text
stringlengths 14
100k
| meta
dict |
|---|---|
Have you ever wondered if a working guitar could be 3D printed? That question has now been answered by Jeff Kerr’s beautifuly printed model. Not only does it look great, it sounds very good too, as seen in the video below.
The design may seem a little strange if you’re expecting a wooden body, but once the initial shock is overcome, the translucent body of the guitar is quite beautiful. To support the thin shell, there are a number of fractal-inspired supports that don’t conduct light as readily, providing an interesting effect.
Everything on the guitar is 3D printed, with the exception of the metal parts like strings and tuning keys. In addition to making this guitar, Jeff actually designed the printer that made it. The printing area is reportedly quite large, which, given the size of the guitar, would be quite helpful!
The original Foundry Makerspace source states that this guitar is not for sale, but if you’ve got a big enough printer, the models are available here. Happy printing!
[vimeo 110843771 w=500 h=282]
Somehow I have this image of an early 90’s hair metal band smashing their guitars onstage, only to melt them down and have them printed into axes for the next show. Maybe I’ll propose this if I ever become a roadie. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Lent is pulling into the station and Holy week is just about to begin. I think there are lessons and moments of clarity I have discovered this year just by slowing some things down and cutting some things out. Part of what I have learned about the careful dance between God’s grace and our participation is the difference between trying to make things happen and making room for God and others to do things in us. I offer these in hope you can learn from my mistakes. These are some of my lenten attempts that, surprisingly, have proven to be enemies of grace.
1) Bad Habits
Lent is not a time for self-improvement. On the contrary it is a time of admitting that there is only a certain degree to which one can help one’s self. It is not time to try to lose weight, exercise more, or keep the house cleaner. It is a time to make room so that God and others can move a little closer in. It is a time to risk the possibility that other’s will help us grow.
2) Anything without considering others first.
I am missing my call if I decide to give up something which by doing so inconveniences someone else. The season of Lent is not a season of coercion, but hospitality. So it is counter productive to a season of humility to do things that take away from others or draw attention to myself. Its time to let go of things that demand, instead of invite, friendship.
3) A thought or an Idea on its own.
Thoughts rarely change just by thinking about them. It is very much like trying not to think of the Sta-Puft marshmallow man in “Ghostbusters”. You try to not think about it and suddenly is a raving monster hovering over you. Lent is lived in the body. That’s why we fast, listen, serve, pray. If we want to be more compassionate, go be with people who need compassion. Instead of daily affirmations, well, …go be with people who need compassion. One of the mantras of some 12 step groups is, “move a muscle, change a thought.” Make a change in-deed.
4) Anything I give up to prove that I can do it.
If I get to the end of lent and feel proud that I made it through then I have, again, missed the point. WIll power is, at best, for New Year’s resolutions. Lent is about admitting we are often wrong and need help to be better. It is about giving up one’s will enough to learn, enough to be taught.
5) Pants.
Wow. I’ll never make that mistake again. Some things should be obvious.
Even though I have been well intended, I have discovered that even repentance can be something I try to show off. Practices that end up being more about my success, my pride, my strength of will or my inherent goodness are moving in the wrong direction all together. In that case I am using Lent against itself. In determination, my attempt to detrmine things, there is less room for God and others. I am clinging to control. Rather, the practices of grace are far more akin to jumping out of the plane, believing the parachute will work.
Grace is no less than a fearless leap of honesty into the possibility that something other than gravity is at work.
It’s Not About the Chocolate: Grace and Self-Improvement in Lent. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Et tu, Plum?
Further Lessons in Perspective.
Right, so, where were we? Oh, yes. DISPOSSESSED. What a sorry affair that was.
A regrettable situation; an angry band made angrier; calls for retribution; strange fruit before sundown. Hysteria to DEFCON 1; two minutes to midnight; Reds under beds; racists next to bassists.
Wrong-place-wrong-time; a blood-soaked Bacchanalia; scapegoat to sacrificial lamb; Robinson meets Mersault. Guilty by association, innocent by deed; blameless by investigation, responsible by need.
Don’t ask questions; don’t dawdle in doorways; don’t forget we’re the good guys; the glove has to fit.
Full on ochlocracy; long live the crowd; judge, jury and executioner; consolidate the power.
Facts? What about them? Don’t be such a handbrake. What’d Dennis Denuto say? It’s all about the vibe. After all, attention to detail is simply intention to derail. Cuff a bastard before the public forgets. We run on a twenty-four-hour memory these days.
No, no. We deserve better. The defendant deserves a chance, and we owe it to ourselves to make a habit of being righteous in our judgements. It wasn’t too long ago that we were all swept away by the Macarena, was it? Relying upon the collective wisdom of undisciplined minds, who knows what new travesty waits for us around the corner?
My powers of clairvoyance fading, I can only hope that this inevitable calamity manifests itself in continued, broad accusations of career-ruining personality traits via social media. I don’t think I have it in me to survive a Macarena Round II. I've got enough on my plate as it is.
Besides, you can get a grip on these allegations pretty easily if you make an earnest attempt at it. Review the available sources; examine the people or tribes involved; suss the who, the what and the why; gauge the legitimacy. There or there abouts. Bingo bango bongo. Yadda-yadda-yadda. So it goes.
On the other hand, I will never understand the Macarena, nor Matt Okine's stand up career, nor Illy’s fanbase [6], nor Tash Sultana’s facial contortions. It is what we cannot comprehend that scares us the most, and sometimes it is easier to choose not to try.
So, given everything that we know about the incident at the Red Rattler Theatre on July 29 2016, the question is begged: why do those dirty little labels remain? Is Dylan Frost a racist? And if so, what makes us sure enough in our belief as to guiltlessly brand him with the mark of the beast?
Promised drama of Shakespearean proportions, a casual observer with an eye for a comment section might believe that the incident involving Dylan Frost and Thelma Plum represents the third act, the grand finale, where our narratives’ antagonist is finally exposed, pants-around-ankles, smouldering gun in hand. Mr. Frost in the conservatory with the candle stick. Racist. Misogynist. Sodomist [7]. Fucked.
After all, even though the DISPOSSESSED incident unequivocally presented not even the slightest indication of racism, the mere existence of continued allegations should mean that it’s sickeningly abundant where Plum is concerned, right? Where there’s smoke there’s fire and all the rest? [8]
Again, as with all things, I’m not so sure. But I am also not a truth maker, so it’s up to us to investigate. Unbelievably unavailable elsewhere on the internet, we’ll lay down the facts in entirety, and, with the cards down, discuss the implications.
Then, we might be able to overturn the Court of Public Opinion’s verdict, or at least understand the logic behind it. Because, as far as the internet is concerned, Dylan Frost is a racist, and it’s now up to the defendant to prove otherwise.
Unfortunately for him, nobody has ever claimed that the legal system was a fair one, and, in this trial by combat, his champion leaves a lot to be desired. With Lionel Hutz unavailable, the participating advocate barely scraped through University, and proudly picks their nose in the courtroom. Who? You’re looking at them. Mr and / or Mrs. Poppelov. Attorney-at-law [9].
So, yet again, we ask: what actually happened?
FACTS, FACTS, GLORIOUS FACTS
Thelma Plum I: Yeah
On the 2nd of December 2016, Thelma Plum posted a now-deleted status via her personal Facebook account, detailing her interpretation of an incident that occurred earlier that evening, involving herself, Nick Lupi [10], Dylan Frost and Frost’s cousin (the full statement can be found here).
Outside the Lady Hampshire Hotel in Camperdown, Plum alleged that Frost started ‘getting in [Lupi’s] face’, causing Plum to intervene by telling the Sticky Finger’s front man to ‘fuck off’.
In reaction, Plum claims that Frost’s attention shifted, as he ‘started swearing at [her] and spitting’. Following a short break in the hostility, she asserts that Frost ‘started trying to fight [Plum] again’, ‘getting right in [their] faces whilst [they] were trying to leave’.
In ‘hysterics’, Plum and Lupi eventually found refuge in an Uber, with Plum requesting the driver to lock the doors before Frost ‘proceeded to come up to Nick’s side of the car screaming, swearing and again spitting’. Plum contends that she had ‘never felt so unsafe in [her] life’, and that she ‘100% thought [that she] was going to be punched in the face’ if it weren’t for ‘[Frost’s] friend standing in the middle’ whenever ‘he swung’.
Finally, Plum charges that ‘there [are a] countless number of people that have SEEN [Frost] rough up women’, that Frost ‘starts fights because he is bored’ and that there is footage of Frost ‘railing racist abuse at DISPOSSESSED’.
I want to pause briefly to reflect on these three allegations.
We know that the last allegation is untrue [11] and the preceding two trouble me greatly. The penultimate accusation demonstrates a profoundly poor understanding of mental illness, and the first allegation, strewn across the internet, cannot responsibly be regarded as anything other than hearsay. At risk of derailing the momentum of this section, and wanting to lay the facts out in entirety prior to providing opinion, the rest of my thoughts on this matter can be found in the footnotes. Never forget the footnotes. Praise be to footnotes. [12]
In the immediate fallout, Plum blunderbussed follow-up statements and comments across the internet, as individuals who are relentlessly hoarded by packs of rabid bigots, trolls and tosspots tend to do.
Most pertinently, on the 3rd of December, Plum detailed the ‘emotional labour’ that she experienced as a result of ‘speaking out against Dylan’ [13]. Within the post, Plum states that she would have never ‘dragged the band name’ into the public eye prior to the dispute, with the incident seemingly acting as a catalyst for her to challenge the band to take ‘responsibility for [their] front man’s actions instead of playing down/apologising for him’ [14]. She likewise slams the band for their response to DISPOSSESSED’s statements surrounding the incident at the Red Rattler Theatre. [15] Finally, Plum, without explanation, continued to dangerously perpetuate the notion that Frost has ‘a history of violence against women’, as supposedly based upon accounts provided to her privately. The full version can be read here.
Immediately, a few elements are noteworthy across the two statements provided:
Plum mentions race exclusively in regard to the DISPOSSESSED incident, and nothing within her account suggests that race was a motivating factor, or even apparent, within her dispute with Frost.
The argument began as a dispute between Dylan Frost and Nick Lupi, and ended with Frost approaching Lupi’s side of the vehicle. Is it fair to consider Plum as Frost’s sole target within the dispute? Or was she a secondary focus?
If Frost ‘swung’ at Plum, why is it exclusively Frost’s friend who is intervening? What is Lupi’s role within the dispute? It is difficult to imagine Lupi remaining passive if his girlfriend was at risk of violence, especially considering the familiarity of Frost, an individual that Lupi had previously performed with [16].
The alleged threat of violence is mentioned relatively late and receives little consideration within the account, given the gravity of the alleged actions.
A pretty ugly encounter, even with the most generous of pro-Frost interpretations. However, seemingly inevitably, there is always more to consider.
Paige Moore: Yeah Nah
On the 9th of December, Paige Moore, an alleged witness, took to Facebook to provide her own version of the incident in an attempt to ‘shed light on a very one-sided story’. Moore was (and possibly still is) the girlfriend of Frost’s cousin, the fourth individual involved in the dispute as mentioned by Plum. The full account can be found here.
Moore suggests that both herself and her boyfriend only ‘had two drinks each’ (‘making [them] sober’) and states her belief that ‘the other parties included were not’. Relaying her boyfriend’s experience, Moore challenges Plum’s narrative, suggesting that ‘Dylan did not meet Thelma Plum’ prior to the final incident, and that the ‘scene of four people’ maintained a ‘distance between all of them’, placing Frost outside of ‘any kind of reach of Thelma’.
Further questioning Plum’s account, Moore suggests that all involved parties were ‘screaming at each other’ (‘nothing horrible … “fuck you” and such’), before Moore’s ‘boyfriend proceeded to grab Dylan away and tell him to breathe and calm down’.
Walking Frost away from the event, Moore suggests that Lupi and Plum ‘kept yelling things to get a rise out of [Frost]’, such as ‘I’m going to make sure you’re never on Triple J again’ and ‘Your career is going to be over’[17]. Then, Moore states, Lupi approached Frost and threatened ‘to bash him’ if the front man didn’t leave the area. Moore suggests that their party complied, and that as the confrontation deescalated, ‘Thelma burst into hysterical tears’.
Interestingly enough, it seems that she may have got her wish. According to an article released by the Industry Observer on June 19, Sticky Fingers have seemingly been blacklisted from Triple J, despite the fact they released a new single, ‘Kick On’, in mid-April. Censorship in effect.
With Plum and Lupi getting into an Uber shortly afterwards, Moore verifies Plum’s suggestion that Frost ‘did run after’ the vehicle and concedes that he ‘may have spit on the ground’, but stresses that ‘he did not try to get into the vehicle or kick it’.
Ultimately, Moore shies away from ‘trying to claim Dylan as being innocent’, instead maintaining that Plum’s ‘intoxicated’ boyfriend ‘was acting the same way [that] Dylan was’ (‘just as aggressive’) and that ‘Plum should take some responsibility’ for the incident.
Most pertinently, Moore twice emphasises that ‘Dylan never once yelled anything about race, her being a woman, or wanting to fight her. There were no swinging arms [and] no slurs of any kind’.
Oh fuck. This is just confusing now.
It was so much easier when we only had one side of the story.
What? There’s more?
Jesus Christ.
The Australian education system didn’t prepare me for this [18].
Thelma Plum II: Yeah Nah Yeah
Later that day (the 9th of December), Plum posted a response to Moore’s account via her Instagram page. You can view it here.
Within it, Plum dismisses Moore’s testimony as ‘absolute bullshit’ [19] and reiterates several aspects of her original account.
Namely, Plum reinforces that ‘Dylan acted like a violent prick’ and ‘chased the car at full speed with his arm and fist as if he was going to smash the windscreen’ [20].
Otherwise, Plum laments the ‘extent’ of ‘flack, abuse and … defaming’ that she experienced as a result of publishing her account of the events, whilst expressing that she finds reassurance within the fact that she had allegedly ‘been contacted by so many of his past victims including friends and family of his past lovers’, whom she ‘would never out’ as, understandably, she argues that ‘it is their decision to come forward publicly’ [21].
DISPOSSESSED: Footage Released
As discussed within the first part of this series, on the 12th of December, DISPOSSESSED published previously-unseen footage of the alleged incident that took place at the Red Rattle Theatre on the 28th of July.
Whilst it is not directly relevant to an understanding of the incident involving Dylan Frost and Thelma Plum on the 2nd of December, it is useful to recognise its positioning within the greater timeline of events in order to understand the public’s response to the various allegations levelled at Dylan Frost.
Sticky Fingers: Yeah Nah Yeah Nah
On the 16th of April 2018, following their return from hiatus, Sticky Finger’s posted the ‘last’ of several statements addressing the saga’s controversies. Due to the brevity of the relevant section, it is copied in full below. The full Facebook post can be found here.
“Soon after The Dispossessed gig, on the night of December 2, 2016 I got into a verbal mouth off with a friend and his girlfriend. I reacted angrily to something that she said and yelled aggressively back at both of them and I’ve regretted it ever since. I’m sorry that she felt threatened by my behaviour. That is never ok. I’m ashamed I made a woman feel unsafe around me and I never want to put myself or anyone else in that position again. This is something we all feel very strongly about. Violence against women is not ok and it never will be. We absolutely feel for and support women who have been affected by abuse and we should have talked about this sooner.”
AN EXERCISE IN INTERPRETATION: WHERE’S JA?
Well, fuck. Thank the Nazarene that we are done with that. It all got a little dense, didn’t it? Wall-to-wall facts. Eastern Bloc prose. Zero indulgence. A labyrinth of testimony. Nothing in the way of interpretation. No guiding light. No Star of Bethlehem. No Deux Ex Machina.
So, what are we to make of it all?
Before we start, let me make one thing clear: don’t you dare look to me to outsource your fucking opinion. Nor anyone else for that matter. You’re going to be asked to explain it one day and, rightly or wrongly, you’re going to be judged on your explanation, so it’s best that you take full ownership of it. Now and always and forever more. No ifs, no buts, no cutting corners. Have a little independence, for Christ’s sake. [22]
Of course, by you I don’t mean you. I’m talking about the urchins on the BCC. You continue as you are: independently and intellectually curious. The way one should be.
As for what I think? No. I couldn’t. I won’t even entertain the idea. You know I hate sermonising. What would I know anyway? And what does it matter if you’re interested? You insist, you say? Fine. I’ll share. But don’t expect to learn anything. Here goes.
Ultimately, it’s blatantly obvious to me, and hopefully anyone that has an interest in the truth, that there is a distinct difference separating the incidents involving DISPOSSESSED and Plum. With DISPOSSESSED, our Gordian Knot of opposing testimonies was decimated by the footage that emerged, and here, we’re left rudderless and suffocated by the fog of war, with no convenient or overwhelmingly apparent narrative to guide us past the icebergs of convenience.
And so, a quest in interpretation leaves us with two options: subscribe to a cognitively convenient false binary, or accept that the reality of what occurred on the 2nd of December may lie between trench lines, within the treacherous No Man’s Land that fools so dearly fear to tread.
If you opt for the former [23], the rest is simple. Pick a side, stockpile your munitions, wait for the next skirmish, and get to throwing. Can’t decide what tribe to join? Ask a friend, they’ll no doubt have a rumour that you can lean on. Concerned that you don’t even know the poor soul that you’ll meet face-to-face, a bayonet’s length away in the comments section? Pick a pre-packaged insult from below. They’re all the bloody same anyway.
Beer bongs, bucket hats, cheap pingers, Sticky Fingers.
Septum piercings, over-shared feelings, Chekhov’s gun, Thelma Plum.
Bin tang, Bali belly, Straya tatts, felt hats.
Inner West clever, Melbourne’s better, new Bangs, Tumblr gangs.
So it goes. Pick your strawman and make them a martyr. Blow the fuckers off the map. Report their Facebook. Hand out their phone numbers [24]. Contact their workplace. Follow their families.
Destroy them in the name of humanity without showing any yourself. Force them into ghettos and forbid anyone from dealing with them. Kick them off festivals and ban them from public places. Break them down and build them up and make them thank you for the grace of saving them.
Homogenize, integrate and inter-marry. Shave their heads and extinguish their personality. Welcome them to your clone army. Apostasy? Punishable by death. Hypocrisy? That too.
Or, of course, you could always opt for the latter. If you have, congratulations for not being a dipshit and becoming comfortable with not needing to believe that you know everything, nor requiring others to view you in the same light. Welcome to the land of nuance, where normative statements are at a scarcity and idolatry is forbidden. Where you can appreciate people for what they are instead of what they’re not nor what they should be. Scary stuff.
Where you recognise that personality traits are double-edged swords, with an individual’s best quality often being a product of their worst, or vice versa. Where everybody’s fucked, somehow, and perfect is the enemy of real. Where dogma is the enemy of discourse and right and fair and all those silly little words are goals, not standards, that, like Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and fairy tales, are discarded when we can cope without them or no longer require the rigidity of their instruction. If you’re only nice because you’re scared of being hit with a stick, are you really a nice person? If to falter is impure, how long can your leaders last?
Fuck. Getting a bit preachy here. Don’t lose the audience, Kurt.
It is there, within the realm of nuance, that the rest of this letter will exist and, as our ticket to ride, our coin for the ferryman, it is important for us to first consider what is consistent across all accounts, and what remains as unclear. From there, it is largely up to you to decide what you think, but I may indulge myself in a few prompting questions.
WHAT WE KNOW
The incident began as a dispute between Lupi and Frost, with Frost turning his attention to Plum following her intervention. This is verified by Plum and Sticky Fingers. Plum also asserts that at the conclusion of the dispute, Frost approached Lupi’s side of the vehicle. There was a degree of verbal tennis between the two parties, with Plum telling Frost to ‘fuck off’ (and ‘ask[ing] him how dare he try to start a fight with Nick after he was so nice to Dylan’). This is verified by Plum and Moore. That Frost was visibly irritated and outwardly aggressive to Lupi and Plum throughout the dispute. This is verified by Plum, Moore and Sticky Fingers. That Frost moved towards the Uber containing Lupi and Plum as they left the scene. This is verified by Plum and Moore. That race was not relevant to the dispute. It was not apparent throughout it, and it was not an obviously motivating factor. This is verified by Plum, Moore and Sticky Fingers. Likewise, we know that Dylan did not demonstrate racist or aggressive behaviour at the DISPOSSESSED concert, as Plum claimed in her immediate reaction. That Plum was left very affected by the incident. This is verified by Plum and Moore, who both maintain that she became ‘hysterical’ following Frost’s actions [25].
WHAT WE DON’T KNOW
The true extent to which Frost acted aggressively towards Plum and Lupi. Plum’s accounts are slightly confused, and are at odds with the accounts provided by both Moore and Sticky Fingers. The extent to which Plum and Lupi acted aggressively towards Frost. Plums account suggests a minor level of titt-for-tatt hostility, but not to the extent as alleged by Moore. The extent to which all parties were inebriated. Moore alleges that Lupi and Plum were drunk, and all parties agree that Frost was under the influence of alcohol.
AND SO?
It is impossible for us to say what truly happened on that night, and it would be both foolish and inequitable to even try. My gut suggests that it was a drunken dispute with mutual misconduct, most closely aligned with Moore’s account, that left Plum rightfully and righteously and hysterically upset, but I am not to know. In such a situation, Plum, a victim of genuine aggression, may have downplayed her own hostility in order to amplify that shown by Frost, and could you blame her? After all, given the rumours that she had heard about Frost in regards to DISPOSSESSED and other women: could she have justified a minor injustice if it translated to retribution for Frost’s perceived greater wrongdoings?
Or, was Frost’s behaviour on the night considered to be worse than it actually was given what Plum had been led to believe about the DISPOSSESSED concert? Did she believe that she was witnessing a trend emerging, and did she feel a genuine responsibility to suffocate the embers of misbehaviour early?
Are any of us, in the moment and ill-treated and upset and under the influence, absolutely above that type of behaviour? I know that I’m not, and I know for sure that you aren’t either. Jesus Christ, (redacted), we have both participated in, and been privy to, some famously fantastic arguments when drunk. I wouldn’t change it for the world, but if placed in front of it and forced to testify, would I have the courage to tell the absolute truth? I’m not so sure.
And so, is a narrative similar to Moore’s account truly unfathomable? Or, given the weight of conflicting evidence, could it even be considered to be a likely scenario?
Ay, there’s the rub: are we to prioritise Plum’s account over Sticky Fingers’? Over Moore’s? Over both? Or vice versa? [26]
Are we even to believe that any party presented the unpolluted truth? Would it even be in their best interest to do so? Are we to demonize one and deify the other? Do we have to choose?
Are we to believe that Plum started with ‘fuck off’ but parked it there? If she didn’t, does drunken, verbal jousting align with her curated public image? The series has been exceptionally costly for Sticky Fingers – do they not have a mandate to minimise the fall-out from the event wherever possible?
In a titt-for-tatt scenario, where does one individual’s culpability begin and the other individual’s end? If it takes two to tango, is walking away and disengaging the only way to truly absolve yourself? Did Plum and Lupi do this?
Are we to believe that Lupi wouldn’t have imposed himself in some manner during an incident, that Plum claims, teetered on the edge of violence? Or was Lupi, as per Moore’s account, a key perpetrator of the confrontation, threatening to ‘bash’ Frost, with the latter reacting to the aggression?
Does it make sense that Lupi would have remained silent in the aftermath of the incident if Frost was truly and exclusively out-of-line? If Plum was blameless in her appraisal of the event, would Lupi’s opinion not have helped to silence the tribal tidal wave of abuse that decimated his girlfriend’s social media accounts for the weeks, months and years following? [27]
Will we ever get the answers to these questions? I don’t think so.
Do the answers even exist in the form in which they once did? Is the uncorrupted truth still available?
Huh? You’re going to have to explain that one, Kurt.
Two years down the track, have the half-truths and untruths; white lies, exaggerations and good intentions become fact in the minds of those who championed them?
Are the personalities involved now too invested to change their version of events? Or is it that they were entirely honest about what they saw, with the differences in accounts being attributable to the unique lenses through which we all view the world?
And so, do we really gain anything from continuing this line of thinking? No, I don’t think so. We could go on and on and question every fact, every little piece of minutiae, until our curtain call, but even then, the situation will never resolve itself. Instead, drama-dissected, facts unprecedentedly presented, I want to focus on one last topic to close out this letter: what are the implications of what we have learnt for the traits that Frost has been stamped with?
Is Dylan Frost a racist? Is he violent against women?
Well then, let’s have a looksee.
HANDLE WITH CARE: EASY, DIRTY LABELS
At risk of repeating myself, to make it overwhelmingly clear:
DISPOSSESSED did not explicitly accuse Frost of acting in a racist manner. They suggested that he, ‘among many others’, ‘grossly shirt front[ed]’ the band. From the available footage, we know this to be false. Frost did not act aggressively or display behaviour consistent with racism.
Thelma Plum did not accuse Frost of racist conduct during their altercation. She did suggest that she had been led to believe that he acted accordingly during the incident with DISPOSSESSED, but we know this to be false .
during their altercation. She did suggest that she had been led to believe that he acted accordingly during the incident with DISPOSSESSED, but we know this to be . Nobody has publicly come forward to suggest that they have personally been the victim of violence or assault at the hands of Frost. Plum suggested that Frost attempted to attack her, but there is reasonable doubt that this actually occurred. It cannot be overstated: unattributed anecdotes and hearsay are not consistent with reliable evidence. Unless somebody can be held accountable for a testimony, the testimony can bear no weight.
And so, what concrete evidence actually exists to suggest that the allegations are true? In the case of R v Dylan Frost (2016), what can the presiding magistrate (Justice Poppelov) rely upon in order to uphold the previous guilty verdict, as handed to him by lower courts? With the appellant pleading for a re-trial, what indisputable proof remains to ensure his due-process-damnation?
Nothing. Nothing of any substance, anyway. From all angles, it seems that the evidence is overwhelmingly in Frost’s favour. He may likely be a coarse individual, prone to drunken disputes for a variety of reasons, but I am not to know or say. Nor is such behaviour, held in contempt by some, consistent with the greater allegations that he has been faced with.
No, as far as the public records show, pertaining to the charges of racism and gender-based violence, the jury has reached a decision: overwhelmingly not guilty. Insufficient evidence. Case dismissed. Get fucked. Next.
But will it be enough? Will the Court of Public Opinion decree accordingly? Can one even appeal to the Court of Public Opinion, or has the damage been done? With the available evidence so clearly pointing in one direction, how was it that the original decision, a gross negligence and a heinous injustice, was arrived at in the first instance? How was it allowed to happen? Who are we to blame?
The answer, I believe, is threefold in that: crucial pieces of evidence emerged at unfortunate times; the bands detractors were desperate to believe; and, perhaps most importantly, the Australian music media was deliberately dishonest or alarmingly amateur in their coverage of the events. We will cover the first two components today, but our appraisal of the music media - our pièce de résistance, our magnum opus, our crowning jewel - will have to wait. After all, we wouldn’t want to make any unsubstantiated claims, would we? As Marcus Aurelius put it: the best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury.
Always fear the vengeance of a patient man.
TOO LITTLE TOO LATE?
To better understand how this weighty misconception came to be, it’s important that we review the timeline as presented earlier.
July 29th, 2016 – DISPOSSESSED releases their statement following the incident allegedly involving Dylan Frost at Marrickville’s Red Rattler Theatre.
DISPOSSESSED releases their statement following the incident allegedly involving Dylan Frost at Marrickville’s Red Rattler Theatre. December 2nd, 2016 – Thelma Plum releases her initial statement regarding an incident allegedly involving Dylan Frost at Camperdown’s Lady Hampshire Hotel.
Thelma Plum releases her initial statement regarding an incident allegedly involving Dylan Frost at Camperdown’s Lady Hampshire Hotel. December 9th, 2016 - Paige Moore releases her statement challenging Plum’s account of the events that occurred on the night of the 2nd of December, supplanting it with her own.
Paige Moore releases her statement challenging Plum’s account of the events that occurred on the night of the 2nd of December, supplanting it with her own. December 12th, 2016 – DISPOSSESSED releases YouTube footage of the incident that occurred on the night of the 28th of July, absolving Frost of wrongdoing.
DISPOSSESSED releases YouTube footage of the incident that occurred on the night of the 28th of July, absolving Frost of wrongdoing. April 16th, 2018 – Sticky Fingers release a statement about the incidents involving Dylan Frost, DISPOSSESSED and Thelma Plum.
Scanning the above, it’s easy to see how a casual onlooker, mindlessly scrolling their Facebook feed on the 3rd of December, might’ve believed that they were seeing a pattern emerging. As a species we really love a pattern, don’t we? Trends your friend, clustering illusions and all the rest.
DISPOSSSED? Aboriginal.
Racism? Apparently.
Thelma Plum? Aboriginal.
Racism? Why not? [28]
Of course Frost was involved in a dispute with another Aboriginal Australian.
Of course DISPOSSESSED were telling the truth, didn’t you hear what Plum had to say?
Of course Plum wouldn’t lie, didn’t you read about the DISPOSSESSED gig?
Two pretty murky allegations, with one justifying the other and vice versa. Circular reasoning rears its ugly head once again, but, given the public record at the time, how else could you expect the crowd to respond?
They didn’t have anything else to work with until an entire week later, and in the age of social media, the twenty-four-hour news cycle and Flappy Bird, we simply can’t maintain interest in a topic for a period of such eternity. We hear details, we make a judgement, we move on, we stick with it. There’s far too much information entering our heads on an hourly basis to constantly review our positions. You wouldn’t make it past the front door if you did.
Besides, Moore’s testimony was fighting an up-hill battle, wasn’t it? She was now competing against the weight of both DISPOSSESSED and Plum’s accusations, with her low-profile preventing her voice from being heard, and her status as Frost’s cousins-girlfriend preventing it from being taken seriously. Enemies of our enemies never lie, and their friends seldom don’t. How could we even begin to trust her?
But, finally, on the 12th of December 2016, the dam-wall of misinformation broke. The foundations upon which the entire saga was predicated upon, the incident on July 28th, came crashing down. Frost wasn’t shown to be acting in a manner consistent with racism, and, hang on, did Plum even accuse him of doing so herself?
Unfortunately, it was too-little-too-late; history had already been written. Onlookers had already made up their minds and, even then, people weren’t widely aware of the testimonies that painted Frost in a more positive light.
Why’s that?
Well that’s a story for another time. For now, just ask yourself: what motives do companies like Music Feeds have to resolve controversy? If you’re a gossip rag masquerading as legitimate journalism, what drives more clicks: a rabid crowd or a placated one? A calm understanding of a situation doesn’t translate well to engagement metrics, does it? [29]
CONVENIENT CONVERSION: A WILL TO BELIEVE
Thank Christ: our last little section. My fingertips are busted and bruised and red and raw. My brain hurts. I now hate social media and music and the actual media and people, especially people, for being so unquestioningly naïve and simple and ready to believe everything, anything, that falls at their feet in the right packaging. Most of all? I hate myself. What convinced me to bear this cross? Why is this article double the length of its predecessor? Is 211 unique page views really worth it? Will this even move the needle?
Alas, drained and empty, these questions will have to wait. We are not quite there yet. Perseverance is next to godliness. Has High Fantasy taught us nothing? Stephen Bradbury? What would Frodo do? Fall over, no doubt. The fucker was useless. Absolutely and entirely so. But would he rise again? Until the end, and that single quality made him heroic where stronger, more interesting, less whiny characters could not be so.
What the fuck? You’re addled, Kurt.
So, channelling the ever incompetent but single-minded Frodo – or Potter, they’re essentially the same – we finally ask: why was the music public so ready to believe these allegations?
People don’t like Sticky Fingers.
Well, no. That’s not true. A lot of people like Sticky Fingers. In fact, a lot of people like Sticky Fingers with a passion that many other bands can’t replicate. Following their return from hiatus, they sold out a world tour, tens of thousands of tickets, from a single Instagram post. In 2016, they sold out two shows at the Enmore Theatre in under three minutes without the gigs being promoted anywhere apart from the ticketing website where it suddenly appeared, for a moment or two, before slipping back into the void.
The very Instagram post that announced their return received 102,598 likes and 24,717 comments [30]. For perspective, fellow festival fillers, the DMAs, have only 55,300 followers; Client Liaison have 37,900; the Preatures have 32,000; Gang of Youths 60,100; Violent Soho 91,600; and the Dune Rats have 71,500.
In terms of pure follower count, Sticky Fingers (253k) considerably outrank industry giants Angus and Julia Stone (153k), Courtney Barnett (167k) and the Hilltop Hoods (117k), among many others, despite less institutional support or shorter time in the limelight. I mean, Illy or Courtney Barnett or Amy Shark or Gang of Youths or the Thundamentals or San Cisco could release twenty-four minutes of them farting into a microphone and it’d still make Triple J's feature album of the week. Nobody can doubt the fact that Triple J is a radio station that has its chosen darlings, and the Industry Observers recent report unequivocally indicates that Sticky Fingers are not amongst the lucky few.
Despite this, Sticky Fingers were the fourth most streamed Australian artist of 2016 – behind Flume, Sia and the Hilltop Hoods – before overtaking Adelaide’s favourite Hoods in 2017 for the third position, despite not touring or releasing music within that year.
I could go on. Sticky Fingers are massive, and it is a testament to their appeal that they have been able to achieve such heights completely independently, with their long-time label, Sureshaker, resembling a dainty family operation compared to the major label monoliths that dominate the music industries skyline. There’s no big budget, almost no press, no mainstream radio support and mountains of controversy, yet still the band defiantly powers forward as one of Australia’s best-selling acts. Neal Hunt, owner of Sureshaker and the band’s manager, still has a fucking G-mail account. Why bother forking out a whopping sixty dollars a year for a ‘professional’ account? A custom domain? Who’s got the time for that? Who can be arsed? Who even knows how to pull off such a feat?
No, Sticky Fingers’ success is entirely attributable to themselves and themselves only, with their immensely unique aesthetic [31], both sonically and visually, striking a deep chord with people of all backgrounds and nationalities across the globe.
And so, through all of this, I can’t help but sense that an undercurrent of tall-poppy syndrome pervades both the music industry and its wider viewership in regards to the group. From the outside looking in: what is so special about Sticky Fingers? How are they doing more than us, with less? Why do people care? And why do people care that much?
Sticky Fingers have always been unapologetic, uncompromising and unrelenting in everything that they do and, whilst they owe a considerable amount of their popularity to this organic attitude, it’s undeniably incensed a small (yet vocal) section of the Australian music landscape.
Displaying their unrefined and uncensored personalities with frequency, the band has made headlines in the past for unsavoury behaviour and public indiscretions, including but not limited to: Frost’s arrest in 2013 following the band’s performance at Rottofest, Frost’s arrest for driving under the influence and on an expired license in 2014, and the banning of the band from a Wagga Wagga venue in 2014 [32], with their tour diaries from a similar period simply laughing off inter-brand brawls in public spaces. We all know somebody who wouldn’t support artists that behave in such a manner but by-and-large, in an era where rock and roll has lost much of the danger that defined it in times gone by, this conduct has simply added to the group’s mystique. Covering an incredible emotional spectrum within their lyrics, these actions add both colour and texture to their handling of mental illness, substance abuse and feelings of isolation. These are things that many people can relate to. These are things that people can forgive.
Alas, this is the problem. This is the source of the will to believe. The dual-purpose label-maker, fable-maker.
Yes, Frost has had an altercation with security guards at a festival; yes, Frost has been arrested for drink driving; yes, Frost has physically fought with close friends in public; and yes, Frost has had drunken arguments with acquaintances where he probably shouldn’t have, but I can name people that I count as good friends who have done the same and I know that you can too. In fact, I can count such people amongst my sibling’s friends, my friend’s friends, and even my parent’s friends. People who lapse similarly are all around. People who lapse similarly are not necessarily villains and this behaviour isn't considered enough to blacklist somebody from companionship, support or admiration.
It’s certainly not behaviour that one should be proud of, nor behaviour that the average individual would encourage amongst friends, but it’s also not of sufficient intensity or depravity to see it's perpetrator labelled as a monster in any given arbitrary good-guy-bad-guy binary.
More than this, in modern society, where opinions are a dime-a-deca-dozen, there is a compelling need to convince others of one’s individual viewpoint; a pervading “I don’t like this so you can’t either” culture. After all, to be alone in something means that we might be wrong about something, and to be wrong, online and on-record, is an embarrassment akin to petite mort. Being right has become a competition, and when it comes to the Sensitivity Olympics, the professionally outraged represent some sort of Bolt-Phelps-Owens hybrid, doped-to-the-teeth in a manner that not even Russia could imagine. A Frankenstein's Monster of Victory. Nike dressed and Nike blessed. Superhuman in every regard.
And so, when you don’t like a band for their boorish behaviour and are filthy that others do in spite of it, it’s easier to double down than to concede the need to control the world around you.
Alcoholism and aggression are transgressions, but they aren’t corrupting beyond redemption. Racism and gender based violence, on the other hand, are cardinal sins worthy of excommunication. To be publically racist or violent due an individual’s identity is to be worthy of branding as an Other, and to defend an Other, or to fraternise with them, is to risk becoming an Other yourself. You are not to support an Other. You are not to advocate for Others. Other-ship is a ticket to bully. A mandate to forget. They are to be isolated, outcast and forsaken. For now and for ever more. No ifs, no buts: Carthage must be destroyed.
And so, DISPOSSESSED’s and Thelma Plum’s accusations were an evangelist’s wet-dream. A silver bullet, the magic salve, the Final Solution. Justification, validation, confirmation - you saw it coming: of course they’re racists. Of course he’s violent. Now people aren't allowed to support them. Now you can make people choose: do you support Sticky Fingers, or are you anti-racism? Do you support Sticky Fingers, or are you against male-on-female violence? Your call. Just remember, though: anything too forgiving might earn you a one-way ticket to the shadowlands. We all know how we feel about Others, don't we?
There is no recourse either, for the band or their supporters. Why? Racism is unfalsifiable. How do you prove that someone isn't racist? It’s a set of beliefs, and none of us have access to Frost’s psyche (despite what the band’s fans may believe). It’s an allegation that sticks and any response to it is viewed with immense cynicism. Imagine if Frost was to donate $10,000 to an Aboriginal foundation tomorrow? Pandering. If he doesn’t? Racist. Don’t just apologise. Prove it with your actions.
The best bit of it all? Mersault didn’t cry at his mother’s funeral. How much easier is it to convince your peers that someone is racist if they’ve recently been arrested for lashing out at security? For driving a car whilst drunk? For peeing on a balcony and being banned from a venue? These incidents, a supposed Chekhov’s gun, represent the second chapter in the story of Sticky Fingers, with the band’s opponents demanding that Frost’s alleged misconduct towards Dunn-Velasco and Plum represents the final third: hubris the hamartia, pants around ankles, smoking gun in hand, doomed beyond dispute. Frost in the conservatory with the candle stick. It all seems too easy, doesn't it? Beware of convenience.
Of course, we know that I do not agree. Frost is very far from a perfect individual, but he is also not the monster that many want him to be. Or, if he is, we have no reason to believe so. From a casual observer's viewpoint, it seems that he is making earnest attempts to better himself, but the outcome of that process will reveal itself in time, and it is not to be discussed in this chapter.
For now, counter-attack launched, enemy line broken and opposing flanks routed, Kurt von Poppelov needs another rest. To over extend oneself is to stretch one’s supply lines, and to be without supplies is to leave oneself vulnerable for ultimate destruction.
I do not wish to experience such a fate. No, no: there is much more to tackle in this series - the bands hiatus and their return to the limelight, social media fumbles and scuffles, and, of course, the old enemy: our music media – but it will have to wait.
For now, I need rest and all the rest. Man is not a machine, and the abyss will have to look elsewhere.
Besides, Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither will Hannibal destroy it in one. We’ve got the fuckers on the back-foot now, don’t we? Let's give them a minute to contemplate their doom.
I truly hope you’re enjoying the experience thus far. It’s a hell of a story, isn’t it? We truly are a funny bunch.
Loving you always,
(redacted) | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Image copyright Getty Images
Almost 4,000 landlords are still illegally letting properties after failing to sign up to a Welsh Government scheme which began two years ago.
Rent Smart Wales requires landlords to become registered or licensed.
While the majority are "fully compliant with legislation", Rent Smart Wales said it was cracking down on those who are flouting the law.
The first estate agency in Wales was prosecuted last week.
Yvette Phillips, trading as estate agent R Miles Scurlock of Milford Haven, Pembrokeshire, failed to submit a completed licence application or register her rental properties and was fined £4,600.
The Welsh Government wants the scheme to help tackle bad landlords who give the private rented sector a bad name.
There were previously thought to be 130,000 landlords but Rent Smart Wales said this was an "over estimate" and there are now thought to be about 90,000.
The scheme was launched on 23 November 2015, with landlords given 12 months to register before it became law last year.
But as of Thursday, figures showed 86,238 landlords are now registered - meaning an estimated 3,762 are letting properties illegally.
Rent Smart Wales said eight landlords have been successfully prosecuted and 162 fixed penalty notices of up to £250 have been issued.
The figures were released by Cardiff council, which is administering the scheme for the whole of Wales.
Cardiff estate agent Hern and Crabtree has operated in the city for more than 160 years.
Lettings agent Lance Robertson said about 70% of their letting properties were fully managed by the company, while the other 30% were just advertised on behalf of landlords who then managed their own tenancies.
He said the Rent Smart Scheme had made landlords understand more about the extent of their obligations to their tenants.
He told BBC Wales: "We were very supportive of it when it came in.
"It's part of the discussion we'll have with landlords now right from the start.
"I think there is a lack of awareness of the law. As professionals we know the law but perhaps there were a number of landlords who didn't know what they could do, and if anything it's alerted people to what they have to do and how to conduct themselves as a landlord.
"So it's opened their eyes."
Although the Residential Landlords Association in Wales said it agreed with the scheme's "ideals", it has raised concerns about its effectiveness.
Douglas Haig, RLA vice-chairman and director for Wales, said: "Valuable resources continue to be directed into yet another bureaucratic scheme that does little to actually improve the quality of housing in Wales."
The RLA has seen landlords "being penalised due to confusion" about the registration requirements, Mr Haig said, adding more needed to be done to increase awareness of the scheme.
A Rent Smart Wales spokeswoman said, although the majority (around 85%) are now "fully compliant with legislation, there are some who continue to operate illegally".
RENT SMART FACT FILE:
Registering as a landlord is £33.50 if completed online and £80.50 on paper. That is irrespective of the number of properties they have
Another alternative for people who own and rent out a few properties is to pay for a letting agent. Agencies pay fees ranging up to £6,000 depending on the numbers of properties they manage
The money raised pays for running the scheme and for making sure landlords comply with the regulations. Those who do not comply can be issued with a fixed penalty or fined
The licences last for five years
Cardiff council has been chosen to administer the system for the whole of Wales
You can check online whether any house or flat is on the register as a rented property and find out who the landlord is
"RSW and its partners across the 22 local authorities in Wales are now taking action to make sure that those that need to comply, do so, with fixed penalty notices of up to £250 being issued and prosecutions taken forward," the spokeswoman said.
"In addition to enforcement action, rent penalties and restriction on re-possession of property can also become a consequence of non-compliance.
"The simple message therefore to all those affected is come forward and comply now." | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
A Massachusetts man dubbed the "Incognito Bandit" in connection with 16 bank robberies in the Boston suburbs was nabbed Friday trying to board a flight to South Africa.
Albert Taderera, 36, of Brighton, is believed to have carried out the bank heists while wearing a dark hoodie, dark gloves, a facemask or sunglasses and displaying a black semi-automatic handgun, Fox 25 Boston and the Associated Press reported, citing authorities.
The bank robberies began in February 2015, Fox 25 reported. The most recent occurred this month.
AMERICAN GUILTY OF ATTACKING JAPANESE TOURIST GETS 22 YEARS
Taderera was arrested on an armed bank robbery charge at Dulles International Airport Friday evening, according to reports. A criminal complaint charges him with holding up a TD Bank branch in Wayland on Oct. 7, 2016, according to Boston federal prosecutors.
Concord Police on March 16 towed a black BMW with an expired registration that was parked outside a local bank, the prosecutors said. The BMW matched the description of the Incognito Bandit’s getaway vehicle.
Six days later an individual identifying himself as Taderera called the tow company and was told that the vehicle was in police custody, the prosecutors said.
The next day the FBI learned that Taderera booked a flight for Friday to Ethiopa from Dulles.
He flew to Dulles from Boston Friday morning, prosecutors said.
The FBI later learned that Taderera rebooked his flight and planned to leave from Dulles to Johannesburg at 5:45 p.m. Friday, they said.
He was arrested before he boarded the plane, according to the prosecutors.
Taderera is scheduled to appear Monday in a Virginia federal court.
The Associated Press contributed to this report. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
The sheer anger of women after the Delhi gangrape shows what women are up against. This means we have to do something about our boys.
After the Delhi gangrape, it may not be a politically correct thing to say that India needs to focus on its boys. But this is what I am going to do: I believe 2013 should be declared the Year of the Indian Boy Child, a year in which we should focus on issues relating to boys, their parenting, their development, their real needs, and how they can be brought up better.
I know that in India the bias is favour of boys is already too apparent for us to think we need to give them even more attention. But I would like to ask a counter-question: are we really focusing on them after they are born, or merely letting them run wild, uncontrolled, under-parented and undisciplined, outsourcing their development to unknown peer groups and coaching classes?
India’s fundamental social problem today is our failure to bring up our boys right. The demographic advantage, where the sex ratio is still heavily skewed in favour of boys, is soon going to turn into a demographic disaster if we do not think of how boys are growing up in our society.
It is easy to emphasise that the environment is difficult for girls. As parents we worry about the safety of girl children, fret about discrimination at home and in the workplace, and hope that they will find what they want in life. We get outraged when we read about female foeticide, or about molestation, or, horror of horrors, even rape. But we know what the solutions are and, in any case, we live with the hope that rape and molestation is something that won’t happen to our mothers, sisters and daughters.
More importantly, we know what girls need to succeed - safety, security, and a level field. But can we ensure this without dealing with the other side of the equation: boys.
Ask yourself: how many articles have your read anywhere in the world – and especially in India – about what our boys need? You may say that boys already have everything, so why should they be indulged some more?
This is uncharitable. The problem is not about resources, for boys always get more than their fair share of family investment. What they lack is an investment of parental time: in a still patriarchal society, where the father is still the main earner, parenting boys has been outsourced to mothers instead of being divided 50:50. As boys get older, parents outsource their development to schools; the schools, in turn, outsource their responsibilities to coaching classes (if you are in the upper classes), and so on. For the rest, there are seat and job reservations.
We have come to believe that our primary responsibility to our boys is to ensure that they are capable of earning and supporting themselves, and for this we are willing to overlook every other aspect of their physical and emotional development. We are willing to spend money, but not time on our boys. Is it any wonder that some of them turn out to be wife-beaters or molesters or even rapists?
As I have written earlier, not all boys grow up to be wife-beaters or eve-teasers or criminals, of course, but almost all of them will be uncomfortable and unadjusted in a world where women will increasingly get their due, where equality will be the norm, and where they have to reinvent themselves to compete with and yet complement the women in their lives.
The issues facing our girls are well-understood. We just have to remove the constraints and let them grow to their full potential. Official policies are moving in this direction – even if slowly. In most cases, we can throw incentives and penalties to solve the problem (rewards for putting girls in school, special pensions for poor people who have only daughters, heavy punishments for dowry, domestic violence, etc).
But about our boys, we know nothing. We don’t know the dreams they dream, we don’t know what they aspire for (beyond the obvious things they ask for), we don’t know what is going on in their heads. And this is not a problem that can be solved through official policies — though they can help. Doing something about boys means changing the fundamentals of parenting, spousal relationships and boys’ self-image – and this can happen only at our homes and in our schools, with official policies playing a supportive role.
Most well-to-do parents I know are concerned about how their boys will turn out, and prefer having girls instead. But this is really a copout. As someone who is father to two girls, I can tell you that you cannot help them in this world without understanding boys – for that is the world they are going to live in.
This is why it makes no sense for Manmohan Singh, Sushil Kumar Shinde and the Delhi Police Commissioner to claim that they understand what the Delhi protestors are angry about since they themselves have only daughters as children. The point is you cannot solve the problems women face without simultaneously solving the issues confronting our boys.
The short-term answer to women’s security may be better policing, or fast-track courts, or stricter punishment for rape, but the only real solution to women’s emancipation is male emancipation. And this means a focus on boys.
Let’s look at the world from a boy’s-eye-view to understand where I am coming from. Despite all the cultural preferences for a boy, the real-life images boys and men see of themselves are largely negative from a healthy developmental perspective.
How the father treats the mother is one important reference point. But even if this primary relationship is based on equality and respect, the school provides another reality check on skewed gender power equations. Given our Bollywood-oriented lives, how women are represented in films is also a major influence on boys. If a hero is shown behaving boorishly with the heroine, and it is still okay since he is the hero, what is the message getting across: that some forms of behaviour are acceptable?
How is it right for a Bollywood hero to whistle at or harass women when the rules are not the same for the trouble-makers we see in public places? Is it any surprise that even policemen don’t take women’s complaints seriously?
If you are a boy from one of the underprivileged sections, the mixed message problems get worse. Not only are you angry about your financial and livelihood shortcomings, but every girl coming into your view is a challenge to your manhood and lowly status.
The real answer thus is to focus on our boys’ growth needs. We owe it to our girls to make our boys better. And this means society — each one of us — must pay extraordinary attention to how boys need to be brought up, how they must be disciplined and encouraged, and what they need to know about how to treat the other half of humanity they have to grow up with.
What should we do? I don’t have all the answers, but some directional suggestions.
One, change must begin at home, with relationships within the family. Parents have to treat each other with respect. Where spousal relationships are weak, and fathers treat mothers without love and respect (and possibly vice-versa) and where mothers end up doting on their sons in an oedipal reflex action, we are playing with fire. Boys grow up more dependent on their mothers than daughters on their fathers – which complicates all the future relationships of men with women. If parents learn to respect one another, our boys and girls will learn that automatically.
Two, gender sensitisation must begin at home and continue in school. In most Indian families, gender sensitisation only seems to mean protecting girls from rough boys or favouring them. But gender sensitisation means much more: it means letting both genders know that they are equal, that both can aspire for the same things or different things, and that roles determined by gender are not fixed in life. In school, the same messages need to be re-emphasised.
Unfortunately, when most school teachers are women, what we mis-learn at home (that men and women have to expect different things in life) is continued in school. Schools need to change the gender balance of teachers, too. (I realise that there are more women teachers because of low pay and discrimination elsewhere in the job market, but the right balance is key to sending the message that roles for men and women are not preordained.)
Then, of course, there is proper sex education and knowledge.
Three, boys need different treatment. I am not an expert in assessing what exactly boys need to become sensible and sensitive men, but I am sure psychologists, social activists, parents and counsellors will know what is the right mix of activities and learning programmes for them when they grow up. This is something worth spending several seminars and symposiums on.
As I said before, I don’t have all the answers. Probably no one does. But one thing is clear: we have to focus on our boys for a better world.
2013 is the year to start setting this right by declaring it the Year of the Boy Child. We don’t need to go by what the UN has to say on this because for us this should be Priority No 1 as a society.
(Note: Parts of this article appeared in an earlier piece this author wrote last year) | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Nearly 50 civil servants who accused the Home Office of discrimination because of their age or ethnicity have secured more than £1m in compensation following a tribunal.
The 49 claimants were told they would need to undertake a Core Skills Assessment (CSA) if they were to be considered for promotion, which they all subsequently failed.
CSAs have been long criticised by unions that support Home Office staff, who say success rates for black or minority ethnic (BME) workers, or those older than 35, have been significantly lower than that of other employees.
The Home Office staff were advised that the CSA was discriminatory because of its disproportionate adverse effect, which acted as a bar to BME and older candidates achieving promotion.
Tribunal claims were initiated against the Home Office, which disputed the claims but agreed part way through the hearing– on 27 February – to settle, without admission of liability, and to pay the claimants compensation totalling more than £1m.
Before the hearing, the department supplied a series of internal reports to law firm representing the claimants, Thompsons, which agreed that the CSA unjustifiably treated BME and older workers unfairly.
Kate Lea, the executive at Thompsons Solicitors who acted for the applicants, said: “While the settlement represents a fantastic result for each claimant and the union, it is disappointing that the Home Office has not offered an apology for continuing to operate discriminatory systems, which was internally acknowledged as being incapable of justification.
“It defies belief that the Home Office knew of the internal findings yet decided to only disclose them the day before the tribunal hearing. The Home Office’s failure to cooperate until the very end caused an avoidable and costly legal battle – wasting time and taxpayer’s money.”
It is understood the Home Office no longer uses CSAs.
A Home Office spokesperson said: “The Home Office is committed to providing fair and equal opportunity for all of its employees.” | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Hello there! If you are new here, you might want to subscribe to the RSS feed for updates on this topic.
Pacific Coast Highway Motorcycle Ride
I am calling this ride the Pacific Coast Highway Motorcycle Ride because our destination this year is the Pacific Coast Highway. We will be riding other good motorcycle roads like I-70 with its beautiful sweeping curves through scenic mountain canyons and Washington State Highway 14 the Lewis and Clark Hwy Highway which hugs the scenic Columbia River through the Columbia River Gorge. I must say riding anywhere in the western U.S. is scenic with panoramic views and it has many good motorcycle roads.
This year, as in past years, I’m riding with the Larry’s. My old Air Force buddy Larry C. and his childhood friends Larry T. and Larry A. This is the first year all 3 of them have been able to make the ride. Because I’m always riding with one or more of the Larry’s, I’ve started telling everyone I will only ride with them if their name is Larry.
This year, we rode one of the roads on my ride bucket list. Janet and I have driven part of the Pacific Coast Highway from south to north. I knew then, I needed to ride it, but from north to south. The reason for riding north to the south is because the pullouts will be on the right side of the road. That way you only have to worry about one lane of traffic when pulling over and back onto the road. Also many of the pullouts are on points that restrict your vision to on-coming traffic. It makes for a tense situation when having to deal with two lanes of traffic when pulling back onto the roadway. Pulling on and off the road crossing two lanes in a car is intense and more so on a bike… Riding the Pacific Coast Highway, from the north to the south, was a good decision.
On this ride I planned two different return routes. For the original route we were to return on a more southern route via I-8 and I-10.The average temperatures along this route for September is in the triple digits. I planned an alternate more northern route where the average temperatures are about 15 degrees cooler. Before we committed to either route, we could look at the weather. As it turned out we took a modified version of the northern route back. Even on this route we managed to reach 103 degrees when riding into Needles, CA. Riding out of Gallup, NM was our coldest temperature for the ride of 35 degrees. Rather extreme for being just 395 miles apart but the elevations went from 495 feet in Needles, CA to 6467 feet in Gallup, NM. All in all the weather for this ride was pretty good over the entire trip. Just a sprinkle or two, clear to partly cloudy with fog in a few places and temperatures that were cool to warm for the most part. Great riding weather…
Larry C., Larry T. and Larry A. met me in Amarillo, Texas. They were riding in from Alabama and Georgia. From Amarillo we rode together 13 days taking in all the great scenery along the way. On day 13 we split up in Sweet Water, TX. I headed home and they headed back to Alabama and Georgia.
Below is a thumb nail sketch of our route and a few pictures as teasers. I will be posting ride stories about each day so check back from time to time “for the rest of the story”…
Day 1: I rode from Georgetown, TX to Amarillo, TX (470 miles) to meet the Larry’s. No stops except for gas, food and rest stops.
Day 2: Amarillo, TX to Georgetown, CO (476 miles) via Hwy 87 & I-25.
Day 3: Georgetown, CO to Ogden, UT (519 miles) via I-70, US 191 & I-15.
Day 4: Ogden, UT to Hermiston, OR (551 miles) via I-84.
Day 5: Hermiston, OR to Poulsbo, WA. (380 miles) Via WA 14, NFD 25, US-12, WA-123 to WA-410, WA-164, WA-18 & I-5.
Day 6: Poulsbo, WA to Garibaldi, OR (360 miles) via US 101.
Day 7: Garibaldi, OR to Coos Bay, OR (177 miles) via US 101.
Day 8: Coos Bay to Eureka, CA (215 miles) via US 101.
Day 9: Eureka, CA to El Granada, CA (331 miles) via US 101 & CA 1.
Day 10: El Granada, CA to Morro Bay, CA (216 miles) via CA 1.
Day 11: Morro Bay, CA to Needles (405 miles) via CA 41, CA 46, I-5, CA 58 & I-40.
Day 12: Needles, Ca to Gallup, NM (384 miles) via Historic Route 66 & I-40.
Day 13: Gallup, NM to Lubbock, TX (457 miles) via I-40 & US 84.
Day 14: Lubbock, TX to Home (354 miles) via US 84, TX-153, US-84, US-183 S to TX 29.. I left the Larry’s behind at Sweetwater, TX. I continued south toward home and they continue east on I-20 then I-30 to Alabama and Georgia.
For more pictures, have a look at the ride video below….
Ride safe and I hope we meet somewhere down the road… | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
The Jaguar E-Type is back, and this time it's got a brand-new green-friendly engine.
Although electric cars have come in with plans of banning petrol engines and saving the environment, it has always seemed like companies don’t even try with their designs. Designed for maximum efficiency, these ugly looking box-like structures are soon to be long forgotten. As companies are starting to bring in maximum beauty along with the efficiency factor.
Getting along with the elegant looks of the latest VW E-golf, Tesla’s models and BMW’s i8; Jaguar is soon to release what they believe is going to be the most beautiful E-car in the world.
Bringing back the classic E-types, once acclaimed by Enzo Ferrari as “the most beautiful car in the world”; Jaguar is cracking the codes to their own zero emissions vehicle which they call the E-type ‘Zero’, obviously.
Making its way into showrooms by 2018, the ‘Zero’ is based on the 1968 Series 1.5 Jaguar E-type Roadster, and will enable ‘green’ speed-enthusiasts to travel at a whopping 0-62mph in just 5.5 seconds; even quicker than the original E-type.
According to Tim Hannig, Director, Jaguar Land Rover Classic, “E-type Zero combines the renowned E-type dynamic experience with enhanced performance through electrification. This unique combination creates a breathtaking driving sensation."
“Our aim with E-type Zero is to future-proof classic car ownership. We’re looking forward to the reaction of our clients as we investigate bringing this concept to market.”
Not just elegant but also powerful, this E-type will hold an electric powertrain that develops 220kW, which is specifically designed for the ‘Zero’.
Its power is backed up by its efficiency; even its LED headlights are used to achieve energy efficiency.
The low weight speedster can also travel for a range of 270km (170 miles), holding in technology borrowed from the Land Rover’s upcoming I-PACE.
You can charge your 40kWh battery in just 6-7 hours and start your 'green' cruising, in your very opulent car. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Director James Gunn has shared a disappointing update regarding the start of production on his Marvel Studios movie Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.3.
As close followers of the filmmaker will know, his recent history with the franchise has been dogged by controversy, which first began with his sacking from the third instalment last year.
Hoping to resuscitate his career, Gunn quickly jumped onboard the soft DC reboot The Suicide Squad before Marvel eventually invited him back to the director's seat on Guardians 3.
Marvel Studios
Related: The Suicide Squad's James Gunn unveils first look at DC's Worst of the Worst
However, due to his commitments with DC, this means that his third Guardians blockbuster will obviously be delayed for a while.
Just how long it'll be delayed for hasn't been clear until now, with the filmmaker responding to a fan's question on his Instagram post.
Instagram
Gunn was showing off a "start-of-production gift" he received when one of his followers wrote: "Hey James quick question and correct me if I'm wrong. Are you filming Suicide Squad then going to do Guardians 3 afterwards?"
"You are correct," Gunn confirmed. "But I won't start Vol 3 until after Squad is finished editing, not filming."
This content is imported from Instagram. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.
Related: The Suicide Squad's James Gunn shuts down fan theory about Harley Quinn movie
Although this news unfortunately means that Guardians 3 won't enter production for at least another year (realistically 18 months), fans should take solace in the fact that he's totally focussed on The Suicide Squad.
You can't rush perfection, folks.
The Suicide Squad is released in cinemas on August 6, 2021.
Digital Spy is launching a newsletter – sign up to get it sent straight to your inbox.
Want up-to-the-minute entertainment news and features? Just hit 'Like' on our Digital Spy Facebook page and 'Follow' on our @digitalspy Instagram and Twitter accounts.
This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Welcome to Curbed Comparisons, where we explore what you can rent or buy for a set dollar amount in various Los Angeles neighborhoods. Is one man's studio another man's townhouse? Let's find out! Today's price: $900.
↑ Facing MacArthur Park, this "good space" (read: studio apartment) has a built-in vanity--previous tenants have no doubt spent hours sitting in front of it, gazing at their own image and wishing they were able afford to live somewhere with two rooms. The kitchen's black and white checkered floors are a great way to convey your love of ska (or your distaste for ska, as you'll literally be walking all over them on the way to your fridge). Rent is $850.
↑ This "huge" studio is located in Rampart Village, adjacent to the "hip, trendy area art district of Silver Lake" it purports to be in. According to the ad, the unit, which rents for $895, includes a "stainless steel refrigerator," but the one in the picture is white ... maybe they painted over it so it wouldn't clash with the bleak particle board cabinets? They aren't lyin' about "lots of natural light," though–-you'll be able to see everything you own, surrounding you, in crystal-clear fidelity!
↑ Tantalizingly close to Hancock Park, this vintage, 510-square-foot studio on West Third Street--actually in Koreatown--includes all utilities AND sports astroturf-esque carpeting, making it perfect for solo putting sessions. Rent is $899.
↑ While the words "luxury" and "Van Nuys" are rarely used in the same sentence, suspend your disbelief and let this "beautiful" one-bedroom, renting for $900, overwhelm you with its splendor. The building has two pools, a sauna, and a fitness center, making it a perfect crashpad for struggling actors attempting to stay commercial ready. It's close to the "City of Van Nuys' many attractions," which we assume means a stripmall and a carwash.
↑ Tired of all this studio apartment noise? Us too. Fly the Koreatown coop and book it to East LA-–there, a mere $915 a month'll net you a two-bedroom, hardwood-floored unit with central air. Income restrictions apply, but your worthless degree in English took care of that for you. --Megan Koester | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
We talked to the ever serene Keith “NAF-FLY” Markovic about their two-week boot camp, facing HellRaisers, the UK experience, and changing their playbook.
Photo Credit: (StarSeries)
Before even the Challenger stage, people were saying Team Liquid was a strong contender alongside FaZe, Na’Vi, and Astralis. After going 3-0 in the Challenger and LEGEND stage has it impacted your confidence going into the playoffs?
I guess going through the Challenge and LEGEND stage after going 6-0 with some tough matchups like Astralis and NiP we have been feeling really confident especially before we came here we had a two-week boot camp. This is the strongest we have ever felt together.
When we spoke to nitr0 in the legend stage, he said he didn’t want to play Astralis (for obvious reasons) but thought that you had a better chance to beat them in a best of three. You did win a best of one against them, but do you still have that confidence potentially going into a semifinal matchup against Astralis?
Obviously, beating them is a good sign since they have dominated us in three finals. Playing against them gives us a little confidence because they are beatable, but I can’t say that game was a breeze. If we meet them in the semifinals we can’t say we are going to beat them, it is going to be another tough game. If we meet them there, a lot of people will consider that match even ourselves will consider that the grand finals of the tournament, but if we meet them it will be a fun match.
Your first game in the playoffs will be against HellRaisers who have been an unpredictable team. How do you feel about that matchup?
With HellRaisers we beat them in the Challenger stage 16-9 on Inferno. The team is really fun with their two young stars woxic and ISSA, that’s the thing their team is really young they are a little bit inexperienced going onto a stage as big as this one they might crack under pressure and make a mistake they normally don’t. Who knows? Going in I’m going to feel very confident because we have five amazing players where they have two people they focus on. For them, they are going to have to be very lucky with timings maybe have some good timings or anti-strats. I think we win 2-0 but I am not going to underestimate them.
You were here for ECS S5 Finals in June where you lost to Astralis. How did you find the UK crowd and the environment here at Wembley?
I was here for S3 and S5 and it is an amazing Place. The fans are super nice nothing bad has happened. I enjoy eating Nandos its a great place and the crowd is great. I loved it every time I was here hopefully they can cheer really loud for us.
Looking at Liquid before and after the player break, I think the way you play now you added a lot of versatility. Before the player break, you fell into a lot of standard rounds. Do you think you agree with that?
We had a boot camp so came up with a lot more strategies and gimmicky plays. The more we played with each other in boot camp, challenger, and legend stage and even when we aren’t playing officials we are playing scrims the looser we play and everyone gets along. Hopefully, it all helps us win the major.
[zombify_post] | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
imageSPACE/REX/Shutterstock
Popular rapper Lil Uzi Vert releases a song called "Free Uzi" without permission from his record, amid drama about his unreleased album "Eternal Atake", which has had songs continuously leaked for the past few months. The song currently is sitting at 4 million views on YouTube.
| {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
How do I incorporate Soylent into my diet? We don’t want you to think of Soylent as an all-or-nothing proposition, a diet plan, or a trendy cleanse. Instead, think of Soylent as an antidote for the “Food Void.” A food void is any time you’re stuck without access to a good, quality meal. We’re not trying to replace the meals you love, but rather to save you from dining on a vending machine lunch or spending $10 on a limp salad. Most people find success replacing a few meals a week — often starting with breakfasts, or keeping a few bottles of Soylent on hand for when life gets busy. Some use Soylent for just about every meal, except when dining out or with friends, while others grab a bottle from the store when they’re on the go. See what works best for you!
What do you mean by "Complete Meal?" Soylent’s nutritional makeup is complex and comprehensive. It contains the elements of a nutritious diet while limiting the amounts of less desirable dietary components. Keep in mind that, while Soylent can replace any meal, it is not intended to replace every meal.
How long does my Soylent last? All products are marked with either an expiration date (EXP month/year), best by date (BEST BY month/day/year) or manufacturing date (MFG month/year). Our warehouses practice a first in/first out product rotation, so shelf life of received products can vary depending on warehouse location and available stock. It is our policy that no consumer will receive product with less than a two-month shelf life. If you receive a product with less than a two-month shelf life, please see our policy here.
The shelf life of Soylent products reflects the nutrition they contain. A year after production, the vitamin blend begins to lose its potency. Due to this loss in nutrition, we recommend consuming your Soylent before either the expiration, best by date, or within one year of the manufacturing date — depending on the product label.
If you notice that the flavor of your Soylent changes between packages, please check your product’s shelf life information and dispose if necessary.
What has changed in the Ready-to-Drink formula? First and foremost the flavor! We spent a lot of time optimizing our flavor profile with Soylent consumers to land on our new formulas. We used the latest in flavor & sweetener technology. Our new formulas are formulated with natural flavors, allulose and now contain only 1g of sugar, 39 essential nutrients and more unsaturated fat and omega 3s fatty acids.
Why Natural Flavors? With our latest formulas we wanted to use the latest in flavor and flavor masking technology and there are more advancements in natural flavors since that is where consumer demand lies.
Why is there less sugar but the calories/serving are still the same? We use a new carbohydrate blend which includes allulose. Allulose contributes little to calories and mediate the body's insulin response to other carbohydrates for a steady release of energy. To make up for these loss calories, we increased the plant oils we use so the drink has more fat. This also lead to an increase in omega 3 content in each drink to 600-700mg/serving depending on the flavor.
What is Allulose? Allulose is a naturally occurring low-calorie sweetening ingredient that offers the taste and mouthfeel of sugar with much less calories and no added sugar.
What is allulose made from? Allulose is not a sugar alcohol and can naturally be found in figs, raisins, molasses, and maple syrup and it can also be made through fermentation of several sources of carbohydrates. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Citizens groups across Ontario are sounding the alarm about the provincial government’s plans to amend the Endangered Species Act, 2007 (ESA). Here’s what you need to know:
1. The overall direction of the ESA review is environmental deregulation.
Don’t be fooled. Though the government claims that it wants to improve protections for species at risk, the options under consideration would make it easier for industry and development proponents to damage or destroy the habitats of species that get in the way of business.
2. The options under consideration would undermine the very cornerstones of the law.
The government is toying with alternatives to the fundamental “gold standard” requirements of the ESA: science-based listing of species at risk (including Indigenous Traditional Knowledge), mandatory protection of threatened and endangered species and their habitats, and legislated timelines for planning and reporting.
Canada warbler © Jeff Nadler
3. The science-based process for listing species at risk is in jeopardy.
Though the ESA already allows the Minister to request a review of a listing decision on the basis of “credible scientific information,” the government is fishing for even more freedom to meddle on the basis of “conflicting information.”
4. Protecting species at risk and their habitats may be left up to the Minister.
The government is considering alternatives to automatic species and habitat protections, including removing or delaying these protections at the discretion of the Minister. Such changes would leave our most vulnerable plants and animals subject to political whims and the influence of powerful industrial lobbyists.
Monarch butterfly © Noah Cole
5. The government may weaken requirements for authorizations to undertake harmful activities.
Industry and developers can proceed with harmful activities (e.g., killing members of threatened or endangered species, damaging or destroying their habitat) only if they have a permit or exemption. The government is looking for ways to make these authorizations less onerous so that they don’t stand in the way of economic development.
6. A “conservation fund” may replace on-the-ground reparation for permitted harmful activities.
Paying into a “conservation fund” may be the new easy-way-out for proponents of harmful activities. This option would make it easier and more likely for harmful activities to occur and will do nothing to protect our at-risk species and habitats.
Wolverine © Anna Yu
7. There may be broad authorizations for harmful activities.
Landscape-scale authorizations for harmful activities may replace project-specific authorizations.This sweeping approach doesn’t lend itself to addressing site-specific or species-specific concerns and consequently presents unwarranted additional risk for species already in peril.
8. Poor implementation of the ESA is the problem, not the law itself.
According to the Environmental Commissioner of Ontario’s 2017 report, the government “has utterly failed to implement the law effectively.” Challenges should be addressed through improved planning and investment in communications, program development and staffing, not environmental deregulation.
Blue racer © Ryan Wolfe
9. Many of the more innovative aspects of the ESA have never been fully implemented.
These include stewardship agreements and ecosystem or multi-species approaches to recovery planning. Putting these tools into practice offers much more promise for species at risk than streamlining approaches to damaging and destroying their habitats.
10. Ontarians have a global responsibility to conserve biodiversity.
We are now in the throes of the largest mass extinction since the disappearance of the dinosaurs more than 65 million years ago. We must do our utmost to honour our collective responsibility, under the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, to maintain and restore the web of life.
This is the Endangered Species Act, not the Endangered Business Act.
Please join us in urging the government not to weaken protections for species at risk!
You can download and print a handout version of this blog here. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
After receiving a supposed release date last week, the full NASA x Vans “Space Voyager” capsule is nearly upon us. Packed with distinct sneaker silhouettes and complementary clothing, the collection commemorates NASA’s 60 years of innovation and space exploration.
Vans’ Sk8-Hi MTE and Old Skool silhouettes receive thematic makeovers in line with the futuristic influences. The Sk8-Hi 46 MTE DX is issued in two makeups — black or white — sporting grain leather uppers and exposed foam on the shaft. Another distinctive duo, the two Old Skool sneakers boast either a spacesuit-orange colorway or simple white, placing emphasis on the NASA branding and extended tongue pulls. Each shoe boasts ridged midsoles (recalling space boots) and removable NASA patches, held on by velcro, which can be swapped between shoes.
Joining the footwear offering are three jackets — the black/orange Vans Space Anorak and two colorways of the Space Torrey Padded MTE jacket. The latter sports more NASA branding and Apollo 11-indebted imagery, tying in with a white long-sleeve pullover & black T-shirt and hoodie. To round out the drop, the collaboration includes a duo of bags executed in similar colors. The Grind Skate Duffel is reimagined in that familiar bold orange, while the Snag Plus Backpack is granted a muted black and white makeover.
Look for the collection to hit Vans’ website and HBX on November 2 along with a matching selection of kids gear.
Elsewhere, NASA joined Anicorn for a special timepiece. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
You have an idea for an amazing new product. You know it’s going to be big, huge even. Something that will almost certainly sell itself once it hits the market. The next best thing since sliced bread!
But then you start researching. You get overwhelmed. You don’t know where to start or who to turn to for advice. Will your idea even work in reality? Will someone try to steal it?
You scour the internet looking for answers to all the questions you have, only to find there’s not much out there that will help put you on the right track (we know, we looked, it’s sad).
It doesn’t have to be that way. We have scoured the internet looking for all the questions people wanting to create a new product ask about design, prototyping and development. Then we picked the most common and important ones and combined them with the advice we give clients on a daily basis.So maybe you give up. You resign your product idea to a shelf in your basement, never to see the light of day. Or even worse you see someone beat you to it, produce almost exactly the same thing the next year and go on to make thousands or millions of dollars. When making a new product, it is a great idea to have product liability. My friend didn’t have legal representation when making his new product and he put his great product out on the market and got slammed with a lawsuit because of a defective product. Becker Law (https://www.beckerlaw.com/) is fantastic at dealing with these kinds of cases.
The end result is what you’re reading: the most in-depth guide for taking your ideas from concept to production, affordably and with the least amount of overwhelm possible out there on the internet.
Use the table of contents to jump to a section below, or read the whole thing for the full picture. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Amazon launches its own virtual currency called Coins and gives 'tens of millions' away for free to US Kindle owners
One Amazon Coin is worth one US penny
Coins can be bought in batches of 1000 and Kindle Users have been given 500 Coins for free
Plans to launch Coins in the UK and for non-Kindle users have not yet been announced
Amazon has launched its own currency called Amazon Coins.
It's currently only available in the States for Kindle Fire owners, but the Coins can be used to pay for games, apps and in-app purchases from the Amazon Appstore.
One Amazon Coin is worth one US penny, and Kindle Fire owners are getting 500 Coins ($5) for free as part of the launch.
Amazon has launched its own virtual currency called Coins in the US. It is only available for Kindle Fire users, for the time being, but can be used to buy games, apps and in-app purchases from the Kindle Appstore, as well as buy items from Amazon's retail store
MICROSOFT POINTS
Microsoft Points are the currency of the Xbox Live Marketplace, Games for Windows Marketplace, Windows Live Gallery, Xbox Music and Video online stores.
Points can be used to buy content from the respective stores.
They can be bought using a credit card and the credit card can then be removed.
This means parents can buy their children Points to spend on games and upgrades, and control how much they spend without adding a credit card to the account. However, in October 2012, Windows 8 began support local currency in the Xbox Video Store instead of relying on Microsoft Points.
This suggests that Microsoft may move away from its virtual currency, in the same way Facebook did with its Credits scheme last year.
The Coins will also be able to be used on the company's retail site when they become more widely available.
Amazon has not yet confirmed when the scheme will be launched outside of the US, or if it will be available to non-Kindle users.
Amazon Coins can be bought in batches of 1000, 2500, 5000 and 10,000.
The more you buy, the bigger the discount and 10,000 Coins costs $90, for example.
Customers will also get a 10% discount on items bought using Amazon Coins.
Amazon isn't the first company to introduce it's own currency; Microsoft Xbox and Windows Live customers can use Microsoft Points to pay for games, upgrades, bonus levels and so on.
Amazon Coins are only currently available in the US. The company has not yet confirmed when the scheme will come to the UK. All Kindle Fire users in America have been given 500 Coins worth $5 for free, to spend in the Kindle Appstore
Nintendo similarly has Nintendo Points that can be used in the Wii Shop Channel.
Facebook launched Facebook Credits in 2009, which could be used for apps and games on the social network site, but scrapped the scheme last year in favour of local currency.
Amazon has said it has launched its Coins program as a way for developers to make more money by making it easier for shoppers to buy apps and games.
It hopes Coins will make it easier for customers to pay for items because they can buy and store Coins in their Amazon Appstore accounts to use as and when.
It can also be a way for parents to control how much children spend, negating the need to have a credit card attached to the account.
Amazon already accepts card payments and gift cards for Kindle purchases and has said that these payment options will remain.
Amazon developers had until April 25 to submit their app if they wanted it to run on the new Coins currency.
| {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
"
We will work closely with you and try our best to resolve any issues. We're here to help! We will get back to you promptly.
"
Item description | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Ricardel, who serves as national security adviser John Bolton’s right-hand woman, got into a spat with aides to Melania after they asked to use National Security Council resources for the First Lady’s trip to Africa last month, people familiar with the matter told The Wall Street Journal. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
I was excited from the moment I spotted the Pens & Stationery Exchange announcement because it's so up my alley -- I'm the type of person who will start over on a grocery list if I mess something up and have to cross out a bunch of stuff... I'd rather take a couple minutes to start over and make everything look nice than be bothered by the ugly chicken scratch until I go to the grocery store. So, that being said, my awesome match did a fantastic job sorting through my profile suggestions and sending me a pens & stationery care package that I love :)
Thank you so much for being so on top of it, by the way! I received my gift before the ship date had even come around. I brought everything to work with me to spruce up my desk and make my notes more lively and exciting, and all my coworkers have made comments about my cute new stuff. I'm so excited about everything, I want to extend one more huge THANK YOU to my match! | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Iraq War veteran Zachary Muñoz suffers from chronic back pain and the lingering effects of a traumatic brain injury, but he knows he is lucky to be alive.
A bomb exploded under his military vehicle in 2007, throwing the former weapons intelligence team member against the window, injuring his head, shoulder and back. The ground below the vehicle contained about 200 pounds of homemade explosives, he later learned.
Two years earlier, Mr. Muñoz had injured his back when he slipped on ice trying to move a large ammunition box filled with grenade shells, contributing to his current chronic pain.
About 44% of military service members experience chronic pain after combat deployment, compared to only 26% of the general population, a JAMA Internal Medicine article shows.
Dr. Suneetha Budampati, executive physician for the National Spine and Pain Centers, said that service members can experience extreme physical and mental strain, combat injuries and post-traumatic stress — each of which can contribute to chronic pain.
To honor and thank veterans, the National Spine and Pain Centers offered free spine exams Monday to men and women who have served in the military.
“They’ve really put themselves in harm’s way, and I don’t think anyone chooses to get injured and to suffer with chronic pain for the rest of their life,” Dr. Budampati said. “If a veteran is out there defending my freedom and my civil liberties and my way of life, the least I can do is give back with the training I’ve had.”
Mr. Muñoz, who has been treated by Dr. Budampati for two years, has tried various treatments to ease his back pain including steroid injections, radiofrequency therapy and medications.
Arnald Gabriel, who served in World War II, also has visited the pain centers for treatment. He spent 200 days in combat and fought in the Battle of the Bulge, where he lost two colleagues in the same machine gun squad.
A former machine gunner, Mr. Gabriel recalled how he had to cart around 64 pounds of gear through Europe between 1944 and 1945. He said the chronic pain he experiences in his lower back is partially due to carrying the heavy military equipment.
After World War II, he spent 34 years as a military band director with the Air Force until he retired in 1985. He said he has been experiencing chronic back pain since the 1990s.
To help treat his back pain, Mr. Gabriel receives steroid injections at the pain center’s clinic in Arlington, Virginia, once a month.
“A lot of people are living with pain who are too reluctant to have it assessed,” he said. “Many of us live with pain and do nothing about it, but we should.”
Michael Anderson, a Desert Storm veteran who sustained a severe injury to his neck, said he encourages veterans to seek treatment outside of the Department of Veterans Affairs if they can afford it.
Another regular visitor of the spine and pain center, Mr. Anderson said he has been able to keep his pain at a manageable level, helping him live a more normal life after his time in the military.
Despite his injuries, Mr. Muñoz said he has no regrets about serving in the military and expressed gratitude for his fellow veterans and those on active duty.
“I can’t thank any veteran enough for what they do and what they’ve done for us,” he said. “I have a huge love and respect for any and every branch.”
“Now that I’ve served and I got two little kids, it means a lot to me to know that there’s new generations of veterans signing up and protecting us and keeping the fight away from here, away from my kids,” he said. “It means everything.”
Sign up for Daily Newsletters Manage Newsletters
Copyright © 2020 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Slain UPS driver's family questions police response to chase Experts on police tactics are defending the Florida officers who opened fire on a UPS truck that had been hijacked by two robbery suspects
MIAMI -- Relatives of a UPS driver killed after robbery suspects took him hostage on a wild police chase across South Florida questioned Friday why officers had to unleash a torrent of gunfire when the truck got stuck in rush-hour traffic.
Both suspects, 41-year-old cousins Lamar Alexander and Ronnie Jerome Hill, were killed along with the driver, Frank Ordonez, and another motorist, 70-year-old Richard Cutshaw, who was waiting at a busy intersection when officers ran up and opened fire from behind the cars of innocent bystanders.
The chase and final shootout were broadcast live on television, including the moment when one of the men tumbled out of the truck, mortally wounded.
Ordonez's family said the father of two was filling in on someone else’s route Thursday when the robbery suspects commandeered his truck.
“I saw on TV when he fell, and I knew it was him. I saw how they killed my brother,” Luis Ordonez told The Associated Press on Friday.
He said the “police were insane. Instead of talking to them, they just started shooting. I know they (the robbery suspects) were shooting back at them, but it was easy to just cover behind police cars. They could have just covered themselves."
News helicopters showed first responders tending to the person who fell from the truck, moments after the gunfire ended in Miramar, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) north of the jewelry store robbery.
FBI Special Agent in Charge George Piro was asked at a news conference Thursday night whether either the UPS driver or the other victim could've been killed by police bullets.
“It is very, very early on in the investigation, and it would be completely inappropriate to discuss that,” Piro said. “We have just began to process the crime scene."
A fundraising appeal by Ordonez’s brother Roy accused the officers of being “trigger happy” and said “they could have killed many more people.”
Multiple agencies were involved in the chase and shootout. But Coral Gables Police Chief Ed Hudak suggested the blame belongs with the robbery suspects.
“This is what dangerous people do to get away,” Hudak said. “And this is what people will do to avoid capture.”
Thor Eells, executive director of the National Tactical Officers Association, said officers confronting the boxed-in UPS truck faced a tough situation. The robbers appeared to be firing at them, endangering not only Ordonez but dozens of people in surrounding cars. He said the officers had to stop the suspects by containing them to the UPS truck and returning fire.
"We have a situation with one hostage and the two suspects -- what happens if one of them runs 10 feet and takes over a city bus with 50 riders? Now we have a situation that is 50 times worse," Eells told the AP. Had the truck stopped in an isolated area, officers could have pulled back and negotiated, but not in the middle of a crowded street, he said.
It all started shortly after 4 p.m. Thursday, when police in Coral Gables received a silent alarm at the Regent Jewelers store in the city's Miracle Mile area. Police said two suspects were at the store and shots were being fired when nearby police arrived, summoned by a silent alarm from inside the store. A store worker was hit in the head by a ricocheting bullet, police said.
The suspects carjacked Ordonez’s delivery truck, leading officers on a chase into southern Broward County, running red lights and narrowly avoiding crashes. One rear door of the UPS truck was partly open, as well as the driver and passenger-side doors, enabling gunfire along the way. The UPS truck finally stopped in a middle lane at the busy intersection, caught behind a wall of other vehicles waiting for the light to turn green.
Katherine Gonzalez said officers were in front of her vehicle, a few feet away from the UPS truck, when the shootout started “out of nowhere."
“It was shocking," she said.
Ordonez lived with his mother and stepfather, Joe Merino, after his recent separation from the mother of his 3- and 5-year-old daughters. Merino said Ordonez would buy sneakers for his daughters if he wanted a pair for himself.
“He wanted to match. That’s the kind of father he was," Merino said. Ordonez also had recently bought a Christmas inflatable of Santa Claus and his reindeer that his mother wanted but couldn’t get herself and some others of “Toy Story” and “Nightmare Before Christmas” characters so his girls would be surprised.
“He was a really good kid,” Merino said.
Cutshaw died driving home from his job with a union, the Government Supervisors Association of Florida. Donald Slesnick, an attorney for the union and a former Coral Gables mayor, said Cutshaw was a highly respected negotiator because “he didn't let things become personal battles between himself and management.”
“Rick always had a positive attitude and a smile on his face," Slesnick said. He said Cutshaw's only surviving relative is a brother.
Both suspects had criminal histories: Court records show Alexander was sentenced to probation for a 1996 robbery and 1997 burglary. Five arrests in the 2000s resulted in no convictions before he served a lengthy stretch in prison for a 2008 armed robbery conviction in southwest Florida, gaining his release in 2017.
Florida Department of Corrections records show Hill served time in prison twice: in the 1990s on burglary and robbery convictions and more recently for five burglary-related convictions.
Naomi Hill, the aunt of both suspects, said Alexander was "a good boy -- he had changed his life around." She said he was married with three children and working for a garbage-collection company.
April Wyche, the sister of Ronnie Hill, said he was the father of two young children, one with special needs, and was working as a driver for a cabinetry company. She said she has no idea why he would have committed the robbery, saying he could have turned to her or their mother for help if needed. She wanted to apologize to the victims' families.
“No words can express how truly sorry we are," Wyche said, weeping. “We are praying for them.”
———
This story has been corrected to show that one of the victims' names was Richard Cutshaw, not Richard Capshaw. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
El jugador del primer equip Leo Messi té una elongació a l’adductor de la cuixa esquerra. És baixa i la seva evolució en marcarà la disponibilitat.
El crac argentí, premiat amb el premi The Best de la FIFA el dilluns passat, va disputar els primers 45 minuts del duel d’aquest dimarts contra el Vila-real (2-1), en el seu primer partit com a titular després de la lesió al soli que es va fer a la pretemporada. Malgrat només jugar el primer temps, Messi va tenir temps de demostrar la seva gran qualitat, a més de fer una assistència a Griezmann en el primer gol barcelonista quan va servir el córner que acabaria amb la rematada de cap del francès.
Més notícies aquí | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Cloud native applications are the future of software development. Container-packaged, dynamically managed, and microservice-oriented, cloud native systems enable faster development velocity while maintaining operational stability.
Kubernetes is an open source container orchestration platform. It is designed to automate your management of application containers, from deploying and scaling to operating. Kubernetes orchestration allows you to partition as you go scaling up and down as necessary. You can respond quickly and efficiently to customer demand while limiting hardware usage and minimizing disruption to feature rollouts.
GitLab CI (Continuous Integration) service is a part of GitLab that build and test the software whenever developer pushes code to application. GitLab CI/CD lets you easily manage deployments to multiple environments. Run automated tests in parallel with auto-scaling GitLab Runners.
Deployment through GitLab
Configuring environment variables
The following environment variables need to be configured in gitlab:
KUBE_URL ->The kubernetes cluster URL
->The kubernetes cluster URL KUBE_TOKEN ->The Kubernetes token of the environment service account.
->The Kubernetes token of the environment service account. KUBE_CA_PEM ->Raw PEM data. Only if a custom CA bundle was specified.
From the gitlab UI, navigate to your project’s Settings > CI/CD and expand Variables. Create a new variable by choosing its type, naming it in the field Input variable key, and defining its value in the Input variable value field:
The KUBE_TOKEN value can be retrieved from kubernetes by running this command and copying the token value:
kubectl -n kube-system describe secret $(kubectl -n kube-system get secret | grep eks-admin | awk '{print $1}')
Configuring Gitlab CI/CD
Once you have a running Kubernetes cluster, you can deploy your containerized applications on top of it. To do so, you create a Kubernetes Deployment configuration: E.g. deployment.yaml
The Deployment instructs Kubernetes how to create and update instances of your application. Once you’ve created a Deployment, the Kubernetes master schedules mentioned application instances onto individual Nodes in the cluster.
The .gitlab-ci.yml file is where you configure what CI does with your project. It lives in the root of your repository.
In this file you will add the stage responsible of Kubernetes deployment (E.g. deploy) and add the following configuration:
... deploy:
image: centos
stage: deploy
before_script:
— curl -LO https://storage.googleapis.com/kubernetes-release/release/`curl -s https://storage.googleapis.com/kubernetes-release/release/stable.txt`/bin/linux/amd64/kubectl
— chmod +x ./kubectl
— mv ./kubectl /usr/bin/kubectl
— kubectl config set-cluster clusterName --server=”$KUBE_URL” --certificate-authority=”$KUBE_CA_PEM”
— kubectl config set-credentials admin --token=”$KUBE_TOKEN”
— kubectl config set-context default —-cluster=clusterName --user=admin
— kubectl config use-context default
script:
— kubectl apply -f deployment.yaml ...
In this example we use the centos image but you can use any supporting curl command.
The before_script section is responsible of downloading and installing the kubectl binary and setting up the connection to the kubernetes cluster.
The script section contains the command that creates and updates resources in the cluster.
If you don’t want to use the KUBE_CA_PEM, instead of option certificate-authority=”$KUBE_CA_PEM” you can use insecure-skip-tls-verify=true.
Conclusion
With this configuration you will be able to automatically connect to kubernetes and use the kubectl command from Gitlab CI/CD.
Combining this stage with the ones that build, test and dockerize your application will create a complete CI workflow. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to attendees as he departs his infrastructure initiative meeting at the White House in Washington, U.S., February 12, 2018. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House has no formal plans to enact a “reciprocal tax,” a Trump administration official said Tuesday, contradicting President Donald Trump’s comments.
Trump said Monday the United States would “charge countries outside of our country... We’re going to be doing very much a reciprocal tax and you’ll be hearing about that during the week.” The administration official said Tuesday “there is nothing formal in the works right now” on reciprocal taxes. The official suggested Trump was trying to reiterate his long-standing support for a reciprocal tax. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
When I was 8... I had no idea making my vagina 'tickle' with the bath faucet was masturbating. I thought I had special talent.
344,045 shares | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Endurance racing star and NASCAR Rookie of the Year Andy Lally joined Global Mazda MX-5 Cup for the MX-5 Cup Challenge at Sebring
Andy Lally, whose regular ride is in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship with Magnus Racing in the GT Daytona class, wasn’t aware of the Global Mazda MX-5 Cup Challenge race until he walked into the Laguna Seca paddock last year. There to drive for Magnus in the California 8 Hour round of the Intercontinental GT Challenge, someone joked that since he raced everything, he must be racing in the MX-5 Cup Challenge as well.
“I heard that Mazda put up this gigantic purse for a one-off race that weekend,” the four-time Rolex 24 at Daytona GT class winner says. “I said that would be pretty cool and made a mental note for if they did it next year. As 2018 rolled around, I’d forgotten about it, and my buddy Todd Lamb, who lives just down the road from me, gave me a ring and said, ‘I remember you having an interest. I’m going for it and I think it would be helpful to have a teammate to have a drafting partner. If you feel like it, I’ve got a second car you could use and we could hook you up.’ I said absolutely; it seemed like a cool challenge to try to adapt to something in a day of practice and get out there with the best guys on the planet that race these things.”
Scheduled to take place with the Michelin IMSA SportsCar Encore at Sebring International Raceway, the Global Mazda MX-5 Cup Challenge brings the best MX-5 Cup racers from around the world for a shot at a $50,000 prize. This year, as last, the Battery Tender® Global Mazda MX-5 Cup presented by BFGoodrich Tires champion took home the big prize (Patrick Gallagher in 2017, Nathanial Sparks this year), but Lally had a good time, adapted quickly and had a good shot at it. He was even in position to win the second race until a mechanical problem struck.
“As expected, it was going to be a subtle art how you handle that specific car, that tire, that wheelbase, the power-to-weight ratio,” Lally says. “I took what I learned in the first race where I was a little bit sloppy here and there and learned from a couple of the good guys that I was following and racing with. I learned what to focus on and what was sort of white noise; what I could ignore. I was able to almost capitalize on it in race two, as we were in a really good position and I felt comfortable to fight at the front with all of those guys. It was an absolute blast, [but] the car unfortunately our day a bit early after we led a whole bunch of laps.”
For Lally, who also races street luge, it was fun to go racing on a no-pressure weekend. He drove down to Florida, stopping at a few skate parks along the way and even visited one in Orlando after the test day on Wednesday to hit a cool skate park, something he’d never do on a regular race weekend.
And the Global MX-5 Cup car presents a different challenge from a stock car or a GT3 car – he raced an Audi R8 LMS GT3 for Magnus in 2018, and the team will switch to the Lamborghini Huracán for next season.
“With the GT3 cars, even the stock cars, in fast corners, the front of those cars are making a lot of downforce, and if you get in dirty air, get right on somebody’s bumper, it’s very tricky to keep your speed and not lose the downforce,” Lally explains. “With MX-5 Cup cars, you don’t have to worry about that at all, and they are so closely paired. The fact that those tires really don’t fade – I think I set my fast lap of the first race on the last lap – that’s extremely unusual. The fuel burn helps with lap times because the tire is still there; you can push that tire the whole time.”
He adds that what he really needed to learn was the drivers and how close he could run with each of them. “I needed to be really close to these guys coming off the corner if I expected to get a run. By the time we get to the apex, our foot is flat on the gas, and if you haven’t beaten that guy to the power and you’re not right on his bumper, it’s going to be tricky to make a move there. The proximity of the racing is awesome. It would be great if every race car on the planet could race that close,” he says.
Lally finished sixth in his first MX-5 Cup race, and led five laps of the 10 he ran in the second. He says it’s something he’d love to make a yearly tradition. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Audio of Paris Jackson's 911 call has been released by Los Angeles Fire Department revealing details about the teenager's apparent suicide attempt. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Facebook suddenly says a bunch of its users are dead. Don’t panic.
Over the last half hour or so, reports have started pouring in from Facebook users that the social network has suddenly “memorialized” their pages, strongly suggesting that they are dead to everyone who stops by.
Take the above profile of our own Darrell Etherington — who is very much not dead, as in I’m talking to him right now and I’m definitely not Bruce Willis.
“We hope people who love Darrell will find comfort in the things others share to remember and celebrate his life” it reads.
The issue seems to be fairly random; it’s not popping up on everyone’s profile, but it’s certainly happening on a lot of them, including Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.
https://twitter.com/stevekovach/status/797177651261751296/
Probably not the best time to get something like this wrong, Facebook.
We’ve reached out to Facebook to figure out wtf is happening.
Update: In a quote from a Facebook rep, the company says they’ve fixed it and they’re sorry.
“For a brief period today, a message meant for memorialized profiles was mistakenly posted to other accounts. This was a terrible error that we have now fixed. We are very sorry that this happened and we worked as quickly as possible to fix it.”
FB talking to me like I’m already dead pic.twitter.com/D2YxdPJmRC — Alexia Bonatsos (@alexia) November 11, 2016
in other news, Facebook's algorithm thinks that i ****died**** based on the messages i'm getting #RIPme pic.twitter.com/IfoCDumNCi — Elaine Filadelfo (@ElaineF) November 11, 2016 | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Police body camera footage from Venus William's fatal crash has emerged showing a cop telling the tennis star she is at fault.'You kind of violated his right of way,' the officer told Williams after the June 9 wreck that killed Jerome Barson, 78, and left his wife Linda with 'disfiguring injuries.'Body camera footage from cops at the scene in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, shows the officer approaching Williams' car.'What seems to have happened is from the time that you entered North Lake Boulevard and stopped, the westbound light changed to green, and that car was westbound in the right lane, so you kind of violated his right of way,' they told the tennis star. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
If nothing else, this will remind everyone of the risks associated with government bailouts. In principle, they sound like a good idea in a time of crisis. In practice, however, the incentives to use them as slush funds for the well-connected are just too darned tasty to pass up. Case in point — Hunter Biden’s profit off of a bailout program his father was heavily promoting, as the Washington Examiner reported this morning.
The Cayman Islands tax dodge is just the icing on the swampy cake:
An investment firm linked to Hunter Biden received over $130 million in federal bailout loans while his father Joe Biden was vice president and routed profits through a subsidiary in the Cayman Islands, according to federal banking and corporate records reviewed by the Washington Examiner. Financial experts said the offshore corporate structure could have been used to shield earnings from United States taxes. Rosemont Capital, an investment firm at the center of Hunter Biden’s much-scrutinized financial network, was one of the companies approved to participate in the 2009 federal loan program known as the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility, or TALF.
Hoo boy. This has everything a scandal needs except for the sex. Oh, wait …
TALF was the follow-on to the more well-known Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP), a program launched by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. While TARP aimed to stabilize the overall banking and finance sectors in regard to mortgages, TARF ostensibly targeted the consumer-lending markets by indemnifying the purchase of collapsed bonds. Paulson started TARF in late November 2008 with a reserve of $200 billion in government-guaranteed loans to investors willing to put up some of their own cash to deal with the bad assets in consumer credit lending.
It only got to spend $43 billion, however, because Congress started getting suspicious of just how those loan decisions were made. Eight years ago, Matt Taibbi reported for Rolling Stone on $220 million that went to spouses of well-connected Wall Street investors, which was emblematic of suspicions about the crony-capitalism operation of TARF.
“This is what welfare for the rich looks like,” Taibbi wrote at the time:
But if you want to get a true sense of what the “shadow budget” is all about, all you have to do is look closely at the taxpayer money handed over to a single company that goes by a seemingly innocuous name: Waterfall TALF Opportunity. At first glance, Waterfall’s haul doesn’t seem all that huge — just nine loans totaling some $220 million, made through a Fed bailout program. That doesn’t seem like a whole lot, considering that Goldman Sachs alone received roughly $800 billion in loans from the Fed. But upon closer inspection, Waterfall TALF Opportunity boasts a couple of interesting names among its chief investors: Christy Mack and Susan Karches. Christy is the wife of John Mack, the chairman of Morgan Stanley. Susan is the widow of Peter Karches, a close friend of the Macks who served as president of Morgan Stanley’s investment-banking division. Neither woman appears to have any serious history in business, apart from a few philanthropic experiences. Yet the Federal Reserve handed them both low-interest loans of nearly a quarter of a billion dollars through a complicated bailout program that virtually guaranteed them millions in risk-free income. The technical name of the program that Mack and Karches took advantage of is TALF, short for Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility. But the federal aid they received actually falls under a broader category of bailout initiatives, designed and perfected by Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, called “giving already stinking rich people gobs of money for no f***ing reason at all.” If you want to learn how the shadow budget works, follow along. This is what welfare for the rich looks like. … A key aspect of TALF is that the Fed doles out the money through what are known as non-recourse loans. Essentially, this means that if you don’t pay the Fed back, it’s no big deal. The mechanism works like this: Hedge Fund Goon borrows, say, $100 million from the Fed to buy crappy loans, which are then transferred to the Fed as collateral. If Hedge Fund Goon decides not to repay that $100 million, the Fed simply keeps its pile of crappy securities and calls everything even. This is the deal of a lifetime. Think about it: You borrow millions, buy a bunch of crap securities and stash them on the Fed’s books. If the securities lose money, you leave them on the Fed’s lap and the public eats the loss. But if they make money, you take them back, cash them in and repay the funds you borrowed from the Fed. “Remember that crazy guy in the commercials who ran around covered in dollar bills shouting, ‘The government is giving out free money!’ ” says Black. “As crazy as he was, this is making it real.”
It’s also what welfare for the politically connected in Washington looks like. At the same time TARF was making Mack and Karches even more rich than ever, Hunter Biden was bellying up to the same government trough:
Biden, Heinz, and Archer incorporated Rosemont Seneca Partners in Delaware on June 25, 2009. The “alternative investment and market advisory firm” was an offshoot of Rosemont Capital, which held a 50% stake in the new venture. Rosemont Seneca and Rosemont Capital shared the same office address in lower Manhattan and the same New York phone number, according to Securities and Exchange Commission documents. Three weeks after Rosemont Seneca was incorporated, a subsidiary of Rosemont Capital called Rosemont TALF SPV, received $23.5 million in federal loans through the TALF program. This included $13.4 million to invest in student loans and $11.1 million to invest in subprime auto loans. Over five months, the company received a total of $130 million from the program in multiple installments for investments in subprime credit cards and residential mortgages.
And let’s not forget that it was Rosemont Seneca Partners that scored in China when Joe Biden was directing policy there, too. It didn’t take TALF to make bank off Biden père.
Was TALF a good idea in theory? Perhaps, but only in theory. The lending markets had gotten distorted through previous government interventions, creating riskier and riskier lending situations that only took a short recession to trigger into a catastrophic financial collapse. Government had tried to pick winners in lending markets and either incentivized or outright mandated lenders to ignore common risk factors, as well as preventing them from pricing the risk with realistic interest rates.
But at least that process of picking winners didn’t involve picking cronies and nepotism. TALF clearly did the latter. Even if it was necessary to clear the dead assets out, it would have been better to absorb them outright and then to unwind them later rather than set up slush funds for contributors’ spouses and ne’er-do-well establishment scions. That’s one reason why Congress pushed back hard enough on TALF to shut it down and to force the Fed to open its books on both TALF and TARP.
The question now is what Joe Biden’s political opponents will make of this. Bernie Sanders’ team was vocally aghast at the TALF revelations in 2011, saying that “our jaws are literally dropping as we’re reading this. Every one of these transactions is outrageous.” Will Sanders and Warren raise this as an attack on Biden’s integrity? If they don’t, others lower in the polls might, especially Kamala Harris, whose fortunes initially rose with a momentarily effective attack on Biden.
If they don’t raise this issue in the primaries and Biden wins the nomination, Democrats had better brace for the general-election attacks Team Trump will levy constantly and consistently over this. They will argue that Biden and Obama sold out America by using the bailout funds to paper the nests of family and friends … and it certainly appears that’s precisely what happened.
Addendum: Oh, and Ukraine wants Hunter Biden to repay $16.5 million back as part of the corruption linked to Burisma and its oligarch owner Mykola Zlochevsky. Biden might still have some of those TALF assets handy … | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Greece will not implement reform measures beyond those agreed at an emergency summit earlier this month, prime minister Alexis Tsipras has said, amid signs Greece’s creditors may demand further reforms before disbursing funds ahead of an August 20th deadline.
Officials from the European Commission and European Central Bank have been in situ in Athens since Monday, with the International Monetary Fund’s mission chief due to arrive by tomorrow, as negotiations continue on a third bailout package for Greece.
Bridge loan
The European Commission yesterday denied reports of tensions between the two sides in the negotiations, reporting “constructive co-operation” between the troika and the Greek authorities this week.
Meanwhile IMF managing director Christine Lagarde reiterated her call for Greece’s debt burden to be reduced. “For Greece to have success and any programme to fly, a significant debt restructuring should take place,” she said in Washington.
Following months of acrimonious negotiations, Greece agreed to a third bailout package worth more than €80 billion after all-night talks in Brussels earlier this month.
While the bailout agreement did not contain specific targets on primary surplus figures, creditors have consistently demanded a primary surplus as a key condition for aid. Given the deterioration in the Greek economy over the last few months, it is virtually certain its key economic indicators will fall far short of predictions.
In an interview on Greek radio yesterday, Mr Tsipras said the primary budget balance before debt service would at best break even, but could show a deficit this year, though he insisted Greece would only implement reforms as set out in the July 13th agreement.
Mr Tsipras, who is facing continuing criticism from within his own party about the terms of the bailout package, will face fellow Syriza members at a key meeting of the party today. Yesterday, he criticised the dissenters, accusing them of trying to “manipulate” last month’s referendum result.
“The Greek people voted No to a bad deal, they did not vote for an exit from the euro,” he told Greek radio, adding that he would not be “blackmailed”.
He said he had “no regrets” about how he handled the Greek crisis over the last five months, arguing that Greece was now front-page news and had been presented in “a positive light”.
Criminal charges
Meanwhile, the ECB reportedly left its provision of emergency funding to Greek banks at just under €91 billion during its regular conference call on the liquidity situation yesterday. The ECB raised the emergency liquidity assistance cap by €900 million last week.
Capital controls, which were first introduced on June 28th, remain in place in Greece. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Compared to the Earth’s early atmosphere , the modern atmosphere is oxygen-rich. It contains:
less water vapour
less carbon dioxide
more oxygen
Question Name the most abundant gas in the modern atmosphere. Reveal answer up down Nitrogen.
Water vapour
The Earth cooled after it formed. When it became cool enough, water vapour in the atmosphere condensed . It fell as rain, creating the oceans.
Carbon dioxide
Carbon dioxide is a very soluble gas. It dissolves readily in water. As the oceans formed, carbon dioxide dissolved and the amount of it in the atmosphere decreased.
Oxygen
Plants make their own food by photosynthesis . In this process, carbon dioxide from the atmosphere reacts with water. Glucose is produced, with oxygen as a by-product .
Photosynthesis by primitive plants and algae caused the removal of carbon dioxide from the air, and the release of oxygen. This had two effects:
the amount of carbon dioxide decreased further
the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere gradually increased | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Ireland failed to qualify for the Eurovision Song Contest final tonight, despite a confident performance by Molly Sterling. The 17-year-old from Co Tipperary sang Playing with Numbers – which she co-wrote with Greg French – with maturity, and made a good connection to the camera at some points in her performance.
She spontaneously expressed joy and relief just after the song finished, clapping her hand to her mouth and grinning broadly.
“I’ve had the time of my life,” said Sterling after the results were announced. “To be in the final would have been a bonus but to get to Eurovision and represent my country in the first place has been a privilege.”
RTÉ’s head of Eurovision delegation Michael Kealy said, “I think I can speak for the whole country when I say how proud we are of Molly. It was an absolute pleasure to work with this talented young songwriter and it goes without saying that she has a fantastic future ahead of her.”
As widely expected, front-runner Sweden qualified with the slickly produced Heroes, sung by Måns Zelmerlöw; as did the Norwegian duo Mørland and Debrah Scarlett with A Monster Like Me.
Sixteen-year-old Israeli Nadav Guedj’s dance number Golden Boy was a big hit in the hall and gained him a berth in the final. Slovenia’s duo Maraaya qualified with Here for You; as did Azerbaijan’s Elnur Huseynov with Hour of the Wolf.
The Lithuanian duo Monika Linkyté and Vaidas Baumila got the evening off to a spirited start during their upbeat ditty This Time (chorus: “I’m feeling love, love, love/round and round and round and round and round we go”) when their backup singers – two men and two women – shared same-sex kisses at the same time as the lead singers kissed; the act qualified for the final.
Poland’s Monika Kuszynska, singing In the Name of Love, has become the first qualifier in Eurovision history to be a wheelchair user. Montenegro’s Knez qualified with his powerful ballad Adio, composed by Balkan superstar and two-time Eurovision competitor Zeljko Joksimovic.
Cyprus’ bespectacled John Karayiannis, singing a singer-songwriter-type ballad The One Thing I Should Have Done, was also a qualifier.
Latvia’s Aminata earned her place in the final with the haunting, trance-like Love Injected.
San Marino, Malta, Portugal, the Czech Republic, Iceland, and Switzerland did not qualify.
These 10 acts join the 10 which qualified on Tuesday night, and the seven automatic qualifiers (Austria, Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the UK) in Saturday’s Eurovision final. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
i dont always guess on test questions but when I do, I get them wrong
272 shares | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Putting together our annual list of the best places to travel is a process that takes several months—we survey writers based around the world, talk to our A-List travel specialists , and look at the most exciting hotel and restaurant openings. While news and global events have a large impact on the places we choose, we also pay attention to cities that are worth revisiting: Philadelphia, in particular, may surprise you with the amount of growth and development it has seen in recent months. North America made a strong showing on this year’s list—more than a quarter of these places are within reach for a long-weekend trip from the United States.We know that people will travel far and wide for incredible food and drink, which is why that was a key factor in our decision-making. In 2017, you’ll want to head to Jerusalem for its exciting Levantine food, Oslo for its coffee culture, Belgrade for craft beer, and Valle de Guadalupe for coveted Mexican wines.While beach vacations are timeless—you truly don’t need much more than a comfortable resort, warm waters, and a good book to read—tack on a bit more time if you’re visiting these places: Tofino, in British Columbia, has a wild food scene; Honolulu will host its first arts biennial this year; and Málaga has amazing hidden museums.Technology and globalization can make the world feel small and thoroughly explored. But there are always places to discover—and rediscover—for yourself. Take a look at the Best Places to Travel in 2019 for additional inspiration, and share your own picks with us on social media using #TLBestPlaces. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Nhôm hộp đèn bật nắp là một loại khung nhôm định hình mà các cạnh của nó có thể mở ra một cách dễ dàng nhờ các lá sắt nhỏ, mảnh để tạo tính đàn hồi khi bật mở nắp. Đây là vật liệu không thể thiếu trong làm biển hộp đèn siêu mỏng nắp bật và được người dùng tin tưởng, đánh giá cao.
Ưu điểm của nhôm hộp đèn bật nắp
– Khung nhôm bật nắp được dùng cho hộp đèn nắp nật bởi khả năng bật mở các cạnh một cách dễ dàng giúp cho việc gia công và thay tranh quảng cáo trở lên đơn giản hơn.
– Khung nhôm định hình bền đẹp, chịu được thời thiết khí hậu khắc nghiệt, khả năng chống thấm, chống oxy hóa tốt. Bề mặt sáng bóng tạo, sang trọng tạo nên các sản phẩm hộp đèn tinh tế.
– Với hai màu cơ bản là đen và bạc, nhôm hộp đèn được cắt, ghép bằng máy cắt và góc nối chuyên dụng tạo nên bộ khung chắc chắn nhưng không kém phần lịch sự, trang nhã. Từ đó giúp tôn lên vẻ đẹp tinh tế, hiện đại cho những sản phẩm hộp đèn quảng cáo.
– Khung nhôm đã được định hình và sản xuất sẵn nên dễ dàng hơn cho việc gia công lắp đặt. Giúp tiết kiệm thời gian và chí phí khi làm sản phẩm hộp đèn.
Hiện nay, khung nhôm bật nắp dùng làm hộp đèn nắp bật thường được sử dụng phổ biến tại nhiều vị trí, không gian khác nhau như: showroom, trong thang máy, văn phòng, rạp chiếu phim, nhà hát,… hay đơn giản dùng để làm tranh điện trang trí trong gia đình.
Xem thêm
Nhôm hộp đèn
Nhôm hộp đèn nhét cạnh
Nhôm hộp đèn EEFL | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
If you ever will wonder on beautiful High Tatras of Slovakia you will maybe come upon a strange little structure that will look as if it is from another planet. This little house is actually a Slovakian Lodge that stands on a beautiful corner in the High Tatra Mountains.
This cute little lodge by the name Kežmarské Hut by awesome architecture firm Atelier 8000 is a interesting design of a typical lodge, as it’s in reality a cube that’s been rotated onto one of its corners. This concept was created for an international competition aimed at designing a building for the High Tatra Mountains of Slovakia. [via(Atelier8000)]
Obviously the job was well done, as most people that visit it love it. All these beautiful photos are courtesy of the named firm Atelier. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Hi, mayors! We hope you’ve been enjoying painting the town red (or green, or blue, or yellow, depending on your zoning choices) with Cities: Skylines, and we’re delighted that our favorite city-builder has found such a great home on the Xbox One. Now that we’ve had time to settle, we thought it was high time we did a bit of redecorating, and we hope you’ll join us! Today we’re proud to announce that we’re releasing our first expansion for Cities: Skylines – Xbox One Edition next month. Snowfall, an expansion that adds weather conditions to your towns — and the tools to manage them properly — will launch on Xbox One on November 14.
Not only that, but when we say it’s our first expansion (not counting After Dark, which came with the CS – Xbox One Edition), you ought to know that we’ve got a second, third, and more waiting in the wings. Starting with Snowfall, we’ve got seven DLC packs heading your way soon, and you can pick up the entire set in the new Season Pass, which will also kick off on November 14. Plus, if you’ve been waiting for the right time to try your hand at urban design, we’re also going to introduce Cities: Skylines – Premium Edition — a bundle that comes with the original game (plus After Dark), and every item in the Season Pass to boot.
Every expansion is being prepared for a controller-friendly experience on the Xbox One. Cities: Skylines has always been a game about growth, creativity, and expansion, and we want to make sure our fans get a full, rich experience with all the options they want, regardless of where they’re playing. Players who pick up the Season Pass or the Premium Edition will get each piece of DLC as soon as it’s available, starting with Snowfall in November. The full list will include:
Snowfall (full expansion)
Natural Disasters (full expansion)
Mass Transit (full expansion)
High Tech Buildings (content creator pack)
Art Deco (content creator pack)
Relaxation Station (radio station DLC)
Rock City Radio (radio station DLC)
Thanks for your ongoing support, mayors! For more updates, you can follow us at @Cities_PDX, and stay tuned both there and here on Xbox Wire to find out when each new expansion is headed your way. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Subversive Anti-Civilization Individualities FAI/IRF attack Unicredit and BNL in Frascati (Italy)
From informa-azione via actforfree:
Translation act for freedom now/B.pb
We receive from anonymous mail:
Dedicated to those who are in prison, wanted by police, sentenced and searched…. to the anarchists hit by the repressive forces of the State/Capital…
FRASCATI (ROME)
In the night of Wednesday July 18 2012, two banks were attacked in Frascati.
Two molotov bottles and an incendiary device were thrown at the Unicredit bank and the BNL bank.
Unicredit got completely destroyed.
Graffiti was left: EARTH IS WORTH MORE THAN YOUR MONEY and an encircled A.
PUBLIC NUISANCE:
‘To get rid of mental sophistry and social restriction is a way to face this war.
To destroy the normality of order, authority, jobs and appointments, the normality of scientific-technological experimentation and creation, their judicial right on the bodies in court trials, their right to accuse but also the right to defend oneself.
Points of view are for those who decide for others, those who are delegated and appointed by society, the citizens; wild drives don’t need political/cultural explanations.
We can see and feel directly what they are doing to the Earth, to the animals, to anti-authoritarians, and this is sufficient to give a reason to our attacks, every time with more determination and strength… forward anarchists, let’s sabotage and destroy the present!’
Finally everything finds it nonsense, our bodies moving in daily appearance, among weak citizens opposing rebellion, waiting for the next chance to stir up our instincts and anger.
We found but never met practical allies all over the world, united in the new anti-authoritarian guerrilla against the existent. Anarchist of action bound by a unique force, total liberation of the living, the individual (especially oneself), the Earth, for the total destruction of the State, religion and military authority.
Our trajectory is far from a road full of signs, we are moving on wild and impenetrable paths, in a daily war that liberates us in pain.
We individuals of violent and practical actions shut out moral and social fears and indecision, of condemnation or death, on which the dominating power feeds itself. We are going to throw those fears out in the form of terror.
“Now I know. I know exactly what I have to do. Let’s go then, once again. This time with feeling. Until the end. Long live Anarchy.” CCF
WITH THE BLACK INTERNATIONAL
LONG LIVE THE FIRE OF ANARCHY!
INTERNATIONAL REVOLUTIONARY FRONT
INFORMAL ANARCHIST FEDERATION
Subversive Anticivilization Individualities
FAI IRF
Tags: Arson, BNL Bank, FAI - Subversive Individualism Anti-civilization, Frascati, Informal Anarchist Federation (FAI), International Revolutionary Front, Italy, Molotovs, Unicredit Bank
This entry was posted on Saturday, July 21st, 2012 at 8:04 pm and is filed under Direct Action. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
BEIRUT (Reuters) - A U.S.-backed militia alliance in Syria denied reports on Monday of an attack on one of its vehicles near a base housing U.S.-led international troops.
A local security source said a blast had hit a vehicle belonging to the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) alliance, without harming anybody. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war monitor, said one person had been killed when a bomb hit a vehicle near a base housing U.S.-led international troops outside Ain Issa in northern Syria.
However, an SDF spokesman denied that any of its groups were subject to any attack in that area in the past two days.
The U.S.-led international coalition also said none of its troops were present or affected by any recent explosions near Ain Issa.
The United States is believed to have about 2,000 troops on the ground in Syria, with France and Britain also having contributed ground forces to its coalition.
With air and special forces backing from the coalition, the SDF has captured almost all of the quarter of Syria east of the Euphrates since beginning a campaign against Islamic State fighters that controlled the area in 2015. It is now the largest territory in Syria outside government control.
The Observatory also reported on Monday that the SDF had made wide advances against Islamic State in one of the last desert areas the militant group controls near the border with Iraq. Islamic State holds only a few remote pockets of ground in eastern Syria after offensives by both the U.S.-backed SDF and the Syrian army backed by Iran and Russia. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Controversial Facebook page Blokes Advice has been shut down by the social media giant, however a domestic violence support group which petitioned for its closure fears replacement pages are gaining traction.
Blokes Advice, an invite-only Facebook page which amassed 202,000 followers after it started in Brisbane in May, has been under fire after posts emerged saying women needed to be taught a "lesson", "gang banged" and punched in the face after oral sex.
Members of the secret group also reportedly posted photos and status updates about raping women, giving out contact details of women and urging other members to send them abusive messages.
Less than a fortnight ago, Facebook removed posts that violated its community standards, but allowed the page to stand as most members were not involved in the offensive content.
A Facebook spokesperson however confirmed on Wednesday that the site had since been taken down.
"Since the recent media coverage of this group, there has been an increase in the number of posts that do violate our policies, and consequently the group has been removed," he said.
"Where there are a large number of posts in a group that violate our policies, we remove the entire group."
Thousands follow new sites
The Blokes Advice administration team said it was not told why the site was banned, adding that 3,500 members had come over to its new website, which was off Facebook.
It had also asked its members to donate towards servers, upkeep and an app, and "perhaps a television advertisement".
A post from Blokes Advice to its members after it was shut down by Facebook. ( Supplied: The Red Heart Campaign )
"Freedom of speech is not a crime and we do not support anything the extremist groups say we do," they said in a statement.
"This is a place for blokes to get together and be social and help each other, nothing more, nothing less."
Domestic violence support group The Red Heart Campaign amassed a petition with 15,000 signatures to close the site.
Organiser Sherele Moody, who received an online death threat, said aside from the website, a new invite-only Blokes Advice Facebook group had also started.
"We've seen some of the sexist images of women and other disturbing misogynistic content they've been posting on the new site so we've decided to keep our petition going until it also disappears," she said.
"By signing up to this new forum, Australian men will be giving legitimacy to the organisation's history of demeaning women and inciting violence against them.
"It's an absolute slap in the face to the one-in-three Australian women who are subjected to male physical violence and it makes a mockery of the memories of each of the 41 Aussie women who have been killed by Australian men this year.
"We will be doing our best to infiltrate this new site and if we find anything that demeans women or invites and encourages any type of abuse against anyone, we will contact the authorities."
This post poked fun at an ex-partner who was said to have been "gang raped". ( Supplied: The Red Heart Campaign )
The Red Heart Campaign received this message in its inbox after the petition was launched. ( Supplied: The Red Heart Campaign ) | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Singomakers are back with a brand new collection of 56 Professional mastering projects for Ableton Live and also Singomakers have provided 63 Mastering presets of every plugin, which allows you to use this great Mastering Series release in any DAW from Logic, Cubase and Pro Tools to Studio One, Bitwig and FL Studio!
In detail expect to find 56 professionally designed Mastering Projects for Ableton Live 8.2.1+ with genres like Future Bass & Trap, Diablo & Future House, Hip Hop, Drum & Bass, G-House & Bassline, Techno, Chill Trap, EDM & Melbourne Bounce!
The Mixing of a track is very important, but just as important is the final Mastering of a mixdown. These mastering projects will add instant pressure, bounce, stereo width, clearance, fatness and brightness to your tracks!
For each genre you will find templates created with:
1. Built-in Plugins only
2. 2 - Fabfilter Plugins (provided versions for VST and AU)
3. 3 - Izotope 7+(provided versions for VST and AU)
4. 5 –T-Racks (provided versions for VST and AU) making 56 mastering templates in total!
Also all genres have their own technical requirements and examples of these settings are included in the templates.
Each Template contains an Ableton Live project file, containing an example demo song routed through a dedicated Master Channel Strip containing all the necessary EQ, Compression, Saturation, Maximization and FX settings that can be used on your own productions as a final Master Tool.
Mastering Projects for each Genre are also available to purchase separately.
Check this great demo and download your copy of 56 Ableton Pro Mastering Projects!
Please Note: Tracks presented in this pack are included for demonstration only, sharing or any commercial use of the tracks is not allowed.
To use these Templates you will need Ableton Live 8.2.1+.
In several templates you may need iZotope Ozone 7+, Fabfilter and T-Racks 4.10+.
Detailed Plugins used:
1. Ableton 8.2.1
2. izotope Ozone 7+
3. T-Racks 4.10+
4. Fabfilter | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
AP Photo/Evan Vucci Washington And The World The Art of No Deal With North Korea President Trump was woefully underprepared and overly optimistic for a summit with Kim Jong Un. Time for a more realistic approach to North Korea’s nukes.
Jon B. Wolfsthal is a former senior White House official and non-resident scholar at Carnegie.
President Donald Trump claims he knows how to make deals better than anyone. We are getting our chance to see his negotiating strategy live, as he tries to maneuver back into a position of strength with North Korea. For the past six months, Trump has been reacting to events both in North and South Korea and as a result, North Korea’s position has greatly improved at the expense of the United States. Now, by canceling the long-anticipated summit, Trump is trying to play hard to get with Kim, claiming that the meeting was “requested by North Korea” but cannot take place “at this time.”
Don’t be fooled. Trump wants the meeting as badly as ever, and will jump at the chance to reschedule if and when the time suits him.
Trump tried to recapture the initiative by accepting North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s offer to meet face to face in March but since then has lost control of the narrative. Instead of putting the U.S. back into the driver’s seat, Trump has spent the past two months building expectations for the summit to an unsupportable level. Premature talk of Nobel prizes and succeeding where all previous administrations had failed in denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula eventually had to meet the hard reality that, even if North Korea were to agree to eliminate its nuclear weapons, doing so would take place only over a long period of time and in exchange for other things that can guarantee Kim’s security and his control of power inside North Korea.
The reality is that any denuclearization plan in North Korea has to take time. The size, scope and decades of effort by North Korea to produce its current arsenal make it impossible to eliminate it quickly, or to verify its elimination all at once. It is more likely than not that a credible verification and destruction process would take years, if it is even achievable, and as such the United States was having a hard time meeting the president’s desire to achieve instant denuclearization. There’s a reason national security adviser John Bolton was pushing for an all-at-once process with North Korea—because it was not possible and would kill any chance at a negotiated agreement. Bolton prefers regime change through strangulation or military intervention, as his voluminous writings on the subject make clear.
So, where do we go from here? All roads lead back to the negotiating table. South Korean President Moon Jae-in was just in Washington this week making clear that he strongly favors a summit and will do everything in his power to make it a success. He has banked not just his presidency but his career on reconciliation with the North, and was prepared to flatter and reward Trump for his agreement to pursue diplomacy with North Korea. Though South Korea appeared to have been blindsided by Trump’s letter, it will continue pressing for diplomatic engagement, as will China, which has consistently made clear it would not support anything that could lead to conflict on its border. Without full South Korean and Chinese cooperation, there can be no “maximum pressure”—the campaign of sanctions and isolation that Trump claims brought North Korea to the negotiating table in the first place.
Many experts who favor engagement and negotiation with the North—myself included—had been deeply worried about Trump’s lack of detailed preparation for the summit. Trump’s inability to master the complexities of North Korea’s nuclear and missile program, combined with his proven willingness to ignore his advisers and go with his gut, could have led Kim to drive a bargain that left him with many residual nuclear options or with verification far short of what is needed to prove denuclearization has taken place. In this sense, no deal might be better than a bad one.
So it’s good that Trump canceled the meeting. If the summit gets back on track, that may give experts the time to negotiate a viable process that would include verified steps toward denuclearization and a set of steps the United States and its allies could take to provide North Korea with the incentives to follow through on nuclear and missile elimination.
Nuclear diplomacy takes time and hard work. If Trump is serious about giving Kim another shot, he and his team need to put in the difficult and tedious preparation that they spurned ahead of the canceled June 12 meeting. That, after all, is what good deals are made of. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (KABC) -- While wait times continue to skyrocket at DMV offices all over the country, word is out of a secret DMV office near the California capitol with no line.The office is located behind an unmarked door in a downtown Sacramento legislative building. It's where elected officials can register their vehicles, renew driver's licenses or apply for the new federally mandated Real ID - all without waiting in a line.The DMV said while lawmakers can use the office, its primary use is to handle constituent requests and complaints. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Jennifer Lawrence is getting ready to walk down the aisle, and she recently celebrated with a fun night out in NYC. On Sunday night, the 28-year-old actress and her fiancé, Cooke Maroney, were spotted entering an apartment building in lower Manhattan for what appeared to be their engagement party. While Cooke dressed up in a navy suit, Jennifer looked absolutely stunning in a peach gown and matching heels.
Shortly after the event, Jen's stylists, Jill Lincoln and Jordan Johnson, shared a photo of the actress at the event. "Here she comes!" the caption read. "We couldn't be happier and more excited for #jenniferlawrence to become a #MRS . . this weekend we toasted Jen and her groom to be . . too good of a time was had by all." The couple first started dating in June 2018, and news of their engagement broke in February 2019. Sounds like Jennifer is about to become Mrs. Maroney sooner than we think! | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Another year, another form of phishing. This one, I have to admit, is pretty good in terms of potentially fooling a user. Unlike most phishing attack vectors, it doesn't rely on the victim being ignorant and/or moronic. The new technique has been dubbed "in-session" phishing and it stays out of your e-mail altogether.
Security researchers with Trusteer have published a report (PDF) on this new type of phishing along with a suitably vague description of how the attack works. As its name implies, in-session phishing requires that the victim first log into a secure website; Trusteer uses an online bank site as one example of a tasty target.
Here's how the attack works: A user legitimately logs into his bank, authenticates, and then does whatever he logged in to do. Once finished, he opens another browser tab (or browser window) and leaves the bank website open. Shortly thereafter, he encounters a website that has been injected with the malicious code in question. Once run, the malware creates a pop-up, supposedly from the bank or secure site that's still open in another tab or window. The "authentic" pop-up prompts the user to enter his login credentials again in order to resume the session. Trusteer notes that the attack could be used to present different types of lures including online surveys or mini-flash games (punch the Yeti, enter your personal data, and win a free Llama!).
In order for the attack to function, Trusteer states that two conditions must be met. First, a website must be compromised and infected—the higher traffic the better, obviously. Secondly, the downloaded malware must be able to identify whether or not the unknowing carrier is logged into a relevant website. Trusteer does not state how long the window of opportunity is open for this particular attack to execute, but does note that the malware infection is temporary.
Trusteer explains how the bug works. It is present in the JavaScript engine used by popular browsers like IE, Firefox, and Safari, as well as Chrome, and allows a site to determine whether a user is also logged into another site.
The source of the vulnerability is a specific JavaScript function. When this function is called it leaves a temporary footprint on the computer and any other website can identify this footprint. Websites that use this function in a certain way are traceable. Many websites, including financial institutions, online retailers, social networking websites, gaming, and gambling websites use this function and can be traced.
The researchers recommend that users and companies deploy appropriate web security tools (which the company happens to sell), immediately log out of any secure sites once you've finished your tasks (good advice), and to be extremely wary of pop-ups that randomly drop in if you haven't clicked anything.
The JavaScript vulnerability that Trusteer has discovered obviously needs patching, but in-session phishing doesn't appear to be a major threat. In order to function successfully, the malware requires that a user have simultaneous browser windows open to both a login/secure site and an infected site, and that the secure site is on the malware's pregenerated list of targets. There are some rather simple ways for banks and other targeted institutions to fight back; options include rapid disconnects if a user becomes idle and prominent notifications of the company's login policy.
Many companies (Blizzard and AOL come to mind) prominently and repeatedly inform customers that neither the company nor its representatives will ever, ever, ask a user to disclose their password. A similar warning against in-session phishing might state that the company will never ask users to log in via a pop-up or any third-party service. Between currently available solutions and inevitable patches, I think in-session phishing is going to find its nets mostly empty. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
London, England (CNN) -- From inside it looks like a swanky bachelor pad, kitted out with an abnormally large aquarium. But, this is no fashionable New York apartment, rather the latest in sub-aquatic luxury -- a cruise yacht that doubles up as a submarine.
Still at the design stage, if built, the "U-010 Undersea Yacht" would be the first to combine underwater exploration with all the comfort and style of a modern superyacht, say its designers.
"Submarines are generally thought of as cold and cramped military crafts," Italian designer Sebastiano Vida told CNN. "But this concept radically moves away from that assumption and introduces a new and luxurious way to experience life beneath the seas."
With a relaxation parlor, sauna, lounge bar and vast spiral staircase -- the "U-010" certainly looks more like a Bond villain's fantasy lair than a practical solution for wannabe ocean explorers.
But with the crushing pressures of a deep sea environment and associated design constraints -- like having to build only narrow spaces -- could this "pleasure submarine" ever be a reality?
"It may look like a fantasy but we examined all the latest technology for constructing underwater vessels to ensure our concept would be viable," said Vida. "We're looking for the right engineers to work with, and think it could be built within the next five years."
In fact, Marina Colombo, co-creator of the "U-010," told CNN they already have a potential buyer in mind -- multi-millionaire venture capitalist and former board member of Hewlett Packard, Tom Perkins.
"Tom Perkins commissioned the "Maltese Falcon" -- which was once the longest yacht in the world -- and we know that he'd want to build a submarine now."
There are certainly plenty of multi-millionaires with a penchant for exotic exploration prepared to throw fistfuls of money at radical concepts.
Earlier this year British billionaire Richard Branson made the transition from madcap design to working reality when he launched the "Necker Nymph" -- a 'flying' submarine capable of 40-meter dives and dolphin-like flips. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Washington (CNN) Despite previously unfruitful negotiations during the last round of shutdown talks, President Donald Trump says he's ripe to reopen the government -- urging party leaders to return to Washington and vote for a wall, or barrier, or whatever they wish to call it -- even "peaches."
"This is where I ask the Democrats to come back to Washington and to vote for money for the wall, the barrier, whatever you want to call it, it's OK with me," Trump said Friday during a White House roundtable on immigration.
"They can name it whatever. They can name it 'peaches.' I don't care what they name it. But we need money for that barrier," he added.
Trump's comments came shortly after Congress adjourned until Monday without an agreement between Democrats and Trump to reopen the federal government over a standoff on border wall funding. Prior to adjourning, the Democratic-led House approved funding for the Interior Department, the Environmental Protection Agency and other federal agencies impacted by the partial government shutdown. But the measure was expected to be vetoed by Trump.
Trump told reporters at the roundtable that he is still open to declaring a national emergency over building a wall at the southern border, but made clear he would "rather not," calling it an "easy way out."
Read More | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
OSH - another big box first for San Marcos In competition with Lowe's and owned by Lowe's
Orchard Supply Hardware in San Marcos. The county’s first OSH opened in La Mesa in December of last year.
San Marcos will soon be the first North County home to OSH – formally known as Orchard Supply Hardware. The 86-year-old boutique home center chain has been centered primarily in the Bay Area, with 91 locations as far south as Orange County.
Customers describe Orchard Supply Hardware as larger in square footage than a typical Ace or True Value hardware store and more upscale. For example, OSH sells Bob’s Best Cow Manure, made from Point Reyes, CA dairy farm compost. But the stores are not as overwhelming as the big-box Lowe’s or Home Depot. The county’s first OSH opened in La Mesa in December of last year.
To be located in the former Sports Chalet building at the Grand Plaza shopping center on Las Posas Road, the 40,000-square-foot store is expected to open around June 29, said an on-site construction supervisor.
Started in 1931 in the San Jose area, the chain was originally a co-op formed by depression-era farmers to help save money on feed, seeds, and supplies. After several owners floundered with the onslaught of competition from big box home improvement centers, Sears purchased the chain in 1996.
What most Orchard Supply Hardware customers may not know is that Lowe’s now owns the chain. However branded gardening tools, building supplies, etc., only carry the OSH label. In a 2013 Chapter 13 reorganization by Sears/Kmart, Lowe’s was able to pick up the entire chain in bankruptcy court, and as been operating it as a separate subsidiary.
Beside the San Diego area, OSH is expanding into Oregon and Florida – the southeast coast being the corporate home of Lowe’s.
In 2015, it was San Marcos that welcomed other retail firsts – San Diego County’s first Hobby Lobby and WinCo Foods locations that coincidently occupied the space in the Creekside Marketplace center that was vacated by Lowe’s in 2014. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
New York: Nikki Haley, the first and only Indian-American to attain the status of a member of the US cabinet has shared a piece of advice from her mother that propelled the child of Sikh immigrants to the high office: "Your job is not to show them how you're different. Your job is to show them how you're similar."
She recounted to a TV interviewer on Sunday that in the small town of Bamberg in South Carolina where her mother wore a saree and her father a turban, she would get teased in the playground.
But when she got home, her mother's advice was to stress to positives of her being an American.
Overcoming all odds, she became the Governor of her state in the southern part of the US, where there was deep-rooted racism, and went on to the cabinet.
She achieved these as a member of the Republican Party that is often criticised as being conservative and hostile to non-Whites, women and immigrants.
Haley is mentioned as a prospective presidential candidate.
One of her acts as Governor was to remove a racist symbol from the state's legislative complex - the flag of the American Confederacy, the group of southern states that rebelled against the abolition of slavery and fought the civil war to retain it.
The difference between the attitude ingrained by her Sikh family and that of some others of immigrant background surfaced when she was asked by the interviewer for her reaction to President Donald Trump telling four Congresswomen, who were immigrants or children of immigrants and critical of the US, to "go back and help fix the totally broken and crime-infested places from which they came".
While conceding the President's taunt was inappropriate, Haley said: "But I also can appreciate where he was coming from, from the standpoint of, don't bash America over and over and over again and not do something to try and fix it."
Growing up in the South as Nimrata Nikki Randhwa, she told the CBS interviewer about her encounter with racism. "We weren't white enough to be white, we weren't black enough to be black. We were the only Indian family (in town). My father wore a turban, he still does to this day."
In her book, "Can't Is Not an Option" published in 2012, she recounted that when she tried as a five-year-old to enter the segregated town's Miss Bamberger contests, she was turned away from the white section as not white and from the black section as not black.
She is known as a tough leader who fought to get what she wanted and it shone through her tenures as a state legislator, Governor and Permanent Representative at the UN.
She told the interviewer: "I think that, you know, you have to be tough. But I don't think you have to be disrespectful.
"I have always kicked with a smile. Yeah, I've always said I wear high-heels and it's not for a fashion statement. It's when I see something wrong, I'm going kick every time."
As for criticism that she is ambitious, Haley said: "You know, when women are referred to as ambitious, it's never in a positive light. I've heard that all my life: 'She's so ambitious.' No, I'm passionate. I love what I do. I throw myself into it.
"So, I prefer (to be called) 'badass'." | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Transcript
JAD ABUMRAD: This is Radiolab, I’m Jad Abumrad. Today a story from our producer Julia Longoria.
JULIA LONGORIA: So I’ve been working on an episode about sex discrimination for like months now.
JAD: Yeah
JULIA: And we’re supposed to release it...
NEWS MONTAGE
JULIA: This week!
NEWS MONTAGE
JULIA: The story we’re gonna tell is not about sexual harassment, but I can’t think straight with all the stuff that’s happening
NEWS MONTAGE
JULIA: And I can't help but think that we’ve seen this before, this outcry for public change and a backlash.
NEWS CLIP: They claim there’s a war on women out there. No one takes them seriously
NEWS CLIP: If you can’t handle some of the basic stuff that’s become a problem in the workforce today, like, you don’t belong in the workforce
JULIA: Like we’re in our respective corners and
CLIP: We need men to help us
JULIA: Letting out a big scream
CLIP: How did people not know?
JULIA: But, when things quiet down, will there be a change?
JAD: And what kind of change is the kind that will stick? Today’s story is about a time in the not so distant past when there was a similarly loud raucous division in our country over sexual equality. And one woman
JULIA: Quietly
JAD: Strategically
JULIA: Laid the foundation for real change
INTRO MUSIC
JAD: Here we are. I’m going to ask you and utterly false question which is where would you like to start?
JULIA: [laughs]
JAD: As if we haven’t been doing this for so damn long.
JULIA: OK. So let me outline the basic dilemma that’s at the heart of the story here,
JAD: All right.
JULIA: and I’m gonna put it to you as a question.
JAD: Bring it.
JULIA: If you were to do a control+F in the Constitution, how many times do you think the word sex comes up?
JAD: Oh. That’s interesting. Six? I don’t know I’m guessing. What, what’s the answer?
JULIA: It’s one. One time in the 19th amendment which grants people the right to vote based on sex.
JAD: Really?
JULIA: Yes.
JAD: That’s the only time?
JULIA: That’s the only time. Which is crazy because we already have--
JAD: What is it, like a non--is there a sex word that’s not sex, like gender or something something?
JULIA: No. Nothing.
JAD: Is there like ladies in the Constitution?
JULIA: No
JAD: Women?
JULIA: No.
JAD: Really?
JULIA: OK. Constitutionally, women have a problem, which is that basically we’re not in the Constitution, except like in this one little spot. So when it comes to discriminating against women, some people have argued that you--there’s nothing in the Constitution that says you can’t do it.
ANTONIN SCALIA: Certainly the Constitution does not require sexual discrim- discrimination on the basis of sex. The Constitution doesn’t require it. It simply doesn’t forbid it.
JULIA: That’s the late justice, Antonin Scalia.
ANTONIN SCALIA: It doesn’t. Nobody ever voted for that. So where do you get it from?
JAD: There was nothing that said that? I mean not those words explicitly but there was nothing that says you can’t discriminate?
CRISTIAN FARIAS: Uh. not on the basis of sex.
JULIA: That’s legal editor Cristian Farias.
CRISTIAN: We had a fourteenth amendment that told people that we’re equal under the law. That everyone has equal protection of the laws.
JAD: But doesn’t that say? I mean that’s kinda? Eh? No?
MARTHA GRIFFITHS: They never applied the 14th amendment to women. They
didn’t apply the 15th.
JULIA: That’s Martha Griffiths, Congresswoman
CRISTIAN: When you think about the history of the 14th Amendment
JULIA: As legal editor Linda Hirshman says...
LINDA: The 14th Amendment was passed in the aftermath of the Civil War.
JULIA: Along with the 13th and the 15th
LINDA: 13th Amendment abolishing slavery.
JULIA: The 15th amendment essentially giving black people, or black men the right to vote
CRISTIAN: If you understand the 14th Amendment to be part of that trio of amendments, you’re like Oh. Okay. It was meant to bring equality to black people.
MARTHA GRIFFITHS: When the 15th Amendment had been written which said that every citizen could vote, in the name of heavens, why couldn’t women vote? Why did you have to have the 19th Amendment? Well of course the answer was they didn’t consider women people.
MUSIC
JULIA: There was this basic assumption in the law that, you know, equality for black people is one thing, but men and women? They’re different.
MUSIC SHIFT
WENDY WILLIAMS: It was the case that the Supreme Court had never met a distinction between men and women that it didn’t like.
JULIA: Wendy Williams, law professor emeritus at Georgetown.
JULIA: What are some, like, greatest hits of the ridiculous distinctions?
WENDY WILLIAMS: Okay. Here-- There was a case called Bradwell, and it was 1873 or 4. In that case, a woman wanted to become a lawyer
JULIA: Illinois Bar said no.
WENDY WILLIAMS: The justices said that that was a perfectly good rule because the justice system could be seen as not appropriate for women. Now, let’s jump clear into the next century here
JULIA: 1948
WENDY WILLIAMS: This case was called Goesaert v. Cleary that went to the Supreme Court. And the issue was whether women could be bartenders. The Court thought that that was pretty humorous that it made sense that women could not be bartenders unless their husbands or fathers were in charge of the bar.
MUSIC
JULIA: Both those laws, you know women are not supposed to be at the bar...
WENDY WILLIAMS: At either bar!
JULIA: Yeah (laughs), right.
WENDY WILLIAMS: Those two cases represent attitudes almost 80 years apart that women belonged in the private sphere. That was not only their place; it was built into their bodies.
JULIA: And that was the assumption for a long, long time.
WENDY WILLIAMS: But just about ‘67
MUSIC
DICK CAVETT (1970): There are a lot of women in this country who feel that they’re being pushed around,
WENDY WILLIAMS: … things had started to come to a boil.
DICK CAVETT: and they’ve become very vocal. They call themselves the women’s liberation movement.
GLORIA STEINEM (1971 Address to the Women of America): Sex and race, because they are easy, visible differences, have been the primary ways of organizing human beings into superior and inferior groups.
JULIA: So in the late 60s and early 70s, people like Gloria Steinem….
GLORIA STEINEM: ...We are talking about a society in which there will be no roles other than those chosen or those earned.
AUDRE LORDE: Free from the diseases of racism
JULIA: Audre Lorde…..
AUDRE LORDE: Of sexism, of classism, and of homophobia
JULIA: They get some traction saying, OK. It’s time to put us in the Constitution. Hurry up.
ARCHIVE: Some historians say it’s a constitutional convention for women.
WOMAN: I move the adoption of the following resolution.
JULIA: And what you see is this push for something called the Equal Rights Amendment
WOMAN: The Equal Rights Amendment should be ratified.
*ERA CHANTS*
REPORTER: What are your hopes for it? Do you think it will be ratified?
MARTHA GRIFFITHS: It will be ratified early next year. I am quite sure of that. In 1975 it will be ratified.
JULIA: But it didn’t get the votes in 1975.
BETTY FORD: I hope that 1976 will be the year...
JULIA: Or in 1976.
ANNOUNCER: A special report on the 1977 national women’s conference.
JULIA: Or in 1977.
REPORTER: And the movement is stalled.
JAD: Why, what stalled it?
JULIA: Well, a lot. But much of the credit goes to this woman.
ANNOUNCER: Phyllis Schlafly of Alton, Illinois.
JULIA: A woman named Phyllis Schlafly.
PHYLLIS SCHLAFLY: I would like to thank my husband Fred for letting me come today. I love to say that because it irritates the women’s lib-ers more than anything that I say.
JULIA: She was a lawyer and a self-described housewife who started a movement, called STOP ERA.
PHYLLIS SCHLAFLY: The whole thing is misrepresented as a women’s rights amendment. In fact, the principal beneficiary will be men. it will give men a great opportunity to get out from under their obligations. Their obligations…
JULIA: Her position was that the Equal Rights Amendment would actually strip women of this special privilege that they have that comes from being a woman
PHYLLIS SCHLAFLY: I think the laws of our country have given a very wonderful status to the married woman. And the wife has a great deal of many rights. For example she has the legal right to be supported by her husband.
JULIA: And she said, if this amendment passes there will be certain unintended consequences.
PHYLLIS SCHLAFLY: The Equal Rights Amendment says you cannot discriminate on account of sex. And if you want to deny a marriage license to a man and a man or to deny a homosexual the right to teach in the schools or to adopt children, it is on account of sex that you would deny it, and that would be unconstitutional under ERA.
JULIA: And that argument caught on.
VID: I would caution the members of this platform committee from the passage of an ERA amendment that none of us would like to see happen.
WOMAN: I think that families would, generation after generation, deteriorate. I think that there would be homosexuals that would expect preferential treatment.
SONG: He said brother we’re all in danger. You gotta hear what I have to say. Cause you know what’s going to happen if they pass the ERA. There will be women in all of our bathrooms, women using all our stalls. They’ll be wasting the paper towels. They’ll be hogging the urinals. They’ll be pushing the old soap squirters. Pushing hot air dryers too. If they pass the ERA, lord I don’t know what we’re going to do.
LINDA HIRSHMAN: Had the Equal Rights Amendment passed…
JULIA: Legal editor Linda Hirshman again.
LINDA ...it would have looked a lot like the racial civil rights movement did. But the Equal Rights Amendment did not pass.
JULIA: It fell three states short. To get a constitutional amendment passed, it turns out you need three quarters of state legislatures to say they want it. That is 38 out of 50. They only ever got 35.
JAD: Dude
JULIA: So the question is, if you want to get equal rights for women written into the law, what do you do? There’s no ERA. The women’s lib movement sparked a backlash. Like what do you do? Well. Enter stage left...
MUSIC
OBAMA: There she is. The notorious RBG
SFX
JULIA: Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
CLIP: RBG can do 20 push ups, and not the so-called girl kind.
JULIA: Now before she was a Supreme Court Justice..
CLIP: She was a feminist icon.
JULIA: Or a work out sensation...
CLIP: Show us all the moves.
JULIA: Before all that...
WENDY WILLIAMS: Ruth Ginsburg, she was at the ACLU.
JULIA: This was in the 70s.
WENDY WILLIAMS: And one of the characteristics of Ruth Ginsburg, which exists to this
day...
WARREN E. BURGER: Very well.
JULIA: You can hear this. It’s the first time she argued in front of the Supreme Court in 1973.
WENDY WILLIAMS: When you’d ask her a question, there would be silence. Enough silence…
WARREN E. BURGER: Mrs. Ginsburg? [PAUSE]
WENDY WILLIAMS: ...to make a person nervous and start trying to help her answer the question.
JULIA LAUGH
WARREN E. BURGER: Ginsburg?
WENDY WILLIAMS: You had to wait.
JULIA: But we can imagine it was in one of those long pauses that Ruth Bader Ginsburg rescued some of the key principles behind the ERA, re-packaged them, and marched them in through a side door.
RUTH BADER GINSBURG: Mr. Chief Justice and may it please the Court, sex like race is a visible characteristic bearing no necessary relationship to ability. Sex like race has been made the basis for unjustified, or at least un --
MUSIC
JAD: Wait, so back it up a second. What exactly did RBG do?
JULIA: So let me walk you through it now because it’s--it’s beautiful. The ERA fight is underway, and RBG and her colleagues are watching this happen, right. And they’re getting worried. What if the ERA doesn’t pass, so what are we going to do if that’s the case? How are we going to get equal rights for women? So they decided, OK. As an alternate approach, let’s go back to the 14th Amendment...
CLIP: The 14th Amendment’s immediate objective was to provide national protection for the newly freed slaves.
JULIA: ..You know, which as we said, was designed from the beginning to be only about race.
CLIP: But its sweeping provisions suggest broader objectives. The states were prevented from depriving any person equal protection of the laws.
JULIA: Well, it says the word person. So that should include women.
JAD: Yeah.
JULIA: If they could just get the courts to see it that way, then by default almost, we would have a sort of ERA.
LINDA HIRSHMAN: And accordingly, the task was showing that the racially inflected
14th Amendment applied to sex.
JULIA: What about the law is she trying to change? What does she want the court to say?
LINDA HIRSHMAN: She wants the court to say that sex will be treated just like race.
JULIA: And here’s why that’s so important. When the Court sees racial discrimination happening, under the 14th Amendment it takes a really hard line. It looks at it really really closely. Or at least it’s supposed to. Whereas other kinds of discrimination, not so much. Because actually, some discrimination is necessary.
LINDA HIRSHMAN The law discriminates. It has to.
JULIA: It discriminates between 18 year olds and 17 year olds. Between criminals and non-criminals.
LINDA: There would be chaos otherwise, right?
JULIA: But the court’s decided that RACE is gonna be a big red flag. They’re going ask the governments, the legislatures, presidents… to have a COMPELLING reason...
LINDA: A compelling state interest!
JULIA: ...to do race discrimination. Otherwise, it’s going to be unconstitutional.
JULIA : You with me so far?
JAD: Yes. To to discriminate based on race, you have to pass a really super hard test.
JULIA: And by the way, the legal name for this test it’s...
JAD: Oh God.
JULIA: STRICT SCRUTINY.
JAD: Oh.
JULIA: I know, they should have called it like, we mean business or something like that. But anyway, the point was like they took it seriously. Which you know back in the day, they weren’t doing with sex discrimination at all. Because when legislatures would come up with these laws -- like this ‘women can’t be bartenders’ law -- The Supreme Court would be like, you know…, you guys probably have a good reason for that...
CRISTIAN: it doesn’t have to be THE reason. It could just be A reason.
JAD: It doesn’t have to be very good.
CRISTIAN: It doesn’t have to be good. They could maybe even make it up on the fly. It just has to be a reason for upholding this law.
JULIA: Like in the case of the bartender law, bars are dangerous. Women need protection from them.
CRISTIAN: And courts would be like OK. Sure.
JULIA: So RBG needed a way to convince the Court to be as intense about sex discrimination as they were about race discrimination. But how do you convince an audience of men, who are used to discriminating on the basis of sex, who have been doing it for years... How do you convince them that discrimination is a bad thing?
RUTH BADER GINSBURG [C-SPAN]: I think people who want to keep women down would like nothing better than women to go off in a corner and speak only to women.
Nothing would happen.
JULIA: This is her giving a recent talk about her 1970s strategy.
RBG: You need to persuade men that this is right for society.
JULIA: Part One of her strategy: choose your words carefully.
RBG: I had a secretary at Columbia. Who said I’m typing these things for you and jumping out all over the page is sex sex. [LAUGHS] Don’t you know that the audience you are addressing, the first association of those men with the word sex is not what you’re talking about. [LAUGHS] So why don’t you use a grammar book term. Use gender.
JULIA: Because you know the word sex has a charge to it. Gender is cooler. And Part Two of her strategy, choose your cases carefully. This is all happening in the 70s as RBG is the head of the ACLU Women’s Rights Project. So she’s deciding which kinds of cases the ACLU is going to support as they make their way to an all-male Supreme Court. And her strategy was if we live in a man’s world right now, we need to find cases that these nine men at this moment can handle.
LINDA HIRSHMAN: So for example, early on in her tenure at the Women’s Rights Project, the other lefty lawyers are suggesting that the women’s movement needs to take up the cause of lesbian rights, and she says … NOT YET.
RBG [C-SPAN]: And I think go slow is the right approach
JULIA: She said first, we need to go after that small and insidious idea that the Supreme Court had been keeping alive for years
PHYLLIS SCHLAFLY: The laws of our country have given a wonderful status to women.
JULIA: That Phyllis Schlafly idea that discrimination is actually good for women.
RBG: Gender classifications were always rationalized as favors to women.
JULIA: And so RBG decided not just to bring cases where women were the victims of discrimination
CURTIS CRAIG: Okay. My name is Curtis Craig.
JULIA: She brought cases where men were the victims.
JULIA: Who were you as an 18 year old?
CURTIS CRAIG: Oh that’s a great question. I was like any 18 year old young man. Invincible. Thought I was quite the ladies’ man. You name it.
JULIA: He made it into Lambda Chi Alpha at Oklahoma State and he was living...
[FRAT CHANTS]
JULIA: ...At the frat house.
CURTIS CRAIG: Our fraternity was primarily made up of wrestlers so it was uh. When you went down the hall, *YOUTUBE BODY SLAM* you were about to be taken down at any moment so. You’d be thrown into the walls and you’d leave a body print.
JULIA: What do you mean like an indentation literally in the wall?
CURTIS CRAIG: Yeah.
JULIA: Oh my god.
CURTIS CRAIG: Yeah. It was amazing.
CURTIS CRAIG: There was a lot of partying going on, of course.
CHANTING
JULIA: Lot of beer.
CURTIS CRAIG: The yard would be filled with beer cans.
JULIA: And here’s the key. If they wanted to get all that beer...
MUSIC
JULIA: ...they had to enlist the help of the ladies.
CURTIS CRAIG: Yeah I mean--
JULIA: The sorority sisters.
CURTIS CRAIG: You would have a female buy you beer and you’d go out and party.
MUSIC
JAD: They needed the women to buy the beer?
JULIA: Yep
JAD: Why?
JULIA: Because in Oklahoma state at the time..
RBG: Oklahoma had a very silly law. Girls could buy beer at age 18, but the boys had to
wait until 21.
CURTIS CRAIG: There was something about the level of maturity I guess for women versus men at that time.
JULIA: The basic principle was that boys got into more car accidents so they should be trusted with less beer?
JAD: Huh
JULIA: And did that make you angry?
CURTIS CRAIG: Oh absolutely. Well it was extremely unfair. Yeah, I would say it made-- I think most men angry at the time.
JULIA: And a Supreme Court case was born.
RBG: So the thirsty boys at a fraternity-- brought this case.
JAD: RBG gets involved in this beer case?
JULIA: Yes
JAD: But this is a situation where women have rights men don’t have. Why would she want to argue this case? I’d imagine she’d want the opposite.
JULIA: Well this is where her strategy is kind of like a Trojan Horse. If you look at this case, right. On the outside it looks like a case about men being discriminated against.
JAD: Yeah
JULIA: But, if you think about it, beneath that discrimination is actually this kind of unspoken idea about women. So go with me on this, right.
JAD: Yeah.
JULIA: If men are irresponsible, they can’t handle beer, then women--
LINDA: Girls are more responsible and well-behaved.
JULIA: They’re more delicate. They could be trusted with something like beer because they won’t abuse it, you know. So with that line of thinking, it’s not long before you’re trying to protect women, protect them from you know scary places. Like bars or courtrooms or-- political office. Using this case, RBG is able to walk into the Court this discrimination about men, but also, the discrimination against women that’s attached to it--or inside of it [laughs].
JAD: Whoa. That’s clever.
JULIA: We’re just getting started
MUSIC
JAD: More Perfect continues in a minute.
ADVERTISEMENT
JA: This is More Perfect, I’m Jad Abumrad. I’m here with Julia Longoria, who is telling the story of a case involving boys and beer that became a Trojan Horse...
MUSIC
JAD: ...in the battle for women’s rights. Now the story of the Trojan Horse, maybe you know this, it’s you know ancient Greece. You’ve got Sparta fighting Troy. Spartans want to get into the city of Troy, but it’s this giant walled city, too big. They can’t get in. And so Odysseus comes up with this clever plan. We’ll give the Trojans this giant wooden horse. They’ll bring it into their city. They’ll think it’s a gift, that we’re retreating. Which is what they thought. And then at night our soldiers who are hidden inside the horse will come out.
MUSIC
JAD: And they will take the city. Now in our case, Odysseus is RBG, the city she’s trying to get into is the all male Supreme Court. But, in order for this very admittedly imperfect analogy to work, we need someone in the horse to come out. The warrior in the horse, the warrior.
JULIA: And in Our case, that woman warrior?
MUSIC
JULIA: She didn’t even know she was going to go into battle.
CAR MUSIC
JAD: Julia, you take it from here
JULIA: So I got in the car and I drove a long time..
JULIA: Tiny little gravel road leading up to a narrow street of houses.
JULIA: to Sparta, NC.
JAD: It’s called Sparta?
JULIA: I KNOW.
JULIA: Cows and horses and Trump signs [CAR DOOR SLAM] Tractor out front. No trespassing sign.
JULIA: And so I walk up to this house. It’s this beautiful, cream colored cottage perched on top of a mountain.
JAD: Wow.
JULIA KNOCKS START
JULIA: And I can hear.. [MUSIC START] Whitney Houston’s “Saving All My Love For You” blasting.
CAROLYN: Did you have any trouble?
JULIA: Hi. No. I didn’t. Are you Carolyn? Hi very nice to meet you.
JULIA: And I meet. Carolyn Whitener
CAROLYN: I’m 76, soon be 77.
JULIA: She…
CAROLYN: I have a beer. Do you want a beer?
JULIA: ...immediately offers me a Coors.
CAROLYN: I’ve got a Coors Light.
JULIA: Yeah?
JULIA & JAD LAUGH
*BEER OPENS*
JULIA: Will you have a beer with me?
CAROLYN: No I can’t. I’m a diabetic. [LAUGHS] I can drink a little but not much.
JULIA: Thank you.
CAROLYN: And I’ve got some brownies over here.
JAD: What does she look like? Describe her.
JULIA: Reddish blonde hair, green eyes, she’s wearing golden hoops. She has like this.. This air about her that she could have been a beauty queen, y’know? But she also could’ve been like a car mechanic.
CAROLYN: Well tell me about yourself.
JULIA: Well I am --
JULIA: We get to talking. I tell her a little bit about who I am, about the story. She actually told me like upfront she’s like--
CAROLYN: I’m proud of the young women. I have a granddaughter that’s--
JULIA: I’m so proud of you. Your generation. They’re finishing the fight I started. I was essentially like no no..
JULIA: This stuff like your story has like a huge impact on like women like me. You know?
CAROLYN: I can’t imagine. [LAUGHS] But see my name was never tied in with it. It was always Craig’s name. So you know it wasn’t that big a deal.
MUSIC
JULIA: She told me she grew up bouncing around different oil fields.
CAROLYN: I was an oil field trash. That’s what we were called. Oil field trash. [LAUGHS]
JULIA: That meant Carolyn and her brother and sister split the school year between two or three schools a year.
CAROLYN: We moved a lot.
JULIA: She said school didn’t come easily to her.
CAROLYN: But my dad, he taught all three of us how to weld. He was a welder. How to
work on a car.
JULIA: She was very independent. And when she was about 13, they moved to Chickasha, Oklahoma.
MUSIC
JULIA: And that is where she met Dwayne.
CAROLYN WHITENER: That was the first boy I went with.
JULIA: They met in high school. And they were roughly the same age but he was three years ahead of her in school.
JULIA: And what attracted you to him?
CAROLYN: His mind. He had an excellent mind. And he was just a farm boy with no education. He never went to college but he could’ve been about anything he would’ve wanted to have been.
JULIA: What do you think attracted him to you? Like what do you think he saw in you?
CAROLYN: I was somebody new in town.
JULIA: Talking to Carolyn, I got the sense she didn’t have any shortage of suitors.
CAROLYN: But I married him when I turned 18 [PHONE RINGING] Oops. I don’t know who that is. I better turn that off. And when I married my husband I was equal to him except the money and he didn’t think anybody could handle that but him. [LAUGHS] He acted like he was raising me and he probably was [LAUGHS]
JULIA: She says she was really comfortable with him. He was a quiet man with this brilliant mind.
CAROLYN: He just - he was pure German, girl. Have you ever met a German man? OK. They are in total control.
JAD: And how does Carolyn connect to the case with the frat boys and RBG?
JULIA: OK. Here’s what happens. It’s 1962, Carolyn and Dwayne are about 20 years old at this point. And they move to a town called Stillwater, OK, to open a business. And Stillwater..
[MORE BEER CHANTING]
JULIA: ..is a college town. It’s THAT college town. OK, you’ve got Oklahoma State University right there, tons of fraternities including Lambda with the wrestlers. Huge homecoming, drawing over 40,000 alumni.
CAROLYN: We didn’t know what homecoming was. Had no idea what homecoming was!
JULIA: But shortly after moving to Stillwater, they opened the doors to the Honk and Holler.
MUSIC
CAROLYN: And where we went in was just about three blocks, four blocks from the college. And we went into business there.
JULIA: A drive-thru convenience store
CAROLYN: It was like a real old gas station with an oil pit in the floor
JULIA: Here’s how it would work. Customers pull up to the side of the convenience store and
CAROLYN: They’d drive through.
JULIA: Honk their horn. Holler their order.
CAROLYN: And you’d have to go out and wait on them. Come back in. Get what they wanted. And take it back out.
JULIA: So it’s a lot of in and out and in and out. All night long.
CAROLYN: You wear tennis shoes out real fast. (LAUGHS) So it was all sheer energy and guts.
JULIA: Homecoming night...
CAROLYN: We were supposed to close at 11.
JULIA: The store is FLOODED with customers.
CAROLYN: Til I think 2 or 3 o’clock in the morning.
JULIA: They’re like thrilled because they’ve never run a business by themselves before, and all these college kids are coming in and buying Coors beer. Including, of course, a steady stream of girls buying beer, presumably for their boyfriends.
CAROLYN: And it-- Yeah I never did get to see homecoming. All I saw was cars coming in and out.
JULIA: Fast forward a few years. It’s 1972 back at the University.
CURTIS CRAIG: He was tall, had long blonde hair.
JULIA: Curtis Craig’s buddy named Mark Walker...
CURTIS CRAIG: was the president of the Lambda Chi house at the time.
JULIA: ...is in a political science class. And the professor is talking about the whole fight for the ERA, which is happening right at that moment. And at this point Oklahoma hasn’t ratified the ERA. And somehow the conversation turns to this beer law. Mark’s like, talk about discrimination: this beer law is discrimination against us!
CURTIS CRAIG: And the professor challenged him about doing something about the beer laws if he was going to complain about them.
JULIA: And so one day...
CAROLYN: I was behind the counter, people coming in and out.
JULIA: Mark Walker walks into the Honk n Holler
CAROLYN: A young man came in to talk to me.
JULIA: She doesn’t really have time to talk. She’s running in and out.
CAROLYN: But he stood there.
JULIA: Waiting patiently.
CAROLYN: I bet he was in there four hours. And was looking at the beer license.
JULIA: He looks at the beer license and notices that Carolyn’s name is the one on it because actually..
CAROLYN: My husband lost his license.
JULIA: ...after he sold beer to a young man.
CAROLYN: So he put them in my name.
JULIA: Anyway, at a certain point, in between all the honks and hollers...
CAROLYN: He asked me what I thought about the beer laws. And I told him. I was very vocal about it. I always had been.
JULIA: She says, it doesn’t make any sense. We send these young men off to war
CAROLYN: They were being drafted at 18
JULIA: But we don’t let them drink beer when they come back?
CAROLYN: Was that just?
JULIA: Not to mention the liability issues. You have these 18 year old girls coming in and buying beer, slipping it to their boyfriends. How am I supposed to stop that?
CAROLYN: You can’t prove who buys what.
JULIA: So eventually when Mark Walker asked for her help...
CAROLYN: He said he was going to do a term paper.
JULIA: She was like, sure, why not?
CAROLYN: I was always willing to help him because they had helped us get started. And I still thought it was a term paper.
JULIA: So was he not being completely honest with you then?
CAROLYN: Well I didn’t hear half of what he said. I was busy every time he came in so, you know, it wasn’t that important at the time. So I didn’t think anymore about it. He left. My husband was gone. He was out of state workin’. And I didn’t even say anything to him about it. It wasn’t important. You know I just thought it was a conversation. [LAUGHS]
JULIA: But it wasn’t just a conversation. Because before that meeting, Mark had gone out looking for a lawyer.
CURTIS CRAIG: That’s correct.
JULIA: And Curtis and Mark and the other frat brothers had tried to raise some money.
CURTIS CRAIG: That was flawed in a campus town. Everybody uses their last dollar for that last beer.
JULIA: But they managed to find a lawyer who’d do it for cheap.
FRED GILBERT: Alright well I’m just Fred Gilbert, attorney at law, no big deal.
CURTIS CRAIG: I remember him always wearing his military boots. Actually I believe he wore them even to the Supreme Court.
JULIA: Fred had worked on another male discrimination case in the past. And to him, this case was pretty straightforward
FRED GILBERT: Men couldn’t buy beer until they were 21, but the most irresponsible and drunken woman in the state could buy it in unlimited quantities at 18. Well that was discrimination. Was kind of more a male rights case. Well it was!
JULIA: And do you remember corresponding with Ruth Bader Ginsburg?
FRED GILBERT: Yes. I knew Ruth Bader Ginsburg … before she was on the Court.
JULIA: Somehow, Ruth Bader Ginsburg noticed this case. And she watched, as Fred made his way up the courts, losing at every level. And by this point, Ruth Bader Ginsburg was head of the Women’s Rights Project at the ACLU, She’d already argued a few cases before the Supreme Court, which had inched the Court, slowly, toward this idea that sex was like race. And she thought that this case was interesting. She gave Fred a call.
FRED GILBERT: You know we have a problem in a personal relationship. There was no question I was something of an unreconstructed male chauvinist and she was not.
JULIA: Fred did not see this as a women’s rights case.
FRED GILBERT: It was just kind of an unnecessary insult to men for no reason at all so.
JULIA: And Ruth, looking at this cause thought: No, Fred, it’s more than that.
WENDY WILLIAMS: It didn’t matter to her if the plaintiff was a man or a woman. Because in most of those cases, the discrimination against the man was derivative of a prior and worse discrimination against the woman.
SEXIST ANNOUNCER MAN: Here’s to the ladies. The fair and the weak. How do they do it? Where do they find all that energy? That seemingly inexhaustible store of pep and ginger.
JULIA: Again, Ruth was after the stereotype of women that was nestled inside the beer law. That women are more responsible and well behaved. But in order for her to make that connection, she needed Fred to write his brief in a way that would be useful to her. So refer not just to male discrimination but discrimination based on gender.
FRED: Well I supported her. I just wasn’t shall we say a militant feminist.
JULIA: So, Ruth had her work cut out for her.
LINDA HIRSHMAN: At this point she was kind of used to dealing with these roobs from the stix.
JULIA: So with other local lawyers that she’d worked with in the past, Ruth had been more forceful, insisting that SHE make the argument. But that had backfired.
LINDA: So she like was like okay you argue it.
JULIA: She wrote to Fred telling him that she didn’t need to be the one to present oral argument before the court. She was fine if he’d do it. But she very gently, very persistently was able to convince him to let her help him with his legal brief.
CAROLYN: But uh I think it was a couple of months later because my husband was out
of state every month.
JULIA: Meanwhile back at the Honk and Holler, Carolyn has no idea what’s going on.
CAROLYN: No.
JULIA: No idea.
CAROLYN: I got a phone call, my husband was on the phone. Well I had salesmen in and I had people coming in and out.
CAROLYN: And he was irate. He was furious. I couldn’t figure out what was going on.
JULIA: She was like case? What are you talking about?
CAROLYN: Well he had picked up a newspaper in North Carolina in a bank. And it was on the front page of the newspaper. With my name and about us suing. It looked like we sued everybody in the state of Oklahoma that was in office all the way down to the garbage man.
JULIA: He was like what did you do? How--we don’t want to get mixed up in this. We don’t want our name on this we don’t want to make a fuss, like. This could hurt business. Like how dare you.
CAROLYN: You know I didn’t what had happened. I really didn’t know.
JULIA: And eventually she figured out it must’ve been that kid who came in here. And now it’s at the Supreme Court. What?
CAROLYN: I was back and forth on that phone with him trying to wait on customers and I
bet that took about three hours and he would not let up. I mean he kept calling back and calling back. He called a lawyer. He was mad. And then the last phone call he said I am flying back in and he said you pick me up.
JULIA: A couple nights later she drove to the airport.
CAROLYN: Picked him up and he was still mad. That was the longest car ride.
JULIA: As they drove back she says he just lectured her the whole ride
CAROLYN: I just listened to him.
JULIA: What did he say?
CAROLYN: I don’t know what he said word to word, I just know he was strong with what he said. With my husband it was best to just be silent. I was never afraid of him but I knew how far to push it. By the time we got from the airport to the other side it was about an hour and twenty minutes. That’s a long hour and twenty minutes in the car where you can’t get out.
JULIA: And over the course of that hour and twenty minutes, she said something in her just kind of shifted. And at a certain point she basically turned to him and was like, no. Like I know you want me to drop this case, but I’m gonna fight this.
CAROLYN: He threatened me every which way. I didn’t budge. And probably the reason why I didn’t budge, because he fought me so hard on it. You know I believed in it. I had never stepped out like that. That’s the first time I really put my foot down and didn’t budge. I gave so much to him. I mean I didn’t get a salary for 25 years. I didn’t ask for it. I figured we were equal. I figured I worked the same hours he did. And I figured I stood beside him. Not behind him and not in front of him.
JULIA: October 5, 1976, the day of oral arguments, the lawyer Fred Gilbert…
CAROLYN: I haven’t run across many people that I didn’t care for. I didn’t care for Fred. He he was so pushy.
JULIA: ...insists that Carolyn needs to come to DC
CAROLYN: I didn’t have the money to go and I didn’t want to go. I’d never traveled anywhere by myself.
CURTIS CRAIG: What I recall that day
JULIA: And Curtis Craig came too.
CURTIS CRAIG: I was dressed up.
JULIA: Suit and tie
CAROLYN: I had borrowed a dress, plastic, looked like leather.
CURTIS CRAIG: Walking up those stairs.
CAROLYN: Wore high heels.
CURTIS CRAIG: I remember that distinctly
CAROLYN: It was so big.
CURTIS: Beautiful building.
CAROLYN: I felt like I was walking forever up those stairs. I was burning up, I was sweating.
OYEZ: We’ll hear arguments next in 175628, Craig against Borum.
OYEZ: Mr. Gilbert you may proceed whenever you’re ready.
JULIA: Fred Gilbert starts things up. He walks up to the podium in with his combat boots.
FRED GILBERT: The law is broad and all encompassing in its sweep. It says that all females even those that are the most drunk, most alcoholic, most immature, most irresponsible may purchase 3.2 percent beer at age 18 in absolutely unlimited quantities
OYEZ: The law doesn’t say it in quite those words, does it?
LAUGHTER
JULIA: And by all accounts, he didn’t exactly kill it.
FRED GILBERT: No your honor. And the law doesn’t say quite the words that all males--
FRED GILBERT: The justices just kept hammering
FRED: You honor the--
OYEZ: The only way he can get relief is to move his age back and drink
FRED: Hammering
FRED: In a technical sense
OYEZ: In a technical what--
FRED: All right you honor that is technically -- the way the complaint is drafted and what
is before the court--
OYEZ: Well but you say what’s before the court. What’s before the court is your
complaint
CAROLYN: Curtis was sitting beside me. And I kept punching him. What does that mean? What are they talking about? What does that mean? And he kept saying shh. Shh. Just be quiet till it’s over. I’ll tell you!
[ARGUING]
CAROLYN: I didn’t understand what they were doing
FRED: The beer law we challenge today was originally enacted in 1890
JULIA: But she says what caught her ear was a moment when Justice Rehnquist
CAROLYN: when he called me
JUSTICE: When you say we, you’re referring to your client who is the tavern keeper?
CAROLYN: A saloon keeper
FRED: Yes your honor, and--
CAROLYN: I’ll tell you, when he called me that in the Supreme Court I came so near standing up and correcting him, and I’ve always wondered to this say why I didn’t
JUSTICE: Well if he technically turned 21--
JULIA: As arguments went on, Fred did at least try to do the thing Ruth wanted him to do..
FRED GILBERT: Your honor I would say anything could be… you could pass a law saying no negro will drive while intoxicated.
JULIA: Compare sex discrimination to race discrimination
FRED GILBERT: Now this relates to the public thing. But the thing is you can’t discriminate even for something like public safety on the basis of certain criteria.
WILLIAM REHNQUIST: Well has the court ever held that discrimination of this sort is of the same class as discrimination on the basis of race.
FRED GILBERT: Your honor this court has come very very close.
JUSTICE: Well I asked you a question, has it ever held--
FRED: No. It has never held it is totally to be treated the same way as race your honor
JULIA: To make a long story short, by the end of oral argument, things weren’t looking great for Fred
WILLIAM REHNQUIST: I mean I think that depends on the thrust of our decision.
FRED GILBERT: Alright. Alright. Let me explain this. First of all--
JULIA: At one point he even interrupts a Supreme Court justice, which you don’t do that
FRED: Supporting the denial of beer to young men 18 to 21
JULIA: It just--yeah. Wasn’t happening
FRED GILBERT: Well, I don’t have time for a parting thought, I thank you for your time.
WARREN BURGER: Thank you gentlemen, the case is submitted
[a beat]
JAD: Well. You win some you lose some, right ladies?
JULIA: What, no no no
MUSIC IN
JULIA: Here comes the craziest part of the story.
JAD: OK
JULIA: It’s like a double Trojan horse. Horse within a horse, because after the Fred Gilbert debacle, there was another case at the supreme court that afternoon.
WARREN BURGER: We’ll hear arguments next in …
JULIA: and it just so happened.
OYEZ: ...75-699 Matthews against Goldfarb.
JULIA: That the case was being argued
OYEZ: Mrs. Ginsburg?
JULIA: By none other than Ruth Bader Ginsburg
LINDA: Hm mhm Somehow she organized to get that argued the same day.
JULIA: That was on purpose?
LINDA: Yeah oh yeah.
JULIA: Oh my god. That’s genius. Wait wait wait.
LINDA: Yeah no, she’s a genius.
RUTH BADER GINSBURG: Mr. Chief Justice, and may it please the court.
JAD: Wait you’re saying she somehow managed to get in the court on another case on the same day?
JULIA: So I couldn’t confirm that for sure. I don’t even know how you would do that. But what I can tell you is that she arranged to go second. Because she knew there was probably a good chance that Fred
LINDA: The completely incompetent lawyer
JULIA: Was gonna be, you know, less than amazing
LINDA: The court was asking him questions that he was completely incapable of answering. So finally the court just went, oh nevermind. And then when Ruth stood up to argue her case, they asked her about Craig v. Boren.
JUSTICE STEPHENS: We heard a case this morning, just to be concrete, involving a law that would not permit males to make certain purchases that females could make. And it was attacked as discrimination against males.
RBG: Yes.
STEPHENS: My question is whether we should examine that law under the same or a different standard than if it were discrimination against the opposite sex.
RBG: My answer to that question is no, in part because such a law has an insidious impact against females.
JULIA: And then she told justice Stephens, even in this case, where it seems like men are the ones that are being discriminated against, beneath that discrimination is a more insidious one.
RBG: Against females. It stamps them docile, compliant, safe to be trusted--
STEPHENS: But your answer always depend on their finding SOME discrimination against females
STEPHENS: Is it your view that there is no discrimination against males?
RBG: I think there is discrimination against males
STEPHENS: And if there is…
RBG: Yes.
STEPHENS: ..such discrimination against males is it to be tested by the same or by a different standard from discrimination against females.
RBG: My response to that Mr. Justice Stephens, is that almost every discrimination that operates against males operates against females as well.
STEPHENS: Is that a yes or a no answer?
STEPHENS: I just don’t understand you are you trying to avoid the question?
RBG: No I’m not trying to avoid the question. I’m trying to clarify the position that I don’t know of any line that doesn’t work as a two-edged sword.
JULIA: They go back and forth a bit. Justice Stephens is basically like why do you keep insisting on this, why do you keep saying that discrimination against men contains within it discrimination against women. They’re different. And she’s like no, they’re not different.
STEPHENS: So your case depends then on our analyzing this case as a discrimination
against females
RBG: No. If my case depends on your recognition that using gender as a classification,
resorting to that classification, is highly questionable and should be closely reviewed
JULIA: She makes this point again and a again. All discrimination based on gender is bad and it should be checked with something at least approaching that hardcore standard that the court uses for race
CAROLYN: That was really something, seeing this little woman get up.
RBG: I don’t know of any purely anti-male discrimination.
CAROLYN: I’ll never forget that. Because she was small.
RBG: In the end the women are the ones who end up hurting. Yes.
CAROLYN: She’s so small in person. But she had a lot of force.
WARREN BURGER: Mrs. Ginsburg, the case is submitted.
JULIA: About two months later...
OYEZ: The judgment and opinion --
JULIA: December 20, 1976
OYEZ: Craig against Boren.
JULIA: Justice William Brennan announces that the court
BRENNAN: We reverse!
JULIA: Is striking down the beer law.
OYEZ: We hold that Oklahoma’s gender-based differential does constitute an invidious violation of the equal protection clause
JULIA: This silly beer case was the first time the court clearly said, that when you discriminate based on gender, you need to pass a harder test. It wasn’t as rigorous as race. It wasn’t STRICT SCRUTINY. They settled on a standard that we now call intermediate scrutiny. And it was pretty damn close.
JULIA: RBG would go on to strengthen this standard over time, but this was the case that first got us a kind of equal rights amendment through a side door.
RBG: We wish that the court had picked a less frothy case to make that announcement LAUGHTER, but of course we were very pleased that after that--
JULIA: The day the decision was announced
CAROLYN: I had just came in from work, I was at home by myself there in Stillwater.
JULIA: She’s by herself in the kitchen
JULIA: And the phone rings. Who calls?
CAROLYN: Who called? National news called to tell me that we had won… I didn’t ask what we had won. I didn’t ask anything. I just said okay.
JULIA: She hung up
CAROLYN: Stood there for a little bit and then Craig called
*MORE BEER CHANTS*
CAROLYN: And he wanted me to come down and celebrate with the guys there at his fraternity. Yeah
JULIA: She told him, no thanks. *CHEERS STOP* And then she hangs up the phone. And she gets one more phone call.
CAROLYN: And it was my husband. He was in North Carolina again and he heard he heard something about the case but he didn’t hear it all. And he said what’s going on now? And I said we won.
JULIA: And he says, is it over?
CAROLYN: I said it’s over. It’s totally over with. He said good. And he hung up. I fixed me a very good drink. Vodka and coke. Sat down in the middle of the floor and that’s the way I celebrated. I drank that drink all by myself and it was over with. It was over with.
MUSIC
JULIA: Carolyn says that for decades after this case she didn't understand what it meant. She didn’t understand what it meant as a legal principle or that it ushered in this new era for women in this country. But even so, in her own life, this case was a beginning.
CAROLYN: A couple of years after we won that case, I went in to China right after it opened up
JULIA: She saved up money and went with her sister-in-law, because Dwayne didn’t want to come with them.
CAROLYN: I did. I was so curious. And we never went like the tourists went. We’d get on
a train and if we saw something we wanted to stop and see, we would stop. We never had a schedule. And I never really did go to shop. I was just curious about the people. And how they lived. I saw so much and I talked to so many people while I was gone that uh, it was like a hunger. And you grow from it. And I just wanted to see things. And that just opened the doors for me.
MUSIC
JAD: What happened to Carolyn in the end?
JULIA: She and Dwayne divorced in 2007
JAD: And when you said she didn’t know the effect her case had for decades, like when did she figure it out? Like what--how?
JULIA: So in around 1996 this professor guy named Bob Darcy calls her up and invites her to speak at a class. And she’s kind of learning from the students and the professor like what the case actually stood for and then eventually the professor puts her in touch with Ruth Bader Ginsburg and they meet again in person. And it sort of starts to dawn on her
*Papers shuffling*
CAROLYN: One of the letters… I don’t know if that’s the one.
JULIA: And when we were sitting in her bedroom, she was looking through some old letters and pulled out one with the Supreme Court seal on it.
JULIA: Can you read it?
CAROLYN: No I don’t have my glasses you’ll have to read it.
JULIA: OK. It says: Dear Carolyn, As I told you in 1996 when we celebrated the 20th anniversary of Craig v. Boren, YOU are the true heroine of that case. Although no financial gain was at stake for you, you realized the potential the case had in paving the way for the court’s recognition of equal citizenship stature of men and women as Constitutional principle.
CAROLYN: yeah. I was going to get that framed, but I haven’t done it yet.
JULIA: Signed Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
CAROLYN: Mhm. I need to get it laminated before I have it framed.
MUSIC
JAD: Producer Julia Longoria. I’m Jad Abumrad, thank you for listening. And here is More Perfect and Radiolab’s David Gebel to read the credits.
CREDITS | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
なぜ日本ではラグビーが盛り上がらないのか 代表は善戦しているが､何かが欠けている
ここでのチケットの中心価格帯は15ポンド（2000円強）～20ポンドだ。子供はその半額に設定されており、「家族総出」で出かけるのに十分に手が届く価格設定だ。筆者もスタジアムで観戦したのだが、小・中学生の子供を連れた家族がとても多かった。
日本ではテストマッチでも「自由席」の設定があるが、カーディフをはじめとする英国の代表戦では、すべての座席が「指定席」となっている。入場希望者があまりに多く、不必要な空席を作ってはもったいないと「最後の1席」まで売り尽くすための措置だ。
サッカープレミアリーグのスタジアムでも同様の方針が取られている。日本のサポーターたちは先のアルゼンチン戦でも、自由席エリアで良い席を取るために早い時間から並んだりしていたが、英国ではそんな手間は不要。試合開始の直前までスタジアムの外にあるパブでビールを飲み交わすことができる。
見習いたい「サポーターの囲い込み」
ウェールズ戦には日本からも多くの「個人観戦客」が訪れた。チケットを現地のウェールズ協会から入手したサポーターのもとには、当日にスタジアムを訪れる際の注意事項のほか、観戦に役立つスタジアムでの楽しみ方などが詳細に書かれたメールが届けられた。
さらに、一度でもチケットを入手すると、そのサポーターのメールアドレスが協会のデータベースに記録されるので、別の試合に関する案内も来るようになる。協会側でも個々のサポーターたちがどこの地方・国から観戦に来ているのかをしっかり把握できる。ウェールズ協会が「今回、満席になった日本戦を来年もやるかどうか」を決める際に、これらのデータが役に立つことは間違いない。
今回の「カーディフでの日本戦」は、ウェールズ協会にとって興行的にも大成功を収めた。
問題は日本協会だ。数万人のラグビーサポーターが集まる機会だったにもかかわらず、試合会場内外のどこにもW杯日本開催のPRがなかったのは残念だった。W杯日本開催の盛り上げに向け、国内での機運醸成は必須だが、海外からの誘客活動の強化も課題だろう。
これまで日本で開催されたテストマッチでは、海外から試合観戦のために訪れるサポーターは多くない。それだけに、こういう機会を使って積極的に日本をアピールするべきだろう。
ウェールズ人に限らず、英国のラグビーファンと話をすると、いまもなお「ジャパンの活躍」を賞賛する声がやまない。強豪国のサポーターの間でも、ラグビー日本代表やW杯日本大会への期待は決して小さくない。大会運営に携わる人々は国内のことばかりを気にしがちだが、外国のサポーターと生で接触する機会を増やし、彼らを1人でも多く招くことを考えたほうがいいかもしれない。
さかい もとみさんの最新公開記事をメールで受け取る（著者フォロー） | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
ATAC announces first strike of the year in Rome.
Rome commuters are braced for the first public transport strike of the year on Thursday 17 January, with two strike actions taking place concurrently.
A 24-hour strike involves employees from Rome's public transport company ATAC striking from 08.30 to 17.00 and from 20.00 until end of service, while a second four-hour strike - involving members of a different trade union - is scheduled from 08.30 to 12.30.
The strike action will affect Rome's buses, trams, metro and light rail services Roma-Lido, Termini-Centocelle and Roma-Civitacastellana-Viterbo.
For details see city website. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
The high-profile DDoS attack against GitHub that went on for several days last month was the end result of an operation that included several phases and extensive testing and optimization by the attackers. Researchers at Google analyzed the attack traffic over several weeks and found that the attackers used both Javascript replacement and HTML injections.
The early stages of the attack started in early March, and Google’s researchers said that seemed to be a test as the attackers figured out the techniques they were going to use. There was only one target at that time, from March 3 to March 6, and the attackers then moved on.
“The initial test target was 114.113.156.119:56789 and the number of requests was artificially limited. From March 4rd to March 6th, the request limitations were removed,” Niels Provos from Google’s security team said in a blog post.
“The next phase was conducted between March 10th and 13th and targeted the following IP address at first: 203.90.242.126. Passive DNS places hosts under the sinajs.cn domain at this IP address. On March 13th, the attack was extended to include d1gztyvw1gvkdq.cloudfront.net. At first, requests were made over HTTP and then upgraded to to use HTTPS. On March 14th, the attack started for real and targeted d3rkfw22xppori.cloudfront.net both via HTTP as well as HTTPS. Attacks against this specific host were carried out until March 17th.”
The next day, the attackers, who are widely believed to be affiliated with the Chinese government, added several more hosts to the target list, all of them hosted by Amazon’s CloudFront service. The attackers changed tactics during this phase of the operation.
“At some point during this phase of the attack, the cloudfront hosts started serving 302 redirects to greatfire.org as well as other domains. Substitution of Javascript ceased completely on March 20th but injections into HTML pages continued. Whereas Javascript replacement breaks the functionality of the original content, injection into HTML does not,” Provos said.
It wasn’t until March 26 that the attackers actually began targeting two separate resources on GitHub, one of which housed content from GreatFire.org, a censorship monitoring organization in China. The other resource was Chinese language content from the New York Times. The attack on those resources lasted until April 7 and Provos said that the attack wouldn’t have been possible if all of the Web’s links were encrypted.
“Had the entire web already moved to encrypted traffic via TLS, such an injection attack would not have been possible. This provides further motivation for transitioning the web to encrypted and integrity-protected communication,” Provos said.
“Unfortunately, defending against such an attack is not easy for website operators. In this case, the attack Javascript requests web resources sequentially and slowing down responses might have helped with reducing the overall attack traffic. Another hope is that the external visibility of this attack will serve as a deterrent in the future.” | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
ST. JOHNSBURY, VT–Looking at Warren Geary, you'd never suspect. A respected business owner and devoted family man, the 41-year-old Geary, by all outward indications, would appear to be just like anyone else in this sleepy New England hamlet of 4,700.
Warren Geary, a seemingly normal business owner and family man who harbors a secret fetish for women without clothes.
But looks can be deceiving.
Dig a little deeper, beyond the many years of PTA involvement and Kiwanis Club membership, and you'll discover a very different Warren Geary, one who derives sexual stimulation and pleasure from the sight of unclothed women. This seemingly normal husband and father of three has a naked-lady fetish.
"I really enjoy looking at naked ladies," Geary said. "I don't know what it is, but seeing women without clothes gets me excited."
So consuming is Geary's fetish, he said he will sometimes pass a woman on the street and catch himself imagining what she would look like undressed.
"I'll often think about naked women, even when none are around," said Geary, who has a collection of magazines and videotapes devoted to naked-lady fetishism, including the 1998 film Boogie Nights. "It's just this fixation of mine."
Geary said he doesn't recall when or how he first developed his strange compulsion for seeing women in a state of rant undress.
"I have no idea how I came to develop these urges. As a child, I found the naked female form gross or humorous, just like any healthy boy," Geary said. "But at some point, I found myself not only enjoying the sight of disrobed women, but actually seeking it out."
Geary said hardly a day goes by when he doesn't imagine women in states of undress. There are no boundaries to when and where it may occur–at church, the post office, the health club, the beach. He even admits to watching TV for hours on end, solely in the hopes of catching a glimpse of bare breasts.
"Sometimes, I'll turn on HBO, and if a movie is listed as containing nudity, I'll watch the entire film–even though I have no interest in the plot or subject matter–just to see the breasts," Geary said. "I know it's wrong, but I can't help myself."
News of Geary's lurid fixation has caused considerable controversy throughout St. Johnsbury.
"It's twisted and obscene, that's for sure," said Janice Alvaro, whose home is just a block away from Geary's. "It makes me very uncomfortable knowing that I live so close to someone like that."
"A man who harbors a secret lust for women without any clothes on is not the kind of man we want coaching one of our teams," said local Little League president Stephen Claussen, who has asked Geary not to return next season after 14 years of involvement. "I don't feel comfortable entrusting our town's children to that kind of a person. What if his presence somehow influences these kids, perverting their normal sexual growth and causing them to develop that same kind of aberrant interest in naked women later in life?"
For decades, psychologists believed naked-lady fetishism to be the domain of a tiny handful of sexual deviants. A growing number of experts, however, now believe the condition to be much more common, with some estimates putting the number of men consumed by the sight of the naked female form as high as 1 in 50,000.
According to noted psychotherapist Dr. Eli Wasserbaum, clear distinctions exist between normal men and those with naked-lady fetishes.
"When a normal man sees an attractive woman, he is drawn to her stylish hairdo, nicely applied make-up and flattering dress, and he reacts with an intense desire to marry her," Wasserbaum said. "The naked-lady fetishist, however, is unmoved by such features as hairstyle and clothing, regarding them as distractions and impediments to the one thing that truly interests him–her naked body."
"In a way, it's very sad," Wasserbaum said. "Instead of being able to enjoy the conversation of a woman over dinner and drinks, the naked-lady fetishist, gripped by his uncontrollable impulses, will only be able to think about whether he'll get to see her naked body later in the evening."
Scientists theorize that naked-lady fetishism may represent a long-obsolete evolutionary remnant, a vestigial instinct that once served some reproductive purpose among early hominids.
"About 70 million years ago, the female form may have served as a visual cue, triggering male arousal for the purpose of procreation," Brown University anthropologist Isaac Gage said. "But the human species evolved beyond that point long ago. Why a small handful of individuals would still exhibit traces of this ancestral evolutionary past is curious, to say the least. But one thing is certain: We should not permit our feelings of shame and ignorance to cloud our perceptions. Geary should be seen for what he is–a deeply disturbed individual in desperate need of medical help." | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Avengers: Endgame will see the surviving Avengers come together to take on the immensely powerful Thanos. The Avengers: Infinity War post-credits scene confirmed that Captain Marvel is heading on her way to the next Avengers film. Well, there another Marvel female superhero who is expected to join the roster in the fight against the Mad Titan and she’s none other than Iron Man’s lady love Pepper Pots.
Leaked images of some prototype action figures have popped up online including that shows Ms. Potts’ customized Rescue armor. The suit looks almost similar to Pepper’s purple and silver armor that she donned in the 2009 Iron Man Armoured Adventures animated series. A new update offersThe prototype models along with the headgear attached. You can check out the pictures below.
The first Avengers: Endgame trailer showed Iron Man stranded in space with no hope of rescue. It is expected that Gwyneth Paltrow’s Pepper will the one who will take it upon herself to save Stark by transitioning into her comic book alter ego Rescue. She will likely take Rocket’s help to navigate her way through the stars.
In related news, a bunch of images of seemingly official Avengers toys has surfaced online showcasing several Avengers in battle attire. There’s Captain America, Thor, and even Spider-Man and Black Panther who turned to dust in Infinity War due to Thanos snap.
Steve Rogers’ toy can be seen decked up in the official Captain America suit complete with the shield, while the God of Thunder can be seen donning an official Avengers outfit. There’s also a picture of Hulk in an Avengers suit. Thanos’ figurine from the same set teases a new armor suit and a new weapon for the Marvel villain. It also reveals that he’s still going to wear that infamous Infinity Gauntlet in the upcoming film.
Avengers: Endgame is set to debut in theatres on April 26.
via: CBM | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
The new head of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) selected by President Barack Obama has very close ties to the pharmaceutical industry.
Dr. Robert Califf, an FDA deputy commissioner and cardiologist at Duke University, has had considerable dealings, including financial ones, with drug manufacturers, whose products must be approved by the agency he’s been tabbed to lead.
“No one who knows him thinks he wants to weaken the regulatory agency he has been chosen to lead,” The New York Times reported. “But he has deeper ties to the pharmaceutical industry than any FDA commissioner in recent memory, and some public health advocates question whether his background could tilt him in the direction of an industry he would be in charge of supervising.”
The multi-million dollar research center at Duke that Califf ran before joining the FDA received more than 60% of its funding from Big Pharma. In addition, Califf has collected consulting fees from drug makers such as Eli Lilly, Merck and Novartis, although he has donated those fees to non-profits since the mid-2000s.
Califf also drew scrutiny for the “highly unusual” step of removing his name from a series of scientific papers concerning the FDA’s oversight of clinical trials, according to the Boston Globe. The move “could raise ethical concerns,” the Globe’s Sheila Kaplan wrote, particularly since Califf was the “driving force behind the series.”
The study examined “pragmatic” clinical trials, which some believe more closely replicate real-world conditions. Parts of the papers are critical of the FDA and recommend potentially divisive changes. One of the study’s co-authors told the Globe that the FDA asked Califf to remove his name.
Daniel Carpenter, a Harvard political science professor, told the Times: “In a sense, he’s the ultimate industry insider.”
-Noel Brinkerhoff
To Learn More:
Sanders Opposes FDA Chief Nominee Over Ties to ‘Greedy’ Big Pharma (by Nadia Prupis, Common Dreams)
FDA Official Took Name off Papers (by Sheila Kaplan, Boston Globe)
FDA Nominee Califf’s Ties to Drug Makers Worry Some (by Sabrina Tavernise, New York Times)
Commercial Relationships Tracking Form: Robert Califf (Duke Clinical Research Institute, Conflict of Interest Disclosure Statements) (pdf)
Is Revolving Door between FDA and Supplements Industry Keeping Dangerous Dietary Aids on the Market? (by Noel Brinkerhoff and Steve Straehley, AllGov) | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Archived content Archive date: 2019-06-25 This content is no longer being updated or maintained. The content is provided “as is.” Given the rapid evolution of technology, some content, steps, or illustrations may have changed. This content is no longer being updated or maintained. The content is provided “as is.” Given the rapid evolution of technology, some content, steps, or illustrations may have changed.
Based on appearance, a UNIX® application has sole command of the underlying host. It has ready and free access to the processor, its memory is sacrosanct, and attached devices serve the application’s every whim. But true to the maxim “Appearances can be deceiving,” such sovereignty is a clever illusion. A UNIX system runs any number of applications simultaneously, sharing its finite physical resources judiciously among all. Processor capacity is doled out in slices, application images are constantly shuffled in and out of real memory, and device access is driven by demand and policed by access rights. Although your shell prompt blinks attentively, a UNIX machine teems with activity.
Frequently used acronyms API: Application programming interface
Application programming interface IPv4: Internet Protocol version 4
Internet Protocol version 4 IPv6: Internet Protocol version 6
Internet Protocol version 6 POSIX:Portable Operating System Interface for UNIX
Complexity notwithstanding, most applications are happily oblivious to shared tenancy. However, you can write applications to interact with each other. For example, one application could collect or generate data, while another monitors progress and analyzes the information simultaneously. Chat, an instant exchange of messages, is another instance of cooperating code, where the application both transmits and receives data from a peer. Secure Shell (ssh) is another tandem, potentially coordinating between two entirely different hosts. In each instance, code connects to other independent code to swap information, often using a protocol to negotiate and control the interchange.
UNIX provides a number of technologies for such interprocess communication. Some techniques provide for communication on the same host, while others facilitate host-to-host exchanges. Also, speed varies among the techniques, so you must choose the option that best suits your requirements. Coordination — enforcing timing and exclusivity — is invariably required, too. For example, if one application produces data and another consumes it, the consumer must pause and wait for the producer whenever it exhausts the shared pool. Reflexively, the producer may slow or stall if the consumer cannot deplete the pool quickly enough.
Table 1 below summarizes the forms of interprocess communication available on a typical UNIX system.
Table 1. Interprocess communication in UNIX
Name Description Scope Use File Data is written to and read from a typical UNIX file. Any number of processes can interoperate. Local Sharing large data sets Pipe Data is transferred between two processes using dedicated file descriptors. Communication occurs only between a parent and child process. Local Simple data sharing, such as producer and consumer Named pipe Data is exchanged between processes via dedicated file descriptors. Communication can occur between any two peer processes on the same host. Local Producer and consumer, or command-and-control, as demonstrated with MySQL server and its command-line query utility Signal An interrupt alerts the application to a specific condition. Local Cannot transfer data in a signal, so mostly useful for process management Shared memory Information is shared by reading and writing from a common segment of memory. Local Cooperative work of any kind, especially if security is required. Socket After special setup, data is transferred using common input/output operations. Local or remote Network services such as FTP, ssh, and the Apache Web Server
As mentioned above, each technique suits a particular need. Assuming that coordination between multiple processes is roughly equally intricate, each approach has advantages and disadvantages:
Sharing data via a common UNIX file is simple, because it uses familiar file operations. However, sharing data via the file system is inherently slow, because disk input and output operations cannot match the expediency of memory. Further, it is difficult to coordinate reads and writes via a file only. Ultimately, saving sensitive data in a file is not secure, because root and other privileged users can access the information. In a sense, files are best used when viewed as read-only or write-only.
The pipe and named pipe are also simple mechanisms. Both use two standard file descriptors on each end of the connection — one exclusive to read and another exclusive to write operations. A pipe, though, can only be used between a parent and child process, not between two arbitrary processes. The named pipe addresses the latter shortcoming and is an excellent choice for data exchange on the same system. However, neither a pipe nor a named pipe provides random access, because each operates as a first-in, first-out (FIFO) device.
A signal cannot transfer data from one process to another. In general, signals should only be used to communicate exceptional conditions between one process and another.
Shared memory is well suited to larger collections of data and, because it uses memory, grants fast, random access. Shared memory is slightly more complicated to implement but is otherwise an excellent choice for intra host collaboration between multiple processes.
A socket functions much like a named pipe but can span hosts. Local sockets (also called UNIX sockets) are restricted to local (same host) connectivity. Inet and Inet6 sockets, which use the IPv4 and IPv6 protocols, respectively, accept remote connections (and local connections via the local machine’s Internet addressing). The socket is the obvious choice for any networking application, such as distributed processing or a web browser. Coding is a little more complicated than with named pipes, but the pattern is well established and well documented in any UNIX network programming book.
Ignoring inter host applications, let’s look at shared memory for interprocess communication on the same host.
How shared memory works
As its name implies, shared memory makes a segment of memory accessible to more than one process. Special system calls, or requests to the UNIX kernel, allocate and free the memory and set permissions; common read and write operations put and get data from the region.
Shared memory is not drawn from a process’s own memory; that memory is always private. Instead, shared memory is allocated from the system’s free memory pool and is annexed by each process that wants access. Annexation is called mapping, where the shared segment of memory is assigned local addresses in each process’ own address space. Figure 1, Figure 2, Figure 3, and Figure 4 depict the process:
Assume two processes, A and B, are running on the same system, as shown in Figure 1, and have been specifically coded to coordinate and share information via shared memory. A and B have disproportionate sizes in the figure to emphasize that the applications need not be identical. Figure 1. Two processes running on a host, executing different code
In Figure 2, process A requests a segment of shared memory. Process A initializes the memory segment, preparing it for use. The process also names the segment so that other processes can find it. Typically, a segment name is not dynamically assigned; instead, it is well known, such as a constant in a header file, and easily referenced from other code. Figure 2. One process requests a shared memory segment
Process A annexes, or maps, the shared memory segment into its own address space. Process B finds the segment via its named pipe and also maps the segment into its address space. This is shown in Figure 3. Both processes are enlarged by the size of the shared memory segment. Figure 3. Both processes annex, or map, the shared memory segment
Finally, in Figure 4, processes A and B can read and write from the shared memory segment freely. The shared memory is treated the same as local process memory. read() and write() operate as normal. Figure 4. Two or more processes can now share data via common memory
Much of the work shown in these figures is captured in the UNIX shared memory API. In fact, there are two variants of the shared memory API: the POSIX API and the older (but no less effective) System V API. Because POSIX is the ratified standard likely found on UNIX and Linux® and derivations of those systems, let’s use that version. Additionally, the POSIX API uses simple file descriptors for read and write and so should seem much more familiar.
POSIX provides five entry points to create, map, synchronize, and undo shared memory segments:
shm_open() : Creates a shared memory region or attaches to an existing, named region. This system call returns a file descriptor.
: Creates a shared memory region or attaches to an existing, named region. This system call returns a file descriptor. shm_unlink() : Deletes a shared memory region given a file descriptor (returned from shm_open() ). The region is not actually removed until all processes accessing the region exit, much like any file in UNIX. However, once shm_unlink() is called (typically by the originating process), no other processes can access the region.
: Deletes a shared memory region given a file descriptor (returned from ). The region is not actually removed until all processes accessing the region exit, much like any file in UNIX. However, once is called (typically by the originating process), no other processes can access the region. mmap() : Maps a shared memory region into the process’s memory. This system call requires the file descriptor from shm_open() and returns a pointer to memory. (In some cases, you can also map a file descriptor to a plain file or another device into memory. A discussion of those options is beyond the scope of this introduction; consult the mmap() documentation for your operating system for specifics.)
: Maps a shared memory region into the process’s memory. This system call requires the file descriptor from and returns a pointer to memory. (In some cases, you can also map a file descriptor to a plain file or another device into memory. A discussion of those options is beyond the scope of this introduction; consult the documentation for your operating system for specifics.) munmap() : The inverse of mmap() .
: The inverse of . msync() : Used to synchronize a shared memory segment with the file system — a technique useful when mapping a file into memory.
The pattern for shared memory is to create a segment with shm_open() , size it with write() or ftruncate() , map it into process memory with mmap() , and do the work required with one or more additional participants. To finish, the originating process calls munmap() and shm_unlink() , and then exits.
A sample application
Listing 1 below shows a small shared memory example. (The code is derived from John Fusco’s book, The Linux Programmer’s Toolbox, ISBN 0132198576, published by Prentice Hall Professional, March 2007, and used with the permission of the publisher.) The code implements a parent and child process that communicates via a shared memory segment.
Listing 1. Shared memory example
#include <stdio.h> #include <string.h> #include <stdlib.h> #include <unistd.h> #include <sys/file.h> #include <sys/mman.h> #include <sys/wait.h> void error_and_die(const char *msg) { perror(msg); exit(EXIT_FAILURE); } int main(int argc, char *argv[]) { int r; const char *memname = "sample"; const size_t region_size = sysconf(_SC_PAGE_SIZE); int fd = shm_open(memname, O_CREAT | O_TRUNC | O_RDWR, 0666); if (fd == -1) error_and_die("shm_open"); r = ftruncate(fd, region_size); if (r != 0) error_and_die("ftruncate"); void *ptr = mmap(0, region_size, PROT_READ | PROT_WRITE, MAP_SHARED, fd, 0); if (ptr == MAP_FAILED) error_and_die("mmap"); close(fd); pid_t pid = fork(); if (pid == 0) { u_long *d = (u_long *) ptr; *d = 0xdbeebee; exit(0); } else { int status; waitpid(pid, &status, 0); printf("child wrote %#lx
", *(u_long *) ptr); } r = munmap(ptr, region_size); if (r != 0) error_and_die("munmap"); r = shm_unlink(memname); if (r != 0) error_and_die("shm_unlink"); return 0; } Show more Show more icon
Here are some highlights from the code:
The call to shm_open() should look familiar; it is much like the open() function, including how to initialize the segment and permissions. Here, the segment is world-readable and world-writable. The next unused file descriptor is returned if the call is successful; otherwise, -1 is returned and errno is set accordingly.
should look familiar; it is much like the function, including how to initialize the segment and permissions. Here, the segment is world-readable and world-writable. The next unused file descriptor is returned if the call is successful; otherwise, is returned and is set accordingly. ftruncate() sizes the file to region_size bytes, which was previously set to the system’s standard page size. sysconf() is provided as part of libc. (You can use the shell utility getconf to explore your system’s configuration settings, too.)
sizes the file to bytes, which was previously set to the system’s standard page size. is provided as part of libc. (You can use the shell utility to explore your system’s configuration settings, too.) mmap() annexes the shared memory segment and returns a pointer suitable for reading and writing bytes directly from the segment. PROT_READ and PROT_WRITE indicate that the pages in the segment can be read from and written to, respectively. MAP_SHARED specifies that any changes to the memory segment should be “public” to all cooperating processes.
annexes the shared memory segment and returns a pointer suitable for reading and writing bytes directly from the segment. and indicate that the pages in the segment can be read from and written to, respectively. specifies that any changes to the memory segment should be “public” to all cooperating processes. The computation part of the code should seem familiar if you’ve worked at all with fork() . After the fork, the parent and child have copies of all open file descriptors and data values, so the pointer works for both. pid , however, differs. The child gets 0, the parent gets the process ID of the child, and the value of the variable determines which of the if / then / else branches to take. The child writes some bytes to the pointer and then exits. The parent waits for the child to exit and then reads what was written.
. After the fork, the parent and child have copies of all open file descriptors and data values, so the pointer works for both. , however, differs. The child gets 0, the parent gets the process ID of the child, and the value of the variable determines which of the / / branches to take. The child writes some bytes to the pointer and then exits. The parent waits for the child to exit and then reads what was written. Before the parent can exit, however, it must free the shared memory. munmap() and shm_unlink() do the trick.
This example is very elementary. A real application would use semaphores or other techniques to control reading and writing to the shared segment. Such control is typically application specific, and you can find many examples in the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) and Linux source, if your UNIX flavor is not open source.
All for one
Because UNIX runs many applications seemingly at the same time, it’s an ideal platform for monitoring, data collection, cooperative and distributed computing, and client-server applications. Shared memory is the fastest of the interprocess communications options available and is quite flexible. You can map files into memory, as well — an ideal solution for accelerating data access. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Ravaging barely at the enormous flooring carpet the lovable inexperienced woman takes quite a lot of postures and speeds up to take a seat on rear end and open hatch for spunk. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Kansas plans to impose what some tax experts said Wednesday would be the nation's most aggressive policy for collecting state and local taxes on online sales, possibly inviting a legal battle.
Continue Reading Below
The state Department of Revenue issued a notice last week saying any "remote seller" doing business with Kansas residents must register with the department, collect state and local sales taxes and forward the revenues to the state, starting Oct. 1. It cites a U.S. Supreme Court decision last year allowing states to collect sales taxes on Internet sales.
Most states now have policies to collect such taxes, but almost all set minimum annual sales or transaction thresholds to exempt small businesses, according to groups tracking tax laws. Kansas is the first to attempt to collect the taxes without exempting any businesses, they said.
The Republican-controlled Legislature included provisions on taxing Internet sales in two tax-cutting bills this year, but Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly vetoed both measures, saying they would destabilize the state's finances. The Department of Revenue is imposing its new policy under an existing tax law that applied to out-of-state businesses but wasn't being enforced because past court decisions prevented it.
"I think they're insane," said Diane Yetter, founder of the Sales Tax Institute in Chicago. Later, she added, "I just think Kansas is setting itself up for a lawsuit — and embarrassment, truthfully."
Here's a look at how other states stack up to Kansas's new policy:
New York: The Empire State has more complex rules surrounding collecting taxes from online retailers; the state has sought to increase sales tax collection by using broader definitions of what it means to do business in their borders. They also require retailers to collect a tax if they have digital ties to the state, according to a Bloomberg report. The minimum sales threshold is $300,000 and 100 transactions.
South Dakota: On the other hand, South Dakota has a pretty simple tax policy: It taxes most products at a single rate, exempts small sellers and doesn't allow retroactive collection. The minimum qualification is $100,000 (like the majority of states) or 200 transactions.
Alabama: The state passed the "Simplified Seller Use Tax Remittance Act" in 2017, allowing eligible remote sellers to collect and remit a flat, eight percent sales tax rate. To be taxed, stores must exceed $250,000 in sales.
Idaho, Oklahoma: In both states, the minimum sales threshold in order to pay an online sales tax is only $10,000.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX BUSINESS APP
The Associated Press contributed to this report. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
On Tuesday, lawmakers said that President Trump’s top envoys for Ukraine and the European Union used personal phones and an encrypted messenger app as they conducted U.S. policy on Ukraine, a matter that was revealed during House Democrats’ impeachment inquiry.
AD
The most vocal defenders of the Trump administration’s actions include some of the most aggressive critics of Clinton’s handling of sensitive information, including Rep. Jim Jordan (R) of Ohio, Rep. Mark Meadows (R) of North Carolina and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who as a Kansas congressman had attacked Clinton by underscoring the solemn role of soldiers in defending U.S. secrets.
AD
“We have soldiers today in the field, fighting to protect classified information from getting out . . . [risking] a lot of their lives to keep the information safe. And Secretary Clinton handled this in a very different way,” Pompeo told a television host in February 2016, adding that she had violated “multiple laws.”
On Tuesday, Meadows dismissed concerns about the communications of the two diplomats, Kurt Volker and Gordon Sondland, saying their use of personal phones or encrypted apps was acceptable because they ultimately handed over their correspondence to the State Department.
AD
“Based on what I’ve seen, I have no concerns,” he said in an interview.
The State Department has not responded to questions about the diplomats’ handling of information, but Pompeo has broadly defended his subordinates, saying “each of the actions that were undertaken by State Department officials was entirely appropriate.”
AD
State Department officials are told to use government-issued phones when conducting official business so that those communications are secure and archived for posterity in compliance with the Federal Records Act and Foreign Affairs Manual. If diplomats send a work-related message on a private platform, they must make a copy of it and submit it for archiving “no later than 20 days after the original creation or transmission,” the manual says.
AD
Despite those rules, the use of WhatsApp and other messaging services is fairly widespread at the State Department, and those who use them often fail to take screen shots of the communications and forward them on in official emails for the archives as instructed.
“Few, few people do that,” said one former official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss compliance issues he witnessed.
AD
“The irony is that Pompeo’s diplomats are using personal devices when he personally went ballistic on Hillary Clinton for that,” the official added.
Clinton employed a more elaborate workaround of State Department guidelines through her use of a private server, but some legal experts said the disparity in outrage in the two cases was telling.
AD
“ ‘Pot meet kettle’ doesn’t do the situation justice,” said Brad Moss, a Washington-based attorney who specializes in national security and classification cases.
Meadows said the charges of hypocrisy were not valid because Clinton was mishandling classified material. He said he trusted Volker’s testimony before House investigators last week in which the envoy purportedly said none of his communications were “classified.”
“A few of them were sensitive, in his opinion, but none from his professional opinion were classified,” Meadows said.
AD
In 2016, the FBI found that at least 110 emails Clinton sent through a private server contained information that was classified at the time, but other pieces of her correspondence were retroactively classified. That’s something some experts say could happen with Volker’s correspondence, given that the contents included a potential meeting with a U.S. president and security assistance for a country in a military conflict with Russia.
AD
“It is more likely than not that at least some of the information outlined in those messages will be designated as classified at some level, and those who slammed Secretary Clinton for passive receipt of unmarked emails that later were deemed to contain classified information will be presented with claims of hypocrisy if they now dismiss similar behavior merely because it was done by their political allies,” Moss said.
While Volker handed over his messages to House investigators last week, Sondland’s correspondence remains with the State Department. Sondland, who was a hotel magnate and Trump donor before becoming the president’s envoy to the European Union, appears to have played a significant role in trying to persuade Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate former vice president Joe Biden at Trump’s behest.
AD
Sondland was scheduled to appear before House investigators Tuesday, but the State Department ordered him not to do so, a decision that Democrats led by Rep. Adam B. Schiff (Calif.) protested.
AD
“Not only is the Congress being deprived of his testimony, and the American people are being deprived of his testimony today, but we are also aware that the ambassador has text messages or emails on a personal device which have been provided to the State Department,” Schiff told reporters Tuesday.
Pompeo, who led an aggressive campaign to extract documents and interviews from the State Department as part of a probe into the killing of a U.S. ambassador and three other Americans in Benghazi, Libya, in 2012, also faced charges of hypocrisy last week when he accused House Democrats of trying to “intimidate, bully and treat improperly” State Department employees through interview requests.
AD
Schiff is now accusing Pompeo of failing to live up to the level of transparency he demanded of the Obama administration, saying Sondland’s messages are “deeply relevant to this investigation and the impeachment inquiry.”
AD
Republicans, led by Jordan, the top Republican on the House Oversight and Reform Committee, defended the State Department’s decision to delay the testimony and records disclosures.
“We fully understand why the administration made the decision they did,” said Jordan, who claimed that Schiff misrepresented Volker’s testimony and therefore could not be trusted with other such testimonies.
Meadows challenged Schiff to prove that Sondland used a personal device, although neither Sondland nor Volker denied the allegation.
Experts in both parties have said that ambiguity in the State Department’s rules and policies on the retention of various messaging applications has long been a problem. Kaylin Minton, a spokeswoman for the House Foreign Affairs Committee Republicans, noted that the State Department authorization bill, which passed the House this summer, “attempts to push the department toward adopting uniform guidelines on the issue.”
“We need to reform our protocols to keep pace with advancements in technology,” she said. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Publicidade
O PSDB leva ao ar na noite desta quinta-feira (12) propaganda na qual afirma que "é hora de virar a página" e trabalharmos juntos para reconstruir o Brasil".
A peça será apresentada no mesmo dia em que a presidente Dilma Rousseff foi afastada do cargo e Michel Temer (PMDB) assumiu como presidente interino.
A sigla apoia o governo Temer e conta, até este momento, com três tucanos na lista de ministros do peemedebista: o deputado federal Bruno Araújo (PSDB-PE), que deu o voto decisivo para o impeachment de Dilma na Câmara, será o ministro das Cidades; o senador José Serra (PSDB-SP) assume o Ministério das Relações Exteriores; e Alexandre de Moraes, ex-secretário de Segurança Pública de São Paulo, que vira ministro da Justiça e Cidadania.
O presidente nacional da legenda, senador Aécio Neves (PSDB-MG), é quem faz a narração do vídeo.
"É hora de virar a página. Virar a página do desemprego. Virar a página do medo. É hora de virar a página da divisão entre os brasileiros", inicia o tucano. Logo em seguida, ele afirma que "é hora de deixarmos todas as diferenças de lado e trabalharmos juntos para reconstruir o Brasil".
A fala é uma clara menção à adesão dos tucanos à gestão de Temer. Em uma segunda propaganda, a ideia de unidade em torno da nova gestão também fica implícita. Nela, o texto diz que o momento agora é de "reerguer o Brasil".
O tucano fala em "aprender com os erros para fazer diferente" e não faz nenhuma citação direta ao PT ou à presidente Dilma. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
JEJU (Yonhap) — Since capturing the Ricoh Women’s British Open for her fourth different LPGA major title, South Korean star Park Inbee has had to defend her belief that her accomplishment qualifies as a career grand slam.
In South Korea for a domestic tour event, Park reiterated at a press conference Thursday that she believes she has completed her slam.
Park’s monumental victory set off debate because the LPGA Tour added a fifth major in 2013 and some think Park must win that new major, the Evian Championship, to truly complete the slam.
The world No. 1 player, who won the Evian the year before it was designated a major, begged to differ.
“When I started out as a pro, there were four majors and then it became five,” she said. “If winning all five constitutes a grand slam, then what about those legends who won four different majors? Would they have to win the Evian Championship, too?”
Only six other players before Park — Louise Suggs, Mickey Wright, Pat Bradley, Juli Inkster, Karrie Webb and Annika Sorenstam, have won four different majors.
For the record, the LPGA Tour has recognized Park’s feat as a career slam. It said if Park captures the Evian Championship next month for her fifth different major, then she will have completed a “super career grand slam.”
“The LPGA did not add a fifth major championship to change history, alter discussion or make the accomplishment of a “grand slam” more difficult,” the tour’s website notes. “We added a fifth major to create an incremental opportunity for the women’s game.”
Not everyone in the media has agreed with the view. And Park said she doesn’t think an American golfer in the same situation — with four different majors and a pre-major Evian title — would have dealt with a similar controversy and that the U.S. media would have hailed it as a career slam.
“If I want to put an end to all this, it’d be nice to win the Evian Championship in September,” she said. “But that’s not my ultimate goal. My biggest objective is to enter the World Golf Hall of Fame. I started playing golf because I wanted to leave my mark in the history of the game. I want to do just that.”
In the 2015 season, Park has four victories, including two majors. Chun In-gee won the U.S. Women’s Open last month, giving South Korea three of the four majors so far.
Overall, South Koreans have combined to claim 12 out of 20 tournaments. It’s not counting two wins by South Korean-born Kiwi Lydia Ko, and one victory by Minjee Lee, who was born in Australia to Korean parents.
Park said she thinks some American players may feel “jealous” of South Koreans’ dominance.
“I think if six or seven out of the 10 best players on the Korean tour were from overseas, we’d feel the same,” she added. “But I think the players should be thankful for the competition, and the real professionals are the ones who beat their rivals.”
At the Women’s British Open, another South Korean, Ko Jin-young, finished alone in second, while Ryu So-yeon, former Rookie of the Year and world No. 4, tied for third.
An American veteran, Cristie Kerr, was compelled to say of South Koreans: “They are machines. They practice 10 hours a day.”
Park responded, “Then they should build better machines.” | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Authorities in Port St. Joe, Florida say a man charged with a hate crime felt inconvenienced by his arrest because he had “only shot a n*gger.”
Walton Henry Butler, 59, was arrested by Gulf County Sheriff’s deputies on Monday night for shooting 32-year-old Everett Gant, who is black, in the head with a .22 caliber rifle.
According to a charging affidavit obtained by The Star, Butler had referred to Pamela Rogers’ child and other children at his apartment complex with racial slurs.
ADVERTISEMENT
Gant was shot between the eyes when he went to Butler’s apartment to confront him over the remarks, the documents said. Butler allegedly closed his sliding glass door and left Gant bleeding on ground outside.
The suspect contacted 911 and had finished his dinner before Gulf County Sheriff Joe Nugent arrived.
Nugent recalled that Butler appeared “inconvenienced” by the arrest, saying that “he had only shot a n*gger.”
“He was brought to the investigation unit where he was interviewed and basically admitted to shooting the victim and said he shot a, used a racial slur, and said that is what he shot and acted like it was not like a big deal or anything to him,” Nugent told WJHG.
Butler was charged with attempted murder with a hate crime enhancement. He was being held in the Gulf County Jail after an appearance in court on Tuesday morning.
ADVERTISEMENT
Gant was in stable condition at Bay Medical Center and is expected to survive.
Watch this video from WJHG, broadcast July 31, 2012. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
× Expand Leaning tower of literature
This year, we didn't quite get a novel that reached the heights of last year's best, John Darnielle's National Book Award-nominated Wolf in White Van and Monica Byrne's The Girl in the Road, though Julia Elliott's The New and Improved Romie Futch and what I've read so far of Sean Jackson's Haw come close. We did get a fascinating variety of very good books, far too many for a definitive list. So here's a, not the, top 10, mostly from my bailiwick of speculative fictionour region's most active, close-knit writing scenewith something for everyone: horror, short stories, mythopoeia, nonfiction, weird fiction, memoir, comics and even a prose B-movie. For a snapshot of the year in (for lack of a better term) literary fiction, see Brian Howe's blog post.
Nathan Ballingrud: The Visible Filth (This Is Horror)This Asheville author's stories should come with a physician's warning. His 2013 collection, North American Lake Monsters: Stories, won the Shirley Jackson Award for Best Collection and was nominated for a World Fantasy Award. I have similarly high hopes for this novella, in which a bartender's life descends into nightmare when he discovers a cellphone left behind after a brawl. The book slowly drowns you in rising dread, an unease born of infidelity, weakness, inadequacy, irrevocable violence, inevitable mistakes and decay.
Dale Bailey: The End of the End of Everything (Arche Press)Shards of hope glimmer in Bailey's grim worlds and poetic words in this collection of nine of his best stories. "A Rumor of Angels" is a melancholic Dust Bowl fantasy that leaves your mouth full of grit and your eyes glinting with sunlight on wings. The titular, Shirley Jackson Award-winning novelette, "The End of the End of Everything," is an unshakable vision of personal disintegrationand perhaps, redemptionamid decadent house parties at the end of the world.
David Niall Wilson: Crockatiel (Crossroad Press)This Hertford, North Carolina, author has written dark, lyrical, award-winning horror and dark fantasy for decades, but this isn't that. This is (intentionally!) a Syfy Channel B-movie at its best/worst. It concerns a biologist trying to clone some ancient crocodile DNA (because of course he does) when a hurricane hits his Outer Banks lab (because of course it does). He needs an incubating genome to make it work, and he chooses his beloved pet cockatiel. Let the feathers fly!
Renée Ahdieh: The Wrath and the Dawn (G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers)UNC-Chapel Hill graduate Ahdieh's reimagining of One Thousand and One Nights and The Arabian Nights turns both the original story of Scheherazade, and perhaps even Stockholm Syndrome itself, a bit on their heads, combining mystery, myth and romance in a lushly textured, quick-witted story that dares you to belittle "YA" fiction.
Teresa Frohock: In Midnight's Silence (Harper Voyager)Reidsville's Frohock has been quietly perfecting a blend of dark fantasy and horror since her 2011 debut novel, Miserere. She conjures up another original mythology in this first installment of her "Los Nefilim" series, where the fate of mankind rests on the inhuman shoulders of Diago Alvarez, half angel, half "daimon," who wants nothing more than to be left alone in Barcelona with the man he loves. Unfortunately for Diago, fortunately for us, neither angels nor daimons are content to leave him out of their spiritual civil war.
Adam Morgan: North Carolina's Wild Piedmont: A Natural History (The History Press)Charlotte's loss was Chicago's gain this summer, as Morgan now calls the Windy City home, but his time hiking and exploring in North Carolina leaves us with this slim, accessible, essential guide to the formation and ecology of state parks and "other wild places" in the Piedmont that need preservation.
Julia Elliott: The New and Improved Romie Futch (Tin House)I have to nod to South Carolina for Julia Elliott's remarkable debut novel. The New and Improved Romie Futch (following her collection The Wilds, one of the best books of 2014) is a dark comedy complete with taxidermy, cybernetics, biotechnology and a quasi-mythical "Hogzilla." In weird, delightful prose, Elliott summons an all-too-near "New South" that's by turns hilarious, wondrous and frightening.
J.J. Johnson: Believarexic (Peachtree Publishers)Durham's J.J. Johnson is the author of the YA novels This Girl Is Different and The Theory of Everything, but before fiction, she earned a graduate degree in education from Harvard and counseled at-risk teens, having passed through treatment centers herself. In Believarexic, she draws on that period of her life to create an "autobiographical novel" expanding on her journal entries while hospitalized in 1988. It's part horrorwhat we know now about mental illness makes the '80s unbelievably cringe-worthy in retrospectand part hope. We do know more now, and the conversation about mental illness grows more open every year.
Mark L. Van Name (Editor): Onward, Drake! (Baen Books)This tribute anthology features many local authors, including its subject, longtime Chapel Hill and Pittsboro author David Drake, who contributes both a comedic historical fantasy and his first new "Hammer's Slammers" military science-fiction story in years. Edited by Raleigh author Mark Van Name, the stories range from avant-garde (Gene Wolfe's "Incubator") to homage (Wake Forest author Tony Daniel's "Hell Hounds") to tie-ins (Larry Correia's "Hammers" story) to something delightful between memoir and tall tale (Sarah Van Name's "The Village of Yesteryear," which takes as its starting point a real trip with Drake to the state fair). Van Name's moving "All That's Left" encapsulates what the military fiction of Drake, a Vietnam "Black Horse" veteran, is all about: reportage, not advocacy, about the horrors of warthe price paid that you wouldn't trade for blissful ignorance. We are who we are, in part, for our wounds.
Jeremy Whitley: Princeless Vol. 4: Be Yourself (Action Lab Entertainment)Despite being in demand on higher-profile comics (My Little Pony, Powerpuff Girls, Marvel's Secret Wars: Secret Love) Durham author Jeremy Whitley keeps returning, with artist Emily Martin, to his Eisner Award-nominated all-ages Princeless series. See if you can guess some of the themes of his work based on the book titles so far: Save Yourself, Get Over Yourself and Be Yourself. Issue titles like "Girls Who Fight Boys," from spin-off series Raven: The Pirate Princess, may also provide a clue that Whitley's princesses do not sit around waiting to be rescued.
Honorable MentionsThe Last Days of Video by Jeremy Hawkins (Soft Skull Press); Dawnbreaker by Jay Posey (Angry Robot Books); The Mussorgsky Riddle by Darin Kennedy (Curiosity Quills Press); Hashtag by Eryk Pruitt (280 Steps); Serafina and the Black Cloak by Robert Beatty (Disney-Hyperion). | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
From the labradors we share our homes with to the legendary sea monsters of Western folklore, we’ve sought to understand our fellow earthlings since the beginning of humankind. Whether it’s superstition, exaggeration, or just plain misunderstanding, sometimes our quest for knowledge can lead to some misguided conclusions. Here are nine widely believed animal misconceptions that don’t hold up to scientific scrutiny.
1. Bears Hibernate
Ask anyone which animal comes to mind when they hear the word “hibernate” and their response will likely be a brown or black bear. It may be common to picture a burly, fattened-up mama grizzly slumbering away in her winter den deep in the woods while the white snow blankets everything in sight. This follows with the dangerous misconception that sleeping bears are nearly impossible to arouse during the winter months. True hibernation occurs when an animal drastically lowers their body temperature to nearly match their surroundings, and sleeps through the winter. Hibernating animals, like woodchucks, appear lifeless and are not easily awakened.
Bears, on the other hand, exhibit torpor, a shorter-term reduction in body temperature accompanied by lethargy. Heart rate drops, but not as much as that of true hibernators. Though less active than usual, bears in torpor can readily respond to external stimuli. So don’t forget your bear spray on your next snowshoeing trip.
2. Goldfish Have a Three-Second Memory Span
Contrary to popular belief, behavioral studies show that goldfish can associate sounds with feeding times, operate tiny levers, and even recognize their owners' presence. Each of these behaviors requires a lengthier memory span than three seconds.
3. Wasps: Leave Them Alone, and They’ll Leave You Alone
Although this may be the general rule for furry bumblebees, wasps such as yellowjackets have been known to sting unprovoked. Factors such as proximity to nest, season, and former unrelated injury can result in wasp aggression.
4. Bulls Are Enraged by the Color Red
A belief that originated in Spanish bullfighting is that bulls are angered by the color red. In fact, it is the swift motion of the red cloth used by matadors in bullfighting arenas that causes the bull to charge. Studies suggest that bulls, like many animals, are actually colorblind, meaning that they are incapable of distinguishing between certain colors.
5. Head Lice Have a Preference for Clean or Dirty Hair
Head lice, or Pediculus humanus capitis, were once thought to thrive primarily in oily, dirty hair. Sometime after, it was believed that the parasitic insects actually preferred cleaner hair because it allowed for easier mobility. Neither of these assumptions are true. The common louse likes your hair no matter when you last showered.
6. Touching a Baby Bird Will Cause Its Mother to Abandon It
The falsehood that mother birds will abandon their offspring if touched by a human derives from the belief that birds can pick up on human scent. In fact, most birds have a rather poor sense of smell and are unlikely to readily abandon their young. This doesn’t mean, however, that you should go picking up every young chick you find. Young, seemingly helpless birds often have their mothers closeby, carefully watching. Human disturbance (rather than human touch) near a nesting site is far more likely to contribute to a mother bird stranding her young ones.
photo: pvginola/iStock
7. Daddy Longlegs Are the Most Venomous Spiders
Daddy longlegs is the nickname most commonly given to a few familiar critters—most commonly, the harvestman. How many times have you heard that daddy longlegs' are the most venomous spiders in the world? Harvestmen have no venom glands and aren't even spiders, but another type of arachnid. Unlike spiders, harvestmen produce no silk, have no fangs, and have one main body part instead of two.
8. Bats Are Blind
The common misconception that bats are blind still exists. Though some bats have poor eyesight, they are certainly not blind and many bats can see as well as humans.
9. Camels Store Water in Their Humps
Camels' large humps store fat, not water, much like the fatty tissue found under human skin. These reservoirs of fat allow camels to survive for days in the desert sun without stopping for food.
Follow Sierra on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, and YouTube. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Moving to a new country is often something to be celebrated. However, for new international students arriving into the Netherlands, this is often a stressful, anxious time where it’s not a hangover that will cause them to miss their uni commitments — but homelessness.
This is a real issue for many who are coming to the Netherlands to study. Instead of being greeted with the idyllic image of eating cheese whilst riding a bike and wearing clogs many are faced with an unfair, confusing, and often discriminatory housing market.
Student housing crisis: The problems
One of the major issues seems to be a lack of affordable housing for all students, not just the internationals. Often rooms are subpar and overpriced but the lack of a viable alternative means that students have little choice than to take what they can.
Universities in the Netherlands are not responsible for finding their students accommodation. New students are left to face the daunting task of finding a room alone and often with conflicting and mostly useless advice from people who have little experience of what it is actually like.
Students who are already in the city are at a slight advantage. They can begin their search in plenty of time and will often have a network of people who can help them.
However, new students, who may only find out that they actually have a uni place as little as a month before they are due to start, have no such luxury. They are told that the most fruitful way to search for a house or room is online often through Facebook groups specifically for student housing or housing agency websites. But for international students, this can be a major issue.
Facebook and student housing: it’s problematic
To begin, Facebook groups are often plagued by unscrupulous fraudsters waiting to take advantage of desperate people. They offer a room if a deposit is sent straight away but of course, no such room exists. Some people have been scammed out of hundreds of euros before they’ve even arrived in the country.
Ad
Even if you go through a housing agency there are risks. There are plenty of stories circulating of people who have paid huge agency fees to these companies only to be left with no house and considerably less money.
Even the reputable agencies will charge vast sums in agency fees, contract fees, basically any fee that they can justify and all this is before you pay a deposit or your first month’s rent.
The Facebook groups paint a grim picture of exactly how bad things are. For every room posted there are at least 50 posts from concerned prospective students pleading for somewhere to stay. This DutchReviewer has even seen people offering money, free meals and other services in exchange for someone helping them find a room.
Utrecht student and vlogger Levi Hildebrand read this article and set out to give you 5 reasons why it’s a good idea to house an international student!
“Dutch girls only”
This is when the internationals are faced with the cherry on top of all of their problems, the dreaded few words at the top of nearly every post “Dutch girls only”. The arguments for girls wanting an all-female house are understandable and some might say that it’s reasonable to want to live in an all-Dutch house in your own country.
Unfortunately, what Dutch students want is in contradiction with what Dutch universities want. There is a real drive from Dutch universities to bring in more internationals but the housing market as it stands cannot cope with this influx.
As a result, there are people who have missed their first lectures, people sleeping in tents, couchsurfing, or wandering around the cities asking anyone they meet if they know of a room. This is clearly not the best welcome and can lead to a feeling of a divide between Dutch and international students which is far from ideal.
Student housing: Is there a solution?
For now, a solution to the student housing crisis seems to be far away in the distant and foggy future. However, over the past few years, students have started coming together across the Netherlands to try and ensure a fairer housing system.
Student protests
For example, in September 2017, students in Groningen took to the steps of the Academy building to protest the lack of housing facilities made available to an ever-increasing student population. Temporary accommodation was offered to the students (in an old refugee asylum, and only until the end of October) for €16 a night, to be shared with 3 other people, with no WiFi, a shared bathroom and no access to a kitchen. The students asked that the university adopt a bit more responsibility given that its influx of students was steadily increasing, yet it offered little in terms of housing aid.
Student protests continue to this day, with more and more students calling for a fairer student housing market. For example, students are pressing for more regulation in terms of how much landlords can charge per room and cities such as Amsterdam have now banned Airbnb. The movement towards a solution is small, but the press for change by young people offers us something to hold onto.
How do you feel about the student housing crisis? Let us know in the comments below!
Feature Image: Greta Schölderle Møller/ Unsplash
Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in September 2017, and was fully updated August 2020 for your reading pleasure. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Published at Jan. 30, 2012 | Tagged with: Python , __getattr__ , Development
... or how to imitate dynamic properties in a class object
Preface: When you have connections between your application and other systems frequently the data is not in the most useful form for your needs. If you have an API it is awesome but sometimes it just does not act the way you want and your code quickly becomes a series of repeating API calls like api.get_product_property(product_id, property).
Of course it will be easier if you can use objects to represent the data in you code so you can create something like a proxy class to this API:
class Product ( object ): def __init__ ( self , product_id ): self . id = product_id @property def name ( self ): return api_obj . get_product_property ( self . id , 'name' ) @property def price ( self ): return api_obj . get_product_property ( self . id , 'price' ) #usage product = Product ( product_id ) print product . name
class Product ( object ): def __init__ ( self , product_id ): self . id = product_id def __getattr__ ( self , key ): return api_obj . get_product_property ( self . id , key ) #usage product = Product ( product_id ) print product . name
Now you can directly use the product properties as attribute names of the Product class. Depending from the way that the API works it would be good to raise AttributeError if there is no such property for the product. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
TORONTO -- The Cleveland Indians are headed to the World Series after they culminated their amazing story by using a rookie starter, a lights-out bullpen, just enough power and what is turning into a managing job for the ages to win the AL pennant.
On Wednesday, the Indians beat the Toronto Blue Jays 3-0 to take the American League Championship Series in five games.
Incredibly, and befitting of their resourcefulness, the Indians were led by rookie Ryan Merritt in Game 5. Who is Ryan Merritt, you might be asking? He is a 24-year-old, junk-balling lefty from McKinney, Texas, who before helping the Indians reach the World Series had thrown a grand total of 11 major league innings. With the Rogers Centre planning to rock, the Blue Jays' Jose Bautista predicted the kid would be shaking in his boots.
Merritt, though, looked quite comfortable in his cleats. He retired the first 10 Blue Jays he faced before Josh Donaldson singled. Merritt quickly erased Donaldson by forcing Edwin Encarnacion into a 6-4-3, inning-ending double play.
Ryan Merritt threw 4 1/3 scoreless innings for the Indians in Game 5 of the ALCS against the Toronto Blue Jays, helping Cleveland to its first World Series since 1997. Elsa/Getty Images
With one out in the fifth, Merritt allowed a bloop single to Russell Martin, which set up a big decision for Indians manager Terry Francona. Like every other one that has been put in front of him this postseason, Francona aced it.
With the lead and with the Blue Jays having gotten a chance to gauge Merritt, Francona turned to his bullpen.
Bryan Shaw handled an inning before he passed the baton to Andrew Miller. Miller, who was named ALCS MVP, took care of the seventh and eighth.
On offense, the Indians had given their pitchers enough of a cushion, with Mike Napoli crushing an RBI double in the first and Carlos Santana and Coco Crisp adding solo shots.
Cody Allen handled the final three outs, helping to send the Indians to the World Series next Tuesday. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Tim Leiweke took time this afternoon to share his thoughts on the Kings’ meeting with Brad Richards…
Question: How did the meeting go, and could you just speak to the importance you put on this, with such a big showing in Toronto?
LEIWEKE: “This was a high priority for the Kings and a high priority for AEG and ownership. We spent a lot of time on it in the last few weeks. The staff, Dean and his team, and Mike Alteri, did a phenomenal job on the presentation. We were well-prepared. We were well-organized. We were well-briefed. He was shocked as to how much we knew about him. I thought Terry Murray and his team did a great job of making him understand where our team is at today and where he would fit in. We were with this young man for over two hours, and longer with the agents. I was impressed that they gave us as much time as they did. I’m very impressed by this guy. He has a lot of choices, probably offers that are going to be better than ours, but I definitely think we have him thinking.”
Question: Did you get any type of timetable from Brad or the agents?
LEIWEKE: “No, but just seeing the way they’re going about this, this is not Kovalchuk. He is a very smart kid, with some very smart agents. They are well-organized and their thoughts are together. My guess is this is not going to take long, for them to make a decision. They’re not leveraging anyone. I admire the way they’ve done it. I am appreciative of the amount of time they allowed us to have.”
Question: Can you talk a little about this presentation? Is it the most significant you’ve made, as a team, for a free agent?
LEIWEKE: “This is the best effort I’ve ever seen, in chasing a player for the Kings. That’s for sure. They were very impressed with the video, and I’m hoping one day we will share the video. We had a lot of people help us and a lot of people speak on our behalf. Some of the people who spoke on our behalf shocked Brad and his agents, and they will shock our fans a little bit, the help that we got here. So this was a good L.A. effort. L.A. showed well here, and I’m proud of the job we did. We’ll see what happens, but certainly, regardless of what happens, it’s nice to be held in this regard now. We’re one of the big boys, and that’s certainly how they looked at it today.” | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Chapter Four: In Need Of Help
At that point in time, Bill honestly wished he had an accomplice. At least an accomplice that was actually available and didn't have an awful habit of chewing on other people's bones. The last time he'd been turned into a Cubone by a vindictive redhead (and without his memories to boot), he'd happened upon his Zigzagoon hench-mon within a PC box affectionately known as Thunderwave Cave. It had not been a happy reunion.
Although given his current situation, locked up in chains in an underground dungeon somewhere in presumably Cerulean City with a number of flies and spiders, trapped in the body of a small brown reptilian Pokemon that looked vaguely like a baby armadillo, having his Zigzagoon for company wouldn't be that bad.
Deputy Chu Roberts was a brute. One would have thought that a Pikachu wouldn't have done much to a Cubone, but Bill had zigzagging Iron Tail scars all over his body, and a bit of frosting as well from that one time Roberts had paused to wipe the blood off his tail and Bill decided to risk craning his aching neck far enough to try to nab a bite of his doughnut. Actually, Bill had almost managed to snap the whole thing up in his jaws before being whacked on the side of the head with Robert's police baton. But tonight, he went hungry.
Peh, the thing probably had dairy in the frosting anyway. Bill had only tried to eat it because it would annoy Roberts. Unfortunately, as he mused from his cell, it didn't take much to annoy Roberts.
"My..." Bill's throat was parched from lack of water. "My... lady..."
As could be expected, Giratina, Lady of the Shadowlands, did not show up. Bill remembered Misty's warning regarding cleanse tags and shuddered. These Gatekeepers have thought of everything.
There were no guards in the prison cell, and from what Bill could gather, they didn't need them. The entire place was tight as a drum. No one going in, no one going out.
"My lady..." Bill breathed. "Lady... Griseous... please..."
"You're not coming out of there any time soon," said a strange voice beside him.
Bill jumped a little, rattling his chains. A being beside him in a strange black cloak, which definitely hadn't been there before, put a finger to its muzzle to signal silence.
Bill caught the hint immediately. He was clever enough not to give the game away, and the facts that this creature had gotten inside the cell without even touching the bars and was cloaked to conceal itself were both good signs that it 1. wasn't a prisoner and 2. was there to help him. "About time. Who are you?" he quickly whispered.
"Embargo," said the hooded figure, and at that same time, Bill's rusted metal chains were surrounded by mystical white ones that wrapped around them and made them fall harmlessly away. But at the same time, the user's cloak briefly shimmered, and the form of a small female Abra could be seen behind it.
"Not here," the Abra said quickly. "Teleport."
---
Cubone-Bill suddenly found himself not in Misty's dungeon, but in a small and somewhat homey shack that had the familiar sound and smell of terminals running. Call him sentimental, but he'd always found it comforting to be around technology. And the shape of the devices around him seemed to indicate...
"This is my house," he said, rather surprised. "I mean, Bill's house... not the lighthouse, but the--"
"Your predecessor's summer home. You may speak freely here, Scion of Dome," said the Abra. "There are protections in place to prevent the Gatekeepers and the Unseelie Court from eavesdropping."
"Unseelie Court?" Bill asked. Something about the name gave him the feeling that he ought to be duly concerned about this. "What's the Unseelie Court?"
"Not what; WHO." The Abra removed her outer cloak, revealing an inner garment of white that reached down farther than the normal Abra armor, almost like a dress. "But first, some introductions. I am HELP."
TO BE CONTINUED... | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
The MP Board declared its Class 10 result on Wednesday. (Representational)
The son of a watchman has secured the first rain jointly with another student in the Madhya Pradesh High School examination. Ayushman Tamrakar, a student of Government Excellence School in Madhya Pradesh's Sagar district, scored 499 marks out of 500.
His father Vimal Tamrakar works as a watchman at a community centre. His mother is a daily wager.
Vimal Tamrakar was overjoyed to find out about his son's success.
"I stay away from social media. We can opt for social media at any point of time but cannot always study. So, I gave priority to studies," Ayushman Tamrakar said, adding that he wants to become an engineer.
His mother, however, is concerned about the future of her son's studies.
"How will we bear the expenses? We barely earn to meet our daily needs," she said.
Ayushman Tamrakar also works as a helper at nearby shops.
The MP Board declared its Class 10 result on Wednesday. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Bush Brothers & Co. has announced a voluntary recall of some cans of Bush's baked beans.
The company said Saturday it is recalling 28-ounce cans of Bush's Best Brown Sugar Hickory Baked Beans, Country Style Baked Beans and Original Baked Beans because of potentially defective side seams on cans.
NBC-11 reports the recall was initiated after internal quality assurance checks identified the issue. The temporary quality issue was identified with one of its can suppliers and has since been corrected.
The recalled Bush's baked beans products are as follows:
28-ounce Bush's Best Brown Sugar Hickory with case UPC of 003940001977.
28-ounce Bush's Best Country Style with case UPC of 0003940091974 and 00340001974.
28-ounce Bush's Best Original with case UPC of 003940091614 and 003940001614.
All the affected products have a best-by date of June 2019.
No other products are affected.
The company said in a statement that no illnesses or other adverse consequences have been reported in connection with the voluntary recall. Bush's encouraged customers to dispose of the affected products immediately even if the beans do not look or smell spoiled.
"As a fourth-generation family owned business, we are guided by our values of integrity, caring, responsibility, and trust and we apologize for any inconvenience or concern this situation may cause," the company said in a press release.
Bush's added that it is working with its retailers to ensure timely removal of affected product from their warehouses and shelves.
Consumer questions may be directed to Bush's Consumer Relations by calling 1-800-590-3797 Monday through Friday between the hours of 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. EST. Additional information is available online at www.bushbeans.com. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Lionsgate Home Entertainment is bringing director Neil Marshall’s Hellboy reboot based on Mike Mignola’s comic book series to home video this July.
The first Hellboy home video sighting will occur July 9th with the Digital HD and Movies Anywhere release.
On July 23rd is when the Hellboy 4K Ultra HD with Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos, Blu-ray and DVD physical versions will arrive in stores.
Hellboy (2019) stars David Harbour, Milla Jovovich, Ian McShane, Sasha Lane, Daniel Dae Kim, and Thomas Haden Church. It struggled at the box office with just under $22 million from a budget in the neighborhood of $50 million.
Bonus features on Hellboy are fairly scarce given the box office under-performance. They are:
“Tales of the Wild Hunt: Hellboy Reborn” (3-Part Documentary)
Deleted Scenes
Previsualizations
Pre-order Hellboy (2019) on 4K at Amazon. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
News updates from Hindustan Times at 5 PM: P Chidambaram sent to 14-day judicial custody, will go back to Tihar jail and all the latest news at this hour
india
Updated: Oct 30, 2019 16:52 IST
Here are today’s top news, analysis and opinion curated for you at 5 PM. Know all about the latest news and other news updates from Hindustan Times.
P Chidambaram sent to 14-day judicial custody, will go back to Tihar jail
A Delhi court on Wednesday sent Union finance minister P Chidambaram to 14-day judicial custody in the INX Media money laundering case being probed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED). This means that the Congress leader will go back to Tihar jail for the next 14 days.
Read more.
Regret killing of innocents in Kashmir, say EU lawmakers on J-K visit
A delegation of European Union parliamentarians, currently on a visit to Kashmir, said on Wednesday that they were in the Valley to find facts and not to interfere in Indian politics. They also condemned the killings of six non-Kashmiri labourers in Kashmir’s Kulgam on Tuesday, the day the 23-member delegation landed in Srinagar.
Read more.
‘Gravest sin’: Congress attacks Centre over EU lawmakers’ J-K visit
Coming down heavily on the government for allowing a delegation of European Union (EU) parliamentarians to visit Kashmir, the opposition party also asked the Prime Minister to come clean on Madi Sharma who facilitated his meeting with the delegation and its tour of the valley.
Read more.
From midnight, Jammu and Kashmir transitions into two union territories
The day will be marked by G C Murmu, a former bureaucrat from PM Modi’s home state of Gujarat, being sworn in as the first lieutenant governor of the union territory of Jammu and Kashmir. Another former civil servant, Radha Krishna Mathur, will take office as the lieutenant governor of Ladakh, the Buddhist-dominated region.
Read more.
Performance against Bangladesh not up to the mark - Sunil Chhetri | Exclusive
The Indian football team will take on Afghanistan and Oman in their upcoming World Cup qualifiers between November 14 and November 19 but the chances of a national camp taking place ahead of the match looks slim because of their Indian Super League (ISL) commitments.
Read more.
Red carpet fashion 2019: Scarlett Johansson stuns in gold, silver, shimmer and thigh-high slit gowns
Recently, at the 2019 Governers Awards in Hollywood, LA, Scarlett Johansson was spotted wearing a dual-tone metallic Celine gown with a signature thigh-high slit. The gown, in dull gold and black, featured a one-shoulder sleeve with dull gold shimmer as the bodice, stitched onto a long black skirt with a slit.
Read more.
Gulabo Sitabo latest pic: Ayushmann Khurrana’s look revealed as he teams up with Amitabh Bachchan
The new picture shows Amitabh and Ayushmann standing on a pavement. Amitabh is dressed in a green kurta and white pyjama, slouching with a frustrated expression on his face. He also sports a scarf and a skull cap and is seen wearing a large, prosthetic nose. Ayushmann is also wearing a brown shirt and white pyjama.
Read more. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
SAN FRANCISCO -- Golden State Warriors forward Draymond Green remains confident that his team can make its sixth straight trip to the NBA Finals this season, despite the fact that its roster underwent a major reconstruction over the summer. On Monday, Green didn't hesitate when asked what the team's expectations should be this season.
"I am not sure what everyone's expectations are," Green told ESPN. "We haven't really had any team meetings yet. But I know what my expectations are. They don't change from year-to-year. They are always the same."
When asked specifically if he thinks the Warriors could go to the NBA Finals this season, Green was quick with his answer.
"Is Steph Curry on our team? Klay Thompson?" Green said confidently. "Yup."
The Warriors' roster is in transition after losing superstar forward Kevin Durant in a sign-and-trade with the Brooklyn Nets. Also gone are veteran stalwarts Andre Iguodala, who was traded to the Memphis Grizzlies in a corresponding move, and Shaun Livingston, who retired.
Despite all the movement, both Green and Curry said they believe the expectation for the group should be the same as always: a trip to the NBA Finals.
"For sure," Curry told ESPN. "As long as we have the solid core that we've got and the experiences to kind of back us up, we're going to keep that goal in mind. The fun part about it is that we get to kind of recreate the look of it and incorporating the new pieces that we have, and that part's the most exciting. The last five Finals have kind of been a certain way, so whatever we do from here, you're going to enjoy it even more."
Draymond Green said on Monday that he has no doubt the Warriors will make the NBA Finals again this season. Andrew D. Bernstein/NBAE via Getty Images
After losing in six games to the Toronto Raptors in the NBA Finals in June, Green said it would be "stupid" to think the Warriors' championship run is over. Both Green and Curry believe their championship experience can be a catalyst in helping to teach a group of young players how to win a sixth straight Western Conference championship.
"Because I think obviously what we have returning [in] myself, Steph and Klay -- with the experience that we have, the championship pedigree that we have and obviously all of us still being in our primes," Green said. "Then you add in a young D'Angelo Russell, you add in Kevon Looney, who just got a new contract -- it is a lot of talent. Like I said, experience and also a lot of younger guys who are out to prove themselves."
Curry echoed a similar sentiment. The veteran guard believes both he and Green can raise the level of their play when needed as the group learns how to play without Thompson, who will be out most of the season as he rehabs from a torn ACL in his left knee.
"We know who's on our team still," Curry said. "Myself, Klay, Draymond, D'Angelo and obviously a lot of newcomers. We got a lot of pieces we got to put together. We understand it's going to look different -- a new building, a new roster -- but when you have the championship DNA that we have and the experiences that we have, we can bank on that."
Many around the league believe that because of the loss of Durant, the injury to Thompson and the uncertainty surrounding the youth on the back end of the roster, the Warriors are essentially entering a gap year as they wait to get healthy and get out of a hard-cap situation next season after acquiring Russell.
Warriors coach Steve Kerr said he isn't concerned about what the outside world might say about his team. He's trying to focus on developing the young talent alongside the future Hall of Famers on the roster.
"I think the expectation for our group should be to develop a young crop of players," Kerr said. "[What] we have to do this year is put so much of our time and energy into those young guys so that they can become key contributors to the next era of Warriors basketball. If we can do that, if we can get a couple of them [to] become rotational players, we're going to still be good going forward."
Whether this new group of Warriors succeeds or fails is contingent on a slew of variables, one of the largest being Russell's ability to pick up his new team's offensive system quickly. Like many on the roster, Russell is already drawing some motivation from the fact that many people have written off the group this season.
"If it starts out slow, if it's start out fast, it's just the process that we're going to have to enjoy," Russell said of the group's lofty expectations. "Instead of putting an expectation on it ASAP like that, I think we can just come in and come to work every day and live with the results when we're on that platform to showcase it." | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Here’s one for the classic car enthusiasts and audiophiles in the room. Matthew Leigh (Managing Director of Infomagnet by day, skilled maker by night) took the aged cassette deck from an old Ferrari, and brought it into 2017 with the help of a Raspberry Pi.
He used a HiFiBerry DAC alongside a Raspberry Pi 3 to allow the playback of digital music through the sound system of the car. The best part? It all fits neatly into the existing tape deck.
Matthew was also able to integrate the tech with the existing function buttons, allowing him to use the original fast-forward, rewind, pause and play controls.
The USB ports are accessible via the cassette door, allowing users to insert flash drives loaded with music. As always, the Raspberry Pi 3 is also accessible via WiFi, providing further connectivity and functionality. A network-connected tablet acts as a media centre screen.
The build could be taken further. The Amazon Alexa Voice Service, connected to a 4G dongle or phone, could update the driver with traffic issues, breaking news, or weather reports. In fact, we’ve seen so many ‘carputer’ builds, we’re convinced that there’s no end to the vehicular uses for a hidden Raspberry Pi.
Have you built a carputer? Or maybe hidden a Raspberry Pi in an old piece of tech, or an unexpected location? Let us know in the comments below. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
It almost looks Dark Souls-y with the twinspears and armor set...
"We are the Crystal Souls...
Light bonfires all day...
And if you think we can't...
We'll git gud on our way...
That's why the Lords of Cinder still...
Believe in Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl...
... AND SOLAIRE!!!" | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Change data capture has been around for a while, but some recent developments in technology have given it new life. Notably, using Kafka as a backbone to stream your database data in realtime has become increasingly common.
If you’re wondering why you might want to stream database changes into Kafka, I highly suggest reading The Hardest Part About Microservices: Your Data. At WePay, we wanted to integrate our microservices and downstream datastores with each other, so every system could get access to the data that it needed. We use Kafka as our data integration layer, so we needed a way to get our database data into it.
Last year, Yelp’s engineering team published an excellent series of posts on their data pipeline. These included a discussion on how they stream MySQL data into Kafka. Their architecture involves a series of homegrown pieces of software to accomplish the task, notably schematizer and MySQL streamer. The write-up triggered a thoughtful post on Debezium’s blog about a proposed equivalent architecture using Kafka connect, Debezium, and Confluent’s schema registry. This proposed architecture is what we’ve been implementing at WePay, and this post describes how we leverage Debezium and Kafka connect to stream our MySQL databases into Kafka.
Architecture
The flow of data starts with each microservice’s MySQL database. These databases run in Google Cloud as CloudSQL MySQL instances with GTIDs enabled. We’ve set up a downstream MySQL cluster specifically for Debezium. Each CloudSQL instance replicates its data into the Debezium cluster, which consists of two MySQL machines: a primary (active) server and secondary (passive) server. This single Debezium cluster is an operational trick to make it easier for us to operate Debezium. Rather than having Debezium connect to dozens of microservice databases directly, we can connect to just a single database. This also isolates Debezium from impacting the production OLTP workload that the master CloudSQL instances are handling.
We run one Debezium connector (in distributed mode on the Kafka connect framework) for each microservice database. Again, the goal here is isolation. Theoretically, we could run a single Debezium connector that produces messages for all databases (since all microservice databases are in the Debezium cluster). This approach would actually be more resource efficient since each Debezium connector has to read MySQL’s entire binlog anyway. We opted not to do this because we wanted to be able to bring Debezium connectors up and down, and configure them differently for each microservice DB.
The Debezium connectors feed the MySQL messages into Kafka (and add their schemas to the Confluent schema registry), where downstream systems can consume them. We use our Kafka connect BigQuery connector to load the MySQL data into BigQuery using BigQuery’s streaming API. This gives us a data warehouse in BigQuery that is usually less than 30 seconds behind the data that’s in production. Other microservices, stream processors, and data infrastructure consume the feeds as well.
Debezium
The remainder of this post will focus on Debezium (the DBZ boxes in the diagram above), and how we configure and operate it. Debezium works by connecting to MySQL and pretending to be a replica. MySQL sends its replication data to Debezium, thinking it’s actually funneling data to another downstream MySQL instance. Debezium then takes the data, converts the schemas from MySQL schemas to Kafka connect structures, and forwards them to Kafka.
Adding new databases
When a new microservice with a CloudSQL database comes online, we want to get that data into Kafka. The first step in the process is to load the data into the Debezium MySQL cluster. This involves several steps:
Take a MySQL dump of the data in the microservice DB. Pause the secondary Debezium MySQL DB. Load the MySQL dump into the secondary Debezium MySQL DB. Reset GTID_PURGED parameter to include the GTID from the new DB dump. Unpause the secondary Debezium MySQL DB. Update HA Proxy to point to the secondary, which now becomes the primary. Follow steps 2-5 for the old primary instance (now secondary).
The actual commands that we run are:
# (1) Take a dump of the database we wish to add. $ mydumper --host=123.123.123.123 --port=3306 --user=foo --password=********* -B log --trx-consistency-only --triggers --routines -o /mysqldata/new_db/ -c -L mydumper.log # (2) Stop all replication on the secondary Debezium cluster. $ mysql> STOP SLAVE for channel 'foo'; $ mysql> STOP SLAVE for channel 'bar'; $ mysql> STOP SLAVE for channel 'baz'; # Get the current GTID purged values from MySQL. $ mysql> SHOW GLOBAL VARIABLES like '%gtid_purged%'; # (3) Load the dump of the database into the Debezium cluster. $ myloader -d /mysqldata/new_db/ -s new_db # (4) Clear out existing GTID_PURGED values so that we can overwrite it to include the GTID from the new dump file. $ mysql> reset master; # Set the new GTID_PURGED value, including the GTID_PURGED value from the MySQL dump file. $ mysql> set global GTID_PURGED="f3a44d1a-11e6-44ba-bf12-040bab830af0:1-10752,c627b2bc-b36a-11e6-a886-42010af00790:1-9052,01261abc3-6ade-11e6-9647-42010af0044a:1-375342"; # (5) Start replication for the new DB. $ mysql> CHANGE MASTER TO MASTER_HOST='123.123.123.123', MASTER_USER='REPLICATION_USER', MASTER_PASSWORD='REPLICATION_PASSWORD',MASTER_AUTO_POSITION=1 for CHANNEL 'new_db'; $ mysql> START SLAVE for channel 'new_db'; # Start replication for the DBs that we paused. $ mysql> START SLAVE for channel 'foo'; $ mysql> START SLAVE for channel 'bar'; $ mysql> START SLAVE for channel 'baz'; # Repeat steps 2-5 on the old primary (now secondary).
At the end of these steps, both the primary and secondary Debezium MySQL servers have the new database. Once finished, we can then add a new Debezium connector to the Kafka connect cluster. This connector will have configuration that looks roughly like this:
{ "name" : "debezium-connector-microservice1" , "config" : { "name" : "debezium-connector-microservice1" , "connector.class" : "io.debezium.connector.mysql.MySqlConnector" , "tasks.max" : "1" , "database.hostname" : "dbz-mysql01" , "database.port" : "3306" , "database.user" : "user" , "database.password" : "*******" , "database.server.id" : "101" , "database.server.name" : "db.debezium.microservice1" , "gtid.source.includes" : "c34aeb9e-89ad-11e6-877b-42010a93af2d" , "database.whitelist" : "microservice1_db" , "poll.interval.ms" : "2" , "table.whitelist" : "microservice1_db.table1,microservice1_db.table2" , "column.truncate.to.1024.chars" : "microservice1_db.table1.text_col" , "database.history.kafka.bootstrap.servers" : "kafka01:9093,kafka02:9093,kafka03:9093" , "database.history.kafka.topic" : "debezium.history.microservice1" , "database.ssl.truststore" : "/certs/truststore" , "database.ssl.truststore.password" : "*******" , "database.ssl.mode" : "required" , "database.history.producer.security.protocol" : "SSL" , "database.history.producer.ssl.truststore.location" : "/certs/truststore" , "database.history.producer.ssl.truststore.password" : "*******" , "database.history.consumer.security.protocol" : "SSL" , "database.history.consumer.ssl.truststore.location" : "/certs/truststore" , "database.history.consumer.ssl.truststore.password" : "*******" , } }
The details on these configuration fields are located here.
The new connector will start up and begin snapshotting the database, since this is the first time it’s been started. Debezium’s snapshot implementation (see DBZ-31) uses an approach very similar to MySQL’s mysqldump tool. Once the snapshot is complete, Debezium will switch over to using MySQL’s binlog to receive all future database updates.
Kafka connect and Debezium work together to periodically commit Debezium’s location in the MySQL binlog described by a MySQL global transaction ID (GTID). When Debezium restarts, Kafka connect will give it the last committed MySQL GTID, and Debezium will pick up from there.
Note that commits only happen periodically, so Debezium might start up from a location in the log prior to the last row that it received. In such a case, you will observe duplicate messages in Debezium Kafka topic. Debezium writes messages to Kafka with an at-least-once messaging guarantee.
High availability
One of the difficulties we faced when we first began using Debezium was how to make it tolerant to machine failures (both the upstream MySQL server, and Debezium, itself). MySQL prior to version 5.6 modeled a replica’s location in its parent’s binlogs using a (binlog filename, file offset) tuple. The problem with this approach is that the binlog filenames are not the same between MySQL machines. This means that a replica reading from upstream MySQL machine 1 can’t easily fail over to MySQL machine 2. There is an entire ecosystem of tools (including MHA) to try and address this problem.
Starting with MySQL 5.6, MySQL introduced the concept of global transaction IDs. These GTIDs identify a specific location within the MySQL binlog across machines. This means that a consumer reading from a binlog on one MySQL server can switch over to the other, provided that both servers have the data available. This is how we run our systems. Both the CloudSQL instances and the Debezium MySQL cluster run with GTIDs enabled. The Debezium MySQL servers also have replication binlogs enabled so that binlogs exist for Debezium to read (replicas don’t normally have binlogs enabled by default). All of this enables Debezium to consume from the primary Debezium MySQL server, but switch over to the secondary (via HA Proxy) if there’s a failure.
If the machine that Debezium, itself, is running on fails, then the Kafka connect framework fails the connector over to another machine in the cluster. When the failover occurs, Debezium receives its last committed offset (GTID) from Kafka connect, and picks up where it left off (with the same caveat as above: you might see some duplicate messages due to periodic commit frequency).
An important configuration that needs to be called out is the gtid.source.includes field that we have set above. When we first set up the topology that’s described in the architecture section, we discovered that we could not fail over from the primary Debezium DB to the secondary DB even though they both were replicating exactly the same data. This is because, in addition to the GTIDs for the various upstream DBs that both primary and secondary machines are replicating, each machine has its own server UUID for its various MySQL databases (e.g. information_schema). The fact that these two servers have different UUIDs in them led MySQL to get confused when we triggered a failover, because Debezium’s GTID would include the server UUID for the primary server, which the secondary server didn’t know about. The fix was to filter out all UUIDs that we don’t care about from the GTID. Each Debezium connector filters out all server UUIDs except for the UUID for the microservice DB that it cares about. This allows the connector to fail from primary to secondary without issue. This issue is documented in detail on DBZ-129.
Schemas
Debezium’s message format includes both the “before” and “after” versions of a row. For inserts, the “before” is null. For deletes, the “after” is null. Updates have both the “before” and “after” fields filled out. The messages also include some server information such as the server ID that the message came from, the GTID of the message, the server timestamp, and so on.
{ "before" : { "id" : 1004 , "first_name" : "Anne" , "last_name" : "Kretchmar" , "email" : "[email protected]" }, "after" : { "id" : 1004 , "first_name" : "Anne Marie" , "last_name" : "Kretchmar" , "email" : "[email protected]" }, "source" : { "name" : "mysql-server-1" , "server_id" : 223344 , "ts_sec" : 1465581 , "gtid" : null , "file" : "mysql-bin.000003" , "pos" : 484 , "row" : 0 , "snapshot" : null }, "op" : "u" , "ts_ms" : 1465581029523 }
The serialization format that Debezium sends to Kafka is configurable. We prefer Avro at WePay for its compact size, schema DDL, performance, and rich ecosystem. We’ve configured Kafka connect to use Confluent’s Avro encoder codec for Kafka. This encoder serializes messages to Avro, but also registers the schemas with Confluent’s schema registry.
If a MySQL table’s schema is changed, Debezium adapts to the change by updating the structure and schema of the “before” and “after” portions of its event messages. This will appear to the Avro encoder as a new schema, which it will register with the schema registry before the message is sent to Kafka. The registry runs full compatibility checks to make sure that downstream consumers don’t break due to a schema evolution.
Note that it’s still possible to make an incompatible change in the MySQL schema itself, which would break downstream consumers. We have not yet added automatic compatibility checks to MySQL table alters.
Future work
Monolithic database
In addition to our microservices, we have a legacy monolithic database that’s much larger than our microservice databases. We’re in the process of upgrading this cluster to run with GTIDs enabled. Once this is done, we plan to replicate this cluster into Kafka with Debezium as well.
Large table snapshots
We’re lucky that all of our microservice databases are of relatively manageable size. Our monolithic database has some tables that are much larger. We have yet to test Debezium with very large tables, so it’s unclear if any tuning or patches will be required in order to snapshot these tables on the initial Debezium load. We have heard community reports that larger tables (6 billion+ rows) do work, provided that the configuration exposed in DBZ-152 is set. This is work we’re planning to do shortly.
More monitoring
Kafka connect doesn’t currently make it easy to expose metrics through the Kafka metrics framework. As a result, there are very few metrics available from the Kafka connect framework. Debezium does expose metrics via JMX (see DBZ-134), but we aren’t exposing them to our metrics system currently. We do monitor the system, but when things go wrong, it can be difficult to determine what’s going on. KAFKA-2376 is the open JIRA that’s meant to address the underlying Kafka connect issue.
More databases
As we add more microservice databases, we’ll begin to put pressure on the two Debezium MySQL servers that we have. Eventually, we plan to split the single Debezium cluster that we have into more than one, with some microservices replicating only to one cluster, and the rest replicating to others.
Unify compatibility checks
As I mentioned in the schema section, above, the Confluent schema registry runs schema compatibility checks out of the box right now. This makes it very easy for us to prevent backward and forward incompatible changes from making their way into Kafka. We don’t currently have an equivalent check at the MySQL layer. This is a problem because it means it’s possible for a DBA to make incompatible changes at the MySQL layer. Debezium will then fail when trying to produce the new messages into Kafka. We need to make sure this can’t happen by adding equivalent checks at the MySQL layer. DBZ-70 discusses this more.
Automatic topic configuration
We currently run Kafka with topic auto-create enabled with a default of 6 partitions, and time-based/size-based retention. This configuration doesn’t make much sense for Debezium topics. At the very least, they should be using log-compaction as their retention. We plan to write a script that looks for mis-configured Debezium topics, and updates them to appropriate retention settings.
Conclusion
We’ve been running Debezium in production for the past 8 months. Initially, we ran it dark, and then enabled it for the realtime BigQuery pipeline shown in the architecture diagram above. Recently, we’ve begun consuming the messages in microservices and stream processing systems. We look forward to adding more data to the pipeline, and addressing some of the issues that were raised in the Future work section.
A special thanks to Randall Hauch, who has been invaluable in addressing a number of bug fixes and feature requests. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
An Indonesian Islamic organization is saying an upcoming concert by Kelly Clarkson in Jakarta is banned under Islamic law because it is being sponsored by a tobacco company, according to a report Wednesday in the Jakarta Globe.
Muhammadiyah, the second largest Islamic organization in the world’s most populous Muslim country, has previously declared all smoking forbidden under Islam, according to the Globe report.
The head of the organization’s fatwa, or religious edict, department, Yanuar Ilyas, told the Globe that the no-smoking fatwa applied to Clarkson’s concert.
“We do not need to put another fatwa on a thing that is already clear,” the Globe quoted Yanuar as saying.
The U.S.-based campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids has also raised objections to the Clarkson’s Jakarta concert, scheduled for April 29 and sponsored by L.A. Lights cigarettes. The organization is asking Clarkson to cancel the sponsorship.
"If Kelly Clarkson goes ahead with this concert, she is choosing to be a spokesperson for the tobacco industry and helping them to market cigarettes to children," said the president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, Matthew L. Myers. "If she rejects tobacco industry sponsorship, she can send a powerful message to children in Indonesia and around the world that they, too, should reject the tobacco industry's deadly products and marketing."
While many nations do not allow tobacco sponsorships of entertainment events, Indonesia has yet to sign on to such a ban, according to the campaign.
Clarkson’s fans are weighing in on her Facebook page, posting numerous comments calling on her to drop the tobacco sponsor.
But in a blog posting attributed to the singer Wednesday afternoon, she says her only option would be to drop the tour date, something she cannot do without disappointing her Jakarta fans.
“This is a lose-lose situation for me and I am not happy about it but the damage has been done and I refuse to cancel on my fans,” says the posting titled “Jakarta Mishap” and signed “Kelly.” | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
What’s the current state of the philosophical study of consciousness? In The New York Review of Books, Tim Parks (Associate Professor of Literature and Translation at IULM University in Milan) and Riccardo Manzotti (Associate Professor in Theoretical Philosophy, IULM University, Milan) continue their series of public philosophy and science of mind conversations in “The Hardening of Consciousness.”
Parks asks Manzotti:
In our last conversation, you accused the status quo of being an orthodoxy that does not bear examination and that borders on a religious faith upheld by a collective act of wishful thinking. Can you justify these accusations?
Manzotti, as part of his answer, points to David Chalmers (NYU), “the man who more than any other has determined the way in which we think about consciousness for the last twenty years.” He complains:
Chalmers laid out the terms of the consciousness debate in a way that simultaneously excited everyone while more or less guaranteeing that no progress would be made.
Manzotti says three assumptions underlie the current “stalemate”:
1) Consciousness is invisible to scientific instrumentation; hence,
2) Consciousness is a special phenomenon governed by its own special laws; hence,
3) It will take a great deal of time and money to fathom these special laws, but if you trust us scientists we will get there in the end.
He adds:
The idea that conditions everything else is that we can and must distinguish between consciousness and the physical world… Cartesianism in modern terms.
Manzotti thinks neuroscience doesn’t help with this particular program:
No one has more admiration than myself for the extraordinary research done to explore the brain and its immensely complex activities. Extremely sophisticated tools have been developed and used with great ingenuity and patience. However, the essential underlying idea here is simply that neurons produce consciousness. It’s as crude as that. We are simply asking the brain to do what the soul once did.
Of course, what neuroscience has actually shown is how neurons consume chemicals, absorb other chemicals and release them, produce and fire off electrical charges, and so on. In many situations such activities occur in strict relation to certain experiences we have. But then, so do the activities of many other cells in the body. And so do the external things we experience.
As for what is at stake in this debate, Manzotti seems to be saying that it is fundamentally unscientific, and the way it is unscientific also explains its appeal:
Man has always liked to think of himself as being at the center of the universe, a special being. Any science that suggests he isn’t has always been resisted, from Copernicus’s demonstration that the earth moved around the sun, and on through all those discoveries that eroded Man’s claim to special status: evolution, genetics, and so on. In declaring consciousness the “hard problem,” something extraordinary, and separating it from the rest of the physical world, Chalmers and others cast the debate in an anti-Copernican frame, preserving the notion that human consciousness exists in a special and, it is always implied, superior realm. The collective hubris that derives from this is all too evident and damaging. We should get it straight once for all: there are no hard problems in nature, only natural problems. And we are part of nature.
Philosophers of mind and others who study consciousness: have Manzotti and Parks done a fair job of presenting the current state of the debate over mind to the public (at least the NYRB-reading public)? What do they get right, what do they get wrong?
Relatedly: the Minds Online open access conference is happening now.
(I had initially posted a link to the Parks – Manzotti conversation in the Heap of Links yesterday, but was convinced by a friend to post about it so that others could contribute to the discussion; I’ve removed it from the Heap.) | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Gage Skidmore/Flickr
Do you remember that time when Donald Trump tweeted that “trade wars are good and easy to win?” I can’t think of a better example of this president’s ignorance. He started a trade war with China back in May when trade talks broke down. Here is what has happened since then.
Trade talks broke down once again last week and Trump threatened to add 10% tariffs on another $300 billion in imports beginning September 1st.
The Chinese central bank allowed the yuan to weaken due to concern about “trade protectionism and new tariffs on China.”
The Chinese government suspended purchases of U.S. agricultural products and doesn’t rule out more tariffs.
The Trump administration designated China as a currency manipulator.
So now it looks like the president is going to add a currency war to the trade war. Who knows where this all will end? What is clear is that Americans are paying the price for his ignorance.
On another foreign policy front, the situation isn’t much better.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff announced late Tuesday the launch of what it described as two short-range ballistic missiles (SRBMs) that flew up to 280 miles east off North Korea’s west coast, reaching a maximum altitude of 23 feet at a top speed of nearly Mach 6.9, or nearly seven times the speed of sound. The launch was the fourth of its kind in less than two weeks, marking a dramatic increase in the pace of North Korea’s weapons testing just as its two top foes began training together despite ongoing denuclearization talks. Just around the time the tests were conducted, the North Korean Foreign Ministry issued a statement calling the joint U.S.-South Korean maneuvers “an undisguised denial and a flagrant violation” of agreements it made with Washington on June 12 and with Seoul on April 27 and September 19 of last year.
Trump responded in a way that demonstrates his complete and utter denial of reality.
Kim Jong Un and North Korea tested 3 short range missiles over the last number of days. These missiles tests are not a violation of our signed Singapore agreement, nor was there discussion of short range missiles when we shook hands. There may be a United Nations violation, but.. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 2, 2019
….Chariman Kim has a great and beautiful vision for his country, and only the United States, with me as President, can make that vision come true. He will do the right thing because he is far too smart not to, and he does not want to disappoint his friend, President Trump! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 2, 2019
The other hot-spot in foreign policy is our relationship with Iran. This is what Robin Wright of the New Yorker is reporting on that front.
Last month, amid a rapid-fire escalation in tensions between Washington and Tehran, the Iranian Foreign Minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, received an unexpected invitation—to meet President Donald Trump in the Oval Office. The diplomatic overture was made by Senator Rand Paul, the Kentucky Republican, during a meeting with Zarif in New York on July 15th, according to American and Iranian sources and a well-informed diplomat.
When Zarif declined the invitation, Trump imposed sanctions on him personally in retaliation.
This administration went all-in on an attempt to overthrow Maduro in Venezuela. Those efforts failed, and so the administration is resurrecting the same policy that was a disaster in Cuba.
In a dramatic escalation of his administration’s pressure campaign against Venezuela‘s Nicolás Maduro, President Donald Trump has imposed a full embargo on the socialist president’s government. The executive order, signed late Monday, freezes all Venezuelan assets in America’s jurisdiction and importantly allows the U.S. to impose sanctions on anyone doing business with Maduro. The historic move puts Venezuela in the same category as North Korea, Iran, Cuba and Syria in terms of how much economic pressure and global isolation the U.S. is attempting to impose on it. Critics say the move is a sign of the decision’s misdirection, as decades of similar embargoes have failed to change the governments or policies of Havana or Tehran.
The one positive thing I can say about Trump’s foreign policy is that he obviously wants to avoid getting this country entangled in another war. Given all of his other failings, that is a huge relief. However, one move he announced a few months ago was finalized last week, and could put the entire globe at risk.
The Trump administration said on Friday that it was suspending one of the last major nuclear arms control treaties with Russia, following five years of heated conversations over accusations by the United States that Moscow is violating the Reagan-era agreement. The decision has the potential to incite a new arms race — not only with Russia, but also with China, which was never a signatory to the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, widely known as the I.N.F. It also comes as the United States has begun building its first long-range nuclear weapons since 1991, a move that other nations are citing to justify their own nuclear modernization efforts. Taken together, the two moves appear to signal the end of more than a half-century of traditional nuclear arms control, in which the key agreements were negotiated in Washington and Moscow. It is unclear whether President Trump plans to replace the I.N.F. or to renew another major treaty, called New Start, which drove American and Russian nuclear arsenals to their lowest levels in nearly 60 years. That accord expires in 2021, just weeks after the next presidential inauguration.
This is the one that David Andelman, executive director of The Red Lines Project at the Center for National Security at Fordham University, describes as “Trump’s most catastrophic decision.”
The chaos and divisions we are experiencing domestically as a result of Trump’s presidency are also infecting our foreign policy. There is nothing on the horizon to indicate that any of that will improve. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
A walkway connecting a pair of heritage buildings near Parliament Hill will be walled off to avert a constitutional crisis involving Canada's highest court.
The walkway, known as the Memorial Colonnade, is an arch or bridge above Lyon Street that allows federal employees to walk comfortably between the buildings — out of the rain, wind, humidity and snow of Ottawa's changing seasons.
The East Memorial and West Memorial buildings, each facing Wellington Street, were constructed between 1949 and 1962 to house the rapidly expanding Veterans Affairs Department. The arch commemorates those who served in the Second World War.
The Memorial Colonnade, which people use to go between two buildings, will be sealed off when the Supreme Court of Canada moves into the West Memorial Building. (CBC)
Today, the East Memorial Building is home to the federal Justice Department, including the office of the justice minister and attorney general of Canada.
The West Memorial Building has been vacant since 2008, and costs about $1.7 million for operations and maintenance each year.
But the west building is getting an important new tenant: The Supreme Court of Canada, including the offices of the nine justices, some 280 staff and three high-ceilinged courtrooms.
The big move is set to be complete by 2023, so the crumbling main Supreme Court building on Wellington, completed in 1940, can get a long-overdue, five-year makeover.
$1B rehabilitation project
The entire undertaking — fit up of the West Memorial Building, move, rehabilitation of the main Supreme Court building, and move back — is expected to cost taxpayers $1 billion.
But the whole project is contingent on erecting a simple, relatively inexpensive wall to block that pedestrian walkway.
That's because Canada's form of constitutional democracy requires a clear separation of its three branches; that is, Parliament, the government and the courts.
This is to ensure the conceptual and operational independence of the Supreme Court of Canada. - Public Services spokesperson
And a physical walkway between the justice minister's offices and the high court would offend that fundamental principle of separation, both practically and symbolically.
The wall "is to ensure the physical separation of the Supreme Court of Canada in the West Memorial Building from the federal judicial functions within the East Memorial Building," said Jean-François Létourneau, a spokesperson for Public Services and Procurement Canada, which is responsible for federal real estate.
"This is to ensure the conceptual and operational independence of the Supreme Court of Canada is maintained during their interim occupancy."
A second wall is also planned to seal off an underground pedestrian tunnel that also connects the two buildings.
"The Colonnade and tunnels will be reopened once the Supreme Court of Canada moves back into the rehabilitated Supreme Court of Canada building," said Nicolas Boucher, another Public Services spokesperson.
The walls — known as demising partitions — will be built sometime between 2019 and 2023, as the West Memorial Building is rehabilitated.
A Public Services spokesperson says the wall "solution" was developed by the department rather than the high court.
Court guards independence
The Supreme Court of Canada jealously guards its independence from government, and last year won its most recent skirmish.
In 2015, the Harper government issued an order requiring federal departments — including the Courts Administration Service and the Registrar of the Supreme Court of Canada — to obtain their IT services, such as data storage on central servers, from Shared Services Canada by Sept. 1 of that year.
The high court dug in its heels, refusing to comply and threatening action — all in defence of its independence from government.
The justices' objection had a practical side: about a third of the cases that come before the high court are brought by the federal government, so confidentiality on each side is necessary to ensure the integrity of the judicial process.
Data from both sides cannot be kept on the same server, the court argued.
In the end, the Liberal government altered the cabinet order on Jan. 13, 2016, no longer requiring the court to use Shared Services Canada. The Supreme Court now maintains its data on servers independent of government, though it does use Shared Services Canada to acquire secure hardware.
Electrical and other systems are at serious risk of failure in the existing Supreme Court of Canada building, which is getting a $1-billion makeover. (CBC) In the meantime, the high court faces a serious challenge to keep its current offices running in a building that's almost 80 years old.
Internal documents from Public Services and Procurement Canada, obtained by CBC News under the Access to Information Act, show several systems are expected to fail before the move to the West Memorial Building by 2023.
"Several building components are well beyond the expected life cycle and at significant risks of failure," warns one document from July of last year. Faulty systems include old wiring, leaky radiators and substandard plumbing.
Follow @DeanBeeby on Twitter | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
A Retrospective on Jousting By Kaizen
PAX West has come and gone, and we’re coming to the end of our jousting adventure. Along the way, we shared our updates about the parties and quests, broadcasted a live Q&A on Twitch, tracked where progress was in production, and debuted the jousting gameplay trailer (which you can feast your eyes on below).
Jousting Gameplay Trailer
We outlined our new developer journal release plan in the recent State of a Elyria and, if you’ve been following along, you know there’s one step left: a retrospective. We want to share with you what we think went well with the jousting demo, what we could improve, and what the demo means to us as a studio. Watch the video in its entirety below:
A Retrospective on Jousting
Our goal was to put together an experience that shows off the last few months’ worth of work. Everything from the locomotion system, the improved animations, and our new-and-improved server stack, came together in a confluence of majestic horses and shattered lances that felt right to us, and delighted players at PAX West.
So take a peek into a day at Soulbound Studios, and let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
And lastly, Caspian and the team are working diligently on the next steps for Soulbound Studios; be on the lookout for the next quest kick off in the coming weeks.
Be sure to follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube to stay up-to-date with the latest news and announcements from Soulbound Studios.
Until next time… | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Lucky Devil Lounge posted the break-in caught on surveillance camera on social media
PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — Brazen thieves took off with cash from the Lucky Devil Lounge after breaking into the building and into the ATM.
The establishment posted a surveillance video to Twitter showing the thieves using a Subaru Forester to pry open the door with ropes. They then enter, force open the ATM and steal cash.
The break-in happened around 4 a.m. on Monday morning.
They are asking anyone with information to contact Portland Police. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
It's been said before, and it's being said especially now, but no one campaigns quite like Obama.
As the first sitting president to publicly support marriage equality, he has once again proved to be a master of game change, galvanizing the youth vote (even though we've all been whupped by the economy) while simultaneously branding the GOP as straddling the wrong side of history.
Yes, this has caused grumblings within the LGBTQ community, and that's not surprising: There are always grumblings within our communities. But whether we like it or not, it has become important -- no, necessary -- for our civil rights movement that Obama remains in office.
It has been a poorly kept secret that Obama has always supported marriage equality during his time in office, so it's understandable that his coming out of that closet at this point of the campaign is being eyed with suspicion.
And what do I have to say to that? Shut up.
Because this is actually not about the Obama campaign or even his legacy. This is about the most symbolically powerful person in the world openly voicing his belief that everyone has the right to marry whom he or she loves. And this statement comes at time when there is a suicide epidemic among our nation's children. The future of our nation have been killing themselves, did you know?
We can argue amongst ourselves in our little bubbles of privilege: "Oh, Obama is just trying to get our votes!" "He's doing it for politics, not principle." "Now the Hollywood elite is going to give him millions!" "What a flip-flopper." And that's your prerogative, because there's truth to much of it, plus you get to sound clever.
But this much is true: A terrified gay teenager in middle America has just been told by the president that he or she has just as much a right to love and marry. And that teenager doesn't care about your intellectual meanderings of politicking. All that teenager knows is that his or her future will be drastically different: It just got better.
The majority of the people -- especially youth -- think symbolically, not cynically. And "subversive" messages are best accepted when packaged in mainstream imagery. Pride parades are fun, but presidents are better.
It's a gross simplification, but Obama's second term and the acceptance of marriage equality have become the same thing. It's time for us to truly become politically ferocious when it comes to marriage equality. It worked for the GOP, and it will work against them, as well.
Obama has hit the ball into our court by becoming the most powerful ally we've ever had. We can carry him through to 2012. The first president who openly and fully supports LGBTQ community must be reelected.
We keep saying that we are on the right side of history. Let's prove it, and let's kick some homophobic ass.
This piece also appears on Justin Huang's personal site, I AM YELLOW PERIL. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
They did everything they could to keep her quiet.
The disgraced NYPD officers charged with raping an intoxicated Manhattan woman in her apartment in December stole her cellphone and contacted her mother and brother in an attempt to frighten her into silence, newly disclosed legal papers allege.
The bombshell details are in a notice of claim filed by the woman against the city and the two cops. The woman, named as Jane Doe in the filing, is seeking $5 million in damages.
The alleged betrayal of the badge occurred in the early hours of Dec. 7, when Officers Kenneth Moreno and Franklin Mata of the Ninth Precinct responded to a 911 call from a cabby requesting help getting a drunken passenger into her East Village apartment.
The officers escorted the 27-year-old woman into her home and returned two more times by lying to a resident to gain entry, investigators say.
Moreno then allegedly raped the woman in her bed as she drifted in and out of consciousness while Mata acted as a lookout.
Before leaving the apartment for the last time, the officers began a twisted scheme to silence her, the documents say.
They stole her BlackBerry, and in the days after the crime, the cops contacted the woman’s mother and brother, the document says.
The notice of claim doesn’t say what they told her family, but it does state the officers “were trying to intimidate” the woman.
Daniel E. Katz, the woman’s attorney, declined to elaborate.
“The notice of claim speaks for itself,” he said. “We are continuing to cooperate with the ongoing criminal investigation.”
In the claim, the woman asks for $3 million for personal injuries and $2 million in punitive damages.
The claim also states that “other specific facts” about the incident would come to light if the city does not compensate her and she proceeds with a lawsuit.
Moreno, 41, and Mata, 27, were charged in April with rape, burglary and official misconduct by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office. They are both free on $175,000 bail and have been placed on administrative duty in the NYPD.
Both officers have pleaded not guilty. Their next court appearance is scheduled for Sept. 16.
The woman, a high-level executive at a well-known company, had gone out for drinks with friends at a Brooklyn club, Southpaw, between 10 and 10:30 p.m. on Dec. 6.
When she left the popular Park Slope nightspot at 12:30 a.m., her blood-alcohol level was twice the legal limit to drive, according to investigators. Her friends put her in a yellow taxi and instructed the driver, Kofi Owusu, to take her home.
Owusu arrived at her place at 1 a.m., but the victim was too tipsy to get out of the car, so he called police. Moreno, a 17-year NYPD veteran, and Mata, who has two years on the force, responded and helped her into her apartment at 1:10 a.m.
The officers left seven minutes later but returned to the building at 1:56 a.m. and were let in by a resident. The notice of claim states that the pair told the resident they were investigating a noise disturbance behind the apartment complex.
The men then entered her apartment with a key they had taken from the woman. They stayed for 17 minutes before receiving a radio call to respond to a traffic accident at 13th Street and First Avenue.
As The Post first reported, the cops then allegedly made a phony 911 call from the accident scene, saying there was a drunken homeless man at an address two buildings away from the woman’s.
The officers were dispatched to that address but instead returned to the woman’s apartment a second time, at 2:59 a.m. During that visit, Moreno allegedly raped her while she was lying face down in her bed and after she had vomited several times.
The two officers left the building for the last time at 3:33 a.m. Later that morning, the woman told her landlady and friends she had been raped by cops.
She saw Moreno again when she set up a meeting with him and secretly recorded his apology to her.
The wiretap was part of a four-month probe that showed the two cops tried to cover up the crime and tampered with a memo book used to record shift details.
Prosecutors also said during the investigation that Moreno admitted having sex with the woman but claimed it was consensual.
Police Commissioner Ray Kelly was so outraged that he issued a rare rebuke of the officers, calling their conduct “egregious” and a “shocking aberration.”
[email protected] | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Just 350 of the 15,600 wealthiest households in Westminster, one of the country’s richest boroughs, have answered the local authority’s call to voluntarily pay extra council tax to help tackle the homelessness crisis in the heart of London.
In February, the Westminster council leader, Nickie Aiken, wrote to all residents in the most expensive band H properties to ask them to consider paying an extra £833-a-year “community contribution” to help fund youth clubs, homelessness services and visits to lonely people.
But only 2% of the households have stepped forward to help their poorer neighbours, the Guardian can reveal. Those asked to consider making an extra contribution include the residents of the Candy brothers’ luxurious One Hyde Park apartment complex in Knightsbridge and those living in hundreds of multimillion-pound mansions in Mayfair, Belgravia and Maida Vale.
Residents in Westminster pay the lowest council tax in the country, with band H payments of £832 a year plus another £588 to the Greater London Authority. In Poole, Dorset, the band H charge is £3,358.
While very few of Westminster’s wealthiest residents have answered the council’s plea for help in maintaining essential services, they are paying tens of thousands of pounds a year in service charges to maintain their luxury buildings. The service charge on a £6m one-bedroom apartment in One Hyde Park comes in at more than £22,000 a year. The most expensive flat in the development was sold to the Ukrainian billionaire Rinat Akhmetov for £135m in 2011.
Aiken said she introduced the voluntary contribution scheme following “a growing number of requests from some residents who live in the highest valued homes that they wanted to voluntarily contribute more than their existing council tax”.
The council said that in a pilot consultation more than 400 people responded positively to the survey saying they would support the scheme. But it appears that many may have failed to follow through on their initial enthusiasm. “The outcome of our consultation reflects the kind and generous spirit of Westminster residents,” Aiken said in February. “It also confirmed what I had heard from people I had met on the doorstep that those in the more expensive homes are willing to contribute more to community projects. The scheme is most popular among residents of the most expensive homes.”
However, four months down the line, Aiken said just 350 households had contributed a total of £342,000. The biggest single donation was £2,500. “This scheme had its cynics, but the number of contributions we have had are proof that an innovative idea like this one can make a difference,” she said.
The council had explored the possibility of introducing a “mansion tax” on properties worth more than £2m but is legally prevented from doing so by central government. Councils are also prevented from raising the council tax of just one band or from changing the structure of bands. At present, band H is the highest and applies to homes worth more than £320,000, which takes in a high proportion of all private homes in Westminster.
Nickie Aiken, the Conservative leader of Westminster council: ‘If we raised council tax, we would have to do so for everyone.’ Photograph: Jonathan Brady/PA
“If we raised council tax, we would have to do so for everyone due to the way the banding system works,” Aiken, leader of the Conservative-run council, said. “Through the community contribution we have asked only those who can genuinely afford to make a greater contribution to do so. The positive response so far is a credit to the generous spirit of Westminster residents.”
The scheme was launched shortly before a homeless Portuguese man was found dead in the shadow of the houses of parliament, sparking outrage at the homelessness crisis in the capital. Research by the housing charity Shelter shows that one in eight people living in Westminster are homeless.
Tony Travers, a professor of local government at the London School of Economics, said the fact that only 2% of residents had signed up “tells us that unless taxation is compulsory it’s very hard to get people to contribute”. He said the measure had been a “very noble effort” and “politically astute” on the part of the council.
“But I fear they have discovered that it has not been met by the astuteness of the people who live in those expensive properties,” he said. “If the rich residents had paid up and made a big contribution it would have weakened the political case for a compulsory mansion tax, which Labour and the Liberal Democrats have both proposed.”
Laura Gardener, a researcher at the Resolution Foundation thinktank, said Westminster council’s scheme was “admirable” but the weak takeup “demonstrates the need to change the rules so that more money can be raised from mega mansions”.
Some of Westminster’s famous residents, including the DJ Tim Westwood and The Apprentice star Margaret Mountford, had welcomed the scheme. Westwood said: “Asking people who have done well to contribute a little extra seems a very good idea to me. I also like the fact that young people will be among those who benefit from any money raised.”
When the scheme launched, the archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, congratulated the council on a “fantabulous” idea. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
More for The Playroom VR Explore more games and downloadable content for The Playroom VR!
Description
PlayStation®VR is not for use by children under age 12.
PlayStation®VR and PlayStation®Camera are required.
VR Games may cause some players to experience motion sickness.
Download TOY WARS, the latest addition to THE PLAYROOM VR, completely free!
As a VR player, jump into your gun turret and defend the bedroom from the incoming alien invasion. Up to 3 more players can join the fun on the TV and help you in your fight!
VR Required. No online Play. PS Camera Required. PS Move not used.
©2016 Sony Interactive Entertainment Inc. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
UPDATE: Variety reports estimates that peg Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice taking in $52.4 million for its second weekend. That’s a 68% drop from its opening $166 million weekend. It’s not an unexpected drop, but the movie may not have long legs at the box office. The 81% drop from Friday-to-Friday still stands, but these are the whole weekend numbers that are now coming in. Our original story from April 2nd, 2016 follows below.
Even though Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice raked in a huge amount of cash with a record-setting haul of $166 million, the second weekend box office was less impressive than anticipated. For its second weekend, the comic book battle landed $15.35 million at the box office, and that puts the full weekend estimates at about $51 million, which is less than the $58 million that was projected going into the weekend. That means the second weekend for Batman v Superman box office saw an 81.2% drop, which is one of the biggest Friday-to-Friday drops any blockbuster has ever seen.
More on the Batman v Superman box office drop and what they mean for the movie’s future box office success after the jump.
Forbes has the numbers for the second weekend box office of Batman v Superman, and they’re worth looking into with a little more explanation. First of all, it’s important to note that the previous Friday total of $81.5 million included $27.7 million from the early Thursday showings of the movie. So that makes the drop a little more steep than it otherwise might have been. But at the same time, if you only look at the $53.8 million it made on its first Friday, that’s still a 71.5% drop. That’s not unheard of, but it’s also not all that great. Here’s are some other major box office drops for a point of comparison:
Fantastic Four (-78.7%)
Watchmen (-78.4%)
Hulk (-76.5%)
X-Men Origins: Wolverine (-75.8%)
Green Lantern (-72%)
Man of Steel (-71.5%)
Those numbers also include the Thursday previews, so Batman v Superman‘s drop is still bigger. A worse drop in box office has been seen in the likes of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 and High School Musical 3 with an 84% and 90% drop respectively.
Sure, these are just comparisons of Friday numbers, but if you look at the projected weekend total of $51 million, meaning a drop of 69.2% That puts Batman v Superman numbers in the box office ballpark of movies like X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Elektra, Jonah Hex, and Hulk, and fans know that those movies aren’t good company. And there’s a reason that this drop for Batman v Superman could be a little worse as far as its continued success is concerned.
What’s worrisome about this drop is that Batman v Superman isn’t facing any big competition at the box office this weekend with the biggest new release being God’s Not Dead 2 and previous releases like Zootopia and My Big Fat Greek Wedding landing the #2 and #3 spots for the weekend. Take that into account with the fact that a lot of schools are on spring break right now, and the movie really shouldn’t have dropped this much at the box office. So imagine how much the numbers will drop with movies like The Jungle Book just around the corner.
We’ve said before that box office numbers are no indication of the quality of a film, so this doesn’t appear to be happening solely because of negative reviews or bad word of mouth from fans who haven’t liked the movie (though it probably doesn’t help). Instead, what it means is that there doesn’t seem to be a large amount of interest in the movie beyond those who were excited enough to see it immediately on its opening weekend. After all, that first weekend for the movie included between $20-$25 million in advance ticket sales. And now that those people have seen the movie, there isn’t much interest beyond that.
If you need further evidence of a lack of interest, The Wrap recently reported that Fandango is seeing repeat ticket prices 30% higher than any typical blockbuster. That means a good chunk of the box office for this weekend, at least among Fandango’s users, have already seen the movie. What that means is that the movie won’t have long legs at the box office in the way that something like Star Wars: The Force Awakens did.
Could this be bad news for Wonder Woman or Justice League? There’s the potential for a lack of interest, but since Wonder Woman was one of the best parts of the movie, even for those who didn’t like it all that much, I think the superheroine flick will be fine. As for Justice League, since that’s the first time we’re going to see that superhero ensemble on the big screen, there’s no doubt that movie will be big too. But in the case of Batman v Superman, the two superheroes don’t seem to be pulling their weight as much as they should. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Article content
Montreal began the process of trying to solve its empty storefront problem Tuesday night with a 75-minute public consultation at city hall that was heavy on numbers and light on immediate solutions.
Vacancy rates in Montreal retail hover around the 15 per cent mark, virtually unchanged from five years ago and more than double acceptable levels, said Maha Berechid, an economic development adviser for the city. On thoroughfares such as St-Denis St. or Ste-Catherine St. E., 26 per cent of storefronts sit empty.
We apologize, but this video has failed to load.
tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Montreal seeking solutions to overcome its empty storefront problem Back to video
“It’s clear the numbers are high,” Berechid said during her presentation.
Vacancy rates of 4 per cent to 7 per cent are what would normally be considered acceptable, city data show.
Berechid shared results of a shop-owner poll that identified such problems as high taxes, recurring roadwork, property speculation and “passive” or “inactive” landlords who let buildings deteriorate. Vacancies in Montreal tend to last an average of 19 months, the poll concluded. More than 250 shop owners took part. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Dewayne Brown, 26, ploughed into a married couple in Leicester at 100mph and has been jailed for six years
A drink driver who ploughed at 100mph into a married couple returning home from a date night at the cinema has been jailed.
Dewayne Brown, 26, killed Graham Jennings, 49, and wife Emma, 50, when he lost control of his Ford Fiesta in Leicester.
His careered without braking into the couple's Citroen Xsara Picasso which then caught fire and exploded.
Mr and Mrs Jennings, of Syston, died at the scene, Leicester Crown Court was told.
Brown, a father of one, pleaded guilty to causing the deaths of Mr and Mrs Jennings by driving dangerously on the night of Saturday August 18 last year.
Father-of-four, Mr Jennings, has two grown-up daughters from a previous marriage and two younger children, aged 10 and 11, with his wife Emma.
Alexander Wolfson, prosecuting, said: 'When the defendant drove into the back of their car he was travelling in the region of 100 mph.'
One of several witnesses travelling in the same direction as Brown described how his car 'wobbled' as the Fiesta overtook.
The Fiesta speedometer read 120 mph after the collision with 4,000 revs on the counter, equating to about 103 mph.
Mr Wolfson said: 'The emergency services attended and the defendant went to hospital with minor injuries.'
A blood sample taken two-and-half hours later showed that Brown, of Pen Court, Northampton, had 120 milligrams of alcohol in 100 millilitres of blood.
The legal limit is 80 milligrams.
When interviewed, Brown told officers he was an operations manager for a Hinckley based firm, travelling 15,000 to 20,000 miles a year.
He said he had drunk half a pint of cider, some rum and two Peronis in the afternoon.
He was on his way to Thurmaston at the time of the collision, which happened at 11pm.
Graham Jennings, 49, and wife Emma, 50, were killed at the scene after a date night at the cinema
Mr Jennings' daughter, Libbie, 18, read a moving personal impact statement in court, paying tribute to her father and step-mother and describing the deep heartache suffered by her family.
Judge Robert Brown told the defendant: 'You say you didn't mean the consequences of what happened that night.
'I'm sure you didn't, but what happened that night was the result of deliberate actions taken by you that produced the consequences.
'You took the decision to drive your car at 100 mph for some minutes.
'You took the decision to drink alcohol to excess before you got into that car.
'I note the reading was one and a half times the legal limit on a test two hours after the collision; the alcohol must have been higher in your body at the time of this collision, but to what extent I don't know.
'No doubt because of your speed and the alcohol, which affects judgement and reactions, you turned into the carriageway when you could have carried on past him in the other lane.
'You ploughed into them at grossly excessive speed. There were two deaths that occurred in a manner that was horrific.
'I accept you have remorse and I've read references and see you're from a good family, are a high achiever in your career and a good member of the community.'
The judge told the Jennings family in court that no sentence he could pass would ever reflect the loss of two precious lives.
Steven Newcombe, mitigating, read out a heartfelt apology letter from the defendant saying: 'I want the family to know how sorry I am for what happened.
'I want to express my condolences and deepest and sincerest sympathy to the Jennings' family.'
Brown stated he never intended to harm anyone that night and he was 'beyond broken' and 'utterly devastated' with frequent flashbacks of the 'horrible and tragic' accident.
He said his pain was 'insignificant' compared to the victims' family.
He said: 'No-one should have to go through what you're going through.'
Brown continued: 'I was raised to understand all actions have consequences and I fully accept that.
'I've left a hole in the Jennings family that will never heal.'
He said he was deeply ashamed and also apologised to everyone in court, including his own family for letting them down.
Mr Newcombe said Brown, a father of a four-year-old child, had no previous convictions and a clean driving record.
He was also the youngest operations manager within his organisation with a bright future.
Brown has been jailed for six years and banned from driving for seven years. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Rose Freymuth-Frazier is no stranger to criticism. Recently, the 37-year-old figurative realist painter received an incensed email from an older man, asking why she insisted on creating such “grotesque” paintings.
“He was a fan of my ‘other’ work,” Freymuth-Frazier says, “but he just couldn’t understand who I was so angry at. Was it my parents? Was it society? Why must I ‘upset the apple cart?'”
The source of his disgust: a painting of a woman using a breast pump.
Freymuth-Frazier’s subjects seem to glow under soft, ethereal light. Graceful, restrained and exquisitely painted, they nonetheless have an often unsettling effect on the viewer—and at times, the resulting reaction can be extremely telling.
There’s something challenging about these women, a disarming intimacy that, despite the beauty of the artist’s technique, can still leave you unnerved, as if you’ve looked at something dirty. Yet there’s nothing “grotesque” or obscene about this work—unless you are unprepared for honest nakedness.
Nudity—the more elegant term for being artfully unclothed—is nothing new to fine art. In Freymuth-Frazier’s work, though, there’s something else that challenges us on a far deeper level: These women are not just nude, but frankly naked, with all their vulnerabilities and strengths fully on display. Rather than appearing as objects to be examined, they in fact seem to be examining the viewer. It’s enough to put you on the defensive, as the breast-pump critic discovered.
It’s also Freymuth-Frazier’s way of offering a glimpse at the modern female gaze.
What does the female gaze look like?
The male gaze—our culture’s default setting—has been our worldview for millennia, and has evolved little in that time. To oversimplify: women are overwhelmingly depicted as objects or outsiders, seen from the typically male vantage point. This concept very much applies to fine art: women are common subjects, often artfully nude and, stereotypically, they turn their face from the viewer. The male gaze drinks in the beauty of the female form, so the trope goes, without any danger of catching her eye.
If this is the male gaze in art, then what would the female gaze be? Many believe it’s currently in the process of being defined by women brave enough to show their guts. You might catch glimpses in Beyonce’s lyrics, in Jenji Kohan’s scripts, in Marjane Satrapi’s drawings and, too, in Rose Freymuth-Frazier’s brush strokes.
There’s only one way to find the female gaze, and that is to allow women to stop being looked at, and start doing the looking. Within Freymuth-Frazier’s frames, women are doing just that.
The effect of these images, with their chilling directness and anemic tints, is unsettling enough on its own. But Freymuth-Frazier ups the ante with unconventional faces; with compositions that reference history and pornography in the same frame; with a series of paintings featuring lovingly rendered dildos, high heels, syringes and, yes—breast pumps in use.
Where do we fit in?
This message, and the questions it raises, are as complex as any woman could be. In the words of independent art critic Kris Vagner:
“Using transgressions as mild as a conflicted expression on the face of a soft-lit centerfold model or as unabashed as a hermaphrodite posing seductively and a junkie admiring her needle, Freymuth-Frazier asserts that the categories that art history traditionally sorts us into—‘virgin,’ ‘mother’ and ‘whore’—never did contain us very neatly.”
“Where her lighting and framing say ‘look at these beautiful, idealized women,’ the women’s faces, props and gestures say actual things that real women say: Not just ‘admire me’ but also ‘help me,’ ‘understand me,’ ‘fuck me,’ ‘acknowledge my strength,’ ‘admit my weakness,’ ‘go away’ or, often, ‘I’m confused sorting through all of the above.’”
It’s no surprise that Freymuth-Frazier’s work is at times difficult to show. The content and themes are much more welcome among younger, less-shockable audiences, while the meticulous technique and connection to art history refuse to be labeled as anything but a continuation of traditional figurative painting. Scrolling through the images chosen for a recent American Realism show at Cavalier Galleries, the flow comes to a screeching halt as “Angela,” a corset-clad woman with bleached hair, pauses to light firecrackers on her nipples.
Quite simply, these women don’t fit into the existing narrative. Can we categorize them at all? Not really—and that makes it hard to place them, whether in gallery exhibits, or in our existing understanding of womanhood.
Freymuth-Frazier is relatively unfazed by this, as she was unperturbed by the message complaining about breast pumps. “What he was calling ‘grotesque’ is a real thing and part of many women’s lives,” she explains.
“Those are real breast pumps and are what working women use to allow their family and work lives to co-exist. The model in both of those paintings is a dear friend of mine who is an ER doctor in the Bronx and a mother of two. I painted these pieces to raise questions, but when I got an older man emailing me (a younger woman) and telling me what I should and should not paint, it was a little sad.”
It is somewhat sad that, after all this time, we still struggle to understand and show what it means to be a woman. And yet, there’s plenty of hope to be found. In Freymuth-Frazier’s paintings, the backgrounds disappear, completely inconsequential to the women. It’s as if she’s telling us that none of it matters—that by tuning out the background noise and ignoring what the world is telling us to look at, we finally gain the ability to see ourselves in full, glorious detail.
Get the Ms. Blog in your inbox! Click here to sign up for our newsletter. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Jommen sa vi feminisme!
Ole Martin Moen
Aksel Braanen Sterri
Frøken X
13. februar 2013
Snarere enn å ta fra prostituerte muligheter, tar vi til orde for å gi dem flere muligheter.
I Les Misérables synger den 7 år gamle, ensomme Cosette om en drømmeverden der ingen gråter. Etter å ha beskrevet den, legger hun til: «Crying at all is not allowed / Not in my castle on a cloud». Cosette har god grunn til å ønske en verden der ingen er lei seg. Det er imidlertid tvilsomt om et forbud mot gråting vil være til hjelp.
Les også «Det mest påfallende er likhets-tegnet forfatterne setter mellomtilfeldig sex og prostitusjon»
Lever ikke i en drømmeverden
I Aftenposten 11. februar begår Mari Lund Arnem (Sv), Rannveig Kvifte Andresen (Sv) og Ida Karlsen (Su) samme feil som Cosette. De ønsker en verden der ingen skal være nødt til å selge sex. Det ønsker vi alle. Vi lever imidlertid ikke i en drømmeverden, men i en verden der mange sliter med å få endene til å møtes. I denne verden er prostitusjon den beste utveien for mange. Arnem, Andresen og Karlsen ønsker å blokkere denne utveien, og tenker at når den er blokkert, trenger ingen å selge sex mer.
Problemet er at når vi blokkerer en utvei som mange vurderer som den beste, tvinger vi folk til å velge noe enda verre. For noen prostituerte betyr dette å fryse, å gå sultne eller å bli kriminelle. Det er ikke gitt at dette er bedre enn å selge sex. Prostituerte velger å selge sex fordi dette er den beste utveien, gitt situasjonen de er i og mulighetene som er åpne for dem.
Stereotyp fremstilling
Blokkering av utveier hjelper ingen, så dersom vi skal hjelpe prostituerte, må vi isteden arbeide for å bedre bakgrunnsvilkårene som gjør at noen tyr til ubehagelige løsninger. Tilsvarende, hvis vi skal hjelpe Cosette, må vi tilby henne bedre muligheter enn de hun har. Vi må hverken forby henne å skure gulvet i Thénardiers vertshus, slik hun gjør, eller forby henne å gråte når hun er lei seg. Hun trenger flere, ikke færre, åpne dører. Det samme gjør prostituerte.
Vi undres om Arnem, Andresen og Karlsen ser på verden og ærlig spør seg hvordan forholdene er, eller om de snarere har bestemt seg for hva de har lyst til å se. Fremgangsmåten tyder på det siste, og dette underbygges av stereotypiene som artikkelforfatterne tar for gitt. I deres verden er det er bare menn som kjøper sex, det er bare kvinner som selger sex, sexkjøperne er «slibrige» og det finnes ingen som selger sex fordi de vil.
Absurd logikk
Dette er feil, og Arnem, Andresen og Karlsen trenger ikke dykke langt ned i forskningslitteraturen for å oppdage det. De bør lese om mannlige prostituerte og kvinnelige kunder, og om funksjonshemmede som kjøper sex. Dette er utbredt. Artikkelforfatterne kan gjerne også ta en prat med en av oss som skriver dette, som arbeider frivillig som prostituert. Hun er stolt av yrket sitt og vil ha seg frabedt å bli fortalt av Arnem, Andresen og Karlsen at kundene hennes «kjøper en kvinne». Kundene hennes kjøper en tjeneste, og er villige til å betale godt for den. Når hun selger sex, viser hun ikke at «kvinner er til salgs». Hun viser at noen ganger er sex verdt å betale for, og noen ganger er sex verdt å ta betalt for.
Arnem, Andresen og Karlsen skriver at «lovverket er til for å vise hva slag samfunn vi vil ha». Vi er uenige. Lovverket er til for å skape et bedre samfunn. Dersom vi skal unngå å gjøre samme feil som Cosette, bør vi vokte oss for å vedta lover «for å vise hva slags samfunn vi vil ha». Da ender vi opp med en logikk som går ut på at siden den beste verden er en der ingen trenger å selge sex, får vi det bedre av å forby prostitusjon. I noen tilfeller kommer absurditeten i en slik logikk til overflaten. I den beste verden er det ingen som trenger å gå på cellegiftkur. Det er imidlertid ikke et godt argument for å forby cellegift -— uansett om det har negative bivirkninger og uansett hvor friske vi mener at folk flest er blitt. Det samme gjelder prostitusjon. Ja, for noen er det ille. Ja, det ville ha vært bedre om ingen var nødt til å selge sex. Men, nei, et forbud gjør ikke situasjonen bedre for noen.
Gi dem flere muligheter
Snarere enn å ta fra prostituerte muligheter, tar vi til orde for å gi dem flere muligheter. En side av dette er bedre hjelpetiltak, som vi er glade for at Arnem, Andresen og Karlsen støtter. En annen side, som de dessverre går imot, er å avskaffe dagens lover som nekter prostituerte arbeidskontrakter, sykepenger, fagorganisering, pensjonssparing og beskyttelse. Vi foreslår å slippe prostituerte inn i varmen, og gi dem samme muligheter og rettigheter som andre.
Vi bør også begynne å behandle prostituerte dem med respekt -- og en av forutsetningene for å vise respekt, er å lytte. Arnem, Andresen og Karlsen vil opprettholde dagens lovgivning, trass i at den ikke fungerer, og trass i at både ProSentret og de prostituerte selv sier at lovgivningen har gjort forholdene verre. Når de som du skal hjelpe, stritter imot og sier at du skader dem, bør du stoppe, lytte og tenke deg om før du går videre. Når Arnem, Andresen og Karlsen nekter å gjøre dette, viser de ikke respekt for kvinnene (og mennene) som arbeider som prostituerte. Istedet fortsetter de blindt rett frem og skyver dem ut i kulda. Jommen sa vi feminisme! | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Newspaper headlines: Outrage as Johnson 'takes the gloves off' By BBC News
Staff Published duration 29 August 2019
image copyright Getty Images image caption Boris Johnson was accused of creating a "constitutional crisis"
It's no surprise that the prime minister's announcement that he will suspend Parliament next month dominates Thursday's editions.
The Daily Mirror accuses Boris Johnson of creating a "constitutional crisis" for the benefit only of his own political future.
In its leader column , the Guardian calls his actions "a grotesque abuse of the country's highest political office".
The Daily Mail objects to what it calls the "hysterics of the Remain irreconcilables". It insists it is not "glorying" in what it calls the "sobering step", but suggests Mr Johnson's tactic is paying off and that the EU is signalling it may offer concessions.
The Daily Telegraph predicts that the next few weeks will be chaotic but praises the prime minister for acting "boldly".
The Sun reports on a study of more than 20 million births which suggests that children delivered by C-section are a third more likely to develop autism. The Swedish academics also found there was a higher risk of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.
But according to the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail , British scientists have questioned the research. They explain that the higher incidence does not show the caesarean delivery causes the conditions.
The arrival of the 16-year-old climate activist, Greta Thunberg, in New York after her 15-day voyage across the Atlantic in a yacht is marked by several papers.
image copyright Reuters image caption Greta Thunberg arrived in New York after sailing the Atlantic
The Guardian speaks to some of the enthusiastic crowds who greeted her . The Green MEP Molly Scott Cato suggests her journey sends a message to us all to reconsider how we travel.
But The Spectator questions its virtue , raising the controversy over the flights of the support team. The magazine asks why she couldn't stay at home and rely instead on the internet for communication.
There's been a call to cut the drink-drive limit, according to the Guardian and the Times.
Both papers say that the number of people killed in alcohol-fuelled crashes has reached an eight-year high.
The Daily Mail suggests a hard core of male drink-drivers has been blamed for the increase.
But the Department of Transport tells the Times that the extra deaths are not statistically significant as they're based on estimates.
Meanwhile the Daily Mirror reports on a survey which reveals that one in six bus drivers has fallen asleep while driving at least once in the past year.
One in five say they fight sleepiness at least twice a week, and 5% said they had been in an accident because of tiredness.
Such issues will be long forgotten in 50 years' time though, if the predictions made in the Sun come to pass, with high-power drones taking the place of buses and taxis | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
BN rotary snow plow unit No. 972570 sits in the foreground of a passing coal train in West Burlington, Iowa.
Burlington Northern rotary snow plow unit No. 972570 sits at the abandoned West Burlington Locomotive Repair Shop as a loaded coal train passes in the background. Photo taken January 2, 2016 in West Burlington, Iowa.
Done | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
With robots increasingly taking over jobs, including those that require technical skills, it may be the "fuzzy" or soft skills that will save your job.
The best workers need not just to be highly skilled, but must also learn to work well in teams and think creatively, said Mr Indranil Roy, who heads a centre that comes up with solutions for organisations to meet changing workplace demands.
The Future of Work Centre of Excellence, set up by global consultancy Deloitte in July last year and supported by the Economic Development Board, has been studying market disruptions and work trends around the world.
The $27.6 million Singapore facility works with more than 30 clients here and overseas. It serves as the global flagship, with all Deloitte offices plugged into it.
AT RISK OF BEING AUTOMATED
About half of the work across all occupations is at risk of being automated within the next five years, with technology that exists today, according to the centre's research.
But the likelihood of an entire profession disappearing because of automation is "quite low", said Mr Roy who has advised clients across sectors like financial services, information technology, government, consumer and healthcare.
"It is far more likely that component parts of occupations will be enabled by technology, thereby augmenting, not replacing the worker," he added.
The legal profession, for instance, can in the early stages be partly automated with technologies that exist today such as natural language processing and data wrangling, or cleaning up complex data.
"In the first two years in the legal profession, a lot of the work that you do is in gathering data and information from different case laws, putting that together into a meaningful report," he said.
In banks, similarly, technology can do a huge part of what analysts do, in carrying out online research, analysing and crunching data, and organising charts and graphs.
Mr Roy said companies are grappling with what the right balance between human and machine should be, and how they can re-design the role of employees to perhaps take on more tasks like advisory work or spending time with clients.
It does not have to be a binary choice, as humans and computers can complement each other, said the 47-year-old, who will be a speaker at an upcoming The Straits Times & SkillsFuture Singapore forum on the future of work.
EVENT INFORMATION
The Straits Times & SkillsFuture Singapore Future of Work Forum is organised in conjunction with the World Speaker Series. Date: July 3 ( Tuesday) Time: 10am to noon (Registration begins at 9am) Location: School of the Arts Singapore, Drama Theatre Level 2 Admission is free. Refreshments and goodie bags provided. Limited seats are available. Online registration: stssg.sphevents.com.sg
1 in 2 About half of the work across all occupations is at risk of being automated within the next five years, with technology that exists today. 90% More than this percentage of net new jobs created in the last five years in the United States were "gig" jobs, referring to part-time, freelance or contract employees. 60% Almost this percentage of Asia's working population are millennials, compared with about 40 per cent globally. 43% Percentage of millennials who see themselves leaving their jobs within two years; only 28 per cent wanted to stay beyond five years.
The Straits Times is the media partner for the event on July 3 at the School of the Arts Singapore. It will discuss how jobs are being reinvented by robotics, artificial intelligence and the gig economy.
Mr Roy, an executive director in the human capital practice at Deloitte Consulting based in Singapore, said the current wave of disruption is different.
"The disruptions of the past were about displacing jobs that required strength and human muscle power... So if you go to a factory today, most of the work is done by robots," he said.
Today, technologies are becoming more cognitive and are displacing "brain power" in the white-collar workforce, he said. Machines are getting better at not just routine tasks but "structured problem-solving" and analysis, he added.
"That's a red flag. If you're a young graduate, you need to be aware of that."
Young people could pick up things like data science or learn how to code, so that they could design and construct machines, he said.
But they should also focus on tasks that are best done by humans, such as building relationships, showing empathy, mentoring and solving problems in a bid to help humanity.
Tertiary institutions should also give more students opportunities to innovate, try out new ways of doing things and be entrepreneurs, skills that machines do not have, he said.
CHANGING EXPECTATIONS
A 9am to 5pm job, or full-time work as we know it, is also changing.
More than 90 per cent of net new jobs created in the last five years in the United States were "gig" jobs, referring to part-time, freelance or contract employees.
The trend is also seen here and in Asia, said Mr Roy, giving the example of the creative media industry where a large amount of work is done by freelancers.
"Increasingly you will see every industry move towards a mix of full-time employees, part-time, freelance, more flexible employees and robots."
Mr Roy said there is also a greater shift towards letting people decide where best to work, whether it is from offices or at home, in satellite spaces or shared workspaces.
He added that this ties in with expectations of a millennial workforce which values flexibility in the workplace, a key finding of a latest Deloitte study of more than 10,000 millennials born between January 1983 and December 1994.
Companies are also trying to better attract and retain younger talent, he said, as the workforce here and in the region is getting younger. Almost 60 per cent of Asia's working population are 28, compared with about 40 per cent globally.
In the recent survey, 43 per cent of millennials see themselves leaving their jobs within two years; only 28 per cent wanted to stay beyond five years.
The respondents also said they sought help to build softer skills like inter-personal skills and confidence, although employers did not always meet these needs.
That is where Mr Roy's Future of Work centre comes in - to bridge these gaps, help firms understand younger workers' changing expectations, and find the right balance between human and machine. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Germany's hardline right-wing political group Alternative fur Deutschland (AfD) adopted an explicitly anti-Muslim policy this week.
Debating on Sunday, Hans-Thomas Tillschneider, an AfD politician said, to deafening applause:
Islam is foreign to us and for that reason it cannot invoke the principle of religious freedom to the same degree as Christianity.
But Germany's far-right fringe is only part of a growing climate of extreme sentiment sweeping across Europe.
The following graph by Statista outlines the countries in which far-right political parties are making waves in parliaments and senates across the continent:
Switzerland, traditionally perceived as the bastion of neutrality, saw the far-right Swiss People's Party win almost a third of votes in the national elections in 2015 - no small feat.
Hungary’s Jobbik is the third strongest party in the country with 21 per cent of parliamentary seats.
Jobbik's rallies are infamous for their Nazi-affliated red-and-white Árpád stripes. The party got into hot water late last year after a camera-woman affiliated with the party was filmed kicking two refugee children.
Picture: Janek Skarzynski, Hungarian nationalist rally, Jobbik (2015)
Nordic countries Denmark, Finland and Sweden are also seeing a more right-wing political make up, with 21, 18 and 13 per cent of their last national election votes respectively going to nationalist parties. | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.