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Today the Supreme Court announced it will hear two cases concerning the Affordable Care Act’s requirement that companies’ insurance plans cover birth control. Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood Specialties claim the mandate violates their belief against certain kinds of contraception—pitting female employees’ right to a nondiscriminatory health plan against a company’s religious freedom. (I also fervently hope these companies are fighting as hard to ensure that their unmarried male employees don’t have access to sin-pills like Viagra.) Ad Policy
Most American women—99 percent—will use birth control at some point in their lives. Twenty-seven million women are being covered by this provision right now. So I have to wonder what companies that don’t want to cover birth control will tell their female employees should the contraception mandate be struck down. Abstinence? Aspirin between the knees, perhaps?
There’s also an incredibly slippery slope here—if employees’ health plans have to adhere to company owners’ religious beliefs, what happens if your boss doesn’t believe in vaccinations? Or as Guardian columnist Jill Filipovic tweeted, “What if your blood transfusions violate your employer’s religious beliefs? No surgery coverage?” Ilyse Hogue, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America said in a statement, “Allowing this intrusion into personal decisions by their bosses opens a door that won’t easily be shut.”
Judy Waxman, vice president of health and reproductive rights at the National Women’s Law Center, says these scenarios are real possibilities. “What if an employer believes women should be subservient and doesn’t believe in providing the same wage and hours for them as male employees?” She relayed one case where a private school denied health insurance to married women, because school management believed husbands are the “head of the household” and should provide for their wives.
The truth is that this is not about religious freedom, it’s about sexism, and a fear of women’s sexuality. When Sandra Fluke testified in favor for birth control coverage, she wasn’t criticized for trying to curtail religious freedom—she was called a ‘slut’ and a ‘prostitute’. When the FDA held up over-the-counter status of emergency contraception for years, it wasn’t because of the medication’s efficacy or potential health risks but because of a fear it would make girls promiscuous. The same thing happened when the HPV vaccine was being reviewed. Just this morning, I came across a conservative political cartoon that really says it all.
Reproductive health needs are just that—health needs. But because we live in a country that has a ridiculous hang-up over women and sex, we’re still debating the morality of birth control and calling women whores instead of giving them the care they need. We know why conservatives want to limit birth control access—they show their true colors every day. So let’s not pretend these cases are about religious freedom or employer’s rights. Call it what it is: misogyny.
Lee Fang shows how former Walmart execs are involved in Black Friday Sabotage. | {
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London (CNN Business) 1. End of a business legend: The arrest of Carlos Ghosn in Japan on Monday is forcing three major automakers to make tough decisions about their leadership.
Nissan said the misconduct included significantly under-reporting his compensation and misusing company assets. Ghosn is yet to respond to the allegations.
Ghosn is credited with rescuing Nissan and Renault, and stitching together three automakers into a global alliance. But he's now likely to be ousted as chair of all three.
Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said that he would meet with representatives from Renault on Tuesday to discuss appointing interim management because Ghosn is "no longer capable of leading the group." | {
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NATIONAL | July 7, 2019 (IANS):
In a bizarre incident, a man killed his wife for refusing to have sex with him and then cut his own genitals.
The 24-year-old accused is undergoing treatment in the Baba Raghav Das Medical College in Gorakhpur.
According to police reports, the incident took place in Pokhar village in Siddharthanagar where the husband Anwarul Hasan lives.
The couple was alone at home when the accused Hasan strangled his wife after she rejected his request for sex. Hasan, who works in Surat in Gujarat, got married to the 20-year-old victim only a year ago and had returned home two days ago.
ALSO READ: Assam: 2 shot dead in Udalguri to save toddler from human sacrifice
The neighbours informed the police after they noticed the victim lying on the ground and the accused Hasan drenched in blood on Saturday morning.
Hasan was rushed to district hospital from where he was referred to Baba Raghav Das Medical College in Gorakhpur.
Police have sent the body of the victim for post-mortem.
ALSO READ: Manipur student’s death: FIR registered by CBI after 22 months
The accused later told reporters that he strangled his wife to death after she refused his request for sex and later cut his own genitals.
According to the police, the victim’s father has alleged that his daughter was being harassed for a long time for dowry by the accused.
A case has been registered against Anwarul Hasan on the complaint of girl’s father. | {
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Presidential Debate moderator Jim Lehrer left the stage shortly before the beginning of the presidential debate on Wednesday, aides said, to go smoke marijuana with Denver University students helping backstage.
“After a few of these debates, it hits you, there’s really nothing to them. All the answers are the same. All the questions are the same. The candidates don’t say anything. The president says nothing. The voters just imagine things, and my job is just to make the show go on, kind of like Dick Clark, and I’m so freakin’ tired of it. Pass me that bong, I want to get good and baked before I have to go out there and look interested in this damn bumper car rally,” Lehrer was quoted as telling one of the aides, known as Tuuku.
Another aide caught firing it up with Lehrer, Alinda, said she was able to lure the moderator offstage when she overheard him muttering to himself as he paged through his stack of questions on his podium.
“He was saying, “Can’t we talk about the pennant races or something? Who cares about Syria anymore? Most people out there don’t give a hoot where Syria is? They don’t even have jobs.’ That was my cue to come in and offer him some of this designer weed I just picked up at my dad’s dispensary.”
News Snot asked her which candidate she favored in the debate.
“Neither one. They’re both a bunch of stiffs. I prefer the fat guy from Jersey,” she snizzed. “He’s so mafia.” | {
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When Michael Garvey returned from Afghanistan with a Purple Heart and painful injuries, he struggled with intense night sweats and post-traumatic stress disorder, among other issues.
The firefight he survived left him with nerve damage to his leg and injuries to his stomach. Garvey tried therapy and medication to cope with the pain and loneliness. Then, after two years of treatment for PTSD, Garvey found a black lab named Liberty. That’s when his life began to change, he said.
“Since I got Liberty, I have been so much happier,” Garvey said of his service dog. “The loneliness goes away.”
Having Liberty also helped the night sweats disappear — to Garvey's surprise.
Garvey drove from Maryland to the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility, a high-security women’s prison about 30-miles north of New York City, to pick up his new companion. Inmates had trained Liberty there as part of the Puppies Behind Bars program.
Gloria Gilbert Stoga started PBB in 1997. The program promised a long-reaching impact for everyone involved: inmates contribute to society in a positive way, veterans get the support and companionship they needed, and the dogs, while they are being trained, get round-the-clock attention and love.
Garvey said he has benefited greatly from the program and so has Annette Montstream, a dog trainer serving time for a manslaughter conviction.
“Because I have taken a life and I feel badly, I wanted to give back,” she said.
Montstream met Garvey when he visited the prison to train with the inmates before he took Liberty home. At Bedford Hills he learned dog commands and tips for how to care for the animal.
When Garvey recently visited the prison to reconnect with the women, Montstream saw a change in his demeanor.
“He seems much more relaxed, joking, instead of being so reserved,” Montstream said. “I believe his change in behavior is because of his service dog.”
Inside the prison, puppies stay with their inmate handlers just about everywhere they go. The inmates paired with puppies sleep in a special housing unit. Once or twice a week non-incarcerated volunteers take the canines for rides in cars, to soccer games and to the grocery store. With the exposure, the dogs become accustomed to the outside world. By age 2 or 3, the dogs will be ready for their new homes.
Some of the dogs will become bomb-sniffers but most of them will be paired with wounded war veterans.
For Garvey, having Liberty hasn’t been a simple task, with all the work that comes with owning a dog. But the benefits outweigh the responsibilities.
“It's not a pill you can swallow in the morning and then go about your day,” Garvey said. “It's work but it's worth it.” | {
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Canopy Growth Corp. is not outright acquiring Acreage Holdings Inc., as reports said Wednesday, but it is preparing to pay billions for the rights to buy the U.S.-based pot company.
A source familiar with the negotiations confirmed Wednesday afternoon that a Canopy Growth CGC, -8.97% WEED, -8.60% deal with Acreage US:ACRGF was “98% done,” though the final price was still being worked out. Acreage had a market cap of $2.45 billion as of Wednesday’s close, but the deal will be worth “several billions” in Canadian dollars, the source said. | {
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CREATED:
UPDATED:
You need install Ctags or universal-ctags at first.
People using macOS will find there already exists a built in program named "ctags". This program should be deleted!
If you want a quick start, jump to the end of this article.
You can use company-ctags plus company-mode to complete HTML/JS/CSS code.
Setup is easy.
Step 1, create TAGS:
cd ~/myproj/ && ctags -e -R .
Step 2, done.
That's OK for most programming languages.
But not enough for web developers who use web-mode.
You need upgrade web-mode to latest version so that when inputting "btn-" or "data-" code completion still works.
One issue is company-mode disables code completion in string and comment by default. We need disable this feature in web-mode temporarily,
(with-eval-after-load 'company ;; @see https://github.com/redguardtoo/emacs.d/commit/2ff305c1ddd7faff6dc9fa0869e39f1e9ed1182d (defadvice company-in-string-or-comment (around company-in-string-or-comment-hack activate) (if (memq major-mode '(php-mode html-mode web-mode nxml-mode)) (setq ad-return-value nil) ad-do-it)))
Tested on Emacs24, 25, 26.
Screenshot: | {
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This Easter, only on Fox: I hear the network of “The Simpsons” and “Empire” is going to stage their own live “Jesus Christ Superstar” type show in the streets of New Orleans. It’s called “The Passion,” and Dick Clark Productions is putting it together.
The two hour musical extravaganza will be a live (yes, LIVE) restaging of the Last Supper set to modern rock songs. It will air on Palm Sunday, produced by Adam Anders, whose credits include “Glee” and “American Horror Story” as music supervisor. The idea for this spectacle comes from Eye2Eye Media in the Netherlands.
I’m told that hundreds of New Orleans extras will take part in a processional walking a huge illuminated cross from the Superdome to a park on the river. What’s not clear is if they go through with the crucifixion and resurrection, or if it stops there and turns into Mardi Gras. Knowing Fox, it could be the Cruci-Fiction.
Robert Deaton, who produces and directs a lot of Country Music Association TV specials, is directing this along with David Grifhorst, the Dutch producer of game shows and singing competitions.
What songs will they use? God only knows. | {
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The JOHNCONWAY.co, purveyors of fine dinosaurian pet portraiture, is pleased to bring you The Dinosaur Pet Guide, informing you on the pleasures and pitfalls of today's common dinosaurian pets.
If you like this, you might also like my other dinosaurs-hit-the-modern-world pictures, Modern Brachiosaurus and Ceratosaurus and the City, or misinforgraphic M/C Extinction. | {
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Half of all Americans believe that the United States will go to war with Iran “within the next few years,” according to a Reuters/Ipsos public opinion poll released on Tuesday amid increased tensions between the two countries.
While Americans are more concerned about Iran as a security threat to the United States now than they were last year, few would be in favor of a pre-emptive attack on the Iranian military.
But if Iran attacked U.S. military forces first, four out of five believed the United States should respond militarily in a full or limited way, the May 17-20 poll showed.
Read more
A new study has exposed Big Tech’s bias, this time revealing YouTube’s trending tab in the U.S. is rigged.
The Emergency Election Sale is now live! Get 30% to 60% off our most popular products today! | {
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In 1990, an SNES game called ActRaiser ambitiously paired 2D side-scrolling platforming with city-building simulation for the Super Nintendo. That classic was published by Enix, but now, Sega and developer Ace Team are trying to pair these genres once again in the newly announced title SolSeraph. You can check out the blending of styles in the announcement trailer below.
Taking the form of Helios, the Knight of Dawn, players wage war against evil in a 2D platforming environment. Traveling throughout the world's five regions, Helios encounters five tribes who need help in dealing with the encroaching monsters. To assist the tribes build their villages and armies, players assume the form of a bird to create new facilities and expand the population. The more ground you take in 2D mode, the fewer attacks your tribes have to endure in strategy mode. In turn, the more you expand your territory, the more monster dens are be uncovered. The two genres work in tandem to create what looks to be a true spiritual successor to ActRaiser.
SolSeraph is set to launch for digital download on Playstation 4, Xbox One, Switch, and PC on July 10th. The price is set at $14.99. | {
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The Memology 101 video that was going around about Vox’s Carlos Maza being a degenerate was removed by YouTube on the grounds of it being “hate speech”. The company then proceeded to strike Memology 101’s account, preventing him from uploading any new videos for a week.
The YouTuber announced this unfortunate turn of events via another channel, Memology 102, where he uploaded a quick minute and a half video revealing that his original video about Carlos Maza had been removed. He showcased the notice that YouTube sent and a quick recap of how it took place. You can check out the video below, which was posted up on June 10th, 2019.
As pointed out in the video, any kind of video or negative criticism about Carlos Maza results in the video being demonetized, basically as a chilling effect to prevent people from speaking ill of the Vox journalist, even though he put a lot of people out of work and cost plenty of other people their livelihoods.
However, propagandists don’t care about the lives they ruin, only the message they can get out.
In this case, even YouTubers simply showing Maza’s past behavior gets them strikes from YouTube and uploading privileges restricted.
People like Steven Crowder had his entire channel demonetized, along with various others. A few YouTubers like Varg and Xurious weren’t so lucky, and they had their entire channels terminated without notice. Even StreamLabs had their account terminated by YouTube, and they don’t even post any kind of political content to their channel!
Maza initiated the VoxAdpocalypse and now there’s a ripple effect where you can’t even criticize him for the damage he’s causing, nor can you discuss the degenerate behavior of the Vox journalist without being demonetized.
Thankfully the good folks over on Voat managed to archive the video and so you can still see Memology 101’s deleted video over on Bitchute.com.
I’m curious if Memology 101 will keep up with the roasts on the very people trying to destroy the livelihoods of YouTube content creators or will he tone it down? The smart thing to do would be to get all the worthwhile content up and out on BitChute so when the inevitable termination is passed down it’s not a total loss.
Meanwhile, heavy hitters like Keemstar are teaming up together with plans on creating an adpocalypse for mainstream news media. Hopefully they’re able to bring some much needed justice to the intersectional activists who have made it their life’s goal to ruin the lives of normal people.
(Thanks for the news tip Aulia Raihan Hakim) | {
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Troy Dean – WP Elevation Blueprint 2019
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Simon started full time freelance web design and dev in 2009 with my business Renegade Empire and has since built a small team. His team help businesses create digital marketing strategies so they can succeed online. He’s carving his speciality in e-commerce, marketing funnels and automation. Simon loves to hold training workshops on how businesses can get better results from their website and digital marketing and he’s also a organiser of the WordPress Melbourne meetup.
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For payment detail, please contact fastrls Group Buy team at [email protected], Thank you | {
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Major decision taken by Ontario that COVID-19 testing has been lacking, and the officials are working to change that, as the number of cases is continuing to rise. By the end of April means by April 29, the province has committed to conducting 14,000 tests every day. According to the CTV News the province only issued 3,200 tests on 7-8 April. As these numbers as “unacceptable,” Premier Doug Ford has promised to do better. Ontario has taken a challenge to complete around 8000 tests every day by 10th April.
By 29th April, there will be 14000 tests per day as they will increase the number test per day according to a news release. By expanding the test capacity they cases can be found faster which could reduce the spread and can save many lives. Almost there are 100 operational COVID-19 assessment centres in Ontario which are currently working.
Priority for the testing will be given only to those who are most at risk, which also includes hospital in-patients, frontline workers, essential workers, the homeless, and those with compromised immune systems. There have been around 6000 and above cases crossed in Ontario till date.
Read : Coronavirus: the epidemic is getting bigger as it devours many lives in Canada
However, around 92,672 tests have been done since 15 January, 2020. Almost 14000 tests a day will be able to reach a number in just six or seven days. Whereas, by increasing the number of test each day the cases can be identifies early and can contain them and prevent by putting more and more people at risk. For the persons those who are very much concerned they may be experiencing COVID-19 symptoms, the Government of Canada has also created an online self-assessment tool, which can help Canadians to find out if they could potentially have the disease, by asking few series of questions.
Ontario, corona Ontario, covid19 Ontario news, covid 19 Ontario update, Canada covid news, covid 19 test Ontario | {
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What's Behind the Fast Growth of an Ethereum Alliance? What's this? SPONSORED CONTENT FROM X What's This? Associations Now Brand Connection provides opportunities for advertisers to connect with the Associations Now audience. All content is paid for by the advertiser. The Associations Now editorial staff is not involved in creating this content. By Ernie Smith / Oct 19, 2017 (LEEDDONG/iStock/Getty Images Plus) (LEEDDONG/iStock/Getty Images Plus)
The Enterprise Ethereum Alliance, which hopes to create an open-source blockchain standard around the technology for the business world, has gained more than 200 members in less than a year—including a number of Fortune 500 companies.
Someone who isn’t observing the cryptocurrency space very closely might be forgiven for not knowing what Ethereum is—and why it’s seen ripples that suggest it has the potential to usurp bitcoin in the long run.
Certainly bitcoin, whose value sits near its all-time high, isn’t going away anytime soon, but Ethereum, the second-largest cryptocurrency variant, is no slouch from a financial standpoint, or an organizational one. In fact, the technology behind the cryptocurrency has found a surprising base of fans within the enterprise world.
The Enterprise Ethereum Alliance, which launched in February, has seen significant growth in its member base in recent months, with household names like JPMorgan, BP, MasterCard, Intel, and Microsoft sitting side by side with cryptocurrency-focused organizations like talkcrypto.org, CoinFund, and iExec, along with a handful of banks and educational entities.
Currently, the alliance has 200 members, with 48 companies added just this week. Most notably, Hewlett Packard Enterprise joined the group, along with the University of New South Wales.
What’s attracting so many organizations to the group? For one thing, it might come down to what the organization is offering in return: an inside line to an open-source blockchain technology standard that already has a high-profile use case. The technology could prove important in the long run, even if it’s not attached to its namesake currency.
Earlier this year, the group took the mantle of being the world’s largest open-source blockchain initiative, which led board Chairman Julio Faura to highlight the fact that the group filled a need.
“EEA’s rapid growth in membership mirrors the accelerating acceptance and deployment of Ethereum blockchain solutions in the global marketplace,” Faura said in a news release. “The technological breadth, depth, and variety of organizations coming together under the auspices of EEA to create and drive enterprise Ethereum standards bodes well for the future development of the next-generation Ethereum ecosystem.”
Perhaps the most telling sign of this dichotomy is that JPMorgan is a founding member of the group, despite CEO Jamie Dimon representing perhaps one of the most high-profile skeptics of cryptocurrency in its current form. The company this week launched a blockchain-based system for transactions that is said to greatly reduce the steps involved in payment verification.
But even with the success of a group built around Ethereum’s technology, it may not be an easy road ahead, and the underlying technology isn’t immune to hurdles. Earlier this year, for example, a single trade on the Ethereum platform led the value of the currency to drop from $319 to just $0.10 in seconds, leading many traders to lose large amounts of money.
The situation, however, directly led to the creation of safeguards to help prevent this from happening again—the kind of safeguards one might expect from the creation of an open standard.
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Family and friends are mourning a young Burnaby woman who was killed in a hit-and-run while driving home from work late Wednesday night.
Emily Sheane, a 25-year-old employee of Joe Fortes restaurant in Vancouver, was heading eastbound on Moscrop Street when she was broadsided by a Range Rover shortly before midnight.
Mounties estimate the luxury SUV was speeding at 100 kilometres an hour when it T-boned Sheane’s much smaller car and crushed it.
Sheane died instantly.
On Thursday, flowers were laid on a detached hubcap at the scene, marking a makeshift memorial.
Family friend Kristel Ellis said the sudden tragedy has left Sheane’s loved ones devastated.
“It’s extremely tragic,” Ellis said. “Someone coming home from work and living an innocent life and that happens. It’s terrible.”
The force of the collision sent the SUV flying over a sidewalk, where it took out a guard rail and a red light camera.
Mounties said the high speed indicates the driver had a complete disregard for public safety, or was even potentially impaired.
Witnesses told investigators that after the crash they saw a man and woman jump out of the Range Rover and run away down Willingdon Avenue.
No suspect description has been released for the man, but the woman is believed to be white, in her mid-20s, with prominent facial features and dirty blonde or light-brown hair that was tied up in a bun.
She also might have been wearing a dark coat, possibly a trench coat.
Both suspects are believed to have left behind DNA, including blood and hair, at the scene and the RCMP said it’s just a matter of time before they’re caught.
“They may as well just come forward,” Cpl. Daniela Panesar told reporters at an afternoon press conference.
The RCMP said the Range Rover was “fraudulently obtained,” but not stolen. They have asked anyone who saw it over the past week to call them.
With a report from CTV Vancouver’s Jon Woodward
RCMP pleading for people from this Range Rover to come forward after deadly crash in Burnaby. @CTVVancouver pic.twitter.com/ESTTGbg5Gx — Sheila Scott (@Sheila_Scott) March 10, 2016 | {
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MIAMI, August 9, 2016 ( LifeSiteNews ) – Hillary Clinton traveled to the hub of the nation’s Zika virus outbreak to call for federal funding of Planned Parenthood.
This afternoon, Clinton inveighed against Congress, especially its Republican leaders, for taking a summer recess before passing an anti-Zika funding bill.
"I am very disappointed that the Congress went on recess before actually agreeing on what they would do to put the resources into this fight," Clinton said at the Borinquen Medical Centers of Miami-Dade County, asking politicians to call a “special session and get a bill passed."
She urged them to pass either the $1.9 billion bill proposed by President Obama, or the $1.1 billion bill that passed the Senate in May.
Both bills fund Planned Parenthood.
In June, the House approved a $1.1 billion an ti-Zika aid bill that specified it would not fund Planned Parenthood or other abortion providers. Senate Democrats blocked the bill, and President Obama threatened to veto it.
Neither of those Democratic parties received any criticism from Clinton, who instead criticized Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump for saying the epidemic has been largely controlled.
Some 21 Floridians have gotten the virus, which can cause children to be born with microcephaly, in the United States. The CDC reports that the virus is contained to one, quarantined patch of Miami’s Wynwood district that measures one square mile.
Congress is set to return to session in September, and health officials have said the funds already allocated should last until the end of the month.
Florida Senator Marco Rubio, who is running for re-election, has said that he opposes funding the nation’s largest abortion provider and added that babies whose mothers contract Zika do not deserve to be aborted.
Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the blame for the gridlock lies with Democratic pro-abortion extremists, such as Clinton’s running mate, Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia.
"If Sen. Kaine and his fellow Democrats want to pass a bill now, they can end their filibuster and simply give unanimous consent to pass the conference report and send it straight to the President this week,” said Don Stewart, McConnell’s spokesman. “Apparently they believe an earmark for Planned Parenthood in the future is more important that preventing the threat of Zika now.” | {
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Após vários meses em que tivemos muitas poucas informações sobre a próxima consola PlayStation, agora é oficial que amanhã, dia 18 de Março vamos ter mais novidades.
O anúncio deste evento foi feito através das redes socias da PlayStation, e tendo em conta a situação atual do coronavírus no mundo, esperemos que seja um vídeo ou, quem sabe, um live stream. Quem vai liderar este evento será o responsável pela arquitetura da PlayStation 5: Mark Cerny.
Amanhã, às 9h, horário do Pacífico, o arquiteto de sistemas PS5, Mark Cerny, fornecerá um mergulho profundo na arquitetura do sistema da PS5 e em como ela moldará o futuro dos jogos. PlayStation via Twitter
Tomorrow at 9am Pacific Time, PS5 lead system architect Mark Cerny will provide a deep dive into PS5’s system architecture, and how it will shape the future of games.
Watch tomorrow at PlayStation Blog: https://t.co/bgP1rXMeC8 pic.twitter.com/BSYX9tOYhE — PlayStation (@PlayStation) March 17, 2020
Depois do sucesso que Mark Cerny trouxe à arquitetura da PlayStation 4, não é surpresa que a Sony o queira manter de perto para evoluir a consola de próxima geração. Uma das curiosidades para este evento será ver se a Sony vai mostrar o aspeto físico da PlayStation 5.
Relembramos que a Xbox, já foi bastante generosa, a fornecer detalhes específicos da Xbox Series X. Para além de termos confirmação oficial das especificações, também sabemos como é que o SSD vai funcionar. Esperamos por mais detalhes amanhã da PlayStation 5.
Este evento está marcado para as 16h00m de Portugal ou 13h00 do Brasil e pode ver no blog oficial PlayStation.
O que esperam da próxima PS5? Entusiasmados? Deixem a vossa opinião nos comentários! | {
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L'enquête est ouverte jusqu'au 30 novembre 2019.
A la rentrée 2019, la FUB lance la seconde édition de l'enquête intitulée: "Baromètre Parlons vélo des villes cyclables 2019"!
A cette occasion, nous invitons tous les cyclistes à répondre à cette grande enquête nationale sur le vélo. Le baromètre reflète la satisfaction des cyclistes dans les villes françaises et crée de la "science cyclable" à partir de l'expression massive du ressenti des usagers du vélo.
Cette seconde édition fournira des analyses comparatives fines sur l'évolution des différents indicateurs entre 2017 et 2019 au sein de votre ville. | {
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Though the US and Canada have a lot in common, American children are still more likely to be obese.
Between 2009 and 2013, American girls aged seven to 12 were more than twice as likely to be obese compared with Canadian girls, according to a CDC report published today. And overall, childhood obesity rates in the US were 25 percent higher than those seen in Canada. So, even though the rate of obesity among children has stabilized in the US over the course of the past decade, the US continues to trail behind its Canadian neighbor — a neighbor that's also struggling with obesity and excess weight in kids.
Childhood obesity rates in the US and Canada weren't always this different. At the end of the 1970s, the rate for both countries hovered around 5 percent. The percent of children who were obese grew in both countries during the '80s and '90s, but the increase was more pronounced in the US. And so, even though the obesity rate for children has stabilized in both Canada and the US, American kids continue to experience higher rates of obesity. This means that a higher percentage of children in the US are at risk for obesity-related conditions like prediabetes, bone and joint problems, and cardiovascular disease.
In the study, researchers compared health survey data from Canada and the US, dating back to the late '70s. Then, they broke the most recent data down by age and gender. The idea here was to find where the biggest differences lie; figuring that out could help target interventions at those who need them the most.
19 percent of American girls age seven to 12 were obese
Overall, the differences between Canada and the US were most pronounced for children age seven to 12, especially in girls. About 19 percent of American girls in that age bracket were obese, compared with just 9 percent of Canadian girls.
The differences weren't as pronounced in boys; there was actually no difference between Canadian and American boys when the researchers looked at ages three to 19. But upon parsing the age brackets, they discovered that US boys between the ages of seven and 12 also were more likely to be obese than their Canadian counterparts.
The study wasn’t designed to address why these differences exist, but the findings hint at places where policymakers and doctors could focus prevention efforts.
More can be done
Childhood obesity has stabilized in both the US and Canada in recent years — and that's a good sign. It means that pediatric obesity prevention efforts in both countries may be having an impact. That said, the high rate of obesity among children in the US, especially among young girls, suggests that more can be done.
Knowing where US girls diverge from Canadian girls can help doctors and policymakers focus more tightly on interventions in that age bracket, since those who are obese in childhood are also more likely to be obese as adults. Obesity raises the risk of certain cancers and puts people more at risk of heart disease, diabetes, and other illnesses — so making it easier for children to avoid those risks is crucial. | {
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The partisan divide over gun control in Wisconsin is as stark as it has ever been.
Frustrated by a lack of Republican action on the topic, Gov. Tony Evers has called a special session of the state Legislature. He wanted lawmakers to take up a so-called "red flag" law — which would allow judges to take guns away from people who are deemed to be a danger — and an expansion of gun background checks to include sales between private parties.
Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald promptly announced he would likely adjourn the session as soon as it began, refusing to even vote on the proposals.
Meanwhile, the state Legislature’s other lead Republican — Assembly Speaker Robin Vos — has been making the media rounds to defend Republican inaction and condemn Evers’ proposals.
That included a Facebook Live interview with WTJM-TV’s Charles Benson on Oct. 22, 2019. Their conversation turned to red flag laws, also referred to as emergency risk protection orders. Here’s part of that exchange:
Vos — Red flags laws, it’s basically like saying we are going to take away your car because we think you could drive drunk. It’s crazy.
Benson — But a judge has to decide that.
Vos — No, they take away your weapon first, then you have to go and ask permission to get the weapon back.
Vos later reiterated his description while criticizing how the Marquette University Law School poll summarized red flag laws as "allowing the police to take guns away from people who have been found by a judge to be a danger to themselves or others." In late August, the poll showed 81% of respondents in support.
"That’s not the way the red flag law works," said Vos, R-Rochester. "They take it away first. Then you have to get permission from a judge to do it."
Is Vos right that red flag laws allow guns to be seized before a judge gets involved?
Let’s dig in.
The background
Red flag laws provide a mechanism to take guns from people exhibiting dangerous behavior before they harm themselves or others.
The first such law was passed in Connecticut in 1990, but the second didn’t appear until Indiana’s in 2005. More states have adopted such laws in recent years in the wake of mass shootings by people who had exhibited earlier warning signs.
At least 17 states and the District of Columbia now have a red flag law, including several passed in 2019, according to the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, a research and advocacy organization. Every state allows law enforcement to seek the removal of guns, 12 allow family or household members to as well, and a smattering of states also allow petitions from medical professionals, co-workers or school officials.
Typically, a judge (or other judicial official such as a court commissioner) hears the request and then decides whether to issue a preliminary order without holding a hearing or notifying the gun owner. These orders are temporary and last from two to 21 days depending on the state, according to an issue brief put together by the nonpartisan Wisconsin Legislative Council. The gun owner then has a chance to make his or her case at a hearing before a judge decides on a final order. That order commonly lasts for a year.
Different states have different burdens of proof that must be met for a judge to issue an order, such as finding the individual poses a "significant risk" or that there is "clear and convincing evidence."
If an order is issued, some states require guns be turned over immediately, while others allow a short period of time. A search warrant authorizing seizure can also be issued in some states.
Evers’ proposed red flag law for Wisconsin requires a hearing within 14 days of the preliminary order, and makes a final order valid for a year. It says guns should be seized if the judge finds "reasonable grounds that the respondent is substantially likely" to harm themselves or others. Requests can be made to either extend the final order or end it early.
State law already requires guns be surrendered as a result of other judicial findings, such as mental health commitments and restraining orders, according to the Legislative Council.
Vos’ defense
You may have noticed the word "judge" appeared frequently in the summary above.
The Wisconsin proposal — contrary to Vos’ description — doesn’t allow any guns to be seized without a judicial order.
Asked for evidence that judges aren’t initially involved in red flag law seizures, Vos spokeswoman Kit Beyer said Vos misheard the question.
"Speaker Vos thought Charles Benson had asked if the accused goes before a judge prior to an order to surrender," Beyer said.
But that explanation doesn’t strike us as reasonable.
Benson’s initial question about the red flag law was far less specific – asking if Vos thinks Wisconsin residents want to see it passed. And Vos’ second reference to a lack of judicial sign-off came after Benson simply read the wording of the Marquette poll.
Descriptions of red flag laws consistently refer to decisions being made by judges. That’s the terminology used by Giffords, the Legislative Council, the National Conference of State Legislatures, the New York Times and many others.
But there is an exception.
Indiana’s law allows police to seize firearms without first obtaining a judicial order. However, they must then submit a statement to a judge, who can overturn the officer’s decision and refuse to issue a preliminary order, according to Giffords. Similar to other states, that preliminary order requires a hearing on a final order be held within 14 days.
Beyer said Vos’ primary concern with the red flag laws relates to due process, since the preliminary order can be issued without the individual having a chance to dispute it. That is a core objection from other conservatives and groups that oppose red flag laws as well, including the National Rifle Association.
Red flag laws have been challenged in other states, but courts have upheld them as constitutional on both Second Amendment and due process grounds, the Legislative Council said. That includes a ruling upholding the Florida law in September 2019.
Our ruling
Vos said red flag laws mean "they take it away first. Then you have to get permission from a judge to do it."
But red flag laws — including the one proposed in Wisconsin — don’t typically work like that. They involve police or family petitioning a judge, who must sign a preliminary order before any guns can be seized.
Indiana does have a law set up as Vos describes, but even there the seizure decision by police is subject to immediate judicial review. And that’s the exception, not the rule.
We rate Vos’ claim Mostly False. | {
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by Marsha B. Cohen
Americans will soon get to see their taxpayer dollars at work when Israel’s Iron Dome anti-rocket system, funded largely by the US, is deployed during President Obama’s Israel visit.
Unless the inauguration of Pope Francis I causes an abrupt change in his itinerary , Obama will land in Israel on Wednesday, March 20. Immediately after an official welcoming ceremony at Ben Gurion Airport, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Shimon Peres will show him an Iron Dome battery, set up at the airport so the President won’t have to travel to a site where the mobile anti-rocket system is being deployed.
The Iron Dome system may well be the quintessential metaphor for US-Israel relations in general, and for Obama’s relationship with Netanyahu in particular, the love child of a sometimes steamy, often frosty and increasingly strained affaire de coeur between defense spending and domestic politics. According to outgoing Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, Israel has already received $270 million towards the construction of Iron Dome and — despite the hand-wringing and wrangling over budget cuts in Congress — is slated to receive another $680 million, nearly a billion dollars on top of Israel’s usual $3 billion in annual US military assistance. These figures are corroborated by a Congressional Research Report published last March, which points out that Israel receives 60% of all American Foreign Military financing.
JINSA (the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs) waxes rhapsodic about Iron Dome’s “affordability and effectiveness,” a claim that would make some of the system’s staunchest defenders blanch and its critics guffaw. Each interception costs $100,000 — two interceptors at $50,000 apiece targeting every incoming rocket that appears headed for a populated area of Israel — hardly “cost effective.” The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) also uncritically enthuses that “the Iron Dome missile defense system is now hailed as a groundbreaking innovation, an example of the technological prowess of Israel, and an embodiment of the unique relationship between the Jewish state and the United States.”
The hagiographic account of Iron Dome on AIPAC’s website is however both incomplete and seriously flawed:
The idea for Iron Dome arose after Israel’s 2006 war with Hizballah, in which more than 4,000 rockets were launched into the country’s north. As rocket fire from Gaza targeting southern Israeli communities also intensified, it became clear that a system was needed to defend against short-range rockets and missiles.
Not exactly. Last November, the Wall Street Journal offered a much more detailed account of Iron Dome’s origin. Brig. Gen. Daniel Gold, the director of the Defense Ministry’s Research and Development department, had gone ahead and decided on the development of Iron Dome, calling for proposals from defense companies for anti-rocket systems in August 2004 — two years before the Second Lebanon War. He did so without any authorization from Israel’s political leadership. It was not until after the 2006 “Second Lebanon War” between Israel and Hizballah that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Ehud Barak — under withering criticism for allowing Israeli civilians in non-border regions to come under rocket and missile attacks — backed Iron Dome, giving the project $200 million in December 2007. The rocket attacks during and since the 2008 invasion of Gaza (“Operation Cast Lead”) increased demand for a rocket interception system. The system went into operation in March 2011, shooting down its first rocket on April 7 and reportedly taking out 8 more rockets in the next three days.
According to AIPAC, by April 2011 “an Iron Dome battery was fielded outside the southern city of Beersheba and shot down its first rocket fired from Gaza. Since then the system has achieved an 85-percent interception rate and is constantly improving, as its developers enhance its accuracy and expand its range.”
Last week, Reuven Pedatzur, a highly respected Israeli security analyst who has been a sharp critic of the Iron Dome project since 2008 when he pointed out that billions had been squandered on the program, cited studies by missile defense experts that suggest Iron Dome’s successful interception rate may well be 5% or less — far below the 84% success rate cited by the Israeli Defense Forces and other defenders of the program. Pedatzur cites research done by three rocket scientists: Professor Theodore Postol, a world-renowned scientist and expert in missile defense and two other rocket scientists, Dr. Mordechai Shefer, formerly of Rafael, and a scientist he refers to only as “D.”, who recently worked for Raytheon, the manufacturer of the Patriot missiles. After investigating the performance of Iron Dome during Operation Pillar of Defense this past November, all three concluded that “Iron Dome’s rate of success did not come close to the figure of 84% as reported by the IDF”:
According to the three scientists, who conducted their research separately by analyzing dozens of videos filmed during the operation, most of the explosions which look as if they were successful interceptions, are actually just the self-destruction of the Iron Dome’s own missiles. The scientists point out that in every case the explosions, seen as balls of fire during the day and clouds of smoke at night, were round and symmetrical. In the case of successful interceptions, in which the incoming missile’s warhead is destroyed, there should have been another ball of fire or cloud of smoke. They also uncovered a strange phenomenon whereby the Iron Dome’s missiles followed identical trajectories, and self-destructed at precisely the same time. In some of the videos, it appears that the Iron Dome’s missiles made a very sharp turn shortly before self-destruction. That cannot be, say the scientists, as there is no way that the missile defense system could “remember” that it needs to turn in the direction of the incoming Grad missile a quarter-second before it self-destructs.
Pedatzur also noted that these scientists discovered 3,200 civilian damage reports that were filed for destruction caused by incoming rockets. Could the 58 rockets that the IDF admits were not intercepted by Iron Dome have caused so much damage? Compared with the damage from rockets during the Second Lebanon War before Iron Dome was deployed, Pedatzur considers that unlikely. Furthermore, Israeli police reports counted 109 cases of rockets falling in populated areas, twice as many as the number claimed by the IDF. Pedatzur compares the exaggerated success rate of Iron Dome to the initial 96% interception rate claimed for the Patriot missile system during the aftermath of the Gulf War. Professor Postol later found the Patriot success rate to have been zero.
Nonetheless, AIPAC has even bigger dreams for the future of Iron Dome: “Now that the Iron Dome has proven itself, Washington will have the ability to use it in its own defense efforts against short-range rocket threats in the Persian Gulf and South Korea.”
The real challenge — and achievement — of Iron Dome has been getting the US to pay for the anti-rocket system. The WSJ‘s Charles Levinson and Adam Entous report that Israel’s Defense Ministry approached the George W. Bush administration with a request for hundreds of millions of dollars for the system, only to receive a cold reception at the Pentagon. Experts voiced doubts about the system’s effectiveness and argued that even if it worked, such a system would be too expensive. (Most Israeli military and defense officials were also dubious.) A team of US military engineers sent to Israel by the Defense Department to meet with the Iron Dome system’s developers were unconvinced by the technology and skeptical about the prospects for its performance. They recommended that Israel adopt the American-made Phalanx system being used in Iraq.
In 2008, US Senator and presidential candidate Barack Obama visited Sderot, a town near the Gaza Strip that came under severe rocket attacks during Operation Cast Lead and whose residents were constantly running for cover from incoming Qassam rockets. Obama won the election and took office as President and shortly thereafter an Iron Dome prototype successfully intercepted an incoming rocket during its first field test. Colin Kahl, appointed by Obama to overseeing US military policy in the Middle East at the Pentagon, decided to reconsider the Iron Dome’s merits — military and political.
Having raised the hackles of Israel’s newly installed Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, by calling for a settlement freeze and prioritizing the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, Obama wanted to set things right with Israel. “Top Obama administration advisers saw supporting Iron Dome as a chance to shore up U.S.-Israel security relations and balance some of the political strains,” according to Levinson and Entous. In September, Kahl dispatched a team of missile-defense experts to reconsider Iron Dome. The team presented its findings to Obama a month later: “the team declared Iron Dome a success, and in many respects, superior to Phalanx. Tests showed it was hitting 80% of the targets, up from the low teens in the earlier U.S. assessment.”
In 2009, the US agreed to provide $204 million for the Iron Dome system’s development. The National Jewish Democratic Council pointed to Iron Dome as one of the means by which Obama had restored Israel’s Qualitative Military Edge — eroded during the Bush years. An additional $680 million over three years was allocated for the purchase of additional batteries in May 2012, during talks between Barak and US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta. Barak met with Obama’s new Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel earlier this month, during which time Hagel was said to have pledged continued US support for Iron Dome. Israel eventually hopes to triple the number of Iron Dome batteries deployed in defense of military as well as civilian targets.
If Obama had favored funding an Iron Dome program for any other country, you can be sure that Republicans would be shrieking about the administration’s increasing of the deficit by borrowing funds to expend close to a billion US taxpayer dollars on a system with a success rate that been grossly exaggerated. Furthermore, as Walter Pincus of the Washington Post has pointed out, the US government has no rights to the Iron’s Dome’s technology, which is owned by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd., an Israeli government-owned, for-profit company.
Consider all this next week when you see Netanyahu and Peres showing off the Iron Dome to President Obama.
Photo: The Iron Dome CRAM launcher near the Israeli town of Sderot. Credit: Natan Flayer. | {
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Lego announced a new connected toy line today, called Powered Up, as well as its first set in the series: an app-controlled Batmobile. The company previously ventured into connected toys, most recently with its Boost set that lets kids build a variety of items and then code and control them through an app. Remember the cat that plays the harmonica? Loved it.
This new Powered Up line will consist of multiple products that vary in complexity, instead of one set that can be used to build multiple things. Some sets might only be battery-powered, while others could be remote-controlled or app-controlled. Some of this functionality will ship with the sets, although kids will be able to buy additional accessories that’ll add features to their builds.
This new Batmobile can be controlled through two pre-built remote interfaces on the companion Powered Up iOS / Android app. A new coding interface will also be released later this year so kids can code speed, direction, sound, and duration to create new stunts and movements. The Batmobile will be released on August 1st for $99.99. The set includes 321 pieces, two motors, and a battery hub. The Boost kit cost $159.99 at release and included an extra motor and a combination color and distance sensor, along with 843 traditional Lego parts.
Other sets that’ll eventually be released include the Lego City Passenger Train and the Lego City Cargo Train, which add remote controls to these more classic sets, and the Lego Duplo Steam Train and the Lego Duplo Cargo Train, which are designed for children as young as two years old. They’ll be able to get a sense of coding basics with sensors that pick up on color-coded train tracks.
Update May 22nd, 5:45pm: The App-Controlled Batmobile set will cost $99.99, not $159.99 and does not include a remote. | {
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TRANSFER TRACKER STATUS: Report
The Luciano Acosta transfer saga was one of the big stories in MLS at the start of the year, and it's expected to be a conversation once again in summer with the D.C. United midfielder nearing a period in which he could be courted by overseas clubs with his contract expiring at year's end.
But a report from ESPN’s Sebastian Salazar before D.C.'s 2-0 loss at home to New York City FC, suggests a solution could come sooner rather than later. Salazar said the Eastern Conference club has made a contract offer to Acosta, hoping to secure the playmaker long-term. D.C. declined to comment publicly on contract discussions.
Acosta has had no shortage of interest abroad with Manchester United reported to have scouted the Argentine in recent weeks. Last winter, Paris St. Germain was the supposed destination, while Turkey’s Fenerbahce entered the conversation as well.
"First of all, the European interest in Lucho is still very real," Salazar said on the broadcast. "Both Manchester United and Lyon have sent representatives here to the nation’s capital to watch Lucho live in the last month. Also, a source close to the situation says PSG is still very much interested. Lucho told me this week he feels ready, not just for the jump to Europe in the abstract, but specifically to compete for minutes at a big club.
"From the club perspective, the D.C. United perspective, they have tabled what they consider a very competitive offer and have had what they call very positive discussions with Lucho’s agents in just the last two weeks," Salazar continued. "They are hopeful to sign him, but time is working against them."
Speaking with ESPN’s Taylor Twellman during their Heineken Boot Room segment, D.C. head coach Ben Olsen was diplomatic about the process.
“He’s a big part of what we’re doing here,” Olsen said. “If he does go, we’ll have to replace him with a very talented player. We have some players internally that we can help fill that void, but he’s not a player you just snap your fingers and replace. That stuff will happen over the next month or two. In the meantime, he’s had a very good mentality about how he goes about his job. He’s been professional, our relationship is solid. He likes this team, it’s a family to him. He's been an absolute pro about it.”
Acosta, originally acquired on loan from Boca Juniors in 2016, enjoyed a breakout campaign last year, especially when Wayne Rooney arrived in the summer. He finished 2018 with 10 goals and 17 assists, though he has just two goals and two assists in the early going of the current MLS campaign.
“We prefer to have him, but this is the sport of soccer,” Olsen said. “People move on, players move on and there are a lot of players out in the world who are impactful players coming to this league year in and year out. Every transfer window there’s now players coming in that help. But I love the kid. I love what he does on the field. He’s fun to watch, our fans love him. We’ll do our best to keep him." | {
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No, this is not from The Onion. And yes, it is rich. With a hat tip to Jim Hoft of Gateway Pundit , check out this from Erin Grace of Omaha.com , the website of the Omaha World-Herald:
The Omaha Central High teacher froze. Could this Jonathan Butler — the one at that moment beginning his eighth day of a hunger strike at the University of Missouri — be the same Jonathan Butler who wrestled for him more than a decade ago as a freshman? Could the quiet kid he knew in high school be the same young adult at the center of a storm about to bring down the house at Missouri’s flagship school?
It turns out, yes he is. And:
Butler has said in news reports that his paternal grandfather, an attorney helping the poor in New York City, was a big influence. So were his parents: Eric is a Union Pacific executive and Cynthia is a former educator who runs an advocacy program.
And the organization in which his father is an executive is the Union Pacific Railroad, one of the biggest companies in the country, where he earned over $6 million last year as executive vice president for marketing and sales. From The Revolution’s Facebook Page:
You know Jonathan Butler, the Mizzou student that started a hunger strike because he wanted the school's president fired for something he had no part in? It turns out he comes from a family with a net worth of over $20 million!!!
http://people.equilar.com/bio/eric-butler-union-pacific/salary/690589#.VkJx266rSu6
The link provided is dead, but this link shows: | {
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Judge Andrew Napolitano broke down the legal issues at play following the explosive allegation by President Donald Trump that President Barack Obama ordered a wiretap of Trump Tower during the presidential campaign.
Napolitano said much of the analysis in the last few days is "mixing apples and oranges," emphasizing that the FBI can obtain search warrants to look for evidence of crimes, while the NSA can obtain a warrant to investigate national security matters.
The Fox News senior judicial analyst said the NSA is allowed by law to capture "all digital information" within the United States and the president can obtain transcribed copies of those intercepted communications.
He added that the FISA statute states "the President of the United States can order surveillance on any person in the United States in conjunction with a certification filed by the attorney general."
"It's profoundly unconstitutional but it is legal because the statute says it," said Napolitano. "Think about this: if you're Barack Obama and you have the ability by making a phone call to hear what Donald Trump is saying, would you bother getting a warrant? Why would you get a warrant?"
Obama's spokesman said Saturday that no such order was ever given.
"A cardinal rule of the Obama Administration was that no White House official ever interfered with any independent investigation led by the Department of Justice. As part of that practice, neither President Obama nor any White House official ever ordered surveillance on any U.S. citizen. Any suggestion otherwise is simply false," the statement read.
Shannon Bream asked whether Trump could access a surveillance order from the previous administration if it exists.
"I don't know that FISA would give him the orders, but he could get them from NSA," the judge explained.
Watch the judge's full analysis on "America's Newsroom."
Mark Levin: 'Donald Trump Is the Victim' in Alleged Obama Wiretapping Scandal
Former DOJ Lawyer: Lynch, Comey Could Have 'Intimate Knowledge' of Alleged Wiretapping
'You're Being Disingenuous!': Tucker Battles Dem Calling for Sessions Probe | {
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Add this to the long list of grievances Palestinians can lodge against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: A Jordan-based Palestinian rap group is threatening legal action against Netanyahu's right-wing Likud Party for lifting one of their songs for a campaign ad — and linking the musicians to ISIS.
The group, Torabyeh, which describes itself on Tumblr as an "Amman-based alternative arts group ... committed to pioneering a much-needed arts revolution," is furious after Israel's ruling Likud Party released a political advertisement featuring the Torabyeh song "Ghorbah." The since-deleted ad, posted Saturday on Netanyahu's Facebook page, featured actors portraying bearded Islamic State terrorists roaming the Israeli countryside in a Toyota Tundra. The group asks a passing driver in Arab-accented Hebrew, "How do we get to Jerusalem, bro?"
"Take a left," he replies.
On Netanyahu's Facebook page, the none-too-subtle ad was paired with an equally inflammatory description. "This time, choose us or them," the post said. "A government run by Netanyahu or the Left, weak and submissive with Isaac Herzog and Tzipi Livni," referring to the leaders of the Zionist Union, a center-left political alliance between the Israeli Labor Party and the left-wing Hatnuah Party that advocates for a two-state solution to the Palestinian question.
The rap collective is more than a little angry. In a retaliatory Facebook post, Torabyeh dismissed the ad as propaganda and criticized Israeli political parties of all stripes. "The use of the song in the particular context cannot be considered anything but deliberate propaganda of the Zionist right for the purpose of electoral propaganda and attacking the so-called Zionist 'left wing.' Furthermore, it implicates the Torabyeh group by containing serious accusations of terrorism and association with ISIS which is consequently putting the group's members lives at risk."
"We strongly condemn and reject this ruthless infringement of intellectual property rights and the distortion of the reputation of Torabyeh," the post continues. "What is more, we reject all forms of cooperation with the Zionist enemy (right and left) and the fascist expansionist colonial entity. Torabyeh group will take all necessary legal action against those responsible."
The comments below the post are even less measured: "First they stole your land, your homes, your lives and now they steal your art," "There must be millions around the globe laughing so hard that they're pissing their pants," "Solidarity and best wishes for your prosecution of the thieving zionist war criminal Nutanyahoo."
Upon viewing the music video for "Ghorbah," Torabyeh's strong reaction isn't surprising. The song is a full-throated condemnation of the oppression faced by artists and Palestinians in the region, and a criticism of Israeli settlement and occupation of Palestinian territories: "I just want a place where I can secure my son's rights / I am not a killer but I can commit a crime to protect my rights / For my country my pen is writing for me / I don't want an Israeli soldier to stop me from being buried in my country."
It's part of a larger narrative of what's called "cultural resistance," the use of music, poetry or art as a forum for political dissent free from the Western influence or censorship. The Israeli government has attempted to silence this kind of music before, confiscating cassette taps featuring "propaganda" and preventing radio play of Palestinian music critical of Israeli policy.
Like nearly everything involving Israelis and Palestinians, it's not easy to take sides. Netanyahu's Likud has doubled down on its opposition to Palestinian statehood and support of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza, and Netanyahu has called for the scrapping of a United Nations probe into alleged human-rights violations during last summer's week-long war in Gaza. His party's co-opting of Torabyeh's protest art in a political advertisement to inspire fear and insularity in voters uses the rap collective's own words against them.
But Torabyeh isn't without complications, either. Despite the complicated relationship between more religious political parties and Palestinian rap and hip-hop groups, the very song that the Likud used in its advertisement lauds the actions of Hamas, the political party-cum-militant group whose tunnels (used to smuggle weapons and kidnapped Israeli soldiers) were the declared reason for Israel's actions last summer .
In the U.S., where musicians have been lodging complaints against politicians for the unlicensed use of their music for years, the issue would be one of fair use and royalties, ending in the likely deletion of the video and a token apology. Netanyahu, however, is standing firm: Despite thousands of angry comments, the video remains on his page.
h/t Al-Arabiya | {
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Report
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CC: Closed caption options for the video above in Slovak, Czech and English.
This paper is offered as a warning to Europeans who care about the health of their people, the resilience of their communities, the fate of their public services, and the protection of their natural resources.
In 1989, Canada and the United States signed the Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement (CUSTA). In 1994, the two countries and Mexico signed the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). These two deals set the tone for the new generation of bilateral and regional trade deals, and created a model still vigorously pursued by most governments.
Under CUSTA, Canada would lose much of its manufacturing base as American corporations closed their Canadian plants and moved them offshore. Canada also gave up regulatory control of its energy reserves. NAFTA introduced a new provision – investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) – whereby corporations from the three countries could sue one another’s governments for changes to laws, policies or practices that hurt the corporations’ bottom lines.
NAFTA’s legacy is alive and well in both the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) between the European Union and the United States and the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) between the EU and Canada. While these deals push the trade envelope in several new ways, both contain ISDS provisions, which are especially controversial in Europe.
As a result of NAFTA, Canada is the most investor-state challenged country in the developed world, and Canadians have an important story to share with Europeans as they grapple with TTIP and CETA. This paper is offered as a warning to Europeans who care about the health of their people, the resilience of their communities, the fate of their public services, and the protection of their natural resources. | {
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Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein Rod RosensteinDOJ kept investigators from completing probe of Trump ties to Russia: report Five takeaways from final Senate Intel Russia report FBI officials hid copies of Russia probe documents fearing Trump interference: book MORE’s planned departure after William Barr is confirmed as the next attorney general has sparked a guessing game in Washington about who will succeed him.
Barr told the Senate Judiciary Committee this week that President Trump Donald John TrumpHR McMaster says president's policy to withdraw troops from Afghanistan is 'unwise' Cast of 'Parks and Rec' reunite for virtual town hall to address Wisconsin voters Biden says Trump should step down over coronavirus response MORE will let him choose his second-in-command, and legal experts say he may very well pick someone he’s worked with before.
Among those in the mix are George Terwilliger, Ira Raphaelson and Douglas Cox. All three were senior Justice Department officials in the George H.W. Bush administration when Barr was attorney general.
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Terwilliger was deputy attorney general, Raphaelson served as special counsel for the financial institutions fraud unit and Cox was deputy assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel.
Terwilliger sat behind Barr throughout Tuesday's confirmation hearing, increasing speculation that he will once again be Barr's deputy.
In an interview with The Hill on Wednesday, Terwilliger declined to say whether Barr has approached him about the position or whether he would take it if offered.
“I think it would be inappropriate to presume I would be asked,” he said. “I’m not going to comment on that. I will say that I have a lot of commitments to clients about things important to them and to me. I’m not sure it could be in the cards for me anyway.”
He also downplayed the significance of his attendance at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday.
“I really was just there to be supportive of someone who I both worked with professionally and who is a close friend,” he said.
Raphaelson and Cox did not respond to requests for comment.
If Terwilliger isn’t interested, his son might be.
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G. Zachary Terwilliger, who was confirmed as U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia in August, has close family ties to Barr and could be a candidate, said a source who previously worked on Justice Department nominations.
Terwilliger declined to comment for this story.
The same source also said Brian Benczkowski, assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, could be in the running for the deputy post.
The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Experts say Barr is likely to seek someone with prosecutorial experience.
“The deputy attorney general oversees all the federal prosecutors across America,” said Elliot Williams, who served a deputy assistant attorney general for legislative affairs during the Obama administration. “Barr, in spite of his record, isn’t a career prosecutor."
Williams noted that deputies are often former U.S. attorneys. Rosenstein served as the U.S. attorney for Maryland and Sally Yates Sally Caroline YatesButtigieg, former officials added to Biden's transition team The Hill's 12:30 Report: Delegates stage state-centric videos for the roll call Trump fires back at Yates for convention speech: 'Terrible AG' MORE, who served as deputy attorney general under former President Obama, was the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Georgia.
Selecting someone with prosecutorial experience, Williams said, might also minimize any fears among career employees that the people at the top are too political.
News of Rosenstein’s imminent departure has put Washington on edge, with many worrying about what will become of special counsel Robert Mueller Robert (Bob) MuellerCNN's Toobin warns McCabe is in 'perilous condition' with emboldened Trump CNN anchor rips Trump over Stone while evoking Clinton-Lynch tarmac meeting The Hill's 12:30 Report: New Hampshire fallout MORE’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. Rosenstein has been overseeing the Russia probe since former Attorney General Jeff Sessions Jefferson (Jeff) Beauregard SessionsTrump's policies on refugees are as simple as ABCs Ocasio-Cortez, Velázquez call for convention to decide Puerto Rico status White House officials voted by show of hands on 2018 family separations: report MORE recused himself in March 2017.
Barr has been critical of Mueller’s investigation in the past, but on Tuesday promised the special counsel would be allowed to complete his work if he’s confirmed as attorney general.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse Sheldon WhitehouseLWCF modernization: Restoring the promise Restaurant owner defends calamari as 'bipartisan' after Democratic convention appearance Warren calls on McConnell to bring Senate back to address Postal Service MORE (D-R.I.) pressed Barr during his confirmation hearing on whether he had anything to do with Rosenstein’s plans to leave the department.
“You have not undertaken to run him out in any way?” Whitehouse asked.
“Absolutely not,” Barr said.
Barr said that he and Rosenstein have been discussing the departure.
“He told me he viewed it as a two-year stint and would like to use my coming in as an occasion to leave,” Barr said. “But we talked about the need for a transition and I asked if he would stay awhile, and he said he would.”
When asked what he would look for in a successor, Barr said he would prefer someone who’s a good manager and has experience running government programs.
“I want a first-rate lawyer and someone who’s judgement I feel comfortable in,” he said.
The Hill contacted several former DOJ officials, and many insiders were tight-lipped about possible contenders. Several legal experts, however, were adamant that acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker is not in the running.
“I feel confident Barr would never choose him,”said Harry Litman, a law professor and lawyer who worked under Barr in 1991 and 1992.
“He’s primarily a political operator and not an institutionalist,” Litman said. “Your deputy has to be the person you trust in the foxhole, and he’s leaving the foxhole and carrying reports to the White House.”
Whitaker was named acting attorney general after Sessions resigned, at President Trump’s request, in early November. Whitaker had served as Sessions’s chief of staff, and his ascension to interim head of the department spurred a flurry of litigation. Many argued Rosenstein was the rightful successor and that Whitaker’s appointment was unlawful because he did not previously hold a Senate-confirmed position.
“If he were to be retained at Justice, I think that would send a signal the White House wants to keep a firm finger on the pulse of the Justice Department,” a person with previous ties to the agency said.
The White House declined to respond on the record to questions about Whitaker’s future and who is being considered to replace Rosenstein.
Other names that have been floated include Senate legal counsel Patricia Mack Bryan; Maureen Mahoney, who served as U.S. deputy solicitor general when Barr was attorney general; and Paul Cappuccio, an executive vice president and former general counsel at Time Warner, where Barr served on the board of directors.
Mahoney, who is retired from the law firm Latham & Watkins, declined to comment. Bryan did not respond to a request for comment, and Cappuccio could not be reached through a Warner Media spokesperson. | {
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Browser Bazaar, Browser Bizarre, Browser Bazaar – one can hear the hawker touting full-lunged at the amazing and bizarre things happening in the browser marketplace in the past few weeks.
Surprise, surprise it is Chrome not Firefox that displaces IE as the number one browser in use Worldwide on the Internet. But Firefox contributed mightily by stopping its skid and gaining market share to 25% while all versions of IE are at 32 and Chrome at a notch above 32%. Who would have thought that Chrome would finally displace the worst package of browsers, IE6/7/8/9/10, from top spot? If Bill and Steve had kept to their promised yearly IE update schedule and had forcibly retired IE6/7/8 this would be a different story.
Huzzah Huzzah – Yahoo enters the browser game. It is almost a case of the walking dead getting involved in the brutal, fast-paced browser wars. What is up?
And the consensus is that this iPad and iPhone browser [plugin in the case of desktop browsers], shows real promise. Instead of a text list of sites like what Google and IE Bing deliver, Axis shows thumbnails for the top ranked websites returned in a query. This makes it easier for the browser user to make the transition to the most interesting website. Axis is designed to be a mobile browser primarily with Android and Windows Phone versions on tap and plugins for the Chrome, Firefox, and Safari browsers. The expectation is that the Axis thumbnails will be a winning feature that the other browser vendors will imitate but Yahoo Axis will have the advantage of being the first to the game.
Rumor, Rumor, Rumor, stupid Rumors – Facebook to acquire Opera browser is the latest rumor that is circulating among the second tier of IT websites. I will believe it when AllthingsD.com or theVerge.com confirms the rumors. Mark Zuckerberg, despite aflawed IPO, is now flush with cash in market he considers to be super-dynamic – or so the story goes. Facebook is just an app in the mobile space where there is less display space and less control for Facebook. Opera certainly has prowess in mobile software development – have one of the first and still highly regarded mobile browsers. Also Opera has gesture devlopments and patents that also could prove valuable as the Steve Jobs tripped off patent wars have spread ever wider. But as Mark well knows, there are plenty of advisors around to tell you how to spend your newly gleaned Fortunes.
The new reigning Desktop Browser Champion for implementation of HTML5 is ..[drumroll]… Maxthon 3.3.7!???
Who Dat? Maxthon is from a Chinese company based in Beijing who have also turned out a)a very fast browser and b) a feature laden browser that beats Chrome and all the rest of the top 5 browsers by a wide margin in the respected HTML5test.com series of HTML5 benchmarks. Equally important is a gob of features that few of the big 5 browsers have. We shall have a review devoted to benchmarking the browser in the upcoming weeks to see how solid the following numbers are:
Summary
If our Bizarre Bazaar is any indicator, Browsers have become popular again. And why not? The Cloud and always connected is the current mantra – and a browser will be the preferred intermediary vehicle. Second, HTML5 and JavaScript are becoming the last vestiges of cross platform development tools as Apple deprecates Java on Mac and outright along with Flash on iOS. Microsoft, not to be out-proprietized is doing the deprecation thing in Windows Phone and possibly Windows 8 RT to the same two victims. C++ libraries are starting to diverge again. Browsers are becoming the last and still very weak refuge for cross platform development despite an outbreak of very good JavaScript UI Frameworks[try developing browser/HTML5 apps with online/offline operations plus touch and gestures and a SQL Database to see what I mean]. Finally, the JavaScript engines are not quite up to Java HotSpot speed but that may be a good thing – meaning there is still room for improvement.
In short expect more appearances in our Browser Bizarre in the coming weeks … oh I think I have one already – Windows 8/RT Metro will only allow IE, no Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox… | {
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Waze, an Israeli navigation startup bought by Google in 2013, was hit on Thursday with a $150 million lawsuit.
The lawsuit, filed in the Tel Aviv District Court against Waze, its founders Ehud Shabtai, Amir Shinar, Gili Shinar and Uri Levine, and a Google subsidiary in Israel, claims that Waze is based partly on the work of a programming community, which is entitled to half of the company's intellectual property at the time of its sale. It also claims that Waze broke a commitment to leave its program, maps and information open to the public.
The claimant in the lawsuit is Roy Gorodish, an Israeli accountant who participated in Freemap Israel, an "open-source" project to map the country using free software called Roadmap 1. Gorodish, represented by attorney Yitzhak Aviram, says in the lawsuit that Waze's maps were built by daily updates by the community, not solely by Waze programmers. He asks that the court recognize the lawsuit as a class action on behalf of the community.
Although Shabtai, Waze's chief technology officer, started Freemap and designed most of the software, Gorodish says, other users also contributed significantly over the course of a year. The defendants then took control of the project, adapted it into Waze and sold out to Google for more than $1 billion, without telling the Internet giant that its program and maps belong to the community, he says. Gorodish estimates that Waze's intellectual property was worth $128 million at the time of the sale, of which he says the community is entitled to $64 million.
Gorodish says that when Freemap started, Shabtai, Shinar and Levine gave community members a document saying that the project was owned by the community. Later, when Waze was founded, the three men unilaterally changed the terms of the agreement in what amounts to intellectual property theft and copyright infringement, he says.
In addition to the $150 million, Gorodish is seeking to make all the maps owned by the defendants, as well as other data they collected from users of both Waze and Freemap, publicly available. He is also asking a court expert to examine the source code of Google Maps, which has started using data from Waze, to see if there are elements of the open-source code there, which would make Google Maps affected by a future court ruling.
Waze has said it has yet to see the lawsuit. | {
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Derechos de autor de la imagen Cortesia Familia Holt Image caption Joshua Holt y Thamara Caleño se casaron dos semanas antes de ser arrestados en Venezuela.
En las crecientes tensiones entre los gobiernos de Washington y Caracas, hace más de un año que el caso de un joven mormón detenido en territorio venezolano se ha convertido en uno de los asuntos más contenciosos.
El estadounidense Joshua Holt, misionero mormón de 25 años originario de Idaho, está encarcelado en la sede del Servicio Bolivariano de Inteligencia Nacional (Sebin), policía política de Venezuela, desde el 30 de junio de 2016.
El mismo día en que lo detuvieron también arrestaron a su esposa, Thamara Caleño Candelo, ecuatoriana nacionalizada venezolana, de 26 años, quien permanece bajo custodia en una celda de la sección de mujeres del Sebin.
Un tribunal de Caracas los acusa de posesión ilícita de un arma de guerra y el Ministerio del Interior del país argumentó semanas después de su arresto que el apartamento de la pareja se usaba como un "centro de almacenamiento de armas y explosivos" con el fin de "ejecutar acciones terroristas".
Los acusados defienden su inocencia y denuncian que las autoridades "plantaron las evidencias": un fusil de asalto AK47, una granada MK2, municiones y un fusil de imitación modelo M4, según describió el año pasado el exministro del Interior, Justicia y Paz, Gustavo González López, quien ahora dirige el Sebin.
Derechos de autor de la imagen Youtube Image caption El ministro del Interior y Justicia mostró por televisión fotos de las armas halladas en la casa de Holt.
Poco más de un año después de su detención, el caso de Holt ha vuelto a ganar resonancia en el marco de una relación cada vez más tirante entre Washington y Caracas.
La Casa Blanca impuso el miércoles sanciones a 13 altos funcionarios del gobierno relacionados con la elección de la Asamblea Nacional Constituyente, a celebrarse este domingo. En mayo pasado, emitió sanciones contra ocho magistrados del Tribunal Supremo de Justicia.
Sobre el caso de Holt, funcionarios estadounidenses han pedido desde febrero su "liberación inmediata"por"razones humanitarias" y denuncian que se han violado sus derechos al debido proceso.
"Su detención se ha hecho aún más difícil y dolorosa debido a sus dolencias continuas, que han empeorado debido a los retrasos y las negaciones para recibir la atención médica adecuada", le dijo a BBC Mundo la portavoz del Departamento de Estado de EE.UU., Heather Nauert.
Nauert señaló que ha habido "decenas de notas diplomáticas, declaraciones públicas y discusiones privadas" con las autoridades venezolanas y que el caso de Holt ha sido planteado "en los más altos niveles" del gobierno de Maduro por "múltiples funcionarios estadounidenses".
Derechos de autor de la imagen Cortesia Familia Holt Image caption Holt y Caleño se conocieron por internet y se casaron en Caracas.
El gobierno venezolano, por su parte, no ha emitido un pronunciamiento oficial sobre el proceso judicial del estadounidense, según le dijo a BBC Mundo un vocero del Ministerio del Poder Popular para la Comunicación y la Información (Minci).
Pero sus abogados denuncian la poca cooperación de las autoridades venezolanas, ya que ni Holt ni su esposa han sido citados para una audiencia preliminar ante el tribunal, que debió ocurrir en agosto del año pasado.
Cómo empezó todo
Según el relato de sus abogados, Holt dormía en la residencia que compartía con Caleño en Ciudad Caribia, un complejo de edificios a 22 kilómetros de Caracas que está adscrito a la gubernamental Gran Misión Vivienda, cuando agentes de seguridad tocaron la puerta.
"Dijeron que estaban haciendo un operativo y preguntaron dónde estaba el hombre de la casa. Él se levantó y cuando lo vieron les llamó la atención que fuese estadounidense. Se fueron, pero regresaron a revisar el apartamento. Se lo llevaron a él primero y después Thamara también fue detenida", describió Carlos Gómez, representante legal de ambos.
Derechos de autor de la imagen Youtube Image caption El ministro del Interior y Justicia venezolano mostró en televisión la foto de la captura de la pareja.
Holt viajó el 11 de junio a Venezuela para casarse con Caleño, luego de haber entablado una relación por internet y de haberse conocido en persona el mes anterior en República Dominicana.
Ambos pertenecen al Movimiento de los Santos de los Últimos Días y Holt, según su familia, sabía hablar español porque había participado en una misión con personas hispanohablantes en el estado de Washington (EE.UU).
Pero para las autoridades venezolanas, la pareja había establecido una "extraña y sospechosa" relación en línea y Holt, apodado como "El Gringo", pertenecía a una "banda criminal paramilitarizada" que tenía la intención de atentar contra la vida de líderes oficialistas.
"(Holt) tenía ocultas armas, municiones de guerra y mapas estratégicos de la ciudad capital en su vivienda", dijo el 20 de julio de 2016 el entonces ministro del Interior y Justicia, Gustavo González López, durante una alocución televisiva en la que expuso durante diez minutos la investigación.
Derechos de autor de la imagen Getty Images Image caption Holt y su esposa estaban alojados en un apartamento de Ciudad Caribia, un complejo de viviendas sociales construido por el gobierno.
El funcionario dijo que el operativo en el que se detuvo Holt fue llevado a cabo por la Policía Nacional Bolivariana (PNB) en el marco de la Operación de Liberación del Pueblo (OLP) y que los agentes buscaban en Ciudad Caribia a los culpables del asesinato por encargo del militante del Partido Único Socialista de Venezuela (PSUV), Omar Molina Marín.
González asoció a Holt con "fachadas" utilizadas por los servicios secretos de Estados Unidos que "estimulan la conformación de bandas criminales paramilitarizadas en urbanismos como los de la Gran Misión Vivienda para realizar una guerra no convencional".
También mencionó la "adoración" del estadounidense por las armas luego de mostrar varias imágenes extraídas de su computadora en la que se le ve disparando en Estados Unidos.
Según el abogado defensor, Holt le envío esas fotos a su entonces novia Thamara para enseñarle su afición por la caza, una práctica común en Utah, el estado donde vivía.
"Las fuerzas policiales no hicieron la investigación debida para definir de qué fecha era ese material", dijo el abogado.
Él no está muy bien de salud, ha tenido bronquitis, neumonía, se cayó de una de las literas de la celda. Los médicos no lo trataron, no lo tratan" Laurie Holt, madre de Joshua Holt
Aunque el exministro vinculó al estadounidense con la posible ejecución de acciones terroristas, la fiscalía solo acusó a la pareja de posesión ilícita de un arma de guerra, es decir, el fusil AK47.
"Los casos de ambos no están en la jurisdicción de terrorismo sino en la de causas comunes", explicó Gómez.
Por eso es llamativo, dijo, que ambos permanezcan recluidos en una prisión de la policía política.
"Las autoridades no nos han explicado por qué están allí, pero nos hace pensar que es un caso de interés", dijo.
"Trump no ha hecho lo suficiente por mi hijo"
Laurie Holt, la madre de Joshua, dijo que recibe noticias de su hijo mediante la suegra y los abogados.
Desde el estado de Utah, donde reside la familia del joven encarcelado, sus padres se han convertido en activistas en pro de su la liberación, enviando mensajes a senadores y políticos en Washington en el último año.
Derechos de autor de la imagen Cortesia Familia Holt Image caption La madre de Joshua Holt, Laurie Holt, en una foto de archivo junto a su hijo.
Aunque Laurie Holt reconoció que ha habido esfuerzos para su liberación, cree que no son suficientes.
"Quiero que el presidente Trump lo vaya a buscar. No ha hecho lo suficiente por mi hijo", reclamó en conversación telefónica con BBC Mundo.
"Él no está muy bien de salud, ha tenido bronquitis, neumonía, se cayó de una de las literas de la celda. Los médicos no lo trataron, no lo tratan", dijo.
El gobierno estadounidense calificó el acceso médico y consular a Holt de "lento y dificultoso".
Gómez, sin embargo, dijo que el propio Holt y Caleño han hablado de que reciben un trato deferente por parte de las autoridades, aunque la atención médica a menudo es "muy burocrática".
El pasado 14 de julio, el caso tuvo un cambio cuando la Fiscalía General solicitó medidas cautelares a favor de Holt y Caleño.
Derechos de autor de la imagen AFP Image caption La madre de Joshua Holt reclama que el presidente Trump "no ha hecho suficiente" por su hijo.
El ente gubernamental, a cargo de Luisa Ortega Díaz, quien se ha vuelto la voz estatal más crítica contra Maduro, pidió que los acusados sean juzgados en libertad con régimen de presentación periódica y prohibición de salida del país.
La fiscal que lleva el caso, Yecenia García, argumentó que el tribunal ha diferido la audiencia preliminar "en reiteradas ocasiones, alegando no dar despacho".
García también pidió que se verifique el estado de salud de ambos.
Es la primera vez que la fiscalía hace esta solicitud a favor de los acusados, algo que sus abogados ven con buenos ojos.
"Ahora estamos a la espera de lo que responda el tribunal, pero hay retrasos en todo por la situación de crisis que vive el país", señaló Gómez.
La madre de Holt dice que su hijo sigue apegado a su religión.
"Me han dicho que está enseñando el evangelio desde la cárcel". | {
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The secretary, who has not been named, racked up more than 11,000 followers with her XXX-rated snaps before her Twitter account was deleted this week. | {
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So says Die Welt. But this Teutonic lexicographical event has gotten an unusual amount of press coverage in other languages: "English profanity earns place in standard German dictionary", Reuters; "English rude word enters German language", BBC News; "'S***storm' adopted into German equivalent of the Oxford English Dictionary", The Independent; "Shitstorm. Němčina má nové slovo, kvůli krizi zdomácnělo", iDNES.cz; "Duitsers omarmen Engelse shitstorm", NOS OP 3; "H αγγλική βρισιά shitstorm μπήκε στα λεξικά της γερμανικής γλώσσας -Τη χρησιμοποιεί και η Μέρκελ", iefimerida; "Shitstorm entra no diccionário alemão depois de usada por Merkel na crise", Diário Digital; "La langue allemande officialise l ' anglicisme ' shitstorm '", ActualLitté; etc.
No doubt this is mostly due to the fact that Angela Merkel was a prominent early adopter. As Metro explains (""‘Shitstorm’ enters German dictionary after becoming popular during eurozone crisis", 7/3/2013):
After being used by Angela Merkel to describe the eurozone crisis, the word shitstorm has now made it officially into German dictionaries.
Duden, the German standard lexicon and the country’s equivalent of the Oxford English Dictionary, has now recognised the word.
But in German it has a slightly different meaning and has come to define a controversy on the internet rather than the general calamity it is in English.
Duden defines shitstorm as: ‘Noun, masculine – a storm of protest in a communications medium of the internet, which is associated in part with insulting remarks.’
The entry in Duden of course is not in English, but rather reads:
Substantiv, maskulin – Sturm der Entrüstung in einem Kommunikationsmedium des Internets, der zum Teil mit beleidigenden Äußerungen einhergeht
Philip Oltermann gives some additional cross-cultural background ("A shitstorm in a dictionary", The Guardian 7/3/2013):
The announcement that the word "shitstorm" has entered the most commonly used German dictionary, the Duden, after being used by Angela Merkel has triggered the usual wave of cliches: that Germans are darkly obsessed with pooping, farting and bottoms, psychologically stuck at the anally retentive stage.
As the great German linguistics blogger Anatol Stefanowitsch has shown in this excellent blogpost, the "Germans love shit" meme can largely be dated back to a 1984 book by the US anthropologist Alan Dundes, called Life is Like a Chicken Coop Ladder. Dundes claimed that German folklore was riddled with an "inordinate" amount of shit-related riddles and proverbs, and that Scheiß (or Scheiße) was "the most often used word in Germany today". But, as Stefanowitsch impressively shows, it's just as easy to think of shit-metaphors that litter English speech, a "shitstorm" being what can happen when the shit hits the fan, someone serves you a shit sandwich, talks bullshit or beats the shit out of someone, or when things generally end up up shit creek without a paddle.
Arguably, the tendency to psychoanalyse the German attitude to bodily functions goes back even further. In 1973, the American novelist Erica Jong's novel Fear of Flying claimed that the architecture of German toilets revealed something sinister about the psyche of those who sat on them:
"Go into any German toilet and you'll find a fixture unlike any other in the world. It has a cute little porcelain platform for the shit to fall on so you can inspect it before it whirls off into the watery abyss, and there is, in fact, no water in the toilet until you flush it. As a result, German toilets have the strongest shit smell of any toilets anywhere … German toilets are really the key to the horrors of the Third Reich. People who can build toilets like this are capable of anything."
Slavoj Zizek has elaborated this into a wider critique of German metaphysics.
Here's the cited Zizek lecture:
More from Oltermann:
Linguist Hans-Martin Gauger spent several years comparing swearwords in 15 different languages and concluded not so much that Germans were inordinately obsessed with faecal matters, but that there were inordinately reluctant to use sexual metaphors to express negative sentiments.
Look up "motherfucker" in the Langenscheidt dictionary and you get Arschloch (arsehole). In German you don't say: "Verfick dich (fuck off)," but "Verpiss dich (piss off)"; you don't feel "fucked off" but "beschissen (shat upon)". Even Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was happy to use the filthy German equivalent of "kiss my arse" in his 1773 play Götz von Berlichingen: "Er aber, sag's ihm, er kann mich im Arsche lecken!" Only the Swedes share a similar reluctance to use sexual metaphors as swearwords.
But it's easy to go astray in generalizing about cross-cultural cussing, as discussed e.g. in "Oh sleepies", 8/30/2006.
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Basic Needs
human motivation, materialism, and happiness
Recently, altruism has really dominated my thoughts. It’s always something that has been in the back of my mind. I have for many years had this vague sense that I got really lucky to be who I am and that some other people aren’t so lucky, so it’s only right that I should help them. This seems pretty reasonable, right? So I set out on a trip to explore this vague sense further, and have discovered so much that my mind is swimming in new information, struggling to keep afloat and make sense of things. That’s why I’ve been writing here so much — to try to gather and share my thoughts in a somewhat organized manner.
One of the things that I have convinced myself of is that we should each find a standard of living that I call “having our basic needs covered”, then not try to push the luxury needle above this, instead taking extra money and using it to help ourselves and/or other people who have had much worse draws in life. This is nice and neat and clean as a theory, but in order to really get a handle on it, one must define “basic needs”. And that is actually quite a difficult task. In this post, I’ll walk you through my own process, and as time goes on hopefully I will be able to amend this with the opinions of others as well.
Maslow’s Pyramid
In the spirit of science and not reinventing the wheel, let’s take a deep dive into the work of some other smart people who have studied human needs and motivation before coming to our own conclusions.
We’ll start at a point we have all probably heard of, from a friend, cultural reference, or intro to psychology course: Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Developed in 1943, this idea quickly became a cornerstone of our understanding of human motivation, and has been a massive influence on psychological thinking on the topic all the way through today. Let’s take a look at the model:
And now let’s break it down in a little more detail in order to increase our understanding.
At the bottom we have the physiological needs: air, water, food, clothing, and shelter. Simple enough, and entirely necessary to actually stay alive. On the next level we have a feeling of safety — personal, financial, and health. Without this, it’s hard to focus on anything else. If we feel like we are in immediate danger of harm or death, it’s easy to imagine why removing that danger becomes a priority over all else other than physiological needs. And in the extended absence of safety, we experience stress that becomes more severe over time, impairing our basic functioning abilities.
Up next is a sense of love and belonging — the ability to form and maintain friendship, family, and intimacy. We have a need to belong and to be loved, whether by small or large groups of people, or both. Humans are social animals and throughout our evolutionary history living in tribes has proven to be an enormous advantage, so it’s only natural that our brains would be configured to drive us towards developing and maintaining relationships with others. Without good relationships, people become lonely, socially anxious, and even clinically depressed.
We start moving into the higher order needs with esteem — the need to feel respected, including the need for self-esteem and self-respect. Maslow described a lower and higher level within this stage, the lower level being esteem provided by others, and the higher level being provided internally. I refer to these as outer and core confidence, and this is a topic that will be explored in more depth in later posts. If this category is lacking, people can have low self-esteem, an inferiority complex, weakness, helplessness, and even depression.
Finally, we move into what is probably the most controversial level, self-actualization. This level is about “realization of one’s full potential”, described by Maslow as “the desire to accomplish everything one can, to become the most that one can be”. This could be a desire to be a great parent, a great athlete, a great artist or inventor, or any number of other things. It is the way most people attribute “meaning” to their lives.
Surely you’ll recognize many of these needs from your own life and experiences. As I read through the levels and explanations, I found myself nodding and agreeing the whole way. It’s a very nice and clean representation. But it’s been a while since 1943 — is Maslow’s hierarchy still regarded as state of the art? Are there any people that disagree, or take issue with it? The answer to this question is a little more murky. Research on human needs and motivation is murky by nature, in fact, as it’s not exactly mathematical — satisfactory results cannot simply be produced by a single experiment. Many people have ideas about human motivation, and the topic has been discussed extensively for years by scientists. Let’s talk about some of the more modern research and debates, and how this impacts our understanding.
Modern Critiques
Kenrick et. al. (2010) proposed a major fundamental change to Maslow’s pyramid, in an influential paper that was very thoroughly researched. While the bottom of the pyramid remained intact in more or less the same state, “self-actualization” was removed from the top and replaced by “parenting”.
This shifted the model to represent a more purely evolutionary view. In order to thrive and survive, a species must have a strong need for reproduction. Otherwise, if they don’t care that much about reproducing, they will simply not do it, the numbers will dwindle, and eventually they will become extinct. Humans of course are no exception to this rule, and it can be clearly seen by our culture that sex is a very important part of how we think and operate, as are children and parenting. Kenrick et. al. argue that Maslow’s self-actualization, for example work in creative arts, can actually be categorized as behaviors that subconsciously serve the purpose of improving chances of mating. This model is very much biologically influenced and provides a lot of strong insight, backed by a huge amount of research, on some of our fundamental needs and motivations.
However, not everyone is totally on board with this model. As soon as it appeared, so did critiques, and their main issue was the fact that this model fits all animals but forgets unique human traits that have evolved through culture, as Maslow tried to address with self-actualization. In one particularly salient commentary, Kesebir et. al. (2010) highlight a number of ways in which human culture has contributed to our evolution and began to introduce motivations that are a little less Darwinian and a little more human. They point out that research has shown a lack of innate need for parenting in a number of situations and postulate that the drive for sex alone is enough to ensure procreation, due to the lack of birth control in human history. They then move into what comes after — successfully raising children has not represented the end of life for humans for many years. They suggest based on psychological research that after parenting comes an innate need for wisdom and ‘meaning in life’, which has been demonstrated universally across cultures. This is also a need which is not only driven by but also often fulfilled by culture, through means such as community, art, religion, or scholarly pursuits.
Kesbir et. al. are not the only ones who just wouldn’t give up on self-actualization. A number of other people have been down the same path and been unable to settle with the fact that once parenting has been accomplished, all human needs are met. In fact, the article itself was originally published alongside 4 critiques, including that of Kesbir et. al.
So can I give a conclusive and definite answer here? Definitely not. But I can absolutely say that after reviewing all of this theory, I think we can get a pretty good idea at least of what the basic needs are. Here’s my distillation:
Living Needs : Air, Food, Water, Shelter, Sleep, Hygiene
: Air, Food, Water, Shelter, Sleep, Hygiene Safety Needs : Not feeling like you are likely to die or lose any of your living needs soon
: Not feeling like you are likely to die or lose any of your living needs soon Community Needs: Good healthy relationships with friends and family
In my opinion, it will be very challenging for someone to pursue altruistic and other goals greater than themselves if they do not have at least these three basic needs levels met. You can also keep going up the pyramid with what humans typically seek out once these first three levels are satisfied, but I would not categorize anything beyond the above as “basic needs”. Three more levels are introduced below, but all three of these categories are very much based upon on personality, self-confidence, and values, and can vary greatly from person to person. They also do not necessarily come in this exact order for everyone, and of course are simply my opinion as distilled from the research above.
Status and Esteem : Self confidence and respect from peers
: Self confidence and respect from peers Partnership and Parenting : Finding a stable long term romantic partner and raising children
: Finding a stable long term romantic partner and raising children Meaning and Purpose: Finding a way to make your mark on the world
We will without a doubt dive deeper on these higher level needs in future pieces, but for now let’s just leave them here to be passively contemplated and return to the focus of this piece, basic needs.
A Strange Disconnect
So the question is, now that we have reviewed a bunch of psychology and biology literature and formed an opinion on what qualifies as “basic needs”, what are we going to actually do with this information? Well, there’s quite a lot actually.
First, we know that having more money and stuff will not make us more happy. We also know that US culture is largely based around the idea that having more money and stuff will make us more happy. Evolution also supports this concept — after all, having more resources is never a bad thing and historically would make you more likely to survive, so it has therefore been selected for. But in modern society, we have created more efficient ways of getting people to the point where their basic needs are met, especially in the category of living needs (for example, we have supermarkets rather than gardens and spears for hunting). Chances are if you are reading this, your basic needs are met. And we know what higher level needs are, and not one of them is “more money” or “more stuff”.
So here we have a large disconnect between what your brain and your culture are telling you to do and what will actually make you feel that your life is going in the right direction. Your mind and everyone else around you is screaming “more more more more!” You are blasted with advertisements at all times for stuff that can make you happier, that can make you that person that is living the good life (right?). Your friends and family are all chasing better jobs with higher salaries. Dreaming about bigger houses with nicer cars. For many people, although they would never admit it (absurdly enough, for cultural reasons), money is the motivator. What are they doing with their lives? Working so they can make more money so they can buy more things then they will be more happy. US-based readers will recognize that it’s the American dream, literally. It’s one of the founding values of the country. | {
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Depression. Discouragement. Sorrow.
Too often we find ourselves here. Waves of emotions overcome when we least expect them. While I’ve learned a lot about choosing light, daring to hope, hard thanksgiving, and spiritual battle, there are lessons yet to learn.
The more I consider these emotions I’d rather not experience, the more I see multiple reasons that depression—yes, depression—has been a gift to me. Here are five.
1. Sadness forces me to depend on Jesus.
I am far more aware of Christ, attentive to Christ, and thirsty for Christ when I am discouraged. Trapped in a rough patch, the psalmists’ words suddenly spring to life: “As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God” (Ps. 42:1). “My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever” (Ps. 73:26).
Only when I thirst for Jesus do I bend low to drink his living water. And so, paradoxically, in sadness I find the key to joy, which otherwise I might blithely miss.
2. Sadness gives me humility and empathy.
Depression has a way of humbling me like nothing else, as God protects me from my own ego. It’s hard to feel you’ve arrived when you struggle to even get out of bed. In these moments I need grace like I need water, a knowledge that keeps me face-planted before the cross—a posture infinitely preferable to the kind of humiliating crash that often flows from pride.
Empathy lets me see the world from a brokenhearted perspective—it lets me borrow broken eyes. Am I compassionate? It’s only because I so deeply need mercy. How can I withhold this gift I’ve received and need more of each day? I meet homeless families, unemployed immigrants, teen moms, couples mid-divorce, suicidal folks, jilted sweethearts. Every one has the same needs, the same sinful soul, the same shy beauty of God’s image imprinted on their heart. When I see them, I see me. God redeems my sadness as he turns my eyes outward and fills me with compassion.
3. Sadness rescues me from silliness.
As my seminary-nerd husband would say, my depression rescues me from ontological lightness. It’s easy to exchange weighty things for hollow entertainment. Unchecked, it can lead someone through 30,000 days only to face eternity with empty pockets. Isn’t this the spirit of Ecclesiastes 7:2? “It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting, for this is the end of all mankind, and the living will lay it to heart.”
Joy is not inferior to gloom—emphatically it’s not—but it’s easy in all the levity to miss the grand epic as it unfolds. Like hobbits happy in the Shire while Sauron advances, we can forget the stakes—life is short, eternity beckons, souls hang in the balance. A healthy dose of sobriety helps me see the world as it is: cursed and lost, in need of a Redeemer.
4. Sadness prepares me for future struggle.
How often does a rootless faith blow away in adversity? A quick survey of spiritual giants indicates they have this in common: They’ve suffered. In various ways, to various degrees, they’ve driven those roots down ever-deeper into the love of God, so that when the storms of persecution or tragedy arrive, they’re prepared. They know from repeated experience where to find living water in a drought.
5. Sadness is God’s way of strengthening me.
Jesus, who holds the galaxies together by his power, demonstrated another kind of strength as he was stricken, smitten, and afflicted. And in his mercy, he lends us a measure of his strength when we suffer. When we’re weak in ourselves, we’re strong in him.
When I fall into the pit of despair, I’ve learned to look up, to seek light, to cry out for deliverance, to long for home. It’s a struggle I may face all my life. That’s okay. God is at work, and I can trust him.
In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls. (1 Pet. 1:6–9)
Thank you, Jesus. | {
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Echo Park — The owner of a chain of vintage stores, including one on Sunset Boulevard in Echo Park, has been sentenced to one year plus a day in federal prison after prosecutors said he hid nearly $4 million in income from the I.R.S.
Jose Martin Andrade Flores, owner of American Superior Used Clothing, will also have to pay a $10,000 fine imposed Monday by the U.S. District Judge Christina A. Snyder, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Los Angeles office.
American Superior purchased used clothing and would sell it wholesale worldwide and locally at the Rose Bowl swap meets, sidewalk locations in East Los Angeles and retail stores on Melrose Boulevard, Hollywood, Echo Park and Pasadena. The store in Echo Park — AS American Vintage — operates at 1707 Sunset Blvd, said U.S. Attorney spokesman Thom Mrozek.
Authorities began investigating Flores after he advertised his company for sale on BizBuySell.com and said it made $4 million in revenue — or twice what he reported to the I.R.S, said the U.S. Department of Justice. He later told prospective buyers that he was reporting only enough income to make it appear that he was only breaking even, according to prosecutors.
“There is no better business than this business,” Flores told prospective buyers, according to court documents. “When you report, you can always break even. It’s a recycling business. They won’t touch you.”
From 2012 through 2016, Flores concealed from his corporate tax preparer cash sales and deposits into foreign bank accounts that were made on behalf of American Superior. As a result, the tax returns he filed for American Superior for those five years failed to report a total of $3.966 million in income.
In September, Flores specifically pleaded guilty to filing a false corporate income tax return form in 2013. He agreed agreed to pay all back taxes, interest and penalties as part of the plea deal.
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今後、約160名の隊員とその家族94人が与那国島で暮らすため、島民の約6分の1を自衛隊関係者が占めることになる。選挙や住民投票など、住民の意思決定に大きな影響力を与えるとも考えられており、不安視する地元の声もある。住民投票で受け入れを決定したとはいえ、賛否は拮抗した。所管の大臣がこの調子では、そもそも本島に自衛隊の配備が本島に必要だったかも疑わしく、住民の不安は増すばかりではないか。
沿岸監視隊は南西諸島の防衛を強化する、いわゆる「南西シフト」の先駆けとして配備されたが、中谷大臣は視察中、「南西諸島ってどこまでかな？」などと発言。周囲に「（南西諸島は）奄美、鹿児島も入ります」と進言されると、中谷防衛相は「あっ、鹿児島…」とつぶやき、無知、無関心を露呈した。
発足前日の27日、与那国島の駐屯地を視察した中谷元・防衛大臣は、隊員を前に「与那国島への陸自配備は厳しい安全保障環境の中、防衛の空白地域を埋め、大きな意義がある。国境を守り、地域から頼られる自衛官として活躍してほしい」と呼びかけた。
人口約1500人の小さな島に、2016年3月28日、陸上自衛隊「与那国沿岸監視隊」が発足した。付近の艦船や航空機を地上レーダーで監視する。防衛省は同日、与那国島で隊旗授与式を開催。式で、小川清史西部方面総監は「強固な南西地域の防衛態勢を構築するのは、わが国の防衛意思を示すものだ」と訓示した。
与那国島在住歴13年、宝石のような島の魅力と、ある「違和感」
私は13年前、縁あって与那国島へきて以来、人生の三分の一をこの島で過ごしています。与那国島での最初の印象は、海洋に散りばめられた宝石のような島だと素直に圧倒されたのを、鮮明に記憶しています。
与那国島が多くの観光客を受け入れながら魅了しているのも、自然のかけがえのない魅力ではないかとではないかと思います。私が与那国島と出会った初夏の4月、熱帯の太陽の下で輝いている命は、緑濃く鮮烈な色を放っており、海はどこまでも深い蒼を湛え、島を渡る風は清浄な海の息吹そのものでした。
しかし、一方で違和感も感じていました。島のあちこちで砂埃を巻き上げながら重機が走り、たくさんの工事をしていました。何の必要があって工事をしているのか感覚としてはわからないのだけれど、工事現場には沖縄県や国の予算で発注したことがわかる看板が立っていました。
豊かな自然と、他方で容赦なく行われる破壊。それを人々が自らの手で行っている、当時の私にはそのギャップが腑に落ちませんでした。
「安全保障」の名で進む自衛隊配備、与那国島での出来事は「最前線からの問題提起」
与那国島と聞いただけで、何かを具体的にイメージすることは、多くの人にとって困難なことだと思います。与那国島の最大の特徴は「地理的な条件」です。
北は鹿児島の奄美列島、沖縄、宮古・石垣島を含む先島諸島と呼ばれる、沖縄のさらに南西に位置する先島諸島の西端が、日本最西端に位置する国境の与那国島です。
与那国島から一番近い島は台湾で、その距離はなんと、わずか111km。隣の行政区石垣島まで127km、那覇まで540km、東京まで2000キロ。北端の北海道から与那国島まで引いた線が3000キロ。そんな紛れもなく日本の一番はしっこに位置する、人口わずか1500名の島が、大きく揺さぶられる事態に直面しました。
それは陸上自衛隊の南西諸島への配備計画です。
日本の安全保障の名において起こっている事態については、与那国島のみならず、石垣島、宮古島、奄美列島も今後、無縁ではありません。
辺野古の問題が全国的にも取り上げられるようになった今、米軍にかわり、今後、自衛隊という組織が私たちの将来にわたってどのような影響を与えるのか、注視していくことが必要です。与那国島での出来事は、むしろ最前線からの問題提起であるとの認識から、この度の陸上時自衛隊沿岸監視部隊の配備について現場から、語りたいと思います。
ケビン・メアの外交公電をウィキリークスが暴露！「与那国島が台湾有事の際に掃海作戦の拠点になりうる」
私が与那国島に住み始めてから3年後、与那国島が軍事戦略と無関係ではないということを思い知らされる事件が起こります。
2007年6月24日に、当時のケビン・メア沖縄総領事が、米軍佐世保基地から与那国に掃海艦2隻で与那国島の祖納（そない）港に入ってきました。与那国では復帰後、初めてのことです。この小さな島に米軍が入ってきたことは島民を驚かせました。全く青天の霹靂で、米軍に対して抗議などしたことのない住民は港に集まりながらも戸惑っていました。
重要なことですが、国境に住む人々が軍事的な緊張感を常に意識しながら生活しているかと言われれば、全国の皆さんが感じているのとはだいぶ違います。与那国島に限られた特異な感覚と言われればそれまでかもしれませんが、皮膚感覚として、日本中で喧伝されるような、「隣国の脅威」の話は聞いたことがありませんでした。
島の海んちゅのおじーが洋上で台湾の船と物々交換したとか、自慢げに話すのを聞いたことが何度もあります。この外国との交流はいつも笑顔で話すネタで、憎しみとか怒りの文脈で語られることはありませんでした。そもそも海に対する所有の概念がないのだと思います。戦後の密貿易の「ケーキ時代」を経験した人間には、現在の不自由な経済交流の足かせを振り切って海外と交流した、力強い記憶すらあります。
むしろ権利を主張して線を引きたがる感覚は、おそらく今でも希薄であろうと思います。彼らは「サバニ」と呼ばれる小さな船で外洋に漕ぎ出し、数百キロのカジキを命がけで釣ってくる、海に生きた人々です。「海は誰のものでもない」という、日本人が失いかけている共有の感覚が、与那国島の海んちゅにはありました。
しかし後に、与那国漁協を中心として自衛隊誘致に大きく舵を切ります。
この掃海艇寄港の理由は、ケビン・メアの外交公電がウィキリークスによって公表された内容によってわかりました。文書を拾うと、メア氏は、「祖納港は掃海艦が接岸するのに十分な深さがあり、一度に4隻が入れる」「港近くにある民間空港を利用して掃海艦を支援するヘリコプターも展開すれば、与那国島が台湾有事の際に掃海作戦の拠点になりうる」と分析していました。
この事件をきっかけとして、与那国島への自衛隊誘致は、住民を置き去りにしたまま、そして与那国島の陸上自衛隊基地建設は、なぜ空自や海自、その前段階の海上保安庁ではいけないのかという議論を飛ばしたまま、加速度的に進みます。
「選挙によって民意は示された」？「与那国沿岸監視隊」が配備されるまでの歴史
掃海艇の与那国寄港から1年後、自民党・佐藤正久参議院議員を含む防衛関係者の来島が増え、2008年6月与那国防衛協会が発足。石垣や宮古でも同様にそれぞれ防衛協会が作られ、住民からの要請で自衛隊の誘致が進むという方程式が作られ始めました。防衛協会は自衛隊誘致署名514筆を集めますが、この署名の信憑性に関し議会で公開を求めるも、町長は拒否。未だこの署名は闇の中です。
2009年6月町長・町議長らが与那国島への自衛隊配備を防衛省へ要請。7月自民党の浜田防衛大臣が与那国島視察。同年9月与那国町長選挙において外間守吉氏再選。「自治と自律の島」などを目指すとした「与那国自立ビジョン」の策定に深く関わっていた田里千代基氏をくだしました。
2010年12月に閣議決定された「新防衛大綱」では、南西地域の防衛態勢の強化方針が示され、2011年9月、与那国改革会議が自衛隊誘致反対の署名556筆を集めるも、議会において否決。
2012年7月、条例制定の法定数50分の１をはるかに超え、自衛隊誘致の賛否を問う住民投票の実施を求める署名588筆を町選挙管理委員会に提出。住民のほぼ半数に近いこの署名は、誘致派の非公開の署名とは異なり、与那国町役場の玄関口で閲覧可能になりました。
しかも、署名した個人への圧力が加えられる事件が続出し、署名の取り消し要請も相次ぎます。一方、署名用紙が破られ持ち去られる事件も発生。与那国町議会で条例制定の願いは賛成2反対3で否決。この裏で用地買収など、防衛省の地権者への働きかけは、既成事実が積み重ねられていきました。
2013年3月、町長・外間守吉氏が、自衛隊配備計画を進める国に対し、「迷惑料」として約10億円を要求すると発言。この発言が全国で大きく報道されるなか、町議会において陸上自衛隊沿岸監視部隊に関連した町有地21.4haを防衛省へ賃貸する仮契約が可決。8月与那国町長選挙で、自衛隊配備推進派の外間守吉氏が再選553票対506票の差で勝利、のちに、「選挙によって民意は示された」と繰り返し発言しました。
2014年4月、陸上自衛隊基地建設造成工事着工式典に、小野寺防衛大臣が出席。住民およそ80名の抗議行動により、開場が30分遅れる。小野寺五典防衛相は配備撤回を求める声が地元で根強いことについて、「町長が『反対する住民はほとんどいない』と言っていた。（抗議している人々は）島外からこられたのでしょう」と主張。さらに、自民党沖縄県連副会長・新垣哲司氏が、抗議する地元住民に対して、「ないちゃーは帰れ！」と吐き捨てるなど、問題発言が相次ぎました。
同年9月、与那国町議会議員選挙にて、与野党が3対3の同数で拮抗することに。11月、自衛隊基地建設を問う住民投票条例で、紆余曲折を経て住民投票条例案が可決。2015年2月、住民投票実施、賛成632票対反対445票で、「自衛隊配備に賛成」が過半数を占めました。5月、本体工事が開始されました。
そして本年2016年3月28日、与那国島で、陸上自衛隊沿岸監視部隊編成完結式が行われました。
9年間でわずか4回しか開かれなかった住民説明会と、投票率「97％」の異常性
これまでの流れを、時系列を説明する形で追っていくとこのような流れになります。その間に住民説明会が行われたのは2011年7月（防衛省主催）、11月（防衛省主催）、2014年2月（与那国町主催）、2015年１月（防衛省・与那国町）の4回だけです。この数少ない話し合いの機会も、上から「ご説明に上がります」として専門家をずらっと並べた、住民の声を封じるためのものだったと思います。
2007年に端を発する、与那国島の歴史上の転換点とも言って過言では無い駐屯地の恒久的な土地使用に関して、9年あまりの間、住民との対話を避けて何をしようとしていたのでしょうか。答えは、民主主義を標榜しながらも、民主的な話し合いのプロセスを徹底的に避けたということです。住民の団体は島内での話し合いの機会を度々要請していたにもかかわらず、行政は最後まで実施しませんでした。
このような経緯で進んでいった与那国島の陸上自衛隊基地ですが、小さな民主主義のモデルケースとしては涙ぐましいほど行動をしていました。
基地の建設に異議を唱える住民に対して、選挙で民意を確認すると言いながら、用地買収や工事はすでに着手されていました。本来であれば、自衛隊基地を与那国島に置くべきか、最初に議論を尽くした後で進められるべき作業が先行して行われていました。そうした土木工事などを通して島の住民の雇用が握られ、次第に反対の声をあげにくい雰囲気が作られていきました。
「すでに作られてしまっているんだから、いまさら基地建設に反対してもどうしようもない」「もう国がやるって言って動いているんだから止まるはずがないじゃないか」
そんな空気が大勢を支配するようになっていきました。
基地建設の是非を問う議論の前に、仮調査や仮契約の名目で既成事実が積み重ねられてきました。陸上自衛隊が与那国島で発足するまで、数回の選挙を経験してきましたが、選挙のたびに争点は曖昧になり、選挙が終わると民意は示されたという開き直りの繰り返しで、議論が熟す前に結論だけが先行したという感は否めません。
このように責任の所在を明確にせず正体不明の空気が支配を始めると、転がっていく先の歯止めが効かなくなっていきます。今年に入り与那国の居酒屋で、海上自衛隊の制服を着た幹部と島の有力者がお酒の席の最後に万歳三唱をしていたなど、陸自の次は海自だと、誘致の署名を集める動きがあるとも聞いています。
度重なる選挙で、住民の声を聞く代表を送り込んで島の政治状況をなんとか改善したいと願っていた住民にとって、自衛隊員とその家族を含め200数十人の投票行動は与那国島の自治にとって壊滅的な打撃を与えることになるのだろうと思います。民主的な選挙を通じたプロセスで島の未来を自律的に変えていくことの困難さに、打ちひしがれ、力尽きた感じはしますが、最後のたった一人になるまで諦めない誰かがいること、どんなに困難であっても、自立の火は与那国島に燃え続けていると私は信じています。
不条理によって打ちひしがれていく人々を間近で見ていると、「もっと頑張れ」とは言えなくなります。沖縄本島でも選挙におけるしがらみの強さは有名ですが、そのさらに上をいっているであろう与那国島は、選挙のたびに苛烈な葛藤の渦に投げ込まれることになり、沖縄でも「最も激しい選挙の島」として勇名を馳せています。
2014年9月の統一地方選挙での、与那国島における投票率は、97％にものぼります。これは健全な投票率ではなく、「異常」な数字です。棄権する自由も、投票する自由も奪われていると見るほうが健全な判断ではないでしょうか。
「分断して統治せよ」？基地建設問題が浮上してから与那国島は「対立の歴史」だった
報道ベースで、注目度も情報量も圧倒的に足りないのは悲しいことですが、1972年の沖縄の日本復帰以来、「沖縄の基地負担の軽減」を中央政府が繰り返し語る背後で、このような自衛隊基地が沖縄に「新設」されるということの意味を深く知ってほしいと思います。
メディアが時間的・金銭的な事情により離島の与那国島まで取材できないこともわかります。大手新聞社は公共性に鑑みて軽減税率を適応されてはいるのですが、今回の式典では、地元に対しては何のアナウンスされていないのが現状です。地元には秘密裏に、国内向けには大々的に大メディアを動員して、南西諸島への軍事基地化の先端を開いた与那国島のことを喧伝するのだろうと思います。
情報力の格差を利用した地方潰しは、今後も続くでしょう。石垣・宮古・奄美へと連なる琉球弧の列島線上に、米軍の下請けとしての自衛隊を配備することは、本来の日本の国防とどのような関係があるのか、真剣に考えるに値するテーマのはずです。今後とも注視しなくてはいけないし、同様の手口で、誰のための戦いかわからない戦いの準備が着々となされてゆくのだろうと思います。
基地建設の問題がこの与那国島に持ち込まれてからは、対立の歴史がずっと続いてきたと回顧します。「分断して統治せよ」という言葉そのままに、小さな島では自衛隊基地をめぐって、中央から制服を着た自衛官が多数来島し、住民の対立が作られていきました。
多くの原発立自治体と同じように、税金やお金や人員を自在に投入できる権力は、強大な力を持っていると肌身に感じました。力で押さえつけられ、もの言えぬ空気が作られていく感覚は、差別の感情なしには語りえぬ悲しさがあります。選挙戦の激しさとダーティーさでは、おそらく日本の中でも屈指の部類に入るだろう与那国島の選挙は、この島の人々をへとへとに疲れさせている反面、勝ち負けを巡る祭りのような狂乱のエネルギーが毎回渦巻き、どこにそんな余力があったのかと、毎度驚かされています。
中央政府が自立を目指す地方に貼った、「非文明的」というレッテル
その狂乱に拍車をかけたのが自衛隊基地の問題である事は間違いないと思います。
早く決着を着けたいという地元の声が聞こえてくるのもよくわかります。しかし、本当の決着が何なのか、私は地方の自立を抜きにしては語れないとの実感を日々強めています。自衛隊誘致の話がわき起こった、2007年から今日まで、町長選挙、議員選挙、昨年2月の住民投票を経て、何かが決着したのだろうか、と自問し、そのたびに首をふります。何も解決していないのに解決したふりをする――これは、日本の劣化した悪しき民主主義の模倣です。
与那国島にはかつて「どぅらい」というアテネの直接民主制にも似た仕組みがありました。大きな問題が起こった時には、広場に人々が集まり女性も子供も意見を表明するのです。大人から子供まで、等しく政治に関わる土壌が、歴史の中で培われてきたのです。
しかし、近代になり、中央の強化に伴い地方の尊厳が削られるようになっていくと、孤高の自立の精神は「非文明的」というレッテルが貼られ、「本土並み、沖縄（本島）並み」という言葉とともに急速に文化が廃れていきます。全ては情報化の流れですが、中国脅威論が本土から逆輸入されたように、沖縄も先島諸島も本土の世論という圧倒的な言語空間に飲み込まれそうになっています。
与那国島で抱いた違和感の正体は「自立」と「支配」が混在する社会の姿
私が最初に与那国島に来島して感じた、腑に落ちないギャップとは、自立と支配が混在する社会の両面を、この与那国島で見たからだと思います。
日本の多様性や文化の源泉でもある海流文化の記憶の入り口が与那国島です。1500名の与那国島に160名の自衛隊とその家族が住むようになれば、政治的な傾向は特定の集団の意向に必ず左右されてしまいます。
日本が日本としての支配の体制を隅々まで完了させる日、日本は日本でなくなる。地方が地方であることを許されなくなり、沖縄は沖縄であることも許されなくなり、先島が先島であることも許されなくなるでしょう。
与那国島は琉球の支配に対して最後まで抵抗した、最後の独立国でもありました。危機感の源泉は自我の喪失の危機で、ひいては日本全体の危機感と同じです。日本の危機を感じる人は右も左も関係なく存在すると思います。単純なハードパワーである軍備の拡充は、国をかえって危うくするのではないかという感覚を覚えます。
※南西諸島との間で交易を行っていたが、１６世紀に琉球王朝の支配下に入る。１８７９年の琉球処分で日本に帰属。植民地となった台湾に出稼ぎに行く人が相次いだ。沖縄戦では日本海軍の監視所が米英軍機に爆撃され、山中に避難した島民約２千人がマラリアで死亡。戦後は台湾と密貿易の形で交流が続いた。日中国交樹立後の１９８２年、町は台湾・花蓮市と姉妹都市を結んだ。 コトバンクより
文化・人材・交流・経済のソフトパワーをこれほど閉ざした上で、国防の議論が、軍事力一つの前提に絞られている時点で全くおかしいと思うのです。二択ではない、第三の道を与那国島は2005年自立ビジョン宣言を議会で承認しました。ビジョンは、基本理念を「自立」・「自治」・「共生」として、与那国島を「県外だけでなく、台湾、中国、東南アジアなど世界の国々と自由に往来する『交流の島』」などと位置づけています。
中央が許可を与えた枠の中でしか振る舞うことを許されなくなる日。いつか人が故郷に誇りを持って生きる尊厳すら自発的ではなくなる。与那国島に押し寄せる圧倒的な力は、国境の島、与那国島の人々の交流を閉ざすことにつながりかねません。
日本の自滅と戦争への一歩を築く歴史の礎ではあってはならない。善隣外交の入り口として国境の島々が機能しなくてはいけないと、軍民混在の地上戦の惨禍に置かれる可能性のある島民の一人として、現場からの報告とさせていただきたく思います。
与那国島の問題は日本が抱えている問題の縮図のように思います。また、与那国島を通して日本を見つめた時に見えてくる視点もあります。今後継続して情報共有を図れればと思います。この度の陸上自衛隊与那国駐屯地沿岸監視部隊入隊式に際して、与那国島より寄稿させていただきました。 | {
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State Representative Mary Gaskill will seek a tenth term in 2020, House Democrats announced on November 7.
That’s good news for Democrats, who might have had a difficult seat to defend if Gaskill had chosen to retire.
House district 81 covers the city of Ottumwa and much of Wapello County.
On paper, this district leans Democratic, with 6,673 active registered Democrats, 4,358 Republicans, and 5,623 no-party voters, according to the latest official figures.
But like other Iowa counties containing mid-sized cities that long depended on manufacturing jobs, the Ottumwa area has trended strongly toward Republicans over the past decade. The canary in the coal mine was Democratic State Senator Keith Kreiman, who lost his 2010 re-election bid to Mark Chelgren by ten votes.
That result initially seemed like a fluke of a GOP landslide. But Chelgren won re-election in 2014, and Mariannette Miller-Meeks kept Senate district 41 in Republican hands after Chelgren retired last year.
President Barack Obama received 56.6 percent of the 2012 vote in House district 81, while just 41.9 percent supported Mitt Romney. Four years later, Gaskill’s constituents supported Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton by 55.9 percent to 39.5 percent. Governor Kim Reynolds outpolled Democratic challenger Fred Hubbell here in 2018 by 49.9 percent to 48.0 percent.
Gaskill is well-known locally, having served in the legislature since 2003 and previously as the Wapello County auditor. Republicans didn’t field a candidate against her in 2014 or 2016. On the other hand, she may not be immune to broader political trends. Gaskill’s winning margin shrank from more than 2,500 votes in 2012 (59.8 percent to 40.0 percent) to a little less than 900 votes last year (54.3 percent to 45.5 percent).
Gaskill’s 2018 challenger, Cherielynn Westrich, spent little money and received no in-kind support from the Iowa GOP, which was spending tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars on behalf of candidates in targeted state House races. Last month, Westrich announced plans to run for House district 81 again.
If Gaskill retired, next year’s race in House district 81 could resemble the 2018 campaign in House district 9, covering the Fort Dodge area. (The two districts voted for Trump by roughly the same margin.) After longtime Democratic State Representative Helen Miller chose not to seek re-election, Republican Ann Meyer carried House district 9 by 383 votes. The GOP massively outspent Democrats in that race.
Any relevant comments are welcome in this thread.
Iowa House Democrats news release, November 7: | {
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Peter Beardsley has taken a period of leave from his role as Newcastle United Under-23s coach while the club investigate claims of bullying and racism made against him.
The 22-year-old midfielder Yasin Ben El-Mhanni lodged a complaint against the legendary former Magpies and England striker over an alleged incident during a team-building day.
Beardsley was called to a meeting with the club’s managing director Lee Charnley and head of safeguarding Steve Swinyard on Monday to give his account of what took place.
Newcastle released a statement on Tuesday which read: “After discussions with Peter Beardsley this morning it has been agreed that he will take a period of leave, to commence immediately, whilst the club conducts its investigation into allegations made against him.
“It would be inappropriate for the club to comment further until the conclusion of this investigation.”
Beardsley, who was born and bred in the north-east, made more than 300 appearances for Newcastle and won 59 international caps in a stellar career which also included periods at Liverpool and Everton. | {
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Illustration: Suvajit Dey Illustration: Suvajit Dey
Written by Gurbhajan S Gill
Once upon a time, Punjab was Sapta Sindhu, then it became the land of five rivers and now it is a dhaab (an abandoned water body) of two-and-a-half rivers. A dhaab plagued by every kind of crisis.
In Jangnama Singhan te Firangian, an eyewitness account of the first Anglo-Sikh war that led to the downfall of the Sikh empire, Shah Mohammad, the state’s poet in the 19th century, says, “Raazi bahut rehnde Musalmaan Hindu, sar dohaan de aisi aafat aayi. Shah Muhamadda vich Punjab de si, kade nahi si teesri zaat aayi (Hindus and Muslims of Punjab always lived in peace, but trouble came visiting them. There was never a third caste in Punjab).”
The British, with their different value system, were the third caste. The Punjab of Guru Nanak Devji’s time was very diverse with its humble and timeless principles. Wherever Guru Nanak Devji went during his travels on foot (udasis), there was a free exchange of views or inter-faith dialogues. He held such symposiums with both saints and hermits as well as jingoist advocates of Islam. Often, logic prevailed over bitterness. This showcases the power of that era.
Those days, the pandits had ordained Sanskrit as the divine language for those on the path of spirituality. Over time, it turned into the language of the elite. Guru Nanak shunned this dev bhasha and adopted the folk language of Punjabi. By explaining spirituality in the common man’s language, he empowered the masses. Unfortunately, we are forgetting this tool of empowerment.
Though the Mughals had started the propagation of Persian language, out of the 10 gurus, the bani (compositions) of six is in Punjabi. The elite have turned their back on it. Organisations like the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee, Chief Khalsa Diwan, and Kalgidhar Trust Baru Sahib, have made English the medium of education. There is no denying that we need English to interact at the international level, but educationists also say every child should get primary education in mother tongue.
On the 550th birth anniversary celebrations of Guru Nanak, we should introspect whether we are turning our back on his faith by scorning Punjabi. This cultural crisis is making us slave to an inferiority complex. Nor are we mindful of the psychological dilemma faced by a child. When Punjabi-speaking children get primary education in English, they can neither become hans (swan) nor remain kaan (crow). Most private institutions impart primary education in English, whereas government institutions have been adopting Punjabi. How can children studying in two streams have a level-playing field? Guru Nanak’s principle of equality is gasping for breath.
A champion of work culture, Guru Nanak himself did farming at Kartarpur Sahib for over 17 years. In this period he composed Japji Sahib. He taught the lesson of equality to the community through langar pangat (people eating together regardless of religion, caste). But, today his believers are cut off from this culture.
‘Kirt’ or respect for work is the first teaching of Guru Nanak. He did not like idleness. The erosion of work culture is behind the declining profitability of agriculture. Among several reasons behind farmer suicides is also that an individual has become a unit. He does not address issues collectively; he lives and dies alone. He gets lost in the jungle of helplessness. Remember Guru Nanak’s line, “Jab lag duniya rahiye Nanak, kich suniye, kich kahiye (As long as you are alive, say something, hear something)”. We should not close the windows of our mind. If we discuss our problems, sorrows, and differences, we are bound to find a solution.
On the occasion of the 500th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak in 1969, there was all-round development of Punjab. Nearly 70 new colleges were opened, 50 in rural areas, to mark the anniversary. I am also a beneficiary of one such college. My dream of getting higher education may have remained a dream had it not been for the opening of Guru Nanak College, Kala Afghana. Dr M S Randhawa, the first chief commissioner of Chandigarh, and Lakhmir Singh Randhawa were instrumental in getting the college opened. I am a student of the first batch of this college. Several colleges for women were also opened. Helmed by Dr M S Randhawa, Punjab Agricultural University even promised to prepare the layout of every new college free of cost.
Guru Nanak Dev University in Amritsar, which gave the gift of higher education to the Majha region, also came up to mark the anniversary, as did Guru Nanak Thermal Plant. The then CM, Justice Gurnam Singh (retd), imposed a cess on farm produce to set up Guru Nanak Bhawans and libraries in every district.
In line with Guru Nanak’s vision, the policymakers addressed the challenges Punjab faced 50 years ago by making villages equal partners in development. Today, we stand at a crossroads. We are presenting Kartarpur Sahib corridor as an achievement, whereas it is only repentance for a 70-year-old mistake. Both sides have got a chance to pat their own back. Internationally, the big achievement is setting up of Guru Nanak Dev University at Nankana Sahib. It is indeed an achievement to have a Muslim country name an institution of higher education after a universal hero.
Guru Nanak gardens and jungles are being grown in the name of conservation, and there is a target to plant 550 trees in every village. But how about giving 550 books to each village library? Guru Nanak was all for learning and teaching. Let us have ‘shabd langar’ in gurdwaras on the anniversary to motivate Punjabis to gain knowledge.
The writer is a well-known Punjabi poet and former president of Punjabi Sahit Academy, Ludhiana. Translated by Navjeevan Gopal
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During the Cold War, Moscow supported the Latin American left because it naively thought communism was the wave of the future. These days, a more cynical Kremlin supports the Latin left because it knows it will fail. The dramatic confrontation taking shape in Venezuela—where dictator Nicolás Maduro clings to power with Russia’s help as the West declares opposition leader Juan Guaidó the legitimate president—is the first major crisis of this new era of great-power competition.
Why has Russia propped up Mr. Maduro? Because of the region’s importance in global energy markets. From Russia’s point of view, Mr. Maduro and his failed socialist regime are the gift that keeps on giving. Venezuela has larger oil reserves than Saudi Arabia, but in December it produced only 1.15 million barrels a day—a third of what it pumped at its peak—and production continues to fall. That decline represents a massive windfall for Russia. It slashes the global oil supply and supports the higher energy prices on which Vladimir Putin’s power depends.
Moscow also hopes the worsening social and political situation in Venezuela will produce a regional crisis that preoccupies the U.S., reducing its appetite for engagements farther afield. Meanwhile, Kremlin oligarchs and Russian arms dealers make fortunes from shady deals with a desperate and corrupt regime.
But energy is what makes Latin America most important to Russia today. Steadily rising production in the U.S. and Canada has undermined the pricing power Russia and the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries once took for granted. Argentina’s vast shale reserves are beginning to come online. Mexico, a net importer of natural gas, may become a significant exporter. Brazil, which passed Venezuela as South America’s largest oil producer in 2016, is only beginning to exploit its large offshore deposits. Add a revitalized Venezuelan oil industry to this mix, and the future for Russia and OPEC looks bleak.
Authoritarian populists surrounded by corrupt cronies in a failing economic system: that’s Moscow’s vision for Latin America’s future. And the more foreign and domestic policy headaches this creates for the U.S., the better. | {
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[Koji]
Karada ga Katte ni Shinguji-ke Goreijou Sakura ni | What I did to the daughter of the Shinguji house
(Sakura Taisen) [English] [Munyu] [Decensored] | {
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Apple’s acquisition of the Beats Music audio streaming service last year may turn out to be one of the company’s most prescient purchases. Nielsen SoundScan recently released its music consumption data for 2014 and the outlook is not pretty for purveyors of physical and digital music. According to a preliminary copy of Nielsen’s report obtained by AllAccess, sales of digital albums and digital tracks dropped by 9% and 12%, respectively in 2014. Although U.S. consumers bought 257 million albums last year, this was an 11% decline from the 289.4 million albums that the industry sold last year. In fact, some of the only bright spots in Nielsen’s report came from two seemingly opposite ends of the technology spectrum: subscriptions to digital music streaming services and analog vinyl record sales.
“Digital music consumption continues its robust growth, with On-Demand streaming up 54% over last year and 164 billion song streams being played in 2014,” said Nielsen SVP David Bakula, according to AllAccess. “Although overall music sales are showing declines, Vinyl album sales were up 52% in 2014, shattering last year’s record-setting total by more than 3 million LPs. In 2014, Vinyl album sales accounted for more than 6% of all physical albums sales.”
While Apple doesn’t have any plans to start pressing vinyl records (as far as we know), the company’s acquisition of Beats Music will allow it to benefit from the increasing popularity of subscription-based music streaming services. While it’s unknown how many subscribers Beats Music currently has, the service is believed to have far fewer subscribers than many other on-demand services. According to comments made by Beats co-founder Jimmy Iovine at Re/code’s Code Conference last year, Beats Music only had 250,000 subscribers in May 2014. Although this seems like a paltry amount compared to Spotify’s 12.5 million paying subscribers, it should be noted that Beats Music only made its debut in January 2014, while Spotify launched in 2008.
Beats Music also has several important advantages that could accelerate its growth throughout 2015. First, the company has assembled an impressive group of respected artists and music industry insiders that are lending their expertise to the company’s unique human curation approach to music streaming. Prominent Beats Music employees include Trent Reznor, Dr. Dre, and Jimmy Iovine. While it may be difficult to quantify the value that these artists bring to the service, their input undoubtedly helps differentiate Beats Music from the crowded music streaming market.
“When I listened to [Beats Music] for a while I feel completely different,” Apple CEO Tim Cook told Charlie Rose last year. “And the reason is that they recognized that human curation was important in the subscription service, that the sequencing of songs that you listen to affect how you feel. It’s hard to describe, but you know it when you feel it.”
Second, thanks to the power that Apple brings to the negotiating table, Beats Music may soon have a pricing advantage over its music streaming service rivals. According to insider sources cited by Re/code last October, Apple is working on securing a cut-rate subscription fee for Beats Music that would be lower than the industry standard of $10 per month.
Finally, Beats Music may also soon have the market advantage of being a native iOS app. While it’s unclear if Apple will retain the Beats Music brand or simply integrate the music streaming service into its well-known iTunes family of music services, most industry watchers believe that the next generation of Apple products will be preloaded with some version of this music application. This will expose Beats Music to millions of customers who buy Apple’s products each year and will likely give the music streaming service a significant boost, especially if Apple lets users try out the service for free for a limited time.
Although there’s no question that Beats Music will play a major role in Apple’s future music business as subscription-based digital music streaming services continue to grow in popularity, the Cupertino-based company is also taking other steps to revamp its traditional music download business. The increased use of exclusive album release deals is one approach that Apple will likely use to boost its future digital music download sales. In December 2013, Apple was the exclusive retailer of Beyoncé’s self-titled album for one week. The album soon became the fastest-selling album in iTunes history with 828,773 copies sold in just three days. According to unnamed insider sources cited by the New York Post, Iovine has been leveraging his music industry contacts to strike more exclusive album release deals with other artists.
Apple may also be developing new digital music formats that could help boost its music download sales. U2 front man Bono discussed a new audiovisual interactive music format that Apple is developing in an interview with TIME, while Trent Reznor dropped hints about a new music delivery project he has been working on in an interview with Billboard. Apple also experimented with delivering music as a free download when U2’s latest album was automatically added to all iTunes users’ music libraries as part of the new iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 plus launch event. Although that particular approach will not likely be used by Apple again due to the backlash it generated from many users, it demonstrated the company’s willingness to experiment with different music delivery methods. So while it’s always possible that Apple could revolutionize the music industry with an as-yet-unknown method, the latest music consumption data from Nielsen appears to confirm that the company’s acquisition of the Beats Music subscription streaming service was a well-placed bet on the future of the industry.
Follow Nathanael on Twitter @ArnoldEtan_WSCS
More from Tech Cheat Sheet: | {
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CLG adds Subroza, nahtE
Image courtesy of CLG
Counter Logic Gaming has rounded out their North American roster with the final two players, Ethan "nahtE" Arnold and Yassine "Subroza" Taoufik.
CLG has been trudging along in recent months with only three players following the departures of both Tarik "tarik" Celik and Jacob "FugLy" Medina, but the team is now back to full strength today as the organization has revealed they have secured the services of two new players, Ethan "nahtE" Arnold and Yassine "Subroza" Taoufik. CLG will be the first taste of a top tier team for both players; Subroza has previously been seen playing for teams such as Noble and ACE, while Ethan "nahtE" Arnold was last seen playing for eUnited.
Both of the new recruits shared their thoughts on their latest move:
“
”
CLG for me is an insane step that I'm taking towards my future in the eSports industry. I know I have a lot to learn and prove and I can't express how grateful I am to the boys for giving me this opportunity. I can't ask for more and I'm super excited to start the grind with the fam.- Yassine "Subroza" Taoufik
“
”
First of all, I want to thank everyone who has supported and believed in me on my way to getting to a top team. I also want to thank the people at CLG for giving me the chance to represent them. This is a big opportunity for me as a player and I won't let you guys down.- Ethan “nahtE” Arnold
Counter Logic Gaming now consists of:
Ethan "NahtE" Arnold
Yassine "Subroza" Taoufik
James "hazed" Cobb
Stephen "reltuC" Cutler
Kenneth "koosta" Suen
Headline image courtesy of Anixia eSports | {
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Interview: Seth Killian Fills Us in on Characters, DLC, and Functionality in Street Fighter X Tekken Vita
Interview: Seth Killian Fills Us in on Characters, DLC, and Functionality in Street Fighter X Tekken Vita
Joel Taveras April 16, 2012 12:00 PM EST
Last week we were invited to Sony’s spring media showcase where we had the chance to catch up with Capcom community manager Seth Killian to talk Street Fighter X Tekken for the PlayStation Vita.
We go over characters, DLC and some of the unique functionality coming over to the Vita version of the title — which includes cross platform (Vita vs. PS3) play that can be achieved over a 3G connection — a first for any 3rd party title on the platform.
If you’re a fan of the console version and are on the fence about the Vita title, I think this interview should help steer you in the right direction. Check out the video below. | {
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World Cup broadcasters have been given a stern warning by FIFA ahead of the final about singling out ‘hot women.’
It’s common for broadcasters to pick attractive female fans from the crowd to use for ‘cutaways’, but FIFA diversity boss Federico Addiechi isn’t happy about it.
“FIFA will take action against things that are wrong – we’ve done it with individual broadcasters. We’ve done it with our host broadcast services”, he said.
FIFA is cracking down on sexism at the World Cup, calling broadcasters out for focusing too much on 'hot female fans' Picture: Getty (Getty)
Sexism has proven the most problematic issue in Russia over the course of the World Cup. Picture: AAP (Getty)
FIFA claims to have found more than 30 cases of ‘hot female fan’ favouring.
While the crackdown isn’t steeped in policy yet – Mr Addiechi said it is “one of the activities that we will have in the future, it’s a normal evolution.”
Sexism has proven a constant issue in Russia over the course of the World Cup and there have been several cases of female television presenters being groped and kissed by male fans.
FIFA has found 30 cases of broadcasters favouring females in the crowd during cutaways from the game. Picture: AAP (Getty)
Mr Addiechi said FIFA is working with Russian police and local organisers to identify fans who assaulted female reporters live on air.
He also said some have already been stripped of their FAN-IDS - the document spectators require to obtain access to World Cup stadiums. | {
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I am a good person.
I am agnostic, but acceptably so. I provide directions to tourists that are generally correct. I believe firmly in your right to offend me, and to do so publicly. I believe in kindness and the power of the human spirit. I am a huge fan of your children, probably. They are cute and orderly. You are doing a good job with them. I am reasonable. I am hard-working. I pick up litter and throw it away in its designated receptacle.
But I watched Ohio State win the College Football Playoff National Championship game on Monday night. And I was not a good person.
Rivalry is silly, as you well know. Ohio State University and the University of Michigan are remarkably similar in many ways, in that both are large universities with piles of money with which to build buildings and name them after people who give them more piles of money. I know many people who have attended Ohio State, and many of those people are lovely. These are true things.
Even the internet told me that I should be rooting for the Big Ten, because loyalty! Fealty! Midwest! Bread covered in cheese! Here is a sweatshirt and there is a place you are going, let's drive for two hours and consider it to be a fairly standard afternoon! You were raised in Ohio, Jane! Come home, metaphorically!
I did not watch the entire game. But I knew where this was going around the time the first person tweeted "damn, can anyone tackle Cardale Jones" and roughly right when Ezekiel Elliott ran for his first touchdown through the humanoid sticks of unsalted butter who had replaced the Oregon secondary. I went to bed at halftime, despite the protestations of my girlfriend. "But they had ducks on their jerseys!" "But the game could turn around!" "But you love football!" All technically true, my love. But no adorable duck, no vagaries of the game of football, no deep-seeded love for the sport could force me to watch a team I place somewhere near "dial-up internet" on my Pyramid of Loathing win it all.
I hate Ohio State.
I hate its stupid colors. I hate its stupid mascot (WHO THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU ARE, BRUTUS?) I hate its moronic fans, despite the fact that Michigan fans are also dumb, because all fans are dumb. I hate Ohio State in the marrow of my bones, with every atom of my being, with every fiber of the Michigan sweatshirt I bought during Welcome Week and now barely counts as "clothing."
My hatred is personal. My hatred is all-encompassing. I hate you, Urban Meyer. I hope you are indicted on trumped-up charges of tax evasion. I hate you, Cardale Jones, who has to be cheating because no one is that good at anything three games in. I hate you, Ohio State offensive line, because you are probably bears and bears aren't allowed to play football. The Big Ten is Michigan and 13 other teams I hope Michigan beats into the deepest bowels of the earth, but I hope that Ohio State is beaten the furthest.
I always root against Ohio State. If Ohio State is playing Michigan State, I root for Michigan State despite MSU being Michigan's moronic younger cousin who has four kids by 21 but seems all okay with it and everything while Michigan is CEO at a start-up with an acute anxiety disorder and $78,000 in student loan debt. Despite my lack of allegiance to the Big Ten conference and Jim Delaney's egg-shaped skull, if Ohio State is playing any Big Ten team, I am rooting for Any Big Ten Team (even you, Iowa!) If Ohio State were playing the 2004 USC Trojans, I would be wearing some weird Reggie Bush throwback jersey. If Ohio State were playing Maoist China, then call me the Great Leap Fucking Forward, let's get Reddest Red Sun on these haters.
Football: this unstoppable hellbeast OSU team was losing to Michigan at halftime and lost to a VT team that lost to ECU the next week. — Jane Coaston (@cjane87) January 13, 2015
Reminder: the same day that Virginia Tech ran over Ohio State, Michigan lost by roughly 3,000 points to a Notre Dame team that would later fall off of a literal cliff. Michigan also lost to Ohio State in a manner that was not nearly as bad as anyone expected (the worst way to lose of all). I do not care.
I am insane. I am childish. I once drank an entire bottle of wine while watching Michigan and God's favored child Denard Robinson lose in Ohio Stadium to an undefeated Ohio State team BANNED FROM BOWL COMPETITION FYI JUST WANTED TO MENTION THAT FOR NO REASON. I then cried and continued to do so while walking to get pizza, ordering the pizza, walking back home with the pizza, and then cried while eating the pizza. My hatred is deeper than the bounds of reality. It is emotion, and rage, and mild disgust. It is unending.
I hate Ohio State. I will hate Ohio State forever. And this national championship has done nothing to slake my thirst for their complete and total annihilation, preferably while I am watching and have some guacamole or something.
Go Blue. And go straight to the fires of Hades, Ohio State. | {
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A 37-year-old married cop in New Jersey, USA has been caught pulling over male drivers in traffic stops - and showing them his penis.
According to the Smoking Gun, Jason Miller's is currently being charged with official misconduct and public lewdness.
Apparently the evidence against him is quite damning - his own police cruiser caught video footage of his unorthodox approach to law enforcement.
At least five men got a view of his genitals, one being repeatedly asked if he noticed if the officer's fly was down.
This isn't the only thing he is in trouble for, in one of the cases he stopped a man who said he was coming from a bar and had a few drinks.
He didn't so much as write up a ticket, but according to the affidavit “you can hear what appears to be the sound of a zipper opening and/or closing.”
Miller is not the only cop who has gotten into trouble for his penis appearing on video this year.
NYPD Lt. Alexander Rojas is getting sued by precinct cops Maria Lampley and Claudia Melara, both 35, and Dawn Sprague, 43, for repeatedly flashing his penis at them.
The New York Post reports that he also repeatedly showed the women footage of himself "engaged in masturbation and other sexual acts” despite them repeatedly telling him to stop it.
Another officer, this time in Miami, is facing disciplinary action after he was caught on video masturbating in a high school.
43-year-old officer Steven Rodgers apparently allowed someone to film him as he masturbated inside Edison High according to Filming Cops.
“The school district, along with the police department, uh, we do not condone this type of behaviour,” Miami-Dade Schools Police Chief Ian Moffett told reporters. | {
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Former Real Madrid boss Carlo Ancelotti surprised some people when previewing the Clasico for Sina Sports. The Italian picked a combined Madrid-Barcelona XI and it features 4 Barcelona stars, two Madrid men and five positions drawn.
Sport EN
Ancelotti went for Pique ahead of Pepe, Busquets ahead of Casemiro, Rakitic ahead of Kroos, and Neymar before Bale. He preferred Marcelo to Jordi Alba and Sergio Ramos to Mascherano. In the other positions he was drawn.
This is the team:
Bravo-Keylor Navas (Draw) - Both are having a good season, although maybe Keylor has been more crucial to Madrid.
Dani Alves-Carvajal (Draw) - They have a good attacking capacity, they need to pay attention in defence, especially Dani Alves.
Gerard Pique-Pepe (Barcelona) - Pique's season is excellent. He's concentrating and making all decisions accurately. Pepe needs more continuity but his speed and talent is important.
Mascherano-Sergio Ramos (Madrid) - Mascherano knows how to play this position well despite being a midfielder, but Sergio Ramos is the heart of Real Madrid and always key in these type of games.
Jordi Alba-Marcelo (Madrid) - On paper they are very similar. However the influence of Marcelo at Madrid is bigger than Alba's on Barcelona.
Busquets-Casemiro (Barcelona) - No doubt, Busquets is one of the best central-midfielders in the world. Casemiro has improved a lot recently but isn't as key.
Rakitic-Kroos (Barcelona) - The form of Rakitic is incredible, both mentally and physically. His contribution to Barcelona is essential. Kroos is vital but hasn't reached Rakitic's level.
Iniesta-Modric (Draw) - Both are one of the best players in their teams, capable of taking on any game, they are the best players their team-mates could ask for.
Neymar-Bale (Barcelona) - The growth of Neymar this season is evident. His form is spectacular, and you see his importance to the team. Bale is decisive for Madrid but has lost a lot games through injury. Right now, Neymar is better.
Luis Suarez-Benzema (Draw) - They are different types of forwards. Suarez is the class of striker just born to score. Lots of mobility and can upset any defence. He's red-hot right now. Benzema is good too, although he could score goals sometimes. In other aspects of the play he has a very important influence. It's a tough decision.
Messi-Cristiano (Draw) - What can I say? Both are very good, they are the best players in the world. | {
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Geert Wilders is de politicus van het jaar. Dat is de uitkomst van de jaarlijkse publieksverkiezing van EenVandaag.
Ruim een kwart van de 40.000 deelnemers stemde op de PVV-leider. Wilders werd al drie keer eerder politicus van het jaar: in 2015, 2013 en 2010.
Wilders heeft het in 2016 goed gedaan in de peilingen. Een van de deelnemers aan de verkiezing voor de politicus van het jaar schrijft: "Meer dan ooit heb ik het gevoel dat er echt een Haagse 'kaasstolp' bestaat: politici reageren alleen op elkaar en zien niet genoeg wat er buiten Den Haag speelt. Alleen Geert Wilders kan die stolp breken."
Wilders wordt door zijn kiezers gezien als iemand die voor hoop en verandering staat. Ze willen dat hij het systeem verandert.
Jesse Klaver
GroenLinks-leider Jesse Klaver eindigde als tweede (11 procent van de stemmen) en minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem van Financiën als derde (7 procent van de stemmen). Klaver krijgt lof toegezwaaid omdat hij een verhaal heeft over de toekomst van Nederland.
Dijsselbloem omdat hij zijn werk gedreven en gedegen doet en zich niet door de waan van de dag laat leiden. Ook premier Mark Rutte en Tweede Kamervoorzitter Khadija Arib kregen veel stemmen (6 procent). Zij staan samen op de vierde plek.
Symbool van rust
Rutte dankt de waardering aan het feit dat het huidige kabinet onder zijn leiding de rit lijkt uit te zitten. Arib wordt gezien als "het symbool van rust" in een verdeelde Tweede Kamer.
De brexit (vertrek van de Britten uit de EU) is als belangrijkste politieke gebeurtenis van dit jaar genoemd, gevolgd door het Oekraïne-referendum en de aanslagen in Brussel van januari. | {
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Regardless how history comes to look Nick Cave's The Death of Bunny Munro, in the context of Cave’s career, it stands alone as the purest distillation of his artistry -- a poetic novel with Cave’s inimitable brand of the grotesque, absurd and often comic nature of humanity. | {
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George R.R. Martin was a guest on Le Grand Journal during his trip to France earlier this month, and the full interview is now available to watch online. Martin appeared in his familiar cap and suspenders to talk about his work on A Song of Ice and Fire and the success of Game of Thrones.
He discusses some of the inspirations for his story, and justifies the amount of violence by looking back at our own bloody history. He also shares his reaction to the Queen’s visit to the set in Belfast, and reveals that his favorite parodies are actually of himself.
Martin’s answers have been dubbed over in French, and while you can still hear his voice, to make things a little easier, a transcript can be found below.
On whether he can still claim the story as his baby after the huge success of the show:
I still do think of it as my baby, I worked on it it a long time before anybody else. Started it in 1991, and it’s kind of frightening to think how long I’ve been writing about these characters and world at this point.
On historical fiction, and his inspiration for the Wall:
I love history, and historical fiction. You mentioned Hadrian’s Wall, that was one of the inspirations of course for my Wall. Even long before I knew what I would use it for I visited Hadrian’s Wall in England, and stood on top of it at sunset. Most of the tourists had gone, and I tried to imagine what it was like to be a Roman Legionnaire standing on this wall at the end of the world not know what might lie North of it, what might come and attack you at any moment. It was quite a profound feeling and I wanted to capture that at some point.
On the amount of violence in his story:
I think it’s actually the influence of history, you know, people say to me how do you invent such a bloody history, how do you kill so many people. If you look at sources, if you look at the actual stories of the Hundred Years’ War, or the War of the Roses, or the crusades, the Cathars, I’m a piker compared to the stuff that happened in real history. Real history was written in blood, and the kind of things our ancestors did to each other is just amazing.
People seem to be amused by reading it, so I like telling fascinating stories.
On his Westeros related side projects:
The book that you’re talking about there is a novella about two characters called Dunk and Egg, who lived 90 years before the main story, and I’ve written three novellas about them and hope to write another dozen telling the whole story of their lives. But they are a prequel to what I think of as the main story, which is A Song of Ice and Fire. I’m doing some of the pre-history, the things that happened before, the characters who were legendary characters in the ‘present’ so to speak, I’m telling their stories too. The main story is still A Song of Ice and Fire, in with Game of Thrones.
On the Queen’s visit to the set:
I see they gave her a little Iron Throne of her own. I notice she did not sit in the Iron Throne. I know she has her own throne that she sits in, she doesn’t need our throne to sit on.
It’s pretty amazing, I was unfortunately not there in Belfast, I was in New Mexico. But I have seen these videos before and it’s pretty exciting. It’s pretty astonishing. This has been a very strange trip since I began in 1991, writing about some wolves in the summer snow. To see something like this happening now and have the whole world aware of the story is amazing. It’s not something anyone could ever foresee.
On his favorite parody:
My favorite spoof is probably the actual spoofs of me that were done on Saturday Night Live and South Park and things like that. That’s been the strangest thing for me. It’s one thing as a writer to have someone do a parody of your characters and the world you create, but then to have someone actually do a parody of me, myself, you know, this boggles my mind still. But last Halloween in America they were selling Game of Thrones costumes so kids going trick of treating could dress up like Jon Snow or like Daenerys, that’s fine, but they were also selling costumes to dress up like me with the suspenders and the hat and the full beard. That blew my mind, that’s the strangest thing of all. Fortunately nobody came to my house dressed up like me.
On whether he enjoyed the Red Wedding reaction:
Actually, I want the feeling in my readers that no one is safe. I want them emotionally involved in the books. If the characters are in a difficult or scary situation I want the reader almost to be afraid to turn the next page because they don’t know what’s going to happen. If the character’s going to live or if the character’s going to die.
On sharing a name with The Beatles’ record producer:
He’s a knight, he’s Sir George Martin, and I’m not. But I did meet Paul McCartney last year, so I’m catching up to him. Now we both know Paul McCartney.
Get a daily update of the site’s latest news, conveniently sent in newsletter form, directly to your inbox. Sign up for WiC Daily. | {
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When Gary Brown was a younger man, an elephant ambled into the Pine Creek Hotel and walked out the other side.
Since then he has seen all kinds of strange and wonderful things, including his small outback town booming on the back of unprecedented demand for gold and iron ore over the past decade.
About 300 kilometres south of Darwin and far from the boardrooms of the big miners, the historical mining town of Pine Creek has been hit hard by a sudden and steep decline in the price of iron ore.
The NT Country Hour reported this week that the Frances Creek mine had stopped production months after announcing this intention.
By coincidence, a day earlier the iron ore spot price reached a five-year low.
The mine's closure follows two other mine shutdowns in the NT and marks the suspension of all iron ore mining in the Territory.
Frances Creek employed about 300 people in a town of 600 and since the mine went into voluntary administration last year sacked workers have been trickling out.
It would seem that for most places such a loss would be a knockout blow.
But Mr Brown said he had seen it all before.
"It's sad saying goodbye," says Alice Crowe-Wright, who has seen many of her friends leave. ( ABC News: James Purtill )
"The worst downturn I went through would have been Pine Creek Goldfields when they closed down in 1995," he said.
"We were a bit worried then. We thought we'd lose teachers from the school and police would be moving out of town."
The long-term resident, who was also marking his 60th birthday at the hotel, moved to Pine Creek from New South Wales 30 years ago to work on the mines.
Pine Creek resident Theresa Bandison, who was born in the town, says she has seen it recover from downturns before. ( ABC News: James Purtill )
He moved to a town in the flush of a gold boom led by the new Pine Creek Goldfields open cut mine.
The town had long ridden the cycle of mining booms and busts - when gold was discovered there in 1871, Chinese diggers poured into the Northern Territory's goldfields.
Ten years after Mr Brown came to town, the mine went bust and the elephant walked through the bar.
"We had a circus in town at the time," he said.
"I was sitting here having a beer and this little baby elephant starts walking into the pub.
"I hadn't had that many. We were freaked out, we didn't know what to do.
"We were just hoping it wasn't going to stand on us."
It did not, but 20 years later again the plunging price of iron ore to China has squashed the local iron ore industry.
As for Pine Creek, the composure of its townsfolk could be misleading - generally the ones who remained would be long-term residents less exposed to the downturn rather than younger miners forced elsewhere.
Pulling pints behind the bar of the Pine Creek Hotel, Alice Crowe-Wright said she had seen many good friends leave in the last 10 months.
"It's sad saying goodbye," she said. "But that's the way small towns work."
These days Mr Brown worked at the local tavern and caravan park.
"I've been here that long I love the place," he said.
"I don't think the town will go bad because it's always been just a little town," former Pine Creek resident Sue Hudson says. ( ABC News: James Purtill )
'The town was flowing. Everybody was happy'
Australia's resources-led economic boom came to Pine Creek in 2005 with a town hall-style meeting of miners and locals, according to former resident, Sue Hudson.
"We had people form the mines that come in tell you what's going to happen," she said.
"We're going to be employing the locals. We're putting this much more into the economy. We listened to what they had to say.
People leaving Pine Creek have been hanging their boots from the Boot Tree. ( ABC News: James Purtill )
"At this stage we were getting very hopeful there was going to be lots of businesses here - mechanics, accommodation, meals, laundrettes.
"Everything gets affected in that way."
She and her husband had moved to Pine Creek the previous year to manage the service station.
The first miners to visit were gold miners, she said.
"When we came here we didn't know there would be a gold mine re-emerging," she said.
"Then lo and behold 18-20 months later they did start the gold mine operation again."
The population of Pine Creek has declined since 1966 and the days of the Pine Creek Races. ( Supplied: National Archives of Australia )
"It was very good, everybody was positive, everybody was happy.
"The town was flowing.
"And then it was after we left here that first gold mine closed up. Then everyone gets sad again."
In the last two years the price of gold has tumbled and several gold mining operations in the NT have stopped.
Gold was still being mined 15 kilometres up the road from Pine Creek, at Cosmo Deeps, but analysts have said the gold price could fall further.
In 2013, the price of gold fell about 30 per cent.
In 2014, the price of iron ore fell about 40 per cent.
She said locals were now concentrating on another river of gold: tourists on the Stuart Highway.
"Overall when the tourists come again people are going to be happy they'll see the town. People driving in and out in their caravans.
"It's all good. I think people are optimistic. I don't think the town will go bad because it's always been just a little town.
"It's had mines one day and not the next, that's how it's been."
'I've been here 60 years. I won't move'
Pine Creek may be used to weathering the bad times and building itself up again in the good, but the long-term trend has been downwards.
The railway line between Darwin and Pine Creek built in 1889 at enormous expense closed in 1976.
The railway station and rolling stock have become outdoor museum exhibits.
In the laundromat a notice encouraged anyone leaving town to hang their boots from "the boot tree" on the outskirts of town at the entrance to a mining camp.
Perhaps its most well-known resident, Eddie Ah Toy, who was born in Pine Creek to a family that ran the old bakery and the general store, has watched his children move to Darwin.
He said the downturn was going to affect the town.
"The town is going to feel it a lot," he said.
"When you lose 300 people out of maybe 550, that's about half the population," he said.
"It's going to have a big impact.
"I've been here 60 years. I won't move out of Pine Creek." | {
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SINGAPORE - Speedsters and reckless riders on bicycles, e-scooters or other personal mobility devices (PMDs) beware.
Starting from Tuesday (May 1), stiff fines and even jail time await those who fail to rein in the speed or observe regulations set out in the Active Mobility Act that has just kicked in.
In a surprise announcement on Tuesday, the Land Transport Authority (LTA) said it is exercising its powers with immediate effect to regulate the use of bicycles, PMDs and and power-assisted bicycles (PABs).
The powers cover the use of such devices on footpaths, shared cycling paths and roads, as well as their sales, the LTA added.
The new law spells out where the devices may be used and how fast they can go.
For example, PABs are not allowed on footpaths while e-scooters cannot go on public roads. The speed limits are 15kmh on footpaths and 25kmh on park connectors and shared paths.
First-time offenders who flout the usage rules and speed limits may be fined up to $1,000 or jailed up to three months, or both. Repeat offenders may have their fine and jail term doubled.
The new law also sets limits on the size and speed of the devices that can be used on public paths. These cannot weigh more than 20kg each and must have their speeds capped at 25kmh. Those who use devices that flout these rules can be fined up to $5,000 and jailed up to three months, or both.
In the case of hit-and-run accidents, those who do not stop to help accident victims face a maximum fine of $3,000 or a jail term of up to one year, or both. Those who refuse to give their particulars or lie to LTA enforcement officers face a higher maximum fine of $5,000, in addition to the maximum one-year jail term.
Related Story 9 tips on how pedestrians can stay safe from e-scooters and bicycles
Besides users, the new law also targets vendors of non-compliant devices. Those caught selling them may be fined up to $5,000 and jailed up to three months, or both.
The LTA said that it has been holding safe riding clinics for users and dialogues with retailers to prepare the public and industry for the new law.
The Active Mobility Act was passed by Parliament in January last year. At that time, the Senior Minister of State for Transport, Mrs Josephine Teo, said the new law was introduced to safeguard the safety of pedestrians even as active mobility was encouraged to support a car-lite Singapore.
"There is not a shadow of doubt that pedestrian safety is paramount," she had said.
After the Act was passed, the Government kept mum on when it would take effect. Early last month, a government panel formed in 2015 to develop a set of rules governing the use of footpaths and cycling paths was still gathering public feedback. The feedback looked at how cyclists and PMD users should behave when travelling on footpaths and in crowded areas, including whether they should ride more slowly than the recommended top speed of 15kmh that has now become law.
The LTA's surprise announcement on Tuesday came on the back of the rising problem of reckless riders as PMDs become more popular.
On average, there are about three accidents a week involving users of mobility devices. There were 110 accidents between January and September last year, with about 30 of them occurring on public paths between pedestrians and a mobility device. The rest took place at road junctions and on roads when users flout traffic rules.
Besides having to observe the rules set out under the new law, those who own PMDs will have to register their devices from the second half of this year. The exact date when registration starts has not been announced. | {
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You are here: Home | New York to Paris Timeline
Lindbergh's Transatlantic Flight: New York to Paris Timeline, May 20-21, 1927 | {
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On September 7, 2019, more than 4,500 cyclists are expected to participate in the RBC GranFondo Whistler ride from Vancouver to Whistler.
As a result, motorists can expect possible delays of up to three hours between West Vancouver and Whistler between 5:30 am and 4:30 pm. Motorists are advised to obey all traffic control personnel and be prepared to stop during this large-scale cycling event.
During the event, speed limits will be reduced to 60 km/h on sections of Highway 99 between Horseshoe Bay and Whistler. Motorists are also advised to plan their travel well in advance, drive with caution and follow signs.
For the safety of everyone — there will be some traffic pattern changes throughout the day. Thank you for your cooperation and for supporting all of the volunteers, spectators, and the athletes who have trained so hard for this day. Together we can create a successful day for all.
The following traffic changes and detours will be in effect:
Metro Vancouver
Stanley Park Causeway and Lions Gate Bridge – The causeway and Lions Gate Bridge will be closed to northbound traffic, from 5:30 am to 8:30 am. Motorists are advised to use the Ironworker’s Memorial / Second Narrows Bridge. One southbound lane will remain open on the Lions Gate Bridge and causeway.
Iron Workers / Second Narrows Bridge Detour Map
Stanley Park Drive, Vancouver – Access to Stanley Park Drive, from Georgia Street, closed from 3:00 am to 8:00 am.
North Vancouver/Marine Drive – Westbound Marine Drive will be closed between Capilano Road and Taylor Way. Traffic will be rerouted to Lower Capilano Road, Welch Street, Wardance Street and Taylor Way, from 5:30 am to 8:30 am. Southbound access to the Lions Gate Bridge will remain open via Marine Drive eastbound from the West Vancouver side.
West Vancouver – Marine Drive and Taylor Way intersection – Access to Taylor Way will be restricted for intermittent periods, from 5:30 am to 10:00 am.
Highway 1 – Both eastbound lanes on Highway 1 will be closed between Taylor Way and Horseshoe Bay, from 5:30 am to 10:00 am. Motorists are advised to use Marine Drive eastbound.
Cypress Bowl Road, West Vancouver – 400 cyclists will travel along Cypress Bowl Road with police escorts up and down the hill. Cypress Bowl Road will have reduced speeds from 6:00 am to 8:30 am. Recommend to motorists to avoid Cypress Bowl Road during this time.
Highway 1 westbound at Exit 2 (at Horseshoe Bay) – Westbound Highway 1 traffic and northbound Highway 99 traffic will be re-routed via Exit 2 to Old Highway 99 (Horseshoe Bay Drive). Traffic will enter Highway 99 northbound at the Pasco Road Highway 99 access. Detour will be in effect from 5:30 am to 11:00 am.
Ferry traffic and Local Horseshoe Bay traffic – Horseshoe Bay traffic will be re-routed to Marine Drive through West Vancouver, from 5:30 am to 9:30 am.
Horseshoe Bay at Highway 99 Junction/Heavy Truck Restrictions – Eastbound heavy truck traffic travelling between Horseshoe Bay and Taylor Way and Highway 99 southbound will be re-directed to a temporary storage location at Horseshoe Bay, from 5:30 am to 9:00 am. Heavy truck traffic will be restricted from the Marine Drive, through West Vancouver, during this period and can re-enter Highway 1, when the eastbound highway lanes are re-opened.
Highway 99 southbound/Pasco Road/West Vancouver – Southbound Highway 99 traffic will be re-routed at the Pasco Road exit, via the Old Highway 99 route (Horseshoe Bay Drive), to Marine Drive in West Vancouver, from 5:30 am to 11:00 am.
Highway 99 – Horseshoe Bay to Tunnel Point – Counterflow traffic adjacent to cyclists will be in effect at Tunnel Point, with one lane northbound and one lane southbound available for motorists, leading to single-lane alternating traffic for 2.6 km, from 6:30 am to 11:00 am.
Sea to Sky Highway
Highway 99 at Porteau Cove Provincial Park – Counterflow traffic adjacent to cyclists in effect, with one lane northbound and one lane southbound available for motorists, leading to single-lane alternating traffic for 1.3 km, from 7:15 am to 11:00 am.
Highway 99 at Furry Creek – Local Furry Creek traffic will be re-routed via internal roads to access Highway 99 northbound and southbound, from 7:15 am until 11:30 am.
Highway 99 at Britannia Beach – Single-lane alternating traffic will be in effect for 1 km, with no northbound right turn permitted at Main Street (Copper Drive), from 7:30 am to 12:00pm.
Squamish
Highway 99 – Murrin Lake Park to Squamish – Traffic signals along this section will be flashing, with traffic control persons on site.
Highway 99 at Cleveland Avenue and Loggers Lane – Traffic signals will be flashing. No traffic access to Loggers Lane from Highway 99 at Cleveland Avenue or Industrial Way. Motorists are advised to use Centennial Way underpass to Loggers Lane, from 8:00 am to 12:30 pm.
Highway 99 – Valley Drive to Depot Road/Squamish – Traffic signals will be flashing and traffic movements, both to and from the east side of Highway 99, will be restricted and or closed. Garibaldi Highlands traffic impacts include Scott Crescent NB (North of Clark Drive), Mamquam Road WB (West of Diamond Head Road), Garibaldi Way WB (West of Tantalus Rd), and Depot Road WB (East of Hwy 99). For all of the locations mentioned, motorists are advised of the following times: 8:00am to 8:30am Intermittent delays 8:30am to 10:30am Full closure 10:30am to 12:30pm Intermittent delays
Highway 99 – Alice Lake Road to Function Junction (6 km south of Whistler) – Motorists should expect counterflow traffic adjacent to cyclists, through this area. Cyclists will occupy the northbound slow lane. One lane northbound and one lane southbound available for motorists. Counterflow is in effect from 8:30 am to 4:30 pm.
Whistler
Highway 99 – Function Junction to Village Gate Boulevard, Whistler – Signals will be flashing and traffic will be stopped intermittently at the entrances and exits to key Whistler destinations. Expect major delays entering and exiting the east side of Highway 99 in Whistler.
Highway 99 – Southbound Village gate boulevard to Callaghan valley road. Signals will be flashing and traffic will be delayed from 9:15 am – 10:00 am for the neutralized lead out. There will not be full road closure.
Alta Lake Road – Alternate Route to Highway 99, Whistler – Alta Lake road will be available as an alternate traffic route from Highway 99, in Whistler.
Whistler – Various Cross Street Intersections with Highway 99: Blackcomb Way West – Closed in both directions. Village Gate Boulevard – Closed to northbound and southbound traffic from Highway 99. Lorimer Road and Whistler Way – Both roads are open as alternate routes to Village Gate. Whistler Northlands Boulevard at Village Gate – Traffic signal will be flashing. Traffic Control persons will be on site, from 8:30 am to 4:30 pm. Callaghan Valley Road – closed in both directions.
Attention Truck Drivers:
On September 7th, 2019, only commercial vehicles under 40,000 kg GVW and 20 meters in length will be allowed to pass through the RBC GranFondo Whistler route. | {
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[Physics FAQ] - [Copyright]
Various small updates over the years.
Updated 1994–1997 by SIC, PEG.
Original by Vijay Fafat.
A Physics Book List: Recommendations from the Net
This article is a compilation of books recommended by sci.physics participants as the "standard" or "classic" texts on a wide variety of topics of general interest to physicists and physics students. As a guide to finding the right book for you, many of the comments from the contributors have been retained.
All entries here are incomplete, and many good books are not yet listed. Please feel free to contribute to this project by contacting us . When you submit a book, please try to keep your note short like the entries already on this page, so that I can easily copy/paste them in.
Details such as publisher, date, and ISBN numbers below are far and few between. This is partly because we are too lazy to type them in, but also because these things can change with new editions and different countries (slightly better excuse). If you want to know more, do a search at one of the internet book shops; a comparison of several sites can be had at booksprice.com.
If you are looking for a book that is out of print, try:
Subject Index
General Physics (so even mathematicians can understand it!)
M.S. Longair: Theoretical concepts in physics, 1986.
An alternative view of theoretical reasoning in physics for final-year undergrads. Arnold Sommerfeld: Lectures on Theoretical Physics
Sommerfeld is God for mathematical physics. Richard Feynman: The Feynman lectures on Physics (3 vols)
Highly recommended texts compiled from the undergraduate lecture course given by Feynman. Jearle Walker: The Flying Circus of Physics There is the entire Landau and Lifshitz series. They have volumes on classical mechanics, classical field theory, E&M, QM, QFT, statistical physics, and more. Very good series that spans the entire graduate-level curriculum. The New Physics edited by Paul Davies.
This is one big book, and it takes time to look through topics as diverse as general relativity, astrophysics, particle theory, quantum mechanics, chaos and nonlinearity, low-temperature physics, and phase transitions. Nevertheless, this is an excellent book of recent (1989) physics articles, written by several physicists/astrophysicists. Richard Feynman: The Character of Physical Law
In his unique no-nonsense style, Feynman lectures about what physics is all about. Down-to-earth examples keep him from straying into the kind of metaphysics of which he is often critical. David Mermin: Boojums all the way through: Communicating science in prosaic language Frank Wilczek and Betsy Devine: Longing for the Harmonies: Themes and variations from modern physics Greg Egan: Permutation City
This is a science fiction novel which has more to say about the philosophy of physics than do most philosophers and physicists. Paul Nahin: Mrs Perkins's Electric Quilt
(British speakers will want to correct that to "Mrs Perkins' Electric Quilt".) This book is only included here as an example of a book that probably has less appeal to physicists than it tries to make out. Nahin has written several books on general physics for the non-specialist. I wonder if this book is typical. He tends to make mountains out of molehills when explaining the mathematics, and he isn't always correct (see, e.g., his incorrect analysis of the game of tic-tac-toe at the end of Chapter 13). This particular book is a series of rather dry and finicky worked problems that Nahin finds interesting, but which probably won't stimulate your appetite to learn more physics or maths. One of the few interesting problems in this book is a kinematical calculation in the first chapter that produces a contradiction when it applies a particular acceleration to a particle; and yet Nahin doesn't give a proper explanation for why the relevant calculation fails. (The reason it fails is that the acceleration of "velocity cubed" can only describe a distance-versus-time curve that is drawn such that its slope becomes infinite at some finite time, and so it must be invalid to demand that this acceleration applies for all times, as Nahin does.) And yet, after showing that this physical situation is indeed nonsense, Nahin would have us believe, in his preface, that he has proved a mathematical theorem using physics, by solving a very similar problem without asking whether that scenario is also nonsense! (In fact, contrary to Nahin's claim, the problem he solves in the preface contains no physics, even though it is dressed up as a physics problem. It is simply a differential equation.) Nahin's comments on the zeta function are also incorrect: he thinks that just because two or three values of the function appear in physics, that "the zeta function often appears in physical problems". Rather, the zeta function never occurs in physics: Nahin doesn't appreciate the difference between a function and its isolated values. Nahin's reasoning is like saying that parabolas occur in calendars, because the numbers 1, 4, 9, 16, and 25 appear as dates in a month. It is perhaps representative of his general approach in the book, in which he gives a higher credence to many ideas and worked examples than physicists and mathematicians would. Don't read: The Physicist's World, by Thomas Grissom. We include this book as an example of a book that contains a good deal of incorrect physics. Grissom is a philosopher who managed to publish a book about physics without knowing much physics, and it's a shame that he has taught the content of this book for some (many?) years to philosophy students, who must've gone out into the big world thinking that physicists must be incredibly dumb if they really believe the na�ve concepts that Grissom thinks physics is all about. This book gets all the big tenets of the subject wrong: Grissom thinks that special relativity is all about what is seen with the eye, a mistake that only first-year students are expected to make; he thinks that the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle concerns the limits of measurement of quantities that are otherwise perfectly well defined; he thinks that the Second Law of Thermodynamics is an actual law that must be obeyed. And apparently he thinks that physicists spend a great deal of their time pondering the philosophy of the Ancient Greeks. All completely wrong.
Classical Mechanics
Herbert Goldstein: Classical Mechanics, 2nd ed, 1980.
Intermediate to advanced; excellent bibliography. Introductory: The Feynman Lectures, vol 1. Keith Symon: Mechanics, 3rd ed., 1971 undergrad. level. H. Corbin and P. Stehle: Classical Mechanics, 2nd ed., 1960 V.I. Arnold: Mathematical methods of classical mechanics, translated by K. Vogtmann and A. Weinstein, 2nd ed., 1989.
The appendices are somewhat more advanced and cover all sorts of nifty topics. Deals with geometrical aspects of classical mechanics. R. Resnick and D. Halliday: Physics, vol 1, 4th Ed., 1993
Excellent introduction without much calculus. Lots of problems and review questions. Marion & Thornton: Classical Dynamics of Particles and Systems, 2nd ed., 1970.
Undergrad level. A useful intro to classical dynamics. Not as advanced as Goldstein, but with real worked-out examples. A. Fetter and J. Walecka: Theoretical mechanics of particles and continua
Graduate-level text, a little less impressive than Goldstein, but sometimes a little less obtuse. Kiran Gupta: Classical Mechanics of Particles and Rigid Bodies (1988)
At the level of Goldstein, but has many more worked problems at the end of each chapter as a good illustration of the material. Very useful for preparations for the PhD Qualifying Examination (I presume this is America only — ed.).
Classical Electromagnetism
Jackson: Classical Electrodynamics, 2nd ed., 1975
Intermediate to advanced, the definitive graduate(US)/undergraduate(UK) text. Purcell: Berkeley Physics Series Vol 2.
You can't beat this for the intelligent, reasonably sophisticated beginning physics student. He tells you on the very first page about the experimental proof of how charge does not vary with speed.
plus... Chen, Min, Berkeley Physics problems with solutions. Reitz, Milford and Christy: Foundations of Electromagnetic Theory 4th ed., 1992
Undergraduate level. Pretty difficult to learn from at first, but a good reference, for some calculations involving stacks of thin films and their reflectance and transmission properties, for example. It's a good, rigorous text as far as it goes, which is pretty far, but not all the way. For example, it has a great section on optical properties of a single thin film between two dielectric semi-infinite media, but no generalization to stacks of films. Feynman: The Feynman Lectures, Vol. 2 Lorrain & Corson: Electromagnetism, Principles and Applications, 1979 Resnick and Halliday: Physics, vol 2, 4th ed., 1993 Igor Irodov: Problems in Physics Excellent and extensive collection of EM problems for undergrads. William Smythe: Static and Dynamic Electricity, 3rd ed., 1968
For the extreme masochists. Some of the most hair-raising EM problems you'll ever see. Definitely not for the weak-of-heart. Landau, Lifshitz, and Pitaevskii: Electrodynamics of Continuous Media, 2nd ed., 1984
Same level as Jackson's book above, but with lots of material that is not in Jackson. Marion and Heald: Classical Electromagnetic Radiation, 2nd ed., 1980.
Undergraduate or low-level graduate.
Quantum Mechanics
QED: The strange theory of light and matter Richard Feynman.
One need no longer be confused by this beautiful theory. Richard Feynman gives an exposition that is once again and by itself a beautiful explanation of the theory of photon-matter interactions. Taken from a popular, non-technical lecture. Cohen-Tannoudji: Quantum Mechanics I & II&, 1977.
Introductory to intermediate. Liboff: Introductory Quantum Mechanics, 2nd ed., 1992
Elementary level. Makes a few mistakes. Sakurai: Advanced Quantum Mechanics 1967
Good as an introduction to the very basic beginnings of quantum field theory, except that it has the unfortunate feature of using "imaginary time" to make Minkowski space look euclidean. Sakurai: Modern Quantum Mechanics, 1985 J. Wheeler and W. Zurek (eds.): Quantum Theory and Measurement, 1983
On the philosophical end. People who want to know about interpretations of quantum mechanics should definitely look at this collection of relevant articles. C. DeWitt and N. Graham: The Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics
Philosophical. Collection of articles. H. Everett: Theory of the Universal Wavefunction
An exposition which has some gems on thermodynamics and probability. Worth reading for this alone. Bjorken and Drell: Relativistic Quantum Mechanics/ Relativistic Quantum Fields
(for comments, see under Particle Physics) Ryder: Quantum Field Theory, 1984 Guidry: Gauge Field Theories: an introduction with applications 1991 Messiah: Quantum Mechanics, 1961 Dirac:
(a) Principles of QM, 4th ed., 1958
(b) Lectures in QM, 1964
(c) Lectures on Quantum Field Theory, 1966 Itzykson and Zuber: Quantum Field Theory, 1980
Advanced level. Slater: Quantum theory: Address, essays, lectures.
Good follow on to Schiff.
Note: Schiff, Bjorken and Drell, Fetter and Walecka, and Slater are all volumes in "International Series in pure and Applied Physics" published by McGraw-Hill. Pierre Ramond: Field Theory: A Modern Primer, 2nd edition. Volume 74 in the FiP series.
The so-called "revised printing" is a must, as they must've rushed the first printing of the 2nd edition because it's full of inexcusable mistakes. Feynman: The Feynman Lectures, Vol. 3
A non-traditional approach. A good place to get an intuitive feel for QM, if one already knows the traditional approach. Heitler & London: Quantum theory of molecules J. Bell: Speakable and Unspeakable in Quantum Mechanics, 1987
An excellent collection of essays on the philosophical aspects of QM. Milonni: The quantum vacuum: an introduction to quantum electrodynamics 1994. Holland: The Quantum Theory of Motion
A good bet for a strong foundation in QM. John von Neumann: Mathematical foundations of quantum mechanics, 1955.
For the more mathematical side of quantum theory, especially for those who are going to be arguing about measurement theory. Schiff: Quantum Mechanics, 3rd ed., 1968
A little old. Not much emphasis on airy-fairy things like many worlds or excessive angst over Heisenberg UP. Straight up QM for people who want to do calculations. Introductory graduate level. Mostly Schrodinger eqn. Spin included, but only in an adjunct to Schrodinger. Not much emphasis on things like Dirac eqn, etc. Eisberg and Resnick: Quantum Physics of Atoms, Molecules, Solids, Nuclei, and Particles, 2nd ed., 1985.
This is a basic intro. to QM, and it is excellent for undergrads. It is not thorough with the mathematics, but fills in a lot of the intuitive stuff that most textbooks do not present. David Saxon: Elementary Quantum Mechanics
A decent undergraduate (senior level) text. Bethe and Jackiw: Intermediate Quantum Mechanics P.W.Atkins: Quanta: A Handbook of concepts
Short entries, arranged alphabetically, emphasis on stuff relevant to quantum chemistry. Concentrates on the intuition and not the mathematics. James Peebles: Quantum Mechanics (1993)
Intermediate level, based on lectures given by the author at Princeton. Very lucid exposition of the standard material with outstanding selection of mostly original problems at the end of each chapter.
Statistical Mechanics and Entropy
David Chandler: Introduction to Modern Statistical Mechanics, 1987
Chandler's book is short, but although its discussions are dressed up as being about physics, you will gain little knowledge of statistical mechanics by reading it. R. Tolman: Prinicples of Statistical Mechanics. Dover Kittel & Kroemer: Statistical Thermodynamics
Not a bad book—but, that said, it has little competition, since good books on statistical mechanics are hard to find. Keith Stowe: An introduction to Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics, 2nd ed., 2007
Stowe has written an excellent book that has plenty of physics and some very good explanations. This is worthwhile to buy as your entry into the subject. His mathematics is sometimes a little short of what you might like to see: for example, he has left a very important calculation to Appendix C, but turns it into something overly complicated there. Stowe's non-postulatory approach to the subject is far more modern and physically valid and meaningful than Callen's outdated experiment of simply postulating everything (see below). F. Reif: Fundamentals of Statistical and Thermal Physics.
Reif's book is well known. You can find much interesting and useful discussion in it, but its mathematics is generally a forest of obscure notation and unnecessary formalism, heavily cluttered by primes and overbars that add nothing. Its topics are not presented in a particularly pedagogical or clear way. Although it's a good book to refer to (once you manage to find what you are looking for), it is not for anyone wanting to learn the subject. It is a very difficult read, even for advanced physicists, on account of its cluttered notation and long discussions that don't always deliver what they promise. Felix Bloch: Fundamentals of Statistical Mechanics. Radu Balescu: Statistical Physics
Graduate Level. Good description of non-equilibrium stat. mech., but difficult to read. It is all there, but often you don't realize it until after you have learned it somewhere else. Nice development in early chapters about parallels between classical and quantum statistical mechanics. Abrikosov, Gorkov, and Dyzaloshinski: Methods of Quantum Field Theory in Statistical Physics Huw Price: Time's Arrow and Archimedes' Point
Semi-popular book on the direction of time, by a philosopher. It has been controversial because of its criticism of physicists such as Hawking, for their "double standards" in dealing with the old problem on the origin of the arrow of time. It is thought provoking and clearly written. H. Callen: Thermodynamics and an Introduction to Thermostatistics, 2nd ed., 1985.
In the preface to this second edition, Callen described his 25-year-old postulatory approach to thermodynamics and statistical mechanics as "now widely accepted". In fact, by the time of his second edition, his approach was completely outdated, because it springs from nineteenth-century ideas of thermodynamics in which concepts such as entropy were not understood. This means that Callen simply postulated the core quantities such as entropy and temperature with essentially no context, and without providing any physical insight or analysis. It might all look streamlined, but his approach will give you no insight into the difficult and interesting questions of the subject. Callen described his approach as rendering the subject transparent and simple; but his approach comes across as obscure. For example, in the early part of the book, he insists on repeatedly writing "1/T 1 = 1/T 2 " for two temperatures that are ascertained to be equal, when anyone else would write "T 1 = T 2 ". And, for what he does write, the devil is often in the details that he tends to leave out. Even at the start, when Callen introduces the concept of work, he fails to say whether he is talking about the work done on the system, or by the system, leaving the reader to work that out for himself from some irrelevant comments about the mechanical work term −P dV. Callen's incorrect renditions of the Taylor expansion in an appendix seem to suggest, rather oddly, that he didn't understand the difference between "dx" and "Δx". His book includes a 20-page postscript in which he makes claims about the role of symmetry in thermodynamics; but, as far as I can tell, this section says nothing useful at all. I suspect that the reason this book is as frequently cited as it is said to be lies in its being used as the basis for a course by many lecturers who never learned the subject themselves, and hence don't realise that the book's approach is outdated. If you really want to learn the subject, use the modern statistical approach, in which entropy is defined to relate to numbers of configurations. As far as readability goes, Callen's writing tends to omit commas; but this can make his sentences tedious to read, since the reader ends up having to make two or three passes to decode what some sentences are saying. (If you use few commas yourself, study a typical sentence in Callen's book: "the intermediate states of the gas are nonequilibrium states for which the enthalpy is not defined". Callen is not singling out a special set of non-equilibrium states here; instead, enthalpy is not defined for any non-equilibrium state. He should have included a single comma, by writing "the intermediate states of the gas are non-equilibrium states, for which the enthalpy is not defined".) R. Pathria: Statistical Mechanics. D. Forster: Hydrodynamic Fluctuations, Broken Symmetry, and Correlation Functions. H. Stanley: Introduction to Phase Transitions and Critical Phenomena. S.K. Ma: Modern Theory of Critical Phenomena. N. Goldenfeld: Lectures on Phase Transitions and the Renormalization Group. J. Sethna: Statistical Mechanics: Entropy, Order Parameters, and Complexity.
Apparently Sethna's book is meant to be teaching statistical mechanics; but this is not an introductory book, and it provides no real insight into statistical mechanics and entropy. (I don't know about its sections on order parameters and complexity.) It is mostly a collection of exercises for the reader, aided by the author's comments. Don't believe everything you read in it; for example, in his exercise 5.7, Sethna misinterprets the meaning of entropy to say, incorrectly, that the entropy of an isolated system remains constant in time. He incorrectly describes our universe as photon dominated on page 160, when in fact it is matter dominated. These and other instances give one the impression that Sethna is not always working in his zone of expertise. His many exercises might have some content, but they can be tedious to read, since new paragraphs are not indented in them.
Condensed Matter
Charles Kittel: Introduction to Solid State Physics (ISSP),
introductory Ashcroft and Mermin: Solid State Physics,
intermediate to advanced Charles Kittel: Quantum Theory of Solids.
This is from before the days of his ISSP; it is a more advanced book. At a similar level. . . Solid State Theory, by W. A. Harrison
(a great bargain now that it's published by Dover) Theory of Solids, by Ziman. Fundamentals of the Theory of Metals, by Abrikosov
Half of the book is on superconductivity. Many-Particle Physics, G. Mahan.
Advanced.
Special Relativity
Taylor and Wheeler: Spacetime Physics Still the best introduction out there. Relativity: Einstein's popular exposition. Wolfgang Rindler: Essential Relativity. Springer 1977
With a heavy bias towards astrophysics and therefore on a more moderate level formally. Quite strong on intuition. A.P. French: Special Relativity
A thorough introductory text. Good discussion of the twin paradox, pole and the barn etc. Plenty of diagrams illustrating Lorentz-transformed coordinates, giving both an algebraic and geometrical insight to SR. (Seems to be out of print) Abraham Pais: Subtle is the Lord: The Science and Life of Albert Einstein
The best technical biography of the life and work of Albert Einstein. Special Relativity and its Experimental Foundations Yuan Zhong Zhang
Special relativity is so well established that its experimental foundation is often ignored. This book fills the gap and will be of relevance to many discussions in sci.physics.relativity
Particle Physics
Kerson Huang: Quarks, leptons & gauge fields, World Scientific, 1982.
Good on mathematical aspects of gauge theory and topology. L. B. Okun: Leptons and quarks, translated from Russian by V. I. Kisin, North-Holland, 1982. T. D. Lee: Particle physics and introduction to field theory. Itzykson: Particle Physics Bjorken & Drell: Relativistic Quantum Mechanics
One of the more terse books. The first volume on relativistic quantum mechanics covers the subject in a blinding 300 pages. Very good if you really want to know the subject. Francis Halzen & Alan D. Martin: Quarks & Leptons,
Beginner to intermediate, this is a standard textbook for graduate level courses. Good knowledge of quantum mechanics and special relativity is assumed. A very good introduction to the concepts of particle physics. Good examples, but not a lot of Feynman diagram calculation. For this, see Bjorken & Drell. Donald H. Perkins: Introduction to high energy physics
Regarded by many people in the field as the best introductory text at the undergraduate level. Covers basically everything with almost no mathematics. Close, Marten, and Sutton: The Particle Explosion
A popular exposition of the history of particle physics with terrific photography. Christine Sutton: Spaceship Neutrino
A good, historical, largely intuitive introduction to particle physics, seen from the neutrino viewpoint. Mandl, Shaw: Quantum Field Theory
Introductory textbook, concise and practically orientated. Used at many graduate departments as a textbook for the first course in QFT and a bare minimum for experimentalists in high energy physics. Chapters on Feynman diagrams and cross-section calculations particularly well written and useful. F.Gross: Relativistic Quantum Mechanics and Field Theory
I am familiar with first part only (rel. QM) which I warmly recommend in conjunction with Mandl, since Klein-Gordon and Dirac Equation are explained in greater detail than in Mandl. One of my professors likes a lot the rest of the book too, but I haven't spent much time on it and can't comment. Published in 1993. S. Weinberg: The Quantum Theory of Fields, Vol I,II, 1995
The usual Weinberg stuff: refreshing, illuminating viewpoints on every page. Perhaps most suitable for graduate students who already know some basics of QFT. M.B. Green, J.H. Schwarz, E. Witten: Superstring Theory (2 vols)
Although these two volumes do not touch the important new developments in string theories, they are still the best texts for the basics. To keep up with this fast developing subject, it is necessary to download the papers and reviews as hep-th e-prints. M. Kaku: Strings, Conformal Fields and Topology
Just a little more up-to-date than GSW. Superstrings: A Theory of Everything, ed. P.C.W. Davies
Through transcripts of interviews with Schwarz, Witten, Green, Gross, Ellis, Salam, Glashow, Feynman, and Weinberg, we learn about string theory, and how different physicists feel about its prospects as a theory of everything. This also predates the new developments that revolutionised string theory after 1993. A Pais: Inward Bound
This can be regarded as a companion volume to his biography of Einstein (see special relativity section). It covers the history of particle physics through the twentieth century, but is best for the earlier half. R.P. Crease, C.C. Mann: The Second Creation 1996
Another history of particle physics in the twentieth century. This one is especially good on the development of the standard model. Full of personal stories taken from numerous interviews, it is difficult to put down. L. Lederman, D. Teresi: The God Particle: If the Universe Is the Answer, What Is the Question? 2006
This book describes the search for the Higgs Boson at Fermilab. It describes what the Higgs is and gives some background to the subject of particle physics. It also gives an account of some more general physics history.
General Relativity
Meisner, Thorne and Wheeler: Gravitation W.H. Freeman & Co., San Francisco 1973
Usually referred to as "MTW". It has two tracks for different levels. A famous work in the subject whose main strength is probably its various asides, historical and otherwise. While it has much interesting reading, it is not a book to learn relativity from: its approach is all over the place, and it pushes gawdy notation which no one actually uses to do anything useful. Robert M. Wald: Space, Time, and Gravity: the Theory of the Big Bang and Black Holes.
A good non-technical introduction, with a nice mix of mathematical rigor and comprehensible physics. B. Schutz: A First Course in General Relativity.
A readable and useful book, to a point. The 1988 edition, at least, unfortunately has a tangled approach to its Lambda index notation that is wrong in places. Schutz goes to great lengths to convince the reader of the usefulness of one-forms, but is clearly unaware that everything he does with them can be done far more simply using vectors alone. Beware the show-stopping typos in the Riemann components for the Schwarzschild metric on page 315. The discussion about Riemann tensor signs on page 171 is also wrong, and will give you wrong results if you apply it. Indeed, that discussion is indicative of a general na�vet� in the book's early mathematics as a whole. Weinberg: Gravitation and Cosmology
A good book that takes a somewhat different approach to the subject. Hans Ohanian: Gravitation & Spacetime (recently back in print)
For someone who actually wants to learn to work problems, ideal for self-teaching, and math is introduced as needed, rather than in a colossal blast. Robert Wald: General Relativity
A more advanced textbook than Wald's earlier book, appropriate for an introductory graduate course in GR. It strikes just the right balance, in my opinion, between mathematical rigor and physical intuition. It has great mathematics appendices for those who care about proving theorems carefully, and a good introduction to the problems behind quantum gravity (although not to their solutions). I think it's MUCH better than either MTW or Weinberg. Clifford Will: Was Einstein Right? Putting General Relativity to the Test
Non-technical account of the experimental support for GR, including the "classic three tests", but going well beyond them. Kip Thorne: Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein's Outrageous Legacy
An award-winning popular account of black holes and related objects with many historical anecdotes from the author's personal experiences. The book is famous for the final sections about time travel through wormholes. Ignore Dirac's small book on lectures in GR, unless you like reading books that have almost no discussion of their mathematical content (and almost no discussion of anything else, either). It's a sure bet that this book was only published because Dirac wrote it.
Mathematical Methods
Morse and Feshbach: Methods of Theoretical Physics. This book used to be hard to find, but can now be bought at feshbachpublishing.com. Mathews and Walker: Mathematical Methods of Physics. An absolute joy for those who love math, and very informative even for those who don't. [This has been severely disputed!--ed] Arfken: Mathematical Methods for Physicists Academic Press
Good introduction at graduate level. Not comprehensive in any area, but covers many areas widely. Arfken is to math methods what numerical recipes is to numerical methods — good intro, but not the last word. Zwillinger: Handbook of Differential Equations. Academic Press
Kind of like CRC tables but for ODEs and PDEs. Good reference book when you've got a differential equation and want to find a solution. Gradshteyn and Ryzhik: Table of Integrals, Series, and Products Academic
THE book of integrals. Huge, but useful when you need an integral. F.W. Byron and R. Fuller: Mathematics of Classical and Quantum Physics (2 vols)
is a really terrific text for self-study; it is like a baby version of Morse & Feshbach.
Nuclear Physics
Preston and Bhaduri: Structure of the Nucleus Blatt and Weisskopf: Theoretical Nuclear Physics DeShalit and Feshbach: Theoretical Nuclear Physics
This is serious stuff. Also quite expensive even in paper. I think the hard cover is out of print. This is volume I (structure). Volume II (scattering) is also available. Satchler: Direct Nuclear Reactions Walecka: Theoretical Nuclear and Subnuclear Physics (1995)
Covers advanced topics in theoretical nuclear physics from a modern perspective and includes results of past 20 years in a field which makes it unique. Not an easy material to read but invaluable for people seeking an updated review of the present status in the field. Krane: Introductory nuclear physics
Introductory-to-intermediate level textbook in basic nuclear physics for senior undergraduates. Good, clear and relatively comprehensive exposition of "standard" material: nuclear models, alfa, beta, gamma radioactivity, nuclear reactions. . . Last edition issued in 1988.
Cosmology
J. V. Narlikar: Introduction to Cosmology.1983 Jones & Bartlett Publ.
For people with a solid background in physics and higher math, THE introductory text, IMHO, because it hits the balance between mathematical accuracy (tensor calculus and stuff) and intuitive clarity/geometrical models very well for grad student level. Of course, it has flaws but only noticeable by the Real Experts (TM). . . Hawking: A Brief History of Time
The ghost-written book that made Popular Science popular, but an odd mixture of easy physics and very advanced physics. Weinberg: First Three Minutes
A very good book. It's pretty old, but most of the information in it is still correct. Timothy Ferris: Coming of Age in the Milky Way and The Whole Shebang
More Popular Science, and very readable. Kolb and Turner: The Early Universe.
At a more advanced level, a standard reference. As the title implies, K&T cover mostly the strange physics of very early times: it's heavy on the particle physics, and skimps on the astrophysics. There's a primer on large-scale structure, which is the most active area of cosmological research, but it's really not all that good. Peebles: Principles of Physical Cosmology. Comprehensive, and on the whole it's quite a good book, but it's rather poorly organized. I find myself jumping back and forth through the book whenever I want to find anything. Black Holes and Warped Spacetime, by William J. Kaufmann III.
This is a great, fairly thorough, though non-mathematical description of black holes and spacetime as it relates to cosmology. I was impressed by how few mistakes Kaufmann makes in simplifying, while most such books tend to sacrifice accuracy for simplicity. M.V. Berry: Principles of Cosmology and Gravitation
This is very well written, and useful as an undergrad text. Dennis Overbye: Lonely Hearts of the Cosmos The unfinished history of converge on Hubble's constant is presented, from the perspective of competing astrophysics rival teams and institute, along with a lot of background on cosmology (a lot on inflation, for instance). A good insight into the scientific process. Joseph Silk: The Big Bang
I consider Silk's book an absolute must for those who want a quick run at the current state of big bang cosmology and some of the recent (1988) issues which have given so many of us lots of problems to solve. [of course that's eons out of date now--ed.] Bubbles, voids, and bumps in time: the new cosmology edited by James Cornell.
This is quite a nice and relatively short read for some of the pressing issues (as of 1987-88) in astrophysical cosmology. T. Padmanabhan: Structure formation in the universe
A no-nonsense book for those who want to calculate some problems strictly related to the formation of structure in the universe. The book even comes complete with problems at the end of each chapter. A bad thing about this book is that there isn't any coverage on clusters of galaxies and the one really big thing that annoys the hell outta me is that the bibliography for each chapter is all combined in one big bibliography towards the end of the book which makes for lots of page flipping. P.J.E. Peebles: The large-scale structure of the universe
This is a definitive book for anyone who desires an understanding of the mathematics required to develop the theory for models of large scale structure. The essential techniques in the description of how mass is able to cluster under gravity from a smooth early universe are discussed. While I find it dry in some places, there are noteworthy sections (e.g. statistical tests, n-point correlation functions, etc.). Andrzej Krasinski: Inhomogeneous Cosmological Models
If you are blinded by the dogma of the cosmological principle, this book is a real eye opener. A technical, historical and bibliographical survey of possible inhomogeous universes from solutions of general relativity. Alan Lightman and Roberta Brawer: Origins: The lives and worlds of modern cosmologists, 1990
Transcripts of interview with 27 of the most influential cosmologists from the past few decades. This book provides a unique record of how their cosmological theories have been formed.
Astronomy
Hannu Karttunen et al. (eds.): Fundamental Astronomy.
The very good book covering all of astronomy (also for absolute beginners) AND still going into a lot of detail for special work for people more involved AND presenting excellent graphics and pictures. Pasachoff: Contemporary Astronomy
Good introductory textbook for the nontechnical reader. It gives a pretty good overview of the important topics, and it has good pictures. Frank Shu: The physical universe: an introduction to astronomy
This is a really grand book, which covers a huge sweep of physics in its 600-odd pages. Not only does it describe the field of astronomy in great detail, but it also covers in detail the laws of classical and quantum mechanics, atrophysics and stellar evolution, cosmology, special and general relativity; and last but not least, the biochemical basis of life. In fact the last few chapters would make a great addition to a biochemist's library! Kenneth R. Lang: Astrophysical formulae: a compendium for the physicist and astrophysicist
Here is everything you wanted to know (and more!) about astrophysical formulae on a one-line/one-paragraph/one-shot deal. Of course, the formulae come complete with references (a tad old, mind you) but it's a must for everyone who's working in astronomy and astrophysics. You learn something new every time you flip through the pages!
Plasma Physics
(See Robert Heeter's sci.physics.fusion FAQ for details)
Numerical Methods/Simulations
Johnson and Rees: Numerical Analysis Addison Wesley
Undergraduate level broad intro. Numerical Recipes in X (X = C, Fortran, Pascal, etc.) Tueklosky and Press Young and Gregory: A survey of Numerical Mathematics Dover 2 volumes.
Excellent overview at grad. level. Emphasis toward solution of elliptic PDEs, but good description of methods to get there including linear algebra, matrix techniques, ODE-solving methods, and interpolation theory. Biggest strength is it provides a coherent framework and structure to attach most commonly used numerical methods. This helps understanding about why to use one method or another. 2 volumes. Hockney and Eastwood: Computer Simulation Using Particles Adam Hilger
Good exposition of particle-in-cell (PIC) method and extensions. Applications to plasmas, astronomy, and solid state are discussed. Emphasis is on description of algorithms. Some results shown. Birdsall and Langdon: Plasma Physics via Computer Simulations
PIC simulation applied to plasmas. Source codes shown. First part is almost a tutorial on how to do PIC. Second part is like a series of review articles on different PIC methods. Tajima: Computational Plasma Physics: With Applications to Fusion and Astrophysics Addison Wesley Frontiers in physics Series.
Algorithms described. Emphasis on physics that can be simulated. Applications limited to plasmas, but subject areas very broad, fusion, cosmology, solar astrophysics, magnetospheric physics, plasma turbulence, general astrophysics.
Fluid Dynamics
D.J. Tritton: Physical Fluid Dynamics G.K. Batchelor: Introduction to Fluid Dynamics S. Chandrasekhar: Hydrodynamics and Hydromagnetic Stability Segel: Mathematics Applied to Continuum Mechanics Dover.
Nonlinear Dynamics, Complexity, and Chaos
There is a FAQ posted regularly to sci.nonlinear. Prigogine: Exploring Complexity
Or any other Prigogine book. If you've read one, you read most of of them (A Poincar� recurrence maybe?). Guckenheimer and Holmes: Nonlinear Oscillations, Dynamical Systems, and Bifurcations of Vector Fields Springer
Borderline phys./math. Advanced level. A nuts-and-bolts "how to" textbook. They let the topic provide all the razzmatazz, which is plenty if you pay attention and remember the physics that it applies to. Lichtenberg, A. J. and M. A. Lieberman (1982): Regular and Stochastic Motion. New York, Springer-Verlag. Ioos and Joseph: Elementary Stability and Bifurcation Theory. New York, Springer. Heinz Pagels: The Dreams Of Reason
He is a very clear and interesting, captivating writer, and presents the concepts in a very intuitive way. The level is popular science, but it is still useful for physicists who know little of complexity. M. Mitchell Waldrop: Complexity
A popular intro to the subject of spontaneous orders, complexity and so on. Covers implications for economics, biology etc and not just physics.
Optics (Classical and Quantum), Lasers
Max Born and Emil Wolf: Principles of Optics: Electromagnetic Theory of Propagation
Standard reference. Sommerfeld:
For the more classically minded. Allen and Eberly: Optical Resonance and Two-Level Atoms.
For quantum optics, the most readable but most limited. Goodman: Introduction to Fourier Optics.
If it isn't in this book, it isn't Fourier optics. Quantum Optics and Electronics (Les Houches Summer School 1963 or 1964, but someone has claimed that Gordon and Breach, NY, are going to republish it in 1995), edited by DeWitt, Blandin, and Cohen- Tannoudji, is noteworthy primarily for Glauber's lectures, that form the basis of quantum optics as it is known today. Sargent, Scully, & Lamb: Laser Physics Yariv: Quantum Electronics Siegman: Lasers Shen: The Principles of Nonlinear Optics Meystre & Sargent: Elements of Quantum Optics Cohen-Tannoudji, Dupont-Roc, & Grynberg: Photons, Atoms and Atom-Photon Interactions. Hecht: Optics
A very good introductory optics book. Practical Holography by Graham Saxby, Prentice Hall: New York; 1988.
This is a very clear and detailed book that is an excellent introduction to holography for interested undergraduate physics people, as well as advanced readers, especially those who are interested in the practical details of making holograms and the theory behind them.
Mathematical Physics
Lie Algebra, Topology, Knot Theory, Tensors, etc.
These are books that are sort of talky and fun to read (but still substantial--some harder than others). These include things mathematicians can read about physics as well as vice versa. These books are different than the "bibles" one must have on hand at all times to do mathematical physics.
Yvonne Choquet-Bruhat, Cecile DeWitt-Morette, and Margaret Dillard-Bleick: Analysis, manifolds, and physics (2 volumes)
Something every mathematical physicist should have at his bedside until he knows it inside and out--but some people say it's not especially easy to read. Jean Dieudonne: A panorama of pure mathematics, as seen by N. Bourbaki, translated by I.G. Macdonald.
Gives the big picture in mathematics. Robert Hermann: Lie groups for physicists, Benjamin-Cummings, 1966. George Mackey: Quantum mechanics from the point of view of the theory of group representations, Mathematical Sciences Research Institute, 1984. George Mackey: Unitary group representations in physics, probability, and number theory. Charles Nash and S. Sen: Topology and geometry for physicists. B. Booss and D.D. Bleecker: Topology and analysis: the Atiyah-Singer index formula and gauge-theoretic physics. Bamberg and S. Sternberg: A Course of Mathematics for Students of Physics Bishop & Goldberg: Tensor Analysis on Manifolds. Dodson & Poston: Tensor Geometry. Abraham, Marsden & Ratiu: Manifolds, Tensor Analysis and Applications. M. Nakahara: Topology, Geometry and Physics. Morandi: The Role of Topology in Classical and Quantum Physics Singer, Thorpe: Lecture Notes on Elementary Topology and Geometry L. Kauffman: Knots and Physics, World Scientific, Singapore, 1991. C. Yang and M. Ge: Braid group, Knot Theory & Statistical Mechanics. D. Kastler: C-algebras and their applications to Statistical Mechanics and Quantum Field Theory. Courant and Hilbert: Methods of Mathematical Physics Wiley
Really a mathematics book in disguise. Emphasis on ODEs and PDEs. Proves existence, etc. Very comprehensive. 2 volumes. Cecille Dewitt is publishing a book on manifolds that should be out soon (maybe already is). Very high level, but supposedly of great importance for anyone needing to set the Feynman path integral in a firm foundation. Howard Georgi: Lie Groups for Particle Phyiscs Addison Wesley Frontiers in Physics Series. Synge and Schild.
Atomic Physics
Max Born: Atomic Physics
A classic, though a little old. Gerhard Herzberg: Atomic spectra and atomic structure, Translated with the co-operation of the author by J. W. T.Spinks. — New York, Dover publications, 1944
Old but good. E. U. Condon and G. H. Shortley: The theory of atomic spectra, CUP 1951 G. K. Woodgate: Elementary atomic structure, 2d ed. Oxford: New York: Clarendon Press, Oxford University Press, 1983, c 1980
Introductory level. Alan Corney: Atomic and laser spectroscopy, Oxford, New York: Clarendon Press, 1977
Excellent,fairly advanced, large experimental bent, but good development of background. Good stuff on lasers (gas, dye)
Low Temperature Physics, Superconductivity
The Theory of Quantum Liquids, by D. Pines and P. Nozieres Superconductivity of Metals and Alloys, P. G. DeGennes A classic introduction. Theory of Superconductivity, J. R. Schrieffer Superconductivity, M. Tinkham Experimental techniques in low-temperature physics, by Guy K. White.
This is considered by many as a "bible" for those working in experimental low-temperature physics.
Thanks to the 30+ contributors who made this compilation possible. | {
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Everyone to have legal right to decent and affordable broadband from March 2020
Everyone in the UK will have the legal right to request a decent and affordable broadband connection from March next year, Ofcom has confirmed.
The communications regulator is implementing the UK Government’s “universal broadband service”, a safety net that will give eligible homes and businesses a legal right to request a decent connection.
Under provisions of the Digital Economy Act 2017, households will be able to request better broadband, capable of delivering download speeds of at least 10 Mbit/s, and upload speeds of at least 1 Mbit/s. These speeds will be reviewed over time.
As of today, 620,000 homes and offices, or two per cent, would benefit from the new scheme, although this number is decreasing as broadband networks are upgraded.
These homes are among the most remote in the UK, or are far away from current broadband networks, which means they currently struggle to get a decent broadband service.
Ofcom has appointed BT and KCOM to provide universal service connections from 20 March 2020.
Lindsey Fussell, Ofcom’s consumer group director, said: “As more of our daily lives move online, bringing better broadband to people and businesses is crucial. From next year, this new broadband safety net will give everyone a legal right to request a decent connection – whether you live in a city or a hamlet. This will be vital for people who are struggling to get the broadband they need.” | {
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In a Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night development update from Koji Igarashi, one catch a glimpse of some very early in-game footage from the upcoming game.
The off-screen footage can be watched above, and you can see Iga and a member of Inti Creates discussing the main character Miriam’s movement, as well as the game’s camera. Siliconera will have an interview with Igarashi on Miriam and how he feels about going indie this week, so look out for that as well.
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is in development for PC, Xbox One, Wii U, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation Vita. | {
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Red-eyed tree frogs mate on a leaf in the rain forest. Note the difference in size and color between the male and female. Photo by Mattias Klum/National Geographic/ Getty Images
Most people learn about the basics of frog reproduction in elementary school. Frogs lay eggs in water, and the eggs hatch into tadpoles that grow into frogs. Only about half of all frogs follow these exact steps, but there are a few rules of thumb about frog reproduction. All frogs reproduce sexually, and all hatch from eggs.
In almost all frogs, egg fertilization happens outside the female's body instead of inside. The female releases her eggs and the male releases his sperm at the same time. In order to make sure that the sperm reach the eggs, the male and female get into a mating posture called amplexus. The male climbs onto the female's back and clasps his forelegs around her middle. Frogs can stay in amplexus for hours or even days as the female releases as few as one or as many as several hundred eggs.
Sometimes, it's easy to tell male frogs from female frogs. Many species are sexually dimorphic, meaning that there are differences between the bodies and colors of males and females. But in some species, males and females are hard to tell apart. In such species, male frogs often produce a release call when clasped by another male. During mating season, researchers can use release calls to tell which frogs are male and which are female.
All frogs' eggs require moisture to develop, and most frogs abandon their eggs once they're fertilized. But not all eggs incubate underwater or without parental care. A few species carry their eggs in their vocal sacs or their abdomens. Others lay eggs in dry areas and keep the eggs moist with water or urine. Depending on the frog's species and the climate in which it typically lives, the eggs can hatch in a few days to a few weeks.
In a few species, fully formed froglets hatch from the eggs, but most of the time the frog starts its life as a tadpole. While adult frogs are carnivores, tadpoles can be vegetarians or omnivores. Some are filter feeders that eat algae, and others have teeth and can eat anything from rotting vegetation to other tadpoles. Either way, tadpoles tend to be voracious eaters -- it takes a lot of energy to complete their metamorphosis into frogs.
" " 2008 HowStuffWorks
Tadpoles that live in temporary rainwater ponds often become frogs in a couple of weeks. The process can take months in species that live in permanent lakes, rivers and ponds. But most of the time, the transformation follows the same basic steps. First, the back legs begin to grow. Then, as the front legs are forming, the tadpole's internal organs began to change. It develops a pair of lungs so it will be able to breathe air, and its digestive system changes to accommodate its adult diet. The tail gradually disappears as it's absorbed into the body. When the froglet is ready to live on land, it usually has a little bit of tail left, but that gradually disappears.
Frog eggs and tadpoles are food for fish, birds and other animals, so most eggs don't survive to adulthood. Adult frogs have several enemies as well, including those that are microscopic. Next, we'll look at some of the threats to frogs' survival and how the absence of frogs could affect human life. | {
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Update: I’m starting to work through the comments section and respond here.
For several years, a lot of my friends have been telling me I had an inconsistent and unsustainable philosophy. “A virtue ethicist atheist whose transhumanism seems to be rooted in dualism? Who won’t shut up about moral lapses as wounds to the soul and keeps trying to convince us it’s better to be sinned against than sinning? Who has started talking about mortifying her pride and keeps pulling out Lewis and Chesterton quotes? C’mon, convert already.”
I could see where they were coming from, but I stayed put. I was ready to admit that there were parts of Christianity and Catholicism that seemed like a pretty good match for the bits of my moral system that I was most sure of, while meanwhile my own philosophy was pretty kludged together and not particularly satisfactory. But I couldn’t pick consistency over my construction project as long as I didn’t believe it was true.
While I kept working, I tried to keep my eyes open for ways I could test which world I was in, but a lot of the evidence for Christianity was only compelling to me if I at least presupposed Deism. Meanwhile, on the other side, I kept running into moral philosophers who seemed really helpful, until I discovered that their study of virtue ethics has led them to take a tumble into the Tiber. (I’m looking at you, MacIntyre!).
Then, the night before Palm Sunday (I have excellent liturgical timing), I was up at my alma mater for an alumni debate. I had another round of translating a lot of principles out of Catholic in order to use them in my speech, which prompted the now traditional heckling from my friends. After the debate, I buttonholed a Christian friend for another argument. During the discussion, he prodded me on where I thought moral law came from in my metaphysics. I talked about morality as though it were some kind of Platonic form, remote from the plane that humans existed on. He wanted to know where the connection was.
I could hypothesize how a Forms-material world link would work in the case of mathematics (a little long and off topic for this post, but pretty much the canonical idea of recognizing Two-ness as the quality that’s shared by two chairs and two houses, etc. Once you get the natural numbers, the rest of mathematics is in your grasp). But I didn’t have an analogue for how humans got bootstrap up to get even a partial understanding of objective moral law.
I’ve heard some explanations that try to bake morality into the natural world by reaching for evolutionary psychology. They argue that moral dispositions are evolutionarily triumphant over selfishness, or they talk about group selection, or something else. Usually, these proposed solutions radically misunderstand a) evolution b) moral philosophy or c) both. I didn’t think the answer was there. My friend pressed me to stop beating up on other people’s explanations and offer one of my own.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I’ve got bupkis.”
“Your best guess.”
“I haven’t got one.”
“You must have some idea.”
“I don’t know. I’ve got nothing. I guess Morality just loves me or something.”
“…”
“Ok, ok, yes, I heard what I just said. Give me a second and let me decide if I believe it.”
It turns out I did.
I believed that the Moral Law wasn’t just a Platonic truth, abstract and distant. It turns out I actually believed it was some kind of Person, as well as Truth. And there was one religion that seemed like the most promising way to reach back to that living Truth. I asked my friend what he suggest we do now, and we prayed the night office of the Liturgy of the Hours together (I’ve kept up with that since). Then I suggested hugs and playing Mumford and Sons really, really loudly.
After I changed my mind, I decided to take a little time to make sure I really believed what I thought I believed, before telling my friends, family, and, now, all of you. That left me with the question of what to do about my atheism blog. My solution was to just not write anything I disagreed with. Enough of my friends had accused me of writing in a crypto-Catholic style that I figured no one would notice if I were actually crypto-Catholic for a month and a half (i.e. everything from “Upon this ROC…” on) . That means you already have a bit of a preview of what has and hasn’t changed. I’m still confused about the Church’s teachings on homosexuality, I still need to do a lot of work to accept gifts graciously, and I still love steam engines.
Starting tomorrow, this blog is moving to the the Patheos Catholic channel (the url and RSS will remain unchanged). Meanwhile, I’m in RCIA classes at a DC parish, so you can look forward to more Parsing Catholicism tags (and after the discussion of universalism we had last week, I think it will be prudent to add a “Possibly Heretical” category).
This post isn’t the final word on my conversion. I’m sure there’s a lot more explaining and arguing to do, so be a little charitable in your read of this post and try to give me a little time to expand my ideas over the next few weeks. (Based on my in-person arguments to date, it seems like most of my atheist friends disagree two or three steps back from my deciding Morality is actually God. They usually diverge back around the bit where I assert morality, like math, is objective and independent of humans. As one of my friends said, “Well, I guess if I were a weird quasi-Platonist virtue ethicist, this would probably convince me”).
And how am I doing? Well, I’m baking now (cracking eggs is pretty much the least gnostic thing I can do, since it’s so, so disgusting to touch, and putting effort into food as more than the ransom my body demands for continued function is the second least gnostic). I’ve been using the Liturgy of the Hours and St. Patrick’s Breastplate for most of my prayer attempts. and, over all, I feel a bit like Valentine in this speech from Arcadia. | {
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WASHINGTON — Two top veterans of President Obama's campaigns are asking political campaigners to pay $5,000 per person for the chance to learn their secrets and then work for five weeks in an unpaid campaign job somewhere in America.
Democratic operatives and progressive activists are questioning this training program launched by Obama campaign architects Mitch Stewart and Jeremy Bird. The $5,000 program promises access to the wizardry of Obama's presidential bids — and a five-week, unpaid gig on an "important Democratic campaign."
Run by Bird and Stewart's consulting company, 270 Strategies, the new program's emphasis on placing paying customers in essentially volunteer roles on Democratic campaigns is atypical in the campaign training industry, and some Democrats say it sets a dangerous precedent. The firm's first-ever "270/360 Training Intensive" program is scheduled to begin in September.
The program's website describes a six-week program, consisting of five days of "intensive" campaign training at 270's Chicago HQ featuring Stewart and Bird and other "architects of the 2008 and 2012 Obama campaigns," followed by five weeks of volunteer work on an "an important Democratic campaign in the United States."
The cost for the five-day training with Bird and Stewart is $3,500. It costs $1,500 more if a student wants the five weeks of work experience. Critics say those costs are way above the market rate for campaign trainings.
"It's deeply concerning that leaders in our party are launching a 'pay to play' system for would-be campaign staff," said a Democratic campaign veteran. "As Democrats, we should be working together to eliminate workforce barriers — such as unpaid internships — rather starting programs that further discourage participation in electoral work."
The firm says it's offering a new kind of campaign training with a special emphasis on training political organizers from around the world, who can then return to run campaigns in their home countries with skills honed by team that helped Obama win twice. Lynda Tran, 270's top communications strategist, said that the $5,000 fee would not be paid by all participants.
"We are offering full scholarships and discounts to participants on a case-by-case basis," she said.
Tran said 270 is trying to think beyond the domestic political market with its training.
"Our vision for the 270/360 Training Intensive is to share best practices we've learned across grassroots organizing, digital strategies, data analytics, and communications with would-be campaigners from around the world. We've designed a program that will deliver value for campaign organizers whether they are able to join us for the five-day skills-building session in Chicago or as part of the full six-week program with its corresponding hands-on application and ongoing professional mentorship and development," she said. "Our hope is that the organizers who take part in the program will take the lessons they learn back to their communities and apply them in a way that helps change the world for the better."
Much of what the company is offering sounds similar to existing campaign training programs that usually have little or no upfront cost.
Immersive campaign trainings have been a staple of Democratic politics for decades. Near the end of every cycle, a visit to a campaign headquarters can find sometimes dozens of volunteers working for little or no money as part of a training experience run by progressive allies like labor unions, Democratic campaign committees, or independent consulting firms. The programs benefit participants by giving them a small stipend, a valuable credential for their resumes, and access to a network of operatives that is the lifeblood of a career behind the scenes in politics. The campaigns get free or cheap labor, and the trainers get to build an army of experienced organizers to use on issue advocacy fights and other political efforts. The system is a win-win-win, say Democrats on all sides of the campaign training experience.
270's emphasis on foreign students is outside the norm for campaign trainings, which generally focus on building a domestic progressive political workforce trained in everything from managing a campaign budget to creating a walk list for door knockers to dealing with the media after a candidate's gaffe. What's not different is the work experience 270 is offering.
Participants will work on GOTV efforts for their assigned campaigns, according to the 360 program FAQ on 270's website. That includes making phone calls, knocking on doors, and online campaign efforts. This is the grunt work that wins campaigns; it's also the standard task for immersion trainees.
To Mikey Franklin, a former progressive field staffer who's now trying to end the D.C. practice of unpaid internships, asking people to pay to to volunteer goes against progressive values.
"It's a basic principle that people should work for pay; they shouldn't pay to work," Franklin said. "It's shameful that 270 Strategies are throwing their progressive values out of the window by charging $5,000 for a 5-day training and an unpaid internship. How will we win for the 99% if we only recruit from the 1%?"
Democratic political training professionals weren't as tough on 270, though they all noted that trainees could get just about the same experience as 270 is offering for no money or even a little cash in their pocket on Election Day. What 270 has that no one else does is Bird and Stewart, who are two of the best in the business. Democratic training professionals were quick to praise what a student could learn from them.
"I don't think think there's any question that a person who matriculated in their program would have made a worthwhile investment," said Robert Creamer, general consultant for the Chicago-based firm Democracy Partners and a godfather of the modern Democratic campaign training system. "Can you get a similar experience in a situation where you didn't part with that much money? Probably."
Creamer's firm also conducts immersive trainings; trainees are not asked to pay to work on campaigns.
"The pitch is if you want to come work your ass off for the x number of weeks then we'll give you the best training you can get," he said.
A top official at another prominent progressive campaign training firm said 270 shouldn't be running the program at that cost.
"The idea of paying to be a volunteer, I don't entirely understand why they thought that was the best approach," the official said. "I think it's a terrible idea."
Progressives and Democrats are talking about 270's training program, the official said, and they're not speaking highly of it.
"The chatter is, 'I don't think that's a great approach,'" the official said, dryly.
There is a variant of Democratic campaign training without the immersion component that costs money to attend. It's similar to the five-day experience 270 is offering, and it's another staple of professional development for Democratic political operatives. Costs are typically born by a student's employer — as would likely be the case with some 270 trainees, as well — or paid by a sponsor, like a labor union or issue advocacy group. Students are often paid by their employers while they're away on trainings, too, which means 270 students could still be getting compensation while they're working for a campaign, but they won't be getting it from the campaign or 270. That's not typical, professionals say.
Several campaign training professionals contacted by BuzzFeed this week said the costs of non-immersive programs were typically well below the $3,500 that 270 strategies is charging.
Midwest Academy, a prominent progressive training outfit that specializes in issue campaigns, is offering a five-day "Organizing for Social Change" program in Chicago next month. The cost ranges from $850 for students who can commute to $1,200 for those looking for six nights of lodging in a "private room."
Midwest Academy also runs immersion training programs. The group pays its immersion trainees, a top official said, so it can expand the progressive workforce beyond those with enough resources to give away five weeks for free.
"At Midwest Academy we think it's very important to pay people as we train them because it's important to get people who can't afford to get into the field," said Judy Hertz, executive director at the academy.
"We feel pretty strongly about paying people," she added. | {
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During their bilateral meetings in Washington, D.C. this week, President Obama and UK Prime Minister David Cameron have agreed to further strengthen and deepen the cybersecurity cooperation between their two countries, with a range of collaborative cyber-initiatives that include staging “war games” to test bank readiness.
The news comes in the wake of Obama unveiling a sweeping proposal on data breaches, hacking and information sharing; and after Cameron caused a stir by advocating a prohibition on encrypted communications.
Both world leaders addressed the surveillance piece during a joint press conference from the White House’s Oval Office on Friday, with Cameron reiterating the need to be able to intercept suspected terrorist communications (only in extremis and only with a warrant signed by the Home Office secretary).
Obama took a more lukewarm tactic, noting only the need to balance privacy needs with the US’s “ability to operate in cyberspace” with a rational, consistent framework. He also noted the role of tech companies, who would be called upon to establish back doors into customer accounts if governments were allowed to snoop inside encrypted communications. Businesses would need to be able to fulfill their pledges to their customers, Obama noted.
As far as the war games, the initial joint exercise will focus on the financial sector, with a program running over the coming year. The first war game of the set will target the City of London and Wall Street, and involve the Bank of England and commercial banks, which will be followed by "further exercises to test critical national infrastructure,” according to Downing Street.
The UK’s GCHQ and MI5 meanwhile will work with the US National Security Agency and the FBI to create “a joint cyber cell,” with an operating presence in each country. The cell will have colocated staff from each agency.
“[We] agree that the cyber-threat is one of the most serious economic and national security challenges that our nations face,” the White House said, in a statement. “Every day, foreign governments, criminals and hackers are attempting to probe, intrude into and attack government and private sector systems in both of our countries.”
In their joint statement on cybersecurity, both leaders agreed overall to bolster efforts to enhance the cybersecurity of critical infrastructure in both countries, strengthen threat information sharing and intelligence cooperation on cyber issues, and support new educational exchanges between U.S. and British cybersecurity scholars and researchers.
For instance, the two agreed to work with industry to promote and align their cybersecurity best practices and standards, including the US Cybersecurity Framework and the United Kingdom’s Cyber Essentials scheme. Meanwhile, the US Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) and CERT-UK will collaborate on computer network defense and sharing information to address cyber-threats and manage cyber-incidents.
The two governments have also agreed to provide funding to support a new Fulbright Cyber Security Award, offering the ability to conduct cybersecurity research for up to six months. The first cohort is expected to start in the 2016-17 academic year, and the U.S.-UK Fulbright Commission will seek applications for this cohort later this year.
And also on the academic front, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (located in Cambridge, MA) has invited the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom to take part in a “Cambridge vs. Cambridge” cybersecurity contest.
“This competition is intended to be the first of many international university cybersecurity competitions,” the White House said. “The aim is to enhance cybersecurity research at the highest academic level within both countries to bolster our cyber defenses.” | {
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Hours after the gun attack at their offices, Libération’s website suffered what it called a malicious "denial of service" attack, which blocked access to the site. The daily announced that the service was up and running again by mid-afternoon. It is not known if there was any link between this morning’s shooting and the cyber attack. | {
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Since its creation in 2002, Scion has relied heavily on other brands’ hand-me-downs. The original Scion lineup, the xA and xB, consisted of a pair of rebadged, Japanese-market Toyotas. The Scion FR-S sports car was developed largely by Subaru. Now, Toyota’s junior brand is bringing Mazda into the fold to supply the first Scion sedan. The 2016 Scion iA is based on the Mazda 2 (and is the only way U.S. buyers can get their hands on that car, which Mazda is not offering here).
It’s easy to be dismissive of a carmaker that doesn’t actually make its own cars, but it’s difficult to fault Scion for this particular move. The Scion iA is likely far better to drive than anything Toyota would have built to take its place.
View Photos MICHAEL SIMARI
A Frightful Face, A Beautiful Drive
You just have to get past that face. The iA’s unfortunate, graft-on mug was seemingly designed without seeing the rest of the car and stands out as its single unlovable attribute. Try approaching the car from the rear or staring at your smartphone as you walk through the parking lot; you don’t want to color your opinion with a bad first impression.
Smoother and quieter than Mazda’s larger four-cylinder engines, the 1.5-liter in the iA spins happily to redline, although you’ll have to shift by sound, as the chintzy digital tachometer is too small to read and washes out in sunlight. With just 106 horsepower onboard, the iA needs a full nine seconds to reach 60 mph. Consequently, we drove everywhere with the gas pedal flat, lifting only to kick in the perfectly weighted clutch pedal and shift the sweet six-speed manual gearbox. This may sound like the definition of a penalty box, but actually, driving the iA hard is a riot.
Budget tires mean the iA managed only so-so braking performance and cornering grip in our testing. On the road, though, this Scion moves with characteristic Mazda traits that are present in everything from the CX-5 crossover to the MX-5 Miata roadster. You’ll know it by qualities like the accurate steering, controlled handling, and graceful ride quality. On top of that, the Scion is exceptionally quiet, especially in this class where automakers are typically too focused on weight and cost to install any more than the minimum of sound-deadening material. Our observed fuel economy of 32 mpg topped the EPA city rating by 1 mpg, an admirable performance given how hard we worked the engine.
View Photos MICHAEL SIMARI
One Trim Level, One Option
While Mazda deserves kudos for how the car drives, Scion earns credit for selling the iA in a single, value-packed spec that includes all of the equipment buyers expect in a new car. For $16,495, the iA comes with push-button ignition, a backup camera, cruise control, USB and auxiliary audio inputs, Bluetooth, and a seven-inch touch screen that can also be controlled via the knob in the center console. The single factory option is an $1100 six-speed automatic transmission, while add-ons such as a $419 SD card loaded with navigation software are purchased and installed directly through Scion dealers.
Aside from unique seat fabric, the graphics on the speedometer face, and the badge on the steering wheel, the iA’s interior is almost indistinguishable from that of the comparison-test-winning Mazda CX-3 crossover. That means it’s attractive, functional, and comfortable. If it’s space you care about, though, there are better choices. The Honda Fit hatchback handily routs the iA, its subcompact peers, and many cars in larger classes when it comes to rear-seat legroom and cargo hauling. If you’re looking for the biggest car you can afford on a subcompact budget, the Fit is still the car to buy.
If you don’t intend to use the rear seats regularly, the Scion iA sits at the top of its class. The iA is quiet, comfortable, and engaging, all for a great price. It’s an affordable car that never feels cheap. That shouldn’t come as a surprise, though. Mazda’s recent work has created a full family of vehicles that are both fun to drive and easy to live with. It was shrewd of Scion to adopt this Mazda into its brand.
This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io | {
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El general director de Carabineros, Hermes Soto, confirmó que dieron de baja a dos funcionarios de la institución que estarían vinculados a una banda dedicada a robos a empresas en la región Metropolitana.
Las diligencias que está desarrollando la Brigada de Robos Metropolitana de la Policía de Investigaciones, en conjunto con el Ministerio Público, terminaron con la detención de ambos funcionarios que trabajaban en la 16° Comisaría de La Reina. Además, se logró el arresto de otras dos personas que estarían implicadas en los delitos de cohecho y receptación.
De acuerdo a información policial, la banda tenía el apoyo de funcionarios de Carabineros en trabajos de cobertura y protección con vehículos de la institución mientras se realizaban estos delitos.
Hasta el momento se desconoce si cuando fueron cometidos estos delito los funcionarios se encontraban trabajando en la comisaría o eran de otra unidad policial y, de acuerdo a información preliminar, habrían participado en cerca de seis ilícitos a diferentes empresas ubicadas en las comunas de Independencia y Recoleta.
Tanto la Policía de Investigaciones como el Ministerio Público continúan desarrollando operativos y diligencias para poder esclarecer el caso y ver si ambos funcionarios dados de baja de Carabineros estarían involucrados en otros ilícitos.
Los detenidos serán puestos a disposición del 13° Juzgado de Garantía de Santiago para su control de detención y formalización. | {
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Taste of Michigan: Why Frankenmuth serves 850 tons of chicken a year
FRANKENMUTH – Here, in a town founded along the Cass River by German missionaries in 1845, visitors can guzzle dark German beer and feast on sauerbraten and schnitzel served by waiters in lederhosen.
But, for roughly a century, chicken has been king.
Frankenmuth's famous family-style chicken dinners — with side dishes served in their own bowls for everyone at the table to heap onto their own plates, just like Mom would do — were first promoted at the old Fischer's Hotel, which was built in 1888.
READ MORE:
The history of Zehnder's Restaurant
History of the Bavarian Inn Restaurant
The history of Frankenmuth
Today, somewhere around 850 tons of chicken are served at two restaurants sitting on opposite corners of Main Street, where two clans of the Zehnder family maintain chicken recipes similar to those first served at the Fischer a century ago.
"It's a long tradition of serving generation after generation, year after year," said Al Zehnder, CEO of Zehnder's Restaurant on the west side of Main, on the site of the former New Exchange Hotel, Frankenmuth's first restaurant. "So, I think what our guests know is that when they come here, they're going to get the same level of food and service that they're accustomed to."
"The method of preparation is very similar, but my dad used to have a saying that 'we need to stay efficiently old-fashioned,'" said Bill Zehnder, Al's cousin and president of the Bavarian Inn Restaurant on the east side of Main, the site of the old Fischer's.
On both sides of Main, a whole chicken is parboiled, then cut into 10 pieces. Each piece coated in a light breading.
"Our breaded chicken is not a heavy batter like a lot of fried chicken is," Bill Zehnder said. "You go to a lot of restaurants and you can hardly find any meat, there's so much breading on it."
When the chicken is ordered, the breaded pieces are fried for a short time and then served up hot with heaping sides of mashed potatoes, buttered noodles, vegetables and stollen with cranberry relish.
There are only slight differences in recipes at either restaurant, Al Zehnder said, and "I'll leave who has the best up to our guests."
One major difference: At the Bavarian Inn, "we've still got Mom," Bill Zehnder said.
William and Emilie Zehnder bought the Exchange in 1928, selling 80 acres of farmland to do so. In 1950, their son, Tiny, and his wife, Dorothy, bought the old Fischer's. Dorothy Zehnder, Bill's mom, celebrated her 96th birthday on Dec. 1 and still works at the restaurant six days a week, "watching the food quality and maintaining the standards we established," Bill Zehnder said.
The famous family-style chicken dinners are part of an overall, immersive experience. At the Bavarian Inn, which was remodeled to express Frankenmuth's German heritage in 1959, waiters and waitresses dress in traditional German garb. At Zehnder's, remodeled 30 years earlier to model George Washington's home in Mount Vernon, the staff dress in traditional American colonial costumes.
"It's a whole experience; it's not just the food," Al Zehnder said. "It's remembering that you were here when you were a little kid with your mom and your dad or your grandma and grandpa."
Contact Justin A. Hinkley at (517) 377-1195 or [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @JustinHinkley. Sign up for his email newsletter, SoM Weekly, at on.lsj.com/somsignup. | {
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「HSPプログラムコンテスト2015」に応募いただきありがとうございます。 おかげさまで、多くの作品エントリーを受け付け盛況のまま締め切ることができました。 コンテスト審査の結果、以下の61作品を入賞作品として選考致しました。 コンテストに参加いただいた作者の皆様、協賛企業様、そして応援してくれた皆様、本当にありがとうございました。 これからも、引き続きHSPとそのコミュニティをご支援いただければ嬉しいです。
受賞された作者の方々には、メールにてご連絡をさせて頂きます。その際に掲載された内容についてご確認下さい。 12月3日になっても連絡を受け取っていない入賞者の方は、コンテスト事務局までメールにてご一報くださるようお願い致します。
2015年12月1日 HSPプログラムコンテスト2015 実行委員会
以下の人に、ネット審査員として勢力的に多くの作品を評価したことを称え、ネット審査員特別賞を送ります。ネット審査員特別賞は、参加賞の他ささやかな副賞が贈られます。また、評価を行なったすべてのネット審査員には、コンテスト参加賞が贈られます。ネット審査員登録を行なった方は、送付先住所を忘れずに登録するようお願い致します。
総評
今年も素晴らしい作品がたくさん集まりました。
熟練の高度な作品が並ぶ中、初心者の情熱を感じられる作品もたくさんありました。
自由な場としてのHSPが機能しているということで、HSPファンとしてとても嬉しいです。
現在、プチコンやunityなど新時代のプログラム環境がいろいろあるので、そちらに移るという人もいるでしょう。
それぞれの環境には特徴があるので、自分の目的や感性に合わせて開発環境を選べばいいと思います。
HSPには馴染みの定食屋みたいな顔して、導入しやすい開発環境として末長く存在していてほしいので、今後とも応援宜しくお願いします。
参加、応援ありがとうございました。
審査員 うすあじ
毎年似たようなコメントをしている気がするのですが、なんでこうも毎年フレッシュな思いを感じさせてくれるのか、 感動を禁じ得ません。HSPをライフワークとして伝道してきた身としては嬉しいかぎりですが、 そんな我々審査員のほうも既に十年以上もコンテストを続けてきており、それなりに枯れてきているというのに、 今年もまた新しい楽しさを教えてくれる作品が多々登場してくれました。
趣味的なもの、革新的なもの、怖いもの知らずの若さあふれる素敵な作品など、いずれも情熱の伝わる作品の数々、 人のアイデアというのはホントに尽きることのない、すごい、素晴らしいものなんだと再認識させられました。
ここは「ユー、あと十年はやっちゃいなよ！」と宣言しておきましょう！そいじゃまた！アディオス！
審査員 悠黒 喧史
全体的にクオリティが高いものが多く、コンテストのレベルがより高くなっているように感じました。
特に、グラフィックや画面演出にこだわりを感じられる作品が増えている印象を受けました。
ゲーム操作の楽しさだけではなく、視覚からも楽しいと思える作品や独特な雰囲気を持つ作品は、 その世界観に深く踏み込んでいきたくなる魅力を感じます。
また、アクションやRPGなどの戦闘が入る作品は、戦闘システムに他とはひと味違う要素が加わっているものが多く刺激になりました。
「この作品でしかこれを味わえない！」と高揚する気持ちや操作感は、 作品の特徴であり強みになります。
今回はこのような感覚が何度もあり、その機会を頂けたことを嬉しく思います。
これからも素敵な作品に出会えることを楽しみにしています。
協賛社 ふりーむ！様
10年以上コンテストを続けているためか、「まだ小さかった頃に参加したことがあります」とか「何年も前に入賞しました」という方に声を掛けてもらえることが増えてきました。
コンテストに応募して頂いた方だけでなく、応募したいと思っていたけれど完成しなかった人、作品を人に見せる勇気が持てずにやめてしまった人、色々な方がいたのではないかと思っています。
コンテストは、そういった「何かに挑戦する」という自分との戦いの場でもあります。時間が経って後で振り返った時に、そういった挑戦がきっと自身の経験として役立つ日が来ることを願っています。
プログラミングの技術や、ゲームやツールを完成させる力はなかなかすぐに鍛えられるものではありません。
応募された作品は、どれも個性とアイデア、そして努力がつまっていると考えています。その中でも、限られた数ではありますが、審査員の目にとまった作品に心から賞賛を贈りたいと思います。
参加者の皆さんには、これからも作品を作り続けていって欲しいと願っています。 コンテスト、HSPともども、これからも宜しくお願い致します。本当にありがとうございました。
審査員 おにたま | {
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More than one million hectares of woodland hit by fires in Siberian Krasnoyarsk region
MOSCOW, July 30. /TASS/. /TASS/. Firefighters are combatting over 130 wildfires blazing on the territory of nearly 96,500 hectares in Russian regions, the press service of the Russian Emergencies Ministry said on Tuesday.
"As of 12am on 30 July 2019, active firefighting efforts are underway combatting 137 forest fires reported on the territory of 96,445 hectares, including 58 wildfires in forests on the territory of 71,836 hectares in the Irkutsk region and 36 wildfires in forests on the territory of 19,552 hectares in the Krasnoyarsk region," the press service said.
Over 2,800 people and 363 units of equipment are involved in extinguishing forest fires.
The Aerial Forest Protection Service said that 328 wildfires swept through 2,7 mln hectares in hardly accessible areas.
The state of emergency over wildfires was declared in the Krasnoyarsk and Irkutsk regions, as well as in parts of the Buryatia and Yakutia regions. | {
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Osama bin Laden was a US agent, who perished long before the raid in Abbottabad three years ago. Malala Yousafzai is also an American agent. Most of the country’s troubles and travails are, in fact, not homegrown, but the result of an omnipotent Jewish lobby — also known as a yahoodi saazish. And if it’s not the Jews stirring up trouble, it must be the Indians.
Here in Pakistan, we love our conspiracy theories. Bored of mundane explanations for the country’s problems, such as mismanagement, poor governance and political instability, we eagerly come up with alternative theories to keep things exciting — and, more often than not, the media also joins the conspiracy chorus.
What has been the wildest conspiracy theory pertaining to Pakistan? Herald invited a number of writers, commentators and intellectuals to sound off on the question.
The almighty USA had bombed the area between Kaghan and Kashmir to capture Osama Bin Laden, causing an earthquake in the process
Supporters of Jamiat Ulama-e-Islam burn an American flag to condemn the killing of Osama bin Laden, in Kuchlak | AP
I heard the mother of all conspiracy theories in November 2005, a month after the earthquake. I was forced into visiting a family, where the husband worked for the government in some mid-level job. While the women got talking, the man leaned over, sly smile and jogging eyebrows, to conspiratorially ask me what I thought of the earthquake. “Bhonchal baray ki khyal ae fer?”
The demeanour left me reeling. Why, a hundred thousand innocent souls had perished, property worth billions destroyed and he thought it was some trivial absurdity. Seeing my reaction, he condescendingly informed me that he knew the reality from a ‘respectable’ Urdu paper.
The story was OBL’s extermination in his hideout somewhere between Kashmir and Kaghan. Why, I had to be stupid and ignorant if I did not know that almighty USA had bombed the area to get the man! The bomb was one humongous meanie that bored deep into the ground before blowing itself up. Hence the earthquake.
But here was the twist. The Indians said they would only permit the scheme to go through if no damage was caused on their side of the border. That was a cinch for almighty USA. Why, they had just the kind of bombs that could guide destruction in any programmed direction and the Indians had nothing to worry about.
The Americans sent their invisible fleet of jets with their gopher arsenal that burrowed right under the mountains and detonated under OBL’s bed, even as the man was preparing to rise for the dawn prayer. For good measure and in order to teach Pakistan a sound lesson for harbouring a terrorist even as we pretended to be a US ally, it was ensured that a goodly portion of the rest of the country got plastered as well.
The man who believed this story was 59. I think he also believed in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy.
By Salman Rashid, travel writer and fellow of Royal Geographical Society
The US is behind all terror attacks in Pakistan
Supporters of Jamaat-e-Islami chant slogans during an anti American rally in Abbottabad | AP
Sunshine bores the daylights out of folk in Pakistan, particularly our quaint Islamabad — city of the faithful, where faith means believing in things even when common sense suggests otherwise. In this capital of rumors and allusions, we’ve learned to understand political phenomena mostly in terms of conspiracy. And sure, a little intrigue never hurt anyone. But can we afford to chase after shadows when real monsters haunt the land?
My favourite theory: The Taliban are secretly working for the US; or another version of the same theory: That the US is behind all terror attacks in Pakistan.
This theory makes me feel sorry for the conspiracy theorist and even more so for the Taliban. A majority of those who defend this theory – that the Taliban are in cahoots with the US – are also the same people you will hear championing the Taliban as the great guardians of Islam each time they execute a successful attack against a US target. Which also makes the US – this so-called sponsor of attacks on itself – a champion of Islam.
It’s a shame because I don’t think the conspiracy theorists intended to make this point. It’s our fault for making the connection.
The worst part is that this theory completely undermines the hard work and planning the Taliban put into each attack. How frustrated must they feel when they carry out spectacular assaults and everyone turns around and says the US must be behind them? It’s unfair, dammit.
On a serious note, I have my own conspiracy theory about why Pakistanis love conspiracies: When secrecy is part of the very system of government, when all you have are the shreds of ‘truth’ that you get from your elected representatives, military officials and the media, sometimes you can’t help but buy the cuckoo explanation or reach the wacky conclusion. Simply put, rationality is much more likely to thrive in a space of better information.
By Mehreen Zahra-Malik, Pakistan correspondent for Reuters
The real Ajmal Kasab, despite a public hanging, is still alive
A man reads a newspaper about the legal process over the Mumbai attacks, in Kolkata | AFP
I came across a Facebook page one day stating that a certain Ajmal Kasab was an entirely different person to the one shown in captivity by Indian law enforcement. It also said that the real Kasab, despite an unfortunate public hanging, was very much alive and well.
This wasn’t overly surprising, after all, there used to be a Facebook page dedicated to the idea that Hitler was still living in some Italian monastery as a nun.
But this page claimed to have proof.
There were photos. It was hard to tell from them whether the man’s name was Ajmal Kasab or not, as it was hard to tell whether the man was from Faridkot, Okara, or even Pakistan. But, at least, there were photos, which bore no resemblance to the alleged Kasab who died in India, just like the other seven billion or so people on this earth that bore no resemblance to him.
But wait! There was more. The page, lovingly devoted to exposing the treacheries of ‘Jew TV’, also claimed that the entire drama had been staged by RAW agents, on the payroll of CIA, who had bribed Pakistani news channels to create a false background for Kasab, and had paid then interior minister Rehman Malik to allege that he had received training from Lashkar-e-Taiba.
Kasab I mean, not the minister, who sounds like he’s never received any kind of training in his life. Well I read the page, had a good chuckle, left the obligatory ‘Helo brothers, myself am actually Ajmal Kasab but have to change the name becaus RAW is behind me’ comment, and moved on with my life. Fast forward to earlier this May when I read about a school teacher from Okara claiming, in a court of law, to have met the real and presumably still living Ajmal Kasab only a few days prior to giving his testimony. He was providing testimony in the trial of the nine Lashkar-e-Taiba members allegedly involved in planning the Mumbai attacks, and had previously testified to not knowing Kasab at all, in addition to saying he’d been threatened for siding with the prosecution.
Still, one spark is all that’s needed to rekindle a fire. I think I’ll stop browsing Facebook for a while.
By Haseeb Asif, Lahore-based writer
Believing that there are no conspiracies
US national and CIA contractor Raymond Davis | AP
Worse than the conspiracy theories themselves is how many of them have actually been proven (even partially) correct. Take the whole ‘polio vaccinators are spies’ one for example. Well, guess what? It turned out that the CIA, true to form, actually were using such covers for its extensive spying program. It has now promised not to do so again, which means that they’ll probably move onto bigger and better cover identities.
Then there’s Blackwater, reports of which were initially considered rabid fear mongering. Once again, the claims, even if some were completely wild, were not too far off the mark. And as for reports of omnipresent CIA agents roaming around Pakistan, armed and up to no good? Well, Raymond Davis is exhibit A here. The same could be said of the early claims that drones were in fact operated from Pakistani territory; they were. And what about the oft-repeated belief that the TTP et al are ‘foreign agents’? Well, there is certainly evidence of facilitation from across the borders, and there is the small matter of Mullah Fazlullah being located in Kunar. Add the CIA’s Penny Lane facility to the mix, which aimed to ‘turn’ jihadis into double agents, factor in Abdullah Mehsud’s post-Guantanamo attacks on the Chinese in Pakistan and you have what seem to be the dots of a rather vast conspiracy.
And here’s where the theorists tend to overreach: They keep drawing lines even when the dots run out, connecting to the Rockefellers, the Illuminati with a dose of Dajjal thrown in. That then makes their claims wild-eyed and implausible to most thinking people. Over-indulgence in these theories does of course effectively absolve one of national responsibility for the mess we find ourselves in, but to believe that there are no conspiracies may well be the greatest conspiracy theory of all.
By Zarrar Khuhro, Assistant Editor, Dawn
The HAARP Conspiracy
That cold day in Alaska, the air was thick with tension as HAARP director Dr Abraham Yehud, watched by other white-coated scientists, unlocked the control panel and pressed the red button. A powerful burst of electromagnetic waves from HAARP’s 180 VHF transmitters smashed into the earth’s ionosphere, creating plasma hot spots that merrily danced in the sky. Years of patient physics research, aimed at coupling the earth’s mantle to charged atmospheric ions, was now at stake. All eyes went to the global seismograph monitors fixed on the walls. For a while nothing showed. Then wild cheering broke out — Northern Pakistan was bucking like a bronco. When it was all over, there were 90,000 dead under the rubble.
Fast forward five years to 2010. The ambitious Dr Hanood, though distrusted by some because of his dual nationality, had ousted Dr Yehud. Widely respected in the CIA for his expertise in weather change, he was a patient man. A decade-long study of monsoon patterns in South Asia had convinced Hanood that now was the time to act. Enhanced solar activity meant that HAARP’s pulses could go unnoticed if emitted at moderate intensity. But they could still do the job if turned on for at least nine days. He was right. By July, a flood of biblical proportions left a fifth of Pakistan under water.
This fictionalised story is not pure fiction. In the October 17, 2010 issue of Dawn, Pakistan’s premier scientist, a Fellow of the Royal Society and former head of the Higher Education Commission, wrote an eye-popping article entitled “HAARP”. He suggested that many disasters which Pakistanis normally assume to be natural were, in fact, deliberately engineered by the United States. The good doctor has subsequently retreated somewhat from his position that HAARP caused the 2005 earthquake, but still insists that it could cause floods and weather change. A good course in high school physics could disabuse him of even this possibility. Meanwhile his article makes it understandable why, in spite of the billions pumped into it, Pakistan’s higher education system progressed so little in his tenure.
By Pervez Hoodbhoy, nuclear physicist, essayist and peace activist
This was originally published in Herald's June 2014 issue. To read more, subscribe to Herald in print. | {
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A primitive moccasin design brought full circle into a high tech neoprene paddler’s sock. Gives both intimate contact foot control while paddling and fits easily into the smallest of play-boat front quarters. Unique Kevlar® sole rolls up around the foot on all sides with a simple gathered seam in a style originating among North American Indians. All assembly seams are set high so you’re not driving them into the dirt with each step. They also slide easily inside sandals to keep your feet warm for a longer hike.
Features:
• Sole Wraps up around foot like american indian design.
• All seams are up and out of the dirt for added durability.
• Low profile fitting sock easily slides into a boat’s tight interior quarters.
• Wear alone or with river sandals for hiking.
A primitive moccasin design brought full circle into a high tech neoprene paddler’s sock. Gives both intimate contact foot control while paddling and fits easily into the smallest of play-boat front quarters. Unique Kevlar® sole rolls up around the foot on all sides with a simple gathered seam in a style originating among North American Indians. All assembly seams are set high so you’re not driving them into the dirt with each step. They also slide easily inside sandals to keep your feet warm for a longer hike.
Features:
• Sole Wraps up around foot like american indian design.
• All seams are up and out of the dirt for added durability.
• Low profile fitting sock easily slides into a boat’s tight interior quarters.
• Wear alone or with river sandals for hiking.
~~~~~
Tech Specs:
Neoprene: 3mm SuperStretch uppers
Sole: 3mm kevlar-neo
Color: Black
| {
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New from Occipital: 3D floor plans, quick measurements, and more
The view from the middle of the @WNYC newsroom, 12:05pm | {
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The Europa League draw takes place this Friday at 12pm and Arsenal enter the competition for the second time, but this time they have a serial winner of the competition at the helm.
Reaching the semi-finals last season during their first go at the competition, Arsenal will be hoping they can go a few steps further this season and claim Unai Emery’s fourth Europa League trophy.
Atletico Madrid start this season in the Champions League making Arsenal one of the favourites again for the competition at the group stage unless the Spaniards finsh third in their group and end up back at the European kiddies table. At this point, given teams in the competition, you have to fancy Chelsea as our biggest threat but we can’t face them until the knock-outs.
In all, there will be 48 teams in the draw on Friday, drawn into 12 groups of four.
The top two from each group qualify for the knock-out round of 32.
For the group draw, 17 teams qualified automatically, while 21 made it through play-offs. Another six drop down from the Champions League play-offs and four more coming from the Champions League third qualifying round.
Teams and coefficients:
Arsenal (ENG) 93.000
Chelsea (ENG) 82.000
Bayer Leverkusen (GER) 66.000
Villarreal (ESP) 52.000
Anderlecht (BEL) 48.000
Lazio (ITA) 41.000
Sporting CP (POR) 40.000
Marseille (FRA) 32.000
AC Milan (ITA) 28.000
Fenerbahçe (TUR) 23.500
Krasnodar (RUS) 23.500
Real Betis (ESP) 21.399
Eintracht Frankfurt (GER) 14.285
Spartak Moskva (RUS) 13.500
Standard Liège (BEL) 12.500
Zürich (SUI) 12.000
Rennes (FRA) 11.283
Vorskla Poltava (UKR) 8.226
Slavia Praha (CZE) 7.500
Akhisar Belediyespor (TUR) 7.160
Jablonec (CZE) 6.035
According to UEFA, “The 48 entrants are split into four seeding pots based on their club coefficients, with each of the eventual 12 groups to contain one team from each seeding tier.
“The coefficient system is determined either by the sum of all points won in the previous five years or by the association coefficient over the same period.”
Arsenal will be in pot one, along with Chelsea, Bayer Leverkusen, Villarreal, Lazio, and AC Milan.
Europa League 18/19 Pots 1 of 4
Pot source
The group stages begin on 20 September and conclude on 13 December.
The knockout rounds begin in February with the final taking place in Azerbaijan at the Olympic Stadium in Baku on 29 May.
The draw for the Europa League will take place at 12m (UK) at the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco. | {
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From Custom Mario Kart
Wiimms Mario Retro
Retro 2015-05 Cover: Author: Wiimm Type: ISO Patcher &
Riivolution Generator Wii IDs: RMCE28, RMCP28 Online Region: 128 Tracks: 168 Wii and retro tracks Release: 2015-05-10 (Download)
Wiimms Mario Kart Retro 2015-05 is a sister of Wiimms Mario Kart Fun 2015-03, that includes only retro tracks. It is also the successor of Wiimms Mario Kart Retro 2014-02. It will be released as ISO Patcher. This ISO Patcher can also create a Riivolution setup.
→ Overview about Wiimms Distributions
Features
CTGPR extensions by Chadderz and MrBean35000vr.
All tracks (original or remade) of Wii, DS, GCN, N64, GBA and N64.
Some more tracks of 3DS and other consoles.
This version will only run on the new Wiimmfi Server.
New versus points schema. Winner gets 25 points.
Multi language support.
Revision History
Test Versions
2014-04-01, T1 First test version released. 2014-04-06, T2 Second test version released. 2015-04-25, RC1 First release candidate.
2015-05-10, v1
Tracks
See also: https://ct.wiimm.de/dis/25
For the names of the music and property IDs see [1]. | {
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Etsy's hundreds of employees last month moved into one former warehouse building in Brooklyn's iconic Watchtower complex, formerly the world headquarters of the Jehovah's Witnesses.
The office is a 200,000-square-foot haven for all things reclaimed and handmade and ecologically aware and sustainable. The massive project had been in the works for about two years.
There are the hundreds of items of furniture and installations, roughly half of which were designed and crafted and--in some cases--upholstered (without the fire-retardant chemicals) by local independent artisans. The treads on the stairwell are planks of wood salvaged from a water tower removed from the building's roof.
And there are native grasses and ferns now replacing the water tower on the roof, which employees can use for meetings, lunch, or breaks. And, well, non-employees can use it, too. Says Devon Leahy, Etsy's director of sustainability and social innovation: "We are trying to create a habitat for local birds."
Two other outdoor spaces are accessible from the building's fifth floor. Josh Wise, Etsy's director of workplace ecology and design compared one of them to a "stoop," and says the other is "kind of like a back porch." Aha! A habitat for the local humans of Brooklyn.
"There is lighting and connectivity out there," Wise says. "It's a great place to step outside if you don't have time to fully get out."
Oh, and 20 percent of the roof is covered in solar panels. But it's for show: a token, if you will. Sure, they function, but they contribute only a small amount of energy to the building. Instead, they represent the company's commitment to be 100 percent powered by renewable energy by 2020.
"The real strategy behind our sustainability scope was based on aligning Etsy's values and our community," Leahy says. "We spent a lot of time thinking about what kind of standards and certifications were out there."
What Etsy pursued was the Petal Certification and the Living Building Challenge. These certifications involve meeting complex sustainability markers--with the goal being for the building itself to produce a net positive of energy, and have a net positive environmental impact.
And part of that "impact" is to be a net positive force specifically for the company's surrounding Brooklyn waterfront community. To that end, Etsy isn't doing the stereotypical tech-startup meal plan, or even starting its own full-service cafeteria. That's because it wants to support local shops and restaurants as much as possible. Instead of having an industrial-scope cafeteria, the company will bring in local chefs and caterers to do meals one at a time, twice a week.
And it has built sustainability into the office--in fact, every single nook and cranny of the office. In considering materials used in flooring, installations, desks--really, everything--there was an emphasis on finding non-toxic materials, locally sourced, and created by individual artisans or small companies.
"We can say we have the healthiest materials in this space. We've vetted some 1,500 individual products," Leahy says. "Each of those products represents at least a conversation with the manufacturer of toxicity of materials used."
Now that hundreds of employees have fully moved into the new space, the biggest reaction, according to Leahy and Wise, is to the natural light and open feel of the space.
"I've heard people say today, I'm really gonna work better. You feel better here with all the daylight," Leahy says. | {
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現実の世界では、映画のようなできごとはほとんどない。ものごとの変化はゆっくりしていて、仰天するような事件は少ないし、登場人物もスクリーンのなかの人々ほど魅力的ではないだろう。
しかし、オーストラリアの奥地で11月5日に起きた鉄道の暴走事故は様子が違った。事態はまさに映画のようだとしか形容できない展開を見せたのだ。
オーストラリア運輸安全委員会（ATSB）の発表によると、事故は鉄鉱石を積んだ貨物列車の運転士が点検のために機関車両から降りたときに始まった。運転士が外にいると（カンガルーか巨大なクモにでも気をとられていたのかもしれない）、機関車両4両と貨物車両268両で編成される世界最長クラスの列車が突然、動き出したのだ。
速度はすぐに時速68マイル（約109km）に達し、無人のまま57マイル（約92km）も走り続けた。列車を所有する資源会社BHPビリトンは最終的に、遠隔操作で脱線させる決断をしなければならなかった。
幸いなことに死傷者は出なかったが、事故原因の捜査に当たる当局者は、線路などへの被害は「甚大だ」と話している。
脱線させるために線路をカット？
列車の暴走はあまり起こらないし、それが1時間近くも続くことはさらにまれだ。デラウェア大学で土木工学および環境工学の教授を務めるアラン・ザレンブスキは、「非常に珍しい事故です」と話す。
一方で、当局が問題の貨物列車を探し出して強制脱線に踏み切るまでに1時間もかかったのは、特に不思議ではない。事故の起きた西オーストラリア州のピルバラと呼ばれる地域は大半が砂漠だったからだ。
19万4,000平方マイル（約50万2,500平方キロメートル）に及ぶ広大なエリアの人口は、5万人を割り込んでいる。脱線という措置がとられたのが人口1万4,000人のポートヘッドランドの4マイル（6.43km）手前だったのは、なるべく人の住んでいない場所を選んだためだ。
脱線そのものについては2つのやり方があったはずだと、ザレンブスキは説明する。まずは脱線器と呼ばれる装置を使う方法だ。脱線器は線路のポイント部などに取り付けられており、低速で走行している列車が分岐点で曲がらないようにするために使われることもある。ただ、一定以上の速さで走っていると障害となり、車輪が線路から外れてしまう。つまり、脱線するのだ。
脱線器は取り外し可能なものと、取り外しはできないが必要に応じて線路上を移動させることができるものに分けられる。今回の事故で脱線器が使われたとすれば、後者のタイプだろう。ATSBは事故報告で、列車は「管理センターで操作するポイントで意図的に脱線させた」と述べている。
ただ、ここまで高速だと勢いで脱線器を乗り越えてしまう可能性もある。その場合は「線路の一部を切り取ってしまうやり方もあります」と、ザレンブスキは話す。「線路がカーヴするところで物理的に線路を1〜2フィート（30〜60cm）抜いてしまうのです」
今回のような事故では2カ所切り取る必要があったかもしれないが、切断作業そのものは15分か30分もあれば完了するという。
今後は列車の暴走事故がなくなる？
どちらの方法がとられたにしろ、結果はあまり喜ばしいものではなかった。YouTubeには現場を撮影したという動画があるが、BHPは事故直後、脱線の影響で線路が1マイル（1.6km）前後にわたって破損しており、復旧には1週間程度かかると述べている。また、鉄鉱石の運搬が一時的に止まることで、市場での取引価格が上がる可能性もある。
ただ、悪いニュースばかりでもない。少なくとも、全長3km近い貨物列車の暴走を食い止めるテクノロジーは存在することが証明されたのだ。最新の列車運行管理システム（PTC）は機関部の異常を感知するセンサーと連携し、脱線や衝突の警告機能なども備える。そして、運転士が警告に従わない場合はシステムが自動で列車を停止させる。
米議会は過去に、全米の鉄道で2015年までにPTCを導入することを義務づける法律を採択したが、運輸省は事業者からの要請により、この期限を2018年末まで延長している。ただ、今年7月時点で全米40路線のうち全区間でPTCが採用されているのは18路線にとどまっている。
それでも運がよければ、ハリウッドでは列車の暴走事故というシナリオは姿を消していくのだろう。 | {
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aka " Wilmas " -- A city suburb of Los Angeles, CA located literally just a drunken crawl north of the Port of Los Angeles. Known for nothing, by no one, ever. (Well that's not true, actually; it has the original Wienerschnitzel .) Seriously, did you ever get directions from someone on how to get from San Pedro to Long Beach, and they tell you to get on the freeway, and you're on there and you find you're driving over all this stuff that has no name that you can remember and that you've never really paid any heed to and you continue not doing so because, Oh Shit, you have to get to Long Beach, but suddenly you have a mysterious craving for a burrito? Tell you what--the person who gave you the directions likely forgot what all that stuff was called, too.If you're ever cruising around the LA South Bay area, perhaps by way of PCH , and you find yourself in a place where:-everybody speaks Spanish (no exceptions)-it smells like a carneceria outside-no matter where you look, you see a $1 Chinese Food restaraunt, a check cashing place, a donut shop, a shady video store, and an even shadier insurance outfit, together on one street corner and in that order from left to right-the billboards are either all for alcoholic drinks (in Spanish) or are for video games that came out four years ago-you can get chicharones from your car at absolutely any time...you're in Wilmington, CA: the Hole, er, Heart of the Harbor. | {
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A recently disclosed arrangement for ending the war in Afghanistan, reportedly concluded in secret between Afghan and Pakistani officials, would be a sad end to a process that has been driving Afghanistan—at great cost—back to pre-9/11 conditions. Pakistan, after cultivating extremist groups with precisely this objective in view, would regain indirect hegemony over its neighbor. It would also gain a say in the details of the international troop withdrawal.
While the arrangement may seem to provide the sort of “decent interval” many U.S. officials are wishing for as they plan the exit from Afghanistan, and while a number of commentators have hailed the apparent movement on negotiation that has come in its wake, it does not promise a path to stability.
Sarah Chayes Sarah Chayes is internationally recognized for her innovative thinking on corruption and its implications. Her work explores how severe corruption can help prompt such crises as terrorism, revolutions and their violent aftermaths, and environmental degradation. More >
There is every reason to take the “Peace Process Roadmap to 2015” seriously. It tracks with views transmitted to U.S. officials by Pakistani Army Chief Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, and with a pattern of decisionmaking by Afghan President Hamid Karzai, whose staff includes many members of the extremist Hezb-i-Islami faction, and who sent his older brother Qayum to Pakistan to meet with Taliban leaders as early as 2007. More significantly, most of the concrete actions called for under step one in the document, such as cessation of cross-border shelling, release of Taliban prisoners in Pakistan, and a “follow-up meeting” in Turkey scheduled for December 2012, are either underway or completed.
The document’s most remarkable feature is its language. Purportedly recording an agreement between Karzai and Kayani (who calls the shots in Pakistan on these issues), it reflects neither of their writing styles. The English is flawless, and the construction British, with numbered steps formulated in the infinitive: “The negotiating parties to agree on modalities for the inclusion of Taliban and other armed opposition leaders in the power-structure of the state, to include non-elected positions at different levels.”
The first paragraph, “Afghanistan’s Vision by 2015,” reveals close familiarity with similarly titled classified U.S. interagency documents, whose rosy projections it echoes.
“By 2015,” it reads, “Taliban, Hizb-e Islami and other armed groups will have given up armed opposition, transformed from military entities into political groups, and are actively participating in the country’s political and constitutional processes . . . Afghanistan’s political system remains inclusive, democratic, and equitable, where all political actors co-exist and promote their political goals and aspirations peacefully . . . NATO/ISAF forces will have departed from Afghanistan, leaving the ANSF as the only legitimate armed forces.”
Afghan and Pakistani officials may have agreed to these terms, but they clearly had help developing them.
U.S. officials say that Washington was not involved in elaborating the initiative. Given the reduced role it envisages for the United States on critical national security priorities, such as the specifics of troop withdrawal, official American input may well have been limited—which is not to rule out freelance participation by American “advisers.” British officials and back-channel go-betweens have long worked toward this type of solution.
With no autonomous role in the process sketched out, the United States is essentially reduced to helping delist armed extremists and “supporting” (read financing) Afghanistan in the future.
Pakistan, by contrast, gains a preponderant stake. The very first step calls for a “focus on securing the collaboration of Pakistan.” In particular, Pakistan will “facilitate direct contact between the . . . Government of Afghanistan and identified leaders of . . . armed opposition groups.” Formal talks are to be launched with “authorized” Taliban representatives. Authorized by whom? The plan lets Pakistan determine outcomes by choosing the negotiators—and doubtless influencing their negotiating positions.
The negotiations, moreover, are not just aimed at converting armed insurgents into politicians and allowing them to run for office. The document also stipulates their appointment to key non-elective positions—cabinet posts, governorships, or police commands, for example. Afghan observers predict that this provision will result in their country’s Balkanization, with the Taliban effectively exercising autonomous control over much of the south and east.
Such an outcome—which would allow Pakistan to dominate aspects of Afghan public life and critical regions of the country—is what Pakistani military leaders have been working toward since they first began reconstituting the Taliban in late 2002. The effort was clearly visible at the time, as former Taliban congregated in the tightly controlled Pakistani border towns of Quetta and Chaman, opened recruiting offices and training facilities, distributed weapons and motorcycles at madrassas, and, in one case I became aware of in 2003, drove cars bearing military license plates.
The government of Pakistan claims it desires a peaceful Afghanistan. And yet, as U.S. officials have conceded for months, the Pakistani military has not just been turning a blind eye to the development of insurgent groups on its territory, but has taken an active, sometimes fraught, role in helping develop them. The question is, to what end? Why would a rational country foment explosive instability right on its border? Why would officials take the risk that the extremism they help foster might shift its focus—as it has—to them?
The answer has to do with the Pakistani military’s perception of its rivalry with India. The threat—so constantly evoked as to verge on paranoia—is that of Indian encirclement, a too-cozy relationship between Kabul and Delhi that could leave Pakistan trapped in the middle.
It was to forestall such an eventuality that the Pakistani military leadership aimed to regain a degree of the proxy control over Afghanistan it enjoyed in the 1990s via the Taliban regime. Pakistani officials, like their American counterparts, have opined that insurgencies end around negotiating tables. Through the establishment of safe havens for Pakistani-trained terrorists, the active protection of diverse and frequently reconfiguring groups, and intimate links with the insurgent leaders they have assisted and cajoled and intimidated into the fight, Pakistani officers aimed to stoke a conflict that would require a negotiated settlement, and then determine who would do the negotiating and what they would settle for.
The provisions in the “Peace Process Roadmap to 2015” indicate that, ten years on, this approach has succeeded. Should the process it describes go forward, resulting in the re-Talibanization of Afghanistan’s central government and border regions and the return of Afghanistan to roughly its pre-9/11 state, a number of dangerous repercussions will likely ensue.
First, Pakistan will be rewarded for its decision to export extremist violence in pursuit of its national security aims. The perception in Pakistan (and in other countries such as Iran) could be reinforced that the best way to punch above its weight internationally is to use asymmetric violence, be it terrorism or nuclear proliferation.
Second, as history attests, partition is rarely clean or peaceful. Given the exclusion of the Afghan population from the development of this plan, and from the process it establishes, chances are that disenfranchised constituencies opposed to Pakistani domination will eventually take up arms.
Third, Taliban control of southern and eastern Afghanistan, with no international troops on hand, will allow the Pakistani military to push its radicalized proxies, many of which are penetrated by a metastasized al-Qaeda, across the border into Afghanistan. While still able to influence these groups, Pakistan will no longer be held responsible for their actions. Interestingly, the Haqqani network, blamed for some of the most spectacular attacks in Afghanistan, is not mentioned in the document.
Finally, the instability of such a scenario is likely to result in an exodus of refugees into fragile Central Asian states to the north.
Such a conclusion to the war in Afghanistan, while ironic—a dozen years, thousands of lives, and billions of dollars, just to get back to the starting point—was perhaps to be expected. After all, President Karzai was a senior official in the first Taliban regime and the United States has persisted in financing the very insurgents it was fighting, by way of its support to the Pakistani military. If, to cap off these contradictions, U.S. officials choose to go down the path outlined in this so-called roadmap, they would do well to design strategies to mitigate its very clear dangers. | {
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Wisden's ten moments in time
And the game changed for ever
Batting was never the same after WG Grace, seen here with the Prince of Wales in 1908
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Which of W. G. Grace's feats was the most resounding? And which aspect of Twenty20's gold rush best captured its impact on the modern game? These were the kinds of questions to which Wisden hoped to find a convincing answer when it chose the ten most seminal moments in the years spanning the Almanack's 150 editions. The list that emerged contains some that will come as a surprise: among readers who entered our competition to guess the ten, no one managed more than six. But then consensus would have spoiled the fun.
We stipulated that a moment could not be an era - though an era could be sparked by a moment, which we interpreted loosely, to avoid the reduction of everything ad absurdum and so awarding pride of place to the Big Bang. So West Indies' 15-year reign didn't count, but the series which triggered it - their thrashing by Australia in 1975-76 - did. And we made a plea for "lasting resonance". Don Bradman's duck in his final Test innings in 1948 felt like a one-off shock; Bodyline, a tactic designed to tame him, reached beyond the skeleton of statistics and deep into cricket's bone marrow. Few entrants were brave enough to omit it.
Otherwise, the Wisden team were guided by judgment and a little gut instinct. Who changed batting for ever: Grace in 1871 or Bradman in 1930? We went for Grace, who - as Ranjitsinhji explained - invented an entire methodology, of which Bradman would become the most ruthless exemplar. Was the first Gillette Cup in 1963 more significant for one-day cricket than India's 1983 World Cup win? We thought so, but only just.
Or did this clash with the choice of the Indian Premier League's first auction, in 2008, ahead of Twenty20's appearance on the county scene in 2003? We deferred to impact: in 1963, part of an otherwise forgettable decade for cricket, the Gillette Cup stood out; but the gates to Twenty20 mega-wealth opened widest at the IPL auctions, rather than five years earlier around the shires. After Bodyline, readers' most common picks were Kerry Packer's World Series Cricket, the Oval Test of 1882 that spawned the sport's greatest and oldest rivalry (though it seems Wisden did not refer to the "Ashes" until the late 1920s), the Basil D'Oliveira affair, and the exposure as a cheat of Hansie Cronje. Many others failed to make the cut, though no individual wore more hats than Sachin Tendulkar (Old Trafford 1990, the first double-century in one-day internationals, 100 hundreds, and so on). In fact, Tendulkar does feature - as the victim of the first TV run-out - but, for our purposes, individuals were secondary to moments, not vice versa.
1871: W. G. Grace rewrites the record books
At first, bowlers held the upper hand in first-class cricket, helped by rough, almost unprepared pitches. Then came WG. He had hinted at exceptional talent, but in 1871, the year he turned 23, Grace reshaped the game. No one had previously made 2,000 runs in a season. Now he made 2,739, a record that stood for 25 years. The next-best was Harry Jupp's 1,068, and of the 17 first-class centuries that year, WG made ten. Batting was never quite the same again.
Grace buried the quaint notion that scoring on the leg side was ungentlemanly. He batted in a way we would recognise today: usually a decisive movement forward or back, bat close to pad, although he was also a master of what Ranjitsinhji called a "half-cock stroke", which we would probably term playing from the crease. In his Jubilee Book of Cricket, Ranji wrote: "He revolutionised cricket, turning it from an accomplishment into a science... He turned the old one-stringed instrument into a many-chorded lyre, a wand... Until his time, a man was either a back player like Carpenter or a forward player like Pilch, a hitter like E. H. Budd or a sticker like Harry Jupp. But W. G. Grace was each and all at once." STEVEN LYNCH
From Wisden 1872: MCC and Ground v Surrey at Lord's
In cold dry weather this match was played out in two days, MCC and G the winners by an innings and 23 runs. There was some superb batting by both Mr W. Grace and Jupp; in fact, it is the opinion of many that the 181 by Mr Grace and the 85 by Jupp in this match are their most skilful and perfect displays of batting on London grounds in 1871. Mr Grace was first man in at 12.10; when the score was 164 for four wickets Mr Grace had made exactly 100 runs; when he had made 123 he gave a hot - a very hot - chance to short square leg, but he gave no other chance; he was much hurt by a ball bowled by Skinner when he had made 180, and at 181 Southerton bowled him, he being fifth man out with the score at 280. Mr Grace's "timing" and "placing" the ball in this innings was truly wonderful cricket; he appeared to hit "all round" just where he chose to, and placing a field for his hit was as useless as were the bowler's efforts to bowl to him. Mr Grace's hits included a great on-drive past the pavilion for six, four fives (all big drives), and 11 fours.
1882: The Ashes are born
The history of England v Australia, the mother of all Test series, was first distilled into a minuscule urn-shaped vessel, then pressure-cooked to create a hyper-contest for the 21st century. But time and distance cannot diminish the role played in the creation myth by a single game. The Oval 1882 was a microcosm of the tension that has never left the Ashes.
Australia's indomitability was summed up by their first-day recovery from 30 for six and Fred Spofforth's demonic bowling - inspired, legend has it, by W. G. Grace's caddish run-out of Sammy Jones. More than 2,000 Tests have taken place since, but Australia's seven-run victory remains in the top ten tightest wins.
THE TEN MOMENTS W.G. Grace (1871)
The Oval (1882)
Bodyline (1932-33)
The Gillette Cup (1963)
Basil D'Oliveira (1968)
Australia 5 West Indies 1 (1975-76)
World Series Cricket (1977-78)
Technology's entrance (1992-93)
Hansie Cronje (2000)
The IPL auction (2008)
The paroxysms of the umbrella-gnawing spectator resonate with fans on all sides of all sporting divides, as does the Sporting Times's mock obituary shortly afterwards, the first truly memorable example of English cricket's gallows humour. England had lost to Australia before, but only ever while out of sight, out of mind, on the other side of the globe. This was an awakening in every sense. A rivalry that, according to the newspaper, was dead as soon as it began would attain a life of its own. ANDREW MILLER
From Wisden 1883: the run-out of Jones in Australia's second innings, leaving them 114 for seven and with their overall lead 76...
Jones was run out in a way which gave great dissatisfaction to Murdoch and other Australians. Murdoch played a ball to leg, for which Lyttelton ran. The ball was returned, and Jones having completed the first run, and thinking wrongly, but very naturally, that the ball was dead, went out of his ground. Grace put his wicket down, and the umpire gave him out. Several of the team spoke angrily of Grace's action, but the compiler was informed that, after the excitement had cooled down, a prominent member of the Australian eleven admitted that he should have done the same thing had he been in Grace's place. There was a good deal of truth in what a gentleman in the pavilion remarked, amidst some laughter, that "Jones ought to thank the champion for teaching him something".
...and England's run-chase
England, wanting 85 runs to win, commenced their second innings at 3.45 with Grace and Hornby. Spofforth bowled Hornby's off stump at 15, made in about as many minutes. Barlow joined Grace, but was bowled first ball at the same total. Ulyett came in, and some brilliant hitting by both batsmen brought the score to 51, when a very fine catch at the wicket dismissed Ulyett. Thirty-four runs were then wanted, with seven wickets to fall. Lucas joined Grace, but when the latter had scored a two he was easily taken at mid-off. Lyttelton became Lucas' partner, and did all the hitting. Then the game was slow for a time, and 12 successive maiden overs were bowled, both batsmen playing carefully and coolly. Lyttelton scored a single, and then four maiden overs were followed by the dismissal of that batsman - bowled, the score being 66. Only 19 runs were then wanted to win, and there were five wickets to fall. Steel came in, and when Lucas had scored a four, Steel was easily caught and bowled. Read joined Lucas, but amid intense excitement he was clean bowled without a run being added. Barnes took Read's place and scored a two, and three byes made the total 75, or ten to win. After being in a long time for five Lucas played the next ball into his wicket, and directly Studd joined Barnes the latter was easily caught off his glove without the total being altered. Peate, the last man, came in, but after hitting Boyle to square leg for two he was bowled, and Australia had defeated England by seven runs.
1932-33: Bodyline divides two nations
Lucky was the young sheep-station owner, Ian McLachlan senior, who spent the Sunday after Bodyline's fever-pitch Adelaide Saturday in the company of Douglas Jardine and others. A beach excursion to Victor Harbour; that night, McLachlan and Jardine roomed together. "It's going to muck up cricket," said McLachlan, as lights went out, "because you're going to have cricketers playing in things like baseball masks."
"Oh, don't be silly, laddie."
Bumper bombardments and throat-side field settings did not become the new normal, nor did baseball masks (nor, yet, helmets). Spin bowling survived as cricket's guileful art. Even Don Bradman - as exotic as a nine-legged octopus, his fast yet failsafe 1930 mega-scoring having triggered Bodyline's genesis - half-faltered only briefly. He put ointment on his bruises and for the rest of his days averaged 100.12.
What lingered was psychological, a suspicion of the English gentleman, a sense that, while Australians wish to win, the English will break bones / rules / morality to win, a slow-blooming independence. Australia's ride through our current decade's economic travails is something Treasurer Wayne Swan attributes partly to "an enduring determination for our country never again to be at the whim of anyone". That determination's cause, Mr Treasurer? "I believe, Bodyline." CHRISTIAN RYAN
From Wisden 1933: Notes by the Editor (Stewart Caine)
The ball to which such strong exception is being taken in Australia is not slow or slow-medium but fast. It is dropped short and is alleged in certain quarters to be aimed at the batsman rather than at the wicket. It may at once be said that, if the intention is to hit the batsman and so demoralise him, the practice is altogether wrong - calculated, as it must be, to introduce an element of pronounced danger and altogether against the spirit of the game of cricket. Upon this point practically everybody will agree. No one wants such an element introduced. That English bowlers, to dispose of their opponents, would of themselves pursue such methods, or that Jardine would acquiesce in such a course, is inconceivable.
To the abuse of this Law may fairly be traced the trouble which has arisen in Australia during the tour now in progress. In suggesting, as has the Australian Board of Control, that bowling such as that of the Englishmen has become a menace to the best interests of the game, is causing intensely bitter feelings between players and, unless stopped at once, is likely to upset the friendly relations between England and Australia, the Commonwealth cricket authorities seem to have lost their sense of proportion. The idea that a method of play to which, while often practised in the past by Australian as well as English bowlers, no exception had been taken in public could jeopardise the relations of the two countries, appears really too absurd.
From Wisden 1934: The MCC team in Australasia
Suffice it to say here that a method of bowling was evolved - mainly with the idea of curbing the scoring propensities of Bradman - which met with almost general condemnation among Australian cricketers and spectators and which, when something of the real truth was ultimately known in this country, caused people at home - many of them famous in the game - to wonder if the winning of the rubber was, after all, worth this strife.
Bert Oldfield goes down to a short pitched ball during the Bodyline series
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1963: The Gillette Cup is launched
Like sex (according to Philip Larkin, at least) one-day cricket, in the manner in which we now know it, began in 1963. The year before, a pilot competition - the four-team Midlands Knock-Out Cup - had attracted some attention, but now all the counties were involved. In a 65-over-a-side knockout format (just imagine: 130 overs a day) was born the great-great-grandfather of all the World Cups, Premier Leagues and Big Bashes we see today.
So too, simultaneously, came the notion that county cricket could attract sponsorship. The story has it that those from Gillette charged with negotiating a deal arrived at their meeting at Lord's with a substantial figure in mind, and departed having apparently financed the competition from the petty-cash box.
But it was a beginning. Crowds flocked to the matches, ponderous though the first format was, and the Lord's final was established as the county game's day out. Such success spawned new competitions: the Gillette (still the name many think of when speaking of county one-day cricket) was reduced to 60 overs a side; then came the 40-over John Player League, the 55-over Benson and Hedges Cup, and finally Twenty20. The genie was out of the bottle. MIKE SELVEY
From Wisden 1964: The Knock-Out Cup
The new Knock-Out competition aroused enormous interest. Very large crowds, especially in the later rounds, flocked to the matches and 25,000 spectators watched the final at Lord's, where Sussex narrowly defeated Worcestershire by 14 runs in a thoroughly exciting match. It says much for the type of cricket that tremendous feeling was stirred up among the spectators as well as the cricketers, with numerous ties being decided in the closest fashion. At Lord's, supporters wore favours, and banners were also in evidence, the whole scene resembling an Association Football Cup Final more than the game of cricket, and many thousands invaded the pitch at the finish to cheer Dexter, the Sussex captain, as he received the Gillette Trophy from the MCC President, Lord Nugent.
There were two points which invite criticism. Firstly, the majority of counties were loath to include even one slow bowler in their sides and relied mainly on pace; and secondly the placing of the entire field around the boundary to prevent rapid scoring - Dexter used this tactic in the final - became fairly common. The success of the spinners at Lord's may have exploded the first theory.
There is no doubt that, provided the competition is conducted wisely, it will attract great support in the future and benefit the game accordingly.
1968: The D'Oliveira Affair exposes apartheid
The story of Basil D'Oliveira is one of the most romantic in the history of sport. A non-white man is prevented by apartheid from displaying his exceptional cricketing talents in his native South Africa. So he travels to Britain, where he endures a period of misery and loneliness before his genius is fully recognised and he is selected to play for England.
This part of the story is a fairytale come true. But D'Oliveira's selection for England was more than a dream: it was also a political statement, because it smashed the apartheid myth about the superiority of the white race. Elements of the British cricketing establishment were sympathetic to the apartheid regime, and he was initially omitted by MCC's selectors from the tour party for South Africa in 1968-69, despite having made 158 against Australia in the final Test of the summer. But when seamer Tom Cartwright pulled out of the trip, D'Oliveira was chosen to replace him. South Africa cancelled the tour.
The consequences of the international row that followed were enormous. Large sections of the British public were educated about the brutality and ugliness of racism. South African sporting links with England were broken off. The isolation of the apartheid regime deepened. Through it all, D'Oliveira maintained his integrity, and displayed a palpable decency in a crisis that transcended sport and helped bring an unspeakably evil social system to an end. PETER OBORNE
From Wisden 1969: The D'Oliveira Case, by Michael Melford
To the non-cricketing public, D'Oliveira's omission immediately after his innings at The Oval was largely incomprehensible. It was easy for many to assume political motives behind it and a bowing to South Africa's racial policies.
Basil D'Oliveira sparked a crisis that transcended sport
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More knowledgeable cricketers were split between those who agreed that on technical grounds D'Oliveira was far from an automatic choice and who were doubtful if he would be any more effective in South Africa than he had been in the West Indies, and those who thought that after his successful comeback to Test cricket, it was "inhuman" not to pick him.
Some holding the latter opinion were also ready to see non-cricketing reasons for the omission... Much was said which was regretted later - four out of 19 members of MCC who resigned in protest applied for reinstatement within a few days - and Lord Fisher of Lambeth, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, was prompted to write to the Daily Telegraph condemning a leader "which appeared to cast doubt on the word of the selectors".
A group of 20 MCC members, the number required to call a special meeting of the club, asserted this right, co-opting the Rev. D. S. Sheppard as their main spokesman. For three weeks the affair simmered like an angry volcano.
1975-76: Defeat in Australia sparks West Indies' pace revolution
Their heaviest and most humiliating defeat created the philosophy that led to West Indies' domination through the 1980s and beyond. The 5-1 thrashing in Australia, inflicted mainly by the menacing pace of Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson, supported by Gary Gilmour and Max Walker, convinced captain Clive Lloyd of the effectiveness of "three or four quick bowlers on your side". He noted that every West Indian had "at some time or other felt the pain of a cricket ball, sent down at great speed, thudding into their bodies"; his players were "determined never to let it happen again".
India's record 406 for four to win the Port-of-Spain Test two months later, against a team containing only one genuine fast bowler, reinforced Lloyd's opinion. From George Francis, Learie Constantine, Herman Griffith and Manny Martindale before the war, to Wes Hall, Roy Gilchrist and Charlie Griffith two generations later, the resources had always been available. Now, through the vagaries of nature, and fired by competition, they exploded in profusion, mostly imposing giants who worked in tandem. In their 82 Tests in the 1980s - West Indies won 43 and lost eight - 16 fast bowlers gathered 1,257 wickets. Between June 1980 and February 1995, they went unbeaten in Test series. It was the greatest dynasty in the history of the game. TONY COZIER
From Wisden 1977: West Indies in Australia, by Henry Blofeld
Australia was the first time [Clive Lloyd] had found himself under real pressure as a captain and he did not find the going easy. When the strain was greatest he did not seem able to control his own nerves as he would have liked when batting and as captain he was never prepared to speak firmly to his batsmen and to tell them how he expected them to try to play the fast bowling on the steep bouncing pitches.
1977-78: World Series Cricket shakes the foundations
When media mogul Kerry Packer approached the Australian Cricket Board in June 1976 with a handsome offer to televise Australian cricket, the administrators dismissed him without misgivings, content with their existing relationship with the national broadcaster. They underestimated Packer's determination. Taking advantage of growing disgruntlement about pay and conditions, he secretly recruited dozens of players from Australia, West Indies, South Africa, England and Pakistan to participate in a punishing schedule of made-for-TV matches in Australia, including the first played at night under lights and in coloured clothing with white balls.
Administrators were immediately hostile, their rhetoric turning into bans and court actions, and World Series Cricket was slow to take off in the 1977-78 season, despite boasting the cream of the world's players. But in 1978-79 it became a success, as the official Australian team, denuded of talent, were badly beaten in the Ashes. Forced to sue for peace, the ACB agreed to welcome back their prodigal sons and award broadcast rights to Packer's Nine Network - rights they have retained to this day. The legacy of the enterprise was growingly acute understanding of the value of the sport as a television property, which others might exploit if cricket failed to do so, and better pay for elite cricketers. GIDEON HAIGH
From Wisden 1978: Notes by the Editor (Norman Preston)…
As things stand at the time of writing at the New Year no solution would appear to be in sight and the cricket authorities, particularly those in England, who spend thousands of pounds raising young talent to the top level, run the risk of losing players to any rich entrepreneur, for Packer could be only the first in the line. I feel that those who signed for Packer were placed in a dilemma - loyalty to those who nurtured them or the attraction of financial reward for playing another kind of cricket that excludes them from first-class recognition because it is outside the bounds of the International Cricket Conference.
…and The Packer Case, by Gordon Ross
At this point the only cricketing subject being discussed from the highest committee room in the land to the saloon bar of the tiniest inn, was "Packer", and from all the multifarious points raised, one was likely to be proved the dominant factor in the end. In this age of extreme partisanship, had non-partisanship cricket any future? Does the world not want to see England beat Australia, or Arsenal beat Tottenham, or England beat Wales at Twickenham - or vice versa, according to particular loyalties? Could a collection of players, however great, stimulate public interest, when there was nothing on the end of it, except a considerable amount of money for the participants? The fact that tennis players and golfers are a constant attraction was irrelevant; they are individuals playing for no one but themselves. And moreover, the whole crux of this matter was linked to big business - the business of television, and not so much to the furtherance of cricket or cricketers.
1992-93: Technology takes its bow
Some events develop significance later, others are recognised immediately. This belonged in the second category. There was surprisingly little resistance to the use of television replays for line decisions on India's trip to South Africa late in 1992. But it still felt bizarre to have finally reached this point after the embarrassment TV had been causing umpires for decades.
On the second day of the First Test at Durban, Jonty Rhodes swooped at backward point and flicked an airborne throw to Andrew Hudson at short leg. Umpire Cyril Mitchley was "almost certain" Sachin Tendulkar had been run out but, having been a consultant during the system's trials, had no hesitation in referring it. Third umpire Karl Liebenberg held his breath: there were no fixed cameras at square leg, and everything depended on the midwicket cameraman. But the shot was there. Liebenberg pressed the green light (for "go", which in those days meant "out"), and Tendulkar's dismissal had taken just 34 seconds longer than normal. "I felt instantly the game had changed for ever - and for the better," said South African captain Kepler Wessels.
After domestic use of the referral system revealed its imperfections, fixed cameras - known as the Pana-eye - were implemented in South Africa two years later. They became standard after that. Today, we have the Decision Review System, when money and politics allow. Even the umpires have accepted that their word is no longer necessarily final - a profound shift in the game's psyche. NEIL MANTHORP
From Wisden 1994: The Indians in South Africa, by Richard Streeton
The tour will be remembered for the introduction of ICC's scheme for independent umpires and even more for the South African board's experiment using television replays to settle difficult line decisions. It was a successful innovation, welcomed by most players and officials after some initial reservations. Hitherto, for as long as the game has been played, batsmen have received the benefit of an umpire's doubt. When officials on the field felt unable to decide, a third umpire in the pavilion watched video replays to rule on run-outs and stumpings (and hit-wicket decisions, though none arose). A green light signalled that the batsman must go, and red that he was not out. Invariably the crowd buzzed with excitement as they waited and at some grounds they were able to watch the big-screen replays at the same time.
2000: Hansie Cronje admits to match-fixing
The unmasking of Hansie Cronje marked the end of cricket's jolly, even deluded, innocence - both because of the nature of the offence and the identity of the offender. Cronje was a national captain of enviable standing, the prototypical hard-but-fair, principled, devout, all-round competitor. He was exposed as the ultimate con artist, the betting mafia's perfect partner, ready to manipulate the scripts behind scorecards. These extremes of his persona contained the game's essential truths, its well-disguised lies and the distance it had travelled in the last few decades of the 20th century.
The IPL: possibly the single biggest change in the game since the invention of international cricket
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With Cronje came the deadening awareness that cricket's ethos could be easily corrupted by its best practitioners; that players from all over the world, not merely from the shadowy Orient, could be primed to participate in a world of faux cricket; that the simplest of temptations - starting with friendly free dinners, a wad of cash and, ridiculously, tragically, a leather jacket - could lure respected pros into a dragnet of organised crime. Through his acts and, as importantly, his confession, Cronje became living proof that an old, much-loved game had been poisoned at its very roots. Cricket remains sullied by the cynicism. SHARDA UGRA
From Wisden 2001: Notes by the Editor (Graeme Wright)...
Cronje's worst crime was not against cricket - accepting the bookies' bribes or trying to fix matches - but against morality and decency. It was in the way he ensnared the two most vulnerable members of his team, Herschelle Gibbs and Henry Williams. Cronje's white team-mates could afford to send him on his joking way with a rejection; he was just the captain, one of the boys. For Gibbs and Williams, however, even in the rarefied atmosphere of the new South Africa, Cronje was the white man in charge. It takes more than a rainbow for generations of social conditioning and economic deprivation to be washed away.
... and A Game in Shame, by Mihir Bose
Cricket corruption, like taxes and poverty, may always be with us. But after cricket's annus horribilis of 2000 we can, for the first time, understand how a combination of players' greed, dreadful impotence and infighting by cricket administrators, and a radical shift in cricketing power from England to the Indian subcontinent helped create cricket's darkest chapter.
2008: The first IPL auction puts a price on everything
The Australian seamer Nathan Bracken put it best: "You want to know what you're worth - and you don't want to know what you're worth." In no dressing-room did the tussle for players' services cause as many ructions as it did in Australia's. At a glittering auction in Mumbai on February 20, 2008, Cameron White got more money than the recently retired Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath, while David Hussey was considered a more valuable prospect than Ricky Ponting or Matthew Hayden. "It's probably only me and Matty that will have any reason to be jealous of anybody else," wrote Ponting in a newspaper column after Andrew Symonds went for $1.35m.
There were raised eyebrows in India as well, with Sreesanth and Ishant Sharma getting far more lucrative contracts than Anil Kumble, who had carried the country's bowling for more than a decade. The traditional yardsticks of a player's worth were disregarded, as the franchises' bean-counters spoke of "marketability" and other imponderables. Lalit Modi and his cohorts constantly emphasised "bigger, better, faster, more". It seemed futile to deny this was more seductive than "smaller, worse, slower, less". DILEEP PREMACHANDRAN
From Wisden 2009: Notes by the Editor (Scyld Berry)
The IPL is a clever mixture of ingredients because its administrators have understood their market - their mass market. Although it is impossible to be sure from such a recent perspective, it looks as though the supranational IPL is the single biggest change in cricket not merely since the advent of the limited-overs game in the 1960s but of fixtures between countries in the 19th century: that is, since the invention of international or Test cricket.
Above all, until the time of writing, the IPL has had luck on its side. As the world went into economic crisis, the IPL gave every appearance of bucking the trend. The two auctions of players which it staged, the second on February 6 this year, must have appealed to anyone who has played Monopoly: they gave the franchise-owners the feeling they had power over the world's finest cricketers, and everyone else the illusion. At a time of the most serious recession since the 1930s, Andrew Flintoff and Kevin Pietersen were signed for two years at $1.55m per six-week tournament (or pro rata for the number of games they played). The IPL radiated wealth, well-being, exuberance, and prospects for future growth: in a word, hope.
© John Wisden & Co. | {
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Yuvraj Singh, who marked his return to first-class cricket with a double-century in the Duleep Trophy last week, has been included in the India A squad to play England in Mumbai from October 30.
In their first formal meeting since taking over as national selectors on October 1, Sandeep Patil and his colleagues decided not to pick a spinner in the 14-member squad to be led by Suresh Raina. The decision to not play a spinner is perhaps because the Indian team management does not want to give England exposure to what is likely to be their biggest challenge during the Test series.
India A Suresh Raina (capt), Ambati Rayudu, M Vijay, Abhinav Mukund, Manoj Tiwary, Robin Bist, Ashok Menaria, Yuvraj Singh, Ajinkya Rahane, Wriddhiman Saha (wk), Irfan Pathan, Ashok Dinda, Vinay Kumar, Parvinder Awana
While Raina, Yuvraj, Ajinkya Rahane and Manoj Tiwary were included among nine specialist batsmen, Rohit was left out, an indication the Mumbai batsman could have to revive his chances by scoring big in the Ranji Trophy.
Rajasthan batsmen Robin Bist and Ashok Menaria were rewarded for their consistent performances. Bist, the highest run-getter in the previous Ranji Trophy season, had also toured West Indies in June as part of the A squad. Menaria was selected after an impressive outing during the A tour to New Zealand in September.
Tiwary, whose technique wasn't considered to be up to Test standards by the previous selection panel, the Tamil Nadu top-order pair of M Vijay and Abhinav Mukund, and Baroda batsman Ambati Rayudu completed the batting line-up. Initially, Delhi opener Shikhar Dhawan was included in the squad, but had to be withdrawn as the match clashes with his marriage. In his place, Rayudu was brought in.*
The bowling attack comprised seamers Irfan Pathan, Ashok Dinda, R Vinay Kumar and Parvinder Awana, who had broken down while bowling his first spell on the A tour of the Caribbean.
Yuvraj's selection was on expected lines after his 208 for North Zone against Central Zone. He had returned to competitive action after a nine-month break because of a rare germ-cell cancer during India's Twenty20 international against New Zealand and the World Twenty20 that followed in September and October.
And when he was named in the North Zone side for the Duleep Trophy semi-final, Yuvraj had admitted he wasn't sure how his body would cope with four-day cricket. He made most of the opportunity, though, and his 208 - against an attack that included Praveen Kumar, Bhuvneshvar Kumar and Murali Kartik - was only a run less than his highest in first-class score.
Should Yuvraj perform against Alastair Cook's team in the three-day fixture at the Cricket Club of India's Brabourne Stadium next week, he is likely to be a contender for the No. 6 slot in India's Test batting order.
After VVS Laxman's retirement ahead of the two-Test series against New Zealand in August, Suresh Raina was the preferred No. 6, ahead of Rohit, Rahane and Tiwary. However, Yuvraj will now have an opportunity to stake his claim. | {
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LONDON (Reuters) - British shoppers stripped some supermarkets of pasta, toilet paper and canned food on Friday and major football matches were suspended just hours after Prime Minister Boris Johnson resisted imposing stringent measures to contain the coronavirus outbreak.
FILE PHOTO: Empty shelves are seen in a now closed aisle at a supermarket in Canary Wharf, as the number of coronavirus cases grow around the world , in London, Britain March 12, 2020. REUTERS/Dylan Martinez
Johnson has said it would be counterproductive to implement draconian isolation measures as the peak of the epidemic is weeks away, but people were bracing for the worst.
Across the country, many supermarket shelves were empty of basic ingredients for the first time since fuel protests prompted panic buying two decades ago.
“I have never seen the supermarket look like that. It is chaos in there,” said Fran Edwards, 45, who works in marketing and was leaving the Tesco in Twickenham, southwest London, with a shopping trolley filled to the brim.
“I have decided to buy two weeks worth of food. There are really long queues and there is not enough stock. I don’t want to panic. But at the same time I didn’t want to be regretting this opportunity in a few days.”
Even football fell victim to the fears over coronavirus - following a raft of other sports events around the world that have been postponed, cancelled or held behind closed doors.
All elite football matches in England, including the Premier League, were suspended until April 4 on Friday due to the coronavirus pandemic, English football’s governing bodies said in a joint statement.
England’s friendly internationals against Italy and Denmark at Wembley on March 27 and 31, respectively, will not take place, the FA said in a statement. The men’s and women’s FA Cup competitions have also been suspended.
British Airways will ground aircraft like never before and lay off staff in a battle by the company to tackle what its chief executive called the most serious crisis in aviation history.
“It is a crisis of global proportions like no other we have known,” BA CEO Alex Cruz told staff in a global message seen by Reuters. BA is owned by IAG.
Deutsche Bank said one employee at its London HQ had tested positive for coronavirus. British cases of coronavirus rose 35% to 798 over the past 24 hours, health authorities said.
HOARDING
British supermarket bosses have urged people not to panic and said that they can keep shelves stocked but anecdotal evidence shows many people are hoarding basics.
Trading is intense with some shop bosses saying it can only be compared to the pre-Christmas rush. Reuters reporters in London witnessed arguments at two major supermarkets with shoppers bickering over how much pasta and other goods each person should be allowed to buy.
“I just want to be prepared for the worst,” said Anita, 41, a teacher at a college, who asked not to use her last name. Her trolley was completely full. “You watch what is happening on the news and I do think are we being too relaxed in this country.”
Lidl in Hackney, east London, had no pasta, toilet paper, flour, tinned fish or oil. In Hastings, 70 miles south of London, eggs were almost entirely sold out at a different Lidl as were nappies, Marmite and some frozen products.
Waitrose in the Canary Wharf financial district had neither pasta nor toilet paper on Thursday night. Supermarkets in Leighton Buzzard, north of London, had run out of toilet roll, soap, hand sanitiser and had reduced stocks of pasta and soup.
At a Tesco in Petersfield, in southern England, there were shortages of frozen goods and toilet roll.
Tesco at Brent Cross, north London, was stripped of toilet paper, liquid soap and many canned foods. Waitrose in the Canary Wharf financial district had neither pasta nor toilet paper on Thursday night.
Britain believes that supermarkets have a resilient supply chain, a spokesman for Johnson said when asked about the impact of the coronavirus outbreak.
Johnson warned on Thursday that many more families would see their loved ones die from coronavirus, as the government’s chief scientific adviser said Britain likely has as many as 10,000 people infected. | {
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Before I begin, I want to say that what I am about to write is in no way intended to be malicious. I was born and raised in the UK and many of the men I most admire are British or of Anglo descent, with the UK producing some of finest minds in all of Western Civilisation, from Geoffrey Chaucer to Sir Roger Scruton.
However, British men of today are (for the most part) finished, in terms of being torch bearers for Western Civilisation. They are no longer at the forefront in any of the crucial battlegrounds, be it creative, philosophical or technological, and I want to attempt to explain exactly why that is.
British Men Are Ruled by Their Women
The majority of British men clamour for female attention and only feel validated once they have secured the attention of a woman. Today, this has reached the point where, if I walk down any street in any town or city, I will see many a slim and in shape man holding hands with an ungrateful land whale in a tight fitting top and “jeggings”.
Growing up in a family that had a mix of Eastern and British roots, I was able to witness the differences between how husbands and wives behaved with each other. The Eastern side had very defined male and female roles, husbands and wives were not in each other’s pockets but had an equal balance of a life together and a life apart, which made for healthier marriages. For example, all of my male relatives would spend time with their friends, there was no need for clock watching or fearing they would get a thrashing because they were neglecting the little woman at home.
In stark contrast, my British relatives and their friends, ranging from working to lower middle class, always had, what appeared from my perspective, odd marriages. The husbands would be described as the head of the house, but in name only. They would generally be down-trodden, subjected to decades of tirades and tantrums from their wives, they would neglect friendships, sometimes allowing lifelong friends to slip into oblivion, because they placed their wives on pedestals and treated them like Goddesses, attending to their every whim. The husbands would very rarely spend any time away from their wives for fear of retribution.
Despite being so obsequious, to the point of turning into clones of Uriah Heep, the wives would always complain to their friends about how lazy and stupid their husbands were, irrespective of these husbands, especially the Baby Boomers, working long hours and still concentrating on keeping the garden in shape and fixing up the house during weekends.
For those of you thinking the bossy wife and hen-pecked husband is a recent phenomenon, then you only have to take a look at British culture to see this has been a present theme for over 100 years. From films such as ‘Sailor, Beware!’ (1956), the long-running and still highly popular soap opera ‘Coronation Street’ (1960 – onwards) which, from its inception, portrayed a plethora of domineering women, to comical seaside postcards from the late Victorian era.
I believe it has always been the case in Britain that women have had the upper-hand in marriage, but due to the social dynamics shifting dramatically, coupled with the decline in Christian social conservatism after WWII, it’s become more pervasive.
Britain Is Feminist Ground Zero
Britain is a bastion of feminism and has long been so. It bore Mary Wollstonecraft and its intelligentsia welcomed, with open arms, the likes of Antipodean harpy Germaine Greer. One can trace the very beginning of feminism as an ideology in Britain back to Wollstonecraft and her pamphlet – A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792).
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Britain’s rigid class system has been the perfect breeding ground for insidious ideologies like feminism. Queen Victoria may have called women’s rights a “dangerous folly”, but the burgeoning suffragette movement, consisting of well-to-do ladies, unleashed the poison which Wollstonecraft had wanted to do some 100 years previously.
Let’s compare the behaviour of British suffragettes to their French counterparts. Women’s suffrage was encouraged by the Catholic clergy in France, as they knew that women were still influenced by their local priests and husbands. The approach of French suffragettes was also more refined. The British suffragettes, on the other hand, quickly descended into anarchy and outright hatred of men, with many sympathetic to social justice, wreaking havoc across London and other cities.
This strain of anarchy did not die when women secured the vote in the UK in 1918, but remained at the heart of every social justice movement women were involved in.
Britain Allowed Soft Socialism To Gain A Foothold
Britain’s handling of socialism with kid gloves can be traced back to Methodism, the weakest of all Christian denominations. Methodism was born and cultivated in the UK in the 18th century, by the Anglican theologian John Wesley and George Whitefield et al, and it would be the Methodists who would become the most active proponents of social justice.
Methodists were big players in the formation of Trade Unions in Britain, as well as other social and cultural enterprises during the Victorian era and, as ideas of socialism as we know it today began to circulate, the Methodists were quick to embrace certain elements of it.
Socialism truly began to entrench itself during the first decade of the 20th century, with the formation of the British Labour Party, an amalgamation of radical socialists, Trade Unionists and intellectuals of the Fabian Society. In a few decades, the party would become a dominant force in politics, especially after WWII.
If it wasn’t for the Methodists and their promotion of soft socialism in British culture, I feel Britons today would be less inclined towards social liberalism and the destructiveness that comes with it.
Conclusion
In 2017, all of these components have reached their zenith, becoming a Goliath that is hindering British men from reaching their true potential. Of course, there are myriad other components, historical, psychological, cultural, and it’s a very complex issue, but these three are the most injurious, laying the foundation for the many ills Britain faces today.
If one looks at the bigger picture, men across the Anglosphere are hindered in becoming men of merit due to these same problems, some less, others more. Yet, I am optimistic some British men will be able to break through this mess, as the country further self-destructs. British society has always had this ability to produce some of the most unique voices in Western culture, such as Enoch Powell, Jonathan Bowden et al, men who stood as prophets, able to see through the miasma.
Read More: British Police: Men Who Try To Get Laid Are Guilty Of Misogynistic “Hate Crimes” | {
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You probably missed it in the deluge of anti-Trump news this week, but first lady Melania Trump is making some waves on social media for the way that she approached a non-verbal military child in a wheelchair at a Toys for Tots toy drive.
According to The Daily Caller, the event happened Tuesday during the first lady’s visit to Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling in Washington, D.C., as part of a tour of two military installations and an aircraft carrier.
After Melania gave some remarks in a hangar, addressing military children and their parents, she helped roughly 100 kids sort toys for needy children into boxes.
“The scene was chaotic, with little children grabbing the toys and running to the other side of the hangar to put them in boxes. The children were yelling and running around in wild excitement. In the midst of the chaos, Melania could be seen regularly stopping and kneeling down to help a confused child — or to answer any question they had,” The Daily Caller reported.
In the midst of the holiday fray, Melania took a little bit of time out to help a special needs child by the name of Braydon.
TRENDING: Kentucky AG Exposes 4 Lies the Left Sold About Breonna Taylor's Death
A video shows what happened next:
No one in establishment media will show you this story – since they don’t care about good news from this admin & orange man bad – but this week @FLOTUS knelt down & engaged a non-verbal military child in a wheelchair. Melania does not get enough credit.https://t.co/opsZ919CNL pic.twitter.com/8SAIwNwy5q — Benny (@bennyjohnson) December 16, 2018
In the video, Melania can be seen approaching Braydon and then kneeling down to talk with him.
Do you think that Melania Trump is a good first lady? Yes No Completing this poll entitles you to The Western Journal news updates free of charge. You may opt out at anytime. You also agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use You're logged in to Facebook. Click here to log out. 100% (5174 Votes) 0% (14 Votes)
Braydon is seen making hand motions, presumably to communicate with her.
The video shows the first lady talking with him for about a minute and a half before moving on.
In a statement to The Daily Caller, Braydon’s mom said that the 12-year-old was thrilled to meet the first lady.
“He is so happy to meet Melania and how he says he is hungry from the excitement,” she said, adding that it was an “honor.”
Wonderful to be in Hangar 789 with many service members & their families at @JBLEnews! Our prayers remain with all those serving overseas this Christmas. God Bless you all! #USA pic.twitter.com/MkCeZlB23k — Melania Trump (@FLOTUS) December 13, 2018
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The first lady will also be donating something other than her time for children in need.
“The First Lady will be gifting 100 books to the Toys for Tots Literacy Program. Since starting in 2008, the program has distributed over 39 million books to less fortunate children, helping to reduce the illiteracy rate among children,” the Office of the First Lady said, according to The Daily Caller.
“Mrs. Trump will also be giving ‘Be Best’ totes filled with a coloring book and White House candies to all the children that will be helping out at the drive.”
It wasn’t the only reason the first lady was making news last week, either.
An incredible flight today on a V-22 to visit the service members aboard the USS George HW Bush. Thank you to ALL who serve! 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/ylRIl37qwa — Melania Trump (@FLOTUS) December 12, 2018
On her way to the USS George H.W. Bush aircraft carrier, the first lady tweeted a picture of herself wearing the official cap of the ship — a tribute to the recently deceased 41st president, the namesake of the vessel.
Of course, you could have blinked and missed the coverage of this in the establishment media. What a surprise.
We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards. | {
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It seemed like Sen. Bill Nelson was everywhere on Monday.
The third-term Democratic senator from Florida will forever be best known for, during his time in the House, orbiting Earth aboard the space shuttle Columbia.
But on Monday, Nelson’s politics and policy took center stage. He got a high-profile Republican challenger for his re-election bid and he was face-to-face with the Silicon Valley executive at the center of what was one of the biggest stories of the day.
As the ranking Democrat on the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, he met with Facebook CEO for Mark Zuckerberg for roughly an hour on the seventh floor of the Hart Office Building.
Nelson said that among the topics that he brought up during his meeting with Zuckerberg was the investigation led by Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III into Russia’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 election. Nelson made that revelation after being asked about what he would like to see done regarding regulation of Facebook and other social media platforms by the Trump administration. | {
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Fifteen warring drug cartels are behind the wave of violence sweeping across parts of Mexico, according to new intelligence reports from the National Security Commission (CNS).
The reports, updated this month and informed by intelligence provided by the Federal Police and the Secretariat of National Defense (Sedena), identify turf wars between criminal organizations to control the “plaza” — and consequently criminal activity — in different regions of the country as the main reason for rising levels of violent crime.
Internal disputes within cartels and the splintering of criminal organizations into smaller groups are other factors driving up crime rates, National Security Commissioner Renato Sales said.
Guanajuato has become the epicenter of a war between the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) and the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel that is fueled mainly by the ambition to control the lucrative pipeline petroleum theft racket and to a lesser extent drug trafficking, the CNS said.
Violence has surged in the state this year, with more intentional homicides in the first six months of the year than the total number recorded for all of last year, according to the National Public Security System (SNSP).
Farther north, the Sinaloa Cartel — formerly headed by Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán — is involved in bloody infighting between one faction headed by the infamous capo’s sons and another led by Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada.
El Chapo was extradited to the United States in January last year and is currently awaiting trial on charges of drug trafficking, money laundering, kidnapping and murder.
In Baja California, high homicide numbers are attributed to a turf war between an alliance made up of the Sinaloa and Arellano Félix cartels and another consisting of the CJNG and the Tijuana New Generation Cartel.
To the east in Chihuahua, and especially in the border city of Ciudad Juárez, a battle between La Línea and Los Aztecas gangs to control the “plaza” is responsible for a large part of the current violence.
The former gang is a unit of the Juárez Cartel while the latter, also known as Barrio Azteca, was previously in alliance with La Línea.
In Guerrero, the port city and tourist draw Acapulco continues to be plagued by violence due to a dispute between the Beltrán Leyva Cartel and the Independent Cartel of Acapulco to control drug trafficking and extortion.
In Jalisco, where violence has also increased this year, the CJNG and the New Plaza Cartel are engaged in a violent dispute.
The former was allegedly responsible for the abduction and murder of three film students near Guadalajara in March and the attack in May on Luis Carlos Nájera, the former attorney general of Jalisco who is now the state’s labor secretary.
Turf wars in Tamaulipas between the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas; in Veracruz between the CJNG and Los Zetas; in Colima between the Sinaloa Cartel and the CJNG; in Michoacán between Los Viagra and the CJNG; and in Durango between the Sinaloa Cartel and the Cártel del Poniente (West Cartel) are behind a high number of the homicides in those states, the CNS said.
Other cartels the commission cited in its reports are the Cártel del Noreste (Northeast Cartel) — a faction of Los Zetas — and La Familia Michoacana.
Rising levels of violent crime in Ciudad Obregón, Sonora, was the trigger for a large protest in that city yesterday.
Hundreds of demonstrators, mainly dressed in black, marched for two kilometers from the north of the city to the municipal headquarters.
Among the participants were family members of scores of victims of homicide and kidnappings.
Homicide figures for the first six months of 2018 were up 15% compared to the same period last year, making the January to June period the most violent of at least the past two decades.
Source: Milenio (sp) | {
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1 x Customised Giant HB Lamp
Customise your giant HB Lamp to suit your space:
- choice of pencil colour
- personalised foil type
- polished brass or aluminium ring
With
- hand spun glass diffuser
- solid cedar body
- 165cm tall
- 10m of cable to play with
Handmade in the UK (fitted with UK plug so will need to be updated if purchasing outside the UK).
Less | {
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The top 25 will change a number of times between now and tipoff of the 2012-13 season.
It might change by Thursday, or certainly by April 10 and then again by April 29 for the two draft deadlines (the first for the NCAA, the second for the NBA). Some of the top players will make their decisions and we'll update it when they do. For now, we're assuming a few things, taking into account the underclassmen decisions and coaching changes and projecting what we think might happen in the next few months.
This is the first crack. It's a combined effort by several of my ESPN colleagues. Try not to take it too seriously. We'll take another swing before long.
1. Indiana
Surprised? Putting Indiana No. 1 isn't a reach, and it speaks volumes about how far Tom Crean has brought the Hoosiers. There was legitimate grumbling in the Hoosier Nation a year ago, wondering whether the rebuilding was taking too long. Well, IU had two of the more significant wins of the 2011-12 regular season and then reached the Sweet 16, where it pushed Kentucky as well as any team. Cody Zeller has to stay put for Indiana to remain No. 1 of course. But if Zeller is back, the Hoosiers -- with nearly everyone returning and joined by another elite recruiting class -- will be right there in the running for a national title.
2. Louisville
The Cardinals reached the Final Four despite a number of injuries and eligibility issues. They showed tremendous resolve and were a terrific team at home. Rick Pitino couldn't be too upset over the loss to Kentucky because he knows this team can be right back here next season. Can you imagine if Indiana and Louisville, near neighbors, are 1 and 2? Could happen. Peyton Siva should be Big East preseason player of the year and UL is only losing Kyle Kuric and Chris Smith. Plus, Wayne Blackshaer will be around for a whole season.
3. Kansas
The Jayhawks are projected to lose Thomas Robinson, and they will lose Tyshawn Taylor. But have we learned our lesson not to dismiss anything Bill Self does with this program? Kansas might lose Jeff Withey, but don't be surprised if he stays with more touches coming his way. Newcomers Perry Ellis and Ben McLemore will be instant studs. Kansas isn't going anywhere.
4. Kentucky
The Wildcats likely will lose Anthony Davis, Terrence Jones, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, and maybe Doron Lamb and Marquis Teague. One or two might stay. Darius Miller also is gone, and he was one of the best glue guys in the country. But don't think for a second that the Wildcats will dip much at all. The additions of Ryan Harrow, Archie Goodwin, Alex Poythress and Willie Cauley will keep Kentucky near the top again. And just think if Kentucky were to land Nerlens Noel and/or Shabazz Muhammad? If that occurs, don't be surprised to see Kentucky open up at No. 1 in the fall.
5. Ohio State
The Buckeyes have never disappointed under Thad Matta. This team is a consistent winner that is always near or at the top of the Big Ten and in title contention. Next season won't be any different. Jared Sullinger promised Matta two seasons so he could easily depart for the NBA. But should he after the national semifinal? Maybe not. The Buckeyes still have Aaron Craft, and Lenzelle Smith Jr. and LaQuinton Ross are going to be studs. Deshaun Thomas should be back, too. If he does return, this team will be in the thick of the title race.
6. NC State
How did this happen so fast? Is North Carolina State really the ACC favorite? Why not. North Carolina and Duke are taking on serious losses, and the Wolfpack overachieved under Mark Gottfried (and top assistant Bobby Lutz) to get to the Sweet 16. If the Wolfpack don't get too giddy about leaving (will C.J. Leslie remain?), they should be the favorite in the conference. Gottfried has one of the top recruiting classes in the country with Rodney Purvis, T.J. Warren and Tyler Lewis. So get ready, Raleigh. You might just have the ACC favorite.
7. Michigan State
The Spartans lose Big Ten player of the year Draymond Green, Brandon Wood and Austin Thornton. But don't ever dismiss a Tom Izzo-coached team. Branden Dawson will be back, and so will Travis Trice. The Spartans don't ever lack for talent and a top-10 freshmen class is on the way. And if you think Michigan State is going to slide under Izzo, you haven't been following the program.
8. Michigan
The Wolverines will be in the top 10 if Trey Burke returns to school. He should. He would join freshman stud Mitch McGary and Tim Hardaway Jr., and a loaded class that also includes ESPNU 100 recruits Glenn Robinson Jr., and Nik Stauskas. The Wolverines have had a few defections, and that has disrupted a bit of their flow. But John Beilein has figured out the Big Ten, so Michigan will once again be in the mix.
9. Florida
The Gators have a real shot to be an SEC title contender if Bradley Beal decides to stay put. Patric Young has only scratched the surface of his potential. Losing Erving Walker and his quick shooting might not be such a horrible thing. Kenny Boynton played deep into March two years in a row and should lead this squad. Erik Murphy is maturing and has improved his game. Recruiting is going well as always for the Gators. This program had a minor dip post-2007 but that is clearly no longer an issue.
10. Baylor
The Bears definitely will lose Quincy Acy. But what would happen if Baylor didn't lose Perry Jones III and/or Quincy Miller? This team would be in contention for No. 1. It's unlikely they'll retain both, but Pierre Jackson and Brady Heslip should form one of the top backcourts in the country. And the Bears continue to recruit as well as any school. Adding Isaiah Austin is huge. Baylor has become a consistent Big 12 title contender with Kansas and that doesn't appear to be ending.
11. North Carolina
The Tar Heels were gutted by early-entry departures from Kendall Marshall, Harrison Barnes and John Henson. Tyler Zeller was already leaving because he was a senior. But that just opens more minutes for Dexter Strickland, Leslie McDonald, P.J. Hairston, Reggie Bullock and James Michael McAdoo, assuming he returns to Chapel Hill. Marcus Paige and Brice Johnson will step in and deepen this team. Let's not kid ourselves: There's still plenty of talent on hand. The Tar Heels won't be the favorite in the ACC, though, and for UNC that might feel a bit odd.
12. Arizona
The Wildcats had to deal with a number of issues this season from injuries to attrition, but they were still close to mounting a Pac-12 regular-season title challenge and made the NIT. Arizona should lean heavily on Solomon Hill as a lead returnee (along with Kevin Parrom's return), but this will be a team heavy on newcomers. The recruiting class is currently ranked No. 1 in the country by ESPN, with Kaleb Tarczewski, Grant Jerrett, Brandon Ashley and Gabe York heading to Tucson. This team will be young in November but should make its mark in March.
13. Memphis
The Tigers are losing Will Barton, but don't dismiss this team one bit. Memphis was on a roll before landing a bad matchup with Saint Louis in the NCAA tournament. The Tigers didn't get much national buzz in large part because they were in Conference USA and didn't have many stellar nonconference wins. But sleeping on Josh Pastner's crew would be a mistake. The final season of C-USA for Memphis should end in yet another conference title. The Big East beckons, and Memphis will be in the mix once it arrives there as well.
14. Syracuse
Dion Waiters is gone. Fab Melo is, too. Kris Joseph and Scoop Jardine were seniors. But the depth of talent is still there with Rakeem Christmas and Michael-Carter Williams, as well as Brandon Triche and C.J. Fair. The addition of big man DaJuan Coleman is huge. Don't expect the Orange to fall off in their likely last season in the Big East.
15. Duke
The Blue Devils lost Austin Rivers after one season. Miles Plumlee also departs. But the returns of Ryan Kelly, Seth Curry, Quinn Cook, Tyler Thornton and Andre Dawkins as well as Mason (assuming he stays) and Marshall Plumlee give the Blue Devils a solid set. If Rasheed Sulaimon delivers as an impact player, the Blue Devils will still be an ACC contender. Also, don't rule out the possibility that the Blue Devils land a key transfer such as Trey Zeigler or Alex Oriakhi.
16. Texas
Myck Kabongo announced he was staying, but J'Covan Brown decided to bolt. That's not a bad trade. The upside for Kabongo exceeds that of the shot-happy Brown. The Longhorns also have quite a class coming in with Cameron Ridley and Prince Ibeh leading the way. Rick Barnes' recruiting class is currently No. 3 in the ESPN rankings. And Texas was one of the younger teams in the league last season. Losing Missouri will move the Longhorns up within the Big 12 next season, too.
17. Notre Dame
This will be interesting. Whenever the Irish are supposed to be good, there is the potential for a drop-off. Notre Dame exceeded expectations, and now the Irish are a possible Big East favorite? Well, Pat Connaughton, Jack Cooley, Eric Atkins and Jerian Grant offer quite a lineup that should succeed in the Big East. Everyone is back in South Bend. Mike Brey said he was calm about this team throughout this season. He needs to keep that attitude throughout next season.
18. Creighton
Doug McDermott is staying, so the Bluejays are the Valley favorites and a top-25 team once again. Greg Echenique returns to anchor the inside. The loss of Antoine Young will hurt the Bluejays but they have proved to be a deep team. This group showed more toughness as the season progressed. Expect it to continue.
19. Gonzaga
The Bulldogs lose Robert Sacre, but if Elias Harris returns -- and he should -- the Bulldogs once again will be the preseason favorite in the WCC and one of the best teams in the West. Gary Bell Jr., Kevin Pangos and David Stockton form one of the top perimeters in the region. Sam Dower will only get better as a possible difference-maker. Gonzaga had a poor matchup with Ohio State, but was still within a few possessions to knock off the eventual Final Four team. The Zags will contine to roll on.
20. Kansas State
Bruce Weber takes over for Frank Martin, who had the Wildcats set up for a continuous run near the top of the Big 12. Weber didn't forget how to coach at Illinois. He is one of the more respected teachers of the game. He just had a bad marriage with the Illini, and it couldn't be repaired. Rodney McGruder should stay and play for Weber since he'll be a senior. The core of this team returns to push the rest of the Big 12. Weber's first season should be a success.
21. Wisconsin
Jordan Taylor is gone. But when should losing one key player be a killer for Wisconsin? The Badgers have Jared Berggren, Mike Bruesewitz, Ryan Evans and Ben Brust back for next season. If the point guard position can be settled, there is a good shot the Badgers will be in the thick of the Big Ten race yet again.
22. VCU
The Rams lose Bradford Burgess off another excellent season under Shaka Smart. But Smart stayed because he knows the Rams have a legit shot to be just as good if not better next season. VCU returns everyone but Burgess. This was a team that needed to develop over the course of the season, and it did. Once again, this is another squad that shouldn't be taken lightly.
23. San Diego State
Aztecs coach Steve Fisher said Sunday night that he has a top-25 team. We agree. Jamaal Franklin, Chase Tapley and James Rahon make the Aztecs the team to beat in the Mountain West before SDSU heads off to the Big West. They also add transfer J.J. O'Brien (Utah), James Johnson (Virginia) and Dwayne Polee (St. John's). Fisher will have the Aztecs in the mix nationally, like he has the past four seasons.
24. Tennessee
Cuonzo Martin had the Volunteers on the cusp an NCAA tournament berth in the final two weeks of the regular season. Now, Martin gets Jarnell Stokes for a full season, along with the bulk of his teammates. The Vols will continue to play as hard as any team in the country, as Martin has established an identity of defense and toughness that will serve Tennessee well in the SEC.
25. Missouri
We'd be foolish to count this team out despite losing its top three scorers. (Did anyone catch what Kansas did this season?) Yes, Frank Haith does lose cornerstones Kim English, Marcus Denmon and Ricardo Ratliffe, but Laurence Bowers will be healthy after he missed the season with a knee injury and Michael Dixon and Phil Pressey return to give the Tigers a core. With a stellar recruiting class and transfer Jabari Brown, Missouri should have an immediate impact in the SEC race.
Fifteen more on the cusp: Cincinnati, UNLV, Pittsburgh, Alabama, UCLA, Florida State, Stanford, Saint Louis, Marquette, Maryland, New Mexico, Butler, Saint Mary's, Xavier, Nevada.
Andy Katz is a senior writer for ESPN.com. | {
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Are you disgusted with the Catholic Church over their opposition to reproductive rights and all the harm it has caused? Is your head still reeling over the latest in what seems like a never-ending series of scandals involving their priests raping children while Church hierarchy covers it up and various spokesmen find creative ways to blame the victims? Yeah, me too. In fact, I'm not sure "sick" even begins to describe how I feel about it. It is difficult to comprehend why anyone would want to remain a member of the Catholic Church these days.
If you were ever baptized in the Church, they still count you as a member. It does not matter that you've been an atheist for years. As far as the Catholic Church is concerned, you are still one of them. It also does not matter whether you were so young at the time you were baptized that you had no idea what was happening. They'll keep counting you until you make your "defection" official.
The good news is that it is possible to leave the Catholic Church. They do not make it easy, but it can be done. The process involves the following steps:
Complete a declaration of defection. Send it to your local diocese. Realize that they may request a meeting to discuss your decision. You don't have to comply, but you do need to respond to the request or they may use this as an excuse not to process your request.
Maybe if enough people leave the Church, they will be persuaded to make some necessary changes. Then again, maybe they'll just continue to find new victims in Africa and South America. Perhaps leaving the Catholic Church is one of those things one should do for oneself and one's own piece-of-mind rather than primarily as an attempt to send a message to an organization that does not seem to be interested in listening. If nothing else, it would be one way to make sure that one is not complicit in their crimes.
Here is some additional information about how to quit the Catholic Church that seems geared toward atheists and other non-religious types. If you come across anything else that would be useful, let me know and I'll be happy to add it.
An early version of this post appeared at Atheist Revolution in 2010. It was updated in 2018 and 2020 to fix broken links, improve clarity, and provide additional information for those interested in cutting their ties to this corrupt organization. | {
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General Manager Doug Dixon of Pacific Fishermen Shipyard oversaw men who shoved Councilmember Mike O’Brien during an afterparty celebrating the opening of the Nordic Heritage Museum Friday evening.
Dixon admitted to overseeing the alleged assault on O’Brien, telling the Seattle Times that they shoved the District 6 Councilmember because he supports completing the Missing Link of the Burke-Gilman Trail:
“We have a conflict with Mike O’Brien because of his efforts to put a bicycle path here and do some other issues that hurt the maritime-industrial area,” he said. “We told him if he didn’t leave he would be criminally trespassing and he didn’t leave, so we had to forcibly remove him,” Dixon added. “We told him finding his wife had nothing to do with him being there or not.”
O’Brien’s take is pretty much the same as Dixon’s. He told the Times he agreed to leave as soon as he found his wife, which is by no stretch of the imagination justifiable cause for violence. This is classic juvenile bully behavior. Except this isn’t middle school gym class, it’s our city leadership. From the Times:
When the gala ended, the museum’s director “told the crowd we were welcome to attend an event two blocks away,” said O’Brien, who represents Ballard and supports the trail plan. The council member was having a conversation at the after-party when shipyard General Manager Doug Dixon told him to leave. “He had two to four other men with him,” O’Brien said. “I told him I would leave but I was going to find my wife first. I started to look for my wife, and at some point a minute or so later, someone from behind grabbed me by the shoulders and proceeded to shove me towards the gate and out the gate as I continued to look for my wife, who I was unable to find.” O’Brien added, “I want to be clear — I was physically thrown out of this event because of the policies I advocate for.”
There should be a loud and resounding condemnation of Dixon’s actions from our city’s political, labor and industrial leaders. An elected official cannot be physically assaulted for any reason, but especially not due to a policy disagreement. That is a dangerous precedent to set in our city, especially at a time when many city policy debates feel near a boiling point.
The apparent assault comes just days after a group organized to disrupt a nearby town hall about the employee head tax by yelling down any city leaders or neighbors who tried to carry out public comment. Councilmember O’Brien is a primary target of the group, which opposes proposed solutions to homelessness that O’Brien has championed.
Councilmember O’Brien is a special public servant who champions bold action on many issues from safe streets to affordable housing even in the face of angry constituents. It takes bravery to face and listen to yelling and anger pointed his way last week. But that is part of an elected official’s job, and he doesn’t shy away from it. I find that admirable.
But physical assault is totally different.
When Central District activist Omari Tahir-Garrett assaulted then-Mayor Paul Schell during a 2001 event, he was sentenced to 21 months in prison. Schell’s injuries were certainly much worse than O’Brien’s, but assault on an elected official of any kind must be taken seriously.
Worse, Dixon is not some regular Joe worker, he is in a serious leadership position at a major business. When he oversees people shoving a city official, what message does that send to everyone who works there? His actions here require consequences, and his peers need to step up and make sure everyone knows that getting physical is not the appropriate way to voice a policy disagreement.
It’s also worth noting that Pacific Fishermen Shipyard already won a big compromise when trail advocates and some major nearby businesses agreed to a compromise route that would go via Market Street rather than the more direct route passing directly in front of the shipyard and other waterfront businesses along NW 54th Street. This was a significant concession on behalf of trail supporters, but it was supposedly the key to finding a deal industry leaders could agree to. The city and trail advocates are still pursuing the compromise route even though some businesses, including Pacific Fishermen Shipyard, went ahead and sued anyway.
Trail advocates and O’Brien are being more than fair to appellant businesses, considering they could have dropped the compromise when the lawsuits were filed. But that olive branch was met with a shove.
There is a lot of irony that this shoving happened during an after party for the opening of the Nordic Museum. Guests of honor for the opening included Crown Princess Mary of Denmark, who famously bikes her children to school via Copenhagen’s world-leading network of safe bike lanes. The Burke-Gilman Missing Link project is about connecting a trail that is safe and comfortable for people of all ages and abilities to bike to and through Ballard. The trail would pass directly in front of the Nordic Museum, and plans would integrate it into the entrance plaza, a truly fitting homage to Nordic bike culture.
Sweden, another nation the museum celebrates, is the home of the Vision Zero philosophy for safe streets. Vision Zero states that traffic injuries and deaths are preventable, and streets that see injuries should be redesigned to be safer. On average, two people per month are injured to severely while navigating the Missing Link that they require an ambulance response. The Missing Link trail is the solution to these injuries, which is why supporters have been working for decades to get it completed. Councilmember O’Brien has been a true champion for the cause.
This might be a good time to take a second to call (206-684-8800) or email ([email protected]) O’Brien’s office and thank him for his leadership.
Opponents of the trail have nearly exhausted their legal avenues for fighting the trail. A group, including Dixon’s Pacific Fishermen Shipyard, have filed an appeal challenging the city’s Environmental Impact Statement, a massive document studying every inch of the 1.4-mile trail connection. They already lost one such appeal, so King County Superior Court should be their final chance to stop it. As of now, the city’s project website still lists a fall 2018 date to begin construction. | {
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O juiz federal Sérgio Moro (Foto: Fabio Rodrigues Pozzebom/Agência Brasil)
O juiz federal Sérgio Moro decretou o sequestro da casa em Passa Quatro, no interior de Minas Gerais, onde vive a mãe do ex-ministro da Casa Civil durante o governo Lula, José Dirceu, condenado por corrupção no mensalão e preso na Pixuleco, 17ª fase da Lava Jato, no ano passado acusado de receber propinas no esquema Petrobras.
Leia mais
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Na prática, o imóvel fica à disposição da Justiça, mas dona Olga Guedes da Silva, de 94 anos, pode continuar vivendo nela como depositária da casa. A decisão é do dia 6 de abril e se tornou pública nesta quinta-feira, 14. O sequestro de bens é uma medida judicial utilizada para que a Justiça possa reaver o dinheiro desviado em caso de uma condenação judicial.
A ordem do juiz acata o pedido da força-tarefa da Lava Jato, que apontou que o imóvel está em nome da TGS Consultoria, empresa que teve seus bens sequestrados por determinação de Moro em setembro do ano passado. Na ocasião, contudo, a decisão do juiz incluía no sequestro os bens do ex-ministro em Vinhedo e na capital paulista, e também determinava o sequestro de "outros bens" imóveis em nome de Dirceu e da TGS Consultoria, sem especificar quais.
Logo, a Lava Jato descobriu que, dentre os imóveis em nome da TGS, está a residência de dona Olga, que acabou sendo alcançada pela decisão de Moro do ano passado, se tornando automaticamente indisponibilizada judicialmente. Diante disso, o Ministério Público Federal entendeu que era necessário a expedição do registro de sequestro do imóvel, o que acabou sendo deferido por Moro em 6 de abril.
A suspeita da Lava Jato é de que a TGS era utilizada pelo ex-ministro para ocultar a propriedade de seus bens. O dono da TGS é o ex-sócio de Dirceu na JD Assessoria, Júlio Cesar Santos, que admitiu no ano passado à Polícia Federal ter adquirido a residência em Passa Quatro em 2004, por R$ 250 mil. O próprio Dirceu, em depoimento ao juiz Sérgio Moro, afirmou que adquiriu o imóvel da TGS por R$ 260 mil via JD Assessoria "entre 2006 e 2007?.
Além disso, em março deste ano, a defesa de Dirceu recorreu ao juiz Sérgio Moro para suspender o sequestro dos bens determinado no ano passando, alegando que havia provas "de que referidos bens possuem origem lícita e vinculada à atividade profissional lícita por ele exercida", e que o MPF teria exagerado no cálculo da propina recebida pelo ex-ministro, estimada pela força-tarefa em R$ 60 milhões.
Na decisão tornada pública nesta quinta, Moro afirmou que vai analisar os argumentos da defesa do ex-ministro na sentença da ação penal contra Dirceu e outros 16 réus acusados de corrupção, formação de quadrilha e lavagem de dinheiro pelo envolvimento no esquema de corrupção na Petrobras.
A reportagem ligou várias vezes para o celular do advogado Roberto Podval, que defende Dirceu, mas ele não atendeu. | {
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Exclusive: A spokesperson for the Labour Party has clarified that it would undo the privatisation of NHS hospital pharmacies.
Source: Jacob King/PA Wire/PA Images John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, has said that he wants to bring private NHS contracts, including any relating to pharmacy services, “in house”
A Labour Party government would bring hospital pharmacies run by private companies back into NHS ownership, a party spokesperson has said.
The clarification follows comments made by John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, on 5 November 2019, when he said the Labour Party had plans to move the provision of pharmacy services “in house”.
Speaking on the radio station LBC, McDonnell said he wanted to nationalise the £10bn private sector contracts that are currently used to provide NHS services.
When asked whether this plan applied to pharmacies, he replied: “I believe pharmaceutical provision should be in-house, but at the same time … we will manage those contracts when we take over in government, when those contracts run out. We will protect the patients and bring them in-house.”
He added: “The reality is this: when you have a private contractor, you are paying out for that contractor to make a profit and, therefore, that money that’s paid out in profits is not being spent on patient care.”
McDonnell also said “in-sourcing is more effective … You are integrating the service into a democratic control overall [and] you are not wasting resources on profits that will go into private shareholders pockets — simple as that. Every penny that we pay on the NHS should be spent on patient care.”
However, in a statement sent to The Pharmaceutical Journal following a request for clarification, a spokesperson said: “John McDonnell was referring to hospital pharmacy services, which we will bring in-house.”
“We will unwind internal privatisation of NHS services by bringing contracts back in house as they expire and repealing the Health and Social Care Act.”
McDonnell’s comments come after Lord Carter’s review of efficiency in hospitals, published in 2016, found “significant potential for the buying, making and supply of medicines, along with other back-office functions, to become more efficient”, adding “that these services don’t always need to be delivered by NHS employed staff”.
The review suggested that trusts should consider outsourcing “their outpatient dispensing services” to community pharmacy providers.
The Pharmaceutical Journal found in January 2019 that 58% of acute trust have outsourced their outpatient dispensing services. However, it is unclear how many were outsourced to private companies.
The Labour Party also reiterated its pledge to create a state-owned generic drugs manufacturer to produce medicines at an “affordable” price to the NHS — a plan that was first suggested by Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the Labour Party, at the September 2019 annual party conference. | {
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Israel on Tuesday dismantled metal detectors it installed last week at a contested shrine in Jerusalem, as a senior cleric called for Muslims to stay away from the area.
Ikrema Sabri, the head of Jerusalem's Supreme Islamic Committee, made the call pending a review of the new Israeli security arrangements at the holy site in the Old City known as the Noble Sanctuary to Muslims and the Temple Mount to Jews.
The erection of the metal detectors incensed the Muslim world, amid allegations that Israel was trying to expand control over the site under the guise of security. Thousands of Palestinians protested the move.
Early Tuesday, Israel’s security Cabinet decided to replace the metal detectors with “advanced technologies,” reportedly cameras that can detect hidden objects. The Cabinet said police would increase deployment until the new measures are in place.
The statement said the changes would be implemented over a period of “up to six months.”
The site is administered by Jordan, where an Israeli guard fatally shot two Jordanians after one of them attacked him with a screwdriver at the Israeli Embassy in the kingdom on Sunday. A 24-hour diplomatic standoff ensued between the two nations, who signed a peace treaty in 1994.
The security guard and other Israeli embassy staff returned to Israel from Jordan Monday. It came after Jordan initially said the guard could not leave without an investigation, while Israel said he had diplomatic immunity.
The standoff came after Palestinian worshippers and Israeli police clashed outside the Old City on Friday after Israel erected the metal detectors at the gates to the shrine after Arab-Israeli gunmen killed two Israeli police guards there on July 14.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Jordan’s King Abdullah II spoke by phone late Monday to discuss the rising tensions.
The Jordanian king stressed the need to “remove the measures taken by the Israeli side since the recent crisis broke out” and to agree on steps that would prevent another escalation in the future, Jordan’s state news agency Petra reported.
READ MORE:
Israel to remove metal detectors from holy site
Israel, Palestinians dig in over metal detectors at Jerusalem shrine
Clashes erupt in Jerusalem over access to contested shrine
A Palestinian man was shot dead by an Israeli settler in Ras al-Amud, a neighborhood southeast of the Old City, and two other Palestinians were killed in clashes near the Old City Friday.
Three Israelis died in a Palestinian attack inside a West Bank settlement later in the day.
Israel has denied it has a hidden agenda, portraying the metal detectors as a needed means to prevent attacks.
Muslim and Palestinian leaders who have demanded a return to the security arrangements that were in place before the shooting of the Israeli police officers.
Mahmoud Aloul, a senior official in Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah movement, said Tuesday that any changes to the previous arrangements are unacceptable.
“Israel is an occupying power and needs to take its hands from our holy sites,” he told the Voice of Palestine radio station.
Contributing: The Associated Press | {
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AT THE CONCLUSION of the NAB AFL Women's season players return to their state league sides, forcing clubs into a juggling act.
Most AFLW footballers are on restricted playing plans, designed to maintain fitness and build skills without overworking the players, who are not yet full-time athletes.
State leagues themselves (let alone clubs) manage the influx of AFLW-listed players differently.
The WAFLW has limits on the number of games AFLW players can line up in, while others like the VFLW have a cap on the number of AFLW-listed players named within a match.
Collingwood and the Western Bulldogs will face off in the VFLW Grand Final on Sunday and have had slightly different tactics when incorporating their AFLW players with the rest of their VFLW lists.
The Magpies went to the extraordinary step of publishing an article on their website in mid-August, alerting fans their priority was preparing VFLW players to be drafted and that it may affect selection and results in the final home-and-away rounds.
"[We manage it] with a lot of Tetris," coach Penny Cula-Reid said with a laugh.
"We have to wait for the medical crew to clear the AFLW players, and then the coaching staff – Steve (Symonds, AFLW coach), Jess Burger (list manager) and Tess McManus (operations manager) – works out who we want to play.
"We look at the girls who need a bit more experience, game time and match fitness. From there, we'll work out the VFLW players around the AFLW girls."
Collingwood's VFLW coach Penny Cula-Reid
Western Bulldogs VFLW coach Sean Kavanagh echoed Cula-Reid's sentiments.
"We're in a similar boat. We [made] a plan earlier in the year post the AFLW season with girls coming back who needed their break and might get a few games later in the season," Kavanagh said.
"Some of them have tipped out again ready to go for their (AFLW) pre-season. We've had a similar balance, some of our first and second-year players have been getting a bit more footy in them through the VFLW season.
"Basically, everyone on our list has now played, which is exciting. To give as many of our girls some exposure at the level as we could was the plan, and it's been a great season so far."
Footscray's VFLW coach Sean Kavanagh
Another factor state league coaches in Victoria need to balance is the introduction of the top-flight under-18 players who are eligible to be drafted at the end of the year.
In competitions like the QAFLW and WAFLW, younger players who are ready play from the start of the season, sometimes even at the age of 16.
This is the second year elite 18-year-olds have been integrated with VFLW teams following the NAB AFLW under-18 championships in July, giving them a taste of senior footy and training at elite clubs before they are signed to AFLW sides.
Although just because an under-18 is playing at a VFLW club, does not mean they will be automatically drafted to its AFLW team; for example, last year Tyla Hanks played at Carlton but was drafted by Melbourne.
The Dogs have fielded GWV Rebels Sophie Molan and Ella Wood, along with Western Jet Elisabeth Georgostathis, while the Pies have had Gemma Lagioia, Nicola Xenos and Alana Porter (all Oakleigh Chargers) on their list this year.
"What they do is they play with confidence," Bulldogs VFLW skipper Mickayla Ward said.
"Coming through a junior development (program), where some of our VFLW players haven't had that experience, they're able to get out there, know exactly what their role is and go and do it."
Cula-Reid said the under-18 players lifted the entire team.
"I've been watching their NAB League games and finding out what they bring, finding out where their flaws are, and then when they come into the system, trying to close that gap in terms of what we need them to play," she said.
"Those kids are just unbelievable. The best thing is they (initially) don't have that much knowledge of some of the players around them, but when they get in, they think it's such a cool environment and where they want to be.
"They test some of our VFL girls, and that's where we want them to be. If they're pushing each other, the level's just going to be better and better."
Related AFLW players dominate in state league best and fairest awards | {
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バネバグース赤坂見附店（東京・赤坂）にて、テラス席にこたつを設置した「こたつテラス」で鍋を楽しめるプランがスタートしています。あえての屋外。
こたつ席がいっぱい
冬でも寒さを気にせず夜空の下で食事ができる「こたつテラス鍋プラン」。昨年に開催し好評だったということで、今年は4席から7席に拡大し最大42人までとなっています。屋根に暖房機器も完備しているので、天気や気候を気にせず楽しめるとのこと。屋外のこたつでぬくぬくするとかぜいたく感ある。
雨の日でも問題なし
鍋の種類は定番の「もつ鍋」と、新たな「海鮮鍋しゃぶ」の2つ。海鮮鍋しゃぶは、ホタテ、エビ、ホキ、あさり、カニなどの海鮮エキスが染み出た出汁で豚しゃぶしゃぶも楽しめるハイブリッドな鍋で1人5600円。もつ鍋は5200円（どちらも税別）です。どちらのプランも2時間飲み放題で、デザートにはこたつといえばということで「みかん」が付いてきます。
その他、前菜で「柚子大根」「燻製サンマの炙り」「クリームチーズカラスミ添え」に「塩キャベツ」、シメには「雑炊」も。
同プランは予約が必要で、4人から（こたつ1台で6人まで）受け付けています。
（宮原れい） | {
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(CNN) The prosecution rested its case against Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán on Monday, the 35th day of the Mexican druglord's trial in federal court in Brooklyn, New York. Over 50 witnesses have been called so far.
Guzmán's wife, Emma Coronel, has not been charged with a crime. A spokesman for the US attorney's office had no comment when asked whether Coronel could face charges due to the allegations.
Jurors have seen dozens of messages and listened to calls between Guzmán and associates in which he discusses drug trafficking and even orders executions.
At one point, a former close personal aide alleged that the drug kingpin once paid a $100 million bribe to former Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto. Peña Nieto's former chief of staff denied the allegation, saying it was "false, defamatory and absurd."
Read More | {
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Of late, the Canadian immigration Minister, Jason Kenney has introduced a new legislation, which is commonly be called as Bill C-37. If passed, the Strengthening the Value of Canadian Citizenship Act would make quite a difference in the areas of eliminating unscrupulous consultants providing citizenship-related services; streamlining the citizenship revocation process; as well as protecting the value of Canadian citizenship.
Here are a few highlights of the new legislation:
The act proposes tougher regulations for citizenship consultants across Canada. It also allows the authority to take action when there are instances of fraudulence in terms immigration consultancy.
It proposes higher punishment for the citizenship deceitful activities. The act asks penalties for immoral consultancy up to 100,000 dollars or a jail sentence of five years.
It proposes people who intend to apply for Canadian citizenship to be present physically in the country for 3 years of the preceding 4 years as one of the prerequisites of obtaining citizenship residence in Canada.
It proposes measures to restrict criminals from obtaining Canadian citizens.
It proposes a shift of power from the political figures to the country’s Federal Court when it comes to removals and revocations.
The legislation proposes exceptions to the rule of first generation limit of obtaining Canadian citizenship. It also asks the law not to make eligible applicants deprived of citizenship, as well as to make sure that children of Canadian citizens working for Canada outside the country are passed with citizenship.
While announcing the Strengthening the Value of Canadian citizenship Act, Jason Kenney said that the country’s citizenship boast a great value, which is appreciated across the globe and with the new legislation, the country is trying to take measures in retaining the same! Besides, the measures would also help weed out the deceitful activities, such as in citizenship consultancy. | {
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First, you must read this post from yesterday …
Video of Israeli soldier arresting boy is latest in war of perception
NABI SALEH (AFP) — A soldier pins a boy down and is assaulted by his family: The scene might have gone unnoticed if not for footage that has turned it into another weapon in the Israel-Palestinian war of perception.
Palestinians see it as proof of Israel’s abuses in the occupied West Bank, while many Israelis say the soldier fell into a media trap laid by activists.
The incident played out on Friday in the Palestinian village of Nabi Saleh and footage of it has since gone viral, generating a bitter debate both online and off.
As is often the case when it comes to the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, there has been little room for middle ground.
The video and pictures, including those taken by AFP, show a masked Israeli soldier trying to arrest an 11-year-old boy who has a cast on his left arm.
According to the Israeli military, the boy was suspected of having thrown stones during a protest.
As the soldier holds him against a rock, his automatic rifle at his side, members of the boy’s family, including his mother and sister, along with other activists rush over and try to pull him off the child.
A wrestling match ensues, with the soldier’s ski mask pulled off and the boy’s sister biting the soldier on the hand. The soldier yells for help, and eventually a superior officer arrives and orders him to let the boy go.
While walking away, visibly frustrated, the soldier throws down a stun grenade.
The images quickly made the rounds.
Palestinian papers reproduced a cartoon showing the soldier with a dog’s head, while some in Israel saw the decision not to arrest the boy as a sign of weakness.
Left-leaning Israeli newspaper Haaretz, referring to the headlock the soldier had put the boy in, lamented the situation in which the military has found itself in the West Bank.
“It’s a national headlock in which an entire army, and behind it a nation, remains in a state of denial that there are military solutions to the conflict,” it said.
‘I wasn’t afraid’
Nabi Saleh, near Ramallah, has for years been a flashpoint in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Each Friday, Palestinians, foreigners and even Israelis protest against the expansion of the nearby Halamish settlement. Stones are typically thrown by the protesters, while tear gas and rubber bullets are fired by Israeli forces.In the past three years, two people have died and 375 been injured, with nearly half of them minors, according to protesters.
According to his father, the child in the video, Mohammed Tamimi, broke his wrist while fleeing an Israeli tank in his village, which was why he was wearing a cast.
“I wasn’t afraid,” the boy told AFP, “but I cried to call my family to come get me away from the soldier.”His mother Nariman said she thought “only one thing: free my son from the soldier’s hands.”
The Tamimi family has been at the forefront of the protests in Nabi Saleh. The father, Bassem, said he has been arrested nine times.
Ahed, the boy’s teenage sister wearing a Tweety Bird shirt in the video, is known to some for older photos showing her raising her fist at Israeli soldiers. It resulted in her being received by then Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in 2012.
Some Israelis have accused the family of being agitators who put their children in danger.
An Israeli officer familiar with the situation called Friday’s protest a “PR stunt” where demonstrators “try to provoke soldiers by hurling stones at them that can be deadly,” forcing them to react.
Arnon, the soldier’s father, told Israeli journalists that he regretted that his son’s restraint was not being given more praise.
The Haaretz analysis however sought to put the episode into context.
“No amount of PR and media management will make the occupation of another nation look good,” it said. | {
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As the United States plunges further down into the maelstrom of the 2020 election, the long-held truth of politicians and economists is becoming clearer: politicians are not economists, and no self-respecting economist would become a politician.
Between the Democrats and Republicans, 2020 has become a clash of promises and grand visions. Policies are being touted as cure-alls for the ills of American society. However, without a grounding in sound economic theory, politicians run a significant risk of creating problems while implementing solutions.
Taken individually and placed in a vacuum-sealed echo chamber, each possible solution sounds as though it could be a silver bullet. But what happens when each policy is applied in reality? Consider two prevailing policies and proposals: rent control and protectionism.
In recent months, California has been wrestling with the idea of state-wide rent control. Despite almost every economist explaining that such measures would violate the law of supply and demand, leading to a housing shortage, which is the root cause of homelessness, the state passed the necessary legislation.
Interestingly, but not surprisingly, the cities and states with the highest average housing costs also have the strictest housing laws. New York City and California boast some of the highest rental rates and the largest homeless populations. While most economists would point and say that more housing is needed to meet demand, which will increase competition and drive costs down, city and state politicians are prompted to make broad gestures to their constituents without concern or knowledge of reality.
For the 2020 election, several candidates and legislators are proposing nationwide rent control, despite the clear warning signs from our nation’s largest cities. There is some evidence that rent control could provide temporary protection from rent increases in the short run, which politicians will generally point to as evidence of a successful policy. The long-term effects, however, are largely ignored as developers are disincentivized to build new housing, leading to a shortage and a slow, but steady, cost increase. By ignoring the total impact, politicians can paint a glowing image as they seek reelection or higher office.
Republicans are not blameless when it comes to economic policy. A party known for its free-market attitudes, unwavering in its tenacity when confronted by unions and protectionists, have pivoted with the advent of the Trump Administration. Tariffs and taxes were once called primary causes of the Great Depression and its prolonged duration, but have suddenly become a staple of the Republican Party.
Much like the Democrats’ rent control proposal, there is an initial benefit in the short term with regards to protectionist policies. US Steel saw an immediate rise in productivity and value, securing several hundred jobs. As these policies pervade, however, Americans are beginning to see higher prices from otherwise inexpensive imported goods, as well as domestic products that require the importation of raw materials. The Trump Administration’s current policies are estimated to cost the average American household an additional $400 to $1,000 annually. But on the campaign trail, you will only hear about American jobs that are being saved by the dozens at the expense of millions of Americans.
While both policies seem small in scale, their effects are felt greatly by those who were supposed to benefit. And despite all common sense, more extensive proposals are being churned out every day, including the Green New Deal, Medicare-for-All, and further escalation of our current trade war. Greater pressure will be applied to consumers and employers, leading to a natural response from the marketplace: decreased employment and productivity, and stagnated growth and wages.
One of the most difficult obstacles in adopting sound economic policies is proof of concept. When a politician’s job is on the line, the knee-jerk reaction is to interfere, rather than relinquish power. But examples are all around us. Consider the small country of Estonia.
The former Soviet state, which languished under Communism, took immediate action with its new-found independence. “The political agenda included monetary reform, the creation of a free-trade zone, a balanced budget, the privatization of state-owned companies, and the introduction of a flat-rate income tax,” said Luis Pablo de la Horra with the Foundation for Economic Education. This fresh commitment to free-market capitalism, after suffering under the polar opposite of Communism, has led Estonia to become one of the wealthiest nations in Europe.
The United States is more than capable of adopting similar policies and relinquishing control of the economy to the marketplace. It simply requires an understanding of high school economics and a deliberate trust in the capabilities of the individual. Without this basic knowledge, we are condemned to continue puttering along under harsh conditions that prevent each person from achieving their greatest measure of personal wealth and fulfillment. | {
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