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"At that point, we're trying to make some plays down the field and buy some time in the pocket and make some things happen, and it just didn't go our way," Sanchez said. "We've got a lot of cleaning up to do, but we can do that." | {
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Takeshi Nogami, the character designer of the Girls und Panzer anime, went on Twitter recently about an interview he had with the BBC about his work. Nogami was interviewed by English Journalist Stacey Dooley, who was questioning him on the topic of sexualizing children condemned his work on the anime and mentioned that all fiction like Girls und Panzer would be banned throughout the entire 3 hour interview.
Nogami is one of the original character designers of the 2012 anime Girls Und Panzer and assisted in the designs of the Shirobako OVA. He has also worked on various manga such as the Strike Witches manga adaptations, Shidenkai no Maki and Koutetsu no Shoujo-tachi.
According to the various Tweets from Nogami, he had an interview session with BBC’s Stacey Dooley for roughly 3 hours for her documentary on young sex workers in Japan (full documentary below). He noted that their stances during the interview were polar opposites; Nogami thinks that all humans inherently have ‘dirty desires’.Whilst Dooley’s stance is that humans have no ‘dirty desires’ but are corrupted to have such thoughts through media depicting sinful material such as erotica, pedophillia and gore.
Nogami sums up Dooley’s position in the interview as that of a hitman from Rei Hiroe’s Black Lagoon who is determined to bring justice to pedophiles and producers of pedophilic content. He also mentions that justice can be scary when it manifests into people and infects them. Nogami mentions that this topic should not even be touched when poverty still exists in the UK. Dooley, however, ignored his statement. Dooley states that in order to tackle child abuse all fiction like Girls und Panzer should to be banned.
Nogami argues that the UK should solve the issue of poverty before tackling child abuse, and insists that legalising such fiction would result in a lowered crime rate. He assumes that this is a common line of thought for countries in the Commonwealth (explaining that you can be arrested for having pornographic comics in Canada) so his words won’t be able to reach her.
Dooley’s closing statement in the interview asks Nogami
Why don’t you Japanese people follow what the UK does?
Nogami rebuts:
Why don’t you British people follow Japan, since we’re more civilized, and have lower crime rate than the UK?
He thinks that this is where the Commonwealth should start thinking on the lines of.
Here is the full translation of Nogami’s Tweets from Twitter user @walterinsect:
“I was interviewed by this lady at my workplace. One-on-one Q&A session for three hours. Through that I realized one most important thing. I was thinking about releasing it online as manga but… The core difference between this interviewer and myself was the attitude towards human being. My position is… “all human beings have “dirty desires”. Isn’t it better to be vented appropriately?”. On the contrary…Ms Susie(sic) stated this. “All human beings are naturally innocent and have no “dirty desires” and reading media…media depicting erotic, pedophilic, and gore contents will affect them to be corrupted”. Then I realized.So the definition of human being, or Operating System(sic) is different. After three hour long interview, this realization was the most productive experience, I think. Oh, on top of that, she said, with a look of a hitman in BLACK LAGOON, “My desire is to put all pedophiles, and ones who produce pedophilic media into jail”. Ah, “Justice” is kinda scary when it infects people. Isn’t she trying to substitute everything into the subject of that sentence? It’s been two times where I was interviewed like this. She ignored me when I said… “Don’t look at us to turn away from your problem within the UK”…. During the interview, we touched upon ways that we can tackle the child abuse issues in Commonwealth world. She said “banning all fictions like this!”. I suggested “Well, solve poverty first. Legalizing fictions that has no victims will lower the crime rate”. She seemed like she didn’t get the idea. It seems that her view is a common one throughout the Commonwealth countries (that’s why you get arrested… for having porn comic in Canada), so objection in words might not help much. It might be better to foster… young, enthusiastic “comrades” within them. Ms Susie(sic) asked me, with formal voice, “Why don’t you Japanese people follow what the UK does?” so I answered… “Why don’t you British people follow Japan, since we’re more civilized, and have lower crime rate than the UK?”. I think the starting line is here.”
Dooley’s interview with Nogami is part of her research into the sexualisation of children in Japan that aired on BBC3. You can see the full documentary here (if you are in the UK you can stream it on BBC’s iPlayer or purchase a digital release from the official BBC Store):
Girls und Panzer is an original anime series that aired from October 2012 till March 2013. The series is produced by studio Actas (Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch Pure, Switch) and directed by Tsutomu Mizushima (Another, Shinryaku! Ika Musume). Four manga adaptations of the series were produced since 2012, all of which are published by Media Factory. A light novel adaptation was also produced in 2012, as well as a video game based on the series that released on the PlayStation Vita in June 2014. An anime film titled Girls und Panzer der Film was released on November 21st, 2015 and became one of the highest grossing anime movies. The film is being followed up by Girls Und Panzer: The Final Chapter, a 6 part film series that will release its first chapter this December.
Here is a synopsis of the series from MAL:
You may have heard of kung fu, but the girls at Oarai High School practice gun-fu—really, really BIG 75mm gun-fu, in fact. It’s called Sensha-do, and it’s the martial art of operating armored tanks! They take it seriously too, and since winning the national Sensha-do championship is such a huge deal at Oarai, they sometimes go to extreme ends in order to get the best students from Panzer class to sign up. Which is how Miho Nishizumi, who HATES operating tanks, gets drafted to join doomsday-driven driver Mako, even-triggered gunner Hana, highly receptive radio operator Saori and combustible tank-fangirl and loader Yukari as the incomparable Anko Team. They may not be on the half-track to fame and fortune, and maybe a few of them would rather shop for tank tops than become tops in tanks, but once their focus is locked and loaded, they’re absolutely driven.
Whether or not you agree/disagree with Nogami or Dooley, both sides do bring compelling arguments. Watch the full documentary with Nogami’s thoughts in mind before coming to a conclusion.
You can follow Takeshi Nogami here: @takeshi_nogami
And follow Stacey Dooley here: @StaceyDooley | {
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A migrant teenager accused of gang-raping a 14-year-old girl with his school friends in Austria has moved to the UK, it has been reported.
The unidentified boy is one of six youngsters who terrorised the girl at the school in Graz, Austria's second city, for months.
On one occasion, the schoolboys allegedly dragged their terrified victim out of the girls' toilets, stripped her naked and raped her in the canteen.
The attack is said to have taken place in May last year when the girl locked herself in a toilet after being mobbed by the boys, who were aged between 15 and 16, in the playground.
The boys then allegedly forced themselves inside the bathroom and dragged the girl out and raped her.
Local media reported the traumatised schoolgirl said she begged other children standing around to help her but no one intervened.
The teenagers are accused of then dragging the schoolgirl into the school canteen where she was stripped naked and gang raped.
(Image: Daily Mirror)
Witnesses told police the girl's screams could be heard 'throughout the whole school', and that they were stunned when teachers did nothing. And when she turned up late for class, she was reprimanded, it is claimed.
The boys are said to be of African origin, the Kleine Zeitung reported. Local media says the rape was revenge for the girl dumping one of the boys, Austrian media has reported.
A spokesman for the Graz prosecutor Hansjoerg Bacher told MailOnline that all six boys are from migrant families.
He said they were being investigated for four alleged rapes - one of which is said to have happened in the school medical room.
He said all six of the suspects had been released on bail and one of them has since travelled to the UK.
Bacher confirmed: "We have not interviewed him because he is in England. We are in contact with his parents but we do not know when he will be returning.
"We are in contact with the family defence lawyer. The boy is in England with his parents. He moved after the case became public although it is not believed that the move was connected with the allegations.
Read more :
"It was already planned family move. We do not know when it will be possible to interview the boy about the allegations and at the moment he has not been interviewed."
Prosecutors are now investigating 18 students and staff who are accused of doing nothing to prevent the attack.
Bacher said the female Austrian teacher had been questioned and was under suspicion of either knowing about the attack and not doing anything, or acting too late.
(Image: Daily Mirror)
The girl only came forward with her story months after the alleged attacks after she moved to a new school and confided in a teacher.
The school director has denied knowing anything about the attack, adding what the boys were alleged to have done was simply unbelievable. | {
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Colorado almost had its own Chernobyl.
That’s what then-congressman Jared Polis told the U.S. House of Representatives on May 12, 2009, the fortieth anniversary of a fire at what was then called the Rocky Flats National Munitions Plant, sixteen miles upwind of Denver.
“I rise today to commemorate one of the most fateful days in the history of the State of Colorado, the day the Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant outside of Boulder nearly became America’s own Chernobyl, some thirty years before that terrible accident in the Ukraine,” Polis told his colleagues. “On Mother’s Day of that year, a fire broke out amid the glove boxes in Building 776, where plutonium spheres were being manufactured for use as cores for some of the most powerful weapons in human history. The fire quickly spread throughout the facility, as many of the fire alarms had been removed to make room for more production. It is estimated that between 0.14 and 0.9 grams of plutonium 239 and 240 were released before a heroic band of perhaps forty firefighters were able to control and eventually douse the fire. Those firefighters faced the immense decision of whether to battle the blaze with water, which could have set off a chain reaction, with the resulting explosion literally contaminating the entire Denver metropolitan area. Luckily for us all, they chose correctly.
“Still, plutonium was released into the environment from that accident, through the air vents in the roof of the building and via firefighters extinguishing it. Thousands of Coloradans were exposed, although how many we’ll never know. The firefighters, of course, were exposed most severely, and everyone nearby faced greatly increased risks of serious disease. Indeed, many of those involved have since contracted and died from cancers and other conditions tied to radiation exposure.”
Unlike Chernobyl, the site of a massive nuclear explosion on April 26, 1986, that exposed at least half a million Russians to radiation, decimated the land for miles around and inspired HBO's Chernobyl that educated a new generation to collateral damages of the nuclear age, Rocky Flats was not a nuclear power plant. In fact, Colorado’s only nuclear-generating facility, Fort St. Vrain near Platteville, had its own problems from when it began generating electricity in 1976 and was shut down entirely in 1989.
By then, what became known as the Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant had been in operation for almost three decades; it was a manufacturing facility that created plutonium triggers for this country’s nuclear arsenal. But it still dealt with one of the most toxic elements on the planet, one with a half-life of 24,000 years, as well as many deadly chemicals. By the time of the 1969 Rocky Flats fire, the plant had been manufacturing those triggers for sixteen years, largely in secret.
Rocky Flats was not Chernobyl. But what happened there was bad enough — though just how bad may never be known. Documents about the plant, like some of the plutonium that was processed there, have a way of disappearing.
“Good News Today,” the Rocky Mountain News trumpeted on March 23, 1951, when the Atomic Energy Commission (now the Department of Energy) announced that it had chosen a site near Denver for a $45 million federal facility that had gone by the code name Project Apple. The 6,500-acre-plus spot was on a high plateau near the foothills, with stunning views, some ranching, creeks running through the land, and not much else. The announcement didn’t get into many details — the site-location team had warned the AEC that there might be an “undesirable reaction of the public” if it learned of the project’s secret mission — but it was bringing jobs to the area, and those jobs paid well. It wasn’t until June 1957 that the Denver Post dropped the bombshell that handling plutonium was a routine part of the job, a detail shared by the plant after two employees were injured in an explosion and fire at the facility; they’d been handling radioactive materials in building 771. Three months later, there was another fire at the plant, when filters over the glove boxes designed to keep plutonium from escaping caught fire. Firefighters turned on the ventilation fans, which spread the flames; seven days later, monitors showed that smokestack emissions still contained levels of radioactive elements 16,000 times greater than the standards of the day.
By then, scientists had realized that they’d misread the wind patterns when siting Rocky Flats; they’d relied on measurements taken at Stapleton Airport northeast of Denver, without accounting for how winds shifted as they came over the mountains and through the canyons. Rather than being safely out of the path of any plutonium release, Denver was at ground zero, sixteen miles downwind. Even so, residents were not warned of potential dangers after the fires.
Then came another fire, in 1969, which again started in glove boxes in buildings 775 and 776; it triggered the costliest industrial accident in the United States up until that time. Firefighters managed to contain the fire, and the government and plant operator Dow Chemical contained the fallout from more revelations of the work being done at Rocky Flats.
But word did slowly leak out. In 1975, the year that Rockwell International took over operations at Rocky Flats, nearby landowners sued the government for contamination problems they were finding on their property. Workers at the plant were also complaining about significant health problems. And demonstrators regularly gathered outside the gates, though they were usually protesting against nuclear weapons in general, not the environmental problems that the manufacturing of those weapons might create.
Joe Daniels collected his photographs of the '70s protests in a book. "A Year of Disobedience"
By 1978, Rocky Flats was regularly exploding in the headlines as those demonstrations grew larger. That fall, Daniel Ellsberg — yes, the Daniel Ellsberg of Pentagon Papers fame — went on trial in Jefferson County, along with nine other members of a group that had been accused of trespassing and obstruction outside the plant seven months earlier. Using Colorado’s choice-of-evils statute, which suggested they could break the law if they were pushing for a greater public good, the defendants decided to put Rocky Flats itself on trial, arguing that it was a public health hazard to nearby residents and also threatened world security by increasing nuclear stockpiles. But on November 20, 1978, Judge Kim Goldberger ruled that the defendants could not use the choice-of-evils defense. While the dangers at Rocky Flats were “real and continuing,” the judge said, “the courts may not be used as political or legislative forums.” After an eleven-day trial, the protesters were found guilty.
At the time, Dr. Carl Johnson, head of the Jefferson County health department, was revealing his own concerns about the evils of Rocky Flats. He released studies suggesting that Denver’s overall cancer rates were higher than expected, and the rates around Rocky Flats higher still. Property near the plant set for the development of 10,000 homes exceeded the state’s plutonium soil contamination standard by a factor of seven, he reported. As a result, federal housing officials directed realtors to warn prospective homebuyers who wanted government loans in order to purchase houses in the area that there could be potential liabilities.
In 1981, Johnson was fired by Jefferson County. The feds soon removed its directive to realtors.
The protests continued. So did the production of nuclear triggers at Rocky Flats.
SPILLED SECRETS
On June 6, 1989, more than seventy FBI agents raided Rocky Flats, the first-ever raid of one federal agency by another. Led by FBI agent Jon Lipsky, the raid was based on more than two years of investigations inspired by information leaked by whistleblowers, including Jim Stone, an engineer laid off from the plant in 1986 whose case against Rockwell eventually went to the U.S. Supreme Court. Stone had given a 1986 DOE memo to Lipsky noting that some of the hazardous waste treatment facilities at Rocky Flats were “patently illegal,” and that the plant was “in poor condition generally in terms of environmental compliance.” Stone warned that proper permitting measures weren’t being filed, waste was being improperly stored, and some plutonium was even missing. Along with an investigator from the criminal enforcement division of the EPA, Lipsky looked into all of the allegations, then prepared an affidavit that guided the raid. Agents took such a staggering amount of material during their three weeks at the plant that U.S. District Court Judge Sherman Finesilver decided to impanel the state’s first-ever special grand jury to focus on this single case.
In the first week of August 1989, two dozen citizens from across Colorado were sworn in as members of Special Grand Jury 89-2. The grand jurors met for a week every month for over two years, and after hearing from dozens of witnesses and going through hundreds of boxes of documents, they were prepared to consider charges not just for workers at the plant, but for their federal overseers. “We didn’t care who they were or how high up the chain of command they were,” one grand juror later told Westword.
Ultimately, they decided that eight individuals should be indicted for environmental crimes — five from Rockwell and three from the DOE. But in November 1991, then-U.S. Attorney for Colorado Mike Norton told the jurors that he wouldn’t sign any indictment naming a DOE or Rockwell employee. A month later, prosecutors told the grand jurors that they were done presenting evidence, and that the grand jury’s work was essentially over.
Wes McKinley was the foreman of the Rocky Flats grand jury. colorado.gov
On December 30, 1991, grand jury foreman Wes McKinley, a rancher from the very southeastern corner of Colorado, sent a note to Finesilver’s clerk, asking for a final session so that the grand jurors could do their duty, fulfilling the obligation that Finesilver had charged them with more than two years before, “to look out for the best interests of the people of Colorado and the national interest.”
That winter, the grand jurors had one last official meeting in Denver, when they drafted three documents: an indictment charging DOE and Rockwell officials with specific crimes (the document Norton had said he wouldn’t sign); a “presentiment” outlining the proposed indictments, which they hoped Finesilver would release even if the indictment itself never saw the light of day; and a report outlining their investigation and their findings of non-criminal conduct that they felt the public had a right to know. Nineteen of the grand jurors gathered to sign these documents, which they placed in a vault. And then they were sent home, with reminders that all grand jury work is done in secrecy; if they broke confidentiality, they could be charged with contempt of court, fined and even jailed.
There was hot stuff in that report, including this: “The Department of Energy, its contractors — Rockwell International, Inc., EG&G, Inc. — and many of their respective employees have engaged in an on-going criminal enterprise at the Rocky Flats Plant, which has violated federal environmental laws. This criminal enterprise continues to operate today…and it promises to continue operating into the future unless our government, its contractors and their respective employees are made subject to the law… .”
Instead, in March 1992, Norton announced a deal with Rockwell, in which the company pleaded guilty to assorted environmental crimes and was fined $18.5 million. Norton noted that it was the largest fine ever collected by the federal government for violations of hazardous waste disposal laws, but it was about $3.8 million less than the bonuses Rockwell had been paid to operate the plant during the time it was, by its own admission, knowingly breaking those laws. No individuals were named in the settlement. In fact, the deal assured that none would be charged later, and the company was protected from future legal fees.
That June, Finesilver signed off on the settlement after rejecting a request to release the report the grand jury had written. But the grand jurors concerns didn't stay secret. The result was Bryan Abas’s “The Secret Story of the Rocky Flats Grand Jury,” published September 30, 1992, in Westword.
It wasn’t Chernobyl, but the story about Rocky Flats exploded just the same.
CLEANING UP
After the raid, Rocky Flats never made another nuclear trigger. The feds and Rockwell agreed to an early termination of the Rockwell management contract in September 1989, the day after the company filed a civil suit against the DOE, the EPA and the Department of Justice, arguing that the feds had failed to provide proper waste-disposal sites for radioactive materials. A week later, Rocky Flats was named a Superfund site, and EG&G signed a contract to operate the facility starting January 1, 1990.
By then, the focus had been changed from nuclear-materials production to cleanup, and most of the 5,000-plus employees stayed on to do the job. Among other things, nearly 3,600 containers of pondcrete and saltcrete — 4.3 million pounds of low-level solidified waste that had been packaged like barrels, until they started to crumble and leak (the grand jurors had heard considerable testimony about that failed system) — were moved, and the solar ponds where waste had been stored were drained. Plutonium located in the ducts, which Stone had warned about, was removed.
As the story of the Rocky Flats grand jury became national news, Congress held hearings to determine whether justice had been denied. The hearings made headlines, but secured nothing more than a promise of more transparency from the DOE. Foreman McKinley even ran for Congress, in hopes that he’d be able to tell the full story from the floor of the House of Representatives. (Although that attempt failed, he ultimately served in the Colorado Legislature and co-authored a book titled The Ambushed Grand Jury...and thus far has avoided any contempt-of-court charges.)
In 1995, EG&G staff and the DOE held a Rocky Flats Summit with 150 community activists, regulators, state officials and members of citizen oversight committees to discuss cleanup plans, including reducing the risk of plutonium to site workers and the public, and deferring some environmental restoration and cleanup in order to reduce that risk. When EG&G declined to sign up for a second round, Kaiser-Hill took over the project. The draft Rocky Flats Vision and Rocky Flats Cleanup Agreement were released in March 1996, four years after the Justice Department had made its deal with Rockwell; Governor Roy Romer signed them that June. What had been predicted to be a cleanup project that would take decades and tens of billions of dollars was put on the fast track.
After nearly ten years and $7.7 billion, the remediation job was declared complete in 2005. More than 800 structures had been decontaminated and demolished, including five major plutonium facilities and two major uranium facilities. While much of the low-level radioactive waste was shipped to other disposal sites, the most contaminated rubble was buried far below the ground in the Central Operable Unit: 1,308 acres at the center of the facility, where most of the manufacturing had been done, which would be declared off-limits forever. The 5,000-plus acres around the COU, in the Peripheral Operable Unit, were turned over to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 2007 to revamp into a wildlife refuge, much as the Rocky Mountain Arsenal had been two decades earlier.
Even though the grand jurors were still silenced, the secrets of Rocky Flats seeped out in other ways. Workers who’d become sick sued the government, and public officials took up their cause. Nearby homeowners who’d suffered bad health and other losses filed a class-action suit against Rockwell and Dow; their case was finally heard in U.S. District Court Judge John Kane’s courtroom, where former FBI agent Lipsky testified as to what he’d found at the plant. Despite the testimony about problems on those properties, houses were popping up along the southern border of Rocky Flats, and some new homeowners started to wonder if they’d bought more than they bargained for. And as plans to finally complete the northwest segment of the beltway around Denver progressed, municipalities began questioning whether construction of the Jefferson Parkway, set to go along the east side of Rocky Flats, would really be safe.
EXPAND In the Colorado Legislature, Wes McKinley argued for warning signage at the entrance to Rocky Flats. He didn't get it. Westword
As the date of the Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge’s opening neared, activist groups filed suit to keep the gates closed. Last September, Congressman Polis made a last-second request to Ryan Zinke, then-secretary of the Department of the Interior, which oversees Fish and Wildlife, to consider “my constituents’ request that the DOI complete further testing of air, water, and soil at the Refuge site by March 2019, and that until further testing has been completed, the Refuge site remain unopened to the public.”
Although Polis never heard from Zinke, he got his answer: The refuge opened to the public on September 15, 2018 (the suits filed to prevent its opening are still pending). But even those who have no concerns about the refuge’s safety were taken aback last November when a British company proposed fracking alongside Rocky Flats: While cleanup experts had considered the effects of water runoff, and burrowing animals, and even prairie fires, they’d never considered that drilling operations would bore down and then up into the property from the sides. The proposal was pulled, and last month Representative Joe Neguse, who took over the second congressional seat when Polis was elected governor, introduced legislation that would prohibit oil, gas and mineral drilling beneath federally owned Superfund sites, such as Rocky Flats.
Meanwhile, the debate over whether the surface is really safe continues.
In January, attorney Pat Mellen decided to try a different tack. On behalf of seven groups — the Alliance of Nuclear Workers Advocacy Groups, Rocky Flats Downwinders, Candelas Glows/Rocky Flats Glows, Environmental Information Network, Rocky Flats Neighborhood Association, Rocky Flats Right to Know and the Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center — she filed a motion asking that materials considered by Colorado’s first-ever special grand jury be released. “The documents gathered by the Grand Jury and now under seal are a unique resource that provides the detailed evidence of whether specific locations or hot spots of unremediated or undiscovered hazardous substances must outweigh a site-wide ‘safe’ determination made for other purposes,” she argued.
MISSING IN ACTION
And then on July 24, Mellen received an email from Kyle Brenton, assistant U.S. Attorney in the U.S. Attorney’s office where Mike Norton had negotiated the Rockwell deal thirty years before, that the grand jury documents were missing.
“Can you imagine that?” says McKinley. “The Justice Department has a long history of losing stuff. They lost all kinds of stuff...plutonium, reports.”
And some things never change, he notes. When the grand jury was sent home back in 1992 and its files first sealed, the head of the Department of Justice was William Barr. Today, Barr is again the attorney general.
Lipsky, who was transferred to the FBI’s Los Angeles gang unit not long after his investigation of Rocky Flats, is now a private investigator who continues to push for the release of the real story about Rocky Flats. When he heard that the documents were missing, “the only thing I could do was laugh,” he says. Brenton’s email estimates that “60-some boxes are not physically in our office space now.” Lipsky’s agents filled many times that many boxes with documents seized during the raid at Rocky Flats.
According to Brenton, his office had custody of the requested documents until at least 2004. He’s now going through boxes of documents from linked cases, such as whistleblower Stone’s suit against Rockwell, and the Cook class-action litigation that finally found victory and a $375 million settlement in Kane’s courtroom, to see if they were misfiled.
“It is incidents like this that continue to foster uncertainty and fear within the communities that are the most impacted,” Polis’s office says of the missing grand-jury documents. “Our administration is committed to government transparency and public access to information. That’s why our Department of Public Health and Environment recently requested that these records be unsealed for the public.”
EXPAND The Rocky Flat National Wildlife Refuge includes the remains of an old ranch. Westword
For a time, there was a stash of grand jury documents at U.S. District Court Judge Richard Matsch’s courtroom. At one point, the grand jurors had petitioned Matsch to allow them to tell their story; that request was denied, and Matsch passed away this spring. Judge Finesilver had relevant documents, too; before he died in 2006, he gave 180 boxes of records to the Denver Public Library, with the stipulation that they be kept closed until 2009.
That August, a librarian began cataloguing the contents, then ran across two boxes holding various forms of the grand jury report marked “Not for public release.” He called the clerk of the U.S. District Court to ask if the documents could be made public. Instead, the clerk picked up the boxes and demanded that anything else that surfaced involving Rocky Flats be sent to the court.
The missing grand jury materials are not the only documents devoted to Rocky Flats, of course. The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment still has voluminous files, including a giant binder detailing all the different chemicals once used at the Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant. For a time, Front Range Community College hosted a Rocky Flats Reading Room, though much of the materials are now in the University of Colorado archives, which has a “wealth of information,” according to David Abelson, executive director of the Rocky Flats Stewardship Council. “Walling off these documents from public view creates an impression that there’s a lack of information regarding management of the site.”
That impression is misguided, he thinks: His group includes representatives from most of the local governments around Rocky Flats, all but one of which supports recreation at the refuge. Still, in June the council passed a resolution against allowing fracking near the plant, and it’s keeping an eye on three studies being done of environmental conditions at the refuge, the results of which are due this fall. The current samples will be compared to historic samples...if those can be found.
For now, Mellen is drilling down into the case of the missing documents. On July 31, she filed a motion asking the judge to give the U.S. Attorney’s Office thirty days to find them. “I actually believe it’s a bigger number of boxes than that,” she says of Brenton’s estimate. “But right now, I’d be happy with that.”
Rocky Flats isn’t Chernobyl, but this could still blow up. | {
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@SA1NTCAKE oh no oh no | {
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One of my fond childhood memories and I have the balls to admit it! This was my favourite pokemon as a kid and YES I DID like pokemon as a kid, just like everyone else in the entire world did at the time. So you people my age really need to stop hating on pokemon, it's not as embarrassing as it's made out! | {
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Washington (CNN) The GOP-controlled House of Representatives passed legislation on Thursday banning all taxpayer money for abortions. But that bill was a backup, after another proposal to ban so-called "late -term" abortions was suddenly yanked the late Wednesday night because of blow back from moderate Republicans who argued it was too extreme.
The bill barring federal taxpayer funds was approved in the last Congress. On Thursday it passed 242-179, with three Democrats joining virtually all House Republicans to support the bill. GOP Rep. Richard Hanna of New York was the one Republican who voted against it.
Earlier on Thursday, the White House promised to veto the legislation if it ended up on the President's desk.
The vote came as tens of thousands of anti-abortion rights activists descended on the National Mall for the annual "March for Life." Thursday's event coincides with the 42nd anniversary the of the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision which upheld a woman's access to abortion based on privacy rights in the Constitution.
Republican leaders initially planned to pass the "Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act," a bill banning abortion procedures for women who are beyond 20 weeks into their pregnancy. A similar version of that bill was approved by the House in 2013.
But a bloc of female GOP members - led by North Carolina Rep Renee Ellmers - opposed a provision in the bill that provided an exception for women who are raped, but required that that they show evidence they filed a police report in order to have access to an abortion. These members argued the vast majority of rapes go unreported, and some are the result of incest. Some male members agreed that provision shouldn't be included, and urged leaders to strip it out.
"I'm pro-life," Florida GOP Congressman Carlos Curbelo told reporters on Thursday. But he added, "I'm certainly not going to ever put myself in the position where I'm telling any woman that their account of a rape is valid or not."
House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi needled the GOP about the internal spat, saying, "They didn't even have their act together."
And she criticized the GOP for spending time on the abortion debate instead of debating measures focused on job creation.
"They're putting a bill on the floor that undermines the health of America's women. The bill is worse than the bill they pulled from the floor yesterday," Pelosi said in a news conference. "That affected thousands of women, maybe, this affects millions of women. It not only affects their health, it affects the personal decisions of how they spend their own money for health insurance."
Religious activists pushing for more abortion restrictions were unhappy with the Republican leadership's decision to cancel the vote on that measure.
"I have nothing but respect for the speaker but this was not the best moment for the House Republicans by far -- and happening on the day on the March for life," Dr. Russell Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, told CNN.
The late-night decision to pull the bill was a unusual win for more centrist members, who argued that the bill sent the wrong message - especially to women and young people - at a time that the party was working to expand its support ahead of the 2016 national election.
"This appeared to be messaging bill, and the message that was being sent was not a very good one," Republican Rep Charlie Dent of Pennsylvania said, noting that the bill was not going anywhere in the Senate.
"I would prefer that our party spent less time focusing on these very contentious social issues, because that distracts us from broader economic messages where I think we have much greater appeal to the larger public," he said.
Since Republicans took control of the House in 2011, House Speaker John Boehner has tangled with conservatives on a range of bills, and in some cases their opposition has thwarted Boehner's legislative agenda. After the 2014 midterm election, the GOP conference now has 246 members, including 22 female members. The willingness of many of these members, and those who represent competitive districts, to challenge their leaders may complicate future legislation.
"There is a growing sentiment in the conference that we want to move legislation that can make a difference for the American people and not take an infinite number of symbolic votes that might be good for a campaign ad or get people riled up," Curbelo told CNN.
North Carolina Republican Rep. Richard Hudson, who said he wasn't involved in the discussions about the bill, said, "None of us saw it coming."
JUST WATCHED Court strikes down abortion buffer zones Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Court strikes down abortion buffer zones 01:11
He pointed out that members voted on the same bill last year, and said, "Now there is a concern, then there wasn't."
Much of the criticism from anti-abortion rights groups centered on Ellmers. Moore said activists at the Match for Life took notice of the North Carolina Republican's role.
"I've heard the name Renee Ellmers once every 20 seconds this morning on the mall," he said.
She issued a statement after Thursday's vote saying she still was still discussing bringing the 20-week abortion bill ban bill back to the floor.
"Our goal is to find a way to get this legislation in its best possible form," she said.
Rep. Trent Franks of Arizona, the author of the bill that didn't get a vote, told reporters he was "disappointed" and said he was confident the measure would have passed. He said he didn't question his leaders commitment to fighting for anti-abortion rights bills and said he had their "word of honor" the House would eventually hold a vote on it. | {
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The Donald Trump Donald John TrumpTrump says he doesn't think he could've done more to stop virus spread Conservative activist Lauren Witzke wins GOP Senate primary in Delaware Trump defends claim coronavirus will disappear, citing 'herd mentality' MORE team Tuesday announced its collection of merchandise for the inauguration, including Trump-themed pint glasses, cups, hats and T-shirts.
The full collection also features beer koozies, shirts, hats, sweatshirts and pins that read "President No. 45 Trump U.S.A." Most of the merchandise ranges between $12 and $60 online.
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"With Inauguration Day just weeks away, we’re launching an Inaugural Collection of special-edition merchandise to commemorate this historic day in American history," an email read announcing the new merchandise.
Presidents usually sell special memorabilia for their inauguration. President Obama's inauguration merchandise included shot glasses, coffee cups, shirts and hats. | {
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Texas health inspectors found nearly 150 violations at more than a dozen shelters across the state that are housing immigrant children, The Associated Press reported Tuesday.
Violations from the last year at Southwest Key Program shelters include inadequate supervision and lack of timely medical care, according to the news service. Children were also given medications they were allergic to, it added.
A spokesperson for Southwest Key, which operates 16 shelters housing 2,600 children, told the AP that the violations found account for less than 1 percent of the standards that inspectors reviewed.
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The majority of the children housed in the shelters were either separated from their parents when they crossed the border or came into the United States alone.
President Trump Donald John TrumpBiden on Trump's refusal to commit to peaceful transfer of power: 'What country are we in?' Romney: 'Unthinkable and unacceptable' to not commit to peaceful transition of power Two Louisville police officers shot amid Breonna Taylor grand jury protests MORE’s administration implemented a policy of increased immigrant prosecutions last month, leading to the increase in separations.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions Jefferson (Jeff) Beauregard SessionsGOP set to release controversial Biden report Trump's policies on refugees are as simple as ABCs Ocasio-Cortez, Velázquez call for convention to decide Puerto Rico status MORE has said the practice of separating migrants from their children is a way to deter illegal border crossings.
U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz Rafael (Ted) Edward CruzCruz blocks amended resolution honoring Ginsburg over language about her dying wish Trump argues full Supreme Court needed to settle potential election disputes Press: Notorious RBG vs Notorious GOP MORE (R-Texas) defended the administration's policy on Monday, saying that it can’t be avoided.
Senate Democrats introduced legislation last Friday that would prevent the separation of immigration children from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border. | {
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1. A Simple Favor 2. See the New You 3. Waking Up 4. Road Trip 5. Old and New 6. Bucket List 7. Self-Discovery 8. Out on the Town 9. Confronting Fears 10. Failure 11. Epilogue
Story Notes: I know that I have an enormous amount of trouble finishing stories and I'm sorry to all the readers out there who are still waiting for conclusions to Rent and Family Legacy. I have ideas for where those stories are going, but I have trouble finding the motivation to write past a certain point.
However, for those who wanted to read more of my writing, I have the cure to what ails you. In the style of Shannon Colby and her brilliant story "The Chimera of Cameron College," I'm going to start publishing a story that I've already completed minus editing and some final polishes. I hope you all enjoy.
“Good. Now try it again from the beginning of that line.”
My student, Caleb, sighed and swung his violin back onto his neck, playing the passage once more. It hadn’t really improved much since the last time — his intonation was still all over the place and his bow kept skipping around when he had to change strings — but I had cycled through my whole bag of tricks and none of them were going to help a student who didn’t practice.
“Alright, well just keep working on that for next week,” I said, signalling the end to our lesson.
I ripped my lesson notes out of my beat up notebook and handed them to Caleb as he left. I’m sure he’s a fine kid, but I wish he’d do just a little more to conceal how much he’d rather be at home playing video games than taking violin lessons with me.
The appearance of my next appointment at the door lifted my spirits.
“Hey, dude! Come on in.” I stepped out of the doorframe to make way for my best friend, Ethan.
“Hey Jake. Last one for the day?” he asked, casting a glance over his shoulder to Caleb, who was getting in his mom’s SUV.
“Yeah. Thank God…” I muttered under my breath, leading him towards the kitchen in my medium sized apartment.
“Pfft.” Ethan waived his hand. “If those little snots gave me any attitude, I’d just smack ‘em on the head. They should be more grateful.”
“I’m sure they let big shots like you do that all day at the bank, but down here in the real world things are a little different,” I said, pulling two beers out of the fridge.
Ethan accepted his and cracked it open on my countertop. “Nah. That’s only for senior executives,” he said, grinning.
In spite of not reach kid-smacking level just yet, Ethan was doing pretty well for himself. At 28 he was already in junior management at a pretty big bank, making investment decisions and stuff like that. Ethan came from money, but that’s not why he was successful. Not directly, anyway. Sure, he went to all the ritzy summer getaways when we were in college, rubbing arms with local and national moguls, but he didn’t take the easy path to success. His dad owned a local marketing agency and Ethan could’ve easily been dropped into an executive job there right out of college, but he chose to work his way up from the ground floor, and that’s exactly what he was doing.
“So how’s your family doing?” I asked, opening my own beer and taking a satisfying gulp.
Ethan shrugged. “Same old same old. My sister’s getting married next month. That’s actually what I wanted to talk to you about…”
My eyebrow perked up. Ethan wasn’t usually one to talk about his family. Having grown up in the same area, we actually had pretty similar backgrounds. My parents weren’t as wealthy as his — my dad was a contractor, so he kind of built our house and that enabled us to live in a wealthier part of town than we could’ve afforded otherwise — but both our families were cut from the same cloth: God-fearing Mormons who had a bone to pick with anyone who was different. Mind you, they wouldn’t pick that bone to your face, but you’d know that you were not among their chosen people.
Ethan and I had both left the church as soon as we were able. The kind of mumbo jumbo that got pushed on us every Sunday just doesn’t hold up when you can get on the internet and debunk it all the next day. Still, that kind of break from the family religion leaves a scar. In both Ethan’s and my case, that meant begrudging acceptance among family members, with the mutual understanding that we were to not to bring up religion or taboo political topics at the dinner table. Unfortunately, that restriction didn’t go both ways, and we were often subjected to self-righteous speeches from family members and former friends.
So you can understand my surprise that Ethan had his sister’s wedding on his mind.
“What’s up?” I asked, tipping my beer back for another sip.
“Kinda the same old routine,” he answered, mirroring me. “You know how I told my parents that I had a girlfriend, just to get them off my back about it?”
I nodded. Being 28 and unmarried was pretty uncommon for people from a Mormon background. I was pretty sure that my parents had written me off as a homosexual from the moment I decided to study the violin in college, but Ethan’s heterosexuality was still intact with his family. Personally, I wasn’t dating because I’d been there and done that. I dated a couple women during college, then a couple more after. I never really felt satisfied, though, so I stopped. However, Ethan was another story. I mentioned that he had risen quickly in his career. Well that comes at a price, and in Ethan’s case that price was his romantic life.
To a normal person, Ethan’s lack of a girlfriend just meant that he was more focused on his career right now, but to his family it was a giant red flag, signalling that Ethan may have been swayed by the insidious homosexuals. Nevermind that, if Ethan were actually gay and willing to date, he would’ve just dated guys. Unfortunately, when a dogma gets into your head like it did with Ethan’s family, reason doesn’t have a very big role to play.
So it’s understandable why Ethan just went ahead and made up a girlfriend. Too bad she was always away on the weekends and couldn’t make time to stop by for dinner. Oh well. It seemed to satiate his family, from what little I’d heard, and we had a good laugh about the whole thing.
“Yeah,” I said. “What about it?”
He sighed. “Well my parents invited her to the wedding.”
“Okay,” I said, slowly, not sure what the problem was. “And you told them that she couldn’t make it, right?”
“That’s the thing,” he said. “They invited her six months ago and left the wedding date open so that she could.”
“Oh.” My voice fell flat. “So what’s the plan? Try to pick up a girl on Tinder in time for the wedding?”
“Not exactly. You know know my parents. I can’t risk just bringing some random girl that I met online. There’s no telling how that would go.” I noticed that Ethan was tapping his fingers on his thigh and he hadn’t touched his beer after the first few sips. He seemed to be getting nervous, a rare quality in someone as self-confident as he was.
“Ethan, what’s up?” I asked, leaning in and starting to worry.
He took a deep breath and looked me in the eye. “I’m going to suggest something and I want you to let me say my piece before you call me crazy.”
I nodded and took a deep gulp from my bottle. “Alright. Go ahead.”
Ethan launched into a pitch that he’d clearly been rehearsing in the car. “I want you to play the role of my girlfriend for the wedding. I’ll pay for the nanosurgeon and the clinic — all the medical stuff — and with a top notch doctor, none of that back alley stuff. It’ll just be a week. A little patch of land on the Olympic Peninsula that my parents are booking. We’ll arrive a few days before the wedding, leave a few days after just to play nice, and I’ll pay for everything to change you back too.”
Ethan looked desperate for an answer, but I needed a minute. Of course, in principle his plan was feasible. Nanosurgery had come a long way in recent years and, although the main upshots were things like scarless heart surgery and super precise tumor removal, the technology around gender transition had come a long way. I had looked into it once — just as a curiosity — one late night in college, but the cost of that kind of treatment was well beyond me and my music teacher’s salary. I wasn’t even sure that it was within the impressive sums that Ethan brought home.
“Ethan,” I started, and his ears perked up. “That’s a lot of money.”
“It’s not that much,” he said, shrugging me off to get to the real heart of my answer. “I mean, it is, but, ummm…” He looked off into space for a moment. “You know how my parents were always sending me money in college?”
I nodded, recalling the hilariously over-budgeted allowance that he had received.
“Well they still do that. Apparently if I can’t afford my own private yacht, then I’m in desperate need of financial assistance.” He finally returned to his beer before adding a little more to his explanation. “I also think they’re trying to bring me back into the church in their own weird way, as though money will make me see the light. Oh, but I’m getting off track!”
“Right,” I said. “Well, even with the money, you need a therapist to diagnose you with gender dysphoria before any doctor will treat you. I’ve seen documentaries too, Ethan. I know how this works.”
“I know that,” he said. “I’ll set you up with a therapist. I talked to someone who did this a couple years ago, actually. He wanted to be a guy, but he said that he just saw a psychiatrist who asked him some really basic questions and then signed off on everything like it was no big deal. They’ll ask you if you really want to be a girl, you say yes you do, and that’s that.”
I had to give it to him, he really had thought of everything. The plan wasn’t even a bad one. I was probably the only person who knew Ethan well enough to convincingly play the role of someone with whom he was intimately close. My job was pretty flexible. One month from now would be just after the start of summer break, so most of my students would probably be traveling anyway. I could just take a week or two off from the rest and take a vacation. Albeit a vacation spent as a woman on Ethan’s arm.
“Okay I’ll do it.” I said, finishing my beer off for good measure.
“Please just thi-” Ethan froze for a moment while his brain caught up. “Wait, really?”
“Yeah,” I said, pitching my beer bottle into the recycling. “But I want to lay a few ground rules first. For one, I get that we’ll have to be a little cuddly around your parents to lend the role some credence, but when we’re in private, keep it professional. Two, and on a similar note, I get the bed. You can sleep on the couch or the floor or whatever is available.”
Ethan grinned. “That’s probably what my parents would want anyway…” he pointed out. “Anything else?”
“Yeah! Third, no cutesy nicknames. If I hear you calling me ‘pooky’ or ‘honey’ or any nonsense like that, then I’ll break up with you!”
Ethan seemed speechless for a minute. Finally he said, “Thank you.” I could tell that he meant it.
“Don’t mention it,” I said. “This is what friends do for each other. It’s just a simple favor.” | {
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Oculus’ Hugo Barra announced that the Oculus Rift Touch bundle will now be priced at $399 moving forward. This is the same price as the previous limited time sale, but now acts as the standard price.
“Here are the important bits: Oculus Touch is a great method of control for VR, the game library is already somewhat overwhelming in terms of great games, and Facebook is clearly comfortable investing in its own platform to fund the creation of great VR content,” we wrote in our review of the Touch controllers. “It’s also a piece of hardware that will play seemingly all of its competitor’s games, and support for Vive titles played on the Rift with a Touch controller will likely only get better with time.”
Oculus also announced a standalone VR headset called the Oculus Go, which will be priced at $199 and is coming in 2018. Facebook is aiming at the mainstream with these products and new low prices, and this is a strong move toward getting there. | {
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President Donald Trump joked about fake Indian Elizabeth “Pocahontas” Warren Thursday night in Montana.
President Trump apologized to the real Pocahontas but not to the fake one.
President Donald Trump jokes about Pocahontas, after apologizing to the real one not the fake!!! Offers 1 mill for her to take the test!! #Montana #Trump pic.twitter.com/OMDXkHcLKA — brennan clarahan (@BClarahan) July 5, 2018
TRENDING: OUTRAGEOUS! Ohio State University President Sends Ignorant Text Message to Students Following Breonna Taylor Decision -- And a Crazy-Ass Video!
Elizabeth Warren lied to jump over qualified minority candidates and land a position at Harvard University.
Elizabeth Warren was listed as Harvard Law’s “first woman of color” in 1997 law review piece on diversity and affirmative action!
Warren lied about her heritage for years. She has no links to any American Indians. It was all a lie.
On Thursday night Elizabeth Warren told President Trump to quit obsessing over her genes. She then went on to defend illegal alien kids. | {
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Plato and Aristotle saw it as a tool to topple the mighty. It often accompanies gruesome acts of cruelty. Most of us will use it more routinely – to win friendship and love. So what lies behind the apparent spontaneity of laughter?
Consider the bizarre events of the 1962 outbreak of contagious laughter in Tanganyika (now Tanzania). What began as an isolated fit of laughter in a group of 12-to 18-year-old schoolgirls rapidly rose to epidemic proportions. Contagious laughter propagated from one individual to the next, eventually infecting adjacent communities. Like an influenza outbreak, the laughter epidemic was so severe that it required the closing of at least 14 schools and afflicted about 1,000 people. Fluctuating in intensity, it lasted for around two and a half years. A psychogenic, hysterical origin of the epidemic was established after excluding alternatives such as toxic reaction and encephalitis.
Laughter epidemics, big and small, are universal. Contagious laughter in some Pentecostal and related charismatic Christian churches is a kind of speaking in tongues (glossolalia), a sign that worshippers have been filled with the Holy Spirit. Before looking askance at this practice, consider that it was present at the historic Cane Ridge revival of 1801, in Kentucky, and part of an exuberant religious tradition in which the Shakers actually shook and the Quakers quaked. Even John Wesley, founder of the Methodist Church, did some of his own quaking and shaking. Those experiencing the blessing of holy laughter spread it back to their home congregations, creating a national and international wave of contagious laughter. Contrast, now, the similarity between the propagation of such religious anointings and what was called the "laughing malady puzzle in Africa". They are strikingly similar, tap the same social trait, and are an extreme form of the commonplace, not pathology.
Laughter yoga, an innovation of Madan Kataria of Mumbai, taps contagious laughter for his secular Laughing Clubs International. The laugh clubbers gather in public places to engage in laughter exercises, seeking better fitness and a good time. Kataria's revelation was that only laughter is needed to stimulate laughter – no jokes are necessary. Meetings start with unison laughter exercises, moving on to more unusual variants. This self-described "laughing for no reason" produces real, contagious laughter and is fun for the self-selected participants, but its claimed medicinal benefits remain a matter of conjecture.
The Tanganyikan and holy laughter epidemics, and laughter yoga, are dramatic examples of the infectious power of laughter, something that most of us may have experienced in more modest measure. Many readers will be familiar with the difficulty of extinguishing their own "laugh jags", fits of nearly uncontrollable laughter. We also share yuks with friends and join the communal chorus of audience laughter. Rather than dismissing contagious laughter as a behavioural curiosity, we should recognise it (and other laugh-related phenomena) as clues to broader and deeper issues. When we hear laughter, we become beasts of the herd, mindlessly laughing in turn, producing a behavioural chain reaction that sweeps through our group, creating a crescendo of jocularity or ridicule.
The use of laughter to evoke laughter is familiar to viewers of television sitcoms. Laugh tracks (dubbed-in sounds of laughter) have accompanied many sitcoms since 9 September 1950. On that evening, The Hank McCune Show – a comedy about "a likable blunderer, a devilish fellow who tries to cut corners only to find himself the sucker" – first used a laugh track to compensate for the absence of a live studio audience. Although the show was short-lived, the television industry discovered the power of canned laughter to evoke audience laughter.
The music recording industry recognised the seductive power of laughter with the distribution of The Okeh Laughing Record, which consisted of trumpet playing intermittently interrupted by highly infectious laughter. Released shortly after the first world war, it remains one of the most successful novelty records of all time. Acknowledging the commercial potential of this novelty market, jazz greats Louis Armstrong, Sidney Bechet and Woody Herman, as well as virtuoso of funny music Spike Jones, all attempted to cash in with laugh records of their own. Classicists may add that performers in the Athenian Theatre of Dionysus scooped everyone by more than 2,000 years, when they hired people to cheer or jeer to influence the audience and judges of their tragedy and comedy contests.
The innovation of laugh tracks in early television shows kindled the fears of some cold war-era politicians that the pinko media was trying to surreptitiously control the masses.
Psychology researchers jumped on the new phenomenon of "canned" laughter, confirming that laugh tracks do indeed increase audience laughter and the audience's rating of the humorousness of the comedy material, attributing the effect to sometimes baroque mechanisms (deindividuation; release restraint mediated by imitation; social facilitation; emergence of social norms, etc). Decades later, we learned that the naked sound of laughter itself can evoke laughter – that you don't need a joke.
Recorded laughter produced by a "laugh box", a small, battery-operated record player from a novelty store, was sufficient to trigger real laughter among my undergraduate students in a classroom setting. On their first exposure to the laughter, nearly half of the students reported that they responded with laughter themselves. (More than 90% reported smiling on first exposure.) However, the effectiveness of the stimulus declined with repetition. By the 10th exposure, about 75% of the students rated the laugh stimulus as "obnoxious", a reminder of the sometimes derisive nature of laughter, especially when repetitive and invariable. With repeated exposure, I also grew to hate the sound of the canned laughter, wincing when curious students pushed the "On" button of one of the boxes in my office. Only disarmed boxes with batteries removed are now found on my desk.
It is unpleasant to be the recipient of a scornful "ha". Court fools, presidential aides and corporate administrative assistants learn early in their careers that it is safer to laugh with the boss than at him or her. Plato and Aristotle correctly feared the power of laughter to undermine authority and lead to the overthrow of the state. Then, as now, politicians' days are numbered when they become regular fare in comedy.
In our politically correct, feel-good, be-happy time we are shielded from – and underestimate – the dark side of laughter that was better known to the ancients. If you think laughter is benign, be aware that laughter is present during the worst atrocities, from murder, rape and pillage in antiquity to the present. Laughter has been present at the entertainments of public executions and torture. On street corners around the world, laughing at the wrong person or at the wrong time can get you killed. The publication of cartoons of the prophet Muhammad by a Danish newspaper triggered calls for the death of the cartoonists and a worldwide murderous rampage that left many dead and injured. Although radical Islam is most in the news, all monotheistic religions ruthlessly suppress humorous challenges to their spiritual franchise. The killers at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, were laughing as they strolled through classrooms murdering their classmates. Laughter accompanies ethnic violence and insult, from Kosovo to Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
Laughing with brings the pleasure of acceptance, in-group feeling, and bonding. But laughing at is jeering and ridicule, targeting outsiders who look or act differently, pounding down the nail that sticks up, shaping them up, or driving them away. Being laughed at can be a very serious, even dangerous business.
Laughter is a rich source of information about complex social relationships, if you know where to look. Learning to "read" laughter is particularly valuable because laughter is involuntary and hard to fake, providing an uncensored, honest account about what people really think about each other, and you.
Laughter is a decidedly social signal, not an egocentric expression of emotion. The social context of laughter was established by 72 student volunteers in my classes, who recorded their own laughter, its time of occurrence and social circumstance in small notebooks (laugh logs) during a one-week period. Smiling and talking were also recorded to provide contrasts with laughter and with each other. The presence of media (television, radio, reading material, etc) was noted because it serves as vicarious social stimulation. The sociality of laughter was striking. My logbook keepers laughed about 30 times more when they were around others than when they were alone – laughter almost disappeared among solitary subjects not exposed to media stimulation.
People are much more likely to smile or talk to themselves than they are to laugh when they are alone. Although we probably laugh or smile more when we are happy than sad, these acts are performed primarily in response to face-to-face encounters. You are least likely to laugh, smile or talk immediately before bedtime and after waking, circumstances with reduced opportunities for social interaction. These data provide solid grounds for a behavioural prescription: if you want more laughter in your life, spend more time with other people. If no friends are physically present, you can dial them up on your phone. Even solitary television viewing may not be as socially impoverished as suggested by its detractors, and has something to offer the recluse: the people in the box.
Further clues about the social context of laughter came from the surreptitious observation of 1,200 instances of conversational laughter by anonymous people in public places. My colleagues and I noted the gender of the speaker and audience (listener), whether the speaker or the audience laughed, and what was said immediately before laughter occurred.
Contrary to expectation, most conversational laughter was not a response to jokes or humorous stories. Fewer than 20% of pre-laugh comments were remotely joke-like or humorous. Most laughter followed banal remarks such as "Look, it's Andre", "Are you sure?" and "It was nice meeting you too". Even our "greatest hits" – the funniest of the 1,200 pre-laugh comments – were not necessarily howlers: "You don't have to drink, just buy us drinks", "She's got a sex disorder – she doesn't like sex", and "Do you date within your species?" Your life is filled with a laugh track to what must be the world's worst situation comedy. Mutual playfulness, in-group feeling and positive emotional tone – not comedy – mark the social settings of most naturally occurring laughter. Laughter is more about relationships than humour.
Another counterintuitive discovery was that the average speaker laughs about 46% more often than the audience. This contrasts with the scenario of stand-up comedy in which a non-laughing speaker presents jokes to a laughing audience. Comedy performance proves an inadequate model for everyday conversational laughter. Analyses that focus only on audience behaviour (a common approach) are obviously limited because they neglect the social nature of the laughing relationship.
The story became more provocative when we identified the gender of participants in laughing relationships. Gender determines the proportion of speaker and audience laughter. Whether they are speaker or audience (in mixed-sex groups), women laugh more often than men. In our sample of 1,200 cases, female speakers laughed 127% more than their male audience. Neither males nor females laugh as much with female speakers as they do with male speakers, helping to explain the paucity of female comedians.
On average, men are the best laugh getters. These differences are already present by the time joking first appears, around six years of age. Based on this evidence, it is no surprise that your school clown was probably a male, a worldwide pattern. Laughter is sexy. Women laughing at men are responding to more than their prowess in comedy. Women are attracted to men who make them laugh (ie, "have a good sense of humour"), and men like women who laugh in their presence.
The next time you are at a party, use laughter as a guide to what people really feel about each other – and you. Laughter is a particularly informative measure of relationships because it is largely unplanned, uncensored and hard to fake. Men and women mindlessly and predictably act out our species' biological script. A man surrounded by attentive, laughing females is obviously doing something right, and he will comply by continuing to feed his admirers whatever triggers their laughter. Such good-humoured fellows don't need a big supply of jokes – their charisma carries the day. Laughter is not, however, a win-win signal for males and females; if it is used carelessly, you can laugh your way out of a relationship or a job.
The asymmetrical power of laughter and comedy for men and women is noted by comedian Susan Prekel, who bemoans that men in her audience will "find me repulsive, at least as a sexual being". In contrast, "male comics do very well with women".
Personal ads provide a direct approach to the value of laughter, because people spell out their virtues and desires in black and white. Laughter and humour are highly valued in the sexual marketplace. In 3,745 personal ads published by heterosexual males and females in eight US national newspapers on 28 April 1996, men offered "sense of humour" (or "humorous") and women requested it. Women couldn't care less whether their ideal male partner laughs or not – they want a male who makes them laugh. Women sought humour more than twice as often as they offered it. The behavioural economics of such bids and offers is consistent with the finding that men are attracted to women who laugh in their presence. Without such a balance between bids and offers, there would be no market for laughter and humour, and the currency of these behaviours would decline.
Amazingly, we somehow navigate society, laughing at just the right times, while not consciously knowing what we are doing. Consider the placement of laughter in the speech stream. Laughter does not occur randomly. In our sample of 1,200 laughter episodes, the speaker and the audience seldom interrupted the phrase structure of speech with a ha-ha. Thus, a speaker may say "You are wearing that? Ha-ha," but rarely "You are wearing… ha-ha… that?" The occurrence of laughter during pauses, at the end of phrases, and before and after statements and questions suggests that a lawful and probably neurologically based process governs the placement of laughter in speech. Speech is dominant over laughter because it has priority access to the single vocalisation channel, and laughter does not violate the integrity of phrase structure.
The relationship between laughter and speech is akin to punctuation in written communication. I call it the punctuation effect. The orderliness of the punctuation effect is striking because it's involuntary (we cannot laugh on command). If punctuation of speech by laughter seems unlikely, consider that breathing and coughing also punctuate speech. Better yet, test the proposition of punctuation by examining the placement of laughter in conversation around you, focusing on the placement of ha-ha laughs.
It's a good thing that time sharing by these airway manoeuvres is neurologically orchestrated. How complicated would our lives be if we had to plan when to breathe, talk and laugh. | {
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While the Democrats were all snug in their beds, paid for by the taxpayers of America. President Trump remained in the White House fighting for the security of his fellow countrymen and women.
Mirror:
The Emergency Election Sale is now live! Get 30% to 60% off our most popular products today! | {
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Marty Roney
Montgomery Advertiser
PRATTVILLE — A United Parcel Service delivery man was injured in Autauga County when a crossbow bolt flew into the cab of his truck.
The bolt went through his upper right arm and lodged in his right chest, according to Autauga County Sheriff’s Office reports. The driver was taken to Baptist South Medical Center in Montgomery in stable condition with “non-life-threatening injuries,” the reports read. The driver was traveling along Goodson Road, also known as County Road 6, at about 12:15 p.m. Thursday, the reports show.
The truck was in motion when he was stuck. Investigators have charged Ronald Curtis Gantt, 55, of the 900 block of Goodson Road, with assault in the case, records show. Gantt was target practicing in his front yard at the time. Gantt apparently overshot the target, and the bolt flew into the delivery truck’s cab. Gantt stayed with the driver until an ambulance arrived, reports show. Investigators have deemed the incident an accident, but are charging Gantt with assault due to the reckless nature of his actions, the reports read.
Gantt declined to comment Friday afternoon, deferring questions to his lawyer. He would name his attorney. Courthouse records show he doesn’t have an attorney. The driver could not be reached for comment. | {
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Eigentlich sollen VPN-Verbindungen (Virtual Private Network) helfen, für mehr Anonymität im Netz zu sorgen und zusätzlich auch etwas mehr Sicherheit garantieren. Wie eine gemeinsam erstellte Studie der Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, University of South Wales und University of California at Berkeley nun nachgewiesen hat, erreichen viele VPN-Apps für Android aber das exakte Gegenteil: Sie öffnen oftmals Tür und Tor für Angreifer bzw. sammeln Nutzerdaten. Getestet wurden von den Forschern 283 VPN-Apps, die im November 2016 über den offiziellen Play Store angeboten wurden. Rundum empfohlen wurde am Ende nur eine Anwendung.
Teilweise funktionierten einige Apps gar nicht korrekt oder wiesen erhebliche Mängel auf: 18 % der Apps etwa verschlüsselten den Datenverkehr nicht, was bei Verbindungen zu offenen Netzwerken wie Wi-Fi-Hotspots enorme Risiken birgt. Zwei Apps führten sogar automatisiert zusätzlichen Javascript-Code aus, um Werbung einzublenden und das Verhalten der User zu erfassen. Hier könnte Javascript dann außerdem von Angreifern missbraucht werden, so dass dieses Verhalten doppelt ärgert. Ebenfalls paradox: 67 % der Anwendungen warben zwar mit erhöhter Privatsphäre, von diesem Anteil der untersuchten Apps nutzten dann aber stolze 75 % Tracking-Bibliotheken von dritten Anbietern, um die Aktivitäten ihrer Nutzer zu verfolgen und speichern. 82 % der vermeintlich die Privatsphäre erhöhenden Apps wünschten zudem Berechtigungen, um auf Nutzerkonten und Textnachrichten zugreifen zu dürfen.
38 % der Apps führten gar Code aus, den VirusTotal als Malware / schädlich einstuft. Statt also für eine erhöhte Privatsphäre zu sorgen, wurde im Grunde genau das Gegenteil erreicht. Es gab auch noch weitere Probleme, die ihr bei Interesse im hier öffentlich zugänglichen Research Paper durchlesen könnt. Es ist schon ein starkes Stück, wenn ausgerechnet VPN-Software letzten Endes für neue Überwachung der Nutzer sorgt.
Welche App nun die positive Ausnahme gebildet hat? Das war laut den Wissenschaftlern die App für „Freedome VPN“des finnischen Unternehmens F-Secure. Falls ihr jene App nutzt, seid ihr also offenbar auf der sicheren Seite. Besonder schlecht schnitten dagegen „OkVPN“, „Easy VPN“ aber auch „Dash VPN“ ab – die zuletzt genannte Anwendung schneidet z. B. TLS-Traffic mit und entschlüsselt ihn. | {
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Here’s something I bet you never think about, and for good reason: how are floating-point numbers rendered as text strings? This is a surprisingly tough problem, but it’s been regarded as essentially solved since about 1990.
Prior to Steele and White’s "How to print floating-point numbers accurately", implementations of printf and similar rendering functions did their best to render floating point numbers, but there was wide variation in how well they behaved. A number such as 1.3 might be rendered as 1.29999999, for instance, or if a number was put through a feedback loop of being written out and its written representation read back, each successive result could drift further and further away from the original.
Steele and White effectively solved the problem with a clever algorithm named "Dragon4" (the fourth version of the "Dragon" algorithm, which acquired its name because the authors were inspired to obscure puns by Heighway’s dragon curve).
The Dragon4 algorithm spread quickly across language runtimes, such that few programmers today understand that this was ever a problem, much less how hairy it was (and is). Indeed, prior to last year, there was almost no activity in this area: two papers proposed widely used refinements to Dragon4, and that was about it. (Alas, the problem was originally solved around a decade before Steele and White published their work, but nobody noticed. If you have a clever idea and sufficient chutzpah, try to enlist Guy Steele as a coauthor. Your work will be read.)
But how solved was the problem? Dragon4 and its derivatives are complicated and tricky, and they have a hefty performance cost, since they rely on arbitrary-precision integer arithmetic to compute their results. There might be a significant performance improvement to be gained if someone could figure out how to use native machine integers instead.
In 2010, Florian Loitsch published a wonderful paper in PLDI, "Printing floating-point numbers quickly and accurately with integers", which represents the biggest step in this field in 20 years: he mostly figured out how to use machine integers to perform accurate rendering! Why do I say "mostly"? Because although Loitsch’s "Grisu3" algorithm is very fast, it gives up on about 0.5% of numbers, in which case you have to fall back to Dragon4 or a derivative.
If you’re a language runtime author, the Grisu algorithms are a big deal: Grisu3 is about 5 times faster than the algorithm used by printf in GNU libc, for instance. A few language implementors have already taken note: Google hired Loitsch, and the Grisu family acts as the default rendering algorithms in both the V8 and Mozilla Javascript engines (replacing David Gay’s 17-year-old dtoa code). Loitsch has kindly released implementations of his Grisu algorithms as a library named double-conversion .
And of course I can’t talk about performance without mentioning Haskell somewhere :-) I’ve taken Loitsch’s library and written a Haskell interface, which I’ve measured to be 30 times faster than the default renderer used in the Haskell runtime libraries. This has some nice knock-on effects: my aeson JSON library is now 10 times faster at rendering big arrays of floating point numbers, for instance. I accidentally noticed in the course of that work that my Haskell text Unicode library‘s UTF-8 encoder wasn’t as fast as it could be, so I improved its performance by about 50% along the way. Hooray for faster code!
(By the way, the punnery in algorithm naming continues: the Grisu algorithms are named for Grisù, the little dragon.) | {
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Well this is tricky, I admit.
If you want to engage thoughtfully on whatever you might encounter on this site feel free. Disagreement on content is perfectly acceptable, even expected and the opportunity for comment is offered under entries. If a good, ranging debate breaks out among interested parties, then my work in this venue is, as they say, done. As for me, I’m probably going to limit myself to only a handful of discussions. Other responsibilities are always pressing and while I don’t want to be so impolite as to create a webpage with no opportunity for reply, I confess to having real doubts about what’s practical.
The lovely lady who runs the webpage will necessarily screen what comes over the transom, removing unsolicited screenplays, story ideas, job resumes, glossy actor photos, and all other professional solicitations. I can’t look at that stuff in this venue, and I won’t. I’ll never see it. Swear. If you need to contact me professionally, the production office for Treme is in New Orleans and listed, as is my representation in any of the usual industry compendiums. I’ll trust professionals to acquire the correct addresses and do what they feel needs doing through the proper channels.
The nice webmistress will also likely clear away obvious spam, as well as e-spasms of bile and rage that go not to the merits or demerits of the content displayed, but to personal grievance or provocation. If I’ve pissed you off that much in real life, then by definition we know each other well enough that you can vent directly. In such an instance, it’s even odds whether I yell back or buy you a beer, depending on the merits and passion of your jeremiad. If you don’t know me and are so angry over ideas and opinions expressed in print or on film that civility is an impossibility, we’re probably not going to advance an argument very far in any event.
There won’t be much of a personal nature here. At least nothing beyond the professional aspect. I mean, who cares really? I don’t want to hear about your first kiss or what you told your ex-wife about your new girlfriend, and no one really needs to know about me and Susan Epps on the boat dock at summer camp. Though if you really must know, send a self-addressed stamped envelope to the Baltimore Sun Metro Desk.
In short, this site — if it is anything — is little more than a bulletin board for some modest discussion of current events and other points of interest. It has some links to previous prose work, to books and television dramas, to some odds and ends that I might throw up now and then, and to charities associated with various projects. It isn’t much more. Forgive the relative indolence of this half-assed venture into the blogosphere. I’m doing what I can; if it goes bad and I can’t keep up, I’ll likely disable the commentary. That won’t be an intended statement of disrespect to any soul; it will simply mean I ran out of time.
DS | {
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Ersan Ilyasova scored 21 points and the Milwaukee Bucks clinched a playoff spot with a 96-73 victory over the Brooklyn Nets on Sunday.
MILWAUKEE (AP)—The rebuilding plan is way ahead of schedule for the Milwaukee Bucks.
A year after a franchise-worst 67-loss season, the Bucks are headed to the playoffs.
Ersan Ilyasova scored 21 points and coach Jason Kidd's team relied on defense in a 96-73 victory over the Brooklyn Nets on Sunday that wrapped up the playoff spot and the sixth seed in the Eastern Conference.
• MORE NBA: Jabari Parker's road to recovery | Playoff matchups | Top plays
"To be honest, I always believed we could do better. But I didn't know if we could go from 15 wins to get 40," said Giannis Antetokounmpo, who finished with 13 points.
The athletic 20-year-old forward is one of the big reasons why the Bucks are the first team since the 2008-9 Miami Heat to make the playoffs a year after having the NBA's worst record.
[daily_cut.NBA]"Our goal was to go to the playoffs, from Day 1. Everybody believed in it. I started believing in it and we made it," the 6'11" Antetokounmpo said.
O.J. Mayo added 17 points for the Bucks, who held Brooklyn to 32 percent shooting. It was season-low for points for a Bucks opponent.
Brook Lopez had his 17th double double of the season with 12 points and 10 rebounds for the Nets. They are tied for eighth with Indiana—a winner over Oklahoma City later Sunday—in the East, a game behind Boston. The Nets have the tiebreaker over the Pacers.
Brooklyn has two games left, starting with Chicago at home Monday night.
"We have to forget about this one," forward Thaddeus Young said. "We can't even think about the next two games, we have to focus on this next one against Chicago. It's as simple as that."
Comparing Michael Carter-Williams and Bucks' Jason Kidd on the court
No need to fret any more for the Bucks, who will likely face either Toronto or Chicago in the first round.
Few—if any—NBA observers expected the Bucks to make the playoffs, let alone be competitive enough to finish with a .500 record. Not with a new coach and a young roster.
Jabari Parker, the second overall pick in the NBA draft last June, was lost for the season in December with a left knee injury. The Bucks went on a tailspin after the All Star break and trade deadline as they adjusted to the departure of leading scorer Brandon Knight and the arrival of new point guard Michael Carter-Williams.
• MORE NBA: Defensive Player of the Year options | Fundamentals | Trends
But they've settled down to go 6-4 over their last 10 games, clinching a postseason berth against the team coached by Kidd last season.
According to STATS, Kidd is the first coach in NBA history to lead two franchises to the playoffs in his first two years as a head coach.
"They do a good job of packing the paint," said Brooklyn guard Jarrett Jack said, who finished with 11 points. "Showing our pick-and-roll didn't really disrupt them in the lane." | {
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The visit to the campus in the Prince William County public school system was her fourth to a school in the D.C. area. Except for the protesters outside, the event went on without the kind of drama that accompanied past trips.
DeVos, whose steadfast support of charter schools, private school vouchers and other alternatives to traditional public schools has made her controversial, arrived at Ashland Elementary to learn about the school’s programs to help military families, since nearly half the students come from such families. The visit coincided with the Month of the Military Child.
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Nearly 2 million children come from military families in the United States, and just a small fraction of those — about 8 percent — attend schools on military bases, according to the Military Child Education Coalition. The remainder attend other public schools, many of which may not be well-equipped to deal with the challenges of being in a military family, including the frequent and sometimes unexpected moves and having a parent deployed far from home. Ashland Elementary has a range of programs, including student groups and parent socials, to help recently resettled military families become acclimated to the community.
Educators and school leaders also hoped the visit would drive home the importance of investment in traditional public schools.
“Of course, I’m a huge proponent of public education, and I think that it’s great that she took this amount of time to actually go and visit classes and go and visit children and their families about what’s going on at Ashland Elementary,” said county schools Superintendent Steven L. Walts, who joined the secretary for a portion of the tour. “She struck me as someone who was sincerely listening to what people were saying … This was an opportunity to showcase ‘This is a public school, and it’s great.’ ”
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DeVos said it was “a real privilege to be here at Ashland Elementary this morning and a real joy to have an opportunity to meet and talk with some of the families that are being particularly supported by the Ashland community … and to hear about the way this community has cared for these children who are so often transitioning from school to school and locale to locale.”
At the school, DeVos was greeted by the student council president, who told her that she had attended a mix of public and private schools, but “in my opinion, Ashland Elementary is the best school.” In another classroom, DeVos crouched down on the carpet in a classroom where groups of students were reading to one another, and she chatted with girls about the book they were reading.
“I love Amelia Bedelia!” she exclaimed, referring to the comical title character in the popular children’s book series. She read a short picture book to the children about a mother in the military. In a first grade classroom, she took in a lesson on Ben Franklin, donning a pair of glasses made of colorful pipe cleaners that children made when they learned about bifocals, one of Franklin’s inventions.
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In the school’s library, she sat with a group of students from military families, learning about the challenges they faced as they moved from place to place and how Ashland Elementary has helped them. She listened quietly for the most part and asked no questions, allowing Principal Andy Jacks to facilitate the discussion.
One father also argued that school choice is critical for military families who may have little choice in where they live and may not be able to afford private schools if the local traditional public school proves to be a poor fit.
“This school is a complete blessing,” said Air Force Sr. Master Sgt. Sam Look, who has a child at Ashland Elementary. “Unfortunately many bases across the country are in not-as-good areas with not-as-good school systems, and so one of the concerns is, from an perspective with the lower-income families, we don’t always get put in situations where we have this. And when we don’t have choices, when you can’t afford to put your kids in better schools or live in better areas, that becomes problematic.”
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Lt. Col. Rojan Robotham of the Air Force brought her concerns about the expense of child care for working military families, where one or both parents may be working odd hours. When she shared on an online Air Force forum that she would meet with DeVos, many chimed in and asked her to deliver the White House a message about the need to make child care more affordable.
“It’s very challenging to find quality before- and aftercare,” Robotham said, who said in an interview later that her child-care costs have skyrocketed since she has moved off a military base, where child care is far more affordable. “I’m hoping if not yourself, then Ivanka Trump, somebody can take that on.”
“It’s good to hear that,” DeVos said, turning to her. “I’ve heard that at a lot of stops.”
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DeVos said the Education Department will be working to find more ways to ease the transition for military families in public schools, who face many challenges as they move from place to place and cope with deployments and the stresses of military life. | {
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Heart disease remains the leading cause of death worldwide, yet the few available treatments are still mostly unsuccessful once the heart tissue has suffered damage. Mammalian hearts are actually able to regenerate themselves and repair damage – but only up to around the time of birth. Afterward, that ability disappears, seemingly forever. Research at the Weizmann Institute of Science has uncovered a molecule in newborn hearts that appears to control the renewal process. When injected into adult mouse hearts injured by heart attacks, this molecule, called Agrin, seems to "unlock" that renewal process and enable heart muscle repair. These findings, published today in Nature, are already pointing to new directions for research on restoring the function of damaged hearts.
Prof. Eldad Tzahor, who led the study together with doctoral student Elad Bassat, research student Alex Genzelinakh, and other team members in the Weizmann Institute's Department of Molecular Cell Biology, explains that, following a heart attack, the healing process in humans is long and inefficient. Once damaged, muscle cells called cardiomyocytes are replaced by scar tissue, which is incapable of contracting and, thus, cannot participate in pumping. This, in turn, leads to further stress on the remaining muscle and eventual heart failure.
Heart regeneration into adulthood does exist in some of our fellow vertebrates. Fish, for example, can efficiently regenerate damaged hearts. Closer relatives on the evolutionary tree – mice – are born with this ability but lose it after a week of life. That week gives Prof. Tzahor and his lab a window of time in which to explore the cues that promote heart regeneration.
Outside Sources
Prof. Tzahor and Bassat believed that part of the secret might lie outside of the heart cells themselves – in the surrounding supportive tissue known as the extracellular matrix, or ECM. Many cell-to-cell messages are passed through this matrix, while others are stored within its fibrous structure. So the team began to experiment with ECM from both newborn and week-old mice, clearing away the cells until only the surrounding material was left, and then observing what happened when bits of ECM were added to cardiac cells in culture. The researchers found that the younger ECM, in contrast to the older, elicited cardiomyocyte proliferation.
A screening of ECM proteins identified several candidate molecules for regulating this response, among them Agrin. Agrin was already known for its effects on other tissues – particularly in the neuromuscular junction, where it helps regulate the signals passed from nerves to muscles. In mouse hearts, levels of this molecule drop over the first seven days of life, suggesting a possible role in heart regeneration. The researchers then added Agrin to cell cultures and noted that it caused the cells to divide.
Next, the researchers tested Agrin on mouse models of heart injury, asking whether it could reverse the damage. Indeed, they found that, following a single injection of Agrin, mouse hearts were almost completely healed and fully functional, although the scientists were surprised to find that it took over a month for the treatment to impart its full impact on cardiac function and regeneration. At the end of the recovery period, however, the scar tissue was dramatically reduced, replaced by living heart tissue that restored the heart's pumping function.
Setting the Chain in Motion
In other words, Prof. Tzahor speculates, in addition to causing a certain amount of direct cardiomyocyte renewal, Agrin somehow affects the body's inflammatory and immune responses to a heart attack, as well as the pathways involved in suppressing the fibrosis, or scarring, that leads to heart failure. The length of the recovery process, however, is still a mystery, as the Agrin itself disappears from the body within a few days of the injection.
"Clearly this molecule sets a chain of events in motion" he says. "We discovered that it attaches to a previously unstudied receptor on the heart muscle cells, and this binding takes the cells back to a slightly less mature state – closer to that of the embryo – and releases signals that may, among other things, initiate cell division." Experiments with mice that were genetically engineered to lack Agrin in their hearts further support this idea: in its absence, newborn mice could not properly regenerate heart tissue following injury. Because mice cannot live without the other functions of Agrin, this was a technically challenging experiment to perform, adds Prof. Tzahor.
The team then proved that Agrin has a similar effect on human heart cells grown in culture. Prof. Tzahor and his group are now working to understand exactly what happens in the period of time between the injection of Agrin and the return of full cardiac functionality. In addition, members of Prof. Tzahor's team have started preclinical studies in larger animals in Germany, in collaboration with Prof. Christian Kupatt of the Technical University of Munich, to determine the effect of Agrin on cardiac repair.
Among other things, the findings of this study have highlighted a role for the ECM in both directing heart growth and promoting regeneration, and this insight may help in the design of further biomedical research.
A number of research groups took part in various stages of the studies, in particular Prof. Shenhav Cohen of the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology and her PhD student Yara Eid, who provided novel insights into the biochemical inputs of Agrin on cardiac cells. Prof. Nenad Bursac of Duke University, North Carolina; James F. Martin of Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas; members of the Nancy and Stephen Grand Israel National Center for Personalized Medicine; and Prof. Irit Sagi of the Weizmann Institute's Department of Biological Regulation also participated in this research. | {
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President of the Supreme Court, David Neuberger (L), walks with fellow judges to Westminster Abbey for a service to mark the start of the legal year, London October 1, 2012. REUTERS/Luke MacGregor/File Photo
LONDON (Reuters) - The head of Britain’s Supreme Court has accused politicians of not doing enough to protect the independence of the judicial system when judges came in for harsh criticism from pro-Brexit newspapers last year.
England’s High Court triggered an angry response from some newspapers in November when it ruled that the decision to begin Britain’s formal divorce talks with the European Union had to be approved by parliament and not be taken by the government alone.
The Daily Mail newspaper said the three judges who handed down the ruling were “enemies of the people”.
In an interview with the BBC broadcast on Thursday, David Neuberger, the head of Britain’s Supreme Court, said: “I think some of what was said was undermining the rule of law.”
Neuberger said politicians, who he did not name, did not speak out quickly or clearly enough after the criticism.
“After the Court hearing. I think they could have been quicker and clearer,” he said. “But we all learn by experience, whether politicians or judges. It’s easy to be critical after the event. They were faced with an unexpected situation from which like all sensible people they learned.”
Britain’s Justice minister Liz Truss initially made no comment about the media criticism of the High Court judges before issuing a brief statement two days after the ruling, saying the independence of the judiciary was the “foundation upon which our rule of law is built.”
Britain’s government appealed the High Court’s ruling in the Supreme Court which upheld the original decision. Earlier this month, Prime Minister Theresa May won parliamentary approval to start the EU divorce talks which she aims to do before the end of March. | {
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By Jim Lakely
A quarterly magazine called Skeptic published a cover story a few weeks back by Donald Prothero titled “How We Know Global Warming is Real and Human-Caused.” That struck us here at The Heartland Institute as rather strange.
Our work for years has been skeptical of the idea that human activity is causing catastrophic climate change, which is the conventional wisdom of the mainstream media. And we have two immense volumes of peer-reviewed literature and the videos of many conferences to prove it.
So if the very name of your magazine is Skeptic, shouldn’t readers expect you to carefully examine the spoon-fed doctrines of the likes of Al Gore, Michael Mann, the UN’s IPCC, etc., and be … well … skeptical of “doctrine” — especially in light of the Climategate scandal? Alas, no.
Skeptic magazine, as the headline of the cover story makes clear, is not skeptical of the global warming Roosters of the Apocalypse who say the sky is falling and we’re unnaturally boiling the planet. It’s hysterical, and ironic, that the Skeptic article begins with a quote from Nobel Laureate physicist Richard Feynman:
Reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled.
Yet the fact is: Reality, and scientific observation of nature, tells the truth about the climate — and man is not causing a climate catastrophe. Skeptic Magazine is the one regurgitating public-relations lies disguised as a hard-boiled look at the climate debate and grounded in real science.
Feynman has posthumously become a bit of a YouTube star for his one-minute explanation of the scientific method. The video below, from a lecture at Cornell in 1964, blows up Skeptic magazine’s idea of what science is — let alone the quote the magazine uses to led legitimacy to its article.
In one minute, Feynman lays out how the scientific method works: Theories are constantly proposed, questioned and tested. Only after a theory goes through many exhaustive rounds of scientific examination — using observational data — can a “guess” become a “law” of science. And even then, a well-founded scientific “law” laid down by the smartest people in history is temporary. Just ask Newton.
Yet we don’t seem to have a healthy scientific skepticism when it comes to Earth’s climate. Men and women who couldn’t hold Feynman’s briefcase have for years told us that the science is “settled”: Human activity is causing a catastrophic climate disaster — no matter that their computer model predictions haven’t come true, violating the scientific method and becoming the decades-later butt of Feynman’s presentation. In short, the evidence we can prove shows that the roosters’ predictions are a joke.
Yet Skeptic magazine, of all publications, dedicated a nine-page cover story to carrying water for public-relations hacks — propagandists — and not the kind of real, observable science that should be its hallmark. But let’s not completely condemn Skeptic. It still has the fact that there is no solid evidence for Bigfoot in its favor.
Christopher Monckton — Third Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, good friend of Heartland, advisor to Lady Thatcher, and one of the most learned “laymen” experts on climate science — gives that Skeptic article a hearty vivisection. Skeptic refused to publish it, so we share it here. There’s a short version and a long version of his reply, and they are both devastating.
Lord Monckton starts it off with his typically cheeky and refreshing in-your-face style:
By Christopher Monckton
Be skeptical, be very skeptical, of Skeptic magazine’s skepticism of climate skeptics. The latest issue has, as its cover story, a Climate Change Q&A, revealingly subtitled Climate Deniers’ Arguments & Climate Scientists’ Answers.
The article, written by Dr. Donald Prothero, a geology professor at Occidental College, opens with the bold heading How We Know Global Warming is Real and Human-Caused.
Anyone who starts out by using the hate-speech term “Climate Deniers” – laden with political overtones of Holocaust denial – cannot expect to be taken seriously as an objective scientist.
Despite this promise of “Climate Scientists’ Answers”, only four peer-reviewed papers by climate scientists are cited among the 41 references at the end of the article.
And the implicit notion that “Climate Deniers” are non-scientists while true-believers are “Climate Scientists” is also unreasonable. Many eminent climate scientists are skeptical of the more extremist claims made by the UN’s climate panel, the IPCC. We shall cite some of their work in this response to the Professor’s unscientific article.
Read Monckton’s full essay here
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am I the only one around here Who likes cops and think they do a valuable service to the community?
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Delicious and flavorful arugula roasted red pepper wraps are satisfying and easy to make. Perfect lunch on the go for those sunny summer days.
Serves: 2 | {
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Dixie Brands' blends consumer & category insights to create
3 new gummie SKU's purposefully crafted to address evolving consumer needs.
DENVER, Dec. 10, 2019 /CNW/ - Dixie Brands Inc. ("Dixie" or "the Company") (CSE: DIXI.U), (OTCQX: DXBRF), (Frankfurt: 0QV), one of the cannabis industry's leading consumer packaged goods ("CPG") companies, today announced that it is extending its award-winning gummie portfolio with the addition of 3 new variants available in January 2020. The new SKU's include a micro-dosed THC-infused Spicy Mango and two CBD:THC ratio offerings, Sour Strawberry 2:1 and Mellow Berry 10:1.
Dixie Brands has crafted one of the cannabis industry's most extensive branded portfolios via an unparalleled production and R&D heritage built over nearly a decade. The rising star of Dixie's portfolio of over 100 products across more than 15 different product categories is the Company's multi award-winning gummies; sales of which have grown by more than 150% in 2019 to become one of the leading gummie brands in the country thanks to an exceptional, consistent and delicious consumption experience.
As one of the industry's leading CPG companies, Dixie has embraced the consumer as the driver of its innovation pipeline with the new gummie SKU's purposefully created in response to real consumer insights. On a macro level for example, 70% of U.S. consumers enjoy eating sweet and spicy combinations (Source: Spicing Up the Food Industry: Hot & spicy trends & insights, Kalsec, 2017) driving the development of Dixie's new micro-dosed Spicy Mango product, which incorporates a proprietary blend of chipotle and habanero spices.
"Product innovation in the infused-cannabis category has been prolific but has been historically based on what the industry can do not necessarily what the canna-curious consumer is looking for." said Andrew Floor, Vice President of Marketing at Dixie Brands. "Dixie Brands has flipped that approach, putting the consumer at the center of everything we do and purposefully crafting products that address the evolving needs of the contemporary cannabis consumer."
Since the launch of the Dixie gummie portfolio in 2017, the brand has become one of the most awarded and fastest growing in the country. Available in 4 markets, Dixie had 3 of the top 5 gummie SKU's in Colorado in October (Source: Headset Sales Report, October 2019) demonstrating incredibly strong brand equity in this mature market. In the critical California market, Dixie gummie sales have grown over 400% since January 2019, establishing Dixie as a top 13 brand in the highly competitive gummie segment. While in the evolving Michigan market, sales of Dixie's gummies continue to grow at more than 30% month over month as the company focuses efforts on increasing production capacity in order to keep up with accelerating consumer demand.
ABOUT DIXIE BRANDS, INC
Dixie Brands Inc. is leading the CPG cannabis industry by championing freedom of choice for consumers around the world. Through its licensed partners, Dixie has been perfecting the art and science of creating award-winning THC and CBD-infused products for nearly a decade. A true multi-state operator currently in California, Colorado, Maryland, Michigan and Nevada, Dixie is set to expand internationally, including Canada and Latin America. Dixie's relentless commitment to product innovation from fun to functional has earned the brand a place as one of the industry's most recognized consumer brands. Dixie's portfolio features over 100 products across more than 15 different product categories representing the industry's finest edibles, beverages, tinctures, topicals and connoisseur grade extractions, as well as world-class CBD-infused wellness products and pet supplements. To find out more about Dixie's innovative products, visit www.dixiebrands.com.
SOURCE Dixie Brands, Inc.
For further information: Media Inquiries, Desiree Rosa, MULTIPLY, [email protected] / 646-499-3306; Investor Inquiries, Andrew Floor, Dixie Brands Inc, [email protected] / 707-294-8392
Related Links
http://dixieelixirs.com
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Some dead person was famous! Of course he deserves a movie about his life! Don’t waste time trying to find out what his life was actually like, there’s not enough time! Just make it like the other biopics you’ve seen! Come on, we gotta strike while this iron is hot!
I ripped on Jobs a lot when it came out, but it did offer us one service, which was to wrap up, in a pretty little package with Kelso wrapping paper, all the reasons this concept has gotten so stale in recent years. The worst biopics, like Jobs, are producer-driven. The director and writer will be hired guns, and the star some poor actor who desperately craves legitimacy (because awards voters, in their wisdom, have proved over and over again that they believe doing an impression is the highest form of acting). I’m pretty sure that’s not how inspiration works. There is no easier, lazier idea for a movie than “A famous person!”
As always, you can view it as a single page if you like.
Here at FilmDrunk, we’ve taken a more Festivus-oriented approach to New Year’s resolutions, where we focus more on how the world should change to suit us, rather than vice versa. Ask not what you can do for your country, and so on. Every era has obnoxious movie trends. Here, we’ve compiled 11 movie trends that we hope we can leave back in 2013, along with Miley Cyrus thinkpieces and Shia LaBeouf apologies.
There are so many jackass producers competing to be the first to make some movie about a famous person’s life that we now get biopics about people right after their name has been in the news for the first time. The Fifth Estate became the biggest bomb of the year, probably by trying to do a biopic about a guy who just got famous yesterday. Meanwhile, there are no fewer than three competing Lance Armstrong biopics, despite there already being a perfectly passable documentary about the same subject. What are they trying to tell us with this? That our brains can’t handle a story without wild embellishments and swelling music? PLEASE PHRASE THIS PERSON’S EULOGY IN THE FORM OF ONE OF THE SEVEN BASIC PLOTS, PLZ.
I move that there be established a mandatory 10-year moratorium on biopics, timed from the day the subject stops being front page news. Sort of like hall-of-fame eligibility in sports, or becoming the subject of a postage stamp. Those are good rules! That way, if the person cures cancer or invents a better post-it note or whatever late in life, the films about him or her won’t miss the final story arc. In the meantime, we can hold a big costume party where actors dress like famous people and the winners all get trophies. Now everyone’s happy, right? Actors love trophies.
Action Rom-Coms
I know, Knight and Day, The Tourist, This Means War – they’re mostly a couple years old now, but let’s hope that 2014 is the year that this concept finally stays dead. The pervasiveness of the action rom-com reflects a pretty simple reality, that it’s easier to finish a hacky rom-com script if you just graft it to a hacky action script. Instead of all that clever dialog and wacky best friend b-story, you just write CHASE SEQUENCE GOES HERE, and bing bang vroom. And rom-com premises are easier to write than action ones, so action rom-coms are like symbiotic genre laziness.
In 2014, let’s just accept that Grosse Pointe Blank is and will always be the only good example of this genre.
Gritty Remakes
Part of me hates Chris Nolan for making one of the most tired concepts work three times (well, two and a half times, anyway). The big takeaway from Nolan’s Batman movies was “dark and gritty remakes can totally work!” when it should’ve been “there’s only one Chris Nolan.” Gritty Evil Dead remake was lame, let’s hope those ideas for gritty Mummy, gritty The Crow, and gritty whatever else all stay dead.
Reimaginings of Public Domain Stories
A close cousin to the “dark and gritty remake” is the “edgy reimagining of public domain stories.” I’ve seen a lot of stupid trailers in my time, but the one for the WASPy, cleft-chinned take on Frankenstein’s monster may take the cake.
I, Frankenstein was just one of these projects lucky enough (for us!) to make it out of development hell, but the siren song of a free premise with “name recognition” and built-in audience™ has long proved too strong for producers to resist. As evidenced by projects such as [deep breath] edgy Little Mermaid, the post-apocalyptic Zorro, Hansel and Gretel Witch Hunters, Oliver Twist the parkour master, Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday: Shaman Hunters, Gritty Peter Pan, Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn fight dragons or something, and much, much more.
Oh, and did I mention this year brings us TWO Hercules movies, starring Kellen Lutz and The Rock, respectively? Crap, I guess this one’s already a lost cause.
Documentaries about fashion designers
Oh my gosh, you design CLOTHES? That people WEAR ON THEIR BODIES?? I NEED TO KNOW EVERYTHING. Actually no, on second thought, I think I know enough about Anna Wintour to last me another seven lifetimes. She’s a very powerful fashion magazine editor, have you heard? And she has many rules and opinions about bangs and necklines and what kinds of shoes one should wear on certain occasions. She’s been played by Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada and documented in The September Issue. Then there were docs about Valentino (The Last Emperor), Yves St. Laurent, Bergdorf Goodman’s, Karl Lagerfeld, Diana Vreeland… all of which include copious amounts of footage of fashion people explaining how clothes are their way of expressing themselves. My question, if clothes are so good at helping people express themselves, why do so many of those people also need movies? No more documentaries, everything I need to know about these people IS RIGHT THERE IN THEIR BEAUTIFUL, EVOCATIVE CLOTHES.
Sequels to Beloved Comedy Classics
You would’ve been hard pressed to find something more hotly anticipated than an Anchorman sequel or new episodes of Arrested Development in late 2012 and early 2013. And now that they’ve come out… a resounding… meh? Surprise is such an important element of comedy that it’s damn near impossible to make the same comedy concept work twice (Shh, don’t tell the Super Troopers guys). Other than spoofs (Naked Gun, the first couple Scary Movies), has there ever been a good comedy sequel? The best you could say in most cases is “Eh, it was okay, I guess.”
And before you say it, Wayne’s World 2 was terrible, don’t even bother bringing that trash in here.
Nonetheless, I’m still thankful for this gif:
Lazy Spoofs
Not only have Seltzer-Friedberg not gone away, their awful, lazy brand of anti-funny reference mash-ups seems to have metastasized. Here’s Jaimie Kennedy copying the formula:
Watching what they’ve done to the spoof, what I wouldn’t give for a Naked Gun or even a Walk Hard. It’s gotten so bad that Seltzer-Friedberg have even started trying to Trojan Horse their spoof movies. Their latest, Best Night Ever, tries to pretend it’s not a spoof or even a Seltzer-Friedberg joint:
That others might try to copy the guys who keep making money on movies that look like they written in 20 minutes isn’t that surprising, I guess, but man is it depressing. Trust me that I don’t what I’m about to say lightly: Seltzer-Friedberg movies are worse than those Geico mandolin guy ads.
Franchise Reboots
It’s okay to let some things die, you know.
Characters Who Are, Like, Really Into Jazz, Maaaan
Screenwriters have this weird tendency to equate liking music with emotional depth. It’s like they’re writing online dating profiles or something. “Music is the soundtrack to my life!” No way! Do you also love to laugh and need a partner in crime!? | {
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In this story
Let’s call him Dave. Dave works as a permanent part-time shop assistant, putting in 16 hours a week while studying at university. Every weekend he works eight hours on Saturday and eight hours on Sunday.
But the penalty rates Dave receives for working his unsociable hours are being cut. As a result, his earnings before tax will fall from $505.44 a week to $427.68 a week. Annualised, that’s a wage decrease of $4043.52, or 15.38 per cent.
Dave’s example is one of a couple of case studies provided to The Saturday Paper by the ACTU, to illustrate the impact of last week’s determination by the Fair Work Commission to cut penalty rates for many of Australia’s lowest paid workers.
Another was Jess, a student and part-time pharmacy assistant whose annual wage will fall $4043.96, or 13.91 per cent, according to the ACTU’s calculations.
No wonder young people worry a lot. Seen from their perspective, it must look as though not only this government but the whole system doesn’t care about their future.
Neither Dave nor Jess was a real person, although the numbers calculated by the union body are real, and the hundreds of thousands of people whose wages will fall are real, too.
Let’s take another example, a real one. A high school student, 14, who works the checkout at the local supermarket at nights and weekends, saving so he can buy a car when he’s old enough to drive. He also worries about the prospect of lower wages, although he hasn’t worked out exactly how much lower. He is my son.
Another of my kids, the eldest, works as a pharmacy assistant. It is pure coincidence the examples the union body provided reflect personal family circumstance. And my third child has no time for work, because she’s in year 12, frantically studying, and fretting about the cost of university, the chances of finding a job, the daunting prospect of entering the Sydney real estate market, climate change, and other uncertainties in her future.
I mention all this in the interest of full disclosure. But the story is not about my family or even just the people, disproportionately young and female, affected by the Fair Work decision. It’s about a much broader, multifaceted issue of intergenerational equity and the manifold ways young people are being betrayed by their elders, and in particular by our current government.
It is now well understood that inequality of wealth and income has been accelerating across the developed world since the late 1970s. As Warren Buffett, then the world’s second-richest person, famously told The New York Times a decade ago: “There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”
But it’s not just a class war, it’s also a generational war. Buffett was 75 when he said those words. He might well have added that his generation, and the baby boomers a few years younger than him, were the ones winning. And every subsequent generation was losing in greater and greater ways.
Work has become harder to find and more insecure, education has grown more expensive and produces less yield for the effort of learning, housing has become vastly less affordable, career advancement has slowed as boomers linger longer in the workforce, and wealth disparities have become greater between generations.
Before going to the bigger picture, though, let’s deal with the immediate issue of the Fair Work determination, which is pretty extraordinary, given current circumstances.
1 . Stagnant wages
Wages in Australia have been largely stagnant for several years and in the last three months of 2016 they actually went backwards by half a percentage point – even as company profits surged 20 per cent. The big story of this week’s national accounts figures was not the most widely reported – that the Australian economy is growing again, albeit at a modest rate – but that workers are not seeing the benefits of that growth. Indeed, real labour costs are the lowest they have ever been.
The logical consequence of people earning less is people spending less. We are seeing some evidence of that lack of demand, and we would see more but for the fact that consumers have been dipping into their savings to buy things.
So how will cutting the spending power of many of Australia’s lowest-paid workers boost demand and further the government’s plan for jobs and growth? How many jobs will this create?
Tellingly, when Treasury Secretary John Fraser was asked exactly that in a senate estimates committee hearing on Wednesday, he declined to offer a view.
Likewise, Treasurer Scott Morrison was asked four times at a media conference whether the Fair Work decision slashing Sunday and holiday penalties would create jobs. He, too, avoided a straight answer. The closest he would come was to say: “They made the decision. They said it would have that impact, and that’s why they made that call. I’m not here to offer opinions.”
The same is true for the government as a whole. They haven’t tried to sell the benefits of the decision. Instead, they have distanced themselves, stressing the independence of the commission, making a show of more or less reluctantly accepting the umpire’s decisions and pointing out, quite correctly, that Bill Shorten appointed the umpires and had previously promised to accept their decision.
There are two possible reasons for such reticence on the part of the government to embrace a decision for which their supporters in the business community have long called. One: they don’t think it will create jobs and growth. Or, two: they realise the politics of the decision will go badly against them.
The evidence from labour market specialists and pollsters would suggest they are right on both counts.
One thing we can say for certain, though, is that if the decision stands, many of Australia’s most poorly paid workers, in the hospitality, retail, pharmacy and fast food industries will be worse off. And disproportionately, they will be young people.
2 . Undervalued
In some of those areas, says Shirley Jackson, who is working on a PhD in the area of youth employment at the University of Melbourne, the majority of the workforce is under 25.
Long before the Fair Work decision, he says, the labour of young people was undervalued. Australia’s long-established junior pay rates system, for example, provides for the biggest differential between youth wage rates and the minimum wage in the world. But things have got harder for younger workers over the past couple of decades.
“It can be traced back to the labour market deregulation of the ’80s and ’90s, which have contributed to young people remaining in insecure work for much longer than their parents, in casual jobs, on low pay, with few opportunities for advancement,” he says.
“Young people are facing conditions very different from previous generations, and they’re doing it tough.”
Some statistics, culled from political adviser Jennifer Rayner’s forensically angry book Generation Less: How Australia Is Cheating the Young, underline the point.
In the late 1970s, when the baby boomers were entering the workforce, unemployment was just a couple of per cent. The rate of underemployment – that is people who had less work than they wanted – was also very low, at 3.2 per cent for people aged 15 to 24, and 2 per cent for workers aged 45 to 54.
By 2014, the underemployment rate for that young cohort had grown fivefold, to more than 16 per cent. It had grown for older workers, too, but not by nearly as much. The underemployment gap had increased from 1.2 per cent to more than 10 per cent.
Not only has work become harder to find, but also relatively less well paid. As Rayner notes, during the past 25 years, the real weekly full-time earnings for workers under 25 grew 25 per cent. Wage growth for those in their 50s grew 59 per cent.
3 . Deregulation
Work also became more precarious. The deregulation of the labour market in the 1980s and ’90s saw a huge shift to casual employment. The number of casual jobs increased more than 70 per cent in the 15 years to 1998, but since then the proportion has remained pretty constant: about one in five. That figure, however, hides a generational reality: among young workers, notes Rayner, the rate of casual employment has grown from 34 per cent to more than 50.
The middle-aged seem to have managed to quarantine the best jobs – the permanent, more highly paid ones with regular hours – for themselves. And they are sticking to them. For her book, Rayner looked at the average ages of people in powerful positions and found major company chief executives in Australia had on average grown eight years older over the quarter-century to 2014. Departmental secretaries were five years older, newspaper editors seven years older, federal politicians five years older.
Dr Jim Stanford, director of the Centre for Future Work at The Australia Institute, worries that what he calls the “deteriorating quality of work” will, over time, affect ever more people up the age range.
“Since most new jobs being created are part-time, and increasingly precarious, it is a matter of simple maths that young people will be concentrated in those positions,” he says. “But there’s no guarantee that their conditions of work will improve automatically just as they age. Employers are learning that they can run their businesses with hardly any permanent full-time employees at all.”
Stanford notes the most recent Bureau of Statistics figures show almost 30 per cent of those under 25 are either unemployed (12.3 per cent) or underemployed (17.2 per cent). That’s more than double the rate for the workforce as a whole.
“The job situation is so bad for young people,” he says, “hundreds of thousands of them are willing to work for free through unpaid internships.”
4 . Murky internships
He’s not exaggerating. Professor Andrew Stewart, a specialist in employment law at Adelaide University, is an expert on the growing phenomenon of internships, and has provided advice to the Fair Work ombudsman on what is a very murky legal area.
Fifty-eight per cent of people aged 18 to 29 had taken part in unpaid work experience over a five-year period, according to Stewart’s survey figures.
“Around half were people whose unpaid work was undertaken as part of an educational training course,” he says. “But half weren’t, and among those were people doing unpaid trials, people who had been offered a job but were required to do some form of unpaid training before they started being paid, some doing unpaid work in order to keep their dole payments, and there was a big chunk that is termed ‘open-market internships’. That just means either a firm has set up some kind of work-experience program or a jobseeker has offered their services. A lot of that is happening in a grey area, legally.”
And it is not just the private sector that is involved in this.
Treasurer Scott Morrison and Employment Minister Michaelia Cash put out a press release at budget time last year headlined, “Creating a path to real jobs for young people”.
A few weeks from now, on April Fools’ Day, the promise of that announcement will be put into action. To quote from the release, “up to 30,000 young jobseekers each year will be eligible to undertake an internship placement of 4 to 12 weeks”.
These “real jobs” do not, however, come with much in the way of real pay. Those unemployed young people who take part will be paid just $200 a fortnight – a few dollars an hour – on top of their welfare benefits.
It’s a good deal, though, for the businesses that “host” these young people. They will get an upfront payment of $1000.
Naturally, many people are sceptical about the benefits of the scheme. The welfare sector and unions worry that it will displace workers who might otherwise be hired on proper wages, that unscrupulous bosses will take advantage, that the hopeful young unemployed will simply be churned through the program, and back onto welfare.
Professor Stewart also has concerns.
“My view is that it is worth a try, but they should be paying minimum wage,” he says.
5 . Legislative issues
And there are also some legislative issues. Without an amendment to social security legislation, “any payments the interns receive will then count as income and reduce their social security payments”.
At least it is an attempt by the government to do something to get young people employed, rather than simply trying to protect the budget from the cost of their joblessness.
And the government continues to do a lot of that. It persists, for example, in pushing for a five-week waiting period before young unemployed people can get the dole. And trying to push those aged under 25 off the Newstart payment onto the lower Youth Allowance, at a cost to them of about $48 a week. They bowled up those changes again in legislation this week. The senate continues to resist.
Even as things stand, the rate of Newstart – $38 a day – has been condemned as inadequate not just by the welfare lobby but the Business Council of Australia.
The government, however, seeks to make a virtue of paying the young unemployed punitively low benefits. Social Services Minister Christian Porter last year said it was a “design point” of the system, intended to make them try harder to get a job. No matter that statistics show there simply aren’t enough jobs to go around.
But there is so much else the government has done that threatens the future welfare of the young, either directly or indirectly.
In the direct category go things such as the increased costs and reduced quality of education and training – it now takes an average 8.5 years for a tertiary graduate to pay back the cost of their degree. There are also the swingeing cuts to vocational education that see TAFEs increasingly supplanted by private providers offering courses of varying and often dubious quality. Since September 2013, the number of apprenticeships has plunged by some 130,000.
6 . Other impediments
The indirect impediments to the young are perhaps even greater. And the big one is real estate prices. Between 1982 and 2011, home ownership rates fell from 55.5 to 34 per cent among those aged 25 to 34, according to Bureau of Statistics data. And since then, of course, housing has become vastly less affordable.
We’ve seen the stories, over and over, of young hopefuls outbid by investors. And the expert advice is near unanimous that the government could do much to alleviate the problem if it simply cut out the tax breaks – negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount – that give investors an advantage.
Yet the government shows no sign of taking meaningful action.
And that, probably more than any other factor, is driving generational inequality in Australia, as illustrated by one killer statistic in Rayner’s book.
“Between 2004 and 2012,” she noted, “people in every age bracket over 45 saw their net worth grow by more than the total wealth of those under 25.”
No wonder those young people, mine included, worry a lot. Seen from their perspective, it must look as though not only this government but the whole system doesn’t care about their future. In fact, it looks as if there is a war on young people.
And I, who entered a labour market straight from school when unemployment was 2 per cent, who got free tertiary education thanks to Gough Whitlam, and who was able to afford a first house in my mid-20s on a junior journalist’s salary, find it hard to reassure them otherwise. | {
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Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has said that state authorities cannot let down guard if and after the nationwide lock down ends on 15 April.
Adityanath interacted with MPs and ministers in Uttar Pradesh through videoconferencing and appealed to them to ensure that the common man standing on the last rung gets benefits of the state government’s schemes, The Hindu reported.
He has requested religious leaders of Agra to cooperate with the district authorities across the state.
He said the religious representatives must ask people in their respective communities to cooperate with the state authorities. There have been reports of incidents from different parts of the country of Jamaatis (who have returned from the congregation in Delhi's Nizamuddin area) misbehaving with the staff at the different quarantine facilities.
Adityanath asked the religious leaders to ensure that people do not resort to such methods.
The CM has said that the responsibility of religious leaders will not end after the relaxation in the lockdown. To ensure that people don't gather and continue to main social distancing, ‘dharma gurus’ will have to play their role, he said.
Adityanath was speaking during a video conferencing session with religious representatives in Agra. He appealed to them to spread awareness on Coronavirus in their communities.
Adityanath clarified that the real test of the state authorities will begin after the relaxation in the lockdown, when people are more likely to come out of homes.
Expressing concerns on the anticipated impact this could have on the hard work put in by the authorities towards mitigating the virus, Adityanath said that spreading awareness was the need of the hour.
He added that spreading awareness will help in discouraging people from collecting on roads immediately after the lockdown relaxes.
Some of the pointed measures that Adityanath has taken to mitigate and fight the spread of Covid 19, besides being active on ground in the state are: forming a triple layer medical system. This means that every district will see three levels of hospitals dedicated to care against Covid-19.
He has made a Covid Care Fund — to equip the state for the long fight. The fund will be used for increasing the number of testing labs in medical colleges in the state, for increasing the number of quarantine and isolation wards, for the making of personal protection equipment (PPE), N95 masks and ventilators.
Then, he pushed for sending the amount of Rs 1,000 to the accounts of daily workers and MGNREGA workers. He has arranged for the lodging and food needs for people of the migrant workforce, tightening the administrative work in districts.
Adityanath has also asked the district authorities to be prepared for any emergency arising from the Covid-19 situation. | {
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"Why are you going to Russia in November?"
I was having a bit of a mid-life crisis so I decided to run away. I didn't know if I wanted to continue being a lawyer. And if I wasn't going to be a lawyer, what was I going to do? These questions were dominating my every waking moment. And they had paralyzed me. Lawyering, for me, had become an ever-deepening abyss of sorrow. I practice immigration law in Arizona, and had seen family after family torn apart by deportation. I'd heard shockingly vivid personal stories of torture and brutality; I witnessed fear and desperation, hopelessness and grief. But the worst part was that I was beginning to feel hopeless. Even when I scored major victories, like saving a survivor of sex trafficking from deportation, all I could see was the sea of despair before me.
I was burnt out.
My hope was that a roam around the motherland would be just what the doctor ordered.
Russia wasn't a random choice, no matter how odd it might seem for this sort of voluntary escape. It's no Tahiti, for example. But going to Russia is always comforting to me. It is that perfect mix of the familiar and unfamiliar. This all started in 1990, back in high school. Some unclear set of circumstances led one of my teachers to take a group of students to the Soviet Union and I got to go. I found the country to be delightfully weird (I say this now: my postcard home from that trip describes Russia as "creepy."). Afterwards, it sort of took over my life. Graduate school merely exacerbated the problem since that's when I started to take groups of students over there myself. After I got my PhD, I basically said to myself, "OK! Enough is enough!" and became a lawyer. But there's no denying that Russia still holds major sway over my traveling life.
The nominal excuse for this trip was a conference at the Russian Academy of Sciences called, "Migration Bridges in Eurasia." I was presenting a paper on the US-Mexico border, which, in case you don't know, is not in Eurasia. But the idea was to describe an immigration-policy-gone-wrong and tell a cautionary tale. Russian policies towards the influx of migrants from Eurasia are just now taking shape; after all, many of these Eurasian countries used to be part of the Soviet Union, i.e., the same country as Russia.
After arriving in Moscow, I got up early and put on my best professional costume: suit, jewelry, pumps, the works. I walked out into the cool air feeling excited and mildly triumphant. I was then crushed within an inch of my life in the metro at rush hour. Nevertheless, I emerged, rumpled but undefeated, at the Russian Academy of Sciences building, where I was immediately dwarfed by its imposing magnificence. As soon as you walk in the courtyard, you feel it. THIS IS WHERE SERIOUS PEOPLE DO SCIENCE. I felt very, very small and very, very nervous. This was my first time presenting a paper in Russian.
I didn't know anyone at the conference except the organizer, a demographer I met over the Internet. He was very kind and introduced me as "our American colleague." The conference opened with a grand ceremony as we stood for the Russian national anthem. Representatives from 26 countries were at the conference, including the ambassadors to Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. As I listened to the presentations, the problems of Eurasian migration all sounded so achingly familiar: people on the move fleeing poverty, hunger and instability. I was reminded, once again, that migration is a global issue. As Americans, we have a tendency to view our struggles with immigration as unique. America is the greatest country in the world, we believe, so of course the entire world wants to come here. But Tajiks and Kyrgyz are moving to Russia, Sudanese and Syrians are moving to Italy, Iranians and Sri Lankans are moving to Australia. What's happening in our backyard is part of a worldwide—and unstoppable—phenomenon. Uzbek construction workers in Moscow have an awful lot in common with my house-painting Mexican clients.
These thoughts swam around in my head while I hurried to the train station. The "work" portion of my trip completed, now I was headed for a train journey along the Volga River to deal with this mid-life crisis thing. I dawdled too long drinking beer so I had to run with all my bags to the train car. This meant that I was thoroughly sweaty. In fact, I was drenched with sweat nearly the entire time I was in Russia. It was November, but everywhere I went it was so warm inside. And when I was outside and moving around my coat made me sweat. I lost my scarf and I missed it so much because it had become my sweat rag. I sweated more in Russia in the winter than I do in Tucson in the summer, no lie.
I tumbled into the train and there was a stout man in a striped tank top with a giant, unrecognizable arm tattoo sitting on my bed. It looked like a sailor's top and later I find out that the man was, in fact, in the Navy. The other two occupants were a middle-aged woman and her daughter, who was maybe 10 years old. The man moved out into the hallway while I jostled everyone with my enormous coat and heavy suitcase. The man came in and sat down next to me on my bed.
I've always been grateful to get the lower berths on trains. But they are a double-edged sword. If you have the upper bunk, you're constantly climbing up and down the little ladder to get up there and once you're up you don't really have room to sit up straight. But when you have the lower bunk the person from the upper bunk is kind of always hanging out on your bed. Whenever the upper-bunk person needs to use the table they really have no choice. So, if you're the upper-bunk person your best strategy is to just constantly eat or drink something. And that's what this man did.
First, it was some kind of sauce-heavy chicken and watching him eat it was a little gross. I moved out into the hall to get away from it but, like a car wreck, I couldn't help but stare at him in the reflection in the window. He carefully pulled back the skin on each piece, picked off the meat with his fingers, gnawed the bone, and then ate the skin. He had one tiny napkin and this he used to wipe his hands and also, somehow, wipe down the tablecloth. I don't know how he did it but he managed to completely avoid staining my white sheet.
I went back into the compartment and it turns out they've all been talking about me. The girl noticed I was reading a book in English and they all began to speculate. I fessed up and told them I was an American. Outing myself is another double-edged sword: it saves people from thinking I'm an oaf when I breach some cultural norm, but it also draws attention to me and makes me talk about myself and my relationship to Russia. This makes me uncomfortable because everyone asks me the same question: Why Russia? And then I launch into some long, barely-understandable self-analysis about obsessions and curiosity and perestroika. Looking at their confused and bored faces, I wonder, "When will I learn to just say I love Tolstoy like everyone else?" (For the record I can't stand Tolstoy.)
The woman and her daughter were on their way home from a sanatorium in Zheleznovodsk where they have been on vacation for three weeks. Zheleznovodsk is famous for its healing mud and the woman joked that after three weeks of treatments they are now undoing all of it by eating junk food on the train.
The man was on a four-day journey from Rostov to Chayanda to work on the new gas line known as the "Power of Siberia." It's one of Putin's signature projects. The work sounds terrible, though, because each month the man has to travel four days by train to the worksite. He's not a young man, either—probably in his late 50s. At least he gets to fly home afterwards... and then return three weeks later.
As part of his ongoing strategy to sit on the lower bunk the man pulled out some fruit and shared it with all of us. It's kind of like an apple but it's also kind of like a pear. It's a little dry, but really sweet. He called it "aiva." Later I looked it up and realize it's a quince.
Then, my seatmates get into a heated discussion about fat. They're talking about salo, which is salted pork fatback. They both heartily agree that eating salo is incredibly good for you. But they disagree on rendered salo. You can use salo for frying potatoes, said the man, but never mushrooms. Not so, said the woman, who insisted that there is a special dual-action property of mushrooms plus salo. The man wasn't having any of it. From there the discussion morphs into alcohol, the woman claiming that berries will keep you from getting drunk on champagne. She said she once drank three bottles of champagne and had no hangover because of the frozen strawberries she put in the bottom of each glass. The man disagreed on this point as well, but then realized that he wasn't going to win any points with anybody in our compartment if he got into a detailed discussion of exactly how much he can drink.
Listening to their conversation I thought about how much I love listening to people tell their stories. It's one of the things that has brought me back to Russia time and again and also one of the reasons why I practice immigration law. It allows me this unique window into people's lives and a way to help them create new, and hopefully happier, stories.
The next morning I woke up to something called inyei—frost that barely clings to the trees. The delicate glitter was so fragile, so fleeting, that it made time stop. This quiet calm lasted into the afternoon, which is a miracle. Calm isn't usually in my repertoire of psychological states. Then, as I sat drinking tea it came to me: I am an immigration lawyer, but that doesn't mean that I have to confine my work to the US-Mexico border. Why don't I open a branch of my law office in Russia? There are plenty of people in Russia who want to immigrate to the U.S. I can serve them and spend more time in this country that, for better or worse, has a firm grip on me.
So that's what I'm doing right now—trying to get my Russian office off the ground. It's brought me back to life, this unusual project of mine. At work, English, Russian and Spanish all mix together in a constant brain-teaser that keeps me on my toes.
The forces at work here are bigger than me and my clients, bigger than the Border Patrol, and even bigger than Joe Arpaio's nose. People move. It's what we do.
(Editor's Note: Rachel Wilson continues to practice law in both Tucson and Moscow. You can read about her ongoing adventures at http://eleventimezones.com) | {
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Every year, when it comes time for a publicly traded company to make its annual report to shareholders, its CEO writes a letter thanking those shareholders for owning their stock, reflecting on the company’s wins and losses, and offering some forward-looking projections for how that company will perform in the future. While most of these letters typically consist of misleading graphs that help break up pages of fluffy bullshit about how the CEO is focused on the long-term growth of the company and doesn’t care whether the stock price goes up (while also justifying the stock buybacks that artificially prop it up), some corporate bigwigs like Jeff Bezos and Warren Buffett use their annual letters as an opportunity to reflect on the nature of the world, the nature of business, and the nature of the world of business. Such letters are tomes of Fake Deep wisdom, revered by dudes who like to dress “zany” on Casual Friday. Jamie Dimon, CEO of the megabank JPMorgan Chase, is one such epistolary-minded titan of industry.
Jamie Dimon is a famous CEO for two reasons. One, he is very good at fulfilling his “fiduciary duty” to JPMorgan Chase’s shareholders by creating value for them — most notably during the financial crisis of 2007-2008, when he was able to keep the company afloat at a time when basically every other bank was going under. Two, he oversaw JPMorgan Chase at a time when it was handing out a shitload of the bad loans that helped cause the financial crisis of 2007-2008, and in 2012, personally approved the actions of Bruno Iksil, the so-called “London Whale” who placed such heavy derivatives trades that he singlehandedly lost JPMorgan Chase $6 billion. Together, these scandals resulted in JPMorgan Chase paying a total of roughly $14 billion in fines over the course of 2013 (about $13 billion for helping cause the recession, plus a cool $920 million for the London Whale).
People in the finance world tend to focus on thing one (the good thing), while those of us in the real world tend to focus on the bad thing, a.k.a. the shoddy mortgages and irresponsible trades and billions of dollars in fines and all that. Intuitively, this makes sense: If a bank such as JPMorgan Chase is creating value for its shareholders, that value has to come from somewhere, frequently its customers. In other words, your opinion of Jamie Dimon probably depends on whether or not you’re on the receiving end of his innovation that the bank industry should engage in the upward redistribution of wealth.
For Dimon, however, this is not enough. He is a well-known public figure, and it must be sort of a drag, I assume, to be hated by millions of strangers. Plus, if it could be said that you were both a cause and a beneficiary of the financial crisis, you might be interested in rehabilitating your image just a tad.
In recent years, Jamie Dimon has tried his hardest to take advantage of the incredibly low expectations America holds for its richest citizens, who can say things like “capitalism might have some problems, honestly” and be hailed as brave visionaries. Last January, the bank announced it was raising the minimum wages of its lowest-paid employees to $15-$18 per hour, essentially voluntarily meeting the demands of the significant coalition of activists advocating for a national minimum wage of $15 per hour. On March 14, it was announced that JPMorgan Chase would no longer finance private prisons, while a few days later, Dimon did, indeed, admit that America was “fundamentally anti-poor.”
A 2013 photo of Dimon and Mary Callahan Erdoes of JPMorgan Chase with Gary Cohn and Dina Powell, then of Goldman Sachs, both of whom went on to work in the Trump administration.
It’s his annual shareholder letters, though, where Dimon really relishing in talking his shit. While high-level finance people tend to promote a specific vision of the world in which peace, or at least global stability, and the spread of free-market capitalism go hand in hand — after all, if your country is involved in a serious war, you probably aren’t thinking too hard about getting a loan to start a business or buy a house — Dimon’s shareholder letters have taken on an activist edge in the Trump era. This started in April of 2017 with his letter shareholders covering the 2016 fiscal year, in which he advocated for an increase in education spending offset by decreased military budgets, lamented the effects that increased healthcare costs and mass incarceration have had on the economy, and generally came across, as The New Yorker joked, “like a more restrained Bernie Sanders.”
These themes, of economic inequality and the stagnation of American middle-class progress, were also present in his most recent shareholder letter, which was issued early last week. In tone and substance, it is not substantially different from the 2017 letter, once again touching on the numerous ailments to the United States that most rational people agree really ought to be fixed. “America has always had its flaws,” Dimon writes. “Some of its more recent issues center on income inequality, stagnant wages, lack of equal opportunity, immigration and lack of access to healthcare.” Which, yeah, sure, fine. I’m a firm believer that you deserve credit for being able to point out there’s a bird in the sky even if you only know it’s there because it just crapped on your head.
But then Dimon gets to the really good stuff:
Is capitalism to blame? Is socialism better?
There is no question that capitalism has been the most successful economic system the world has ever seen. It has helped lift billions of people out of poverty, and it has helped enhance the wealth, health and education of people around the world. Capitalism enables competition, innovation and choice.
I point this passage out specifically because it’s more or less a mashup of rhetoric used by The Heritage Foundation (read the first paragraph of this), as well as Sean Hannity (read this transcript and keep scrolling until you get to the part where he screams about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez), and also because whenever a rich finance guy starts talking about socialism you know you’re in for a wild ride. He continues, with some even better stuff:
When governments control companies, economic assets (companies, lenders and so on) over time are used to further political interests – leading to inefficient companies and markets, enormous favoritism and corruption. As Margaret Thatcher said, “The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.” Socialism inevitably produces stagnation, corruption and often worse — such as authoritarian government officials who often have an increasing ability to interfere with both the economy and individual lives — which they frequently do to maintain power. This would be as much a disaster for our country as it has been in the other places it’s been tried.
This assertion, coming from Dimon, is hilarious, given that when Jamie Dimon controls a company, he will further its interests politically by personally calling legislators trying to convince them to vote for bills that will make him money, as well as do things that interfere with the economy — such as helping cause a financial crisis — and individual lives — such as screwing people over by giving them loans despite knowing they weren’t in a position to pay them back. Throw in his random invocation of Margaret Thatcher, and I offer the above passage as proof that Jamie Dimon is at least as funny as mid-tier comedian Colin Jost.
The fact that Dimon is so incensed by the specter of creeping socialism is telling. It’s easy to imagine a world in which a politician like Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren becomes president, nationalizes the healthcare system to at least some degree, and then causes people to wonder what other stuff should be taken out of the hands of profit-seeking CEOs with a hard-on about dividend increases. For years, Sanders has advocated for revitalizing the lagging postal system by authorizing every post office to perform basic banking services. Meanwhile, the idea of communities putting their money in state-owned public banks, rather than privately held banking institutions, is growing in popularity, especially as operators in the legal weed industry need a place to put all their cash. Hell, even Andrew Yang’s goofy-ass “everybody gets a thousand bucks a month, ESPECIALLY gamers” platform might convince people that they don’t need banks such as JPMorgan Chase to live their lives. I realize that personal banking, which I am referring to above, only makes up a fraction of what large banks such as the one Dimon runs actually does, but megabanks only work if they have other people’s money to do crazy shit with, and in a more socialist country, those other people might put their money elsewhere and put the Jamie Dimons of the world out of a job in the process.
Politically, Dimon could best be described as a “centrist” in the Howard Schultz sense of the word: socially liberal, but with a self-serving fiscal sensibility that he convinces himself is not somehow at odds with whatever “progressive” views he might have. In that same shareholder letter, Dimon praises Trump’s big business-favoring tax cuts before arguing that they don’t go far enough: He claims that countries, in order to reap any taxes from large companies, need to bend over backwards before those companies find another country that will. He doubled down on this assertion yesterday while appearing in front of the House Financial Services Committee, offering his weaselly “Eh, whaddya gonna do?” argument in response to a barbed line of questioning from Rep. Nydia Velazquez.
“It’s not enough just for companies to meet the letter and the spirit of the law. They can also aggressively work to improve society,” writes Dimon as he inches towards the conclusion of his 50-page letter that, frankly, I wish I had not read the entirety of. In his view, governments should act more like companies, competing with one another in order to earn the pittance of tax revenues doled out by global megacorporations. It only follows, then, that he thinks companies should conduct themselves more like governments, engaging in ostensibly selfless efforts to improve society for the better. This is a tack I suspect we’ll see more of in the future, a fundamentally conservative appeal made by those in positions of power that uses the language of social justice to cling desperately to a status quo that ultimately favors them, rather than dramatically shifting power away from those who have proven that they in no way deserve it.
Hearing a CEO like Jamie Dimon argue that the solution to capitalism is for he and his colleagues to aspire to a greater degree of social responsibility is not unlike hearing an unrepentant alcoholic argue that the solution for drunk driving is for he and his drinking buddies to take driving lessons — after all, if you take their licenses away, how the hell are him and his friends going to get around town? Jamie Dimon’s billions of dollars in fines does not grant him an ounce of moral clarity; he is vaguely woke strictly out of a sense of self-preservation.
The metaphor I used in the above paragraph was not 100 percent apt. After all, driving under the influence of alcohol is a clear, and clearly punishable, crime, but there is no equally enforceable law for serving as an accessory to a recession. So let me try again: If a soldier returns home from combat to tell you that war is hell, then you should believe them; if a banker returns from paying $14 billion in fines to tell you that America is broken; then you should believe him as well — and then throw him in jail for breaking it. | {
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A 39 ans, il quitte la vie politique: "c'est devenu compliqué avec le populisme et l'anti-parlementarisme" | {
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Hockey is the only thing that keeps Canadians from committing mass suicide during drawn-out winters. And perhaps no one has been so close to suicide lately as the people of Montreal. When the Habs stumbled to a 13-12-7 start this season, head coach Jacques Martin was canned and replaced with interim Randy Cunneyworth. Many Quebecois were peeved that Cunneyworth didn't speak French. Today, the Canadiens hired Michel Therrien. He speaks French, but he's a bad coach.
The Canadiens made the playoffs four years in a row, from 2007-08 to 2010-11, but 2011-12 was an absolute disaster. Not only was Martin canned, but veteran Michael Cammalleri was shipped to Calgary after he trash-talked the team. "I can't accept that we will display a losing attitude as we're doing this year," he said. "We prepare for our games like losers. We play like losers. So it's no wonder why we lose."
The new GM, Marc Bergevin, hired in May, was supposed to change things. He's a rising star in the hockey world, a successful scout and assistant GM in Chicago. His first challenge was finding Cunneyworth's replacement, and, judging from the response in Montreal, he's bombed it.
This will be Therrien's second stint as head coach in Montreal; he took over for Alain Vigneault 20 games into the 2000-01 season, made the playoffs in 2001-02 (in his only full season), and was fired in 2003 after 46 games. Therrien wasn't successful the first time around—why should we expect his second run to go better? That's why Adam Proteau of The Hockey News said, "[Therrien's] hiring has the stench of a stopgap measure."
Some Habs bloggers are already using Therrien's hiring to predict that the tenure of the newly-hired Bergevin will be a failure:
[If Bergevin's] judgment and the advice he's taking led him down a road that ended with Therrien being considered, interviewed and hired, the flag I see is red and it tells me that we are very much on the same course as before and any expectations of a great franchise turnaround might have to wait until the next big clean out.
Others resorted to something between depression and anger:
That being said, this hiring feels very much like Bergevin's first big mistake, and while it may be harsh to be that absolute before the team's roster has been overhauled, it's easy to see why so many fans feel this way. Therrien represents a coach from the Habs deeply depressing dark ages that NOBODY wants to revisit, and he represents Molson's lie that the best man for the job would be hired, language be damned.
Christ, that's upsetting. The Habs have a new coach, a new GM, and no hope. | {
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Personal Injury Case Mistakes: What’s the Worst Thing You Can Do?
While there are many different types of mistakes made in a personal injury case, the number one mistake anyone can make in any personal injury case is to lie or omit the truth.
In every stage of a personal injury case, it’s the client’s responsibility to ensure they provide the correct facts and tell their attorney everything about the incident. Be truthful about your injuries and your case, because a single lie can ruin your case.
Why You Shouldn’t Lie About An Accident
When making a personal injury claim you must always remember that, in the end, your case is only worth what a jury would award you at trial for your injuries. The value of a possible jury award is what the insurance company uses to determine how much it will offer you for settlement. If you tell “white lies” about your injuries, or otherwise exaggerate the extent of your pain and suffering, the truth will always catch up to you. Past medical records are easily obtainable by the other side. What appear to be small inconsistencies can add up and make your story less believable at trial. When pursuing a personal injury claim, you must always take the approach that your case may ultimately be tried in front of a jury.
This is why it is so important to be completely honest with your lawyer about the facts, the extent of your injuries, and what injuries or medical conditions you’ve had in the past. Don’t exaggerate your injuries or pretend to be hurt worse than you really are. It’s easy to get confused and say the wrong thing when an insurance adjuster fires questions at you. That is why we recommend never allowing the insurance company to take your recorded statement without first consulting an attorney. If the insurance company doubts the validity of your claim, they may hire investigators to follow and record you. With any injury case always remember that honesty is the best policy.
There’s no need to lie or stretch the truth to make fair recoveries in personal injury claims.
The Macon Personal Injury Attorneys @ Buzzell, Welsh & Hill Are Here For You
If you or someone you know has suffered from an injury, whether it was a slip and fall, burn injury, dog-bite, or car wreck, the personal injury attorneys of Buzzell, Welsh & Hill can assist you with your claim. Our team of attorneys will aggressively pursue your case and ensure you receive the compensation you deserve. Compete our simple contact form or call us at (478) 217-2072. | {
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Michael "Creepy Porn Lawyer" Avenatti was just arrested for domestic violence, TMZ reported. Avenatti's ex-wife allegedly filed a felony domestic violence report against him.
According to TMZ's law enforcement source, her face was "swollen and bruised" from an altercation that took place on Tuesday. On Wednesday, she was reportedly seen with sunglasses covering her face, screaming into her cell phone, "I can't believe you did this to me."
"We're told security brought her inside the building and Michael showed up 5 minutes later, ran into the building, chasing after her. He screamed repeatedly, 'She hit me first.' We're told he angrily added, 'This is bulls***, this is f***ing bulls***,'" TMZ reported.
Apparently Avenatti threw her out of their Los Angeles apartment on Tuesday, when the altercation took place. She allegedly returned on Wednesday to get her belongings but had law enforcement present.
The two got married in 2011 and filed for divorce last year.
This is a developing story. As more information becomes available this post will be updated. | {
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DES MOINES — Steve Lacy greeted me in his office as if we were old friends.
A top executive at the Meredith Corporation, he was a main driver of the company’s $2.8 billion acquisition of Time Inc. last November. With that deal, the 116-year-old Meredith Corporation became the largest magazine publisher in America.
When he spoke, it was clear Mr. Lacy took pride in Meredith’s unassuming corporate culture, so far removed from the New York magazine scene.
“In Des Moines, Iowa, we don’t have to prove anything to anybody about the Meredith Corporation,” Mr. Lacy said. “We don’t have drivers. We’d look silly, and it would be not in keeping with who we are.” He added, “I presume you know that if I want a black car, I can get one.”
Mr. Lacy, 63, is a trim man, born and raised in Kansas, with neat white hair. He steered me to a table by a large framed photograph of a bald eagle. Not far from his office on the 14-acre Meredith campus, a 24-foot sculpture of a trowel sticks out of the earth at an angle, as if tossed by a gardening giant. | {
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ENGLISH all-rounder Ben Stokes is heading to New Zealand and could be back playing cricket as early as this weekend, in a move that has rendered champion Australian batsman Dean Jones “speechless”.
Stokes flew out of London on Tuesday and will arrive in Christchurch on Wednesday to practice and spend time with his family — but also hopes to return to playing cricketer for New Zealand side Canterbury.
The ECB insists that Stokes’ travel plans have been independently arranged and are not related to the Ashes in any way, however Foxsports.com.au understands the ECB is planning for Stokes to play in the third Test in Perth.
Stokes is still officially suspended by the ECB, although the governing body could lift that at any time.
Crucially, however, he was granted a No Objection Certificate by the ECB — freeing him up to play first-class cricket in New Zealand if he is able to come to terms with a team.
“So that makes me speechless. Why then is he not playing for England? Either he is suspended... or he is not?” Jones asked.
So that makes me speechless. Why then is he not playing for England? Either he is suspended... or he is not? #surely? https://t.co/kVO48qAxjx — Dean Jones (@ProfDeano) November 28, 2017
Stokes’ latest movements come as the UK’s Daily Mirror reports he will be parachuted into England’s squad ahead of the third Test in Perth — regardless of whether he is cleared by police or not.
Stokes was arrested following an alleged late-night pub fight in Bristol that left a man in hospital with facial injuries.
The Bristol Police were reported to be close to making a statement last week regarding the charges he could face or avoid, but nothing was forthcoming.
If he is charged, it would be highly unlikely that Stokes would participate in the Ashes.
LISTEN TO THE FIRST TEST REVIEW PODCAST WITH TOM MORRIS, BRETT GEEVES AND JOE BARTON BELOW, OR CLICK HERE.
But it appears the delay in charging — or clearing — Stokes will work in England’s favour.
“The fiery all rounder has flown to his original homeland to get himself match fit for an Ashes battle that England badly need him for despite possible charges hanging over him,” read the Mirror report.
“MirrorSport understands that Stokes could be charged by police for his part in a Bristol brawl next week, but crucially his appearance in court may not be scheduled until later in the new year.
“That would give the 26-year-old enough time to make his presence felt in the Ashes before facing a possible prosecution thereafter.”
The Times’ Elizabeth Ammon told New Zealand’s Radio Sport that Stokes’ ban extended to England international matches only, freeing him up to play in New Zealand.
“His suspension from England is only from internationals. It was a carefully worded statement that didn’t say anything about any other form of cricket,” Ammon said.
“There no official ban. He’s eligible to play cricket. He’s been training in the nets at Durham where it’s freezing outside at the moment. He wanted to play some cricket to be ready for England whenever the investigation comes to its conclusion.
“Obviously the police are comfortable with him leaving the country.”
The ECB released a statement on Tuesday, distancing themselves from Stokes’ surprise travel plans.
“The ECB is aware that Ben Stokes is making a private trip to New Zealand to spend time with his family. His travel arrangements have not been arranged by the ECB,” the ECB said.
“He is not on his way to the Ashes, England Lions or any other official training camps with the England set up.”
Stokes will, on Wednesday morning, arrive in Christchurch — where he was born and spent the first 12 years of his life.
England all-rounder Ben Stokes spotted at Heathrow Airport. Source: Supplied
While he is in New Zealand, Stokes could turn out for Canterbury in the country’s first-class competition as early as Sunday.
“NZC has yet to receive a formal request regarding Ben Stokes. However, we understand he and his representatives have been in discussions with Canterbury,” NZC public affairs manager Richard Boock said.
“NZC has an open mind on this issue and will await further information before making a decision.”
Stokes was sorely missed in the first Test and England director of cricket Andrew Strauss said on the weekend that he was no closer to hearing whether his star player will face criminal charges.
The WACA Test begins on December 14. | {
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Vue is a progressive JavaScript framework that focuses on building user interfaces. As it only works in the “view layer” it makes no assumption of middleware and backend and therefore can be integrated easily into other projects and libraries. Vue.js offers a lot of functionality for the view layer and can be used for building powerful single-page webapps. In the following you can find a list of features:
Reactive Interfaces
Declarative Rendering
Data Binding
Directives
Template Logic
Components
Event Handling
Computed Properties
CSS Transitions and Animations
Filters
The Vue.js 2 core library is very small in size (only 17 kB). This ensures that the overhead which is added to your project by using Vue.js is minimal and your website is loading fast.
The Vue.js website is available at: https://vuejs.org/
How to use Vue.js
There are different ways to include Vue.js in your web project:
Use CDN by including <script> tag in HTML file
Install using Node Package Manager (NPM)
Install using Bower
Use Vue-cli to setup your project
In the following we’re going to the Vue-cli to setup a new project and install the Vue.js 2 library.
Using Vue-cli
First, we need to install Vue-cli. The commend line interface is available as an NPM package. Make sure that Node.js and the npm command is available on your system and use the following command to install the Vue CLI globally on your local system:
$ npm install -g vue-cli
Having installed the client successfully the vue command becomes available. Now we’re able to initiate a project by using this command in the following way:
$ vue init webpack vueapp01
We’re telling vue to initiate a new project and use the webpack template. We also give the project the name vueapp01. Executing the command brings up a few questions on the command line as you can see in the following screenshot:
The project is created in the folder vueapp01. Change into that directory with the following command:
$ cd vueapp01
Start installing the dependencies by using npm again:
$ npm install
After having completed the installation of packages you can start the web server in development mode by using npm in the following way:
$ npm run dev
This will start the server on port 8080 and the application output is displayed in the browser automatically:
Later, if you want to build for production you can use the following command instead. In this case a dist folder is created containing the files needed for productive deployment.
$ npm run build
Project Structure
Let’s take a look at the initial project structure which is available in folder vueapp01:
In the project root folder you can find files and folders. Let’s examine the most important ones. The package.json files contains all the dependencies of your project. By using the command npm install before we have made sure that the dependencies listed in package.json are installed into the node_modules folder of the project.
The file index.html contains the following HTML code:
<!DOCTYPE html> <html> <head> <meta charset="utf-8"> <title>vueapp01</title> </head> <body> <div id="app"></div> <!-- built files will be auto injected --> </body> </html>
This file is the starting point of your application. Note that within the body section a <div> element is available which has the id property set to string app. This element is used as a placeholder for the output which is generated by Vue.js.
Next take a look at file main.js in folder src. That’s the place where the Vue application is initialized:
import Vue from 'vue' import App from './App' new Vue({ el: '#app', template: '<App/>', components: { App } })
On top of the file you can find two import statements:
import Vue from 'vue' : Vue is the main class of the framework
: is the main class of the framework import App from './App' : App is the root component of out application
By using the new keyword a new instance of the main framework class Vue is created. The constructor takes an object as a parameter which contains three properties:
el : By assigning the string #app to this property we’re defining that the output of the Vue application should be rendered to the <div id="app"></div > element in index.html .
: By assigning the string to this property we’re defining that the output of the Vue application should be rendered to the > element in . template : The template contains the HTML code which is used to generate the output of the Vue.js application.
: The template contains the HTML code which is used to generate the output of the Vue.js application. components : List of Vue.js components which are used in the template.
The template only consists of one element: <App/> . Of course this is not a standard HTML element. This is the element which is assigned to App component. In order to be able to use <App/> in the template the App component is also listed in the object which is assigned to the components property.
So let’s see what’s inside the App component implementation in file App.vue:
<template> <div id="app"> <img src="./assets/logo.png"> <hello></hello> </div> </template> <script> import Hello from './components/Hello' export default { name: 'app', components: { Hello } } </script> <style> #app { font-family: 'Avenir', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -moz-osx-font-smoothing: grayscale; text-align: center; color: #2c3e50; margin-top: 60px; } </style>
As in every Vue.js 2 single-file component the App implementation is split up into three parts:
<template></template> : Component’s template code
: Component’s template code <script></script> : Component’s script code
: Component’s script code <style></style> : Component’ CSS code
Let’s focus on the the first two sections template and script. The script section is making a default export of an object declaraing the component named app. Again, the components property is used to declare that another component (Hello) is required by App. This subcomponent is used in the template code of app and implemented in file hello.vue in folder components. In order to be able to use the Hello component in App it’s also needed to include the corresponding import statement on top of the script section.
The implementation of component Hello looks like the following:
<template> <div class="hello"> <h1>{{ msg }}</h1> <h2>Essential Links</h2> <ul> <li><a href="https://vuejs.org" target="_blank">Core Docs</a></li> <li><a href="https://forum.vuejs.org" target="_blank">Forum</a></li> <li><a href="https://gitter.im/vuejs/vue" target="_blank">Gitter Chat</a></li> <li><a href="https://twitter.com/vuejs" target="_blank">Twitter</a></li> <br> <li><a href="http://vuejs-templates.github.io/webpack/" target="_blank">Docs for This Template</a></li> </ul> <h2>Ecosystem</h2> <ul> <li><a href="http://router.vuejs.org/" target="_blank">vue-router</a></li> <li><a href="http://vuex.vuejs.org/" target="_blank">vuex</a></li> <li><a href="http://vue-loader.vuejs.org/" target="_blank">vue-loader</a></li> <li><a href="https://github.com/vuejs/awesome-vue" target="_blank">awesome-vue</a></li> </ul> </div> </template> <script> export default { name: 'hello', data () { return { msg: 'Welcome to Your Vue.js App' } } } </script> <!-- Add "scoped" attribute to limit CSS to this component only --> <style scoped> h1, h2 { font-weight: normal; } ul { list-style-type: none; padding: 0; } li { display: inline-block; margin: 0 10px; } a { color: #42b983; } </style>
The component configuration object is exported as default. This time the component configuration object contains a data method. This method returns an object which represents the component’s model. Properties defined in the model object can be used in the component’s template by using the interpolation syntax. In the example from above the model object has only one property: msg. The string which is assigned to this property is included in the component’s template by using:
<h1>{{ msg }}</h1>
The interpolation syntax required double curly braces to include model data in the template.
Using Standard Directives
Let’s adapt the Hello component implementation to learn more about the usage of Vue.js standard directives.
v-for
The v-for directive makes it possible to render an element multiple times based on source data. You can use this directive to iterate over an array and at the array data to the output. First add an array to the object which is returned by the data method:
users: [ {firstname: 'Sebastian', lastname: 'Eschweiler'}, {firstname: 'Bill', lastname: 'Smith'}, {firstname: 'John', lastname: 'Porter'} ],
Then use the v-for directive to include a list in the output printing out the firstname and lastname value of each array element:
<div> <ul> <li v-for="user in users"> {{user.firstname}} {{user.lastname}} </li> </ul> </div>
v-model
The v-model directive creates a two-way binding on an input element or a component. Make sure to define a property in your data object which should be used as the binding target:
input_val: ''
Then use the directive to bind the value of an input element to that property:
<div> <input type="text" v-model="input_val"> </div>
With that binding established we’re getting two effects:
everytime the user enters a value in the input field the value of input_val is updated accordingly
is updated accordingly If we change the value of input_val in our program the value which is displayed in the input element is updated as well
v-text
By using the v-text directive the text content of an element is set. We can use it as an alternative to the {{ … }} syntax if the complete text content should be set. E.g. we can use this directive to output the input_val value to the user:
Input Value: <span v-text="input_val"></span>
Summary
The complete code of the adapted Hello component implementation should now look like the following:
<template> <div class="hello"> <h1>{{ msg }}</h1> <hr /> <div> <ul> <li v-for="user in users"> {{user.firstname}} {{user.lastname}} </li> </ul> </div> <hr /> <div> <input type="text" v-model="input_val"> </div> <div> Input Value: <span v-text="input_val"></span> </div> <hr /> <div> <button class="btn btn-primary" v-on:click="counter++">You've clicked this button {{counter}} times!</button> </div> </div> </template> <script> export default { name: 'hello', data () { return { msg: 'Welcome to Your Vue.js App', users: [ {firstname: 'Sebastian', lastname: 'Eschweiler'}, {firstname: 'Bill', lastname: 'Smith'}, {firstname: 'John', lastname: 'Porter'} ], input_val: '', counter: 0 } } } </script> <!-- Add "scoped" attribute to limit CSS to this component only --> <style scoped> h1, h2 { font-weight: normal; } ul { list-style-position: inside; } a { color: #42b983; } </style>
The result can be seen in the following screenshot: | {
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Liverpool U23s host Tottenham Hotspur at Anfield on Sunday February 5 and tickets are available to purchase in advance.
Kick-off will be at 1pm GMT as the youngsters hope to showcase their talents at the first-team stadium again.
The Kop will be open and tickets will be priced at just £3 for adults and £1 for juniors, young adults and over 65s.
Season ticket holders and members can gain admission free of charge. Members need to secure their ticket in advance online or from the ticket office. Season ticket holders and non-Members must purchase their tickets from the ticket office.
Disabled and ambulant tickets can be purchased from the ticket office or by calling 0151 264 2500. | {
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As summer ramps up in the northern hemisphere, so do rates of bikini sightings. The skimpy bikini is a summer staple, the suit of choice for many women. And today, it turns 67 years old.
Related Content The Crazy Story of the 1946 Bikini Atoll Nuclear Tests
The name bikini was coined by Louis Reard, and it actually refers to Bikini Atoll, where atomic bomb testing took place. He chose the name because he hoped that the raunchy two-piece would elicit the same shock and horror that the atomic bomb did. Reard’s bikini rival, Jacques Heim, a fashion designer, was also designing a tiny suit; he wanted to name it “Atome,” in honor of the recently discovered atom. Seriously.
As we know now, Reard won out, but not before Heim bought a skywriter to announce that “the world’s smallest bathing suit” was now on sale. Reard’s version was actually much smaller, made of just 30 inches of fabric. In fact, it was so small that Reard had trouble finding anybody to model it. History.com says that he had to hire an exotic dancer named Micheline Bernardini who worked at the Casino de Paris to don the suit. Reard knew that the bikini would be a splash, so the first version that Micheline Bernardini wore had newspaper type printed on it—he was that sure his invention would make headlines. It did, and legend has it that he received 50,000 fan letters—mostly from men.
On July 5th, 1946, the bikini hit the shelves. In the Mediterranean, women quickly snatched up the suits. One year later it was introduced to the United States. Random History says that the bikini wasn’t an immediate success:
While consumers were certainly curious about the scandalously small amount of fabric that comprised the bikini, initial sales of the swimsuit were slow. Many Americans were shocked by its scantiness, and the bikini was even outlawed as a form of public attire in many U.S. cities (Alac 2001). It would be nearly 20 years, at the dawning of the sexual and moral revolution in the late 1960s, before American women truly embraced the bikini. But after that, there would be no turning back. American women–and men–began a love affair with the bikini that has lasted to this day.
Of course, like everything, the bikini was invented in Rome first. Illustrations from the 4th century in Rome show women wearing two piece athletic garments as early as 1400 B.C. So technically today is something like the 1700th anniversary of the bikini. But the Romans certainly didn’t have Reard’s gift for salesmanship. In the 1950s, he put out advertisements saying that it wasn’t a true bikini “unless it could be pulled through a wedding ring.” In the 1960′s, pop singer Brian Hyland immortalized the suit in song, and today they appear as soon as the weather heats up.
More from Smithsonian.com:
How Bathing Suits Went From Two-pieces to Long Gowns and Back
The Bra Is 500 Years Older Than We Thought | {
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Buy now from OnePlus
2016 saw an interesting shift in OnePlus‘ smartphone strategy, in that the company chose to release a follow-up to the OnePlus 3, the OnePlus 3T, a mere six months after the former. It was an iterative update, for sure, but an iterative update to arguably the most popular OnePlus smartphone since the original OnePlus One would be a beloved one regardless.
Fast forward to 2017, and OnePlus is adopting the same strategy by announcing the OnePlus 5T, the iterative successor to the OnePlus 5 released back in June. The OnePlus 5T has all the makings to go up against the best of them, such as a stretched-out display, facial recognition, and a new camera system, all in a package that promises to deliver a similar experience to that of a high-tier smartphone for a little over half the price.
Here’s what you need to know about the OnePlus 5T.
It’s all about that screen
The first thing that people will notice regarding the OnePlus 5T is that new 18:9 aspect ratio display, which takes up most of the phone’s front. The new aspect ratio better guards the OnePlus 5T against its higher-priced competitors, which mostly feature stretched-out displays of their own, and it gives people more display area to work with while not increasing the footprint of the phone by much.
That being said, the taller display will make it tougher for folks looking for a one-handed experience with their smartphones. OnePlus also continues to insist on using a 1080p resolution for the display, which will grate those spoiled by Quad HD displays and those who like to consume content in VR.
The counter is that a 1080p screen won’t make the processor work as hard as a Quad HD panel, which should result in the former exhibiting better battery life by comparison. The debate will continue onward, but with most mid-tier smartphones now featuring 1080p resolution displays, OnePlus might do well to open up to Quad HD.
The specs are mostly the same as the OnePlus 5’s
Thankfully, the OnePlus 5T’s changes are backed up by the same internals that made the OnePlus 5 an all-around solid performer. We’re looking at Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 835 paired with either 6 GB or 8 GB of RAM, with either 64 GB or 128 GB of native storage. Remember that there is no microSD card slot, so choose your storage configuration wisely.
OnePlus has retained the headphone jack for the OnePlus 5T, as well as the company’s proprietary Dash Charge technology that allows the phone to charge up the 3,300 mAh battery in a relatively short amount of time.
Read: Full OnePlus 5T specs
The fingerprint sensor is on the back now
The OnePlus 5T’s stretched-out display might give the phone a solid aesthetic on the front, but it forced the fingerprint sensor to be moved to the back. This is a first for any OnePlus smartphone, which, apart from the OnePlus One and OnePlus X, have featured fingerprint sensors below the display. The shift to the back allows OnePlus to incorporate gesture control, such as swiping to bring down the notification and quick settings dropdown and holding it to trigger the camera shutter when taking a selfie. Because the ceramic fingerprint sensor is located where your index finger might naturally rest anyway, these gestures feel intuitive and goes a long way to smoothing out the transition to a larger display.
You can unlock it with your face
Not only is the 16 MP front-facing shooter pretty weighty in the megapixel department, but OnePlus says it can also recognize your face, even when the display is off. This means that all you need to do is hit the power button and the OnePlus 5T should take you straight to the homescreen.
Interestingly, OnePlus stresses that this method of getting into your phone is less secure than the other available security options, so keep that in mind if you are skeptical about facial recognition security on smartphones. Even so, with the Galaxy S8 and iPhone X featuring their own takes on iris and facial recognition, the input method is bound to increase in popularity as time passes, so in that aspect, the OnePlus 5T is well-positioned for the future.
No more telephoto lens
The OnePlus 5T’s face scanner and 18:9 aspect ratio display are nice to see, but arguably the most significant change is the new camera system. Whereas the OnePlus 5 used the second main camera as a telephoto lens, the OnePlus 5T implements something OnePlus calls “Intelligent Pixel Technology.”
In short, when taking low-light shots with the regular 16 MP camera, the secondary 20 MP camera is used to group pixels together in order for the original sensor to capture enough light and dark data. The result should be cleaner low-light shots, but the change also means that the secondary camera is no longer used for zoom and portrait images – they are now achieved through software.
There’s still no water resistance rating
Most flagship smartphones in 2017 come with some form of ingress protection. Google, HTC, LG, Samsung, and others all have IP67- or 68-rated smartphones, but unfortunately that’s not the case for OnePlus. Obviously including an IP rating on the 5T would have hiked the price up even more, but it still would have been nice to see this time around.
The OnePlus 5T doesn’t even feature splash resistance, so those looking to not worry about using their phones in the rain, while taking a shower, or while sitting by the pool might either look elsewhere or pick up a case.
It’s running Android Nougat
Unlike Google’s latest Pixel phones and even Sony’s Xperia XZ1 and XZ1 Compact, the OnePlus 5T does not ship with Android 8.0 Oreo out of the box. Instead, we get a subtly-improved version of OxygenOS on top of Android 7.0 Nougat.
The changes OnePlus made to OxygenOS are welcome, such as its scalable Slate font to improve the viewing experience. It’s also nice to see display options like Night Mode and Reading Mode brought over from the OnePlus 5, and, combined with OxygenOS’ powerful underlays and outer simplicity, OnePlus has done a great job in further refining its take on Android.
Even so, the sting of an older Android version running the show is strongly felt. Oreo has been available to the public since late August, and to see a new phone released in November with Android Nougat is a bit depressing. Also worrisome is OnePlus’ software support, with the OnePlus 3T, a phone released last November, no longer receiving major Android updates past Oreo.
The OnePlus 5T should get updated to Oreo by year’s end, if OnePlus’ track record is anything to go by, but there is cause for a bit of concern for those who prioritize Android updates.
You can buy it soon
You can pre-order the OnePlus 5T through OnePlus’ official website starting 9am EST for either $499 with 6 GB of RAM and 64 GB of storage or $559 for 8 GB of RAM and 128 GB of storage. There are no carrier deals for the OnePlus 5T in the US, though you can opt to pay for the phone over time if you opt for PayPal Credit as your payment option.
Buy now from OnePlus
As for elsewhere, the phone will be available for pre-order through O2 in the UK, Three in Denmark, and Elisa in Finland starting today. For the US and Europe, the OnePlus 5T goes on sale November 21, with India and China needing to wait until November 21 and November 28, respectively.
Diving deeper
Want to learn more about the OnePlus 5T? Check out our related coverage below:
The full list of OnePlus 5T specs – There are quite a few specs we didn’t mention in this article, so you’ll want to head here for the full list.
OnePlus 5T pricing and availability – We’ll continually update this page as more deals and pricing information arises.
OnePlus 5T hands-on – Take a closer look at OnePlus’ latest flagship smartphone.
So there you have it, the OnePlus 5T. Thoughts? Is this going to be your next phone, or are you waiting until next year’s flagship from OnePlus? Let us know in the comments. | {
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Vaden Earle first met Mari-Thérèse Pierre, a Haitian refugee, in the Dominican Republic in 2005 when he was on a humanitarian mission with a youth group he founded in Canada.
The Hamilton man would see the woman with her newborn child, Widlene, scavenging for food around a giant dump site near Puerto Plata and would often chat with her.
One day in 2009, the mother and girl disappeared, and he learned that Pierre had died and the child was sent back to Haiti to live with a relative. Worried about the well-being of the girl, Earle and his wife set out to find her. They eventually tracked her down in Haiti and have been her primary care providers ever since.
Eight years after Earle and his wife initiated Widlene’s adoption — and after a series of mishaps — the now 12-year-old is stranded and stateless in the Dominican Republic, waiting to come to Canada with her adoptive parents. To do that, the couple is asking for co-operation from immigration officials.
“It has been a nightmare in a perfect storm. It’s just unbelievable,” said Earle, 42, who moved to the Caribbean country in 2009 to look after Widlene full-time, while his wife, Christl, travels monthly from Toronto to see her family.
Earle, who quit his position as CEO of the youth group Live Different and now runs a car rental business and café in Puerto Plata, said he and his wife were drawn to Widlene partly by their belief in empowering youth for social change.
“Widlene just finished Grade 6 (at a private school). She is an avid soccer player and loves watching hockey. She is a big Edmonton Oilers fan,” said Earle. “She wants to become a pediatrician and work in developing countries.”
It’s a future that would not have been imaginable when Earle first found Widlene in Gonaïves, in northern Haiti, where she was on the verge of being sold as a child domestic worker in 2009.
He and his wife, who have no children of their own, applied to Haitian authorities for Widlene’s guardianship in order to bring the girl home to formalize the adoption in Canada. They completed a government assessment in Ontario of their skills and talents as potential parents.
Then the 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck Port-au-Prince in January 2010, causing widespread devastation — and destroying all the documents necessary for Widlene’s adoption, including proof of her mother’s death and the signed consent of her biological father, whose whereabouts are still unknown.
The couple then attempted to carry out the adoption in Haiti, but in 2013, the Haitian government suddenly put a moratorium on international adoptions.
In 2015 the family encountered yet another hurdle when a new law was enacted that revoked Haitian citizenship for anyone born outside Haiti, even to Haitian parents.
Earle said Widlene subsequently had her Haitian passport and citizenship stripped, and became stateless in the Dominican Republic, because that country does not grant citizenship by birth on its soil.
“As a Haitian, she is living in a country where Haitians are not welcomed and are targets for exploitation, racism and deportation,” said Earle. “As a Dominican-born child, Haiti refuses to recognize her as a citizen. Today, we, as Canadian citizens, are effectively exiled from Canada by virtue of our decision to save the life of a child.”
Being stateless, Widlene does not have a valid travel document.
The family’s Toronto lawyer, Chantal Desloges, has asked immigration officials to issue a temporary resident permit to let Widlene into Canada so the couple can complete the adoption — and the immigration process — in this country.
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Immigration officials have yet to decide on the matter. They say they’ve been responding to correspondence from Earle since September 2016.
“We understand the rules are there, but this is a humanitarian case. We need the exceptional discretion applied in this case,” said Desloges, adding that the permit, unlike a tourist visa, is designed for the entry of an otherwise inadmissible foreigner because of “compelling needs.”
Read more about: | {
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If I was a conspiracy theorist, I'd say that MSNBC is doing their best to kill Chris Hayes' and Rachel Maddow's ratings, interrupting their shows night after night for live airings of Donald Trump's repetitive speeches.
If you'd like to contact MSNBC and tell them to please stop giving Donald Trump free time to pollute our airways night after night, here's the page with that information: http://www.nbcnews.com/contact.
Real Time's Bill Maher made an appearance this Tuesday on MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews, and when the topic of Trump being given so much coverage came up, Maher let them have it: On MSNBC, Bill Maher Calls Out MSNBC’s Coverage of Trump’s ‘Rambling Brainfarts’:
When Matthews asked for his thoughts about how Trump could be pulling in the crowds and the poll numbers that he does, Maher’s said the reason was that when it comes to how much live coverage the media gives the plutocrat, MSNBC needs only to look in a mirror. “Why cover it, like he’s Churchill giving an important speech? Have you listened to these speeches?” Maher asked. “Trump is always saying other countries are laughing at us. This is why they’re laughing at us, because of what he says and how we are taking it seriously.” Maher also brought up Trump’s attacks on his rivals for using teleprompters, saying that though people have been responding to his speeches, Maher described them as “brain fart, stream of conscious ramblings.” Matthews responded that network news keeps Trump on in order to see how long he’ll last, to which, Maher supposed Trump could go on repeating the same points forever. “He’s already repeating his material. He says this stuff in every speech,” Maher said. He finished the conversation by acknowledging also how, whether Trump is giving speeches or taking questions, he either disregards evidence contrary to his views, or promises “something terrific.”
Maher also blasted Matthews for their continual scandal mongering over Hillary Clinton's emails and said she can't win for losing when it comes to yielding to the demands of the Republicans, and the media for that matter. | {
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[Updated with Intel comment Wednesday 11:30 p.m. Pacific Time]
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As of now Apple plans to release a 5G iPhone in 2020. But an increasingly stormy relationship with its 5G modem supplier Intel could prevent that from happening. After a gargantuan effort, Intel managed to get its modem chips into some iPhone 7 units, and was the sole modem provider for last year’s iPhone XS, XS Plus, and XR. The chip giant was to be the sole provider of the 5G modems in the 2020 iPhones, too, but it has been missing deadlines for the development of the chip, the XMM 8160 5G modem, a source with knowledge of the situation says. In order to deliver big numbers of those modems in time for a September 2020 iPhone launch, Intel needs to deliver sample parts to Apple by early summer of this year, and then deliver a finished modem design in early 2020. Intel said in November that it expected to ship the 8160 5G modem in the second half of 2019. The company, responding to this story, pointed me to that same statement. “As we said in November 2018, Intel plans to support customer device launches in 2020 with its XMM 8160 5G multimode modem,” a company representative said in an email late Wednesday. But Apple has lost confidence in Intel to deliver the chip, our source says. Difficult client From the Intel side, the job of managing the Apple relationship has been a difficult one–the role has already seen at least three project managers, our source says.
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Apple is a famously demanding client. Its continued modem orders have always been conditional on Intel’s ability to keep up with development and fabrication deadlines. Apple also negotiated an attractive price for models that leaves Intel making relatively little profit. Meanwhile, Apple–because it’s Apple–demands to be prioritized above all other Intel customers. So why did Intel bend over backwards to wrest the Apple modem business away from Qualcomm? It’s mostly chip-making economics. Intel’s chip fabricating platforms are extremely expensive to build. The company used a 14 nanometer process for the 7560 modems used in the 2018 iPhones, but it now must move to a 10nm process and then a 7nm process to keep up with competitors such as TSMC. The Apple business was attractive to Intel because it was a chance to keep its fab busy with huge orders of parts that are all the same and therefore cost-efficient to produce in volume. But the Apple business can also hurt Intel. Because Apple demands that its orders be first in line for Intel’s fab, Intel is forced to lower the priority of higher-margin chip orders, such as chips for data center servers. Intel, our source says, has been internally conflicted over the Apple business. Intel’s new CEO, Robert Swan, is a relative outsider who only joined Intel in 2016 as its chief financial officer. Coming from that background, Swan may take a practical view of the Apple project and ask why the company shouldn’t focus on more profitable business lines in more familiar categories. Change in the wind Meanwhile Apple appears to be readying itself to design its own modem chips. The company now has a team of between 1000 and 1200 engineers working on the modem chips for future iPhones, our source says. Apple has recruited RF engineers from both Intel and Qualcomm to work in a new development facility in San Diego, our source says, and the development operation has been ramping up quickly. It is possible that future iPhone modem chips could be designed at that facility by Apple employees, and then fabricated by TSMC or Samsung. But that effort is likely about iPhones for 2021 and beyond. For 2020, none of Apple’s options look ideal. “We do not believe [Intel] will be ready with a single chip backward compatible 5G modem, while others like Samsung/Mediatek are unlikely solutions either technically (Mediatek) or practically (Samsung),” writes UBS analyst Timothy Arcuri in a research note on Wednesday. As a matter of fact, Apple has recently held talks with both Samsung and Mediatek about supplying modem chips in the near term, our source says. Samsung wants to sell its 5G modem for use in non-Samsung phones. But our source agrees with Arcuri that neither Samsung nor Mediatek is likely to be in a position to supply the modems for a 5G iPhone in 2020. Which means that for the 2020 5G iPhone, at least, it’s likely Intel or bust for Apple.
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Our source says that it would make the most business sense for Apple to go back to Qualcomm for its 5G modem chips. But the legal dispute between those two companies has gotten personal, and egos are involved, so the companies collaborating on 5G by 2020 seems unlikely. Apple didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. | {
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Lover it or hate it, Android 10 is a big improvement over Android 9 Pie. Based on previous versions, most flagships released in the last two years will get Android 10, but the question is when. So while you wait for those cool new gestures, how about I show you an app that gives you a nearly identical experience? There are several third-party apps on the Play Store for this, but the one I found to have the best balance of control and consistency is Fluid Navigation Gestures. You can customize it to be exactly like Android 10 or a little different. For now, let me show you how to get it configured for the same performance as stock Android. Don't Miss: All the New Features & Changes in Android 10
Step 1: Install Fluid Navigation Gestures As I mentioned, Fluid Navigation Gestures (FNG) is one of the best gesture control apps on the Play Store. Not only does it work very well, but it is also free to use with a premium version for even more features. However, for what we are trying to accomplish, you won't need to pay a cent. Play Store Link: Fluid Navigation Gestures (free)
Step 2: Turn on Fluid Navigation Gestures Open FNG and when you arrive at the main page, select "Enabled." You'll be taken to a page with two permissions. Select each one to be redirected to the corresponding menu where you will need to tap the toggle to enable it. Once you've enabled both toggles, return to main page and select "Enable" again to turn on Fluid Navigation Gestures.
Step 3: Customize to Mimic Android 10's Gestures Select "Bottom edge" on the main page to be redirected to its customization options. Right above the navigation bar are three blue rectangles with gear icons above them. The blue zone represents the area where you will perform the gesture, and the gear icon is where you can customize what each swipe activates when performed in the blue region. Select the center area's gear icon (labeled Action #2). Choose "Quick swipe" and select "Home" from the list. Then choose "Swipe & hold" and select "Recent apps." Touch outside of the prompt to return to the bottom edge's settings page. Do exactly the same thing with the left and right areas. Now, return to the main page and select "Left edge." Tap the gear icon over the blue area and choose "Swipe & hold." Select "None" from the list. If for some reason it wasn't set by default, choose "Quick swipe" and select "Back." Return to the left edge's settings menu and select "swipe up" under Additional Gestures. Choose Assistant from the list. Finally, I recommend raising the "Sensitivity" if you are using a phone with a curved display. Return to the main page, choose "Right edge," and repeat the same steps as the "Left edge." Once completed, all the Android 10 gestures are in place. We only need to do one more thing.
Step 4: Prepare Your Computer & Phone for ADB Commands For not only the same gestures as Android 10 but a similar look, we need to hide the navigation bar. While we can accomplish this a number of ways, the best method is to use ADB commands, which means you'll need a computer and a USB cable. When you're ready, follow our guide linked out below for help installing ADB and establishing communication between your phone and your computer. Once you have established a connection and have Command Prompt or Terminal open, advance to Step 5. More Info: How to Install ADB on Your Windows, Mac, or Linux Computer
Step 5: Open a Command Window in the Right Directory Once you have ADB installed on your computer, you will need to open either Command Prompt (Windows) or Terminal (macOS or Linux) and point it to the right directory to send ADB commands. The prompt is the same on all three operating systems. Input the following: cd Hit the space bar after typing "cd," then drag the platform-tools folder you downloaded in Step 4 from your computer's file browser (e.g., Windows Explorer) to the Command Prompt or Terminal window. This will auto-populate the folder's location. Press enter and your Command Prompt or Terminal will be redirected to this folder where you can now send ADB commands.
Step 6: Hide the Navigation Bar with ADB With your phone connected to your computer, input the following code into Command Prompt or Terminal: adb shell pm grant com.fb.fluid android.permission.WRITE_SECURE_SETTINGS If that returns an error, use this command instead: ./adb shell pm grant com.fb.fluid android.permission.WRITE_SECURE_SETTINGS Return to Fluid Navigation Gestures' main page and select "Hide navigation bar." You will be presented with two options: 3-button navigation and One UI full-screen gestures. From my testing, it works the best when used to hide 3-button navigation, even when using a Samsung device running One UI. Make sure to enable 3-button navigation on your device, then choose this option, which if you did everything correctly, will place a blue checkmark next to the option. And now your phone works just like Android 10. The way to tell the difference is the lack of the small white line along the bottom in Android 10's full-screen gestures, but in my opinion, that's even better. Don't Miss: How To Make Android 10's Dark Mode Turn on Automatically at Night — No Root Needed
Keep Your Connection Secure Without a Monthly Bill. Get a lifetime subscription to VPN Unlimited for all your devices with a one-time purchase from the new Gadget Hacks Shop, and watch Hulu or Netflix without regional restrictions. Buy Now (80% off) > | {
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You all remember the debacle when Todd Stiefel (along with the Foundation Beyond Belief) wanted to help raise up to $500,000 for the American Cancer Society?
In short, the ACS said they wanted nothing to do with atheist-tainted money.
Alright, fine. If the ACS doesn’t want the money, there’s no shortage of important causes and good organizations who would love to have our support. And if the ACS suffers as a result, I hope other, more welcoming cancer-fighting organizations step into the void.
Incidentally, I just got an email the other day that said this:
I’ve been a cancer survivor and supporter of the ACS for over ten years now. I’ve been an atheist for even longer and chose not to donate to the ACS rep that called this morning as a result of their attitude toward the FBB.
Anyway… enough about the ACS.
After exploring a lot of options and having many conversations, we think we’ve found one that’s worthy of your attention and deserving of our support.
The Foundation Beyond Belief is proud to announce that we would like to raise $1,000,000 for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society!
Our goal is to unite the Freethought Movement around the world to raise one million U.S. Dollars in 2012. This would make the FBB team the first team in LLS history to bring in more than $1,000,000 in their first year! In addition, we hope to have at least 100 local FBB teams in our first year.
How will we do it?
Every year, the LLS sponsors an event called Light the Night — an evening 2-3 mile walk taking place in the fall. Hundreds of these events take place nationwide and the Foundation Beyond Belief hopes to bring together many local teams. Your local team will be able to join up as an “FBB team” and our fundraising will all be pooled together. Unlike the ACS, the LLS includes us as a “Special Friend,” allowing teams to register under our label.
Each person who registers as a fundraiser with the FBB team receives their own online fundraising page whether they walk in a local LTN event or live on the other side of the world and want to help as a “virtual walker.” Donations will provide lifesaving blood cancer research, free educational materials and events for patients and families, local programs, such as Family Support Groups and the Patti Robinson Kaufmann First Connection program, a peer-to-peer counseling program, and comprehensive, personalized assistance through the LLS Information Resource Center.
Philanthropist Todd Stiefel and his family have promised to match all fundraising up to $500,000! So if we can get halfway there, the Stiefels will take us the rest of the way home. This is an achievable goal and it would be the epitome of humanism in action. No god required. It’s people helping other people via science. Beautiful.
In case you need more of an incentive, the FBB will be walking in honor of Christopher Hitchens:
We have chosen Christopher Hitchens as our Honored Hero for 2012. Hitch died from complications due to esophogeal cancer this past year and devoted so much to our movement during his life; now we can give something back in his memory. Although he did not have a blood cancer, drugs developed for blood cancers are often used to treat other cancers as well. As a result, the research that is funded by LLS could very well help treat esophogeal and other cancers.
How can you help?
Start a local team! All the instructions are here — just be sure to put “FBB” at the end of your group’s name so we can track you.
Join a local team. I started one in Chicago, so if you’re in the area, please consider joining it!
Live outside the U.S. and Canada? No problem. Join the virtual team!
Just donate. You won’t even have to get out of your seat!
There’s even more incentive for joining up with a local team (hello, Chicagoans…): The top local teams will have the opportunity to direct up to $5,000 worth of grants! — half will go to a local 501(c)(3) freethought group and half will go to a FBB ally group (listed at the bottom of this page). Student groups are also in the running for $1000 grant of their own!
…
If you still have questions about all this, there’s an FAQ here.
I hope you’ll consider putting this event into your schedule and raising money for this good cause. Think of how wonderful it would be if atheists could raise $1,000,000 for cancer research — the fact that we’d be doing it as a large community makes this even sweeter.
This is going to be huge and we want you to be a part of it.
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DKNG Studios, which is made up of Dan Kuhlken & Nathan Goldman, has done 50 different illustrations representing pop culture icons. It’s featuring 50 of their new pop culture film and television show screen prints. The show opened on June 14th, 2014 and will remain on display until July 5th.
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On tonight’s episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race, the top 9 queens are tasked with an acting challenge that takes them all the way back to the 1990s: a drag-ified parody of the seminal teen series Beverly Hills, 90210. Original 90210 stars Tori Spelling and Jennie Garth are brought on to both coach and later judge the queens, who get cast as thinly-veiled versions of the 90210 characters: the bitchy brunette, the popular blonde with diet-pill (and mommy) issues, the salty old diner owner, et cetera.
In this EXCLUSIVE preview clip from the episode, the queens get to re-enact one of 90210‘s signature moments: the high-schoolers’ protest to get Donna Martin to graduate after she got suspended for getting plastered at prom. Tori Spelling’s apex of global relevance gets the treatment it has always deserved: to be performed by drag queens wearing VERY loud ’90s neon. In the Drag Race version, it’s resident beauty Valentina playing boozed-up virgin “Monna Dartin,” while Peppermint plays a kind of Janet Jackson-inspired Brandon Walsh, and Shea Coulee is given the Andrea Zuckerman role … conceived as an old lady trying to hide both her age and her pregnancy. Folks, it’s wild.
Come for Valentina doing some of the finest drunk work since Meg Ryan in When a Man Loves a Woman; stay for Shea grinding it all the way down to the ground in old-lady drag.
Last week, Cynthia Lee Fontaine was sent sashaying away after a Snatch Game where she couldn’t wring enough funny out of a Sofia Vergara impersonation. You can check out our interview with Cynthia right here. And come back to Decider after tonight’s episode for an interview with this week’s eliminated queen.
RuPaul’s Drag Race airs tonight at 8pm ET on VH1.
Where to stream RuPaul's Drag Race | {
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In Nordrhein-Westfalen ist eine Halle mit 100 Elektrorollern abgebrannt. Die Ursache war anscheinend die Selbstentzündung der Akkus.
Die Brandermittler gehen von einer Selbstentzündung der Lithium-Ionen-Batterien aus. (Symbolbild) Bild: dpa
Anscheinend wegen einer Selbstentzündung der Akkus ist im niederrheinischen Willich eine Lagerhalle mit 100 Elektrorollern abgebrannt. Das hat die Polizei am Mittwoch in Viersen mitgeteilt. Die Brandermittler fanden keine Hinweise auf eine Straftat und gehen von einer Selbstentzündung der Lithium-Ionen-Batterien aus.
Die Halle konnte wegen Einsturzgefahr zunächst nicht betreten werden. Sie stand bereits voll in Flammen, als die Feuerwehr eintraf. 70 Rettungskräfte waren an dem Einsatz beteiligt. Eine Schadenshöhe wurde nicht genannt. | {
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A “Mini” Pearl near the Alamodome?
Posted: 2-11-2016, 12:40 p.m.
by Adolfo Pesquera
San Antonio (Bexar Co.) – The East Side has been experiencing a modest real estate revival, but nothing in the private sector seen to date compares to one developer’s plans to construct a Pearl type mixed use community about five blocks south of the Alamodome.
The 7.7-acre site, an area about half the size of the Pearl complex, has been overlooked by other developers for decades. One landowner that has been in talks with the developer said this is the first time anyone has shown interest in the neighborhood.
The site being eyed for an urban revival is zoned industrial, but the Planning Commission recently approved a land use change to mixed use in order to pave the way for a zoning change. It is an asymmetrically configured acquisition that roughly equates to about two city blocks.
The site enjoys numerous advantages that make it ideal for an urban infill project. It is just a block away from Interstate 37’s Carolina Street exit, making it convenient for future commuters traveling to and from what promises to become a high density rental community. It is about six blocks east of Brackenridge High School and walking distance from the Alamodome.
Efraim Varga, the developer and head of Varga Endeavors, told VBX he envisions a city block with retail and restaurant enterprises at street level and rental units above. Structures throughout the property would be three and five stories in height, he said.
“It’s going to be something like the Pearl, but I think it’s going to be a little bit cooler,” Varga said.
The Pearl is known for its historic buildings and the great lengths to which Silver Ventures went to find adaptive reuses during their restorations. The site Varga is targeting does not have such a heritage, therefore he would be free to come up with a 21st century concept. The development would be “like the Pearl” only in the sense that it would be a hip and walkable urban town center for residents, shoppers and after-hours patrons to whatever nightlife appears.
Varga is making a name for himself as a developer of modern multifamily infill developments. He has three such projects underway in the Southtown area, but none of them include a retail component. These include The Park at Lonestar, 519 Roosevelt Avenue; Sunglo Urban Homes, 1519 S. Presa St.; and Lotus Urban Homes, 1603 S. Presa St.
Sprinkle & Co. Architects have been designing Varga’s communities and Sprinkle has built a reputation, according to their website, for combining minimalist compositions with an inventive use of materials, “creating purposefully anti-heroic constructions.”
Sprinkle designed the Cypress Campus Student Center for Alamo Colleges, the Henry A. Guerra Jr. Branch Library, and the SAHA Medical Facility.
It bears repeating that most of the site, if not all, is free of buildings with any architectural or historical significance. Varga hopes to demolish every structure–there are about 14–in order to start with a clean slate. There may be one glitch in that plan, a two-story office building at 604 Carolina Street that was built in 1945, according to Bexar County Appraisal District records.
The office building appears to be architecturally unique to its period, but it is not a designated historically significant structure, according to the Office of Historic Preservation. In any case, that will get sorted out through OHP channels should Varga seek a demolition permit.
Varga has the site under contract and anticipates closing on the properties during the month of April. He said plans are to have architectural plans complete by the end of the year and he would like to begin construction in the first quarter of 2017. Varga acts as his own general contractor. He works with Big Red Dog on the civil engineering.
The project has caused a lot of buzz among neighboring landowners. City planner Mary Moralez-Gonzales approached Varga after the Wednesday Planning Commission meeting. She is responsible for notifying neighbors of a zoning change; she said neighbors are excited that such a project is being planned, and some were wondering if their properties might be wanted for future development.
This industrial park is surrounded by more aged industrial properties to the south, west and partially to the north. To the east and partially to the north, it is adjacent to Denver Heights, a very old neighborhood in terms of housing stock. Most of the homes were built between 1910 and 1950 and are in poor to fair condition.
Varga expressed an openness to the idea of future land buys. Maybe the project will grow?
Staff comments from Development Services Department:
“The applicant requests this Plan Amendment and associated zoning change in order to rezone to … Infill Development Zone Airport Hazard Overlay District with uses permitted in ‘C-2,’ Commercial, Multi-family Residential Uses not to exceed 100 units per acre, bar, micro-brewery, beer garden and hotel. The requested mixed use classification supports the Arena District/Eastside Community Plan objectives of establishing land use patterns that are responsive to the existing land uses and provides the necessary improvements to enable infill development and redevelopment.”
[email protected] | {
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FALMOUTH — An East Falmouth woman pleaded not guilty Wednesday in Falmouth District Court to charges she confronted a man wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat in a Mexican restaurant, according to court and police records.
Rosiane Santos, 41, was released on her own recognizance on charges of disorderly conduct and assault and battery, according to court documents.
At around 8 p.m. Friday, Falmouth police were called to Casa Vallarta, a Mexican restaurant on Davis Straits Road, where a man said he was minding his own business when Santos began to verbally assault him because of his hat, which is associated with President Donald Trump. The man pulled out his phone to record the incident, according to the police report. In the video Santos is seen walking behind him and hitting the hat off his head, the report says.
After police asked Santos why she was behaving this way, she referred to the man with an expletive and said he should not be allowed to eat in a Mexican restaurant, the report says. Santos showed signs of intoxication, the report says.
A police officer helped Santos leave the restaurant, but while walking past the man she had allegedly assaulted earlier, she hit him over the head again, the report says.
She was then handcuffed and arrested.
Santos is scheduled to return to court for a pretrial hearing March 20. | {
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The ABC presenter Leigh Sales has said she was offended and angered after a man who introduced her at a charity ball she was hosting on Saturday night kissed her on the lips in front of 200 people attending the black tie dinner.
She was introduced by a director of the multiple sclerosis charity, retired businessman Phil Newman, who offered his cheek for Sales to peck and then turned his head suddenly and planted an unwanted kiss on her lips.
Sales was so taken aback she screamed and then approached the microphone and said “hashtag me too”, before composing herself and continuing to host the $250-a-head dinner at the Hilton Hotel in Sydney.
“The only reason I am commenting publicly is that given how many people witnessed the incident, I feel it would be gutless not to stand up and say that kind of behaviour is intolerable and the time for women being subject to it or having to tolerate it is long gone,” she told Guardian Australia.
It took place in front of the head of the Australian War Memorial, the former Liberal minister Brendan Nelson, and the former premier of New South Wales Barry O’Farrell, who are joint patrons of the Trish Multiple Sclerosis Research Foundation, as well as the Liberal member for Bennelong, John Alexander.
There was an audible gasp in the room.
Newman subsequently approached Sales’s table and offered his cheek to her again, at which she angrily told him off.
Newman claimed it was a joke and apologised.
“The Trish Foundation for MS Research is an amazing charity and my association goes back years,” Sales said.
“I could not have more respect for what they do. I was offended and angered by the incident on Saturday night. I had strong words to the man involved, he apologised and I accepted that apology. That should be the end of it as far as I’m concerned.”
Newman said he was “horrified” when he realised he had offended Sales.
“I apologised on the night profusely and she accepted,” he said. “It was an attempt at humour and light entertainment to start the night off.
“I am upset my judgment wasn’t better. I am embarrassed I brought any disrespect on the foundation and on Leigh.”
The chair of the Trish Foundation, Carol Langsford, also apologised to Sales.
“We are incredibly honoured that Leigh gives her valuable time and great professional skills to the Trish MS Research Foundation year after year,” Langsford told Guardian Australia.
“We are terribly upset that Leigh was embarrassed by one of our volunteers and of course, our volunteer and the Trish Foundation apologise sincerely and unreservedly.”
Sales has hosted the event for the past four years. | {
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My friend Penny Nel, a voraciously intelligent reader, writer, pianist, mom, grandmother and really good girlfriend, sent me the following missive this morning. And, being the good girlfriend I am, I had to pay it forward :).
A thought to share…and sooooo true…
I’d just finished taking an evening class at Stanford. The last lecture was on the mind-body connection – the relationship between stress and disease. The speaker (head of psychiatry at Stanford) said, among other things, that one of the best things that a man could do for his health is to be married to a woman, whereas for a woman, one of the best things she could do for her health was to nurture her relationships with her girlfriends. At first everyone laughed, but he was serious.
Women connect with each other differently and provide support systems that help each other to deal with stress and difficult life experiences. Physically this quality “girlfriend time” helps us to create more serotonin – a neurotransmitter that helps combat depression and can create a general feeling of well being. Women share feelings whereas men often form relationships around activities. They rarely sit down with a buddy and talk about how they feel about certain things or how their personal lives are going. Jobs? Yes. Sports? Yes. Cars? Yes. Fishing, hunting, golf? Yes. But their feelings? – rarely. Women do it all of the time. We share from our souls with our mothers / sisters / friends, and evidently that is very good for our health. He said that spending time with a friend is just as important to our general health as jogging or working out at a gym.
There’s a tendency to think that when we are “exercising” we are doing something good for our bodies, but when we are hanging out with friends, we are wasting our time and should be more productively engaged — not true. In fact, he said that failure to create and maintain quality personal relationships with other humans is as dangerous to our physical health as smoking! So every time you hang out to schmooze with a gal pal, just pat yourself on the back and congratulate yourself for doing something good for your health! We are indeed very, very lucky. Sooooo let’s celebrate friendships with our girlfriends. Evidently it’s very good for our health.”
Waka Waka! | {
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TNGHT
Scotland’s wunderkind Hudson Mohawke and Canada’s Lunice managed an incredible feat in 2012: the electronic producers, who have both been making waves for a few years now, got together and created a handful of productions that tapped into a moment shared by both the UK and US club scenes. From their instrumental hip hop and glitchy bass backgrounds, they managed to meet commercial hip hop somewhere in the middle: at dubstep’s successor, trap. Of course trap music has been around for yonks, having originated in Southern US hip hop, but what TNGHT managed to do was freshen it up; expertly so. Suddenly, every club – whether underground or mainstream, whether in the US or Europe – was playing their tracks ‘Higher Ground’ and ‘Goooo’ from their self-titled EP. Even when I went to see gigs from chart-bothering rappers like Kanye West or experimental electronic music like Flying Lotus, they were all dropping these massive basslines; these choppy, infectious basslines were ubiquitous. I’ve seen both HudMo and Lunice separately multiple times, but only managed to see TNGHT once before their recent hiatus: at Field Day 2012. Here they absolutely smashed it with the best set of the weekend, effortlessly fusing off-kilter beats and sparse sound effects with those massive, trademark basslines. Seeing a few thousand people bouncing and swaying as if their legs were made of jelly, hands thrown in the air, was pretty special. Here’s hoping the kings of modern trap reunite ASAP.
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RAWALPINDI: An enraged mob attacked Awami Muslim League (AML) chief Sheikh Rasheed’s residence ‘Lal Haveli’ in Rawalpindi on Friday, ARY News reported.
According to ARY News correspondent Babar Malik, a rally organized by Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) was passing through the area when some participants of the rally tried to attack rival Sheikh Rasheed’s residence before police stopped them.
Nalaik league Gullu butts outside lal haveli. pic.twitter.com/MDsffY49uD — Sheikh Rashid Ahmad (@ShkhRasheed) August 4, 2017
The crowd was dispersed but eye witnesses claimed that the mob pelted stones and threatened servants of the ‘Lal Haveli’.
Chief Minister Punjab Shahbaz Sharif has taken notice of the incident and a First Information Report (FIR) has been registered in the area police station.
A Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) ally, Sheikh Rasheed as seen as a top opponent and critic of PML-N government.
PTI leaders and party chief Imran Khan quickly condemned the attack blaming the ruling party for the attack to intimidate opposition leaders.
We strongly condemn attack on Sh Rasheed at Lal Haveli by PMLN hoodlums waving guns/pelting stones. We will not tolerate such intimidation https://t.co/rxcIAua3vM — Imran Khan (@ImranKhanPTI) August 4, 2017
تحریکِ انصاف، ریاستی سرپرستی میں دہشت گردی میں شیخ رشید کے گھر پر حملے کی پُرزور مذمت کرتے ہیں۔ @ShkhRasheed — Babar Awan (@BabarAwanPK) August 4, 2017
Addressing an emergency press conference after the attack, Sheikh Rasheed said that PML-N’s leadership will be responsible if he gets killed.
READ MORE: https://arynews.tv/en/sheikh-rasheed-calls-for-na-session/
Comments
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Texans can now open carry swords
AUSTIN -- If you venture to Texas, don't be alarmed if you see someone walking down the street with a sword.
The Texas Legislature's "open carry for swords" law went into effect Sept. 1, but law enforcement officials are telling Texans that they don't anticipate major troubles.
James McLaughlin Jr., executive director for the Texas Police Chiefs Association, said there's no question, though, that some people will see someone carrying a large knife or sword and call the police.
"We'll see if there are any real issues that come up with it. I'm sure we'll get people calling like they did with the long guns and we'll go out and talk to them, but I don't expect much more than people just trying to make a statement," McLaughlin said.
State Rep. John Frullo's House Bill 1935 was signed into law by Gov. Greg Abbott during the 85th Legislature's regular session and has been making national headlines ever since. The law will remove most restrictions on carrying large, bladed weapons in public, but also adds a long list of location and age restrictions.
Frullo, a Republican from Lubbock, said he doesn't understand why his bill has attracted so much public attention. He said he just wants to simplify the current laws for law enforcement.
"What we wanted to do was make a law where citizens could understand it, law enforcement could understand it and the judicial system could understand it," Frullo said. "It adds clarity. All we have to do is use a tape measure and we can tell whether or not a knife is legal to carry."
The "five-and-a-half inch rule" is the main feature of the law, removing all previous restrictions on knives, swords, clubs and spears and making them illegal only if longer than five-and-a-half inches and carried inside of places like schools, churches, hospitals and sporting events. It also restricts anyone under the age of 18 from carrying these types of blades.
Following the May 1 stabbing on the University of Texas at Austin, passage on the bill was delayed, but it still faced no major opposition in the Texas Legislature. Frullo said his bill specifically names college campuses as a restricted area and would not have stopped the attacker.
Photo: Kirk Sides Knife collector Lloyd Lively discusses a Cold Steel Laredo Bowie...
"The knife was already illegal to have on the UT campus.," Frullo said. "That didn't prevent that from happening."
Sword enthusiasts have voiced concerns with some of the possible effects of the law.
Hunter Follett, owner of Dallas-area sword shop Swords of Might, said the law might give a bad name to those who collect and train with medieval weaponry.
"I think it's an OK law," Follett said. "Swords have been carried for 5,000 years, but I don't want people going out in the streets who don't know what they're doing or don't have training in carrying a sword and potentially frightening people."
In the lead-up to the Sept. 1 start date for the law, Follett said he has seen a noticeable uptick in his business. And he voiced concerns that the interest in bladed weapons could lead to more accidents if people use them without proper care and training. | {
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Now that the Travellers have reached tier 4, its time for the Fandible crew to once again answer fan questions about the campaign.
Longshot Episodes
Theme song by Daniel Allardyce
Fandible.Com is now on Patreon! If you enjoy our weekly blog posts and actual play podcasts, please consider supporting us. | {
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My Snack Santa came through big time! As you can see, there is a vast array of dark, milk, and white chocolates, caramels, and other candies that I cannot WAIT to try. Thanks, Santa! :D
Also, the wrapping paper on the package was AWESOME! Look at the detail in the picture. | {
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What a difference an administration makes.
During the Obama Administration, officials teamed up with Planned Parenthood and ACLU attorneys and staffers to promote abortion on demand and funded with taxpayer dollars. Now that the Trump Administration is in place, new reports are coming out by shocked abortion advocates who are surprised that Trump Administration officials would work with pro-life legal groups to help defund Planned Parenthood in the abortion industry.
The newest Report shows Trump Administration officials worked with pro-life attorneys at Alliance Defending Freedom to help States defund the Planned Parenthood abortion company. That is not surprising given that multiple reports and undercover video showed Planned Parenthood selling the body parts of aborted babies for potentially illegal profit.
Here’s more:
HHS last month told states they no longer have to comply with Obama administration policy that made it difficult for states to exclude the women’s health group from their Medicaid programs — an announcement timed to the March of Life anti-abortion rally. HHS received a draft legal analysis from the conservative Alliance Defending Freedom a week before the announcement, according to House Oversight Committee ranking Democrat Elijah Cummings. Cummings cited a whistleblower who shared emails and documents. “The documents provided by the whistleblower raise serious concerns about whether the Trump administration is now taking orders from an extreme right-wing interest group that is trying to deny American citizens the ability to exercise their right to obtain family planning services from the provider of their choice, which is guaranteed by federal statute,” Cummings wrote in a letter to HHS Monday. SIGN THE PETITION! Congress Must De-Fund Planned Parenthood Immediately According to emails obtained by Cummings, several HHS officials last month discussed a draft letter they would soon be getting. A senior HHS official told others that processing the letter should be “an utmost priority.” A four-page letter with legal analysis was sent the same day. House Democrats say the letter came from the Alliance Defending Freedom and attorney Casey Mattox, who previously worked there. Matt Bowman, HHS deputy general counsel, worked at the Alliance Defending Freedom prior to joining the administration.
Personnel is policy, once again.
After Planned Parenthood was exposed for selling the body parts of aborted babies, many states wanted to revoke taxpayer funding for the abortion company. However the Obama Administration made it difficult for states to do that by claiming federal control over Medicaid dollars even though States participate with their own taxpayer funds and the federal program.
January’s decision by the Trump Administration makes it so states have more latitude and control over those taxpayer funds and can make decisions to keep them away from America’s biggest abortion company. Trump’s Department of Health and Human Services announced that the administration was rescinding an Obama-era Medicaid guideline that limited the way states could take action against Planned Parenthood. | {
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What is poisoning Delhi's air and making India's capital the most polluted city in the world? The government has taken on the National Green Tribunal, contesting that old private vehicles plying in the National Capital Region are not significant contributors. It has marshalled some science to defend its claim. But, it has also conveniently ignored well known public health studies that contradict its stance. The tribunal will decide on the matter on July 13.
The NGT had earlier ordered a ban on all diesel vehicles over 10 years of age in the Delhi-NCR region and petrol vehicles older than 15 years - commercial or private. But as the government protested, it put the ban on hold, hearing the government out.
The Union ministry of road transport and highway commissioned a quick analysis to IIT Delhi to look at what impact the NGT ban on private vehicles would have on the city's pollution. The study looked only at old private vehicles and said their overall contribution to one particular pollutant - particulate matters below 2.5 micron (PM2.5)-was negligible and so banning them would not pay off. The IIT-Delhi study also said that the number of 11-15 years-old diesel cars is very small - only 6 per cent of the fleet and contributes 1 per cent of PM2.5 pollution. The government consequently demanded they be allowed to ply.
In doing so, the government side-stepped studies which suggest that the public health priority must be set by not just measuring the pollutants in the air (ambient pollution) but also by discovering what pollutants people in a city end up breathing in the most (exposure levels to pollution) and what is the source of that pollution.
Since vehicular emissions take place within our breathing zone, living between 200 and 500 metres of a major road has severe consequences for public health in the long run. This was concluded by the Boston-located Health Effect Institute, which mapped that more than half of Delhi's population lives within 500 meters of a freeway and 50 meters of a major road. Unlike in cities of developed countries, the institute noted that in cities like Delhi populations are clustered differently in the urban spaces. Consequently, the public health mandate requires a different focus in any developing country.
"We may have power plants at a distance or an industrial zone which has other polluting sources but vehicular pollution poisons the air we breathe every day and has to be a priority," says Anumita Roy Chowdhury of Centre for Science and Environment.
She points out that diesel fumes are now designated as a class I carcinogen by the World Health Organisation - a lung cancer causing cocktail of chemicals in the air. The IIT-Delhi study also focuses on just PM2.5 while ignoring the public health burden of other pollutants that vehicles emit like Nitrous Oxides (NOx). Even small amounts of such chemicals in the air are harmful and whatever can be done to reduce them is necessary, show studies.
The IIT Delhi study relies on previous work done to apportion the pollution to different sources - vehicles, diesel gensets, power generation units and others. But many critics have called this 'source apportionment study' misleading. The report commissioned by the government is used often to show that vehicles are not as much to blame for the foul air. Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology's study for Delhi-NCR in comparison found that transport sector's contribution to PM2.5 pollution was as high as 45 per cent. Another 2008 study by Jawaharlal Nehru University also found vehicles contributing 86 per cent of fine particulates that pollute Delhi's air.
The IIT-Delhi report notes that many old vehicles that are registered with the authorities do not really ply on the NCR roads. But Roy Chowdhury notes that, according to the Automotive Research Association of India's research, emissions from one old diesel car (manufactured before 2005) equal those from four to seven new cars. Compared to a BS IV car, a 15-year-old diesel car emits 7.6 times higher particulate matter and 3.4 times higher NOx. A 10-year-old diesel car emits 2.4 times higher particulate matter. Air toxics emissions are high from older vehicles.
Way forward
Using the IIT report, the government has advocated focusing on long-term reforms that would bring improvement to Delhi's air. One of them is improving the quality of fuel used in vehicles. That is expected to happen only in 2020 at the earliest.
"It's not a choice of one versus the other. We need to act on all fronts - measures that will help in the short run and fix the problem over long term as well," Roy Chowdhury notes. She says that cities like Beijing have done so -they have banned old vehicles from plying and pro-actively follow a scrapping policy. As long as the new cars that replace the old ones use cleanest technology, there is value in having such a policy.
The government insists that regular pollution control checks could suffice to ensure old vehicles are not polluting. But these tests only measure smoke density. Even the standard for that is lax as compared to other developing countries. Then, the smoke density test does not measure other pollutants which are equally, if not more, harmful.
In the last hearing of the tribunal, the ministry has put forth more studies bolstering its position, while the NGT has indicated that it is unwilling to take the government's selective referencing of science at face value. It noted that the government was providing information only to defend the right to ply old private vehicles, though the NGT order had also focused on old commercial vehicles.
As has often been the case with regulating Delhi's air pollution, the lead is again being taken by the courts. The last big leap the courts forced on the government was shifting the city's public transport to CNG from diesel. The advantage gained from that over more than a decade has been negated by an increase in the number of vehicles on Delhi's roads. The government's decision to put out an easy-to-read air pollution index has helped citizens digest the complicated science of air pollution. But the ministry of road transport and highways, it seems, is still to figure out a way to solve Delhi's pollution problem. | {
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These days, creators struggle to keep the details of their upcoming movies and TV shows from leaking on the internet, so they can preserve their big surprises. And this leads to some pretty feeble attempts at misdirection, with cast and crew vehemently denying what everybody already knows. Sometimes, it works. Sometimes, though... it just looks sad. Here are nine times the pop culture industry tried to mislead everyone, and just failed so hard.
Just a warning: naturally, the nature of this list deals with more than a few twists in some recent movies and TV shows—so you might want to tread lightly... especially if you’re a fan of Game of Thrones. You’ve been warned.
9) “Starbuck is Dead!”
During Battlestar Galactica’s third season, Kara “Starbuck” Thrace went missing, presumed dead—and showrunner Ronald D. Moore joined actor Katie Sackhoff in announcing that she had indeed quit the show. Sackhoff even went and auditioned for other roles, and repeatedly confirmed that Starbuck was no more...
Only to reappear in the third season finale. Fans were adamant that since her body was never seen, it was inevitable that she’d be back, but in an attempt to keep it secret, Moore filmed her return in isolation, and even lied to the cast to avoid fans’ expectations being confirmed.
8) “Ned Stark is totally the main character of Game of Thrones.”
For fans of George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire, this was a pretty hilarious bit of trickery. Going into the first season of Game of Thrones, Martin was repeatedly quoted as saying that Sean Bean’s Ned Stark was the main character the whole story revolves around—you can see him above saying this in a pre-release featurette for the show. If you weren’t familiar with the books, why wouldn’t you believe the author?
Well, book fans were more than familiar with the fact that Martin was indeed being very specific about the show when he described Ned. He’s technically correct: Ned is the main character... until he gets his head lopped off nine episodes in, much to the shock of new fans. So this was an unconvincing lie, but only to fans who already knew what was really going on.
7) “The Mandarin isn’t in Iron Man 3”
This one is a very weird case. Originally, when rumors started cropping up that one of Tony Stark’s most iconic foes, The Mandarin, would be in the third Iron Man movie, Shane Black flatly denied it—not only did he say the magic and mysticism of the character’s powerset would be considered too outlandish, but the character itself was a racist caricature, and wouldn’t work in the modern age. Inevitably, Marvel revealed that the Mandarin was indeed going to be in the film, as the main threat.
There was a twist though! The Mandarin wasn’t really in the movie, or even the main villain. The Mandarin persona—already radically different from the comic version—was a ruse adopted by Sir Ben Kingsley’s Trevor Slattery, an actor working for the real villain Aldrich Killian. Because fans are never truly satisfied, this ultimately lead to people being angry that they were deceived by the character being a sham, after first being angry that the character wasn’t going to be in the film at all. Sometimes, you can’t win, no matter what you do.
6) Anything Steven Moffat said about Doctor Who
If there’s one thing Steven Moffat’s legacy on Doctor Who will leave as he begins his departure from the show, it’s his nature as the trickster showrunner, a habit he picked up from his predecessor, Russell T Davies—a seemingly wanton glee at denying anything and everything about Doctor Who’s future, only to immediately turn around the moment something is confirmed and say, “Of course I was lying.”
To be fair, it’d be poor form for a showrunner to up and reveal everything about their upcoming episodes, but it infuriated his detractors—and sometimes the denials were so obviously untrue that it just came off as a little silly. Case in point, heading into Peter Capaldi’s first season, the showrunner was quick to pour water on the constant rumors that The Doctor’s arch-nemesis The Master would return:
No! I accidentally just said the truth! No, not really. I think the story’s sort of done. I thought what Russell [T. Davies] did with that was so brilliant, because I did think it was over.
Unsurprisingly, it wasn’t the truth! Michelle Gomez’s “Missy” was revealed to be The Master at the end of the season, and presumably Moffat cackled maniacally when people got annoyed at him yet again.
Look, when you call your James Bond movie Spectre, there’s going to be certain assumptions about the identity of the villain. Yet, the latest Bond went full throttle in its insistence that Christoph Waltz’s shadowy bad guy was a brand new character, Oberhauser, and not Blofeld, the sinister head of the SPECTRE organization. And yet, rumors persisted, so much so at one point, speaking to Cinemablend, Waltz snapped, and blamed the entire internet for the rumor mongering... and also maybe attempting to take over the world?
First of all, on what basis? You know, it’s silly. It’s plain silly…So that’s done with — the Blofeld question. Why would they make a movie that they’ve done before? I’m interested in what you said, ‘The Internet has decided.’ What’s the Internet? The Internet is something like the climate that we can’t influence, that kind of does what it does and we have to adapt to it and, sort of, react accordingly? … The Internet is us. So the Internet in itself doesn’t decide anything. I’m very adamant about that because the Internet takes over as an entity, as an independent entity… That’s why it’s called the cloud.
I really don’t know where the second part of that quote went.
I’ll give you one chance to guess who Waltz was really playing in Spectre. Just one.
4) “Benedict Cumberbatch is NOT Doctor Strange”
The casting process for Marvel’s Sorcerer Supreme was long and arduous—but there was always one front runner: Sherlock star and current “oh god cast him in everything” idol Benedict Cumberbatch. Cumberbatch’s name cropped up time and time again in casting rumors, and then Deadline announced that he was in talks to join the film... and Marvel flatly denied it, essentially going out of their way to be twee and tell fans not to believe everything they hear on the internet.
Little more than a month later, Benedict Cumberbatch was announced as Doctor Strange. Womp womp.
3) Pretty much all of The Dark Knight Rises
As the final entry in Christopher Nolan’s genre-defining Batman trilogy, there was a lot of speculation going in about how the movie would play out, and especially if more familiar faces from the comics and the movies would make an appearance alongside the new additions of Selina Kyle and Bane. The biggest rumors pretty much covered the length and breadth of the film’s cast: Liam Neeson would return as Ra’s Al Ghul, Marion Cotillard’s mysterious new ally was secretly Ra’s daughter Talia, and Robin would appear, with Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s John Blake being the likely candidate.
Nolan and the cast frequently dismissed the reports—the director stressed that John Blake and Miranda Tate were wholly new characters, and Liam Neeson frequently said he’d not been asked to return, casting rumors off as just elements from the comic books fans wanted to see on the big screen. Then, Dark Knight Rises came out and Miranda was Talia, Blake revealed his real name to be Robin at the end, and yes, Liam Neeson returned as Ra’s Al Ghul (although his denial was technically correct, as Ra’s appeared as a vision rather than being revived from death). Not really surprising, as Warner Bros. were denying everything about the film going into its release—they even came out and denied that they’d altered Bane’s incomprehensible voice to make him slightly more understandable, for crying out loud.
2) “Benedict Cumberbatch is NOT playing Khan”
Perhaps one of the most infamous casting “twists” ever. Khan had long been rumored as the villain of Star Trek Into Darkness, pretty much since Star Trek hit theaters. But then, Benedict Cumberbatch was cast as the movie’s villain, whom producers described as being a completely new character called John Harrison. They vehemently denied that Khan was in the film, or that Cumberbatch would play him.
Spoilers: Cumberbatch was Khan.
The reveal fell flat, as fans had guessed Harrison’s real identity even before Cumberbatch was cast—and the overwrought, repeated denial of the obvious helped turn fans against this movie. To the point that, years after the movie came out, Damon Lindelof and JJ Abrams both admitted keeping Khan a “secret” was a bad idea.
1) “Jon Snow is Dead!”
Ah, the ongoing saga of Game of Thrones’ Jon Snow, and whether or not his fatal stabbing at the climax of season five was actually fatal. You might think it presumptuous to put Jon on this list, considering we’ve yet to watch the show’s sixth season, but there’s enough information and evidence of Jon Snow not just being alive, but finding himself at the forefront of some major events in Westeros out there, that we’re willing to call it now.
But man, this last year has been insane. Ever since io9 broke the news in June that actor Kit Harington had been spotted in Belfast preparing to film for Game of Thrones, there has been a swathe of denials, with almost every cast member on the show, including Harington himself, reiterating that Snow was dead and buried, even as the evidence mounted higher and higher against that being true—and dozens of person-hours were spent writing report after report after report about Kit Harington’s unkempt hair.
Hell, even HBO aren’t really denying it any more, placing Jon front and centre on teaser posters for the next season. Won’t be long until we can finally put this one behind us. | {
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A suicide bomber detonated his vest outside a courthouse in Peshawar, killing 11 in the latest attack in the northwestern city.
The bomber detonated his vest at the gates of a courthouse in the capital of the Northwest Frontier Province after security prevented him from entering the compound. Two policemen and three lawyers were among the 11 killed. The attack also wounded 47 people, two of them critically.
The Taliban conducted a similar suicide attack outside a court complex in Peshawar on Nov. 19. The suicide bomber killed 19 people and wounded scores more after detonating outside the provincial court complex.
Today’s attack is the latest in the Taliban’s terror campaign in Pakistan. The Taliban launched the offensive on Oct. 5 and have demanded that the military end operations in the tribal areas. The military went on the offensive in South Waziristan on Oct. 17, and recently claimed that the Taliban’s defeat there struck a strategic blow to the organization. But the Taliban have regrouped in the tribal areas and continued the attacks.
The Taliban have launched suicide attacks in Pakistan’s major cities, including the capital of Islamabad, the military garrison city of Rawalpindi, Lahore, and Peshawar.
Taliban suicide assault teams have also targeted military installations in Rawalpindi, Lahore, and Peshawar. The Army General Headquarters was shut down for a day during an assault, while police and intelligence services centers in Lahore and Peshawar were also targeted.
The latest such attack, on Dec. 6, targeted a mosque attended by military officers in Rawalpindi. Two generals and four other officers were among the 40 Pakistanis killed. The sons and fathers of senior officers were also killed in the attack.
The Taliban have also conducted a campaign against tribal leaders who have organized militias to oppose the spread of the Islamist terrorists. Dozens of tribal leaders have been killed in suicide attacks, roadside bombings, and shootings. In the past week alone, seven anti-Taliban tribal leaders have been reported killed.
Major Taliban attacks in Pakistan since Oct. 5:
Dec. 7, 2009: Two suicide bombers detonated their vests near-simultaneously about 100 feet apart in the middle of the Moon Market, a commercial hub in the eastern city of Lahore. More than 45 people were killed.
Dec. 7, 2009: A suicide bomber killed 11 Pakistanis outside a Peshawar courthouse.
Dec. 6, 2009: The Taliban killed two tribal leaders in an IED attack in the Mamond region in the Bajaur tribal agency.
Dec. 4, 2009: A suicide assault team killed 40 Pakistani worshippers in a mosque in the military garrison city of Rawalpindi. Two senior generals were killed in the attack.
Dec. 2, 2009: A suicide bomber killed a naval security guard at the guardpost outside the naval headquarters in the capital of Islamabad.
Dec. 2, 2009: The Taliban assassinated three pro-government tribal leaders in Arakzai and another in Swabi.
Dec. 1, 2009: A suicide bomber killed a member of a secular Pashtun political party who served in the provincial assembly outside his home in Swat.
Nov. 19, 2009: A suicide bomber killed 19 people in an attack outside of the provincial judicial complex in Peshawar.
Nov. 16, 2009: A suicide bomber killed four people in an attack on a police station in Peshawar.
Nov. 15, 2009: The Taliban killed a tribal leader in Bajaur and targeted a mayor in Peshawar.
Nov. 13, 2009: A suicide bomber killed 10 people in an attack on a police checkpoint in Peshawar.
Nov. 13, 2009: A suicide bomber killed 10 people in an attack on the headquarters of the Inter-Services Intelligence agency in Peshawar.
Nov. 13, 2009: A suicide bomber wounded 10 people in an attack on a police station in Bannu.
Nov. 10, 2009: A suicide bomber killed 24 people in a market in Charsadda.
Nov. 9, 2009: A suicide bomber killed four people during an attack at a police checkpoint outside Peshawar.
Nov. 8, 2009: A suicide bomber killed an anti-Taliban leader and 12 others in an attack at a market in the town of Matni near Peshawar.
Nov. 5, 2009: An Army brigadier and a soldier were wounded in an ambush in Islamabad.
Nov. 2, 2009: A Taliban suicide bomber killed 34 Pakistanis and wounded scores more in an attack in Rawalpindi.
Nov. 2, 2009: A pair of suicide bombers killed one policeman and wounded 25 security officers and civilians after the pair detonated their vests at a security checkpoint.
Oct. 28, 2009: A Taliban suicide bomber killed 119 Pakistanis and wounded hundreds more in an attack on a bazaar in Peshawar.
Oct. 27, 2009: A brigadier general who served as the director of defense services guards at the Army General Headquarters escaped an assassination attempt in Islamabad.
Oct. 23, 2009: The Taliban detonated an anti-tank mine and hit a bus transporting a wedding party in Mohmand. The explosion killed 15 of the passengers and wounded six more.
Oct. 23, 2009: The Taliban detonated a car bomb outside a popular restaurant in the residential Hayatabad area in Peshawar. The attack wounded 13 civilians; nine are said to be in critical condition.
Oct. 23, 2009: A Taliban suicide bomber killed seven people during an attack at a security checkpoint near the Kamra Air Weapon Complex in the district of Attock in Punjab province.
Oct. 21, 2009: The Taliban assassinated a brigadier general and his driver during an ambush in Islamabad.
Oct. 20, 2009: A pair of suicide bombers detonated their vests at Islamabad’s International Islamic University, killing five.
Oct. 16, 2009: A pair of suicide bombers, including a female, attacked a police station and a building housing an intelligence service in Peshawar, killing 11.
Oct. 15, 2009: Terrorist assault teams attacked the Federal Investigation Agency building, the Manawan police training center, and the Elite Force Headquarters in Lahore. Twenty-six people, including nine terrorists and 12 policemen, were killed.
Oct. 15, 2009: A suicide bomber rammed a car into a police station in Kohat, killing 11 people, including policemen and children.
Oct. 12, 2009: A suicide bomber detonated a car packed with explosives as a military convoy passed through a checkpoint in a market in Alpuri in Shangla. The attack killed 41 people, including six security personnel.
Oct. 10, 2009: An assault team attacked the Army General Headquarters and took 42 security personnel captive. Eleven soldiers were killed, including a brigadier general and a lieutenant colonel, along with nine members of the assault team; and 39 hostages were freed.
Oct. 9, 2009: A suicide bomber detonated a car packed with explosives in a bazaar in Peshawar, killing 49 civilians.
Oct. 5, 2009: A suicide bomber entered the World Food Program office in Islamabad and detonated his vest, killing five UN workers, including an Iraqi.
Bill Roggio is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Editor of FDD's Long War Journal.
Are you a dedicated reader of FDD's Long War Journal? Has our research benefitted you or your team over the years? Support our independent reporting and analysis today by considering a one-time or monthly donation. Thanks for reading! You can make a tax-deductible donation here. | {
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BDSM Library - Submission in Seattle
Submission in Seattle
Provided By: BDSM Library
www.bdsmlibrary.com www.bdsmlibrary.com
WARNING! THIS IS A WORK OF EROTIC BDSM FICTION. IT IS ADULT ORIENTED MATERIAL OF A SEXUAL NATURE. DELETE NOW IF YOU DO NOT WISH TO VIEW THIS TYPE OF MATERIAL. COPYRIGHT 1998: This story is copyrighted by the author, MB.
AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION TO: "SUBMISSION IN SEATTLE" Most erotic stories with an SM theme are set in distant times or places so that the reader can more easily enjoy descriptions of intense sexual behavior that would be unacceptable in his or her own society. "Submission in Seattle" adds a small dash of fantasy to a very real part of modern American society, the BDSM subculture. I hope that you will find this reality-based story even more erotic than one which is totally based on fantasy. I have been told by some that the story is too "cerebral" for most people to be able to enjoy it as erotica. However, others have said that it is the most erotic BDSM story they have ever read. The popularity of BDSM has exploded in recent years, spurred on by the rapid growth of the internet. The creed of the modern BDSM culture is "Safe, Sane and Consensual". One might assume that erotic fiction which respects this boundary would be less arousing than the usual punishment/rape/enslavement SM tales that are found on the internet or in the erotica section of your local bookstore. "Submission in Seattle" may surprise you. To millions of television and film viewers, the standard symbol of BDSM is the stereotypical leather-clad professional Dominatrix. In American society, female domination of males is the most visible and politically correct form of BDSM relationship. For those couples who choose to practice male domination of the female, there is no such reassuring symbol for them to follow. The majority of these couples exercise their rights as consenting adults in private, in isolation and with a justifiable fear of persecution. As the BDSM community matures, subgroups which enjoy certain facets of BDSM play are beginning to coalesce. One group that is now asserting its right to exist is the maledom-femsub community. This novel is for them and those who are curious. Our main character, Howard Cole, is a professional male dominant for women. As everyone in the BDSM community knows, this is highly unusual. The simple rule of supply and demand in sexual commerce prevents men from making a living in this manner. However, a small number of dominant heterosexual men have established themselves as professionals. Typically just one or two in a large city that might support scores of female pro-Dommes. If you are in need of their services, seek them out in the darker regions of the internet. You won't be disappointed. M.B. 1998
SUBMISSION IN SEATTLE CHAPTER ONE Innocence is everywhere, but the honest enjoyment of perversion is rare. On a warm, sunny Saturday afternoon, platoons of harried women in expensive cars shuttled their well dressed children along the streets of an upper class neighborhood near Seattle, Washington. Each house concealed its unique story behind a screen of tall evergreen trees and fashionable forest landscaping. One home on a particular suburban lane had its own special energy. This energy was provided by the women who passed beyond the heavy black door into the residence of Howard Cole. There was nothing outwardly unusual about the one story contemporary home. Three young children from nearby families played noisily within fifty feet of the conservative gray painted exterior. The pleasant open space between the large houses was shaded from the late afternoon summer sun by a canopy of eighty foot Douglas Firs. Predictably, one of the children launched a piercing, repetitive scream in response to some injustice perpetrated by a sibling. The occupants of the gray house, as if in another world, were blissfully unaware of the commotion outside. Insulated in the soundproof basement of his large home, Howard Cole stepped back to appraise his work. As a talented photographer, he appreciated the finer points of composition, color and lighting. He stroked his short beard for a moment, then adjusted the rolled up sleeves of his open necked black silk dress shirt. He stretched his solid, six foot frame to loosen up his shoulders and straightened his round metal framed glasses. The warm, spacious, high ceilinged room resembled a photographer's studio. It had been, until he discovered a more compelling hobby. Unusual electronic music played from a sophisticated sound system, creating an air of mystery and erotic ritual. Around the edges of the hardwood floor, in semi-darkness, oddly shaped pieces of furniture rested under black sheets. In the center of the room a massage table with a well padded, brown leather top rested in a pool of light. It was quite heavily constructed, with brass fittings where its thick wooden beams joined together. Cole didn't appreciate the room as much as he did the girl. Kristina was one of his latest favorites; a true masochist who dreamed of being a slave girl. This was her fourth visit to the intimate basement dungeon. He had yet to find one girl to steal his heart forever, but he enjoyed them all for their individual qualities and varied physical attributes. The one trait they all had in common was the need for submission. To Cole, it was a priceless treasure and extremely beautiful. Every submissive girl he met captured his attention, at least for a while. Kristina was a gifted young software designer who happened to work part time as a nude dancer. He could see it in her dancer's legs and perfect little ass. She was exhibited quite nicely at the moment, he thought. He had a talent for posing the girls in the most flattering and erotic positions. A result, he was sure, of his photographic experience. *** Kristina noticed his admiring gaze, then wiggled her well curved bottom to let him know she was ready. She displayed her slender nude body and fragile youth while seductively bent over the top of the waist high table. The overhead spot lights illuminated her perfectly, and she knew it. She grinned as she thought, "Krissy, you've been wanting this for weeks. Trust Master Cole, he knows what you need." She felt the tension in her arms from the soft leather cuffs that pulled her wrists toward the far end of the table. Another pair of restraints held her ankles to the sturdy, polished table legs, making her struggle a bit to touch the floor with her toes. It was another one of Cole's subtle touches that reminded Kristina of her delicious vulnerability. "Looks like I'm going to get my money's worth tonight," she predicted silently to herself. She listened receptively as Cole spoke in a low, hypnotic tone that penetrated deeply into her mind, "Krissy, it's time for me to enjoy you now. If you need to stop, you know how to communicate that to me. However, if you stop, that will be all for today, and you will go home knowing you didn't satisfy me. Do you understand?" "Yes, Master Cole," she said in a dreamy voice. She looked up at him and saw a handsome forty one year old man with short dark hair. His precisely trimmed dark beard and mustache somehow made him look sophisticated and sinister at the same time. The piercing gray eyes were almost hypnotic. When she was in this delightfully submissive and sensual state, his attractiveness was very compelling. She wanted nothing more than to be close to him and give herself to him in every possible way. She closed her eyes for a minute to concentrate on the hypnotic music and she felt herself slipping into the trance-like state that she so treasured. The stresses of her high pressure life fell away bit by bit. Kristina stretched her muscles sensuously as Cole placed his hands on her well formed back and began to massage away her tension. His knowing fingers traced the firm muscles that were hidden beneath her tan skin. The bright halogen studio light made the barely visible fuzz of tiny blonde hairs sparkle and caused a languid warmth to penetrate her body. When her muscles were nicely relaxed she felt him shift his touch to the provocative curves of her ass. The first few swats of his heavy right hand were delicate, as if to judge the range and check the sensitivity of her flesh. Kristina pushed her bottom out a little farther to signal her need. As Cole gradually stepped up the spanking she could feel the stinging impact of his big hands driving her against the table. Her face was forced closer to the padded tabletop and she inhaled the sweet aroma of tanned leather that added to her arousal. "Do you like this, Krissy?" "Yes, Master Cole, may I please have it harder?" She tossed her head to spread out her glorious, shoulder length blonde hair, which she knew he liked. He smiled, "Of course you can. Your pretty bottom is getting very red, little girl, and you know that turns me on." "I know, I know," she whimpered and she continued to take the force of his hands on her bottom cheeks. She could tell that the intensity was carefully measured, being increased in precise intervals that must have taken him years to perfect. Slowly, a growing sexual tingle made itself felt in her clitoris. "It's starting," she thought with an audible groan. Kristina was no stranger to the SM scene. She loved pain play, when it was done right, but she also loved to submit. I have plenty of friends who'll give me a good spanking, she thought, but why is Howard Cole the only one I can submit to? I usually play because I enjoy it, but with him I seem to do it because he enjoys it! A more intense wave of arousal interrupted her thoughts, reminding her of the helpless position she had gotten herself into. She was restrained with her legs apart and she knew that he must have a perfect view of her cunt. He had ignored it completely and it was driving her crazy waiting for the first touch. The wonderful sensation of bare skin striking bare skin helped form an almost spiritual connection between them. Cole's strong hands were ideal spanking instruments and each solid blow landed with a loud crack. Krissy swore that she could hear the sharp sounds echoing off the walls. He changed hands frequently, using the off hand to stroke smoothly up and down her back to enhance the emotional bond. "Oooh, mmmm, ouch," Krissy whispered. The pain suddenly became more intense, and she had a brief moment of fear as she realized that he was striking the backs of her long, lean thighs. *** Cole could feel himself perspiring lightly after several minutes of hard spanking. When her breathing became heavier and the blood was circulating furiously in her inflamed asscheeks, Cole dragged his fingernails lightly across her hot red skin. Kristina's sharp intake of breath indicated that she was properly warmed up. He noticed how her small hips widened from the pressure of the table edge and the soft outer curves of her breasts swelled where they were pressed against the leather. Cole leaned back a little to look carefully between her parted legs, where her pouting nether lips were outlined in a most enchanting way by a well groomed thatch of fine blonde hair. Knowing that he could penetrate her later if he wished, he began to grow erect, but stopped himself so he could concentrate on the scene. Moving quietly around to the head of the table, he bent down to speak with her in a soft voice. "Open your mouth, Krissy. You'll need this rubber bit." To protect her teeth and tongue, Cole placed a rubber bar in her mouth like a horse's bit that buckled behind her head. To demonstrate his complete control, he reached down to gently open her sex with his fingers and softly stroke her sensitive inner labia. *** Kristina's muscles contracted involuntarily with the surprising new stimulation. She was embarrassed by her sudden straining against her bonds and moaned as she felt an overwhelming sense of submission and inevitability. Her heart beat faster and the excitement grew within her. She could feel the first trickle of wetness between her legs. She watched as Cole picked up a long, straight rattan cane and showed it to her. It was a quarter inch thick and one end had been covered with thin black leather to form a handle. As she studied it, her breathing became difficult and irregular. Holding the cane reverently, Cole walked around behind her into an area reflected by a large wall mirror. Kristina could see the full reflection of her helpless form strapped to the heavy table and she realized that she would be able to see exactly what was happening to her lovely bottom. Her own wide eyed expression in the mirror reminded her of the way a deer looks when caught in the headlights of an oncoming vehicle. *** Cole noticed it too. Slowly drawing his arm back for a full stroke, he aimed the cane directly at the center of her perfect ass and drove it with full force into her taut gluteal globes. The skin was deeply indented for a hundredth of a second. A heartbeat later Kristina's head jerked, causing her hair to fly up and descend in a pretty golden shower that sparkled as it caught the light. It was as if she had been struck by lightning and her eyes widened at the astonishing impact. She grunted around the rubber bit, which had just saved her tongue from a serious injury. Looking carefully at his watch, Cole said calmly, "I like to allow about thirty seconds between strokes so that you can fully appreciate the pain." *** Kristina heard the music change from an erotic electronic piece to a Gregorian chant. Then she heard the hiss of the cane through the air. It struck before she could even tighten her buttocks in anticipation. The pain was extreme, and Kristina didn't know if she could continue to take it at this intensity. She contemplated ending the scene, but knew that if she did she would regret it later when she was longing to be in his bed. "Continue to breathe," she told herself, "concentrate and you can take this for him." Five minutes and ten loud strokes into the ritual, Kristina's ass was a perfect example of the double track signature of the cane. Each raised red welt was placed parallel to the others. Kristina, her skin flushed and damp with sweat, moaned and pulled hard at the leather cuffs. She forced herself to breathe very rapidly, almost panting with the pain. It seemed to help, somehow. The fire in her hindquarters slowly penetrated into her brain and fulfilled the mysterious need that only Cole understood. She knew that she had now reached that familiar plateau that was like the moment when an orgasm becomes inevitable. The scene would now continue to its conclusion. There was no other option. There was a brief pause and she was afraid he might stop. Then she looked at Cole in the mirror and listened to him speak. Her vision was slightly blurry with sweat or arousal, she couldn't tell which. "I want to hurt you some more, Krissy. You've only had ten strokes so far. I'd like you to take twenty five. The last girl I used this big cane on was barely conscious after 20 strokes, but I think you can do better." Kristina was both exhilarated and frightened, but continued to look at her own reflection in the mirror as if she were observing a dream. She watched in fascination, as the heavy rattan cane cut into her outraged bottom. She tried to scream into the rubber bit as he continued to dispense the severe blows, "Oh God... No, oooh, YES!" Her endorphins began to flow and the pain was slowly transformed into pleasure. It took six more of the slashing strokes before she was truly flying high on a trip induced by a cocktail of fantasy, emotions and natural biochemicals released by her bruised flesh. The powerful strokes slowly continued as she moaned and thrashed against the table. She was not struggling to free herself. She was writhing in ecstasy. As on previous visits, she was allowed to spend the night. Her submission was absolute. This time, after satisfying his perverted sexual urges, she was forced to sleep on the floor next to his bed. She loved every minute of it and was happy to hand him a slim envelope as she left the next morning. Kristina knew that she was just one woman among many in the unusual life of Howard Cole, but she didn't mind. Her world felt complete. She was deliciously satisfied and quite proud at having taken twenty five strokes of the terrible cane. She left his house smiling, feeling the sexy soreness in her buttocks and vagina. With any luck, she thought, she would be reminded of her caning for two or three days as she sat in her boring office cubicle. Her breasts bounced a bit as she got behind the wheel and her sore nipples peaked, reminding her of other pleasures. She drove along the conservative Sunday morning streets, observing the ordinary people living their ordinary lives. "If they only knew..." she speculated. She grinned at the thought of the secret she carried inside and wondered how long it would be until she needed to contact him again. *** As he watched her go, Cole felt strangely alone. He was pleased that Krissy believed she had taken the full twenty five strokes, when he had actually stopped at nineteen. The little psychological games were all part of the service. It had taken him years of trial and error to learn how to weave a woman's fantasy into a practical reality. He played the role well, very well, but he knew there must be more.
CHAPTER TWO Howard Cole placed his glass of Willamette valley pinot noir on the desk next to the computer and looked around the expensively furnished home office to clear his mind. As was his nightly custom, he powered up his computer to check his email. He grinned slightly as he recalled his session with Krissy the previous week. He thought briefly about how much more interesting his life had become in the years since he had discovered organized BDSM and later, the internet. "Life certainly has its surprises," he said before taking a sip from the one glass of wine he allowed himself. While he waited for the computer to complete the logon and download procedure, he recalled the unlikely chain of events that led to his unusual lifestyle. From his elegant home in a heavily forested suburb of Seattle, Cole reached out into the shadowy world of those who searched for satisfaction via the internet. His occupation as a patent broker allowed him ample time to pursue his true love, the sexual domination of women. He enjoyed being his own boss and was usually able to set his own hours. His clients were major universities and small research companies that needed to sell their patented ideas to various industries. They usually met with him at his office in Bellevue where he shared a receptionist and secretarial staff with four other businessmen. None of them had the slightest understanding of his unusual sexual tastes. Most of the businessmen in his circle of friends brought their wives or girlfriends to business related functions. Cole usually showed up alone, which caused some speculation that he might be gay. In reality, he simply did not want to mix his sex life with his work, for obvious reasons. He remembered that on the rare occasions when he brought a woman friend, his colleagues and their wives would spend the next few days trying to figure out what gave the woman such a mysterious air of sexuality. Ill equipped to understand sexual submissiveness, they usually decided it was something mundane, like her clothing or perfume. He had no idea what a strange direction his life would take when he graduated from a Southern California law school in his late twenties with a profound distrust of the adversarial legal system. During his final year of school, he interned at a law firm specializing in criminal defense and other trial work. The things he saw there convinced him that he could never participate in the courtroom games that his classmates loved. That was also when his wife announced that he wasn't the kind of man she wanted to be married to and demanded a divorce. Shortly thereafter, he discovered a talent for patent law and never looked back. According to his estimate, he could retire at age fifty and live very nicely for the rest of his life. When the monitor finally displayed the list of incoming email, he snapped back from his self analysis and quickly focused on the messages. Ah, three responses tonight, he noted. They were replies to the personal ads that he had placed systematically on various websites and newsgroups. Each of his ads was slightly different, but they all contained basically the same message. Cole described himself in the ads as a professional dominant for women only. Although the ads didn't mention it, his fee was negotiable. It would usually depend on what the customer could afford. He didn't need the money, but it helped establish a very important boundary. It also created an atmosphere that allowed for some intensely hot play sessions. When he first considered this idea, he was told by his friends from the Seattle SM scene that there was no such thing as a professional male dominant, unless you wanted to dominate men, of course. It was a simple case of supply and demand in the sex industry. The conventional wisdom also said that most, if not all, submissive women were looking for a long term relationship. After some research and several experiments in advertising, he discovered that there was a small, but significant market for his services. Not enough to make a living, which he didn't need anyway, but enough to keep him busy with interesting new women. Once he had worked out the system, there was a slow, but steady stream of women who answered his internet ads. Most of them lived too far away, didn't have the money to travel or were just too frightened to meet with a stranger for such an intimate and dangerous activity. Cole gently discouraged many others who did not meet his personal standards for physical appearance or intelligence. About two or three times a year, he would arrange to meet with a new correspondent who seemed to be a good potential customer. In the back of his mind was always the possibility that he might meet a woman who could become his permanent partner. He discovered that many submissive women didn't feel like they could really give up control to a man who was going to be a major part of their lives. A professional dominant, on the other hand, could do his job and vanish. The woman could carry on safely with her normal life, keeping only the treasured memories of her submissive sexual experience. Many of the women he met were in situations that prevented them from seeking the kind of relationship they truly desired. Perhaps they were married and unable to leave. Perhaps their career or public image was at risk. Others wished to safely learn about their submissive feelings. It seemed that each woman had her own unique reason for seeking his services. He dropped out of the Seattle SM scene when he realized that he wasn't finding what he needed there. By avoiding public gatherings of the SM community, it was also less likely that his secret life would become known to his vanilla friends and colleagues. He would still occasionally meet his kinky friends at Beyond the Edge Cafe, the unofficial meeting place of the leather community. Only a few of his most trusted scene friends knew of his second occupation and they would occasionally send him a woman who needed his services. A meeting of the local SM club had to be something special for him to attend these days. He might go if a nationally known figure was speaking. Laura Antoniou had been at the last one and Cole had enjoyed it greatly. He sat in the back and waved politely at old friends who recognized him. After the meeting, instead of joining the milling crowd of people eager to meet potential play partners, he waited only long enough for Laura to autograph a set of her books for him. Then he quietly disappeared from the room. Now, staring intently at the computer monitor, he quickly read and eliminated all three of the responses. Not my type, he sighed. He sent each of them a polite reply telling them that he was currently unavailable. Then he answered a two day old email from a previous customer who wanted to schedule another session. Their first two sessions had been in her home, but this time she was interested in being "kidnapped" and taken away to be ravished by Cole. He quickly typed an email message: "Dear Victoria, I would be pleased to provide you with a kidnapping scene on Sunday the 18th. The usual rules will apply, except that this time I will not specify a fee. After you have had a few days to think about the experience, simply send me whatever amount you feel is appropriate. I will need the full details of your schedule that day. Make certain that you are available until at least 10 PM." Cole sent the message and shut down the computer. He thought about the particular fondness he had for Victoria. It wasn't just the fact that she had a very sexy, mature body. Under her too perfect exterior and snobbish attitude was a little girl who needed to be dominated. He also had a great deal of respect for her. Victoria wasn't a thrill seeking young SM player like Kristina. She was the mature female of the species, experienced and formidable. Too bad her obsession with her looks and her society lifestyle were so annoying, he thought. Still, she had responded very nicely during their sessions and he felt like there was potential for more good play. Unlike some of his customers, she didn't seem to mind marks and bruises, as long as they could be covered by her clothing. In fact, she had indicated that she would like it a lot rougher if possible. Cole grinned at the thought. *** At that moment, in the elegant ladies' room of a historic hotel in downtown Seattle, Victoria Windham-Jenkins checked her make up for the fourth time. She was forty two years old, but looked like she was thirty. "A young thirty," she said to herself as she reshaped the outline of her slightly too bright lipstick. It made her feel better after her exchange of insults with a snobbish couple in the grand dining room a few minutes earlier. She was aware that both her mood and her behavior had been gradually deteriorating in recent weeks. I'm getting to be such a bitch, she thought, it reminds me of that weird movie I watched last week. What was that Navajo word for life-out-of-balance? Koyanisqat-something? She tried to remember exactly how long it had been since her last session with Howard Cole. Was it four months ago or five, she wondered? Her secretary had jokingly pointed out one of Cole's internet ads last year and Victoria had since experienced two successful sessions with the professional dominant. Victoria's wealthy husband had died a decade before, leaving her with a company that controlled two hundred thousand acres of prime timber land and two world class paper mills. There was more money than she could possibly spend. She still missed the old bastard, though. He was so deliciously rough and he always seemed to know when she needed it. She constantly tested him and she could still remember how his big hand would bruise her bare bottom when she pushed him too far. Actually, she thought, I could use a little bit of that right now. Although she was technically the Chairman of the Board, her presence was rarely required at company headquarters. A veritable army of managers and accountants took care of things quite nicely without her. When she was not attending society functions she spent her time in the gym and at various health spas being wrapped in odd substances guaranteed to preserve one's youthful skin tone. As yet, she had avoided the plastic surgeon. It was a matter of pride, which she had in abundance. She paid a small fortune to keep a hairdresser on call at all times to maintain her elaborate bleached blonde hairstyle. She copied it from Farrah Fawcett almost twenty years ago, but she thought of it as her trademark and would never consider changing it. Looking in the mirror one last time, she admired her bright green eyes, then patted her hair and smoothed the low cut velvet gown around her womanly curves. As she left the ladies' room, she cheered herself with the thought that men were always in plentiful supply. They would compete among themselves to see who could serve her most sincerely. She remembered a recent art gallery opening, where she had counted four attractive men of various ages who swarmed around her offering flutes of champagne, crab cocktails and radishes that were carved into perfect little flowers. To intimidate the other women that night, she had worn a tight red evening dress that displayed her large breasts and narrow waist. That sexy Italian artist told me I looked like Marilyn Monroe, she recalled with a smug little smile. She remembered how she took the lucky fellow home with her that night and discarded him the next morning as if he were an empty wine bottle. Her memories ended as she returned to the party and surveyed the crowd. Tonight she had her eye on a handsome young doctor. She watched him show a mouth full of perfect white teeth when he grinned at a joke. "He'll do nicely," she thought while moving in for the kill and trying unsuccessfully to suppress a shark-like grin. The result was never in doubt. They left the party early and her chauffeur drove them both to her place. The poor doctor was used and sent home by midnight. Afterwards lying alone in her gigantic bed, she thought of her late husband, Eric, and wished that he was there to give her what she really needed. Fast and easy sex was better than nothing, she figured, but she could still feel a tension within her that would be impossible to describe to anyone else. She reflected briefly on her arrangement with Howard Cole and thought, I guess I do have something to look forward to, if I can just hold out till next week. When Victoria awoke the next Sunday morning, she remembered that she had given the housekeeper the day off. She was alone in her very large house. It had twenty three rooms, an outdoor swimming pool that was of little use in Seattle, and a smaller house for the servants. Cole hadn't told her when she would be kidnapped, but since he had asked her where she would go and when, she expected it to happen when she left the house to have lunch at her favorite Sunday restaurant. She told her driver to take the day off, so she would be free to go out alone. After a very light breakfast, she got into the shower and started to shave. She always shaved her labia and left just a little triangle of hair above. After shaving, she spent several minutes stroking herself and thinking about what might happen to her later that day. She was reasonably certain that Cole had understood her requests for rougher play. Just as she was on the verge of coming, she stopped the erotic self stimulation in order to leave herself with a nice edge. "Oooh, gotta stop now," she said to herself. Having a hair stylist on call, she normally did not wash her own hair. Unfortunately, the stylist was not available today and she resigned herself to being without her perfect hairstyle until tomorrow. It's going to get messed up anyway, she hoped. Reaching for the shampoo, she proceeded to wash her long blonde hair. It pleased her to see that she remembered how. With her eyes tightly closed, she put her head under the shower stream and rinsed out the floral scented shampoo. Without warning, a strong arm reached past the frilly shower curtain and wrapped around her waist. She was lifted completely out of the tub and a black cloth bag was placed over her head before she could identify the intruder. She hoped it was Cole, but she wasn't expecting him for a few more hours. With her heart pounding, she said meekly, "Howard, is that you?" The intruder was in the process of pulling her arms behind her back and snapping a pair of handcuffs on her wrists. A muffled voice said simply, "Shut up, Bitch!" It didn't sound at all like Howard. She was completely terror-stricken. Still damp from the shower, naked, handcuffed and shivering with fear, she was forced to walk through the house to the garage. The intruder lifted her into a vehicle that seemed to be a van of some sort and pushed her down onto the carpeted floor. He strapped her down firmly to the floor with several wide nylon straps that felt like rough seat belts, then covered her with a thick, soft quilt. She was unable to move or see, but she heard someone get into the driver's seat. Then the garage door opened and the van drove out. When her panic had subsided a bit, she called out to the driver, "Who are you, where are you taking me?" He ignored her completely. Oh God, I've really been kidnapped! she thought in panic. Her corporate security department had warned her that this was a possibility and now it had happened. She felt very frightened, but at least it was warm beneath the quilt, which was apparently filled with goose down. Maybe they'll just keep me for a few days until the ransom is paid. I certainly have enough money for that, she mused. The pressure of the tight straps and the gentle rocking movement of the vehicle gradually calmed her and created a warm submissive feeling. Somehow the feeling combined with her fear and produced a subtle erotic aura. Blinded by the cloth bag and completely immobile, there wasn't much to do but relax. After a long time, the van seemed to drive into another garage and she heard the electric rumbling as the door closed. The unseen driver opened the side door of the van and released the straps. With upward pressure on her cuffed wrists behind her back, he forced her to walk into a house and down a flight of stairs. She thought she was in a basement, but it was quite warm and the floor felt like smooth varnished wood. There was a slight smell of perfume, or was it incense? Still without a word, the man pushed her face down onto a firm bed and removed the cloth bag from her head. Before she could turn to look at him, he placed a padded leather blindfold over her eyes that was held in place with a strong elastic band. She was surprised when he took a minute to comb out her damp hair and dry it with a towel. The touch of the comb felt very intimate. Damn, I'm getting turned on, she realized. Then the handcuffs were removed and leather bindings of some sort were firmly attached around each wrist. He pulled her across the smooth floor and attached her wrists to something in front of her. A moment later, her arms were pulled straight up above her head. She was able to keep the strain off her wrists by holding a leather strap that crossed the palm of each hand. She didn't know what to expect next. The kidnapper still hadn't spoken more than three words, so she had no clue as to why she had been forced into this humiliating position. Except for the leather restraints on her wrists, she was totally naked and exposed to anything the kidnapper wished to do. She could feel that her large breasts were nicely displayed by her raised arms. She was very proud to have such attractive breasts at her age. As her ankles were fastened to the floor about two feet apart, she struggled between fear and arousal. When she thought about how her shaved cunt was now exposed, she knew that arousal was going to win. The man removed her blindfold. He stood behind her so she still couldn't identify him, but she could tell that she was in a darkened room with a single spotlight shining down on her. Nearly blinded by the sudden light, she could just make out the shape of a video camera on a tripod with a red light blinking. Perhaps the kidnapper was making a tape to send with a ransom note? Who would be looking at that tape? The thought made her hold in her stomach and thrust out her chest to show off her lush figure. The blindfold was suddenly replaced, but not before she had looked down at her nude body and noticed how her firm breasts were thrust forward and her nipples were as hard as little rocks. The feeling of debasement was strong and it stimulated an increasing wetness between her legs. *** The kidnapper decided to enjoy himself a bit and started slowly caressing her. No kisses, he didn't want her to feel his beard. Seeing her without her usually perfect hairstyle made her seem more than naked. The strong spotlight emphasized the fashionable paleness of her skin. Her milky white breasts were made to be offered in this position, he thought. He made sure to pinch and twist the erect pink nipples, then squeezed each breast hard several times. He lifted and dropped each one repeatedly to appreciate their resilience and weight. Reaching down between her legs, he started to lightly stroke her slightly damp cunt. Hmmm, freshly shaved, he noticed. After a few minutes, he found her clitoris, which was as hard as her nipples. She jerked when he touched it, betraying its extreme sensitivity. The ankle restraints made it impossible for her to bring her legs together, granting him free access to her erotic center. After several minutes of light touching and teasing, his semi-willing victim was nearly ready to scream from frustration. Removing his hand from between her legs, he stepped back and picked up a four foot single tailed whip that his years of practice allowed him to control perfectly. To make sure that it was properly flexible he cracked it in the air a few feet behind Victoria's back. The sound was like a small caliber gunshot. He enjoyed seeing her jump and fight against her bonds. *** The threatening snaps of the whip frightened Victoria and she began to make sexy whimpering noises as she realized that she did not have the slightest control over what was going to happen next. With a series of gentle overhand strokes, the braided nylon cracker on the end of the whip started to kiss her pale skin. Just a light snap on her shoulder blade, then a stronger one on her left ass cheek. The impacts burned like fire for thirty seconds, then left a hot glow behind. Very light strokes alternated with moderate ones for several minutes, leaving distinct red welts on her upper back, buttocks and thighs. There was a slow, regular rhythm to her punishment that added to her arousal and her desire to surrender herself to her captor. Every ten to fifteen strokes, the whip would crack near her helpless body with a loud report, re-igniting her fear. A few strokes began to creep around her generous hips leaving more raised red stripes there. She could feel every one of the burning welts, although she had lost count after fifty lashes. *** The thrill of dominating the normally haughty woman was making him hard and his rapid heartbeat was almost audible. "I feel so alive when I do this," he thought. There was an almost painful pressure as his cock tried to find a path for expansion. He would have to remove his jeans soon if this continued and he decided to pause for a moment to regain control. To regain his composure, he concentrated on his technical skills and carefully used a backstroke to place several lashes between her open thighs, setting fire to her already overheated labia. He walked around her, admiring her body and noticing how vulnerable she looked, blindfolded and hanging there within easy reach. I love the way this position emphasizes her hipbones and the way her breasts stand out and beg for attention, he thought. He sensed that it was time for another hard stroke, this one needed to strike an unmarked area of white skin just below her well shaped right bottom cheek. *** By this time, Victoria was sure it was Cole. He was playing her like a musical instrument. Nobody else understood her responses well enough to do that to her. Gasping between lashes, she cried out, "God, you're good Howard. I'm so horny I could die!" Pulling the blindfold off, he smiled and said, "You are such a slut, Vicky." "I am not a slut!" "Yes you are. Look how wet you get when you're tied and whipped. I'm not stopping until you admit it. Admit that you're a horny little tramp who needs to be dominated." He adjusted the overhead rope to pull her wrists higher, forcing her up onto her toes. The harsh restraints stretched her voluptuous frame to its limits. She turned her head to get a glimpse of Cole standing behind her. The handsome face with its sinister beard and the studious glasses reminded her of how hot she was for the man. The pressure of her arms against the side of her head told her that her damp hair was nearly dry and must look horrible. It was bad enough being put on display in such a lewd manner, but she shuddered with humiliation at the thought of being seen without her usual perfect hairstyle. Cole didn't mind a bit. He thought that her nicely stretched body looked quite delicious, especially when forcibly stripped of its artificial decoration. He moved around in front of her and carefully aimed the thin whip at her right breast. "No! Please... not my tits!" She moaned and watched fearfully as the tip burned a red line into the inner curve of her sexy cleavage. She tried to shake her chest from side to side to spoil his aim, but he slowly covered her thrust out bosom with one stinging welt after another. The delightful jiggling of her breasts only spurred him on. He saved her engorged, sensitive nipples for last. She was biting her lip to keep from saying the one humiliating thing that would make him stop, when she realized that he was taking aim at her highly aroused left nipple. She was a strong willed woman, but her eyes opened wide when the whip lashed her helpless teat. Almost instantly, before the pain could arrive at her brain, he had done the same to her other nipple. Throwing her head back she let out a long scream that echoed off the walls of the large room. Hanging there whimpering as the pain in her breasts slowly diminished, she said, "You're right, Howard, I am a slut. I need to be fucked so bad I can't stand it another second." "So, you're a horny little slut, are you? You'll have to beg me to fuck you. Do you want it that bad, Little Vicki Slut?" He slid three fingers inside her while using his other hand to lightly brush her abused nipples. Victoria sucked in a huge breath as she felt her vaginal muscles relax and invite the invading fingers deeper. A large quantity of her slick fluid flowed onto Cole's hand. She was terribly embarrassed by her obvious need, but it didn't stop her from begging. "Yes, please sir, I really need it now! Fuck me, please fuck me!" Victoria had never felt so degraded and debased. *** Cole lowered her until he could unfasten her wrist and ankle restraints from their attachment points. Then with the leather cuffs still on, he led her to a low bed in the corner. "Get on your knees slut, you're going to be fucked like an animal. Get your head down all the way. Arch your back. Stick that cunt out for me." He reached beneath her with one hand to roughly fondle her large breasts, which were hanging straight down in a tantalizing way. His other hand slapped her welted ass and stroked her cunt to bring her arousal to a peak. He quickly removed his clothing and touched his aching cock, which confirmed his extreme horniness. Cole slipped a thin textured condom onto his thick organ and knelt behind her. The view of her hips and cunt was intoxicating. He slipped easily into her wet opening and began long slow thrusts that gradually increased in speed and power. He always used a condom with his paying customers, partly to protect himself and partly to help delay his own orgasm. He was glad for the reduced sensation this time, since he had become highly aroused by dominating the proud Victoria. *** Being fucked from behind was Victoria's favorite position, but she never allowed her lovers to take her that way. She thought it was demeaning and didn't want them to see her like that. Being ruthlessly whipped, then fucked doggy style by someone who really knew how to use her was something from her hottest and most secret fantasy. Her skin was still burning from nearly a hundred thin welts, when the pounding of Cole's cock pushed her over the edge. She came in a long series of violent internal spasms and a guttural scream that sounded as if she were dying. *** Cole was breathing heavily, not from the physical exertion, but from the intense concentration. He was just a bit disappointed when she collapsed forward onto her face. "Humph!" he muttered. "You're not getting off that easily Miss Vicky." She seemed completely incapacitated as he rolled her over onto her back. He quickly fastened the wrist cuffs to the head of the bed and used soft ropes to pull her ankle cuffs to each side, leaving her cunt gaping and ready for his attention. When she opened her eyes he saw her look at his face, then at his hard cock. He felt the wave of total lust that she projected. It was obvious. Even though their relationship was strictly limited, at that moment she wanted him inside her more than any man she had ever known. "Please, please, I need more!" she begged, while trying to thrust her wanting pussy toward him. Warming up on a nearby chair was an electric massager with a large flat head heated to several degrees above body temperature. Grasping the cylindrical handle, Cole turned it on and began to slide the warm, flat, vibrating surface up and down the slippery length of her shaved vulva. He varied the pressure in time with the movement of her hips creating a symphony of sexual stimulation. Straining against her soft bonds and panting like she had just run a marathon, Victoria had two or three more earth shattering orgasms before Cole decided to give her his own cock again. He released her legs, then held them up together while he knelt and pushed himself fully into her warm depths. Her legs folded conveniently over his shoulder. The extra tightness caused by holding her legs together helped offset the effect of the condom and the soaking wet cunt. Seeing her hands still restrained above her head reminded him that he was in complete control. He looked down at her breasts, which had flattened considerably in this position, but now jiggled dramatically with his thrusting. "Nice tits, my little slut, you should see how they bounce when I fuck you like this," he said in a humiliating tone. Victoria tried to respond verbally, but could only manage a series of gasps and grunts. The physical and emotional stimulation soon had him on the verge of coming and he slapped her welted ass with his hand just as he started to spurt. Even though Victoria was exhausted, Cole's loud groan of pleasure and strenuous thrusting forced her to come once more. Nearly an hour later, when they had both recovered enough to talk, he inspected her for any cuts or bleeding. She was covered with thin welts about four inches long. Fortunately, none of the welts had broken the skin and they were all in areas that would heal nicely. "You'd better stay away from the health spa for a while. There's no way you're going to explain this," he said. "You won't be showing any cleavage either," he noted, while looking at her striped breasts. "I know, but it was worth it. I feel so relaxed, so balanced, it's almost like being high. I can survive the rat race for another few months now. Thanks, Howard... really." She grinned and pulled him into a lover's hug. "Don't you worry about me, I'll heal up OK." He showed her that the video camera had been a fake. It was all part of the performance. She took some time attempting to make her hair look better, then asked for a scarf to cover it. He drove her home and handed her the garage door opener that he had used to gain entrance to her house. When she asked how he got it, he simply grinned and said, "A pro-Dom can't tell all his secrets." Victoria turned to watch him drive away. In many ways she wanted him for her own, but she knew that it was best to keep their relationship just as it was. Turning to go inside, she started to think of her next social obligation, a party that she was hosting in a week. Her newfound state of relaxation allowed her to contemplate her duties without the tension that had been present the day before. A few days later Cole received a letter from Victoria addressed in her excellent handwriting. Inside he found a personal check for two thousand dollars and a one word note that said "Thanks."
CHAPTER THREE Several months later, in an apartment close to downtown, a woman with gloriously curly, long brown hair hunched over a glowing laptop computer. It was, appropriately, resting on her lap as she reclined against a pile of pillows on her queen sized bed. Her name was Monica Peterson and she was trading email with a man whose personal ad she discovered on the internet the previous month. So far, she knew him only as Howard. She brushed her hair back from her pretty face and frowned in concentration. As she thought about the best way to convey a very private thought to her new correspondent, she recalled some of their previous conversations. He described himself as a professional dominant for women, a pro-dom. When they first made contact, he asked her to explain in great detail what she was looking for and why she wanted it. It was not easy for her to discuss such private thoughts, but it was a very enlightening exchange. They traded email almost daily for six weeks and talked on the telephone several times. His deep, sexy voice on the phone made her tingle inside. At first, Monica was reluctant to believe that he was genuine, but gradually she became convinced and started making plans to meet and perhaps sample his services. Early in their correspondence she revealed considerable information about herself to avoid any misunderstandings about what she was looking for. He patiently answered her numerous questions about dominance and submission, then asked more questions about her past. In one of their first phone conversations, she asked how he would make her submit. He patiently explained, "I have no interest in making anyone submit. Not by seduction, threats or trickery." "If someone wants to be my submissive," he told her, "they must submit willingly, even eagerly." He had vowed never to waste his time on someone who was not sure what they wanted. She learned that one of his greatest fears was to have a partner appear to submit, then change her mind and accuse him of forcing her. Monica worked as an account executive in a well known Seattle-based marketing firm. She believed that the pressures of her job were partly responsible for her intense desire to submit sexually, but the roots of her sexuality extended back beyond her dimmest memories. Perhaps it was even determined by her genes. As she and Cole were getting to know each other, she conscientiously answered his questions regarding her childhood and her first memories of wanting to submit. "When I was seven," she told him, "I remember hoping that my cousin would tie me up. He was about ten years old and had no interest in me at the time. I was very disappointed." At age nine in Boise, Idaho, she would wrap herself in long coils of rope and pretend that she was a woman being held prisoner by various villains. She wasn't exactly sure what the villains would get out of it. Apparently, tying up women was part of their job, or at least it seemed that way on television. Then there were the Nancy Drew books. She discovered them when she was eleven. The scenes where Nancy was captured and tied up held her attention like nothing else she had read before. In one book, Nancy was spanked with a hairbrush by a nefarious thief. In the privacy of her gingham and lace bedecked bedroom, Monica found out what turned her on. The next step in her sexual development occurred when she found her father's pornography hidden in a dresser drawer among the socks. There were several bondage magazines and some SM oriented paperbacks. Her favorite was the Story of O. It provided her with endless hours of erotic fantasy. Even more important, it proved that there must be others like her. She knew that someone had to be buying these books or the publishers wouldn't print them. The dog eared copy that she had stolen from her father was still kept reverently with her important papers in a safe deposit box. When she went to college in Chicago to obtain her business degree, the college men that she had expected to be so sophisticated were completely clueless. Sex was a big disappointment. Lots of groping and awkwardness. It was so hard to tell a man what she wanted, especially when so many of them expected her to take charge. Couldn't they see that she wanted them to be in control? She thought she was close to meeting her secret need when she dated an attractive older student named Robert Hamilton. He was drop dead handsome and came from a wealthy family. Several of her classmates had dated him and many others were interested. She was surprised when he expressed an interest in her, since he was only seen with the best looking women and she did not consider herself to be very attractive. He certainly acted more dominant than her previous dates, telling her what to wear and when to show up at his place. "Be at my place at eight o'clock, wearing a short skirt and the white sweater that I like," he instructed her. At first, he seemed to understand when she hinted that she wanted him to tie her hands or give her a real spanking. Unfortunately, he insisted that they stick to his script, which invariably required her to satisfy him orally. "Yeah baby, suck it hard, that's right!" His good looks and wealth had conditioned him to expect easy service from women, always on his terms. They dated three times before she was ready to admit to herself that he had no interest in spanking or bondage. "He's just a stuck up jerk," she finally told her girlfriends. Giving blow jobs could be fun for her, but only in the context of submission. He was also uninterested in helping her climax, so the sheer sexual frustration was becoming a problem. During her college years, masturbation remained her favorite sexual activity. She built up a nice collection of erotica that she kept in a locked footlocker in her tiny student apartment. It consisted mostly of soft core SM novels that she found at the mall bookstores. The first few times she purchased one of the dirty books, she was sure that everyone was watching and wondering what kind of pervert she was. The English discipline stories were particularly hot. Reading about a young woman being tied over a bench of some sort and caned beyond the limits of endurance always made her sopping wet. It could be quite embarrassing if she was reading in the bookstore, standing in the aisle where the clerk couldn't see her and wondering if the wetness was showing on her jeans. She soon learned to buy the books quickly and take them home for a thorough road test. The pirate stories were another reliable trigger. Using her favorite books and a small vibrator, she could vividly imagine herself being the helpless slave of a strong, handsome pirate. Of course she was not a very good slave, so she was ruthlessly punished quite often. Her most frequent fantasy involved being tied to the mast and flogged on her back and ass. Then the sexy bearded pirate would take her to his cabin, tie her spread-eagled to the bed and rape her with lots of pinching and slapping of her sensitive parts. Of course her own hands would stand in for Captain Blood, the Scourge of the Caribbean. She had hoped that the move to Seattle would give her a better chance of finding a compatible partner with whom to share her secret. Unfortunately for Monica, none of the men she liked had been willing to provide the kind of domination that she craved so deeply. What she really wanted was a chance to give herself completely to a dominant man, a master. She wanted a man who would ask her to take pain for him, then use her for his own pleasure. In her email messages, she briefly outlined for Cole two previous relationships that ended when her partners decided they couldn't live with her kinky tendencies. Modern American men had been conditioned to think in ways that precluded good male dominant sexual play. The constant repetition of media messages against domestic violence made any thinking man recoil at the thought of hitting a woman. She did notice however that there were more and more roles created for sexually dominant women. The image of the leather clad Dominatrix was getting to be a clich� in films and television sitcoms. It made her feel even more alone. Her dating experience in Seattle did prove that she was attracted to older men. Men seemed to become much more sophisticated about sex after a decade or two of practice. She also wondered if perhaps the older men weren't quite as well indoctrinated with political correctness as the younger ones. Monica discovered the kinky side of the internet about two years ago and decided to experiment with personal ads a bit later. She had some brief flings when she chose partners simply for the fact that they could play the dominant role, at least long enough to sleep with her a few times. When she realized that what they wanted was vanilla sex, or to have her dominate them, the spell was broken. Each time she came out of the semi-hypnotic state that she called her submissive headspace, she felt disgusted that she had allowed such gross men to touch her. She suddenly realized that she had been staring at her computer for several minutes, while she analyzed the events that brought her to the present situation. It was time for action, she thought as she added the final sentences to her email message. "You know I love to be spanked and dominated. It's so frustrating to have a guy give me a few pats on the butt and then ask politely for sex! If I have to pay a pro-dom to get what I want, then so be it. Let's meet somewhere and talk about this face to face. What do you say? Sincerely, Monica." Working industriously at his home computer, Cole was interrupted by a pleasant chime that announced the arrival of an email message. When he reached the end of a paragraph in his report, he switched to the email program. The message was sent by: [email protected] . As he prepared to open the message, he remembered her description from her second email. She was five feet eight inches tall and one hundred forty pounds with long brown hair that was naturally curly. Her friends described her face as having a touch of Julia Roberts, perhaps because of her dark brown eyes and sexy mouth. She seemed to be rather sensitive about her weight and had described herself as being slightly pudgy. One of her messages led him to believe that there had been some emotional damage done by her mother who was a diet fanatic. Although some dominants required their on-line submissives to provide their exact sizes and measurements, Cole hadn't asked for a more detailed physical description. For one thing, she was not yet his submissive and he felt it would not be polite. He also felt that most women tended to greatly over or underestimate their attractiveness. Since Monica lived in his own city, it should be easy for them to meet and he preferred to see for himself. He already knew a lot about Monica and it sounded like they would be an amazingly good match. There was just a chance, he thought, that she might become his long term partner. He pushed the feeling aside to avoid becoming too eager. Reading tonight's email he found that she was finally ready to meet and possibly negotiate for his professional services. About time, he thought, I've never put this much time and energy into a potential customer before. There is something special about this one. He wanted to find out if Monica was serious, so he quickly typed his response. He described what he required of the women who wished to submit to him. The list of rules was easy to remember, as it was short and he had typed it many times before. The first rule was that Monica must continue with her daily life, including work, family and friends. If her dominant/submissive relationship with Cole began to interfere with her other responsibilities, it would have to end. The second rule was that he was not available for a complete relationship. Only her desire to submit could be fulfilled through this liaison. The third rule was that when they were together, her submission must be complete and without question. He assured her that their activities would include plenty of spanking, bondage and other forms of SM play which she would be expected to endure. The fourth rule was that some amount of money, to be negotiated, would change hands to establish that he was a professional. These rules had worked with many women who Cole had previously dominated in the context of a professional agreement. He was confident that this was the best arrangement for both parties. Cole closed the message with a request that they meet for the first time next Saturday at one of his favorite upscale restaurants in Seattle. He knew that this would be the test. He guessed that about half his prospects would back out at this point or simply fail to show up at the appointed time. His alternate plan was to have an excellent dinner alone and see a play at a nearby theater. In his dealings with submissive women, he had learned the hard way to have a back-up plan. When Monica received the message, there was no thought of rejecting the offer. She was exceedingly curious about Cole and badly wanted a chance to meet him in person. She didn't know much more about him than his physical description and how he felt about dominant and submissive sexuality. The pro-dom role that he had chosen for himself did not lend itself to a complete two way exchange of information. If he proved to be reasonably attractive and seemed to be honest about his abilities, she was fully prepared to enter into a professional arrangement. The next evening, Cole found another email reply from Monica. She agreed to meet him Saturday evening at Cutter's restaurant on the waterfront. He typed out a few details that she would need. The reservations were at 6PM under her name, Anderson. She didn't know his last name yet and he wanted to keep it that way for now. She knew that he was a legal professional and that he lived East of Seattle in a nice neighborhood. He described himself as being about six feet tall, short dark hair, average build, with a well trimmed beard and mustache. He would be wearing roundish metal framed glasses and a black sport coat. She also knew his correct age of forty one years. He reminded her that he had not yet agreed to accept her as his submissive and vice versa, so there would be no play at the table. Cole laughed when he reread that, since he could imagine punishing her later for being a naughty girl and playing at the dinner table. After a hectic Saturday afternoon dealing with a distraught client whose patent had just proven to be invalid, Cole went home to clean up and dress for dinner. As promised, he wore a black sport coat that would be appropriate for the restaurant. His car was still in the repair shop, so he had to drive the minivan that he normally used to carry clients and their staff to important meetings. He proceeded downtown, traveling against the evening traffic in the sleek black Voyager. Not exactly your typical bachelor's vehicle, but the nearly opaque windows and large carpeted floor space had come in handy on certain memorable occasions. He parked in a lot beneath the restaurant just off Pike street and walked around to the front door at five minutes before six. Monica was already there, watching the entryway from her seat in the bar, so that she could sneak out quietly if the man who asked for the Anderson reservation turned out to be something other than what she expected. She felt a familiar tingle inside her nether parts when she heard a handsome man, looking thirty fivish, ask for "Anderson, party of two?" He was pretty much as he had described himself, except he had neglected to mention that his frequent workouts made him trimmer and more muscular than the average forty one year old. He seemed to walk and move with unusual ease, as if possessing great internal energy. The beard and mustache were trimmed in a way that made him appear intelligent, but slightly dangerous. After Cole was seated at a table near the window, Monica approached the desk and asked to be seated at the Anderson table. Cole saw someone walking behind the hostess, but did not immediately think that this was the woman he was waiting for. He was expecting someone a little on the heavy side, but that did not describe the woman approaching him in a slinky black cocktail dress with a high neck and long sleeves. This woman was built like the playboy playmates that he fantasized about as a boy. The thin black dress was made of a knit material that clung to her body as if it had been painted on. The dress revealed the precise shape of her breasts, which was perfect and yet not quite perfect, so it was hard to tell if she was wearing a bra. Surely she must be a plaything of one of those rich executives that he knew so well. Her lush figure caused Cole to start drifting into an analysis of how society had come to demand that women must look emaciated in order to be attractive. It took him a moment to realize that the woman had stopped at his table. Then she smiled and spoke directly to him. "Hi, I'm Monica. May I sit down?" A mild feeling of embarrassment washed over him and Cole felt like he was thinking in slow motion as he looked up from her nicely rounded hips, past her narrow waist and perfect breasts. Then he noticed the brown eyes and slightly wide mouth. He was momentarily stunned. Slowly, a smile of understanding crept across his face. "Of course, I'm Howard. Thanks for being so prompt. I like that." He collected his wits as Monica sat across from him at the small table that was set for two. He had to remind himself not to stare at her body in the black dress. He made up his mind to look either at her face or out through the long bank of windows where the lights of early evening were sparkling on Puget Sound. They made small talk with the pleasant waiter, who took their orders and entered them into a small hand held computer that used a wireless connection to the kitchen. When they were alone with glasses of an excellent Chardonnay, they began to talk. "So... what's it like being a professional dominant?" she asked, a bit breathlessly. "It's hard to describe. It can be very intense, totally absorbing and sometimes very rewarding. I think it's probably the most exciting thing I've ever done," he replied calmly while looking into the dark pools of her eyes. "Although I think semi-professional would be more accurate. I wouldn't want to try making a living at it." "That's too bad," Monica said "it's such a hot fantasy." She wondered if her body language was projecting the flirtatiousness that her friends often pointed out, even when she was not trying to flirt. At least this time it was intentional, she thought. They could both feel the chemistry already. It was a bit like air and gasoline being mixed, waiting for a spark to set off the mixture. The service was excellent, as usual. As they ate their dinner of perfectly grilled salmon and pasta with a mild cream sauce, Cole explained in rather serious tones what he expected from a submissive and what he had learned from his past partners. His comments alternated with Monica's candid description of her previous experiences and what she was looking for. Their conversation seemed to flow naturally, as if they had known each other forever. "I have to admit I'm a bit surprised at how attractive you are," he told her. "From the comments in your email I didn't expect such beauty." "Really? You think I'm attractive?" "Extremely. Why, don't you think so?" "It's a long story Howard. One of those emotional baggage from childhood things." "Hmmm, someone told you that you were ugly, I'd guess. Was it your mother or your father?" "My mother. Let's talk about something else. Why do you think I'm attractive? Is it because I'm subby?" Cole gradually became more certain of his opinion that this was one of the most naturally submissive women that he had ever met. She was highly intelligent too. He didn't think he had ever known anyone else who had completed Calculus 4 in college. He sensed that this was a woman he could fall in love with. That was not quite what he had planned, but he was compelled to continue. Their conversation went on until they suddenly realized that they had been talking for well over two hours and agreed to adjourn to the bar and free the table for other diners. Monica's mind was racing. She thought that she might have finally found what she was looking for, but damn it, the man was a professional and not available. It was almost more than she could handle. She was glad for the brief break in the conversation. After receiving their drinks in the bar and engaging in safe small talk for a while, they agreed to trade looks at each other's driver's licenses. He instructed her to write down his full name and address, which should be given to a friend to hold in case she failed to return at an agreed time. Since he had not offered to tell her very much about his life, it gave her some assurance that he was being honest and was not hiding anything sinister. Then, Cole turned the topic to their future relationship. "Monica, we've done a lot of communicating the last few weeks and I have to admit that I'm very attracted to you. We seem to be developing a relationship that is quite different from what I originally expected. Before we proceed any further I'd like to ask if we can eliminate two of my rules. They don't seem appropriate anymore." "OK, I'm listening." "First the one about me not being available for a complete relationship. Would you still be interested if there was no limit?" he said with a smile and then held his breath. "Howard, you must be reading my mind. I'm very interested," she said quietly as she dug her fingernails into her palms beneath the table to help steady her voice. "There's one other thing." "What is it Howard?" "Well, I explained that I usually charge my submissives a fee to help maintain the relationship within the proper boundaries." "That's no problem, I can pay!" she exclaimed quietly to avoid the eavesdroppers in the bar. "What I'm trying to say is that I don't want our relationship to be like that. There won't be any fee. This is just for us. To explore each other and see what happens." Monica dropped her eyes for just a moment and said, "I'd like that very much." "Then ask me to accept you as my submissive." he said in a suddenly very deep voice. Her breath caught in her chest and she had to wait a few long seconds before she could speak. "Sir, will you accept me as your submissive?" "Yes, Monica. Thank you for giving me such a precious gift. From this moment forward, as long as we both agree, I am your Dominant and you are my submissive. You may call me Master if you wish, but do not consider yourself a slave. You are a free woman who is choosing to submit to a man who you believe is worthy of that gift." "Tonight you'll go home and think about this. I want you to have a chance to back out. If you still wish to be mine, come to my house next weekend. Make sure you don't have any other plans. Send me an email on Monday if you're still committed and I'll give you your instructions. We'll start slowly. I think you're something special and I don't want either of us to mess this up." They discussed a few more details including an agreement that they would both have tests for AIDs and all other STDs on Monday. As far as they knew, they were both free of any disagreeable maladies. Cole had a vasectomy many years ago, which they appreciated now since Monica was not on the pill and they both disliked condoms. After taking the elevator down to where they both had parked, they forced themselves to part with a polite hug and kiss. Then Cole watched silently as Monica drove off into the night at the wheel of a pretty blue Mazda Miata. He took several deep breaths to calm himself before climbing into his own vehicle. Arriving at her fashionable apartment twenty minutes later, Monica ran for the bedroom, shedding clothes along the way. She threw herself onto the bed and began masturbating furiously. "I've never been so horny in my life!" she shouted into a pillow. There is something about Howard that really pushes my submissive buttons, she thought. Maybe it was that sexy beard or the hint of gray in his hair. Perhaps his large hands, which seemed so powerful. He wasn't at all like the men she met from the internet or those posturing assholes who answered her personal ad in the kinky section of the alternative newspaper last year. She received over a hundred responses from a single ad. She must have dated a dozen guys before she got totally disgusted and gave up. Howard was different. He said he was some kind of legal professional, although he wouldn't be more specific. It had been roughly eight months since she last had sex with someone other than herself. Prior to meeting Howard, the only good thing about her social life was that she had plenty of time to haunt the internet and hang out with her girlfriend Jennifer who had similar interests. There were countless mailing lists, chat rooms and web sites that discussed Dominance and Submission. She had learned enough about D/S to know that it was what she wanted and that she hadn't yet experienced it. SM was interesting and she did love a good spanking, but it did not satisfy her urge to serve and submit. She felt envious of the women on the internet who wrote stories and poetry about their submission. Was it finally her turn, she wondered? After several intense orgasms fueled by fantasies of her new master, Monica fell into a deep sleep, drooling slightly from the corner of her Julia Roberts mouth.
CHAPTER FOUR On Sunday morning Cole awoke at seven AM as usual and looked out the window through the tall fir trees that screened his house from the neighbors. Since the Autumn monsoon was absent today, he decided to indulge in one of his favorite Sunday morning activities. Dressing in a black sweat suit, he drove to the nearest Starbuck's for a large Cafe Mocha. He passed the mirrored glass building where he rented a small office. Then, appreciating the light Sunday morning traffic, he crossed the floating bridge over Lake Washington and continued up Interstate Five to Green Lake. Finishing his coffee drink as he arrived, he parked and started to jog under a light gray sky around the 2 mile asphalt path that encircled the lake. While he idly watched the female joggers, he considered his situation. It had been twelve years since his divorce, which was painful, even though it made perfect sense. His wife had been correct, they were not at all right for each other. Constantly fighting for control was no way to live. It had taken him two years to get back on his feet emotionally and financially. Then there was a time of disappointing vanilla dating. He couldn't count the number of times that women had lost interest when they found out that his favorite form of sex play was something they considered perverted. His discovery of the organized SM scene began an important period of experimentation and personal growth. Seattle had an active pansexual leather community. Kinky organizations would form and dissolve regularly. They all had the same motto: "Safe, Sane and Consensual." To Cole, the concept of SM as a form of healthy play came as a revelation. The large pan-sexual play parties at the mansion had been an amazing experience and a great place to learn. His new friends told him that he was something called a Top, the label applied to the active partner in SM play. It turned out that he had a real aptitude for topping and he learned a lot from the Leatherdykes who were happy to teach him their highly ethical brand of consensual and almost spiritual SM. Even the professional FemDoms, who were so influential in the scene, seemed to accept him. He eventually decided that although SM play was great fun and highly stimulating in its own way, it wasn't quite what he was looking for. By the time he was ready to move on, he knew that he was more Dom than Top. It was great fun to spank or whip a willing play partner, but it was even more intense when she submitted to whatever he wished. He liked the term "playmate". It seemed a little more joyful and a bit less formal than "play partner". He played because he enjoyed it, not because he was driven by some inner demon. Taking the dominant role in sex turned him on at the deepest levels. Apparently, he was just wired that way. On the few occasions that he had tried to be sexually submissive, it had been a complete waste of time. A good massage would have felt better. He developed friendships with other dominant men and learned what he could from them. Many of the maledoms used names like Master Joe or Sir Harry. Cole never gave himself a title, although he had his subby playmates call him Master if it turned them on and enhanced their feeling of submission. He knew right away that he found some maledoms repulsive. They were the ones who talked badly about their female partners and seemed to have little concern for their well being. He called them ego-Doms. Some of them were fans of the GOR novels by John Norman, which portrayed a planet where most women were bought and sold as slaves. To be fair, however, he had met couples who seemed to have constructed comfortable D/S relationships based on "Gorean" principles. The amazing variety of kinky relationships was a never ending source of fascination for him. Around this time, Cole stopped using the initials SM to describe what he did. A new term was coined on the internet: BDSM. It was an artificial acronym that incorporated Bondage and Discipline, Dominance and Submission, Sadism and Masochism. It was a flexible term for a flexible lifestyle. Since he engaged in all the included activities, it seemed the perfect label. He had always been curious about the influences that caused a person to enjoy BDSM, so it was often his favorite topic of conversation. He never was able to figure out why he had turned out this way himself. He had no history of abuse or neglect. His earliest memories of sexual fantasies around age ten were a desire to tie up the little brown haired girl down the street. He wasn't exactly sure what he'd do with her then, but he'd seen women tied up on TV a few times and knew that it was terribly exciting. For the last three years, since turning away from the local scene and advertising on the internet, he had enjoyed more erotic female companionship than he had ever dreamed possible. He respected every woman he played with and he learned something from each of them. He was still in touch with several of his old playmates and had parted on good terms with those he no longer saw. Oddly enough, he considered himself a feminist and on occasion had used his influence to help women advance in his profession. The only thing that Cole lacked was a permanent partner of his own. The house seemed so empty at times during the long Northwest winters. He wondered if Monica would be the one. As he jogged through some fallen leaves he noticed that the women joggers didn't seem as attractive today. None of them had her smoldering sexuality that was a product of her intelligence and her submissiveness. OK, maybe her delectable body had something to do with it too, he thought with a wide grin. On Monday, Monica sent an email stating that she wanted very much to proceed with their relationship. She signed the email, "Your submissive, Monica." He sent back an email that included the following terse instructions. "Arrive at my house at exactly seven thirty Friday evening. You will be punished for tardiness. Be prepared to spend the night. What you wear is not important. Eat before you come. You can expect to be used sexually if I find your behavior acceptable. Bring the results of your STD tests. You are not permitted to have an orgasm until we meet." That week was a long one for Howard Cole. His clients were particularly demanding. He checked the local weather website and found out that there was indeed a full moon. Instead of setting his own hours, he was forced to work evenings. At least he was able to do much of his work at home. Unfortunately he didn't have time to prepare his basement dungeon as he usually did for a new playmate. Perhaps, he thought, this would be a good time to do something different. The dungeon could wait for a future session. On Friday, Monica was able to leave work an hour early and skipped her usual workout at the gym. Her friend Jennifer Lee had been envious when Monica gave her Cole's address and phone number as a precaution. Monica promised to call the next day with a full report. The two women met on-line almost a year ago in a Compuserve forum dedicated to Dominance and Submission. Upon finding out that they lived in the same city, the two quickly became close friends with a hint of sexual interest between them. Jennifer, a slightly built woman of mixed Chinese and French-Canadian ancestry was a stunning beauty. Her exotic facial features with almond shaped hazel eyes and a high forehead were the type that made everyone look twice. Her sensuous waist length silky black hair drew more attention from men than she wanted. Unfortunately, her history with men was abysmal, which was why she could usually be found in the company of women. She insisted that Monica share all the juicy details of her rendezvous with Cole, so that she could enjoy them vicariously. Monica obeyed Cole's instructions forbidding an orgasm and by now it was almost impossible for her not to masturbate. Her clitoris was in a constant state of tingling arousal and she was slightly wet with anticipation. She bounced around her apartment in a mixture of excitement, fear and just plain lust. She bathed and shaved, then tried on several outfits. With each new outfit she stared in the mirror and told herself that she was fat and ugly. Her mother and her first boyfriend had told her that a thousand times and now it was too late to believe differently. Perhaps her new master wouldn't care, if she was sufficiently submissive and obedient, she thought. Since Master Cole said that her clothing was not important, she did not want to overdress. She settled on a pair of moderately tight jeans and a tight white top with no bra. She didn't really need one. A pair of high heels made her ever so slightly large legs look elegantly slender. As she drove to the home of her new master, she was already getting slightly wet and was glad she had worn panties, even if they were just a little pair of lacy white things. She was a bit nervous, but she was comforted by the fact that they had agreed to use a safeword. All she had to do was say "safeword" and he had promised to bring their play to an immediate halt. She was more concerned that he would be too afraid of hurting her, like some of her useless boyfriends, she thought contemptuously. Approaching Cole's house, she noted the impressive neighborhood, then found her new master's home on a narrow private road. It was a large single story residence. She studied it carefully in the fading daylight. Perhaps two thousand square feet, if there wasn't a basement and it was probably built within the last ten years, she estimated. It wasn't the biggest one in the area, but it was nicely screened by large trees and seemed quite secluded. The landscaping had a distinct Japanese influence, with several large boulders placed artistically in beds of raked gravel. She parked in front of the three car garage and went to the door. Cole answered her knock with his heart pounding. There stood not only the sexiest play partner he had ever had, but someone who just might be the mythical perfect partner. He hoped he wouldn't make any stupid mistakes. Fortunately, being around Monica made him feel very dominant and confident. Was it just a coincidence that she was 10 minutes late? She saw that he was wearing black jeans and a white long sleeved casual shirt. Giving in to a strong urge to cast her eyes downward, she noticed that he also appeared to be wearing expensive leather loafers. "You're late," he growled. "Come in and follow me." He resisted his impulse to give her a hug and led her toward his study, where he had just turned off the computer a few minutes earlier. Monica scanned the interior of the house for any clues about her master. A dining room contained an expensive looking table, but only four chairs. The kitchen had several gleaming pieces of copper and stainless cookware hanging on the wall. As she followed him down the hall to the study, she noticed several professional looking framed photographs of outdoor scenes. In one, she recognized a waterfall that was near Mt. Rainier. Since her master had mentioned his photography hobby, she made a mental note to ask him later if the photos were his. They entered the large study and stopped just inside the door. "We have a little bit of business to attend to before we can begin." Cole announced, "Did you bring the results of your tests?" "Yes Sir, here they are. I guess I'm pretty healthy." Cole handed her his paperwork which stated clearly that he was STD free. She looked at it carefully and handed it back, saying "Thank you Sir." He noticed that she was wearing just the right amount of perfume. He couldn't quite come up with the name. It was something to ask her about later. "Stand right over there and be silent unless I ask you to speak," Cole said, pointing to the center of the room. A light piano concerto played softly from expensive speakers concealed in the polished oak bookcases and soft light spilled from two lamps in the corners. Monica's heart was pounding and she concentrated on the features of the room for a moment to calm herself. She saw that his computer was one of the latest models. Probably a late Pentium class, she guessed, nice big monitor, ergonomic keyboard, CD-ROM drive, expensive printer. The furniture reminded her of the expensive walnut and teak pieces that her company's CEO had in his private office. There was a fax machine or copier on a credenza behind the desk. The stereo was apparently hidden, she noted. As she looked down at her feet and noticed the fine texture of the light gray carpet, her heart was again beating normally. Cole pulled up a comfortable chair. He placed it in front of her about six feet away and sat down, which brought her attention back to him. He waited a few moments to see if she would remain silent as instructed. Monica was looking approximately at his feet, which he hoped was a sign of submission. She was wearing a short bomber-style jacket over her white top, so the next thing he said was "Thank you for coming, Little One. Take off your jacket and place it over the chair behind you" Monica complied and returned to her position in the middle of the room. Cole was fascinated by her instinctive submission. Perhaps she had more experience at this game than she had admitted. "Put your hands behind your head." Cole's line of sight was drawn inexorably to Monica's breasts and he studied them intently. "Put your arms down," he said, then "Put them back behind your head" He noticed that her breasts did not sag like they should for a 26 year old woman with this kind of figure. "What is your bra size Monica?" She felt a delicious wave of humiliation sweep over her and struggled to get out her answer. "I'm a 36 C, Master." "Do you have breast implants, Little One?" "No Master!" she exclaimed. "Take off your top and we'll see about that. Place it on the chair by your jacket." Monica pulled off her white top by grasping it from the bottom and pulling it over her head. After placing it on the chair she resumed her position in front of Cole with her hands at her sides. Cole stepped forward to examine her breasts and brushed some of her beautiful long brown hair out of the way. With her arms down, they did sag slightly. The nipples were medium size and quite hard already. They were a beautiful pair, perhaps the prettiest breasts he had ever seen. The word perky came to mind, but he didn't know if perky could apply to breasts this size. Perhaps he should mail the question to the Playboy Advisor, he thought while suppressing a grin. He very delicately brushed her nipples with his fingertips and they grew even harder. "Put your hands behind your head again," he ordered, in his dominant voice which Monica found both charming and irresistible. He began to squeeze and fondle the perfect globes while he inspected them for any surgical scars. After a minute or two Monica felt lightheaded from the stimulation and became slightly unsteady. The delicious feeling of humiliation wasn't helping. "You pass the test Little One. Those are the most beautiful breasts I've ever seen. Put your arms down now and take a deep breath. Can't have you passing out now, can we?" "No, Master." Cole sat down again and tried to take a few deep breaths himself. Could a potential partner be too perfect? He was feeling slightly overwhelmed. After a short time he ordered, "Take off your jeans now and place them on the chair." Monica complied and resumed her position, now clad in lacy white panties and black high heels. On her own initiative, she put her hands behind her head to thrust out her breasts in the manner that her new Master seemed to like. Although Cole was a card-carrying breast man, the view of Monica's perfectly rounded hips and flat stomach almost caused his heart to stop. She had a tattoo over her right hipbone that he moved forward to examine. It appeared to be a small naked woman that might be described as a winged nymph. It was exquisite, perhaps the work of a famous tattoo artist. I'll have to ask her about it later, he thought. Cole moved back to his chair and just looked at her for a few minutes, drinking in the intoxicating sight. His inspection of her body gave the solution to another mystery. Although she didn't carry an ounce of what he would consider excess weight, she was slightly large boned and firmly muscled beneath her curves. Her reported weight of one hundred forty pounds was probably accurate, but most people would guess it to be about twenty pounds less. He was delighted that she didn't resemble the starving fashion models, but he could understand how she might be worried that she didn't measure up to society's standards. "Do you lift weights often, Little One?" "Yes, Master. Three or four times a week." "I see. Take off your panties and drop them on the floor." Monica quickly tossed her panties on the floor behind her, revealing her perfectly shaved pubis. Then she replaced her hands behind her head and parted her legs slightly. How did she know that I love a shaved cunt? Cole thought, as he struggled to breath normally. Fortunately, Monica was looking at the floor and was not aware of his difficulty. "When did you start shaving your cunt, Little One? I don't recall ordering you to do that." "I've always done that sir. If you don't like it, I can stop shaving, but it would feel very strange for me." He knew his voice was shaky as he said, "That won't be necessary. Continue to keep yourself smooth. It pleases me." He noticed that she had a light tan without lines. In Seattle that meant about one session on the tanning bed each week. Pausing to collect himself, Cole managed to give his next order calmly, in a deep voice that a radio announcer would envy. "I said that you would be punished if you were late. We'll have to take care of that before we can begin your training. Kneel on that stool over there, then bend forward and place your palms flat on the floor." His command voice was working well now, he was relieved to see. Monica thought that she would faint from the excitement. None of her previous men had treated her this way. It was as if her greatest fantasy was being made into reality and she hoped it wouldn't end too soon. She wondered if her Master would notice the slight trickle of lubrication starting to drip down the inside of her left thigh. Was she allowed to be aroused or would she be punished for it? Monica moved to a padded footstool about a foot high and two feet across. After kneeling with her knees apart and with her feet dangling off the back of the stool, she bent forward at the waist to place her palms on the floor. Her perfect ass was presented in a most lewd and vulnerable manner. Her breathing was rapid and her skin flushed. Cole tried hard to ignore his growing erection as he approached her from behind. "You'll be spanked on your bare bottom until I feel you've been punished properly for being late." He didn't know if he had the strength to administer a good spanking since most of his blood supply seemed to be heading straight for his cock. Sneaking a look at her deliciously dangling breasts, he wanted to reach down and caress their sexy outer curves, but he pressed down gently on the small of her back and began to spank her. In this position, her hips and buttocks formed a classic symbol of feminine beauty. She was offering it to him as a gift. The stinging slaps were gentle at first, then harder. Red handprints began to show up on her lightly tanned skin. Monica reacted only with a slight intake of breath at each blow. Her firm ass muscles soaked up the spanking easily and Cole realized that he was hurting his hand as much as he was hurting her. Stepping over to the closet, he removed a thin wooden paddle that would nicely cover one cheek at a time. Measuring his stroke carefully, he struck the lower curve of her left buttock, then the right. Her body jerked slightly with each impact, but she held her position perfectly. He tuned his senses into Monica and felt that familiar joining that occurred to him during intense play sessions. Monica felt it too. She imagined that she was the one spanking a pretty kneeling woman who thrust her ass out to receive each blow. Although the woman was Monica herself, she was perceived as much more beautiful, almost ethereal. The heat from her punishment gradually spread through her body. She felt like she would explode from the strange sensation that was half deep submission and half physical lust. They both lost track of how many minutes went by or how many blows were struck. At some point, without conscious effort, their breathing became synchronized. When Monica started having trouble maintaining her position, Cole forced himself to come back from the strange space that he had entered with her. Regaining his senses, he noticed a heavy flow of slippery fluid on Monica's muscular inner thighs where the tendons stood out with the strain of holding her position. He hadn't even touched her cunt yet and already she was dripping, he thought. Standing up straight, Cole told her to rise and stand before him. He gathered her to him with one hand firmly gripping the hair at the back of her head. Looking into her eyes he spoke carefully. "I'm very impressed with you so far Little One. I've punished you enough for being late. As a test, I'm going to give you a choice about what we do next. You will not be punished for choosing either way." "We can either begin your training or you can offer your new Master the pleasure of using that pretty cunt. Which option do you choose?" She took a step back as Cole released his grip on her body and hair. Kneeling before him with her hands behind her head and her eyes locked onto his shoes she said, "Master, I'd be honored if you would use my cunt for your pleasure." Then she thought to herself, Oh please, oh please, oh please, I need it soooo bad! He breathed a silent sigh of relief. Unless he could get his hormones under control, this relationship was going to involve more sex than domination. Maybe that was not a bad thing, he thought as he escorted Monica to his bedroom down the hall. She looked around Cole's bedroom with great interest. The fog of lust had dissipated just enough that she could remember her girlfriend's theory that you could learn a lot about a man if you saw his bedroom. She noticed a king size bed with a padded frame around the edge. The handsomely built oak headboard contained some closed cupboards and several metal fittings that looked suspiciously like bondage points. Glancing up at the ceiling, she suppressed a smile when she noticed the large eyescrews embedded in the ceiling at various places. She tried not to appear too curious, in case her Master objected. "Lie on the bed, face up, in the center," he ordered. Taking two pieces of soft rope, he carefully tied each wrist to the headboard with non-tightening knots. He then wrapped lengths of rope several times around each ankle to distribute the pressure without causing discomfort. He did not fasten the free ends to anything just yet. "Be quiet now and just enjoy, Little One. I certainly intend to enjoy you," Cole said as he stood up to undress. She took advantage of the opportunity to study his nude, muscular form in the dim light. She knew exactly what she wanted and it was terribly hard to wait. With her arms securely fastened about three feet apart to the headboard, Monica could only lie there and allow her Master to explore her body, which would reveal to him her most private sexual responses. She tried not to writhe her hips as Master kissed her flat stomach around her navel and hip bones. With a great effort she was able to hold nearly still while he gave her breasts the most professional stimulation she had ever experienced. When he finally removed his mouth and hands from her glowing teats she would have sworn that they were steaming from the inner heat. Monica was afraid she might faint from extreme sexual desire and she was sure that she would die if he touched her rock hard nipples again, but still she kept nearly silent. Only when Master began tying her ankles to the headboard did she start to make a strange repetitive moaning sound as she imagined what might come next. When her legs were pulled all the way back and spread as wide as possible, her Master placed a pillow under her head so that she had a direct view of her own cunt. The strain of the unusual position was not as bad as she would have imagined, but the sight of her own erect nipples and gaping cuntlips was a visual stimulus that only increased her sexual tension. Her hood of her clitoris appeared to be much larger than normal and she wondered if it could possibly return to its regular size. Cole wondered if she was going to hyperventilate as he eased himself down on the bed and applied his tongue to her swollen clit. He disliked going down on women who weren't shaved, but the sight of a sweet shaved cunt on a restrained woman brought out the cunnilingist in him. Dominant or not, he had been taught long ago that a gentleman always makes sure the lady comes first and old habits are hard to break. He made himself stop periodically to prevent her from coming too soon. He expected a woman with her pelvic structure to be rather large inside, so he was somewhat surprised to find that she was very tight. He used his tongue and fingers for a long time to make sure she was as well lubricated as possible. Eventually, Monica had the first of many orgasms. She felt that she was being forced to come. It would have been impossible for her to resist. She closed her eyes so that she couldn't see Master doing that shameful thing to her private place. Most of her boyfriends had not been willing to do that because the | {
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Australia's record goal scorer Tim Cahill has joined Indian Super League (ISL) side Jamshedpur FC, the 38-year-old striker announced on Saturday.
Cahill struggled for playing time at club level last year and left A-League side Melbourne City in December to return to Millwall -- where he first came to prominence 20 years ago -- before being released by the Championship club.
"I'm excited to announce that I'm signing for Jamshedpur FC in the Indian Super League. I've been really impressed in my conversations with the club by their professionalism and goals for what they want to achieve," Cahill tweeted. "I know I can help the team on and off the park with my leadership and experience. I want to help grow the game and encourage young kids to play football."
Jamshedpur did not specify specific details of the contract that the former Everton player had signed.
Cahill, who scored 50 goals for Australia in a career spanning 14 years, retired from international duty after playing in his fourth World Cup in Russia earlier this year. He will join up with Spaniard Cesar Ferrando's team in their preseason training camp at Madrid.
Jamshedpur, who were formed 14 months ago and joined the ISL as part of its expansion to 10 teams last season, struggled in front of goal and were fifth in their maiden campaign.
The fifth season of India's top flight gets underway on Sept. 29. | {
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In an unconventional move, LSU head coach Les Miles stated today that he believes all nine assistants will be on the field during games this Fall (with some grad assistants in the box).
I like the idea.
If your coordinators are comfortable calling the game from the sidelines, it seems all they need is the guy they are most comfortable with (probably “their” grad assistant) upstairs acting as their eyes in the sky. Add in a front man who is looking at the action in the trenches from upstairs and relaying that down to the offensive / defensive line coaches & coordinators and we’ve got a plan.
From the perspective of both the players and the assistants, I feel having the assistants on the field to “coach’em up” in game is far more valuable than being in the box. Players’ position coaches are their guys. Position coaches know the right things to say and the right ways to say them to each man. It works face to face; but is very hard to convey the same way over the headset.
“What will do is will have a young group of coaches, those guys that can coach and talk and be upstairs,” Miles said. “If I find we’re not getting the view of things that need to be relayed from the press box, that will change.”
I hope this move works; and then more teams consider it, allowing more assistants to “coach” on gameday and giving more grad assistants an opportunity to work more closely with the coordinators (helping them understand his thought process on gameday). | {
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Kinda happy to see it end. Many networks drag their series on long past their prime so to see it attempting to go out with a bang is a win in my book c:
The fandom and all it's works will remain, however!
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♫ Listening to: Ouija by Graveyard Club ♫
Do you ever find yourself clutching your warm cup of coffee or tea and wishing you could jump into it to warm up? This is basically a daily occurrence for me in the winter. These rice bears snuggling under their dal blankies are my way of projecting myself into the warmth of my supper. If you like this recipe, you might also like my chana masala.
Vegan Dal Ingredients
2 yellow onions
olive oil (omit if you avoid oil)
2 cups red lentils
6 cups water
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon curry powder
1 teaspoon turmeric
1 teaspoon lemon juice
Vegan Dal Directions
Sauté onions in oil until soft. Turn to low.
Cook the lentils in water until soft.
Add the lentils to the onions, and add the spices and lemon juice.
Mix well and leave on low heat until ready to serve.
Vegan Blue Rice Bear Ingredients
4 cups water
small handful of butterfly pea flowers
2 cups bamboo rice (or substitute white sushi rice)
Vegan Blue Rice Bear Directions
Boil the dried butterfly pea flowers in the water for 5 minutes.
Strain the liquid so there are no dried butterfly pea flowers left in it.
Cook the rice in the blue flower-infused water.
Cool the rice enough so you can touch it.
Shape the bear body using a piece of plastic wrap so the rice doesn’t stick to your hands while you shape it.
Spoon the dal into shallow bowls before placing bear body into the dal.
☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆ | {
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S ound not only affects our mood and emotions, it can affect what we think and, indeed, our ability to hear ourselves think.
In the workplace, bad acoustical design can increase stress and reduce productivity. At any given time, a cubicle worker may be overhearing one or more phone conversations, water cooler chats, impromptu meetings, bull sessions, and even co-workers muttering at their computers. These distractions often drown out our own thoughts, turning us into involuntary eavesdroppers.
This article will examine the problem of conversational distraction in more detail and explore ways to reduce or mask office noise. A companion article, "Learning to Tune Out Distraction," will focus on ways to reduce stress and improve our ability to concentrate in a noisy environment.
The Cubicle Environment
"Reviled by workers, demonized by designers, disowned by its very creator, it still claims the largest share of office furniture sales — $3 billion or so a year — and has outlived every 'office of the future' meant to replace it. It is the Fidel Castro of office furniture." [1]
The cubicle was intended to provide privacy, encourage communication and offer vertical space for pinning up documents. Unfortunately, its developer, Robert Propst, did not foresee that economics would lead to what he later called the "monolithic insanity" of the cubicle farm, as employers tried to warehouse worker bees as cheaply as possible [1] .
The promise of increased communication is very attractive. However, several studies have failed to support the supposed benefits of open-plan offices and cubicle systems. Instead, users report interruptions, lack of privacy, and frequent distractions [2] .
"Would it be smart to save $5,000 over the course of a year by putting a highly valued, expensive employee in open space, where that person won't do the best possible job? We don't think so."
— Nick MacPhee, Microsoft [3]
While over 70% of office workers say that a reduction in noise would increase their productivity, only 19% of executives surveyed were aware of a noise problem [4] . The cost savings from more efficient packing of the workforce may be short-sighted in view of the impact of increased noise on productivity, stress and employee turnover.
Stress and Distraction
"A buzzer sounded in George's head. His thoughts fled in panic, like bandits from a burglar alarm."
— Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., "Harrison Bergeron" [18]
Noise is one of the most frequently reported problems in the modern workplace [2] . Clearly many employees are unhappy with the cubicle environment and its effect on their ability to concentrate. For example:
"I made simple programming mistakes that cost hours of debugging." "Inspirations would disappear into thin air and never return." "When you have to keep twenty things in your head at one time, you can't afford to be overhearing your co-worker's phone calls about his explosive diarrhea problem."
Numerous studies have confirmed that noise has a significant negative impact on the ability to concentrate. Noise exposure can also have after-effects such as a build-up of stress and a reduced tolerance for frustration [5] .
Individual Differences in Noise Sensitivity
While over half of office workers surveyed report feeling disturbed by frequent conversations and other distractions [2] , some people are more disturbed by such interruptions than others. Introverts and participants who rate themselves as 'noise-sensitive' do more poorly than other subjects when tested in the presence of noise [6] . Extroverts often prefer to study in the presence of noise or music, while introverts prefer quiet. However, under many test conditions, both introverts and extroverts are adversely affected by noise.
Hyperacousis is an extreme sensitivity to sound, often associated with tinnitus (ringing in the ears). In one study, 43% of classical musicians reported symptoms of hyperacousis [21] . People with hyperacousis are often tempted to plug their ears to minimize their sound exposure, but this can actually increase their sensitivity [20] .Some people with Asperger Syndrome are also extremely sensitive to sounds and may have trouble blocking out distractions [19] .
Task Complexity
"We believe strongly that the nature of a person's work should dictate decisions about space — in other words, form should follow function. We've found that software developers do their best work in private, quiet spaces — hence the private offices in Redmond. But our sales and marketing people work in a mixture of private and open spaces..."
— Nick MacPhee, Microsoft [3]
Certain types of tasks are more suited to open spaces than others. Simple, mindless tasks such as web-surfing can be performed in almost any environment (and if the workplace becomes too chaotic, those can easily become the default activities). As sound levels increase, the complexity of the tasks one can perform generally decreases [7] .
Complex tasks such as programming, engineering, writing and design work often involve the psychological state of flow. This is a fragile state of concentration that can take fifteen minutes or more to engage and is easily broken by distractions such as irrelevant speech [8] .
Social, collaborative tasks call for a social, collaborative environment. But if some workers are being social while others are trying to concentrate, conflict is inevitable. While it's important to promote the sharing of ideas, people are not always mindful of how far their voices carry, and cubicle walls do not distinguish between relevant and irrelevant communication.
Types of Unwanted Sound
"Corporate accounts payable, Nina speaking. Just a moment.
Corporate accounts payable, Nina speaking. Just a moment.
Corporate accounts payable, Nina speaking. Just a moment..."
— "Office Space" (movie)
In general, people are more annoyed and distracted by sounds they consider unnecessary (idle chit-chat) than by sounds they view as inevitable (keyboard noise, etc.). Also, unexpected sounds and noises generated by others tend to be more annoying than sounds that are predictable and under the individual's control. In fact, noise can be thought of as "any unwanted sound created by another person."
Music has been shown to have mixed effects on concentration. In a noisy cafeteria setting, listening to music on earphones reduced the amount of distraction [9] . However, this is a very subjective area, and a great deal depends on the user's personality and ability to control the volume and type of music.
Speech is considered the most annoying and distracting type of office noise. Studies on the 'Irrelevant Speech Effect' have repeatedly shown that participants perform worse on various tasks even when told to ignore the irrelevant speech.
One study found that irrelevant speech could reduce test performance by about two-thirds [10] . Irrelevant speech is particularly disruptive of processes involving memory, such as reasoning, mental arithmetic and problem solving. Intelligible speech is more disruptive than unintelligible or nonsense speech [11] .
Unfortunately, just as people seem drawn to watch a television set anywhere in their vicinity, they also find themselves attending to irrelevant speech against their will. The result is frustration and a loss of productivity.
Coping with Conversational Distraction
There are several ways of achieving absolute silence: for example, severing the eighth cranial nerve, immersing oneself in total vacuum, or setting the thermostat to 0º Kelvin. As these are not well-suited to the workplace, we will focus on other ways of addressing the problem.
Minimizing It at the Source
Employees can fight back against workplace noise using a little-known technique called "passive aggression." For example, if fellow employees habitually review their voice mail on speaker-phones, Scott Adams suggests leaving embarrassing, suggestive messages for the whole office to hear [12] .
In the long run, though, it may be more effective to deal with the problem directly. When you ask politely for what you want, most people will try to cooperate.
If the problem continues, you can help remind them by posting a sign such as the following:
Quiet Please! — Work in Progress
Help Create a Culture of Acoustic Courtesy:
Extended conversations should take place in an office or conference room.
Limit unnecessary chit-chat or take it someplace where you won't disturb others.
Don't use a speaker-phone in a cubicle.
Unfortunately, human nature and open-plan workspaces being what they are, conversational distractions will continue to occur from time to time. If only there were a simple technological solution...
Noise Cancellation
Noise-canceling headphones attempt to fight sound with sound, canceling unwanted sounds with waveforms that are "equal and opposite." This technology works well for predictable, low-frequency sounds such as airplane engine noise. Unfortunately, it tends to be less useful at voice frequencies; in practice, the effect is often more like a tone control adjustment, not a miraculous deletion of the offending voice.
Noise Masking
If we can't stop noise at the source, absorb it with acoustical barriers (such as office walls), or cancel it with anti-noise, we can still mask it with other, less distracting sounds. While this is a sub-optimal solution, we're better off masking irrelevant speech than suffering the stress and distraction of pretending to ignore it.
Masking relies upon the fact that audio signals are most easily obscured by sounds which are similar in frequency and nearby in time. The popular MP3 audio format relies upon acoustic masking to increase its compression efficiency.
A number of companies sell sound masking systems. These are typically installed in the plenum space above the ceiling to increase the ambient background sound level, in order to reduce the intelligibility of intrusive speech. The sound is filtered to resemble that of the air conditioning system [13] . Independent studies of sound masking systems have reported productivity gains of 8 to 38%, stress reduction of up to 27%, and job satisfaction increases of 125 to 174% [14] .
However, there can be a conflict between the need for high frequencies, which are most effective at masking speech due to their resemblance to the spectrum of consonants, and the possibility that the high frequency masking sound itself could become annoying. In addition, employees often have no way to turn down the volume when the masking is not needed.
Many office workers adapt to unwanted conversation by playing music through personal stereos or work computers. One experiment with 256 company employees showed substantial increases in performance for the group which listened to music through headphones [15] .
While the use of personal stereo systems provides a sense of control, many types of music, especially music with lyrics, can be almost as distracting as the unwanted speech. Also, if speakers are used, co-workers may not share the employee's musical taste.
In addition, if the spectrum of the music is not optimized for speech masking, the listener may be tempted to turn up the headphone volume too loud, resulting in hearing fatigue or even hearing damage, such as tinnitus (ringing of the ears) or actual hearing loss. Strongly rhythmic popular music, in particular, may tempt users to turn up the volume to unhealthy levels. As with carpal tunnel syndrome, people generally assume they are immune to the effects of repetitive acoustic stress until the problem happens to them. [23]
Desired System Characteristics
"Overall, it appears that sound masking can contribute to acoustic satisfaction in open-plan offices. However, both their level and spectral properties should be selected so that the overall acoustic environment is neither too loud nor too hissy, while still masking annoying speech sounds." [2]
The ideal system would be:
Effective at masking speech Broadband, with speech-like spectral content Spatially diffuse, so it masks speech coming from any direction
Not distracting No intelligible speech or lyrics No catchy melodies
Not annoying Not too loud Not too high-frequency Not obviously repetitive
Relaxing and/or energizing
Suitable for headphones or speakers
User-adjustable
Minimizing Distractibility
Often, our emotional response to intrusive noise can be as distracting and stressful as the noise itself. In addition to masking unwanted sounds, we might also consider ways of improving our concentration, reducing our distractibility and becoming aware of our emotional reactions to office noise. These techniques are discussed in a companion article, "Learning to Tune Out Distraction" [16] .
Noise Masking Software
ChatterBlocker™ is a personal computer application that offers a variety of masking sounds, which can be played individually or in any combination. Users can select one or more sounds from each of three categories: sound effects, music, and chatter voices.
The sound effects consist primarily of nature sounds. Sounds of wind and water are effective at masking speech, but are also pleasant to listen to. Just as unwanted noise can deplete a person's energy, pleasant sounds can conserve energy, reducing stress and burnout. Wind, water and bird sounds can calm, refresh and rejuvenate.
The chatter voices are background "walla" or "cafeteria noise" recordings consisting of many simultaneous conversations. The effect is like being in a large conference room where many people talking at once but none of the individual voices are intelligible.
The recordings have been spatialized so that the voices seems to come from all directions, especially on headphones but also through stereo speakers. This helps mask speech coming from any direction.
Since nothing matches the spectral content of speech quite like speech, the chatter voices are quite effective at masking the intelligibility of unwanted conversations. However, the sound of distant chatter, while less distracting than intelligible speech, can still be somewhat annoying if played by itself. Therefore, ChatterBlocker allows users to mix in various amounts of music and/or nature sounds. The chatter voices can be turned off or set to a low level chatter except when needed to mask particularly intrusive speech.
The music category is intended to add variety. Any of the tracks in the music category can be played separately or together. All tracks are asynchronous; since each track has a different length, the tracks will line up differently each time they repeat, to prevent obvious repetitions. This is especially important if the user is listening to the same sounds all day. The result is seeming random yet familiar, like the irregular repetition of wind chimes. Obvious or 'catchy' melodies, which might annoy users or co-workers over time, are avoided. Users can add their own music if desired.
The volume of each of the three categories can be adjusted independently. Thus, users can solve various office noise problems as follows:
Problem: Occasional quiet conversation Intermittent medium-loud conversation Constant loud conversation Solution: Quiet nature sounds Nature sounds, music, and
low level chatter voices Nature sounds, music, and medium chatter voices
ChatterBlocker also offers a number of guided meditation tracks intended to increase concentration, reduce distractibility and minimize the stress response to office noise. In addition, periodic bell sounds may be used as reminders to take a deep breath, relax the body and focus the mind.
Conclusion
Irrelevant speech is a significant problem in the workplace, and not just during company meetings. The best ways to address the problem are:
Minimize it at the source (by limiting unnecessary conversations in open office areas), and Absorb the sound architecturally (e.g., with hard-walled offices).
Often, however, neither of these solutions is feasible. In this case, the best alternatives are to obscure the unwanted speech with pleasant masking sounds and to minimize our distractibility. This article summarizes characteristics of the ideal sound masking system and discusses software for reducing noise intelligibility using a mix of nature sounds, music, and distant simultaneous voices.
References
[1] J. Schlosser, "Cubicles: The great mistake," Fortune Magazine, 2006 March 22.
[2] M. Navai, J. Veitch, "Acoustic Satisfaction in Open-Plan Offices: Review and Recommendations," Research Report, National Research Council Canada, Institute for Research in Construction, IRC-RR-151, 2003 July 17.
[3] J. Vischer, "Will This Open Space Work?" Harvard Business Review, 1999 May-June.
[4] R. Young, "A sound business plan (Designing better acoustics for today's open offices)," Building Design & Construction, 40(6): 84, 1999.
[5] L. Percival and M. Loeb, "Influence of noise characteristics on behavioral aftereffects," Human Factors, 22. 341-352, 1980.
[6] W. Ellermeier and K. Zimmer, "Individual differences in susceptibility to the "irrelevant speech effect," Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 102: 2191-2198, 1997.
[7] A. Kiellberg, U. Landstrom, et al, "The effects of non-physical noise characteristics, ongoing task and noise sensitivity on annoyance and distraction due to noise at work," Journal of Environmental Psychology, 16: 123-126, 1996.
[8] T. DeMarco and T. Lister, Peopleware: Productive projects and Teams. Dorset House Publishing Co., Inc., NY, 1999, 1987.
[9] K. Kallinen, "The effects of background music on using a pocket computer in a cafeteria: immersion, emotional responses, and social richness of medium," Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Vienna, Austria, pp. 1227-1230, 2004.
[10] S. Banbury and D. Berry, "Disruption of office-related tasks by speech and office noise," British Journal of Psychology, 89, 499-517, 1998.
[11] D. Jones, "Progress and prospects in the study of performance in noise," in Noise as a Public Health Problem, Vol. 4, B. Berglund and T. Lindvall, eds., Swedish Council for Building Research, Stockholm, 1990.
[12] S. Adams, "Dilbert Newsletter #17," http://www.dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/dnrc/html/newsletter17.html, 1997.
[13] J. March, S. Stahovic, Open Plan Office Acoustical Privacy, Product Crafters, 1984.
[14] E. Lewis, P. Lemieux, D. Sykes, T. Horrall, "Sound Masking in the Office: Reducing noise distractions to increase worker productivity," Herman Miller, Inc., 2003.
[15] G. Oldham, A. Cummings, et al, "Listen while you work? Quasi-experimental relations between personal-stereo headset use and employee work responses," Journal of Applied Psychology, 80: 547-565, 1995.
[16] E. Vickers, "Learning to Tune Out Distraction," http://chatterblocker.com/whitepapers/tune_out_distractions.html, 2006.
[17] E. Vickers, "Automatic Long-term Loudness and Dynamics Matching," Proceedings of the AES 111th Convention, New York, 2001.
[18] K. Vonnegut, Jr., "Harrison Bergeron," Welcome to the Monkey House: A Collection of Short Works, New York: Delacorte/Seymour Lawrence, 1968.
[19]. Wikipedia, "Asperger Syndrome," http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asperger%27s.
[20] J. Hazell and J. Sheldrake, "Decreased Sound Tolerance: Hypersensitivity of Hearing (Hyperacusis, misophonia, phonophobia)," The Tinnitus and Hyperacusis Centre, London UK, http://www.tinnitus.org/home/frame/THC1.htm.
[21] H. Laitinen, "Factors Affecting the Use of Hearing Protectors Among Classical Music Players," Noise & Health, 7(26):21-29, 2005.
[22] Oommen, Vinesh G. and Knowles, Mike and Zhao, Isabella, "Should Health Service Managers Embrace Open Plan Work Environments? A Review," Asia Pacific Journal of Health Management, 3(2), pp. 37-43, 2008 , article: http://www.lapa.co.nz/assets/NewsAttachments/openplanofficeszengine.pdf , summary: http://www.news.qut.edu.au/cgi-bin/WebObjects/News.woa/wa/goNewsPage?newsEventID=23175
[23] E. Vickers, "The Loudness War: Background, Speculation and Recommendations" (additional material), http://www.sfxmachine.com/docs/loudnesswar/index.html .
© 2007-12, The Sound Guy, Inc., All rights reserved.
ChatterBlocker is a trademark of The Sound Guy, Inc. | {
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Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell Addison (Mitch) Mitchell McConnellDemocratic senator to party: 'A little message discipline wouldn't kill us' House to vote on resolution affirming peaceful transition of power Republican lawyers brush off Trump's election comments MORE (R-Ky.) teed off against the House impeachment inquiry on Tuesday, marking his first comments since Congress returned from its two-week break.
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"House Democrats are finally indulging in their impeachment obsession. Full steam ahead," McConnell said during a speech from the Senate floor, adding that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi Nancy PelosiDemocratic senator to party: 'A little message discipline wouldn't kill us' Overnight Health Care: New wave of COVID-19 cases builds in US | Florida to lift all coronavirus restrictions on restaurants, bars | Trump stirs questions with 0 drug coupon plan Overnight Defense: Appeals court revives House lawsuit against military funding for border wall | Dems push for limits on transferring military gear to police | Lawmakers ask for IG probe into Pentagon's use of COVID-19 funds MORE (D-Calif.) had "crumbled" to the "left-wing impeachment caucus."
"I don't think many of us were expecting to witness a clinic in terms of fairness or due process. But even by their own partisan standards, House Democrats have already found new ways to lower the bar," McConnell added.
McConnell's comments come as House Democrats are holding near daily closed-door interviews with current and former administration officials as they dig into Trump's effort to get Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden Joe BidenFormer Pence aide: White House staffers discussed Trump refusing to leave office Progressive group buys domain name of Trump's No. 1 Supreme Court pick Bloomberg rolls out M ad buy to boost Biden in Florida MORE and his son Hunter Biden.
Trump and his allies have lashed out at the investigation and argued that House Democrats must hold a public vote to formally launch an inquiry. Pelosi has said such a vote isn't necessary, though her caucus is expected to discuss that issue at a closed-door meeting later Tuesday.
Republicans are eager for a formal vote, arguing it would force swing-district Democrats to go on the record while bolstering their conference's ability to demand documents as part of an investigation.
McConnell didn't comment on Trump publicly calling on Ukraine and China to investigate the Bidens from the floor on Tuesday. He's remained largely silent on Trump's remarks since before Congress's two-week break.
But he lashed out at Democrats on Tuesday, saying they had "wasted no time throwing fairness and precedent to the wind."
"For all the public hyperventilating over institutional norms that we've heard from House Democrats, it appears they have no intention of letting norms, precedents or basic due process stand in the way as they seek to cancel out a presidency," McConnell added. | {
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A great way to switch up the feel of your mechanical keyboard without the pain of soldering in all new switches, this set of 100 24K gold plated springs gives you a quicker way to get the keyboard feel you want. The 55-gram springs are extra light springs, lighter than Cherry Red in comparison; 62-gram springs are slightly heavier, tighter, more stable, and clear accentuated than MX Blues. They are reminiscent of the elastic feeling of Early Vintage Blues; 68-gram springs are in the medium range, a feeling of Cherry Vintage Black with a lighter touch. Follow by 72-gram springs, which are in the heavier range, very close to Cherry Vintage Blacks; at last but not least, 78-gram springs are extra heavy compared to the rest, a good resemblance to the MX Clears with a softer feedback by 20% or so. | {
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A cockpit arena now stands at the site of the Spanish-era cemetery of Balaoan in La Union following its demolition last year.
The circular cemetery together with the town’s convent was built by Fr. Casimiro Melgosa in 1877.
It was where the seven martyrs of Balaoan were executed by Spanish authorities during the 1896 Philippine revolution.
A descendant of one of those martyrs, Emilie Obaldo, a heritage advocate based in the United States, lamented the demolition.
“If this issue is a violation of any existing Philippine law protecting historical structures, then whoever demolished Balaoan’s public cemetery should be held accountable,” said Obaldo. (She is sister of mayoralty candidate General Pedro Obaldo Jr.
The “desecrated” cemetery, she said, “has been untouched for years, evident that it has always been a public property.” But it appears to have been transferred to private ownership.
National Museum Director Jeremy Barns said the incident was ”very sad news.”
“The site wasn’t declared (officially as a heritage site) but (the demolition is) a violation of Republic Act 10066,” said Barns, referring to the National Cultural Heritage Act of 2009.
Barns explained the demolition might be a violation “relative to presumption of importance” by RA 10066 of any structure that is at least 50 years old.
He said the demolition of a presumed important cultural property is not allowed “unless cleared by the National Historical Commission of the Philippines (NHCP).”
He urged concerned parties to file complaint with the NHCP.
“Only then might penalties for violation be possible,” he said.
The NHCP is looking into the matter. Architect Wilmer Godoy of the NHCP’s Historic Preservation Division said heritage structures should be preserved since these are protected under the heritage law.
Inquirer tried to get the side of the Balaoan municipal government, but the latter did not reply.
Sorsogon
Meanwhile in Juban, Sorsogon, three of four Spanish colonial and turn of the 20th century heritage houses are set to be affected by a Department of Public Work and Highways (DPWH) road widening project, said concerned citizens.
Heritage advocates have called on the DPWH to spare the houses by building a diversion road instead or just leaving that portion of the highway untouched.–CONTRIBUTED | {
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Show Notes
Ty and Dan focus in on the sweet morsels of Week 10, including a huge Florida-Georgia matchup in Jacksonville, road games for both Utah and Oregon, and a primetime affair on Saturday night in Memphis. | {
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GORHAM, MAINE -- With less than 24 hours to deploy thousands of petitions and collect signatures for Election Day, more than 400 volunteers from the Committee for Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) joined together to get well over half the valid signatures required to qualify for the ballot to stop the Legislature’s bill to delay and repeal the new election system.
The Committee received the approved petition from Secretary of State Matt Dunlap at 4:30 PM the night before Election Day, making the speed of petition deployment and signature collection a record-breaking event. The signatures were collected by an all-volunteer force in every single one of the 16 counties in Maine.
To qualify for the ballot, the People’s Veto campaign must collect 61,123 individual signatures from registered Maine voters in ninety days. The People’s Veto has been used just 30 times in the last 100 years and never before in the case of a voter-approved initiative being overturned by the Legislature.
“The energy from the tens of thousands of people who collected and signed on Election Day was incredible. Maine voters are determined to have Ranked Choice Voting in place, beginning with the June 2018 primaries,” said Kyle Bailey, campaign manager. “Maine people understand that to stop the Legislature from overturning referendum after referendum, we need an election system that puts more power in the hands of voters by giving us more choice and more voice in elections.”
The plan going forward is for each volunteer to collect one signature per day for 30 days to collectively get to the final goal. All are welcome to collect and sign. Supporters will be sprawling out at farmers’ markets, tree lightings, holiday parades, post offices, and family gatherings to reach registered Maine voters.
“We have been blown away by the response,” said Dick Woodbury, Campaign Chair. “People from every corner of Maine are reaching out to request petitions and find a place to sign. There’s a resolute feeling in the air as volunteers coordinate through social media and petition parties to reach as many people as possible. We are all in this together.”
The People's Veto restores Ranked Choice Voting for primary and federal elections, starting with the June 2018 primary. To request a petition to circulate, or to find out where to sign one, go to www.RCVMaine.com or email Finn Melanson at [email protected]. | {
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U.S. Regulators Send Tether and Bitfinex Subpoenas
There’s been a lot of discussion and controversy surrounding Tether (USDT) a digital asset that claims to be backed by the U.S. dollar. Now according to reports, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission has subpoenaed the cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex and the company Tether for unknown reasons.
Also Read: Analyst: IOTA Sharply Overvalued Due to “Overwhelming Evidence of Serious Flaws”
The CFTC Sends Bitfinex and Tether a Subpoena
A lot of skeptics believe that the digital currency Tether USDT is not backed by the U.S. dollar and may have pumped the entire cryptocurrency economy during 2017’s phenomenal year. Just recently news.Bitcoin.com reported on Tether severing ties with its auditor, so cryptocurrency enthusiasts are still left in the dark regarding USDT’s so-called backing. Tether has still not proven that it holds $2.3 billion USD in reserves. Now according to the financial publication Bloomberg the CFTC had sent subpoenas to both Tether and Bitfinex on December 6, “a person familiar with the matter” explains.
Bitfinex and Tether Say Legal Requests Are Routine While the CFTC Declines to Comment
Tether and Bitfinex did respond to a question regarding the summons in an emailed statement sent to the news outlet.
“We routinely receive legal process from law enforcement agents and regulators conducting investigations,” explained Bitfinex and Tether representatives.
It is our policy not to comment on any such requests.
Furthermore Erica Richardson, a CFTC spokeswoman declined to comment on the subject concerning the digital currency businesses. Very little public information exists on why the CFTC has sent Bitfinex and Tether the notice.
However, the news follows a lot of speculation about both of these companies from various media sources and well-documented reports. This past week Professor Nouriel Roubini otherwise known as ‘Dr. Doom’ said, “regulators are asleep at the wheel while $2 billion of fake money was created via this scam.” With Bitfinex and Tether being subpoenaed by the CFTC, it seems regulators may be very aware of Tether and exchanges like Bitfinex who are ‘tethered’ to the digital dollar business.
What do you think about Bitfinex and Tether being subpoenaed by the CFTC? Let us know in the comments below.
Images via Shutterstock, Bitfinex, the CFTC, and Tether logos.
At news.Bitcoin.com all comments containing links are automatically held up for moderation in the Disqus system. That means an editor has to take a look at the comment to approve it. This is due to the many, repetitive, spam and scam links people post under our articles. We do not censor any comment content based on politics or personal opinions. So, please be patient. Your comment will be published. | {
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Jesse Ryan Loskarn, the former chief of staff to Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander, appeared in a Washington, D.C. federal court Thursday on charges of possession and distribution of child pornography.
Alexander fired Loskarn on Thursday after learning he was under investigation.
Loskarn — who goes by his middle name — was caught during a joint investigation between the Toronto Police Service and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service into a website that was selling DVDs and streaming movies, most of which “feature young nude boys.” Investigators found that Loskarn “made several purchases between November 2010 and March 2011,” according to the official complaint document.
In early October this year, USPIS “identified Loskarn’s residential IP address on the Gnutella peer to peer network offering files with names that are consistent with child pornography broadcasting as a download candidate,” according to the complaint. Investigators obtained partial downloads of the files and discovered that they were indeed videos of pornography featuring young children in sexual situations.
Police arrived at Loskarn’s D.C. home on Wednesday, armed with a search warrant. When no one answered the door, they used a battering ram to gain entry to the home. As they were entering, they noticed a man, whom they identified as Loskarn, leaning out of a window. He “appeared to be in a nervous state looking right and left,” and he then made a motion that inspectors believed was him placing an object outside of the window and then shut the window.
Inspectors recovered a Toshiba external hardrive from outside that window, on which computer forensic examiners discovered child pornography featuring children as young as 10 and 8 years old, according to the file titles.
The full complaint appears here. **EDITOR’S NOTE: This link contains very graphic descriptions of the child pornography recovered in Loskarn’s files.**
“The courts will determine his guilt or innocence, but the information in the complaint is repugnant and disturbing,” Sen. Alexander said in a statement after the details of the complaint were released.
Loskarn appeared in court Thursday afternoon wearing jeans and a gray zip-up sweatshirt that appeared to be the same outfit he was wearing when he was arrested on Wednesday. He did not speak except when asked to state his name, and sat looking unhappy for the short hearing.
Loskarn is being held in the custody of U.S. Marshals as a flight risk and a danger to the community. The judge set a detention hearing for Monday morning, when a judge will determine whether Loskarn should continue to be held, or if he should be released on bail.
The charges of possession and distribution of child pornography could result in a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison: possession has a maximum sentence of 10 years, and distribution has a maximum sentence of 20 years, and a minimum of five years.
Follow Alexis on Twitter | {
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Last night's West, Texas fertilizer explosion created a massive fireball (as shown in videos) that we knew caused massive damage. This aerial photo, annotated with some before shots and video, shows just how expansive the damage was.
Last night a facility that stored fertilizer in the small town of West, Texas caught on fire and exploded. Local news reports that eight-to-ten bodies have been found and, sadly, they expect at least half a dozen more. Many of those deceased were first responders.
There isn't much left of the fertilizer storage facility, located on the northeast side of town, and there's significant structural damage to a nearby nursing home and apartment complex, as well as a small playground.
Using this Getty Images photograph and an aerial photo from Bing Maps I've been able to add some images of what it was like before from a slightly different angle.
Photo Credit: Getty Images, Bing Maps | {
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Kofi Annan’s leadership skills were evident as an undergraduate student at Macalester College.
Fifty-seven years later, his alma mater is honoring the former secretary-general of the United Nations and Nobel Peace Prize winner by naming its international institute after him.
Annan will return to St. Paul for the dedication Monday and will later deliver the keynote address at a Books for Africa reception.
“His credentials as a leading global diplomat and as an advocate for peace are about as strong as they could get,” Macalester President Brian Rosenberg said.
During his undergraduate years, Annan, who came to the college from Ghana, was a champion sprinter on the track team, played on the soccer team, was the Minnesota state oratorical champion and participated in several programs focusing on internationalism. He graduated in 1961.
He served as secretary-general of the U.N. from 1997-2006 and received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2001. In 2007, he founded the Kofi Annan Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to promoting better global governance and strengthening the capacities of people and countries.
“He’s remained very involved in important world affairs,” Rosenberg said. “At Macalester, we have a mission that speaks to internationalism and multiculturalism and service to society, and we think that the career of Kofi Annan embodies that, and it’s important for us to honor that career.”
The school honored Annan in 2006, when he was an inaugural speaker at the school’s newly created Institute for Global Citizenship, and in 2009 when a life-sized bronze bust of him was unveiled.
The institute “fosters global citizenship by advancing scholarship, reflection, and ethical action in our local, national, and international communities,” according to Macalester’s website.
Related Articles St. Paul district reports enrollment drop as pandemic moves school online
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Frogtown Community Center unveils new artificial turf field, playground and outdoor fun Annan and former Vice President Walter Mondale co-chair the Jack Mason Law and Democracy Initiative of Books for Africa, the world’s largest shipper of books to Africa.
Annan will speak to invited attendees about about law, democracy, the initiative, and the program as a whole.
“He’s been a great champion over the years of the rule of law and is well-known for advancing democracy and governance in Africa. In addition to the initiative, he’s also very supportive of our overall mission,” Director of Books for Africa Patrick Plonski said.
TO ATTEND
At 11:15 a.m. Monday at Macalester College’s Institute for Global Citizenship at Markim Hall, former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Macalester President Brian Rosenberg will speak at the dedication of the Kofi Annan Institute for Global Citizenship. | {
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The man faced this bodacious stunner at the playground and, step by step, they moved on from taking about cookies to swapping hookup dreams. To his marvel, the hottie authorized his invitation and got here to his position the place cherub agreed to have fun together with his fuckpole and with other hookup playthings. | {
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These estimates, which include the parts of a state that have not yet reported their votes, are based on several factors, including demographic variables and historical voting patterns.
We are running several different models for each candidate, using a combination of demographic variables and historical voting patterns. Each line in the charts below represents a different model.
We’re also making live estimates for Republicans. | {
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A class-action lawsuit filed this week in Pittsburgh by the Institute for Justice, Brown v. TSA, exposes the dirty non-secret that TSA checkpoints are used primarily as drug checkpoints and as a revenue center for law enforcement agencies, not to protect aviation.
Warrantless, suspicionless dragnet administrative searches at TSA checkpoints are justified as measures to “screen” travelers for weapons, explosives, and other threats to aviation.
When the actions of TSA Transportation Security “Officers” are challenged in court, the TSA has claimed that its “Officers” are not the “officers” referred to in the Federal Tort Claims Act (“any officer of the United States who is empowered by law to execute searches, to seize evidence, or to make arrests for violations of Federal law”) ; conduct only limited administrative searches for weapons, explosives, and threats to aviation; do not have any authority to conduct searches for any other purpose; and neither have nor exercise authority to arrest or seize travelers.
In practice, however, the primary use of TSA checkpoints by the government is to “screen” travelers for drugs and cash, and to seize and expropriate illegal drugs, drug-related cash, and all “large” sums of cash being carried by airline passengers, regardless of the presence or absence of any evidence linking that cash to illegal drugs or any other illegal activity.
Ten years ago, when the TSA’s illegal practice of searching for and seizing cash at airport checkpoints was first challenged in court by the ACLU, the TSA initially tried to claim both that large sums of cash are per se suspicious and that TSA “Officers” have general law enforcement powers of detention, search, and interrogation.
But, perhaps realizing that searches for general law enforcement purposes would require probable cause and could subject the TSA and its “officers” to liability, the TSA changed its tune and issued new directives to TSA staff and contractors that “screening may not be conducted to detect evidence of crimes unrelated to transportation security” and that “traveling with large amounts of currency is not illegal.”
Unfortunately, although the government returned the cash seized in that case, the practice of searching for and confiscating travelers’ cash at TSA checkpoints has continued despite the nominal change in written instructions to checkpoint staff.
What’s long been needed is what has now been brought by the Institute for Justice: a class action seeking nationwide injunctive relief on behalf of all those who have been subjected to unconstitutional searches and seizures of their persons and effects, including their cash, at TSA checkpoints.
A series of oversight reports by the Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General (2015, 2016, 2017) has documented the systematic targeting of travelers for “asset forfeiture” to the government of their cash, especially at airports, even when no criminal investigation was conducted, nobody was ever charged with any alleged crime, and there was no articulable nexus between the cash and any suspected crime.
Overbroad airport searches and seizures are a key part of the problem of “asset forfeiture”, especially the “war on cash” being waged in the name of the “war on drugs”.
A sample of cases reviewed by the DoJ OIG for its latest report shows that more cash was seized and subjected to forfeiture to the government at airports than anywhere else, including on highways and at traffic stops:
While these seizures are typically made by the Drug Enforcement Administration, they are typically triggered by Transportation Security Officers who spot cash in travelers’ carry-on baggage and who then tip off the DEA and/or seize and detain passengers and their luggage.
The focus of the Institute for Justice press release announcing the filing of Brown v. TSA is, quiet appropriately, on the issue of cash seizures and asset forfeiture. But the complaint also raises important issues related to (1) searches at TSA checkpoints that are not limited to “administrative” searches for weapons, explosives, and threats to aviation; (2) the authority, if any, of TSA Transportation Security Officers to detain or arrest passengers; and (3) whether a traveler is “free to leave” or has effectively been arrested or detained once their carry-on baggage — typically containing their most important documents, money, essential prescription drugs, etc. — has been seized or is being held at a TSA checkpoint.
The Institute for Justice is looking for additional class members who have had cash seized without probable cause at airports, who either have a current airport cash seizure/forfeiture case involving TSA/DEA or who travel frequently with cash for business or other important reasons and have had their cash seized by TSA/DEA in the past. If you fit that description, and might want to join the case, contact IJ by email at “[email protected]” or by phone at 703-682-9331 (ask for Adam Linthicum, IJ’s forfeiture intake coordinator).
| {
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Maşină electrică, asamblată în Baia Mare. Inspirat de povestea de succes a creatorului Tesla, Elon Musk, un antreprenor autohton încearcă să dezvolte o linie de asamblare în inima Maramureşului. Prima maşină nepoluantă circulă deja pe străzile oraşului, iar costul a 100 de kilometri parcurşi urban nu depăşeşte trei lei.
"În partea din față avem cinci baterii de 8 V, 150 A - asta este inima motorului. Modulul electronic prin care se variază turația motorului și ține loc de cutie de viteze."
Gheorghe Mureşan a abandonat o afacere în domeniul produselor textile, pentru a se dedica automobilului electric. A colaborat cu furnizori din ţară şi străinătate şi a reuşit să asambleze câteva modele de maşini nepoluante, care circulă deja pe străzile din România.
"Accelerația este mulțumitoare, poți să tâșnești la stop fără să te claxoneze cel din spate. Viteza maximă este limitată la 55 de km/h la această mașină", spune Gheorghe Mureşan. "Se pot parcurge 100 de km cu 5,6 kw în mod teoretic. Practic, cu 7-8 Kw, iar costul acestor kilowaţi este sub trei lei. Mașina este destinată în special traficului urban."
Acest model electric costă 13.700 de euro şi are o autonomie de 120 până la 150 de kilometri în oraş, în funcţie de stilul de condus. Aceasta va creşte foarte mult în perioada următoare, crede antreprenorul din Baia Mare.
"Cu un capacitor de graven, când se va pune la punct tehnologia, deocamdată există în faza experimentală, va putea înmagazina într-un volum foarte mic megawaţi întregi de energie electrică. Estimez că în doar câțiva ani autonomia mașinilor electrice o va depăși cu mult pe cea a autovehiculelor clasice."
Antreprenorul maramureşean spune că, în curând, va demara construcţia unei fabrici de asamblare a automobilelor electrice, cu o finanţare de 1,5 milioane de euro, din fonduri europene. Astfel de maşini maşini electrice produse la Baia Mare circulă deja în Cluj-Napoca şi Bucureşti.
Redactor: Bogdan Băcilă
Operator: Kristian Kosa | {
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. trade deficit fell for the first time in six months in November as cheaper oil and higher domestic petroleum production helped to curb the country’s import bill, leading economists to boost their economic growth estimates for the fourth quarter.
A container ship arrives at Yusen Terminals (YTI) on Terminal Island at the Port of Los Angeles in Los Angeles, California, U.S., January 30, 2019. REUTERS/Mike Blake
The Commerce Department’s report on Wednesday also showed a drop in imports of consumer goods such as cellphones and other household goods. The decrease in imports followed five straight monthly increases, likely as businesses stocked up amid an escalating trade war between the United States and China.
“It is possible that some of the consumer goods imports were brought into the country in greater numbers to build a stockpile before the import tariffs took effect or grew even worse,” said Chris Rupkey, chief economist at MUFG in New York. “The good news is this will temporarily boost real GDP in the fourth quarter.”
The trade deficit dropped 11.5 percent to $49.3 billion in November. It had increased for five straight months. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast it would fall to $54.0 billion in November.
The release of the report was delayed by a recently ended five-week partial shutdown of the federal government.
The politically sensitive goods trade deficit with China fell to $37.9 billion in November from $43.1 billion in October.
The overall trade deficit has remained elevated despite the Trump administration’s “America First” policies, which have led Washington to impose tariffs on a range of imported goods from China, sparking a trade war with Beijing.
President Donald Trump has long railed against China’s trade surplus with the United States, and accuses Beijing of not playing fairly on trade. The United States has also slapped duties on imported steel, aluminum, solar panels and washing machines.
The dollar rose against a basket of currencies, while stocks on Wall Street were trading lower after disappointing forecasts from videogame makers. U.S. Treasury yields mostly fell.
BOOST TO GROWTH
When adjusted for inflation, the goods trade deficit decreased $7.5 billion to $80.8 billion in November.
Slideshow ( 2 images )
The drop in the so-called real trade deficit led some economists to raise their fourth-quarter GDP growth forecasts by as much as six-tenths of a percentage point to as high as a 3.0 percent annualized rate.
“We had thought that trade would subtract more than half a point from GDP growth in the fourth quarter, but now it looks like trade will be close to neutral for fourth-quarter growth,” said Daniel Silver, an economist at JPMorgan in New York.
The release of the fourth-quarter GDP report has been delayed by the government shutdown, which ended on Jan. 25 after Trump and Congress agreed to temporarily fund the government without money for his U.S.-Mexico border wall.
Trade subtracted 1.99 percentage points from GDP growth in the July-September quarter. The economy grew at a 3.4 percent pace in the third quarter.
In November, imports of goods and services tumbled 2.9 percent to $259.2 billion. Imports of petroleum products fell $1.4 billion, with crude oil imports dropping $0.7 billion. Cheaper oil prices weighed on the petroleum import bill.
The crude oil price averaged $57.54 per barrel in November, the lowest since April. A domestic energy boom has enabled the United States to reduce its dependence on foreign oil, leading to a reduction in the volume of crude imports.
Consumer goods imports decreased $4.3 billion, pulled down by a $2.3 billion drop in imports of cellphones and other household goods. Some economists said the drop in cellphone imports was puzzling as they were not on the list of goods impacted by tariffs on Chinese imports.
“The reason for the decline is less clearly attributable to an effect of tariffs and could be more idiosyncratic,” said Veronica Clark, an economist at Citigroup in New York.
Exports of goods and services fell 0.6 percent to $209.9 billion. Exports of consumer goods decreased $0.9 billion and those of petroleum products fell $0.6 billion. There were also declines in exports of soybeans, which have been targeted by China in the trade dispute.
Exports of capital goods, however, increased $1.4 billion, lifted by a $1.0 billion rise in civilian aircraft shipments.
Given the dollar’s strength and hopeful signs in the U.S.-China trade talks, economists expected the drop in imports to be temporary. The weakness in exports was, however, expected to persist against the backdrop of slowing global economic growth.
Last week, Trump said he would meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping soon to try to seal a trade deal.
“The 2018 trade detente between Trump and Xi has carried into the new year as weaker momentum in China has made Chinese policymakers more conciliatory,” said Jake McRobie, a U.S. economist at Oxford Economics in New York. “We now believe the 10 percent tariffs on $200 billion of imports from China will not be raised to 25 percent.” | {
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Neue Droge für Serienjunkies Fans der abgesetzten Drogenserie «Breaking Bad» spitzten die Ohren: Netflix kündete mit «Narcos» eine Produktion rund um den kolumbianischen Kokainbaron Pablo Escobar an. Seit dem Wochenende ist sie online – und überzeugt auf ganzer Linie. Stefanie Christ
Pablo Escobar ist nicht cool. Sein Konterfei wird von Serienfans wohl nicht auf T-Shirts getragen. Ganz im Gegensatz zu Walter White, dem fiktiven Drogenkoch aus der 2013 zu Ende gegangenen Kultserie «Breaking Bad», der zu einem zwielichtigen Idol avanciert ist. Denn auch wenn es im Vorfeld den Eindruck erweckte: Netflix versucht mit «Narcos» nicht, den Erfolg von «Breaking Bad» zu kopieren. | {
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W/M Brent Kemp was arrested on 11/4/13 for Defrauding an Inn Keeper and Solicitation of Prostitution, along with a warrant he had for Violat... See More | {
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Follow @CanoeLifestyle
Health Canada is warning medical-marijuana users about a batch of highly potent pot.
Peace Naturals Project Inc. voluntarily recalled its product Nyce N' EZ because its labelled to have a THC content of 9.07%, but an independent lab found it has levels as high as 13.7%.
Health Canada said high levels of THC may increase the risks of "adverse effects," but the level of THC in Nyce N' EZ doesn't appear to be high enough to cause health issues.
No adverse reactions have been reported from smoking the product.
The company is advising those who have the marijuana — with lot numbers 12-NAE-003-14 or 12-NAE-003-14-A — to immediately stop using it, and either return the drug or destroy it.
"If clients wish to destroy the product at home, they should add water to the marijuana to render it unusable, mix it with cat litter to mask the odour and dispose of it with regular household waste," the statement says. | {
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Faultless Hamilton wins in China
Lewis Hamilton's victory in the Chinese Grand Prix only heightened the impression that he is in complete control of the Formula 1 season at this early stage.
After three races, Hamilton has two dominant victories and a second place. His victory in China was his most impressive yet in 2015.
He was in a league of his own - even if in the end he beat team-mate Nico Rosberg to pole by only 0.04 seconds - and aced every aspect of the weekend.
Psychological warfare at Mercedes?
Lewis Hamilton leads the world championship standings on 68 points, with Nico Rosberg third on 51, four points behind Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel
It is quite possible that Hamilton's performance level is what is really behind the outburst from Rosberg after the race, when he accused his team-mate of trying to back him into the Ferraris.
I was surprised to hear Nico say that.
There is no reason not to take him at face value when he says that exactly that risk was discussed before the race and he obviously felt uncomfortable.
The pressure of feeling Vettel close behind made his afternoon more complicated, so that instead of just being beaten, he also had to work to reduce pressure from behind.
It is a slight change of tack for Rosberg to bring it out into the public domain - normally he prefers to keep these things behind closed doors.
Chinese GP: Nico Rosberg criticises 'slow' Lewis Hamilton
I don't think that will be awkward for Mercedes to handle and they were scrupulously fair in letting him make the second stop before Hamilton to relieve any pressure he was feeling.
It will be interesting to see how that develops within the team, and it may fester a little in the days before the Bahrain race next weekend, but the underlying thing is Lewis just looks completely in control.
This was maybe Nico shaking the tree, wondering what he has to do to try to destabilise Hamilton and get in front of him.
In reality, all he needs to do is out-qualify Hamilton and convert that into a lead at the first corner, and his life will get a whole lot easier.
But of course that is easier to say than do and right now he is not looking on the verge of threatening Hamilton for this championship.
An ephemeral threat from Ferrari?
There was a lot of talk before the Chinese race about the threat to Mercedes from Ferrari, following Sebastian Vettel's victory in Malaysia.
To me, at the moment it doesn't look as if Ferrari can mount a genuine season-long challenge to Mercedes. It is more a question of them trying to keep the pressure on and take advantage if Mercedes make a mistake, such as on the strategy in Malaysia.
Fantastic Kimi Raikkonen is back - Coulthard
If Ferrari were able to get track position advantage, they would be difficult to beat but they don't appear to have the outright pace to do that.
But they might get a chance at the start of a race if someone does not make a great start, or perhaps they could pull a nice pass such as Kimi Raikkonen's on the two Williams cars on lap one in China.
It was, as an aside, nice to see Raikkonen looking racy and like the driver so many people admire.
The heat in Bahrain next weekend gives some hope they may be able to challenge more closely, as they did in Malaysia.
Fundamentally, though, I see Ferrari as a very solid second, with a chance to win more grands prix, and they need to add performance to the car to really become a credible title contender.
A rapidly rising star
Max Verstappen is the youngest driver in the history of the Formula 1, making his debut in Australia, aged 17 years, 166 days
Toro Rosso's Max Verstappen was exceptional in Shanghai. His overtaking moves were top drawer and it was very impressive to watch just how strong, committed and immaculate he was.
They were ballsy moves, and they underline that, at the age of 17, three races into his grand prix career, he has not put a foot wrong and he continues to impress.
Did Button deserve a penalty?
Jenson Button and Pastor Maldonado clash in China
Jenson Button was docked five seconds and given two points on his licence - out of the 12 that triggers an automatic ban - for his collision with Lotus's Pastor Maldonado late in the race.
Giving Button two points for that seems bit harsh to me. It almost has the undertones of him being a bad driver, which is clearly not the case.
It is not as if he is wild on track. Button hardly ever has incidents like that. So for me a reprimand would have been a more suitable punishment, if the stewards felt one was needed.
A slightly surreal viewing experience
Eddie Jordan was not in China, but, to use an EJ-ism in his absence, it was a race of three halves. We were getting interested and entertained by just how close everything was in that first stint, Nico keeping Lewis honest about a second behind and then not a lot of distance back to Vettel and Raikkonen. And then that all changed.
It was almost like watching a scripted race, but one for which only Hamilton knew the lines.
He had a lot in hand, but the circumstances of the race meant he only unleashed that pace when he really needed to.
It's hard for me to understand what the drivers are going through because it is so alien to what F1 was like when I was driving.
To hear Hamilton say that going through Turn One they just have to be careful of the front tyre sounds odd to me. I have never driven a car in anger on tyres like that, so I can hear their words and try to imagine it, but it is nothing like anything I have ever dealt with.
David Coulthard was talking to BBC Sport's Andrew Benson | {
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When the history books are written, Rod Rosenstein might just be the most interesting figure of the Russia investigation—the beleaguered deputy attorney general whose memo in his first days on the job was used to justify the firing of James Comey.
After that he quickly appointed Robert Mueller as the special counsel and spent the following year supervising his investigation while under immense pressure from President Trump and congressional wolves seeking to undermine his credibility, even impeach him.
As congressional Republicans have sought to undermine the Justice Department’s integrity and independence, Rosenstein has made numerous short-term, tactical concessions to his critics, bending traditional rules and handing over documents to Congress about confidential sources and ongoing investigations—compromises that previous administrations would never have made.
Why would anyone put up with the abuse, vitriol, and daily haranguing from the president’s Twitter account that Rosenstein has endured? Why would Rosenstein seemingly set precedents that undermine the core principles of the Justice Department, an institution that he’s devoted nearly his entire career to serving?
I have a simple theory: In a world of hedgehogs and foxes, Rosenstein today is the ultimate hedgehog.
Rosenstein knows one very big, monumental, history-shaping thing—how Trump’s presidency will end—and he’s wagered that if he can hang on long enough, justice will be done and the good guys, in his eyes, will win. His early actions, around Comey’s firing, will be vindicated by history when seen by the light of his bravery and personal sacrifice and refusal to be bullied into quitting, a move that would almost surely lead to Mueller’s investigation being shut down or circumscribed by whichever Trump appointee takes over supervising it next.
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein knows what he’s protecting by staying in his job and fighting each day to preserve Mueller’s investigation Alex Wong/Getty Images
Remember, Mueller is keeping Rosenstein informed and has returned to him regularly for briefings, to ask for permission to expand his investigation in key ways, and to hand off parts of the investigation to other Justice Department units. Which is all to say: Rosenstein knows how the next dominoes fall.
Which means Rosenstein knows what he’s protecting by staying in his job and fighting each day to preserve Robert Mueller’s investigation—and to ensure it has the time to come to a public denouement that he surely already knows. Rosenstein is fighting a guerilla war against Republicans on Capitol Hill and Donald Trump, knowing that he can lose lots of small battles because ultimately he will win the war.
The reason that Rosenstein has stayed on appeared to be on full display Friday, as he—and he alone—announced the historic indictment of 12 Russian military intelligence officers responsible for the 2016 attacks on the presidential election. It was only the second time Rosenstein has personally issued the special counsel’s indictments, the other being February’s equally monumental indictment of the Russians involved in the Internet Research Agency’s social media campaigns during the election.
It was hard not to view Friday’s press conference as a victory lap of sorts by Rosenstein, as he announced that the US government had proof beyond a reasonable doubt that the Russian military attacked American democracy—an announcement he made just one day after a marathon, 12-hour Republican congressional pigpile on the FBI agent, Peter Stzok, who helped launch that very investigation and execute it in secret throughout the fall 2016 campaign.
The highly detailed, 29-page indictment of 12 Russian military intelligence officers was a reminder, too, of the incredible level of detail known by Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team.
The sheer volume of what Robert Mueller knows is staggering. Perusing his various court filings since last September makes clear he knew the individual changes Paul Manafort made in a specific Microsoft Word document; he knew that Dutch lawyer Alex van der Zwaan was lying about what he did on behalf of Manafort and Gates; he knew the specific times Russia military intelligence officers were searching specific words way back in 2016; he knew the specific cryptocurrency transactions used to register the Russian intelligence agency accounts; he knows what the hired trolls at the Internet Research Agency were writing in emails to their family members in 2017; he knew the messages Manafort was sending on encrypted messaging services.
Former Trump Campaign Chairman Paul Manafort faces a series of indictments brought by the special counsel for money laundering and is scheduled for trial next month. Zach Gibson/Bloomberg/Getty Images
Even those who think they know turn out to be surprised by the scale and specificity of what Mueller knows. Last month, the senior Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Mark Warner, joked to donors, “If you get me one more glass of wine, I’ll tell you stuff only Bob Mueller and I know. If you think you’ve seen wild stuff so far, buckle up. It’s going to be a wild couple of months.” But after Friday’s indictment, Warner said—impressed—that the “vast amount of information” in Mueller’s latest documents were new to him and the Senate Intelligence Committee. | {
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Facebook’s Libra digital currency developers have released a new roadmap outlining steps toward its mainnet launch.
The update from the Libra Foundation published on Oct. 2 highlights various points of interest for both developers and those who operate the protocol’s nodes.
Devs focus on mainnet preparations
Currently running as a testnet, Libra aims to iron out technical challenges prior to a mainnet launch, yet without an official launch date. The roadmap reads:
“Launching the Testnet has allowed the team to quickly improve Libra Core by making it easy to troubleshoot, diagnose, and resolve software edge cases. The Testnet demonstrates Libra network functionality and provides early access to developers. Following the Testnet, we hope to have a successful launch of the Libra Mainnet.”
Pre-Mainnet gathers nodes
Libra developers have also created a staging environment dubbed “Pre-Mainnet”. It is currently only accessible to partner nodes to allow them to connect to each other. Several partners “have already deployed their nodes and have them communicating,” the roadmap states, adding:
“We expect to have more partners coming online shortly. We want to ensure the Libra network can meet rigorous performance benchmarks and overall system stability before opening access.”
Libra’s issues with regulators
As Cointelegraph reported, Libra continues to face various hurdles following its initial announcement several months ago.
This week, it emerged several potential node operators had concerns about their regulatory standing by being involved in the project. Prior to that, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg appeared unwilling to confirm previous assumptions Libra would launch in late 2020. | {
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So that’s that then. I’ve decided I’m going to put together a small studio-area because the Tezuka-style lapdesk and busted-ass beanbag chair-thing just isn’t working. Sleeping legs are pretty hazardous, it turns out.
So… uhhh… what does you workspace look like, my dear comicfriends? I need ideas. Help me out?
Reminder: GUEST STRIPS. SUNDAY. MIDNIGHT. GO. | {
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Eric C. Conn, the convicted ringleader of the biggest Social Security disability fraud in history, was supposed to be sentenced Friday. Instead, he’s on the run, and the two whistleblowers who helped expose his scam say they fear for their safety.
Conn cut his ankle bracelet in early June and has evaded the FBI ever since, including seemingly taunting agents in repeated missives to newspapers and TV stations in Kentucky and West Virginia, as well as The Washington Times.
A man purporting to be Conn said in the messages that he’s escaped the country, leaving behind a legal mess, hundreds of people who had been kicked off the disability benefits he helped them obtain, and the two frightened whistleblowers who helped expose the fraud.
“We both have serious concerns,” said Jennifer Griffith, a former master docket clerk at the Social Security office in Huntington, West Virginia, where Conn’s scam took place. “I don’t know if he would come after us, but he was stupid enough to do it once. He was stupid enough to follow Sarah.”
That would be Sarah Carver, the other whistleblower, who Conn had followed by his muscle in an effort to intimidate her, and to try to discredit her as a witness against his scheme.
Conn pleaded guilty earlier this year to the fraud, which saw him file nearly 1,750 bogus disability applications. He paid doctors and a psychologist to write false medical evaluations, and paid off a Social Security administrative law judge to rubber-stamp the applications.
His fraud exposed major holes in Social Security’s system. Judges were under pressure to cut a backlog in disability cases, so pushing through more than 1,000 cases a year didn’t raise any alarms. And judges were able to assign themselves cases, allowing the kind of shady deal Conn says he struck with David B. Daugherty, the administrative law judge who was on his payroll, and who has also pleaded guilty to his role in the scheme.
“The ability of the agency to hold administrative law judges accountable is significantly limited,” Ms. Griffith told The Washington Times this month, looking back at lessons she says the agency should have learned from the scam. “Social Security tends to avoid dealing with that. They tend to try and just — unless there’s outside pressure due to some reasoning, either investigation or something becoming public — they tend to not want to address it.”
Blowing the whistle was also a problem, Ms. Carver said. When she first reported on some 50 Conn cases that had been approved by Daugherty, all in the span of two days, some just minutes apart, she was the one who took heat.
“I was called in for an investigation for why I had time to write that email,” she said.
The manager who ignored her warnings has since been promoted — twice. Ms. Carver said that same manager also knew Conn had hired a private investigator to follow her, but never told her.
Social Security refused to tell The Times whether anyone had faced discipline, saying it doesn’t discuss those matters publicly.
The inspector general’s office has released reports saying the Huntingdon hearing management team was replaced. That was part of a broader 2013 report reviewing how disability offices were performing.
Still, the inspector general has released no reports dealing specifically with the Conn fraud. Ms. Carver says what reports there are, they’re still sealed.
“To this date Social Security has not recognized us as whistleblowers,” she said. “Them recognizing us as whistleblowers means they have to acknowledge they knew about this as early as 2005 and chose to ignore it.”
Former Sen. Tom Coburn, who led the congressional investigation into Conn’s scam, said the whistleblowers should be praised for “sacrificial leadership,” but lamented that his former colleagues in the Senate haven’t followed up.
“Unfortunately, most senators are not interested in tough oversight,” he said.
Nobody from Social Security has ever testified to the Senate specifically about the scam, the whistleblowers said.
The one hearing that included testimony from Ms. Griffith, Ms. Carver and Conn came in October 2013 — in the middle of that year’s government shutdown. Agency officials said they couldn’t testify because of the shutdown.
Conn’s escape has been a black eye for the government — particularly since there were so many warnings that he would flee. He himself told colleagues he would run, he had been a frequent international traveler, and he had cash stashed everywhere, said Ned Pillersdorf, a lawyer in eastern Kentucky who’s taken on the cases of a number of Conn’s clients.
Before his trial, the government had asked that Conn be held, but a judge set a high bail. Conn paid it. Then, after Conn pleaded guilty, Mr. Pillersdorf was certain the government would try to hold him. It didn’t happen.
“The idea that Eric Conn would voluntarily show up knowing he was going to get 12 years is just preposterous,” Mr. Pillersdorf said.
He said Conn is likely to beat the cops and remain on the run for years.
“It took 16 years to find Whitey Bulger. Conn’s smarter than Whitey Bulger,” Mr. Pillersdorf said. When he applied for a job 25 years ago he told me he was a member of Mensa. That was on the resume he gave me.”
After Conn’s escape, the FBI resorted to asking reporters to share his purported messages with them, hoping to hone in on his activities. In a press conference last month the FBI seemed to suggest it was nearing charges on Conn associates believed to be assisting him.
The FBI declined to comment on the case this week to The Washington Times, saying it would instead have a statement Friday.
Meanwhile many of Conn’s clients are trying to get their benefits restored from Social Security, and are trying to make a malpractice claim against Conn. Mr. Pillersdorf is representing many of them.
Some 700 people have had their benefits restored, but 800 have had them cut off.
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The three oldest active players in the NHL have all been stars at one point or another in their career. The eldest, Jaromir Jagr (age 44) has Stanley Cups and scoring titles. Patrik Elias (40) leads the Devils in all time points, goals, assists, and has a pair of Stanley Cups. Shane Doan(40) is the face of the Phoenix/Arizona Coyotes. The next oldest, Matt Cullen also has a pair of Stanley Cups. Unlike the others, he has largely been an unheralded depth center for the duration of his career.
Cullen is currently counting $1 million against the cap for the 2016-2017 season and centering the Pen’s 4th line. Simply put, this is a bargain. On the ice, Cullen passes the “eye test”. He is a competent veteran center that rarely seems at fault or out of position. Off the ice, Cullen is worth his weight in gold as a role model to younger players on the team.
For the 2016-2017 season in progress, Cullen’s Corsi-for (214) ranks him 21st of 46 NHL centers over 30 years of age in the NHL, ahead of free agent darling Antoinne Vermette (210), or higher profile players like David Desharnais (210), or Jason Spezza (178)
This season, Cullen’s Corsi-against (209) ranks him 26th of 46 NHL centers over 30. Amongst the same group, Cullen’s Corsi-for percentage at even strength (50.6) and Corsi-per-60 (1.4) are both even better. He is 18th out of those 46 centermen over 30 years of age.
Additionally, Cullen is ranked 10th of these centermen in faceoff win percentage (54.1%). The sum of the analytics supports the theory that Cullen is a solid underrated player, and a bargain considering his salary. As long as Cullen is content to sign short term contracts, given his age, the Pens should have a roster spot open as long as his play remains consistent.
The 4th line centers from other playoff teams in the Eastern Conference include Phillip Danault (Montreal Canadians), Oscar Lindberg (New York Rangers), Lukas Sedlak (Columbus Blue Jackets), Chris Kelly (Ottawa Senators), and Dominic Moore of the Boston Bruins. They were all compared to Matt Cullen. Cullen leads this group in points with ten and has the second highest faceoff win percentage behind Moore. Perhaps most importantly, Cullen leads this group in time on ice with 338 minutes played so far this season.
The Penguins balanced attack and use of all four lines last year is now widely regarded as key to their Stanley Cup success. The Penguins will need continued production from all lines, including the fourth line, if they hope to repeat their playoff success this spring. | {
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A self-styled "Mystery Man" who asked village fete-goers to donate money to guess his identity literally turned out to be a mystery when he vanished after pocketing their cash.
Revellers at Woolaston Carnival in the Forest of Dean assumed the individual was a local resident when he wandered around the fete dressed in a full body morph suit communicating only in mime.
The apparent mime artist offered a £100 prize if he could be identified correctly as he asked villagers to donate £1 to try to unmask him, even handing out entry forms which read: "Is it a bird, is it a plane. No it's Woolaston's Mystery Man".
His identity remained secret throughout the day and has remained so ever since as it is feared he fled with the proceeds.
It is unknown exactly how much entry money was taken but fete-goers have estimated it could be more than £100.
Villagers say they still don't know if they have been duped or are victims of a bad joke by the man who concealed his face the entire time.
And now those behind the Woolaston Carnival in the Forest of Dean have issued a desperate plea for the man to hand over the money before they call in police. | {
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There are many new and exciting prospects in the field of yeast and hop production for 2012 and 2013. With craft breweries taking an increasing share of the beer drinking market, and, indeed, creating their own rapidly expanding market, new innovations in the fields of yeast and hops production has expanded dramatically.
With all of this new revenue coming in, and an ever increasing demand for specific yeast and hop flavors, the worlds of microbiological science and horticulture have been able to respond and provide brewers with more tools and materials they need to envision bold new brews and flavors.
I spoke with Jim Solberg, CEO of Indie Hops in Portland, OR who is experimenting with many new breeds of hops and he says, "Right now our new experimental breeds are limited to evaluation from regional craft breweries only, and not at the point where we can open them up to a broader audience." "Just not enough hop material to do that until we narrow down selections and propagate more plants," Solberg says.
Earlier this year Indie Hop released a new hop called Meridian. "We released a small amount into the market from the 2011 crop, and have a larger amount entering the market from this year's crop," he said. "It carries a complex "tropical fruit/mixed berry/sweet lemon aroma/flavor", is very "clean" and versatile," he added.
The new Meridian hop was developed while trying to revitalize an old hop from the past called Columbia. The group is excited that the new breed of hop was discovered, but still is not giving up on their quest to bring back Columbia. "We’re excited over here, about excited as anyone should be allowed to get over the discovery of a “sexy” new hop plant," Solberg stated in press release earlier this year. "At the same time, on a somber note, we’re mindful that poor Columbia, as mighty and strong and beautiful as we know she is, will have to wait another few years for her big night in the spotlight."
Another new breed is the HBC342 hop. HBC 342 is a high alpha aroma variety bred by The Hop Breeding Company. It has been selected for its high alpha and pleasant aroma combined with its late maturity towards the end of September to early October. Some say the hop aroma is mild, pleasant, citrusy and has hints of watermelon.
Hop Union is going bigger with their Green Hops program. In 2012, brewers will be able to select from 6 different hop varieties (Amarillo®, Cascade, Centennial, Chinook, Citra® and Simcoe®.
There are hundreds of strains of hops and yeasts currently available for home and commercial brewing. With all of these, and more being developed every day, the array of potential flavors and combinations is starting to become dizzying.
The wide variety of hop products currently on the market. Source: Hop Union, LLC.
As a home brewer, it is best to understand the different qualities and characteristics which these vagarious strains and products exhibit in order to understand how to use them to the most desired effect.
Know Your Hops
Likewise, hop farming has, in recent years, become more and more important for the production of the vast quantities of commercially produced craft quality beer that are made today. The realm of hops production and flavor possibilities also has its own set of scientific terms to describe the character of the hops and how that character can affect the palate. You should familiarize yourself with the following terms in order to effectively peruse a catalogue of different hop strains:
Alpha Acids, Beta Acids, Co-Humulone, Lupulin, Myrcene, Humulene, Caryophyllene, Farnecene, are all technical terms for the various aspects of the chemical ingredients that make up hop flavor, but one must also consider the total of oils and the pedigree of the hops strain to fully understand it.
This may all seem like a lot, but with the right hop provider, the salesman can guide you through this array of terms to what will work best for you.
Research for Hardier Hops
Many University agricultural programs are conducting research to bring hop production to more and vagarious growing locations, including the University of Minnesota. U of M horticultural science prof. Vince Fritz, and Charlie Rohwer , his associate in research, are two people who are giving the matter of hop production a lot of thought.
U of M hops researcher Charlie Rohwer holds a hop cone at the Southern Research and Outreach Center in Waseca, Minnesota. Photo by Patrick O'Leary.
These fellows oversee a quarter acre worth of hops production of in Minnesota, where they are experimenting with different trellis designs and other factors in growing with the aim of being able to grow more hops locally on Minnesotan farms. Their research may one day make local hops production far easier for a region that prides itself on local union made brews. In an ailing economy, beer consumption, and therefore beer production, does not seems to be in any kind of slump or decline.
Ancient Brewers Inspire
Ever since brewers from the ancient past began to realize that there were certain techniques that could be used to activate the spirit of the beer they were making, brewers have been honing the craft of yeast selection and production. With the great expansion of the craft brewing market in the last 20 years, more and more attention has been payed to how to propagate and culture specific yeast strains for the best resultant brew.
Where ancient brewers used to shout at their wort to wake it up, or use a magic (yeast containing) wooden spoon to bring life to beer, now we have microbiologists working around the clock to develop specific combinations of yeast and yeast nutrient to effect the most delicious and efficient fermentation process possible.
White Labs, is planning to experiment with yeast strains for help in crafting Indigenous Beers, which they will pour in their tasting room. The experiments will help the lab better advise brewers creating styles with unusual yeast or fermentation practices. Another avenue of experimentation for White Labs in 2012 will be to find the best strains for use with beers that are not made with hops, as those beers present special challenges when it comes to combating spoilage.
Wyeast is company that is reaping great rewards for their investment in the scientific study of yeast strains and their propagation, as well as delivery methods convenient for home brewers and commercial brewers alike. With differing yeast packs available for brewing beer, wine, mead, cider, and even for distilling purposes, this is one company that shows just how far yeast production has come in recent times.
According to the Alfred Jørgensen Laboratory, another commercial yeast lab, yeast is often described in the following terms:
‘Flocculence, Reproduction, Rate of Attenuation, Extent of Attenuation, Aromatic Quality (e.g. level of esters and other aromatic compounds, and Cleanness (absence of diacetyl and sulphur compounds).’
Understanding these terms is vital in communicating with your yeast provider to be able to choose the strain that will be right for your brewing project. This is part of the process of brewers being able to understand what yeast is, and how it works, which has been going on for thousands of years.
More New Trends in Hop and Yeast Harvesting and Production for 2013
Rogue Brewery, based in Newport, Oregon, has discovered that their brew master’s beard contained a yeast perfect for brewing and intend to make a commercial craft beer fermented with the master brewer’s beard yeast.
Brew master, John Maier. Rogue Ales
According to a June press release, available on the Rogue Brewery web site, the brewers sent in some clippings from the brew masters 20-something year old beard for analysis at the White Yeast Lab, and the lab discovered a new kind of yeast that is perfect for brewing, and did not match the yeast that is standard for Rogue brews. The new beer is to be called “New Crustacean”, and should be available in early 2013 – ask for it at your local craft beer store! This naturally opens a whole new field of potential for harvesting new yeast strains, accessible by home brewers and commercial brewers alike.
One very interesting development in hops experimentation comes from New York City, where Sixpoints Brewery is continuing a publicly attended “Controlled Experiment” with the subject of Hop flavors. The Sixpoints brewery is making a beer on a monthly basis, using the same recipe every time – except changing one variable each month – the hops. This experiment is called the “Spice of Life Series”.
According to the Sixpoints Brewery’s web site, the 2012-2013 roster of experimental hopping looks like this:
July 2012 – Hops: Amarillo.
Tasting notes: citrus fruit, sweet floral perfume. Bittering: moderate.
August 2012 – Hops: Riwaka.
Tasting notes: strong grapefruit, fruit, citrus Bittering: low.
September 2012 – Hops: Summer.
Tasting notes: passion fruit, mango, melon Bittering: low.
October 2012 – Hops: Wakatu.
Tasting notes: vanilla, floral, gentle spice. Bittering: low to moderate.
November 2012 – Hops: Pacifica.
Tasting notes: clean floral, slight lemon and grapefruit. Bittering: low to moderate
December 2012 – Hops: Nelson Sauvin.
Tasting notes: tangy fruit, bright, white wine. Bittering: moderate.
January 2013 – Hops: Sorachi Ace.
Tasting notes: unique, lemon, slight dill. Bittering: high
February 2013 – Hops: Chinook.
Tasting notes: spicy, piney, subtle grapefruit. Bittering: moderate to high | {
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A man who had barricaded himself in a home for nearly 13 hours was taken into custody by the Kingston Police Wednesday afternoon at about 4:50 p. | {
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Speaking with a group of Muslim refugees from Syria, a Trump supporter from Alabama attempted to defend the GOP presidential contender’s hardline stance on banning more Muslim refugees, saying he was afraid they might bring execution by head-chopping to the U.S.
In a video recorded by the BBC, pastor Jim Mather is shown sitting down with Alabaman Steve Weller and several recent Muslim immigrants and attempting to bridge their differences.
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Mather, who is supporter of bringing dispossessed refugees to America, explained that the politics of the moment has become “poisoned” by anti-immigrant sentiment.
“The political realm in which we live right now is poisoned, it’s deeply toxic,” he stated.
Trump supporter Steve Weller defended Trump, saying his anti-Muslim immigration rhetoric was “not just to eliminate all refugees.”
“He wants to put a halt to figure out what’s going on. That’s basically his words. I don’t think he really wants to stop people like these folks,” he said, indicating two Syrian refugees sitting across the table from him.
Conceding that Trump’s comments might be “extreme,” Weller worried about the “radical Muslim that infiltrates — that could be a problem.”
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Attempting to address his concerns, 19-year-old Syrian refugee Mustafa Khamees, explained that before refugees are accepted into the U.S., their lives are heavily scrutinized by U.S. government authorities.
He then turned to Trump.
“I want to sit down and tell him one thing,” Khamees said. “He wants to ban all Muslim People. Islam means peace. Our religion means peace. Our Koran doesn’t have anything about killing people or killing anyone. Or being a terrorist.”
Weller was not entirely convinced, invoking a “certain segment of your religion that is referred to as ‘radical Islam'” before stating his fears that the terrorists will enter the country to do damage.
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“The fear is, if it’s happening there — and these people that are chopping heads off over there — it could happen here,” Weller claimed. “And it’s gotta be protected before heads start getting chopped off here.”
Weller later conceded, “Remember — there is always a solution.”
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Watch the video below via YouTube: | {
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Naya Din host Ali Arif tweeted a video of a fight he had with two college students in Karachi.
The video shows one of the students in college uniform abusing Arif. Arif can be heard telling the students that they were coming the wrong way. The one who was initially abusing then tells Arif that he is “corrupt”.
گالی دونگا، بدمعاش ہوں ڈسٹرکٹ چیئرمین بلوچستان کا بیٹا ہوں جو کرنا ہے کر لو !
These boys were coming wrong way with the POLICE SIREN ON in their BLACK TINTED pvt car, on asking they first abused me and then tried to beat me up. Number Plate says: “Dist. Member Karezat BFV 785” pic.twitter.com/ESH1yG9pNn — Ali Arif (SAMAA TV)🇵🇰 (@i_aliarif) May 5, 2018
“I’m the son of district chairman of Balochistan,” he says. “Do whatever you want.”
And when the THUGS broke my phone ! pic.twitter.com/0DKnlwmPoC — Ali Arif (SAMAA TV)🇵🇰 (@i_aliarif) May 5, 2018
A student of Defence Authority Degree College Karachi !
Achi tarbiat mil rahi hai pic.twitter.com/Il2P1sikZI — Ali Arif (SAMAA TV)🇵🇰 (@i_aliarif) May 5, 2018
Found them.
Junaid Khan Kakar & Ahmad Wali Kakar !
S/o District Member of Balochistan Karezat.
I hope the authorities do their work now.@PakSarfrazbugti@siyal_anwar @betterpakistan @SindhCMHouse @BBhuttoZardari pic.twitter.com/cNWNayUR8e — Ali Arif (SAMAA TV)🇵🇰 (@i_aliarif) May 5, 2018
Thanks to this idiot ! pic.twitter.com/lzwQIyZa2L — Ali Arif (SAMAA TV)🇵🇰 (@i_aliarif) May 5, 2018
In his tweets, Arif shared the Facebook profiles of the student, identifying him as Junaid Khan Kakar, and his friend, Arbab Shahbaan Khan Kasi. According to the Naya Din host, a police siren was ringing on the students’ vehicle, which had tinted windows. “On asking, they first abused me and then tried to beat me up,” tweeted Arif, adding that the number plate of the vehicle read ‘Dist. Member Karezat BFV 785’. | {
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Free MBA Prerequisites Books & Notes
Special Report Geopolitics requires implementing a Grand Strategy Please use as a link, to r eplace textbook, and share. 5/21/19 | {
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Georgia lawmakers last week introduced a resolution calling on schools to screen conservative author and filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza’s latest movie, “America: Imagine A World Without Her.”
According to the resolution sponsored by six state House Republicans, D’Souza made the movie to “combat the idea that America is a ‘disgrace’ to the world.”
The resolution also includes D’Souza’s description of the movie as one that “analyzes common critiques of the country’s past, like slavery and the treatment of Native Americans, and ‘zooms in on them to see which parts are true and which are completely false.'”
Florida lawmakers introduced a bill last year that would require students in eighth and eleventh grades to watch the film. The Georgia resolution also targets eighth and eleventh grade, but does not require schools to show the film.
The conservative gadfly was president of The King’s College in New York from 2010-12. He was sentenced to five years probation in September after he pleaded guilty to violating campaign finance laws.
H/t Alan Abramowitz | {
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Российские чиновники намерены отказаться от использования слова «инвалиды». Его хотят заменить термином, в полной мере отражающим правозащитную модель госполитики в отношении людей с ограниченными возможностями, сообщили «Известиям» в пресс-службе Минтруда. В ведомстве рассказали, что госзадание на научно-исследовательскую работу по этой теме в 2018 году будет направлено Федеральному бюро медико-социальной экспертизы. Вопрос также будет обсуждаться с общественными организациями инвалидов. Эксперты отмечают, что дело не только в терминологии, но и в восприятии — смена формулировок должна привести к созданию системы интеграции в общество людей с ограниченными возможностями.
Чиновники планируют отказаться от общепринятого перевода слов persons with disabilities и убрать термин «инвалиды» из 181-ФЗ («О соцзащите инвалидов»). Об этом «Известиям» рассказали в пресс-службе Министерства труда и соцзащиты. При принятии решения по этому вопросу учтут результат исследования Федерального бюро медико-социальной экспертизы и мнение общественных организаций инвалидов. Минтруд также готовит предложения о проработке мер, которые позволят увеличить число квалифицированных переводчиков русского жестового языка и профессиональных тифлокомментаторов (людей, которые переводят новости, фильмы и прочее на язык жестов).
Ранее от слова «инвалиды» России рекомендовал отказаться комитет Организации Объединенных Наций по правам людей с инвалидностью. Он направил в Минтруд свои замечания, которые связаны с реализацией Конвенции ООН о правах инвалидов. Наша страна ратифицировала ее в 2012 году. В документе отмечено, что пока Россия «продолжает полагаться на медицинскую помощь и реабилитацию», в меньшей степени заботясь об интеграции людей с инвалидностью в общество. Комитет указывал на их проблемы с трудоустройством, нехватку сурдопереводчиков. При этом в ООН положительно оценили российскую госпрограмму «Доступная среда» на 2011–2020 годы, отметили рост числа учащихся, получающих инклюзивное образование.
В Федеральном бюро медико-социальной экспертизы оперативно не ответили на вопрос «Известий» о том, какие термины рассматриваются на замену слова «инвалиды».
Обсуждение формулировок уже идет на экспертном уровне, рассказала «Известиям» директор института развития образования НИУ ВШЭ Ирина Абанкина. Среди предложений, к примеру, «люди со специальными потребностями». То есть необходим нейтральный термин, в котором в первую очередь подчеркивается, что речь о человеке, личности, имеющей достоинство.
Со смены формулировок необходимо начать изменение всей системы, отделяющей инвалидов от общества, считает эксперт. Ирина Абанкина полагает, что процесс должен проходить при участии профильных ассоциаций, чтобы работа не оказалась проделанной зря, как это было в некоторых случаях при переходе университетов на принципы инклюзивного образования. Тогда перевод многих научных текстов на шрифт Брайля и визуализация речи на экране оказались маловостребованными, так как язык глухонемых практически не совпадает с устной речью. У людей с ограничениями речи и слуха темп чтения и восприятия информации отличается. Эти нюансы и требуют предварительной проработки и согласования, заключила эксперт.
Понятие «инвалид» довольно широкое. Между тем российское законодательство требует внедрения более узкой терминологии, так как люди с ограниченными возможностями здоровья абсолютно разные, рассказала «Известиям» член совета при правительстве РФ по попечительству в социальной сфере Елена Клочко. Есть те, кому нужны пандусы и доступная среда, есть слепые и глухие, которым необходимы свои решения в части безбарьерности, и есть ментальные инвалиды (люди с нарушениями работы мозга, например синдромом Дауна), которые также должны реализовать свои права на жизнь в обществе, добавила эксперт.
В российском законодательстве не определено понятие «ментальный инвалид», но проблема, связанная с их правами и условиями, в которых они содержатся, до сих пор очень велика, подчеркнула Елена Клочко. Она добавила: необходимо делать шаги, направленные на то, чтобы эти люди жили в социуме, а не в закрытых учреждениях, в которых сегодня находятся 157 тыс. человек.
Ранее «Известия» писали о том, что, согласно исследованиям Минтруда, в 2017 году почти две трети россиян относились к людям с инвалидностью без предубеждений. В 2016 году таких было менее половины. Положительную динамику эксперты объяснили деятельностью общественных организаций и мерами госполитики. Однако отметили, что обществу до сих пор не удалось полностью искоренить дискриминацию людей с ограниченными возможностями здоровья. | {
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Donald Trump’s national security adviser assured South Korea that the US would pay for its missile defence system days after the President said the US would not cover the cost.
General H R McMaster said on a phone call to his South Korean counterpart, Kim Kwan-jin, that the US would honour its 2016 agreement to foot the $1 billion bill for the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense system (THAAD) anti-missile system.
Yet on Thursday Mr Trump told Reuters he wanted South Korea to pay for the protection.
“I informed South Korea it would be appropriate if they paid. It's a billion-dollar system,” he said.
“It's phenomenal, shoots missiles right out of the sky.”
South Korean officials said it was up to the US to pay, as per their agreement.
In pictures: North Korea military drill Show all 8 1 /8 In pictures: North Korea military drill In pictures: North Korea military drill North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un watches a military drill marking the 85th anniversary of the establishment of the Korean People's Army (KPA) KCNA/Handout via REUTERS In pictures: North Korea military drill A military drill marking the 85th anniversary of the establishment of the Korean People's Army (KPA) is seen in this handout photo by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) KCNA/Handout via REUTERS In pictures: North Korea military drill A military drill marking the 85th anniversary of the establishment of the Korean People's Army (KPA) is seen in this handout photo by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) KCNA/Handout via REUTERS In pictures: North Korea military drill A military drill marking the 85th anniversary of the establishment of the Korean People's Army (KPA) KCNA/Handout via REUTERS In pictures: North Korea military drill A military drill marking the 85th anniversary of the establishment of the Korean People's Army (KPA) KCNA/Handout via REUTERS In pictures: North Korea military drill This image made from video of still images broadcast in a news bulletin by North Korea's KRT, shows what was said to be a 'Combined Fire Demonstration' held to celebrate the 85th anniversary of the North Korean army, in Wonsan, North Korea. KRT via AP Video In pictures: North Korea military drill This image made from video of still images broadcast in a news bulletin by North Korea's KRT, shows what was said to be a 'Combined Fire Demonstration' held to celebrate the 85th anniversary of the North Korean army, in Wonsan, North Korea. KRT via AP Video In pictures: North Korea military drill This image made from video of still images broadcast in a news bulletin by North Korea's KRT, shows what was said to be a 'Combined Fire Demonstration' held to celebrate the 85th anniversary of the North Korean army, in Wonsan, North Korea. KRT via AP Video
“There is no change in South Korea and the United States’ position that our government provides the land and supporting facilities and the U.S. bears the cost of THAAD system’s deployment, operation and maintenance,” the country’s defense ministry said in a statement.
The U-turn comes shortly after the US sent a fleet of battleships and a nuclear-powered submarine to waters off the North Korean coast and conducted joint military operations with South Korea in a show of defiance against northern dictator Kim Jong-un.
North Korean state-run media said as recently as Saturday that their goal was to build a nuclear missile which could reach US shores, and spent last week carrying out launches of such missiles on their eastern coast.
The latest missile test flew about 44 miles and failed, falling onto an inlet which is part of North Korea.
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Mr Trump has already changed his stance on whether China should help to tackle North Korea. He first insisted China should pay up, but after he met this month with Chinese President Xi Jinping, he tweeted that the US could handle the situation on its own if necessary.
China is South Korea’s biggest trading partner and it is opposed to the THAAD missile system.
In an interview with CBS' “Face the Nation,” Mr Trump said neither he nor, he believed, President Xi, would be happy if North Korea conducted a nuclear test.
Donald Trump warns ‘major, major conflict’ with North Korea is ‘absolutely’ possible
Asked if that means military action, he responded: “I don't know. I mean, we'll see.”
The President has made a string of demands on foreign countries and allies to pay more money towards defence and national security.
He repeatedly insisted that Mexico would pay the estimated $21 billion for the border wall along the US-Mexican border – a key campaign pledge – but President Enrique Pena Nieto refused and consequently cancelled his first scheduled trip to the White House.
Mr Trump also claimed during the campaign that Nato was “obsolete”, but this message was countered by his Vice President Mike Pence as he engaged in diplomatic tours. Mr Trump then reversed his claim.
Donald Trump says NATO is no longer obsolete
Mr Trump said he wants Nato members to all pay 2 per cent of their GDP towards the alliance, but members responded the target was not mandatory.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel denied Mr Trump’s claim that she had received an “invoice” for Nato costs from him. | {
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