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Parents mourning the loss of their six-year-old son discovered the boy had penned a heartbreaking goodbye letter.
After Leland Shoemake passed away from a rare brain infection, his parents, Tim and Amber, returned to their Pike County, Georgia home to select clothes for him to be buried in.
Read: This 6-Year-Old With Leukemia Became 'Spider-Mable' and Heroically Saved A Hockey Star
Entering the home for the first time since he had been hospitalized, they discovered a piece of paper with a note written in red marker on their living room table.
“Still with you,” read the handwritten note in red marker. “Thank you mom & dad.”
Below, Leland had drawn a red heart with the words “mom,” “dad” and “love” written inside. “Good day,” he added in purple marker.
“We have no idea when he wrote it but you can tell he was always a special child. We will love you forever Leland,” wrote Amber, who shared the photo and note on Facebook.
Little Leland was hospitalized after he contracted balamuthia mandrillaris, a rare and deadly amoebic infection, his mother said.
“I was over protective of Leland and tried my best to keep him safe. The one thing he loved most was playing in the dirt. I never imagined that would be the thing that would take him from me. He was my world. He made me a mother,” the heartbroken woman wrote, calling the boy that she and her husband had struggled to have “perfect.”
“He was smart from day one. He knew his abc's, numbers, colors, shapes and 20 sight words by the time he was a year old. He was our little nerd and we loved that about him. He loved school and loved to learn,” Amber noted, going on to detail his hobbies and interests. “He was the smartest, most caring, loving little boy there ever was. He was taken from us too soon.”
Read: Homeless Brothers Land Apartment After Kind-Hearted Cop Paid For Their Hotel Stay
Leland lost his battle with the disease on September 25.
“Today sweet Leland went to be with the Lord. He fought so hard, but ultimately the sickness was too much for his body to handle,” read an update at the time on the Facebook page ‘Prayers for Leland.’
On Wednesday, Leland’s parents picked out their child’s headstone, his family wrote on the page.
“Reality still hasn't set in that he's not here with us. We miss him terribly. I'm not ready for this either. I'm not sure how I'm going to go on without him. How do you not only say goodbye to a child but your best friend.”
Watch Below: Bride Reads Touching Note Her Mom Wrote After Adopting Her 20 Years Ago
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SAN JOSE — A two-hour discussion by the police union about whether to admonish their boss waffled briefly before ending with an “overwhelming” decision against such a move Tuesday, with leaders saying it would have been an unnecessary distraction from more pressing issues.
Although Chief Chris Moore avoids a dreaded “no confidence” vote, union officials stressed their decision should not be viewed as support for Moore’s leadership or the City Council they’ve clashed with over layoffs, cuts and officer pay and benefits.
“There isn’t a lot of confidence in Chief Moore and his leadership style,” said Jim Unland, president of the San Jose Police Officers’ Association. “But we think (a no-confidence vote) is a distraction from the real issues that need to be addressed in City Hall.”
Unland acknowledged that Moore doesn’t have control over the budget crises that have led to the elimination of divisions such as a dedicated gang-suppression unit and proposed reductions in the fraud/burglary unit and traffic-enforcement teams. But he said the chief of the 1,060-officer force is not fully using his platform as the city’s top cop.
“What isn’t beyond his control is being vocal,” Unland said. “We’re telling him to get off the bench and into the game.”
Moore responded to the morning’s developments by pledging to more effectively communicate the ways he advocates for his rank and file.
“I completely understand and share the frustrations of our officers,” Moore said. “The sentiment is clear: I need to spend more time working with them explaining the steps I’m taking to support them.”
Upward of 300 members attended the morning general meeting — widely acknowledged as heavier-than-usual turnout — following news coverage of the potential symbolic slap of Moore. Word got out last week that Officer Howard Johnson Jr., a union board member, placed an item on the meeting agenda to spark a discussion about a no-confidence vote.
“I’m not disappointed,” Johnson said after the meeting. “The message is here. The message is being brought out to the public.”
Staff writer John Woolfolk contributed to this story. Contact Robert Salonga at 408-920-5002. Follow him at Twitter.com/robertsalonga. |
Everyone loves an American origin story, especially a complicated one—and there is no more complicated media figure than Hugh Hefner, who died yesterday at the age of 91. The visionary behind Playboy, the magazine, the brand, the lifestyle, it turns out Hefner also introduced the world to Food & Wine magazine in March of 1978.
That’s correct: Food & Wine launched as a supplement in the March 1978 issue of Playboy and then as a stand alone magazine two months later. The original group of five founders, Robert and Lindy Kenyon (parents of newscaster Sandy Kenyon), Michael and Ariane Batterberry (who would later go on to run the much beloved Food Arts) and Peter Jones convinced Playboy there was an opportunity to create a magazine for an emerging passion group: Epicureans. Playboy, and Hef, were in their heyday, as was America. An economic revitalization was leading to the expansion of the middle and upper class and with that came a love of "finer things."
Food & Wine archives
The founders were sure it was time to make a magazine that would celebrate the new American appetite—but investors weren't convinced. According to Ariane Batterberry, who spoke with Food & Wine this morning, it took "seven years" to raise enough money for launch. "Americans would never be interested in food," the finance community told them, so the group set out to cobble together a patchwork of backers—Playboy was one of them.
Believing men—and yes women—would appreciate a "scrupulously honest magazine that cast an appraising eye on everything from cookbooks and kitchen appliances to mail-order houses to Washington lobbyists," Hefner clearly agreed and placed, next to the cover line "Sex Gadgets: The Good, The Bad and The Boring," the announcement of the launch of the The International Review of Food & Wine, called only Food & Wine on the cover.
Food & Wine archives
Batterberry distinctly remembers working with Hefner, whom she says "was wonderful to work with. He was really an editor, he really loved the editorial. And he respected that it was our magazine and left us alone—he really liked Food & Wine." The founders worked most closely with Christie Hefner on the business side, but Batterberry clearly recalls her weekend at the Playboy mansion with Hugh when they struck the deal.
"It was wonderful, but not for the reason you think," Batterberry told Food & Wine. "I didn't see a single bunny the entire time we were there. Two things that did stand out to me were the really beautiful art collection—there was art everywhere—and his amazing menagerie: there were monkeys and peacocks and maybe even big cats, I don't quite remember. I always tell people Playboy wasn't what you think it was."
As for dinner, "I will say they served boy food—steak and lobster, that kind of thing—which I loved," she told us. Most memorably, they broke into the second course (steak) with a tray of chocolate chip cookies. "You see, they had just realized that if you microwaved chocolate chip cookies, the chocolate melted but the cookie stayed crisp—but they must be eaten right away. We had a cookie orgy at dinner—everyone ooh-ing and aah-ing over the cookies, that was it."
Inside, the launch insert is no less astonishing or accomplished. On the cover is a (fully dressed) woman and chef—toque, mustache and all—sipping wine, hanging at the bar of a clearly California restaurant. Its only cover line, a quote from James Beard: "At last, a magazine about food in all its aspects." The cover also debuts our famous "&," a symbol we still use.
Inside you find some of the most accomplished names in food and journalism: George Plimpton, Miriam Ungerer, Jacques Pépin, James Beard, Gael Greene and an ad for Johnny Carson’s clothing line.
Food & Wine archives
Coming as no surprise, we right away find a photo of 007 himself, Roger Moore, tuxedoed and hanging with Michael Caine, dining at London's Intercontinental Hotel on a menu "drawn directly from Ian Fleming’s action fraught pages. Included for the occasion were Turbot Poché, Sauce Mousseline accompanied by a Macon Superieur (On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Goldfinger) and Sorbet á la Champagne served with mounds of tropical fruits and torrents of Dom Perignon (Dr. No, The Man with the Golden Gun, The Spy Who Loved Me)."
Food & Wine archives
Other amazing gems: a piece on the return of the at home smoker ("any place suitable for a barbecuing can accommodate a smoker"; a page called "Status Lunch; The Inside Track on Who Eats Where And How Well"—the first item about The Pool Room at The Four Seasons (getting a four fork recommendation); a lesson from Jacques Pépin (a personal chef at the time!) on souffles, including a recipe; a short piece on why it was time to begin gardening for vegetables and herbs from seeds and where to find them; a recipe for "The World’s Great Classics No.1: The Manhattan" (1/3 sweet vermouth; 2/3 rye whiskey, whatever brand preferred; 2 dashes Angostura bitters,optional); an essay on the dinner party meant to kill Rasputin by, casually, George Plimpton
Food & Wine archives
A "Connoisseur’s Forecast on California Wines" including ponderings from James Beard, Gael Greene (identified as New York Magazine’s “’Insatiable Critic’), Sam Aaron (co-author of the Joy of Wine) and Philip Brown; a feature story on Haiti that begins "If you have a soul, you’ll get Haiti" including a guide to Haitian specialties: "'Consomme': Not what you’d expect. In Haiti this usually means a rich, thick puree or soup based on aromatic vegetables, meat, seafood, etc. ‘Marinade’: Again hardly what you’d expect. Deep-fried fritters or croquettes based on anything from breadfruit to salt fish…"
Food & Wine archives
And then the ultimate show stopper, "Verdict: Canned Tuna. Bumble Bee, Chicken of the Sea, Star-Kist and Geisha" judged by a panel of 'notably sensitive and educated palates' which included a hostess/designer, the owner of a cooking school, a former New York Times restaurant critic and the then vice-president of Sherry-Lehmann. (Spoiler alert: they picked Bumble Bee.)
Food & Wine archives
Always ahead of the trend, a feature on tapas described as "free-form party fare, tapas may be consumed in either vast or puckish quantities, indoor or out, by day or by night, with a broad spectrum of drinks" written by James Beard himself.
Food & Wine went on to be sold to American Express publishing in 1983 and then to Time Inc., the current owner, in 2013. We are still devotedly dedicated to the finer things, but we no longer cover "mail-order houses." |
Everyone agrees that Gary Johnson, who is pretending to be an actual candidate for the presidency under the banner of the Libertarian Party, humiliated himself this morning by not knowing what “Aleppo” was. The New York Times immediately read his embarrassing gaffe into the record. It wrote:
“What is Aleppo?” Mr. Johnson said when asked on MSNBC how, as president, he would address the refugee crisis in the Syrian city that is the de facto capital of the Islamic State.
The Syrian city of Aleppo is not the de facto capital of the Islamic State. When the New York Times was apprised of this, it quickly rewrote the piece:
“What is Aleppo?” Mr. Johnson said when asked on MSNBC how, as president, he would address the refugee crisis in the Syrian city that is a stronghold of the Islamic State.
Aleppo is also not a stronghold of the Islamic State. Here is a concise account of the state of the politics of the fighting in Aleppo:
In Aleppo, the forces fighting the government range from groups with American backing to factions that until recently were officially affiliated with Al Qaeda. The Islamic State is not a player in the city.
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That is from a story on the Times’ website today, written by Anne Barnard, who has been steadily covering the horrors of Aleppo for the newspaper. It is about a chlorine gas attack against civilians in the city yesterday, probably perpetrated by the government. The chemical weapons sickened some 120 people and killed two, including a 13-year-old girl.
If you follow Barnard’s Twitter account, you wake up every morning to a fresh roundup of war crimes and other atrocities being perpetrated across Syria, in unending violence that has made a mockery of every pretense of international order or human rights doctrine. What is happening in Syria is a stain on civilization.
And, clearly, it’s too much for the New York Times campaign desk to keep up with. The Times writes about a dire and ongoing failure of foreign policy, and the people who are covering presidential politics for the Times don’t read it. Mistaking Aleppo for the Islamic State capital is a particularly glib and reductive error to make, suggesting an inability to conceive of the multi-sided debacle in Syria as anything beyond terrorist villainy.
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Finally, on the third try, somebody straightened it out:
“What is Aleppo?” Mr. Johnson said when asked on MSNBC how, as president, he would address the refugee crisis in the war-torn Syrian city.
What a dummy, that Gary Johnson! How can you consider yourself seriously involved in politics if you don’t even know what Aleppo is?
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Here’s a Google Trends graph for “Aleppo” in the past week:
That line stayed flat through yesterday’s chlorine gas attack. The only thing that got people to care about Aleppo was the chance to make fun of someone for accidentally admitting that he didn’t care about Aleppo. |
By Ng Yi Shu
Tired of uncles nagging you and the government in Hong Lim Park?
Several young Singaporeans decided to get together and organise a community picnic at the Asian Civilisations Museum yesterday.
Calling the event “more than a miracle”, Stand Up for Our Singapore (Stand Up) volunteers, dressed in red, helped to set up the various booths around the lawn and explain what the event was about to the public.
About 400 people attended the event. Participants interacted with a mutual stranger with the aid of conversational prompts such as ‘Share an act of kindness that a stranger did for you that touched you a lot.”
So what’s the event about?
“What we’re about is about showing that there are alternative ways to expressing our concern for Singapore,” said organiser Wally Tham, who works as a director at Big Red Button.“We explore themes of how Singapore can be great… how Singapore can be resilient.”
The movement has had different themes throughout its various editions – but it is generally premised upon spreading an alternative response of positivity and goodwill to Singapore through its events.
This is the movement’s fourth edition. Stand Up organised three events previously – on National Day 2012, when volunteers gave out flyers exhorting graciousness on public transport; on Christmas Day 2012, where messages of appreciation was sent out by the public to bus drivers, and on Labour Day 2013, when a community picnic was held at Hong Lim Park.
The organisers – (clockwise from top) Wally Tham (center, holding camera), Tong Yee, Wu Xinyan and Scott Lai (center)
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The organisers received nearly no official funding, except for the first edition, where the National Youth Council supported the movement with a $3,000 Young ChangeMakers grant. That was not enough to cover the costs however; Stand Up’s events have usually incurred an average cost of around $9,000 – $12,000.
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Said Wally Tham, “(The organisers) see ourselves as very much embedded in Singapore… and when we see sentiment moving this other way, where folks are just angry and folks are being mean, and it almost becomes the only mode of emotion, we feel we have to stand up and say ‘No! There is another way… this is not the only perspective on this matter.’”
The theme this year is gratitude – gratitude to people in service to Singapore. “The event today is our effort to acknowledge the people we have never met, but are simply grateful for anyway,” the organisers wrote in a letter given out to all participants.
“I think… the narrative of gratitude that’s a very important thing to have other people hear… whether it spreads or whether people believe it or not I’m not really sure… but I do know that it’s a very valuable message,” Tong Yee said.
Messages of gratitude to various people of different occupations hang from one side of the lawn.
The organisers added that they intend to have similar events in the heartlands.
On why the organisers chose the slogan ‘More than a Miracle’, Tong said, “we just felt that the Singapore Miracle story has served its purpose… beyond the miracle, the next generation needs another narrative. ‘More than a Miracle’ is about what happens internally (within us) – what we do to continue our sustainability.’
The organisers and participants have different views about what a new narrative for Singapore should be. Heidi Mah, a volunteer, said that she would want people to step out of their own box and express their love for their country. “We are now more stable, (yet) people are getting more discouraged… and I feel that amongst us all there are people who trust and truly love the nation,” she says.
Wu Xinyan, one of the organisers, said that she would stand for the diversities that Singapore represents. “We have several cultures all melding into one, and that makes us distinctly special – and I think that’s something worth celebrating.”
Photos by Ng Yi Shu
Find Mothership.SG on Facebook and Twitter. |
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With public outrage growing over the paltry six-month sentence handed down to a Stanford University student who was convicted of sexually assaulting an unconscious drunk woman, many are blaming “rape culture” for what seems to be a widespread, casual acceptance of rape. While we may be at a loss to explain what, precisely, rape culture is, that doesn’t mean that we can’t get rid of it. Dandy Goat moral indignation correspondent Richard Omega interviewed Victoria N. Pedestal, author of “How to End Rape Culture in Six Steps,” who explained just that.
Stop sending our sons to summer rape camp
This might seem obvious, but many families still think that summer rape camp is an integral part of growing up. I remember the year that my own brother went to rape camp in the Pocono Mountains. Before he left, he was really into the idea of consent. He even asked for my permission to give me a hug when we dropped him off at the train station. When he returned home at the end of the summer, he was a veritable rapist. Tragic.
Remove pro-rape literary works from public school curricula
It’s time that canonical pro-rape works like Hemingway’s “Rape Is Good” and Shakespeare’s “Many a Rapes Doth a Man Make” are forever removed from English classrooms, no matter how important some say these novels and plays are. The other day, I caught my seventh-grade daughter reading the classic pro-rape poem called “She Deserved It.” When I asked her where she got such drivel, she said that her teacher had asked the whole class to write an essay about how the poem speaks to fundamental truths. Awful.
Petition Congress to get rid of National Rape Day and replace it with a more deserving federal holiday
Every first Wednesday of October, Americans stay home from work and school to celebrate National Rape Day. Sure, a lot of people don’t even rape each other on this day, and more and more businesses are deciding to remain open for Rape Day sales. Still, the message to people is clear: rape is part of our culture. Horrible.
Pressure Hollywood to stop making movies celebrating rapists as heros
Most of what comes out of Hollywood these days is decidedly pro-rape. Chances are, the last movie you watched featured a male protagonist who goes around remorselessly raping women, much to the delight of other characters in the movie. And television is no better. With everyone watching shows like “Raping with the Stars” and “Rape and Recreation,” it’s no wonder why rape is so widely accepted. Unacceptable.
Close down campus rape clubs
On almost every college campus, you can find rape clubs, some of them dating back to the 1760s. At my alma mater, Penn State, there were no fewer than 16 rape clubs, and worst of all, some were even open to having female members and officers. My freshman roommate even dated the president of one of these rape clubs. Needless to say, he was a repugnant rapist. Disgusting.
Make rape illegal
Some people might argue that outlawing rape constitutes an invasion of the privacy between two or more people engaged in a very intimate act, but such measures are necessary to extinguish rape culture. Think about it: if you’re a man and you’re considering raping a woman this evening, wouldn’t the fear of a few years in jail deter you? Unless you’re a total psychopath, which few rapists are, I’ll bet the answer is yes. We already take a stand against murder, theft, and tax evasion by making these activities illegal, so why not do the same with rape? Indeed.
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A money-making venture to lure out-of-town drug buyers into Sunrise to purchase cocaine from police has been halted as a result of a South Florida Sun Sentinel investigation.
Mayor Michael Ryan, who supports the undercover stings, lay blame for ending the operation on the newspaper's reporting techniques. He said the paper exposed police tactics and strategy and compromised the work.
Ryan did not express concerns about cocaine buyers being lured into the city and closing deals in such public locations as parking lots and family restaurants. In a statement to the paper, he said he was told by police that the public has never been in danger.
The mayor did not address huge overtime payments to undercover officers and lucrative rewards to a network of secret informants.
Four of the five commissioners, including the mayor, support the practice. Commissioner Neil Kerch, a defense attorney, declined to comment because of the nature of his profession.
"It bothers me that they don't see a problem with it," Sunrise resident Roseanne Eckert told the Sun Sentinel Friday.
The mother of a teenage boy, Eckert wrote to the mayor earlier in the week, expressing concern about the safety of her son and his friends riding bikes near Sawgrass Mills, the sprawling outlet mall where undercover police and informants posing as cocaine dealers have staged stings.
"I now have to worry that your ... police will be out guns blazing because of criminals they brought to our city?" she asked the mayor.
Sunrise made its last major cocaine trafficking bust July 3, jail and police records show. The sting and arrest took place in the parking lot of the Don Pan International Bakery, just south of the mall. Detectives arrested a New Jersey man who came to town to buy a kilo of cocaine from them.
The Sun Sentinel published the results of a six-month investigation Oct. 6 and 7 exposing how the police department's narcotics unit has made millions of dollars in recent years -- not by capturing local drug dealers but by drawing high-dollar cocaine buyers into Sunrise from far away and then seizing their cash and cars.
The newspaper found that police departments in nearby cities don't systematically lure in drug buyers from afar. Nearly four out of every five suspects booked since 2009 for cocaine trafficking by Sunrise police listed home addresses outside Broward County.
The newspaper revealed that police enticed buyers with bargain prices and offers of coke on consignment.
The city also paid one lady informant -- a charming, shapely brunette -- more than $800,000 since 2008. She was credited by police with helping Sunrise set up 63 stings and reel in at least $5 million in cash and assets seized from criminals, according to a court record.
The newspaper also reported that a dozen undercover officers regularly working the stings made a total of $1.2 million in overtime over three-and-a-half years.
The stories were distributed widely online and were featured on television by CNN and ABC's Nightline. The coverage ignited an intense debate about the appropriateness of local police working to nab wannabe cocaine buyers living 1,000 or more miles away.
The police department, however, had its defenders, including the Greater Sunrise Chamber of Commerce.
"We support the efforts of the Sunrise Police Department to arrest people who are trying to buy drugs to sell in communities, whether our community or others," said Michael Jacobs, executive director.
Some elected city officials also stuck by the cops.
Commissioner Larry Sofield told Police Chief John Brooks at Tuesday's regular public meeting of the Sunrise Commission: "I don't see that you've been doing anything illegally or immoral. I think you and your unit, people, have been doing a great job."
Addressing the Sun Sentinel directly, Sofield said: "I think you have done a great service to the community. Unfortunately I think it was the criminal community that you have done service to."
Brooks has remained silent on the controversy, letting any response come from his staff or from the commission, to which he reports. He's repeatedly denied requests for comment from the Sun Sentinel before publication and after, and he hung up on a reporter Thursday.
Eugene O'Donnell, professor of law and police studies at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, said a cocaine-selling program like the one instituted in Sunrise must be carefully overseen.
"It brings up so many issues, ethical issues, safety issues. Is it being done for money? Those are all serious questions. There has to be oversight," he said.
The U.S. Department of Justice Inspector General audits and investigates the receipt and expenditure of federal forfeiture funds, but due to the governmental shutdown no one was available to respond to inquiries from the Sun Sentinel.
Florida state Rep. Katie Edwards, a Democrat who represents Sunrise, said she plans to meet with city officials to learn more specifics about how the stings were carried out.
"As a legislator, my concern surrounds whether these practices are tantamount to entrapment and run afoul of the Constitution," she said.
Broward State Attorney Michael Satz said his office has found no problem with Sunrise officers posing as drug dealers, selling cheap cocaine, and luring in buyers from afar.
"South Florida is known as a source of drugs," he said. "People come to South Florida to buy drugs."
But Broward Public Defender Howard Finkelstein said the police are "putting citizens at risk."
"They are bringing felons here," he said. "No one is going to think this is a good idea unless it's another police administration that wants to use this to raise money. We have enough drugs and criminals here. Now we are importing them?"
[email protected]; 954-356-4518. ___
(c)2013 the Sun Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, Fla.)
Visit the Sun Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, Fla.) at www.sun-sentinel.com |
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Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah acknowledged on Thursday sending a drone aircraft into Israel on Saturday which was then shot down by the IDF.
Nasrallah said in a televised speech on the Al- Manar station that the drone was Iranian-made and that it was shot down near the Dimona nuclear reactor.
Tamara Zieve and Yaakov Lappin contributed to this report.
“The drone flew over sensitive installations inside southern Palestine,” he said.Nasrallah claimed the Ayoub drone was designed and manufactured in Iran and assembled in Lebanon, denying reports that the drone was a Russian design.The Hezbollah leader said the drone was sent as a response to what he referred to as Israel's violations of Lebanese airspace since 2006."This flight was not our first will not be our last, and we give assurances we can reach any point we want. We have the right to dispatch recon planes over occupied Palestine at any time," Nasrallah said.Earlier in the day, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu named Hezbollah as the group behind the drone during a tour of the fence that is being built on the border with Egypt.Netanyahu said Israel would “act with determination to defend its borders at sea, on air and land” just as it had “thwarted Hezbollah’s attempt over the weekend,” to send an unmanned aircraft into Israeli airspace.IAF chief Maj.-Gen. Amir Eshel told a group of about 100 new officers on Thursday that the drone intrusion was part of a daily battle being waged against Israel.“The environment in which we live is changing quickly,” Eshel said. “Part of [the region] rejects our values and our right to exist.Now, too, leaders declare their intention to destroy us, while to our north, tens of thousands of people are being butchered and the world is standing on the sidelines.”Netanyahu praised the IDF for being on pace to complete the fence well ahead of schedule. More than 213 km. of the 242-km. fence has been built.“Two years ago, there was no fence here,” he said. “Three thousand migrants were coming in every month and it could have escalated to a lot more, which could have been fatal for Israel as a Jewish and democratic state.”In a veiled reference to the January election, Netanyahu vowed to return to the fence in six months when it will be complete.
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"Trump rallies are still jam-packed, compared not only to Clinton's rallies, but the usual attendance we see at political rallies even this close to Election Day."
But what about that elephant in the Trump Tower penthouse? His personality is a problem. Most of the electorate simply does not see him as a good or even decent person. In any other election year, where the personal likability of the candidate is probably the most important factor, the public's lack of esteem for Trump would be lethal.
Yet this isn't any other election year. Trump is running against a candidate with an almost equally poor likability factor. So by definition, millions of us will be voting for someone we don't personally like or even greatly respect. And in this age of terror and Wikileaks, something could happen to make us switch our vote to the other candidate that we also don't like or respect all that much. Pollsters and other experts alike could be assuming that since most voters do not personally like Trump or Clinton, they won't vote for one or the other. Political choices are ultimately emotional choices for 99 percent of us, and polls can't always gauge emotions very well.
But let's look at some other polls for a second, because there is absolutely no diversity when it comes to what the polls are telling us about the direction of the country. Every major poll taken over the past two years has shown a massive majority of the respondents believe the country is going in the wrong direction.
The average of the last nine of those polls has the "wrong direction" folks with more than a 35 percentage point majority. That's well into the territory where historically the incumbent party in the White House is toast. And Clinton has done almost nothing to try to recast herself as a change agent. This is one key wildcard the election pollsters may not really be able to adjust for when it comes to how they measure Trump's support.
And that wildcard comes mostly from economic uncertainty and pain. No one thinks things are as bad as they were during the height of the 2008-09 Great Recession. But wages are still depressed, the GDP is barely growing, and a newly-leaked email shows even Democratic National Committee acting Chair Donna Brazile telling Clinton campaign Chair John Podesta that the economy is simply not good.
Economic disenchantment has been evident throughout this campaign, especially at the Trump and Bernie Sanders rallies. Perhaps the reason Clinton doesn't draw the big crowds despite a lead in the polls is that even her supporters may not be up for hearing happy talk about the Obama economy and how she'll keep it going. Economic despair, even among Clinton fans, has to be considered a possible drag on turnout for her and a possible lightning bolt for Trump.
The bottom line is that the usual election rules are in the trash in 2016; that's been apparent ever since Trump first surged in the early GOP primary polls. The question is why so many experts are so certain that things are back to normal enough to stop worrying about a Trump win. |
Supernatural pulled another huge status-quo change at the end of last season, and now we've gotten our first glimpse of how this massive event will play out. And let's just say Demon Dean reminds us a little bit of Jack Nicholson in The Shining. Spoilers ahead...
The Supernatural panel at Comic-Con showed us a clip where the demonized version of Dean Winchester meets Sam for the first time — from an episode directed by Jensen Ackles. (Ackles mentioned that Dean spends a lot of the episode tied up, a fact the fans were excited to hear.)
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The clip mostly consisted of Dean stalking Sam through the Men of Letters HQ with a big fire axe, and very nearly taking Sam's head off. Dean has a great snarky energy as he urges Sammy to come and get it. At one point he calls his brother "Sammy bear." Later, the two Winchesters are face to face, and Dean is telling Sam that he's the real monster — Dean may be a demon now, but Sam has done some terrible things (including recently, searching for Dean) that are more monstrous.
During the panel, Ackles mentioned that Demon Dean isn't like other demons we've met on the show — this isn't a demon possessing a "meat suit," it's Dean's soul twisted in a demonic direction. Dean is still himself, just evil and sadistic. And Demon Dean doesn't care as much about the Impala as regular Dean does.
Demon Dean is like the guy at the party who doesn't want the party to end, even after his friends have all left and the music has died down, Ackles told us in the media pressroom. He doesn't even care, he just wants to be an asshole. Demon Dean is constantly getting into fights. "Lot of booze, lot of babes, lot of fights." Demon Dean isn't comedic, but he's definitely lighter — especially after last year, where Dean was so guilt-ridden.
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A big deal last season was when Sam claimed that he would never go to as extreme lengths to save Dean as Dean had gone to to save Sam. But now, we're going to see Sam going to crazy lengths to find and save demon Dean. We asked Padalecki about this contradiction, and he said Sam was lying to Dean "because he was hurt," and "you always hurt the ones you're closest to."
Added Padalecki, "Sam wasn't saying, 'I don't care about you'... that was Sam's way of saying, 'You hurt me and you lied to me and you let me get possessed by an angel.' We do see how far Sam is willing to go, and Sam goes outrageously far, and we see the darker side of Sam, and we test the edges of morality."
But the time when Dean was in purgatory and Sam didn't look for him because he got a girlfriend and dog "was strange," added Padalecki.
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Padalecki said it's been a lot of hard work coming up with new versions of Sam — the soulless version, the angel version — and it's nice that Dean is dealing with that this time around, and Padalecki has has a much more relaxing summer. Padalecki enjoyed playing soulless Sam because he was a character of pure logic, and Padalecki drew on his past as a "mathlete" in school, with a version of Sam who's always calculating.
Mark Sheppard, who plays Crowley, hinted on the panel that nobody will ever believe that Crowley didn't know what would happen to Dean with the Mark of Cain — but at the same time, Crowley may or may not be able to control his new demon friend.
In the press interviews, I asked Sheppard if he thought the relationship between Crowley and Dean was mostly just Crowley manipulating Dean, or whether there was other stuff going on. Sheppard said "there's genuine affection" between Crowley and Dean, and Crowley "would have done a lot of things, if he didn't care for" Dean. You never quite know what Crowley's endgame is, but he always manages to resolve things so he comes out on top.
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Also, Misha Collins, who plays Castiel, said that Cas will be much more concerned with helping Sam to fix Dean than with his own fading grace. During the pressroom interviews, Collins told us:
"I think Cas has developed a somewhat fatalistic perspective on life, and I think that he feels like he's doomed because the only solution he now is to either get Metatron's cooperation, which he's too prideful to do, or slit an angel's throat and steal its grace and he doesn't want to kill any more angels, so he is somewhat resigned to his own expiration. So he's conerned about it, but he feels like doesn't have any options."
Showrunner Jeremy Carver said that Dean's demon transformation shapes everything that happens this season — and he also teased the 200th episode, which sounds like it's going to be not just a musical, but some kind of hair-metal tribute. Rawk on.
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In the pressroom interviews, Carver said the new season is "not going to be quest-oriented," and instead the arc is going to be much more character-based and built around the impact of the decisions the characters have made. "Crowley and Castiel are going to be confronted with some very personal issues," said Carver.
"Last year was certain people deciding who they wanted to be," Carver added. "Everybody had to make that decision in the season. This season is, 'I am who I am.' That could be a very good or very bad thing."
Carver also teased that there would be some returning characters — one episode will team Sheriff Mills with Sheriff Donna Hanscum from the episode "The Purge," and the show will be doing its own version of The Heat.
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In addition, "you're going to see characters that have been spoken of and have never been seen over the 10 years" of the series, Carver added.
Could Castiel star in a Supernatural spin-off? The writers are still "kicking around a lot of possible ideas about what a spin-off could be," said Collins in the press roundtables. "But nobody's talked to me." Asked about another attempted spin-off, Carver would only say that they're looking at the whiteboard and listing some ideas right now. |
Even though Google's Android handily tops Apple's iOS in terms of overall smartphone market share, a new report suggests that Apple still wallops it when counting dollars spent on apps.
In a note sent to investors this morning, Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster says Google's Android Market has pulled in about 7 percent of the raw sales that Apple's had since it launched the App Store, with Apple continuing to mop up about 85-90 percent of money spent on mobile apps.
Munster offers that Google is on track to eat into that hefty lead over the "next 3-4" years, with Apple's lead on dollars spent slipping down in the the "70 percent plus" percent range. To validate this, Munster points to a mix of sources, mainly third-party app tracker AndroLib and Apple's disclosures (presumably apps downloaded, and developer payouts--two numbers Apple frequently touts).
So how much does that work out to for Google in terms of app sales? Munster offers a ballpark estimate of about $330 million since the launch of Google's Android Market. That's from 90 million paid app downloads out of Google's 6.75 billion total registered downloads, which means that 1.3 percent of its downloads were paid apps.
Crunching the numbers, Munster has Apple Apple considerably higher with 13.5 percent of its downloads being for paid applications, with Apple pulling in about $4.9 billion in cumulative sales since launching the App Store in 2008.
Piper Jaffray
One area where Google has Apple handily beat, according to Munster's figures, is on the average sale price of its apps, with Google pulling in more per paid app than Apple. For Google that works out to be $3.79 an app, with Apple coming in at a lesser $2.01. Apple's still got Google beat in terms of the number of apps users have installed on their devices, with the average iOS user downloading about 71 apps, versus Android's 34.
Piper Jaffray's report follow's last week's third quarter smartphone market share analysis from Gartner, where the firm noted that Google's Android secured 52.5 percent, more than doubling in the course of a year. That same report had Apple's 16.6 percent share from last year, scaling back to an even 15 percent, and behind Symbian for third place. |
Amazon Lex, the technology powering Amazon’s virtual assistant Alexa, has exited preview, according to a report from Reuters this morning. The system, which involves natural language understanding technology combined with automatic speech recognition, was first introduced in November, at Amazon’s AWS re:Invent conference in Las Vegas.
At the time, Amazon explained how Lex can be used by developers who want to build their own conversational applications, like chatbots.
As an example, the company had demoed a tool that allowed users to book a flight using only their voice.
However, the system is not limited to working only in the chatbots you find in today’s consumer messaging apps, like Facebook Messenger (though it can be integrated with that platform). Lex can actually work in any voice or text chatbot on mobile, web or in other chat services beyond Messenger, including Slack and Twilio SMS.
Amazon has suggested it could be used for a variety of purposes, including web and mobile applications where the technology provides users with information, powers their application, helps with various work activities, or even provides a control mechanism for robots, drones and toys.
Chatbots in messaging – and particularly in e-commerce bots – is a solid entry point for Lex’s technology, though. Consumers today have been frustrated by the current crop of chatbots that have clunky menus to navigate through, and a limited ability to respond to questions users asked. Lex, on the other hand, would allow developers to create bots that convert speech to text and those that could recognize the intent of the text, making the resulting bot more conversational, and more sophisticated than those on the market at present.
Lex, as a fully managed Amazon service, would also scale automatically as the bots’ usage increased, meaning developers would only pay for the number of text or voice queries that Lex processes.
Amazon’s goal with opening up Lex to the wider development community could give it an edge in its ability to compete with other voice technology, like Google’s Assistant or Apple’s Siri, for example. The company plans to take the text and recordings that people send to Lex-powered apps in order to improve Lex, and its ability to understand more queries, notes today’s report.
This openness has been Amazon’s larger strategy with much of its Alexa platform. For example, it already had rolled out Alexa Voice Services which allowed developers to integrate Alexa into their own devices, like speakers, bedside alarm clocks, and more.
Alexa’s software isn’t the only area where Amazon is embracing an open ecosystem. The company earlier this month said it would make the technology powering its Echo speakers available to third-party device makers as well. This includes the microphone array listening to Alexa commands, and the proprietary software that can recognize wake words, reduce background noise, and cancel out echos in large rooms.
By offering this to OEMs, other device manufacturers can build their own smart, voice-powered products – even those that would compete with Amazon’s own Echo speakers.
Developers interested in Amazon Lex can get started here. |
The Securities and Exchange Commission is now investigating a pair of Yahoo data breaches reported in 2016 to see if the company should have reported the breaches to investors sooner.
While the SEC investigation is in the early stages, according to the Wall Street Journal , a case brought against Yahoo could help clarify the timeline for companies to reveal such hacks.
The disclosures also prompted Verizon, which had reached a deal to acquire Yahoo before the hacks were announced, to look into how the hacks may have affected Yahoo's user numbers. At one point, after the second hack was announced, Verizon was reportedly considering exiting the deal but, according to Sunday night's WSJ report, Verizon says the deal is still in place.
The first data breach occurred in 2014, affecting up to 500 million users, and was reported in September 2016. Yahoo confirmed that user account information was stolen from the company’s network "in late 2014 by what it believes is a state-sponsored actor."
The company suggested at the time that the stolen information could include personal credentials such names, email addresses, telephone numbers, dates of birth, hashed passwords (the vast majority protected by bcrypt) and even security questions and answers.
The ongoing investigation also revealed that unprotected passwords, payment card data and bank account information were not included in the stolen information, since that info isn't stored in the affected system.
The second incident occurred in August 2013, impacting nearly one billion users, and was reported in December 2016. That hack involved names, email addresses, phone numbers, dates of birth, MD5-hashed passwords (a form of encryption now widely considered insecure) and security question answers, according to the company.
Additional reporting by Nicole Galucci and Gianluca Mezzofiore |
The American Civil Rights Union’s Robert Knight, who has been encouraging Republicans to run on social issues such as hostility to abortion rights and opposition to LGBT equality, now thinks the GOP should campaign on denying the existence of evolution.
Citing a Pew poll which shows that belief in evolution has plummeted in the GOP and is now shared by only a minority of Republicans, Knight told the American Family Association’s One News Now that “Republicans have a great opportunity” to expose the “lies that liberals have told over the years” and begin “questioning evolution more than ever.”
He also warns that a belief in evolution “leads to terrible things like socialism and communism and fascism and Nazism and the more extreme forms of liberalism in this country.” |
It was bad enough when Republican candidates in the presidential election invoked Jack Bauer from the TV show 24 as their model for how to deal with terrorists.
Now the National Review has published an incredibly surreal list of the “Best Conservative Movies of the Last 25 Years“. Here’s the complete list:
#25: Gran Torino (2008)
#24: Team America: World Police (2004)
#23: United 93 (2006)
#22: Brazil (1985)
#21: Heartbreak Ridge (1986)
#20: Gattaca (1997)
#19: We Were Soldiers (2002)
#18: The Edge (1997)
#17: The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe (2005)
#16: Master and Commander (2003)
#15: Red Dawn (1984)
#14: A Simple Plan (1998)
#13: Braveheart (1995)
#12: The Dark Knight (2008)
#11: The Lord of the Rings (2001, 2002, 2003)
#10: Ghostbusters (1984)
#9: Blast from the Past (1999)
#8: Juno (2007)
#7: The Pursuit of Happyness (2006)
#6: Groundhog Day (1993)
#5: 300 (2007)
#4: Forrest Gump (1994)
#3: Metropolitan (1990)
#2: The Incredibles (2004)
#1: The Lives of Others (2007)
Their #1 Conservative movie of the last 25 years is The Lives of Others, a German film that is ironically about the evils of government wiretapping.
Other movies on their list are equally interesting. They picked #10 Ghostbusters because the bad guy (not counting the ghosts) is an obnoxious bureaucrat who works for the EPA. And how #24 Team America: World Police by South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, and Brazil by Terry Gilliam (from Monty Python) got onto their list is a mystery.
UPDATE: Fark has the complete list, along with the conservative review of each movie from NRO. I love some of their comments — Brazil is “Vividly depicting the miserable results of elitist utopian schemes”. In The Cronicles of Narnia “The White Witch runs a godless, oppressive, paranoid regime that hates Santa Claus”. And in The Dark Knight, Batman represents none other than Dubya, whose “stubborn integrity kept the nation safe and turned the tide of war” against the terrorist Joker — by devising new means of surveillance, pushing the limits of the law, and accepting the hatred of the press and public. I kid you not. |
TV star Kapil Sharma, who has been going through a rough phase in his professional life, will not be seen on TV for some time as his hit show - The Kapil Sharma Show - has been pulled down. A day after a channel spokesperson confirmed news of the show going off air, the comedian-actor has given the reason behind the decision - he is unwell.
“Yes, I am just going to rest for some days. It is just a drop of a few episodes because I cannot ignore my health at this stage when my movie is also going to release and the coming schedule is going to be more hectic. I will come back with full force. I am thankful to the channel that they allowed me and did not put any pressure,” Kapil told Pinkvilla.
Kapil Sharma, Kiku Sharda and Chandan Prabhakar during a press conference in Amritsar on Saturday, March 05, 2016. ( Photo by Sameer Sehgal/ Hindustan Times )
“Kapil is suffering from blood pressure issues and stress, which is affecting his work. The decision to take a break from shooting fresh episodes was taken mutually between Kapil and the channel,” a source close to the show had told Hindustan Times.
“Kapil has been under the weather for sometime now. Due to this, we have mutually agreed to take a short break. However, once Kapil has recovered completely, we will start shooting again. We value our relationship with Kapil and wish him a speedy recovery,” an official spokesperson from the channel said.
Sony plans to re-run old episodes of the The Kapil Sharma Show for the time being, with a change in the timing.
“From the coming weekend, our other comedy show, The Drama Company (starring Krushna Abhishek, one of the main rivals of Kapil Sharma) will be on air at 9pm, and The Kapil Sharma Show’s re-run episodes will be aired at 8pm,” the source from the channel added.
The TRPs of Kapil’s show have been in a free fall since his mid-air fight with Sunil Grover. Sunil left the show as did Ali Asgar and Chandan Prabhakar. Kapil’s troubles only increased when he had to cancel a shoot with Shah Rukh Khan after he fainted on the sets. In fact, since July, Kapil cancelled shoots seven times with A-list Bollywood celebs for a variety of reason. The recent team to return without shooting their episode was Baadshaho team led by Ajay Devgn.
Follow @htshowbiz for more
First Published: Sep 01, 2017 09:35 IST |
By Dan Williams
I'm excited to announce the release of Solo5! Solo5 is essentially a kernel library that bootstraps the hardware and forms a base (similar to Mini-OS) from which unikernels can be built. It runs on fully virtualized x86 hardware (e.g., KVM/QEMU), using virtio device interfaces.
Importantly, Solo5 is integrated (to some extent) with the MirageOS toolstack, so the Solo5 version of the Mirage toolstack can build Mirage unikernels that run directly on KVM/QEMU instead of Xen. As such, Solo5 can be considered an alternative to Mini-OS in the Mirage stack. Try it out today!
In the rest of this post, I'll give a bit of motivation about why I think the lowest layer of the unikernel is interesting and important, as well as a rough overview of the steps I took to create Solo5.
Why focus so far down the software stack?
When people think about Mirage unikernels, one of the first things that comes to mind is the use of a high-level language (OCaml). Indeed, the Mirage community has invested lots of time and effort producing implementations of traditional system components (e.g., an entire TCP stack) in OCaml. The pervasive use of OCaml contributes to security arguments for Mirage unikernels (strong type systems are good) and is an interesting design choice well worth exploring.
But underneath all of that OCaml goodness is a little kernel layer written in C. This layer has a direct impact on:
What environments the unikernel can run on. Mini-OS, for example, assumes a paravirtualized (Xen) machine, whereas Solo5 targets full x86 hardware virtualization with virtio devices.
Boot time. "Hardware" initialization (or lack of it in a paravirtualized case) is a major factor in achieving the 20 ms unikernel boot times that are changing the way people think about elasticity in the cloud.
Memory layout and protection. Hardware "features" like page-level write protection must be exposed by the lowest layer for techniques like memory tracing to be performed. Also, software-level strategies like address space layout randomization require cooperation of this lowest layer.
Low-level device interfacing. As individual devices (e.g., NICs) gain virtualization capabilities, the lowest software layer is an obvious place to interface directly with hardware.
Threads/events. The low-level code must ensure that device I/O is asynchronous and/or fits with the higher-level synchronization primitives.
The most popular existing code providing this low-level kernel layer is called Mini-OS. Mini-OS was (I believe) originally written as a vehicle to demonstrate the paravirtualized interface offered by Xen for people to have a reference to port their kernels to and as a base for new kernel builders to build specialized Xen domains. Mini-OS is a popular base for MirageOS, ClickOS, and other unikernels. Other software that implements a unikernel base include Rumprun and OSv.
I built Solo5 from scratch (rather than adapting Mini-OS, for example) primarily as an educational (and fun!) exercise to explore and really understand the role of the low-level kernel layer in a unikernel. To provide applications, Solo5 supports the Mirage stack. It is my hope that Solo5 can be a useful base for others; even if only at this point to run some Mirage applications on KVM/QEMU!
Solo5: Building a Unikernel Base from Scratch
At a high level, there are roughly 3 parts to building a unikernel base that runs on KVM/QEMU and supports Mirage:
Typical kernel hardware initialization. The kernel must know how to load things into memory at the desired locations and prepare the processor to operate in the correct mode (e.g., 64-bit). Unlike typical kernels, most setup is one-time and simplified. The kernel must set up a memory map, stack, interrupt vectors, and provide primitives for basic memory allocation. At its simplest, a unikernel base kernel does not need to worry about user address spaces, threads, or many other things typical kernels need.
Interact with virtio devices. virtio is a paravirtualized device standard supported by some hypervisors, including KVM/QEMU and Virtualbox. As far as devices go, virtio devices are simple: I was able to write (very simple/unoptimized) virtio drivers for Solo5 drivers from scratch in C. At some point it may be interesting to write them in OCaml like the Xen device drivers in Mirage, but for someone who doesn't know OCaml (like me) a simple C implementation seemed like a good first step. I should note that even though the drivers themselves are written in C, Solo5 does include some OCaml code to call out to the drivers so it can connect with Mirage.
Appropriately link Mirage binaries/build system. A piece of software called mirage-platform performs the binding between Mini-OS and the rest of the Mirage stack. Building a new unikernel base means that this "cut point" will have lots of undefined dependencies which can either be implemented in the new unikernel base, stubbed out, or reused. Other "cut points" involve device drivers: the console, network and block devices. Finally, the mirage tool needs to output appropriate Makefiles for the new target and an overall Makefile needs to put everything together.
Each one of these steps carries complexity and gotchas and I have certainly made many mistakes when performing all of them. The hardware initialization process is needlessly complex, and the overall Makefile reflects my ignorance of OCaml and its building and packaging systems. It's a work in progress!
Next Steps and Getting Involved
In addition to the aforementioned clean up, I'm currently exploring the boot time in this environment. So far I've found that generating a bootable iso with GRUB as a bootloader and relying on QEMU to emulate BIOS calls to load the kernel is, by the nature of emulation, inefficient and something that should be avoided.
If you find the lowest layer of the unikernel interesting, please don't hesitate to contact me or get involved. I've packaged the build and test environment for Solo5 into a Docker container to reduce the dependency burden in playing around with it. Check out the repo for the full instructions!
I'll be talking about Solo5 at the upcoming 2016 Unikernels and More: Cloud Innovators Forum event to be held on January 22, 2016 at SCALE 14X in Pasadena, CA USA. I look forward to meeting some of you there!
Discuss this post on devel.unikernel.org
Thanks to Amir, Mort, and Jeremy, for taking the time to read and comment on earlier drafts. |
Rashid Rauf escaped from police custody in Pakistan in 2007 A fugitive British militant linked to an alleged UK plot to use liquid bombs to blow up transatlantic airliners has been killed in Pakistan, reports say. Pakistani media said Rashid Rauf, born in Birmingham, was killed in a US air strike in North Waziristan, a haven for militants and the Taleban. Mr Rauf, on the run after escaping from Pakistani custody, was seen as a link between the UK plotters and Pakistan. Three men were convicted in the UK in September of conspiracy to murder. News of the liquid bomb plot paralysed global air travel, prompting authorities to implement stringent security measures at airports around the world. Rashid Rauf was arrested in Pakistan on 9 August 2006, at the request of US authorities, who feared he was about to disappear into the remote north-west of the country. ALLEGED LIQUID BOMB PLOT Group accused of plotting to carry liquid explosives onto planes at London Heathrow Airport Arrests in August 2006, after Rashid Rauf detained in Pakistan Move prompted increased security at UK and US airports At trial, three men convicted of conspiracy to murder None found guilty of conspiring to target passenger aircraft
Profile: Rashid Rauf One day later authorities in the UK and the US implemented strict security measures at airports, fearing possible bomb attacks. Hundreds of flights were delayed at airports around the world with massive disruption at major UK terminals and in the US, amid security service fears that militants were planning to mix liquids into lethal explosives. Terrorism charges against the Briton were eventually dropped but he remained under detention in Pakistan as a "preventative measure". Mr Rauf, who is thought to have Pakistani citizenship through his family connections, then escaped custody in December 2007 while on his way to an extradition hearing under police guard. West Midlands Police in the UK were seeking his extradition from Pakistan as a suspect in the murder of his uncle, who was killed six years ago. 'Safe haven' Several Pakistani TV channels reported that Mr Rauf was one of five people killed on Saturday by a presumed US attack in the country's remote north-western region. Unnamed Pakistani intelligence sources said that a wanted Egyptian militant, Abu Zubair al-Masri, was among the others killed. However, the BBC has so far been unable to independently confirm the news. A young Asian woman at the Rauf family home in the Ward End area of Birmingham said they had had no confirmation of his death, and no contact from Britain's Foreign Office. She said the family wanted to be left alone "to deal with this". Islamist militants use the mountainous tribal areas along the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan as a safe haven for training and resupply. The US regularly uses pilotless drones to attack militant targets in the region, a tactic that has caused growing resentment among Pakistan's leaders. On Thursday the government summoned the US ambassador in Islamabad to protest one day after an attack deep inside Pakistani territory killed five people - including at least one alleged militant. Pakistan says the constant missile strikes infringe its sovereignty. The BBC's Barbara Plett, in Islamabad, says the attacks spark widespread anger in Pakistan - especially among tribal figures. In that context, Saturday's attack will be reported in Pakistan as another violation of Pakistan's sovereignty and not for the possible killing of Rashid Rauf, our correspondent says. The US says the insurgents use the territory to launch attacks against coalition forces in Afghanistan. Islamabad has been pursuing a policy of ad-hoc peace deals with local Taleban commanders.
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Salvatore Cambria (left) and Eric Onyango said they bought a $1 million winning Powerball ticket in New Jersey, and threw it in the garbage when they read the wrong winning numbers. (Credit: CBS 2)
Remember the New Jersey man who made headlines after winning the jackpot in the Lottery last year
As it happens, it turns out there were a couple of men who claim they were winners too, but threw their ticket away.
The men have now filed a lawsuit against the New Jersey Lottery, CBS 2’s Hazel Sanchez reported.
Erick Onyango and Salvatore Cambria, both of Suffern, Rockland County, claim they had a million-dollar lottery ticket in their hands, but they threw it away.
“I was very upset — Mad, angry, hurt — everything. I’m like, this is my ticket out of here,” Cambria said.
The two friends bought three Powerball tickets from a Mahwah, New Jersey 7-Eleven last year.
Onyango said he checked the winning numbers on his phone 15 minutes after the drawing and was convinced they didn’t have a winner.
“I’m like this, this, this while he’s checking and, like, ‘Oh, no. It’s not the one,'” Onyango said.
“I crumpled it up, put it inside of an empty cigarette pack, and put it in my garbage can,” said Cambria.
But it turned out the numbers Onyango was reading were from the previous Powerball drawing.
Days later, when Onyango said he realized he bought a winning ticket that matched five numbers and was worth $1 million, the ticket was already buried in a garbage dump, Sanchez reported.
Glady Gannon said she’s confident she sold the winning ticket to Onyango.
“I remember that night he was in here and I sold it to him — three individual tickets on the Powerball,” Gannon said.
The two men said the serial numbers on the tickets they kept prove they bought the winning ticket.
“There’s two serial numbers per ticket — 89, 90. The third ticket is 93 and 94. So the middle ticket, 91 and 92, is gone,” Cambria said.
The pair is suing the New Jersey Lottery Commission for their winnings, arguing they never would have thrown away the ticket if the correct numbers were posted online.
The commission could not comment on the pending lawsuit.
But other lottery players told Sanchez they think the men are out of luck.
“You threw away the lottery ticket. You’re not getting it,” one person said.
“He should’ve confirmed the data before he threw the ticket out,” another weighed in.
All in all, it was a painful lesson for Onyango and Cambria, who said before they toss another ticket, they’ll stop and ask, as a sign in the store reads, “Are you throwing away a million dollars?”
Check Out These Other Stories From CBSNewYork.com: |
Authority vs.. Freedom
Why Islamists and Fascists Persecute Christians
FrontPage Magazine A study from the Europe-based Center for Studies on New Religions recently confirmed that “Christians continue to be the most persecuted believers in the world, with over 90,000 followers of Christ being killed in the last year [2016],” which computes to one death every six minutes. The study also found that as many as 600 million Christians around the world were prevented from practicing their faith. Which group is most prone to persecute Christians around the world? The answer to this was made clear by another recent study; it found that, of the ten nations around the world where Christians suffer the worst forms of persecution, nine are Islamic, though the absolute worst—North Korea—is not.
What is it about Christians that brings the worst out of some people, Muslims in the majority? Three main reasons come to mind, though there are more: Christianity is the largest religion in the world . There are Christians practically everywhere around the globe, including in much of the Muslim world. Moreover, because much of the territory that Islam conquered throughout the centuries was originally Christian—including all of the Middle East, Turkey, and North Africa—Muslims are still confronted with vestiges of Christianity. In Egypt alone, which was the intellectual center of early Christendom before the Islamic invasions, at least 10 million Christians remain. In short, because of their sheer numbers alone, Christians in the Muslim world are much more likely to suffer under Islam than other “infidels.”
. There are Christians practically everywhere around the globe, including in much of the Muslim world. Moreover, because much of the territory that Islam conquered throughout the centuries was originally Christian—including all of the Middle East, Turkey, and North Africa—Muslims are still confronted with vestiges of Christianity. In Egypt alone, which was the intellectual center of early Christendom before the Islamic invasions, at least 10 million Christians remain. In short, because of their sheer numbers alone, Christians in the Muslim world are much more likely to suffer under Islam than other “infidels.” Christianity is devoted to “proclaiming the Gospel” (literally, “the good news). No other major religion—not Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism—has this missionary aspect. These faiths tend to be coextensive with certain ethnicities and homegrown to certain locales. The only other religion that has what can be described as a missionary element is Islam itself. Thus, because Christianity is the only religion that actively challenges Muslims with the truths of its own message, so too is it the primary religion to be accused of proselytizing, which is banned under Islamic law. And by publicly uttering teachings that contradict Muhammad’s—including Christianity’s core message—Christians fall afoul of Islam’s blasphemy law as well. Hence why most Muslims who apostatize to other religions—and get punished for it, sometimes with death—apostatize to Christianity.
(literally, “the good news). No other major religion—not Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism—has this missionary aspect. These faiths tend to be coextensive with certain ethnicities and homegrown to certain locales. The only other religion that has what can be described as a missionary element is Islam itself. Thus, because Christianity is the only religion that actively challenges Muslims with the truths of its own message, so too is it the primary religion to be accused of proselytizing, which is banned under Islamic law. And by publicly uttering teachings that contradict Muhammad’s—including Christianity’s core message—Christians fall afoul of Islam’s blasphemy law as well. Hence why most Muslims who apostatize to other religions—and get punished for it, sometimes with death—apostatize to Christianity. Christianity is the quintessential religion of martyrdom. From its inception—beginning with Jesus, and followed by his disciples and countless others in the early church—many Christians have been willing to accept death rather than to stop spreading the Gospel—or, worse, renounce the faith; this was evident in ancient times at the hands of the pagan Roman Empire and in medieval (and modern) times at the hands of Muslims and other persecutors. Practically no other religion encourages its adherents to embrace death rather than abjure the faith. Thus, whereas Christ says “But whoever denies me before men, I will deny him before my Father in heaven” (Matthew 10:33; see also Luke 14:33), Islam teaches Muslims to conceal and even publicly renounce Muhammad, rather than die. Moreover, other religions and sects approve of dissimulation to preserve their adherents’ lives. A nineteenth-century missionary observed that in Iran “Bahaism enjoys taqiyya (concealment of faith) as a duty, but Christianity demands public profession; and hence in Persia it is far easier to become a Bahai than to become a Christian.”1
Christianity’s penchant to refuse to toe the line that, from its beginnings till now, has caused fascists and supremacists to persecute Christians Of course, Islam’s oppressive laws target people of all or no religions. Many outspoken Muslim apostates in the West who never converted to Christianity must fear execution should they ever fall into the hands of their former coreligionists. However, they are here now, alive and well in the West and warning us, precisely because they were not challenging the spiritual truths of Islam then, when they were living under its shadow—and why should they have been? If life is limited to the now, as it is in the secular worldview, why risk it, especially when merely not rocking the boat, as many “moderate Muslims” do, will save it? It is in fact Christianity’s penchant to refuse to toe the line that, from its beginnings till now, has caused fascists2 and supremacists of all stripes—from the ancient Roman Empire (whence the word fascist is derived) to modern day North Korea—to persecute Christians. The latter have a long history of refusing to be silent and paying the sort of lip service that everyone else is willing to offer to get by. Just as Jesus irked Pilate by refusing to utter some words to save his life—“Don’t you realize I have the power either to set you free or crucify you?” asked the bewildered procurator (John 19:10)—his disciples and countless other ancient Christians defied the Roman Empire, prompting several emperors to launch what, at least until now, were deemed history’s worst persecutions of Christians; and today, countless modern day Christians continue grieving and thus being punished by their totalitarian and supremacist overlords—from North Korea to every corner of the Muslim world—for the very same reasons. Samuel M. Zwemer, The Law of Apostasy in Islam: Answering the Question Why There are So Few Moslem Converts, and Giving Examples of Their Moral Courage and Martyrdom (London: Marshall Brothers, 1916), 25. I use the term “fascist(s)” here in the popular sense – as in a non-Christian regime that “forcibly suppress[es] opposition and criticism” — and not in reference to any particular fascist party or government of history.
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RAYMOND IBRAHIM (RaymondIbrahim.com) is a widely published author, public speaker, and Middle East and Islam expert. His books include Crucified Again: Exposing Islam’s New War on Christians (2013) and The Al Qaeda Reader (2007). His writings, translations, and observations have appeared in a variety of publications, including Fox News, Financial Times, Jerusalem Post, Los Angeles Times, New York Times Syndicate, United Press International, USA Today, Washington Post, Washington Times, and Weekly Standard; scholarly journals, including the Almanac of Islamism, Chronicle of Higher Education, Jane’s Islamic Affairs Analyst, Middle East Quarterly, and Middle East Review of International Affairs; and popular websites, such as American Thinker, the Blaze, Bloomberg, Christian Post, FrontPage Magazine, Gatestone Institute, the Inquisitr, Jihad Watch, NewsMax, National Review Online, PJ Media, VDH’s Private Papers, and World Magazine. He has contributed chapters to several anthologies and been translated into various languages.
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Illustration: The Pew Charitable Trusts
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Global investment in clean energy fell 11 percent in 2013. Despite the downward shift, there are still some bright spots that highlight the future of the world’s clean tech industries.
Investment in solar, wind, biofuels, biomass, energy efficiency and energy storage was US $254 billion in 2013, according to a new report [PDF] from Pew Charitable Trusts.
While the stars of the market, wind and solar, have slipped, the unused kilowatt—aka energy efficiency—saw a 15 percent growth in the past year. Investment might be down overall, but 2013 was still a record setting year that also saw energy storage take a foothold in the market.
Solar and wind, with more than $170 billion in investment combined, still make up the lion’s share of the clean tech industry. But energy efficiency, which includes smart meters and energy storage, was the only sector that saw increased investment, with a total of nearly $4 billion in 2013. Most of the efficiency investment was in the United States, where there is an increased focus on saving energy at the state and federal level.
“While there was an overall decline in investment, there are signs that the sector is reaping the rewards of becoming a more mature industry,” Phyllis Cuttino, director of Pew's clean energy program, said in a statement. “Prices for technologies continue to drop, making them increasingly competitive with conventional power sources. Key clean energy stock indexes rose significantly in 2013, with public market financing up by 176 percent.”
Although the United States led in energy efficiency, Asia is leading the clean tech charge overall with 10 percent growth. China dominated with more than $54 billion in investments in 2013, including a near four-fold increase in solar growth.
“With extensive manufacturing capacity in the solar and wind sectors, growing domestic markets, and unequaled national targets for renewable energy, China is poised to be a leader in the world’s clean energy marketplace for many years to come,” the report authors wrote. Even so, China’s investment was down 6 percent from 2012.
China’s slight decline was offset by the growth in the Japanese market, which is driven by feed-in tariffs for wind and solar. Those incentives were presented as a way to advance renewables as an alternative to nuclear power that went offline in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster. Japanese clean tech investment was up 80 percent in 2013 to nearly $30 billion, putting it third behind China and the United States.
Overall, the European clean tech market has dropped considerably, driven by tighter investment in Germany and Italy in particular. The U.K. is one bright spot for clean energy in Europe, with 13 percent growth in 2012. Most of the growth came in the wind sector, but the UK is also second in the G-20 in terms of “other renewables” because of its investment in biomass.
In the Americas, Canada jumped ahead with a nearly 50 percent growth in investment, also mostly driven by wind. Ontario, in particular, has a goal of completely shutting down its coal-fired electricity generation. But solar was up too, attracting $2.5 billion of the country’s $6.5 billion investment.
Canada, the U.K., and Japan were the only G-20 countries that saw growth, but non G-20 markets grew by 15 percent overall. “Markets for clean energy technologies in fast-growing developing countries are prospering, because these economies view distributed generation as an opportunity to avoid investments in costly transmission systems,” said Pew's Cuttino.
Distributed solar is expected to keep growing in the United States and Japan. Mexico and Turkey each have legislation that could jump start the clean tech industries, according to the report. South Korea is investing in efficiency to manage peak demand. China will continue to lead, however, with goals of 18 gigawatts of wind and 14 gigawatts of solar in 2014.
“In view of industry maturation,” the Pew authors wrote, “Bloomberg New Energy Finance projects a 2014 rebound in worldwide investment and installation of renewable energy.”
Image: Pew Charitable Trusts |
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VIŠE građana Zagreba posljednjih je dana primilo SMS poruku u kojoj ih se pita za koga će glasati na lokalnim izborima, nepoznati anketar danas je predstavio i rezultate svoje ankete prema kojem je najviše glasova osvojio Milan Bandić. Isto tako objavili su i brojeve telefona građana koji su im odgovarali na sms anketu s njihovim odgovorima. No, krenimo redom.
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S telefonskog broja 0996330278 građani su dobili poruku u kojoj je stajalo: "SMS anketa. Na izborima za gradonačelnika Zagreba glasovat ću za; 1. M. Bandić 2. D. Bernardić 3. A. Mikulić 4. D.Prgomet 5. S. Švaljek 6. A.M. Taritaš". Danas su s mail adrese smsankete@gmail stigli i "rezultati" ankete i to zbog "velikog interesa javnosti".
"Šaljemo vam rezultate sms ankete koja je provedena u subotu i nedjelju", stoji u mail poruci. U dnu email poruke navedeni su odgovori koji su stizali s brojeva mobitela, a nedostaje tek zadnji broj. Tko stoji iza ove ankete te objave brojeva građana koji su u istoj sudjelovali nije poznato. Naime, broj s kojeg se građanima slao upit više nije aktivan, a na s maila [email protected] nismo dobili nikakav odgovor.
Navodno je u anketi sudjelovalo 14491 građana.
HAKOM: Ne odgovarajte na pozive
U HAKOM-u odgovarajući na upit Indexa kažu kako je ovakve poruke najbolje zanemariti.
Tekst se nastavlja ispod oglasa
"U konkretnom slučaju radi se o anketiranju korisnika koje nije regulirano Zakonom o elektroničkim komunikacijama jer ne predstavlja promidžbu ni prodaju, ali bi se ono moralo provoditi na način da se zna tko provodi anketu, odnosno ne bi se smjelo provoditi s neregistriranih brojeva. U navedenim slučajevima, ako građani ne žele odgovarati na postavljena pitanja, predlažemo da zamole anketare da ih se više ne kontaktira, odnosno takav poziv se može jednostavno prekinuti, a u slučaju zaprimanja SMS poruke istu treba zanemariti", stoji u odgovoru HAKOM-a.
Ukoliko se radi o promidžbenim ili prodajnim porukama uporabom automatskih pozivnih i komunikacijskih sustava bez pribavljene prethodne privole korisnika isto predstavlja kršenje Zakona o elektroničkim komunikacijama, odnosno neželjene elektroničke komunikacije te HAKOM na temelju prijave korisnika o navedenim radnjama donosi mjere kako bi se spriječilo daljnje kršenje Zakona i kažnjava prekršitelja.
Istraga zbog zlouporaba
"Naime, ukoliko se utvrdi da ne postoji prethodna privola korisnika za primanje promidžbenih ili prodajnih poruka, protiv prekršitelja će sukladno Zakonu biti pokrenut odgovarajući postupak, a daljnje slanje takvih poruka zabranjeno i onemogućeno. HAKOM je vezano za političku promidžbu u siječnju i rujnu ove godine pokrenuo inspekcijske nadzore te je utvrđeno kako su poruke ovakvog i sličnog sadržaja dolazile s većeg broja neregistriranih „pre-paid“ brojeva koji su ugašeni od strane operatora zbog zlouporabe", kažu nam na kraju iz HAKOM-a. |
Centrist Republican Rep. Jim Gerlach won't seek re-election to his eastern Pennsylvania district this fall, creating a pickup opportunity for Democrats.
Gerlach said in a statement that he had opted against seeking a seventh term in Congress. The news was first reported by PoliticsPA. Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney narrowly carried the district in 2012 after its boundaries were shored up during the latest round of redistricting.
"Nearing the end of my sixth term in the House and following 12 years of public service in the Pennsylvania House and Senate, it is simply time for me to move on to new challenges and to spend more time with my wife and family, who have been extremely supportive and have made significant sacrifices during my tenure in public office," Gerlach said in a statement.
Before that, Gerlach won even as Democratic presidential candidates John Kerry and Barack Obama carried his district in 2004 and 2008.
Democrats have previously targeted Gerlach for defeat, but ultimately fell short. Democrats need to gain a net of 17 seats this November in order to win back control of the House from Republicans, a generally tall task at this stage.
Moreover, Gerlach's decision to retire adds to the ranks of moderate Republicans to announce their decision to leave Congress at their current terms. |
Alexander said at least ten of the attacks were set to take place in the United States. NSA: PRISM stopped NYSE attack
Recently leaked communication surveillance programs have helped thwart more than 50 “potential terrorist events” around the world since the Sept. 11 attacks, National Security Agency Director Keith Alexander said Tuesday.
Alexander said at least 10 of the attacks were set to take place in the United States, suggesting that most of the terrorism disrupted by the program had been set to occur abroad.
Story Continued Below
The NSA also disclosed that counterterrorism officials targeted fewer than 300 phone numbers or other “identifiers” last year in the massive call-tracking database secretly assembled by the U.S. government.
( PHOTOS: Pols, pundits weigh in on NSA report)
Alexander said the programs were subject to “extraordinary oversight.”
”This isn’t some rogue operation that a group of guys up at NSA are running,” the spy agency’s chief added.
The data on use of the call-tracking data came in a fact sheet released to reporters in connection with a public House Intelligence Committee hearing exploring the recently leaked telephone data mining program and another surveillance effort focused on Web traffic generated by foreigners.
( POLITICO Junkies: NSA leaks cause flood of political problems)
Alexander said 90 percent of the potential terrorist incidents were disrupted by the Web traffic program known as PRISM. He was less clear about how many incidents the call-tracking effort had helped to avert.
Deputy FBI Director Sean Joyce said the Web traffic program had contributed to arrests averting a plot to bomb the New York Stock Exchange that resulted in criminal charges in 2008.
Joyce also indicated that the PRISM program was essential to disrupting a plot to bomb the New York City subways in 2009. “Without the [Section] 702 tool, we would not have identified Najibullah Zazi,” Joyce said.
However, President Barack Obama acknowledged in an interview aired Monday that it is impossible to know whether the subway plot might have been foiled by other methods.
”We might have caught him some other way. We might have disrupted it because a New York cop saw he was suspicious. Maybe he turned out to be incompetent and the bomb didn’t go off. But at the margins we are increasing our chances of preventing a catastrophe like that through these programs,” Obama told Charlie Rose on PBS.
At the hearing, Alexander detailed the scope and safeguards of the programs, while Deputy Attorney General James Cole laid out the legal basis for the surveillance.
“This is not a program that’s off the books, that’s been hidden away,” Cole said of the call-tracking program, which was classified “top secret” prior to recent leaks. He noted that the Patriot Act provision found to authorize it has been twice reauthorized by Congress.
“All of us in the national security [community] are constantly trying to balance protecting public safety with protecting people’s civil liberties,” Cole said.
NSA Deputy Director Chris Inglis said a very limited number of individuals are authorized to access the call-tracking database. |
DALLAS -- Hal Mumme joined the staff of SMU coach June Jones on Wednesday, bringing together two men behind some of the most prolific passing offenses in NCAA history.
Mumme, who will be Jones' assistant head coach and passing game coordinator, was head coach at Division II McMurry (Texas) the past four seasons, producing three straight winning seasons for a program that had gone eight years without one. McMurry won its first postseason game since 1949 with a Division III playoff victory in 2011, and went 8-3 as an independent in its first season in Division II last year.
Mumme is a former head coach at Kentucky, where he led the Wildcats to their first win over Alabama in 75 years in his first season in 1997. He finished with a four-year record of 20-26. He also has been head coach at New Mexico State, Southeastern Louisiana, Valdosta State and Iowa Wesleyan.
Three of the top seven quarterbacks in career passing yards per game were coached by Jones or Mumme.
Colt Brennan is No. 2 on the list at 373.5, and he was Jones' starter when Hawaii went undefeated in the regular season and played in the Sugar Bowl after the 2007 season. Hawaii beat Mumme-coached New Mexico State that year.
Chase Holbrook averaged 329.1 yards per game under Mumme at New Mexico State to rank fifth all-time, and Hawaii's Timmy Chang is No. 7 at 322.1.
Mumme's arrival also brings some NCAA baggage to the only school that has received the so-called death penalty for recruiting violations. Mumme resigned under pressure at Kentucky in 2001 amid an investigation that led to a one-year bowl ban and a reduction in scholarships.
Mumme was not individually sanctioned, but his recruiting coordinator, Claude Bassett, was effectively banned from working at an NCAA school for eight years. The NCAA said more than $7,000 was spent by Kentucky, primarily through Bassett, for improper recruiting or gifts of money to high school coaches and prospects.
While at New Mexico State, Mumme was accused in a lawsuit of discriminating against four Muslim players. The lawsuit was settled without the school admitting wrongdoing.
Just a few weeks after he was fired with a four-year record of 11-38 at New Mexico State, Mumme revealed that he was being treated for prostate cancer. He took the McMurry job two months later. |
DENVER (CBS4) – Legalized marijuana dents the drug’s black market.
That’s one lure Amendment 64 supporters employed in 2012 to entice voters hesitant about legalized pot to cast a ballot for it: Grow it, sell it and tax it legally and there would be fewer instances of back-alley, street-corner deals.
It didn’t take long for CBS4 Investigator Rick Sallinger to find the black market is still operating. A source provided some phone numbers and one quick call was all it took to set up a prospective deal. A CBS producer with a hidden camera met the dealer on the corner of 12th Avenue and Lincoln Street in Denver.
“What’s that?” the producer asked.
“That’s the skunk. I threw in a bonus bud of Afghan in there,” the dealer replied.
The producer did not accept the marijuana or provide any money.
But drug investigators and Denver Police Department numbers disagree.
“The black market has exploded and continues to,” Ernie Martinez, the president of the Colorado Drug Investigators Association and a Denver police lieutenant, told CBS4. “It’s totally Pollyanna to think it’s gone.”
Martinez says there are several reasons. Customers, he believes, might prefer to buy from their long-time dealers, they trust them and they like the product. But the key reasons are money and supply.
“Bottom line: It’s cheaper,” he said. “And you can get more of it. Unlimited amounts, as long as you have the money.”
Martinez says narcotics officers across the state see that financial undercutting daily.
Drug seizures have increased in the last several months, Martinez says. Distributors continue to haul the drug from Mexico along Interstate 25 and up through southwestern border states and into Colorado on Interstate 70.
“It’s very naïve and, in a lot of instances, it’s very disingenuous to think the cartel or the black market has gone away or been eliminated,” Martinez says.
But a street dealer disagrees.
“It’s destroyed the black market,” says a dealer who agreed to talk on the condition that CBS4 wouldn’t reveal his identity. “Five years ago, millions of dollars were still flowing down I-25 toward Mexico to supply the marijuana for the people who smoked here.”
Now, he guesses, only about 10 percent of the pot market is supplied illegally, down from his estimate of 90 percent before Amendment 64. He says he’s generating only 50 percent of the business he did three years ago.
CBS4 asked Denver police about the statistics. They pointed out they have changed methods of keeping track and many times marijuana sales are often included in other crimes not reflected in those figures.
The dealer, who spent six years in prison on a marijuana conviction before Denver loosened its restrictions, buys medical marijuana with a card and then profits through volume by selling smaller amounts — quarter- and eighth-ounces — for more money.
But if recreational and medical marijuana cost significantly more — at least twice as much as he offered it to CBS4’s undercover producer — how could he see a hit to his business?
“Anyone can go get a medical card for just about any reason. Why they don’t baffles me,” he says.
As prices drop, the black market will, too, he argues.
“It’s just a matter of time before the recreational prices come down and the laws of the marketplace step in,” the dealer says. “Once that price goes down to a fair level, there will be no use for someone like me.”
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Nepalese sherpas have closed Everest to commercial climbing amid mounting anger over pay and conditions following the deaths of 13 colleagues.
The strike by sherpas has stranded more than 330 foreign climbers at Base Camp at the start of the six-week climbing season, most of whom have paid $50,000 (£30,000) to scale the peak.
There is growing tension between the wealthy climbers and sherpas, who feel they are being exploited to work in extremely dangerous conditions for relatively low pay.
Their colleagues had been fixing routes and carrying equipment for climbers through the ice fall above Base Camp for the spring climbing window when an avalanche swept them away.
At a tense meeting held at Everest Base Camp on Sunday night, about 300 sherpas and… |
The award is one of the most important in the auto industry -- and it's going to a startup electric-car maker
Motor Trend has given its Car of the Year award to Tesla for its Model S electric sedan (Photo11: Tesla) Story Highlights Motor Trend gives its highest honor to Tesla
The Model S sedan beat Porsche Boxster, BMW 3 Series and others
The magazine says its vote was unanimous for the first time "in memory"
In a move sure to shock the auto world, Motor Trend has named a startup company's plug-in electric vehicle as its coveted Car of the Year. The winner: Tesla's Model S sedan.
What's more, it wasn't even close: Motor Trend says it was first time time "in memory" that every judge agreed. In order to win for 2013, the Tesla had to beat luxury sedans like Lexus GS and BMW 3 Series and sports car like Porsche 911 and Subaru BRZ.
While the auto world is awash in awards, Motor Trend's nod is one of the most closely watched, along with the North American Car of the Year. The magazine didn't hold back its praise for the Tesla sedan.
A CLOSER LOOK: Cars.com checks out the Model S
"It drives like a sports car, eager and agile and instantly responsive. But it's also as smoothly effortless as a Rolls-Royce, can carry almost as much stuff as a Chevy Equinox, and is more efficient than a Toyota Prius," Motor Trend writes "By any measure, the Tesla Model S is a truly remarkable automobile, perhaps the most accomplished all-new luxury car since the original Lexus LS 400."
Tesla is the California-based automaker run by entrepreneur Elon Musk, who also is CEO of SpaceX, the rocket-launching firm. The Model S, which starts at about $57,000, is an all-electric sedan that in its longest range version is government-certified as being able to go 265 miles on a single charge.
"Our aspiration with the Model S was to show that an electric car truly can be better than any gasoline car," says Musk in a statement. "Nothing illustrates this more clearly than winning Motor Trend's Car of the Year by unanimous decision."
Motor Trend said it achieved the electric equivalent of 118 miles a gallon on a 212-mile jaunt. Yet the 4,766-pound car was able to bolt from zero to 60 miles per hour in 4 seconds. It had a top speed of 133 mph. The performance version has electric motors that put out the equal to 416 horsepower in a gas engine.
Motor Trend calls it "one of the quickest American four doors ever built."
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/RyA3TE |
Plaque marking a London zeppelin raid from 1915 (photograph by Christoph Braun/Wikimedia)
Whether it was the terrifying drone of a German heavy bomber or the near-silent hum of a zeppelin, since the beginning of WWI when bombs fell on civilian targets far from the Front, the threat of death from the skies has been very real during times of war. But the art of war is not just in the power of destruction, it is also in methods of confusion and subterfuge.
From January of 1915 until the end of the First World War, German dirigibles made around 51 bombing runs against Great Britain – which led to more than 500 deaths. Although these bombings are often focused on by historians, the Belgian cities of Leige and Antwerp were both bombed in 1914, as was Paris (although Paris received more than the standard incendiary bombs, they were also bombed with leaflets, demanding the French surrender). Originally the German Kaiser, Willhelm II, forbade bombing strikes against London, as the King and Queen of England were his close relatives (he was the eldest grandson of Queen Victoria), although on seeing the immense psychological damage these raids had on the British, the Kaiser complied with the advice of his generals, and London became a target.
“It is far better to face the bullets than to be killed at home by a bomb. Join the army at once and help to stop an air raid. God save the King” (1915 poster) (via Library of Congress)
At first there was little that could be done against the silent menace of dirigibles, as the ground-based anti-aircraft weapons of the time did not have the range required to hit them, and those weapons that could be mounted on interceptor-aircraft had little effect on the flying behemoths.
Alternate methods of defense were required.
Engineers in Britain and France were redirected from the efforts of the land-war, which in itself was a victory for the German High Command, as the damage caused by the dirigible raids was, in fact, negligible. Devices such as the acoustic mirror and incendiary bullets were invented, but it was perhaps the French who came up with the most elaborate solution: an artificial Paris, designed to be built on the city’s northern outskirts.
The town of Maisons-Laffitte north of Paris, was the focal point of the French military’s efforts to protect Paris from German bombing runs, although three more sites were planned, surrounding the capital. It sat on a stretch of the Seine that closely resembles the river as it passes through Paris, some 15 miles to the south. Built mostly of wood and canvas, a team of artists was hired to paint the city, and the electrical engineer Fernand Jacopozzi (famous for first lighting the Eiffel Tower), was brought in to make Faux Paris more appealing to the German bombers.
A map of Faux Paris (via JF Ptak Science Books, which has more images of the “Second Paris” on their site)
Although only a small fraction of the fake city was ever completed, it had running trains, as well as replicas of the Arc de Triomphe and the Champs-Élysées. It had working lights (just dim enough to convince the Germans that the French had closed their curtains to disguise the city), and industrial sectors, with a translucent paint applied to the roofs to mimic dirty glass ceilings. The partly-built city was never attacked, and quickly disassembled at the end of the war. The Germans were, apparently, developing similar plans for their industrial bases, but the war ended before those plans could be put into action.
In the Second World War, German bombing raids on England intensified. Almost nightly, the Luftwaffe’s bombers droned above London, and although the anti-aircraft weapons were much more powerful than during the First World War, so too were the aircraft. The Battle of Britain raged in the skies, with more than 90,000 civilian casualties. The British authorities needed to not only protect their military assets, but also to protect the people from German bombings. They borrowed the plans of the French, whether deliberately or through convergent evolution.
Around the United Kingdom, various potential targets were identified, focused primarily on military hardware, with false tanks, aircraft, and factories constructed to fool German bombing raids. After the bombing of Coventry, however, they expanded this project with the construction of Q-sites.
Q-sites were built within four miles of potential target cities, and were laid out to simulate blacked-out towns, with fires being lit in the Q-sites after the first wave of bombs were dropped on the target towns. It is estimated that more than 900 tons of munitions were wasted on these sites. The concept of blacking-out towns across Britain saved countless lives, as in the days before reliable aircraft navigation aids and techniques, pilots and their crew needed to see their targets or local landmarks. In fact, some of the most lethal German pilots were those who had studied or holidayed in Britain before the war, as they knew both the locations of culturally important sites, and the potential psychological damage that could be inflicted through longterm bombing these places.
It wasn’t only the British who got caught up in the building of fake towns After the raid on Pearl Harbor in December of 1941, industrial sites along the West Coast were disguised as non-military sites. Boeing’s B17 Bomber factory in Seattle, for instance, was covered with 26 acres of suburban streets, such as the charmingly named Synthetic Street. Actors were hired to walk on the rooftop, hanging laundry, and engaging in other wholesome 1930s behaviors. (Photographs can be found here.)
A soldier with an inflatable three-ton lorry in WWII (via Imperial War Museums)
An inflatable Sherman tank from WWII (via Imperial War Museums)
During the Second World War, the Allies deployed the so-called Ghost Army to France in the wake of the D-Day invasion. The Ghost Army (or, officially, the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops) was an Allied unit that moved through France sowing misinformation and generally confusing the enemy. Made up primarily of actors, artists, engineers, and advertisers, they operated near to enemy lines, and deployed inflatable tanks, dummy airfields, troop emplacements, and artillery formations. Alongside these visual props were recordings of troops and vehicles rumbling, and the Ghost Army filled the airwaves with false radio chatter, as well as imitating other Allied units’ insignia and ranks to further deceive the Germans.
Even earlier in the war, particularly in North Africa, British forces employed deception as a tactic against the famous General Rommel, building fake railway stations and supply columns — these efforts led directly to Operations Bodyguard, Titanic, and Glimmer, which in turn convinced the German military that the Normandy landings were the deception, and diverted a significant portion of German manpower away from the landing sites at Normandy for a staggering seven weeks.
Dummy paratrooper used in D-Day, which included machine gune fire simulators & self-destroying charges (photograph by Pajx/Wikimedia)
During the Vietnam War, fought from the early 1960s until the fall of Saigon in 1973, the Viet Cong were also known to make use of artificial villages to protect their tunnel complexes, and false tunnels, to distract American and Australian soldiers and consume valuable operations time. These tunnel complexes could be, well, incredibly complex, with some of the larger ones not only featuring bunkers and weapons depots, but also political re-education schools, command centers, hospitals, and even theaters (for the production of politically educational plays, no doubt.) The most elaborate of these tunnel systems ran for miles, and often needed to be flushed out by the so-called “tunnel rats,” men who were often the physically smallest soldiers in their units, who crawled through the underground passages armed with only pistols and flashlights.
Although WWI saw the first mass production of artificial cities to confuse the enemy, there are also the (alleged) historical example of Grigory Potemkin, who built artificial villages in the 18th century to fool his Empress. After the Russian conquest of Crimea in the 1780s, Tsarina Catherine the Great appointed Potemkin as the region’s governor, tasked with rebuilding the shattered countryside. Although the story may be apocryphal, it is said that Potemkin’s men assembled villages along the river where Catherine’s barge drifted, and acted out the roles of peasants until the Tsarina passed along. The village would be quickly disassembled, and rebuilt further downstream to continue the deception.
North Korea’s Kijong-dong, aka “Propaganda Village” (photograph by Don Sutherland, U.S. Air Force)
Possibly the most famous “Potemkin village” in the world is that of Kijong-dong, in North Korea, which, according to the North Korean government, is home to a collective-farm, worked by 200 families, as well as the world’s third largest flagpole(!). The rest of the world disagrees, and observation through telescopic lenses reveals that the city is uninhabited, and that none of the buildings are anything more than concrete shells, with automated lighting systems and cultivated fields around the site striving to add to the illusion.
In 2010, it was reported that the Russian government had purchased a large number of inflatable planes and tanks, in order to disguise the deployment of its military hardware. Even though we live now in a world where it seems that everything is observed and under question, at least two countries think we can still be fooled through such simple deceptions. |
A U.S. Air Force F-16 Fighting Falcon refuels over Afghanistan in November. (Photo: Staff Sergeant Sean Martin/USAF)
Little peace, and our strength is ebbing: A report from the Reagan National Defense Forum.
This past weekend marked the annual Reagan National Defense Forum, held at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California. It was the first Forum since the Republicans took control of the White House and both houses of Congress. In the past, the Forum has facilitated vibrant discussion among leaders in the national-security community, and this year was no different. The panels and speakers included a bipartisan mix of administration, congressional, analytical, and retired military leaders. Virtually every panel offered a headline worthy of comment. Insights ranged from Representative Mike Gallagher’s allusion to Halford Mackinder’s early-20th-century World Island theory to General John Hyten’s new thought that there is no “war in space. There is only war, and space is one of the domains in which it will be fought.”
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One of the themes that emerged throughout the day was that there is very little peace in the world. Former secretary of defense and CIA director Leon Panetta observed that he had never seen so many flash points in the world at the same time. Various speakers called out Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, and, more broadly, radical Islamic terrorism as threats to the peace and security of the United States. Retired General Jack Keane bluntly stated that China was trying to dominate its region without firing a shot, and Lieutenant General H. R. McMaster, the current national-security adviser to President Trump, candidly called out North Korea, with its investments in intercontinental ballistic missiles and nuclear warheads, as a clear and present danger to the United States.
McMaster’s luncheon address was arguably the high point of the day, with national news channels breaking into their regular schedule to cover it. The general offered hints as to the contents of the Trump administration’s much-anticipated national-security strategy. In a clear swipe at the Obama administration’s “lead from behind” approach, McMaster stated that President Trump and his team were focused on “recovering the strategic initiative.” He alluded to actions that could be taken in the diplomatic, economic, and military arenas. McMaster, who has a Ph.D. and a reputation for incisive thought, suggested that the new national-security strategy would seek to balance strategic ends with the nation’s ways and means rather than simply present the banal bumper stickers that have constituted recent strategies of both Republican and Democrat administrations.
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Space emerged as a major topic of conversation. At a panel that included General Hyten, Secretary of the Air Force Heather Wilson, and Mike Rogers, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee Strategic Forces Subcommittee, there was a vigorous debate between Wilson and Rogers, with Hyten stuck uncomfortably between them. Rogers asserted that space is being rapidly militarized, with competitor nations making huge investments in attempts to catch up to and overtake the United States in a domain it has long dominated, and that the Air Force, as a bureaucratic entity, was stifling the evolution of the nation’s space forces. Wilson pushed back vigorously, stating that the Air Force was manned by a superb cadre of space professionals and that the service had dramatically increased its budgetary investments in space. Rogers said that the Air Force needed to create within itself a Space Corps, which would be analogous to the Marine Corps within the Department of the Navy. Such a corps would have independence in the development of its budget, forces, operations, and strategy. Hyten inserted himself carefully into the conversation, all the while highlighting that space was already a domain in which a strong competition between great powers was occurring. The space conversation, though lively, was ultimately a debate without a conclusion.
Budgets and force readiness were the dual themes that ran throughout the day. Everyone, except Representative Adam Smith (D., Calif.), bemoaned Congress’s inability to overturn the 2011 Budget Control Act. Secretary of the Navy Richard Spencer observed that the nearly endless string of continuing resolutions that has characterized the post–Budget Control Act era had cost the Navy and Marine Corps over $4 billion in stop-and-start expenses. Despite a broad consensus among attendees, it was clear that internal disputes with “fiscal hawks” who viewed rising deficits as significant national-security threats in and of themselves were going to block any Republican attempts to do away with the Budget Control Act in the near future. There was a palpable sense of frustration in the room, especially among the Republican members of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees. Despite having a Republican president who wants a larger military, and majorities in the House and the Senate, there was no real sense of energy or forward movement on strengthening the nation’s defense.
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Force readiness was the other bogeyman in the room, with speakers from McMaster to former Obama appointee Kathleen Hicks highlighting the need to invest in readiness and modernization. Readiness and modernization, the latter in the form of investments in new “offsetting” capabilities, seem to represent the major hurdles that the Department of Defense needs to clear before it can begin to grow the force. Both seem to suggest false choices, as no real dollar amount has been advanced to answer the question of how much it would cost to achieve high “readiness,” and investments in modernization can coexist with investments in growing the force by following a traditional acquisition strategy consisting of a “high-low” mix. The desire by some to pursue only those high-end capabilities that are viewed as essential to winning the next great-power war carries with it the potential to diminish the day-to-day force that is critical to preserving the peace.
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In the end, this year’s Reagan National Defense Forum highlighted the fact that the new administration, despite some irregularities in its strategic messaging, is attempting to reverse the passive strategic course of the past and to chart once again a more assertive role both both here on earth and out in space. However, problems within the legislative budgetary process are threatening to hamper these efforts and could further erode the United States’ position on the global stage. Lastly, there was a general sense of ennui throughout the Forum, a persistent intrusion of the overused boilerplate answers to longstanding problems in various panels, and few conversations containing innovative ideas or an energetic sense of forward motion. Actors within the defense community, and even within the Republican party itself, still seem pitted against each other. At the end of the day, as I stood next to Ronald Reagan’s grave while the sun set behind the western foothills he loved, I came away with the sense that somehow the nation’s defense community was beset by challenges and had accepted just standing still. Reagan would not be pleased.
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Why We Need More Defense Spending
End Defense Budget Sequester & Rebuild Our Military
Trump’s ISIS Victory |
CTV Kitchener
A 20-year-old woman and 21-year-old man face charges in connection with an alleged unusual bout of cheating at the University of Waterloo.
The woman, Kaiwen Qian, is a student at the school.
She appeared Wednesday in a Kitchener court on charges of personation and uttering a forged document, and was released on $3,000 bail.
She is accused of getting the man – Longhua Wang, a student at York University – to write an exam for her.
Nick Manning, a spokesperson for the school, says staff were alerted to the possibility one or more students would be cheating during a specific math exam.
“(We) put measures in place to detect that cheating, and we discovered that a male student from a different university had been paid to come and take an exam for one of our students,” he told CTV News.
Wang, Manning said, somehow came into possession of a fake Waterloo student ID containing his picture and Qian’s name.
It’s alleged that Wang was paid more than $900 to write the exam.
Qian returns to court in January.
School officials say they continue to investigate the fake student ID, and whether any others were issued.
“We know that students are under immense pressure to pass exams … and inevitably some will find ways to cheat, which is a great shame,” Manning said.
“We … expect them to uphold very high standards of integrity, which means not cheating.” |
Former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is slated to meet with Barack Obama. McCain is winning — in Israel
While the European leg of Barack Obama’s much-touted overseas trip will take him to nations where he’s vastly more popular than John McCain, Obama is not nearly as well-liked in Israel. Polls there show Israelis prefer John McCain by as much as 20 percentage points.
Obama’s Middle Eastern swing will also take him to Jordan and possibly to Iraq, but the electoral stakes may be highest in Israel, which has long played a prominent role in American foreign policy and domestic politics.
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Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor downplayed the electoral significance of the senator’s Israel visit, saying the purpose is “to convey to Israeli leaders and the Israeli people his commitment to the special U.S.-Israel relationship and his strong personal feelings of friendship. He is deeply committed to Israel's security.”
If Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, impresses in his visit, it could help him close the international affairs experience gap with his Republican rival, and also solidify his support among Jews and evangelicals skeptical of Obama’s expressed commitment to Israel.
Israelis appear to share those concerns. In the past month, one poll found 36 percent of Israelis preferred McCain, versus 27 percent for Obama, while in another, 46 percent of respondents said a McCain presidency “would be better for Israel,” compared to 20 percent who said the same about Obama.
Those results stand in stark contrast to public surveys conducted in most other nations. A spring Pew Global Attitudes Project poll of 23 foreign nations — not including Israel — on six continents found respondents in all but two countries had more confidence in Obama than McCain to do the right thing in world affairs, often by wide margins. (In the two outlying countries, Jordan and Pakistan, few people expressed confidence in either candidate.)
Obama’s support tended to track fairly closely with widespread distaste for President Bush’s foreign policy — which includes strong support for Israel in its conflicts with the Palestinians and Israel's Arab neighbors.
But that foreign policy has been embraced in Israel, where Bush remains a popular figure.
“Israelis see Bush as having been better to Israel than almost any president before has been,” said Albert Baumgarten, a Jewish history professor at Bar-Ilan University in Ramat-Gan, Israel. Israelis, he said, “feel almost as if he’s their president.”
Baumgarten, a dual Israeli-U.S. citizen who’s supporting Obama, said Israelis believe McCain is more likely to continue pursuing the Bush administration’s foreign policy agenda.
McCain has received mostly positive coverage in Israel, both for his hard line on Iran and for his military service, including his time as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam. That’s an experience valued by Israelis, who are required to serve in the country’s armed forces.
He’s also benefited from the support of Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, the former-Democrat-turned-independent, whose Orthodox Judaism and staunch support of Israel make him a popular figure in Israel. Some Israelis, said Jerusalem-based pollster Mitchell Barak, count against Obama “that the Democratic Party is not a welcome place for Joe Lieberman.”
But McCain’s edge in the Jewish state seems to stem in large part from an antipathy toward Obama. In May, New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, then seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, outpolled McCain in a head-to-head matchup by a margin of 57 percent to 18 percent. The same poll, conducted by Barak’s firm, showed McCain with a 43 percent to 20 percent edge over Obama among Israeli voters. |
Sean Spicer got asked about the Carl Vinson mystery today. It was … well, it was sad. Spicer basically said ‘Oh, you misunderstood what we meant. Sucks to be you.’ (Actual quotes and more here.) That’s silly. Here’s what happened or rather what I think we can be fairly confident happened based on the totality of evidence and anonymous sources at the Pentagon reported in the press. (TPM’s Matt Shuham is just published a detailed timeline of the events in question here.)
A Carrier Strike Group, an armada of ships lead by an aircraft carrier, the modern capital ship, doesn’t turn around on a dime. I don’t mean that literally. I’m sure the armada of ships can make an immediate shift in direction if necessary. But these are big groups of ships, with thousands of seaman, a schedule of maneuvers, trainings, exercises, ports of call, etc. Changing plans and going somewhere else doesn’t necessarily mean literally turning around immediately and canceling everything that was planned. Making a significant short term scheduling change is a reasonably big deal in itself.
What seems to have happened is that the decision was made to send the carrier group back to waters around the Koreas. They didn’t cancel a planned exercise to the South but scrapped a port of call in Australia to get back to the waters around Korea and Japan more quickly. This was a significant change of plans and would have sent what seems to have been the intended signal – a bit of saber-rattling in the context of the current stand off between North Korea and the United States. My point is that the original Pentagon statements were reasonable descriptions of what was happening.
But then the White House and particularly the President said things that were much more direct and clearly, at best, misleading. What is key is that this does not seem to have been some intentional misdirection or ambiguity. The Korean Peninsula is not a war zone at the moment, thankfully. But there is a stand off and military assets are being used for a tactical-political purpose. Nation states don’t consider themselves bound to strict transparency in such cases, understandably. If we had learned later that the US had said something was happening which was not true to drive anxiety in North Korea, this would not be entirely surprising. But again, that does not seem to be what happened. It seems much more like the White House and the President got sloppy, didn’t know exactly what was happening and through sloppiness and bravado created an impression that simply wasn’t true.
There doesn’t seem to have been any one single misstatement, more a slow process of overstatement that led to erroneous information becoming assumed by everyone. Spicer is now saying it’s the press’s fault they misunderstood. But the publics and press in the region’s seem to have misunderstood too. And it even seems like the governments may have misunderstood. Those are the kinds of misunderstandings which, if not by design, it’s the US government’s responsibility to clarify.
And in fact a key point in the rhetorical escalation seems to have come from Spicer himself. On April 11th, Fox News Kevin Corke had this exchange with Spicer.
Q Putting that strike carrier group in the Sea of Japan, in that region, is that also a messaging circumstance? Or is that simply protective for our allies in Japan and Korea? MR. SPICER: A carrier group is several things. The forward deployment is deterrence, presence. It’s prudent. But it does a lot of things. It ensures our — we have the strategic capabilities, and it gives the President options in the region. But I think when you see a carrier group steaming into an area like that, the forward presence of that is clearly, through almost every instance, a huge deterrence. So I think it serves multiple capabilities.
So Corke asked a question with a factual premise and Spicer seemed to affirm that inaccurate factual premise and escalate it. Did Spicer just not know? It seems like he was simply carried along with the misunderstanding. The following day President Trump addressed the issue. But his statement wasn’t really clearly misleading as to timing. It just pumped up the decision to send the group back to the north. Asked by Fox News Channel’s Maria Bartiromo, “What are we doing right now in terms of North Korea?” Trump answered: “We are sending an armada, very powerful.”
Actually, the back and forth is weirder than that. Bartiromo asks him. He says he doesn’t want to talk about it. Then he talks about the Middle East. Then he says he doesn’t want to talk about it. Then he talks about it …
BARTIROMO: You redirected navy ships to go toward the Korean Peninsula. What we are doing right now in terms of North Korea? TRUMP: You never know, do you? You never know. BARTIROMO: That’s all (INAUDIBLE)… TRUMP: You know I don’t think about the military. BARTIROMO: Yes. TRUMP: I’m not like Obama, where they talk about in four months we’re waiting — we’re going to hit Mosul. BARTIROMO: Right. TRUMP: And in the meantime, they get ready and like you’ve never seen — look, they’re still fighting. Mosul was supposed to last for a week and now they’ve been fighting it for many months and so many more people died. I don’t want to talk about it. We are sending an armada, very powerful. We have submarines, very powerful, far more powerful than the aircraft carrier, that I can tell you.
Looking at every, most of the escalating statements came from the White House or President Trump. But there’s a key exception. On the same day Spicer got into his exchange, April 11th, Secretary of Defense Mattis gave a briefing at the Pentagon at which he said the decision to send the Vinson Carrier Group north wasn’t tied to any particular event.
“As far as the movement of the (Carl) Vinson, she is stationed there in the Western Pacific for a reason, she operated freely, up and down the Pacific, and she is just on her way up there because that is where we thought it was most prudent to have her at this time.”
Out of context, this is perhaps a bit ambiguous. “She is just on her way up there” can be a general reference to movements in the context of the group routinely moving around the Western Pacific. But notably there’s https://www.defense.gov/News/Transcripts/Transcript-View/Article/1148604/press-conference-by-secretary-mattis-and-gen-votel-in-the-pentagon-briefing-room/.
Q: (Inaudible) unusual for us to know about a ship movement in advance. That was sort of what — what got everyone’s attention. So why was that? I mean, why was it put out in advance? Was it just to signal to North Korea that there would be a show of presence there? SEC. MATTIS: I believe it’s because she was originally headed in one direction for an exercise, and we canceled our role in that exercise, and that’s what became public. We had to explain why she wasn’t in that exercise. [Sic: The ship’s port visit to Fremantle, Australia, was cancelled; the exercise with the Royal Australian navy is proceeding as planned.]
The paranthetical correction is from the Pentagon. But it’s from yesterday, according to a DOD spokesman – so after the news stories confirming that there had been confusion about the location of the carrier group.
Mattis’s references here make it clear there was at least some level of confusion from Mattis himself. It seems like he may have been unclear in his own mind whether or how much of the exercises were curtailed or canceled altogether. At a minimum, his comments were misleading. But again, they were mainly misleading in the context of inflated comments from the White House and the President.
At this point, what seems to have happened is that people at the planning and operational level started realizing that what was being discussed in the news (and maybe even privately with US allies) in the US and the region wasn’t really true. But they seem to have refrained from clarifying or contradicting these erroneous reports thinking that these public declarations were political decisions that weren’t which it wasn’t their place to contradict. So they didn’t.
Here’s a key passage from the story in Defense News that first reported that carrier group’s real whereabouts.
U.S. Navy officials in Pearl Harbor and Washington declined to comment on the ship’s movements, other than to confirm the April 15 movement through the Sunda Strait. Off the record, several officials expressed wonderment at the persistent reports that the Vinson was already nearing Korea. “We’ve made no such statement,” said one official.
Not contradicting what the White House was saying might make sense if it seemed like the White House was being deliberately misleading. It seems more like they were confused. At a minimum it seems clear that people at the operational level were quite aware that people on both sides of the Pacific were assuming something was true that was not true. At the end of the day, this looks like the product of confusion and miscommunication within the administration. That’s a problem. It didn’t have any cataclysmic effect in this case. But in a high stakes stand off mixed with gunboat diplomacy, it could have. |
Obama stressed the need to build "trust between police officers and departments in the communities that they serve.” | Getty Obama huddles with top law enforcement aides on policing
CLEVELAND — President Barack Obama met with his top law enforcement aides at the White House to discuss more ways to help police on Tuesday evening, even as Republicans continued attacking the president for stoking tensions over policing.
The Oval Office meeting wrapped up just as news broke that an officer had been shot and succumbed to his wounds in Kansas City. It also followed an open letter Obama penned to police forces on Monday in which the president sought to bolster his support for law enforcement after several days of criticism that his responses to the attacks on police in Dallas and Baton Rouge were insufficient.
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“I strongly believe that there is no contradiction between us protecting our officers, honoring our officers, making sure that they have all the tools they need to do their job safely, and building trust between police officers and departments in the communities that they serve,” Obama told reporters at the end of the private meeting on Tuesday. “In fact, those things are complementary and not contradictory.”
The meeting included Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, Attorney General Loretta Lynch, FBI Director James Comey and White House Counsel Neil Eggleston.
But Republicans continued their rhetorical assault on Obama. “He blamed the police” for the latest round of violence, said Sen. Jeff Sessions in remarks formally nominating Donald Trump for the Republican presidential nomination on Tuesday night.
“Tensions have been very high, and I blame the president. He has the bully pulpit,” said Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick. In an interview with POLITICO in Cleveland on Tuesday, the Republican repeated his call for Obama to light the White House in blue to commemorate police. “Eight police officers killed in two weeks and he won’t turn on the blue lights.”
Patrick added, “It’s the president being stubborn, and while he’s being stubborn, people are getting killed, and the public is very concerned.”
Obama said on Tuesday, as he has before, that he wants the federal government to do more to help the 18,000 law enforcement agencies around the country to work together. And he acknowledged that local departments don’t have enough money to provide things like bullet-proof vests for their entire forces.
“My intention over the next several months, as long as I'm in this office, is to continue to look at best practices, figure out what’s working well; listen to our police departments in how we can help them; engage the community; build up trust. What kind of equipment do they need? What kind of training do they need? What kind of recruitment strategies do they need? And then to do everything we can to convene all parties concerned, including Congress, to make sure that they can get those resources,” Obama said.
Obama has been meeting with activists and police officials in the wake of not only the attacks on police, but the deaths of two black men at the hands of police earlier this month. Obama has frequently spoken of racial disparities in the criminal justice system, and his administration has driven a sweeping effort intended to improve community policing. But rank-and-file officers have bristled at his messages, and his perceived slights of the police have become a major theme of the Republican National Convention.
Even as Obama has worked to offer unequivocal support to police, they’ve also asked him to take specific steps. The National Sheriffs' Association and the Fraternal Order of Police have called on him to reconsider the administration’s new restrictions on military equipment for local police, for example. While the White House has been noncommittal on that front, Obama said Tuesday that over the past few weeks, there have been “much more constructive conversations and the offering up of very concrete recommendations and suggestions for how we can do better.”
Obama concluded, “This is not going to be something we can do just from this office, or from the Department of Justice or the Department of Homeland Security. This is something that is going to have to be bottom-up.” |
I’ve been working on a few nice things for the behind the scenes stuff.
First thing I did was make a few of the admin commands nicer. Banning now can take an optional timeout and unban automatically once the time is done. The cavaets are that the server needs to stay running, because temp bans aren’t stored, yet (perm bans are of course). This is useful for short term bans for someone to cool off, like 10 minutes or a few hours.
Next, I retooled a bunch of the duplicate admin commands to take a playerSpecifier instead. See my player specifiers post on the forums for more detail on how they work.
Then I changed /listcid to simply /list and modified it to also display the player’s UUID and if the player has characters that can’t normally be displayed by our font it will display the UTF escape code for the character instead. So if you have someone named “😀☃” you won’t be able to read their nickname normally but the list command will output them as $3 : \ud83d\ude00\u2603 : $$(uuid goes here).
You can use the unicode escape sequence to address them to any admin command.
Notice that I’m using the \u not the \U unicode escape sequences, which means much of my time this morning was taken up writing an encoder and decoder for UTF surrogate pairs and redoing bits of the parser to handle them better. This will save a lot of keystrokes though, because that sort of huge unicode codepoint is rare.
Next, I stuck a lua script hook into the command processor. Now you can define your own admin commands. There isn’t much to the lua API yet, but that will change as we figure out what you need.
Finally, I changed the format of the Lua callbacks so that Doxygen can parse them (some of them anyway, there’s still a lot to do), then I changed our doxygen settings to make documentation fit for public consumption (remove verbatim_headers and full_source).
You can find public documentation at: http://doc.playstarbound.com.
Currently it’s updated manually whenever I fancy it. But once we get the nightlies system working, I’ll make sure that the script that uploads the nightlies also updates the documentation. Enjoy modders. |
Just a few years ago the common perception was that we were in an AI winter.
Although there were lots of narrow AI applications running in the background of our daily lives, there wasn’t much enthusiasm.
But quietly in the background, a revolution was building thanks to progress across a few key areas. These areas would soon converge to produce breakthrough after breakthrough and put us on the verge of what many believe to be the most important event in human history.
Key Advance 1) More Data
Andrew Ng of Baidu explains that a massive amount of data is needed. If you put 10x the data in many of these algorithms they work, put 1/10th in and they don’t.
Previously it was very difficult to get hold of the massive amounts of data required to feed the AI systems, but thanks to the internet researchers have tonnes of data to train their neural nets.
Key Advance 2) More Computing Power
If you only have the computational power to build a small neural network it doesn’t work. But computer power has continued to increase and prices have dropped.
Moore’s Law may be stalling, but the Law of Accelerating Returns is not.
The Law of Accelerating Returns. What Steve Jurvetson calls “the most important graph ever”.
GPUs are much better for training neural networks than CPUs and have provided the computer power needed for these algorithms to function.
Infrastructure has also improved. Today it’s possible for anyone to rent a massive amount of GPU power on cloud computing platforms (AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, IBM Cloud).
Key Advance 3) Better Algorithms
Neural networks have been known about for decades, but most researchers had given up on them
Geoffrey Hinton of Google is one of the few who stuck with it. Despite his peers calling it a dead end, he believed that it was the right approach. It turned out he was right.
Hinton learned how to stack neural networks dozens of layers deep (deep learning) which enabled vastly more calculations and now he is considered “the godfather of neural networks”.
With these 3 breakthroughs in place neural networks finally began to work. And they worked better than almost anyone expected.
The Tipping Point: ImageNet 2012
The ImageNet project was created in 2009 to judge how well computers can see.
In 2011 computers had a 26% error rate when trying to label images. Humans only had a 5% error rate.
But in 2012, Hinton’s team made a breakthrough and reduced the error rate to 16% using deep learning.
This made everyone sit up and take notice. Massive research began in deep learning, and just a few years later in 2015 computers actually beat humans with an error rate of just 4%.
Today, just 5 years after Hinton’s breakthrough, the error rate for AI is 3%.
The portion of evolution in which animals developed eyes was a big development. Now computers have eyes. – Jeff Dean, Google Brain
Governments, the academic world, big corporations, and startups became obsessed with neural networks and AI in general.
Tech companies began spending billions to make progress as fast as possible and a massive recruiting war began for anybody with relevant skills.
As everybody raced to develop these deep neural networks breakthrough after breakthrough occurred and it was clear that something very special was happening.
Self-Driving cars became a reality
Computers became as good as or better than humans at many types of medical diagnosis
Voice recognition accuracy skyrocketed
High accuracy language translation (for text and audio) became accessible
Autonomous drones were built
A Computer beat humans at Go, a milestone thought to be decades away.
Today the pace of funding and development of AI is faster than ever and we are still in the very early stages of exploring what these neural nets and AI systems can help us do.
The Next Decade (2017 – 2020s)
The Dream Is Finally Arriving. This Is What It Was All Leading Up To. – Bill Gates
WIDESPREAD OPTIMIZATION
Better optimized logistics, supply chain management, back office processes, and communication will speed up many of our daily processes.
Productivity gains and reduced friction will occur across all industries.
These behind the scenes advances might be incremental and seemingly boring, but when combined and compounded will free up so much wealth and resources.
A lot of experts are going to be surprised at how inefficient their best efforts have been.
Google Turns on DeepMind AI, Cuts Cooling Energy Bill by 40%
We used a similar system to AlphaGo, but instead of playing Go we applied it to the cooling systems in the data centers to try and increase their energy efficiency. We managed to save 40% of the energy that was used by the cooling systems. The whole data center now has 15% less power usage. That’s worth tens of millions of dollars per year. What we’re thinking now is, why don’t we optimize something like the energy grid at national scale? There’s no need to just think about data centers, there must be huge inefficiencies even at grid scale. – Demis Hassibis, Google DeepMind
This alone probably pays for the Deepmind acquisition. Shows how far below Pareto optimal limits even Google was. – Balaji S. Srinivasan
I don’t think most grasp the significance of this. Oil companies have similar systems they pay billions trying to optimize. – iandanforth It’s all about optimization. It can be used in supply logistics, shipping logistics and dynamic pricing in addition to keeping an industrial area at the right temperature. We’ll be seeing AI being applied to a lot more areas. – Dave Schubmehl
Honestly, I’m skeptical a generalized AI will go fully conscious in my lifetime. But these specialized AI? These things are going to start changing our lives over the next ten years in unimaginable ways. The energy savings alone is incredible. – tendimensions
ENERGY AND COMMODITIES WILL GET CHEAPER
Long term Industrial commodity price decline
AI is very effective at figuring out where resources might be and where to drill. It can also optimize business processes, design better equipment, and suggest better techniques.
This will drive the oil price down even further, making it cheaper for all of us to power our businesses and lives.
Travel will become cheaper. Airline ticket prices will fall.
As more efficient production methods are discovered productivity will rise, pushing costs down and enabling prices to fall.
This will occur across a range of commodities from food to energy.
MASSIVE DEFLATIONARY PRESSURES
The event horizon of a coming economic singularity where all prices drop down an asymptote toward zero as technology advances exponentially. – James C. Townsend
Optimization and cheaper commodity prices will produce tremendous deflationary pressures.
Productivity gains should be higher than the rate of money printing. This means that prices will fall.
As things get easier to produce they become less scarce. Lower costs for producers means they can cut prices to gain more customers and sell to a larger market.
We’ve already seen this with electronics such as smartphones.
The components of the phones keep reducing in price, and supply chains and operations get more efficient, allowing the companies to expand their market to billions of people instead of a much smaller market of wealthy people.
Hundreds of years ago, light was very expensive. Clean water was very expensive. As those things became easier to produce and deliver to people (electricity and modern plumbing systems) the price dropped down an asymptote towards zero.
Nowadays those things are so cheap and easy to obtain that most people take them completely for granted.
The internet revolution has already delivered this in many ways. Entertainment is practically free now with youtube videos, file sharing, and the ability to access any song, movie, book or picture instantly.
Every industry will have costs lowered by AI bringing more efficient systems and production methods.
The path we are on is to use our knowledge and tools to drive costs down and make systems and processes more efficient.
This will result in things that were previously scarce becoming abundant. Deflation is the reward we get for improving our methods.
SMART MANUFACTURING
Fortunes will be made acquiring analogue manufacturers and digitizing them. Comparable to Russian privatization. – Pierre Rochard
The global manufacturing sector generates about $12 trillion in annual revenue.
Industrial robotics equipped with better than human image recognition will use data from sensors to optimize how they function.
Imagine the cost savings with even just small incremental productivity gains.
TRANSPORT WILL BECOME SAFER, CHEAPER, AND LESS TIME CONSUMING
This is already well underway.
Transport costs will continue to be driven down as ride sharing companies offer self-driving rides.
Car ownership rates will plummet. Vehicles will be massively more utilized (at the moment they’re idle 95% of the time). City streets will open up to be used in different ways.
It will save millions of lives and free up an uncountable number of hours.
I never thought I’d see autonomous automobiles driving on the freeways. It wasn’t many years ago [they] put out a request to see who could build a car that could go across the Mojave Desert to Las Vegas from a place in Southern California, and several engineering teams across the country set out to do this. Nobody got more than about 300 yards before there was a problem. Two years later, they made the full 25-mile trip across this desert track, which I thought was a huge achievement, and from that it was just a blink before they were driving on the freeways.” – Gordon Moore
LANUAGE BARRIERS WILL FALL
Language, even more than religion, is humanity’s central point of division. Finally technology is overcoming this. – Jeffrey Tucker
I used to believe that it would take a couple of decades to get a babel fish type of device. I now believe we will have languages solved within 10 years at most.
Google Translate is amazing. The recent conversion to an AI system resulted in huge improvements. I’m in awe at how accurate it can instantly translate foreign text.
Google also have a new feature to use your phone’s camera to translate text in the world around you (like on signs or on a menu).
Skype translator converts instant messages with a very low error rate. This has been available for a while and now audio translation is being rolled out.
I recently tried French – English which was flawed but good enough if you talk clearly. It’s obviously going to improve exponentially with more training.
Breaking these language barriers will reduce friction and speed up processes all over the world. It will allow much greater integration of the 7 billion minds on the planet.
WE’LL HAVE EVEN BETTER ACCESS TO KNOWLEDGE
Personal assistants can finally understand you and start to do useful things. That’s a watershed moment. – David Hanson, Jan 2017
Speech Recognition for under $1 in every product. That’s coming within 2 years. Imagine what we see today with Amazon Alexa, that can be in every Roomba, every little consumer product, and it’s cheaper than putting buttons on a product. That’s obvious. – Steve Jurvetson, 2016
Personal AI assistants similar to what is portrayed in the movie Her will be increasingly prominent on our desktops and smartphones (and devices beyond that like virtual and augmented reality glasses and lenses).
Siri – Apple
Viv, Bixby – Samsung
Google Now – Google
Amazon Echo – Amazon
Cortana – Microsoft
M – Facebook
Personal assistants, along with household robots, will be one of the first things that triggers a realization among the general public that a major transition is happening.
WE’LL LIVE LONGER
I think AI’s effect on healthcare will be far more pervasive and far quicker than anyone anticipates. Even today, AI/Machine Learning is being used in oncology to identify optimal treatment patterns. – Stephen Gold, IBM Watson
Diagnosis
AI is already diagnosing people better than humans and saving lives.
We think that its no longer necessary for humans to spend time reviewing text reports to determine if cancer is present or not. We have come to the point in time that technology can handle this. A human’s time is better spent helping other humans by providing them with better clinical care. Everything — physician practices, health care systems, health information exchanges, insurers, as well as public health departments — are awash in oceans of data. How can we hope to make sense of this deluge of data? Humans can’t do it — but computers can.” This is a major infrastructure advance — we have the technology, we have the data, we have the software from which we saw accurate, rapid review of vast amounts of data without human oversight or supervision. – Shaun Grannis
Genomics
Deep learning is helping us to make sense of the human genome and know what to do with it. It’s just too complicated for us to make fast progress without AI.
Life Extension
Ben Goertzel of Hanson Robotics and OpenCog says it’s inevitable that we will learn enough through AI systems to be able to indefinitely extend our lifespan.
OUR ENGINEERING CAPABILITIES WILL IMPROVE
The greatest achievement of our technology may well be the creation of tools that allow us to go beyond engineering – that allow us to create more than we can understand. – Danny Hillis, 1998
An area I find particularly interesting is evolutionary/iterative algorithms. Deep Learning is part of a larger family of these type of algorithms (where the AI system does something over and over again in an evolutionary manner and somehow get the best result).
These designs often end up looking completely alien and counter-intuitive.
Example 1 – Satellite Antennas
NASA has no idea why their satellite antennas are best shaped like this.
Example 2 = Jet Engines
A jet engine is far too complicated for an unaided human to design so General Electric use evolutionary algorithms.
Example 3 – Structural Nodes
3 structural nodes to hold cables.
On the left is a human design, the right is a machine learning design.
The AI design results in a 40% overall weight reduction of the total structure.
Example 4 – Producing Entangled Photons
Melvin, an algorithm designed at the University of Vienna, works by taking the building blocks of a quantum experiment (lasers and mirrors) and the quantum state desired as an outcome and running through different setups at random.
If the random setup results in the desired outcome, Melvin will simplify it. It can also learn from experience, remembering which configurations result in which outcomes, so it can use those and build on them as needed.
So far, the team says, it has devised experiments that humans were unlikely to have conceived. Some that work in ways that are difficult to understand. They look very different from human-devised experiments.
“I still find it quite difficult to understand intuitively what exactly is going on,” said team member Mario Krenn
– Physics.org
AlphaGo is a similar example of how AI makes decisions that are completely different to what a human would come up with.
This was best displayed in the legendary game 37 when AlphaGo made a move that humans had unanimously dismissed as stupid for 3,000 year, yet turned out to be brilliant.
After humanity spent thousands of years improving our tactics, computers tell us that humans are completely wrong. I would go as far as to say not a single human has touched the edge of the truth of Go. – Ke Jie, Go World Champion
Colonizing mars, mining asteroids, and building a space economy in the decades ahead will need much better engineering than we’ve so far come up with so far, but these algorithms will help us design it.
At some point AI may take us over the threshold of knowledge required to build some of the other most important paradigm shifting technologies speculated about such as large-scale quantum computers or Drexlerian Molecular Assemblers.
HUMANITY’S SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE BASE WILL INCREASE
Deep neural nets will process the big data that we don’t know what to do with. This will provide insights in fields such as physics, biology, and chemistry.
Research breakthroughs at CERN’s particle collider or with the James Webb Space telescope project would give us a better ontological understanding of the nature of reality.
GLOBAL WEALTH WILL KEEP INCREASING EXPONENTIALLY
World GDP in Trillions $
We are already in the Singularity.
At this scale we can see it began sometime around the Scientific Revolution in the 1600s and really took off in the industrial revolution of the 1800s.
What those eras brought will pale in comparison to what comes next.
COMPANIES BRINGING AI TO THE WORLD
PUBLIC COMPANIES
These companies trade on the stock market so are available for the public to become owners of them.
I’ve listed them in order of market cap so it’s easier to get some perspective over who are the most valued companies and who has more room to grow relative to their competitors.
1) Apple
Silicon Valley, USA
Market Cap = $711 Billion
Personal assistant – Siri
Self-driving cars
Massive proprietary data to feed into AI training sets and improve systems
2) Google
Silicon Valley, USA
Market Cap = $582 Billion
DeepMind
AlphaGo
RankBrain – AI Search
Personal assistant – Google Now
Optimization Services (DeepMind in energy)
Google Cloud Computing (Google Cloud Platform)
Hardware –TPUs new deep learning chips (Tensor Processing Chips)
DeepMind Wavenet –The best text to speech system in the world (50% better than traditional systems)
Owns D-Wave “quantum computers” for quantum machine learning
The Google Quantum AI Lab (Quantum Machine Learning – Hartmut Neven, John Martinis)
Massive proprietary data to feed into AI training sets and improve systems
Self-Driving Cars – Waymo
Robotics – Boston Dynamics
Google Brain Project
Google Translate
Google Inbox Smart Reply
Google Home (Competitor to Amazon Alexa)
Nest (Home automation)
Wearables – Smart contact lens (long-term project)
Languages: “In few years time we will put it on a chip that fits into someone’s ear and have an English-decoding chip that’s just like a real Babel fish.” – Geoffrey Hinton
Key Talent – Geoffrey Hinton, Jeff Dean, Ray Kurzweil, John Martinis, Demis Hassibis, Mustafa Suleyman (DeepMind)
3) Microsoft
Seattle, USA
Market Cap = $499 Billion
Languages – Skype Translator
AI Personal Assistant – Cortana
Search – Bing
Speech Recognition
Cloud computing provider (Microsoft Azure)
Researching deep learning with FPGAs. Possibly better result than GPUs
Researching quantum computers
Massive proprietary data to feed into AI training sets and improve systems
Key Talent – Jian Sun, Li Deng, Matthias Troyer.
4) Amazon
Seattle, USA
Market Cap = $404 Billion
Cloud computing provider (AWS)
Amazon AI Services
Open sourced their Deep Scalable Sparse Tensor Network Engine (DSSTNE)
Personal Assistant – Amazon Alexa
Autonomous Drones
Investing significantly in robotics to improve their processes, reduce costs and increase profits.
Massive amounts of difficult to obtain proprietary data.
5) Facebook
Silicon Valley, USA
Market Cap = $387 Billion
Big data – Training AI on it.
AI Personal Assistant – M
Oculus – Integrating AI into this. (Long term)
Acquired voice-recognition AI startup Wit.ai
Key Talent – Yann LeCun
6) General Electric
Fairfield, USA
Market Cap = $270 Billion
Using AI to improve engineering
7) Samsung
Seoul, South Korea
Market Cap = $259 Billion
Acquired much hyped AI assistant Viv Labs (Siri cofounders new company)
The next Samsung phone will come with a digital assistant called Bixby.
Wearables – Smart contact lens (long term)
Part of a $3 billion public/private research centre with, LG, telecom giant KT, SK Telecom, Hyundai Motor, and internet portal Naver.
Pumping Millions into Artificial Intelligence startups
Deep learning to detect cancer – Samsung Medison
8) Alibaba
Hangzhou, China
Market Cap = $253 Billion
Cloud Computing AI Platform
9) Intel
Silicon Valley, USA
Market Cap = $175 Billion
Nervana Systems is a deep learning chip set company recently bought by Intel for around $400 mill which accelerates algorithms.
Intel FPGAs Break Record for Deep Learning Facial Recognition
10) Oracle
Silicon Valley, USA
Market Cap = $172 Billion
Lots of data
AI Cloud Apps
11) IBM
New York, USA
Market Cap = $171 Billion
Cloud computing provider (IBM Cloud)
IBM Watson – a tool for doctors, business people, and scientists.
IBM Watson making inroads into the $3.8 trillion healthcare industry
IBM Watson -Diagnosis greatly in demand
FPGA – Neuromorphic Chips
12) SAP
Walldorf, Germany
Market Cap = $106 Billion
Access to lots of data
Cloud computing platform
Sells AI services
SAP believes the next technology adoption phase for businesses will be around how they can use intelligent applications to assist them with their operations.
13) Qualcomm
San Diego, USA
Market Cap = $84 Billion
Competes with Nvidia in the GPU market
Neuromorphic Chips
The Internet of Things
14) Softbank
Tokyo, Japan
Market Cap = $82 Billion
$32 billion acquisition of ARM (makes GPUs)
Robotics
Pepper, customer service robot
“Nao,” a customer service robot that answers basic questions and is designed to speak 19 languages
Masayoshi Son (Chairman) – “ARM will play a key role in bringing about advanced artificial intelligence. I have unfinished business with the Singularity.”
15) Daimler AG
Stuttgart, Germany
Market Cap = $72 Billion
Mercedes-Benz, one of the leaders in self-driving cars
Mercedes and Uber plan network of self-driving cars
16) Baidu
Beijing, China
Market Cap = $65 Billion
Baidu AI Lab
AI Cloud Services
2 nd largest search engine in the world.
largest search engine in the world. 4 th most visited website in the world (behind Google, Youtube, and Facebook)
most visited website in the world (behind Google, Youtube, and Facebook) Baidu’s AI Supercomputer Beats Google at Image Recognition
Key Talent – Andrew Ng
17) Nvidia
Silicon Valley, USA
Market Cap = $56 Billion
Nvidia have 70% of the GPU market and will try to defend that.
They have a huge head start over their competitors by investing in a $2 billion R&D program before anyone else.
18) Salesforce
Silicon Valley, USA
Market Cap = $56 Billion
Salesforce Einstein is artificial intelligence (AI) built into the core of the Salesforce Platform
Bought deep learning startup Metamind
19) General Motors
Detroit, USA
Market Cap = $54 Billion
Self-Driving Cars
20) ABB Group
Market Cap = $50 Billion
Zurich, Switzerland
Industrial robots and robot software.
21) Ford
Detroit, USA
Market Cap = $50 Billion
Putting $1 billion into an AI startup, Detroit’s biggest investment yet in self-driving car tech
22) Hon Hai Precision Industry Co Ltd
Taipei, Taiwan
Market Cap = $50 Billion
Apple’s Supplier
Industrial Robotics
Already had a fully automated factory that can run 24 hours a day with the lights off
23) Keyence Corp
Osaka, Japan
Market Cap = $48 Billion
Develops and manufactures automation sensors, vision systems, barcode readers, laser markers, measuring instruments
24) Tesla Inc
Silicon Valley, USA
Market Cap = $42 Billion
Self-Driving cars
Plans be able to add your self-driving car to the Tesla shared fleet just by tapping a button on the Tesla phone app and have it generate income for you while you’re at work or on vacation.
25) Fanuc Corp
Oshino-mura, Japan
Market Cap = $41 Billion
One of the largest makers of industrial robots in the world
26) Hyundai Motor Co
Seoul, South Korea
Market Cap = $32 Billion
Part of a $3 billion public/private AI research centre.
Self-Driving Cars.
27) Mitsubishi Electric Corp
Tokyo, Japan
Market Cap = $32 Billion
Self-Driving Cars
28) HP
Silicon Valley, USA
Market Cap = $28 Billion
Venture Fund that invests in AI
29) Nidec Corp
Kyoto, Japan
Market Cap = $27 Billion
Manufactures electric motors
30) Intuitive Surgical
Silicon Valley, USA
Market Cap = $27 Billion
The Da Vinci, a flagship robot performs surgical operations
31) Illumnia Inc
San Diego, USA
Market Cap = $24 Billion
Applying Deep learning to healthcare
32) Naver Corp
Seoul, South Korea
Market Cap = $22 Billion
Korea’s biggest search engine
Lots of data
33) Delphi Automotive
Gillingham, England
Market Cap = $20 Billion
Built 1st driverless car to travel across the USA
34) SMC Corp
Tokyo, Japan
Market Cap = $19 Billion
Industrial robotics
35) SK Telecom
Seoul, South Korea
Market Cap = $16 Billion
Part of a $3 billion public/private AI research centre.
36) Tencent
Shenzhen, China
Market Cap = $15 Billion
Tencent AI Lab
37) Twitter
Silicon Valley, USA
Market Cap = $14 Billion
Lots of data
38) AMD
Silicon Valley, USA
Market Cap = $12 Billion
Competes with Nvidia in the GPU industry.
Investing heavily in AI markets
39) Mobileye
Jerusalem, Israel
Market Cap = $10 Billion
Self-Driving Cars
40) LG Electronics
Seoul, South Korea
Market Cap = $9 Billion
Part of a $3 billion public/private research centre with, Samsung, telecom giant KT, SK Telecom, Hyundai Motor, and internet portal Naver.
41) Omron Corp
Kyoto, Japan
Market Cap = $9 Billion
Japanese electronics company.
Bought Adept technologies which focuses on industrial automation and robotics in 2015
42) Toshiba Corp
Tokyo, Japan
Market Cap = $9 Billion
Robotics
Toshiba receives bid as high as $3.6 billion for chip business stake
Toshiba gets on the starting blocks for its latest NAND fab
43) Trimble Navigation
Silicon Valley, USA
Market Cap = $8 Billion
Makes Global Positioning System receivers, laser rangefinders, unmanned aerial vehicles, inertial navigation systems and a variety of software processing tools
44) KT Corp
Seoul, South Korea
Market Cap = $7 Billion
Part of a $3 billion public/private research centre with, Samsung, LG, SK Telecom, Hyundai Motor, and internet portal Naver.
45) NEC
Tokyo, Japan
Market Cap = $6 Billion
Internet of Things
46) Nuance Communications
Boston, USA
Market Cap = $5 Billion
Provides speech and imaging applications
47) Yaskawa Electric Corp
Kitakyushu, Japan
Market Cap = $5 Billion
Industrial robots
48) Cyberdyne Inc
Tsukuba, Japan
Market Cap = $3 Billion
Robotics company
Introducing ‘service’ robots with artificial intelligence
49) iRobot
Boston, USA
Market Cap = $1.7 Billion
The Roomba, the floor cleaning robot from my previous company, iRobot, is perhaps the robot with the most volition and intention of any robots out there in the world. Most others are working in completely repetitive environments, or have a human operator providing the second by second volition for what they should do next – Rodney A. Brooks, 2014
50) Pacific Industrial Co
Nagoya, Japan
Market Cap = $0.7 Billion
Robotics
51) Nippon Cermaic Co
Tottori, Japan
Market Cap = $0.5 Billion
Robotics
Sells various types of sensors
52) Kawada Technologies Inc
Tokyo, Japan
Market Cap = $0.4 Billion
Industrial Robotics
Its robot is designed to work alongside humans, and can be taught new tasks without the need for programming expertise.
NOTABLE PRIVATE COMPANIES
At the moment the public cannot buy stock in these companies.
Some might IPO soon or be bought up by one of the large public companies.
1) Uber
Acquired self-driving truck company Otto.
Uber AI Research Labs
AI Labs at Uber, which is using AI in everything from self-driving cars to dynamic ride scheduling
Transitioning to self-driving ride shares
Massive amounts of proprietary data.
2) Human Longevity Inc
Creating the largest database of human genotypic phenotypic and microbiology data ever assembled and using machine learning to analyze it
3) Hanson Robotics
Create life-like robots.
These robots are infused with OpenCog’s opensource artificial intelligence to “think”.
4) Rethink Robotics
Sells “Baxter” Industrial robot.
5) Kernel
Building advanced neural interfaces to treat disease and extend cognition.
6) Vicarious
Working on artificial intelligence; replicating the human visual cortex and creating machines with human-level intelligence in vision, language and motor control.
Funded by Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, and Jeff Bezos
7) Berg Pharmaceutical
Uses machine learning, to learn the various health associations and correlations. This led to the development of Berg’s first drug, BPM 31510, which is in clinical trials.
RECOMMENDATIONS
It’s probably smart to be an owner of Artificial Intelligence.
The large public companies are spending billions.
Private companies and startups getting involved.
Lots of theoretical research is taking place in academia (especially in Canada).
Governments and militaries are inevitably involved. Some of these projects are public knowledge, for example the Chinese government have pledged to invest $15 billion by 2018 and South Korea has a $3 billion project. Most likely there are classified projects already well underway.
There are several opensource AI projects such as OpenCog and OpenAI. Maybe some mindblowing unforeseeable opportunity to invest in AI will emerge from a project similar to these the same way Bitcoin came out of nowhere and changed everything.
Some random kid in the middle China could come up with something amazing. History shows that no matter how impressive a big company’s projects look, it’s nothing compared to the guys working out of their garage.
At this stage though, the easiest way to become an owner is to buy shares on the stock market of the companies most prominently involved and likely to succeed.
I laugh when people say tech is a bubble. The establishment is the bubble. Who’s around in 2025 – Google or the EU? – Balaji S. Srinivasan
Of the public companies heavily involved, the one that stands out head and shoulders above the others is Google.
Google snaps up every machine-learning or robotics company it likes the look of. They have supposedly the greatest Artificial Intelligence Lab in the world. They even managed to convince the neural network godfather Geoffrey Hinton to join them.
Google never pays a dividend or does stock buybacks because they aggressively reinvest cash into long-term projects such as DeepMind who they bought for $400mill (a bargain in hindsight). Founder Demis Hassibis describes it as “the Manhattan Project of AI” with hundreds of the best minds working on it.
The scope of their focus is breathtaking and they are clearly the front-runners to make major breakthroughs or even develop General AI.
Kevin Kelly tells the story below of when he realized Google have knowingly been building an AI from day one:
Around 2002 I attended a small party for Google—before its IPO, when it only focused on search. I struck up a conversation with Larry Page, Google’s brilliant co-founder, who became the company’s CEO in 2011. “Larry, I still don’t get it. There are so many search companies. Web search, for free? Where does that get you?”
My unimaginative blindness is solid evidence that predicting is hard, especially about the future, but in my defense this was before Google had ramped up its ad-auction scheme to generate real income, long before YouTube or any other major acquisitions.
I was not the only avid user of its search site who thought it would not last long. But Page’s reply has always stuck with me: “Oh, we’re really making an AI.”
I’ve thought a lot about that conversation over the past few years as Google has bought 14 AI and robotics companies.
At first glance, you might think that Google is beefing up its AI portfolio to improve its search capabilities, since search contributes 80 percent of its revenue. But I think that’s backward. Rather than use AI to make its search better, Google is using search to make its AI better. Every time you type a query, click on a search-generated link, or create a link on the web, you are training the Google AI.
When you type “Easter Bunny” into the image search bar and then click on the most Easter Bunny-looking image, you are teaching the AI what an Easter bunny looks like. Each of the 12.1 billion queries that Google’s 1.2 billion searchers conduct each day tutor the deep-learning AI over and over again.
With another 10 years of steady improvements to its AI algorithms, plus a thousand-fold more data and 100 times more computing resources, Google will have an unrivaled AI. My prediction: By 2024, Google’s main product will not be search but AI
Nvidia are also a very exciting company with massive demand for their products.
The shares are worth picking up because if they do hold on to their position as the best chips to use for AI over the next few years their sales and opportunities to expand into other interesting areas are going to be staggering.
If We Were a Hedge Fund We’d Put All Our Money Into Nvidia – Marc Andreessen
For somebody who wants general exposure to AI, but doesn’t want to pick a winner, investing across a basket of shares by building a portfolio of the best stocks is a good idea.
The Global X Robotics & Artificial Intelligence Thematic ETF is an actively managed AI fund with a management fee of 0.68%. It trades under the stock symbol “BOTZ”.
The 10 biggest positions in this portfolio are:
Mitsubishi Electic Corp Fanuc Corp ABB Keyence Corp SMC Corp Intuitive Surgical Yaskawa Electric Corp Omron Corp Trimble Navigation Ltd Mobileye.
Personally, I think the 10 stocks below would make a better AI fund.
Google (GOOGL:NASDAQ) – $846 per share – $582 billion marketcap Nvidia (NVDA:NASDAQ) – $107 – $56 bill Tesla (TSLA:NASDAQ) – $272 – $42 bill IBM (IBM:US) – $181 – $171 bill Microsoft (MSFT:US) – $65 – $499 bill Samsung (005930:KS) – 1.9 million KRW – $259 bill Amazon (AMZN:NASDAQ) – $845 – $404 bill AMD (AMD:US) – $13 – $12 bill Facebook (FB:NASDAQ) $134 – $387 bill Baidu (BIDU:NASDAQ) – $185 – $65 bill
OTHER INVESTMENT IDEAS
Short WTI Crude Oil (Currently $53 per barrel)
Short the Bloomberg Commodity Index (Currently at 88)
Short the First Trust NASDAQ Global Auto Index Fund (Currently at 36)
OUTLOOK FOR THE MEDIUM TO LONG TERM
The hard part was getting the neural nets to work. This took decades but now we’re there we will see years of easy gains as different industries and people roll them out into every product and service they can think of.
Is there a risk of another AI winter and we’ll be disappointed again?
It’s unlikely at this stage. Computer Science just overtook Economics as the most popular class at Harvard and more and more people are going into machine learning, so better talent is going to be coming through over the next few years.
Companies are spending billions of dollars, and there’s so much low hanging fruit just from applying the current deep learning techniques we already have.
Key Area 1) Data
The amount of data is growing at an exponential rate, doubling every two years.
While a lot of data remains proprietary (which gives companies like Google their edge) there are more and more public data sets becoming available for anyone to use and train their neural nets on.
With more sensors, the internet of things, and more companies willing to launch services which actually lose money just to get data for training AI, this area is going to keep growing exponentially.
Key Area 2) Computing Power and Infrastructure
We’ll soon see the power of computing increase way more than any other period. There will be trillions of products with tiny neural networks inside. – Jen-Hsun Huang, CEO of NVIDIA
Hardware is something we have a very good track record on. It’s extremely unlikely that this will be a limiting factor in the decades ahead.
Ray Kurzweil says there’s general agreement that we’re close to the hardware requirements of strong AI. He believes that we’ll be at the human brain of 10^14 calculations per second for $1,000 in the early 2020s.
Hardware costs are coming down as competition increases and chip companies are racing to compete with Nvida in the GPU area.
Every company is thinking about how to run AI faster to enable larger neural nets. Similar to the bitcoin hardware race, there’s a range of hardware, from GPUs to FPGAs to ASICS.
Deep learning ASICs are a very interesting area with some huge engineering efforts going on in the space of neuromorphic chips, Google’s TPUs, and quantum computers.
FPGAs
Microsoft has done research to show you can do better than GPUs with these.
Tensor Processing Units (TPUs)
Google are building their own machine learning ASICS known as Tensor Processing Units (TPUs).
Quantum Deep Learning
I would predict that in 10 years there’s nothing but quantum machine learning–you don’t do the conventional way anymore – Google’s Hartmut Neven
We actually think quantum machine learning may provide the most creative problem-solving process under the known laws of physics – Google
The Google Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab was set up to investigate how quantum computing might help with machine learning
Hartmut Neven leads the team and is known for developing the first image recognition system based on quantum algorithms using a D-Wave quantum computer.
Google have bought every model D-Wave has ever produced (at around $15mill each) and has signed a contract to buy all of their machines for the next 5 years.
Lockheed Martin also bought a D-Wave quantum computer to help train a deep neural network.
Google just keeps saying breathless things about D-Wave. I don’t know why Google’s competitors don’t wake up and say “God, what if Google’s right?… What if this is actually gonna knock the socks off everything else.. Maybe we’d want to buy one. Strangely it’s only Google who’s actually buying them, at least to date in this category. Microsoft or Apple haven’t bought one, but we’ll see. – Steve Jurvetson, 2016
Google’s Quantum AI Lab also has John Martinis who is regarded as one of the leading experts.
Martinis is part of Google’s effort to build a quantum computer and his qubits are widely regarded as way higher quality than D-Waves.
Building a quantum computer is a massively ambitious goal, although progress appears to be going much better than most expected. Martinis is confident that Google can demonstrate “quantum supremacy” within the next 1-3 years.
They are definitely the world leaders now, there is no doubt about it. It’s Google’s to lose. If Google’s not the group that does it, then something has gone wrong. – Simon Devitt, 2016
Other Efforts in Quantum Deep Learning
IBM and Microsoft are also investing massive resources to develop their own quantum computers that can be applied to AI.
In 2014 a team of Chinese physicists demonstrated ‘quantum artificial intelligence” by training a quantum computer to recognize handwritten characters.
There are still massive challenges, but even if quantum machine learning turns out to to be too difficult to scale and fully implement over the next couple of decades it’s inevitable we’re going to get exponentially better hardware for machine learning which will allow much deeper neural nets.
Key Area 3) Better Platforms and Algorithms
This is an unprecedented time in openness. All of the big companies are openly publishing their work, although they keep their data-sets proprietary and build better systems than their competitors by exploiting their data edge.
It’s easier than ever to build machine learning systems, especially with opensource platforms like OpenAI’s Universe and Google’s Tensorflow. Start ups can use these to create an AI product that solves a business problem.
As more money and talent comes into the space, better ways of building AI will inevitably emerge.
Most exciting is AI systems working on better ways to build AI systems.
This is already happening.
1) AI Designing deep neural nets
2) Machine learning system writes machine learning software.
Building Stronger More General AI
The big moment is when AIs become general in their abilities and have an almost human-like level ability to generally figure things out, to switch from context to context and remember skills applied in different areas.
General AI is hard, and we’re not there yet.
Most of the magic produced by AI today comes from a surprisingly simple technique called supervised learning.
Most researchers believe the next big breakthrough will come from unsupervised learning.
Unsupervised learning involves learning from unlabeled data. We’ll probably need a lot more progress in unsupervised learning to get to General AI.
In the brain, synapses adjust themselves but we don’t have a clear picture for what the algorithm of the cortex is. We know the ultimate answer is unsupervised learning, but we don’t have the answer yet. – Yann LeCun, Facebook AI Research
In 2013, hundreds of experts were asked when they thought AGI may arrive. The median prediction was 2040.
In “Future Progress in Artificial Intelligence: A Poll Among Experts” by Bostrom and Vincent C. Müller, the authors come to this conclusion: AI systems will probably (over 50%) reach overall human ability by 2040-50, and very likely (with 90% probability) by 2075.
As AI matches the range of tasks a human can do and switch between them, improvements will take it far beyond a current humans capabilities in similar situations.
How long would it take for a general AI to go from unenhanced human level abilities to superintelligence?
Nick Bostrom has a great slide showing how long it took AlphaGo to progress from a beginner human level of Go to crushing one of the world’s best players.
Lee Sedol v AlphaGO
October 2015: “Based on its level seen in the match (against Fan), I think I will win the game by a near landslide”
February 2016: “I have heard that Google DeepMind’s AI is surprisingly strong and getting stronger, but I am confident that I can win at least this time”
March 9th 2016: “I was very surprised because I didn’t think I would lose”
March 10th 2016: “I’m quite speechless… I am in shock. I can admit that… the third game is not going to be easy for me”
Mar 12th 2016: “I kind of felt powerless.”
Consciousness
A general AI doesn’t have to be self-aware, or conscious. There’s a big debate over what consciousness even means. An AI could have general abilities even if the lights aren’t on.
It is a huge leap to go from something as unalive as a microwave or iphone to something which has the ability to be self-aware and have subjective experiences.
In a report to the Pentagon, JASON claim that current neural network architecture is completely unrelated to consciousness and not even close to the right path to replicating human like self-awareness.
Andrew Ng of Baidu agrees and says “there is no clear path to how AI can become sentient. Part of me hopes there will be a technological breakthrough that enables AI to become sentient, but I just don’t see it happening. That breakthrough might happen in decades, hundreds, or thousands of year from now. I really don’t know.”
We know creating consciousness is possible because we have it, so there must be a way, but how to do it we still don’t know.
David Deutsche feels that current models are a dead end to creating consciousness but “it is plausible that just a single idea stands between us and the breakthrough. But it will have to be one of the best ideas ever.”
INTEGRATING AI
Smartphones and the internet gives us so much opportunity for more knowledge, more intelligence. I’m really looking forward to AI giving us more of that in 10 years or so when everyone is wearing augmented reality glasses with deep learning built into it. Then beyond that somehow integrating AI into my brain processes. – David Chalmers
A common theme is us against the AI but I think this is about us and the AI.
We are not facing an invasion of intelligent machines from Alpha Centauri. These are our tools, an extension of us. Our devices will get smaller and more embedded into us through wearables, VR/AR glasses, VR/AR contact lenses.
Once nonbiological intelligence gets a foothold in the human brain (this has already started with computerized neural implants), the machine intelligence in our brains will grow exponentially – Ray Kurzweil
Obviously there are massive dangers involved, but that’s where this is leading. It will be a very incremental process. Bit by bit the technology will become more and more a physical part of us rather than an extension.
This seems ridiculously science fiction, but breakthroughs are becoming common in neuroprosthetics and implantable electronics.
Can we inject electronic circuits into the brain, then connect & monitor it?
Yes,we can, & that’s where we are today
Charles Lieber’s team at Harvard is making good progress by implanting electronics in mice. Lieber commented by saying “In science, I’ve been disappointed at times, and this is a case where we’ve been more than pleasantly surprised,”
Elon Musk has spoken at length how a “neural lace” is essential. Neuroprosthetic startup Kernel is employing top neuroscientists to build an implantable chip in the hope that eventually it will be able to enhance intelligence.
THE BEGINNING OF INFINITY
The road ahead might seem outrageous, or too dangerous and difficult from where we sit today.
But in all likelihood, when the time passes and we get to that stage, many will take the accomplishments for granted. The goalposts always move on what seems impressive.
An often repeated quote is “AI will be the last invention we ever make”. But what seems to us today like the hardest challenge possible might seem relatively trivial compared to what we will face after this.
Who knows what kind of journeys, adventures, and problems we’ll be enabled to overcome when there is no distinction between us and our most advanced technology.
Follow me on Twitter @leebanfield1
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BOGOTA — The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the guerilla group known as the FARC, chose a military hardliner as its new commander this week, in what could be a blow to a peaceful resolution to Colombia’s conflict.
It could also spell the beginning of the end for the FARC.
Rodrigo Loño Echeverry, 52, known as Timochenko, was chosen after the death this weekend of the group’s commander, Alfonso Cano, who was killed in a government bombardment.
Read more: Cocaine crackdown
The government, who has been fighting the FARC for decades, called Cano’s death a serious blow to the group. Cano was a charismatic leader who skillfully united factions of the FARC who disagreed on whether to pursue a military or political strategy in dealing with the government.
At issue is the tentative discussions about negotiations that Cano allegedly had begun with the government before his death, and what some analysts believed was a rare chance for peace. Colombian officials have since said they would be willing to continue negotiations with the FARC if the group acted in good faith. Most analysts say that the government would also need to show that it is willing to implement some economic reforms the group had demanded in the past.
It’s still unclear whether Timochenko, who analysts believe may be hiding in neighboring Venezuela, has interest in pursuing that path, or remaining at war. But his background suggests that he’s likely to continue a militaristic approach.
Read more: 'Blood roses' in Colombia
Timochenko is one of the FARC’s longest running commanders. A medical student when he joined the rebels in 1982, he has studied politics and warfare in the Soviet Union and Cuba. Since then, he has risen to lead the head of the group’s intelligence operations.
Colombia's attorney general has issued 117 arrest warrants for Timochenko on charges of kidnapping, murder, rebellion and terrorism. The United States has offered $5 million for information leading to his capture.
The FARC has been battling the government since the 1960s, when it was founded to fight for the rights of Colombia’s poor. Since then, however, it has strayed from its original ideology, working with drug-traffickers to fund its operations, kidnapping civilians and launching violent attacks against the government. The shift has also sapped public support for the FARC.
Since 2008, the Colombian military has intensified its military campaign against the group. So far, it has killed four out of seven top leaders. Yet the government hasn’t been able to eradicate the rebels.
Miguel Ortiga, a researcher at the Foundation for Ideas Towards Peace, said that that Timochenko was less likely to negotiate than his predecessor. He also would have less of an ability to unite the group.
That could lead the FARC to splinter into smaller groups who might align with criminal gangs, raising the potential for clashes between these rivals and creating a greater threat to civilians.
"This is very dangerous for Colombia in the long term," Ortiga said. "The criminal groups have better weapons and training. This, mixed with a desire to fight the government and lack of leadership, could be a bomb."
It would also almost certainly render negotiations moot. Either way, buoyed by Cano’s death, the government seems little interested in discussions now.
“Think about it,” said President Juan Manuel Santos, in a public address to Timochenko. “You have been defeated politically, more than 95 percent of the population rejects the FARC. Your military is increasingly weak.
“The use of weapons and the path of violence will not lead to any win for you. Timochenko needs to reflect, or he will suffer the same fate as Alfonso Cano.”
Interior Minister German Vargas Lleras has already announced that Timochenko has become the state government's top target.
“We know what is the next government's objective: to capture Timochenko. If he is the new FARC leader, they have showed us our next goal,” he said. |
Gov. Bobby Jindal's voucher program that uses tax dollars to send students to private schools was ruled unconstitutional Friday by a state judge who said it's improperly funded through the public school financing formula.
Judge Tim Kelley sided with arguments presented by teacher unions and school boards seeking to shut down the voucher program and other changes that would funnel more money away from traditional public schools.
More than 4,900 students are enrolled in 117 private schools with taxpayer dollars, in one of the largest voucher programs in the nation.
The judge said the method the Jindal administration, state education leaders and lawmakers used to pay for the voucher program violates state constitutional provisions governing the annual education funding formula, called the Minimum Foundation Program or MFP.
"The MFP was set up for students attending public elementary and secondary schools and was never meant to be diverted to private educational providers," Kelley wrote in a 39-page ruling.
Superintendent of Education John White and Jindal said the state will appeal.
Jindal called the judge's ruling "a travesty for parents across Louisiana who want nothing more than for their children to have an equal opportunity at receiving a great education."
"On behalf of the citizens that cast their votes for reform, the parents who want more choices, and the kids who deserve a chance, we will appeal today's decision, and I'm confident we will prevail," the governor said in a statement.
Bill Maurer, a lawyer representing two parents with children in the voucher program and two pro-voucher groups, said he believes the decision is "not consistent with the interpretation of the Louisiana Constitution."
Maurer said he didn't expect Kelley's ruling to immediately force voucher students from their private schools, because Kelley didn't issue an injunction against the program.
It was the second legal setback this week for the voucher program that Jindal pushed through the Legislature this year as part of a sweeping education system overhaul. On Monday, a federal judge halted the voucher program in one Louisiana parish, saying it conflicts with a decades-old desegregation case.
"The political rhetoric of 'pro-reform' vs. 'anti-reform' hopefully is over," said Scott Richard, head of the Louisiana School Boards Association. "We're not anti-reform. We just want the political shell game to stop with public funding for public education." |
Michelle Lynch has a suitcase full of disturbing stories to tell about accused child molester and former minuteman leader Chris Simcox.
Some are really creepy, especially in hindsight.
Simcox had "tons" of little girls in his apartment playing with his two young daughters, according to Lynch, who lived in the same apartment building in an upper-middle-class complex near the border of Scottsdale and Phoenix.
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"I remember six girls, [my daughter] being one of them walking to my house with Chris," she recalled during a recent sit-down at a Phoenix coffee shop. "They were all in princess clothing."
Lynch didn't know then that Simcox was the onetime face of the minuteman movement or that he had been accused of domestic violence and the molestation of his now-adult daughter when she was 14. She knew nothing of his public life.
Instead, she saw a single parent, like herself, who seemed deeply involved in the lives of his kids.
He was home-schooling his two daughters, who, like Lynch's daughter, were under age 10. And though he was never specific, he made it seem as if he was in law enforcement, work that he did not want to discuss.
Another time, Simcox came to her apartment, his two kids in tow. Neither she nor her daughter were home. Her 14-year-old son answered the door.
"Chris handed him a very large bag of Skittles," Lynch said. "I think it was a pound bag, and he says, 'Give this to [your sister] for being a good girl.'"
Lynch didn't think much of it. She had no reason to. Simcox had gained her trust, as he had the trust of other parents in the apartment complex. And the kids visited each others' apartments all the time.
But once her daughter revealed to her how Simcox had told her "secrets" and showed her explicit movies while molesting her, she remembered the Skittles.
"For him to walk up to my door with his two daughters and to hand my son candy, the candy he was giving to my daughter for her participation," she said, her voice filled with disgust, "that's a sick individual. He honestly doesn't care. He's very cocky."
So cocky that he may reject the sweet deal he's been offered by the Maricopa County Attorney's Office: 10 years, with his five class-2 felony counts of child molestation and sexual conduct with a minor busted down to attempted child molestation, and the class-4 felony charge for showing porn to a child wiped away.
Lynch's daughter is not Simcox's only alleged victim. The ex-kindergarten teacher and Republican politician also is charged with molesting one of his own children, inserting his finger into her vagina while both of his girls were showering together.
(Note: Lynch does not know Simcox's ex-wife Alena. Allegations concerning Simcox's daughter came up after the investigation began.)
And there was a third victim cited in the probable-cause statement, another little girl in the complex, who in a forensic interview conducted at the nonprofit anti-child abuse center Childhelp, told an investigator that Simcox had bribed her with candy to see her panties and her genitals. He allegedly had shown this girl "sexy" pictures on his computer, but apparently not pornographic ones.
Charges related to that girl have been dropped.
I initially approached Lynch at a court hearing that I reported on, one in which prosecutor Yigael Cohen told the judge he would make a plea offer.
Cohen didn't reveal the specifics in public, but Lynch was informed and broke down sobbing outside the courtroom. She didn't want to talk then.
Since that day, her sorrow has turned to rage. Her daughter has nightmares about what happened at Simcox's apartment and fears Simcox's returning to hurt her. She told her mother that she was molested every time she went to play with Simcox's kids.
The young girl is getting counseling, but the entire family has been affected. Lynch herself is wracked with guilt and horror. Before Simcox was arrested (it took one month from the initial report to another agency 'til Phoenix cops put Simcox in cuffs), the family lived in fear. One time, she caught her son sleeping with a knife.
At a recent meeting in Cohen's office, Lynch expressed distress. The felonies involving Simcox's alleged sexual conduct with his daughter hypothetically could land Simcox in prison for life. The other charges could bring decades in stir.
But with the plea deal, Simcox could be out in 81/2 years, as Arizona's cons have to serve 85 percent of a sentence before getting released. He would be 60 years old then and certainly capable of victimizing again.
Cohen assured Lynch he knew best, that he'd worked sex crimes for the past eight years. The plea deal was a "legal fiction," to ensure that Simcox did not walk and that he did not have to put her daughter or Simcox's daughters on the stand.
It was "an appropriate plea," Cohen told her, with all the sensitivity of Bashar al-Assad.
Plus, the MCAO never offers a plea deal on all counts: "That's just the way it is," he tutted.
Lynch told him that she didn't care about his eight years of experience, because she would have to spend the next eight years, and then some, making sure her daughter doesn't become a statistic.
What about when Simcox gets out? He would be on lifetime probation, promised Cohen, monitored by a GPS device and not allowed near children. If he slipped, he could be back in prison for another long stint.
"Essentially, the prosecutor is saying [that once he gets out], they'll just wait 'til he does it again," Lynch said, infuriated. "Then they'll give him more time. Meanwhile, they're creating more victims."
So far, County Attorney Bill Montgomery's office has declined to answer questions about the Simcox case, or the apparent conflict with Montgomery's having been a minuteman supporter. Montgomery reportedly even went on patrol with the minutemen at one time.
Though I requested the police report on this case shortly after Simcox was arrested on June 19, I still was waiting for a copy as this column went to press.
There are too many unanswered questions about the Simcox case. One is, why wasn't Simcox's computer seized? After all, Simcox used it in the alleged commission of a crime, showing porn to Lynch's daughter.
But Lynch has been told by both Phoenix police and by Cohen that no one ever attempted to get a search warrant for the computer.
Cohen's explanation for this?
"That police had no reason to," Lynch said. "That he was watching adult porn, and that's not illegal."
Both cops and other law enforcement folk I know tell me that they could have applied for the warrant and a judge probably would have granted it.
If they happened to find child porn on the computer, each image could mean a minimum of 10 years in stir. With more charges stacked against him, Simcox probably would have been willing to accept a harsher sentence.
"Who knows what else was on that computer?" said Lynch. "I don't know if he was videotaping them as they were watching [porn]. Nobody knows."
The computer is gone now. Someone went to the apartment weeks after Simcox was arrested and took away most of his belongings, Lynch explained.
Lynch, an Air Force vet who now teaches at a local charter school, is no milquetoast. She believes Simcox's ties to Montgomery and other power players in Arizona may be why the MCAO wants the case to go away, and she knows that Cohen and his colleagues are annoyed with her.
"They should be," she said, fire in her eyes. "Because I'm only going to be more annoying. This is my daughter we're talking about." |
Condominium residents across Metro Vancouver are struggling to comply with the new ban on putting food scraps in the garbage, according to one spokesperson.
New rules requiring apartments and businesses separate all food waste for composting went into effect on Jan.1.
But the head of the Condominium Home Owners Association of B.C. Tony Gioventu said there is a lack of receptacles for individual condo owners, and a lack of instructions.
"It's been a little confusing for people because one of the challenges is municipalities. Each deal with waste management and waste disposal in organics differently," said Gioventu.
That is why Gioventu is calling for all cities to roll out a coordinated plan for condos across Metro Vancouver with a public education campaign.
He says it's important condo owners get instructions on where to get composting bins and what should go in them.
"Where do we get our kitchen waste containers? We seem to have a little bit of a shortage of them in the industry right now ... We're looking at literally several hundred thousand kitchen receptacles so people can manage their organic waste," said Gioventu.
No surcharges in 2015
Paul Henderson, the solid waste manager for Metro Vancouver, said it's up to each municipality to deal with how the waste ban is implemented.
He says condo owners should contact their own strata council or municipal government for more information.
In the meantime, he said there is plenty of time for condo strata boards to get their programs up and running before surcharges are levied for organics found in garbage.
"It won't happen until next year or potentially even the following year. so there is lots of time for getting those systems in place at the multifamily level," said Henderson.
On mobile? Watch Metro Vancouver's explanation of the organic waste ban. |
On Sunday, Daesh recruiters dispatched text messages to young men in Brussels’ Muslim-dominated district of Molenbeek, calling on them to "make the right choice" and "fight the westerners."
The texts, according to a recent statement from Belgium’s health minister, were sent from an untraceable prepaid account and followed the distribution of a Facebook video showing Molenbeek youth celebrating last week’s terror attacks in Brussels that left at least 35 dead.
The SMS text message, written in French, says: "My brother, why not fight the westerners? Make the right choice in your life."
The use of mass, targeted online communication via social networks to distribute propaganda has heightened tensions in Brussels following the attacks, and has seen ever more strident calls for crackdowns against the Muslim community and barring entry for refugees. Officials fear that in the wake of the tragic attacks, disillusioned Muslim youth who face increased persecution may respond to Daesh’s call for violent extremism.
"These people are trying to take our youth by storm," said Jamal Ikazban, a local Socialist MP. "It is like having a big-time drug dealer outside the school gates. We feel the same. They have to be taken off the streets. They are predators and our youths are the victims."
The move by jihadists, dispatching call-to-arms text messages during a police lockdown, could incite tensions in Brussels and potentially leaves the recipients subject to investigation by Belgian authorities.
Community leaders are stepping up to try to reduce the risk of radicalization among Molenbeek’s Muslim youth population and to prevent increased turbulence from the region’s far-right. One such leader seeking to calm to turbid waters is Jamal Zaria, an imam at Molenbeek’s Arafat mosque who is meeting with community parents to come up with strategies to render terrorist propaganda ineffective.
© REUTERS / Chris Keane Trump Campaign Manager Charged With Assaulting Reporter – Reports
"Our kids are being exposed to something like cancer at a metastasic stage," said Zaria, "It is really spreading very quickly. We have to race against time to develop an immune system for the children in our community so they reject the message of Daesh."
Notwithstanding efforts within the Islamic community to counter terror propaganda and to inoculate the community’s children against extremism, the polarization between Belgium’s Muslim and Christian communities has been amplified by new calls to expel Muslims.
© REUTERS / Vincent Kessler Belgian Lower House Committee Approves Night Police Anti-Terror Raids
One ultraconservative group will attempt to hold an “expel the Islamists” demonstration in Molenbeek on Saturday. The march has been banned due to fears that it will incite violence, but Belgian nationalists have successfully defied previous march prohibitions. |
Mike D'Antoni's candidacy for the Houston Rockets' coaching job is gaining momentum, according to league sources.
Sources told ESPN on Wednesday that D'Antoni has emerged as a leading candidate for the post, having impressed Rockets owner Leslie Alexander in multiple conversations since the search began. Alexander vowed to ESPN last month during the playoffs that he would take a more active role in this coaching search than he has in the past.
The Houston Chronicle on Wednesday labeled D'Antoni as the front-runner for the post. One source close to the process told ESPN that the Rockets' search had not yet progressed to that point but did say D'Antoni was indeed gaining steam in the search for a successor to Kevin McHale and interim replacement J.B. Bickerstaff.
The Rockets will be Mike D'Antoni's fifth head-coaching job after previous stints with the Nuggets, Suns, Knicks and Lakers. Soobum Im/USA TODAY Sports
ESPN reported Tuesday that Jeff Van Gundy has received strong support from Rockets general manager Daryl Morey to make a return to Houston for a second stint as Rockets coach, but sources say Alexander has yet to be sold on a reunion with the ESPN analyst, who has been working in television since the sides parted ways in May 2007.
Sources said Tuesday night that the Rockets would seek to hire a coach with strong defensive credentials, to essentially serve as D'Antoni's defensive coordinator, if talks progress to a serious stage and D'Antoni is the choice to take over.
The offensive-minded D'Antoni, currently serving as associate head coach of the Philadelphia 76ers, has previously been a head coach with Denver, Phoenix, New York and the Los Angeles Lakers.
Since its first-round elimination earlier this month, Houston has interviewed D'Antoni, former Cleveland Cavaliers coach David Blatt, former Phoenix Suns coach Jeff Hornacek, Los Angeles Clippers assistant coach Sam Cassell, Charlotte Hornets assistant Stephen Silas, San Antonio Spurs assistant coach Ettore Messina, current Rockets assistant Chris Finch and TNT analyst Kenny Smith.
It emerged Monday that Smith had been informed that he is no longer being considered for the position, with sources saying Houston is focused on hiring a seasoned former head coach. Messina, who has extensive head-coaching experience overseas, interviewed Saturday, sources told The Undefeated's Marc J. Spears.
The Chronicle reported in Tuesday's editions that former Indiana Pacers coach Frank Vogel remains "part of the process." Vogel interviewed with the Rockets in the 2011 offseason while still the Pacers' interim coach, but the job went to McHale.
ESPN reported Monday the Memphis Grizzlies have registered strong interest in Vogel, who has also interviewed for the Knicks' coaching vacancy and is widely considered a leading candidate for the Orlando Magic's coaching job along with current Magic assistant Adrian Griffin.
The Rockets fired McHale just 11 games into what was the first season of a three-year deal. Houston lost to Golden State in five games in the first round of the playoffs while slipping well off the standard it set in 2014-15, when the club won 56 games and reached the Western Conference finals.
After his own meeting with team officials, Bickerstaff withdrew from consideration early in the search, despite posting a 37-34 record upon succeeding McHale and helping Houston rally into a playoff spot after its seasonlong defensive struggles. |
By Brandon Turbeville
As the Syrian crisis enters its sixth year, the Donald Trump administration is looking more and more like the Obama administration every day. With the Trump regime refusing to open useful dialogue with Russia regarding Syria, its obvious anti-Iran and pro-Israel positioning, and support for a very questionable “safe zone” plan for Syria, the odds of a rational U.S. policy in regards to Syria has lower and lower odds of existence as time progresses.
Yet, despite the fact that the Trump administration is apparently poised to continue the Obama regime’s proxy war of aggression against the people of Syria, an example of seamless transition, it should also be remembered that the plan to destroy Syria did not begin with Obama but with the Bush administration.
Even now, as the world awaits the continuation of the Syrian war through a Democratic and Republican administration, the genesis of that war goes back to the Republican Bush administration, demonstrating that there is indeed an overarching agenda and an overarching infrastructure of an oligarchical deep state intent on moving forward regardless of which party is seemingly in power.
As journalist Seymour Hersh wrote in his article, “The Redirection,”
To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, the Bush Administration has decided, in effect, to reconfigure its priorities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has cooperated with Saudi Arabia’s government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations that are intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is backed by Iran. The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda.
“Extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam” who are “hostile to America and sympathetic to al-Qaeda” are the definition of the so-called “rebels” turned loose on Syria in 2011. Likewise, the fact that both Iran and Hezbollah, who are natural enemies of al-Qaeda and such radical Sunni groups, are involved in the battle against ISIS and other related terrorist organizations in Syria proves the accuracy of the article on another level.
Hersh also wrote,
The new American policy, in its broad outlines, has been discussed publicly. In testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in January, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that there is “a new strategic alignment in the Middle East,” separating “reformers” and “extremists”; she pointed to the Sunni states as centers of moderation, and said that Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah were “on the other side of that divide.” (Syria’s Sunni majority is dominated by the Alawi sect.) Iran and Syria, she said, “have made their choice and their choice is to destabilize.” Some of the core tactics of the redirection are not public, however. The clandestine operations have been kept secret, in some cases, by leaving the execution or the funding to the Saudis, or by finding other ways to work around the normal congressional appropriations process, current and former officials close to the Administration said. . . . . . . This time, the U.S. government consultant told me, Bandar and other Saudis have assured the White House that “they will keep a very close eye on the religious fundamentalists. Their message to us was ‘We’ve created this movement, and we can control it.’ It’s not that we don’t want the Salafis to throw bombs; it’s who they throw them at—Hezbollah, Moqtada al-Sadr, Iran, and at the Syrians, if they continue to work with Hezbollah and Iran.” . . . . . . Fourth, the Saudi government, with Washington’s approval, would provide funds and logistical aid to weaken the government of President Bashir Assad, of Syria. The Israelis believe that putting such pressure on the Assad government will make it more conciliatory and open to negotiations. Syria is a major conduit of arms to Hezbollah. . . . . . . . . . . . The Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, a branch of a radical Sunni movement founded in Egypt in 1928, engaged in more than a decade of violent opposition to the regime of Hafez Assad, Bashir’s father. In 1982, the Brotherhood took control of the city of Hama; Assad bombarded the city for a week, killing between six thousand and twenty thousand people. Membership in the Brotherhood is punishable by death in Syria. The Brotherhood is also an avowed enemy of the U.S. and of Israel. Nevertheless, Jumblatt said, “We told Cheney that the basic link between Iran and Lebanon is Syria—and to weaken Iran you need to open the door to effective Syrian opposition.” . . . . . There is evidence that the Administration’s redirection strategy has already benefitted the Brotherhood. The Syrian National Salvation Front is a coalition of opposition groups whose principal members are a faction led by Abdul Halim Khaddam, a former Syrian Vice-President who defected in 2005, and the Brotherhood. A former high-ranking C.I.A. officer told me, “The Americans have provided both political and financial support. The Saudis are taking the lead with financial support, but there is American involvement.” He said that Khaddam, who now lives in Paris, was getting money from Saudi Arabia, with the knowledge of the White House. (In 2005, a delegation of the Front’s members met with officials from the National Security Council, according to press reports.) A former White House official told me that the Saudis had provided members of the Front with travel documents.
Hersh also spoke with Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, leader of the Shi’ite Lebanese militia, Hezbollah. In relation to the Western strategy against Syria, he reported,
Nasrallah said he believed that America also wanted to bring about the partition of Lebanon and of Syria. In Syria, he said, the result would be to push the country “into chaos and internal battles like in Iraq.” In Lebanon, “There will be a Sunni state, an Alawi state, a Christian state, and a Druze state.” But, he said, “I do not know if there will be a Shiite state.” Nasrallah told me that he suspected that one aim of the Israeli bombing of Lebanon last summer was “the destruction of Shiite areas and the displacement of Shiites from Lebanon. The idea was to have the Shiites of Lebanon and Syria flee to southern Iraq,” which is dominated by Shiites. “I am not sure, but I smell this,” he told me. Partition would leave Israel surrounded by “small tranquil states,” he said. “I can assure you that the Saudi kingdom will also be divided, and the issue will reach to North African states. There will be small ethnic and confessional states,” he said. “In other words, Israel will be the most important and the strongest state in a region that has been partitioned into ethnic and confessional states that are in agreement with each other. This is the new Middle East.”
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Yet, while even the connections between the plans to destroy Syria and the Bush administration are generally unknown, what is even less well-known is the fact that there existed a plan to destroy Syria as far back as 1983.
Documents contained in the U.S. National Archives and drawn up by the CIA reveal a plan to destroy the Syrian government going back decades. One such document entitled, “Bringing Real Muscle To Bear In Syria,” written by CIA officer Graham Fuller, is particularly illuminating. In this document, Fuller wrote,
Syria at present has a hammerlock on US interests both in Lebanon and in the Gulf — through closure of Iraq’s pipeline thereby threatening Iraqi internationalization of the [Iran-Iraq] war. The US should consider sharply escalating the pressures against Assad [Sr.] through covertly orchestrating simultaneous military threats against Syria from three border states hostile to Syria: Iraq, Israel and Turkey.
Even as far back as 1983, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s father, Hafez Assad, was viewed as a gadfly to the plans of Western imperialists seeking to weaken both the Iraqis and the Iranians and extend hegemony over the Middle East and Persia. The document shows that Assad and hence Syria represented a resistance to Western imperialism, a threat to Israel, and that Assad himself was well aware of the game the United States, Israel, and other members of the Western imperialist coalition were trying to play against him. The report reads,
Syria continues to maintain a hammerlock on two key U.S. interests in the Middle East: — Syrian refusal to withdraw its troops from Lebanon ensures Israeli occupation in the south; — Syrian closure of the Iraqi pipeline has been a key factor in bringing Iraq to its financial knees, impelling it towards dangerous internationalization of the war in the Gulf Diplomatic initiatives to date have had little effect on Assad who has so far correctly calculated the play of forces in the area and concluded that they are only weakly arrayed against him. If the U.S. is to rein in Syria’s spoiling role, it can only do so through exertion of real muscle which will pose a vital threat to Assad’s position and power.
The author then presents a plan that sounds eerily similar to those now being discussed publicly by Western and specifically American corporate-financier think tanks and private non-governmental organizations who unofficially craft American policy. Fuller writes,
The US should consider sharply escalating the pressures against Assad [Sr.] through covertly orchestrating simultaneous military threats against Syria from three border states hostile to Syria: Iraq, Israel and Turkey. Iraq, perceived to be increasingly desperate in the Gulf war, would undertake limited military (air) operations against Syria with the sole goal of opening the pipeline. Although opening war on a second front against Syria poses considerable risk to Iraq, Syria would also face a two-front war since it is already heavily engaged in the Bekaa, on the Golan and in maintaining control over a hostile and restive population inside Syria. Israel would simultaneously raise tensions along Syria’s Lebanon front without actually going to war. Turkey, angered by Syrian support to Armenian terrorism, to Iraqi Kurds on Turkey’s Kurdish border areas and to Turkish terrorists operating out of northern Syria, has often considered launching unilateral military operations against terrorist camps in northern Syria. Virtually all Arab states would have sympathy for Iraq. Faced with three belligerent fronts, Assad would probably be forced to abandon his policy of closure of the pipeline. Such a concession would relieve the economic pressure on Iraq, and perhaps force Iran to reconsider bringing the war to an end. It would be a sharpening blow to Syria’s prestige and could effect the equation of forces in Lebanon. |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Maryland, Delaware and Louisiana on Monday joined a growing number of U.S. states that have refused to hand over voter data to a commission established by President Donald Trump to investigate possible voting fraud.
FILE PHOTO: A ballot is placed into a locked ballot box by a poll worker as people line-up to vote early at the San Diego County Elections Office in San Diego, California, U.S., November 7, 2016. REUTERS/Mike Blake/File Photo
More than 20 states, including Virginia, Kentucky, California, New York and Massachusetts, have declined to provide some or all of the information that the panel requested, saying it was unnecessary and violated privacy.
Republican Trump created the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity in May after making unsubstantiated claims that millions of people voted illegally for his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, in last November’s election.
Calling the request “repugnant,” Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh said in a statement that his office had advised the State Board of Elections that the commission’s request was illegal.
The request “appears designed only to intimidate voters and to indulge President Trump’s fantasy that he won the popular vote,” Frosh said.
The commission sent a letter to the 50 states asking them to turn over voter information including names, the last four digits of Social Security numbers, addresses, birth dates, political affiliations, felony convictions and voting histories.
Louisiana Secretary of State Tom Schedler said the presidential commission could purchase the limited information legally available to candidates running for office.
“You’re not going to play politics with Louisiana’s voter data,” he said in a statement.
Delaware Elections Commissioner Elaine Manlove said in an interview with Milford’s WXDE-FM radio that her office would not comply since some of the information was confidential. Manlove said she was working with the attorney general’s office to see if the request could be denied completely.
Trump has blasted the states who have refused to turn over the data. He said in a tweet on Saturday, “What are they trying to hide?”
Trump won the White House through victory in the Electoral College, which tallies wins in states, but he lost the popular vote to Clinton by some 3 million votes. He has claimed he would have won the popular vote had it not been for voter fraud.
Civil rights activists say the commission will encourage voter suppression by justifying new barriers to voting, such as requiring identity cards to vote. |
After dinner, we headed out into the street to buy some food for the train ride. We found a stall with freshly prepared sandwiches and bought some stock. A taxi picked us up and drove us to the train station at 6pm. Sintija and Gregor, new friends, which we have met at the hotel in Hanoi went also on this train, however they had a ticket to Hoi An and we had a ticket for Hue. While we had a reserved ticket in a compartment with beds, they had to endure all night in the seat section of the train. When we got to our compartment, we realized that we will share it with Jim from USA and his wife from China. They were a really great company and we quickly fell into a debate. In the late evening we turned out the lights and quickly fell asleep. The ride towards the town of Hue was faster this way. The next day, with a one-hour delay, we arrived at the city of Hue. We said goodbye to our one-night room-mates. At the exit from the train station our ride to the hotel, which we booked beforehand, was already waiting for us. Reviews of the hotel were excellent, however it had a little bit strange name – "Google hotel". Upon arrival at the hotel, it turned out that the hotel has nothing to do with Google. :)
After a late breakfast, we headed out onto the streets. After a few steps we met Olle, a friend, who we met at the one-day trip to Halong Bay a few days earlier. We decided to go on a last drink before he returns home to cold Sweden. I really liked that a person who approaches his seventies still travels and enjoys the hustle and bustle in Vietnam. Most people at that age would probably choose to travel with a group or choose a more serene destination. After a drink, we split up, Olle his way, and we our way.
Vietnamese burn fake money, since they believe their ancestors will receive it.
River Song Huong respectively. translated Parfum river that divides the city.
Hairdresser with an interesting entrance.
The bridge is always full of scooters.
River is also used for transportation.
On the opposite bank they had an exhibition of flowers and bonsai trees.
and fishes... :)
Tools on the ground.
Flowers with a flag tower in background.
…
They had really a lot of flowers...
City of Hue is well known for the fact that it was the capital and also imperial city from 1802 till 1945. Within the city there was a forbidden city where the emperor lived. Access to the city had only concubines and his top officials. Whoever wanted to enter by force was killed on the spot. Today it is under protections of UNESCO and converted into a museum. I really recommend the visit, since the city has wonderful architecture.
The entrance does not disappoint.
There are really many details.
It is also worth to look up as the roofs are also richly decorated.
Even the emperor's premises are, of course, top notch decorated. :)
View at the main square inside the Forbidden City.
Artifacts and shadow play...
Architecture...
Open corridors also make an interesting motif.
Some are also richly decorated.
Around the city leads a walking path. It is also possible to go on a carriage ride.
Transitions between different parts of the city are separated by striking doors.
…
…
The choice of complementary colors is also interesting.
Tea house.
Another passage.
…
Rich decoration.
And the exit from the Forbidden City.
The streets are full as allways.
Waiting for the green light. |
A memorial sponsored by the College Republicans club at a small, liberal arts college in California was repeatedly vandalized on the 15th anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks. Nearly 3,000 flags at Occidental College were crushed and trashed.
“Today is meant to be a day of respect and remembrance for all the victims and heroes of 9/11,” the Occidental College Republicans wrote in a Facebook post. The 2,997 American flags the club sponsored were planted by “students of all backgrounds” to represent the people who died in the terrorist attacks.
However, the memorial was destroyed in the overnight hours ahead of the anniversary.
“At midnight early this morning, vandals crushed, snapped, and threw in the garbage every single flag,” the club wrote on Sunday. “Not one was left in the ground. Not only did they destroy the memorial, they put posters and flyers up that shamed the victims of 9/11.”
Those makeshift flyers were taped to benches and other surfaces. Many of them read: “R.I.P. The 2,996 Americans who died in 9/11. R.I.P. the 1,455,590 innocent Iraqis who died during the U.S. invasion for something they didn’t do.”
A group of 15 students pulled the flags out of the trash and replaced them on the quad. But the vandalism wasn’t finished. Despite having a few students who “stood guard at the memorial” in the early hours of Sunday morning, “[f]our Occidental students came up and snapped a few flags right in our faces. When we confronted them, those cowards got away as fast as they possibly could.”
Later in the morning, the club said, there was “another lazy attempt at vandalism,” with hundreds of the flags “kicked and smashed,” and about 50 were again thrown out.
“This is beyond politics, this is about those lives that were so tragically taken,” the Occidental College Republicans wrote. “We ask that all students respect the memorial for the remainder of its time in the quad. If you try to destroy it, we will rebuild it.”
The school itself is looking into the vandalism.
“We don't yet know who is responsible for this incident, but the college is investigating and will take appropriate disciplinary action,” Occidental said in a statement. “If you have any information about this incident, please share that information with us at [email protected]."
President Barack Obama attended the small, left-leaning liberal arts school in Los Angeles for two years before transferring to Columbia University to finish his undergraduate degree.
Occidental’s 9/11 memorial wasn’t the only one that was vandalized ahead of the 15th anniversary of the terrorist attacks. On Friday, Emergency Medical Veterans Response in Phoenix, Arizona discovered that the specially designed memorial wrap on its ambulance was torn and burned beyond repair. The company’s owner, Trinidy Currier, found the damage as he was heading to Arizona State University to provide medical aid at the school’s 9/11 Tribute Run.
"It was a very stupid move. It was very inconsiderate and thoughtless," Currier, an Army veteran, told KSAZ. “A lot of us are firefighters, a lot of are veterans, so it's kind of like having 911 on site."
"There's a lot of different emotions going on right now. I've got the anger, I've got the sadness, I've got the where do we go from here," he added.
A local sign company has stepped up to donate a new wrap, which is expected to cost between $4,500 and $5,500. |
MIAMI, FL - FEBRUARY 04: Carolina Villar pumps gas on February 4, 2013 in Miami, Florida. Reports indicate that gas pump prices are at their highest level on record for this period of the year and may be an indication that the year ahead may see even higher records. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images) (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
CHICAGO (CBS) — Repairs at BP’s Whiting, Ind., refinery sent gasoline prices plunging last week across Chicago and nationwide, the biggest single-week drop this year.
In Chicago, the average price for a gallon stood at $3.03 on Sunday, which was down 28.7 cents compared with last week, according to GasBuddy.
One year ago, the average gasoline price was $3.70 a gallon.
The national average is $2.47/gallon–nearly a dollar cheaper than last year.
“Nationally, gas prices saw their largest weekly drop of the year,” said Patrick DeHaan, GasBuddy senior petroleum analyst.
“Prices moved lower in all but one state, Utah, with plunges at the pump throughout the Great Lakes as a result of BP’s Whiting, Indiana refinery coming back online.
“The national average now stands at its lowest point since April, a fitting way to close out the summer driving season with Labor Day approaching.”
DeHaan said prices should continue to fall in the next week as the cost at the pump has not fallen in concert with lower oil prices over the summer. |
Here we go again 😉 The new infographic takes into consideration the feedback we’ve had from the forums, pod casts and Reddit. Thanks again to everyone who assisted in making this possible.
Reddit Update:
Below the graphic is a bit of history surrounding this effort with a breakdown what we learned while doing this project. I apologize for the size for the 2.8 MB size of the PNG.
A Little History about the Infamous Infographic – Version One
The original infographic was released shortly after Delta Rising for Star Trek Online by Cryptic Studios. The goal of the infographic was to provide a ‘sum total’ of the costs for upgrading the most common builds for current players. It was limited to a single starship, it ignored the ground elements, and it offered a somewhat fuzzy interpretation of a cash value to achieve the upgrade from XII to XIV.
The original Infographic was controversial. For many it lacked accuracy; it lacked citation and sources. For others they felt it was unreasonable and presented in a negative way during a time when Cryptic was struggling to get a handle on player reactions. And for even more people, the infographic didn’t seem to go far enough.
Cryptic reacted to the communities concerns by making changes that impacted the original infographics’ data, primarily in the availability of R&D materials and the actual costs associated with R&D. Player familiarity with R&D and now secondary sources of information (spreadsheets and calculators produced separately from our efforts) became available to revisit the initial results.
Lastly market conditions as to costs and availability have stabilized on the last 2 weeks as players have become acclimatized to the changes.
What did we get right?
The initial costs remain unchanged, only the number of items upgraded has increased to reflect a full cruiser and ground equipment.CaptainGecko joked about the $83 cost associated with buying everything you needed. In truth the total is closer to $100 – but – you can do it without paying money if you don’t mind grinding for an extended period of time. Our estimates for a single toon is 69 days @ 4 hours per day.
The initial costs remain unchanged, only the number of items upgraded has increased to reflect a full cruiser and ground equipment.CaptainGecko joked about the $83 cost associated with buying everything you needed. In truth the total is closer to $100 – but – you can do it without paying money if you don’t mind grinding for an extended period of time. Our estimates for a single toon is 69 days @ 4 hours per day. What did we miss?
Understanding the impact of R&D, and how it’s actually cheaper and easier than we first thought. I’ll be dedicating a full post to crafting sometime in the next few weeks.
Understanding the impact of R&D, and how it’s actually cheaper and easier than we first thought. I’ll be dedicating a full post to crafting sometime in the next few weeks. What did we get wrong?
It was more expensive to upgrade than we had experienced; there is a 50% cost difference between upgrading very rare and reputation gear.The tone in which the graphic was extremely adversarial which was due primarily to the frustrations we all experiencing.
It was more expensive to upgrade than we had experienced; there is a 50% cost difference between upgrading very rare and reputation gear.The tone in which the graphic was extremely adversarial which was due primarily to the frustrations we all experiencing. What did we learn?
A lot. So much in fact we’re working on an Upgraders’ Quick Reference Sheet to help first time R&D players
What the Infographic doesn’t consider: Captains’ Runabout – Fighter – Shuttle, Quality options with upgrades, what upgrade options are ’the best’, the costs associated with leveling one toon from 1 to 50, and the variability with the RNG and availability or cost of acquiring R&D duty officers.
It doesn’t even try to take the Specialization process into consideration. That may come as a later project after the Command Specialization is released.
We also understand that everything regarding costs is in a constant state of flux. Cryptic has made changes, and will continue to make changes as it see fit. The rumored addition of Omega particle elements is one area we left out for lack of better knowledge.
As with the last infographic, if there is anything you feel we’ve gotten wrong, misspelled or provided poor attribution for, please let us know in the comments below. |
Rumor: Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite full roster leaked
28 characters at launch. Six additional characters planned.
NeoGAF user Ryce who leaked the existence of Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite before its December 2016 announcement in November, as well as provided repeated leaks and hints about the game post-announcement, has posted what he claims is the full roster for the upcoming fighting game.
Here is the list, as provided by Ryce:
Capcom Arthur
Chris
Chun-Li
Dante
Firebrand
Jedah
Monster Hunter
Morrigan
Nemesis
Ryu
Spencer
Strider Hiryu
X
Unknown character (Ryce guesses it’s someone like Frank West) Marvel Ant-Man
Captain America
Captain Marvel
Doctor Strange
Gamora
Hawkeye
Hulk
Iron Man
Nova
Rocket / Groot (Ryces says the character was named to him in this way, and that he’s not sure if it’s just Rocket Raccoon with Groot assists or a redesigned character actually called Rocket / Groot)
Spider-Man
Thanos
Thor
Ultron Downloadable Content Six additional characters planned for first season, including the already confirmed Sigma, and Venom.
Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite is due out for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC on September 19. |
Even in the most basic scenario you can picture, where the logic of an application’s core is boiled down to just pulling in a few records from the database, bringing some domain objects to life, and then dumping them to the screen through an API of some basic rendering mechanism, there’s always an ongoing transaction behind the scenes whose most expensive facet often gets blurred beneath the appealing outward influence of the user interface.
If you think this through, you’ll notice that the crux of the matter is the transaction lies not surprisingly in the heap of database trips, even though they can be largely mitigated by a clever caching strategy. In relatively small applications, where there are just a few basic domain objects involved in each transaction, and where the hike to the database is just for retrieving data most of the time, a simple caching system dropped into the appropriate place certainly can help get things sorted out with efficiency.
While sad but true, reality is a ruthless creature always shouting at us radically different things than the sweet ones we’d rather hear instead. In most cases, because of the intrinsic, unavoidable mutability of domain objects (with a few scarce exceptions when the dependencies of domain classes are modelled around the concept of immutable Value Objects), chances are that some objects will need to be modified across multiple requests, and even new ones will be put in memory in response to some user-related event.
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In short, this means that even dummy CRUD applications that don’t encapsulate extensive chunks of additional business logic can quickly become bloated and generate a lot of overhead under the hood when it comes to performing multiple database writes. What if they reach a point where it’s necessary to handle a huge number of domain objects, which must be persisted and removed in sync, without compromising what us programming plebs loosely call data integrity?
Let’s be honest with ourselves (at least once). Neither all the lofty data source architectural patterns that we could just pick up along the way, nor that cool new approach we might have figured out overnight, can tackle satisfactorily something as predictable and mundane as writing out and removing multiple sets of data from storage. In light of this, should we just give up and call the issue pretty much a lost cause?
Admittedly the question is rhetorical. In fact, it’s feasible to wrap collections of domain objects inside a fairly flexible business transactional model and just perform several database writes/deletes in one go, therefore avoiding having to break down the process into more atomic and expensive database calls, which always lead to the session-per-operation antipattern. Moreover, this transaction-based mechanism rests on the academic formalities of a design pattern commonly known as Unit of Work (UOW), and its implementation in several popular enterprise-level packages, such as Hibernate, is quite prolific and prosperous.
On the flip side, PHP is, for obvious reasons, still elusive at having a variety of UOWs running in production, excepting in a few well-trusted libraries like Doctrine and RedBeanPHP, which use the pattern’s forces at disparate levels in order to process and coordinate operations on entities. Despite this, it would be certainly pretty educational to take a closer look at the benefits a UOW provides, that way you can see if they are something that may meet your requirements.
Registering Domain Objects with a Unit of Work
In his book Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture, Martin Fowler discusses two mainstream approaches that can be followed when it comes to implementing a UOW: the first makes the UOW directly responsible for registering or queuing domain objects for insertion, update, or deletion, and the second shifts this responsibility over to the domain objects themselves.
In this case, since I’d like to have the domain model only encapsulating my business logic and remain agnostic about any form of persistence that may exist further down in other layers, I’m going to just stick to the commandments of the first option. In either case, you’re free to pick the approach you feel will fit the bill the best.
A lightweight implementation of a UOW might look like this:
<?php namespace ModelRepository; use ModelEntityInterface; interface UnitOfWorkInterface { public function fetchById($id); public function registerNew(EntityInterface $entity); public function registerClean(EntityInterface $entity); public function registerDirty(EntityInterface $entity); public function registerDeleted(EntityInterface $entity); public function commit(); public function rollback(); public function clear(); }
<?php namespace ModelRepository; use MapperDataMapperInterface, LibraryStorageObjectStorageInterface, ModelEntityInterface; class UnitOfWork implements UnitOfWorkInterface { const STATE_NEW = "NEW"; const STATE_CLEAN = "CLEAN"; const STATE_DIRTY = "DIRTY"; const STATE_REMOVED = "REMOVED"; protected $dataMapper; protected $storage; public function __construct(DataMapperInterface $dataMapper, ObjectStorageInterface $storage) { $this->dataMapper = $dataMapper; $this->storage = $storage; } public function getDataMapper() { return $this->dataMapper; } public function getObjectStorage() { return $this->storage; } public function fetchById($id) { $entity = $this->dataMapper->fetchById($id); $this->registerClean($entity); return $entity; } public function registerNew(EntityInterface $entity) { $this->registerEntity($entity, self::STATE_NEW); return $this; } public function registerClean(EntityInterface $entity) { $this->registerEntity($entity, self::STATE_CLEAN); return $this; } public function registerDirty(EntityInterface $entity) { $this->registerEntity($entity, self::STATE_DIRTY); return $this; } public function registerDeleted(EntityInterface $entity) { $this->registerEntity($entity, self::STATE_REMOVED); return $this; } protected function registerEntity($entity, $state = self::STATE_CLEAN) { $this->storage->attach($entity, $state); } public function commit() { foreach ($this->storage as $entity) { switch ($this->storage[$entity]) { case self::STATE_NEW: case self::STATE_DIRTY: $this->dataMapper->save($entity); break; case self::STATE_REMOVED: $this->dataMapper->delete($entity); } } $this->clear(); } public function rollback() { // your custom rollback implementation goes here } public function clear() { $this->storage->clear(); return $this; } }
It should be clear to see that a UOW is nothing but plain, in-memory object storage which keeps track of which domain objects should be scheduled for insertion, update, and removal. In short, the convention could be boiled down to something along these lines: domain objects that need to be added to the storage will be registered “NEW”; those being updated will be marked “DIRTY”; the ones flagged “REMOVED” will be… yep, dropped from the database. In addition, any object registered “CLEAN” will be kept frozen and safe in memory until the client code explicitly requests to modify its associated state.
Of course, the method that performs these persistence-related operations in just one single transaction is commit() , which exploits the functionality of an still undefined data mapper to get access to the persistence layer. It would be even easier for you to understand the UOW’s inner workings if I show you the implementation of the collaborators injected in its constructor, so here’s the components that compose the object storage module:
<?php namespace LibraryStorage; interface ObjectStorageInterface extends Countable, Iterator, ArrayAccess { public function attach($object, $data = null); public function detach($object); public function clear(); }
<?php namespace LibraryStorage; class ObjectStorage extends SplObjectStorage implements ObjectStorageInterface { public function clear() { $tempStorage = clone $this; $this->addAll($tempStorage); $this->removeAll($tempStorage); $tempStorage = null; } }
In this case in particular, I decided to use a slightly-customized implementation of the SplObjectStorage class for registering domain objects without much fuss along with their related states with the UOW, even though pretty much the same can be also achieved using plain arrays. Again, it’s up to you to have the domain objects registered by using the method that best accommodates your needs.
With the custom ObjectStorage class in place, let’s take a look at the implementation of the aforementioned data mapper:
<?php namespace Mapper; use ModelEntityInterface; interface DataMapperInterface { public function fetchById($id); public function fetchAll(array $conditions = array()); public function insert(EntityInterface $entity); public function update(EntityInterface $entity); public function save(EntityInterface $entity); public function delete(EntityInterface $entity); }
<?php namespace Mapper; use LibraryDatabaseDatabaseAdapterInterface, ModelCollectionEntityCollectionInterface, ModelEntityInterface; abstract class AbstractDataMapper implements DataMapperInterface { protected $adapter; protected $collection; protected $entityTable; public function __construct(DatabaseAdapterInterface $adapter, EntityCollectionInterface $collection, $entityTable = null) { $this->adapter = $adapter; $this->collection = $collection; if ($entityTable !== null) { $this->setEntityTable($entityTable); } } public function setEntityTable($entityTable) { if (!is_string($table) || empty($entityTable)) { throw new InvalidArgumentException( "The entity table is invalid."); } $this->entityTable = $entityTable; return $this; } public function fetchById($id) { $this->adapter->select($this->entityTable, array("id" => $id)); if (!$row = $this->adapter->fetch()) { return null; } return $this->loadEntity($row); } public function fetchAll(array $conditions = array()) { $this->adapter->select($this->entityTable, $conditions); $rows = $this->adapter->fetchAll(); return $this->loadEntityCollection($rows); } public function insert(EntityInterface $entity) { return $this->adapter->insert($this->entityTable, $entity->toArray()); } public function update(EntityInterface $entity) { return $this->adapter->update($this->entityTable, $entity->toArray(), "id = $entity->id"); } public function save(EntityInterface $entity) { return !isset($entity->id) ? $this->adapter->insert($this->entityTable, $entity->toArray()) : $this->adapter->update($this->entityTable, $entity->toArray(), "id = $entity->id"); } public function delete(EntityInterface $entity) { return $this->adapter->delete($this->entityTable, "id = $entity->id"); } protected function loadEntityCollection(array $rows) { $this->collection->clear(); foreach ($rows as $row) { $this->collection[] = $this->loadEntity($row); } return $this->collection; } abstract protected function loadEntity(array $row); }
The AbstractDataMapper puts behind a pretty standard API the bulk of logic required for pulling domain objects in and out of the database. To make things even easier, it’d be also nice to derivate a refined implementation of it, that way we could easily test the UOW with a few sample user objects. Here’s how this extra mapping subclass looks:
<?php namespace Mapper; use ModelUser; class UserMapper extends AbstractDataMapper { protected $entityTable = "users"; protected function loadEntity(array $row) { return new User(array( "id" => $row["id"], "name" => $row["name"], "email" => $row["email"], "role" => $row["role"])); } }
At this point we just could put our hands on the UOW and see if its transactional schema delivers what it promises. But before we do, first off we really should drop at least a few domain objects in memory. That way, we can get them neatly registered with the UOW. So let’s now define a primitive Domain Model which will be charged with supplying the objects in question.
Defining a basic Domain Model
Frankly speaking, there are several ways to implement a functional Domain Model (most likely there exists one per developer living and breathing out there). Since in this case I want the process to be both painless and short, the model I’ll be using for testing the UOW will be composed just of a prototypical entity class, along with a derivative, which will be charged with spawning basic users objects:
<?php namespace Model; interface EntityInterface { public function setField($name, $value); public function getField($name); public function fieldExists($name); public function removeField($name); public function toArray(); }
<?php namespace Model; abstract class AbstractEntity implements EntityInterface { protected $fields = array(); protected $allowedFields = array(); public function __construct(array $fields = array()) { if (!empty($fields)) { foreach ($fields as $name => $value) { $this->$name = $value; } } } public function setField($name, $value) { return $this->__set($name, $value); } public function getField($name) { return $this->__get($name); } public function fieldExists($name) { return $this->__isset($name); } public function removeField($name) { return $this->__unset($name); } public function toArray() { return $this->fields; } public function __set($name, $value) { $this->checkAllowedFields($name); $mutator = "set" . ucfirst(strtolower($name)); if (method_exists($this, $mutator) && is_callable(array($this, $mutator))) { $this->$mutator($value); } else { $this->fields[$name] = $value; } return $this; } public function __get($name) { $this->checkAllowedFields($name); $accessor = "get" . ucfirst($name); if (method_exists($this, $accessor) && is_callable(array($this, $accessor))) { return $this->$accessor(); } if (!$this->__isset($name)) { throw new InvalidArgumentException( "The field '$name' has not been set for this entity yet."); } return $this->fields[$name]; } public function __isset($name) { $this->checkAllowedFields($name); return isset($this->fields[$name]); } public function __unset($name) { $this->checkAllowedFields($name); if (!$this->__isset($name)) { throw new InvalidArgumentException( "The field "$name" has not been set for this entity yet."); } unset($this->fields[$name]); return $this; } protected function checkAllowedFields($field) { if (!in_array($field, $this->allowedFields)) { throw new InvalidArgumentException( "The requested operation on the field '$field' is not allowed for this entity."); } } }
<?php namespace Model; class User extends AbstractEntity { const ADMINISTRATOR_ROLE = "Administrator"; const GUEST_ROLE = "Guest"; protected $allowedFields = array("id", "name", "email", "role"); public function setId($id) { if (isset($this->fields["id"])) { throw new BadMethodCallException( "The ID for this user has been set already."); } if (!is_int($id) || $id < 1) { throw new InvalidArgumentException( "The user ID is invalid."); } $this->fields["id"] = $id; return $this; } public function setName($name) { if (strlen($name) < 2 || strlen($name) > 30) { throw new InvalidArgumentException( "The user name is invalid."); } $this->fields["name"] = htmlspecialchars(trim($name), ENT_QUOTES); return $this; } public function setEmail($email) { if (!filter_var($email, FILTER_VALIDATE_EMAIL)) { throw new InvalidArgumentException( "The user email is invalid."); } $this->fields["email"] = $email; return $this; } public function setRole($role) { if ($role !== self::ADMINISTRATOR_ROLE && $role !== self::GUEST_ROLE) { throw new InvalidArgumentException( "The user role is invalid."); } $this->fields["role"] = $role; return $this; } }
While the implementations of the AbstractEntity and User classes might look complex at first glance, I assure this is just a fuzzy impression. In fact, the former is a skeletal wrapper for some typical PHP magic methods, while the latter encapsulates some straightforward mutators, in order to assign the appropriate values to the fields of generic user objects.
With these domain classes already doing their business in relaxed insulation, let’s now do the last building block of the model. In reality, this is an optional class which can be skipped over if the situation warrants, and its responsibility is just to wrap collections of entities. Its implementation is as following:
<?php namespace ModelCollection; use ModelEntityInterface; interface EntityCollectionInterface extends Countable, ArrayAccess, IteratorAggregate { public function add(EntityInterface $entity); public function remove(EntityInterface $entity); public function get($key); public function exists($key); public function clear(); public function toArray(); }
<?php namespace ModelCollection; use ModelEntityInterface; class EntityCollection implements EntityCollectionInterface { protected $entities = array(); public function __construct(array $entities = array()) { if (!empty($entities)) { $this->entities = $entities; } } public function add(EntityInterface $entity) { $this->offsetSet($entity); } public function remove(EntityInterface $entity) { $this->offsetUnset($entity); } public function get($key) { $this->offsetGet($key); } public function exists($key) { return $this->offsetExists($key); } public function clear() { $this->entities = array(); } public function toArray() { return $this->entities; } public function count() { return count($this->entities); } public function offsetSet($key, $entity) { if (!$entity instanceof EntityInterface) { throw new InvalidArgumentException( "Could not add the entity to the collection."); } if (!isset($key)) { $this->entities[] = $entity; } else { $this->entities[$key] = $entity; } } public function offsetUnset($key) { if ($key instanceof EntityInterface) { $this->entities = array_filter($this->entities, function ($v) use ($key) { return $v !== $key; }); } else if (isset($this->entities[$key])) { unset($this->entities[$key]); } } public function offsetGet($key) { if (isset($this->entities[$key])) { return $this->entities[$key]; } } public function offsetExists($key) { return $key instanceof EntityInterface ? array_search($key, $this->entities) : isset($this->entities[$key]); } public function getIterator() { return new ArrayIterator($this->entities); } }
At this point we’ve managed to create a primitive domain model, which certainly we can use for engendering user objects without a major hassle. In doing do, we have a real chance to see if the UOW is actually the functional component it seems to be when it comes to persisting multiple entities in the database as one single transaction.
Putting the UOW Under Test
If you’ve reached this point of the article, you probably feel like you’re being pulled in opposite directions, wondering if all of the hard up front work required in writing a bunch of interfaces and classes was really worth it. In fact, it was. Moreover, if you’re still skeptical, make sure check the following code snippet, which shows how to put the UOW to work in sweet synchrony with some naïve user objects:
<?php require_once __DIR__ . "/Library/Loader/Autoloader.php"; $autoloader = new Autoloader; $autoloader->register(); $adapter = new PdoAdapter("mysql:dbname=test", "myfancyusername", "myhardtoguesspassword"); $unitOfWork = new UnitOfWork(new UserMapper($adapter, new EntityCollection), new ObjectStorage); $user1 = new User(array("name" => "John Doe", "email" => "[email protected]")); $unitOfWork->registerNew($user1); $user2 = $unitOfWork->fetchById(1); $user2->name = "Joe"; $unitOfWork->registerDirty($user2); $user3 = $unitOfWork->fetchById(2); $unitOfWork->registerDeleted($user3); $user4 = $unitOfWork->fetchById(3); $user4->name = "Julie"; $unitOfWork->commit();
Leaving aside some irrelevant details, such as assuming there’s effectively a PDO adapter living somewhere, the driving logic of the earlier script should be fairly easy to assimilate. Simply put, it shows off how to get things rolling with the UOW, which drags in some user objects from the database and queues them for insertion, update, and deletion by using the corresponding registering methods. At the end of the process, commit() just loops internally over the registered objects and performs the proper operations all in one go.
While in a standard implementation a UOW does expose the typical set of registering methods that we’d expect to see, its formal definition doesn’t provide any kind of finder. In this case, however, I decided intentionally to implement a generic one so you can see more clearly how to pull in objects from storage and in turn register them with the UOW without struggling with the oddities of a standalone, closer-to-the domain structure, such as a Repository or even an overkill Service.
Closing Thoughts
Now that you’ve peeked behind the curtain at a UOW and learned how to implement a naïve one from scratch, let your wild side show and tweak it at your will.
Keep in mind though that while there are benefits with the pattern, it’s far from being a panacea that will solve all of the issues associated with massive accesses to the persistence layer. In enterprise-level applications that must perform expensive database writes across several places, though, a UOW provides an effective, transactional-like approach that reduces the underlying overhead, hence becoming a solid, multifaceted solution when properly coupled to a caching mechanism.
Image via Zhukov Oleg / Shutterstock |
History Edit
In 1914, Senator Robert La Follette Sr. and Representative John M. Nelson, both of Wisconsin, promoted the inclusion in the legislative, executive, and judicial appropriations act of a provision directing the establishment of a special reference unit within the Library of Congress.[5] Building upon a concept developed by the New York State Library in 1890, and the Wisconsin Legislative Reference Library in 1901, they were motivated by Progressive era ideas about the importance of the acquisition of knowledge for an informed and independent legislature.[4] The move also reflected the expanding role of the librarian and the professionalization of the profession.[4] The new department was charged with responding to congressional requests for information.[4] The legislation authorized the Librarian of Congress, Herbert Putnam, to “employ competent persons to prepare such indexes, digests, and compilations of laws as may be required for Congress and other official use...” (The intent behind the creation of the agency can be derived from U.S. Senate, Committee on the Library, Legislative Drafting Bureau and Reference Division, 62d Cong., 3d sess., 1913, S. Rept.1271.) Renamed the Legislative Reference Service and given a permanent authorization with the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946,[6] it assisted Congress primarily by providing facts and publications and by transmitting research and analysis done largely by other government agencies, private organizations, and individual scholars.[4] The Library of Congress, the home of CRS, had experimented during the 1940s with unrestricted publication Public Affairs Bulletins, which were produced by staff of the Legislative Reference Service, and devoted to various public policy issues. They were promoted by Archibald MacLeish, the Librarian of Congress, and, among other topics, addressed timely policy issues, such as American national defense. About 100 Public Affairs Bulletins were generated[7] before congressional appropriators ended their production in 1951.[8] The renaming under the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1970 reflected the service's changing mission:[4] This legislation directed CRS to devote more of its efforts and increased resources to doing research and analysis that assists Congress in direct support of the legislative process.[9] When the Congressional Research Service Review was launched in 1980, it continued for a little more than a decade before congressional appropriators, once again, invoked fiscal closure. The Review, which was published ten times a year and available to the public by subscription, offered original analytical articles, summaries highlighting CRS research products, and other kinds of assistance to the congressional community.[7] As inquiries increased from 400,000 questions per year in 1980 to 598,000 in 2000, CRS sought to prepare itself for future challenges, initiating an organizational realignment in 1999. The realignment, which has required extensive relocation of staff and the design of more efficient workstations, was intended to promote improved communication within CRS and increase the service's ability to focus on legislative deliberations of Congress by applying its multidisciplinary expertise to public policy issues in user-friendly, accessible formats when Congress needs assistance.[10]
Mission Edit
CRS offers Congress research and analysis on all current and emerging issues of national policy.[4] CRS offers timely and confidential assistance to all Members and committees that request it, limited only by CRS’s resources and the requirements for balance, nonpartisanship and accuracy.[4] CRS makes no legislative or other policy recommendations to Congress; its responsibility is to ensure that Members of the House and Senate have available the best possible information and analysis on which to base the policy decisions the American people have elected them to make.[4] In all its work, CRS analysts are governed by requirements for confidentiality, timeliness, accuracy, objectivity, balance, and nonpartisanship. CRS services are not limited to those that relate directly to enacting new laws. For example, CRS attempts to assess emerging issues and developing problems so that it will be prepared to assist the Congress if and when it becomes necessary. Although it rarely conducts field research, CRS assists committees in other aspects of their study and oversight responsibilities. In addition, it offers numerous courses, including legal research seminars and institutes on the legislative process, the budget processes, and the work of district and state staff. At the beginning of each Congress, CRS also provides an orientation seminar for new Members.[4] CRS does not conduct research on sitting Members or living former Members of Congress, unless granted specific permission by that Member or if that Member is nominated by the President for another office.[4]
Organization Edit
CRS is now divided into six interdisciplinary research divisions, each of which is further divided into subject specialist sections. The six divisions are: American Law; Domestic Social Policy; Foreign Affairs, Defense and Trade; Government and Finance; Knowledge Services; and Resources, Science and Industry.[11] The six research divisions are supported in their work by five “infrastructure” offices: Finance and Administration, Information Management and Technology, Counselor to the Director, Congressional Information and Publishing, and Workforce Management and Development.[12]
Overview of services Edit
Responses to Congressional requests take the form of reports, memoranda, customized briefings, seminars, videotaped presentations, information obtained from automated databases, and consultations in person and by telephone.[4] CRS "supports the Members, committees, and leaders of the House and Senate at all stages of the legislative process":[4] Ideas for legislation. A 2008 CRS report details how the service can assist legislators in evaluating the need for legislation: At the preliminary stage, members may ask CRS to provide background information and analysis on issues and events so they can better understand the existing situation and then assess whether there is a problem requiring a legislative remedy. This assistance may be a summary and explanation of the scientific evidence on a technically complex matter, for example, or it may be a collection of newspaper and journal articles discussing an issue from different perspectives, or a comparative analysis of several explanations that have been offered to account for a generally recognized problem. CRS also identifies national and international experts with whom Members and staff may consult about whatever issues concern them and sponsors programs at which Members meet with experts to discuss issues of broad interest to Congress.[4] Analyzing a bill. The same 2008 report also clarifies the various ways in which the service further supports the work of legislators once a bill has been introduced: If a Member decides to introduce a bill, CRS analysts can assist the legislator in clarifying the purposes of the bill, identifying issues it may address, defining alternative ways for dealing with them, evaluating the possible advantages and disadvantages of each alternative, developing information and arguments to support the bill, and anticipating possible criticisms of the bill and responses to them. Although CRS does not draft bills, resolutions, and amendments, its analysts may join staff consulting with the professional draftsman within each chamber’s Office of the Legislative Counsel as they translate the Member’s policy decisions into formal legislative language. Members and committees also can request CRS to help them assess and compare legislative proposals, including competing bills introduced by Members and proposals presented by executive branch officials, private citizens and organizations. CRS can assess the intent, scope, and limits, of the various proposals.[4] The report goes on: During committee and floor consideration, CRS can assist Representatives and Senators in several different ways, in addition to providing background information to assist Members in understanding the issues a bill addresses. CRS attorneys can help clarify legal effects the bill may have. CRS policy analysts can work with Members in deciding whether to propose amendments and then in making certain that their amendments are designed and phrased to achieve the desired results. CRS also can help Members prepare for the debate by providing data and other information that they can use to support the positions they have decided to take.[4] Hearings . When a subcommittee selects a bill (or several bills on the same subject) for serious attention, it usually begins by conducting public hearings on one or more days at which executive branch officials, other Members of Congress, representatives of private organizations, and even individual citizens present their views on the bill’s merits. CRS analysts can assist in this process by providing background information and reports, presenting a preliminary briefing to Members or staff, identifying potential witnesses, and suggesting questions that Members may consider asking the witnesses.
. When a subcommittee selects a bill (or several bills on the same subject) for serious attention, it usually begins by conducting public hearings on one or more days at which executive branch officials, other Members of Congress, representatives of private organizations, and even individual citizens present their views on the bill’s merits. CRS analysts can assist in this process by providing background information and reports, presenting a preliminary briefing to Members or staff, identifying potential witnesses, and suggesting questions that Members may consider asking the witnesses. Subcommittee or committee votes . After the hearings on a bill, the subcommittee or committee meets to debate and vote on amendments to it. If requested, CRS staff may attend these meetings to serve as a nonpartisan source of expert information available to all Members. If the subcommittee and then the full committee conclude that new legislation is needed, they report a bill to the House or Senate for all its Members to consider. The committee also submits a written report that explains the background for its decision, analyzes the purposes and effects of each major provision of the bill, and includes other information, such as predictions about the cost of implementing it, that help other Members decide whether they should support the bill. CRS specialists may assist the committee’s staff in preparing some sections of this report, although cost estimates are developed by the Congressional Budget Office.
. After the hearings on a bill, the subcommittee or committee meets to debate and vote on amendments to it. If requested, CRS staff may attend these meetings to serve as a nonpartisan source of expert information available to all Members. If the subcommittee and then the full committee conclude that new legislation is needed, they report a bill to the House or Senate for all its Members to consider. The committee also submits a written report that explains the background for its decision, analyzes the purposes and effects of each major provision of the bill, and includes other information, such as predictions about the cost of implementing it, that help other Members decide whether they should support the bill. CRS specialists may assist the committee’s staff in preparing some sections of this report, although cost estimates are developed by the Congressional Budget Office. Parliamentary procedure . CRS staff can clarify the legislative procedures of the House and Senate, assisting Members and staff in understanding the effects of these procedures and how Members can use the procedures to promote their own legislative goals.
. CRS staff can clarify the legislative procedures of the House and Senate, assisting Members and staff in understanding the effects of these procedures and how Members can use the procedures to promote their own legislative goals. Conference committees. CRS analysts can contribute to this last stage of the legislative process by helping identify the issues to be resolved, by clarifying and comparing the positions of the two houses on each issue, and by identifying different ways in which the legislative disagreements could be resolved. CRS also performs several functions that support Congressional and public understanding of the legislative process and other issues. Bill Summaries . Since 1935 the Legislative Analysis and Information Section (formerly "Bill Digest") of CRS has had statutory responsibility for preparation of authoritative, objective, nonpartisan summaries of introduced public bills and resolutions and maintenance of historical legislative information. Detailed revised summaries are written to reflect changes made in the course of the legislative process. This CRS office also prepares titles, bill relationships, subject terms, and Congressional Record citations for debates, full texts of measures, and Member introductory remarks. The bill summaries are released to the public via THOMAS, the Library of Congress's online database. [13]
. Since 1935 the Legislative Analysis and Information Section (formerly "Bill Digest") of CRS has had statutory responsibility for preparation of authoritative, objective, nonpartisan summaries of introduced public bills and resolutions and maintenance of historical legislative information. Detailed revised summaries are written to reflect changes made in the course of the legislative process. This CRS office also prepares titles, bill relationships, subject terms, and Congressional Record citations for debates, full texts of measures, and Member introductory remarks. The bill summaries are released to the public via THOMAS, the Library of Congress's online database. Constitution Annotated. The American Law Division of the Congressional Research Service prepares the Constitution of the United States of America—Analysis and Interpretation (popularly known as the Constitution Annotated),[14] a continuously updated legal treatise that explains the U.S. Constitution as it has been interpreted by the U.S. Supreme Court.
CRS websites Edit
Current Members of Congress and their offices may access the CRS website (www.crs.gov) and CRS's Legislative Information Service (LIS) website (www.congress.gov). The two sites are the most comprehensive and integrated sources of information regarding workings of the federal government, and are arguably the best sources of information regarding the legislative process of the United States.[15] These sites provide all information necessary to become informed about any aspect of government. They also have the information needed to keep up-to-the-minute on most legislation including information from past bills similar to the current legislation; historical information about the legislation; biographical data about the Members who introduced it; the ability to track the legislation as it moves through committee hearings to the Floor; and links to information about the legislation in the Congressional Record, Floor and committee schedule information, and the Federal Register.[16] Neither of these websites is available to the public. In order to prevent public access to the websites, CRS has erected an elaborate firewall to keep the public out. Taxpayers are only allowed access to THOMAS (thomas.loc.gov). In fact, when the public tries to access the LIS, they are automatically forwarded to THOMAS without warning.[15] www.crs.gov. The CRS website provides CRS publications on current legislative issues, electronic briefing books, information on the legislative and budget processes, a searchable database of all CRS products, and other information about Congressional procedures and activities. www.congress.gov. The LIS website is specifically designed to track legislation and legislative activity. According to the CRS, "The LIS ... provides bill summary and status, full text of legislation and public laws, full text of committee reports, hearings, and other documents, and the Congressional Record for the current and earlier Congresses. The system also gives (and is searchable by) committee, sponsorship, and cosponsorship; identification of identical bills; and other information."[17] The LIS varies substantially from the system which is available to the public at the Library of Congress' THOMAS website (thomas.loc.gov). In fact, CRS has a special page detailing the enhanced capabilities of the restricted LIS website over the public THOMAS website. The following is CRS's comparison of the LIS (www.congress.gov) with THOMAS (thomas.loc.gov):[18] Service Legislative Information System Thomas Website www.congress.gov thomas.loc.gov Who Can Use It Available to the public. (Previously only available to Congress, including state and district offices, and legislative support agencies. Some features listed below may no longer be available.) Available to the public. Best Used For Finding the most complete legislative information for congressional staff or for a Member; obtaining information, using databases, and linking to pages that are not available to the public on THOMAS. Should not be used for making links from Member or committee home page (since the public cannot access LIS). Working with constituents; making links from Member or committee home pages; making printouts that are to be sent to constituents. Commercial Databases Links to databases that have been licensed for use by House and Senate staff, such as National Journal and the AP Newswire. Links from the status of a bill to National Journal markups. No links to commercial databases. CRS Reports Links from Bill Summary & Status display to CRS reports related to a bill. Ability to search all CRS reports via the CRS Home Page; these products can be searched, displayed, and printed. No CRS reports are available to the public. Restricted links Links to restricted Capitol Hill Web sites such as the House Intranet, Senate Webster, and Senate amendment tracking system. No links to restricted Capitol Hill Web sites. Floor & Committee Schedule Information Links to Capitol Hill and outside sources of floor and committee schedule information, selected to be of most use to congressional staff. Minimal links to floor and committee schedule information. Advanced search capabilities Special advanced search capabilities, providing Boolean searching (and, or, not), word proximity searching (quotes to indicate phrases, adj/l, near/l), and other features. Only basic search capabilities. Saved searches and email alerts The ability to save searches and to request daily email alerts of new items added to databases that meet the search criteria. No ability to save searches or request email alerts.
Written work-product Edit
Document types include CRS Reports, appropriations Reports (usually released as a Long Report), and Congressional distribution memoranda.[19] CRS Reports Edit Main article: CRS Report The most commonly requested CRS product is the general congressional distribution reports, known as "CRS Reports". The purpose of a report is to clearly define the issue in the legislative context.[19] The types of CRS reports include Issue Briefs (IB), Research Memos (RM), and Reports, which appear in both Short (RS) and Long (RL) formats.[20] Over 700 new CRS reports are produced each year and made available to Congressionals at www.crs.gov.[19] 566 new products were prepared in Fiscal Year 2011.[21] Nearly 7,800 are in existence as of the end of 2011.[21] Other than a passing generic reference to "reports" in its statutory charter, CRS has no mandate for these products.[22] They are created in the context of the overall mission of CRS to provide research support to Congress.[7] The reports may take many forms, including policy analysis, economic studies, statistical reviews, and legal analyses.[19] CRS reports are considered in-depth, accurate, objective, and timely, and topped the list of the "10 Most-Wanted Government Documents" survey by the Center for Democracy and Technology in 1996.[23] Copyright status Edit The New York Times has written that the reports contain neither classified information nor copyrighted information.[24] The CRS has written:[25] "CRS may incorporate preexisting material in its written responses to congressional requests. Although such material is often from public domain sources, in certain instances the material, appropriately credited, may be from copyrighted sources. To the extent that the material is copyrighted, CRS either: obtains permission for the use; [Footnote: Although CRS obtains permission to reproduce certain copyrighted works, the permissions are generally based on legislative use and the expectation that dissemination is limited to Members of Congress.] considers its information-gathering function protected by the speech or debate clause; or believes that the use falls under the 'fair use' doctrine of the Copyright Act as applied in the context of the legislative process."
Public access to CRS Reports Edit
Main article: Congressional Research Service reports Prior to September 2018 CRS products were only made directly available to members of Congress, Congressional committees, and CRS's sister agencies (CBO and GAO) through the internal CRS Web system. As of September 18th 2018 the official US government website crsreports.congress.gov.
See also Edit |
Let’s be real. Many of us drink coffee every morning of the week, so it’s not like we need one of those arbitrary national holidays reminding us to celebrate the caffeinated beverage. But, hey, any excuse to drink a cup, right?
National Coffee Day is Sept. 29, when a handful of local coffee shops are commemorating our favorite beverage with drink specials. And if none of those places strike your fancy, we’ve got many other suggestions for where to go for your espresso needs (see below!).
The coffee shop to visit on Friday is East Austin’s tiny Fleet Coffee, which has joined a nationwide effort started by coffee publication Sprudge to raise money for good causes in honor of National Coffee Day. The Night of 1,000 Pours — which actually runs all day at Fleet starting at 7 a.m. — will raise money for the Houston Food Bank, in need of donations following the devastation of Hurricane Harvey.
Fleet will donate 20 percent of its sales for the day to the Houston Food Bank. Plus, the coffee shop has some pretty sweet raffle items from local breweries, restaurants and other coffee shops that you can try and win. The items include gift cards and swag from Micklethwait Craft Meats, Nickel City, Suerte, Unit-D Pizzeria and Veracruz All-Natural.
Cuvee Coffee Bar is another place to visit on Friday. The East Sixth Street shop will have a National Coffee Day Blowout with activities all day starting when Cuvee opens at 6:30 a.m. The highlights include two hours of adult water coloring and a race that will determine who can shotgun cans of Cuvee’s Black & Blue Nitro Cold Brew the fastest.
One other Austin spot celebrating National Coffee Day is Stonehouse Coffee and Bar, which is offering $1 drip coffee and buy-one-get-one-free espresso drinks. (If you’re a teacher, you’ll be extra lucky at this South Lamar coffee shop.)
If you’d prefer a cup in the comfort of your own home, an Austin-based coffee subscription service called Atlas Coffee Club has just the National Coffee Day deal. Get your first bag free if you sign up for the service by using the code “AtlasCoffeeDay17” at checkout. Atlas takes coffee addicts on a caffeinated world tour each month, and it’s a worthy purchase.
But geez, Austin has a lot of coffee shops.
What if you want beer with your coffee? We’ve got this roundup of 10 local places where you can get both kinds of brew.
We also offer several guides to local coffee shops depending upon what part of town you want to find a cup of joe. Best Austin coffee shops near North Lamar Boulevard? Near Burnet Road? Near South First Street? Coffee lover Michael Barnes has broken it all down for us.
RELATED STORIES:
Chameleon Cold-Brew expands with line of whole-bean coffeeGreater Goods Coffee Roasters adds tasting room in Dripping SpringsAustin among top 10 ‘cities for coffee fanatics’ |
There was some talk about the elusive Great ___s found in the Shin Megami Tensei games, so I figured I’d share some small (linguistic) explanations for the three we know.
- Shin Megami Tensei II has YHVH mention what we call The Great Will aka 大いなる意志 [ooinaru ishi]
- Shin Megami Tensei III brings into discussion The Great Will once more, this time with a slightly different kanji 大いなる意思 [ooinaru ishi]
- Shin Megami Tensei IV FINAL offers us a change, with The Great Will becoming The Great Reason/Truth (depending on how you want to read it, they function on the same principle) 大いなる理 [ooinaru ri/kotowari]
Both 意志 and 意思 are read the same and generally denote the same thing: intention. In fact, I’ve noticed that Japanese players use them interchangeably, with an overwhelming preference for 意思 (probably because Nocturne’s the more recent game).
All right, so what’s different? There’s actually a very interesting difference between them. 意志 signifies the determination to do something, a proactive state of mind [from 志 kokorozashi - will, intention, motive]. On the other hand, 意思 refers to one’s thoughts and feelings because of 思 shi - to think.
Basically it’s like the difference between ‘I want to do thing’ and ‘I’m thinking of doing thing’. The intention is there, but with a different nuance for each word.
Now, on to 大いなる理. The second kanji can be read either ri or kotowari. The dictionary tells us it means reason, truth, the natural order of things, fundamental truth, etc. Fun fact: if kotowari sounds familiar, it’s because it’s the Reasons of Nocturne (which only had the katakana version コトワリ).
Japanese players have also noticed the difference and look like they have decided that The Great Reason is the equivalent of The Great Will in the SMT4 universe. I figure the official translation will maintain the terminology of the previous games, but knowing some details never hurts. c:
(Source: manapedia.jp) |
More than one million people have played Elite: Dangerous at one point or another. Despite this achievement that surpasses any space sim in history, very few people have actually seen or heard of the best that the game has to offer.
Like other space sims, Elite: Dangerous is challenging and often times cumbersome. Most of its content is never explained in-game, and instead a large majority of veterans gained their knowledge through experimentation and/or by posting questions on places like Reddit. But not everyone puts in the time nor effort to experience the game's potential, and as such their understanding of what it offers is limited to the small gallery of options available from the start.
At this point I have 53 confirmed hours played in Elite: Dangerous using virtual reality, which is well below what most of the active community has accumulated, but a large enough number that I feel like I've become acquainted with the game.
There are a lot of ways to spend time and progress in Elite: Dangerous, one of the most coveted of which is exploration. Although I had succeeded at things like bounty hunting, trading, and missions during my first 53 hours, I had no exploration experience.
I recently felt inspired to change that with the arrival of the v2.3 patch. So, last week I packed my bags, threw on my Oculus Rift, and set off into outer space, unknowing of what awaited in the cosmos.
Travel Preparations
My journey began with investing most of my savings into a ship and outfitting. After arriving at a space hub with large quantity of vehicles in-stock, I put down 564,000 credits on a Diamondback Scout. This particular ship excels at exploration with a default jump range of 11.35 light years, high maneuverability, and four utility mounts to equip with essentials like the fuel scoop.
I would spend almost the entirety of the rest of my savings on equipment. I upgraded virtually every facet of the ship, including its power distributor, thrusters, and I even put down more than one million credits on an advanced discovery scanner, allowing me to acquire data from scanning star systems which I could then sell for income.
As an enthusiast of astronomy, opening up the galaxy map is always delightful. Elite: Dangerous' world replicates that of our own Milky Way with incredible accuracy; you can visit Earth if you want to, Alpha Centauri A, Polaris, among other notable stars known by even the most inexperienced space enthusiast. In-fact, there are over 100 billion star systems to visit in the game, around 160,000 of which are directly inspired by real life. If you're the first person to visit one you can forever lay claim to it, etching your name onto its profile for as long as Elite: Dangerous has online game servers.
After some deep thought, I soon found myself dead-set on visiting a nebula. I had heard that the hot, colorful gases of these giant wonders are a sight to behold, and wanted to see one for myself.
After a few minutes of staring at the galaxy map, I set my trajectory for a class A star within the Lupus Dark Region B.
The Journey Begins
Within 20 minutes I had crossed the boundary of inhabited space, an incredibly small portion of the galaxy that had been populated by human beings. As I would come to know, this would mean that places to dock for fuel and goods would leave with me. I was out in the wild blue yonder all on my own.
Travel takes an incredibly long time in Elite: Dangerous. I outfitted my Diamondback Scout with some of the best equipment available specialized in long distance hyperspace travel. Even then, my maximum jump distance was only 17.1 light years. Although that's far enough to travel roughly four times the distance of the nearest star to our Solar System, the Milky Way is 100,000 light years in diameter.
In my case, I needed to travel 464 light years before I would reach Lupus Dark Region B. That's over 27 hyperspace jumps, each of which require manual jump input; there is no autopilot available like in EVE Online.
Also Read: The Famous Elite: Dangerous Alien Encounter
The further I ventured from inhabited space, the more I was amazed by the scope of the game. I could visibly see the variance in each star and its systems as I hopped from system to system. Some systems had two stars in a tidal lock (bound to each other like the Moon to the Earth), and others had a plethora of gas giants with rings circling them. Some systems didn't even have planets, which made me feel almost like the star was lonely, floating out in space for eternity—or at least until Andromeda collides with our Milky Way in four billion years.
This variation is a great thing for making money. Since I had a discovery scanner equipped, I was able to scan systems for data. Rarer objects are worth a lot more money when scanned, so in cases where monotony began to set in, I was entertained at the thought of visiting distinct locations worth tens of thousands of credits. This is something I would do with all of the more than 60 systems I would visit, providing a monetary benefit to my time investment.
Beautiful Sights
I made an effort to veer off the optimized path and visit some sights along the way. My first stop was a neutron star, which are some of the most dense and powerful stellar objects in existence. These are formed when stars with 10 to 29 solar masses have their core collapse, melting their protons and electrons resulting in an incredibly dense neutron-dominated mass. These are so dense that a portion of one the size of a city equates to roughly 1.4 the mass of the sun. Or put more simply, one teaspoon of neutron star material has 900 times the mass of the Great Pyramid of Giza.
Neutron stars are small in comparison to the average star, but remarkably bright. While I haven't seen one in real life using a telescope, I stared at one through my Oculus Rift and was nearly blinded; its ultra violet+ light produced a blueish white hue that dazzled before its dark background. It was almost like seeing a massive energy-laden diamond in outer space.
As beautiful as it was, I was more impressed by how Elite: Dangerous maps each star. Instead of using a static sky box in the background, all stars within your proximity are visible precisely where they are located in relation to your current location. As I flowed from system to system, I could see the location of stars shift, and occasionally caught a glimpse of stars with incredible colors like dark red class M stars and even blue type O stars (which have an effective temperature of over 30,000 Kelvin).
At one point during my journey I hoped I would cross paths with a black hole, but a part of me was terrified by what that would be like. I think I've watched too many Neil deGrasse Tyson documentaries at this point to not respect the power of black holes. The truth is that most of the black holes known in our galaxy are near the galactic core, and although I was traveling for multiple hours, I wasn't even coming close to the proximity of that location. Maybe someday.
Crisis Scenario
Long distance travel in Elite: Dangerous does require some work beyond hyperspace travel. Fuel is consumed during each jump, to a point where I had to fill up every 5 to 10 minutes. With no space ports nearby, I had to rely on my fuel scoop. This entailed flying around stars while managing my velocity, trajectory, and heat; if I got too close, I would be ripped out of supercruise and be exposed to the incredible energy of the star (a risky proposition when near higher temperature stars). If I was too far, my fuel gained per minute wasn't optimized so I was effectively adding transit time to my travels.
For the exploration fiend of Elite: Dangerous, heat is a primary concern. It is technically possible to be interdicted by another ship and therefore be open to the possibility of a battle related death, but that's incredibly rare within the context of deep space travel. Attentively refueling during mental fatigue is the most common cause of death among explorers.
I made the mistake of getting too close to a star on several occasions, losing a small portion of my hull in the process. In one particular case I came too close to a class B star (11,000 to 25,000 kelvin temperature) and was stopped dead in my tracks with a 30 second frame shift drive cooldown. Seconds felt like minutes as I scrambled to manage the situation. Thermals were rising at a rate I had never seen before. A fire burst from my control panel, and the subsequent smoke fogged my glass shielding.
Also Read: Elite: Dangerous Is The Game No Man's Sky Aspires To Be
As my hull took damage I was thankfully quick to turn off unnecessary components. These included my shields (useless against radiation), weapons, and life support, each of which produce heat of their own, contributing to the problems I was experiencing. My heart raced as I flipped the switches, and aimed my trajectory for the escape vector. It was at this moment that I felt like an Apollo astronaut; nobody was there to save me but myself, and I was in a dire situation that could result in (virtual) death.
By the time I was able to enter supercruise and escape the wrath of the star's energy, I had lost more than 30% of my hull. This meant that I was more susceptible to further damage during my travels, and therefore needed to be far more careful with future fuel scoops. Nonetheless, I made the decision to press on after re-initiating my components.
The Nebula
I was soon rewarded with the best sight of my journey. As I approached Lupus Dark Region B, I could see the dark, blood red nebula drape the sky in the distance. It became bigger as I approached, eventually taking up nearly half of the visible sky.
I made an effort to land on a planet at my destination. It was a red, rocky planet not too dissimilar from Mars, devoid of vegetation or water. Landing was quite the experience, as there was a discomforting feeling I had when touching down on an alien world, unknowing of how it would handle my reception. Although it was unfamiliar to me, it paid no mind in me sharing a few minutes of coexistence.
I ended up drive around in my SRV buggy doing power slides while gathering materials and admiring the incredible beauty that surrounded me. Although the system map stated that someone had been here before, the dirt that I drove on was pristine. No other player had ever landed on the planet at the location where I visited, and that's amazing when you think about it.
It was an incredibly odd feeling being in such a remote location. With billions of stars, there was an infinitesimal chance that any of the thousand of players online were anywhere near me. If I needed help, I was on my own, and the sight I was seeing was my own.
I was glad that I set my destination for a nebula, as it was prettier than I had imagined. This alien world was one vastly different than my home in the Orion Arm.
Coming Home
At this point I had spent more than four hours traveling through the cosmos. Part of me missed being around fellow human beings, having access to a dock and repairs. With that, I decided to head home.
On my way back I took an alternate route, visiting some new stars and scanning them in the process. Though, there was a sense of winding down that came with my final hour of travel. I was no longer heading into a place far beyond, and instead was putting in time to travel to a place I had been before. I'd be lying if I said I didn't consider the thought of self-destruction to instantly travel back to inhabited space, but I knew that would be costly.
I eventually arrived back at LHS 3447, and docked my wounded ship at the Dalton Gateway. My first order of business was making sure I got credit for my exploration scans. I was happy to learn that I earned 1.1 million credits for my efforts, much of which came from my scans of celestial bodies like the neutron star.
As I logged out, I considered that at some point I should travel to the galactic core where star density is incredible, the stakes are even higher , and the sights are so far beyond anything I'd seen before that many players consider it worth the dozens of hours of transit. But for now I was happy with being 1.1 million credits richer, and knowing that I had embraced exploration in Elite: Dangerous for my first time. I think I might be hooked.
Before I go, here are a few quick tips for you if you plan to go on an adventure of your own:
Bring the best discovery scanner you can afford.
Earthlike planets are highly valuable for scans. Skip metal planets and those without an atmosphere.
Gas giants tend to be too far from the star to be worth scanning due to the requirements for travel time.
Lupus Dark Region is roughly 1 hour and 45 minutes out from the center of inhabited space.
Don't forget to bring a fuel scoop and equip your ship with a heat shield.
Learn how to hyperspace jump as quickly as possible to reduce transit time.
Be careful if you go AFK as you could be interdicted.
Maximum jump distance is very important. Invest in components to improve this value as high as possible.
If you've been considering a VR headset and have money for one, it's highly recommended as it greatly improves immersion.
Godspeed. |
Jim Jones and The Jonestown Massacre
On this Podcast we take a look at the largest cult killings of modern times and the man who made it happen, Jim Jones and The Jonestown Massacre. Born out of the socialist movement of 1960’s America this religious group soon gave way to conspiratorial prophecies and revolutionary societal change. The group was started and helmed by doomsday pastor Jim Jones and he took them from Indiana to California to Guyana, picking up admirers like Jane Fonda and Harvey Milk along the way. But it would all in in a tragedy that claimed the lives of over 900 people. We look at an event so shocking that it remains the definitive description of a modern religious cult and has managed to coin it’s own phrase in pop culture:
“Don’t drink the Kool-aid!”
The People’s Temple
From the very beginning Jim Jones led a troubled and unconventional life. One where he was educated in important and useful lessons on the topics of segregation, disenfranchisement, fear of nuclear war and mistrust of governments. It was these lessons that would lead him to become the leader of the People’s Temple and would inform the sermons that garnered him unflinching support. And he would use this support to live out his own personal fantasies and sadistic nature. His desire for power only bettered by his cruel methods of control. We cover the life and mind of the charismatic chief of this group of allegedly brain washed Americans and the forces of corruption and control that both protected and projected the church they called The People’s Temple.
The CIA, Guyana and the kool aid
But as political pressure and journalistic investigation threatened to tear the group apart they would make their ominous move to Guyana. And with the terrible tragedy that ensued the conspiracy theories began. Talk of MK Ultra techniques of mind control and programming. CIA connections in the Jonestown site and the personnel surrounding the hierarchy of the church. The talk of a staged event or ‘psy-op’ all part of long held nefarious scheme. We discuss dead congressmen and dead babies, all the mayhem, madness and mind control and some heavy CIA connections and coincidences to boot as we cover all the theories surronding Jim Jones and the Jonestown Massacre. |
Cosmo Scharf is a film student and co-founder of VRLA. He talks about some of the challenges of VR storytelling and the differences between a free-will VR environment vs. a traditional 2D film. Film has a series of tools to direct attention such as depth of field, camera direction, cues to look to left or right, contrasting colors or movement in the frame. Some of these translate over to VR, but you can’t use all of them since there’s no camera movement, focus or framing in VR.
He talks about the process of starting a meet up in Los Angeles called VRLA, and that a lot of people in the film industry are seeing VR as the future of storytelling and entertainment.
Cosmo also sees that VR experiences are a spectrum from ranging from completely interactive like a video game, semi-interactive cinematic experience, and the completely passive. There’s not a whole lot of people are looking into the completely passive experiences yet, but that’s what he’s interested in exploring as a film student.
He strongly believes it’s the future of storytelling, video games, computing as well as disseminating information in general, and he’s very excited to get more involved in the VR industry
Reddit discussion here.
TOPICS
0:00 – Founder of VR LA. Initially interested in VR after hearing about Valve’s involvement in VR. Reading /r/oculus and listening to podcasts and heard a podcast about starting a meet up.
1:44 – Film industry’s involvement and how many were new to VR? Weeks after the Facebook acquisition, and so there were over 200 people who came out.
2:34 – What type of feedback did you receive? A lot of people in the movie industry are seeing VR as the future of storytelling. Cosmo wants to provide emotionally-engaging experiences.
3:22 – What type of story things are interesting to you. Not a lot of storytelling in VR happening yet. VR is early. Differences between film and VR. Filmmaking rules and practices to use 4 frames for 100 years. VR is a new medium. How do you effectively tell a story without relying upon the same filmmaking techniques.
4:36 – What are some of the open problems in VR storytelling? How to direct someone’s attention. With filmmaking you can use depth of field, camera direction, cues to look to left or right, colors or movement in the frame. Some of the cues in real life are if others are looking in a direction and which direction sounds are coming from. Passive vs. Interactive VR: completely interactive like a video game, semi-interactive cinematic experience, and the completely passive. Not a whole lot of people are looking at the third way.
6:22 – Familiar with Nonny de la Pena’s work. She attended VRLA #1. It’s interesting in terms of VR as a tool for building empathy. When you’re placed virtually in someone else’s shoes, you’ll feel what they’re going to feel. You can connect to people via a 2D screen, but you know that there’s a distance. With VR, you’re in it and completely immersed and engaged.
7:31 – What about choose your own adventure vs. a linear film: VR experience similar to Mass Effect where you have different options to say to characters. Your response will change how the story unfolds. Would like to see a natural feedback between you and the AI characters
8:22 – Where would like to see VR going? We’re still very early with VR, no consumer product is out yet and that will determine if VR is a real thing. Strongly believes it’s the future of storytelling, video games, computing & disseminating information in general. HMDs will be portable. Convergence of augmented reality with VR. Hard to determine how the industry will evolve within the next month, but most exciting industry to be a part of. All of the leaders of the consumer VR space are at SVVRCon.
Theme music: “Fatality” by Tigoolio |
Watch the Day Three Deliberations here:
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2016 gave us remasters of old games, computers that were made to look old, industry trends that we wish were things of the past, and an old name that suddenly feels fresher than ever.
Best Remaster
Day of the Tentacle Remastered
In a year dominated by "remasters" that consisted of minor graphical touch-ups to games that it feels like we just got through playing, Day of the Tentacle Remastered stands out as a loving and actually necessary restoration of a revered old classic. This is a game from an era when 256-color VGA graphics and digital speech were only starting to become the norm, so needless to say, the original production values don't hold up particularly well these days. Also, people love Day of the Tentacle. Those two factors make this a remaster whose time has come, and it's all the better because Double Fine dove into musty, decades-old archives of source material like original voice recordings and concept art to recreate the elements of the game at a level of quality that should stand the test of time. They even documented that process on YouTube, something we'd love to see other developers do more of.
Throw in requisite bonus features like developer commentary, the ability to seamlessly switch between old and new graphics, and a revamped interface that works great on a controller and lets you expand the playable area to full screen, and this is a textbook case of a remaster done right. As the video game business continues to see demand for updates to old favorites, we could do with fewer "HD remasters" of games that were already HD in the first place, and more labors of love like this restoration of one of LucasArts' most popular old adventure games.
Runners-up: Odin Sphere Leifthrasir, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD
Best Fake Computer
Hackmud's fake computer is so good that you'll need to know how to write JavaScript on a real computer if you want to truly get deep. This multiplayer hacking game is little more than a terminal window and a four-hour tutorial that tells you the basics of what you're doing. But once you're thrust into the actual multiplayer end of Hackmud, you're on your own... or you could always make the mistake of trusting another player. Did that player just send you a script that's going to help you become a better hacker, like they said it would? Or will running it simply siphon off all of your currency and send it to the hacker, leaving you broke and broken? There are ways for you to find out, but we're not going to tell you here. That'd spoil the fun.
Runners-up: Event[0], Quadrilateral Cowboy
PLEASE STOP
Shipping Unfinished Games on Disc
Buying a game today is a lot different than it was a decade ago. With the assumption that players will have access to the internet we've seen welcomed patches that include bug fixes, UI tweaks, some rebalancing here and there. "Wait for the patch" has become a fairly common refrain for the first week of release. This year, though, it has felt like more games have taken release to mean initial release, with the final release forthcoming, if ever.
No Man's Sky released and then months later had a major content patch that added a whole host of new and improved features. Final Fantasy XV is promising some narrative updates with cutscenes to fill some story gaps. While live development used to be the realm of MMOs and online-only games, it is settling in throughout the industry. It's not necessarily a bad thing on its own, as we all should have a better game in the end. It only becomes a problem when you put the onus on the consumer to shoulder the burden of receiving those updates.
Data caps, poor internet speeds, and limited connectivity are all realities for some players. There's a difference between having internet access and being able to easily get that 30GB patch onto your system. Buying and inserting a disc only to have to download the entire game in order to play it is a hassle at the very least and impossible in some cases. It feels like we're a bit caught in a half-step between physical media and digital, without a proper offline solution for the former. The assumption that all players have access to or are able to pay for the infrastructure to get a proper version of the game they already paid for is unfair. There is a good use case for patches, and being able to make updates to a game, but don't abuse that system to ship something you know will be fixed or better in a few months.
Runners-up: The Return of Bad PC Ports, Not Providing Early Review Copies
Best Surprise
Before release, numerous elements of the new Doom were reason for concern. It was coming from the ashes of a scrapped Call of Duty clone. Its multiplayer beta failed to impress. Review copies weren't sent out early to press outlets. Any one of these things could have been seen as red flags, and the combination of them didn't bode well for Doom's resurrection. No one could have expected what we wound up getting, which is one of the best first-person shooter campaigns of all time. It managed to retain the mood of classic Doom while adding a surprisingly self-aware sense of humor and an excellent glory kill system. Multiplayer didn't take the world by storm by any means, but we were all too distracted by the shockingly good campaign to care.
Runners-up: Stardew Valley, Hitman |
M A I N N E W S Beijing plays down row over disputed map in its e-passport
Ashok Tuteja/TNS
Tribune News Service New Delhi, December 7
China continues to indulge in double-speak in the latest map row with India, Vietnam and the Philippines, refusing to budge from its position that the move was purely a security measure and not aimed against any country. Chinese sources sought to play down the concerns raised by India and some East Asian countries over Chinas new e-passport, the latest bone of contention between Beijing and its neighbours. This is not targeted at any particular country, they told The Tribune. Map of discontent * India noticed that Beijing had started issuing new biometric passports depicting two areas along the 4,000-km border as part of China * One of the areas was Arunachal Pradesh while the other was Aksai Chin, a remote part of Jammu and Kashmir that Beijing had occupied after the 1962 war * Beijing had informed all countries in advance about the proposed changes in the e-passport as is the general practice under the regulations of the International Civil Aviation Organisation, Chinese sources said * They explained that the move followed a suggestion from the Chinese Ministry of Public Security that the introduction of e-passport would help improve security effectively, preventing counterfeiting Sources pointed out that Beijing had informed all countries in advance about the proposed changes in the e-passport as is the general practice under the regulations of the International Civil Aviation Organisation. They explained that the move followed a suggestion from the Chinese Ministry of Public Security that the introduction of e-passport would help improve security effectively, preventing counterfeiting. The controversy erupted a few weeks back when India noticed that Beijing had started issuing new biometric passports depicting two areas along the 4,000-km border as part of China. One of the areas was Arunachal Pradesh while the other was Aksai Chin, a remote part of Jammu and Kashmir that Beijing had occupied after the 1962 war. Much to the consternation of Vietnam and the Philippines, the e-passport also shows shoals and archipelagos in the South China Sea that Beijing claims almost entirely, but which is contested and, in some areas, patrolled by a number of other Southeast Asian nations. The move was interpreted as yet another crude attempt by China to keep its neighbours on tenterhooks and aggressively display its hegemonistic designs. Officials in New Delhi swiftly got into action, considering ways and means to counter the Chinese move. Though technically it was an issue concerning the Chinese passport, New Delhi felt that stamping visas to its holders could amount to endorsing Chinas stand. When New Delhi complained to the Chinese Foreign Ministry in this regard, it got no response. Left with no choice, India went in for a tit-for-tat response, covering up the controversial map that appears as a watermark on the pages of the latest Chinese passports with a specially redesigned visa that displays Indias version of the border. The redesigned visa depicts the two Himalayan regions as a part of India. Asked if the redesigned visa had annoyed the Chinese, an official source said, We are not concerned about how they react because they are the ones who started it. In response to a question, the source said there was no need for a Parliamentary approval for the redesigned visa. Meanwhile, Vietnam and the Philippines have also found ways to deal with the situation. Vietnam is now issuing visas to Chinese nationals on separate slips of paper rather than stamps affixed to passport pages to avoid approving Beijings action. Similarly, the Philippine visas will be stamped on a separate visa form for Chinese applicants. |
In 2008 and 2009, we suffered the worst recession since the Great Depression. And now we're experiencing the weakest recovery in modern history. Here we are in the third year of an economic expansion, and we're barely back where we started. And by some measures, most importantly unemployment, we have failed to get back where we started.
To make matters worse, with the crisis in Europe and a slowdown in China, some people worry that another recession might be looming for next year, especially if we fall off the proverbial fiscal cliff of increased taxes and an end to government economic stimulus.
So let's go back to basics. What would Keyes do?
John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946) was the most influential economist of the 20th century. His ideas were adopted by Franklin D. Roosevelt to battle the Depression. Most economists, even many Republicans, credit Roosevelt and Keynesian economics with putting Americans back to work in the 1930s, helping the U.S. climb out of economic disaster, and setting the stage for the post-war economic boom. By 1971, President Richard Nixon admitted, “We’re all Keynesians now.”
Keynes theorized that during recessions, the public gets frightened and holds back on spending, resulting in more layoffs, which in turn produces less spending in a vicious circle of economic decline. The way to break the cycle, said Keynes, is to pump government spending into the economy by building roads and bridges and other public works. FDR even hired unemployed writers for a Federal Writers’ Project, traveling the country to produce guidebooks on states and cities.
Keynes overturned classical economic theory which said that free markets produce full employment. Keynes argued that aggregate demand determines the level of economic activity. If demand falls short, it leads to recession and high unemployment. Keynesian economics fell out of favor under President Reagan, but George Bush brought back Keynes in the 2000s, ramping up spending in order to pump up aggregate demand, and President Obama has tried to follow suit, with limited success.
So what would Keynes do in 2012? Let’s speculate:
1. Clearly, he would advise the federal government to invest in infrastructure, building roads and bridges, improving the electric grid, reinvigorating the space program, and developing alternative energy. Remember, it was FDR who built the alternative energy infrastructure of his day, from the Grand Coulee Dam to the Tennessee Valley Authority.
2. Keynes introduced the concept of price stickiness, which means that workers resist lowering their wages in the face of falling demand for labor. Keynes was undeniably liberal, yet he would certainly comprehend the current fiscal problems of cities and states, burdened with past promises of unaffordable pay packages for their workers. He would probably not support the draconian measures of officials like Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker to take away worker rights. But he probably would support less drastic cutbacks taking place in states like New York and California, where politicians are pushing to balance budgets in the face of lower economic conditions.
3. Keynes said if money saved exceeds the amount being invested, then unemployment will rise. Think of all the money hoarded on corporate balance sheets. Google alone is sitting on almost $50 billion in cash. Microsoft has almost $60 billion. He might well be in favor of lowering taxes on funds that American businesses hold overseas so they would bring the money home. And he would certainly support tax breaks and other incentives for corporations to build new factories and ramp up research and development.
4. Keynes felt that countries should not run large trade surpluses or deficits. He would likely be in favor of lowering the value of the dollar to boost American exports, give our multinational corporations a competitive edge, and reduce the U.S. trade deficit.
5. Finally, Keynes argued that World War II should be paid for with higher taxation. To the extent that higher taxation would not reduce demand—and there’s little evidence that modestly higher taxes on incomes above $250,000 would reduce aggregate demand, because these are the people who are hoarding "too much" cash—he would be in favor of increasing taxes on super-rich, and maybe even the near-rich, to help pay for our military ventures, finance infrastructure investment, and narrow the budget deficit.
Tom Sightings is a former publishing executive who was eased into early retirement in his mid-50s. He lives in the New York area and blogs at Sightings at 60, where he covers health, finance, retirement, and other concerns of baby boomers who realize that somehow they have grown up. |
by Coleen Van Der Watt, August 29, 2013
www.stankovuniversallaw.com
Preface
by Georgi Stankov
It may take some time before we comprehend exactly what has happened yesterday and this night. But there is no doubt that a major final decision has been made to begin with the detonation of the PAT Supernova independently of what will happen on the ground – what crimes the dark cabal intend to perpetrate on humanity. It is a predetermined outcome that they will fail and drop out from this reality, so that this final outburst of dark energies will only fuel our ascension, which is overdue long time ago.
The report of Coleen from South Africa as of today is another powerful confirmation that the ascension process has begun.
Carla had yesterday another important ascension journey to the 5th dimension, but she still needs to discuss its ramifications with the Elohim before we know exactly what she has accomplished during this visit. At the same time I was also retrieved from this reality and dwelled for almost two hours in the higher realms, where some important decisions were made as reported this night. As soon as I have more information on these recent energetic events, I will publish it immediately.
It is also important to note that yesterday there was another huge shift to higher dimensions and now, while I am writing this preface, a second powerful surge of source energies is coming. There is no doubt that the dramatics of the ascension process is now peaking parallel to the beginning of the anticipated atrocities of the dark Western cabal in the Middle East and elsewhere around the world. This is all part and parcel of the last act of this cosmic human drama before the curtain falls for this reality and the New Earth is unveiled.
______________________________ ______________________
Coleen’s Energy Report – August 29th, 2013
From South Africa
Dear Georgi
the last email I sent was really quick, my Internet is almost finished, so wanted to let you know. but here I am going to try and explain how I felt, hopefully the email will get to you.
Last night I could feel the energy’s soaring. I kept refreshing your site as I knew I would hear from you. It smacked me of my chair when my HS told me “No”, not the Internet. I tried to listen what she was going to say. To my surprise it was you. You told me that you were in 5D and that you needed my help in sending as much light as I could to the 5D and the PAT.
I immediately went to lie down this was at 9:00 pm and started sending out my light with the help of HS as you told me. I felt all the angels and light beings around me feeling their love and peace. and if I should ascend, they are there with me. I took your hand and Carla’s and could see all the PAT standing in huge circles holding hands with each shinning their light so bright.
I could feel in body that I could dissolve any moment. after an hour (although it felt much less) I opened my eyes, feeling disorientated as if I was in the wrong place. but I was in my room and all felt different but everything I was seeing was the same. I am truly still feeling like “where am I ?” I asked HS what this was all about. and she told me that there was a huge shift. I only slept for 2 hours at night and slept the whole morning. really tired. But had a dream about the Supernova.
I know you don’t reply to any emails but would like to hear from you.
Love and light
Coleen
______________________________ ___________
Dear Coleen,
I am very obliged for sending me this comprehensive account on what has happened yesterday evening and in the night. Carla had also a remarkable experience yesterday, but she still needs some validation from the Elohim what exactly took place.
I will publish your report as a confirmation of the beginning of the ascension process.
With love and light
George |
By
The BattleFrog west coast expansion tour travelled north from LA to San Francisco (sort of) this past weekend. While some folks were less than pleased by the distance that the venue was from San Francisco itself (roughly 75 miles), Sonoma County residents such as myself were incredibly excited to finally have a large-scale OCR event in our own backyard.
The event was held in the rolling hills surrounding Lake Sonoma, in the small town of Geyserville. Ultra-runners know this location well, as it annually hosts the Lake Sonoma 50 miler. Saturday morning brought clear skies, and temps in the low 50’s; this was in stark contrast to the three days prior to the event, which saw nothing but rain. As a result, the athletes were in for a very slick and muddy course. Oh yeah….and hills…lots of hills.
BattleFrog spread 29 obstacles across the 8k course (which measured as long as 7.2 miles depending upon whose GPS you believe). This was my first attempt at an OCR event that wasn’t a Tough Mudder, so I was anxious to see how I’d fare on some of the tougher obstacles.
As is the case with most BattleFrog events, the Elite and Masters male and female waves all launched at around 7:30am. The BattleFrog Xtreme folks (those who attempt to complete as many laps as possible during the day) were up next. If you ever attend a BF event, be sure to catch the briefing for the Xtreme heat. Chris Acord (aka The Beard) spells out the rules and dishes out a little pre-race punishment; and for those who miss the briefing – well, some special punishment (and public shaming) awaits them at the start line.
Once the Xtreme athletes were gone, it was time for the first Open wave of the day. This included yours truly. Coach Pain DeWayne lined us up in rows of 10 to 12 and then provided us with his signature motivational speech. He then sent us on our way, launching row after row every 15 seconds or so.
The course started off with a fairly steep downhill section. This would later be looked upon as a luxury, as they managed (or at least it seemed) to make a majority of this course uphill.
One thing was certain from the get go….BattleFrog loves walls. You name it, they’ve got it. We started with an Under/Over/Through set, and then came upon a 12-foot ladder wall shortly after that. Throughout the course, there were many more. There were straight walls of different heights (8 foot, 6 foot, 4 foot). There were walls angled in various directions (Inverted wall, Ramp wall, Wedge wall). They also threw in a challenging rope wall right near the end, just in case you had any grip strength left.
One of my favorite things about the course was the way they used the natural terrain against you. As a local who has run the trails in this area before, I thought I’d have a bit of an advantage. That would have been the case, had we actually stuck to the trails. To loosely paraphrase Doc Brown, “Trails? Where we’re going, we don’t need trails”. Where we did go was straight up the side of the mountain. A lot. The “Hill Scramble” was the 4th obstacle of the course, and it was hardly a scramble at all. It was a very long and very steep climb through some low grass. I don’t know the actual length of the climb, but my calves tell me it was 17 miles. These types of climbs occurred multiple times, this one just happened to have a title.
Since the event was held near a lake, I figured we’d end up in the lake at some point…and we did…although it was just a short trudge through the shallows, no more than thigh deep. Later, there was a really fun technical part of the course called Frog Falls, where we basically hiked and climbed our way through a deep creek bed for a while. The recent rains made climbing out of this area particularly slippery.
There were two “carry” obstacles on this course. The Wreck Bag Carry (50lb sandbag) and the Jerry Can Carry (one for each hand. 44lbs for the men and 22lbs for the women). If you are guessing that most of the carrying was done going uphill, you’d be correct.
As for the “tougher” obstacles that I mentioned earlier? The first to show up was called Weaver. This is a shallow A-frame structure with wide parallel bars across it. As you go through it, you must “weave” over a bar and then under a bar (and so on) until you reach the end. For me, the transition from over to under was particularly painful, and I have the bruises to prove it.
A bit further down the trail (mostly uphill, of course) was Tip of the Spear. This obstacle combines two grip strength sapping elements, both of which take place against steep A-frame walls. The first section had 6 ropes lying side by side, which you had to use to traverse the wall from right to left. This was made more difficult thanks to the wall being covered in a slippery plastic. A 4×4 balance beam lead you to the middle wall. This one had 2×4’s secured toward the top of the walls, angled upward in a chevron shape. There were two of these set-ups on the wall, with a small ledge to rest your feet after you completed the first one. A second balance beam lead you to the final wall, which was a repeat of the rope wall. The only catch here is that at the top of the last rope there is a bell that you must ring.
The Rope Climb was the 22nd obstacle of the day, and one that I had never attempted before. It was not as tall as I had expected, which artificially boosted my confidence. A quick attempt to muscle up the rope using only my arms was quickly met with defeat. As I waited for the feeling to return to my hands, I watched a few other athletes come through. By mimicking their cross footed, thigh squeezing technique, I was able to ring the bell on my second attempt.
Anyone who has heard of BattleFrog, has heard of the Platinum Rig. I knew it was coming, I just didn’t know exactly when. After yet another climb, as you’re approached the apex of the hill…you could hear the commotion. Lots of cheering, lots of grunting, and a few expletives being shouted. There is was, in all its lime green glory. As luck would have it, we were treated to back-to-back rigs. This would be my only failed obstacle of the day, which coincided with my first time ever doing 8-count body builders. Hats off to anyone who was able to complete this bad boy, I look forward to the day that I do.
Following the rig, you were actually able to get a glimpse of the finish line. With the “tough” obstacles behind me, this put a little boost in my gait. But our BattleFrog friends weren’t done messing with us just yet. After a short distance through relatively flat terrain, the Monkey Bars appeared. The big difference with these Monkey Bars is that the bars aren’t fixed. So they roll as you grip them. This added an extra degree of difficulty. It was a nice twist on an otherwise standard obstacle.
With the finish line now in clear site (up one more hill, of course), there was one more wall to conquer (of course there was). This was a 12-foot rope wall. This obstacle is basically a 12-foot wall with a rope hanging off the top, and a horizontal 2×4 about half way up. Because this obstacle was placed so late in the course, and grip strength was exhausted, it was quite challenging. I was fortunate to clear it, but my decsent from the top could best be described as “controlled falling”.
The signature Delta Cargo obstacle was the final of the day. After clearing that, my first BattleFrog was officially in the books. I received my finisher medal and headed to the beer tent.
I didn’t really know what to expect when I signed up for this event. Like any OCR company, there are fans and detractors of them all. Personally, I came away from this event incredibly impressed. Parking at this venue is incredibly sparse, but I feel they did a good job with the shuttle bus system that they employed. Registration was seamless for me, and the staff and volunteers were knowledgeable and friendly. I would definitely consider myself a fan of this series, and look forward to attending the one in San Jose in August.
*Photo credits to David Bird, Joe Forney, Rachelanne Gladden, and Christopher Thomas |
Authorities recovered 11 kilos of suspected shabu from a stronghold of the Maute group in Marawi City during a clearing operation, the military said on Monday.
Troops of Alfa Company led by First Lieutenant Emerson Tapang of the Army’s 49th Infantry Battalion found the shabu and four high-powered firearms in a former Maute position at 6 p.m. on Sunday, Joint Task Force Marawi Brig. Gen. Rolando Bautista said in a statement.
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Later, soldiers engaged Maute members in a firefight.
“Soldiers spotted men clad in black emerging from a cluster of houses that prompted troops to maneuver. The terrorists put up a fight but fled while carrying items taken from one of the houses,” Bautista said.
Authorities estimate the value of recovered shabu at around P110 million to P250 million.
The recovered drugs were turned over to Joint Task Group Haribon and will be transferred to the appropriate government agency, Bautista said.
Western Mindanao Command chief Lt. Gen. Carlito Galvez said the recovered illegal drugs was the biggest haul from the Maute group so far.
During the first and second weeks of the fighting, soldiers also found smaller but numerous packets of shabu from places used by the terrorists.
CBB/rga
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Texas pilot Theodore R. Wright III emerged from the Gulf of Mexico in 2012 with a story to tell.
Pilot Theodore R. Wright III, right, and passenger Raymond Fosdick were rescued by the U.S. Coast Guard after ditching in the Gulf of Mexico in September 2012. Both men now stand accused of fraud. U.S. Coast Guard photo.
He had ditched a Beechcraft Baron; filmed himself and his passenger treading water while awaiting rescue; and soon made the rounds on television with his video and harrowing tale of a cockpit fire, emergency descent, and water landing. Federal prosecutors say that was actually the first in a series of acts in a conspiracy to commit insurance fraud and arson by destroying two airplanes, a sports car, and a yacht.
Wright and his passenger from the 2012 Baron ditching, Raymond Fosdick, are among four men who now face decades in federal prison if convicted of all charges in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas in Tyler. Wright was arrested June 28, posted bond, then lost his freedom again July 5 when U.S. District Court Judge Ron Clark ordered Wright to be remanded to custody pending a trial scheduled to begin in October.
Once all four accused conspirators had been arrested by late July, the court unsealed the 25-page indictment detailing accusations against the quartet, with much of that case focused on Wright. Fosdick, who was arrested in South Carolina July 21, and Shane Gordon, who was associated with Wright in a variety of business ventures, as well as a registered charity Wright created, are accused of conspiring in various ways. Alleged conspirator Edward Delima was taken into custody in Hawaii, where prosecutors say he insured a 1998 Hunter Passage yacht (which Wright had purchased for $50,150) for $195,000, a few months before it sank at the dock.
Fosdick stands accused of participating in the first act of fraud, the Gulf of Mexico ditching, though Wright alone is named in conjunction with each overt act alleged in the federal grand jury’s indictment. According to that indictment, signed about a month before Wright's arrest, Wright prepared himself to ditch the 1966 Baron, N265Q, attending “water-landing training” in Alabama on three occasions prior to the Baron’s final flight: in April 2012, August 2012, and September 2012.
On Sept. 20, 2012, Wright and Fosdick departed Baytown, Texas, bound for Bradenton, Florida, a flight that ended in the deep water of the Gulf of Mexico, from which the aircraft was never recovered. Wright had purchased the Baron in March 2012 for $46,000, insured it for $85,000 in April 2012, and collected an $84,000 insurance payout Oct. 3, 2012.
“Hopefully we never have to do that again,” Wright told AOPA in a telephone interview on Oct. 9, 2012, offering an account of the experience coping with a purported in-flight fire that had transformed him, if briefly, into a media celebrity. His version of events at the time contrasts sharply with the version put forward more recently by federal prosecutors. According to federal court documents, Fosdick went on to sue Wright for $1 million for injuries and damages sustained in the September ditching. Fosdick settled his claim against Wright's insurance company for $100,000 in December 2013, and the proceeds were eventually divided between the two men and their lawyers.
A month later, Wright bought a 2008 Lamborghini Gallardo with a salvage title for $76,000, insured it, and then drove it into a ditch full of water on March 9, 2014. Wright went on to collect $169,554.83 from the insurance company, a check deposited by Gordon.
Five days after the Lamborghini was flooded, Wright purchased a 1971 Cessna Citation for $190,000, and subsequently insured it for $440,000 through one of several companies Wright and Gordon were involved in as listed corporate officers. Prosecutors say Fosdick flew to Athens, Texas, to destroy the jet on Aug. 29, 2014. Excerpts from a text message conversation between Wright and Fosdick are included in the grand jury indictment:
“Just don’t look suspicious there,” Wright warned in an iMessage exchange. He offered advice to Fosdick, who reported trouble with engine start. Later, Fosdick advised he had company:
“Old man just showed up,” Fosdick wrote, drawing an expletive from Wright in reply.
Prosecutors say Fosdick left the Citation at the airport on Aug. 30, 2014, and returned Sept. 12, 2014, to finish the job. Wright offered advice on vehicle “switcheroos:”
“Do not get made in that car or it will sink us,” Wright wrote in a text conversation.
Prosecutors say Gordon communicated via phone and email with the fire marshal in Athens, making false representations about the ownership of the aircraft, along with an unmanned “co-conspirator” who came forward to claim ownership. Gordon would later file the insurance claim, and Wright and his alleged co-conspirators received a $440,000 insurance settlement for the destroyed Citation. The check was deposited Feb. 11, 2015, and endorsed by Gordon, prosecutors said. Gordon and Wright then purchased a Gates Learjet Model 35A, serial number 476, on Feb. 27, 2015.
Also in February 2015, the sailboat sank. Wright had purchased the 1998 Hunter Passage in October 2014, and, according to the indictment, “'loaned'” Delima $193,500 to buy the vessel. Delima insured it for $195,000, and Wright paid the premiums, according to court documents. On Feb. 20, 2015, “the vessel was extensively damaged due to partially sinking in a marina in Ko Olina, Hawaii,” the indictment states.
A week later, Delima and Wright had a Facebook chat, also recorded in the indictment, regarding the insurance claim for the sailboat:
“I think you and I should be on the phone together for the claim call, I pretend to be you and give them all the info, then you will hear everything so you know what to say later, and we will be on messenger if we need to communicate while we are on the phone with them,” Wright wrote.
Prosecutors say the insurance company (not named in the indictment) issued a check for $180,023.80 on July 3, 2015.
Federal prosecutors have sought the forfeiture of the Learjet and $938,554.80 in known proceeds from the various crimes. The indictment was signed May 17.
Wright has apparently deleted Facebook and Instagram accounts for which he developed a following, sharing photos and anecdotes of aeronautical exploits. The last remaining trace of the online life Wright presented to the world is a Facebook page for his purported charity, Around the World for Life, which he claimed to have created to inspire children to fly in the October 2012 telephone interview with AOPA. That interview followed appearances on Inside Edition and with CNN’s Anderson Cooper. Wright said at the time that his sudden celebrity should be leveraged to help spread good words about general aviation.
“Let’s get what benefit we can out of this thing,” Wright said.
Wright’s attorney did not respond to an email seeking comment on behalf of his client, who, along with his alleged conspirators, faces a potential prison term of up to 90 years and up to $1 million in fines if convicted. |
Image copyright Reuters Image caption The attackers targeted a busy bus stop and a food kiosk in Eastleigh
Six people have been killed in explosions in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, officials say.
Several people were wounded in the attack, which took place in the Eastleigh suburb of the city.
More than 200 people were arrested in Eastleigh following the explosions, a police spokeswoman said.
Eastleigh is known as "Little Mogadishu" because of its large Somali population.
Although no group said it was behind the latest attack, many are blaming it on the Somali militant group al-Shabab.
Four members of the group were behind the four-day siege at a shopping centre in Nairobi last September, in which 67 people died.
'Grenades'
Eyewitnesses said devices appeared to have been thrown towards a bus stop and a food kiosk as people made their way home for the evening.
Kenya's Standard newspaper said that the twin blasts went off some 50m (165ft) apart on 11th Street, and some of those caught up in the attack had serious injuries.
Image copyright bbc
"We suspect it is a grenade," a local police officer told the AFP news agency.
Eastleigh has seen several recent grenade attacks, including one in December last year that killed four people.
The BBC's Caroline Karobia in the capital, Nairobi, says the 200 arrests do not come as a surprise - the police tend to carry out mass arrests after such attacks and charge people with petty offences like loitering, she says.
A week ago, more than 100 people were arrested following an attack on a church near the coastal city of Mombasa.
Unidentified gunmen entered the church, killing six people.
Kenya's government has ordered all Somali refugees living in towns to move into designated camps in a bid to end the attacks.
Interior Minister Joseph Ole Lenku said the directive had been issued because of the "emergency security challenges" facing Kenya. A refugee group condemned the decision as illegal.
Image copyright Reuters Image caption Nairobi has seen several attacks in recent months despite increased security efforts
Kenya has several thousand troops in Somalia, helping the UN-backed government tackle al-Shabab, who are linked to al-Qaeda.
President Uhuru Kenyatta has said Kenya's tourism sector is "on its knees" because of the threat from Islamist militants.
Mr Kenyatta met ethnic Somali leaders last week to ask for their help in identifying people they thought may be behind recent attacks in the capital.
"We all have a responsibility to bring this to an end," Mr Kenyatta said. |
Full text of "Coming test with Russia"
!i:;«;y'-?' 3'^7 73 .7GGcom c,3 :<.'!,;;•:</:-■ UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA LIBRARIES COLLEGE LIBRARY Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2011 with funding from LYRASIS IVIembers and Sloan Foundation http://www.archive.org/details/comingtestwithruOOIipp The Coming Tests with Russia Books by Walter Lippmann A PREFACE TO POLITICS DRIFT AND MASTERY THE STAKES OF DIPLOMACY THE POLITICAL SCENE LIBERTY AND THE NEWS PUBLIC OPINION THE PHANTOM PUBLIC MEN OF DESTINY AMERICAN INQUISITORS A PREFACE TO MORALS INTERPRETATIONS 1931-1932 INTERPRETATIONS I933-I935 THE METHOD OF FREEDOM THE NEW IMPERATIVE THE GOOD SOCIETY U. S. FOREIGN POLICY: SHIELD OF THE REPUBLIC U. S. WAR AIMS THE COLD war: A STUDY IN U. S. FOREIGN POLICY ISOLATION AND ALLIANCES: AN AMERICAN SPEAKS TO THE BRITISH THE PUBLIC PHILOSOPHY THE COMMUNIST WORLD AND OURS THE COMING TESTS WITH RUSSIA With William O. Scroggs THE UNITED STATES IN WORLD AFFAIRS I93I THE UNITED STATES IN WORLD AFFAIRS I932 The Coming Tests with Russia by WALTER LIPPMANN An Atlantic Monthly Press Book BOSTON • Little, Brown and Company • Toronto COPYRIGHT © 1961 BY WALTER LIPPMANN ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. NO PART OF THIS BOOK MAY BE REPRO- DUCED IN ANY FORM WITHOUT PERMISSION IN WRITING FROM THE PUBLISHER, EXCEPT BY A REVIEWER WHO MAY QUOTE BRIEF PAS- SAGES IN A REVIEW TO BE PRINTED IN A MAGAZINE OR NEWSPAPER. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NO. 61-I495O FIRST EDITION ATLANTIC-LITTLE, BROWN BOOKS ARE PUBLISHED BY LITTLE, BROWN AND COMPANY IN ASSOCIATION WITH THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY PRESS Published simultaneously in Canada by Little, Brown 6 Company {Canada) Limited PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Editor's Note MR. LIPPMANN had his first meeting with Mr. Khrushchev in the autumn of 1958, and at the conclusion he drew up a penetrating analysis of the Communist objectives as he had seen them emerge in their two-hour discussion. He emphasized that one of the fundamental differences between ourselves and the Russians is in our inter- pretation of ''the status quo." "Whereas we think of the status quo as the situation as it exists at the moment, [Mr. Khrushchev] thinks of it as the proc- ess of revolutionary change which is in progress. He wants us to recognize the revolution not only as it is but as it is going to be." That is a hard truth which we must keep in mind as we prepare for the coming tests with Russia. The second meeting of the two men took place [V] Editor's Note on April 10, 1961, at the Russian Premier's dacha at Sochi on the shores of the Black Sea. It was some- thing of a family affair, beginning with a long pri- vate talk at 11:30 in the morning, at which Mr. Khrushchev, the official interpreter, and Mr. and Mrs. Lippmann were present, and running on for eight hours with time out for eating, drinking, and a game of badminton. (Mr. and Mrs. Lippmann played against Mr. Khrushchev and the woman in- terpreter.) Fateful events were impending, for this was on the eve of the launching of the Russian astro- naut (of which Mr. Khrushchev said nothing); and the eve of the ill-judged invasion of Cuba, of which Mr. Khrushchev had been forewarned: he told Mr. Lippmann that it would be carried out by Cubans supplied with American arms, and that it would fail. In the opening talk, which lasted until nearly three o'clock, and intermittently thereafter, Mr, BChrushchev opened his mind more freely and for- cibly than he has to any other correspondent from the West. He spoke of disarmament, and dismissed the value for Russia of small nuclear weapons. He spoke of neutrality, and the inference to be drawn is that the Soviet Union will never again trust to [vi] i Editor's Note "the neutrality" of an individual, such as Secretary General Hammarskjold. ("You have not been troubled about this as long as you had the majority," Mr. Lippmann recalled his saying afterwards, "but when you lose the majority in the United Nations, as you will, the veto power will mean as much to you as it does to us.") The discussion ranged widely over the uncommitted nations, with Mr. Khrush- chev specifying those which would be in a rebellious state, and quite confident that the revolution would succeed. But the most serious part of the confronta- tion centered in the discussion of the future of Ger- many, which Mr. Khrushchev clearly regards as the most sensitive issue between the East and the West. In realistic detail he looked ahead to the solution which he declares must be found in the near future. This is an uncensored account of a vital and il- luminating exchange. It was written down, the first part of it, on the plane flying the Lippmanns from Moscow to London and the balance in the English capital. It is a sobering blueprint of the designs of our greatest adversary which we will do well to keep in mind in the tense months ahead. Edward Weeks [vii] i Face to Face: I 3 Face to Face: II 13 Face to Face: III 21 Postscript: To Ourselves Be True 31 The Coming Tests with Russia Face to Face: I ON THIS, our second visit, my wife and I were taken on a long journey by plane and auto to Mr. Khrushchev's country place in Sochi on the Black Sea. Before we left Moscow, accompanied by two interpreters and an oflEcial of the Press Depart- ment, there was much mystery about all the details of the coming visit, such as when and where we were to see the great man. In fact, as it turned out, he had no other appointments after half past eleven in the morning, when he met us in the pine woods near the entrance of his place. Eight hours later, a bit worn by much talk and two large meals, we in- sisted on leaving in order to go to bed. I would not like to leave the impression that all eight hours were devoted to great affairs of the world. Perhaps, all told, three and a half hours were spent in serious talk. The rest of the time went into [5] The Coming Tests the two prolonged meals at which Mr. Khrushchev, who is on what appears to be a nonfattening diet, broke the rules, saying joyously that the doctor had gone to Moscow for a day or two. The talk was largely banter between Mr. Khrushchev and Miko- yan (First Deputy Premier), who joined us for lunch, and the banter turned chiefly on Armenian food and Armenian wine and Armenian customs, which include the compulsion to drink all glasses to the end at each toast. Though we all drank a bit more than we wanted, Mikoyan chose to regard us as American ascetics who only sipped their wine. Finally Mr. Khrushchev took pity on us by provid- ing a bowl into which we could pour the wine as fast as Mikoyan filled our glasses. Between this heroic eating and drinking we walked around the place, which is large, met Mr. Khrushchev's grandson and Mikoyan's granddaugh- ter, inspected the new and very gadgety swimming pool and, believe it or not, played badminton with Mr. Khrushchev. In the serious talks, I might say that my wife made fairly full notes, I made a few jottings, but [6] with Russia there was no transcript and the translation was done very ably by Mr. Victor M. Sukhodrev, who is an official in the Foreign Ministry. It was understood that I was free to write what I liked when I had left Russia and to quote Mr. Khrushchev or not to quote him as seemed desirable. I shall set down my own understanding and interpretation of the most important and interesting points that he made. For an opening I reminded him that we had last seen him in October, 1958, nearly a year before his visit to the United States. Much has happened in these two and a half years and would he tell me what seemed to him the most important events for good or evil? After a moment or two of hesitation, he replied that during this period the two main forces in the world — the Capitalist and the Socialist — have concluded that it was useless to "test" one another by military means. I took him to mean by "test" the backing of their political aims by the threat of war. In contrast with 1958, when he professed to be- lieve that the United States and Germany might at- tack him, he spoke with confidence that, because of [7] The Coming Tests the growing strength of the Communist orbit, the threat of war from our side was dying down. As a re- sult, the United States was abandoning the "Dulles doctrine" that the neutrality of small states is "im- moral." He himself welcomed President Kennedy's proposals for a neutral Laos. You think then, I asked him, that there has been a change in United States policy? To this he replied that while there were some signs of a change, as for example in Laos, it was not a "radical" change, as could be seen in the United States attitude toward disarmament. What, I asked him, is wrong with the United States attitude? We cannot see, he replied, that any change is imminent when the subject of dis- armament is put in the hands of such a believer in armaments as Mr. McCloy. We think well of Mr. McCloy and during his time in Germany we had good relations with him. But asking him to deal with disarmament is a case of asking the goat to look after the cabbage patch. I interjected the remark that the final decisions would be made by the President. But Mr. Khrush- [8] with Russia chev insisted that the forces behind the President would determine his pohcy. These forces behind the Kennedy administration he summed up in the one word "Rockefeller." The view that he is running the Kennedy administration will be news to Gover- nor Rockefeller. I should add that Mr. Khrushchev considers me a Republican, which will be news to Mr. Nixon. Then we got onto the subject of nuclear testing. He said that the Western powers were not ready to conclude an agreement, and that this was shown, among other things, by the demand for twenty-one or perhaps nineteen inspections a year. He had been led personally to believe that the West would be satisfied with about three "sym- bolic" inspections. Nineteen inspections, our pres- ent demand, were nothing but a demand for the right to conduct complete reconnaissance of the Soviet Union. I asked him about his attitude towards under- ground testing. He replied that the U. S. S. R. has never done any underground testing and never will. [9] The Coming Tests I asked why? Because, he said, we do not see any value in small, tactical atomic weapons. If it comes to war, we shall use only the biggest weapons. The smaller ones are very expensive and they can decide nothing. The fact that they are expensive doesn't bother you because you don't care what you spend, and what is more many of your generals are con- nected with big business. But in the U. S. S. R. we have to economize, and tactical weapons are a waste. I report this without having the technical expertise to comment on it. Then he went on to say that the second reason why he had no great hopes of an agreement was that the French are now testing and are unlikely to sign the agreement. It is obvious, he said, that if the French are not in the agreement, they will do the testing for the Americans. To which I said, and the Chinese will do the testing for you. He paused and then said that this was a fair remark. But, he added, while China is moving in the direction where she will be able to make tests, she is not yet able to make them. When the time comes that she can, there will be a new problem. We would like all states to sign a nuclear agreement. [10] with Russia Finally, he came to his third reason why an agree- ment may not be possible. It turns on the problem of the administrator of the agreement. Here, he was vehement and unqualified. He would never accept a single neutral administrator. Why? Because, he said, while there are neutral countries, there are no neutral men. You would not accept a Communist administrator and I cannot accept a non-Commu- nist administrator. I will never entrust the security of the Soviet Union to any foreigner. We cannot have another Hammarskjold, no matter where he comes from among the neutral countries. I found this enlightening. It was plain to me that here is a new dogma, that there are no neutral men. After all, the Soviet Union had accepted Trygve Lie and Hammarskjold. The Soviet Government has now come to the conclusion that there can be no such thing as an impartial civil servant in this deeply divided world, and that the kind of political celibacy which the British theory of the civil service calls for is in international affairs a fiction. This new dogma has long consequences. It means that there can be international co-operation only if, in the ad- The Coming Tests ministration as well as in the policy-making, the Soviet Union has a veto. Our talk went on to Cuba, Iran, revolutionary movements in general and finally to Germany. I shall report on these topics in subsequent articles. [12] Face to Face: 11 IN THIS article I shall put together those parts of the talk which dealt with the revolutionary movements among small nations. Mr. Khrushchev spoke specifically of three of them — Laos, Cuba and Iran. But for him these three are merely ex- amples of what he regards as a worldwide and his- toric revolutionary movement — akin to the change from feudalism to capitalism — which is surely des- tined to bring the old colonial countries into the Communist orbit. I could detect no doubt or reser- vation in his mind that this will surely happen, that there is no alternative, that while he will help this manifest destiny and while we will oppose it, the destiny would be realized no matter what either of us did. Speaking of Iran, which he did without my rais- ['5] The Coming Tests ing the subject, he said that Iran had a very weak Communist party but that nevertheless the misery of the masses and the corruption of the government was surely producing a revolution. "You will assert/' he said, "that the Shah has been overthrown by the Communists, and we shall be very glad to have it thought in the world that all the progressive people in Iran recognize that we are the leaders of the progress of mankind." Judging by the general tenor of what he said about Iran, it would be fair to conclude that he is not contemplating military intervention and occu- pation — "Iran is a poor country which is of no use to the Soviet Union" — but that he will do all he can by propaganda and indirect intervention to bring down the Shah. In his mind, Iran is the most immediate example of the inevitable movement of history in which he believes so completely. He would not admit that we can divert this historic movement by championing liberal democratic reforms. Nothing that any of us can say can change his mind, which is that of a true believer, except a demonstration in some country that we can promote deep democratic reforms. [16] with Russia His attitude towards Cuba is based on this same dogma. Castro's revolution is inevitable and prede- termined. It was not made by the Soviet Union but by the history of Cuba, and the Soviet Union is in- volved because Castro appealed for economic help when the United States tried to strangle the revolu- tion with an embargo. He said flatly, but not, I thought, with much passion, that we were preparing a landing in Cuba, a landing not with American troops but with Cu- bans armed and supported by the United States. He said that if this happened, the Soviet Union would "oppose" the United States. I hope I was not misled in understanding him to mean that he would oppose us by propaganda and diplomacy, and that he did not have in mind mili- tary intervention. I would in fact go a bit further, based not on what he said but on the general tone of his remarks, that in his book it is normal for a great power to undermine an unfriendly govern- ment within its own sphere of interest. He has been doing this himself in Laos and Iran and his feeling about the American support of subversion in Cuba is altogether different in quality from his feeling [17] The Coming Tests about the encouragement of resistance in the satel- Hte states of Europe. Mr. Khrushchev thinks much more hke Richeheu and Metternich than hke Woodrow Wilson. I had an over-all impression that his primary in- terest is not in the cold war about the small and underdeveloped countries. The support of the revo- lutionary movements among these countries is for him an interesting, hopeful, agreeable opportunity, but it is not a vital interest in the sense that he would go to war about it. He is quite sure that he will win this cold war without military force be- cause he is on the side of history, and because he has the military power to deter us from a serious military intervention. His primary concern is with the strong countries, especially with the United States, Germany, and China. I could not ask him direct questions about China. But there is no doubt that in his calculations of world power, China is a major factor. I felt that he thought of China as a problem of the future, and that may be one of the reasons why for him the immediate and passionate questions have to do with with Russia Germany and disarmament. In my next article, I shall deal with what he had to say about Germany, which he discussed at some length. For the present I should add a few miscellaneous impressions. During our walk after lunch, Mikoyan (First Deputy Premier) being with us then, I tried to find out what they thought of President Ken- nedy's purpose to bring the American economy not only out of the current recession but out of its chronic sluggishness. For quite evidently, much of his buoyant confidence in the historic destiny of the Soviet Union is based on the undoubted material progress of Soviet industry as compared with our slow rate of growth. I had put the question to Mikoyan, assuming that he was the economic expert, but he deferred at once to Mr. Khrushchev. To Mr. Khrushchev it was certain that President Kennedy cannot succeed in accelerating American economic growth. He had, he told me, explained that to Mrs. Roosevelt when he was in New York during the American election. Why can't President Kennedy succeed? Because, he said, of "Rockefeller," and then added "Du Pont." [19J The Coming Tests They will not let him. This was, it appears, one of those truths that cannot be doubted by any sane man. None of this, however, was said with any personal animus against President Kennedy. Rather it was said as one might speak of the seasons and the tides and about mortality, about natural events which man does not control. While he has no confidence in the New Frontier, he has obvious respect for the President personally, though he confessed he could hardly understand how any man who had not been in a big government for a long time could suddenly become the head of it. Moreover, as I shall report tomorrow in talking about the German question, it is clear, I think, that he looks forward to another round of international negotiations before he pre- cipitates a crisis over Berlin. [20] Face to Face: III IT WAS clear to me at the end of a long talk that in Mr. Khrushchev's mind the future of Ger- many is the key question. I sought first to under- stand why he thinks the German problem is so urgent, and so I asked him whether, since agree- ment was so far off, a standstill of five or ten years might not be desirable. He said this was impossible. Why? Because there must be a German solution before ''Hitler's generals with their twelve NATO divisions" get atomic weapons from France and the United States. Before this happens there must be a peace treaty defining the frontiers of Poland and Czechoslovakia and stabilizing the existence of the East German State. Otherwise, West Germany will drag NATO into a war for the unification of Ger- many and the restoration of the old eastern frontier. His feeling of urgency, then, springs from two [^3l The Coming Tests causes: his need to consolidate the Communist East German state, the German Democratic Republic — known for short as the GDR — and second, his need to do this before West Germany is rearmed. He said several times that he would soon bring the German question to a head. Quite evidently, the possibility of nuclear arms for West Germany is not immediate. Bonn does not now have the weapons and although the possibility of it is real enough, the threat is not so urgent as to be a matter of a few months. The more immediately urgent considera- tion is, no doubt, the need to stabilize the East Ger- man regime, particularly in view of the flow of refugees. My general impression was that he was firmly re- solved, perhaps irretrievably committed, to a show- down on the German question. But it was evident also that he dreaded the tension — he referred to this several times — and is still looking for a ne- gotiation which will work out a postponement and an accommodation. In talks it transpired that he is thinking of the problem as having three phases. with Russia The first is what he considers the real and also the eventual solution. He has no hope, however, that the West will now accept it. His thesis is as follows: The two Germanys cannot be reunited. The West will not agree to a unified Communist Germany and the Soviet Union will not agree to the absorption and destruction of the GDR by West Germany. There are in fact two Germanys. The way to proceed is, then, to "codify" the status quo in the form of peace treaties with what he called the three elements of Germany. These three elements are West Germany, East Germany, and West Berlin. This codification would require de facto but not diplomatic recognition of the GDR. It would fix by international statute the position of West Berlin as "a free city," with its rights of access and its in- ternal liberty guaranteed by the presence of "sym- bolic contingents" of French, British, American and Russian troops, by neutral troops under the aegis of the United Nations, and by the signatures of the two Germanys and the four occupying powers. As I said above, Mr. Khrushchev does not expect [25] The Coming Tests at this time to reach this solution. He has, there- fore, a second position which he called a "fallback" position. This is essentially that of the Soviets at the last Geneva conference of the foreign ministers. It would call for a temporary agreement. In the Russian view but not in our view this temporary agreement would have a short and fixed time limit of perhaps two to three years. During this time the two German states would be invited to negotiate on a form of unification — perhaps, though he did not say so specifically in this talk, a kind of loose con- federation. At the end of the fixed period of time, if a new agreement about West Berlin along the lines I have outlined previously was reached, it would be embodied in a treaty. If no agreement was reached, the legal rights of occupation would lapse. This German solution was, as we know, refused by the West. But if there is to be another round of negotiation, variants on it are likely to be the sub- stance of the bargaining. If this fails, Mr. Khrushchev's third position is that he will sign a separate peace treaty with East Germany. Then the GDR will in the Soviet view [26] with Russia be sovereign over the rights of access to West Ber- hn. If the Western powers refuse to do business v^ith the GDR and use force to enter West Berhn, then the Soviet government will use the Red Army to blockade West Berlin. Though it would be foolish to undervalue his determination, the threat is not quite so fierce as it sounds. For he most certainly does not want a mili- tary showdown, and "doing business" with the GDR is a flexible and not a rigid conception. I have confined myself strictly to reporting my understanding of the Soviet policy on Germany. If I may venture an opinion of my own, I would make these points. First, Mr. Khrushchev will not precipitate a crisis until he has had a chance to talk face to face with President Kennedy.* Second, he will surely sign a separate peace treaty if he cannot negotiate a temporary accommodation, which is described under his "second position." * During the interview Mr. Khrushchev told me that there was the possibihty of a meeting with the President early in June either in Vienna or Stockholm, and asked me to keep this news confidential except from the United States Ambassador. [^'Tl The Coming Tests Third, the crucial points which will determine whether the German question is resolved by nego- tiation or goes to a showdown are whether the pros- pect of nuclear arms for Germany increases or diminishes, and whether or not we say that the freedom of West Berlin, to which we are pledged, can be maintained only by a refusal to negotiate about this future. I have been asked many times since we left the Soviet Union to come to London whether I found the whole interview encouraging or depressing. I found it sobering. On the one hand, the evidence was convincing that the U. S. S. R, is not contem- plating war and is genuinely concerned to prevent any crisis, be it in Laos, in Cuba, or in Germany, from becoming uncontrollable. On the other hand, there is no doubt that the Soviet Government has a relentless determination to foster the revolutionary movement in the underdeveloped countries. This relentless determination springs from an unqualified faith in the predestined acceptance of Communism by the underdeveloped countries. The Soviet Gov- ernment has great confidence in its own military [28] with Russia forces. But it regards them not as an instrument of world conquest, but as the guardian against Ameri- can interference with the predestined world revo- lution. I was sobered by all this because I do not think there is any bluff in it. [29] POSTSCRIPT May g, 1961 To Ourselves Be True WE HAVE been forced to ask ourselves re- cently how a free and open society can compete with a totalitarian state. This is a crucial question. Can our Western society survive and flourish if it remains true to its own faith and prin- ciples? Or must it abandon them in order to fight fire with fire? There are those who believe that in Cuba the attempt to fight fire with fire would have succeeded if only the President had been more ruthless and had had no scruples about using American forces. I think they are wrong. I think that success for the Cuban adventure was impossible. In a free society like ours a policy is bound to fail which deliberately violates our pledges and our principles, our treaties and our laws. It is not possible for a free and open [33I The Coming Tests society to organize successfully a spectacular con- spiracy. The United States, like every other government, must employ secret agents. But the United States cannot successfully conduct large secret conspira- cies. It is impossible to keep them secret. It is im- possible for everybody concerned, beginning with the President himself, to be sufficiently ruthless and unscrupulous. The American conscience is a reality. It will make hesitant and ineffectual, even if it does not prevent, an un-American policy. The ultimate reason why the Cuban affair was incompetent is that it was out of character, like a cow that tried to fly or a fish that tried to walk. It follows that in the great struggle with Com- munism, we must find our strength by developing and applying our own principles, not in abandoning them. Before anyone tells me that this is sissy, I should like to say why I believe it, especially after listening carefully and at some length to Mr. Khrushchev. I am very certain that we shall have the answer to Mr. Khrushchev if, but only if, we stop being fascinated by the cloak and dagger busi- [34] with Russia ness and, being true to ourselves, take our own prin- ciples seriously. Mr. K. is a true believer that Communism is destined to supplant capitalism as capitalism sup- planted feudalism. For him this is an absolute dogma, and he will tell you that while he intends to do what he can to assist the inevitable, knowing that we will do what we can to oppose the inevi- table, what he does and what we do will not be decisive. Destiny will be realized no matter what men do. The dogma of inevitability not only gives him the self-assurance of a man who has no doubts but is a most powerful ingredient of the Communist propa- ganda. What do we say to him, we who believe in a certain freedom of the human will and in the ca- pacity of men to affect the course of history by their discoveries, their wisdom and their courage? We can say that in Mr. K.'s dogma there is an unexamined premise. It is that the capitalist society is static, that it is and always will be what it was [35] The Coming Tests when Marx described it a hundred years ago, that — to use Mr. K.'s own Hngo — there is no difference between Governor Rockefeller and his grandfather. Because a capitalist society cannot change, in its dealings with the underdeveloped countries it can only dominate and exploit. It cannot emancipate and help. If it could emancipate and help, the in- evitability of Communism would evaporate. I venture to argue from this analysis that the rea- son we are on the defensive in so many places is that for some ten years we have been doing exactly what Mr. K. expects us to do. We have used money and arms in a long losing attempt to stabilize native governments which, in the name of anti-Commu- nism, are opposed to all important social change. This has been exactly what Mr. K.'s dogma calls for — that Communism should be the only alternative to the status quo with its immemorial poverty and privilege. We cannot compete with Communism in Asia, Africa, or Latin America if we go on doing what we have done so often and so widely — which is to place the weak countries in a dilemma where they [36] with Russia must stand still with us and our client rulers or start moving with the Communists. This dilemma can- not be dissolved unless it is our central and persist- ent and unswerving policy to offer these unhappy countries a third option, which is economic develop- ment and social improvement without the totali- tarian discipline of Communism, For the only real alternative to Communism is a liberal and progressive society. 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With two weeks left before a potentially significant status update in the Comcast SportsNet Houston bankruptcy case, Astros owner Jim Crane said negotiations continue with carriers and potential investors in the financially strapped network and that he is, as always, hopeful of progress.
U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Marvin Isgur earlier this month granted attorneys for the network an additional 30 days to submit a plan of reorganization and set a CSN Houston status conference for July 2.
In the meantime, Crane said this week the network “is in negotiations with pretty much everybody and hopeful of getting something done.”
“We’ve been in contact with everybody that’s in the game, and there’s some activity,” Crane said. “There’s been some interest from some private equity firms.”
The CSN Houston bankruptcy case, now in its ninth month, has unfolded slowly during a period of rapid changes in the television landscape. Recent developments have included Comcast’s plan to purchase Time Warner Cable, which has systems in several major Texas cities, and the proposed purchase of DirecTV by AT&T, which owns the U-verse video service.
“You’ve got two things coming down, and I think that’s going to create some tension,” Crane said. “It could be a positive for us.”
However, carriers ranging from DirecTV to Comcast and Suddenlink also must be concerned with the approaching launch of ESPN’s SEC Network.
ESPN and the Southeastern Conference reportedly are seeking monthly subscription fees of $1.30 per month in the conference footprint, which includes the entire state of Texas, at the same time that attorneys for CSN Houston are trying to fashion a reorganization plan that will lift the Astros-Rockets-Comcast network toward profitability.
CSN Houston’s rate structure remains sealed under a court order, but similar networks generally charge in excess of $4 per month for their core territory and less than a dollar in outlying areas.
Crane’s said the Astros’ recent improvement has sparked viewers’ interest in the team.
“We’ve gotten lots of calls the last couple of weeks,” he said. “People want to watch the games. We’ve got to get them on.”
There has been no movement in more than two months on the Astros’ motion to dismiss Judge Isgur’s Chapter 11 order, which was issued last February.
Also still pending in federal court is a civil lawsuit filed by Crane’s ownership group against former Astros owner Drayton McLane and Comcast, which stems from the valuation set on CSN Houston when Crane bought the team and McLane’s 46.5 percent share in CSN Houston in 2012. |
The first scrimmage of Oregon's preseason camp was marred by "a lot of penalties," coach Willie Taggart said, but he considered it "a good scrimmage we all can learn from."
The scrimmage, held Saturday and featuring officials, capped the first two weeks of preseason camp, and was followed by a team barbecue in north Eugene.
"I saw some good things and bad things," Taggart told reporters Monday in Eugene. "With it being the first scrimmage you expect some penalties. We had a lot of penalties. I thought overall it was a good scrimmage. I thought it was a good scrimmage we all can learn from."
"... Again those penalties just drive you crazy. I was also excited how we bounced back from those penalties. We didn't let it just kill us. Some of those penalties could be drive-stopping penalties but our guys stayed focused and was able to bounce back and make plays afterward, so I thought that was a good thing."
Oregon averaged 8.2 penalties per game last season, the 126th-highest average in the 128-team Football Bowl Subdivision. Oregon also ranked 126th by racking up 75.8 yards tied to penalties per game. Taggart's South Florida team averaged 6.4 penalties per game last season, ranking 79th, and 58.7 yards from them, which ranked 89th.
"Today we're going to go back and watch that film some more and learn from a lot of our mistakes and also learn from some of the good things we did be cause we did some good things, as well," Taggart said.
Here are today's links: |
Cyprus is Turkish, after all. Turks can do whatever they want there. They can even celebrate dropping napalm on Greeks and slaughtering them.
Uzay Bulut The writer is a Turkish journalist and political analyst formerly based in Ankara. She now lives in the United States. More from the author ► The writer is a Turkish journalist and political analyst formerly based in Ankara. She now lives in the United States.
On August 8, Muslim Turkish Cypriots and illegal settlers from Turkey celebrated the 53rd anniversary of Turkey’s napalm bombing of Greek Cypriot civilians in the Turkish-occupied enclave of Kokkina in Cyprus. Mustafa Akıncı, the president of the self-styled “Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus” (TRNC), which is recognized only by Turkey, also participated in the celebrations.
In August 1964, Turkish warplanes dropped napalm bombs on Kokkina in the Tillyria peninsula, hitting residential areas and a hospital, and killing more than 50 people, including 19 civilians. Ten years later, in 1974, Turkey invaded Cyprus and has occupied almost 40 percent of the island ever since.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Greece issued a note of condemnation regarding the celebrations:
“We are dismayed to note the celebrations of the Turkish Cypriot leadership, including Mr. Akinci himself, of the 53rd anniversary of the use of chemical weapons and dropping of napalm bombs by the Turkish air force on the Tillyria peninsula. This was the first use of banned chemical weapons in the history of our planet.
“Today, when the whole planet bows to the victims of wars and such hostile acts, the holding of and participation in such celebrations is an affront to international law, to the memory of the fallen, and to the whole of humanity.”
The Republic of Cyprus declared independence in 1960. Afterwards, Turkey escalated its preparations to invade the island, which included but were not limited to establishing a bridgehead at Kokkina in 1964 and smuggling arms and fighters from Turkey into the area in order to strengthen Turkish positions there.
According to the High Commission of the Republic of Cyprus in London,
“When in August 1964 the [Cypriot] Government attempted to contain the Kokkina bridgehead, Turkey's air force bombed the National Guard and neighboring Greek villages with napalm and threatened to invade. The other major purpose served by the enclaves was the political and physical separation of the two communities.”
Another preparation for the occupation by Turkey was its disguised violent attacks against Turkish Cypriots to further escalate inter-communal conflicts and alienate Turkish-speaking Cypriots from Greek Cypriots.
General Sabri Yirmibeşoğlu, a Turkish army officer, for example, said in televised comments in 2010 that Turkey burned a mosque during the Cyprus conflict “in order to foster civil resistance” against Greeks on the islandand that “The Turkish special warfare department has a rule to engage in acts of sabotage against respected values [of Turks] made to look as if they were carried out by the enemy.”
The deadly military assault against Kokkina in 1964 is celebrated by many Turkish Cypriots and settlers from Turkey as the “8 August Erenköy Resistance Day.” Turks now call Kokkina “Erenköy,” Turkish for “the village of the [Islamic] saints.”
In 2014, for example, the community leader of Kato Pyrgos, Costas Michaelides, condemned the formal Turkish celebrations in Kokkina, describing them as a “disgrace.” “The memories are alive because the victims, those who survived, are here. The crosses [on the graves] are here. However, many years pass, 50 or 150, we will see this in our daily lives, because they remind us of this cowardly attack against the unarmed people of Tylliria,” he said.
The Turkish narrative does not deny the smuggling of arms and fighters to Cyprus in 1964; the problem is Turks do not view these acts as illegal activities or crimes against the Republic of Cyprus. They see them as “heroism.”
During the celebrations on August 8, Mehmet Kadı, the mayor of Yeni Erenköy (Yialousa), said:
“53 days ago, today, in August 1964, the villagers, students and our mujahedeen [jihadists] struggled together, fought for this land and did not allow the enemy to enter here.”
The enemy that Kadı referred to is the Republic of Cyprus and Greek Cypriots, the natives of the island who still comprised the majority in the northern part of Cyprus back then.
The Turkish Cypriot Minister of Economy and Energy, Sunat Atun, also issued a statement regarding “the Erenkoy resistance” and referred to it as “an act of heroism.”
“Turkish Cypriot people engaged in powerful and honorable resistance in the face of the inhumane attacks by the dual of the Rum [ethnic Greeks] and Greece. About 500 students from Anatolia and a group of Turkish Cypriots from Britain started landing in Cyprus to defend their homeland when attacks against Turkish Cypriots escalated in 1964.”
Mustafa Arıkan, the head of the Erenköy Mujahedeen [Jihadists] Association, also announced that during the commemoration, “for the first time, family members of 28 martyrs were given plaques.”
On July 20, 1974, Turkey mounted a bloody invasion of the island. The second Turkish offensive, codenamed Attila 2, took place between August 14-18. The invasion was accompanied by the mass murder of Greek Cypriot civilians, including women, and infants, unlawful arrests and torture of Greek Cypriots, and rapes of Greek Cypriot children and women, among other atrocities.
Zenon Rossides, the then-Cyprus representative to the United Nations, sent a letter on 6 December 1974 to the UN Secretary General, which said in part that Turkey “launched a full scale aggressive attack against Cyprus, a small non-aligned and virtually defenseless country, possessing no air force, no navy and no army except for a small national guard. Thus, Turkey's overwhelming military machine embarked upon an armed attack including napalm bombing of open towns and villages, wreaking destruction, setting forests on fire and spreading indiscriminate death and human suffering to the civilian population of the island.”
The greatest consequence of the invasion was that Turkey changed the demographic structure of the northern part of the island, terrorizing around 200,000 indigenous Greek Cypriot majority population (more than one-third of the population) into fleeing to the southern part of the island. It is estimated that more than 100,000 Turkish settlers have been implanted in northern Cyprus since then. Lands and houses belonging to Greek Cypriots were then distributed to Turkish Cypriots and to Turks brought from Turkey to settle in those areas.
According to the official website of the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “Cyprus has never been a Greek Island
Turkish supremacists act so blatantly in Cyprus because they claim Cyprus is a Turkish island. Thus, bringing in Turkish fighters to Cyprus to kill Greek Cypriots, importing tens of thousands of settlers from Turkey, deploying around 40,000 Turkish soldiers there, forcibly changing the demographics of the island, seizing the homes and other property of Greek Cypriots, and wiping out the island’s historic Hellenic and Christian identity through the destruction of its cultural heritage are all legitimate acts according to the Turkish narrative.
Cyprus is Turkish, after all. Turks can do whatever they want there. They can even celebrate dropping napalm on and slaughtering Greeks.
Employing Orwellian rhetoric, Turkey calls the military invasion of Cyprus “a peace operation.” In 1974, Kemalists and Islamists of all political parties supported the invasion of Cyprus. Moreover, Turkey does not recognize Cyprus as a Greek island or even as “a nation.”
According to the official website of the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “Cyprus has never been a Greek Island. It is both useful and important to keep in mind that there has never been in Cyprus a ‘Cypriot nation’ due to the distinct national, religious and cultural characteristics of each ethnic people who, in addition, speak different languages.”
The Turkish ministry cannot be more wrong. Never until the Turkish invasion in 1974 did the northern part of the island have a Turkish majority. Both the north and south of the island were majority-Greek and majority-Christian until 1974. “Cyprus has been a part of the Greek world as far back as can be attested by recorded history,” writes the author Constantine Tzanos.
“After the collapse of the Byzantine Empire and the defeat of the Venetians, it fell to Ottoman rule from 1571 to 1878. In 1878 it was placed under British administration, was annexed by Britain in 1914, and in 1925 became a British colony.”
However, the Cyprus question has been one of the key aspects of the Turkish foreign policy for a very long time. Actually, Cyprus has never ceased to be a “national cause” for Turks ever since the Ottomans first invaded it in 1571. A Muslim sovereign is not allowed to relinquish land once it has been conquered. And they can even celebrate their war crimes and murders.
Showing no regard for the sufferings of Greek Cypriots, many Turkish Cypriots and their leaders – including Mustafa Akıncı – have celebrated the deadly assaults on their Greek neighbors. But a community leader who genuinely aims for a peaceful resolution and coexistence in Cyprus would condemn the use of napalm bombs on unarmed civilians and the destruction of that part of the island, and would commemorate the Greek Cypriot victims as well.
Sadly, Turkish Cypriots’ celebrations of the brutal warfare against Greek Cypriot civilians have discredited all of their erstwhile statements that they support a peaceful resolution of the conflict in the island and justice for all its inhabitants. |
WELLINGTON (Reuters) - New Zealand Prime Minister John Key, who won praise for his economic stewardship after the global financial crisis, unexpectedly announced his resignation on Monday after eight years in power, backing his finance minister to take the helm.
Bill English, deputy prime minister and finance minister, said he would likely decide overnight whether to stand for the leadership of the ruling center-right National Party at a special December 12 caucus meeting.
Key, a popular former foreign exchange dealer who grew up in state housing, is part-way through a third, three-year term that has been marked by political stability and economic reform.
He told reporters he would stay in parliament long enough for his party to avoid a by-election for his seat. National elections are not expected until late 2017.
“It leaves the Cabinet and caucus plenty of time to settle in with a new Prime Minister before heading into election year with a proud record of strong economic management,” Key told reporters in Wellington.
“I am hugely confident that National can and will win the next election.”
Key said he would vote for English if he stood for party leader and prime minister at the December 12 caucus meeting.
“I’ll be talking to caucus and family today and tonight,” English told reporters. “I wouldn’t stand if there wasn’t strong caucus support for me standing.”
English, a political veteran who previously worked on the family farm and as a Treasury Department policy analyst, would likely continue with many of Key’s core policies, analysts said.
Steven Joyce, who has held a variety of senior cabinet positions since joining the parliament in 2008, is seen as another potential candidate, while Judith Collins, the minister for police and corrections, told local media she would not rule out running.
“We expect New Zealand’s very strong institutions to lead to a smooth transition and policy continuity,” ratings agency Moody’s said in a statement, adding there were no implications for New Zealand’s Aaa credit rating.
The New Zealand dollar fell around a fifth of a U.S. cent on the news and was last trading around $0.71 NZD=D4.
“One issue to be mindful of is that we’ve had political stability in New Zealand now for a number of years,” said Philip Borkin, a senior economist at ANZ. “That may not change significantly but it does add a little bit of uncertainty to the political environment that we’re used to.”
New Zealand's Prime Minister John Key waves to photographers during the APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) Summit in Lima, Peru, November 20, 2016. REUTERS/Mariana Bazo/File photo
“SAY IT AIN’T SO, BRO”
Key, a multi-millionaire who worked at banks including Merrill Lynch, won office for the Nationals in 2008, ending the nine-year rule of Labour’s Helen Clark. English briefly served as leader of the National Party previously, trying and failing to unseat Clark in 2002.
Together Key and English won praise for their stewardship of the NZ$240 billion ($170 billion) economy in the aftermath of the global financial crisis and two devastating earthquakes near Christchurch.
In October, New Zealand reported its second straight budget surplus, helped by an economy growing at 3.6 percent in the second quarter.
Key steps down with his party in a dominant position in New Zealand’s German-style mixed member proportional representation parliament.
A Roy Morgan poll last week showed support for the National Party up 1.5 percent to 49.5 percent, clearly ahead of the Labour/Greens alliance, at 37.5 percent support.
“I sent him one very short message ‘Say it ain’t so bro’,” Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull told reporters in Melbourne.
“John Key is one of the most outstanding national leaders in the world today...He is somebody that all of us, right around the world, leaders in countries large and small, draw inspiration from.”
Key has been dubbed “Teflon John” for avoiding lasting damage from a series of controversies which include repeatedly pulling the ponytail of a waitress, his handling of the arrest of accused internet piracy kingpin Kim Dotcom and his backing of a failed referendum to change the New Zealand flag.
Slideshow (4 Images)
“As a top trader he knows you sell stocks when they are at their highs, not lows,” Bryce Edwards, lecturer in politics at the University of Otago, told Reuters. “So he’s managed to leave politics on a high note and will go down in history as a popular politician.”
Asked if he had any regrets, Key said that not securing the Trans Pacific Partnership trade deal was a major one, but it was time to call it quits for his wife Bronagh.
“Ten years at the top is a long time, it is a lot of lonely nights for Bronagh. I really feel I owe it to family to come home.”
($1 = 1.4112 New Zealand dollars) |
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Back toward the end of 2015, light field camera company Lytro announced a major turn toward the VR market with the introduction of ‘Immerge’, a light field camera made for capturing data which can be played back as VR video with positional tracking. Now the company is showing the first footage shot with the camera.
Lytro has made point-and-shoot consumer light field cameras since 2012. And while the company has had some success in the static photo market, the potential market for the application of light field capture has pulled the company into VR in a big way.
Immerge, a 360 degree light field camera in the works by Lytro, captures incoming light from all directions. With not only the color of the light, but also its direction, the camera is capable of capturing data representing a stitch-free snippet of the real world, and (uniquely compared to other 360 degree cameras) the data which is captured allows for positional tracking from the user’s head (the ability to move your head through 3D space {‘parallax’} and have the scene react accurately).
This ability is one of the major advantages over standard film capture, and is seen as critical for immersion and comfort in VR experience. Now, Lytro is showing off the first light field footage shot by their Immerge camera; they say it’s the “first piece of 6DOF 360 live action VR content ever produced.”
Light field captures from Lytro’s camera also have a few other tricks, like the ability to change the IPD (distance between the stereo images, to align with each user’s eyes) and focus as needed in post-production.
The company says that Immerge’s light field data captures scenes not only with parallax, but also with view-dependent lighting (reflections that move correctly based on your head position), and truly correct stereo which works no matter the orientation of your head. Traditional 360 degree camera systems have issues showing stereoscopic content when the viewer tilts their head in certain directions, while Immerge’s light field captures retain proper stereo no matter the orientation of the head, Lytro says.
According to Lytro’s VP of Engineering, Tim Milliron, Immerge can render up to 8k per eye resolution, synthesizing the view from hundreds of constituent sub-cameras. Milliron says the company expects content creators to use Immerge’s light field captures like a high quality master file, from which a high-end 6DOF-capable experience could be distributed in app-form to desktop VR headsets, or other more basic 360 video files could be rendered for uploading and playback through traditional means.
Last year, Lytro raised a $50 million investment to pursue their VR interests. While the company initially expected to have Immerge ready in the first half of 2016, it’s just now in Q3 that we’re seeing the first test footage shot with the device. Felix & Paul Studios, Within (formerly ‘Vrse)’, and Wevr were initially said to be among the first companies outside of Lytro to get access to the camera to begin prototyping content. The company is also accepting applications for access to the prototype camera on the official Immerge website. |
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Oil prices plummeted Friday, erasing the previous session's spike, as the dollar strengthened and investors worried that a decline in demand will spread outside the United States.
U.S. crude for October delivery dropped $6.59 to settle at $114.59 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
The drop in oil was the largest single-day slide in dollar terms since Jan. 17, 1991, when oil fell by $10.56. On that day, President George H.W. Bush withdrew oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve ahead of the first Gulf War.
But in 1991, oil was trading at just $32 a barrel, so the more than $10 slide in dollar terms represented a record 33% drop. Oil fell 5.4% Tuesday, which does not even crack the top 50 price declines in percentage terms.
Oil's second-largest slide on Friday comes a day after the second-largest gain on record. Crude futures soared $5.62 a barrel Thursday to rise above $121 a barrel.
"We're trending towards a lot of oil price volatility on the direction of the dollar," said Peter Beutel, an oil analyst with Cameron Hanover. "There are huge amounts of money involved, and the large moves have been based primarily on dollar strength."
Dollar rebounds: The dollar rose after a key measurement showed British economic growth stalled in the second quarter.
The U.K.'s gross domestic product between April and June showed zero growth, the country's statistics office reported Friday.
The economic weakness in Britain signaled that falling demand for oil due to high fuel prices could spread to Europe, according to Kyle Cooper, director of research with IAF Advisors in Houston.
"Fewer trucks delivering packages, fewer people going to work ... There's a very strong correlation between GDP growth and oil usage," said Cooper.
The U.K. report follows other reports this week showing weakness in the euro zone and Japanese economies, putting U.S. investment - and the dollar - in a more favorable light.
A stronger dollar makes crude more expensive for foreign investors, because crude futures are traded in U.S. currency. Rising dollar values also pull investor money out of oil, since many use crude and other commodities as a hedge against inflation.
Georgia-Russia: Oil rose Thursday on tensions between NATO and Russia over the nation's occupation of Georgia. Georgia contains several vital pipeline links that carry crude oil and natural gas between Europe and Asia.
But those tensions appeared to ease Friday.
"There was the potential for some type of action across the Georgian border and we just haven't seen anything," said Neal Dingmann, senior energy analyst with Dahlman Rose & Co.
Also easing supply worries, a BP-led consortium prepared to resume oil flow through the region's Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, a major oil link between Turkey and the Caspian Sea.
"We're still integrity testing," said BP spokesman Toby Odone, "We expect it will be back in normal operation next week."
U.S. gasoline demand: Falling demand for petroleum-based fuels in the United States has been the main force behind oil's fall from a record high of $147.27 in mid-July.
Demand for gasoline last week was about 9.5 million barrels a day, or 1.6% lower than it was last year, according to an Energy Department inventory report released Wednesday.
Drivers were also spending less time on the road in June, according to a second report from the Transportation Department last week.
Drivers will even cut back over the Labor Day weekend, according to a projection from motorist group AAA. The number of travelers avoiding cars and air travel, and using buses, trains, or other transportation will increase by 12.5% this year, AAA said.
National gasoline prices are down more than 42 cents a gallon from the record high set last month, according to the AAA's daily survey of service stations, falling below $3.70 a gallon. |
Jessie Unterhalter and Katey Truhn, two high-spirited muralists from Baltimore known for their bold, geometric style, are well on their way to completing a new commission on the side of the 710 Main Theatre.
I caught up with the pair this morning as they were putting down the mural's first layer:
Unterhalter and Truhn arrived last week to start the mural and have spent the last several nights sketching out its basic contours with help from video artist and projection pro Keith Harrington (also known as Projex). They're about a third finished with the piece, which will look something like this when it's complete:
And here's an image of the artists' rendering as if viewed straight-on:
The project is part of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery's public art program, a collaboration with Erie County and the City of Buffalo.
Stay tuned for more about the mural and the artists throughout the day.
Email: [email protected] |
President Trump has had a busy first week in office, displaying the anarchic grandiosity, callousness, and ineptitude of which he seems uniquely capable. He is every inch what we knew him to be: a malignant Chauncey Gardiner. And now our institutions have begun to shudder at his whim. The fact that atheists like me can’t find the time to worry about the religious crackpots he has brought with him into power is a measure of how bad the man is. Christian fundamentalism has become the least of our concerns. Our democracy has been engulfed by a hurricane of lies.
Many readers have asked me to comment on the president’s executive order suspending immigration from certain Muslim-majority countries. I believe I’ve stated my positions on the relevant topics fairly clearly. But perhaps a brief summary is in order.
1. I did everything I could to make the case against Trump prior to the election (while many of the liberals now attacking me for enabling his “Islamophobia” actively undermined the candidacy of Hillary Clinton, even in the final days of the campaign).
2. I think Trump’s “Muslim ban” is a terrible policy. Not only is it unethical with respect to the plight of refugees, it is bound to be ineffective in stopping the spread of Islamism. As many have pointed out, it is also internally inconsistent: It doesn’t include Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, or Lebanon, any of which has been a more fertile source of jihadist terrorism than several of the countries Trump named.
3. However, most of what is being said in opposition to Trump’s order is thoroughly contaminated by identity politics and liberal delusion. The Left seems determined to empower the Right by continuing to lie about the problem of Islamism. As David Frum recently wrote, “When liberals insist that only fascists will defend borders, then voters will hire fascists to do the job liberals won’t do.” I have been saying as much for more than a decade—and am vilified by my fellow liberals whenever I do.
What we need, above all, is a new center to our politics—one that defends secularism, science, and free speech against their enemies on both the Left and the Right.
4. It is perfectly possible—and increasingly necessary—to speak about the ideological roots of Islamism and jihadism, and even about the unique need for reform within mainstream Islam itself, without lapsing into bigotry or disregarding the suffering of refugees. Indeed, when one understands the problem for what it is, one realizes that secular Muslims, liberal Muslims, and former Muslims are among the most desirable allies to have in the West—and, indeed, such people are the primary victims of Islamist intolerance and jihadist terror in Muslim-majority countries.
5. If liberals who refuse to speak honestly on these topics continue to march with Islamists, denigrate free speech, and oppose the work of the real reformers in the Muslim community, they will only further provoke and empower Trump. And Trump, in turn, will empower Islamists the world over by threatening the civil liberties of all Muslims within his reach.
6. The next acts of jihadist terrorism to take place on American soil will most likely be met with terrifyingly blunt (and even illegal) countermeasures by the Trump administration. If all that liberals can do in response is continue to lie about the causes of terrorism and lock arms with Islamists, we have some very rough times ahead.
7. If you are listening to obscurantists like Linda Sarsour, Dalia Mogahed, Reza Aslan, and representatives of CAIR, and denigrating true secularists and reformers like Maajid Nawaz, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Raheel Raza, and Sarah Haider, you are part of the problem.
Nothing that I have said or written about Islam, the war on terror, or even “profiling”[1] stands in contradiction to these points.
What we need, above all, is a new center to our politics—one that defends secularism, science, and free speech against their enemies on both the Left and the Right. And now we each must choose between supporting that civilizing project and joining in the chaos to come.
Addendum 1/30/17
The following interview was recorded several months before the 2016 presidential election: |
The jihad sisters: Bubbly and exceptionally bright, these twins with 28 GCSEs were set to train as doctors. Now they're in Syria 'training to be killers'
Twins Salma and Zahra Halane left their parents’ home in middle of night
They then caught a flight to Turkey, before crossing the border to Syria
Sisters appeared to be typical teenagers, pouting for selfies and shopping
Now they are feared to be training for battle in footsteps of elder brother
Twin schoolgirls who followed their jihadi brother to Syria were hard-working students who hoped to train as doctors.
Sixteen-year-olds Salma and Zahra Halane, who last summer achieved 28 GCSEs between them, left their parents’ home in the middle of the night and caught a flight to Turkey, before crossing the border.
Police said the pair are thought to have followed their elder brother, who ditched his own ‘excellent’ academic career to join the ISIS terror group around a year ago.
Scroll down for video
Salma (left) and Zahra Halane (right), who last summer achieved 28 GCSEs between them, left their parents’ home in the middle of the night and caught a flight to Turkey, before crossing the border
Friends said the twins had appeared to be typical teenagers, pouting for selfies and shopping at Primark – but they are now feared to be training for battle.
Last night a rebel fighter boasted that he was teaching girls as young as 16 how to fight. Yilmaz, a Dutch national who has been in Syria for two years, told Sky News: ‘It’s extremely easy to get here. People go on holiday ... they end up in Syria.’
The twins’ parents raised the alarm last month, after finding the girls’ beds empty and their passports and clothes missing.
A former neighbour said the couple had been ‘quite strict’, and did not allow the girls to ‘mix with other children on the street’. Others recalled that the twins wore headscarves when they were as young as nine. But Rhea Headlam, who sat next to Zahra in primary school, said they were ‘just normal teenage girls’.
‘I’m really shocked – I used to bump into them at Primark,’ she added. ‘They were both really clever.’
Selfies: Zahra, left, and Salma, right, pose with friends in pictures taken not long before they fled the UK
Schoolgirl: Zahra Halane kneels in front of friends when she was in Year 6 at her primary school
Last summer Salma achieved 13 GCSEs – 11 of them at grades A* to C – while Zahra passed 15, of which 12 were A*-C. The results put them in the top 10 per cent of their year group at Whalley Range High School for Girls in Manchester.
They went on to study at Connell Sixth Form College, where fellow students said they hoped to follow in the footsteps of their elder sister Hafsa, 25, who is at medical school in Denmark after graduating from Manchester University.
‘The twins both have aspirations to become doctors – that is their ambition,’ said one. Another claimed it was ‘typical’ of the girls to head to Syria ‘after they had finished term’, adding: ‘They wouldn’t want to mess up their education.
‘I’m shocked they have gone. They didn’t seem to be radical or extremist in their views.’
Support: Visitors arrive at the family home yesterday, but the girls' parents have not spoken publicly
It emerged yesterday that the girls’ devoutly Muslim Somali refugee parents and their 11 children had been moved from an estate made famous by the TV series Shameless to an upmarket suburb, after telling the council they needed more bedrooms.
They were given a six-bedroom end-terrace despite the protests of the existing tenant. Yesterday the large back and front gardens were strewn with discarded household items and children’s plastic toys.
The house's previous resident - a 40-year-old Army heroine who served in Bosnia - said last night she had been booted out of the house by Manchester City Council so the twins and their family could move in.
Former lance corporal Dawn Benjamin told The Sun she had thought the house - her childhood home - would be 'going to a good family'.
She added: 'I lost my life, memories, everything I'd grown up with, to house jihadi wannabes'.
Ms Benjamin and her young son had to move out after they were served with a court order. The council confirmed the house had been needed for a larger family.
Police probe: Officers were seen leaving the house. The large back and front gardens were strewn with discarded household items and children's plastic toys
Neighbours said the twins’ parents were keen to share elements of Somalian culture with them, taking round dishes of traditional delicacies for them to try. The twins’ father Ibrahim is understood to teach at a nearby mosque, where leaders this week issued a statement repudiating extremism and opposing violence of all kinds.
Mohammed Shafiq, of the Ramadan Foundation, said the family were moderate Muslims who know all about the dangers of war-torn countries. ‘They were desperately unhappy to discover [their son] had gone to Syria, and they thought they were keeping a watchful eye on their other children. Then this happens,’ he said.
Sources believe Salma and Zahra were inspired by their brother’s transformation into a jihadi fighter, and became radicalised themselves while viewing extremist Islamist material online.
According to police sources, their brother also travelled to the family’s native Somalia, where he may have linked up with another Islamist terror group al-Shabab.
A friend told The Sun the brother was known for his ability to recite long passages of the Koran.
Officers are investigating how the girls funded their own trip, over fears they have been bankrolled by jihadi fighters who want them as their wives.
As many as 1,500 Britons may have travelled to Syria to fight alongside rebels. Many of them have posted messages online promising to use their ‘terror skills’ if they return to Britain. |
- If you place a Relentless Raider turn 1 and follow it with any of Greystone Ravager or Orc Clan Captain turn 2, you can fool your opponent you're a plain aggro deck. That can cause him to focus on Raider, rather than Ravager, letting you keep that precious orc on board.
- If you place just a Greystone Ravager on board, you can trick your opponent you're a prophecy battlemage. Especially if your next card is Morkul Gatekeeper.
- And, finally, placing Wardcrafter can make him think you're a midrange battlemage with plenty of wards. Morkul in next turn also won't break the illusion.
Wh-where do I start. This deck changed my life. And I didn't mean to!Currently I'm 10-1 with this deck. After getting 10-1 with midrange orc warrior I decided to change things up a bit and make an orc battlemage. The idea was around my head for a while, ever since I saw now private/deleted Faylash's midrange assassin list with dark rebirths and dragons.So... let's talk about advantages and disadvantages.+ BURST. You can close the gaps like nothing else in this game. Between lightning bolts, ancano, dark rebirth (with charge creatures or ancano) and charge creatures you can go face really hard and not worry.+ Pretty easy to pick up. At its core it's an aggro list. It's not Time to Fight, but it's still relatively easy to just get up and play. Barring the cards' cost in dust that is.+ So many favorable matchups. I've beaten 3 rage archers on my way there. I've smashed ramp spellsword and scout. If you recognize these - good. That's probably how a ladder looks for you now lol.- If the ladder is full of control mages (specifically mages, you couldn't care less if you're facing spellswords) or token crusaders or literally anything faster, you probably shouldn't play this deck. It can race, but not that well. And as a passive player you can't do much due to all the breakthrough.- No healing. To be expected from a Battlemage.And probably something else. I don't know. I love this deck, but at the same time I'm scared because I can close a gap as large as 10 damage on turn 8.Your acceptable starting hand is at least 1 card that is a 3-or-less drop and preferably neither Stoneshard Orc nor Stronghold Patrol. Not really hard. Keep Rapid Shot if you're facing a Battlemage (1 hp creatures a plenty) and optionally Assassin if you feel like you're against goblins, I guess. Then start pressuring. Depending on your starting hand you can seriously fool your opponent. Now let's talk about that.If you keep that in mind, you can potentially make your opponent play however you want him to.Your general plan is to go face. If your opponent drops a card, think what will he do with it and play accordingly. Trade with breakthrough against stuff that can kill something on your side. Keep Stoneshard Orc s in your pocket for problematic creatures, same with Earthbone Spinner s for guards or, for example, Murkwater Shamans.I'd talk about budget replacements here, but there's one little issue. Wood Orc Headhunter is a huuuge part of this deck. The 5 cost 5 attack charge creature is HUGE. You can't just replace it. Not even Vigilante, which I still pack 1 of, can do the job this thing can. The closest thing with that much impact would be Royal Sage . You can even Dark Rebirth the sage for double the impact, but trust me when I say that these two are not even close to be compared, unless your Sage gets charge twice. Alternatively, to keep the deck mostly red, you can play Triumphant Jarl , but I personally really don't like this card. It doesn't feel right, that's all.Other than that your replacements are the usual. Relentless Raider into Fiery Imp Earthbone Spinner and Belligerent Giant into 3 copies of Cast Out and 1 Bone Bow Stoneshard Orc , despite being a rare, are a part of Madhouse Collection. With Twitch drops you should buy that collection eventually, but for the sake of just bringing the gem cost down for everything, try Skaven Pyromancer Garnag, Dark Adherent and (though you should probably have his deck bought) Ancano for... I have no clue what you could bring here. Maybe Fate Weaver , although there ain't that many prophecies in the deck.Finally, Underworld Vigilante 's closest available replacement is Battlefield Scrounger In the end, just focus in having 3 Underworld Vigilante s in deck. As a matter of fact, either Time to Fight battlemage by flex or prophecy battlemage will probably be a better thing to run. Wood Orcs are, seriously, too important. Unless you really love orcs and want to play them, don't craft them first. |
Nonprofits in Arkansas will no longer benefit from the sales and use tax refund provided by the Nonprofit Incentive Act of 2005. Senate Bill 160, which was signed into law last week, repeals the Act, effective 90 days after the end of the 2017 legislative session.
The Nonprofit Incentive Act was created as an incentive to draw nonprofits to the state. The text of the Act notes, “In situations in which a nonprofit organization is considering whether to locate its operations in Arkansas, it is important to have an inducement to help the nonprofit organization decide to locate to Arkansas.”
However, bill sponsor Sen. David Wallace told the Senate that the incentives had never been used because nonprofits would “rather stay in Washington, D.C.” Wallace was asked by the Arkansas Economic Development Commission to sponsor a bill to eliminate the program. Additional information about the incentive is available in the text of SB 160.
Changes in product taxability, exemptions, and sales and use tax rates make it challenging for businesses to manage sales and use tax. Tax automation software facilitates sales and use tax compliance in all states. Learn more.
Photo credit. |
Best. Match. EVER!
The yarn is exactly what I would've picked out myself (with brands I've never tried, too!); and oh my gosh, the goodies! Winnie definitely went above and beyond the call of duty with this 'mission'. ;)
I got some chocolate and I was just thinking about how I need chocolate earlier today. Perfect.
I got some Star Trek stitch markers; Kirk and Spock! My first Star Trek love was the Original Series. Perfect.
I got some Earl Grey Tea. I just ran out, and I do love the Next Generation as well! Perfect.
I got two amazing cards, one with an official-looking Star Trek transmission, and one with lovely flowers and a butterfly and a sweet handwritten note. Perfect, and thoughtful to boot!
I am incredibly impressed and my face hurts from smiling so much! :D |
Recently by Ron Paul: Americans Deserve a Transparent Fed
Statement before the Foreign Affairs Committee, United States House of Representatives, December 10, 2009
Mr. Speaker thank you for holding these important hearings on US policy in Afghanistan. I would like to welcome the witnesses, Ambassador Karl W. Eikenberry and General Stanley A. McChrystal, and thank them for appearing before this Committee.
I have serious concerns, however, about the president’s decision to add some 30,000 troops and an as yet undisclosed number of civilian personnel to escalate our Afghan operation. This surge will bring US troop levels to approximately those of the Soviets when they occupied Afghanistan with disastrous result back in the 1980s. I fear the US military occupation of Afghanistan may end up similarly unsuccessful.
In late 1986 Soviet armed forces commander, Marshal Sergei Akhromeev, told then-Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev, "Military actions in Afghanistan will soon be seven years old. There is no single piece of land in this country which has not been occupied by a Soviet soldier. Nonetheless, the majority of the territory remains in the hands of rebels. Soon Gorbachev began the Soviet withdrawal from its Afghan misadventure. Thousands were dead on both sides, yet the occupation failed to produce a stable national Afghan government.
Eight years into our own war in Afghanistan the Soviet commander’s words ring eerily familiar. Part of the problem stems from a fundamental misunderstanding of the situation. It is our presence as occupiers that feeds the insurgency. As would be the case if we were invaded and occupied, diverse groups have put aside their disagreements to unify against foreign occupation. Adding more US troops will only assist those who recruit fighters to attack our soldiers and who use the US occupation to convince villages to side with the Taliban.
The Revolution: A Mani... Ron Paul Best Price: $1.27 Buy New $5.00 (as of 07:50 EST - Details) Proponents of the president’s Afghanistan escalation cite the successful surge in Iraq as evidence that this second surge will have similar results. I fear they might be correct about the similar result, but I dispute the success propaganda about Iraq. In fact, the violence in Iraq only temporarily subsided with the completion of the ethnic cleansing of Shi’ites from Sunni neighborhoods and vice versa — and all neighborhoods of Christians. Those Sunni fighters who remained were easily turned against the foreign al-Qaeda presence when offered US money and weapons. We are increasingly seeing this success breaking down: sectarian violence is flaring up and this time the various groups are better armed with US-provided weapons. Similarly, the insurgents paid by the US to stop their attacks are increasingly restive now that the Iraqi government is no longer paying bribes on a regular basis. So I am skeptical about reports on the success of the Iraqi surge. If you like this site, please help keep it going and growing.
Likewise, we are told that we have to win in Afghanistan so that al-Qaeda cannot use Afghan territory to plan further attacks against the US. We need to remember that the attack on the United States on September 11, 2001 was, according to the 9/11 Commission Report, largely planned in the United States (and Germany) by terrorists who were in our country legally. According to the logic of those who endorse military action against Afghanistan because al-Qaeda was physically present, one could argue in favor of US airstrikes against several US states and Germany! It makes no sense. The Taliban allowed al-Qaeda to remain in Afghanistan because both had been engaged, with US assistance, in the insurgency against the Soviet occupation.
Nevertheless, the president’s National Security Advisor, Gen. James Jones, USMC (Ret.), said in a recent interview that less than 100 al-Qaeda remain in Afghanistan and that the chance they would reconstitute a significant presence there was slim. Are we to believe that 30,000 more troops are needed to defeat 100 al-Qaeda fighters? I fear that there will be increasing pressure for the US to invade Pakistan, to where many Taliban and al-Qaeda have escaped. Already CIA drone attacks on Pakistan have destabilized that country and have killed scores of innocents, producing strong anti-American feelings and calls for revenge. I do not see how that contributes to our national security.
A Foreign Policy of Fr... Ron Paul Best Price: $0.25 Buy New $6.00 (as of 03:50 EST - Details) The president’s top advisor for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, said recently, I would say this about defining success in Afghanistan and Pakistan. In the simplest sense, the Supreme Court test for another issue, we’ll know it when we see it. That does not inspire much confidence.
Supporters of this surge argue that we must train an Afghan national army to take over and strengthen the rule and authority of Kabul. But experts have noted that the ranks of the Afghan national army are increasingly being filled by the Tajik minority at the expense of the Pashtun plurality. US diplomat Matthew Hoh, who resigned as Senior Civilian Representative for the U.S. Government in Zabul Province, noted in his resignation letter that he fail[s] to see the value or the worth in continued U.S. casualties or expenditures of resources in support of the Afghan government in what is, truly, a 35-year-old civil war. Mr. Hoh went on to write that [L]ike the Soviets, we continue to secure and bolster a failing state, while encouraging an ideology and system of government unknown and unwanted by [the Afghan] people.
I have always opposed nation-building as unconstitutional and ineffective. Afghanistan is no different. Without a real strategy in Afghanistan, without a vision of what victory will look like, we are left with the empty rhetoric of the last administration that when the Afghan people stand up, the US will stand down. I am afraid the only solution to the Afghanistan quagmire is a rapid and complete US withdrawal from that country and the region. We cannot afford to maintain this empire and our occupation of these foreign lands is not making us any safer. It is time to leave Afghanistan.
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December 12, 2009
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Gov. Larry Hogan weighed into the health care fray again Wednesday, signing a bipartisan letter to Senate leaders that opposes the so-called “skinny repeal” plan emerging as a potentially viable option to dismantle Obamacare.
“Congress should be working to make health insurance more affordable while stabilizing the health insurance market,” Hogan and nine other governors wrote in the letter.
The state leaders, who could be blamed for rate hikes caused by congressional action, said the skinny repeal would “accelerate health plans leaving the individual market, increase premiums, and result in fewer Americans having access to coverage.”
Senate leaders are considering a pared down repeal that would eliminate unpopular provisions of the 2010 Obamacare law, such as the requirement that all Americans carry some level of insurance or face a tax penalty. But that provision underpins the entire Obamacare system – making another measure, guaranteed coverage for people with preexisting conditions, possible.
Without a requirement for healthy people to carry insurance, the system breaks down because no one would purchase coverage until they became sick. The Congressional Budget Office estimated Wednesday that as many as 16 million people could lose their coverage under that arrangement.
Republican leaders are hopeful a skinny repeal could garner majority support in the Senate so that the chamber could bring something into a conference committee. That would allow Senate and House leaders to begin negotiations on a final bill.
But the governors dismissed that idea.
“Instead, we ask senators to work with governors on solutions to problems we can all agree on: fixing our unstable insurance markets,” they wrote. “The next best step is for senators and governors of both parties to come together to work to improve our health care system.”
The letter marks the second time in as many weeks Hogan and other Republican governors have openly questioned the strategy embraced by their party’s leaders in Washington. After months of avoiding questions of national policy, Hogan has become increasingly vocal on health care.
Last week Hogan and other governors wrote a letter opposing the so-called repeal-and-delay strategy that would have unwound the Affordable Care Act now and then held off on a replacement.
Wednesday’s letter was also signed by the Democratic governors of Colorado, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Montana and Louisiana and the Republican governors of Nevada, Massachusetts, Ohio and Vermont.
[email protected]
twitter.com/jfritze |
Also, my friend and yours Chip Zdarsky asked people on Twitter what to draw the other day, and I said "Draw Superman flexing and showing off his tattoos", and then Dustin Harbin suggested Chip draw me flexing and showing off MY Superman tattoos and anyway LONG STORY SHORT you can buy this particularly evocative picture of me on eBay to support This American Life. AND Chip will even draw in a fourth tattoo of your choosing! Whotta deal!
GUESS WHAT JUST CAME OUT: IT'S MY NEW BOOK!! If you've ever wondered what you'd do if you were stranded in the past, wonder no longer! With HOW TO INVENT EVERYTHING, you'll reinvent civilization from scratch, no matter what time period you're in. You'll become the single most influential, decisive, and important person ever born. You'll make history...
...better.
Here's the trailer!
One year ago today: it is a word that is very handy if you are in the alien movies and a friend of yours has an alien pop out of his chest. you won't struggle for words in that situation anymore.
– Ryan |
Image caption Archaeologists from Somerset County Council excavated the jar and coins
One of the largest ever finds of Roman coins in Britain has been made by a man using a metal detector.
The hoard of more than 52,000 coins dating from the 3rd Century AD was found buried in a field near Frome in Somerset.
The coins were found in a huge jar just over a foot (30cm) below the surface by Dave Crisp, from Devizes in Wiltshire.
"I have made many finds over the years, but this is my first major coin hoard," he said.
After his metal detector gave a "funny signal", Mr Crisp says he dug down 14in before he found what had caused it.
"I put my hand in, pulled out a bit of clay and there was a little Radial, a little bronze Roman coin. Very, very small, about the size of my fingernail."
Mr Crisp reported the find to the authorities, allowing archaeologists to excavate the site.
Offering to gods
Since the discovery in late April, experts from the Portable Antiquities Scheme at the British Museum have been working through the find.
The coins were all contained in a single clay pot. Although it only measured 18in (45cm) across, the coins were packed inside and would have weighed an estimated 160kg (350lb).
"I don't believe myself that this is a hoard of coins intended for recovery," says Sam Moorhead from the Portable Antiquities Scheme.
"I think what you could see is a community of people who are actually making offerings and they are each pouring in their own contribution to a communal ritual votive offering to the gods."
It is estimated the coins were worth about four years' pay for a legionary soldier.
"Because Mr Crisp resisted the temptation to dig up the coins, it has allowed archaeologists from Somerset County Council to carefully excavate the pot and its contents," said Anna Booth, local finds liaison officer.
Somerset County Council Heritage Service now hope the coroner will declare the find as treasure. That would allow the Museum of Somerset to acquire the coins at market value with the reward shared by Mr Crisp and the land owner.
The story of the excavation will be told in a new BBC Two archaeology series, Digging for Britain, presented by Dr Alice Roberts and made by 360production, to be broadcast in August. |
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The Iraqi army will need the Kurds’ help to retake Mosul, the largest city under the control of Islamic State with the planned offensive expected to be very challenging in a region home to rival religious and ethnic groups, an Iraqi minister said. Mosul, 400 km (250 miles) north of Baghdad, has been designated by the government as the next target for Iraq’s armed forces after they retook the western city of Ramadi, the first major success of the U.S.-trained force that initially fled in the face of Islamic State’s advance 18 months ago.
Volunteers to fight the Islamic State, from different Iraqi factions including Kurdish and Yazidis, train at a camping area near Kurdish security points on Bashiqa mountain, around 15km Northeast of the Islamic State held city of Mosul, March 7, 2015. REUTERS/Asmaa Waguih
Retaking the mostly Sunni city of Mosul would be hard as the local and regional players in northern Iraq have diverging agendas. The region is a mosaic of different ethnic and religious groups lying between Turkey, Syria and Iraqi Kurdistan.
It would effectively mark the end of the caliphate proclaimed by Islamic State in adjacent Sunni areas of Iraq and Syria, Iraq’s Finance Minister Hoshiyar Zebari told Reuters in an interview.
“Mosul needs good planning, preparations, commitment from all the key players,” Zebari, a Kurd, said on Monday in Baghdad. “Peshmerga is a major force; you cannot do Mosul without Peshmerga,” he said, referring to the armed forces of Iraqi Kurdistan, an autonomous northern region close to Mosul.
Kurdish forces have positions east, north and west of Mosul while Iraqi security forces backed by Shi’ite militias have positions in Baiji, south of Mosul.
The city had a population of two million before it fell to the militants in June 2014, in the first stage of their sweeping advance through northern and western Iraq.The battle of Mosul would be “very, very challenging”, Zebari said. “It will not be an easy operation, for some time they have been strengthening themselves, but it’s doable.”Given the extent of the area that needs to be secured around Mosul during the attack, the army may also need to draw on local Sunni forces and possibly the Shi’ite Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF) in support roles, he said. The PMF, known in Arabic as Hashid Shaabi, is a loosely knit coalition of mostly Iran-backed Shi’ite militias set up to fight Islamic State. The government sidelined the PMF in the Ramadi battle to ensure air support from the U.S. which is reluctant to be seen fighting on the same side as the Iranian-backed militias.
“Mosul is different from Ramadi,” U.S. Army Colonel Steve Warren, spokesman for the Baghdad-based anti-IS coalition told reporters on a video conference on Tuesday.
“It’s a big, big, big city and it’s going to take a lot of effort. It’s going to take more training. It’s going to take more equipment, and it’s going to take patience.”
‘FINAL BLOW’
Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said on Monday that Islamic State would be defeated in 2016 with the army planning to move on Mosul. “We are coming to liberate Mosul and it will be the fatal and final blow to Daesh,” he said in speech praising the army’s “victory” in Ramadi. “It’s there (Mosul) where Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared his caliphate,” Zebari said, referring to the group’s leader. “It is literally their capital.”
The Iraqi Kurdish president, Massoud Barzani, discussed plans for the liberation of Mosul with Lieutenant General Tom Beckett, Britain’s senior defense adviser, in September, according to Kurdish TV Rudaw.
Peshmerga forces, backed by US air strikes, in November dislodged Islamic State from Sinjar, a town west of Mosul that is home to Iraq’s Yazidi minority who suffered at the hands of Islamic State when it overran the area in August 2014.
Barzani said at the time the capture of Sinjar “would have a big impact on liberating Mosul,” as the Yazidi town lies on the road to Raqqa, Islamic State’s stronghold on Syrian territory.
Arab Sunnis and Shi’ites are concerned that the Kurds could use the battle as a mean to expand the territory under their control, said Wathiq al-Hashimi, chairman of the Iraqi Group for Strategic Studies, a think-tank in Baghdad.
The Kurds are concerned that the Shi’ites would use their presence to bolster the influence of the central government in Baghdad, he said.
“The Peshmerga’s involvement will be inevitable but could further complicate the battle in Mosul if not enough guarantees have been taken from the regional leadership that they will not use it to expand their territories,” said Hashimi. |
Video
A stringent project designed to curb alcohol-related crime in the US state of South Dakota is to be used as a model for a project in the UK.
The "24/7 Sobriety Program" forces problem drinkers to take - and pay for - twice-daily breath tests to prove they are sober.
The tests can be used as a sentence after a conviction, or a condition of bail, after an alcohol-related crime. They can also be imposed upon parents as a condition of having children returned to a household in families with a history of alcohol abuse.
Failure of a test usually means an instant short spell in jail, and it is hoped that such a dramatic sentence will shock people out of re-offending - thereby reducing long-term prison numbers and cutting off alcohol-related crime at the source.
The Greater London Authority is working on a pilot of the project meaning compulsory sobriety would be used as a sentencing tool for magistrates and judges as an alternative to custody.
The BBC's Catrin Nye travelled to South Dakota to see what the programme looks like there. |
Korean Eximbank’s team conducting feasibility study for the first purpose built IT park in Islamabad, called on the Minister of State for IT Mrs. Anusha Rehman Khan here in Islamabad today and shared in detail the salient features, models and proposed designs along with other technical aspects for the building of first IT park in Pakistan.
Minister of State for IT Mrs. Anusha Rehman, Federal Secretary IT Mr. Rizwan Bashir Khan and senior officials from Ministry of IT and PSEB had a very fruitful discussion with the Korean experts regarding different aspects of feasibility study report. The 13 members’ Korean team was lead by Dr. Yim Deok Soon and Prof. Park Hung Kook.
Minister of IT welcomed the Korean delegation to MoIT and shared with them ministry’s vision to provide good infrastructure to the IT industry to leverage the full potential of Pakistan’s IT talent. She said that IT park will provide a whole ecosystem including affordable space to IT companies along with power, bandwidth, and linkages between industry and academia. IT park in Islamabad will be followed by two more parks at Lahore and Karachi subsequently.
Minister said that Pakistan has abundant IT talent and IT parks would be a good way of leveraging that talent to boost Pakistan’s IT exports which have already grown over 40% since last year. She appreciated the passion and spirit of Korean team and their constant support in IT park project and hoped that the IT Park would further augment the long lasting and strong relationship between Pakistan and Korea.
Minister requested the Korean team to fast track its efforts and submit their final report by next week so that they could enter in the implementation phase of the project at the earliest. She urged all stakeholders to collectively work to achieve the milestones. |
Two further points to make.
By Tim Colwill on September 9, 2014 at 1:17 pm
I posted this article following two weeks in which high-profile female developers and critics were subjected to violent threats from an angry minority of gamers. These types of threats are not welcome on games.on.net, and while passionately argued, the position outlined in the article was a straightforward extension of our acceptable use policy.
I’d like to thank those of you who have expressed their support for the article and for my stand. Today, however, there are two points I would like to address.
Firstly, I made the decision to disable comments on the article in question. This is not in keeping with the policies of iiNet, or of games.on.net, and indeed it was the first time in five years of writing for the site that I have disabled comments on an article.
In my judgement as editor, I believed that the comments would quickly devolve into argument. Seeing such arguments on our site does nothing but hurt our image and turn away visitors. I was anxious to avoid this, and I was also anxious to avoid accusations of posting “flamebait”, of simply posting a controversial article simply to benefit from the traffic that comes from visitors having an intense argument.
Nevertheless, I recognise that public debate and engagement is welcomed by both iiNet and games.on.net, and I apologise for closing comments on this article. We will be reviewing our commenting policy in the coming days and weeks to ensure that we can maintain the levels of debate and engagement you expect, while working hard to stand up for the equality and decency we believe is so important in gaming.
Secondly, my conduct on my Twitter account has always been passionate and personal, and uses a level of language that breaches iiNet social media policy, and has no place in a professional environment. I apologise for my conduct on Twitter, and to any readers of games.on.net or iiNet Group customers who have taken offence at that conduct.
In the interest of transparency and accountability, I will be posting our complete editorial policy in the coming days.
Thanks again to all of our readers and customers for your overwhelming support.
Tim Colwill
Editor-in-Chief
games.on.net |
One week after launching his one-man protest at Amazon headquarters in Seattle, former Amazon employee Kivin Varghese is still at it, trying to bring attention to his allegations of unethical and deceptive business practices at the company.
Today he will be trying a new tactic, handing out a new letter to employees calling on the company to augment its 14 leadership principles with new points addressing 1) employee treatment 2) business ethics and 3) environmental responsibility.
On the first point, the letter (PDF) takes the unusual step of urging Amazon employees not to work so hard. Writes Varghese in the letter …
1) Life is short, enjoy it – don’t give it all to Amazon. Leave work at a reasonable hour, don’t work nights and weekends. 2) If you’ve got more work on your plate than you can do, the company should hire more people, not drive you like a slave to get it done. 3) Don’t kill yourselves to keep the ship running. Slow down. Amazon will be fine.
Oh, boy. Questioning the company’s business ethics is one thing, but urging employees to be less productive? It will be interesting to see how Amazon reacts.
Varghese says via email that he has so far successfully resisted efforts by Amazon security to move his protest, and notes that he has been getting an “unbelievably positive response talking to hundreds of employees over the past several days.”
Varghese is involved in a protracted legal battle with the company, which has declined to comment on his protest. |
Appearance and function match the final product, but is made with different manufacturing methods.
Looks like the final product, but is not functional.
Demonstrates the functionality of the final product, but looks different.
A prototype is a preliminary model of something. Projects that offer physical products need to show backers documentation of a working prototype. This gallery features photos, videos, and other visual documentation that will give backers a sense of what’s been accomplished so far and what’s left to do. Though the development process can vary for each project, these are the stages we typically see:
These photos and videos provide a detailed look at this project’s development.
About
Final minutes!
We didn't reach our funding goal, but we are continuing work on future products and launches.
Follow us on our other social media sites to keep getting updates about our latest developments.
JuiceBox Zero Website: http://juiceboxzero.com/ JuiceBox Zero Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/juiceboxzero/ JuiceBox Zero Twitter: https://twitter.com/getjuiceboxzero JuiceBox Zero Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/getjuiceboxzero/
A big thank you to everyone involved!
The JuiceBox Zero is the only battery solution on the market built especially for Raspberry Pi Zero that requires no code. It is the easiest way to make your Pi Zero or Zero W instantly portable, and works right out of the box!
FEATURES
ON/OFF Switch
4 Status Indicator LEDs
Pi Zero Camera Mount
Micro USB Power Input
JuiceBox Zero works right out of the box. But with one additional line of Python, you can poll a GPIO pin for low battery status so you can trigger a safe shutdown of your Pi Zero.
Small, mobile cameras are one of the most common applications for portable Pi Zero devices. For that reason, the JuiceBox Zero was designed with a camera mount built right into the board!
YOU NEED
JuiceBox Zero
Raspberry Pi Zero or Zero W
Header Connection
JST-Compatible Single-cell Lithium-Ion Battery
THE STORY
While searching for a mobile battery solution for my Raspberry Pi 3, I found several well-made boards that were still a bit too cumbersome to set up. When the Pi Zero was released, I instantly saw the potential its tiny form factor provided for truly mobile inventions. But to be truly mobile, it can’t be tethered to a power source. Just imagine how useless an iPhone would be if it had to be plugged into the wall!
So I took matters into my own hands to create a truly portable battery solution that is both plug ‘n play and matches the Raspberry Pi Zero’s tiny footprint. The PowerBoost 1000c by Adafruit provided a stable baseline to start from — then I shrank it down and added a handful of my own improvements.
I’m excited about it, and can’t wait to see what you do you now that you can cut your Pi Zero loose.
— Sam |
Mid-4, #Phillies trail Toronto 8-0. But this happened earlier…so that was cool. pic.twitter.com/nUlnFVr9JE — Phillies (@Phillies) June 17, 2016
OK this guy is a wizard, but I don’t understand how someone can be so cool, so calm when a ball is coming at them and they’re holding a child. When I’m holding my son I turn into a protective cacoon, absorbing every glancing blow from a passerby or rogue wall. I move around like we’re on a moon bounce, turning life’s edges into soft ripples. It’s similar to the move I used in my post-collegiate years, The Tuck and Tumble – not a sex move, not even close – where I would curl my beer-carrying hand and allow my shoulder or elbow to absorb all blows in a crowded bar, creating a steadicam effect with the beer, to minimize or reduce spillage. That’s how I hold my son, only it’s a full-body protective shield. So if there was a foul ball coming at us, I’d tuck him under my seat, stand up proudly and scream wildly, while one-handing the ball like Tanaka in Major League II…
… or probably just turn my back and take a devastating kidney shot.
Anyway, credit to this guy. So cool under pressure. |
What is to be done? That question is being asked with increasing urgency about the British political system. Can we go on any longer with our dysfunctional, discredited, dishonourable arrangements? Or, to put the challenge in more practical terms, how can we use the next few months to bring about such a profound change at the forthcoming general election that there can be a fresh start? The scandalous exploitation by Members of Parliament of the expenses system, while it is far from the most serious deficiency of our system of government, has had the perverse benefit of making people very angry.
For fierce disgust is a necessary condition for carrying through substantial improvements in the way we are governed. The last time this happened was in the winter of 1978-79, when public sector workers went out on strike for weeks. Uncollected mountains of rubbish were piled high in the cities, army vehicles replaced ambulances and bodies remained unburied. At the subsequent general election, the untried Margaret Thatcher, proposing real change, swept Labour out of power for 18 years. Substitute MPs' expenses for the "winter of discontent" and you see that today's political conditions closely resemble those of 30 years ago.
However, to understand how far the rot in government has spread, note what Lord Malloch-Brown said last week when he resigned after a short spell as a Foreign Office minister. Gordon Brown's government was more "chaotic" than many administrations in the developing world, he said. Everything was cobbled together at the last minute and no one took the time to plan ahead.
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It was no better when Tony Blair was Prime Minister. In one of the entries in his diary, recounting his days working at 10 Downing Street, Lance Price comments: "Tony Blair's political note to everybody today (14 May 2000) was quite funny. They never seem to produce any real action because of [No 10's] ludicrous lack of an effective command structure and absence of discipline. He has obviously spotted this and says, 'I don't write them for fun'."
Or go back to John Major's government. Writing about the BSE crisis in cattle, Sir Richard Packer, who was a senior civil servant at the time, wrote: "Ministers collectively panicked. None of these established conventions were followed In the absence of standard procedures, disorder and confusion abounded." Indeed, our last three prime ministers, John Major, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, have been masters of dysfunction.
The unnecessary deaths of our soldiers in Afghanistan because of shortcomings in their equipment flow directly from the pervasive chaos that penetrates much of government. Which brings up the first question for those of us who want a big change: would a government led by David Cameron be any better? I wouldn't bank on it for a variety of reasons. Like Tony Blair before him, Mr Cameron would enter Downing Street when his party had been in opposition for a lengthy period. He would be subject to the same strong temptation to put securing a second term as the overriding priority. If so, Mr Cameron might easily find himself driven to allowing presentation to dictate policy as Mr Blair was. We would again, for instance, have government by gesture.
As before, the announcement of new legislation would be chiefly designed to serve public relations purposes, with little consideration given to the detailed contents of the Bills placed before Parliament. The MP Chris Mullin wrote in his diary for May 2003: "Today we nodded through Blunkett's plan for ratcheting up life sentences and doubling (from seven to 14 days) the length of time that terrorist suspects can be held without trial. Both of these measures have only appeared in the last 10 days, so there has been no previous opportunity for discussion."
Mr Brown is an equally awful example. First, he thinks up the vote-winning headline he would like to see, then he conjures up a policy that would produce the desired result. After that, he watches with dismay as numerous objections to the desired policy are voiced and finally he makes a U-turn. Would Mr Cameron finally be so different once he got under way? Fears that Mr Cameron in office would be more or less the same as before, with a different voice, are causing many people to echo the title of Lenin's famous pamphlet and ask themselves: "What is to be done?" In a useful posting on the openDemocracy website, Anthony Barnett describes seven suggestions that are being actively discussed as ways of delivering change. I list them here.
1. Take a single issue like electoral reform and demand a referendum on it at the same time as the election, as the key issue that will open up change. This is the approach of "Vote for Change".
2. Generate basic pledges for change that are then taken to all candidates to create a reforming Parliament.
3. Meet, deliberate, hold a convention, decide, influence, elect and hold to account, starting with 1,000 meetings in pubs or living rooms around the UK, or as part of discussions in existing networks. This is the original "Real Change" proposal.
4. Get Parliament to pass an Act empowering a citizen's deliberative convention to decide on a set of major reforms. A Bill to do this has been written by "Unlock Democracy".
5. Launch a campaign to "Take back our Parliament". This would focus on how it represents us (proportionality, open primaries), its honesty (transparency), defending our liberties (independence) and its funding (no corruption).
6. Bring about a network of independent candidates committed to implementing a reform agenda.
7. Organise an online force for change on the lines of MoveOn in the US. This is the approach adopted by the campaign group 38 Degrees.
It would be interesting to know what readers think of this list. Faced with such a choice of dishes, I would prefer to take something from most of them. I would cheerfully join a campaign to take back our Parliament. It has been at the centre of the nation's life for 600 to 700 years and it is only through Parliament that legitimate change can be achieved, so that is where I would start. British government can be reformed only from the inside, not the outside.
To do this, I would take up the suggestion that a network of independent candidates committed to implementing a reform agenda should be created. Their aim would have to be the incredibly ambitious one of forming the next government. I hope that such a force, if it could be formed, would commit itself to cleaning up our system of government within the life of a single Parliament and then withdraw. It wouldn't be possible to keep the traditional parties at bay for much longer than that.
I would also borrow from MoveOn its mastery of the internet for political purposes. And to establish what such a reform programme should comprise, I would go with the "Real Change" proposal and have the 1,000 meetings around the country. In his pamphlet, Lenin called for the formation of a new party. That, too, is what a lot of people are thinking about, though in my mind it would be strictly temporary – its task would be to make our political system fit for the 21st century. Job done, its representatives would return to ordinary life.
We’ll tell you what’s true. You can form your own view.
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The moon's crust was apparently active far more recently than previously believed, scientists say.
These new findings raise questions about how the moon formed and evolved, researchers said.
Although the Earth's crust is still shifting, driven by the churning semimolten rock underneath it, researchers had thought the moon had cooled off much too long ago to still have any such tectonic activity. For instance, the youngest known tectonic features on the lunar landscape until now — small cliffs in the lunar highlands resulting from wrinkling of the surface as the moon's interior cooled and shrunk — are thought to be less than 1 billion years old, although by how much is uncertain.
Now, images collected by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter hints the moon has probably seen tectonic activity within the last 50 million years.
In these photos, researchers spotted a dozen or so narrow, trenchlike features known as graben in the lunar highlands and in the dark plains of volcanic rock known as the mare basalts. Graben are essentially troughs with two faults or cracks in the surface on either side of them. They are thought to have formed as the lunar crust was stretched. [10 Coolest Moon Discoveries]
"Overall on the moon, you have this contracting, shrinking environment, but in some places, apparently there's this stretching extension of the crust," said study lead author Thomas Watters, a planetary scientist at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington.
The graben the scientists detected, which reach up to about 1,640 feet (500 meters) wide and 1.1 miles (1.8 kilometers) long, appear relatively pristine. This suggests they formed recently — otherwise, they would be marred more often by craters from meteor impacts over time.
"We think they're less than 50 million years old, but they could be 10 million years old, could be 1 million years old, could have happened 40 years ago," Watters told SPACE.com. "The intriguing picture that's emerging of the moon is that there is recent geological activity going on."
Moonquakes detected by seismic sensors installed during the Apollo missions support the notion of recent activity on the moon, researchers added. All in all, the moon's interior may still be hot.
"The moon may not only have been tectonically active recently, but may still be tectonically active today," Watters said.
Models of how the moon cooled over time suggest it was totally molten after its formation, and that it should now be contracting as it cools, forcing the surface to wrinkle. However, if this was true, such compression would have suppressed the creation of graben — these ditches typically form when the crust stretches, not crinkles.
Instead, these findings suggest the moon was not completely molten after it was formed. If this were the case, the moon would not contract strongly enough to suppress the emergence of graben.
"Currently, a popular idea for how the moon formed is that it was completely molten in the beginning— after a Mars-size object hit Earth very early in its history, the debris cloud from the surviving material formed the moon," Watters said. "This may lend support to alternative scenarios that the moon was not completely molten when it formed, that only part of it was, forming a magma ocean."
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Future research can look for more graben in Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter photos once the satellite finishes imaging the moon, Watters said. He and his colleagues detailed their findings online Feb. 19 in the journal Nature Geoscience.
Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter@Spacedotcom and on Facebook. |
One day a few years ago I passed a street teeming with panhandlers, begging for change. And it made me wonder what causes people to stop for beggars and what causes them to walk on by. So I hung out for a while, engaging in a bit of discreet peoplewatching. Many people passed the beggars without giving anything, but there were a few who stopped. What was it that separated those who paused and gave money from those who didn’t? And what separated the more successful beggars from those who were less successful? Was it something specific about their situation, or their presentation? Was it the beggar’s strategy?
To look into this question, I called on Daniel Berger Jones, an acting student at Boston University who had just finished hiking around Europe. Not having shaved in months and already looking pretty scruffy, he was ready for the job (plus as part of his training to be an actor I figured it would be good for him to learn how to beg for money – at the time he did not see that particular benefit). So I found a street corner and placed him there to take on the panhandling trade. I asked Daniel to try a few different approaches to begging and to keep track of the approaches that made him more or less money. (Of course, after the experiment was over we donated all the money that he made to charity). The general setup was what we call a 2×2 design: When people walked by, Daniel would either be sitting down (the passive approach) or standing up (the active approach) and he would either look them in the eyes or not. So there were times when he was 1) sitting down and looking people in the eyes, 2) sitting down and not looking people in the eyes, 3) standing up and looking people in the eyes, or 4) standing up and not looking people in the eyes.
Daniel got to work, scrounging for money. He stayed on his corner for a while, trying the different approaches. And it turned out that both his position and his eye contact did, in fact, make a difference. He made more money when he was standing and when he looked people in the eyes. It seemed that the most lucrative strategy was to put in more effort, to get people to notice him, and to look them in the eyes so that they could not pretend to not see him.
Interestingly, while the eye contact approach was working in general, it was clear that some of the passersby had a counterstrategy: they were actively shifting their gaze in what seemed to be an attempt to pretend that he wasn’t there. They simply acted as if there was a dark hole in front of them rather than a person, and they were quite successful at averting their gaze.
At some point, something very interesting happened. There was another beggar on the street – a professional beggar – who approached young Daniel and said, “Look kid, you don’t know what you’re doing. Let me teach you.” And so he did. This beggar took our concept of effort and human contact to the next level, walking right up to people and offering his hand up for them to shake. With this dramatic gesture, people had a very hard time refusing him or pretending that they did not seen him. Apparently, the social forces of a handshake are simply too strong and too deeply engrained to resist – and many people gave in and shook his hand. Of course, once they shook his hand, they would also look him in the eyes; the beggar succeeded at breaking the social barrier and was able to get many people to give him money. Once he became a real flesh and blood person with eyes, a smile and needs, people gave in and opened their wallets. When the beggar left his new pupil, he felt so sorry for poor Daniel –and his panhandling ineptitude– that he actually gave him some money. Of course Daniel tried to refuse, but the beggar insisted.
I think there are two main lessons here. The first is to realize how much of our lives are structured by social norms. We do what we think is right, and if someone gives us a hand, there’s a good chance we will shake it, make eye contact, and act very differently than we would otherwise.
The second lesson is to confront the tendency to avert our eyes when we know that someone is in need. We realize that if we face the problem, we’ll feel compelled to do something about it, and so we avoid looking and thereby avoid the temptation to give in and help. We know that if we stop for a beggar on the street, we will have a very hard time refusing his plea for help, so we try hard to ignore the hardship in front of us: we want to see, hear, and speak no evil. And if we can pretend that it isn’t there, we can trick ourselves into believing –at least for that moment– that it doesn’t exist. The good news is that, while it is difficult to stop ignoring the sad things, if we actively chose to pay attention there is a good chance that we will take an action and help a person in need. |
Did CM Punk change the landscape of WWE? Feb 06, 2014
Many people have voiced their opinions on the self-proclaimed ‘best in the world’ walking out of WWE last week.
Whether you think CM Punk was right or wrong to leave in the manner he did, one thing is undeniable: he changed the business.
Historically, Vince McMahon maintained the policy that bigger guys get championships. However, post-Attitude Era, that mindset softened somewhat, as we saw guys like Rey Mysterio hold the belt.
Nonetheless, you still had to look like a champion… until CM Punk came along.
Punk walked into the WWE in 2005 covered in tattoos, with facial piercings and long hair. He didn’t look like a champion; he looked like a tramp. The company took one look at him and made a decision that he would never be a top superstar. Punk himself admitted in his Best in the World documentary that he didn’t think he would be part of WWE for long.
In spite of this, Punk proved that he had the skills in the ring and his big breakthrough came when he showed WWE that he could work as a heel.
The Straight Edge Society made him one of the most hated heels in the company, and following contract negotiations in 2011, Punk proved himself to be the best superstar on the mic when he delivered one of the greatest promos in WWE history.
The Chicago-born grappler took WWE’s popularity through the roof with his trademark pipebombs leading up to Money In The Bank 2011, where he finally beat ‘the man’ – John Cena – for the WWE Championship, and went on to become the longest-reigning WWE Champion of the modern era (and the sixth longest of all time), with a 434 day run.
Only the returning Dwayne ‘The Rock” Johnson could knock Punk off his perch, which he did at last year’s Royal Rumble.
Punk managed to change WWE’s point-of-view that only good-looking, muscle-bound superstars could hold the title. He walked in as a Punk kid and became the champion without ever changing his character or beliefs; he became WWE and World champion his way, broke down barriers at every interval and showed the company that they should never judge a book by its cover.
There are stories circulating about how selfish Punk has been by leaving without notice or putting anyone over, but I feel he is justified in his actions. Daniel Bryan has the WWE universe behind him every match and is part of a storyline where those in charge are keeping him from the title. Punk went through the same thing in real life behind the scenes. He was kept away from the title trail for most of last year, and put into an endless feud with Paul Heyman, but he still turned out great performances.
He went to every event and stole the show, but WWE never gave him his WrestleMania main event.
If he was to hang on and leave in July when his contract expires, then he wouldn’t be able to make this kind of point, by leaving out of principle prior to April’s WrestleMania. Of course, by leaving now, he still won’t get his main event (or that fat Mania payday), but in doing so he has made an impact. He has highlighted WWE’s reliance on past superstars and made the world aware that the talent feel the same way as the fans.
I feel like Punk has done all he can in WWE to smash through those glass ceilings or reach those brass rings, and he felt that his job was done. And whether people will admit it or not, Punk has changed the landscape of the biggest wrestling company in the world.
Other wrestlers now know that they don’t need to look a certain way; they don’t need to behave a certain way; and they can make a career for themselves on their own terms.
With Punk gone, there will be a gap that needs to be filled. Hopefully his long-time comrade Daniel Bryan can step up and be ‘the man’ in his absence.
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Review: Baywatch I used to be a huge fan of the original TV series of Baywatch (1989 – 1999), fantasising about running (in slo-mo, of course) along a golden sand beach in a skin-tight orangey red one piece, my long locks flowing like silk behind me. So when the invite came through for the 2017 movie reboot […]
TNA has a new UK TV deal Good news for wrestling fans – TNA will be back on UK TV from April 21. The wrestling promotion has signed a deal with Freeview channel Spike to broadcast IMPACT episodes and pay-per-views in the UK. The company’s former home, Challenge TV, which used to air the weekly IMPACT show on Sunday nights, dropped TNA in January. […] |
Image Slideshow From Ref 1 / with permission of NMHM, Silver Spring, MD From Ref 1 / with permission of NMHM, Silver Spring, MD From Ref 1 / with permission of NMHM, Silver Spring, MD
Albert Einstein is considered to be one of the most intelligent people that ever lived, so researchers are naturally curious about what made his brain tick.
Photographs taken shortly after his death, but never before analysed in detail, have now revealed that Einstein’s brain had several unusual features, providing tantalizing clues about the neural basis of his extraordinary mental abilities1.
While doing Einstein's autopsy, the pathologist Thomas Harvey removed the physicist's brain and preserved it in formalin. He then took dozens of black and white photographs of it before it was cut up into 240 blocks. He then took tissue samples from each block, mounted them onto microscope slides and distributed the slides to some of the world’s best neuropathologists.
The autopsy revealed that Einstein’s brain was smaller than average and subsequent analyses showed all the changes that normally occur with ageing. Nothing more was analysed, however. Harvey stored the brain fragments in a formalin-filled jar in a cider box kept under a beer cooler in his office. Decades later, several researchers asked Harvey for some samples, and noticed some unusual features when analysing them.
A study done in 1985 showed that two parts of his brain contained an unusually large number of non-neuronal cells called glia for every neuron2. And one published more than a decade later showed that the parietal lobe lacks a furrow and a structure called the operculum3. The missing furrow may have enhanced the connections in this region, which is thought to be involved in visuo-spatial functions and mathematical skills such as arithmetic.
Photo opportunity
Now, anthropologist Dean Falk of Florida State University in Tallahassee and her colleagues have obtained 12 of Harvey’s original photographs from the National Museum of Health and Medicine in Silver Spring, Maryland, analysed them and compared the patterns of convoluted ridges and furrows with those of 85 brains described in other studies.
Many of the photographs were taken from unusual angles, and show structures that were not visible in photographs that have been analysed previously. The analysis is published today in the journal Brain1.
AFP/Getty Images
The most striking observation, says Falk, was “the complexity and pattern of convolutions on certain parts of Einstein's cerebral cortex”, especially in the prefrontal cortex, and also parietal lobes and visual cortex.
The prefrontal cortex is important for the kind of abstract thinking that Einstein would have needed for his famous thought experiments on the nature of space and time, such as imagining riding alongside a beam of light. The unusually complex pattern of convolutions there probably gave the region and unusually large surface area, which may have contributed to his remarkable abilities.
Falk and her colleagues also noticed an unusual feature in the right somatosensory cortex, which receives sensory information from the body. In this part of Einstein’s brain, the region corresponding to the left hand is expanded, and the researchers suggest that this may have contributed to his accomplished violin playing.
According to Sandra Witelson, a behavioural neuroscientist at McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada, who discovered that the parietal operculum is missing from Einstein’s brain, the study’s biggest contribution may be in encouraging further studies. “It makes clear the location and accessibility of photographs and slides of Einstein's brain,” she says. “This may serve as an incentive for other investigations of Einstein's brain, and ultimately of any consequences of its anatomical variations.” |
Most expensive Senate race in U.S. history - and balance of Senate along with it - may be determined by 100% unverifiable votes...
Brad Friedman Byon 11/3/2014, 3:45pm PT
So far, in the run-up to Tuesday's mid-term election, we've covered 100% unverifiable touch-screen votes reportedly flipping on screen in Texas (D to R), in Illinois (R to D), in Tennessee (NO to YES on anti-choice initiative), in Maryland (R to D) and in Arkansas (unclear which direction the votes were flipping in several different counties.)
Now, votes are reportedly flipping from Democratic to Republican in the "toss up" U.S. Senate race in North Carolina, a crucial contest if Democrats have any chance of hanging on to the majority in that chamber. The "down to the wire" contest is also reportedly turning out to be the most expensive Senate race in U.S. history.
So can supporters of either candidate actually have any confidence at all in results to be reported after the close of polls on Tuesday in the Tar Heel State?...
As the News-Record reports:
GREENSBORO - Another Guilford County voter has reported having problems casting a vote for a U.S. Senate candidate. Percy Bostick, 69, of Greensboro said he tried casting a vote for Democrat Kay Hagan at the Old Guilford County Courthouse, only to have the machine register Republican Thom Tillis as his choice. "I called one of the poll workers over," Bostick said. "She said do it again. And again, I touched the screen at the proper place for Kay Hagan, and it again reported it for Thom Tillis." On his fourth attempt, the machine registered the vote for Hagan.
...
Charlie Collicutt, Guilford County elections director, said his office has received 14 reports of voting problems since early voting started Oct. 23, including seven from people who became concerned after they got home.
Should voters be worried about votes flipping on touch-screen systems? What should you do if it happens to you or someone else at the polls?
See our first report of the 2014 election season on this issue for answers to those questions, as well as several of our subsequent reports (all listed below). Unfortunately, we have to file similar reports election-cycle after election-cycle after election-cycle, since, despite the by now very-well-known shortcomings of these systems, so many elected officials simply don't give a damn about whether their voters are able to cast overseeable, verifiable votes.
More than a quarter of U.S. voters this year will cast 100% unverifiable votes on such e-voting systems which may, or may not, record and register any votes the way that voters intended. There is no way for voters to ever know one way or another.
Whenever a "winner" is finally announced in the North Carolina race, based on the completely unverifiable computer tallies from the state's ES&S-manufactured touch-screen voting systems, supporters of the "losing" candidate are likely to yell foul if the margin of reported victory is smaller than the number of votes cast on the oft-failed, easily-manipulated touch-screen voting systems. Given that so many NC votes are still, shamefully, completely unverifiable touch-screen votes in 2014, those partisans (from either party) will have every right to do so.
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The ratings for last night’s Supergirl premiere were, fittingly, very super.
According to Entertainment Weekly, the series set “a fall new series record of 14 million viewers and a 3.2 rating among adults 18–49.” Supergirl was the second-highest-rated series on TV last night, following The Big Bang Theory.
TV Guide’s Michael Schneider writes that, of the series’ teen viewers, more were male than female:
Interesting stat: #Supergirl did better with male teens (1.7) than female teens (1.4). Either way, No. 1 b’cast show with teens (1.6) Monday — Michael Schneider (@franklinavenue) October 27, 2015
Although it remains to be seen if Supergirl‘s ratings will continue to soar up, up, and away as the series progresses, the excitement over the premiere, despite (or perhaps because?) of the pilot leak back in May, seems to me to indicate an appetite for more female-focused shows like this one.
It’s worth noting that the Jaimie Alexander-starring Blindspot, another lady-led genre show, is also one of the highest-rated series of the fall.
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In 20 short days, the beaches will open on Bachelor in Paradise, a tropical halfway house for Bachelor/Bachelorette rejects still looking for love despite getting the boot on their respective show. As per usual, this season's ensemble is a carefully calibrated mix of veterans (Clare, whose Native American name is "Talks With Raccoons"), randoms (wait, who is Dan again?), recent castoffs (Jared and his patchy beard), professional drama queens (Ashley I.), and comic relief (Ashley S., aka "Onion Girl"). Together they will descend on the town of Sayulita, located in Vallarta-Nayarit, Mexico, for weeks of flirting, fighting, forming alliances, occasionally fornicating, and generally jockeying to be the final couple standing. Click through this slideshow to meet all of this season's players (and read their hilariously earnest "official" bios), and then join us back here every week for Bachelor in Paradise recaps and host Chris Harrison's blog. After all, it's the summer — doesn't your brain need a vacation?
Bachelor in Paradise premieres Sunday, Aug. 2 at 8 p.m. on ABC. |
“If we fail on this, just picture Europe,” said Rep. Dave Brat (R-VA) of what would happen if Congress failed to permanently repair America’s “broken immigration system” and just passed another amnesty instead.
Brat made his comments on Friday’s edition of SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Tonight in an interview with Breitbart News’s Senior Editor-at-Large Rebecca Mansour.
America will resemble “France, Sweden, Germany, [or] the Netherlands” in the absence of enacting an immigration system “for the benefit of American citizens and U.S. workers,” said Brat.
Immigration is a top-priority issue, said Brat: “This is not like any other policy issue. This will determine the nature of our country over the next decades in how we settle this. Either we’re going to add to the anxiety and all this hate-filled back and forth, or we find an economic solution for this country moving forward.”
Brat discussed Congress’s considerations to codify the Obama administration’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy into federal law.
Congress must prioritize four repairs for the immigration system before contemplating any DACA-style amnesty negotiation, said Brat: 1. Ending chain migration and the visa lottery; 2. Mandating employer use of E-Verify; 3. Construction of a southern border wall; and 4. Interior enforcement of immigration law.
The four aforementioned “permanent fixes” must precede any DACA negotiation regarding amnesty for illegal immigrants, said Brat: “It shouldn’t be about trusting or hoping, the permanent part has to come first, you see in that place and then you negotiate later.”
Rep. Steve King (R-IA) echoed Brat’s position in an interview with Breitbart News Tonight aired last week, calling for prioritization of border security and interior enforcement of immigration law over any consideration of amnesty for foreigners illegally residing in the homeland.
Promises for border security and interior enforcement of immigration law from politicians supporting broad amnesty for illegal immigrants are always broken, said Brat:
You need permanent fixes to the broken immigration system before any DACA negotiation takes place, because DACA is an automatic and permanent three million increase. So DACA’s 700,000 times three or four, and that gives you the three million, and that’s permanent, so you don’t trust anything. Our side always gets rolled, we get promises for internal enforcement. Obama was all in favor of that, right? He even added spending, more agents, more this, more that, and then he said, “Hey, agents that we just hired? Don’t follow the law of land.” He told them not to enforce the law.
Drawing on the expansion of previous amnesties, Mansour asked how politicians’ promised parameters of a new DACA-style bill could be trusted.
“There’s talk of putting an end to chain migration,” said Mansour. “But that seems to be a little bit like wishful thinking because couldn’t this be litigated in the courts? Even if you try to pass something, how effective is that going to be long-term? It seems as if with each one of these amnesties that are granted, they’re always litigated in the courts and there are always loopholes that people find, and it just ends up being endless. How much can we trust that there’s going to be something in some deal that they strike that [ends] chain migration? How is that going to be enforced?”
Brat said this is precisely why we need “the permanent fixes in policy” as a “starting point.” He explained:
We’re already hearing decay from the original permanent policy, even on [chain migration]. They’re starting to say, “Well, maybe just [chain migration] for these people, and maybe not just DACA, more than DACA.” So, you’re right. It’s just like [the amnesty granted under] Reagan. You really don’t trust. That’s why I emphasize the permanent fixes. You need permanent fixes to the immigration system that’s broken before any DACA negotiation takes places, because the DACA is an automatic three million permanent increase; so DACA’s 700,000 times three or four, and that gives you the three million, and that’s permanent. So you’re right, you don’t trust anything, right?
“Elites” and “the swamp in DC” support DACA-style amnesty legislation, said Brat, because they “want cheap labor.”
“I can’t think of anything worse for Republicans than to vote against that series of policies,” cautioned Brat, referring to the aforementioned “permanent fixes” he proposed toward immigration policy.
House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI), said Brat, had promised not to connect January-scheduled budgetary debates votes to any DACA-style amnesty: “Our leadership promised that DACA would not be attached to any must-pass [continuing resolution], because that is a total a breakdown and usually ends up with chasing Democrat votes. If they keep their word on that, that’s a pretty good sign. They promised it would be a stand-alone bill on DACA, and that’s good news, and that would require a majority of Republican votes to pass.”
Republican focus on amnestying millions of illegal immigrants, said Mansour, is divorced from President Donald Trump’s popular mandate on issues relating to immigration.
“A DACA fix is nowhere near what the American people are most concerned about, nowhere near the top of the list,” said Mansour. “I don’t understand the urgency on this. It seems to me to be a Democrat issue of urgency since this is their next big pool of voters. I’m not sure why the GOP feels such urgency to deal with this.”
“Yeah, I don’t either,” said Brat. “That always amazes me. There’s nothing on DACA policy in the Republican platform. Paul Ryan, to his credit, promised that a DACA fix would not be attached to any must-pass legislation like a budget, [continuing resolution], omnibus, et cetera. It’s coming up January 20th. He said it would be stand alone.”
Noting that President Trump won in 2016 on “a very hard-line immigration platform” that was “wildly successful,” Mansour said that grassroots conservatives found this push for DACA amnesty, instead of the popular Trump immigration agenda, concerning.
“It’s a little bit strange to us that the first bit of immigration legislation that the Republican Party has taken up on Capitol Hill is a DACA fix instead of the RAISE Act that the Trump administration got behind or the wall,” said Mansour. “Why does it have to be DACA? It seems a little bit odd that that’s what we’re going to be taking up on immigration first.”
“Right,” replied Brat. “Well, we do have some bipartisan stuff coming up that’ll be interesting to see how the president puts all of this together. We’ve got infrastructure coming up. The Democrats will likely want to do that.”
Breitbart News Tonight airs Monday through Friday on SiriusXM Patriot channel 125 between 9:00 p.m. and midnight Eastern (6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. Pacific).
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One of the important steps of computing point addition over elliptic curves is a division of two polynomials. When working in $GF(2^n)$ we don't have large enough powers to actually do a division, so we compute the inverse of the denominator and then multiply. This is usually done using Euclid's method, but if squaring and multiplying are fast we can take advantage of these operations and compute the multiplicative inverse in just a few steps.
The first time I ran across this method it really confused me. The process itself does not depend on normal basis math, it just looks like it. Using normal basis to compute the squares means you only need a barrel shifter, so for the field sizes mentioned in the "One Cycle Polynomial Math" blog, this method is ideal for either FPGA or embedded implementations.
We start off with a polynomial $\alpha$ in a field $GF(2^n)$ which means $$\alpha = \sum_{i=0}^{i=n-1}c_i\beta^{2^i}=\sum_{i=0}^{i=n-1}d_i\beta^i$$ where $c_i$ and $d_i$ have values $0$ or $1$. We want to find its inverse $\alpha^{-1}$. Using Fermat's Little Theorem we can write $\alpha^{-1} = \alpha^{2^n - 2}$. The first step is to break this down by noticing that $$\alpha^{2^n-2} = (\alpha^{2^{n-1}-1})^2$$ From here, things get a little more complicated.
What we are going to do is build a chain of terms all of the form $\alpha^{2^k-1}$. The final term in the chain will be $\alpha^{2^{n-1}-1}$ so we just need to square this result to have our inverse. The chain will start with $\alpha^{2^1-1}=\alpha$.
Since we are going to do an addition chain, the next form to look at is is $\alpha^{2^{k+j}-1}$. Let's expand this: $$\begin{array}{c}\alpha^{2^{k+j}-1}=\alpha^{2^{k+j}-2^j+2^j-1}\\ =\alpha^{2^{k+j}-2^j}\cdot \alpha^{2^j-1}\\ =(\alpha^{2^k-1})^{2^j}\cdot \alpha^{2^j-1}\end{array}$$ So if we have the forms $\alpha^{2^k-1}$ and $\alpha^{2^j-1}$ we can get the form $\alpha^{2^{k+j}-1}$ by squaring the form $\alpha^{2^k-1}$ $j$ times.
A special version of this is when $k = j$. Putting $k+k=2k$ into the above we find $\alpha^{2^{2k}-1}=(\alpha^{2^k-1})^{2^k}\cdot \alpha^{2^k-1}$ So now we have the tools to build an addition chain.
There are many ways to create a chain of sums. The simplest is to look at the binary representation of a number, use the $2k$ form for each bit position, and add the terms with the bits set. As a concrete example, let's look at $n=106$. The first step is to subtract $1$ so we start with $105$. In binary $105 = 1101001$. The most significant bit is $2^6$ so the first 6 terms in the chain are $1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64$. The bit position for 2^5 is set so we add the form for $32$ to get $96$, the bit for position $2^3$ is set so we add form $8$ to get $104$, and then the last bit is set so we add the term for $1$ to get $105$. The first term is just $\alpha$. Let's call the first term $\gamma_0$. We use the doubling form 6 times and get the following
$\gamma_0$ $\alpha^{2^1-1}$ $\gamma_1=\gamma_0^2 \cdot \gamma_0$ $\alpha^{2^2-1}$ $\gamma_2=\gamma_1^{2^2}\cdot \gamma_1$ $\alpha^{2^4-1}$ $\gamma_3=\gamma_2^{2^4}\cdot\gamma_2$ $\alpha^{2^8-1}$ $\gamma_4=\gamma_3^{2^8}\cdot\gamma_3$
$\alpha^{2^{16}-1}$ $\gamma_5=\gamma_4^{2^{16}}\cdot\gamma_4$ $\alpha^{2^{32}-1}$ $\gamma_6=\gamma_5^{2^{32}}\cdot\gamma_5$ $\alpha^{2^{64}-1}$
Now we can begin the summation part of the chain. Bit 6 and bit 5 are set in the binary representation of 105 so we start with $\gamma_7=\gamma_6^{2^{32}}\cdot \gamma_5=\alpha^{2^{96}-1}$. Bit 3 is the next bit set so $\gamma_8=\gamma_7^{2^8}\cdot \gamma_3 = \alpha^{2^{104}-1}$. Finally the last bit is set so we have $\gamma_9=\gamma_8^2\cdot \gamma_0=\alpha^{2^{105}-1}$.
Our final step is to compute the square of $\gamma_9\colon \gamma_9^2=(\alpha^{2^{105}-1})^2=\alpha^{2^{106}-2}=\alpha^{-1}$.
The thing that confused me the most about this algorithm was the number of times to square the first term. It depends on the second term. We can see this from the derivation of the $j+k$ form when we add and subtract the second term's $2j$ value. We could have just as easily added and subtracted $2k$, but then $k$ would be the second term.
Another thing that confused me is the arbitrariness of the addition chain. A completely valid result can be derived using the sequence $1, 2, 3, 6, 12, 13, 26, 52, 104, 105$. This method "walks" down the bit pattern. It takes the same number of steps as the doubling first and adding terms. It might take some experimentation to determine which method (or something else entirely) is better for a particular application.
When implemented using normal basis representation, the squaring operations can be performed in a single cycle using a barrel shifter. If implemented in a field size which allows the type 1 normal basis, then the multiplies can be also be done very quickly. Thus, for the right field size, computing an inverse using the above algorithm can be done in very few clock cycles compared with standard implementations which can take 100's of clocks. |
KABUL (Reuters) - Millions of Afghans turned out for a second time on Saturday to elect a successor to President Hamid Karzai on Saturday, a decisive test of the country’s ambitions to transfer power democratically for the first time in its tumultuous history.
Most foreign troops will leave by the end of 2014, and whoever takes over from Karzai will inherit a troubled country plagued by an assertive Taliban insurgency and an economy crippled by corruption and the weak rule of law.
The run-off pitted former anti-Taliban fighter Abdullah Abdullah against ex-World Bank economist Ashraf Ghani after neither secured the 50 percent majority needed to win outright in the first round on April 5.
Violence spiked on the day as militants launched hundreds of attacks with rockets, explosives and gunfire, leaving at least 20 civilians dead, along with a further 11 police and 15 army personnel, the interior ministry said.
But clashes did not deter millions of voters from turning out and feared high-profile attacks did not materialize. Instead, voting ended at 4 p.m. (1130 GMT) with a palpable sense of relief, at least in the Afghan capital.
“I’m from this country so I am never afraid of threats,” said Lajiullah Azizi, a hospital worker who voted in western Kabul just minutes after a small bomb exploded at his polling station. “I hope this election will bring peace.”
Officials immediately began counting ballots, although Afghanistan’s difficult terrain, where ballot boxes have to hauled by donkey from some of its remotest corners, means preliminary results will not be known until July 2.
Karzai, standing down after 12 years in power marked by increasingly sour relations with the West, is certain to retain a hand in politics but has been tight-lipped about his plans.
“Today Afghanistan takes a step towards stability, development and peace. Come out and determine your destiny,” Karzai, clad in his trademark green Afghan robe, said after casting his ballot.
Karzai’s relationship with the West has deteriorated sharply over his refusal to sign a security pact with the United States allowing a small contingent of U.S. forces to remain in the country beyond 2014. Both Abdullah and Ghani have promised to sign it promptly.
Twelve million voters were eligible to cast ballots at 6,365 polling centers across Afghanistan, from windswept deserts on the Iranian border to the rugged Hindu Kush mountains.
Despite the outbreaks of violence, voters defied threats and long queues snaked out of polling centers in urban areas soon after voting began at 7 a.m.
Turnout was more than seven million, election commission chief Ahmad Yousuf Nuristani said, roughly the same as in the first round of voting in April.
The turnout was so high that some 333 voting centers ran out of ballot papers, sparking minor protests by disgruntled voters. The election commission said additional materials were later distributed and calm was restored.
“Security is a concern but the people of Afghanistan have defied security threats so far,” Abdullah said.
Further afield, the picture looked less rosy, however, with voters in provinces such as Wardak refusing to come out to vote.
“Maybe it’s because in the second round people have lost belief in the election,” said Masuma, a school teacher in Wardak. “The reason is fraud, they think that their vote is useless.” [Full Story}
RISKY STAND-OFF
Afghan President Hamid Karzai shows his card before voting in the presidential election in Kabul June 14, 2014. REUTERS/Mohammad Ismail
The election has been fraught with accusations of fraud by both candidates and many fear a close outcome will make it less likely the loser will accept defeat, possibly dragging Afghanistan into a risky, protracted stand-off over the vote.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry acknowledged the concerns by saying that now the voting was finished, the work of the Afghan electoral authorities was paramount.
“It is essential that the process of tallying votes, adjudicating complaints, and finalizing the results be transparent and accountable and that the candidates and other stakeholders work with the electoral commissions and respect their conclusions,” he said in a statement.
Both candidates have complained repeatedly that electoral organizers are incompetent and biased.
Late on Saturday, Abdullah again raised the issue, questioning the turnout figures provided by the electoral commission, saying he doubted they had been as high as reported.
Officials are concerned by the prospect of a close outcome that could, in the worst-case scenario, propel the country back into war along ethnic lines.
“We ask everyone to prevent and discourage people from fraud and vote-rigging so that we can have a transparent, free and fair election,” Ghani said after casting his vote in west Kabul.
The United Nations has urged candidates not to attack the organizers, to safeguard the process.
“There’s a short-term gain only in trying to undermine or bully the institutions at the expense of their legitimacy,” said United Nations deputy chief in Afghanistan Nicholas Haysom.
“It’s going to be the legitimacy of the elections which will give legitimacy to the new head.”
Slideshow (5 Images)
Abdullah polled 14 percentage points ahead of Ghani in the first round with 45 percent of the vote, but Ghani, who is ethnic Pashtun, stands to gain a portion of the Pashtun vote that was splintered in the first round.
Pashtuns are Afghanistan’s biggest ethnic group, making up about 45 percent of the population. While Abdullah is partly Pashtun, he is identified more with the ethnic Tajik minority.
The chance of an equal split between candidates is hard to gauge because there are few reliable polls. ACSOR research center, asking respondents to choose between Abdullah and Ghani, predicted a 50:50 split before the first round. |
Yang lounged on the couch with a damp towel covering her bathing suit which chilled her skin underneath. Sage and Sun were sitting in chairs across from her, also in their bathing suits, wrapped in towels and drinking beers. They had just come from the hot tub outside. Tubbing after a long day of walking around the city seemed like an awesome way to finish off the day. Add a few glasses of wine and some beers to the mix and now all three of them were relaxed and buzzed. The warm night air blew gently through the open window and smelled of honeysuckle, which grew like a weed in the yard. Yang knew that soon the dampness on her skin from the hot tub would turn to the dampness of the sweat caused by the exceptionally hot evening. Being wrapped in a heavy towel didn't help.
Sun and Sage had been friends since long before Yang and Sun started dating. Sage lived a few hours away, so they only saw each other a few times a year, but Yang instantly liked him the first time they met. She and Sage had become close friends very fast and grew closer with passing time. She and Sun looked forward to visiting with Sage every chance that came up. It made Sun happy that his best friend and his girlfriend liked each other so much.
One of their favorite things to do together was to roam the city neighborhood around them. They ate and drank and joked and laughed for hours as they made the rounds through the bars and restaurants surrounding their home.
Sage's visit this time was going the same as always. The wine they drank in the tub, and the beers they drank most of the day lowered everyone's inhibitions, and conversation had drifted to the subject of pornographic movies. Sun had been talking to Sage about a particularly funny scene in one of the pornos that he had in his collection (it was her collection too). Some parody of Astro Walk where the makeup on the green woman came off as she was getting banged by Captain Verk or some other officer. Against her better judgment, Yang let Sun put the video in to show Sage. It wasn't meant to be sexy; it was a funny scene. Sun fast forwarded through a scene with two crew members banging, typical stuff, and Sun and Sage made jokes and sounds that were supposed to be the sounds of the sex on high speed. The wine made them laugh hysterically and Yang giggled a little too.
Then Sun stopped on the scene he wanted. The one with the hot, green alien chick. He spent time going into great detail about how the makeup looked at the beginning of the scene, even going so far as to stand right next to the TV and point at places he knew the makeup would rub off. It was good innocent fun.
Sun sat back down when the couple on the TV started getting busy. The green alien girl started blowing Captain Virk, but he seemed awkward with his hands. He didn't touch her anywhere. Sun and Sage commented and laughed about it. Then he was licking her pussy which didn't have green makeup on the lips, but it got right up to them. Jokes and laughter kept coming, but Yang was starting to get a little uncomfortable with watching a porno with her boyfriend and his friend. Not because she didn't like dirty movies, but because they aroused her, and Sage was in the mix "cock-blocking" her.
As the scene went on, the jokes came a little slower. Every once in a while, one of the guys would point out where you could see the makeup smeared and flesh showing underneath, but they had fallen into sort of a drunken and lusty interest in the movie. Yang looked at Sage, who was slouching low in his stuffed chair. He had his towel on still, but his hand was resting on his crotch, probably on his cock. He gripped it absent mindedly every once in a while as he stared at the TV. Sun wasn't touching his cock, but she could see that he had an erection.
Yang had seen this movie a couple times with Sun, and she had to admit that the green alien scene was one of her favorites. The girl in the scene had really nice tits that hung just right so that you could tell they were real, and Captain Kirk had a really ripped stomach and no tattoos or piercings. Just the way she liked her porn stars. She kind of wished that Sage wasn't there so she could strip off her damp bathing suit and cool off. She was starting to get hot from the air temperature and the stuff going on in the movie.
She stood up. This was not how she wanted to spend her evening. She had walked around the city all day with the two boys as they yakked and joked and drank beers every chance they could. They walked for hours before coming home to the tub. Her feet hurt. She was good friends with Sage by now and very comfortable around him, not comfortable enough to just sit and watch pornos though. So she went to the bathroom to rinse off the chlorine from the tub.
The hot water felt good on her skin. She let it stream over her for just a minute and then used soap to wash off all the tub chemicals. Then she turned the temperature on the water down until it felt cold, enjoying the sensation of the cool water flowing over her and making her nipples hard. After a moment or two, she turned the water off and stepped out to grab a new towel to wrap around her. The cool shower didn't do much to diminish her buzz. All told, she was gone from the living room for no more than 10 minutes. She grabbed some lotion for her skin and tired feet and went back out wearing just the towel.
The guys were still glued to the TV, but it was a new scene.
"Hey, baby," Sun said, glancing at her quickly. "Almost done."
Two men were having their dicks sucked by a woman who was not in a uniform. Yang remembered that this was some girl who had been in suspended animation or something and that she just went right to fucking as soon as she woke up. Storyline be damned, Yang knew that getting the sex on tape was more important. Sage and Sun were both slouched now, glassy eyed from the booze and the sex on screen. She got a good look at them and could tell they both had hard-ons. She all day boozing had lowered her inhibitions enough that she didn't feel uncomfortable sitting there with them like that. In fact it was turning her on just a little.
She plopped back down on the couch, wrapped only in a towel. Her plan was to apply some moisturizer and then go put on some pajamas. She was comfortable enough with Sage to sit in just the towel. The boys sort of snapped out of their dreamy stupor and made an effort to make a couple of jokes again for her benefit, but they didn't turn the movie off and didn't stop looking at the screen. Yang sighed and started rubbing the vanilla scented lotion on her arms and shoulders. She was utilitarian in her technique. There was nothing intentionally sexy or provocative about how she was applying the lotion, but she caught the boys glancing at her furtively. She didn't think much of it.
After she applied the lotion to her arms, she dropped her head back, held the lotion on her stomach with both hands and just sighed deeply.
"What's wrong?" Sun asked, tearing his eyes from the screen for a minute while the girl there was getting a cock in her mouth and one in her pussy.
"My feet are killing me," Yang said. "Do you think that before we go to sleep, you could rub them for me? PLEASSSSEEE."
"Yeah, sure. Whatever," he answered absently as he stood up to go to the kitchen for a beer for him and Sage.
"I'll do it if you want," Sage said. It wasn't an odd offer. Sage had rubbed her feet before on one of his visits. He said it loud, too, like he was saying it to Yang and Sun.
"Really, man? That's nice of you. Thanks." Sun answered for Yang.
Yang thought about it for about a millisecond, which was probably not long enough, before she said sincerely, "Thanks Sage. I really appreciate it." Then sarcastically she added, "after you guys dragging me around with you today, my dogs are barking." Sage stood up to come over and sit at her feet. As he did, his eyes went back to the TV. Yang could see his erection under his towel, and for another millisecond thought that maybe she should just rub her own feet, but her love of having her feet rubbed, and her need to have them rubbed right now had her pushing cautious thoughts away in favor of immediate gratification.
Sage sat down on the floor and Yang turned so that she could give him a foot. He took the left one and squirted a bit of the lotion on it, then began rubbing it hard at her heel and working his way up to her toes. She moaned loudly in approval. He was looking back and forth between the TV and Yang's foot as he worked from heel to toe, over and over. She closed her eyes and let her head fall back. Sage lifted her foot to work behind her heel, and, in her relaxed state, her knee fell to the left a little, spreading her legs unintentionally. Since she had only thought for a couple of milliseconds about his offer to rub her feet, she didn't take into account that she only wore a fluffy bath towel and nothing else. She didn't think about anything after he started rubbing her feet, so she had no idea that she had just spread her legs enough that if he took a look, Sage would be able to see under the towel to her shaved pussy. It wasn't completely spread yet, but it was visible now.
Sage enthusiastically kept up his rub of her feet. She didn't hear Sun come back in, but she knew he was there when he took her other foot in his hands and started rubbing it from heel to toe like he always did. "Oh wow!" She said when Sun started on her other foot. "This is really nice of you guys. I feel like a princess." The sound of the sex on the screen continued while they rubbed her feet and she sat with her head back and her eyes closed. She really was in heaven and was only thinking about how good it felt to have her feet rubbed. The booze and the late hour contributed to her empty brain and lack of thought. Almost any other time, she probably would have recognized that this was not a good plan.
Sun lifted her foot to work a different angle on it, and her right knee fell lazily to the side like her left had earlier. Now her pussy was pretty much wide spread, barely covered by the towel, which had slipped up when her legs came apart. Still she didn't notice, or notice enough to care. The guys were doing a fantastic job on her feet and she expected it to end any second, like it always did when Sun got bored with rubbing her without any promise of sex in return.
But then one of the boys stopped, which she was expecting, but she heard more lotion being pumped out of the bottle. "Oh," she thought, "still more for me. Awesome." And then the lotion was being rubbed on her feet again, but it was a lot of lotion and there wasn't a lot of pressure on her feet. Before she knew what was happening, the hands were spreading the lotion up over her calf and shins towards her knee. Her head shot up and her eyes opened. She looked down and saw Sun staring at her crotch and rubbing her leg. Sage was also staring at her crotch. When she jerked, they both looked away quickly, and then looked at each other, and then looked at her face, and then looked away again. Her legs went back together and she moved the towel back down over her privates. "Enjoy the show, perverts?" She said.
They looked at each other, then back at her. "Uh, yeah," they both answered. Sun resumed rubbing her leg and Sage gathered more lotion in his hand and started in on her other leg, firmly rubbing from her from her ankle to her knee. She had to admit that it felt pretty good.
"Look, your skin just seemed really dry, and I'm trying to be a nice guy here," Sun lied. "I mean if you want me to stop and let your skin dry out like an old lady's, no problem." The whole time he talked, he and Sage did not stop rubbing her legs. Sarcastically he said, "I'm just thinking about you, babe."
Yang was no prude and she didn't really care that the boys had seen her pussy. Big deal. The lotion did feel good, and she had to admit that she really did kind of feel like a princess, maybe the slutty Egyptian princess in the Cleopatra porn that they had in their collection, but a princess still. She liked Sage and felt comfortable with him. He was Sun's best friend after all, had been for 20 years. So if they wanted to get their jollies by rubbing her feet and legs, whatever. That was about all the thought she put into it, which probably wasn't really enough.
She bunched the towel up more between her legs and held it there with her hands and then went back into her pose, head back, legs slightly spread, and enjoyed the attention.
"Kill joy," Sun teased her.
"I don't want you ass clowns to get any ideas."
They eagerly resumed helping her with her dry skin. They rubbed from her ankles to her knees and then from her knees to the edge of the towel. They used a lot of lotion and firm pressure to knead her quads and inner thighs. Her grip relaxed on the towel in her crotch, but she kept her hands there. Then Sun put up the leg he was working and rested her heel on his shoulder. This spread her a little more and made it harder to hold the towel. He resumed rubbing and focused on her taught hamstring. Seconds later, Sage made the same move. With both her feet off the floor like this, she slouched down a little more on the couch. The slouching movement caused the towel to loosen a little but it stayed in place.
The guys were rubbing her thighs as high as they could now, their hands almost coming in contact with hers as she covered her pussy. Her head was spinning with the effects of the booze and the heady pleasure she was getting from having this kind of attention on her. The sounds of the porno in the background added fuel to her fire too. She had been taking furtive glances at the screen every once in a while to see the hot action there.
Sun's hands were now staying mostly on her upper thighs rubbing around the inside and outside of her legs and doggedly rubbing against the barrier of her hands. Sage wasn't quite as aggressive or brave, but he was working his hands up to the area only a fraction of an inch lower than Sun was. Yang felt flushed and nervous and excited. The massage she was getting really felt good, and it was relaxing, and she had a buzz on that was making her less inhibited than normal.
Gradually, her hands moved as they gave way to Sun's persistence, and before she knew it, he was spreading the lotion up over her hip bone and then down over her pelvis and rubbing the thick, smooth, creamy lotion down the side of her pussy. She fought the urge to spread her legs wide like she would if they were alone. The towel slipped up so that her shaved pubic area was exposed. Apparently Sage took this as a cue that it was OK to move his motions up a little farther too and he began mirroring Sun's hands on the other hip bone and the other side of her pussy. They both had to lean in a little to reach all the way up above her hips and the motion of them doing that made her knees bend slightly, which opened her legs more and made more space around her pussy.
"Very nice," breathed Sun. "Does that feel good?" Yang could feel his hot breath and smell the alcohol in it.
"Mmmmmm..." Is all that Yang could manage.
"This is all just for you. We don't want you to get dry," he teased her.
"Yeah...Mmmmmmm...Right." Was her response again.
Yang was basically in over her head and she knew it. She didn't relish the idea of these guys clumsily pawing around at her pussy, but she didn't want them to stop the massage either. She wasn't sure what the end game was going to be because she couldn't think much past the pleasure she was feeling or the excitement she felt about two men treating her to a great rubdown. Still, she felt like she might be losing control of the situation. Their hands were starting to get more bold and fingers were brushing against her clit and rubbing down the slit of her pussy lips, which wasn't unpleasant, but she was sure she didn't want their fingers fighting over getting inside her.
She lifted her legs off their shoulders, which caused her to slump down more and caused the towel to ride up and get a little tangled. She continued her slide until she moved onto the floor. As she came off the edge of the couch, the towel undid itself and stayed behind, freeing her luscious, soft, full tits, bouncing free and revealing her completely. She moved so that she could lay on her back in front of the surprised men. The sneaky part was that even though the change in position resulted in her being totally naked, it also allowed her to put her legs back together. She laid down with her arms out to the sides and said "I think my boobs are pretty dry too," and then closed her eyes. 'That should give me some breathing room,' she thought.
She heard the lotion being dispensed and then there were creamy, slick hands rubbing both her pillowy tits gently but firmly. To their credit, the boys didn't just focus on her boobs, but spread lotion on her shoulders and down her arms. Sage even spent some time rubbing her hand and massaging her fingers. She thought that was really nice and attentive, but when he released her cream covered hand, it fell into his lap on top of his boner, which was covered only by the thin layer of his bathing suit. He continued as if she weren't touching his dick and rubbed up her arm, over her shoulder and down to her tit again. She didn't move her hand in any way. She could feel his hard cock, and felt she had to make a decision. She periodically opened her eyes to check out the guys as they rubbed her. Neither one was looking at the TV any more even though the sound was still loud enough to hear over the sounds of their own pleasures. Her two attendants stared only at her now.
This attention was awesome. She didn't remember feeling so good in a long, long time. But she didn't know how far she should go with this. "I'm an idiot," she thought. "Where did I think this was going? These two guys are going to keep going until they get to shoot their loads, end of story." She knew she had to either shut it down right now, or just let them keep going to the inevitable end, which would be her with either a bunch of cum inside her or on her. The repercussions of all of this, how it would be in the morning (or more precisely about 15 seconds after her boyfriend had an orgasm and started thinking with his big head) were not foremost on her mind as she lay there with two men eagerly and efficiently helping her fight the dry skin that can come from spending time in a chlorinated hot tub.
Sun kissed her passionately on the mouth. She always liked kissing him and it melted her inhibitions even more. Her decision making process started to change. Now she was thinking that if she started playing with Sage's cock-for which she was becoming eager- Sun might get jealous because she chose his friend first. But if she turned to play with Sun's cock, that would present her backside to Sage and for sure he would start to fuck her, which, at this point, she pretty much knew was going to happen, but she was still operating on the premise that she could control all this.
"Um, maybe you guys have some dry skin too," she said teasingly. The boys stopped, looked at each other, then jumped up and whisked off their bathing suits in a flurry. Their stiff cocks stood out straight once they were released from the bindings of their trunks. She thought about throwing the lotion bottle to Sun and saying "knock yourselves out," but refrained. Once again, she had maybe a little breathing room to think about her choices. As the men went back to work rubbing her whole body from head to toe, paying special attention to her funzones, she put some lotion in one hand, rubbed it into the other hand and took a cock in each hand to stroke them back and forth. She marveled at how hard they were and how good it felt to be rubbing lotion over the firm contours of two dicks. Fingers were, indeed, finding their way into her pussy now, and it wasn't as bad as she thought. They were gentle and sensitive but persistent, and she had been unconsciously spreading her legs. Soon they each had a finger inside her as she writhed on the floor.
The men were still rubbing her attentively, but she could tell that if she kept up her creamy hand jobs, she would end up with cum all over her, and she'd probably have two passed out men next to her, and she could give up hope of anything close to an orgasm unless she took care of it herself. So she made a decision and sat up, surprising the men a little. She turned towards Sage and pushed him gently down so that he could lay on his back. She rolled over and knee-walked up between his legs, then bent over, letting her hands glide up his muscular thighs as she moved into position to wrap his cock with her ample, soft tits. His cock was hard and slick from the greasy hand job she had been giving him, and her tits were plenty creamy from the attention the boys had already given her. She slid up and down over his pelvis trapping his cock between her tits and his belly.
Things started moving really fast after that. Sage was bucking up into her tits. She watched the spongy tip of his cock pop out and then back into the valley of her cleavage. And Sun moved into position behind her to slide his steel-hard dick into her creamy, smooth, hot pussy. He slid the head of his dick up and down her ass crack and between her pussy lips to get her ready. When he finally directed the head of his dick into her pussy, she was moving her boobs backwards on Sage's cock and ended up pushing her pussy over Sun's member until it was plunged all the way inside her. She let out a little gasp, and then a grunt as Sun pulled out and then rammed back into her.
"Oh I made a good choice," she thought as she was being rocked from behind by Sun. She thought for sure, based on the pace that Sage was bucking into her tits, that he was going to come any minute and paint her chest with his white goo, but he just kept going and going. Sun was grunting and pumping into her furiously, and she could feel the tingling of her own orgasm building with each pump of his hard dick inside her.
After several short minutes of being pounded by Sun, he yelled "OH MY FUCKING GOD!" as he rammed into her hard enough to make her struggle to keep from falling off his dick. He firmly held her hips to keep her in that position as he came, pumping sperm into her like a fire hose. She could actually feel the cum shooting out of his cock inside her. She knew his mode of operation and knew that if it was just the two of them, her chances of getting release were now down to zero. And she had gone through a lot so far to just go to bed frustrated, so, thinking quickly, and faced with an option she had never had before, she lurched forward off of Sun's softening cock and moved to straddle Sage's still hard and useful tool. With a foot on either side of Sage's hips, she impaled herself on him and went to work pumping her cum dripping pussy up and down on him. She was so close that she could almost be there. She began playing with her clit as she rode him desperately, only slightly amazed that he hadn't shot his load yet.
Finally, the waves of an orgasm crashed over her and she sat down hard on Sage while she quivered and her pussy pulsed on the still hard cock inside her. "Holy crap," she stuttered. Her orgasm began to subside and she could think again. She wanted to climb off Sage and get his dick out of her, but before she could move, he sat up and pushed her down on her back. As she fell back, she looked up to see Sun still there. He hadn't rolled over and gone to sleep yet. In fact, he was stroking his semi-hard cock while he watched.
Sage climbed on top of her between her legs and, without using his hands, pushed his cock back into her messy pussy. He put first one of her legs, then the other over his shoulders to open her up more to him. She didn't fight or resist at all. She had hers and was sure that Sage would be done very soon. He pounded into her for a minute or so and then stopped and pulled out his cock. With one hand he moved the head of his still rock hard dick until it was pressing firmly against her asshole.
Yang had felt a finger or two in her ass at times and found it pleasurable, but she had only tried anal sex once and it was a disaster. The guy had been pretty big and went right for her ass after some really cursory foreplay. It hurt bad and she swore that was it. By the time she thought to protest and started to tense up, the head of his cock was in her ass and moving slowly further. She was amazed that it didn't hurt like before. It was slipping in quite easily due to Sage's well lubed cock. She was taking all this in and analyzing it and was surprised that Sage had easily snuck almost all of his cock into her asshole, and he started pumping in and out slowly. To her surprise, she wasn't hating it. In fact, she was liking it and started pumping back into him. She was grunting with the effort and force of him fucking her like this, but she liked it. When she looked up, Sun was still there, and his cock had come back to be almost as hard as it was a few minutes ago.
Yang was amazed that she liked this so much. She felt like maybe she had been missing out for all those years since that first bad experience. Sage was really working up to a fast pace, sliding his dick into her from tip to balls without reprieve. Suddenly, she pushed him back by pushing her legs towards him and pushing on his chest with her hands.
"Oh! I'm so sorry. I'm sorry. Was I hurting you? I didn't want to hurt you. It felt so good. I'm so sorry," Sage stammered. He had sat up on his knees with his dick pointing out in front of him, and Yang was sitting up towards him now that he was out of her ass and not on top of her. She pushed him down onto his back, turned around to face Sun and straddled Sage again. This time, she lowered herself down until her asshole swallowed his dick all the way down. Then she rolled back putting her hands behind her for support and putting her feet on Sage's thighs. She looked up at Sun with a smile on her face. She knew he could see his friend's dick going up into her ass. Her legs were spread wide, and he was staring right at it. He couldn't miss it.
"Stop playing with yourself and get busy," she said playfully. Honestly, she thought he might go down on her while she fucked Sage with her asshole. That was stupid thinking. Instead, Sun moved in and pushed his hard-again tool into her pussy, filling her like she had never been filled before and making her gasp in surprise. He immediately started pumping into her and Sage pushed into her ass from underneath her. She just sat there on top of him trying to keep both dicks inside her.
The room filled with grunts and moans and the smell of sweaty bodies mixed with the come and sex juices and vanilla of the lotion. It was a powerful scene and Yang was in the middle of it, surprisingly very happy to be there. She could feel another orgasm pulsing through her pussy around Sun's cock. He thrust hard into her and started shooting another load on top of his first one. Sage said "I'm fucking cumming," between clenched teeth and she could feel his cock start to throb in her ass.
It seemed like the three of them came for hours like that, but after only a minute or two, Sun fell off to one side of her. Yang climbed off Sage's slightly softer cock and rolled in between the two men, draping an arm and a leg over Sun. Sage gently put his hand on her hip and patted her. Sun wrapped one arm around her and kissed the top of her head. The soundtrack of the porno on the TV was the only sound in the room besides their heavy breathing.
Sage got up and walked into the kitchen. A second later he returned with three cold beers, drinking one already. Yang could see his soft but still large cock swinging as he walked. Cum hung off of it in a gooey string still, but he didn't bother to do anything about it. Yang and Sun sat up and took the beers he offered, drinking eagerly. She polished off half of hers before lowering the can from her lips. Sage looked lustily at her naked body.
"You guys done?" He asked. In the pause before either Yang or Sun said anything, he went on "I mean we're here and I don't think anyone hated that, so..."
Yang thought for about another millisecond while she absently stared at Sage's cock. She figured she was the one in control here. Whatever direction she went, the guys would follow along without complaint or regrets (at least until they sobered up). She was completely satisfied already, but was also excited by the new ground they had just moved into, so while some slut on the TV cried out in fake moans of fake pleasure while two guys with abnormally large cocks rammed into her pussy and ass, Yang made the decision for their small group. She rose up, reached out and took Sage's cock in her hand. She rubbed the hanging stream of cum from the tip and wiped that hand on one of her tits and then pulled him down to the ground. He barely had his beer set on the floor before she was climbing on top of him and kissing him passionately, rubbing his glistening cock between their bodies, awakening it to a useful state again.
Sun drank from his beer for one last gulp and moved behind her so he could fondle and squeeze her slick tits and play with her clit as she writhed on top of his friend. She could feel his hard dick pressed against her back.
Yang didn't even realize she had gone to sleep until she woke up on the floor where she was when they had all finally collapsed. She didn't know how much time had passed. It was still dark out. The TV was off, and she was covered with one of the blankets they kept on the couch. Sage snored softly on the couch without a blanket. Her pussy was tender, and she felt sticky between her legs and ass crack, and she knew she had crusty cum on her tits and, her hair was a disaster, and her jaw was a little sore. The room smelled strongly of vanilla and sex.
Sun reappeared, walking into the living room with a glass of ice water. Suddenly, Yang was really thirsty and grateful that Sun brought some water. She heard sizzling in the kitchen and the fragrant smell of sausage wafted to her. The smell of the cooking sausage made her realize she was ravenously hungry.
He handed her the water. While she was gulping it down, he cupped one of her tits in his hand and said, "Your skin is really, really soft."
She said "I know. Thanks," and lifted the blanket for him to climb in with her. |
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