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At the height of the 2014 war between the Israeli military and Palestinian factions in the Gaza Strip, the New York Times ran an article headlined, “Israel Says That Hamas Uses Civilian Shields, Reviving Debate.” It was an apparent reference to the hundreds of Palestinian civilians who had been killed in Israeli attacks by that point in the war. There was no question about who had killed them, yet the language shifted the subject to a “debate” about who was really responsible. A few weeks earlier, after an Israeli airstrike killed several Palestinian soccer fans, the Times ran the absurd title, “Missile at Beachside Gaza Cafe Finds Patrons Poised for World Cup,” later amending the headline in the face of widespread disgust expressed on social media. Headlines matter. As studies have repeatedly shown, when it comes to reaching the general public, the words at the top of the page might be as important, if not more, than the text of articles themselves — to the chagrin of many writers. In the case of the Israel-Palestine conflict, inappropriate, misleading, and biased headlines like those that appeared in the New York Times during 2014 Gaza War have been all too common. This is the conclusion of a new study titled “50 Years of Occupation” published by 416Labs, a research and data analytics firm based in Canada. The firm analyzed nearly 100,000 news headlines about the conflict in the American press over the past five decades and found that the Israeli point of view was featured much more prominently than the Palestinian one, and that references to Palestinians’ experiences of being “refugees” or living under “occupation” have steadily declined. “The findings demonstrate a persistent bias in coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian issue — one where Israeli narratives are privileged and where, despite the continued entrenchment of the occupation, the very topics germane to Palestinians’ day-to-day reality have disappeared,” Owais Zaheer, one of the study’s authors, told The Intercept. “It calls to attention the need to more critically evaluate the scope of coverage of the Israeli occupation and recognize that readers are getting, at best, a heavily filtered rendering of the issue.” The study, released this week, analyzed 50 years of news headlines on the Israel-Palestine conflict from five major American publications — the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal — employing Natural Language Processing, or NLP, techniques to analyze the massive database of headlines published over this period. NLP is a “Big Data” analysis approach used to identify statistical trends and patterns in large caches of text. In this case, the researchers analyzed nearly 100,000 headlines and identified dozens of frequently recurring terms and word sequences in stories about Israel-Palestine. While studies of media coverage on Israel-Palestine have been conducted before, the 416Labs analysis is the largest and most comprehensive look at headline coverage since the conflict began.
Words connoting violence, such as “terror,” appeared three times more than the word “occupation.”
The patterns identified seem to show a clear slant toward the Israeli perspective. Headlines like the one from the 2014 New York Times story about civilian deaths in Gaza — that used the term “Israel says” — were 2 1/2 times more likely to appear than headlines citing Palestinian equivalents. Headlines centering Israel were published four times more than those centering Palestinians, and words connoting violence, such as “terror,” appeared three times more than the word “occupation.” Since 1967, the year that the Israeli military took control of the West Bank, there has been an 85 percent overall decrease in mention of the term “occupation” in headlines about Israel, despite the fact that the Israeli military’s occupation of Palestinian territory has in fact intensified over this time. Mention of the term “Palestinian refugees,” meanwhile, has declined a stunning 93 percent. While subtle, a consistent disproportion in article headlines — which by default gives a greater airtime to one side or occludes certain key issues — can impact public perception. The study also found that media attention to the Israel-Palestine conflict in the United States has tended to peak during periods of heightened violence. In a sense, this dynamic reflects how international news is generally covered in the United States. The key difference, however, is that the U.S. government is a vital player in helping maintain the status quo in Israel-Palestine through its provision of massive military aid and diplomatic support to the Israeli government. Despite this ongoing American involvement, the total volume of U.S. media coverage about the conflict has been in overall decline since the time of the 1993 Oslo Peace Accords — a negotiated agreement between then-Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and then-Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin intended to establish conditions for peace in the region. That decline says little about conditions on the ground. The hopes briefly raised by the Oslo Accords effectively died in 1995 after an Israeli extremist assassinated Rabin, and a wave of terrorist attacks by the then-obscure militant group Hamas killed large numbers of Israeli civilians. Riding a wave of disillusionment, a new hard-line Israeli leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, took power in 1996. Since then, the Israeli military occupation of the West Bank has expanded, with new settlements eating away at the remaining areas of Palestinian control, even while global media attention has declined. Since taking office, the Trump administration has taken a hard line in favor of the Israeli government, slashing humanitarian aid to Palestinian refugees and unilaterally recognizing the city of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. These measures have been taken over the objections of Palestinian leaders, but also some senior Israeli military officials who have warned that they could destabilize the region. Peace talks between the Palestinians and Israelis meanwhile show no signs of reviving, despite repeated promises by Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner of an “ultimate deal” that will resolve the conflict. | {
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AP Photos Behind the Curtain: Obama's tax problem
President Obama faces huge, and probably insurmountable, obstacles to reviving a grand bargain — none higher and more difficult to overcome than his decision to increase taxes by $600 billion in December.
At the time, Obama claimed victory, slapping new taxes on the rich while protecting George W. Bush’s cuts for everyone else. In retrospect, it looks more like a missed opportunity than a political or policy triumph.
Instead, it now seems likely that $600 billion in tax increases is all the new revenue Obama gets. That’s a far cry from the $1.6 trillion he wants, or even the $1 trillion-plus many Republicans were discussing in previous grand bargain talks.
( Also on POLITICO: Key takeaways from dueling budgets)
Obama thought he would be able to stare down Republicans over the sequester, and get them to double the size of his tax increase to avoid heavy defense cuts. He was wrong. Once Republicans swallowed the $600 billion in hikes, they made plain they were done raising taxes for this Congress. And they really are done, Republicans say.
This is the biggest reason top Democrats and Republicans alike tell us talk of a grand bargain this time around is way overhyped — though, as our colleagues Jake Sherman and Carrie Budoff Brown wrote last week, Obama’s recent charm offensive shows he knows he now needs a sweeping deal more than ever.
“Nobody is even talking about a grand bargain,” one of the Senate’s most influential Democratic leadership aides told us. “It is not even on our radar right now.” An adviser to Speaker John Boehner told us that window was slammed shut by Obama’s hardball tactics since the tax hike. “He missed the chance.”
( Also on POLITICO: More from Behind the Curtain)
Another reason is the rancid relationship between Obama and Republicans on the Hill. House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), the third-ranking House Republican, told us about an exchange he had with Obama at Saturday night’s white-tie Gridiron dinner. During a break in the program, McCarthy saw an empty chair next to Obama and decided to seize the chance. Surprised Obama wasn’t working the room, and thinking the president really is a loner, McCarthy walked up to the head table. He found the president was reading his BlackBerry. (Another attendee said Obama was talking to Ken Burns, the documentarian, who was showing POTUS pictures of his family on his phone.)
“I’m waiting for my dinner invitation,” the Republican joshed to Obama, referring to the president’s recent evening out with Republican senators. “I listen to Paul,” Obama replied, according to McCarthy, referring to House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan. Then, in what McCarthy took as a reference to a political charm offensive, he recalled Obama saying, “You guys give us too much credit. We’re not doing all that stuff you think we are.” As told by McCarthy, Obama then said that if Republicans are going to get entitlement reform, “You need me.” As McCarthy walked away, the congressman thought: “He’s still a law professor. He’d rather lecture you and put a red mark on your paper than talk to you.”
Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) said he assumes Obama is sincere. “Republicans should be willing to engage,” Portman said. “There’s an understandable skepticism, because the president has been on the campaign trail since the election. But my conversations with him and his staff indicate that they are interested in finding a way forward. The worst that could happen is we find out they’re not sincere.”
The truth is Obama has lost some leverage — and needed a bunch of high-profile meetings with adversaries to swat away reports that he’s too stubborn and too political. But, in private, nothing has really changed.
As for the grand bargain, which could always happen if lightning strikes in these meetings and common ground emerges, the trade-off has always been simple and clear: Republicans swallow tax increases; Democrats swallow an equal amount of entitlement cuts.
Obama would have to persuade Republicans to vote for a tax increase for the second time in less than one year. Can you imagine Boehner and his troops heading into the 2014 midterm elections dominated by conservative activists having to explain, not one, but two increases? They ate $600 billion in defense cuts that a majority of Republicans wish they could undo rather than discuss even a tiny tax increase. Hard to see them budging now.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) says he can envision such a scenario if Democrats put specific entitlement cuts on the table. But, top House GOP officials tell us that is nuts. The prevailing view among House Republicans is that they have finally won the cuts they spent years fighting for and see little reason to tick off senior voters by cutting entitlements while also ticking off the base with new taxes. In truth, many Republicans aren’t very motivated themselves to start messing with entitlements if they don’t have to.
Top Democrats and Republicans sketched out for us what a deal would and could look like if relations were not so bad. It would go like this: Both sides would agree to keep the $1.2 trillion in total domestic spending cuts included in the sequester but reorder the programs that get hit and delay the biggest changes until the economy recovers in a year or two. Republicans would agree to raise new revenue through tax reform in exchange for an equal amount of entitlement cuts that do not begin until 2023 and beyond. Because neither side wants to take any chances right now, the number both sides could match would probably be $400 billion or so, give or take.
“The GOP has no chance at any of the entitlement reform they claim to want if they won’t compromise on revenues,” a White House official warned. “That’s the only deal available to them.” | {
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A 33-year-old man accused of cutting his girlfriend with a sword was covered in blood when police arrived at a house in Lincoln.
Just before 10 p.m. Tuesday, Lincoln police said, a 33-year-old woman called 911 and said her boyfriend had cut her inside a house near 19th and South Streets. Officers who responded found the man with one sword draped on him and another attached to his belt.
The officers told the man to put down the swords. He screamed for them to just shoot him, but he was taken into custody without incident, police said.
The man was taken to the hospital for treatment of a cut on his right hand and one on the back of his head. His father already had taken the woman to the hospital so she could be treated for an injury above her left eye.
The woman said the man and his friend had been drinking and got into an argument about the man swinging a sword inside the home. The men wrestled over the sword, police said, and the 33-year-old cut his hand during the struggle. Afterward, the friend gathered his belongings and left the home, police said. | {
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Ekspert: Sæt ind mod stress og sygefravær
I den helt anden ende af skalaen er der syv skoler, som kun har vikardækket eller opgivet at undervise i mellem 0 og 2,4 procent af de planlagte undervisningstimer.
Ifølge folkeskoleekspert og forskningschef ved VIA University College Andreas Rasch-Christensen skyldes de store udsving formentlig især to forhold.
Med folkeskolereformen fulgte krav om efteruddannelse og kompetenceløft af lærerne, og det kan føre til perioder med koncentreret lærerfravær på de enkelte skoler, mens de faste lærere dygtiggør sig.
Læs også : Tre svar på samme spørgsmål: Sådan kommer vi af med vikarer i folkeskolen
Men så er der også skoler, der har et højt sygefravær og mange stressramte lærere.
- På de skoler, hvor procenttallet er så højt som 20 procent, kan man godt antage, at der er lærere, som er sygdomsramte eller på anden vis ikke kan være til undervisningen. Der må man dykke ned i årsagerne og sætte ind med løsninger, siger Andreas Rasch-Christensen.
Han peger på en række konkrete greb som for eksempel mentorordninger, der hjælper nyuddannede lærere med at komme godt fra start, som nogle skoler har gjort brug af med succes.
- Og der, hvor man kan spore mistrivsel, sygdom og stress blandt lærerne, skal der selvfølgelig ses på de vilkår, de arbejder under, siger han.
Om undersøgelsen: • Der indgår tal fra 314 skoler, som ligger spredt ud over landet og er af varierende størrelse.
• Skolerne har registreret deres vikarforbrug hver dag i tre uger i april. Undersøgelsens varighed er fastsat for at udjævne daglige udsving – uden at skulle belaste skolerne med for meget ekstraarbejde.
• Ifølge ministeriet er der en statistisk usikkerhed på +/- 2-3 procentpoint.
• Det er første gang siden 2011, at ministeriet undersøger vikarbrugen. Det er dog svært at konkludere noget om udviklingen, da datagrundlaget ikke er helt sammenligneligt. I den tidligere undersøgelse blev 8,8 procent af timerne ikke gennemført som planlagt.Kilde: Undervisningsministeriet
Vil forhandle med KL
Undervisningsminister Merete Riisager medgiver, at der kan være gode grunde til, at der i en periode er mange vikartimer på en skole, fordi en stor del af lærerstaben er på kursus.
Men der bør ikke være vikartimer hver uge, understreger hun.
Ministeren har tidligere forhandlet med Kommunernes Landsforening om at få skolerne til at offentliggøre vikartal, og det spor vil hun gerne fortsætte nedad.
- Forældrene skal have mulighed for at få indsigt i, hvor stor en procentdel af timerne der afvikles som planlagt. For det er et kvalitetsparameter, og forældrene skal have mulighed for at tage sagen op med skolebestyrelsen og skoleledelsen, hvis de mener, at tallet er for højt, siger Merete Riisager.
Regionen med størst andel vikartimer • Region Hovedstaden har den største andel undervisningstimer, som ikke bliver gennemført som planlagt.
• Samtidig tegner regionen sig for den største andel af vikarer uden læreruddannelse eller andre relevante kvalifikationer.
• Her står de uuddannede vikarer for 8,1 procent af vikartimerne, mens gennemsnittet for resten af landet er 5,9 procent.Kilde: Undervisningsministeriet
KL: Vi skal udbrede de gode eksempler
Formand for børne- og ungeudvalget i Kommunernes Landsforening Thomas Gyldal Petersen (S) påpeger, at skolerne har vidt forskellige vilkår.
- Nogle steder er det meget svært at få uddannet, kvalificeret personale, og andre steder er det nemt. Og nogle skoler skal have rigtig mange lærere på efteruddannelse, mens andre ikke skal have ret mange af sted. Det betyder noget for vikarforbruget, siger han.
Derfor tror han ikke, at offentliggørelse af nøgletal alene er en løsning.
I stedet skal der ifølge Thomas Gyldal Petersen ses på, hvad man kan lære af de skoler og kommuner, der har det laveste vikarforbrug, og brede viden og gode metoder ud over hele landet. | {
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Controls (For Singleplayer and Multiplayer):
Left Mouse Button - Select player units.
- Select player units. Drag Left Mouse Button - Box select player units.
- Box select player units. Left Mouse Button Click on Minimap - Instantly pan Camera around.
- Instantly pan Camera around. Drag Left Mouse Button on Minimap - Move Camera.
- Move Camera. Mouse Cursor near Edges - Nudge Camera.
- Nudge Camera. Arrow Keys - Nudge Camera.
- Nudge Camera. Right Mouse Button - Move to Location.
- Move to Location. Right Mouse Button Click on Minimap - Move to Minimap Location.
- Move to Minimap Location. S - Split. Split into two units. Note that there's a cooldown of 10 seconds.
- Split. Split into two units. Note that there's a cooldown of 10 seconds. D - Merge. Merge any two units together.
- Merge. Merge any two units together. M (In-game only) - Enable/Disable Metrics Report.
(In-game only) - Enable/Disable Metrics Report. ` (Tilde) - Debug Console
- Debug Console T - Enable/Disable Tooltips (On by Default per Mode)
Units will attack automatically when it sees an enemy unit nearby within its line of sight.
Safety measure is included to prevent players from not being able to split to create more units.
Disclaimer:
As of October 23, 2015, the project has been rewritten from scratch to migrate to the new Unity Networking API (UNET), thus deprecating the old Unity Networking API. This means the old project is therefore discontinued and would not be favorable, since Unity 5 is continuously evolving.
Since this prototype was designed for network multiplayer RTS at the start of the development, it was intentionally designed so that no two players are using the same computer. If you are playing alone, you can open two webpages together. Please don't worry about Player 2 for now, and continue in the Start section below.
Unity Web Player does not support high DPI displays or dual monitors setup. But this may change for Unity 5.3 and up, now that it has support for dual monitors. At the moment, it is currently not supported.
As of March 6, 2016, Multiplier is now the official game title, because I'm not talented in coming up with creative names. If you happen to know what name to give, please contact me at any time.
Introduction:
Multiplier, a simplistic real time strategy game, is based on math equations. Given any math equations, your unit depends on the results of said equations, and you can play to see how well your units are.
In other words, the game is simplified into only cloning, merging, and killing. You create clones, you merge, and you kill the other players. Future plans may include cloning based on other simple math equations, such as the Fibonacci Sequence (1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, ...), or y = log(x), where x >= 1.
In this build, you are able to create your own math expressions. As of October 23, 2015, the following simple arithmetic equations are supported:
Addition (e.g., 1+3)
Subtraction (e.g., 10-6)
Multiplication (e.g., 2*13)
Division (e.g., 14/7)
Power (e.g., 3^4)
Random (e.g., 5+r)
Future math expressions may be supported.
Trello Scrum board can be found here. This shows the current progression and future plans of the project.
Start:
You may play against yourself, or have someone to join you on another computer. If you are playing with yourself, you must also do the Player 2 instructions.
Player 1 is the host of the game. Player 2 is the client of the game.
Player 1 instructions (Host):
Press "Enable Match Maker". In the input field, give your game session a name. For example, "default". Press "Create Internet Match". Wait for anyone to join. Game should start immediately afterwards.
Player 2 instructions (Client):
Press "Enable Match Maker". Press "Find Internet Match". Near the top, if the game has found an internet match, it will display, "Join Match: [Game Session Name]". Press any one of them to join the game. Do not press "Client Ready", until your game finishes initializing. The client will automatically take care of this for you. Both players' games are now ready, and you're all set.
Once both players are in the game, both players will start off with 1 unit each. Please continue to read Controls section for how to play.
Changelog:
Known Issue: Multiplayer Mode and Singleplayer Mode may have hidden bugs due to game engine rewrite.
Known Issue: TODO messages are scattered through the scenes. They are there to remind me of what to do, and will be removed once the scenes are completed..
- v0.5.2-unet:
All: Improved Tooltips by highlighting objects that the Tooltip is referring to.
All: Changed Tooltips hotkey to "T", so it doesn't conflict with typing "+".
- v0.5.1-unet:
SinglePlayer: Slightly changed menu labels when pressing Escape key during game session.
- v0.5-unet:
All: Changed all floor colors to dark green, so it stands out from the white background.
All: Changed selection box line color to a lighter green for more clarity.
All: Camera panning can now be controlled using the Arrow keys.
Singleplayer/Multiplayer: Added Taskbar depicting unit count and max unit count.
All: Replaced Metrics Logger with a more improved version to fix the weird Text UI component issue.
Singleplayer: Fixed hidden bug where Unit Attributes Editor not even once affect player's units at all. All attributes are now affected to its correct values from Unit Attributes Editor.
Singleplayer: Fixed Health Bar from showing up when Metrics Logger is shown.
Singleplayer: Fixed Metrics Logger not logging level difficulty and what equations were used.
Multiplayer: Fixed right clicking on Minimap issues Move Command to wrong location.
Multiplayer: Fixed Metrics Logger not showing up for server when client loses.
Multiplayer: Fixed client not starting to log total time when the game match ends.
Multiplayer: Fixed Tooltip from blocking view after the game match has started, and the player hasn't disable Tooltips yet.
- v0.4.5-unet:
Added tooltips for the confusing UI.
To toggle tooltips (show/hide), press SHIFT key.
- v0.4.4-unet:
Improved Tutorials.
Fixed aspect ratio being off. Resolved graphical issues.
- v0.4.3-unet:
Completed Tutorials.
Split Tutorials up into Sections for easier navigation.
- v0.4.2-unet:
Fixed leveling rates not appearing in Simulation Mode.
Added a few more lessons to the Tutorials.
- v0.4.1-unet:
Simulation now reflects upon game metrics correctly.
Now takes into account how many sessions in the simulation.
- v0.4-unet:
Polished the UIs further.
Added Simulation Mode. Have fun with it.
Fixed some bugs related to multiplayer not updating attributes correctly.
Added final touches to the multiplayer.
- v0.3-unet:
Polished the UIs. The menus are now consistent throughout the game.
Added Singleplayer Mode.
Rewritten Multiplayer Mode. Note that there may be hidden bugs I didn't find while rewriting Multiplayer Mode.
Now supports logging your statistics per game sessions.
Tutorial Mode is added.
Credits is added.
Resolved a game design issue where players are now able to prevent themselves from entering a deadlock situation of not able to create more units.
- v0.2.3-unet:
Attribute Presets are now available in single player mode.
Attributes Panel UI can now update and work as intended.
Added Increase/Decrease to Leveling Rates, allowing players to see relative difference between two levels.
Incomplete Attribute Panel changes for custom A.I. player.
Fixed issue where parsing negative numbers may result in error.
Temporarily turned off Camera Zooming for now.
- v0.2.2-unet:
Forgot to tweak the Singleplayer AI player. Now it's fixed.
- v0.2.1-unet:
Fixed some AI player unit logic.
- v0.2-unet:
Added primitive AI player into the game. You cannot modify the AI player yet.
Added singleplayer mode.
Added main menu.
Incomplete tutorial mode and credits.
Incomplete singleplayer UI.
Incomplete multiplayer UI.
- v0.1.1-unet:
Fixed selection box affecting minimap camera panning if dragged from playing field to minimap.
Fixed splitting/merging incorrectly assuming units were already finished splitting/merging, and are in idle state.
- v0.1-unet:
Added team colors.
Added minimap.
Added new unit attribute: Attack Cooldown.
Expanded map size.
Fleshed out camera panning using minimap.
Can now order units using minimap.
Can now connect with other players via internet.
Fixed issue with unit attributes not being consistent.
Fixed issue with GUI not syncing across the network.
Fixed issue with unit attributes not being affected by the math equations.
Fixed issue with GUI hotkeys where by pressing X to enter a math formula, you will disconnect.
Fixed math expression on parsing decimals.
Fixed math expression on parsing double parentheses.
Fixed units spazzing out when initiating splitting/merging across network.
Tweaked UI positions, so camera panning will not be affected when mouse is clicking on the UI.
- v0.01-rewritten:
Old prototype has been swapped out in favor of the new prototype.
Lack of polish to be found, because it's new.
Ability to use math expressions to give units their own attributes.
Units have now been changed to capsule-shaped.
Game rules have not changed.
- v0.07:
Fixed splitting not working in the tutorial.
Added health bar to the units in the tutorial.
Explained what the health bar does in the tutorial.
Combined "Attack" and "Move" together in the tutorial.
- v0.06a:
Hotfix: Mouse isn't getting focus.
- v0.06:
New Tutorial mode added in for new players to try and test.
- v0.05:
Added simple analytic data that will show up on the screen when the game session is over.
- v0.04:
Added ability for units to heal over time.
- v0.03:
Fixed splitting units creating glitchy split animation on the client side.
Streamlined merging and splitting for each units.
- v0.02:
Fixed merging may go out of sync. May introduce new bugs.
Fixed scaling issues related to scaling exponentially and not incrementally.
Tweaked selection so that players can now select units without any hassles.
- v0.01b:
Fixed being able to merge with other units of different levels.
Fixed a few bugs.
Added prototype number. Numbering scheme is as follows: [Game Build Type] - v[Big Release].[Small Release][Minor Fixes]
- v0.01a:
Fixed issue with inconsistent dividing behavior.
- v0.01-minus:
Reverted back to previous version due to some changes causing inconsistent behaviors.
- v0.01:
Fixed issue such that the player cannot see if their units are taking damage.
Decrease max health point.
Decrease spawning time
Credits:
Creator: Thompson Lee | {
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Morrissey has fractured his index finger after being attacked by a dog. As he squabbles with fans and searches for a new label, the noted vegetarian was apparently confronted by a canine critic – sending the singer to hospital. Thankfully, the incident will not interrupt his tour.
Here's what we know: some time since his appearance at last week's Hop Farm festival, Morrissey was attacked by a dog. It happened in England, according to his preferred online mouthpiece, True to You. "Morrissey has attended hospital in Malmo (Sweden) where x-rays reveal a fractured index finger on his right hand," according to the site. "The cracked bone is at the tip of the finger. The injury will not affect upcoming shows."
Unfortunately, the brief report raises almost as many questions as it does answers. What, er, happened? Was it Morrissey's dog or someone else's? Which hand did he hurt? Why didn't he go straight to a doctor in the UK? And if he had to wait, then why didn't he go to a Danish hospital? His gig last night was in Copenhagen, 25km from Malmo, and his tour doesn't roll into Sweden until Thursday.
While most of Morrissey's fans were suitably worried about their hero, his enemies at Morrissey-solo.com wallowed in schadenfreude. "Any truth in the rumour that the dog then spat him out complaining that he was old, stale, tasteless and way past his use-by date?" wrote one, er, "fan". Another snarked at the misfortune of the notorious animal rights activist. "Don't animals realise everything [Morrissey] has done for them? The ungrateful bastards."
Despite Morrissey's bit of bad news, there have been some happy tidings too. Tickets for his 8 August gig at the London Palladium reportedly sold out in five minutes. However, tickets are still available for the singer's 7 August concert at the O2 Academy in Brixton. | {
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Адміністрація п'ятого президента Петра Порошенка оплачувала послуги американських лобістів за рахунок внесків від компаній Юрія Косюка. П'ять агрокомпаній Косюка витратили на це 600 тисяч доларів у 2017-2018 роках, йдеться в матеріалі Kyiv Post.
У той час Косюк був позаштатним радником Порошенка, а його компанії отримували великі державні дотації.
Американська лобістська компанія BGR у 2017-2018 роках надавала послуги Національній раді реформ, яку заснував і головою якої був Порошенко.
Kyiv Post зазначає, що компанії Косюка профінансували лобізм не напряму. Вони зробили внесок на адресу громадської організації «Фонд підтримки реформ в Україні». Вона пов’язана з президентською Адміністрацією – цю організацію у 2015 році заснували дві юридичні фірми, в тому числі фірма Анни Бабич, цивільної дружини заступника голови президентської адміністрації Олексія Філатова.
Окрім грошей компаній Косюка, з моменту створення ця громадська організація отримувала гранти на підтримку реформ від посольств та західних донорів, у тому числі американських, на мільйони доларів.
У січні 2017 року громадська організація підписала контракт з BGR, замовивши лобістські послуги для Національної ради реформ при Адміністрації президента. Про це свідчать звіти BGR на сайті міністерства юстиції США.
За словами прес-служби агрохолдінгу «Миронівський Хлібопродукт», до якого входять зазначені агрокомпанії, ані ці компанії, ані сам Косюк не знали, що їхній внесок буде використаний на сплату лобістських послуг.
«Фінансова допомога надавалася виключно з метою досягнення мети діяльності Громадської спілки, а саме сприяння розвитку України та підтримки у розробці та впровадженні реформ в Україні, – відповіла прес-служба «МХП. – Рішення про надання фінансової допомоги приймається самостійно кожною компанією».
Журналісти перераховують п’ять компаній Косюка, які зробили внесок, за рахунок якого сплатили послуги американських лобістів BGR: ПРАТ «Зернопродукт МХП», ТOВ «Урожайна Країна», ТOВ «Вінницька Птахофабрика», «Миронівська Птахофабрика», «НВФ Урожай».
Як відзначає Kyiv Post, компанія BGR публікувала на сайті міністерства юстиції США звіти про свою роботу для Національної ради реформ у 2017-2018 роках. Лобісти звітували про контакти з більш ніж 150 американськими чиновниками, журналістами, дипломатами, та аналітиками.
Зі звіту невідомо, які саме теми просували лобісти, але деякі їхні активності вказують на те, що компанія могла лобіювати надання Україні протитанкових ракет Джавелін. Найчастіше – 29 разів – лобісти контактували з помічником сенатора-республіканця Роба Портмана. Цей сенатор активно підтримував виділення військової допомоги Україні, зокрема ракет Джавелін. Він також подавав поправку до закону, яка розширила спектр військової допомоги США Україні. Її схвалили наприкінці 2017 року.
Окрім того, компанія, яка виробляє Джавеліни – Raytheon Co. – також є клієнтом лобістської компанії BGR. За останні 10 років Raytheon Co. сплатила BGR 1,6 мільйона доларів.
Одним із співробітників BGR є Курт Волкер, який донедавна був спецпредставником Госдепу США у справах України. Це стало приводом для видання Politico вказати на можливий конфлікт інтересів, адже Волкер підтримував надання Джавелінів Україні.
Компанія BGR повідомила Kyiv Post, що Волкер не був залучений у лобізм для українських клієнтів, коли працював спецпредставником у справах України.
BGR припинила працювати для Національної ради реформ в середині 2018 року.
За словами прес-служби Офіса президента, зараз Національна рада реформ не функціонує, але Офіс планує її перезавантажити.
Юрій Косюк – радник п'ятого президента України, колишній перший заступник голови Адміністрації президента України і восьмий найбагатший українець відповідно до рейтингу «топ-100» видання «Новое время».
Раніше журналісти програми «Схеми» розповідали, що найбільшу державну підтримку аграріїв у 2018 році, а це близько 970 мільйонів гривень, отримали компанії, пов’язані з Юрієм Косюком – власником «Миронівського хлібопродукту» (бренд «Наша Ряба»). Це чверть від усієї торішньої агродопомоги, яка загалом становила близько 4 мільярдів гривень, за інформацією Мінагрополітики. Журналісти зафіксували, як у Міністерстві аграрної політики робили особливі привілеї компанії Косюка, тоді як іншим підприємствам необґрунтовано відмовляли у наданні дотацій. | {
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Ari spent a few years as the herald of Dukos, the star-eating cosmic squid, before becoming a high school history teacher. Now that he has been inducted into the cabal of Magic creative writers, his parents are finally proud of him.
Art by Chase Stone
At night, the darkness of the prison was complete. It draped itself across the stone walls, and seeped into the prisoners’ ragged clothes, an inky stain that did not wash out completely in what pale daylight managed to penetrate the prison’s interior through the narrow shafts high in the walls. When the wind stopped outside, the still darkness had weight under which many prisoners cracked.
But that’s not what gnawed at Kytheon, a thirteen-year-old thief, spending his first night in the darkness. He was stuck on a particular fact that had risen to the top of a heap of information thrown at him earlier about the prison’s routines, rules, and the general order of things. It was something he had heard from Drasus, a friend of his from the Foreigners’ Quarter, and now a fellow prisoner: “Hixus is the warden, but it’s Ristos who runs this place.”
Kytheon must have made a face when presented with this detail. “Try to understand,” Drasus had warned, “Ristos is not like the thugs that the Irregulars threw out of the Quarter. He sees himself as a king. He’s a monster. That’s why he’s in here.”
“We’re in here,” Kytheon had countered.
“You’re in here because you make a poor thief, who was caught for stealing rotten vegetables and a handful of coins. I’m in here for brawling. We’re not killers. So just watch out is all I’m saying.” Drasus had shrugged as though nothing could be done.
Art by Zack Stella
Drasus was three years older than Kytheon, and hot-tempered. He’d been taken to prison more than a season prior, and seeing him was a welcome reunion, though Kytheon hadn’t liked what he had seen in that shrug. He’d tried a different approach.
“You’re one of my Irregulars, Drasus. This Ristos should be the one to watch out for us.”
“You say that now, but he’s bigger than the thugs on the outside. I’m telling you, he’s king.” At that, Drasus had walked away before Kytheon could argue.
There were always people trying to muscle their way into the Foreigners’ Quarter to set up their networks of thievery, smuggling, and intimidation—brutes like Anthedes of the Bloodied Axe, or connivers like Krevarios the Venomous. Kytheon could recognize a bully—he’d spent most of his life dealing with them in some form—and he couldn’t wait to meet Ristos.
At dawn, the new prisoners were bound together by lengths of iron chain and marched through labyrinthine corridors of rough-hewn stone. Kytheon counted six other prisoners, two of whom looked like they’d been through this before. A guard opened a heavy wooden door and the prisoners were led into a cavernous chamber where scores of native prisoners appeared to be laboring.
The air in the chamber was stale, like Kytheon’s cell, but unlike his cell, it was tinged with the scent of mildew. In the center of the chamber, a round shaft, twenty feet across, was cut into the floor. A matching shaft disappeared into the ceiling, and between them, a dozen cables carried huge barrels in both directions.
“Welcome to the Waterfall of Akros,” bellowed a crooked-backed guard, “where the water flows up.” He laughed at his own joke, one that Kytheon did not understand but had a feeling he soon would.
The other guards corralled Kytheon and the new prisoners to an enormous six-spoked crank that was being driven by prisoners who stood six abreast at each spoke, turning it in great circles around a massive oak axle.
“First group! Take a rest!” a guard said. The prisoners pushing one of the crank’s spokes peeled off, massaging their aching muscles or wiping the sweat that burned their eyes.
Kytheon felt a shove at his back, and he took his position at the crank beside the other new prisoners. The wooden beam felt smooth beneath his hands, where countless hands had pushed against the constant resistance of endless barrels of water being hoisted from the river in the valley below to the polis of Akros perched on the cliff above. This was what prison meant. Labor and captivity. He was to be a beast of burden. It was not unlike Akroan hoplite training, Kytheon reflected, smiling to himself. Making the body like marble, they called it—a daily regimen of running and hauling heavy objects. But that was when he was to be a soldier. When he was a kid. That was before he was expelled from the army, before he was an Irregular, before he was a thief, and before he was a prisoner.
Art by Willian Murai
His shoulders and calves burned as he worked the crank. He tried to keep the pain at bay by focusing on a single barrel, following its journey from when it appeared out of the floor until it disappeared into the ceiling. He wasn’t counting them, just watching them, willing himself to follow just one more, and one more after that. There was always another one.
In the gap between two ascending barrels, Kytheon observed a handful of prisoners repairing damaged barrels. They were at work, hammering new iron rings into place with wooden mallets. These prisoners looked healthier, filled out—well fed.
And then finally, “First group! Water!”
Kytheon didn’t remember hearing the other groups get called, but who was he to argue. Legs wobbling without the wooden beam for support, he made his way to a corner of the chamber where bits of masonry were strewn about as makeshift chairs.
Old and broken prisoners filled cracked clay cups with water from a barrel, offering them to the prisoners from the first group along with a heel of stale bread. Meager food was nothing new to Kytheon. The Foreigners’ Quarter of Akros was not known for its opulence or abundance, and there were many days that he, Drasus, Little Olexo, Epikos, and Zenon had to content themselves with such meals.
When he bit into the hard bread, the texture of granulated crumbs was familiar. He found a chunk of masonry and slumped against it. Its cold surface was a welcome relief that he meant to compliment with a mouthful of water. He lifted his cup to his lips, and tipped the water into his mouth, letting the cold liquid slosh around.
“Tribute!” said a rasping voice that interrupted Kytheon’s moment of contentment. The voice belonged to a stout man, barely taller than Kytheon was, who walked among the gathered prisoners of the first group.
Kytheon watched as all of the prisoners the man walked by dropped half their bread, without protest, into a sack he held out to them. Kytheon swallowed the water he had been savoring. Ristos?
The man came closer. He was bare from the waist up, his torso covered in thick, dark hair, save for the scattered raw streaks of puffed scars.
“Tribute!” the man said again, stopping in front of Kytheon.
“Yeah, okay. Whatcha got?”
The man made a noise that was somewhere between grunt and chuckle. “My knee against your throat if you carry on like that, boy. The king demands tribute.”
“King? You Ristos?”
The man didn’t answer. Kytheon looked past him to where the barrels were being repaired. A large man, broad at the shoulders, met the young prisoner’s stare with his own. He had a face wreathed in a mane of coal-grey hair.
“Nah, you couldn’t be Ristos,” said Kytheon, returning his attention to the man in front of him. “I was told I’d be scared of Ristos.”
“You should be,” the thug said through gritted teeth. He tossed his sack of extorted bread aside, but before it hit the ground, Kytheon shoved himself off the chunk of stone and drove his foot into the other man’s shin.
There was a roar of agony as the thug reeled back. In an instant, Kytheon was on his feet, launching a flurry of jabs at the other man’s face. He danced out of range of the counterattack, forcing the thug to overextend and expose himself to another barrage of fists.
Kytheon smiled. A surge of energy welled in him, and he forgot about his sore muscles and grumbling belly. This was his element—the fight.
Art by Eric Deschamps
Ristos’s thug was a seasoned brawler, Kytheon could tell from his experience scrapping with Drasus. This guy was sack of meat who could take a hit, but he was predictable and, like all of the thugs Kytheon had fought in the alleyways of Akros, this one was a talker.
“I’m going to drink wine outta your skull!” he threatened.
Another haymaker, followed by another of Kytheon’s dodges, and another sequence of his punches that connected with ribs and jaw.
Keep babbling, Kytheon thought as he circled around his opponent. For Kytheon, fighting was reflexive—intuitive, instinctive. As a child, he discovered that it was also the source of his magic.
The other prisoners watched them fight, but made no moves to intervene. Kytheon stole a moment to scan the gathered prisoners for Ristos, who he saw had moved in closer and was still watching.
Then all at once, the edge of Kytheon’s vision exploded.
He’d underestimated the thug’s speed. He found himself on the ground, looking up at the other man who was already on top of him, raining down punches. The first few connected. One caught Kytheon on the nose with a sickening crunch and caused another explosion in his vision.
He had to regroup. He had to focus.
The man’s fist rose, but before it fell again, the surface of Kytheon’s skin flared up with countless bands of light that rippled with energy.
The fist came down. When it struck Kytheon below the eye, he felt no pain. Instead he was filled with a burst of energy that he threw into a punch of his own, connecting with the man’s jaw, which cracked under the force. The action was punctuated by the man’s yelp as he tumbled off of Kytheon.
The boy rose to his feet, bands of light still rippling across his body.
The chamber was silent except for the moaning of the thug who lay in a heap cradling his splintered jaw.
Blood ran from Kytheon’s nose, down his chin, and onto his rough-spun garb. He spat a glob of red onto the stone, reached into the abandoned sack of bread, and withdrew a piece. All eyes were on him, but Kytheon just stared at Ristos and proceeded to tear off a chunk of bread with his teeth.
Ristos made a motion, and half a dozen prisoners emerged from the rest, surrounding Kytheon.
The boy wiped the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand, smearing it across his cheek. He looked each of Ristos’s thugs in the eye, turned back to their boss, and grinned.
It wasn’t long before guards pushed their way through the throngs of prisoners, but Kytheon didn’t need long. By the time the guards arrived, they found Kytheon, bloody-faced and bloody-fisted, pummeling the last of Ristos’s men.
When the thirteen-year-old kid saw the guards descending on him, he slumped to the floor, spent, exhausted, and utterly satisfied.
Kytheon stood before the warden, bound in iron at the wrists, a pleased smile stretched across his face. Hixus waved his hand, and the two guards who had escorted the young prisoner turned and left Kytheon and the warden alone.
Art by Chris Rallis
Hixus leaned casually against a wooden table that was littered with various piles of documents. The warden was broad at the shoulders and he wore a breastplate with the ease of a seasoned soldier. He stared at Kytheon, seemingly studying his face. After a moment, he ran his fingers through his thick, grey beard and spoke, “You’ve been here for less than two days.” He took a deep breath. “Two days of a ten-year sentence. A brawl in the waterworks, seven prisoners in the infirmary, and a riot…all on your account.”
To Kytheon’s ears, it sounded like a list of accomplishments.
“Ah yes,” Hixus added, “and I am told that you attempted escape as you were being transported here yesterday.”
“Can you blame me?”
“Is there someone else?”
Kytheon didn’t answer.
“For my own curiosity,” the warden went on, “had your escape worked, were you not afraid of what would happen to you once you were apprehended again?”
“I can take it. Besides, you haven’t spent much time in the Foreigners’ Quarter have you? If I made there, the Irregulars would protect me. You’d never get me again.”
It was the warden’s turn to smile. “Ah, the Irregulars. Protectors of the Quarter. Kytheon’s Irregulars.”
Art by Mark Winters
“Yep.”
“Quite a loyal following. And many of them end up spending time here. Your friend, Drasus, is a current representative of the Irregulars in here, isn’t he? Now you as well. You know, there are quite a few prisoners in here who have words and more for you and your Irregulars, yet it seems you insist on making more enemies.”
“Ristos?” Kytheon couldn’t help but laugh. “My mother called people like him weak because their strength comes from how others see them. 'Strength comes from action,' she said. Ristos is weak. I saw it right away. Now everyone else here knows it too.”
The Warden chuckled. “I see. In that case, it shouldn’t surprise you that he is with his men in the infirmary.”
“I never touched him.”
“It’s like you said, though. His strength evaporated the moment a kid took down his men in front of the other prisoners and he fled for safety. When you were locked away last night, a riot erupted—started by Drasus, mind you. They’d had enough of Ristos and let him know it. Not everyone has your gift to shrug off attacks.”
“He had it coming.”
“Perhaps. He is a brute, that much is true. But some things have value beyond their surface appearance. Bad as he was, he helped maintain order.” The warden threw his hands up. “Now what do I do?”
“I can’t tell you how to do your job, Warden.”
“No you can’t. But maybe you can help me. Are you my next Ristos?”
“I’m better than Ristos.”
“Are you? Prove it.”
“Prove it? He’s in the infirmary, and I barely have a scratch.”
“And what now? Will you take his place? Replacing him doesn’t make you better. It makes you the same.”
“We’ll never know. I don’t plan on staying.”
With a movement so quick that it startled Kytheon, Hixus took the heavy ring of keys that hung from his belt, and dropped them on the table. Iron clattered on wood, and before the sound faded, Hixus had a dagger in his hand. Kytheon took a step back, raised his fists defensively, and light erupted over his body in frenetic ripples.
“Do not feel threatened,” said Hixus. "By all accounts, trying to harm you physically would be fruitless." He flipped the dagger deftly in his hand so that he gripped the blade, and he offered it to Kytheon. “Take it.”
Kytheon hesitated only for a moment. His fingers closed around the hilt.
“I offer you your freedom,” the warden said. “All you have to do is take the keys, and escape is yours.”
“You’d just let me out of here?”
“No. You’ll have to kill me for the keys. And if the rumors of your fighting skill are true, I don’t stand much of a chance.”
Pride swelled in Kytheon. He always liked to fight. He was good at it.
Kytheon pointed the dagger at the warden for a long moment. Neither averted his gaze from the other.
“I’m not going to kill you,” Kytheon finally said. He dropped his arm to his side, letting the dagger clatter to the floor.
“Because you’re not a murderer. You’re not a Ristos.”
“Sorry to disappoint you.”
“On the contrary, I am encouraged by this outcome. It is what I was hoping for. It is what I believed to be true. You are here, a thief, condemned for stealing. But what you stole was food, to help feed your friends and their families. You do what you think is right.”
Kytheon stared down at the chain that hung between his ankles. “What do you want from me?”
“From most of my prisoners, I want serenity and obedience. From you? I want you to accept my offer. I want to train you, Kytheon.”
Though Kytheon hadn’t agreed to the training, his protest has been largely ignored. He was roused before the sun the next morning and dragged out to the prison’s modest gymnasium. It was a round patch of packed earth surrounded by high walls. Hixus was standing in the center of the arena-like circle. He tossed his ring of keys to the dirt.
“I’m still not going to kill you,” Kytheon said.
“I hope not,” said the warden. “Just come get them.” The corner of his mouth curled into a smirk. “Succeed, and they’re yours.”
Kytheon charged.
Hours later, Kytheon lamented, he had gained no ground. Each of his charges were abbreviated by chains of brilliant white energy that erupted from the ground to shackle his limbs, or by lashes of luminescent magic that pushed his limbs just enough to interrupt his gait and send him tumbling to the dirt. There could be no progress. The keys were infinitely far from his grasp, and with each fruitless exertion, they edged even farther away.
Art by Chris Rallis
Then without a word, Hixus scooped up the keys and left the gymnasium. Kytheon dropped to his knees in the dirt, frustrated and full of spite.
The days that followed unfolded much like the first: Hixus offered the keys, Kytheon attempted to retrieve them, but failed, Hixus left with the keys, and Kytheon seethed at the cruel game.
One gray morning after a punishing storm, Kytheon struggled to rise from the muddy mire that had become the gymnasium ground for what felt like the hundredth time. When his strength failed, he collapsed back into the muck.
Red-eyed, he yelled at the warden, “I can’t do it!”
“Why is that? Are you not brave enough?”
Kytheon turned away.
Hixus continued, “Are you not strong enough? Or fast enough?”
The warden stood over Kytheon, looking down at the boy who returned his gaze with eyes that were filling with tears and contempt.
“It’s not me! It’s you! You won’t let me even get close,” said Kytheon.
At that, Hixus knelt in the mud beside him. “Now you understand.”
It was common to call hieromancy “law magic,” but Hixus said that this was an oversimplification. “Laws are created by people, and laws can change, but laws are created in reaction to specific behaviors. A person steals, and laws are put in place to prevent more theft. This is the starting point for hieromancy as a practice.”
“Every action has a response that can counter it,” Hixus went on. “A master of hieromancy can adapt to any scenario, and turn it to his advantage. Victory in any contest will go to the one who has control of the situation.”
Half a dozen escape attempts later, Kytheon took to his training. It complimented his natural talent for reading others in combat, intuiting their position and body language to understand what they would do next. Hieromancy gave Kytheon a tool to disrupt opponents and press his advantage.
Every morning, Kytheon the student was awakened before dawn to join Hixus in the gymnasium, and every afternoon, the irons that bound his wrists were replaced and Kytheon the prisoner rejoined the others at the Waterfall of Akros. He benefited from both activities. Hieromancy strengthened his mind, and turning the great crank strengthened his body.
Art by Chris Rallis
He fell into a rhythm and for four years he relied on the structure to carry him through his days. Until one morning his rhythm was interrupted.
Kytheon’s eyes flew open at the piercing sound of a shrill shriek. He bolted up, alert. It was later than usual, he could tell. Where were the guards?
More shrieks sounded, gathering together as a rising, terrible chorus.
Harpies. He didn’t know how he knew, but he did know. Though he had never encountered one, Kytheon knew them from stories—winged horrors that feasted on the dead and carried off children.
He sprang to his feet and strained to look out his window. The harpies were approaching from up river. Their relentless shrieks were answered by the deep clanging of bells, calling soldiers to their posts on the walls of the Kolophon, the mighty Akroan fortress. The panicked scrambling above meant that no stratian or oromai rider arrived with warning.
Kytheon watched through his narrow slit of a window as the horde descended on the fortress like flies on a ripe corpse. The harpies were endless, and he couldn’t shift his gaze from the black cloud of feathers and talons and hunger.
Through the terrible noise, Kytheon heard a pounding at his cell door. He saw Hixus’s face in the door’s barred window.
“The polis is under attack,” said Hixus.
“Harpies.”
“In unprecedented numbers.”
The bolt in the door clicked, and the door swung open. The warden filled the doorframe. He had donned his full armor—his bronze-plated breastplate, matching greaves, and metal-crested helm. He gripped his unsheathed sword in one hand and held a rough sack slung over his shoulder in the other.
“Do you want to earn your freedom?” said Hixus, tossing the sack at Kytheon’s feet.
Kytheon raised an eyebrow. He knelt and reached into the sack, and when he withdrew his hand, it was wrapped around the hilt of a sheathed Akroan sword. The other contents completed the armaments of a hoplite: breastplate, greaves, and round shield. Kytheon grinned.
A short while later, Kytheon found himself, armed and armored, in the prison’s cavernous waterworks, among a little under half of the prisoners. Warden Hixus stood atop a chunk of masonry and addressed the gathered criminals.
“As you know, a host of harpies attacks the polis ahead of any scouts. We do not know why, and that does not matter. I have been given orders to open my cells and offer freedom to those who fight to defend the polis. You here are the willing ones. Despite what has come before, Akros is your polis. What you do today will shape its future, and your place in it. If you die in battle, then it will be among heroes. Earn this!”
Kytheon and Hixus sprinted from the Archway of Champions to the bright sands of the arena at the head of the militia of prisoners. At their approach, harpies scattered into the air from the corpses of the Akroan guards upon which they feasted before wheeling around to attack what they saw as fresh meat.
So many, thought Kytheon.
The winged creatures wheeled above the polis, a swirling, ravenous mass…then fell upon the prisoners.
Prisoners scattered, fending off what they could. A harpy dived into Kytheon, who had only enough time to lift his shield to deflect its weight. The harpy grabbed hold of the rim of the shield with its talons, but Kytheon leaned into it, managing to pin the monster beneath the shield. Its dark eyes made it seem almost human until it parted its leathery lips to reveal pointed teeth meant for piercing human flesh. The harpy shrieked, trying to wriggle free, but fell silent when Kytheon thrust his sword into its neck.
Another harpy crashed into Kytheon’s back before he could withdraw his blade. Talons sunk deep into the muscle of his left arm. Kytheon gritted his teeth and dropped his weight to his right to roll away from the new attacker, bringing his shield around to catch the harpy in its ribs, forcing it to retreat.
He braced for a counterattack.
The harpy circled Kytheon and crouched low, using its arms as support. Kytheon circled with it. The harpy stood upright, lifted its black-feathered wings, and screeched.
Kytheon lunged at it.
With a downward stroke of its wings, the harpy leapt into the air to avoid the attack while another harpy barreled into Kytheon. Harpy and Akroan tumbled to the sand of the arena.
More harpies descended on Kytheon, vultures converging to pick his bones clean.
Filed teeth slid into the flesh of his upper arm.
Kytheon yelled out in pain, but the yell turned into a roar. He wrapped both arms around the harpy gnawing at his flesh, and pinned it to him. Using it as a shield against the others, he rolled free. He cast the harpy aside and scrambled to his feet. He had bought himself a moment.
Before the harpy could find its feet, Kytheon summoned forth from the ground a set of brilliant white chains to bind the monster.
Art by Igor Kieryluk
More enemies swarmed from all directions. Everything around him was a blur of black feathers, and all sound was drowned out by the shrill screeches of the harpies.
A sudden burst of white energy erupted in the sky above the arena, sending out waves in concentric rings. It passed through the mass of harpies. They began to fly erratically, colliding with one another.
Hixus. Kytheon found his mentor on the steps at the base of Iroas’s column in the center of the arena. His eyes glowed an intense white as he channeled energy into the sky.
Where the disoriented harpies crashed to the sand, Kytheon called forth glowing, white chains to bind them.
“That won’t hold them forever,” boomed Hixus, his voice infused with magic that allowed his words to be heard above the harpies. “Form up around the column in the center. Put your backs to it, shield to shield!”
Kytheon scooped up his sword and bolted for Hixus, where the surviving prisoners were already ranking up in a ring around the column. They locked their shields, with swords and spears jutting out. They became a single entity, a phalanx in the Temple of Triumph, standing against a host of enemies.
Many harpies fell, and more turned away.
Kytheon raised his sword in salute. “Hoplites of the Broken Chains!” he declared, and was answered with a collective, rising roar.
The respite faded as quickly as it had begun. “Cyclops!” came a cry from the wall of the Kolophon.
“And another!” called a second voice.
“Here too!”
Kytheon turned to Hixus, “Warden, the walls!”
Above the arena, the harpies were regrouping. Scores flew off for the walls in search of easier prey.
“Undefendable if the harpies get to the guards,” said the warden, “and perhaps futile if the cyclopes number more than a few.”
“Allow me to rally the Irregulars. If you can keep the harpies off us, we can keep the cyclopes off the walls.”
Kytheon felt the weight of Hixus’s gaze. He met it, expecting a lesson, even in the middle of all this, but his mentor simply nodded.
A moment later, Kytheon was making his way along the top of the wall that surrounded the polis. Harpies passed him by as they converged on the Temple of Triumph. When he turned to follow their course, he saw a bright, white helix reaching skyward. Glowing pulses surged up the winding, parallel strands, and Kytheon understood.
The harpies were drawn toward the source, and they converged once again on the Temple of Triumph. He didn’t know how long the warden and the others would be able to hold out, but if they didn’t buy him enough time to deal with the cyclopes, the polis would be lost.
He ran flat out, passing sporadic clumps of soldiers battling cyclopes. Each blow against the walls reverberated throughout the polis, echoing of marble and stone.
Finally, he arrived at the Foreigners’ Quarter, where the old wall turned inward, marking the polis’s original boundaries. The wall had been extended to include the Foreigners’ Quarter, but it was neither as tall, nor as formidable here. From where he stood, he could see three of the lumbering cyclopes barreling toward the wall. Left alone, they would bring it down.
From the old wall, Kytheon dropped down onto Stone Pike, a raised walkway built into the wall that allowed quick access around the Quarter. As he ran, he was greeted by the familiar pungent odors of the Quarter. Below him were familiar streets he knew and loved, streets that he hadn’t seen since he was pulled from them by Akroan guards. He had been gone for four years. He had been gone when the attack came. But now he was here. He was home.
Kytheon followed Stone Pike to the Quarter’s fortified gatehouse, the point at which non-Akroans first entered the polis. As he approached, he saw a man directing people who carried enormous beams meant to reinforce the gate. Kytheon laughed out loud. He knew the man, an Irregular named Zenon, a Setessan who always insisted on placing wagers on any form of contest. His hair had grown shaggy, but he wore the same green cloak he’d brought from the woodland polis years ago when he first came to Akros. Kytheon called down to his friend.
“I didn’t believe it when they told me the prisoners were released,” said Zenon.
“How much did you bet I’d still be alive?”
“Who says I bet you’d be alive? Besides, it isn’t time to collect yet.” His mouth parted in a grin that would have come across a cruel had Kytheon not known him. “Now then, in case it got by you, a handful of cyclopes want into the polis. Give us a hand?”
Kytheon climbed down to the street to help bear one of the beams. The wall behind them boomed then groaned as a cyclops threw its weight into it.
“It’s going to come down!” shouted Zenon.
Kytheon turned to his friend. “Then we must open the gate.”
“What?” Zenon gave him a look.
“Trust me,” Kytheon said, running toward the gate. He understood Zenon’s hesitation; only a few years ago his face would have held the same baffled expression, or more likely he would have charged at the straining wall without so much as a thought. But, this was not a few years ago. Adapt, turn the situation to my advantage, ensure victory.
Kytheon confidently threw his weight into one of the beams that was holding the gate shut.
The great wooden gates moaned as their hinges gave to the power of the cranks that drove them. The sound did not go unnoticed. As Kytheon hoped, the cyclopes diverted their attention to the opening in the wall, and they rushed toward it. Kytheon and a handful of the Irregulars marched through the gateway and on to the causeway.
“Seal it!” called Drasus to the soldiers at the gatehouse.
The first cyclops came charging down the causeway as the gates began to creak closed. It was a thing of raw anger and unrelenting hunger, its single eye fixed on the gate behind the Irregulars. It had a disproportionately large mouth that frothed as it ran, sending globules of foamy saliva in all directions. This was a mouth that could swallow a person whole.
Art by Raymond Swanland
The Irregulars formed up to take the charge, spears braced, with Kytheon at the apex of the formation. As the cyclops lifted one of its enormous arms to backhand the nuisance aside, Kytheon conjured lengths of chain forged from magic from the ground and bound its wrists.
“Ready now, Irregulars!” said Kytheon.
The cyclops strained against the fetter, but more chains followed. Enraged, the cyclops lurched forward in an attempt to break free. Kytheon ceased the spell, and the monster’s momentum sent it stumbling at the defenders. The Irregulars met its momentum head on, letting its weight drive it onto half a dozen spears. The cyclops let out a bellow that faded into a gurgle as blood bubbled up in its throat, before it collapsed on the causeway between Kytheon and the Irregulars.
Before Kytheon could rejoin his comrades, the second cyclops was upon him. Zenon the Setessan tossed his spear to Kytheon, who caught it in time to sidestep out of the cyclops’s reach. Kytheon whirled, planted his feet, and drove the spear into the side of the brute’s leg. The spear’s tip tore through muscle before emerging out the other side.
The cyclops tried to swat at Kytheon. It took a step to pivot. As it brought its other leg around, it caught the shaft of the spear, and it went crashing to its knees.
Kytheon dragged his sword across its throat.
Art by Adam Paquette
Kytheon watched the sun break over the tops of the mountains that rose above Akros. He stopped climbing for a moment to let the sunlight wash over his face.
Drasus hurried to catch up. “What are you doing?”
Kytheon glanced down to Akros below. “The prison is the last place in Akros to see the sun, did you know that?”
“Doesn’t surprise me.”
“Well, today we are the first,” said Kytheon, closing his eyes and filling his lungs with crisp air.
“Well-earned, I’d say. Look.” Drasus pointed to the causeway in front of the polis’s main gate where he counted more than twenty Akroans tugging at ropes tied to the lifeless corpse of a cyclops that they were hauling away. Two other cyclopes lay lifeless on the causeway.
“Well-earned,” Kytheon agreed.
The two Irregulars turned to resume climbing the mountain. They scanned the surrounding area for another wave of monsters, for any sign that the attack wasn’t over.
Farther up their ascent, Kytheon and Drasus parted ways. Drasus was to scout to the north, while Kytheon took the south.
For more than an hour, Kytheon picked his away along a crumbling stone footpath that took him higher up the mountainside. He was not an experienced climber, but he relied on his reflexes to keep his footing. The path took him to the edge of a deep gorge that dropped to a river that wound out of the mountains toward Akros. Spanning the gorge was a bridge of rock that somehow seemed both natural and shaped all at once. Kytheon’s gaze followed the length of the bridge. The other side was bathed in daylight despite the shadows that still shrouded the surrounding rocks.
Kytheon crossed the bridge.
To his surprise, a man greeted him on the other side. The man had a powerful frame that was draped in flowing, gold fabric. Thick, black hair fell past his shoulders, and above his head floated a laurel of golden leaves. The spear he held was tipped in brilliant golden filigree that surrounded a luminous orb. Behind the man rose an immense marble statue so brilliantly illuminated that Kytheon was unable to make out its features.
“Kytheon Iora of Akros,” the man called out in a voice that seemed to come from every direction. “Your task is not yet finished.”
“True enough, if you stand in my path.” Already, bands of white energy rippled across the surface of Kytheon’s skin. “Who are you?”
The man lowered the tip of his spear to the ground and the shift in light brought out the detail of the statue, which Kytheon recognized as a marble replica of the man.
Art by Raymond Swanland
All Kytheon could articulate was, “Heliod.”
“God of the Sun,” boomed Heliod.
At this, Kytheon bowed his head.
“You were given the task of defending your polis. The monsters that attacked it did not do so out of malice. They were fleeing before something far worse. My brother, Erebos, God of the Underworld, has recruited a cruel titan who now stalks the lands beyond these mountains. On his errand, he will pass through Akros.”
“What errand? What will he do?”
“He is tasked with reclaiming those who have escaped from the Underworld. All those who stand in his path mean nothing to Erebos, who sees only the inevitability that all mortals will end up in the Underworld.”
The Sun God reached out and put his hand upon Kytheon’s shoulder. “You proved your worth as a warrior in the attack on your polis, but it is time to prove yourself worthy to be my champion.” He reached up to the sunlit sky, and the light coalesced around his fist. It elongated and took the shape of a spear that resembled the god’s own weapon.
“With this spear, destroy the titan. This is what I task you with. This is your ordeal.”
Kytheon gaped, both at the spear and at the task the god had set before him.
Kytheon was sprinting. Beneath his feet, the cracked, barren earth flew past. His chest heaved and his lungs burned, but his legs continued pumping. If Kytheon had his way, his legs would carry him to the low hill ahead, where a windblown, crumbling formation of rocks stood. And there he would not be alone.
Heavy footfalls, one for every half-dozen of his, shook the ground behind him, kicking up clouds of dust. Killing a titan was no easy task, but Kytheon had clearly made an impression on Erebos’s servant. Kytheon glanced at the sticky, black blood that clung to the tip of his sun-touched spear, and risked a look over his shoulder. His vision was filled by the titan’s frame.
Art by Peter Mohrbacher
The titan was clad in scale armor fashioned from scores of golden masks from those who escaped the Underworld. At that moment the vacant eyes of each mask seemed to be staring right at Kytheon.
A shadow streaked overhead. Kytheon saw the head of the titan’s massive flail falling like a meteor toward him. He rolled away as it slammed into the ground beside him.
When Kytheon reached the rocks, he kept running. As he passed through two crumbling pillars, the titan’s flail pulverized one to his left. It exploded in a hail of stone shards.
Kytheon tumbled to the ground. The back of his head felt warm, and when he touched it, his hand came away smeared with blood. Careless, Kytheon thought. Should have seen that coming. The clank of chain told Kytheon that the titan was gathering its flail for another swing. He had to keep moving.
The titan let out a low, rumbling roar, and the stench of mold and rot billowed from its mouth. Winded, Kytheon gulped the foul air, and though it seemed to cling to the inside of his mouth, it was enough for him to scramble away from the titan’s attempt to stomp the would-be champion of Heliod to pulp.
The titan lashed out with a backhand. Kytheon anticipated it. He caught the blow, unscathed and unmoved, his protective magic absorbing the impact. He grabbed hold of one of the titan’s colossal fingers, planted his feet, and refused to let go. He just needed a moment.
“Now!” Kytheon yelled.
A heartbeat later, Drasus came charging from around another rock pillar. “Irregulars,” he called, “bring it down!”
Three Irregulars emerged from hiding to join Drasus. They had ropes that ended in crude grappling hooks. Just another bully in the Quarter, thought Kytheon, smiling amidst the chaos.
Olexo, the youngest among them, cast his rope over the titan’s thick forearm, and the hook sank into pallid flesh. The others followed his lead, and when the titan broke free of Kytheon’s hold, the Irregulars yanked on their ropes. The titan wobbled off balance. Enraged, it whirled its flail around its head, clearly eager to be rid of such annoyances.
Art by Karl Kopinski
Every action has a response. The idea filled Kytheon’s mind. Every action has a tipping point that, if recognized, can be harnessed as magic to gain control of a fight. He saw his opening.
As the black iron flail orbited the titan’s head, Kytheon drew on hieromantic magic to conjure an ethereal wedge of energy that struck the titan on the inside of its elbow, so that its arm folded at the joint. The momentum in the head of the flail sent it arcing over the titan’s shoulder, striking it in the back. It crumpled to its knees, rearing its head up to bellow in agony and anger.
That was all Kytheon needed. He leapt part way up one of the pillars, only to turn and launch himself at the titan, spear in hand. Sunlight caught the tip of the spear, blinding the titan during his approach, until he sunk the spear deep into its chest, parting the masks of the Returned. Dark blood welled up around the spear, and the titan took one more shuddering breath before collapsing to the dust.
Kytheon rolled off the fallen titan. The Ordeal is done, he thought. Heliod’s task is fulfilled. Akros is safe.
He reclaimed his spear, and turned to the Irregulars. Here they were, a bunch of kids from the Foreigners’ Quarter. Together, they had broken the stranglehold of crime lords in the Quarter, defended Akros from hordes of ravening monsters, and destroyed a titan in service of a god on behalf of another god. They were his comrades, his family, and his terms for accepting the Sun God’s Ordeal. Alone, he was strong and skilled. But together with his Irregulars, what were the squabbles of the gods?
In his peripheral vision, Kytheon saw the horizon move. When he looked, he saw two wisps of smoke rising into the sky, their source a pair of dark eyes. Erebos, God of the Dead, loomed over the landscape, a witness to the defeat of his servant. Inky, black vapor rose from the god’s dark eyes that were set in his emotionless face.
Kytheon drew his spear back. He was the champion of Heliod, the Sun God. If Erebos was the cause of all of this trouble, then he would have to answer for it. Kytheon let the spear fly. He felt its power as he let it loose, and the spear sailed through the air toward the God of the Dead.
Emotionless, Erebos gave a simple flick of an emaciated wrist. From the horizon, his whip unfurled, appearing to take on a life of its own. When it met the champion’s spear in flight, Erebos flicked his wrist a second time. The whip cracked, deflecting the spear back toward Kytheon at blinding speed.
Kytheon stood defiantly against the counterattack and the Irregulars fell in around him. Striations of light flickered to life on his skin, and he summoned all the magic and strength that he could as he watched the tip of the weapon close in.
When the spear slammed against him, it exploded in a flash of intense light that washed over Kytheon, turning everything white.
The light lingered for a while, and when it died down, it took a moment for Kytheon’s eyes to adjust. His ears rang, and he found it difficult to focus.
Color slowly seeped back into his surroundings. He looked down, inspecting where the spear made contact. No damage, but he noticed flecks of red. He moved a hand to wipe them, and saw that the back of it was splattered red too—both hands were. But if it wasn’t his blood….
Art by Winona Nelson
No.
He whirled around.
His eyes passed over four lifeless bodies.
No.
The ground heaved, and Kytheon struggled to keep his footing. He staggered among his fallen Irregulars, mouth agape. His thoughts turned to the spear, thrown by his own hand.
With clenched fists, Kytheon began to shake. His magic exploded to life once more, and bands of light moved faster and faster over his body. His skin threw off arcs of light that rippled from him with increasing intensity. The sky above him spun.
As white light continued to pour off of him, the landscape around him began to shift, bend, and stretch.
From it, rolling plains emerged.
And the twilit sky gave way to a vibrant blue.
Nothing made sense anymore; it felt like the whole world was coming to an end.
Eyes red and face twisted in anguish, Kytheon tilted his gaze skyward, where a brilliant sun shone. He closed his eyes and knelt there unable to will himself from that spot.
Time passed. Kytheon had no way to gauge how much. A continuous, dull ache numbed his insides.
The hairs on the back of his neck stood up. I’m being watched, he thought. Erebos? Heliod? Fine. Let them.
Then he felt a blast of warm air accompanied by a low, rumbling growl. His eyes flew open and an enormous, shadowy mass, silhouetted against the sun, filled his vision.
A face.
His pupils adjusted to the light.
A lion’s face.
Kytheon stumbled backward at the revelation, throwing his arms up defensively. The lion made no movement, and after a moment, Kytheon lowered his arms. He saw that the lion was barded like a warhorse, and atop a saddle sat a rider encased in armor like none Kytheon had ever seen. It covered the rider from head to toe, and where it caught the sun it gave off a brilliant gleam.
Art by Anastasia Ovchinnikova
Though his throat was dry, Kytheon managed to push words out of his mouth. “Where am I? Who are you?”
“I am Moukir, captain of the Knights of the Pilgrim’s Road. You are lost in the Bant nation of Valeron. You are unwell.” As the knight spoke, Kytheon noticed she was not alone. A handful of other knights had formed up behind their captain. “What is your name, wanderer?”
“Kytheon,” Kytheon choked out.
“Gideon?” Moukir attempted to confirm.
Before he could correct the knight, Kytheon was overcome by a wave of serenity that suddenly welled up inside of him. His eyes were drawn skyward.
Beyond the knights he saw a woman descending from the air, held aloft on two wings of white feathers. There was a sense of nobility about her that was calming and inspiring all at once. She came to hover before him, an angel clad in plate armor like the knights.
In that moment, Kytheon knew that he had left Theros, his home, behind. His Irregulars were gone—a pain he brought with him. His ordeal had only begun.
Art by Willian Murai | {
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Longtime Oklahoma State Philanthropist T. Boone Pickens tragically died today at 91 years of age. The Oklahoma/Texas bred American Capitalist is most known for lobbying for the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act, as well as growing one of the largest independent oil companies in the world in the 80’s. He had a net worth of $500 million.
Surprisingly, amongst other specifics in his Will, he peculiarly left $30 to head football coach Mike Gundy to “get a god damned haircut”.
“I’ve begged him for years to cut that god forsaken mullet off, maybe now as my dying wish he’ll take it more seriously,” said Pickens in his will.
“Gosh I’m honored that Mr. Pickens would name me in his will, but gawdangit my mullet helps too damn much in ‘cruitin”, said Gundy.
“I’m a man, I’m 50! How am I supposed to have business in the front, without the party in the back?”
Gundy has sported his long locks for years.
Sources say Gundy has been going around Stillwater drowning his sorrows with a bottle at several local bars, riding mechanical bulls, and desperately searching for a reason to go against Picken’s wishes for him to head over to Sports Clips and trim his sacred locks.
Other notable things left behind in Picken’s will include:
Enough oil to power OSU athletic facilities for another century
Permission to use his now vacant mansion as a recruiting tool
Step by step instructions to “get rid of” Lincoln Riley
Pickens leaves behind a legacy rich in Cowboy Orange, He donated over $500 million to Oklahoma State University in his lifetime.
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Thumbnail Image via: theathletic.com
Main Image Via: usatoday.com
In Article Via Washington Post + Bleacher Report
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If droid news is what you’ve been looking for: Disney chief Bob Iger used some of his stage time at Wednesday’s Goldman Sachs Communacopia conference to update “Star Wars” fans on his upcoming slate — he also had a little something to reassure Marvel fans.
“I had a meeting yesterday with Kathy Kennedy and we mapped out — well, we reviewed — the ‘Star Wars’ plans that we have ’til 2020,” Iger said. “We have movies in development for ‘Star Wars’ ’til then, and we started talking about what we’re going to do in 2021 and beyond.”
“So, she’s not just making a ‘Star Wars’ movie, she’s making a ‘Star Wars’ universe, of sorts,” he added.
Also Read: 'Star Wars: Rogue One' Gets a New Composer
But don’t feel left out, those who prefer superheroes to sci-fi.
“We had a similar meeting with Marvel a week-and-a-half ago to plot [those films] out, where we’ve got movies in either development or production — some nearing completion — through the end of this decade,” Iger stated during his interview. “[There], we too are beginning to talk about what do we do the next decade, and so on?”
After that quick mention, he web-swung went right back to George Lucas-land.
Also Read: Who's Who in 'Rogue One: A Star Wars Story' (Photos)
Iger told his New York audience that he has seen “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story,” a spinoff experiment that he called “really interesting in terms of … storytelling.”
On the regular so-called Skywalker Saga, the eighth actual “Star Wars” movie, which comes out December 2017, has been fully shot and is in the editing process, Iger said. Plus, he just got a pitch for the ninth one from its director — that 2019 release is entering preproduction as you read this.
As we know, a Han Solo/Chewbacca origin flick is coming in the next couple of years, and another “Star Wars Story” has been set for 2020. While specific details of the latter have yet to be announced, the boss has already got a writer working on it. So, go find him/her and shake ‘em down. | {
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The Georgia man who slapped a man so hard that it killed him was sentenced to seven years in prison Friday.
Adrian Herrera pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter in a Gwinnett County courtroom for the death of Tomas Rodriguez, the Atlanta-Journal Constitution reported.
“I’m not going to justify myself,” he said during an apology to his victim's family. “I’m here to face whatever you want to throw at me.”
Both men were at a child's birthday party on Dec. 3, 2017, when they got into a fight after Rodriguez called Herrera a derogatory name, according to the paper. Herrera slapped Rodriguez in the throat, which was enough to tear his vertebral artery.
The artery provides blood to the brain, spinal cord and other vital organs.
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Rodriguez died shortly after. Herrera was released from police custody on a $38,700 bond after a judge imposed the seven-year sentence. He will report to prison in October.
Once released, he will spend 13 years on probation. | {
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It has only been five months since the gaming community was struck with tragedy. After a long battle with mental illness, Youtuber and streamer Desmond Daniel "Etika" Amofah took his own life in June 2019. In tribute, CEO of BlockHead Gaming Abe Hunter and Youtuber DoubleA commissioned a mural of Etika in Brooklyn, with DoubleA serving as Project Director.
NYC-based artist BKFoxx — with some help from fellow artists KESTA and JMZ Walls — immortalized Etika in Brooklyn. The mural was finished in its entirety last week, and shortly after, BKFoxx spoke with Inven Global about her origins in creating art, interaction with gaming, and crafting an homage to Etika.
▲ photo by slimjim72
Since this is your first interview with Inven Global, can you please introduce yourself to our readers and tell them what you do?
My name is BKFoxx; I’m a street artist based out of NY. I paint realistic looking murals in spray paint.
How did you get into creating these massive murals? Was there a different type of art you started doing that was similar or on a smaller scale first?
I started painting in abandoned buildings and practicing in there. I did some drawing and stuff like that as a kid, but it wasn’t my focus.
Can you explain the process of how you create your art to us from a technical standpoint?
I usually start with a wall, and work on a concept from there. Then when I have an idea of the image I want to create, I arrange it/ask someone to pose for it, and take a photo, and that is my reference for the wall.
What motivates you artistically? Is there a singular goal you feel your art works towards?
I like to do things that are useful, helpful in some way. I love painting outside because everyone will see it, it’s part of the world. It’s so much more than a painting hanging on a wall in a gallery that only a few people will see.
How do you decide your art's subjects?
It depends on the project - sometimes it’s something predetermined. Other times I have a blank wall to work with and I come up with an idea, and then set up a scene to photograph, or ask someone I know to model for me.
Specifically for this amazing mural of Etika, how did this come about? Was this an idea you were inspired by or did someone come to you with it?
Etika’s friends Double A and Abe asked me if we could do a tribute mural for Etika and something to support mental illness awareness after his passing, and I was able to put this together for them thanks to JMZ Walls who provided the wall & my friend Kesta (#KestaAdm) who did the lettering & background design.
What about Etika do you feel fits into what you mentioned above about your art's motivation and the choice of subjects?
This is the kind of thing that’s a passion project for me - his friend reached out to me, asking for something for his memory. Etika had so many friends and fans and people who cared for him and were so heartbroken from the loss, and nothing adequate enough to remember him by.
Is this your first introduction into Smash/FGC/Esports?
I used to play some as a kid. And I know that my brother is super into SuperSmashBros.
Fighting games pride themselves on closely-knit communities. What has your reaction been to the overwhelming response to the mural?
Slightly shocked, to be honest. I wasn’t expecting that level of reaction.. It’s so much more than I thought it would be.
Is there anything you'd like to say to appreciators of your work, fans of Etika, or anyone else?
Thanks so much to anyone who takes the time to pay attention. I am really happy I was able to do this piece for Etika’s family, friends, fans - to be able to help the people who loved him feel a little bit better makes it more than worth my energy. | {
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January seemed to stretch on forever, but at long last, February is here. The month may be shorter, but the list of intriguing new nonfiction books hitting shelves is certainly not. Forget flowers and Valentine’s Day chocolates — with all of these great options coming, the only thing you are going to want this month is a stack of shiny, newly published tomes. Can’t you just picture them?
The books being released in February collectively serve as a literary smorgasbord. You can read about topics as wide-ranging as the adventures of a secular exorcist, gender problems in Silicon Valley, and nightmarish crimes. However, that said, you’re in for disappointment if you’re looking for a warm, fuzzy, and romantic nonfiction selection for Valentine’s Day. If you insist upon something love-related, your best option is probably a book on recovering from heartbreak, which is, well, close-ish… maybe?
While perhaps lacking when it comes to nonfiction love stories, February’s new releases definitely are not devoid of passion. Several authors have put out fiery feminist works. They will by turns anger, inspire, and educate readers.
Read on for 16 nonfiction books, all due out this month, that you should buy, borrow, or check out, as soon as you possibly can.
‘Text Me When You Get Home’ by Kayleen Schaefer (Feb. 6; Dutton) Kayleen Schaefer looks at an issue near and dear to many of our hearts in Text Me When You Get Home: The Evolution and Triumph of Modern Female Friendship. Her book explores not only how women’s friendships have transformed but also how their portrayal in fiction has. To do so, she ties in examples ranging from personal anecdotes to Mean Girls. Click here to buy.
‘Slutever’ by Karley Sciortino (Feb. 6; Grand Central Publishing) Writer Karley Sciortino reclaims the word "slut" in Slutever: Dispatches from a Sexually Autonomous Woman in a Post-Shame World. She draws on her own experiences to lay out the benefits of earning the controversial title — and breakups, sex parties, open relationships, and more are all part of the journey. Click here to buy.
‘Heart Berries’ by Terese Mailhot (Feb. 6; Counterpoint Press) Terese Mailhot revisits her childhood on the Seabird Island Indian Reservation in her new memoir, Heart Berries. Through her essays, she shows a difficult and dysfunctional coming of age and how she ultimately pushed through her trauma. Click here to buy.
‘Feel Free’ by Zadie Smith (Feb. 6; Penguin Press) Acclaimed novelist Zadie Smith reflects on a variety of aspects of life in her latest collection, Feel Free: Essays. She covers an eclectic mix of topics; you’ll find essays discussing everything from what makes libraries special to how Smith sees Facebook. Click here to buy.
‘Brotopia’ by Emily Chang (Feb. 6; Portfolio) Emily Chang calls “Time’s up!” on the world of tech in Brotopia: Breaking Up the Boys’ Club of Silicon Valley. In her book, she reveals how the male-dominated industry has harmed women, and maps out a path to reform. Click here to buy.
‘The Line Becomes a River’ by Francisco Cantú (Feb. 6; Riverhead Books) The Trump administration’s plans for the border wall remain in limbo, so it isn’t too late to deepen your understanding of the issue. In The Line Becomes a River: Dispatches from the Border, Francisco Cantú shares his perspective. He writes of his time working as a Border Patrol agent and shares painful, human tales of the people actually affected by these policies. Click here to buy.
‘A False Report’ by T. Christian Miller, Ken Armstrong (Feb. 6; Crown Publishing Group) With the #MeToo movement maintaining momentum, the timing could not be better for A False Report: A True Story of Rape in America. Written by Pulitzer Prize winners T. Christian Miller and Ken Armstrong, the true crime book looks at the case of Marie, an 18-year-old woman charged with false reporting, only for detectives to later discover that she had actually been the victim of a manipulative serial rapist. Click here to buy.
‘Sister of Darkness’ by R.H. Stavis, Sarah Durand (Feb. 6; Dey Street Books) Prepare to be creeped out. In Sister of Darkness: The Chronicles of a Modern Exorcist, Rachel H. Stavis shares eerie tales about the work she does. Not only does she recount how she became an exorcist — which is interesting enough — but she describes the various “entities” out there and the cases she's actually worked on. Don't read this one at night. Click here to buy.
‘Cringeworthy’ by Melissa Dahl (Feb. 13; Portfolio) You know the red cheeks, racing pulse, and sweaty palms that can go with an awkward moment, but how to reframe such situations is likely less familiar territory. That’s where Melissa Dahl comes in. Her new book, Cringeworthy: A Theory of Awkwardness, looks at why we feel this discomfort and how we can move beyond it. Dahl even lets readers in on her own embarrassing moments. Click here to buy.
‘How to Fix a Broken Heart’ by Guy Winch (Feb. 13; Simon & Schuster/TED) Psychologist Guy Winch examines how we handle heartbreak in How to Fix a Broken Heart. Specifically, he uses science to advocate for a new and more compassionate approach, and provides tools and advice for healing. Click here to buy.
‘What Are We Doing Here?’ by Marilynne Robinson (Feb. 20; Farrar, Straus and Giroux) Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Marilynne Robinson philosophizes on faith and politics in What Are We Doing Here?: Essays. If you’re looking for a book that will make you think, this one’s for you. Click here to buy.
‘Educated’ by Tara Westover (Feb. 20; Random House) Educated: A Memoir tells the unique story of Tara Westover. In spite of being raised by survivalist parents who didn’t send her to school growing up, she managed to teach herself — enough to get her into college and into a Ph.D. program at Cambridge. Click here to buy.
‘Eloquent Rage’ by Brittney Cooper (Feb. 20; St. Martin’s Press) As author Brittney Cooper puts it, Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower is “a book by a grown-ass woman written for other grown-ass women.” She shows the power in being angry using the examples of strong black women such as the Williams sisters and Michelle Obama. Cooper also points out flaws with mainstream feminism today and makes a case for improvements that would benefit us all. Click here to buy.
‘Don’t Call Me Princess’ by Peggy Orenstein (Feb. 27; Harper Paperbacks) Feminist writer Peggy Orenstein is back — this time, with her first essay collection. Called Don’t Call Me Princess: Essays on Girls, Women, Sex, and Life, her book reflects on the state of being a woman today, touching on everything from work to marriage. Click here to buy.
‘In Praise of Difficult Women’ by Karen Karbo (Feb. 27; National Geographic Society) If you could use some inspiration, it’s right here in the form of Karen Karbo’s In Praise of Difficult Women: Life Lessons from 29 Heroines Who Dared to Break the Rules. She spotlights an impressive group that includes Carrie Fisher, Frida Kahlo, Shonda Rhimes, and more. Through their stories, she shows how it can pay off to be bold, smart, and even flawed. Click here to buy. | {
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Men's National Team Beats Dominican Republic 105-88 in TORONTO 2015 Opener
Toronto, ON - The Men's National Team's game ended in a 105-88 victory over the Dominican Republic at the Pan Am Games in Toronto, Ontario.
"We had a lot of guys step up and play well for us tonight," said Canada Head Coach, Jay Triano. "We performed well offensively, but with stronger defense, our offense can become even better."
Coming off of the bench, Brady Heslip finished the game with 24 points on 9-15 shooting while Anthony Bennett earned a double-double of 15 points and 10 rebounds. Dominican's Angel Suero finished with 17 points while shooting 50% from the field. For a full box score, click here.
Canada and the Dominican Republic were close out of the gate as the game started with a 9-8 lead for Canada midway through the first quarter. Mississauga's Andrew Nicholson and Burlington native, Heslip had themselves a solid quarter as they each scored seven points to guide Canada to a 20-17 lead after one quarter of play.
Canada started to gain momentum in the second quarter as shots continued to fall for Heslip (shooting 7-10 in the half) and ferocious team defense led to fast-break buckets. After outscoring the Dominicans 34-20 in the quarter, the Men's National Team turned a three-point lead into a 17-point lead as the score was 54-37 heading into the second half. Heslip finished with 18 points in the half while Bennett chipped in with six points and four rebounds in the frame.
The Men's National Team looked to continue their ramped pace in the third quarter against Dominican Republic. Coming off of the bench, Jamal Murray made his presence felt in the quarter as he scored 6 points and dished out two assists in the frame. Good team shooting (53 FG%) guided Canada to a 76-62 lead going into the fourth.
In the fourth quarter Canada wanted to close out the game powerfully. By staying consistent on offense and defense as well as giving young players such as Dillon Brooks and Kyle Wiltjer valuable playing time, Team Canada was able to top the Dominicans by a score of 105-88.
"It was a lot of fun playing in Toronto again and we are all excited to get this win," said shooting guard, Heslip.
18-year-old point guard, Murray is the youngest player on the team and stated, "I play with older guys all of the time. It's more physical, but once you run up the court a couple times, you get a good feel for the game."
Team Canada will play Argentina in their second group-stage game tomorrow at 6:00 P.M. at the Mattamy Athletic Centre in Toronto, Ontario.
For the full Men's National Team Roster and coaching staff, click here.
Ceci est disponible egalement en francais. Contactez Bailey Williams ci-dessous pour l'obtenir. | {
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Armen Alchian, The Economists’ Economist
The first time that I ever heard of Armen Alchian was when I took introductory economics at UCLA as a freshman, and his book (co-authored with his colleague William R. Allen who was probably responsible for the macro and international chapters) University Economics (the greatest economics textbook ever written) was the required text. I had only just started to get interested in economics, and was still more interested in political philosophy than in economics, but I found myself captivated by what I was reading in Alchian’s textbook, even though I didn’t find the professor teaching the course very exciting. And after 10 weeks (the University of California had switched to a quarter system) of introductory micro, I changed my major to economics. So there is no doubt that I became an economist because the textbook that I was taught from was written by Alchian.
In my four years as an undergraduate at UCLA, I took three classes from Axel Leijonhufvud, two from Ben Klein, two from Bill Allen, and one each from Robert Rooney, Nicos Devletoglou, James Buchanan, Jack Hirshleifer, George Murphy, and Jean Balbach. But Alchian, who in those days was not teaching undergrads, was a looming presence. It became obvious that Alchian was the central figure in the department, the leader and the role model that everyone else looked up to. I would see him occasionally on campus, but was too shy or too much in awe of him to introduce myself to him. One incident that I particularly recall is when, in my junior year, F. A. Hayek visited UCLA in the fall and winter quarters (in the department of philosophy!) teaching an undergraduate course in the philosophy of the social sciences and a graduate seminar on the first draft of Law, Legislation and Liberty. I took Hayek’s course on the philosophy of the social sciences, and audited his graduate seminar, and I occasionally used to visit his office to ask him some questions. I once asked his advice about which graduate programs he would suggest that I apply to. He mentioned two schools, Chicago, of course, and Princeton where his friends Fritz Machlup and Jacob Viner were still teaching, before asking, “but why would you think of going to graduate school anywhere else than UCLA? You will get the best training in economics in the world from Alchian, Hirshleifer and Leijonhufvud.” And so it was, I applied to, and was accepted at, Chicago, but stayed at UCLA.
As a first year graduate student, I took the (three-quarter) microeconomics sequence from Jack Hirshleifer (who in the scholarly hierarachy at UCLA ranked only slightly below Alchian) and the two-quarter macroeconomics sequence from Leijonhufvud. Hirshleifer taught a great course. He was totally prepared, very organized and his lectures were always clear and easy to follow. To do well, you had to sit back listen, review the lecture notes, read through the reading assignments, and do the homework problems. For me at least, with the benefit of four years of UCLA undergraduate training, it was a breeze.
Great as Hirshleifer was as a teacher, I still felt that I was missing out by not having been taught by Alchian. Perhaps Alchian felt that the students who took the microeconomics sequence from Hirshleifer should get some training from him as well, so the next year he taught a graduate seminar in topics in price theory, to give us an opportunity to learn from him how to do economics. You could also see how Alchian operated if you went to a workshop or lecture by a visiting scholar, when Alchian would start to ask questions. He would smile, put his head on his forehead, and say something like, “I just don’t understand that,” and force whoever it was to try to explain the logic by which he had arrived at some conclusion. And Alchian would just keep smiling, explain what the problem was with the answer he got, and ask more questions. Alchian didn’t shout or rant or rave, but if Alchian was questioning you, you were not in a very comfortable position.
So I was more than a bit apprehensive going into Alchian’s seminar. There were all kinds of stories told by graduate students about how tough Alchian could be on his students if they weren’t able to respond adequately when subjected to his questioning in the Socratic style. But the seminar could not have been more enjoyable. There was give and take, but I don’t remember seeing any blood spilled. Perhaps by the time I got to his seminar, Alchian, then about 57, had mellowed a bit, or, maybe, because we had all gone through the graduate microeconomics sequence, he felt that we didn’t require such an intense learning environment. At any rate, the seminar, which met twice a week for an hour and a quarter for 10 weeks, usually involved Alchian picking a story from the newspaper and asking us how to analyze the economics underlying the story. Armed with nothing but a chalkboard and piece of chalk, Alchian would lead us relatively painlessly from confusion to clarity, from obscurity to enlightenment. The key concepts with which to approach any problem were to understand the choices available to those involved, to define the relevant costs, and to understand the constraints under which choices are made, the constraints being determined largely by the delimitation of the property rights under which the resources can be used or exchanged, or, to be more precise, the property rights to use those resources can be exchanged.
Ultimately, the lesson that I learned from Alchian is that, at its best, economic theory is a tool for solving actual real problems, and the nature of the problem ought to dictate the way in which the theory (verbal, numerical, graphical, higher mathematical) is deployed, not the other way around. The goal is not to reach any particular conclusion, but to apply the tools in the best and most authentic way that they can be applied. Alchian did not wear his politics on his sleeve, though it wasn’t too hard to figure out that he was politically conservative with libertarian tendencies. But you never got the feeling that his politics dictated his economic analysis. In many respects, Alchian’s closest disciple was Earl Thompson, who studied under Alchian as an undergraduate, and then, after playing minor-league baseball for a couple of years, going to Harvard for graduate school, eventually coming back to UCLA as an assistant professor where he remained for his entire career. Earl, discarding his youthful libertarianism early on, developed many completely original, often eccentric, theories about the optimality of all kinds of government interventions – even protectionism – opposed by most economists, but Alchian took them all in stride. Mere policy disagreements never affected their close personal bond, and Alchian wrote the forward to Earl’s book with Charles Hickson, Ideology and the Evolution of Vital Economics Institutions. If Alchian was friendly with and an admirer of Milton Friedman, he just as friendly with, and just as admiring of, Paul Samuelson and Kenneth Arrow, with whom he collaborated on several projects in the 1950s when they consulted for the Rand Corporation. Alchian cared less about the policy conclusion than he did about the quality of the underlying economic analysis.
As I have pointed out on several prior occasions, it is simply scandalous that Alchian was not awarded the Noble Prize. His published output was not as voluminous as that of some other luminaries, but there is a remarkably high proportion of classics among his publications. So many important ideas came from him, especially thinking about economic competition as an evolutionary process, the distinction between the functional relationship between cost and volume of output and cost and rate of output, the effect of incomplete information on economic action, the economics of property rights, the effects of inflation on economic activity. (Two volumes of his Collected Works, a must for anyone really serious about economics, contain a number of previously unpublished or hard to find papers, and are available here.) Perhaps in the future I will discuss some of my favorites among his articles.
Although Alchian did not win the Nobel Prize, in 1990 the Nobel Prize was awarded to Harry Markowitz, Merton Miller, and William F. Sharpe for their work on financial economics. Sharp, went to UCLA, writing his Ph.D. dissertation on securities prices under Alchian, and worked at the Rand Corporation in the 1950s and 1960s with Markowitz. Here’s what Sharpe wrote about Alchian:
Armen Alchian, a professor of economics, was my role model at UCLA. He taught his students to question everything; to always begin an analysis with first principles; to concentrate on essential elements and abstract from secondary ones; and to play devil’s advocate with one’s own ideas. In his classes we were able to watch a first-rate mind work on a host of fascinating problems. I have attempted to emulate his approach to research ever since.
And if you go to the Amazon page for University Economics and look at the comments you will see a comment from none other than Harry Markowitz:
I am about to order this book. I have just read its quite favorable reviews, and I am not a bit surprised at their being impressed by Armen Alchian’s writings. I was a colleague of Armen’s, at the Rand Corporation “think tank,” during the 1950s, and hold no economist in higher regard. When I sat down at my keyboard just now it was to find out what happened to Armen’s works. One Google response was someone saying that Armen should get a Nobel Prize. I concur. My own Nobel Prize in Economics was awarded in 1990 along with the prize for Wm. Sharpe. I see in Wikipedia that Armen “influenced” Bill, and that Armen is still alive and is 96 years old. I’ll see if I can contact him, but first I’ll buy this book.
I will always remember Alchian’s air of amused, philosophical detachment, occasionally bemused (though, perhaps only apparently so, as he tried to guide his students and colleagues with question to figure out a point that he already grasped), always curious, always eager for the intellectual challenge of discovery and problem solving. Has there ever been a greater teacher of economics than Alchian? Perhaps, but I don’t know who. I close with one more quotation, this one from Axel Leijonhufvud written about Alchian 25 years ago. It still rings true.
[Alchian’s] unique brand of price theory is what gave UCLA Economics its own intellectual profile and achieved for us international recognition as an independent school of some importance—as a group of scholars who did not always take their leads from MIT, Chicago or wherever. When I came here (in 1964) the Department had Armen’s intellectual stamp on it (and he remained the obvious leader until just a couple of years ago ….). Even people outside Armen’s fields, like myself, learned to do Armen’s brand of economic analysis and a strong esprit de corps among both faculty and graduate students sprang from the consciousness that this ‘New Institutional Economics’ was one of the waves of the future and that we, at UCLA, were surfing it way ahead of the rest. But Armen’s true importance to the UCLA school did not stem just from the new ideas he taught or the outwardly recognized “brandname” that he created for us. For many of his young colleagues he embodied qualities of mind and character that seemed the more important to seek to emulate the more closely you got to know him. | {
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Ben Bella, a leading figure in the Algerian Front Liberation Nationale during the struggle against French colonialism, speaks of his disillusionment following their success. Ben Bella became President of newly independent Algeria in 1962.
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Ben Bella on "national liberation"
Q: What are the main lessons you've learned from your experience?
A: These days I use a formula which summarize what I've come to: The single party is the single evil. Earlier I didn't have the tools for understanding this evil. The FLN had become a monster. The organization formed in the struggle for independence was not the same as the one ruling Algeria. The whole superstructure, the Party, the Parliament, et cetera, had become a hindrance.
It was during my 1962 tour of the country, after the decrees on self-management of land by peasants, that I realized this change. There was great energy among the peasants and the workers. We would have had to set aside the bureaucracy, form revolutionary committees and expand self-management to take advantage of this dynamism. The Parliament and all those structures - excuse me, but they're all bullshit.
Unfortunately, I chose the wrong camp. I hesitated in sweeping aside all that hindered these possibilities.
Q: I heard you say earlier that socialism existed nowhere in the world...
A: That's true. I'm not talking about what's in the blueprints. I'm talking about living socialism. You see what's happened since 1917. Do you see socialism? Still, I'm faithful to the ideals of socialism, to the struggle against the exploitation of man by man. But it should be understood that there's not just one form of exploitation. There is also exploitation by bureaucratic apparatus.
Q: This is a very negative view of the achievements of national revolutions...
A: They have all failed. As long as we have not broken the world capitalist order, we remain exploited by the mercantile relations of production. Even in the "socialist" world you find these types of relations. Inside COMECON (The Council for Mutual Economic Aid of the Soviet bloc countries), for example, or between the Soviet Union and the Algeria that I was President of.
From No Middle Ground - San Francisco USA, Fall 1984/Winter, 1985 (original source of interview unknown). | {
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Although getting an authentic barbecue flavor when cooking ribs on a gas grill can be difficult—gas grills are great for hot and fast cooking but not so efficient when you need to turn a rack of ribs into tender, smoky barbecue—there are some tricks you can use to barbecue ribs on your gas grill.
This example uses a full rack of trimmed spareribs, which will take from 1 1/2 to 2 hours to cook. You can use baby back ribs with this same method, but you will need to reduce the cooking time about 5 minutes per stage.
1:18 Click Play to See The Ultimate Ribs Recipe Come Together
What You Need
Since the ribs will be cooked indirectly, your gas grill must contain at least two burners and be large enough to fit the rack of ribs on one side while leaving space on the other. The heat will not be below the rack of ribs but instead on the other side of the grill.
To barbecue ribs on the grill, you will need these ingredients:
Fuel for your gas grill
1 rack of pork ribs
Sharp knife
Good rib rub
Wood chips or chunks for smoke
Aluminum foil
1/2 cup (120 mL) apple juice
Good barbecue sauce for ribs
Not using a gas grill? Try barbecue ribs on a charcoal grill for even better results.
The Spruce / Emily Mendoza
Prepare the Rib Rack
The Spruce / Leah Maroney
It is rare to find store-bought spareribs that are properly prepared. You will need to do some basic trimming before cooking. Ideally, what you're looking for is a rack of ribs with a square shape and an even thickness throughout. Make sure you inspect the ribs for any loose pieces of meat, fat, or bone.
Cut off any excess scraps or excessive fat from the rack, but make sure not to cut off all the fat, just reduce the thicker parts. Since these ribs are cooked faster than they would in a smoker, the benefit of the fat isn't as great. You need fat to keep the meat moist, but you don't want to end up with an overly fatty finished product. Once done trimming, rinse the rack of ribs with cold water and pat dry with paper towels.
Rub the Ribs
The Spruce / Leah Maroney
Once the ribs are trimmed and rinsed, it is time to apply the rub. A good rib rub adds flavor but doesn't overpower the meat. Apply the rub evenly over the meat, covering the back and front as well as the sides and ends. Apply as much rub as will stick, letting the excess fall away. The natural moisture of the ribs will hold all the rub you need.
You can apply the rub up to an hour before you start cooking, but any longer will affect the texture of the meat, giving it a hamlike flavor and texture. If you need to return the rack to the refrigerator after putting on the rub, wrap it tightly with plastic wrap and handle it gently. Preferably, try to get the ribs on the grill within 10 to 20 minutes of applying the rub.
Make Smoke Bombs
The Spruce / Leah Maroney
Creating proper smoke on a gas grill while cooking at lower temperatures is a real challenge. While you might be able to give these ribs a hint of smoke, they are not going to have a strong smoke flavor. That is the sacrifice of cooking ribs on a gas grill. You can try throwing in a couple of smoke bombs to generate smoke. This is a quick, easy, and cheap way to make smoke on a gas grill.
Start by placing about 1/2 cup of damp, but not wet, wood chips on a piece of foil. Wrap the wood chips so that one side has a single layer of foil. Poke several holes through the foil to let the smoke out. Place the smoke bombs under the cooking grate as close as possible to the burner you are using to create the indirect heat.
You will need to preheat the grill hot enough to get the combustion of the wood started. Once you see smoke coming out of the smoke bombs, turn down the heat, place the ribs on the grill, and close the lid.
Place the Ribs on the Grill
The Spruce / Leah Maroney
Where you place the ribs on the grill is most important. You need indirect heat to cook ribs without drying them out or overcooking them. The goal is to hit temperatures up to 375 F/190 C.
If you have a grill with the burners running front to back, you will need to use one of the burners on either end. Let's say you are using the left side burner. This means you place your smoke bombs directly over this burner (and under the cooking grate). The ribs will be placed on the grate to the right of the hot burner. If the rack of ribs is short enough to be placed running parallel to the burners, set it near the hot burner but not over it. Otherwise, you might have to place it in a more diagonal position on the grill, which will require rotating the rack of ribs occasionally to even out the cooking.
Place the rib rack bone-side down on the grill, close the lid, and adjust the grill until it holds a temperature of 300 F/150 C. Let the ribs cook for 30 minutes. Don't open the lid as keeping it closed will hold in as much smoke as possible. Don't expect a lot of smoke to billow out of the grill as there won't be a tremendous amount of smoke production.
Wrap the Ribs
The Spruce / Leah Maroney
Once the ribs have been on the grill for 30 minutes, check that they are browned on all sides. If they appear raw on the surface anywhere, continue grilling for another 10 to 15 minutes; otherwise, move on to the second phase.
This step makes the ribs tender by steaming them with apple juice (or another type of liquid). The secret is to wrap the ribs tightly in foil while keeping all the juice inside the packet. You want to make it as watertight as possible after pouring in the apple juice.
Place the tightly wrapped ribs back on the grill in the indirect grilling space. Close the lid and increase the grill temperature to around 375 F/190 C. At this temperature, the apple juice will boil, tenderizing the ribs and cooking them quickly.
After the ribs have been steaming in foil for 30 minutes, it is time to turn down the heat and unwrap the ribs. They should be mostly cooked at this point, which means they will be more flexible; if you pick up the wrapped rack on one end, it should droop down. If you open the foil and the ribs are not browned completely, close up the foil and continue grilling for another 10 to 15 minutes.
Barbecue Sauce
The Spruce / Leah Maroney
Once the ribs are ready to continue, set your grill temperature around 250 F/120 C, but definitely not more than 265 F/130 C (the burning temperature of sugar). Place the ribs back in the same place to finish cooking.
When smoking ribs, it is up to you whether to add sauce or not, but with the gas grill method, it's ideal to use a good barbecue sauce. It brings authentic barbecue flavor to your ribs and adds to the surface texture of the meat.
The secret to a good sticky rib is multiple coats of barbecue sauce. The best method is to sauce one side of the ribs, close the lid, and cook for 5 minutes. Then open the lid, flip the ribs, and sauce the other side. Continue doing this for 30 minutes, and you will have a heavy coating of barbecue sauce. Five minutes after you put on the last coat (with at least two coats per side), remove the ribs from the grill, cut into portions, and serve. | {
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“We’re winning away, we’re winning awaaay! How shit must you be? We’re winning away,” goes the familiar chant that rings out across football terraces when a plucky visiting team does a job on a more favoured host. In Test cricket, a foreign win is just as novel given their infrequency between top nations – look no further than the Ashes or the Border-Gavaskar Trophy clashes this century. Except, that is, when South Africa and Australia are involved.
Since the Proteas’ readmission in 1991, Australia has visited seven times and never lost. Likewise, the last three times the South Africans were tourists down under, they walked away handsome victors. The most recent of those wins, 15 months ago, was punctuated by Australia rolling over for 85 on the opening day at Hobart. That crisis was the catalyst for five changes to the team, and the chairman of selectors losing his job.
Hales and Rashid heighten existential angst around cricket's future | The Spin Read more
By any measure, it is a far happier Australian side landing for this clash. Steve Smith has declared that they will name an unchanged XI from those who capped off a four-nil hiding of England in January. In doing so, the captain acknowledges that fatigue is a factor with the series coming at the end of a taxing season, but not an excuse. “It has been a long summer and every Test back home went five days,” he said. “But in the end, you’re playing for your country and you find ways to get yourself up.”
To combat that, Smith was party to a careful management exercise through the white-ball season, taking two sorely-needed weeks off when the one-day series didn’t go as planned. “I was very drained,” he said. “It got to the point where I actually didn’t want to pick my cricket bat up for a bit which is very rare for me; I just love batting.”
That he does. Whether the good times keep rolling for him will surely have the biggest influence on whether unusual the streak between these teams continues. For added motivation is the fact that the only winning away series Smith has led was his first against New Zealand in 2016.
In support, his deputy David Warner left the corresponding contest four years ago with the player of the series gong for a peerless return of 543 at 91 with three tons. He is the one man who hasn’t rested, but it doesn’t dent his confidence that he can leave another telling mark.
The last time Usman Khawaja batted for Australia he lashed a century, and in his most recent start against South Africa he did likewise. Shaun Marsh was on that first trip with Khawaja in 2011 and again in 2014, where he also reached three figures in elegant fashion. This time, the left-handers are senior players with expectations to match. Tim Paine too, who was selected with equal rancour as Marsh for the Ashes but left with his reputation similarly enhanced.
As for Mitch Marsh, a year ago he was statistically the least effective number six ever to play. But with a pair of breakthrough centuries against England, he has never looked more capable. It’s a story arc that his state teammate Cam Bancroft would do anything to replicate, the one Australian who finished the Ashes under pressure. The lure of sticking with a winning team did its bit to save him; now he has to offer a return on that investment.
Any jolt of excitement Australia’s quicks experienced watching India’s tour of South Africa on some of the liveliest pitches in modern memory have been quelled, reports emerging that the locals have asked for these tracks to be anything but spicy. Smith isn’t surprised. “I didn’t think they’d have a great deal of pace,” he said after inspecting the Durban surface that carries a tame reputation. “It looks like it could be quite slow.”
That’s a scenario Pat Cummins is used to since returning to the national fold this time last year, which has done little to slow him down. It’s a nice quirk that he is, as a result of his celebrated debut at the Wanderers in 2011, the sole Australian fast bowler to have played a Test here.
New ball pair, Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood, were both given their chance to recuperate after Ashes toil, the former stating that he is fully recovered from a heel injury sustained in Perth in December. The quartet is complete with Nathan Lyon, who begins the series ten wickets away from becoming the sixth Australian to claim 300. It is a long way from his first tour here in 2011, and further away again from the home series against them in 2016 where he came within a Steve O’Keefe calf strain of losing his place in the team.
For many of the hosts’ distinguished champions, this may be their last hurrah against Australia. Morne Morkel has confirmed as much, saying he will sign off from international cricket at the final Test in Cape Town. His bone-crunching contest with Michael Clarke four years ago at that venue remains the defining image of it, and he’s lost nothing since.
Nor has Vernon Philander, a routine nuisance for Steve Smith’s men as the world leader of his cagy craft. The consistency and experience both he and Morkel bring allows Kagiso Rabada the latitude to deliver with the utmost freedom. Rapid and resourceful, he’s already claimed the ICC top-ranked bowler crown at 21 years of age with 120 wickets in 26 Tests.
Itis easy to brush over the fact that Dale Steyn, with 419 wickets, could return from his heel injury later in the series; or that in his place against India came yet another young firebrand from the seemingly never-ending local production line, Lungi Ngidi. Like Cummins all those years before, the 21-year-old earned seven wickets on debut. Even so, he most likely won’t get a game to begin with seaming all-rounder Theunis de Bruyn expected to play to bolster the Proteas’ batting lineup. One thing is certain: dependable left-arm spinner Keshav Majaraj will play, tallying 48 wickets in 2017 since his successful debut against Australia in 2016.
Australia's David Warner on playing the villain – and finding control Read more
Then there is Hashim Amla, AB de Villiers and Faf du Plessis – middle-order adversaries the Australians know better than almost any others. The latter’s captaincy is as revered as his batting, even if he will start with a troublesome right index finger. All three have led this side, boasting 56 Test centuries between them.
They also walk out following the world’s most accomplished opener in 2017, Dean Elgar. Generation next is represented by his partner Aiden Markham and wicketkeeper Quintin de Kock. The explosive left-hander couldn’t buy a run against India, but he has made plenty against Australia in all forms of the game.
The names, form and history combine to make this the marquee series of 2018. The best bit: it is being given the chance to breathe over four fixtures rather than three – a step in the right direction. If Smith’s men can do as history suggests and win abroad, they will be well on their way to the top of the world. If du Plessis’ charges break the home curse, a champion generation will have earned their chance to sing together one last time. Strap in.
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InnerVisionPRO/Shutterstock.com
I was a fat kid growing up. In my late teens and early 20’s I lost a lot of weight. People asked “how did you do it?”
“I did it gradually. I started eating healthier and exercising more”. No one liked my answer. Maybe they were hoping to discover a new weight loss secret. And were disappointed when I didn’t have any. They often said “wow I wish I was that motivated”.
In my early to mid 20’s I quit my boring office job and became self-employed.
A few of my friends wanted to do the same. They asked me how I did it. I recommended books, courses and online forums that helped me along the way. They complained “that sounds like a lot of work” and said “I don’t think I’m that motivated”.
Whenever this motivation excuse came up, I had no good response. Now that I’m older I understand it more.
There is this idea that one needs to be motivated to do something. And that if they don’t feel like it, they lack the motivation and can’t do it.
Motivation is an emotion. It’s temporary. You might read a motivating story and take action. However sooner or later the motivation will fade away. This is where Discipline kicks in.
Discipline is doing the work even when you don’t feel like it.
How does one build discipline?
Unfortunately its a slow and boring process. It requires making small sustainable changes over a long period of time. Those changes add up and become new habits. And the more new habits you build the more discipline you’ll have. The more discipline you have the more changes you’ll be able to make.
Building discipline starts with the mindset that “I don’t feel like it” isn’t a good excuse.
If you’re trying to eat healthy you won’t always feel like it.
If you’re trying to exercise you won’t always feel like it.
If you’re working on a side project or starting your own business you won’t always feel like doing the work.
This is why starting with small changes is a good idea. It’s easier to stick with a small change even when you don’t feel like it. And the more small changes you stick with the easier it becomes to make bigger changes.
Discipline helps you stick to your goals. It’s much more valuable than motivation.
So what is your goal? What change are you trying to make? And how can you develop the discipline to stick with it? | {
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OnePlus to open Indian R&D centre soon
Indian market is the biggest revenue generator for OnePlus
OnePlus will soon be opening an R&D centre in India in line with its commitment to make India its second global headquarters by the year end. The company is looking at locations in Hydrabad, Bangalore and Chennai.
OnePlus already has a small R&D team of around five people in Bangalore centre. The new facility is expected go live by the end of this quarter. Around 10–20 percent of OnePlus’ global R&D team will be present in India. OnePlus’ R&D work in India will focus on understanding user requirements in the country, seeking partnerships with key app players in India like Paytm, testing on an ongoing basis and working closely with telecom carrier partners. Around 25–50 people are expected to be part of the new R&D team.
In 2017, OnePlus registered a revenue of over $ 1.4 billion globally, which is nearly twice its 2016 revenue. More than a third of this revenue came from India (more than $ 460 million), making it OnePlus’ largest market worldwide. One Plus is the only Chinese smartphone maker, two-thirds of whose revenue comes from outside China.
OnePlus currently employs 85 people in India. By the end of the year this number is expected to increase to 100–120 people.
Vikas Agarwal, General Manager, OnePlus India
The company managed to sell one million units of its latest flagship model — OnePlus 6 — in three weeks. Last year it took three months to reach this number. In 2014, the company sold just over a million of its first flagship phone that year.
According to the recently released Counterpoint Market Monitor Service Data Q2 2018, OnePlus has emerged as the leader in the premium smartphone segment in India. OnePlus 6 was the best-selling model in premium segment making it the leader for the full quarter (April, May, June 2018) surpassing Samsung and Apple. OnePlus was also the fastest growing smartphone brand annually, growing at 284%. In the first quarter of 2018 OnePlus had a market share of around 25 % in India, trailing behind Samsung.
Premium phones constitute less than 4 percent of the market in India. In other global markets it is 50–60 percent of the over all market.
Amazon was its first partner in the Indian market. Now OnePlus is taking this partnership model to Germany and elsewhere. The latest 6-series flagship model from OnePlus has become its most popular phone ever on JD, an e-commerce company headquartered in Beijing. OnePlus has also entered into a carrier-partnership with Elisa Oyj, a Finnish telecommunications company. “We have decided that focus should be on core products and for everything else we are going to have partners,” said Vikas Agarwal, General Manager, OnePlus India.
With around 800 people employed globally OnePlus is able to avoid HR overheads and maintain its lean framework. As a company that likes to outsource and delegate functions, OnePlus’ focus is on designing the core product.
The company launched its Make in India program with the OnePlus X in October 2015. Currently, the Printed Circuit Boards (PCBs) and several other components of the the OnePlus 6 are made in India by the company’s primary contract manufacturer — Oppo in Noida. Oppo is OnePlus’ global manufacturing partner and carries on in India the same partnership arrangement it has in China.
OnePlus was founded in December 2013 by former Oppo vice-president Pete Lau and Carl Pei. According to reports, Oppo Electronics (not Oppo Mobile) is the only institutional stockholder in OnePlus.
In the second half of 2018, OnePlus is set to open over 10 new offline touchpoints in 10 key markets. The company recently opened offline stores in Bangalore, Mumbai and Kolkata on 28th July, 2018. The stores have opened in Jayanagar, 4th Block in Bangalore, Central Mall in Mumbai and South City Mall in Kolkata. By 2019 it is expected to have 14 offline touch points.
By end of this year the company expects to have 25 service centres and 6 experience centers in the country. Its experience centre in Chennai is expected to come up by next month. Over the next two weeks the service centre in its first experience centre in Bangalore will be expanded from the basement to the first floor.
“With India becoming the second headquarters for OnePlus, we are looking to increase our focus on offline to reach out to the large majority of the Indian market that prefer tangible stores for experience before purchase. However, we will continue to be a digital-first brand,” said Vikas Agarwal. “Bangalore is the home market for OnePlus in India and has always been our most key market. With the exceptional success of the OnePlus Experience Store on Brigade Road which was our first offline store in the country, we are looking at adding one additional offline touchpoint for our customers in Bangalore,” he added.
OnePlus has also launched its Student Ambassador Program. It will be establishing this in 10 colleges this year. OnePlus now boasts of more than 5 million community members in India.
With over 1.5 million followers on Instagram, OnePlus is planning to increase its engagements on the platform. “Instagram is where people are going to discover new products. That is what we are going to focus on,”
OnePlus claims to have a Net Promoter Score of 71.2 percent in India, indicating a high customer loyalty. “This is the highest in the industry and we have always had this consistently,” said Vikas Agarwal. The Net Promoter Score is generally calculated based on responses to a single question: “How likely is it that you would recommend our company/product/service to a friend or colleague?”
OnePlus’ latest flagship, the OnePlus 6 is the first smartphone to be released in India featuring Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 processor with 8GB of RAM and upto 256 GB of storage. The 64 GB/128 GB/256GB variants of the phone retails at INR 34999/39,999/43,999 respectively. | {
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Humiliation for Vince Cable as EU prime ministers deny backing second referendum
Vince Cable has been left humiliated after European leaders denied his claim that they supported a second referendum.
The Lib Dems issued a press release claiming eight EU prime ministers agreed with their policy that voters should have the final say on the Brexit deal.
They included Andrej Babiš of the Czech Republic, Xavier Bettel of Luxembourg, Miro Cerar of Slovenia, Lars Løkke Rasmussen of Denmark, Jüri Ratas of Estonia and Juha Sipilä of Finland.
Embarrassingly, however, one of the politicians on the list, Miro Cerar, resigned as Slovenia's prime minister earlier this month.
According to the Lib Dems, they agreed a statement saying: "We regret Brexit, but acknowledge the choice made by British voters for the UK government to negotiate withdrawal.
"We further acknowledge and support the Liberal Democrats’ call for the British people to have the final say on the Brexit deal."
Lib Dem leader Mr Cable said: "This is a clear signal from our European friends that they want us to remain in the European Union and would welcome an exit from Brexit with open arms."
But in a dramatic development, the group representing liberal democrat parties in Europe put out a tweet less than two hours later distancing themselves from the claim.
Pertaining to the LibDem press release issued today on Brexit: at the ALDE leaders meeting of 22 March no statement has been agreed upon or released. — ALDE Party (@ALDEParty) 22 March 2018
A Lib Dem source said the statement had been "verbally agreed" by the prime ministers, but not by their parties. | {
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The decision of United States President Donald Trump not to move the embassy of his country from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem "is positive," a senior Palestinian official said Thursday.Nabil Abu Rdineh, an aide to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said in an official press statement that the decision "is positive and important and will boost the opportunities for achieving peace."International media reported earlier on Thursday that Trump has signed a waiver allowing him to delay any decision on moving the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, it has emerged.A statement issued by the White House on Thursday, however, said that the president still intends to relocate the US's diplomatic seat in the country, and that the move was a question of "when, not if.""This decision reiterates the seriousness of the US administration in helping for making peace in the region," said Abu Rdineh, adding "the decision will certainly build up the bridges of confidence with President Trump."He went on saying that "We are fully ready to carry on working with President Trump and his administration in order to make and reach a just and everlasting peace in the region."The Palestinians consider east Jerusalem, which was occupied by Israel in 1967 as the capital of their independent state, while Israel insists on considering the whole city as the eternal capital of the state of Israel.However, Islamic Hamas movement, the rival of Abbas slammed the decision of Trump, saying "it is meaningless."Sami Abu Zuhri, Hamas movement's spokesman in Gaza said in an emailed press statement that "the problem is in occupying the city of Jerusalem and Judaizing it, and not in moving the embassy to the city.""Therefore, there is no need to consider Trump's decision or remarks as a big achievement, because it is all illusive," said Abu Zuhri. | {
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Residents in the 5400 block of West Giddings Street and 5500 block of West Leland Avenue reported that armed men came to the back door of their home at about 9 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 27, according to 16 th (Jefferson Park) District police.
In the incident on Giddings, a man reported that he was able to swing the back door closed before the three assailants could enter and that he and his wife crawled to a bathroom and called police. One of the assailants displayed a revolver before he fled, police said.
In the other incident, a man reported that he heard a loud banging noise coming from the rear of his house and that he then confronted two gunmen on the stairwell leading to his basement, police said. The men fled after the home owner tried to knock the handgun out of the hands of one of the men, police said.
The incidents occurred about 10 minutes apart, and all but one of the assailants were described as age 18-25, police said. In the Giddings incident, two of the men were described as white-Hispanic and the other as black, while in the Leland incident one of the men wore a black hooded sweatshirt and the other a black skull cap, police said. | {
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JANNAT ABAD, Iran (Reuters) - A Tupolev aircraft crashed in Iran on Wednesday on its way to Armenia after catching fire in mid-air and plowing into farmland, killing all 168 people on board just 16 minutes after take-off.
In the worst crash in Iran for six years, the Russian-built Caspian Airlines plane left only scattered bits of incinerated metal and fragments of the bodies of 153 passengers and 15 crew across a wide area around a deep smoking crater in the ground.
The Tu-154 plane, flying to Armenia’s capital Yerevan from Tehran, crashed near the northwestern city of Qazvin shortly before noon (0730 GMT). Officials said they would not know why it crashed until the black box flight recorders have been found.
Eight members of Iran’s national junior judo team and two coaches were among the dead as well as a former Iranian MP representing Iran’s Armenian minority and, reportedly, the wife of the head of Georgia’s diplomatic mission in Iran.
“I saw a finger of a passenger on the ground. There is no sign of the airplane, just small pieces of metal,” said a Reuters witness. “I do not see even a complete leg or arm.”
Weeping relatives and friends gathered at Yerevan airport where a notice on a wall listed people who were on board. Doctors treated relatives for shock and heart problems.
Six Armenian and two Georgian citizens were on board, the deputy head of the Armenian civilian aviation authority Arsen Poghosyan told a media briefing at Yerevan Airport. Two crew and 29 passengers were Iranian citizens with ethnic Armenian backgrounds, he said.
Iran is home to some 100,000 ethnic Armenianns, many of whom frequently fly between Tehran and Yerevan to visit relatives.
Fina Karapetian, an Armenian in her 30s, said her sister and two nephews, 11 and 6, were on board the crashed plane. “I heard everyone in the aircraft has died. What will I do without Armen and Vahe?” she said, before fainting.
TOTALLY DESTROYED
Security forces held back distraught relatives who tried to break through the cordon at the site to find loved ones’ bodies.
“The Tupolev plane has been totally destroyed and the corpses, unfortunately, have been totally burned and destroyed,” Qazvin police commander Massoud Jafarinasab told semi-official Fars news agency.
A local official said the aircraft had technical problems and tried to make an emergency landing. “Unfortunately the plane caught fire in the air and it crashed,” he told Fars.
Slideshow ( 29 images )
One witness said he had seen the plane on fire in the air, trying to land. “It made circles in the air. Then I heard an explosion,” Mostafa Babashahverdi, a farmer, told Reuters.
“We found severed heads, fingers and passports of the passengers,” he said.
State radio said the pilot had made no mention of any technical problem in a taped conversation with a control tower.
Slideshow ( 29 images )
Search teams picked through a wide area of 200 sq meters at the crash site about 150 kilometers (93 miles) north of Tehran.
“What rescuers found was bodies all ripped apart,” a team member said. “We are just collecting smashed flesh in bags.”
Gocha Gvaramadze, an official from the Georgian embassy in Armenia, told Rustavi-2 television channel, “As far as we know, there were two Georgian citizens onboard. One was our embassy’s financial manager and another -- a wife of the head of Georgia’s diplomatic mission in Iran.”
Yerevan airport officials said an aircraft would take relatives to visit the site. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has ordered a special task force to investigate the crash. Armenia’s President Serzh Sarksyan declared by decree that July 16 will be a national day of mourning for the crash victims.
U.S. sanctions bar the sale of Boeing aircraft to Iran and hinder the Islamic republic buying other aircraft or spares from the West, many of which rely on U.S.-built engines and parts.
Air safety experts have said Iran has a poor record, with a string of crashes in the past few decades -- many involving Russian-made aircraft. It was the third deadly crash of a Tupolev Tu-154 in Iran since 2002.
It was the deadliest crash since 2003 when an Ilyushin Il-76, also Russian built, crashed into an Iranian mountain.
Tehran-based Caspian Airlines was set up in 1993 and flies an all-Tupolev fleet linking Iranian cities and also routes to the United Arab Emirates, Ukraine and Armenia. | {
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WASHINGTON ― Democrats spent millions of dollars in their own primary in Pennsylvania to elevate Katie McGinty as their standard-bearer against GOP Sen. Pat Toomey. But a poll sent to The Huffington Post on Friday suggests that the guy Democrats pushed out ― former Rep. Joe Sestak ― might have been doing better at this point.
The survey, conducted by the firm Gravis Marketing, claims that Sestak would be leading Toomey 48 percent to 44 percent if he were the Democratic nominee, while voters give McGinty a slim 46 to 45 percent lead. Even John Fetterman ― the mayor of Braddock, Pennsylvania, and the progressive alternative from the Democratic primary ― would only be losing to Toomey by 2 points, according to the Gravis data.
Several Democratic insiders dismissed the poll as simply divorced from reality, and they may have a point. Gravis is not terribly well-regarded in the polling community (it has a B-minus in 538’s ratings and tends to lean Republican), and this particular survey is missing some standard features that usually help pollsters get a more accurate idea of the data.
The poll also comes as McGinty has been buffeted by tens of millions of dollars in negative campaign ads.
Still, the Gravis poll will no doubt be of interest to liberal critics who think the party should have just let voters and local Democrats decide the Pennsylvania Senate primary. Insiders argue that Washington Democrats had been willing to accept Sestak, and even met with him early to help out. But they say he showed them no evidence that he was going to build the kind of organization he needed to beat Toomey, who bested Sestak six years ago.
The data also suggests the party might have been fine taking a chance on Fetterman, a progressive outsider in the Bernie Sanders mold. While Fetterman isn’t the most widely recognized name, he outperformed all the polls in the primary, finishing with 20 percent of the votes when most surveys had him in the single digits.
Fetterman has since embraced the McGinty campaign, and become one of her best surrogates on the campaign trail. The Gravis poll shows him with the highest popularity ratings of the bunch.
The question may be moot, however. According to HuffPost Pollster’s aggregate tally of all Pennsylvania polls, McGinty has almost a 4-point lead over Toomey.
Still, the race in Pennsylvania is one of the key contests in determining which party controls the Senate next year. If Democrats don’t grab that seat back from the GOP, there’s likely to be much second-guessing of what they could and should have done differently in that race.
Gravis said its survey measured 2,800 registered voters on Oct. 28 and 29, and has a margin of error of plus or minus 1.9 percent. | {
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The idea for The Ugly Duckling, writes Paul Binding in his newly published Hans Christian Andersen: European Witness, came to Andersen on a walk. Andersen was already famous by then. He was staying as a guest at an estate on the island of Sjælland. Andersen always got himself invited to places like this — grand homes in faraway places belonging to people who would have otherwise ignored someone of Andersen’s class. Being an artist was like a special pass. With it, you could go anywhere and be anything.
Andersen hobnobbed with the upper classes but never felt quite at home with them. It was this unease, Binding suggests, that prompted The Ugly Duckling. Out on a walk, Andersen soon forgot his feelings of inferiority, and “felt instantly revitalized by all the summer beauty around him.” Andersen’s nature was a place of enchantment, free from the social hierarchies and injustices of the city. Of course, Andersen loved the city, too, because he loved culture. And, even though he often felt ridiculed and misunderstood, Andersen loved people — ordinary, forgotten people, in particular, people who weren’t artists or aristocrats, who often had no shoes. Maybe the countryside reminded him of the good and barefoot people. In nature, you could become simple. Thus Andersen began one of his most popular stories: “Der var saa deiligt ude paa Landet.” (“It was so beautiful out in the country.”)
Hans Christian Andersen never saw the countryside until later in his life. He was born in the crowded city of Odense, Denmark, in 1805. Odense was a very old city then, nearly a thousand years old. It was also marked, writes Binding, by alcoholism, “relentless poverty, unemployment, promiscuity, disease, crime both petty and serious, and mental degeneration often caused by too much hardship as well as by venereal disease.” These afflictions pretty well described everyone in young Andersen’s life, especially his family and neighbors. Andersen’s mother, a washerwoman who could not read, would die of “delirium tremens&rdquo in the same asylum where his grandmother spent her final years. Andersen feared his grandfather, who had also lived in the lunatic asylum, where he carved strange creatures, had a habit of wearing paper hats on his days out, and died “mentally deranged and with no money” at the age of 72. Andersen’s beloved father Hans, who introduced Hans Christian to Shakespeare and the fables of La Fontaine, was never quite right after coming home from war. In the last delirious stages of tuberculosis, Hans described to his 11-year-old son a maiden he saw in the iced-up winter windows.
Andersen’s countryside in Odense was the flowers his grandmother brought to the house every Sunday from the asylum. It was the garden his mother tended on the rooftop in a chest filled with dirt. These small incursions of beauty into the brutalities of daily life affected the young Andersen. In his stories, beauty often appears in this little way. It is a breeze, a glance, a candle, a seat at the theater, a rooftop garden, a pair of red shoes.
Hans Christian Andersen is commonly associated with The Ugly Duckling’s main character. Like Andersen, the Ugly Duckling is born into a family he doesn’t fit into. The Ugly Duckling is huge and gangly and odd. His mother decides to love him just the same, but the Ugly Duckling is not the same. The ridicule of others makes his difference apparent. “What sort of creature are you?” they ask him. “You are terribly ugly, but that’s nothing to us so long as you don’t marry into our family.” Like the Ugly Duckling, Andersen seems to have been born too large and too sensitive for his harsh environment. “I’ve never really experienced what youth was,” he wrote. “There is so much I want to forget, to learn something better.” As a boy, Andersen spent solitary afternoons with his marionette theater, preferred the company of girls, sang in an astonishing falsetto, had a soft place in his heart for Jews. After his father’s death, Andersen was sent to work, but he left Odense at the age of 14 for Copenhagen. Andersen found himself a patron to pay for his education, but was miserable at school. He never could shake the feeling that he lived in two worlds: the poverty he was born into and the bourgeois world of culture to which he aspired.
One day, the Ugly Duckling comes upon a group of swans. He feels happy just watching these magnificent birds. Could he dare to be like them? Perhaps they would peck him to death. Well, he thinks, better to be killed by swans than suffer. “Kill me!” he says to the swans, bowing his head over the water. It is then the Ugly Duckling beholds his image. He too is a swan!
Modernist sensibilities, Binding points out, find the ending of The Ugly Duckling unsatisfying, elitist even, as in the case of the critic Georg Brandes, who would have liked to see the Ugly Duckling murdered. At least, thought Brandes, the Ugly Duckling should make “one last, proud, solo flight” to affirm his ugliness. But, writes Binding, this is a failure to see Andersen’s art. It’s not that the Ugly Duckling discovers his superior magnificence when he looks at himself in the water. It’s that the Ugly Duckling sees his true reflection for the first time only at the moment he surrenders to death. This is the moment of the Ugly Duckling’s spiritual awakening. Brandes’ interpretation also assumes that Andersen’s ending promotes a fantasy, that an ugly duck really can become – or is – a beautiful swan. But for all his imagination – for all the talking candles and magical mountains and girls no larger than thumbs – Andersen was not a fantasist. He had seen reality in the cramped and filthy alleys of Odense, in the faces of the deformed and the wretched, and also in the transcendent grace of a garden. Andersen didn’t want us to think that all the Ugly Ducklings of the world are inherently swans. Rather, it is by recognizing who he truly is that the Ugly Duckling finds happiness. The spiritual awakening of the Ugly Duckling brings him closer to reality, because he wasn’t ugly after all. He wasn’t even a duck.
Page from a 1893 edition of The Ugly Duckling. Illustration by T. von Hoytema.
•
Innocence is often thought of as a quality projected outward. It means, literally, “not harm.” If a person is innocent, they aren’t going to harm you. But another way to consider the idea of harmlessness is that which is unharmed. It is a place within our own self, untouched by harm.
Hans Christian Andersen believed in an untouched innocence at the core of every person. “She cannot receive any power from me greater than she now has,” says the Finn woman of Gerda in The Snow Queen, “which consists in her own purity and innocence of heart.” Children had special access to this innocence – animals and grandmothers did as well – but the innocence was inside everyone. Innocence could be hidden and emerge, or it could be apparent and then corrupted. See, for example, the devil’s mirror in The Snow Queen, which had the peculiar power to make everything good and beautiful seem like nothing. The loveliest landscapes looked like boiled spinach and the very best people became hideous or stood on their heads and had no stomachs.
To be wholly innocent was rare. To be wholly innocent, for Andersen, meant to be wholly yourself. It meant that you were free from the distorted reality of the devil’s mirror. There is a connection in Andersen’s work between innocence and reality, then, because innocence is truth. And just as truth is eternal, so is innocence. Though many of Andersen’s tales are tragedies, ending in death or humiliation, they all affirm the importance of a life lived toward an eternal, personal truth. This is what Andersen meant when he said, “Every man’s life is a fairytale, written by God’s fingers.” This doesn’t mean that every man’s life is a fantasy. It means that every man’s life is a quest toward reality.
In Andersen’s fairytales, finding one’s truth is rarely easy, and there is no single way to get there. As Binding writes, the strength of Andersen’s art lies in “his refusal to ignore pain and frustration even while presenting the beauties of sentient lives and their capacity for mutual tenderness.” Reality can be discovered through self-sacrifice, as with Gerda in The Snow Queen, when she casts her red shoes – her only prized possession – into the water so that she may find (and save) her lost friend. Reality can also be found through repentance, like with Anne Lisbeth, who tries to give her soul to the dead son she neglected. The child in The Emperor’s New Clothes discovers truth through fearlessness, and his fearlessness brings the Emperor closer to truth as well. The Ugly Duckling doesn’t have to do anything special to become his true self. He just has to surrender and be.
The Little Mermaid is the tale of a young mermaid who wants nothing more than to be a human. Human beings have short lives, she learns, but they have souls, and so share in the eternal. Mermaids have no souls. They can live for three hundred years in the glorious underwater kingdom of the sea, but when they die, they become nothing but foam. The little mermaid falls in love with a prince she sees on shore; to get a soul, she must make the prince love her back. So she gives up mermaid life forever – risking everything she has – and becomes a mute, soulless human. Alas, the prince marries a princess. The little mermaid must become foam. In one last shot, the little mermaid is given a chance to become a mermaid again, only she must kill her beloved prince. She chooses annihilation. Yet, just when all hope looks lost, the little mermaid is taken up by the Daughters of the Air, who win souls through good deeds.
No tale of Andersen’s shows the pain of finding one’s soul so much as the heartbreaking The Little Match Girl. “It was so terribly cold,” the story begins. “In the cold and the gloom a poor little girl, bareheaded and barefoot, was walking through the streets… In an old apron she carried several packages of matches, and she held a box of them in her hand. No one had bought any from her all day long, and no one had given her a cent.”
The little match girl shivers through the streets, and notices the lights in the windows. The air smells like roast goose. It is New Year’s Eve; the little match girl hadn’t realized until then. She is cold but doesn’t dare go home. The little match girl’s father will beat her when he learns that she hasn’t made a cent. She finds a corner between two houses, sits down, and lights a match. It makes a warm bright flame, and when she strikes another match, it turns the wall into a window. The little match girl sees into a wonderful room, decorated for Christmas. When she lights another the room is even more wonderful. In the glow of the next match, she sees her kind grandmother. “Oh, take me with you!” she cries, and lights the whole bundle of matches to keep her grandmother close. In the morning, the New Year’s sun rises on the pathetic corpse of the little match girl. “No one imagined what beautiful things she had seen, and how happily she had gone with her grandmother into the bright New Year.”
•
Illustration by Wilhelm Pedersen from an 1849 edition of The Shadow
There is the feeling, when reading Andersen’s work as a whole, of something unresolved. What to make of all these inconsistent endings? Is it best to be an artist – to attain innocence via works? Is it best to help others find their reality? Does one find reality through anonymous acts of love, or by being good, or just by being? Andersen never resolved the contradictions within himself; his stories are reflections of an unresolved man. Had their endings been any tidier, any more consistent, they wouldn’t have the same power. Andersen’s characters never know where their spiritual journey will take them, or how it will all pan out. Only one thing is sure: they all have to go. They have to face life’s truth by facing eternity, and not get lost in illusion.
The greatest danger in all of Andersen’s fairytales, therefore, is the constant danger of self-delusion. You can easily deceive yourself into believing you’ve found your truth when, in fact, you haven’t. The Shadow’s protagonist is a scholar who has traveled to a hot and faraway country. In countries like this, travelers’ shadows can get very big and take on lives of their own. This is what happens to the scholar. One evening his shadow just takes off, leaving the scholar quite annoyed. The scholar gets on with a perfectly good new shadow and goes home to write books about the things in the world “that are true, that are good, and that are beautiful.” Then one day, the shadow returns, looking distinguished. “How goes it?” he asks the scholar, and the scholar replies, “Alack! I still write about the true, the good, and beautiful, but nobody cares to read about such things. I feel quite despondent…” The shadow tricks the scholar into becoming his friend. He convinces society people that he is the master and that the scholar is the shadow. The shadow has gotten on well by himself, and wants to become a man. To do so, the shadow must get rid of the scholar. This is, indeed, what happens.
Carl Jung was fascinated by The Shadow. His interpretation could be summed up: Know your darkness or else. For it is only in knowing your darkness that you can hope to conquer self-delusion. The complacent scholar couldn’t even recognize his own shadow, and in the end his shadow overcame him. Still, Jung was sympathetic to the scholar. To become conscious of one’s shadow, he wrote, takes “considerable moral effort.” It involves “recognizing the dark aspects of the personality as present and real.” As he wrote in On the Psychology of the Unconscious (1912):
It is a frightening thought that man also has a shadow side to him, consisting not just of little weaknesses and foibles, but of a positively demonic dynamism… let these harmless creatures form a mass, and there emerges a raging monster; and each individual is only one tiny cell in the monster’s body, so that for better or worse he must accompany it on its bloody rampages and even assist it to the utmost. Having a dark suspicion of these grim possibilities, man turns a blind eye to the shadow-side of human nature. … Yes, he even hesitates to admit the conflict of which he is so painfully aware.
We all think of ourselves as good. Andersen would agree; goodness is part of our reality. But shadows are reality too, and if we never face them, we can never get to truth. How different the scholar’s relationship to shadows than the Little Match Girl’s. The match girl is her shadows and the shadows are her. She goes so deeply and fully into the shadow world that she transcends it altogether. The scholar, in contrast, is overtaken by his shadow, is imprisoned by it and killed. The shadow lives on alone, pretending to be a man, growing stronger and richer, free from the burden of the scholar. He marries a princess and no one knows what he really is. “The cannons boomed, and the soldiers presented arms. That was the sort of wedding it was! The Princess and the shadow stepped out on the balcony to show themselves and be cheered, again and again. The scholar heard nothing of all this, for they had already done away with him.” • 30 June 2014 | {
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We’re living in perilous times, gentlemen. There are morons amongst us and they’re not right in the head, if you get my drift. Case in point, below is a clip of a former NY Times reporter, during a live CNN debate versus a black Trump surrogate, using the N word, plainly, in an attempt to brandish Trump a racist. It was a magnificent display of sheer tone deafness, one that started a slow burn in the host which ended in total meltdown.
This CNN broadcast had all of the perfect ingredients to cause a well meaning CNN reporter to completely lose her shit. There was the caustic libtard using the N word. Then there was the soft spoken and eloquent black American Trump supporter trying to discuss racial unity at Breitbart and the Trump administration. Then finally, after a 5 minute conversation about race, the caustic libtard tossed another race laden grenade at the nice black man — causing the CNN host to end the debate and cry.
Behold cuckery at its finest.
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Remember to get your Canadian dollars changed over to East Coast pesos.
Haven't you heard? Atlantic Canada is separate from the rest of Canada, according to an Air Canada ad.
The graphic was sent out in an email, advertising savings on a flight "between Canada and Atlantic Canada."
Needless to say, the ad was met with a massive eye roll from Canadians, yes Canadians, in the Maritimes and Newfoundland and Labrador.
The CBC contacted Air Canada for a reply. They sent this tweet.
Thanks <a href="https://twitter.com/CBCNS">@CBCNS</a> for boosting our seat sale! Seats are going fast!... <a href="http://t.co/nAzqO4cUaI">http://t.co/nAzqO4cUaI</a> —@AirCanada
Read the online world's reaction here. | {
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pants: HAVE YOU EVER RETIRED A HUMAN BY MISTAKE deuce: NOPE pants: WELL, OKAY | {
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As I wrote in a piece on the homepage, if you follow the online battles over the Russia investigation, the debate is devolving into two competing, absolutist narratives. Either a GOP president stole an election in part by cooperating with a hostile foreign power and then obstructed justice to stay in office, or a partisan “deep state” is unlawfully cooperating with Democratic activists (and even colluding with their own Russian friends) to unseat Donald Trump. Both sides are yearning for the moment when the truth is revealed, the real agendas are laid bare, and the worse-than-Watergate scandal is uncovered in all its slimy glory.
There’s another option. Indeed I’d even say this the most likely option. We’ll call it double Watergate. In other words, both sides are at least a little bit terrible. Investigations begun with corrupt motives and poor information can discover true wrongdoing. Righteous indignation at unfair investigations can transform into unlawful obstruction. We could reach a point where Robert Mueller uncovers credible evidence of actual unlawful obstruction of justice of an investigation that began for partisan reasons and uncovers no meaningful Russian collusion. Over at the Daily Wire, Ben Shapiro outlines six different scenarios, all supported by varying degrees of evidence. There are more.
Writing below, Jonah quite reasonably argues that we should “wait and see” before launching into FBI conspiracies. It’s sound advice that applies to both sides. The only modification I’d make is to ask the Trump administration and the Mueller team to do what they reasonably can to minimize how much longer we have to wait before we can see. That means more transparency, sooner. Release the memo. Release the evidence supporting the memo’s conclusions. Release the FISA applications. Make only the most minimal and necessary redactions.
This week the political temperature was turned up once again. Anger and distrust — already dangerous — is escalating. As the truth is delayed, our political culture becomes more frayed and fragile. Each day it gets worse. The American people can certainly handle the truth, but the system can handle it better sooner rather than later. It’s time for transparency. | {
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Kotaku East East is your slice of Asian internet culture, bringing you the latest talking points from Japan, Korea, China and beyond. Tune in every morning from 4am to 8am. Prev Next View All
To ring in the New Year, Dominos not only has a very special pizza, but a very pricey one. For a limited time, pizza lovers can order a "Kobe Beef Steak" special. A medium costs ¥4,800 (US$55), while a large is ¥5,800 ($66). Sixty-six bucks!
The Kobe beef is covered in a simple special sauce, which is designed to bring out the flavor of the world famous meat (more here). The cows in areas around Kobe are fed beer and massaged, and Kobe beef is marbled, making the meat juicy and tender.
Dominos is only offering this special pizza pie until the middle of January. And if you just want a taste and don't want to spring for a whole, you can order a half and half.
Kobe Beef Steak [Dominos]
Kotaku East is your slice of Asian internet culture, bringing you the latest talking points from Japan, Korea, China and beyond. Tune in every morning from 4am to 8am. | {
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It’s Hard to Breathe in Never Again – Now on Steam
Has your own body ever betrayed you? Living with asthma can be quite dangerous; your lungs seize up and despite how hard you gasp, the passages constrict, tightening the more you panic. Never Again is a new horror game where asthma is an antagonist in itself.
As Sasha Anders, a thirteen year old girl with severe asthma, players navigate a nightmare in search of her family. Her journey takes her to surreal landscapes where she must solve puzzles, explore, and manager her fright so that her asthma doesn’t kill her.
Never Again released today on Steam as an Early Access game for just $5. There’s a demo already available. | {
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When a Los Angeles businessman treated then-City Councilman Mitchell Englander to a night out in Las Vegas in 2017, he pulled out all the stops, according to a federal indictment unsealed Monday.
The perks allegedly included a hotel room with amenities reserved for high rollers, an envelope stuffed with $10,000 in cash, lavish meals and bottle service at a nightclub, and a female escort sent to his room at the end of a long night of partying.
For the record: An earlier version of this article said Englander sent the businessman a text message thanking him for an enjoyable trip. The person who allegedly sent the text message was an Englander aide who is not identified by name in the indictment.
But when FBI agents grilled Englander about what happened in Vegas, the councilman said he had taken no cash from the businessman — one of several alleged lies that would compound Englander’s legal woes. And when asked if he had gotten any freebies besides the hotel room, dinner and casino chips that he had paid back, Englander said, “Not that I recall.”
Englander, 49, surrendered to federal authorities Monday and was charged with obstructing an investigation into his allegedly accepting such gifts from the businessman during trips to Las Vegas and Palm Springs. He faces seven criminal counts — three of witness tampering, three for allegedly making false statements and a single count of scheming to falsify facts. Englander pleaded not guilty and was released on a $50,000 bond guaranteed by his wife.
The former councilman is the first City Hall figure to be publicly charged in connection with a sweeping probe that has delved into the worlds of L.A. politics and real estate development. Federal officials billed the charges against Englander as part of “an ongoing public corruption investigation.”
Englander announced he was planning to step down from the council in 2018, less than a month before FBI agents descended on the home and offices of Councilman Jose Huizar. A federal search warrant filed more than a year ago indicated that agents have been seeking evidence of potential crimes including bribery, kickbacks, extortion and money laundering involving more than a dozen people, including Huizar and other city officials and business figures.
Federal officials have not publicly announced charges against any of those individuals. Englander, who was not mentioned in that warrant, would face a maximum of 50 years in federal prison if convicted on all charges. He was ordered to surrender his passport, not contact any other defendants or potential witnesses, and to return to court Thursday.
His attorney Janet Levine said in a statement Monday that Englander was proud of the work he had done for his community. “Despite this setback, with the support of his family and friends, he looks forward to continuing his lifelong contributions to the community that has given him so much,” Levine said.
Englander made the trip to Vegas in June 2017 with an unidentified businessman who was “seeking to increase his business opportunities in the city,” according to the indictment. Accompanying Englander were one of his top aides, another city staffer, a lobbyist and a real estate developer whom prosecutors dubbed “Developer A.”
The businessman got people in the group hotel rooms and “amenities ordinarily limited to VIP customers,” investigators found. In a bathroom at the resort, the man also handed Englander an envelope containing $10,000 in cash, according to the indictment.
Read the federal indictment Read the federal indictment Former Los Angeles City Councilman Mitchell Englander has been charged with obstructing an investigation into him accepting cash, female escort services, hotel rooms and expensive meals from a businessman during trips to Las Vegas and Palm Springs, federal officials announced Monday.
The businessman also gave Englander roughly $1,000 in casino chips, which the councilman used to gamble before returning chips to the businessman. The indictment did not specify the value of the chips he returned.
The man also treated the group to $2,481 in dinner and drinks at a restaurant at the Vegas resort and paid about $24,000 for bottle service and alcohol at a nightclub, which the real estate developer supplemented with an additional $10,000 for drinks, federal investigators found.
In the early morning, after they returned to their hotel, the businessman told Englander he was ordering female escorts for the group, whom he paid $300 to $400 in cash for their services, the indictment states.
Englander is the only person identified by name in the document. His former chief of staff John Lee — who was later elected to fill his seat — said Monday that he had been on the Las Vegas trip with Englander and “did everything in my power to pay for and reimburse expenses related to this trip.”
“I was unaware of any illegal activities for which Councilmember Englander is being charged,” Councilman Lee said in a statement, later adding that he was unaware that escorts were allegedly involved. “I completely cooperated with the FBI when they contacted me for voluntary interviews in July and August 2017 and will continue to do so.”
Lee recently ran for reelection against college educator Loraine Lundquist, who has lagged behind him in votes tallied as of Friday. Lundquist said voters should have had this “critical information” before going to the polls, and she demanded, “What did John Lee know, when did he know it, and was he involved in the cover-up?”
The indictment also details meetings Englander had with the unnamed businessman in Palm Springs in June 2017. Englander allegedly accepted an envelope with $5,000 in cash from the businessman in a casino bathroom while the men attended a golf tournament.
A week later, Englander brought the businessman to lunch with a person identified in the indictment as “Developer B,” whom prosecutors described as the CEO of a construction company. The purpose of the lunch, the indictment said, was to introduce the businessman and his company to the developer.
After the lunch, the developer emailed the men to thank them and suggested another meeting to allow the businessman to make a “presentation,” according to the indictment.
FBI agents and prosecutors from the U.S. attorney’s public corruption unit turned their attention to Englander in June 2017, when they intercepted a phone call about perks the unnamed businessman allegedly provided to public officials, according to the indictment.
The call led investigators to begin digging into whether Englander, a second City Council member referred to in the indictment as “Councilmember A,” and two staffers — one who worked for Englander, the other for the unnamed council member — had received “personal benefits” from the businessman.
The businessman soon agreed to cooperate with the federal investigation and relayed conversations in which Englander repeatedly told him to lie to investigators, according to the indictment.
“You and I have never had a conversation” about what to tell FBI agents, Englander instructed the businessman during a private conversation at a political fundraiser, according to the indictment.
Englander also allegedly told the businessman to falsely tell agents that Englander had tried repeatedly to reimburse the man for his hotel room and meals on the Las Vegas trip. As for the “massage lady,” federal investigators say that Englander told the businessman, “Don’t say it … Don’t mention … No, no, don’t mention it,” according to the indictment.
When the two men met days later in Englander’s car, the councilman allegedly turned up the volume of music that was playing in an attempt to thwart any listening devices and, while driving in circles around downtown Los Angeles, again instructed the man to lie to agents, the indictment said.
After learning about the federal investigation, Englander also contacted the businessman through an encrypted messaging service, telling him that he wanted to reimburse him for portions of the Las Vegas trip, the indictment states. Federal investigators say that Englander then sent a $442 check to the businessman backdated to appear as if he had sought to reimburse the businessman before the FBI contacted him.
The package also included a second check, marked with the same date, from the Englander aide. Lundquist, the candidate who ran against Councilman Lee, said that if it was Lee who backdated the check, “he should resign.”
In interviews with the FBI, Englander repeatedly made false statements, including about the perks he had gotten from the businessman, the indictment alleges.
Englander also failed to report the $15,000 he had received from the businessman on annual forms that lawmakers are required to fill out about gifts, federal investigators alleged.
Englander was first elected to the council in 2011 and reelected in 2015, then announced he was stepping down before the end of his term to take a job with Oak View Group, a sports and entertainment firm.
When he first ran for City Council, Englander campaigned as the “official public safety candidate,” touting his support from the Los Angeles Police Protective League, the union that represents rank-and-file officers, and other law enforcement groups. In one campaign mailer, he can be seen in his LAPD uniform, which he wore as a reserve officer.
Englander represented the northwestern stretches of the San Fernando Valley on the council, including Chatsworth, Porter Ranch and Granada Hills, and sat on three of the most powerful committees at City Hall — one focused on the budget, another on public safety, and a third that vetted real estate development. The councilman also made an unsuccessful run for the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.
Times staff writer David Zahniser contributed to this report. | {
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In what appears to be a major policy shift, Pakistan is said to have delivered a ‘stern warning’ to the Afghan Taliban to immediately call off their ongoing spring offensive in Afghanistan or else face consequences.
The message was recently conveyed to the Taliban leadership through ‘intermediaries’, said a senior government official, who has the knowledge of this crucial move by Islamabad. “The Afghan authorities have also been in the loop,” said the official, who wished not to be named given the sensitivity of the matter.The unprecedented step was taken after the Taliban launched a spring offensive against the Afghan security forces as well as international troops despite attempts by the Afghan negotiators to reach out to the ultraorthodox militia that has been fighting a bloody insurgency since 2001.Recently, representatives of the Taliban and Afghan government officials met in Doha, Qatar, to explore the possibility of peace talks, but the unabated Taliban attacks have threatened the embryonic process. Pakistan is believed to have been pushing for a ceasefire by all sides in Afghanistan in order to pave the way for a meaningful reconciliation process.The official disclosed that Pakistan has made it clear to the senior Taliban cadres that they would have to face ‘serious consequences’ if the ongoing spring offensive was not called off. He added that Pakistan and Afghanistan could jointly deal with the Afghan Taliban if the ultraorthodox group refused to respond to the peace overtures.It is understood that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who led a powerful delegation including army chief General Raheel Sharif and ISI chief Lt Gen Rizwan Akhtar, to Kabul on May 12, informed the Afghan leadership about the ‘warning’ conveyed to the insurgents in Afghanistan.At a news briefing in Kabul, the prime minister strongly condemned the uptick in Taliban violence and the group’s spring offensive. “Continuation of such offensive and attacks will be construed as terrorist acts and we condemn such attacks in the strongest terms,” Nawaz declared in a rare public condemnation of insurgents’ activities.Islamabad is also concerned about the sanctuaries of Pakistani Taliban in Afghanistan’s border regions, especially in southern and northeastern provinces. The Pakistan Taliban uses these areas as a springboard for launching cross-border attacks in Pakistan.On Sunday morning, militants fired rockets at a check post of the paramilitary Frontier Corps in the Ghakhi Pass area of Bajaur Agency, killing one soldier. An FC source said that the rockets were fired from the north-eastern Afghan province of Kunar. “The militants fired rockets at the FC post early in the morning.”The paramilitary troops manning the post responded with full force, forcing them to flee. The attack left an FC soldier dead. His body was shifted to the Bajaur Scouts headquarters in Khar.Pakistan will host the Heart of Asia-Istanbul’s Senior Officials Meeting in Islamabad today (Monday). The meeting will be co-chaired by Pakistan’s Foreign Secretary Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry and Afghan Deputy Foreign Minister Hekmat Khalil Karzai.Representatives from other 12 participating countries, 16 supporting countries and 12 regional and international organisations have been invited to the meeting, said a foreign office statement.The Heart of Asia-Istanbul Process was launched in 2011 to bring together regional countries to promote peace and prosperity in Afghanistan through concerted efforts of participating and supporting countries as well as international and regional organisations engaged in the process.“Pakistan is the co-chair for 2015 with Afghanistan (permanent co-chair). It will host the fifth Ministerial Conference in Islamabad later this year,” the statement said. It further said as the co-chair, Pakistan will take initiatives to take the process forward from the Beijing Conference held in October 2014.The deliberations in these senior officials meetings would form the basis for the Islamabad Declaration, to be endorsed by Heart of Asia countries and organisations during the ministerial conference. | {
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It's The Bomb! Vintage Explosion Photos
You thought summer was hot! Try an A-bomb explosion. Recently, the Science section of The New York Times online featured images of various atomic bomb explosions. Among those images are photographs captured by Harold Edgerton's rapatronic camera in the early 1950s.
Hide caption Photographs of early atomic experiments taken by Harold Edgerton with his rapatronic camera. Courtesy of Smithsonian's National Musuem of American History Previous Next Courtesy of Smithsonian's National Musuem of American History
Hide caption Previous Next Courtesy of Smithsonian's National Musuem of American History
Hide caption Previous Next Courtesy of Smithsonian's National Musuem of American History
Hide caption Previous Next Courtesy of Smithsonian's National Musuem of American History
Hide caption Previous Next Courtesy of Smithsonian's National Musuem of American History
Hide caption Previous Next Courtesy of Smithsonian's National Musuem of American History
Hide caption Previous Next Courtesy of Smithsonian's National Musuem of American History
Hide caption Previous Next Courtesy of Smithsonian's National Musuem of American History 1 of 8 i View slideshow
Edgerton is best known for his stop-motion photographs of bullets through apples, milk drops that create liquid white crowns, and other images revealing what the human eye cannot perceive. The U.S. government employed him and his company during World War II to track enemy movements by using nighttime photography.
toggle caption Donald E. Hurlbert/Smithsonian's National Musuem of American History
After the war, EG & G, Inc. (Edgerton, Germeshausen and Grier Inc.) developed the rapatronic camera for the Atomic Energy Commission to record — specifically, in one take only — the beginning of nuclear explosions. Capturing the earliest moments of atomic explosions was exceptionally challenging, in part because of the extraordinary light intensity (an atomic explosion is about a hundred times as bright as the sun) and the ultra-short duration of the phenomena.
The dangers of shockwaves and radiation required the camera to be placed 7 miles from the detonation site on a tower some 75 feet in the air. Exposure time was one-hundred-millionth of a second. The exposure time was so small that no conventional mechanical shutter could be used. A magnetic field was created around two polarized lenses that were rotated, permitting light to pass through an optical system.
In the photographs of the explosions, look for tiny Joshua trees at the bottom of a few photographs to garner a sense of the enormity of the explosion that melted the sand and vaporized steel towers. Energy from the explosion can be seen traveling down the detonation tower's guy-wires. Though the photographs were intended as scientific documentation, these images of extreme power and raw energy have the capacity to evoke horror and dread.
Shannon Thomas Perich is an associate curator of the Photographic History Collection at Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. Her regular contributions to The Picture Show are pulled from the Smithsonian's archives. | {
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Everybody hates taxes. That’s one of the unalienable truths in U.S. politics, and it’s been proven again as the April 15 filing deadline approaches. A drop in tax refunds earlier this year, potentially due to the Republican tax cuts in late 2017, infuriated Americans.*
My husband and I owed money for the first time ever, and are “middle class” according to the tax brackets.
We don’t even make 50k/yr.
No EIC, elimination of other write-offs and deductions, meant the IRS keeps 4K we already paid and we still owe $79. #GOPTaxSCAMStories — VP Wright (@thevpwright) February 9, 2019
While Republicans have long argued that opposition to taxes is baked into the country’s DNA, both parties see tax increases as an existential threat. In 2015, the Republican pollster Frank Luntz expressed the conventional wisdom, telling Bill O’Reilly that taxes were an “emotional” issue for voters: “Nobody wants to see their taxes go up.” For much of the country’s history, a simple calculus has defined political life: Voters reward politicians when taxes go down and punish them when they go up.
Democrats, long tarred as the party of high taxes, face a growing problem as they propose ambitious and expensive programs like Medicare for All and the Green New Deal. Fox News and other right-wing outlets have latched on to studies estimating that Medicare for All would cost $32 trillion over ten years and that the Green New Deal would cost $93 trillion. On Tuesday, more than 100 Democrats rolled-out the most ambitious single-payer health care bill yet, a sweeping plan that would enroll everyone in a government-funded program in only two years. But one detail, caught by a number of outlets, was missing: How much it would cost.
It’s easy to see why Democrats are under-emphasizing the cost of these plans. They want to focus on the benefits, not the drawbacks. And understating costs—including potential tax increases—could lead to political disaster, as it famously did for George H. W. Bush after he broke his “read my lips” pledge not to raise taxes. Putting a multi-trillion price tag on any pitch to voters is similarly problematic and could ultimately doom these efforts before they get off the ground.
But there is growing evidence that Democrats shouldn’t be so tepid about tax increases or other means of raising revenue for ambitious legislation. Polling has shown that raising taxes on the wealthy is popular with a majority of voters. Given the damage the Republican Party has caused with pass two deficit-busting tax cuts for the wealthy over the past two decades, Democrats can argue that they’re the party of fiscal seriousness not in spite of any plan to soak the rich, but because of it.
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Halim A. le 19 janvier 2016, après son audience au Conseil d’Etat. Il avait alors obtenu une dérogation à ses pointages quotidiens pour pouvoir venir se défendre devant le juge des référés. ANTONIN SABOT/LE MONDE
Le juge des référés du Conseil d’Etat a estimé, vendredi 22 janvier, que l’assignation qui visait depuis le 15 novembre un homme accusé à tort d’avoir fait des repérages autour du domicile d’un membre de l’équipe de Charlie Hebdo était illégale. L’Etat est condamné à lui verser 1 500 euros. L’assignation avait été renouvelée le 15 décembre et validée par le tribunal administratif de Melun, le 5 janvier. C’est la première fois que la haute juridiction administrative suspend une assignation depuis la mise en place de l’état d’urgence, le 14 novembre, au lendemain des attentats à Paris et à Saint-Denis.
L’assignation à résidence reposait sur trois points. Halim A. était accusé par le ministère de l’intérieur d’appartenir « à la mouvance islamiste radicale », « sa présence [avait] été signalée à plusieurs reprises, le 13 mai dernier, aux abords du domicile d’un responsable du journal Charlie Hebdo », où « il a été remarqué prenant des photographies ». Et, enfin, « il a été mis en cause dans une affaire de trafic de véhicules de luxe volés, organisé par des membres de la mouvance islamiste radicale ».
Sur ces trois points, le ministère de l’intérieur est renvoyé dans les cordes par le Conseil d’Etat, qui a demandé à plusieurs reprises à l’administration de préciser les faits avant de prendre sa décision. Pour le juge, « l’intéressé a pu justifier sa présence et son comportement aux abords du domicile de la personnalité en question », car « il rendait visite à sa mère, qui habite à proximité immédiate et ne prenait pas de photos mais utilisait son téléphone portable en mode haut-parleur », « aucun élément suffisamment circonstancié produit par le ministre de l’intérieur ne permet de justifier qu’il appartiendrait à la mouvance islamiste radicale » et, enfin, « en ce qui concerne l’affaire de trafic de véhicules, l’intéressé a, en réalité, été entendu comme simple témoin ».
« Dynamique de toute-puissance des services de renseignement »
Me William Bourdon, qui défendait Halim A., au côté de Me Vincent Brengarth, souligne que « le juge érige pour la première fois au Conseil d’Etat une digue face à ce que tout le monde craignait : une dynamique de toute-puissance des services de renseignement ». « Le gouvernement doit mesurer maintenant les potentielles très graves menaces pour les libertés que fait peser l’état d’urgence », ajoute-t-il.
Pour Halim A., interrogé par Le Monde, le sentiment de soulagement est énorme :
« Ma confiance envers la justice française est revenue. Aujourd’hui, j’ai vu qu’il y avait encore des juges de valeur, des juges qui allaient au-delà de la pression politique et médiatique qu’on leur mettait dans le cadre de l’état d’urgence. Avec ma défense, nous avons réussi à casser le règne de l’arbitraire et de la note blanche. »
Halim A. est aussi conscient d’avoir « ouvert une porte pour toutes les personnes qui sont assignées à résidence injustement. Si on sait qu’on n’a rien à se reprocher, il faut se battre pour dire la vérité. Et aller jusqu’au bout ».
Selon les données publiées mardi 19 janvier par le Conseil d’Etat, les tribunaux administratifs ont à ce jour rendu 72 décisions sur des mesures prises au titre de l’état d’urgence, dont 61 sur les assignations à résidence. Dans sept cas, le juge administratif a annulé l’assignation à résidence, décidée par le ministre de l’intérieur. Au niveau du Conseil d’Etat, 19 décisions ont été rendues depuis le 14 novembre 2015, date de l’entrée en vigueur de l’état d’urgence. Mais pas une seule fois cette instance d’appel sur ces procédures n’avait suspendu une assignation à résidence qui aurait été confirmée en première instance. | {
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Elite Hamas military commander reportedly defects to Israel
June 15, 2016 by Ian Allen
A senior member of the military wing of Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that governs the Gaza Strip, is believed to have defected to Israel. News of the rumored defection first appeared on the website of Al-Hayat al-Jadida, the official newspaper of the Palestinian Authority, which is based in the West Bank. On Tuesday, Al-Hayat said that the man, a member of the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’ military wing, had not been seen for several days.
The alleged defector was later named as Bassam Mahmoud Baraka, and reportedly comes from a well-known family in Kahn Younis, on the southern sector of the Gaza Strip. Baraka’s father is believed to be a religious judge that serves in Gaza under Hamas’ jurisdiction. According to Al-Hayat, the missing man is an elite member of the al-Qassam Brigades and specializes in operating inside the numerous underground tunnels that are said to span the entirety of the Palestinian enclave. The tunnels are of strategic importance to Hamas, as they secretly connect it with the outside world, despite Israeli efforts to prevent the trafficking of goods and people to and from the Gaza Strip. Some Israeli military officials believe that Hamas operatives are able to travel from one end of the Strip to the other without having to emerge from the ground. Since the 2014 Israeli invasion of Gaza, Tel Aviv has said that it views the elimination of Hamas’ vast underground tunnel network as a national security priority.
According to Palestinian websites, Baraka told members of his family that he was stepping out for a brief hike but never returned. He is believed to have voluntarily approached the border fence that separates Gaza from Israel and surrendered himself to a group of Israeli soldiers. Al-Hayat reports that Baraka’s family has already been informed from representatives of the Red Cross that he is in Israeli hands. Palestinian sources suggest that the Israeli soldiers that took in Baraka were aware of his pending defection and were waiting for him at the border. He was also reportedly carrying a laptop computer with him.
Israel is known to aggressively recruit informants in the Gaza Strip, many of them affiliated with Hamas. In 2010 it was revealed that Mosab Hassan Yousef, whose father is a senior Hamas official, was a secret informant for Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic security agency. Yousef defected to Israel and is now believed to be living in the United States.
► Author: Ian Allen | Date: 15 June 2016 | Permalink | {
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Published by Sierra Monica P. on July 23, 2010 under Home
Do you have about $4,200 for spending on an unique gift idea consisting of one of the top luxury gifts? Check this impressive designer sofa called Feel.
Feel is an innovative seating system designed by Animi Causa, featuring an unique shape inspired by the molecular structure.
It consists of 120 foam balls covered by soft stretch fabric and connected by plastic elements.
The coolest thing about this seating system is that you can set it in various shapes for best comfort. You can use it as a bed, a sofa or a chair and place it in your office, room or public space.
Feel is available in red, blue, grey, brown and black measuring 220 x 180 cm and each ball has a diameter of 20 cm.
Find it at Animi Causa.
Tags: sofa | {
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Peter will also be the banquet speaker at the Eighth Annual H.L. Mencken Club Conference (Theme:THE ELITES AND THE REST OF US) on November 6-7, 2015 in Baltimore. Click here to register. | {
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Final Fantasy VI launches on Android tomorrow
By Adam St. Amour on January 14, 2014 at 3:56 PM
Ad
The mobile “remake” of Final Fantasy VI will be available on Android devices starting tomorrow in Europe, Square Enix has revealed today. Arriving with updated visuals in the style of the previous Final Fantasy V release, FFVI is set to be priced at £10.99/€14.99 and carry with it an interface more suited for touch devices.
The game will also be available for iOS devices and for release in North America some time in the future. Square Enix has yet to announce any plans regarding the release of those versions but details should be shared likely sooner rather than later. | {
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NEW YORK (Reuters) - With time running out before Congress turns its attention to the 2018 mid-term elections, small-cap stocks are increasingly acting as a bellwether for the market’s expectations that the Trump Administration will reach a deal to significantly cut U.S. corporate tax rates by the end of the year.
FILE PHOTO: A street sign for Wall Street is seen outside the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, U.S., December 28, 2016. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly/File Photo
For the moment at least, they’re reflecting renewed optimism for progress on taxes after months of going no where as persistent bickering in Washington weighed on reform hopes. Small caps are seen as more sensitive to corporate tax cut expectations because, on balance, they bear a heftier relative tax burden than big companies.
Since hitting a low for the year on Aug. 21, small-cap stocks have surged 5 percent, nearly double the 3 percent gain of large-cap stocks, as President Donald Trump’s team has renewed its push for a major corporate tax by the end of December.
Trump urged Congress to “move fast” on taxes in a tweet Wednesday morning, and later met with a bipartisan group of House members at the White House to discuss a tax deal. House Speaker Paul Ryan has said that an outline of a bill will be unveiled during the week of September 25.
“You’ve got the potential here to get a tremendous increase in earnings, and it’s all up to what happens in Washington,” said Craig Hodges, a co-portfolio manager of the $800 million Hodges Small Cap fund.
While businesses of all sizes would likely benefit if Congress lowers the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 15 percent as President Trump has proposed, small companies would see the greatest improvement to their bottom lines.
Companies in the benchmark Russell 2000 of small-cap companies pay a median effective tax rate of 31.9 percent, while the larger, multi-national companies in the S&P 500 pay a median effective tax rate of 28 percent, according to Thomson Reuters data. The median for the 30 mega-cap stocks in the Dow Jones Industrial Average is just 23.8 percent.
So far, the effects of a major tax bill are not fully priced into the market, said Martin Jarzebowski, portfolio manager of the $593 million Federated Clover Small Cap Value fund, leaving the Russell 2000 sensitive to news out of Washington.
“A tax cut is more priced into small-cap growth stocks than value stocks, and that’s where the opportunity lies right now,” he said, adding that he has been increasing his stake in value stocks, such as airlines and local broadcasters, in part because he sees a tax deal passing.
The forward price-to-earnings ratio of the Russell 2000 Value index - a measure of companies in industries like financials and materials that traditionally pay higher taxes - has been falling and is now at 20.3, according to Thomson Reuters data. The forward price-to-earnings ratio of the Russell 2000 Growth index - a measure of companies in industries like technology and healthcare, that tend to pay lower taxes because they get more of their revenues overseas - has been rising and now stands at 32.5, close to its 10-year high.
‘TRUMP TRADE’ RETURNS?
Small-cap stocks have largely tracked investor expectations of the Trump Administration passing business-friendly policies since his surprise victory last November.
The benchmark Russell 2000 jumped nearly 14 percent between Election Day and the end of 2016 in anticipation of lower taxes and less regulation of domestic-focused companies.
Yet that rally largely stalled over the course of 2017 as the Trump Administration failed to pass major legislation and the dollar tumbled to two and a half year lows. The Russell 2000 is up 5.1 percent for the year, less than half of the 11.5 percent gain in the large-cap S&P 500.
Sandy Villere, a co-portfolio manager of the $300 million Villere Balanced Fund, said that he saw some of the move into small-cap stocks as a sign that investors are moving into cheaper assets at a time when the S&P 500 is trading near record highs, rather than a strong signal that the tax bill will pass.
“You’re just not looking at the same kind of upside in large-cap stocks right now,” he said.
Terri Spath, chief investment officer at Sierra Investment Management, said she remains skeptical that a tax deal will pass. Members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, for instance, have said that they will want deep cuts to federal spending, a move that Democrats are unlikely to agree to. Yet small-cap stocks remain cheaper relative to the S&P 500, setting the stage for a strong rally if a bill passes, she said.
“A tax bill needs the Republicans more than the Democrats,” she said. “If Mitch McConnell can get the job done, or if Ms. Pelosi and Mr. Trump can break log-jams in the next few weeks, the recent rally in small stocks will have another leg up.” | {
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With Prince George RCMP in hot pursuit, an accused thief fled the scene of her alleged crime Sunday on an ice floe.
RCMP Corporal Craig Douglass says the 25 year old woman floated two kilometres down the frigid Nechako River atop the piece of ice before a police dog tracked her down.
"She was located on a piece of ice on the Nechako River, which, at the best of times, is a dangerous place, much less in the winter with all the ice," said Douglass.
That's when things took an even stranger turn.
[The suspect] was located on a piece of ice on the Nechako River... She'd started a fire. - RCMP Corporal Craig Douglass
Fire atop the ice floe
The woman had started a fire atop the ice floe she was sitting on, said Douglass.
"We believe she was trying to destroy evidence."
Douglass says the ice floe was close enough to shore that a Mountie and police dog were able to reach the woman and arrest her, even as she resisted arrest.
Local boaters offered to transport the officer, the police dog and the suspect back up river, where police vehicles were waiting, to avoid a 2 kilometre hike through the bush.
Philicity Rhea Lafrenier has been charged with break and enter, mischief, possession of property obtained by crime, dangerous operation of a motor vehicle and resisting arrest.
Police say the pursuit began after a homeowner returned home to her Christopher Street house in rural Miworth, west of Prince George, midday Sunday and found an intruder inside. Police say the intruder fled the scene in a stolen pickup truck, drove to the nearby river and then jumped on the ice floe.
With police on the way and only one road in and out of the rural community, Douglass believes the woman may have just chosen an alternate escape route.
"It's definitely a first. It's something we've never come across and probably never will again in our careers," said Corporal Craig Douglass. "We just shake our heads." | {
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There are donuts for breakfast at work. But I already ate McDonald's.
120 shares | {
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Mexican avocados have been held up at the American border after the US Department of Agriculture temporarily blocked their import after a row over potatoes.
Five trucks carrying 100 tonnes of the fruit from the Mexican state of Jalisco were halted at the border last week after the US reneged on an export agreement signed last year.
Mexico’s Agriculture minister José Calzada announced the two countries had agreed to begin importing avocados from Jalisco in July.
The US had previously only accepted them from the neighbouring state of Michoacán because of concerns about the prevalence of an invasive species of Mediterranean fly which infests the Jalisco crop.
But the trucks containing the fruit were turned away at the border despite complying with hygiene regulations because of a temporary halt on US potato imports, according to to the Univision TV station.
Mexico first allowed the import of US potatoes in 2014 but following a legal injunction submitted by domestic producers stopped trade for a few hours during which time the export agreement was suspended.
Currently Jalisco is heavily dependent on its avocado trade. It produces 120,000 tonnes of the fruit every year – 50 per cent of which are exported to places like Canada, Japan, Europe and other parts of South America, according to the Association of Jalisco Producers and Exporters (APEAJAL).
The row comes as Donald trump threatens to crack down on Mexican imports (Tom Pennington/Getty Images)
Meanwhile the US is one of the largest avocado markets in the world but demand is mostly met by domestic farms in California and Florida.
Donald Trump's Mexico wall: At what cost, and how long?
It is unclear whether the decision to halt imports is connected to the inauguration of Donald Trump though it comes as he announced plans to follow through on his campaign promise to build a wall on the border and make Mexico pay.
On his first full business day in office Mr Trump signed an executive order signalling his intention to renegotiate the terms of the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta).
The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Show all 9 1 /9 The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the media White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer takes questions during the daily press briefing Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the Trans-Pacific Partnership Union leaders applaud US President Donald Trump for signing an executive order withdrawing the US from the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations during a meeting in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington DC. Mr Trump issued a presidential memorandum in January announcing that the US would withdraw from the trade deal Getty The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the Mexico wall A US Border Patrol vehicle sits waiting for illegal immigrants at a fence opening near the US-Mexico border near McAllen, Texas. The number of incoming immigrants has surged ahead of the upcoming Presidential inauguration of Donald Trump, who has pledged to build a wall along the US-Mexico border. A signature campaign promise, Mr Trump outlined his intention to build a border wall on the US-Mexico border days after taking office Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and abortion US President Donald Trump signs an executive order as Chief of Staff Reince Priebus looks on in the Oval Office of the White House. Mr Trump reinstated a ban on American financial aide being granted to non-governmental organizations that provide abortion counseling, provide abortion referrals, or advocate for abortion access outside of the United States Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the Dakota Access pipeline Opponents of the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines hold a rally as they protest US President Donald Trump's executive orders advancing their construction, at Columbus Circle in New York. US President Donald Trump signed executive orders reviving the construction of two controversial oil pipelines, but said the projects would be subject to renegotiation Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and 'Obamacare' Nancy Pelosi who is the minority leader of the House of Representatives speaks beside House Democrats at an event to protect the Affordable Care Act in Los Angeles, California. US President Donald Trump's effort to make good on his campaign promise to repeal and replace the healthcare law failed when Republicans failed to get enough votes. Mr Trump has promised to revisit the matter Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Donald Trump and 'sanctuary cities' US President Donald Trump signed an executive order in January threatening to pull funding for so-called "sanctuary cities" if they do not comply with federal immigration law AP The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the travel ban US President Donald Trump has attempted twice to restrict travel into the United States from several predominantly Muslim countries. The first attempt, in February, was met with swift opposition from protesters who flocked to airports around the country. That travel ban was later blocked by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The second ban was blocked by a federal judge a day before it was scheduled to be implemented in mid-March SANDY HUFFAKER/AFP/Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and climate change US President Donald Trump sought to dismantle several of his predecessor's actions on climate change in March. His order instructed the Environmental Protection Agency to reevaluate the Clean Power Plan, which would cap power plant emissions Shannon Stapleton/Reuters
On the campaign trail Mr Trump was critical of the deal, which came into force in 1994, saying it was responsible for the loss of US manufacturing jobs.
He pledged to scrap the deal and “punish” US firms which relied on Mexican workers.
The former reality star also indicated he would force Mexico to reimburse the US for the cost of building the border wall through a punitive 20 per cent tax on all Mexican imports but experts warned this would increase the price of goods for US consumers. | {
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A Modern Take on the Original Beat Box With the TR-8 AIRA Rhythm Performer Drum Machine, Roland has paid tribute to one of the greatest drum machines ever created -- the Roland TR-808. Inspired by the original Roland TR-808 and TR-909 drum machines -- instruments you've probably heard a lot more often than you realize -- the TR-8 and AIRA take this vintage drum machine and give it a modern facelift.
See what AIRA is all about in this video from Roland:
Eleven-Instrument Step Sequencer The TR-8 is a fully programmable 11-channel sequencing drum machine. It has all the drums you need -- from the bass drum to the cymbals -- all modeled faithfully after the original 808 and 909 sounds we've been dancing to for decades. Up to 32 steps can be programmed in real time, and instruments can be added or removed on the fly. There's also a pattern randomization function and a pattern copy function, with room to store 16 user-programmed patterns, so you'll have no trouble diving right in and generating beats on the TR-8.
Analog Circuit Behavior Technology Each AIRA unit is authentically crafted based on the original specifications of the '80s instrument which inspired it. Using DSPs and Analog Circuit Behavior (ACB) technology, Roland has painstakingly created an exact digital copy of the original analog circuits used in the TR-808 and TR-909, going so far as to model the behavior of the analog circuits themselves, allowing the TR-8 to function and sound just like its predecessors. The TR-8 delivers real 808 sounds in a modern unit!
Learn more about Analog Circuit Behavior technology:
Features: - Roland TR-808-inspired drum machine
- Sounds modeled after original TR-808 and TR-909 sounds with Roland's ACB technology
- 16 drum kits with 11 instrument types
- Level, tune, attack, comp, and decay controls for bass drum
- Level, tune, snappy, comp, and decay controls for snare drum
- Level, tune, and decay controls for low tom, mid tom, high tom, rim shot, hand clap, closed hi-hat, open hi-hat, cymbal crash, and ride cymbal
- Real-time pattern creation with up to 32 steps
- 16 user patterns
- Authentic TR-REC behavior lets you turn instruments on or off on-the-fly
- Control up to four types of rolls or mute each instrument individually
- Large Tempo knob and Tap Tempo button and Fine and Shuffle adjustment knobs
- Accent intensity control knob
- Per-step reverb and delay effects with control knobs
- External input with volume control knob and built-in per-step Side Chain function for rhythmic ducking and gating effects
- Scatter function with reverse, glitch, gate, truncate, stutter, and more -- 10 different Scatter variations with adjustable depth
- Pattern copy and pattern randomization functions for each beat generation
- Tempo range: 40-300 beats per minutes
- Bright LEDs ensure visibility, even in dim environments
- Roland Analog Circuit Behavior Technology realistically models analog synths in a more affordable all-digital unit
- Two assignable 1/4-inch analog outputs
- 1/4-inch stereo external input
- 1/4-inch stereo headphone output
- Stereo or mono 1/4-inch master output
- MIDI in and out
- USB port
- Powered via included power supply
zZounds is an authorized dealer of Roland products.
WARNING: Cancer and Reproductive Harm - : Cancer and Reproductive Harm - www.p65Warnings.ca.gov With the TR-8 AIRA Rhythm Performer Drum Machine, Roland has paid tribute to one of the greatest drum machines ever created -- the Roland TR-808. Inspired by the original Roland TR-808 and TR-909 drum machines -- instruments you've probably heard a lot more often than you realize -- the TR-8 and AIRA take this vintage drum machine and give it a modern facelift.The TR-8 is a fully programmable 11-channel sequencing drum machine. It has all the drums you need -- from the bass drum to the cymbals -- all modeled faithfully after the original 808 and 909 sounds we've been dancing to for decades. Up to 32 steps can be programmed in real time, and instruments can be added or removed on the fly. There's also a pattern randomization function and a pattern copy function, with room to store 16 user-programmed patterns, so you'll have no trouble diving right in and generating beats on the TR-8.Each AIRA unit is authentically crafted based on the original specifications of the '80s instrument which inspired it. Using DSPs and Analog Circuit Behavior (ACB) technology, Roland has painstakingly created an exact digital copy of the original analog circuits used in the TR-808 and TR-909, going so far as to model the behavior of the analog circuits themselves, allowing the TR-8 to function and sound just like its predecessors. The TR-8 delivers real 808 sounds in a modern unit!- Roland TR-808-inspired drum machine- Sounds modeled after original TR-808 and TR-909 sounds with Roland's ACB technology- 16 drum kits with 11 instrument types- Level, tune, attack, comp, and decay controls for bass drum- Level, tune, snappy, comp, and decay controls for snare drum- Level, tune, and decay controls for low tom, mid tom, high tom, rim shot, hand clap, closed hi-hat, open hi-hat, cymbal crash, and ride cymbal- Real-time pattern creation with up to 32 steps- 16 user patterns- Authentic TR-REC behavior lets you turn instruments on or off on-the-fly- Control up to four types of rolls or mute each instrument individually- Large Tempo knob and Tap Tempo button and Fine and Shuffle adjustment knobs- Accent intensity control knob- Per-step reverb and delay effects with control knobs- External input with volume control knob and built-in per-step Side Chain function for rhythmic ducking and gating effects- Scatter function with reverse, glitch, gate, truncate, stutter, and more -- 10 different Scatter variations with adjustable depth- Pattern copy and pattern randomization functions for each beat generation- Tempo range: 40-300 beats per minutes- Bright LEDs ensure visibility, even in dim environments- Roland Analog Circuit Behavior Technology realistically models analog synths in a more affordable all-digital unit- Two assignable 1/4-inch analog outputs- 1/4-inch stereo external input- 1/4-inch stereo headphone output- Stereo or mono 1/4-inch master output- MIDI in and out- USB port- Powered via included power supply
- - User Drum Kits: 16
- - User Patterns: 16
- - Steps: per 1 measure 1--16 steps x 2 (Variation A/B)
- - Tempo: 40--300
- - Instruments & Controls:
- BASS DRUM: LEVEL, TUNE, ATTACK, COMP, DECAY, INST SELECT
- SNARE DRUM: LEVEL, TUNE, SNAPPY, COMP, DECAY, INST SELECT
- LOW TOM, MID TOM, HIGH TOM, RIM SHOT, HAND CLAP, CLOSED HIHAT, OPEN HIHAT, CRASH CYMBAL, RIDE CYMBAL: LEVEL, TUNE, DECAY, INST SELECT
- - Effects & Controls:
- ACCENT: LEVEL, STEP
- REVERB: LEVEL, TIME, GATE, STEP
- DELAY: LEVEL, TIME, FEEDBACK, STEP
- EXTERNAL IN: LEVEL, SIDE CHAIN, STEP
- - Mode: TR-REC, PATTERN SELECT, INST PLAY, INST REC, DRUM KIT SEL, DRUM INST SEL
- - Controllers:
- VOLUME knob
- SCATTER knob
- TEMPO knob
- FINE knob
- SHUFFLE knob
- PADS: 16
- MODE buttons: 6
- CLEAR button
- VARIATION buttons: A, B
- SCALE button
- LAST STEP button
- START/STOP button
- SCATTER ON button
- SCATTER DEPTH button
- TAP button
- - Display: 7 segments, 4 characters (LED)
- - Effects: REVERB, DELAY, SIDE CHAIN
- - Scatter Presets: 10
- - Nominal Input Level: -10 dBu
- - Input Impedance: 100 k ohms
- - Nominal Output Level: -10/+4 dBu (Selectable)
- - Output Impedance:
- MIX OUT, ASSIGNABLE OUT: 1 k ohm
- PHONES: 130 ohms
- - Connectors:
- PHONES jack: 1/4-inch stereo phone type
- MIX OUT (L/MONO, R) jacks: 1/4-inch phone type
- ASSIGNABLE OUT (A, B) jacks: 1/4-inch phone type
- EXTERNAL IN (L, R) jacks: 1/4-inch phone type
- USB port: USB type B (Audio, MIDI)
- DC IN jack
- - USB: Audio, MIDI
- - Power Supply: AC adaptor
- - Current Draw: 1000 mA
- - Dimensions: (W x D x H) 400 x 260 x 65 mm (15-3/4 x 10-1/4) x 2-9/16 inches)
- - Weight: 1.9 kg (4 lbs 4 oz)
- - Accessories: Owner's manual, Leaflet "USING THE UNIT SAFELY", AC adaptor
Roland TR-8 AIRA Rhythm Performer The Roland TR-8 is a performance rhythm machine that melds the legendary sound and vibe of the TR-808 and TR-909 with features and functions for the modern age. Genre-defining sounds and classic effects, Unprecedented live pattern manipulation, Solid intuitive performance controls -- it's the TR evolved.
The Lineage Unleashed upon an unsuspecting world in the 1980's, the TR-808 and TR-909 produce arguably the most influential drum sounds in modern music. Not only have they appeared on thousands of dance tracks over the course of three decades, but they have helped define the sound of entire musical genres. From Rap and House to Techno and Trance -- these two drum machines have left an indelible mark on the art and culture of music. Roll the drums.
The Sound With the TR-8, Roland has obsessively analyzed and faithfully re-created every detail and nuance of the analog circuitry of these legendary rhythm machines. The boom and snap of the 808. The thud of the 909. The robotic click of an 808 rim shot or a classic 909 snare roll. It's all here. Not content with mere recreations however, they have enhanced these classic instruments with capabilities far beyond the original units. Tune and Decay knobs are now present on every instrument and the Bass and Snare drum modules have dedicated "Attack" and "Comp" knobs allowing for a great variety of tones - from subtle ambient percussion to pounding dance grooves. Per-step effects and the massively addictive "Scatter" function take things into fresh territory. With the authentic tone and character of the original units and with sound tweaking capabilities inspired by legions of users, the TR-8 breathes life into the sounds everyone knows and loves.
The Feel Make no mistake -- the TR-8 is an instrument, carefully designed from the ground-up, to be played. Every control has a solid, predictable feel with each drum instrument having robust, "playable" faders. Numerous lighted knobs and RGB-lit buttons give real-time performance feedback and a striking appearance on stage. Pattern creation is creative and intuitive using an evolved version of the TR-REC method which originated in the TR-808 and eventually became the standard for electronic rhythm programing. Based on detailed analysis of the original TR-808, the TR-REC behavior has been faithfully modeled in the TR-8. But the TR-8 goes well beyond the original, allowing you to seamlessly switch between programming and performance modes and to introduce lots of groovy rhythmic variations - from subtle snare fills to total glitch meltdowns.
Features: - Full reproduction of the original TR-808 and TR-909 rhythm machines based on original design spec sheets and detailed analog circuit analysis of various specimens including Roland's own pristine units
- Analog Circuit Behavior (ACB) technology allows part-by-part analyses and faithful recreation of tonality and behavior including the smooth variations of tone that occur when you work the controls of each instrument
- Obsessive attention to detail - like reproducing the original TR's unique variations in tone that occur when multiple instruments are entered in accented steps
- Build dream kits made up of different instruments from the TR-808 and TR-909
- 16 stunning kits made up of 11 instrument types
- Control the intensity of the Accent function with a dedicated knob
- Per-step Gate Reverb and Delay effects with dedicated, real-time knobs
- Mix sources connected to the External Inputs
- Built-in Side Chain function creates rhythmic ducking and gating effects on External Inputs with per-step control
- Two assignable analog outputs and full parallel outputs via USB for total mixing flexibility | {
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Benin – World’s 1st Cannabis Sativa (Marijuana) Coin – The coin just issued by authority of the Government of the West African Republic of Benin is bound to create quite a stir among collectors and non-collectors alike. As the first in a series of “Famous Plants of the World”, the 100 Central African Franc denominated Legal Tender coin features Cannabis Sativa, colloquially known as Marijuana, Pot, Mary Jane, Weed, Grass, etc. The coin has been struck from a 27 gram copper-nickel planchet, 38.61 millimeters in diameter that is subsequently silver-plated.
The reverse features a bright green Cannabis Sativa leaf that when rubbed (HORRORS!!!!), and releases the distinct aroma of Marijuana, although I have been assured that the aroma comes from a synthetic additive and not from the plant itself. This process can be repeated approximately forty times before the smell disappears. Total mintage for this coin is limited to 2,500 pieces and if early indications are correct, this coin is destined to become an instant classic, appealing to both coin collectors as well multitudes of flower children and rock band followers from the sixties and seventies.
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Changes to alpine streams fed by glaciers and snowfields due to a warming climate threaten to dramatically alter the types of bacteria and other microbes in those streams, according to a research team that included a University of Wyoming scientist.
But streams that are fed by underground ice insulated by rock -- called "icy seeps" -- offer some hope that the impact of climate change will be less severe in some areas, say the researchers, who include Lusha Tronstad, research scientist with UW's Wyoming Natural Diversity Database (WYNDD).
"Our results show that patterns of microbial diversity support an ominous trend for alpine stream biodiversity...," the researchers wrote in the journal Global Change Biology. "Icy seeps, however, represent a source of optimism for the future of biodiversity in these imperiled ecosystems."
Tronstad is an expert on the alpine streams in Grand Teton National Park, where her 2015 discovery of a rare insect called the western glacier stonefly provided information to assist in deciding whether the species should be protected under the federal Endangered Species Act. In the latest research, she joined scientists from the University of Kentucky, Washington State University, Rutgers University, Kansas State University, Missouri State University, the University of Montana and the U.S. Geological Survey to study much smaller organisms in those Grand Teton streams and others in Montana's Glacier National Park.
In those high-mountain streams -- some fed by glaciers, some by snowfields, some by underground ice and some by groundwater -- a wide variety of bacteria and other microbes exist. They provide the foundation for larger organisms such as insects in alpine waters and fish downstream.
In Wyoming, North America's Rocky Mountains and mountain ranges worldwide, glaciers and perennial snowfields are shrinking and, in some cases, disappearing as the climate warms. While previous research detailed expected impacts on insects and other larger species, Tronstad's research team examined the organisms that can't be seen with the naked eye in six alpine streams in Grand Teton and seven in Glacier National Park.
The scientists found that colder streams fed by glaciers and underground ice have less microbial diversity than those fed by snowmelt and groundwater, but the colder streams are home to some bacteria that don't exist in the warmer streams. As warmer temperatures and reduced snowfields and glaciers increase water temperatures and change the flow and variability of the streams, microbial diversity will decline across the alpine waters, the researchers say. That likely will result in broader environmental impacts -- though the scientists acknowledge that "the degree to which environmental shifts will translate to altered ecosystem functioning remains largely unknown."
While the new research expands understanding of microbial diversity across the range of alpine streams, the scientists say the most significant new insights relate specifically to icy seeps, which are fed by rock glaciers -- masses of underground ice surrounded by rocky debris. It's estimated there are more than 10,000 of these rock glaciers across the United States -- about double the number of surface glaciers and perennial snowfields. Icy seeps are closest in temperature to streams fed by surface glaciers, with less seasonal flow variability. One such underground-ice-fed stream that was part of the study originates from Wind Cave in the Targhee National Forest.
Because they're insulated by thick layers of rock, icy seeps may be more buffered against warming atmospheric conditions than glaciers and perennial snowfields, making them less susceptible to climate change.
"Consequently, there is strong potential for icy seeps to serve as (a refuge) for cold-adapted mountain stream species and unique ecological functions on a global scale," the researchers wrote, adding that icy seeps "may represent the last stronghold of meltwater-associated (life forms) in a landscape without glaciers and perennial snowfields." | {
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I had an insightful discussion on haskell-cafe on how to steal the implementation of monadic bind from a continuation monad transformer.
I did it twice, first re-inventing the two-continuation model for depth-first search, then discovering an implementation of breadth-first search that I didn’t know before.
On the go, I used higher-rank infix record selectors for the first time.
In this program I talk about monads for non-determinism, functional lists, continuations, and what you get for free when you combine them. | {
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But to go beyond that and meet the full challenge of Labour’s transformation by winning a battle of ideas is going to be the difficult part. Such an exercise is always hard for the party in government. Britain has a wonderful civil service, able to assess any risk or manage any difficulty, but it is the natural tendency of bureaucracy to hamper and temper ideas. Being a minority administration doesn’t help either. Aside from the necessity of implementing Brexit, caution will be a natural instinct.
Yet caution will not defeat a rampant Left, nor mobilise the tens of thousands of new activists needed to take arguments on to the battleground of social media. It will not be sufficient, at an election in 2022, to say we managed our exit from the EU and took the edge off Labour’s appeal with policy modifications. If balance and unity are restored by the time Tories head home, then real political brainstorming should begin, building on this week’s announcements with a focus on three key areas for the future.
The first is house building. Call in the big mayors and developers. Change regulations that stand in the way – for instance, allow micro-apartments provided they’re of high quality. Encourage major build-to-rent schemes, not just ownership. Make it a cross-party effort, showing that even a weakened government can give a lead and work with everyone. | {
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Free presents, a snowy map, and limited-time bonuses are now live in Grand Theft Auto V’s multiplayer mode. A plethora of complimentary items are up for grabs just in time for the holidays in GTA Online. Additionally a few events and the return of snow to San Andreas and Los Santos are now also available.
By simply logging in to GTA Online on December 25, players will receive a number of free items. A unicorn mask, pajama set, fireworks launcher, a carbine rifle, a marksman rifle, some explosives, and more will be distributed to those that log in on Christmas Day.
Those that log in the two days prior to the holiday or the day after will also receive a fireworks launcher and an event t-shirt for their characters according to the game’s website. Of course, players can enjoy the snowy landscape right now, but the rare weather will only last until December 26.
“Not only does this mean you’ll enjoy a picturesque holiday in GTA Online, but you’ll also be able to mix it up with your friends and foes with some good old fashioned snowball fights (just press left on the D-pad to collect up to nine snowballs for your arsenal).”
Christmas Eve, December 24, will also offer a day-long buff to profits from vehicle exporting, any biker business sales, and CEO special cargo shipments. Players will receive a 50 percent increase in cash earned from these activities for that day only making the holiday the perfect time to pick up free gifts and make a little extra in-game money.
With snow on the map, players can have snowball fights [Image by Rockstar Games]
The new adversary mode called “Juggernaut” and the “Plummet” stunt race are also worth more RP in GTA Online until January 1 and January 2 respectively. Juggernaut pits teams against each other both working to take out the other’s heavily armored target. If no team succeeds before time runs out, all players become juggernauts. Bonus cash and RP are rewards for the adversary mode while just completing the features stunt race will reward triple RP.
Those free goodies, events, and a snow covered map are not the only festivities lined up for GTA Online players. Several holiday clothes are returning this year, and players can unlock them by simply logging into the game before January 9. Merry masks, Santa outfits, and appropriately hideous sweaters await those ready to celebrate the season.
The entire map is covered with snow for the duration of the event [Image by Rockstar Games]
Although not tied to the Christmas holiday, a new supercar and different unlocks are also available now. The Truffade Nero car is now available at Benny’s Original Motor Works. Players that jump on to the game before January 2 will also unlock the Bold Pinstripe Smoking Jacket and Pajama sets. Not to mention, a sale on GTA Online items is currently underway until January 2 as well. Players can buy two cars, two aircraft, select real estate, and a handful of products at Ammu-Nation at a 25 percent discount. For the full list of applicable items, check out the official Rockstar Games website.
“Coming out of the holy modification temple known as Benny’s Original Motor Works, the highly customizable Nero is easy on the eyes with its sleek design and also packs plenty of zip.”
GTA Online recently updated with the free Import/Export downloadable content just weeks ago. The latest DLC introduced a new gameplay system to steal and resell high-value vehicles. CEOs in the game can invest in expensive car garages before hiring their friends to steal luxurious automobiles to turn major profits.
In addition the new vehicle theft options and new items for the player to buy, the latest update also introduced the ability for players to change their appearance at any time via the quick menu. As the Inquisitr reported, players can access the new option by bringing up the interaction menu in-game. For $100,000 in GTA Online players can alter nearly everything about their avatar. All of the options available at character creation are also available through this option, but players cannot change their characters’ gender.
[Featured Image by Rockstar Games] | {
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RAPPER Kayne West has quit the music industry to devote all his energy to twattish behaviour.
He said: “I am at a point in my life where I ask myself, what really fulfils me? Is it the arduous process of recording music and touring, or is it simply pissing off others?
“I would say the latter.”
Kanye’s plans for being a twat include beginning a lengthy boundary dispute with his neighbours, parking his massive jeep across three bays outside a local shop and putting a packet of Love Hearts up his backside then offering them to friends without saying anything.
Despite widespread criticism of his behaviour, West has been hailed as an inspiration to young twats.
A spokesman for the charity Tomorrow’s Twats, which works with twat children, said: “A lot of young people who are twats think they can’t make it in the world.
“Kanye proves you can be like that and still be a successful performer, artist and person who has their picture taken for pretentious magazines.
“He does not try to hide the fact that he is a twat and even if you don’t like twats you have to kind of respect that.” | {
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We’ve seen it with our own eyes.
There is definitely one, possibly two, Tesla Model 3s in New Zealand …. and it’s been snow testing in a not so secret location here in New Zealand.
Have a look at our very own spy shots care of Will Yates and Ollie Yates, two budding photographers from a secret location high up in the ____ of _____.
We can’t say where but you can probably guess.
Even more exciting is that it looks like they’ve been getting the test car sideways as you can see the two left hand doors are caved in a fraction.
We’re very excited about the official launch of the Model 3 tomorrow afternoon NZ time and honoured to be possibly the first nation outside of the US to be blessed with one or more Tesla Model 3s on our shores.
Bring on the Model 3 we say!
Ecotricity is New Zealand’s only provider of carboNZero Certified Electricity.
We’re 100% Kiwi and 49% Community Owned …
… and the leading Electric Vehicle Buyers Guide
| {
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It is now December of 2015 and we are one year removed from the loss at the polls of an amendment that would allow for full spectrum medical cannabis in Florida. The defeat of Amendment 2 allowed for the implementation of the Compassionate Medical Cannabis Act of 2014, albeit a rather rocky implementation, thus legalizing low THC, high CBD cannabis strains. I participated in many of the public meetings which took place and watched the different draft regulations set forth by the Florida Department of Health be debated, commented on and ultimately revised. The process underwent legal challenges and as of the publication of this, applications for five license holders were awarded.
As many might be aware, the Compassionate Medical Cannabis Act applicants were required to be nurseries continuously operating for over 30 years with a plant registration of 400, 000 plants as of the time of application. There were other relevant requirements, but the two foregoing were the most restrictive and narrowed the market of potential applicants.
Following in line with legislative means to put cannabis in the hands of a few large, Florida-centric entities, a Bill recently passed the Senate in Florida allowing for the expansion of the use of cannabis with higher THC content for patients with debilitating diseases under Florida Statute 499.0295. Presumably, the five licensees would then be authorized to expand their crop to include THC based plants and provide those to qualifying patients.
My fear all along has been that Florida would abandon the possibility of having a robust economic, yet patient-centric model not dissimilar to Colorado, Washington or Oregon, but more akin to what one might see in New York or what was narrowly avoided in Ohio. In fact, I have considered the possibility that should the new Amendment supported by United for Care passed, since that Amendment allowed for the Department of Health to promulgate the rules and regulations, that the Department could, assuming the five licensees are operational, merely give responsibility to the five licensees, allowing them to expand.
Alas, I believe, and I am happy to admit it, I may be wrong. In Florida, constitutional amendments require a review by the Office of Economic and Demographic Research. It is the focus of this body to analyze and report the economic impact that a particular amendment might have upon passage and effectuation. Data from numerous sources are reviewed and integrated into the Committee’s opinion. Of note, during my review of the October Economic Estimating Conference Meeting and Reports was the position taken by the Department of Health. Specifically, the Department of Health did not indicate that it could implement a system by merely expanding or working off of the framework it has for the Compassionate Medical Cannabis Act. Instead, the Department took the approach that a new set of regulations and guidelines, as well as departmental operations, would need to be implemented. In fact, it would need to be implemented to comply with the MMTC system authorized by the amendment. Whether one believes in the vertical model or one which licenses similar to Maryland and a few other states, the important point is that the Department of Health seemingly recognizes that a more robust model will have to be implemented.
So what does all this mean for patients and potential businesses in Florida? In regard to patients, I wish I could say that the potential for treatment through cannabis is foreseeable in the short term. However, I am not convinced of this. I do believe that the selections and process for which applications were selected under the Compassionate Medical Cannabis Act will be challenged, thus resulting in more delays. With regard to the Amendment and implementation should it pass, it will not be until the middle of 2017, approximately one and one-half years away. Should businesses begin preparations in Florida currently? In my honest opinion I believe it is hard to say. In the summer of 2014, I spent a lot of time counseling individuals and businesses on planning for the legalization of medical cannabis in Florida. Some clients were more aggressive than others and ultimately spent time and money, perhaps unnecessarily. On the flip side, I participated in the application process in Maryland and am of the belief that individuals who made application for Maryland cultivation licenses benefitted from an early start and preliminary planning.
I know a number of successful cultivators in legal states who moved on Maryland as a last minute decision once recognizing that although scored as part of an application, residency or lack thereof was not a bar to licensure. I am therefore of the opinion that certain preparation in advance is advantageous and allows alteration of the plan and adaptation at a later stage without wasting resources to accomplish much of the work that is capable of being accomplished in advance. I do believe there are a good deal of uncertainties, depending on how things move forward, as to what our model will look like and if that model will get into place, depending on the rollout of the Compassionate Medical Cannabis licenses as well as the possibility of some of the legislative initiatives catching wildfire, much as the Compassionate Medical Cannabis Act of 2014 did at the very end. | {
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If you were at our last meetup in December, you may remember the conversation at the end about building an ATM. Well this is the result! http://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/video?clipId=274100
Many of us will be at the Clocktower in the market at 2 PM on Thursday. Come out and see Ottawa's first Bitcoin ATM | {
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NRK får bekreftet at den ebolasmittede norske kvinnen nå er ute av høyisolatavdelingen ved Oslo universitetssykehus.
Det var Dagbladet som først omtalte utviklingen i kvinnens helsesituasjon.
Tidligere i ettermiddag innkalte Leger uten grenser og sykehuset til en pressekonferanse klokken 17. På denne pressekonferansen vil de gjøre opp status for ebola-situasjonen og informere om den videre behandlingen av kvinnen.
Leger uten grenser sier de gleder seg over meldingene om at medarbeideren deres er bedre.
– Dette er gode nyheter. Vi er veldig glade over nyheten om at vår kollega er frisk, opplyser Leger Uten Grenser til NRK.
Laster Twitter-innhold Kunne ikke laste innhold, men du kan gå til twittermeldingen.
Isolert og behandlet
Den 5. oktober ble det påvist at kvinnen, som jobbet for Leger uten grenser i Sierra Leone, var smittet av det dødelige ebolaviruset. To dager senere ankom hun Norge, og ble fraktet med spesialambulanser til Ullevål sykehus.
Her er hun blitt holdt i fullstendig isolasjon på høysmitteavdelingen ved sykehuset. Noen av landets fremste smitteverneksperter har vært med i behandlingen av henne. Det er ikke kjent om kvinnen er blitt behandlet med eksperimentell ebola-medisin, men sykehuset har hatt tilgang til import av tre ulike medikamenter.
I helgen ble det kjent at Leger uten grenser mener kvinnen sannsynligvis ble smittet av ebola ved pasientmottaket på klinikken i Sierra Leone. Fire ansatte ved denne klinikken ble smittet i begynnelsen av oktober. To av de ansatte er døde.
Liten smittefare
På en pressekonferanse mandag for en uke siden opplyste avdelingsleder ved infeksjonsmedisinsk avdeling ved OUS, Dag Kvale at kvinnen viste tegn på bedring.
Høysmitteavdelingen ved Ullevål universitetssykehus er spesialbygget for å kunne ta imot pasienter som er smittet av de farligste virusene. Det er plass til å behandle ti personer samtidig på avdelingen.
Det er kun ansatte som er trent og godkjent for bruk av høysmitteutstyr som slipper inn i smitteområdene.
Sykehuset har også sagt at de har full kontroll på høysmitteisolatet, og at det er svært lite sannsynlig at andre personer kan bli smittet av viruset. | {
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One does not simply Lie on their side while wearing headphones
152 shares | {
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Some of Saskatoon's future big-ticket projects — not including a new arena and downtown library — could get funding help from the federal and provincial governments.
That's according to a new report from city hall.
The idea isn't new. Federal money has long been touted as a possibility for the proposed $151-million bus-rapid-transit (BRT) system.
But the city has now laid out a broader list of infrastructure projects that could be paid for three ways through a federally led infrastructure funding program.
Besides the BRT lines, the city touts these eligible projects, listed here in order of price tag:
$60 million for new buses.
$54 million for a flood-control strategy involving the installation of stormwater pipes, dry ponds and underground storage.
$45 million for a new indoor leisure centre.
$30 million for upgrades to the city's water treatment plant.
$22 million for upgrades and additions to the Gordie Howe Sports Complex.
In total, the city lists 28 projects estimated to cost a combined $593 million. A new downtown arena — the subject of much debate of late — is not among them. According to the city, the federal government will not fund a commercial enterprise. Nor is a downtown library included "because estimated costs, timeliness etc. are unknown at the time of writing this report."
A spokesperson for the Saskatoon Public Library says it's still working on the business case for a new downtown branch and a date hasn't been set for an update to city council.
The infrastructure funding program would see the federal and provincial governments give 40 per cent and 30 per cent, respectively, for each project, with the city providing the rest.
The city is asking city councillors to preliminary endorse the list of 28 projects Monday at city hall. Final approval would come at a future city council meeting.
Assuming all 28 projects are approved by council and the federal government, the city would pay $158 million for those projects. | {
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Back in June, the Philadelphia Eagles released one of the best guards in football, Evan Mathis. He was set to make $5.5 million in 2015 and wanted a new deal, which the Eagles weren't willing to give him - therefore, the release happened. Ever since then, Colts fans have been wondering whether Ryan Grigson - who has Philly ties and has brought in a number of former Eagles players in the past - would go after Mathis, since the Colts could use help along the offensive line.
Those questions from Colts fans have only increased in the last week after the Colts released starting right tackle Gosder Cherilus, meaning that left guard Jack Mewhort is moving to right tackle and that the Colts cleared up some cap room. So with a guard spot open and money to work with, fans wondered whether Mathis might be in the plans for the team.
According to the Indianapolis Star's Stephen Holder, that's not the case. He wrote today that the Colts currently "have no plans to sign Mathis despite being bandied about as one of the teams in contention." Wrote Holder:
The logic: The Colts want their existing linemen to develop. The only way to do that is by allowing them to play and, they hope, flourish. Mathis is 33 and on the down side of his career. Though he would give the Colts more stability in the short term, he would not factor into their offensive line in the longer term.
As some might have realized, that approach seems a bit funny when you consider the fact that the Colts had no hesitation about bringing in other veterans this offseason in an attempt to win a championship, and they even brought in another former Eagles lineman in Todd Herremans, who is only one year younger than Mathis. Perhaps that is part of the thinking, however, as the team wouldn't want both of their guards to be in their 30s and not long-term solutions. Instead, it will be a competition between Hugh Thornton and Lance Louis, with others (like Ben Heenan, or hopefully Joe Reitz, or maybe Donald Thomas) also getting looks at left guard. Even then, however, Louis is 30 years old - does that mean that we might see Thornton starting again this year because of his age and because the Colts want to work with him? It's too early to tell that, but according to Holder, the Colts aren't going after Mathis because they want to develop younger talent along the offensive line.
Ideally, that's the smart approach to take. You'd always rather have a young, long-term option than a veteran, short-term one, so the philosophy behind the approach isn't wrong. But it's a fine line between developing young talent and doing what it takes to win, and there's zero doubt that Mathis would give the Colts better play this year.
Instead of signing Mathis, it seems likely that the Colts will reach an extension with wide receiver T.Y. Hilton, as Holder confirmed earlier reports that Hilton and the Colts are indeed talking again. Holder also noted that it makes sense to get Anthony Castonzo a new deal this year, though we'll see if that actually happens. But with the team not going after Mathis, it sounds like they might get a few tasks checked off of next offseason's checklist a bit early. | {
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Only two weeks left to Double your gift
Can we all agree that the current energy economy is fundamentally toxic to nature and people? Can we agree that there is no more important task than building a new energy economy, one that supports flourishing human and natural communities? Can we agree that the future energy economy should be powered by renewable sources, not fossil fuels?
One would think that every reasonable person (I’m looking at you, members of Congress) would agree with these propositions. Virtually every energy and climate change activist would immediately say yes. But move past truisms and get into specifics of just how to advance toward this energy future, and consensus breaks down. Remaking the energy economy cannot be accomplished overnight and thus there will be disagreements over strategies and tactics among activists.
In every social change movement, there is friction between incremental reformers and advocates for radical change. Internecine squabbling is inevitable. So perhaps it shouldn’t have been surprising that some “green power” activists have gotten riled up — in a negative way — by our new book ENERGY: Overdevelopment and the Delusion of Endless Growth, centerpiece of Post Carbon Institute’s Energy Reality Campaign. But it has been a little discouraging.
To be fair, overall reaction to the book and just-launched campaign has been overwhelmingly positive. But a small percentage of the folks who read through ENERGY, which depicts all facets of energy production and transport, get bent out of shape by a handful of the book’s roughly 200 photos. Some NGOs we expected to be natural allies have declined to distribute free copies to their activist lists or to policy makers. Some folks have called us to complain.
And just what is so offensive? In a sequence of images showing landscapes that have been aesthetically and ecologically diminished (OK, let’s be honest — places that have been trashed) by the insatiable rush for more energy resources, we included photos of a concentrated solar plant and a wind power development.
An accompanying headline employed the phrase “energy blight.” Cue howls of outrage from some readers.
Was the headline accurate? Yes. Was it intentionally provocative? Yes. Was it a tactical blunder to include industrial-scale renewables in a photo series with coal plants, tar-sands development, and the shattered hulk of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear station? I don’t think so, but the point is debatable, and you can judge for yourself.
Some folks don’t want to have a conversation about the whole energy picture — including the significant ecological costs of renewables — but hope to create broader societal support for “green” energy by only talking about the upsides. Discussing the downsides of Big Wind and Corporate Solar only strengthens the fossil-fuel lobbies that are hell-bent on cooking the planet, goes their argument.
Help Grist raise $20,000 by 9/30. Just click the image above ☝️
I’ve had affronted listeners to radio interviews call in and complain that I was suggesting some kind of moral equivalence between wind power and coal. Not so. I’ve flown over Appalachia and seen the missing mountains. The coal trains now run 24/7 through the ranch my great-grandfather homesteaded on the Wyoming prairie. Coal is, as David Roberts frequently says, the enemy of the human race. I get it.
But it is inarguable that all large-scale energy infrastructure destroys habitat, whether it is hardwood forests cleared for ridgeline wind power development on Lowell Mountain in Vermont, or Mojave Desert vegetation displaced by concentrated solar generating facilities. Big, river-killing dams can produce lots of power with low greenhouse gas emissions. Although I hope we won’t be lured into these kinds of false solutions, we may, as a society, choose to accept these trade-offs to accelerate the adoption of renewables in the overall energy mix, but we should understand and discuss them as part of a democratic conversation about our energy future.
I’ve found that some green power advocates want to keep it superficial (fossil fuels = bad, renewables = good) rather than digging into tougher questions about appropriate scale and centralized, corporate control of energy resources, including renewables. I am not unsympathetic to the arguments of well-meaning activists who say we can’t let the perfect be the enemy of the “less unsustainable,” particularly if systemic overhaul of the energy system is indeed their ultimate objective. I’m far less sympathetic, however, to techno-utopians who seem to think embracing every “green” energy technology, from biofuels to wave power to concentrated solar plants, is going to allow humanity to keep growing our numbers and economic output without destroying the ecosphere.
The editorial team that produced ENERGY had an overarching goal — to promote energy literacy and draft a vision for a future energy economy. The characteristics we articulate are mirror opposites of the status quo: community-scaled and distributed, not big and centralized. Resilient, not brittle. Conservation and efficiency first, not “drill baby drill” or “build baby build.” We envision a future energy economy that supports wild nature, not corporate profit; that fosters beauty and biodiversity, rather than spreading ugliness and ecological damage; that promotes health for nature and people, not perpetual economic growth. And of course is anchored by renewables, not fossil fuels.
Simply checking off that last box and ignoring the other criteria is not sufficient for rapid progress toward dismantling the status quo. Issues of scale, ownership, indigenous rights, and corporate influence over political decision-making are heating up everywhere that large-scale renewables are proposed, from the mega-dams of Brazil and Chilean Patagonia to wind power development in southern Mexico.
To be sure, finding a new way of conserving, using, and deploying energy resources equitably is crucial. Avoiding superficial thinking and truly developing our individual and collective energy literacy is a start toward building the distributed, resilient, nature-friendly energy economy that we seek. Can we all agree on that?
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=exXqrzhozRI%5D | {
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How instant access to online images and information is helping to shape global reaction to the Israel-Gaza war.
As the conflict between Israel and Hamas intensifies, so too does the battle being waged online.
For generations, propaganda has always unfolded alongside warfare; but conflicts now are coming under increased scrutiny through social media.
An information war is being waged online by journalists, by individuals and by the Israeli and Hamas media machines.
The hashtag #GazaUnderAttack has been used in more than 4 million Twitter posts, compared to the nearly 200,000 for #IsraelUnderFire.
But is it possible to determine who is winning the cyber battle for public support?
Presenter: Adrian Finighan
Guests:
Ben White - a researcher and writer for Middle East Monitor, and an author and journalist on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Mohamed Nanabhay - former head of online at Al Jazeera English, a media adviser and board member of Global Voices Online.
Mitchell Barak - a pollster, commentator and political communications specialist, and former media adviser to Israeli president Shimon Peres.
Source: Al Jazeera | {
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The mother of the crying child featured on the cover of TIME Magazine was previously deported from the United States in 2013, according to ICE.
TIME Magazine pasted the image of the young girl crying as President Donald Trump looked down on her, attempting to symbolize the administration’s zero-tolerance immigration policy at the border that leads to family separations.
The father of the child later revealed that the girl was never separated from the mother and that the child was only briefly set down so that border patrol agents could perform a pat down. The mother also left three other children behind in Honduras. (RELATED: Crying Honduran Child Who Became The Face Of Border Family Separation Was Never Separated From Family)
As more information comes out about the situation of Sandra Sanchez and her 2-year-old daughter, ICE confirmed on Friday that Sanchez was previously deported in 2013.
“ICE said Sanchez was previously deported to Honduras in July 2013,” The Washington Post reported.
While illegally crossing the border is a misdemeanor, illegal reentry is a felony.
Follow Amber on Twitter | {
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The Mexican Supreme Court opened the door to legalizing marijuana on Wednesday, delivering a pointed challenge to the nation’s strict substance abuse laws and adding its weight to the growing debate in Latin America over the costs and consequences of the war against drugs.
The vote by the court’s criminal chamber declared that individuals should have the right to grow and distribute marijuana for their personal use. While the ruling does not strike down current drug laws, it lays the groundwork for a wave of legal actions that could ultimately rewrite them, proponents of legalization say.
The decision reflects a changing dynamic in Mexico, where for decades the American-backed antidrug campaign has produced much upheaval but few lasting victories. Today, the flow of drugs to the United States continues, along with the political corruption it fuels in Mexico. The country, dispirited by the ceaseless campaign against traffickers, remains engulfed in violence.
“It’s the drama behind all of our efforts,” said Juan Francisco Torres Landa, a corporate lawyer who was one of the plaintiffs in the Supreme Court case. | {
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Apple is one of the coolest companies in the world, with some of the most iconic products ever seen in a geek's hand or desk.
But Apple is notorious for secrecy. It doesn't blog, it never gives anything away and as the New York Times wrote recently, it imposes harsh sanctions on employees who violate rules about information sharing.
The farce around Steve Jobs' recent return to work after his liver transplant was a case in point. The secrecy around it was so high that it raised intense levels of speculation. A blog post or a statement could have calmed investor fears instead Apple and Jobs jealously guarded any information.
But this has worked for Apple. Feverish levels of hype and interest surround every product launch, meaning that the company never has to say anything the products just speak for themselves.
Consider the iPhone. It's a great gadget, but Apple jealously guards all tech details. Or think of iTunes. Apple just recently shut access to the music service from the Palm Pre. Not too keen on sharing, are they?
Microsoft's lessons
Apple and its products have never really had big problems with security, at least not on the level of a company like Microsoft. | {
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The Bitcoin reward halving will be happening in May 2020 and the community is optimistic that its price will rise. Meanwhile, Grayscale, a crypto asset manager, has conducted a survey on this upcoming event and recently published his results.
More than half of the poll respondents (56%) opined that, the upcoming reward mining reduction is not priced in. About one-quarter of the respondents (27%) agreed that the market has already incorporated the event into the price of bitcoin. Whereas the remaining 17% of the respondents couldn’t decide.
Halving makes the assets scarcer, and previous events have saw the price of the coin skyrocketing. After the first halving, bitcoin price surged 100 times in just a year. The second halving also saw the price of the coin making a 33 times rise.
That being said, we still have people who believe that this year’s version of the halving will not bring any gains to investors.
Their argument is pretty obvious. Such investors have already priced in the halving, meaning that they are not expecting anything extraordinary in May 2020. The bitcoin rally that occur in Q3 2019 could be related to bitcoin’s future supply adjustment.
Leading crypto analyst, Willy Woo opined that, historically, we front run into halving with a bullish setup. But since we are entering next year’s halving in bearish price action, he doesn’t expect a massive rally for bitcoin.
Some analysts are also pointing to Litecoin’s lackluster price performance after its recent halving, to predict similar fate for bitcoin. However, PlanB, a crypto analyst, believes that, such comparisons are baseless. He said Litecoin doesn’t follow its stock-to-flow model like how Bitcoin does.
Featured Image Courtesy of Shutterstock | {
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WASHINGTON — Software glitches have plagued the F-35 in recent months, but operators said they noticed a marked improvement during a June deployment where the aircraft did not experience any shutdowns.
The F-35 joint program office's top official disclosed in April that the fighter jet was struggling with problems associated with the 3i software planned for use when the Air Force fields the planes later this year. Pilots reported that they had trouble booting up their jets, and would have to restart key systems on the plane every three to four hours after sensors shut off without warning.
The program office implemented a fix the following month, and pilots and maintainers who operated the plane during the June deployment at Mountain Home Air Force Base, Idaho, said software bugs no longer seemed to be an issue.
"We cleared 88 of 88 sorties, and we were on time for 100 percent of those sorties for the large force exercises," Maj. Brad Matherne, an F-35A pilot from the 34th Fighter Squadron, told reporters during a June 21 conference call. "We had zero losses due to any software stability issues that were previously out there."
Seven F-35As and a total of 160 pilots, maintainers and other personnel from Hill Air Force Base, Utah, were sent to Mountain Home ahead of the F-35A's initial operational capability, which could come as early as August. The deployment, which took place June 6-17, proved that the aircraft could successfully operate away from its home base against a variety of threats, said Col. David Lyons, commander 388th Fighter Wing and an F-35A pilot.
For the deployment, jets were outfitted with the latest version of the software, 3ib6.21, Matherne said. He said that no shutdowns occurred on the ground or in flight due to software glitches.
"To my knowledge, we did not have any degradations due to software instability," he said. "From a mission systems and tactical employment, we met all of our tactical objectives, which would have been very difficult if that software was an issue, which it was not."
Spare F-35s were used twice due to minor hardware problems that kept jets grounded during takeoff, said Capt. Richard Palz, officer in charge of the 34th Aircraft Maintenance Unit. In one incident, an internal battery failed and had to be removed and replaced. During the second event, the plane's initial navigation system failed, necessitating maintenance.
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Both aircraft were returned to service after undergoing repairs and exhibited no additional issues, he said.
Having to move to a spare aircraft is not unusual, even during normal operations, Lyons said.
"We were able to make on-time takeoffs to be a part of the mission and do what we needed to do," he said. "Those are minor problems that you experience with any sort of aviation operation, and I was very, very impressed with the airplane from a reliability and stability perspective," he said.
Col. David Smith, commander of 419th Fighter Wing and currently an F-16 pilot, noted the two F-35 ground aborts are actually an improvement when compared to the failure rates of the F-16 and other 4th-generation aircraft. | {
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Check out our new site Makeup Addiction
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thinks rick perry is a douche nevertheless mindful of his first amendment rights | {
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This Monster Rangers Hex sticker is printed on nice quality vinyl, die cut with a creme outline, and suitable for indoor or outdoor use. (Though it won't last forever under that Bad Sun.)
It measures about 3x3 inches. We sized it so that you can make your own custom Monster Rangers water bottles, laptops, and whatever else you can think of.
Water flask shown as an example: it is not included.
Edition: 100. | {
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what if i told you there was 5 other rock crabs that haven't been touched yet
2,709 shares | {
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Races at Circuit Paul Ricard and Imola will be back on the 24H Series schedule next year while Monza will host a Creventic race for the first time with the final calendars now confirmed for both the Continents and Europe series.
Paul Ricard will host a nine-hour race on July 10, while the Hankook 12 Hours of Imola is scheduled for Oct. 9-10 as the season finale of the 24H Series Europe powered by Hankook.
The two race tracks have been reinstated on the schedule at the popular request of teams, according to a statement released by Creventic.
Paul Ricard’s event will run until 10 p.m. local time as the series’ first nine-hour race, as a result of noise restrictions at the southern French circuit.
“As usual, we have listened carefully to feedback from our various teams and drivers and we have taken the requests into account for the final version of our calendar for 2020,” says Creventic’s Helen Roukens.
24H Series Europe will include 12-hour races at Monza and Spa to open the season, ahead of the 24 Hours of Portimao, 9 Hours of Paul Ricard, 24 Hours of Barcelona and 12 Hours of Imola.
The 24-hour races at Portimao and Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya will also form part of the global 24H Series Continents schedule.
The international series gets underway in three weeks’ time with the Hankook 24 Hours of Dubai, ahead of the Portimao and Barcelona races on June 12-14 and Sept. 4-6. The 24 Hours of COTA will complete the campaign on Nov. 13-15.
The races at Dubai and Circuit of The Americas will both count towards the 24H Series Continents standings, while only each team’s best result from the two European races will be recorded.
The 12H Spa on May 1-3, meanwhile, will run as a double-header event alongside the TCR Spa 500.
24H Series Continents Schedule
Jan. 9-11 – 24H Dubai
June 12-14 – 24H Portimao
Sept. 4-6 – 24H Barcelona
Nov. 13-15 – 24H COTA USA
24H Series Europe Schedule
March 27-28 – 12H Monza
May 1-3 – 12H Spa / TCR Spa 500
June 12-14 – 24H Portimao
July 10 – 9H Circuit Paul Ricard
Sept. 4-6 – 24H Barcelona
Oct. 9-10 – 12H Imola | {
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Article content
LONDON — Counterterrorism police on Saturday questioned a friend of Michael Adebolajo, one of two suspects in the killing of an unarmed British soldier, a savage attack that has horrified Britain.
The friend, Abu Nusaybah, was arrested immediately after he gave a BBC Television interview describing how Adebolajo may have become radicalized and alleging that Britain’s security services tried to recruit him. Police said Nusaybah was wanted on suspicion of involvement in unspecified acts of terrorism.
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Nusaybah said Adebolajo became withdrawn after returning last year from a visit to Kenya, where he claimed he had been arrested and then abused both physically and sexually while in jail. Nusaybah claimed that Britain’s domestic spy agency, MI5, approached Adebolajo to recruit him upon his return to Britain about six months ago.
Adebolajo, 28, and Michael Adebowale, 22, are suspected of killing soldier Lee Rigby by hacking his body with knives and a meat cleaver in front of dozens of passersby Wednesday in the southeast London district of Woolwich. The horrific scene was recorded on witnesses’ cellphones, with one of the two suspects making political statements and warning of more violence as the soldier lay on the ground. | {
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Source: Lisa S./Shutterstock
individuals have an unrealistically sense of their own abilities, a strong need for admiration, a lack of toward others, and a propensity to take advantage of people (see Widman and McNulty, 2010). Sexual narcissists show some of these same personal tendencies in the realm of , including an inflated view of their own sexual prowess, a strong sense of entitlement to sexual activity, reduced empathy for sexual partners, and a tendency toward sexual exploitation (Widman and McNulty, 2010). Sexual narcissism is associated with a variety of negative (and few positive) implications for romantic and sexual relationships.
Is Your Partner a Sexual Narcissist?
If you are wondering whether your partner is a sexual narcissist, recent research by McNulty and Widman (2013) includes the Sexual Narcissism Scale (SNS) for spouses. (The authors developed the original scale for partners in 2010.) The scale is broken into four parts: sexual exploitation, sexual entitlement, low sexual empathy, and sexual skill. Although the scale is intended to be a measure of one’s own levels of sexual narcissism, some of the topics covered on the scale may be applicable to partners as well. The sexual exploitation subscale of the SNS contains items assessing whether an individual tricks or cajoles a partner into having sex. For example, one item states “one way to get my partner/spouse in bed with me is to tell him/her what he/she wants to hear.” Similarly, the sexual entitlement subscale of the SNS measures whether respondents feel that they deserve sex, either on a regular basis or at any time they desire, regardless of their partner’s feelings. Items assessing this facet of sexual narcissism include: “I feel I deserve sexual activity when I am in the mood for it,” and “I would be irritated if my partner/spouse said no to sex.”
Sexual exploitation and sexual entitlement are highly positively correlated. Items on the low sexual empathy subscale tap into a lack of knowledge about or concern over a partner’s feelings. A sample item on this subscale is “the feelings of my partner/spouse during sex don’t usually concern me.” Sexual narcissism may be more common in men than in women (McNulty and Widman, 2013). If you regularly feel that your partner is trying to trick or pressure you into having sex, that your partner doesn’t consider your own feelings and desires regarding when to have sex, that your partner doesn’t know or care how you feel during sex, or if your partner only seems concerned with his/her own sexual needs, your partner may have sexually narcissistic tendencies.
Implications for Relationships
The three facets of sexual narcissism discussed above are likely to have negative implications for romantic and sexual relationships, such as an increased likelihood of sexual (Widman and McNulty, 2010), decreased sexual and romantic satisfaction (McNulty and Widman, 2013), and an increased likelihood of (McNulty and Widman, 2014). Sexual narcissists also report having more sexual partners and an earlier age of first sexual intercourse (Widman and McNulty, 2010). The researchers also speculate that sexual narcissism could be associated with more hostile attitudes toward women as well as .
The Silver Lining?
One aspect of sexual narcissism may have positive effects on sexual relationships. The sexual skill subscale of the SNS includes items such as “I am an exceptional sexual partner,” and “I have been very successful in all my sexual relationships.” An inflated sense of sexual skill seems to be associated with both increased sexual and marital satisfaction in newly married couples (McNulty and Widman, 2013). However, this augmented sense of sexual skill may also be associated with an increased likelihood of infidelity (McNulty and Widman, 2014). The authors speculate that the strongest relationships are likely high in sexual , but low in sexual exploitation and sexual entitlement.
Facebook Image: Elnur/Shutterstock | {
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As a rookie in 2010, Dez Bryant was one of the best punt returners in the NFL, with a 14.3-yard average and two touchdowns. But the Cowboys later decided Bryant was too important at his primary position of wide receiver to risk an injury on special teams.
Now Bryant is asking for another chance. He was practicing catching punts last week at Organized Team Activities, and he has asked special teams coach Rich Bisaccia to give him a shot in a game.
“I’m always in Coach Bisaccia’s ear,” Bryant said. “That’s why I’m back there practicing. I’m going to get me one of them, I’m telling you. I’m going to crib it. I’m telling you I’m going to score.”
Don’t expect Bryant to get his wish. The Cowboys drafted receiver Ryan Switzer in the fourth round this year in part so he can return punts, and receivers Lucky Whitehead and Cole Beasley would be ahead of Bryant as well. Bryant’s days returning punts are probably over, even if it says a lot about him as a competitor that he still wants to do it. | {
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Diplomatic work continues in some of the areas with the highest geopolitical tensions in the world. In recent days there have been high-level meetings and contacts between Turkey, Iran and Russia over the situation in Syria; meetings between Modi and Xi Jinping to ease tensions between India and China; and finally, the historic meeting between Moon Jae-in and Kim Jong-un. The common component in all these meetings is the absence of the United States, which may explain the excellent progress that has been seen.
The last seven days have brought a note of optimism to international relations. The meeting between Modi and Xi Jinping in China offered a regional example, confirmed by the words of Wang Yi, member of the State Counsel of the People's Republic of China:
"Our [India and China] common interests outweigh our differences. The summit will go a long way towards deepening the mutual trust between the two great neighbors. We will make sure that the informal summit will be a complete success and a new milestone in the history of China-India relations".
Given the tensions in August 2017 in the Himalayan border area between the two countries, the progress achieved in the last nine months bodes well for a further increase in cooperation between the two nations. Bilateral trade stands at around $85 billion a year, with China as India’s largest trading partner. The meeting between Modi and Xi also serves to deepen the already existing framework between the two countries in international organizations like BRICS, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), in which they are integral participants. It is imaginable that negotiations on the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) will be in full swing, with Beijing keen to involve New Delhi more in the project. Such a prospect is particularly helped by three very powerful investment vehicles put in place by Beijing, namely, the New Development Bank (formerly the BRICS Development Bank), the AIIB, and the Silk Road Fund.
Xi Jinping will be seeking to progressively entice India closer to the BRI project through attractive and mutually beneficial commercial arrangements. However, this objective remains complicated and difficult to implement. Beijing is aware of this and has already expressed its intention not to impose the BRI on the neighboring country. With much of the future global and regional architecture depending on these two countries, the good understanding shown between Xi Jinping and Modi bodes well, especially given the commonly aligned objectives represented by the multitude of international organizations and frameworks on which China and India sit side by side.
Another bit of important news for the Asian region has been the meeting between Moon Jae-in and Kim Jong-un, which was recently examined in an article published in Strategic Culture Foundation. As discussed in that article, the intention of the two leaders is to reunite the two Koreas, to denuclearize the peninsula, and to sign a peace treaty between the North and South, whose unprecedented implications entail such questions as whether there is a future role of for the United States on the peninsula. As stated before, the rapprochement between the two Koreas does not play into Washington’s favor, which relies on the South as a strategic foothold to contain China, justifying its presence on the purported need to confront North Korea. With an all-encompassing peace agreement, this justification would cease to exist. It seems that the goal for US policy-makers will be to find an opportunity to sabotage the North-South agreement and blame Kim Jong-un for its failure. Without engaging in a diplomatic tiff with its South Korean ally, the deep state in Washington does not intend to surrender one inch of its military presence on the peninsula, and would even look favorably on the negotiations failing to further damage Trump and his administration.
This is an internal deep-state war that has been going on for years. Obama wanted to abandon the Middle East in order to focus on containing China, altering the military’s structure accordingly to return to a more Cold War stance. This explains the agreement with Iran in order to free the US from its Middle East involvement so as to be able to focus mainly on Asia and to promote it as the most important region for the United States. This strategic intention has met with enormous opposition from two of the most influential lobbies in the American political system, the Israeli and Saudi Arabian. Without the United States, these two countries would be unable to stop Iran's peaceful but impressive ascent in the region.
Listening to four-star generals like Robert Neller (Commandant of the Marine Corps) and others less distinguished, one comes to appreciate the extent to which the US military is in strategic chaos. The military has been the victim of epochal changes with each presidency. Pentagon planners would like to simultaneously confront countries like Russia, China and Iran, but in the process only decrease effectiveness due to imperial overstretch. Other politicians, especially from the neocon area, argue for the need to transform the US armed forces from a force suitable for fighting small countries (Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria), Middle Eastern insurgencies, or terrorist groups (a pretext originating from the 1990's and the first Gulf War), to a military able to face its peer competitors with all weapons available. Such a realignment does not occur over a short period of time and requires an enormous amount of money to reorganize the armed forces.
In this struggle between components of the deep state, Trump lumbers into a policy that stems from his electoral campaign rather than a considered strategy. Trump showed himself in his campaign to be strongly pro-Israel and strongly pro-armed forces, which has had the practical result of increasing military spending. Tens of billions of dollars worth of agreements have been realized with the richest country in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia, for arms purchases, and the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) is viewed negatively. Trump’s interventions in Syria confirm that he is under the strong influence of that part of the deep state that is adamant that the United States should always be present in the Middle East, should openly oppose Iran, and, above all, should prevent the Shiite arc from extending its influence to cover Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.
The reasoning employed by Trump and his administration confirms this direction in Washington’s strategy, involving greater cooperation with Beijing to solve the Korean issue; less of an effort to decrease Moscow’s influence in Syria and in the Middle East in general; and greater belligerence towards Iran, with a general shift away from Asia and towards the Middle East, backtracking away from Obama’s pivot to Asia.
Trump seems to give the impression of wanting to face China from an unprecedented direction, with a trade war that would inevitably end up damaging all sides.
In this ad hoc strategy, the European allies play an important role in Washington’s intention to cancel or modify the Iranian nuclear agreement. Following the meetings in Washington between Trump and Macron, and then with Merkel, both European leaders seem more or less open to a modification of the JCPOA, provided that Trump backs away from placing tariffs on European countries, an appeal to which the English premier Theresa May adds her name. It seems a desperate tactic, given that one of the issues Trump is pinning his 2020 campaign on is being able to fix the trade imbalances between the US and the EU, without which he will be unable to claim to have kept his promises.
The United States has many cards to play, but none is decisive. In Korea, the peace process depends very little on Trump's intentions and more on the willingness of the two key parties to reach a historic agreement to improve the lives of all citizens of the peninsula. I predict the deep state will try to blame the DPRK for a failure of the negotiations, thereby bringing to Asia the chaos in international relations that the US has successfully brought to other parts of the world. The People's Republic of China will therefore try to replace the United States in negotiations in order to bring the two negotiating parties closer together.
In the same way, an attempt to sabotage the JCPOA will only drive Russia, China and Iran into a strategic triangle, about which I was writing more than a year ago. A unilateral exit from the nuclear agreement will help delegitimize Washington's international role, together with the sabotage by the deep state of the peace agreement in Korea. It will be a pincer effect resulting from the chaos and the internal struggle of North American and European elites.
Success in the negotiations in Korea could pave the way for a protection umbrella for the DPRK guaranteed by China and Russia, in the same way the two could grant Iran all the diplomatic support necessary to resist the American and European pressure to cancel the JCPOA. Ultimately, the rapprochement between India and China, in view of important agreements on the BRI, could seal comity and cooperation between the two giants, leading the Eurasian area under the definitive influence of India, China, Russia and Iran, and guaranteeing a future of peaceful economic development to the most important area of the globe.
The United States finds itself divided by a war within the elite, where Trump's presidency is continually attacked and de-legitimized, while the coordinated assault on the dollar continues apace through gold, the petroyuan, and blockchain technology. US military power is showing itself to be a paper tiger unable to change the course of events on the ground, as seen recently in Syria. The loss of diplomatic credibility resulting from the sabotage of the JCPOA, and Washington’s inability to sit down and sincerely negotiate with the DPRK, will deliver the final coup de grace to a country that is struggling to even remain friendship with her European allies (sanctions imposed on Russia, sanctions on European companies participating in the North Stream 2, and tariffs in a new trade war).
The US deep state remains on this path of self-destruction, perennially torn between opposing strategies, which only accelerates Washington’s unipolar decline and the emergence in its place of a multipolar world order, with New Delhi, Moscow, Beijing and Tehran as new poles over an immense area comprising the Middle east and all of Eurasia. | {
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With its abundance of wellness centers, spas and yoga studios, it’s no wonder Ubud has such a vibrant healthy, raw/vegan, and organic restaurant scene. And if you’ve been following us for some time, you’ll know that this is right up our alley! It is, in fact, one of the many reasons why we lingered around Ubud for so long.
Eating vegan in Ubud is generally more for the flashpacker’s budget (especially if you want to taste everything like we did!), but we were happy to splurge because very few cities in South East Asia cater to vegans as well as Ubud does. We spent nearly three weeks in Ubud and felt that we made the rounds enough to present you with our very own guide to vegan food in Ubud. The options are seemingly endless though, and we still didn’t manage to chew through our whole wishlist. Let us know if you visit any of these restaurants and what you thought.
This is a new restaurant that opened where ‘Vegan Warung’ used to be. Perhaps because they couldn’t be bothered to change the sign on the door, this restaurant is thankfully also vegan. They serve all the traditional Indonesian staples plus some (quite rare in this neck of the woods) Korean-inspired fares. The kimchi pancake was out of this world – I just dribbled on my keyboard writing this. Crispy, spicy, oily, messy, delicious. The bakso and ramen were also mouthwatering: the bakso balls were surprisingly great for mock meat and the ramen was super spicy. Soups are the things I feel I’m missing out on the most in South East Asia, so whenever there’s a vegan version of something available, I always try that. These ones didn’t disappoint. What did disappoint however was the bibimbap: aside from a meagre portion of kimchi, it was very bland and garnished with a big squirt of something resembling ketchup. Otherwise, the food doesn’t seem to be very consistent: we returned for seconds a few days later and the kimchi pancakes were spongier and less crisp, and the ramen was, while equally tasty, presented quite differently. Certainly there are teething problems in any new restaurant and we still recommend you to give them a try. | {
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Teachers and school systems fear running afoul of the gateway law, which allows teachers to be fined up to $500 for discussing “gateway sexual activity” in the classroom.
Within the last year, Knox County has begun offering a voluntary training video to educators made by the county health department. The video features local experts in abuse treatment explaining how predators operate, why kids don’t tell, and indicators of sexual abuse.
Shutterstock
Five years after the Tennessee legislature slammed the gate on classroom conversations about any sexual activity, some are questioning whether this “gateway law” also locked out sexual abuse prevention. Despite a subsequent law encouraging schools to teach about sexual abuse, many still don’t, potentially leaving children without tools to protect themselves.
The question has become more pressing as recent lawsuits and police investigations of sexual assaults among students in Tennessee have made headlines nationally. This summer, an elite private school failed to report or respond to a student’s allegations of being raped by other students in a locker room; a similar East Tennessee case involving high school basketball team members has been winding its way through the courts for the last year. In Knoxville in 2016, two high school administrators were suspended for failing to promptly report a student receiving sexually explicit pictures from a coach’s wife, who this fall pleaded guilty to statutory rape.
These cases have exposed gaps in schools’ understanding of the legal requirement to promptly report sexual abuse and assault. They also highlight how little is taught to public school students or staff about sexual abuse prevention—despite a 2014 state law that endorsed (but did not require) adding it to the curriculum.
Reluctance to teach sexual abuse prevention is at least partly due to teachers’ and school systems’ fear of running afoul of the gateway law, which allows teachers to be fined up to $500 for discussing “gateway sexual activity” in the classroom. Advocates of the gateway law had claimed concern about children being taught details of oral sex or sex between people of the same gender, so in 2012 the law went into effect, establishing curriculum, what teachers can say, and how they can be punished for saying more.
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“Folks are still unclear about the limits of this law,” said Tory Mills, external affairs manager at Planned Parenthood of Middle and East Tennessee. “We have to create an environment where kids feel like they can report these things and be able to say the words of what has happened to them,” she said. “But we are creating an environment of distrust. The law is absolutely one piece of this, because we think teachers are really afraid of talking about sex health topics.”
Tennessee law currently limits sex education to an “abstinence-centered” curriculum—which sexual health educators say is not effective—and even that isn’t required except in counties with a high teen birth rate (where there are more than 19.5 pregnancies per 1,000 girls under age 18). More than half the school districts that met the criteria in 2017 are in the Appalachian counties of the state, and almost all are rural.
Erin’s Law and Preventing Sexual Abuse
About 1 in 4 girls, and 1 in 6 boys, suffer sexual abuse, according to research conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and distributed by the U.S. Department of Justice.
The law supporting sexual abuse prevention in schools is often called “Erin’s Law,” after childhood sexual assault survivor and activist Erin Merryn. Merryn’s campaign to educate children, teachers, and parents about sexual abuse has led to laws in 31 states. Tennessee’s version is weaker than the requirements in states like Connecticut, Maryland, and Louisiana, which mandate some combination of sexual abuse prevention coursework for all staff, age-appropriate lessons for students, and a clear system for children to report sexual abuse.
The Tennessee Department of Education provided schools with recommendations about curricula and resources that could be used to teach both children and staff about recognizing and preventing sexual abuse. But Cary Rayson, community engagement coordinator at Prevent Child Abuse Tennessee, where part of her job is to educate adults about child sexual abuse, noted that no funding was attached to Erin’s Law to implement the lessons. And according to Chandler Hopper, deputy director of communications for the education department, it doesn’t monitor how many or which districts teach about sexual abuse.
After Erin’s Law passed, the Sexual Assault Center—a statewide advocacy and education organization—began providing its “Safe at Last” sexual abuse curriculum for elementary school children for free, says Kim Janacek, education curriculum manager for the center. About 49 school districts in Tennessee are using it, but only nine are in the Appalachian region of the state, she said. The lessons reached about 200,000 students last year, up from 75,000 before the law passed.
Rayson said that in Tennessee, the energy behind Erin’s Law emerged from the fight against sex trafficking. “But they didn’t look at the ways that public school people are afraid that, knowingly or unknowingly, they might violate the gateway legislation,” she said. “It just gets really fuzzy when you start talking about middle and high school kids. It’s hard to talk about boundaries and safe relationships without wading into something that might not be abstinence before marriage.”
Since the gateway law doesn’t apply to adult learners, it doesn’t interfere with training school staff to recognize and prevent sexual abuse. Still, most school districts don’t require that—except for briefly teaching staff what they are legally required to report to authorities.
“Any good prevention effort is not about liability,” Rayson said. “Policy and procedure is about liability. The goal of prevention should be that no child is ever one-on-one with an adult or another, more powerful kid in a situation that can’t be interrupted or observed.”
Hemmed In
Knox County, which is home to both the largest city in the Appalachian region of the state and to the University of Tennessee, is a good case study in the effects of the gateway law and the slow adoption of Erin’s Law.
Although the state attorney general provided a legal opinion that the gateway law couldn’t be used to fine public health workers invited to speak at schools, in practice, local health departments have mostly stopped speaking to school groups anyway, according to Rayson and local public health officials.
Within the last year, Knox County has begun offering a voluntary training video to educators made by the county health department. The video features local abuse treatment experts explaining how predators operate, why kids don’t tell, and indicators of sexual abuse.
Knox County Schools spokeswoman Carly Harrington said in an email to Rewire that the district encourages all teachers and staff to watch the video, but it’s not required. Knox County Schools teach elementary and middle school students about sexual abuse prevention, she said, although she did not provide any detail about what curriculum is used.
The gateway law is just one symptom of the cultural reluctance to have conversations with young people about sex, a reluctance which has played out publicly in Knox County. Although its teen birth rate doesn’t make sex education mandatory, the school district still teaches it as part of the state’s “family life” curriculum. But at about the same time the gateway law passed, Knox County Schools stopped inviting outside educators to present the lessons, after a parent complained about Planned Parenthood being a presenter.
Instead, the district hired an outside educator to join its staff and handle sex education at all schools that request it—and 90 percent do, Harrington said. The new presenter had previously worked as an abstinence educator for the Christian-based “Just Wait” program, and many portions of his presentation remained unchanged.
In the following years, some parents and students complained that the presentation placed the responsibility for abstinence on women, downplayed the effectiveness of birth control and condom use, and used degrading language about women paired with sexist jokes.
Two years ago, several female graduates of a district high school started a critical group called “Just Educate,” which conducted an online student survey and made a film of students expressing their criticisms of Knox County’s approach to sex education. In Just Educate’s (admittedly unscientific) voluntary survey of 210 students, 64 percent described the sex education unit as “completely negative” and 36 percent reported feeling targeted or blamed by the educator.
Harrington has stated in emails that the presentation is regularly reviewed by a school district supervisor and has never been found to contain any inappropriate content.
Just Educate leaders met with school district officials about their concerns, but little changed. Several parents saw the Just Wait campaign and chimed in last year, meeting with district officials about their concerns and asking that students be given a formal survey after the presentation to gauge its effectiveness. Knox County Schools piloted this with teachers and a small group of middle school students in spring. Results show the feedback was mostly positive.
But parents such as Beth Cooper have continued to push for changes. She said the district agreed to add a few slides related to the impacts of pregnancy and STDs on teen boys, although only one was actually included. She said she still finds the presenter’s delivery “super-problematic” in its subtle sexism and its emphasis on the failure rates and side effects of birth control.
“We want an evidence-based curriculum package by someone else,” she said. “I’m about ready to go back to the state about the abstinence curriculum.”
Cooper added that she thinks the district administrators would like to change their approach, but feel hemmed in. “They feel more restricted by state law than they actually are,” she said.
Abuse prevention advocates are preparing to launch a campaign before the end of the year, pushing for an amendment to the gateway law when the state legislature goes back to work in January. Rayson says her organization has been meeting with other nonprofits—such as the YWCA and the Tennessee Coalition to End Domestic and Sexual Violence—to draft suggested changes to the law’s language and explain why they’re needed.
“We’d really like to see adults feel comfortable and empowered to provide this kind of education to children and to teens,” said Rayson. She said nonprofits like hers have been told by school districts around Nashville that teaching sexual abuse prevention just “doesn’t feel safe given what we know about the gateway legislation.” | {
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Give in to Celestia's addiction for confectionery goods.Next:Day in the Lives of the Royal Sisters is a comic series following the activities of Celestia and Luna.It is created in a simpler style and may be filled with popular headcanon and memes so you get to see the back alley of royal living.Each page will be posted monthly.If you want to see future pages early, please consider becoming a patron at patreon.com/mysticalpha where not only will you get high resolution versions of this comic series, you'll get a wallpaper from one of the panels. | {
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Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey on Monday signed a controversial bill to require doctors to tell women who undergo medication abortion that the procedure can be reversed, despite no medical or scientific evidence to substantiate the claim. The law also bans abortion coverage for insurance purchased through the Affordable Care Act, except in cases of rape or incest.
"The American people overwhelmingly oppose taxpayer funding of abortions, and it's no different in Arizona, where we have long-standing policy against subsidizing them with public dollars," Ducey said in a statement.
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Arizona is already one of several states that requires doctors to acquire admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of the clinics where they perform abortions. The new law, however, also dictates how physicians interact with patients, and was criticized by just one Republican for requiring that doctors indicate to women that medication abortion is reversible. Reproductive rights advocates have also challenged that provision of the law, calling it infantilizing.
"It is just insulting to her intelligence to imply that she isn’t capable of making a decision and following through with that decision," NARAL Arizona board member Gabrielle Goodrick told RH Reality Check. "We trust women can make their decisions as consenting adults." | {
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ITHACA, N.Y. - With the new emphasis on hands-on, active learning throughout higher education, lab courses would seem to have an advantage - what could be more active than doing experiments? But surprising new research reveals traditional labs fall far short of their pedagogical goals.
In a paper published Jan. 2 in Physics Today, "Introductory Physics Labs: We Can Do Better," Natasha Holmes, Cornell assistant professor of physics, and Nobel laureate Carl Wieman of Stanford University report on their analysis of nine introductory physics laboratory courses at three institutions, taught by seven instructors and involving almost 3,000 students. The labs were all designed to support student learning of the associated lecture course content. Because the lab sections were optional, the researchers could compare outcomes with a control group of students who did not take the lab courses.
The results were so consistent, and so abysmal, that the researchers call it "shocking." They write that "with a high degree of precision, there was no statistically measurable lab benefit. ... None of the mean effects was larger than 2 percent statistically; they were all indistinguishable from zero."
Even when the researchers restricted their analysis to exam questions that didn't require quantitative calculations, but only conceptual reasoning that should have been enhanced in a lab course, they got the same results for the lab benefit: zero.
Lab courses are supposed to enable students to see how physics principles work in real life; conducting experiments should help them understand physics better and reinforce classroom instruction. Why is this not happening?
"Although one may think that labs are inherently active, our research shows that in traditional labs students may be active with their hands but they're not really active with their brains," says Holmes. "Following rote procedures to get a proscribed outcome at the end isn't doing a whole lot."
In extensive interviews with students, Holmes and Wieman write that they found, "the only thinking the students said they did in structured and content-focused labs ... was in analyzing data and checking whether it was feasible to finish the lab in time."
In a typical lab activity, "the relevant equations and principles are laid out in the preamble; students are told what value they should get for a particular measurement or given the equation to predict that value; they are told what data to collect and how to collect them; and often they are even told which buttons to press on the equipment to produce the desired output," write the researchers.
Students in traditional labs, therefore, don't need to think about physics content but only how to correctly follow the instructions. But, write Holmes and Wieman, "overcoming obstacles and learning from failure are vital skills for every experimental scientist... Also important [is] having the time both to reflect on those decisions and their outcomes and to fix and improve the experiments iteratively."
The innovative lab design that Holmes and Wieman offer as one alternative in their paper - structured quantitative inquiry labs (SQILabs) - emphasize iterative experimentation, decision-making and developing quantitative critical thinking skills. While SQILab activities give students a limited and realistic goal, the students decide how to conduct the experiment and interpret the data. They have the opportunity to troubleshoot, revise and test models, and try new things.
The researchers found that SQILab activities are more enjoyable for students and decrease their sense of frustration when things don't go as planned. The students were also less likely to manipulate the data for a desired result.
"Rather than being seen by students as pointless and frustrating hoops that have to be jumped through, introductory physics labs can instead offer rewarding intellectual experiences," conclude Holmes and Wieman.
### | {
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Chairman Walden, Ranking Member Pallone, and Members of the Committee, We face a number of important issues around privacy, safety, and democracy, and you will rightfully have some hard questions for me to answer. Before I talk about the steps we’re taking to address them, I want to talk about how we got here.
Facebook is an idealistic and optimistic company. For most of our existence, we focused on all the good that connecting people can bring. As Facebook has grown, people everywhere have gotten a powerful new tool to stay connected to the people they love, make their voices heard, and build communities and businesses. Just recently, we’ve seen the #metoo movement and the March for Our Lives, organized, at least in part, on Facebook. After Hurricane Harvey, people raised more than $20 million for relief. And more than 70 million small businesses now use Facebook to grow and create jobs.
But it’s clear now that we didn’t do enough to prevent these tools from being used for harm as well. That goes for fake news, foreign interference in elections, and hate speech, as well as developers and data privacy. We didn’t take a broad enough view of our responsibility, and that was a big mistake. It was my mistake, and I’m sorry. I started Facebook, I run it, and I’m responsible for what happens here. | {
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BOSTON -- Durand Scott hit four free throws in the closing 30 seconds and drew an offensive foul to help Miami extend its best conference start ever by beating pesky Boston College 60-59 on Wednesday night.
Scott finished with 15 points, Kenny Kadji had 14 and Trey McKinney Jones 11 for the Hurricanes (13-3, 4-0 Atlantic Coast Conference). It's Miami's best conference start since it went 5-0 to open its Big East season 5-0 in 1997-98.
Olivier Hanlan, who led Boston College (9-8, 1-3) with 17 points, was fouled shooting a 3-pointer with a half-second left. The first two free throws rolled in but Hanlan front-rimmed the last one. The ball was tipped in the lane and the horn sounded.
Lonnie Jackson added 16 points for the Eagles and Ryan Anderson had 11.
Scott's two free throws had given the Hurricanes a 58-57 edge with 25 seconds to play. After the Eagles called timeout to set up a play, Scott drew an offensive foul near midcourt from Joe Rahon, appearing to take an elbow up high.
With Boston College clinging to a one-point lead, the teams traded misses before Scott stole Hanlan's pass in front of the Eagles' bench and drove to the basket for a miss, but Kadji had the put-back to push Miami ahead 56-55 with 1:36 to play.
After a timeout, Hanlan was fouled and hit both ends of a 1-and-1, moving the Eagles back in front with 67 seconds left.
Miami's Rion Brown then missed a jumper from the left wing, but Hanlan missed the front end of a 1-and-1 before Scott was fouled and nailed his two from the line.
BC trailed 36-34 early in the second half before Patrick Heckmann nailed a 3 from the right corner for his only basket of the game. Hanlan had a three-point play on the next possession and Anderson followed with two free throws, pushing BC ahead 42-36 with just over 12 minutes to play.
Miami, coming off solid wins at Georgia Tech, at North Carolina and Maryland, respectively, then stayed close thanks to some decent long-range shooting, nailing three shots from beyond the arc over the ensuing 6 minutes.
The Hurricanes cut it to 51-50 on McKinney Jones' free throw with 3:34 to play, the first of three times they closed it to one point.
The Eagles came out cold from the field in the opening 5 minutes of the second half, missing six of their first seven shots, but Miami didn't fully capitalize.
The Hurricanes did turn a two-point halftime deficit into a 36-31 lead by scoring 10 of the initial 13 points to start the half, but Jackson nailed a 3 from the right corner, closing it to two points with 14:18 to play.
Gamble had six points during the Hurricanes' spree to start the second half.
The Eagles took a 28-26 lead into intermission after Anderson's layup with 32 seconds left in the half.
BC seemed to dictate the pace for much of the opening half, running the shot clock down into single digits on most possessions.
Neither team held more than a two-possession lead in the slowly paced half that featured relatively few fastbreak chances. Both schools had zero fast-break points in the opening 20 minutes.
Rahon rolled his right ankle early in the game, went to the locker room and returned about 3 minutes later.
Miami center Reggie Johnson missed his eighth straight with a broken left thumb | {
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Thin privilege is not being food/body policed and concern trolled so much by your family that you’re no longer sure whether you’re actually having symptoms of a hereditary health problem which you know you would probably have never escaped, weight or no weight, or whether they basically gaslighted you into having phantom symptoms fuelled by your already existing anxiety issues. (I’m sorry if gaslighted is not quite the correct word here. I know it’s a horrible thing and do not mean to diminish the experience of those who have been. But it does feel a bit like that because all of this really messed with my head and they KNOW about my issues and that this kind of nipping at my heels like the hounds of hell and stress can make it all worse.)
Thin privilege is also not being afraid to tell your family about your health concerns because you don’t know whether you’d get sympathy or an “I told you so” because of your body size and because they’ve been telling you for years that just losing weight will solve everything.
Seriously, I don’t know what my mind and body are doing right now and am scrabbling to get that part of my sanity back so I know whether I really need to think about getting treatment (I’m currently working on the assumption that as long as I’m not in pain and can live my life the way I normally do I’m maybe alright.) Thanks, family. I really needed that after I’d *just* started feeling better after other anxiety-inducing problems have calmed down.
Fat hate and shaming leaves WOUNDS and they leave SCARS. | {
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Being able to shape your state of mind is key to maturity. While you certainly don’t want to micromanage the way you think (often it’s beneficial to just let your emotions roam rather than trying to control them), knowing how to take the reins in your head when you need to will help you strike that awesome balance between stability and spontaneity that is a hallmark of cool and positive people.
Much of the time, changing your state of mind is as easy focusing on your desire to feel something different and then to take action, and thus change your focus. But then, there are those times when you are stuck… when you cannot just shift. What do you do then?
Open yourself to the truth about how you feel, no matter how ugly it is. Do you feel confused? Dissatisfied? Like you are worthless? Make some times to have this dialogue with yourself. If you feel like you could cry, let yourself cry (you may not, which is fine). In order to heal, you need to find out the nature of all your wounds. It’s like pulling a loose tooth; it can be very uncomfortable, but the quicker you get through this discomfort that must be felt for you to move on, the quicker your state of mind will change.
Find out what is out of balance in your life right now. Where are these feelings coming from? Think about the things in your life that you have too little of, or too much of, or not the right mix of. Which of the wheels on your train, so to speak, is squeaking more than the others? Again, let the truth in; listen to yourself, your thoughts, your fears, your discomforts… they are pointing toward something. They will lead you in the right direction. Then, once your get to the truth,
Call out what’s holding you back. Define it. Yank it out of the darkness. Expose it! Say it out loud. Write it down. Write a poem about it. Sing a song that reminds you of it. The more you make it impossible for your problems to sit there and fester in the darkest corners of your mind, the easier it will become to deal with them–quickly. They’ll lose their fearsome power.
Start an activity that changes your state of mind. Not just anything, but something you always enjoy doing. Music does this for me–I can dance to it, I can sing it, I can play it on my piano. What do you do in your life that gets you groovin’? Do it!
Don’t forget to check your physical indicators. Did you sleep badly last night? Recovering from a cold? Are you dehydrated? Have you been eating well/properly? Are you in chronic pain or irritation of some sort? Is it too hot/too cold where you are? Is your breathing short [whether or not you find it difficult to breathe]? These things profoundly affect your state of mind. They are the gauges to your car, and if any of them is showing too low or too high, make it a priority to deal with it. Need sleep? Don’t make excuses–make time and space for sleep. Do what you can do to be right physiologically–it’s seriously important.
Turn to people who love you and whom you trust. When you’re just stuck in a rut, nothing works like having people who honestly care about you. Open up to them; let them hear your fears. Through your sharing and their listening, you will transfuse their energy into yourself, after which it will be easier to change your state of mind. Turn to more than one person if possible ; others also take on your energy to listen to you. The more people you can open up to, the more you can spread out this process and hear more angles on your situation while putting less pressure on each individual. It also gets less and less hard to explain and talk about as you go along.
Don’t wait to ask for help. We get into thinking that you should only ask for help if (A) what you need help with isn’t too big a deal, or (B) you’re desperate and really need the help. But if we asked for help more often when things are more serious than A but not yet as serious as B, we could avoid a lot more desperation before the fact. Ask for help, and take pride in the fact that you have the strength to ask, as opposed to taking pride in not asking. I’m proud that I know how to ask for help, like I did at the end of this blog post.
Finally, don’t get down on yourself if you can’t change things right away. They will change on their own. | {
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– A neutral-site contest versus the defending national champions and a pair home games against in-state rivals Western Kentucky and Kentucky highlight the 2018 University of Louisville football schedule, the Atlantic Coast Conference announced on Wednesday.Head coach's ninth Louisville squad opens the 2018 campaign on Sept. 1 versus Alabama at Camping World Stadium in Orlando, Fla. The Crimson Tide defeated Georgia 26-23 in the College Football Playoff National Championship to win the national title for the second time in three seasons. It's the first meeting between the two programs since the Cardinals won 34-7 in the 1991 Fiesta Bowl.In-state foes Western Kentucky and Kentucky visit newly renovated Papa John's Cardinal Stadium on Sept. 15 and Nov. 24, respectively. It will be the first visit by WKU to Louisville since facing the Cardinals in 1998.The Cardinals are in the process of a $63-million project that will enclose the north end zone, which is set for the opening game of the 2018 campaign against Indiana State. It consists of 10,000 new seats, with 1,000 club seats, 70 premium boxes, and 12 exclusive field level suites that will increase the capacity to approximately 65,000.Louisville opens its fifth season in the ACC on the road on Sept. 22 at Virginia and continues league play with consecutive home games: Sept. 29 versus Florida State and a Friday game versus Georgia Tech on Oct. 5 – the first meeting between the schools.Following the two-game homestand, the Cardinals hit the road for three of the next four contests, beginning with a trip to Boston College on Oct. 13. The Cardinals are looking for their third-straight win at Alumni Stadium.After the first open week of the season, the Cardinals host Wake Forest on Oct. 27 before traveling to Clemson Nov. 3 to face the 2016 national champions in Death Valley. The road stand continues with a trip to Syracuse on Nov. 9 for a nationally televised Friday night contest. The Cardinals have beaten the Orange on three-consecutive occasions after a 56-10 win last season.The Cardinals close ACC play against NC State on Nov. 17 and end the year at home against Kentucky, with the series evened up at 15-15 after a 44-17 win in Lexington.In all, Louisville faces nine teams that played in postseason bowls last season, including three schools that have accounted for six of the last seven national titles (Alabama, Clemson and Florida State).Game times and television designations for Louisville's 2018 games will be announced at a later date.Fans interested in signing up for the for the season ticket waiting list should visit www.GoCards.com/FBtickets for additional information.
Date Opponent Site Series Sept. 1 vs. Alabama Orlando, Fla. Alabama leads, 2-1 Sept. 8 INDIANA STATE LOUISVILLE, KY. Louisville leads 6-3-1 Sept. 15 WESTERN KENTUCKY LOUISVILLE, KY. Louisville leads 19-12 Sept. 22 at Virginia * Charlottesville, Va. Louisville leads 4-2 Sept. 29 FLORIDA STATE * LOUISVILLE, KY. Florida State leads 14-4 Oct. 5 GEORGIA TECH * LOUISVILLE, KY. First Meeting Oct. 13 at Boston College * Chestnut Hill, Mass. Louisville leads 6-4 Oct. 27 WAKE FOREST * LOUISVILLE, KY. Louisville leads 4-1 Nov. 3 at Clemson * Clemson, S.C. Clemson leads 4-0 Nov. 9 at Syracuse * Syracuse, N.Y. Louisville leads 10-6 Nov. 17 NC STATE * LOUISVILLE, KY. Louisville leads 6-2 Nov. 24 KENTUCKY LOUISVILLE, KY. Series tied 15-15 | {
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Author's Notes: I'm sorry about how long this chapter took. I had to re-write parts of it several times. It felt too cold and emotionless. I did my best. enjoy.
Falling softly through the frigid air, minuscule shreds of frost meandered past each other in a dazzling array. Each pulse of the vibrating blade chiseled ever more refinement into the immaculate crystalline structure.
Hours passed as the external world faded into nonexistence around him. All that remained: Kristoff, his sculpture, and the exquisite symphony of creative impulses orchestrating the entire affair. Even the tiniest of imperfections in the ice were laid bare before his multi-spectral vision. There was no hiding from Kristoff's insistent perfectionism.
'Almost there, just gotta carve out Arsia Mons and Eunostos is compl- oh come on!'
Kristoff's flow shattered at the sound of his infolink going off. Before his vision could completely bleed red with seething rage, he took a deep breath, reminded himself that such anger was utterly irrational, and centered himself.
"Mister Bjorgman? Are you there?"
"Elsa? Is that you? You can just call me Kristoff you know."
"Ah, right. Mister Kristoff. I require assistance. As you may be aware, Anna's been having some parental troubles lately."
Kristoff halted and shifted his focus entirely to the conversation, gravity of the situation taking him out of his work. He began to put his tools away and sat down.
"Yeah. Troubles is putting it mildly. What do you need?"
"She's a curious woman, isn't she? She's got more hardware than a combat droid, and yet her manner is effervescent, whimsical and downright invigorating."
'You got that right'. Kristoff reflected on all the years he'd spent with Anna. She'd been his companion on more than one dangerous, foolhardy adventure. And the their more... intimate times had brought Kristoff partially out of his cynical, misanthropic shell. Kristoff was better off having known her, and he knew it.
"Mister Kristoff?" Came the borderline impatient voice.
"Sorry Elsa. You're right about Anna. You just reminded me of it, is all. What does this have to with her parents?"
"Please don't tell her this, but I think I might be... infatuated with her. Seeing her so distraught is upsetting."
Kristoff couldn't help but grin in fond remembrance of the previous evening. Anna had spent hours telling him every detail of their night. Every time he tried getting a word in edgewise, he was met with more elated babbling about pier-hopping and hand-holding. Elsa's motivations clear as day.
"You're going to go looking for them, aren't you?" Kristoff asked, shifting upwards and feeling a bit lighter.
There was a pause before she responded, and when she did, she couldn't quite keep… something from bleeding into her speech.
"Yes. I have a... similar situation. I can't help but feel for her. In my efforts, I was able to get their geolocator codes by looking through data here at the house. But I can't get a response from any frequency. Do you have any suggestions?"
Kristoff began to slowly pace around the room, kneading his right hand across his chin in contemplation. "Give me a second to come up with ideas." He said in an attempt to placate an obviously frustrated Elsa.
"Aren't there a bunch of networks that track that kind of stuff? I mean it's a geolocator, so it's gotta ping relay towers at some point, right?"
"Yes." She started, weariness edging into her voice. "I've already attempted breaching some of those systems, but it hasn't been working! I should be able to, but I can't."
"Hey… wait a second." Kristoff started, remembering Elsa's occupation. "Why are you trying to be all fancy about this? You're an IT girl, right? Just flash your LightComm badge and walk right up to one of the relay units. Nobody will check to see if you're even supposed to be there."
"What!? That's madness!" Elsa shot back.
'Of course not.' Kristoff cursed to himself, realizing that Elsa probably had very little experience tricking people. He took it for granted that it came naturally to him, always hiding from the world.
"Well, I don't think there are too many better ways. You could just keep hacking away and hope you get lucky, I guess."
In the unnerving intermission that followed, Kristoff shifted his gaze off into nowhere, mindlessly scanning around to distract himself from the possibility that he was being rude. What else could have prompted such a silence?
"I'll do it." Elsa replied.
'Wow, she's bolder than I give her credit for. Never thought the timid technician girl would-
"...But not alone. You're coming with me."
'Did she really just… she did.' Kristoff's jaw hung agape at Elsa's audacity.
"You know… I don't usually just go around helping people."
Elsa's previously commanding voice faded into a more subdued tone, "I'm sorry. I know it's too much to ask, I just got so caught up in helping Anna… I'll do it on my own."
An uncomfortable scene played out in Kristoff's imagination. He saw Anna, furious at the news:
'She's WHERE? And got caught doing WHAT?'
'Yeah, pretty gutsy huh?'
'There's no telling what they'll do to her! Kristoff what were you thinking, letting her go alone?'
The daydream was shattered by a storm of imaginary household items smashing into the wall next to his face.
"On second thought, I think I'll go with you. Got any ideas where we could find one of these towers?"
"Well, at least you put up a good fight." intoned an ethereal, dysphonic voice. Coming down off the peaks of an adrenal high, Hans satiated the last of his bloodlust by watching the now limp corpse slide off his blade.
Setting his arm to oscillate rapidly, he flicked it violently, flinging the mixture of natural and synthetic body fluids from the blade's surface.
"... But, for a cyborg you sure do bleed a lot. Ugh". He cursed to himself at the sight of his now permanently stained blazer.
Satisfied that the remaining blood had been dissipated, he commanded the weapon back to its resting position. This incited the vast network of servos and mechanical muscle fibers to coax it back to deep within his arm.
Thundering breaths and echoing footfalls rounded the corner nearby. Their owners hurriedly ran to Hans' side.
"Orders, sir?" Asked one of the guards.
"Yes. Split up. Half of you dispose of this poor fool and his wife. The rest are to lock down the facility and make sure none of my stock escaped."
Out from underfoot a small metal orb rolled out spastically across the floor. It came to a stop, righted itself and split open to reveal a holographic projector. The projector sparked to life and began to display an attractive, but still rather average-looking woman in the usual corporate garb.
"Mister Westergard… news for you sir."
Recognizing his secretary Clarice, Hans' transformation was immediate and thorough. His manner lost all rigidity, the modulation in his voice smoothed over and took on a far softer quality.
"What is it? Is it about CyberDynamics?"
"No sir." The woman responded. "The CyberDynamics takeover is on schedule as planned, you should have full executive authority in a week. No, this is a matter of security, not acquisition. Someone's been putting an exhaustive effort into uncovering those geolocators you ordered masks on."
Coolly dismissing the shot of anxiety that begged for emergence, Hans replied: "Is that so? I wonder who on Earth would be trying to find them. Tell me, did you get any information about the attacker?"
Clarice paused briefly in recollection before responding: "Yes, some security scans indicated two individuals at the breach site. A c-level cyborg male, estimated at 22-25 years old and a possibly unaugmented girl, estimated at 19-22 years old."
Curiosity shot through Hans' circuits, delaying his reaction.
"What do you mean… possibly unaugmented?"
"Well sir… if I'm reading the report correctly the her bio-signature contained no EM emissions or metallic masses consistent with an augmented individual. Possible genetic augmentation but with no default profile to compare against…"
His eyebrows furrowing, Hans felt the fires of impatience burn within, even though he knew his loyal secretary wouldn't have brought it up if it lacked importance. His chassis was beginning to quake, his fists grinding against themselves as they fought his dopaminergic anticipation at his plans for immediately after this conversation. Channeling his patience, he reminded her:
"Brevity please, I understand there's a lot of information but I'm a busy man."
"Sorry, but there's only so much I can condense this report. The girl… she doesn't appear to be augmented… but for some reason her temperature readings are constantly spiking in the negative. Whenever her heart rate jumped it was accompanied by a drop to about negative 15 degrees."
"What?! And this is the first time anyone has heard about this?"
"I'm not sure. It's the first time I've heard of it."
"Send the entire report to security chief Johnson and tell him I want to know absolutely everything about this woman."
"Yes sir, right away."
The petite round drone proceeded to re-fold itself into a traveling configuration before scurrying off into the depths of the facility. Hans, now brimming with excitement, turned to the array of human-sized vats affixed to the wall before him and gleefully proclaimed under his breath:
"Soon... it will all come together."
Anna stared at the glowing screen intently, her gaze threatening to burn a hole clear through the display. Massive swaths of data flew by, everything from contact information to calls, text messages, and GPS data all contained in the blurry stream.
Furiously she swapped back and forth between the computers in front of her and the one built into her mind, desperately searching for a pattern or clue that might tell her more. Each passing moment fanned the flames of rage-tinted inadequacy at her continued failure. Her chair's armrest began to give way under her overwhelming grip.
"Anna?"
The entire conflagration died within her at the sweet sound meeting Anna's ears. She whirled around in her chair, beaming smile adorning her face. Without a second's hesitation, she was on her feet and bounding towards the door.
"Elsa!" she cried, capturing the woman in a frantic embrace, nearly toppling both of them.
Elsa could feel brain starting to short-circuit on her. Anna's radiant affection had been disarming her more and more, and now there was no hiding from it. The warmth of the hug seeped into Elsa, washing over her and flushing away the residue of anxiety from the day's adventure.
Amorous affection was a new feeling for her, and she wasn't going to miss a second of it.
'Mmmm... Anna.'
Insecurity, ever Elsa's pernicious stalker, rapped at the back of her mind, laughing maniacally: 'How long have I been holding her for? Back off! She's going to think you're a creep!'
Cautiously pulling back, Elsa tried to preemptively patch up any misunderstandings: "You're awfully affectionate today."
Anna stared back for a moment before laughing and replying: "I'm affectionate every day silly! Besides…" She paused, looking away and brushing her hair back behind her left ear. "I um… really like your hugs. They're sweet."
"You're too kind." Elsa replied, tension evaporating at the revelation that she hadn't caused offense. Remembering Anna's intensity before Elsa had broken her concentration, she asked: "You looked pretty busy when I came in… what were you working on?"
Anna's expression hardened. She paused briefly, throwing her eyes to the ceiling in contemplation before responding: "Oh nothing important. What about you? Long day?"
"Stressful for sure, but completely worth it." Elsa smirked in reminiscence at just how uncharacteristically bold she'd been that day. "I got a bit lonely though. Which is odd, since I typically enjoy solitude. But today, I'd rather have company."
Anna bounced onto her bed behind the workstation and flopped down. "I'm glad… It's been so lonely here since mama and papa disappeared. It hasn't felt like a home since then... Well, until you showed up that is."
Elsa felt her cheeks flushing at the comment. 'What is it about this girl? Even her kindness is augmented to superhuman levels.' The mention of Anna's missing family reminded Elsa why she had come in the first place. Grinning, she sat down next to Anna and put her plan into action.
"Hey Anna… I know I'm always gushing over your upgrades… but do you have an NFC port on you anywhere?"
Anna rolled over, offering a wrist to Elsa. "Sure do! Right here, in my wrist. Why?"
"I've got a present, just for you. I know you'll love it."
Elsa practically whipped the data card out of her jacket pocket, her jaw slightly agape in anticipatory bliss. She met Anna's intrigued look, gently caressing the wrist as she held the datacard up to it.
Parsing the data in the card, Anna stared off past the ceiling. Gripped by realization, her breaths grew shorter and shallower. She recognized the geolocator codes immediately, each trace point a glimmer of hope in a sea of despair.. Tears began to well up in her eyes, scattering the glow from her retinal display into a dribbling river of luminescence.
"You… you found them." Anna whispered in disbelief.
Elsa could only freeze in place as Anna shot up and grasped her by the shoulders. The seconds compressed into an ever shrinking period giving Elsa a minor epoch in which to take in her own reflection in Anna's soaked, trembling eyes.
Choking through tears, Anna eventually managed to stammer: "You did this for me? I spent months looking… "
"I had to. When I saw the pain in your eyes, I knew I had no choice."
In an instant, Anna was upon her, pressing her quaking lips against the Elsa's. Anna's grateful, unapologetic kiss triggered a storm of entirely uncharted emotions deep within its recipient. It was a messy ordeal, Anna's hot tears streaking down both of their faces. Something deep and ineffable pulled Elsa closer to Anna. Sliding her hands across Anna's waist, Elsa cradled the bionic beauty before her.
Gingerly pulling back, Anna stared at the floor. She swept her gaze back and forth across the ground, nervously brushed her hair back and gingerly offered:
"I'm super sorry if that was too bold. I couldn't help it." Anna couldn't read Elsa's expression as anything, so she continued: "This is the best gift anyone has ever given me. A kiss just seemed like the best way to say that."
Her visage redder than a swollen star, Elsa tried to mask her decimated composure with some levity. Haphazardly tossing a grin onto her face, she proclaimed: "I knew it! You are trying to court me!"
Anna contorted her face into a wry grin. "I'd be a fool not to."
Elsa straightened up, then leaned back against the wall. She stared up at the ceiling and sighed.
"Anna."
"Yes?"
"I got those geolocator codes by breaking into a comm facility. Breaching the machine's security was trivial once I had physical access."
Anna gaped at her, words piling up at her mouth but dying on the threshold.
"I know. It was terrifying. I did it because I'm… hopelessly enamored with you too."
Elsa felt a soft hand caress her shoulder, directing her attention to its owner. Bright iridescent irises stared back at her, gleaming with adoration.
"It's nice to finally hear you say it." Anna cooed at her.
Curiosity piqued, Elsa inquired: "What do you mean… finally?"
"Normally I'm stunted emotionally. Kind of oblivious, you know? Well, when I jumped down in that alley to keep you from getting ground into mincemeat, I had a social enhancement program turned on so I could get a read on read those vultures circling you."
Whatever blush remained on Elsa's face drained. Her eyes opened wide as she took Anna's meaning.
"So um… yeah. I kind of cheated a little. Please don't hate me. I noticed the way your eyes dilated when you saw me. The way your heart rate spiked and you definitely got warmer… fast. I turned it off when the whole thing was over but uh… I had already figured it out by then. Sorry."
The initial feeling of unease faded quickly. It was obvious by this point that Anna would never hurt her on purpose. How could she, after risking her life for someone she didn't even know?
"It's probably for the best. I've never courted anyone before, never felt the loving touch of another. If you hadn't been so forward, I wouldn't have gotten such a lovely first kiss."
Anna gasped. "Your first? And you're how old?"
"21."
"No way! No one as stunning and sweet as you could go un-pursued for that long!"
Elsa shrugged, raising her palms in acquiescence. "I've spent my life with my nose to the grindstone. No one ever had a chance, I suppose. Or perhaps I have been pursued and simply been oblivious."
Anna stared back with a dopey grin and let out a wistful sigh, indulging in Elsa's majestic aura.
Though she was beginning to warm up to the silences between them, Elsa still hadn't quite gotten there yet. To break things up, she offered something else.
"Want another gift?"
"Oh gosh Elsa, after the last one I might be all gifted out!"
"This one will be less intense. Promise."
With that, she closed her eyes and brought her breathing to an infinitesimal amplitude. The tedious process of clearing her mind began, every intrusive thought pushed away until only blank canvas remained. 'It's been awhile since I've tried this. Focus Elsa, focus!'
Deeper and deeper she slid down the confines of her consciousness until only pure awareness remained. Searching herself, she felt a force just below her sternum. Reaching deeper and deeper into this point, warmth and paresthesia began to flow outwards from it, slowly enveloping the entirety of Elsa's mental space.
Meticulously, she pushed more and more of this energy into a point between her hands until finally, it clumped together into a microscopic shard of ice. Drawing her hands outwards, she tugged at the ends of the frozen clump of ice, extruding it into a gently curved stem.
All across her body, electricity danced across the neural networks in cascading waves. Undulating currents of vibrating energy flowing through the ice sculptress began to intensify. A subconscious burst of fear careened into the entire affair, knocking her off balance.
'Nonononononono!'
Pernicious anxiety struggled furiously against inner serenity, shockwaves from the collision reverberated through the halls of the mind, invoking a debilitating feedback.
Desperately cradling her fledgling sculpture, Elsa flashed through scenarios that might help her ground and re-center herself. Vibrating wildly, the infant sculpture inched precariously towards collapse.
"... if it's like you said and your power reacts to your feelings… You're going to need lots of love."
'Love!'
Unabashedly, Elsa dove into the memory of affectionate bliss from only minutes ago. She let the euphoria permeate through every fiber of her being. Anna's radiance, pure and true, grounded her squarely back within the realm of control.
In one smooth, coordinated exertion, Elsa spawned an array of pedals in a radial pattern from the stem, bringing her elegant floral sculpture to fruition.
Relief poured over Elsa as she let go of the intricate network of mental energy she'd concocted. With what little energy she had left, she turned to an ecstatic Anna and rendered the sculpture unto her.
In between pants, Elsa managed to sputter: "For you!", before collapsing onto the bed.
Anna gingerly held the translucent ice rose up to her own face, breathlessly taking in every nuance and detail.
"Elsa, it's flawless."
"... and it's all your fault. This one almost collapsed, just like all my previous sculptures. Then I remembered what you said about needing lots of love, and everything clicked."
Anna hopped up off the bed and replied: "I'm gonna go put this in the freezer until I can build a proper display for it. You look beat, you should take a nap. I'll get you something to munch on for when you wake up."
Already halfway submerged in the plush volume of the bed, Elsa weakly muttered: "Tha..t's ...a good... ide-"
Anna snickered under her breath at the sight of Elsa flopping down like a limp mannequin.
"Sweet dreams cutie."
Blackness. Everywhere.
All that can be perceived, infinitely in all directions is soulless void.
Somewhere out there in the impossibly vast abyss, microscopic shards of consciousness fire outwards. Desperately attempting to reach another, these pathetic patterns eventually coalesce.
'I… am' I think, as my first thought spawns into this desolate existence.
But what, exactly, I am… I do not know.
A menacing churning can be heard in the distance. It gives me an unnerving, visceral sensation somewhere deep within. I impulse outwards, desperately trying to push it away.
The impulse is frigid… safe, and familiar. The cold is my shield.
Suddenly, I can see. Before me is a hideous wall of blood, metal, cable and bone. It undulates ceaselessly in patterns neither sane nor wholesome. Squelching, screeching, and humming it assaults my senses.
Pushing with every fiber of my being, I desperately try to turn away. I can feel my strength shriveling into impotence.
I can't escape. I cannot move. I do the only thing I can do.
I freeze. Grotesque, capricious spires of ice spew outwards from me. I'm trembling violently now, every ounce of energy pushing harder and harder into my icy shell.
Panic consumes my being, its grip amplified by the grotesque wall encroaching upon me.
Breached. My icy fortress has been breached. The wound in its walls burns to my core.
Infuriated, I muster every last trace of strength I've purchase to. I refuse to go down this easily. I unleash the full, raw power of my fury upon the invader.
But my ice betrays me. My ramparts shatter, the walls collapse. I am laid bare as I am flayed, invaded by inorganic constructs. I flail madly, but the metallic tendrils coil around me effortlessly.
Defeat does not come swiftly. Millimeter by millimeter, my being is replaced. Regions that once pulsated with life die out - replaced by components that merely register functionality.
In my final act of defiance before total assimilation, I scream.
"Elsa?"
Hmm? What? That voice doesn't belong here...
"Elsa! Wake up!"
Malevolent tendrils faded away, and with them the fog of nightmare began to dissipate. In her stupor, Elsa could make out the blurry image of a concerned face framed by twin copper braids.
"Anna?"
For just a short moment, Elsa felt an exquisitely soft pressure on her cheek. It gently but firmly pulled her the rest of the way back to reality.
"Sorry I woke you. You were moaning, and you sounded terrified."
Anna's tender temperament juxtaposed harshly against the vision of the assimilating horror of the dream. Not all biotech was monstrous. No, nothing about Anna was even vaguely displeasing, let alone monstrous.
"Just a nightmare. Thank you for saving me again."
"Any time." Anna cheerily replied. "Oh and I promised you dinner. It's all in the living room, I've been munching and watching some shows."
Grasping Anna's hand, Elsa climbed off the bed. Anna wrapped their arms together, and then briefly nuzzled her face against Elsa's before escorting her down the hall.
"Here you go! Spaghetti, tomato sauce and meatballs!"
Elsa eyed the dish selfishly. She was singularly drained, her instincts screaming at her to tear into the meal. Despite her ravenous hunger, civility had not left Elsa and she thanked Anna before eating.
Soon, the room was full of the chatter of silverware, set to the backdrop of some romantic comedy that Anna had seen time and time again. Anna was so deeply immersed in the love story playing out onscreen that she didn't even notice the one unfolding in the room with her.
Soon, the meal was gone. Elsa took a look at the empty plate, lamented it briefly and then discarded it on the table nearby. In her periphery, she caught a glimpse of Anna's heartwarming smile. Her heart skipped a beat.
'Did the room just get brighter or is it just me?'
Elsa's gaze moved downwards. Trailing slowly downwards across Anna's slender neck towards her chest. The plunging cowl neckline of her shirt gave a rather unobstructed view of Anna's upper body. Underneath the soft, inviting exterior, hints of the chassis underneath could be seen. Cross-beams that reinforced her clavicles and supported the mass of her arms left a faint elevation in the skin. The overwhelming power of Anna's body roused an inferno within poor, virgin Elsa. The unmistakable throbbing of her heart quickened its pace, pounding deafeningly in her ears.
'Control yourself. She's alluring for sure... but you're not an animal. Relax'
Elsa slid over to Anna, taking the arm nearest to her and snuggling underneath it. She wrapped her arms around Anna's waist and held tight. Lying on Anna felt safe, secure. Nothing could possibly go wrong with Anna by her side. With her ears pressed down, Elsa heard the deep, regular pulse of Anna's vitality. It sounded like nothing she had ever heard, yet it wasn't discomforting or uncanny. Quite the contrary, the sound nearly lulled her to sleep.
Abruptly, the movie on the monitor cut away to something else entirely. Smoke and flame rose from an oddly familiar building. Emergency vehicles swarmed around the scene frantically.
Elsa felt queasy, her intuition screaming. Something was wrong.
"We regret to interrupt this broadcast…However there is breaking news. Live on the scene is Cassandra Elizabeth."
"Thank you. I'm here at the LightComm corporate dormitories, where several explosions have rocked the building. LightComm security is currently withholding comment, although they have indicated that the situation is serious."
"The safe house..." Elsa gasped, frozen in horror.
Elsa felt Anna pull her closer.
Cassandra continued her report: "We have an eyewitness here who claims to know the motivation behind the attacks. Can you tell us your side of the story sir?"
A frail, middle aged man replied, clearly shaken from the ordeal. "We barely saw what hit us, it all happened so fast. LightComm is one of the only safe spaces for naturals. That's why they attacked us."
"Who is 'they'?" Cassandra asked.
"I… I don't know!"
"That's all the information we have for now. All LightComm employees are encouraged to contact their immediate manager for instructions."
Legions of incoherent thoughts stormed through Elsa's mind. Even on solid, steadfast Earth, everything could be thrown asunder in an instant. What was she supposed to do?
On the coffee table before the two girls, Elsa's tablet computer started blaring incoming message alerts.
Elsa gave Anna one final squeeze before tearing herself away. She thanked the mercy of the universe that Anna was by her side at that moment. Sluggishly, as though her entire body had turned to lead, she dragged herself over to read the new message in her inbox. Kai had written the following:
'Elsa… I heard that you weren't at the safehouse when LightComm got hit. I'm relieved beyond words. I can't help you from this far but please stay away from the dorms until I figure everything out. I'll keep you up to speed. Stay safe dear, we love you.'
Elsa felt her hand being clasped. She looked up and saw the empathetic pain written all over Anna's face.
"Elsa… I don't know what to say."
The crushing weight of despair pressed inwards from all sides. Fighting back tears, Elsa barely managed to reply: "I… I can't go back home. It's too dangerous." Defeated, she threw her head back and stared at the ceiling.
The tears were flowing freely now, each one scorching down her face. Her miserable heart felt like it would tear in two at any moment.
Anna's voice changed drastically at the sight of Elsa's despair. Strong and commanding, Anna proudly declared:
"You're staying here tonight. I won't take no for an answer."
Even through the blurry mess, there was no hiding the righteous fire in Anna's eyes. Clearly, a nerve had been struck.
"Anna I don't want to impose..." Elsa stopped to wipe tears away with her sleeve. "Really I can go rent a…"
"NO! You're staying with me. I refuse to lose anyone else to this!"
Elsa threw herself onto Anna, nuzzling her sopping wet face into the crook of Anna's shoulders. Like a mighty vice grip, Elsa clung on and refused to let go.
"Thank you Anna, oh thank you so much. You have no idea what this means to me."
Anna exhaled softly, gently stroking Elsa's arm and reciprocating snuggles from earlier. In a hushed, reassuring tone she replied "I could say the same thing."
The feeling of waking in a new bed is an alien feeling, Elsa thought. There's a dissonance as the mind grapples with new textures and scents. As the gears of consciousness began to spin up into action she recounted the events of the previous night.
How grateful she was for Anna's presence. Without her comforting embrace, there would have been no shoulder to cry on, no soul to share the pain with. How lovely it was to finally have someone she could share the deeper parts of her life with. That unruly cryokinesis had been misfiring less and less since she'd met this wonderful woman.
Elsa rolled over to her left and fawned over the sight before her. There it was, in all it's bionic beauty - Elsa's guardian angel.
'I fell for her so quickly. It almost feels like a dream.'
As if synchronized by some strange force, Anna began to stir in her slumber. Her luscious copper locks tousled across her honeycomb-textured skin. A strand or two was still stuck in her mouth by the time she'd rolled over to face Elsa. The instant their eyes connected, Anna cooed:
"Good morning beautiful."
Just like all the previous times - Anna's unbridled affection made Elsa's elated heart skip a beat.
'How does she keep doing that?'
"Me? Look at you! Goodness Anna, you're stunning. I'm… so plain compared to you."
Anna winked at her and blew a kiss. "Sometimes you just can't compete with all-natural beauty."
Elsa's heart nearly went into spasms. Anna had jumped out of bed and was clad in only her intimates. Flabbergasted Elsa got a front-row seat to miles and miles of immaculate skin wrapped tightly around a physique that flirted shamelessly with the line between fit and feminine. It certainly didn't help seeing the way her body moved as Anna struggled to pull on a pair of tight-fitting jeans.
Barely a minute of consciousness and she was already in danger of passing out again.
From the adjoining bathroom, Anna called out: "I'm going to CyberDynamics today, since that was the last place you tracked my father to. I'd really like it if you came with me."
For Elsa there was never any reprieve from doubt and worry. The previous night's attacks had only exacerbated this.
"But… Anna. Won't my presence paint a target on your back? If my kind are really so hated that someone would try blowing up the dorms… I'll just endanger you."
Anna's head popped out of the doorway, her hands clasped on the frame. She stared daggers at Elsa. Inevitably though, the intentions behind Elsa's words rang true to Anna, softening her demeanor.
"Elsa…I'll fight off angry hordes for you. Any time, any place. Besides, I'll need you on this journey. You're so smart and skilled. Please?"
It was the pouty face that Anna made that did Elsa in. How could she refuse that face?
"Forget I ever said anything. I'll go. Oh… um, I'm going to need a shower and a change of clothes… may I borrow some of yours?"
Anna practically squealed in the affirmative: "Of course! Ooh, I'll finally get to see you wear something other than those darn jumpsuits!" | {
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The next console generation is officially in the near future, now that both Sony and Microsoft have started to lift the lid on their upcoming platforms. Microsoft introduced the next Xbox as Project Scarlett during its E3 2019 press briefing with a video of developers and executives discussing the console’s features and how they’ll empower game makers. Sony pulled out of E3 in 2019, but the company revealed the first information about the next PlayStation — which is unofficially known as the PlayStation 5 — in April.
Details remain scarce at this point for both Scarlett and the PS5, but would-be early adopters are already hungry to learn more. Here’s everything we know about the PS5.
What is the PS5’s release date?
Sony plans to release the PS5 in “holidays 2020,” Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan said in an interview with Wired in October 2019. That puts its launch window in the same ballpark as that of Microsoft’s next-generation console, the Xbox Series X.
If the past holds true this time, that means both systems will arrive sometime in November 2020, so you’ve got some time to save up.
What are the PS5’s hardware specifications?
Sony hasn’t yet provided specifics on the console’s innards. What we know right now is that like the Xbox Series X, the PS5 will be powered by technology from AMD. Its eight-core CPU will be based on AMD’s third-generation Ryzen processors and its new 7 nm Zen 2 architecture, while the GPU will be a custom design from the company’s upcoming Navi line of graphics cards.
The GPU will support real-time ray tracing, a cutting-edge rendering technique that debuted in consumer-level graphics cards from AMD competitor Nvidia in 2018. In the aforementioned Wired interview last fall, PS5 system architect Mark Cerny confirmed that the console’s GPU will offer hardware-accelerated ray tracing. The company is also promising that the console will also support resolutions up to 8K and frame rates up to 120 Hz.
On the nonvisual front, the PS5 will contain a custom chip for 3D audio, which will allow the console to deliver more immersive surround sound à la Dolby Atmos and DTS:X. It will still offer an optical drive for disc-based games and — unlike the PS4 Pro — 4K Blu-ray Discs. And Sony is touting a surprising component as the PS5’s biggest upgrade over current-generation consoles: a solid-state drive (instead of a hard drive) that’s designed specifically for gaming, which will greatly reduce load times and empower developers to create larger and more complex game worlds.
Will the PS5 be backward-compatible with PS4 games?
Yes. The PS5’s architecture is based partly on that of the PS4. So unlike with the leap from the PlayStation 3 to the PS4, your existing games will not become obsolete when Sony launches its next console. It’s worth noting, however, that Sony has not yet given any details on how PS4 backward compatibility will work or how much of the console’s library will be supported on the PS5.
Will the PS5 support cloud gaming?
Unconfirmed, but it’s more likely than not. In the Wired interview in which Sony’s Mark Cerny — lead system architect for both the PS4 and PS5 — revealed the first details about the next PlayStation, he didn’t divulge anything about the company’s cloud gaming plans. He said only that “we are cloud-gaming pioneers, and our vision should become clear as we head toward launch.”
One key development that points to Sony’s interest in cloud gaming is that the company signed a deal with Microsoft — yes, the Xbox maker, which launched a beta of Project xCloud last fall — in which the two firms agreed to “explore joint development of future cloud solutions in Microsoft Azure to support their respective game and content-streaming services.” Azure is Microsoft’s cloud computing platform, and one of its most successful business segments. Sony currently offers a streaming library containing hundreds of PlayStation 2, PS3, and PS4 games via PlayStation Now, but the company is now investing even more in cloud gaming.
How much will the PS5 cost?
Hardware makers generally avoid giving pricing details until fairly late in the game, and since the PS5 is launching in fall 2020, don’t expect Sony to announce the price until later this year. At this point, any numbers would be pure speculation — the company may still be finalizing the hardware, and the components will be the main factor in setting the system’s cost.
The last time around, Sony took the wind out of Microsoft’s sails by launching the PS4 at $399, $100 cheaper than the Xbox One (whose higher price tag was largely due to the inclusion of the second-generation Kinect sensor). A generation before that, the high-end Xbox 360 at $399 was $100 cheaper than the low-end PS3 at $499. Cerny told Wired that the company is thinking about a price that will be “appealing [...] in light of [the console’s] advanced feature set.”
From everything we know about the Xbox Series X and the PS5 at this point, the two consoles are on similar footing when it comes to their hardware components and capabilities. It would be fascinating to see Microsoft and Sony go head to head with two consoles at the exact same price point, wouldn’t it?
What games will the PS5 launch with?
It’s not hard to imagine that some upcoming PS4 titles — even a few 2019 games like Kojima Productions’ Death Stranding — will eventually end up being released on the PS5. (Porting over recent last-gen releases is a relatively quick and easy way to beef up a console’s library early in its life.)
Considering Sony’s sizable stable of internal studios, it feels odd that we only know about a couple of major PS4 projects in development: Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us Part 2 and Sucker Punch Productions’ Ghost of Tsushima. The company’s other internal development teams are probably already working on some PS5 launch titles — perhaps Guerrilla Games with a sequel to 2017’s Horizon Zero Dawn?
Update (March 3, 2020): We’ve refreshed this article with new details about the PlayStation 5 that Sony has revealed since we originally published the story. | {
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A three-foot-long foot long alligator is presumed dead after a conservation officer from the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources shot the animal Monday in a lake in a north Twin Cities metro area lake.
Officer Scott Arntzen responded to a report that residents had seen two alligators in the city of Scandia's Goose Lake.
"We just see two eyes sticking up," said Arntzen, who has never been called to shoot an alligator before. "We saw the tail whipping. It was kind of along those lily pads. Just got up on it by shore. Wasn't too far away from it, and shot."
Arntzen wasn't able to recover the animal's body, but he said it likely is dead. He saw no sign of a second alligator, and the DNR is not actively searching for it.
The department does not consider the small alligator dangerous, and it won't survive the winter.
Arntzen said people sometimes release exotic animals into the wild after keeping them as pets, which could be a violation of local ordinances. | {
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Hans Erik Hermann parkerede fredag aften sin sorte Mitsubishi Lancer nær sin bopæl på Amagerbrogade. Bilen blev parkeret på en af de nye parkeringspladser, der netop er anlagt i området.
Dagen efter ser Hans Erik Hermanns bil ikke ud, som den gjorde fredag. Til hans store forbavselse har den fået en masse små buler.
Læs også Buler i bilen skyldes manglende respekt
Bulerne er ikke kommet, fordi nogle er kørt ind i den sorte Mitsubishi, men på grund af nedfaldne frugter.
Over store dele af Hans Erik Hermanns bil ligger der kastanjer. Københavneren finder ud af, at han har parkeret sin bil under et stort kastanjetræ. Og som blade der falder fra træerne, når efteråret kommer, har kastanjerne løsrevet sig fra træet og ramt Hans Erik Hermanns bil.
(Artiklen fortsætter under billedet)
Hans Erik Hermanns Mitsubishi Lancer. Foto: Privatfoto
Vil have godtgørelse af kommunen
Til Hans Erik Hermanns held dækker hans forsikring skaderne, men han må betale en selvrisiko på 6.011 kroner. Det har fået københavneren til at trække Københavns Kommune ind i sagen.
- Jeg skrev til kommunen, at jeg synes, de skulle gøre noget ved den parkeringsplads. Jeg er irriteret over, at jeg har fået tæppebombet min bil med kastanjer ved en ny p-plads. Det er ugennemtænkt at anlægge sådan en p-plads under et så stort kastanjetræ, fortæller han til TV 2 Lorry.
Hans Erik Hermann har foreslået, at parkeringspladsen nedlægges, at man advarer om træet, inden man parkerer, eller at man fælder træet. Derudover vil han også have en godtgørelse for selvrisikoen.
Læs også Nye p-regler skal sætte en stopper for udbredt parkeringssnyd
Set i bakspejlet kan Hans Erik Hermann godt se, at han skulle have tænkt sig om, inden han valgte at parkere sin bil under et kastanjetræ, men københavneren mener, at ansvaret ligger hos kommunen.
- Jeg synes, når man anlægger sådan en parkeringsplads, så skal man også tage højde for, om man kan parkere sin bil der, og det synes jeg ikke, man kan, siger han.
Københavns Kommune: Sendt til juridisk enhed
Hans Erik Hermann har endnu ikke hørt fra Københavns Kommune. Men i en mail til TV 2 Lorry skriver enhedschef Jesper Borch følgende:
- I Center for Parkering har vi ikke tidligere oplevet henvendelser som denne, hvor der bliver klaget over nedfaldne kastanjer eller lignende, men vi behandler den konkrete henvendelse ligesom andre erstatningssager og har derfor sendt den videre til vores juridiske enhed, der vurderer ansøgninger om erstatning.
(Artiklen fortsætter under billedet)
Der var under dette kastanjetræ, Hans Erik Hermann parkerede sin bil. Foto: Privatfoto
Hos FDM er man bekendt med nedfaldsskader. Foreningen anbefaler, at man gør ligesom Hans Erik Hermann samt er opmærksom på, hvor man parkerer sin bil.
- Det er noget, vi ser ofte, og vi råder til, at man anmelder det til sit forsikringsselskab, hvor man typisk er dækket for enhver form for nedfaldsskader af sin kaskoforsikring, fortæller Jørgen Jørgensen, seniortekniker hos FDM, til TV 2 Lorry.
Den uheldige københavner tror ikke på en godtgørelse fra kommunen, men han håber, at man vil gøre noget ved kastanjetræet.
- Nu er det min bil, der er blevet ødelagt, men hvis der ikke bliver gjort noget ved det her træ, så kommer det til at gå ud over de andre biler, afslutter Hans Erik Hermann.
En anden bule på bilen. Foto: Privatfoto | {
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THE WITHERING spray North Melbourne coach Brad Scott gave Majak Daw during the Roos' 27-point loss to Essendon last Saturday was prompted by the big man's lack of aggression.
Television cameras captured Scott holding nothing back in the one-sided conversation. Daw was selected as the side's primary ruck after Todd Goldstein was dropped.
He finished with 14 disposals, nine contested possessions and 33 hit-outs in 90 per cent of game time while his counterpart Tom Bellchambers notched up 10 disposals, eight contested possessions and 34 hit-outs in 86 per cent of game time.
Daw told nmfc.com.au he could handle that sort of fierce message.
"It was a fair spray but I can understand where Brad's coming from. He wants the best out of me and I think someone like me, I've got a pretty thick skin," Daw said.
"The game was on the line so we needed to get going and he thought that could get me up and going.
"I was beaten a few times by Bellchambers, who's a pretty good ruckman.
"We've spoken, we've had a laugh about it, but I think for me, it's just turning that spray into what can I work on during the week (and) what can I do with the ruck coach and midfield coach. I guess it's about learning really."
The 26-year-old acknowledged he needed to show more fight.
"Being aggressive doesn't come naturally to me and I'm continually working with Brad and chatting to him and what ways I can play with aggression, because it works for me and it lifts the team. It will help me and hopefully I find what works," Daw said.
A few days removed from the incident and he could see the lighter side. After the interview finished, Daw's teammate Jarrad Waite probed the 31-game player further about the exchange, saying Scott's barrage was worse than any the ex-Blue had copped in his career.
The ruckman agreed, adding that the whole experience brought to mind a famous Simon and Garfunkel lyric.
"I just looked out on the ground and (thought about) that song: 'Hello darkness my old friend'," he said with a laugh. | {
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Does it ever feel like you’re in a movie? That odd sense of constant performance, and constant dislocation, is exactly what this comic trades in. Throughout J.1137 a “voice-over” of sorts continues over all its parts and frames, an ongoing string of not-quite-narrative caption, muddling its many layers.
For example: the title character ("J" for short) is an actor—and an android, believable and animated as an imitation of life. He’s in a movie currently in production, and is famous for roles in others—we even spot a billboard for one, though we never learn any titles. Through all this the comic acquires a rounded sense of a world with more layers to it than a fancy cake, most of its parts smoothed together with equalizing assurances of their shared falseness. That voice-over stitching this all together acts as the prime catalyst; even after the word “Cut” it continues, seeming to shift between characters, roles, and sources. At times it even appears omniscient.
You’d think sorting this out would prove distracting, but J.1137 exposits it all smoothly, and doesn't require careful navigation. No small feat. The book permits passive, film-like reception as well as it does analysis and picking-apart. Though that fragmented narration is the story’s key formal concession, it’s equally important that Cossé’s landscapes are so hospitable, making us happy to get lost within his world. Possibly with this in mind, Cossé pays a lot of attention to surface; he works in a billowy, deceptively pleasing line, frequently piercing immaculate compositions with suggestive, haunting architectural shapes. His achromatic watercolors are well-preserved in reproduction, retaining subtle patterns of drips and pools, and creating an aura of ambiguity. The very idea of medium is here tugged at and called into question, the printing methods suggesting something of film’s grain and texture as they iterate the scrim-like texture of the artist's paper—very little here seems stable.
Anchoring the book amidst these flourishes, Cossé’s figures are our guide. Pillowy and inviting but precise in their gestures, J and his associates make for convincing actors. As in most movies our investment in them is key. J may be a star, but he still has a host of problems; the story’s action starts in earnest when he abruptly abandons a shoot, venturing into a world filled with forces from which he’s always fleeing. He’s driven thereafter by a human chauffeur with a tilted mohawk, Harold, and they spend an afternoon chatting as they cruise around a vacant, eerie landscape, a pastime which soon turns dangerous.
Prompted by J’s mischievous, often naïve questions and directions, the pair stumble across a space both beautiful and novel. Once inside, J marvels at it, pressing his nose against the glass—but Harold soon informs him the place they've entered into is a prison.
This revelation gets at the heart of the story’s game, just one of many unmaskings that take place in a world with few clear answers—and one in which appearances, identities, and even spaces prove dishonest. Every piece the artist shows us pulls us (as ever) through layers of lies and fabrication, each sight taken in on J’s afternoon drive gracefully elevating the story’s stakes.
And they rise quickly—before long, J's embroiled in a shootout. But it's in this event that J's understood most fully and tragically as an unwilling actor, who despite his efforts and his privileges has little hope of escaping. It's easy here to connect with him, despite how disoriented we might be by his world's strange doublings of roles, and the ways he's made complicit in its inequalities and hazards. Secure and lush and pleasing as it can be at times, Cossé's narrative space is not afraid to wound us; it uses its own porousness—we soon find that the medium, like this prison, has no real limits or clear walls.
With this sharp climax the realities of the prison's harshness are suddenly expanded, the violence of its contents revealed as symptomatic of the comic's entire world. J and Harold do escape, but only in the most limited sense, crossing a bridge (or medium), soon ravaged, back into the world they once knew. From there, the story doesn't end—the day goes on and most everything is rendered suspect; mirrors, lenses, and car windows gloss our vision, leaving the idea of medium strained and torn into a flimsy, transparent skein. In many ways, the comic's finish comes to resemble its start and is just as blatantly false. The "voice-over" returns, now the narration of a camera truck leaving its cast behind. After that the camera fades, but the voice-over goes on and Cossé’s world doesn’t end there. This is the place we go on living. | {
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Tarak Lesko of VisualSpicer.com found a cheaper way to get his hands on the Bugatti Veyron supercar. Granted, his version is only 2.5-feet long and held together by glue and sticky tape, but an impressive feat in its own right. The time lapse video showcases how Lesko mapped out the model’s impressive 159 parts on 44 A4-sized sheets of paper, and how he went about putting the pieces together. Further detailed instructions on how to make your own sweet Veyron papercraft are offered here here.
Source: Leftlane | {
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A growing number of homeowners in Germany are installing batteries to store solar power. As prices for energy storage systems drop, they are adopting a green vision: a solar panel on every roof, an EV in every garage, and a battery in every basement.
Stefan Paris is a 55-year-old radiologist living in Berlin’s outer suburbs. He, his partner, and their three-year-old daughter share a snug, two-story house with a pool. The Parises, who are expecting a second child, are neither wealthy nor environmental firebrands. Yet the couple opted to spend $36,000 for a home solar system consisting of 26 solar panels, freshly installed on the roof this month, and a smart battery — about the size of a small refrigerator — parked in the cellar. On sunny days, the photovoltaic panels supply all of the Paris household’s electricity needs and charge their hybrid car’s electric battery, too. Once these basics are covered, the rooftop-generated power feeds into the stationary battery until it’s full — primed for nighttime energy demand and cloudy days. Then, when the battery is topped off, the unit’s digital control system automatically redirects any excess energy into Berlin’s power grid, for which the Parises will be compensated by the local grid operator. “They convinced me it would pay off in ten years,” explains Paris, referring to Enerix, a Bavaria-based retailer offering solar systems and installation services. “After that, most of our electricity won’t cost us anything.” The investment, he says, is a hedge against rising energy costs. Moreover, the unit’s smart software enables the Parises to monitor the production, consumption, and storage of electricity, as well as track in real time the feed-in of power to the grid.
One out of every two orders for rooftop solar panels in Germany is now sold with a battery storage system.
The Parises are one of more than 120,000 German households and small-business owners — and an estimated 1 million people worldwide — who have dug deep into their pockets to invest in solar units with battery storage since lower-cost systems appeared on the market five years ago. “No one expected this kind of growth, so fast,” says Kai-Philipp Kairies, an expert on power generation and storage systems at the RWTH Aachen University in western Germany. Today, one out of every two orders for rooftop solar panels in Germany is sold with a battery storage system. The home furnishing company Ikea even offers installed solar packages that include storage capacity. Battery prices have plummeted so dramatically that Germany’s development bank has now scratched the battery rebates — covering about 30 percent of the cost — that it offered from 2013 to 2018. To be sure, 120,000 households and small businesses represent only a tiny fraction of Germany’s 81 million people. But analysts say this recent growth demonstrates the strong appeal of a green vision for the future: a solar array on every roof, an electric vehicle in every garage, and a battery in every basement. Analysts see the embrace of home batteries as an important step toward a future in which low-carbon economies rely on increasingly decentralized and fluctuating renewable energy supplies. To date, electricity storage has lagged far behind advances in solar power, but as batteries become cheaper and more powerful, they will increasingly store the uneven output of wind and solar power, contributing to the kind of flexibility that a weather-dependent source will require.
A lithium-iron-phosphate battery, which allows homeowners with photovoltaic panels to store excess solar electricity for later use. Sonnen
The budding popularity of solar panel and battery systems, driven by a drop in lithium-ion battery prices, has thrown a lifeline to Germany’s moribund solar sector, which has been reeling in recent years, in part because of low-cost production of solar panels in China. The progressive decline of feed-in tariffs — guaranteed remuneration for consumers supplying energy to the grid — also led to a sharp drop in solar energy deployment. But against all odds, companies like Enerix, Sonnen, and Solarwatt have gotten back on their feet thanks to home energy storage systems. In 2012, Enerix had to shut down eight of its 15 affiliates in Germany and Austria. But since the battery boom, it has been reopening old shops and starting new ones, today boasting 54 outlets that sell panels, batteries, and energy optimization systems. Germany now has some 44 manufacturers of home energy storage systems. Germans have installed solar-panel arrays on more than 1 million buildings, but most of them lacked storage units. Now, a growing number of those homeowners are buying batteries. German electricity storage units also are being sold in France, Great Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, and Spain, as well as Australia and South Korea. The price tag of a home storage system depends on the size of the house or business, the owner’s energy needs, the building’s access to sun, and the quality of the panels, batteries, and management systems. For a small house with just 20 panels, one can expect to pay about $8,000 to $11,000 for the PV array and roughly the same amount for the battery and DC/AC power inverter. The largest home batteries go for around $34,000. And for an extra $500, advanced devices connect the system to household appliances and optimize energy use, as well as regulating feed-in to the grid. With such top-of-the-line technology and lots of sunlight, an owner might save as much as 80 percent on electricity bills, according to Solarwatt, a Dresden-based outfit manufacturing smart tech. But the economics of battery storage aren’t the only, or even the main, motivation of most battery system buyers, says Matthias Schulnick of Enerix Berlin. “More and more people want to be independent of the power companies and rising prices,” he says. “And they want a green footprint, to do something for the future.”
“More and more people want to be independent of the power companies and rising prices,” says one executive.
In Germany, in just a few short years, home storage units morphed from a quirky niche product for tech nerds and Green Party voters to one with enormous mainstream potential. The consulting firm McKinsey predicts that the cost of energy storage systems will fall 50 to 70 percent globally by 2025 “as a result of design advances, economies of scale, and streamlined processes.” Signs of the explosion in interest are everywhere: Earlier this month, the British-Dutch oil company Royal Dutch Shell purchased Sonnen, Germany’s leading maker of home batteries. The German utility giant E.ON is a step ahead of Shell, having teamed up with Solarwatt in 2016 to sell combined solar-and-battery units. The Energy Storage Association, a U.S.-based trade group, projects that energy storage capacity will soar eight-fold from 2015 to 2020, becoming a $2.5 billion market. Bloomberg New Energy Finance projects that within 20 years the global energy storage market, of which home storage is just one part, will have attracted $620 billion in investment.
With smart home energy systems, energy generated by solar panels is stored in batteries and used to power appliances and charge electric vehicles. Graphic by Enerix
In California, as of 2020 all newly constructed residential buildings must be outfitted with solar panels. The owners of these buildings will surely be giving battery systems a hard look as prices fall. Adding home batteries becomes especially attractive for consumers who own electric vehicles. The downside of the battery bonus, explains Kairies, is that “under today’s conditions it takes about a decade to pay off the battery from savings on energy bills. But most of the lifespans of these batteries today aren’t much more than 10 years, at most 15 years. Then you have to buy a new one.” The boom-in-progress is in large part a consequence of spectacular advances in the performance of lithium-ion batteries — the standard type of battery found in most electric vehicles and cell phones. In laboratory conditions, technicians — who were working on improving electric vehicle batteries, not home storage units — increased the lithium-ion battery’s density by tweaking the conductors and the chemicals, which doubled storage capacity. This sent the price of storage, measured per watt hour, plummeting by half. Solar panels, too, are cheaper than ever before, although their decades-long price decline has leveled off.
“In order to hit the Paris goals we need 10 million [home batteries] in Germany alone,” says one researcher.
Experts differ widely on the future of battery-based storage technologies and the implications for decentralized energy generation. Some, like Julia Poliscanova of the Brussels-based watchdog group Transport and Environment, argue that lithium-ion will remain the go-to battery type for the foreseeable future. The emergence of recycled EV batteries, which have too little capacity for cars but enough for household needs, would drive down costs even farther while giving lithium-ion batteries second and third lives, she says. Others, like Stefano Passerini, director of the Helmholtz Institute in Ulm, a battery research center in Germany, says the next generation of small-scale storage will be sodium-ion batteries, which, unlike lithium batteries, don’t require cobalt, a mined chemical element that is ever-harder to find. “Since home batteries can be larger than EV batteries, we should conserve the cobalt that’s available for cars, and go a different way with home storage,” he says. The clean-energy pioneer EWS Schönau is developing environmentally friendly batteries, such as largely recyclable saltwater batteries that contain neither carcinogenic heavy metals nor scarce minerals. Regardless of the type of battery, home energy storage units can help smooth out fluctuations in electricity production, a function known as “balancing.” When the grid is flush with power, for example, grid operators can pay battery owners — even ones with no solar array attached to them — to store the excess for them. When the grid needs power, home and car batteries can feed energy into the grid. Experts say balancing is critical to the larger project of a low-carbon world.
Solarwatt’s MyReserve battery storage system, seen here on the wall, is modular, allowing it to be customized for individual households or large businesses. SOLARWATT GmbH
But this scenario is still largely in the future. “What we have now [in home storage] certainly helps,” says Passerini, “But it’s still very little.” He says the next step is enabling home energy producers to sell to neighbors and tenants, a service known as peer-to-peer electricity trading. This would allow consumers without access to home-generated power to take advantage of the clean energy of those who produce more than they need. Volker Quaschning, a professor of renewable energy systems at the University of Applied Sciences in Berlin, put the scale of the challenge in perspective: “We have over 100,000 home-generation and storage systems [in Germany], but in order to hit the Paris goals we need 10 million in Germany alone. There’s huge potential, but it has to be cheaper and easier.” He says that requires eliminating energy-consumption taxes on households and businesses that generate electricity for their own use and maintaining solar energy’s guaranteed tariffs, which encourage investment. | {
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Ken Starr, the independent counsel who investigated former President Bill Clinton, said on Sunday criticism of Attorney General William Barr is "unfair."
Democrats have accused Barr of trying to hide damning information about President Trump from special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation.
Asked if he thinks Barr is trying to withhold "damaging" details during a "Fox and Friends" interview, Barr said, "No, no, and no again."
"Bill Barr is an honorable and honest man," Starr said. "He is an extraordinarily able lawyer and he has a track record. You know, he didn't come out of politics from the Senate or wherever. He came out of the world of law. And in the world of law we try to follow the rules and that's exactly what he's doing."
Starr said the criticism is "obviously political" and "eroding confidence in the rule of law unnecessarily."
"I think it's very unfortunate and it's quite wrong. It's unfair. But welcome to Washington," he added.
Barr provided a four-page summary of Mueller's roughly 400-page report to Congress last month which said Mueller did not establish the Trump campaign colluded with Russia. The summary also said Mueller did not find Trump committed obstruction of justice, but Mueller also did not exonerate the president. However, Barr said he concluded there was insufficient evidence to establish a crime.
Although Barr says he is working with Mueller to release a redacted version of the final report for Congress to read this month, House Democrats are poised to subpoena the Justice Department for access to the full report and underlying documents.
Starr said Barr is right to resist calls to divulge the full report. Releasing grand jury information, Starr said, would be breaking the law. | {
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As Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein was meeting Monday morning with the White House chief of staff amid reports that he was going to resign or be fired, his boss, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, was 750 miles away in Hoover to give a keynote speech to a public safety symposium.
Sessions did not reference Rosenstein, who is overseeing the Russia investigation following Sessions' recusal, in his remarks to some 400 members of law enforcement, or the reports.
The attorney general received a standing ovation at the Wynfrey Hotel in Hoover. During the praise, Sessions said: "I may need this. Going back to Washington, you never know."
Sessions was not made available to the media; he was led through the back door of one of the hotel's conference rooms.
Rosenstein's meeting with White House chief of staff John Kelly ended with no resolution on Rosenstein's fate. The deputy attorney general denied initial reports that he was going to resign Monday morning, and the White House said that Rosenstein and President Trump are scheduled to discuss his situation on Tuesday.
The New York Times reported Friday that Rosenstein had implored Trump cabinet members to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from the presidency and that Rosenstein suggested wearing a wire to record incriminating information from Trump. Rosenstein denied that report.
Sessions has had a tense relationship with Trump, who was angered over the attorney general's decision to recuse himself from the Russia probe. The president has used social media to complain that Sessions is not using his office to protect him.
"We'll see what happens. A lot of people have asked me to do that," the president said in an interview last week with The Hill. "And I guess I study history, and I say I just want to leave things alone, but it was very unfair what he did."
On Sunday, the Young Republican Federation of Alabama - an organization where Sessions once served as chairman - approved a resolution supporting the attorney general.
The resolution said Sessions "has restored honor, integrity and impartiality" to the attorney general's office" and has "vigorously advanced President Trump's agenda, especially in the areas of immigration and violent crime."
"As Republicans, we adamantly support those who follow the rule of law and those who enforce it. As Alabamians, we have seen the dangers of elected officials choosing political convenience over integrity. We trust America's centuries old justice system and its ability to protect the innocent and bring truth to light," the resolution goes on to say. "[T]he officers of the Young Republican Federation of Alabama offer our full support to a former YRFA Chairman and the current U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions."
In Hoover, Sessions praised the Public Safety Partnership, a DOJ-administered program to increase participation between federal, state and local law enforcement.
The attorney general announced $200,000 in grants to the Hoover-based National Association of School Resource Officers. The funds are allocated to provide training for school resource officers, including training on how to prevent school shootings. | {
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Sundance Institute announces the COVID-19 Respond and Reimagine Plan with $1Million in emergency relief (funds) for independent artists and organizations. Read below how to apply.
Breaking the financial boundaries of independent projects
In recent years, Sundance Institute has launched several initiatives in order to help independent artists, filmmakers, content creators, and organizations to step up and execute their dreams – making films. The launch of Sundance Co//ab which is an educational platform for creators that contains useful information on how to develop and serve independent films, has accumulated a vast amount of great resources that help filmmakers all over the world. Furthermore, Sundance Co//ab recently announced free access to all its masterclass and workshops to filmmakers during the COVID-19 lockdown situation. We wrote an in-depth article regarding one of Co//ab free courses – Film Crowdfunding Strategies with Kickstarter, which elaborates on important methods of how to get your project funded via the Kickstarter platform. Now, Sundance Institute takes this important support a step further by establishing a fund for independent artists. Read on.
COVID-19 Respond Plan
This COVID-19 Respond and Reimagine Plan was established to assist independent artists in this unprecedented time. As explained by Sundance Institute:”Listening to artists and colleagues across our field, we recognize the need for an urgent response to the current crisis combined with the longer-term reimagination of the ways we support artists and design the systems that enable their work to reach audiences. Today we are announcing part of our urgent response, as we continue to work towards longer and sustainable solutions”.
$1Million Urgent Fund
Thus, Sundance Institute announces a $1Million urgent fund to support the immediate needs of artists in the independent filmmaking community, as well as other organizations that share Sundance’s focus on “inclusive storytelling”. As stated by Sundance: “We are launching a $1 million urgent fund to support the immediate needs of artists in our community, as well as other filmmakers in need and organizations that share our focus on inclusive storytelling”. According to Sundance, one-third of the fund will support Sundance Institute-curated artists, while two-thirds will be dedicated to emergency support for the wider community of independent artists, deployed in collaboration with partner nonprofit organizations.
We are launching a $1 million urgent fund to support the immediate needs of artists in our community, as well as other filmmakers in need and organizations that share our focus on inclusive storytelling Sundance Institute
Immediate support for 100 Sundance Institute-selected artists
According to Sundance, grants will be given to the 2020 spring and summer Lab participants to be used for artists’ emergency funds or for project development. Each of these artists will also receive creative and strategic support through Sundance Institute’s Lab programs, which have transitioned from in-person gatherings to events hosted on the Co//ab digital platform.
Emergency financial support to artists across the U.S
Furthermore, the Sundance Institute partnered with the Artist Relief organization which contributed a needs-based fund. The Artist Relief will distribute funds to artists as quickly and efficiently as possible. As stated by Sundance: “Our partnership with Artist Relief will provide our experience and support to film, media, and theatre artists who are facing dire circumstances due to COVID-19 with emergency grants of $5,000“. Applications for that fund are now open for Cycle I, which closes at 11:59 pm ET on April 23rd. Click this link to apply.
Emergency financial support to the U.S. and international independent artist organizations
As stated by Sundance Institute: “Our peer organizations, funders, and artists will nominate organizations who will then be invited to apply. The final selection will be made by the Institute and a panel of outside advisors. Applications will be evaluated on organizational impact and artist community reach.” Click here for further instruction regarding this process.
We are still raising funds to support the immediate needs of artists and address the longer-term impacts on our industry, and we are encouraged to see so many people joining these efforts Sundance Institute
“This is just the first step”
Sundance Institute emphasizes that these steps are initial and more funding opportunities will be revealed later. As stated by Sundance: “We are still raising funds to support the immediate needs of artists and address the longer-term impacts on our industry, and we are encouraged to see so many people joining these efforts”. We’ll keep you posted regarding more funding opportunities for the independent filmmaking community, so stay tuned. | {
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An argument between two Nigerian citizens in Mumbai, India over Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo resulted in the killing of one of them, as the debate turned violent and eventually fatal.
According to local police, 22-year old Nwabu Chukwuma killed his 34-year old friend Obinna Michael Durumchukwa, who was celebrating his birthday. The two were at a rented flat when they began arguing over who was the better soccer player: Messi or Ronaldo.
Durumchukwa threw a glass and Chukwuma, missing him and breaking against the wall. Chukwuma picked up a shard of the glass and in a fit of rage cut his friend’s throat. Neighbours informed the police of the commotion. Chukwuma was arrested on the charge of murder.
Durumchukwa was staying with Chukwuma and other friends in recent months. Both men were without a valid Visa; Durumchukwa’s expired two months ago. Both men were probably intoxicated, celebrating and drinking since the hours of the morning before their fight broke out.
Both Messi and Ronaldo, playing against each other on both side of El Clasico rivals Barcelona and Real Madrid, have been considered the two best players in the world over the last eight years, splitting the last eight Ballon d’Or awards between them. | {
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The first poll released after Hurricane Michael shows Republicans enjoying early vote leads in Florida’s closely watched U.S. Senate and gubernatorial races.
Prior to Michael, incumbent Democrat Sen. Bill Nelson enjoyed a small but persistent lead in almost every poll against his Republican challenger, sitting Florida Gov. Rick Scott.
Post-Michael, in a survey conducted by St. Pete Polls, Scott now leads 49 to 47 percent.
Among those who have already voted, Scott sits at the magic number of 50 percent.
Helping Scott is his approval rating for how he handled last week’s hurricane. A full 61 percent approve of the job he did, while only 21 percent disapprove.
Ron DeSantis, the Republican hoping to replace Scott, was also losing in every poll taken pre-Michael to Democrat Andrew Gillum — sometimes by margins as high as five to nine points.
The St. Pete Poll, though, shows the race statistically tied, with Gillum up only one point, 47 to 46 percent. But…
Among those who have already voted, DeSantis leads Gillum by four points, 49 to 45 percent.
For his handling of Michael, Gillum, the current mayor of Tallahassee, sits at 44 percent approval, 30 percent disapproval.
Scott and DeSantis sitting in the lead in early voting is a positive sign. In swing states, Democrats tend to out-hustle the GOP on this front.
Also in the GOP’s favor is the news that this poll comes with an asterisk due to where Michael hit hardest — the Panhandle, which tends to lean Republican. Florida Politics reports that those areas were under-sampled in this poll.
Finally, the polls show Scott and DeSantis surging in important demographics. In past polls, Democrats Gillum and Nelson enjoyed healthy leads among Independents. Now those leads have dwindled to just two and five percent, respectively.
The same is true of women.
This is just one poll, but it does fit with the real movement we have seen in other Senate races in favor of the GOP.
These other Senate races were also hit with a hurricane-of-sorts in the form of the bitter and ugly Supreme Court confirmation fight over Brett Kavanaugh. Democrats not only lost that confirmation battle, their obscene political tactics united the Republican party in ways that seemed impossible only two weeks ago.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here. | {
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Recent sociological work shows that pro-market neoliberal policies across advanced capitalist countries are due to distributional struggle between classes in the 1970s and 1980s. The orthodox monetarist view, alternatively, sees neoliberal reform as a nonpolitical attempt to end the stagflation crisis of the 1970s. From this perspective, monetary and fiscal expansions brought high inflation, and central bank discipline and government austerity is the solution; but the recent trend of low inflation despite accelerating money growth and government spending contradicts this view. Analyses of time-series cross-section data for 23 OECD countries from 1960 to 2009 support the thesis that the rise and fall of inflation is more about distribution of power between labor and capital than about monetary and fiscal discipline. Inflation in the 1970s originated from a strong working class and hurt capital more than it did workers, while neoliberal repression of workers’ power has kept inflation low from the 1980s onward. Disempowerment of labor created rising inequality and economic imbalances that fueled a financial boom underlying the global financial crisis of 2008. Re-empowering labor is a remedy to such imbalances and the subsequent deflationary pressure.
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Most Overwatch esport viewers stick to watching the Overwatch League. Some prefer the yearly World Cup, and some watch both. The more adventurous ones will seek out Contenders matches, usually from Europe, Korea, China, or North America. Overwatch does have competition outside of these, of course, but it is not as popular. So, for the sake of showcasing the best, lesser-known players, here are three other tournaments and their standout players.
Contenders South America
Of the seven Contenders regions that make up the Path to Pro, South America is, without a doubt, the most overlooked. It was never as popular as its southern, low viewership, counterpart, Australia. Additionally, the Pacific and Chinese regions boasted viewers and recognizable teams unlike that of South America’s. Despite that, it certainly has talent among its ranks.
Pre-Contenders Context
Initially, South America relied on the Overwatch World Cup and a few tournaments, such as the South American Overwatch Circuit, as its main exposure to audiences. A few teams remained at the top, trading victories and the top three positions between them. These were Brazil Game House (or BGH, the Brazilian national team), Karma (the Argentine team), and KEEP Gaming.
DPS players Felipe “Liko” Lebrao (BGH) and Nicolas “Klaus” Ferrari (Karma) were the best known from the era. On projectile and hitscan respectively, the popular players were seen as the keystones for their teams. On tanks, the BGH duo Marício “Honorato” Honorato and Mateus “Neil” Kröber caught the audience’s eye. Finally, Renan “Alemão” Moretto (BGH) and Alan “ddx” Salvati (Karma) were the big players in the support role.
The Path to Pro System
All remained key players coming into Contenders, though Alemão and Klaus managed to go into the international scene.
Joining them were 12 teams with a plethora of diversity. From the team that would eventually represent Mexico in the 2019 World Cup, Predators Esports, to different (mostly Brazilian) teams that would include a number of stars.
By this time, Pedro “ole” Orlandini (JustW, Black Dragons Esports, LFTOWL) was now arguably the best off support in the tournament. Likewise, Argentinean players Sebastián “Kaizak” Moreno (Isurus Gaming), Valentín “valen” Ontivero (JustW, Isurus) and Nicolás “LeviataN” Brosio (Isurus, PaiN, LFTOWL), made a name for themselves in 2018.
The 2019 Seasons
In the following year, Blizzard introduced a number of changes, and yet both veterans and newcomers mingled. David “Debout” Beaupuits (UP Gaming), despite inconsistencies, showed great peaks as a flexible DPS player. Chilean tank Benjamin “Glitch” Riquelme and Kaizak led orgless team Pingüinos to a strong Season 2. Now retired UP Gaming star André “Txozin” Saidel was the best main tank player during both seasons.
Of course, mentioning 2019 without talking about Lowkey Esports and Fury would be blasphemous.
Lowkey was the spiritual successor of BGH, with a few changes. Liko and Honorato remained while ddx joined the team. Ole and DPS Murillo “murizzz” Tuchtenhagen also joined the team, no doubt thanks to their past synergy with BGH players. The team successfully remained at the top of the tournament, with two consecutive first-place finishes.
Fury, meanwhile, is arguably the Karma to Lowkey Esports’s BGH. They, like Karma before them, impressed across the whole tournament, but failed at the final hour against Lowkey. Off support Renzo Sebastián “Searchy” Castagnaro was previously climbing up the support ranks, until he got the recognition he deserved. Junnior Abad “Keath” Gamboa and Julián David “BEAST” Lauandos made up one of the best tank lines of the region. Lucas “Knight” Cabral impressed many with his top-notch Widowmaker play.
Without a doubt, however, the main highlight of South America 2019 was the young duo of projectile DPS Leonardo “Shinigami” de Oliveira Moreira and main support Gabriela “Win98” Nacaratto Vieira. Best known for their incredible Pharmercy duo, they did, however, show skill on other heroes. Win98 in particular has risen up to become the best Brazilian main support following the retirement of Alemão, thanks mainly to her Lúcio and Mercy play.
You can find Contenders South America matches, including the most recent season, in the Contenders YouTube Playlist [PT/ES]
Monkey Bubble Eurocup
In August 2019 Monkey Bubble decided to organize a fundraiser for the Overwatch World Cup. Through donations and merchandise sales, the victor of the tournament would receive funding to assist Blizzcon that year. The tournament was a fun precursor to the World Cup and a reminder of the talent that resides in the continent.
Known Factors
Throughout the tournament it was well established that having a player that excelled with Sigma would be crucial. Finnbjörn “Finnsi” Jónasson (Iceland), Nikolai “Naga” Dereli (Denmark) and Max “Moose” Kießlling (Germany) stepped up to bat when required. Neither player had a history that showed they would adapt in such a way, but their Sigma play was some of the best in the Eurocup.
DPS play was another of the keys to success in the brackets and playoffs. The flexibility of Johannes “Shax” Nielsen (Denmark), Mads “Fischer” Jehg (Denmark) and Hafþór “Hafficool” Hákonarson (Iceland) is what helped lead their countries to the Grand Finals. Their displays included the likes of Reaper, Mei, Doomfist, Pharah, and Widowmaker, a flexibility that would later translate to Denmark’s unprecedented World Cup run.
In terms of main tanks not much can be said in the double shield meta game. Without Anders “Henningsen” Henningsen and Sierhai “Bogur” Alekau, however, neither Denmark nor Bulgaria (respectively) would have had such a strong performance that week.
Finally, for supports, Israeli Dany “Awkward” Novak, the German Emir “IBTB” Kaan Okumus, and the Danish duo of Kristian “Kellex” Keller and Victor “Scaler” Godsk are worth highlighting. Neither were necessarily the best or the more noticeable players of the tournament., but they were all clearly above the majority.
Out Of Nowhere
As mentioned, there were quite a few impressive support players in the tournament, however, none could top the role. Without a doubt, that title goes to Iceland’s Futhark on Lúcio and Mercy, and Italy’s Alex “Frayu1600” Parri on Moira. Without fail, both players would make plays or have the required cooldown (that, is Frayu1600 had Coalescence every fight). Worth mentioning is Futhark’s partner, Kristófer “Númi” Númi. Without the newcomer duo, Iceland’s success would not have occurred.
One of the biggest themes of this meta is the DPS play. Four teams’ duos stood out in this regard. Joining the already featured Denmark and Iceland are Italy and Israel. With Iceland, Doomfist player Sindri was yet another of the country’s breakout stars. Gilad “Aliveee” Hakim managed to bring out a Widowmaker that dominated the group stages, and Aviv32‘s Doomfist helped capitalize on Israel’s pick composition. Finally, Marco “Hearthbeat” Soffia and LilYung made up the duo that represented Italy in 2019. Neither was exactly an unknown for followers of the local scene, but in the Eurocup they showed that they want more than such a small target audience.
On the topic of duos, one more deserves the spotlight. Again representatives of Israel, Amit “Darkartas” Kimchi and Tzor “Knasen” Dahan surprised with their synergy and ability on the double shield heroes. Both players, like LilYung and Hearthbeat, had been a part of T2 and T3 previously, participating in South America and Europe, respectively. Unfortunately, Darkartas has since retired to complete his military service.
For select Monkey Bubble Eurocup VODs, visit their YouTube playlist or the tournament’s over.gg page
Overwatch Korea Cup
Sin June 2019, LVUP runs a T3 tournament called the Overwatch Korea Cup. It features 4 weekly qualifiers that determine the 4 participants for a tournament at the end of the month. In its seven-month lifespan, 16 teams attempted to go all the way each month, and six succeeded, with Gen.B winning twice.
Already four of its players are now in the Overwatch League, a surprising amount for the T3 tournament.
It should be noted that this is a tournament prone to fluctuation, and, for more insight into the future of Korean Overwatch, it is recommended that the reader watch past and upcoming matches of this cup. The following is not supposed to be a comprehensive summary, but a mere introductory piece.
With such a long run time and the format lending itself to a lot of variation, the tournament is essentially a rotating door for talent. Few players can boast the consistency needed at this level to prove they belong in top tier Overwatch.
Among these are Gen.A’s Haeim, GGTC’s Ra “Sierra” Yeaong-Hwan (also known as Kadalis), and AEGIS’s Kim “KimHanGyeom” Han-Gyeom (previously on WGS Academy).
Haeim was constantly great performer in the tournament, while Sierra featured in the playoffs just as frequently. KimHanGyeom, meanwhile, struggled for results, even if his play suggested otherwise. All three are incredibly flexible players, and it was rare to see a dip in quality from one hero or match to the next.
Korea Cup Graduates
Another interesting aspect of the competition is how many players it has exported. Four of its alumni are currently in the Overwatch League, including three in the London Spitfire. The latter are flex DPS Jung “ALTHOUGH” Hyun-Wook (Gen.S), projectile DPS Lee “Schwi” Dong-Jae (CheongJu Hunters, later Runaway), and main support Lim“SanGuiNar” Kyu-Min (Gen.B).
It’s been a long time coming – no more teasers or riddles (or leaks), meet the Initial 8 of the #OWL2020 London Spitfire! #AcesHigh pic.twitter.com/6WPllCYNxK — London Spitfire (@Spitfire) November 23, 2019
Additionally, former streamer, ex-retiree, and Goin Water S hitscan player Lee “ANS” Seon-Chang joined the San Francisco Shock for his Widowmaker play.
Some of the better known former players are, surprisingly, not those that joined the League, but those that moved on to the Path to Pro.
Lee “MCD” Jeong-Ho (3hours, now Element Mystic) and Kim “Bliss” So-Mung (Gen.A, then known as Calling. Now on Gen.G) are both currently on top Korean Contenders teams. Recently, Kim “lr1s” Seung-Hyun and Lee “PaeSeul” Jun-Seo joined North American teams Third Impact and Simplicity, respectively. All four being supports is a coincidence, but all four proving themselves in their new region is not.
Untapped Potential?
Consistency is key in Overwatch. Flashiness, of course, comes after, but can not be ignored.
Gen.A’s Blad3r and OneCoin’s Unkn0wn both share a number of similarities. Besides being DPS players (although on different roles), they are both “feast or famine” players. Usually, this is evident in Blad3r’s Pharah and Unkn0wn’s Reaper gameplay.
If one hasn’t had enough of Gen.A, Quasid and Toyou are two more of their players that can’t be missed. Toyou brings more of the Sigma play that fans definitely aren’t tired of watching, and Quasid the Moira. Oh? Sigma and Moira are getting old? Well, try their Roadhog and Ana! Anyone would think they are watching Contenders again, if they didn’t know better.
For a brief moment, Spera and Heesang (Genjichung) moved up from EM Academy to the main team. Representing Element Mystic at NeXT, it seemed like they were the future DPS starters of the team, and fans were satisfied. For whatever reason, this move did not occur, and the gold medalists lost their spot to fan favorite Choi “ChoiSehwan” Se-Hwan, and Shin “Just” Hyun-Seong.
It is likely that the future for these players is not in T3, but joining the others in higher-level competition.
You can find Overwatch Korea Cup VODs in LVUP’s YouTube playlist [KR]
Find me on Twitter (@Thoth_OW) on Reddit (u/Jcbarona23), or on Discord (Thoth#7858) for any questions or discussion regarding my posts (or any topic in general).
Follow The Game Haus for more sports and esports coverage.
Twitter: TGH Esports
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