools, making sure everyone has the same transactions, and enabling miners to verify portions of the upcoming block before it is mined and propagated.
Isn't that cool? Miners waste less of their hashes by putting more of them to use, transaction and block verification is easier, and as a result, it's less expensive to run a successful, profitable mining node. Sweet!
This would even enable 0-conf to reliably use these weak blocks to reduce 0-conf risk! Right?
I mean, if the miners can trust them, then why can't the merchants?
The Same Proposal, Rewritten
Now that we've established a basic outline on the Weak Block proposal, let's test the concept by seeing what happens if we make a single, simple change.
Strong Blocks
What if whenever a miner finds an especially difficult block such that the hash contains more leading zeroes than are necessary to satisfy the main chain's difficulty conditions, they create a "strong block" which serves to solidify all blocks up to that point. This approach would be very secure because it's that much harder to overturn these strong blocks.
And it's really cool, because the extra difficulty of producing such a hash isn't wasted. It's more efficient, and these blocks could even serve as checkpoints for the network so everyone knows they can trust the chain up to and including the latest strong block.
But... what happens to the main chain blocks under this proposal?
Consider... A miner finds a strong block, but excludes blocks that have already been created from the main chain, essentially reversing those blocks. Now, any blocks not included in the strong block's chain are orphaned unless a competing miner can create two strong blocks that include them, thus out-competing the initial, apparently dishonest strong block chain.
But that's a hard problem, isn't it? And it enables people to double-spend by taking advantage of the reversal of weaker blocks. At the very least, transactions in the main chain will be uncertain until the strong block consensus is resolved. And if a transaction chain builds on top of a double-spent transaction from a previous main-chain block, all subsequent transactions are no longer valid, until the strong blocks are resolved - if they are resolved. That's a lot of risk and uncertainty. Bummer.
Under this proposal, you can't trust the main chain anymore. Only the super blocks are actually trustworthy.
Reevaluating Weak Blocks
Consider: I did not specify target difficulties, nor did I specify how long of an interval is targeted between blocks.
If I told you that my "Strong Blocks" proposal was actually the "Weak Blocks" proposal wherein the weak blocks are, in fact, the main chain, could you argue from my proposal that I am lying?
Fundamentally, there is no difference between the "Strong Blocks" and "Weak Blocks" proposals. The only difference is perspective.
Using this restatement of the idea, I have demonstrated how weak blocks are not trustworthy. In fact, they introduce moral hazard by making people feel safer, feeling as though they have coordinated the contents of a block before it's actually produced.
In fact, weak blocks coordinate miners in a way that makes them, and people using weak blocks for things like 0-conf, vulnerable. 0-conf is actually easier to circumvent with a double-spend transaction, and resolving a weak blocks consensus problem introduces a lot of uncertainty.
Meanwhile, miners are lulled into a false sense of security by trusting this preconsensus mechanism, leading them to reduce their investments in infrastructure for supporting connections with other miners, performing sigops, and propagating transactions and blocks. This makes them more vulnerable to such attacks, as anyone seeking to exploit the moral hazard of weak blocks doesn't need to invest as much money into their node (hardware or software) in order to successfully attack the network in this way.
Why? Because the miners feel they only ever need to keep up with the weak blocks, and not the true consensus level blocks. That is the moral hazard for miners, and it filters down into a less robust, less reliable system as a whole.
Preconsensus is Extremely Dangerous
While this is only an analysis of the Weak Blocks proposal and not other preconsensus mechanisms, it is imperative that the broader implications are observed. The problems that plague weak blocks are not done away with just because another proposal is presented.
Any preconsensus proposal must be thoroughly rigorous in tackling problems such as these, and serious criticisms must be levied against every single proposal before it is even considered as a potential for inclusion in Bitcoin, whether as a protocol change or not.
I, for one, am so skeptical of comprehensive preconsensus mechanisms that I am willing to predict that proponents of the general idea will call all preconsensus proposals that have been shot down "no true preconsensus mechanism," much like the Soviet Union wasn't "true communism," and that failed apocalypse prediction was perpetrated by someone who wasn't a "true Christian."
Conclusion
Quite frankly, I am tired of seeing otherwise intelligent, hard working, good people acting negligently by proposing alterations to how Bitcoin works without exploring the implications and second order effects of what they propose.
Again, this article is not meant to be a comprehensive overview of preconsensus proposals, but the Weak Blocks proposal has been out in the wild for a relatively long time now without any real substantive critiques being levied against it.
It's time for people to start thinking critically about proposed changes to how the system works, and to more thoroughly explore the capabilities of the system as it currently works before jumping into calls to change the system (whether on the protocol level or the economic level.) | {
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SACRAMENTO (CBS13) — Security at the state Capitol is stepped up after death threats were directed at a state Senator who proposed a bill making child vaccinations mandatory.
State Sen. Richard Pan told CBS13 he didn’t ask for extra security, but Capitol Police believe it was the best way to react to the situation.
Pan says he’s received serious threats because of his proposed legislation, which will get another committee hearing on Wednesday.
“I think this is another effort at exaggeration and intimidation we’ve seen,” he said.
But now the intimidation over his controversial vaccine bill has reached a new level as threats have been leveled against Pan on his Facebook page. Some of them reportedly included “eradicating” Pan and pictures that depict him as a Nazi. Those threats have since been erased.
But not all parents are as aggressive. Some, like Christine Lutz and her husband, believe Senate Bill 277 threatens her family’s rights.
“There’s a lot of money riding on this and i’m sure money has a lot to do with it,” she said.
Christine’s 4-year-old daughter Kaylie has never had a shot. She says a Rubella vaccine caused her to contract a serious autoimmune disease and believes her kids are at risk.
“Because of my health, I can’t just go homeschool,” she said.
Instead, they’ve begun exploring schools in Ohio where not vaccinating wouldn’t be an issue.
“I wouldn’t risk that on my worst enemy let alone my children,” she said.
But not all parents who use the current personal belief exemption as so-called “anti-vaxxers.”
Lisa Bakschi’s children are selectively vaccinated under the guidance of their pediatrician.
“There’s a strong history of autoimmune disorder with my son,” she said.
If she doesn’t fully vaccinate, SB277 would mean she’d be forced to homeschool.
“The only thing this bill does is rob children of their fundamental right to a public education,” she said. | {
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Milan, fiducia a Montella ma servono segnali forti per scongiurare il cambio
La società dà ancora fiducia all'allenatore ma valuta già eventuali sostituti: Sousa, Prandelli e Gattuso i nomi valutati dal club rossonero.
Un blocco psicologico. È emerso questo dalla bocca di Montella e dei giocatori dopo l'ennesima delusione stagionale, stavolta contro l' Atene in . Questo Milan non riesce più a vincere, incapace di uscire dal momento di difficoltà, reso pesante dalle tre sconfitte consecutive in campionato e dal fatto che nemmeno in Europa, finora porto franco rossonero, la squadra sia riuscita a far tornare il sorriso sulla bocca dei suoi tifosi.
Anzi, i cori di incitamento si sono trasformati in mugugni, gli applausi in fischi. Con Mirabelli a seguire il secondo tempo nervosamente accanto alla panchina di Montella. Questo non va. Servirebbe una svolta che tarda ad arrivare. Un filotto di vittorie o anche una sola vittoria convincente che possa sbloccare i giocatori e farli scendere in campo più sereni.
Invece pesano le sconfitte e la responsabilità da parte di tutti di rincorrere le grandi aspettative che erano state generate in estate dopo la campagna acquisti da 236 milioni di euro. La società sapeva che non sarebbe stato un percorso facile, ma non si aspettava nemmeno una strada così tortuosa. Dopo quattro mesi sperava che questo Milan potesse essere ad un punto diverso, più alto nel gioco e nella convinzione, rispetto a quello visto ieri sera.
Ora ci si interroga sul da farsi. Fassone e Mirabelli sono stati a colloquio con Montella fino all'una di notte, nella pancia del Meazza . Hanno provato ad analizzare i problemi della squadra e a ricompattarsi ancora, nonostante un piccato scambio di battute tra DS e allenatore pre e post partita. E oggi, Mirabelli si è rivisto nuovamente a Milanello per dimostrare vicinanza all'allenatore. Hanno pranzato insieme nel centro sportivo e la dirigenza ha continuato ad appoggiare Montella e parlato di quella che potrebbe essere la squadra anti . Ora però il diesse e tutto l'ambiente rossonero si aspettano un segnale.
A partire dalla formazione che scenderà in campo domenica pomeriggio a San Siro . Più vicina a quelle che erano state le idee condivise in estate. Tre difensori, quattro centrocampisti e tre punte o anche una sola ma con due giocatori offensivi alle spalle, Suso, Bonaventura o Calahnoglu.
Chiaro che la partita contro il Genoa diventi importante come una finale per Montella e per il Milan. Un'altra eventuale prestazione deludente o nella peggiore delle ipotesi un'altra sconfitta, farebbe scattare l'allarme rosso sulla panchina del Milan. Inizierebbero a fioccare nomi dei possibili sostituti con Paulo Sousa e Prandelli in prima fila oppure si parlerebbe di una soluzione interna con Gattuso traghettatore fino al termine della stagione.
Tutte ipotesi che Fassone e Mirabelli vorrebbero scartare. Perché significherebbe ripartire da capo un'altra volta e buttare al vento quattro mesi di lavoro. Ecco perché la società spera di andare avanti con Montella per poi tirare le somme a fine stagione. Poi a maggio tutto potrebbe cambiare, rincorrendo il sogno Antonio Conte in panchina. Montella su questo non può farci nulla, può però allontanare al più presto tutte le voci sui possibili sostituti nell'immediato. Battere il Genoa sarebbe un buon inizio. | {
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bollywood
Updated: Feb 09, 2019 20:02 IST
Mahesh Anand, known for his many negative turns in films of the ‘80s and the ‘90s, has died, according to reports. He was 57. According to a Times Now report, the actor’s body has been taken to Cooper Hospital for a post-mortem.
Mahesh was last seen in Govinda’s Rangeela Raja, which released on January 18. He was known for films such as Shahenshah (1988), Majboor (1989), Swarg (1990), Thanedaar (1990), Vishwatma (1992), Gumrah (1993), Khuddar (1994), Betaaj Badshah (1994), Vijeta (1996) and Kurukshetra (2000).
The report notes that the actor lived alone in Versova, Mumbai. When PeepingMoon.com contacted his ex-wife, she said that she was not aware of his death. “We are not in touch since 2002,” she said.
Mahesh Anand in a still from Baaghi, starring Sanjay Dutt and Aditya Pancholi.
Rangeela Raja was his first film in 18 years. Ahead of its release, Mahesh in a Facebook post had written that he had only six minutes of screen time, but was excited to be back at work.
In an earlier interview to Cinestaan, he had revealed that he had been through financial difficulties during his time away from the industry. “Nobody signed me for 18 years. But god came in the form of a human being and offered me a small role. It’s a stepping stone back into the industry. Actually it has not hit me till now because for 18 years I have lived alone, with no work and no money,” he had said.
Mahesh said that when producer Pahlaj Nihalani called him to his office, he didn’t even have money for the autorickshaw fare. “I have worked with some big people, but nobody remembered me,” he had said.
Follow @htshowbiz for more | {
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Posted on by Darren
23rd July is Batman Day, celebrating the character’s 75th anniversary. To celebrate, this July we’re taking a look at some new and classic Batman (and Batman related) stories. Check back daily for the latest review.
It remains quite surprising that DC have never capitalised on the work that Ed Brubaker and Greg Rucka did on their Batman line during the early years of the twenty-first century. Given the popularity of Batman as a character, and considering the success that has been enjoyed by Brubaker and Rucka in the years since, it seems strange that DC has never made a consistent or concerted effort to package and release high-profile collections of their work on the character.
It is a shame, because the work is very good – both as solo writers on various titles and in collaboration with one another. Ed Brubaker enjoyed a solo run on Batman with artist Scott McDaniel shortly after No Man’s Land and through the end of Bruce Wayne: Fugitive. A few years later, while collaborating with Greg Rucka on the underrated and sorely missed Gotham Central, Brubaker also had a short run on Detective Comics.
He wrote a team-up between Bruce Wayne and Alan Scott in Made of Wood. However, Brubaker also wrote the epic six-part story, Dead Reckoning. On the surface, Dead Reckoning appears quite familiar. It follows a fairly standard set-up. It’s an adventure that features the width and breadth of Batman’s iconic rogues’ gallery, and unearths a terrible secret about the history of Gotham that – in Brubaker’s style – is a clever updating of a classic piece of continuity.
However, underneath the surface, Dead Reckoning is something much more harrowing and unsettling. It’s the story of lives destroyed by calamities and forces outside the normal human experience – it’s about wounds inflicted on ordinary people by monsters playing a very strange game. It feels like a post-9/11 superhero story, treating Batman’s world as something hostile and horrifying.
To be fair, this was a recurring theme in the Batman line during the early years of the twenty-first century. One of the recurring themes of Gotham Central was the idea that innocent lives were inevitability warped and destroyed by proximity to these sorts of catastrophic forces. Dan Slott and Ryan Sook touched upon the idea in their own Arkham Asylum: Living Hell, a story about a normal criminal who winds up put through the meat grinder, caught up in weirdness and horror beyond his ability to comprehend.
Dead Reckoning is a story about normal lives destroyed by intersection with the world of Batman. The opening few pages feature a small-time hood who believes that he might finally be able to strike it rich by donning Killer Moth’s costume and staking a claim for himself. Searching through storage crates, his girlfriend worries. However, he reassures her, “Baby, I’m tellin’ you… this is gonna be our ticket to the big time.”
The next page reveals Lenny’s folly. The hood’s body is mangled on the pavement, shot by a handgun and dumped from the roof of a nearby building. It’s a decidedly surreal image. “Weird, isn’t it?” Detective Crispus Allen asks his partner, Renee Montaya. “Seeing a freak laid out like that. With a bullet.” In the first few pages, Brubaker makes his point; this is not a world that welcomes normal people, and any points of intersection inevitably end in tragedy.
Dead Reckoning raises the idea repeatedly. In order to draw Batman’s attention, the killer strikes out at James Gordon. In the wake of the Officer Down crossover, Gordon is no longer Police Commissioner. He is just a lecturer in criminology at Gotham City University. At one point, Batman pays his old friend a visit. Gordon is living a decidedly normal life in a suburban house. Batman catches him watching late night television. “You’ve got your garden back to life, I see,” Batman reflects.
It is the attempt on the life of James Gordon that earns the sympathy of Harvey Dent. “Gordon has suffered enough, don’t you think?” Batman asks Dent. Gordon has lost a marriage to Gotham, seen his daughter crippled and his lover murdered. In the years ahead, Gotham will even conspire to take away his son from him. Gordon is – more than any other member of the ensemble – an ordinary guy caught up in extraordinary circumstances. He knows about the concept of collateral damage.
Dent is so sympathetic to Gordon that he “bends” the rules of his coin toss as much as possible to help Batman. “I mean, this doesn’t have anything to do with Gordon,” Dent tries to rationalise. “Aw, hell… talk to Cobblepot. He knows the score… That’s all I’m saying, though… and it’s for Jim Gordon, not you.” Then again, one imagines that Harvey Dent feels some measure of sympathy for “normal” people who get chewed up by Gotham and spit back out.
It turns out that the entire plot of Dead Reckoning is driven by an attempt to kill Batman eight years earlier. It’s an attempt that Batman that didn’t even get past the planning stages. The Joker sabotaged its because he saw the opportunity to ruin an innocent person’s life. “Why?” Batman demands. “What about your plan?” The Joker is philosophical about his grand ambitious plan to murder Batman. “No, no… that damn thing was never going to work anyway… those team efforts never do.” This is business as usual.
Then again, as Batman confesses to Jim Gordon, it really doesn’t matter that the attempt never happened. It’s such a common occurrence that it would be difficult for Batman to identify a particularly incident. “I don’t even remember any attempts on me from eight years ago,” he reflects. “Not that it makes a difference. They’ve tried so many times over the years…” The only thing different about this attempt is that a “normal” person got caught in the crossfire.
Batman and his enemies exist in a world beyond the realm of “normal” people. When Batman finds Harvey Dent locked up in solitary in Arkham, he is curious what the former lawyer has done. “I drove the new shrink to a nervous breakdown,” he explains. “What can I saw? They breed them soft these days… Guy had no business being in Arkham in the first place if he couldn’t handle it.” Even that fleeting contact can be dangerous.
There is a sense that this is a post-9/11 story dealing with the fact that massive events tend to cause collateral damage, catching normal people in the cross-hairs. The story explicitly acknowledges that this concern is rooted in post-millennial anxieties. Visiting the Joker who has been detained in an international prison, Batman demands, “You brought a civilian into our world, and you’re laughing about it?”
“Bah, civilians,” the Joker retorts. “Welcome to the 21st century, Batman. There are no civilians anymore… and really, there never were.” There’s a sense that everybody is now a legitimate target. Discussing his discomfort with Jim Gordon, Batman describes his own world as “the terror”, lamenting that “this time, someone else… and innocent… got caught up in the terror.” This is something that disturbs Batman, because this is a large part of what he works so hard to prevent.
The 9/11 anxieties play out across the story. The Joker’s international prison evokes Guantanamo Bay, while the script acknowledges that Batman and his rogues operate outside the scope of mere criminal procedure. Discovering the Dent was assisted in escape by his lawyer, Batman observes, “He shouldn’t have been allowed any visitors at all.” Montaya replies, “Yeah, unfortunately, there’s this little thing called the Bill of Rights that those of us in the real world have to deal with occasionally.”
It’s nice nod to the way that those rights were gradually eroded for those involved in terrorist offences – suggesting that the people responsible for committing those atrocities were more than simple criminals. Batman’s suggestion that the criminal justice system cannot hold a villain like Two-Face feels like a sly piece of commentary on post-Patriot-Act policies and politics. It’s a little touch that clearly defines Dead Reckoning as a twenty-first century Batman story.
Brubaker suggests that Batman’s guilt over Harvey Dent stems from that anxiety – that concern about collateral damage caused by the intersection of his own world with more grounded and mundane realities. The Joker’s plan to kill Batman even exploited this – Harvey Dent was a key part of the plot. “See, you’re always a little more gung-ho when it comes to Harvey Dent. I guess because you two used to be on the same side…” It is also because Bruce feels responsible for bringing him into this world.
The villain of the piece is an actor named Paul Sloan who tried to study Gotham’s madness up close. However, he flew too close to the fire, and wound up burnt – he endured a conga line of torture and betrayal at the hands of the Joker, Two-Face and the Scarecrow. They each acted separately to manufacture their own monster, to bring another human being into their world. It’s no wonder that Paul Sloan – calling himself “the Charlatan” – wound up paired with Two-Face, in a nice piece of symmetry. (Two Two-Faces!)
As the pair square off amid one of those abandoned industrial buildings that seem littered across Gotham, Paul Sloan reflects, “The two of us, we look like we could’ve been born in the cold metal decay… like industrial accidents.” Two-Face finishes the thought for him. “Except as I recall, we had it done to us on purpose.” There is a wry irony in the fact that Sloan should be disfigured while playing the role of Two-Face, just as there’s something grim about Two-Face creating another monster. Cycles of violence, and all that.
Of course, even outside of these fascinating themes, Brubaker’s script is packed with all sorts of nice touches. The villains featured all seem perfectly in-character, from the Joker’s willingness to screw his own plan for a cheap laugh through to Harvey’s rigid adherence to his coin. “I wish you luck, but I can’t untoss the coin,” he tells his colleagues, after he declines to get involved with their scheme. “Why not try for best two out of three?” the Joker inquires. Two-Face is not willing to compromise. “I don’t think so.”
Dead Reckoning also features a number of familiar Brubaker tropes and plotting elements. It is a story that trades on a rich knowledge of comic book continuity. His extended run on Captain America harvested story material from various nooks and crannies – the Red Skull’s daughter, the fifties Captain America, and so on. In fact, while working on Detective Comics, Brubaker’s entire Made of Wood story would get a thrill out of teaming up Batman with another Golden Age Gotham comic book hero, the original Green Lantern.
Here, the entire plot is based around the character Paul Sloan, who is an obvious homage to the character of Paul Sloane. Sloane first appeared in 1951 as an actor hired to play the original Two-Face, Harvey Kent. Sloane was – of course – disfigured in the accident and went around calling himself “Two-Face”, as you do. Sloane is a bit of an enduring comic book loose end, with writer Mike W. Barr even offering his own take on the character during his run on Detective Comics in the late eighties.
Here, Brubaker simply twists the origin slightly. No longer hired to play the role of Two-Face in a television drama before being disfigured, Sloan is hired by the criminals to play the role of Harvey Dent in a fiendish plot to kill Batman. It’s a nice twist and update on the story. Brubaker even manages to work in a cameo from Mark Merlin, a DC comics character – a magician hero – who first appeared back in 1959.
The art of Dead Reckoning is provided by Tommy Castillo. Castillo captures the mood and style of this era of Detective Comics rather well. It’s cartoonish and atmospheric – playing out like a grittier version of the iconic look and feel of Batman: The Animated Series. Batman is presented as an almost haunting presence, often silhouetted with nothing but white eyes showing – an excellent way of establishing the sense that Batman is a creature from a slightly different world.
Dead Reckoning is a fantastic piece of work, and well worth a look for anybody interested in a post-9/11 Batman comic exploring the intersection between the mundane and the monstrous. It is a suitable thematic companion to comics like Gotham Central or Arkham Asylum: Living Hell.
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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: 9/11, batman, collateral damage, detective comics, ed brobaker, ed brubaker, jim gordon, joker, millennial, paul sloan, paul sloane, random violence, rogues, spore, terrorism, the charlatan, tommy castillo, tragedy, two face | | {
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Bruyère, a publicly funded Catholic health-care provider in Ottawa that offers palliative care, will not provide physician-assisted death or refer patients to the service despite a Supreme Court ruling striking down the ban, its head says in a memo obtained by CBC News.
Bruyère president and CEO Daniel Levac says in a Jan. 20 memo the organization is "obligated" to stand behind its sponsor, the Catholic Health Sponsors of Ontario, as the federal government's deadline to pass assisted-dying legislation looms.
The memo points to a December 2015 document issued by the Catholic Health Sponsors of Ontario, which states that it would not provide physician-assisted death in its institutions and would not "directly or explicitly" refer a patient to get the medical procedure elsewhere.
If patients under the care of CHSO organizations make a request for physician-assisted death, it "will assist them to question their request for assisted death and to explore other alternative forms of medical care. This is completely consistent with our moral and ethical tradition," the document says.
We don't believe that institutions have a conscience. They are bricks and mortar and concrete. - Shanaaz Gokool , Dying with Dignity Canada
A Catholic-based health provider in Vancouver has also detailed in a memo that physician-assisted death is "not permitted" at its institutions, which should have Canadians "very concerned," said Shanaaz Gokool, the CEO of Dying With Dignity Canada.
Gokool said she respects the right of individual doctors to "conscientiously object" to assist in the death of a patient as long as they provide a referral, adding that health-care providers should not outright ban the service on principle.
"We don't believe that institutions have a conscience. They are bricks and mortar and concrete," she said. "This is probably going to be the most critical issue moving forward as it relates to access across the country."
Bruyère to 'monitor the situation'
Bruyère runs Élisabeth Bruyère Hospital in the ByWard Market and Saint-Vincent Hospital in Centretown, as well as long-term care, palliative care and family medicine centres in Ottawa. The health-care organization confirmed it sent out the January memo but has refused to comment further.
The Supreme Court of Canada gave the former Conservative government a year to draft new legislation after striking down the ban on doctor-assisted dying in February 2015. (Getty Images)
The memo states that, "senior management will monitor the situation and will communicate with staff and adjust operations as necessary as legislative requirements around physician-assisted death become clearer."
The Supreme Court of Canada gave the former Conservative government a year to draft new legislation after striking down the ban on doctor-assisted dying in February 2015. After a request from the new Liberal government, the court extended the date to pass the law to June 6.
On Thursday, a special parliamentary committee of MPs and senators tabled a 70-page report called "Medical Assistance in Dying: A Patient-Centred Approach," with 21 recommendations on how to draft that legislation.
One of those recommendations was that an individual health practitioner's freedom of conscience should be balanced with the needs of a patient, and that "at minimum, the objecting practitioner must provide an effective referral for the patient."
The head of the CHSO, John Ruetz, told CBC News in an email that time is needed to "carefully consider the parliamentary report." Still, he said he believes Ontario's Local Health System Integration Act does allow health organizations to exercise conscience rights.
"This legislation makes it clear that no health-care organization will be obligated to provide a health service that is contrary to its religious beliefs," he wrote.
He added that the Ontario organization takes its lead from the Catholic Health Alliance of Canada, which oversees about 120 hospitals, community health centres, nursing homes and long-term care facilities across the country.
Read the full CHSO response to physician-assisted death here. | {
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Scientists using a gigantic radio telescope have captured the best view yet of two faraway galaxies colliding in deep space.
The Chile-based Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) and other telescopes employed a sort of cosmic magnifying glass to study a galaxy called H1429-0028, which lies about 6.9 billion light-years from Earth.
This phenomenon, known as gravitational lensing, occurs when a huge object in space such as a galaxy bends light coming from other bodies behind it. Lensing allows astronomers to peer at galaxies or other objects that would otherwise be too dim and distant to view. [Watch an animation of the galaxy merger]
"These chance alignments are quite rare and tend to be hard to identify," study lead author Hugo Messias, a researcher at both Conception University in Chile and the University of Lisbon in Portugal, said in a statement. "Recent studies have shown that by observing at far-infrared and millimeter wavelengths, we can find these cases much more efficiently."
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and many other telescopes on the ground and in space have been used to obtain the best view yet of a collision that took place between two galaxies when the Universe was only half its current age. (Image credit: NASA/ESA/ESO/W. M. Keck Observatory)
In far-infrared light, H1429-0028 is one of the brightest gravitationally lensed objects available. It was first found in the Herschel Astrophysical Terahertz Large Area Survey, and is hard to see in visible light.
A suite of telescopes examined the galaxy, including ALMA, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, the Keck Observatory in Hawaii and the Karl Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) in New Mexico. Hubble and Keck saw a ring of light around the foreground galaxy and also spotted large dust clouds within it, which made it tough to study the more distant H1429-0028.
VLA and ALMA, however, are designed to peer through dust clouds. Their vision at longer wavelengths provided a clearer view of the background H1429-0028, revealing it to be two merging galaxies rather than a single object.
This diagram shows how the effect of gravitational lensing around a normal galaxy focuses the light coming from a very distant star-forming galaxy merger to created a distorted, but brighter view. (Image credit: ESA/ESO/M. Kornmesser)
The colliding galaxies seen in H1429-0028 are similar to those in the much closer Antennae Galaxies, astronomers said. But stars are being formed much faster in H1429-0028 — the equivalent of 400 suns per year compared with 20 or 30 suns per year in the Antennae system.
"With the combined power of Hubble and these other telescopes, we have been able to locate this very fortunate alignment, take advantage of the foreground galaxy's lensing effects and characterize the properties of this distant merger and the extreme starburst within it," said study co-author Rob Ivison, director for science at the European Southern Observatory. "It is very much a testament to the power of telescope teamwork."
The study was published Aug. 26 in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.
Follow Elizabeth Howell @howellspace, or Space.com @Spacedotcom. We're also on Facebook and Google+. Originally published on Space.com. | {
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NASA has reported that the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) has sent back its first images of Apollo lunar landing sites. They say they will be releasing the images at 12 noon EDT (5pm London Time), today, Friday 17th July. Here is a link to the press release.
Update: The photos have been released at http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LRO/multimedia/lroimages/apollosites.html – Not the clearest, but once the satellite gets to it’s final orbit, we should expect images of the resolution I wrote about below.
The actual photos will probably be released at http://wms.lroc.asu.edu/lroc_browse.
Now, for the bad news… Although the orbiter has a high resolution camera, reportedly able to do one pixel per sqare foot (0.3m resolution), this is at perigee (the closest point of orbit) and at nadir (directly overhead). So far, the best images released are half of that (one quarter of the resolution) at one pixel per 0.56m.
I decided to work out what to expect to see.
The lunar lander module has a maximum diameter of 9.07m. At 56cm per pixel, this makes the lander 16 pixels in diameter… or like this:
Now, let’s overlay it on the moon, with a shadow:
Image sources are:
http://www.friends-partners.org/partners/mwade/project/apollo.htm
http://wms.lroc.asu.edu/lroc_browse/view/iom20090703
I hope you weren’t expecting more than this…
At some of the Apollo sites, there will be tracks from the lunar rover. The rover is 72 inches wide, which is 1.82 metres, or 2.8 pixels, but the actual wheel tracks will likely be under half a pixel wide so possibly detectable by their shadows.
The foot prints will come in at around 0.5 x 0.25 pixels, hardly detectable.
We should be able to see the actual rovers at 3×4 pixels, and the PLSS (Life support back packs), provided they are lying flat at around 1×2 pixels, but bright white.
Although these images will be of great interest to us Apollo fans, the people who believe it was hoaxed won’t change their minds. | {
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I don't always think you've stopped listening But when I do, you don't realize it for 10 minutes
253 shares | {
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Making God an Everyday Reality
Soul's whole purpose for being in this world is to find divine love. Harold Klemp
The Secret of Love,
Mahanta Transcripts, Book 14
Are you looking for the personal experience of God—every day?
Eckankar can help you fulfill your dream.
Your Spiritual Toolkit
Each of us is connected to God through Divine Spirit (the ECK), which can be heard as Sound and seen as Light. Eckankar offers a spiritual toolkit to help you experience the Light and Sound of God.
Discover:
simple daily spiritual exercises that can give you the experience of the Sound behind all sounds, and the pure Light of God;
techniques for personal experience with dreams, past lives, Soul Travel, and your spiritual destiny.
Eckankar means "Co-worker with God." It offers ways to explore your own unique and natural relationship with the Divine.
With the personalized study that is a part of Eckankar, you get divine guidance to apply in your everyday life and on your journey home to God. The full experience of God is possible in this lifetime!
Spiritual Study Groups
Eckankar is mainly about your daily, personal connection with Divine Spirit. You'll also find people of like mind and experience in Eckankar who share your desire for truth.
Your spiritual experiences reach welcoming ears among ECKists, those who study the ECK teachings.
There are tens of thousands of ECKists around the world and Eckankar spiritual study groups in hundreds of cities. This global community is supported by a worldwide spiritual center in Minnesota and by volunteer groups nearly everywhere.
If you want to learn more about Eckankar, its organization and teachings, download or print the brochure About ECKANKAR.
Personal Experiences in the Light and Sound of God
Stories from the Eckankar Journal: a collection of extraordinary experiences from students of Eckankar who found uplifting, everyday guidance through the spiritual teachings of ECK. Request a print copy of the Eckankar Journal (published each year in October). | {
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LYME Regis councillors have reiterated their desire for dogs to be banned from the town’s sandy beach and Cobb Gate shingle beach all year round.
Following the introduction of a Public Space Protection Order (PSPO) by the now defunct West Dorset District Council in October 2017, dogs are currently allowed on Lyme’s main sandy beach without a lead between October 1 and May 1.
Lyme Regis Town Council objected to the PSPO when it was first introduced, with members arguing that dogs should be kept on leads, and a number of complaints from the public about dogs defecating, urinating and being out of control on the sandy beach have also been received.
Following an incident in which a 12-year-old boy was bitten by a dog on the beach in December 2018, further calls for reconsideration of the policy were made, as well as suggestions of a complete ban of dogs from the sandy beach.
However, the suggestion of a complete ban has proved controversial with some dog owners, who have said it is unfair to penalise well-behaved dogs and owners who clean up after their pets.
The PSPO, now enforced by the new Dorset Council, is due to expire and be reconsidered in October 2020, but Dorset Council has now said it plans to extend it for an additional six weeks until December 31 2020 for internal logistical reasons.
This announcement sparked another debate on dogs in the Lyme Regis Town Council chamber, where members reiterated their call for an all-year-round ban on both the sandy beach and Cobb Gate shingle beach.
Councillor Michaela Ellis said: “I think we need to go back to Dorset Council and say we want a policy that is suitable for us as a seaside town.
“We had to go along with a policy last time when it was West Dorset District Council, there was no consultation and it does not suit what we need here in this town.”
The Mayor of Lyme Regis, Councillor Brian Larcombe MBE, said: “I would like to see the extension of the dog ban to all year round on the sandy beach and the front shingle beach.”
Councillor Larcombe also asked if they could explore banning dogs from the cemetery, but was told they could not as this was a public footpath.
He then requested that low height fencing be installed either side of the cemetery footpath leading up to Henry’s Way, as he said this was where the main problem with dog’s mess was, and this will now be considered at a future meeting.
Referring to dogs on the beach, Councillor Ellis continued: “It just causes problems with children, it’s the conflict of it. The pebble beach does not get washed and I dread to think what people could pick up from there.
“There are beaches either side that people can use to take their dogs and many other places in the town.”
Deputy town clerk Mark Green said he would relay members’ comments to Dorset Council, and they would likely receive a formal consultation on the policy next year before it expires. | {
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As part of an extended drum-roll before the state of the union address on Tuesday, the White House has issued its highlights from a year of speeches by Donald Trump.
Accompanied by images of the stars and stripes, cheering crowds and displays of US military might, the Facebook entry included presidential quotes, such as:
All the nations of the world – friend or foe – will find that America is strong, America is proud, and America is free.
– Speech to Congress, March, 2017
To Air Force personnel at Joint Base Andrews in September 2017:
We are, and forever will be, a nation of pioneers and patriots, risk takers and renegades, aviators and astronauts. We crave adventure and achievement, exploration and enlightenment.
From a speech touting tax reform in Missouri in November, 2017:
We have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to restore American prosperity and reclaim America’s great destiny.
However, for world leaders and the general public hearing or reading about Trump’s speeches across the globe, other moments may be etched more deeply in their minds.
January of 2017 inauguration speech in Washington:
Americans want great schools ... safe neighborhoods...good jobs...for too many of our citizens, a different reality exists ... rusted-out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape ... crime and gangs and drugs ... This American carnage stops right here and stops right now. From this day forward ... it’s going to be America first.
A speech at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, the day after the inauguration, in front of the memorial to fallen agents:
Probably almost everybody in this room voted for me … is Donald Trump an intellectual? Trust me, I’m like a smart persona. Did everybody like the [inauguration] speech? I’ve been given good reviews. We had a massive field of people...
Addressing the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Maryland, February of 2017:
We are Americans and the future belongs to us ... we are fighting the fake news. It’s phony ... the enemy of the people ... and we’re going to do something about it.
April of 2017 in Atlanta, when Trump was the first president to address the National Rifle Association since Ronald Reagan in 1983.
You came through for me, and I am going to come through for you ... I want to thank each and every one of you, not only for your help electing true friends of the second amendment, but for everything you do to defend our flag and our freedom.
Trump’s scolding of Nato leaders at its new headquarters in Brussels in May of 2017 was most notable for his failure to restate America’s commitment to “article 5”, the members’ mutual defense obligation. He said:
Twenty-three of the 28 member nations are still not paying what they are supposed to be paying for their defense. This is not fair.
Trump’s first major European public speech, in Warsaw in July of 2017, had a far-right tone.
For family, for freedom, for country and for God ... The fundamental question of our time is whether the West has the will to survive ... Do we have the desire and the courage to preserve our civilization in the face of those who would subvert and destroy it?
Addressing the Boy Scouts annual jamboree in West Virginia in July of 2017:
I said, ‘Who the hell wants to speak about politics when I’m in front of the Boy Scouts?’ … Our stock market has picked up since the election, November 8. Was that a beautiful date? Do you remember that famous night on television ... where they said there is no path to victory for Donald Trump?
As National Football League players continue to kneel during the national anthem, to protest racial prejudice and police brutality, Trump raised the topic while stumping in Alabama.
Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners ... say: ‘Get that son of a bitch off the field right now. Out. He’s fired’?
September, 2017. Trump nicknamed North Korean leader Kim Jong-un “Little Rocket Man”. At the United Nations, Trump said:
The United States has great strength and patience, but if it is forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea. Rocket Man is on a suicide mission.
Addressing the March for Life anti-abortion demonstration in Washington, January 2018, live by video feed.
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La consejera Evelyn Mancilla calificó como “un descriterio absoluto” la decisión del intendente de Valparaíso de despedir al auditor Osvaldo Maldonado, quien es testigo clave en la investigación por fraude que lleva la fiscalía en contra del diputado Christian Urízar.
Mancilla cuestionó el accionar de la autoridad, ya que a su juicio Maldonado ha sido un funcionario que ha dado todas las garantías, tanto a la fiscalía como a la Contraloría General de la República, para aportar los antecedentes necesarios en la investigación.
La consejera afirmó que podría estar configurándose una red de protección en torno al diputado Urízar, sacando de su puesto a Maldonado y poniendo a cargo de la división de planificación a Miguel Toledo, cercano al parlamentario investigado.
Al respecto, el intendente de Valparaíso, Gabriel Aldoney, explicó que tomó la decisión personalmente y que no responde a un juicio de la capacidad profesional del funcionario ni a decisiones políticas, sino que a la creencia de que los trabajadores que cumplen funciones de fiscalización interna deben ir renovándose periódicamente.
Finalmente, Aldoney señaló que ya se abrió un concurso interno para poder cubrir el puesto dejado por Osvaldo Maldonado. | {
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Written by Sean Lyngaas
The State Department will double the cyberdefense aid it pledged to Ukraine last year to $10 million in an effort to bolster the security of an ally in the crosshairs of alleged Russian hackers, according to department spokesperson.
Wess Mitchell, the assistant secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, made the announcement Wednesday after meeting with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, State Department Spokeswoman Heather Nauert said.
“The threat from Russia is real,” Nauert tweeted. “Our commitment to Ukraine is unbending.”
A different department spokesperson declined to comment when CyberScoop asked how the new money will be used.
The two countries held their first bilateral cybersecurity dialogue in Kiev in September, at which the United States announced $5 million in new cybersecurity assistance to “strengthen Ukraine’s ability to prevent, mitigate, and respond to cyberattacks.”
The Ukrainian power grid has been a ripe target for hackers, who carried out advanced attacks there in 2015 and 2016. The first attack cut power for 225,000 people, while the second used malware to de-energize a Ukrainian substation. Ukrainian officials blamed Russian hackers for both attacks.
After the 2015 cyberattack, an interagency group of U.S. officials traveled to Ukraine to study the attack’s forensics with their Ukrainian counterparts.
Against the backdrop of those seismic cyberattacks, Congress is trying to help secure Ukrainian critical infrastructure. In February, the House of Representatives passed a bill tasking the State Department with providing any support needed to secure Ukrainian government computers, “particularly such networks that defend the critical infrastructure of Ukraine.”
Separately, the U.S. Army’s Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative is trying to make Ukrainian military networks more resilient by setting up a sophisticated cyber-operations center in Ukraine’s defense ministry.
In December, Pennsylvania-based IT provider Black Box Corp., announced it had won an additional $10.4 million to provide hardware and software under the program. | {
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I dag er det 20-år siden massakren på Den Himmelske fredsplass. Det er usikkert hvor mange som ble drept denne dagen, kinesiske myndigheter hevder det var mellom 2-300, mens New York Times hevder det var mellom 3-4000. Det som er sikkert er at det som begynt som fredelige demonstrasjoner, ble brutalt slått ned av militæret på ordre fra det kinesiske diktaturet, etterfulgt av en arrestasjonsbølge, hvorav mange aktivister fremdeles sitter i fengsel for sin kamp for demokratiske rettigheter.
Ikke bare positiv utvikling
Det er åpenbart utfordrende å forholde seg til Kina. På den ene siden har landet siden Nixon-administrasjonen åpnet sin relasjon til landet, foretatt økonomiske liberaliseringer, hvorav flere hundre millioner har blitt løftet ut av ekstrem fattigdom. Kina er i så måte en illustrasjon på frihandelens betydning for fattigdomsbekjempelse. Denne delen av utviklingen kan vanskelig karakteriseres som annet enn positiv.
Samtidig minnes vi i dag 20 år etter massakren, at Kina fremdeles er et diktatur, at den økonomiske veksten ikke har gitt noen synlige demokratiske resultater, slik flere av oss nok hadde håpet på. Kinesiske myndigheter praktiserer omfattende sensur og slår hardt ned på dissidenter. Det er selvfølgelig mulig at en økt vekst, og en større middelklasse i Kina på sikt vil øke presse på demokratiske reformer, men det er nok ikke en naturlov. Fortsatt vekst kan også tenkes å legitimere Kinas sære form for autoritær kapitalisme.
Jeg tror ikke det hjelper dersom vestlige selskaper trekker seg ut av Kina. Jeg mener derfor at vi skal drive handel med Kina. Men samtidig er det viktig at vi er veldig tydelig overfor Kina at vi mener systematiske menneskerettighetsbrudd er uakseptabelt og at norske myndigheter formidler dette krystallklart i all sin dialog med det kinesiske regimet.
Jan Tore Sanner har utfordret utenriksminister Støre i et skriftlig spørsmål om hvordan Norge vil markere 20-års dagen for massakren overfor kinesiske myndigheter. Jan Tore ber utenriksministeren både ta opp situasjonen for politiske fanger ved blant annet å kreve at de som fortsatt sitter i fengsel – 20 år etter den fredelige markeringen på den himmelske freds plass – frigis, samt at Støre tar opp de magre kårene for ytringsfriheten.
Det er naturligvis et initiativ jeg støtter og synes anledningen 20-år siden massakren er et riktig tidspunkt for å uttrykke bekymring for situasjonen i Kina. | {
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Am i the only one around here who stands up for old people on the bus?
154 shares | {
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I finally had the time to make the comic inspired by my Arbitrary Day present. I'm not raging about it at all - the box is PERFECT for my goals in keeping organized. Thanks so much allymumu - I love the design you picked! | {
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Five killed in explosion and pharmacies run out of iodine after reports of higher radiation
Russia’s state nuclear agency Rosatom confirmed on Friday night that five of its staff members were killed in an accident during tests at a military site in northern Russia earlier this week.
The accident occurred during tests on a liquid propellant rocket engine on Thursday, the RIA news agency said, citing Rosatom.
Russian authorities had previously said two people had been killed in the incident and that a nearby city had reported a rise in radiation levels when a rocket engine blew up at a testing site in the Archangelsk region. Shortly after the explosion, gamma radiation levels in the neighbouring city of Severodvinsk reportedly jumped to 20 times their normal rate for nearly half an hour, contradicting the ministry’s assurances that all levels were normal.
Further explosions, injuring nine people, were reported on Friday at the site. Russia’s defence ministry said in a statement it had been hit by lightning.
Pharmacies in two northern Russia cities have reported increased sales of iodine, a chemical used to limit the effects from radiation exposure.
Since the incident, a section of a bay in the White Sea has been closed to civilian shipping and photographs of rescue workers wearing protective gear including respirators have raised concerns about the accident. A statement put on the Severodvinsk city website about the heightened radiation levels has also been deleted, erasing some of the only official confirmation that the incident occurred at all.
Reports on the Arkhangelsk news site 29.ru and the Interfax news agency said that local pharmacies had reported a run on iodine tablets since Thursday, and that locals were concerned about the possibility of exposure.
Two dead and radiation spike reported after Russia rocket test blast Read more
“They bought everything yesterday, first iodine tablets, iodomarin, then normal iodine and potassium iodide,” one pharmacist told Interfax. “The fuss began around 17.00 and by the time we closed they had bought everything. People at the register were discussing the news about the radiation in Severodvinsk, the explosion and the soldiers.”
Footage obtained by the news site Mash showed emergency workers wearing protective suits with respirators putting an injured person into an ambulance. On Friday, the Baza news site reported that the injured men had been brought to a Moscow clinic for radiation poisoning treatment and released a video of a convoy of police cars and ambulances travelling through Moscow. The clinic and a defence ministry spokesman both declined to respond to questions about the report.
It is not clear what rocket engine or weapon system was being tested at the military site. Russia’s northern fleet, including its nuclear-powered submarines, is based nearby, and the explosion reportedly occurred near a firing range for submarine-launched ballistic missiles.
Theories include an explosion aboard a ship with a nuclear reactor or a failed test of the Burevestnik nuclear-powered cruise missile mentioned by Vladimir Putin during a televised speech in 2018. If the spike in radiation levels was a coincidence, fear of contamination from toxic jet fuel may also explain the use of protective gear during the operation to rescue those injured in the blast. | {
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We're not sure what flavor you like your laxatives, PEZ and tortilla chips, but we're guessing these aren't them. The following are some of the biggest marketing missteps, all done in very bad taste.
PEZ that belong in a vase: The truth is, everyone loves the containers. But I, for one, am actually a huge fan of that chalky deliciousness of PEZ candy. Whether it's grape, lemon, strawberry or orange, one packet of the good stuff never seems to be enough. That said, it's only recently that I learned that PEZ had quite a few failures on the flavor front back in the 1960s (including a cherry PEZ that tasted too much like cough medicine). Specific recipes aside, however, their absolute worst idea has to be the psychedelic Flower flavored PEZ, introduced in 1968. I'm not sure what sort of marketing survey determined that people wanted to step up to this all-you-can-eat bouquet, but where flower power was a huge success in the 60s, PEZ's flower powder wasn't.
Vegetable Jell-O: Of course PEZ wasn't the only beloved kids treat to make a few missteps. One of the biggest flavor offenders seems to be Jell-O, who tried and failed with Coffee, Chocolate and Cola flavors (which latter went flat the soonest, almost immediately after it launched). Their most behated flavor, however, has to be Celery, which was apparently created for use in salads. And while Jell-O still sticks by their "There's always room for Jell-O" slogan, supermarkets didn't feel that way, and quickly booted it from their shelves.
(several more after the jump)
From the EX-LAX to the Next Lax: I'd read about Fig-flavored Ex-Lax and the bomb that it was a few years ago while doing a mental_floss story, but it's only recently that we found pictures of the tins. I'm not sure what inspired the unusual fruit flavoring, but I do like their effort. Of course, the only thing stranger than the fig flavor to me is how the inventor came up with the name for his product. Immigrant Max Kiss told everyone that Ex-Lax stood for excellent laxative, but the name actually came from the Hungarian newspaper, which used it as a slang term for parliamentary deadlock.
DORITOS inspired by LOL cats: While it hasn't bombed just yet, the super-secret Doritos X-13D are cheeseburger flavored and only available in taste test labs as of now. Apparently, the chips are brighter than the average Dorito (which I'm guessing means they glow?), and taste like an All-American favorite with a hint of pickle. I'm not a gambling man, but I'm guessing the Vegas odds on this one lasting a full year are pretty slim.
Unpopular POP-TARTS: Oddly enough, sometimes there are flavors that sound decently appetizing, but just don't work in the market place. Pop-Tarts forays into Chocolate Cherry Chip and Frosted Peanut butter and Jelly seem to be two flavors that neither kids nor mother approved. Without much in the way of shelf-confidence, the two normal tastes were quickly relegated to land of forgotten flavors. Similarly, Nestle Quik's surprisingly unpopular Cookies N Cream simply couldn't sway enough milk drinkers its way.
TOOTHPASTE and brushes of genius: That said, occasionally marketers reach to capitalize on silver screen potential. That seems to be the case with, well, REACH toothpaste, which decided what better flavor to brush your teeth with than banana flavored toothpaste. Of course, the cute monkey business that is Curious George tooth gel has nothing on Breath Pallette's, which come in the strange Sweet Salt, Darjeeling Tea, and Indian Curry flavors to name a few.
DISGUSTING FLAVORS THAT WORK: Of course, sometimes gross flavors are just part of the gimmick. Bertie Bott's Jelly Beans, straight out of Harry Potter for instance, feature yuck-inducing varieties like black pepper, earwax, earthworm and vomit. Kids, however, don't seem to be the only ones wiling to put their allowance on the line for a bit of disgusting. Fans of Jones Soda regularly shell out their Thanksgiving cash to get a sip of their limited-edition turkey and gravy flavored pop.
----
So, did we miss any gross flavor missteps along the way? Post "˜em in the comments already! I'm itching to hear more.
NOTE: special thanks to Kara and Sandy for their enormous research help on this post. | {
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This could prove to be a big year for Nintendo as it nears the release of its new Wii U console. The 3DS continues to sell well after a slow start, and the company’s various platforms have a great lineup of games due for release as well. We can now tell that Mario Party 9 is dated for release.
Many gamers favorite character will be making a comeback on the current Wii Console across Europe on March 2nd. The game is only available on the Wii platform, and according to Electronic Theatre will feature a whole host of new game modes. These include battles against bosses and also new playable characters from the Mushroom Kingdom.
You will have to think one step ahead of your opponents in the new game as you try to collect the most Mini Stars, and beat Bowser. Mario Party 9 has 80 new mini games that are accessible to all Mario fans that include racing snowmobiles, escaping haunted mansions, and making pizzas.
Boss Battle is another new mini game that allows up to four players to combine their powers to beat a series of classic Mario boss characters collecting Mini Stars. This leads to the final battle with Bowser, and while you need to work as a team to beat the bosses, winners are picked by the amount of stars gained and how much damaged inflicted on each boss.
The mini games can be played without the need to complete a stage first, and you can improve your skills on any Mini game by using the Free Play mode. With all the new options the game will keep Mario fans entertained for hours.
Will you be buying Mario Party 9? | {
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New York City pharmacies will be prohibited from selling cigarettes and other tobacco products from New Year's Day.
The tobacco ban also includes businesses that also contain pharmacies like supermarkets or big-box stores, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The change will impact about 500 pharmacies who are currently selling cigarettes and tobacco products. The new regulation comes on the heels of a ban on pharmacy sales of electronic cigarettes that took effect in late August.
Typically, a pack of cigarettes cost around $13 in New York City. It is the highest price in the entire United States.
Despite restrictions and high tobacco taxes, there are still more than 873,000 smokers in New York City.
Some business owners are critical of the ban. Al Gentile, the owner of Staten Island’s St. George Pharmacy, told the Associated Press that cigarette sales enticed customers to shop at the store and ended up making other purchases.
Mr Gentile said the government should not ban pharmacies from selling tobacco products while it can be purchased elsewhere.
But health experts disagree. Sonia Angell, a deputy health commissioner, said it’s important for pharmacies to promote health.
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Dr. Herminia Palacio, the deputy mayor for Health and Human Services, told ABC News pharmacies selling cigarettes are antithetical to its wellness-related purpose. | {
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See our updated FAQ
which has an extensive list of immigrant Mass Murders.
In Nice, France, a Muslim immigrant truck driver deliberately crashes his truck into a French crowd. In Munich, a “German-Iranian” youth, said by German authorities to be something of mental case rather than a formal terrorist asset, commits a mass shooting of his “fellow” German citizens. Then there’s the guy with the ax in the German train, and the other Muslim guy with the machete.
Those are Muslim crimes, presumably done for Muslim reasons, and there have been many of them committed in the United States by (a) Muslim immigrants, and (b) the “absimilated” children of Muslim immigrants, of whom Omar Mateen is the most recent in the US.
Absimilation, a word coined by John Derbyshire, is the reverse of assimilation. A non-terrorist example of absimilation would be George P. Bush, the son of Jeb and Columba Bush, who famously said (in Spanish, to a gathering of Hispanic Republicans)“ “She [Columba] told me we have to fight for our race, we have to find the leaders who represent us”. (See also George P.’s statements about the Border Patrol here.)
But Immigrant Mass Murder has also been committed by Asians, Africans, Hispanics, and immigrants from the Caribbean. A list I compiled of these killings included killers from Kuwait, Guyana, India, Burma, Somalia, and Vietnam—all in 2015.
What these attacks are is not the kind of international action that George W. Bush tried to solve by invading Afghanistan and Iraq—they’re what VDARE.com calls “Immigrant Mass Murder” and the solution to them is an immigration moratorium.
VDARE.com Editor Peter Brimelow talked about this in Alien Nation (1995) instancing the cases of Jamaican Colin Ferguson, who shot up the Long Island Railroad, the immigrants who took part in the first attack on the World Trade Center, and Mir Aimal Kansi, a Pakistani immigrant who shot random employees at the CIA Headquarters. (He was eventually executed, under Virginia law.)
Reviewers tried to shame him. The late economist Julian Simon was appalled by the use of the examples above, writing “And these are the sort of inflammatory events that he suggests as our destiny” [A Reply To Peter Brimelow, Julian Simon.com, April 30, 1996]
Simon thought mentioning these things was a sign of racism. So did the late Christopher Hitchens, writing during the “Bollinger Bolshevik” phase of his life, in his review of Alien Nation [From Melting Pot To Potpourri, LA Times, May 21, 1995]
Simon called it “textbook demagoguery” to say that gunman Colin Ferguson was motivated by hatred of whites (his attorneys wanted to use “black rage” as a defense). And Hitchens said “the passage about famous ‘immigrant’ atrocities" represented "an appeal to the instinct rather than the reflective capacity."
But more recently Ann Coulter noticed the phenomenon of Immigrant Mass Murder in her column The Problem Isn't Just Illegal Immigration, It's Legal Immigration, Too, April 24, 2013, and again in Ann Coulter On The “Epidemic Of Immigrant Mass Murders”, June 22, 2016. It got a whole chapter in Adios, America, which we know Donald Trump has read.
When you consider how much angst Trump provoked by even mentioning the Mexican propensity for rape—another whole chapter in Adios, America—it may cause heads to explode across the MSM if he takes up this cause.
But he doesn’t have to—as I’ve said, while some of these crimes can be prevented by armed Americans fighting back, and some can be prevented by police, the most effective way of reducing Immigrant Mass Murder is reducing immigration from mass murdering sections of the world.
Trump has already suggested a pause in immigration from Muslim countries. A general immigration moratorium would be even better.
James Fulford [Email him] is a writer and editor for VDARE.com | {
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Lots of action today as the Minnesota Vikings saw their first full practice in pads. The day is ending, so it's high time for another media roundup. Before you take a look at the quick hits below, be sure to see what Eric and I have had to say in more detail on offense, defense and special teams. After those tidbits, will be injury news, a media review, and some 2nd and 3rd team news.
Beyond anything else, tragedy hit the NFL again, this time in the form of an apparent suicide. O.J. Murdock, a former teammate of Jasper Brinkley at South Carolina, was found inside his car parked outside of his former high school with what appeared to be self inflicted gunshot wounds. Full story over at the Pioneer Press.
We all enjoy the game of football, but sometimes we forget the men behind the masks. Every so often, we're starkly reminded of the humanity inherent in every human activity, be it work for social justice or merely entertainment.
Let's keep that in mind as we move forward with the season.
A few quick notes about some practice highlights:
Geoff Schwartz took more 1st team snaps at right guard than in other practices, but Brandon Fusco still took most of these snaps.
Simpson is high ... on the Vikings. He had a couple of good catches today. He loves the offensive pieces we have and predicts big things. That's a link to Pelissero's notebook, which I'll break down below the jump.
Blair Walsh was potentially endangering airborne wildlife with his kicks. He also displayed accuracy in live kick snaps, banging in 8 of 9 (7 of 8 according to some sources) from 40 yards out. The miss hooked left and may have been in. Some of the kicks could have gone for 60 yards.
Some good hits in practice today, which I'll detail in a bit. Players were amped up for pads and contact.
We got to see the Kalil v. Allen battle. Kalil is a pro. Allen is a future Hall of Famer.
Ponder was 7 for 12 in 11 on 11s, and had a few more miscues in 7 on 7s, including an interception tipped out of Rudolph's hands by Mistral Raymond , into the outstretched arms of Tyrone McKenzie. One of his completions in the 11s was a laser over Greenway to Rudolph in the seam for a touchdown.
Josh Robinson still out. Hamstring. Frazier refuses to rush things and doesn't have a timetable set, but we will see him in action this week in all likelihood. Pelissero elaborates on what this means for Robinson.
Adrian Peterson was rushed to the hospital after an allergic reaction. He's doing well now, and we should see him tomorrow to continue his rehab. At this pace, Frazier wants him to see snaps in some preseason games to see how his knee responds to unexpected cuts and contact. That means nothing about his Week 1 availability, however.
Percy Harvin jammed his fingers and was kept out of some practice drills to get his fingers taped up. He returned for the final few 11-on-11 snaps.
DeMarcus Love missed practice due to shoulder injury. Expect him to miss more time.
Nick Taylor was waived. If he clears waivers, the Vikings will place him on Injured Reserve. He has a torn labrum.
Robert Blanton left practice with a tweaked hamstring.
Mickey Shuler, who was activated on Saturday off of the NFI list will be eligible, per CBA rules, to play tomorrow.
Stephen Burton was activivated off the same list, and cannot participate in practices for a few days per the same rules.
Michael Jenkins' knee is fully healed.
Our own Chris Gates reports that Matt Blair will be the next Vikings Ring of Honor inductee. He contributed in every way he could, and it turns out that that was a lot of different ways.
Over at ESPN1500, Tom Pelissero published a depth chart outlining what the Vikings have rolled out (generally speaking) in their first, second and third teams. More than that, it includes good analysis on three unproven players who will want to contribute on special teams.
Also in his notebook is an interesting story of how the Vikings are using technology to monitor particular players' heat patterns by swallowing a tracking pill.
The best thing about the notes he published, however, is his discussion of Matt Kalil and Jared Allen
Jared Allen got the edge on Matt Kalil and made sure everyone knew it, yanking off his helmet and holding it aloft as he grinned and circled through the line of Minnesota Vikings teammates waiting for their turns in the one-on-one pass rush drill.
That dude is hilarious and I love how much fun they're having. Read up on it. It's actually as interesting as the amount of hype this battle has been getting.
Despite Jenkins' knee recovery, Pelissero is not confident Jenkins will make the team. I have to agree.
Judd Zulgad also wrote things , but they are more related to off-the-field interests for the Vikings. The new stadium will include "retractable elements," but not necessarily a roof. This could include a retractable wall, like the Marlins have, or... well, actually, I don't know what else it could be. But, it's a design consideration.
We should know in the next sixty days what the design moving forward will be (that's when they choose an architect).
Zulgad reports that Mark Wilf sees the Vikings as producing middle-of-the-league revenue, instead of revenue in the basement of moneymakers for NFL teams as a result of this stadium.
The Wilfs refuse to set specific mileposts in terms of wins or other performance for the status of Leslie Frazier, and are instead looking at consistent and solid improvement. There is also a small discussion as to what prompted the switch to a single general manager. It's worth the read.
Jeremy Fowler interviewed both tight ends, and it seems the comparisons to New England's offense is no mistake . Rudolph and Carlson have been studying Gronkowski and Hernandez (although Carlson isn't ready to make the comparison). Some good information on how they'll be used is in that article.
Fowler also did a piece on Harrison Smith, who is looking forward to proving his worth when he can hit as often as possible. He relishes the contact, but is committed to proving himself in nonphysical ways as well, hoping to prove he has all the technical skills to start at safety.
Brian Murphy, also of the Pioneer Press covers some of the talk surrounding the offensive line. Everyone is optimistic, and the play we saw on the field contributed in a big way.
Chip Scoggins has a good interview with Antoine Winfield over at the Strib. He seems to like doing these player pieces, and did a good job with one on Hussain Abdullah and his decision to pursue his faith this year.
Speaking of the Star Tribune, Dan Wiederer and Mark Craig produced another Access Vikings video, which continues to be unembeddable. It includes:
Nick Taylor waived (shoulder). Chris Stroud in. Stroud was worked out at minicamps and after Day 2 of training camp.
More Robinson updates (covered above)
It is hot outside (some of you might feel as if this is being beaten into the ground, but it needs to be said).
Every padded practice is more important, just because the CBA limits them
Kalil v. Allen updates
Offensive Line update—the organization loves who they have. Johnson is compared to Hutchinson (favorably)
Ponder looks comfortable, still a lot of underneath routes
Wiederer also has an informative piece on Ponder, who admits his inconsistency today.
Two more highlight videos for you. The first is a revealing discussion with quarterbacks coach Craig Johnson spliced with great training camp video . That's not all for Vikings produced video, as Wobschall was also able to interview Zygi Wilf . Summary:
Mankato is awesome to come back to, and is a good summer home for the team
Wilf is optimistic about Frazier, Spielman and the draft.
Getting the stadium deal was awesome and exciting. Somehow, he says it was great working with the legislature. I feel like that's lip service.
Wilf thanks YOU and every other fan for helping make that happen.
Zygi is a fan of Matt Blair, and everyone enjoyed the announcement.
This was never going to be a hard hitting interview.
If you wait, you'll hear my terrible voice ask some questions. Guess which ones!
The second is from a year ago, but should make fans anticipating the Ponder-Rudolph connection excited. It's below:
The last bit of Vikings media comes from Wobschall as well, and he isolates what he thought the top plays of the day were. It's a good list, and it starts off with my favorite of the day, which was the last play of the 11-on-11s. A goal line set from the 2, Rosenfels fired a beautiful pass to Jarius Wright in the corner of the end zone, who hauls it in over his defender and kept both feet inbounds. Rosenfels was under pressure; Larry Dean would have gotten a sack if Sage had held onto the ball for three tenths of a second longer.
Some notes (mostly on 2nd and 3rd teams) not included in my or Eric's coverage, or in our joint walkthrough coverage: | {
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Climate ambition is often thought of in terms of the stringency of emission reduction commitments, expressed by countries under the landmark Paris Agreement as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). While the NDCs that have been pledged by countries are important, they are only the first step.
To truly assess progress in reducing global climate pollution, it is necessary to look behind country pledges to understand exactly how their emissions are counted and reported. We need consistent accounting rules and transparent reporting to ensure the world is on track.
The details of accounting and transparency may sometimes sound boring and technical. But the content of these rules is as important as countries’ headline climate targets, since the headline numbers are only as good as our ability to ensure countries are clearly reducing emissions and counting those reductions accurately.
Fortunately, these same accounting and transparency rules – if done right – can also help unlock the potential of carbon markets to drive investment and innovation up, and pollution down.
The importance of avoiding double counting
If countries are to meet their climate goals, the risk of “double counting” emissions reductions must be avoided by finalizing clear and unambiguous international guidance during negotiations to be concluded this year under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement. Article 6 establishes a framework for international carbon market cooperation under the Paris Agreement, but its success depends on cooperating countries only counting their emissions reductions once. The principle is simple.
Suppose emissions reductions in country A — say, from replacing a coal-fired electric power plant with a wind farm — generate credits that are sold to emitters in country B (or an international airline under ICAO’s carbon offset program CORSIA) and used to comply with their own emissions targets.
The atmosphere doesn’t care whether the emission reductions took place in country A or B, so long as emissions go down overall.
Of course, in keeping track of emissions reductions, it’s important not to count the same emissions reductions twice. Double-counting would mean total emissions could go up, not down.
If country B (or an international airline) claims the credits against its own emissions target, country A can’t do the same.
This sounds like common sense. But it’s surprisingly contentious in the negotiations.
So far, countries have not agreed on the simple, transparent double-entry bookkeeping standards that would be sufficient to prevent such double counting. Ensuring that credits from existing UN systems like the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) are not double counted will also be critical. Countries can avoid re-creating the errors from the CDM by ensuring that all transfers of emissions reductions from any country are transparently reported and “added back” to that country’s emissions account. This simple process can help avoid double counting.
Laying the foundation for markets to reduce carbon pollution
Well-designed carbon markets are an important tool that can help countries drive down carbon pollution faster, farther, and more cost-effectively, enabling deeper ambition in NDCs at no additional cost. More than half of the world’s countries are using, or plan to use, carbon markets to stimulate the innovation and investment needed to meet their pollution reduction goals.
No-double-counting is the bedrock of carbon markets: carbon markets break down if the same ton of emission reduction can be counted by both the buyer and seller. That’s why it’s important to get the rules right this year — and lock them in going forward. A no-double-counting principle is one of those “rules of the road” needed to help ensure that bottom-up markets work smoothly.
The Paris Agreement’s rulebook should articulate clear procedures — on accounting, transparency, and monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV)— that rule out “double counting” of emissions reductions. To ensure the integrity and credibility of the climate regime, and keep the atmosphere whole, emissions reductions achieved in one country and transferred elsewhere must only be counted once. | {
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Vince Ellis
Detroit Free Press
DALLAS -- As an assistant coach at the University of Vermont in the early 1980s, Stan Van Gundy was very much aware of the city's 39-year-old mayor, whose son was an active participant in the Catamounts' summer basketball camps.
That mayor of Burlington was Bernie Sanders, who's now a contender for the presidency.
“I didn’t know him know him, but I knew who he was,” the Detroit Pistons' coach and president said Wednesday at American Airlines Center. “He wouldn’t remember me now, but obviously, I remember him. He was around a lot. A big basketball fan."
Van Gundy made his comments the day after Sanders upset Hillary Clinton in Michigan’s Democratic Party primary.
Van Gundy was an assistant at Vermont in 1981-83. He said that Sanders was a regular at games.
On Wednesday, Van Gundy wondered aloud about looking up Sanders’ son, Levi.
Maybe Van Gundy could angle for a cabinet post if Sanders beats the odds and wins the election in November.
Detroit Pistons' Van Gundy doesn't want an 'entertainer' as president
Opponents hate Hack-A-Dre: After yet another game that saw Pistons center Andre Drummond sent to the free throw line by an opposing coach trying to take advantage of his poor foul shooting, he was asked what opposing players tell him during games.
“They all say it: They don't want to do this (expletive),” Drummond said after the Pistons' 102-96 victory over the Dallas Mavericks. “It makes the game boring. But it is what it is. Everybody wants to come up with their different schemes to stop our team when we've got it going.”
Drummond was dominant with 25 points and 17 rebounds Wednesday but struggled through a 5-for-14 night at the line. On the four second-quarter instances Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle used the strategy, Drummond went 4-for-8 on free throws.
The approach has become so prevalent that NBA commissioner Adam Silver has said the league will examine the issue in the off-season.
"Coming from me, I really don't care,” Drummond said. “I mean, I don't mind shooting the free throws. It's something I work on all the time. Like I tell you guys all the time, it's a process for me.”
Contact Vince Ellis at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @vincent_ellis56. | {
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The Dark Knight Rises
Qassem Suleimani, a silver-haired Iranian spymaster Washington has long disparaged as a terrorist, has spent decades staying out of public view as he quietly worked to funnel arms and money to Iranian proxies and allies across the Middle East. Now, he’s stepping into the limelight as the face of Tehran’s intensifying battle with the Islamic State.
In recent weeks, photos of Suleimani on a mountaintop alongside Yazidi elders who had faced extermination at the hands of the Islamic State and shaking hands with Kurdish Peshmerga fighters on battlefields in Kurdistan have been widely shared on Twitter, Facebook, and Iranian state-run media. That means the once-elusive leader of the Quds Force, a branch of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard responsible for high-profile missions outside of Iran, is enjoying a strange form of celebrity among those cheering Iran’s willingness to deploy small numbers of ground troops against the Islamic State, something Washington has steadfastly refused to do.
Suleimani’s emergence highlights the vastly different ways Washington and Tehran are trying to portray their roles in the fight against the Islamic State. While the United States downplays its involvement in strikes against the militants by hiding under the umbrella of a fragile coalition, the Iranian government is taking a totally different approach: boasting of its solo ventures into Iraq and trying to argue that Iran, not the United States, deserves credit for recent victories, no matter how temporary.
According to reports from the Guardian, soon after the first images of Suleimani appeared, Yadollah Javani, a senior advisor to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said on Iranian state TV that "Baghdad was prevented from falling because of the presence and assistance of the Islamic Republic."
Iran’s Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh made similar assertions on state TV about the preservation of Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, which was nearly captured by ISIS militants last month.
For U.S. officials, Suleimani’s leadership role in the fight against the Islamic State is a double-edged sword. Senior American military and intelligence officials have long seen Suleimani as an unusually canny adversary who has managed to build and maintain a network of proxies ranging from Hezbollah in Lebanon to an array of Shiite militias inside Iraq. With Washington seeking allies in the fight against the Islamic State, Suleimani has decades of experience cajoling others into fighting on his country’s behalf.
At the same time, U.S. officials believe that Suleimani was responsible, at least in part, for hundreds of American combat deaths in Iraq. Shiite militias used advanced weapons called explosively formed penetrators (EFPs) to destroy American armored vehicles and kill those inside. Those weapons were almost certainly made in Iran and then given, using networks Suleimani helped establish, to Shiite fighters. The militants also used Iranian-made rockets and mortars to batter the Green Zone in central Baghdad.
During the height of the anti-American violence there, Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, sent a letter to then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates describing Suleimani as a "truly evil figure," according to a later report in the New York Times.
Indeed, Suleimani’s support for Assad has prolonged the country’s brutal civil war and helped contribute to the deaths of tens of thousands of Syrian civilians. Hezbollah, meanwhile, has used Iranian weaponry to kill hundreds of Israelis and repeatedly bring the region to the brink of wider conflagrations.
Operations to halt the advance of the Islamic State could have been an opportunity for collaboration between the United States and Iran, which have been unable to come to a diplomatic agreement in 35 years, if it weren’t for Iran’s fierce loyalty to Assad and its tense standoff with the West over its nuclear program. At last month’s U.N. General Assembly meeting in New York, British Prime Minister David Cameron said Iran had the potential to help defeat ISIS, and that the West "should welcome their engagement."
But the same forces that are now fighting the Islamic State in Iraq were the ones to take down the American-funded Syrian rebels in strategically located al-Qusayr in 2013, a move that helped Assad maintain his seat at a time when Washington was desperate to overthrow him. Suleimani is also responsible for the organization of Hezbollah and other Shiite fighters who have battled alongside the Syrian military in efforts to protect Assad.
But even during those operations, Suleimani was kept out of sight and out of mention in Iranian media reports, making Tehran’s decision to dramatically publicize his activities in Iraq all the more surprising.
In the United States, the subject of Suleimani is one that is particularly sensitive. A former Iranian soldier who fought in the Iran-Iraq War from 1980 to 1988, Suleimani quickly rose through the ranks of Iran’s national military. He was named a Quds commander in 1998 and gained fame when he led Quds operatives on a special mission to southern Lebanon that helped end the Israeli occupation there.
Though the United States and Iran have refused to negotiate since 1979, Suleimani’s relationship with Washington was not always so cut-and-dry. Even as he operated out of the former American Embassy in Tehran, he was the organizer of secret meetings between Iranian and American diplomats in Geneva after 9/11 that were intended to help destroy their common enemy: the Taliban.
But in early 2002, George W. Bush named Iran a member of the "Axis of Evil" in the Middle East, in what Ryan Crocker, the former American ambassador to Iraq, called a decision that "changed history."
In interviews for a 2013 New Yorker profile of Suleimani, Crocker told reporter Dexter Filkins that prior to Bush’s assertion, Suleimani told a U.N. negotiator that in the aftermath of Sept. 11, "Maybe it’s time to rethink our relationship with the Americans."
"We were just that close," Crocker said. "One word in one speech changed history."
And the American relationship with Suleimani seemingly only went downhill from there.
In 2011, Reuel Marc Gerecht, a former Middle Eastern specialist at the CIA’s Directorate of Operations, testified before members of Congress that Suleimani should be found and assassinated for his attempt to blow up the Saudi ambassador to the U.S. — a plan that was foiled when the Mexican drug cartel operative he tried to hire ended up being an American government informant.
"Qassem Suleimani travels a lot," Gerecht said. "He’s all over the place. Go get him. Either try to capture him or kill him."
Washington hasn’t gone that far, but it has tried to hammer Suleimani before. In 2011, the U.S. Treasury named him to its sanctions list for his alleged involvement in the Saudi terror plot.
But his most recent visits to Iraq in the past month signal that at least in Iraq, Suleimani and the United States might finally have something they’re both fighting for: the elimination of the Islamic State.
On NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday, Henry Kissinger, former secretary of state under presidents Nixon and Ford, said Iran is "a natural ally to the United States."
And James Baker, who served in the Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations, didn’t deny the possibility Iran and the United States were in fact negotiating secretly before Suleimani’s photo shoot began.
"I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Iran was not helping us quietly deal with some of this," he said. | {
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Written by: Bob Dylan
Come gather ’round peopleWherever you roamAnd admit that the watersAround you have grownAnd accept it that soonYou’ll be drenched to the boneIf your time to you is worth savin’Then you better start swimmin’ or you’ll sink like a stoneFor the times they are a-changin’Come writers and criticsWho prophesize with your penAnd keep your eyes wideThe chance won’t come againAnd don’t speak too soonFor the wheel’s still in spinAnd there’s no tellin’ who that it’s namin’For the loser now will be later to winFor the times they are a-changin’Come senators, congressmenPlease heed the callDon’t stand in the doorwayDon’t block up the hallFor he that gets hurtWill be he who has stalledThere’s a battle outside and it is ragin’It’ll soon shake your windows and rattle your wallsFor the times they are a-changin’Come mothers and fathersThroughout the landAnd don’t criticizeWhat you can’t understandYour sons and your daughtersAre beyond your commandYour old road is rapidly agin’Please get out of the new one if you can’t lend your handFor the times they are a-changin’The line it is drawnThe curse it is castThe slow one nowWill later be fastAs the present nowWill later be pastThe order is rapidly fadin’And the first one now will later be lastFor the times they are a-changin’
Copyright
© 1963, 1964 by Warner Bros. Inc.; renewed 1991, 1992 by Special Rider Music | {
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Россия направила запрос в генеральный секретариат еще 3 февраля. В декабре прошлого года официальный представитель СК России Владимир Маркин заявлял, что Ходорковский объявлен в международный розыск. В России Ходорковский объявлен в федеральный розыск. "Неважно, где скрывается обвиняемый в совершении особо тяжких преступлений – в России или за ее пределами, да хоть в Антарктиде, – мы просто обязаны предпринять все предусмотренные законом меры для привлечения его к уголовной ответственности. Следственный комитет действует в соответствии с нормами не только российского законодательства, но и международного права, а также руководствуется одним из главных принципов уголовного судопроизводства – неотвратимости наказания", - заявлял Маркин. | {
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Arrow gave us a quick glimpse at both Talia al Ghul and a new Black Canary in last week’s 2017 premiere “Who Are You,” but you won’t have to wait for Wednesday to get a closer look at either. See for yourself in new photos from this week’s “Second Chances,” as Oliver trains with Ra’s al Ghul’s daughter in flashback, while attempting to recruit a new teammate in the present.
The CW released a full photo set for this week’s “Second Chances,” featuring Lexa Doig as Talia al Ghul, half-sister to Nyssa. It’s likely Talia may not use her full name (if only to keep continuity of Oliver’s unfamiliarity with the family), while the present sees Oliver and co. taking drastic measures to reach Tina Boland (Juliana Harkavy), a potential new Canary.
So reads the “Second Chances” synopsis:
TALIA AL GHUL TAKES OLIVER UNDER HER WING — In his quest to take down Kovar, Oliver (Stephen Amell) gets help from a surprising source — Talia al Ghul (guest star Lexa Doig). However, when she reveals what she wants from him in exchange, Oliver isn’t sure he can accept her help. Felicity (Emily Bett Rickards) attempts to hack the NSA to help free Diggle (David Ramsey) but when her online efforts are flagged, she faces off against an unknown adversary. Meanwhile, Curtis (Echo Kellum) tells the team about a female vigilante, Tina Boland (guest star Juliana Harkavay), he uncovered online who has been wreaking havoc all over the country.
One wonders if we’ll finally learn what connection Prometheus has to either Talia or Oliver (gotta unmask that guy sometime, folks), but in the meantime, check out the full trailer for “Second Chances” below, and stay tuned for more on Arrow’s introduction of Talia al Ghul. | {
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This reminds me of the Kaiju, Biollante, if you know what that is. | {
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MAMTA SHIVA and Amrish Chotala, two young Dalit activists in Saharanpur, sit at a tea shop on the city's Court Road and discuss one of Dr. BR Ambedkar's famous treatises Annihilation of Caste - a literature they have read at least four times each. For them, the works of "Baba Saheb" form the lynchpin on which they base their lives.
"I am a Dalit and a follower of Baba Saheb. I read and understood why Baba Saheb had to leave the Hindu fold and embrace Buddhism. All Dalit icons after him - Manyavar Kanshi Ram, Behen Mayawati, Radhika Vemula - left Hinduism. That is why I follow the path shown by Buddha," said Shiva.
Chotala nodded in agreement and said, "Right-wing forces try to tell us that Muslims are our enemies. But we do not think so. Muslims never deny us entry into mosques but Brahmins stop us from entering temples. So who is our real enemy?"
This outspoken nature is not limited to these two activists. In Saharanpur, the Dalit is angry but unafraid. "Baba Saheb said that he who suffers injustice is a bigger sinner than he who inflicts it. In Saharanpur, that is the difference between the 21st Century Dalit and his 19th Century ancestor. We are enlightened, educated, unafraid and angry," said Shiva, pointing a finger to herself.
After more than a month of on-again-off-again violence, the anger among young activists is palpable. According to Chetan Kumar Chanyane, 53-year-old state vice-president of Rashtriya Dalit Mahasabha, there is a pattern to nearly every communal riot in Western UP. "The upper-caste will start the riot, but back off once the fighting begins. Valmikis are always made to clash with Muslims and do the upper-castes' dirty work. There is a reason why Saharanpur has seen caste clashes. Here, Valmikis refuse to become cannon fodder for the upper-castes. Muslims are not our enemies. Why should we die fighting them?"
"Right-wing forces try to tell us that Muslims are our enemies. But we do not think so. Muslims never deny us entry into mosques but Brahmins stop us from entering temples. So who is our real enemy?" "Right-wing forces try to tell us that Muslims are our enemies. But we do not think so. Muslims never deny us entry into mosques but Brahmins stop us from entering temples. So who is our real enemy?" — Chetan Kumar Chanyane
Saharanpur district is nestled in the north-most corner of Uttar Pradesh, with Uttarakhand to its North and Haryana to its West. Over 21% of Saharanpur's population falls in the Scheduled Caste (SC) category. According to academic and SP leader Sudhir Panwar, Dalits in Saharanpur realized the power of the ballot early on. "Saharanpur has given more Dalit MLAs and MPs than almost any other district in Western UP. They were not content with the old-style patron-client relationship. Dalits of Saharanpur have gone on to represent their constituents in the Assembly, Lok Sabha and even in the state Cabinet. This made them realize that they were equals and they shouldn't settle for less. Mayawati, when in power, promoted many leaders from Saharanpur and gave the district priority in terms of electricity and other basic services."
Saharanpur has given more Dalit MLAs and MPs than almost any other district in western UP. Saharanpur has given more Dalit MLAs and MPs than almost any other district in western UP.
Chanyane added that Dalits in Saharanpur district take pride in sending their children to schools and colleges. "Most Dalits in the villages have finished school and most in the city have university degrees. With that comes a higher degree of enlightenment." Shiva and Chotala, both with their MA degrees, are living illustrations of Chanyane's point. Even when it comes to activism, the Dalits of Saharanpur refuse to be meek. Last year, a group of Dalit residents in Malipur village were concerned about a flourishing liquor mafia in their vicinity. Eventually, 200 Dalit villagers, 80 of them women, raided liquor vends in the forest. They claim to have recovered 50 litres of illicit liquor.
Usand village in the district was on the edge after two residents had died in alleged police atrocities. Refusing to back down, Dalits took to streets invoking the Una floggings. They raised the slogan, "Yeh UP hai, Gujarat Nahi" (This is UP, not Gujarat). The strength of their protest forced the National Commission for Scheduled Castes (NCSC) to take note of this incident. | {
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City politicians held off voting on a plan to introduce food trucks in London, instead asking staff to tweak, and potentially expand, the pilot project.
Curbside cuisine is offered in many major cities, and staff presented a plan at city hall Monday to allow three trucks to set up near Victoria Park from June to November, within the hours of 9 a.m. to 8 p.m.
But members of council’s community and protective services committee felt the proposal may be too restrictive – and asked staff to look at possibly expanding the number of trucks they’ll license and where they’re allowed.
“Typical London,” said Mayor Joe Fontana. “We want to try things moderately, one little half-step at a time. Come on.”
The proposal debated Monday would keep the three pilot-project trucks in designated spots near Victoria Park: two on Dufferin Ave. and one on Clarence St.
Politicians also asked staff to look at possibly regulating what’s offered on food trucks’ menus. That’s part of the model recently rolled out in Ottawa.
“I don’t want to see hot dogs and hamburgers out of food trucks,” Coun. Harold Usher said. “I don’t (think) the community wants to see that.”
There was little explicit political resistance to the idea, though Coun. Bill Armstrong did say: “It sounds exciting but it won’t be exciting if a huge amount of revenue . . . comes out of the pockets of existing restaurants that pay property taxes.”
Staff will bring a revised proposal back to the committee on June 11, and the matter will then go to city council for a final vote.
Twitter.com/patatLFPress | {
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Image copyright AFP Image caption The two leaders have never met in North Korea before
China's President Xi Jinping has met North Korean leader Kim Jong-un during the first Chinese state visit to Pyongyang in 14 years.
The leaders were expected to discuss economic issues and the stalled talks over North Korea's nuclear programme.
It was their fifth meeting in 15 months, but the first to have taken place in North Korea.
Both leaders are currently in separate disputes with the US - China over trade and North Korea over nuclear weapons.
Thursday's meeting was the first between the two leaders since a summit held by Mr Kim and US President Donald Trump ended in February without any agreement on denuclearisation. It also comes just a week before Mr Xi is set to meet the US president at the G20 summit in Japan.
Thousands of people lined the streets to welcome the Chinese president to the country on Thursday morning, with video footage shared by Chinese state media showing crowds waving flowers and banners as his motorcade passed through Pyongyang.
Image copyright AFP Image caption People lined the streets to welcome the Chinese president
The leaders then held talks, in which Mr Xi praised Pyongyang's efforts towards denuclearisation and said he hoped that North Korea and the US could keep talking and make progress, according to Chinese media reports.
Why is the visit happening now?
Mr Xi's two-day visit is the first by any Chinese leader to North Korea in 14 years and his first since taking power in 2012.
It is being seen as a boost for Mr Kim, who has been struggling to maintain momentum after a flurry of diplomatic activity over the past year.
The two leaders will inevitably discuss the stalled nuclear negotiations and the collapse of the Hanoi summit.
Analysts say Mr Xi will want to know what happened and whether any way can be found to move things forward, information he could then share with Mr Trump in Japan.
Image copyright AFP/KCNA VIA KNS Image caption China wants North Korea to stop missile testing
Although the visit was confirmed only earlier this week, Jenny Town, managing editor of US-based analysis site 38 North, says it is not a huge surprise that it is happening now, with the 70th anniversary of the two countries establishing diplomatic ties approaching.
She says there might be some "symbolic value" in the visiting taking place just before the G20 summit, but that it's "more of a bonus than a deciding factor".
What does China want?
China's main goal is stability in North Korea and economic co-operation, and ensuring that it remains a significant party in the negotiations over North Korea's nuclear programme.
The two communist-led states are old allies. But ties have been strained over the past decade, with Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions viewed critically by Beijing.
Image copyright AFP Image caption In June 2018, Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump met for the first time
The official China Daily newspaper said on Wednesday that the visit would allow the two leaders to "agree on some concrete co-operation projects".
And in a rare front page editorial in North Korea's Rodong Sinmun newspaper on Wednesday, Mr Xi reiterated his support for nuclear talks, saying: "China supports North Korea for maintaining the right direction in resolving the issue of the Korean peninsula politically."
What does North Korea want?
The visit will enable Mr Kim to show that he still has China's support, as other relationships are struggling.
"The North Koreans want to keep their friends close even if there isn't a lot of trust and a lot of goodwill between them," says Ms Town.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption North Korea has been called out for evading UN sanctions
North Korea's economy is struggling under the international sanctions regime, put in place because of its repeated nuclear and missile tests.
China, its biggest trading partner, has backed those sanctions but has indicated it would be in favour of some sanctions relief as an incentive for North Korea to denuclearise.
"China has proved to be the main destination for most of North Korea's exports, including minerals, fish, textiles, and also workers," North Korea analyst Peter Ward told the BBC.
Beijing traditionally is also the main importer of goods for North Korea's industry and households. Under current sanctions, a lot of this trade has come to a halt.
"China would prefer to relax UN sanctions in these areas," Mr Ward says. "It wants to ensure that North Korea's economy grows at a fair pace and that the North does not feel the need to test ballistic missiles and/or nuclear weapons again."
Given that sanctions are not likely to get lifted, there is little China can do.
But Kim Hyun-wook, a professor at the Korea National Diplomatic Academy, told Reuters that Chinese economic support - possibly even China creating a "hole" in sanctions - would mean Mr Kim "doesn't have to negotiate with the US from a position of weakness".
"It can have both nuclear weapons and economic aid from China," he said. | {
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Patna is the capital city of the state Bihar which is in the eastern part of our nation and is nearly 1100 km from the capital of our country. Being a city that attracts tourism and work-related guests because it hosts Bihar's administrative and educational centre, besides a few ancient and heritage places, it is important to offer its visitors the security of an air ambulance service.
Prime Air Ambulance services in Patna provide medical aviation assistance to the people who require immediate and special medical attention from a facility away from the city. Prime Air Ambulance services in Patna offer the finest of equipments along with well-trained and experienced medical staff for the best and comprehensive patient support through Air Ambulance services in Patna. The air ambulance in Patna connects to the different medical hubs around the country and also internationally. Allowing for travelers to be taken to the best medical treatment at any point in the region.
Hospitals near by Patna Airport
Shaheed Pir Ali Khan Marg, Khajpura, Patna, BR 800014[ PAT ]Baiely Road, Raja Bazar, Patna - 800014, Bihar MLA Colony, Indrapuri Patna+91 61-2229507New Bypass (NH-30) , Khemnichak , PO - New Jaganpura, PS - Ramkrishna Nagar, Patna+91 612-3215884 | {
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NOTIZIE
09.05.2017 - Autore: Marco Triolo (Nexta)
Era il 9 maggio 1997, esattamente vent'anni fa. Il quinto elemento di Luc Besson usciva nei cinema americani due giorni dopo la sua anteprima in apertura al Festival di Cannes. Per molte ragioni, è un film importante. È stato a lungo la produzione più costosa in Europa, ha segnato una svolta nella storia dei moderni effetti speciali cinematografici. Ha lanciato la carriera di Milla Jovovich e rinverdito quella di Bruce Willis . Ma ha anche diviso fortemente la critica, venendo proclamato allo stesso tempo il peggiore e il migliore blockbuster estivo di tutti i tempi. La verità però è una sola: Il quinto elemento fu un successo notevole per l'epoca (263 milioni di dollari incassati nel mondo) e tra i film che riportarono la fantascienza costosa al cinema. Per festeggiare il ventesimo anniversario del film di Besson, abbiamo pensato a cinque ragioni per rivederlo oggi. Eccole...
Milla. Ci sono pochi dubbi sul fatto che Milla Jovovich sia una delle più grandi icone action di oggi. Solamente la serie di Resident Evil basterebbe a immortalarla per sempre tra le donne più combattive del cinema. Il ruolo di Leeloo nel film di Besson ebbe l'onore di dare inizio a una carriera fulgida, e solo per questo vale la pena di riscoprirlo.
Ci sono pochi dubbi sul fatto che Milla Jovovich sia una delle più grandi icone action di oggi. Solamente la serie di Resident Evil basterebbe a immortalarla per sempre tra le donne più combattive del cinema. Il ruolo di Leeloo nel film di Besson ebbe l'onore di dare inizio a una carriera fulgida, e solo per questo vale la pena di riscoprirlo.
Moebius e company. Luc Besson è ovviamente cresciuto con i maestri del fumetto francese e, quando iniziò a lavorare a Il quinto elemento nei primi anni Novanta (ben prima che uscisse e prima ancora di girare Leon), chiamò a disegnare gli scenari del film Jean Giraud, in arte Moebius, e Jean-Claude Mézières, creatore della saga di Valérian e Laureline. Dalle loro menti eccelse nacquero le ambientazioni che poi Besson traspose sul grande schermo. Ne Il quinto elemento c'è un amore enorme verso Métal Hurlant e i classici delle bande dessinée. Anni dopo, Moebius e
Luc Besson è ovviamente cresciuto con i maestri del fumetto francese e, quando iniziò a lavorare a Il quinto elemento nei primi anni Novanta (ben prima che uscisse e prima ancora di girare Leon), chiamò a disegnare gli scenari del film, in arte, e, creatore della saga di Valérian e Laureline. Dalle loro menti eccelse nacquero le ambientazioni che poi Besson traspose sul grande schermo. Ne Il quinto elemento c'è un amore enorme versoe i classici delle bande dessinée. Anni dopo, Moebius e Alejandro Jodorowsky avrebbero fatto causa a Besson per aver saccheggiato materiale dal loro fumetto Incal. La causa fu respinta ma fa capire quanto, in effetti, il film viaggi al confine tra omaggio spinto e plagio.
Effetti speciali. Il quinto elemento fu anche un film importante nella storia degli effetti speciali. Il team di Besson combinò miniature e CGI (fornita dalla Digital Domain) per creare un mondo colorato e spettacolare, complesso e caotico. Non si era mai visto nulla come la New York del 2263 in cui si svolge buona parte del film. Nel 1997 quegli effetti erano rivoluzionari. Oggi ovviamente si può fare ben di più, ma il film va rivisto nell'ottica di vent'anni fa, per capire l'evoluzione degli effetti speciali al cinema.
Il quinto elemento fu anche un film importante nella storia degli effetti speciali. Il team di Besson combinò miniature e CGI (fornita dalla Digital Domain) per creare un mondo colorato e spettacolare, complesso e caotico. Non si era mai visto nulla come la New York del 2263 in cui si svolge buona parte del film. Nel 1997 quegli effetti erano rivoluzionari. Oggi ovviamente si può fare ben di più, ma il film va rivisto nell'ottica di vent'anni fa, per capire l'evoluzione degli effetti speciali al cinema.
Il meglio e il peggio. Per alcuni, Il quinto elemento è un film “so bad it's good”. Per quanto si tratti di un'affermazione esagerata, sintetizza perfettamente una delle ragioni per cui vedere o rivedere il film: perché è un'opera controversa. È un'opera che ha diviso la critica pur conquistando una bella fetta di pubblico. Un film sopra le righe, con personaggi e situazioni al limite del ridicolo (il Ruby Rhod di
I costumi. Non contento di aver chiamato due dei più grandi fumettisti francesi, Besson commissionò i costumi allo stilista Jean-Paul Gaultier. Il look del film è sopra le righe, in tema con tutto il resto, e decisamente un pezzo di storia del cinema nel bene e nel male.
E ora, una ragione extra:
Per alcuni, Il quinto elemento è un film “so bad it's good”. Per quanto si tratti di un'affermazione esagerata, sintetizza perfettamente una delle ragioni per cui vedere o rivedere il film: perché è un'opera controversa. È un'opera che ha diviso la critica pur conquistando una bella fetta di pubblico. Un film sopra le righe, con personaggi e situazioni al limite del ridicolo (il Ruby Rhod di Chris Tucker su tutti), che potreste odiare o amare, senza mezze misure. Ma come ogni opera capace di ispirare zuffe mediatiche, deve essere vista anche solamente per capire che diavolo avessero in testa tutti quelli che ci lavorarono due decenni fa, e anche tutti quelli che la videro in sala.Non contento di aver chiamato due dei più grandi fumettisti francesi, Besson commissionò i costumi allo stilista. Il look del film è sopra le righe, in tema con tutto il resto, e decisamente un pezzo di storia del cinema nel bene e nel male.
Valerian e la città dei mille pianeti. Vent'anni dopo, Besson sta per tornare alla space opera con un film che ha molti punti di contatto con Il quinto elemento. È di nuovo il film più costoso mai prodotto in Europa. È di nuovo una lettera d'amore alle bande dessinée e alla fantascienza a fumetti francese. Ed è tratto da un fumetto di Claude Mézières che, come abbiamo già detto, ha contribuito ai design de Il quinto elemento. Insomma, si tratta di due opere sorelle e, per meglio capire il nuovo film di Besson, fareste meglio a rivedere quello vecchio. Anche solo per divertirvi nel constatare i passi da gigante fatti dalla tecnologia negli ultimi vent'anni.
Valerian e la città dei mille pianeti arriverà in Italia a settembre, distribuito da 01. Qui ne potete vedere il trailer. | {
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News in Science
Climate change downsizing fauna, flora
Shrinking stature Climate change is reducing the size of many animal and plant species, including some which supply vital nutrition, according to a new study.
From micro-organisms to top predators, nearly 45 per cent of species for which data was reviewed grew smaller over multiple generations due to climate change, researchers found.
The impact of rapidly climbing temperatures and shifts in rainfall patterns on body size could have unpredictable and possible severe consequences, according to the study appearing today in journal Nature Climate Change.
Previous work established that recent climate change has led to sharp shifts in habitat and the timing of reproductive cycles. But impact on the size of plants and animals has received far less attention.
Dr Jennifer Sheridan and Dr David Bickford at the National University of Singapore looked at scientific literature on climate-change episodes in the distant past and at experiments and observations in recent history.
History repeating
Fossil records, they found, were unambiguous: past periods of rising temperatures had led both marine and land organisms to become progressively smaller.
During a warming event 55 million years ago, often seen as an analogue for current climate change, beetles, bees, spiders, wasps and ants shrank by 50 to 75 per cent over a period of several thousand years.
Mammals such as squirrels and woodrats also diminished in size, by about 40 per cent.
The pace of current warming, though, is far greater than during this so-called Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM).
It, too, has begun to shrink dozens of species, the study found.
Among 85 examples cited, 45 per cent were unaffected. But of those remaining, four out of five had gotten smaller, while a fifth got bigger.
Some of the shrinkage came as a surprise. "Plants were expected to get larger with increased atmospheric carbon dioxide," but many wound up stunted due to changes in temperature, humidity and nutrients available, the researchers write.
For cold-blooded animals, including insects, reptiles and amphibians, the impact is direct: experiments suggest that an upward tick of 1°C translates into roughly a 10 per cent increase in metabolism, the rate at which an organism uses energy. That, in turn, results in downsizing.
The common toad, for example, has measurably shrunk in girth in only two decades, along with some tortoises, marine iguanas and lizards.
Across the ecosystem
Overfishing has been blamed for decreased body size in both wild and commercially-harvested aquatic species, threatening the key source of protein of a billion people around the world, mainly in Africa and Asia.
But experiments and observational studies have shown that warming waters play a role as well, especially in rivers and lakes.
Birds, including passerines, goshawks and gulls, and mammals such as soay sheep, red dear and polar bears, have also trended towards less bulk.
Some of the most worrying changes are at the bottom of the food chain, especially in the ocean, where tiny phytoplankton and calcium-building creatures are dwindling in size due to acidification and the reduced capacity of warmer water to hold oxygen and nutrients.
Carbon pollution has probably locked in an additional 1.0°C increase in average global temperatures, and continued emissions of greenhouse gases could push up the thermometer another 4.0°C to 5.0°C by centuries end, according to the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Because warming is occurring at unprecedented rates, "many organisms may not respond or adapt quickly enough", especially those with long generation times, the authors write.
"We do not yet know the exact mechanisms involved, or why some organisms are getting smaller while others are unaffected," they add. "Until we understand more, we could be risking negative consequences that we can't yet quantify." | {
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Malia Obama ditches Palm Springs for Sundance pipeline protest
Jayme Deerwester | USA TODAY
Show Caption Hide Caption Shailene Woodley praises Malia Obama for attending pipeline protest Malia Obama reportedly attended a protest against the Dakota Access Pipeline at the Sundance Film Festival this week. Shailene Woodley stated, "It was amazing to see Malia, President Obama’s daughter…"
If Malia Obama's first week as a former first daughter is anything to go by, the 18-year-old's re-entry into civilian life appears to be going smoothly.
Take, for example, her trip to the Sundance Film Festival. On Monday, she attended an event supporting the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe's protest against the Dakota Access Pipeline (which was revived in an executive action signed by President Trump this week) and nobody seemed to notice for days.
In fact, the story only gained traction once actress and anti-DAP activist Shailene Woodley mentioned it in a Wednesday interview with the website DemocracyNow.org.
"It was amazing to see Malia," Woodley said. "To witness a human being and a woman coming into her own outside of her family and outside of the attachments that this country has on her, but someone who's willing to participate in democracy because she chooses to, because she recognizes, regardless of her last name, that if she doesn't participate in democracy, there will be no world for her future children."
As part of her gap-year to-do list, Obama begins an internship with the Weinstein Company in February.
She'll enroll at Harvard University in the fall. | {
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By Steve Scherer
ROME (Reuters) - Italy's only Ebola patient is fully recovered and was released from hospital on Friday more than a month after being flown to Rome from Sierra Leone where he worked as a doctor treating others stricken by the disease.
The 50-year-old Sicilian man has been identified only by his first name, Fabrizio. He contracted the hemorrhagic virus while working for humanitarian group Emergency during the worst Ebola outbreak on record.
"For the first few days, partly to keep my mind active, I tried to examine every symptom I was experiencing scientifically," Fabrizio told reporters in his first public appearance since contracting the disease.
"Then there came a moment when I lost consciousness of what was going on around me and I don't remember anything that happened for about two weeks," he said, thanking those who cared for him during his illness.
He said that after he regains his strength he may return to Sierra Leone to continue treating Ebola patients. Ebola survivors are generally believed to be immune to future infection from the strain that made them sick.
His blood, which contains antibodies that fight the virus, will be sent to Sierra Leone to help in treatment, a doctor who treated Fabrizio at the Lazzaro Spallanzani hospital said.
The virus is still spreading in West Africa, especially in Sierra Leone, and the number of known cases globally has exceeded 20,000, with 7,905 dead, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday.
After his arrival in Rome on Nov. 25, the patient's condition worsened and he was moved to intensive care on Dec. 5, where he received respiratory assistance.
He was treated with a combination of an experimental drug never used before in Italy, and plasma taken from survivors of the disease.
(Writing by Steve Scherer; Editing by Toby Chopra) | {
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Coal production in the first three months of 2016 was 173 million short tons, the lowest quarterly level in the United States since a major coal strike in the second quarter of 1981. Among the regions tracked by the EIA, the Powder River Basin (PBR) in Montana and Wyoming saw the largest decline both in terms of absolute tonnage and as a percentage of the previous quarter.
Demand for coal has dropped off steeply as natural gas becomes the primary fuel source for electrical generation. Electricity generation accounts for more than 90 percent of domestic coal use, but environmental regulations have caused the fuel source to fall out of favor. Compounding the problem for coal producers, electricity demand is growing more slowly, while historically-low natural gas prices are making it easier for electricity generators to switch to the cleaner burning fuel, reports the EIA.
A 17 percent decrease in coal production from the previous quarter marked the largest quarter-over-quarter decline since the fourth quarter of 1984. Mild winters both this year and last were likely responsible for the steep decline in production in the beginning of this year. Electric power plants purchased more coal than they needed throughout the fourth quarter of 2015, resulting in a 34 MMst build in coal stockpiles, the highest Q4 net increase on record.
Electric power generators were encouraged to burn coal from their stockpiles rather than purchase more from coal producers in the first quarter of the year. Data from the American Association of Railroads showed coal carloads were down 20 percent quarter-over-quarter as power generators ordered less coal.
The drop in demand for coal was not concentrated in any particular region, either, the EIA reports. Texas, Michigan, Illinois and Oklahoma accounted for an average quarterly demand of 37 MMst of Powder River Basin coal in 2015, or about 40 percent of total PBR production. Demand for PBR coal from those four states fell 49 percent to 19 MMst in the first quarter of the year. First-quarter PBR coal production of 69 MMst was the lowest since 1995.
By Oil & Gas 360
More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: | {
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The February issue of Kodansha's Monthly Young Magazine is announcing on Wednesday that the Ghost in the Shell Arise anime will launch in 2013. Kazuchika Kise will serve as the chief director, and Tow Ubukata is supervising and writing the series scripts.
[Via IEEE802.11]
Update: According to IEEE802.11, Monthly Young Magazine also revealed Cornelius as the composer and a piece of visual art for the main character Motoko Kusanagi.
Update 2: Director Kenji Kamiyama confirmed that he is not involved in the new project.
Update 3: Production I.G has launched an official website for the new anime, as well as Twitter and Facebook accounts. Production I.G has also released a full image of the main character Motoko Kusanagi.
The website confirms the staff information, and announces that a " Ghost in the Shell Arise Production Presentation" will be streamed live worldwide on February 12 at 9:00 p.m. in Japan (7:00 a.m. EST) on Niconico, Bandai Channel, and YouTube. The event itself will be held at the nicofarre event hall in Tokyo.
A " Ghost in the Shell Arise Production Commemoration Special Night" event will also be held at the Toho Cinemas in Roppongi Hills on February 12 from 6:00 p.m. to 10:00p.m. Tickets will go on sale on January 16 and will cost 2,000 yen (about US$22.50). The event will screen the Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex The Laughing Man compilation, and the Ghost in the Shell 2.0 and Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex Solid State Society 3D films. Additionally, the event will host a 60-minute live-viewing event for Ghost in the Shell Arise , which will include announcements, clips from the new anime, and a talk show featuring staff and other special guests. [Via Brian Ruh, Anime Anime Japan] | {
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https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-ux9yg-ea03f5
In 2011, Drew Manning burst onto the fitness scene by doing the unthinkable. He was going to gain as much weight as possible in 6 months, transforming himself from a lifelong athlete and personal trainer, into someone who was inactive and obese. Drew then used his exercise and nutrition knowledge to lose all of that weight within the next 6 months. All in an effort to gain empathy for his clients. His brand, Fit2Fat2Fit, was born.
Now 9 years later, he’s doing it all again.
In this week’s episode, Mike discovers Drew’s motivation behind taking this journey once again, and how is going to be better prepared to deal with the highs and lows of gaining and losing weight. | {
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In a first since WW II, not one child under 16 died on Norwegian roads in 2019. Oslo's road fatality rate of 0.1 death per 100,000 people compares with 1.6 deaths per 100,000 people when compared to four Sydney local government areas, including the central business district, with the same total population. The greater Sydney metropolitan area performed extremely well on international standards, reporting 1.9 fatalities per 100,000 people, outdoing Norway's national rate of 2.07 deaths per 100,000 people. Norway leads the world on road safety, said the Road Safety Annual Report 2019. According to provisional figures provided by Transport for NSW for Sydney metro, population 4.8 million, there were 93 fatalities including 30 drivers, 29 pedestrians, 17 motorcyclists, 14 passengers and 3 pedal cyclists. In contrast, NSW's rate is 4.8 per 100,000. Not one council in NSW, Victoria or the ACT has reported zero deaths every year from 2010 to 2018, according to a Federal Government road safety dashboard. Out of 537 Australian councils, only 19 – mostly the tiniest in Australia – had zero deaths.
The Federal Government's dashboard compares councils with zero deaths - in green - and those which have never achieved zero deaths from 2008 to 2018. Credit:Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Cities and Regional Development After visiting Norway last year, NSW Road Transport Minister Andrew Constance said Olso approached road safety in a "very different way" with policies and campaigns that "worked'. NSW's road toll, 358 in the year to November 2019, was "quite frankly ... an appalling statistic". "The term 'one life lost is too many' is said frequently – but quite clearly the message isn't getting through," Mr Constance told the Committee for Economic Development of Australia in November. He "committed to doing everything I can to reduce our road toll and that means a different approach". Mr Constance was impressed by Norwegian road safety advertisements. "Instead of the shock and awe tactics of crumpled cars .. " he said they thanked people "for paying attention on roads".
Oslo also used point-to-point cameras to measure speed, he noted. Speed averaging cameras are only used in NSW to monitor trucks, and not cars, because of opposition by rural voters. Between 2010 and 2017, Norway reduced road deaths by nearly 60 per cent compared with a nearly 10 per cent drop by Australia, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Explaining its success, Oslo's mayor Raymond Johansen cited large investments in public transport, bicycle lanes and facilities for pedestrians. It had also reduced the speed limit for cars, removed 1000 parking spots, installed more speed bumps and created car-free zones, including "heart zones' where children play. "It's all about humans taking back the streets from cars," Mr Johansen told Smart Cities "It is a win-win situation for our safety, our health, our quality of life and the environment.”
Norway was also an early adopter of Vision Zero, which started in Sweden in 1997. It has now been adopted around the world, including Australia. Previously most people in the safety community invested in the idea that safety work was about changing human behaviour," Matts-Åke Belin, a Swedish road safety expert, explained. "Vision Zero says instead that people make mistakes ... let's create a system for the humans instead of trying to adjust the humans to the system." Its four pillars include: safer people; safer more forgiving roads, with rumble bars that alert a driver who wanders, for example; safer speeds in residential areas; and safer vehicles with technology such as autonomous emergency brakes which applies the brakes if it detects that the vehicle in front is too close. An example of a safe road system is a roundabout. Compared to traffic lights at intersections, roundabouts increase the rate of crashes, but reduce the severity of injuries and deaths because collisions happen at much lower speeds.
In Parliament last year, the deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack acknowledged Australia had fallen short of its pledge to cut road deaths by 30 per cent by 2020, only reducing them by 15 per cent in some years. He noted that "human error contributes to more than 90 per cent of all road accidents." "A vision for zero might sound ambitious, but in aviation, mining and construction this is no longer a goal but an expectation," Mr McCormack said. Using figures from Transport for NSW, the Herald compared Oslo – population 673,000 – with four local government areas of similar density in Sydney. They were Sydney, Inner West, Randwick and Willoughby. They reported 11 fatalities in 2019, including six pedestrians and a cyclist. No children died on the roads in these areas. Bernard Carlon, the executive director for NSW's Centrefor Road Safety, said fatalities of young people and pedestrians had dropped significantly in 2019. | {
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When a car crashed and flipped over in Tennessee the passengers were trapped - until help arrived just in time. | {
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Although the evidence is unclear, it doesn’t seem that Britain barred Emwazi from travel at all. After all, he travelled to Turkey en route to Syria in 2013. Britain may well have passed on to Kuwaiti authorities their own suspicions about the risk posed by Emwazi. Critics will argue that it is wrong for the state to single out citizens who have not been convicted of any crime. But what if Emwazi was refusing to give a complete picture to police? Cage alleges that Emwazi “sought to find redress within the system”. Perhaps this is right. But in light of his previous story of safari-going, we have reasons to be sceptical. | {
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Step 1: Choose your State from the dropdown in Options, this will make sure you're looking at the right Senate Ballot Paper!
Step 2: Place yourself on the Vote Compass. If you're unsure of where to place yourself, click near your favourite party, or find out where you sit at ABC's vote compass.
Step 3: Double click on any parties you don't want to preference at all on the Vote Compass. You can always add them back later if you've made a mistake!
Step 4: Choose which party types you wish to automatically add to your How-To-Vote, either Major parties, Minor parties or Both. Don't worry, you can change these later! This is just to get you started!
Step 5: Click on Calculate Party Order to add parties to your Parties Selected.
Step 6: Manually move the parties around until you are satisfied with the order. You can click-and-drag between the two lists, or double-click to swap lists.
Step 7: Choose whether you want an Above The Line How-To-Vote (unchecking all the boxes), A Below The Line How-To-Vote, or one of the more exotic Tactical Voting Options. Further details can be found below the checkboxes.
Step 8: Click Download Ballot PDF to download a printable How-To-Vote card that you can take to the polling booth, or use to help you fill out your postal vote at home! | {
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The Australian Border Force is giving owners of Riverman rifles 30 days to turn in their operator-assisted firearms as they look too much like banned weapons.
The Riverman Gun Works’ OAF series rifles are made in Idaho and about 100 or so (numbers vary) have been imported into Australia. Now, as reported by News 7 Brisbane, although a straight-pull bolt action, the gun is now outlawed and officials want them turned over to Border Force.
The “bungled buyback” could cost tax payers down under as much as $1 million Australian (about $790,000 US).
The two-page letter sent to Riverman owners officials state that the reclassification “has been made due to the firearm being substantially the same in appearance as a fully automatic firearm, specifically the Stoner CQB Mod 2 rifle.” | {
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Speaking UNIX: Get to know Ksplice
Give reboots the boot
From the developerWorks archives
Martin Streicher
|
Ksplice applies kernel patches on-the-fly—no reboot required—in a fraction of a second. Here's a hands-on guide to performing painless system updates.
This content is no longer being updated or maintained. The full article is provided "as is" in a PDF file. Given the rapid evolution of technology, some content, steps, or illustrations may have changed.
View PDF file | {
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Unidentified men kidnapped Balochistan Provincial Minister for local government Sardar Mustafa Khan Tareen's son, Asad Khan Tareen on Friday, police sources confirmed.Initial reports revealed that Asad was abducted by unidentified culprits from Pishin Cadet College area. The site has been cordoned off by Frontier Corps and police officials as further investigation is underway.Sources revealed the victim's vehicle and cellphone were recovered from the site where the abduction took place.Separately, four Balochistan Levies personnel, who were abducted in the Awaran area of Balochistan by suspected militants, were released earlier this month.The personnel were kidnapped by armed men from Gishkor tehsil in Awaran district late Saturday night when they were patrolling in the area.“The kidnappers took their vehicle and four SMGs,” said a Balochistan Levies official. | {
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Scientists have set a new record in optical measurements using photons, achieving a level of precision that before now was only possible in the world of theory.
In a first-of-its-kind experiment, a team of physicists has broken through what's called the shot-noise limit – maximising the amount of information that can be extracted from individual particles of light in optical measurements.
For decades, theoretical physicists have predicted that taking measurements with photons in quantum states – where individual particles of light are entangled – could deliver an advantage over measurements taken with light in non-quantum states.
"When photons are entangled, their properties are correlated, or connected together," quantum physicist Geoff Pryde from Griffith University in Australia told ScienceAlert.
"This means there is less randomness in the measurement. However, it turns out that these entangled states only work if the entangled photons are high-quality and don't go 'missing'."
That's because randomness creeps into optical measurements when individual particles of light are unintentionally absorbed or scattered in the measurement device, or are simply not detected.
This limitation, the shot-noise limit, has previously prevented scientists from achieving the theoretical limits of super-sensitive measurements with photons in quantum states, but thanks to new research by Pryde and his team, that's no longer the case.
"What is new here is that we are able to make and measure high-quality photons with high efficiency (they don't go missing)," Pryde explains, "and so we can show that the technique really works as described in the theory."
To achieve this, the team passed a laser through a nonlinear crystal, with the properties of each being carefully tailored to give high-quality entangled photons.
Then the photons are passed through a sample – whichever object is being measured, which in the study was quartz crystal.
By doing so, and measuring the photons with their high-efficiency detectors, the team was able to show that the shot-noise limit can be unconditionally broken through, meaning random noise can be avoided in extremely precise optical measurements.
"It shows that photons in certain quantum states really can be used to make certain kinds of measurement better than when we don't use quantum physics," explains Pryde.
"We hope that future extensions (entangling many more than two photons together) can be used for precision measurement of sensitive samples."
As for what those samples could be, the team acknowledges it's a little early to speculate. But it's possible that in the future, this kind of method could enable scientists to measure material with very little light at all.
That could be used to measure biological samples with a limited number of photons, so as not to damage delicate specimens.
But for now, the biggest accomplishment is showing that photons can actually be used to measure in this way without being lost – delivering upon the theoretical promise of decades ago.
The findings are reported in Nature Photonics. | {
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Canada's household debt burden hit another record high in the third quarter of 2015, as Canadians' debts grew faster than their incomes.
Statistics Canada reported that the ratio of household credit-market debt to disposable income rose to 163.7 per cent in the three months ended Sept. 30, up from 162.7 per cent in the second quarter. It marked the highest-ever reading in this key ratio for gauging consumer debt loads, topping the previous record of 163 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2014.
Statscan said debt rose 1.4 per cent in the quarter, while disposable income increased by 0.8 per cent.
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Total credit-market debt reached $1.89-trillion in the third quarter, also a record. Mortgage debt made up $1.23-trillion of that, while consumer credit (which includes credit cards, car loans, personal lines of credit and other personal loans) totalled $572-billion.
Households borrowed $19.4-billion in the quarter, down from $22.7-billion from the pace of new borrowings in the second quarter. Most of that was new mortgage debt, which totalled $15.6-billion, while new consumer credit was $3.7-billion.
Canada's household debt loads have been bumping up against record levels for years now, spurred on by years of historically low interest rates and rising residential real estate prices. The Bank of Canada, the federal government and many economists have long been concerned about the trend, as consumers look particularly exposed to risk in the event of an economic shock or significant downturn.
Twice this year, the Bank of Canada has cut its key interest rate in order to stimulate Canada's sluggish economy, which has kept downward pressure on lending rates and thus encouraged borrowing. But last week, the federal government announced tighter rules on mortgage lending, aimed at cooling the debt risk related to the housing sector.
"The effects of stimulative monetary policy working through the economic system, as well as resilient labour markets year-to-date, were evident," said Royal Bank of Canada economist Laura Cooper in a research note. But she added that Ottawa's new mortgage rules "have the potential to dampen the pace of accumulation in the mortgage component and resultantly, could alter the dynamics of the evolution of household imbalances going forward."
Statscan noted that the ratio of household debt to total assets – considered by some experts to be a better measure of consumers' capacity to afford their debts – rose to 17 per cent from 16.9 per cent. This measure had been trending steadily downward since the end of the 2009 recession but has now risen for a second straight quarter.
The national household debt service ratio – a measure of total debt payment obligations as a proportion of disposable income, an indicator of consumers' ability to meet their monthly payments – dipped to 13.6 per cent in the third quarter from 14.1 per cent in the second quarter, although it remained above its historical average of 12.4 per cent.
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Total household net worth edged up 0.4 per cent to $9.35-trillion, reflecting the continued strength in real estate values in key markets. But the credit-market-debt-to-net-worth ratio edged up to 20.2 per cent, its second straight increase.
Total national wealth – the total value of non-financial assets in the Canadian economy – slipped $190.4-billion to $9.21-trillion in the quarter. The decline was due to a $285.4-billion drop in the value of resource assets, reflecting weaker energy prices, Statscan said. The value of residential real estate rose $48.7-billion. | {
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Um estudo realizado na Serra da Capivara, no Piauí, pode mudar o modo como arqueólogos e cientistas interpretam as origens da humanidade. Realizada em parceria entre pesquisadores da USP (Universidade de São Paulo) e da britânica Universidade de Oxford, a pesquisa publicada na Nature nesta quarta-feira (19) mostra que macacos-prego do parque nacional são capazes de criar ferramentas, o que antes imaginava-se que só humanos fariam.
Com a descoberta, artefatos encontrados em sítios arqueológicos e considerados como prova de ocupação humana podem ter sido feitos, na verdade, por macacos. Logo no início do estudo, os cientistas citam: "o entendimento do surgimento da tecnologia molda nossa visão das origens da humanidade".
O estudo realizado no Piauí mostrou que macacos-prego da região deliberadamente usam pedras para conseguir frutos, cavar em busca de aranhas ou retirar líquidos com minerais de outras pedras. Quando batem as pedras em busca de líquido, surgem por acaso lâminas de pedra semelhantes aos antigos objetos afiados utilizados como ferramentas pelos primeiros humanos.
Eu fiquei bastante atônito. Fiz meu PhD pesquisando sobre ferramentas de pedra feitas por humanos. Eu aprendi como fazer estas coisas. Estava olhando para o material e parecia que foi feito por humanos", Tomos Proffitt, arqueólogo de Oxford e um dos autores do estudo
Cientistas normalmente utilizam as características de pedras lascadas com arestas afiadas para distinguir ferramentas de humanos de pedras que poderiam ter sido naturalmente quebradas em sítios arqueológicos. A novidade pode provocar uma revisão de muitos achados arqueológicos feitos até então.
Os achados mais velhos do tipo, com datações de 3,3 milhões de anos e encontrados no Quênia, podem ser revistos, segundo pesquisadores envolvidos. O estudo, no entanto, não deve desafiar completamente a história da evolução humana na África, já que muitos dos achados no continente apresentam contexto humano maior nos sítios do que apenas pedras lascadas.
O pesquisador brasileiro Tiago Falótico, do Instituto de Psicologia da USP, e o colega Eduardo Ottoni, seu supervisor, estudaram por anos o comportamento dos macacos-prego na Serra da Capivara - em julho, identificaram que os macacos usam ferramentas há ao menos 700 anos. Nos últimos três anos, aprofundaram a pesquisa com ajuda dos arqueólogos Michael Haslam e Tomos Proffitt, da Universidade de Oxford, além de outros pesquisadores.
As observações dos macacos-prego culminaram em coletas de pedras fragmentadas após o uso delas pelos animais e também em sítios arqueológicos da região – vale lembrar que a Serra da Capivara é um dos locais com maior concentração de sítios pré-históricos do mundo. Os objetos foram identificados com as mesmas características e formas das ferramentas humanas.
A conclusão dos autores do estudo pode mudar para sempre a arqueologia e a forma como vemos as primeiras civilizações humanas. Os pesquisadores apontam que, sem outras evidências, a produção de pedras lascadas não pode mais ser associada sozinha como sinal de presença de nossos ancestrais em uma determinada área – apesar de muitas das pedras lascadas achadas serem bem mais elaboradas do que as feitas sem intenção por macacos.
No entanto, ao menos uma característica segue restrita aos humanos. Embora produzam estas pedras lascadas, os macacos-prego não foram vistos as utilizando como um elemento cortante. Estes animais da região, no entanto, utilizam outras ferramentas, como varetas e as próprias pedras. | {
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by John Loos
Hey, you. Yeah, you. Elite athlete making millions of dollars playing football for the NFL. I know you're concerned about the upcoming season now that Michael Sam, the star defensive lineman from Mizzou who's a top NFL prospect, just came out as gay.
OH MY GOD WHAT IF HE LOOKS AT YOUR JUNK?!
Clearly, this is the most terrifying thing a modern-day gladiator like yourself faces at your job. Not a 300-pound mountain of muscle chasing you down, not a cataclysmic spinal injury, not the constant threat of brain damage.
No.
The minute chance of a split-second side eye glance from another man who may, in his private life, be naked with his boyfriend, is clearly far more stressful.
But have no fear! I was a closeted gay athlete in high school (a defensive lineman, like Michael Sam!), so I know a thing or two about navigating a locker room. I know, for instance, any fear you may have of being checked out by a gay teammate is nothing compared to the constant fear a closeted athlete has of being discovered/ridiculed/punched in the face by a bigoted teammate.
To help you through the next NFL season, here is a handy guide to how to behave in a locker room where a gay man may be present.
So, you know, like ANY OTHER LOCKER ROOM IN THE HISTORY OF MANKIND EVER.
Step 1: Acknowledge your gay teammate
Say hello. Say "nice game." Perhaps give him a compliment on a tackle, or a catch, or a great run. Maybe throw in a high-five or, if that is too uncomfortable for you (it shouldn't be), give any another indication that you're happy he's on your team, even if he plays for a different team off the field.
Step 2: Acknowledge that he's human
Ask a question about his life. How's his family? His partner? Talk about shared interests (Yes! You likely have shared interests with this homosexual human!) If you don't know what this person likes, ask. Or talk about the weather! Or Beyoncé! Not because he's gay, but because everyone, gay straight, male or female, Madagascan village elders or Inuit whale hunters, has something to say about Beyoncé. She's the universal conversation starter.
Step 3: Get undressed
Because you just spent two hours playing in the mud and dirt, and it's a locker room and you're an adult -- and get over yourself and seriously -- you have to change out of your uniform. You smell like shit.
Step 4: Realize at this point, you're looking at your gay teammate more than he's looking at you
Why is he not looking at you? You're attractive! You work out! Are you not his type? Maybe he's only into punters. Oh my God, it's almost as if your teammate is concentrating on getting cleaned up and getting home to his life, just like you were supposed to be before you got preoccupied with checking him out to see if he's checking you out.
Step 5: Do your usual stealth glances of other naked teammates
Because straight men size each other up all the time in locker rooms. But it's from a place of competition, which is far more acceptable for some reason. Bros bein' bros, etc.
Step 6: Realize at this point, you're being paid millions of dollars to exist on this team with this gay person, so you'll survive somehow
At the absolute worst, this teammate finds you attractive and has a moment of weakness and lets one little glance slip that you catch, and you notice because you're (of course) already staring at him. Now you know how the thousands upon thousands of breasts you've stared at slack-jawed in your lifetime feel. Congratulations, Margaret, you've just become a woman!
Step 7: Count the number of half-naked teammates around you and divide by 10
That's how many actually are gay, whether they've stated it publicly or not. And they've been there all along, since you started playing football in high school, and somehow you're still alive and unscathed and making millions of dollars.
Step 8: Shower
Because, again, you smell. If your gay teammate is showering at the same time, kudos to you for noticing he walked into the showers. Why are you watching him so closely, anyway? Seriously, are you cruising him?
Step 9: Dress, go home
And play with the piles of money you've earned from somehow being brave and manly enough to put on skin-tight capri pants, a jock strap and give other grown men really aggressive hugs and wrestle them to the ground.
This post originally appeared on The Second City Network. | {
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More styles to add to my gallery haha. It's so different!
What's happening?! More cute stuff?!Well, let me tell you a story. You can blame/thank for this!Haha, but really in all positiveness, ever since her interview with theI began questioning the amount of cuteness in my gallery. Which was kinda scarce amongst all the war I've been making.I'm so evil! But basically, since then I've been trying to make more cute stuff as well, like "Why not both?!"Just look at her Rarijack-daily tumblr !!!The name already says it.It's fabulous.So let this be my little random tribute to that cuteness and try to add to it! (Or like a late or early birthday gift?!)Thanks for the influence, keep making awesome cute stuffSo out of my comfort zone this style, although not completely new. Still, hah. | {
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Earlier this month, TechCrunch held its annual Mobility Sessions event down in San Jose, where leading mobility-focused auto companies, startups, executives and thought leaders joined us to discuss all things autonomous vehicle technology, micromobility and electric vehicles.
Extra Crunch is offering members access to full transcripts key panels and conversations from the event, including a mainstage conversation between Waymo CTO Dmitri Dolgov and TechCrunch mobility axe Kirsten Korosec. Dmitri and Kirsten dove into Waymo’s full product evolution, and dissect the path ahead for the company and the AV industry as a whole.
Dmitri Dolgov: So essentially, what makes this problem interesting in my mind is that it’s not one or two things where you say “there’s only this one challenge that remains and then you solve everything.” It’s really across a whole number of different areas — a whole number of different disciplines from hardware, to more advanced sensors, more powerful sensors, sensors you can manufacture at scale, cheaper sensors, more powerful compute, cheaper compute software. You mentioned sensor fusion — this is actually where the software plays very nicely with the hardware and that connection is very deep. And our approach at Waymo is interesting in that we build our own software and hardware in house. So this is where we have access to very powerful sensors, and not just having the increased range and increased resolution, but also having access to the raw sensor data, like the raw measurements that you get from lidars from cameras from radars, and doing sensor fusion at a later stage, where you can really bring to bear modern, deep learning algorithms to have models that learn to pick out the best signal from those different sensing modalities. That’s a very active area of improvement.
Dmitri also goes into more depth on the specific technical areas of improvements for AV technology and the importance of simulation miles when building a polished mobility product. Dmitri and Kirsten also talk through the regulatory road map and the impact it will play on AV rollouts, AV product quality, as well as on cities and society as a whole.
For access to the full transcription below and for the opportunity to read through additional event transcripts and recaps, become a member of Extra Crunch. Learn more and try it for free.
Kirsten Korosec: Thanks, everyone for coming out. And we’re all here to talk to the CTO [Dmitri Dolgov] of Waymo. So I’m going to just let you roll with it. I’m wondering if you showed up in a self-driving car today, How’d you get here?
Dmitri Dolgov: I took a self-driving car to work today. Then I met with some folks there. And we took another car to here.
Korosec: So manually driven car from Mountain View. But My understanding is that you actually use Waymo self-driving cars quite a bit. You’re one of the most prolific users of the vehicle, correct?
Dolgov: Yeah. Nowadays, this is my default mode of transportation around town, I take our cars to work pretty much every day. I take them to get around town to run some errands. And actually, recently, there was a change that happened in California – we got the permit from the CPUC, the California Public Utilities Commission, that allowed us to take passengers in cars that are not employees of Waymo.
So now I can take my family and I have to go to the grocery store and I actually did that recently. I had to go with my son and instead of me doing the silly old thing of me driving around in my own car, we hopped into a Waymo. And that was cool. | {
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It seems that money does in fact talk: even digital money. The Wall Street Journal broke the news that blue chip banking giant Goldman Sachs is mulling allowing its investors to trade in Bitcoin directly.
The news would make Goldman the first leading Wall Street firm to allow its investors access to the rapidly growing cryptocurrency marketplace. Other firms have some products, like Grayscale’s platform (GBTC), but Goldman would open a whole new marketplace for investors. According to a spokesman for the company:
“In response to client interest in digital currencies we are exploring how best to serve them in this space.”
Increased regulation?
While the news may bring about a rapid legitimization of the cryptocurrency space, it will certainly open up Bitcoin and other crypto assets to increased scrutiny from government regulatory bodies.
Already the Federal Reserve has indicated that it is studying cryptocurrencies more in depth, and the SEC has filed regulatory rules regarding ICOs.
Needing volatility
Goldman has faced substantial reduction in revenues (21 percent since last year) even in this year’s bull market for stocks, and it seems that the problem is related to volatility. The company has been unable to take advantage of panicked buys and sells within the stock market, and may be seeking a new source of volatility to allow its investors an opportunity to profit. According to the WSJ:
"Goldman, once known as the nimblest trader on Wall Street, has struggled more than peers. Revenue in its fixed-income division fell 21% from last year through June, dragged down by poor performance in commodities and currencies.”
Whether the increasing mainstream investor adoption is good for Bitcoin or not remains to be seen. Nevertheless, such attention does call into question the previous judgments of other bank leaders like Jamie Dimon. | {
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Bride recites vows to her stepson and his mother during wedding ceremony The two women admitted that they didn't always see eye to eye.
-- There wasn't a dry eye in the room late September as a woman recited vows to not only her husband-to-be but her stepson and his mother as well.
Katie Musser of Lansdowne, Pennsylvania, mentioned her fiance's son Landon, 4, and Landon's mother, Casey Bender, thanking them for allowing her to be a part of their lives.
"I was completely blindsided in the most wonderful way," Casey Bender, 25, told ABC News. "Looking back, it doesn't surprise me because that's the kind of pure person Katie is. She wants everyone to know that you can do this. It can be easy and you can love the co-parent of your child."
Bender of Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, admitted that the two women didn't always see eye to eye.
"Our relationship started out very rocky," Bender said. "The rumors fly and things were said and we did not like each other. But we didn't have a reason. It was like Katie said, it was just the norm."
She went on, "It was right before Landon's first birthday ... Jeremy gave [Katie] my cell phone number and she reached out and texted me. I looked at my boyfriend who is now my husband and looked at Landon and I said, 'I cannot be this person.' I wanted to do what was right for Landon. That was kind of when we put our differences aside."
Soon, Bender, her husband Tyler, Landon's father Jeremy Musser and Katie, Jeremy's fiance, all agreed to unite as a blended family. Bender and Katie Musser even developed a close relationship.
"Katie has truly and honestly become one of my best friends," Bender said. "She is someone that I can go to and I can talk to her about anything. There is no judgment between her and I.
"I could never have asked for a better bonus mommy for Landon."
On Sept. 23, before reading her vows to Jeremy, Katie Musser recited her promises to Casey Bender and her husband, Tyler Bender.
“First I want to thank you for accepting me as your friend and allowing me to be a part of Landon’s life," Musser said. "I promise to be an amazing mother to your son. I will guide, teach and love him every single day.
She added, "I promise to respect, work listen and communicate together as co-parents. I love you guys no matter what comes our way. We are one family, always."
Musser then continued with her vows to Landon. "I promise to stand by you, listen to you and love you every day," she said. "I promise to love Daddy with all my heart. I promise to be a best friend to your mommy and your daddy Tyler. We will be one big family that I promise you will have for the rest of your life."
Musser shared a video of the ceremonial vows on Facebook to remind others that successful co-parenting is achievable.
"I think that our message showed that it's possible," Musser told ABC News. "Obviously you're not going to get the luxury of being best friends like we did, but our point is you can communicate and have the same rules and love all across the board and that's what people need to see."
Prior to the wedding ceremony, Casey Musser gifted Bender with a bracelet and thanked her for acceptance.
The two families hope to someday go on a vacation together. | {
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The South Carolina Gamecocks have extended the contract of basketball coach Dawn Staley through the 2021 season, it was announced Friday.
The contract, approved by the University of South Carolina Board of Trustees, gives Staley a $200,000 raise. She will earn $1.1 million next season, and if she should opt out at any point, the buyout has been more than doubled from the original amount.
Dawn Staley, who guided South Carolina to its first SEC tournament title and Final Four appearance last season, will earn $1.1 million next season. AP Photo/Chuck Burton
The Gamecocks (34-3) are coming off a breakthrough season, winning a second SEC championship and reaching the program's first Final Four before falling to Notre Dame in the national semifinals.
"Dawn Staley is an iconic figure, not just in women's basketball but in all of athletics," athletic director Ray Tanner said in a statement. "She has been successful in every step she has taken -- as a student-athlete, college coach and USA Basketball coach.
"I believe that not only her on-the-court successes have made her great, but her efforts in the community and on campus have made her the leader she is today. Dawn is the type of coach that we want at the University of South Carolina, and I am glad that she is on our team."
The two-time SEC Coach of the Year and Naismith Coach of the Year finalist has won back-to-back SEC regular-season titles and has reached the Sweet 16 of the NCAA tournament in three of the past four seasons. She has a 155-74 record in seven seasons with the Gamecocks, and an overall record of 327-154 in 15 seasons.
"One of the things that has made a difference both for me professionally and for our program is the unwavering commitment from every part of our university to our success," Staley said in a statement. "... I know we all consider our success in bringing together our University, our community and our state equally as important as the wins and NCAA Final Four appearance this season." | {
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Phoenix approves powerful, controversial $95K LRAD speaker
The Phoenix City Council on Wednesday gave the go-ahead for police to buy a $95,000 pair of high-powered and at-times controversial devices they say will help communicate with large crowds.
In a 7-to-1 vote, elected officials approved the purchase of the Long Range Acoustic Device, and a new written policy outlining when, how and by whom the sound instrument can be used.
Councilwoman Vania Guevara opposed the measure, citing concerns about the written policy and excessive-force fears expressed by nearly a dozen community members at the meeting. Safety concerns have mounted over a single LRAD function — the potentially painful alert siren — that some said could be abused by local law enforcement.
Police brass came to the table in October with a new policy they said should allay concerns that the LRAD could or ever would be "weaponized."
"Under no circumstances will the department take any steps to weaponize the LRAD to inflict harm upon the public," officials wrote in their policy manual. "Misuse of the LRAD shall be subject to discipline."
Police also spelled out in writing that trained officers must verify set-back distances to ensure decibel levels do not exceed 113 decibels for the "intended target listener." Tones "will only be used to gain the attention of the public when they do not respond/comply with the voice messages."
Chief Jeri Williams and others in law enforcement have stressed the devices would be most helpful to communicate with large groups of people during protests, marches, special events or emergency evacuations.
A division chief could authorize its use at other events, and anyone who operates the device — exclusively 15 tactical officers — must be trained and certified to use it.
Police said the department's coupling of written policy with specific training positioned Phoenix ahead of other cities including New York City and Pittsburgh that have come under fire for their use of the LRAD.
Use of the LRAD will also be subject to an annual review.
PD: System needed for communication
The purchase of the LRAD first came up in a city subcommittee meeting in June, and officials requested additional information. The item was brought back for a September subcommittee meeting but was removed from council documents in the lead-up to the meeting, apparently after multiple media reports about the request.
Williams previously said the system was needed to better communicate with crowds in the aftermath of President Donald Trump's 2017 rally in downtown Phoenix. Protesters did not hear directions to disperse from a smaller LRAD-100X device as the demonstration devolved, and it was difficult to understand where police were directing those who lingered.
That contributed to the chaos that included police deploying tear gas, smoke grenades and other projectiles on the crowd — actions now the subject of a class-action lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union.
Police have also said they struggled to communicate with thousands of protesters who marched earlier this year in the #RedForEd demonstrations.
"This system," Williams said in a June meeting, "will allow us to communicate to our community members accurate and timely information so that they can make decisions and we can direct them to go different places if things get rough downtown or anywhere in our city."
The upgrade authorized Wednesday is for the LRAD-500X, a vehicle-mounted device that "meets and exceeds" all needs, police officials said.
It would be purchased directly from the vendor, LRAD Corp.
Tempe police bought the same model device about six years ago.
Specifics about the device
The model Phoenix police will purchase tops out at about 154 decibels, though the manufacturer says it can be started at a lower level and cranked up at an officer's discretion. It weighs 44 pounds and "is the U.S. Navy and U.S. Army's acoustic hailing device of choice for small vessels and vehicles."
For comparison, a jet engine at 100 feet hits 140 decibels — enough to injure unprotected ears. Hearing loss becomes possible when exposed to prolonged sounds reaching 100 decibels, which is about as loud as a chainsaw or lawnmower.
The key, police and health experts say, is the duration of the sound.
The siren function would be brief, police said.
The LRAD device Phoenix will buy has two main settings: The first acts as a megaphone of sorts, and the second emits a pain-inducing, high-pitched siren that has left crowds scrambling for earplugs or running for cover.
On its website, LRAD Corp. advertises its devices as tools used to warn and notify crowds, establish safety zones, prevent misunderstandings and "alleviate the use of force."
The American Civil Liberties Union, however, has identified LRAD devices as "sonic weapons" capable of causing permanent hearing loss.
In large, bold and underlined type, the company says on its website that "LRAD is not a weapon; LRAD is a highly intelligible, long-range communication system and a safer alternative to kinetic force."
Viri Hernandez, executive director of Poder in Action, on Wednesday criticized the city's handling of the uptick in police shootings. Purchasing the LRAD, she said, sent a dangerous message to Phoenix residents.
“This weapon for us is a clear attack and continuation of a culture of violence that is within the police department, a culture that has caused mistrust with the community," Hernandez said Wednesday. "The community does not trust this department.”
Reach the reporter at 602-444-8515, [email protected] or on Twitter: @pohl_jason.
READ MORE: | {
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Adrian Salbuchi is an international political analyst, researcher and consultant. Author of several books on geopolitics in Spanish and English (including ‘The Coming World Government: Tragedy & Hope’), he is also a conference speaker in Argentina and radio/TV commentator. He writes op-ed pieces for RT Spanish as well as RT English, and is a regular guest on alternative media radio and TV shows in the US, Europe and Latin America. Adrian currently hosts his TV show ‘Segunda República’ on Channel TLV1 – Toda La Verdad Primero – in Buenos Aires, and is founder of the Second Republic Project (Proyecto Segunda República), a sovereign governance model for Argentina, Latin American countries and elsewhere. His website is: www.asalbuchi.com.ar ; YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/user/arsalbuchi
Adrian Salbuchi is an international political analyst, researcher and consultant. Author of several books on geopolitics in Spanish and English (including ‘The Coming World Government: Tragedy & Hope’), he is also a conference speaker in Argentina and radio/TV commentator. He writes op-ed pieces for RT Spanish as well as RT English, and is a regular guest on alternative media radio and TV shows in the US, Europe and Latin America. Adrian currently hosts his TV show ‘Segunda República’ on Channel TLV1 – Toda La Verdad Primero – in Buenos Aires, and is founder of the Second Republic Project (Proyecto Segunda República), a sovereign governance model for Argentina, Latin American countries and elsewhere. His website is: www.asalbuchi.com.ar ; YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/user/arsalbuchi
Israel did not arise from the struggle of a settled indigenous people fighting for territorial independence from Western colonial powers as was the case in dozens of nations throughout the Americas, Africa, Levant and Asia over the past two centuries.
Israel is no ordinary state. It’s in a class by itself. Israel was born of the iron will of a small, very close-knit and highly organized ethnic group bent on occupying a specific territory in obedience to ancient religious tradition and highly doubtful historical continuity.
Prologue
Cosmopolitan Ashkenazim and Sephardic Jews combined their leaders’ immense political, financial, media and diplomatic clout to ensure European Jews would, against all odds, get their homeland in Palestine. This entailed ignoring the interests and lives of millions of Palestinians living there for many generations, which for the past eighty years has meant untold suffering and millions of dead, maimed and injured throughout the Middle East; today, it even means risking a new global war.
The fight for a Jewish homeland is rooted in 19th Century movements promoting “Zionism”: the forced emigration of Central European Jews – notably from Russia, Poland, Ukraine and Germany – into Palestine, as well as North and South America.
The undisputed founding father of International Zionism was Viennese lawyer Theodor Herzl who convened the First Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland in 1898. His seminal book, Ein Judenstaat (“A Jewish State”) published in 1896 sets out the rationale, method and plan for founding a sovereign Jewish State, discretely leaving the door open for founding not just one but two Jewish states.
Act I: Persecuted European Jews in need of a place to settle
The Time and Place: 19th Century Eastern, Central and Western Europe.
Historically, Christian Europe discriminated against the Jews. For centuries they were second-grade citizens and were systematically expelled from France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Scandinavia, Britain, Portugal, Austria, Hungary, Russia, Belorussia, Poland, Ukraine and many other nations.
Scorned by both Catholics and Protestants, they were segregated inside ghettos from where they focused on retailing and, with time, became Europe’s foremost international bankers.
Resistance against them regularly flared, often into bloody pogroms. Zionist activists took advantage of this state of affairs to rally their flock into their movement. This centuries-long targeting of Jews is called “Anti-Semitism”, and can only be explained in two basic manners:
Either the majority of Europeans, throughout its vast cultural and national geography and for centuries at a time, suffered a psychological pathology called “Anti-Semitism” which led them to recurrently attack and expel this tiny roaming community from their midst; a mental illness to which the Jews themselves were obviously immune; or
There exist certain recurrent traits and characteristics of Jewish social behavior that systematically generate rejection by a wide variety of peoples in all of Europe. In such a case, “Anti-Semitism” should be reclassified as an irrational, unwanted and improper defense mechanism. Theodor Herzl himself spelled it out in his foundational book explaining that Anti-Semitism “exists wherever Jews live in perceptible numbers”.
Though “Anti-Semitism” certainly has its religious overtones, its root cause in modern times is not so much religious as it is social. Contrary to Islam and Christianity which many times rose up in Holy War and Crusading to convert the heathen, Judaism never seeks to convert anybody by force.
Quite the contrary: Jews are such by birth; by blood; by genetics. Religious conversion is therefore not an option. In fact, historically there is only one example of conversion en masse to Judaism: the 8th Century Central Asian nomadic tribe of the Khazars who did so in order not to fall under the powerful sway of neither Constantinople’s Christianity nor Baghdad Caliphate’s Islam.
These converted Khazars are the forefathers of modern-day Ashkenazim Jews who slowly made their way into Europe through Poland and Germany. Today, they form Jewry’s elite core in Israel, America and Europe. They do not, however, have any significant blood relationship with the Semitic Israelites and Hebrews of the Old Testament.
Within this backdrop, the Zionist Movement came to life as a Pan-European movement.
Act II: The long, hard road to Jerusalem
The Time and Place: 20th Century Europe and the Middle East
For centuries, Jews would part company with the hope-filled greeting “Next year in Jerusalem”. Gathering in Zion was a leitmotiv of their hope to one day achieving nationhood in the land of Moses, Abraham and David.
Theodor Herzl, Leon Pinsker, Chaim Weizmann, David Ben Gurion and other founding fathers fought to create Israel however at the turn of the 20th Century; the Holy Land was just not an option. When Zionists petitioned Ottoman Turkey’s Sultan who reigned over Palestine to give them their state he simply refused. But they continued lobbying, leveraging and promoting their ideas and ideals, whilst through academia and the press they nurtured increasingly liberal social conditions necessary for them to flourish.
By then, extremely powerful European bankers with deeply embedded contacts and into every government, directly and indirectly consolidated and promoted the Zionist ideal. They used long-term rather than short-term strategies; their names are symbols of the burgeoning international finance over-world: Rothschild, Warburg, Schiff, Lazard, Bleichroeder, Belmont, Hirsch, Montefiore, Goldschmidt, Oppenheimer, Goldman, Sachs, Erlanger, Speyer, Mendelssohn and many other powerful European bankers, brokers and traders who extended their power and influence throughout Europe and the Americas.
German billionaire Maurice Hirsch supported Herzl’s plans founding the Jewish Colonization Association that promoted emigration of Eastern European Jews to America, notably Argentina, a country ranking very high on Zionism’s priority list.
In fact, Herzl’s seminal Ein Judenstaat, includes a key chapter whose title says it all: “Palestine or Argentine?” In it Herzl points out that that “Argentina in one of the most fertile countries in the world, extends over a vast area, has sparse population…” and would “derive considerable profit from the cession of a portion of its territory to us…” for which Zion’s bankers could “assume part of its public debt…” (The Jewish State, Dover, NY, 1988, Page 95).
But then a century ago came World War I, which Germany, Austria and Ottoman Turkey lost in 1918 to France, Britain and the US, leaving Palestine as a British Mandate. The year before, UK Baron Walter Rothschild secured from Britain’s Foreign Secretary Sir Arthur James Balfour a “Declaration” whereby Britain “would favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object” subject to nothing being “done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine.” This triggered a new wave of European Jewish emigration to Palestine.
The 30’s and 40’s, however, brought a new wave of persecution under the Third Reich and World War II, generating in its aftermath renewed support for a Jewish homeland. That was finally achieved in 1948, not so much as recognition of Zionists’ right to impose a Jewish State upon Palestine, but due to unrestricted Western support for the Zionist Plan. Ever since, Israel enjoys a blank check from the West.
Since then, Palestinians have been brutalized and expelled from their homes by terrorist organizations, notably the Irgun Zvai Leumi, which infamously blew up British Military Mandate headquarters in the King David Hotel in Jerusalem in 1946 (led by Menachem Beguin, later Israeli PM and Nobel “Peace” Prize laureate); the Stern Gang (led by Yzakh Shamir who also became PM), which in 1948 assassinated UN Envoy Count Folke Bernadotte in Jerusalem as he tried to negotiate a two-state solution) and the Hagganah. In 1948 these three terror groups merged forming the IDF (Israel Defense Force).
The key question no one dares address in the West is: if European regimes persecuted European Jews in the 30’s and 40’s, why were the Palestinians forced to pay the unbearable price of having their country taken over and all but destroyed?
Act III: Zionism reinvents itself?
The Time and Place: 21st Century, the world.
Former Harvard University Dean Stephen Walt and Chicago University Professor John Mearsheimer in their 2007 book “The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy” describe in convincing detail how AIPAC (American Israeli Public Affairs Committee) and other pro-Israel lobbies wield huge media, banking, diplomatic and political power in the United States in Israel’s favor, leading to its having its way time and again.
In recent years, however, something seems to be changing. Global public opinion looks on in horror as Israel commits genocide. Rending their garments to the cries of “Anti-Semitism!” and “Holocaust!” doesn’t hold up anymore. As so often in the past, common people everywhere are once again growing very weary of Jewish behavior.
The writing is on the wall.
Surprisingly, in August 2012 a paper entitled “Preparing For A Post-Israel Middle East” commissioned by the US intelligence community comprising 16 agencies (including Navy, Army, Air Force, Marine Corps, DIA, DEA, FBI, NSA, CIA, Homeland Security and Pentagon), concluded that Israel is currently the greatest threat to US national interests because of its nature and actions preventing normal US relations with Arab and Muslim countries.
Then, in September 18, 2012, Rupert Murdoch’s The New York Post quotes arch-Zionist Henry Kissinger saying ‘word for word’, “In Ten Years there will be no more Israel.” Adding that “Kissinger’s statement is flat and unqualified. He is not saying Israel is in danger, but could be saved if we just gave it additional trillions of dollars and smashed enough of its enemies with our military…. He is not saying that if we bomb Iran, Israel might survive…. He is simply stating a fact: In 2022, Israel will no longer exist”.
Since this short article spans three centuries, it might be poignant to mention what 19th Century insider and 33rd Degree Scottish Rite Mason Albert Pike (a Lieutenant General in the Confederate Army during the American Civil War) is said to have written in an oft-(mis)quoted letter to Italian fellow-Mason Giuseppe Mazzini. He spoke of “three major global conflicts” to be unleashed over the next 150 years in order to “achieve the Masonic panacea of World Government.”
First, a World War whose primary goal would be to destroy the German, Austrian and Russian royal families, leading to Communism;
A Second War, pitting Nationalists against Zionists, leading to the erection of a Jewish State in Palestine;
Lastly, war between “political Zionists” and the Islamic World, sparking a Third World War, finally leading to the world government.
Epilogue
Here then lies a key question: is the fact Israel is totally out of control, a miscalculation, a huge mistake or is it part of a long-term ongoing process with its respective “achievements and transitory goals”?
Israel has cornered itself into a dead-end street; as it stands it is no longer a viable state.
Are Zionists about to accept a change in Israel’s status in exchange some other extremely attractive – even if less historical – far-off “Promised Land” where 70 or 80 percent of Israeli population can be re-settled in utmost comfort, security, wealth and peace?
Is Argentina’s (and Chile’s) Southern Patagonian expanse that Promised Land as founding father Herzl imagined and proposed back in 1896? Is Theodor Herzl’s “Project Palestine or Argentine” about to become “Palestine and Argentine”? Will Palestinian Israel become a huge military nuclear garrison? An impregnable “Fortress Israel” controlling the Middle East?
Patagonia: immense, under populated, and incalculably rich in all natural resources. Patagonia: where since decades, tens of thousands of Israeli youths spend their sabbaticals right after military service.
It’s certainly taboo to even mention this in Argentina, a country defeated by the US/UK Alliance militarily (in the Falkland Islands), and by powerful global mega-bankers pushing it yet again to financial collapse. Thankfully, Chile which shares a strip of Patagonia is far more conscientious.
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT. | {
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The Earth has entered a new geological epoch because man-made changes to the climate are having a dramatic and long-term impact on the land and the oceans, a study has found.
A team of geologists believes that humans have altered the Earth so much since the start of the industrial revolution that we are now living in a new epoch called the Anthropocene, which began when the previous Holocene epoch ended in about 1800.
The geologists have proposed that the new epoch should be formally recognised by the international body governing geological terms. "On our exploration of the evidence, there's potential justification for the use of the new term," said Jan Zalasiewicz, of the University of Leicester and chairman of the Stratigraphy Commission of the Geological Society of London. "The surface environmental processes of the Earth are sufficiently different from pre-industrial times that the Earth's geology has in fact changed."
Download the new Independent Premium app Sharing the full story, not just the headlines
The geologists believe that human activity over the past 200 years has transformed the worldwide patterns of sediment erosion and deposition, disturbed the carbon cycle and global temperatures, triggered a mass extinction of animals and plants, and has caused the acidification of the oceans.
Dr Zalasiewicz said the dominance of humans had physically changed the Earth so much that there was little justification for believing that we are still in the Holocene epoch, which began when global temperatures rose at the end of the last ice age about 10,000 years ago. The Anthropocene, meaning "human influenced", was coined in 2002 by the Nobel chemistry laureate Paul Crutzen. | {
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Meet Kimberley Scott here! Kimberley Scott (Kim Scott) is the wife of ESPN sportscaster and anchor Stuart Scott, who announced last Monday via Twitter that he is again battling cancer and that he will undergo more chemotherapy treatments every two weeks.
Kim and Stuart got married on March 1993, the same year he started working for ESPN. They live in Avon, Connecticut with their two daughters, Taelo and Sydni.
The 47-year-old Scott was originally diagnosed in 2007 after undergoing an emergency appendectomy. Doctors found a rare malignancy known as appendiceal cancer that was treated with chemotherapy, according to Touched By Cancer magazine.
“I’m not the type of guy to let this eat up my life. I’ve got strong faith and family and friends who are tackling this with me,” Scott said during his 2008 treatment, via ESPN.com. “I can’t find the words to express how much I appreciate everyone’s thoughts and prayers. I probably won’t be able to get back to you all; but know it means a ton.”
After six months of chemo, Scott was cancer-free until early 2011. At that time, doctors discovered that malignant tumors had developed on his small intestine. More surgery and chemotherapy treated the cancer, but it has apparently returned again.
Last Monday on Twitter, the ESPN anchor said:
“I’m back in the fight. C reared its head again. Chemo every 2 weeks, but I’ll still work, still work out.”
A short while after tweeting about his diagnosis and treatment, Scott hosted the 11 p.m. EST episode of Sportscenter.
Scott tweeted:
“Really appreciate all the prayers & well wishes. Nothing changes…I’m rockin the 11pm SPORTSCENTER tonite ..so…WE RIDE STRONG!!” | {
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Has anyone had trouble with the BD for Endpoints firewall being disabled even though the assigned policy calls for it to be turned on? This is on Windows 10. The firewall never enabled and Windows complained about no firewall for a while. I finally turned on the Windows firewall but am wondering why I can't get it to turn on. It even reports off in the computer view of Gravity Zone (and on the local computer when you check module status). But simply can't seem to get it to turn on. | {
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Today’s feature is a television movie from 2001: How To Make A Monster.
How To Make A Monster was written and directed by George Huang, who is best known for Trojan War and the Kevin Spacey dark comedy Swimming With Sharks.
The cinematographer for How To Make A Monster was Steven Finestone, who also shot Swimming With Sharks for George Huang, and worked as a camera operator on films like The Philadelphia Experiment, Saturday the 14th, Battle Beyond The Stars, and Humanoids From The Deep.
The editors on How To Make A Monster were Daniel T. Cahn (The Young and The Restless, Darkman II) and Kristina Trirogoff, who was an assistant editor on Phone Booth, Collateral, Heat, McHale’s Navy, and Gone Fishin’.
The musical score for How To Make A Monster was composed by David Reynolds, who has worked in the music departments for such movies as Rounders, The Big Kahuna, Species, Entrapment, and Wanted.
The special effects on How To Make A Monster were provided by the Stan Winston Studios, and the creature design is credited to Stan Winston himself (Jurassic Park, Small Soldiers, Congo, Lake Placid, Predator 2, Leviathan, Terminator 2).
The cast of How To Make A Monster includes Clea DuVall (Argo, The Faculty, She’s All That, But I’m A Cheerleader), Steven Culp (Bosch, JAG), voice actor Jason Marsden, Tyler Mane (X-Men, Troy), Karim Prince (Power Rangers Zeo), and Danny Masterson (That ’70s Show).
The plot of How To Make A Monster centers on a video game development team who is hired to revamp a horror game that has been panned by test audiences. They are given four weeks to create a new monster and overhaul the game, with a $1 million bonus on the line for whoever makes the game the scariest. However, the monster AI they develop proves to be a little more effective than they had planned.
How To Make A Monster features a cameo by b-movie actress Julie Strain as herself, doing motion capture for the fictitious video game featured in the movie. She is best known for such movies as Heavy Metal 2000, Sorceress, and Out For Justice.
One of the monsters depicted in the game featured in the movie is clearly modeled after pikachu, the popular species of electric mouse from Pokemon. However, the adorable icon is re-imagined as a monster worth of Doom.
The reception to How To Make A Monster was pretty negative: it currently holds a 4.4 rating on IMDb, and a 30% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes.
The monster itself in How To Make A Monster actually looks pretty cool, and becomes more of a gory patchwork of slain characters as the movie progresses.
As you would imagine, all of the sequences that take place “in game” have aged pretty poorly, given how quickly graphic technologies for video games have developed over the years. However, I think it is kind of charming, and feels like a sort of period piece as a result. For video game fans, there are certainly enough nods to the audience and ample nostalgia for them get a kick out of re-watching this movie now.
However, there are certainly some huge drawbacks to this movie. The characters are all very simple stereotypes that are far from flattering to the population of gamers, and people in the tech industry in general. Even worse, the resulting tone as a whole is at best bluntly misanthropic. The conclusion of the story dives that home even further, as it is very downbeat and depressing (and not nearly as clever as it thinks it is). Interestingly enough, it reminded me a lot of the mediocre ending of Swimming With Sharks, an earlier work by the same writer/director, which has the same sort of tone and resolution.
On the whole, I am pretty conflicted about How To Make A Monster. The creature is definitely the reason to watch, but the writing and characters that surround it can’t really be avoided, and they are all some combination of creepy, disgusting, or vile. The preachy message about greed and corporatism isn’t necessarily wrong by any means, but the way it is executed is far overblown. You’ll also probably figure out that the title of the film has a double meaning as the soon as all of the characters are established, or at least by the end of the first act.
If you really like Stan Winston effects or early horror PC games, I think this is worth checking out. For everyone else, I think it is a toss-up. The writing isn’t any worse than most slasher movies at the end of the day, and this is probably a tad better than Evolver when it comes to killer video game movies. However, Evolver is way more fun in my opinion, which is what this movie is missing most overall. | {
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This last week has in many ways echoed the famous words of the Berkeley student activist Mario Savio when he said in 1964 that "[t]here's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart that you can't take part! … And you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus — and you've got to make it stop!" Fifty-four years later, women like Dr. Ford, Gallagher and Archila are throwing themselves in front of the runaway train that is the Kavanaugh confirmation, armed with little but their words. | {
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“It’s the prosecutor’s fault.” “It wasn’t a fair trial.” “I’m gonna get out real soon, I’ll win on appeal.” These are the excuses of convicts. They’re also fairly close to the excuses Hillary Clinton gave her donors during a Saturday conference call.
She said the FBI development was too much to “overcome,” the donor on the call told CNN, but she acknowledged there were other headwinds facing her campaign that they didn’t adequately combat.
This excuse fooled exactly nobody. A person caught in wrongdoing shouldn’t blame their failure to win over public opinion as “overcoming” the FBI. Even Democrats knew this was just blame-shifting.
“If there had been no private server in the first place there would not have been an FBI investigation,” Jim Manley, a longtime Democratic strategist, wrote in a Twitter message on Saturday.
Clinton should feel lucky that she doesn’t have to “overcome” a public trial and conviction for misusing classified information. She should feel positively jubilant that President-elect Trump thinks the Clintons are “good people” and doesn’t “want to hurt them” by getting a special prosecutor.
I’m not even certain Trump would need a special prosecutor. If he appointed Trey Gowdy as Attorney General, I think we can be fairly certain there would be a grand jury, an indictment, and a trial. A pardon by President Obama may be the only thing that can save Clinton.
The election was lost by Clinton because she’s a nasty woman running against her own conduct, on an extreme anto-Christian social and anti-capitalist economic platform crafted by extreme liberals who have taken over the Democratic Party. She lost because she couldn’t offer anyone a single reason to vote for her, only against Trump.
Clinton shouldn’t blame FBI Director Comey. She couldn’t “overcome” herself. | {
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A bit of conventional wisdom about Tesla, repeated often in the media, is that the company does no advertising – as Elon Musk has said, if you create a truly revolutionary product, the marketing takes care of itself.
Tesla has not indulged in the mass marketing activities that are so important to other automakers – expensive TV and magazine ads, lavish dog-and-pony shows at the auto shows (Tesla attends only the largest), conferences where journalists are wined and dined (too bad).
However, the company does sponsor test-drive events to drum up sales, and it seems to be building a worldwide sales force under the cryptic name Asset Lite. No one outside the company can say exactly what these people do, but a recent job posting provides some clues:
“The Asset Lite role is the single most challenging sales position we offer at Tesla, one in which only the most entrepreneurial, creative and outstanding performers will achieve success. In this role you will be responsible for developing untapped markets, building a robust pipeline of leads and converting them into Model S owners through charismatic presentation of our product and superb follow-up.”
It looks like classic Tesla strategy: methodically building the systems and assets it will need to massively scale up production in the future. Once the company is producing 500,000 cars per year, word of mouth isn’t going to be enough to keep them moving. However, Tesla isn’t likely ever to invest in the kind of 20th-century marketing campaigns listed above.
Together with Tesla’s direct online sales model, finding creative ways of connecting with individual customers makes much more sense. As several marketing mavens have noted, younger buyers find that dealing directly with a manufacturer makes their transactions more “meaningful.”
Source: Tesla | {
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Autoplay next video
For her this rhyme is penned, whose luminous eyes,
Brightly expressive as the twins of Leda,
Shall find her own sweet name, that nestling lies
Upon the page, enwrapped from every reader.
Search narrowly the lines! - they hold a treasure
Divine- a talisman- an amulet
That must be worn at heart. Search well the measure-
The words- the syllables! Do not forget
The trivialest point, or you may lose your labor
And yet there is in this no Gordian knot
Which one might not undo without a sabre,
If one could merely comprehend the plot.
Enwritten upon the leaf where now are peering
Eyes scintillating soul, there lie perdus
Three eloquent words oft uttered in the hearing
Of poets, by poets- as the name is a poet's, too,
Its letters, although naturally lying
Like the knight Pinto- Mendez Ferdinando-
Still form a synonym for Truth- Cease trying!
You will not read the riddle, though you do the best you can do.
| {
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UPDATED: CHECK OUT THE SCREENGRABS! ENJOY!
You just gotta see those huge and low hanging balls that Chuck is hiding underneath his pants! They are absolute bouncy and juicy. But that’s not all from Chuck, he has also a very long and delicious cock too!
Watch Chuck over at Sean Cody as he shows us how he milk a nice load out! XOXO | {
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The setup
For all the people who want to know what our setup looks like. Below is a write-up of our setup and configuration. There aren't any packages installed on the servers running the Virtual Machines.
The building blocks
As with most things OpenBSD you can build almost anything with a base install alone. Our setup is no different! The building blocks which OpenBSD Amsterdam is built on are:
The building blocks that are also needed are pf(4), bridge(4), tap(4) and in our case vlan(4).
All the VM configuration is stored in seperate files with information provided via the contact form.
VM Name
Dedicated IP address (dhcpd(8))
Dedicated IPv6 address (/64)
Hostname
Username
SSH public key
The configuation files which are generated:
vmm(4)/vmd(8)
It all starts, of course, with vmm(4)/vmd(8) and vm.conf(5). Our vm.conf(5) looks something like:
socket owner :vmdusers switch "uplink_vlan42" { interface bridge42 } vm "<vm-name>" { disable owner <user> disk "/var/vmm/<vm-name>.qcow2" interface tap { switch "uplink_vlan42" lladdr fe:e1:bb:d1:c8:01 } }
socket owner was introduced in OpenBSD 6.4. It provides the option to change the owner of vmd.sock .
This is useful when multiple users need to control their own VM without adding them to group :wheel , the default owner.
A statically assigned MAC address (lladdr) is generated when a new VM is installed based on a MAC prefix assigned to the host. This to make the installation of a new VM easier with autoinstall(8) in combination with dhcpd(8).
In order to make sure we have enough tap(4) interfaces, by default there are four interfaces present ( tap0 .. tap3 ), we run the following command on a new server:
# cd /dev # for i in $(jot 50 4 50); do sh MAKEDEV tap$i; done #
When running in a large layer 2 domain you might need to increase the arpq, which is set to 50 by default. On most hosts we increased it to 1024.
# sysctl net.inet.ip.arpq.maxlen=1024 net.inet.ip.arpq.maxlen: 50 -> 1024 #
Running in layer 3 you need to permit IPv4 and IPv6 forwarding.
# sysctl net.inet.ip.forwarding=1 net.inet.ip.forwarding: 0 -> 1 # sysctl net.inet6.ip6.forwarding=1 net.inet6.ip6.forwarding: 0 -> 1
dhcpd(8)
Our dhcpd.conf(5) is per vmd(8) server.
option domain-name "openbsd.amsterdam"; option domain-name-servers <dns>; subnet <ip-space> netmask 255.255.255.0 { option routers <default-gateway-ipv4>; server-name "<serverX>.openbsd.amsterdam"; range <start-ip end-ip>; host <vm-name> { hardware ethernet fe:e1:bb:d1:c8:01; fixed-address <assigned-ipv4>; filename "auto_install"; option host-name "<vm-name>"; } }
unbound(8)
The unbound.conf(5) is also per vmd(8) server.
server: interface: <serverX-ipv4> interface: <serverX-ipv6> access-control: 0.0.0.0/0 refuse access-control: 127.0.0.0/8 allow access-control: <serverX-ipv4-subnet> allow access-control: ::0/0 refuse access-control: ::1 allow access-control: <serverX-ipv6-subnet> allow hide-identity: yes hide-version: yes qname-minimisation: yes root-hints: "/var/unbound/db/root.hints" auto-trust-anchor-file: "/var/unbound/db/root.key" aggressive-nsec: yes cache-max-ttl: 14400 cache-min-ttl: 300 prefetch: yes rrset-roundrobin: yes verbosity: 0 remote-control: control-enable: yes control-interface: /var/run/unbound.sock
autoinstall(8)
When a new VM is being created autoinstall(8) is used for the installation of the VM. Per VM a config file is created based on the statically assigned MAC address. For example:
/var/www/htdocs/<install>/fe:e1:bb:d1:c8:01-install.conf
# <user> install.conf System hostname = <hostname> Password for root = <pwd> Which speed should com0 = 115200 Network interfaces = vio0 IPv4 address for vio0 = dhcp IPv6 address for vio0 = <assigned-ipv6> IPv6 default router = <default-gateway-ipv6> Setup a user = <user> Password for user = <pwd> Public ssh key for user = ssh-ed25519 AAAA...TxlrE5 <comment> <pwd> Which disk is the root disk = sd0 What timezone are you in = Europe/Amsterdam Location of sets = http Server = server.openbsd.amsterdam Set name(s) = +site* Continue anyway = yes Continue without verification = yes
siteXX.tgz
We are using siteXX.tgz to post-configure a newly created VM. This also includes the install.site file to create rc.local(8) and to add syspatch(8) to rc.firsttime(8)
Current files and functions are:
installurl(5):
https://cdn.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD
rc.conf.local(8):
sndiod_flags=NO
sysmerge(8).ignore:
/etc/ttys
install.site:
echo "/usr/sbin/syspatch && touch /etc/rc.local.forcereboot" >> /etc/rc.firsttime
rc.local(8):
if [ -r /etc/rc.local.forcereboot ]; then rm -f /etc/rc.local.forcereboot printf '
*** Reboot after CPU microcode/OS updates
' sleep 2 reboot fi
Hat tip to Stuart Henderson
httpd(8)
Since OpenBSD comes with httpd(8) in base we are using it to serve the <MAC address>-install.conf files needed for autoinstall(8) with a minimal config.
server "default" { listen on * port 80 root "/htdocs/<install>" location "/pub/OpenBSD/6.7/amd64/*" { root "/htdocs/6.7" request strip 4 directory { auto index } } }
perl(1)
The text files used to capture all the VM data is processed by a perl script, deploy.pl. Both the MAC address as well as the temporary password are generated by this script when needed. Here is one example how we generate the temporary password:
my $_pass = qx(jot -rcs '' 20 33 126);
We assign a MAC prefix per server and the last bits are allocated based on the VM number unless one is specified.
my $_mac = $vms{$vm_name}{'mac'} || $conf{'conf'}{'MAC_PREFIX'} . ":" . $vms{$vm_name}{'vm_number'};
sensorsd(8)
To keep track of the hardware, especially disks, we are using sensorsd(8). The configuration for the disks we are using in sensorsd.conf(5) is as follows.
drive:command=/etc/sensorsd/drive %t %n %2 %s
The drive script looks like:
#!/bin/sh echo "Current raid state: ${1}${2} ${3} ${4}" | mail -s "$(hostname) \ ${1}${2} ${4}" -r [email protected] [email protected]
SSHFP
All SSH fingerprints (SSHFP) records of all the hosts are added to DNS. You can verify the SSH fingerprint by adding "-o VerifyHostKeyDNS=yes" to the ssh command. | {
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Locales
Pese a considerar que le corresponde, el TCR entiende que el ex vicepresidente no está dentro de las excepciones mencionadas y debe cobrar recién a partir de febrero de 2020.
Montevideo Portal
El Tribunal de Cuentas tiene pronto un escrito en el que responde la consulta realizada por la presidenta del Senado, Lucía Topolansky, quien envió al TCR la decisión de pagarle a Sendic unos 13 mil dólares mensuales por un año.
El fin de semana, Sendic se refirió a su situación señalando que es el único ingreso que tiene y planteó que la polémica que se generó en torno a su subsidio debe a una cuestión personal. Según informó este martes el diario El País, el fallo no cuestiona varios puntos que estuvieron arriba de la mesa en la discusión previa a la decisión de Topolansky, como el hecho de que el vicepresidente sea un legislador o que el subsidio le corresponda.
El literal 10 del artículo 77 de la Constitución sostiene que “ningún Legislador ni Intendente que renuncie a su cargo después de incorporado al mismo, tendrá derecho al cobro de ninguna compensación ni pasividad que pudiera corresponderle en razón del cese de su cargo, hasta cumplido el período completo para el que fue elegido”.
Sin embargo prevé una serie de excepciones: “ Esta disposición no comprende a los casos de renuncia por enfermedad debidamente justificada ante Junta Médica, ni a los autorizados expresamente por los tres quintos de votos del total de componentes del Cuerpo a que correspondan, ni a los Intendentes que renuncien tres meses antes de la elección para poder ser candidatos”.
A partir de la interpretación de esas excepciones es que se da la discusión, para unos el aspirante al subsidio debe conseguir los tres quintos en su renuncia-lo que Sendic tiene- pero para otros es el subsidio mismo el que debe ser ratificado por esa mayoría para lograr la excepción.
Si el Tribunal observar el gasto, Topolansky bien puede reiterar el gasto de la Asamblea General y pagarle a Sendic o puede aceptarlo y comenzar a pagarle en febrero de 2020.
Montevideo Portal | {
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Sunderland have expressed an interest in Manchester United striker Danny Welbeck as they grow increasingly exasperated over a deal for Liverpool's Fabio Borini.
Welbeck was the subject of a £12million offer from Hull but has opted against joining up with Steve Bruce.
The 23-year-old is weighing up what role he has to play at United but may attract more interest in the next few weeks.
VIDEO Scroll down Danny Welbeck score against Joe Hart during England training
Plan B? Sunderland have expressed an interest in Manchester United striker Danny Welbeck
Back-up: Sunderland have grown increasingly exasperated over a deal for Liverpool's Fabio Borini
Fancy it, Danny? Welbeck was the subject of a £12million offer from Hull but has opted against joining the club
The move from Sunderland comes after Gus Poyet was confident he would nab Borini from Anfield.
Their £14m was accepted for the striker who spent last season at the Stadium of Light.
Borini, though, remains undecided as to where his future lies, and Poyet, whose side kicked off with a 2-2 draw at West Brom on Saturday, said: ‘It’s still ongoing. I can assure the supporters it’s not over.'
In or out? Fabio Borini has been subject to transfer rumours throughout the summer and is yet to decide
Decisions: Sunderland's £14m was accepted for the striker who spent last season at the Stadium of Light | {
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Got a bit of blood on your nice white shirt? Spit on it, the saliva will dissolve it.
121 shares | {
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} |
Opinion
New York – -(AmmoLand.com)- The proposed New York mental health evaluation bill, like the Safe Act of 2013, before it, is facially unconstitutional. It likely would be contested on Constitutional grounds were it to become law, and it likely would survive attack when brought before New York’s anti-Second Amendment federal and State Court jurists.
So, with a plethora of anti-Second Amendment jurists presently sitting on State and Federal Benches, we would expect to see this unconstitutional firearms' measure passing Constitutional scrutiny in the State and Federal trial and appellate courts, as have so many other measures, were New York's mental health evaluation bill to come before New York courts, once challenged, after enactment. And, there is no guarantee the U.S. Supreme Court would even take up the case on a Writ of Certiorari. Even if the high Court did take the case up on appeal, resolution of high Court cases takes time and considerable sums of money to battle. Cuomo knows this.
Still, we can only hope that enough New York Legislators will seriously consider the dire ramifications of the New York mental health evaluation bill before voting to enact it sans debate. They may take their cue from Legislators in Virginia who, fortunately, have, voted to table the ludicrous, “assault weapons” bill, at least for a time, to give Legislators an opportunity to debate it before voting to enact it.
But, as for New York's mental health evaluation bill, the Arbalest Quarrel would like to give New York's Legislators a heads-up.
To fully appreciate the full extent of New York’s latest horror that anti-Second Amendment zealots, proponents, and fanatics would love to see enacted, we delineate below some of the specific problems with it.
Pertinent questions that can be legitimately raised about it; legal and ethical concerns that operate against it; and matters that ought to be addressed before the New York Senate and Assembly vote on it.
First , Cuomo has said the NY Safe Act is designed to prohibit “dangerously mentally ill” persons from purchasing a gun. Does not this bill expand the domain of people who can be denied possession of firearms? Keep in mind that Federal law already prohibits gun ownership and possession by individuals who have been voluntarily or involuntarily committed to a mental health hospital. Yet New York’s proposed amendment attempts to skirt Federal law by potentially prohibiting anyone who has even a scintilla of “mental health issues” from possessing a firearm. This is an implicit presumption of the bill.
, Cuomo has said the NY Safe Act is designed to prohibit “dangerously mentally ill” persons from purchasing a gun. Does not this bill expand the domain of people who can be denied possession of firearms? Keep in mind that Federal law already prohibits gun ownership and possession by individuals who have been voluntarily or involuntarily committed to a mental health hospital. Yet New York’s proposed amendment attempts to skirt Federal law by potentially prohibiting anyone who has even a scintilla of “mental health issues” from possessing a firearm. This is an implicit presumption of the bill. Second , would retired police officers come within the purview of the bill? If not, why not?
, would retired police officers come within the purview of the bill? If not, why not? Third , who would design the battery of mental health tests?
, who would design the battery of mental health tests? Fourth , how extensive would the mental health evaluation process be?
, how extensive would the mental health evaluation process be? Fifth , would the person who desires to obtain a firearm be responsible for remitting payment for the mental health evaluation process, or would taxes be raised on, and the costs borne by, the entire New York population to cover the cost of these new administrative procedures?
, would the person who desires to obtain a firearm be responsible for remitting payment for the mental health evaluation process, or would taxes be raised on, and the costs borne by, the entire New York population to cover the cost of these new administrative procedures? Sixth , what is the proposed cost for designing the evaluation process and implementing it? Wouldn’t it be advisable to do a feasibility study to ascertain the costs of designing, implementing, and administering this program before enacting the bill into law?
, what is the proposed cost for designing the evaluation process and implementing it? Wouldn’t it be advisable to do a feasibility study to ascertain the costs of designing, implementing, and administering this program before enacting the bill into law? Seventh , who would administer the tests: A psychologist? A psychiatrist? A team of mental health practitioners? An Administrator who has no mental health training, for example, a police officer?
, who would administer the tests: A psychologist? A psychiatrist? A team of mental health practitioners? An Administrator who has no mental health training, for example, a police officer? Eighth , how would a mental health practitioner determine the relationship between the mere desire to possess a firearm and the mental health acuity of the individual who desires to possess a firearm? In that regard, might not the mere desire to possess a firearm be construed as suggestive of mental deficiency? In fact, is this not the rationale behind the bill, evidencing its ulterior motive?
, how would a mental health practitioner determine the relationship between the mere desire to possess a firearm and the mental health acuity of the individual who desires to possess a firearm? In that regard, might not the mere desire to possess a firearm be construed as suggestive of mental deficiency? In fact, is this not the rationale behind the bill, evidencing its ulterior motive? Ninth , would mental health tests extend to and be permitted to probe a person’s present life situation in minute detail; and, if so, would not that infringe on the unreasonable searches and seizures clause of the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution?
, would mental health tests extend to and be permitted to probe a person’s present life situation in minute detail; and, if so, would not that infringe on the unreasonable searches and seizures clause of the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution? Tenth , suppose a person is presently seeing a mental health practitioner or had, at one time, seen a mental health practitioner; or, perhaps, a person is taking antidepressant medications or had, at one time, taken such medications associated with mental or emotional conditions. Would questions be directed to probe and elicit that information? If so, would that not illegally invade a person’s privacy and unlawfully impinge upon the sacred doctor-patient relationship? And, would not such an evaluation impermissibly intrude upon and undermine the treatment of the patient by his or her own physician or mental health practitioner if the patient is undergoing treatment?
, suppose a person is presently seeing a mental health practitioner or had, at one time, seen a mental health practitioner; or, perhaps, a person is taking antidepressant medications or had, at one time, taken such medications associated with mental or emotional conditions. Would questions be directed to probe and elicit that information? If so, would that not illegally invade a person’s privacy and unlawfully impinge upon the sacred doctor-patient relationship? And, would not such an evaluation impermissibly intrude upon and undermine the treatment of the patient by his or her own physician or mental health practitioner if the patient is undergoing treatment? Eleventh , how extensive would the mental health evaluation be? What would the test components comprise?
, how extensive would the mental health evaluation be? What would the test components comprise? Twelfth , would Government officials assess the statistical validity and reliability of those mental health evaluation tests that are devised, before their implementation, assuming new tests are constructed? If not, why not? And, who would assess the statistical validity and reliability of such mental health evaluation tests employed? Further, if Government officials make use of presently existing mental health tests of purposes of the proposed bill, wouldn’t those tests still need required scrutiny to ascertain their applicability to firearms ownership and possession?
, would Government officials assess the statistical validity and reliability of those mental health evaluation tests that are devised, before their implementation, assuming new tests are constructed? If not, why not? And, who would assess the statistical validity and reliability of such mental health evaluation tests employed? Further, if Government officials make use of presently existing mental health tests of purposes of the proposed bill, wouldn’t those tests still need required scrutiny to ascertain their applicability to firearms ownership and possession? Thirteenth , who would be responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of these new mental evaluative test records and, would the individual’s personal physician or mental health practitioner have access to them? Would the person being evaluated be able to obtain a copy of or at least be able to view his or her mental health evaluation records? If not, why not?
, who would be responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of these new mental evaluative test records and, would the individual’s personal physician or mental health practitioner have access to them? Would the person being evaluated be able to obtain a copy of or at least be able to view his or her mental health evaluation records? If not, why not? Fourteenth , what recourse would examinees have whose confidentiality is violated? Would examinees even know whether the records of their mental health evaluation had been misused, misplaced, hacked into, lost, stolen, or wrongly distributed or disseminated to individuals, Government agencies, private entities, academia, or the CDC, contrary to law or procedure? Would the New York State Government have a legal duty to inform the examinee of such loss or misallocation of sensitive, confidential, personal records? Would the examinee have legal recourse to obtain damages?
, what recourse would examinees have whose confidentiality is violated? Would examinees even know whether the records of their mental health evaluation had been misused, misplaced, hacked into, lost, stolen, or wrongly distributed or disseminated to individuals, Government agencies, private entities, academia, or the CDC, contrary to law or procedure? Would the New York State Government have a legal duty to inform the examinee of such loss or misallocation of sensitive, confidential, personal records? Would the examinee have legal recourse to obtain damages? Fifteenth , on what grounds might one appeal an adverse result, and what would be the costs of de novo review? And who would be required to bear those costs?
, on what grounds might one appeal an adverse result, and what would be the costs of de novo review? And who would be required to bear those costs? Sixteenth , what is the time frame between setting up an evaluation process and obtaining the results of an evaluation?
, what is the time frame between setting up an evaluation process and obtaining the results of an evaluation? Seventeenth , can the mental health evaluation be reviewed and overturned by one’s own physician or mental health practitioner? If not, why not?
, can the mental health evaluation be reviewed and overturned by one’s own physician or mental health practitioner? If not, why not? Eighteenth , why should a person who has received an adverse decision be required to go to Court to obtain a reversal of an adverse decision? Why isn’t there a mechanism for a less costly and time-consuming intermediate administrative appeal process as there exists, for example, in present New York City handgun licensing rules and regulations?
, why should a person who has received an adverse decision be required to go to Court to obtain a reversal of an adverse decision? Why isn’t there a mechanism for a less costly and time-consuming intermediate administrative appeal process as there exists, for example, in present New York City handgun licensing rules and regulations? Nineteenth , after the mental evaluation process has concluded, and a person has passed the mental health evaluation process, what are the post-administrative steps?
, after the mental evaluation process has concluded, and a person has passed the mental health evaluation process, what are the post-administrative steps? Twentieth, why must it be necessary for a person who has passed a mental health examination to be repeatedly required to take another mental health evaluation for every instance in which a firearm is purchased, exchanged, or disposed of? Would not this requirement be deliberately oppressive and also unnecessarily expensive, and unnecessarily administratively burdensome? Moreover, undergoing a mental health evaluation at all may work in ways that have negative unintended or intended consequences after the fact. Have such possible consequences been explored? If not, why not?
All sorts of negative results ensue from this New York mental health evaluation bill were it to become law.
The callous disregard for the principle of fundamental fairness and for the sanctity of Americans’ fundamental rights and liberties isn’t alone peculiar to anti-Second Amendment proposals of Radical Leftists like Cuomo. It is characteristic of all those who espouse the Collectivist vision of governance.
Implementation of New York’s recent Anti-Second Amendment mental health evaluation bill is unseemly, unconscionable, and demonstrably inconsistent with our Constitution and our heritage as Americans. The bill is extraordinarily bizarre, predicated on a phobic fear of anti-Second Amendment zealots that every American is potentially a psychopathic criminal or psychotic maniac. or that an American will be magically transformed into a raving maniac merely because that person happens to own and possess a firearm.
Upon perusal of New York’s mental health evaluation bill, one cannot but conclude it has been devised by fevered, paranoid minds that, may, themselves, do well to obtain a mental health evaluation from a clinical psychologist or psychiatrist, to get at the root of their own singular abhorrence of the Nation's Second Amendment and of their own peculiar, pathological fear of firearms.
About The Arbalest Quarrel:
Arbalest Group created `The Arbalest Quarrel' website for a special purpose. That purpose is to educate the American public about recent Federal and State firearms control legislation. No other website, to our knowledge, provides as deep an analysis or as thorough an analysis. Arbalest Group offers this information free.
For more information, visit: www.arbalestquarrel.com. | {
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The number of suicides each year continues to increase in Michigan at an alarming rate.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports between 1999 and 2016 Michigan’s suicide rate increased by 33 percent.
State Senator Ed McBroom is supporting legislation that would create a commission to study the causes and underlying factors of suicide in the state.
The Suicide Prevention Commission would bring together state resources to examine data and make recommendations for a coordinated approach to help prevent this crisis.
Senate Bill 228 has received the support of numerous health and law enforcement organizations and has been sent to the State House for consideration. | {
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For years, Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss were known for the company they didn’t launch: Facebook. Now, the pair hope to be known for their bet on cryptocurrency, which they liken to a different kind of social network.
“Money is the oldest social network and arguably the strongest,” Cameron Winklevoss told CNN Business at SXSW in Austin. “And crypto is one of the strongest networks of value ever in the world and will continue to be so, so hopefully [we’ll be] pioneers in that space to some extent.”
The twins, who spent years in litigation accusing Mark Zuckerberg of stealing their idea and received a $65 million settlement, have made a name for themselves in the cryptocurrency space by becoming some of the first bitcoin billionaires and launching their own crypto exchange, Gemini, to buy and sell digital currencies.
Despite the volatility of cryptocurrencies — with bitcoin soaring to around $20,000 and now sinking to just below $4,000 — the brothers remain bullish on its future.
“Yes, there’s been some ups and downs in between, but overall if you zoom out long enough, the trend is going in the right direction,” Tyler Winklevoss told CNN Business at SXSW in Austin. “The graph is still up and to the right.”
Although they wouldn’t discuss their trading behavior or whether they’d sold a major portion of what they own, Tyler Winklevoss confirmed they still have holdings in various cryptos, including bitcoin, ether, bitcoin cash, tezos and filecoin.
But he called the space “a scary, wild, wild west type situation” when they first got into it in 2012. At the time, a bitcoin was only valued at $8.
“We’ve tried to solve that problem by creating Gemini, which allows you to engage with crypto in a regulated compliant trusted way,” Tyler Winklevoss said. “We’re trying to make it easy to onboard because our own experience in the space was very difficult, scary, and risky, and we’ve spent the last five years trying to mitigate that.”
Cameron Winklevoss said Gemini, which was founded in 2014, continues to grow in the US, Asia, Canada and UK, attracting new talent from the financial services industry and top tech companies. It’s now focused on expanding into Europe and recently launched a mobile app.
“It’s been really fun to be a part of two major revolutions or movements,” Tyler Winklevoss said. “I guess we sort of have a thing for networks: Facebook being a social network and then money or crypto being the ultimate social network.”
“Instead of trading pictures or connecting with people, which is important and very cool, you can trade value,” he added.
Although the crypto industry still receives criticism from seasoned investors like Warren Buffett, the space is also evolving. In fact, Facebook is reportedly looking to build its own stablecoin, or coins pegged to actual currencies like the US dollar.
“It’s very exciting and validating for the space of crypto,” Cameron Winklevoss said of the news. | {
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Speaking to Akihiro Hino, CEO of Level-5, he said "There is strong evidence that is a request for a line of work like previous titles in our portofolio", as a petition on a fanmade Facebook page for Dark Cloud suggests. He continued that "The White Knight Chronicles-series did not do as well as we had planned and our recent succes with Ni No Kuni suggest we should move our next-generation games in that direction. We're not announcing a Ni No Kuni 2 as our collaboration ended with the release of the game but we're looking to revive past titles." It is true that White Knight Chronicles received a very average critical reception and the company recently announced that they are shutting down the online servers for White Knight Chronicles. While the blockbuster franchises like Professor Layton and Inazuma Eleven will continue to remain on handheld devices, there could be a reinvigoration for console titles.
"Sony contacted Level-5 about a possible next-gen game," which is no surprise as Level-5 was one of the prominently listed publishers in in the Playstation 2013 Meeting.
there was an idea for some of our old PS2-era franchises to be reimagined for the next Playstation. We were sceptical at first but seeing the hardware in action opened up a lot of new and fresh possibilities. I think it's great that Sony contacted us to collaborate on creating a new magical world for PlayStation owners. -- Akahiro Hino
We're happy to announce Dark Cloud 3 for the PlayStation 4. We will release more information at E3 2015. -- Akahiro Hino | {
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La policía migratoria requiere una ley que sea votada por el Congreso
Al igual que en los Estados Unidos y otros países, el gobierno nacional impulsa la creación de una policía migratoria que, del mismo modo que el "fuero migratorio", entendería solamente en asuntos de extranjería.
Al mejor estilo de la norteamericana US Border Patrol (Patrulla Fronteriza de EEUU), esta policía acompañaría la batería de medidas e iniciativas que diseñó el Ejecutivo para reforzar los controles en la frontera y regular así el tránsito de personas y la inmigración en todo el territorio nacional.
La policía migratoria se sumaría –con tareas puntuales en migraciones– a la Prefectura Naval Argentina, la Gendarmería Nacional, la Policía Aeronáutica Nacional y la Policía Federal, las cuatro fuerzas que, según el artículo 114 de la Ley 25.871, ofician como "Policía Migratoria Auxiliar".
La nueva fuerza se sumaría a la Policía Federal, la Gendarmería, la Prefectura y la PSA (NA)
Según analiza el Gobierno, esta nueva fuerza actuaría bajo la jurisdicción del Ministerio del Interior, la cartera que encabeza Rogelio Frigerio, y contaría con personal y presupuesto propio.
La idea es que la policía migratoria tenga capacidad de acción y pueda combatir en zonas de frontera flagelos como la trata de personas, el narcotráfico y el terrorismo.
Sin embargo, el tema "tiene su complejidad", admitió un funcionario que trabaja en el diseño de la estrategia. Es que para su creación se requiere de una ley que debe pasar por el Congreso de la Nación. Además, no descartan que "genere resistencia" en las otras fuerzas de seguridad.
LEA MÁS:
Los números de los delitos cometidos por extranjeros en la Argentina
El Gobierno lanzó los nuevos controles migratorios con un operativo sorpresa en Liniers
Crean una Comisión Nacional de Fronteras para reforzar el control en los pasos internacionales
La posibilidad de que Argentina cuente con una policía migratoria no es nueva. Martín Arias Duval, director de Migraciones durante el kirchnerismo, estudió esa posibilidad en el pasado. Pero a diferencia de ahora, el plan era que trabajase en conjunto con el Departamento de Información, Asistencia y Cooperación (DIAC), área dedicada a la búsqueda de datos a través de rastrillajes de delitos que involucren a inmigrantes. | {
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Paula Abdul has been our pop idol since the 1980s, when her song “Straight Up” blew up on the radio charts in December 1988. And now, the 57-year-old former American Idol judge recently joined the likes of Lady Gaga, Cher and Mariah Carey in launching her own Las Vegas residency, Forever Your Girl, at the Flamingo Hotel and Casino.
Related: How Long Has Paula Abdul Been Dancing?
View this post on Instagram Cue spotlight! ✨ A post shared by Paula Abdul (@paulaabdul) on Aug 15, 2019 at 10:34am PDT
The new venture is a particular triumph for Abdul, who has battled chronic pain for years. At 17 she had a terrible back injury due to a cheerleading, but chose to not have surgery. Later in 1991 she suffered a broken leg during a dance rehearsal. And she experienced 2 accidents, a 1992 car crash that left her with neck injuries, and a 1993 plane crash that left her partially paralyzed and required 15 spinal surgeries. As a result, she developed an addiction to prescription painkillers that she sought treatment for in 2008.
But now, she tells InStyle, the pain has subsided, thanks to a non-invasive treatment called Cortical Integrative Therapy, a neurological-based treatment developed by Dr. Victor M. Pedro, founder of Rhode Island Integrated Medicine. “I don’t experience the type of physical pain that I used to,” she says. “Once I really accepted that for a time, pain was part of my life, I was able to move forward. I didn’t have to like the pain, but to accept that it was there. Fighting it made it worse for me. I keep getting the message that I have to slow down. Slowing down has made so many of my dreams come true. My career is in a whole renaissance.”
(If you saw her triumphant, tap-dance-laced Billboard Music Awards performance in May—where she received a standing ovation—you knew this was coming.)
Here are some other strategies Abdul uses to battle chronic pain.
She works out a lot.
“I get up at 6 and I work with my trainer for an hour and a half. Then I go to rehearsals at about a quarter to 9. We do a warm-up and then we dance. We go from about 9:45 until 7 p.m., and we take one day off,” she told People about prepping for the residency. “I do a lot of stretching,” she says. “When I’m with my trainer I’m doing Pilates, I’m doing a lot of back and core work. Even though I’m dancing all day I often do straight cardio just so that I’m conditioning my body. And after each performance I usually get in an ice cold tub. It’s not fun! It shocks your body, but it helps with inflammation.”
Related: Top 5 Inflammation Fighters
She follows a low-alkaline diet.
The Alkaline Diet has helped her minimize inflammation in her body.
“When you have RSD, the best thing to do is lower your acidity to slow inflammation, so I follow a low alkaline diet,” she told People. “I don’t like following diets but I try to keep the acidity down because that’s what causes flares up in my body.”
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She’s into positive affirmations.
Pain is also a mental battle, and Abdul looks to positive affirmations to strengthen her mental health. She shared with Dr. Oz that they help her build confidence. Here are some of her favorite messages:
You can’t get to where you want to be unless you can accept where you’re at.
Whatever your plans are today, smile, say hello, and open the door for someone.
Just “Stick to it”–whatever your goals and dreams are for this day, this week, this year, this life.
What you don’t like, only you have the power to change.
If you avoid situations where you might be told ‘”No,” how will you get to your “Yes?” This so-called rejection process is part of success.
When taking care of others, don’t forget to nurture yourself. You cannot give if you yourself have been depleted.
Give yourself a quiet moment alone today and just breathe. Remember, there’s power in pause.
Many chronic pain sufferers turn to meditation for some relief. Read our interview with one of its pioneers, Jon Kabat-Zinn. | {
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An Irish teenager held in Egypt for nearly two years after he attended a pro-democracy protest has been moved to a purpose-built prison where he faces a mass trial and possible execution, campaigners have warned.
Ibrahim Halawa was just 17 when he was arrested with his three older sisters after they sought shelter in a Cairo mosque during the demonstration in August 2013.
Although his siblings were released, Ibrahim was placed in adult custody, suffered alleged beatings and had medical treatment withheld for a bullet wound to a hand which is now permanently disfigured. He is one 494 detainees charged collectively with causing deaths and criminal damage.
Legal charity Reprieve said the Irishman, who had been in Egypt to visit relatives, had recently been moved out of Cairo’s notorious Tora prison, where he shared a cell with Al Jazeera journalist Peter Greste until the Australian’s release last month.
Mr Halawa is expected to be transferred to a jail complex specially built for mass trials in Wadi el Natrun, between Cairo and Alexandria. | {
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Turkey’s defense, aerospace industry exports to hit $2 bln in 2018
ANKARA - Anadolu Agency
Turkey’s defense and aerospace industry exports this year are expected to top $2 billion, said the nation’s defense industries chief on Oct. 19.
Speaking at Anadolu Agency’s Finance Desk, İsmail Demir said that Turkey’s defense and aerospace industry exports had already reached around $1.5 billion as of October, an annual rise of 14 percent.
“We think that both the barter method and the use of local currency will be very attractive in potential market areas of our interest,” said Demir.
Demir also said that with some design changes, the Atak Faz-2 helicopter will boost its capacity to carry more weapons and protection systems, as it is on track to join the Turkish Armed Forces inventory by mid-2019.
He stressed that Turkey’s defense industry is working on indigenous engines to be used with the T625 and ATAK helicopters, adding that the ATAK 2’s engines will also be made with the lessons learned from there.
“Turbojet and turbofan engines will be available in various sizes. These engines will be used in unmanned aerial vehicles and cruise missiles,” he said.
Demir said an engine development project for light armored vehicles also continues.
He said they also have a project to establish a Laser Technologies Excellence Center.
“Lasers and electromagnetic guns are among our important projects,” he said.
F-35 purchases on track
On purchasing F-35 fighter jets from the United States, Demir said political debates had had no effect on their plans.
There are no problems on the delivery of the jets, he said.
“We, as a requirement of partnership, deliver the products we produce, receive the money and make the payments as we are required,” he said.
Ankara plans to acquire 100 F-35 fighter jets in the coming years.
U.S. Vice Adm. Mat Winter, the executive officer for the F-35 program, said earlier this month that he does not “see any indication of a change” in the delivery of Turkey’s 100 jets.
The F-35, a stealth jet built by Lockheed Martin, is considered one of the most expensive pieces of U.S. military equipment, with an average cost of around $100 million.
This June, Turkey took delivery of its first two F-35 fighter jets at a ceremony in Fort Worth, Texas.
Turkey has been in the F-35 program since 1999. The Turkish defense industry has taken an active role in their production, with Alp Aviation, AYESAS, Kale Aviation, Kale Pratt & Whitney and Turkish Aerospace Industries making parts for the first F-35 fighter jet. | {
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The Anarchist Cookbook è uno dei manuali di cucina più famosi del mondo. Solo che invece che insegnarti a preparare il risotto o la faraona ripiena, le sue ricette spiegano come fabbricare esplosivi, armi rudimentali, veleni, droghe, documenti falsi, carte di credito clonate.
Espressione del ribellismo adolescenziale e della paranoia del suo autore, il libro è stato prima un gioiello dell’editoria controculturale americana, poi un manifesto in grado di ispirare numerosi atti di violenza - il più famoso dei quali è la strage di Columbine nel 1999, quando i due studenti 17enni Eric Harris e Dylan Klebold uccisero 13 persone tra compagni di scuola e insegnanti e poi si suicidarono - e infine, dopo aver fatto il suo tempo e dopo che i consigli che contiene sono diventati antiquati, ha dato vita a un vero e proprio filone di “guide che ti insegnano a fare cose illegali.”
Harris e Klebold, gli assassini della Columbine Getty Images
È il 1971 quando l’Anarchist Cookbook viene pubblicato per la prima volta, negli Stati Uniti impegnati oltreoceano in Vietnam e sul proprio territorio a fare i conti con l’era delle controculture. L’autore è un illustre sconosciuto che rimarrà tale: il 19enne William Powell, uno studente del Windham College di Putnam, in Vermont. Due anni prima, nel 1969, ha passato due mesi facendo dentro e fuori dalla New York Public Library per consultare testi militari, di spionaggio, di chimica e via dicendo, in modo da mettere insieme quante più informazioni possibile sulle tecniche di guerriglia e di resistenza. Il tutto, racconterà poi, perché terrorizzato dalla prospettiva di essere arruolato.
Questa paura gli aveva fatto sviluppare una serie di paranoie complottiste, che emergono ben dal modo in cui è scritto il libro e dal pubblico e dal momento storico e politico a cui è rivolto. Secondo Powell, The Anarchist Cookbook era un manuale d’istruzioni che sarebbe stato prezioso nel momento in cui “i fascisti al potere” avrebbero deciso “di reprimere definitivamente il popolo” americano. “I veri americani, la maggioranza silenziosa” avrebbe dovuto usarlo per proteggersi “dai fascisti, dai capitalisti e dai comunisti.”
"Se non l'avesse scritto lui l'avrebbe fatto qualcun altro"
“Un vero rivoluzionario crede che il governo sia illegale, quindi secondo questa logica non c’è ragione per cui un vero rivoluzionario debba attenersi alle leggi,” scriveva Powell. E aggiungeva: se negli Stati Uniti si potesse inneggiare alla rivoluzione senza finire in carcere “non ci sarebbe nessun bisogno di scrivere questo libro.”
L’obiettivo di Powell non era particolarmente ambizioso. Non stava rendendo di dominio pubblico chissà quali informazioni segrete. Voleva semplicemente raccogliere informazioni già disponibili a tutti e metterle insieme in un bigino di facile consultazione. Secondo James Forest, professore di Security Studies all’Università del Massachusetts e uno dei maggiori studiosi del libro, che a un certo punto qualcuno scrivesse un libro come l’Anarchist Cookbook era inevitabile. “Se non l’avesse fatto lui l’avrebbe fatto qualcun altro. Fa parte della natura umana attingere a fonti pericolose di conoscenza e in questo caso [Powell] è stato ispirato a rendere queste informazioni disponibili facilmente a chiunque fosse interessato.”
Un best seller atipico
Il primo editore del libro era Lyle Stuart, anche lui un personaggio controverso. Gestiva un casinò a Las Vegas, era lui stesso un giocatore d’azzardo e aveva la fissa dell’editoria, specialmente di libri controversi—è per questo che si era innamorato dell’Anarchist Cookbook a prima vista.
Molti collaboratori e dipendenti della casa editrice di Stuart, la Lyle Stuart Inc, gli avevano detto che pensavano che il libro fosse pericoloso e non andasse pubblicato. “Alcuni erano spaventati, sconvolti. Ma sono io che prendo la decisione finale,” aveva raccontato in un’intervista dopo l’uscita del libro.
Così Stuart aveva deciso di pubblicare il libro accompagnandolo con una prefazione scritta apposta per evitare le accuse di aver diffuso un libro che poteva tornare utile a ogni genere di ribelle o terrorista—accuse che gli sarebbero piovute addosso lo stesso, come testimoniano il gran numero di lettere di cittadini preoccupati che segnalarono il caso alle autorità, conservate nel fascicolo del FBI dedicato al libro.
Getty Images
“Penso che la prefazione serva a mettere tutto in prospettiva. Molte persone mi hanno detto che a loro avviso il pubblico non dovrebbe conoscere queste cose,” diceva Stuart in un’intervista dell’epoca. “Io credo che questo libro sia molto particolare e che venderà bene. Non l’ho stampato solo per fare soldi ma credo che ne farò.”
E aveva ragione: la prima edizione di 6500 copie era andata esaurita subito dopo la pubblicazione. In totale l’Anarchist Cookbook, tramite le varie case editrici che l’hanno ripubblicato diverse volte dal 1971 a oggi, ha venduto oltre due milioni di copie ed è stato letto da milioni di persone in tutto il mondo, soprattutto dopo essere diventato un testo di culto su internet.
“Una delle opere più crude, stupide e paranoiche mai scritte”
“Non c’è alcun intento politico nella pubblicazione di questo libro. Non è un invito all’azione. Agli hippie e agli studenti ribelli non insegna niente che non sappiano già. È indirizzato più che altro alle persone normali che vogliono farsi un’idea di ciò che sta succedendo intorno a loro,” scriveva nella sua prefazione Peter Bergman, uno stretto collaboratore di Stuart alla casa editrice.
Col senno di poi l’intento è chiaro ma all’America paranoica dell’epoca lo era decisamente meno. Tant’è che subito dopo la pubblicazione l’FBI aveva compilato un dossier sul libro—che oggi è pubblico e in cui si possono trovare documentati vergati di suo pugno da John Edgar Hoover.
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Nel dossier l’editore Lyle Stuart è descritto come un simpatizzante della Cuba di Fidel Castro, che aveva visitato e a cui aveva fornito finanziamenti. I libri che pubblicavano erano definiti “propaganda comunista e filo-cubana.” Di Bergman, l’autore della prefazione, si diceva che era un marxista tedesco che durante il nazismo aveva gestito un gruppo comunista clandestino, finché non era stato arrestato dalla Gestapo e deportato, per poi fuggire negli Stati Uniti nel 1941.
Nello stesso dossier si trova una descrizione che sarebbe un eccellente esergo per il libro: “una delle opere più crude, stupide e paranoiche mai scritte”.
Breviario sovversivo, dall'LSD alle coltellate
Ma cosa c’è concretamente dentro questo capolavoro di stupidità e paranoia? Tante cose, cose “illegali e pericolose” stando all’avvertimento che campeggiava sulla copertina. “Il libro contiene istruzioni per realizzare dispositivi di sorveglianza, gas letali, strumenti di intercettazione telefonica,” si legge in una recensione dell’epoca.
C’è un’ampia sezione sulle droghe con le formule per sintetizzare LSD e le ricette per cucinare con la marijuana e l’hashish. C’è una sezione che insegna a usare armi da fuoco e coltelli con consigli come questo: “il cuore è uno dei punti che dovete tenere presenti quando decidete dove colpire. Un affondo di solito scivola sotto la gabbia toracica e colpisce il cuore. Questo tipo di colpo dev’essere accompagnato quindi da una torsione verso l’alto.”
"le formule per gli esplosivi potrebbero presentare rischi per chi provasse ad usarle"
Il dossier del FBI testimonia la particolare attenzione che le autorità statunitensi avevano fin da subito dedicato al testo, perché contiene un’analisi molto approfondita dei suoi contenuti, capitolo per capitolo, con note e giudizi sull’affidabilità delle informazioni presenti. Nella maggior parte dei casi questi giudizi sono negativi: tutto ciò che è scritto nel libro era già ben noto e di dominio pubblico—e quando non lo era, si trattava di un’invenzione dell’autore completamente priva di fondamento.
Questo per la natura del libro, nato come collage da altri testi. Il capitolo sulle droghe attingeva ampiamente a certi testi di medicina e di chimica, quello sul combattimento e l’uso delle armi prendeva a piene mani da libri di tecniche militari e di arti marziali. I libro di Powell conteneva anche una serie di schemi, diagrammi e illustrazioni, anche questi presi pari pari da altri testi già esistenti. Le formule per la preparazione degli esplosivi, secondo l’FBI “non possono dirsi scorrette, ma non sono sempre complete e quindi potrebbero presentare rischi per chi provasse ad usarle.”
Anarchist Cookbook 2000
È stato grazie a internet che l’Anarchist Cookbook è diventato un classico della letteratura controculturale. Negli anni Novanta il testo è stato copiato e diffuso sotto forma di file di testo attraverso Usenet e poi è finito nei circuiti di file sharing nei primi anni Duemila. In questi ambienti è circolato con un titolo spesso deformato e per anni è stato attribuito a un autore anonimo o è circolato firmato con lo pseudonimo “Jolly Roger.”
Man mano che il testo si diffondeva su internet, iniziava anche la sua leggenda. Tra gli anni Novanta e Duemila non si contano gli articoli di giornale sul “libro che insegna a fare le bombe” o “la guida per i terroristi facilmente reperibile su internet.” E con la fama del libro arrivavano anche le copie e le versioni tarocche.
Intanto era già nato un vero e proprio filone fatto di opere spurie più o meno apertamente ispirate all’Anarchist Cookbook di Powell, scritte per accodarsi al suo successo. Come Rules for Radicals, un testo di teoria politica uscito negli anni Settanta che voleva fornire una guida alle comunità povere per ottenere potere politico, sociale, legale ed economico, con lo scopo di essere per la pratica politica quello che l’Anarchist Cookbook voleva essere per la guerriglia.
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Altri libri di questo genere erano vere e proprie copie, manuali che contenevano tecniche di ribellione e sovversione. Come The Big Book of Mischief (che su internet circolava anche come The Terrorist’s Handbook o The Complete Terrorist Today), Poor Man’s James Bond, Mujahideen Poisons Handbook, Minimanual of the Urban Guerrilla. E come il più celebre Anarchist Cookbook 2000, che a differenza dei precedenti si presentava proprio come una versione aggiornata dell’originale di Powell e veniva venduto su un sito apposito, Anarchist-cookbook.com, da un imprenditore inglese.
Tutte queste copie hanno fatto sì che negli anni il libro diventasse la cartina tornasole dell’attivismo politico sovversivo—tanto da venire bandito alla vendita in Australia, paese dov’è rimasto illegale fino al 2016. C’è da dire che queste preoccupazioni non erano del tutto infondate: negli anni il libro è stato spesso ritrovato in mano a estremisti di destra, terroristi o sospetti tali.
Un caso emblematico è quello di Ian e Nicky Davison, due neonazisti inglesi noti per essere i leader del gruppo terrorista Aryan Strike Force. I Davison sono stateti arrestati nel 2010 per aver fabbricato ricina, un potente veleno, e sono stati trovati in possesso di diverse copie dell’Anarchist Cookbook, che distribuivano ai loro seguaci.
Powell contro il suo libro
Mentre il libro si diffondeva e diventava a suo modo un classico, il suo autore cercava in tutti i modi di farlo sparire dalla circolazione. Cinque anni dopo la pubblicazione del libro, nel 1976, William Powell si era convertito alla fede anglicana e aveva disconosciuto la sua opera vergognandosi di averla scritta. Avrebbe voluto che l’Anarchist Cookbook venisse rimosso dalle librerie ma aveva scoperto di non essere il detentore del copyright—e così il testo era rimasto in stampa, passando da un editore all’altro man mano che le case editrici fallivano o i diritti venivano comprati e rivenduti.
Nel 2000—cioè subito dopo Columbine e forse nel periodo di massima diffusione e attenzione mediatica sul libro—Powell ha scritto una lettera aperta in cui lo rigettava pubblicamente, augurando che andasse “rapidamente e silenziosamente fuori catalogo.”
“Sotto molti aspetti, li libro era un prodotto della mia rabbia adolescenziale di fronte alla prospettiva di dover andare in Vietnam a combattere una guerra in cui non credevo,” spiegava. “L’idea centrale del libro è che la violenza è un mezzo accettabile per ottenere un cambiamento politico. Non sono più d’accordo con quest’idea.”
William Powell è morto d’infarto nel 2016. L’Anarchist Cookbook è ancora in vendita su Amazon—a 25 euro, spedizione con Prime.
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Bases and Baskets is a ranking of the best players in the NBA. I decided to expand the ranking from the usual top-10 players to a 30-player ranking. I didn’t quite agree with the ESPN rankings in some parts…but I do think that Lakers legend Kobe Bryant is no longer in this conversation. Here’s Part I, with players 21-30: The 2015 NBA season is finally underway! One of the classic columns that I’ve written each year since the beginning ofis a ranking of the best players in the NBA. I decided to expand the ranking from the usual top-10 players to a 30-player ranking. I didn’t quite agree with the ESPN rankings in some parts…but I do think that Lakers legend Kobe Bryant is no longer in this conversation. Here’s Part I, with players 21-30:
30. Derrick Rose
Derrick Rose still has a lot to prove coming off of his second injury in as many years. There’s no doubt that his upside is MVP-worthy, but he needs to show he isn’t the guy who put up bagels in the 2014 FIBA World Cup.
29. Lance Stephenson
Michael Jordan spoke very highly of Lance Stephenson and likes the way that the young guard competed last season with LeBron James. Nobody doubts that he can be a bit of a headcase at times, but his talent is clearly worth it. I’m on board with a 20-5-5 potential from Born Ready. He’s a poor man’s Russell Westbrook who competes on both ends of the floor.
28. Kawhi Leonard
The 2014 NBA Finals MVP has been declared the future of the San Antonio Spurs franchise. Tim Duncan and Manu Ginobili are (very) slowly fading—at least minutes-wise. Kawhi has proven to be a LeBron-stopper who can also score when called upon. As more responsibility is placed on his shoulders, there’s no reason to see he can’t climb up these rankings. I’m not yet sold on him as a franchise player.
27. Klay Thompson
As much as this summer was about LeBron James, Klay Thompson came in a firm second place. The Warriors ended up deciding the value of Thompson as a shooter, defender, and friend of Steph Curry outweighed Kevin Love’s superstar value. Klay has added new wrinkles to his game each season in the league, improving his defense and offensive play-making ability to add to his second-to-none shooting ability. Kobe Bryant spoke highly of the young shooting guard, saying Thompson “has the whole package.”
26. Goran Dragic
Dragic, a disciple of Steve Nash, showed last season that he could contribute and take on the leadership required of a franchise. The Phoenix Suns did not make the playoffs in 2014, but in a loaded Western Conference, that’s nothing to be ashamed of. Phoenix kept their core and will only get better behind their point guard(s), Dragic and Eric Bledsoe.
25. Serge Ibaka
The third-best player on his own team, Serge Ibaka is a beast on the interior. Unlike Kendrick Perkins, Ibaka is also an offensive threat and a Chris Bosh-lite. Although Ibaka isn’t a franchise player, there isn’t a team in the league that couldn’t use the talents of Ibaka.
24. Chris Bosh
Always a second- or third-wheel behind LeBron James and Dwyane Wade in his tenure in Miami, Chris Bosh will emerge as the go-to option in 2014-15 for the first time since his Toronto days. Bosh acknowledged on Monday that Chicago and Cleveland are ahead of Miami in terms of talent, but was also quick to point that they have the chance to be a very, very good team. I went so far as to predict a career year from Bosh, and nearly 50-40-90 numbers from him.
23. Al Jefferson
Al Jefferson has to take home the title of most underrated player in the NBA. He doesn’t have that ESPN-ready superstar highlight reel but his post-game is the most-polished in the game (aside from the aging Tim Duncan, who plays less minutes). Hopping from Minnesota to Utah to Charlotte doesn’t help that cause, but I’m expecting big things from the revamped Hornets.
22. Kyrie Irving
An incredible talent, Kyrie Irving will take a back seat in Cleveland for the first time in his NBA career. It will be interesting to see how the shoot-first point guard plays alongside two of the NBA’s greatest stars, LeBron James and Kevin Love.
21. Dwyane Wade
Like Chris Bosh, Dwyane Wade has taken a backseat with the acquisition of the now-departed LeBron James. I’m still a firm believer in what Wade has left in the tank even though his knees aren’t cooperating as he would like. He said he didn’t develop an outside shot this off-season which is worrisome, but he’s still just shy of a top-20 player in the NBA.
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Stay tuned for Part II! | {
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Last week, John Yoo, the Bush Administration lawyer who authored the infamous “torture memos,” which offered a legal rationale for waterboarding and other forms of prisoner abuse, leapt at what he saw as an opportunity to castigate Obama for worse behavior. Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Yoo, who now teaches law at the University of California at Berkeley, denounced Obama’s remote-controlled targeted killing of terror suspects by unmanned aerial drones as a far greater assault on human rights than anything he had ever facilitated.
“Rather than capture terrorists—which produces the most valuable intelligence on al Qaeda—Mr. Obama has relied almost exclusively on drone attacks, and he has thereby been able to dodge difficult questions over detention. But those deaths from the sky violate personal liberty far more than the waterboarding of three al Qaeda leaders ever did,” he wrote.
Yoo is not alone. Several people have argued that partisanship, not principle, is the only reason that members of the mainstream press haven’t treated the disclosure of a Justice Department white paper on the targeted killing of Americans, obtained by NBC, with the same outrage as it did the torture memos. Andrew C. McCarthy, writing on the National Review’s Web site, declared, “My, how the worm has turned.” He went on to assert, “The breathtaking hypocrisy of the Obama Democrats is what screams off the pages of the ‘white paper’ ” on drones. He ridiculed Obama’s attorney general, Eric Holder, for arguing previously that terror suspects should be tried, when possible, in the criminal-justice system while simultaneously supporting their death by drone. “Ah, but arbitrary power to kill citizens—now, that’s a different story,” McCarthy wrote.
At Reason, the libertarian outpost, Nick Gillespie suggested that liberals’ lesser outrage at Obama’s drones than Bush’s “enhanced interrogations” amounted to a kind of intellectual corruption. “This isn’t ultimately about ideological hypocrisy—of liberals changing their tune once their guy is in office—but something much more basic and much more disturbing. It reveals that for all their crowing about being watchdogs of all that is good and decent in society, when push comes to shove, too many journalists are ready and willing handmaidens to power—including the power to kill.”
Other observers of the press, such as David Carr in the New York Times, note that in fact the media coverage of the Obama Administration’s drone program has been pretty aggressive. The New Yorker has carried several stories about the subject. (I wrote about the subject in 2009, and my colleagues Dexter Filkins and Steve Coll have as well.) The New York Times reporter Scott Shane authored a groundbreaking account of the program recently that chronicled how a U.S. drone attack in Yemen unwittingly killed an anti-militant activist as he was trying to turn Al Qaeda–allied suspects away from terrorism.
Did Obama’s supporters cut him more slack than they would have Bush, had the same white paper emerged from his White House? Perhaps, but the liberal intelligentsia, too, has its share of critics of Obama’s drone program. In a piece in the Washington Post, for instance, Georgetown Law School professor David Cole recently raised what is perhaps the gravest concern: the President’s assertion of a secret, unchecked power to kill even Americans with no due process or public accountability. “There may be extraordinary occasions” when such killing is permissible, Cole conceded, but he argued that some sort of public accounting, at a very minimum, is required. “How can we be free if our government has the power to kill us in secret?” he asked. “How can a sovereign authority be accountable to the people if the sovereign can refuse to own up to its actions?” He argued that unchecked and unacknowledged lethal power is the stuff of forced disappearances in tyrannous banana republics, not great democracies.
There are some disturbing similarities between the Obama white paper and the Bush torture memos. Both use slippery legal language to parse dark government programs. Both have been deliberately hidden from public and even congressional oversight. And both involve the blurring of C.I.A. and military operations, and even include some of the same personnel. John Brennan, Obama’s nominee to direct the C.I.A., is a long-time veteran of the agency who, prior to joining the Obama Administration, served as chief of staff for former C.I.A. director George Tenet, under the Bush Administration during the depths of the torture scandal. Despite this, several human-rights experts have endorsed Brennan’s promotion, and Obama seems to respect him deeply. Whether that trust is well-placed remains to be seen; Brennan’s refusal, during his Senate confirmation hearings last week, to admit that waterboarding—the partial drowning of a prisoner—is a form of torture was a chilling display of institutional loyalty.
Clearly there are plenty of troubling questions surrounding the Obama Administration’s targeted-killing program. But, that said, are Obama’s drones comparable in terms of human-rights violations, to Bush’s Torture program?
Those who argue so miss an important distinction, one that David Cole also has brought up: torture under all our systems of law—including the laws of war—is illegal. This is true without exception, regardless of the circumstances, including national-security emergencies. Torture is also condemned by every major religion. Waterboarding was, and is, a form of torture. This has been established as far back as the Spanish Inquisition, and as recently as the Vietnam War. To argue otherwise is to legalize criminality. That was what the Bush Administration’s torture memos did.
More than that, John Yoo argued that under certain circumstances, the President isn’t bound by any laws—and that any form of force or cruelty could be justified if the President, as Commander-in-Chief, authorized it. Fundamentally, the Bush Administration viewed law as an inconvenience when national security was at stake.
Obama, in contrast, has tried to bring his counterterrorism program inside the law by reasserting the criminality of torture and by trying to define which drone strikes are legal. The Obama Administration’s lawyers’ attempt to define those boundaries in their white paper isn’t prima facie scandalous, because the Constitution authorizes lethal combat, unlike torture.
I see the common sense in John Yoo’s argument—that it’s better to be alive with no fingernails than dead. From the standpoint of the victim, he may be right that torture is preferable to death. But his argument glosses over the difference between killing that is authorized by the state—such as in self-defense in combat and police raids—and torture of a defenseless captive, which is always illegal. Not for the first time, he and the torture program’s defenders are blurring what has always been a bright line placing the cruel and inhuman treatment of prisoners inarguably outside the law.
Surprisingly, perhaps, to some, philosophers specializing in the theory of “just war,” such as Michael Walzer and Jeff McMahon, who joined me and Amy Davidson for an online chat about the ethics of drone warfare this week, see Obama’s use of drones as far less objectionable than Bush’s use of physical and psychological cruelty to interrogate detainees. Walzer, the author of “Just and Unjust War,” argued in Dissent that “targeted killing isn’t new” nor is it necessarily indefensible. It can, he pointed out, be an improvement over “untargeted” or “indiscriminate” killing, such as takes place in terrorist attacks. | {
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